tihvaxf of t:he theological ^tminavy PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY FROM THE LIBRARY OF ROBERT ELLIOTT SPEER BV 4315 .H25 1909 Hall, Charles Cuthbert, 185 -1908. The silver cup CI^I won- der if you will be my messenger, and deliver this letter for me now!" And the boy laid down his interesting book, and sprang up at once, saying, with a bright, willing smile on his face, "Cer- tainly I will," and off he went with the letter. Some may say that is a very small matter ever to speak of again, but it does not seem to me a small matter. It seems to me that if that spirit grows and strengthens in that boy's life, there may come a time when God will want him, as God wanted Isaiah, for some grand and difficult special service in the world, and the boy grown a man, and burning with Christ's eager, willing spirit, will look up into God his Father's face and answer: "Here am I; send me." You see the difference between the two mes- sengers was this: Love. There was no love at all in the district telegraph boy's messenger work: it was with him, poor little fellow! hard, bad business, just to earn his wages. But in the [53 ] Ci^e filter Cup heart of the boy at home there was love — a love for those at home ; and a deeper love — the love of being kind and of being useful. I heartily wish that the boys and girls of this church, beside making a Bible study of the spe- cial messengers of the old days, would make all through these years of their boyhood and girl- hood a study of the special messengers of modern times, by which I mean books of biography, the lives of the men and of the women who at the call of God have done brave and good work in special ways for Him, — some as soldiers ; some as philanthropists ; some as physicians ; some as statesmen ; some as ministers ; some as business men ; and some — oh, so many — as the helpers of others in quiet home life and in beautiful, compassionate, unselfish city work. I hope, oh, I hope you will grow to love books of biography, and all books that record the intense, unsparing, high-minded devotion of the brave, consecrated hearts that God has picked out to be His special messengers ; not always, by any means, because they had greater gifts than some others, but be- cause they had given themselves so devotedly to His service, to do anything He asked them to do — to stand always ready, expectant, eager to be [54] specially used, eager to cry, in the prospect of any unselfish toil, *'Here am I; send me." My heart fills up with enthusiasm so that I can scarcely speak when I remember the stories that I know and love of the special messengers of all kinds. Boys, do you remember *'Paul Revere's Ride," as Longfellow recorded it ? Do you remember how the British were lying in Bos- ton in 1775, and nobody knew what they would do, or when they would attack the villages in the county of Middlesex ? Paul Revere watched them, and made sure they would move on a cer- tain night, the night of April 18. But how they would leave Boston, by land or by water, he could not tell. He arranged with his friend to watch that night from the belfry of the North Church, and when the British moved, to signal with lights, — one light if they moved by land; two lights if they moved by water. Meanwhile he rowed with muiSBed oars across the river and, walking anxiously back and forth by the side of his saddled horse — waited on the Charlestown shore for the signal from the belfry. It came at last — two lights. And, springing to his saddle, he rides, rides through the night with the hoofs of his horse striking sparks from the flints on the [55] road. He rides, he rides shouting the tidings as he goes : through Medf ord town at twelve ; through Lexington at one ; through Concord at two. So through the night rode Paul Revere; And so through the night went his cry of alarm To every Middlesex village and farm, — A cry of defiance and not of fear, A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door. And a word that shall echo forevermore! For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, Through all our history, to the last, In the hour of darkness and peril and need. The people will waken and listen to hear The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed. And the midnight message of Paul Revere. Do I not speak these words in the presence of boys whose hearts respond to them with glorious passion ? Do I not speak to some who hope that life may hold some special service for them, into which they may throw themselves, as Paul Re- vere threw himself into his ? Do I not speak to boys who see even now the grandeur of great usefulness for others — who see that the world is full of people who need to be awakened, who need to be told of their danger, who need some one to ride among them with rescue.'^ Is there [56] not more than one boy here who looks up into the face of God and prays with Isaiah: '*Send me"; who stands with Paul Revere waiting for the signal of light, and ready to be up and away into the years of service, warning men of their danger, and waking them to the splendid strife for God and truth and moral liberty ? Yes, my younger friends, I hope you will read and fill your minds with the stories of the special messengers. I hope you will gather from prose and from poetry the mighty things recorded of men and women who have heard in their early days the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for me ?" and who have answered by offering themselves for service at the feet of Jesus Christ, saying, "Here am I; send me." If there were time I would tell you of many of these special messengers, but our time is too quickly going from us. I would tell you of Thomas Hughes's Life of Daniel Macmillan, that brave soul in a frail body, who came from his Scotch home to begin life in London; who, fighting that battle of life which ended only when he had founded the great publishing house and had become a strong special messenger of good [ 57] Cl^e ^iVbtv Cup to many, still and ever honored his parents, say- ing once: ''The end of the whole matter is that I think there is nobody like mother in the whole world." I would tell you of Sir Walter Besant's Life of Edward Henry Palmer, that brilliant and fearless Cambridge professor, who, when Egypt was convulsed by Arabic insurrection, and when there was fear of a hostile rising of all the fierce tribes of the Arabian desert, undertook, single- handed, to go as a special messenger of peace among all those wild, treacherous tribes and keep them quiet; who did it as he promised, and lost his life by treachery just as his work was ending. I would like to tell you of that remarkable spe- cial messenger of modern times, Charles George Gordon, who, for his incomparable bravery in China was called ** Chinese Gordon" ; how all his life and everyw^here he felt himself to be God's messenger for the good of others ; how during the six quiet years at Gravesend, almost the only quiet years of his life, he spent his time rescuing poor degraded boys from shameful lives, washing them, clothing them, teaching them, keeping them for weeks in his own house, and getting them positions on ships. In those years he kept a map of the world hung up over his mantelpiece. The [ 58 ] map was stuck full of pins. When asked by a friend what the pins meant, he said they marked and followed the course of his boys on their voyages ; that they were moved from point to point as the ships went on, and that he prayed for the boys as they went, night and day. I would like to have told you of such books as the Life of Harrington, the martyr Bishop of Equatorial Africa, and the Life of Chalmers, the great and loving minister of Jesus in Edinburgh, and the Life of the Earl of Shaftesbury, and the Life of Samuel Morley, the philanthropist, and the Life of Phillips Brooks. There is no reason why in- telligent youths from fourteen to seventeen should not begin to find inspiration and guidance in these splendid stories of God's special messengers. I would like to suggest to some of you to study that short but wonderful poem by Robert Browning, called ''The Boy and the Angel," to see if you can find out the deep lesson it teaches about how the true special messenger must be truly and obediently willing to go or to stay just when and where God wants him to go or to stay. But I can merely speak of these things; I cannot go into them as I would. Yet perhaps even the speaking of them may set some of you on their [59] Cl^e ^flber Cup track, and may bring closer to the hearts of some of you the reality of this great thought of special service. I pray God it may surely be so. And now as our time draws to an end, out of all that we have said about the special messengers there come three thoughts which I want to put to you for your acceptance and for your remem- brance. First, the idea of special service. Second, the varieties of special service. Third, the train- ing for special service. First, the idea of special service. All history proves that it is a real idea and not an imaginary one that God picks out special messengers for all branches of service ; that He finds for the life that comes to Him saying fervently, "Send me" — that He finds for that life a message and an errand, and says to it, "Go/" It was so in the ages of the Bible record; it is so this day, this hour, here in America, yonder in Central Africa, away in India, all over the world, in all sorts of service. God is finding the men and the women He wants who are lifting up their hearts to Him in sincerity and truth, and saying, "Here am I, send me." These are God's volunteers. These are the hearts to whom service is love, not drudgery. These are the people that are every- [60] where springing to work, in all kinds of ways, in all kinds of weathers — the "ever-victorious army" of the volunteers. Of such a spirit must have been the crew of whom I heard the other day, whom the captain of a bark called before him in a storm, and pointed to a boiling sea in which was tossing heavily a dismantled, sinking ship. And he pointed to her, with the dying men on her, and he shouted in the wind to his own men: "You see her! Who will go to her.?" And every man that heard him saluted and said, Send me. Yes, it is a real idea, this one of special service. And the question I want to ask is : Why should not each of you do special service for the Captain of your salvation. Why should one boy or one girl be content with a halting, halfway life, when the glorious Lord stands in His temple and points out to you the many ways in which special service may be given, and asks, in the hearing of you all, of you who have your lives yet in your hands, to give them or to keep them back: "Whom shall I send, and who will go — for Me?" I ask you to consider, second, the varieties of special service. You are just as different from each other as you can be. And I know that this [61] difference which is so marked now means that you are to travel through life by many different paths. You are not going to do the same things, and march on to the end like a regiment in close order. You are going to scatter soon, as life opens up wider, and each one who has truly said, and keeps truly saying to God, "Send me, send me to work where Thou wilt, to do what Thou wilt," each one who goes in such a spirit will get his commission as a special messenger, in some part of God's wide field of service. And I do not know why we may not look ahead — in fact, I cannot help looking ahead, and trying to fancy where you will be, and what you will be doing as God's special messengers twenty years hence. "Twenty years hence .^" you say; "what a terribly long time!" Oh no, my friends; not a terribly long time at all. Not long when you look back. It 's just twenty years since I left my father's house to go to college, and short and few indeed seem the years that lie between. Take a boy of fifteen. In twenty years he is thirty-five, and by that time it is pretty well established whether or no he has his commission for special service. As I look ahead now, over your twenty years to come, I cannot help believing, I do not [62] PLtmmm want to keep from believing, that by that time many of the young lives gathered here to-day will evidently be showing to the world that they are the special messengers of One who makes no mistake in sending out His own. Widely different will be your paths, — in the army, in the navy, in the ministry of the Gospel, in trade, in banking, in law, in medicine, in philanthropic science, in teaching, in all these ways and depart- ments God has to-day His special messengers, and on these various paths you too shall find your several ways, and shall show that you have been sent in to them. This being so, the question of questions for each boy and each girl is on the training for special service. Concerning this I want to say but a very few words, and to say them very quietly. This life which now lies before you is your one life, and you do not want to make any mistake with it. There is one right way to begin. It is easy to miss it. It is easy to find it. It is to come and offer yourselves to Jesus as His special messengers. Of coming to Him who died for you and now forever lives and saying each one for himself: ** Jesus, my Master, here am I; send me." When you have made this begin- [63] Ci^e ^Uber Cup ning, the special training will begin in a new way. All your friends will look upon you, Jesus Himself will look upon you as one who has said, Send me, and your daily life will be your train- ing. At home, at school, in work, in play, alone, with friends, in joy, in hardship, in health, in sickness, in your visits of consolation to the poor and suffering, in the secret place of prayer, in your time of Bible study, in the church of God, and at the communion table of Him whose mes- senger you have asked to be. He who loves you, and who has chosen you to be His messenger, will be training you for your special life work. Amen. Titus 1-4, R. V. You will notice that the text of the sermon is given thus : Titus 1 : 4, R. V., "My true child." What is the meaning of those two letters, " R.V." ? They mean Revised Version. And what does "Revised Version" mean.? Aversion is a "trans- lation," that is, turning the words of one language into the words of another, as for example a boy at school is translating the Greek of Homer into English, or the Latin of Virgil into English. To "revise" means to look over a translation a second time, very carefully, correcting any little mistakes. Suppose, at school, you should write out a translation of twenty lines of Vir- gil, — that would be a version. Suppose your teacher should take your version and go over it carefully and correct some little errors and change one or two words so as to make them more exactly like the real words of Virgil, — that would be a revised version. Now you know, of course, that there was no English language at the time the New Testa- [65] Ci^e sutler Cup ment was written. It was written in Greek. But as soon as there was an English language, men began to translate the Greek into English. A great many translations or versions were made. At last, in the year 1611, a great company of scholars, after much study, finished a magnificent version both of the Old Testament (translated out of Hebrew) and of the New Testament (out of Greek), and that is the English Bible which we all have, and which we all love — the Bible that, I trust, you go to every day of your life for coun- sel and help. In 1881 that wonderful New Tes- tament, English version of 1611, was gone over verse by verse, by a great company of Greek scholars, to see if any little changes could be made which would show us more exactly the full meaning of the Greek ; and so we have come to have not only the glorious version of 1611, but the Revised Version of 1881 — and we use them both. We compare one with the other in our Bible study ; and sometimes we find that the Re- vised Version throws new light upon the word of God, and brings out a fuller meaning from some sentence or verse. The Bible has not changed; the Bible cannot change. But we, thanks to the work of scholars, are finding out [66] more and more the richer, deeper meanings of the Bible. In our text for to-day we find a beautiful ex- ample of the way the Revised Version takes us one step nearer to the rich meaning of the words that St. Paul really wrote in Greek. He was writing a letter to his dear young friend Titus, advising him in a great many important matters. We do not know much about Titus, except that he was a good deal younger than Paul, so that Paul could advise him and watch over him just as if Titus were his own son, although Titus was now a grown man. And we also know there was something in Titus which Paul loved dearly, trusted entirely, and leaned upon gladly. How do we know this ? We know it by the words in the Revised Version which bring before us the exact meaning of what Paul's own hand wrote : "To Titus, my true child." When such a strong man as Paul, such a true man as Paul, could have such perfect confidence in his young friend that he is led to call him ''My true child," for one I feel as if I had known and loved Titus myself ; for that one expression, "My true child," means as much to me as if I had the life of Titus written out in full, in two or three volumes. [67] It is wonderful how a great artist can some- times sketch a human face in just three or four strokes of his pencil. You can see the character that is in and behind that face. You can imagine a whole life story for that face, how it will bear responsibility, how it will judge others, how it will endure pain and sorrow. Yet when you come to study the sketch you find there are not more than three or four strokes of the pencil in it. It is wonderful, too, how sometimes the depth and height and breadth of a whole life looks out upon us through the little windows of the eyes. I have heard of a game in which you tell the names of people by seeing only their eyes. A number of your friends are concealed behind a screen, in which holes are cut, only large enough to show the eyes; and you are required, when seeing only the eyes, to tell to whom those eyes belong. It can often be done, for so much of a life shows itself at the windows of the eyes. Some- times you look into eyes that waver and wink and wander and never fairly meet you. And sometimes you look into eyes that answer with a clear, steadfast, sincere, noble look, in which you read not only the depth, but the truth of character. So this one short expression in Paul's [68] letter, **To Titus, my true child," is like the speaking likeness drawn with four strokes of the pencil, or like the nobleness of a whole life re- vealed through one look of noble eyes, — it cre- ates before the mind a life picture of strength and beauty. As I have drawn nearer and nearer to this spe- cial service, these words, '*My true child," have seemed to stand out and impress themselves upon my mind, as in some way carrying a message both of human love and of Christ's love, which some of you would be glad to hear. I wish first to speak of these words as carrying the message of human love from the older to the younger friend. What a comfort it must have been to Paul, with all the cares and labors of his busy life, to feel that he could trust Titus, be sure of him under all circumstances, and think of him with that absolutely restful and abiding confidence implied in these words, "My true child." We are not told how it was he came to have that perfect trust in Titus ; how he had measured him by the strain of absence, and found him true ; how he had tested him in the time of temptation, and found him true as gold ; how he had weighed him in the balance of responsible [ 69 ] duty, and never found him wanting ; how he had looked away down into the depths of his life, and found that the soundness and sweetness and earnestness of his nature was not just a mere show on the surface, but that it went down and down and down into all the depths of thought and pur- pose. We are not, I say, told about this ; but we may be sure Paul had tested Titus, had watched him in times of difficulty, had studied the inner depths of his character, had found him pure gold away down to the bottom of his life. And al- though neither you nor I ever saw Titus, or a picture of him, I cannot help thinking that even in his boyhood there must have been that clear look on his face, and that steady brightness in his eyes, which showed that he had a sincere soul — that he was at least a true child, whatever may have been his share of the faults and follies of boyhood. And I cannot help thinking that as he grew up to manhood he carried with him that truth of boyhood shining in his face : he did not destroy it by the dissipation and evil-doings of youth ; he did not lose the noble innocence of the child life, and grow hard and ill-looking in the countenance of his manhood. And so, long after he has become a man, with a man's knowledge [70] and a man's cares, to Paul he is still "My true child." If I, being older, were given the power of be- stowing upon some young life that I dearly loved, and for which I desired the best things, one gift, and only one gift, it would not take me long to choose the gift. I would not make it to be a beautiful child, or a brilliant child, or a popular child (not that such things are to be under- valued), but I would make it to be a trv£ child. If I had but one gift to make, it would be that. For if that gift is given, the child's life is rich, whatever else it lacks ; and if that gift is lacking, the child's life is poor and incomplete, whatever else in the world it may have. I do not believe many people are more intensely interested than I in studying and measuring the lives and gifts of children, or that many people are more keenly appreciative than I toward all that is brilliant and beautiful in childhood and youth. But I do assure you that the most beau- tiful face I ever saw, the most brilliant talents I ever detected showing on the young life like blossoms on the young apple-trees in May or June, the most remarkable gifts at winning pop- ularity and working toward the front, — I do [ 71 ] assure you these fine things all turn in my mind to the bitterest kind of sadness, if I have reason to think, by the wavering eyes, or by the curves of the mouth, or by the tones of the voice and the way of speaking, that that is not a true child. There have been times when, going about in the world, and seeing a great many people, I have felt a shudder go through me in the presence of a child or youth that I knew to be tmtrue : a double nature, a deceitful nature; a nature that, if you tried to lean on it, would slip out from under you, and let you fall. And while I believe that Jesus, by the almighty power of His Spirit, can change any nature and thoroughly renew it, even the most unlovely, so that it shall no longer be like its former self, and although the loveliest and truest nature must likewise be renewed by Christ before it can know the glad meaning of spiritual life, yet, however much I may hope for that change, I cannot keep back the sadness when I see a child that, with other natural gifts which are attractive and rich, lacks that one mysterious quality which constitutes a true child. How can I describe to you what I mean by true? Best, perhaps, by telling you this lit- tle parable. Once a prince went to Switzerland [72] to climb the ice-mountains. The ice-mountains, you know, are very steep and terrible near the tops. There are smooth slopes of ice where no- thing will save you but to strike the sharp iron point of your staff into the ice, and then bear your whole weight on the staff. And there is now and then a crevasse where your only chance for crossing is to plant your staff and take a flying leap on it. The prince wanted a staff. And, be- cause he was a prince they brought him the finest staves that could be found. The first one was bound with gold, and had a rich hand-piece of gold repousse. The prince looked at it and threw it down. "See you not," said he, ''that flaw in the wood just where the gold hand-piece joins the staff .^ If I were on some ice-slope of the mountain, and threw my weight on the staff, it would snap under my very hand." The next staff they brought him was splendidly carved along its stem with flowers and fruits. He looked at it and flung it down by the other. "See you not," said he, "the staff itself has no strength beneath these carvings ? Were I to be leaping some crevasse on yonder glacier, this deceitful staff would shiver under me." And he turned from the fine staves and picked for himself one [73] Cl^e ^H\)tt Cup with no gold or carving, but with a fibre that had no flaw, sturdy and sincere, that could bear a man's weight in the moment of sudden danger. *' Give me this," said he ; "it is nobler than them all, for it is true ; it will do what a staff should do." What made that staff true is what makes a child true. The true child has a nature you can depend on. It may or it may not have great outward beauty, like that staff with the gold repousse hand-piece; it may or it may not have wonderful accomplishments and marks of skill, like the staff that was carved with flowers and fruits; but, at least, the flaw of untruth is not lurking under the beauty, and the weakness of a fickle, uncertain, deceitful spirit is not hiding under the fine accomplishments. It is a sincere nature; a sweet, honest, true nature; a staying nature; a staff nature, on which whoever has the blessed privilege to lean will find that when the strain is greatest, and the danger nearest, the trueness of that nature is most realized. A child, of whom, alas! we cannot use the word true is always selfish, thinks the world was principally made for its convenience, is a fault- finder, discontented, often sullen with murmur- [74] ings, sometimes jealous. But the nature to which we can apply that sweetest, noblest word, true, has (you will almost always find) caught hold of that great truth which the staff teaches, — the truth that life is given us that we may be strong and sure for those who lean upon us. The true child is a helper — a staff to some older life, which, as it climbs the icy slope of life's moun- tain side, and as it leaps the awful chasms of life's breaks and losses, would itself be cast away and broken, but for the staying strength, the pure strong truth, of some younger, braver heart. Not one hour before your time would I put upon you, children and youth, the cares and crosses which belong to later life, and which we must all bear in due season ; but which of you, — which of you, — my true children, has had a less happy, less glorious childhood because so early to you God sent the thought that you, even you, children that you are, may help older arms to be strong, and may teach older hearts to be brave. Now I am not going to stop here. I could not if I would — I would not if I could — stop when I have spoken only of the human love that depends upon you, and that believes — oh, how it has believed! — that you are true. Nor do I [75] Cl^e ^imt Cup think you would want me to stop here, and say nothing about a higher love of a greater Friend, who also leans upon you, who depends on you to be true to Him. You want me (oh ! tell me truly, do you not want me ?) to talk with you of Him, whose Name I need not mention, for you know it well. He is true to you, dear child. He is true to you ! Others change, but He does not. It may be some of you have found out that hardest of all things to be reconciled to, that earthly friends may change; they may tire of us, they may grow away from us; they may change without mean- ing to change. But He is "Faithful and True." In the Bible we are told that that is one of His many names. Faithful and True. How beauti- ful a name, and how worthy He to bear it. For — let me whisper it in your very soul — He is still Faithful and True to you even if you have changed toward Him. Have you ever changed toward Him ? Have you ever been different from what you once hoped to be when you most felt His influence ? Have there been times of passion, times of bitterness, times of open or unseen sin, — unseen by human friends but not unseen by Him — times when such was your life, and such were the thoughts which had gained possession [76] of your heart, it would be impossible, simply impossible, for Him to say of you: **My true child?" This has not changed Him — not for one hour — not for one moment. He is always worthy of His Name, ''Faithful and True." What answer is in your heart, to give to Him who is faithful and true ? Is it your wish to enter into such a way of living, to be so strong in bear- ing whatever charge He may lay upon you, that He who is faithful and true shall see that you are copying Him and growing like Him, and He shall think of you as His true child ? I think, I know this is for some of you your deepest wish ; some of you have set your hearts to be true chil- dren of Jesus Christ. You have many pleasures, but they have not turned your heads or won your hearts away from that hope of hopes, to be true to our best and kindest Friend. Under the bright pleasures, I know something of your deeper life. And do I not know what deep, deep truths have come to you this winter in unexpected ways. Have not some of you had sickness and pain, and some of you loneliness and absence, which have opened to you the deep things of life, and brought you very near to Christ .? I know you have. Have not some of you learned that He [77] who is faithful and true sometimes calls a **true child" home to Himself while she is yet a child ? Ah, yes ! Nothing else will satisfy some of you. You have tasted of that life which is life indeed, and now you cannot do without it. You cannot go back and cease to wish to be a true child. You know that this is the greatest thing that ever came to you. If at times you have forgotten it, and dropped away into the old selfish life, you have waked up ashamed — ashamed — and bit- terly sorry ; but you have not thought of taking back what you gave to Christ. What did you give.^ You gave yourself. You put yourself in His hands. Who could make you willing to take yourself back, to be never, never again — here or hereafter — a true child ? Why should not each and every one of you be His true child ? Why have some of you not come to Him ? Where does the trouble lie ? Not on His side, I am sure. He has opened the way; He is faithful and true in His love to the children that have never been true to Him. The trouble is not on His side. Where, then, can it be ? Is it on your side ? Is it that you will not just go, and give up to Him, and be true ? Is the trouble there ? If so, why should it not be swept away ? [78] Will you think this over, praying while you think ? Why should you not let Christ take you, and hold you, as if one who loved you more than all the world were to put arms of faithfulness around' you, and the kiss of peace upon your forehead, and whisper to your soul: M.y true Child? Amen. f n (§xun pastures " l^e Uattzti) me — in nreen jjajsture^ " , Psalm 23 : 2 You see I have changed the parts of this verse about, and have joined the words of the last half, **He leadeth me," to the words of the first half, **in green pastures." I am sure it is not wrong for me to do this, because I do not change in any way the teaching of God's word. I merely do it because the two parts thus joined put before our minds such a very beautiful thought: "A walk in the country with God." It is this thought which I have chosen as my subject for this after- noon's sermon ; and I believe, if you are as willing to listen as I am eager to speak, we shall be able to get something out of this thought which we shall not only remember in the summer days, but which will be worth remembering. I do not need to explain why I have put to- gether the beautiful words which make us a text for to-day, "He leadeth me in green pastures," nor why I have taken this subject, "A walk in the country with God." [80] gin (Bvtm pa&tuvt^ It is June. The great high doors of the sum- mer are opening, and we are standing, as in the gateway of a royal park, looking in upon the beauty that spreads, and rolls away, and rises up and waves on every hand. Is it not wonderful ? There, melting away, one behind the other, in soft rounded shoulders of velvet, are the green pastures, and over them are swinging softer shadows from the snow-fleeces of summer clouds. There, shot with the shimmer of a million sun- beams, or framed in the blooms of iris and lilies, are the still waters. There, heaped in wavy masses on the summer air and twinkling in the gentle wind are the groves and copses of oak and maple and spruce and sumac. There, mounding the sides of quiet lanes, and hiding the channels of meadow-brooks are thickets of vines and wild flowers. There, toned by the south wind to violet and melting greens, or deepened by the north wind to bright, gladdening blue, studded with pure white sails and fringed with arches of surf, is the marvelous ocean. There, sleeping in the sunlight and furrowed with cool shadows are the strong and silent mountains. What is this on which we are looking ? This is the country ; this is God's great path, of woodland and upland, [81 ] Ci^e Oilier €np with a thousand hills, on which the cattle feed, and a million leagues of sea where the free gulls fly- To how many of you it will probably be given soon to take a walk in the country. Many of our dear companions are there already, walking joyously. Many who are here to-day are plan- ning to go and live for weeks and weeks in God's great park, the country. And I do not think there is one child now in the church who will not have at least a few days in the country; and perhaps some of those who can have only the few days may gain more in their hearts than those who have many, because every hour of every day will be so richly valued. And as I have thought of this service coming so soon before your departure I have asked : Will not God help me to speak some words which shall sink into the hearts of children like precious seed, and which through the rich summer months will grow and bear fruit many- fold, to the glory of God.^ Will He not give us such thoughts about Himself, such confidence, such worship toward Him, that as we go forth into the glorious park which He has made ready for us, we may not hide ourselves from Him among the trees of that great Garden, but rather [82] 9In (5vtm pa^trnt^ may seek Him among those trees, and find Him amid the hills, and commune with Him on the '* everlasting shore," and walk many a time in the green pastures with the glad feeling that He is leading us. I am simply saying to you just what is in my heart when I say that, to me, the privilege of going into the country is one of the most sacred things that come into my life year by year. I look upon it as something so great and high. One may well look forward to it a long time before- hand, and prepare himself for it, and count with delight the days that are allotted him to spend in God's great park. Why do I feel so ? I feel so for several reasons. Undoubtedly one reason why I feel so is because I realize how many who would love to go, and who are just as ready as myself to value the privilege, cannot go. Many are too poor to go. This blessed thing is quite out of their reach, and unless the kindness of others opens a way, many thousands of persons in this city will not have one hour of country life this summer. Many will stay at home to provide the means by which others may go — working on through all the coming weeks, so patiently and unselfishly, and getting only short glimpses into [83] God's great park, often when they are too tired fully to enjoy what they see. Not a few in this city are too sick to go. They cannot be moved. They must lie here among the houses, and suffer, whilst we not only do not suffer, but can use our good health in roaming over the hills. I cannot forget this thought about the many who cannot go. It makes it seem to me such a sacred thing, such a sweet and high responsibility (as I have said to you before) to be permitted to go. But this is not the only reason why the thought of living for a few days or weeks in God's great park looks to me as so sacred a thing. There is another reason. And I am going to try and ex- plain this other reason to you. It is one which does not interfere with or prevent those merry and innocent country pleasures to which, I well know, so many of you are happily looking for- ward. What a place for innocent pleasures the country is ! To a happy and innocent heart what an endless variety of joyous sports, of charming occupations is offered in the mountains and by the sea! You feel so strong, so rested, so free from care, so able to do. And there is such a wealth of things to do. It makes me wonder when people say there is nothing to do in the country. [84] 3!n (Bum pactum I feel so sorry because they have not found out how much more there is to do than anybody can do. The farther I go into the country, the farther I wander from the beaten roads, the more I find of delightful things to do. But I think I know a good many of you well enough to say that you cannot play all the time, any more than I can. There is a point up to which you healthfully enjoy amusement, beyond which you simply do not want to be amused. You want something greater than to be amused. Why is this ? It is because you have something great and noble in you, which is fitted to receive something greater, and which can be satisfied only by something greater than even the most beautiful and innocent amusements and sports. Children dear, how I honor, how I reverence that greater something in you which does not want to be amused, because it wants a better thing than amusement. I rejoice in that merry part of you which healthfully wants to be amused, but when I see that greater something shining in your eyes, and making your faces so earnest and so strong ; when I hear that greater something speaking in certain tones of your voice, I reverence you, I delight in you — you children of God. For that [85] Ci^e ^ilUv Cup is it : you are children of God, and the glory of His dear Son is beginning to be revealed in you ; and the power of His Spirit is overshadowing you, and it is that which makes you too great to be satisfied at all times with what merely amuses, however innocent that amusement is — it is that which, whether you are in town or in the country, gives you now and then hours of swelling, soaring thoughts — Higher than the heights above, Deeper than the depths beneath. Now, if you understand me — and I do not doubt many of you understand me — you will understand the special reason why (as I said a few moments since) the privilege of going into the country is one of the most sacred things that come into my life year by year. The reason is this : In the country God gives us special oppor- tunities to walk alone with Him. A walk in the country alone with God ! If any one loves God, and wants to learn more of God, and wants to have one's life open out toward and correspond with the measures of the things of God, what is more grand, what answers better to the swelling thoughts within us, than this privilege of being out in God's great park, and of walking there [86] among the trees with Him, through the voices of His own works, and letting our brains grow clear and our hearts grow calm, and our thoughts grow pure and broad, and our fountains of holy de- sire fill up afresh, by taking now and then such a silent, thoughtful, wondering walk up some mountain-side, or over the green pastures, or by the sea's very edge when the tide is out and the shining sand is hard and firm like a floor of marble. I do not need to remind you that we can walk with God every day of our lives, and in the city as truly as in the country. This you know as well as I, and need not to be told how wondrous and how precious are those walks with God when we are hurrying through our city life, so busy, so full of engagements, so troubled and anxious perhaps about our studies, or some other work. Then we have walked with God ; and some of us have walked with Him into the places of pain and sickness and death, and have felt even in such places how very near He is and what power He has to strengthen our weak and frightened spirits. But there are times when everybody needs to get away from the crowds of people and the noise of town, and to start out into God's park, to walk [87] alone with Him, to be led, by Him, in the green pastures. There are times when every thoughtful heart feels the need (and as it grows older it understands better that feeling of need), the need of getting away off in stillness with God, there to have His gentle hand laid upon our im- patient, restless lives, to smooth out the tangles, to cleanse away the wrong, to widen out the narrowness, to set up the high things that were beaten down, to make us right again, in all our motives, life thoughts, and desires. And although I can truly say I believe that I have walked with God in the city, through its busy, crowded days and weeks, I find myself sometimes in midwinter longing for one of those long, still, far-away days in the country when I have gone out in the green pastures to think and think of the Great Presence: I find myself in the midwinter hurry saying over with special meaning, those grand words of spiritual desire : — O for a closer walk with God, A calm and heavenly frame! Now it seems to me that no one who has been brought by God's Spirit to love and desire the things of God, and to whom, as to so many of us, [88] 9In (Breen pmwt^ the blessed privilege is given of spending more or less time away from our city homes and our , city work, — no one ought to lose that great influence which is a thing by itself, unlike all the influences that come to us here, that great in- fluence of a walk in the country alone with God, to be led, by Him, in the green pastures. I am naturally quite familiar with the life which many of you children and youth lead for nine months of the year. It is a life full of the greatest advantages your loving parents and guardians can give you. It is in many respects a very complete life. And it is a very busy life; busy not perhaps in the sense that you are work- ing so toilsomely, but in the sense that your life is full of people and full of incidents. Things crowd upon you closely, and come to you and pass on from you in immensely rapid succession. Your days are very full ; sometimes, for some of you, they seem to me decidedly too full. This full life has great advantages; it has also some disadvantages. One of the latter is you have far too little time to be alone with God, that you may know Him, and may yield yourselves up seriously and intentionally to His influence. And you cannot deprive yourselves of God's influence [89] Cl^e ^iVotv Cup without feeling the loss and paying for it. You pay for it when you feel that life is tangled ; that prayer has lost its charm and its power ; that . motives are twisted out of line; that insincerity, or bitterness, or narrow, petty selfishness has taken hold upon you ; that you have somehow got, like a violin, out of tune. A violin goes out of tune when the strings work themselves a little loose, and to bring back the violin to its right voice, the voice which answers to the great instrument, the organ or the piano beside which it is to be played, you have to key up those strings again. Sometimes our life being so much played upon by many hands during the winter works itself a little loose in its bearings, and the strings on which we think and speak are out of key with the mighty organ of God's truth. We are out of tune with the divine, the everlasting truth and right, and we need to be "keyed up" till once more we keep the pitch which sounds forever in the truth and the works of God. And what will bring one back and key one up to the tone of God, like a walk in the country with God, — going out into the green pastures, and beside the still waters, with God to lead you, and God to be the companion of your thoughts ? [90] 9In (0reen pamm Every summer is sure to bring with it its pro- portion of glorious, golden days ; when the earth looks as if it had just come freshly down out of heaven, and the sky grows toward sunset like the sea of glass mingled with fire, — When we hear the wind among the trees Playing celestial symphonies, And see the branches downward bent Like keys of some great instrument. Such days have come in all the summers of the past, and such, we need not doubt, will also come in the summer whose ''beautiful gate" is even now opening. There will sometimes be such days of inconceivable calmness and delight, and there will be some of you in whom that greater some- thing of which I have already spoken will make itself felt within you, in ways that cannot be entirely satisfied by the merry sports going on around you ; that greater something will whisper to you that God has a message for you, which He would speak in the beauty of the summer day; that God would lead you out for a walk in the green pastures and beside the still waters, to restore your soul and to lead you in the path of righteousness for His Name's sake. I hope you [91 ] Cl^e ^ilUv Cup will go ; I hope I shall go, this summer, whenever that greater something within me, let me rather say that greater Some One within me (for He is the Holy Ghost) gives me God's invitation for a walk in the green pastures. Have a small Testa- ment, that you can readily carry (I always take my Greek Testament; it is an inseparable sum- mer companion) and then go quietly off in the quiet day and let God lead you in the green pas- tures. Perhaps when all the fields are dry and wholesome you may be led to some breezy spot, half shade, half sunshine, where you can stretch yourself on the dry grass, and say: "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures." You can lie so low that all the scenery of earth will be out of sight, except the grasses and daisies around you, which with their trembling tops will make your sky line; and you can look Up and up and up, while — Over you unrolls on high The splendid scenery of the sky. Shall I tell you, as I close this talk about the country walk with God, how He has sometimes spoken to me when He has led me in green pas- tures and made me to lie down there ? He has spoken to me through space and through still- [92] 3In mtm ^ajsturejs ness. We know very little about space in the city. Our houses are packed close together ; the wagons in the street are packed together so some- times it is hard to escape being run over ; people are packed together in schools and stores and crowded cars; days are packed together till a whole week seems scarcely wider than one sum- mer day; duties and amusements and incon- veniences and appointments are packed together ; and I say we know very little about space in the city. And alas ! the crowding sometimes crowds out that wide thought, *'the fullness of Him that filleth all in all," and "the wideness of God's mercy, like the wideness of the sea," and little, narrow selfishnesses come and block up the avenues of our souls. Oh ! to be keyed up again to the wideness of God, in thought, in love, in patience, in faith; till our love arches up once more like the vault of the sky, and our faith soars like yonder bird flying between the clouds. And God has spoken to me, in the country walk, through stillness. Did you ever think that while there is so much stillness in the country, there is hardly any silence.? Sometimes in the dead of night in town we get silence, the entire absence of sound — no footfall on the pavement, [93] Cl^e ^imt Cup no rumble of wheels, no whistle from the passing boat — dead silence. But you almost never get dead silence in the country : the stillness is full of the sound of invisible voices. The other night I drove through the country. All around me was stillness, but when I thought, I perceived that stillness to be one choir of invisible voices. The whip-poor-wills were calling soft notes through the shrubbery ; the brook was leaping musically down its pebbly channel; the wind was singing in the pines ; and the deep pedal bass tone of the surf was behind and under all. Such ever is the stillness of God, — a voice invisible, harmonious, noble, guiding us not on the country walk alone through the green pastures, but guiding us as faithfully and as tenderly in all the rough and winding paths of life, and in the valley of deep- est shadow, a word behind us and within us saying, *'This is the way, walk ye in it." Oh! my friends going away from the noise of the city to the stillness of the green pastures : may God speak to you this summer through the voice of His own stillness ; may the Holy Spirit give you ears to hear as you have never heard before! Amen. (^AvaKv\f/aT€) St. Luke 21 : 28 More than twenty years ago a little group of children were accustomed to study together day by day, in one of the rooms of a country-house. They were taught by a governess, and she, in many ways, was taught by the Spirit of God. So I have grown to think, looking back from man- hood, upon those labors of hers, from which she has long since rested, being now dead. She taught not only Latin and history and arith- metic, but beauteous verses from the greater poets, and noble portions of the Word of God, and many hymns, whose music will echo on through all the life of some of those who learned them. She taught also the greatness and the highness of life, as the gift of^God; and in ways those children could understand, she stood among them pointing upward. She made for each one of them a badge, to be worn, sometimes, over the heart. It was blue, like the sky of a day in June, and upon it, in white, were embroidered the [95] Cl^e ^(Iber Cup words, ** Look up." As yesterday it seems to one of those children, a boy of thirteen, when he wore that badge, and when he did begin to ** Look up" ; and it seems to him to-day as if that badge of blue, with its two white words, were still pinned above his heart, and as if he could speak those two white words more earnestly to children because they were fastened so early and so lov- ingly upon his own childhood. "Lookup!" Yes, they are white words. Would to God I might fasten them to-day upon the heart of each one of you. "Look up!" Who is thankful enough, who can be thankful enough for being so made in our bodies that we can look at all, and that we can look up when we want to. There are two people mentioned in the Gospel, to whom my heart goes out with overflowing pity, every time I think of them. One was the man born blind; the other was the woman bent over by a spirit of in- firmity, so that for^ eighteen years she could not lift herself up. The man could not look at all. The woman could not look up for eighteen years. Fancy being born blind — not able to look at all — sightless eyes. Every year must bring more pain, as one learns more of what beauteous things [96] are in the earth. Here are an opal and a diamond and a ruby; here are a bunch of violets and a branch of wild roses; here are a painting by Meisonnier and a portfolio of etchings; here is the pure, bright, wholesome face of a child, speaking love and mirth with its bonny eyes ; here is the waving network of shadows and gold on a smooth lawn when the afternoon breeze and sun- light are playing through high trees ; here come those amazing troops of colors, rising, after sun- set, and soaring like legions of angels up the clouds. And not one of these is anything but a name and a sorrow to the man born blind. And fancy being bowed over with a spirit of infirmity, bent almost double, and not able to lift yourself up, and to look up, for eighteen years. It is terrible. That poor woman could look, but she had to look down, to the things beneath her, to the dust and uncleanness of the streets, to her own, tired feeble steps. Never, as she walked through those slow years of misery, could she lift up her face to the sun and let the glory of it play full upon her, like the brightness of the eyes of God; never could she rest her eyes by gazing off on distant hilltops, and on the magnificent repose of the sea. She could not [97] Cl^e ^iVotv Cup '*look up." The very thought of such a privation makes my back and my heart ache. For as sight is the grandest physical gift which man possesses, so his grandest use of it is to *'look up," if his soul looks through his eyes. How one can remember certain hours when, in looking up, deep and lifelong impressions of God's greatness and of life's greatness were suddenly and sharply printed on the soul. Two such hours return before my memory now. One was during my first night in Switzerland, years ago. I had reached the inn at nightfall. It was wet, and I was tired from the long diligence ride. I retired early. When I awoke it was in the depths of the night. The wind had changed, the sky was cloudless, the silver of late moonlight overspread the scene, and looking up from my pillow I be- held the summit of Mont Blanc cut clear against the sky, and two glittering stars beside it. The other hour was in the Canadian Province of New Brunswick, in a summer morning. I lay in the midst of a meadow of ripe grass, and of all the earth I could see nothing but the clovers and daisies standing in a sky-line around me. Over- head were the depths — cloud over cloud white and soft, with abysses of blue between. Ah! [98] ILoo6 Op what joyous remembrances from these and a thousand kindred hours come back to those who have been taught to "look up" with their natural eyes, to love the attribute of height in nature — high trees, high cliffs, high clouds, high stars, the higher flights of birds. How often have these things become sacraments and symbols of things higher than clouds and stars, to which unseen heights the soul has looked in vision keener than natural eyesight. And so, I am not ashamed to say to you, rny younger friends, "Look up!" Even with your natural eyes, "Seek the things that are above"; form the habit of noticing and loving the glorious things above our level. Note the changes of the sky, the balancings of clouds ; learn and love mountains; study stars; consider the heavens, the work of God's fingers, the moon and the stars which He hath ordained ; follow the soaring, hovering birds that hang far overhead in summer time, motionless as signs in the sky. But why do I tell you this ? Have I asked you to come here only that we might talk of these beautiful things in nature : the flight of birds, the glitter of stars, the balancing of clouds ? No! not only for this! I am going on to speak of another way in which [ 99] some of us are finding it a happiness to "look up." Many, many years ago a little group of men stood on the top of a hill, looking up. They were not looking at some mountain peak curbing the sky ; nor at the glorious bright clouds sailing overhead ; nor at some eagle hovering on mighty wings. Their souls were looking through their eyes, above the eagle, and above the clouds, on — on — on. A few moments ago there had stood at their side a most dear and glorious Friend, who, while He was with them, had put a new mean- ing into life; had filled their minds with great thoughts ; had sympathized with all their fears and troubles; had given their lives a most won- derful peace. And now He is not here; "a cloud of light has received Him from their sight." He has gone, upward and upward, beyond the hills, and beyond the cloud, and beyond the hovering eagle, and their thoughts are following Him, long after their eyes have lost Him. They hear voices at their side; and there stand two strangers in shining garments, asking, "Why stand ye gazing up into heaven ? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven." And then they know that they have still His [ 100] iLoofe aip work to do, and that He has promised them His Holy Spirit to quicken and freshen all their powers. And so they do not stand looking up with their eyes ; they come back to their work, and as they try every day to do it better, their souls are always looking up, and the influence of this Friend who has gone upward is lifting their lives in every possible way, and drawing their thoughts up higher and higher. What I most desire to do this day is to speak to you of that Friend, to remind you of what He has done; to remind you of what He is doing now, and to entreat you, in all that you plan, and attempt, and do, to remember Him — and look up. Let not any of us ever forget what He has done for us ! It is not my words, nor the words of any man, can make you appreciate what Jesus has done for you. A voice far more tender than mine must come and speak in the ear of the soul, a hand far more skillful than mine must touch our understanding, before we can see all that Jesus did for us, and why it was needful that He should do so much. The Spirit of God is the only teacher who can teach us this ; for only the Spirit of God can show us that we need a Saviour, and not till [ 101 ] Cl^e filter €np we know that we need a Saviour can we see that what Jesus did, He did for us. The Spirit of God can show this, and, furthermore. He has shown it to some of us. He has opened our understand- ings, and softened our hearts, and convinced us that Jesus Christ came into the world to make Himself a sacrifice for our sins; and all that Jesus suffered He as truly suffered for each of us personally as if He had died this very day, and from the cross had called to us by name, and said, I am dying for you! I should feel that these words were too sacred to speak if it were not that God's Spirit seems to prompt me to speak them. Oh! that He may take them, and bear them straight into your hearts, filling you with the one thought: " Christ is my tender, suffering Saviour. Jesus came down and entered into this world where I live, suffered its temptations, bore its griefs, at last endured the bitterness of death, that He might come close to me, in all my needs, in every phase of my life." And now, how shall I think of Jesus ? Let me think of Him as the ascended Saviour, first coming down and entering perfectly into my life, that I may be reconciled to God by His death and that I may know His sympathy, and then going up, [ 102 ] iLoofi Op that He may forever draw my heart and mind upward too, as long as I live, that I may by every thought of Christ be lifted up, and made to "look up " — that all my plans and all my work and all my views of life may have that upward influence acting upon them, and become more high and more worthy of Him. I know that I speak to many earnest children and youth, to many who think deeply and in- tently upon this whole subject of life, and who most truly want to honor Jesus. And to some of them the thought may have come: '*Oh! that Jesus had remained here where we could see Him with our eyes and talk to Him with our lips!" It is a natural thought; but, nevertheless, we are far better off now. If He had remained we could not have seen Him often, perhaps not have spoken to Him once in our lives, such crowds would be around Him all the time. And you know. He said : "It is expedient, that is, it is good for you, that I go away." Think how good it has been for us that He went away — that He arose, and ascended up, and that now every thought of every loyal heart is thus drawn up- ward too. Oh ! how good it is for us that Christ is above us, and that just so far as we love Him, [ 103 ] Ci^e outlet Cup and think of Him, we reach and look upward! It seems as if He has given a charge to His Holy Spirit to fasten on our hearts those two white words, '* Look up," and to bring that dear thought more and more into our lives until it is a daily help to some of us, keeping the thoughts of our hearts and the desires of our minds sweet and strong, and saving us from things whose influ- ence is downward and not upward. I spoke in the earlier part of this sermon of how some of us love to "look up," even with our natural eyes; how we feel rested and inspired and elevated in mind when we look up at the high mountain, or at the soaring bird, or at the fleecy clouds, or at the sun, or at the glittering stars; how there seems to be something in us which answers to these high and splendid sights in nature, — a joy, a sense of buoyancy, as if we too had wings. Cannot many of us say for our- selves Wordsworth's delicious lines : — My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky. And now, as I come toward the end of the ser- mon, may I not speak of how this same dear thought of *' looking up" may enter into the daily [ 104 ] loofi ap life of us who are here ; the thought of looking up, not to clouds or stars alone, but to Him who once trod this earth as our suffering Saviour, and is now exalted to the glory of the Father, where He ever liveth to make intercession for us. We can begin every day of our life by looking up! Do you know the third verse of the fifth Psalm ? It is what I call a dear verse. It is as fresh and sweet as an early morning in June. The rays of the rising sun pour their glory into it. It is this: "My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up." How perfectly natural it is to look up in the morning when you are in the country. When I am down in the country, I come downstairs and go out on the big breezy piazza, and the very first thing I do is to look up. I take a look at the sky; I see which way the wind is blowing ; I find out what kind of a day it is going to be. Ah ! how much in your life and mine depends on that wondrous habit of looking up in the morning, of starting up from our rest as if, almost, we were rising up to begin a new fresh life, and before we have been compelled to fix our eyes on things around us (to look at our books, or at our practicing, or at [ 105 ] our home duties), to look up and greet with conscious thoughts that blessed One who has gone up on high to pray for us and to prepare a place for us ; to look up and think of Jesus — holy, blameless, undefiled, separate from sin- ners, kind, noble, glorious, patient, tender, self- sacrificing. What a beginning to a day that makes ; how much it has to do with the way the wind shall blow all that day, and what sort of a day it shall be. Do not tell me you have not time for this. No arrow in its flight, no strong bird, no flash of lightning was ever so quick as the thought, the look of the soul, that can be shot upward in the morning. Rise five minutes ear- lier, if necessary, and that five minute look — if that be all you can spare — that conscious look upward will follow you like a blessing all day long. We can "look up" in the study hour, in the hour of exercise, and in all our intellectual tasks. There was a verse of the New Testament which my mother taught me about the time when the blue badge with the two white words was pinned on. It was this: "Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." Is not that a noble verse — and how well [ 106] ILod6 dp the two white words fit it — to think that when we eat or drink we are not just animals keeping ourselves alive; and that when we study or prac- tice or read or take exercise we are not just doing these things because we are told to do them. There is glory even in these things. What- soever ye do, do all to the glory of God. And you say, where is the glory in eating or studying or practicing or walking ? If you want to see the glory, look up. Look up ! and remember that Christ, the as- scended Son, died for you and rose again, that He might open to you the possibilities of a grander life, and that in this grander life everything is important that touches you in any way. Your health is important, you ought to take care of it as His servant, you ought not to eat or drink or use or do anything that will hurt you and weaken you. Your mind is important, and every sum in arithmetic, every verb in Latin, faithfully la- bored over, is just so much training to strengthen you to fill the place Christ w^ants you to fill. Your special talents are important. If you can play or sing or draw or speak or write or teach or keep accounts, or do anything specially well, you are to look up, and ask that He will be [ 107] Ci^e ^(Iber Cup pleased to help you to do the very best you can to develop your powers, and to guide you to be of use, if it pleases Him, through every one of your gifts, however simple they may be. Look up ! that these days of study and of the finding out of what you can do may not be, on the one hand, days of mere drudgery, nor, on the other hand, days of idleness and waste. Look up ! and keep your face toward the highest and the best, that you may be more worthy of Him who gave the highest and the best He had to give, even His own holy life, for your sake. Look up ! Oh ! my friend, I would whisper it in the ear of your soul, look up and fix your thoughts and your desires on that lofty life of Jesus in the hour of moral weakness, faltering, and tempta- tion. There are people whom I know that cannot trust themselves to look down when climbing the peak of a mountain, or standing on the top of a tower, or on the roof of a high building. They know that if they looked down to things below a terrible dizziness would make the brain to swim, and an impulse they might not be able to resist would take possession of their wills and cause them to throw themselves down. We are all like that, when we come to those dangerous [ 108 ] iLoofi ap hours in life when we must pass along the edge of great temptations. Trust not yourself, my child friend, in such an hour to look down, to think of and dwell upon the things below. Dizzi- ness will seize your brain, and an awful impulse to throw yourself down into the temptation will sweep over your will. Look up ! Oh ! in such an hour, look up ! Let your thoughts, let your de- sires shoot like arrows upward to the heights where Christ is praying for you. Fix the eyes of your mind on Him. Look up ! Look up ! He will hold you up and steady your mind and keep your eyes from the tears of shame and your feet from the dreadful stumble. Look up! and win your victory! Look up, and let your very look be prayer — a prayer like this: — Grant, I beseech Thee, Almighty God, that the thoughts of my heart may thither tend whither Thine Only Begotten Son hath entered in; so that as I ascend thither by faith, my whole conversation may be in Heaven. Amen. Cotoartisi €\)ening St. Luke 24 : 29 This is the eventide of Easter Day. The radi- ant morn, the glorious noon, of this wonderful, wonderful day have passed by; and now it is " towards evening and the day is far spent." And in some ways it seems to me that we have now come to the most sweet and tender part of this whole day. Each part of the day — morning, noon, and eventide — is beautiful in its own time and way. And, as a matter of fact, that is true for me, not on Easter day only ; it is true every day. I love each part of a day with a special kind of love that belongs to that special part of the day. I love the morning with a morning love: when the dawn is breaking, and the birds are waking ; when the breeze is waking with the birds, and rustling the leaves, and waving the flowers, and wrinkling up the blue waters of the sea with little waves, and swelling the sails of the fishing-boats, as they drop down the river with the tide, and stand out off shore. I love the noonday with a [ 110] noonday love : when the day is at its height, and the sun is at the top of the are of blue ; when light flows over everything like a high tide, and the hawk with outstretched, motionless wings high above you looks as if he were floating on the breast of that tide. I love the eventide with an eventide love: when it is towards evening, and the day is far spent, then sometimes thoughts, memories, hopes, long, soft, and silent as the even- ing shadows, steal across the mind, and light, glorious as the sunset, is given to the heart. We know exactly what Jesus was doing at this hour of eventide, on that first great Easter day when He arose from the dead. We know, also, what He did at the beginning of that day. Very, very early in the Sunday morning — it must have been just before daylight began to show itself — He arose from the grave where He had lain dead since sunset on the Friday before, and He came forth beautiful in His new risen life; and when the birds were waking up and the morning breeze was beginning to rustle among the treetops. He was walking up and down in the lovely paths of Joseph's garden. What a morning walk that must have been for Him ! Do you not think He must often think of it now with joy, as He lives His [ 111 ] glorious Life, "He that liveth and was dead and is alive for evermore." We do not know what the Lord Jesus did through the noontide hours of Easter day. Whether He spent those hours alone, thinking His great thoughts of purity and peace, in some quiet part of the garden, or whether He went about, unknown and unrecognized, doing good to people. We know that after He rose from the dead He had the power of going about without being recognized; and, possibly, all that first forenoon, He went on with the work He loved best, going where some little sick child was sleep- ing, laying His hand on the hot, little forehead, and making the child wake up quite well ; going to some boy tempted to do wrong, and, whis- pering such words of courage in his ear, the boy grew brave and conquered. We do not know if He did any such thing; but if He did, it would be just like Him. But when the day gets on past noon, we do know just where the risen Saviour was, and what He did. You know that the garden within which Christ was buried, and where He arose from the dead, was just outside of the city of Jerusalem. Now, about seven and a half or eight miles north- [ 112 ] Cot»art>si tuning west from Jerusalem was a little village called Emmaus, and it is on the road leading to that village we find Jesus walking in the middle of Easter afternoon. He is not alone. Two men are with Him — men who had known Him and loved Him before He was crucified. Strange to say, they do not know Him now. If you ask me how that could have been, I can only answer: "I do not know how it could have been." I only know that the Bible says "their eyes were holden, or prevented, so that they should not know Him." The risen Lord had that wonderful power by which He could keep Himself unknown until He saw fit to make Himself known. What were these two men talking about, as He walked be- side them ? They were talking about Jesus Him- self ; so sadly, so hopelessly. They said: **He is dead." Their hope was all gone. And when they had told this stranger — for He seemed like a stranger to them — how badly they felt, the stranger — not telling them who He was — be- gan to talk to them about Jesus. And He talked so tenderly, so wisely, so wonderfully. He seemed to know so well how to speak to them, and how to comfort them, they began to feel courage and hope coming back to their hearts. Their hearts [ 113 ] Cl^e ^iMt Cup fairly burned with a warm, sweet joy, as if the afternoon sunlight were pouring into them. On and on they walked, and ever the stranger con- tinued to speak of Jesus and their love for Him. By and by they reached Emmaus, as the shadows of the late afternoon were lengthening, and as the sun was far down toward the western hills. They reached the door of the house where they were going to stay. The two men stopped; but the stranger, saying only, I suppose, a pleas- ant ** Good-night," walked right on. Then they realized how much he had helped them, and they could not stand the thought of His going on and leaving them. The sunlight seemed to fade, the shadows to deepen, the chill of the evening damp to smite upon them, the old sadness and discouragement to settle on them, as He turned to walk away. "Abide with us !" they cried. " Stay with us, we are so lonely as the evening comes on, you have helped us; stay with us, talk to us, still help us to be brave." He stopped. He turned. He went into the house with them. As the sun went down a strange light seemed shining in His face. They wondered, yet could not un- derstand. Supper was ready and they sat down. He went to the head of the table as though they [ 114] were His guests, rather than He theirs. They wondered, yet could not understand. He took some bread, closed His eyes, and asked a blessing. As He prayed light shined in His face. They opened their eyes, looked again, and knew Him, — Jesus risen from the dead ! Oh ! story of stories, to be told again, on the very eventide of Easter day! But I said there was another reason why this special hour "towards evening" seems to-day so very wonderful. Not only is it the hour of the supper at Emmaus, it is also your special hour. This is the Children's Hour. As I say this, I catch a new meaning in those sweet lines of Long- fellow which he could not have thought of when he wrote them : — Between the dark and the daylight When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupations That is known as the Children's Hour. Yes; now, "towards evening," towards evening of Easter day, at this very time when we are thinking of the way those two friends begged the stranger to stay and take supper with them, not knowing that He was their own beloved Lord and Master, at this very time, "between the dark [ 115 ] and the daylight, when the night is beginning to lower," is the hour when I may talk to you about your lives, about how you too may walk with Jesus, and be helped and strengthened by Him, and about how you too may beg Him to come in and stay with you, and be sure He will gladly do it, and make Himself known unto you. Now let us have a little "towards evening" talk! In every happy home what a sweet time that is "towards evening," what a cosy time, what a loving time. I do not know which I like best, "towards evening" in winter, or "towards evening " in summer. Although the same time, they are very different kinds of times. Towards evening in winter it grows dark very early and very quickly ; and often we make up a wood-fire, and have the evening frolic or the evening talk when the flames are throwing all kinds of shad- ows over the ceiling and the walls. Towards evening in summer we love to watch the long sunsets, and to have the evening talk or frolic out of doors, or indoors with all the windows open and the cool winds blowing through every room. I think if the smaller children here were to speak out they could tell of some pretty happy times which they have towards evening, when [ 116 ] their father comes home with his heart just run- ning over with the love that has been storing up all day, and when their mother puts aside every- thing else for the joy of putting her own dear little people to bed. And do you not know how some- times — I guess nearly all the times — towards evening you want the greatest kind of a frolic. But sometimes towards evening you who are older love to have a little quiet thinking-time, between the dark and the daylight. About the time when the sunset gun is sounding, and the night is beginning to lower, there is a pause in the day's occupation; the day is about over, the evening work has not begun, and you like a quiet corner and a quiet *' think." It is a beauti- ful habit to form, and a beautiful thing to grow fond of, that little space of quietness towards evening. And I wish to say one thing just here: there is one day in every week when that time of thinking towards evening is specially wonderful if you can have it. That day is the Lord's day. Why do we call Sunday the Lord's day.^ Be- cause every Sunday, being the first day of the week, reminds us of the resurrection, and is specially called by the name of Him who rose on the first day. Every Sunday is truly an Easter [ 117] Ci^e filter Cup day, and every Sunday at eventide commemo- rates the walk to Emmaus, the talk with Jesus, the earnest request, '* Abide with us, for it is towards evening." Oh! then think what won- derful times we can have every Sunday towards evening. But what would it mean if one of you were really to begin, this Easter eventide, to say to the risen Lord Jesus, "Abide with me"? What would it mean if towards evening of this very day, and towards evening of every Lord's day to come, you were to ask this dear Friend, who once was dead, dying for you; who now^ liveth, living for you; who ever liveth to intercede for you, — what would it mean if you were hence- forth to seek earnestly for His abiding in your life? Let us carry our "towards evening" talk a little further. And I shall say now some things so simply that every one of you can understand them; and yet they are such great and high things, if you remember them, and use them, you will all find out what it is to have Jesus, the risen Lord, come and abide in your life. Towards evening, five thoughts naturally enter our heads, born of the evening time. Sin- gularly enough, they all begin with the same [ 118] letter, the letter "S," so they can be easily re- membered. Sunset, Shadow, Supper, Shelter, Sleep. Every one of these are thoughts that come towards evening ; every one may speak to us of a plain and simple way in which we need the entrance and the abiding of the risen Saviour. Sunset tells us that another day of life is ending. Shadow tells us that we cannot have all sunshine in our lives. Supper tells us of home life and the gathering of the family. Shelter tells us of a safe refuge from the storm. Sleep tells us of prepara- tion for a coming day. Towards evening comes the Sunset thought, to tell us that another day of life is ending. This day is ending, it is going away from us, never to come back. We have had it; we have had all there was of it. What has his day been to us, this Lord's day ? What have we felt of all the great things which have filled this day.^ What have we seen of all its light.? What have we tried to do, to-day, for the sake of Jesus ? What mistakes, what misdeeds have come into this day through selfishness, or through thoughtlessness ? What happy and glorious experiences have we had to- day in any way ? I do not think, my child friends, that I am dreaming an impossible dream when I [ 119] let myself hope there is some one to whom this thought is a new thought; some one who says, "I never thought before of looking at one day in this way, of thinking it over, its joy or its hard- ship, its good or its evil ; and above all of asking Jesus to come in and stay with me while I think the day over. Instead of this I have lived along day after day, week after week, without thinking much of anything about where I am, or what I am doing, or what I am failing to do." Oh, my friend, then, if you have not thought of this be- fore, let this Easter eventide sunset bring to you the Sunset thought, making you see that each day of life is precious and ought not to be let go without our understanding just what it has been to us, — a wasted day, or an earnest day, or a patient day, or a glorious day, or what. Towards evening comes the Shadow thought, to tell us that we cannot have all sunshine in our life. No one can keep the shadows away; they will come. You may stop every clock in the house at noon; you may open every window and pull up all the shades ; but all the same, the shadows creep on. And so they will creep into your lives, — shadows of care, shadows of sickness, shad- ows of anxiety, shadows of weariness, shadows [ 120 ] of sorrow. And how early the shadows begin to fall into some lives. Do you not think I know something about this.? I rather think I know something about it. And it is right for me to speak of it now. It will not make the shadows come any more quickly to speak about them, and perhaps it will help some young life into which shadow has already fallen. Do not be frightened, do not be discouraged if some shadow of pain or sorrow has fallen upon you. There is that dear risen Friend right by your side. Ask Him to enter your life and stay with you. Say to Him : Abide with me, blessed Saviour, for I am beginning to know the meaning of Shadow. Strengthen me, keep me from fear, make me brave and patient. Towards evening comes the Supper thought, to remind us of home life and the gathering of the family. Perhaps the members of the family have been separated all day long. Your father has been at business ; your mother has had her many duties; school life, friendships, work, games, all sorts of things have taken up the day for each one ; but now towards evening one after another comes in, and at the evening meal all are gathered together. What you want to do now is [ 121 ] to carry with you into that home circle brightness and love. You want to be in your home the sort of influence that does the right and the needed thing for each one. I tell you it is a great thing to have a home life, and you want to be worthy of it. One of the family is wearied and worried; you want to be the sort of spirit that always calms and rests and never irritates. Another is very happy; and you want to show hearty sympathy with joy. Another is sick; and you want to be the son or the daughter or the brother or the sister of consolation. You want to go about in your home a strength maker, a peacemaker. How can you be all this ? I do not know unless you do take the Lord Jesus, that great risen Friend, right into your home, where He is so willing to go. Let His influence be upon you at the evening meal, at the morning meal ; always, everywhere. Then what a blessed ministry yours will be, and what peace and joy will be yours. Towards evening comes the Shelter thought. Think what it must be to have no home to go to, no place to find a shelter at night; to be like the poor wanderers on the streets who have not where to lay their heads. Instead of this you have a shelter always waiting for you, where you can [ 122 ] lie so safely and listen to the storm howling out- side, and wherever you have to go during the day, you have always that resting-place waiting for you towards evening. And oh! let me whisper to you this sweeter thought : never forget that this night, every night, the risen Lord is the shelter of your soul. Wherever you have been during the day, yes, though your feet have wandered where they should not go, and your hands have touched what they should have let alone, and your lips have spoken words which ought never to have crossed them, Jesus is your shelter. Take refuge every night in the secret place of the most High, and dwell under the shadow of the Almighty. Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee. Let the water and the Blood, From Thy riven side which flowed, Be of sin the double cm^e, Cleanse me from its guilt and power. Last of all : towards evening comes the Sleep thought, telling you that God in His great mercy is giving you this preparation of rest and sleep for another day. I think the best preparation for another day is to let the thought of Jesus be the last that consciously abides with us, as we leave [ 123 ] the ended day behind us, really to "fall asleep in Christ"; to fall asleep, with our soul that has asked and received the forgiveness of sins, set hopefully and trustfully forward to meet the day which is to be — to meet it with Christ, that we may enter it with Him when it comes, that we may live with Him through all its busy hours, and that we may still be with Him when, at sunset, to-morrow too shall pass away. Amen. St. Matthew 7 : 7 To-morrow will be the first day of June. The heat of the summer will soon be here. The schools will close. The long vacation will begin. Many of you will go away, to spend weeks and months in the beauteous country. And this is my chance to say to you, "Good-by"; "God bless you"; "God be with you"; — to say to you the verse which my own little children have learned : " Mizpah : the Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another." I do say ** God bless you, keep you, watch over you, guide you, when we are absent one from another." And now, I have a message for you ; and I do ask you to listen very attentively while I give it. This message is given to me to give to you. It is a message from our great and dear Master, Jesus Christ. It is very short. It is contained in five words. It is this : Seek, and ye shall find. And my duty this afternoon is to try and help you to [ 125 ] understand what a wondrous, beautiful message this is for you and for me. Now how shall we start, in trying to under- stand this message to-day ? I think the best way to start is to try and find out just what this word "seek" means. **Seek," says Jesus, "and ye shall find." I think I can make you all under- stand what Jesus means when He says "seek," if I tell you about some of the different ways in which the word "seek" can be used. There is a game which I suppose we have all played, at some time or other. It is called " blind-man's buff." You know how it is done. You choose one person, and you bind a handkerchief over his eyes, and then you make him seek the other persons in the room. And of course the fun of the game is to make it as hard as possible for the person who is seeking, by keeping his eyes closed, and preventing him from looking. And of course he just gropes about in the room, and falls over the furniture, and the chances are it is a long time before he finds any one. There, you see, you shut out the light. You keep your eyes closed with the handkerchief, and the game is to make it hard for yourself to find anybody. It is make-believe seeking, not real seeking. You go [ 126] through the form of seeking, but everybody knows it is not real seeking, because you are keeping your eyes bound up in a handkerchief. Then there is another kind of seeking. Not long ago some friends of mine went to a certain city, and stayed at a certain hotel. They had some work to do in that city, and when it was done they tried to find their hotel. They went up this street and down that street, but no hotel could be found; they wandered till they were quite tired, and, strange to say, they did not ask anybody to tell them the way to the hotel. Per- haps they were ashamed to ask, or there may have been some other reason. But they did not ask, and they were quite tired out with seeking. As last they called a cabman, and told him to drive to this hotel. He laughed as they got into his carriage. And what did he do ? He just took them around the corner, and there was the hotel not one minute away. Now you see the mistake in that seeking was that they asked no questions, and by keeping silent they made things harder for themselves and wasted a great deal of time. But there is another kind of seeking, and I will tell you about it. Last week a young boy died, fifteen years old. His parents were poor, • [ 127 ] and it had never been his lot to have the beautiful things to play with which have been given to you, or to have the long months of rest by the shore or in the hills which are in store for you. And he was not strong in body, and could not overcome his sickness. As I stood beside him last Monday, and looked on his thoughtful face, I said to my- self : " My boy, if you had lived, you would have been a teacher of men. I wish I could write out the story of your boy-life, for the sake of other children." That boy was a thinker and a seeker. To seek was the chief purpose of his life — to seek for the reasons of things. Though so young a boy, he felt that he was living in a wonderful world, full of powers of strength and beauty, and the great desire of his heart was to understand things. And that desire seemed to lift him above what was foolish and what was wrong. He did not want to understand such things, he did not ask questions about them ; he did not seek them. He wanted to understand the works of God — the sun, the moon, the stars, electricity, light, sound, heat ; he wanted to understand the working of the reason; he was full of questions and he asked them, and was getting his answers, and although he died at fifteen, I can truly say that his life [ US ] ' could be well expressed in these words: *'Seek, and ye shall find." Now perhaps by what I have said about differ- ent kinds of seeking you have been helped to understand the grandeur of the idea Christ sets before us when He says, "Seek, and ye shall find." Take my word for it until you find out for yourselves the truth of what I am now about to say. As you go on farther in your lives you will find in the world of people around you these three kinds of seekers: The people that are blindfolded ; the people that are ashamed to ask questions ; the people that are seeking with their whole heart for the reasons of things. You will find that some are going blindfolded. They keep their eyes shut to the truths that lie around them. They do not wish to know them; they do not wish to see them. It is true they read, they go to school, they go to college, and you would say that they are seeking ; but they are not seeking. Like the person who plays that game of the hand- kerchief tied round the eyes, it is make-believe seeking ; they do not really want to find out the truth about things ; they are willing to be igno- rant; and you may be sure, if a person is will- ing to be ignorant, he will be ignorant. I tell you, [ 129 ] Ci^e ^ilUv Cup my dear friends, the grander forms of know- ledge do not come and show themselves to you unless you want to see them. You are not likely to see more of the great things of life than you care about seeing. If you are satisfied to live with the handkerchief of ignorance tied over your eyes, why, so be it. You can go to school year after year, and carry your books back and forth and look like a seeker after truth; but it is all make-believe seeking, and you will never find much that is worth finding. Again, as you go on farther in your lives, you will find those who would indeed be glad to know, but are ashamed or afraid to ask. Like my friends there in Boston, who wanted to find the hotel and tired themselves out searching for it, but were ashamed to ask, although one question would have revealed to them that the hotel was just around the corner. I believe there have been a great many people who would have been stronger and far happier all their lives if they had not for one reason or another been kept back from asking questions. There are no doubt some who have never been conscious of the desire or the need of asking questions. But there are a great many more who have kept the questions that troubled [ 130 ] ^eeft them shut up in their own minds and have never asked them openly of anybody. There are differ- ent reasons why people keep their questions shut up in their own minds. Some keep their questions to themselves because they are afraid of showing their ignorance by asking. That is a mistaken fear. That is a kind of pride which I do not think is quite right. If you do not know a thing, if you are troubled about a thing, be not ashamed to seek for truth ; rather be ashamed if you do not seek. Some keep their questions to themselves because no one seems to take any interest in an- swering them. I am afraid sometimes the parents get impatient and say : '' Oh ! don't ask so many questions." I hope God will keep me from saying that to my children, or to any child who wants to ask me a question. I may not be able to answer the question, but I hope always to show the child that I want to answer it ; that I care to answer ; and that if I do not know enough to answer it now, I am ready to join the child in asking some one else to answer it. But then there are others who keep questions to themselves because they think it is wrong to have any such questions at all. These questions, which you try to suppress because you think them wrong, may be of many [ 131] kinds ; but I have in mind at this moment partic- ularly questions about God, questions about the Bible as the Word of God, questions about Christ as the divine Saviour, questions about religion, about personal duty. I think I know quite a num- ber of people who have had these questions at one time or another, and who have simply felt that it was very wrong to have such questions, and they have tried to choke them back, and lock them up, and have gone on with their lives in trouble and unrest. Now there may be such a person here to-day. A child — a boy whom no one imagines to be troubled with any religious dif- ficulty ; a girl whom nobody has ever thought of as giving any attention to such things; and yet they are giving attention to such things, and these hard questions are in their minds and they are very much troubled by them. Now what are they to do about them ? First of all, do not feel that you must keep these things to yourself, as if they were guilty secrets. They are not guilty secrets. These difficulties, or these doubts, are a part of your experience. What does Jesus tell you ? Does He tell you you have no business to be asking questions about Himself and about the Bible, and about faith and prayer ? No ! He does not tell you [ 132 ] anything of the kind. He tells you to go on, and meet these questions, to utter them, to ask them, and to see if anywhere you can find the answers to them. Jesus does not frown on you for having questions. He says: "Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." I have now spoken of two *kinds of seeking which are mistaken kinds : the blindfolded seek- ing, which is nothing but a make-believe seeking, when the eyes are kept shut; and the seeking which is ashamed or afraid to ask questions. I shall now speak but a few moments longer, but in these few moments I shall try to lay before you what I believe is really the message of these great and beautiful words of our Lord Jesus: "Seek, and ye shall find." In these words, as I have pondered over them, I have seen three great truths lying, like great stones lying down at the bottom of a clear lake. Did you ever go out in a boat on a clear lake, when there is not a breath of wind to rujBfle the water ; did you ever stop row- ing, and wait till all the ripples from the oars have cleared away, and then lean over the boat's edge and peer down into the still water ? At first you cannot see much, but by and by your eyes [133] Ci^e ^fltoet Cup get accustomed to looking and you can make out objects on the bottom. There is a great round stone, and there is a long flat stone, and there is a tuft of water ferns branching and waving in the bed of the lake, and there is the reddish glimmer of a fish darting by. So I have looked down and down into these deep, still words of Jesus, *'Seek, and ye shall find," — I have wondered if any- thing was down in the depths of them for chil- dren, — and I have found some things which I would like to showyou. I find down deep in these words the great truth that you were made for the purpose of thinking and asking questions. God has set inside of each of you this wonderful think- ing machine, and His hand has set it going, and nobody has any right to stop it. What a marvel- ous machine it is, the thinking machine. Man with all his skill could never invent such a ma- chine. God has put one of these beautiful things inside of each of us. What an inventor God is ! I remember going on one occasion through the private room of a great inventor. Lord Kelvin, in Glasgow University, and seeing there speci- mens of each of his inventions, and a beautiful and delicate lot of things they were. But think, who invented the thinking machine in Lord [ 134 ] Kelvin's head that thought out all these inven- tions ? God has given each of you one of these delicate, beauteous things, and has set them in motion. Of course disease of the mind sometimes comes to hurt the machine, or people can injure the machine by bad usage ; but I speak to you in whose heads this beauteous power of thought is working all right. And when this machine is working all right, in sl child's head, it is turning out new thoughts and new questions all the time. And nobody ought to blame you for thinking, or for asking questions, or for wanting to know. I know a certain little boy and girl, and how they can ask questions ! there is nothing the matter with their thinking machines, and I hope I may never be so careless, or so foolish, or so unjust as to tell them they ought not to think about diffi- cult and puzzling things. And I do want to have every one of you realize that you have a right to think and nobody has a right to stop your think- ing : only when you get to thinking thoughts that puzzle you and trouble you, do not feel that you must keep them to yourselves. Seek till you find some one who cares to hear what you are think- ing, and who may be able to help you. [ 135] Cl^e Oilier Cup But I see in the depths of these clear words of Jesus, *'Seek, and ye shall find," another truth, lying there like a great shining stone. It is this truth: He who has given us these marvelous thinking powers has given us marvelous things to think about. God, who made the wonderful eye, made also the wonderful light to enter into the eye. God, who made your mind, has made great things for your mind to work upon. You must be thinkers to be worthy of yourselves and of the things God has given you to think of. Let me tell you some things God has given for you to think about. Here, for example, is yourself. You have a right to ask. Who am I ? Where did I come from ? What am I here for ? Where am I going to when I leave here ? Here, again, is the world of things lying around you. You have a right to study the makings of things, and the laws of things, and the uses of things — to ask; What is sound ? What is heat ? What is light ? What is electricity ? How do the flowers grow ? How do the stars move.^ Here, again, is the world of people around you. You have a right to ask: Did God make people poor or rich.? WTiat is sin.? What is sorrow.? What is to be- come of people.? Can I do anything for them? [ 136] Here, again, is the Bible. You have a right to ask: Where did this book come from ? Who made it ? Is it true ? Is it inspired ? How do I know it is inspired ? Here, again, is God Himself. You have a right to ask: How do I know that there is a God ? Is Jesus Christ divine ? How can I draw near to God ? Dear child, it is your right to ask these things. Do not be ashamed or afraid to ask these questions. Jesus says, **Seek." Hear Him, and let no one hold you back from seek- ing. Last of all, I find in this precious verse a pro- mise. He who gave you this thinking mind. He who gave you these great mysteries in the world around you, in the Bible, in His own self, to think about, He says : " Seek, and ye shall find." For God Himself, in His Holy Spirit, loves to meet the thinking child, to answer his questions, to lead him on in the great path of truth. Dear child, never be discouraged. God will never weary of your questions. Does it seem to you that there is much, very much, that you want to know and do not know ? All the more earnestly keep on seeking to know, and step by step the path of light will unfold as you press into it with your burning questions. Put your thoughts into [ 137] words. Put your doubts into words. Put your hopes and your longings into words. Speak out! Ask — and you shall receive. Seek — and you shall find. Knock — and it shall be opened unto you. Clje JHesfiage of tfje 'Crees " ?Cnb ht j^pafte of tteetf " 1 Kings 4 : 33 At this season of the year, when the days are growing longer and the sunshine is growing stronger; when every now and then we have a few hours in the middle of the day soft and sweet with the warmth of the coming spring, many of us love to think of things that are found in the country. There are some children whom I know well, and with whom I often talk, and I find that nothing delights them more in these days than a talk about the beautiful earth stretching away from the great city in meadow, and mountain, and forest, and river, and sea. If it were not for these talks and these thoughts, one might almost forget that there is so much more in the world beside stone pavements, and wet streets, and furnace- heated houses, and crowds of hurrying people, — might almost forget how still and calm are the woods ; how the tide runs silently in from the sea, and silently out to the sea again; how the fields of corn rustle and shine in the warm wind ; how [ 139] the full waves wash over the hard, sand floor, and leave it polished like a watery mirror, reflecting the white clouds ; how the trees, the blessed trees, stand in their places, grasping the firm earth with their roots, lifting up their heads in the sun- shine, and waving their branches in the breeze. It would be a great loss to one's life not to love these things when we are among them, not to think of them and talk of them and love them when we are away from them. The love of such things is a pure, noble love; and thoughts about such things cannot do harm to us. Jesus Himself taught us to "consider the lilies," and to "look on the fields." And when we remember Who it is has stretched out the broad sky over our heads; Who it is has made the sea and owns it; Who it is causes the trees to rise out of the ground and to bring forth their leaves and their fruit in due season, we are sure that the love of these things is a beautiful love, lifting us toward God, and leading us away from thoughts and affections selfish or untrue. It was said of Solomon, the wise and wealthy king of Israel, that God gave him wisdom and understanding exceeding much, so that he was wiser than all men, and his fame was in all na- [ 140 ] Ci^e jfttejsjsage of tl^e Cteesi tions round about. He was a great philosopher ; he composed wise and wonderful sayings about life and duty which were called proverbs; there were three thousand of these celebrated sayings. He was also a great poet, having composed a thousand and five songs. Moreover, he knew about animals and birds and fishes and reptiles. He had studied these things as works of God, and could describe their habits and their uses. This was not all. Our text tells us that he knew about and talked about trees from the largest to the smallest. If he walked out in the forest the trees were all his friends ; he knew their names, their ways of growing, their different woods, the uses which could be made of them. Often, doubtless, he thus walked through the forests with friends who came to visit him, and he could tell them the history and the nature of every tree, and every shrub, and every vine. "He spake of trees, from the cedar-tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springe th out of the wall." How this royal botanist must have loved the country, — never lonely, never lacking for something to do as long as his beloved friends the trees were round about him, speaking silently to his life. Very few people are able to talk about trees as [ 141 ] the learned Solomon talked about them. Cer- tainly I have yet learned very, very little of those beautiful forest-chronicles, the genealogy and family history even of the trees that cover the hillsides and grace the meadows of New York State and New England; and when one goes to the Natural History Museum in New York and sees specimens of ,the hundreds of trees growing in American forests, one feels how great must be the knowledge that would entitle one to speak of trees scientifically. But every one may love the trees and may speak of them lovingly. Every one may try to tell what the strong, beautiful trees seem to say to us, as we look at them, about our own lives. I need not tell you that I am a lover of trees. Among the noblest things in creation, the things which have a dignity and a meaning of their own, the things which to thoughtful eyes are living parables of great ideas, I would name the trees. They are, to me, sometimes almost like living persons; in their companionship; in their fa- miliar outline; in their voice when the wind speaks through them ; in their growth and change from year to year. How glad I should be if there are some young hearts here that have never [ 142 ] Ci^e pLmag^t of t^t Creejs cared much for trees, or thought much of what trees say to us, who shall carry from this sermon some new ideas away with them into the summer, and think them over again in those long, bright days, lying perhaps in the shadow of some mag- nificent tree, and gazing up among its branches, and beyond its branches to the magnificent arch of blue overhead. I shall speak now to you of the nobleness of trees, then of the wonderful connection between trees and the Bible, and then last of all of what the tree says to us concerning our own lives. How noble trees are, as part of the scenery of earth ! Imagine an army of wood-cutters sweep- ing over the land, and leveling the trees from Maine to California. Apart from the change of climate which would follow the destruction of forests, the land would have lost its glory; the shadowless plains would lie desolate; the moun- tains, once forest crowned, or rising gloriously out of forests like cliffs from the ocean, would stand stark and ghastly against the sky. Think of the nobleness of trees in midsummer, when their foliage is massed in great billows of green which roll and roar like the sea as the free wind comes pouring upon them. I seem to hear [ 143] Ci^e filter Cup at this moment that cool sound of those blowing billows of leaves, swept by the summer afternoon breeze, and it makes my heart leap with joy. Think of the nobleness of trees in autumn, when one turns under the frost to a golden yel- low, and another lights up into a fiery red, and another melts into soft russet, and the pine-trees look almost black against the mass of color, and the shoulders of the hills are as if some mighty hand had wrapped them about with the shawls of India. Think of the nobleness of trees in winter, even as I saw them three weeks ago yesterday as I went flying up through Massachusetts in the express, amidst the blazing sunshine of a frosty afternoon. The ground was covered with a foot of snow, and over the snow a rain and sudden frost had spread an icy enamel that paved the meadows as with glittering fields of mother-of- pearl. The leafless trees arose grouped in groves and in forest lines, thirty miles long; and every tree-stem, and every bough, and every twig in all those thirty miles of forest lines, standing forth in the light, and etched against a cloudless sky, was covered with pure ice ; and a setting sun, which had a glory like the glory of April, poured into air [ 144 ] Ci^e jHejSjSage of ti^e Creejs which had the frost-bite of December a flood of yellow light that surged through these crystal forests till they seemed more a vision than a reality. Think of the nobleness of trees in the spring- time, when the resurrection miracle is being wrought in every forest, in every orchard, on every roadside. Wonderful, wonderful beyond all imagination is that spectacle of awakening life when from the smallest daisy plant to the top- most bough of the loftiest elm life is running free in root and branch ; when buds are expanding in the sunshine their glittering reds and greens; when the orchards are enveloped in clouds of snowy and roseate blossoms ; when the air is alive with fluttering petals and delicious with waves of subtle fragrance. " Ah," said a friend to me that Sunday in Massachusetts, three weeks ago, as we stood together looking on the solemn beauty of woods, rising in purple curves out of untrod- den acres of snowdrift; "Ah," said he, "this is great." But to me the trees in spring are yet greater. When I see them breaking forth into joy, in that holy miracle of resurrection, grow- ing more full and rich every hour, then indeed I realize that I am walking in my Father's house; [ 145] Ci^e ^(lier Cup that God wants me to grow richer in the power of the risen life; that this is the will of God, even my sanctification. Yes, at every season of the year the trees have their own nobleness, — the spring, the summer, the autumn, the winter, — each season, as it comes, brings out some special attribute of no- bleness, in these noble forms of God's rich world. Have you ever thought of some of the many ways in which trees enter into the Bible and stand rooted in its truth, teaching us great lessons of warning or of hope or of sacred and tender re- membrance ? It sometimes seems to me as if the Bible were like a great park planted with mighty trees that flung their shadows over it. At each end of the Bible, the first book of the Old Testa- ment and the last book of the New Testament, stands a great tree. In the Book of Genesis is that tree of knowledge of good and evil, planted in the paradise of Eden, that tree that ever stands associated with the beginning of disobedience and the long sorrow of wrongdoing. In the Book of Revelation stands that blessed and beautiful tree of life, planted in the paradise of God on high, speaking ever to our minds of that new life [ 146 ] when sin shall be no more ; that bright home, of which so often we delight to sing, Where light and life and joy and peace In undivided empire reign. All through the Old Testament history, in con- nection with the building of the tabernacle or the temple, the trees are spoken of as having so much meaning. The cedar -trees, the olive-trees, the red sandalwood-trees, how much they have to do with Israel's worship of God and Israel's history. Even now as we turn the pages it seems as if we could almost smell the spicy odor of those grand old cedars of Lebanon, as if we could almost hear the wind that David heard making ** the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry-trees." In the New Testament there is many a tree standing like a landmark on the hills of time. There stands the sycamore-tree, up into which an earnest, eager man climbed, little caring whether any one thought he were doing a strange thing, if only he might catch sight of Jesus as He came up the road. There is that fig-tree, standing withered and dead, struck as by light- ning with the word of Jesus : "No man eat fruit of thee hereafter forever." There are the palm- [ 147] trees on the road to Jerusalem, from which the branches were torn that men might wave them before the blessed Lord as He rode into the city where He was soon to suffer and be crucified. And, dear children, can we ever forget that again and again the wooden cross on which our dear Lord suffered is called a "tree." You know how tenderly the Apostle Peter says of the death of our Lord: "Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree." That is the great tree of life for us ! Are you resting to-day in its shadow — the shadow of salvation by the tree of Calvary ! These are some of the great historic trees that wave their shadows across the pages of our Bibles. And to these we might add a long and wonderful train of verses in which our life is compared in some way to a tree ; and since I have known and appreciated the beauty of these verses it has been a new and richer thing for me to be in the coun- try, out among the glorious trees. Trees speak to me now in a voice which I did not recognize until I learned these exquisite tree-verses of the Word of God. Will you let me remind you of a few of these tree-verses. Perhaps you will put them away in [ 148] your memories and think of them again this summer, out among the trees. The first one tells us about those to whom the gospel truly comes, the good tidings of the love of Jesus. It is said in Isaiah: "That they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified." That has come to be to me a very dear and beautiful verse. It compares a life to a tree which Christ has planted, which He is looking after and watching and taking care of, waiting till it grows up for His glory so that He can take delight in its strength and its fruitfulness. I have a little piece of land in a certain place, and on that land I have set out some trees ; they are young and small yet, but it is a great pleasure to see them grow, to take care of them, and to think that some day they may be tall and strong, with far-spreading branches. The other day I was looking them over; and it was such a pleasure to find that every one of them had stood the winter frosts and the heavy gales ; and to find that the buds were swelling, and almost ready to burst forth in leaves. And I felt a very special and affectionate interest in those trees, as trees that I had chosen and planted in my own ground. [ 149 ] There are many lives in this church this after- noon that I feel very sure are trees of Christ's own planting. He has planted you in the great garden of His church, and He is watching over your growth with a most loving care and hope. Jesus hopes that you will grow up to be strong and noble trees, bringing forth much fruit. What a comfort it is to feel that we belong to Christ, that we are not wild trees, with no one caring whether we grow up in the right way or not. We are Christ's trees, and He expects us each year to spread out the branches of a wider influence and to bring forth more fruit, that He may be glorified. Oh ! how precious are your lives ! You do indeed seem like fair trees planted in a fair garden. I watch your growth with far more earnest and loving care than I watch for the growth of my trees in the country. Just as the branches of a growing tree cast longer and longer shadows, I have seen some of you beginning to bear beautiful fruit of loving service for the glory of Christ. I often ask myself what will you be, where will you be, ten years, fifteen years hence, still standing, I trust, strong and fair and fruit- ful, in Christ's garden, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified. And then there are some [ 150] Ci^e jHejsjiage of ti^e ^vm dear lives here to-day that I so long to see planted in the garden of Christ. They seem to be growing up outside, away from the rest and out among the wild trees. I know Christ is seeking you, and has got His eye upon you. I know that He wants to transplant your lives into His own garden. I wish that you might let Him have you now, be- fore you have grown any older. It is harder to transplant trees as they grow older; now is the time for many of you to come into Christ's garden. There is another grand tree-verse which I want to mention. It is found in the first psalm. It is the picture of a strong, true, useful life. These are the words: "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord ; and in His law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." Often I have been walking in the country, and in the midst of the field, near, per- haps, to a bright meadow-brook, I have seen a [ 151 ] tree of royal beauty — an oak, or an elm, or a maple. So strong its trunk, so powerful its roots, so graceful its outline, so rich its foliage, I have stopped in admiration. *'What a superb tree! it seems to be everything that a tree ought to be." And sometimes I see a life that reminds me of one of those superb trees ; so strong, so steadfast, so deeply rooted, so close to the living water, so well rounded, so wide in the circle of its influence, so lofty in the reach of its uppermost branches, and I say, what a superb life. It is like a great tree. And that is exactly what the Bible says about a life that will not go with the wicked, that will not keep company with those who scorn holy things, that delights in God's law and loves to think of the right. Such a life is like a superb tree. Perhaps this summer some boy will be walk- ing in the country, and may see standing in a rich meadow one of these superb trees. As he stops to admire it, let him think of the words of the Psalm: **And he shall be like a tree." Let him ask : Why may not my life be like a beau- teous tree — strong, deeply rooted, well rounded, wide spreading, reaching high up into the light [ 152] Ci^e jaejSiSage of tl^e CreejS and the free air? Let him ask this question; let him answer it thus : By Christ's help I will be like the tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth its fruit in its season, and whose leaf does not wither. And now, at the end of this sermon, let me give you two thoughts from the New Testament to tell you how your life can be like the tree, in its strength, its steadfastness, its usefulness. One thought is this: "Rooted in Him." That is, taking root in Christ. Let the very roots of your life, your faith, your thought, your ideals of living, fix themselves in Christ. I tell you the deep-rooted tree is the tree that still stands and waves its branches in the sunlight after the winter gales are over. And the Christ-rooted life is the life that is not blown down in the hurri- canes of temptation that blow upon us in the days of our youth. And then this: "Growing up into Him in all things." The great strong tree obeys a great strong law — Upward, See how it is rising from year to year, how its branches spread on higher levels, and its crest gleams in fuller sunlight. So you. Upward — into Christ — unto Christ. Farther and farther from the dark thickets of sin [ 153] Ci^e filter €nv and untruth. Upward into Light. Christ bless you. The Holy Spirit keep you. May your life be strong as a cedar on earth; victorious as a palm in Paradise. Amen. 91 Comtnanti " ^batj^oeber ^t j^aitft unto gou, Do it." St. John 2 : 5 The words of our text were spoken, as you may remember, by the mother of Jesus. She spoke them to the servants in a house where Jesus was attending a wedding. The wine was all used up, and the servants were troubled, for they did not know what to do. They told the mother of Jesus what had happened, and she was sure that in some way Jesus would help them out of the difficulty. She did not know in what way He would supply the need, so she told the servants simply to go to Him, and to do what- ever He told them to do. She said, *' Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it." To-day, I just want to take those words by themselves, "Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it," and to give them to you. A good way to make the thought clear is to divide it into parts, and to make each part clear ; then, if each part of the thought is clear, the whole thought will be clear. I will then divide my thought into four [ 155 ] Ci^e filter Cup parts, and try to make each part clear. First: You have soraething to do, in the world. Second : You do not know what the right thing to do is unless you are told. Third: Jesus has power to tell you what to do. Fourth : Whatever He tells you to do, do it. The first part of my thought is this : You have something to do, in the world. Now I can ima- gine that some of you think it very strange of me to say such a simple thing as that. " Something to do," you say; " why of course I have something to do. I have any amount of things to do. I have my home duties, and school duties, and my mu- sic, and my pleasures, and all sorts of things to do. In fact, I am just as busy as I can be all the time. Why do I need to be told that I have some- thing to do.^" Wait a minute, dear friend, and let me explain myself. I know that you have a great many things to do, that you are a busy girl, or a busy boy. But it is not exactly that which I mean, in saying, "You have something to do, in the world." I mean this : There is one great and mighty and holy Being Who has sent you into this world, not simply with the idea that you would live on and on a certain number of years, doing anything that happened to come up [ 156] a CommanD at the moment and following out your own fancies. He put you here because He has some- thing for you to do. There is a reason for your being alive. God knows what He wants you to be, and what He wants to do with you. He has a plan which He would like to work out through you. You cannot imagine that God just put you in this world for nothing ; that He gave you your beautiful life just for nothing, and that He never thinks of what you are doing, or of what becomes of you. When I plant the flower seeds in my garden at the beginning of summer, I do it with a purpose in view. I am not satisfied when I have put the seeds in the ground. That is not the reason for which I bought the seeds. I do not go away and think no more about my flower seeds. On the contrary, I planted every one of those seeds for a certain object. I have a plan and a hope and an expectation about those seeds. And day by day I water the ground where they are planted, until they begin to appear, and then I watch their growth, and I take care of them, waiting till they shall bring forth the lovely flowers to obtain which I was led to plant the seeds. So God who planted you in this world is waiting and watching [ 157] for those results in your character and in your work in which He takes delight, and He desires to help you all He can by shedding upon you the sunshine of Christ's love, and by watering your spirit with the gracious influence of His Spirit; and He is waiting in His Love to see your life fulfilling the plan He has for it, and doing all the work He has given you to do. Now it is one of the most precious encourage- ments God has given me in my ministry to see so many young lives waked up to this thought and seeking to do the will of their Father which is in heaven. I thank God daily for the company of young boys and young girls who realize that they have something to do for God in this world, and who are trying to find out what that something is. But I am very, very anxious for some others who do not seem to realize yet that there is anything for them to do for their Heavenly Father. Some of them have everything to make them happy and every advantage of education, and they are as busy as they can be with studies and pleasures and plans; but nothing in their life shows that they want to find what the will of God for them is, and what He would have them to do. And in coming to this service to-day I have prayed to be [ 158 ] a Commanli guided that I might say the right word, and that some who have never caught this thought before, and who are living only to please themselves, might begin to ask, " What does God want me to do with my life ? Lord, what will Thou have me to do?" I think that I have made the first part of our thought clear, namely, that "You have some- thing to do, in this world." If this is clear, let us go to the second part of our thought, which is this : You do not know what the right thing to do is, unless you are told. It is a strange mistake that many people make, in venturing to live their lives, their precious lives, without coming to Him who alone can tell them what is the right thing to do with their lives. It seems so strange that peo- ple make this mistake with their lives, the most valuable thing they have, when, even in little things, they are so quick to find out a teacher able to tell them what they want to know. If we want to study French or German, the first thing we do is to get a teacher. If we want to study art, we get a teacher. If we even want to know how to play a game, we get some one to teach us. If in these simple matters we require teachers, and seek them out as a matter of course, it is surely a [ 159 ] sad mistake to think of letting our life drift on carelessly, through months and years, without coming to the One who alone can truly tell us what to do with our life. One must have the great Teacher. The fact is we do not know how to make the best use of ourselves. And the rea- son of that is we ourselves are sinful; our own judgment is not sufficient to guide us. It is one thing to get an education; it is another thing to know what to do with it after you get it. It is one thing to train your talents under good masters ; it is another thing to know how to use your talents after they are trained. That knowledge does not come of itself. We have to be told what to do. And we have to go to the teacher, and ask Him to tell us. There is a hymn which expresses the thought exactly that I have in mind; it is the words of a dear child who wants to live his or her life so as to accomplish God's plan for it; who realizes that we do not know the right thing un- less we are told; who is unwilling to go any longer drifting on aimlessly, and who comes now to the blessed Teacher, putting everything into His hands, and asking to be taught how to use life so as to glorify God in everything. I wish this hymn might be committed to memory and made [ 160] acotttttianti a real, true prayer to Him Who alone can tell us what the right thing is. Take my life, and let it be Consecrated, Lord, to Thee. Take my moments and my days, Let them flow in ceaseless praise. Take my hands, and let them move At the impulse of Thy love. Take my feet, and let them be Swift and " beautiful," for Thee. Take my voice, and let me sing Always, only, for my King. Take my lips, and let them be Filled with messages from Thee. Take my intellect, and use Every power as Thou shalt choose. Take my will, and make it thine; It shall be no longer mine. Take my heart; it is Thine own; It shall be Thy royal Throne. Take myself, and I will be Ever, only, a//, for Thee. Now, if the second part of our thought is clear, let us go to the third. I have said that you do not know what the right thing to do is unless you are told what to do with your life, and I have spoken [161 ] of coming to the Teacher. Let me now say a word about that Teacher. Jesus has power to tell you what to do with your life. If you want to know what my real, e very-day thought about Jesus Christ is, I will try to tell you. I believe, in the first place, that you and I belong to Him. We are not our own. We do not belong to ourselves, and we have not the right to go and do all sorts of things with our lives, fol- lowing any fancy we may happen to have. You and I belong to Jesus Christ. But how, how did He get possession of us ? By doing what He did on the cross for each one of us. You know what He did; I need not tell you. That dear, won- drous act of unselfishness, that great, willing giv- ing up of Himself for us, gave Him the right to consider us as His own. Now every day I think I feel the truth of that more and more. Instead of growing away from that truth, and forgetting all about it, I think of it more and more, and in my plans, and in the use of what things God has given me to possess, it becomes all the time a more real thought: "My life belongs to Christ." Then, in the second place, I believe that Christ wants your life and my life to be as beautiful as His. His was certainly the most strong, full, glo- [ 162 ] 31 Commanti riously beautiful life ever lived on the earth. And he wants you and me to follow right in His foot- steps and live just as rich and happy a life as He lived. I wonder if any of you have read a book which years ago made a great sensation in this country and in England. It was called "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It was about the negro slaves. It told how some white people used to own poor black people, and how the white slave-owners used to keep getting richer by the labors of their slaves, while the slaves were kept poor and igno- rant, and many of them were treated with the greatest cruelty. I remember how terribly I felt when I read that book as a boy, and thought how the owners of the slaves were so rich and com- fortable, while they kept their slaves poor and made them live like animals. Now I said that you and I belong to Jesus Christ; we are His servants. Some of the apostles used to love to call themselves the "slaves" of Jesus, to show how completely they belonged to Him. But Jesus wants the lives that belong to Him not to be poor and wretched and living like animals, as the negro slaves in the old days ; He wants our lives to be as rich, as full, as free, as beautiful as His own dear life is. He wants to lead us away from [ 163 ] all things that would make us wretched and would bring us into bondage, and to open before us a path of living which is the most free and the most happy in all the world. That is what He wants for you, dear child. You are Christ's own dear one, and His thought for you is: "I want my child to know all the beauty of living, not to lose the very best that I am able to give." But I believe one thing more about Jesus, and must tell you. I believe that He will guide us to use our life in exactly the right way, and that if we allow our lives to be under the influence of His Holy Spirit day by day. He will cause us to grow in beauty of character, in the right develop- ment of our powers, just as the ferns that we all love so much grow, and unfold and expand into all their delicate loveliness and perfection. When I thought about what flowers I should place in our church to-day for the children's service, I felt that I wanted something that would express a beautiful, silent growth. And so these forest ferns are massed here on either hand to-day be- cause they speak to us, as in a parable, of lives growing silently, and unfolding their powers, under the holy influences of the Spirit of God. [ 164 ] a CommanD But, my dear friends, Jesus Christ can only make those lives beautiful and useful that are willing to be guided by His Spirit, and to do what He tells them to do. If any one is simply selfish, and bent on going their own way, and stubborn, and hard-hearted, that growth, that unfolding of which I have spoken, comparing it to these lovely ferns, will stop ; it will not go on. Christ will teach only those of us to use our lives aright, who are willing to be taught, and who are ready to obey. And so the last part of our thought is a very necessary part, if this sermon is going to amount to anything as a helpful influence in your lives. Whatever He tells you to do, do it. The words that the mother of Jesus spoke so long ago at that wedding in Galilee are the words we want now: "Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it." I know that Jesus does speak to us, by His Spirit, and tells us many things intended to guide our lives. Perhaps at this very moment He is so speaking to you. It may be He is telling you to give up something you have been in the habit of doing. He is saying, just as plainly as if a voice were speaking aloud to you : " My child, give up doing this. Stop it. Put it out of your life. It is going to harm you ; to keep you from growing up [ 165] Ci^e ^ilUt Cup into rich, full, beautiful living. I beseech you to stop it." Or it may be He is pointing out something for you to do, which you have not done. "Begin," my child, "begin," He says. "You need this. You are losing time each day you put off this fresh and sweet beginning. Your life will not grow as it ought to grow until you begin this thing. Do not hesitate, do not delay, do not fear to begin." So, to one and to another, so perhaps to every one of us, Christ is speaking now, by His Spirit. Oh ! is there not a power among us now, as we sit here, thinking, thinking so earnestly — is there not a power among us that is pleading with each heart to obey the will of Christ ! Does there not seem a voice — a still small voice — calling through the twilight, solemnly, tenderly, saying: Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it! Amen. Caster Ctjentitie " l^ot unto t})tm^zVtyz^y but unto J^im " 2 Corinthians 5 : 15 I CANNOT describe to you how dear and how precious a thing it is to my soul, to speak to you freely and lovingly on this Easter eventide. This day is so wonderful in all its meanings and asso- ciations, from early dawn to the evening hour. It is simply filled with the glory and the beauty of Jesus. And now that we have come, in the progress of this blessed day, to the sunset hour, when it is toward evening and the day is far spent, let us seek to yield ourselves to the same influences which hallowed and ennobled the eventide hour on the first Easter day. Those were influences of companionship, and of quiet, earnest talk. Jesus walked in the country on the first Sunday , afternoon of His risen life. How He loved in great moments of His Life to get away into the country for broad, quiet thinking. He took the Wednesday before the Crucifixion and spent it away off in the country — the quiet time before [ 167] the battle ; and now that the victory is won and the strife is all over, almost the first thing He does is to get that calm Sunday afternoon walk into the country, as if to think it all over, beneath the grand arch of the sky, and under the swinging clouds, and in the thought-stirring glory of the afternoon light. And there you know, in the country. He falls in with the two disciples bound for Emmaus, and he walks on beside them, talk- ing to them, out of the fullness of His life, in such a manner that their hearts fairly burn within them. And I wish and hope, you dear, dear young lives gathered here at the same hour of Easter day, that He may meet us, in His risen beauty, and walk along at our side, and talk to our very hearts until they too burn with love, and grand desires, and deep responses. What would be the most natural thing for Him to talk about at this hour.? I suppose the very same things He talked about on the road to Emmaus long ago. He would tell us why He died, and why He has risen from the dead, and what His death and His rising ought to mean to us for whom He died and rose again. Particu- larly, I think, this last: what His death and His rising ought to mean to us for whom He died and [ 168] rose again. There is a meaning in His dying and His rising that ought to change our lives, that ought to make our way of living different from what it would be if we did not know, or if, know- ing, we did not believe that He died and rose again for us. Those great New Testament words describe what His death and His rising ought to mean to us. *'He died for all, (why.^) that they which live (i. e. you and I who are alive now) should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him Who died for them, and rose again." There is the very heart of the idea, — "That they which live should not henceforth live unto them- selves, but unto Him." "Not unto themselves, but unto Him." That is surely the very thing Christ wishes to talk about with us, as He walks with us, in His Spirit, this Easter eventide, and opens to us the Scripture. How ought we, who believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, to live our lives? One answer, and one only : "Not unto ourselves, not unto ourselves, but unto Him Who died for us, and rose again." In bringing this out before our minds, as I think it ought to be brought out at this time, there appear to be three things in this verse that are just what Christ wants to say to us, [ 169 ] Ci^e filter Cup and I know that He can say these three things in a way so simple that you cannot fail to understand their meaning, and in a way so grand that you cannot fail to realize their power. The verse reads thus : "He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him Who died for them, and rose again." These, then, are the three things which Christ wants to say to us now as He walks with us, in His Spirit, toward evening on the day of His resurrection. First : That He died for all, there- fore everybody comes in for this Easter message. Second : The spirit of the old life which we are to live no longer. "That they which live should no longer live unto themselves." Third : The spirit and aim of the new life which we are henceforth to live. "That they which live should henceforth live unto Him Who died for them, and rose again." The first thing He wants to say to us to-day, as He walks with us in this calm, thoughtful hour, is, that He died for all, therefore everybody comes in for this Easter message. Almost everything you can think of that man has made or arranged divides people up into classes, and says very plainly. This thing is for some, and not for all. When you go on board a [ 170] great ocean steamer there you find the first cabin, and the second cabin, and the steerage, and probably a rope stretched across the deck and a sign: *' Steerage passengers not allowed abaft of this line" ; meaning the deck is not for all. When you go into one of our great graded schools, one room is for the primary scholars, another for the intermediate scholars, and so on. A poor, home- less, penniless man stands outside of one of our splendid modern hotels and he says, "That place is not for me." A rich man passes the City Mis- sion Night Shelter and says, "That place is not for me." So civilization divides people into groups and classes. I am sorry to say religion does the same thing, to some extent, though not perhaps so much now as in former days. The time has been when a Presbyterian church, or a Baptist church, or an Episcopal church seemed almost to say to a man, by its way of putting things : This church is not for you, unless you are a Presbyterian, or a Bap- tist, or an Episcopalian, as the case may be. I think we are getting less and less of that sort of thing every day, thank God. But every bit of it that is left is reproved and put to shame when we look to Christ and to His [ 171 ] cross. He did not die for a few people; for a group of people, be they rich or be they poor ; for people of a certain age, be they young or be they old. He did not die for people of a certain Chris- tian denomination, be they Presbyterians or Bap- tists or Episcopalians. He did not die for people of a certain kind of character, be they good peo- ple or bad people, believers or atheists or heathen. He died for all, everybody, everywhere, without any exception or omission; for Judas Iscariot as much as for St. John, for the wickedest person alive to-day as much as for the noblest and the best. He died for all; therefore every person comes in for the Easter message, that they who live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him Who died for them, and rose again. He died for all of us. He died! The sting is tremendous when you put it to yourself in that way. You cannot get past it. You cannot get away from it. The cross stops you. It blocks your way. You have to stop, and look at it, and think what it means. When many of us are thus stopped by the cross in our very path and made to look at it and to take in what it means, we begin to make excuses about the way we are liv- ing. One says : ** I have so much to do that I can- [ 172 ] €amv CtenttDe not lead a very earnest life. My time is all taken up with engagements. I have more to think of than I can properly manage." That does not make any difference. He died for you, that you who are a living person should no longer live to yourself, but to Him Who died for you, and rose again. And another says : "I am so timid and so retiring. I like to shrink back into myself; and besides, I am not talented like other people, with the secret of personal influence." That does not make any difference. He died for you, that you should not live unto yourself, but unto Him Who died for you, and rose again. And another says : *'I am not a Christian at all ; I have never bound myself to religion in any way or form. I am free to go and come as I like. I do not claim to be good." That makes no difference. That does not alter the case a particle. He died for you, that you should not live unto yourself, but unto Him. Now this is the first thing Christ wants to say to us as He walks with us, in His Spirit, at this hour, making our hearts burn within us : "I Who am walking with you to-day as your risen Master and Friend, I truly died for each one of you who are here this Easter eventide. See my hands and [ 173 ] Ci^e ^Utet Cup my feet that it is I myself. These hands and these feet were nailed to the cross, this side was wounded with the spear — for each life, young or old, weak or strong, friend or foe. Whatever you may think of me, this is what I think of you. I love you. I love you enough to die for you." — "And why have I died for you ? Is it not because I want to change your way of living, to lift you away from and to keep you away from the old, the sinful, the weak, the inglorious way of living, and to inspire you with ambitions and desires for another way of living worthy of yourself and worthy of me ? Yes ! I died for you, that you who are living to-day should not from this time on- ward live unto yourself, but unto me, Who died for you, and rose again." Now what is the spirit of that old life which we are to live no longer .? He says: *'That you should not from henceforth live unto yourself." That is the reason why He died : to keep us from doing that thing, from living unto ourselves. But suppose any of us insist on doing it after we know that Christ died to keep us from doing it. Sup- pose we are doing it now, — living unto ourselves, — are we not treating the death and resurrection of Jesus with disrespect ? Are we not practically [ 174 ] saying to Him : ''We do not care whether you did or did not die, and rise again ; we do not intend to change our way of living ; we like the old way and we are used to it" ? What is this old way of living ? It is living unto ourselves. And what is that? Why, it is the spirit of selfishness. Now this spirit of selfishness, when you look into it, what is it.^ It is three things. It is the spirit of claiming yourself for yourself. It is the spirit of letting well enough alone. It is the spirit of not caring. I say, it is the spirit of claiming yourself for yourself. That is the old, original spirit of every human life, "to look out," as the proverb says, "for number one." *'I belong to myself, and what I want for myself I mean to get if I can. I do not intend to do things that I do not want to do any more than I can possibly help. I mean to have my share in what there is ; and when I want to do a thing very much, I intend to do it, if I can." That is what I mean by the spirit of claiming yourself for yourself; and you know as well as I that what I have said is perfectly true. Then, the spirit of selfishness is also the spirit of letting well enough alone, unless it is to your personal interest to make it better. The spirit of [ 175] Cl^e ^iVotv Cup selfishness does not impel one to let well enough alone if it is to his interest to make it better. One goes to work quickly enough to better one's self if it pays to do it ; but if he can get as much out of it by leaving it as it is, he leaves it as it is. You find this spirit of letting well enough alone just run- ning through the world. One gets used to the ordinary way of living and says: "Oh! why try for anything better ; let well enough alone. Things can run along just as they are. Where is the use of making any change in our way of living, which may only make things harder for us. Why not take life easily, and drift on with the tide, and do as other people do, and live as other people live. Why bring on trouble and care by stirring things up and striking out for new things and getting yourself talked about as being queer and odd. Then, once more, the spirit of selfishness is the spirit of not caring. Did you ever think what wonderful things your eyelids are — these two little drop-curtains hung above your eyes, that can be raised or lowered so quickly. They are wonderful because they are so little and yet can shut out so much. Look at the heavens above you on a clear night, sown with stars like an infi- [ 176] nite meadow of daisies. Think of the time it would take for a man to walk across that meadow ; yet lower your eyelids and the whole thing is shut out. Look at the ocean from the top of a moun- tain and see it stretch so far and wide it may take a day for a sail to creep from right to left of you ; yet drop those curtains of the eye, and you blot it out. Look at a great library full of books, a storehouse of the wisdom of the world. It would take you a lifetime to explore those treasures; but shut your eyes and you need never see a page. Look at a crowd of people struggling with their lives, working, suffering, learning, sinning, dying; yet shut your eyes and you need not see one. Oh ! weird little curtains of the eye, so small yet shutting out such mighty things. The spirit of not caring is the shutting of the mind's eyes from the things you do not want to see : great truths of God; great needs of humanity; great opportunities of doing good. The spirit of selfish- ness says: "It is easier not to see those things," and so you shut your eyes, and you don't see them. And out of sight, out of mind. Who cares ? It is easy to get rid of all these things and to see the things it pays you to see. Now this is the spirit of selfishness: it is the [ 1'^^ ] Cl^e filter Cup spirit of claiming yourself for yourself, the spirit of letting well enough alone, the spirit of not car- ing. And this is the way that human nature tends to live, boys and girls, men and women, — all tend to this way of selfishness. This is human nature in its present poor condition ; and you can live in this rut of selfishness, if you choose, to the day of your death. But Christ does not want to have you live that way. He loves you so grandly. He cannot bear that you or any one should live that way. Of all things on earth. He most wants to break up in us, and in all men, that spirit of the old life ; and in order to do this. He has made of Himself, and by His own choice, the greatest sacrifice it was possible for Him to make: "He died for all that they which live should not hence- forth live unto themselves." Christ does not want you to live in the spirit of selfishness ; and in His dear love He has died for you, that you might not live any longer in the spirit of selfishness. But how does He want you to live ? What way of living does He think is worthy of you ? Ah ! hear the answer, boy and girl, youth and maiden, and all of you who are yet in your earlier years. Hear it, on this sweet eventide of His resurrec- tion. Hear it as, in His Holy Spirit, He is walking [ 178] ta^ttv CtentfDe by our side in this our earthly pilgrimage. How does Christ want you to live ? Not unto yourself, not unto yourself, but unto Him Who died for you, and rose again. Yes ! Who rose again and is with you to help you to live the life He wants yoii to live. Who rose again and brings the power of His resurrection, like a glory and a blessing and a well-spring of light and leading into every life that will take as its ideal henceforth and forever : To live unto Him ! To live unto Him ! And what will it mean if on this great evening we do take it, take it again, take it forever, as our ideal and as our aim — to live unto Him Who died for us, and rose again. It means just the opposite of living unto yourself. Living unto yourself means claim- ing yourself for yourself. Living unto Him means carrying about with you the grand thought that you, in your spirit, in your mind, yes, even in your body, belong unto Christ Who has redeemed you with His precious blood; that your life is a great trust which God has committed unto you, and which you truly want to use in whatever way is best, according to God's definition of best. Living unto yourself means letting well enough alone ; but living unto Him means just the oppo- site. You cannot be satisfied to run in a rut if [ 179] you are living unto Christ, for His Spirit is always teaching you new things, giving you higher and higher views of what your own life means, giv- ing you grander ideas of truth and of service. You cannot let well enough alone, as the lazy phrase goes, because nothing seems to you well enough ; you are always seeing something better and trying for it; always believing that there is something better, and that the best is yet to be. Living unto yourself means not caring, shut- ting your eyes to all the things you do not care about seeing, and shutting them out of your mind if you can. Living unto Him is just the opposite. It is caring with all your heart for the things that are great and good and broad and godlike, — caring for truth, caring for a broad usefulness, caring to influence and to save others, caring to keep very, very close in heart, mind, and life to the Lord Jesus Christ. Dear friend, sitting so thoughtfully here in the midst of all these great Easter thoughts and associations, there never can come to you a nobler hour than this in which to make for the first time, or, if made before, to make freshly and renewedly a hearty dedication of your life to Him Who died for you, and rose again. This day of His [ 180 ] resurrection is surely the day of all days on which to say from the depths of an earnest heart such words as these : — Just as I am, Thine own to be. Friend of the young, who lovest me, To consecrate myself to Thee, O Jesus Christ, I come. Just as I am, young, strong, and free. To be the best that I can be. For truth, and righteousness and Thee: Lord of my life, I come. Amen. ^ iLife JEessage Psalm 121 : 5 Will you listen while I earnestly try to give you a life message, a tender, faithful word from God, that unseen Friend whose love for you is greater than any words of mine can describe ; so great, so wonderful that only God Himself can make you realize it. The life message is this, very short, very easy to remember, but oh ! how grand and how beautiful is its meaning: "The Lord is thy keeper." Only five words, but each one bright as a star, and all together like one of those glorious constellations which you see when on a clear night you lift up your eyes to the sky. "The Lord is thy keeper!" May those shining words now be seen in all their beauty as we lift up our minds to think of God. In the early part of last week, a friend, who loves children and who has children of her own to love, asked me if I had found the right mes- sage for the children's service. I replied, "Not quite certainly." And she said, "Oh! will you [ 182 ] a life jHejijSage not take the text, ' The Lord is thy keeper,' and make it a special message to the lives of chil- dren? My mother," said she, "gave me those words when I was a child ; she wrote them in my Bible, and they have helped me all my life. Surely they will help other children even as they helped me." When that mother, long years ago, wrote on the fly-leaf of her little daughter's Bible, "The Lord is thy keeper," I think she wrote the most beautiful and the most helpful thought about God that can enter into a child's soul ; and I am sure, as she wrote the words, she hoped that the thought which is in those words might teach her child to think about God in the right way, and might grow in its power over her child's ideas and actions ; I am sure she hoped that, through the influence of those words her child might be drawn very near to God, and might have a per- fect trust in Him always. For that is what the words will do for every one who understands and believes them. " The Lord is thy keeper" means : The Lord will watch over thee, guard thee, pro- tect thee, help thee, take care of thee, always and everywhere. He will give thee that which is best for thee to have ; he will make thee able to meet [ 183 ] Ci^e ^ilber Cup each new thing that happens ; he will teach thee all needful wisdom and give thee all needful strength. And so, in her little girl's Bible the mother wrote, "The Lord is thy keeper," hoping that the sight of those words might teach her child to trust God for everything, to depend on Him for safety and strength and guidance, and to be calm, because of that great trust in God, in all times of sickness, sorrow, danger, and even death itself, sure that God was her "best and kindest friend," and that He would "love her to the end." But why was that mother so anxious to have her child grow to depend on God for all safe keeping and advice and help ? Why did she not write in the Bible, instead of "The Lord is thy keeper," "Your mother is your keeper: she loves you, she will take care of you, she will keep you in all your difficulties, she will be to you the truest and best adviser in the world." Did she not hope and expect to do all she possibly could for her darling child ; did she not want to be the keeper of her child, watching over her life, shielding it from danger, comforting it in trouble, helping it over each difficulty ? Yes, surely, she wanted to do everything she could possibly do for her little [ 184 ] girl. There could not have been a more loving, faithful mother. But that mother knew, as every true mother and true father knows, how soon the time comes in a child's life when a child needs a greater and a wiser keeper than its father or its mother. There may be between the parent and the child that perfect love which casteth out fear ; and the child may wish to tell its every thought to its mother or to its father ; but no matter how much love there is, and how much confidence there is, quickly and surely comes the time when that young heart must have a keeper more loving than the tender- est mother, more wise and strong and good than the best of fathers, and if it does not know and find and trust that greater keeper very early it is in danger of going altogether wrong. Now I am speaking the plainest truth, and I know you will all understand me when I say, long before you get past your childhood you need some one else for a keeper beside your parents. This comes true in many ways. Sometimes a mother or a father dies, and leaves a little child without that help it so much needs. There are young lives here that have been so left. Some- times children have to live away from their par- [ 185 ] ents, going for months, for years, without any other help from their parents than that which could be given in letters. Sometimes parents and children, though living together, cannot under- stand each other, and cannot seem to have that intimate fellowship in which the child can freely speak forth its thoughts. Everything may be open and happy which pertains to outside mat- ters, but when you come to the deep things of the heart, there is silence, and neither one can un- derstand the other. But when I have said this, I have not said all. There remains one greater and deeper reason why a child needs a greater keeper than its mother or its father can be. Every child begins very early to live its own life, by having thoughts which it can express to God only, and feelings which it cannot always express even to God, nor fully understand in itself. What a strange, tremendous thing is that waking up of thought and feeling in your life; those deep, rushing waves of impulse that surge over you, those indefinite, unsatisfied longings, those new experiences of good and evil, those swelling emotions of joy and of hope, or of sad- ness and of despondency ; those mysterious temp- tations, those solemn hungerings after God. As [ 186] a life jttejSiSage you go about your home, as you sit in your school, as you walk the streets, as you lie down at night, these new experiences of light or of darkness come upon you and take possession of you. Per- haps some small part of these things you could speak of to a mother, or to a father, or to a friend ; but the greater part of them you cannot put into words. The thoughts and feelings and desires which are not good you hide within yourself, ashamed to be known as having them ; while the grand and holy thoughts, the beautiful desires, seem too sacred to utter. Even so are you finding out that you have a life of your own, which you do not understand, which you cannot fully ex- plain to any one, and which you do not know how to manage. This new-found life gives you at times much joy — and at times no end of trouble. Sometimes you are very happy, and often in that innermost secret place of your own heart you are confused, discouraged, and overwhelmed, and no matter how much you confide in your most trusted friend on earth, there is always more in your life, both of good and of evil, both of aspira- tion and of temptation, than you dare whisper in any human ear. Shall I tell you what all this means ? Shall I [ 187] tell you why this strange awaking of yourself takes place? This is one way in which God makes us realize that we need a keeper, some one to take care of us and guide us, greater than our- self, greater than a human friend. Perhaps we could never know that we need God, and so per- haps we could never find God, were it not for this waking up of our life with all its strange excite- ment of joy and sorrow; its temptations, strug- gles, and secret griefs. If there were no thoughts ever coming into your mind which you could not speak, if there were no great desires which you could not satisfy by talking of them, it might be you and I would live our whole lives without any sense of needing God. But oh ! how many of you know that your lives are full of thoughts, desires, and efforts which God only knows, because you can show them only to Him. So, little by little, and one by one, we begin to learn that best and dearest of all lessons, *'The Lord is thy keeper" ; and as we slowly realize that this mysterious com- bination of feelings and desires and temptations and failures and victories is our own life, we also begin to see God as our own life-keeper, as the only one who fully knows us, and the only one who is fully able to take care of us ; and then at [ 188 ] a Life ^ma^t length that glorious prayer becomes a reality in our daily life: "Jesus, keep me." Oh ! it is a glorious prayer : *' Jesus, keep me." It is a prayer of perfect confidence in God the Father. We feel that we know God the Father, for we see Him revealed in Jesus, and we rejoice to place our lives trustfully in God's keeping. We love God with a deep, trusting love. We love Him because He is so good. He is pure, holy, beautiful, true ; nothing that is not pure and true can we associate with Him. Bright as light, pure as snow, is God's character. We love Him be- cause He is so wise. We know that whether we explain ourselves to God or not. He will under- stand us ; that His wisdom sees all our need, and knows what is truly best for us. We love Him because He is so strong. He is able to do more than we ask, exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. It seems so glorious to have one to take care of us who is so strong. We love Him because He loves us : all His goodness, wisdom, and strength are crowned with tender, pitying love. And so when we pray, *' Jesus, keep me," it is a prayer of perfect confidence in the Father Whom Jesus has manifested. "Jesus, keep me"! It is a prayer of perfect [ 189] faith in what Christ has done for us, on the cross ; we feel that He Who died for us, and rose again, has prepared the way for us to come very, very near to God, and that we dare speak to Him of every sin, of every trouble, of every humiliating weakness, of every secret in our life, that we can live without any reserve before Him, and tell Him all because He has suffered for men and with men, and has a perfect sympathy toward men. *' Jesus, keep me." It is a prayer of perfect con- fidence in what the Holy Spirit, Whom Jesus has sent, can and will do in us. Jesus has sent the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, to be in us. And day by day, Jesus will keep us through the Spirit. The Holy Spirit guides the judgment of those in whom He lives, showing us the right thing to do when we get into a tangle of circumstances, in- fluencing our minds with pure and wise and wholesome opinions, and making us incline to the things that are safe and sweet and strong. The Holy Spirit strengthens the will of those in whom He dwells, so that more and more, in the hour of temptation, we shall choose light rather than darkness. The Holy Spirit gives us brave and calm thoughts in times of danger. When, for example, w^e are out sailing, and a sudden storm [ 190] a life f^ma^t comes up, and we know not but that the next squall of wind may capsize the boat, and throw us into the sea ; or when the fierce thunder-storm bursts forth at midnight, and the blazing light- ning strikes a tree or a house near by, and we know that the next instant it may be our turn to receive the dreadful blow; or when we become sick, when pain and fever are growing worse, when we know that we have some dreadful dis- ease, and that in a little while we may be dan- gerously ill, — in such times, it is the Holy Spirit Who makes us perfectly brave and calm. We pray that greatest and most comforting prayer, ** Jesus, keep me," and He answers that prayer by sending that sweet influence of His Spirit freshly through our hearts. It may be the danger does not go away : perhaps the boat does capsize, perhaps the lightning will strike the house, per- haps the doctors and the nurses cannot stop the disease, and we may grow worse and worse until we know that we are dying, — these things may come to us as they come to others. God has not promised to keep trouble and sickness away from us because He is our keeper. No ! but He has promised to give us, by His Spirit, that sweet, strong trust that in the end that which is best shall [ 191 ] m)t ^il\)n Cup conquer in our life, and that perfect peace which neither danger nor sorrow shall utterly abolish or destroy. Hear these words about the "keeping" : "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee" ; "the peace of God which passeth all un- derstanding shall keep your heart and mind in the knowledge and love of God" ; "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me ; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me." Now I say to you, dear friend, have you that peace ? Do you know the Lord as your keeper ? Have you placed your life in Jesus' hands that He may take care of it, and do with it as He will ? Do you feel that He is with you in danger, in sickness, in sorrow, in temptation, as well as in strength and health and happiness ? Do you be- lieve that everywhere and always, when you are in company, when you are alone, you are being "kept" by the All Holy One ? If this thought is already in your life to any extent, will you not seek a more complete knowledge.? Nothing will give you such a noble idea of living as this ; it will help you to realize the sinfulness of sin, it will show you that you are not alone in temptation, it [ 192 ] a Life ittejsjsage will constantly remind you of the holy purpose which God has in store for you ; it will make you brave and calm when thrown suddenly in cir- cumstances of great danger; and when it comes your turn, as it may come, to go voluntarily and expose yourself to great danger, for the good you may do to others, it will take from you all timidity ; it will support you with a splendid and reasonable joy. And if to any of you this thought is new and strange, I ask you to look at it. I suppose you have had your share of struggle against sin. I suppose you have made plenty of honest efforts to break off wrong ways; but from this time onward try to realize that the Lord Jesus Christ is your keeper, and that He is able to keep you from falling, and to keep in your heart a gracious abiding of the Spirit which shall make you a con- queror at last. Oh ! that some one of you, dear young hearts, may this afternoon take the Lord for your keeper. I cannot tell what your life may be. I cannot look ahead into the years and see what is before you; what life-work you are to do, what happiness or what sorrow, what success or what discouragement is coming to you. To us it is all uncertainty. But of one thing I am sure, [ 193] Cl^e ^ilbtv Cup perfectly sure, that it is wise and blessed and good to take Christ at once for our keeper. He is able to keep that which we commit to His trust. And He has said concerning all those who are given into His keeping : "They shall never perish; nor shall any man pluck them out of my hand." %f}t ^il\jer Cup Genesis 44 : 2 In these days, when children have so many beautiful things, many a child has a silver cup of its own. No doubt some of you have silver cups, engraved with your names. They were given when you were born, or when you were baptized, or on your first Christmas day. Your silver cup was given by your father or mother, or by a dear grandparent, or by a loving uncle or aunt. You prize it very much, use it very often, and intend to keep it for a treasure as long as you live. Perhaps some of you will use your silver cups to-night at supper. If so, remember, when you use them, the beautiful story about a silver cup which I am now about to tell you. It must have been a very grand cup, and probably it was a much larger cup than yours. It was almost more like a silver bowl than like your silver cup. It be- longed to Joseph ; and it can hardly be necessary for me to tell any one here who Joseph was, and what were the main facts in his history. Joseph is one of the people in the Old Testament whom we have known best and longest. Does not every [ 195] Cl^e ^ilUt Cup boy and girl remember the coat of many colors which his father Jacob gave him in his boyhood ? Do we not all remember how jealous of him his brothers were, and how they made up a mean plot to get rid of him, and to tell his father that he had been killed by the wild beasts ? Oh ! it was a terrible story of jealousy and lying: how they seized the poor little boy one day and threw him down into an old well which was dry. They did not mean to drown him, for they knew there was no water in the well, but they meant to leave him in that dreary hole, all alone, to weep, to starve, to die. And then, to make his poor old father think the wild beasts had killed Joseph, they took his pretty coat and dipped it in the blood of a young goat; and just then came along the mer- chants on their way to Egypt, and these wretched brothers, thinking it would be better to make money out of their little brother than to leave him alone to die, dragged him out of the well, sold him to the merchants for twenty pieces of silver, and carried home the blood-stained coat to their broken-hearted old father. It was a terrible story, and one that would be too sad to talk of if it had not turned out so brightly in the end. For the story of the boy I 196] Joseph, as it opens up after the violent act of his brothers, is like sunlight breaking through after a thunder-storm. He had his trials and his hard times, down in Egypt, it is true, because he would not do wrong as others did, but after a time he lived past those trials and had a great reward. He simply became a prince in Egypt, honored and trusted everywhere. Great wealth, great power, were given to him, as tokens of the confi- dence and respect felt toward him; he had a great house of his own, with servants at his com- mand. The king treated him as kindly as if he had been his son; gave him everything which a king's son would be likely to have or to need in Egypt. In other words, although Joseph was not an Egyptian and did not worship the Egyptian gods, he had the full outfit of an Egyptian prince given to him. One of the beautiful things in his house was the great silver cup, as large as a bowl, and exceed- ingly beautiful. You would find a cup like this in the palace of any prince in Egypt. These silver cups had another use beside that of drinking vessels. They were called "divining cups," i. e. men pretended to be able, by means of them, to read the future and tell what was going to hap- [ 197] Ci^e ^ilber Cup pen. They used them in this way : filling the silver cup with water, they would set it in the sunlight, and then into the water they would drop a beau- tiful, glittering jewel, and as the jewel lay in the water at the bottom of the cup, the sunlight would fall on it and send a beam of light flashing in one direction or another. And by the way the light flashed in the silver cup they claimed to be able to learn about the future and to be guided in their lives. Joseph had one of these splendid sil- ver cups. It was an ornament in his house. We do not know whether he did or did not use it as a "divining cup," but probably he did not, for he worshiped God. Time passed by, and far away, in the land where Joseph's father and brothers lived, there came a year when the grass and the corn would not grow, when the fields were dry as dust, and cattle and men were starving to death. Some- thing had to be done, so the brothers went to ^ Egypt to buy as much corn as their beasts would ' carry. Each man had an enormous bag in which to put the corn, that he might load it on the back of the beast of burden. They came to Egypt, and were brought into the palace of Joseph. They knew him not. He had grown to be a man. But [ 198] he knew them, and his heart went out to them with all the old love. He did not let them know who he was, but his one thought was to win their hearts, and to bring together the long-broken family. He questioned them about their father and their younger brother Benjamin, whom they had left with their father. They told him all with- out knowing who he was. Then he told them that if they needed corn they must bring that younger brother. They could take the corn home to their father, but one of them, Simeon, must stay as a prisoner in Egypt until the others came back with that younger brother. They went back with the message to their fa- ther, and when he heard that the prince in Egypt said Benjamin must go there, too, the poor old man was just heart-broken. He said : " Benja- min is my dear pet. If you take him, I shall die. Joseph is gone and Simeon is gone, and now have I got to give up Benjamin, too .^" And they told him : "If you want anything to eat you will have to send Benjamin ; that prince in Egypt said so." Well, they took Benjamin and they went again to Egypt, and oh! what love filled Joseph's heart when he saw that dear boy. He wanted to throw his arms around him then and there, but the time [ 199] Cl^e filter Cup had not come to make himself known. So he let them fill their bags with corn, and they were about starting for home, when he called one of his servants and said : *' Get my silver cup and slip it in at the top of Benjamin's bag of corn." The brothers went away, and soon a servant ran after them, pretending to be very angry, and said: " Which of you has taken away my master's silver cup.^" They all said: *' Not any one of us. We would not do such a thing. You may search our bags, and if you find that cup among them, the man in whose bag it is found shall go back with you as a slave." The search was made, and there, in Benjamin's bag, the cup was found. They were all perfectly overwhelmed. They had pro- mised their father that nothing should happen to Benjamin, and here something had happened which was worse than death ; he had been found carrying off the silver cup of the prince. Heavy- hearted and despairing they all went back — and then you know the beautiful end of the story. When Joseph saw that he had brought those brothers back, that he had worked upon their lives until he had made them humble and tender and anxious, then he no longer held back the tide of love that was overflowing his heart. He [ 200 ] C]^e ^ilUv Cup let them see and know who he was, he kissed the older ones and forgave them for the wrong they had done to him so many years before, and then throwing his arms around the neck of Benjamin, the precious younger brother, he poured out upon him all the wealth of love that was in his heart. This is one of the most beautiful stories of th^ Old Testament, a story that never wears out, and which, the longer we think of it and the better we know it, suggests more wonderful thoughts to our mind, — thoughts of that Friend who stick- eth closer than a brother. Who knew us even when we knew Him not. Who loved us ere we knew Him, Who will not let us go, Who keeps bringing us back to Himself again and again that we may at last perfectly know Him. In the midst of this great story shines the silver cup — the cup into which men used to look, pretending to read by the sunlight glistening on the jewel at the bot- tom of the water wondrous secrets of life. We do not believe in any such magic as that ; we do not pretend that we can tell what is going to happen by dropping a precious stone into a silver cup full of water, and watching the rays of sunlight play over it. But I do think to-day we can take [ 201 ] Joseph's silver cup and fill it with the living water of God's truth, and hold it up in the sunlight of Christ's love, and see some wonderful sug- gestions in that silver cup as it passed between Joseph's life and Benjamin's life, the older brother and the younger brother, and was the means of expressing the love of the older to the younger, and of bringing the younger to know the older. There are thoughts shining in the silver cup, oh, my dear child friends, which have much to do with your lives ; some of you have found out these thoughts already, and as I repeat them to- day, they will bring freshly back to you the won- derful love of Jesus Who has brought you to know Himself as your elder brother ; and some of you have not found out these thoughts, and my prayer is that as the sunlight of Christ's love streams into the silver cup now, you may see and understand as you have never done before. Let us look down together into the sunlight that is playing in the silver cup, and what do we see? Well, first of all we see the two brothers, Joseph and Benjamin, the older brother and the younger brother. Joseph is like Christ; Benja- min is like you, as you are now or as you once were. Look first at Joseph and see what there is [ 202 ] €]^e filter C«p in his relation to Benjamin that reminds us of Christ's relation to you. Joseph knew Benjamin. He thought of him not as a stranger, but as a brother. He felt that he was of the same flesh and blood as Benjamin. He had never forgotten Benjamin all through those years in which Benjamin had been living the life of a simple little boy in his father's house and Joseph had been living a glorious life as a prince and ruler in Egypt. And Jesus knows you, dear child, whoever you are, living a simple, quiet life in your father's and mother's house — a boy, a girl. Jesus Who is exalted a Prince and Saviour on the throne of His glory has never forgotten you. He knows you as your Brother. He has taken upon Himself the same flesh and blood that you wear; a human body like your human body, a human mind like your human mind. He is not too great, too high, to know you. He does know you with a perfect knowledge. Joseph loved Benjamin. He not only knew him but loved him, with a special, tender, gener- ous love. The many great duties of the state that fell upon him to do, the many brilliant friends at court with whom he associated, had no power to take away his love for his younger brother. And [ 203 ] when he saw him standing there before him, and realized that Benjamin did not know him, but looked at him as a stranger, the chief desire in his heart was to arrange some way to get hold of Benjamin's life and make Benjamin know him. And even so the blessed Jesus not only knows you, but loves you as His younger brothers and sisters. He is on His throne in glory. Tens of thousands of saints and angels are in His pre- sence, great affairs are occupying His thoughts, but nothing can crowd you out of His thoughts or make Him cease to love you with more than a brother's love, for He has done for you what Joseph had not done and could not do for Benja- min, much though he loved him, — He has laid down His life for you. And He sees you all now. Some of you know Him and are answering His look of love with your own beaming eyes; but perchance there is some dear boy or girl standing here before the Lord Jesus, as Benjamin stood before Joseph, not having the least idea who He really is, and not imagining the love with which He is looking on you. So stood Benjamin before Joseph. He did not know him as he really was. He only thought of Him as a great, powerful prince, who did not care for anything except get- [ 204 ] €]^e Oilier Cup ting paid for the corn he sold. And thus probably most of us have stood before Jesus at some point in our life. Our only thought about Him was that He was a great prince on His throne, high and powerful, and we never realized that He was our brother, and that He was full of the most tender love to us personally, and that He was think- ing about us, and longing for us to understand Him and know Him, that we might receive and respond to His great love. So this is the first thought which we have found shining in the silver cup. Now let us look again, and see something else. See Benjamin going away from Joseph, without knowing him. They bought their corn and turned away to go home. And probably as Jo- seph looked on Benjamin getting ready to go home he thought: *' There is my little brother going away, and going away without knowing who I am and how much I love him. If I let him go back to his home the chances are he will never come back, and he will never in this world know me as his brother — will never know how I love him, never know how much I want to do for him. I cannot let him thus break away from me with- out knowing me. I must arrange something that [ 205 ] Cl^e Oilier €np will bring him back to me of his own accord at a time when I can make myself fully known to him. I know what I will do. I will take something of my own, something precious and sacred, and put it in his keeping without his knowledge, and by and by he will find it out that he has something which belongs to me and he will come back of his own accord, and put his life in my hands, and then I will show him who I am and he will know me and know my love." And so with these thoughts in his mind, Joseph took that precious silver cup and secretly put it in Benjamin's bag, and waited. And this I think is like what Jesus is doing to-day for his younger brothers and sisters. He sees a dear boy or girl standing before Him, quite unconscious of His love and ready to turn to go away without knowing Him, perhaps never more in this world to come back to Him, and He says : " My child, I cannot let you go from me for- ever. I must put something of mine in your life which you will find after a while and which will bring you back to me of your own accord." And what is it He puts in your life ? Something infi- nitely more precious than silver or gold, some- thing that is indeed His own — a living power — the Holy Spirit. And I believe that this day He is [ 206 ] Cl^e ^ttbtv Cup putting His Spirit into some hearts that do not yet know Him as their brother, and perhaps after many days, and after they have wandered far from Christ, they will discover what there is in their life that belongs to Christ, and that great discovery will bring them anxiously to His feet, to find Him out in all the fullness of His love. And now let us look once more, and for the third and last time, into the silver cup wherein is shining so brightly the sunbeams of Christ's love, and what shall we see ? We shall see how Benjamin, the younger brother, was led back to Joseph, the older brother, to find out all the love that was in store for him. Benjamin was going away, and was getting farther and farther away, when suddenly something happened that led to a great discovery. The servant of Joseph came after him and told him he had something precious in his possession that belonged to Joseph. At first he would not believe it ; but then he began to look, and he found that he had the precious silver cup. He was anxious, he was troubled, and with a heavy heart he went back to the prince to be his slave. And the moment the prince saw his dear young life coming, so sad, so anxious, so con- fused, that great prince threw his arms around [ 207 ] his neck and said, '*I am your brother. I put that precious thing into your bag that you might find it and be troubled and come back to me, for I longed to have you know me, I longed to be able to do for you all that was in my heart." Ah! my child, you can understand this. To some of you the day has already come, to others of you the day will surely come, when I, or some other messenger of the royal prince, our Saviour, will follow you and tell you you have something in your life which is precious and which belongs to Christ, and you, searching your own thoughts, will discover in yourself with anxious, confused, and new emotions this mystery of the Holy Spirit, and perhaps heavy-hearted, tearful, feeling that your life is all upside down, you come to Christ of your own accord, because you cannot stay away. And He meets you, not with stern rebukes and with threatenings of punishment, but with open arms and beaming face and lov- ing heart, to give you a brother's welcome, and to make you know Him as He is. Wonderful, won- derful joy to know Jesus as our brother, to feel that He takes away the burdens and supplies the wants of our heart ; that He gives a new meaning to our life, a new direction to our powers. [ 208 ] Ci^e ^ilbtv €np I've found a Friend; Oh! such a friend, He loved me ere I knew Him; He drew me with the cords of love. And thus he bound me to Him; And round my heart still closely twine Those ties which nought can sever. For I am His and He is mine Forever and forever. Amen. 91 Rummer JHessase "31 toifl netoer leabe ttee nor foriSaftc tbee " Hebrews 13 : 5 The summer is something we all love and are thankful for. What lovely times many of you have in the summer ! Why, it is a perfect dream ! You are just as free as birds. No school, no work, except a very little, fresh air, green fields, tennis, bicycles, boats, plunges in the cool sea, merry walks over the hills ; I cannot begin to tell all the beautiful things you will do ; and meantime you will be growing brown and strong, and over your dear heads the days and weeks will fly like swift and buoyant birds. I do not believe there is one child here who loves summer any better than I do. Nobody could love it better. In fact, it sometimes seems to me in the summer-time, off among the boats and the breakers, that I go back about twenty years on the road that leads toward my boyhood. I am just as glad as one of you to get a pair of oars in my hands, or to race down the shining beach and bound into the surf. [ 210 ] a Rummer iWejssiaQe But do you know there is one thing about the coming of summer that I do not enjoy, and I enjoy it less and less as I grow older, and that is, not the heat, for I like hot weather and cold weather and all kinds of weather just as they come; and not the packing up, for I think I was a born traveler and would be ready any day to pack up and go around the world, if it were not for leaving some people behind ; but its just that very thing I do not enjoy, and I enjoy it less and less as I grow older ; it is leaving some people behind, whom I cannot take with me. I do not enjoy the way so many of us who are friends have to leave and forsake one another when summer comes. Why, nowadays, when many people go from town very early and come back very late it is true that about half the year is broken up by these separations. And when, children, you get along in life, even so far as I have gone, you feel, if you love some people much, and depend upon them much, that it throws just a little shadow, even on the bright, sunny summer, to have to spend half your life in leaving people with whom you would like to stay. Yet, after all, when you come to think it all over, this is just about what one half of life is, — leaving people, or being left [ 211 ] by them, and getting used to it. Now, you know, I think it is very hard work, getting used to it; and I am not so sure that I want to get used to it. I am not so sure that I want to see the time when I can go away from people without caring or have them go away from me without feeling lonely. I met a man once, not quite as old as I, who told me his father and mother died when he was hardly more than a baby, and he was put with an unkind guardian, from whom he ran away as soon as he could, and took care of himself ever after, living in boarding-houses, hotels, lodgings, all over the country. And he said to me : '* I never knew what it was to feel that I had a home for one day, nor to have one person care whether I came or went. And now," he said, '* I care for nobody. It makes no difference to me whether I leave people or stay with them. I like one place as well as another, and I don't know what it is to lose a friend, for the simple reason I never had one to lose." I looked at that man in perfect amazement. I thought to myself: Is it possible for a man thirty years old never to have known what it is to love or to be loved by anybody. And when I thought how different my life had been all the way through, how full of love, how rich [ 212 ] a Rummer pLma^t with precious associations, it seemed to me I could not pity him enough, and that I must try to help every one to prize and to guard everything in life that tends to keep friends together and make them cling to one another. I know, of course, there are a good many fathers and mothers who say : " The world is full of separation and leave-takings and that sort of thing, and you have got to train children to get used to it — to depend on themselves, not to be so dependent on others." That may be all true enough. The world is full of partings, and the days may come to you, dear boys and girls, when you may have to depend on yourselves very largely, and it is always a good thing to be able to take care of yourself and to do for yourself. But I think there is mpve than one way to teach a child how to do that. And I do not think the best way to teach a child to be brave is by leaving it alone to shift for itself, by throwing it out of the nest before it can fly a stroke, and leaving it to get its strength through suffering. I think God wants us to be brave and strong, but His way to make us so does not seem to be by leaving us. I think His way is to stay by us, surrounding us with His presence and teaching us how to use our powers. [ 213 ] I think God says : not, "I will leave you to your- self to find your own way through the world," but this : "I will never leave you nor forsake you." I have met some good people here and there who think the best way to make a child brave and strong and useful is to leave him to himself, to fight his way alone. And they begin that sort of thing with little babies three months old. Bed- time comes on, and baby must be undressed and laid down in her crib, and out goes the gas and up goes baby's bitter crying, frightened, desolate, lonely, left by her father and mother, who are just like God to her ; and her poor little baby universe is about as black and wild to her as ours would be to us with God gone out of it. "Never mind," says the mother, as the piercing cries of the terri- fied little lamb echo downstairs, grown more hoarse and more desperate until tney die away in pitiful sleepy sobs, — *' Never mind; baby must learn to be left ; she must cry herself to sleep ; she will have to meet it in life, and she might as well begin now." Oh ! I do not believe in that way. I am afraid of it — afraid that the babies who cry themselves to sleep because their parents wanted them to get used to being left, may all too soon get used to [ 214 ] a Rummer iHejSjsage being left, may grow to find that they do not need their parents — may grow from that to think they do not need their Father in Heaven to stay with them and watch over them. I thank God for the children to whose infant fancies their parents seemed like God, never leaving nor forsaking them, always at hand to hear their cry, always ready to bear them in the everlasting arms of love, always helping the child to quietness and goodness, not by leaving it alone to sob itself to sleep, but staying by with a patient pity like God's patient pity, to teach it and to help it to be quiet and to be good. Then a child whose father and mother have been to it like God grows to think of God as a Father whose heart is gentle, whose arms are strong; of God as one who comforts as a mother comforteth ; of God as near, always near, never leaving, never forsaking. I will never leave you — never — never. No! I think babyhood and childhood are too short to lose one hour of a parent's care that can possibly be given; I think the little nest is too wonderful to be stirred one day before the time that has to be. I think that all the pure and holy friendships we can have are too necessary to us, to be risked in any way needlessly, thoughtlessly, [ 215] Ci^e ^ilber Cup or spitefully. Why do I add that last word spite- fully? Because it is in the spirit of spitefulness some of the holiest, truest, and most necessary relationships of life are being risked and trifled with day by day. A little quarrel springs up, about some trifling thing which in itself amounts almost to nothing when compared with the great objects of life, and lo and behold! people who occupy the most sacred possible relations to one another — relations which are necessary and pre- cious : a sister and a brother ; a mother and a daughter; a son and his father; a husband and wife; two girl friends; two boy friends; a man and a woman — seem to lose all sense of the dig- nity and importance of the relation they sustain to each other, and force, on one side or the other, this wretched quarrel which is insignificant com- pared with the relationship it is endangering, until these two lives are just about ready to leave and forsake each other. It is too bad, too terrible the ways in which friendships are risked, wasted, thrown needlessly away in this world where the great, solemn, unavoidable changes of life are marching on apace to us all. It is risking all for nothing : as two children may go out rowing in a crank boat, some little dispute arises about an oar [ 216] or a seat; they struggle for it, capsize the boat, are drowned. What for? For nothing. Oh! if there should be one child here, tempted to draw away from a brother, a sister, a father, a mother, because of something you do not like; or if there should be an older life, forsaking another for some little incident which has made a quarrel, — I say it must not, shall not, be. Life is too short, love too precious and too rare to trifle with. It is monstrous to sacrifice one friendship needlessly, when so many have to go in the course of time. Pride and spite fill the world with needless hard- ship. Keep all the love you can. Too much has to be given up. Keep what you can. If any that might be kept is in danger, secure it ere you sleep to-night. For I assure you, my child, if you live in this world till you grow old, you will have to stand many partings, many separations, many shocks, many changes in yourself and in others which cannot be escaped. This is the thing perhaps hardest for you to realize now if you are happy and well. It seems as if things would go on this way always. But they will not. They will change and you will change; and many of the things that interest you now will no longer interest you, and [ 217 ] Ci^e ^ilUv Cup many of the things that would still have inter- ested you will go away from you. Other things will come in; some that you do like, some that you do not like. Now when I tell you this, I can fancy what a desolate thought it seems to be to some of your hearts, particularly to you who are happiest. Do you remember the story of the little girl (I think Mrs. Moles worth tells it) who went to bed in her own pretty room, where all was so safe and sweet and snug, and she had a dream. She dreamed that she awoke shivering with cold. The door of her room was gone ; the window was gone ; every door, every window in the house was gone — great holes in the place of them ; a great hole in place of the front door, and through all these holes in the house the wind and the rain and the snow were driving in : the house was as cold as outdoors — no shelter anywhere — everything dreary and desolate. Now it is a thought almost like that little girl's dream, to a happy child whose home life is sweet and safe, that by and by there are going to be changes ; things are not going to be the same always. That thought is very hard. It seems to take all the doors and windows off your life which was so snug and safe, [ 218 ] a Rummer PLmaq^t and to let the cold night wind blow through your soul. Why, then, do I put such a thought into your head ? I certainly do not put it there for the sake of troubling you. I put it into your head for three reasons. One reason is, because it is true. There are going to be changes in your life. I do not say you are going to be unhappy. I do not know any- thing about that. I hope you are going to have a very happy life. But I say there are going to be changes, great changes. Things will not always go on as they are going now. Another reason why I put this thought in your head is that you may love and prize every good and dear thing you have as long as you have it. Your dear mother, your dear father, for example. Love them and prize them as long as you have them. And all the sweet things about your home, all your chances to study and improve yourself, all your summers in the country, all your friends, all the happy days of peace and freedom; love them, prize them while they last; and then, if they ever go, and things come in their stead not at all pleasant and easy, you will at least have the comfort of knowing that you prized and en- joyed to the utmost the best that was in the past, [ 219 ] Ci^e filter Cup and your memories will be a continual feast to you. But there is another reason, the third and most important of all, why I have put into your heads to-day the thought that things may change, that life may become very different from what it is to-day. I want to bring right home to your heart, along with" the thought of changes, the most pre- cious truth that whoever goes, whoever stays, Jesus will stay with you through everything, on, to the end. *'I will never leave you nor forsake you." No matter what happens, no matter what shocks you get in regard to your friends, finding this one and that one swept away from you, Christ stays. He never leaves you nor forsakes you. You can be sure of Him. And you can be sure that even the changes that come in yourself, the growing older, the new thoughts, new inter- ests, new decisions that come as you grow older will not drive Him away from you. If He is your friend in childhood and you have loved Him and prayed to Him as a child, so also will He be your friend when, grown up, with new thoughts in your mind, and with a new and untried work to do in life, you shall sometimes tremble to think how the years are changing you. Is it not strange [ 220 ] and beautiful. Jesus Christ can be with a little child, understanding its thoughts and accept- ing its love. Jesus Christ can be with the great grown-up man, who was once that little child and yet is now so dijfferent, and the man finds in Jesus all that manhood needs just as the child found in the same Jesus all that its childhood required. Oh ! my dear younger friends, let these words sink down into your hearts. I am filled with thoughts of your future, of the years that lie before you ; and I want to commend to you, with all the strength and earnestness I can use, that Friend who has promised, saying, '*I will never leave you nor forsake you." I cannot of course tell what is going to happen to you in life. The only thing I can be sure of is that changes will come to you, and I know that you need not be afraid to meet any change, even the hardest that could possibly come, if you have given your life into the keeping of the Lord Jesus. If you have done that, or if you will do it now, you can say : **I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me." To put your life in Jesus' care, and to live it day by day with the thought that it is in His care, will make you strong enough to meet anything that [ 221 ] Ci^e filter Cup can possibly come to you. If you can say, *' Christ is with me to help me," there is nothing for you to fear as the changes come. The presence of Christ gives you strength to meet the change, steadies you as you go through it, readjusts your life to fill the change. You can count on Him every time. No matter who disappoints you. He will not. No matter who turns against you. He will not. No matter who leaves you. He will not. When you have to face people in this world who do not think as you think, nay, who may laugh at what you think, there is the Lord Jesus with you ; and when you blush and falter. He is right there to whisper: "Do not be frightened; do not get discouraged. I will never leave you nor forsake you." When you consecrate your life to noble and good things, trying to make the most of it, and then there come those times of weak faith when for a moment you are tempted to let everything go and to follow the bad, then He is right with you, to say : " Cling to me ; I will hold you ; you shall not fall away from Me." And when the hour of suffering comes — yes — and the hour when it begins to come to our minds that perhaps we — even we — may die, [ 222 ] 31 Rummer 0imaq,z then I am sure He will show us how very near He is. He will not leave us to cry ourselves to sleep; He will hold us in His strong and gentle arms, and our heads will rest, as if upon His shoulder, and all the fear will go away, and our last thought as we fall asleep shall be that He is near and we are safe with Him. Amen. #oti ttft jTatljer " gout iFatber ttj|)icb i^ in J^eaben " St. Matthew 5 : 48 I WANT to begin this sermon by telling you a real true story. It is not much of a story, but it is true, and it will explain why this sermon is preached. Not so very long ago there lived three children in a house by the sea. And on the hill where was their home there stood also a little house that looked as if it had been found in a picture-book. It was built for the children and it was their very own. It had a tiny little entrance hall and two tiny rooms, with windows that could open and shut like real windows, and a tiny piazza running all around the house. The children called this house *' The Cottage," and they had loved it all their lives. They played in it day by day; they trained sweet peas and scarlet poppies to grow in front of it; they held dinner-parties in one of the rooms. It was beautiful on every day in the week, but on Sundays it was most beautiful of all. For on Sundays the children set fresh flowers in [ 224 ] the rooms, and went there on Sunday afternoon with their father and mother to hold a service. They would sing hymns, and say many Bible verses and the Creed, and give an offering for missions, and their father would preach them a little sermon. They could say, if they chose, what they wanted the sermon to be about, and while their father was preaching they could ask him questions. The children had often heard their father speak of the Holy Trinity, — God the Fa- ther, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, — and one of them thought it would be very nice if there could be three sermons about the Trinity. So those sermons were preached : on one Sunday afternoon a sermon about God the Father, and the next Sunday afternoon a sermon about God the Son, and the next Sunday afternoon a ser- mon about God the Holy Spirit. And the chil- dren liked these sermons very much and asked many questions while their father was preach- ing. Now I happened to know that these Trinity sermons were preached, and that the children seemed to get from them some great glad thoughts about God; and also I happened to know that their mother said : " Why could not three Trinity [ 225 ] sermons be preached at the first three children's services this year." The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that you would like to have this done. I xould see good reasons why it should be done. I know that you think about God. Thoughts of God pass through your minds; sometimes very often, sometimes less often. And your thoughts about God are sometimes very earnest inquiring thoughts. You wish you un- derstood Him better and knew more about Him. This is certainly one reason why I should talk to you about God. Another reason is : God wants you to know Him better and better all the time and to have your mind filled with thoughts of Him. He says to you in His Word : "Acquaint thyself with God, and be at peace." "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth." Still another reason is that there is nothing in all the world so beautiful, so grand, so inspiring as clear, intelligent thoughts about God. When those thoughts fill your mind you cannot do wrong, and you cannot be discour- aged, for those thoughts are like doorkeepers in your mind, keeping out bad thoughts; they are like strong arms put underneath your life, keep- [ 226 ] (0otJ ti^e fat])tv ing it from utter discouragement. "This," said Jesus, **is life eternal," this is the perfection of living, the grandest thing in all life, *'that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." And yet one other reason why it would be a good thing to have some talks about God is that you can understand them. Thoughts about God are not too hard for even a little child to under- stand. Why? Because God is your Father and you are His little child ; and if a father loves his little child, and the little child loves his father, they are bound to understand each other. Sup- pose some one said to you about your father, '*You are too young to think anything about him ; you must wait till you grow up before you can understand who he is, what he thinks of you, what he does for you; what w^ould you say to that? You would say, "Nonsense! I may be only a little child, but I know my father, and I love him, and I understand him when he talks to me." Of course you do; you understand him, you know who he is ; and just so you can under- stand that greater Father, whose child you are, — "your Father which is in Heaven." But some one may say to you : "Perhaps you [ 227 ] Cl^e filter Cup can understand about God, but you are far too young to understand about the Trinity. The Trinity is a great mystery, and only the very wisest persons can understand the Trinity." To that I would answer, if I were you : **The Trin- ity is no doubt a great mystery, which only the very wisest persons can understand, and perhaps even the very wisest persons cannot understand all about the Trinity. But then, why cannot I, although I am a child, understand a little about the Trinity ; why cannot I make a beginning and learn as much about the Trinity as a child can learn, expecting to learn more, as I grow up.^ Botany is a great subject, and very, very wise men say there is more to be learned in botany than the very wisest have yet learned, but why may not a child know a little about botany, if only enough to be called a beginning.^" My child, you are right. As you go into the country and run through those dear meadows and woods that you love so well, you can make a beginning in botany with the wild flowers grow- ing close about you ; and as you read the Bible or hear it read, and thoughts of God come throng- ing through your mind, you can make a begin- ning in your study of the Trinity by finding out the [ 228 ] (0OD ti^e m'iitv glorious messages of the Bible about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Do not let any one frighten you away from this study of the Trinity. You have as much right to study this as any one can have, for you are God's child. Suppose some one says: *' Child, you cannot understand the doctrine of the Trinity." Simply say, *'Then I will let the doctrine alone, and will only study the Trinity. I want to know about God, and I will only try to find out what the Bible tells me about Him. Sometimes the Bible tells me about God as the Father ; sometimes about God as the Son; sometimes about God as the Holy Spirit. May not I, God's child, make a beginning now in understanding the Trinity, hoping to under- stand it better later on.^" Yes, dear, you may make a beginning now, if you have not already done so, and we will all make a fresh beginning to-day in trying to understand the Trinity, by talking together a little while about God as the Father, the Heavenly Father. It is to me very sweet to think that Jesus gave us our text for to-day ; for the words of our text are the very words Jesus spoke. He was talking about God, and was saying that we must try to be like God, try for the best in all things, try to be [ 229 ] perfect in whatever we do, keeping before our minds as an example the perfect way in which God does everything; and this is the way Jesus spoke of God: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." Was not that beautiful! "Your Father which is in Heaven." What a tender, holy, heavenly thought of God comes to us as we say : " God is our Fa- ther which is in Heaven." I am sure that I, for one, could stop right here, with this one thought given to me by Christ : " God is your Father which is in Heaven." That thought, if we take it all alone, and add nothing to it, simply fills one's heart with peace and strength. It is so large, so pure, so high a thought, and yet so gentle, so helpful, so over- flowing with love. Father ! what a word that is to some of us in our earthly homes ! What a world of light and joy and inspiration it is to some of you to think of your own dear father at home ; to have him with you day by day, always interested in what you do, always giving you beautiful things ; greeting you in the morning, putting you to bed at night, playing with you, watching over you, praying by you — do you not love him, your own dear father ? Would you not ever love [ 230 ] him and remember him, if he were to die and go away? And this same name, so dear to you at home, is one of the names of God. He takes it upon Himself, I think, because you can so well understand it. He tells you that He is "your Father which is in Heaven." Now, I say that I for one could stop right here, and just think this thought over and over again. But I want you, in this Ttinity study to-day, to go a little beyond this one thought that God is your Father which is in Heaven, and to make a beginning along three lines that will lead you to a much wider and deeper understanding of God as your Father. What does God do for us as our Father ? What may we do for God as our Father.? How may we better know God as our Father ? I will start you on these lines, and you can follow along them by yourselves as far as you will. But I am not going to start you on these lines by giving you my own ideas of God as our Father, for they might not be altogether the best ideas you could have. I am going to start you with Bible ideas along these lines ; and thus give you not only the very best ideas, but also per- haps a clearer sense of how to find out in the [ 231 ] Bible the most grand and beautiful things about God. You will remember that we are only making a beginning on these lines, and this we can do very quickly without making this sermon a bit longer than it should be. As, in your Trinity studies about God as the Father, you proceed to ask: "What does God do for us as our Father.?" Open your New Testament and see how a great line of thought opens out in it, to answer your question. I simply start you on that line. The New Testament says: '* Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father." Is not that magnificent ! What a picture of the w^ay the Father gives. Every good gift. Not the horrible and evil and diseased and sinful things that come to us — they do not come from the Father ; only the good and the perfect gifts. Whatever makes the world more beautiful, whatever makes life nobler and better, whatever makes us stronger and com- pleter in body, mind, and soul, — these things come from the Father which is in Heaven. And every one of them comes from Him ; every good gift. No matter if they reach us through human friends, we trace them all right back to the dear [ 232 ] Father above, and believe that He put into the earthly friends' hearts the thoughts which made them do as they did. And not only so ; every good gift that comes into the world to beautify it, and to strengthen the life of all living creatures, is a sign of the Father's care. Sometimes perhaps in the country you have heard the birds singing at sunset in many different keys and notes, as if their hearts were brimming over with happiness, and you have wondered how do all these little creatures get taken care of so that they always seem so well and happy, and the New Testament answers: This also is from the Father, *' Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns ; yet your hea- venly Father feedeth them." Such is the giving of the Father. Again, the New Testament tells you how per- fectly the Father understands your thought: "Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask Him." What could be more wonderful or more dear than that, as a thought about the Father! He understands you per- fectly. He knows what you need before you tell Him what you need; perhaps before you know that you need it. That's the sort of difference [ 233 ] Ci^e ^imt Cup between a child at home and a child among strangers. A child at home — if it is a truly peaceful home, where parents and children have always lived in closest fellowship — is well understood. And to many a child it is the great- est comfort in the world to feel that it is well un- derstood. A little child finds it hard sometimes to explain all its feelings to any one. Perhaps it is nervous, or in some other way not quite well, or timid, or easily discouraged, and when it goes out among strangers it sometimes has a dreadful time, because nobody seems to understand just how it feels, and it is so lonely and so ill at ease. Sometimes it begins to cry with loneliness, and then what a joy it is to get home, and find that you do not have to explain anything to your mother, or be embarrassed before your father, because they just know you through and through. But even when at home, with those who know it best, a child cannot make itself understood. A little baby will cry and cry as if its heart would break, and nobody will seem to understand what it is crying about. It is too young to talk, and those around it seek in vain for that which hurts it. I always think a baby has a reason for crying, when it cries. I do not think babies cry for no [ 234 ] cause. It is simply a question whose eyes are keen enough, whose wits quick enough to find the cause, and know what the child needs. And are there not older children who can talk, yet who cannot make their deepest needs understood, even at home : thoughts troubling the mind which you know not how to express; a burden on the heart of which you cannot get courage to speak to any one. There is One, and He the dearest and the best of all your friends, who knows that thought which troubles you — -that burden which, hidden away in yourself, is heavy on your heart. "Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask Him." Again, the New Testament tells you that every moment of your life is lived in plain sight of your Father which is in Heaven. "Your Father seeth in secret." You do not see Him, but He sees you. Never are you alone. Never can you get away where holy eyes are not upon you. "Thou God seest me" is the one great fact that applies to every moment of your life. This is alike your comfort and your safeguard. Your comfort when for any reason you are called to walk in a path of contact that seems a lonely path. Per- haps in school one sometimes feels compelled by [ 2S5 ] a sense of duty to refuse to do something which many do, but which you cannot feel to be right. Your decision seems to drive many away from you, and for a time you are very lonely; yet, be- cause you are doing the right you can say with Christ: "And yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me: the Father who sees in secret and knows just why I do as I do." So also is this thought a safeguard against hidden deeds of wrong. You are not alone: all things, the most hidden deeds of life as well as its more public acts, are open before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. And yet once again, the New Testament tells you that the Father cares for your prayers and longs and loves to have you draw near to Him with your whole heart. Do you remember those won- derful words in the fourth chapter of St. John, words spoken by Jesus to the woman of Samaria : "True worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him." I think that is so great. The Father seeketh such to worship Him. He cares when we go to Him with our hearts full of prayer — nay. He seeks us that we may worship Him. Suppose you went to your father wanting [ 236 ] to throw your arms around his neck, and he with- out looking at you brushed you away, saying, "Oh, go away; child, I have no time for such nonsense ! " would you not feel terribly wounded and sore ? But suppose, instead, your father, busy as he is, came out of his way to find you, ran upstairs to seek you out, and said: "I am very busy, but I must have you with me for a little while." Ah! that is like your Father which is in Heaven. If your heart is true. He seeks you out, longing to have you worship and love Him. Now a word about the second line on which you can work out for yourself in this Trinity study of the Father. I have started you on the line of finding out what God does for us as our Father. You also want to find out what we may do for God as our Father. The New Testament will give you distinct and glorious answers on this line. I just suggest a few of them. In one place it says : " Shall we not be in subjection unto the Father of our spirits and live .^" That is the thought of obeying the Father, of being an obedi- ent child of your Father which is in Heaven. You could not obey the Father and be in subjection to Him unless you knew what He wants you to do and to be, and the Bible fully shows you what the [ 237 ] Father would have you do and be. This is the will of God, that you may be made holy. You can obey this will of the Father; you can be in subjection to the Father of your spirit and live. And yet this life of subjection to your Heavenly Father is not in the least a sad life. On the con- trary, it is the happiest of lives, a glad companion- ship ; for the New Testament says : " Truly our fellowship is with the Father." Yes, it is fellow- ship. The Father and you are friends. I trust I shall never forget the day when a little compan- ion of mine threw his arm about me and walked at my side saying: "Papa! you and I are great friends." And every obedient child of the Hea- venly Father may look up into His face and say without a doubt : " Thou and I are great friends." And ther e are tw o more things which the New Testament says, among many others, that we may do for our Father : " Pray to thy Father." " Giv- ing thanks unto the Father." Pray to thy Father. Well may you pray to such a Father, pouring out your whole heart, keeping nothing back, telling Him everything. You will never be misunder- stood, never sent empty away. "He knows what you have need of before you ask Him." "Give thanks to the Father." It is meet and right so to [ 238 ] do. Does not your heart prompt you to give joy- ful thanks to your father at home when he brings you something that you dearly love to receive. Do not forget or cease to thank Him from whom every good and perfect gift has come. Say "Thank you" every day to God. It is true wor- ship. And now, as we close our Trinity study on the Father, let me just in a word start you on that other line : " How may we better know God as our Father." You will find this great question an- swered in the words of Jesus, as St. John and St. Luke have given them. Philip the disciple wanted to know more of God the Father, and said to Jesus : ''Show us the Father," and Jesus said: "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." And in one very happy moment in the life of Jesus, when He was thanking God that even little children may know about the Father, He said: "No man knoweth who the Father is but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal j Him." What do these words mean: they mean that when God the Son came to earth, and lived here as the Lord Jesus, He came to show us more clearly what God the Father is like. And so if you, dear child, want to know more about your [ 239 ] Cl^e Oilier Cup Father in Heaven, study the life and character and words of Jesus, for in Jesus we see, as in a mirror, the perfect image of the Father. God bless you all, precious children, and may it be yours to see more and more perfectly, now in your childhood, now while your minds are fresh and your eyes are clear, the glory of God the Father shining in the face of Jesus Christ. Amen. C|)e ^on of 0oti " (Clje ;^on of