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THE 
 
 CHRIST 
 
 DREAM 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUIS albert'banks, D.D. 
 
 Author of "The People's Christ," "White Slaves," "The Revival 
 Quiver," " Common Folks' Religion," " The Honeycombs of Life " 
 The Heavenly Trade-Winds," " Christ and His Friends," "The 
 Saloon-Keeper's Ledger " 
 
 NEW YORK : HUNT & EATON 
 CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & CURTS 
 
Copyright by 
 
 HUNT & EATON, 
 
 1895. 
 
 Composition, electrotyping, 
 
 printing, and binding by 
 
 Hunt & EATf)N, 
 
 150 Fifth Ave., New York. 
 
To My Friend, 
 
 fDatciet Steele Xane, 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED 
 
 J6^ tbc Hutbor. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 '■• PAGE 
 
 The Dream of Christian Civilization, _ - - - 7 
 
 II. 
 Angelic Models for Earthly Lives, ----- 19 
 
 III. 
 The Treasures of the Highlands, ----- 32 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Inspiration of the Hope of Immortality, - - - 45 
 
 V. 
 
 The Vital Atmosphere of a Christian Life, _ > _ 55 
 
 VI. 
 The Childhood of the Soul, ------ 68 
 
 VII. 
 
 Inspiration, not Imitation, the Key to Christian Character, 81 
 
 VIII. 
 The Art of Gathering up the Fragments of Life, - - 92 
 
 IX. 
 Heartstrings and their Melody, - - - - - 102 
 
 X. 
 
 The Struggle for Life, - - - - - - - 111 
 
 XL 
 
 Self-triumph through Self-forgetfulness, - - - - 124 
 
6 CONTENTS. 
 
 XII- PAGE 
 
 Yesterday, -_-__---_ 137 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The Conditions of Wealth in Spiritual Utterance, - - 149 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Dante's Staircase from Despair to Hope, - - - - 161 
 
 XV. 
 
 The Supremacy of the Spiritual Life, - - - - 1 72 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The Darkness behind the Stars, - - - - - 184 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The Mirror that Transforms the Soul, - - - - 195 
 
 XVIII. 
 The Voyage of Life, --_--_. 2O6 
 
 XIX. 
 
 The Lesson of Jehu's Bow, - - - - - - 215 
 
 XX. 
 
 The Tragedy of the Napkin, ------ 228 
 
 XXI. 
 A Haunted Soul, -------- 238 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Heaven's Perfume — Golden Vials full of Odors, - - 249 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Frederick Douglass, the Eloquent — The Most Picturesque 
 
 Historical Figure in Modern Times, - - - - 259 
 
 XXIV. 
 A Farsighted Religion, ------- 265 
 
THE CHRIST DREAM, 
 
 T 
 
 I.* 
 
 THE DREAM OF CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION.* 
 
 " I saw a new heaven and a new earth." — Rev. xxi, i. 
 
 HIS vision of John was a flower from a 
 
 heavenly seed which the greatest souls had 
 carried in their hearts through many genera- 
 tions. God had said to Isaiah, '' For, behold, I 
 create new heavens and a new earth." Peter, also, 
 had anticipated that time, and exclaimed, '' Never- 
 theless we, according to his promise, look for new 
 heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth right- 
 eousness." 
 
 It may seem strange on this Memorial Sunday, 
 when all over the land veteran soldiers are march- 
 ing to places of worship clad in uniforms that recall 
 the days of war, and discourses are being pro- 
 nounced that record heroic deeds on the battle- 
 fields of the Republic, that I should call you to see 
 in the essential thought of Decoration Day a 
 prophecy of the coming of universal peace and 
 brotherhood, a realization of the great dream of 
 humanity — the '' new heavens and the new earth, 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness." But when we 
 recall the fact that the essential idea of Decoration 
 
 * A Decoration Day sermon. 
 
8 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 Day is not to keep alive feelings of vengeance and 
 hatred, not to revive strife or discord, but to com- 
 memorate the self-sacrificing deeds of brave and 
 heroic men, to cover the graves of both the blue 
 and the gray with the emblems of forgiveness and 
 love, and that in many sections of the South the 
 Confederate veterans will on next Thursday cover 
 the graves of their fallen foemen with a wealth of 
 Southern flowers, it is easy to understand that the 
 spirit of our theme is born of this occasion. 
 
 There are so many prophets of disaster in our 
 day that I am sure I may be forgiven if I seize 
 upon this opportunity to call to your mind some of 
 the green buds of promise that prophesy the com- 
 ing of a better day in our social, religious, and 
 national life. Surely at no time since the War of 
 the Rebellion has there been so much to assure us 
 that Mason and Dixon's line is being obliterated 
 and forgotten, that the old feuds between North 
 and South are being healed, and that we are be- 
 coming, more perfectly than at any time since the 
 nation was formed, one people. We have had re- 
 cently two remarkable utterances — one in Brook- 
 lyn, and another in Charleston, S. C. — that to 
 my mind are suggestive of great hope and promise. 
 It was no small thing, the other evening, to hear 
 Henry Watterson, from the pulpit of Plymouth 
 Church where Henry Ward Beecher used to thunder 
 his philippics against slavery, utter an eloquent and 
 impassioned eulogy of Abraham Lincoln. How im- 
 possible it would have seemed a little over three 
 decades ago that Henry Watterson, the then rebel 
 editor, should stand in Plymouth pulpit to say ; 
 
THE DREAM OF CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 9 
 
 *' One thinks now that the world in which Lincoln 
 lived might have dealt more gently by such a man. 
 He was himself so gentle, so upright in nature, and 
 so broad of mind, so sunny and so tolerant in tem- 
 per, so simple and unaffected in bearing — a rude 
 exterior covering an undaunted spirit — proving by 
 his every act and word that 
 
 " The bravest are the tenderest. 
 The loving are the daring," 
 
 that, though he was a party leader, he was a typical 
 and patriotic American, in whom even his enemies 
 might have found something to respect and admire. 
 But it could not be so. . . . Yet, all the while that 
 the waves of passion were dashing over this sturdy 
 figure reared above the dead level, as a lone oak 
 upon a sandy beach, not one harsh word escaped 
 his lips, not one assault rankled in his heart to sour 
 the milk of human kindness that, like a perennial 
 spring from the gnarled roots of some majestic tree, 
 flowed within him." 
 
 And yet again hear Watterson, the aforetime 
 rebel, say : " I see him lying dead there in the cap- 
 ital of the nation to which he had rendered ' the 
 last, full measure of his devotion,' the flag of his 
 country wrapped about him, the world in mourn- 
 ing ; and, asking myself how anyone could have 
 dwelt in hate and anger upon this man, I ask you, 
 How can anyone fail to cherish his memory ? 
 Surely he was one of God's elect — not in any sense 
 a creature of circumstance or accident or chance." 
 And listen yet again to a man who struggled for 
 the Confederacy : ''It was the will of God that 
 there should be, as God's own prophet had prom- 
 
10 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 ised, 'a new birth of freedom ; ' and this could only 
 be reached by the obliteration of the very idea of 
 slavery. God struck Lincoln down in the moment 
 of his triumph to attain it ; God blighted the South 
 to attain it ; but he did attain it. And here we are 
 this night to attest it. God's will be done on earth, 
 as it is done in heaven." 
 
 But it is still more startling to take the train and 
 go down to Charleston, S. C., and hear Mr. John J. 
 Dargan, an ex-Confederate soldier, also the editor 
 of a Southern newspaper, addressing a company of 
 three thousand colored men within a month of this 
 Brooklyn utterance and saying to them, and through 
 his newspaper to the world : '* I stand to-day in 
 v/hat is known as the cradle of secession, and feel it 
 to be a bounden duty to truth and justice to pay 
 tribute here to the memory of William Lloyd Gar- 
 rison, whose magical hand touched the auction 
 blocks of this city, and they became schoolhouses. 
 Should not this alone excite our liveliest and most 
 lasting gratitude to him ? More than all other men 
 did he do and dare for the liberation and elevation 
 of the whole people of Charleston. For by the ab- 
 olition of slavery the slaveholder was as much lib- 
 erated as the slaves. Under the slave system all 
 the energy and talents of the slaveholder were ex- 
 ercised in holding the slave down. I feel so grate- 
 ful to him myself for getting me off the Negro 
 and showing me there was nobler and better work 
 to do than the work of oppression. Had it not been 
 for Garrison and his self-sacrificing band of aboli- 
 tionists contending for the cause of justice and free- 
 dom, Charleston might have been still holding the 
 
THE DREAM OF CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 11 
 
 Negroes down in slavery. It is tremendously costly 
 work, this holding people down ; for neither the 
 man held down nor the man holding him down can 
 accomplish anything in this world. That is why 
 the South had nothing before the war but the Negro 
 and the art of keeping him down. The very arms 
 with which we fought the North had to be gotten 
 from the North. Where do your powerful steam 
 engines on land and sea come from to-day ? From 
 the land of freedom. Your household furniture, 
 your plantation tools, your very clothing, your 
 books in your schoolrooms, the Bibles in your 
 churches, the songs that you sing, and the wires 
 over which you talk ? From the free North, not 
 the enslaved South. And this awful destitution is 
 the just penalty we have paid for the privilege of 
 holding the Negro down." 
 
 Surely when ex-Confederate soldiers make ad- 
 dresses like that and write editorials of that sort we 
 can believe that the war is over and that the prom- 
 ise of a united country is at least in the dawn of 
 fulfillment. Of course, there are multitudes of 
 public men and many newspapers that do not 
 hold this spirit ; but these utterances are the proph- 
 ecy of many more that are to follow. We shall 
 soon see a new North and a new South wherein 
 dwell fraternity and brotherly love. 
 
 It is surely not out of place on an occasion like 
 this to notice the prospect for a better understand- 
 ing between labor and capital. One of the most 
 delightful things that has occurred in many a long 
 day is the official announcement that, beginning 
 with June i, not only at Homestead, that place of 
 
12 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 tragic history, but at all the many mills and fur- 
 naces of the Carnegie Steel Company — which has 
 been, with good show of reason, a synonym for 
 tyranny in the average trade-unionist's parlance — 
 wages will be voluntarily increased ten per cent. 
 This will affect an army of fifteen thousand men, 
 and, through them, perhaps fifty thousand women 
 and children. This increase had not been asked for 
 by the men, and for more than half a year they 
 could have been held to the present scale of wages, 
 to which they had agreed. Such an act of justice, 
 done by a corporation that has been so bitterly de- 
 nounced, ought to warm the heart of the most 
 rabid trade-unionist. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the relations between 
 labor and capital, despite all the strife and dis- 
 cord which seem to belie the statement, are com- 
 ing nearer to justice with every decade. It is a 
 long and toilsome path from the almost universal 
 slavery prevailing at the time of the birth of Jesus 
 up to the high table-land of universal brotherhood. 
 We have not reached that altitude yet, but there 
 never has been a time in the history of mankind 
 when the average condition of the world's workers 
 was as good as it is to-day. This does not mean 
 that there is not widespread injustice and that there 
 are not multitudes who are cruelly oppressed ; but 
 it is nevertheless true that the laborer's hours are 
 shortening, that his wages are slowly increasing, and 
 that his opportunities for intelligence and educa- 
 tion are steadily improving. The multiplication of 
 the newspaper, at a price within the reach of the 
 masses, carrying the views alike of capitalist and 
 
THE DREAM OF CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 13 
 
 laborer, of conservative as well as radical, into the 
 ear of universal humanity, is certain to hasten the 
 coming of justice and peace in the relations between 
 capital and labor. The springing up throughout 
 the world of experiments in cooperation, where the 
 controllers of great capital are entering with a fra- 
 ternal and kindly spirit into intelligent conferences 
 with their employees and bringing them success- 
 fully to share in the burdens and in the profits of 
 business, are indications of a good time coming 
 when capital and labor shall no longer be separated 
 by distrusts and prejudice, but shall work together, 
 shoulder to shoulder, in happy and prosperous 
 brotherhood. Paul's idea, that, in the social com- 
 munity, " whether one member suffer, all the mem- 
 bers suffer with it ; or one member be honored, all 
 the members rejoice with it," which he learned of 
 Jesus Christ, is to be the great permanent basis of 
 solution of the difficulties between labor and capital. 
 We have reason to thank God that, notwithstand- 
 ing frequent strikes and lockouts, there is more 
 promise of the coming of that day than ever before. 
 I think it worth while to turn our inquiry, if pos- 
 sible, into a still more delicate field, and call atten- 
 tion to the fact that there is more promise of united 
 action for the benefit of our common humanity on 
 the part of the great divisions of the army of Chris- 
 tianity than we have seen hitherto. God be praised 
 for every ray of hope which foreshadows the better 
 day of religious toleration ! The venerable Dr. 
 Henry M. Field, in an address before the Parlia- 
 ment of Religions at the World's Fair, made this 
 
 most remarkable statement: 
 2 
 
14 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 ** It has been my fortune to travel in many lands, 
 and I have not been in any part of the world so dark 
 but that I have found some rays of light, some proof 
 that the God who is our God and Father has been 
 there, and that the temples which are reared in 
 many religions resound with sincere worship and 
 praise to him. I am an American of the Ameri- 
 cans, born in New England, brought up * in the 
 strictest sect of the Pharisees,' believing there was 
 no good outside of our own little pale. . . . When I 
 went across the ocean I thought a Roman Catholic 
 was a terrible person. When I came to know the 
 Roman Catholics, however, I found I was a very 
 poor specimen of Christianity beside the Sisters of 
 Charity whom I saw and the noble brothers devoted 
 to every good, Christian, and benevolent office. 
 Only a few weeks ago I was in Africa, and there 
 made the acquaintance of some of the White 
 Fathers designated by Cardinal Lavigerie to carry 
 the Gospel into the center of Africa. What devo- 
 tion is there we can hardly parallel. I knew that 
 some of them — the first that were sent out — had 
 been killed on the desert ; and yet at Carthage I 
 said to one of the White Fathers, ' Are you willing 
 to go into all those dangers ? ' * Yes,' said he. 
 ' When ? ' * To-morrow,* was his reply. Such a 
 spirit is magnificent, and whenever we see it, in any 
 part of the world, in any church, we admire and 
 honor it." 
 
 We have been passing through, during the last 
 few years, a considerable revival of bitterness be- 
 tween the Roman Catholic and Protestant com- 
 munions in this country. It is not my purpose to 
 
THE DREAM OF CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 15 
 
 enter into a lengthy discussion concerning the mer- 
 its of the many controversies that have arisen be- 
 tween American Protestantism and Roman Cathol- 
 icism ; but my purpose is rather to call attention to 
 the fact that the production of such men as Arch- 
 bishop Ireland and many others that might be 
 named, who are ardent representatives of American 
 ideas and American patriotism, gives promise of " a 
 leaven at work in the old Roman dough " of that 
 historic communion which must yet make that 
 church a great force in the progress and stability of 
 American civilization. No one who has traveled 
 widely in America and studied the trend of things 
 among the new generation of Catholics, whether 
 priests or laymen, can have failed to observe the 
 growth of tolerance, the growing revolt against iso- 
 lation, and the general desire, which in many cases 
 has been irresistible, to join hand and heart and 
 voice with men of widely different faiths and com- 
 munions in bringing about social and political re- 
 form. The men who are seeking by secret societies 
 to stir up sectarian hatred and to dig a deep gulf 
 between Protestant and Catholic citizens may be 
 very honest, but they are not very broad, not very 
 wise, nor very Christian. Archbishop Ireland's 
 stinging rebuke to the attempt to unite Catholics 
 under a single party flag at the last election in this 
 State ought to bring shame to the faces of narrow- 
 minded Protestants, who have been seeking to ob- 
 tain local political successes by arousing sectarian 
 bitterness. America is a land for the sunlight. Its 
 great battles have been fought out in the open air. 
 The pure sunshine of liberty, the free breath of 
 
16 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 open discussion, have heretofore been the great dis- 
 infectants of this land. To these, to the vitahty of 
 truth, and to God's gracious purpose, and not to 
 secret intrigue, must we look for the perpetuation 
 of the Republic. There is no objection to the cry 
 " America for Americans ; " but when we raise that 
 cry let us mean by it Catholic and Protestant, Jew 
 and Gentile — all who accept the American idea and 
 who join hands in a strong, devoted, determined 
 effort for the uplift of humanity. 
 
 We have reached a time in the progress of civil- 
 ization when we need to turn the mighty power of 
 our Christianity, not only to seeking after the lost, 
 to building hospitals for the weak and the infirm and 
 the old, to the erection of houses of refuge for the 
 outcast, but to striking positively at the root of 
 some of those evils that are the great sources of 
 human degradation. Florence Nightingale, " the 
 angel of the Crimea," in spite of the fact that she 
 won her great reputation in nursing the wounded 
 and sick, has yet all the while been more interested 
 in the prevention of disease than in the nursing of 
 the sick. This was exemplified in a letter which 
 she recently addressed to village mothers. She ad- 
 vised them to see that their boys and girls grew up 
 *' healthy, with clean minds and clean skins." 
 ''After all," she wrote, *' it is health, and not sick- 
 ness, which is our natural state. There are more 
 people to pick us up when we fall than to enable 
 us to stand on our feet." What a suggestive state- 
 ment that is ! What civilization needs to-day is a 
 mighty crusade against the giant evils which take 
 men off their feet. It is well enough to save lost 
 
THE DREAM OF CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 17 
 
 men and outcast women, but it is a thousandfold 
 better to dry up the streams which transform inno- 
 cent boys and girls into profligates and outcasts. 
 
 Christianity was never so strong and mighty be- 
 fore. They reckon without their hosts who count 
 Christianity as in its decay. Two Irishmen were at 
 work in a certain Western town, where Ingersoll 
 had been lecturing. One said, '^ Did you hear the 
 lecture last night?" ''No. What did he say?" 
 '' He said that Christianity is dead." *' Indade ! 
 And isn't it a mighty queer dead thing that is build- 
 ing five churches in this town this year? " 
 
 Christianity is not dead nor sleeping ; but what 
 it needs is a deep concentration against the deadly 
 foes of Christ and humanity. Do you remember 
 when Christ came down from the Mount of Trans- 
 figuration and found there his disciples utterly 
 helpless to heal the poor lad that was possessed 
 with a dumb spirit, and how, when Jesus saw what 
 was the trouble and heard the complaint of the fa- 
 ther that the disciples could not cast him out, he 
 cried out in rebuke, '' O faithless generation, how 
 long shall I be with you ? how long shall I suffer 
 you? bring him unto me?" How shameful it is 
 that the millions of disciples of Jesus Christ in this 
 land should stand helpless before the liquor traffic, 
 that demon spirit of our civilization, and fail to cast 
 it out through lack of devotion and concentration. 
 
 When Sir Philip Sidney was only a boy he wrote 
 down as one of the settled rules of his young life, 
 " If there are any good wars I shall go to them." 
 Young man, young woman, I call you to this good 
 war — as holy and chivalrous as any for which noble 
 
18 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 knight or pious crusader ever tilted his lance or un- 
 sheathed his sword ; a war for '^ God and home 
 and native land ; " a war, not against your brothers, 
 but against a vile institution which blights with the 
 mildew of death everything upon which it falls. 
 There is no cause for which humanity prays that 
 would not gain new impetus and inspiration if the 
 liquor traffic was slain. I call you, then, for the 
 sake of the liquor dealer himself and his army of 
 bartenders who are brutalized and degraded by it ; 
 in behalf of the army of besotted drunkards falling 
 into accursed graves ; in behalf of the sweet homes 
 that are yearly wrecked and ruined, and the wives 
 and children that are widowed and orphaned by 
 this deadly curse ; in behalf of the childhood of 
 America, which ought to be saved from its deadly 
 fascinations ; in behalf of the " new heaven and the 
 new earth," the coming of which every Christian 
 heart has sworn to speed. In behalf of this sublime 
 dream of Christian civilization, this noble hope of 
 universal brotherhood, '' which humanity has car. 
 ried in its heart, like a heavenly s-eed, for ages," I 
 appeal to you to come to this good war, and to come 
 now ! 
 
ANGELIC MODELS FOR EARTHLY LIVES. 19 
 
 II. 
 
 ANGELIC MODELS FOR EARTHLY LIVES. 
 
 "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven," — Matt, vi, lo. 
 
 NO life ever rises into true greatness without 
 lofty ideals. When God would exalt Moses 
 to the faith and courage necessary to be the leader 
 of his people, he gave him a vision hour on the 
 lonely mountain side, and appeared to him and 
 communed with him in the burning bush ; and 
 when the Lord sought to fit him for building the 
 sacred tabernacle where his special presence was to 
 be manifested, he took him up on Mount Sinai and 
 communed with him and revealed to him in that 
 exalted solitude the pattern for his work. We are 
 all builders, and to each one of us, as to Moses, God 
 gives vision hours, when common things are trans- 
 figured before us and we are lifted up to behold the 
 lofty possibilities of life — hours like those v/hich 
 Peter and John and James had when they spent a 
 glorious night on the mountain top with Moses and 
 Elias, and Jesus was transfigured before them. 
 
 Let us thank God that he has not ceased to give 
 vision hours to his children. There are times when 
 our souls are lifted up and exalted so that all nature 
 seems transfigured and glorified to us. I had an 
 hour like that the other afternoon, when, riding rap- 
 idly in the train along the Hudson River and look- 
 
20 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 ing out upon the spring landscape, God seemed to 
 be more immanent and regnant in nature than ever 
 before, and my heart drank in peace out of the beau- 
 tiful works of his hand, from the sky above and the 
 earth beneath. An indescribable beauty seemed to 
 fall over mountain and river and forest ; and, like 
 the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration, I 
 wist not what to say, for no language could utter it. 
 It was one of those spring afternoons which are like 
 a divine oratorio, when the earth palpitates with its 
 innumerable insect life and its reviving tenderness ; 
 when the air is like a kiss from the warm-hearted 
 South ; when the trees, from the dark evergreen to 
 the snow-white dogwood or pink azalea, the sun- 
 shine, streaming from the inexhaustible hearthstone 
 of heaven, the blue sky, flecked with white clouds, 
 like sheep on the pasture lands of Paradise, are all 
 in the same happy mood, all at concert pitch, attuned 
 by a divine hand until they are brought together in 
 complete harmony — a halleluiah chorus, indeed, 
 none the less glorious because silent to the earthly 
 ear. The whole earth seemed like a Bible. The 
 everlasting rocks of the Palisades overhanging the 
 river were its Book of Genesis ; the chirping robins 
 were its Book of Psalms ; the warm atmosphere, 
 illuminated by the sunlight and spiced by the fra- 
 grance of orchard bloom, was its gospels ; and the 
 rapidly-advancing train, changing the panorama at 
 every moment, turned leaf after leaf of its Book of 
 Revelation. 
 
 There is no sorrozv that an inspired soul cannot 
 transfigure. Humanity has never known any bitter- 
 ness of grief or dreg of misery that has not been 
 
ANGELIC MODELS FOR EARTHLY LIVES. 21 
 
 borne or drunk by lofty souls — like those of whom 
 Paul says, in his letter to the Hebrews, " Of whom the 
 world was not worthy " — with faces all aglow with 
 love and eyes that mirrored the face of God. As 
 the sunshine sprinkles down through the forest and 
 illuminates the dark pool, or the starlit heaven 
 bending over it mirrors its jeweled face in its black 
 depths at night, so communion with God and love 
 for him and reliance upon him flood earthly sorrows 
 with beauty and transfigure them with a glory from 
 heaven. 
 
 There is no work so monotonous that a lofty soul 
 imbued with a Christlike spirit cannot transfigure it 
 and change it from slavery into a divine mission. 
 To those who live in perpetual consciousness that 
 they are the sons and daughters of God, all toil 
 which comes in the line of duty must become at- 
 tractive. When the glory of heaven's purpose falls 
 over our work it loses its monotony and its hard- 
 ness and becomes a divine calling. When we live 
 in that spirit we come to feel and know that men are 
 not only called to be apostles and prophets and 
 poets, but are just as truly called to be carpenters 
 and tailors and machinists, and that one can as sure- 
 ly drive a team or sweep a room or run an engine 
 or nurse a child for the sake of God and humanity 
 and duty as to be a prophet or priest or king. Work 
 thus transfigured loses all Its bitterness ; it is no 
 longer drudgery, but is glorified by high and lofty 
 purpose, as well as by the blessed fellowship in 
 which it finds itself. 
 
 The friendships and loves of our lives are trans- 
 figured and exalted when our souls are lifted up by 
 
22 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 lofty spiritual devotion. As another has well said : 
 *' Friendship is only a habit of being together ; love 
 is only a fire of straw, flaring and falling away in a 
 moment, unless its soul is some generous, common 
 aim, some noble, common inspiration. But, with 
 these, when we talk with our friends, they are trans- 
 figured, and we are talking with Moses and Elias, 
 with prophets and saints. Their garments are white 
 as the light ; their faces shine as the sun. For, as 
 Jesus is the mirror in which we see the face of God, 
 so are all good men and women, in their better 
 moments, the illustration to our hearts of the great 
 prophets and saints of the earth." How can we 
 ever thank God enough for these our own prophets 
 and saints, our own heroes and martyrs. Call them 
 up in your mind while I speak — the men and the 
 women, many of them walking in the commonest 
 places of life, yet so transfigured by the grace of 
 God and so glorified by friendship and love that 
 their names have been changed, as Jacob's was at 
 Peniel, and they have stood before you, your Abra- 
 ham and Moses and Daniel and Elijah and Paul and 
 John, or your Dorcas and Lydia, or your Madonna. 
 God be blessed for these household saints and 
 prophets, these friends who are transfigured and 
 transformed into our angels that help us up heaven's 
 stairway! How barren, indeed, would life be with- 
 out them ! They make it easy for us to believe in 
 all things good and true, and open to us beforehand 
 the portals of a higher world. 
 
 So there are hours when Christ is transfigured 
 before us, as he was before the disciples on that 
 morning when Peter begged his Lord that they 
 
ANGELIC MODELS FOR EARTHLY LIVES. 23 
 
 might build tabernacles and remain, because it was 
 so good to be there. There are other days when 
 we walk the highway as the disciples did on their 
 way to Emmaus, and, all unseen, the Christ draws 
 near and becomes our companion, and our hearts 
 burn within us as he talks to us and opens to us the 
 Scriptures. In such hours the Saviour is more than 
 Lord and Master — he is our tender Friend. He 
 keeps step with us, his neck is bended to our yoke, 
 his majestic yet tender face glows with sympathy 
 and love. The Scriptures grow clear in such mo- 
 ments, grow intensely interesting. Whereas they 
 were before dull, now every word is filled with 
 fresh life. The Bible becomes transfigured. It is 
 like the earth in the springtime — every book swell- 
 ing the leaves and blossoms, every chapter instinct 
 with life. Even death itself is transfigured to those 
 who live in the light of God's truth and love. To 
 all such ''death is swallowed up in victory," and 
 they cry triumphantly, with Paul, '' O death, where 
 is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" 
 
 It was in a vision hour that Jesus, in an exaltation 
 of spirit that came to him as he talked with his dis- 
 ciples and taught them how to pray, uttered the 
 words of our text. The Saviour saw in these rude, 
 ignorant, prejudiced, quick-tempered men about 
 him, the possibility of rising up into communion 
 with the holiest and loftiest beings. Heavenly pu- 
 rity and righteousness were to transform these rude 
 lives. Angelic models were to be lifted up before 
 them and allure them over an illuminated path to- 
 ward the skies. 
 
 I shall not take our Scripture in its wider view 
 
24 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 of the world, shall not study It in its broader horizon, 
 as the promise of the coming of the kingdom of God 
 everywhere ; but prefer to inquire briefly at this time 
 what it is we pray for when, in reference to our own 
 hearts and lives, we pray, " Thy will be done in earth, 
 as it is in heaven." 
 
 There can be no doubt that, first of all, it is a 
 prayer for purity. Heaven is a place of infinite 
 purity. Jesus says, and it is one of the sweetest of 
 all those sayings of the Sermon on the Mount, 
 " Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see 
 God." As heaven is a place of the highest and 
 noblest standards, we cannot doubt that, when Christ 
 teaches us to pray that his kingdom may come in 
 our earthly lives and his will be done in us as it is 
 among the angelic hosts in heaven, he is teaching 
 us a prayer for purity of heart ; for, as President 
 Warren of Boston University well says, in trying 
 to estimate the rank and value of different kinds of 
 purity, one is forced to the conclusion that heart 
 purity is the highest of all. True, it is a blessed 
 thing to have a pure body — pure blood, pure breath, 
 pure complexion, everywhere the purity of absolute 
 health and cleanliness ; but if we had to choose be- 
 tween this purity and purity of mind — pure thoughts, 
 pure imaginations, pure intellectual tastes and habits 
 — surely every sane man or woman would say, " Give 
 me the pure mind." It is better to have an un- 
 washen body than a filthy mind ; for if the mind is 
 pure it will quickly find a way to purify the body. 
 
 But, precious as it is to have purity of thought 
 and imagination and intellectual tastes and habits, 
 purity of heart is still more important and desirable. 
 
ANGELIC MODELS FOR EARTHLY LIVES. 25 
 
 Purity of heart means purity of love and aspiration ; 
 and by as much as our aspirations and desires and 
 loves are deeper and higher and more vital than our 
 fancies, by so much is purity of heart higher in the 
 scale of excellence than even purity of thought. 
 Those daring French surgeons tell us that in 
 their experiments an animal's brain is sometimes 
 removed by an investigating scientist and the 
 animal goes on performing its functions in some 
 modified way ; but when they take away its heart 
 its life goes with it. So it is with man — his heart is 
 the citadel of his life. Not only so, but as a pure 
 mind will find some way to purify an impure body, 
 so a pure heart will purify the mind. The great 
 heart-longing for purity fills the mind with images 
 of pure things and forces the imagination to feed 
 itself on purity. Dear brothers and sisters, this 
 purity of body and mind and soul, this purity of 
 heart which shall clothe us with light, is our rightful 
 heritage and may and should be enjoyed by us every 
 one. How we are robbing our own lives by being 
 so frequently satisfied with far less than belongs to 
 us as the children of God ! 
 
 A clever writer, in a recent work of fiction, pic- 
 tures in vivid coloring the misery and growing de- 
 spair of the heir of vast estates yielding a yearly 
 income of tens of thousands of dollars. The in- 
 heritance is really his, free and unencumbered, but 
 through the intrigue of some scheming, thieving 
 men he is made to believe that he has lost every- 
 thing, 'and that beyond all chance of recovery. 
 While still possessed of a kingly fortune, he actually 
 wants for the common necessities of life and is finally 
 
26 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 on the verge of despair and desperation ; when he 
 is coolly and simply asked if he has looked suf- 
 ficiently and thoroughly into matters and so con- 
 vinced himself, beyond all reasonable doubt, that he 
 really has lost what were once beyond dispute his 
 rightful possessions. The question so quietly put 
 begets questions and arouses suspicions in his mind 
 which, joined with his forlorn condition, stimulate 
 to a keen search, resulting in the discovery that not 
 only are the supposed alienated estates still his, but 
 a hitherto unclaimed inheritance is his also. 
 
 How aptly this story illustrates the condition of 
 those who, through sin, have lost purity of heart 
 and cleanliness of imagination and the courage of 
 righteousness, and who now are made to believe 
 by the evil one that the inheritance had been taken 
 away from them forever and that they must live on 
 with poor, starved, bankrupt hearts until the end. 
 Brother, it is not true. Sin may have marred and 
 hurt and blighted, but the Christ who gave himself 
 as a sacrifice for our sin is not only able to save us 
 from the punishment of sin, but to purify us from 
 its guilt, to cleanse us from its impurity, and to fill 
 our hearts and minds with pure and holy thoughts, 
 with noble and divine ambitions; and, if you really 
 and truly pray this prayer of our Lord, it is a cry of 
 the soul that your divine inheritance may again be 
 yours and its precious income of peace and joy and 
 love in the Holy Ghost may refresh your enrap- 
 tured soul. 
 
 The prayer we are studying is also a plea for en- 
 trance in a life of loving, willing service. However 
 complex the Christian life may seem, it is very 
 
ANGELIC MODELS FOR EARTHLY LIVES. 27 
 
 simple and easy to be understood when approached 
 through the door of simply trying to do what will 
 please Jesus. I wish I might condense for you a 
 beautiful little parable of James Freeman Clarke's. 
 This is its story: 
 
 There was once a little boy who read in his Testa- 
 ment the stories about Jesus ; and, as little children 
 think that everything they read is near by, he sup- 
 posed that Jesus and his disciples were living near 
 by, in the same town or the next, and he thought 
 he would like to go and find Jesus and ask him 
 whether he might not stay with him awhile and be 
 one of his scholars. So one morning he got up 
 early and set out on his journey before anyone else 
 was up. He left a little note on the table for his 
 father and mother, which was this : 
 
 " Dear Papa and Mamma : I am going to 
 find Jesus. I wish to be one of his disciples, with 
 Peter and James and John. I am very little, but I 
 can do something. I can bring him water when he 
 is thirsty and wash his feet when he is tired with 
 walking ; and by and by I will come home and tell 
 you all about it. CHARLEY." 
 
 So Charley set out very bright and fresh. He 
 had an idea, as Httle children have, that the world 
 is only a few miles across and that everything is 
 close by ; so he thought he would meet some one 
 soon who would tell him where Jesus was. But 
 after walking for an hour or so he began to get 
 tired and wanted his breakfast. He went straight 
 into a house and sat down. Now, in this house 
 there lived a very old man and woman who had no 
 
28 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 children. When they saw this little curly-headed 
 boy coming in they said : 
 
 " What do you want, my son ?" 
 
 And he told them he wanted some bread and 
 milk for breakfast. They gladly gave it to him ; 
 and, while he was eating it, he told them how he 
 was going to find Jesus and asked them if they 
 could tell him where Jesus and his disciples were 
 to-day. The old man and woman were astonished 
 at this question, and said : 
 
 " My dear child, we do not know." 
 
 So he thanked them for his breakfast, and they 
 gave him a piece of bread to take with him, and he 
 went away. Then the old man and woman said to 
 each other : 
 
 " Is it not strange that this little boy should be 
 trying to find Jesus, and we have never tried to be 
 Christians all our lives ? " 
 
 So they resolved they would begin then to be 
 Christians, and they knelt down and prayed God to 
 make them so, and they felt very happy. 
 
 The little boy went on, and came to where two 
 men were sitting and disputing. One man was an 
 infidel, and did not believe in Jesus Christ at all. 
 The other was a Christian, but he was a hard sort 
 of Christian, who could argue for Christ, but did it 
 as if he were scolding. The little boy stopped to 
 listen, and presently went up and said : 
 
 " If this man wants to know Christ, don't wait 
 here talking, but come help me to find him, for 1 
 am looking for him, too." 
 
 Then he took them each by the hand and led 
 them along, and they stopped arguing, curious to 
 
ANGELIC MODELS FOR EARTHLY LIVES. 29 
 
 see where he was going ; and they went along to- 
 gether. Presently they came to where some one 
 was lying on the ground, groaning with pain. Then 
 the little boy said : 
 
 '' O, now we shall find Jesus, for he always goes 
 where people are sick; he will come here presently. 
 Let us sit down by the sick man and nurse him and 
 make him comfortable, and Jesus will come here 
 directly." 
 
 So they sat down and nursed the sick man, till 
 at last he felt better, and got up and went away 
 thanking them. 
 
 But no Jesus came, and the little boy began to 
 be discouraged. However, he got up and said : 
 
 *' Let us go and look farther ; for he said, * Seek, 
 and ye shall find.' " 
 
 But the two men said : 
 
 '' No, little boy, we will go no farther, for we 
 know how to find him now. We see that Jesus is 
 not to be found in disputing, but by following him. 
 Good-bye, little boy ; you have done us a great deal 
 of good." 
 
 Then the little fellow journeyed on till he came 
 to where a poor beggar sat on the ground, and he 
 asked the little boy for bread. Charley took the 
 piece he had saved in the morning and broke it in 
 two and gave the beggar half and said : 
 
 " Take this and eat it in the name of Christ, and 
 I will eat the rest." 
 
 And the beggar said : 
 
 " Dear little boy, this is the first time I have 
 
 eaten the Lord's Supper in fifty years." 
 
 So night came on, and the little fellow began to 
 3 
 
30 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 be frightened. But the beggar asked him who he 
 was and where he Hved, and he told the whole 
 story. Then the beggar got up and went with him 
 and showed him the way home. And his father 
 and mother, who had been looking for him all day, 
 were very glad, and said : 
 
 *' We have sought you all day." 
 
 But he said : 
 
 " Why so ? I have been looking for Jesus." 
 
 Then he crept into his little bed and went to 
 sleep. And he dreamed ; and, behold, Jesus came 
 to him and said : 
 
 " My dear little boy, you have looked for me all 
 day, and I have been near you all the time. I was 
 with you when you went to look for me and when 
 you went to see the old man and woman and the 
 two arguers and the sick man and the beggar ; and 
 you have led me to all of them. The old man and 
 woman will now be my disciples ; the two arguers 
 have left off disputing and have begun to do good 
 works ; the sick man blesses God for the charity 
 of his fellow-men ; and the old beggar feels that 
 he is not alone in the world. Go on, little boy, 
 and always do so, and I will always be with you. 
 Though you cannot see me you shall feel me in your 
 heart." 
 
 I do not know anything better to say to any of 
 you than '' Go thou and do likewise," in the spirit 
 of the prayer of our Lord. 
 
 We cannot fail to notice for a moment that this 
 is a cry of cheerful submission to the will of God. 
 If we enter fully into it we shall be able to sing 
 with the poet : 
 
ANGELIC MODELS FOR EARTHLY LIVES. 31 
 
 " O God, thy will be done ! | 
 
 We know not what the morrow may reveal, j 
 
 What dole soe'er of misery or weal, j 
 
 Yet may our spirits with thine own be one ; j 
 
 And set upon our brows thy royal seal, j 
 
 The name of Christ, thy Son. 
 
 " We ask thee for thy peace ! ' 
 
 Unto the morrow shall suffice its pain, ■ 
 
 And every loss may prove a surer gain, 3 
 
 And every bondage lead to glad release. i 
 
 Let not thy discipline be sent in vain ; j 
 
 Yet give us, Lord, thy peace. 
 
 " We ask to do thy will. 
 Not knowing yet what all that will may be. 
 But trusting that no dire calamity. 
 
 No hopeless grief, or needless breath of ill, 
 Can ever reach the soul that rests in thee, j 
 
 And we can wait thy will. i 
 
 " Thy comfort comes through pain. 
 Thy tender hand the heavy burden lifts. 
 And hope shines through the clouds in golden rifts 
 
 And unto those who trust thee, come again 
 Courage and peace, and all such kindred gifts. 
 
 Clear shining after rain. 
 
 " And this is better so. 
 Who knows the depth is strong to scale the height, 
 Who knows the darkness best will love the light ; 
 
 And they who bear Christ's cross shall surely know 
 The blessedness of those who walk in white 
 
 After their toil belov/. 
 
 " Thy children must be tried. 
 And so we dare not ask for joy or rest. 
 Whatever thou shalt choose for us is best ; 
 
 Whatever sorrow life's short day may hide 
 We know that when we waken on thy breast 
 
 We shall be satisfied." 
 
32 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE TREASURES OF THE HIGHLANDS. 
 
 " He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat 
 the increase of the fields ; and he made him to suck honey out of the 
 rock, and oil out of the flinty rock." — Deut. xxxii, 13. 
 
 IN his last poem, written only a little while before 
 his death, Robert Louis Stevenson went back 
 in his memory and lived again in thought in the 
 old Scotch Highlands which were so dear to him. 
 The poem is worthy of his genius, and interprets 
 the higher voices which speak to sensitive souls 
 from the " high places of the earth : " 
 
 " In the highlands, in the country places, 
 
 Where the old i)lain men have rosy faces, 
 
 And the young fair maidens 
 
 Quiet eyes ; 
 
 Where essential silence cheers and blesses, 
 
 And forever in the hill recesses 
 
 Her more lovely music 
 
 Broods and dies ; 
 
 " O, to mount again v^^here erst I haunted ; 
 Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted, 
 And the low, green meadows 
 Bright with sward ; 
 
 And when evening dies, the million-tinted. 
 And the night has come and planets glinted, 
 Lo, the valley hollow 
 Lamp-bestarred ! 
 
THE TREASURES OF THE HIGHLANDS. 33 
 
 " O, to dream ; O, to awake and wander 
 There, and with delight to take and render, 
 Through the trance of silence, 
 Quiet breath ! 
 
 Lo ! for there, among the flowers and grasses 
 Only the mightier movement sounds and passes ; 
 Only winds and rivers, 
 Life and death." 
 
 The suggestion of the Scripture we are studying 
 is that there are such spiritual highlands for the 
 soul — gloriously tinted skies ; lofty places of heav- 
 enly communion where plain men have rosy faces ; 
 quiet hours where the very silence is full of a loving 
 music that broods in tenderness ; lofty table-lands 
 where heavenly trade winds blow, where the river 
 of the water of life is flowing, and where great 
 thoughts and noble joys inspire generous souls. 
 
 The lesson that I wish to impress upon your 
 thought is that it is a high and noble thing to be a 
 Christian man or woman ; that the Christian life is 
 infinitely greater and grander than any other life in 
 the world. We slander our Christianity when we 
 put it on a par with any mere morality or formal 
 righteousness: Jesus Christ said to his disciples 
 that unless their righteousness exceeded the right- 
 eousness of the scribes and Pharisees they could not 
 enter into his kingdom. Christianity is to be a holy 
 thing. It is the high table-land that lifts itself in 
 lofty stretches above the valley. It inspires us to 
 live a nobler life than the world has the power to 
 conceive. 
 
 I have noted two testimonies to this truth from 
 widely different characters within a few days. One 
 was the testimony of a young mechanic who had 
 
34 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 recently strayed into a revival meeting and, hearing 
 the message of the Saviour, was so convicted of sin 
 by the Holy Spirit that he gave his heart to God 
 then and there. He went home and told his wife 
 that he had become a Christian. He immediately 
 set up the family altar and began to ask a blessing 
 on the food at the table. '* One day," so his wife 
 reported, " he lifted up his face from the table over 
 which he had bowed to give thanks for his daily 
 bread and, with tears running down his face, said : 
 ' Wife, it has only been a week since I began to hve. 
 It is a blessed thing to be alive with God ! * " 
 
 The other testimony is from Mr. Gladstone, who 
 is regarded throughout the world as the most re- 
 markable combination of intellectual power and 
 moral purity now living. Talking to a company of 
 university students recently, he made this wonder- 
 ful utterance : " If you wish to lead a life that is 
 manful, modest, truthful, active, diligent, humble, 
 and generous, take for your motto those wonderful 
 words of the apostle where he says, ' Whatsoever 
 things are true, whatsoever things are honest, what- 
 soever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, 
 whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are 
 of good report.' Everything that is good is to be 
 before your view, and nothing that is not good. 
 Whatever you aspire to, aspire above all else to be 
 Christians and to Christian perfection." In that 
 majestic utterance we have the secret of the true 
 and lasting greatness of Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 No great life ever comes without lofty aspira- 
 tions and without strong inspirations. The high- 
 est duty of the pulpit is, not to do the thinking 
 
THE TREASURES OF THE HIGHLANDS. 35 
 
 for the people, but to inspire them to do high 
 and lofty thinking for themselves ; not to set 
 before those who listen a routine prescription as to 
 conduct, however good, but so to arouse the soul to 
 aspire after the righteousness of Jesus Christ that a 
 low and vulgar life shall be impossible. More young 
 men and women are robbed of their highest possi- 
 bilities through lack of noble aspiration and a prac- 
 tical faith in the possible grandeur of their own 
 lives than through anything else. To dare to be- 
 lieve that the most saintly life that was ever lived 
 on the earth is as possible to you as to any other ; 
 that the most sublime heroism that has ever faced 
 danger and rejoiced in self-denial, carried burdens 
 for the oppressed and won victory for righteousness, 
 is possible for you ; that that high and purer life 
 upon the highlands of the soul is the atmosphere 
 for which you were born and the natural home of 
 your heart — to believe that, to feel that, is to enter 
 the kingdom of God, to come into fellowship with 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 The great French painter, Bastien Lepage, who 
 died not long ago, was pursued by unmerciful dis- 
 aster through his youth in his efforts to study art. 
 His mother worked in the fields to keep the sickly 
 boy at school. At fifteen he went alone to Paris, 
 and starved for seven years. He painted without 
 success — but still he painted. He had just finished 
 a picture which he hoped to send to the Salon when 
 Paris was besieged ; and he rushed with his com- 
 rades to the trenches. On the first day a shell fell 
 into his studio and destroyed his picture, and an- 
 other shell burst at his feet, wounding him. He 
 
36 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 was carried home and lay ill and idle for two years. 
 Then he returned to Paris and, reduced to absolute 
 want, painted cheap fans for a living. One day a 
 manufacturer of some patent medicine ordered a 
 picture from hiip to illustrate its virtues. Lepage, 
 who was always sincere, gave his best work to this 
 advertisement. He painted a landscape in the April 
 sunlight ; the leaves of tender green quivered in 
 the breeze; a group of beautiful young girls gath- 
 ered around a fountain from which the elixir of 
 youth sprang in a bubbling stream. Lepage be- 
 lieved there was real merit in his work at last. 
 " Let me offer it at the Salon ? " he asked his patron. 
 The manufacturer was delighted to have him do it. 
 " But first paint a rainbow arching over the foun- 
 tain," he said, *' with the name of my medicine upon 
 it." Lepage refused. " Then I will not pay you a 
 sou for the picture." The price of this picture 
 meant bread for month?, and the painter had long 
 needed bread. The chance of admission to the Sa- 
 lon was small. He hesitated, then he silenced his 
 hunger and carried the canvas to the Salon. It was 
 admitted. Its great success insured Lepage a place 
 in public recognition, and his later work a place 
 among the greatest artists of his time. His great 
 ambition, his undying purpose to have honor and 
 fame rather than bread, to refuse to be satisfied 
 with anything less than the highest success, alone 
 made such a triumph possible. It is just such an 
 inspiration and ambition, infinitely purified and ex- 
 alted by association with Jesus Christ, which every 
 Christian must have in order to fulfill the lofty des- 
 tiny which God intends for us. 
 
THE TREASURES OF THE HIGHLANDS. 37 
 
 There is always a temptation to be satisfied with 
 a mere compromise life. The devil says to us, 
 '' You are formed of such common clay that high 
 sainthood, lofty heroism, and sublime purpose are 
 impossible to you. There are rare souls that were 
 made to fly and bathe their pinions, like the eagle, 
 in the face of the sun ; but you are of the earth 
 earthy, and must keep close to the ground." All 
 such thoughts are delusions of the enemy. Lofty 
 spiritual possibilities are within the reach of every 
 one of us. They are our birthright. They are 
 guaranteed to us in the charter of our creation. 
 Every man or woman that has ever tried to do 
 large things has been tempted to give up and be 
 satisfied with something less, and the yielding to 
 or refusing that temptation has meant destiny, high 
 or low. 
 
 When Nehemiah undertook to rebuild the walls 
 of Jerusalem and had marvelously inspired the 
 hearts of the people, so infusing his own faith and 
 earnestness into them that the whole city was at 
 work side by side, in relays, to replace the broken 
 walls ; his enemies, when they could not scare him 
 out of his purpose or turn him from it by ridicule, 
 sent him a soft, gentle, insidious sort of a letter in 
 which they said, " Let us go down to the plains of 
 Ono and have a council." But grand Nehemiah 
 sent back word, " I am doing a great work, so that 
 I cannot come down." And you see the result of 
 that wise decision in the wonderful result which 
 Nehemiah was able to accomplish. The Rev. 
 Frank Hyatt Smith says that, in an age when 
 shingles rot, and shoes are made of paper soles, 
 
38 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 and ground peas become ground coffee, and cotton 
 parades as wool, and paint is thinner than water, 
 and all sorts of public institutions need the over- 
 hauling of investigating committees, it is very re- 
 freshing to read of a man Avho restored an immense 
 wall solidly and systematically, scorned assistance 
 from local croakers, compelled each mason to do his 
 own, and not his neighbor's, work, gave every 
 laborer a sword and a trowel, fed a hundred and 
 fifty at his table each day, thought more of public 
 duty than of private comfort, did away with finan- 
 cial pawnbrokers, abolished slavery without blood, 
 refused any salary as governor, compiled an accu- 
 rate census of the people, instituted a genuine wor- 
 ship and reading of the law, ordained a revival with- 
 out evangelists, provided an equitable system of 
 representation, separated the people on the basis of 
 character, forbade Sunday labor, interdicted such 
 marriages as Solomon sanctioned, and marvelously 
 governed as many people as the whole State of 
 New York contains without the aid of either a 
 '' boss " or a Tammany Hall to give him instruc- 
 tions. All that was accomplished by a man who 
 was brave enough, when he had a noble conception 
 of duty, to go ahead and do it and refuse absolutely 
 to come down to any compromise on the plains of 
 Ono. 
 
 It is such a courage as that which, above all 
 things else, we need to exalt and glorify our daily 
 lives. A courage which fears no one but God, and 
 can look the devil in the face with an unblanched 
 cheek. Sustained by such a courage we may sing, 
 with Amy Seville Wolff: 
 
THE TREASURES OF THE HIGHLANDS. 39 
 
 " I fear no more the coming years, 
 What they may bring. 
 Days may be sunless, night bereft of stars ; 
 Mayhap the brightest blossoms of the spring 
 Shall first be bound with winter's icy bars. 
 But still beyond the cloud is always light. 
 The stars are in the sky all night, 
 And deepest snows are they which hide the bright, 
 Green heart of spring. 
 
 " Not all of life is dreamed away 
 In summer skies. 
 Time holds a loss, a loneliness for me ; 
 But hope is strong, and faith dare not be weak, 
 
 And love abides, the greatest of the three. 
 Enough if sweet to-morrow will repay 
 The disappointment of to-day. 
 Light follows dark ; sun, rain ; seas ebb away 
 Again to rise. 
 
 " And if the rugged road of life 
 Doth wind around 
 The mountain side, where heavy clouds hang low. 
 And, as I climb, the pilgrim staff be changed 
 
 Into a cross, still onward would I go ! 
 The peaks of only highest mountains rise 
 Above the clouds to bluest skies, 
 And round the heaviest cross is hung the prize, 
 The brightest crown." 
 
 We have suggested to us in this Scripture 
 picture which we are studying the precious rewards 
 of such a lofty and elevated life. The whole para- 
 graph is well worth quoting: "The Lord's portion 
 is his people ; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. 
 He found him in a desert land, and in the waste 
 howling wilderness ; he led him about, he instructed 
 him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. As an 
 
40 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her 
 young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, 
 beareth them on her wings : so the Lord alone did 
 lead him, and there was no strange god with him. 
 He made him ride on the high places of the earth, 
 that he might eat the increase of the fields ; and he 
 made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out 
 of the flinty rock." What a graphic picture it is! 
 As the bee hunter, climbing up into the lofty 
 places, finds hidden away in the caves of the rocks 
 the wild bees storing up their honey, and in lofty 
 and almost inaccessible places finds the sweetest 
 honey culled from the mountain flowers, so he who 
 climbs aloft in his ambition and purpose to know 
 the secret of God, to live in highest associations, 
 and to find the spiritual treasures of the highlands, 
 shall find in those lofty and rocky places the sweet- 
 est spiritual honey, the richest and noblest food for 
 his soul. The rock of trial and hardship shall be- 
 come the rock of salvation. 
 
 Dr. Charles G. Ames very beautifully says that 
 there is a fountain of heart's-ease in the brave ac- 
 ceptance of whatever sorrows and trials fall to our 
 lot. When Jesus stands fronting the cross he says, 
 with something of the joy which was the undercur- 
 rent of that life which was so " acquainted with 
 grief," " The cup which my Father hath given me, 
 shall I not drink it?" There is an inspiration that 
 comes to the climber, the one whose face is turned 
 toward the mountain top. To aspire to live the 
 noblest possible life has a courage in it all its own. 
 To such a soul burdens become wings. But if one 
 is sulky or cowardly, or if he whimpers and pities 
 
THE TREASURES OF THE HIGHLANDS. 41 
 
 himself, or envies other people who seem to have no 
 loads to carry, he will have plenty of heartache, and 
 backache too. There are a great many worse 
 things in the world than burden-bearing, and the 
 people who shirk the tasks which properly belong 
 to them miss the sweetest honey that heaven has 
 to bestow. Humboldt said, *' It is quite possible 
 to suffer many and great griefs, and yet not to feel 
 thoroughly unhappy in consequence, but rather to 
 find our moral and intellectual nature so purified 
 and exalted thereby that v/e would not change this 
 feeling for any other." That was certainly the ex- 
 perience out of which the apostle spoke when he 
 said, " No chastening for the present seemeth to be 
 joyous, but grievous : nevertheless afterward it 
 yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness." 
 Certainly it is true that people Vv^ho live in the easy- 
 going valleys, and who never struggle to climb 
 toward the mountain heights, and who seek only 
 to have their own ease and luxury, are never the 
 ones to make the world's noble history or find the 
 hidden honey which is to feed the Vv^orld's sorrows 
 and assuage its griefs. I would to God we might 
 be aroused to break every vulgar chain which cramps 
 and fetters us and holds us to a life which is beneath 
 us, and to rise up, climbing ever toward the 
 heights, to possess the treasures of the highlands 
 which are our rightful inheritance ! 
 
 Paul exultantly exclaims in his first letter to the 
 Corinthians : ''AH things are yours ; whether Paul, 
 or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, 
 or things present, or things to come; all are yours; 
 and ye are Christ's ; and Christ is God's." Dr. 
 
42 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 Brooke Herford, of London, commenting on this, 
 says that there is a wholesome exultation about 
 these words when we consider from whom they 
 came and to whom they were addressed. We do 
 not like to hear a rich man boasting of his wealth ; 
 but when a poor man tells us how rich he feels, that 
 seems wholesome and it gives us a glimpse into the 
 deeper fact of what " being well-off" really is. It is 
 not what you can carry in your hand or pocket or 
 title deeds that you make really yours ; but it is 
 what you take into your mind and heart, what you 
 know, and what you love. That which you carry 
 in your fingers you can carry only a little way; and 
 then the fingers loosen, your grasp relaxes, and it 
 all slips from you. But that of God's great world 
 which you gather into the mind and heart does not 
 slip away ; that becomes part of your very self and 
 goes with you into the immortal life beyond. This 
 is true about everything that we try to possess. 
 
 Shakespeare's plays, Emerson's essays, or Tenny- 
 son's poems do not become yours by your owning 
 handsome copies of them, but by reading and read- 
 ing again and again until you know them and love 
 them. Beethoven and Mendelssohn and Mozart 
 belong to those who love and understand them. 
 John Ruskin is so keenly alive to the truth that 
 only knowledge and love can take possession of the 
 highest treasures, that he pleads it is wrong in works 
 of art to claim any private property or ownership. 
 The beauty, the great thoughts, that which gives 
 the marble or canvas its value — no man can buy 
 that for money ; it can only come by knowing and 
 loving, by looking on the beauty until its lines grow 
 
THE TREASURES OF THE HIGHLANDS. 43 
 
 into the mind, by entering into its spirit and pos- 
 sessing it by the affections of the heart. 
 
 These truths need to be greatly emphasized in 
 this rushing, sordid Hfe, the currents of which whirl 
 about us and so often threaten to engulf us. We 
 need to have it said again and again, with increas- 
 ing emphasis, that it is not what we carry in our 
 pockets which makes us most truly rich, even though 
 it be gold or diamonds. The open eye to see the 
 beauty that is in earth's poorest place ; the thought- 
 ful mind to watch the world's life and change and 
 growth working together ; the large heart to look 
 on all human life about us with tender, loving sym- 
 pathy, feeling the joys and sorrows of every brother 
 and sister of our humanity — these things are what 
 make men and women rich and strong and power- 
 ful ! If such is your conception of life and such the 
 sublime ambition of your soul, then I am able to say 
 with Paul, as I look you in the face, '' All things 
 are yours " — sunshine and storm ; the flowers, the 
 white robes of snow, the innumerable stars, the sol- 
 emn mountain heights, the vast domain of history, 
 the lofty ideals of art and music and poetry, the 
 treasures of human life surrounding us, all good and 
 wise and great heroes and saints, earth's noblest 
 uses, heaven's most glorious hopes, things present, 
 things to come — yes, all are yours ; " and ye are 
 Christ's ; and Christ is God's." So wrote Paul to 
 his audience, and so may I speak to mine. All the 
 good things of the universe gather about God. All 
 that is most earnest and noble and inspiring in our 
 human life leads us upward to the great white 
 throne. The honey which the struggling climber 
 
44 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 finds in the cleft rocks of earth is only the sweeter 
 because it is a foretaste and a pledge of still more 
 blessed and precious joys above. 
 
 I set before you this glorious inheritance, and 
 seek by every effort within my power to inspire you 
 to enter in and possess it. 
 
 " Two men toiled side by side from sun to sun, 
 
 And both were poor ; 
 Both sat with children, when the day was done, 
 
 About their door. 
 
 " One saw the beautiful in crimson cloud 
 
 And shining moon ; 
 The other, with his head in sadness bowed, 
 
 Made night of noon. 
 
 " One loved each tree and flower and singing bird 
 
 On mount or plain ; 
 No music in the soul of one was stirred 
 
 By leaf or rain. 
 
 " One saw the good in every fellow-man 
 
 And hoped the best ; 
 The other marveled at his Master's plan, 
 
 And doubt confessed. 
 
 " One having heaven above and heaven below. 
 
 Was satisfied ; 
 The other, discontented, lived in woe, 
 
 And hopeless died," 
 
 I caU you to the higher, the nobler, life, the life 
 which is possible to you and, therefore, 3/our duty. 
 As Phillips Brooks grandly says, live such a life 
 that if every life was like yours this earth would be 
 God's paradise. 
 
INSPIRATION OF THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. 45 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOPE OF IMMOR- 
 TALITY. 
 
 "The power of an endless life." — Heb. vii, i6. 
 
 EASTER comes to us at the season of the year 
 when all nature is illustrating before our admir- 
 ing eyes its great truth. " The power of an endless 
 life " is throbbing to-day in the black stems of the 
 naked trees along our streets and blushing into 
 promise in now and then a swollen bud ; it is ting- 
 ling with encouragement in the hidden, buried roots 
 of many a tiny plant ; it is sweUing to the bursting of 
 hope in many a bulb covered all the winter time 
 with the black earth. And out of the decay of last 
 year's foliage the new adventurer is springing up to 
 bear testimony to " the power of an endless life." 
 As another has said, the first grass blades on the 
 graves of our dead wave in the chill April wind 
 with a gracious suggestion of immortality. All that 
 has ever been said about the victory over death is 
 not so convincing as one blue-eyed violet shining 
 out of its heart-shaped leaves. The softened sky, 
 the kindlier sun, the whole teeming earth, full of 
 tender brooding, like a mother's heart, become to us 
 a gigantic, but beautiful, symbol of an endless life. 
 Surely we cannot help but beHeve in a time like 
 
 this that God has as much care for the top of his 
 4 
 
46 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 creation — for the children made in his own likeness 
 and image, to whom he has given the power to 
 reason, to worship, to love— as he shows for the 
 pussy willows and the peony bulbs. I believe, with 
 Dr. Barrows, that "God is not so poor a house- 
 keeper as to let the best perish and the poorest 
 live. He has made his world like a vast electric 
 battery, to discharge into our souls faith in the 
 hereafter — the renewed life." 
 
 Not only the roots and bulbs and swelling buds 
 speak to us of a life forever, sustained and planned 
 by an invisible power which is not only wise but 
 kind, but the birds that come to us from the South, 
 some staying with us, like the bluebird and the 
 robin, but others tarrying with us only for a day or 
 shooting by us in the twilight, like the wild geese 
 and ducks seeking the far North — all these speak to 
 us of the endless life which is at once the care and 
 the inspiration and the promise of our immortality. 
 Some of you will recall William Cullen Bryant's 
 poem of ''The Water Fowl." It is full of the 
 tenderest teaching of our theme : 
 
 " Whither, midst falling dew, 
 While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
 Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 
 
 Thy soHtary way ? 
 
 " Vainly the fowler's eye 
 Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong. 
 As, darkly seen against the crimson sky. 
 
 Thy figure floats along. 
 
 " Seek'st thou the plashy brink 
 Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide. 
 Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 
 
 On the chafed ocean side ? 
 
INSPIRATION OF THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. 47 
 
 " There is a Power whose care 
 Teaches thy way along that pathless coast — 
 The desert and illimitable air — 
 
 Lone wandering, but not lost. 
 
 " All day thy wings have fanned, 
 At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, 
 Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land. 
 
 Though the dark night is near. 
 
 " And soon that toil shall end ; 
 Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, 
 And scream among thy fellows ; reeds shall bend, 
 
 Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest. 
 
 " Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven 
 Hath sv.'allowed up thy form ; yet on my heart 
 Deeply has sunk the lesson thou hast given. 
 
 And shall not soon depart. 
 
 " He who, from zone to zone, 
 Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
 In the long way that I must tread alone 
 
 Will lead my steps aright." 
 
 The God who has given instinct to the water- 
 fowl, to guide it through the trackless skies from 
 Florida to Labrador, bringing it at last safely to its 
 summer home and rest, may be trusted to care for 
 the human life upon which he has so richly poured 
 the tenderness of his love : 
 
 " He who, from zone to zone. 
 Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
 In the long way that I must tread alone 
 
 Will lead my steps aright." 
 
 The power of an endless life is illustrated in the 
 nobility of purpose, the power of self-denial, the 
 breadth and elevation of soul which come to those 
 
48 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 who are inspired by it. It has been a common 
 thing in our time to have pointed out to us, with a 
 sneer of triumph, that many people who are not 
 within the church, and who make no confession of 
 faith in the resurrected Christ, are yet, in many 
 ways, models of noble living, and have hearts broad 
 and generous and, sometimes, abounding in philan- 
 thropic spirit. Those making these statements fail 
 to appreciate the fact that such people, while they 
 do not confess it and, indeed, in many cases are 
 doubtless unconscious of it, yet owe all that is 
 noblest and grandest in their character to the in- 
 spiration of the hope of immortality which was 
 born into the world in its full glory in the resurrec- 
 tion of Jesus Christ. 
 
 The Right Honorable Arthur James Balfour, a 
 distinguished member of the English House of 
 Commons, in his recent book written in defense of 
 Christianity, illustrates by a very graphic picture 
 the debt which non-Christians owe to the atmos- 
 phere which has been created by the divine life of 
 Christianity in the world. He says that biologists 
 tell us of parasites which live, and can live only, 
 within the bodies of animals more highly organized 
 than themselves. For them their luckless host has 
 to find food, to digest it, and to convert it into nour- 
 ishment which they can consume without exertion 
 and assimilate without difficulty. Their structure 
 is of the simplest kind. Their host sees for them, 
 so they need no eyes ; he hears for them, so they 
 need no ears ; he works for them, so they need but 
 feeble muscles and an undeveloped nervous system. 
 But, says the brilliant writer, are we to conclude 
 
INSPIRATION OF THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. 49 
 
 from this that for the animal kingdom eyes and ears, 
 powerful limbs and complex nerves, are super- 
 fluities? They are superfluities for the parasites 
 only because they have first been necessities for the 
 host ; and if the host perishes the parasites will per- 
 ish also. So it is true that there are multitudes of 
 people to-day who are living lives of morality and 
 public spirit and are valuable citizens to the com- 
 munity, but who sneer at church creeds and have 
 a sort of lofty contempt for clearly defined Christian 
 faith, whose ethical and spiritual life, such as it 
 is, has all been drawn from the very institutions 
 which they deride. Everything that is noble and 
 grand in their thoughts, in their emotions, in their 
 character, they owe to the spiritual climate created 
 by the Sun of righteousness, which has shone on 
 the world through the Bible and the church and 
 the testimony of faithful and devoted souls. 
 
 The power of an endless life is illustrated in the 
 courage which comes to those who are inspired by 
 it. It has been said many times that the sublimest 
 proof of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus 
 Christ was the signal transformation it wrought in 
 the character of the disciples. They had been a 
 timid, fearful, unreliable group of men before the 
 resurrection ; but afterward their devotion became 
 the marvel of the age, and not a single one failed to 
 seal his fidelity with his death. In the light of the 
 resurrection of their Master they lost their fear of 
 death. Death was henceforth an overthrown enemy. 
 The shadows might be dark at the entrance on the 
 earthly side, but it issued into glory beyond. They 
 believed, as Whittier so long after sung, 
 
50 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 " That Life is ever Lord of death, 
 And Love can never lose its own " — 
 
 " That death seems but a covered way, 
 Which opens into Hght." 
 
 And each of them realized in himself a personah'ty 
 which fulfilled Browning's noble lines, 
 
 " One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward, 
 
 Never doubted clouds would break. 
 Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would 
 
 triumph. 
 Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better. 
 Sleep to wake." 
 
 It is impossible that one should be truly inspired 
 with the hope of immortality and not gain courage 
 by it. It is impossible to realize that there is throb- 
 bing in our veins an endless life, that we are to 
 have all eternity in which to develop the highest 
 nature and fulfill the holiest purposes, without be- 
 ing in some true and high sense freed from the 
 slavery of low and vulgar things. The chains of 
 worldlinesshang loosely about him who lives in the 
 consciousness that he is pluming his wings for an 
 everlasting flight. 
 
 There ought to be such a revival of courage in 
 our own hearts in the presence of our great Easter 
 truth that it shall make us brave to attack any diffi- 
 culty that stands in our way. As common men 
 come to be heroes on the battlefield, where the in- 
 spiration to heroism is on every side and victory is 
 breathed on the air, so on this Easter day, when we 
 stand in the presence of the victory of life over 
 death, we ought to gain courage to attack every 
 evil habit or vicious appetite or besetting sin and, 
 
INSPIRATION OF THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. 51 
 
 in the strength and power of an endless Hfe, trample 
 it under foot forever. As Phillips Brooks once said : 
 " This is a day for strong and cheerful resolutions, 
 because it is a day when, with the spiritual world 
 open before us, we can all catch sight of the destiny 
 of duty — of how some time or other every good 
 habit is to conquer and every good deed wear its 
 crown. Come, take that task of yours, over which 
 you have been hesitating before, and shirking and 
 walking around and around, and on this Easter day 
 lift it up and do it. It is your duty. That which 
 sounds hard and cold on other days ought to sound 
 warm and inspiring to-day. For to-day we can see 
 that duty is worth while. Duty is the one thing on 
 earth that is so vital that it can go through death 
 and come to glory. Duty is the one seed that has 
 such life in it that it can lie as long as God wills in 
 the mummy hand of death, and yet be ready any 
 moment to start into new growth in the new soil 
 where he shall set it. So let us all consecrate our 
 Easter day by resolutely taking up some new duty 
 which we know we ought to do. We bind ourselves 
 so by a new chain to eternity, to the eternity of Him 
 who, for the joy that was set before him, endured 
 the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at 
 God's right hand." 
 
 On such a day as this one ought to have courage 
 enough to do that hardest thing — go on living a 
 life of patient waiting, seeing but little result, con- 
 scious of many hindrances, of many chains of cir- 
 cumstance which bind and limit the daily action 
 into narrow grooves. We ought to have courage to 
 go on doing our duty in the simplest things and in 
 
52 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 the commonest ways with a noble spirit, knowing 
 that God shall bring good and blessing out of it all 
 and make that which seems very little to us of 
 larger and wider benefaction than we can dream. I 
 do not doubt there are many quiet, patient souls in 
 this congregation who feel bound to a very narrow 
 round of duty. You think, when you come to add 
 up the service which you are able to give to Christ 
 and to humanity, that the total seems very small. 
 Easter morning ought to mean much to you ; for 
 God has so ordered the world that its sweetest fra- 
 grance is breathed from smallest flowers, and its 
 most precious stones are those which are the con- 
 centrated result of hidden and unseen influences. 
 Some one sings a song which I wish to repeat for 
 the benefit of any who have longed for a wider 
 sphere, but whom God's providence has chained to 
 quiet and hidden service. It is the song of "A Rose 
 Jar:" 
 
 " I remember in my childhood, in a quaint, old-fashioned room, 
 A rose jar, flushed with crimson, hke the colors of the dawn ; 
 
 It stood upon a little shelf, filled full to odorous brim 
 
 With roses that had blossomed in the summers past and 
 gone. 
 
 " O, what a charm swept o'er me when, sometimes, sitting there, 
 I held the jar in careful hands and breathed its fragrant 
 scent ; 
 
 I heard the bees go humming, and I felt the breezes blow, 
 I saw the river flowing where the drooping willow bent. 
 
 " Sweet friend, you say the roses that bloomed for you are dead, 
 You only have the withered leaves to hold within your heart ; 
 
 The summer's warmth has gone, and the golden sunshine fled, 
 And the snows of cruel winter their blasting chill impart. 
 
INSPIRATION OF THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. 53 
 
 " I only know that, now and then, your heart has stood ajar. 
 And thoughts, like perfume sweet and rare, across my soul 
 have swept ; 
 Dear thoughts — like summer blossoms, swift thoughts — Hke 
 eager birds, 
 Shy thoughts — like blue-eyed violets, where summer show- 
 ers have wept. 
 
 " Then keep the withered rose leaves, preserve them in your 
 heart ; 
 Their perfume blesses other lives with thoughts of summer 
 hours. 
 And friend, dear friend, though winter's snow lies white and 
 chill to-day. 
 Yet, after winter comes the May, and springtime brings the 
 flowers." 
 
 The power of an endless life is shown more ten- 
 derly and beautifully than anywhere else in the com- 
 fort which it brings to sorrowing hearts and the 
 hope which it inspires within us of a precious reunion 
 with our loved ones. I could not keep back the 
 tears this week when I opened the Alichiga7i Chris- 
 tian Advocate and saw, in the first lines of the edi- 
 torial page, the cry of the soul of the editor, whose 
 only child was taken away by death during the past 
 month. These were the words : " Never before was 
 our Easter hope brighter or more comforting. 
 Never before had we greater reason to rejoice in the 
 doctrine of a resurrection, nor to thank God for the 
 evidences that it is true. The dead shall live again. 
 We shall see them. We shall be with them. Our 
 reunion shall be eternal." Going on to speak about 
 his own personal loss, he says, ^'^ We wept for him. 
 We are weeping still. 
 
54 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 " ' Yet 'tis sweet balm to our despair, 
 
 Fond, fairest boy. 
 That heaven is God's, and thou art there 
 
 With him in joy ; 
 There past are death and all its woes ; 
 There beauty's stream forever flows ; 
 And pleasure's day no sunset knows." 
 
 *' We think of him," says the fond father, " as now 
 with his brother, who died sixteen years before 
 him. Surely the tender Shepherd has brought 
 them together. They are happier than we could 
 make them, and we shall be happier when restored 
 to them than we ever could have been had they 
 not been given to us. Of each of them we can say, 
 
 " ' He lives. In all the past 
 
 He lives ; nor, to the last, 
 Of seeing him again will I despair ; 
 
 In dreams I see him now. 
 
 And on his angel brow 
 I see it written, " Thou shalt meet me there ! " ' " 
 
 I am sure that to every one of us this morning 
 this Easter day is not without some message of 
 comfort and hope. To some of us there are groups 
 of loved ones who stand about us this day, and we 
 hold communion and fellowship with them again 
 as we do not on other days. Some who went 
 home long ago come back and look in our faces with 
 loving eyes at Easter time ; and some there are who 
 only last Easter time were with us, and who are 
 having their first Easter feast in heaven. How 
 near they seem to us to-day ! Bless God, it is not 
 all seeming — they are near to us. 
 
INSPIRATION OF THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY. 55 
 
 " O home land ! O home land ! 
 
 The veil is very thin 
 That stretches thy dear meadows 
 
 And this cold world between ; 
 A breath aside may blow it, 
 
 A heart throb burst it through, 
 And bring in one glad moment 
 
 Thy happy lands to view. 
 
 " O home land ! O home land ! 
 
 One — Chief of all thy band, 
 One — altogether lovely, 
 
 One — Lord of all the land, 
 Stands, eager, at the gateway ; 
 
 The Bridegroom waits his bride ; 
 And, resting on his bosom, 
 
 I shall be satisfied." 
 
56 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 V. 
 
 THE VITAL ATMOSPHERE OF A CHRISTIAN 
 LIFE. 
 
 " Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." — Phil, ii, 5, 
 
 IT is the supreme glory of our Christianity that it 
 demands of us our best. It is never satisfied 
 with any low standard. It sets before us the loftiest 
 ideal that the human mind can conceive of, and de- 
 mands that our eyes shall be fixed upon that mark 
 as " the prize of the high calling of God in Christ 
 Jesus." I once heard Phillips Brooks deliver a ser- 
 mon, Avhich I think has never been printed, on 
 Christ's words to the young ruler as they are re- 
 corded in the nineteenth chapter of St. Matthew's 
 gospel, " Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be per- 
 fect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the 
 poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven ; and 
 come and follow me." The theme was perfection. 
 The great preacher said that Jesus had answered 
 the young man's question in an ordinary way and 
 would have let him go. But this young man had 
 great aspirations. He wanted to be better than the 
 average. So Jesus turns to him and says, " If thou 
 wilt be perfect — that is another matter altogether," 
 and marks out the way. It was like some great, 
 strong man who sets out to climb a lofty eminence 
 with a group of eager boys. They ascend to the 
 
VITAL ATMOSPHERE OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE. 57 
 
 first good view, and most of them are satisfied. But 
 in the eyes of one or two he sees the gleaming of 
 a nobler light, and they exclaim, " We must go 
 higher; lead us onward, take us to yon snow-white 
 summit amid the clouds ! " And the leader says, 
 '' Very well. If that is what you mean you must 
 throw off your burdens and leave behind all useless 
 luggage and come and follow me." Christ's whole 
 life was a summons to manhood and womanhood to 
 climb upward to perfection. This upward climbing 
 brings us face to face with God. The reason some 
 people do not believe in God is not because they are 
 so broad and liberal and great, but because their 
 lives are so httle, so narro\v and earthly, that they 
 seem to have no need of God. When we broaden 
 our lives and undertake some noble work worthy for 
 men and women to do we come face to face with 
 God and our great need of him. 
 
 I think no one can study the life of Jesus Christ 
 without being impressed with the fact that it is not 
 the individual miracles which he wrought and the 
 great things which he did which have moved the heart 
 of mankind, so much as the great spirit in which 
 he did everything. You never feel in studying the 
 life of Jesus that on any occasion he is summoning 
 all his powers to meet some great emergency. All 
 life was great to him. The commonest Avayside 
 conversation brought out clearly his divine insight, 
 his wealth of resources, and the gentle sweetness 
 of his nature. All this revealed the spiritual at- 
 mosphere in which he lived. It is this vital atmos- 
 phere of a Christian life which it is important for 
 us to attain — not to be waiting for great opportuni- 
 
58 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 ties to accomplish great deeds, but to live always 
 in the spirit of Christ, so that everyday experiences 
 shall be clothed upon from heaven. 
 
 The Christian spirit ought to attune us to every- 
 day life in the same way the poetic spirit attuned 
 the soul of Whittier, the Quaker poet, to the sights 
 and sounds and harmonies of nature. Of him it 
 was aptly said that while he was waging war with 
 giant wrongs he " heard the fitful music still, of 
 \^'inds that out of dreamland blew : " 
 
 " The common air was thick with dreams ; 
 
 He told them to the toiling crowd ; 
 Such music as the woods and streams 
 
 Sang in his ear, he sang aloud ; 
 In still, shut bays, on windy capes. 
 He heard the call of beckoning shapes ; 
 And as the gray old shadows prompted him. 
 To homely molds of rhyme he shaped their legends grim." 
 
 All nature was full of romance and poetry to him. 
 He clung to the things of nature almost as he did 
 to human friends. Once he said : *' I am very thank- 
 ful that I can almost forget age and infirmity in the 
 contemplation of these lovely dawns and sunsets 
 and these still, warm, pictureful noons. Shall we 
 have them, or their like, in the new life ? If not, I, 
 for one, must miss them sadly. But His will be 
 done." Again, in a June letter of the year he died : 
 '' It seems to me the world was never so beautiful 
 as now, when I am about to leave it. But the future 
 life will more than compensate." The result of this 
 harmony of soul between the poet and nature, this 
 poetic coloring of insight, is seen in a large number 
 of his poems, such as " The Last "Walk in Autumn," 
 
VITAL ATMOSPHERE OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE. 59 
 
 *'The Barefoot Boy," ''Telling the Bees," "The 
 Tent on the Beach," " Maud Muller," " Snow-Bound," 
 and many others, which are full of beauty and which 
 we have long since taken into our hearts. The 
 thought which above all else I wish to impress upon 
 you from our study is that, in a still higher and holier 
 way, it is possible for us so to live in the spirit of 
 Christ that our everyday life shall be glorified by it, 
 and what are only hard, barren experiences to the 
 dull eyes of worldlings shall to more clear spiritual 
 insight unfold visions of beauty and blessing. 
 
 Let us study for a little some of the characteris- 
 tics of the Christian atmosphere. First of all, it is 
 a joyous, hopeful spirit. Paul, who certainly had 
 his share of the buffetings and struggles of the Chris- 
 tian life, found it to be a life of abounding joy and 
 ever buoyant hope. Farther on in this same letter he 
 exclaims : " If I be offered upon the sacrifice and serv- 
 ice of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all. For 
 the same cause also do ye joy, and rejoice with me." 
 Christianity is the joy-bringer to the world. The 
 evening before his sudden death in Samoa Robert 
 Louis Stevenson, the brilliant poet-novelist, read 
 aloud to his family a prayer that he had composed, 
 which closes with this petition : " Go with each of 
 us to rest. If any wake, temper to them the dark 
 hours of watching; and when the day returns to us, 
 our Sun and Comforter, call us with morning faces 
 and with morning hearts, eager to labor, eager to be 
 happy if happiness shall be our portion, and, if the 
 day be marked to sorrow, strong to endure it." The 
 London Spectator declares that this is more im- 
 pressive than anything else which that man of genius 
 
60 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 produced. The desire that God would make him 
 and his '* eager to be happy," and the recognition 
 of the fact that strength and patience in trouble 
 have intimate connection with our capacity for joy, 
 were born of a genuine spiritual insight. 
 
 Christianity is a religion of hope. No man can 
 despair of the human race who suns himself in the 
 sublime optimism of Jesus Christ. Every such a 
 one can sing with Zangwill : 
 
 " For all men hope, despair of none! 
 Foul vapors flee the golden sun ; 
 The darkest puddle draws on high 
 To paint the sky with harmony : 
 So love shall lift to higher goals 
 The lowest lives, the darkest souls. 
 Rejoice we, then, of one thing sure — 
 We pass, but deeds of love endure." 
 
 There are enough Christians in the world to speed- 
 ily transform it if we all lived in that atmosphere 
 of faith and hope which characterized Jesus Christ. 
 General Booth, of the Salvation Army, has proved 
 by his farming experiment at Hadleigh, near Lon- 
 don, that what seemed to be worthless and despair- 
 ing tramps have, under the magical inspiration of 
 Christian hope, become industrious and honest. Of 
 the two hundred first sent out from the slums of 
 London, only forty failed ; that is, four fifths became 
 self-supporting citizens. When he undertook the 
 work the superintendent of police in the neighbor- 
 hood and the governor of Dartmoor Convict Prison 
 both warned him that he would have grave dif- 
 ficulties with so many men, some of whom were 
 ticket of leave men ; but as a matter of fact there 
 
VITAL ATMOSPHERE OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE. 61 
 
 has been no difficulty whatever. Christian kindness 
 and firmness have breathed an atmosphere of joyous 
 hope into these weary hearts, triumphed over their 
 despair, and Hfted them into a new Hfe. 
 
 This spirit of the Christ is a gentle spirit, broth- 
 erly and childlike. The gentleness of Jesus Christ 
 is a characteristic which distinguishes him, perhaps 
 as much as does his purity of character, from other 
 men who have been mighty forces in the world's 
 history. And the individual Christian among us 
 to-day may be sure that there is no grace of char- 
 acter which he can cultivate that will be of more im- 
 pressive force for good than that of gentleness. 
 Perhaps there is no place where this grace will be 
 more effective in bringing about the kingdom of 
 God on earth than in our homes. As one has well 
 said, if there is any place on earth where we should 
 be uniformly at our best behavior, that place is home. 
 There we find the best market for our most complete 
 stock of all '* the things which make for peace ; " 
 and we ought to keep a full line of that class of 
 goods, and display and serve them to the best pos- 
 sible effect. Our homes are where we really live 
 and where we can least afford to impose or to be im- 
 posed upon. We may resort to our philosophy and 
 make the best of bad bargains in other directions 
 and departments, but for home failure there can be 
 no compensations. It is the worst species of heart 
 failure. There are some people who put on their 
 best manners, as they do their best clothes, when 
 they go visiting; but you never would know them 
 if you could see them in undress uniform at home. 
 
 Many people who are very impressive abroad are 
 5 
 
62 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 very oppressive at home. Henry Ward Beecher used 
 to say : '' Some men have the same conception of 
 home that a certain domestic animal has of its pen. 
 It is the place to eat and sleep and grunt in." And 
 I am afraid he might have said just as truthfully that 
 some women use the home as the place for target 
 practice, in the way of scolding and fretting. Fret- 
 ting is a sort of female profanity. I have good au- 
 thority for that, for John Wesley used to say that 
 he "would as soon swear as fret and worry." I be- 
 lieve the good old man was right. Vulgar and wicked 
 as profanity is, I doubt if it does as much harm as 
 constant fretfulness and nagging on the part of 
 men and women in home life. The gentle spirit of 
 the Christ which restrains the hot temper, cleanses 
 away the selfishness, leading us to bear and for- 
 bear, putting ourselves in our brother's place, 
 looking not mostly on our own things, but on the 
 things of others — that spirit it is which makes the 
 home like the heaven of which it is the promise and 
 the foretaste. 
 
 The Christian spirit is the child's spirit, which is 
 always ignorant of caste and class and bubbling over 
 with the gentleness and kindness which is its inher- 
 itance. Here is a little incident which occurred the 
 other day and was related in one of our Brooklyn 
 papers. A car was crossing the city when a very 
 young mother, with her little two-year-old baby, got 
 into it. The little girl was just beginning to talk. 
 She looked long and earnestly at an old woman, 
 dirty, scowling, and repulsive, on the other side of 
 the car. The child looked so earnestly at the old 
 woman that the mother thought that, perhaps, that 
 
VITAL ATMOSPHERE OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE. 63 
 
 was the reason why the old woman was scowling, 
 and she tried to attract the little girl's attention ; 
 but it was useless. The big, blue eyes were not re- 
 moved from the face of the old woman. At last the 
 little girl became so restless that the mother stood 
 her on her feet by her knee, when the child, with a 
 quick step and outstretched arms, threw herself 
 against the scowling old woman and said, in her 
 sweet baby tones, '' I dot dranma home ; me loves 
 dranmas." The old woman was so startled at this 
 unexpected display of affection and interest that her 
 eyes filled with tears, and, putting one hand on the 
 child's shoulder, she pushed her gently from her 
 knee and said, '' I am not fit fer yez to touch, child, 
 ye're so sweet and pretty." But the baby, with that 
 clear look of innocence that is so startling in some 
 children, pushed away the detaining hand and again 
 leaned heavily against the old woman. This time, 
 putting her elbow on the old woman's knee and her 
 chin on her hand, she gazed with the most be- 
 witching smile into the old woman's face, murmur- 
 ing again, " I loves dranmas." The tears overflowed 
 and trickled down the cheeks of the old woman, and 
 there was not a dry eye in the car. The little 
 mother, with rare wisdom, let the angel of mercy 
 alone, and there the child stood, smiling her friend- 
 liness into the face of the woman to whom gentle- 
 ness and kindness were evidently so great strangers. 
 If we shall cultivate this precious grace of the spirit, 
 what v/ould otherwise be the hard experiences of 
 life will become tools in the hand of the great 
 Sculptor to fashion us into the divine image. 
 Bessie Chandler sings of such a life story : 
 
64 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 " Scant beauty Nature gave her ; in disguise 
 Rugged and harsh she bade her go about 
 
 With face unlovely, save the dark, sad eyes, 
 
 From which her fearless soul looked bravely out. 
 
 " But Life took up the chisel, used her face 
 
 Roughly, with many blows, as sculptors use a block ; 
 
 It wrought a little while, and, lo, a grace 
 Fell, as a sunbeam falls upon a rock. 
 
 " Across her soul a heavy sorrow swept. 
 
 As tidal waves sweep sometimes o'er the land. 
 
 Leaving her face, when back it ebbed and crept, 
 Tranquil and purified, like tide-washed sand. 
 
 " And of her face her gentleness grew part. 
 
 And all her holy thoughts left there their trace ; 
 
 A great love found its way within her heart — 
 Its root was there, its blossom in her face. 
 
 " So when Death came to set the sweet soul free 
 
 From the poor body that was never fair, 
 We watched her face, and marveled much to see 
 
 How Life had carved for Death an angel there." 
 
 The Christian spirit is a triumphant spirit. The 
 true Christian ought to live in the spirit of Paul 
 when he exclaims, " If God be for us, who can be 
 against us ? " Do you remember the story of 
 Amaziah, the King of Judah, which is related to us 
 in the second Book of Chronicles? Amaziah had 
 entered into a wicked league with idolaters. From 
 principles of worldly policy he had entered into an 
 unholy alliance with the enemies of God. Then the 
 prophet came to him with this message : '* O king^ 
 let not the army of Israel go with thee ; for the 
 Lord is not with Israel." Amaziah was in great 
 perplexity what to do. He had already paid out of 
 
VITAL ATMOSPHERE OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE. 65 
 
 his treasury a large sum of money for this promised 
 help, and now if he broke the compact he would 
 lose it all. But the prophet said to him : ** The 
 Lord is able to give thee much more than this." 
 Amaziah at last yielded to the voice of warning and 
 promise, sent his idolatrous allies away, and ob- 
 tained a signal victory as the result. Christian 
 friends, let us learn this significant lesson. We fail 
 of many a victory because our allies are of such 
 a character that God cannot bless them. The 
 world, the flesh, and the devil may promise much in 
 comfort and pleasure ; but let us listen to the voice 
 of God's prophet, " The Lord is able to give thee 
 much more than this." We are never so strong as 
 when, free from all entangling alliances and all com- 
 promises with the world, we are living in genuine 
 loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ. Then it is we are 
 able to claim the promise that we shall be *' more than 
 conquerors through him that loved us." 
 
 If you ask me how, above all else, you may come 
 to breathe this vital atmosphere, I answer, Make 
 much of the Bible and much of prayer. An impa- 
 tient man will find no better companion for quiet 
 conversations than Job. The man who is tempted 
 to take the bit between his teeth and rule or ruin 
 will do well to get intimately acquainted with Moses. 
 He whose knees are weak and who finds it hard to 
 muster up his courage to the level of his convictions 
 will be greatly benefited by a desert journey with 
 Elijah. The man who is cast down and always 
 looking on the dark side of things will be cheered 
 and improved if he take some lessons on the harp 
 of thanksfjivine with David for a teacher. The 
 
66 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 brother who is trying to carry water on both shoul- 
 ders can have no better diet than to eat pulse awhile 
 with Daniel. If your love for the Saviour is getting 
 cold spend a few evenings around those warm 
 heart-fires in St. John's gospel. If your fears are 
 getting the better of your faith take a sea voyage 
 with Paul. If you are becoming worldly, until the 
 things of the earth seem noisily near and the un- 
 seen and spiritual verities dim and vague, go climb 
 up with John in the Book of Revelation, up to some 
 hilltop in the isle of Patmos, until you catch a 
 glimpse of ''the city of God." If you thus live in 
 fellowship with these great souls you will come to 
 know that the very best things that can come to any 
 child of God are included in your inheritance. 
 
 As Phillips Brooks so grandly says, when the spring 
 comes the oak tree, with its thousands upon thou- 
 sands of leaves, blossoms all over. The great heart 
 of the tree remembers every remotest tip of every 
 farthest branch, and sends to each the message and 
 the power of new life. And yet we do not think of 
 the heart of the oak tree as if it were burdened with 
 such multitudinous remembrance. It is simply the 
 thrill of the common life translated into these mil- 
 lion forms. Somewhat in that way we may think 
 of God's remembrance of his million children. The 
 patient sufferer, the toilsome worker, are far-off 
 leaves on the great tree of his life — far-off, and yet as 
 near to the beating of his heart as any leaf on all 
 the tree. He remembers them as truly as the heart 
 remembers the finger tips to which it sends the 
 blood. I pray God that out of all this reviving 
 nature about us you may catch this gospel of hope 
 
VITAL ATMOSPHERE OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE. 67 
 
 and inspiration ! You may be sure, if any doubt or 
 fear or sin in your heart is hindering the free flow 
 of divine hfe in your soul, that neither doubt nor 
 sin has separated you from his tender seeking, that 
 with divine tenderness he is waiting and seeking to 
 break down your doubt, to turn you away from your 
 sin, and that whenever the path is open the pulsing 
 lifeblood of heaven will fill your soul with a glow of 
 the divine nature. I call you to your high and noble 
 inheritance ! 
 
68 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 VI. 
 THE CHILDHOOD OF THE SOUL. 
 
 " The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send 
 in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your 
 remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." — John xiv, 26. 
 
 " The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, 
 goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." — Gal. v, 22, 23. 
 
 " In my Father's house are many mansions : if it were not so, I would 
 have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." — John xiv, 2. 
 
 THESE three scriptures are three golden Hnks in 
 a chain which reaches through the childhood 
 of the soul up to its everlasting triumph, from the 
 beginning of school time to the crowning day on 
 high. The first, as I have given them to you, was 
 spoken by Jesus to comfort his disciples on his go- 
 ing away from them. They were naturally greatly 
 perplexed about their future. No doubt they all 
 felt, as Peter expressed it, '^ Lord, why cannot I 
 follow thee now? " But the Saviour opens up to 
 them a life of preparation for a high and lofty des- 
 tiny. The Comforter, which he declares to be the 
 Holy Ghost, will come to them and will be, not only 
 a Comforter, but a Teacher — *' He shall teach you 
 all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, 
 whatsoever I have said unto you." Then, if we turn 
 a leaf in history and listen to Paul's letter to the Ga- 
 latians, where, as one of the tutors in the school of 
 Christ, he is explaining to them the beneficent re- 
 sults of the teaching of the Holy Spirit, we find out 
 
THE CHILDHOOD OF THE SOUL. 69 
 
 more clearly what this school life is to be. The 
 fruit of this teaching, Paul says, is '' love, joy, peace* 
 long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, 
 temperance." And the reason for this teaching is 
 that the soul is being fitted for a special destiny, 
 which is set forth in the wonderful words of Jesus, 
 " In my Father's house are many mansions," and in 
 the further declaration, the explicitness of which 
 has comforted so many trembling hearts, " I go to 
 prepare a place for you." 
 
 Surely no one can fail to see into what a noble 
 and high atmosphere such a conception lifts our 
 human lives. It takes us up out of the dust and the 
 dirt of a mere animal struggle and scramble for ex- 
 istence. All life is a school, and everything depends 
 upon the school we choose — whether we choose the 
 school of the flesh or the school of the Spirit ; for 
 our destiny is dictated by character, and our char- 
 acters are formed by the principles inculcated in 
 our life schools. We can sec this illustrated every 
 day. Here are two young men who grow up in the 
 country side by side, on neighboring farms. They 
 are warm friends through all their boyhood. But 
 when they come to get out into the world they take 
 different courses. One becomes a sincere Christian, 
 yields his life to be governed by high ambitions, and 
 works with honest purpose toward noble ends ; the 
 other becomes a gambler and a swindler. They 
 may live together in the same city. There has 
 been no quarrel between these tw^o men, no outer 
 wall has been built between them, and yet they are 
 more completely separated than if the Atlantic 
 Ocean rolled between them. They have both 
 
70 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 grown and developed, but every step they have 
 taken has separated them from each other. With- 
 out any ill feeling or special aim to exclude each 
 other, they go separate ways. Each has his own 
 circle of friends, his own school of influences, and 
 these circles and schools never mingle. Like mag- 
 netized steel filings, they associate and separate by 
 laws of their own, which do not depend for exist- 
 ence upon any social edict, but upon the very foun- 
 dation stones of the universe, that can never be 
 overturned. Such illustrations teach us that it is 
 not the place where men dwell that unites or sepa- 
 rates them, but the spirit which dwells in them. 
 Oliver Twist, though thrown among thieves, re- 
 tained his purity and was not a thief. Abdiel, in 
 Milton's vision of the rebel angels, was not a rebel, 
 
 " faithful found, 
 Among the faithless, faithful only he." 
 
 The Lord is drawing to himself all who, in the 
 school time of life, are learning his spirit and are 
 coming to have his likeness. If we do not have fel- 
 lowship with Christ here it would be impossible for 
 us to have any peace with him in heaven. Heaven 
 would be a very poor place indeed if it were not 
 something more than a city with golden streets, with 
 living streams of water running through it, and trees 
 of life v/aving on their shores. Many a man has had 
 practically all these in the world and has committed 
 suicide to try to escape the remorse of his con- 
 science. No, indeed. Heaven is no mere land of 
 healthful skies and wholesome atmosphere, where 
 
 " Sickness and sorrow, pain and death. 
 Are felt and feared no more." 
 
THE CHILDHOOD OF THE SOUL. 71 
 
 What could these do to satisfy a man of restless, 
 unholy ambition or to give peace to one who all his 
 life has been fostering in his soul an insatiate greed 
 /or an unbridled passion? 
 
 The scriptures we are studying make it very clear 
 that it is idle to talk about going to heaven unless, 
 during this childhood of the soul which we are pass- 
 ing through here on earth, we are being prepared 
 and fitted to enjoy the conditions of the heavenly 
 life. God prepares everything for its place. He 
 adjusts the air to meet the necessities of the Aving 
 of the bird. He fits a bee to gather honey and pre- 
 pares certain flowers to produce it ; and this great 
 law is true throughout all the universe. Man, who 
 occupies the highest place in God's creation — the 
 one, indeed, for whom all birds and all atmospheres 
 and all bees and all the honey of life were created — 
 is not an exception to this beneficent rule. Here in 
 this world, in this time of the soul's childhood, God 
 is preparing a people for a heaven of immortal glory 
 which is being prepared to receive them. 
 
 Over in Scotland, when the North Bridge of Ed- 
 inburgh was widened some years ago, they found in 
 the arched vaults under the roadway the most 
 wonderful caves of snow-white stalactites. The rain, 
 percolating through the roof, carried with it the 
 lime with which the stones were cemented, and by 
 a slow and silent process, carried on for many years, 
 transformed the gloomy vaults into a fairy scene. 
 Who would have suspected that under the common 
 roadway, under the tread of the busy feet of toil and 
 of the hurrying world, such a wonderful transforma- 
 tion was going on ? And who would suppose that in 
 
72 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 the midst of this common, everyday life of ours the 
 walls of an eternal city were growing up, without 
 noise or ax or hammer, our visible life being merely 
 the scaffolding of it ; that out of the common ma- 
 terials of our hard, earthly experience there were 
 being formed gates of pearl through which we shall 
 enter into the heavenly city? Here and now, if at 
 all, these walls and gates must for us be formed. 
 
 But we have marked out for us, in these scrip- 
 tures, certain lines of education in which we are to 
 be perfected, under the guidance and teaching of 
 the Holy Spirit. The first is love ; and under that 
 might be grouped, for convenience, gentleness, 
 meekness, and long-suffering, as under the term 
 '' mathematics " we might group arithmetic, alge- 
 bra, and geometry. The first law of Christian life 
 is love, and the man who learns that well will know 
 how to be meek and gentle and long-suffering. 
 
 Love is appreciation. It sees all that is good in 
 the object of affection and rejoices in it and makes 
 much of it. See how this is manifested by the 
 Saviour in this fourteenth chapter of John. Jesus 
 says, '' In my Father's house are many mansions ; " 
 and then he adds, *' If it were not so, I would have 
 told you." Was there ever a more delicate and 
 beautiful touch of tender appreciation of the feel- 
 ings of others than that? He would not have let 
 them go on hoping and wishing and longing for an 
 immortal fellowship with him if it were not pos- 
 sible. And then he says, " I will come again, and 
 receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye 
 may be also." How full of the comfort of love that 
 is! How full of encouragement ! He assures their 
 
THE CHILDHOOD OF THE SOUL. 73 
 
 poor, timid hearts that the loneliness is not going to 
 be all on their side when he goes away from them, 
 but that heaven itself will lack them, and that he 
 will look forward with loving joy to the graduation 
 day when he shall come to the dark dungeon, or the 
 gibbet, or the cross, where their earthly careers shall 
 close, and with angelic retinue bring them home in 
 glorious triumph to the Father's house. 
 
 How we all need this blessed teaching of the 
 Holy Spirit, that we may love each other more, and 
 thus nerve each other day by day to do life's duties ! 
 There is no such sweetener of daily toil as loving 
 appreciativeness. There is no grace of the spirit 
 so beautiful in the home, and none that so takes 
 away all that is harsh and galling about business as- 
 sociations. Every one of us knows by experience 
 the effect, even upon our physical strength, of words 
 of appreciation and encouragement. We never get 
 tired telling the story of the fireman who was at- 
 tempting to scale a perilous ladder in order to save 
 a human life jeopardized in a burning building. 
 He seemed to waver and be almost ready to aban- 
 don his attempt, when some one in the crowd be- 
 low cried, " Cheer him." The crowd caught up the 
 suggestion and sent up cheer after cheer, which so 
 reinvigorated the almost exhausted man that he re- 
 doubled his efforts and energy, and the threatened 
 life was saved. God only knows how many there 
 are who fail of doing lofty and noble deeds for the 
 lack of the good cheer of loving appreciation. 
 
 Love will make us meek, so that we shall be able 
 to give and take in our church work, not always 
 stubbornly thinking our way must be the right way 
 
74 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 and our brother's way wrong. The lack of meek- 
 ness on the part of Christian people is a great hin- 
 drance to the church. A Scotch Presbyterian minis- 
 ter tells the story that on one occasion he happened 
 to visit a resident of his parish and asked what 
 church he was in the habit of attending. The man 
 answered that he had belonged to a certain congre- 
 gation, but that he and others could not assent to 
 certain views which were accepted by the majority, 
 and they had, therefore, formed a secession. 
 
 " Then you worship with those friends ? " 
 
 " Well, no ; the fact is, I found there were certain 
 points on which we could not conform, so I 
 seceded." 
 
 " O, then, I suppose you and your wife engage 
 in devotion together at home ? " 
 
 " Well, not precisely. Our views are not quite 
 in accord, so she worships in that corner of the 
 room, and I in this." 
 
 This, of course, seems an exaggerated illustration ; 
 and yet do we not see the same spirit lived out 
 among people who continue to remain together in 
 the same church ? 
 
 But we may rest assured it is meekness and gentle- 
 ness in us that will attract men to Christ, while a 
 stubborn spirit on our part will drive them away. 
 It is related of Beethoven that he once visited a 
 church where the organist did not know him. At 
 the close of the service a friend asked the organist 
 to allow Beethoven to play as the congregation went 
 out. They were in the habit of going out hastily, 
 as the organist was a perfunctory, wooden sort of 
 person ; but when Beethoven touched the keys 
 
THE CHILDHOOD OF THE SOUL. 75 
 
 every person in the assembly who had music in his 
 soul paused, and when fifteen or twenty minutes had 
 passed the audience was increasing instead of less- 
 ening. The regular organist lost all patience and 
 said, "You don't know how to play the people out 
 of church; let me take hold." And, sure enough, 
 as soon as he began the congregation dispersed with 
 a shiver. It is only the true heavenly music of love 
 and gentleness and meekness and long-suffering that 
 will attract the dear ones of our homes or the wan- 
 dering ones in our community to forsake their sins 
 and accept our Christ. If we want to win others 
 to our school we must show by our own proficiency 
 in the art of loving what a blessed Teacher we have. 
 
 Then there is another branch of education pointed 
 out to us in the one word " goodness." This is in 
 contrast to the school of the flesh. We are taught 
 in the school of the Spirit to abhor that which is 
 evil and to cling to that which is good. To be good 
 is, to put it in the simplest way, to be morally 
 healthy. Goodness means health. It includes, of 
 course, honesty, righteousness, justice, and throws 
 about them all the aroma of love which, being taught 
 in the same school, pervades the very atmosphere of 
 it. But we need to have the emphasis put again 
 and again upon the supreme duty of the Christian 
 to be simply and honestly and genuinely good. 
 
 We have had a signal illustration of the necessity 
 of this kind of teaching in New York city during 
 the last few days. The Tenement House Commis- 
 sion, which has been making investigation into the 
 condition of tenement houses belonging to the par- 
 ish of Trinity Church, has found that many of them 
 
76 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 are miserable old rookeries, in which decency is im- 
 possible, and where the death rate is almost unpar- 
 alleled in any other part of the city, and that the 
 representatives of this property had fought the 
 Board of Health in their efforts to get water on to 
 each floor in these tenement houses so that the poor 
 people might have some fair chance for cleanliness 
 and health. What a contemptible thing it seems 
 in the midst of all this to have the agent of the 
 property boastfully state how much of this rent 
 money they give for charity! How God Almighty 
 must spurn such charity money as that ! The idea 
 of keeping poor, hard-working, toiling people in dirt 
 and filth, wringing the last penny out of them, in 
 order that when they have reached the bottom of 
 the ladder, or by this cruel treatment their children 
 are sick unto death, a mite of this blood money may 
 be doled back to them in charity ! Such charity 
 smells of the pit, rather than of the kingdom of 
 God. 
 
 I fear there is a great deal of false consecration to 
 God ; a sort of sentimental consecration without any 
 strong purpose of soul back of it. The historian 
 tells us that, in the year 1471, Louis XI executed a 
 solemn deed of ownership by which he conveyed to 
 the Virgin Mary the whole country of Boulogne in 
 France ; but the wily king reserved for himself all 
 the revenues thereof. And no doubt he deluded 
 himself with the idea that he had done a generous 
 and pious thing toward the Virgin, when in fact he 
 had done nothing at all. Brother, are you thus de- 
 ceiving yourself about the consecration of your life 
 and all you have to God ? We want, not a mere 
 
THE CHILDHOOD OF THE SOUL. 77 
 
 sentimentalism, not a goodishness, not a goody- 
 goodyness, but a positive goodness that shrinks 
 from and abhors evil and loves and clings to the 
 good in our everyday life. 
 
 Then there is faith which we are to study in the 
 school of the Spirit ; and under it you may group 
 its results — ^joy and peace and temperance. The 
 word " temperance " here has no reference to our 
 modern use of the term. It means moderation. 
 The man of great faith is the one who can afford to 
 be temperate and moderate, conscious as he is of 
 the immutable strength of his position. And the 
 ripe scholar in faith cannot help but be joyous. Dr. 
 Meredith tells us of a little colored boy down in 
 Mississippi who was converted to God, and he was 
 so happy he did not know what to do with himself. 
 He danced, and he leaped, and he sang, and he 
 shouted ; and finally he cried out, " O ! it is sweet 
 — it is sweet — it is sweet as molasses ! " That little 
 curly-headed fellow felt just like David did nearly 
 three thousand years ago when, rejoicing in the 
 same experience, he exclaimed, " Sweeter also than 
 honey and the honeycomb." One of them lived 
 in a honey country, and the other in a molasses 
 country. But the blessed experience, joyous beyond 
 all words to express, was the same in both cases, 
 and is being multiplied all over the world in every 
 land and kindred and tongue. Out of a living faith 
 springs joy as naturally as the mountain spring bub- 
 bles from its snow-fed reservoir. The exulting joy 
 may not always last, but the peace into which it 
 flows is an ever-widening river in the faithful heart. 
 
 This faith which thus feedsjoy and peace is the key 
 
78 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 to all Christian power. Dr. Judson was once asked, 
 when the cause of missions was in its infancy, if he 
 thought the prospect for the conversion of the world 
 looked bright. His reply was, ''Yes, as bright as 
 the promises of God can make it." O brothers and 
 sisters, let us in this church keep in close touch with 
 the sublime spirit of our Christianity ! Above every 
 other faith in the world Christianity is the religion 
 of expectancy. We do not have to look backward 
 for any golden age in the past ; our golden age is 
 coming day by day, and every act of self-denial and 
 every earnest deed we do in Christ's dear name help 
 to swell the glory of that coming time. 
 
 The result of all this education is a mansion. " In 
 my Father's house are many mansions." This con- 
 ception of life robs death of its terrors. Death is 
 our graduation day. It simply takes us away from 
 the seminary or college and takes us home to the 
 family mansion and the ancestral estate. And the 
 experience of all the glorious names in this blessed 
 school of Christ, stretching through all ages and all 
 around the earth, bears testimony to this. Dean 
 Stanley, when traveling once in Germany on a 
 Rhine steamer, became acquainted with a boy. 
 The boy asked him his age. Being answered, he 
 said, ''Why, all your life is over." " No," said the 
 dean, " the best time is yet to come." A friend 
 once said to another, " You must be on the wrong 
 side of sixty." " No," he replied, " I am on the 
 right side." We can never thank God enough for 
 the shining pathway up which Christian old age 
 walks, with the glory of the sunset, which is the 
 promise of the sunrise, upon its happy face. 
 
THE CHILDHOOD OF THE SOUL. 79 
 
 When Frances Ridley Havergal had reached the 
 last day of her saintly life she said to her friends, in 
 the midst of great pain, " God's will is delicious ; 
 he makes no mistakes." Bidding one of her phy- 
 sicians good-bye, she asked, '' Do you really think I 
 am going?" He answered, ''Yes." "To-day?" 
 she inquired. " Probably," was the reply. Then 
 she exclaimed, " Beautiful 1 too good to be true ! " 
 And, looking up with a smile, she added, " Splen- 
 did ! to be so near the gates of heaven ! " Later, 
 as the time of her departure came, she nestled down 
 into the pillows and folded her arms upon her 
 breast, saying, " There, it is all over ! Blessed 
 rest ! " And, as they watched her, her countenance 
 became radiant with the glory seemingly breaking 
 in upon her soul, and those who watched her 
 thought she appeared as if she were conversing with 
 the King in his beauty. She tried to sing, but after 
 one sweet note her voice died away, and she was 
 gone to be with her Lord. 
 
 Glorious, indeed, to die the death of the right- 
 eous. As another has so beautifully said, each sea- 
 son of the year and every period of human life have 
 heaven's gate open above them. William Cullen 
 Bryant, the poet, all his life wanted to die in June, 
 and God gave him his desire; but December an- 
 swers just as well, and is balmy for dying if it is not 
 for living. Thank God, heaven is not so cold that 
 they have to shut the door in winter to keep it 
 warm ! Life's seasons all front the open gates of 
 eternal blessedness. They are open to the little 
 babe who says to the challenge of the sentinel : '' I 
 was born near the gates of pearl and had not far to 
 
80 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 come. I came across only a little narrow strip of 
 breathing and pulse beats. Almost as soon as the 
 earthly air blew upon me it wafted me hither. My 
 feet have not so much as touched the earth and are 
 not dusty ; they will not soil your gold-bright pave- 
 ments. Let me in ! " They open, also, to the old 
 saint who says: " I have eaten the bread of more 
 than fourscore years. I have ridden the earth 
 around the sun above eighty times. The snow five 
 thousand winters old on the world's most aged 
 mountain is not whiter than my locks. I have trav- 
 eled all lands, I have sailed all seas, I have borne 
 all weathers. If the earth is not weary of me I am 
 of it. Welcome, heaven! Let me in!" 
 
 " O, heaven is nearer than mortals think 
 
 When they look with trembling dread 
 At the misty future that stretches on 
 
 From the silent homes of the dead. 
 'Tis no lone isle in the brilliant main, 
 
 No distant but brilliant shore, 
 Where the loved ones, when called away, 
 
 Must go to return no more. 
 
 " The eye that shuts in a dying hour 
 
 Will open in endless bliss ; 
 The welcome will sound in a heavenly world 
 
 E'er the farewell is hushed in this. 
 We pass from the clasp of mourning friends 
 
 To the arms of the loved and lost ; 
 And the smiling faces will greet us there 
 
 Which on earth we valued most." 
 
THE KEY TO CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 
 
 VII. 
 
 iNSPIRATION, NOT IMITATION, THE KEY TO 
 CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 
 
 " Be ye imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ." — i Cor. xi, i 
 (Revised Version). 
 
 AT first glance this seems very strange advice. 
 Here is a brave, strong man, an energetic, 
 bold, daring spirit, full of originality, clinging to his 
 own individuality with intense persistence, striking 
 out into new paths, and yet asking others to be im- 
 itators of him. It seems to strike directly at one 
 of the great essential truths of our human nature — 
 the individuality of human life; for there is no pro- 
 founder truth, and none more important, than that 
 we have a personal selfhood which we are under 
 supreme obligation to God to retain inviolate and 
 develop, and make of it the most that we possibly 
 can. To be a mere copyist of other people is the 
 most dreary and monotonous outlook that can be 
 presented to any human soul. Nothing cramps and 
 fetters and cripples progress more than that. 
 
 We have, then, here a serious question. What 
 did Paul mean when he deliberately said to these 
 Corinthian people, " Be ye imitators of me, even as 
 I also am of Christ?" The explanation of the first 
 phrase is in the last ; and in order to know what he 
 meant we must turn to PauFs own life and find out 
 
82 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 how he imitated Christ. When we do that I think 
 the difficulty disappears ; for we see that in the imi- 
 tation of Christ in Paul's life there is nothing that 
 cramps or fetters, but everything that inspires and 
 enlarges. Paul did not undertake to do the same 
 things that Christ did. He did not undertake to 
 imitate him even in the style of living or in any of 
 the peculiar characteristics of his work; and yet 
 there was never a more loyal disciple on the earth 
 than Paul to Jesus Christ. He worshiped him, he 
 revered him, he loved him, he counted it all joy to 
 suffer for him, he never made a murmur or a com- 
 plaint at any burden laid upon his shoulders on ac- 
 count of his loyalty to Christ ; but in his eyes even 
 the scars left by the claw of the tiger or by the 
 stones or bludgeons of a mob were glorified as be- 
 ing the marks of his faithfulness to Christ. And 
 yet I repeat that he did not imitate Christ by trying 
 to go about the world doing the same things that 
 Christ did. With Paul, service was something in- 
 ^nitely greater and nobler than that. He had come 
 into fellowship and brotherhood with Christ. He 
 had caught his spirit. He felt that he was on the 
 earth to represent Christ, to maintain the honor and 
 glory of his name, to win disciples to him, and 
 everywhere to be as his embassador. 
 
 Not in any narrow sense, then, of copying or imita- 
 tion of individual deeds did Paul follow Christ ; but 
 he was inspired by him. As Jesus came to the 
 earth to do the will of God, to walk a pathway con- 
 tinually observed in heaven, to contend against 
 spiritual adversaries with a brave and dauntless faith, 
 so Paul was here to do the will of God. To him, 
 
THE KEY TO CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 83 
 
 too, heaven was near and full of watchful sympathy. 
 " We wrestle not," he says, '' against flesh and blood, 
 but against principalities, against powers, against 
 the rulers of the darkness of this world, against 
 spiritual wickedness in high places." And so the 
 struggle of life was a noble fight to Paul. And, ap- 
 preciating his spirit, it is easy to understand the 
 tone and temper of his mind when he said, '^ For 
 our light affliction, which is but for a moment, 
 worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal 
 weight of glory." 
 
 Let us ask, then, in what respect Paul did imi- 
 tate the Lord Jesus Christ. I think we must say 
 that, first of all, he imitated him in his estimate of 
 the worth of personal character. Christ put great 
 stress upon the value of the inner man. " Things " 
 were of very insignificant value in his eyes. '' A 
 man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the 
 things which he possesseth " is one of those clear-cut 
 expressions of his that cleave through all our world- 
 liness and sophistry like a blade of Damascus steel. 
 In Christ's gospel, what a man really is in his inner 
 character is everything. If the tree is right the 
 fruit will be right ; so he reasons. With earnest 
 query he puts it to his audience, '^ Do men gather 
 grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? " — that is, if you 
 have a bad tree, a noxious plant in its very nature, 
 it must yield fruit after its kind ; the divine im- 
 perative is upon it. But if, on the other hand, the 
 inner nature is pure and good, the law that keeps 
 the planets in their courses lays its imperative upon 
 it, that it must produce good fruits. 
 
 Paul imitates Christ in this. He puts it in his 
 
84 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 own way; there is no copying or slavish imitation 
 even here ; but it is ingrained into his very soul. 
 And so it seems natural to hear him say, ''All 
 things work together for good to them that love 
 God" — not because of a miracle or 'because they 
 have instructions to do it or are commanded to do 
 it by the King on his throne. They do it — they 
 must do it. It is the law of the heart of God that 
 for the good the universe works together to bring 
 it to triumph. Or, again, we hear him say, " There 
 is therefore now no condemnation to them which 
 are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, 
 but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of 
 life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law 
 of sin and death." And still again we hear him 
 crying out to the Galatians in their battle against 
 worldly lusts and low passions, " Walk in the Spirit, 
 and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh " — shall 
 not, because your character is spiritual, your inner 
 selfhood is divinely controlled. As naturally as a 
 Bartlett pear tree grows pears instead of crab apples, 
 so the divinely attuned soul must bear spiritual 
 graces instead of the lusts of the flesh. 
 
 There could not be a more serious subject to 
 study than this. What we are in our inner fiber 
 must dictate our influence and our future. It is 
 useless to undertake to do for others what we have 
 not in kind in ourselves. Mr. Hall Caine, the 
 author of TJie Manxman, recently delivered a lec- 
 ture before a company of authors in Edinburgh, in 
 which he declared that, though a writer may not be 
 conscious of any purpose to influence others in their 
 moral character, it is impossible for him to escape 
 
THE KEY TO CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 85 
 
 doing it or to rid himself of the moral responsibility 
 of it. '' Your work," said Mr. Caine, " is what you 
 are. It cannot help but carry with it the moral at- 
 mosphere in which you live. Tell me what manner 
 of man you are, and I will tell you what the moral 
 effect of your work will be." '' Imagination," he 
 continues, '' is a chemical, which, let a man pour it 
 on any plate whatsoever, is sure to develop the fea- 
 tures of his own face." 
 
 And this is no more true of an author than it is 
 of each one of us. For we are all authors. We 
 are day by day, by every action of our daily lives, 
 by every conversation we have, by every tone in 
 which we speak our words, by the very atmosphere 
 with which we welcome and warm the hearts of 
 those we greet, or rebuke and freeze in silence those 
 whom we would reject, registering — on far more im- 
 perishable manuscript than is produced in any 
 modern paper mill, on the undying tablets of the 
 soul — our thoughts, our convictions, and our judg- 
 ments. We are writing books that no eye save 
 God's can read as yet, it may be, but writing them 
 to be an unfading record when all the libraries of 
 the earth shall be burned up. And remember that 
 all this registration depends upon what you are. If 
 your heart is pure, if your courage is strong, if your 
 ambitions are noble, if your trust in God is sublime, 
 if your love for humanity is deep and tender, if your 
 brotherhood is simple and Christlike, then you, too, 
 are an imitator of Paul, as he was of Christ, and 
 your life is continually an inspiration to all other 
 human lives. 
 
 How natural this makes a Christian life. It takes 
 
86 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 out of it everything that is unreal and unnatural, 
 and brings us back to the plain, simple ground that 
 by nature we are the sons and daughters of God, 
 and that, though we have wandered and strayed 
 away and are living in the low and vulgar conditions 
 of a wicked life, v/hen the Christ comes, bearing our 
 flesh, living a human life hke ours, and yet living it 
 purely and in a brotherly spirit full of a divine joy 
 and triumph, there is something in our own hearts 
 that echoes back to it, and we are inspired and en- 
 couraged and roused to a glorious imitation — an 
 imitation which is not imitation, but an inspiration to 
 rise up and possess the life for which we were made. 
 Richard Watson Gilder has written some very 
 suggestive verses on " How to the Singer Comes the 
 Song?" 
 
 " How to the singer comes the song? 
 
 At times a joy, alone ; 
 
 A wordless tone, 
 
 Caught from the crystal gleam of ice-bound trees ; 
 
 Or from the violet-perfumed breeze ; 
 
 Or the salt smell of seas. 
 
 In sunlight weltering many an emerald mile ; 
 
 Or the keen memory of a love-lit smile. 
 
 " Thus to the singer comes the song: 
 
 Gazing at crimson skies, 
 
 Where burns and dies 
 
 On day's wide hearth the calm, celestial fire, 
 
 The poet, with a wild desire, 
 
 Strikes the impassioned lyre. 
 
 Takes into tuned sound the flaming sight, 
 
 And utters with new song the ancient night. 
 
 "How to the singer comes the song.^* 
 Bowed down by ill and sorrow 
 On every morrow. 
 
THE KEY TO CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 87 
 
 The unworded pain breaks forth in heavenly singmg ; 
 
 Not all too late sharp solace bringing 
 
 To broken spirits winging, 
 
 Through mortal anguish, to the unknown rest — 
 
 A lyric balm for every wounded breast. 
 
 " How to the singer comes the song ? 
 
 How to the summer fields 
 
 Come flowers ? How yields 
 
 Darkness to happy dawn ? How doth the night 
 
 Bring stars ? O, how do love and light 
 
 Leap at the sound and sight 
 
 Of her who makes this dark world seem less wrong — 
 
 Life of my life, and soul of all my song ! " 
 
 Just SO naturally comes a Christian's joy and tri. 
 umph. Lifted up out of the mire, out of the fog 
 and the mist and the darkness, out of the sin and 
 despair, out of the doubt and the fear, he is set upon 
 the rock where all the plains of God's love stretch 
 about him. No wonder that a new song is put into 
 his mouth, even praise unto our God ! He sings be- 
 cause he must. He is glad because he is in the 
 realm of gladness. He is at peace because he has 
 risen out of the land of discord and all the chords 
 of life are in harmony. 
 
 Paul imitated Christ in his attitude toward his 
 fellow-man. To both Christ and Paul the human 
 problem was the only problem worth the giving of 
 one's whole heart and soul. Everything else is in- 
 significant in this world in comparison to the value 
 of humanity itself. Railroads and steamships and 
 machines and inventions of every sort are to be 
 valued first, not for the amount of money they will 
 make or the rapidity with which they will gather it, 
 but for the kind of man they will produce. Geog- 
 
88 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 raphers tell us that the loftiest mountani ranges on 
 the globe are to the mighty diameter of the earth 
 but as the rough spots on the rind of an orange to 
 its sweet interior. So some one says, "All that is 
 external to the man himself is but a wrinkle to his 
 inner soul." I repeat it, that the human problem is 
 the great problem. Even so devoted a scientist as 
 Herbert Spencer says, '' It may be a fact that my 
 neighbor's cat has seven kittens ; but, before you 
 ask me to ponder it, tell me how that fact is related 
 to me." The human interest is the supreme inter- 
 est. Christ valued everything of the universe ac- 
 cording to its relation to the building up of men and 
 women and children. Paul was his most devout 
 imitator in this. God help us to fall into the royal 
 line ! 
 
 All the great souls that have put humanity most 
 in their debt have lived in this spirit. Charles 
 Dickens, after he had written Little Dorrit, in 
 which he had by his marvelous genius set in the pil- 
 lory of public opinion many cruel abuses, described 
 it to a friend as a personal safety valve. "■ I have 
 been blowing off a little indignant steam," he said, 
 '' which would otherwise blow me up." The in- 
 scription on the tomb of General Gordon, better 
 known as Chinese Gordon, in St. Paul's Cathedral 
 in London, closes like this : *' Who at all times and 
 everywhere gave his strength to the weak, his sub- 
 stance to the poor, his sympathy to the suffering, 
 and his heart to God." What wonder that the 
 Chinamen listened to him as if he were from another 
 world, and that many an African tribe regarded him 
 as a visitor from heaven. And what glorious op- 
 
THE KEY TO CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 89 
 
 portunities are afforded us to work out our salvation 
 and deck our crown with original stones, gathered 
 in our own way, in our own land, for the immortal 
 rejoicing ! 
 
 " God's angels drop, like sands of gold, 
 Our duties midst life's shining sands. 
 And from them, one by one, we mold 
 
 Our own bright crown with patient hands. 
 From dust and dross we gather them. 
 
 We toil and stoop for love's sweet sake, 
 To find each worthy act a gem 
 In glory's kingly diadem, 
 Which we may daily richer make." 
 
 Paul imitated Christ in the high standard which 
 he set for human life and character. It is the glory 
 of our Christianity that Christ will not for a moment 
 admit that we are not capable of the highest and 
 noblest spiritual triumphs. He will accept nothing 
 but our best. Ah, that is the hope of the race. 
 These poor apologists that are always making ex- 
 cuses for humanity, and are saying that it is a poor 
 thing and you must not expect much from it, are 
 but tallow dips compared to the pillar of cloud by 
 day and the pillar of fire by night that appeals to a 
 man, while he is as yet in the bondage of sin and 
 floundering in the quagmire of worldliness, and de- 
 clares that he has the power within him to become, by 
 Christ's help, the accepted and honored son of God. 
 
 A writer not long since related a conversation 
 which he had with a man of national reputation, 
 which finally took a religious turn, and which con- 
 cluded by this great man saying, " If we do half as 
 well as we know it will be all right in the end." 
 Just afterward, the gentleman who relates the incident 
 
90 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 went to the bootblack stand in the hotel to have his 
 shoes polished. The bootblack was a bright Irish- 
 man ; and, as the gentleman had just heard what a 
 man so near the top of the ladder had to say, he 
 thought he would try the man who was so near the 
 bottom. Reporting the speech he had just heard, 
 he asked, '' Now, what do you think of that?" 
 *' Think of it, sir ? " the bootblack answered. "Well, 
 I think if I only cleaned your boots half as well as 
 I know how you would not want to pay me my 
 dime ; and if I kept on the landlord would run me 
 out of the house, sir. And I don't like to believe 
 that God Almighty is not the equal of the boss, sir." 
 Did not the bootblack have the best of it } 
 
 Never thank any man for being satisfied with less 
 than the best you can do. The moment you cease 
 to do your best, that day you begin to die. The 
 moment you cease to do your best and cease to live 
 in that courageous, hopeful, and triumphant atmos- 
 phere, your spiritual vitality begins to lose its 
 healthy tone, and you are in spiritual danger, just 
 as the man is in physical danger whose physical 
 vitality is at a low ebb. Any epidemic or fever 
 coming through the community or any malaria that 
 lurks anywhere about in the air is almost certain to 
 strike him down. So if you begin to apologize for 
 yourself, and make excuses for doing halfway work, 
 and make compromises with yourself about that com- 
 plete and holy life which your conscience tells you 
 that you are capable of living, you are the easy prey 
 of every enemy of your soul. It was Jean Paul 
 Richter who said these words as he drew near to the 
 end : " I have made of myself all that could be 
 
THE KEY TO CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 91 
 
 made out of the stuff." The more you will study 
 that sentence, the more marvelous it will seem to 
 you. Brother, that is what God asks of you — '' all 
 that can be made out of the stuff." We are not to 
 measure ourselves against each other and excuse 
 ourselves because of each other's shortcomings. 
 What a pitiable, miserable thing that is to do ! But 
 whatever the grace of God, whatever the tender fel- 
 lowship of Jesus Christ, whatever the brooding of 
 the Holy Spirit, whatever the inspiration of Chris- 
 tian comradeship, and all other blessed and holy in- 
 fluences with which God visits the soul, can make 
 out of this material which he has put in my care, 
 which makes me what I am, which is called by my 
 name — that I am to make, and that I am to be re- 
 sponsible for, and I am to bring it up at last before 
 the great white throne and give an account for '' the 
 stuff" which was delivered to me at the beginning. 
 God help us to be faithful to the awful, but glori- 
 ous, responsibility ! 
 
92 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE ART OF GATHERING UP THE FRAGMENTS 
 OF LIFE. 
 
 " Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost." — John 
 
 Vi, 12. 
 
 1 SUPPOSE there never was a boy whose eyes 
 so stuck out with astonishment as that Httle lad 
 who saw his five small barley loaves and two fishes 
 so multiplied under the blessing of the Master that 
 they were enough to feed thousands of people and 
 have many fragments left. Indeed, the fragments 
 were of more importance than were the loaves and 
 fishes at the beginning. But it is neither the loaves, 
 nor the fishes, nor the little lad, nor the miracle of 
 the Saviour in feeding a multitude with a little, to 
 v/hich I wish to direct our thoughts ; but rather to 
 impress upon our hearts the wisdom of gathering 
 up the fragments of life, so that we may get all the 
 rich treasure and comfort there is out of it, and to 
 urge that we shall not by any carelessness or waste- 
 fulness on our part let anything be lost. 
 
 These words of Jesus are in harmony Avith the crea- 
 tion and conduct of the whole universe. This world 
 in which we live is made up of fragments, every one 
 of which finds its continuity, its consistency and 
 justification, in the eternal care of God. There is 
 abundance in the world, in sunlight and snow and 
 rain ; and yet, after all, nothing is wasted. Every- 
 thing is treasured up and used over again, and again, 
 
GATHERING UP THE FRAGMENTS OF LIFE. 93 
 
 and again. When it will no longer do for one pur- 
 pose, God uses it for another. Ruskin, in his Ethics 
 of the Dust, tells us how the soft, white sediments 
 of the sea, in the course of ages, drew themselves 
 into knots of sphered symmetry and passed at last, 
 through pressure and heat, into the splendid marble 
 quarries of Carrara, in Italy — quarries so magnificent 
 that when you are passing by on the train you can 
 hardly believe that the great white snowdrifts have 
 not settled there between the hills. 
 
 All life on our globe is fragmentary and held to- 
 gether by the heavenly attraction — the Fatherly 
 care which is over all. The psalmist, in the one 
 hundred and fourth Psalm, sings the anthem of this 
 care over individual things, and declares that God 
 cares for the springs at which the wild asses quench 
 their thirst ; that he causeth the grasses to grow for 
 the cattle; that he plants the cedars of Lebanon, 
 and is interested in the forest where the birds build 
 their nests, and takes note of the stork as she builds 
 her home in a particular kind of fir tree ; that he 
 does not forget the high hills where the wild goats 
 find refuge, or neglect to prepare rocks under which 
 the conies may hide. The young lions also are the 
 children of his providence. The wide sea, the earth 
 full of creeping beasts, small and great, as well as 
 man, all wait upon God. As Christina Rossetti 
 
 sings it — 
 
 " Innocent eyes not ours 
 
 Are made to look on flowers, 
 Eyes of small birds and insects small ; 
 
 Morn after summer morn, 
 
 The sweet rose on her thorn 
 Opens her bosom to them all. 
 7 
 
94 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 The least and last of things, 
 
 That soar on quivering wings 
 Or crawl among the grass blades out of sight, 
 Have just as clear a right 
 To their appointed portion of delight 
 
 As queens or kings." 
 
 All this beautiful world is brought into this har- 
 monious beauty because of the gathering up of the 
 fragments through divine carefulness. It is a very 
 hard lesson for many of us to learn that great things 
 are made out of little things. Let us think for a 
 moment about certain kinds of fragments which, if 
 carefully gathered up, make a rich and precious 
 life. 
 
 A reverent soul, dominated by a prayerful spirit, 
 referring all questions naturally to the divine con- 
 trol, trusting and relying upon divine support and 
 comfort in every hour of need — such a personality, 
 for instance, is made by gathering up the momentary 
 privileges and opportunities of prayer. That is what 
 Paul meant when he said we should pray always, 
 without ceasing. It is not that one should make 
 long prayers at any one time, but that the momen- 
 tary opportunities and privileges of life should be 
 carefully treasured for divine meditation and com- 
 munion. We have noticed some people in public 
 service, in prayer meetings and other places, who 
 seemed to have a disposition to pray always, with- 
 out stopping, when they got started, and whose 
 prayers did not seem to be any great pleasure to 
 themselves or anybody else. But, on the other 
 hand, there is the individual to whom prayer always 
 seems to come natural, about whom there is a cer- 
 
GATHERING UP THE FRAGMENTS OF LIFE. 95 
 
 tain spontaneity of devotional spirit. His prayers 
 bring blessings down upon all who listen to them, 
 and there is about them a kind of heavenly conta- 
 gion that draws listening souls heavenward. 
 
 The prayers of the Bible are all short. None of 
 them would take half as long to utter as many of 
 the public prayers to which we listen. The prayer 
 of King Hezekiah for Jerusalem consists of one 
 hundred and thirty-four words and would require, 
 if uttered at an ordinary rate of speed, about one 
 minute. At the time of Hezekiah's offering this 
 prayer the city of Jerusalem was surrounded by the 
 Assyrian army, led by Sennacherib. Hezekiah was 
 in a great emergency and had no hope of deliver- 
 ance except from God ; but that one-minute prayer 
 settled the whole matter. The Lord sent his angel 
 into the camp of the Assyrian, and in one night one 
 hundred and eighty-five thousand were smitten with 
 death. Let Lord Byron sing their requiem in his 
 oft-quoted lines : 
 
 " The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, 
 And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold ; 
 And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, 
 When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. 
 
 " Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, 
 That host with their banners at sunset were seen ; 
 Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, 
 That host on the morrow lay withered and strown, 
 
 " For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 
 And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed ; 
 And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, 
 And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still I 
 
96 THE CHRIST DREAM, 
 
 " And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, 
 But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride ; 
 And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, 
 And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. 
 
 " And there lay the rider, distorted and pale, 
 With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail ; 
 And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, 
 The lances unlifted, the trumpets unblown. 
 
 " And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail ; 
 And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal ; 
 And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, 
 Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord ! " 
 
 Character is built of fragments. A good character 
 is often compared in the Bible to gold ; but the 
 golden coin is composed of almost infinitely small 
 fragments. A watch case manufactory, which for 
 nineteen years had occupied the same building in 
 New York city, moved recently into new quarters. 
 Knowing how easily gold wears and rubs, especially 
 as it is handled by workmen, it was the custom of 
 the firm to save every bit of dust and all of the 
 sweepings of the three floors they occupied and ex- 
 tract the bits of gold lost in the rubbish. Although 
 this process was quite expensive, it paid very well. 
 When the manufactory was moved the firm took up 
 all the boards on the three floors, in order to save 
 the gold dust that had not been gathered up in the 
 sweepings. The boards were of ordinary pine, and 
 were reduced to ashes, and the gold was extracted 
 therefrom by a chemical process. Several thousand 
 dollars' worth of gold was found. Although every 
 possible precaution had been taken, a very large 
 number of fine particles of gold had been ground 
 
GATHERING UP THE FRAGMENTS OF LIFE. 97 
 
 into the cracks and grains of the wood. Two or 
 three years ago a treasure train brought several mil- 
 Hon dollars in gold from San Francisco to New 
 York. When the money was counted it was found 
 to be all right, as far as the number of coins went, 
 but in that journey the rubbing together of the 
 coins caused the loss of two thousand dollars. In 
 this case it was a total loss, for the particles were so 
 very fine that they could never be recovered. 
 
 Let us learn the lesson. Our characters are be- 
 ing formed by the addition of small particles of 
 spiritual gold day by day. Single deeds of self- 
 denial ; momentary acts of sympathy and mercy ; 
 secret struggles against temptation ; unknown bat- 
 tles that are never glorified in the public prints ; 
 hours of secret communion with the Master ; times 
 of loneliness and sorrow when meditations on the 
 law of God grow sweet ; burdens carried for the 
 weak and helpless, that none know of save God ; 
 times of bitter trial when one's arms cling; about 
 the cross for very life — these are the kind of frag- 
 ments out of which a noble character is fashioned 
 and molded into strength and beauty. Let us 
 gather up all such fragments, that nothing be lost. 
 
 The work of life is made up of fragments — mo- 
 ments, hours, days. General Booth, of the Salva- 
 tion Army, has given a great lesson, in the result 
 of his recent tour in this country, to people who 
 are always dreaming of great things they would like 
 to do and yet are doing nothing. General Booth 
 is sixty-five years of age. If he had been a general 
 in the United States Army he would have been re- 
 tired a year ago. But during his five months' stay 
 
98 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 on this side of the ocean he has averaged two 
 meetings a day, speaking on an average one hour 
 at each meeting. He has preached the Gospel in 
 eighty-six different cities, giving three hundred and 
 forty-three sermons. His audiences have aggre. 
 gated nearly half a million people, and there have 
 been many hundreds of conversions. In addition, 
 he has been interviewed every day, he has written 
 largely for the newspapers, and given great atten- 
 tion to the executive duties connected with the 
 great army of which he is the head. Perhaps no 
 man ever before in the history of the race traveled 
 eighteen thousand miles, preached three hundred 
 and forty-three sermons to half a million of people, 
 was the cause of so many persons being converted to 
 God, and attracted so much attention to the Gospel 
 of Jesus Christ — all in five months. It was accom- 
 plished by caring for the fragments. No time was 
 wasted ; everything was looked after with military 
 precision ; every fragment was worked into its 
 place. People who work in that way can always 
 perform miracles in comparison with the helter- 
 skelter work of other people. 
 
 '' Uncle John Vassar " was that sort of man, who 
 never let a fragment of an opportunity of witness- 
 ing for Christ go to waste. He came into a hotel 
 in Boston one day, looking for a friend. Seeing 
 that his friend had not yet arrived and that he 
 would have to wait, he determined not to waste 
 the time, but went directly up to two fashionably 
 dressed ladies who were sitting in the parlor. He 
 said to one of them, '' Excuse me, madam, are you 
 a Christian?" She said, " Of course." He said: 
 
GATHERING UP THE FRAGMENTS OF LIFE. 99 
 
 " I didn't mean that kind of Christian. Have you 
 been born again ? " 
 
 '* Why, no ; we have gotten over that in Boston ; 
 we do not beHeve in being born again any more." 
 
 '' Have you gotten all over the Bible in Boston, 
 or do you believe that some more? " 
 
 " O, yes, we beHeve the Bible, of course." 
 
 *' Will you let me read it to you ? " 
 
 And he took his Bible and began to pour the 
 word of God into her heart, until her soul burned 
 within her and the tears came into her eyes. His 
 friend came and he had to go ; but he said, *' Be- 
 fore I go may I pray with you ? " She answered, 
 *' I wish you would." He knelt down and asked 
 God to save her then and there. Her husband 
 came in afterward, and, seeing signs of tears in her 
 eyes, he asked, ** What is the matter?" She said : 
 *' There has been a strange little man here. He 
 came up to me and asked me if I was a Christian — 
 if I had been born again ; and then he preached to 
 me and read the Bible. And, husband, I never in 
 my life felt as I feel now." 
 
 He said, " Why didn't you tell him it was none 
 of his business?" 
 
 She said, '' Dear, if you had been here, you 
 would have thought it was his business." It is the 
 men and women who gather up the fragments of 
 opportunity like that who make glorious records in 
 Christian work. Though you are so little that you 
 feel you are only a fragment, if you will give the 
 fragment to God, he will fit it into its own place 
 where it will be more valuable than anything else in 
 the world in that place. 
 
100 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 Robert Browning tells an old legend in his poem, 
 *' The Boy and the Angel." The boy, working at 
 his trade, and thus praising God with his faithful 
 work and life, wins the heart of the angel, who 
 helps the boy to realize his desire to praise God, as 
 he imagines, in a more splendid way, as a pope. 
 That the boy's work as he becomes priest and pope 
 may not be left undone, the angel takes the boy's 
 place at the workbench. But he soon finds that not 
 even an angel can fill a boy's place and give God the 
 praise of the boy's faithful work. And so there 
 came to Rome another pope, and the boy went 
 back to his bench to give the praise without which 
 heaven's music was not complete. There is a vein 
 of everlasting truth in the old legend. We may be 
 only a fragment in God's universe, but that frag- 
 ment is a special study of the Creator. You are the 
 child of your heavenly Father, and if you do your 
 duty faithfully you shall not be forgotten of him. 
 
 *' Only a tiny candle 
 
 Lit by him, 
 Not lost, though he has many 
 
 Lamps to trim. 
 
 " Only an earthen vessel 
 
 Used to-day, 
 Although in the Master's pathway 
 
 Gold ones lay. 
 
 " Only a cup of water 
 
 Given in love ; 
 But the Saviour saw and owned it 
 
 From above. 
 
 " Only the world's derision 
 
 Meekly borne, 
 Yet he notes the word, the action, 
 
 Done in scorn. 
 
GATHERING UP THE FRAGMENTS OF LIFE. 101 
 
 " Only a little service 
 
 By the way ; 
 He'll reward the smallest effort 
 
 ' In that day.' 
 
 " Only following- Jesus 
 
 To the end ; 
 And then his promised glory 
 
 He will send." 
 
 If there are any here who are not Christians, I 
 want to bring God's message to you in this scrip- 
 ture we are studying, and entreat you that you will 
 gather up the fragments of time and opportunity 
 that still remain and not let one of them be lost. 
 Remember that it is only in the consciousness 
 of divine forgiveness and love that real peace 
 and happiness can be found. I have been reading 
 this last week, as doubtless many of you have, 
 a very pathetic speech by Prince Bismarck, in which 
 he says : '' When I reckon my few minutes of real 
 happiness I am hardly able to make twenty-four 
 hours. In politics I never gained enough rest to be 
 happy." What a wonderful confession there is in 
 those few words of the hollowness of all mere earthly 
 glory and success, and how idle to expect the world 
 to give genuine happiness and peace to the soul ! 
 One fragment of the Master's precious words, like, 
 " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
 laden, and I will give you rest," is worth more than 
 all the political glory and renown in the world to 
 give abiding peace to the soul. Gather up the frag- 
 ments that remain to you. You have wasted many 
 opportunities, many privileges are beyond your 
 reach ; but there is left this fragmentary hour 
 when, if you will, you may find salvation. 
 
102 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 IX. 
 HEARTSTRINGS AND THEIR MELODY. 
 
 *' There went with him a band of men, whose hearts God had touched." 
 — I Sam. X, 26. 
 
 TO move men to action immediate and earnest 
 you need only to arouse their hearts. The 
 heart it is that furnishes life to all the body. The 
 relation of the heart to a human life is like the rela- 
 tion of a great city to a State. Out from the city 
 run railroad lines and telegraph and telephone lines, 
 commercial and intellectual arteries through which 
 flows the blood to sustain and carry on civilization 
 to the remotest boundary. The heart is like that. 
 It is the center of human action. The appeal of the 
 Bible is to the heart. There are many accidents of 
 time and place and position ; but after all as a man 
 *' thinketh in his heart, so is he." 
 
 There is no musical instrument in the world so 
 sensitive as the human heart, and none that is open 
 to such a diversity of influence. How many are the 
 players who touch our hearts ! Sometimes anger 
 touches them, and the tones which are evoked are 
 coarse and full of discord ; sometimes sorrow touches 
 them, and they wail forth a uiiserere so tender and 
 sad that it only finds its appropriate echo in tears. 
 Satan plays on many a heart ; but the heart does 
 not belong to him. He is an invader and an enemy, 
 and his touch can only produce discord. Nothing 
 
HEARTSTRINGS AND THEIR MELODY. 103 
 
 but the touch of God can bring forth perfect music 
 from the human heart. Let us bring our hearts be- 
 fore the Lord and cry with the poet : 
 
 " I kneel before thine altar, Lord, and fain a gift would bring, 
 But all I have is worthless and unfit for offering ; 
 A foolish heart, a foolish dream, a foolish, fruitless pain — 
 Such are my all ; O Love of love, do not the gift disdain. 
 
 "And even as earthly monarchs do, who take the tribute given, 
 And quick restore by royal grace, increased to seven times seven, 
 So take, O Lord, my offering, and vouchsafe me presently, 
 For emptiness, thy fullness; for my hunger, thy supply. 
 
 " I lay my heart down at thy feet, that tired heart and old, 
 Whose youthful throb has grown so faint, whose youthful fire 
 
 so cold. 
 Heart of the world's heart. Lord of joy, and mighty Lord of 
 
 pain. 
 Take thou the gift, and quicken it, and give it back again. 
 
 " My foolish dream, so dear, so prized, baptized in many tears. 
 Loved, even as sickly children are, the more for doubts and 
 fears, 
 
 Lord, whose word is faithfulness, eternal to endure. 
 
 Take it ; and give me in its stead the hope that standeth sure. 
 
 " The pain that heart was baffled with, which could not bear to 
 die, 
 
 And, stilled by day, would stir by night, and wake me with its 
 cry. 
 
 That pain so close, so intimate, that death could scarce de- 
 stroy, 
 
 1 leave it, Lord, before thy feet -, give me instead thy joy. 
 
 "All empty-handed came I in ; full-handed forth I go. 
 Go thou beside me. Lord of grace, and keep me ever so. 
 Thanks are poor things for such wide good ; but all my life is 
 
 thine ; 
 Thou who hast turned my stones to bread, my water into 
 
 wine." 
 
104 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 Let us study briefly the fruits of God's touch upon 
 human hearts. 
 
 The first result is sympathy. We may see that 
 illustrated in the incidents surrounding our text. 
 Saul had been selected by the prophet, under God's 
 direction, to be king over Israel. He was a bashful, 
 young, timid fellow, and when the prophet wanted to 
 introduce him to the people as their king he was 
 not to be found, until after long search they discov- 
 ered him hidden away among the pack saddles and 
 "stuff," as the Scripture record gives it, of the en- 
 campment. And when they had brought him forth 
 to receive his crow^n and he stood up there before 
 them, head and shoulders taller than everybody else, 
 looking every inch a king, bashful though he was, 
 they cheered him with admiration and pride. And 
 when the people were disbanded to go to their 
 homes, and Saul also started on his journey, there 
 were many men in the company whose hearts God so 
 touched in sympathy with the young king that they 
 went up with him to protect him and defend him. 
 What we need to-day, above everything else, is that 
 the great heart of mankind shall be touched into sym- 
 pathy and fellowship. We need this continual 
 touch of God in the Church, that its refreshing 
 streams of sympathy may never dry up. No formal 
 religion can ever take the place of warm-hearted, 
 brotherly kindness. 
 
 In 1878 a party of Americans made a journey up 
 the Nile, and afterward traveled through Egypt, 
 Arabia, and Syria. When they were at Cairo pre- 
 paring to cross the desert, each of the party bought 
 some water vessels. One found in the bazaar 
 
HEARTSTRINGS AND THEIR MELODY. 105 
 
 beaten jars of brass, whose fine designs attracted 
 him ; another bought some painted porcelain vessels 
 of great beauty ; while a third came back with 
 coarse earthen bottles at which the others laughed. 
 " Wait until the end of the journey," he said. The 
 way across the desert was long and wearisome ; the 
 heat was intense ; some of the camels fell sick ; and 
 hence the distance between the stopping places re- 
 quired more time than usual. Every drop of water 
 was of value. The glittering brass vessels soon 
 proved useless, as the water in them was heated and 
 became impure and poisonous. The fine porcelain 
 jugs cracked in the fierce heat of the sun, and the 
 water was lost. Both the brass and porcelain ves- 
 sels were thrown away as valueless ; but the plain 
 earthen bottles, being porous and unadorned, kept 
 the water comparatively cool and pure until the end 
 of the journey. " It was not vases for ornaments that 
 were needed," said the guide, " only a vessel that 
 would carry water." So if we are to bless the world 
 constantly by the warmth of our sympathy, the good 
 cheer of our brotherly fellowship, we do not want 
 to smother our faith and hope and love under dec- 
 orated forms or incase our Christian graces in a 
 bigotry as hard and unbending as brass; but, rather, 
 we want to carry God's love into hearts so humble 
 that it shall become in them a " well of water, 
 springing up unto everlasting life." 
 
 No one can micasure the power of a genuine ex- 
 hibition of brotherly sympathy. At the battle of 
 Fair Oaks, on June I, 1862, General Oliver O. How- 
 ard had his arm shot off on the battlefield. As he 
 was making his way to the hospital, weak from loss 
 
lOo THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 of blood and pain, he saw a young man intoxicated. 
 He was so under the influence of whisky that he 
 could hardly walk. As the general came near him, 
 he forgot the awful pain that was racking his body, 
 and his own desperate condition, and his heart went 
 out in sympathy for this poor drunken young lad ; 
 and he stopped long enough to tell him that it did 
 not pay to drink, that it would ruin him, and how 
 much better it would be to stop before the habit 
 had control of him. General Howard passed on to 
 the hospital, had his arm amputated, and was sent 
 home to recover. He learned nothing more of the 
 drunken soldier for a great many years, when one 
 day a letter came to him from Washington city 
 which told him his subsequent history. The poor 
 fellow, drunk as he was, was so impressed by the 
 fact that the general, in his wounded condition, had 
 taken enough interest in him to stop and give him 
 advice, that he had then and there resolved to quit 
 drinking. He kept his resolution and when the 
 war was over settled down to a life of steady, hon- 
 est, hard work. He gradually rose, and became 
 finally a judge on the supreme bench of the State 
 of New Hampshire and one of the foremost men in 
 the Commonwealth. And he no doubt owed it all 
 to the fact that this great-hearted Christian soldier 
 had paused to pour on him the wealth of his Chris- 
 tian sympathy. 
 
 Victor Hugo says that whenever it is necessary 
 we must sacrifice for our brother, no matter how 
 lowly his condition, our gold, and our blood which 
 is more than our gold, and our thought which is 
 more than our blood, and our love which is more 
 
HEARTSTRINGS AND THEIR MELODY. 107 
 
 than our thought. And we are sure that this is the 
 spirit in which St. Paul Hved when we hear him say- 
 ing : " For though I was free from all men, I 
 brought myself under bondage to all, that I might 
 gain the more. And to the Jews I became as a 
 Jew, that I might gain Jews ; to them that are 
 under the law, as under the law, not being myself 
 under the law, that I might gain them that are under 
 the law ; to them that are without law, as without 
 law, not being without law to God, but under law to 
 Christ, that I might gain them that are without law. 
 To the weak I became weak, that I might gain the 
 weak : I am become all things to all men, that I may 
 by all means save some." Paul states the supreme 
 law of the kingdom of Christ to be, '' Remember 
 them that are in bonds, as bound with them." How 
 the old earth would blossom as the rose if all our 
 hearts were touched into that Christly sympathy ! 
 Another result of God's touch upon the human 
 heart is that he establishes it in courage — not a 
 brutal, stoical courage, but the quieter, sublimer 
 courage of confidence and faith. Bishop Potter, of 
 New York city, relates a most striking incident 
 which occurred when he was traveling some years 
 ago in southern Florida. There was a man in the 
 car who represented the great lottery system of 
 Louisiana, which was then at the height of its in- 
 famous power and held the government of Louisiana 
 in its iron grasp. This man was a very important 
 personage in his own eyes. He had taken the 
 drawing-room on the car, and something about the 
 room gave him offense. He summoned the col- 
 ored porter and, after addressing him in the most 
 
108 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 vulgar and profane manner, sent for the conductor. 
 There was obviously no grievance in th@. case ; the 
 man had lost his temper, was irritable and un- 
 reasonable from last night's debauch, and, if pos- 
 sible, his language to the conductor was more 
 brutal and more insolent and unwarranted than 
 to the porter. The bishop sat through it all, and 
 was conscious of sensations tingling at the tips of 
 his fingers that were entirely unepiscopal and which, 
 to use his own words, " if they could have found 
 expression at the moment, would have landed me 
 in eternal disgrace." The conductor, who was a 
 young man, a generous type of the Southerner, 
 came to the bishop when it was all over and said, 
 " I beg your pardon, but you have seen what has 
 happened ? " " Yes," the bishop replied, *' and if 
 you want to refer to me have no hesitation about 
 doing so. I want to congratulate you on the spirit 
 you have shown, and thank you for an exhibition 
 of good manners in the face of the boor who 
 insulted you every time he spoke, and to felicitate 
 you for the dignity with which you have borne 
 this." " O, sir," the young man replied, " when a 
 man has come to learn how his Master controlled 
 himself he ought to be ashamed not to be able to 
 illustrate at least an equal control under less pain- 
 ful and trying circumstances." Bishop Potter de- 
 clares that that was the finest testimony to the 
 power of the religion of Jesus Christ to which he 
 had ever been privileged to listen. That young 
 man was a hero. It took more courage to do what 
 he did than to march up to the cannon's mouth in 
 the midst of battle. What a glorious thing it is to 
 
HEARTSTRINGS AND THEIR MELODY. 109 
 
 live under the spell of that divine leadership where 
 such sublime courage is born of the hope and faith 
 and love which are the atmosphere of one 's daily life ! 
 
 The supreme result of God's touch on our hearts 
 is self-denial. The law of the Christian life is pro- 
 claimed in the Master's words, that he that loses 
 his life shall find it, and he that keepeth his life 
 shall lose it ; upon which Dr. Brooke Herford com- 
 ments that the highest, sweetest zeal of life is not 
 in what we do in thinking of self, but in what we do 
 for others, forgetting self. It is so even while in 
 the doing. How much more afterward ! Life 
 passes on ; years wane ; strength fails ; the shows 
 and vanities and delusions of life wither and fall, 
 like autumn leaves. The only things that do not 
 fade are those we do in simple, self-forgetting lov- 
 ing-kindness to our fellow-men or in self-forgetting 
 thanksgiving to God. 
 
 This self-forgetfulness is the true philosophy of 
 the Christian life. No doubt some of you feel like 
 saying, "Ah ! that perfect unselfishness is beyond 
 my reach; I cannot forget myself so entirely as 
 Christ seems to put it." But have you begun 
 rightly to undertake it ? You do not send your 
 boy to the high school before he has gone to the 
 grammar school or to the primary. So we are put 
 to school in this Christian life on earth. Enter upon 
 it in this spirit, think of others, give up your wish 
 for others, help others, be kind to others in every 
 way you can, and every such thought and care and 
 kindness in which you unawares rise into this forget- 
 fulness of self will be a lifting up of your life and 
 make it more worth living. 
 
110 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 You ought not to think that Christ's teachings 
 are not practicable for this world and for your life, 
 because you cannot rise above mistakes and blun- 
 ders and practice them perfectly all at once. What 
 is there in the world that is worth doing that you 
 can do perfectly all at once ? But you may depend 
 upon it that these plain, heart-searching teachings 
 of Jesus Christ, which call for self-denial and self- 
 forgetfulness, are the true light of life, and their way 
 is the way of all blessing ; and if you will live that 
 way, if you will live toward them, the more you do 
 so the more they will bless you. Be Christ's 
 disciple in the way of self-denial, and, though it 
 may begin with a cross, it will end with a crown. 
 You may have to begin with some pain of self- 
 denial ; but you will end in the quiet joy of self- 
 forgetfulness. And more and more you will grow 
 into that higher life in which our hearts go out lov- 
 ingly to our fellow-men, and out toward all the 
 beauty and glory of the world, and up toward God 
 and toward that life which whoso lives with him 
 shall live forever! 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. Ill 
 
 X. 
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 
 
 " Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life." — i Tim. vi, 12. 
 
 PROFESSOR HENRY DRUMMOND, in his 
 Lowell lectures on The Ascent of Man, deliv- 
 ered in Boston and now published in book form, 
 discusses \vith great courage and clearness from 
 the standpoint of the evolutionist the struggle for 
 life. It is not either to criticise or to imitate him 
 that I take my theme from his hands, but to follow 
 a line of practical inquiry into that present strug- 
 gle for life with which every one of us has to do. 
 For the phrase " struggle for life " is certainly an 
 apt description of the earthly experience of every 
 human soul. 
 
 Dr. Drummond declares that the great alHes of 
 progress in human life are want and hunger, that 
 "the inertia of things is such that without compul- 
 sion they will never move." He compares the ev- 
 olution of man to the experience of the little bird in 
 the city park, whose day is spent in struggling to 
 get a living. It awakes at daybreak and sets out to 
 catch its morning meal ; but another bird has been 
 awake before it and it has lost its chance. With 
 fifty other breakfastless birds it has to bide its time, 
 to scour the country, to prospect the trees, the 
 grass, the ground, to lie in ambush ; to attack and 
 
112 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 be defeated, to hope and be forestalled. At every 
 meal the same program is gone through, and every 
 day. As the seasons change the pressure becomes 
 more keen, its supplies are exhausted, and it has to 
 'take wing for hundreds and thousands of miles to 
 find new hunting ground. This is how birds live ; 
 and this, he declares, is how birds are made. They 
 are the children of struggle. Beak and limb, claw 
 and wing, shape, strength — all, down to the last de- 
 tail, are the expressions of tlieir mode of life. 
 
 But it is more to our purpose to pursue the strug- 
 gle for life on Paul's lines, who deals with the story 
 of the later evolution, where man is not so much 
 goaded on by need as he is lured on by visions of 
 glory — or, as Drummond would put it, " those high 
 incitements of conscious ideals which completed 
 the work of creating him a man." 
 
 There can be no doubt that life was intended 
 by the Almighty to be a struggle, and that the dis- 
 cipline of toil, and even of drudger}^ if you will, is 
 a very beneficent influence upon human character. 
 A great many people make the common and easy 
 mistake of supposing that there are some favored 
 professions and avocations where great success may 
 be won without painful toil and prosaic, uninterest- 
 ing drudgery; but it is probably true that there is 
 as much of uninviting detail work forced into the 
 career of those who are supposed to be great 
 geniuses, as there is into the most common and 
 sordid employments. The multitude of people who 
 look upon a beautiful picture or listen to a great 
 musician or read a poem that stirs the soul suppose 
 that, because it is a work of genius, it therefore 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 113 
 
 came easily and without cost. The long days and 
 nights of weary toil by which the painter learned 
 how to mix his paints and oils, the weeks and 
 months of study, that seemed to him to be of 
 no value, by which his eye was trained in perspec- 
 tive — all this and many other things are unknown 
 to those who look on the picture as a finished work 
 of art. Goethe declared that "genius is but the 
 ability for hard work," which, though an extreme 
 assertion, is true to the extent that success is not 
 possible to genius w^ithout hard work. Life means 
 struggle. Every young man — and young woman as 
 well — should understand that; and, unless they are 
 willing to pay that price, all hope of real success 
 may as well be abandoned. 
 
 This is true on the lowest plane, as well as on the 
 highest. Some two years ago, when our two most 
 notorious American brutes had their disgraceful 
 fight in New Orleans and one of them, who had 
 been supposed for some time to be the strongest 
 man physically in the world, was overcome and 
 whimpered in his mortification that it was '' booze 
 that knocked him out," one of the daily newspapers 
 quoted a group of rough boys Avho were discussing 
 the encounter. One of them was heard to say this 
 — the language is rude, but it shows that even hood- 
 lums of the street understand that the penalty of 
 success must be paid for at a just price — " Well, 
 fellers, de great mill is over, and Sully's knocked 
 out ! Well, it only goes to show dat a man can't 
 be champeen soak and champeen fighter at de same 
 time." This boy had hold of the key which could 
 unlock to us the cause of many other failures along 
 
114 THE CHRIST DREAM, 
 
 higher Hnes, for there is such a thing as intellec- 
 tual and moral dissipation, as well as physical. 
 There may be many things we can do without, but 
 the stern discipline and struggle of life, which 
 makes self-reliant men and women of us, is not in 
 the catalogue. 
 
 A visitor to a famous pottery establishment was 
 puzzled by an operation which seemed aimless. In 
 one room there was a mass of clay beside a work- 
 man. Every now and then he took up a large mal- 
 let and struck several smart blows on the surface of 
 the lump. ''Why do you do that?" was asked. 
 "Wait a bit, sir, and watch it," was the answer. 
 The visitor obeyed, and soon the top of the mass 
 began to heave and swell, and bubbles formed upon 
 its face. " Now, sir, you will see," said the mod- 
 eler, with a smile. " I could never shape the clay 
 into a vase if these air bubbles were in it ; therefore 
 I gradually beat them out." Is not that the pur- 
 pose of the discipline of life? And we surely can 
 bear testimony that it has often had that effect on 
 us. Who cannot remember when some hard knock, 
 which was painful and mortifying at the time, let 
 out some bubble of pride or self-will which it was 
 very desirable to be rid of? 
 
 Let us study two or three of the simple but es- 
 sential conditions of success in the struggle of life. 
 
 And surely one of these is genuineness. This is 
 of supreme importance, for final and permanent 
 success depends far more on what we are than on 
 what we do. A clear perception of our own indi- 
 viduality is necessary to the highest sincerity and 
 genuineness. As Dr. Cuckson, of Boston, recently 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 115 
 
 said : " The dimensions of our inner life are deter- 
 mined by the scale to which they are set. We are 
 all character builders and the quantity and quality 
 of our personality depend altogether upon the 
 ideals to which we shape it. If the ideal be poor 
 the life will be poor ; and if the ideal be complete 
 the life will be rich and full. If the dominating- 
 aim of our existence be unsteady, with no clearness 
 of purpose and definiteness of outline, the life will 
 correspond to it and be as shapeless as a jellyfish. 
 The individuality that has no characteristics has no 
 character. It is like a marsh that is full of snakes 
 and tadpoles. Much determined force is indispen- 
 sable to the making of manly or womanly char- 
 acter." 
 
 It is this power to shape our own personality and 
 in some measure control our own destiny that 
 transforms the world and ennobles both the indi- 
 vidual and the collective life of humanity. Our 
 first ambition ought to be to build a character which 
 shall be distinctively our own for all time. If we 
 cherish our individuality in this way, refusing to 
 allow it to be swamped by custom or warped and 
 twisted out of shape by fashion, we will not feel 
 ourselves to be mere machines, but the free chil- 
 dren of God. A very interesting illustration of the 
 possibility of building up such a character occurred 
 a few days since, when an English correspondent of 
 a New York newspaper, who has never been friendly 
 to Mr. Gladstone, but often distinctly unfriendly, 
 speaking of some reprehensible methods of the 
 leading English politicians of to-day, called atten- 
 tion by way of contrast to the lofty character of 
 
116 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 political discussions to which Mr, Gladstone has 
 always held himself, no matter how strong the prov- 
 ocation to do otherwise. And this was equally 
 true of Mr. Gladstone, he says, when he was prime 
 minister and when he was not. The attitude of 
 dignified reserve is not, with him, an official atti- 
 tude. It is individual and spontaneous. He has a 
 high sense of what Is due to himself and from him- 
 self. The public came to expect it from him just as 
 much because he was Mr. Gladstone as they ex- 
 pected it of others because they hold an office and 
 a position which make them the representatives of 
 England and of what is best and noblest in Eng- 
 lish public life. That is a great thing to be able to 
 say about any man ; and that which makes it great 
 is possible to every one of us — to refuse to do a 
 mean thing, not because you might be found out in 
 it or it would disgrace you, but because it is be- 
 neath you and contrary to the great honest sub- 
 stratum of your character. 
 
 Nothing in the long run is so fatal to true suc- 
 cess as lack of genuine simplicity and straightfor- 
 wardness of character. James Russell Lowell puts 
 this verse tersely : 
 
 "I'm older'n you, an' I've seen things an' men ; 
 
 An' my experunce — tell ye wut it's ben : 
 
 Folks thet worked thorough was the ones that thriv, 
 
 But bad work foUers ye ez long's ye live ; 
 
 You can't get red on't ; jest ez sure ez sin, 
 
 It's allers askin' to be done agin." 
 
 The great test of character is fidelity in the hidden 
 life and in the little thinors of life. 
 
 Close akin to this is another characteristic of sue- 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 117 
 
 cess in life's struggle, and that is an uncompro- 
 mising antagonism to evil of every sort. And every- 
 thing must be regarded as evil for us that stands in 
 the way of our highest life. It is not necessary that 
 a thing should be wrong in itself; if it stands in the 
 way of the highest and holiest life for us it becomes 
 at once our most deadly enemy and should be 
 shown by us no quarter whatever. Over in Nor- 
 wich, Conn., there grows what is claimed to be 
 the largest wistaria vine in the country. At its 
 base it is a foot in diameter. A little above the 
 ground its trunk divides, and it throws one branch 
 for over a hundred feet around the front of a hand- 
 some mansion. The other branch, which divides 
 into three huge strands, each four inches thick, 
 trails along a garden fence for twenty feet and then 
 enters what was once the most magnificent and 
 stately elm on the street. Noting the great snaky 
 vine from the street, if you have a keen imagina- 
 tion, it is easy to arouse within yourself an im- 
 pression that it is a veritable serpent that has just 
 leaped upon the tree, infolding it in a deathly con- 
 striction. And if you notice the effect of this beau- 
 tiful vine on the tree the impression is heightened, 
 for its strong coil is choking the life out of the tree. 
 As tlie years have gone on it has flung fold after 
 fold about the trunk and branches, ever and anon 
 cutting deep circular furrows into the bark, and 
 finally, lifting its huge green crest high above the 
 elm's crown, gathers it into its embrace. The tree 
 was naturally very thrifty and luxuriant, but it al- 
 ready shows plentiful tokens that its beautiful, but 
 powerful, enemy is throttling it. The tips of its 
 
118 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 lower boughs are dry and dead, and aloft its foliage 
 is sear and yellow. Before another year it doubtless 
 will be dead, and the vegetable serpent may feast at 
 will on its leafless carcass. 
 
 This is a faithful illustration of what we see con- 
 stantly occurring in the story of the men and women 
 whom we know. How many times we see men 
 forming habits or friendships or society or business 
 connections which at first seem only to decorate 
 and beautify their lives, as the beautiful wistaria 
 blossoms did the great elm tree. But after a while, 
 as we watch them, we see that this new association 
 or friendship or habit, which was intended only to 
 beautify or adorn, begins to control and tyrannize, 
 wrapping fold on fold about our friend or neigh- 
 bor, until all that we loved and admired in him is 
 throttled to death. Alas, how many times w'e see 
 the spiritual life choked out in this way ! Do not fail 
 to heed the lesson. You cannot afford to let busi- 
 ness or politics or society or anything else, though 
 it come in the form of '' an angel of light," throttle 
 within you your spiritual fellowship Avith God. 
 
 We need also to be on our guard against tempting 
 God by thrusting ourselves into the midst of the fires 
 of temptation. How foolish for us to pray '' Lead 
 us not into temptation " and then go, fast as our 
 steps can carry us, to where we know that the '' sin 
 which doth so easily beset us " will be flaunted in 
 our face. The newspapers brought us the other 
 morning the story of the silly girl at Coney Island 
 who came near being killed, and will probably die, 
 from an attempt in a public performance to kiss the 
 lips of a big Asiatic lion. The great brute, which 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 119 
 
 had hitherto seemed tame enough, was aroused to an- 
 ger and seized and mangled her with cruel ferocity. 
 Silly and presumptuous as that seems, many men 
 and women about us are not more wise when they 
 daily kiss the lips, as it were, of habits and associa- 
 tions which, however harmless they may seem for 
 a while, will inevitably at last bury their deadly fangs 
 in their presumptuous victims. We have daily 
 need to pray, with David, " Keep back thy servant 
 also from presumptuous sins." 
 
 But we must not forget that the true struggle for 
 life is a battle of faith. " Fight the good fight of 
 faith " is Paul's ringing appeal. Many people fail 
 in the struggle for life through a lack of the faith 
 element which gives the daring and courage that is 
 the very lifeblood of heroes. It is related that in 
 one of the battles of the American Revolution Gen- 
 eral Lee had been ordered by General Washington 
 to open the attack, which for some cause he failed to 
 do. General Washington reprimanded him by in- 
 quiring what untimely prudence prevented him from 
 carrying out the orders of his superior. " I know of 
 no man," said Lee, "who has more of that rascally 
 virtue than yourself." How many of us fail because 
 of a possession of too much of the " rascally " vir- 
 tue ! That high faith in God which makes every 
 man that possesses it seem rash to worldlings who 
 know nothing of God's presence and blessing is the 
 great propelling power of a genuine Christian life. 
 John Wesley said, '* May God deliver me and all 
 that seek him in sincerity from what the world calls 
 Christian prudence ! " 
 
 This genuine, uncompromising atmosphere of tlie 
 
120 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 soul does, naturally, lay hold on eternal life. It lifts 
 one out of the merely material and temporal, and 
 makes men who delve among the dusty details of 
 common things to breathe the high air of lofty pur- 
 pose. Bishop Lawrence, a few days since, at the 
 Harvard College commencement, with keen fore- 
 sight into the needs of the day, warned the young- 
 men going out this year from that great institution 
 against what he aptly calls the '* stolid commercial 
 spirit " of the time. And I doubt not that some 
 who hear me need the same warning. How^ many 
 men there are who used to have noble ideals and 
 spiritual aspirations, who to-day find themselves 
 deadened by this same " stolid commercial spirit." 
 The changes of the market, the newspaper seven 
 days in the week, the interest in politics, and the 
 small talk of the day enwrap them, until they be- 
 come one of those stolid, uninteresting commercial 
 machines which you may meet so often in the office 
 or the club. The only way to escape this is to fight 
 sincerely and honestly "the good fight of faith." 
 The man who makes all the ordinary things of life 
 subservient to that fight is kept heroic and eager by 
 the romance of spirituality which enters into life's 
 commonest deeds. For no man can live on the re- 
 ligious experiences of his childhood or youth. Your 
 religion, if it is to be worth anything to you, must 
 come out of the living present and must throb in the 
 blood of your daily life. 
 
 A man who had charge of a surveying party in 
 the forests of Florida relates that one day they were 
 resting at noon, when one of the men exclaimed, 
 ** I would give fifty cents a swallow for all the water 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 121 
 
 I could drink." He expressed the sentiments of 
 the others. All were very thirsty, and there was 
 not a spring or stream anywhere in the vicinity. 
 While the men were thus talking the chief surveyor 
 saw a crow put his bill into a cluster of broad long 
 leaves growing on the side of a tall cypress. The 
 leaves were those of a peculiar air plant. They are 
 green and bulge out at the bottom, forming an in- 
 verted bell. The smaller end is held to the tree by 
 roots grappling the bark. It feeds on the air and 
 water that it catches and holds. Thus the air plant 
 becomes a sort of cistern. The surveyor sprang to 
 his feet with a laugh. '' Boys," he said, " that old 
 crow is wiser than every one of us." *' How so?" 
 they asked. '* Why, he knows that there are a hun- 
 dred thousand water tanks in this forest." " Where ?" 
 they cried, in amazement. For reply, the surveyor 
 cut an air plant in two and drained nearly a pint of 
 pure, cold water from it. The men did not suffer 
 for water after that, for every tree in the forest had 
 at least one air plant, and almost every air plant 
 contained a drink of water. 
 
 Does this not give a true picture of the possibili- 
 ties of human life about us ? Many are perishing 
 of cruel thirst who have dwelt in the world's desert 
 and sought far and wide over its burning sands ; but, 
 in spite of wealth and culture and all that the world 
 is able to give them, they are fairly yawning them- 
 selves out of existence, driven by a burning thirst 
 that the earth has not been able to quench. And 
 yet all about them, in the everyday contact of com- 
 mon living, it has been possible for them, if they 
 had been guided by heavenly wisdom, to tap the 
 
122 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 fountains of the water of life of which, if a man 
 drink, says Christ, he shall thirst no more. 
 
 Here, then, is the secret of laying hold *' upon 
 eternal life." Eternal life is to be born within us. 
 It is not some ready-made gift that is to be bestowed 
 upon us at death ; it is to be born in us here and 
 now. We are to live in its enjoyment. We are to 
 exult in its atmosphere day by day. We are to be 
 nerved by it for heroic and courageous deeds. Ah, 
 this it is which dignifies and glorifies the struggle 
 for life. 
 
 Mrs. Farningham sings a song of her "Compan- 
 ions " which crystallizes what we have been study- 
 ing together: 
 
 "My care 
 Goes with me everywhere ; 
 The broken lights upon the sea, 
 The star lamps shining lustrously, 
 God's great, wide world of field and moor, 
 The lofty cliffs that guard the shore — 
 I turn from all to meet the face 
 Of one who shows me little grace. 
 
 For care 
 Is with me everywhere. 
 
 " And pain, 
 A guest that will remain, 
 Sits with me in the house at night, 
 And comes to me with morning light. 
 Making a home within my breast, 
 And stays my work, and breaks my rest, 
 And makes me weary vigils keep. 
 Nor lets me for my sowing reap. 
 
 For pain 
 Sleeps but to wake again. 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 123 
 
 " But hope 
 Helps me with these to cope, 
 And cheery comrades, fair to see 
 And strong to comfort, live with me ; 
 Faith bears me upward on its wing, 
 And sings to me until I sing ; 
 Peace touches me with tender grace, 
 And bids pain take a lower place ; 
 
 While love 
 Stays on, and will not move. 
 
 "And One 
 Whose light is as the sun. 
 Whose pity never comes too late, 
 Whose pardon, like himself, is great, 
 Knows me unworthy, yet no less 
 Lingers in his sweet gentleness ; 
 Jesus, my Saviour, takes my care. 
 And he is with me everywhere. 
 
 For he, 
 In life and death, abides with me." 
 
124 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 XI. 
 
 SELF-TRIUMPH THROUGH SELF-FORGET- 
 FULNESS. 
 
 "And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his 
 friends." — Job xlii, lo. 
 
 THIS Book of Job bears abundant testimony 
 that our world is God's workshop in which he 
 builds human character ; that sorrows, trials, and 
 difficulties are only tools which divine wisdom uses 
 for that great end. The fire must often be at a 
 white heat, the anvil broad, and the hammer heavy 
 to mold and fashion the shape which infinite skill 
 and love require. As another has said, we must 
 conquer life before we can conquer death. We 
 must subdue the earth before we are worthy to 
 come into our kingdom in heaven. We must 
 lose self to find God. The great white host which 
 adorned the vision at Patmos recorded in the Book 
 of Revelation came up out of great tribulation. 
 The Bible, human history, and the observation of 
 all thoughtful souls conspire to teach us that 
 
 " Life is not an idle ore, 
 But heated hot with burning fears 
 And bathed in baths of hissing tears, 
 And battered with the strokes of doom 
 To shape and use." 
 
 And yet off from the broad anvil, and out from 
 under the heavy hammer of the severest trial, Job 
 
TRIUMPH THROUGH SELF-FORGETFULNESS. 125 
 
 came, even in this world, to an experience of sub- 
 lime joy and serene peace. His diseases were 
 healed, his friends came back to him, his desolate 
 home was filled with the comforts and delights of 
 love, his pastures were covered with flocks and 
 herds, and he came to a ripe old age in the greatest 
 prosperity of his life. 
 
 Between the two pictures which stand so strongly 
 in contrast in Job's life — between the night of des- 
 olation and the day of triumph — there was a 
 twilight worthy of our study. The climax in Job's 
 life is described in our text. It was reached on 
 that day when, ceasing to think about himself, he 
 became prayerful in behalf of his friends. Job 
 learned at last, what every earnest seeker after 
 truth must learn, that 
 
 " The struggle that's only for self 
 
 No joy among angels may wake ; 
 But the brighetst of crowns will be given 
 To those who have suffered and striven 
 
 For somebody's sake." 
 
 And so we come to our theme, " Self-triumph 
 through Self-forgetfulness." Not only Job, but 
 every other soul that, like Job, turns to sincere and 
 earnest work for others, finds that he is rescued 
 thereby from many annoying captivities. 
 
 Work for others rescues us from the captivity of 
 overweening personal conceit. Beautifully did the 
 wise old Greeks say that the lovely youth Narcis- 
 sus resisted every charm, until he came to look in a 
 still, clear pool. It shone like a mirror. In it he 
 saw his own beautiful form and fell in love with it, 
 thinking it a deity. That love, necessarily unre- 
 9 
 
126 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 quited, was his death, as such self-love must ever 
 be. Such self-love always remains unconscious of 
 its own blindness and busies itself with finding out 
 the faults of others, without attempt to pity, much 
 less to cure, them. No tyrant is more cruel to his 
 abject slave than an overweening conceit is to the 
 soul where it holds dominion. The man who is 
 satisfied with himself is doomed. For him there is 
 no upward climbing, no greater success. The door- 
 ways of increased knowledge are blocked by the 
 huge walls of his dogged self-conceit. We are told 
 that, when the Florentine magistrate came to look 
 at Michael Angelo's sublime statue of David, he 
 declared it was splendid with one exception — the 
 nose was too large. The sculptor said it was quite 
 as it should be. But the magistrate was so sure it 
 was too large that the sculptor took hammer and 
 chisel and seemed to reduce it ; but in truth he only 
 let fall some chippings he had carried up with him. 
 He had really not touched it. " Now," said the 
 magistrate, ''it is perfection." Most of us have met 
 with similar proofs of the egotism of conceit and its 
 blind folly. Perhaps our friends have seen the same 
 in us, and we may be very sure our enemies have. 
 
 But when we turn from ourselves and devote our 
 thought and care to the help of others we drop into 
 our proper place in the circle of the universe. We 
 find that we are of like passions and tempers and in- 
 firmities with other people, and that on its own 
 ground the most ordinary little child may teach 
 us, despite all our self-sufficient wisdom. It is only 
 by sympathetic devotion to others that we may 
 enter into that brotherly fellowship with our fellow- 
 
TRIUMPH THROUGH SELF-FORGETFULNESS. 127 
 
 men by which we may really be taught the great les- 
 sons of human life. Carlyle never wrote a truer 
 sentence than this : " When the heart is dead 
 the eye cannot see." The editor of the Outlook^ in 
 a recent article, says, with great earnestness and 
 truth, that we know men only as our sympathies 
 clear our mental vision. We deal justly with 
 our fellows only as we are alive to each man's lim- 
 itations, as well as to his possibilities. Sympathy is 
 the key that opens the heart of king and beggar. 
 Sympathy is the touchstone of life. Without it 
 man is a drudge — only a slave to his necessities. 
 Work without love is bondage. The man who 
 works without the mainspring of sympathy loses 
 the beauty of life and is deprived of the inspiration 
 of success. Sympathy, and not ambition, is the 
 foundation of true living. Josephine Pollard sings 
 with true poetic insight : 
 
 " I sent an eagle from my ark, 
 When all around was dull and dark. 
 And watched it as it took its flight 
 Onward and upward to a height 
 Supremely grand ; its wings, outspread, 
 Make a black canopy o'erhead. 
 Through which no ray of comfort stole, 
 Nor promise of a peaceful goal. 
 
 " I sent a dove from out the ark, 
 When all around was dull and dark, 
 And watched it as it soared on high. 
 Its white wings brightening the sky — 
 As if heaven's gates stood wide apart ; 
 Until the radiance reached my heart, 
 And on the pinions of a dove 
 I found the anchorage of love. 
 
128 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 " Too oft ambition clouds the gaze, 
 Removes the sunshine from life's ways. 
 And, like an eagle, in its flight 
 Is lost upon some giddy height ; 
 While on white wings the carrier dove 
 Bears the poor, burdened soul above, 
 Into an atmosphere of peace. 
 Where all these surging billows cease." 
 
 Work for others rescues us from the slavish mo- 
 notony of life. A little street waif was once taken 
 to the house of a great English lady, and the child- 
 ish eyes, that were accustomed to look so sharply 
 after daily bread, were dazzled by signs of splendor 
 on every hand. '' Can you get everything you 
 want? " the child asked of the mistress of the man- 
 sion. " Yes, I think so," was the reply. '' Can you 
 buy anything you would like to have ? " The lady 
 answered, ''Yes." And the child, who was of a 
 meditative turn of mind, looked at her half pity- 
 ingly and said, " Don't you find it dull?" To the 
 little, keen mind, accustomed to live, like the birds 
 in the park, from day to day and to rejoice over 
 enough to eat with the appetite born of rarity, the 
 aspect of continual plenty, desires all gratified by 
 possession, contained an idea of monotony that 
 seemed almost wearisome. 
 
 Many a man and many a woman, with wealth 
 and culture and all things that the thoughtless mul- 
 titude envy, have died of pure monotony. Wholly 
 selfish, given up to a life of simply taking care of 
 self, many a man has considered it not worth while 
 and has died the death of the suicide, fairly yawn- 
 ing himself out of existence. Many a parent, strug- 
 
TRIUMPH THROUGH SELF-FORGETFULNESS. 129 
 
 gling against poverty and other ills in order to keep 
 together and educate a large family, has failed to ap- 
 preciate how richly they were really blessed of God, 
 and that this work for others, which filled heart and 
 hands with care, has in it a joy that would seem a 
 very oasis in the desert to many a childless woman 
 and lonely man, dying of the monotonous rounds 
 of their selfish lives. There is an old poem with 
 enough of human nature in it to deserve to be al- 
 ways kept new. It tells how a father and mother, 
 who found it very hard to make two ends meet in 
 caring for a large family of children, refused the of- 
 fer of a rich friend's comfortable provision for them, 
 on the condition that they should in return give him 
 one of their children. It is the mother who tells the 
 story : 
 
 " ' Which shall it be ? Which shall it be ? ' 
 
 I looked at John — John looked at me 
 
 (Dear, patient John, who loves me yet. 
 
 As well as though my locks were jet). 
 
 And when I found that I must speak, 
 
 My voice seemed strangely low and weak : 
 
 'Tell me again what Robert said.' 
 
 And then I, Hstening, bent my head. 
 
 ' This is his letter : " I will give 
 
 A house and land while you shall live, 
 
 If, in return, from out your seven, 
 
 One child to me for aye is given." ' 
 
 I looked at John's old garments worn ; 
 
 I thought of all that John had borne 
 
 Of poverty and work and care. 
 
 Which I, though willing, could not share; 
 
 I thought of seven mouths to feed, 
 
 Of sevTn little children's need, 
 
 And then of this. * Come, John,' said I, 
 
 • We'll choose among them as they lie 
 
130 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 Asleep.' So, walking hand in hand, 
 Dear John and I surveyed our band- 
 First to the cradle lightly stepped, 
 Where Lillian, the baby, slept, 
 A glory 'gainst the pillow white. 
 Softly the father stooped to lay 
 His rough hand down in loving way. 
 When dream or whisper made her stir. 
 And huskily said, ' Not her, not her.' 
 We stooped beside the trundle-bed. 
 And one long ray of lamplight shed 
 Athwart the boyish faces there. 
 In sleep so pitiful and fair ; 
 I saw on Jamie's rough, red cheek 
 A tear, undried, e'er John could speak. 
 ' He's but a baby, too,' said I, 
 And kissed him as we hurried by. 
 Pale, patient Robbie's angel face 
 Still in his sleep bore suffering's trace. 
 
 * No, for a thousand crowns, not him,* 
 He whispered, while our eyes were dim. 
 Poor Dick! bad Dick! our wayward son, 
 Turbulent, reckless, idle one — 
 
 Could he be spared ? ' Nay, He who gave 
 
 Bid us befriend him to his grave ; 
 
 Only a mother's heart can be 
 
 Patient enough for such as he ; 
 
 And so,' said John, ' I would not dare 
 
 To send him from her bedside prayer.* 
 
 Then stole we softly up above 
 
 And knelt by Mary, child of love. 
 
 • Perhaps for her 'twould better be,' 
 I said to John. Quite silently 
 
 He lifted up a curl that lay 
 
 Across her cheek in willful way 
 
 And shook his head, ' Nay, love, not thee,' 
 
 The while my heart beat audibly. 
 
 Only one more, our eldest lad. 
 
 Trusty and truthful, good and glad. 
 
TRIUMPH THROUGH SELF-FORGETFULNESS. 131 
 
 So like his father. ' No, John, no— 
 I cannot, will not let him go.' 
 And so we wrote, in courteous way, 
 We could not give one child away ; 
 And afterward toil lighter seemed, 
 Thinking of that of which we dreamed, 
 Happy in truth that not one face 
 Was missed from its accustomed place; 
 Thankful to work for all the seven. 
 Trusting the rest to One in heaven ! " 
 
 Working for others rescues us from the slavery 
 of covetousness. Some people are nothing more 
 or less than great human sponges, that absorb every- 
 thing they touch, but never of their own accord 
 yield anything up. If they ever give up anything 
 it is because they are squeezed so hard they cannot 
 help themselves. Some people are like a great spi- 
 der, who builds his web so broad and runs his snares 
 out so on every hand that he catches every fly that 
 comes in his corner of the room, but no fly who gets 
 in ever gets out. So these people have snares by 
 which they draw in and absorb, but are always 
 ready and eager for more, always selfish, covetous, 
 and miserly. As some one has well written, there 
 are people who display wonderful absorbing qualities 
 in the home. They absorb the loving attention and 
 thoughtful care of wife and mother, brothers and 
 sisters, or children, and give out nothing in return 
 but unkind words and cold indifference. When 
 they enter the family circle the atmosphere always 
 drops below zero. They seem to draw out of it all 
 its warmth and life ; but no evidence of the existence 
 of such qualities appears in their natures. They just 
 absorb, and that is all. Many professing Christians 
 
132 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 have remarkable absorbing power. Blessings are 
 theirs day by day, and God's love and goodness are 
 about them everywhere, like the very atmosphere. 
 They drink these things into their being as plants 
 do the sunshine, and yet nothing appears to prove 
 the gift. No grateful prayers arise from their lips, 
 no thanks are returned for the bounty God bestows. 
 They take in all the happiness and prosperity that 
 comes along, but give out nothing in like kind — no 
 sympathy, no charity, no mercy, no kindness, no love. 
 They just absorb, but nothing more. 
 
 God save us from beingsimply sponges in the world 
 and in the Church. But you may rest assured 
 there is only one Avay he will do it, and that is by 
 setting you to work to distribute what he gives to 
 you for the good of others. All the manifold bless- 
 ings which God bestows upon us are intended to be 
 a blessing to others as well as ourselves. Not one 
 ought to be selfishly appropriated. Paul teaches us 
 that God gives us divine comfort in sorrow, not for 
 ourselves alone, but that we may know how to com- 
 fort others. How definitely is this expressed in his 
 splendid words, *' Blessed be God, even the Father 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and 
 the God of all comfort ; who comforteth us in all 
 our tribulation, that we maybe able to comfort them 
 which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we 
 ourselves are comforted of God." Phillips Brooks, 
 commenting on this scripture, says that no man has 
 come to true greatness who has not felt in some 
 degree that his life belongs to his race, and that 
 what God gives him he gives him for mankind. The 
 truth is, we are at our best when we try to be our best. 
 
TRIUMPH THROUGH SELF-FORGETFULNESS. 133 
 
 not for ourselves alone, but for our brethren ; and 
 we take God's gifts most completely for ourselves 
 when we realize that he sends them to us for the 
 benefit of our fellows. 
 
 Work for others does also some positive things 
 for us. First, it beautifies the character. A prettily 
 dressed little American boy was walking along 
 the streets of Paris one day when, as he tried to 
 cross the crowded boulevard, he was knocked down 
 by the pole of a carriage. In a moment a crowd 
 had collected ; but the first upon the spot was a 
 little crossing sweeper, ragged and dirty, who had 
 seen the danger and had sprung to help the little 
 boy almost before the pole touched him. Tenderly 
 and carefully the street boy raised the rich man's 
 son in his arms, carried him through the crowd, and 
 into a drug store near by. It was found that the 
 boy was not much hurt. And soon the crowd dis- 
 persed. The druggist bound up the boy's wounds, 
 the little crossing sweeper standing by in sympathy ; 
 and when the work was done he ran out, paid the 
 boy's fare, and told the conductor where to stop. 
 As the omnibus rolled away and the crossing sweeper 
 turned back to his work a gentleman who had been 
 looking on spoke to him, offering him six cents. 
 ** Here, my boy," said he, '' you can't afford to pay 
 that rich child's fare. Let me give it back to 
 you." The crossing sweeper put his hand behind 
 him. " O, no," said he, " for there wouldn't be any 
 charm." 
 
 He meant that the charm of having done the 
 kindness would all be lost to him if it cost him 
 nothing, and he was quite right. The poor little 
 
134 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 crossing sweeper understood that the true secret of 
 happiness was in giving or in doing good. Nothing 
 adds so much to the real beauty of a character or a 
 hfe as that supreme humih'ty and self-sacrifice which 
 cheerfully, gladly goes down to help and bless those 
 who need ; and the lowlier and more helpless the 
 sufferers may be whom we are permitted to serve 
 the more beautiful it is, the nearer the likeness to 
 Him who is the ''chiefest among ten thousand" 
 and the One '' altogether lovely." Perhaps you re- 
 member the quaint verses that were current in the 
 press some half dozen years ago, entitled " De 
 Massa ob de Sheepfol' : " 
 
 " De Massa ob de sheepfol', 
 
 Dat guard de sheepfol' bin, 
 Look out in de gloomerin' meadows, 
 
 Whar de long night rain begin — 
 So he call to the hirelin' shepa'd, 
 
 ' Is my sheep, is dey all come in ? ' 
 
 " ' O,' den says de hirelin' shepa'd, 
 * Dey's some dey's black and thin. 
 
 And some dey's po' ol' weddas, 
 But de res' dey's all brung in.' 
 
 •' Den de Massa ob de sheepfol', 
 
 Dat guard de sheepfol' bin. 
 Goes down in de gloomerin' meadows, 
 
 Whar de long night rain begin — 
 So he le' down de ba's ob de sheepfol', 
 
 Callin' sof, ' Come in, come in,' 
 
 Callin' sof, ' Come in, come in ! 
 
 " Den up t'ro' de gloomerin' meadows, 
 T'ro' de col' night rain and win'. 
 
 And up t'ro' de gloomerin' rain-paf, 
 Whar de sleet fa' pie'cin' thin. 
 
TRIUMPH THROUGH SELF-FORGETFULNESS. 135 
 
 De po' los' sheep ob de sheepfol', 
 
 Dey all comes gadderin' in, 
 De po' los' sheep ob de sheepfol', 
 
 Dey all comes gadderin' in." 
 
 Finally, we have this truth, that in working for 
 others we are enriching our own souls. Even Job's 
 oxen and camels came back to him when, forgetful 
 of his own poverty, he was busy praying for his 
 friends. Dean Swift was once before an immense 
 throng in London to preach a charity sermon. It 
 was very effective, but it was the shortest sermon 
 on record. After slowly reading his text, " He that 
 hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord," 
 the dean added, *' Now, my brethren, if you are 
 satisfied with the security down with the dust." 
 Underneath his wit was the bed rock of the great 
 law undergirding the universe. It is God, who has 
 been giving out from mind and heart and soul to 
 all the creatures of the universe since the time when 
 the morning stars sang together, who assures that 
 it is more blessed to give than to receive. 
 
 Sometimes your gift seems to be lost. No record 
 seems to be kept of it. It passes forever out of 
 your sight. Nay, not forever ! This life here is not 
 the storehouse of the universe. Such returns as 
 God gives us here are only foretastes of that land 
 where every prayer offered for others is kept as 
 precious perfume. Sometimes, when everything 
 seems to be going away from us in this transitory 
 life, we are ready in our anguish to cry out with the 
 poet, 
 
 *' Summer wind, let the hawthorns rest, 
 Leave the blossom to deck the bough." 
 
136 THE CHRIST DREAM. j 
 
 i 
 
 But the summer winds answer, -' 
 
 I 
 
 " ' Nay, I scatter them east and west — \ 
 
 Who knows where they are drifting now ? ' J 
 
 "Gentle sea, let the white sails stay; '| 
 
 Life is brief, and to part is pain." j 
 
 But the waves reply, j 
 
 " ' Nay, I carry them far away — -s 
 
 Who knows when they may come again ? ' ■ 
 
 " Father Time, let the dreamer be ; 
 
 Spare the visions that charm my sleep. -^ 
 
 • Nay, I laugh at thy dreams and thee ; | 
 
 Thou shalt lose them and wake to weep.* " '- 
 
 But over them all we are more than conquerors, ^ 
 
 and may triumphantly exclaim : ■ 
 
 '' Wind and billow, and ruthless Time, 
 
 All your triumphs shall soon be past. 
 I am bound for a fairer clime, 
 
 Where lost treasures are found at last. " 
 
 " Blooms of summer, and loves of old, ■ 
 
 Hopes that faded and seemed to die, j 
 
 Things more precious than gems or gold, i 
 
 God has stored in his house on high." \ 
 
YESTERDAY. 137 
 
 XII. 
 
 YESTERDAY. 
 
 ** What hast thou done ? " — Gen. iv, lo. 
 
 A MAN cannot run away from his shadow, 
 neither can he escape from his yesterday. 
 We cannot go back to efface or obliterate the rec- 
 ord ; but such as it is it pursues us and refuses to 
 be left behind. The gate into the new year swings 
 on its hinges, and we must pass through. We can- 
 not avoid it if we would, we could not go back if 
 we so desired. But the new year's gate cannot shut 
 out our yesterday. It is ours. It belongs to us. 
 It is a part of us. Herein is the great significance 
 of our individuality. 
 
 It must have seemed personal enough when God 
 came to Cain in that early time with this heart- 
 searching question of the text, " What hast thou 
 done?" and the further declaration, ** The voice of 
 thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground." 
 But It is just as personal now. Our personality is 
 not lost because of the multiplication of individu- 
 als. We are individuals still. Some one says that 
 there is an infinity of littleness which does more to 
 illustrate and exalt the power of God than the infin- 
 ity of greatness. Any being with an arm strong 
 enough could chisel the mountains. Anyone with 
 a hand large enough could hold the ocean. But it 
 
138 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 is not the strong arm alone nor the great hand alone 
 u'hich could fashion a katydid, or paint a tiger lily. 
 He who does both must combine delicacy the most 
 wonderful with power the most mighty. And such 
 is our God. So long as we can pluck in the wildest 
 mountain gorge a tiny flower that is as perfect in 
 all its parts as the rugged mountain itself we may 
 know that God cares for individuals. 
 
 What is an individual? Certainly it cannot be a 
 mere creation of circumstances. Sometimes we say 
 we do not see how a man who has made shipwreck 
 can help being just what he is — that it is only 
 what might have been expected under the circum- 
 stances. But why should it have been expected ? 
 Only because the person is weak, and not because 
 the circumstances are so strong. There is never a 
 sin we fall into but we might have escaped it. 
 There is never a temptation by which we are en- 
 snared but we see afterward how we might have re- 
 sisted it. God has given to us a will powerful and 
 indomitable, which, if assisted by his grace that is 
 freely offered us, can override even the most adverse 
 circumstances and make them stepping-stones by 
 which we rise to higher things. It is not true to 
 say about any person that he is in any sense a crea- 
 ture of chance. He is rather the sum total of causes 
 which he himself has set in motion, a result of forces 
 which he has held in his own hand. Often, when 
 men make a conspicuous success in life, we talk 
 about them as ''self-made men." But why should 
 we thus specialize ? We all make ourselves. Great 
 orators, great scholars, great poets are no more self- 
 made than great drunkards and great fools. A bank 
 
YESTERDAY. 139 
 
 robber is a self-made thief, and these policemen in 
 New York, whose iniquities are being uncovered, 
 are self-made blackmailers and scoundrels. And 
 every one of us to-day is making himself, and some 
 of us have been at work a good while. We have 
 had other opportunities, we have held clews in our 
 hands. We have made discoveries, we have had 
 strength. Whether we have used these things and 
 profited by them or not, we are self-made. There 
 is no other lesson that needs more constant and per- 
 sistent emphasis put upon it in our time than this 
 great truth of our personal, individual accountability 
 to God for our daily lives and for the result of them 
 in character. 
 
 You remember the Scripture lesson from the 
 thirty-second chapter of the Book of Exodus, which 
 tells the story of how the people became impatient 
 and faithless during the absence of Moses on Mount 
 Sinai, and how Aaron took the gold that the peo- 
 ple brought him and made a calf for them to 
 worship. But when Moses came back and re- 
 proached him for it Aaron was frightened and stam- 
 mered out his pitiful excuse : " I said unto them, 
 whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So 
 they gave it me : then I cast it into the fire, and 
 there came out this calf." He did not make the 
 idol. O, no ; not by any means ! It was the 
 naughty fire that made it. He only threw the gold 
 in, and was not responsible for the results. It was 
 truly a very strange and wonderful thing that it 
 should have run together and become a calf; but it 
 was the fire that did it. Alas, how many piti- 
 ful cowards like Aaron there are in the world to-day ! 
 
140 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 Men do what they know to be wrong. They do it 
 deHberately and knowingly, and then try to throw 
 the blame on somebody or something else. 
 
 Mr. D. L. Moody says that he once went from 
 cell to cell in the Sing Sing prison and talked with 
 a large number of the prisoners ; but he found only 
 one man out of the whole lot who confessed that he 
 was guilty and ought to be punished. All the oth- 
 ers were, according to their stories, the unfortunate 
 victims of circumstances. One man was drunk, 
 and, meeting another man as he was staggering 
 home, he thought he would play the part of a rob- 
 ber just for fun. So he pointed his pistol at the 
 other man, and the pistol went off of itself and 
 killed him. He did not mean to do it. The pistol 
 was to blame. Another man had been found guilty 
 of forgery ; but he was as innocent as a newborn 
 babe. The pen somehow would write somebody 
 else's name on the paper. The pen was to blame ; 
 he did nothing but hold it. 
 
 And this is how it is outside of prison everywhere. 
 A young man breaks his mother's heart by some 
 shameful debauch, and he assures her that he never 
 meant to do anything wrong. Some fellow-student 
 or fellow-clerk led him astray and then left him in 
 the lurch. And if you rise up out of this sort of sin 
 and indulgence and ask a man who has lost his spirit- 
 ual vitality, his love for the house of God, his de- 
 light in the class meeting, his ready word of experi- 
 ence and testimony for Christ, his devotion to win- 
 ning souls, he will say : '' My business has been so 
 engrossing I had to leave too early or get home too 
 late to have family prayers. My health requires 
 
YESTERDAY. 141 
 
 that I should have recreation class meeting nights. 
 I was so exhausted that I found it necessary to sleep 
 late on Sunday morning." And so he will go on 
 for a half hour if need be ; but the result and sub- 
 stance of it all is this, that his heart is cold and in- 
 different toward God and the church, that the story 
 of Christ's dying love for him no longer awakes 
 tears of gratitude, that the opportunity to seek and 
 save a lost sinner, which makes angels glad, no 
 longer arouses him to enthusiasm. And he is not 
 to blame for it. It was his business, his compan- 
 ions, his surroundings. Like Aaron, he put the 
 gold into the fire, '' and there came out this calf." 
 And yet we know that Aaron intended to make a 
 calf from the start ; for after it was molded he fash- 
 ioned it with a graving tool. And yet he told 
 Moses that the fire made the calf. He invoked the 
 agency of the fire to accomplish his foolish and 
 wicked purpose, and then laid the blame on it. 
 
 The truth is that, in ninety-nine cases out of a 
 hundred, men's excuses for their sins are just as bad 
 as Aaron's was. They knew that they were putting 
 themselves in association with persons and things 
 that could not help but deteriorate their moral 
 nature. If a man handles pitch it is his own fault 
 that his hands are soiled. He cannot lay the blame 
 on the pitch, for it is its nature to defile, and he 
 knows it. With many people business association 
 is the fire out of which comes the calf which they 
 worship. They take the pure gold of boyhood and 
 young manhood into some place of business to earn 
 their living. They intend to be honest, but above 
 
 all they intend to make money. They find that 
 10 
 
142 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 competition is very keen and sharp on every side. 
 They come to know after a while that certain prac- 
 tices of doubtful honesty are common, customary, 
 and that, in the language of the street, " everybody 
 does so." They yield to the temptation and sacri- 
 fice their conscience to custom. They know that 
 what they do is wrong, but they excuse themselves 
 by saying, '* It is the fault of the business, and not 
 mine." And so they go on casting their personal 
 guilt upon the scapegoat of circumstances, and half 
 believe in their own false and flimsy excuses. 
 
 Phillips Brooks never said anything with more in- 
 sight into human life, which he knew so well, than 
 this, that there are currents of bad influence flowing 
 always in all directions. There is a perpetual river 
 flowing toward sensuality and vice. There is a 
 river flowing perpetually toward hypocrisy and re- 
 ligious pretense. There is a river always running 
 toward skepticism and infidelity. And when you 
 have once given yourself up to either of these rivers 
 there is enough in the swirl of the waters about your 
 boat and in the stress of the current beneath your 
 keel to make you lose the conscious remembrance 
 that it is by your own will that you are there. 
 
 There is no hope for any man or any woman who 
 will thus seek to palliate and excuse personal guilt. 
 If the prodigal in the Saviour's parable had come 
 laying his degradation on the hogs or on his fast 
 friends that brought him into association with them, 
 he would have turned all the father's welcome to 
 bitterness and grief. But when he came crying, " I 
 have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am 
 no more worthy to be called thy son," he showed 
 
YESTERDAY. 143 
 
 that he was earnest and sincere. May God grant 
 us every one, in the ciiurch or out of the church, a 
 keen sense of our personal responsibiHty to God and 
 a conscientious purpose to search our own hearts 
 by the light of God's Spirit ! 
 
 There is this further thought which I wish to em- 
 phasize. The opportunities to do things yesterday 
 closed with yesterday. So each to-day is finishing 
 up a personal record of its own. A story is told of 
 an English minister who, being called to pray by 
 the bedside of a dying man, sought to take him by 
 the hand in token of their agreement in offering 
 united prayer. The sick man withheld his hand, 
 keeping it under the bedclothes, and the minister 
 prayed without it. Presently the man died ; and 
 then as his hand was uncovered the mystery was 
 explained. He was holding in his hand with the 
 grasp of death a key — the key of his safe where his 
 money was kept. 
 
 A newspaper published in Lewlston, Me., related 
 some time since a similar story, concerning a man 
 in the town of Durham in that State. The man was 
 very penurious and very determined. He died at 
 an advanced age. On his deathbed he kept his 
 right hand closely clasped. As he drew his last 
 breath he tightened his hold. Everybody there 
 knew what he held in that hand. It was the key 
 to the chest in which he kept his gold. As his 
 nerveless hand unclosed the key dropped from his 
 fingers and clattered against the bedside. As if to 
 hold it even after he was dead, the miser had tied 
 the key about his wrist by a strong cord, which he 
 grasped as long as life remained. He could not 
 
144 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 take his gold with him, but he kept the key. They 
 buried him as he was, with the key to his money 
 chest tied about his wrist. And what became of 
 the gold? O, the heirs took care of that just the 
 same. They split open the chest with an ax and 
 divided the gold, and let the miser keep the key 
 tied about his wrist. He is moldering in the grave, 
 and the key is rusting beside him. We brought 
 nothing into this world, and it is certain we can 
 take nothing out of it save the treasures of the soul. 
 
 While this man lived, while yesterday was to-day, 
 all power over his wealth was in the hand that 
 could turn that key, and he could have opened that 
 strong box and sent that gold on whatsoever mis- 
 sion of mercy or good he would. But when the 
 iron lock had closed the gate on his yesterday how 
 useless was the rusting key! Dear brothers and 
 sisters, do not put the old story afar off. It has a 
 message for you and for me. Day by day God gives 
 to each one of us a strong box full of wealth, golden 
 opportunities to be patient and kind and charitable 
 and faithful and true, golden words with which to 
 speak messages of brotherly kindness, rapid feet 
 with which to carry messages for the King, to bring 
 cordials of sympathy to the weary and the sick and 
 the troubled. The keys are in our hands. They 
 will unlock the whole storehouse of God ** while the 
 day lasts;" but they are useless, rusty things when 
 we turn with them toward yesterday. 
 
 Gradually, but certainly, our yesterdays are build- 
 ing a character and dictating a destiny, not for to- 
 day only and for to-morrow, but for the never-end- 
 ing day after to-morrow. No man ever lived who 
 
YESTERDAY. 145 
 
 was strong enough to save himself from the results 
 which had been builded into character by himself 
 through his own daily life. Alfred Krupp, or Herr 
 Krupp, as he was known, was called the cannon 
 king of Prussia. He was the Tubal-cain of modern 
 times, and his achievements brought him great fame 
 and enormous wealth. But because of an evil tem- 
 per, which he allowed to grow, in his treatment of 
 his family and of the people who came in contact 
 with him, he became as harsh and vindictive and 
 stubborn and implacable as the iron out of which 
 he forged instruments of death. And, strange to 
 say, this man, who was always devoting his really 
 great mental powers to devise means for the de- 
 struction of life, had himself, perhaps, the most ter- 
 rible fear of death recorded among distinguished 
 men of modern times. A relative of his wife, while 
 on a visit to his home, suddenly fell sick and died. 
 Herr Krupp, when he heard of it, refused to enter 
 his house, but fled to DCisseldorf, and stayed there 
 until the funeral was over. Mrs. Krupp's very nat- 
 ural remonstrance against this conduct so enraged 
 him that she found it impossible to live longer with 
 him. The weakness which sent this '' man of iron " 
 flying from a funeral scene grew into the great tor- 
 ment of his life. He never forgave anyone who 
 spoke to him of dying. The greatest manufacturer 
 of death could not bear the thought or mention of 
 death. It was a standing order throughout his vast 
 works that anyone referring to the subject of death 
 in conversation was to be discharged on the spot. 
 As Krupp grew old the horror of the inevitable end 
 constantly haunted him. And finally, when sick- 
 
146 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 ness came, all the most famous doctors in the Ger- 
 man empire were sent for in turn to attend the 
 unhappy millionaire. The last to be called was 
 Bismarck's physician, Dr. Schweninger. A few 
 days before his death he said to him, '' My dear 
 doctor, make me live ten years longer and I will 
 gladly give you a million." How like the dying 
 shriek of Queen Elizabeth, " Millions of money for 
 an inch of time ! " 
 
 Let me put over against the old Prussian cannon 
 king plain John Dubois, the Pennsylvania lumber 
 king. You may find his name over there yet in the 
 town which his enterprise created. Thousands of 
 men in the great forests and along the rivers gath- 
 ered and rafted his logs, and many hundreds more 
 in mills and shops worked them into a part of the 
 commerce of the world. Every man in his shops 
 and mills, and most of those in the forests, he per- 
 sonally knew, and he treated them with as much 
 kindness and courtesy as if they were partners in 
 his great business. The most obscure worker among 
 all his employees knew that he had in him a kind 
 friend. Once, when times were hard and the 
 price of lumber fell so low as to cut off all profits in 
 the business, his managers concluded that the men's 
 wages must be reduced and presented to him a 
 a schedule of rates. Mr. Dubois looked over the 
 figures, kept them a day and a night, and then told 
 the managers that he could not take anything from 
 the workmen's earnings. ** I find on investigation," 
 he said, *' that these men have all they can do now 
 to pay for the necessaries of life, and I can stand 
 the loss better than they can." 
 
YESTERDAY. 147 
 
 It is unnecessary to say that such a man never 
 had any labor troubles. When he came to his last 
 illness and found that the end was near his heart 
 was with his men, and he had fifty or more of his 
 overseers summoned to his sick room and talked to 
 them. And the men went away saying that they 
 had never heard such a Christian sermon before in 
 their lives. His only regret was that he had not 
 preached Christ personally as much to the men as he 
 ought. ^' I am willing to die," he told them ; ** but 
 if God would give me another year I would spend 
 it in preaching Christ to the men in the mills." 
 These sturdy lumbermen were rugged men, unused 
 to melting moods, but the tears ran down their 
 cheeks while he spoke to them and, calling each one 
 of them by name, with a ''God bless you," bade 
 them good-bye. Only three days afterward he 
 quietly breathed his last. 
 
 " There was no anguish on his brow. 
 No terror in his eye." 
 
 How strangely fitting and characteristic were the 
 deaths of these men. Terribly so was that of the 
 great artificer of war, who was borne on into the 
 eternal shadows fighting and fearing his fate ; but 
 the man of peace, when his time came, had only to 
 fall asleep. How immeasurably greater was he than 
 the other ! Brothers and sisters, what kind of char- 
 acter and destiny are your yesterdays building? 
 
 I cannot close this sermon, so terribly sad in its 
 heart-searching questions, without throwing out the 
 Gospel line of hope to any that are willing here and 
 now to repent of their sins and lay hold upon the 
 
148 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 Saviour. You cannot change the deeds of yester- 
 day — not even the omnipotent hand of the Al- 
 mighty can do that, not even the compassionate, 
 nail-wounded hand of Jesus the Crucified can do 
 that. But, blessed be God ! if we repent of our 
 sins and with open heart confess them " he is faith- 
 ful and just to forgive us our sins," and the body of 
 death may be separated from us ; and with a new 
 purpose and a new hope, born of a sense of God's 
 forgiving love, we may enter upon new lives as new 
 creatures in Christ Jesus. 
 
 There may be thorns in your past, but over them 
 God will lay the pillow of Jesus's dying love for 
 your soul. Paxton Hood tells that he visited his 
 beloved friend Benjamin Parsons when he was dying. 
 And that good man said to him, '' My head is rest- 
 ing very sweetly on three pillows — infinite Power, 
 infinite Love, and infinite Wisdom." Preaching 
 some time afterward, he related the incident ; and 
 some months later he was requested to call upon a 
 young woman who was apparently dying. She said : 
 ^' I felt I must see you before I die. I heard you 
 tell the story of Benjamin Parsons and his three 
 pillows ; and when I went through a surgical opera- 
 tion, and it was very cruel, I was leaning my head 
 upon pillows ; and as they were taking them away 
 I said, ' Mayn't I keep them?' The surgeon said, 
 * No, my dear, we must take them away.' * But,' 
 said I, ' you can't take away Benjamin Parsons's 
 three pillows ; I can lay my head on infinite Power, 
 infinite Love, and infinite Wisdom.' " 
 
WEALTH IN SPIRITUAL UTTERANCE. 149 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE CONDITIONS OF WEALTH IN SPIRITUAL 
 
 UTTERANCE. 
 
 "In everything: ye ar- enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all 
 knowledge." — i Cor, i, 5. 
 
 ONE of the beneficent miracles which bright- 
 ened the Saviour's path during his short and 
 glorious life in Palestine was that he made the dumb 
 to speak. And Paul proclaims in our text that the 
 Saviour has not }'et lost this power; for he declares 
 to these Corinthian Christians, " Ye are enriched by 
 him, in all utterance." And, indeed, it was given 
 as one of the peculiar characteristics of the pen- 
 tecostal periods after our Lord's ascension, in the 
 descriptions of the work of the disciples, that ''the 
 Spirit gave them utterance." 
 
 It is undoubtedly the desire of our Saviour that 
 we .should all be Vv^itnesses for him and to him, not 
 only by our actions, but by the marvelous gift of 
 speech and conversation. I think, also, that there 
 can be no doubt that this gift of helpful spiritual 
 utterance is within the reach of every sincere and 
 honest Christian. I do not mean by this that every- 
 one should have the same ability to .speak, for there 
 is a great diversity of the measure of gifts given to 
 us in every department of human life ; but what I 
 do mean is that it is not necessary for anybody to go 
 
150 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 along the King's highway tongue-tied and dumb. 
 I am sure that it is a matter for serious contempla- 
 tion and for great sorrow that there are such large 
 companies who walk speechless in silent march, 
 like the ghosts of Christians, taking their praiseless 
 way toward the heavenly home. How many there 
 are who are disciples of the Lord Jesus in their in- 
 tention and purpose, and yet no joyous word of 
 gracious, loving invitation breaks from their silent 
 lips, no glad cry of victory or thanksgiving ever 
 bursts from their muffled mouths. 
 
 I should be very sorry if, in trying to help people 
 who honestly feel that they are deficient in expres- 
 sion, I should hurt them ; but the company is so 
 large and the duty of breaking, if possible, the 
 silence of any Christian into thankful testimony 
 so great, that I feel it worth the trial. I think it 
 would help a great many people if they would con- 
 sider this, that the natural ability to be fluent or 
 brilliant in conversation or public speech has very 
 little, if anything, to do with its spiritual effect ; and 
 that oftentimes people who have no brilliancy of 
 speech at all and speak with the greatest hesitancy 
 and embarrassment to themselves have, through the 
 spiritual unction which is granted to them in direct 
 answer to prayer, remarkable influence and power 
 in bearing testimony to the Lord Jesus. 
 
 I do not doubt there are those now near me who 
 have a sincere longing to be able to bear open tes- 
 timony to the Saviour who has done so much to 
 bless and gladden their hearts and lives. I have 
 no doubt many here could join in this prayer of 
 Katharine Lente Stevenson : 
 
WEALTH IN SPIRITUAL UTTERANCE. 151 
 
 " Lord, give me words ! 
 Thy thoughts move in my being's deepest deep 
 
 As, 'neath old ocean's calm or storm-tossed main, 
 The tide swells, though the billows wake or sleep ; 
 I feel thy pulsings in each swift heartbeat ; 
 
 I breathe thee in each breath of joy or pain ; 
 
 But, O, to speak thee forth were bliss complete ! 
 
 Lord, give me words ! 
 
 " Lord, give me words ! 
 Heaven's songs echo, ecstatic, on my ear ; 
 
 The anthem-swell before the great white throng. 
 In moments rare, with my soul's soul I hear ; 
 I catch the song the morning stars glad sing — 
 
 The sphere's deep music through each radiant zone. 
 Could I such symphonies to earth but bring ! 
 Lord, give me words ! 
 
 " Lord, give me words ! 
 I grope, blind, in thy being's deep abyss ; 
 
 Thou who art light, through my dense darkness shine 
 One ray of palpable, white, burning bliss ! 
 Give me one song which shall such echoes wake 
 
 In other hearts as have been waked in mine ! 
 One strain of perfect concord let me make ! 
 Lord, give me words ! 
 
 " Lord, give me words ! 
 I'm dumb ; I have no might to speak thy thoughts ; 
 
 My lips have felt no thrill of angel's touch. 
 With burning coal from life's great altar brought ; 
 Dumb, voiceless, inarticulate, I grope 
 
 About the gates of speech. O Christ, thou pitiedst such ; 
 Thou once didst touch sealed lips ; grant me, too, hope, 
 And give me words ! " 
 
 I am sure that such a prayer is proper and right, 
 and that among the ascension gifts which the Sav- 
 iour obtained for us, when he led captivity captive 
 
152 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 and received gifts for men, was the power to enrich 
 those who love him and who ask for it in utterance. 
 I do not think that your natural gift of utterance 
 has anything to do with it. The less ability you 
 have by nature the more it is possible you may have 
 by God's gift, in spiritual effectiveness. And surely 
 you cannot put this aside and say it cannot mean 
 you because you have such a poverty of utterance, 
 because the very word which is used, ''enrichment," 
 signifies that it is bestowed upon people who are 
 now poor. You cannot enrich a man who is already 
 very wealthy. The very word '' enrichment " indi- 
 cates that there have been meagerness, poverty, and 
 severe limitation. But if a man is very poor you can 
 enrich him ; and that is just what the Lord Jesus 
 Christ will do for every Christian who, with a sincere 
 heart, seeks for the blessed gift of Christian utter- 
 ance, the power of great expression by word of the 
 soul's love to Christ and of its perception of his un- 
 speakable love in return. If the desire of your 
 heart is great enough for such an utterance it is 
 surely possible. 
 
 How may we obtain this gift of utterance ? Very 
 naturally, of course, the man who wrote this first 
 sentence which we are studying is the very best 
 authority to explain to us how we may find it. 
 When we turn over to the second letter of Paul to 
 these Corinthian Christians, we are told what sort 
 of individual Paul expected to find rich in spiritual 
 utterance. In the midst of an exhortation to culti- 
 vate the grace of liberality, in the seventh verse of 
 the eighth chapter of Second Corinthians, he says : 
 *' Therefore, as ye abound in everything, in faith, 
 
WEALTH IN SPIRITUAL UTTERANCE. 153 
 
 and utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, 
 and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this 
 grace also." Now if we accept these words of Paul 
 as expressing his mind on the subject it is very easy 
 for us to settle upon some of the definite conditions 
 from which springs a rich spiritual utterance. 
 
 First, it springs from a strong faith. *' I believed, 
 therefore have I spoken," said a good man of the 
 olden time. The man who doubts is always hesi- 
 tating and uncertain, and naturally poverty-stricken 
 in helpful speech. A deep, intense faith forces an 
 utterance, as the upswelling fountain forces an out- 
 let for its waters. The man of faith always has an 
 experience to talk about which is rich to hear. I do 
 not mean by faith a mere intellectual assent to some 
 creed, but a vital, acting faith, such as the farmer 
 has in autumn about the coming of winter, which 
 causes him to fill the garner full of stores against 
 the days of storm and cold ; such a faith as Dr. 
 Joseph Parker illustrates by the sailor's belief that 
 the river runs to the sea, and that the sea is large 
 enough to sustain his ship. It is acting upon such 
 a faith when he launches his vessel. If the vessel is 
 left standing on the stocks w^hen she is finished, then 
 all his praises of the ocean go for nothing. It would 
 have been better never to have built the ship than 
 to leave her unlaunched — a monument of his 
 scientific belief, but also a testimony to his practical 
 infidelity. 
 
 Our faith in God is a seagoing ship. It is meant 
 for the wide waters of the great deep. We are to sail 
 out beyond the reach of buoys or lighthouses and 
 take our reckoning from the Star of Bethlehem at 
 
154 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 night and from the Sun of righteousness by day. 
 This is a Hving faith. To simply beheve in God in 
 your head, by intellectual assent, is like sitting in a 
 ship that is rotting down by the dock, because she 
 is chained to her moorings. But to believe in God 
 with all your heart, surrendering to him your will 
 and your love, is to cut loose from the moorings and 
 sail out upon the great ocean, trusting him under all 
 circumstances, crying out, with the Old Testament 
 hero, *' What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee,'* 
 and " I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and 
 my fortress : my God ; in him will I trust." And, 
 my friends, just as surely as the sailor has a log book 
 full of interesting reminiscences of sky and sea and 
 storm, so the voyager of faith will have a log book 
 full of interesting reminiscences of sea and storm 
 and sky. Not only stories of fightings in the teeth 
 of the gale, but of sweet communion with the 
 dwellers above the sky. 
 
 The utterance of such an experimental faith is 
 always rich in influence. It is related that Bishop 
 Kavanaugh was walking one day when he met a 
 prominent physician, who offered him a seat in his 
 carriage. The physician was an infidel, and the con- 
 versation turned upon religion. " I am surprised," 
 said the doctor, '' that such an intelligent man as 
 you should believe such an old fable as that." The 
 bishop said, '* Doctor, suppose years ago some one 
 had recommended to you a prescription for pulmo- 
 nary consumption, and you had procured the pre- 
 scription and taken it according to order and had 
 been cured of that terrible disease. What would 
 you say of the man who would not try your 
 
WEALTH IN SPIRITUAL UTTERANCE. 155 
 
 prescription ? " '* I should say he was a fool." 
 •' Twenty-five years ago," said Kavanaugh, *' I 
 tried the power of God's grace. It made a different 
 man of me. All these years I have preached salva- 
 tion, and wherever accepted I have never known it 
 to fail." What could the doctor say to such testi- 
 mony as that? And such testimonies have more 
 power in turning men from the error of their ways 
 to the personal experience of the saving power of 
 Jesus Christ than anything else. 
 
 ** How would you prove the divinity of Christ?" 
 said some ministers to a young backwoods preacher 
 whom they were examining. ** What ? " said he, 
 puzzled by their question. '' How would you prove 
 the divinity of Christ ? " '* Why, he saved my soul," 
 was the triumphant reply. But to give this answer 
 with effectiveness and power one must be saved and 
 know it in his heart and show it in his life ; and he 
 then becomes a living epistle, known and read of all 
 men. Nothing could be more fruitless than the 
 hollow expression of faith that has no heart behind 
 it. But with a sincere heart throbbing behind the 
 utterance, it is the very message of God to those who 
 hear. 
 
 A rich utterance springs from a full knowledge. 
 It is worth noticing and very significant that, in both 
 these striking statements of Paul in his letters to 
 the Corinthians, knowledge and utterance are closely 
 linked together. Is it not true that many times we 
 are very shy about uttering words about our Saviour 
 when our restraint is, not that we are so timid or 
 diffident, but because our knowledge of the Lord is 
 not very recent? A lamp always gives a poor 
 
156 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 light, no matter how good the wick or how clear the 
 chimney, when the oil is out. The Lord will not 
 quench smoking flax, he will be very tender with a 
 wick that is out of order, but there is no possibility 
 of getting light where there is no oil. The lamp 
 ceases to have utterance because all its stores of utter- 
 ance are impoverished. Of course we cannot expect 
 to express life when we haven't it. The root of all 
 effective spiritual utterance is a knowledge of God, 
 a rich acquaintance with spiritual things. 
 
 It is natural when anything is over full that it 
 w\\\ overflow. The mouth speaks out of the abun- 
 dance of what is in the heart. That is the Saviour's 
 own figure. And so we will very naturally talk 
 about the things we know most about and are most 
 interested in. General Grant was once criticised by 
 a public man as an ignoramus, who knew nothing 
 about anything except horses. When the accu- 
 sation was brought to the attention of the silent 
 man of Appomattox he remarked that, when it was 
 necessary for him to hold conversation with others, 
 he always tried to find out the one subject on which 
 they were most intelligent and endeavor to adapt 
 himself to the occasion. If one is wrapped up in 
 business, that is what one will naturally talk about. 
 Where one's treasure is there one's heart will be, 
 and the utterance will give expression to what is in 
 the heart. We may force ourselves to talk about 
 other tilings, but helpful utterance will always be 
 linked with knowledge. An empty head or an 
 empty heart cannot give out intellectual or spiritual 
 riches, any more than an empty vault can give out 
 gold or an empty reservoir send out cooling streams 
 
WEALTH IN SPIRITUAL UTTERANCE. 157 
 
 of water. If we are to have a rich spiritual utter- 
 ance we must have a heart full of rich treasure. We 
 must enrich our storehouse with the knowledge of 
 God, through his word and through his revelation 
 of himself to our hearts and to other Christians. 
 
 Are there not those here who might have well 
 said to the Lord, as they sat down here to enter 
 upon this service : " O Lord, I confess unto thee 
 that I have given very little time indeed to the 
 study of thy word during the last year, but I have 
 never failed to read the daily paper. I have not 
 delighted in thy law by day or night, but I kept 
 well up on the discussions on the strike and the 
 revelations of the Lexow Committee. I have not 
 failed to search diligently the columns of the Trib- 
 une, or the Herald^ the World, or the Eagle, or the 
 Standard-Union. Lord, do I not deserve some 
 credit for this ? If, alas, thy word has not been stead- 
 ily a light unto my feet, still the electric lights of 
 men have thrown a moonlight splendor over my en- 
 tire inner consciousness. I do not perceive very 
 clearly thy presence in my daily life, and I do not 
 greatly enjoy the more spiritual services of thy 
 house, but I still cling to the orthodox faith of the 
 fathers and desire to be counted among thy follow- 
 ers.'* I wonder if that would not be a pretty cor- 
 rect statement of the condition of some hearts ? 
 
 And if there are any here who have given them- 
 selves up to read the Sunday paper this morning as 
 a prelude to coming to the worship of God, then 
 your minds are probably in a still worse condition. 
 Did you ever in the summer time, when you were 
 
 out in the country, put on your best clothes on 
 11 
 
158 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 Sunday morning and go out for a stroll through 
 the pastures and woods, and come through a miser- 
 able patch of weeds or walk home by a dusty road, 
 and find when you got home that your clothes were 
 covered with dust and cockle burs and discolored 
 with all sorts of weeds and dirt? If so, your outward 
 condition at such a time for appearance in the house 
 of God would be something to compare with the 
 inward condition of a man's mind and heart wdio 
 has been reading the secular Sunday paper on Sun- 
 day morning, and comes to church to undertake to 
 worship God with all the dust and cockle burs and 
 gossips and scandals — the most trashy and the least 
 valuable of all the utterances of the daily press — 
 obtruding themselves in his mind and heart. No 
 wonder that such a person has nothing helpful to say 
 in a spiritual meeting. Depend upon it that if you 
 are to be helpful in spiritual utterance your heart 
 must be a treasure house of spiritual knowledge. 
 
 A rich utterance springs from a diligent soul. 
 No lips were ever so rich in utterance as those of 
 Jesus Christ, and none was ever so sleeplessly dili- 
 gent as he. In three short years he so touched the 
 life of his time, indeed so impressed the heart of 
 humanity itself, that he becomes more powerful in 
 the world every year ; and his utterances made to 
 those simple peasants in Palestine have become the 
 richest and sweetest utterances of all languages to 
 ever-increasing millions in all parts of the world. 
 He went about doing good ; and out of this daily 
 service, as he went on his mission of mercy and sal- 
 vation, the rich utterances which revealed the heart 
 of God sprang as naturally to his lips as any other 
 
WEALTH IN SPIRITUAL UTTERANCE. 159 
 
 conversations that are recorded in human history. 
 If we shall go about doing good as did our Master, 
 filling our lives with gracious deeds, carrying on our 
 hearts the sorrows and the weaknesses of the op- 
 pressed and infirm, working in fellowship with God, 
 seeking to bring gladness to the disconsolate and 
 the weary, rich spiritual utterance will come to us 
 that will be full of blessing to those who hear it. 
 
 A Christian merchant in New York city was one 
 day passing out of a warehouse where he had been 
 doing some business, when he met near the door 
 one of the clerks with whom he was acquainted. 
 He was in a great hurry, but he took the time to 
 lay his hand gently on the young man's shoulder 
 
 and say kindly and earnestly, " My dear , 3/ou 
 
 ought to be with us." He passed on, not knowing 
 at the time whether any impression had been made 
 by the remark. But the gentle utterance, given 
 power by the Holy Spirit, found its w^ay to the heart 
 of the young man, and in a little while he was with 
 them in heavenly fellov/ship. 
 
 Finally, a rich utterance springs from a generous 
 soul. A half-hearted, hesitating service is generally 
 irksome and unprofitable to everybody connected 
 with it. This is just as true about religion as it is 
 about anything else. A man who dallies with his 
 religious privileges and is half afraid to commit him- 
 self to the Lord or to the devil is in the condition 
 of those people about whom the Saviour speaks, in 
 the Book of Revelation, and of whom he says, '' Be- 
 cause thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, 
 I will spew thee out of my mouth." You must give 
 your whole heart and life to the Lord if you would 
 
160 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 have rich spiritual experience, a joyous Christian 
 life, and a spiritual ability in conversation to make 
 the heavenly visions that come to you a blessing to 
 others. It is not so much the am.ount of your gifts 
 that makes you valuable to the church or to the 
 world as that, first of all, you give yourself. If you 
 do that, no matter how small the self seems to be 
 that you have to give, God will enlarge and bless 
 your soul and fill it with rich treasures that shall 
 overflow to bless all other lives. 
 
 Some one says, very beautifully, that the smallest 
 bar of song breathed into the world adds its sweet- 
 ness to the world's music. The right thing you did 
 yesterday made the world a little better, made it 
 easier, too, for other people to do right. The un- 
 selfish deed you did last week made the forces of 
 love on the earth a little stronger, and made it 
 easier for others to be unselfish. Rest assured that 
 no matter how small our message, how trite or 
 commonplace it seems, the world cannot afford to 
 miss hearing it. The least lovely thing done leaves 
 a touch of new beauty somewhere. 
 
 " There's never a rose in all the world 
 But makes some green spray sweeter ; 
 
 There's never a vv^ind in all the sky- 
 But makes some bird wing fleeter ; 
 
 There's never a star but brings to heaven 
 Some silver radiance tender ; 
 
 And never a rosy cloud but helps 
 To crown the sunset splendor ; 
 
 No robin but may thrill some heart, 
 His dawn-light gladness voicing. 
 
 God gives us all some small, sweet way 
 To set the world rejoicing." 
 
DANTE'S STAIRCASE FROM DESPAIR TO HOPE. 161 
 
 XIV. 
 DANTE'S STAIRCASE FROM DESPAIR TO HOPE. 
 
 "He that is holy." — Rev. iii, 7. 
 
 " God be merciful to me a sinner." — Luke xviii, 13. 
 
 " We have redemption through his blood." — Eph. i, 7. 
 
 I HAVE brought these three suggestive scriptures 
 together that we might study them in connec- 
 tion with a very vivid picture, which is given in 
 Dante's *' Purgatory," of the three steps in a stair- 
 case from despair to hope. The great poet brings 
 his pilgrim in sight of the gate of diamond that 
 leads into the place where souls may be cleansed 
 from sin and fitted for Paradise. To this gate, 
 
 "With frontispiece of diamond and gold embellished," 
 there is a mysterious staircase, the composition of 
 whose steps is very minutely described. Dante 
 says : 
 
 " Thither did we approach ; and the first stair 
 Was marble white, so polished and so smooth 
 I mirrored myself therein as I appear. 
 The second, tinct of deeper hue than pers, 
 Was of calcined and uneven stone, 
 Cracked all asunder, lengthwise and across. 
 The third, that uppermost rests massively, 
 Porphyry seemed to me, as flaming red 
 As blood that from a vein is spurting forth." 
 
 In the notes to Longfellow's version, from which 
 I make this quotation, we are told that the first 
 
162 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 stair is confession ; the second, contrition ; and the 
 third, penance. No doubt these notes are in har- 
 mony with medieval ideas ; but it seems to me that 
 Dr. Talbot W. Chambers and other students are 
 far more true to the natural suggestion in these 
 lines, when they give to them the interpretation 
 which I have intimated in the three scriptures 
 which I have brought together. 
 
 First, is the block of white marble forming the 
 first step, polished with such perfection that, like a 
 mirror, it reflected fully the images of those who set 
 their feet upon it. Surely this must picture the 
 perfect holiness of the divine nature, in whose pure 
 heart when the most self-righteous man sees him- 
 self mirrored he is horrified at his own sins and in- 
 iquities. It is easy for a man to compare himself 
 with other sinful people about him, until he is flat- 
 tered at the idea that he is equal to or better than 
 the average of his neighbors ; but Avhen he brings 
 himself face to face with Jesus Christ and looks 
 into that holy mirror, showing what manhood ought 
 to be and can be by divine help, he is shocked to 
 see how dwarfed and marred he is. That must 
 have been what the psalmist means when, in the 
 ninetieth psalm he says, ** Thou hast set our iniqui- 
 ties before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy 
 countenance." 
 
 How often you hear it said about a picture or 
 about the complexion of a human face, *' It will not 
 bear too strong a light." How many times in these 
 recent days of investigation into the iniquitous gov- 
 ernment of our cities it is said about this or that 
 man or transaction, '' It will not bear being brought 
 
DANTE'S STAIRCASE FROM DESPAIR TO HOPE. 163 
 
 to the light." And many a man whose conduct 
 has passed the ordinary scrutiny of his fellows has, 
 when brought into the clear, searching light of the 
 righteous demands of law, been disgraced and over- 
 thrown. So the saintly Dr. Edward Payson says 
 that, if we would see our sins as they really are, if 
 we would see their number, blackness, and crimi- 
 naHty, and the malignity and desert of every sin, we 
 must see them in the light of God's purity and 
 righteousness by which our sins must be judged. If 
 we would see our sins in their true colors we must 
 bring them into the hallowed place and consider 
 how they will appear when the pure eyes of the 
 Saviour looks on them. 
 
 Job experienced this and describes it when he 
 says to God : " I have heard of thee by the hearing 
 of the ear : but now mine eye seeth thee. Where- 
 fore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." 
 It was after Zacchaeus had looked into the searching 
 eyes of Christ and into the perfect honesty of that 
 noble heart that he became so ashamed of his own 
 fraud and, full of repentance, exclaimed, " The half 
 of my goods I give to the poor ; and wherever I 
 have taken wrongfully from any man I will make a 
 fourfold restitution." Saul was proud and bigoted 
 and self-righteous ; but when the brightness of the 
 glory of Jesus Christ shone around him on his way 
 to Damascus he saw the ugliness of his heart, that 
 it was full of hate and anger and bigotry, when 
 brought alongside of the gentle purity and tender- 
 ness of Jesus. In the light of that vision it seemed 
 to him that he was the greatest sinner that ever 
 lived in the world. And long years afterward, writ- 
 
164 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 ing to Timothy, he says — and nobody can doubt 
 that he meant every word of it — *^ This is a faithful 
 saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ 
 Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom 
 I am chief." 
 
 The trouble with a great many people who are 
 finding fault with the Scripture doctrine so clearly 
 declared everywhere — that God hates sin and must 
 and will punish it wherever found, and that the sin- 
 ner finally impenitent will bring everlasting doom 
 upon his soul — is that they do not recognize what a 
 horrible thing sin is. O my friends, do not be de- 
 ceived. Do not measure yourselves by the imper- 
 fect characters about you, but measure by that one 
 perfect character who has worn humanity — the Lord 
 Jesus Christ. I wish you could stand at Dante's 
 first stair and see yourselves mirrored as you are ; 
 see every ambition and lust and appetite, and see 
 how it links you with all the horrid brood of iniquity. 
 You would be shocked and horrified, but it might 
 be your salvation. Some time you will have a look 
 like that. I pray God it may not be too late for 
 you to benefit by it ! 
 
 At Grand Rapids, recently, the cash till of a cer- 
 tain business firm was frequently tampered with 
 and money extracted. The cashier determined on 
 a novel thief-catching experiment. He arranged a 
 kodak upon a convenient shelf near the desk, and 
 also fixed a pan of powder close by. A set of elec- 
 tric wires was arranged so that a slight pull upon 
 the cash drawer set off the powder, and by means 
 of the flash light so obtained an instantaneous pho- 
 tograph could be taken. The trap was set for a 
 
DANTE'S STAIRCASE FROM DESPAIR TO HOPE. 165 
 
 Saturday night, and it worked to perfection. When 
 the plate from the kodak was developed it showed 
 a good photograph of three boys in the act of open- 
 ing the cash drawer. The police were called in, and 
 after a search the boys were arrested. They denied 
 everything at first, feeling sure that there was no 
 evidence against them ; but when confronted with 
 the photograph they were overwhelmed with amaze- 
 ment, broke down completely, and confessed all. 
 God has so arranged everything in this world that 
 it makes a record ; and no Edison has ever been 
 able to make an instrument so perfect in its power 
 to record sound or touch or form or fact as the 
 memory which you carry in your own heart. And 
 you may depend upon it that some time you shall 
 have to face this record, face it in the dazzling light 
 of the great white throne ; and we shall have no 
 disposition to deny anything, for it will be only 
 necessary to bring out the records from that won- 
 derful picture gallery in our own memory. How 
 much wiser it is to search our own hearts now in 
 the light of God's face, to come now and look into 
 this holy mirror when, instead of meaning our 
 doom, it may be the first step in the stairway 
 toward our salvation. There is nobody in this 
 world to be so pitied as the self-righteous soul de- 
 ceiving his own heart. Lucy Larcom sings the 
 scriptural truth very clearly : 
 
 " Have pity, Lord, upon the poor, 
 
 The poor who think themselves the rich, 
 
 Who only of this world are sure 
 
 And know not of the treasury which 
 
 Thy children hold, who with thee stay 
 
 And share thy glory day by day. 
 
166 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 " Have pity, Lord, on hearts that he 
 Wrapped in a selfish peace, asleep ; 
 
 That will not wake at misery's cry. 
 That can be glad while others weep. 
 
 That shut thy holy light away 
 
 And dream that their own night is day. 
 
 " Have pity, Lord, on us, the blind. 
 Who lead thy groping souls astray ; 
 
 On us, the proud, whose foolish minds 
 Will not believe in thee, the Way ! 
 
 Pity us, humble us, till we. 
 
 As little children, follow thee ! 
 
 " Have pity, Lord, upon us all, 
 
 Us sinners, judging others' sins. 
 Scoffing at stumblers while we fall. 
 
 O loving Lord, whoever wins 
 A place beside thee in thy heaven 
 Must win it as a soul forgiven." 
 
 The second step, which Dante's pilgrim cHmbed 
 toward hope was a dark stone, cracked lengthwise 
 and broken across through its whole mass. What 
 a suggestive figure this with which to compare a 
 broken heart and contrite spirit wrung with a 
 sense of sin. The poor publican, standing in the 
 temple, not daring so much as to lift his eyes toward 
 heaven, but with sobs that shake his rugged frame 
 and tears that tell of the deep agony of his heart, 
 crying out, " God be merciful to me a sinner," is the 
 natural picture that rises to our mind from the 
 study of this second step in Dante's stair. Or you 
 see poor Peter, trying to walk on the boisterous 
 waves of Galilee to meet the Saviour, feeling him- 
 self sinking and drowning, and crying out to the 
 Lord, " Save me, I perish! " 
 
DANTE'S STAIRCASE FROM DESPAIR TO HOPE. 167 
 
 When one gets a clear view of himself and sees 
 that he is a poor, miserable sinner his heart is 
 broken down before God's great love and mercy in 
 offering to save him, and there is born a real re- 
 pentance, which not only makes him loathe his. sin 
 — for many a man does that and goes on commit- 
 ting his sin over and over — but makes him turn 
 away from his sin and cry out to the Lord for mercy 
 and salvation. He is like the people on the day of 
 Pentecost who, when Peter accused them of being 
 a part of the mob that hounded Jesus to his cruci- 
 fixion, saw their sin so clearly and were so heart- 
 broken over it that they did not think of resenting 
 his words, but cried out in agony, " What shall we 
 do to be saved ? " 
 
 In the Middle Ages, when lords and knights were 
 at war with each other, one of them resolved to 
 avenge himself upon a neighbor who had offended 
 him. It happened that on the very evening when 
 he had made this resolution he heard that his en- 
 emy was to pass near his castle, and with only a few 
 men with him. It was a good opportunity to take 
 his revenge, and he determined not to let it pass. 
 He spoke of his plan in the presence of his chaplain, 
 who tried in vain to persuade him to give it up. 
 The good man spoke of the sin he was about to 
 commit, but his words had no effect. At last he 
 said : " My lord, since I cannot persuade you to 
 give up this plan of yours, will you, at least, con- 
 sent to come with me to the chapel, that we may 
 pray together before you go ? " The duke con- 
 sented, and the chaplain and he knelt together in 
 prayer. Then the mercy-loving Christian said to 
 
168 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 the revengeful warrior : " Will you repeat after me, 
 sentence by sentence, the prayer which our Lord 
 Jesus Christ himself taught to his disciples ? " ''I 
 will do it," replied the duke. The chaplain said a 
 sentence, and the duke repeated it, till he came to 
 the petition, '' Forgive us our trespasses, as we for- 
 give them that trespass against us." There the 
 duke was silent. '' My lord duke, you are silent," 
 said the chaplain. '' Will you be so good as to con- 
 tinue to repeat the words after me, if you dare say 
 so ? ' Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them 
 that trespass against us.' " " I cannot," replied the 
 duke. " Well, God cannot forgive you, for he has 
 said so. He himself has given this prayer. There- 
 fore, you must either give up your revenge or give 
 up saying this prayer ; for to ask God to pardon 
 you as you pardon others is to ask him to take 
 vengeance on you for all your sins. Go now, my 
 lord, and meet your victim. God will meet you at 
 the great day of judgment." The iron will of the 
 duke was broken. " No," said he ; ''I Vv^ill finish 
 my prayer. My God, my Father, pardon me ; for- 
 give me as I forgive him who has offended me." 
 ''Amen ! " said the chaplain. ''Amen ! " repeated 
 the duke, who had for the first time in his life un- 
 derstood the true meaning of the Lord's Prayer. 
 
 I pray God, if you are a sinner against him to- 
 night, that you may not only see the fact in the 
 mirror of his pure heart and righteous word, but 
 that your heart may be broken down in the pres- 
 ence of your sin, and that thus you may climb the 
 second step toward salvation. 
 
 The third step, upon which stood both feet of the 
 
DANTE'S STAIRCASE FROM DESPAIR TO HOPE. 169 
 
 angel who guarded the entrance, was a sohd block 
 of porphyry, red as the blood that spurts forth from 
 the smitten vein. Surely we can see nothing else 
 in this but the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, shed 
 as an atonement for us. This vein of crimson blood 
 of sacrifice runs through the whole Bible every- 
 where, and Jesus came as the Lamb of God to take 
 away the sin of the world. " We have redemption 
 through his blood." 
 
 Some people claim that their aesthetic natures re- 
 coil from the idea of this giving of the blood of the 
 Lord Jesus for us. They say it makes them think 
 about the shambles and horrifies them. Strange 
 that it never horrifies them anywhere else. Every- 
 thing that is most heroic, that is noblest and most 
 splendid, in human life is in perfect harmony with 
 it. The most aesthetic of these kid-gloved theologi- 
 ans never thinks of the shambles when he recalls 
 the fact that the mother gives of her own blood and 
 perils her own life to bring her child into the world. 
 It does not occur to him, perhaps, to think of the 
 shambles when some fireman in the lurid glare of 
 the midnight flames, finding the ladder too short to 
 reach the window above him where human beings 
 are about to perish, clings with his feet to the top 
 rung of the ladder, presses his bleeding fingers into 
 some crevice of the wall over his head, and makes 
 of his own broad shoulders a human bridge by 
 which the perishing may climb to life and safety. 
 It is only when the great heart of God, longing for 
 his children lost in sin, crying out after them, gives 
 his Son to suffer and die for the lost, to be born 
 under the law that he might ransom those that were 
 
170 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 under the law, and to shed his blood as a sacrifice 
 for perishing sinners — it is only then that such a 
 man thinks of the shambles. 
 
 This wonderful, precious doctrine of the atone- 
 ment through Jesus Christ is in harmony with all 
 that we know of the character of God, is in har- 
 mony with his universe, in harmony with all that is 
 best and truest in human nature. It is the Strong 
 baring his shoulders to carry the burdens of the 
 weak ; it is the Highest stooping to save the low- 
 est ; it is the Best coming to ransom the bad. O, 
 this is a conception of a God about Avhose neck I 
 can throw my arms, and upon whose bosom I can 
 pillow my head ! On this blood-red stone I can 
 plant my feet and know that this is " the Way, the 
 Truth, and the Life." 
 
 Not in our goodness, but in his goodness, is our 
 hope. A minister of the Gospel was once asked to 
 visit a poor dying woman. The messenger, being 
 ignorant, could give no account of her state, except 
 that she was a very good woman and very happy, 
 and was now at the end of a well-spent life and, 
 therefore, sure of going to heaven. The minister 
 went, saw she was very ill, and after a few kindly 
 inquiries about her bodily condition, said, '' Well, I 
 understand you are in a very peaceful state of mind, 
 depending upon a well-spent life." The dying 
 woman looked hard at him and said, " Yes, I am 
 in the enjoyment of peace, and that from a well- 
 spent Hfe, but it is the well-spent life of Jesus — not 
 my doings, but his; not my merits, but his blood." 
 
 I offer you that atonement as your only sure 
 foundation of hope. You may be saved, not be- 
 
DANTE'S STAIRCASE FROM DESPAIR TO HOPE. 171 
 
 cause of any good thing that you have clone, but 
 because Jesus has died to redeem you. If you will 
 accept his atonement by repentance and faith you 
 may have salvation. " If we confess our sins, he is 
 faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse 
 us from ail unrighteousness." And if you will, as 
 you realize your sin, but place your feet on this 
 stair of flaming red porphyry, crimsoned by the 
 blood of the Saviour, the doorway of hope shall be 
 wide open to you, and it shall lead, not as Dante 
 dreamed, into a long state of painful discipline, but 
 into love and joy and peace in the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Remember that it is not enough to know you are 
 a sinner ; it is not enough to confess it, to be sorry 
 for it, and to have many longing wishes and desires 
 for a pure life. Neither can any ceremony or ob- 
 servance or sacrament by any means save you. You 
 must really climb the stairway to hope. You must 
 repent of your sins, and accept the Lord Jesus 
 Christ as your atonement for sins, and rest your 
 weary heart upon him as your Saviour. That you 
 may do here and now. In your heart of hearts you 
 may accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your atone- 
 ment, as your Redeemer. There may be many 
 other things you will have to do, confessions you 
 will need to make, restitution, it may be, where 
 you have wronged others; but if you will right 
 here and now repent of your sin and turn away 
 from it and accept Jesus Christ as your Saviour God 
 will trust you, he will take you at your word, he 
 will pardon your sins, and will give you the witness 
 of the Spirit in your heart that you are a child of 
 God. 
 
172 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE SUPREMACY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 
 
 ' ' Fear not : for they that be with us are more than they that be with 
 them. And EUsha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, 
 that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man ; and 
 he saw : and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire 
 round about EHsha."— 2 Kings vi, 16, 17. 
 
 THE King of Syria was at war with Israel, but 
 the King of Israel had a tremendous rein- 
 forcement in the person of Elisha, the man of God. 
 God revealed to Elisha the purposes of the King 
 of Syria, and he was thus able again and again to 
 save the army of Israel from destruction. After 
 this had happened a good many times and the King 
 of Syria, who prided himself on his military fore- 
 sight, had been thwarted frequently, he came to 
 the conclusion that some of his officers must be 
 traitors ; and so he caUed a council of war and said 
 to them, '* Will ye not show me which of us is for 
 the King of Israel ? " But one of his staff officers 
 had found out what was the matter, and said, 
 " There are none of us traitors, your majesty ; but 
 the fact is that Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, 
 has a habit of telling the King of Israel the plans 
 which you discuss with us in your* bedchamber." 
 As soon as the king heard this he was determined 
 to capture Elisha. His action in this matter is a 
 signal illustration of the ordinary blindness and ig- 
 norance of worldly men concerning spiritual things. 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 173 
 
 But he began immediately to lay his plans, and 
 sent out his spies to find Elisha, that he might send 
 and take him. Finally they brought word to him 
 that the prophet was in Dothan. As soon as this 
 news came he marshaled a great army, with horses 
 and chariots and a great host of infantry, and sent 
 them forth in the night to surround the little town 
 of Dothan and make sure of the capture of this 
 troublesome prophet. 
 
 And it came to pass the next morning, when Eli- 
 sha's private secretary went out to take his morning 
 walk and look about, he beheld to his astonishment 
 and fear the town surrounded on every side by a 
 great army, accompanied with horses and chariots 
 of war ; and he came back to Elisha in despair, 
 crying, " Alas, my master ! how shall we do ? " And 
 Elisha's answer was the remarkable statement of 
 the text, '' Fear not : for they that be with us are 
 more than they that be with them. And Elisha 
 prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, 
 that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes 
 of the young man ; and he saw : and, behold, the 
 mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire 
 round about Elisha." 
 
 The first great truth suggested to my mind by 
 this graphic picture is this, that spiritual perception 
 depends on harmonious relations to spiritual things. 
 All perception is obedient to this law. The char- 
 acter of the mind and heart dictate what we see in 
 nature. The same picture of forest, mountain, or 
 sea does not always have the same revelation to 
 every observer, by any means. Some one has writ- 
 ten with keen intellectual insight, 
 12 
 
174 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 " The poem hangs on the berry bush, 
 
 When comes the poet's eye ; 
 The street is one long masquerade, 
 
 When Shakespeare passes by." 
 
 But it takes the poetic eye and the dramatic mind 
 to see these things. What we see and observe will 
 always have very close relations, in quality and 
 quantity, to the measure of perceptive capacity we 
 carry with us. I have been reading recently, with a 
 great deal of interest, something of Humboldt's 
 travels in America. He came over to this country 
 and spent only five years on the American conti- 
 nent, before there were any railroads or any rapid 
 methods of transportation ; and yet when he went 
 back it took twenty-eight immense volumes and a 
 half dozen of the best literary men in Europe many 
 years to put on record what he saw over here in 
 five years. Yet you and I know plenty of men who 
 have been here fifty years and could tell a stenog- 
 rapher in half a day all they have ever seen, though 
 they may have traveled from ocean to ocean in a 
 palace car. Thousands of men have gone up Vesu- 
 vius and back, and neither they nor the world are 
 any wiser for it. But Humboldt and two of his 
 friends walked up Vesuvius one day, and the world 
 has been richer in knowledge ever since for that one 
 little excursion. 
 
 A scratch on a rock in a blueberry patch up in 
 Maine or New Hampshire does not mean anything 
 to the average farmer who wishes the rock would 
 suddenly decay into some kind of fertilizer to make 
 his soil richer ; but Louis Agassiz would come by 
 and see the scratch on the rock, and tell you approx- 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 175 
 
 imately the date when an iceberg passed that way 
 ages ago or when glaciers once lay there and ground 
 their course southward. So in observations of our 
 fellow-men. We see in men and women about us 
 only those things which we can understand from 
 something that is in us. The nobler we are the 
 clearer we see the germs of nobility and possibility 
 for good in every other human life. Emerson sang 
 
 •' Let me go where'er I will, 
 I hear a sky-born music still. 
 'Tis not in the high stars alone, 
 
 Nor in the cups of budding flowers, 
 Nor ill the redbreast's mellow tone, 
 
 Nor in the bow that smiles in showers, 
 But in the mud and scum of things ; 
 There alway something sings." 
 
 But we cannot hear sky-born music unless there be 
 something in us in harmony with it. The keener 
 our ov/n sense the more we appreciate others. See 
 Dr. Howe feeling his way to Laura Bridgman's 
 imprisoned soul, and finding that soul and bringing 
 it forth to the w^orld along the pathway of a single 
 sense — the sense of touch — left in the palm of Lau- 
 ra's hand. That mighty tunnel, twelve miles long, 
 under the St. Gothard Alps was a small achieve- 
 ment compared to the self-denying labor of tunnel- 
 ing back into the darkness along that one blind 
 nerve to find a human soul. 
 
 Yet in a moral way, or rather in a spiritual way, 
 that modern miracle of self-denying perseverance 
 needs to be wrought over and over again on all our 
 streets. What Dr. Howe was to Laura Bridgman 
 God desires us to be to spiritually paralyzed and 
 
176 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 blinded souls everywhere. Did you ever pause to 
 meditate on the vast stretch of possibiHty com- 
 passed in that declaration of John, v^here he says 
 that there is given unto us ^' power to become the 
 sons of God ? " I wish you would put the question 
 very solemnly to your own heart while I look you 
 in the face, What is your estimate of humanity ? 
 Do the men and women whom you meet in your 
 daily life appeal to you in this way, as beings with 
 power in them to become the sons of God ? Are 
 the streets full of souls to you, or are they only 
 full of bodies, more or less clean, more or less satis- 
 factory to your taste, more or less fashionably 
 clothed ? O, my brother, do you know there is no 
 such severe judgment seat as a question like that 
 put to your own heart ? If, when you walk in and 
 out among men in the street or the car or the store 
 or the church, there is a look of scorn in your eyes, 
 a feeling of indifference or contempt in your heart, 
 at the ignorance or shame or sin of the people 
 whom you meet, then you may be sure that, morti- 
 fying as it is to confess it, there is something akin 
 to that which you see in them in your own heart. 
 
 When we ourselves are the true sons of God we 
 will see the possibility of divine sonship in all oth- 
 ers, and long to fly to the rescue and bring it forth 
 from whatever is hiding or crushing it. Let this 
 proverb ring in your ears, '* The best man thinks 
 the best of others." And, when you think of that, 
 do you not think of Jesus's power over the great 
 universal human heart wherever he is proclaimed ? 
 He sees more in poor, lost, sinful men than less 
 pure eyes could see. God loves us more than any- 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 177 
 
 one else, loves us even when we are unlovable to 
 unclarified human eyes, because he sees in '' the 
 mud and scum of things " the underlying vein of 
 gold beneath. 
 
 So spiritual forces are perceived by spiritual 
 people. Many things are spiritually discerned. 
 Jesus declares that all anxiety and worry about 
 doctrines shall give way before an obedient soul. 
 As nature yields her secrets only to the humble 
 student who seeks to be obedient to her laws, so 
 only they who in humility seek to keep the com- 
 mandments of God come into relations where 
 God can pour on them the splendor of spiritual 
 illumination. 
 
 This further thought is suggested to me by the 
 scripture we are studying — the one impregnable 
 fortress in this world is a perfectly sincere and hon- 
 est soul whose reliance is in God. Earth has no 
 impregnable fortress. The military world used to 
 think that some of the fortresses were impregnable 
 to attack, but such faith has received a great shock 
 in recent centuries. When I was up along the 
 northern boundary of our country during vacation 
 time I was reminded of my schoolboy interest in 
 the old French city of Quebec. For many years it 
 was believed to be an impregnable fortress ; but the 
 intrepid Wolfe, nursing the last spark of life in his 
 enfeebled body, led his little army up the rugged 
 walls of granite to the Heights of Abraham and ac- 
 complished its overthrow. But there is one for- 
 tress the walls of which no assaulting column can 
 scale, and whose garrison cannot be starved out by 
 any siege — a frank, sincere soul whose trust is in God. 
 
178 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 The King of Syria, proud of his mihtary skill and 
 strategy and superior army, had no doubt that this 
 plain, simple-minded prophet would fall an easy 
 prey into his hands. He knew nothing about the 
 armies of heaven encamped about the children of 
 God. The lesson I wish to impress on all our 
 hearts is that we are to expect to be triumphant in 
 this world and in the world to come, not through 
 any finesse or worldly strategy, but by frank, open- 
 hearted trust in our heavenly Father. The plans 
 and policy of the world are often only treacherous 
 quicksands to unwary souls. 
 
 When the Kansas Pacific and the Atchison, To- 
 peka, and Santa Fe Railroads were being constructed 
 one difficulty of frequent occurrence was met which 
 was unique in railroad history. This was the trouble 
 arising from quicksands. From western Kansas to 
 the Rocky Mountains quicksands are to be found in 
 nearly every stream, no matter how small ; and to 
 bridge them successfully requires an expenditure 
 out of all proportion to the size of the stream to be 
 crossed. Pile driving was tried, but the longest 
 piles disappeared without touching bottom. Then 
 filling with earth and stone was attempted and met 
 with equally poor success, as the quicksand was ap- 
 parently capable of swallowing the Rocky Moun- 
 tains. The only practical means of crossing the 
 quicksands was to build truss bridges across them. 
 
 During the construction of the Kansas Pacific 
 across Colorado, an engine ran off the track at 
 River Bend, about ninety miles from Denver. This 
 engine, a large freight, fell into a quicksand and in 
 twenty minutes had entirely disappeared. Within 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 179 
 
 two days the company sent out a gang of men and 
 a wrecking train to raise the engine. To their sur- 
 prise they could not find a trace of it. They sunk 
 magnetized rods to the depth of sixty-five feet, but 
 no engine could be found. It had sunk forever be- 
 yond human ken, and from that day to this has not 
 been discovered. How often do we see that inci- 
 dent paralleled in the social and moral life of our 
 time — strong, successful men, seemingly capable of 
 carrying everything before them, suddenly engulfed 
 forever in the treacherous quicksands of the world, 
 the sad victims of policies that proved to be only a 
 refuge of lies ! But a sincere and frank soul rests on 
 the Rock of Ages. 
 
 The etymologists tell us a very interesting story 
 of the history of that word '' sincerity." It comes 
 from two Latin words, sine and cera — "without 
 cement." And we are assured that Its origin was in 
 this wise: In the golden days of Roman prosperity, 
 when her merchants were the richest in the world 
 and lived in marble palaces on the banks of the 
 yellow Tiber, there was great competition in the 
 grandeur and artistic adornment of their dwellings. 
 During their successful wars against Greece there 
 had been carried back to Rome as spoils many of 
 the most precious gems of Grecian art. In this way 
 a taste for sculpture had been awakened, and many 
 young Romans of artistic temperament set them- 
 selves to work in the school of design. Good sculp- 
 tors were quickly developed. But fraud and hum- 
 bug were as common then as now ; and so it came 
 to be quite a common thing for the sculptor, when 
 he came to a flaw in the marble or when his chisel 
 
180 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 missed its aim, to take a carefully constructed 
 cement, with which he filled in the chink and so 
 cleverly fixed it as to be imperceptible. This fraud, 
 however, would not stand the test of time, and 
 after a few years heat or damp or accident would 
 affect the cement and it would reveal its presence. 
 This became so common that when new contracts 
 came to be signed for works of art there was always 
 a clause put in that they were to be sine cera, or 
 ''without cement." What a picture story we have 
 here in a single word, and how infinitely more im- 
 portant in building an immortal character than in 
 the chiseling of lifeless marble ! 
 
 To be real ought to be our deepest prayer. How 
 often souls are led away in folly from a mania for a 
 conspicuous position, without seeking the reality 
 for which the position stands. There is an old fable 
 about a silly piece of charcoal that aspired to a 
 place beside its crystallized and brilliant brother, 
 the diamond. A good fairy came along and, pity- 
 ing the ambitious bit of carbon, said, " I will grant 
 you one wish, but remember, only one." The silly 
 thing, instead of wishing to be changed to a dia- 
 mond, asked at once for a place among the diamonds 
 that adorned the crown of the king. The request 
 was granted. The piece of charcoal was set for one 
 proud moment among the brilliants. But as soon 
 as the king's attendants saw it they brushed it away. 
 If it had only asked to be changed into a real diamond 
 somebody would have seen it shining under foot 
 and picked it up and placed it in the crown ; but, 
 aspiring to a position which it could not adorn, it 
 was rejected with contempt and trampled under 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 181 
 
 foot. Let us first of all try to be wise and good 
 and useful. Then in due time the world will be 
 likely to honor us ; but, even if it never should, the 
 Lord will say, '* They shall shine in the day when I 
 make up my jewels." 
 
 Anschar, the faithful and fearless monk who intro- 
 duced Christianity into Sweden, was in many re- 
 spects one of the most lovely and noble characters 
 in the mediaeval period. In his rapturous aspiration 
 after personal holiness according to the Christ pat- 
 tern, he once said : '' One miracle I would, if 
 worthy, ask the Lord to grant me ; and that is, 
 that by his grace he would make me a good man." 
 Indeed, that is the greatest miracle — to be a good 
 man. It is the blessed privilege of such souls to 
 live in a rare spiritual atmosphere, to come into 
 precious communion with the invisible and eternal. 
 There are high table-lands in some parts of the 
 earth, where the dwellers live in an atmosphere so 
 clear and pure that they are always in sight of 
 great white mountains whose summits pierce the 
 clouds hundreds of miles away. So there are 
 spiritual table-lands up to which God leads those 
 who love him with sincere and trusting hearts. 
 
 The Saviour was always trying to impress the 
 disciples with the superior worth and importance of 
 the spiritual world. " Fear not them," he said, 
 '' which kill the body, but are not able to kill the 
 soul : but rather fear him which is able to destroy 
 both soul and body in hell." There is a certain 
 comparative sense in which this earthly life is of 
 small importance ; but the future is of measureless 
 interest, and it stretches a hand back to write in 
 
182 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 large characters everything which has any bearing 
 on the soul's final condition. Brothers and sisters, 
 we ought to meditate more on these spiritual 
 things. A good man recently wrote : " The pre- 
 vailing type of piety needs the infusion of somewhat 
 more of the temper of heavenly-mindedness into it. 
 There is too much of the clatter of the world in the 
 religious activity of the period, and not enough of 
 the sweet music which is wafted into the sacred 
 spheres Vv'here saints and angels strike their harps in 
 the open presence of the Son of God." 
 
 It requires this sublime background of the im- 
 mortal life to give strength and breadth and fullness 
 to human character. This world is too brief and 
 unsatisfactory to make any strong appeal to a 
 man's deeper and holier self. It can wake the pas- 
 sions and ambitions, but it can never make man rise 
 to lofty aspirations and self-denying deeds. If I am 
 only here for a little while and am to have no life 
 beyond, what do I care? What matters it 
 whether men think well of me or not, if to-morrow 
 or the day after I am to fall out of memory and 
 out of consciousness ? If all that I acquire and all 
 that I achieve through my ceaseless toil and 
 struggle is to be but like the down of the thistle 
 which the wind drives before it, there is no suffi- 
 cient motive to develop the highest possibilities of 
 my nature. But if it be true that there is a shore to 
 which we are sailing, if all the mighty currents of 
 the universe are swinging us In that direction and 
 the winds blow without ceasing thitherward, there 
 is aroused within me an irresistible impulse to be 
 ready to land and enter on the new life which Is be- 
 
THE SUPREMACY OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 183 
 
 fore me. I am aroused to make preparation and 
 to develop to the last possibility the powers 
 which God has given me ; and I can put up with 
 many hardships on the voyage, for all these are, as 
 Paul says, but light afflictions compared with the 
 heavenly land and immortal life to which they are 
 carrying me. It is impossible that I should be as 
 unconcerned and indifferent as though I were to be 
 drowned in the port when I reach it. 
 
 O brothers and sisters, it may be that some of us 
 here can already see the lights gleaming on the pier 
 for the landing. And in our best hours, hours of 
 meditation and communion with the highest, there 
 gather about that landing place a throng of blessed 
 faces that once were comrades with us here, but 
 whose sails the heavenly trade winds have wafted 
 more rapidly than ours. Some of these days our 
 ships shall strike the rapid current, and, standing on 
 deck, we shall near the landing place where they 
 wait. How our hearts will throb with glorious 
 emotions as they press to the ship's side to greet 
 us and welcome us to their holy embrace forever ! 
 
184 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE DARKNESS BEHIND THE STARS. 
 
 " Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and 
 take him away, and cast him into outer darkness." — Matt, xxii, 13. 
 
 A MODERN novelist has aroused a good deal of 
 scientific discussion by a paragraph in one of 
 his books, in which he indicates that the stars of 
 the universe are set in a dark background of what 
 we may conceive as infinite, starless space, into 
 which no light penetrates from the stars of this or 
 any other universe. The trend of scientific discus- 
 sion seems to be that the novelist is probably cor- 
 rect. The great telescopes which have recently been 
 mounted in different parts of the world have not 
 only increased the number of stars known to exist, 
 but have also convinced the astronomers that they 
 are rapidly approaching the limit of telescopic vi- 
 sion, for the same reason that Alexander wept — be- 
 cause there are no more worlds to conquer. They 
 declare that the most probable hypothesis is that 
 all the stars, clusters, and nebulae visible by aid of 
 the largest telescopes form together one vast sys- 
 tem, which constitutes our visible universe, and 
 that this system is surrounded by a starless void, 
 though beyond that there may be other systems. 
 There is still another hypothesis among the scien- 
 tists, which means, however, practically the same 
 thing so far as it illustrates the thought we have in 
 
THE DARKNESS BEHIND THE STARS. 185 
 
 hand ; it is that the luminiferous ether which ex- 
 tends throughout the visible universe may be con- 
 fined to this universe, and that beyond these 
 confines the ether may thin out, as the earth's 
 atmosphere does at a certain distance from the 
 earth's surface, finally ceasing to exist altogether 
 and ending in an absolute vacuum, which would, of 
 course, arrest the passage of light from all outer 
 space and thus produce the black background of 
 the heavens, or '^ The Darkness Behind the Stars." 
 Whether the astronomers are correct or not in 
 their hypothesis, we are assured that there is an 
 outer darkness into which the immortal soul of man 
 may be driven, as the result of his own willful sin 
 and disobedience against the laws of the higher and 
 nobler realm of the spirit. As the traveler who 
 should turn his back upon the sun and travel on 
 and on, resisting all the attractions that lay hold 
 upon him from that great magnetic center, and per- 
 severe in his course would, after a while, be beyond 
 the reach of its light and finally beyond the glimmer 
 of the last flickering star and be lost in the outer 
 darkness where no solar illumination should light 
 his path, so the text we are studying, in harmony 
 with the universal teaching of God's word, as well 
 as the common observation of humanity, teaches us 
 that it is possible for a human soul to turn its face 
 away from the Sun of righteousness, to go out from 
 his glorious presence, to set its will to resist the di- 
 vine magnetism that appeals to every human heart, 
 and go on and on in a course of sin and disobe- 
 dience against God, until, one by one, the lights that 
 illuminate our human pathway are left behind, and 
 
186 THE CHRIST DREAM, 
 
 the poor lost soul finds itself in the outer darkness 
 where there is " wailing and gnashing of teeth " — 
 strong and graphic expression of that unavailing 
 sorrow and bitter anger which sin causes to be the 
 prevailing atmosphere of the soul which it has mas- 
 tered. 
 
 Our text is a sad incident of a feast — a feast 
 made by a king, where all the guests are supposed 
 to be joyous and happy. It is a wedding feast also. 
 What a tragic background it makes of the joyous 
 appointments of the feast. One cannot meditate 
 upon it just at this time without thinkingof that wed- 
 ding feast of the young czar which has just been go- 
 ing on in Russia, where crowned heads and princes 
 and embassadors from every land under heaven 
 have been gathered to do honor to Nicholas II and 
 felicitate him on his marriage and on the beginning 
 of his reign. We are told that the eyes of men 
 have seldom looked upon a more gorgeous pageant 
 than that of the imperial wedding ; that the most 
 brilliant imagination could not conceive of the 
 splendor of attire and dazzling beauty of the jewels 
 and decorations which the newspaper correspond- 
 ents declared their inability to describe. Yet to all 
 the glory of the wedding, with its pomp, its cere- 
 mony, its brilliant display of wealth and power, 
 there is the dark background of the outer darkness of 
 farthest Siberia, with its prison camps, its exiled 
 Jews, and its banished reformers who sought for 
 freedom of speech and press. 
 
 But, whatever of justice or Injustice may cause 
 exile into the outer darkness of Russia, nothing but 
 one's own sin can thus exile him from the presence 
 
THE DARKNESS BEHIND THE STARS. 187 
 
 of the King of the universe in the spiritual reahn. 
 The king ordered the man sent out into the outer 
 darkness because he was out of all harmony with 
 the circumstances of the feast. He came not hav- 
 ing on the wedding garment. He might have had 
 it, but through some spirit of defiance or indiffer- 
 ence he refused to make preparation, so that at 
 last, when lights flashed from the decorated walls 
 and reflected from richly clothed and jeweled 
 guests, there he sat, the one black, uncomfortable 
 spot on the wedding feast. He was cast out be- 
 cause of what he was. It was personal to himself. 
 He had been invited, but he had refused to make 
 the preparation demanded by the invitation. 
 
 Dear friends, let us make a very earnest and seri- 
 ous study of this for a moment. You are living in 
 days of invitations. On every hand they are fall- 
 ing upon you from heaven, softly and generously, 
 as the snowflakes fall out of the clouds — invitations 
 to a feast with God, to a great wedding feast be- 
 tween Christ and his church. It is a personal mat- 
 ter. The invitations are to you. What response are 
 you making? Are you preparing the wedding gar- 
 ment ? Some travelers tell us that in the Orient, 
 where this parable was given, the king would have 
 had these rich garments ready, so that the guest 
 would only have had to go and adorn himself with 
 one of them. There is a sense in which God has a 
 wedding garment for you, but it is also true that it 
 must be wrought upon by yourself, and that it is 
 by working together with God that the raiment of 
 righteousness is to be provided in which you shall 
 be at peace and crowned with honor at the great 
 
THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 wedding feast. The last poem ever written by Miss 
 Josephine Pollard was on the proverb, " For a web 
 begun, God sends the thread," about which she 
 
 " Over and over these words I read, 
 And I said to myself, with an easy air, 
 ' What need to burden myself with care 
 
 If this be true ? 
 
 Or attempt to do 
 More than my duty ? for here is proof 
 That we are to hold ourselves aloof, 
 Until from the Master we receive 
 The thread for the web we are to weave.' 
 
 " So, day after day, I sat beside 
 The loom, as if both my hands were tied. 
 With idle shuttle and slackened warp. 
 Useless as strings of an untuned harp ; 
 
 For I took no part 
 
 With hand or heart 
 In the work of the world. To the cry of need. 
 The voice of the children I gave no heed. 
 * When the task is ready for me,' I said, 
 ' God will be sure to supply the thread.* 
 
 " I had no strength of my own, I knew. 
 
 No wisdom to guide or skill to do, 
 
 And must wait at ease for the word of command, 
 
 For the message I surely would understand ; 
 
 Else all in vain 
 
 Were the stress and strain. 
 For the thread would break, and the web be spoiled- 
 A poor result for the hours I'd toiled ; 
 And my heart and my conscience would be at strife 
 O'er the broken threads of a wasted life. 
 
 •' But all at once, like a gem exhumed. 
 The word ' begun,' like a light illumed. 
 
THE DARKNESS BEHIND THE STARS. 189 
 
 From the rest of the text stood boldly out 
 (By the finger of God revealed, no doubt) ; 
 
 And shocked and dazed, 
 
 Ashamed, amazed, 
 I saw, as I had not seen before. 
 The truer meaning the sentence bore, 
 And read as Belshazzar might have read, 
 'For a web begun, God sends the thread.' 
 
 " The man himself, his mind and heart 
 Toward the holy city, must take a start. 
 E'er he finds in his hands the mystic clew 
 That shall lead him life's mazes safely through. 
 
 And if loom and reel 
 
 And spinning wheel 
 Idle and empty stand to-day. 
 We must reason give for the long delay, 
 Since the voice of the Master has plainly said, 
 ' For a web begun, God sends the thread.' " 
 
 The man connected with our text could give no 
 reason. He was speechless. It was not an acci- 
 dent or a mistake, or it might have been explained. 
 The trouble was innate in his own self. And so 
 there is nothing that can excuse us and nothing 
 that can save us except a transformed nature. Sin 
 must be forgiven and blotted out, not only in the 
 ledger of God, but our minds and hearts must be 
 purified from it. It will not do to clothe ourselves 
 in any worldly robes of self-righteousness or culture, 
 while down beneath in the heart, slumbering or dor- 
 mant or shut down under an iron will, are evil lusts 
 and passions and desires that only wait their op- 
 portunity to run wild riot. 
 
 Ah, that is the fatal lack of all those reformers 
 who purpose to reform men and women by simply 
 lopping off certain outbreaking exhibitions of sin. 
 13 
 
190 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 The very heart itself, which is full of dead men's 
 bones and where the hungry tiger of sin waits and 
 lurks for an opportunity to slay again, must be ut- 
 terly cleansed and purified and kept free from every 
 evil euest. Humboldt, in his travels in South Amer- 
 ica, tells us that on the great plains where, after a 
 long drought, the genial season of rain arrives there 
 is one of the most marvelous transformations of 
 nature to be found anywhere in the world. The 
 deep azure of the hitherto cloudless sky assumes 
 a lighter hue. Like some distant mountain, a 
 single cloud is seen rising perpendicularly on the 
 southern horizon. Misty vapors collect and grad- 
 ually overspread the heavens, while distant thun- 
 der proclaims the approach of the life-giving rain. 
 Scarcely is the surface of the earth moistened be- 
 fore the teeming steppe becomes covered with a 
 variety of grasses. Excited by the power of light, 
 the herbaceous mimosa unfolds its dormant, droop- 
 ing leaves, hailing, as it were, the rising sun in cho- 
 rus with the mating song of the birds and the open- 
 ing flowers of aquatic plants. Horses and oxen, 
 buoyant with life and enjoyment, roam over and 
 crop the plains which only last week were a barren 
 desert. The luxuriant grass hides the beautiful 
 spotted jaguar, who has been hidden away in dark 
 ravines this long time, but now, lurking in safe con- 
 cealment, darts with a catlike bound on his passing 
 prey. And, down along the morasses, the humid 
 clay, ever and anon, is seen to arise slowly in broad 
 flakes, accompanied by a violent noise as on the 
 eruption of a small mud volcano. When the na- 
 tives see this they fly from these upheavals for their 
 
THE DARKNESS BEHIND THE STARS. 191 
 
 very lives, for it means that a colossal water snake 
 or a mailed and scaly and now thoroughly awakened 
 and hungry crocodile, aroused from its long trance 
 by the first fall of rain, is about to burst from his 
 tomb. 
 
 Is there not in this graphic picture an honest il- 
 lustration of what goes on in many human hearts? 
 Men and women, surrounded by controlling con- 
 ditions under the hot sun of social influence and 
 propriety or held in the grip of public opinion and 
 self-interest, often live lives characterized by a cer- 
 tain kind of dry, outward morality, a negative right- 
 eousness, v/hich looks so pleasing in their own eyes 
 and in those of their neighbors, that they are self- 
 deceived and imagine that the old crocodile of lust 
 or the colossal serpent of greed or the deadly jaguar 
 of selfishness has been utterly tramped to death 
 under their strong Vvdlls. And then again there 
 comes a time when, under temptation or a removal 
 of restraint, these vile and unholy passions rouse 
 themselves, and hell itself does not seem more foul 
 than the roaring discord of those sinful hearts. God 
 grant everyone to see sin as it is ! Nothing is 
 more foolish than to try to cover your sins with a 
 false glamour. Better to look at them in all their 
 inherent ugliness and know the awful danger there 
 is in them, that you may thus turn to One who is 
 strong and mighty to deliver. 
 
 We were speaking a (qw moments ago about the 
 new Czar of Russia. Perhaps one of the most inter- 
 esting incidents connected with his father, Alexan- 
 der III, is related in the essays of Vereschagin, the 
 great Russian artist. The painter was a personal 
 
192 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 friend of the late czar and served in more than one 
 campaign, being severely wounded while occupying 
 an important post upon a torpedo boat which at- 
 tacked a Turkish man-of-war. At the close of the 
 war among the Balkans Vereschagin painted an 
 elaborate set of historical compositions, which have 
 been exhibited in this country; and doubtless many 
 of you like myself have been permitted to see them. 
 In these great paintings the czar and his staff and 
 chief lieutenants were made to figure ; but, contrary 
 to the method of the romantic school, the paintings 
 in no way resembled the series which, in the gal- 
 leries of Versailles, commemorate the glories of Na- 
 poleon. The czar was not shown as leading his im- 
 petuous troops, himself seated upon a fiery charger, 
 leaping upon smoking cannon ; but, with photo- 
 graphic fidelity, Alexander III was shown as view- 
 ing the cannonading through a telescope from a safe 
 distance, seated upon a camp stool, while ''After 
 the Battle " showed the ghastly field of the dead 
 with all its horrible details. When these pictures 
 were first placed on exhibition in St. Petersburg 
 they produced great clamor. Many of the nobility 
 desired to have the painter summoned to answer to 
 a charge of treason. War had never been painted 
 like that before, and the czar was told that if he 
 permitted his subjects to see such representations 
 of the conflicts of arms he might as well disband his 
 army, for he could never recruit it. Alexander III 
 went to the gallery and, after viewing every canvas 
 for himself, said quietly, " That is the truth about 
 war; let Vereschagin tell it." It is said that it is 
 this experience of the czar of what war really was 
 
THE DARKNESS BEHIND THE STARS. 193 
 
 that made him during his reign '' the peacemaker 
 of Europe." 
 
 O, that we were able to make men know what sin 
 really is ! The old man with white hair and patri- 
 archal beard who stood before us in the prayer 
 meeting on Wednesday night and told us that he 
 was a graduate of Yale, but that drink had taken 
 fortune and friends and manhood's hopes and left 
 him broken and friendless and ragged — ah, he 
 knows something about what sin is ! But the young 
 man who has that one rotten spot of self-indulgence 
 in him, but fondly imagines that he is to go on sow- 
 ing for a little while the wild oats which he will 
 never have to reap — God help us to make him know 
 what sin means now, before he reaches the despair- 
 ing twilight of the outer darkness ! 
 
 Mrs. Ballington Booth found a young girl in a 
 dance hall who had still left '' a childlike face," with 
 some of the freshness of the country lingering on it, 
 and who responded to her question, " Yes, I came 
 from the country. My mother Jives away off in 
 the country. But it's no use thinking about it, be- 
 cause — well, because I am in this life now, and 
 there is an end of it." The bitterness came back 
 into her voice as she pushed away the hand that lay 
 on hers, and she cried out, " No, no, it's no good 
 now; no one would have any use for me after this. 
 Mother! do not talk to me about my mother ! She 
 thinks I am at honest work. It would kill her if she 
 knew where I was and what I was. She shall 
 never, never know it ; " and the sob in her voice 
 was changed to a harsh, grating laugh, like the 
 laughter of the pit, as she was whirled off in the 
 
194 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 dance in the arms of a low, vulgar, drunken man. 
 Poor child, she knew what sin was. God help us to 
 help other girls to know what sin is, before life 
 is made desolate, before the soul is scarred and 
 marred, and the shadows of the outer darkness be- 
 gin to ingulf them ! 
 
 O, brothers and sisters, you who are conscious to- 
 night that you have turned your backs on the Sun 
 of righteousness and that you are facing toward the 
 outer darkness, I plead with you to go no farther 
 into the dark. Cling to v/hatever of light and sun- 
 shine God gives you. Jesus Christ is our Sun. He 
 is the true light that lighteth every man that cometh 
 into the world. Let no sin take away from you that 
 light. 
 
 It is related of one of the soldiers of Pizarro's 
 army that he complained that he had lost in one 
 night's gambling " a large piece of the sun," mean- 
 ing a plate of gold which he had obtained at the 
 plunder of the temple of Cuzco. Alas, do I not 
 speak to some who have already lost '' a large 
 piece of the Sun ? " I pray you not to go on until 
 you have lost all, but turn back in penitence and 
 faith toward him who, with boundless love, is seek- 
 ing to save the lost ! 
 
THE MIF^ROR THAT TRANSFORMS THE SOUL. 195 
 
 XVII. 
 THE MIRROR THAT TRANSFORMS THE SOUL. 
 
 " Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own 
 selves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is hke 
 unto a man beholding his natural face in a mirror : for hebeholdeth him- 
 self, and goeth away, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he 
 was. But he that looketh into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and so 
 continueth, being not a hearer that forgetteth, but a doer that worketh, 
 this man shall be blessed in his doing." — James i, 22-26 (Revised 
 Version) . 
 
 THIS is a strong picture. If, instead of the 
 '' man " portrayed by the apostle James, you 
 will write your own name and make the whole 
 picture apply to yourself I am sure your attention 
 and yourmtenseinterest will at once be aroused. The 
 character pictured here is not a feeble one, but a 
 strong and masterful individuality ; not one who, 
 looking into the glass and seeing himself mirrored 
 there, with all his defects and sins, has a momentary 
 wishing and longing that he might be better and a 
 lingering hope as he turns away that somehow or 
 other, in some vague, unexplained way, an irresist- 
 ible current of heavenly influence will overwhelm 
 him and make of him the man he dimly recognizes 
 he ought to be. But, instead, there is portrayed 
 before us one who, hearing the word of rebuke and 
 of warning and of promise, does not forget ; one 
 who, seeing the hatefulness of his sins, does not turn 
 away, but seeks to look deeper into the mirror of 
 the Gospel, into the law of liberty, to find how he 
 
196 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 may be transformed and changed and how, by tak- 
 ing hold of the opportunities that are placed before 
 him, he may, by God's help, work out his own sal- 
 vation with fear and trembling. 
 
 We have very clearly stated here the answer to 
 those persons who excuse themselves from forsaking 
 their sins and at once obeying the Lord Jesus 
 Christ and entering upon a Christian hfe because 
 they say they have certain natural defects. Some- 
 times it is a hereditary tendency. A man says, ^' I 
 was born with a quick temper. It has developed in 
 me all the years. It is impossible for me to master 
 and control it ! " Another says, " I inherited from 
 my ancestors a thirst for rum and strong drink. It 
 is in my very blood. I cannot hear the clink of the 
 glasses on the bar or see the bottles in the window 
 or smell it on the street, but the old thirst, for which 
 I am not responsible, but which comes down from 
 generations behind me, rages like a mad, hungry 
 tiger in my veins." Another says, " I have a 
 skeptical mind. I am doubtful about everything. 
 It is impossible for me to believe in anything that is 
 supernatural. I cannot believe in anything I can- 
 not see and feel. Sometimes I am scarcely sure of 
 my own consciousness." And still another says, 
 " I am so retiring, so timid. It seems such sacri- 
 lege for me to talk to other people about my 
 experiences or to take any public stand in regard to 
 religion." 
 
 And so I might use all my time for this discourse 
 repeating, only in substance, the excuses and 
 apologies which men and women make for them- 
 selves on every side. But this plain, earnest 
 
THE MIRROR THAT TRANSFORMS THE SOUL. 197 
 
 scripture looks you straight in the face, my brother, 
 and says, '' You are a responsible actor in this mat- 
 ter yourself. You are to be a doer of the word, and 
 not a hearer only, deluding your own soul. You 
 are to look, not at yourself only, but into the perfect 
 law, the law of liberty ; and you are not only to 
 look, but you are to continue. You are to be 
 a hearer that does not forget and a doer that work- 
 eth." You are not to take your present nature, 
 distorted and marred by sin as it is, as being the 
 nature which God gives you or as representing the 
 natural laws which you are to follow. If our nature 
 is undeveloped and ignorant or mastered by bad 
 habits, then we are to take hold of it by God's 
 help, and we are to cultivate it and develop it and 
 purify it and bring it into such a condition that its 
 natural law will be the law of liberty and the law 
 of righteousness. 
 
 In saying this I am in harmony with all the nat- 
 ural world about us. God gives us mountains and 
 plains and rivulets and brooks and rivers, and all 
 the panorama of nature about us, not in a perfect 
 state at all, so far as their relation to us is con- 
 cerned, but ready to be brought to perfection under 
 our hands. Some one has truly said that every 
 product of nature is like a cocoanut, wherein pro- 
 gressive discovery finds the cup of the new use 
 beneath the oakum exterior of a present one, and 
 within the second use the nutritious use of another, 
 and within the third the sweet milk of a fourth 
 service and joy. We talk about the beautiful things 
 in nature and about God's being the great Artist, 
 which is true ; but wc must not forget that we, too. 
 
198 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 are artists, and that God leaves the finishing 
 touches, wherever they have relation to ourselves, 
 to us. He gives us materials, rather than finished 
 structures. Yonder is a rich plain covered with 
 wild grasses and thorns and wild, unfruitful plants. 
 Man comes with plow and harrow and toil, and 
 wide-stretching fields of wheat or yellow heaps of 
 corn or orchards bending with fragrant apples make 
 it a scene far more beautiful to human eyes than it 
 was before. Only under human cultivation does 
 the soil produce those varieties of sweetness and 
 bloom which give us most delight. The wide- 
 stretching plain, with its rich soil, is only a prophecy 
 of the fields of golden grain and the husbandman's 
 garner. As one says, " Nature includes Raphael, 
 not Raphael nature." 
 
 So it is true — and it is a great truth and one we 
 must never allow ourselves to forget — that we are 
 workers together with God in our salvation. We 
 are to be doers of that work. '' With the heart man 
 believeth unto righteousness ; and with the mouth 
 confession is made unto salvation." God invites, 
 we must respond. The Holy Spirit moves, we must 
 yield. Every opportunity is given for our spiritual 
 culture and development, but if we sit idle sluggards 
 we will be spiritual fools and bankrupts at the end. 
 Free schools, abundant and excellent text-books, 
 and willing and well-trained teachers will not pro- 
 duce a well-educated childhood and youth. There 
 must be the willing pupil, the eager soul seeking 
 after knowledge, the persistent continuing in search 
 of that knowledge, until it not only becomes a part 
 of the treasure and resource of the mind, but has 
 
THE MIRROR THAT TRANSFORMS THE SOUL. 199 
 
 strengthened the mind itself and enlarged it by the 
 intellectual toil through which it was acquired. 
 
 So, my brother, beheve me, it is true that the 
 loving fatherhood of God, the death of Jesus Christ 
 upon the cross for your redemption, the tender 
 wooing of the Holy Spirit calling you to repentance, 
 the open Bible with its mirror with which you can 
 look into your own soul, the appeals from the 
 pulpit, and the echoing response from your own 
 conscience — all these are not enough to avail in 
 putting away your sins, in purifying your heart, 
 and in bringing you into peace and harmony w^ith 
 God. You, personally, must be a doer that 
 worketh. Do not, I beg you, let anything stand in 
 the way of the salvation of your soul ! Do not say, 
 ^' I must do this thing in my own way. This 
 earnest and intense presentation of the matter to me 
 only confuses and disquiets me. Why cannot I be a 
 Christian in my own quiet and silent way, without any 
 such open expression of my purpose as you ask?" 
 Ah, I will tell you w^iy. It is because Christ, who 
 died to save you, asks just this open and unqualified 
 obedience and confession of himself. He who 
 fought a lonely battle for you in Gethsemane and 
 on Golgotha asks that you shall have open alliance 
 with his disciples who are fighting a battle to win 
 the world for his crown. He asks it of you, not for 
 his sake, but your own, that you may thus put 
 yourself in such relation to him that he may save 
 you. 
 
 I remember a man who once said, about some 
 earnest meetings in which men were finding the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, that he thought they were too 
 
200 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 intense and noisy for good taste, and who ventured 
 to say to the man who was leading them that Solo- 
 mon's temple was built without any noise, not even 
 of a hammer, and he could not see why the spirit- 
 ual temple could not go up in the same way. The 
 earnest leader exclaimed, " We are not building a 
 temple ; we are blasting rocks." 
 
 All strong manhood must be produced not by 
 repression, but by expansion. The picture which 
 we are studying does not present to us a man who 
 is to succeed in the Christian life by standing guard 
 always over himself, like a policeman on his beat, 
 trying to keep himself from doing wrong; but he is 
 to so look into the law of liberty and continue 
 therein that he shall be able to enter upon a posi- 
 tive, aggressive life of goodness. Things become 
 easy and natural to us by exercise. That which we 
 do continuously we do without thinking and with- 
 out any conscious will to do it. 
 
 A monument has just been unveiled in Paris in 
 honor of one of the greatest sculptors of modern 
 times, Antoine Louis Barye. A distinguished 
 French orator made an address at the unveiling of 
 this monument. I have been very much impressed, 
 in reading this address, in the analysis which it 
 gives of the great sculptor's success. His intimate 
 friend and eulogist declares that the great secret of 
 his triumph was his patient persistence to acquire 
 perfect knowledge of every object which he under- 
 took to reproduce. He studied so long and care- 
 fully the animals in the menagerie that he reached 
 the point of being able to separate in thought the 
 habits contracted in captivity from their habits in 
 
THE MIRROR THAT TRANSFORMS THE SOUL. 201 
 
 their native wilds. With his mind's eye he saw 
 clearly their characteristics — the apparent indiffer- 
 ence under which instinct is always on the watch, 
 their mode of action in obtaining their nourish- 
 ment, displaying their tactics and their style of 
 combat. It was thus he chose his subjects and 
 began to make his sketches. But this did not 
 satisfy Barye. After he had studied the living 
 animal until he looked at life from its standpoint, 
 he went to the galleries of comparative anatomy. 
 Compasses in hand, he measured the skeletons of 
 the animals he wished to represent, wrote down 
 the dimensions with extreme scrupulousness, and 
 fashioned his work by these measurements and 
 notes. Then, with his perfect knowledge, he went 
 to his work, and the rude material seemed to 
 breathe under his hand. A lion or a tiger fashioned 
 by him when only in the attitude of walking con- 
 veys to you, by its very structure and poise, its 
 fatal power to kill. Barye was able to mold these 
 figures with such daring and power, because of his 
 perfect knowledge and familiarity with his subject. 
 Otherwise it would have grown to be a monster 
 under his hands, no matter how much genius he 
 possessed. 
 
 Let us learn the lesson of the sculptor— we are to 
 find liberty through law. Nay, more ; if we put 
 ourselves to school under God's law, if we yield our 
 hearts in obedience to Christ, our very liberty shall 
 become a law itself, because our law has become 
 liberty. We do what we please because it pleases 
 us to do right. Do not hesitate a moment to 
 undertake a Christian life because you have no con- 
 
202 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 scious power within yourself how to ov^ercome the 
 temptations and passions and lusts that hold you 
 helpless. Obey God, do the first thing he asks you, 
 the duty that lies nearest, and you will have begun 
 a year of ever-increasing liberty and power. 
 
 Up in an apple orchard on the shores of Lake 
 Erie, last summer, I saw a young robin taking its 
 first lessons in flying. How anxious the old birds 
 were, and how feeble it seemed. It hung quivering 
 and clinging on the edge of the nest, the older birds 
 appealing to it, flying about through the trees to 
 show how easy it w^as ; and the poor little birdling, 
 that really wanted to fly, looked on wath envious, 
 but almost despairing, eyes. At last it v\^as aroused 
 to make the attempt, and by springing with the 
 aid of its wings it dropped on a bough a few feet 
 away. And there it rested with its heart in its 
 throat, panting with fear. Ah, it was hard work to 
 that little bird to fly ! But hunger, and the persua- 
 sion of its parents, and the wonder-world of beauty 
 about it in the orchard trees, and, above all, the 
 flying birds that soared about in such perfect free- 
 dom and mastery over the air lured it on, until after 
 a while, gathering strength, it flew again, this time 
 coming ignominiously to the ground. And then, I 
 suppose, it thought more than ever that it was hard 
 business to fly. Then the old mother bird took pity 
 on it and went down and fed it a little and chuckled 
 to it. I don't knov/ what she said ; but I suppose 
 she said it was a good little robin to try, and if it 
 would only keep its courage up and keep trying it 
 would soon fly as well as any bird in the orchard. 
 So after a while it flew up to a lower bough, and 
 
THE MIRROR THAT TRANSFORMS THE SOUL. 203 
 
 then it hopped to another bough, and then it tried 
 another twice as far away and missed it and went 
 to the ground again. And so on and on ; but in 
 less than a week it could soar as high and fly as far 
 as its mother. The little robin was living out the 
 picture given in the text — it was a hearer that did 
 not forget and a doer that worked. 
 
 What a noble life this is which we are asked to 
 live ! How much of inspiration there is in it ! Not 
 to spend all our lives trying not to be bad, but to go 
 forth in all the armor of God, with a free and rap- 
 turous soul, exulting in the power to be and to do 
 good. And, blessed be God, the world is so ar- 
 ranged and we are so constructed that this holy 
 freedom makes men work more than any slavery 
 that ever existed, and there is joy and singing and 
 gladness about their work. Who toils with such 
 fidelity as the mother caring for her little children, 
 doing for them the most menial duties with glad- 
 ness, and never asking what the salary is that is 
 attached to the wearing position ? Men may say 
 what they please, but the devil has no power in 
 hate and anger that can match Christ's power of 
 love in arousing the soul to devoted service. As 
 George Herbert sings, 
 
 " A serv^ant with this clause 
 
 Makes drudgery divine ; 
 Who sweeps a room as for thy laws, 
 
 Makes that and th' action fine." 
 
 This is the life to which, as an embassador of 
 Christ, 1 call you ! Not a life of bondage, not a 
 life which shall shut you out from liberty, not a life 
 which shall fence off from you the good things 
 
204 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 which make men great. No, no. It was a devil's 
 He that gave you such an idea of Christianity as 
 that. I offer you a hfe of glorious freedom, of lofty 
 ambition. For you there shall be no Alps that 
 shall shut you out from the rich Italy of God's 
 highest and noblest experiences reserved for human 
 souls. You shall not go along the path of life 
 galled by chains that fret you and wear upon you ; 
 but with free step and exulting soul and singing 
 voice you shall mount upward on the way to ever- 
 lasting triumph. 
 
 Brother, what shall be your response ? Remem- 
 ber those terrible words of St. James which follow 
 our text in the next chapter, in which he says, ** So 
 speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by 
 the law of liberty." How solemn the thought that 
 the final sentence is to be pronounced after all by 
 ourselves ! All these things about us that restrain 
 us now — the law of the State and the town, the in- 
 fluence of home, the power of public opinion — all 
 these are only temporary matters ; they shall pass 
 away, and after a while we shall stand alone before 
 God, and then we are to be judged by the law that 
 is in our own hearts. We shall be set free to be 
 what we will ; and if, during all these years, we 
 have been cherishing evil thoughts and imagina- 
 tions and impure longings and lusts and ambitions, 
 in that hour they will rise up and judge us. 
 
 Well does Phillips Brooks say, in one of his 
 greatest discourses: ''How simple and sublime 
 does it make the judgment day. We stand before 
 the great white throne and wait our verdict. We 
 watch the closed lips of the eternal Judge, and our 
 
THE MIRROR THAT TRANSFORMS THE SOUL. 205 
 
 hearts stand still until those lips shall open and 
 pronounce our fate — heaven or hell. The lips do 
 not open. The Judge just lifts his hand and raises 
 from each soul before him every law of constraint 
 whose pressure has been its education. He lifts 
 the laws of constraint, and their results are mani- 
 fest. The real intrinsic nature of each soul leaps to 
 the surface. Each soul's law of liberty becomes 
 supreme. And each soul, without one word of con- 
 demnation or approval, by its own inner tendency, 
 seeks its own place. They turn and separate, fa- 
 ther from child, brother from brother, wife from 
 husband — each with the old habitual restrictions 
 lifted off, turns to its own ; one, by an inner power, 
 to the right hand ; another, by a like power, to the 
 left ; these up to heaven, and these down to hell. 
 Do we need more ? It needs no word, no smile, 
 no frown. The freeing of souls is the judging of 
 souls. A liberated nature dictates its own destiny. 
 Could there be a more solemn judgment seat? Is 
 it not a fearful thing to be judged by the law of lib- 
 erty ? " 
 
 Toward that day we are hastening. And so I 
 stand and plead with you, with all the earnestness 
 of my soul, that you begin now to be a doer of the 
 word of God ; now to yield your heart to the divine 
 hand ; now to submit your nature to the cleansing 
 blood of the crucified Saviour; that you now take 
 hold upon the hand of him who, to as many as will 
 receive him, will give '' power to become the sons 
 
 of God." 
 14 
 
206 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 XVIII. 
 THE VOYAGE OF LIFE. 
 
 " They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great 
 waters ; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. 
 For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which hfteth up the 
 waves thereof. They mount up to tlie heaven, they go down again to 
 the depths : their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, 
 and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end. Then they 
 cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and lie bringeth them out of their dis- 
 tresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. 
 Then are they glad because they be quiet ; so he bringeth them unto their 
 desired haven." — Psalm cvii, 23-30. 
 
 THE whole civilized world has been thinking for 
 the past few weeks a great deal about ships 
 and sailors and passengers, and the interest of hu- 
 manity has been centered upon the sea. Every- 
 thing has conspired to make the French steamer 
 La Gascogne the center of the world's interest for 
 many days. First, there came the fearful message 
 to us of the terrible wreck of the Elbe, run down in 
 the darkness of early dawn in the North Sea, plung- 
 ing to the bottom of the ocean with nearly all her 
 passengers. And ere we had time to recover from 
 the shock we began to be anxious for this French 
 steamer, which was overdue. And as the days and 
 nights crept slowly on the interest increased, and 
 the suspense was the most terrible, perhaps, that 
 has ever been felt in regard to any ship in the his- 
 tory of the world. The fearful storms that beat off 
 the coast, endangering even the strongest vessels, 
 
THE VOYAGE OF LIFE. 207 
 
 seemed all the more pitiless when we all felt that 
 they were beating in the face of one that was crip- 
 pled, possibly helpless. But, despite all fears and 
 all storms, La Gascogne has come into the desired 
 haven and has brought her cargo and her passen- 
 gers safely into port, and all the world has rejoiced 
 at the happy result. It is surely a good time for us 
 to pause and remember that we are all voyagers on 
 life's sea. We are all sailors, pushing our way 
 through storm and tempest and calm, hoping to 
 come at last into the desired haven. God grant 
 that it may be so ! 
 
 There are a few plain, simple lessons that it would 
 be good for us to learn from the voyage of this 
 steamer in which we have been so interested. In the 
 first place, we ought to have impressed on us very 
 deeply the old lesson, that the winds and waves of 
 the sea of life are uncertain and oftentimes very de- 
 ceitful in their appearance, and that the ocean over 
 which we are sailing is likely to be swept at any time 
 by furious storms. It is not an ocean for toy ships 
 or for anything but the stanchest vessels. There 
 will be many days that are calm, when the winds 
 are soft and gentle, when the sky is blue, and all is 
 propitious ; but the fiercest storm may follow in 
 rapid succession. 
 
 In the Acts of the Apostles Luke tells us the story 
 of a wonderful voyage taken by Paul. The great 
 preacher had advised against sailing at the time, 
 but the shipowner and the captain thought they 
 knew better than the preacher ; and so Luke says 
 that, when '' the south wind blew softly," they un- 
 loosed their ship and sailed away. But it was not 
 
208 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 long until they ran into the teeth of the storm ; and, 
 though they escaped with their lives through Paul's 
 intercession, the ship and cargo were lost. How 
 many of the shipwrecks of human life come about 
 because of confidence placed in south winds that 
 blow softly! We are to enjoy the soft south winds 
 while they blow, but we must not allow ourselves 
 to be deceived into supposing that there will not be 
 any other kind of winds which our ship must en- 
 counter. If the weather be soft and sweet to-day we 
 ought rather to expect that we will have something 
 different to-morrow. The soft south wind of our 
 human experience ought not to be taken as an in- 
 timation that such winds will blow forever ; but we 
 ought to use them diligently and get all the good 
 out of them we possibly can while they last, know- 
 ing that we cannot expect them to last always, and 
 that a different wind will soon take their place. 
 
 If there are any hearers here upon whom the soft 
 south winds are blowing, and who are trusting that 
 they will blow forever, and who are shaping their 
 lives and making their plans and building their char- 
 acter-ships only for soft south winds, I beg that they 
 may h-ear my warning. You could not make a worse 
 use of prosperity and peace, of health and strength, 
 and of the mercies of God, than to live thus with- 
 out reference to the storms and tempests that arc 
 certain to beset your course ere it is ended. If you 
 stop to think you must realize that it is the highest 
 wisdom to prepare in warm, sunny days, for cold, 
 high winds, for tempests and threatened shipwreck. 
 The good sailor on the sea of human life uses the 
 good gifts of God's love and mercy to make ready 
 
THE VOYAGE OF LIFE. 209 
 
 for the time when the wild blizzard shall sweep his 
 deck. I assure you you must have a ship that can 
 stand the storms and outride the gale if you are to 
 bring a precious cargo into the desired haven at 
 last. 
 
 The safety of La Gascogiie, after all, depended 
 upon the fact that she was a stanch ship, that she 
 had been faithfully built, and had strength to stand 
 the storm. There were times when everything de- 
 pended upon those great, deep-sea anchors which 
 they threw out to hold while they might make re- 
 pairs to her machinery. How much of the safety 
 of a great ship depends upon the fidelity of unknown 
 workers who never can be thanked or honored like 
 the captain who brings their work safely into port ! 
 How few think about honoring the man who was 
 faithful in the making of that anchor ! 
 
 James Freeman Clarke said he went once into the 
 navy yard at Washington to see the forging of an 
 anchor by a steam hammer weighing between seven 
 and eight tons. The great iron log, a foot thick and 
 twenty feet long, was thrust into the dark mound of 
 coal which covered the raging fires. Presently the 
 windlass heaved it up, blinding bright with a white 
 heat, and it was swung upon the anvil ; and then a 
 man turning a winch managed the rise and fall of 
 the enormous hammer, which moved softly down 
 its grooves so as to give gentle blows, or fell with 
 crushing weight upon the red-hot mass, hammering 
 it into solid consistency. The poor iron, if it could 
 only have thought about it, might have considered 
 its lot a hard one. It might have said, " Why was 
 I taken from my mine, where God had put me, to 
 
210 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 be melted in a furnace, and then to be thus heated 
 in insufferable fires and crushed by these terrible 
 blows?" And then it might have been answered : 
 *' This stern experience is to make you strong and 
 fit you for a great work. You are thus made tena- 
 cious and tough in order to become a noble anchor, 
 to hold amid the storm the tossing vessel which has 
 drifted among breakers. On its lee will be the shore, 
 over which, a cable's length off, the waves are burst- 
 ing mast-high, white with frightful death to passen- 
 gers and crew. But you, O anchor, made strong 
 by this trial, shall hold them safe, because of the 
 strength you have gained in this hell of fire. Your 
 great flukes will cling firm to the bottom, the vessel 
 will ride safely through the storm held by your un- 
 flinching resistance, and the lives of the sailors will 
 be as safe as though they were sleeping in their own 
 quiet homes, where their anxious wives look through 
 the windows into the terrible night." 
 
 If there are any listening to me who are now in 
 the experience of making — who are now in the fur- 
 nace or under the hammer of sorrow and trial, of 
 hard experiences grievous to be borne — I pray God 
 that they may so yield themselves up to the influ- 
 ence of his providence, may so submit themselves 
 to his will, that they may be built up in strength 
 and power and in the great emergencies that shall 
 come in their future course may bring safety, like 
 that great anchor, not to their own souls only, but 
 to all who put their confidence in them ! 
 
 There is another lesson which ought to come with 
 great comfort to every storm-tossed soul here, and 
 that is the joy and gladness which have filled the 
 
THE VOYAGE OF LIFE. 211 
 
 whole world over the safe arrival in port of the 
 French steamer. The coming in of a dozen other 
 steamers about which there had been little, if any, 
 fear was not the cause of one hundredth part as 
 much rejoicing as the coming in of this one steamer 
 that had been in danger. That is in perfect har- 
 mony with the whole universe of God. That was 
 what Jesus meant when he said that there is more 
 joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than 
 over ninety and nine just persons which need no 
 repentance. 
 
 I have read somewhere the story of an afternoon 
 at Havre, the place from whence La Gascogne ^^XX^di. 
 A fearful gale was blowing from the westward up 
 the English channel directly into this unsheltered 
 port. Great crowds of people had gone down on 
 the long pier to watch the ships come in. The har- 
 bor of Havre is made by two stone piers stretching 
 out, one a mile and the other something less, west- 
 ward into the sea. Along the shore outside these 
 piers are shoals and sand bars ; and inside, between 
 them, close to the city, is the excavated harbor, 
 with its splendid granite docks. In the storm the 
 multitude had come down, in spite of the wind that 
 threatened to blow them off their feet and of the 
 spray that, in the fury of the storm, broke over the 
 piers, to see the ships come in out of danger. Such 
 of the Havre-bound ships as were well to the wind- 
 ward were in no great danger, but came on before 
 the gale with their storm sails set, like great white 
 gulls. Now came a French merchantman, now a 
 New York packet ship, and now a full-rigged man 
 of war, all bearing on and bounding over the waves 
 
212 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 as though full of free life. One by one they came 
 down, skillfully guided by pilot and helmsman. As 
 they neared the port they reduced even their little 
 canvas, and, riding gracefully on the top of the 
 huge billows, swept in by the pier head and then into 
 the smooth and safe waters of the inner harbor. 
 One might go the world over and live a lifetime and 
 never see a more beautiful sight. 
 
 But presently, away to leeward, almost among 
 the sand banks, came a poor, crippled collier, most 
 of her sails torn to shreds and her masts bending 
 under the force of the gale. Once upon a sand 
 bank and her day was over. She fought gallantly 
 for her life. " She can't weather the shoals. She can 
 never fetch the pier head," cried the old tars, turn- 
 ing their eyes from the well-equipped windward ves- 
 sels to this forlorn craft, struggling at such odds 
 with the winds and waves. Now she seems to be 
 making a little progress, and then the great brute 
 forces of nature bore her av/ay and av/ay again, till 
 she trembled and panted, breathless and baffled, 
 like a living thing hunted and brought to bay. Now, 
 in her efforts to gain the harbor she seemed blown 
 down into the very edge of the breakers; then, by 
 skillful evolutions, her course Avas changed ; or, as 
 the sailors say, she " v/ore ship" and stood off. 
 But again the wind sent her back, and again she 
 neared the breakers and had to tack once more. 
 By and by the turn of the tide began to help the 
 desperate will of the sailors. Then slowly she drew 
 along toward the port ; and as she approached the 
 most dangerous point of the shoals the eyes of 
 every looker-on followed each motion eagerly. One 
 
THE VOYAGE OF LIFE. 213 
 
 moment she seemed whelmed hi the breakers, but 
 the next she had passed on toward the pier head. 
 When she reached it both men and ship seemed 
 exhausted. But ropes were thrown from the pier 
 and were secured by the sailors ; and then, as a 
 thousand hands seized them and drew the poor 
 tempest-worn vessel into the harbor, a multitude of 
 voices shouted a welcome. 
 
 There was more rejoicing over the poor collier 
 than over all the others. And that is just the way 
 it will be when we come to reach heaven. One may 
 get there ever so hardly, he may be battered and 
 scarred and stained, with sails torn and ragged ; 
 but if he is faithful and perseveres unto the end he 
 shall find all the ransomed throng of the redeemed 
 and all the multitudes of the angelic host ready to 
 welcome him with outstretched hands and songs of 
 victory. The giving up one's heart to God, the es- 
 caping from sin and finding forgiveness and salva- 
 tion, is often aptly compared to the sailor getting 
 into port, where he may ride in peace at anchor. I 
 trust there shall be some who shall find the haven 
 of forgiveness now. 
 
 Dr. George Pentecost describes the following- 
 scene in one of his services : " Seated in the front 
 row, immediately before the platform, one evening, 
 were three men, who paid the closest attention to 
 the sermon all the way through. Toward the close 
 of his address he was impelled to make a direct ap- 
 peal to one of these three men — the one who seemed 
 the most interested. So, turning to him, he said, 
 "Young man, are you a Christian?" Almost be- 
 fore he had the words out of his mouth the man 
 
214 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 addressed sprang to his feet and answered in a clear, 
 full voice, " Yes, thank God, I am, and have been 
 for the last thirteen months." ''Are you a sailor?" 
 Dr. Pentecost asked, for there was something about 
 him that suggested his calling. "Yes," was the 
 response ; " and this," pointing to one of the men 
 by his side, '' is my first officer, and I am second 
 officer of our ship." " Is your first officer a Chris- 
 tian too? " " O yes, thank God, he is for Christ." 
 Then pointing to the man on the other side, the 
 preacher said, " And how about your shipmate who 
 is sitting by you ? Is he a Christian too ? " " No^ 
 not yet, but I think he is beating up that way." 
 
 The preacher's next impulse was to appeal to the 
 man who, in the language of the sailor, was " beat- 
 ing up that way; " so he said, " Come, shipmate, 
 why not drop your anchor and come to rest in the 
 harbor of peace right here, by accepting Christ? " 
 At this the sailor man, with eyes full of tears, shook 
 his head and said, " I am in a fog ! " Thank God ! 
 in the after meeting that followed he was gently led 
 through the fog to the Lord Jesus Christ and went 
 away with peace in his soul. I have often thought 
 of that expression of the second officer, " He is 
 beating up that way." If there is anybody here 
 who is in that condition, beating your way against 
 the wind with the fog all about him, I pray that he 
 may give up that hopeless task and take the Lord 
 Jesus Christ on board his ship. If he does it will 
 be as it was when the disciples took him into the 
 ship so long ago and found themselves immediately 
 at the land. 
 
THE LESSON OF JEHU'S BOW. 215 
 
 XIX. 
 
 THE LESSON OF JEHU'S BOW. 
 
 " And Jehu drew a bow with his full strength."— 2 Kings ix, 24. 
 
 A GROUP of army officers were sitting together 
 in familiar conversation at Ramoth-gilead, 
 when suddenly there came up a young theological 
 student from a school of the prophets that had been 
 founded by Elijah. The young man came hurriedly 
 and stood before Jehu and said, " I have an errand 
 to thee, O captain! " And Jehu inquired, "Unto 
 which of all us ? " And the prophet replied, " To 
 thee, O captain." And Jehu arose and followed 
 him into the house ; and when they had reached a 
 private chamber the young prophet took a box of 
 oil which he had carried in his hand, and, to the 
 great astonishment of Jehu, he poured it on the 
 soldier's head and said unto him, "Thus saith the 
 Lord God of Israel, I have anointed thee king over 
 the people of the Lord, even over Israel. And 
 thou shalt smite the house of Ahab thy master, 
 that I may avenge the blood of my servants the 
 prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the 
 Lord, at the hand of Jezebel. For the whole house 
 of Ahab shall perish." 
 
 Immediately after his message was delivered the 
 young prophet, who I suspect was scared half to 
 death with his own message, opened the door and 
 
216 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 fled. It was a perilous time, a time full of doubt 
 and discord, and the officers outside were full of in- 
 terest as to what was going on within. So when 
 Jehu came forth one shouted out to him, " Is all 
 well ? Wherefore came this mad fellow to thee ? " 
 And Jehu, wishing to test them, said, " Ye know 
 the man, and his communication." But they said, 
 " It is false ; tell us now." And then Jehu told 
 them all — the wonderful message that had come to 
 him, the rebellion that was thus inaugurated against 
 the house of Ahab, that he himself was chosen to 
 be the leader of it and had but just now been 
 anointed king by the prophet. With whatever 
 great astonishment these men may have listened to 
 the story, there was a scrambling to their feet when 
 he was through. In a moment they had made 
 their decision to stand by the new order of things, 
 and the record says : *' Then they hasted, and took 
 every man his garment, and put it under him on 
 the top of the stairs, and blew with trumpets, say- 
 ing, Jehu is l:i ng." 
 
 Now at this time Joram, the King of Israel, was 
 at Jezreel. So Jehu ordered out a chariot and went 
 with all haste to Jezreel to meet his foe. Another 
 king, Azariah, King of Judah, '' was come down to 
 see Joram. And there stood a watchman on the 
 tower at Jezreel, and he spied the company of Jehu 
 as he came, and said, I see a company. And Joram 
 said. Take an horseman, and send to meet them, and 
 let him say. Is it peace? So there went one on 
 horseback to meet him, and said. Thus saith the 
 king, Is it peace? And Jehu said, What hast thou 
 to do with peace? turn thee behind me. And the 
 
THE LESSON OF JEHU'S BOW. 217 
 
 watchman told, saying, The messenger came to 
 them, but he cometh not again. Then he sent out 
 a second on horseback, which came to them and 
 said. Thus saith the king, Is it peace? And Jehu 
 answered. What hast thou to do with peace ? turn 
 thee behind me. And the watchman told, saying. 
 He came even unto them, and cometh not again : 
 and the driving is like the driving of Jehu the son 
 of Nimshi ; for he driveth furiously. And Joram 
 said, Make ready. And his chariot was made ready. 
 And Joram King of Israel and Ahaziah King of Ju- 
 dah went out, each in his chariot, and they went 
 out against Jehu, and met him in the portion of 
 Naboth the Jezreelite. And it came to pass, when 
 Joram saw Jehu, that he said, Is it peace, Jehu ? " 
 And Jehu hissed through his teeth, with the ferocity 
 of a tiger, that there would be no peace so long as 
 the abominations of Jezebel continued. And Jo- 
 ram, seeing in an instant that Jehu meant his de- 
 struction, turned and fled, crying out, " There is 
 treachery, O Ahaziah." And then Jehu drew a 
 bow with his full strength and smote the king be- 
 tween his arms, and the arrow went out at his heart, 
 and he sunk down dead in his chariot. 
 
 I have not the slightest interest in making any 
 defense of the after conduct of Jehu. You may 
 think just as well or just as badly of him as you 
 please. But we have in the culmination of this 
 story which I have thus briefly sketched for you, 
 mostly from the fascinating Scripture narrative itself, 
 a graphic and suggestive theme. Jehu had some 
 characteristics that belong to all great success. 
 
 First, he was a prompt man. He did not wait 
 
218 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 for the grass to grow on the road between Ramoth- 
 gilead and Jezreel. He did not wait for the rumor 
 of his having been anointed king to sift itself 
 through the country round about and give a chance 
 for some enemy to arouse a counter conspiracy. 
 He did not dekiy until Joram the king should hear 
 of it and have a chance to flee to some place of 
 safety or to fortify himself against attack. Jehu 
 was the kind of man who takes time by the forelock. 
 He is in his chariot at once. His face is turned 
 toward his foe. It is to be a life and death grapple. 
 There cannot be two kings in Israel ; one of them 
 must die. And so he drives straight to the point 
 where danger lies and where his battle is to be 
 fought. He not only drives, but he does not spare 
 the whip. He drives furiously. He means busi- 
 ness. He has thrown himself with all the vigor and 
 intensity of his soul into this thing. And when 
 the time comes for action he does not play with the 
 tragic business he has on hand. He does not shoot 
 to cripple the king ; he draws his bow with his full 
 strength, and the arrow leaves its place with all the 
 tremendous force of his strong right arm, speeding 
 straight to the heart of the doomed man. 
 
 Now I want that we should use this picture as a 
 suggestion to us of the duty of the Christian church 
 and as indicating to us the conditions of success in 
 fighting the evil and building up the kingdom of 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. A church ought to pull its 
 bow with full strength, so that it may send its arrows 
 flying with deadly force into the heart of every evil 
 thing in the community. Jehu was anointed to be 
 God's executioner of the v/icked house of Ahab. 
 
THE LESSON OF JEHU'S BOW. 219 
 
 The Christian church stands in the world to-day- 
 anointed and commissioned to fight every evil in- 
 stitution, to conquer every wicked lust and passion, 
 to overthrow and destroy every form of iniquity by 
 which manhood and womanhood are oppressed or 
 degraded. We are not in the world simply to hold 
 a fortress, but to aggressively conquer the world for 
 Jesus Christ. We are to " keep the faith " — but we 
 are to keep it, not in a granary where it may mold, 
 but by sowing it broadcast in the fields of human 
 thought, in the rich soil of human hearts, until it 
 shall bring forth its harvest in glorified human lives. 
 
 What are some of the conditions which make it 
 possible for a church to pull its bow with full 
 strength ? 
 
 First, there must be a loyalty to God on the part 
 of the membership. There must be a devotion to 
 Jesus Christ, as our Leader and our King. Jehu's 
 courage came more than all else from the fact that 
 he was assured that he was fulfilling God's purpose. 
 He had been anointed by the prophet of God. He 
 had been told in the most solemn and emphatic man- 
 ner that divine justice had ordained the overthrow 
 of the house of Ahab. And thus, as he drove furi- 
 ously toward Jezreel, his heart was nerved with the 
 conviction that the divine power watched over him 
 and that the strength of God should be with him 
 and give him success. Such a conviction could not 
 but exalt him in his spirit and add fervor to his de- 
 votion to his purpose. We need a self-devotion 
 like that to-day — a supreme consecration on the 
 part of every member of the church, pledging us 
 to absolute loyalty to the purpose of God. 
 
220 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 Paul, in telling the Corinthians about the wonder- 
 ful prosperity of the Macedonian Christians, says 
 that they " first gave their own selves to the Lord." 
 That is what we must do if the church is to be in 
 this city the mighty force for righteousness which 
 God expects of us. Mr. Beecher once said that the 
 trouble with some people was that they wanted re- 
 ligion as a sort of spiritual orchestra to hover over 
 them in the clouds and make sweet music for them, 
 while their real life was in the dirt. Do not be thus 
 self-deceived. The church is worthless to you un- 
 less it does something more than charm your ears. 
 Its greater purpose is to renovate your heart, to 
 purify your soul, to harness you to the great pur- 
 poses which God has for you in the world, to bring 
 you into fellowship with Jesus Christ, to nerve your 
 arm with courage to do heroic and noble deeds. 
 And just in proportion as that spirit possesses the 
 church the church ceases to be a social or a reli- 
 gious club and comes to be, in deed and in truth, a 
 church of the living God. 
 
 A church, in order to give full force to its arrows 
 of action and deed, must be united and harmonious 
 in its enthusiastic loyalty to Christ. Love for Jesus 
 Christ in the hearts of the people must be such a 
 warm and real fact that it will overcome all lesser 
 differences and hold the people together as a unit 
 by the force of its heavenly magnetism. If Jehu's 
 captains had been divided and quarrelsome it vv^ould 
 have been useless to have anointed him king. But, 
 whatever may have been their private differences of 
 opinion, they dropped everything else to shout for 
 Jehu. Every man was in his place, with his trumpet 
 
THE LESSON OF JEHU'S BOW. 221 
 
 in his hands and the cry on his hps, " Jehu is 
 king!" 
 
 So the strong church that nothing can resist is 
 the church whose membership is full of enthusiastic 
 and united love for Christ. We are not all alike. In 
 a large church there will be great diversity of 
 opinion as to methods and the minor details of the 
 church work ; but, if a church is to be strong in its 
 great mission of fighting evil to the death and win- 
 ning souls to the standard of Jesus Christ, all private 
 differences of opinion must give way before the com- 
 mon good of all and in the presence of supreme loy- 
 alty to the Christ, who is our Saviour and Redeemer. 
 
 Dr. David H. Moore, of the Western Christian 
 Advocate, finds a striking editorial sermon in the 
 pathetic surprise and grief of the Chinese emperor 
 at the universal defeat of his armies. The news- 
 papers tell of his interview with his council in which 
 his breaking heart sobbed out its anguish. He had 
 provided his officers with careful training for the ex- 
 igencies of war, furnished unstinted treasure to pay 
 his soldiers, equipped them with the most improved 
 weapons, and provisioned them for the severest and 
 most prolonged campaign. But when the hour of 
 trial came his soldiers were sent to slaughter or ig- 
 nominious defeat bearing arms of obsolete patterns 
 to stand up against the latest rifles and machine 
 guns, and many of his officers turned traitors or 
 cowards. Where he had a right to expect unity he 
 found division ; where abundance, poverty ; where 
 splendidly equipped and disciplined soldiery, a 
 starving, ill-assorted, spiritless rabble. 
 
 May we not find in this a lesson for ourselves ? In 
 15 
 
222 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 our great contest with the hosts of sin, what does 
 our King find in his church? He has done all for 
 us that it is possible for unlimited power and wis- 
 dom and love to do. The Holy Spirit is offered to 
 everyone that will ask in sincerity. All power in 
 heaven and earth is pledged to us if we fight loyally 
 for him. Are we faithful to this divine Leader ? If, 
 like the Chinese officers, instead of being loyal to our 
 great opportunity, we give way to self-indulgence, 
 seeking only our own ease and our own comfort, 
 how certainly the church will come, in its battle 
 against sin, to disaster and ruin ! On the other 
 hand, if we are true to him we will find that no op- 
 position that can be brought against us can prosper, 
 and we shall be able to pluck new honors and many 
 crowns with which to adorn our Lord. 
 
 A church cannot pull a bow with its full strength 
 unless there is a general disposition on the part of 
 its membership to work to the full amount of their 
 abihty. A church is a combination, a consolidation 
 of added forces. It is like the current of a river — 
 each stream which comes down from the hills, hav- 
 ing its own little history and story, adds its full 
 force of momentum and power to the great river 
 with which it casts its lot. It may be that when 
 mill wheels are turned, when cities are supplied 
 with water, and great ships are borne on its bosom, 
 no one stream can tell or boast that it was its power 
 that accomplished the result ; and yet all alike 
 work together to fulfill the great mission. So a 
 church is strong only as its membership is strong. 
 If individuals of the church are weak in courage, 
 nerveless in purpose, cold and lukewarm in devo- 
 
THE LESSON OF JEHU'S BOW. 223 
 
 tion, given up to worldliness and indifference, 
 the whole body of the church must feel the effect of 
 it and be largely weakened and hurt by it. This is 
 true of every department of church work. The 
 mighty force of the church which comes from the 
 union of the many cannot pull its bow with 
 full strength unless the individuals composing the 
 many shall each give their full quota of power. 
 The influence of the individual, even in a large 
 company of people, is almost impossible to compute. 
 It may seem to be a comparatively weak and 
 unknown factor, but the influence for good or bad 
 may be tremendous. Mrs. Belle Chase sings this 
 marvelous power of influence with true poetic in- 
 siofht : 
 
 'fc.' 
 
 " .One morn, from careless lips, 
 
 In thoughtless haste, 
 
 A harsh word fell. 
 By swift North wind 'twas quickly caught ; 
 Scarce thinking of the harm he wrought, 
 Upon his blighting wings he bore 
 The thoughtless word from shore to shore ; 
 Above the listening towns he flew, 
 Until, at night, the whole world knew 
 
 The sorry tale. 
 
 " One morn, from smiHng lips, 
 
 A glad song rang. 
 
 Of sweet good will. 
 The West wind heard the sweet refrain, 
 And quickly caught the lovely strain. 
 To suffering souls, by sorrow bowed. 
 Through lanes she flew, and city's crowd, 
 With healing balm for error's wound, 
 Until at night, the whole world round 
 
 Could sing the song." 
 
224 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 This contribution of one's full share of force must 
 extend itself to temporal, as well as spiritual, things 
 if the church is to draw its bow with its full strength. 
 Many people in a large church, who are notable to 
 give what seem to them large sums, excuse them- 
 selves from all share in bearing the financial burden 
 of the church, until the church is crippled for lack 
 of the money which would be abundant in the 
 treasury if all shared with equal fidelity in its sup- 
 port. Young man and young woman, you should 
 be specially aroused by our theme this morning to 
 discipline yourselves in youth, while perhaps the 
 sums you are able to give, either financially, socially, 
 or spiritually, seem very small to you, yet to give 
 what you are able to give with the same fidelity and 
 devotion, and with the same feeling of conscientious 
 responsibility as the steward of God's good things, 
 as you would if you were able to give largely. We 
 hear a great deal of talk, and rightly, about the 
 duty of very gifted and talented men and women or 
 very rich people to hold their gifts and talents and 
 riches as God's stewards; but is it not just as true 
 that the man who has one talent — whether it be in- 
 fluence or position or money — is just as truly ac- 
 countable to God for his use of it as the man who 
 has ten? The strong church is where rich and 
 poor, old and young, strong and weak, stand side by 
 side in blessed fellovv^ship, each doing what he can, 
 each adding a little, more or less, according to 
 ability, to make that strong right arm of power 
 which draws the bow of the church's influence to its 
 full strength. 
 
 The church becomes sacred and precious to us in 
 
THE LESSON OF JEHU'S BOW. 225 
 
 proportion as we give ourselves to it. That time- 
 worn phrase, " I belong to the church," may mean 
 very much or very Httle to you. How much it 
 means to some famihes ! I know I look into the 
 faces of some of you here to whom the church of 
 God is the most precious thing in all the world. 
 Your home life, your social life, your personal reli- 
 gious experience, all the tender ties of fellowship, 
 human and divine, have been woven together in the 
 life of the church. Dr. J. W. Chad wick sings a 
 sweet little song entitled, '' The Golden Robin's 
 Nest : " 
 
 "The goklen robin came to huild his nest 
 High in the elm tree's ever nodding crest ; 
 All the long day, upon his task intent, 
 Backward and forward busily he went, 
 
 " Gathering from far and near the tiny shreds 
 That birdies weave for little birdies' beds ; 
 Now bits of grass, now bits of vagrant string. 
 And now some queerer, dearer sort of thing. 
 
 " For on the lawn, where he was wont to come 
 In search of stuff to build his pretty home. 
 We dropped one day a lock of golden hair. 
 Which our wee darling easily could spare ; 
 
 " And, close beside it, tenderly we placed 
 A lock that had the stooping shoulders graced 
 Of her old grandsire ; it was white as snow. 
 Or cherry trees when they are all ablow. 
 
 " Then throve the golden robin's work apace ; 
 Hundreds of times he sought the lucky place 
 Where sure, he thouglit, in his bird fashion dim, 
 Wondrous provision had been made for him. 
 
226 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 " Both locks, the white and golden, disappeared ; 
 The nest was finished, and the brood was reared ; 
 And then there came a pleasant summer's day 
 When the last golden robin flew away. 
 
 " Erelong, in triumph, from its leafy height, 
 We bore the nest so wonderfully light, 
 And saw how prettily the white and gold 
 Made warp and woof of many a gleaming fold. 
 
 "But when again the golden robins came, 
 Cleaving the orchards with their breasts aflame, 
 Grandsire's white locks and baby's golden head 
 Were lying low, both in one grassy bed. 
 
 " And so more dear than ever is the nest 
 Ta'en from the elm tree's ever nodding crest. 
 Little the golden robin thought how rare 
 A thing he wrought with white and golden hair." 
 
 The church of God is the nesting place where 
 God weaves together the sweetest and most sacred 
 memories of our human Hves. Ah, I do not believe 
 you all appreciate how much the church really 
 means to you. Recall, I pray you, while I speak, 
 its countless mercies. Many of you were brought 
 to its sacred altars by saintly hands that have 
 ceased to work on earth. You have grown up 
 there. You, in turn, have brought your little 
 children there for baptism. When they have 
 grown to manhood or womanhood you have seen 
 them wedded there at God's altar. When one has 
 fallen by the wayside you have brought the loved 
 form back again, to pause for an hour in the holy 
 place on its way to the burial. The church ! Who 
 can tell what it means to you? It was God's mes- 
 senger when you were a poor sinner. 'Twas there 
 
THE LESSON OF JEHU'S BOW. 227 
 
 you found the Redeemer. It has comforted you 
 when you were sad ; it has sanctified you when you 
 were glad; it has nerved your soul anew when you 
 were discouraged ; it has quieted and restrained 
 your feverish unrest when you were successful. 
 The church ! Its hallowed benediction has fallen 
 upon you from the cradle onward through all these 
 years. Your hopes and fears, your joys and sorrows, 
 have all been hallowed by it. And whatever the 
 future holds for you, with its graces of the Spirit 
 and its Easter hopes of everlasting life, has its 
 promise and its foretaste in this sacred place. 
 
228 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 XX. 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF THE NAPKIN. 
 
 "And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I 
 have kept laid up in a napkin." — Luke xix, 20. 
 
 MOST of you remember the story which leads up 
 to the text. The nobleman is going into the 
 far country. He selects ten servants for agents and 
 delivers to each one of them a certain amount, with 
 which he is to trade and make report of results 
 when he shall come again. After a while he comes 
 back, calls his servants together, and demands an 
 accounting. One after another is called, and they 
 report varying degrees of success. One comes up 
 proudly and reports that he has multiplied the 
 original capital ten times. He is applauded and 
 richly rewarded. Another has acquired five times 
 what was committed to him. He, too, receives the 
 praise of his Lord and reward in proportion to his 
 labor. But finally there comes along a man who 
 has not dared to risk the money that had been in- 
 trusted to him, and through all the years of his 
 master's absence has kept the capital committed to 
 his care carefully secreted. And so he comes say- 
 ing, "Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I 
 have kept laid up in a napkin." The doom of that 
 man is the tragedy of the parable. These men are 
 intended as representative characters and, taken 
 
THE TRAGEDY OF THE NAPKIN. 229 
 
 together, form a most interesting group of living 
 pictures, full of suggestion as to our responsibility 
 for the capital of human life which is committed to 
 our hands. 
 
 The great central truth taught in the parable is 
 that our lives as a whole, with all their gifts of in- 
 telligence and ability, of poAver to acquire and dis- 
 tribute influence, are the capital which is bestowed 
 upon us by our Creator ; that if we shall take this 
 capital into the market place it will gather other 
 values to itself, will multiply in our hands, so that 
 after a while, when the great accounting day shall 
 come, we shall not only bring back the original sum 
 with which we were trusted, but shall have multi- 
 plied it many times by our industry and devotion. 
 
 We are also taught very clearly that it is not 
 necessary to waste our capital or to squander it 
 in riotous living in order to come under the right- 
 eous condemnation of God. Simply to fail to use 
 what has been committed to us, to shirk the re- 
 sponsibility of our manhood or womanhood, and to 
 hide away the gifts which have been bestowed upon 
 us — this is to sin against God's wisdom and good- 
 ness and direct commandment. Growth is the law 
 of life ; development is the order of our being ; 
 fruit-bearing is the test of our fidelity. 
 
 Let us study some of the napkins which are in 
 common use in our time in covering up the gold of 
 human life and hiding it out of sight and out of 
 usefulness. 
 
 There is the napkin of distrust and doubt. This 
 man's distrust came from a prejudiced, jaundiced 
 idea of his master. If he had known his master 
 
230 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 better he would have known that he could forgive 
 anything easier than indolence. So, if you ask me 
 what a man shall do if he has doubts about 
 Christianity I say, Become better acquainted with 
 Jesus Christ. Christianity is a personal system. It 
 clings about Jesus Christ. No man can espouse 
 Christianity with great zest until he comes into close 
 fellowship with Jesus. Christ disarms the most 
 prejudiced man who studies carefully his character 
 and life. The indifferent Lew Wallace becomes 
 the reverent disciple through the studies necessary 
 to write Ben-Hur. Leckey, the rationalist, is com- 
 pelled to say that Christianity presented ** to the 
 world an ideal character, which, through all the 
 changes of eighteen centuries, has filled the hearts 
 of men with an impassioned love ; has shown itself 
 capable of acting on all ages, nations, tempera- 
 ments, and condition ; has been, not only the 
 highest pattern of virtue, but the strongest in- 
 centive to its practice ; and has exerted so deep an 
 influence that it may be truly said that the simple 
 record of three short years of active life has done 
 more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the 
 disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhorta- 
 tions of moralists." Thomas doubted in the ab- 
 sence of Christ, but in his presence was convinced 
 of his divine lordship. And Jesus remarked upon 
 his confession of him, " Blessed are they that have 
 not seen, and yet have believed." And multitudes 
 every day who draw near to Christ by repentance 
 and faith are coming into that blessedness and en- 
 tering into holy communion and feUowship with 
 him. 
 
THE TRAGEDY OF THE NAPKIN. 231 
 
 This napkin of distrust and doubt always leads to 
 a second covering, akin to itself, or rather a result- 
 ant — hopelessness. The inevitable tendency of sin 
 is to drive the sinning soul to hopelessness and de- 
 spair. The man who has lost faith in his power to 
 do right and in the presence of God to help him is 
 naturally hopeless for the race and for himself. Sin 
 not only disturbs the conscience, but it robs the 
 heart of courage and destroys the light of hope. 
 One of the saddest things in the world is the hope- 
 lessness of it. Men are dj/ing all about us because 
 of broken hearts. Men are committing suicide be- 
 cause they are in despair. The poor materialism of 
 our time has no hope for men; and the heart, con- 
 scious of Its own sin and unworthiness, breaks 
 without hope. Christ came into the world, not to 
 condemn the world, but that the world through him 
 might be saved. 
 
 The Gospel message comes to sinners as a life- 
 boat comes to the poor shipwrecked sailors in the 
 midst of the storm. How bright this old Bible is 
 with lighthouses of hope ! Listen to some of 
 them : " Why art thou cast down, O my soul ? and 
 why art thou disquieted within me ? Hope thou in 
 God : for I shall yet praise him, who Is the health 
 of my countenance, and my God." '' We are saved 
 by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for 
 what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for ? " 
 " The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in 
 believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the 
 power of the Holy Ghost." " Looking for that 
 blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the 
 great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." ** We 
 
232 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Je- 
 sus Christ, ... for the hope which is laid up for 
 you in heaven." "To whom God would make 
 known what is the riches of the glory of this mys- 
 tery among the Gentiles ; which is Christ in you, 
 the hope of glory." "Which hope we have as an 
 anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and 
 which entereth into that within the veil." 
 
 But some troubled, perplexed soul, half smothered 
 under the napkin of distrust and despair, says, " It 
 is well enough to quote hopeful scriptures to people 
 Vv'ho are looking out on jo}'ous futures ; but mine 
 looks so black." Yes, black to you, no doubt, 
 when you are trying to look at it through a nap- 
 kin ; but bright enough if you will look at it 
 through the lens of God's promise. Our good 
 neighbor. Dr. Cuyler, tells about a painting called 
 "Cloudland," which he saw in one of the German 
 picture galleries. It hangs at the end of a long 
 gallery and, at first sight, looks like a huge, repul- 
 sive daub of confused color, without form or come- 
 liness. As you walk toward it, however, the pic- 
 ture begins to take shape. It proves to be a mass 
 of exquisite little cherub faces, like those at the 
 head of the canvas in Raphael's " Madonna di San 
 Sisto." When you come close to the picture you 
 see an innumerable company of little angels and 
 cherubim. How often a soul, frightened by trial, 
 sees nothing but a confused and repulsive mass of 
 broken expectations and crushed hopes ! But if 
 that soul, instead of fleeing away into unbelief and 
 despair, would only come close to God it would 
 soon discover that the cloud was full of angels of 
 
THE TRAGEDY OF THE NAPKIN. 233 
 
 mercy. In one cherub face it would see, '' Whom 
 the Lord loveth he chasteneth." Another angel 
 would say, " All things Avork together for good to 
 them that love God." And from still another 
 sweet face the heavenly benediction would come, 
 '' Let not your heart be troubled : ye believe in 
 God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are 
 many mansions, . . . Where I am, there ye shall 
 be also." 
 
 One of the most beautiful pictures of courage and 
 sweetness under trying circumstances is presented 
 in a little book, published some three or four years 
 since, entitled A Little White SJiadozv. This strik- 
 ing title was suggested by a remark made by an art- 
 ist who was looking out one day from the heights of 
 an island in one of the beautiful bays on the coast of 
 the Mediterranean not far from Naples. The bay 
 was lying below under the intense, white light of the 
 midday sun, and the artist remarked, " Even the 
 shadows are white at this hour of the day." The 
 story goes on to describe a woman whose name in 
 the little town is on everybody's lips, but whose fig- 
 ure is never seen on any of the island roads. 
 Madame Teresa never comes down the beautiful 
 paths, because up in a villa on the rocks, surrounded 
 by an uninclosed rose garden, she has been shut up 
 within four walls these thirty years, never a 
 moment without pain ; but whoever goes to her 
 room, full of birds and flowers and portraits, finds 
 nothing there but courage, good cheer, and kindli- 
 ness. Day by day and year by year the little 
 madame has lain on her couch, looking out of her 
 window upon the world from which she is shut off; 
 
234 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 always serene, full of gentleness, and abounding in 
 good works. No one on the island seems to lead 
 so active a life as she, so constantly do her thoughts 
 travel to every household, so accurate is her knowl- 
 edge of everyone's needs, so constant is her tact 
 and sympathy, so varied and delicate are her benefi- 
 cences and service. Looking out one day at twi- 
 light, when some one suggested that lights should 
 be brought, Madame Teresa laughed and said that 
 she was never alone. " It is always noon with me ; 
 when shadows come and I do not like them I 
 always think of bright lights ; " and immediately 
 there flashed into the mind of the visitor the phrase 
 of the artist— "A little white shadov/." At the 
 elevation of faith and resignation which Madame 
 Teresa had reached even the shadows were white. 
 
 How blessed is the influence and how inspiring 
 the teaching of such a life ! How easy it would 
 have been for her to hide away her talent in a nap- 
 kin and excuse herself for doing so. But how in- 
 finitely wiser for her to refuse to permit herself to 
 become idle or morbid and sad. She simply 
 changed the class of her interests. If she could not 
 invest her pound any longer in one way she put it 
 out to interest among another circle of exchangers. 
 Having lost the power of being of service longer 
 with hands and feet, she cultivated with more 
 earnestness the gift of thoughtfulness, the power of 
 sympathetic fellowship, and the sweetness of spirit 
 which enabled her to act through others. Let us 
 learn the lesson of this sweet life. When we can 
 no longer do one thing well let us seek out what is 
 left, let us strengthen those things which remain. 
 
THE TRAGEDY OF THE NAPKIN. 235 
 
 Then there is the napkin of selfishness. Selfish- 
 ness is a stem around which many sins and vices 
 cluster. The idolatry of self is the heaviest napkin 
 that ever shut out the light of heaven from deluded 
 human eyes. This napkin usually finds its most 
 common illustration in worldliness. The old par- 
 able of the sower which I read for our Scripture 
 lesson is illustrated over and over again. The soil 
 is rich, the seed is good, the promise of youth is 
 splendid ; but the thorns choke it out. Worldli- 
 ness chokes the life out of many a soul. And what 
 a miserable exchange it is ! The story is told of a 
 certain duke who had a passion for costly diamonds. 
 His house resembled a castle, rather than a man- 
 sion, and it was surrounded with a lofty wall over 
 which no one could climb without giving an alarm. 
 His treasure was kept in a safe let into the wall in 
 his bedroom, so that it could not be reached with- 
 out first awaking or murdering the owner ; the safe 
 was so constructed that it could not be forced with- 
 out discharging four guns and setting an alarm bell 
 ringing in every room. His bedroom, like a prison- 
 er's cell, had but one small window ; and the bolt 
 and lock of the massive door were of the stoutest 
 iron. In addition to these precautions, a case con- 
 taining twelve loaded revolvers stood beside his 
 bed. Instead of crying out, like the psalmist, '' The 
 Lord is the strength of my life ; of whom shall I 
 be afraid?" he might have said, " Diamonds are my 
 portion ; therefore do I fear." 
 
 Let us take off the napkin of worldliness and 
 bring our capital out into the market place of the 
 world's need. Possibly I am speaking to some 
 
236 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 worldly-minded father or mother. If so, let me Im- 
 press upon you the awful tragedy that may come 
 from the wrapping up of the spiritual possibilities 
 of your home in any napkin of the world's making. 
 No one can overestimate the blessed influence of 
 simple, straightforward Christianity in the home. 
 A man who has been of great value and blessing to 
 the world relates that, on one of his visits to his 
 old home years after he had left it, he was put to 
 sleep in the spare chamber. In the morning he 
 opened the closet door, and a scene met his gaze 
 which brought the tears to his e3'es in a moment. 
 There, in the center of the closet, stood a chair, and 
 before that chair was a cushion in which there were 
 deep prints, where some one, evidently, was accus- 
 tomed to kneel in secret worship. It all flashed 
 over him in an instant. It was the secret sanctu- 
 ary of his own blessed mother, who had prayed all 
 her ten children into the kingdom. What a hal- 
 lowed spot it seemed to him ! A thrill of sacred 
 awe came over him, and a voice almost seemed to 
 say, as it did to Moses at the burning bush, " Put 
 off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place where- 
 on thou standest is holy ground." O mother, if 
 you would be remembered by your children with a 
 benediction like that you must begin at once. 
 There is no time in this short life to be lost. A 
 lovely old lady lay in a casket, ready for burial. ' A 
 niece, looking upon the placid features, remarked, 
 " I hope I shall have as beautiful an old age as Aunt 
 Catherine." To which a sister made wise reply, *' It 
 is none too soon to begin." 
 
 But I dare not close our study without calling 
 
THE TRAGEDY OF THE NAPKIN. 237 
 
 your attention faithfully to the tragic ending of our 
 text. The tragedy is here, and it is in real life as 
 well. Our text will not let us forget that we hold 
 our destiny, after all, in our own hands. God will 
 not ruthlessly break down our wills. He will call 
 after us ; he will warn us through the conscience ; 
 he will impress us by the still, small voice ; he will 
 send us the Bible and the ministry of reconciliation ; 
 he will call us by his providences, wrought out in 
 joy and grief; but we also have something to do. 
 We ourselves must take off the unworthy napkin. 
 We must rouse ourselves to action, to a sense of our 
 accountability to God, and faithfully, by his help, 
 fulfill the mission he has given to us. If we do not, 
 if we reject all, if we allow our pound, committed 
 to us, to remain wrapped up in distrust or selfish- 
 ness or worldliness or sin of any kind, the tragedy 
 comes at last. The pound is taken from us, and, 
 speechless and undone, we are cast out in sorrow 
 and despair. 
 16 
 
238 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 A HAUNTED SOUL. 
 
 " When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through 
 dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return 
 into my house from whence I came out ; and when he is come, he find- 
 eth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with 
 himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in 
 and dwell there : and the last state of that man is worse than the first." — 
 Matt, xii, 43-45- 
 
 WHO of us has not shivered at- weird stories of 
 haunted houses — superstitious legends of 
 how the ghosts of some old murder-making feud or 
 the victims of some cruel injustice come back again 
 to make queer noises and strange lights and disturb 
 the slumber and the peace of later dwellers in what 
 was once the theater of their own exploits? But 
 we are coming at this time to the study of a haunted 
 house which does not rest for its interest upon 
 either superstition or legend, or even divine revela- 
 tion ; we are to study what is patent to the obser- 
 vation and intelligence of every one of us. 
 
 The scripture we are studying undoubtedly had 
 special reference to the very people to whom Christ 
 was speaking ; but it is a picture of universal appli- 
 cation and is illustrated as frequently to-day as in 
 any time in the past. It is put before us in one of 
 those straightforward and interesting figures which 
 Christ so often uses. An evil spirit possesses a 
 house, which in the last sentence of our text Christ 
 
A HAUNTED SOUL. 239 
 
 explains very clearly to be a human soul. By some 
 power — it may be the conscience aroused by the 
 Holy Spirit, it may be some revelation of diviner 
 and better things possible for the soul, it may be 
 some devout and earnest pleading of godly friends — 
 for some reason the man rouses all that is within 
 him and expels the evil spirit. Cast out, the evil 
 spirit seeks rest, hunts for a home, lurks about for 
 a while in desert places, finds no rest, and comes 
 back again to see what has transpired in his ab- 
 sence. And when he comes back, doubtless ex- 
 pecting to find the house tenanted and strongly 
 guarded and some new dweller possessing all the 
 rooms and appointments of the soul, the evil spirit 
 finds, with devilish joy and, no doubt, at the same 
 time with astonishment, that the house is empty. 
 There is no tenant there, no light in the window 
 no music from the piano, no fire in the kitchen, no 
 indication of life anywhere; but, instead, the house 
 is swept and furnished, garnished and decorated, as 
 if in invitation to some energetic personality to 
 come and take possession and intrench himself and 
 be at home. With alacrity the exiled spirit accepts 
 the invitation ; but, having learned cunning through 
 past experience, he does not trust himself alone, 
 lest he be again overthrown, but goes and invites 
 seven other more bold and impudent and vicious 
 spirits than himself, and the eight come back and 
 enter in and hold revel in that man's soul. And we 
 can understand why Jesus says, " The last state of 
 that man is worse than the first." 
 
 Dr. Henry Melville, the great English preacher, 
 interprets this first evil spirit to be that ruling evil 
 
240 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 passion or master disposition to sin which tempts 
 every soul. He declares that every individual 
 among us is tempted by nature to some one kind of 
 sin, which, according to St. Paul's expression, is 
 "the sin which doth so easily beset us;" that the 
 greatest difficulty which Christianity encounters in 
 our salvation is in grappling with the master passion, 
 in the overcoming of the besetting sin, whether it 
 be a sin of the flesh or a sin of the intellect ; and 
 that the battle royal in every one of our lives be- 
 tween good and evil will be at that one weak point 
 in our nature. Thus, if a voluptuous man shall re- 
 solve to cease his sin and lead a pure life his hard- 
 est after task will be in resisting the lust of the flesh ; 
 while the proud man or the man of envious dispo- 
 sition will find that his main battle must be waged 
 with pride or with envy. And the devil, who once 
 had undisputed possession of the man and who 
 knows, therefore, the quarter in which he is most 
 assailable, will direct his temptations against the 
 vulnerable point and will persistently seek to make 
 a breach where he once held the broadest highway. 
 To my mind the great lesson we have to study at 
 this time is this : that an empty life is always 
 in danger, that you have done a very small thing 
 when you have gotten a man to cease sinning only, 
 and that you have no assurance whatever that any 
 reformation will be lasting unless you have brought 
 in a new tenant to take possession of the man's 
 soul. And, if it did last, what a poor, meaningless 
 thing a human life is that is not possessed by any 
 supreme and holy purpose for good ! An empty 
 life is itself a sinful life. All you have to do to de- 
 
A HAUNTED SOUL. 241 
 
 stroy the burrs of a flour mill is to let it run empty 
 without any grist. You and I are mills made that 
 way. We can never run when empty without dis- 
 aster. Every little while you see people who 
 have run empty, intellectually and spiritually, until 
 they are like two worn-out old millstones whetting 
 against each other all the time, wearing out them- 
 selves and the church. They make famous prayer 
 meeting bores and cranks that can dry up the 
 spirituality of almost any meeting if they have half 
 a chance. And the worst of it is that they often 
 claim to have a monopoly of the spirituality of the 
 church ; but somehow no flour comes out of their 
 mill, and no souls are won to Christ by them. In 
 politics they call them political hacks, because they 
 have had no great load of political or statesmanlike 
 truth of their own to express and carry forward, 
 but, like a public hack, back themselves up to 
 everything that offers on the street of political life. 
 
 I repeat it, that an empty life is always danger- 
 ous. It is not only of no value, but it is ready for 
 anybody to move in. An empty house gets the 
 windows knocked out by the hoodlums, or the 
 tramps move in and defile it and do outrage there. 
 So an empty heart is a temptation to every lawless 
 evil spirit to enter in and hold revel. I have 
 no doubt at all that a large part of the shameful 
 scandals which end in divorce and murder and sui- 
 cide among some of the richest of society's so-called 
 leaders in our time come from the very idleness and 
 emptiness and uselessness of their lives. 
 
 Bishop Henry C. Potter, of New York, preach- 
 ing on this subject some time ago, said that, as 
 
242 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 wealth increased and people came to live more lux- 
 uriously and there came to be a large number of 
 persons, both men and women, who had but little 
 to do, a condition of affairs was produced which 
 would naturally breed every imaginable evil that can 
 afflict society or ruin the individual soul. Let 
 wealth and luxury and indolence grow together, and 
 you have a nest in which a whole brood of vices 
 will soon and swiftly be hatched. How our daily 
 papers make us blush sometimes at the hideous 
 illustrations of the truth of this. Here is a home 
 clouded or shattered by the shame of a wretched 
 intrigue ; another, that is stung and Vvounded by the 
 cruelty of a causeless calummy ; and still another, 
 dishonored and disbanded by foolish and criminal 
 extravagance. And you can find the secret of 
 every one of them in the emptiness and idleness of 
 the circle in which they, like poor moths, have 
 burned themselves to death. Much of the crime 
 and baseness of our time, we would find if we could 
 trace it back to itsbeginning, was conceived because 
 life was *' empty, swept, and garnished," and because 
 there had entered — just because it was so empty, 
 its hands so idle and unemployed, its heart so unin- 
 terested and indifferent — a whole legion of devils 
 to drag it down to hell. 
 
 Only this past week the collector of customs of 
 New York city, in published interviews, declares 
 that many of the leading women of the richest and 
 most noted society of New York city are the most 
 ready to perjure themselves in order to bring in con- 
 traband goods for their neighbors. A case is given 
 of a young woman, very prominent in the social 
 
A HAUNTED SOUL. 243 
 
 world, about whom the customhouse officials were 
 informed by cable that she was on her way home 
 with many rich gowns and valuable articles which 
 were dutiable and which friends had asked her to 
 bring in order that they might be obtained minus 
 the duty. The officer in charge was informed of the 
 facts and told to question her very severely and give 
 her every possible chance to tell the truth. When 
 the steamer arrived the officer met the woman and 
 received her declaration. Not a single article was 
 declared. He handed it back to her and requested 
 her earnestly to go over in her mind everything that 
 her trunks contained. 
 
 " Are you positively sure that everything in it is 
 for your personal use?" he asked. The woman was 
 indignant. '* Of course it is. How dare you ask 
 me such a question?" ''Well," he replied, ''you 
 may keep this declaration until I return." In a few 
 moments the officer again put the formal questions 
 to her more earnestly than before. 
 
 This time the young woman was grieved. " I 
 shall report this to the officials," she exclaimed. 
 " They have already reported it to me," the officer 
 replied. That was too much for her, and she broke 
 down and confessed. The officer collected six hun- 
 dred dollars duty on the contents of her trunk. 
 
 Now that young woman was only the fruit on the 
 tree. She was an apple of Sodom, grown on the 
 tree of modern fashionable society, where to eat and 
 to drink, to keep oneself sleek and fat and well 
 groomed, and to dress and array the body are the 
 chief and only aims in human life. Such a life has 
 always produced crime and wickedness and corrup- 
 
244 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 tlon — everywhere, in every age; and the laws of 
 human nature have not changed or ceased to oper- 
 ate to-day. 
 
 " But," you say, " you are shooting wide of the 
 mark now ; that does not appeal to me. I have to 
 work early and late. My hands are full enough, 
 surely." Yes, your hands may be ; but what about 
 your soul ? Who possesses it ? Who is supreme 
 master there ? '' Well,' * one says, " I have long since 
 ceased to follow the besetting sin of my youth, and 
 I am determined, especially as this new 37ear comes 
 in, to refrain from everything that seems wrong to 
 me. Surely you can't ask anything better than 
 that." Ah, but God does ask something better 
 than that of you, and the requirements of your own 
 nature ask something better than that. Do you 
 remember the Pharisee and the publican that went 
 up into the temple to pray, and the Pharisee lifted 
 his face toward heaven and said, '' O Lord, I thank 
 thee I am not like some other people. I pay tithes 
 of all I possess ; that is, I pay my taxes — and that 
 is a great deal better than many people do nowa- 
 days — and I live an exceedingly respectable life. I 
 thank thee that I am so much better than this mis- 
 erable publican here." And yet that man did not 
 go down justified from the temple. What was the 
 trouble ? Why, taken at his own estimate, he had 
 only an empty house, swept and garnished indeed ; 
 but no good and noble spirit possessed him. 
 
 O brothers and sisters, I thank God that I have 
 something better than a mere haunted house to 
 preach to you ! Here it is that our holy Christianity 
 rises infinitely above all the philosophies and formal 
 
A HAUNTED SOUL. 245 
 
 moralities of the world. You have heard sermons 
 about conversion ; here is what it means, plainly 
 and simply, the old tenant is cast out, with all his 
 vicious friends and unholy visitors ; and a new ten- 
 ant comes in and dwells there, to fill the old house 
 full of the happy strains of a new music, to light 
 the windows with a new glow that shines from 
 heaven, Instead of from the pit, to bring new guests 
 into the rooms that have been so long defiled and 
 outraged. Around that broad hearthstone of the 
 soul, where pride and envy and hatred, or lust and 
 sensuality, have held revel, lo, now comes the Master, 
 with his friends — love and peace and gentleness and 
 meekness and joy and goodness — to hold their 
 blessed fellowship. They hold council day by day 
 together, not only how they may strengthen the 
 old house against attack, not only how they may 
 make the locks sure and the gate latch hold, or the 
 watch dogs alert, or the policemen honest ; ah, no ! 
 a more blessed thing than that — they spend those 
 hours of communion, first, in devising means by 
 which they may make the old house new, by which 
 they may repair the damage the wicked revelers have 
 wrought in it, how they may make it again a thing 
 of beauty and gladness, a joy to all that shall be- 
 hold it, and a welcome place for every rightful guest. 
 Not only so, but in those hours of communion they 
 study how they may make this new temple of the 
 living God a place of encouragement for the weary, 
 of refreshment for those who are discouraged, a bea- 
 con light for the storm-tossed mariner, a light amid 
 the world's darkness that cannot be hid. It is to 
 this we call you. 
 
246 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 And if there be any here who have, some time, 
 known something of this sweet experience, but 
 whose coldness or indifference has driven out the 
 heavenly tenants, I beg of him to call them back 
 now. It is always a sad thing to find that a man's 
 Christian testimony is only a reminiscence of by- 
 gone joys, while, in the meantimiC, the heart has 
 grown selfish and proud. Present experience is, 
 after all, the test of our relation to God, and the 
 measure of our real usefulness. The story is told 
 of a farmer who attended a sale of horses and was 
 shown one of which the owner said, '' This has been 
 a splendid roadster." Then another was brought 
 out, and of him it was said, '' He will make a good 
 worker when he is grown." But the old farmer im- 
 patiently exclaimed, " I don't want to see your 
 ' have beens ' or ' will bes ; ' bring out something 
 that is ! " So, in seeking after those who are to 
 help bring about the kingdom of God and win souls 
 to Christ, we want those who are now on fire with a 
 holy passion for souls, who are now letting their 
 light shine so that all may see their good works and 
 glorify God. 
 
 In Australia there are some plants that grow in 
 the water and are so full of light at night that they 
 give the impression of little islands on fire, and a 
 naturalist says that he hung some specimens of this 
 plant up in his sitting room to dry, and for several 
 nights they served as a light to read by ; but he 
 remarks significantly that "the luminosity disap- 
 peared as the plant dried up." So the power of a 
 Christian to give light disappears as he dries up, as 
 he himself is taken away from the water of life. 
 
A HAUNTED SOUL. 247 
 
 Are there fathers and mothers in this church and 
 congregation whose spiritual vitaUty has so dried 
 up that they no longer give the light of life to their 
 children ? Are there professed Christian men here 
 who go about in their business and no man knows 
 that they are Christians, and whose business asso- 
 ciates would be astonished if they knew them to be 
 professed disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ ? O, 
 backslider, come back to God ! 
 
 And so to everyone here who is not a Christian, 
 in that truest and noblest sense which means the 
 incarnation of Christ's spirit in your heart and life, 
 I come with my message. All your good resolu- 
 tions, your pledges of reform, your determination 
 to live a better life will be worse than idle unless 
 you yield your heart up to the God who made it 
 and to the loving service of the Christ who died to 
 redeem you. Recall the picture we are studying. 
 Here was a man who made a good resolution, who 
 emptied his life for the time of its sin, who swept 
 it and garnished it, possibly with education and po- 
 lite manners and refinement and all that ; but the 
 proper sign to put up over its door was, " Furnished 
 rooms to let." Is that your condition to-night, with 
 all the opportunities you have had ? How many 
 sweepers God has had at work to keep your heart 
 swept ! Your mother's prayers and all her tender 
 love and pleading, all the associations of the church 
 and Sunday school, the sermons that have aroused 
 your conscience — all these may have kept your 
 heart swept for a time from the greater sins. You 
 have not been without decoration, either. Schools, 
 music, reading, and art have furnished you with 
 
248 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 some garnishment of thought. But what a hollow 
 mockery it all is if over your heart's doorway the 
 sign stands, " To let, furnished rooms ; a heart that 
 can love and hate, that can hope and fear, an ob- 
 servatory with a telescope through which faith 
 might view the heavens, an immortal spirit gather- 
 ing tenants for eternity — to let ! " Ah, it will not 
 be to let long, for outside the devil lurks and watches 
 and waits. He bides his time. Seven other devils 
 lurk with him. Some day will come when the door 
 is not guarded, and they will enter in, and the last 
 state of your heart will be worse than the first. 
 
 But, blessed be God, the devil is not the only 
 tenant that haunts a human soul. Jesus says, ** Be- 
 hold I stand at the door, and knock : if any man 
 hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to 
 him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To 
 him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in 
 my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set 
 down with my Father in his throne. He that hatl 
 an ear, let him hear." 
 
GOLDEN VIALS FULL OF ODORS. 249 
 
 XXII. 
 
 HEAVEN'S PERFUME— GOLDEN VIALS FULL OF 
 ODORS. 
 
 " Golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of saints." — Rev, v, 8. 
 
 L 
 
 ONGFELLOW has sung to us the quaint, 
 sweet story of Sandalphon, the angel of prayer: 
 
 " Have you read in the Talmud of old, 
 In the legends the Rabbins have told 
 
 Of the limitless realms of the air. 
 Have you read it — the marvelous story 
 Of Sandalphon, the angel of glory, 
 
 Sandalphon, the angel of prayer ? 
 
 " How, erect, at the outermost gates 
 Of the city celestial he waits, 
 
 With his feet on the ladder of light. 
 That, crowded with angels unnumbered, 
 By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered 
 
 Alone in the desert at night } " 
 
 And the singer goes on to tell us how Sandalphon 
 
 " stands listening breathless 
 To sounds that ascend from below ; 
 
 "From the spirits on earth that adore. 
 From the souls that entreat and implore 
 
 In the fervor and passion of prayer ; 
 From the hearts that are broken with losses, 
 And weary with dragging the crosses 
 
 Too heavy for mortals to bear. 
 
250 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 " And he gathers the prayers as he stands, 
 And they change mto flowers in his hands, 
 
 Into garlands of purple and red ; 
 And beneath the great arch of the portal, 
 Through the streets of the city immortal 
 
 Is wafted the fragrance they shed." 
 
 And the writer of our text saw again when an angel 
 " came and stood at the altar, having a golden cen- 
 ser ; and there was given unto him much incense, 
 that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints 
 upon the golden altar which was before the throne. 
 And the smoke of the incense, which came with the 
 prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out 
 of the angel's hand." 
 
 Such revelations, however figurative you may re- 
 gard them, must, at least, be held to indicate God's 
 regard for the prayers of his reverent, trusting chil- 
 dren. There are a hundred questions you might 
 ask me about the philosophy of prayer and about 
 the methods of God's response to it which I would 
 not be able to answer you ; but I have no more 
 doubt about it as a divinely ordered channel of 
 communication between the heart of God and the 
 hearts of his children than I have of the existence 
 of the law of gravitation. It is idle to say that we 
 cannot trust where w^e do not know. Just at this 
 time business men are investing more money, per- 
 haps, in the development of machinery and inven- 
 tions depending upon electricity than in almost 
 anything else. And yet none of them know very 
 much about it, and many of them scarcely any- 
 thing. When telegraph companies are investing 
 millions of dollars of money in tying continents to- 
 
GOLDEN VIALS FULL OF ODORS. 251 
 
 gether with great cables, and railroad companies are 
 spending millions more in building roads along 
 which is to run the circuit of strange fire, depend- 
 ing entirely for returns from their investments on 
 the fidelity of a force that is almost v/holly a stran- 
 ger to them, it is surely not strange that men and 
 women whose hearts are warmed by the Holy Spirit, 
 who feel themselves uplifted and comforted when 
 they pray to God, find great joy and peace in be- 
 lieving, although there may be many questions 
 about prayer they cannot answer. 
 
 If we take up the study of our text in the light, 
 not of philosophy, but of God's revelation of him- 
 self to us as a Father, it becomes at once a natural, 
 as well as a helpful, picture. It assures us that the 
 sweetest perfume of the heavenly home is the 
 prayers of God's faithful children. And that is not 
 hard to believe, for it is true of our own homes, im- 
 perfect as they are. The sweetest perfumes of our 
 homes do not arise from elegant furniture, soft car- 
 pets, rare pictures, or luxurious viands. Many a 
 home having all these is pervaded by an atmos- 
 phere as tasteless and as odorless as bouquets of 
 waxen flowers. The sweetest perfume that the 
 home circle ever knows rises from deeds of loving 
 service which its members do for each other. The 
 grateful smile, the happy prattle, the artless appeals 
 for help from little children make a rarer odor to 
 the true father or mother than any that gold could 
 buy from oriental perfume merchant. If this be true 
 of us, why shall it not be true of God, who possesses 
 the only perfect parental heart in all the universe? 
 
 The figure used is very suggestive and very beau- 
 
252 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 tiful. The open vial full of sweet odors exhales 
 sweetness unconsciously and thus pervades the sur- 
 rounding atmosphere. It overleaps all barriers. 
 So it is undoubtedly true that our unconscious in- 
 fluence, whether for good or evil, is greater than 
 that of which we are conscious. Another has said 
 that it is not so much when we assert that we are 
 conscientious as when we are accidentally discov- 
 ered doing some conscientious act that the force of 
 our character is felt. A man may talk nobly ; but 
 if he lives in secret an Impure life his unconscious 
 influence for evil will destroy the effects of his 
 words. Character influences independently of any 
 professions ; and this influence of character is the 
 heaviest weight in the scale of life. A good life 
 will preach under circumstances where no word is 
 uttered, and will stimulate good in others when they 
 themselves are unconscious of the power that lifts 
 them heavenward. The Holy Spirit, incarnate in 
 men and women, is, I doubt not, the mightiest 
 power God uses in this world for our salvation. 
 Father Taylor, the old Seamen's Bethel preacher 
 of Boston, once impatiently exclaimed, '' Folks are 
 better than angels." Lucy Larcom, the poet, felt 
 the same way, for on one occasion, writing a letter 
 to one in sorrow, she wrote these words : *' I think 
 I should be homesick in a mansion filled with angels 
 if my own precious friends whom I loved were not 
 within call." It is a glorious thing to live such a 
 life that precious fragrance shall rise from it and be 
 exhaled unconsciously. 
 
 There are many kinds of this heavenly perfume. I 
 can only suggest a few of the vials ; but I am sure that 
 
GOLDEN VIALS FULL OF ODORS. 253 
 
 one of them is full of the prayers of children. Christ 
 has made this certain ; for did he not say, '' Except 
 ye be converted, and become as little children, ye 
 shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven ? " Noth- 
 ing can surpass the sweet trustfulness and faith of 
 children's prayers. To a little child it seems per- 
 fectly natural that he should pray to God. A very 
 pretty story is going around, about the little four- 
 year-old son of a member of the Georgia Legislature. 
 Having left the boy in a room of one of the big 
 hotels in the city, with a command to go to bed im- 
 mediately, the father went down to seek his con- 
 genial friends in the office. The bell boys were 
 soon thrown into consternation by the many and 
 various calls to the room in which the little fellow 
 had been left, and quite a number of them were 
 soon collected there. But it was neither ice water 
 nor fire that the little child wanted. He astonished 
 the boys with this unusual request, '' Please, sirs, 
 send some one to me to hear me say my prayers." 
 Childhood ought to be kept thus close to God. A 
 pastor once laid his hand upon a little boy's head in 
 a time of religious revival and said, '' Well, my lit- 
 tle man, have you found Christ?" "Why," the 
 little boy replied, with surprised assurance, " I have 
 never lost him ! " Neither need they ever lose him, 
 if we are faithful to our duty. 
 
 How many times the fragrance of a child's devo- 
 tion is God's way of drawing a whole family heav- 
 enward. During a revival in a Michigan town, this 
 last winter, a little girl stood up in the Sunday 
 school with those who promised to stand by the 
 
 Lord Jesus and work for him. Later in the day, 
 17 
 
254 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 when she had reached home, the little child said to 
 her mother, " Mamma, we've got to have a blessing 
 asked at our table." "How so, my child ? " ''Well, 
 I've promised this afternoon to stand by this work 
 and to stand by the Lord. And the preacher said 
 we must pray and thank God for our food ; and I 
 think I'll have to do it, as you don't and pa don't. 
 So, if you will speak to pa about it I'll ask the bless- 
 ing." Well, that was serious. Later, the fact was 
 reported to the husband, who said, '' Well, it won't 
 hurt to let the child have her way. We ought to 
 be glad that she is inclined to be religious. We can 
 stand it." 
 
 So, at the supper table, the little lass was allowed 
 to take up the task that had been unperformed in 
 that home. She did it about like this : " O Lord, 
 bless us all and have mercy upon us. There's father 
 — he isn't a Christian ; and there's mother — she isn't 
 a Christian. Bless them. I've promised to stand 
 by you in this work and to stand by the meetings. 
 Bless me. Amen." By the time the blessing was 
 closed four eyes were filled with tears, and the 
 mother's heart opened immediately for the coming 
 in of the King of glory ; and we can believe that, 
 with such a fragrance as that in that home, the fa- 
 ther stands with them ere this. I can imagine that, 
 to the great Father's heart, no perfume could be so 
 sweet as a little child's prayer. 
 
 Then there are mother's prayers. What an over- 
 flowing vial of sweet perfume that must be that 
 holds the prayers of mothers for their children. O, 
 the power of a mother's prayers ! How the fra- 
 grance of them lingers in the heart after the sound 
 
GOLDEN VIALS FULL OF ODORS. 255 
 
 of them has died out of the ear many years agone ! 
 The Httle sailor lad voiced many a mature man's 
 thought who, when told that he was the only one 
 saved in the wreckage of a great ship, raised both 
 his hands and cried in a loud voice, ** My mother 
 has been praying for me, my mother's been pray- 
 ing for me ! " 
 
 Bishop Vincent gives this very sweet picture of 
 the Sabbath evenings with his mother in his child- 
 hood : " Beyond the ' holy place ' was the * holy 
 of holies.' For fifteen years that I can remember, 
 it was my mother's invariable custom to take the 
 children into her own room after the regular Sab- 
 bath evening song and prayer. In the darkness, in 
 the twilight, or in the moonlight we followed her. 
 And there, seated together without a light, she 
 would talk in a tender way about eternity and duty, 
 about our faults as children, her anxiety about us, 
 her intense desire for our salvation, how we ought 
 to be more patient with each other, more cheerfully 
 obedient to father, more guarded in our speech. 
 Then we knelt together, and she prayed. And how 
 she could pray ! Living with God seven days a 
 week through all the weeks, when she brought us, 
 her children, to the mercy seat on Sabbath evening 
 was not heaven opened, and did not the place seem 
 holy ground, and can anyone wonder that her chil- 
 dren cannot recall those scenes without a thrill and 
 a flood of tears and a vow of renewed consecra- 
 tion ? " If there be here any mother whose prayers 
 seem not to have been heard or answered, I pray you 
 to persevere, and to be encouraged to a sublimer 
 faith and confidence in God. 
 
256 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 Then there are prayers of thanksgiving. I fear 
 they are not so universal as they ought to be. When 
 we recall all the goodness of God we ought to be 
 bubbling over with thanksgiving, like the fountain 
 on the mountain side. A poet whose name I do not 
 know describes a quaint, sweet custom among the 
 herdsmen of the Swiss Alps : 
 
 "The day dies down in a tender glow 
 
 From the setting sun on each lofty height ; 
 
 And, as the last beam fades away, 
 
 A message sounds forth to greet the night. 
 
 'Tis the huntsman's trumpet sounding abroad 
 
 From the loftiest peak, ' Praise God, the Lord ! ' 
 
 " Solemnly grand the message sounds 
 
 At the death of day and the birth of night ; 
 
 When all is silence and sweet repose, 
 The herdsman up on the loftiest height 
 
 Lifts his horn on the hills of God, 
 
 And trumpets his message, ' Praise God, the Lord ! ' 
 
 " Then the herdsmen of all the region take 
 
 Their horns, one after another, and lift 
 Their voices up to repeat the call, 
 
 Till the echoes fill valley, and cavern, and rift, 
 One after another, ' Praise God, the Lord ! ' 
 Till the mountains resound with the name of God. 
 
 " Then a stillness follows ; each one in prayer 
 Bends his knee, till down from the height 
 
 The herdsman sounds his trumpet once more. 
 
 Repeated by herdsmen and echoes — ' Good night ! ' 
 
 And soft through the night on the hills of God 
 
 Floats the call, ' Good night ' — ' Praise God, the Lord ! ' " 
 
 What a glorious day that will be when wars have 
 ceased, and hatred has been conquered by love, and 
 up from the hilltops of every land on the globe 
 
GOLDEN VIALS FULL OF ODORS. 257 
 
 there shall go the glad cry to greet the dying day, 
 ''Praise God, the Lord!" 
 
 There is one other vial of perfume which we know 
 is full of sweetest fragrance to our heavenly Father 
 — the vial which holds the prayers of repentance. 
 From what the Saviour has told us we know that this 
 is one of the most highly prized of all the perfumes 
 in heaven. Jesus knew all about heaven ; and yet 
 he has not told us a great deal concerning it. His 
 allusions to it are rare, but they are very suggestive. 
 One of them is in that fifteenth chapter of Luke 
 which I read for our Scripture lesson. There Christ 
 draws aside the veil for a moment and reveals to us 
 a splendid scene in heaven, when all the glad bells 
 are ringing, and angels and ransomed saints together 
 tune their harps for rarest music — a time when "there 
 is joy in heaven," ''joy in the presence of the angels 
 of God." And the cause of all this wonderful joy 
 is that here, in this poor, sin-cursed world, a sinner 
 is on his knees confessing his sins and pleading for 
 mercy. I pray God there may be some such joy in 
 heaven to-night over some that, here and now while 
 I speak, shall lift their hearts in penitence to God 
 and, with the cross before their eyes, shall cry from 
 the soul's depths, *' God be merciful to me a sin- 
 ner!" Our study to-night ought to make it easier 
 for us to come boldly to a throne of grace and ask 
 largely that our joys may be full. We live narrow, 
 half starved lives spiritually many times because 
 our prayers are niggardly, and our faith does not 
 grasp the infinite riches of God's power and love. 
 
 I remember reading a little incident a few years 
 since, of a train that was stalled for many hours in a 
 
258 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 snowdrift out in Colorado. There was no place to 
 get food for the passengers. Banker Seligman, of 
 New York, and his party were on the train, having 
 their own special sleeping car, their own dining car, 
 and a large store of provisions, and were, therefore, 
 well provided for. The conductor of the train finally 
 went to the banker and told him that there were a 
 number of ladies in the other cars who were in need 
 of food and drink. The banker answered, " Go and 
 set your tables, and I will provide the food." And 
 he set his cooks and servants to work and had a 
 bountiful supply of everything he had in store cooked 
 up, and the passengers feasted. He then turned to 
 the laborers, who had been working manfully, sent 
 his servants with hampers piled full of good things, 
 and every man was waited upon until satisfied. 
 
 Now that was a nice thing for that rich man, who 
 could abundantly afford it, to do. And no man was 
 afraid to eat all that was offered, for he knew that 
 the rich banker was able to do all that he proposed. 
 But what is that, my brother, compared with what 
 your heavenly Father is able to do ? He opens his 
 hand and feeds every living thing. It was thought 
 to be a great thing for the servants of the rich 
 banker to wait upon the men toiling in the snow- 
 drifts for his comfort, and it was generous as men 
 count generosity ; but the infinite God sends swift- 
 winged angels to carry richer food than gold can buy 
 to the poorest soul in the universe that asks. It is 
 the characteristic of a great soul to have great con- 
 fidence and be willing to receive all that God is 
 willing to give. Do not measure your prayers by 
 your poverty, but by God's unlimited abundance ! 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS, THE ELOQUENT. 259 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 FREDERICK DOUGLASS, THE ELOQUENT— THE 
 
 MOST PICTURESQUE HISTORICAL FIGURE 
 
 IN MODERN TIMES.* 
 
 " Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen ?" — 2 Sam. 
 iii, 38. 
 
 IF I were asked what person in the present cen- 
 tury had fought against the greatest odds and 
 won the struggle of life at most points I should an- 
 swer, Frederick Douglass. There is a great deal of 
 talk about self-made men in our time, and we have 
 had an abundance of eloquence concerning Abraham 
 Lincoln's rise from the occupation of rail-splitting 
 to the presidency ; concerning General Grant's ca- 
 reer, from the tannery till he became the first Amer- 
 ican citizen ; and concerning Garfield's, from the 
 towpath to the White House. But none of these 
 men, nor all of them put together, had to make life's 
 race with such a handicap or facing such odds as 
 Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Here is a man, who learned to read and write by 
 studying out the characters made by the carpenters 
 in the Baltimore lumber yards, yet who comes, by 
 his own devoted efforts, to speak the English lan- 
 guage with an elegance and an eloquence equal to 
 that of Charles Sumner or Henry Ward Beecher in 
 their best days. Here is a man who did not know 
 
 * Abstract of sermon. 
 
260 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 who his father was, who saw his mother only a 
 few times — and then by moonlight or by glimpses 
 caught by the light of a tallow dip in a log cabin 
 — yet who came to be the bosom friend of John 
 Bright, the intimate counselor of Abraham Lincoln, 
 the boon companion of Daniel O'Connell and Father 
 Mathew ; who came to be loved by Wendell Phil- 
 lips and William Lloyd Garrison ; who was held in 
 highest honor and most tender regard by many of 
 the noblest women of both continents ; who came 
 to be the undisputed leader of his race, to be known 
 wherever the English language is spoken, and to 
 be respected by the whole civilized world. The 
 story of his life is the most romantic in all modern 
 times. No man who began so low has climbed so 
 high as he. 
 
 Frederick Douglass had many elements of great- 
 ness, and one of the greatest was his power of grim 
 perseverance. He had the power to patiently, 
 ploddingly whip himself through any hard work 
 that must be done. It was once said by an op- 
 ponent of Sir Walter Raleigh, " He can toil ter- 
 ribly." Frederick Douglass had, in a remarkable 
 degree, that ** terrible," irresistible power of the 
 toiler. Whether it was learning to read and write 
 by the carpenters' marks on sticks of building 
 timber, or plodding after he was a man grown 
 through the grammar of the English language, or 
 setting himself in middle age to acquire that in- 
 formation and knowledge necessary to make him 
 a skillful friend of his people, he had the persever- 
 ance, the pluck, and the devotion to toil mercilessly 
 until his task was accomplished. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS, THE ELOQUENT. 261 
 
 Frederick Douglass had great ideals. He never 
 compromised with himself for anything less than 
 the best that was possible. Nothing short of being 
 the very best type of man and the most noble 
 orator that it was possible to produce out of his 
 circumstances and gifts satisfied him for a moment. 
 These lofty ideals alone made it possible for him to 
 achieve the great triumphs of his life. For, after 
 all, the greatest triumph of Douglass's life is not 
 to be found in his glorious success as an orator or 
 in his triumphs as a political leader, but in the 
 splendid moral fiber of the man, that enabled him 
 to live a life which is not only a precious heritage 
 to his own race, but an inspiration to men of all 
 races throughout all time. Think of the fearful 
 odds he had to fight against in order to produce 
 such a moral character. Milton says, '' It is a long 
 way out of hell up to light." Think of the hell of 
 lust and iniquity into which Douglass was born. 
 He could have said literally, with the psalmist, '' In 
 sin did my mother conceive me." He was born in 
 the midst of that enforced tendency to every 
 vicious passion and unholy appetite that springs 
 from the world, the flesh, or the devil ; but, in spite 
 of it all, he developed a strong, robust manhood, 
 which he kept clean and spotless throughout half a 
 century lived in the public gaze. Frederick Doug- 
 lass did no greater thing for his race than that. 
 
 Douglass's oratory gained much of its power 
 from the superb manhood that was behind it. I 
 once heard him deliver his great address on John 
 Brown at the Music Hall in Boston. His discus- 
 sion of the law of retribution was the strongest I 
 
262 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 have ever heard. As he stood there on the plat- 
 form, giving us the evolution of John Brown, he 
 filled one's ideal of the old Hebrew prophets. He 
 reached the climax in these words : '' The cry that 
 went up from the startled and terrified inhabitants 
 of Harper's Ferry was but the echo of that other 
 cry which began two hundred years before, when 
 the man hunter first set foot in the quiet African 
 villages. The raid on Harper's Ferry was con- 
 tracted for when the first slave ship landed on these 
 shores." 
 
 " The question has been often asked," said 
 Douglass, in that great address, "why Virginia, 
 with a grand magnanimity, did not spare John 
 Brown ? But they had a thing down there, and that 
 ^/«>/^ could not stand the life of John Brown. Her 
 own Patrick Henry loved liberty for the rich and 
 great; John Brown loved liberty for the poor and 
 lowly. It was not white man dying for white man ; 
 it was white man for black." Here the orator's 
 presence and voice became electric. Nothing could 
 surpass the majesty of his appearance as he thrilled 
 our souls with the splendid utterance that followed : 
 " He came down from the heaven of New England 
 liberty to the hell of African slavery ! He gave his 
 life as the best gift he could lay on the altar of 
 human liberty ! " 
 
 Frederick Douglass was a broad-spirited public 
 man. He was too large a man for any bitter, 
 bigoted partisanship. His declaration not long ago, 
 in a letter which has been printed, ** I am a Repub- 
 lican, but I am not a ' Republican right or wrong,' " 
 shows the breadth of the man. And it is well to 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. THE ELOQUENT. 263 
 
 notice in connection with this fact the marvelous 
 growth, in his own time, of toleration of the freedom 
 of principles and speech. This is illustrated in the 
 adjournment of the North Carolina House of Rep- 
 resentatives in his honor on receiving the news of 
 his death. 
 
 It was very appropriate that his last appearance 
 in public should have been on the platform of the 
 woman's council on the very day of his death. To 
 no other cause had he given more sincere devotion 
 than to the equality of right and privilege between 
 men and women. I heard him one time ask, with 
 stinging sarcasm, in an address on woman suffrage, 
 in reply to the suggestion that the pool of politics 
 was too dirty to allow Avomen to enter it, ''Who 
 made the pool dirty ? No woman has been playing 
 in it ! " The fact that a bill, now before the New 
 York Legislature, to punish by flogging certain 
 classes of human brutes has been so amended by 
 that august body as to permit a man to beat his wife 
 without danger of punishment, so far as this bill is 
 concerned, very clearly indicates that there is great 
 necessity that Frederick Douglass's mantle shall fall 
 upon younger men. His position that a disfran- 
 chised class will always be an oppressed class was 
 well taken. No man doubts for a moment that, 
 if equal suffrage had been granted by the last 
 constitutional convention, the wife beater would 
 have had to take his flogging along with the other 
 brutes. 
 
 A career like that of Frederick Douglass is at 
 once an honor and an inspiration to humanity. In 
 such a man the kinship of all races is demonstrated. 
 
264 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 In the presence of such a personaUty all men in- 
 stinctively agree with John Boyle O'Reilly's song: 
 
 " The trapper died — our hero — and we grieved ; 
 
 In every heart in camp the sorrow stirred. 
 ' His soul was red ! ' the Indian cried, bereaved ; 
 
 ♦ A white man, he ! ' the grim old Yankee's word. 
 
 " So, brief and strong, each mourner gave his best — 
 How kind he was, how brave, how keen to track ; 
 
 And as we laid him by the pines to rest, 
 
 A negro spoke, with tears, ' His heart was black ! ' " 
 
A FARSIGHTED RELIGION. 265 
 
 XXIV. 
 A FARSIGHTED RELIGION. 
 
 *' H« that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off." — 
 2 Peter i, 9. 
 
 THE interest of our study naturally centers in 
 what is contained in " these things," for they 
 are the lenses through which we are to obtain far-off 
 views of life and destiny. We have them stated for 
 us with great simplicity in the verses which precede 
 our text. It is interesting to note the suggestion 
 that it is the diligent soul that will be able to use 
 these spiritual glasses. Sleepy eyes never see any- 
 thing. The victors of life are those who consecrate 
 themselves to earnestness and diligence. The great- 
 est successes are first won in the inner man. The 
 most important battles are first fought on the bat- 
 tlefield of the soul : 
 
 *' There is an unseen battlefield 
 
 In every human breast, 
 Where two opposing forces meet, 
 
 And where they seldom rest. 
 That field is veiled from mortal sight — 
 
 'Tis only seen by One 
 Who knows alone where victory lies 
 
 When each day's fight is done." 
 
 The first great lens of the Christian soul is faith 
 — a faith like that which Abraham had, who, though 
 he dwelt in a desert, lived in constant view of " a 
 
266 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 city which hath foundations, whose builder and 
 maker is God." As Thomas Starr King once elo- 
 quently declared, such a faith gilds the horizon of 
 our being with a heavenly glory. 
 
 The statement of our text is daily verified in the 
 case of those who, in the absence of this faith, ex- 
 perience a pitiable blankness and barrenness of soul. 
 In the absence of faith, the body weighs us down ; 
 we are helpless prisoners in it. We forget our na- 
 tive realm and come easily to believe that the grave 
 is the goal of life. Every argument that can be 
 urged in proof of immortality is of little avail. 
 Even the resurrection of Christ is a wonderful 
 story merely to a thorough sensualist whose as- 
 pirations have never reached beyond pleasure and 
 the present, whose meditations, sent forth like 
 doves from the floating ark of life, have never 
 brought back a green and budding promise of the 
 solid land. 
 
 To feel a conviction of immortality we must live 
 for it. Let anyone firmly believe that the soul is 
 permanent and live in accordance with that belief, 
 and soon existence will seem permanent too ; the 
 world becomes the veil of a brighter glory that lies 
 behind it ; the condemnation of unbelief is lifted 
 off, since the mind, conscious of its own rooted be- 
 ing, does not wait for immortality, but is ''passed 
 from death unto life." Such a faith renews the 
 youth of the one who obtains his visions of life 
 through it. " They tell me I am growing old," said 
 the great Scotch preacher, Dr. Guthrie, " because 
 my hair is silvered, and there are crow's feet upon 
 my forehead, and my step is not so firm and elastic 
 
A FARSIGHTED RELIGION. 267 
 
 as of yore. But they are mistaken ; that is not I. 
 The brow is wrinkled, but the brow is not I. This 
 is the house in which I live ; but I am young — 
 younger now than I ever was before." 
 
 Virtue is the next lens which Peter mentions in 
 his conditions of a farsighted soul. We are to un- 
 derstand by this word '' virtue" moral goodness, a 
 conforming of our lives to the requirements of the 
 moral law. The man whose habit it is to live like 
 that will acquire what may be called a moral sense, 
 which gives not only a clear vision of what is right 
 and wrong, but enables the virtuous soul to peer 
 through the fog and sophistry of worldly standards 
 and know intuitively that which is right. It is a 
 very common thing for young people who are be- 
 ginning to taste the poisonous sweets of sin to imag- 
 ine that they are very sharp and shrewd ; but we 
 may be sure that it is only the truly virtuous soul 
 that is clear-headed. 
 
 A world-wide traveler relates that he was sitting 
 one day at table at a restaurant in Paris, when he 
 was unintentionally the hearer of a conversation in 
 a language it was supposed by the speakers he did 
 not understand. A young fellow from London was 
 telling his French tutor of the " very remarkable " 
 conquest he had made upon the boulevards. The 
 *' simple youth," as Solomon calls him, was so 
 charmed with his success in so unexpected a quarter 
 that he poured into the ear of his friend such a ro- 
 mance as might, he believed, constitute the plot of 
 a modern novel. What was his evident surprise to 
 hear from the Parisian, as he pushed back his plate 
 in unconcealed weariness, " My young friend, I 
 
268 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 have heard all of that more than a thousand times.'* 
 And one could see, by the change that came over 
 the countenance of the " young man void of under- 
 standing," that he had learned that, instead of being 
 a charmer, he was simply a dupe. And anyone 
 hearing me to-night, who imagines that somehow 
 he can cheat God and sow to the wind and not reap 
 the whirlwind, may be assured that when he is 
 called upon to pay the cost of his sin, as he un- 
 doubtedly will be, he will find the bitterest ingre- 
 dient in the penalty to be the patent proof that, 
 instead of being a world-conqueror, he is only one 
 more fool added to the long succession of fools. 
 
 Among the Japanese, the god of thunder is rep- 
 resented by the most frightful features that can be 
 devised for the countenance of any being at all re- 
 sembling man. And to this creature the name 
 Ema is given. It is a proverb in the Sunrise King- 
 dom that " when the sinner comes to settle he will 
 see Ema's face." It is only the straightforward, 
 genuine soul that can confront all emergencies and 
 fear nothing. How pitiable is all affectation com- 
 pared to real genuineness of character ! 
 
 Henry Clay used to relate a story which, to his 
 mind, illustrated the surpassing tact and natural 
 good manners of American women. During a pres- 
 idential campaign, after he had addressed a mass 
 meeting in a Kentucky town, one of the neighbor- 
 ing farmers invited him to a dinner at an early date 
 to meet some of the leading Whigs of the country. 
 When the day arrived Mr. Clay rode up to the 
 farmhouse and was surprised to see no stir of prepa- 
 ration ; for the hospitable Kentuckians usually 
 
A FARSIGHTED RELIGION. 269 
 
 found no banquet too rich for their beloved leader. 
 The farmer's wife, in a homespun gown and white 
 apron, was feeding the chickens. She turned, 
 startled, then approached him smiling. '* It is Mr. 
 Clay ! Come in. My husband will be here in a 
 moment." She led him directly into her clean, 
 cheerful kitchen and blew the horn to summon her 
 husband and sons, giving them a warning look as 
 they entered. 
 
 *' I knew," Mr. Clay said, '' there was a blunder 
 somewhere. But there was no hint of it in my host- 
 ess's manner, as she soon after composedly placed 
 the single dish of food on the table and invited us 
 to be seated. The dish was pig's jowl and cabbage, 
 and was exceedingly well cooked. I never enjoyed 
 a meal more or listened to better talk. When the 
 dinner was over and I was preparing to mount my 
 horse the farmer's wife came out. ' You will dine 
 with us to-morrow and meet the politicians as you 
 promised, Mr. Clay?' she said. 'We are so hon- 
 ored and grateful by your coming to us alone to- 
 day.' " The next day a large company of men sat 
 down to a royal dinner. '' But," said Henry Clay, 
 " I enjoyed the jowl and cabbage most. It had the 
 flavor of the finest hospitality." 
 
 That was a social triumph of the true lady. She 
 had self-composure, because she had self-respect and 
 was sure of her ground. Real virtue and goodness 
 are like that. They are in the fiber of the very 
 being. There is a certain self-respect of righteous- 
 ness, a calmness and a composure, a clear-eyedness 
 of virtue, that can never be possessed except by the 
 
 soul conscious of its genuineness in God's sight. 
 18 
 
270 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 The apostle points out here two other lenses, 
 knowledge and temperance, that should be acquired 
 by every one of us in the everyday experience and 
 observation of our lives. We ought to be glad, as 
 the years fly and the white hairs and the wrinkles 
 come, that we can win the precious gift of experi- 
 ence from life's treasury and correct by it our false 
 standards and narrow prejudices. The experiences 
 of life which we are passing through are only of 
 value to us because of the knowledge we are able 
 to obtain and make our own as we pass along the 
 journey. If we are really growing with the years 
 we shall know it by the deepening of the channel 
 of experience, the rich treasures of knowledge we 
 have gathered, and the temperance and moderation 
 which we have gained in life's school. One may be 
 as old as Methuselah, but if he has gained no knowl- 
 edge as he has gone along the way he is yet blind 
 and cannot see afar off. Dr. Barrows beautifully 
 says : " It matters not how rudely the winds of fate 
 may shake the time tree, sweeping down the fairest 
 leaves and buds, if we find something within us un- 
 shaken and have made our profit out of every loss, 
 as well as every gain. The main thing, in fact the 
 only thing, is to deepen the channel of experience 
 year by year as we march on, pitching our tent, 
 building our camp fire, and leaving behind us graves 
 and broken hopes, and shattered fortunes, tears, 
 sighs, memories sad and sweet — all that part of us 
 that perishes as we die daily, yet live eternally to 
 God." 
 
 Patience is another lens through which we are to 
 behold the beautiful visions that are afar off. There 
 
A FARSIGHTED RELIGION. 271 
 
 is no nobler grace than patience. How many of us 
 come to sorrow through our impatience! Mrs. 
 Browning tells, in a poem, the story of a little flower 
 that prayed that it might come out before the other 
 flowers and be in advance of the spring, and said, 
 ^' How all nature will hail me, how the birds will 
 sing at my advent, how the sun will shine upon me, 
 how the air will stoop and kiss my petals ! " And 
 the prayer was granted, and it came before its time, 
 and the snow looked scornfully on it, and said, "Who 
 are you that are like a bit of the snow ? " And there 
 were no birds to sing, and the sun hid itself, and the 
 rain was cold and bitter, and the impatient little 
 flower, that begged to be born before its time, died 
 before its time. Patience is serene and beautiful, 
 whether in the palace or the hovel. Bishop Home 
 says of patience : *' Behold her appearance and at- 
 tire ! Her countenance is calm and serene as the 
 face of heaven, unspotted by the shadow of a cloud ; 
 and no wrinkle of grief or anger is seen in her fore- 
 head. Her eyes are as the eyes of doves for meek- 
 ness, and on* her eyebrows sit cheerfulness and joy. 
 Her mouth is lovely in silence ; her complexion and 
 color those of innocence and security. She is 
 clothed in the robes of the martyrs, and in her 
 hands she holds a scepter in the form of a cross. 
 She is not in the whirlwind and stormy tempest of 
 passion, but her throne is the humble and contrite 
 heart, and her kingdom is the kingdom of peace." 
 
 The next lens in this Christian observatory is 
 godliness. And this is true, whether we take the 
 word to mean that we are to endeavor to become 
 like God, or whether we come to meditate upon 
 
272 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 him and see him in all things, great or small, in the 
 world about us. Many a fog-cloud is cleared away 
 when we can see God in everything, when we can 
 sing with the poet, 
 
 " I say it over and over, and yet again to-day ; 
 
 It rests my heart as surely as it did yesterday : 
 
 ' It is the Lord's appointment ! ' 
 
 Whatever my work may be, 
 I am sure, in my heart of hearts, 
 He has offered it for me. 
 
 " I must say it over and over, and again to-day, 
 For my work is somewhat different from yesterday : 
 ' It is the Lord's appointment ! ' 
 
 It quiets my restless will 
 Like voice of a tender mother. 
 And my heart and will are still. 
 
 " I will say it over and over, this and every day. 
 Whatsoever the Master orders, come what may : 
 ' It is the Lord's appointment ! ' 
 
 For only his love can see 
 What is wisest, best, and right. 
 What is truly good for me." 
 
 If we rightly appreciate our own relation to God 
 it is easy to look through the next lens, which is 
 brotherly kindness. If you want to find a glass that 
 will show you into the secret depths of the human 
 heart this is the one to use. Bishop Weaver tells 
 the story of a young lawyer, who visited a hospital 
 and sat down by a cot and talked kindly to a poor, 
 miserable wreck. The man drew the bedclothes 
 over his face and wept as if his heart would break. 
 When he could speak he said, " You are the first 
 man that has spoken a kind word to me, and I can't 
 
A FARSIGHTED RELIGION. 273 
 
 stand it." Men may think and talk as they please ; 
 but observation and experience will teach any man 
 of common sense that the nearest, most direct path 
 to the human heart is brotherly kindness. John 
 Boyle O'Reilly sings : 
 
 " ' What is the real good ? * 
 I asked in a musing mood. 
 
 " Order, said the court ; 
 
 Knowledge, said the school ; 
 Truth, said the wise man ; 
 
 Pleasure, said the fool ; 
 Beauty, said the page ; 
 
 Freedom, said the dreamer ; 
 Home, said the sage ; 
 
 Fame, said the soldier ; 
 Equity, the seer. 
 
 Spake my heart full sadly, 
 
 * The answer is not here.' 
 
 " Then within my bosom 
 Softly this I heard : 
 
 * Each heart holds the secret — 
 
 Kindness is the word.' " 
 
 How much we lose in spiritual vision, while try- 
 ing to illumine the hearts of those we love, through 
 failing to express at a time when it is needed the 
 brotherly kindness that we often feel ! Bishop 
 Henry C. Potter relates that several years ago a 
 number of distinguished men gathered in Calvary 
 Church, New York city, to bear their testimony to 
 the life and influence of Dr. Edward A. Washburn. 
 One after another, Phillips Brooks and others like 
 him rose in their places in the crowded church chapel 
 to tell what they owed to the genius, the high spirit, 
 
274 THE CHRIST DREAM. 
 
 the unswerving loyalty to duty, the splendid cour- 
 age, the rare scholarship, the philosophic insight, 
 the prophetic utterance of Dr. Washburn. At last 
 the testimony was done. At the door all the time 
 there had stood a slender woman, who had been 
 during his life nearest to him of whom they had 
 been speaking. " I never shall forget her face," 
 says Bishop Potter, " the passion of it and the pa- 
 thos of it, nor the power, tender but reproachful, 
 with which she spoke, when at length we were still, 
 * O, if you all loved Edward so, why didn't you tell 
 him of it while he lived ?' " 
 
 One who has mastered the spirit of brotherly 
 kindness has already looked through the lens of love 
 — love to God and love to man. John says, " We 
 love him, because he first loved us." It is the 
 knowledge of God's love that wins ours. Without 
 that precious knowledge we may sing, tremblingly, 
 
 " O, how I fear thee, living God, 
 
 With deepest, tenderest fears, 
 And worship thee with humble hope 
 
 And penitential tears ! " 
 
 But when we see God's loving heart we are able to 
 sing with joy, 
 
 " Yet do I love thee, too, O Lord ! 
 
 Almighty as thou art ; 
 For thou hast stooped to ask of me 
 
 The love of my poor heart." 
 
 If we accustom ourselves to the use of these glori- 
 ous glasses that belong to the observatory of the 
 soul our hearts shall beat in sympathy with Dr. A. 
 
A FARSIGHTED RELIGION. 275 ] 
 
 J. Gordon, who has so recently ceased to sing on ; 
 earth that he might join the singers on high : 
 
 " I shall see the King in his beauty, ■ 
 
 In the land that is far away, . 
 
 When the shadows at length have lifted, ] 
 
 And the darkness has turned to day. \ 
 
 \ 
 
 " To behold the Chief of ten thousand, | 
 
 Ah ! my soul, this were joy enough ; 
 
 'Twill suffice for the bliss of heaven i 
 
 That the Lamb is the light thereof." 
 
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