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"THIS do; 
 
PEEFACE, 
 
 The following Addresses are published, not 
 at the instance of the author, but at the 
 request of the Publishers. They were de- 
 livered ex tempore, taken down by a short- 
 hand writer, and corrected afterwards up to 
 a somewhat low standard of at least gram- 
 matical accuracy. The author hardly likes 
 to see under a literary guise work of his 
 which is in no sense literary, but from the 
 expressions of opinion which have reached 
 him he gathers that some people are 
 sufficiently anxious for a word of guidance 
 on these Practical Questions to make them 
 tolerant of the somewhat rough and un- 
 finished form in which the counsel is 
 
 given. 
 
 E. F. H. 
 
 Hampstead, 
 
 MoAj, 1892. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. — The Christian in Business 
 11. —The Christian in Public Life 
 III. — The Christian in the Home 
 IV.— Christ in Art 
 
 V. — Christ in Literature 
 
 VI. — ^The Christian and Amusement 
 
 PAQB 
 1 
 
 33 
 59 
 
 87 
 107 
 131 
 
I. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN IN BUSINESS. 
 
THE CHBISTIAN IN BUSINESS. 
 
 " When a man's ways please the Lord, He maketh 
 even his enemies to be at peace with him.'* 
 
 Peov. xvi. 7. 
 
 I APPROACH the subject of this evening 
 — "The Christian in Business" — with a 
 great deal of diffidence, because there is 
 a general and a very natural impression 
 abroad that a minister has no experience 
 that would enable him to understand the 
 difficulties and the temptations to which 
 business men are exposed. But there are 
 two considerations which encourage me 
 to treat the subject. One of them is, that 
 the minister's duty is not to preach him- 
 self, or to give his own views of things, 
 but to preach Christ and Christ's view 
 of things as it has been delivered to us 
 through Eis Apostles. And Christ spent 
 the greater part of His life on earth as a 
 business man in a very humble, but yet 
 
4 The Apostles Btisiness Men. 
 
 a useful, business — the handicraft of car- 
 pentry — and He chose as those who should 
 communicate His truth to the world men 
 who were one and all engaged in common 
 industries for the greater part of their 
 lives. The most distinguished of them, 
 St. Paul, expressly tells us that he, all 
 through his life, combined his handicraft 
 of tentmaker with his Apostolic labours. 
 Thus the message of the Gospel, whatever 
 may be the inexperience of the modern 
 messenger, was essentially a message from 
 business men to business men. Humanly 
 Bpeaking, it emanated not from the Study 
 or the School, but from a circle of very 
 busy, hardworking folk, and it found its 
 first sphere of influence not in the Uni- 
 versity and amongst the leisured classes, 
 but in the crowded centres of industry, 
 and among the people who were under 
 the necessity of working hard for their 
 bread. The other consideration which 
 leads me to speak on the subject is, 
 that quite possibly the voice of one wha 
 
The Standard-hearer. 
 
 is not immersed in business may be 
 the very instrument by which God will 
 help those who are. A minister has a 
 certain detachment and independence in 
 speaking about business, and he may be 
 able to see certain aspects of the subject 
 which are a little lost to those who are 
 plunged into the vortex, and he may 
 be able to hold up certain truths which 
 are for business men in danger of 
 being forgotten. / And certainly if I 
 succeed in presenting you with the will 
 and the thought of our Divine Master, it 
 may be more help to busy people than if 
 I were fortunate enough to be acquaiated 
 with the details of business ways. In 
 battles a post, however humble, is usually 
 assigned to the standard-bearer, who can- 
 not take part in the conflict, but who can 
 lift up the colours after v^^hich the soldiers 
 eagerly press. I could hope that I might 
 to-night lift up the banner, the legend of 
 which is the will of our Divine Lord, 
 and that busy people, seeing it, might bo 
 
Alexander Balfoitr. 
 
 encouraged to press forward in the way 
 of service and obedience to Him. 
 
 It happened, too, as if to redress my 
 practical inexperience, that I lately came 
 across the life of a business man which pre- 
 sents, almost to the letter, exactly what 
 I think ought to be said on an occasion 
 like this. It is the life of Mr. Alexander 
 Balfour, of Liverpool, and I shall venture 
 to give the hastiest possible sketch of his 
 life as a little frontispiece to what I 
 myself want to say. Mr. Balfour came 
 from the East coast of Scotland as a boy 
 to make his way in Liverpool, and, as 
 is not uncommon with young men who 
 come from that Northern country, he was 
 determined to succeed. He spared no 
 effort by which success in business could 
 be secured, and, at last, as a Liverpool 
 merchant he did succeed. Now, to appraise 
 the manner of that success, notice these 
 words of his partner: **Just before he 
 entered into business for himself I re- 
 member with what earnestness he j)i'0- 
 
On Entering Business. 
 
 posed that we should set aside a certain 
 percentage of onr profits for reHgious and 
 benevolent purposes, before any division 
 was made among the partners." He did 
 not confine himself to that percentage ; 
 his wide beneficence drew upon all his 
 resources ; but that minimum was always 
 secured. He recognised the principle 
 that in going into business God has the 
 first claim on the profits. Again, when 
 he had acquired a certain amount of 
 capital which he considered adequate to 
 his business obligations, some years 
 before his death, he came to the con- 
 clusion to allow no further accumula- 
 tion, but to spend all that he got as God 
 prospered him for the promotion of Chris- 
 tian enterprise and social reforms. He 
 recognised the valuable principle, that 
 when God sends great wealth He never 
 sends it for the steward alone. Once 
 more, when he was quite a young 
 man, at the age of thirty-three there 
 occm-red — it was the year 1857 — a serious 
 
8 Unselfishness, 
 
 commercial crisis in Liverpool, and san- 
 guine and confident as the young partners 
 were, they had engaged in undertakings a 
 little beyond the margin of what was 
 prudent. This was the cause of very 
 great anxiety, and when he weathered 
 the storm, he was full of self-reproach 
 for what he considered, not an error of 
 judgment, but a grievous sin, and ever 
 afterwards he was tremblingly solicitous 
 that his business obligations should never 
 exceed what prudence dictated. Lastly, 
 the method in which Mr. Balfour carried 
 on his business may be inferred from the 
 statement made, after his death, by a 
 merchant who had dealt with him for 
 many years. He said : *' When an order 
 was given it was carried out exactly as 
 if he were acting for himself. Of course, 
 I could not but stick to him." The diffi- 
 culty seemed to be not to get him to treat 
 others as he treated himself, but to get 
 him to treat himself as he treated others. 
 There v/as nothing on which he looked 
 
Not Two Codes of Morality. 9 
 
 with greater scorn than the principle that 
 there is one code of conduct in business 
 and another code of conduct for ordinary 
 Christian Hfe. He beheved it to be 
 imperative on the man of business to 
 be iiprif]jht and fair under all competi- 
 tion and in all circumstances ; and a 
 little incident is quoted. On one occa- 
 sion he had made a written agreement 
 with another merchant, but when he got 
 back into his office it occurred to him 
 that the agreement was a little too 
 favourable for his own firm. He hastily 
 despatched a clerk to the other signatory, 
 and entreated him to cancel the engage- 
 ment, because he felt it was not favour- 
 able enough to him.* 
 
 Now, it may be thought, of course, that 
 Mr. Balfour was an exceptional man, but 
 he was only exceptional in the way in 
 w^hich any of us can be exceptional — that 
 is, he ventured always to carry his Chris- 
 
 * Alexander Balfour : A Memoir. Ey R. H. 
 Limdie, M.A. (J. Nicbet & Co.) 
 
lO The Diary of 
 
 tian faith and his Christian principles into 
 the transactions of his every-day busi- 
 ness. It is not given to us all to be as 
 successful as he was, and to become, 
 through the possession of large means, 
 beneficent on a large scale, but it is given 
 to us all to employ precisely the same 
 principles in all our business life. What 
 those principles were I think I can best 
 illustrate by giving you a quotation from 
 the diary which he kept when he was in 
 Valparaiso. It seems almost a violation 
 of secrecy to quote a diary, even when it 
 is published and open to us all, but I 
 believe he would be glad if he knev/ 
 that we might be helped by his ex- 
 perience. 
 
 On his thirty-ninth birthday he makes 
 this entry in his diary, and it gives us the 
 secret of his business life : — 
 
 Confession of My Sins. 
 
 Of youth. 
 
 Of eai-ly manhood. 
 
 Since I have known somethmc' of God's truth. 
 
a Business Man. \\ 
 
 Selfishness, pride. 
 Worship of the creature. 
 Want of love. 
 
 Thanksgiving that 
 
 God has manifested such patience. 
 
 He touched my heart. 
 
 He bore with me when steeped in worldliness 
 after naming the name of Christ. 
 
 He had compassion on me when in the land of 
 darkness and in the Yalley of the Shadow of 
 Death, and has gradually brought me out into 
 the light. 
 
 He has not only taught me His secret, but has 
 Bolaced me with such love to my soul as I never 
 dreamt to have experienced. He has pat me in. 
 the position I hold, surrounded with such elements 
 of happiness. 
 
 Supplication that 
 
 He would not lead me into temptation, but 
 deliver me from evil, graciously subduing the 
 pride, covetousness, high-mindedness, and evil 
 tempers which dwell in my soul. 
 
 That He will grant me such grace that I shall 
 be led to hate what Ha hates and to love what 
 He loves. 
 
 That He will help me to deny myself as I aiib 
 required to do. 
 
E 2 The Secret of a Life. 
 
 That He will bless all my relations and friends 
 everywliere. 
 
 That He will pour out His Spirit on my own 
 land and on my fellow-countrymen, and on 
 natives of this land ! 
 
 That He will give wisdom to all in connection 
 with the Church, the Bible Society, and the 
 enterprise at Lota, causing them to pursue the 
 very conduct agreeable to His will, and that He 
 can bless. 
 
 That He will lead me through life, so that I 
 may live agreeably to His will, in the calling 
 and obeying the directions He appoints. That 
 He will prepare me for death, so that I may be 
 ready and willing to go when He shall summon 
 me. 
 
 That was the secret of the man's hfe ; 
 and with this example of a business man 
 before us not drawn from apostoHc days, 
 but from the period of pressure, competi- 
 tion and difficulty in which we live our- 
 selves, I think we may venture to group 
 together the peculiar difiiculties to which 
 business men are exposed, and to seek 
 the way in which they are to be met. 
 
 There seem to be three distinct groups. 
 Wirstf there are the difficulties which come 
 
Three Groups of Difficulties. 13 
 
 from the mere pressure of business, occu- 
 pying the mind, exhausting the faculties 
 and deadening the spirit, so that we be- 
 come conscious of being on a low level of 
 thought and conviction. Secondly, there 
 are the difficulties which come from the 
 practices of the trade or profession in 
 which we are engaged, practices which 
 our conscience disapproves, but which we 
 do not see how to avoid without retiring 
 from business altogether. And, thirdly, 
 there are the difficulties which occur 
 to the really spiritual man, the question 
 how he is to make his daily business 
 life a real witness for Jesus Christ, 
 or the problem how he is to bring his 
 Christian character to bear upon the 
 people whom he meets, and how he^ 
 though engaged in earthly affairs, may 
 be the means of winning souls to his 
 Saviour. 
 
 Now, to meet the first group, the diffi- 
 culties which arise from the mere pressure 
 of business, it is evident that every busi- 
 
14 Forearmed 
 
 ness man who feels the pressure must at 
 all costs secure time, — it may be by early 
 rising and the sacrifice of sleep — it may 
 "be by using holidays when they occur, 
 but it must be by the conscientious use 
 of the one day in the week which God 
 has given to every one of us, His Sabbath, 
 — in order to re-charge the spiritual bat- 
 teries, to re-spiritualise the depressed 
 Christian life. The soldier who is to be 
 long exposed in the field takes care at 
 every opportunity to fill his pouch w^ith 
 fresh ammunition ; a business man who 
 is subject to the constant pressure of 
 present-day life should hesitate to lose 
 any opportunity of putting on " the whole 
 armour of God." I know that the pres- 
 sure of business is often given as a reason 
 for neglecting Christian fellowship, for 
 neglecting opportunities of private prayer, 
 for neglecting the approach to God in 
 worship and united service, but as a matter 
 of fact it is that very pressure which makes 
 these things essential, which makes it 
 
and Prepared. 15 
 
 impossible to stand without them ; and 
 to urge it as a reason for neglecting them 
 is just as if the danger of the battle were 
 urged as a reason for not visiting the 
 armoury, and the length of the journey- 
 as a reason for not replenishing the wallet 
 with bread. I would remind you that all 
 through life, 
 
 Tasks in hours of insight -willed, 
 Idust be in hours of s,ire&s fiilfilled.=^ 
 
 And as the hours of insight are rare for 
 all of us, in the pressure of life we cannot 
 afford to lose any one of them. Occasion 
 must be diligently sought and rigorously 
 secured when the spirit is literally brought 
 into contact with God and when all its 
 fading faculties are revived and its prin- 
 ciples reinforced. I know one business 
 man, though it is in a country town, who 
 secures every day, at noon, an hour when 
 he turns the key of his office and spends 
 
 * Tasks in hours of insip^ht willed. 
 Must be in hours of gloom fulfilled. 
 
 JM. Aenold. 
 
1 6 Meals in the Desert. 
 
 the time in Bible reading and prayer, 
 and the expression which he habituall}' 
 '^ivears upon his face, the peace and the 
 joy and the helpfulness of his character, 
 would almost tell you that he did so if 
 you did not know it. That, I am aware, 
 might be a counsel of perfection for 
 business men in London, but, at any 
 rate, men in London must try to 
 realise the danger and face the difficulties, 
 and make up their minds that no oppor- 
 tunity shall be missed of re-invigorating 
 the spiritual life which is subject to such 
 severe pressure. I think God is very good 
 to overworked men. If a man is not over- 
 worked, he has to spend a great deal more 
 lime in prayer before he gets the blessing ; 
 but when a man is overworked God sends 
 the blessing at the instance of a very 
 short prayer. And when God comes to 
 one of His servants in the desert and 
 gives him a meal, the man can go upon 
 that meal for many days, if there is no 
 other meal to be got. God can mira- 
 
Trade Practices. 17 
 
 culously sustain the spirit that has but 
 a few moments a day to definitely seek 
 Him. And this also may be observed, 
 that where a man uses with all his heart 
 the opportunities of prayer which occur 
 to him, the pressure in daily business has 
 a beneficial effect : it sinks him down 
 upon God, it makes his very Hfe settle on 
 the foundations of the Divine power and 
 love. 
 
 Now we must pass on to the second 
 group of difficulties, which arise from the 
 practice of the trade or profession in 
 which we are engaged ; and these diffi- 
 culties can only be met by strong mea- 
 sures. Perhaps we should make a dis- 
 tinction between those who are employed 
 and those who are employers. A subor- 
 dinate employed in a house of business 
 cannot be held responsible for all that 
 goes on in the house ; he can only be 
 held responsible for what he does himself. 
 On the other hand, the employer must be 
 held responsible for all that goes on in 
 
1 8 Competition. 
 
 the house, if it is with his knowledge ; and 
 though he does not stain his own hands, 
 the stain which rests upon the hands of 
 the subordinates who are doing his busi- 
 ness undoubtedly spreads from the subor- 
 dinate to him. We have to distinguish 
 between those who are merely subor- 
 dinates and those y/ho are responsible 
 for the business itself. 
 
 Now, we all know — not in detail, of 
 course, but in general — the peculiar diffi- 
 culties of the present day, difficulties 
 which are emphasized in London, but 
 exist all over the country, and possibly 
 all over the world ; they arise from the 
 curious fact that competition is no longer 
 the competition of buyers to get, but of 
 producers to dispose of, the things which 
 are produced ; the rapidity in production 
 is really the primary cause of the great 
 difficulties of modern competitive in- 
 dustry. Every man is trying to sell 
 and asking people to buy, and using 
 methods to induce them to buy, which 
 
The Spirit of Christ. 19 
 
 always tend to trench upon the ways of 
 simple honesty and upri^^htness. Now, 
 in such a dilncult world of industry as 
 this, it is quite plain that no man, how- 
 ever strong, can walk securely unless he 
 is continually fore-armed ; and a young 
 Christian should, as it seems to me, like 
 Mr. Balfour, enter his business with cer- 
 tain fixed principles, so worked into his 
 nature that they come at call : nay, come 
 almost automatically in the pressure of 
 business life. Now what these principles 
 ought to be you are much better able to 
 determine than any minister preaching in 
 the pulpit, but I think there are two or 
 three suggestions which might be useful 
 to some who are hearing me. One of 
 these principles to be ingrained in the 
 constitution of the business man is, 
 that all business practices and methods 
 are to he tried, not hy the 'prevailing cus- 
 toms of the trade or professio7if hut hy 
 the Spirit of Jesus Christ. That the 
 trade itself approves them has nothing 
 
20 Lie Not. 
 
 to do with the Christian's conduct. If 
 Christ does not approve, the thing stands 
 condemned. Another of these suggested 
 principles should he written on the palms 
 of the hands, and so engraved in the con- 
 science that at last it shines in the very 
 expression of the face. " Ltie not one to 
 another, seeing ye have put off the old 
 man and his deeds''; if the others lie, 
 I cannot, hecause I am a new creature 
 in Christ Jesus. And another principle 
 which is perhaps a little overlooked, hut 
 is certainly deserving of discussion, is 
 that fair business is alioays that which 
 confers mutual benefits, so that ivhere in 
 the transaction one begins to see that the 
 advantage lies entirely on his own side and 
 the other 'party is losing or not benefiting, 
 there the dangerous line is crossed and 
 the transactioji may be regarded as 
 questionable. I say these principles by 
 which we are to act must be determined 
 by each one for himself, each Christian 
 man must make them clear in his mind. 
 
Fair Business. 21 
 
 fixed in his conscience, before he goes 
 into the duties of Hfe. It is impossible to 
 sit down on each occasion and work the 
 whole thin^ out : it is necessary to have 
 obtained beforehand a guiding line so 
 distinct that reflection is hardly needed. 
 
 But it may be said, and is said, by a 
 great many, *' If we were to act on these 
 principles, or in fact upon d^ny principles 
 wbich we conceive to be thoroughly 
 Christian, we could not get on. In the 
 case of employed, we should be dismissed 
 from our firm, in the case of employers, 
 we should be pushed aside by more un- 
 scrupulous competitors." Nor is it, so it 
 is often said, a matter of getting rich ; it 
 is a maiter of simply maintaining a foot- 
 ing at all in modern London industry ; 
 and if we do not act as others do, we 
 shall inevitably bo trodden down by this 
 ** hungry generation." Now, what I am 
 going to say seems a very hard saying, 
 and yet it must be said. I do not 
 know how any man can be a follower 
 
22 Facing Consequences. 
 
 of Jesus Christ who is not prepared 
 to face ruin and starvation if neces- 
 sary in order to follow Him. Did not 
 He say as much ? Did He not say 
 that He would require a man to give up 
 house and lands and even wife and 
 children for His Name's sake? It is 
 true He added " to receive a hundredfold, 
 and in the world to come life everlasting," 
 but He clearly saw the possibility that 
 the compensation would be a great way 
 off, and unless we can disregard all con- 
 sequences and in simple self-sacrifice dare 
 to die rather than disobey, I fear we 
 must not delude ourselves with the idea 
 that we are Christians ; nor must we 
 bear the name of disciples of the Son of 
 God. *' We must do such and such 
 things," say some. Yes, possibly, you 
 must, if you are determined at all costs 
 to live, to be prosperous, to grow rich ; 
 but there is no must at all if you are 
 determined at all costs to seek first the 
 kingdom of God and His righteousness. 
 
Ruin Better t/ian Sin. 
 
 ** Unto the upright there ariseth light in 
 the darkness," and supposing, to take the 
 extreme case, that the light is simply 
 the inward peace of a man who is 
 ending his days in the workhouse as 
 a pauper amongst paupers because he 
 followed his conscience and his God, 
 that light is better than all the dazzling 
 splendour of recognition which may come 
 by following questionable courses, for 
 this last is a mere ignis fatuiis which 
 leads us dancing and leaping down into 
 the dismal swamp. I say it, feeling the 
 extreme difficulty of speaking to men who 
 are often exposed to great temptations, 
 but I say it with deep conviction : it is 
 always possible that the true man and 
 the good will have to be ruined, and it is 
 always necessary that the true man and 
 the good prefer ruin to one slight devia- 
 tion from the path of simple truth and 
 righteousness. 
 
 Now the third group of di^culties 
 which was mentioned have melted away 
 
24 Service Springs 
 
 whenever any one of us has acted 
 according to the principles which have 
 just been laid dovv^n. The maintenance 
 of a true inward life with God, and a 
 conscience void of offence towards God 
 and towards man — this in itself will make 
 us an influence powerful for Him wher- 
 ever we go. If you look at all the forms 
 ol Christian service which are open to 
 the business man, I should describe them 
 briefly in this way : first of all, the 
 most affectionate consideration for all 
 persons whom he employs, a sensi- 
 tive regard for their interests, and a 
 tender love for their souls ; secondly, 
 a ready tact to speak a word in season 
 even to people with whom one is only 
 doing casual business ; and, thirdly, a 
 mind at leisure from itself to enter into 
 all the schemes of amelioration and 
 beneficence around us, to give spare hours 
 to the work of your church, or to the 
 service of man, which is in itself a service 
 of your church ; I say if you consider all 
 
frovi Life. 25 
 
 these forms of service you find that they, 
 together with all fruitfulness of Chris- 
 tian character and life, come not from 
 our own frenetic efforts, but simply 
 from the quiet maintenance of a life that 
 is hidden with Christ in God and the 
 scrupulous refusal, cost what it may, to 
 violate conscience in even the slightest 
 detail. "Where a man walks with God in 
 that way, and where his conduct corres- 
 ponds to that inward life, he need not 
 often speak, for his life is an epistle 
 known and read of all men. But on the 
 other hand, there will be occasions on 
 which speech w^ill be possible and in- 
 evitable, and then the v»'ords spoken will 
 come driven home v/ith all the irre- 
 sistible force of a character that is strong 
 and firm in God, and a conduct which 
 casts no slur upon His blessed Name. 
 
 Now, perhaps I may be allowed in 
 concluding to-night to say simply two 
 things. The first is this : Some to whom 
 I am speaking probably have a very hard 
 
26 Tempted and Tried. 
 
 struggle — harder than I know, harder 
 than any one knows, except God — to earn 
 a mere pittance is all that you expect 
 from your life task, and to earn that 
 honestly involves constant privation and 
 hardship ; temptations to doubtful courses 
 present themselves every day of the week, 
 and you are sorely perplexed at times to 
 see that, while the wicked prosper, the 
 way of the righteous is turned upside 
 down. Probably one of the things that 
 distresses you most of all is, that there is 
 a man in your business, the manager or 
 employer, who has a great reputation in 
 the Christian world, and a very bad re- 
 putation in his own business. But what- 
 ever may be the special form of pressure, 
 you come sometimes to feel that to main- 
 tain the Christian life in these circum- 
 stances is well-nigh impossible. I want 
 to remind you, my brother, the end of 
 life — the purpose for which it is given — 
 is not to produce wealth, but to produce 
 character ; the hard ways in w^hich you 
 
Victorious. 2/ 
 
 are walking, the difficulties you are facing, 
 will perhaps leal you to poverty at the 
 end, but when the end has come, it 
 will be found that that manful wrestle 
 with Y/rong, that sturdy refusal to walk in 
 the slippery w^ay, that preference of failure 
 to sin, has made you a man after God's 
 own heart. It w^ould be a mistake, would 
 it not, for the silver to refuse the furnace 
 and the hammer of the forge, and for 
 comfort's sake to be left in the dross 
 un wrought ? We are told about one of 
 the later Eoman Emperors, Constantius 
 Chlorus, that when he came to the throne 
 he threatened to dismiss from his service 
 every Christian w^ho would not renounce 
 his faith, and then from the few men who 
 preferred the dismissal of the Emperor to 
 the denial of Christ he chose his most 
 trusted ministers and kept them all his 
 life. And God has a process not unlike 
 that in His dealings w^ith us. I seem to 
 hear the edict going forth about some of 
 you, " We will try him, tempt him, put 
 
28 Intercession 
 
 him in the furnace, thrust him out, as it 
 were, into all temptation, and when he is 
 tried he shall have the crown of life.'* 
 
 The other thing I want to say is of a 
 different kind. It has often been a great 
 trouble to me that I could be of so little 
 practical use to you, my dear friends — the 
 people engaged in the business of daily 
 life, — that I could not stand by you when 
 the temptation came, or even offer you 
 encouragement when the temptation had 
 ended in defeat. But it has occurred to 
 me lately that perhaps I have a power to 
 help you which is greater than I knew ; 
 that, perhaps, to pray for you will bo 
 better than to speak to you. The waver- 
 ing battle with Amalek was maintained 
 by Moses holding up the hands of prayer 
 on a height above the battle-field, and I 
 have therefore determined that, though 
 I cannot be with you in business, I will 
 take all of you whom I know — and espe- 
 cially those who are exposed to peculiar 
 temptations — I will take you day by day 
 
for Business Men. 29 
 
 in the arms of prayer before God, and I 
 will follow you in spirit : the young man 
 who has to face dismissal because he will 
 be true, the employer who has to face 
 poverty because he will not engage in a 
 dishonest competition ; I mean to follow 
 you in prayer ; I mean to constantly 
 wrestle with the Father in heaven, that 
 He will stand by you and not suffer you 
 to fall, but will bring you out of the 
 furnace more than conquerors through 
 Him that loved us. It may not be a 
 great ser^^ce in appearance, but do you 
 remember what King Arthur said as he 
 vanished across the mystic lake ? 
 
 More tilings are wrouglit by prayer 
 
 Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy 
 
 voice 
 Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
 For what are men better than sheep or goats, 
 That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
 If knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer, 
 Both for themselyes and those who call theia 
 
 friend ? 
 For so the whole round world is every way 
 Bound by gold chains about the throne of God. 
 
3o The End : 
 
 And I v/ould call you, if you would let 
 me, friends, and being largely powerless 
 to help you in what seem to be prac- 
 tical ways, I would wrestle for you with 
 these golden chains of prayer about the 
 throne of God, that your heart may be 
 fortified and your life may be sustained, 
 and that your garments may not be spotted 
 by the world ; so that when it is all over 
 and done, and you are passing out of this 
 present world, the battle, the conflict 
 ended, it will be possible to say of you, 
 " He has not died rich, he has not died 
 distinguished, but he has gone to God, he 
 has entered into the kingdom of heaven ; 
 for he kept his garments unspotted, he 
 w^ould not be seduced, he would not 
 betray his trust." " These are they who 
 came out of great tribulation " ; they were 
 tempted and tossed, but God gave them 
 the victory ; and to them that overcome 
 it is given to sit down upon the throne 
 of God. Oh, my dear brethren, and 
 sisters who are tempted too, if my 
 
Blessedness. % \ 
 
 words to you to-night prove visionary, 
 and beside the mark, I would to God 
 that my prayers, at least, might be 
 effectual for you. 
 
II. 
 
 THE CHEISTIAN IN PUBLIC 
 LIFE. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN PUBLIC LIFE. 
 
 "My people love to have it so.'* — Jee. v. 31. 
 
 In the fifth chapter of Jeremiah that 
 patriotic prophet paints a somewhat 
 gloomy picture of the peo^Dle of his own 
 day. He tells us that amongst the 
 people there were found wicked men 
 who lay in wait for the souls of others 
 as hunters lie in wait for their prey ; 
 that, notwithstanding this conduct, 
 though their houses were full of deceit, 
 as a cage is of birds, they were prosper- 
 ing, growing rich, and fat, and shining. 
 This conduct and this success were 
 accompanied by a total ignorance of the 
 cause of the fatherless and the right of 
 the needy. But, worse than this — the 
 evil which makes the prophet cry out. 
 "Astonishment and horror are come to 
 
36 A Faithless CJmrch. 
 
 pass in the land " — the rehgious teachers 
 of the people were teaching falsely, and 
 in consequence of that false teach- 
 ing the accredited ministers or priests 
 were maintaining a rule over the people 
 that was not according to God's will 
 — a rule which really tended to the 
 interests of the priestly order rather than 
 to the interests of the people. But even 
 this was not the worst : the worst of all 
 — that which made the prophet break off 
 without any conclusion, simply putting 
 the pertinent question, ** What will ye do 
 in the end thereof?" — was, that God's 
 people " loved to have it so." 
 
 Now, if we turn immediately from the 
 days of Jeremiah to our own day we 
 find a good deal that recalls those ancient 
 circumstances. The condition of our own 
 country demands the voice of a prophet. 
 "We have just been reminded that in our 
 own country places, and in those villages 
 which are so picturesque and interesting 
 to the traveller, numbers of our people 
 
OiLi'' Social Sores, 37 
 
 are living in foul rookeries, often eight 
 people sleeping in one room, an open 
 drain generating typhoid and reducing 
 the vital power of the inhabitants, and 
 pure water, even under God's beautiful 
 sky, practically inaccessible to the people. 
 We have learned how their life is dull 
 and tedious; how their spirit is broken 
 and their independence destroyed ; how 
 their wages, in spite of all the efforts of 
 recent years, are still so low that the 
 only prospect of a large proportion of the 
 agricultural population is to end their 
 days in the Union, with its dreary cheer- 
 lessness and stigma of social disgrace. In 
 the towns of England we know, or, at least 
 we might know if we would, how great 
 masses of the people are living in crowded 
 and unhealthy houses ; how the streets 
 are dreary and unbeautiful ; how the only 
 ornament of many parts of the great 
 towns is the flaring gin-shop, which has 
 a promise of comfort and beauty, and by 
 that very promise leads the weak to their 
 
38 Spiritual Dearth, 
 
 destruction- We know how these, the 
 bright points of London, are erected, not 
 for the good of the people, but simply by 
 the power of great capitaHsts, who are 
 licensed by the Government without 
 the least regard to the effect that is pro- 
 duced by their trade. "We know how 
 there are something like 300,000 people 
 in London who live a life either of 
 toil under grinding exactions, or, still 
 more miserable, of uncertain employ- 
 ment, with no assurance of to-morrow's 
 meal. We know that the sores of 
 the city are open and rank, and we 
 know how our people in this Christian 
 country are sunk in a kind of religious 
 ignorance, which is practically brutish, 
 hardly to be paralleled even in some 
 of the great heathen countries of the 
 world. 
 
 Meanwhile our religious teachers, until 
 quite lately, have been accustomed to tell 
 us that this is really not our concern, and 
 that we as Christians are only called upon 
 
CJiristian Negligence. 39 
 
 to preach the Gospel to the people in the 
 sense that we are to tell them about a 
 future world and how to get there ; if we 
 have any concern with the social miseries 
 it is only to make occasional contributions 
 of money, which, being misspent and mis- 
 applied, has been the occasion very largely 
 of producing the very evils which are 
 deplored. In consequence of this teach- 
 ing of the prophets, the priests, or pro- 
 fessional ministers of the Christian 
 Church, have gradually allied themselves 
 with the wealthy and the powerful in 
 the country, and have given the im- 
 pression that they have nothing to do 
 with the control and the administration 
 of the country, or, if they are to inter- 
 fere at all, they v/ill interfere in the in- 
 terests, not of the people but, of the 
 Church ; and they have shut their own 
 eyes and succeeded also in sealing the 
 eyes of multitudes of Christian men and 
 women to the condition and needs of the 
 poor. 
 
40 " My Kingdom is 
 
 But the present question is whether the 
 people " love to have it so." The faults of 
 prophets or of priests v^ill not be visited 
 upon us unless vre acquiesce in them. 
 The question I want to put to you 
 this morning is, to what extent we love 
 to have it so. Now, I fear there are 
 a great many Christian people who 
 make it almost a boast that they have no 
 interest in public affairs. They say that 
 their religion is to be kept undefiled by 
 contact with the public life of the day. 
 And I think they quote a text, or mis- 
 quote it, where the Lord Jesus said 
 that His kingdom is not of this 
 world. I say they misquote it, be- 
 cause they imply that His kingdom 
 was not meant to rule over this world. 
 What, of course, He really meant and 
 said was that His authority was not 
 derived from this world, which is a very 
 different thing. I want to ask you for 
 a few moments to consider the posi- 
 tion which is taken by a great many Chris- 
 
not of this World.''' 41 
 
 tian people, especially in this anarchic 
 city, those who make it a poiot of reli- 
 gious duty, as it; were, to neglect one of 
 the greatest of all duties. It is perfectly 
 true that Jesus Christ Himself and His 
 Apostles did not take part in the publio 
 life of their own time, because Christ 
 came on earth at a time when it v/as im- 
 possible to take part in public life. The 
 whole of Europe and Asia, under the 
 Eoman Empire, was governed despoti- 
 cally, and there was no room for indi- 
 vidual citizen activity. And, no doubt, 
 this was with a purpose. The Lord came 
 to discover the individual, and to assert 
 the rights and the interests of every soul 
 of man. But if we would understand 
 His mission we must surely bear in 
 mind that in the background of His 
 Gospel was the teaching and the work 
 of the prophets of Israel, which, as He 
 very significantly said, He had come to 
 fulfil and not to destroy. Now the teach- 
 ing of these prophets of Israel and their 
 
42 The Prophets 
 
 work througliout may be described as 
 public work. Take for example the 
 ministry of Amos in the Northern King- 
 dom, or the ministry of Micah in the 
 Southern Kingdom, and you find it is the 
 outcry of the agricultural labourer and of 
 the oppressed mechanic against false ad- 
 ministration, against the cruelty and the 
 want of thought on the part of the 
 wealthy members of the community. 
 Take the great prophets Isaiah and 
 Jeremiah, and you find that their 
 ministry was throughout the ministry 
 of public life. They were even more 
 statesmen than preachers, their work was 
 directed mainly to legislation. They had 
 to preach in the courts of the kings, and 
 they felt it to be their duty to mould the 
 policy of their nation. Daniel is still 
 more striking, because he was in a foreign 
 country, and not in his native country, 
 and yet his ministry throughout was one 
 of public influence, a ministry at the 
 source of government; and his visions 
 
Fjilfilled in Christ. 43 
 
 can be described as chiefly political 
 forecasts upon a great scale. Now we 
 have to remember that our Lord, when 
 He came into this world, immediately 
 identified His whole life with the ministry 
 of those prophets who had gone before. 
 In the synagogue at Nazareth, making, 
 as it were, the starting-point of His 
 ministry, He took up the roll of the 
 prophet Esaias and read this passage : 
 ** The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, 
 because He hath anointed Me to preach 
 the Gospel to the poor. He hath sent 
 Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach 
 deliverance to the captives, and recover- 
 ing of sight to the blind, to set at liberty 
 them that are bruised, to preach the 
 acceptable year of the Lord." In this 
 emphatic way He immediately connected 
 His ministry with all the great work of 
 the prophets that went before, and said 
 as distinctly as language could say it, " I 
 have not come to destroy, but to fulfil the 
 work of the prophets.** 
 
44 ^^'^ Social Gospel 
 
 Now it has generally been assumed 
 that what He meant by this was, that 
 He wished His followers to turn away 
 from all the duties of public life, and to 
 try to redress the wrongs of humanity by 
 preaching what has been called the 
 Gospel, the Gospel being understood in 
 that connection to be simply this, *' Turn 
 your eyes away from the wrongs of 
 humanity, and take refuge in the thought 
 of a blessed future where these wrongs 
 will no longer exist." I cannot imagine 
 any more perverted way of explaining the 
 language of the Lord Jesus. Surely 
 the natural explanation is this : — The 
 prophets had denounced all social wrong, 
 the prophets had demanded of the 
 government of their day to destroy these 
 evils in their midst ; the nation had been 
 destroyed because the government would 
 not do what the prophets told them. 
 The Lord Jesus came into the world, and 
 immediately took up the work of the 
 prophets, and said He had come on 
 
of Christ. 45 
 
 purpose to accomplisli the work which 
 the government of Israel refused to 
 attempt. Therefore, though He had 
 nothing to do with the despotic govern- 
 ment of His own day, and left the Caesar 
 to perish as the Caesar richly deserved 
 to perish, yet he infused into every soul 
 that believed in Him a Divine power 
 which was meant to hterally take 
 possession of all the reins of govern- 
 ment upon earth, and administer this 
 world in the Name of the King to whom 
 it belonged. 
 
 If this is His meaning, what follows ? 
 He must look with grief upon many of 
 His followers to-day, who have made it a 
 kind of principle to neglect this source of 
 influence and to cherish the spiritual life, 
 as they would call it, in their own hearts, 
 leaving the world to itself, with the ter- 
 rible result that England, the most Chris- 
 tian of countries, has become an astonish- 
 ment and a horror even to the heathen 
 world. No such thing is known in 
 
46 Citizen Duties 
 
 heathendom as the corruption and shame 
 and misery of our own degraded country ! 
 Now either these sermons are practical 
 or they are nothing, and I am not asking 
 you to discuss these questions in any 
 speculative spirit, but simply that we 
 may apply the principles of the Lord 
 Jesus to all our life — public and private. 
 I want you to reflect for a moment upon 
 the great city of which we are necessarily 
 citizens, though, I suppose, most of us 
 became so without any definite choice. 
 According to the current notion, the 
 command of our Lord is fulfilled if we 
 build churches, chapels, and mission- 
 rooms, set people to preach in them, 
 and get the waste corners in the public 
 street occupied by preachers who are 
 proclaiming the same simple Gospel of 
 salvation through faith. According to 
 the teaching of the Bible, that must 
 be done ; but another thing must not 
 be left undone. We must recognise that 
 the condition of London — its misery, 
 
Obligatory on CJiristians, 47 
 
 its shamo, its sin — is, in a very large 
 degree, the natural and inevitable result 
 of a great city of five millions of people 
 being practically ungoverned, having no 
 efficient administration, no sufficient 
 organisation, no real co-ordination of its 
 parts. I have heard unbelievers say that 
 they cannot believe in God because 
 London is so miserable, as if God had 
 made London miserable. He has taught 
 us that government is necessary, and if 
 vv^e leave a great mass of human beings 
 ungoverned we violate His law and make 
 them wretched. 
 
 I know that some people will think it 
 is a desecration of the pulpit if I mention 
 a simple fact, but I venture to say it is 
 one of the first facts which the Lord Jesus 
 would mention in modern London. We 
 are told that the cost of supplying 
 London with water is £700,000, and the 
 price that London has to pay for it — not 
 very good water, and not a very full sup- 
 ply—is £1,700,000, which means simply 
 
48 Ptire Water. 
 
 that because you will not govern your 
 city, but leave it entirely to the mercy of 
 individual speculators, you allow these 
 men, not bad in themselves, but made bad 
 by your neglect, to wring £1,000,000 
 from the people of London over and 
 above the real cost of the water which is 
 supplied. Supplying water, you think, is 
 not a Christian duty, but indeed it is. 
 If men cannot get pure water to drink, 
 they will drink other things. If men 
 cannot get sufficient water to wash in, 
 they will be physically dirty, morally 
 unclean, and spiritually insensible. It 
 is a vital question that the people should 
 drink pure water, and be constantly and 
 thoroughly washed. And yet in this 
 great city there are over thirty parishes 
 which do not supply any public wash- 
 house or bath of any description, although 
 it is well known that there are 200,000 
 people amongst us w^hose homes consist 
 of a single room. It is your duty as a 
 Christian to preach the Gospel — to go 
 
Water of Life. 49 
 
 to these 200,000 people iu single rooms 
 and tell tliem about the water of life; 
 but is it not your duty also to go to 
 the great city in which they live and 
 demand in Christ's I^ame that they 
 shall have pure water to drink and to 
 wash in ? 
 
 To my mind the two things go to- 
 gether ; the Lord could not possibly have 
 separated them. He would not have talked 
 about the Water of Life until He had 
 given them water to drink, just as He did 
 not speak about saving their souls until 
 He had touched their bodies with His 
 heahng hand and cured them. I could 
 continue for the greater part of this 
 morning simply telling you the unutter- 
 able abominations of this city, which are 
 due not to any man's wickedness, but to 
 the general neglect of the whole of Lon- 
 don, to the fact that its citizens do not 
 care, and do not take the trouble to 
 see, that their great city is properly 
 administered. Now let us face this 
 
 4 
 
50 Responsibility. 
 
 question this morning. When the Lord 
 comes to ask an account of our Hfe as 
 citizens of London will He not draw 
 up a long hill of the things which are 
 simply due to had government or no 
 government? The w^ant of water, the 
 want of proper supervision of the 
 lodging-houses, the want of careful ar- 
 rangement for the housing of the people 
 and for the proper administration of the 
 laws which are already made for the 
 housing of the people, will He not draw 
 up an account of all these evils which 
 have resulted from these causes, and then 
 whom will He hold responsible ? Parlia- 
 ment? The County Council? The 
 Vestry ? He is not so unjust. He will 
 hold us responsible ! For it is our duty 
 to appoint these bodies, and if we appoint 
 or re-appoint them simply on the principle 
 of idle party contests — or, still worse, on 
 principles of personal pecuniary interest 
 — the Lord will send the bill home to 
 us and charge us with all the sin and 
 
Apathy. 51 
 
 misery and shame which result frora our 
 neglect.^ 
 
 Now, I feel that in speaking about the 
 government of London some of us scarcely 
 realise what the great social revolution, 
 that everything should be in the hands of 
 its citizens, has meant. And, granting that 
 everything is placed in the hands of its 
 citizens, have we realised what it means 
 when an enormous section of the Christian 
 citizens deliberately abstain from voting 
 and from entering into public life, and 
 therefore leave the government in the 
 Lands of un-Christian citizens, and allow 
 all questions of vital importance to be de- 
 termined not by the Spirit of Christ, but by 
 the spirit of individual interest ? I want 
 to close this morning — leaving this great 
 question practically undealt with, for there 
 is only time to refer to it in the rough — I 
 
 * The election of the Second County Council for 
 London was a sign following closely upon the 
 delivery of this address that the citizens are at 
 last beginning to awake from their apathy. 
 
52 A Town Coiiyicillor. 
 
 want to close by quoting an example which 
 will probably linger in the minds of all, 
 the conduct of that same man of whom I 
 spoke last Sunday evening, Mr. Alexander 
 Balfour of Liverpool. Though Liverpool 
 was his adopted city only, he, like every 
 true man, learnt to love the city in which 
 he lived with an intense passion. He felt 
 for it almost as a Jew used to feel for 
 Jerusalem. He was constantly praying 
 for it and constantly working for it. He 
 went into the Town Council at Liverpool 
 distinctly as a Christian man, without any 
 taint of personal ambition, without any 
 object of personal gain, on this principle ^ 
 " The Town Council should be governed 
 by Jesus Christ, and I, therefore, as a 
 Christian man go there to represent Him." 
 Bravely did he v/ork, and not altogether 
 without effect, producing many striking 
 and obvious changes in the social con- 
 dition of Liverpool. In that diary, to 
 which I referred last Sunday, you will 
 find entries of this kind: "Prayer for 
 
Public Life, Christ s Life. 53 
 
 state of mind that God can use me to 
 speak in the Council on the 2nd June." 
 *' Prayer for wisdom and strength to 
 testify at the Town Council to-morrow 
 against electing publicans to be alder- 
 men." He seemed to think it necessary 
 not only to pray on the day of the Council 
 meeting, but to make it a matter of 
 prayer for days beforehand, that when he 
 stood up in his place in the Council of 
 Liverpool, he should stand there obviously 
 as a Christian man witnessing for Christ. 
 A more fervently spiritual and inward 
 life I have not read, but where it differs 
 from so much London spiritual life is just 
 here, that he feels the necessity of going 
 out into the work-a-day world and bring- 
 ing the principles of Jesus Christ to bear 
 on the community in which we live. It 
 may seem to some a very small matter 
 to move in public hfe, but let me put it in 
 this way by taking an obvious illustration. 
 Supposing any one of us tries hard for a 
 twelvemonth by personal prayer to rescue 
 
54 Piihlic Administratio7t 
 
 one unhappy drunkard from his evil and 
 destroying habit, none of us hesitates to 
 say that that is a Christian work ; but we 
 do not see at once that it is just as much 
 a Christian work to go to the root of the 
 matter, and to say that any system by 
 which drunkards are produced in numbers 
 far and away beyond any of our methods of 
 reclamation is wrong and must be altered. 
 We all know that in Norway and Sweden, 
 for example, a great moral reformation 
 has been effected, and one of the most 
 drunken communities in the world changed 
 into one of the most sober, in the course of 
 twenty years, by a simple change in the 
 licensing law. Now, men do not seem to 
 see that if Christ is the real Saviour of 
 the world He wants a voice in every 
 licensing law ; He must have His will 
 carried out in such a carnal matter as the 
 sale of strong drink, and He requires His 
 servants to do it because one cannot 
 depend on any people to carry out a 
 simple principle of disinterested righteous- 
 
a Christian Pulpit. 55 
 
 iiess except those men in whom lie 
 dwells. It seems to me that when Mr. 
 Balfour, for instance, spent his days as 
 his diary mentions, in praying for 
 power to speak in the Town Council 
 of Liverpool, he was doing precisely the 
 same work and in exactly the same spirit 
 as when a minister of the Gospel spends 
 his week in study and thought and prayer 
 that he may be able to speak for Christ in 
 his pulpit on Sunda}^ As Christian men 
 in London, knowing the terrible con- 
 dition of the city ; knowing the in- 
 difTerence of the great mass of the 
 citizens, an indi£^erence which a^llows 
 them to look upon the greatest question 
 of the day — the education of the children 
 — with an almost absolute unconcern, so 
 that you can only induce them to take a 
 X3art in the voting wlien they have some 
 petty denominational interest to serve ; 
 when we realise the absence of public 
 spirit, which makes it possible for the 
 vestry of this district, for example, to be 
 
56 Ungoverned 
 
 appointed for its great work, governing a 
 community of 40,000 people by a number 
 of electors hardly more numerous than 
 the number elected, because we will not 
 take the trouble to vote ; when we recol- 
 lect that the consequence of men being 
 elected by bogus electorates is that there 
 is no adequate sense of public responsi- 
 bility, no sense of duty, no consciousness 
 of a great public opinion searching and 
 trying them moment by moment, and that, 
 for want of this, they are always slipping 
 into ways which we should slip into as 
 well if we were in their place (for no man 
 can live up to a great standard if he is 
 shut up, as it were, in a closet) ; when we 
 remember the condition of London, the 
 causes of that condition, and bring the 
 whole city into the presence of Jesus 
 Christ and ask Him what He would have 
 us to do ; and especially when we read the 
 X^rophets, from Isaiah to Malachi, which 
 constitute far the best treatise on politics 
 which is known to me, and when we come 
 
Christians must Govern. 57 
 
 to understand the gist of their ministry 
 and the way in which Christ adopted all 
 they taught and came to give it complete- 
 ness : I believe we shall be in the way of 
 escaping the position of indifference and 
 apathy and selfishness and personal 
 absorption which allows us to see a 
 great community ruined for want of the 
 simplest elements of government and 
 administration. Those who are gifted 
 with wide public influence, those who 
 have the power of speech and a clear 
 brain for administration, will feel that 
 although little earthly honour attaches 
 to their work on vestries and county 
 councils and school boards, they go to 
 do work for Christ and in Christ's name. 
 They v/ill not be concerned with what 
 men say for them or against them, but 
 v.'ill simply be interested upon their knees 
 to bring the Spirit of Christ into every 
 department of our public life, and especi- 
 ally to make the neglected, the fatherless, 
 and the outcast, know that what is guiding 
 
58 Care for the Helpless. 
 
 the policy of vestry aud council and board 
 is not the interests of those who can very 
 well look after their own affairs, but the 
 interests of Christ's people, Christ's out- 
 casts, those about whom He has solemnly 
 told us that what we do to them He will 
 regard as done to Himself, and what we 
 leave undone to them He will regard as 
 the gross omission of personal service to 
 Him. 
 
III. 
 
 THE CHEISTIAN IN THE 
 
 HOME. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN IN THE HOME. 
 
 'Tis education forms tlie common mind. 
 Just as the twig is beut the tree's inclined. 
 
 Pope. 
 
 In the first chapter of Luke, the 66 tL 
 verse, there is a question asked to 
 which I wish to draw your attention 
 to-night. The question is : '* What, then, 
 shall this Child be ? " and I want to ask 
 you to stand in imagination by the 
 cradle of a new-born child — one of 
 the most solemn and most mysterious 
 places in all the world. We put 
 this question with regard to the child, 
 ** What will it be ? " The answer comes, 
 the simple answer, w^hich will cover 
 ninety-nine cases out of a hundred: "This 
 child will be what its parents make it ! " 
 It is an answer w^hich, I suppose, is 
 likely to give every parent serious thought, 
 
62 The Parent 
 
 and to make even the most indifferent 
 consider, but it is an answer which, 
 after consideration, appears more true 
 than before. Now, it is a very curious 
 fact that, as you rise in the scale of life, 
 the offspring become more and more 
 dependent upon the parent. Most ovipa- 
 rous creatures do not depend upon their 
 parents at all when once the eggs are 
 produced. Birds depend upon their 
 parents for the hatching of the eggs, 
 and in some cases for their food while 
 they are fledglings. But in other cases 
 they seem independent even of this 
 shght attention; a barn-door chicken, 
 directly it breaks the shell of its Qggy 
 proceeds to pick up the grain upon 
 the ground and feed itself as if it 
 had been accustomed to it for years. 
 "When you come into the kingdom 
 of the mammalia of course the off- 
 spring are dependent for a considerable 
 time upon the parents, but when you 
 come into the kingdom of Man, you find 
 
Makes the Mail, 63 
 
 that no creature is made so closely de- 
 pendent, and for so long, upon the will 
 of the parents. No creature seems to be 
 born with so few instincts, no creature 
 is so helpless even to maintain life, and 
 no creature remains for so long a period 
 dependent upon the teaching and the 
 example and the training of those who 
 brought it into being. What is the 
 meaning of that ? It seems as if God 
 intended that the parent should have a 
 really good chance of making something 
 of the child, that every parent should 
 have a certain opportunity of impress- 
 ing upon the young plastic life the whole 
 total of good which the parent knows. 
 It seems as if God took the lower crea- 
 tures into His own training to be their 
 Nurse, but gave over the higher creature 
 ■ — man — to the parent v/ho produced it 
 to be his nurse. By this arrangement 
 the parent has an opportunity of im- 
 pressing upon the child all the results 
 of human growth and human expe- 
 
64 Neglected Children. 
 
 rience. God says to every parent, point- 
 ing to the little child in the cradle: 
 ** Now, you can make this little creature 
 or you can mar it. You can fit it to be 
 the heir of all the ages by shaping its 
 character and sowing in the soul, while 
 it is fresh, the seeds of knowledge and 
 wisdom ; or you can make it lower than 
 the brute." If a dog is neglected, sup- 
 posing he should find food, his moral 
 character does not seem to suffer mate- 
 rially ; he may be as good as another 
 dog ; but if a child is neglected, it is left 
 like an empty house, in which unclean 
 creatures are sure to come and make 
 their abode, if it does not even become 
 the habitation of devils. That seems to 
 be the great distinction of the human 
 child. 
 
 Now, we have heard a great deal in 
 recent years about the tendencies which 
 are transmitted by heredity from parent to 
 child, and certainly it is a very terrible re- 
 flection that the bad habits of the parent 
 
Heredity. 
 
 may be wrought in the very tissues of 
 the child. But I cannot help thinking 
 that, like most truths which are compara- 
 tively new, this truth has been overstated. 
 A child does not owe so much to heredity 
 as materialistic science thinks, and it owes 
 a great deal more to training than most of 
 us are inclined to realise. It is more like a 
 slate than that piece of paper with invisible 
 ink- writing on it to which it has been com- 
 pared. There is next to nothing on it. 
 The slate may have a crack or two, an old 
 scar which will become visible later on, 
 but, broadly speaking, it is a clean slate 
 when you start with it. I remember 
 being very much struck by noticing once 
 or twice an incident in Dr. Barnardo's 
 methods of rescuing children from degra- 
 dation. He has several times mentioned 
 a case of a little child of three or four 
 years of age taken out of a perfect nest of 
 vice, a child of the most degraded parents, 
 brought up for those three or four years in 
 an atmosphere which is like poison to the 
 
66 TJie Parents^ OpporUunty 
 
 soul, so that the poor little baby lips are 
 polluted with all kinds of obscenities and 
 blasphemies ; and yet this little child, put 
 into the kind and Christian guardianship 
 of the homes which Dr. Barnardo has 
 formed, will grow up to be as sweet and 
 untainted a soul as if it had come out of 
 a good and religious home. The heredity 
 may count as one part in ten, but the 
 nine other parts of training are able to 
 reverse even the heredity. 
 
 *'What, then, shall this child be?" 
 That is the question, and the answer is : 
 "It depends upon what you as parents 
 do." In a country like England, where 
 the responsibility of the parents is not 
 only recognised, but most jealously 
 guarded, where legislation often prefers 
 — and I think very rightly — the ruin 
 of the individual child to any inter- 
 ference wdth the permanent rights of 
 father and mother, almost everything 
 depends for this little child upon what its 
 parents are, and what its parents do, in 
 
only Shared by Teachers. 6/ 
 
 bringing it up. Teachers, both in week- 
 day schools and Sunday-schools, are con- 
 stantly impressing it upon us that they 
 can do but little with the children. They 
 can teach them a great many things which 
 go into the head and form the furniture of 
 the mind ; but, after all, they are power- 
 less to affect the character, the tastes, the 
 real habits, the will, and the morality, 
 which have all been formed at home. 
 Practically, no one can lift or materially 
 share the supreme responsibility of the 
 parent. In ancient Sparta, we are told, 
 on one occasion when two young men 
 were disturbing the peace of the town by 
 quarrelling, the magistrates sent to arrest 
 the father. In their opinion the culpa- 
 bility lay at the door of the one who had 
 brought the boys up. And I sometimes 
 wonder whether there is not something 
 similar to that in the Divine dealings 
 with men, and, while God will not 
 visit the sins of the father upon the 
 children, we are never told that He will 
 
6S CJiildren the Property of Jesus. 
 
 not visit the sins of the children upon the 
 father. I can well believe that, for that 
 large class of sins to which a child is 
 tempted by the wrong training or neglect 
 of the parents, the child will not be held 
 responsible, but the charge will be sent 
 home to the guilty parents. 
 
 Now, believing as I do in this respon- 
 sibility of the parents — and I have little 
 doubt that you all substantially agree 
 with me — I want, if you will let me, 
 to lay before you three or four signal 
 truths which, I think, vdll be very 
 easily remembered, and may, I trust, 
 be of some help to parents, especially 
 young parents, in bringing up their chil- 
 dren. The first of these truths is this : 
 these little children, whe^i they come fresh 
 into ijoicr hands, are the beloved property 
 of Jesus Christ. By one memorable 
 word He claimed them all when He 
 said, " Let them come unto Me, for of 
 such is the Kingdom of Heaven." The 
 disciples wished to push them back, and. 
 
Of stick is the Kingdom, 69 
 
 strange to say, the descendants of the 
 disciples ever since have had a great 
 grudge against them, and by all kinds of 
 dogmatic teaching have tried to stamp 
 them as it were with a curse ; but Jesus 
 Christ blessed them. Following a mis- 
 taken reading of the Latin New Testa- 
 ment, St. Augustine taught a doctrine 
 which laid hold of Christendom, a 
 doctrine which is generally called that 
 of Original Sin, the gist of which was that 
 all children are born, as it were, repro- 
 bate ; they had sinned in Adam, and, 
 therefore, to start with, they were all 
 wrong. Over against that teaching of 
 St. Augustine, for which there is no 
 real authority in the New Testament, 
 stands the simple Vv'ord of Jesus Christ, 
 " Suffer them to come unto Me, for of 
 such is the Kingdom of Heaven." And 
 if Jesus Christ said this indiscriminately 
 of all little children, with how much more 
 meaning would He say it of Christian 
 little children! I mean little children 
 
70 They are Holy. 
 
 born of Christian parents. There is a 
 passage in St. Paul to which I should like 
 to turn your attention. It occurs in 
 1 Cor. vii. 14, where St. Paul is arguing 
 that, if one of the parents is a Christian 
 and the other not, the Christian parent 
 sanctifies the unchristian, " else," he says, 
 **your children would be unclean, but 
 noio they are holy.'" One Christian 
 parent will make the children holy, 
 according to St. Paul. This is the foun- 
 dation of the practice, which is common 
 in most of our churches, of Infant Bap- 
 tism. The view that is held is simply 
 this : these children have one Christian 
 parent — sometimes it is the father, a great 
 deal more frequently it is the mother — and 
 because one of these parents is a Chris- 
 tian, the little child is, according to St. 
 Paul, holy. The Christian society says 
 to the parent, " Bring your little child, 
 and let us at once recognise to whom the 
 child belongs. And then take your little 
 child — you, the parent, not the god- 
 
Infant Baptism. yi 
 
 parent, who has httle or nothing to do 
 with its training — and bring it up in the 
 nurture and admonition of the Lord." 
 Now, that is the first point I want to 
 impress upon all parents, young parents 
 especially, when they have that little child 
 in their hands : remember from the first 
 day it belongs to Jesus Christ ; it is His 
 beloved property, for He says, " Of such 
 is the Kingdom of Heaven." 
 
 The second truth that I want to put 
 before you is this. The last command- 
 ment that Jesus Christ gave to the dis- 
 ciples before He left the earth was, that 
 they should go and make disciples of 
 all people. " Baptize them in the name 
 of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 Ghost, teaching them to observe all 
 things whatsoever I commanded you." 
 Now, I should think, if He gave that 
 commandment to His disciples, supposing 
 the disciples were fathers, they would 
 feel that the first step in carrying it 
 out would be to make disciples of 
 
J2 Christian Children. 
 
 their own children, and when they began 
 to speak to other men they would 
 say, ** We want to make disciples of 
 you, and then your first duty will be 
 to make disciples of your own chil- 
 dren ; make disciples of them, baptize 
 them, teach them, and bring them 
 up from the very first to understand the 
 claims and the teaching of our Lord 
 and Saviour Jesus Christ." I do not 
 know how to speak plainly and strongly 
 enough upon this question. I believe 
 there are multitudes throughout the 
 land whose life has been more or less 
 shadowed because this simple principle 
 was not adopted. Your parents were 
 Christian people, and tried to bring 
 you up in the nurture and admonition 
 of the Lord, and yet they always left 
 upon you the impression that you had to 
 go through some terrible process of con- 
 version and change before you could 
 become Christians. And a great deal of 
 your young life was clouded by that 
 
Let them Know I 73 
 
 mistaken idea. Your parents did not 
 venture — they had not Divine faith enough 
 — to tell 5^ou as little children that you 
 belonged to Him, that He loved you, 
 that He did not want to wait until you 
 had grown old and hoary in sin, and then 
 by a great reconversion to make you a 
 new creature; but He had claimed you 
 from the first, and He wanted you as 
 little children to yield your hearts to Him 
 and to believe that He had died to save 
 you. Do not make that mistake with 
 your children. Let them know early 
 enough how the Saviour loves them, and 
 how the Saviour died for them. It is true 
 that in after years your children may 
 choose otherwise for themselves — it is 
 sadly true. We are told that even the 
 angels in heaven fell and rebelled against 
 God in the very presence of God ; we are 
 told that one of the twelve chosen dis- 
 ciples who listened to Jesus from day to 
 clay was a traitor; and it is possible, of 
 course, that a child brought up for Christ 
 
74 ^ P^^t Home. 
 
 may yet at last rebel against Him and 
 refuse to be His ; but you at any rate will 
 have fulfilled your part. Duties belong 
 to us ; events to God. If you have 
 brought up your little child to know 
 Jesus Christ as his Saviour, and if after- 
 wards he chooses to reject Him, he will 
 never be able to say, "It was my father's 
 fault, it was my mother's fault " — it will 
 be, it must be, his own. 
 
 But now the third truth which I 
 want to mention is, if you claim these 
 little children as Christ's, and if you 
 intend to bring them up for Him to 
 make disciples of them, you must have 
 a liome that is fit for them. It is not 
 every home that will do for a child of 
 God. And this brings us to the great 
 practical question of making the home — 
 and what a world lies hidden under that 
 simple phrase ! Now, of course it is not 
 possible for all of us to make a rich home, 
 to make a beautiful home, to make even a 
 comfortable home ; but it is possible for 
 
" The Cotter's Saturday Nighty 75 
 
 all of us to make a Christian home. If 
 it is only a garret Christ may be there, for 
 the first home He had on earth was the 
 stall of a stable in an Eastern caravan- 
 serai. I do most emphatically protest 
 that money, wealth, position, have nothing 
 whatever to do with the making of the 
 home. The most exquisite description of 
 a home in our language is the " Cotter's 
 Saturday Night," and I am told that 
 our beloved Queen regards that poem 
 of Eobert Burns as the best in all our 
 literature. If that be so, the Queen 
 recognises that the best home may be a 
 cottage, and indeed v/e must all know 
 that, for many of the essential qualities 
 of a home, a cottage is more favourable 
 than a palace. There are four pillars 
 which should hold up the roof-tree : 
 Unselfishness, purity, discipline, and 
 love. Where those four pillars stand the 
 thatch may be straw; it may be a very 
 simple place, but it will be a home. Let us 
 grant, for example, that the father is "one 
 
^6 T/ie Simplicity of a Home. 
 
 that ruleth well his own house, having his 
 children in subjection, with all gravity," 
 as St. Paul puts it. Let us grant that the 
 mother is, as he says in another place — 
 the Epistle to Titus (ii. 5) — "a woman who 
 knows how to stay in the house " — a very 
 remarkable passage that ; and let us grant 
 also that the children under this beautiful 
 home-light of the woman's influence have 
 been taught to love and to serve one 
 another, to seek each the other's good : 
 and there you have a home. Very simple, 
 but the best thing on earth is a home so 
 made. 
 
 Yes, I must say it again. There are 
 many households, both rich and poor, 
 which are no fit place for God's little 
 children to be brought up in : households 
 where wranglings and bitter words prevail 
 day after day, w^here selfishness and deceit 
 are the constant undertone of life, where 
 fitful gusts of affection alternate with 
 the sharpest severities, where religion is 
 laughed at, or, what is very much worse. 
 
Discipline. y/ 
 
 professed on the lip and unknown in the 
 heart. In such a home the poor httle 
 children are all at a terrible disadvantage, 
 and I do not know how they can come 
 out of it anything but atheists or hypo- 
 crites. It is a great thing, is this making 
 of the home, and unless we make it a-right 
 the children cannot be brought up rightly. 
 There is just one other truth I want to 
 mention. I spoke just now about the 
 fathers exercising discipline " with all 
 gravity," and that leads us to a very 
 homely subject, which has to be dealt 
 with sometimes. In a former day, 
 the fathers of our flesh chastened us 
 as seemed good to them, and some- 
 times with great severity, and some- 
 times even with great injustice. The 
 punishment was often severe just where 
 it ought to have been light, and light 
 where it ought to have been severe. 
 The worst faults were overlooked because 
 they did not interfere with the peace of 
 the parents, but the slightest fault which 
 
78 John Paton^s Father. 
 
 disturbed their peace was visited with 
 a savage vindictiveness. In this genera- 
 tion, perhaps, there has been a reaction, 
 and the tendency with parents now 
 is to show a leniency unknown to our 
 fathers. Probably the want of discipline 
 ruins more homes in England to-day than 
 any other single cause — the fact that there 
 is no head to the household because the 
 head has resigned ; and the home cannot, 
 any more than the State, flourish without 
 a head. There are many children ruined 
 for want of that firm, strong hand of 
 fatherly discipline ; and I would entreat 
 young fathers never to abdicate that 
 throne. But how to exercise it? Here 
 is a passage which I will commend to you 
 from the Life of John Paton: "If anything 
 very serious required to be punished, our 
 father retired first to his closet for prayer, 
 and we boys grew to understand that he 
 was laying the whole matter before God, 
 and that was the severest part of the 
 punishment for me to bear. I could have 
 
Vicarious Piinishmcnt. 79 
 
 defied any amount of mere penalty, but 
 this spoke to my conscience as a message 
 from God." I think that is rather hke 
 God's own way of punishing His children. 
 When God wants to punish men there is no 
 vindictiveness about it, no injustice. "What 
 does He do ? He goes to the Cross and 
 bears it Himself, and the astonished world 
 sees the Father lifting up the whole burden 
 of its sin in the Person of His Son. That 
 is the kind of punishment which He gives. 
 If you want to punish your children 
 rightly, go into your closet and lay the 
 matter before God. Do not tell the chil- 
 dren what you are doing — they will soon 
 find it out, and when you come from the 
 throne of God with the calm, stern, simple 
 determination to punish your child for 
 what he has done wrong, you will hardly 
 have to lift your hand ; the punishment 
 will lie in your very face, and the child will 
 tremble under the sense of that mysterious 
 authority which has beenderived by the 
 father on earth from the Father in 
 
So The Noblest Task on Earth. 
 
 Heaven. I know no other way of giving 
 punishment, and if there were more 
 parents like that simple, God-fearing 
 Scottish peasant, there would be more 
 heroes like that missionary, John Paton. 
 
 Now, I would like to say to parents 
 in closing that there is no nobler task 
 in which any man can be engaged, or 
 any woman either, than that of training 
 the children in the home. You need not 
 think that it is time thrown away or effort 
 unobserved. Our great and splendid 
 public appearances are all of very little 
 moment compared with the influences 
 which we exercise in our own households. 
 If you have taught your own children 
 well, if you have proved to be a good 
 father, you will be fit for anything ; you 
 will be fit to govern the State, you will 
 be fit to be wealthy — and very few 
 people are fit for that ; you will be fit for 
 any society, and, best of all, you will be 
 fit for heaven. We are told about one of 
 the great liberators of Italy, the man who 
 
Ricasolt. 
 
 in after days won the title of the Iron 
 Baron, Eicasoli the Tuscan, that up 
 to the very eve of the struggle for 
 national independence, he had lived in 
 complete retirement ; hardly anybody 
 knew him, for his occupation during the 
 best years of his life had been simply to 
 educate and to train his one beloved child 
 whose name was Bertina. In training 
 that little child, he had become fit to 
 be one of Italy's leaders — a patriot and 
 a hero ! 
 
 Let no man think he will find better 
 work on earth than to bring up a little 
 child to be a child of God ! Let no woman 
 think there is a wider, nobler sphere of 
 influence than to make the little home over 
 which she is the presiding light a place 
 in which a little child of God can live. 
 And supposing parents are convinced of 
 what I have been saying to them, and are 
 determined to approach their great task 
 in this spirit ; supposing they mean 
 henceforth to claim their httle children 
 
 6 
 
82 Homey Szveet Home. 
 
 as belonging to Jesus Christ, to bring 
 them up as His, to make the home 
 as like the heavenly model as they possibly 
 can, and to exercise a wise discipline upon 
 their knees and in the presence of God, 
 what do you think will be the result? 
 The home that you have thus made will 
 be to the children you bring up within its 
 doors the very dearest place on earth. In 
 after years they will look back upon it as 
 the most beautiful place that imagination 
 can conceive. It will seem to them that 
 it was a little sanctuary, a heaven upon 
 earth. Their ideal of enjoyment all their 
 life will be those homely scenes, the 
 love and tenderness which used to greet 
 them at breakfast in the morning, and 
 the hush of the family worship when all 
 knelt down in prayer to God ; the duties 
 of the day, laborious and painful, with the 
 sweet background of the home always in 
 sight ; the evening and the twilight with 
 the romps of the children, the loud peals 
 of laughter around the fire, the tales 
 
The Dear Monory. 83 
 
 that were told, the games that were 
 played, the growing seriousness of the 
 discussions as childhood passed into young 
 manhood and young womanhood, and the 
 time came for launching upon life ; the 
 father's thought, the mother's tears, when 
 they sent the boys out to the great city ; 
 and again the solemn hush of the gather- 
 ing for worship as the day closed in, the 
 hovering presence of angels that seemed 
 to fly white-winged over the little bed 
 and never quite to leave us in the dark, 
 and that half-revealed face of God which 
 used to look out upon us from our 
 mother's and our father's face — these 
 will be the abiding memory which no 
 chance or change of life can tear away. 
 And to the end the most beautiful 
 adjective in the English language will 
 be to say that the thing was "home- 
 like," and the best description of heaven 
 will be to say that it is " the home over 
 there ! " 
 Children brought up in homes like this. 
 
84 ProdigaPs Return. 
 
 will they go wrong ? It is possible that for 
 a time one and another will be misled by 
 false lights, and will wander away, but, like 
 the Prodigal in the parable, there will bo 
 some element in their nature *' true to the 
 kindred points of heaven and home," and 
 when they are afar off they will be 
 drawn back again, they will awake one 
 morning and say, " I will arise and go to 
 my Father ; I have sinned against Him.'* 
 I do not believe that any child can be 
 lost who from the first was laid upon 
 the knees of Christ and held there 
 with praying hands and passionate love 
 and simple faith. Ah ! these homes of 
 yours may be poor or rich, they may 
 be large or small, the family may be 
 one or two, or a large circle, but 
 they are the great places of possibility. 
 You may bring the curse down upon 
 them and ruin them; you may bring 
 the blessing of God upon them for 
 evermore. 
 
 Parents, young men, young women, 
 
 / 
 
The Home over I here. 85 
 
 making your homes, see that you mako 
 them such that your children when they 
 are grown up will look back upon them 
 and think of them as the tyne and tiie 
 promise of the Home over there 1 
 
IV. 
 CHRIST IX AET. 
 
CHRIST IN ABT, 
 
 Art occupies a large place in the thought 
 of every civilised community, and most 
 civilised people are accustomed to see in 
 it much of what is truest and best in life. 
 But, strange to say, the word, in the special 
 sense which we mean when we use the 
 term Art alone, occurs only once in the 
 New Testament. In Acts xvii. 29, the 
 Apostle says: *'We ought not to think 
 that the Godhead is like unto gold, or 
 silver, or stone, graven by art and man's 
 device." Art is here neither praised nor 
 blamed, but a warning is given that it 
 may be used for the purposes of idolatry, 
 and it is implied that we must draw a 
 distinction between the region of religion 
 and the region of Art. Now if we except 
 the branch of Art which is spoken of some- 
 times in connection with praise — I mean 
 
90 Hoiv to Regard Art? 
 
 music — this is practically all the guidance 
 that the New Testament gives us upon a, 
 subject which is, as I have said, neces- 
 sarily in the mind and thought of every 
 civilised community, " Beware of making 
 Art the occasion or the instrument of 
 idolatry " — so much say our Oracles ; for 
 the rest they are silent. Now is this 
 silence that of consent or that of condem- 
 nation ? Is Art to be treated as a sphere 
 of human life w^hich lies outside the sphere 
 of religion ? Are w^e to say that there is 
 some antagonism between it and the 
 Spirit of Christ ? What attitude are we, 
 as Christians, to maintain in relation to 
 Art? 
 
 What adds to our perplexity in putting 
 questions like these is that Jesus, who, 
 so far as we know, was unacquainted 
 with any art except the very humble one 
 of carpentry, and spoke no word which 
 bore even remotely on the subject, yet 
 became the inspiration of a great pro- 
 ductive activity in Art from the third 
 
Christ iaji Art. 9 1 
 
 century until the present day. His 
 apostles, who never referred to the ques- 
 tion at all, have yet been made the subjects 
 of more paintings and statues, and have 
 given their names to more buildings of 
 architectural merit, than the Pagan gods 
 of Greece or Eome. St. Paul, who stood 
 on Mars Hill entirely unmoved, so far as 
 we can tell, by the matchless S3^mmetry of 
 the Parthenon or the friezes of Phidias, 
 has yet figured in the great cartoons of 
 Baphael, and given his name to an oratorio 
 as well as to the metropolitan church 
 in the largest city upon earth. And again,, 
 the familiar branches of the fine arts, at 
 any rate such as are before us in England 
 to-day, have all grown more or less 
 directly out of religion, and in the forms 
 that we see them out of the Christian 
 religion. The drama, for example, which 
 seems at first sight the furthest removed 
 from Christianity, had its oiigin in 
 the mediaeval attempts to present in 
 churches the leading facts of the Chris- 
 
CJiristian Art. 
 
 tian revelation, and still bears a trace of 
 its origin in the great Passion Play of 
 Ober-Ammergau. Music, the latest of all 
 arts to mature, was born, as it were, in 
 the Church. It is so intensely and neces- 
 sarily religious that we know of no way 
 of defining which music is religious and 
 which is secular, except by saying that 
 all good music is religious and all bad 
 music is secular. Painting and sculp- 
 ture, as every visitor to Italy well 
 knows, though traceable in a certain 
 sense to Pagan models, are essentially 
 Christian, and architecture is so identi- 
 fied with rehgion that almost the only 
 buildings throughout England which are 
 worth continual and repeated study are 
 buildings which were put up for the 
 worship of God. 
 
 Here, then, you see, is a problem, or 
 rather a series of problems, which thought- 
 ful minds must wish to have solved, but 
 in which, from the very nature of the case, 
 our religious teachers, speaking almost 
 
The Problem. 93 
 
 exclusively from the subjects treated of 
 in the New Testament, seldom give us 
 any help. Thus there is a curious chasm 
 between our Art and our Religion, a divi- 
 sion which sometimes seems to grow into 
 antagonism. Very few people attempt to 
 reconcile them, and generally we are 
 content with the conclusion that some 
 should make their Art their Religion 
 and others should attend to Religion and 
 let Art alone. Ought we not to attempt 
 a solution? And, though I am by na 
 means sure of my ability to give it, let 
 me, at any rate, make one or two 
 suggestions. 
 
 Let us approach the subject in this way. 
 The Jews, lying midway between Assyria 
 and Babylonia, Egypt and Greece, the 
 great artist nations of antiquity, were 
 essentially an inartistic race. They seemed 
 to be like a little sacred ground fenced off 
 from the intrusion of these artistic influ- 
 ences. Here was a people that was for- 
 bidden to make the likeness of anything 
 
94 -^^'^ Cannot Come First. 
 
 that is in heaven above or in the earth 
 beneath, and our Lord, vrho, humanly 
 speaking, was the very flower and con- 
 summation of His people, was in this 
 respect also " of the Jews." Now, in the 
 choice of Israel as the nation through 
 whom the Saviour of the world should be 
 manifested, and in the relation which He 
 holds to that nation, it seems to me we 
 have the clue to a solution of our problem. 
 Art can never be for the world, for the 
 nation, or for the man, the first con- 
 sideration. There is something more 
 important which must always come before 
 it. Eeligion and conduct are what make 
 up the best of life ; religion and conduct 
 must stand like a great twin-peaked 
 mountain covered with unapproachable 
 snows, firm upon its own basis, before the 
 hand of Art can sprinkle flowers at its 
 base, or the voice of Art begin to sing 
 hymns in its shadow. Art is concerned 
 with beauty, but truth must always come 
 before beauty ; and, indeed, unless truth has 
 
The Inartistic Race. 95 
 
 so far gained in the race as to be almost 
 at tlie goal to start with, beauty will not 
 reach the goal at all. There is, then, some- 
 thing deeply significant in the fact that the 
 nation which is to be the instrument of 
 revelation, should be the most inartistic of 
 civilised communities ; the nation which 
 is, so to speak, absorbed in the practical 
 questions of religion and conduct. Such 
 a fact seems to say to us all, " Let your 
 eyes rest on this mighty mountain peak 
 which cuts the blue, and let your spirit 
 comprehend its strength, its purity, its 
 majesty, before you attempt to sing or to 
 play, to build or to paint or to carve.'* 
 In this sense the Christian religion, — even 
 more than the matrix of Judaism out of 
 which it grew, — is essentially and intensely 
 Puritanical; its teaching is, '^ Men, you 
 lire not here first and foremost to be 
 amused, or to be dehghted ; you are here 
 first and foremost to get right with G od ; 
 you are here first and foremost to make 
 the foundation of your conduct true, and 
 
96 TJie Synod of Elvira, 
 
 yonr conceptions of your destiny pre- 
 dominant. Do not therefore confuse 
 religious realities witli aesthetic excite- 
 ment ; let the truth by which the soul 
 lives be as the great mountain, far above 
 the lower regions of taste and sensibility." 
 Even at the beginning of the fourth 
 century the Synod of Elvira decreed that 
 no paintings should be put upon the walls 
 of churches. The Church had not as yet 
 plunged down the steep abysm of her 
 worldly corruption, she still retained 
 that stiff, stern Puritanism which is her 
 very backbone, and she feared lest the 
 paintings in the churches which were 
 made to adorn them should attract the 
 eye and the heart of the worshipper, and 
 lead to idolatry. And here, in the end of 
 the nineteenth centurj^ the most notable of 
 our Art teachers has said in the Appendix 
 to Tlie Stones of Venice : " I do not 
 know, as I have repeatedly stated, how 
 far the splendour of architecture, or other 
 art, is compatible with the honesty and 
 
R^ishhis Judgment. 97 
 
 the usefulness of religious service. The 
 longer I live the more I incline to severe 
 judgment in this matter and the less I can 
 trust the sentiments excited by painted 
 glass and coloured tiles. But if there be 
 indeed value in such things, our plain 
 duty is to direct our strength against the 
 superstition which has dishonoured them, 
 since there are thousands to whom they 
 are now merely an offence, owing to their 
 association with absurd and idolatrous 
 ceremonies. I have but this exhorta- 
 tion," adds Mr. Euskin, "for all who love 
 them — not to regulate their creeds by 
 their taste in colours, but to hold calmly 
 to the right at whatever present cost to 
 their imaginative enjoyment, sure that 
 they will one day find in heavenly truth a 
 brighter charm than in earthly imagery, 
 and striving chiefly to gather stones for 
 the eternal building, whose walls shall be 
 salvation and whose gates shall be praise." 
 I know that it is a very common thing to 
 hurl reproaches against the vandalism of 
 
 7 
 
q8 Puritanism. 
 
 our Puritan fathers, who tore the pictures, 
 defaced the sculptures, and desecrated the 
 fabrics of our mediasval churches ; but we 
 sometimes forget that in the seventeenth 
 century these things had lent themselves 
 to idolatry, and our fathers heard again 
 the thunder voice that spoke from Sinai, 
 " Thou shalt make no graven image ; " 
 they felt again the sternness and the indig- 
 nation of the most High God, who is a 
 Spirit, against the little creatures bow- 
 ing down before the things which their 
 hands had made. Before we condemn our 
 Puritan fathers, let us understand the in- 
 estimable treasure that we have obtained 
 through their violent and excessive protest. 
 But now, supposing that we in the 
 spirit of the New Testament have 
 scrupulously fenced round the inviolable 
 sphere of the spiritual life ; supposing we 
 have learnt to worship God, who is a 
 Spirit, in spirit and in truth ; supposing 
 that we have learnt to rejoice in our posi- 
 tion of reconciliation to God in Christ 
 
^Lnrng's Definition. 99 
 
 fully mo5r Lord ; supposing that we have 
 Art hu to regulate our conduct by the in- 
 not-d voice of the Spirit of God; sup- 
 an'sing, in a word, that we are whole- 
 ttearted Christians, keeping ourselves from 
 Idols and approaching every subject in 
 Christ and through Christ ; the question 
 arises, "Has Art a legitimate sphere ? " 
 and the answer that I would give is this : 
 ** It has a sphere which is not only legiti- 
 mate, but precious and invaluable." Thus 
 a great Christian artist like Eobert 
 Browning will touch Art with the trans- 
 forming hand of Christ ; he will purify and 
 ennoble its function, and he will give it a 
 lofty definition. He says : 
 
 i^rt wliicli I may style the love of loving, rage 
 Of knowing, seeing, feeling the very truth of things, 
 For truth's sake, whole and sole, nor any good 
 
 truth brings 
 'The knower, seer, feeler, beside. 
 
 That is the true tone of the Christian 
 artist. Art for Art's sake ! No, for ever 
 .no, a formula which is misleadinf^r to life 
 
100 Aj't for Ti'iLtJis 
 
 and destractive of ^ Art. No ; ,^-_ 
 truth's sake," that is the formula. L^,. 
 seen and heard and felt, because beauty, 
 indeed, the reality of things. The art 
 is a gifted soul who is called to " rende 
 visible the Divine, presenting it to the. 
 imaginative and intuitive faculty." True 
 and great Art never leaves the eternal 
 Truth, the eternal greatness of the Spirit 
 and of righteousness ; it has its Realism, 
 but its realism is the presentation of a 
 beauty which is true though often un- 
 perceived, and is never the presentation 
 of the foulness which can be perceived in 
 any gutter or any sewer. It has its Im- 
 pressionism, its swift vision of a soul 
 that sees at a glance the truth which 
 slower souls see only by degrees. And 
 thus the true and great artist becomes in 
 God's hands a prophet and a revealer : he 
 catches that harmony which we hear only 
 in broken tones ; he sees those visions 
 which we perceive in outline only and in 
 transitory glimpses ; he catches them. 
 
''Abt Vogkrr loi 
 
 fully modelled, rich in shape and colour. 
 Art has, therefore, a function, which is 
 not only high, but next to the highest, 
 and it has been set down in words by 
 the great Christian poet. When Abt 
 Vogler at the organ has just realised the 
 lofty and beautiful fabric called into being 
 by the sound of his own keys, and has 
 perceived it fade away as the music 
 ceases, he suddenly recognises that this 
 beauty which seemed so brief exists, for 
 God and in God, for ever ; he accepts it 
 as the truth revealed to him for the 
 quickening of faith and love. 
 
 "Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, th» 
 ineffable Name ? 
 Maker and builder Thou of houses not made 
 with hands ! 
 What ? Have fear of change from Thee, who art 
 ever the same ? 
 Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that 
 Thy power expands ? 
 There shall never be one lost good, what was 
 shall live as before ; 
 For evil is null, is nought, is silence implying 
 sound ; 
 
102 Aj't tJie Handmaid of God. 
 
 All that was good sliall be good, vritli, for evil, 
 so mucli good more, 
 On earth the broken arcs, in heaven the 
 perfect round. 
 All vre have vrilled, or hoped, or dreamed of good 
 shall exist, 
 Not its semblance, but itself ; no beauty nor 
 good, nor power, 
 Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for 
 the melodist, 
 When Eternity afnrms the conception of an 
 hour. 
 The high that proved too high, the heroic for 
 earth too hard, 
 The passion that left the ground to lose itself 
 in the sky, 
 Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard : 
 Enough, he heard it once ; we shall hear it 
 too by-and-by." 
 
 But vievv^ed in this light, Art, when it 
 is truly Christian, and not Christian in 
 the vulgar sense of choosing Christian 
 suhjects because they appeal to the weak 
 sentimentality of untrained souls, and 
 therefore command a higher price in the 
 market — hut Art, when it is truly Chris- 
 tian, becomes a dutiful handmaid of God. 
 That noble portrait which has truthfully 
 
A7t Insinnnent i?t His Hands, 103 
 
 presented the idealised face of an actual 
 human being ; that faithful landscape 
 which has humbly reproduced the eternal 
 loveliness of green foliage and chequered 
 skies ; that exquisite marble which has 
 led our eyes to rest upon the iinfallen 
 grandeur of the being who was made in 
 God's image ; that building which in its 
 beauty of proportion and chaste appro- 
 priateness of decoration seems to shed 
 dignity upon the whole neighbourhood 
 in which it stands ; that truth of design 
 and colour which makes the household 
 furniture the happy and harmonious 
 mirror of the ordered lives that are lived 
 amongst it ; that poem which has dived 
 into the ocean of things and brought up 
 its pearls embedded in its mother-of- 
 pearl; and one might almost have said, 
 in the happier days of the stage, that 
 noble play which presented the action and 
 interaction of our human life in the puri- 
 fying light of the creative imagination, 
 and not in the base li^ht of the interested 
 
104 False Art. 
 
 caterer vv^ho wishes only to catch a laugh 
 or a cheer — each of these becomes a 
 delicate organ in God's hands, not only 
 to delight, but to exalt, the creatures 
 whom He has made. 
 
 I cannot but think that the light 
 begins to break through upon our pro- 
 blem. The Puritanism of Christianity is 
 no enemy to Art, but only to the misuse 
 and the misplacement of Art. The van- 
 dalism of our Puritan fathers was a blind 
 and fierce reaction against a misuse 
 of Art, which had changed it into 
 an idolatry, and a misplacement of Art, 
 which had made it the servant, not of 
 God, but of the devil. Art set in the 
 room of religion ; Art prostituted ; Art in 
 the hands of men who, through and 
 through, are utterly corrupt ; Art in the 
 hands of those who will use its magic 
 pov/er to corrupt and mislead the world, 
 because this foolish world is always ready 
 to pay the highest price to those who will 
 debauch it — Art on these terms may be 
 
Discrimination . 105 
 
 dreaded and condemDed. But there is an 
 Art of quite another kind, and the Spirit 
 of Christ has taught us to discriminate. 
 That Spirit sits in judgment on all mere- 
 tricious beauty — beauty which is only 
 beauty to the perverted taste, the beauty 
 of the music-hall and the French novel ; 
 but that same Spirit of Christ sets a 
 seal of approbation upon the beauty that 
 is true beauty, because it is beauty to 
 God, and came from God, and represents 
 God amongst men. And He approves, 
 never doubt it, of those artists who are 
 able, in a measure, to present this godly 
 beauty to us, and to open our eyes to per- 
 ceive it. And if this distinction which 
 the Christian spirit makes should ever 
 come to be recognised, the artist's func- 
 tion may be again redeemed; the Eoyal 
 Academy might cease, but great Art would 
 begin ; the artist once again would, like 
 Bezaleel, be consciously occupying him- 
 self in building a beautiful tabernacle 
 for God's self-manifestation, or, like Fra 
 
I06 TJie Spirit of Christ. 
 
 Angelico, would rise from his knees to 
 paint his fresco or his canvas with tears of 
 nnutterable rapture standing in his eyes. 
 And if we are not destined to see that great 
 regeneration of Art, we may, I think, at 
 least hve in the spirit of it, and order our 
 lives as Christians as though we lived in 
 happier days that are to come. We can 
 avert our eyes sternly and decisively from 
 all meretricious and un-Christly Art ; 
 refuse to be charmed by the charmer, 
 charm he never so wisely ; refuse to be 
 dazzled by what is gorgeous and impos- 
 ing, but is, unhappily, not true. But, at 
 the same time, just in proportion to the 
 depth and sincerity of our Christian spirit, 
 we can eagerly claim and use whatever 
 glory of loveliness God has vouchsafed to 
 manifest to us through the gifted artist- 
 soul for our delight or for our instruc- 
 tion. It is the Spirit of Christ which 
 makes great Art, and it is the Spirit of 
 Christ which can distinguish. Eeject what 
 is bad ; accept and rejoice in what is good. 
 
V. 
 CHRIST IN LITERATURE. 
 
CHBIST IN LITEBATUBE. 
 
 Vita sine Uteris est mors. — Eobektson-. 
 
 The first century of our era was by no 
 means an unlettered age. Cultivated 
 Eomans like Seneca, or Lucan, Pliny, 
 or Suetonius, probably read and wrote as 
 much as cultivated men read and write in 
 England to-day. Joseplius, whose Aii- 
 tiqidties and Histories we still read, and 
 the Alexandrian Jew, Philo, are enough 
 to remind us that even in the provincial 
 society of Judaism there was a circle of 
 readers and authors. Yet there is no 
 point in which the contrast between the 
 first century and the nineteenth is more 
 striking than the place that literature 
 takes. Now reading is not confined to a 
 cultivated circle ; it is a universal acqui- 
 sition. In modern England authorship is 
 
no A Literary Age, 
 
 as general as reading was in ancient 
 Eome. Literature has become for us the 
 principal medium of communication 
 between mind and mind ; it is the prin- 
 cipal instructor to which we look for the 
 XDrogressive education of the race. We 
 are all of us more or less a bookish people, 
 and probably the larger part of what each 
 one of us is has been derived from what 
 we read. This diffused power of litera- 
 ture is, I need hardly remind you, of very 
 modern growth ; its origin was in the 
 invention of printing, four hundred years 
 ago, and its stalwart youth to-day is 
 due simply to the cheapening of paper and 
 the improvements in the processes of ^,. .^^^ 
 production. Its future is altogether incal- / ly^ 
 culable. Mark, then, this difference : in "^ 
 the first Christian century literature was a 
 tiny rillet trickling from HeHcon, visited 
 by a fev7 scholars and thinkers ; to-day 
 Literature is a many-branched stream 
 which covers with a network the whole 
 land, so that no one, even the youngest or 
 
The Problem. 1 1 1 
 
 the poorest, can be entirely uninfluenced 
 by it. 
 
 But this vast change in the habits and 
 the condition of the world necessarily 
 creates a number of problems which 
 could not be alluded to in the New 
 Testament, such problems as these : 
 How sJiould tee read ? What sJiould we 
 read ? How are iae to regard printed 
 matter ? What pri7iciples should regulate 
 -'■its in the use of it? 
 
 Now it is to be observed that though 
 the Bible can give no direct and ex- 
 plicit answer to these questions, the 
 ^ible by its very existence is in a cer- 
 tain sense the suggestion of an answer : 
 for this ancient Book is a proof that 
 from the very beginning God laid claim 
 to the human faculty of, reading and 
 writing for His own purposes. "When you 
 come to consider how late in time printing 
 was generalised and literature was made 
 common, and wh&rLy:ou. come to consider 
 how very little the men of the first age 
 
112 The Book, 
 
 could have dreamt that the men of the 
 latter ages would be bookish people, you 
 must regard it as very remarkable that 
 God from the first saicl to p^mcular Taen^ 
 to Moses, to Jeremiah, to John, "Write 
 in a book," so that an extensive, although 
 a compact, literature should be formed 
 against the time when men would be 
 readers ; and the writings — or, to use the 
 Latin word, the *' Scriptures " — should be 
 not only the medium for communicating 
 the truth, but the casket in which the 
 truth should be preserved, an inex- 
 haustible store as the minds of men should 
 open and be able to 'receive it. What I 
 mean is, the use that God makes of litera- 
 ture, and would make of if, is^een in the 
 '"place which He has _ g^vearlo the Bible in 
 modern religion". At the present haoment 
 you may measure the stage of advancement 
 and civilisation of the several nations of 
 the world by simply discovering how far 
 they know and use this Book. If you 
 take a map of the world and mark by 
 
A People of the Booh. 113 
 
 colours its gradations from civilisation 
 down to barbarism, you will find you have 
 an accurate report of the degree in which 
 each nation knows and uses the Bible. 
 Here in Europe, for example, the vast 
 difference between England, with its 
 freedom and its comparative happiness, 
 and Kussia, which is fast bound in misery 
 and iron, may be covered immediately by 
 observing that in England about half our 
 population have a little smattering of 
 Bible knowledge, and all our principal 
 leaders and teachers are suffused with its 
 principles ; while in Kussia the great mass 
 of the people have not heard of the Bible, 
 and 90 per cent, could not read it if they 
 had heard about it. Or, if you want an 
 example still more striking, cross the 
 Atlantic, and ask what is the difference 
 between North America and South 
 America. It obviously is not made by the 
 Isthmus of Panama, but it is exactly ex- 
 pressed when you have said that that 
 great progressive community called the 
 
 8 
 
114 " IVriie in a Book'* 
 
 United States was, as it were, built upon 
 the Bible, whilst those confused, corrupt, 
 and anarchic Eepublics which fill the 
 southern part of the Continent are entirely 
 ignorant of it. What God would do then 
 with literature is, in a certain sense, dis- 
 tinctly marked upon the very face of the 
 earth to-day. 
 
 But now will you turn to Eev. i. 11. We 
 find Jesus Christ in this text claiming the 
 pen of a certain man in order that He may 
 communicate with men through ages to 
 come. From the recognition of this fact 
 I want to pass — rather suddenly I know — 
 to a very broad and general statement. 
 Looking at the whole mass of printed and 
 written matter with which the world at 
 the present day teems, and sometimes 
 seems to groan, I propose that we 
 should divide it into two parts, and of 
 the one part we should say: ^^ This 
 is such that Christ said, or might 
 have said, about it : * Write,' such as He 
 could approve and use ; and that is such 
 
A Classification of Literature. 115 
 
 that you could not possibly conceive Him 
 saying, either * Write 'or * read it,' such 
 that it could have no imprimatur of His, 
 and stands condemned in the light of His 
 countenance." I am aware that this is a 
 somewhat unusual classification of litera- 
 ture, hut it is a very ofevSis one for a 
 Christian to make, and it at once gives us 
 a principle which we can apply to all our 
 reading. That stern edict of the Calipli 
 Omar, commanding the library at Alex- 
 andria to be burnt — because, as he said, 
 ** If it contains what is in the Word of 
 God, the Word of God is sufficient, and if 
 it contains what is against it, it ought to 
 be destroyed " — has frequently been cen- 
 sured by thinking men ; but the more 
 you look at it the more you see that 
 it deserves censure, not because of 
 the thought that was in the Caliph's 
 mind, but because of the unwarrantable 
 limitation of the idea of the Word of God, 
 the assumption that the Word of God 
 was confined to the Koran. So far from 
 
Ii6 A Principle of Selection. 
 
 condemning the Caliph in what he said, I 
 would suggest that we actually take his 
 recommendation, with a little modifica- 
 tion, as the principle of modern reading ; 
 we may say, with regard to every book or 
 paper or pamphlet that we wish to read, 
 " Is this a thing about which my Lord 
 might have said * Write,' or even * Kead ' ? 
 Then I propose to read it and understand 
 it to the best of my ability. Is it, on the 
 other hand, a writing of a kind concern- 
 ing which He w^ould have said neither 
 * Write ' nor ' Eead ' ? for me it shall be 
 an unwritten book — a blank, illegible 
 paper; by no means shall my eyes peruse 
 it." 
 
 Now, I think that we shall all feel the 
 need of some inward principle for selec- 
 tion and restriction in reading, for these 
 two reasons: — First, consider the pene- 
 trating and insidious power of a printed 
 page. Suppose it is bad, suppose it is 
 corrupting ; it comes before us with a 
 quiet, dem«ife, and decent aspect ; nothings 
 
The Insidiousness of a Book. 117 
 
 could be less aggressive, less dangerous 
 than this ; it may even be bound in the 
 costliest binding and printed upon the 
 best paper.- Who could be distrustful of 
 anything so innocent^br regard v^ith sus- 
 picion what seems in no way to threaten 
 our safety ? And yet, when the eye has 
 fallen upon this innocent page, imme- 
 sdiately the whole course of nature may be 
 set on fire and the stream of devastating 
 lava may rush over the fair fields of the 
 mind ; or if it be of another quality, un- 
 speakable floods of defiling mud may 
 arise and creep over the soul, leaving, 
 even if they should withdraw, patches 
 and stains as long as the soul exists. 
 Now, if a living companion approached 
 us with the same corrupt influences in 
 him as are contained in this innocent 
 page, every decent mind would keep him 
 at a distance, and would insist upon some 
 satisfactory introduction. He would give, 
 more or less, an indication of what he is, 
 and as we got to see what he was we should 
 
Ii8 The Trojan Horse. 
 
 decline his acquaintance. But this com^' : ,, ^ 
 
 ;'4|^A>fw-*"- 
 
 panion, this written page, leaps into the 
 
 breast at a bound ; it is there at once un- uJ^-^f^ 
 
 questioned and uncensured ; it is hke that 
 
 wooden horse which was introduced into 
 
 Troy with the approbation of all the people, 
 
 containing within its belly the armed 
 
 men that were to be the ruin of the city, 
 
 but not disgorging itself until it was well 
 
 within the walls. ThisL. evil pSge^< comes 
 
 as quietly as the wooden horse, and it 
 
 does not tell you what it means to do 
 
 until it is inside. I think your experience 
 
 will bear me out when I say that there 
 
 are multitudes of ruined lives in the 
 
 visible prisons and slums of this city, 
 
 and still more in that invisible prison 
 
 and slum which we call hell, who 
 
 date their fall from the perusal of a 
 
 trashy book or a piece of writing of 
 
 more calculated uncleanness. Consider 
 
 that. 
 
 But, on the other hanci, suppose that 
 the writing be good, consider what a 
 
TJie Miracidoiis Power of a Book. 119 
 
 "winged and miraculous power this written 
 thing possesses. It can fly where no 
 human voice can reach it, can arrest and 
 hold a man whom no human hand 
 can touch, and w^hen it has laid its 
 spell upon him it will he like a two- 
 edged sword, piercing to the dividing 
 of the hone and of the marrow. I sup- 
 pose that the greater part of us date all 
 our more important growths in goodness 
 and truth from some good book, some 
 good pamphlet, some good paper that we 
 read. Nay, I venture to think that if we 
 could by divine insight determine which 
 are Christians and which are not, the 
 majority of real Christians would say that 
 they first found Christ through something 
 which they read, and not through any- 
 thing which they heard. The Press is a 
 great pulpit to-day, the greatest of pulpits. 
 Those who have learnt to write at the 
 bidding of Jesus reach a wider audience 
 than could ever be assembled in St. Paul's 
 or the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Just to 
 
120 Its Winged Pilgrimage. 
 
 illustrate this. I received, a few weeks 
 ago, a letter from a man in one of our 
 Australian Colonies. It seems that a 
 friend had put into his hands a copy of 
 Tlie Christian World, because it contained 
 an account of Mr. Barnum's religious 
 opinions; but my correspondent, as it 
 chanced, read in another column a brief 
 report of a sermon which I had preached 
 in this pulpit. And it happened in God's 
 providence that this sermon came to him 
 at a crisis of his life as a veritable message 
 from God, and though I was unknown to 
 him, he unknown to me felt constrained 
 to send a letter from the other side of 
 the world, on the bare chance of its 
 reaching me, in order to express his 
 gratitude. "When you see this power of 
 the printed page penetrating and in- 
 sidious and far-reaching all the world 
 over, is it not evident that you want 
 some principle to determine which things 
 you will read, to examine each thing 
 which comes before you claiming to be 
 
The Vast }i ess of Literature. 121 
 
 read, discriminating which is fit to come 
 into your company, and what shall 
 by no means and on no conditions gain 
 admission ? 
 
 But, indeed, the other reason for a 
 principle of selection arises from the 
 simple fact that the printed literature 
 of the world is so vast. None of us 
 can read everything! ~ My experience of 
 people who are said to read everything 
 is not very favourable. An omnivorous 
 reader always seems to me very much 
 like a room which is used for a dustbin 
 and a larder at one and the same time. 
 A man who has not learned the art 
 of discrimination in reading will be 
 very likely to see books and papers 
 pass before him in an endless kaleido- 
 scope of changing interest, but he will 
 never see the firm, strong palace of 
 truth rising before his eyes. None of 
 us can read everything ; and is it not, 
 therefore, best to make up our mind 
 that we will read all that is good? 
 
122 TJie Principle of Restj'iction. 
 
 and if we go "upon that principle we 
 shall not have time to read anything 
 that is bad. - 
 
 But the principle of which I have been 
 speaking to-night is a little more specific, 
 that we read only that of which Christ has 
 said, "Write," and refuse all the rest. Now, 
 is it possible that some of you are afraid 
 that in adopting this principle you would 
 restrict your reading within very narrow 
 limits, and is it possible, too, that some of 
 you say, "How are we to know which 
 things are in accordance with the Hterary 
 censorship of Jesus Christ ? " Let me, in 
 closing, point out that you need not be 
 troubled by the narrowness of the lite- 
 rature that is thus suggested, and, 
 secondly, that there is a very easy way 
 of knowing which literature Christ 
 approves. A good critic knows the mark 
 of any well-known writer before he has 
 gone half-way down the first page, and 
 a good Christian seldom has to read more 
 than two or three sentences before dis- 
 
Not in the FasJiion. 123 
 
 covering whether that is a piece of Christ's 
 literature or not. 
 
 But in this matter of determining, I 
 frankly admit that if you adopt my prin- 
 ciple you will not always he in the fashion^ 
 It is no part of the Christian's duty to 
 read a hook because it happens to be in 
 vogue. It is not enough for him to bo 
 told that the book has made a stir, he 
 must wait and see what kind of a stir it 
 has made. It may be a stir in the devil's 
 own cauldron, and yet all the reviewers 
 will be praising it and all society talking 
 about it^ I recognise no claim of a 
 book to /be read because it is the book 
 of the season ; you have to wait to 
 know whether Christ said "Write" or/: 
 not. ' ^-^^ *^' 
 
 Again, if you adopt this principle, you 
 will not find it necessary to read through 
 your daily paper : you will read, perhaps., 
 a good deal less of the daily papers than 
 most people do read. There are certain 
 parts of the daily paper which no con- 
 
124 Things not to be Read. 
 
 sideration would induce me to read ; the 
 loathsome details of law courts may be 
 very profitably submitted to the eyes of 
 lawyers and of God, but there is no neces- 
 sity for submitting them to your eyes and 
 mine. The editors and publishers of the 
 daily papers have, no doubt, an explana- 
 tion for publishing these things in extenso 
 which they mean to give when they 
 appear before the Judgment-seat of God, 
 and people so able as editors must, of 
 course, know that the plea of enlarging 
 their circulation will appear very ridi- 
 culous before the Throne ; but granted 
 that they have an explanation to pre- 
 sent, you and I have no explanation for 
 reading these things. Earnest men in 
 an earnest world cannot possibly have 
 time to read them. They tell me how 
 men are overworked to-day, but I should 
 believe it more if I found that they could 
 not read the reports of the law courts. 
 But as long as men are able to read these 
 disgusting and unnecessary details, the 
 
Plenty to Read. 125 
 
 only sense in which they are overworked 
 is the horrible sense of being overworked 
 by their master the devil. I cannot un- 
 derstand a man having time to read these 
 things ; I cannot understand him, if he 
 had the whole of eternity before him in 
 this universe of God, having time to read 
 them. 
 
 But I said that the literature to be read 
 on this principle is not limited, as some 
 people suppose. Let me tell you what 
 it is. There is the Bible, to begin with. 
 You will find men who have been as 
 hard students studying it for fifty years 
 telling us that there is a great deal more 
 to be found in it than they have yet 
 discovered. There is another branch of 
 literature that has to be read by Chris- 
 tians, the reports of the progress of the 
 Master's kingdom, the news which comes 
 from the front of the Lord's battle in the 
 world. Then, leaving the Bible and the 
 reports of the Master's kingdom, there is 
 the noble pile of books on Science, and I 
 
 
126 GocTs Mouthpiece. 
 
 wonder if it has occurred to us all that 
 if, as the Bible teaches us, Jesus 
 Christ is the creator of this universe, 
 every true fact about this universe is a 
 record of Jesus Christ's handiwork ; and, 
 considering the incalculable mass of 
 scientific detail to-day, no one can say 
 that the literature is limited. Then 
 there are all the accredited records of 
 human history — an almost unlimited 
 sphere of reading. Then, again, there 
 are the poets — not all the poets, nor all 
 of any poet, but you may mark this, that 
 no poet of the first rank ever wrote but, 
 when he gets into the higher region of 
 his thought and utterance, he has become 
 a mouthpiece of God. From Homer 
 down to the poets of the present day, the 
 great poetic utterances are God's speech 
 to the world. Then there are all the 
 wise, true masters of thought in this age 
 and ages that have gone by, so numerous, 
 so great, and some of them even so volu- 
 minous that we are never likely to finish 
 
Religious Literature. 127 
 
 them ; and then there are all the stories 
 — I dare not call them novels, for the 
 name has been abused — but all the stories 
 that have come from the pure and puri- 
 fying imagination of great writers and 
 thinkers, the mass of which very few of 
 us have read, and, considering that they 
 are unread, one sometimes wonders how 
 people to-day find time to read stories of 
 another kind. Now I shall say nothing 
 about sermons and directly religious lite- 
 rature, for that might seem, coming from 
 this quarter, a little too professional, but 
 I know some people who would be better 
 if they read even sermons, and I think 
 there are certain departments of religious 
 literature unknown to religious people, 
 which yet are full of Divine teaching and 
 Divine stimulus. 
 
 Now, I do earnestly recommend to you 
 this principle of reading on which I have 
 been dwelling; but I still have to deal 
 with the possibility of some one saying, 
 "I do not know in all this mass of 
 
128 Know the Censor. 
 
 literature which Christ approves, and 
 which He does not approve." What 
 does that mean? I hope it does not 
 sound censorious, but I fear it means 
 that those who make the objection do 
 not really know Christ. He must be 
 merely a name to them — a tradition. It 
 seems to show that they do not know 
 Him personally ; that they have no 
 contact with Him, that there are no 
 passages between their souls and His. 
 Does it not mean that? I cannot un- 
 derstand any one who knows Christ 
 being in any doubt as to the kind of 
 books Christ approves, or reading from 
 any book or paper without knowing im- 
 mediately where to stop ; and if it means, 
 therefore, that you do not know Christ, 
 dear readers of multitudinous books and 
 papers, I would earnestly ask you whether 
 it is not worth while to stop reading for 
 a time, and find out Him. Lay aside 
 the books and the papers, and go straight 
 to Him, make your way through all 
 
Lem^n of Him. 129 
 
 opposing obstacles until you have come 
 into personal touch with Him, until your 
 life and will and heart, and all that is 
 within you, has been brought into sub- 
 jection to His most holy purpose and 
 thought. When you have touched Him, 
 and learned to know Him, then all other 
 things become easy, the guidance is clear, 
 and His voice speaks when all human 
 voices are silent. But without knowing 
 Him, indeed, we are left without our 
 guide, philosopher, and friend, we are 
 left in the school of Books without a 
 master, and we are likely to swallow 
 more garbage than good food simply for 
 want of Divine direction. Come to Him. 
 I suppose it does not occur to every one 
 that coming to Christ is so practical as 
 this. You understand, perhaps, if it is 
 said come to Him in order that you may 
 enter heaven ; but I say, come to Him 
 in order that you may know what to read 
 and how to escape the defilement and the 
 destruction which lie lurking even in the 
 
130 TJie Stipreme AiitJior. 
 
 printed pages of books and newspapers. 
 Come to Him. Nothing but living touch 
 •with Jesus Christ is a sufficient guide for 
 what we are to read and what we are 
 to write. May God bring us all to Him — 
 the supreme Author of all good books, the 
 supreme Teacher of all true lessons ! 
 
VI. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN AND 
 AMUSEMENT. 
 
THE CHBISTIAN AND AMUSE- 
 MENT. 
 
 Bodily exercise is profitable for a little.** 
 
 1 Tim. iv. 8. 
 
 Theee is a story coming down to us from 
 tlie earliest Christian times which tells 
 how a young hunter at Ephesus, returning 
 from the chase with an unstrung bow in 
 his hand, entered the house of St. John 
 and found him engaged in playing with a 
 tame dove. The young man showed 
 some astonishment that the Apostle 
 should be so lightly employed, but St. 
 John, looking gently at him, asked 
 why he carried the bow unstrung in his 
 hand. He answered : *' In order that 
 the bow may retain its elasticity." "Just 
 so,'* said St. John, " mind and body 
 will not retain their elasticity or use- 
 fulness unless they are at times un- 
 
134 ^^' JoIlu^s Judgment. 
 
 strung ; prolonged tension destroys 
 their power." "We might almost wish 
 that thici story had occurred in the 
 canonical writings, for the question of 
 amusements is one upon which we all 
 of us at times feel we sorely need direc- 
 tion. But the New Testament gives no in- 
 stance of the Lord, or any of His apostles, 
 taking any recreation at all, unless we 
 may quote those feasts and dinners at 
 which we occasionally find Him present. 
 The New Testament gives no instruction 
 or precept upon this very practical ques- 
 tion, unless we may draw in the text that 
 I have just read, and treat it as a spe- 
 cial instance leading to a general con- 
 clusion ; the text teaches that bodily ex- 
 ercise, which is one form of amusement, 
 is very good in its way, but the text 
 almost immediately puts it in contrast 
 with godliness, which is good in that it 
 is always profitable, for this life and for 
 that which is to come. 
 But perhaps from the very silence of the 
 
Christ avoids Casuistry, 135 
 
 New Testament upon this practical ques- 
 tion we may draw a very useful lesson. 
 The Spirit of Christ is very averse to 
 casuistry — that system of morals which 
 seeks to enforce duty hy minute analysis 
 of every conceivable course of conduct. 
 Judaism had fallen into casuistry; casu- 
 istry was the very essence of Jesuitism ; 
 hut Jesus Christ and His Spirit are 
 opposed to casuistry ; it is the thought of 
 Christ to go straight to the roots of 
 things, and to insist upon some great 
 and simple principle. It says that we 
 are to love our God with all our heart 
 and our neighbours in the same way, and 
 then it leaves the practical details of 
 life to be determined by the fulfilment of 
 these general principles. This New Testa- 
 ment law seems always to be saying, 
 ** Love God, love Him with all your 
 heart, with all your mind, and with all 
 your strength, and love your neighbour 
 as yourself, and then you will find that 
 a kind of instinct tells you which kinds of 
 
136 The New Testmnent Silent. 
 
 amusement will be hurtful ; and also you 
 will find " — of course this is not what the 
 New Testament says, but it seems to 
 imply it — " that for love's sake you are 
 bound to use every form of recreation, 
 which will make or keep you a strong, 
 wholesome, and energetic person, ready 
 to do God's will upon earth, and to serve 
 men for God's sake." 
 
 I say we may draw this kind of lesson 
 from the New Testament's silence upon the 
 subject, and if we are justified in drawing 
 it, we shall certainly be very cautious in 
 passing judgment upon other people, and 
 we shall avoid that fatal mistake into which 
 preachers, as well as others, are apt to fall, 
 of making one list of amusements which 
 are lawful and another list of amusements 
 which are not lawful, and insisting on 
 all right-minded persons accepting one 
 and avoiding the other. If in the course 
 of what I say to you there seems to 
 be any judgment passed upon particular 
 amusements, I would ask you from the 
 
Recreation Necessary. 137 
 
 beginning to understand that there is no 
 finality in such judgment ; my purpose is 
 simply to stimulate the individual con- 
 science, and to get every intelligent per- 
 son to apply the touchstone for himself. 
 If I pass judgment upon any form of 
 amusement you must only accept it 
 as the conclusion at which one Christian 
 conscience has arrived which humbly 
 hopes and tries to obey the Master. 
 
 To begin with, we may take it for 
 granted, as the story about St. John has 
 just shown us, that some kind of recrea- 
 tion is absolutely necessary for our mind 
 and body ; the hard toil of daily life wears 
 down the spirit and exhausts the energies. 
 "We are like the plot of grass, which may 
 be none the worse or even much the 
 better when it is trodden on only occasion- 
 ally, so that a chance is offered meantime 
 for the young blade to spring up afresh, 
 but if it is trodden on continually, with- 
 out any cessation and by great multi- 
 tudes, the turf quickly becomes eithei 
 
138 Amusementy 
 
 bare ground or slippery mud. That is 
 a very fair simile of the human mind ; it 
 can bear a good deal of work, but give 
 it too much and you destroy it. If our 
 V7ork is mental we absolutely need re- 
 creation, fresh air, and exercise. The 
 mind must be diverted, or, according to 
 the old English meaning of the word, 
 amused.^ If our work is not so much 
 mental as physical, then we need recrea- 
 tion by the employment of the mind, and 
 unless with the rest of the body there 
 comes some recreation of the mind you 
 will find that physical labour leads to the 
 complete degeneration of manhood. 
 
 But the very fact that we speak of 
 amusement or recreation in this way calls 
 our attention, in the second place, to the 
 fact that amusement is simply a counter- 
 part of work. It presupposes that we 
 have been working, and there is no such 
 thing as legitimate amusement which is 
 
 * See the article on Amusement in Dr. Murray's 
 
 new Dictionary. 
 
the Counterpart of Work. 139 
 
 not a relief from toil or a preparation for 
 fresh toil. With people, whether men or 
 women, or even children, whose whole 
 life is a search for amusement, you 
 and I, I trust, have nothing whatever to 
 do. The Lord Jesus Christ has once for 
 all described the result of such a life in 
 the familiar story of the man who fared 
 sumptuously every day and was clothed 
 in purple and fine linen, and found as 
 life went on that he hfted up his eyes in 
 hell, being in torment. That is an issue 
 which, so far as we know, cannot possibly 
 be avoided when a life is spent simply for 
 amusement. A youth just escaped from 
 school, or any other restraint, can go 
 through a tolerably long period of con- 
 tinuous amusement with some kind of 
 pleasure and result, but let that be con- 
 tinued for a few months, or even for a 
 few weeks, and it begins to pall; there 
 is a lagging and a weariness in the amuse- 
 ment itself; and let it be continued for a 
 few years without any honest, earnest, 
 
I40 A Life of Amusement Impossible. 
 
 serious work, even to fill in the intervals, 
 and you will observe that this bright 
 young life is passing into the condition 
 that Jesus Christ describes : very soon 
 you will observe the slow fires of hell 
 beginning to be lit, and the torture 
 engines coming into operation, and the 
 worm gnawing at the heart. If this 
 world is not a great busy, serious work- 
 shop, if each one of us is not glad to 
 work while it is day, for the night comes 
 when no man can work, if there be any 
 person or persons who can legitimately 
 spend their life in the search for amuse- 
 ment, like butterflies gaily dancing in the 
 sun and sipping at every flower, I have 
 nothing more to say. All the amuse- 
 ments of which I can speak are the 
 amusements of earnest men, the amuse- 
 ments of those who can understand the 
 significance of life, and are amongst the 
 honest toilers of the world. 
 
 Now, coming to look at the amuse- 
 ments and recreations of busy and useful 
 
Vice not Amusement 141 
 
 men, we may, of course, at once dismiss 
 from our attention all that are essentially 
 vicious ; we can at once dismiss, for ex- 
 ample, such amusement as some curiously 
 constituted people discover in over-eating 
 and over-drinking ; we can dismiss those 
 amusements which are found in the illicit 
 indulgence of sensual passion ; we can 
 dismiss all amusement which consists in 
 demoralising games such as gambling ; 
 we can dismiss all sports which involve 
 cruelty to men or to animals ; without 
 further consideration we can dismiss all 
 forms or circles of human society which 
 we inwardly know to be incompatible 
 with the life of a Christian, and we can 
 dismiss the foolish talking and ribaldry 
 which St. Paul, in Ephesians v. 6, classes 
 amongst things *'not convenient." We 
 as Christians are only concerned with 
 those amusements and recreations which 
 do not stand, on the very face of them, 
 condemned. And perhaps it will be con- 
 venient if we classify them in this way :— » 
 
142 Aniusements Classified. 
 
 There are, first of all, the forms of study 
 or work which, being in contrast to our 
 regular employment, afford genuine re- 
 creation, and for people of abounding 
 vitality such recreations are generally 
 found to be the most effectual. But, 
 secondly, there are all those wholesome 
 games and sports which are peculiarly 
 attractive to us while youthful blood is 
 tingling in our veins. Thirdly, there 
 are those entertainments which are pro- 
 vided, in public or private, by the pro- 
 fessional purveyors of amusement. And, 
 fourthly, there are the various forms of 
 social intercourse, affording every variety 
 of recreation and mental and physical 
 improvement. 
 
 Now I should like to say, looking at 
 this general field of amusement, that far 
 more of them are innocent 'than many 
 people, and especially good people, are 
 disposed to admit. A great many are 
 condemned by mere prejudice or by a 
 confusion of thought which identifies the 
 
The first Principle. 145 
 
 thing itself with some accidents of mode 
 or quantity or accompaniment which are 
 connected with it. And this observation 
 leads me to fix one of the two prin- 
 ciples which I want to suggest to 
 young people who wish to order their 
 lives aright in the spirit of the Master, 
 as guiding thoughts in the matter of 
 amusements. This is the principle 
 that I wish to fix — it is not always, 
 or even often, a question of determining 
 whether the amusement is legitimate in 
 itself, hut it is almost always a question of 
 finding out whether it is legitimate for vie 
 and legitimate under the circumstances in 
 which I am placed, or of finding out 
 whether I can enjoy it with the modera- 
 tion which is according to knowledge. 
 [For instance, the most innocent amuse- 
 ment in the world becomes wrong if 
 it prevents us from doing the least of 
 our duties ; the entertainment which has 
 not a single feature of objection in it 
 may become absolutely bad if it makes 
 
144 Does it Hinder Duty? 
 
 us the next morning unable to rise 
 and pray and begin the day in the fresh- 
 ness of God's presence. There is nothing 
 more wholesome than a game of football 
 for young men in the prime of life, but 
 if the fierce physical excitement unfits 
 him for the next day's duties or wears 
 upon the spiritual, and makes him too 
 much of the mere animal ; if, as in the 
 north of England, the passion for football 
 becomes the ruin of the Sunday-school, 
 and disinclines the young man to study 
 the Bible, or discover the ways of life, 
 then this perfectly innocent and laudable 
 game of football may become as mis- 
 chievous as the dancing saloon or the 
 Grand Stand at Ascot. There is nothing 
 more suitable or even helpful for us than 
 human society : we none of us become all 
 ^we were meant to be until we have 
 mingled in society, and there is no blame 
 attaching to any of us if we seek to enter 
 the very best society that is open to us, 
 always provided you know the meaning 
 
// is all Relative, 145 
 
 and the nature of tlie word "best" ; but 
 supposing we find, in the society which we 
 suppose to be the best, that we are be- 
 coming more and more insincere and super- 
 ficial, more and more cynical, more and 
 more incredulous of human worth, less 
 able to show love to God and love to man ; 
 or supposing even that the attractions of 
 society begin to rob us of the time which 
 we might give to good work or to good 
 worship, and the cultivation of the inner 
 man, which is the one essential thing, 
 then this society, in itself so perfectly inno- 
 cent and laudable, may become as dan- 
 gerous to us as the music-hall or the 
 gaming-table, v/hich we generally con- 
 demn. That is the difficulty, you see. 
 Amusement is like a medicine which in 
 very small doses serves as an excellent 
 tonic, but taken in large doses is a des- 
 perate poison ; and it is like a medicine, 
 too, which may be given to one man with 
 the best results, and given in the same 
 proportion to another man with ruinous 
 
 10 
 
146 TJls Second Principh. 
 
 results. It is then quite misleading to say, 
 as a rule, " This amusement is right or 
 this amusement is wrong " : it is almost 
 always a question whether it is right for 
 me or right for you, whether it is right 
 for us under the existing circumstances, 
 and taking into account the other condi- 
 tions of our life, and, therefore, instead of 
 going to a list of amusements to see 
 which are right and which are wrong, it 
 is imperative that you and I go to God 
 Himself, and learn from the Lord Jesus 
 our Guide, our Master, and our Friend, 
 what is right for us, and right for us now, 
 and what is wrong for us, and wrong for 
 us now. 
 
 The other of the two principles which 
 I should like to present to you is 
 one that is, I am afraid, far too fre- 
 quently overlooked. It is this — an amuse- 
 ment may be quite harmless to us, and 
 yet purchased by the injury, or even the 
 irreparable ruin, of the people who pro- 
 vide it for us. A Christian cannot 
 
Behind tha t is Com err ha. , 1 47 
 
 possibly enjoy a pleasure which brings 
 spiritual or moral ruin to any of his fellow 
 creatures. If, for example — and of course 
 it is in the matter of public entertain- 
 ments that this principle comes chiefly 
 into play— he wishes to go to a pubhc 
 entertainment, it is by no means enough 
 for him to say that it does him no harm, 
 or even that it does him good ; there is a 
 question lying behind ; he has the sacred 
 duty laid upon him to discover whether 
 the entertainment which he enjoys is 
 doing harm to those who give it. Now 
 some of us were told a little while ago 
 of a certain actor vfho said, with terrible 
 emphasis, pointing to the curtain on the 
 stage, *' Behind that is Gomorrha," and 
 we were told at the same time of another 
 man whose duty it was to secure little 
 children for a Christmas pantomime, 
 and when a person standing by sug- 
 gested that his own two httle children, 
 who were very beautiful, would serve 
 the purpose well, he quickly and even 
 
148 At what Cost is the Entertainment f 
 
 angrily answered, "I would rather see 
 them dead before my eyes." Now, I am 
 not at all in a position to determine how 
 far the implications in these remarks may 
 be correct, and as I personally do not go 
 to theatres I am under no obligation to 
 settle this very vital question. But if you 
 do go to theatres, if you are Christian 
 men and women and enjoy that kind of 
 entertainment, you will at once perceive 
 that it is an absolutely essential duty 
 for you to determine whether the enter- 
 tainment given on the stage is work- 
 ing for the injury of those who give it. 
 It will not be at all enough, when yon 
 come to add up the account of your 
 life, to say that you consistently received 
 pleasure and even good from these public 
 entertainments, if it is discovered that 
 they were purchased at the price of 
 degraded men, corrupt women and ruined 
 children ; it will not be at all enough for 
 you to say "We did not know": the 
 plea of ignorance is never admissible 
 
lo-noraiice no Plea. 149 
 
 '<b 
 
 when it was our duty to know, for God's 
 complaint against His people has always 
 been ''They do not know, they do not 
 consider ; they are so careless, they are so 
 indifferent, or they say they are not their 
 brother's keeper when they are ; and 
 they march over the fallen souls of their 
 brethren for their amusement or their 
 profit, and come before My throne and 
 plead they did not know.'* 
 
 Now these two simple principles must 
 suffice ; I hope they may be of some 
 practical guidance to those young men 
 and women — by far the majority, I be- 
 lieve, of all young men and women — 
 who honestly in their heart wish to be 
 right, who do not plunge into sin because 
 they want it, but because they slip un- 
 wittingly. But I have one other thing to 
 say to you young men and women before I 
 close. I want to suggest to you that surely 
 for the real Christian, whose heart is full 
 of the love of God, there are within the 
 Christian Church itself most genuine and 
 
150 Recreation in the Church. 
 
 lasting means of recreation, and even 
 amusement. My text adds, "Godliness is 
 profitable for the life which now is," and 
 among other things godliness affords a fund 
 of physical health and mental recreation 
 which I think some of us have scarcely 
 yet realised. Let me put it to you in this 
 way. The simple and unselfish attempt 
 to make some other lives brighter and 
 better than they are, the intercourse with 
 happy Christian workers, the fellowship 
 in the service of man and in the worship 
 of God — that happy mood of spiritual ex- 
 altation which the Apostle has described 
 as *' singing and making melody in the 
 heart unto the Lord ; " these things, if you 
 only knew it, offer a great deal more re- 
 freshment for jaded minds and exhausted 
 bodies than most of the so-called amuse- 
 ments which are sought at great ex- 
 pense and with infinite disappointment. 
 It has sometimes seemed to me that 
 possibly the New Testament is silent 
 upon this most vital question of re- 
 
The Joy of the Brotherhood. 1 5 1 
 
 creation because the church society which 
 it depicts and holds up to men as the 
 ideal of human life is in itself a com- 
 plete and satisfying recreation. The 
 agape^ which is the centre of the New 
 Testament church life, with its social joy, 
 its feasts, its prayer, its bright and thrill- 
 ing songs, and that living manifestation 
 of God which will always make men glad, 
 this agajge^ this life on the higher plane, 
 this life of the closer brotherhood, this 
 life of the realised Fatherhood, this life 
 of the cleansed heart and the happiness 
 which flows from that which is pure, this 
 life is certainly present and open to you 
 young men and young women; and I 
 sometimes think that if you were only 
 more ready to avail yourself of it ; if you 
 only understood a little the secret of it ; 
 if you only saw what God meant for you, 
 you would be less exercised in securing 
 amusement of another kind : you would 
 be able to say, what I for instance am 
 able to say, that for many years past I 
 
152 D Illness Impossible. 
 
 have never known what it was to be dull, 
 and have never longed for any exciting re- 
 creation, for life seemed to be too beautiful, 
 too sweet, too refreshing, and the fulness 
 of this life in Jesus Christ our Lord, the 
 perfectness of this wide brotherhood of 
 Christian souls, the interests of those that 
 are around us, the love and affection 
 which they always offer as a rich reward 
 of the most trifling service — these things 
 are better, so far as I can judge from the 
 result, both to recreate the mind and the 
 body, than the things which London has 
 laboriously provided for her overworked 
 and wearied citizens. 
 
 I would ask you to reflect upon this 
 in no narrow spirit, for I think I have 
 shown you to-night that I am not in 
 the least afraid of the whole range of 
 legitimate amusements, which are too 
 frequently condemned ; yet I would ask 
 you to consider that if you want a sound 
 body and a sound mind, if you want a 
 manhood always growing richer, fuller, 
 
Filial Gladness. 153 
 
 and truer ; if yon want a womanhood that 
 becomes as age draws on Divine, pro- 
 phetic, and inspired, you must choose 
 your life not along the lines of so-called 
 worldly recreations and amusements, but 
 along the line of the Divine thought — ^the 
 recreation that God designs for His 
 children, who are indeed His sons and His 
 daughters and can only be wholesome 
 and happy when they live from day to 
 day in the consciousness of their sonship 
 and their daughterhood. 
 
 11 
 
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