T H E V9 O R L I> 
 OUTGROW CHRISTIANITY 
 
 ROBERT • POLLOK • KERR 
 
f.\ >2» 
 
 ^J PRINCETON, N. J. - % 
 
 Presented b^ro^ ~S-~S • Ju<A^\\ 5^ \a ^r^. 
 
 ■ 
 BR 123 .K47 1901 
 Kerr, Robert P. 1850-1923. 
 Will the world outgrow 
 Christianity 
 
WILL THE WORLD 
 OUTGROW CHRISTIANITY 
 
Will the World 
 Outgrow Christianity 
 
 And other Interroga- 
 tions on Vital Themes 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Reverend Robert Pollok Kerr, D.D. 
 
 A uthor of " The Voice of God in History,'" "The Land of 
 Holy Light,'' "Hymns of the Ages" etc., etc. 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 Chicago, New York & Toronto 
 
 Publishers of Evangelical Literature 
 
COPYRIGHT, igOI, 
 BY FLEMING H. 
 RKVELL COMPANY 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Will the World Outgrow Christianity? . . 9 
 
 Will the Bible Live? 16 
 
 Will Men Continue to Believe in God? . . 25 
 How Shall We Pray, that Our Prayers May Be 
 
 Answered? 34 
 
 How Can God Be Good, and Let Man Suffer? . 45 
 Can God Be Sovereign, and Man Free? . . 57 
 What Is the Greatest Defect in our National 
 
 Character? ? 67 
 
 Shall all the Denominations Unite and Form One? 84 
 How Can the Church Reach the Masses? . . 95 
 Can We Do Anything Immortal? .... 105 
 What Is the Connection Between Doctrine and 
 
 Work? 116 
 
 What Is Woman's Work in the Church of God?. 124 
 How Can Man Know that He Shall Rise Again 
 
 from the Grave? 133 
 
 How Is the World to Know that Jesus Christ Is 
 
 Alive, and that He Is Divine? ... 141 
 
DEDICATED TO THE 
 MEMORY OF MY 
 BELOVED UNCLE, 
 THE REV. DR. JAMES 
 WITHERSPOON KERR 
 
 R. P. K. 
 
WILL THE WORLD OUTGROW 
 CHRISTIANITY 
 
 "he shall judge the poor of the people, he 
 shall save the children of the needy, and shall 
 break in pieces the oppressor. they shall fear 
 thee as long as the sun and moon endure, 
 throughout all generations." ps. 72: 4, 5. 
 
 Here is a prophecy of the coming of the Mes- 
 siah. He is set forth as a Saviour of the poor 
 and oppressed, who should deliver them from 
 oppression, and "break in pieces the oppress- 
 or." The greatest oppression is sin which 
 enslaves men and grinds them under its tyranny, 
 and the arch-oppressor is Satan. The Messiah 
 was not to be sent to overturn his dominion and 
 to set men free. Then the prophet psalmist lifts 
 his voice in direct address to the coming Deliv- 
 erer, and says, "They shall fear Thee as long as 
 the sun and moon endure, throughout all genera- 
 tions. " This shows that whatever else may 
 change, here is one unchangeable thing, the 
 reign of Christ, and the reason is that He delivers 
 men from oppression and destroys the oppressor. 
 This answers the question, Will the world out 
 grow Christianity, by a tremendous negative — 
 
 9 
 
io Will the World Outgrow Christianity 
 
 not so "long as the sun and moon endure — 
 throughout all generations. " From the nature of 
 this deliverance it must always remain, because 
 (i) it is always needed, and (2) because it is a 
 complete, a perfect salvation, leaving nothing to 
 be desired. 
 
 Christianity meets the perennial wants of man, 
 and deals with permanent facts. The world will 
 never outgrow it because it will never outgrow 
 the things that make it needful. One of these is 
 sin; sin in man's nature, and sin in his life. 
 
 Man is a sinner just as much as he ever was. 
 Society is not redeemed from sin as a mass, but 
 as individuals. Men are saved one by one, and 
 man needs to be saved from sin just as much 
 now as he did two thousand years ago. Every 
 man is born a sinner. Sin is hereditary, but 
 holiness is not. A good man's children are all 
 born sinners, and need salvation just as much as 
 their father did before he became a Christian. 
 
 This is directly opposed to the doctrine of evo- 
 lution taught by a section of modern scientists. 
 They make the principle of heredity the law of 
 nature, and of mind, and claim that by a process 
 of development men rise continually, grade by 
 grade, towards perfection. On this theory man- 
 kind would outgrow the need for regeneration, 
 and for pardon, for he would outgrow depravity, 
 and sin no more. 
 
 But the facts are all against this theory. Men 
 have not risen into a higher life. Man is no 
 
Will the World Outgrow Christianity 1 1 
 
 better by birth and in his nature than he was six 
 thousand years ago. Man without religion is as 
 bad as he ever was. We can see that all about us 
 all the time. We need read no book, we need 
 travel nowhere to see the truth of this. Men do 
 the same things now that they did in the days of 
 Noah, Solomon, Caesar. 
 
 Each one of us knows it by his experience with 
 himself. In his own breast he finds the same 
 evil nature and desires that he reads of in ancient 
 history, and he feels that he needs a Saviour and 
 salvation just as much as men did in the days of 
 Christ upon earth. 
 
 Another permanent fact is sorrow. Men have 
 as many sorrows as they ever had. We suffer 
 from poverty, disease, disappointment, and be- 
 reavement just as men have always done. We 
 need the bounty of God for our poverty, the balm 
 of Gilead for our wounds, the comfort divine for 
 disappointment, the handkerchief of the Gospel 
 for our tears. 
 
 Is it not so? Are you any less in need of the 
 ministrations of religion than your fathers were? 
 Have you any less sorrow ; any less anguish of 
 heart? No; you know it well, and you know that 
 sorrow is a perennial fact of human life. 
 
 A third permanent fact is death. Science has 
 not abolished death, nor has culture of the mind. 
 All men die; and all men need something to 
 cling to in the hour of death. Death stalks 
 abroad everywhere. He enters, without call, and 
 
1 2 Will the World Outgrow Christianity 
 
 without knocking, the hovel and the palace. 
 Will it ever be different? Will men ever cease 
 to die? No. So they will never cease to need 
 what religion has to offer man at the gates of 
 death. 
 
 But all this does not prove that the world will 
 not have another religion. It proves that men 
 must have a religion; but the question still 
 remains, Will the Christian religion survive? 
 May not a better one be found? 
 
 We reply, No, because Christianity answers per- 
 fectly the needs of man; there can be nothing 
 better than a perfect answer. Babes will always 
 need milk, and babes will never abandon milk 
 because it is a perfect answer to their needs. 
 Milk contains all that is required by the exigencies 
 of a babe's conditions. So with adults. There 
 is no possibility of men outgrowing the ordinary 
 food they feed on, because it perfectly answers 
 their needs. Bread and water will always be 
 popular, for that reason. 
 
 In the matter of sin, man can have nothing better 
 than Christianity, because it does all that a sin- 
 ner needs. It gives him complete justification. 
 That is, it takes away his sin, and gives him 
 God's perfect righteousness. This meets the 
 case finally, and completely. I need to be made 
 a new creature, and to have my sins forgiven, 
 and to be given a righteousness that will satisfy 
 God. Now God's righteousness must satisfy 
 God, for it is His own. Men will never discard a 
 
Will the World Outgrow Christianity 13 
 
 salvation like that. It is perfect because it is 
 divine. No one can invent any better. Can God 
 Himself devise anything better than perfection? 
 than His own righteousness? If so, how? 
 
 Now, as to sorrow : what can be better than the 
 Christian resource? It shows God overruling sor- 
 row for man's happiness. If a man be a Chris- 
 tian, God makes all things work together for his 
 good. Thus misfortune becomes fortune ; sorrow 
 a fountain of joy. God is brought into our sor- 
 rows, an infinite, a divine help, and Helper. 
 
 St. Paul grasped this divine philosophy, and 
 learned how to rejoice over persecution, poverty, 
 pain, and to make these things a source of thanks- 
 giving. Is not this a perfect answer to the needs 
 of man in a world of misery and woe? It makes 
 man independent, a victor over adversity. 
 
 Death is the last fact. This Christianity has 
 turned into life. The humblest and most igno- 
 rant Christian knows this, and he simply defies 
 death. His mastery of the king of terrors is com- 
 plete. He knows that death has been conquered 
 by Christ, that he is powerless to hurt the soul. 
 Yea, that he has become our humble servant to 
 introduce us into the life eternal. It means the 
 end of sorrow, the beginning of pure unmixed 
 bliss, the portal of glory, and the introduction 
 into the fellowship of his Saviour, and the society 
 of loved ones, "not lost, but gone before." 
 
 Come to a Christian's deathbed. Come, bring 
 something better than what the Christian already 
 
14 Will the World Outgrow Christianity 
 
 has. What shall it be? Can you add anything to 
 his comforts, to his faith, to his hope? No; the 
 Christian says, "I have a perfect antidote for 
 death. I want no more." 
 
 The reason Christianity is a perfect answer to 
 human needs is because He who made man and 
 who knows him absolutely made Christianity for 
 him, a perfect remedy for sin, sorrow, death. 
 What God has done for His children cannot be set 
 aside by a better thing. Christianity is God in 
 sorrow, pain and death. Here is the divine fact 
 that outshines all other remedies, as the sun out- 
 shines our poor candles which glimmer in the 
 night. Men had candles in their rooms, but they 
 put them out when the sun arose. Men walked 
 with lanterns, but they laid them aside when day 
 came. Will man ever invent anything that will 
 supersede the sun? No; it is God's sun, and a 
 perfect means of light. So Christianity is God's 
 light, it can never be outshone by any candle of 
 man's invention. 
 
 All history proves this : man has always come 
 back to Christianity. The religions of the 
 Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, went out, and they 
 did not return. But since God gave the salvation 
 by Christ to our first parents at the beginning of 
 sin, sorrow and death, it has held its own. Men 
 have left it indeed ; but they have always come 
 back. The needs of the soul, the miseries of life, 
 unsatisfied by any human device, have always 
 driven them back to God. 
 
Will the World Outgrow Christianity 15 
 
 So infidelity has always been a failure. Men 
 who could not answer its arguments have still 
 held to their faith. Has infidelity given anything 
 better? No. It has given nothing. Its effort is 
 simply to destroy, and human wisdom is as far 
 from giving man a solace for his woe as it ever 
 was. It has given literally nothing. It has tried 
 to put out the light when it had no other light to 
 give. "I have tasted and seen that the Lord is 
 good," is the Christian's answer to infidelity, and 
 he stands as firm as the rock of Gibraltar against 
 the tide and storm. 
 
WILL THE BIBLE LIVE 
 
 «♦, 
 
 HEAVEN AND EARTH SHALL PASS AWAY, BUT MY 
 WORDS SHALL NOT PASS AWAY." MATT. 24: 35. 
 
 An infidel one day, in a quiet moment, said: 
 "There is one thing that mars all the pleasures of 
 my life. " "What is that?" asked a friend, and 
 the answer was, "I am afraid the Bible is true, 
 and if it is I am lost." After all his attempts to 
 prove that the Bible was a fraud, he feared that 
 his labors were a failure. There was something 
 in his own soul that was not satisfied. 
 
 We have attacks on the Bible from infidels and 
 Christians. Infidels contend that the Bible is a 
 fiction, a lie, and some Christians delight to point 
 out what they consider mistakes in the Bible. In 
 former days an apostate church declared that the 
 Bible was "un livre mandit" "a cursed book," 
 and forbade men to read it. With great cere- 
 mony the same church has burned all the Bibles 
 it could get its hands on, and burned men and 
 women for reading the Bible. 
 
 Each generation answers for itself the question, 
 "Is the Bible true?" and the most prominent of 
 all the questions of the present hour is, "Will the 
 Bible live?" Will it survive the hostile attacks of 
 infidels and false Christians? 
 
 16 
 
Will the Bible Live 17 
 
 In attempting- to answer this question we pur- 
 pose using but one argument. We shall not 
 argue from the fact that it is a divine book, and 
 that God is pledged to maintain it; but this only 
 — the Bible will live because it satisfies man's sonl y 
 and the exigencies of his life and death. It is the 
 only thing that meets the perennial wants of man. 
 
 In ancient times there was a remedy used as an 
 antidote for poison. It was called mithridate, 
 because it was said to have been made by Mithri- 
 dates. At length a great discussion arose among 
 medical people as to whether Mithridates really 
 invented the medicine, but the people said, 
 "Never mind about that, we shall continue to use 
 it because it does what we want. " So with the 
 Bible. The people do not take much interest in 
 learned discussions about the Bible. "It satisfies 
 their longings as nothing else can do." 
 
 The first question the human soul asks is as to 
 the origin of things. Man wakes up to existence 
 in a world new to him and asks, " Whence came 
 what I see? and whence came It" The Bible is 
 the only answer to this question. No other an- 
 swer has ever been given. Man feels instinctively 
 that the universe could not have made itself. 
 He searches the sea, the mountains, plains and 
 sky for a maker of things. He finds nothing. 
 He discovers no supreme architect and governor. 
 Nowhere does he see his glorious dwelling place. 
 Yet he feels there must be a maker of worlds 
 and of men. So he bows down to worship the 
 
18 Will the Bible Live 
 
 Unknown, believing that though unknown He is 
 not unknowable. 
 
 After all his thought and inquiry he feels, how- 
 ever, that he has at best reached only a prob- 
 ability. He has no certainty of belief. 
 
 Some say things had no maker; that they 
 always were ; but this satisfies no one. Now he 
 opens a book, the oldest of books, and he reads in 
 its first line, "In the beginning God created the 
 heavens and the earth. " Here is what he sought 
 — an authoritative statement, and he believes it 
 for two reasons : because it is the only statement 
 he has found as to the origin of things, and be- 
 cause it suits the facts of the case as he sees them. 
 He discovers traces of design, an eye with light 
 for it to see, a mouth with food for it to eat, all 
 things made in one harmonious whole; every- 
 thing for a purpose, and each thing fitted to some 
 other thing. He feels there must be a designer 
 where there is so much design. So he says the 
 Bible is true because it says what all nature 
 declares to be true. 
 
 The great geologist, James D. Dana, says: 
 "The order of events in the Scripture cosmogony 
 corresponds essentially with that which has been 
 given (by geology). The record in the Bible is 
 therefore profoundly philosophical in the scheme 
 of creation which it presents. It is both true and 
 divine. If true it is divine, because no human 
 mind was witness of the events (of creation)." 
 
 The other part of the question is, "Whence 
 
Will the Bible Live 19 
 
 came I?" The Bible says: "And God made man 
 in His own image." This agrees with the facts. 
 Man feels himself far above the brute creation, 
 belonging to another sphere, and that he is allied 
 to divinity. The Bible tells him he is God's son. 
 He believes the Bible because his own soul tells 
 him that this is true. False science will never 
 persuade man that he is descended from proto- 
 plasm and anthropoid apes. He is conscious of 
 an immortal spirit within him, and he claims kin- 
 ship from the eternal, descent from God, 
 
 Thus, as Sir Isaac Newton said, "The Bible is 
 the divine philosophy." 
 
 The next question of all ages and races is, 
 " What is God?" All men have answered this 
 question for themselves, and yet they have never 
 been satisfied with their own answers. So they 
 have gone on from age to age making new 
 answers, making new gods. The gods of one 
 age have never satisfied the people of succeeding 
 generations. 
 
 The Bible gives an account of God that agrees 
 with the facts of the case, and satisfies man's 
 soul. According to the Bible there is but one 
 God. All things were made by Him. He is a 
 Spirit, infinite, eternal, self-existent, and al- 
 mighty. He is a God whom men can worship, 
 or at least fear. 
 
 Now nature gives great hints of a god of wis- 
 dom and power, but nature does not prove a god 
 of mercy. Rather nature shows a god of abso- 
 
20 Will the Bible Live 
 
 lute and inflexible justice. In nature no violation 
 of laws goes unpunished. Nature is absolutely 
 inexorable. Mercy and forgiveness are unknown 
 in the processes of the natural world. 
 
 The Bible shows a God of love, and says, "God 
 so loved the world that He gave His only-begot- 
 ten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should 
 not perish, but have everlasting life." Here is a 
 philosophy of God — a theology far beyond and 
 above the philosophy of nature. Yet it meets the 
 wants of man's soul. Man feels himself a son of 
 God, that God is his father, and that a father 
 loves his children. But against that stands the 
 awful fact of sin and punishment. How God can 
 be just and forgive a sinner is a problem that 
 nature has never solved. The Bible solves it, and 
 there we learn that the Creator became man and 
 bore man's guilt that man might be saved. This 
 is the sublimest fact known to mortals, and man 
 will never give up the book that tells him this 
 glorious news. 
 
 The Gospel of the Bible alone shows man how to 
 be saved. Nature has many paths, but none of 
 them lead to the cross. The Bible tells man he 
 is a sinner; he knows that already, but the Bible 
 tells him God is a Saviour — that is news indeed. 
 
 This Gospel proves to be the thing his soul 
 needed. All its statements correspond with the 
 facts of the case, and the wants of man's soul. 
 // satisfies him, and therefore he believes it. It 
 is like air for his lungs, and water for his mouth. 
 
Will the Bible Live 21 
 
 He feels that these are the things he needs, and 
 must have. The man suffocating in a mine which 
 is filled with poisonous gases, when he comes up 
 to the air breathes it in, and is satisfied. The 
 famishing traveler in the desert comes to an 
 oasis, and he stoops down and drinks, and is 
 satisfied. So the panting, famishing soul receives 
 the Gospel, it satisfies him, and he believes it. 
 This after all is the best of all proofs that the 
 Bible will live. The Bible will live as long as it 
 satisfies man's soul, and it will as long as man's 
 soul cries out for God, for pardon, and eternal 
 life. 
 
 Man finds in the Bible a perfect picture of him- 
 self taken before he was born. An African heard 
 the first chapter of Romans read, and he said: 
 "Missionary, you said this book was finished 
 two thousand years ago; but that chapter shows 
 me myself," and he feels that God wrote it. A 
 dying soldier heard the parable of the prodigal 
 son read, and he cried out: "That's me! that's 
 me!" and so it was, for he who knows all prodi- 
 gals wrote it that every prodigal might find him- 
 self in it and find God. 
 
 The only solution of the mysteries and diffi- 
 culties of human life is found here. How can 
 man suffer so, and yet there be a God almighty? 
 The Bible shows us the cross of the God-man, and 
 we feel that whatever mystery there may be, yet 
 God is love, and men bear suffering patiently, and 
 hope even in death. 
 
22 Will the Bible Live 
 
 What can reconcile the rich and the poor? The 
 Bible commands every man to love his neighbor 
 as himself — the poor to love the rich, and the rich 
 to love the poor — and this is the solution of all 
 questions of sociology concerning the classes 
 and the masses, that every man shall love his 
 neighbor as himself. It shows God, who "was 
 rich, for our sakes becoming poor, that we 
 through His poverty might be rich," and calls on 
 men to follow His example, every man serv- 
 ing his fellow man under a universal law of 
 love. 
 
 The Bible alone enables a man to die in perfect 
 peace. It lifts enough the veil of the future to 
 show man an eternal city, where no sin nor sor- 
 row ever can come : a home for all who trust in 
 Jesus ; a place of glad reunions and no farewells. 
 It is the only book that gives any positive knowl- 
 edge of the future beyond death. 
 
 We have seen many die in peace, perfect 
 peace, depending upon the Bible story. The 
 Bible has proven sufficient for this greatest 
 strain, and we have never seen it fail. Not one 
 of all the millions who have tried it have said that 
 it failed at the last. On the contrary, they have 
 said it satisfied them perfectly, that death was not 
 death to them, but victory, and the gate to glory. 
 Men will never give up a book that can do 
 this. 
 
 The poor man finds comfort in his poverty; the 
 tempted find strength to overcome ; the penitent 
 
Will the Bible Live 23 
 
 finds peace of conscience ; the bereaved find con- 
 solation in distress ; the dying find the antidote 
 of death. 
 
 So the child will go on reading his Bible be- 
 cause it tells who made him and all things, and 
 men and women will go on reading the Bible 
 because it meets the wants of their souls in every 
 trial of life. "If you take away my Bible what 
 have you to give me instead? Nothing? Well, 
 I will keep my Bible, if you please. I recognize 
 in it the voice of God speaking to my soul." 
 
 So we say the Bible stands not on the authority 
 of any church, but on the authority of its own 
 majestic fitness for the wants of man. Men will 
 never reject it so long as they have sins to be for- 
 given, souls to save, and great questionings of 
 time and eternity, life and death, to answer. 
 
 Looking back over the millenniums past we see 
 that all that is best, holiest and most beneficent 
 in the story of humanity comes from the Bible. 
 It has constantly been attacked, yet it still holds 
 its glorious place in the affection and faith of 
 men. 
 
 Now and again some wiseacre rises up and 
 declares with great solemnity that the Bible is a 
 book for children and old women, and it will soon 
 be a dead book. But men go on reading their 
 Bibles just the same, and printing more Bibles all 
 the time. 
 
 To-day it is printed in 400 languages, and dur- 
 ing the century now just closed 270,000,000 of 
 
24 Will the Bible Live 
 
 volumes of Scripture were published, more than 
 enough to make a girdle for the world, and they 
 are being issued now at the rate of over 6,000,000 
 per year! Will the Bible live? "Heaven and 
 earth shall pass away, but my worlds shall not 
 pass away. ' ' 
 
WILL MEN CONTINUE TO BELIEVE 
 IN GOD 
 
 "thou HAST BESET ME BEHIND AND BEFORE, AND 
 LAID THINE HAND UPON ME." " WHITHER SHALL I 
 FLEE FROM THY PRESENCE?" PS. 139:5, 7- 
 
 The real animus and design of most attacks on 
 the Bible, on Christianity, and on the historic doc- 
 trines of the church, is to get rid of God. Not 
 all who make these attacks are conscious of what 
 their efforts mean, that they are moved by hostil- 
 ity to God. Who is behind this feeling, and who 
 inspires these attacks, is a question the answer to 
 which would offend their authors. It is one 
 whom they are altogether unwilling to acknowl- 
 edge that they serve. 
 
 Not only do infidels fight against God, but all 
 who attempt to destroy His Word and His church. 
 Many attacks are being made upon the beliefs of 
 Christendom. Will men continue to believe in 
 God? We unhesitatingly affirm that they will; 
 that men always will believe in God because they 
 can't help it; because the greatest questions of 
 the mind cannot be answered without this belief. 
 In other words, men will believe in God because 
 it is easier to believe than not to believe in Him. 
 
 25 
 
26 Will Men Continue to Believe in God 
 
 The first reason why men will believe in God 
 in the future is because they have always believed 
 in Him in the past. 
 
 For thousands of years infidels have tried to 
 destroy the world's belief in God. Satan began 
 it in the first temptation, offered to Adam and 
 Eve in the Garden of Eden. Satan induced the 
 first pair to act as if there were no God, but they 
 went to work immediately to make fig-leaf aprons 
 to hide their nakedness from God. Men have 
 been doing these things ever since, first denying 
 God, and then going to work to make some sort 
 of silly preparation to meet Him. 
 
 The point is this, that for six thousand years 
 the attempt has been constantly made to persuade 
 men that there is no God, and men have gone on 
 all the time getting some sort of preparation to 
 meet God. They have continued to build tem- 
 ples, continued to bow down and worship. At- 
 tacks on God have never kept the knees of the 
 mass of men stiff. They bend in worship in spite 
 of infidelity and the devil. If infidelity has not 
 succeeded in six thousand years past, there is no 
 reason to expect that it will succeed in six thou- 
 sand years to come, in persuading men that there 
 is no God. 
 
 Another reason is that man has an instinct for 
 God, just as a young squirrel has for building a 
 house for winter, when he never saw a winter, 
 this being his first year on earth; just as a young 
 wild goose has for flying south in autumn, when 
 
Will Men Continue to Believe in God 27 
 
 he never saw an autumn before, now knows what 
 winter means. 
 
 He who made squirrels and geese, made man, 
 and gave him an instinct for God. He can no 
 more get rid of this instinct than the squirrel and 
 goose can get rid of their instinct. It is a part of 
 their constitution. A new-born infant turns to 
 its mother's breast to draw therefrom its life- 
 nourishment. No one teaches the infant this. 
 He who made the infant made it that way. So 
 He who made man made him with an instinct for 
 Himself, and in the hour of extreme trial, if not 
 before, he cries out for God. Sin has blunted 
 and blurred his visional instinct, so that his con- 
 ceptions of God are crude and indistinct, but sin 
 has not destroyed this instinct. He is like a man 
 with a cataract over his eyes. He cannot see 
 things, yet he can tell when day comes; he can 
 see enough to know that there is a sun. 
 
 So, as long as squirrels and geese get ready 
 each in their own way for winter, so long as an 
 infant turns to its mother's breast, so long will 
 the soul cry out, "God, O God," just because it 
 can't help it. 
 
 Then every man is a philosopher, whether he 
 knows it or not. A philosopher is a man who 
 seeks to know the reasons for things. He sees a 
 thing and he asks how it came about, what its 
 nature is, and what it was meant for. 
 
 Man looks about him, and he sees many things. 
 He knows he did not make them, so he asks, 
 
28 Will Men Continue to Believe in God 
 
 "Who did?" When you tell him they made 
 themselves, he replies, <4 I am not a fool; I never 
 knew anything to make itself. To do that it 
 would have to be before it was. " He sees a ship, 
 he says a man made that, and a great man, for it 
 is a great thing. He sees an apple tree full of 
 fruit, and ht, says some great one made that, for 
 it is wonderful thing. He sees a gnat, and he 
 says, "Some great one made that, for it is a great 
 thing. I can't make a gnat, and the man who 
 built the ship can't make a gnat. I see many 
 things, and of most things I know that man did 
 not make them, nor did they make themselves. 
 So there must be a Maker greater than man." 
 Therefore, as long as there are apple trees and 
 gnats, men will believe in a Maker far above man 
 — that is, in a God. 
 
 When he looks from a mountain top upon a 
 wide horizon, from the seashore upon the vast 
 sea, from his doorstep into the limitless sky, with 
 its uncounted stars, he says: "There must be a 
 limitless Maker, an Infinite One, call Him what 
 you please; as for me, I choose to call Him 
 God." 
 
 Therefore, as long as man has an eye to see 
 things, and a few grains of sense, he will say, 
 "God, O God!" 
 
 Now infidelity comes and says, "There is no 
 God." This is a denial simply, not an affirma- 
 tion. It takes away, but gives nothing. This is 
 the weakness of infidelity. It offers man nothing 
 
Will Men Continue to Believe in God 29 
 
 in place of what it tries to take away. The mind 
 will never be satisfied with mere denials. It 
 abhors a vacuum. Man says, "Well, if God did 
 not make things, who did?" and infidelity says, 
 "We don't know; we are agnostics — know-noth- 
 ings." And man replies, "Well, if you don't 
 know anything, how can you teach me anything? 
 and I am going to believe God made things until 
 you show me that some one else made them." 
 So in nature God besets man behind and before. 
 The untutored Indian looks about him and above 
 him, and bows down to worship the "Great 
 Spirit," and when he thinks of death he prays to 
 be carried to the happy hunting grounds. There 
 is a good deal of theology in that. 
 
 There is something also beside the creation of 
 things that forces man to believe in God. It is 
 Jiuma?i life. "Thou hast laid thine hand upon 
 me." Here is a mystery that infidelity has not 
 solved. 
 
 I constantly find some one stronger than I 
 doing something with me. I start out in a ship 
 to reach a certain port, and do all I can to reach 
 that port, but at the end of my voyage I find 
 myself somewhere else. Who sent me there? I 
 didn't. No man did; who did? The winds did 
 it. Who made the winds to blow just that par- 
 ticular way, at that particular time? I didn't; 
 who did? The Pilgrim fathers sailed from Plym- 
 outh for Hampton Roads, but they landed on 
 the shore of Massachusetts; who did it? The 
 
30 Will Men Continue to Believe in God 
 
 only rational answer, the only answer that men 
 will accept as sufficient, is God! The only answer 
 to the things that happen all over the earth, in 
 the lives of men and nations, is God. 
 
 Is there a man here who can say, "My life is 
 just what I intended to make it"? No; you 
 know it is not. Why is it not? Some one has 
 been meddling with your life all the time, and 
 setting your way aside; who is this meddler? 
 Men know very well who it is, and so, when they 
 want things very much, or when they think a 
 great trouble is coming, they get down on their 
 knees* and say, "God, O God!" They always do 
 it, on land or sea ; at sick-beds, on battle-fields, 
 and at the hour of death. 
 
 By the way, do you know when you are going 
 to die? No; why? Because some one else settles 
 that question for you. Who is it? 
 
 But the argument is not all drawn from disap- 
 pointments and disasters. We Christians dwell 
 too much on that side of the argument. We are 
 too apt to call providences, that is, things that 
 God does, those things only that hurt or scare us. 
 A man said, "Oh, I have had such a providence; 
 my train ran off the track yesterday, and many 
 were killed, but I escaped by a special provi- 
 dence," and it was true. But his friend replied, 
 "I also had a special providence yesterday; my 
 train did not run off the track." It is a provi- 
 dence when a baby dies, and we solemnly say, 
 "God's will be done" ; but it is also a providence 
 
Will Men Continue to Believe in God 31 
 
 when a baby does not die, nor even get sick, but 
 laughs in its crib, and sucks its thumb content- 
 edly. Providence is in every sunny day, every 
 fair flower, every singing bird, every laughing 
 child, every well-laden apple tree, every harvest 
 field, everything in earth or sky, and every 
 moment of time. 
 
 Would not this be a lonely world without God? 
 I should feel that I was an orphan, and sit down 
 and cry. The loneliest thought a man can have 
 is to be in a wide universe where there is no God. 
 
 But certain so-called theologians say, "Oh, yes, 
 there is a God, but He hasn't much to do with 
 things." I answer, "Why hasn't He? Doesn't 
 He care what happens to the things He has 
 made? I don't believe it; it wouldn't be so with 
 me. If I plant a garden, I take care of it. If 
 God made a world, He will take care of that." 
 
 There are but two ways of looking at things : 
 either God made them with certain laws, and left 
 them like a machine to grind on and out, or else 
 God has a hand in all that comes to pass. Men 
 will always believe the latter because it seems to 
 them more reasonable. 
 
 Well, if God has a hand in things, when did He 
 make up His mind to do the things He does? 
 When? from all eternity, because He always 
 knew; He was always God. I always make up 
 my mind what to do as far ahead as I can see, and 
 any intelligent person will. I see a little way; 
 God sees all the way. To say that God does not 
 
32 Will Men Continue to Believe in God 
 
 have a hand in things, and did not know from 
 eternity what He would do, is to say He isn't God. 
 I prefer to believe that He knows all things, and 
 has always known what He would do, because it is 
 more comfortable to believe that way. It makes 
 it easier for me to live, and easier for me to die. 
 This is the feeling of mankind, and always will 
 be. They believe in God because there is no one 
 else to believe in. We want an almighty, all- 
 knowing God, and when we read in the Bible that 
 He is Love then we say, "I could not have a 
 better God. He suits me because this accounts 
 for all I see, and all I feel, and fills my soul with 
 rest." St. Augustine said, "The soul was made 
 for God, and can never rest until it rests in Him. " 
 
 In heaven all believe in God, and in hell all 
 believe in God. It is only on earth that you find 
 an occasional man who says, "There is no God," 
 and the Bible declares he is a "fool." And the 
 mass of mankind will say, "Yes, that is true." 
 "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no 
 God." But no man is fool enough to say this in 
 the hour of death, and the infidel passes out of 
 this world crying, "God, have mercy on my 
 soul!" The Christian dies saying, "Father, into 
 Thy hands I commend my spirit. " "O Death, 
 where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy vic- 
 tory?" "Thanks be unto God which giveth us 
 the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. ' ' 
 
 The Christian believes in God also because he 
 has spoken to Him often and gotten answers back. 
 
Will Men Continue to Believe in God 33 
 
 He has asked for the forgiveness of sins, and has 
 received it. The God of Love whom he has not 
 seen has pardoned his sins, and he knows it, 
 because he has peace. He has asked God to help 
 him in trouble, and He has done it. If He did not 
 avert the disaster, He gave him grace to bear it, 
 and to be its conqueror. In a thousand ways, 
 day by day, he has had communication with God. 
 You cannot persuade him to disbelieve in an old 
 Friend. 
 
 So men will go on believing in God and saying, 
 "Thou hast beset me behind, and before, and laid 
 Thine hand upon me." 
 
HOW SHALL WE PRAY THAT OUR 
 PRAYERS MAY BE ANSWERED 
 
 "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous 
 man availeth much." james 5: 16. 
 
 The only way to answer a question like this is 
 from the inspired Word. 
 
 When we read that "whatsoever ye ask, believ- 
 ing, ye shall receive," we understand that our 
 request must be reasonable, and according to 
 God's will. It would be absurd to expect any 
 foolish prayer to be answered. Suppose I ask 
 God to send a snowstorm in July, or to turn the 
 current of the Mississippi backward, or to enable 
 me to commit sin with immunity from punish- 
 ment; of course God will not grant my petition. 
 "Prayer is the offering of our desires unto God, 
 for things agreeable to His will, in the name of 
 Christ, with confession of sin, and thankful 
 acknowledgment of His mercies." Two prin- 
 ciples enter into the question of answers to 
 prayer: (i) Whether the things asked for are 
 agreeable to God's will, and (2) the matter of 
 time; He does not promise to always give the 
 answer at once. But, allowing all proper dis- 
 count on our prayers in the light of these two 
 limitations, still there remains often a great dis- 
 
 34 
 
How Shall We Pray 35 
 
 appointment in prayer, for many of our prayers, 
 even for things we know are according to God's 
 will, are never answered. "We ask and receive 
 not, because we ask amiss," and that is perfectly 
 natural and to be expected ; for God will not give 
 tilings which we ought not to have. We ask for 
 temporal gifts from a wrong motive, "that we may 
 consume them upon our lusts. " Such prayers must 
 go unanswered. But when we pray for the conver- 
 sion of a friend, or for the outpouring of the Holy 
 Spirit, upon the church we know that we are ask- 
 ing for things agreeable to God's will. Now 
 when we pray thus and for weary years without 
 receiving an answer, we become discouraged, and 
 our prayers instead of being a comfort become 
 the occasion of great distress of mind. We 
 begin, at length, to doubt and to say, perhaps I 
 am not heard because I am not a Christian, or 
 perhaps there is no God. 
 
 One of the most pressing of all questions is, 
 "How shall we pray, that our prayers may be 
 answered?" for we feel that the fault is not in 
 God, but in ourselves. God has said, "Ask and 
 ye shall receive," and therefore we conclude that 
 if our prayers are not answered we have not 
 truly asked, for if the Bible is to be believed, 
 every true prayer is answered. God may not 
 indeed answer just as we expect, but answer He 
 will in His own wise way, and at the right time. 
 What kind of a prayer is answered? 
 
 It is "the effectual" prayer. What does 
 
36 Hozu Shall We Pray that 
 
 effectual mean? It means producing effects. 
 The prayer that produces effects is answered. 
 Effects upon whom? Upon God? No; for that 
 would be mere repetition of the same idea, a talk- 
 ing in a circle. It would be equivalent to saying, 
 "The prayer that produces effects upon God pro- 
 duces effects upon God." It is the prayer that 
 produces effects upon him who offers it, that 
 "availeth much" or produces effects upon God. 
 Action and reaction are equal ; and the bowstring 
 that is to send an arrow far must be drawn far 
 back by the hand of the bowman. The prayer 
 that is to ascend to heaven must be sent by a 
 force in the heart, and the heart must be strained 
 to send it up to God. 
 
 What effect should the availing prayer have 
 upon the offerer? It must have the effect of mak- 
 ing him strive after the thing he prays for, that 
 God may use him as the means of securing the 
 answer. There is nothing mysterious about this. 
 A farmer who prays for a good crop must sow his 
 seed, and plow his corn. That is his part, the 
 necessary effect of the prayer upon the farmer. 
 If God answers his prayer it will be by making 
 the farmer's labors efficacious by a blessing upon 
 his toil. The same rule holds in spiritual things. 
 If a man asks God to make him a better Chris- 
 tian, he must strive to be a better Christian. He 
 must use the means of grace, must keep good 
 company, study the Scriptures, frequent the 
 house of worship, avoid evil companionship, and 
 
Our Prayers May Be Answered 37 
 
 try to do good. This is the effect of the effectual 
 prayer, and the answer will come through God's 
 blessing upon the effort the Christian makes to 
 be a better man. If he prays for the conversion 
 of a friend, he must seek to bring his friend to 
 God, must tell him of his need, his danger, and 
 his opportunity. He need not speak with the 
 eloquence of a Chrysostom, but speak he must. 
 "Let him that heareth say come. " You pray for a 
 man's conversion and speak to him on every sub- 
 ject under the sun except that of his soul's salva- 
 tion. This shows that you were not much in 
 earnest or concerned about the man's conversion. 
 "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth 
 speaketh. " Your friend was not converted be- 
 cause the prayer was not effectual, and it produced 
 no effect upon you. God uses means to answer 
 your prayer; what means? Yourself. Go and 
 urge your friend to come to Christ; tell him you 
 are praying for him, that the Saviour died for his 
 soul ; help him to get over his doubts and diffi- 
 culties, and "bring him to Jesus." Then you 
 will be a co-worker with God, the instrument in 
 His hand for the salvation of a soul. 
 
 Very often disappointed, dejected Christians 
 come and tell me they have no comfort in their 
 religion, their prayers are not answered. My 
 reply is to ask, "What are you doing?" and the 
 answer is, "Nothing." Then I say, "Do some- 
 thing, and you will get something. Do some- 
 thing for yourself and your fellow man, and 
 
38 How Shall We Pray that 
 
 God will answer your prayers, and grant you 
 that peace which is the reward of service." 
 My prescription is to send them to visit some 
 poor family with directions to help them in 
 their sorrows and trials; and if they do this 
 the)'' always come back with a cheerful face 
 and a glad heart. I have tried this treatment 
 many a time, and have never known it to fail. It 
 is merely making prayer have an effect upon 
 the offerer, that it may then 4 ' avail much with 
 God." 
 
 The next element of success in prayer is that it 
 be "fervent." That means, burning. Cold 
 prayers do not avail. There must be a fire in the 
 soul. How cold are many of our prayers! Did 
 you ever fall asleep on your knees? You were 
 before the throne of God asking for transcendent 
 gifts, and you were not enough interested to keep 
 awake. How often we repeat a form of words 
 with no feeling, nor even thought of what we are 
 saying. Our minds wander like the fool's eyes, 
 all over the earth. This prayer is like that of 
 the Hindoo who writes his petition upon the rim 
 of a water wheel, and leaving his machine to pray 
 for him, goes about his business. God will not 
 hear the petitions of a praying machine, whether 
 it be a water wheel or a human soul. We must 
 mean and feel what we say. There must be a 
 flame kindled in the soul. 
 
 Once I sought a pardon for a man condemned 
 to three years in prison, and I prepared an argu- 
 
Our Prayers May Be Answered 39 
 
 ment to show the governor that the man ought to 
 be set free. I urged my reasons with all my 
 might, and the governor was evidently impressed, 
 but I had a better pleader at hand. I bade the 
 prisoner's wife to speak, and she did with her 
 soul in her lips and eyes. She was offering a 
 fervent, a burning prayer, as was shown by the 
 tears rolling down her cheeks. When she had 
 finished the governor reached for a handkerchief 
 to wipe his eyes, and then wrote the words that 
 set the prisoner free. That is the way to ask God 
 for the things He has to give. Fervency attests 
 our sincerity, honors God and brings an answer. 
 Jacob prayed thus at Bethel. He wrestled with 
 God, saying, "I will not let Thee go, until Thou 
 bless me," and his prayer availed and pre- 
 vailed. 
 
 Our prayer must be fervent enough also to 
 make us persevere. God does not promise to 
 grant our petition at once. For His own wise 
 reasons He often delays the answer. Perhaps it 
 is to try our faith, or to keep us begging at His 
 gate. Christ gives a model in the case of the 
 widow who kept coming to the "unjust judge," 
 until he granted her petition, as he said, "lest 
 she weary me. ' ' 
 
 A man came to me on a Sunday night after 
 service, to say that he was repentant and giving 
 his heart to God, and said, "This is in answer to 
 my mother's prayers." "Where is your mother?" 
 I asked; and he answered, "She has been dead 
 
40 How Shall We Pray that 
 
 sixteen years." Then he asked, "Do you think 
 she knows about it to-night?" I could only 
 reply, "I hope so, but if she doesn't now, she will 
 when she meets you in heaven." 
 
 One part of this text troubled me very much at 
 one time. It was the phrase, "of a righteous 
 man." "Ah," I said, "that is the reason my 
 prayers are not answered; I am not a 'righteous 
 man'; I am not good enough to pray." I had 
 heard ministers tell men that they had no right 
 to pray until they were converted. This is all 
 wrong ; it is the right and duty of every poor sin- 
 ner to pray. God is his Father, and wants to 
 hear his voice in humble supplication. Now, 
 when we understand what the Scriptures mean 
 by "a righteous man" we shall not be hindered, 
 but encouraged to pray. There is a difference 
 between righteousness and holiness. Of course a 
 righteous man will have some holiness; but a 
 man may be imperfectly holy and perfectly right- 
 eous. Holiness is the resemblance of our char- 
 acter to God ; to be righteous is to be pardoned, 
 and justified through faith. The righteous man 
 is the man who has faith. "Abraham believed 
 God, and it was accounted to him for righteous- 
 ness. " This is a thing God gives men if they 
 believe in Him, and the righteousness of faith is 
 a perfect dress, Christ's own robe, in which we 
 are clothed by His abounding grace. 
 
 Let us see whose prayers, in the Bible, were 
 answered, and we shall know who were righteous 
 
Our Prayers May Be Ansivered 41 
 
 men. We will take extreme cases, because they 
 are most encouraging to us poor sinners. A 
 publican went up into the Temple to pray, 
 and he said, standing afar off, feeling his un- 
 worthiness, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" 
 That man's prayer was heard; it availed much 
 with God; so he was a righteous man; for 
 Christ said, "He went down to his house justi- 
 fied." On a cross beside Christ, on Calvary, 
 a malefactor hung dying, and he said to 
 Jesus, "Lord, remember me when Thou comest 
 into Thy kingdom ! ' ' Christ answered his prayer, 
 and said, "To-day shalt thou be with me in 
 paradise." So here was another "righteous 
 man." It all goes to show that when we pray 
 we stand not on the merit of our good works, but 
 on our faith. The malefactor believed that Jesus 
 was the King of both worlds, for he asked Him, 
 in this world, for a blessing in the next. Such 
 faith never goes unrewarded, for it crowns the 
 Saviour King of kings. The prayer of faith is 
 based upon belief in a Christ immortal and 
 divine. It reaches for eternal glories. "It is the 
 swinging of the soul out from the finite into the 
 infinite ; from the temporal into the eternal, pros- 
 trating itself at the feet of God, palpitating with 
 one consuming desire." 
 
 This kind of prayer "availeth much." How 
 much? It is measured, as to its effects, only by 
 the infinite will and mercy of God. Every one of 
 us who is a Christian is a Christian in answer to 
 
42 How Shall We Pray that 
 
 prayer, the prayer probably of some other man or 
 woman, and also always in answer to the prayer 
 of Christ, who "continually maketh intercession 
 for us.'' Prayer is the breath of the soul, by 
 which it breathes out faith, and breathes in God. 
 Prayer occupies an exalted place in the history of 
 the church of God. Moses saved Israel from the 
 divine vengeance by his prayers. Elijah brought 
 drought, ruin and fire from heaven by his prayers. 
 John Knox prayed, "Give me Scotland or I die," 
 and God gave him Scotland. The disciples 
 prayed Peter out of prison. Paul and Silas were 
 praying when God sent the earthquake at Philippi, 
 opening the dungeon doors, and loosing every 
 prisoner's chains. The most impressive illustra- 
 tion of prayer is that of Christ upon His knees, in 
 the mountain all night, under the sky with God; 
 or just as He was about to perform miracles of 
 raising the dead, or in Gethsemane awaiting 
 arrest, or on Calvary committing His spirit to His 
 Father. In the second Psalm we read of the 
 Father commanding His Son, "Ask of me, and I 
 shall give Thee the heathen for Thy inheritance, 
 and the uttermost part of the earth for Thy pos- 
 session. " So we have the transcendent spectacle 
 of prayer in the Trinity, the Son praying the 
 Father for a lost world, and the world will be 
 saved in answer to that prayer that never has 
 ceased nor ever will, until all nations shall be 
 converted, and every knee shall bow at His great 
 and holy name. Christ's prayer was an effec- 
 
Our Prayers May Be Answered 43 
 
 tual one, for, having prayed for the world, He 
 came down from heaven to seek and to save that 
 which was lost. So the salvation of the world 
 begins and ends with prayer; and this is true also 
 of the individual soul. The first act of a saved 
 man is prayer, and prayer is his last breath. 
 11 He enters heaven with prayer." 
 
 In St. John's Apocalypse we have a wide view 
 of the efficacy of prayer. He saw seven angels 
 before God in heaven. And another angel came 
 and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; 
 and there was given to him much incense that he 
 might 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 saints, ascended up before God, 
 out of the angel's hand. And the angel took the 
 censer, and filled it with the fire of the altar, 
 and cast it into the earth, and there were voices^ 
 and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earth- 
 quake. 
 
 Then followed the trumpet blasts of the seven 
 angels, each in turn, the signals of tremendous 
 events in the world. Does not this show that 
 the prayers of "all saints," sanctified by fire from 
 the altar, were the means of bringing about the 
 vast designs of God in the plan of His grace for 
 mankind, and that the prayers of saints do bring 
 the power of omnipotence to bear upon the affairs 
 of nations and of men? 
 
 How much, then, does prayer avail? The 
 
44 How Shall We Pray 
 
 measure is, omnipotence, regulated by the wis- 
 dom and mercy of God. So, "the effectual, 
 fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth 
 much." How much, God and eternity shall 
 show. 
 
HOW CAN GOD BE GOOD AND LET 
 MAN SUFFER 
 
 1 'surely he hath borne our griefs and carried 
 our sorrows." — is. 53: 4. 
 
 In earlier phases of human experience one of 
 the most comforting thoughts that can come to 
 the mind is that God rules, and that nothing can 
 come to pass without His consent. The beauti- 
 ful phrase of Christ is that "Not a sparrow falleth 
 to the ground without your Father, and ye are of 
 more value than many sparrows. " It is a blessed 
 thing for one in danger, or one who has a loved 
 one in danger, to know that God rules in all 
 things great and small. But to a man who has 
 suffered immeasurable loss, and who feels that 
 the joy and light of his life are gone, it is not 
 always a comfort to think that God could have 
 prevented his misfortune and did not. 
 
 The fundamental conception of God is that He 
 is almighty. This characteristic of God stands 
 out above all others in the minds of men, and we 
 think of Him as the one and only person who can 
 have His own way, who is never frustrated, and 
 so the Psalmist says, "Our God is in the heavens, 
 He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased." 
 Behind this lies the still higher fact that He has 
 
 45 
 
46 How Can God Be Good and Let Man Suffer 
 
 always known what He would do, what every 
 creature would do. Now set up beside this stu- 
 pendous fact of God's omnipotence and omni- 
 science the other fact of suffering in all ages, and 
 among all the sons of men. Here arises a prob- 
 lem not easy to solve ; for if God be good, how 
 can He determine to permit the things we see to 
 come to pass around us in the world? 
 
 It is proper to answer, God made man free, 
 setting before him good and evil, and that man 
 freely chose evil with all its long train of woe. 
 Man is a sinner, and deserves all he suffers. I 
 know that is true of myself, and you know that it 
 is true of yourself; yet this consideration can only 
 shut our mouths from complaint. It introduces 
 no light into the dark mystery of suffering, for 
 we still ask, Is not omnipotence equal to the task 
 of taking a sinful world and making it good? 
 Yes, and that is what God is doing. Then comes 
 this burning question, Why does He not do it 
 now? Here is a world of sufferers, a world of 
 sinners, indeed, and therefore sufferers; and yet 
 God is almighty, and God is good ; why does He 
 not stop sin at once, and dry up forever the foun- 
 tain of tears? 
 
 We have a vision of God and revelation shows 
 that it is correct, that He sits upon a throne of 
 almightiness, blazing with unapproachable glory ; 
 that He is so holy the very heavens are unclean 
 in His presence; that He is surrounded with 
 choirs of innumerable angels who sing His praises 
 
How Can God Be Good and Let Man Suffer 47 
 
 day and night; that His being is filled with 
 infinite bliss. In contrast with His transcendent 
 power, glory, and happiness, we see a world 
 reeking with sin, stained with blood, containing 
 millions of sufferers, every one of whom is jour- 
 neying towards inevitable death. How can God 
 be happy and witness what every man witnesses? 
 How can Omnipotence remain passive, and let the 
 awful tragedy of human suffering go on? How 
 can God be good and let man suffer? 
 
 This is the poignant question of the ages. 
 Men have always suffered, and have always asked 
 why an Almighty God does not by a word He 
 could easily speak put an end to human misery 
 and tears. There is no less of suffering now than 
 there ever was, and this question confronts every 
 mortal. He looks up to heaven through tears, 
 and asks with trembling lips, How can God per- 
 mit sorrow? 
 
 Two tremendous facts stand out, — suffering and 
 God. The reconciliation of them is the problem. 
 Human life is a tragedy. It begins with a sob; 
 it ends with a sigh, and between the first sob and 
 the last sigh there is many a pang. 
 
 Sickness is everywhere. How many millions 
 lay last night upon sleepless couches counting the 
 hours? Enter a home from which the doctor's 
 buggy has just gone. Climb the stairs. On a 
 bed lies a baby, hollow-eyed, pale. Its bony 
 fingers tell of disease, pain, and approaching 
 death, while at its side sits a mother whose heart 
 
48 How Can God Be Good and Let Man Suffer 
 
 is breaking. Another home. Here lies the head 
 of the house ; consumption has stamped the seal 
 of death upon his brow. Nothing to do but wait 
 for the inevitable end. Walk among the cots in 
 a hospital. Here are long ranks of sufferers; 
 cancer, fever, tumor, paralysis, and every form 
 of disease gathered, a museum of misery. 
 Dreadful surgery will be done to-day, with what 
 result God knows. Yonder is a deaf and dumb 
 asylum, the home of the silent. There a blind 
 asylum, where sunlight is useless, and no lamp 
 need be lighted at night. Hard by is a hospital 
 for the insane, where laughter means misery, and 
 singing sorrow. Did you ever see a battle-field? 
 You remember, will never forget, the crushed, 
 bleeding, dying and dead left by the storm of 
 fire. In India millions of walking skeletons are 
 perishing for lack of a morsel of food. See the 
 unspeakable pathos of famine. 
 
 Drop the curtain. We have seen enough; the 
 heart can bear no more. God sees these things 
 all the time, and He is God. 
 
 Who can tell the mental misery carried in 
 human breasts day by day; the disappointments, 
 anxieties, bereavements, the death in life of in- 
 numerable men and women, the grinding poverty, 
 the sense of injustice, the memory of a crime, 
 the betrayal by a friend? These burden hearts 
 with a load they stagger under as they walk their 
 sorrowful pathway to a grave they often covet, 
 and there sits God upon His throne of bliss. 
 
How Can God Be Good and Let Man Suffer 49 
 
 Think of the suffering of the innocent for the 
 sins of the wicked. The drunkard's wife and 
 children who dread to see the father come to his 
 own door. The poor girl betrayed by her love, 
 abused, despised, forsaken, a wreck drifting on 
 the tide, while he who ruined her goes on, for- 
 getful, to wealth, to marriage, to prosperity. 
 
 Such are the commonest scenes of human life. 
 Who does not know them? Truly life is a 
 tragedy, and all must suffer, must die, and even 
 the best are doomed to a grave. Is it sufficient 
 to say, in explanation of all this, that men are 
 sinners, and must suffer the natural consequences 
 of their sins? that they deserve it all? This may 
 satisfy the philosopher in academic halls, or the 
 theologian in his study; it does not satisfy the 
 man with a hopeless sorrow. 
 
 He says, "Yes, but God is almighty. He can 
 do all things. He can stop suffering if He will. 
 If sin be the cause of suffering, why does He not 
 stop sin?" He is told that law must be vindi- 
 cated, and eternal justice satisfied, but this is poor 
 comfort to a broken heart, and it still replies, 
 "God is almighty; He made the world; it is His 
 world; can He not set it right?" 
 
 These are the things that make infidels, that 
 cause them to say, "No, we cannot believe it; 
 there is no God. God could not sit in glory and 
 bliss and let His own world go on a hideous scene 
 of pain and woe. ' ' And yet the evidence is over- 
 whelming, and we know there is a God 
 
50 How Can God Be Good and Let Man Suffer 
 
 I shall not attempt the explanation of these 
 mysteries of sorrow. My explanation might 
 silence the mind, but it would not satisfy the 
 heart. Is there anything in all the universe that 
 can persuade a man crushed to earth with sorrow 
 to believe that God is good? Where is the philos- 
 ophy of the universe that can throw light upon 
 this question? 
 
 There is but one thing that can reconcile man 
 to suffering. I do not say that it is an explana- 
 tion ; it is a reconciliation. There is one thing 
 that will reconcile a man to sorrow, unexplained, 
 mysterious, unfathomable, and enable him to bear 
 it unmurmuringly, satisfied to wait for explana- 
 tion in the world beyond death. 
 
 It is this: I find God, the Almighty, the Holy, 
 the Blissful, descending from His celestial abode 
 to become a sufferer like me. I see Him walk 
 among men, "a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted 
 with grief." I hear Him weep, and His sobs are 
 just like mine. I hear Him groan under pain, 
 betrayal, oppression, and shame. I behold Him 
 dying on a cross, and follow to see Him laid in a 
 tomb. I ask, "Who is this?" and am told, 
 "This is He who made the world, who made 
 man, who was perfectly blessed, and who is 
 Almighty." I ask, why He did not exercise His 
 omnipotence to end His own miseries, and the 
 answer is, because He loved men so He would 
 not save Himself. He saved others; Himself 
 He could, but would not save. He took our sins, 
 
How Can God Be Good and Let Man Suffer 51 
 
 our sorrows, and made them His own that the 
 law He had promulgated might be satisfied ; that 
 He might save all sinners and sufferers. He 
 drank our cup of woe that we might not have to 
 drink it, and He drained it to its dregs. 
 
 The sting of death is sin, and the sting of sor- 
 row is sin. He atones for sin, and forgives it. 
 He declares absolution to all who are truly peni- 
 tent; absolution through His own blood. I have 
 this to say to every sufferer: "Christ, God 
 incarnate, died for you." 
 
 Two things the death of Christ does to reconcile 
 us to suffering: first, He proves His goodness by 
 suffering with us and for our sake; and, second, 
 it makes suffering the pathway to the highest 
 glory and happiness. 
 
 The first thing is to prove His goodness and to 
 reconcile us to suffering. There is no suffering 
 too great to be offset by the spectacle of the divine 
 Law-Giver, the Almighty Ruler of the universe 
 weeping, dying among men and for men. "Jesus 
 wept," recorded of Him by the tomb of His 
 friend, brings great comfort, and His dying on 
 the cross throws a glow of celestial light on all 
 suffering. 
 
 Come, O mother, with your dead babe in your 
 arms, come and see the dying Christ! Come, 
 wife of the drunkard, come with your little chil- 
 dren, and see the Lord of Glory upon His cross! 
 Come, deserted outcast, woman, come look upon 
 Him who is the friend of sinners, bearing your 
 
52 How Can God Be Good and Let Man Suffer 
 
 sin, not only, but your sorrow too! You cannot 
 complain in sight of Calvary. 
 
 We hold up Christ crucified before men. We 
 hold Him up in sick chambers, in homes for the 
 unfortunate, in prisons, hospitals, at funerals, 
 the grave-side, and on battle-fields. Men say, 
 "Is this my God?" "Yes, this is the Infinite, the 
 All Holy, All Good, and His name is Love." 
 "Well," they answer, "this is a God I can love, 
 and believe in. I can trust my soul and life in 
 His keeping, and wait for the explanation of my 
 sufferings until He takes rne to His home on 
 high." The dear, sad cross extends its arms to 
 embrace all sufferers, and points aloft to peace 
 and rest with God. 
 
 But the Scripture view of God's use of sorrow 
 looks higher than mere submission. It is not 
 enough for men to bear trouble unmurmuringly. 
 God enables man to acquiesce in sorrow, and even 
 to see in it the pathway by which he climbs, with 
 bleeding feet indeed, but still climbs, to his high- 
 est possibilities of life, character and achievement. 
 "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation," 
 or trial; "for when he is tried he shall receive the 
 crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to 
 them that love Him." In other words, the tried 
 or afflicted man may, God's grace assisting him, 
 see in sorrow not his greatest curse, but one of his 
 greatest blessings, and after he has borne the 
 trials of this present life, may look back and 
 rejoice over his afflictions more than over his 
 
How Can God Be Good and Let Man Suffer 53 
 
 prosperity. St. Paul rejoiced that he was counted 
 worthy to suffer for Christ's sake. 
 
 Now the apostle's sufferings were many of 
 them the effect of persecution laid upon him 
 because he was a follower of Christ, the effect of 
 hatred to his Lord. In a sense these are easier 
 to bear than the ordinary afflictions that come 
 upon men, because it is so easy to see that they 
 are for the sake of Him who died to save our 
 souls from death. The martyrs could feel a fel- 
 lowship with Christ in their sufferings. Their 
 sufferings were akin to His, and before their 
 eyes was always present the cross upon which 
 their Saviour died. They knew that by His cross 
 Christ rose to His highest glory as the Saviour of 
 men, and that the circlet of thorns was the most 
 splendid crown He ever wore. 
 
 But this does not seem to apply to the suffer- 
 ings we endure in the common tragedy of human 
 life. What connection is there between Christ's 
 sufferings and the pains men feel when preyed 
 upon by disease? Here is the leper, the con- 
 sumptive, the fever stricken, the cancerous. 
 Here are the sufferers from afflictions of the 
 heart, the bereaved, the disappointed, the poor, 
 the sin-cursed. Is there any gleam of light for 
 these? Is there anything that can connect their 
 sufferings with glory or a crown of life? Yes; 
 St. James says, "Blessed is the man," no matter 
 who he is, "that endureth temptation" or trial; 
 "for when he is tried he shall receive the crown 
 
54 How Can God Be Good and Let Man Suffer 
 
 of life." This means that any trial of the body, 
 or of the mind, may be endured in such a way as 
 that it shall be the means of our attaining the 
 highest possibilities of our being. It intimates 
 that all pain and sorrow may be sanctified, and 
 all affliction made subservient to our greatest 
 good. Even the pangs that follow sin may be 
 made the birth throes of an entrance into life 
 likest unto God. 
 
 Of course, if this end is obtained, sorrow is not 
 to be borne with stolid stoicism, but in loving 
 acquiescence with the will of God. It does not 
 imply that we always know how sorrow shall 
 elevate us. Sorrow is often as much a mystery 
 to a child of God as it is to any other man. He 
 walks in the dark. Not one step before can he 
 see. All below his feet and all above his head is 
 darkness impenetrable. Yet he believes what 
 God tells him. His trust is in Him, all the 
 sweeter, ofttimes, because he cannot see. He 
 can only feel a great hand holding, leading him. 
 "I will fear no evil," he says, "for Thou art with 
 me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. " It 
 may be too dark to see even the face of God, but 
 he knows by the faith of his soul, by the whisper 
 of strength in his weakness, that his God is near. 
 
 Now he may not be able to sing. Singing is 
 hardly the thing when we are enveloped in im- 
 penetrable woe. Rather, he would be silent, and 
 he says, "I was dumb. I opened not my mouth, 
 because Thou didst it. ' ' There are times when 
 
How Can God Be Good and Let Man Suffer 5 5 
 
 the highest utterance is silence, and we often say 
 our best words when the lips are dumb. 
 
 The secret is this, our sufferings are the suffer- 
 ings of Christ. He makes our sorrows all His 
 own. "We suffer with Him, that we may also be 
 glorified together." It is the same principle 
 upon which we tried to reconcile ourselves to the 
 fact that there is sorrow, and that God does not 
 prevent or end it — that the God-man suffers with 
 men. We ceased to complain because we saw 
 Him dying on the cross. So here we find our- 
 selves, by sorrow, entering into co-partnership 
 with the Divine Sufferer. Fellowship with Christ 
 is the highest experience of the soul, even when 
 it comes through pangs that break the heart. 
 
 Here, then, is the gracious truth. God in 
 Christ has glorified all suffering, if the sufferer 
 but feels that it is His will and endures it with 
 loving acquiescence. So the cross of Christ be- 
 comes the reconciliation of the soul to all suffer- 
 ing. 
 
 "The crown of life" — what crown is that? It 
 means the life that crowns all; the crowning life. 
 The greatest thing we know is life, and this is the 
 highest life. It is a life that brings us nearest to 
 God, because it is most like unto His. It is not 
 something placed upon our heads, a thing ex- 
 ternal to ourselves ; it is ourselves, the making of 
 man like God. Man was made at first "a little 
 lower than the angels, ' ' but by suffering borne 
 for Christ's sake, we are made above the angels, 
 
56 How Can God Be Good and Let Man Suffer 
 
 for we thus attain unto the crown of life, the 
 highest life, next to God. 
 
 So in the great tragedy of life, there is intro- 
 duced a divine plan and purpose, and sorrow is 
 seen to be a minister of mercy. Though we can- 
 not understand all the deep mystery of the 
 method, we can understand the end, and can see 
 that out of the groans and tears of humanity God 
 will bring not His own glory merely, but the 
 glory of humanity; indeed, that He glorifies Him- 
 self by glorifying man. As Christ reached His 
 highest glory by suffering, so do we, and the 
 cross becomes the symbol of His glory and ours. 
 
 So the solution of the mystery of sorrow is in 
 Christ crucified. " Surely He hath borne our 
 griefs and carried our sorrows, ' ' and we arrive at 
 this glorious conclusion — the sorrows of man are 
 the sorrows of the Son of God, and as He was 
 made perfect through suffering, so suffering is 
 the ladder by which we climb to the greatest 
 glory and the highest bliss. 
 
CAN GOD BE SOVEREIGN AND MAN 
 FREE 
 
 "i AM THE LORD, AND THERE IS NONE ELSE, THERE 
 IS NO GOD BESIDE ME: I HAVE MADE THE EARTH, AND 
 CREATED MAN UPON IT." IS. 45: 5, 12. 
 
 Our shortsighted minds are often troubled to 
 think that it is of no use for us to try to be or to 
 do anything, because we live in a universe in 
 company with a God who is infinite and will have 
 His way. We know that God is Sovereign. 
 Every conception of God includes that, and we 
 feel that His power has no limitations. Then 
 we ask, if God be Sovereign, am I free? Have I 
 any choice in my life and destiny? Is it possible 
 that I can be free, if God is supreme? We want 
 to feel that we are free, and yet we shrink from 
 thinking that God is not Sovereign. 
 
 God is Sovereign; what does this imply? He 
 oivns things. 
 
 Ownership comes by gift or acquisition. God 
 gets nothing by gift or acquisition, but by crea- 
 tion. This is the only absolute ownership. A 
 thing had no existence ; it was not, He made it, 
 and it was; whose is it? God's, and His title is 
 indisputable and unforfeitable. The first two 
 questions and answers of the child's catechism lay 
 
 57 
 
58 Can God Be Sovereign and Man Free 
 
 bare the foundations of divine ownership and 
 sovereignty. "Who made you? God. What 
 else did God make? All things." This puts 
 God above all things, and seats Him upon a 
 throne of sovereignty where He can have no 
 rival. Every created thing, if it could speak, 
 would respond as the child does to the first ques- 
 tion of the child's catechism. Ask a flower, Who 
 made you? God. Ask a star, Who made you? 
 God. Ask a man, Who made you? God. And 
 so with everything that is, from a butterfly to an 
 archangel — from a grain of sand to a planet. So 
 at the apex of all things sits God— the only Uni- 
 versal Sovereign, because the 'only Creator. 
 
 He knows things. What things? All things. 
 We know by intuition or by study. I know 
 by intuition that a whole is greater than a 
 part; and I learn that two and two make four. 
 All that I know I learn, in history, in nature, in 
 art, and in philosophy. But God learns nothing. 
 To learn a thing implies that once I did not know 
 it, and now I do. There was no time when God 
 did not know all things. He has never learned, 
 because He always knew. Nor can we say that 
 God knows anything by intuition. Intuition 
 means inner teaching, learning without a teacher. 
 It implies that a soul is born and opens its men- 
 tal vision to see certain truths that only need to 
 be seen to be known. We can hardly say God 
 knows anything by intuition, for that implies that 
 He became conscious of things by seeing them, 
 
Can God Be Sovereign and Man Free 59 
 
 and this means that they were before God. 
 There was nothing before God. God did not 
 awake to see things; God was awake before there 
 was anything to see. God always saw things 
 before they were, because there wasn't anything 
 until God made it, and God always knew what 
 He would make, and what everything He was 
 going to make would do. So God has never 
 learned anything, because He always foreknew 
 all things. 
 
 He does things. What things? "Whatsoever 
 He hath pleased." There is nothing He cannot 
 do. A little man does little things; a large man 
 does large things; a great man does great things; 
 and the greatest man does the greatest things. 
 A man's greatness is measured by the greatness 
 of what he can do. How great are the things 
 God can do! He can do all things; there is 
 nothing too great for Him. He is limitless — 
 infinite. This is the salient attribute of God, 
 that He is limitless, and this is the fundamental 
 difference between God and man, that man is 
 limited and God is not. There are many things 
 man cannot do; there is nothing God cannot do. 
 
 So we see the basis of God's sovereignty, and 
 also how unlimited it is. It is self-dependent. 
 No other sovereignty is self-dependent. The 
 Czar of Russia is a sovereign, the most absolute 
 of all human rulers, among civilized nations, and 
 he may say that he is Czar in his own right, but 
 is he? No; he is Czar by the sufferance of his 
 
60 Can God Be Sovereign and Man Free 
 
 people. If they will they may dethrone him, 
 and cut off his head. This has often happened to 
 human sovereigns ; because they were dependent 
 upon the will of their people. But God is self- 
 dependent. No one can dethrone Him, because 
 He depends upon no one but Himself. "Who 
 can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest 
 Thou?" And the answer is, no one; no man nor 
 angel, nor all men and all angels. He made 
 them, and He can unmake them, in an instant, 
 if He will. 
 
 He admits no one to share His sovereignty. 
 He has no cabinet, no legislature, no constitution 
 of His empire, no judiciary, no partner. He is 
 law-maker, and law-executor. In His sov- 
 ereignty He sits alone, in the eternal and limit- 
 less power of His Godship. 
 
 These reflections set before us a conception of 
 a God of unapproachable majesty, but unless we 
 add something more than limitless power and 
 knowledge, we have a being whom His creatures 
 could only fear. There could be no love, nor 
 worship towards a God simply of limitless power. 
 Let us add other limitless attributes — wisdom, 
 holiness, justice, goodness, truth — and take up a 
 statement He Himself has authorized, "God is 
 love." "Well," we say, "if God is love, He can- 
 not be too great; we would not have Him limited 
 if we could. ' ' 
 
 Here, then, is the God of the Bible ; a sovereign 
 of unlimited knowledge and power, whose 
 
Can God Be Sovereign and Man Free 61 
 
 majesty is illuminated by love. Love illuminates 
 divinity as the sun lights up a cloud when it 
 pours its light above, beneath, and through it, 
 changing its gloom to glory. 
 
 Is man free ? The Bible takes it for granted 
 that he is. The book is full of invitations to 
 man to come to God, and be saved; and we feel 
 that God would not call a man who was not free 
 to come. It would be a mockery to call a man 
 whose feet are fast in the stocks, who is confined 
 in dungeon walls, or who is held fast by an 
 enemy. He says, "Come unto me, all ye ends of 
 the earth, and be ye saved." "Come unto me, 
 and I will give you rest. " "Fly from the wrath to 
 come." "Choose ye this day whom ye will 
 serve." The whole Bible is an invitation to man 
 to come to God. He can't come, indeed, without 
 God's help, but God stands ready to help him. 
 He says, come out of your prison, and stands 
 ready to break open the door. He is too weak to 
 walk; He says, I will give you strength. He has 
 not the will to go, God will give him the power 
 to will. 
 
 Men know that they are free to accept or re- 
 ject God's offers. They feel this when they 
 reject them, and are therefore chided by their 
 consciences. If you are not a Christian, you 
 know it is your fault, not God's. It is not 
 because you could not be one. We are conscious 
 of freedom, and this freedom is one of our most 
 precious possessions. I say to you, "Lift up your 
 
6a Can God Be Sovereign and Man Free 
 
 hand, ' ' and you feel that you are free to do it or 
 not, as you please, and there is great happiness 
 in this sense of liberty. You were free to visit a 
 friend yesterday, or to stay at home; to go to 
 your place of business or to go to the country. 
 Your freedom is one of the most distinctive char- 
 acteristics of your being, as compared with the 
 brutes. Your freedom is to you what the ocean 
 is to the fish, the air to the bird. Thank God, we 
 are free. 
 
 But is our freedom unlimited? Can I do all the 
 things I want to do? Have I always succeeded in 
 doing what I wished? Certainly not. I am free, 
 but free within certain bounds. The fish is free 
 to swim in the deep wide sea, but not upon the 
 land, and the bird may fly in the air, but the air 
 only reaches for a certain number of miles above 
 the earth. The fish and the bird are free, and 
 yet their freedom is limited. So it is with me. I 
 am free, but within certain bounds. I am limited 
 by my powers, by circumstances, and by a mys- 
 terious restraint and guidance that come from 
 Him who rules all things. God gave me my 
 powers, makes my circumstances, and rules my 
 life. So I am free as far as God allows. David 
 says, "Thou hast beset me, behind and before," 
 and St. Paul speaks of God as one "in whom we 
 live and move and have our being." The only 
 limitless fre'edom is God's. This is necessarily 
 true, because there cannot be two infinite beings 
 in one universe. Granted one limitless being, 
 
Can God Be Sovereign and Man Free 6$ 
 
 and all other beings are limited, as He pleases. 
 God's freedom is infinite, and ours is finite, be- 
 cause His is infinite. Because He is limitless, I 
 am limited. Therefore, we conclude that God is 
 sovereign because He is God, and man is free as 
 far as God allows, but his freedom is enveloped 
 by the all-surrounding sovereignty of God. 
 
 We have liberty under law; law which limits 
 our liberty. A fish is free as far as the water 
 goes ; no farther. A bird is free as far as the air 
 extends, but cannot fly beyond it. It is so in 
 human government. A citizen is free as far as 
 the law allows. He is not free to take his neigh- 
 bor's money, life, or any other property. Let 
 him go beyond this lawful liberty, and he forfeits 
 all liberty, is made a prisoner, or is put to death. 
 All God's creatures are born under God's law, 
 and are free just so far as God provides, but even 
 here the exercise of liberty is regulated by law. 
 Liberty is the opportunity to do right; not license 
 to do wrong. All wrong is forbidden by divine 
 law. A man is free to do wrong, not in the sense 
 that it is lawful, but that he is not forced to do 
 right. He is a free agent responsible for his con- 
 duct. A man is a slave if he do right merely from 
 fear of law and its penalty. A man is free who 
 does right because he loves to. Right is what he 
 desires, and he is free because he does what he 
 wants to. He is not conscious of law, or of 
 restraint. Good people do not steal nor com- 
 mit murder ; is it because these things are con- 
 
64 Can God Be Sovereign and Man Free 
 
 trary to law and will be punished? No; it is 
 because they don't want to steal nor to do murder. 
 This is the liberty offered to all God's intelligent 
 creatures as He made them; and as long as they 
 continued in their original state, they were uncon- 
 scious of law, felt no restraint, and God's service 
 was perfect freedom. To this original estate the 
 plan of salvation is intended to restore men. 
 When they arrive at it they are perfectly free and 
 perfectly happy. This consummation is partially 
 attained here, and perfectly hereafter. Then the 
 fish is perfectly free in the sea, because it does 
 not wish to go out of it upon the land; and the 
 bird is free in its native element because it has no 
 desire to get beyond the air. 
 
 But in this liberty of the Children of God they 
 are not free from divine control. In a mysterious 
 way, but most effectively, God restrains and 
 guides them according to His own wise sovereign 
 plan. This He does without forcing man's will. 
 He does no violence to the will of His creatures, 
 and in the great matter of conversion, "He doth 
 persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, 
 as He is freely offered to us in the Gospel. " The 
 Scripture says, "I will make them willing in the 
 day of my power. " God makes man's will free 
 to choose the service of his Creator. He will 
 have no slaves in His kingdom, and no one is a 
 servant of God against his will. 
 
 So our freedom is enveloped in the all-sur- 
 rounding sovereignty of God. How I am free 
 
Can God Be Sovereign and Man Free 65 
 
 and God Sovereign, how He has His way, and yet 
 I am free, is a question not easy to answer; but it 
 is not necessary to answer it. I know I am free, 
 and rejoice in it, and I say, I am free because 
 God makes me free. 
 
 Instead of it being a misfortune that my free- 
 dom is limited by the sovereign will of God, it is 
 an unspeakable blessing. Would you like to feel 
 that your destiny is entirely in your own hands? 
 Certainly not. Would you be willing to have 
 absolute unrestrained liberty to do what you 
 pleased for one day? If you had this limitless 
 liberty for twenty-four hours, what would you do 
 with it? One would make himself a multi-mil- 
 lionaire, another a universal king, and so on. In 
 one day you would do enough mischief to mar the 
 balance of your life, for time and eternity. If 
 you had one day of limitless liberty, the best way 
 you could spend it would be on your knees asking 
 God to make you submissive to His will. The 
 next best thing would be for you to spend it 
 sound asleep in your bed, with orders not to be 
 awakened for any purpose, until after sunset. 
 
 Each one of us is conscious of a stronger will 
 than his leading his life and shaping his destiny 
 towards an end beyond his own thought or plan. 
 This is not a welcome thought to an unbeliever ; 
 but to a man who has accepted God and Christ it 
 is a glorious fact. He feels that His mistakes 
 will be overruled and corrected by infinite wis- 
 dom, that his sins will be forgiven, blotted out by 
 
66 Can God Be Sovereign and Man Free 
 
 precious blood, that divine love has a great plan 
 for him that nothing can frustrate. It means 
 that he is under a God that makes "all things 
 work together for good to them that love Him." 
 This reconciles him to poverty, disappointment, 
 injustice, persecution, pain, sickness and death. 
 It introduces a glorious element of hope and joy 
 into all this troubled life of ours, and makes all 
 paths lead onward and upward to light. What 
 can be more comforting to a man than to feel 
 that his liberty is all enveloped by the sovereignty 
 of God, and he wants no greater freedom than 
 that which lies within the circumference of His 
 infinite will. 
 
WHAT IS THE GREATEST DEFECT 
 
 IN OUR NATIONAL 
 
 CHARACTER 
 
 WERS 
 ROM. 13: I. 
 
 "What is required in the fifth commandment?" 
 "The fifth commandment (which is 'Honor,' etc.) 
 requireth the preserving the honor, and perform- 
 ing the duties belonging to every one, in their 
 several places and relations, as superiors, in- 
 feriors, or equals. " This magnificent declaration 
 lays down a principle of conservatism which, if 
 observed by mankind, would bring about condi- 
 tions of the highest order, prosperity and progress. 
 
 The text sets forth, in the form of a direct 
 command, the same great principle, showing that 
 the various powers or governments of every kind, 
 not subversive of the government of God over the 
 human conscience, are to be obeyed. The use of 
 the plural, "powers," instead of power, includes 
 all kinds and grades of government, from pa- 
 rental authority up to that of the supreme national 
 ruler in the country where we dwell. It means 
 that children must obey their parents "in the 
 Lord," not only but that while rulers do not com- 
 mand us to disobey God, we must render to them 
 
 67 
 
68 Greatest Defect in Our National Character 
 
 the honor and duty required, whether the govern- 
 ment be a monarchy or a republic ; whether we 
 live in our own favored commonwealth, in Great 
 Britain, or under the Sultan of Turkey, the Czar 
 of Russia, or the Emperor of China. And be it 
 noted that this command, and the whole New 
 Testament system of morals, were elaborated and 
 declared, while the world was groaning under 
 one of the most complete tyrannies ever known. 
 Our blessed Lord also, in the memorable inter- 
 view between Himself and those who wished to 
 get from Him as a claimant for kingship a 
 declaration by which they could charge Him with 
 sedition, enjoined loyal obedience to existing gov- 
 ernment when He pronounced those words of 
 marvelous wisdom: "Render therefore unto 
 Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God 
 the things that are God's." 
 
 If God, by His direct or by His permissive 
 decree, ordains that any government shall exist, 
 all Christians who live under it are to be good 
 citizens and obey the laws, except, as is often 
 stated and everywhere implied, when the human 
 ruler requires us to sin against the Supreme 
 Being. Then the ultimate appeal must be to 
 Him, and we must obey God rather than man, 
 even though it be at the cost of all earthly pos- 
 sessions and life itself. This principle that "God- 
 alone is Lord of the conscience," has illuminated 
 the pages of history, and given the world its 
 greatest heroes. But even in the case of rulers 
 
Greatest Defect in Our National Character 69 
 
 who command us to sin against God, we are 
 bound to obey them in things that are right. 
 
 Thus we see that a supreme duty for all men is 
 reverence for law; human law, so long as it 
 does not contradict the divine; but law which 
 determines our relations to one another, and to 
 God, is to be reverenced and obeyed. 
 
 We are born under law, and born unequal in 
 all our capacities, circumstances and relations, 
 and our happiness depends entirely upon our 
 loyal and faithful acquiescence in the laws of 
 God, and those of man which accord with His. 
 
 Now, if human laws are right, but through cor- 
 ruption or cowardice they be not enforced, the 
 citizens are not, except when left defenseless, to 
 take the law into their own hands. There are 
 laws which purport to punish with death certain 
 crimes which are specially prevalent in some sec- 
 tions of the nation, but it is an almost daily 
 occurrence for the friends of those who are out- 
 raged by brutal men, to take the law into their 
 own hands and punish the offenders with instant 
 and awful death. Aside from the constant dan- 
 ger of taking the life of some suspected person 
 who is innocent, this is entirely wrong, unless 
 we are satisfied that the just penalties of crime 
 will not be inflicted by those who are charged 
 with the administration of justice. If this be 
 true, which few would be willing to admit, those 
 who are entrusted with the sacred judicial func- 
 tion should be replaced by men of character and 
 
70 Greatest Defect in Our National Character 
 
 integrity. But the fact is established that our 
 courts generally are more than willing to do their 
 duty in such cases as are alluded to in this discus- 
 sion. Reverence for law will tend to the peace 
 and safety of the people, and it is right in the 
 sight of God. 
 
 The lack of reverence for law and for estab- 
 lished institutions, and for all authority, is one of 
 the most salient and ominous characteristics of 
 our time. 
 
 Audacity is the word which may best character- 
 ize the spirit of the age ; and this audacity is a 
 great and beneficent thing as applied to the 
 investigation of the forces of nature and their use 
 for the comfort and service of men. Steam, 
 electricity, heat, sound, and chemical affinity, are 
 proper subjects for such study, and under God's 
 command to subdue the earth, man is right to 
 make all of earth's forces bow to his will, to be 
 used for honest purposes. So great have been 
 the achievements of man's genius in the depart- 
 ment of physical science, and so marvelous are 
 the inventions he has sought out, that we are no 
 longer surprised at the announcements published 
 from time to time of new inroads made upon the 
 mysteries of nature. But the scientific investi- 
 gator will be safe and accomplish the most trust- 
 worthy results only when he recognizes behind 
 all natural phenomena and laws the impenetrable 
 mystery of life, the fact unwritten in the rocks — 
 that all things originated with the fiat of God; 
 
Greatest Defect in Our National Character 7 1 
 
 that no event transpires beyond His authority, 
 and that the laws of nature are the laws of God. 
 Science, to be true science, must be devout, and 
 bend its knees before the throne of the August 
 Creator of the universe. 
 
 The failure to bring the conclusions of science, 
 so far as they touch man's moral relations, to the 
 test of the perfect and unchangeable standard of 
 God's Word — the only perfect and unchangeable 
 possession of man — has led to many foolish errors. 
 But they have been like passing mists that veil 
 for a time the mountain's granite brow, which, 
 when a breath comes from the calm clear sky, are 
 swept away in an instant and forgotten. 
 
 But when this bold spirit of investigation 
 progresses from the material sphere into that of 
 morals, when it approaches the social and reli- 
 gious relations of men and the Word of the Lord, 
 it must march with solemn step, and with head 
 bowed in humble reverence before the awful 
 majesty of God. In the material world God has 
 not revealed to us the laws which regulate its 
 phenomena, and has explicitly directed man to 
 grapple with them ; but in the moral and religious 
 sphere we have no such orders, for the reason 
 that man has naturally not sufficient spiritual 
 sense to enable him to see and understand rightly 
 the relations he sustains to his fellow man and 
 to God. Here God has revealed His laws, and 
 with regard to them, the utmost use man can 
 make of his intellect is to endeavor to ascertain 
 
72 Greatest Defect in Our National Character 
 
 what they are, to understand them and to obey 
 them, and to persuade others to do likewise. 
 
 The Bible, infallible in every statement and in 
 every word as it came from the hands of divine 
 penmen; the Bible, which contains statutes on 
 which all right legislation is based, statutes that 
 touch every possible relation of man to man, and 
 man to God; the Bible, which alone tells the 
 story of man's creation, fall, and only hope of 
 redemption through the atonement of the Christ ; 
 the Bible is the supreme constitution of the 
 world, never to be amended, for the government 
 of all races, nations, the church, the family and 
 the individual. Next to God Himself, the Bible 
 is to be reverenced, for it is the record of God's 
 revealed will, which "teaches what man is to 
 believe concerning God, and what duty God 
 requires of man." There are some things that 
 will continue long, and at last become obsolete ; 
 but the Bible is not one of them. Christ says: 
 "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word 
 shall not pass away. ' ' 
 
 Let us note a few instances of the failure to 
 reverence and obey the moral statutes of God. 
 They may be found in woman's attempt, or rather 
 the attempt of some women, to get out of the 
 proper sphere of usefulness assigned by the great 
 Law-Giver to the gentler sex. God has given 
 man a work in the world that woman cannot do, 
 or safely undertake. So He has given woman a 
 work that is impossible to man. It is clear from 
 
Greatest Defect in Our National Character 73 
 
 Scripture that woman's sphere is not at the ballot 
 box, in the hustings, in the pulpit, or in any way 
 as a public teacher of religion. A great publicist 
 of our day has well said that "those who cast the 
 ballot must be ready also to bear the musket" 
 when necessity arises. Woman's place is in the 
 quiet sanctities of home, or in such employments 
 as will not throw her into the center of the tur- 
 moil of the world's strife. If she come to this, it 
 will be bad for her and bad for man ; bad for her 
 because she is not fitted for such a sphere, and 
 because it would lead to the neglect of her own 
 glorious work, which man cannot do for her. It 
 would be bad for man because he would thereby 
 lose woman's best ministrations for himself and 
 for the young, and because he would also lose 
 that sense of responsibility for protecting woman 
 which is a mainspring of the noblest chivalry of 
 manhood. May God save our country from the 
 revolution of society which would surely follow 
 the transfer of woman from the home, where 
 indeed, if man is king, woman is the loved and 
 honored queen, and where her womanliness is 
 cherished as a sacred thing. The Bible com- 
 mands indeed that woman be subject to man, but 
 it also ordains that husbands shall "love their 
 wives even as Christ loved the church and gave 
 Himself for it." Man is the "head of the woman 
 and Christ is the head of the church. ' ' 
 
 The worst symptom of the prevalent irrever- 
 ence for law is in the matter of children ceasing, 
 
74 Greatest Defect in Our National Character 
 
 to a great and increasing degree, to reverence 
 their parents. Grant that it is largely the par- 
 ents' fault, but the fact is indisputable. The 
 reason that this change is so portentous is 
 because childhood and youth are the formative 
 period when the character and habits of life are 
 acquired, and if children do not learn reverence 
 for law as expressed in parental authority, they 
 will seldom learn it after they come to adult 
 years. If they do not honor their parents it will 
 be hard for them to learn to fear God, or to 
 revere His Sabbath, His word, or the "powers 
 that be," which "are ordained of God." 
 
 There are some good things things to be found 
 in the customs even of the Chinese Empire, 
 and one is the great reverence shown by children 
 to their parents, whom they are required to obey 
 so long as their parents live. They never pass 
 from under the absolute control of the father and 
 mother. Now, though this may be carrying 
 parental authority too far, it is erring on the side 
 of conservatism, and is probably the main reason 
 for the age of the nation, which has a history 
 antedating, by many generations that of any other 
 people, as an organized nation now to be found on 
 earth. God laid His scepter on the foundation of 
 conservatism and reverence for law, when He 
 placed in the Decalogue that simple command, 
 "Honor thy father and thy mother, that th)' days 
 may be long upon the land which the Lord thy 
 God giveth thee." This ordinance includes by 
 
Greatest Defect in Our National Character 7 5 
 
 logical inference all reverence for all right laws 
 and institutions ; for those who honor their par- 
 ents will honor one another and will fear God. 
 
 Another of the sad signs of the times is the lack 
 of reverence for the pulpit and for the holy min- 
 istry. That this charge is true to a greater or 
 less extent in all communities, it will not be 
 necessary to argue. We ministers know it, and 
 many thoughtful persons not in the ministry 
 know it also. Notwithstanding the fact that God 
 has commanded the people to obey them that 
 have the rule over them in spiritual things, and 
 that when a minister is installed pastor over a 
 congregation the people are required to "receive 
 the word of truth from his mouth with meekness 
 and love, and to submit to him in the due exer- 
 cise of discipline," though there are many noble 
 exceptions, there is not that respect shown to 
 ministers in general which their holy office de- 
 mands. Doubtless it is hard to reverence a man 
 who is unworthy of reverence, but we must 
 reverence the office. And it is generally con- 
 ceded that our ministers are men of learning, 
 sobriety and godliness. 
 
 The constitution of the church and the Scrip- 
 tures also require a similar regard for those who 
 fill the other offices of the church. 
 
 There can be little doubt but that the fault in 
 this matter lies in considerable part not only in 
 the spirit of the age, but also in the conduct of 
 the ministry itself. If the minister do not re- 
 
76 Greatest Defect in Our National Character 
 
 spect his holy office as an ambassador of God, 
 how can he ask others to reverence it or him? 
 Setting out with the idea that to draw a crowd is 
 the most essential thing" for a preacher, hundreds 
 of times the pulpit has been turned into a mere 
 stage on which cheap acting and silly sensation- 
 alism take the place of the solemn proclamation 
 cf God's authoritative message to man. This 
 custom, which is now so common in all parts of 
 the land, runs parallel with the disregard of the 
 Bible and God's Day, connives at it, indeed, and 
 also the decadence of parental authority. These 
 are the two most important instrumentalities — 
 the pulpit and the parental function, ordained of 
 God for the conservation of truth, for the develop- 
 ment of character, and the propagation of the 
 kingdom of heaven. We may well be concerned 
 when we see a disposition to abdicate their high 
 and holy office, on the part of parents and pas- 
 tors, and a failure to maintain in themselves and 
 others that reverence for their transcendent func- 
 tions which their proper performance of them 
 requires 
 
 O, for a return of the day when ministers 
 generally spent midnight hours in prayer and 
 tears, wrestling with God for the salvation of 
 souls and for power from the Holy Ghost to 
 preach the living word, and who stood in the pul- 
 pit with fear and trembling, feeling that on the 
 proper discharge of the duty of the hour hung 
 immortal destinies, and that for every such 
 
Greatest Defect in Our National Character 77 
 
 opportunity they must give answer at God's bar 
 of justice in the great day of judgment. 
 
 The argument of the text implies that all gov- 
 ernment is ordained either directly or permis- 
 sively of God, and that all disobedience, except 
 where to obey man would be to disobey God, is 
 disobedience to God Himself. This suggests that 
 all right authority is delegated from the Supreme 
 Being, which is a fact of the most far-reaching 
 effect, and wherever believed, must bring with it 
 a feeling of reverence for authority and law. If 
 God is omnipotent, there can be no authority 
 without His permission. The best possible rule 
 on earth would be that of an absolute monarch 
 combining in himself the three great functions of 
 government — the legislative, the executive and 
 judicial, if that person be one who is "infinite, 
 eternal, unchangeable in his being, wisdom, 
 power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth." 
 There is one such person, and one only — God; 
 and His is the only perfect government. His 
 authority is based upon two facts: First, that He 
 is uncreated, and, second, that He created all 
 things. His creating the universe would not 
 make it His, if another had before created God. 
 In that case God and all He had made would 
 belong to the author of God's being. So God is 
 the source of all authority and power. If, there- 
 fore, we disobey the powers God has ordained, we 
 disobey Him. A child at school is under the 
 authority of his teacher. Why? Because the 
 
78 Greatest Defect in Our National Character 
 
 parent has delegated to the teacher a part of his 
 authority for a certain time, and at a certain 
 place, for the control of his child. Where did the 
 parent get that authority, a part of which he 
 delegates to the school-master? God gave it to 
 him, and he must account to God for the proper 
 use of it. Moreover, it can never be abdicated in 
 favor of any person; for while the parent may 
 authorize the teacher to exercise a certain control 
 over his child, the parent is bound to select a 
 good teacher and to see that he properly dis- 
 charges the duty laid upon him. 
 
 Thus it is seen that all right authority, if traced 
 back to its source, leads up where it is intended 
 to lead the soul — to the throne of the Eternal — 
 and that a lack of reverence for any right authority 
 tends inevitably to irreverence for the Almighty. 
 This arranges society, with its social, civil, 
 literary, religious, economical and racial grades, 
 wherein men stand related as superiors, inferiors 
 and equals, in the form of a gigantic pyramid, on 
 the capstone of which lies the scepter of the 
 omnipotent God. 
 
 So every advocate of order, reverence for law, 
 and right authority is a helper toward the main- 
 tenance of God's government of the world, and 
 every enemy of right law and authority strikes at 
 the foundations of the throne of Jehovah. 
 
 Those who rule should rule in the fear of God, 
 as His stewards, who must give account of their 
 stewardship to Him; and those who serve must 
 
Greatest Defect in Our National Character 79 
 
 serve "as ever in their great Task-Master's eye." 
 How important for kings and emperors, for 
 presidents, for legislators, and governors, for the 
 custodians of the peace, and for judges them- 
 selves, to reverence law, and to maintain the 
 solemn dignity of their respective offices ! 
 
 Alfred the Great, of England, was one of the 
 most remarkable sovereigns of whom history 
 gives us any account, and the secret of his mar- 
 velous wisdom in laying the foundations of our 
 Anglo-Saxon civilization may be learned from his 
 last address to his son and successor, Edward, in 
 which he said: "My son, sit thou now beside me, 
 and I will deliver thee true instructions. I feel 
 that my hour is coming. My countenance is wan ; 
 my days are almost done; I shall go to another 
 world, and thou shalt be left alone in all my 
 wealth. I pray thee, strive to be a father and a 
 lord to thy people. Be thou the children's father, 
 and the widow's friend. Comfort thou the poor 
 and shelter the weak ; and with all thy might 
 right that which is wrong. And, Son, govern 
 thyself by law; then shall the Lord love thee, and 
 God above all things shall be thy reward. Call 
 thou upon Him to advise thee in all thy need, and 
 so shall He help thee the better to compass that 
 which thou wouldst. ' ' 
 
 How important for parents, and for ministers 
 of religion, to be grave, sober and reverential, 
 that those over whom they hold authority may 
 reverence their word and receive it with meek- 
 
So Greatest Defect in Our National Character 
 
 ness as well as love. To this end what shall we 
 preachers preach? "The whole counsel of God," 
 authoritatively proclaimed. Not a half Gospel; 
 not a message which is all love, long suffering 
 and mercy; not mere pleadings for acceptance of 
 salvation because it is good for the soul to escape 
 from the consequences of sin, carrying this so far 
 as often to make the impression that it is a great 
 kindness to Him who died on Calvary for any 
 man to accept His grace. There is a Sinai as 
 well as a Calvary; there are thunderings and 
 lightnings as well as a cross of vicarious suffer- 
 ing; and the very cross itself, if rightly seen, rep- 
 resents not God's love to sinners only, but His 
 utter abhorrence of sin, and there lieth behind the 
 cross the awful fact that unless we submit to the 
 authority of Christ the King, we shall be doomed 
 to everlasting punishment. We are not only to 
 preach pardon, but God's sovereignty and eternal 
 electing decree, by which He "foreordains what- 
 ever cometh to pass. ' ' 
 
 The declaration of the whole counsel of God 
 will inevitably lead to a deeper reverence for the 
 majesty of His law, to the development of a stur- 
 dier faith, a more robust Christianity; and with- 
 out it there cannot long continue any considerable 
 soundness of doctrine or morality of life. 
 
 Is this a hard and forbidding prospect? Does this 
 present the kingdom of God in a repulsive light? 
 No, far from it. Absolute authority in which 
 justice and love are blended are the most beauti- 
 
Greatest Defect in Our National Character 81 
 
 ful and inspiring- conception that can be pre- 
 sented to the human mind, because it is the only 
 governance in which the soul can never be disap- 
 pointed, and in which it can repose perfect and 
 unquestioning faith. In an earthly parent the 
 strength of his authority and the extent of his 
 power when exercised with justice and love, fas- 
 cinate with affectionate loyalty the mind of the 
 dutiful child, and tighten every fetter of love. 
 
 The world has always worshiped authority and 
 power when set against the government of God ; 
 when it traveled to victory over the bodies and 
 souls of men. Men have greeted with slavish 
 applause those who "rode through slaughter to a 
 throne," because power is fascinating, and be- 
 cause a power that is rebellion against God is 
 pleasing to their guilty natures. Christ is pre- 
 sented to us as an object of worship who has all 
 power in heaven and on earth, but who has also 
 died to save those whom He might have crushed, 
 and who wields omnipotence with absolute wis- 
 dom, justice and goodness, and truth, but with a 
 hand once pierced for sinners, and under a heart 
 which throbs with love that is infinite and ever- 
 lasting. 
 
 The difference between slaves and freemen is 
 not to be found alone in the justice or injustice 
 of the bond that binds them under a superior 
 authority. Men may be slaves under a good and 
 wise government, if their submission be unwilling 
 and the government be the object of their hate. 
 
82 Greatest Defect in Our National Character 
 
 God's government is just and wise and good, and 
 He will have submission from every creature. 
 Those are slaves who hate God's law; those are 
 freemen who love it. Those who strive to obey 
 God lovingly in all things, but who fail in many 
 things, are partially happy, but are the happiest 
 people on earth. In heaven obedience and love 
 are perfect, therefore happiness is perfect, and 
 bliss has no alloy. Let us strive to realize the 
 highest possibilities of human happiness on earth, 
 by obeying and loving God, and by loyal reverence 
 for law and authority. 
 
 The path of reverential, loving obedience is the 
 upward path towards heaven, and the only path 
 of peace. 
 
 Our God is the only God whom man can truly 
 worship, because He only is "infinite, eternal and 
 unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holi. 
 ness, justice, goodness and truth.'* Life lived in 
 loving submission to His beneficent sway is life 
 in its noblest, sweetest sphere. 
 
 In our realm of the material universe the sun is 
 the illuminating and controlling orb. Every 
 planet is under his sway, and by his prevalent 
 power is held in its course. If one of them could 
 escape from this ruling power it would wander 
 into infinite darkness, and our world, if inde- 
 pendent of the sun, would be lost in boundless 
 night; nay, it would inevitably end in the catas- 
 trophe of an awful collision with some other lost 
 world like itself, by which every throb of life, 
 
Greatest Defect in Our National Character 83 
 
 every form of order and beauty would be anni- 
 hilated forever. God is the controlling power of 
 the spiritual universe, and spiritual life and hap- 
 piness can only exist when the life of man or 
 angel moves according to His will. 
 
SHALL ALL THE DENOMINATIONS 
 UNITE AND FORM ONE 
 
 "THAT THEY ALL MAY BE ONE THAT THE WORLD 
 
 MAY KNOW THAT THOU HAST SENT ME." ST. JNO. 
 
 17: 21, 23. 
 
 The great importance of unity among Chris- 
 tians is manifest from many of the words of 
 Christ, but most of all from that part of His 
 solemn prayer recorded in full, offered just before 
 His passion. It was a most impressive hour, 
 lie was about to die. His work of healing, teach- 
 ing and organizing was finished, and He was now 
 to ascend the altar of sacrifice to die for His 
 church. Just before He enters upon this tremen- 
 dous ordeal He bows in prayer for those He was 
 about to die to save. He prays that they may be 
 kept from the world, that they might at last be 
 with Him in glory; and between these two peti- 
 tions He places a prayer for unity, "that they all 
 may be one" ; giving as the reason "that the world 
 may know that Thou hast sent me." In other 
 words, the proof of the divinity of Christ was to 
 be the oneness of Christians. This puts the mat- 
 ter of unity upon the highest plane, and gives it 
 an importance that can hardly be exaggerated. 
 Therefore we may well ask how far the divisions 
 
 84 
 
Shall All Denominations Unite and Form One 85 
 
 of Christians are responsible for the fact that 
 after these two thousands of years the majority of 
 mankind do not believe that Jesus Christ is the 
 Son of God. So there arises before us the press- 
 ing question, "Shall all the denominations unite 
 and form one?" 
 
 1. There are many strong reasons for union, 
 showing why Jesus Christ made so much of it in 
 His teachings, and exalted it to such prominence 
 by giving it a central place in His sacerdotal 
 prayer. 
 
 (a) One reason for union grows out of the waste 
 of men, and materials brought about by our de- 
 nominational divisions. In a large city we do 
 not feel this, nor is there much waste, because 
 there are enough people to fill all the churches. 
 The waste is seen in villages and rural communi- 
 ties. Here we often find in a population hardly 
 strong enough to support one church two, three 
 or four denominations, each maintaining its own 
 separate work. Two, three or four men are 
 where one could do all that is needful, and in the 
 attempt to support each their own church the 
 people are divided into several rival, sometimes 
 hostile, denominations, not so much praying to 
 God as preying upon one another. A natural 
 result of this is that we find more outspoken 
 infidelity in small communities than in cities. It 
 is because in small communities denominational 
 rivalry and sectarianism are stronger and more 
 felt than in cities where the churches have an 
 
86 Shall All Denominations Unite and Form One 
 
 abundant population to work upon. Wherever 
 sectarianism is stronger infidelity is more pro- 
 nounced. 
 
 In these small communities it will often be 
 found that, no one denomination being strong 
 enough to support a minister for his whole time, 
 there is no resident pastor to supply the daily 
 needs of the people, but preachers who live else- 
 where come, each for a Sunday in the month. So 
 they have what they call a "Methodist Sunday," 
 a "Baptist Sunday," an "Episcopal Sunday," and 
 a "Presbyterian Sunday," every month, and in 
 months with five Sundays they may have also a 
 "Disciples' Sunday," a "Lutheran," or some 
 other kind of a Sunday, and there is no resident 
 minister to work day by day among the sinning, 
 suffering and dying. 
 
 In the midst of such a condition of things the 
 question is a burning one — "Shall the denomina- 
 tions unite and form one?" 
 
 Another reason for union lies in the relations 
 of missionaries in the foreign field. There is 
 something in this, and will be a great deal more, 
 as missions grow, and the native churches get 
 strong enough to elbow one another, when the 
 materials for mission work begin to become less 
 than are required by the several organizations. 
 In a few heathen countries this clash has occurred, 
 but hitherto there has been but little trouble 
 from this cause. There is material enough for 
 all, and so overwhelming is the mass of heathen 
 
Shall All Denominations Unite and Form One 87 
 
 that the missionaries forget in a great degree 
 their differences, and are drawn into close fellow- 
 ship of prayer, preaching and work. These 
 difficulties will increase, however, as missions 
 grow and prosper. 
 
 Probably the greatest disadvantage of our de- 
 nominational divisions is that they furnish the 
 world with a powerful argument against Chris- 
 tianity. The world knows that Christ com- 
 manded unity, and that we profess to serve the 
 same Master; so they ask, "If you are Christians 
 why are you divided?" And men point the fin- 
 ger of scorn at the church of Christ separated into 
 rival sects which are often hostile camps making 
 as much war upon one another as they do against 
 sin. 
 
 It is not a satisfactory answer for any denom- 
 ination to say, "We are the church of God; let 
 the sects come back to the fold." It is impossi- 
 ble for any denomination to persuade mankind 
 that it is the Christian church, for the simple 
 reason that it is not true. Such a claim excites 
 ridicule, and only makes the matter worse. 
 
 From these considerations and others that 
 might be adduced, a very strong argument could 
 be made to prove that all denominations ought 
 to unite and form one. To many minds the argu- 
 ment is conclusive. 
 
 2. The difficulties, however, in the way of such 
 consolidation are neither few nor small. If the 
 proposal be made to do this, and it has been seri- 
 
88 Shall All Denominations Unite and Form One 
 
 ously made, what difficulties would be found in 
 the way? 
 
 Two possible plans may be imagined for this 
 consolidation of all Christians. First, that all 
 denominations, except one, dissolve and join the 
 one denomination which may be selected to sur- 
 vive. One difficulty about this plan would be to 
 decide which denominations should be dissolved. 
 Probably any denomination would be willing to 
 have all the others dissolve and join it; but how 
 shall we persuade all the others to die? Which 
 of them would consent to commit li /elo de se"? 
 Would the Baptists, Episcopalians, Methodists, 
 Disciples, Lutherans, Presbyterians? I can 
 speak for these last-named, and say, "No, we are 
 not prepared to die as a denomination, however 
 well we may be prepared to depart this life as 
 individuals." It is certain that every other de- 
 nomination would make the same response to an 
 invitation to give up its corporate existence. 
 
 Each one of us has, as we think, a mission 
 which we must fulfil; a history of which we are 
 proud, and cannot give up; and certain peculiari- 
 ties of belief that are very precious to our souls. 
 
 The other way to consolidation would be for all 
 to dissolve and unite in a new denomination on 
 a compromise creed and church government. Let 
 us see how this plan would work, The compro- 
 mise platform must not have in it anything that 
 would seriously offend personal convictions. So 
 we should have to omit from the new church 
 
Shall All Denominations Unite and Form One 89 
 
 platform or constitution infant membership and 
 baptism by sprinkling, to please the Baptists ; the 
 Baptists would have to give up immersion and 
 close communion, to please the Presbyterians; 
 the Congregationalists would have to forego con- 
 gregational church government, to conciliate the 
 Methodists; and the Methodists must renounce 
 Episcopal government, to please the Congrega- 
 tionalists; the Presbyterians must abjure predes- 
 tination for the sake of the consciences of the 
 Methodists ; and the Methodists Arminianism, to 
 please the Presbyterians. 
 
 In this new church to be formed there must be 
 no Calvinism, nor Arminianism ; no government 
 by bishops nor by Presbyteries, nor by congrega- 
 tions; no printed prayers, nor extemporaneous 
 prayers; no baptism by sprinkling, nor by im- 
 mersion ; no open communion, nor close commun- 
 ion, and so on. 
 
 Are the denominations prepared for this? 
 Would any one be pleased? If so, who? Such a 
 church would be a body without bones, joints, 
 organs, — a jelly fish, that could do nothing, say 
 nothing, and look like nothing alive in the heav- 
 ens above or the earth beneath. 
 
 The whole thing is impracticable and absurd. 
 The denominations will not and cannot now con- 
 solidate. 
 
 3. What is practicable? While we cannot for 
 the present nor in the near future have consoli- 
 dation, we have already the most valuable of all 
 
90 Shall All Denominations Unite and Form Ont 
 
 unity — spiritual or organic unity, as distinguished 
 from organized unity. A cask made of staves 
 bound together by iron bands is an organized 
 unity; a vine with many living branches united 
 to one stem is an organic living unity. This is 
 what we have, a living organic unity. 
 
 Let us act upon the fact that we are one in liv- 
 ing union with Christ. "The church consists of 
 all those persons of every nation who profess the 
 true religion of Christ." This is the sublime 
 truth, and it is making its way. 
 
 It must be manifested by every denomination 
 IT as practicable, without offending the con- 
 victions of others. 
 
 The Baptists will not commune with us; well, 
 then, let us exchange pulpits and sing and pray 
 together. The Episcopalians cannot ordinarily 
 invite us to preach in their pulpits. Well, let us 
 invite them to preach in ours, and so let us go on, 
 and wherever it is possible to worship or work 
 together, let us do this, and leave the rest to 
 time and God. Let every one of us exercise 
 Christian unity in every practicable way, and 
 respect one another's peculiar views. 
 
 The glorious acknowledgement of the church- 
 ship of all Christians is now made in many ways, 
 and will be made more and more. 
 
 We all unite in the international Sunday- 
 school work; in the Young Men's and Young 
 Women's Christian Association work, and in Bible 
 distribution. We have just impressed the world 
 
Shall All Denominations Unite and Form On 
 
 by a vast conference of all evangelical denom 
 tions in New York, in the interests of foreign 
 missions, in which Episcopalians. s, Metho- 
 
 dists, Reformed, Disciples, Lutherans, Moray. 
 Presbyterians, etc., all met upon the platform of 
 one common loyalty to Christ, to discuss the ques- 
 tion of "How can we make the world believe in 
 Him-" 
 
 Let us view the whole situation in the ligk 
 this question, "What would the denominations do 
 if Christ should come?'" If Christ should be 
 announced to hold a ranion service, which 
 
 is the sacrament of unity, would any Christians 
 decline to commune if persons came who had not 
 been baptized in their peculiar way, or if some 
 came who had not been confirmed by the la 
 on of a bishop's hands? Hardly. It is certain 
 that if Christ came our denominational rivalries 
 would melt like frost before the rising sun, and 
 that we should have a summer of glorious unity 
 like that of heaven itself. 
 
 Christ is here with His church, though i 
 and it is a serious question how to defend to Him 
 our lack of fellowship and co-operation. It will 
 not be possible just now for us all to consolidate, 
 but it is practicable for us to recognize and show 
 : to the world our vital oneness in Him in 
 many ways. Why can we not preach in each 
 other's pulpits and commune together? Why 
 may not every pulpit be open to every w< 
 evangelical minister, and every communion ta1 le 
 
92 Shall All Denominations Unite and Form One 
 
 be open to every devout Christian? I seriously 
 and affectionately urge that this ought to be done, 
 and that we unite in all kinds of Christian work. 
 If consolidation is not feasible, communion and 
 co-operation are, and I do believe that such a pro- 
 posal would be approved and blessed by the Great 
 Head of the Church, who prayed that "they all 
 may be one. " Christ's prayer was not for spirit- 
 ual unity, because that is a fact always existent. 
 Christians are brothers because they are born of 
 the same Spirit. It would be absurd to pray that 
 brothers may be brothers. What He prayed for 
 was that brothers might be brotherly; in othe/r 
 words, for a visible manifestation of the spiritual 
 unity of all Christians. 
 
 I have a serious proposal to make. It is that 
 we form a great confederation of independent 
 and self-governing churches for the conversion 
 of the world, and that the basis of this confeder- 
 ation be simply, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as 
 the Son of God and only Saviour of men, and the 
 Scriptures the infallible rule of faith and practice. 
 
 In such a confederation two things would be 
 necessary: First, that all denominations recog- 
 nize one another as parts of the Holy Catholic or 
 universal church of God ; second, that we create 
 a great executive ecumenical assembly, to meet, 
 say, once in five years, with subordinate assem- 
 blies for each nation, and subdivisions for each 
 state and community, to meet as often as may be 
 needful, and that these assemblies, general and 
 
Shall All Denominations Unite and Form One 93 
 
 local, have nothing- to do with doctrines except 
 the one basis of its organization, Christ the Son 
 of God and Saviour of men, but be charged with 
 the great work of overseeing in a general way 
 the evangelization of the world. Under this 
 general subject there would be such divisions as 
 Sunday-school work, Bible distribution, Young 
 Men's and Young Women's Christian Association 
 work, home and foreign mission work, and sys- 
 tematized charities. In other words, the confed- 
 eration of denominations would have only exec- 
 utive functions pertaining to co-operation in the 
 work of saving the world for Christ. 
 
 The consummation of such a union as this 
 would impress all mankind, and compel belief 
 in the divinity of ou± i^ord. It would economize 
 materials and men ; would minimize unchristian 
 rivalry; and would, I believe, be pleasing to 
 Christ. So, in reply to the question, "Shall all 
 denominations unite and form one?" I answer, 
 Let us come together and form a confederation 
 of churches, to "preach the Gospel to every crea- 
 ture." The great ecumenical conference of for- 
 eign missions of all denominations recently held 
 in New York is a sign that the denominations are 
 moving in this direction. God grant that it may 
 prove to be a prophecy and that we may have a 
 confederation of all denominations to convert the 
 world to Christ. Then will Christ's prayer for 
 unity be answered, and the kingdom of God will 
 move forward as it did in the early centuries of 
 
94 Shall All Denominations Unite and Form One 
 
 the Christian era, which witnessed the conversion 
 of the Roman world in the space of three hun- 
 dred years. 
 
 If such a union were effected one glorious 
 result would be the regaining of the long-lost 
 self-consciousness of the church of God. Be- 
 cause of our divisions the church has lost con- 
 sciousness of her oneness, her corporate individ- 
 uality. She would then feel herself to be indeed 
 the kingdom of God, and a splendid patriotism 
 for the church would arise in the hearts of its 
 members, nerving them for trial, and inspiring 
 them to strive for the conquest of the world. 
 
HOW CAN THE CHURCH REACH 
 THE MASSES 
 
 "the son of man is come to seek and to save 
 that which was lost." st. luke 19: io. 
 
 The church is reaching the masses, but not to 
 the extent that it should. It is doing a great 
 work, but not the greatest work it could or ought 
 to do. After two thousand years the majority of 
 mankind have not heard that Jesus Christ is God 
 come in the flesh, that He has died for sinners, 
 risen from the dead, and ascended to the throne 
 of universal sovereignty. To tell this to all man- 
 kind was the task assigned to the church two 
 millenniums ago, and it has not yet been accom- 
 plished. Hundreds of millions of heathen have 
 not heard the Gospel, and many millions in 
 Christian nations are practically unreached by 
 the church. 
 
 In many of our outlying country districts, 
 especially in mountainous regions in the south 
 and west, multitudes live and die in a condition 
 little better than savagery; and in the larger 
 cities thousands in sight of churches never go to 
 church. It is said that in New York City there 
 are two millions of unchurched people. Indeed, 
 among certain sections of the masses there is a 
 
 95 
 
g6 How Can the Church Reach the Masses 
 
 feeling of animosity towards the church, and the 
 opinion prevails to a very great extent that the 
 church is for the rich, that it is the club-house of 
 the wealthy and fashionable, and that the poor 
 man is not wanted there. That there is some 
 ground for this feeling no unprejudiced and 
 candid person familiar with the facts can deny. 
 If the ragged unwashed multitude should invade 
 our fashionable churches it is more than doubt- 
 ful whether or not they would be entirely wel- 
 come by all the people in the pews. 
 
 The church is severely censured in this matter 
 by persons usually who do nothing themselves 
 for the evangelizing of the masses, and with lofty 
 Phariseeism they condemn God's people because 
 they are not doing all their duty, while they 
 themselves do not lift a hand nor spend a penny 
 for the uplifting of their fellow men. These 
 wholesale criticisms are unjust to the church, 
 and especially to that noble body in all churches 
 who lay themselves out to help the poor and 
 neglected. 
 
 We are accused of building churches too fine 
 for the poor, and of excluding them by making 
 houses of worship too elegant for plain people. 
 That there is nothing in this charge is evident 
 from the fact that Roman Catholic churches are 
 among the costliest, and yet they are crowded 
 with the poorer classes. Indeed, it is certain 
 that no matter how poor people may be they like 
 a handsome church, and there is a right feeling 
 
How Can the Church Reach the Masses 97 
 
 that God's house ought to be as beautiful as the 
 worshipers can make it. I would not suggest 
 that we build plain, unattractive churches for the 
 people, but rather that we make them as elegant 
 as possible. 
 
 Elegant church buildings, however, will not 
 draw the masses. This is seen to be a fact every- 
 where. Nor will splendid music attract them. 
 It will draw certain persons of the upper classes 
 who are looking for entertainment, and who go 
 to hear music in church on Sunday, with the 
 same motive with which they would attend a con- 
 cert on Monday, and because there is no place of 
 amusement open on the Lord's Day. Now, while 
 we cannot depend upon music, no matter how 
 costly, to draw the masses, it would be foolish to 
 suppose that the masses like poor music. The 
 music should be of the best, only it should be 
 churchly, devotional and a suitable vehicle for the 
 expression of the deep religious feelings of the 
 soul. No doubt there is a style of music unsuited 
 to the masses or the classes, which is intended 
 more as an exhibition of skill than an offering of 
 praise to God. But there can be no objection to 
 good, true, well-timed singing of the hymns of 
 the church. Surely "Rock of Ages" and "Jesus, 
 Lover of My Soul" are none the less devotional 
 if sung with taste and true harmony. 
 
 Some churches offer sensationalism to attract 
 the masses. The advertisement of startling sub- 
 jects for sermons and the introduction of wit and 
 
98 How Can the Church Reach the Masses 
 
 humor into the pulpit will draw a crowd, but 
 what kind of a crowd? A crowd not of the 
 masses but the silly sensation-seekers, not the 
 hard-handed sons and daughters of toil ; not the 
 outcasts and people of the slums. We all know 
 that this is true, and that such efforts are not only 
 futile to reach the masses, but degrading to reli- 
 gion and the house of God. Roman Catholic 
 churches are crowded, but who ever heard of a 
 Catholic priest advertising to preach on sensa- 
 tional topics? To the credit of the Roman 
 Catholics be it said, they do maintain the dignity 
 of the house of worship, and nothing is more 
 solemn than a Catholic mass. Indeed, few things 
 have more attraction for men than a holy solem- 
 nity. 
 
 A great deal is said by critics of the church 
 about the churches moving uptown away from 
 the poor, to be convenient to the rich. There is 
 not so much in this as many think, though there 
 are cities where the criticism is just. In the city 
 where I live and in most cities there is no ground 
 for this accusation. Of course, there are cases 
 where churches must move uptown because the 
 people who worship in them move uptown, and 
 they desire, very properly, to have their church 
 near their homes. In our city there is no neigh- 
 borhood without its church or churches, and so 
 far as church accommodation and convenience 
 of access are concerned, no person can say there 
 is no church for him to attend. Indeed, in most 
 
How Can the Church Reach the Masses 99 
 
 villages there are too many churches, and the 
 people could do well with half the number. 
 
 The fault lies deeper than any of these criti- 
 cisms suggest. The masses don't go to church 
 because they don't wish to, and the question is 
 how to make them wish to go — how to "compel 
 them to come in" by awakening a desire for the 
 worship of the Lord's house. This is the great 
 question of how to reach the great unchurched 
 masses. Let it not be understood by this state- 
 ment that it is intended to throw the blame of 
 non-attendance by the masses off from the church 
 people, and entirely upon the non-churchgoers. 
 I claim that it rests upon both, and more upon 
 church people than upon those who do not go to 
 church. Of course the masses do not want to go 
 to church or they would go, but it is the duty of 
 Christians to make them zvant to go, and it can be 
 done. How? The way to reach the masses is* to 
 go after them, in imitation of the example of our 
 blessed Lord, who said, "The Son of Man is 
 come to seek and to save that which was lost. ' ' 
 
 The church makes the mistake of supposing 
 it has done its whole duty if it sends after the 
 masses. It is right and necessary to employ city 
 missionaries, and send them into the" tenement 
 house districts and the slums. These devoted 
 workers do great service, and are worthy of the 
 highest praise, but they cannot do all the church's 
 work for the church. Male and female lay-work- 
 ers, church visitors, to go among the poor, the 
 
ioo How Can the Church Reach the Masses 
 
 sick, the unchurched, seeking them in cellars, 
 attics and on the streets, by day and by night, 
 are a necessary part of the working force of a 
 church in a large city. There is no estimating 
 the good done by these heroic evangelists. They 
 deserve all encouragement and praise, and so do 
 the churches that employ and support them. But 
 these consecrated workers cannot do all the 
 church's work. 
 
 It is so obviously the duty of pastors, and so 
 almost universally their custom, to visit from 
 house to house, to seek and "to save that which 
 was lost," that no one has much to say about 
 that. As a rule pastors do as much of this kind 
 of work as they can get time for. There are 
 many kinds of work taxing the time of a city 
 pastor. There are social obligations he cannot 
 shirk. Surely the members of his church have 
 the first claim upon his services. There are 
 numerous committees and boards in which he is 
 an important and indeed indispensable factor. 
 He must prepare three fresh, interesting and 
 helpful sermons every week. This requires 
 time. A distinguished pastor said, in my hear- 
 ing, "No man can prepare more than one good 
 sermon per week." That may be true, but every 
 pastor must prepare three sermons per week that 
 the people will think are good, or they will want 
 another pastor. To do this he must read, must 
 study his professional books, must keep abreast 
 with the literature and the thought of the day. 
 
How Can the Church Reach the Masses 101 
 
 The pastor of a large church who does his duty in 
 his study and visits once a year his own people 
 will not have a great deal of time "to seek and to 
 save that which was lost." Most of us do it to a 
 very considerable extent, and' often to the neg- 
 lect of study and sermon preparation. But if a 
 pastor could visit every unchurched family in 
 his parish two or three times per year it would 
 not meet the wants of the case. Suppose he does 
 go and invite the people to church, and suppose 
 they come once or twice, they will not continue 
 to come, nor will they feel at home in a church 
 where they do not know the members. They 
 are not sure that they are wanted and welcomed 
 by the people. Very few persons will persevere 
 in attending a church where they make no 
 friends. They feel that they have a right to 
 know the people in a church where they go. 
 Persons of the humbler class are sensitive, and 
 properly sensitive, about this matter. So would 
 you be if you attended a church and made no 
 acquaintances. They begin to feel that they are 
 not wanted, and then they stay away. 
 
 The way to reach the masses is for the church 
 to go after them, and nothing short of this will 
 answer. The pastor and the lay-worker may get 
 people from the masses to come once or twice, but 
 if the church is to keep them the church must go 
 after them, and the people of the church must 
 become the friends of the poor, the humble and 
 the forsaken. 
 
102 How Can the Church Reach the Masses 
 
 Despairing of getting the whole church to go 
 regularly into this kind of work, I have tried with 
 gratifying success the plan of calling for volun- 
 teers to meet in the lecture room after Sunday 
 morning service to undertake to visit among 
 backward members, strangers, the poor, and non- 
 churchgoers, not sending them to any house 
 where I had not already been. About seventy- 
 five came in response to my call, and I divided 
 them into six companies according to sex and 
 age, appointing a chairman for each, giving to 
 these chairmen lists of persons for each company 
 to call on. It worked well, and most gratifying 
 results were accomplished. One of these com- 
 panies, the young men, in addition to visiting 
 young men, were directed to put church invita- 
 tions in the letter boxes of guests at hotels. The 
 attendance on the services increased twenty-five 
 per cent immediately. In visiting persons to 
 whom I sent them, my companies also found out 
 many other persons and families of whom I had 
 not heard. These they called on also, and so did 
 I, sending the other companies to visit them. 
 For example: Here is a new family. I send the 
 company of adult ladies to call on the mother, the 
 adult men to call on the father, the young men to 
 call on the young men, the young ladies to call on 
 the young ladies, and the boys' and girls' com- 
 panies to call on the boys and girls and to go, on 
 Sunday morning, to bring them to Sunday-school. 
 
 The plan proving a success, more members of 
 
How Can the Church Reach the Masses 103 
 
 the church joined the "Church Workers," as the 
 whole band was named. 
 
 The reason it is necessary for the people to go 
 after the people is that people love love. The 
 most popular thing is love. All men and women 
 love to be loved. Love will draw people, and it 
 is the only thing that will. "Faith, hope, love, 
 but the greatest of these is love. ' ■ Make a man 
 feel that you love him, and he will let you lead 
 him. It gives him an uplift, and produces both 
 faith and hope. Love is the mother grace ; and 
 faith and hope are her children. If people of 
 the church show those not of the church that they 
 love them, faith will come. They will believe 
 in you, in the church, and that there is some- 
 thing in religion after all. It will help them to 
 believe in God. Then hope will come. They 
 will begin to hope for a better, more beautiful 
 and happier life, and a future will open before 
 those who before had no future, but whose lives 
 were lived under a dead and hopeless monotony. 
 Many a sluggish life has been awakened in this 
 way by the quickening touch of love. 
 
 Now we come to an argument that cannot be 
 disputed — the precept and example of Christ 
 He sent His disciples "to seek and to save," and 
 He went Himself on the same blessed mission. 
 In the four inspired biographies of our Lord, we 
 have comparatively little about His preaching to 
 great audiences. The greater part of the record 
 has to do with Christ's visiting. He went about 
 
104 How Can the Church Reach the Masses 
 
 doing good. He visited the poor, the humble, 
 the sinful, the outcast, the despised, and when 
 He healed the sick "He laid His hands on every- 
 one of them." 
 
 This the church must do if she would succeed. 
 She must lay her hands on every one of them — the 
 people she would save. Christ sought men ; He 
 did not wait for them to seek Him. He might 
 have established Himself in Capernaum or Jeru- 
 salem and sent out advertisements inviting all to 
 come and be saved. But this was not His way ; 
 He went after the people. Remember the para- 
 ble of the great supper. When the invited 
 guests would not come, He sent His servants out 
 into "the highways and hedges" to seek the poor, 
 the lame, the halt and the blind, to "compel 
 them to come in," and they came. Here is the 
 model for the church. 
 
 Men have puzzled their minds to try to under- 
 stand why the people were so drawn to Christ. 
 There is no mystery about it. They were drawn 
 to Him because He loved them. This was the 
 power of His mission. Men followed Him not 
 because He was the Son of God, at first, for they 
 did not know that clearly, if at all, but they came 
 because they loved Him, and they loved Him 
 because He first loved them. 
 
CAN WE DO ANYTHING IMMORTAL 
 
 "forasmuch as ye know that your labor is 
 not in vain in the lord." 1 cor. 15 : 58. 
 
 We are workers. Work is the first destiny of 
 man. We are partners in the universal toil. 
 
 Most prominent of all things is work. We have 
 parks and places for play, a few, in our cities, 
 but the places of work are without number. There 
 is more of work in ,the world than of any other 
 thing. On how many fields are men following 
 the plow? In how many forests are they wield- 
 ing the ax? In how many mines are they dig- 
 ging coal, iron, and precious metals? In how 
 many factories are they toiling among dizzying 
 wheels? It is work, work, everywhere, by all 
 people, from day to day. So great is the toil of 
 the world that God interposes one day in seven, 
 and calling a halt, bids men rest. Otherwise they 
 could not stand the strain. It all came in with 
 that sentence which carries a blessing in its 
 hand, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat 
 bread." Man must work to live, and he lives to 
 work, until ax, hammer, hoe, pen, fall from the 
 hand unnerved by death. 
 
 Work is noble. In its widest sense, it is the 
 greatest thing, and he who will not work deserves 
 
 105 
 
106 Can We Do Anything Immortal 
 
 not to eat. He who does the most work, the best 
 work, is the true patrician, a nobleman of a 
 divine order of nobility, for he places himself in 
 line with Him who is the greatest worker, who 
 never sleeps; and with His Son who was the 
 Prince of workers, who said, "I must work while 
 it is called to-day." 
 
 An old philosopher said, "Know thyself," but 
 a modern teacher says, "Better than that is, to 
 know thy work and do it" (Thomas Carlyle). 
 
 There is one sad fact, however, connected with 
 work, and that is the temporary character of its 
 results. They don't last. The worker and the 
 work pass away. The painter at his easel, the 
 sculptor with his statue, the architect with his 
 building, each is saddened by the thought that 
 the thing he toils over and is putting his life into 
 will crumble some day and turn to dust. Men 
 are constantly endeavoring to do something, or 
 to make something that will endure. Painters, 
 sculptors, poets, historians, philosophers, states- 
 men, architects, have done their great things in- 
 spired by a desire to make something lasting. 
 This has held them at their posts of toil where 
 mind and hand combined to attempt the im- 
 mortal. 
 
 But the mournful fact is that every such at- 
 tempt is doomed to failure. None of them has 
 ever made an immortal thing. Men know this 
 when they think, and the joy of successful effort 
 is shadowed with the irrepressible thought that 
 
Can We Do Anything Immortal 107 
 
 what has been done at su^h cost, of thought, 
 labor, and tears, must some time pass away and 
 perish. A few of the works of ancient art have 
 been dug up from the ruins of the past, but only 
 to survive a while. The greater part of the art 
 of Greece, Rome, and Egypt has utterly perished, 
 while of Babylon and Nineveh we have practi- 
 cally nothing left. 
 
 Is there no help for this, and did God intend 
 the mightiest of all instincts in man, the instinct 
 for the doing of an immortal thing, should be 
 never gratified, should always be disappointed? 
 
 That is the final conclusion of worldly phi- 
 losophy. So the poetry, the romance, the political 
 science of the world is pessimistic. Unillumi- 
 nated, uninspired philosophy has reasoned for 
 thousands of years, and its final conclusion is 
 that beyond this world we know nothing, that all 
 ends here and ends soon. In other words, that 
 the goal of all things is nothingness and oblivion. 
 
 On this theory philosophy is right to make little 
 of life, little of joy, sorrow, sin, holiness, and to 
 look with a disdainful smile upon the strife and 
 struggle of the world. If all ends in nothingness 
 it is logical to say, let us eat, drink, sin, do what 
 we will, for to-morrow we die, and all we do dies 
 with us. In this view, virtue, honesty, charity, 
 integrity, self-denial are a mistake. And worldly 
 philosophy, on the premises it starts out with, is 
 right. 
 
 But are the premises right? Is there no im- 
 
108 Can We Do Anything Immortal 
 
 mortal thing that man can do? Is there no work 
 that will endure? Yes, there is; let us see. 
 
 Work done for God is immortal. The mis- 
 take men make is in putting self in place of God, 
 and working for that. Put God in place of self, 
 and everything done for Him is immortal. God 
 lets nothing die that is done for Him. Immor- 
 tality of work is God's gift to human workers as 
 a reward for loyal service. 
 
 Here, in opposition to worldly pessimism, is 
 the glorious optimism of the divine, and eternal. 
 So thus we see that no work need be mortal, but 
 all may be immortal. It means that one who 
 builds a house for God ; carves a statue for God ; 
 paints a picture for God; gives a cup of cold 
 water for God; drops two mites into the 
 treasury of God, has done a thing that shall en- 
 dure forever more. It means that every man 
 may do things, may do all his things, in such a 
 way that they shall outlast the stars and con- 
 tinue as long as God is God. 
 
 This is the true philosophy of the immortality 
 of work; and, carried out in life, lights up all 
 toil, making it shine with a prophetic lustre, and 
 eliminates the saddest thought of the heart — the 
 thought of loss, for hereby there is no such thing 
 as loss. Living thus no man can lose anything 
 except his sins. "Man's chief end is to glorify 
 God," and the natural, the divine consequence is 
 "to enjoy Him forever." 
 
 So the widow's two mites have not been lost, 
 
Can We Do Anything Immortal 109 
 
 though the empires of Alexander and Caesar are 
 lost. The widow's deed was immortal because 
 done for God; the empires of the world's two 
 great ancient conquerors are lost because done for 
 themselves. 
 
 This makes small deeds great, and humble 
 service glorious. 
 
 There was a poor maker of harps in Athens 
 who took great pains in constructing one partic- 
 ular harp, so much so that his friends asked 
 him why he took such unusual pains; and he 
 answered, "This harp is for Thales, the great 
 harper; he will play upon its strings." So the 
 humblest worker may say, "I take pains to do 
 this thing because it is for God; He will use it for 
 a glorious purpose." Make a harp for God. 
 Paint a picture for God. Carve a statue for God. 
 Yes, plow a field for God; keep a store, run a 
 bank, keep a kitchen clean, teach a Sunday- 
 school class, give a cup of cold water for God, 
 and )^ou are doing an immortal thing. 
 
 A young man who had little thought for reli- 
 gion was sitting alone, lost in reverie. A friend 
 passing by stooped to whisper in his ear, "Eter- 
 nity," just that one word, and went on his way t 
 But that word and what it meant lifted his soul 
 to God, and he became a Christian. 
 
 Now those who read this are thinking of the great 
 hereafter, and of the preservation of good deeds 
 in the album of God's unfailing memory. Well, 
 this is true, but this is not all the truth cf the 
 
no Can We Do Anything Immortal 
 
 immortality of work done for God. Nor does 
 this quite meet the instinct, the desire for im- 
 mortal deeds. We live in this world, we are a 
 part of it, and we are not satisfied with immor- 
 tality outside this world. We wish to do some- 
 thing which will be immortal here. We can. 
 
 Do you believe in the scientific doctrine of the 
 conservation of force? What is the doctrine of 
 the conservation of force? It is that force is 
 not lost. Heat turns to electricity, electricity to 
 light, and light turns again to that which ' makes 
 heat — that no ounce of force is wasted or can be 
 lost. Force may change its form, but it is still 
 force, and may be used again a thousand times. 
 A ray of sunshine falls upon a leaf. It is not 
 lost, but in the leaf it lives ; into the tree it goes, 
 and some day will have a part in driving an en- 
 gine that draws a train, runs a factory, or sends 
 a ship across the sea. Coal dug up from the 
 mines is but preserved force, from sunbeams 
 that fell upon the earth thousands of ages ago. 
 
 This is just as true in the moral world. Moral 
 force is imperishable. "Kind words can never 
 die," the song of our childhood is the philosophy 
 of the conservation of moral forces. No good 
 deed is lost. It lives because it is good, and be- 
 cause all good is of God. Every good deed adds 
 to the assets of the kingdom of God, and adds to 
 the moral momentum of the world. Every good 
 deed makes the world just that much better, and 
 therefore makes mankind just that much happier. 
 
Can We Do Anything Immortal in 
 
 None is lost. Even the things that seemed to be 
 failures were not lost. Take for example the 
 unused spices brought to the empty tomb of 
 Christ, have they been lost? Nay, millions of 
 persons since, whose spices have gone apparently 
 unused have been comforted and inspired by the 
 spices that were prepared for the embalmment 
 of Christ's body. 
 
 Good deeds propel the life of mankind upward, 
 God ward, heavenward, and He who is their father, 
 begot them for immortality, first in time and 
 then in eternity. 
 
 But how can I do anything for God? I can- 
 not see Him, nor does He need anything. Has God 
 no representative on earth? Has He no great 
 scheme here upon which He has set His heart? 
 Something by helping which we do a service to 
 Him? Yes; what is it? 
 
 Now let us not give a vague answer and say, it 
 is the sum of goodness, the happiness of man- 
 kind, or that we must just live straight towards 
 Him as He is in heaven. There is a more concrete 
 answer, an answer which good people having so 
 often failed to find, has thrown confusion into 
 life and into religion. 
 
 I give you an answer which may surprise you 
 a little, until you have thought about it ; then it 
 will not surprise you at all. My answer is, the 
 church. 
 
 The church is the thing God has in this world 
 as His representative, the highest object of His 
 
ii2 Can We Do Anything Immortal 
 
 love, outside the holy Trinity. The world exists 
 for the church. All predestination of love, all 
 providence, all we know of God is for the church, 
 and the church is the greatest thing in the 
 universe except God. It is called the Bride of 
 Christ, the Temple of God, and God's Kingdom, 
 yea, and the body of Christ. Christ is a part of 
 the church, its head, for it is His body. 
 
 Now I say that the most obvious way to work 
 for God is to work for the church, and all work 
 done for Him is for His church. Of course I 
 mean the Holy Catholic or universal church, 
 consisting of all believers and their children. 
 Here is the only universal empire, one and the 
 same in all ages and both worlds. 
 
 It will not affect this view to urge that we must 
 work for the salvation of souls. For to save a 
 soul is but to add one more to the church. The 
 aim of God is the building of a church, "a glo- 
 rious church. ' ' For this Christ died, and for this 
 object He lives. Who can deny it? 
 
 Would that all Christians had a proper concep- 
 tion of the church, the kingdom of God, the only 
 immortal product of time, that which shall be 
 the residuum of the universe when heavens and 
 earth shall pass away. When we labor for the 
 church we are co-workers with God in that which 
 is nearest His heart. 
 
 By reason of denominational divisions which 
 have come, and must be, under the providence 
 of God, the church has almost lost her self-con- 
 
Can We Do Anything Immortal 113 
 
 sciousness and the idea of the church as one great 
 organism, divine and everlasting, has well-nigh 
 perished from the minds of men. We may main- 
 tain our denominational divisions until God wills 
 it otherwise, and yet be one, and feel that we are 
 one. "2j pluribus unnm" "one among many," 
 is the motto of the republic. Let it be so also in 
 the kingdom of God. 
 
 Our highest patriotism should be for the 
 church of God; it is our native country. "It 
 shall be said of Zion, this and that man was born 
 in her." 
 
 For her my tears shall fall, 
 
 For her my prayers ascend, 
 
 To her my cares and toils be given, 
 
 Till toils and cares shall end. 
 
 So I like the name churchman in its broadest, 
 highest sense. I am an American, but I hope I 
 am more a churchman. 
 
 How can we best serve the Holy Catholic 
 Church? Answer: By serving your part of it. 
 The best Presbyterian will, among Presbyte- 
 rians, be the best Christian. The best Episco- 
 palian will, among Episcopalians, be the best 
 Christian, and so on, the man who best serves 
 his own church will best serve the Holy Church 
 of God. 
 
 Now the best way to serve the church at large 
 is to serve your own particular church or congre- 
 gation. Love it, labor to make it strong, work 
 for it, pray for it, give to it, and scrupulously 
 
ii4 Can We Do Anything Immortal 
 
 attend all its services. Inform yourself as to its 
 history, and its principles of doctrine and govern- 
 ment, and be ready to give a reason for the faith 
 that is in you. 
 
 In conclusion let me say the best way to do im- 
 mortal things, the best way to serve God, the 
 best way to serve the church universal, is to be a 
 faithful devoted member of the particular church 
 to which you belong. 
 
 So shall we help best to build the everlasting 
 temple of God. The Cologne cathedral that lifts 
 itself like an arch-angel of stone beside the 
 Rhine, was five hundred years in building. Into 
 it were worked the thought and toil of thousands 
 of men. But here beside the stream of time God 
 has a temple building through millenniums. Men 
 are its builders in co-work with Christ. All 
 things built into it are immortal. When the 
 world ends it shall be complete, and He who was 
 first the Architect of the material universe shall 
 see this second greater structure completed, and 
 angels, who as sons of God shouted for joy at the 
 completion of the material universe, shall sing 
 the dedication hymn of this most splendid thought 
 and plan of God. 
 
 So we see, the treasury of immortality is the 
 church of God, and no work is truly immortal un- 
 less built into its walls. " Therefore, my beloved 
 brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always 
 abounding in the work of the Lord ; forasmuch as 
 ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. ' ' 
 
Can We Do Anything Immortal 115 
 
 At the end of time the hour of the great un- 
 veiling shall come. An arch-angel shall say, 
 44 Time is, time was, but time shall be no longer," 
 and shall draw away time, the veil that covered 
 the immortal temple. Then shall the church, 
 stand in her imperial majesty, her high arches 
 resounding with praise, and luminous with the 
 presence of Him who said, "This is my rest for- 
 ever ; here will I dwell. ' ' 
 
WHAT IS THE CONNECTION BE- 
 TWEEN DOCTRINE AND WORK 
 
 "therefore." — i. cor. 15; 58. 
 
 There is a practice among preachers, very com- 
 mon but not to be commended, of taking a pas- 
 sage or word from the Scriptures and using it for 
 an entirely different purpose from that intended 
 by the inspired writer. This practice a great 
 master of theology was accustomed to call "sacred 
 punning." The preacher should preach the 
 Word of God, endeavoring to ascertain what is 
 the mind of the Spirit, and to enforce the 
 thought of the text, applying it to the life of 
 man. 
 
 In taking the word which engages our attention 
 we purpose to use it according to the intention 
 of the Apostle Paul, and of the Holy Spirit who 
 inspired his writing. Such particles of speech 
 are usually considered unimportant and insig- 
 nificant, and little account taken of them. But 
 the use made of them, and the places occupied by 
 them in an argument or even in a narrative, often 
 gives them great significance, especially when 
 they occur in the sacred volume where every 
 word, as it came from the hands of the holy 
 
Connection Between Doctrine and Work 117 
 
 penman, was inspired of the Eternal Spirit of 
 truth. 
 
 There has been always a tendency to divorce 
 doctrine and life, in the thought and conduct of 
 men. One class of persons attaching little im- 
 portance to doctrine, and the other to practice ; 
 both classes failing to recognize the inevitable 
 relation between what a man believes and what 
 he does. The text is a connecting link by which 
 St. Paul binds the great doctrines of the Gospel 
 to the daily life of men. 
 
 We cannot contend too earnestly for the estab- 
 lishment and maintenance of the truth. Sound- 
 ness in the faith is an ideal towards which all 
 preachers must strive and which all hearers 
 should endeavor to obtain. God has not revealed 
 to us the laws of nature. Only the single fact 
 of the creation of all things by the Almighty out 
 of nothing, and the order in which they were 
 created. Man is left to search out natural laws 
 and to apply them to his use. But there is little 
 connection, if any, between a right understand- 
 ing of natural philosophy and a virtuous and 
 honest life. A man may be a good citizen, nay, 
 a devout Christian, and yet be utterly ignorant 
 of the sciences of chemistry, geology, botany, 
 and astronomy. He may ride in our electric 
 railway carriages without the faintest conception 
 of the method of their operation, and yet live a 
 life acceptable to God and man. 
 
 But it is not so in religion. God has not left us 
 
1 1 8 Connection Between Doctrine and Work 
 
 to find out for ourselves the great facts and laws 
 of the moral world; and for two reasons: Be- 
 cause, first, a knowledge of the most important 
 of them is absolutely necessary to the right living 
 and to the salvation of the soul; and, second, 
 because man is incapable, without assistance 
 from on high, of ascertaining the great truths 
 about God's nature, and how man can be made 
 just with God. So the beneficent Father of all 
 men has revealed to us in the Scriptures "what 
 man is to believe concerning God, and what duty 
 God requires of man." The completeness of 
 this revelation, and the pains God has taken to 
 give it to us, are proof enough that it is of the 
 utmost importance to the world. In view of this 
 many persons, especially among the authorized 
 teachers of the church, have devoted themselves 
 almost exclusively to the enforcement of doctrine 
 upon those whom they were appointed to in- 
 struct. Their lectures, writings, and sermons 
 have ignored everything but doctrine; and they 
 have made orthodoxy the one thing needful. It 
 is one thing needful, but not the only thing need- 
 ful. In a public teacher, and for the private 
 member of the church, it is important and desir- 
 able, yea, necessary to his best growth, that he 
 should be sound in every point of theology, but 
 in order to obtain his salvation it is not absolutely 
 necessary that he should know anything but 
 Christ and Him crucified. He may never have 
 heard of such doctrinal statements as are indi- 
 
Connection Between Doctrine and Work 119 
 
 cated by the words, imputation, regeneration and 
 effectual calling, and yet may lead a sober, 
 righteous and godly life. 
 
 Preaching doctrine to the exclusion of morals 
 tends to produce a hard impression of religion 
 and to form hard and forbidding characters in 
 whom little of the milk of human kindness is 
 found; nay, it does not always promote a pure 
 and holy life. But, beside morals and theology, 
 there is the great need of adapting the blessed 
 truths of the Gospel to the sorrows of men. 
 What a world of woe is this in which we live ! 
 Who can compute the tears it sheds even in one 
 day? All men have their griefs, their disap- 
 pointments, doubts, fears, losses, bereavements. 
 God commands, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my 
 people"; and the Lord Jesus said, "Let not 
 your heart be troubled;" "Weep not;" "Come 
 unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
 and I will give you rest." And as He stood by 
 the tomb of His friend at Bethany it is chroni- 
 cled, "Jesus wept." He preached the glorious 
 truths of His Word to men as a Comforter. His 
 very life was an application of truth to human 
 conditions. In Him all truth and humanity met 
 and were blended. 
 
 Great clouds with abundant rain in their 
 bosom if they withhold their gracious treas- 
 ure, and thus float over the withering herbage of 
 the sun-dried and parched fields, only mock the 
 want which they do not relieve. To be a real 
 
120 Connection Between Doctrine and Work 
 
 blessing they must open their bosoms and send 
 down upon drooping tree and flower, and upon 
 thirsting men, their precious showers. The con- 
 nection must be made between the need and the 
 supply. The great truths of God's Word must 
 be ever preached, but we must also say — "there- 
 fore." God is great; God is good; Christ is 
 divine; He has died for us; we are immortal, and 
 our bodies shall at last be raised from the dead ; 
 but shall we stop with that? No; say also, 
 "therefore," obey God; therefore believe in 
 Christ; therefore live a holy life; therefore be 
 comforted, ye that mourn ; therefore preach the 
 Gospel and extend the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 On the other hand, there are many who 
 attach little value to the great doctrines of our 
 holy religion. They show a lofty contempt for 
 theology, for creeds, and catechisms. What have 
 these things to do with helping the poor, with a 
 man living an honest life? "It makes no differ- 
 ence what a man believes if he be sincere." 
 This is a great mistake. Experience as well as 
 Scripture shows that to make men honest they 
 must be taught the truth ; that the only founda- 
 tion for noble character is principles, and great 
 moral truths accepted. No building can be 
 stronger than its foundation, and if the founda- 
 tion be sand, the building will tumble to ruins 
 and be destroyed. Some years ago a distin- 
 guished minister organized a congregation to 
 hear him preach morals without theology or doc- 
 
Connection Between Doctrine and Work 121 
 
 trine. Being a man of oratorical power, he held 
 large crowds spellbound under his eloquence. A 
 short time ago he died, and within a week it was 
 announced that his congregation had been dis- 
 banded. They had no great doctrinal beliefs, 
 the common acceptance of which would have 
 held them together. If a church based on doc- 
 trines should lose its pastor would it be dissolved? 
 No; the question of dissolution would not be 
 thought of. The people, held together, not by 
 the personal attachment to a man, but by loyal 
 adherence to the great doctrines of religion, 
 would still come together to worship God. 
 They would secure regular ministrations of 
 the Word and as soon as practicable another 
 pastor. 
 
 Contrast the conditions of two men in misfor- 
 tune, one of whom has a creed and the other not. 
 The man who believes something, and knows 
 something to believe, may lose his health, his 
 property, yea, he may feel the foundations of life 
 itself slipping away from under his feet, and yet, 
 observe, he is not in despair. His best posses- 
 sions are still left to him. The things of God he 
 loves are still his own. He stands like a rock in a 
 stormy sea, and cries out, "Though He slay me, 
 yet will I trust Him." 
 
 But what of the man who has no faith, who 
 believes in no protecting providence, who sees no 
 father's loving face above the ruin of his earthly 
 hopes? There is for him no cross of sacrifice, no 
 
122 Connection Between Doctrine and Work 
 
 promise of succor, no grand spiritual sphere 
 unchanged, and unchangeable. He is helpless 
 and drifting, a lost mariner in the darkness. 
 
 There are great and divine truths that fill the 
 moral and spiritual sphere. These are the reali- 
 ties which endure. Visible things float on the 
 stream of time, and shall at last be engulfed in 
 the eternal sea. The permanent things are in 
 the spiritual, the unseen. God is the sublimest 
 fact ; but others stand related to that. We are 
 His creation. By sin we are under His wrath, 
 and curse. But God came into the world, assum- 
 ing humanity and sin, and underwent the death 
 of the cross, that we might be saved from eternal 
 death by faith in Him, through the work of the 
 Holy Ghost. There is a hell; there is a heaven; 
 death shall come to all, but there shall be a resur- 
 rection ; and beyond this vale of tears there lies a 
 better country, where there shall be no sorrow, 
 no sin, no death. 
 
 Is there no connection between human life and 
 these glorious truths? Are they set beyond an 
 impassable abyss, where no poo*r mortal may 
 derive from them comfort and hope? Is there no 
 "therefore" between these splendid facts and 
 our life? Oh, yes; because there is a good God, 
 because Christ has died for us, because we are 
 immortal pilgrims to another world, "therefore," 
 poor mortal, lift up your head, put sin beneath 
 your feet, set temptation behind you, and fix your 
 hopes on heaven; "therefore," sad mourner, do 
 
Connection Between Doctrine and Work 123 
 
 not weep as those who have no hope ; dry up 
 your tears and see a city in the sky ; therefore, 
 dying" Christian, be of good cheer, listen for the 
 Master's footsteps, and for the voices that call to 
 thee from the great beyond. 
 
 The apostle in the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corin- 
 thians has traveled with the thread of his great ar- 
 gument for immortality and resurrection up from 
 the shades of sorrow, from the somber chambers 
 of the tomb. He has defied death and carried the 
 banner of his victorious march into the very por- 
 tals of the grave ; but up the steps of light he 
 climbs, the glory of the eternal world is blazing 
 around him ; his path is all aflame with radiancy 
 divine. But having reached the highest height 
 which seems to touch the city gates of heaven, 
 with beams from the ineffable majesty flashing 
 in his eyes, does he forget the world below him? 
 does he see nothing but light? Nay; he climbed 
 to heaven to bombard the world with glory. With 
 one hand pointing upward, the other extending 
 downward, he swings out by a great "THERE- 
 FORE" the exhortation, "Be ye steadfast.' 
 Look yonder, see what I see, and "be ye stead- 
 fast, unmovable, always abounding in the work 
 of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your 
 labor is not in vain in the Lord. " 
 
 Stand fast ; endure all trial and sorrow ; your 
 hope is sure, and all your toil is not in vain in the 
 Lord. 
 
WHAT IS WOMAN'S WORK IN THE 
 CHURCH OF GOD 
 
 "and next to him repaired shallum, the son 
 of halohesh, the ruler of the half part of 
 jerusalem, he and his daughters. neh. 3:12. 
 
 Nehemiah was cup-bearer to Artaxerxes Lon- 
 ginas (Artaxerxes, the Long-Handed), king- of 
 Persia. The empire was then in the zenith of its 
 power. It was about 446 B. C. Rome was yet 
 but adolescent, and Socrates, Thucydides and 
 Xenophon were illustrious contemporaries. 
 
 Nehemiah, a Jew of princely lineage, occupying 
 a position of honor and luxury in the court of the 
 greatest monarch of his time, was not forgetful 
 of the people of God, and the welfare of the Holy 
 City. He secures permission to leave the cap- 
 ital, to undertake a journey to Jerusalem, and to 
 rebuild its crumbling walls. We have a brief 
 but graphic account of his long journey to Jeru- 
 salem, and of his nocturnal ride around the walls, 
 then of his gathering the people for the work. 
 The rebuilding of the defenses of the city of God 
 may be taken as at least an illustration of the 
 upbuilding of the kingdom of the Lord, and so 
 in the 51st Psalm we read the prayer of David, 
 "Build thou the walls of Jerusalem." 
 
 124 
 
What Is Wo? nan's Work in Church of God 125 
 
 The interesting fact to which we call special 
 attention just now is that in the illustrious roster 
 of the builders of the walls of Jerusalem under 
 Nehemiah's inspiration w T e find the name of Shal- 
 lum, and the statement that the daughters of 
 Shallum engaged with their father and the other 
 men in the glorious toil. Just how they applied 
 the labor of their loving hands we are not 
 informed, whether they actually used the ham- 
 mer and trowel in this holy masonry or whether 
 they contributed of their independent means, or 
 whether they only ministered food, drink, cloth- 
 ing and shelter to the men, besides giving them 
 the courage and inspiration of their devoted 
 enthusiasm, we do not know, but we are assured 
 that they were useful and honored helpers in the 
 enterprise, at once patriotic and religious, of 
 rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. 
 
 These daughters of Shallum, nameless in 
 earthly memoirs, though not nameless in the 
 heavenly annals of the kingdom, belong to that 
 illustrious company of godly women who have 
 been helpers in the church of God in all the ages. 
 
 Of a goodly number of women workers, the names 
 are given in the inspired history of redemption. 
 
 We might begin with Eve, the queen mother 
 of the human race, and who, while doubt- 
 less the most beautiful and gifted of women, 
 showed, by her momentous error, which changed 
 the destiny of the world, how great may be a 
 woman's influence for weal or woe. 
 
126 What Is Woman's Work in Church of God 
 
 We find in the early catalogue of the great, 
 along with the names of Abraham, Isaac and 
 Jacob, those of Sarah the beautiful, Rebecca 
 the devoted mother, and Rachael the greatly 
 mourned, whose tomb still calls for tears, where 
 it stands before the gates of Bethlehem. Later 
 we behold Miriam guarding, beside the river of 
 Egypt, the infant, her brother, who was born to 
 deliver Israel and to lay down the laws for God's 
 people of all subsequent generations. And when 
 Moses and the enfranchised nation stand upon 
 the banks of the Red Sea, just crossed safely by 
 them, but now the watery tomb of their enemies, 
 this same Miriam, accompanied by the women 
 she had gathered, leads the loud peans of the 
 triumphant church. 
 
 The mother of Samuel bringing her son to the 
 Tabernacle to serve the Lord is another scene of 
 rare beauty; and Ruth, the Moabitess, choosing 
 Jehovah as her God, and His servants as her peo- 
 ple, destined to thus become an ancestress of the 
 Messiah, is one of the women whom all the 
 nations love. 
 
 A woman of Zarephath, in the days of Elijah, 
 is honored for her loving care of the persecuted 
 prophet. The Shunammite woman, who estab- 
 lished a prophet's chamber in her house for 
 Elisha, and whose hospitality God so greatly 
 rewarded, is remembered for her faith that shone 
 like a star in darkest night. 
 
 We might speak of Abigail, first the friend and 
 
What Is Woman's Work in Church of God 127 
 
 then the wife of David ; Esther, the patriot and 
 woman of God, and in the New Testament, of 
 Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, Martha 
 and Mary of Bethany, Dorcas the charitable, 
 Lydia the first convert in Europe, Phoebe the 
 deaconess of Cenchrea, Priscilla the courageous, 
 Tryphena, Tryphosa, Persis, and many others, 
 like the Canaanitish woman whose daughter Christ 
 healed, the widow who gave her mite, the woman 
 who bathed the Master's feet with her tears, 
 unnamed in holy writ. But time fails us except to 
 tell of the two greatest, Mary Magdalene and 
 Mary the mother of Jesus, the former distin- 
 guised for the love that made her earliest at the 
 sepulcher to meet the risen Lord, and the latter 
 as she who suggested Christ's first miracle, never 
 doubted his Sonship to God, and whose mournful 
 figure at the cross beside her dying Son has ex- 
 cited the respect and affectionate admiration of 
 all Christians. 
 
 Thus we see how important were women in the 
 church of Bible times, and can feel what a loss 
 the world would sustain if their names and 
 labors were stricken out of the history and 
 achievements of the kingdom. Their names 
 shine with holy lustre, and their faith, love and 
 service constitute an imperishable inheritance for 
 their daughters now living not only, but also for 
 their sons and all mankind. They have been 
 noble helpers in all ages in building up the 
 church of God, 
 
128 What Is Woman's Work in Church of God 
 
 The church since the close of the sacred canon 
 has not been without daughters who have been 
 famous among the great, and outside the church 
 find among illustrious women patriots, poets, his- 
 torians, novelists, artists, sovereigns, and all the 
 world knows that the most illustrious monarch of 
 of the last century, was her majesty Victoria, the 
 Queen Empress of Great Britain, who as a wife, 
 mother, friend and ruler for sixty-three years 
 illustrated all that is truest, most beautiful and 
 best in human character. 
 
 We have thus briefly named a few of the 
 women who have blessed mankind. The unwrit- 
 ten millions God alone and their loved ones knew 
 and know. Beyond all doubt the majority of the 
 saved are women. The majority of the world's 
 and the church's heroisms are from women. 
 Here and there we find a hero among men, but 
 every true mother is a heroine. So also is many 
 a woman not a mother, nor a wife, whose cour- 
 age, faith, patience, steadfastness, virtue, love 
 and self-sacrifice have given lines of light, truth 
 and hope in the histories of unnumbered circles 
 of mankind. Woman is greatest in her unselfish 
 devotion to others. It is seen in all her life from 
 where she rocks the cradle to where she weeps 
 over a grave, and in the innumerable offices of 
 devotion she performs for others, loved herself or 
 unloved, in this sinning, suffering world. 
 
 This being her character and disposition, it is 
 no wonder that her heart goes out in prayer and 
 
What Is Woman's Work in Church of God 129 
 
 toil for all heathen, the people that know not 
 God, and that she is prominent in all missionary- 
 undertakings. 
 
 Though it cannot be denied that some women 
 have been greatly useful in public positions, yet 
 it is certain woman's greatest sphere is not 
 on the rostrum, the hustings, or the battlefield. 
 Woman is strongest in the sphere where 
 God placed her. Her sphere is in private, and 
 for her toil she will usually have credit only 
 with God, and in the circle where she moves. 
 She is not a leader but a helper. The women 
 working on the walls of Jerusalem were the help- 
 ers of their father and the other builders. They 
 are not named save as Shallum's daughters, and 
 the right-minded woman is best pleased to have 
 her father, husband, or brother honored. Her work 
 oftener makes others famous than herself, and 
 in this her office illustrates the highest virtue 
 mankind knows — self-sacrifice for others, which 
 was transfigured in the life and death of Christ. 
 Be it remembered also that the one human link 
 with the race He died to save was through a 
 woman, his mother, Mary the Blessed. 
 
 How does woman help the world? 
 
 By preparing the workers. 
 
 The first school is at a mother's knee, where 
 we are taught truth and duty, and where we learn 
 to pray. There is beauty, indeed sublimity, in 
 the thought of the millions of mothers now 
 engaged in the instruction of the generation 
 
130 What Is Woman's Work in Church of God 
 
 about to step out on the stage of life, and in their 
 faithful performance of this glorious task lies, 
 next to the Gospel itself, the greatest hope of the 
 future. The coming century is going to be 
 largely what the mothers make it. Some of us 
 whose mothers have been laid beneath the sod 
 cherish their names and lives as the holiest of all 
 memories, after the biography of Christ. Our 
 debt to them we can never pay. The morals of 
 a man are generally what a woman, or women, 
 make them, and a man's morals determine his 
 true place in the church and the world. 
 
 Then who can measure the power of woman's 
 inspiration of men. The greatest number 
 of the world's and the church's heroes would 
 never have been heard of but for the inspiration 
 of some woman or women. Men that have been 
 truly great she has helped to greatness. These 
 things are not always matters of history ; oftener 
 only God and the angels know. 
 
 The help of women in foreign missions is 
 beyond calculation. St. Paul wrote from Rome 
 to his "true yokefellow," probably pastor, at 
 Philippi, "Help those women that labored with 
 me in the Gospel." Help those that helped 
 and are helping. The woman's foreign mis- 
 sionary societies of the church have done a glo- 
 rious work. Their gifts count by the thousands 
 and thousands of dollars, and their inspiration, 
 example and prayers are worth millions. Every 
 pastor knows how difficult it is to keep any society 
 
What Is Woman's Work in Church of God 131 
 
 of men organized, but the women organize them- 
 selves, and persevere, encouraged or unencour- 
 aged, with a devotion that is inextinguishable. 
 In a church of which I was once pastor a young 
 lady on the occasion of her marriage was asked 
 by the happy bridegroom what she would prefer 
 for a bridal present, said, "Give me a mission- 
 ary, ' ' and this her husband did, sending out to 
 China one whom he will support as long as she 
 lives, to labor in that great empire. 
 
 Of their labors as missionaries in the foreign 
 field what can we say? Oh, if we began, where 
 could we ever stop? Their love and gentleness 
 is the first thing that wins the hearts of the 
 heathen. In the mission school, in the homes of 
 the people, the harem, the Zenanna, what could 
 men do? In many countries men are absolutely 
 shut out from the homes of the native people, but 
 woman is admitted, and carries light, and peace, 
 and joy to many a crushed and hopeless heart. 
 Many of our godly women have gone far away to 
 this work. To compare our small sacrifices with 
 theirs makes us ashamed, and we can only fall on 
 our knees to beg God's richest benediction upon 
 them, where, with continents or wide oceans 
 between themselves and home, they toil for the 
 souls of men. God bless our women. May 
 their hearts never be discouraged, nor their 
 hands falter, as they labor to build up the walls 
 of the Jerusalem that is the mother of us all, the 
 city of God that shall stand resplendent in eter- 
 
132 What Is Woman's Work in Church of God 
 
 nity when moons, planets, and suns have ceased 
 to shine. They have led and do lead the praises 
 of the church on earth; we do not know how 
 great their part shall be in the church of heaven. 
 Meanwhile, they do ever toil, and sing, and pray. 
 
HOW CAN MAN KNOW THAT HE 
 SHALL RISE FROM THE GRAVE 
 
 "HE IS RISEN AS HE SAID." ST. MATT. 28: 6. 
 
 In the matchless fifteenth chapter of i Corin- 
 thians, where the inspired author, rising to the 
 highest eloquence, seems to speak with the 
 tongues both of men and angels, the Apostle 
 Paul conditions the credibility of the whole Chris- 
 tian religion upon the single fact of the resurrec- 
 tion of Christ, he declares: "And if Christ be not 
 risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith 
 is also vain." When he appeared before the 
 council in Jerusalem he said also: "Of the hope 
 and resurrection of the dead I am called in ques- 
 tion." This he repeated to Felix; and when he 
 appeared before Agrippa, he asked, at the outset 
 of his defense, "Why should it be thought a thing 
 incredible with you that God should raise the 
 dead?" He was prepared to prove that Christ 
 was risen, his main argument being that he him- 
 self had seen Him, as had also all of the other 
 apostles, which fact they, as apostles, were 
 mainly set to bear witness to, that at the begin- 
 ning of the career of the Gospel throughout the 
 world this foundation truth might be thoroughly 
 established in the belief of men. And we may 
 
 133 
 
134 How Can Man Know that He 
 
 say, without pausing to argue the statement that 
 no fact in the history of the world is better proven 
 than that Jesus of Nazareth is risen, and that 
 those who believe in Him are trusting not a dead 
 Saviour but a living Lord. 
 
 The first intention of the resurrection of 
 Christ was to prove His divinity. It does prove 
 it, but not as it stands alone, if it be dissociated 
 from His own words. The power to perform 
 miracles does not prove any man to be divine. 
 Moses, Elisha, the Apostles, and others, per- 
 formed miracles on the sick, the blind, and even 
 the dead. True, no one of them was permitted 
 to perform the highest miracle of himself dying 
 and rising from the tomb. This stupendous 
 power over nature was allowed to none but the 
 Son of God, but there is nothing intrinsically 
 impossible in God's giving any man even that 
 sublime privilege. He reserved this, however, 
 for His Only-Begotten Son. 
 
 A miracle only proves that the man who per- 
 forms it is divinely commissioned, and that what 
 he says is to be believed as true. Miracles are 
 the divine credentials vouchsafed in many cases 
 to those who have spoken from God to man. This 
 was their use to such Old Testament worthies as 
 God allowed to perform wonders above the ordi- 
 nary method of nature, and the same applies to 
 the miracle workers in the New Dispensation. 
 But not one of them ever claimed divinity except 
 Christ. If miracles did not, in themselves, prove 
 
Shall Rise from the Grave 135 
 
 His Sonship to God; they authenticated His 
 infallible truthfulness, when He said: "I and my 
 Father are one"; "He that hath seen me, hath 
 seen the Father"; and when He spoke to His 
 Father of the glory He had with Him before the 
 world was. 
 
 Now, as the greatest claim ever made by any 
 person was that He was God incarnate, and as 
 such an assumption required an extraordinary 
 attestation, Christ performed the mightiest of 
 all miracles. He threw down the gauntlet to 
 Judea and Rome. "Destroy this temple (or 
 body), and in three days I will raise it up. " They 
 took up the great challenge, and killed Him by 
 the method of the cross, in presence of assembled 
 thousands. He was buried, and a Roman guard 
 watched the sealed tomb, lest His disciples might 
 steal Him away, and fraudulently lay claim to 
 His resurrection. How calm was His rising! 
 True, earth shook, as well it might, when 
 the Lord who made it rose from the dead, and 
 the Roman guards fell stunned to the ground, 
 but in the pale light of dawn angels rolled the 
 stone away, and ministering in the bed-chamber 
 of the King, removed the linen cloth and the 
 napkin that was about His head, and in grand 
 order folded these cerements of the grave, 
 while the triumphant Saviour stepped upon the 
 horizon of a redeemed world. No shout of 
 triumph was heard as of one who had come 
 through anxious labor and uncertain hope to a 
 
136 How Can Man Know that He 
 
 great achievement and victory, but it was with 
 the calm dignity of omnipotence that knew no 
 doubt nor fear. 
 
 How significant His first words: "Woman, why 
 weepest thou?" and His first revelation to mortals 
 of His triumph over sin and death was in the ask- 
 ing of this question, and the utterance of a 
 woman ' s name, ' 'Jesus saith unto her, Mary ! ' ' Here 
 was one who could ask every mourner, whatever 
 might be his grief, "Why weepest thou?" and 
 who was able to bestow sovereign balm upon all 
 wounded hearts, as well as to "wipe away all 
 tears from all eyes. " The angels had sung over 
 His cradle, and now, guarding and ministering 
 at His tomb, they announced His resurrection to 
 the saddened and incredulous woman. She 
 heeds not the angels' declaration, "He is risen as 
 He said," but when Christ speaks her name she 
 knows her Lord, and bows in worship at His feet. 
 
 "He is risen as He said" means, the resurrec- 
 tion is the keeping of His word; it testifies that 
 all He said to men was true, and that He is 
 divine and able to save to the uttermost all that 
 put their trust in Him. Death, the grave and 
 eternity opened their lips as they had never 
 done before to say this is the Son of God. The 
 utterance that comes from the marble lips of the 
 tomb is the Eternal Word — the incarnate God. 
 
 The resurrection of Christ is also proof of 
 our own resurrection. In a realm so far removed 
 from ordinary experience, we require something 
 
Shall Rise from the Grave 137 
 
 more than arguments to prove that "if a man 
 die he shall live again. ' ' A fact is better than 
 an argument. Let us see one raised who was 
 dead ; yea, one who can rise in his own might. 
 Here we have a dead man raised to life again — 
 "the first fruits of them that slept." Others had 
 been raised by divinely commissioned men, but 
 this is one who had none to stand over his grave 
 and speak words of divine command. 
 
 The resurrection of Christ taken alone does not 
 prove that we shall rise again. It proves that it 
 is a practicable thing, and possible. It shows 
 that death can be overcome, and that Christ can 
 do it, that He can raise us all from the dust. But 
 it does not prove that He will. How do I know 
 that He will give me this glorious boon? that the 
 almighty Son of God will care enough for this 
 mortal frame to give it immortality? We know 
 it for one, and only one, reason — He said He 
 would. He said he would raise Himself, and He 
 did it. He also said, "All that are in their 
 graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, 
 and shall come forth. ' ' Our sure hope of resur- 
 rection is Christ's promise, and the certainty that 
 He is willing to keep it because He died for us, and is 
 able to keep it, because He raised Himself. 
 
 We are all familiar with the ordinary argu- 
 ments for the resurrection drawn from the 
 analogies of nature. The crysalis sleeps in its gray 
 shell, under the similitude of death. The sacred 
 beetle of Egypt lies dormant in the banks of the 
 
138 How Can Man Know that He 
 
 Nile until the hour of renewed activity. The 
 ancient Egyptians made silver and golden images 
 of them to bury in the mummied bodies of their 
 dead. It is true the crysalis does burst its shell 
 in the spring, and spread new wings to fly, and also 
 that in many of the marvelous phenomena of 
 nature similar sequences of apparent death fol- 
 lowed by renewed life, are observed. But they 
 fail to prove anything certainly. These things 
 were not dead; they only slept. Crush the sacred 
 beetle under your foot; pierce with a needle the 
 crysalis; destroy its life, or the life of anything, 
 and see whether it will revive again. Nay, out- 
 side the pages of the inspired Word, we know 
 nothing surely of life beyond death. Man with- 
 out revelation may dream of immortality, but it 
 is only a dream, and the wish is father to the 
 thought. No Christian, in a time of bereave- 
 ment, as he stands beside the new grave of a 
 dear one, thinks of seeking comfort from the 
 analogies of nature. His one consolation is 
 Christ's resurrection and His promise to raise all 
 men from the dead. "He is risen as He said" 
 is the electric flash that throws its revealing 
 beam into the darkness of the unseen world, and 
 shows us the other shore. Yea, death has 
 acquired a sweet friendliness since Christ has 
 died, and the tomb itself is now to all believers 
 but the bed-chamber where our flesh shall rest 
 in hope, where we await the fulfillment of 
 Christ's promise, "I will come again and take 
 
Shall Rise from the Grave 139 
 
 you unto myself, that where I am ye may be 
 also. ' ' 
 
 The resurrection also has a moral and spirit- 
 ual significance. Christ's resurrection typifies 
 the raising of the soul from the death of sin into 
 newness of life and the perfect restoration of all 
 its powers. 
 
 We have recorded in the Scriptures only three 
 miracles of resurrection performed by Christ on 
 the bodies of men. There was no need of more. 
 
 The raising of Jairus' daughter was the resto- 
 ration of one who had just died. The process of 
 decay had made no noticeable progress, and as 
 she lay motionless on the couch, where tender 
 hands had placed her, she lacked little of the 
 beauty of life. But she was dead. The tene- 
 ment was as completely vacant and deserted as if 
 it had already crumbled to dust. She typifies the 
 characters we know so well who have every trait of 
 moral loveliness except the new life from above. 
 
 The widow's son, of Nain, was a case in which 
 death had gone further. The young man had 
 died, and now, wrapped in his winding sheet, 
 was being borne to his grave. How often do we 
 see this mournful scene enacting in the moral 
 world, when some young man is being carried by 
 his boon companions to a wretched end. Oh, 
 beware, young man, young woman, you who are 
 being borne along the way of vice ! That path 
 you are treading ends in a grave of pollution, 
 despair and death. 
 
140 How Can Man Know that He Shall Rise 
 
 Lazarus of Bethany represents the man who 
 has run the course of sin, and who lies decaying 
 in the lowest depths of moral corruption. "By 
 this time he stinketh," and his best friends cannot 
 bear to have him in their sight. 
 
 But all three were equally dead. None except 
 a divine voice could speak the word that would 
 raise them, and one resurrection was as easy to 
 Him as another. 
 
 Now, Christ died for our sins, as our represen- 
 tative, and His death is ours. We died in Him. 
 
 So His resurrection is ours, and becomes the 
 pledge and prophecy of the complete resurrec- 
 tion of our moral natures, formed anew in the 
 image of God. 
 
 In that famous passage which has been read 
 at so many thousands of funerals, "NOW is 
 Christ risen from the dead," there seems to be 
 an implied antithesis between the present and 
 the future. "Now" and" then.'" Now Heisrisen, 
 and we have thus the pledge that in God's time 
 we shall rise. How glorious such thoughts as 
 these in the sad presence of our beloved dead, and 
 when our own departure draws nigh ! What 
 rapture and hope to remember that "He," in 
 whom we trust, "is risen as He said." 
 
HOW IS THE WORLD TO KNOW 
 THAT JESUS CHRIST IS ALIVE 
 
 "and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in 
 jerusalem, and in all judea, and in samaria, 
 and unto the uttermost part of the earth." 
 
 ACTS I: 8. 
 
 These were, according to the book of Acts, the 
 last words of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and in 
 them He commits His reputation and His king- 
 dom to His disciples. Thereafter the world was 
 to know Christ through Christians. What are 
 men called upon to accept as the testimony of 
 Christ's followers? 
 
 They are called upon to believe that a man, 
 said to be divine, whom no person living has ever 
 seen, is yet present though invisible, and the 
 Supreme Ruler of all things and all people. He 
 is a King who has no munitions of war, no capi- 
 tal nor palace on earth, and whose empire is 
 propagated by ideas alone. 
 
 Moreover, this King was ignominiously cruci- 
 fied by the Romans, at the instigation of His own 
 race, two thousand years ago. And the testi- 
 mony to prove that He rose from the dead is 
 from His disciples, who were long treated as 
 fanatics and persecuted, many of them to death, 
 
 141 
 
142 How Is the World to Know that 
 
 by the people of their day. Not one word of dis- 
 interested secular history can be quoted to prove 
 that any one ever saw Jesus after He was laid in 
 the tomb. True, His body could not be found 
 after the third day, but the authorities declared 
 that His disciples stole it while the Romans on 
 guard slept at their post. 
 
 Now men are called upon to believe the story 
 of His resurrection and to accept this crucified 
 man as the Supreme Ruler of their lives ; yea, to 
 commit all their earthly possessions to Him; to 
 die for Him if need be, and entrust to His care 
 their eternal well-being. In other words, they 
 are expected to risk their mortal and immortal 
 happiness upon the alleged fact that Tesus Christ 
 is alive, and that He is God. 
 
 Surely men have a right to ask very strong 
 proof of a fact upon which they are called upon 
 to risk so much. What is the proof? How are 
 men to know that Jesus is alive, and that He is 
 the Son of God? 
 
 The Scriptures are written to prove it. 
 
 The Scriptures are to show the whole story of 
 prophecy concerning Christ, and its actual ful- 
 fillment in His person, His life, words, works, 
 death, and resurrection. 
 
 It must be said that the Scripture story holds 
 together well, and shows a wonderful harmony in 
 all its parts. The story, begun by Moses, moves 
 smoothly on, stage by stage, until it is finished 
 by St. John. 
 
Jesus Christ Is Alive 143 
 
 It contains no contradictory statements, though 
 written by a variety of men of different ages, 
 thousands of years apart. It is a marvelous book. 
 There is no other book that contains such philos- 
 ophy, such poetry, such theology, such morals. 
 We may concede it to be the most wonderful 
 book ever written, and to excel all others as the 
 sun outshines the stars. In the Scripture narra- 
 tive we have a number of men declaring that 
 they saw Jesus alive after His entombment. This 
 too they protested at the risk, and many of them 
 at the expense, of their lives. 
 
 But is this evidence sufficient to persuade men 
 to believe in the resurrection of Christ, a thing 
 utterly contrary to all precedent and experience? 
 Whatever may be said as to how men ought to 
 believe on these evidences, the fact is they do 
 not, and will not, on these evidences alone. 
 There must be something more. There 
 must be a supernatural proof of an alleged 
 supernatural fact, and it must be present, con- 
 temporary, supernatural proof. There must be 
 supernatural effects now to prove an alleged su- 
 pernatural fact. The world will never be satisfied 
 with the testimony of men who lived two thou- 
 sand years ago. The world demands present, 
 supernatural evidences to prove that Jesus Christ 
 is alive, that He is divine, and that He rules to- 
 day — all-powerful in heaven and in earth. 
 Before He died He is alleged to have proved 
 that He would rise, by raising others from the 
 
144 How Is the World to Know that 
 
 dead. We must have the same kind of proof 
 now. Men are said to have believed then that 
 He would rise from the dead, because He raised 
 others. He must do that now, if the world is to 
 believe that He has raised Himself. Have we 
 any such proof? I affirm that we have, that 
 every age has had that kind of proof, and that 
 there have been and are resurrections from the 
 dead continually occurring before the eyes of 
 men. 
 
 When Christ said, "and ye shall be witnesses 
 unto me," He was speaking to men who had been 
 dead but whom He had raised from the dead. 
 We speak of a moral and spiritual resurrection ; 
 not a physical, and do aver that it is a greater 
 thing to raise a soul, a life, from the death of sin 
 than to raise a body from the tomb. In this mat- 
 ter Christ declared of His miracles, "and greater 
 things than these shall ye do, because I go unto 
 my Father." In other words, "I will do greater 
 things through you, after my ascension, than I 
 did while visibly present on earth." Greater 
 proof would be given, because greater proof 
 would be needed. It is harder to persuade the 
 world to believe in a person unseen, who died, 
 than in a person seen who merely says he is going 
 to die and rise from the dead. Let us see what 
 is the proof. 
 
 The resurrection of races and nations from sin, 
 degradation and ignorance, proves that Jesus 
 Christ is alive, and that He is the Son of God. 
 
Jesus Christ Is Alive 145 
 
 No one can believe that the human and theolog- 
 ical means appointed were sufficient to account 
 for the conversion of the Roman Empire in three 
 hundred years. The empire crucified Christ as 
 a malefactor, and after three hundred years 
 acknowledged Him as God. A band of Galilean 
 peasants and one converted Pharisee could not 
 have accomplished this result. The religions of 
 Greece and Rome were entrenched in the tradi- 
 tions, the literature, and the sacred associations 
 of hundreds of years. They were defended by 
 the philosophers, statesmen, poets, armies, and 
 emperors of the worldwide empire. And yet, 
 after three hundred years, the Emperor Constan- 
 tine made Christianity the established religion of 
 the world, and stamping the name of Jesus upon 
 the coins of the realm, made the cross to stand 
 above the Roman eagle as the highest symbol of 
 power. 
 
 Now it is absurd to say that the plain people 
 called Christians did this. They were the jest of 
 Rome, and were put to death by thousands to 
 amuse the populace. The only rational explana- 
 tion of this miracle of history is that what Christ 
 is alleged to have said after His alleged resurrec- 
 tion was true, that He was risen from the dead, 
 and had committed to Him "all power in heaven 
 and in earth." Here was a miracle of resurrec- 
 tion indeed ; the resurrection of an empire from the 
 death-sleep of ages, and so Christian Rome proved 
 that Jesus Christ was alive and the living God. 
 
146 How Is the World to Know that 
 
 The same thing has happened over and over 
 again from age to age. The conversion of every 
 nation that has been converted is a repetition of 
 the same miracle. I do not mean the mere change 
 of opinion or change of religion, but the changed 
 life of men ; their uplift into a new plane of being 
 with virtue, holiness, charity, and all their powers 
 renewed for achievement in every department of 
 life. What is called Christian civilization is the 
 result of a miracle of resurrection. 
 
 What were our forefathers before the Gospel 
 came to them? Naked savages practicing every 
 crime and degraded to the level of brutes. What 
 are we now? The difference is a miracle. Every 
 Christian state, every great achievement of civ- 
 ilization, the railway, telegraph, telephone, are 
 proofs that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. 
 
 We might go further and point to thousands of 
 orphan asylums, homes for the blind, deaf and 
 dumb, insane, and the poor, and to millions of 
 homes of purity and love ; but we must pass on. 
 
 The individual Christian is the only argument, 
 taken in connection with the Bible statements, that 
 will satisfy men. 
 
 It may be said that the great things just 
 referred to are the natural result of the growth of 
 mankind as a race from a condition of infancy to 
 adult life. We might answer, No, there is no 
 such growth, and nations that have given up 
 Christianity have always relapsed into barbar- 
 ism, but these arguments will not satisfy man- 
 
Jesus Christ Is Alive 147 
 
 kind. What the world demands is a miracle on 
 an individual man ; they must see a man who has 
 been raised from the dead; a man whose life 
 shows a supernatural power, which is a super- 
 natural result. 
 
 Well the world has always, since Jesus died, 
 had these proofs. It was so in the days of Paul, 
 Peter, Stephen, John. It was so in the days of 
 Savonarola, John Huss, Wickliffe, and so on, and 
 it is so to-day. Men have seen men whose lives 
 bore the marks of miracle. 
 
 Bishop Ridley preached in British Columbia to 
 the savage Indians. No impression was made 
 until the Indians saw something in him that was 
 divine, and of the other world, something above 
 man, a love and patience superhuman. Then a 
 few, the few who knew him well, believed. They 
 built a little church. The unbelieving Indians 
 burned it down. Ridley and his converts knelt 
 and prayed for their persecutors. Their perse- 
 cutors believed, and became Christians because 
 they saw what they recognized as a miracle. 
 Here was something so far above man that they 
 at once ascribed it to the Jesus divine whom the 
 missionaries preached. 
 
 We do not need to look for cases like this. 
 They can be found in the whole history of mis- 
 sions, home and foreign, and all mission fields 
 to-day blossom with these miracles of the divine 
 Christ in man. 
 
 There are unconverted people all around us; 
 
148 How Know that Jesus Christ Is Alive 
 
 what proof have they that Jesus Christ is the Son 
 of God and alive? The Bible says He is, but they 
 ask, "Is the Bible true?" The answer is the 
 lives of Christians. Just in proportion as we 
 show ourselves like Christ, show ourselves of 
 heaven more than earth, just so much will men 
 believe in our crucified Redeemer. 
 
 Thank God, we have miracles of grace among 
 us. We all have loved ones, or friends, who show 
 by their lives a power that can come from 
 nowhere but Christ. 
 
 A prisoner in a deep, dark cell, with a window 
 high above his head knows the sun is risen, 
 because, though he cannot see it, he beholds the 
 light within his dungeon walls. So we know 
 that Christ is risen because His celestial light is 
 shining all around us. 
 
 The tomb of sin is made resplendent with light 
 immortal, as each soul is renewed, in the image of 
 God and raised from the dead, and stands among 
 men as much a miracle as when Lazarus, in 
 response to a divine call, stepped from the rock- 
 sealed sepulchre. 
 
 A moral miracle is more potent than a physical 
 miracle. The raising of Lazarus converted none ; 
 but the death of Stephen made men believe. It 
 was something for a dead man to be raised by 
 Christ, but it was a greater thing for a living 
 man to die for Christ. It is also just as great for 
 one to live for Christ as to die for Him. 
 
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