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 The Faith and 
 Christian 
 
 life 
 
 of 
 
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(Breen ffunfc JBoofc Ifto. t4 
 
 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF 
 A CHRISTIAN 
 
 
 BY 
 
 FI/)YD W. TOMKINS, S.T.D., IJ*D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF u FOEI<OWING CHRIST," "BEACONS ON EIFE'S 
 VOYAGE," ETC. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION 
 
 1816 Chestnut Street 
 
 1909 
 
Copyright, 1909, by thb American Sunday-School Union. 
 
DEDICATED TO 
 
 Wm gwwtaro ^ttndaa-^cli00l m»i0tt 
 
 WHOSE BOOKS AND WORKS 
 
 HAVE BEEN 
 
 MY DELIGHT FROM MY YOUTH. 
 
EDITOR'S NOTE. 
 
 This volume is issued by the American Sunday-School 
 Union under the John C. Green Income Fund. The Fund 
 was founded in 1877, by Robert Lenox Kennedy, on behalf 
 of the residuary legatees of John C. Green, and with the cor- 
 dial concurrence of Mrs. Green. Among other things, the 
 gift provides that one -sixth of the net interest and income of 
 the Fund shall be set aside; and whenever the same amounts 
 to one thousand dollars the Union shall apply the sum "for 
 the purpose of aiding in securing a Sunday-school literature 
 of the highest order of merit." This may be done "either by 
 procuring works upon a given subject germane to the objects 
 of the Society, to be written or compiled by authors of estab- 
 lished reputation and known ability, ... or by offering 
 premiums for manuscripts suitable for publication by said 
 Union, in accordance with the purposes and objects of its in- 
 stitution." The premium plan is to be followed at least once 
 out of every three times. The Union is to control the copy- 
 right, reducing the price of the book in consideration thereof. 
 The individual traits and responsibility of the author are 
 retained by giving him large liberty respecting the literary 
 form, style and treatment of the subject. Three prize volumes 
 have been issued this year under the premium plan. 
 
 So much has been said in our time concerning "new the- 
 ology," "new religion," and the character of the Bible, that 
 many become confused and perplexed in regard to the ground 
 of their religious faith. 
 
 It seemed timely, therefore, for a restatement of Christian 
 truth and life, in terms of present-day thought. It is a satis- 
 faction to the American Sunday-School Union to be able to 
 publish this practical work on " The Faith and Life of a 
 Christian," by one distinguished as a minister of Jesus Christ, 
 and competent to voice anew the principles of the kingdom 
 of God laid down by its Founder, and to re-echo the gospel 
 call to personal discipleship in that kingdom. 
 
 E. W. R. 
 Philadelphia, November, 1909, 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGK 
 
 Introduction 9 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Christ the Centre 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Man, God's Child through Christ 28 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Christ's Relationship to Man 42 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Man's Relationship to Christ 56 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Moral Life , , 70 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Life of Service 81 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Public Life 90 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Life of Fellowship 102 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Church Life Ill 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Means of Grace 123 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 The Bible 132 
 
 7 
 
3 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Prayer 142 
 
 CHAPTER XIH. 
 Public Worship 150 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Lord's Supper 161 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Sacrifice 171 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Consecration 181 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 The Body 193 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 The Mind 202 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The Soul 213 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 Temptations 224 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 Hope 233 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 Immortality 241 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 The Joy of the Christian 251 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Conclusion 259 
 
 Index 265 
 
cer- 
 tainty. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In* these days when much of novelty 
 and contradiction faces us in religious 
 teaching and preaching, a simple com- 
 pendium of the essentials of Christianity 
 as they have been held from the first is 
 greatly needed. Men are confused in this wen want 
 century by the vagaries of modern thought. 
 They know not what to believe, and they 
 are hungry for certainty, that their religion 
 may comfort and sustain them. They 
 can hardly credit the statement that God 
 has given no specific revelation as to 
 human faith and human life. Like Philip 
 they cry : " Show us the Father, and it 
 sufficeth us." And all the while the quiet 
 voice of Him Who came and lived amongst 
 us that men might know, is sounding its 
 pathetic answer : " Have I been so long time 
 with you, and yet hast thou not known 
 me ? " However the application of the mes- 
 sages of the Christ may vary in their adap- 
 tation to the needs of individuals and ages, 
 the one Truth remains the same ; for Jesus 
 9 
 
10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Christ is the same, yesterday, and to-day, 
 and forever. We must bring men back 
 to the old Gospel foundation which can 
 never change, and then they can be fear- 
 less in the midst of confusion and in their 
 own strength inspire others with courage. 
 Perplexing There is also much perplexity to-day as 
 tions. to the relationship between faith and duty. 
 Men question not only the basis of moral- 
 ity, but as well the power of Christianity 
 to make the life pure and the heart brave. 
 They want the comfort of religion to guide 
 them in the daily conflict, and the peace 
 of God to enable them to face calmly and 
 hopefully the future. " Is not your faith 
 something by which we may live ? " they 
 cry. " If it is a fact, then we are ready 
 to accept it, but it must prove itself worthy 
 of our acceptance by the power it can give." 
 The story of the church in the world 
 ought to bring an answer; but few read 
 history and fewer understand it. That the 
 only power amongst men to guide and 
 comfort and inspire is Christianity; that 
 the Lord is amongst His people always, 
 and that He knows, and cares, and blesses 
 all who will accept His priceless gifts, — 
 this is not commonly understood. Why 
 this is so, when we have so many churches 
 
INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 and so many preachers and so many Sun- 
 day-schools and Bible Classes, cannot be 
 explained in a paragraph, but few will 
 deny the indictment. If in any way we 
 can turn from strong meat to the sincere 
 milk of the Word ; if we can go back and 
 read the old story with new delight and 
 cheer, then there is assurance for us. To 
 bring again the very alphabet of Christian 
 truth, that men may learn to spell God's 
 goodness, is the purpose of this little book. 
 With all its imperfections, it claims that 
 what it says is true. 
 
 It has not entered into the scope of our 
 pages to notice, still less to answer, modern 
 criticisms of the Bible or of the Gospel. 
 Wise men have done this and done it well. 
 Sufficient is it for our purpose to make 
 positive statements of the "faith once 
 delivered." We do not need in these days 
 to lay again the foundations; it were an 
 impertinence, if not an act of irreverence, 
 so to do. What is needed is a strong re- Message to 
 iteration of the message which has brought Jj^ 
 peace and progress wherever it has been 
 delivered for 1900 years. Even as we 
 turn again and again to some dear Bible 
 verse which we have known from our child- 
 hood and find it ever new and inspiring, so 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 we — though we may be most devout and 
 orthodox — need to " rehearse the articles 
 of our belief," that, like water to the 
 thirsty, they may refresh and save us. 
 The aged Christian dies with the words 
 upon his lips which he learned in child- 
 hood from his mother. So our strength 
 in life's battle, and our grace for dying, 
 lie in no new revelation, but in the old 
 fount of divine glory which flows and has 
 ever flowed from Christ, the Eternal Son 
 of God. 
 
 ]STo attempt has been made to treat the 
 Gospel theologically in this book. Able 
 men have done this for those who are to 
 teach and to instruct teachers. This is 
 rather a devotional treatment ; for the vast 
 majority of Christians it satisfies the need 
 to appeal to the heart rather than to the 
 head, so long as the appeal is based upon 
 exact truth. It is hoped, therefore, that 
 this book may be helpful to many who 
 desire a knowledge of Christian truth, and 
 may serve as a companion in the religious 
 life. Like all human productions it is 
 faulty; but being written with sincere 
 prayer for guidance it is sent forth with a 
 reliance upon the Holy Spirit, that He 
 may both pardon its imperfections and use 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 it for the advancement of God's glory and 
 the building up of His children. With 
 the benediction of God even the simplest 
 effort may accomplish great good. May 
 such a benediction go with these pages! 
 Floyd W. Tomkins. 
 
 Philadelphia, 1909. 
 
 Church of the Holy Trinity. 
 
THE FAITH AND LIFE OF 
 A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 CHAPTEK L 
 
 CHRIST THE CENTRE. 
 
 Untie Christ came to earth there was 
 no clear knowledge as to life's origin or 
 meaning or end. The patriarchs believed 
 in God, but He was only a God superior 
 to the gods of the heathen nations about 
 them. God revealed Himself to the Jews 
 through Moses and the Prophets, but still 
 He was veiled in His being and in His 
 nature. By inspiration the great writers 
 made the veil thin and gave utterance to 
 glorious truths, but we understand their 
 words better than even the men who uttered 
 them because Christ has come and told us 
 their meaning. We hardly realize, until 
 we stop to think of it, how the Old Testa- 
 ment is full of comfort and assurance to 
 15 
 
16 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 us because the Master has made it so. In 
 a lesser way the words of some great Ro- 
 man and Greek writers, though uninspired, 
 help us because we read them as they are 
 lighted up by the eternal and blessed glow 
 of the Light of the World. Marcus Aure- 
 lius and Socrates, about whom men are 
 talking much to-day, bring us good mes- 
 sages because we read into them the very 
 atmosphere of Christianity. Of every- 
 thing, life's beginning, life's endurance, 
 life's pleasure or pain, and life's end, 
 Jesus Christ is the interpretation. 
 Jesus the \y e neec { t fix our minds upon this great 
 preter of event of the world's history. Christianity 
 1 e ' is not a religion ; it is not a philosophy, 
 
 or a moral code, or a theory to account for 
 man's progress. It is a great, glorious fact. 
 God came to earth in the Person of Jesus 
 Christ. He was here amongst men and 
 made clear that which had never been clear 
 before ; and in the light of that life, in the 
 power of Christ's death and resurrection 
 and ascension, the world has been moving 
 ever since. Men, Jews and heathen alike, 
 were confused and weary before Christ 
 came. It was a strange career they were 
 running, and they could see no purpose or 
 promise in it at all. The story the his- 
 
CHRIST THE CENTRE. 17 
 
 torians tell us of the world's condition, 
 moral, intellectual and religious, before the 
 hour came when the angels began their 
 carol on Bethlehem's hills — that grand pro- 
 cessional in the worship which has never 
 ceased — is a startling one. Everything 
 was riotous in life and brain and nation. 
 Apparently men had tried in every way to 
 reach happiness, and in every way had 
 failed. There was nothing left. Life was 
 simply " a muddle," and no one could en- 
 lighten himself or his fellows regarding it. 
 The clouds hung heavily; love's song had 
 died away, for it had been sung as an ex- 
 pression of hunger rather than as an as- 
 surance; good and evil were confused, and 
 there was no plan by which they could be 
 distinguished; work was a mockery; gov- 
 ernment a confused failure; home a name 
 only; thought a demon driving men to de- 
 spair. What was there to anticipate? 
 What power had memory, since there was 
 no radiance by which the past could be 
 made clear ? Men were all either Stoics or 
 Epicureans, practically; the former, few 
 in number, crying : " We know nothing 
 and can know nothing, but let us endure 
 it and die like men; " the latter shouting: 
 " We know nothing and can know nothing ; 
 
18 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 let us yield to-day to the delights of passion, 
 for to-morrow we die." 
 Light of And then came this glorious daybreak, 
 
 world. The Light of the World appeared. He 
 did not burn the world of men by a maj- 
 esty they could not endure. He did not 
 drive them as enemies until they submitted 
 to a rule of righteousness and faith. Oh, 
 the very marvel of the manner of that 
 coming proves its divine blessedness and 
 power ! For Jesus just shone as a light in 
 a darkened world, and men kindled their 
 little tapers at the flame of His holiness, 
 and the glow began to spread, just as the 
 glow of the rising sun spreads from moun- 
 tain-top to sea, and from tree to flower, 
 gradually, surely, comfortingly. A hun- 
 dred years, and the world was practically 
 revolutionized, " turned .... upside 
 down " as the Thessalonians said (Acts 
 17:6). The seed was sown. The light 
 was kindled. Jesus was worshipped. 
 Christianity had begun its work. Christ 
 henceforth was to stand as the Centre of 
 the world. 
 
 It must not be thought to detract from 
 this glory that the world is still so far 
 from a perfect condition. Light travels 
 speedily, and yet the light of some star 
 
CHRIST THE CENTRE. 19 
 
 which began speeding on its way, astrono- 
 mers tell us, six thousand years ago, has 
 only just reached us. So the Almighty 
 works in nature; the seed, the blade, the 
 full corn in the ear. To us it seems a slow 
 progress which humanity is making. And 
 yet when we look at the earth's history in 
 a large way, the progress has really been 
 startling. The ground had to be prepared 
 over a large portion of the world before 
 any planting could be done. The early 
 Christians did not even know what the 
 earth was; they could only go to adjacent 
 places and preach. Through the " dark 
 ages " as we call them, from the 5th to the 
 12th centuries, the preparation was going 
 on. And in these latter days the truth is 
 speeding so rapidly that to trace its ad- 
 vance almost causes us to grow dizzy. 
 Every nation and every island of the sea 
 is now ready for the message of Christ, and 
 Christian men are straining every nerve 
 to preach it. We are living in a mission- 
 ary era such as the world has never known. 
 
 As Christ is the Centre of the world's Christ the 
 life, so He is the Centre of the individual 
 life. We have grown so familiar with our 
 blessings that we scarcely realize their 
 glory. The man looks at his years, and 
 
20 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 they no longer, as did the years of the 
 ancients who knew not the Lord, pass as a 
 vapor. He knows — even if he is not 
 really a personal follower of Christ — that 
 there is a God Who made him, a God to 
 meet him when he dies, and a work to be 
 done while he lives. From God, for God, 
 to God — so the interpretation of existence 
 runs, and the man knows it, feels it, ac- 
 knowledges it by every act of every day. 
 In the light which Christ kindled every 
 man is basking; everything about him, 
 every thought and emotion within him, 
 bears witness to Christ. The nation in 
 which he peaceably lives and pursues his 
 business; the home in whose sacred con- 
 fines he finds his rest; the schools which 
 care for his children; the physicians who 
 heal his sickness; the food he eats, the 
 books he reads, the friendships he forms — 
 about them all shines this blessed Chris- 
 tian atmosphere which has become so nat- 
 ural a thing that he hardly thinks of it 
 any more than he thinks of the air he 
 breathes or the pulsations of his heart 
 which keep him alive. Take away from 
 any man his conscious or unconscious faith 
 in Christ — and I do not except even those 
 who pretend to deny the Christ — and he 
 
CHRIST THE CENTRE. 21 
 
 is absolutely lost, so strongly has the Mas- 
 ter established Himself as the Centre about 
 Whom all human existence revolves. This 
 needs no proof; it is self-evident. A 
 life from which the Christ has gone with 
 all the direct and indirect influence of His 
 love, His patience, His truth, His prom- 
 ises, His forgiveness, His Heaven! Why, 
 it is impossible to conceive of it until you 
 reduce man to the level of the unintelligent 
 and unemotional beast ! Not only is Chris- 
 tianity as a fact, a power in the world and 
 in his companion's life, something for 
 which the man must account and with 
 which he must deal, but he himself is in- 
 fluenced by the personal Christ ; daily His 
 teachings mold or seek to mold his life; 
 hourly His words come to his lips, and con- 
 stantly his judgments are fashioned by the 
 magnetic and divine example of the Mas- 
 ter Who made love and sacrifice the prin- 
 ciples of living. 
 
 Let us go a little more into particulars, Of right 
 and see how Christ is the Centre of the JJL. 
 world's life and of the personal life of each 
 man. And first, w T e note the way in which 
 right and wrong are referred to Him for 
 judgment. Christianity, not as preached 
 by men, but as taught by the Master, is the 
 
 wrong. 
 
THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 centre of decision to which are brought 
 alike abstract questions and particular 
 issues. We can read England's Magna 
 Charta and the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence and know that they proceeded from 
 no Christless governments. Constitutions 
 of nations and special court decisions, 
 arbitration settlements and legal opinions 
 are so based, not upon the power of the 
 stronger over the weaker but upon the 
 foundations of mercy and love and sacri- 
 fice, that an easy analysis can bring them 
 all to balance with the Lord's direct teach- 
 ings. And with the individual where a 
 keener personal equation enters, under all 
 questions of duty and fairness and even of 
 mercy, arises inevitably the query : " Is 
 this what God wishes ? " Christ revealed 
 sin as not merely a breaking of law but as 
 a wounding of the love and desire of our 
 Best Friend. Not consciously always or 
 often do we measure right or wrong by an 
 exact comparison with Christ's life or an 
 absolute adherence to His words; but so 
 nearly has He entered into our living with 
 His loving guardianship that we instinc- 
 tively look to Him for approval, and can 
 instantly tell whether we have it or not. 
 In other words right and wrong are no 
 
CHRIST THE CENTRE. 23 
 
 longer measured by power or by wrath or 
 even by the disguised vengeance which we 
 poor humans call " punishment/' but by 
 the will of God. Philosophy and the 
 psychology of legal ethics are forgotten; 
 might which used to make right is dis- 
 credited; abstract decisions disregarding 
 circumstances are not recognized. A 
 higher law has entered which no statute 
 can adequately frame nor any words shape 
 in perfection ; it is the law of the di- 
 vine will revealed to us by Him Who came 
 to earth nineteen hundred years ago. 
 " What wilt thou have me to do ? " That 
 cry of St. Paul, stricken on his way to 
 Damascus, has become the guide to action, 
 and has made Him to Whom it was ad- 
 dressed the one Arbiter in the affairs of 
 men. 
 
 Again, we mark Christ as the Centre in Of human 
 our human relationships. How can we g^ 
 explain the rapid spread of the brother- 
 hood idea, which is drawing nations to- 
 gether and entering with daring into the 
 economics of life so that no man can carry 
 on his business regardless of the interests 
 of producer and consumer? Is it born 
 out of an irreligious philosophy? Traces 
 of it can be found in the best thought of 
 
THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Greece and Rome, but it received no 
 credence. Is it the result of association? 
 Nations dwelt side by side for long and 
 knew no brotherhood in either theory or 
 practice. We find the germ in the early 
 Church, a seed planted by the Master and 
 slowly but surely developing until to-day 
 slavery is unknown and men are judged 
 by character rather than by the color of 
 their skin or by their bank account. If 
 slow in coming to recognition and not yet 
 complete in its influence, we can have no 
 hesitation, if we think and read at all, in 
 saying that this brotherhood idea is in the 
 air to-day and in the air with such com- 
 manding power that nations and men are 
 looking up and reconstructing their old 
 methods to meet its imperious edicts. 
 Men are talking a great deal to-day about 
 socialism. Well, there are many kinds of 
 socialism, some of them wild, some foolish, 
 some impossible; but true socialism is 
 simply brotherhood, and our Christ in that 
 regard has been termed, and rightly, the 
 first Socialist because He taught the prin- 
 ciples of man's brotherhood as deduced 
 from the fact of God's fatherhood. Indi- 
 vidualism, which led every man to do that 
 which was right in his own eyes, is as dead 
 
CHRIST THE CENTRE. 25 
 
 to-day as the old philosophers who first gave 
 it expression. It will never know a resur- 
 rection. And the reason why a man should 
 love his brother is found in no evolution of 
 a human idea but in the direct power of 
 that dear faith which the Lord Jesus gave, 
 and which, after all these years, is coming 
 to the throne. 
 
 Yet once more, Christ is the Centre as Hope of 
 regards the hope of the future. Men have ture# 
 always had unconquerable hope. They 
 could not believe that death was the end of 
 all. But alas ! how little this hope availed 
 until Christ came and brought life and im- 
 mortality to light! Shall we meet again? 
 Shall we live again ? And eye sought eye 
 in the burning desire that some assurance, 
 might be given, but no assurance came. It 
 was all a big interrogation point with the 
 balance in favor of final extinction. Those 
 were sad years, as sad as is now the life of 
 one who, in the midst of Christian sunshine 
 still rests in the shadow of despair. But 
 the clouds have gone ! Death is swallowed 
 up in victory! The Master of Life not 
 only rose from the dead but He declared 
 concerning the future such glorious things 
 that human life has been ringing with them 
 ever since. ~No wonder the world's ad- 
 
hope. 
 
 26 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 vance began as Christ was preached! En- 
 large man's atmosphere, proclaim his im- 
 mortality, and nothing is impossible for 
 him. If I know I am going to live forever 
 then the wings of my flight are undipped 
 and my feet and hands unpalsied, and I 
 am free and strong. 
 Results of It would take volumes to tell all that has 
 come to us as a result of this hope which 
 is a certainty through Christ. All the 
 marvels of discovery and invention, all the 
 fearlessness of endeavor and struggle, all 
 the emancipations from gloom and selfish- 
 ness, the deepening of friendships, the 
 holiness of relationships, the assurance of 
 final understanding where things here are 
 perplexing, the mutual binding of hearts 
 and hands in high deeds of mercy and 
 goodness — these are only suggestions of 
 what it means to say that Christ is the 
 Centre of the world's hope. ISTo longer 
 have we any horizon to shut us in. As I 
 look from my window and see the ocean 
 and sky meeting, yet know, notwithstand- 
 ing, of the lands beyond where the earth's 
 hills still leap and flowers make fragrant 
 the laughter of my brothers, so I look to 
 the sky and it is no longer brass, for I can 
 see through it and hear the songs of the 
 
CHRIST THE CENTRE. 27 
 
 redeemed, and know that I have a place 
 beyond when my place here shall know me 
 no more. You ask me how I know, and I 
 point you to Christ, and then to the world's 
 life, and then to human progress; and 
 then I bid you listen and hear the glad cry 
 going up from human lips all over the 
 round world — a cry of victory, a Te Deum 
 of magnificent praise in which God's works 
 on earth and the angels of Heaven join. 
 Christ is the Centre of it all. 
 
 O, Galilean, Thou hast conquered! 
 Though still poor weakness holds us, and 
 we are sin-stained as men who are travel- 
 ling, yet Thou art our glory, for Thou art 
 the Centre of all things and of all living. 
 Let my little life revolve about Thine that 
 it may shine in Thy light. Let my mind 
 fly to Thee, that it may think Thy thoughts. 
 Let my heart be touched by Thy love that 
 I may do Thy will. Yea, dear Christ, let 
 me see Thee, face to face, in all pure- 
 heartedness, that I may know myself to be 
 held in Thine arms, and that I am a part 
 of Thy plan and a child of Thy mercy. 
 Amen. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 MAN, GODS CHILD THROUGH CHEIST. 
 
 We have seen that Christ is the Centre 
 of all life. He is the Power about Whom 
 all move, and we gain our significance from 
 Him as the earth gains her light and her 
 seasons by revolving around the sun. 
 Without Him we cannot live. Only as we 
 live in and through Him can we accom- 
 plish anything. 
 God's Let us see now what Christianity has 
 
 to say about our relationship to God 
 through Jesus Christ. We need to under- 
 stand this in order to know how we can 
 approach God. If He is a great Being far 
 removed from us, a mighty Force unknow- 
 able and unknown, a Mystery concerning 
 Whom one can only conjecture; or if He 
 be hidden entirely from us so that, as some 
 of our modern philosophers declare, we can 
 only say He is absolutely incomprehensible 
 and the idea of Him is inconceivable, then 
 we are virtually fatherless; we are ignor- 
 28 
 
MAN, GOD'S CHILD THROUGH CHRIST. 29 
 
 ant of our beginning, we know not whence 
 we came. But if God has been revealed to 
 us so that we can both know and love Him, 
 so that we can talk to Him and hear Him 
 speak to us, then we have the delight of 
 children and can realize our importance 
 as children of God. ISTow Christianity 
 teaches us that God has been revealed to us 
 through Christ. " He that hath seen me 
 hath seen the Father," said our Lord (St. 
 John 14: 9). And Jesus told us just what 
 our relationship is to the great Creator of 
 heaven and earth ; we are the " children 
 of God." Children of God! That is a 
 startling and wonderful truth! We love 
 our parents, and he is a poor child who has 
 no pride in being his father's son, his 
 mother's offspring. Our first conception 
 as infants is of a mother. Our first words 
 are formed by our conscious relationship 
 to her. There is a holiness in the cry we 
 hear from children's lips : " Mamma ! 
 Papa ! " Yet there is a truth holier and 
 grander. The " Lord of all being, throned 
 afar," as Oliver Wendell Holmes calls 
 Him, is my Father. He Who made and 
 rules and controls and holds the destiny 
 of all things in His hands, made me, is the 
 origin of my being. Human though I am, 
 
God as 
 power. 
 
 30 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 I am divine by creation. Weak though I 
 am, I have the power of the Infinite be- 
 hind me. To remember that is to know 
 self-reverence. 
 
 At first God was only known to men as 
 a mighty hidden power. He talked, in- 
 deed, to Adam and to Noah, but they 
 never seemed to realize their relationship 
 to Him, either because of their imperfect 
 development or because God veiled Him- 
 self under the guise of an angel. They 
 offered sacrifices to Him on altars as the 
 heathen do to-day. They cried to Him in 
 their fear as the wicked do to-day. But 
 they did not know Him. At last through 
 Abraham God let men know that He was 
 their Creator, and that brought Him nearer, 
 though it is doubtful whether the patri- 
 archs understood the meaning of Father- 
 hood. To Moses God revealed Himself 
 as a Being Who must be obeyed, a Being 
 of Power Who could work miracles, and 
 destroy and build up. And to the prophets 
 He came nearer still and gave promise that 
 at some future time He would come 
 amongst His people. But that is all we 
 can get out of the Old Testament. Men 
 crying " Oh, that I knew where I might 
 find him/' and dying without the sight or 
 
JUAN, GOD'S CHILD THROUGH CHRIST. 31 
 
 the knowledge. In the New Testament 
 the sun rises and darkness flees away. 
 God, Who made man, came to earth in 
 Jesus Christ. And Christ took us who 
 were God's children by creation, but wan- 
 dering far away in ignorance and sin, and 
 made us God's children by adoption, made 
 us heirs of His Kingdom, the children of 
 His everlasting love and care. Now all 
 who will, all who accept Christ's leader- 
 ship, can see in three directions the mercy 
 of God : His creation behind them, for they 
 came from God; His recreation in their 
 lives, for through Christ they are made 
 new in heart and spirit; His final exalta- 
 tion, for at last they shall see Him as He 
 is, see Him face to face, and know Him 
 even as He now knows them. 
 
 Let us pause here for a moment to medi- God's 
 tate on this great truth which can be told 
 in so few words. How marvellous it is! 
 Here am I, with a part of my life behind 
 me, — and it is not a very creditable part ; 
 I have not much to be proud of in the 
 years I have lived; no man has. In the 
 present I feel my weakness, beset as I am 
 by temptations and fears and trials, and 
 the way at best is very lonesome. The 
 future, many years or few I know not, is 
 
 mercy. 
 
32 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 all uncertain. At last death, and the world 
 of new men forgets me ! What a miser- 
 able lot! Is it worth while? But look 
 towards the East! See the faint light 
 driving the shadows before it! Mark the 
 glowing radiance as hill and valley, sea 
 and sky, leaf and flower are tipped with 
 glorious color. Then look, the sun brings 
 his golden light, the brilliancy of his power 
 asserts itself, the night is gone, day is 
 here. So the Sun of righteousness came 
 long ago to a weary, dispirited race. At 
 first the light was dim and men could only 
 hope. Then the coloring came to life and 
 there was a transfiguration. And finally 
 the full glory of Christ appeared and man 
 was given his freedom. " Let there be 
 light," cried again He Who was the Light 
 of the World, and then the human learned 
 in the day of Christianity that which has 
 given him the wings of immortality. I 
 look behind me now, and at the horizon is 
 God. I look before me, and on the banks 
 of the River I see God waiting for me. I 
 look around me, and lo, each task and each 
 trial carries my name, inscribed thereon by 
 the finger of God ; they are mine, given to 
 me by Him. From God, to God, for God 
 — that is my life. And the sin?, the fail- 
 
MAN, GOD'S CHILD THROUGH CHRIST. 33 
 
 ures, the doubts can no more bar my way 
 to my King than the fly which stings his 
 cheek can bar the way to the soldier who 
 is rushing to the hill where the banner of 
 victory is waving. 
 
 How Christ did this for us, how He Redemp- 
 
 tive 
 
 made us God's reclaimed children, we will power, 
 tell later. Let us now see what the actual 
 power of Christ's redemption means to us 
 in our daily living. And first of all, it 
 means a clear knowledge of our origin and 
 our end. It seems strange if we can tell 
 whence things about us came and yet be 
 ignorant whence we ourselves came. This 
 watch was made by a watchmaker; it did 
 not make itself. This book was written by 
 a man; he thought the truths it contains, 
 and the printer took his words and pressed 
 them upon paper, and other men can read 
 them. This flower grew from a seed or a 
 bulb planted in the ground. But whence 
 came I ? Did any man make me ? Is 
 there any ground whence I sprang, I, with 
 my thoughts and longings and hopes and 
 loves ? Who made me ? The watchmaker 
 made the watch, but who made the watch- 
 maker and gave him his skill ? The man 
 wrote the book, but who made the author 
 and whence came his thoughts? To be 
 
34 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN, 
 
 unable to answer that question is to be 
 wrapt in the deepest gloom. If I cannot 
 assert my origin I am a waif indeed. But 
 here comes my declaration leaping out of 
 my lips, my eyes, my heart : " God made 
 me; He is my Father; He was once on 
 earth and men saw Him and He told them 
 the truth ; He made us worthy of our high 
 birth and took us by the hand, all cleansed 
 and gloriously clothed, and brought us to 
 God. I know Who made me ! " What a 
 splendid cry of victorious knowledge that 
 is as it rings through the dull earth-ways 
 and rises in the air with its song! It is 
 the Christian's cry. He knows. His 
 Christ has told him. 
 Sonship Again, this knowledge of our sonship 
 
 service, and of the Fatherhood of God inspires to 
 noble service. Everything we do becomes 
 intelligible. We are no longer " hewing 
 out roads to a wall." Our " long, laborious 
 quest " is not a blind effort to sustain life 
 and escape pain. As the interest of the 
 Prince is the care of the King's realm, so 
 the son of God knows he has God's work 
 to do, and all things, little and great, in- 
 significant or apparently of great impor- 
 tance, are a part of the service He calls 
 upon him to render. In other words life 
 
MAN, GOD'S CHILD THROUGH CHRIST. 35 
 
 becomes full of meaning and full of power. 
 Every task, every opportunity, every word, 
 every relationship is exalted, for it is a 
 part of the Almighty's plan which He has 
 placed His children here on earth to exe- 
 cute. " Christ set men to work," cried a 
 man once after reading the Gospel through. 
 Yes, He set men to work, or rather He 
 threw a new meaning and power into the 
 work men were already doing. We are 
 working now as God's redeemed sons. 
 
 It is only as this, new light shines upon Light and 
 us that we can really live. Existence is a e * 
 poor thing for human beings. Stones 
 exist, and through God's will and man's 
 service they are forced into use. But man 
 lives. He is a factor. He takes things by 
 the power of his Maker and fashions them. 
 That is the great secret which unlocks his- 
 tory and the advance of humanity since 
 Christ came, and without it all the past is 
 but confusion even as all the future must 
 be mystery. It makes clear the struggles 
 and the pains. If man was made God's 
 son through the sufferings of Christ, then 
 man can hardly hope to do God's work 
 without pain. And so pain becomes not 
 only a glory as it proves that we are doing 
 our Creator's work, but a bond of union 
 
36 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 between the Lord and ourselves. It gives, 
 too, a system to the world'3 work. We are 
 seeking a transformation; we are recreat- 
 ing, even as Christ recreated. All efforts, 
 all prayers, all exhortation, every stand 
 taken for the right are lifted up into the 
 great world-wide, age-long plan of the 
 Almighty and made a part of the glory 
 which is sure to come in God's good time. 
 
 Father and But best of all this sonship brings us 
 child. . , ,,.1.' 
 
 into a dear personal relationship to our 
 
 Father. We can talk to Him, and listen 
 to Him when He speaks to us, and hold 
 communion with Him, even as a wise son 
 with an earthly father and a loving earthly 
 father with, a loyal son. " How good it is 
 to see father and son so companionable," 
 said a woman as she saw a man and his son 
 associate familiarly together! It is in- 
 deed a pleasant and all too rare sight. But 
 the best part of it is the illustration it 
 gives of the way we can be one with our 
 heavenly Father in all we are, in all we 
 do, in the reading of His Word, and in the 
 hearing of His messages in nature and in 
 our personal experiences. No blindness 
 can there be for us if w r e know our sonship ; 
 we can read truths written as plainly in 
 sky and hill and sea and flower as the law 
 
MAN, GOD'S CHILD THROUGH CHRIST. 37 
 
 was written on the tablets of stone on 
 Sinai. No dread of sin can make us hide 
 ourselves, for Christ has taken sin away. 
 No trouble or grief can make us think our 
 God has forgotten us, for we know how 
 these trials are the studies to develop char- 
 acter and to give wisdom. Oh, this holy 
 fellowship with the Infinite which makes 
 life sublime, how it lifts us to new realms, 
 gives us new pleasures, opens new paths 
 and sings us new songs ! "lam Thine — 
 Thou art Mine " — so the heavenly duetto 
 rises as spirit meets with spirit, and we 
 know that which was and is hidden from 
 sages and philosophers, from the wise and 
 prudent, and is now revealed unto babes. 
 
 All these privileges are ours if we ac- Our 
 cept the redeeming love of Christ and con- 
 fess Him as our Saviour. It is no com- 
 plicated arrangement, nor does it demand 
 either credulity or fanaticism. It is a 
 simple fact in the world's history, as clear 
 and strong and well authenticated as the 
 discovery of America or the Copernican 
 system concerning the ruling of the heav- 
 enly bodies. " The Son of God was made 
 Son of man, that sons of men might become 
 sons of God." With the grasping of the 
 life and death and resurrection and ascen- 
 
 Saviour. 
 
38 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 sion of Jesus of Nazareth came the new 
 life. Rome was turned from heathenism 
 to Christianity, and men were made brave 
 to lay down their lives that it might be 
 accomplished. The new truth spread 
 through continents and through the islands 
 of the sea, and everywhere there came new 
 methods of living and new progress. Love 
 took the place of hate. Peace spread her 
 banner and cruel wars began to be dis- 
 credited. Study of God's earth and of 
 God's laws claimed men's best endeavors. 
 To help men rather than to destroy them 
 became the rule. Churches were built that 
 those who were God's adopted sons might 
 meet together and worship and learn how 
 the Master would have them live. Educa- 
 tion became the watchword of civilization. 
 The terror of death subsided, and flowers 
 were strewn upon the tombs to express the 
 faith of the mourners in a continued life 
 and a larger sphere of progress. Moral 
 standards were elevated, and men learned 
 the difference between right and wrong, be- 
 tween truth and a lie, between justice and 
 injustice. Not yet, indeed, has the fulness 
 come. Still there are failures and still 
 there are the blind who will not see. But 
 in spite of all the great flood of light is 
 
MAN, GOD'S CHILD THROUGH CHRIST. 39 
 
 spreading, a flood which no man, no devil, 
 can hinder or delay. The world is soon 
 to be Christ's. " Oh, Galilean, Thou hast 
 conquered ! " 
 
 The practical question is whether we New life 
 have accepted our privilege, whether we Christ, 
 have entered the new life, whether through 
 Christ we are openly by confession the sons 
 of God, whether the blessed freedom of 
 Christianity is ours. To help men answer 
 this question, to call them to this honor, to 
 explain to them how it may be theirs, is 
 the part of the Church with all her acces- 
 sories. The Bible proclaims it. The 
 ministers of the gospel urge it. The 
 Church sends her missionaries everywhere, 
 Bible in hand, to declare it. She opens 
 her doors and compels men to come in. 
 She cries out against the wrongs which bar 
 the way. She claims the sovereignty of 
 Christ over all the affairs of men. 
 
 And in the silent hours when the soul is 
 alone, when the earth-life is shut out, when 
 the things of our experience face us with 
 exaggerated importance, when friendships 
 plead for service, and the future calls us 
 with relentless demand — then the question 
 of questions speaks, and the Father looks 
 down upon us and asks us if we accept the 
 
40 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 glory He offers, and the Christ asks if we 
 are willing to take His free gift. " Am I 
 a son of God ? " — so runs the question. 
 At first there is confusion — " I cannot 
 understand." Then there is fear: " God 
 is so great and I but an atom in the uni- 
 verse, here to-day, gone forever to-mor- 
 row ! " Again comes the accusing voice : 
 " I am full of sin ; how dare I look up and 
 call the Holy and the Almighty my Father, 
 or call my sin-stained self His son ? " And 
 what then ? Then comes the vision of a life, 
 of a Person with arms outstretched and call- 
 ing " Come ! " Then comes the Cross with 
 the suffering Body but the triumphant Be- 
 ing of that Person fixed thereon, and cry- 
 ing " It is finished ! " Then comes the 
 divine word : " Whosoever will, let him 
 take of the w 7 ater of life freely." And at 
 the sight and the sound reason ceases her 
 attempt to comprehend love, fear flies as 
 the cloud before the sun, sin is forgotten 
 as the black earth is hidden by the white 
 snow, and the heart cries out : " My 
 Father, oh, my Father ! " It is the work 
 of Christ Who has brought back the wan- 
 derer to the Father's house, and there is a 
 sound of rejoicing before the White 
 Throne. 
 
MAN, GOD'S CHILD THROUGH CHRIST. 41 
 
 O, my Christ, before Thee I bow, not 
 in fear but in full gratitude that Thou hast 
 brought to me the message of the Father's 
 love and by Thy blood hast made me the 
 son of God! Let me rejoice in it and 
 never through all the days forget it. If 
 trials come let them bring me to my 
 Father's feet. If I am weak then let me 
 find strength from my Father's hand. If 
 I fall into a despite of myself because of 
 my unworthiness then let me remember 
 what Thou hast made me, and rise in pride 
 because of my high heritage. And if now 
 I am indeed a son of Gocl, let me look for- 
 ward to that day when Thou shalt appear 
 and I shall be like Thee because seeing 
 Thee face to face. Amen. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Christ has made us the sons of God by 
 becoming Himself the Son of Man, and 
 dying, and rising victorious over death, 
 and opening the Kingdom of Heaven to 
 all believers. What relationship then does 
 He bear to us? How are we to think of 
 Him ; how shall we regard Him ; how shall 
 our lives be affected by Him? These are 
 grave questions and demand a clear and 
 positive answer. Christianity has such an 
 answer which she gathers from the words 
 of the Master Himself. Let us see what 
 it is. 
 What of We may well stop here to say that the 
 
 Chn8t consideration of this matter is funda- 
 mental. " What think ye of Christ? " is 
 the question which must be answered by 
 every man. " What did ye think of 
 Christ ? " will be the question to be an- 
 swered at the Day of Judgment. If we 
 remember what a change Christianity has 
 42 
 
CHRIST'S RELATIONSHIP TO MAN. 43 
 
 made and is still making and will ever 
 continue to make in the world ; if we recall 
 how, historically, Christ is the centre of 
 the world's history, with all before Him 
 and all since He came pointing towards 
 Him as the glorious Polar Star of truth 
 and power — for it is significant that our 
 human history is always dated B. C. or 
 A. D. — " before Christ " or " in the year 
 of our Lord " — then there can be no eva- 
 sion with any thinking man of this great 
 question. Nor will it do to answer it 
 falsely. We may say Christ was but a 
 man, greater than many, greater than all, 
 but by so saying we no more solve the 
 riddle of Christianity's power than we. 
 answer the question. If He was only a 
 man then His words were false and so He 
 could not have been a great man, for no 
 man is false concerning himself. If He 
 was only a man then His miracles were 
 not real, and the whole fabric of the New 
 Testament falls in fragments at our feet. 
 If He was only a man then is He no more 
 to us of power, of love, of worship, of hope, 
 than any good man who lives or has 
 ever lived, and the world's passion of 
 faith, by which myriads have endured and 
 lived and suffered and died is the most 
 
44 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 awful mockery conceivable. There is only 
 one answer to this question, and that is the 
 answer which Peter gave and upon which 
 Christ declared He would build His 
 church; and grandly has He fulfilled His 
 declaration : " Thou art the Christ, the Son 
 of the living God." It is out of place 
 here to go into a discussion of the nature 
 of Christ. The object of these pages is to 
 declare plainly, simply but categorically, 
 the faith of a Christian. But we may 
 mention two great books for those to read 
 who are undecided and uncertain in their 
 faith. One is Canon Liddon on " The 
 Divinity of Christ," and the other " The 
 Jesus of the Evangelists " by Canon Row. 
 There are countless other books. The real 
 knowledge of the Christ nature must come, 
 however, from the Holy Ghost. Jesus said 
 to Peter when he made his glorious declara- 
 tion : " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar- 
 jona : for flesh and blood hath not re- 
 vealed it unto thee, but my Father which 
 is in heaven." If all who doubt would 
 but go in frank desire and hunger and 
 kneel in private before God and ask for a 
 knowledge of the truth, the truth would 
 come. 
 
 There can be no Christianity where 
 
CHRIST'S RELATIONSHIP TO MAN. 45 
 
 Christ is not acknowledged and worshipped without 
 
 as God. There can be no adherence to the c^ 18 *— 
 
 what? 
 
 Gospels, or to the Epistles of the New 
 Testament, unless He is so acknowledged. 
 The illogical character of heresy has not 
 been sufficiently recognized amongst us. 
 With Christ — if He is taken away — must 
 go the Bible, morality, friendship, hope, 
 struggle, courage, eternity. With Him 
 these are the essentials of a Christian life. 
 
 Let us come back now to our first ques- Christ a 
 tion and ask what relationship Christ bears Saviour, 
 to man. First, He is the Saviour. His 
 name, given when His future birth was 
 announced to Joseph, was " Jesus," mean- 
 ing " Saviour " or " Jehovah saves," " for 
 he shall save his people from their sins." 
 Christ saves us from our sins as the angel 
 of God declared He would. This salva- 
 tion is through His blood which He shed 
 for us on the Cross. He died that we 
 might live. This salvation has three parts : 
 
 1. We are saved from our sinful condi- Thiee 
 tion. We were wanderers, and Christ P arts of 
 sought us and brought us back to the tion. 
 Father's house. We have the stain of sin 
 upon us, and Christ saves us by the new 
 birth. Through Him we can look up and 
 rejoice because we are made free. We need 
 
46 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 not remember the past. He bore on the 
 Cross the sins of the whole world, so we 
 are free from them. 
 
 2. Christ saves us from the consequences 
 of sin. " The soul that sinneth, it shall 
 die." " The wages of sin is death ; but the 
 gift of God is eternal life through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord." So that, though still 
 weak and yielding to sin, we need not be 
 afraid of the just wrath of God against 
 sin, not against the sinner, for " the blood 
 of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from 
 all sin." Oh, the blessedness of that! 
 Not a day, not an hour passes but that 
 through thought, word, or deed, through 
 omission or commission, we sin and are 
 stained ; and then a prayer from the heart, 
 " Forgive," and we are white as snow ! 
 We may go to our sleep each night as pure 
 as little children. In our remorse for sin, 
 and even in our witnessing the temporary 
 consequences of our sin, for God allows 
 often the error to work sorrow that we may 
 be led to greater watchfulness, we need 
 never fear final ruin. Even Satan cannot 
 claim us, weak though we are, when we 
 are safe in the arms of Him Who died for 
 us. 
 
 3. And then He saves us from sin- 
 
CHRISTS RELATIONSHIP TO MAN. 47 
 
 ning: — not at once, but little by little as 
 His grace grows in us and His love brings 
 us near to Himself. We grow to be better 
 men through His salvation. We love 
 good things more and we hate bad things 
 more, and our ideals are more exalted as 
 we go on in the Christian life. This is the 
 work of the grace or favor or love of God 
 in our hearts. And it reveals to us the 
 real character of sin. 
 
 What is sin? A violation of God's sin. 
 law? A breaking into the harmony of 
 the universe? A transgression of metes 
 and bounds which righteousness has laid' 
 down ? Doubtless, but the definition is 
 faulty. Sin is that which hurts God be- 
 cause He loves us so. A man once told me 
 he learned the definition of wrong from a 
 tear on his mother's cheek. He had hurt 
 his mother's love. Ah, that brings us face 
 to face with a great truth before which 
 law and rule and command are almost in- 
 significant. To hurt my friend — that is 
 sin. And as I love God more and more 
 with the love which Christ gives me I hate 
 sin more and more because I cannot bear 
 to grieve my Best Friend. All this is the 
 salvation which Christ brings. 
 
48 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 cessor. 
 
 inter- He is also my Intercessor. We are told 
 
 that He sits at God's right hand ever liv- 
 ing to make intercession for us. We must 
 not think that this implies God's anger 
 with us or His unwillingness to receive us. 
 It means far more, namely, that we can- 
 not appear in the presence of the Holy 
 God as we are. We must be prepared. 
 A sinful man in heaven would find it 
 worse than hell. Any place for which 
 we are not fitted is a place of torment. If 
 I found myself alone on an engine running 
 sixty miles an hour with a hundred pas- 
 sengers in the cars behind me, and I knew 
 nothing about the management of the en- 
 gine, how to stop it, or to regulate it, what 
 would be my feelings ? The beauty of the 
 story of the wedding garment lies in the 
 kindness of the host in making his guests 
 feel at home. When then we approach 
 God and the brilliancy of His light floods 
 about us and we are justly afraid and cry 
 as did Isaiah : " Woe is me ! for I am 
 undone," the hand of the dear Christ is 
 stretched out, He cleanses us and makes 
 us fit to enter in, He confesses us because 
 we have confessed Him : " This is My 
 child, Father, and Thine because Mine. I 
 died for him and he loves Me ; " and oh, 
 
CHRISTS RELATIONSHIP TO MAN 49 
 
 the light on the King's face as He wel- 
 comes us, first for His dear Son's sake, and 
 then for our own sake because He loves us 
 so and longs for our happiness ! It is this 
 intercession which makes our lives blessed 
 because we live or try to live in the light 
 of the King's countenance. It is this 
 which gives assurance to our prayers as we 
 ask in Jesus' name and for His sake. It 
 is this which brings the dear Lord near to 
 us as our Guardian, and tells us of His 
 leading us by the hand all through the 
 earth-way with its dangers and darkness, 
 until He causes us to " enter in." Oh, 
 blessed intercession, oh, precious Christ! 
 
 Jesus is an Example. He died, but He Example, 
 also lived for thirty-three years a blameless 
 life. Absolutely human, so that He was 
 tempted in all points like as we are; with 
 all our longings and desires and emotions ; 
 with trials pressing Him and thorns pierc- 
 ing His feet as they do ours ; dealing with 
 all kinds of men, meeting all kinds of ex- 
 periences, He lived the only faultless life 
 the world has ever known. " What did 
 Jesus do " thus becomes the guide for us 
 all, and that in the most minute particu- 
 lars. His manner of living, simple, un- 
 selfish; His manner of speech, direct and 
 
50 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 kind ; His mercy, His pity, His sympathy, 
 His courage, His patience — there they all 
 lie before us on the pages of that inspired 
 history, and we look upon them and a new 
 strength enters into us. The trouble with 
 all earthly examples is their imperfection, 
 and when we try to imitate them we are 
 sure to imitate faults as well as excel- 
 lencies. The ideal we set before us has 
 much to do with our advance or retro- 
 gression. And here we have an Ideal 
 which was once and is now real. We look 
 at Him, and there is no hesitancy. In the 
 strength of His goodness we find our good- 
 ness growing strong. Of course the special 
 blessedness of it all lies in the fact that 
 Christ not only shows us how we ought to 
 live, but grants the power to attain. It is 
 no dead excellence of marble, without feel- 
 ing, for He was made perfect through 
 struggle. He had His battles as we must 
 have ours. But He is also the living Son 
 of God, and while we look and long He 
 reaches out His hand and brings us near 
 to Himself. 
 Brother. Christ is our Brother. It is a dear title. 
 
 For though brothers are often most faulty 
 amongst men yet the ideal brotherhood is 
 a foundation not only for the Christian 
 
CHRIST S RELATIONSHIP TO MAN. 51 
 
 fraternity wherein we are all members of 
 one family, but as well for many associa- 
 tions of men allied together for a common 
 purpose. It implies fellowship. It im- 
 plies common experience. It implies a com- 
 mon fatherhood and a common opportunity. 
 Brotherhood binds men together as com- 
 rades. It tells of a fellowship in defeating 
 foes and in gaining victories. It makes 
 the desolate path easy with the grace of 
 companionship, and it lightens the burden 
 which rests more easily on the shoulders 
 of two. The Lord brings us into union 
 with Himself. We have the same task, 
 even the redemption of the world. We 
 have the same tie binding us to humanity, 
 for as He was human, though also divine, 
 so we are made of God " of one blood 
 .... for to dwell on all the face of the 
 earth." In helping others we are helping 
 Him : " Inasmuch as ye have done it 
 unto one of the least of these my brethren, 
 ye have done it unto me." Ah, it is this 
 brotherhood of the Master which keeps our 
 faith from becoming an institution or a 
 cult. Christianity gains its sacredness and 
 its power because it means brotherhood 
 with the Lord Who called us to join Him 
 in the work of His eternal and loving 
 
52 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Kingdom. You cannot think of Chris- 
 tianity without Christ, not only because 
 He is the centre of it all and the power of 
 its life, but because He is Himself in it, 
 through it, pervading it, one with all who 
 accept it. " Lo, I am with you always." 
 Friend. We almost hesitate when we try to say 
 
 that Christ is our Friend ! For the word 
 is a holy word, almost the holiest in our 
 speech. To say of another, " he is my 
 friend," is to acknowledge him as having 
 entered into the holy of holies of our be- 
 ing. It is often carelessly and lightly 
 used, this name " friend " — more shame 
 to us ! We speak of a host of folk as " our 
 friends " when perchance none, or at best 
 but one, can really claim the benediction 
 of the title. " Ye are my friends," said 
 Jesus. " Ye are not servants, not knowing 
 what the Master is doing. Ye are more 
 than companions following in the way and 
 sharing the duties but shut out from the 
 sanctuary of thought and the harmony of 
 the soul. Ye are closer than brothers, for 
 if ye really love Me ye are at once like 
 brother and sister and mother. Ye are 
 friends. I keep nothing back. I cover 
 nothing of My desires or of My experi- 
 ences. I enter into the depths of your de- 
 
CHRIST'S RELATIONSHIP TO MAN. 53 
 
 sires and experiences also, for My friend- 
 ship is very strong. I have called you 
 friends ! " It will be recalled how He 
 proved this friendship when He took three 
 of His disciples to the Mount of Trans- 
 figuration, and three again to witness His 
 first resurrection miracle, and again the 
 same three when He agonized in the 
 Garden. Ah, He is never shut out from 
 the greatest moments of our lives, nor 
 does He shut us out from the holy things 
 of His desire. From Him no secrets are 
 hid, and He never betrays our confidence. 
 Unto Him all our hearts are open, and He 
 knows us better than we know ourselves. 
 To be able, humbly, reverently, to call 
 Christ our Friend — our Best Friend, is to 
 enter into the riches of our faith indeed. 
 And we need never be afraid. A true 
 friend is never critical. A true friend 
 never turns away no matter how unworthy 
 we know ourselves to be of his friendship. 
 A true friend is like a rock ; he defends us 
 in his loyalty, he stands by us in our neces- 
 sity, he takes us as we are, for he looks 
 not at the outward appearance but at the 
 heart. Upon such an one we can abso- 
 lutely rely. He never fails. And such, in 
 our lonely, troubled, enemy-beset, oft-de- 
 
54 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 ceived lives is Jesus Christ. A Friend 
 that sticketh closer than a brother. A 
 Friend never growing cold, never forget- 
 ting, never misjudging, never, oh, never, 
 turning away! 
 Our life. Finally, Christ is our Life. He gives 
 
 us life at the first. He imparts new and 
 fuller life as we go on our way and our 
 necessity deepens. He makes the common 
 life, physical, mental, spiritual, ever richer 
 and more real. And He endows us with 
 that which we recognize, as He gives it, as 
 worth more than all else — everlasting life ; 
 a life which has no ending, a life which is 
 to increase in power all through the ages 
 of eternity, a life in which the dearest and 
 best are to share, a life into which shall 
 finally enter a great fulfilment of all that 
 is looked for, longed for, hungered for 
 here. He is our life. In Him we know 
 we shall find at last all our restless natures 
 craved and cried for. From Him flows, 
 even now, through the channels of grace 
 which He has provided, a new force which 
 he feels who kneels in prayer, or reads the 
 Bible, or bows in adoration before the Al- 
 mighty. So that we grow to say that " we 
 live in Him," because He gives of all that 
 is best and most lasting in our years — 
 
CHRIST'S RELATIONSHIP TO MAN. 55 
 
 peace, forgiveness, love, hope, blessing, and 
 a foretaste of the felicity which is to be 
 " after this fever is passed." 
 
 0, Thou Christ, my all in all, I thank 
 Thee that Thou hast come to make me 
 highly favored and to set me amongst 
 princes. My Saviour, Thou dost pardon. 
 My Intercessor, Thou dost adopt. My Ex- 
 ample, Thou dost lead. My Brother, Thou 
 dost come near. My Friend, Thou dost 
 know. My Life, Thou dost exalt. Hold 
 me to Thyself, Friend, and let me 
 never fall away. Amen, 
 
CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 We come now to that which is com- 
 monly called the life of the Christian man. 
 Christ being the Centre of all things, and 
 having made us God's children, and having 
 become all things to ns in His great and 
 gracious love and mercy, how are we called 
 upon to live ? What are we to Him when 
 He is so much to us? It will be seen at 
 once that here we enter upon a great truth, 
 namely, that the Christian life of a man is 
 Person of a relationship to a Person. It is not 
 obedience to law, it is not the observance 
 of a ritual of worship, it is not a vague 
 holding to high principles, nor yet an 
 ardent adherence to lofty hopes. It has 
 little or no philosophy. It is no following 
 of a system of belief. It is not even the 
 holding to a creed, if back of that creed to 
 vivify it there stands no being about whom 
 the creed is formed and to whom the creed 
 is fastened. This is what makes the Chris- 
 56 
 
 Christ. 
 
MAN'S RELATIONSHIP TO CHRIST. 57 
 
 tian faith absolutely different from any 
 man-made religion. You may build up a 
 philosophy to which men may cling as to a 
 raft in the midst of the ocean-billows of 
 life; it has been done, and alas, for the 
 slowness of men to realize their blessings, 
 it is being done almost daily. It is easy, 
 too, to establish laws of moral excellence 
 and count adherence to them a faith. But 
 to have a Being Who was once on this 
 earth, and Who came from God, and Who 
 created a family of those who believed in 
 Him — to have Him as the centre, and 
 loyalty to Him as the faith, the inspiration 
 to right doing, and the power to guide — 
 that has had only one instance in the 
 world's history, and that is Christianity. 
 Loyalty to Christ is the Christian's watch- 
 word, and the Christian's faith, and the 
 Christian's law of life. Our relationship 
 to Christ is that of loyalty, even as His 
 relationship to us is that of love. 
 
 Loyalty demands many things. First Trust. 
 of all it demands a splendid trust which 
 nothing can destroy. To trust our Master 
 is to know that He loves us with an un- 
 failing love, to know that His word is 
 truth, to be patient when we cannot under- 
 stand Him, to be silent and wait when we 
 
58 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 cannot see or hear Him, to stand up for 
 Him when He is opposed or derided or 
 scorned, to follow Him whithersoever He 
 leads, even though it be through hard 
 places and dark ways. Trust is a glorious 
 thing in this world even amongst ourselves. 
 To trust a man is to show him the finest 
 compliment; and poor indeed is he who 
 does not respond to such confidence. " I 
 trust you," friend says to friend, and the 
 words create a bond of union which cannot 
 easily be broken. To lose all trust in man 
 is not only to be a miserable pessimist in 
 theory, but to let go the force. which alone 
 makes living endurable. So with our 
 loyalty to Christ. Beyond a faith which 
 can declare why; beyond a knowledge 
 which can make clear the truth; even be- 
 yond the worship which declares the soul's 
 affection, there must lie simple, absolute, 
 all-compelling trust if we would really be 
 Christians. Trust can be helped by many 
 means of God's providing. The gracious 
 promises, the wonderful accounts given us 
 in the Gospels, the control of mind and 
 heart when they are excited so that they 
 run not away with us, prayer which brings 
 us near the Throne, and worship which 
 lifts us above the temporal so that we see 
 
MAN'S RELATIONSHIP TO CHRIST. 59 
 
 the eternal — these all help us to trust. But 
 it is deeper than these that the real foun- 
 dation lies. As the lover can give no satis- 
 fying reason for his love but can only de- 
 clare it, so the Christian has within him as 
 a part of the very essence of his being this 
 trust in Christ which is born first out of 
 his own helplessness and then out of the 
 instinctive knowledge that the Master is 
 his best Friend. 
 
 After trust comes the obedience which Obedience, 
 trust implies. If I trust a man I will do 
 as he suggests. My physician prescribes 
 and I obey. My friend asks and I hasten 
 to answer. To obey God is to follow the 
 motion of trust, and not to be driven by 
 fear. Fear has its place for the wicked 
 and the weak. To be afraid to do wrong 
 is the hold society has upon the thief and 
 the adulterer. But we count these as 
 slaves who have not risen to the liberty 
 of real living. It is not so with the 
 Christian. He is not afraid of God, nor 
 does he do right and refrain from evil 
 because of assured punishment. Such ad- 
 herence is prized neither on earth nor in 
 heaven. But when I obey — that is when 
 I do or try to do what my loved and loving 
 Christ asks, I am led by my devotion, my 
 
THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 loyalty. We need to learn this lesson well, 
 for its mastery constitutes the healthy life 
 of a true Christian. Again and again we 
 should ask, " Why ought I to do this or not 
 do that ? " And while the passing reasons 
 come and take their place, such as the wel- 
 fare of others, my own health, the danger 
 of degradation, the strength of self-respect, 
 the full response comes in the glad, almost 
 exulting cry, " Why, my Lord does not 
 wish me to do this," or, " My Christ asks 
 me to do that." We shall have more to say 
 about this in our next chapter, but we need 
 to remember it here as a part of loyalty. 
 And how splendidly it recreates even the 
 language of life ! We no longer say " I 
 must " but " I love to." We no longer 
 talk of " duty " but of " privilege." We no 
 longer feel the burden of obedience but the 
 ex-hilaration of service. We do what Christ 
 asks because He asks it — that is reason 
 enough for the loyalty of love. 
 
 But trust and obedience cannot stand 
 afar off. Indeed, they gain their power 
 through association with the One trusted 
 and obeyed, and the more real and constant 
 this association, the stronger the power. 
 Loyalty to the absent is hard, and only pos- 
 sible when we know that the absent one, in 
 
MAN'S RELATIONSHIP TO CHRIST. 61 
 
 spite of absence, knows and cares and re- 
 members. In the presence of friend with 
 friend disloyalty is unknown. Hence the 
 Christian lives in the presence of his 
 Christ. Upon this the Master gave many 
 precepts. " Abide in me and I in you " 
 was at once the expression of His own 
 deepest longings and the declaration of 
 His disciples' need. He knew how hard 
 it would be to " trust and obey " if He 
 seemed far away, and so He assured them 
 of His constant presence : " Lo, I am with 
 you alway." He knew how easily the 
 mind and the heart are influenced by the 
 senses, and so He left the great memorial : 
 " Do this in remembrance of me." And 
 He established that wonderful truth which 
 modern theologians are dimly grasping 
 after when they talk of the " immanent 
 God," the truth that the unseen Father is 
 within us, without us, around us in all we 
 do or say or think or feel. Ah, the blessed- 
 ness of this message, beset as we are by the 
 temptations of loneliness, and the impres- 
 sion, expressed even in our hymns, that we 
 are exiles, pilgrims, strangers, homeless 
 wanderers, far from our Father's house! 
 We come near — we can come near — we are 
 near to Him Who is the Centre of our life. 
 
THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Never is He away. Never does He for- 
 get. As the sparrow's fall is noted, so the 
 struggle of one who in His sight is w r orth 
 more than many sparrows is noted. Prayer 
 is communion with Him. Thought is fel- 
 lowship with Him. Battle is contest with 
 Christ as our fellow-contestant. Only sin 
 can hide His presence, and then He is 
 still there behind the cloud of our disloyalty 
 to welcome us without rebuke when we re- 
 turn. 
 
 Trust, obedience, and abiding; and to 
 these we must add service. For our rela- 
 tionship to Christ means such a participa- 
 tion of His life that we join ourselves with 
 Him in all that He is doing and plans to do 
 upon earth. And just here lies the splen- 
 did exaltation of our existence. If I am 
 here just to wait in patience, as on proba- 
 tion, for another life to come; or if I am 
 only struggling negatively to keep myself 
 from slipping and the world from ruin, 
 then it is impossible to see where the ex- 
 hilaration of living can come in. The 
 sooner it ends the sooner are we free from 
 danger and lifted up to a longed-for peace. 
 And with a little tinge of shame it must be 
 confessed that too much in the past and 
 somewhat in the present has this conception 
 
MAN'S RELATIONSHIP TO CHRIST. 63 
 
 of human existence predominated. Our Work 
 hymns still carry lingering traces of it. 
 Our prayers are colored by it. Our pulpit 
 messages and our books of devotion are held 
 by it. Oh, to get home! To escape this 
 dreary round of task and drudgery ! To be 
 free from the evils which are ever at hand 
 to swallow us up ! To go " where the 
 wicked cease from troubling and the weary 
 are at rest ! " We must not be too severe 
 with a type of Christianity which still lin- 
 gers and finds a response in our bosoms. 
 Yet surely the thought of loyalty to Christ 
 bids us look in another direction and hold 
 to a higher desire. Is it the best thing to 
 go to heaven whether we have done any- 
 thing for earth or not ? Is it a high thought 
 to imagine ourselves wearing a crown of 
 gold before we have, like our Leader, worn 
 a crown of thorns ? Is there not in us 
 something of that lofty desire for creation 
 which shall open our eyes to opportunities 
 and make us see the work which our Lord 
 asks us to do for Him and with Him? 
 Surely the Christ in His words made this 
 service a part of loyalty. His parables and 
 His miracles, so plain to those who are 
 willing to understand, tell us how the King 
 
64: THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 has taken us into His Kingdom not as 
 idlers to enjoy but as workers to bring a 
 harvest. And when we remember that we 
 are to work for a definite object; that the 
 Fordefi- whole world of people and customs and 
 object ideas is standing and calling for light, and 
 that a redeemed earth is to be the glorious 
 abode of a redeemed people with a Re- 
 deemer as their Head, then the inspira- 
 tion deepens and the heart beats and throbs 
 to have a share. ~No mere contest against 
 evil, but a pressing towards righteousness ; 
 not a holding of ourselves in whiteness, 
 but a rushing into the dust of chaos to bring 
 order ; not freedom from wounds and pain, 
 but a leaping into the foes' centre and a 
 lifting of the Icing's banner, though we 
 bleed and die in the attempt! There is 
 the meaning of Christianity ! There is the 
 loyalty which establishes aright our true 
 relationship to our Christ ! How splendid 
 it is, especially when w T e remember that 
 all have a place in this great service. Some 
 may go to the heathen and preach ; some 
 may take the children and open to them the 
 truth; some may speak kind words to the 
 disheartened; some may pray as they lie 
 on beds of pain. But all have a part and 
 a place to which the Christ calls them; 
 
for me. 
 
 MAN'S RELATIONSHIP TO CHRIST. 65 
 
 with all He is present, directing and bless- 
 ing; to all He breathes gracious encourage- 
 ment. 
 
 This is a very clear picturing, though Meaning 
 spoken in faltering language, of the mean- 
 ing of the Christian life. Let us ask now 
 what it must mean for the individual 
 Christian. And first it inspires him with 
 a tremendous sense of the importance of 
 his life. More men fail and more Chris- 
 tians sink into uselessness and spiritual 
 death from underestimating the bigness 
 and opportunity of life than from any other 
 one cause. Heresies and schisms, suicides 
 and drunkenness, weakness and insanity 
 are the result of not looking life squarely 
 in the face and seeing and knowing and 
 declaring what a splendid thing it is to 
 live. When once trust and obedience 
 and union with and service for a supreme 
 and loving Lord bring their light to bear 
 upon the way, it is impossible to minimize 
 or forget the glorious possible career of 
 every human being. 
 
 Again, this truth makes Christ real. If Christ 
 we speak of a mere historical Christ, as 
 some are fond of speaking, then there is 
 not much to arouse intellect or entire ambi- 
 tion. Great men of the past can do little 
 
 real. 
 
66 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 to make great men in the present. They 
 are examples — but they are dead. If, how- 
 ever, my Christ is a living, personal Friend 
 Who has dealt with me and made Himself 
 my Saviour, then I can answer to His call. 
 And trust and obedience bring me to Him 
 very closely as to One Who is here in my 
 life, even as union with Him and service 
 for Him bring Him very near to me. The 
 greatest essential in Christianity to-day, it 
 has been said, is the realization of a living 
 Christ. And if we add to this that the 
 greatest power to make men good and use- 
 ful is the realization of a living Christ 
 present with them we have the fulness of 
 the truth. Christ here in my life; not in 
 heaven; not far away in the centuries in 
 Palestine and then blotted out; not on 
 earth as an impersonal force through His 
 laws and decrees; but here — right here as 
 I think and walk and work, that is what I 
 want. 
 Deeper And then, the blessed result comes in my 
 
 edge of deeper knowledge of the truth of God in 
 God ' all its mystery. How shall I come to know 
 God ? How shall I meet the contradictions 
 between finite and infinite, between my de- 
 sires and my struggles, between my visions 
 which entrance me and the hard prosaic 
 
MAN'S RELATIONSHIP TO CHRIST. 67 
 
 life which binds me? How shall I know 
 the truth of the Bible, the meaning of my 
 creed, the mysteries of the heavens and the 
 vaster mysteries of the earth and of hu- 
 man experience ? Study, cries the scholar. 
 Investigate, says the scientist. Keason, an- 
 swers the logician. Only believe ; you can 
 never understand, whispers the victim of 
 credulity. But we cannot be satisfied with 
 any of these, for they have done so little 
 to bring God near enough for man to see 
 and know Him. Trust, calls the Christ 
 Himself. Believe in Me as your Friend. 
 Obey Me as your Guide Who loves you. 
 Come near to Me in communion. Serve 
 with Me to make the world good. " If 
 any man will do his will, he shall know." Doin s and 
 And men have done the will and they have 
 known. Out of the mystery where men 
 said He dwelt ; out of the history where 
 men placed Him as a being of the past ; out 
 of the blind faith where men worshipped 
 Him as an unknown and unknowable God ; 
 out of the mass of confusion in the world's 
 past from the very beginning; out of the 
 perplexity and the care and the mingling of 
 sorrow and joy in the daily life ; out of the 
 future hidden by clouds and separated from 
 
68 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 us by the river of death — out of these the 
 Christ has come, as long ago He came out 
 of His Garden Grave, and has appeared 
 unto many and made their lives strong, 
 their love deep, their faith like a rock and 
 their hearts glad. Is not that what we 
 want ? Can we be satisfied with theory of 
 the present or hope of the future or inci- 
 dent of the past, when life's insistent call 
 and the heart's persistent hunger is here? 
 Are you and I willing to go on dealing 
 with possibilities or probabilities, hoping 
 against hope, tired and weary beyond tell- 
 ing in our daily, hourly contest, lonely, 
 and with heart aching, and crying, with no 
 answer to be heard ? Here is the Christ 
 of our Christianity — right here. Trust 
 Him, obey Him, draw near to Him, serve 
 Him, and lo, He will be your Christ, your 
 Friend, and you will have peace. 
 
 My King, my Lord, that Thou art 
 near me, a dear, personal Christ, I 
 thank Thee! O, open mine eyes that I 
 may see Thee, and mine ears that I may 
 hear Thee. Nerve my arms that I may 
 do what Thou wilt, and make my feet 
 winged that I may go where Thou biddest. 
 
MAN'S RELATIONSHIP TO CHRIST. 69 
 
 Then shall my heart be glad, and my life 
 dear, and my toil a blessing, for Thou wilt 
 be near me ever to speak, to guide, to bless, 
 to save. Amen. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE MORAL LIFE. 
 
 Moral life 
 God's 
 blessing. 
 
 God's will 
 — Good- 
 
 ie considering man's relationship to 
 Christ, we saw how the daily living must 
 come in and must be governed by the will 
 of God, and find its source of righteous- 
 ness in man's love for God. It is very 
 important for us to remember that the 
 moral life is not that which fits us to come 
 to God, but it is that which results from 
 God's blessing upon us; in other words, I 
 cannot really be good unless I love God, 
 and any goodness which I may have in the 
 eyes of men, without having a love of God 
 in my heart, cannot, in the sight of God, 
 be credited as worthy. 
 
 We find in this the marked difference 
 between what philosophers commonly call 
 morality and Christian morality. Phi- 
 losophers say that goodness exists, and that 
 man must conform to it ; Christianity says 
 God's will is goodness, and when a man 
 does God's will because he loves God, then 
 70 
 
THE MORAL LIFE. 71 
 
 lie has attained or is on his way to attain 
 the highest and only goodness. 
 
 It is important also for us to remember L ^ v o e d for 
 that love for God must ever be the in- 
 spiration to help us to do and to be what 
 God would have us to do and to be. I 
 want to be a good man ; now, I do not be- 
 gin upon myself, to polish and to struggle, 
 but I go to my heavenly Father and tell 
 Him that I love Him, and ask Him to 
 give me grace to prove my love by my life. 
 It is even so in our relationship with each 
 other here on earth. I wish to do what my 
 friend thinks is right because I love my 
 friend. Of course, my friend is imperfect, 
 and so, I cannot perfectly abide by his 
 judgment, but just in proportion as he is 
 right, so my doing of his will results from 
 my love for him. 
 
 The moral life is most important in con- Moral life, 
 nection with the Christian because he can- 
 not make any progress unless he does what 
 is right, and because his love for God can- 
 not be real unless he tries to do God's will. 
 We find that the moral life has many con- 
 ditions, many responsibilities. First of all 
 it has to do with the man's individual life ; 
 he is bound to follow God's will in every- 
 thing — his health, his occupation, his ac- 
 
THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 tivity, his kindness of speech, his charity 
 of thought, all these things have to do with 
 his moral living, indeed, they constitute it. 
 If he gives way to passion, or if he lets 
 himself sink into despondency, or if he is 
 selfish, then he not only falls away from 
 the ideal of perfection, but he proves to 
 God that he does not love Him. If his 
 heart is really full of love for God, then, 
 while he may make mistakes and fall, he 
 will always rebound and come back again 
 to the normal position of his life, just as 
 the needle of a compass will move around 
 with the motion of the vessel but always 
 come back to its right position. 
 
 There is also the moral life of the man 
 as regards the world about him. He is 
 bound not only to do right, but also to work 
 righteousness. He is not in the world sim- 
 ply to take care of himself, but to make the 
 world a better, purer place because he lives 
 in it. Therefore, as a Christian, he is 
 bound to do all that he can, as we saw in 
 our last chapter, to bring the Kingdom of 
 God. Hence, he has to struggle not only 
 with himself but with the evil things of the 
 world, and he has to strive not only to make 
 himself good, but to make others good. 
 
THE MORAL LItE. 73 
 
 And again it is to be remembered that Moral 
 there is a positive side of the Christian 
 life which has to do with growth. It is a 
 very grave question whether a man can be 
 called moral who does not advance in all 
 of those things which have to do with health 
 and happiness and goodness. And so he 
 must deal with the world, causing it to ad- 
 vance in health and happiness and good- 
 ness, as a part of his moral living. This 
 puts before the man a somewhat bewilder- 
 ing number of duties, but it also gives him 
 the magnificent exhilaration of opportunity. 
 
 Let us think now of the practical case Measure 
 of a Christian in regard to his moral liv- growth, 
 ing. And first, it is a matter of posi- 
 tion ; he must keep his face toward God 
 and his back toward all which is contrary 
 to or inferior to God. So long as I look 
 at my King and will not suffer my eyes 
 to rest anywhere save on His face, I am 
 bound to progress in the right direction. 
 If I let my eyes wander after other things, 
 and love other people better than I love 
 my King, I am bound just in that propor- 
 tion to fail. Hence, I can measure my 
 morality pretty largely by my answer to 
 the question, Am I facing towards God? 
 
 Again, the moral life is largely governed 
 
74 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Culture. by one's feeling or practice, perhaps we 
 had better say by one's discrimination. St. 
 Paul defines culture as the ability to ap- 
 prove things which are excellent. The 
 Christian, as he associates with Christ 
 through prayer and the reading of the 
 Bible, readily learns the things which 
 Christ loves. Now to love those things, 
 even as he hates the things which Christ 
 hates, is to put himself in a moral position 
 
 Hating which will help him to live practically the 
 moral life. Here again, we may test our- 
 selves by asking, each for himself : " Do 
 I hate evil ? Even when I yield to it 
 through my weakness, do I still hate it, 
 and do I rebound from it ? Is it unpleasant 
 in its nature even while fascinating in its 
 momentary allurement ? " These two 
 great truths bearing upon the moral life, 
 namely, position and discernment, will be 
 found to be wonderful helps not only in 
 deciding what we ought to do, but in giving 
 us power to act aright. 
 
 flight Again, we must recognize the necessity 
 
 ment. of having a clear and a strong judgment 
 upon those questions which affect the life 
 of a community. What Wilberforce calls 
 the " trinity of evil," namely, intemper- 
 ance, impurity and dishonesty, are foes 
 
THE MORAL LIFE. 75 
 
 which are trying to eat out the life of hu- 
 manity; they are the emissaries of Satan 
 and the enemies of God. If we can only 
 have a clear judgment which will never 
 falter regarding these things, and if we are dea? 
 willing to fight in order that the will of the views, 
 people expressed in law may be marked 
 as against them, then we are bringing our 
 own moral life, as well as the life of people 
 in general, nearer to the position which 
 God would have it occupy. In other words, 
 man must have a strong determination as 
 regards the good of the world and a con- 
 stant, active participation in the struggle 
 between good and evil. 
 
 Of course we must recognize that in A hard 
 the problems of life, even those presented 
 by the conflict between good and evil, there 
 may be differences of opinion as to method ; 
 there may be even differences of opinion 
 as to the violation of the law of right in 
 this or that particular. And this is one of 
 the hardest things which the Christian has 
 to face, because he finds good men in whom 
 he has confidence differing from himself 
 in methods which to him are most impor- 
 tant and concerning which he has a fixed 
 opinion. In this case the Christian needs 
 charity, he needs to call upon God for 
 
THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 wisdom, and above all else he needs a strong 
 conviction which will refuse to move from 
 its judgment unless proved wrong. We 
 are sometimes inclined to criticise the stern 
 old Puritans, but after all, their magnifi- 
 cent adherence to what they believed to be 
 the truth and their readiness to suffer any- 
 thing rather than change their opinions of 
 right mus* make us admire them; and 
 Christianity needs to-day a good deal of 
 the same virile determination. One grows 
 weary of cowardice among Christians, and 
 one is made sorrowful by the ease with 
 which a Christian will smile at the weak- 
 ness of others, or even on occasion yield 
 to it. It is not necessary for the child of 
 Christ to go out and strike on the head 
 every one who differs from him in any mat- 
 ter of right or wrong; but it is necessary 
 that he should be so absolutely sincere 
 and true as to let his opinions be known 
 and to speak a word for what he believes 
 to be right. 
 
 The same thing is true regarding the 
 church, which is a body of Christians. The 
 church must not only teach morality to her 
 members but she must enforce morality as 
 a part of her work. The church exists first 
 to declare God to the world, and secondly 
 
THE MORAL LIFE. 77 
 
 to bring the world to God. As a part of 
 her bringing the world to God she is bound 
 to proclaim God's will, and in proclaiming 
 that will she is bound to inform people of 
 the things which violate that will. In 
 matters, therefore, affecting public welfare 
 and in all matters having to do with the 
 physical or mental growth of men, she has 
 a responsibility to bear. It is not enough 
 for the church to say to the individual, 
 " Thou shalt not kill " and " Thou shalt 
 not steal ; " it is for her to cry out against 
 those things which tend to murder and 
 against those things which lead to theft. 
 
 Let us now find how the individual Keep near 
 Christian can bring himself to a high moral 
 condition. First, and it is the old truth, 
 he must keep near to God. If righteous- 
 ness is God's will, then the man who knows 
 God best is the one who can judge con- 
 cerning righteousness. The man who 
 prays, who reads the Bible and worships 
 God in church, and knows what it is to 
 commune with his Master, he is the man 
 who is sensitive about goodness ; he knows 
 what God wills because he knows God. 
 
 Second, the Christian needs to hold him- Never de- 
 self from despondency. So long as we are spon ' 
 human we are sure to make mistakes. We 
 
78 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 are not angels, but men, fighting our way 
 towards heavenly places. When we fall it 
 is not a proof that we are corrupt or that 
 God has forsaken us; it is only a warning 
 that we should be more carefully on our 
 guard. We confess our sins to God and 
 He forgives them through Christ, and so 
 long as we live we shall have to keep on 
 doing it. Even St. Paul cried out, " O 
 wretched man that I am ! " But it is really 
 the man who goes to God with tears, and 
 asks forgiveness, and then arises to struggle 
 again, who has the highest element of mo- 
 rality. Men may not understand it be- 
 cause they cannot understand his weakness, 
 but God knows and understands. Never 
 despair, my friend, because Satan some- 
 times gets the better of you. Remember 
 that the very fact that you are sorry proves 
 that you hate the evil thing. 
 What And third, the Christian must remember 
 
 that, after all, the battle is the Lord's, and 
 that he is fighting under the King. There- 
 fore, it is what the King does that counts. 
 What I mean by this is, that we must re- 
 member that in ourselves and in the world 
 victory is to be gained by Christ and by 
 His truth. If I want to make men live 
 moral lives I must bring them Christian- 
 
THE MORAL LIFE. 79 
 
 ity ; I must teach them how to love God and 
 to worship Christ and to give themselves to 
 the guidance of the Holy Spirit; then, in 
 spite of their weaknesses, they will come 
 
 ■ to a larger and fuller life into which good- The fuller 
 ness will enter as supreme, and evil take 
 a subordinate place. If we remember this 
 we will be saved from much anxiety when 
 we sometimes do not see the world grow- 
 ing better as rapidly as we would like. 
 There may be, and there undoubtedly is, 
 fault somewhere amongst those who ought 
 to act more bravely; but when we look 
 through the history of the centuries, we 
 learn that it is God Himself Who is bring- 
 ing the world to perfection. When I look 
 at myself I must not be impatient, but know 
 that the holiness for which I long is the 
 gift of God ? and will come in due time if I 
 faint not. When I look at the world, while 
 I hear its calls and know that I must re- 
 spond to them, at the same time I must re- 
 member that it is God Who is working, and 
 
 , that my efforts are of avail only as He 
 blesses them. In other words we must all 
 lie back upon that great living power of 
 the Christ Who said prophetically upon 
 the cross, " It is finished," and know that 
 He is bringing the world to Himself. We 
 
80 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Under the must put ourselves under Him as His sol- 
 Master. ,. . ■, . -, . , 
 
 diers; we must bring ourselves into com- 
 munion with Him so that we may grow 
 more and more like Him; we must try to 
 make the world conform to His standards ; 
 but all the while we must trust Him ab- 
 solutely, and know that in His own time 
 and way He will fulfil His purpose. 
 
 Lord, I beseech Thee, teach me Thy 
 righteousness. Help me to love Thee and 
 so to be full of a longing to do Thy will. 
 Help me to keep my face towards Thee, 
 and to hate the thing which Thou hatest 
 even as I love the thing which Thou com- 
 mandest. Let me struggle for the world's 
 salvation, and yet let me always look at 
 the Cross, and know that Thou alone canst 
 save. Purify me by Thine own grace, for 
 I cannot purify myself. Give me a vision 
 of holy things that I may love them more. 
 Let me never be discouraged, even in the 
 heat of the battle when the way seems long 
 and the conflict endless. And when Thou 
 canst, O Christ, speak to me a word of 
 cheer, even as Thou didst speak to Thy 
 disciples in the midst of the storm on Gal- 
 ilee, and say; "It is I, be not afraid." 
 Amen. 
 
CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 THE LIFE OF SERVICE. 
 
 We are dealing with the practical side 
 of the Christian life, that is, the side 
 which results from God's love for us and 
 our love for Him. We have tried to see 
 how we ought to live daily, and how we 
 ought to live for the life of the world. 
 Now let us think of the life of service 
 which means the giving up of one's self 
 entirely to do the will of God. It is most 
 important for us to remember that we 
 are in this world (and we have expressed 
 this fact more than once) not to do our 
 own will, but the will of God; in' other 
 words, I am not here to get rich, or to have 
 pleasure, or to gain wisdom, or to exercise 
 authority, but I am here to do what God 
 wants me to do. 
 
 Service has two directions ; it is towards service 
 God and towards men. Every power I twofold - 
 81 
 
82 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 have, physically, mentally or spiritually, 
 every opportunity which comes to me of 
 any kind whatsoever, all my time, all my 
 daily occupations, all my associations are 
 to be brought into this one great focus, 
 namely, to serve God. While that may 
 seem at first to be a little overwhelming it 
 really is tremendously comforting. There 
 is nothing that helps a man so much in this 
 world as a simplifying of those things 
 which in themselves seem confusing. Here 
 I am with a thousand emotions, listening 
 to a thousand calls, beset by a thousand 
 pleadings from within and from without, 
 my days, many or few, full of opportunity ; 
 and the whole thing is somewhat of a mud- 
 dle ! What does it all mean ? How can I 
 explain it ? And here comes the direct 
 answer from the dear God Who placed me 
 here in this environment. He says to me : 
 Everything is to be interpreted by service. 
 All these things bring to you a call to help 
 Me and to help your fellow man. Not one 
 single thing you do but has an influence 
 in the world's life; not one single thing 
 you say but may make men better or worse. 
 To serve Me and to serve My children is 
 the one truth which embraces all other 
 truths. 
 
THE LIFE OF SERVICE. 83 
 
 It may be well for us to indicate very Howren- 
 directly how this service may be rendered. 
 In the first place, then, we want to do 
 everything that we do, no matter how sim- 
 ple, in God's name. Whether we eat or 
 drink, or whatsoever we do, we are to do 
 all in the name of the Lord Jesus. That 
 makes everything holy, even the common 
 routine of the day. It makes the struggle 
 and the denial, as well as the breathing 
 and the thinking, a part of the devo- 
 tion of the soul towards God. It must 
 be, then, that God uses these things in some 
 way, we know not how, for the advancement 
 of His Kingdom. Think of the inspiration 
 of that ! If I take care of my body, if I 
 eat my breakfast thankfully, if I read my 
 book, or write my letter, or sell my goods, 
 or teach my class, or make my clothes, or 
 play my music, or paint my picture, with 
 the realization that in doing it I am serv- 
 ing God, must there not come a perfect 
 glory of light about all these things which 
 shall make them very dear and very sacred ? 
 There can be no question but that we 
 make our lives far more miserable than 
 they need be simply because we forget this 
 great fact. A woman talks of her house- 
 hold drudgery, or a man wearies of the 
 
84 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Delight work which he carries on for ten hours a 
 drudg- day, and they both complain that the bur- 
 ery ' den is heavy, and they both look forward 
 
 to the time when they can throw the bur- 
 dens off, either in this world or the next. 
 Does that seem reasonable? Is there not 
 some way in which we can find an enthu- 
 siasm for life which shall make everything 
 beautiful, and reveal to the eye and to the 
 soul a splendor undreamed of before ? We 
 find such an explanation in this truth of 
 serving God. Everything is exalted, noth- 
 ing is mean or low, and the dear God 
 stands over all, blessing and rejoicing. 
 D'fficuit ^ s re £ ar d s our service for men, we some- 
 
 butnot times find it a little more difficult, first, 
 because men do not understand, and sec- 
 ondly because they often oppose. It is 
 hard to help a man who does not know 
 what you are trying to do for him. There 
 are a great many people in this world 
 whom we would like to help, yet it seems 
 almost impossible because they cannot see 
 from our point of view. I cannot make 
 my child know altogether the advantage 
 of study; I cannot make my lazy friend 
 grasp the advantage of early rising; I can- 
 not induce my Christian brother to under- 
 stand the joy of helping others. And yet, 
 
THE LIFE OF SERVICE. 85 
 
 this very difficulty ought really to increase 
 our earnestness because it shows us the 
 importance of what we are trying to do. 
 It is not the easy work in this world that 
 is always or generally the most satisfactory. 
 When you have succeeded in doing a hard 
 thing, then you have a real enjoyment. 
 We must not, therefore, be discouraged or 
 cease our efforts simply because men do not 
 understand our desire to serve them. Of 
 course we must not unduly force ourselves 
 upon them; we must have a respect for 
 humanity to keep us from being intrusive. 
 But, on the other hand, we must have al- 
 ways an eye quick to see need, and a heart 
 quick to feel trouble, and a nerve quick 
 to sympathize. 
 
 It is the opposition of men which is the Fighting 
 more difficult thing to meet. You want to 
 establish some public good, and men who 
 prefer the evil fight against your efforts; 
 you want to promote temperance, and the 
 saloon-keeper and the manufacturer back 
 of the saloon-keeper are up in arms; you 
 want to make your friend a Christian, and 
 your friend, not understanding Christian- 
 ity, and thinking it a bondage, fights you 
 at every turn. What shall we say about 
 this in connection with service ? Certainly 
 
 evils. 
 
86 
 
 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 we must say that it demands on our part 
 the same gentleness and persistency and 
 love that we find in Christ. It is a wonder- 
 ful thing to study the Gospels and see 
 how Christ served men. ISTot merely the 
 things He did but the way in which He 
 did them, will afford a wonderful revela- 
 tion of Christ's character. He never seemed 
 to force Himself upon men, and He never 
 seemed to be wearied by their opposition, 
 and He kept on in such a strong, un- 
 ceasing effort both by word and deed to do 
 what He knew they needed to have done for 
 
 With com- them, that we are filled with admiration 
 passion. anc | won d er . We must do the same. Look- 
 ing about us and seeing the multitudes we 
 must be filled with compassion; hearing 
 their cry we must have a response, as the 
 Shepherd had a response for the cry of His 
 lost sheep ; and even though the ones most 
 needing help oppose us, we must keep on, 
 because we are doing what God wants us 
 to do, and He, by and by, will soften the 
 material and enable us to mould it into a 
 beautiful likeness unto Himself. 
 
 Patience. There are some special characteristics we 
 need in connection with this service which 
 we will enumerate. The first is tremen- 
 dous patience. Creatures of a day as 
 
THE LIFE OF SERVICE. 87 
 
 we are, we seem to imagine that in our life- 
 time everything ought to be accomplished. 
 It becomes almost ludicrous when we stop The ludi- 
 to think of it, that we little men, living on j^* 3 
 an average fifty or sixty years, and having 
 about forty years of real useful power in 
 the world, think that we can do or ought to 
 do everything in creation while we live! 
 We ought to grow big enough to recognize 
 ourselves as a part of eternity, and to 
 know, first, that we are going to serve for 
 eternity, and second, that the seed sown 
 is bound to bring forth fruit even though 
 the harvest-time may be delayed. It is the 
 patient man who has a larger view of things 
 than the man of nervous fussiness; he is 
 not worried because the return does not 
 come immediately ; he casts his bread upon 
 the waters and is willing to find it after 
 many days; he breathes a higher atmos- 
 phere than the mere environment of thirty 
 or forty years on a little continent; the 
 whole w T orld is his, and all time is his, be- 
 cause he is the child of God. Patience 
 enters into our daily life, and makes us 
 quiet, uncomplaining, tender, gentle, and 
 above all full of faith. Without patience 
 little can be done in the way of true service. 
 
THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Again, if we are to serve rightly we must 
 have that love in our hearts which shall 
 make us care for the one whom we are 
 serving, and also care for the very service 
 itself. We want to guard against thinking 
 that the things we do are only means to an 
 end. They are that, but they are really a 
 great deal more. As everything is impor- 
 tant in God's sight, so my very effort to do 
 a good thing has an importance of its own. 
 I ought to love the very words I speak and 
 the work I do for others' sake, and I ought 
 to- love even the most unworthy of men, yes, 
 even the most unattractive of men, because 
 I am trying to do something for their good. 
 This love of work for the work's sake, and 
 this love of others because they are God's 
 children must ever be the greatest inspira- 
 tion which God, Who is Himself love, has 
 given us. 
 
 And finally we must remember that this 
 service must be unceasing. We are never 
 to give up, and so long as we live we are 
 to work. Indeed, from our Lord's words 
 we are bound to believe that we are going 
 to work forever, even as God works. The 
 only difference between heaven and earth, 
 so far as toil is concerned, is that there 
 we shall w r ork without weariness and with- 
 
THE LIFE OF SERVICE. 89 
 
 out opposition. Think, then, how blessed 
 it is to keep on, never to give up, always 
 to hope, always to find new courage, awak- 
 ing each morning with new determination, 
 and starting out for each endeavor with 
 new enthusiasm. Think of the richness 
 and fulness of a Christian life which finds 
 in all things a secret hidden from men but 
 clearly revealed in the joy which comes 
 to the worker. Above all think of the con- 
 stant companionship of Him Who is with 
 us while we serve, with Whom we are co- 
 laborers, and Who never fails to see, and 
 Who never will forget. 
 
 Dear Lord, help me to serve Thee. I 
 can do little, but Thou canst make my little 
 great. I am ignorant and weak, but Thy 
 wisdom and Thy strength Thou wilt give 
 to me. Help me to rejoice in my service. 
 Help me to know that the harvest is sure. 
 Help me to remember that Thou art near, 
 and grant that my life may be fruitful so 
 that at last when I see Thee Thou canst 
 welcome me to a larger and more glorious 
 opportunity. For Thine own dear sake I 
 ask it. Amen. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PUBLIC LIFE. 
 
 We are trying to see how the Christian 
 has a duty, just because he is the child of 
 God, in the world w T hich God has made. 
 He is to do good and work righteousness be- 
 cause he is a loyal child of a divinely 
 loving Father. 
 In the We come now to think of the public life 
 
 "cfiti °^ a Christian- It is not an easy thing 
 for a Christian man to bring himself to 
 the right position which God expects him 
 to hold in connection with the life about 
 him. In the first place the world is very 
 confusing; it is full of contradictions and 
 misunderstandings and perplexities. More- 
 over there is a large difference of opinion 
 among good people as to what things should 
 be done and how they should be done. 
 Then, too, there are so many great problems 
 facing us, particularly in this day and gen- 
 90 
 
PUBLIC LIFE. 91 
 
 eration, that we are made almost dizzy by 
 the responsibility of life. And yet again, 
 if we are truly humble in spirit we hesitate 
 about pushing our own ideas of right or 
 making ourselves prominent in doing the 
 work of God. But all these difficulties 
 ought simply to make us more earnest and 
 more determined. We must remember 
 that we are God's children placed in this 
 world to do a divine work for our Father ; 
 that we have the life of Jesus Christ our 
 Saviour as our inspiration and our strength, 
 and that we have the Holy Spirit Who will 
 direct us if we are only loyal and true. 
 
 There are two sides to be considered in Two sides 
 the public life of a Christian. First, the £ e public 
 life of example, and then the life of ag- 
 gressive influence. While the Christian 
 must never become self-conscious, he must 
 know that he is bearing witness, and that 
 the Master is judged by the life that His 
 child leads. Therefore, he must avoid all 
 appearance of evil; he must show by his 
 words, and by his acts, and by the whole 
 movement of his life, that kindness and 
 gentleness which Jesus Himself showed ofex- 
 when He was upon earth ; he must avoid amp e * 
 positively even those things which for him 
 may be innocent, if there is danger of his 
 
92 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 injuring others by doing them. He must 
 keep before him a very high ideal of per- 
 sonal purity, temperance and goodness, and 
 never suffer that ideal to be lowered even 
 by those who are dear to him. He must 
 be faithful in those things which God bids 
 him do, the observance of those means of 
 grace of which we will speak later on. 
 It is impossible for a Christian to wield 
 an influence which shall tell unless he is a 
 man of prayer, a man who reads his Bible, 
 a man who goes to church, and a man who 
 in all things rejoices to be in close com- 
 munion with his Lord. 
 in world's But the most difficult part of the Chris- 
 struggle, tj^'g ]if e j s that which bids him take an 
 active share in the world's struggle. And 
 here we face that opinion, held for many 
 years by good Christians and exemplified 
 too much by the church in the past, and 
 still held by many at the present day, that 
 the church has nothing to do with the 
 problems of life, whether of state or of 
 society, and that the individual Christian 
 must avoid all of those unseemly contro- 
 versies which may tend to bring dust and 
 stain upon his personal life. It has been 
 said that the church should not interfere 
 in questions of politics ; that she has noth- 
 
PUBLIC LIFE. 93 
 
 ing to do with the contest between capital 
 and labor ; that it is not her business to see 
 that cities are clean, £nd tenements decent, 
 and the laws regarding public welfare 
 obeyed ; and too often is the Christian told 
 that he would be a much better and wiser 
 man if he kept himself aloof from all these 
 things and simply tried to serve God by 
 living himself a pure life. We are begin- 
 ning to learn now, and I thank God for it, 
 that all this is a mistake. The church is in 
 the world as the Kingdom of God in em- 
 bryo to bring the Kingdom of God ex- 
 tensively. It is her business to purify the 
 world. Christ so taught in His parables; 
 " Ye are the light of the world." Ye are 
 "leaven." Ye are "salt." And while Christians: 
 
 salt. 
 
 Christ Himself did not establish any re- 
 forms, He gave the seed of those reforms, 
 not only in His words but in His works. 
 So the individual Christian is in the world 
 to make the world better, and he is bound 
 to enter into all of the world's life, and 
 realize that because he is a Christian man, 
 nothing relating to humanity can be with- 
 out interest to him. It brings a magnifi- 
 cent exhilaration and courage to a Chris- 
 tian when he feels himself thus called ; he 
 finds a meaning for his life not appre- 
 
94: THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 hended before, and he catches a vision of a 
 glorious future which gives him hope and 
 courage. 
 Three ^ g an iH us tration of what the Christian 
 
 ques- 
 
 t:ons. ought to do, we will take three great public 
 questions. The first is that of purity. We 
 live in a day, and it is not exceptional in 
 the history of the ages, when bad books and 
 bad plays are poisoning the minds of thou- 
 sands. It is startling to read some of the 
 books which are commonly read and com- 
 monly discussed amongst supposedly good 
 men and women. It is still more startling 
 to see the plays on the stage which are en- 
 dorsed by their presence by even church 
 people. As a result we have innumerable 
 divorces, and the marriage life and the 
 home life have been driven to a depth of 
 wretchedness which is appalling. Now the 
 Purity. individual Christian must not only keep 
 himself pure but he must fight for purity. 
 He, and the church to which he belongs, 
 which is the body of Christ, must enforce 
 upon the world those high principles of 
 righteousness which shall make people see 
 that they cannot play with pitch without be- 
 ing defiled. There must be a recognition 
 of the marriage tie as a type of the union 
 of Christ with His church, and the awful- 
 
PUBLIC LIFE. 95 
 
 ness of a separation between those who 
 have vowed before God to love and to 
 cherish each other until death, must be rec- 
 ognized. Those who play with holy things 
 must be marked and not allowed to assume 
 a position as if they were innocent, and 
 warnings to the young must be given with- 
 out stint. Even to-day, although much is 
 being done, the vast majority of people 
 fail to realize the awful extent to which im- 
 purity is weakening and destroying man- 
 hood and womanhood. There are societies 
 for the prevention of social vice, and there 
 are strong efforts made to save the inno- 
 cent; but unfortunately, the great masses 
 of Christian people do not take the interest 
 in these things that they ought, some be- 
 cause they have a false modesty, and others 
 because they are half-hearted. We declare 
 without any hesitation that it is the part 
 of a Christian man in such a struggle as 
 this which is upon us, not only to hold 
 high ideals for himself but to press upon 
 others and demand that they accept the 
 same ideals. 
 
 The next problem which faces us to-day, Poor and 
 and it is of equal importance, is that of 
 the relationship between the poor and the 
 rich, between those who have not had from 
 
 rich. 
 
96 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 birth many advantages, and those who have 
 had, by inheritance, great advantages. 
 Love of money is the root of all evil, not 
 money itself but the inordinate love of it ; 
 and to-day there are so many cases of the 
 grinding down of the poor by the rich that 
 it is difficult for an honest man to restrain 
 his righteous indignation. The wretched 
 houses in which poor people often live, 
 owned by wealthy men; the miserable 
 wages often paid; the long hours of em- 
 ployment of girls in positions for which 
 they are quite unsuited; the work of chil- 
 dren who ought to be in school ; the cruelty 
 towards little ones of a sadly tender age, — 
 all these things, and many more, mark the 
 characteristics of a conflict in which the 
 church and the Christian must take a part. 
 For- There are faults, of course, on the side 
 
 of the poor. The many foreigners who 
 come to our shores here in America, and 
 the many people throughout the world who 
 have almost lost hope because of years of 
 the pressure of poverty, make mistakes be- 
 cause of their ignorance ; but that is all the 
 more reason why there should not be exer- 
 cised upon them the cruelty which wealth 
 and the power of wealth often exert. The 
 sympathy of the Christian should always 
 
 eigners. 
 
PUBLIC LIFE. 97 
 
 be with the poor; it was so with Christ. 
 And while he must never be unjust in his 
 judgments, he must recognize that the man 
 who is in need and often in hunger, and 
 frequently pressed to physical agony by the 
 narrow circumstances of his life, is the one 
 to whom his hand must go out and for 
 whom his strength must be expended. 
 
 This problem of capital and labor is a Capital 
 large one, and it cannot be settled in a JSwr. 
 moment if it is to be settled rightly. There 
 are grave difficulties both economically and 
 sociologically which will have to be met by 
 the growing wisdom which God will give if 
 we seek it. But there must be a belief on 
 the part of the Christian that it is his duty 
 to try and solve the problem; that he dare 
 not be indifferent ; that God calls him to 
 work in the world for that justice which He 
 Himself has declared will be the final out- 
 come of the world's history. We must be 
 careful ourselves never to do those things 
 which shall hurt others who are for the 
 time in our power. Women, for instance, 
 who are housekeepers, have no right to over- 
 burden their servants or to deny them 
 privileges which are rightly theirs. Em- Employers 
 ployers of labor have no right to call their rf-yjjjj 
 employees " hands," as if they were simply 
 
98 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 machines, or to neglect that relationship to 
 them which shall carry out the Lord's truth 
 that we are all brothers whether rich or 
 poor. There must be no discrimination in 
 our churches and none in our thoughts be- 
 tween the rich and the poor; and there 
 must be that readiness to help, out of a 
 loving heart and in a wise way, those who 
 need help. This is a large subject, and 
 we cannot, of course, enter into it fully 
 here, but we have said enough to show how 
 much there is for the Christian to do if he 
 is to be a real follower of his Master. 
 Political The third problem we will suggest is that 
 
 of political life. The world is governed in 
 various ways in various sections, but that 
 government is the true one which concerns 
 itself with the individual. Whether there 
 be a king who holds supremacy, or whether 
 the people themselves, as in our own dear 
 'America, hold the supremacy, there is an 
 equal call for every man, just because he 
 is a Christian, to take a strong, active part 
 in the choice of rulers, in the establishment 
 of laws, and in the reforms which, because 
 of human imperfection, are ever demanded. 
 The church is bound to proclaim those 
 great principles of government which are 
 founded upon the ten commandments. 
 
PUBLIC LIFE. 09 
 
 While she is not called upon to go into any 
 controversy which has to do with ques- 
 tions having no moral bearing, she is 
 bound to warn the people against any 
 wickedness or weakness which is to be 
 found or which may threaten in the life 
 of a community. 
 
 And the individual Christian is not ful- On voting, 
 filling the law of his life unless, if he is of 
 age, he votes conscientiously, and votes for 
 the best man, and strives after those 
 methods of government which in his heart 
 of hearts he knows God would approve of. 
 Let it never be thought that the common 
 life, the life of the city, or the town, or the 
 state, or the country, can be disregarded 
 by God's children. 
 
 In closing we would say a word as to Three 
 how the Christian may best be fitted for 
 this tremendous task presented in his pub- 
 lic life. We can but mention two or three 
 needs which will abundantly be supplied if 
 we ask God to help. First, there must be 
 that love for humanity which will make us* 
 feel that the cares of one are the cares of 
 all, and that to go through life at ease while 
 others suffer, or to disregard the sufferings 
 of others, is to deny the Master. Oh, if we 
 only would love everybody as we ought, how 
 
 needs. 
 
100 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 our zeal would be quickened and our 
 
 intelligence enlightened ! Second, the 
 
 Christian man must be filled with a large 
 
 Hope sees hope which shall make him see a vision 
 
 ideals. 
 
 of what is to be, and strive strenuously 
 for its realization. Hope means the 
 catching sight of the ideal and bringing it 
 down to the present and seeking to make 
 it a model for service. The pessimist can 
 do nothing for the world's good. If he 
 thinks it is a question whether God will 
 finally reign supreme he has already denied 
 his Master and is a Judas. The man who 
 works despairingly because it is his duty 
 and not because he longs to bring speedily 
 the day which is bound to come, cannot be 
 of much value. He gets in the way of other 
 people and does little himself. It is the 
 man of magnificent hope, who never gives 
 up and who presses on to the mark, who 
 fulfils his Master's command, " Endure 
 unto the end." And third, the Christian 
 must find a joy in all of this public life of 
 which I have spoken. It is hard sometimes 
 to be cheerful; it is trying to see great 
 evils which fairly tear the soul, and 
 not weep. It is not an easy thing, when 
 men are conservative and will not act, to 
 go in alone and with an audacity which, in 
 
PUBLIC LIFE. 101 
 
 the eyes of others, seems to contradict 
 humility, stand for the right. But if we 
 remember that we are God's children and 
 that He has given us this work to do, then 
 we can laugh and sing; difficulties cannot 
 depress us, opposition cannot defeat us, 
 trouble cannot destroy us. We will simply 
 go forward with a song to hasten this old 
 world on its way towards God, to bring the 
 King to His Kingdom and the Kingdom 
 to her King. 
 
 Dear Lord, Thou knowest my weakness, 
 and yet Thou hast called me to do great 
 things. Pour Thine own divine might into 
 Thy servant that he may be strong. Fill 
 him with the knowledge of his blessed call- 
 ing; open his eyes that he may see, touch 
 his heart that he may feel, and strengthen 
 his hands that he may fight. Above all, 
 dear Lord, give me that gentleness and 
 that sweetness of spirit which are of Thy- 
 self, that I may always work without bit- 
 terness and strive for the highest and best 
 without discouragement. For Thine own 
 dear sake. Amen. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE LIFE OF FELLOWSHIP. 
 
 Theee is hardly any more beautiful ex- 
 pression in our creed than this: I believe 
 in " the communion of saints." It does not 
 mean, as some have thought, that we have 
 some mystical relationship to those who 
 have gone before. That may be a part of 
 its meaning, but it is only a part. It means 
 the splendid brotherhood which brings 
 church. Christians together, makes them enter into 
 each other's lives, helps them to understand 
 each other, and creates that love which led 
 the Master to come to earth to live and die. 
 God " hath made of one blood all nations 
 of men for to dwell on all the face of the 
 earth," cried the Apostle, and those great 
 words should be the banner cry which shall 
 not only bring us wonderfully near together 
 as fellow Christians, but make us recognize 
 the Christ of men all over the world as the 
 Christ of our brothers. 
 102 
 
THE LIFE OF FELLOWSHIP. 103 
 
 There was a time when the church as Not ex- 
 well as the Christian man was thought to c usive ' 
 he exclusive rather than inclusive ; a little 
 body of people selected out of the world 
 because of their adherence to truth, shut- 
 ting the world out of their sympathies, and 
 having little or no care for it. Such was 
 the old idea of the spirit of Christianity. 
 We have gotten beyond that, and yet we 
 have not sufficiently realized the meaning 
 of brotherhood. Let us think of it now for 
 a little while. 
 
 My brother's life should be as important My 
 to me as my own, yes ? even more important. k rother ' 
 I do not live for myself but for others. 
 The selfish man is a disgrace wherever he 
 is found, but the Christian man who is 
 selfish is a special disgrace. The blessed 
 knowledge that we are all fighting the same 
 battle, that we are all facing the same end, 
 that we all have common experiences, com- 
 mon joys and common sorrows; the con- 
 sciousness that we all have in our bodies the 
 same nerves and muscles, the same passions 
 and emotions ; that we all have in our minds 
 the same thoughts and the same powers; 
 that we all have in our souls like aspira- 
 tions and like visions — this truly ought to 
 make us very dear to each other and bring 
 
104 
 
 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 All are 
 brethren. 
 
 Spirit of 
 oneness. 
 
 us very near together. We must first of all 
 realize this before we can do very much. 
 
 Now this fellowship brings us to some 
 exceedingly practical workings. First of 
 all it makes us know that there can be no 
 real separations between men on earth. 
 Whatever separations there may seem to 
 be are of man's creation rather than God's. 
 The color of skin, the language spoken, the 
 possession of wealth and of intellect, or the 
 lack of such possession, the disposition or 
 environment, the advantage which hered- 
 ity or a few hundred years of imagined 
 superiority may have brought, all these 
 things' have no right to separate us. It is 
 a cheap thing for a big man, who knows he 
 is God's son, to look upon any of them as 
 having any value whatsoever in the con- 
 sideration of his duty and privilege in con- 
 nection with his brothers. Therefore the 
 Christian must not dare for one instant 
 to give way either in thought or by action 
 to the false standards so common amongst 
 men which tend to divide rather than to 
 unite. His very pride ought to keep him 
 from permitting these things to dull his 
 sympathies or cloud his heart. 
 
 Again, there comes that magnificent 
 spirit of service of which we have already 
 
THE LIFE OF FELLOWSHIP. 105 
 
 spoken, which makes a man happy only as 
 he is himself making some one else happy. 
 A pleasure possessed alone loses a large 
 part of its richness. The things which we 
 share are the things which we appreciate. 
 How splendid it is when we look upon all 
 we have as God-given in order that we may 
 call others in to the feast! How fine to 
 realize that all of our powers of mind 
 and body find their interpretation in the 
 way in which we use them for others' good ! 
 This is the lesson which comes to us every 
 day in the smaller as well as the greater 
 experiences. It cannot be too emphatically 
 impressed upon us that others need us and Others 
 that we need others, and that no life 
 reaches its fulness in isolation. I think it 
 is Aristotle who says that the man who 
 delights in solitude must be either a wild 
 beast or a god ; a wild beast because hav- 
 ing others in his power, or a god because 
 feeling himself to be superior. There 
 must be moments, of course, when a man 
 should go away by himself and commune 
 with himself, or with nature, or with na- 
 ture's God. There must be moments of 
 quiet when in the secret of God's presence 
 we shall be able to find ourselves, and to 
 hear that still small Voice speaking in 
 
 need us. 
 
106 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 comfort and cheer; but the regular and 
 normal life must be amongst men, and it 
 finds its force not in the delight of see- 
 ing other men act nor in the pleasure of 
 hearing other men express their thoughts, 
 but in doing for others that which we see 
 they may need to have done for them. It 
 is a poor thing to wander, as Thomas Moore 
 says, " alone in crowds ; " it is a great 
 thing to love the multitude, 
 in other's Again the Christian man wants to have 
 that understanding of others which can 
 only come through putting himself in the 
 place of others. I can only be of value to 
 my friend when I try to know how my 
 friend feels, and how he is situated, and 
 what battles he has to fight. We often 
 hear people cry in misery ; " ~No one un- 
 derstands ; " and it is a cry not so much of 
 bitterness as of arraignment. If other 
 people do not understand us it may perhaps 
 in some particular be our own fault, but 
 it is largely the fault of the other people. 
 It is their business to understand us, even 
 as it is our business to understand them. 
 And, oh, the joy which, comes to the man 
 who lives in the lives of others, who feels 
 others' woes, and understands the depth of 
 sorrow which crushes another's heart, and 
 
THE LIFE OF FELLOWSHIP. iq7 
 
 who grasps the longings which cannot be 
 spoken, even as the Spirit of God grasps 
 our longings and makes groanings for us 
 which we cannot utter. While it draws the 
 vitality out of one's life, even as it drew 
 virtue out of our Lord when He was upon 
 earth, this blessed understanding of others 
 brings to us in return a peace and a loving 
 appreciation which are the dearest gifts 
 of life. 
 
 Fellowship is shown again in the en- Bearing 
 during of the burdens of others. Another's j" s ar " 
 sorrow is my sorrow, not merely because I burdens, 
 think of it but because I take it as my own. 
 In Hawthorne's Marble Faun the way in 
 which Hilda bore her sister's fault as if it 
 were her own is a fine illustration of the 
 way in which a Christian is always bound 
 to feel that which affects others, and to 
 make the sorrow his own, even as the 
 Master did Who " carried our sorrows." 
 There is hardly anything which brings 
 humans nearer together than this fellow- 
 ship of common endurance. To take the 
 burden from my brother's shoulders may 
 not absolutely relieve him, but it makes 
 him strong to bear because I, too, am bear- 
 ing by his side. To weep with those who 
 weep, and to laugh with those who laugh, is 
 
108 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 like entering into the richness of nature 
 when we feel from ocean or mountain our 
 own feelings echoed, and know that God's 
 dear world is itself full of that spirit 
 which bears human burdens. 
 Desire to Finally, true fellowship must always im- 
 
 ply the desire to help. We do not benefit 
 men very much if we go down to their 
 depths and lie there with them side by side 
 in misery. We cannot stand on a pedestal 
 and reach down cold fingers, or exhort, 
 from some lofty situation of superiority, 
 others to come up to us who know not the 
 way. But going to the other's side we want 
 to bring that power of our own nature so to 
 bear upon him that he may be lifted up and 
 made to rise by the very strength of our 
 brotherly feeling. The parable of the good 
 Samaritan, when rightly understood, grand- 
 ly emphasizes this. The Samaritan bound 
 up the wounds; he gave of that which he 
 carried with him to assuage and to heal; 
 he walked, that the sick man might ride ; he 
 brought him to the place where he would 
 be cared for, and provided for his enter- 
 tainment. It is this effort to lift men up, 
 at first conscious but afterwards becoming 
 unconscious, which makes the richest, the 
 most beautiful part of Christian fellow- 
 
THE LIFE OF FELLOWSHIP. 109 
 
 ship. I love to breathe in my brother's Know he 
 presence. I love to hear his words, for they 
 are sweet. I love to know that he cares for 
 me. It is a comfort beyond expression that 
 his heart beats in sympathy with mine and 
 that his touch of hand is almost holy. But 
 the richest thing as I sit by his side is the 
 thought that he needs me, poor and un- 
 worthy though I am ; he, though seemingly 
 my superior, has need of me, otherwise he 
 could not love me ; for while love is the de- 
 sire to give and the desire to bless, it is 
 also the instinctive knowledge that the one 
 loved has something which can satisfy my 
 soul's hunger. That I may help the one 
 whose presence inspires me; that I may 
 somehow, dumbly perhaps, or by word, or 
 by act, make his life happier, that is it 
 which gives the cap-stone to fellowship and Fulness of 
 makes life beautiful in spite of its many gt\p W " 
 difficulties. And when the Christian en- 
 ters into this fulness of fellowship he finds 
 that which he never dreamed of before — a 
 i bond which is something more than human, 
 a love which is something more than emo- 
 tion. It is the power which comes from 
 God, Who in creating man breathed" into 
 his nostrils His own divine breath, and 
 placed within his soul that glorious nature 
 
HO THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 which can, by the grace of God, at last 
 attain unto perfection. 
 
 I beseech of Thee, dear Lord, to give me 
 this spirit of fellowship which shall make 
 my Christian life one with the lives of 
 others. Hold me from selfishness; keep 
 me from an unhealthy desire for isolation ; 
 make me feel at home amongst men, not 
 that I may be hidden in the multitude but 
 that I may stretch out my hand to bless and 
 give out my voice to speak where there is 
 need. Above all, dear Lord, in order that 
 I may be bound closely to men, do Thou 
 bind me closer unto Thyself, that from 
 Thine own blessed nature there may flow 
 into my soul that divine power which I can 
 use amongst men and so bring them nearer 
 to Thee in bringing them nearer to myself. 
 I ask this, O divine Brother, in Thine own 
 name. Amen. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CHUECH LIFE. 
 
 We have already said that the Christian What 
 is to be a brother to all men, but we must 
 not forget that God has established a fam- 
 ily in Christ which is, as it were, a circle 
 within a circle. Those who believe in and 
 accept Christ, those who are called and 
 hear the call, those who obey the Master's 
 precepts, are all gathered into what the 
 Master called His family, and what was 
 soon called the church. The church is not 
 a body of good people, but a body of people 
 who are trying to be good. The church is 
 not an ecclesiastical association of those 
 who establish a certain code and are gov- 
 erned by certain rules, but it is the blessed 
 company of all those faithful people who, 
 loving Christ and trying to do His will in 
 the world, enter into a relationship which 
 the Master Himself has established. 
 
 It is well to remember, that which so 
 many people forget, particularly those who 
 111 
 
112 TBE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Not body themselves are unmindful of their duty, 
 of saints. . !_■•*• 
 
 that the church is not a body ot saints. 
 
 There always have been and always will 
 be some black sheep in the fold, even as 
 there was a traitor in our Lord's little body 
 of twelve; and those who belong to the 
 church are weak, and feel the need of the 
 strength which God gives, and do not set 
 themselves up as examples, but are rather 
 as arrows pointing towards the Leader and 
 King of all. That was a fine testimony 
 which the people gave concerning John the 
 Baptist : " John did no miracle," they 
 said, " but all things that John spake of 
 this man were true." The church thus be- 
 comes a body of witnesses. The church 
 members are loyal to their Lord. They 
 fall, but they rise again through His 
 mercy and grace. They are ignorant, but 
 they learn through the wisdom which He 
 imparts. And so little by little through 
 the centuries, in spite of its many failures, 
 in spite of divisions, in spite of bitter con- 
 troversies, in spite even of wars brought 
 about through imagined loyalty or a kind 
 of frenzied enthusiasm, the church of God 
 stands to-day as the manifested power in 
 the world pointing towards God and work- 
 ing for righteousness. 
 
CHURCH LIFE. 113 
 
 "Now the Christian man is a member of What to 
 the church. What is there for him to do 
 in the life of the church? His own 
 particular church or parish is a part of the 
 whole and represents for him to a certain 
 extent the whole. There is where he lives 
 his life. There is where he worships. 
 There is where he hears the word of God, 
 and receives the message of God, and there 
 God for a shorter or longer time has 
 placed him in order that he may be use- 
 ful in the divine service. What has the 
 Christian to do here? 
 
 First of all he must realize that the Guides and 
 church is not a little ecclesiastical body, but 
 that it is a body of guides, who having seen 
 the light, shed that light upon the way of 
 others and ask them to follow it. The 
 Christian must know that he is a member 
 of the church in order that he may bring 
 others in to the joy and fellowship which 
 he has found. Even as the church at large 
 is a light, so the individual parish or 
 church is a light, or should be, to brighten 
 the way of those living near, and to hold 
 up a high standard for men to follow. No 
 Christian has any right to feel himself 
 independent of the church to which he be- 
 longs. He may not be a slave, dropping 
 
 workers. 
 
114 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 his own individuality, nor is lie to con- 
 sider himself as simply the mouthpiece of 
 a body of people to which he belongs ; but 
 he is to know that he is of the church in 
 order that he may bring the church's bless- 
 ing and God's to those who need it. Loy- 
 alty, then, is necessary. 
 Unhappy ^y e mus t pause here for a moment to 
 
 divi- x ... 
 
 sions. say a word about the unfortunate divisions 
 of the church of God. Without going into 
 the history of the past, we find Christianity 
 to-day unfortunately divided, and while the 
 great foundation principles of the truth of 
 Christ are accepted by all, there are dif- 
 ferences of administration so marked that 
 there is not between the divisions the fel- 
 lowship for which we long and for which 
 Christ prayed. It is a condition which 
 cannot at once be remedied. We must 
 pray, and we must do all we can to draw 
 near to each other in active service and in 
 common worship, but we must be loyal to 
 our own church ; and loyalty does not mean 
 narrowness — a narrowness which would 
 blind us to the good in others or make us 
 critical of them, — but it means a spirit 
 which should make us thank God for the 
 privileges which are ours, and lead us to 
 do all we can where God has placed us to 
 
CHURCH LIFE. 115 
 
 bring the world to the knowledge of Jesus Clmr fk 
 Christ. The subject of church unity is a 
 great subject, and I believe we are coming 
 nearer, though unconsciously perhaps, to a 
 solution. But the individual Christian can 
 best serve to hasten the coming of an an- 
 swer to his Master's prayer that they all 
 " may be one," by doing all that he can in 
 his own denomination to work and to pray 
 and to serve, meanwhile holding himself as. 
 one with all those who confess and call 
 themselves Christians. 
 
 The Christian man, then, in his church Members 
 
 8,re 
 
 must first of all be a worker ; he has some- workers, 
 thing to do in that church. Coming to 
 worship once or twice on Sunday and feel- 
 ing that he has so fulfilled his obligation is 
 to show an ignorance of the meaning of 
 church membership as unfortunate as it is, 
 alas, too common. If the church is meant 
 to serve as a leaven in the community then 
 there must be that mixing of the meal with 
 the leaven, or rather of the leaven with the 
 meal, which shall make the church a power 
 for good. This is done by various church 
 organizations ; it is done by the charitable 
 work which the church carries on; it is 
 done by its missionary activity; it is ac- 
 complished by its efforts to bring in those 
 
lie THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Takes part w h are estranged or astray. If the Chris- 
 tian is alive to his privilege he will take 
 part in every one of these activities. The 
 Sunday-school, the Bible class, parish or- 
 ganizations, the classes for arousing mis- 
 sionary interest, the efforts to bring in out- 
 siders — all these things will be so intensely 
 real to him that he can no more think of 
 neglecting them than he would think in 
 business of neglecting his mail or of pass- 
 ing by an opportunity to advance his trade. 
 It is a crying shame that there are so many 
 Christians to-day who are doing absolutely 
 nothing in their churches. They worship 
 once a week, and then the church is no 
 more to them (unless it be as a subject of 
 criticism) than the man in the moon! 
 As a result they not only grow weak in 
 their spiritual life but they lose a magnifi- 
 cent opportunity. 
 
 A place for Again, the Christian must feel, regard- 
 tion. ing his church, that it is a place for edu- 
 cation in all those things which relate to 
 Christ and His truth. It is not a meeting 
 place only, that is, in the sense of meeting 
 others or even of meeting God; it is not 
 a formal assembly where people, without 
 regard to each other or knowledge of each 
 other, bow down before the Almighty; it 
 
CHURCH LIFE. 117 
 
 is not a place merely for spiritual delight; 
 that is, we do not go to church only in 
 order that we may be calmed or quieted and 
 find repose for our souls. All of those 
 things are good and right, but the church 
 must mean something more to the Chris- 
 tain man. If Christ is in His church as 
 He has promised, and if He has given to 
 His family on earth certain gifts such as 
 the Bible and Common Prayer, and Bap- 
 tism, and the Lord's Supper, then there 
 must be a spirit of education by which the 
 man through the church is taught more and 
 more of his Master's truth. Let it not be 
 thought for an instant that we would imply 
 that the individual Christian is not taught 
 directly by God. The Holy Spirit leads us 
 into all truth in our own lives. But, on the Taught of 
 other hand, it must be remembered that the 
 church is intended to teach the Christian 
 through her services, through her united 
 prayers, through her reading of God's 
 word, and through the teaching of those 
 who have been prepared for this blessed 
 task. She teaches him regarding his duty 
 and how he should perform it. She teaches 
 him regarding his Christ, what He has 
 done and what He is doing. She teaches 
 him the fellowship of which we have al- 
 
118 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 ready spoken. She brings him face to face 
 with opportunity. She makes him see a 
 vision. She calls him to enthusiastic 
 struggle. She opens his ears that he may 
 hear the cry of those who know not God. 
 It is a splendid thing to realize that the 
 church is a teaching power under the guid- 
 ance of the Holy Spirit, and that that 
 teaching power is not confined to Sunday 
 worship but is carried on all through the 
 week in various ways, not by the ministers 
 alone or chiefly, but by the people working 
 under the guidance of the ministers. 
 To seek Yet again, the Christian owes it to his 
 
 and save. 
 
 church not only that he should be loyal and 
 that he should receive the teaching offered, 
 but that he should forward its every en- 
 deavor to do what God declares should be 
 done. In other words, he is not only a 
 worker in a general sense, but he is a 
 soldier with his eye alert and his hand 
 ready, marching onward against the enemy 
 or to rescue those who are besieged. The 
 idea of a church member standing with 
 a gun to defend is rather poor; the 
 idea of a church member going out with his 
 staff to draw in under his leadership the 
 multitudes who are as sheep without a 
 shepherd is inspiring. Now the Christian 
 
CHURCH LIFE. 119 
 
 may be very faithful in his church duties, A , sh ® p " 
 and very loyal, and very teachable, and yet 
 if he does not, like his Master, seek and 
 save the lost and bring them to this body 
 of faithful people who shall nourish and 
 comfort and declare the brotherhood of 
 man, he misses a great part of his vocation. 
 Every Christian man should be a feeder 
 of the church. It is not the minister's 
 business alone to guide wandering youth, 
 or to inspire those who are discouraged, 
 or to visit those who are sick, but it is 
 the part of every church member under 
 the minister's leadership to do these things. 
 The wonderful field thus opened is full 
 of sunshine and clothed with flowers for 
 the man who enters in. The strong 
 influence which the church has through its 
 representatives, the gratitude felt and ex- 
 pressed not only to the individual but to 
 the church of which he is a member by 
 the sick and afflicted, the prisoner and the 
 dying, must always stand as one of the 
 richest and finest rewards of the Christian 
 life. 
 
 Finally the Christian in his church life Firm for 
 
 . . truth. 
 
 is bound to stand firmly and positively 
 
 upon the great principles of his faith, while 
 
 at the same time he seeks to make that 
 
120 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 faith so simple that a child may read and 
 understand. I think sometimes the church 
 member holding loyally to the truth, makes 
 that truth confusing rather than clearly 
 helpful to others. There ought to be a 
 spirit of interpretation which should make 
 the faith of God held by His children easy 
 for the poorest and the most ignorant or the 
 most prejudiced to accept, and it is the 
 part of the Christian to do this thing. He 
 is not to weaken the faith by paring away 
 any of its essentials; he is not to meet 
 doubt by calling unimportant the thing 
 doubted ; but he is to be so full of the spirit 
 of the truth himself that he will be able to 
 make it attractive and dear to those with 
 whom he comes in contact. This is the 
 spirit of the Sunday-school teacher. She 
 loves God so much that she knows how to 
 make her children love Him; she accepts 
 His word so thoroughly that she knows how 
 to lead others to accept it. It is the privi- 
 lege of every member of the church in like 
 Interprets fashion to interpret the word of God to 
 God. men. The business man in his business, 
 the housekeeper in her home, the traveller 
 on his way, the man or woman at the sum- 
 mer home or in vacation time, should all 
 have such a quickness to make real and 
 
CHURCH LIFE. 121 
 
 vivid the great truth they love that others 
 will find no difficulty in at least under- 
 standing it and perchance in giving their 
 adherence to it. Ah, what a blessed privi- 
 lege it is when a man, as a church member, 
 so loves the things which God has given to 
 His family that he seeks to bring them to 
 others and display them in such a fashion 
 as to arouse their admiration, perchance 
 their envy, and at last their acceptance! 
 The man who loves his church can do this, 
 and will do it. The Christian who is 
 loyal to the family of which he has been 
 made a member will count it a high privi- 
 lege thus to bring men nearer to God. 
 
 Dear Lord, Who hast brought Thy peo- 
 ple together and called Thine unworthy 
 children members of Thine own family, 
 and hast been pleased to bid us look up 
 unto Thee as our loving Head, teach me, I 
 beseech of Thee, the privilege of church, 
 membership, and show me how I may do 
 Thy will where Thou hast placed me. Let 
 me never forget why Thou hast established 
 Thy church and the work which Thou 
 hast given her to do. Let me never forget 
 that I am a part of the church and that I 
 must fulfil my responsibilities if I would 
 
122 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 prove my love to Thee. Help me in all 
 things to be faithful ; and at last bring Thy 
 church to that glorious transfiguration 
 when, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, 
 and terrible as an army with banners, in 
 one united phalanx she shall march on to- 
 wards the gates of righteousness and re- 
 ceive from her King the banner of victory. 
 [Amen. 
 
CHAPTEK X. 
 
 THE MEAN'S OF GEACE. 
 
 We have been considering in our pre- 
 vious chapters the relationship which man 
 is to bear to Christ in the way of moral 
 living, in the way of service, in the way of 
 public duty, in the way of brotherhood, 
 and in church life. The natural question 
 must come to the mind of an earnest man, 
 as he considers all these demands, as it 
 came to the mind of St. Paul : " Who is 
 sufficient for these things ? " And indeed 
 it would be impossible for any man to ful- 
 fil in any degree these obligations were it 
 not that God has graciously provided helps 
 whereby we can be made strong and fitted 
 for the work we have to do and the life we 
 have to live. " Our sufficiency is of God " 
 says the great Apostle ; and when one real- 
 izes that his Father stands behind him 
 ready to give him grace to do and to be all 
 that he ought to do and be, then he can go 
 forward without hesitation. We will con- 
 123 
 
124: THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 sider in the next few chapters, therefore, 
 the way in which God helps a man to be a 
 true Christian and to hold himself in the 
 loyal relationship to Christ which is de- 
 manded. 
 How It is well for ns to remember that God 
 
 deals with us in our spiritual life very 
 largely as He deals with us in our physical 
 and mental life, and that there is no more 
 mystery in the laws which have to do with 
 the life of service towards God than there 
 is in the laws which have to do with the 
 strength of the body or the intelligence of 
 the mind. I cannot be strong in body un- 
 less I eat and drink and sleep and take 
 exercise. I cannot understand how doing 
 these things can help me ; I only know that 
 they do help. So I cannot be strong in my 
 mind unless I think and read and study, 
 and reason with men who are wiser than 
 myself. I cannot tell how these exercises 
 benefit me ; I only know that they do benefit 
 me. Even so is it with the spiritual life. 
 If I want to hold myself in that true re- 
 lationship to Christ which is the part of a 
 Christian man and which alone can lead 
 to happiness, I must read my Bible, and 
 pray, and go to church, and do all those 
 things which God has provided for my 
 
THE MEANS OF GRACE. 125 
 
 spiritual sustenance. I cannot tell how 
 these things help me; I only know that 
 they do help me, through experience. 
 
 It is a little curious that there are many law of the 
 people who accept without any question- spm ' 
 ing the laws governing body and mind, and 
 yet reject, or count as of no importance, 
 the laws governing the moral and spiritual 
 nature. They are certainly inconsistent, 
 for they recognize in themselves certain 
 moral functions which are guided by what 
 are commonly called the precepts or the 
 habits of men. For instance, a man who 
 wished to be considered a gentleman would 
 not think of acting discourteously in the 
 presence of ladies; a man who wished to 
 develop high and pure ideals would not 
 think of such a thing as placing himself 
 continually in an atmosphere of degrada- 
 tion and wretchedness and evil; he knows 
 perfectly well that his moral nature is af- 
 fected by the atmosphere in which he lives 
 and by the actions which he may or may 
 not do. Must it not be equally true that 
 the spiritual nature, that is, the nature 
 which loves God and communes with Him 
 and seeks to grow more like Him and 
 longs to do His will, must obey the laws 
 governing the spiritual nature — laws which 
 
126 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 have been distinctly given by God Himself 
 and whicb have been proved to be effective 
 in the lives of millions of God's children ? 
 We must remember that even our Lord 
 Himself when He was upon earth, be- 
 cause He was both human and divine, used 
 these means of grace and so set us an 
 example. If the Son of God humbled 
 Himself to use the very graces which He 
 brought to earth for the good of men, must 
 we not believe that we who are only hu- 
 man cannot get along without the use of 
 the same graces ? We know that our Lord 
 prayed. We know that He was familiar 
 with the Old Testament, particularly the 
 Psalms. We know that He worshipped in 
 the Temple, and we have every reason 
 to believe that His home in Nazareth was 
 one of faith and of purity and of love. 
 " Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, 
 and in favor with God and man," St. Luke 
 tells us, and this growth in divine and 
 human favor must have been nourished, 
 just as His growth in wisdom and stature 
 were nourished, by those things which were 
 provided as spiritual food. We cannot, as 
 servants, hope to be above the Master. 
 
 Efficiency j^ j s a WO nderful thing, too, to realize 
 of grace. . 
 
 now the use of these means of grace proves 
 
THE MEANS OF GRACE. 127 
 
 their efficiency. Every true Christian man 
 can give evidence of the way in which he 
 has found new courage and new inspira- 
 tion from reading God's Word. Every 
 loyal servant of Christ can tell how by 
 prayer he has been comforted and exalted 
 and granted power to do and to endure. 
 After all, the way to test the efficacy of the 
 means of grace is to use them, and it is 
 an assured fact based upon God's promise 
 and verified by human experience, that no 
 man can sincerely and honestly follow 
 God's laws of spiritual development with- 
 out finding himself increasing, as did our 
 Lord, in favor with God and man. 
 
 It would hardly seem necessary to warn In spirit 
 against the merely mechanical use of these truth, 
 means of grace were it not that there have 
 been ages in the church's history when it 
 was thought sufficient to go through the 
 form regardless of the spirit. To say so 
 many prayers, to read so much of the Bible, 
 to go to church so often, and yet to have 
 no love in the heart and no desire for bet- 
 ter things, must of course be useless; and 
 yet there are many people, even to-day, 
 who think that the outward observance of 
 these laws is all that is necessary, and they 
 find their mistake too late, and the mistake 
 
128 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 affects not only themselves but others. 
 They that worship God must worship Him 
 in spirit and in truth. Therefore, in 
 using these means of grace we must bring 
 the desires and longings of our hearts, the 
 simple love for Him in Whose fellowship 
 we desire to live, and the constant devo- 
 tion which will make the holy things of life 
 dear to us. 
 Spasmodic It is necessary to say a word here about 
 tianity. the regularity with which we use these 
 blessings which God has left for our devel- 
 opment. There is a good deal of spas- 
 modic Christianity which is hot to-day and 
 cold to-morrow, which is faithful one day 
 and faithless the next. Such spurious 
 Christianity can never satisfy. It is the 
 regular, persistent, earnest following of 
 truth which gives truth an opportunity to 
 enter in and do its work. Day after day, 
 hour after hour, line upon line, precept 
 upon precept — so the will of God is ful- 
 filled in man as in nature. Oh, if men 
 would only " keep at it " in the develop- 
 ment of the spiritual life, how gloriously 
 they would prove the faithfulness of God's 
 promise ! To pray without ceasing, to find 
 God's temple the dearest place on earth, to 
 make His Word the companion of life — 
 
THE MEANS OF GRACE. 129 
 
 this is to meet with the sure abundance of 
 God's blessedness. 
 
 What shall we say as to the spirit in God works, 
 which the Christian should approach these 
 blessings ? First, surely this, that he must 
 know that they are powers through which 
 God works. Even as God works through 
 the sunshine and the rain upon vegetation, 
 and even as He works through the voice 
 and the written page in mental develop- 
 ment, so He works positively through these 
 things which He has asked His children to 
 do. It is a glorious thing to realize, as we 
 hold our Bible in our hands, that God's 
 eternal power is back of the Book to make 
 His Word quick and powerful. It is a 
 marvellous and yet absolute truth that as 
 we kneel to pray, God's mighty Spirit is 
 working in and through that devotion of 
 ours, even as the Apostle says when he de- 
 clares that the Spirit itself maketh inter- 
 cession for us with unutterable groanings. 
 When we enter the church where God has 
 promised to be with even two or three who 
 are gathered together in His name, it is 
 inspiring to know that God's power is there 
 just as really as it is in the atmosphere our 
 bodies breathe and in the light which our 
 eyes perceive. In other words we must al- 
 
130 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 ways remember that it is not merely the 
 effect upon ourselves subjectively but the 
 divine power of God from without working 
 through these means of grace that must 
 prove them effective. To pray and to read 
 the Bible sincerely will bring results, man- 
 ifestations of God's might, just as really 
 as touching the button will flash the room 
 with electric light, or as moving a lever 
 will cause the engine to start on its way 
 and pull its load behind. 
 
 May God give us grace to use these 
 means of His providing sincerely, rever- 
 ently and believingly, and may He help 
 us to love Him all the more because of 
 this gracious providing of His whereby 
 we are enabled to become purer and 
 nobler and to grow into His image and 
 after His likeness. 
 
 Dear Lord God, for all Thy mercies, 
 and especially for the gracious provision 
 which Thou hast made for my growth I 
 praise Thee. I feel my own weakness. I 
 cannot bring myself to the holiness which 
 Thou dost ask and which I desire. As I 
 look upon myself I am in despair, but 
 when I look to Thee and see Thy gracious 
 hand stretched out, and know that I can 
 
THE MEANS OF GRACE. 131 
 
 grasp it and be lifted up, then indeed am 
 I comforted. Help me, O gracious Mas- 
 ter, to do those things which Thou hast com- 
 manded, and to find in them a fulfilment 
 of Thy promise as my life by Thy grace 
 grows purer and my love for Thee deeper! 
 For Thine own dear sake. Amen. 
 
CHAPTEK XL 
 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 If God has made us and if He is our 
 Father, we must expect that in some way 
 He would communicate with us. It is in- 
 conceivable to think of God giving life 
 to His children and loving them, and yet 
 being silent through all the ages since man 
 first began. We should expect a Bible 
 even if there were none. One can readily 
 conceive of men hungering and thirsting 
 for a message from their Creator and un- 
 willing to give up the search for some 
 revelation of Himself. 
 God speak- That so early in the history of humanity 
 God did thus speak is but a proof of the 
 way in which our expectations are always 
 met by our Father. In the Garden He 
 spoke to our first parents. He guided the 
 actions of ISToah. He revealed Himself 
 by word of mouth to the patriarchs, and 
 then when Moses was called He bade him 
 write down all of these revelations in or- 
 132 
 
 ing. 
 
THE BIBLE. 133 
 
 der that future ages might know them and 
 profit by them. He has spoken through 
 His Prophets since the world began. And 
 when the Master Himself came to earth 
 He gathered about Him those who later, 
 by the Spirit of God, wrote down His 
 words and told of His works; and so we 
 have our Bible as it is to-day. It is a won- 
 derful proof of God's care and a marvel- 
 lous answer to the natural longing of man- 
 kind. 
 
 We cannot here give a history of the Thereve- 
 formation of the Bible or of its translation q q ^ 
 into English from the original languages 
 in which it was written. There are many 
 books bearing upon this phase of the sub- 
 ject with which the Christian ought to be 
 familiar. We desire rather now, first to 
 show what the Bible contains, and sec- 
 ondly how the Christian man should use 
 it. The Bible, then, is to be considered 
 as the revelation of God. It gives us the 
 only history we have of the life of the world 
 from the time when the heavens and the 
 earth were created down to the time when 
 the Christian church was well established 
 upon the earth. It is a glorious pano- 
 rama. We see man placed upon earth by 
 the Almighty to govern it and to enjoy 
 
134 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 it. Then man by disobedience fell and 
 there began that long struggle upward 
 which is still continuing. God revealed 
 Himself more and more in laws and in 
 gracious promises to strengthen and to en- 
 courage in the struggle. He established 
 amongst His chosen people sacrifices which 
 were types of the one great Sacrifice which 
 He planned in fulness of time should be 
 offered. Then came the Master Himself 
 Who is the Centre and the interpretation 
 of the whole Bible, for the Old Testament 
 points forward to Him and the New Testa- 
 ment tells of Him. And He, the Christ, 
 gained for mankind the victory and showed 
 men how they might make that victory 
 their own, and how they might grow into 
 ever richer fulness and goodness. Then 
 came the early workers in the church, and 
 guided by the Holy Spirit they established 
 Christianity over all the then known 
 world; and finally St. John on Patmos 
 saw a vision of the glorious consummation 
 when all things should be finished, and the 
 world and man perfected in the presence of 
 God. 
 Bible There have naturally been enemies of the 
 
 Bible who have doubted concerning its be- 
 ing the Word of God, and who have not 
 
THE BIBLE. 135 
 
 hesitated to look for mistakes which would 
 defeat its usefulness as a revelation of the 
 Almighty. And there are to-day, even 
 amongst nominal Christians, some who 
 count the Book as no better than many 
 other books, interesting because of its age, 
 but full of errors and unreliable in many 
 of its detailed facts. Let me say here 
 most positively that all of these attacks in 
 the past have proved futile. The Bible 
 stands to-day stronger than ever before. 
 Every real discovery which has been made, 
 whether of manuscript or of tablet taken 
 from the earth, has proved, even in minute 
 detail, the authenticity and the genuine- 
 ness of this Book. We need not be afraid 
 of any examination or criticism which man 
 can bring in connection with the Bible. 
 It is God's Word, and we can rely upon it, 
 and need not fear lest human ingenuity 
 should contradict the truth of the Almighty. 
 It is well to have an open mind and not 
 to attack the men who are honestly seek- 
 ing to learn more about the formation and 
 contents of the Bible; but on the other 
 hand we must not let our faith in its mes- 
 sage be weakened in any particular, but 
 go with assurance to this Book and hear 
 God speak through it. 
 
136 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Use of the Now, how can we use the Bible as a 
 Bible. ' 
 
 means of grace ? Let us be very simple. 
 
 First, every Christian should have a Bible 
 of his own, which he should use and which 
 he should not hesitate to mark and to bring 
 into association with every dear event of 
 his life. One loves to see a Bible full of 
 little sacred tokens which none can under- 
 stand save the one who owns it. One 
 loves to finds marks and dates and perhaps 
 a written expression of some emotion, or 
 a record of some event on the margin. 
 These things all prove the way in which 
 this blessed Book has become a lamp 
 unto the feet and a light upon the path. 
 Second, we must read the Book and be 
 familiar with all of its wonderful events 
 and teachings. This is partly an intel- 
 lectual study, but it also affects the spirit- 
 ual study. It is unworthy for an intel- 
 ligent man to be ignorant of the great 
 events and characters of the Bible, and he 
 who would profit by it must have both Old 
 and New Testament so clearly fixed in his 
 mind as to make a reference or a quota- 
 tion quickly to be recognized. Again, 
 there must be the devotional use of the 
 Bible at least once a day and better twice 
 a day. In this use of the Book the Bible 
 
THE BIBLE. 137 
 
 should be taken in the hand and a little 
 prayer offered to God before it is opened, 
 that He would send His Spirit to guide and 
 to reveal His truth. Then let the Bible be 
 opened and some devotional passage, such 
 as a Psalm or some words of our Lord, be 
 read. It is not wise to read too much. A 
 few verses, or a verse, or even part of a 
 verse may be sufficient, for what we want 
 to do is to get food to strengthen us in our 
 lives. We may read, for instance, the 
 121st Psalm: "I will lift up mine eyes 
 unto the hills, from whence cometh my 
 help." Perhaps that one verse is enough. 
 What does God intend to teach me from 
 those words ? That I should look up, not 
 down; that I should look to Him Who is 
 like the strong mountains in His love and 
 in His truth; that I should realize His 
 help which has been promised and which 
 can never fail; that I should keep my 
 eyes fixed upon Him Who is my God and 
 never lower them. There is my message 
 for the day. I am strengthened and re- 
 freshed. Or I may turn to some words 
 of the Master, for instance, those found 
 in the 15th chapter of St. John: "Ye are 
 my friends." That is enough. I stop 
 just there. I am Christ's friend; not a 
 
138 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 servant, not a slave, not one who is afraid, 
 not one who is shut out from the dearest 
 and holiest part of my Master's nature, 
 but one w T ho is admitted as a companion, 
 one to whom He speaks from the depths 
 of His divine love, even as I can speak to 
 Him with naked heart. I am not alone, 
 because I am the friend of Christ. I can- 
 not fail, because His friendship will sus- 
 tain me ; unworthy though I am, the great 
 strength of His love will surround me. 
 Here I have the message which I need 
 and by which I am enabled to live. 
 
 Bible devo- This devotional use of the Bible should 
 be observed, as I have already said, at 
 least twice a day. The " quiet hour " 
 when we are alone with God, even al- 
 though it may be brief, should be sacred, 
 when with Bible in hand we listen to Him 
 speak and rejoice at the sound of His 
 voice. 
 
 Bible in Then we should use the Bible in times 
 
 of necessity. It is easy to laugh and cry 
 " superstition " when people open the 
 Bible at random to get a message of guid- 
 ance in some great crisis of their lives; 
 but after all, these people have a deeper 
 faith than we often imagine. If we would 
 accustom ourselves to go to this Book in 
 
> THE BIBLE. I39 
 
 time of need and expect a message from 
 God to sustain us we would find ourselves 
 always rewarded. Times of joy and times 
 of sorrow, times of trouble and times of 
 perplexity, these are all met by Him Who 
 has given to us this revelation of His love 
 and of His truth. We can never fail to 
 receive help in time of need if we go thus 
 boldly to the fountain of wisdom which 
 God has provided. 
 
 Yet once more, it is well for us to learn Bible re- 
 by heart certain portions of the Bible. freshes - 
 They will not only serve us at times when 
 we may not be able to read, but they will 
 come to us again and again as a refresh- 
 ment in the weary land of our pilgrimage. 
 To know by heart the 23rd Psalm, the 
 51st Psalm, the 121st Psalm, and the 14th 
 chapter of St. John, and the 13th chapter of 
 1st Corinthians and the 22nd chapter of 
 the Revelation is to have a store of rich- 
 ness and comfort which is real and in- 
 exhaustible. A clergyman told me not 
 long ago that he found the most useful 
 thing in all his life to be the Bible verses 
 he learned when he was a Sunday-school 
 scholar. To learn one verse every day, 
 perhaps in the morning, and to keep re- 
 peating it through the day and trying to 
 
140 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 grasp more and more of its meaning, is to 
 use, as God would have us use, this blessed 
 Book. 
 Bible mes- One word more. Let us always remem- 
 mf GS her distinctly that God is speaking to us 
 individually. It is not merely a general 
 message we are reading but it is a word 
 which the Father addresses to each one of 
 His children, and that word has a direct 
 application to each child's need. You 
 may read a verse and I may read the same 
 and yet it will convey to each of us quite 
 a different message because each of us 
 has a different need. It is often useful 
 to change the pronoun in reading the Bible 
 so as to make it more personal. For in- 
 stance in the 14th chapter of St. John we 
 might read : " Let not thy heart be troubled. 
 Thou dost believe in God, believe thou also 
 in me." Or we may take the dear Lord's 
 Prayer, and read it : " My Father Who 
 art in Heaven, .... give me this day my 
 daily bread." It is this personal message 
 which makes the Book so dear and which 
 sanctifies it in a peculiar way to our use. 
 Thank God for this Bible which can 
 never fail in the future as it has never 
 failed in the past to guide God's people in 
 their journey through life, and to be a com- 
 
THE BIBLE. 141 
 
 fort and blessing to every individual child 
 of the Master. 
 
 Blessed Lord, Who hast caused all Holy 
 Scriptures to be written for my learning, 
 grant that I may in such wise hear them, 
 read, mark, learn and inwardly digest 
 them, that by patience, and comfort of 
 Thy Holy Word, I may embrace and ever 
 hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting 
 life which Thou hast given me in my 
 Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. (From 
 P. E. Prayer Book.) 
 
CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 PEAYEE. 
 
 To speak to God and to hear Him speak 
 to us must surely lift us nearer to Him 
 and make us feel the reality of His 
 presence and the greatness of His love for 
 us. Prayer is communion with God; it 
 is that fellowship which brings Him Who 
 is invisible right into our lives and makes 
 Him the blessed Companion of every day 
 and hour. " Lo, I am with you always," 
 or " all the days " said Jesus, and He must 
 have meant that His presence would be 
 like that which the disciples enjoyed when 
 He was upon earth, only without the phys- 
 ical contact. That is, if Jesus is with us 
 as He was with them, walking over the 
 roads of Palestine and sitting on the moun- 
 tain-side, then we must hear His voice 
 and talk to Him even as they heard and 
 talked. The fact that we cannot see Him 
 does not for one instant contradict this 
 blessed truth, for we know, even by mod- 
 ern discovery, the joy of communicating 
 142 
 
PRAYER. 143 
 
 with one whom we cannot see and whose 
 voice we cannot hear. If the traveller in 
 mid-ocean can send a message to those at 
 home and receive a message in return, is 
 
 - it any more wonderful that the dear Mas- 
 ter, Who is ever with us, should speak to 
 us and we to Him although we can neither 
 hear nor see? 
 
 If we really love Christ — and we can- 
 not help loving Him if we read the Gos- 
 pels — then we will find the greatest com- 
 fort of our lives in talking to Him. Not 
 only at stated times but unceasingly will 
 we pray; not only by pouring forth words 
 but by the very emotion of our hearts will 
 we speak even as friend talks with friend 
 though no word is spoken, the eyes and the 
 consciousness of the presence and the heart 
 carrying on the conversation. It is all 
 wonderful but it is all true; and the man 
 who prays is invariably the man who enters 
 into the largeness of the spiritual life, 
 and understands the presence of God in all 
 
 I His world. That beautiful hymn which 
 tells us that 
 
 " Prayer is the burden of a sigh, 
 The falling of a tear, 
 The upward glancing of an eye, 
 When none but God is near." 
 
prayer. 
 
 144 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 is an exact description of the life of one 
 who communes with God. 
 P !i v „ a il Let us now consider how we ought to 
 
 pray. First, there must be the regular 
 private prayer of morning and night. It 
 is a great pity to neglect the morning 
 prayer as many do. It is just as important 
 as the night prayer. We need to realize 
 the presence of our King in the daily life 
 and to feel that that presence goes before 
 us, even as at night we know that it fol- 
 lows after us. The fiery and cloudy pil- 
 lar which protected the Jews as they came 
 out of Egypt was a light by night and a 
 cloud by day. When we pray we should 
 enter into our closets and shut the door — 
 so our Master said. We want to be alone 
 with Him, and although sometimes it may 
 be difficult to secure this isolation it is 
 most important if we would have the full 
 blessedness of the communion. Then we 
 should sit for a little while in absolute still- 
 ness. Most of us talk too much in our 
 prayer and do not give God an opportu- 
 nity to speak. Let us listen a moment for 
 His " still small voice " and rejoice that He 
 comes near to greet us. Oh, how He loves 
 us, and how wonderfully tender is His 
 voice as He, like a Father, tells us of His 
 
PRAYER. 145 
 
 love and of the plans lie has for us in our 
 lives! It is well for us, too, to remember 
 before we begin to speak ourselves, Whom 
 we are approaching — the great, eternal 
 God, Maker of heaven and earth, Who has 
 come to listen to one of His children — the 
 loving Father Who made us and Who has 
 prepared a home for us after this painful 
 life is ended. How beautiful He is, how 
 loving, how patient, how wise ! How ten- 
 der He is in His approach to us, not break- 
 ing the bruised reed nor quenching the 
 smoking flax ! Here in this moment of sol- 
 itude the great First Cause of all things 
 comes to us and listens and speaks and 
 blesses. 
 
 Then let me pour forth my supplication ; Telling our 
 let me tell Him all the story ; my troubles, 
 my needs, my joys, my sorrows, my friend- 
 ships, my longings — let me tell them all to 
 Him Who is far more interested than any 
 loving mother can ever be in the experi- 
 ences of her child. Let me ask Him to 
 bless those near and dear to me. Let me 
 tell Him of my work and how I have ap- 
 parently failed or succeeded. Let me 
 tell Him of my doubts and how I find 
 it hard to believe, particularly in hours of 
 darkness. Let me tell Him of my visions 
 
prayer. 
 
 146 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 and how I long to be what I know He 
 would have me be. Let me tell Him of 
 my enemies and ask Him to forgive them 
 and to grant me the grace to forgive and 
 forget. Let me whisper the names of my 
 dearest and best and plead with Him to 
 do that which He is more than ready to do, 
 pour upon them His choicest gifts. Such 
 prayer filled with thanksgiving and adora- 
 tion cannot fail to make me a stronger and 
 a better man. 
 Public^ w e must not forget public prayer. We 
 
 shall speak in our next chapter of wor- 
 ship, but here let it be said that no private 
 prayer can be effective unless it is asso- 
 ciated with public worship. The man who 
 goes to church and prays there is the man 
 who prays in private. The two are very 
 distinctly associated together. Let it also 
 be remembered that family prayer and 
 grace at meals cannot be forgotten if we 
 really love God and desire His help. The 
 decay of the family altar, that is, the giv- 
 ing up of family prayers, undoubtedly lies 
 as a very large cause for the breaking up 
 of the family in many unhappy cases. 
 ~No wonder that divorce and separations 
 and unhappiness through incompatibility 
 of temper should be so frequent in our 
 
PRAYER. 14 Y 
 
 American land when seldom if ever the 
 family are gathered together for morning 
 or evening devotions ! Until we have fam- 
 ily prayer regularly we cannot look for 
 a reformation in the immorality so sadly 
 associated at present with married life. 
 There should also be that expression of 
 gratitude to God before we eat which is 
 the part of courtesy as well as of religion. 
 For a man to nourish his body with the 
 food which God gives and yet never say 
 il thank you " is to prove himself, no mat- 
 ter how much he may pride himself upon 
 his courtesy, as lacking in the first ele- 
 ments of a gentleman. There is no reason 
 why we should not bow our head wherever 
 we are and say " thank you " to God be- 
 fore eating a meal. Whether people ap- 
 prove or disapprove it is no reason why 
 we should forget this courtesy of life and 
 fail to remember that it is a part of prayer. 
 
 We must remember also to pray for our Prayer for 
 
 enemies, 
 enemies — those who hate us and spitefully 
 
 use us and persecute us. It is hard to 
 
 ask God to bless them when we feel as if 
 
 they ought to be cursed ; but if we expect 
 
 mercy ourselves from God, we must plead 
 
 for mercy upon those who are cruel to us 
 
 even as the Master prayed for His perse- 
 
ways. 
 
 148 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN, 
 
 cutors, saying : " Father, forgive them ; for 
 they know not what they do." 
 Prayer al- And finally let us remember that we go 
 to God unceasingly in prayer when we are 
 conscious of His presence, and commune 
 with Him as we walk on the way. It is a 
 blessed thing to realize that even as He 
 notes our down-sitting and our up-rising so 
 He is about our paths and knows all our 
 ways. To speak to Him as naturally, when 
 some beauty impresses us or when some 
 need tries us, as we would speak to a friend 
 by our side; to call upon Him as instinc- 
 tively as the child calls upon its mother 
 in time of need; to feel in our loneliness 
 the great comfort of His blessed presence; 
 to remember that He, though we are sorely 
 tried, is bearing our infirmity with us — 
 all this is to know what prayer in the 
 Christian life means and how it can en- 
 rich and strengthen our character. 
 
 u Oh, when the heart is full, when bitter thoughts 
 Come crowding thickly up for utterance, 
 And the poor common words of courtesy 
 Are such a very mockery, how much 
 The bursting heart may pour itself in prayer ! " 
 
 Dear Lord, teach me to pray. Help me 
 to communicate with Thee in spirit. Let 
 
PRAYER. 149 
 
 me never forget that Thou art near, and 
 that Thou dost love, and that Thou dost 
 care, and that Thou wilt help. Let me 
 bring my troubles to Thee and my joys and 
 my friendships. Let me bring my work 
 to Thee and my problems and my enemies. 
 Let me feel Thee near me as my Best 
 Friend; and O, Lord, fulfil Thy promise, 
 and answer and comfort Thy servant. For 
 Thine own dear sake. Amen. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PUBLIC WORSHIP. 
 
 God has established men in families and 
 He has bidden them feel their common re- 
 lationship as brothers. When He drew 
 His own people to Himself He yet more 
 positively made them feel their brother- 
 hood. They were to serve one another; 
 they were to help one another, and they 
 were to worship together in their com- 
 mon love for Him. Amongst the Jews in 
 the early patriarchal days the father of the 
 family was the head and the priest in his 
 own household. There is every reason to 
 believe that he was accustomed to gather 
 the family together at stated intervals for 
 sacrifice and instruction. Later, or after 
 the Children of Israel came out of Egypt, 
 while the family idea still ruled, it was 
 merged into the larger idea of God's 
 chosen people, and the tabernacle was built 
 and carried with them all through their 
 forty years of wandering. In it they were 
 150 
 
PUBLIC WORSHIP. 151 
 
 accustomed to assemble and in it the daily Temple 
 
 worship, 
 sacrifices were offered. After entering the 
 
 promised land the tabernacle still served as 
 a centre of worship, though the people were 
 too scattered to go to it very often. There 
 seem to have been at this time smaller 
 places of worship called " synagogues " 
 which corresponded largely to our modern 
 churches. By and by the great temple 
 built by Solomon in Jerusalem took the 
 place of the tabernacle which for a long 
 time had been in Shiloh, and the regular 
 order of worship which God had com- 
 manded through Moses was continued. 
 There were ministers, called High Priests, 
 Priests and Levites, and the people were 
 accustomed to assemble and worship to- 
 gether. Synagogues were still kept up in 
 various places and there the people as- 
 sembled every Sabbath Day to hear the 
 Scriptures read and to join in the worship. 
 After the Christian Church was established 
 and the observance of the first day of the 
 week, the Lord's Day, took the place of the 
 observance of the seventh, there still con- 
 tinued the same public worship, and the 
 people gathered together to offer to the 
 Almighty the sacrifice of praise and 
 prayer. Down to the present time this has 
 
152 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 continued, and we may well believe that it 
 is in accord with God's will, since by this 
 public worship men have been made 
 stronger, instructed in holy things, and 
 drawn nearer to each other. 
 
 The importance, then, of public worship 
 cannot be impressed too strongly upon the 
 Christian man. It is commanded by God, 
 both by precept and by the example of His 
 people ; it is necessary for our own strength 
 and comfort, and it is the means whereby 
 Christians can work together for the wel- 
 fare of mankind. 
 Christian j^ -Qg now see ^ow ^ e Christian man 
 should use public worship as a means of 
 grace. First of all, he should attend regu- 
 larly. Nothing but sickness, or some 
 imperative duty which he can bring con- 
 scientiously before God, should keep him 
 from going to church. Moreover he should 
 go at least twice every Sunday. The Jews 
 had the morning and evening sacrifice, and 
 corresponding to these, all through the cen- 
 turies, have been the morning and evening 
 worship of God's people. The Lord's Day 
 is holy and should be observed as holy. All 
 of the commands of God concerning the 
 Jewish Sabbath, which was the seventh 
 day, rest upon the Christian as concerning 
 
PUBLIC WORSHIP. 153 
 
 the first day, which is now kept because 
 Christ arose from the dead on Sunday. 
 We have no right to work on Sunday. We 
 have no right to play in the ordinary ac- 
 ceptation of that word. The Lord's Day 
 is not a gloomy day, but it is a day when 
 we should change our occupation and give 
 our minds to God and His truth, and try 
 to help men in acts of mercy. The Chris- 
 tian to-day cannot take too strong a stand 
 about the observance of Sunday. There is 
 grave danger of its becoming a holiday, 
 particularly because of the influence of the 
 great number of foreigners who at home 
 have never been accustomed to observe the 
 day. ]STo nation can prosper where the 
 Lord's Day is not righteously observed, 
 and no individual can expect a blessing to 
 rest upon him who does not sanctify it 
 and keep it holy. Therefore the day must 
 preeminently be given to worship. The 
 people of God are to assemble together to 
 hear His Word, to pray to Him, to give 
 Him thanks, and to listen to His message 
 given through His ministers. It ought to 
 be looked upon as a privilege rather than a 
 duty to attend church. If we could only 
 realize how the dear Father is waiting to 
 bless us and comfort us and help us we 
 
154: 
 
 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Ministers 
 human. 
 
 Join in 
 worship. 
 
 would go eagerly and nothing could keep 
 us away. 
 
 Because we are human it is sometimes 
 difficult, with our modern forms of wor- 
 ship, not to be influenced by the ability or 
 the habits of the minister; but the true 
 Christian ought to be big enough to realize 
 that the minister is only a man like him- 
 self, whom God has set apart, not as holier 
 than the rest of His people, but as a leader 
 for their devotions. If people would pray 
 for their ministers more and criticise less 
 there would be a great improvement both 
 in the conduct of public worship and in the 
 ability of the ministers themselves. But 
 let it be remembered that there can be no 
 excuse for staying away from church in the 
 mere fact that the ministrations of a 
 pastor are not altogether acceptable. 
 
 The true Christian joins heartily in the 
 worship ; he lifts his voice with his fellow 
 Christians in praise and adoration; he 
 listens attentively to God's holy Word; 
 his heart goes up in the prayer which is 
 offered, which is the prayer of all God's 
 people assembled together, and he feels 
 that his own personal prayers which he 
 offers during the silent moments of the 
 worship hour are doubly strong because 
 
PUBLIC WORSHIP. 155 
 
 they wing their way to heaven with the 
 united desire of God's church. Oh, the 
 blessedness of these quiet moments in pub- 
 lic worship! We cannot think too highly 
 of them. God is there in His church, and 
 as we pray He hears, and hears, if it were 
 possible, with even greater love than when 
 we pray alone, because we are praying in 
 the assembly of His people. 
 
 We cannot accent too forciblv the dutv To * et and 
 
 to give, 
 of the Christian to join in the worship. 
 
 He is not there merely to receive but to 
 render to Almighty God thanksgiving and 
 adoration and praise. It is an error to 
 imagine that we go to church simply to get 
 something. We do indeed receive all that 
 we long for if we go in the right spirit; 
 but it is our privilege to offer up to Al- 
 mighty God there, in His peculiar pres- 
 ence, the gifts which we have brought — 
 our love, our gratitude, our service, our 
 lives, ourselves. It is easy to realize, so 
 far as the human can, how the Almighty 
 must rejoice in the worship of His children 
 on earth, even as the angels cause Him joy 
 by their worship in heaven. If there is 
 joy in the presence of the angels of God, 
 and the expression implies that the joy is 
 God's which the angels see, when one sinner 
 
156 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 repents, how much more must there be joy 
 when God's people are gathered together 
 and bow before Him in adoration and 
 love! The Bible is full, from Genesis to 
 Revelation, of instances where God's peo- 
 ple thus worshipped Him, and as we shall 
 by and by join with angels and archangels 
 before the great white throne in rendering 
 our thanksgivings and praise to Him Who 
 has loved us and redeemed us; so let us 
 here on earth rejoice in giving to Him 
 with all of our hearts the love which is 
 His due. 
 
 Blessing in There should be in this public worship a 
 need. . r 
 
 sincere faith on the part of the worshipper, 
 
 first, that God has a blessing for him indi- 
 vidually as for all His people, and sec- 
 ondly, that God will fulfil His promises 
 to those who there offer unto Him their 
 petitions. It always seems to me a pecul- 
 iarly beautiful thing when some special 
 need is brought before God in His church. 
 It may be a prayer is offered for some sick 
 person, or for some one who is travelling, 
 or for some one who is in sorrow. There 
 falls a silence over the congregation as if 
 the very presence of God was felt. Or 
 when some public benefit is asked for, such 
 as a deliverance from sickness, or a victory 
 
PUBLIC WORSHIP. 157 
 
 in time of moral conflict, or help in some 
 great undertaking, then there seems to be 
 a reality in the people meeting together to 
 implore God which is a proof in itself that 
 God hears and answers. If all Christians 
 prayed in church on Sundays as they ought, 
 and if each individual Christian felt him- 
 self truly a part of the whole body, and 
 individual needs as well as general needs 
 were brought before God by the minister, 
 how wonderful would be the result! The 
 church would take her power, which is 
 waiting for her, and go forth mightily to 
 conquer. Men would realize that this 
 world is already the Kingdom of our God 
 and of His Christ, and they would turn 
 from their evil ways and grant their al- 
 legiance. 
 
 It ought to be remembered that the church Open 
 is for public worship not only on Sundays daily, 
 but on week days. To shut the church up 
 Sunday night and keep it locked all 
 through the week seems to deny our Lord's 
 words when He said : " Mine house shall 
 be called a house of prayer for all people." 
 It is true that in many cases it is not pos- 
 sible to hold many services through the 
 week; but there are almost always one or 
 more meetings for prayer in every church 
 
158 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 which should be attended if possible. We 
 lose sight of God too readily, particularly 
 in these times when we are pressed all 
 through the day. To meet for prayer in 
 the middle of the week or on special days 
 is like entering into the shadow of a great 
 rock in a weary land. 
 Blessings What are some of the blessings coming 
 ship. to the Christian from public worship? 
 First surely this, that he feels the reality 
 of God's love for all His people. Secondly, 
 that he feels himself drawn nearer to his 
 fellow strugglers in the battle of life. You 
 cannot pray alongside of a man without 
 feeling that sympathetic touch which God 
 Himself has given to humanity and which 
 implies common brotherhood. Thirdly, 
 there comes a strength for the battle of life 
 which can be found in no other way. The 
 man goes out from the holy hour spent in 
 God's presence with a new determination 
 to struggle and with a new light of hope 
 in his face. He feels that the world is 
 God's because God has everywhere these 
 sanctuaries where His people worship Him 
 and which make the earth holy, and he 
 feels assured that the wrongs which meet 
 him on every hand can never prevail 
 
PUBLIC WORSHIP. 159 
 
 against the divine and overwhelming glory 
 of God's goodness. 
 
 Finally, the Christian realizes that he Grace 
 receives grace directly from God in the God. 
 church. When the minister gives the bene- 
 diction at the close of the service it is not 
 merely a form, an indication that the serv- 
 ice is ended. Nay, it is far more than 
 that; it is a declaration that that which 
 God's people have sought has been found, 
 and that it will follow them out into their 
 lives. When we sing our hymns it is not a 
 formal act, but it is that which really es- 
 tablishes in our hearts the harmony of 
 God's peace. When we listen to the Bible 
 reading it is not the mere rehearsing in 
 our ears of old time-worn truths, but it is 
 the bringing to us from God treasures both 
 old and new which will nourish us and 
 make us nobler. And when we bow before 
 the Almighty, offering up our common 
 petitions, it is a virtual drawing from Him 
 of that grace which He is more ready to 
 give than we are to seek. Oh, the blessed- 
 ness of public worship ! Let the Christian 
 never neglect it. Let him cry in the words 
 of the great singer of Israel : " How 
 amiable are thy tabernacles, Lord of 
 hosts ! My soul longeth, yea, even f ainteth 
 
160 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 for the courts of the Lord: my heart and 
 my flesh crieth out for the living God." 
 
 O, dear Lord God, I thank Thee for 
 Thy church and for the privilege of wor- 
 shipping Thee in the midst of Thy congre- 
 gation ! Let me rejoice in the opportunity 
 which Thou dost thus afford. Let me 
 come with a song and with a prayer to be 
 united with the many songs and prayers 
 which Thy people offer. In the silence of 
 Thy sanctuary let my life find its rest. In 
 the sweetness of Thy presence let my soul 
 find peace. Through Jesus Christ my 
 Lord. Amen. 
 
CHAPTEK XIV. 
 
 We come now to the last, and in the 
 minds of many the most important, of all 
 the means of grace which God has given. 
 There have been through all the centuries 
 diversities of opinion and sometimes very- 
 hostile divisions concerning the Lord's 
 Supper. No matter what opinions our 
 own church may have, we must try to avoid 
 saying or teaching anything which shall 
 hurt a fellow Christian. This service is 
 too holy and blessed a privilege for us to 
 permit it to descend into the arena of con- 
 troversy. We will, therefore, in this chap- 
 ter seek to reveal in the simplest way this 
 great privilege which the Lord has given to 
 His people. 
 
 The story of the institution of the Lord's How insti- 
 Supper is a very beautiful and simple one. 
 Our Lord sent His disciples to prepare 
 for the Passover which He was to eat with 
 them. In accord with His instructions 
 161 
 
 tuted. 
 
162 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 they found a room prepared; they made 
 ready the Passover, and at the evening 
 hour they all came together to that upper 
 room which has been in the minds of 
 Christians ever since the holiest place in 
 Jerusalem. After supper He took bread, 
 and blessing it, and dividing it, He gave 
 it to His disciples saying: " Take, eat, 
 this is my body." And then He took the 
 cup and gave thanks, and gave it to them, 
 saying : " Drink ye all of it ; For this is 
 my blood of the new testament, which is 
 shed for many for the remission of sins." 
 " This do in remembrance of me." Thus 
 our Lord established this sacred feast and 
 bade us observe it in memory of Him. 
 And the church ever since, through all the 
 centuries of struggle, of division, of trial 
 and of suffering, has never failed to do 
 what He asked. Whether in the little 
 Scotch church, or away in the islands, or 
 in the gorgeously appointed cathedral, or 
 in the quiet little village church; whether 
 in this language or that ; whether amongst 
 the barbarians brought to kneel humbly be- 
 fore Christ, or amongst the kings and 
 learned men of civilized lands, from time 
 to time this simple thing has been done — • 
 bread has been distributed after the giving 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER. 163 
 
 of thanks in memory of Christ's body; 
 broken for us, and wine has been dis- 
 tributed after the giving of thanks in 
 memory of Christ's blood shed for us. 
 
 We would commend very strongly a "The Up- 
 little book written by Ian Maclaren (John Eoom." 
 Watson) called " In the Upper Koom." It 
 is one of the purest and sweetest of devo- 
 tional books ever written, and one cannot 
 but feel that the great Scottish preacher 
 was especially inspired when he wrote it. 
 
 Now what does this service, which has 
 been rendered in memory of our Redeemer 
 ever since He was on earth, mean to the 
 individual Christian ? First, it must mean 
 what Christ said it ought to mean, a 
 memory of what Christ has done for us 
 all. We remember that He died that our 
 sins might be washed away. We remember What the 
 how the Cross has become the symbol, not 
 of degradation or of death, but of exalta- 
 tion and of life ; and our minds, as often 
 as we eat the bread and drink of the cup, 
 are carried back to the great central fact 
 of the world's history — to that glorious 
 light which is drawing irresistibly the 
 world to itself — the crucifixion on Calvary. 
 No man can gaze upon this wonderful 
 scene without being made better. No man 
 
 Supper 
 means. 
 
164 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 can remember how Christ died for him 
 without rejoicing that his sins are for- 
 given, and without receiving strength to 
 resist sin more earnestly in the future. 
 
 Our Lord's Again, this service proves to us our 
 Lord's love in that He longs to be remem- 
 bered by us. " This do in remembrance 
 of me." Could anything touch our hearts 
 more strongly than this request ? The 
 Lord wanted to be remembered. As Dr. 
 Watson says in the little book already 
 noted : " Remembrance by our friends is 
 what we all long for." To be forgotten 
 is the greatest agony of life. And here we 
 have the blessed Master Who came to earth 
 for our sakes, pleading with us that we 
 should remember Him. When our memory 
 is thus brought to rest upon Him do we 
 not recall all of the familiar events of that 
 blessed life ? We remember the song of the 
 angels, and the humble birth in Bethlehem. 
 We remember the childhood's years in 
 Nazareth and the boyhood's courage in the 
 temple. We remember the beginning of 
 those three years of ministration when St. 
 
 What it John baptized Jesus. We remember the 
 
 recalls. . . 
 
 temptation in the wilderness, and the un- 
 ceasing acts of mercy and love which fell 
 like jewels from the hand of the dear 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER. 165 
 
 Christ all through the years when He so- 
 journed amongst men. We remember His 
 gracious words of mercy and of comfort 
 and of peace. "We remember how He drew 
 sinners to Himself and never repulsed 
 them. We remember how He loved the 
 birds and flowers and little children. We 
 remember how He drew His disciples near 
 to Himself and spoke to them, and so to 
 us, great words of comfort. We remember 
 how at last He died and spoke from the 
 Cross seven great words which have come 
 down to us and have been treasured by us 
 as the last words of the King. We remem- 
 ber His rising from the dead and His as- 
 cension into heaven. And as we remember 
 we know that all of these things were done 
 for us and are being done for us to-day; 
 that the same dear Lord is born in our 
 hearts even as He was born in Bethlehem ; 
 that the same dear Lord is working in our 
 lives as He worked long ago in Palestine; 
 that the same glorious Christ is healing our 
 infirmities and giving us courage; and we 
 remember how His promise once spoken is 
 a promise to us sure of fulfilment, that 
 at last we shall rise from the dead and 
 enter into the many mansions prepared 
 for us. 
 
come. 
 
 166 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 ~No man can remember all these blessed, 
 holy things — the most blessed and the most 
 holy that history affords — without being 
 made purer, better and more God-like. 
 Till He Again, we remember how St. Paul says, 
 
 (1st Corinthians 11: 26) " As often as ye 
 eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do 
 shew the Lord's death till he come." This 
 must mean surely that the Lord's Supper 
 is a great act of faith. That every time 
 we do as our Lord asked us to do in this 
 matter we are signifying our confidence in 
 the fulfilment of His promise. He will 
 come again. We shall see Him in the 
 clouds of heaven. He will gather us, each 
 one of His loved children, whom He knows 
 by name, unto Himself. He will call us to 
 enter into the joys which He has prepared, 
 and the old world will at last recognize and 
 worship her King. The Lord's Supper 
 thus becomes a glorious declaration of the 
 fulfilment of all our hopes, the answer to 
 all our prayers. It is like lifting up an 
 ensign upon the mountains. It is like 
 raising the standard in the midst of a hos- 
 tile and threatening multitude. It is like 
 the glorious shining of a light in a dark 
 night telling us that there is an end to our 
 wanderings. It is like the music which the 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER. 167 
 
 heart can hear in the midst of all the earth's 
 confusing cries, music full of rich har- 
 mony coming from the throne of God to 
 help us in our battle. Surely we need 
 just such a declaration as this. We have 
 it in our prayers when we pray as our Lord 
 bade us, " Thy kingdom come." We have 
 it in our creed — that old creed which we 
 all accept — when we say, each for himself, 
 " I believe." We have it in our hymns 
 when we sing together of the Kock of Ages 
 Who will at last hide us in Himself. We 
 have it in our Bible when we read those 
 blessed words, " Behold, I come quickly." 
 JNow we have it in an act which we can do. 
 As we take bread and wine, for which we 
 have thanked God, and partake of them, it 
 is a great and precious declaration of the 
 good which at last shall be ours. 
 
 The Christian needs then this dear ob- Meets our 
 servance, first, in order that he may be 
 obedient to the King Whom he worships 
 and Whose name he bears. The loving 
 Christ before he died asked us to do this 
 in remembrance of Him. Can we be loyal 
 followers unless we not only formally obey 
 but long to do this thing which He has 
 asked ? Secondly, the Christian needs to 
 observe the Lord's Supper in order that he 
 
 needs. 
 
168 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 may have brought before him positively 
 and clearly that great picture of Cal- 
 vary, which means for him and for the 
 world salvation. Alas, that in these mod- 
 ern days with modern ideas of religion, 
 Calvary is being obscured, and the man 
 Christ Jesus in His glorious life is made 
 to shadow the Cross to which alone human- 
 ity must cling for salvation. There never 
 was a time when the church needed so 
 strongly to hold to the Lord's Supper as 
 an evidence and remembrance of the death 
 on Calvary as to-day. And finally, if the 
 Christian would have a defmiteness in his 
 progress he must know whither he is going 
 as well as whence he came. He must keep 
 his eyes fixed on the future, as Browning 
 beautifully says : " Front and back as 
 either should be." The Lord's Supper is a 
 declaration of the great thing which is to 
 come ; it is a declaration of that for which 
 the Christian is struggling and longing and 
 praying; it is the interpretation of his 
 missionary effort to bring all men to God ; 
 it is an affirmation of the great love of his 
 soul which in the midst of a naughty world 
 holds up the banner of Christ crying: 
 " This and this alone is drawing me on- 
 ward and blessing me." 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER. 1G9 
 
 May God grant that even as through all E £ er to be 
 the centuries this dear service has been ob- 
 served, and as, without doubt, it will be 
 observed through the centuries to come un- 
 til the Christ is once more in our midst, 
 so the individual Christian may never fail 
 to count it as one of the rare privileges of 
 his life. May God keep us from neglect- 
 ing it and from failing to do what the 
 dear Master asked us to do in memory 
 of Him. 
 
 O, Thou crucified Eedeemer, I thank 
 Thee for Thy great love shown by Thy 
 request that I should not forget Thee. I 
 thank Thee for that holy hour in the upper 
 room when with Thy loved ones about 
 Thee Thou didst give proof of the salva- 
 tion which Thou didst come to bring, and 
 didst give promise of the glory which shall 
 at last cover the earth. Help me, I pray 
 Thee, humbly, and with repentance, but 
 oh, with great love in my heart, to do what 
 Thou hast asked in remembrance of Thee. 
 Grant that I may never forget Thee in 
 my daily life, and that all of Thy words 
 and works, as well as Thy great and crown- 
 ing sacrifice, may be ever in my mind. 
 And help me, as I struggle on, to find my 
 
170 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN, 
 
 steps stronger and my sight clearer because 
 they are fixed upon that great day when I 
 shall see Thee face to face. For Thine 
 own dear sake. Amen. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 SACRIFICE. 
 
 Having spoken of Christ as the Centre Character - 
 of the world's history and light, and of christen 
 Dur relationship to Him, sanctified by His h£e - 
 relationship to us, and of the way in which 
 we ought to live if we really believe in 
 Him, and of the means of grace which He 
 has given in order that we may serve Him 
 truly, we come now to think of some of the 
 characteristics of the Christian life. There 
 are so many phases of human living and 
 so many perplexities which from time to 
 time face us, that it may be well for us in 
 a few particulars to gain a clear survey of 
 the field in which we are engaged. Let 
 us look, first, at ourselves, and realize that 
 great law which governs every man, even law of 
 as it governed Christ in His humanity, and 
 governs the whole universe — the law of 
 sacrifice. " God so loved .... that 
 he gave." Those wonderful words can 
 never be forgotten either in their expres- 
 171 
 
172 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 sion of divine compassion or in their decla- 
 ration of universal self-denial. No man 
 can live unless he sacrifices himself, and 
 just in proportion as his love seizes upon 
 his life does he enter into that fulness of 
 self-denial which is his joy, his delight and 
 his comfort. We are here in this world not 
 to get, but to give. Even as the mother 
 gives of her vitality that the child may be 
 nourished; even as the father gives of his 
 virtue and activity that the family may be 
 provided for; even as the friend gives to 
 his friend in order that the friend may 
 have all that is needed, — so the Christian 
 finds his very life, not in the things which 
 he gains, nor in the things which he pos- 
 sesses, but in the things which he gives up, 
 which he loses, which he cares nothing for 
 in comparison with his desire to help and 
 bless the world. 
 Giving no Sometimes there is a dread amongst 
 people lest too much be given, lest the indi- 
 vidual suffer through the loss of things of 
 which he denies himself that others may 
 have. I read the other day, in an interest- 
 ing little book written by a physician, of 
 the way in which some lives draw so 
 strongly upon other lives that they are like 
 vampires, sucking the life-blood and yet 
 
 loss. 
 
SACRIFICE. 
 
 never satisfied. That may be true in some 
 cases, and yet I am inclined to think that 
 the individual who really loves others can 
 no more keep back his vitality, can no more 
 help giving, than the dear Christ Himself 
 in His great love could help laying down 
 His life that others might live. It is the 
 man who, like his Master, gives his best, 
 even his life, for others' good, who knows 
 what it really is to " follow after " in the 
 steps of his Lord, and who gets the most 
 satisfaction out of life. The true man soon 
 learns that there i3 not very much of good 
 in the things which he possesses. He does 
 not despise them, he does not scorn them, 
 he does not even refuse them when they 
 come to him, but he finds that those things 
 which enter into his life either through his 
 own struggle or through the generosity of 
 others are not the real things. It is when 
 he takes strength out of his own soul and 
 gives it to another, it is when he takes of 
 his own heart and lets another be the 
 stronger for the affection thus imparted, 
 yea, it is when he looks at his own desires, 
 his longings for sympathy, his hungering 
 for words of kindness, and his yearning for 
 rest, and makes these the guides in doing 
 for others — then it is that he enters into 
 
174 
 
 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Sacrifice 
 and the 
 Cross. 
 
 Sacrifice 
 not 
 gloom. 
 
 the largeness of manhood, and grows, un- 
 consciously perhaps, like his Master. 
 
 This law of sacrifice makes the cross 
 very simple in the common life of man. 
 We often speak of " bearing the cross " in 
 connection with the sorrows and troubles 
 of life, the sicknesses and the afflictions 
 which come upon us without our will and 
 without our effort; but really we have no 
 right to call these " crosses." They are 
 burdens, indeed, which we must bear 
 patiently; they are trials which we must 
 really be glad to endure because they bring 
 us nearer to Christ, but they are in no 
 sense crosses such as was the Cross of 
 Christ. For His cross was voluntarily as- 
 sumed, that is it came to Him because of 
 His loving service for others. If my 
 trouble has come upon me because I have 
 been trying to help others ; if my sorrow is 
 breaking my heart because I have given of 
 my very best to help another, then I can 
 claim my cross and feel that I am bearing 
 it after my Christ. In other words sacri- 
 fice must be voluntary, born out of love and 
 offered with prayer. 
 
 Do not let us think for one moment that 
 this law of sacrifice adds any gloom to life ; 
 it is just the reverse. In common experi- 
 
SACRIFICE. 175 
 
 ence the man who gives of his best for 
 others' sakes, even although he may feel 
 the weaker because of his denial, is really 
 the happier for it. The illustration already 
 given of the mother pouring forth her own 
 vitality for the child's* nurture proves 
 where true happiness lies. Is there any 
 one happier in the growing life of her 
 child than the mother? Is there any one 
 more richly rewarded than the father as 
 he sees the fruit of his toil in the family 
 well cared for and growing in character? 
 Is there anything finer in a man's life than 
 the knowledge that his friend is being 
 deepened and held in all noble things by 
 his own effort for him, even although he 
 himself is left on his way in terrible and 
 agonizing loneliness % The real happiness 
 of life — happiness which endures and 
 happiness which is not like the laughter of 
 fools or the " crackling of thorns under a 
 pot," but which thrills through the whole 
 being — is the happiness which comes from 
 sacrifice. A great writer has said that in 
 every strong life there are shelves upon 
 which are laid by things which the man 
 has put out of his life for the good of 
 others — things not wrong in themselves, 
 things which he even had a right to de- 
 
176 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Tokens of rnan d b lT t things which expediency bade 
 virtue. 
 
 him lay aside in order that he might more 
 
 readily learn the way of true service. It 
 might be added that there are sacred places 
 in the life of every man where there are 
 tokens, not so much of the things of which 
 he has denied himself as of the virtue 
 which has gone out of him and in going 
 has left glorious scars upon him. The 
 wounds which have been made by one's 
 own hand in order that others might con- 
 quer; the marks which have been brought 
 by secret conflict for others' sake — these, 
 after all, are the greatest treasures which 
 at last will shine in the man's heavenly 
 life, even as the wounds in the hands and 
 feet of the Master will shine. 
 Use of Let us now very simply illustrate how 
 
 the Christian should sacrifice himself for 
 others' good. Take, for instance, his time. 
 How much time, he might well ask him- 
 self, am I giving simply to myself, my 
 own pleasure, my profit, my advancement, 
 and how much of my time am I giving to 
 the good of others ? It is rather startling 
 when one honestly considers such a simple 
 question as this, for he is pretty sure to 
 find that selfishness rather than sacrifice 
 claims a large share of his days. Or let 
 
SACRIFICE. 177 
 
 hirn think of Lis money, and see how much Use of 
 
 money, 
 of that which he possesses, be it much or 
 
 little, is used for his own personal profit 
 and how much is used directly or in- 
 directly for the profit of others. Ah, but 
 it is startling indeed when we face plainly 
 an answer to this question! Take an in- 
 stance in another direction. Look at the Use of 
 
 , prayer, 
 
 morning or evening private prayer and see 
 
 how much of that prayer is given to sup- 
 plication for others and how much to sup- 
 plication for one's self. Do we not gen- 
 erally pray for others, if we pray at all, 
 at the fag end of our devotions, bringing 
 them in as if they were a very unimportant 
 part of our prayer? Evidently, then, 
 others must occupy a more important place 
 in our time and thought and service than 
 we ourselves, evidently we must turn up- 
 side down our common way of living if we 
 are really to be followers of the Master. 
 
 Again, this sacrifice wants to come Specific 
 
 sacri- 
 
 within definite lines; that is, it is not fees, 
 merely what we give up in a general way 
 but what we are giving up for some definite 
 and positive person or purpose that tells. 
 It is far easier to sacrifice one's self in the 
 general enthusiasm of life than it is to 
 give up even little things for the sake of 
 
178 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 some one person or some one object. And 
 jet sacrifice which is not definite loses half 
 its flavor. What am I sacrificing for the 
 sake of missions, for instance ? What am 
 I sacrificing for the sake of the poor? 
 What am I sacrificing for the sake of the 
 sick? Of what am I denying myself be- 
 cause of the ungodly whom I would bring 
 to know their Father ? Surely that is more 
 telling than the general indefiniteness of 
 enthusiastic sacrifice! But it can be 
 brought more closely still to the life. 
 What am I doing for this special mission- 
 ary in his work? What am I giving up 
 in order that I may help this sick or poor 
 man ? Now the clear personal relationship 
 enters in, even as it entered into the life 
 of Christ Who died for each one of us, and 
 so made a definite personal sacrifice. 
 Joy of B u t we must hasten to say a word about 
 
 s£Lcrific6 
 
 the joy of sacrifice which enters into the 
 life of one who lives not for himself but for 
 others. And first, that joy comes from the 
 deep consciousness that one thus finds the 
 meaning of living. The man who denies 
 himself knows well enough that he has 
 gotten clown to the root of things, that he 
 is not trifling with mere emotions but that 
 he is dealing with character. And nothing 
 
SACRIFICE. 179 
 
 so surely satisfies and brings joy as a 
 realization that one is doing something 
 worth while. Secondly, the joy comes in 
 seeing the result. It is not always seen 
 immediately. It may be a long while be- 
 fore it is seen. Perhaps it will never be 
 seen in this world. But the man knows 
 that sometime the sight will come, and be- 
 cause of that he is joyous. He knows that 
 the sacrifice he has made, though friend 
 or foe may not dream of it, will one day 
 be recognized. He knows that the secret 
 sorrow or the secret suffering brought by 
 his own brave effort will at last receive the 
 gratitude of the one for whom the cross 
 was borne. This brings to him a great, 
 rich symphony of joy which is beyond all 
 expression. And lastly, there comes to 
 him that consciousness of communion with 
 Christ, of union with the great Eternal in 
 the daily life he is living. The very sacri- 
 fice which has become the desire and the 
 offering of his soul makes him understand 
 God's love, and brings him into association 
 with that love as nothing else in the world 
 can. He feels the thrill of God's appro- Thrill of 
 
 doing. 
 
 bation; he understands the meaning of 
 Christ's words and works; the life around 
 him seems transfigured, and his own strug- 
 
180 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 gling career, trying though it may be, and 
 full of tears, becomes luminous in the 
 glorious rays shining from above. He 
 knows as none other can know the meaning 
 of song. He knows as none other can know 
 the strength of prayer. He knows as none 
 other can know the peace of God which 
 passeth all understanding. 
 
 Dear Lord, help me to live for others. 
 Eoot out from me that selfishness which is 
 the poison and the death of all good. Give 
 me a readiness to do for others no matter 
 what it may cost me. Give me a desire to 
 pour out my own vitality that others may 
 live. Teach me how to let virtue go out of 
 me that other lives may be strong. And 
 bring me ever into closer communion with 
 Thine own dear Self through this law of 
 sacrifice. Amen. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 CONSECKATION. 
 
 The sacrifice of which we spoke in our 
 last chapter is not an easy thing, but it be- 
 comes easier if we are consecrated. Con- 
 secration means the giving of one's self ab- 
 solutely to the purpose for which one was 
 made. It comes from the same word which 
 is translated " holy.'' Anything is holy 
 which fulfils God's will concerning it. 
 The grain which grows in the field; the 
 sun which gives life and light to the world ; 
 the rain which moistens the earth, are all 
 consecrated, that is, they fulfil the will of 
 God. When a man keeps his promise to what con- 
 another he is said to be loyal, that is he secration 
 fulfils his word, and that is consecration. 
 Sometimes this word is called an oath; 
 that is, the man signs his name in the 
 presence of a Notary or a Justice of the 
 Peace and holds up his hand in affirmation. 
 In the courts he sometimes kisses the Bible. 
 AH this means that the man is consecrated, 
 he is sworn, he is bound to tell the truth 
 181 
 
182 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 and to act the truth, to do what he promised 
 to do. Now God has a will for every one 
 of us, and just in proportion to our loyalty 
 to that will and our effort to fulfil it are 
 we consecrated men and women. To be 
 holy is not at first to be perfect or to be 
 sinless. It is to keep the eye fixed upon 
 God, and the heart full of such love for 
 Him that the mind and the body will seek 
 to do His will. A study of the Bible, 
 which always holds a high ideal before us, 
 must convince us that God recognizes us 
 as His children, and through Jesus Christ 
 counts us holy when we love Him with all 
 Complete our near * s anv ^ try to do His will. Conse- 
 giving. cration, then, means a complete giving to 
 God of all that we have; — body, mind, 
 soul, life, thoughts, love, associations, work, 
 friendships — everything is to be given to 
 God. And when we say given to God we 
 mean two things. First, that we are to 
 realize that our first duty is to Him and 
 that our first thought must be of Him ; and 
 second that we must strive to use every 
 power as God chooses. Instead of this be- 
 ing a life of slavery it becomes a life of 
 glorious freedom. It is only slavery 
 amongst men when the slaveholder is im- 
 perfect and faulty, and since all men are 
 
CONSECRATION. Ig3 
 
 imperfect and faulty of course slavery on 
 earth is wrong. But when we note that 
 God is perfect, and that His will is for our 
 happiness and our eternal joy, then to do 
 His will absolutely is not bondage but is 
 blessed liberty. St. Paul calls himself the 
 " slave of Jesus Christ." He uses the 
 word significantly, for he means that he 
 cannot, must not, wishes not to do any- 
 thing save that which shall please God. 
 
 Practically, then, what do we mean bv a Think of 
 consecrated man \ Evidently we mean a 
 man who looks to God and tries his best to 
 please Him. He thinks of God first. He 
 talks to God as to a friend. He listens to 
 God that he may hear His voice above all 
 other voices, and he rejoices in that glori- 
 ous friendship which the Almighty has for 
 His children. He goes on his way with a 
 single purpose and does all that he has to 
 do with a single end in view. Life is 
 simplified ; problems, although they cannot 
 be solved, become clear; trouble, although 
 hard to bear, because we are human, be- 
 comes dear because it means something; 
 our lives become the gift of God, and the 
 whole man is made radiant by the atmos- 
 phere of heavenly light in which he has 
 his being. 
 
THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Let us now see how this consecration 
 touches the daily living of the Christian. 
 First of all it holds him to a single pur- 
 pose. He is to do what God wishes. He 
 has his friends and he wishes to please 
 them. He has his work and he wishes to 
 succeed in it. He has his ambitions and 
 he strives to rise to their fulfilment. He 
 loves life and enters with avidity into all 
 of its bright opportunities as well as its 
 dark contests. But through all and gov- 
 erning all there is this one glorious 
 thought: he is serving God. The opinions 
 of even his best friends, the desires of his 
 heart which are human, the work which he 
 loves, all these are subservient to the one 
 truth that he loves God first and wishes to 
 please Him first. It can readily be seen 
 how this must oftentimes change one's 
 method of living and oftentimes make one 
 seem to others, and perhaps even to him- 
 self, foolish and unwise. The ways of men 
 are often contradicted by the will of God. 
 Even things which seem good in the eyes 
 of men are oftentimes evil in the eyes of 
 our Christ. But knowing that the Infinite 
 can never make mistakes, and in glorious 
 loyalty to Him, the man goes on, disre- 
 garding criticism, disregarding even his 
 
CONSECRATION. 185 
 
 own apparent temporal welfare, disregard- 
 ing his own heart's longings, if there is a 
 clash between any of these and God's will. 
 
 In the second place this consecration Fills the 
 touches the whole of life. We shall speak life< 
 in our succeeding chapters about the con- 
 secration of body, mind and soul, but let us 
 see now how wonderfully this holiness to 
 which God calls us exalts the whole being 
 and makes it a part of God's universe. 
 God cares for my every act no matter how 
 small it may be. God cares for my single 
 words no matter how trivial they may seem 
 in my sight. God cares for every moment 
 of my life, with the occupation which fills 
 it; nothing is unimportant. That which 
 oftentimes causes us to fail is a false dis- 
 crimination between things, as we say, im- 
 portant and unimportant. The man thinks 
 it makes very little difference what he 
 wears or how he eats so long as he is 
 honest, but this true consecration tells him 
 that God is interested in what he wears 
 and how he eats even as He is interested 
 in his greatest thoughts. The woman calls 
 many of her daily duties drudgeries, and 
 while she does them faithfully she esteems 
 them simply as necessities and of no es- 
 pecial value compared with fine thoughts, 
 
186 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Common g rea t deeds and noble aspirations. But 
 God looks upon that which she calls drudg- 
 ery as just as important as her aspirations 
 and actions. George Herbert expressed the 
 truth finely when he said : " Who sweeps 
 a room as in Thy sight makes that and the 
 action fine." We can have no difficulty in 
 proving all this when we remember how 
 God in nature cares for the very simplest 
 things — the color of the flower, the habits 
 of the insect, the tint of the sky. Our Lord 
 Himself speaks of God's noting the spar- 
 row's fall. All these truths are parables 
 to show us that God counts every single 
 thing in connection with our life as im- 
 portant. 
 
 Mother The love of a true mother for her child 
 
 child gives us another illustration. Nothing in 
 that little child's life is without significance 
 to her — the color of its eyes, the breathing, 
 the beating of the heart, the little ribbons 
 which adorn its dress — every single little 
 trifle is of great importance to her, not 
 only because she loves the child but because 
 she has a consciousness, hard to explain, 
 that each one of these things has an in- 
 fluence or may have an influence upon the 
 child's nature and life. It is when a 
 man rises to the bigness of living that he 
 
CONSECRATION. 187 
 
 finds trifles disappear. Everything is big Sanctifies 
 because he looks at everything in a big 
 way, that is, in God's way. I remember, 
 when a boy, seeing my uncle put on his 
 coat. It was rather a threadbare coat and 
 there was nothing elegant about it, but my 
 uncle had a way of putting it on which 
 made it appear in my boyish eyes like a 
 kingly robe. I think that is the way in 
 which the man who has caught sight of 
 God and knows God's relationship to him 
 looks upon everything he does ; little things 
 become big because he does them in a big 
 way; duties become privileges, and the 
 light of the divine will touches and trans- 
 figures every single part of his life. 
 
 Again, let it be noticed how wonder- Brings 
 fully this consecration brings harmony into mony> 
 life. If all that I do is of importance, then 
 everything has its place and life becomes 
 a splendid mosaic to be completed by and 
 by so that I can see it in all its glory. Any 
 one who has visited the Gobelin tapestry 
 factory in Paris will remember how con- 
 fusing the threads look as the workers 
 weave them in and out. The wrong side 
 of the tapestry is a mingling of varied 
 colored threads which conveys no meaning 
 or suggestion of meaning. But when the 
 
THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 observer passes to the right side then he 
 marks the wonderful picture which the 
 artist workers are making, and he knows 
 how every single thread has had a share in 
 the beauty before him. So it is with life. 
 We are weavers. Every single thing we 
 touch has to do with the glorious comple- 
 tion which we shall view at last in God's 
 home. All are to be brought together, and 
 the imperfection of one will mar the whole. 
 It is said that in the buried cities which 
 have been excavated in the Far East the 
 carelessness of the workmen who built cen- 
 turies ago can be detected in the walls of 
 the houses. The best work has endured the 
 longest and shows the care of the one who 
 constructed it. So, we must remember, it 
 is with our lives. The consecrated life 
 counts everything as of importance because 
 of the great whole of which it is to form a 
 part. 
 
 And yet once more, we want to remem- 
 ber that holiness brings a joyous power of 
 its own to every little action of our lives. 
 It may be a small thing to write a letter, 
 but if that letter is really a message from 
 my heart it has a touch of divinity in it. 
 It may be a small thing to read a book, but 
 if that book makes me either better or 
 
CONSECRATION. 189 
 
 poorer then the importance is manifest. 
 How splendid it is to realize that we are 
 dealing constantly with things which are 
 holy or may be made holy if they are cared 
 for aright! How it exalts and makes of 
 power everything in the daily life ! I can 
 go forth joyously to do my tasks and to 
 hear my burdens and to meet my friends 
 or my enemies if I know that I am tread- 
 ing on holy ground. The Almighty is look- 
 ing down upon me with great love and 
 tenderness, and He placed all these oppor- 
 tunities in my hand as jewels, and bids me 
 value them and love them and rejoice in 
 the handling of them. 
 
 And finally, this great truth of consecra- Makes 
 tion makes us realize what might be called tJling 
 the sacramental character of everything. hol y- 
 A sacrament is an outward sign of an in- 
 ward grace. Every action has its mes- 
 sage. When I awake in the morning I 
 at once remember the glorious resurrection 
 when I shall arise to eternal life. When I 
 take my morning bath there comes the 
 significant truth that I am only clean when 
 I am washed in the precious blood of 
 Christ. As I put on my clothing I remem- 
 ber that my nakedness is only covered 
 when I place upon me the garments of 
 
190 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Christ's righteousness. As I eat my break- 
 fast I remember that the true nourishment 
 both for the body and for the soul comes 
 from God. And so on, all through the 
 day, everything has a beautiful message for 
 me and gains value in my eyes because of 
 that message. It is a wonderful satisfac- 
 tion to study everything and find its inner 
 meaning. When Christ spoke to His dis- 
 ciples in parables He meant a great deal 
 more, I think, than is generally under- 
 stood. He wanted to teach them, and us 
 through them, to look beneath the surface 
 in all things and find the riches hidden 
 there. Every trouble has some word for 
 me of great import. Every joy has some 
 message, deeper than the surface, to bring 
 to me. This is surely a transfiguration of 
 the whole life, and makes all things won- 
 derfully rich. 
 
 This truth may be well summed up in 
 those beautiful words of Frances Ridley 
 Havergal : 
 
 Consecra- " Take my life, and let it be 
 
 tion 
 hymn. 
 
 Consecrated, Lord, to Thee. 
 
 Take my moments and my days ; 
 Let them flow in ceaseless praise. 
 
 Take my hands, and let them move 
 At the impulse of Thy love. 
 
CONSECRATION. 191 
 
 Take my feet, and let them be 
 Swift and ■ beautiful ' for Thee. 
 
 Take my voice, and let me sing 
 Always, only, for my King. 
 
 Take my lips, and let them be 
 Filled with messages from Thee. 
 
 Take my silver and my gold ; 
 Not a mite would I withhold. 
 
 Take my intellect, and use 
 
 Every power as Thou shalt choose. 
 
 Take my will, and make it Thine; 
 It shall be no longer mine. 
 
 Take my heart, it is Thine own; 
 It shall be Thy royal throne. 
 
 Take my love ; my Lord, I pour 
 At Thy feet its treasure-store. 
 
 Take myself, and I will be 
 Ever, only, all for Thee." 
 
 Dear Lord, I thank Thee for this blessed 
 truth of consecration. Truly I am Thine, 
 not only by Thy creation and Thy preser- 
 vation but by the way in which Thou hast 
 given me all things, and hast a plan by 
 which I am to live. Help me, I beseech of 
 Thee, to look upon my life as holy. Let 
 me try to live in accord with Thy will. 
 May my first thought be of Thee, and 
 
192 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 help me to remember that everything, 
 whether of joy or of sorrow, which may 
 come to me is sacred because it is meant to 
 make me more like Thee in a consecrated 
 life. For Thine own dear sake. Amen. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE BODY. 
 
 When God made man He made him in 
 His own image and after His own likeness. 
 We cannot fathom the full meaning of 
 those words, but we know that they must 
 mean this, that man was not made as the 
 beasts of the earth were made, but that he 
 was fashioned after a heavenly manner. 
 When we remember that when God came 
 to this earth He took upon Himself the 
 likeness of men, we are impressed with the 
 fact that the body must be holy. If Christ 
 had a body like mine, only perfect, then it 
 must be that He considered the body a 
 holy thing. When I remember that the Body a 
 Holy Spirit has come and dwells within tem P e * 
 me, making my body His sanctuary, " the 
 temple of the Holy Ghost," then again I 
 am impressed with the sacredness of this 
 body. When I remember that Christ after 
 His resurrection had the same body, only 
 glorified, which was His when He died; 
 193 
 
194 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 that He ate and drank with His disciples; 
 that the wounds in hands and feet and 
 side were visible, then again I am im- 
 pressed with the fact that the risen body 
 must be identified with the human body. 
 And finally, when I remember that Jesus 
 took that glorified human body up into 
 Heaven with Him, then I know that this 
 body of mine, which is at last to be ex- 
 alted, through the mercy of Christ, to the 
 home which God has prepared for me, 
 must be a holy thing. 
 Care of I think it is only comparatively of late 
 
 years that we have begun to realize this. 
 Even the early Christians looked upon the 
 body as vile, and thought only of the spirit 
 of man. There were not wanting amongst 
 the early philosophers those who scorned 
 the body and counted it as of no importance 
 whatsoever. To starve it, to mutilate it, 
 to beat it seemed to be not only natural but 
 a duty, to express the scorn for that which 
 seemed to be full of passion and strong to 
 lead the mind and spirit astray. As a re- 
 sult of all this false thinking there. was not 
 very much progress even amongst Christian 
 people in the way of human physical de- 
 velopment. Now we know that God wants 
 us to worship Him with all of our strength 
 
THE BODY. 195 
 
 as well as with mind and soul. We know 
 that we are to cultivate the body and make 
 it strong, beautiful, pure, a fit temple for 
 the Holy Ghost, because if we are redeemed 
 it will live forever. One cannot but re- 
 joice in the modern athletics which tend to 
 a development of all that is good and true 
 in the physical nature. Not only have 
 athletics done much to make men cleaner 
 in mind and purer in life, but they have 
 accented that self-respect which can only 
 be felt when a man knows that every part 
 of him is sacred. Of course athletics may 
 be carried to an extreme and the body in- 
 jured rather than helped, but in spite of 
 this we are bound to remember that a sound 
 body is a part of God's will for men. 
 
 This respect for the body because it is D ^elop 
 to live forever, will have a great effect body, 
 upon the ordinary life of every day. To 
 keep the body clean, to walk as one should, 
 to eat healthy food, to sleep sufficiently — 
 all these things are a part of Christianity. 
 The man who neglects his body sins against 
 the temple of God. The work of the phy- 
 sician as well as of the physical trainer is 
 a high one. He is to guard the body, to 
 make it well when it is ill, to understand 
 all of its parts, to measure the importance 
 
196 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 t 
 of each part, and to develop the weaker 
 parts so that they may perform their share 
 in harmony with the rest. It is splendid 
 to think that the work of a physician is 
 not merely to cure when there is sickness or 
 to heal when there are wounds, hut that it 
 is to anticipate and prevent, so that the 
 body may be able to perform the duties 
 entrusted to it. 
 The body This same truth makes us realize that 
 ship. we are to worship God with our bodies as 
 well as with our minds and souls. It is 
 not meant that we should unceasingly pros- 
 trate ourselves before an invisible God, or 
 that He demands certain postures when we 
 worship Him, although these things are 
 not without their significance ; but it means 
 that we are to feel, when we walk or sit or 
 exercise, that our bodies are given to us by 
 the Almighty, and that we are made in 
 His image, and that therefore we can wor- 
 ship Him with our bodies, that is, we can 
 use them for His glory and cultivate them 
 for His sake. [Nothing is more inspiring 
 than this thought of the body's use in the 
 world as a holy thing. The man who goes 
 to his business with head down and feet 
 heavy not only misses the healthy elasticity 
 of life but he is forgetting that God calls 
 
mind. 
 
 THE BODY. 197 
 
 for his body to worship Him. Why should 
 he not, no matter how heavy the burdens 
 may be which rest upon him, hold up his 
 head, and walk with elastic step, and 
 breathe deep breaths because he feels the 
 blessedness of being alive, and knows, as 
 the blood thrills through his veins, that he 
 is to serve God with the best member that 
 he has? And side by side with this wor- 
 ship comes the service which the body ren- 
 ders. The mind can do little save as the 
 body works with it. " A sound mind in a Sound 
 sound body " is not only a philosophical 
 but a religious expression, and a man wants 
 to hold his body in harmony with the rest 
 of his being; he wants to bring it into 
 strong and useful service ; he wants to make 
 it fulfil its part in the world, because he 
 knows it has a part which God has given it 
 to fulfil; and knowing, he works, and 
 works hard, because he is not afraid of 
 wearing himself out, — he knows that hard 
 work never kills; it is only worry that 
 hastens dissolution. He does not suffer his 
 mind for one instant to disregard the 
 body's calls, nor does he feel, as he kneels 
 before his King night and morning, that it 
 is only his soul which God cares for. He 
 prays for strength, he prays for peaceful 
 
198 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 sleep, he prays for health, and he rises from 
 his knees with a new consciousness of the 
 power of the great Physician. 
 
 Sin becomes peculiarly horrible when we 
 recognize this holiness of the body, particu- 
 larly those sins which touch the life and 
 health of the physical system. Intemper- 
 ance, impurity and a host of other evils are 
 enemies which the true Christian fights 
 because they are sure to weaken the temple 
 Sin, enemy of God if they are indulged. Sin becomes 
 y * just as much a positive enemy as if he saw 
 it visibly running at him and trying to 
 kill him. Therefore he hates it ; therefore 
 he guards against its attacks, not merely 
 defensively but offensively. He goes out 
 to try and weaken the power of sin in the 
 world. He holds up its deadly character 
 before men so that they may see it. He 
 fights against the business of bad men 
 which tends to destroy rather than to help 
 humanity. He knows that anything which 
 makes the body less capable of doing its 
 work is wrong. This ought to simplify 
 one's idea of sin. Anything which hurts 
 me or makes me less capable of doing my 
 work, or which in any way weakens or 
 makes false any part of my physical sys- 
 tem, must be wrong. How can one bear 
 
THE BODY. 199 
 
 foolishly to adorn himself? How can one 
 think of changing the natural features 
 which God has given ? How can he add to 
 that which God has made so simply beauti- 
 ful, when once he grasps the idea of the 
 body's holiness '{ Foolish dress, and foolish 
 eating and drinking, and foolish habits be- 
 come not merely indiscretions but farces; 
 they become absolute shames because they 
 cast dishonor upon that which God has 
 made in His image. O, for a realization 
 of this so that our lives might be healthy 
 and the face might be bright and the eyes 
 clear! O, for that true adornment of a 
 meek and quiet spirit rather than that 
 foolish and wicked imitation of a false 
 ideal which is both ridiculous and hideous ! 
 
 And now one word more in closing. Love tin 
 Should a man love his body, it is asked ? 
 And the answer is most decidedly, yes. I 
 recognize my body's weaknesses. I know 
 how prone it is to sin. I know how im- 
 perfect it is because of the long struggles 
 of humanity and because of my own im- 
 perfections in living. But oh, this body 
 goes with me all through my earthly strug- 
 gle; it has its wounds and its scars as the 
 result of my contest ; its eyes and ears have 
 seen and heard those things which have 
 
 2 body. 
 
200 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 entered into my experience ; its month and 
 hands and feet have had much to do with 
 the building of my character; it is a part 
 of me, and how can I help loving it ? It is 
 not a foolish love which tends to weaken 
 through adulation. It is not a love which 
 makes me forget duty or courage ; but it is 
 a love which makes me know, even as the 
 truth has been revealed to me, that when 
 I awake after His likeness I shall be satis- 
 fied. This old body of mine glorified by 
 the grace of God will live forever! My 
 friends will know it, even as I shall know 
 them and their bodies. My heavenly life, 
 as I sing the song of Moses as well as the 
 song of the Lamb, will tell the story of the 
 old battles in which my body had a part. 
 And even as, when we come to that land, 
 our eyes will instinctively look for the 
 wounds in the body of the blessed Ee- 
 deemer, so the little wounds and scars 
 which have come to our bodies in our 
 earthly contest for the King will, in the 
 Master's eyes, prove our fidelity, and re- 
 ceive His loving gaze. 
 
 Dear Lord, I thank Thee for the glory 
 which Thou hast given me in making me in 
 Thine own image. I thank Thee, O 
 
THE BODY. 201 
 
 Christ, that Thou didst take upon Thyself 
 when Thou earnest to earth a body like un- 
 to mine own, and that Thou hast exalted it, 
 glorified, into Thine own Kingdom. Let 
 me, I pray Thee, realize the sacredness of 
 my body. Let me never forget that it is 
 the temple of the Holy Ghost. Let me 
 never forget that it is to rise again. Help 
 me to use it reverently, and to keep it for 
 Thee; and at last, O Saviour, redeem it 
 and bring it to that home where its weak- 
 nesses shall be removed and it shall be 
 glorified forever. Amen. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE MIND. 
 
 No wise men have ever been able to draw 
 a distinct line between the parts of man's 
 being, nor has any wisdom yet explained 
 the way in which the mind works. We 
 commonly speak of it as existing in the 
 brain, and so the head of man is counted 
 as the highest part of him, not only because 
 of its location but because of its character. 
 But we do know that the mind of man dif- 
 ferentiates him from the brute. If there 
 is any kind of thought amongst animals it 
 is what we call instinct rather than reason. 
 Man alone can reason, and thought with 
 him is an endowment from the Infinite 
 One, Who not only breathed into man at 
 his creation the breath of life, but made 
 him a living soul. 
 Our How can we glorify God with our 
 
 God. minds? Some people, although not very 
 many in these days, imagine that the mind 
 is constantly warring against the spirit, 
 202 
 
THE MIND. 203 
 
 that reason is contrary to faith, and that 
 the things which the mind deals with are 
 so far removed from the common life in 
 many particulars that they are useless. It 
 is when we remember that God wishes us 
 to love Him with our minds that we realize 
 the sacredness of thought. Thought begins 
 when we are very little, and when developed 
 aright becomes a wonderful part of our 
 human experience. It may, indeed, lead 
 us astray; it may, indeed, put itself in 
 hostility against those things which God 
 has revealed and yet which we cannot com- 
 prehend; it may exalt itself and declare 
 that it will accept nothing save that which 
 it can understand; but in spite of these 
 faults the mind stands as the medium 
 through which God speaks to us, and by 
 which we are to do His will and fulfil the 
 purpose for which He created us. 
 
 We must not, though it is a temptation, Mind in 
 consider the mind in any philosophical mon y. 
 fashion just now. This has been done 
 and well done in many books. What we 
 want to do is to see very simply how the 
 Christian man is to use his mind as God 
 wants him to use it. And the very first 
 rule which must assert itself is that the 
 mind is to hold itself in harmony with the 
 
THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 other parts of the being. As soon as it 
 exalts itself, and thinks itself superior to 
 the body or the spirit, then it fails to fulfil 
 its purpose. As soon as it wanders away 
 into realms which are not intended for it, 
 then again it fails of its purpose. As soon 
 as it lauds itself over the body or the soul 
 and claims not only superiority but su- 
 preme rule, then again the mind is usurp- 
 ing a place which does not belong to it. 
 We are to think in order that we may do. 
 We are to use our minds in order to under- 
 stand all of the infinite truth which God 
 reveals to us as fast as we are capable of 
 receiving it; but we are always to make 
 our minds work in harmony with that daily 
 living and that love for God which cannot 
 be, and must not be, disregarded. 
 
 Again, we are to remember that the 
 mind, as well as the body and soul, is to be 
 cultivated. It is the duty of every Chris- 
 tian to study, and he must bear in mind 
 that this study should always be for a cer- 
 tain purpose, namely, to make his whole 
 life more useful. Here we touch the great 
 question of education, and it is a most im- 
 portant question. There are many ways 
 in which education is employed amongst 
 men. There are many lines upon which 
 
THE MIND. 205 
 
 it moves. But the simple truth we should 
 remember is, that those things which most 
 help a man to live usefully are the things 
 which the mind ought to be called upon to 
 grasp. It is all very well as a recreation 
 for a man to study curious things, but if ho 
 is going to do his work as it ought to be 
 done he wants to have well laid the founda- 
 tion principles so that he may erect a good 
 superstructure. The A B C of education, 
 — reading, spelling, writing and arithmetic, 
 are as much a Christian duty as praying 
 and resisting temptation. Of course there 
 are cases where these elements of educa- 
 tion cannot be early or easily acquired, but 
 as soon as the Christian man knows the 
 meaning of his life he is bound to culti- 
 vate his mind in such a way that it may 
 make him the true and useful servant of 
 God in the world. 
 
 There are enemies warring against the Mental 
 mind which are a part of it and hard to con- 
 trol. The thoughts prominently occupy, 
 or may occupy, this position. It is very 
 difficult to control our thoughts. The 
 Psalmist prays again and again, — " Ex- 
 amine my thoughts."* When the hand 
 came and wrote upon the wall Belshazzar, 
 
 * Ps. 139: 23— Psalter version. 
 
206 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 we are told, was troubled by his thoughts. 
 In a moment my mind may fly all over 
 the world; it may sink into dark places 
 where all is vile, or it may leap to heaven 
 and grasp the glory of God. It is won- 
 derful and startling how easily the thoughts 
 can move and what an effect upon the life 
 they may have. The Christian, then, tries 
 to control his thoughts. If he finds them 
 going astray he brings them back. If he 
 finds them leading him into paths which 
 are dark, or into the puzzling ways of 
 doubt, or holding him in foolish places 
 when he ought to be pursuing useful occu- 
 pations, he must call them in and make 
 them obey him. Education and the 
 thoughts of man are closely allied, for an 
 important part of early education is the 
 teaching of mastery in connection with 
 thinking. The mind can readily be dis- 
 ciplined, and habit can control it if only 
 the right habit is enforced. Wild thinking 
 as well as wild speaking can work untold 
 damage in the world. Many a man who 
 in mature years finds his thoughts going 
 into unworthy channels realizes how his 
 early education was neglected, and many 
 a man whose thoughts lead him into the 
 mazes of doubt learns too late that his early 
 
THE MIND. 207 
 
 education has not taught him so to govern 
 his thoughts that he should be led into 
 permanent ways and into strong faith. 
 
 In speaking of the mind we must re- Discrimi- 
 
 . . nate 
 
 member that reading has a very large in- reading, 
 fiuence upon thoughts as well as upon ac- 
 tion. We are living in days when liter- 
 ature is very abundant. The daily paper, 
 the weekly or monthly magazine, and 
 the innumerable books issued from the 
 press form an embarrassment of riches 
 which it is not easy for a man to control. 
 We ought to have a censorship which should 
 warn us, at least, of things evil, even if 
 it could not always bring us to things 
 positively good. The way in which the 
 minds of young people are poisoned by 
 bad books, and the way bad plays are put 
 upon the stage is something to make one 
 pause. The Christian sometimes, in spite 
 of himself, is led, through reading, to deny 
 his high calling. He can only pray to 
 God to keep him, and then do his best to 
 avoid those things which can hurt. But it 
 must be remembered that our temptation 
 lies very strongly to-day in the direction 
 of harmful reading; and it is not only 
 novels or stories to which we refer, but 
 books which tend to undermine the faith. 
 
208 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 I have known good Christian people, led 
 away by false advice, to read books written 
 by enemies, and striking directly at the 
 Christian faith, and yet at the same time 
 to know little about the splendid books 
 written for the building up of the faith. 
 The natural curiosity of an intelligent man 
 or woman may sometimes lead to a desire 
 to read books which have excited some in- 
 terest, and sometimes ignorance leads peo- 
 ple far astray, I remember once meeting 
 a young college woman who was to teach a 
 Bible class; she asked me to recommend 
 to her some book which would help her, 
 and with a wonderfully naive expression 
 she said : " I have been reading Renan 
 and Strauss thinking they would help me." 
 Poor child, how could she think that she 
 could be fitted to teach the truth of Jesus 
 Christ by reading the books of men who did 
 not believe in Him ! There are many 
 books written to-day in connection with 
 religion, bearing upon the higher criticism 
 and upon the forms and dogmas of theology, 
 which it is dangerous for the ordinary 
 Christian to peruse. We throw out this 
 caution here in order that there may be 
 exercised amongst us that wisdom which 
 shall use the experience of others, and not 
 
THE MIND. 209 
 
 hesitate to look for guidance to men who 
 can be trusted. 
 
 But we must, in closing, say a few words Onmedita* 
 about the positive use of the mind in deal- 
 ing with holy things ; and the first use is 
 meditation. We want to think, as the 
 Holy Spirit gives us power, more and 
 more about the truths of God as found in 
 the Bible. We want to meditate upon the 
 Word of God, that is, to use our minds so 
 that we may draw from that Word the 
 riches which God has hidden, and hidden 
 not because He does not want us to find 
 them or because He wants to puzzle us, but 
 because He knows that it is through seek- 
 ing that our appreciation of good things 
 must come. Meditation is an important 
 part of the Christian life. 
 
 Again, there must be that keen think- On duty, 
 ing in connection with duty which shall 
 enable us to know what things we ought to 
 do. If the mind is used as God bids us 
 use it, the Christian will soon be able to 
 distinguish between things good and evil, 
 and to see with clearness the way in which 
 God would have him walk. It is dallying 
 with duty and failing to obey that bring 
 confusion to us even as they brought 
 confusion to Balaam in the Old Testament 
 
210 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 story. Some persons think more quickly 
 than others and decide more quickly; but 
 every Christian if he trains his mind aright 
 can think in such a way as to bring his 
 life into the path which God wishes him 
 to pursue. 
 Sensible And finally there must be that con- 
 
 la™ " secutive and steady thought which shall 
 keep the Christian from day-dreaming. 
 There is a great deal of thinking which is 
 not only useless but harmful because we let 
 the mind wander in all sorts of directions 
 and do not keep it in a steady channel. 
 There are times, of course, when the mind 
 needs relaxation, and then we can let it go 
 provided it does not wander in dark places ; 
 but in the regular life we want to think 
 steadily and firmly and keep our minds 
 upon that way which leads to goodness and 
 usefulness and God. In other words the 
 man should bring himself back unceas- 
 ingly to this normal position : " What does 
 God want me to do, and what is right in 
 the sight of God ? " He can do this even 
 when reading things which seem to have 
 no special connection with the religious 
 life. He can do it while walking or sit- 
 ting or even talking. There must always 
 be that holding of the mind within the 
 
THE MIND. 211 
 
 confines of the path which leads to God, 
 so that, however it may be occupied, this 
 one strong current shall never be neglected. 
 Oh, may God help us in these days of 
 great mental activity when men are learn- 
 ing with great rapidity, and all sorts of 
 things are taught by men who are wise and 
 by some men who are otherwise — may God 
 help us to keep our minds fixed upon Him 
 Who is the source of all wisdom ! May He 
 help us to use them so that we may think 
 those things which are good and by His 
 merciful guidance may be enabled to per- 
 form the same. 
 
 O, Thou God of wisdom, Who hast 
 given to Thy servant a mind that he may 
 think, and meditate upon Thy truth, and 
 learn those things which Thou hast pre- 
 pared for him to study, help me, I be- 
 seech of Thee, to bring my mind into sub- 
 jection to Thy will. Let me use it al- 
 ways in order that I may be better fitted 
 to do what Thou wouldst have me do. 
 Guard me against false and unworthy 
 thoughts, against day-dreaming, and against 
 wandering into paths of darkness. Help 
 me to see clearly and to think honestly and 
 to study unceasingly, so that at last when 
 
212 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 the brightness of Thy glorious wisdom 
 bursts upon me I may be found by Thy 
 grace ready to enter into the wonderful 
 paths of eternal truth, and to understand 
 the mystery which Thou wilt then reveal. 
 For Christ's sake. Amen. 
 
CHAPTEE XIX. 
 
 THE SOUL. 
 
 " God is a Spirit : and they that worship 
 him must worship him in spirit and in 
 truth." So did Christ speak, and He gave 
 us in these words the interpretation of 
 what we commonly call the soul. It is a 
 little perplexing to give a clear definition 
 of the word in Greek which is sometimes 
 translated soul, sometimes spirit and some- 
 times life. It is an interesting study to 
 take the word as used in the New Testa- 
 ment and note its varied significance. But 
 for us in this practical study of the life 
 of a Christian man it is sufficient to take 
 the common acceptation of the term soul. 
 
 When we sing: 
 
 " Jesus, Lover of my soul 
 Let me to Thy bosom fly," 
 
 or when we pray in our childhood's even- 
 ing prayer: 
 
 " I pray Thee, Lord, 
 My soul to keep," 
 213 
 
214 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Loving we r efer to that spiritual part of our nature 
 with which we love God and pray to Him 
 and worship Him. Of course, as we have 
 already shown, we are to worship God 
 and love Him with our minds and our 
 bodies also, but the soul is that which seems 
 to come nearest to God and to guide the 
 mind and the body into a close communion 
 with Him. It is that in us which aspires 
 towards God and towards holy things. It 
 is that which realizes and longs for the 
 things of God. It is that to which Jesus 
 speaks and through which the Holy Spirit 
 guides. It will not do to say that the 
 soul is that which lives forever, for the 
 body and the mind will live forever also, 
 and yet from the Bible we are led to believe 
 that the soul after death enters into a 
 place called Paradise while the body sleeps 
 awaiting the general resurrection day. 
 When our Lord said on the Cross : " Into 
 thy hands I commend my spirit," He 
 taught that the soul or spirit enters into 
 
 Soul im- Paradise there to rest and work and serve 
 until the time shall come when the whole 
 being — body, mind and soul — shall enter 
 into glory. When speaking, therefore, of 
 the immortality of the soul we are to re- 
 member that it is really the part of us which 
 
 mortal. 
 
THE SOUL. 215 
 
 is nearest to God and the part which 
 holds the supremacy in our nature, for it 
 is the soul which should govern and con- 
 trol the mind and the body, not in any 
 slavish fashion as if they were inferior, 
 but in a noble fashion as keeping the full 
 harmony of our humanity. When a chord 
 of three notes is struck upon the piano 
 the three form one, and yet the key-note is 
 that which, as we listen, is most prominent. 
 So it is with our being ; the three parts are 
 in harmony and yet there is one which 
 leads. 
 
 If we can think, then, of the soul as be- in God's 
 ing the power by which we come nearest 
 to God and with which we commune with 
 Him, it will be easy for us to recognize 
 our duty towards God in connection with 
 our spirits. The first thing we note is that 
 our souls should always dwell in the pres- 
 ence of God. From Him we are to draw 
 our light. From Him we are to gain our 
 knowledge of right. From Him we are 
 to learn the things which are holy and 
 pure. And constantly, therefore, with our 
 souls we must aspire, that is, we must long 
 for holy things — for the things which God 
 has prepared in another world, and for the 
 pure things which He has bidden us seek 
 
 presence. 
 
216 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 to establish in this world. The man who 
 has no high aspirations is the man who is 
 practically dead. When one is satisfied 
 with things as they are, and with himself, 
 then he loses the delight and inspiration 
 which come from catching a vision of a 
 holier world and a holier self, and sinks 
 down inevitably into a low condition. 
 When a man longs for God, and cries out 
 as did the patriarch Job : " Oh that I knew 
 where I might find him ! " and cries 
 with Moses : " Show me thy glory," 
 then he is growing in all those graces 
 of body, of mind and of soul which 
 shall make him more and more what God 
 would have him be, and fill him with en- 
 Aspira- thusiasm to lift up the world. This aspira- 
 tion of the human heart is born of the life 
 which God has given us. Man alone has a 
 soul. It is the divine in him, still in 
 embryo, but a germ with possibilities of 
 wonderful development and growth. It is 
 the desire of the soul for God that makes 
 a man love the things that are pure and 
 good and holy. It is the soul that makes 
 him restless in the midst of imperfection, 
 and capable of telling the difference be- 
 tween things excellent and things wrong. 
 It is the soul that catches the vision of the 
 
THE SOUL. 217 
 
 Almighty, and it catches the vision be- 
 cause it sees, through the power which God 
 gives, the glory which shall at last be at- 
 tained and enjoyed in Heaven. We must 
 therefore cultivate these aspirations, these 
 longings, even although at times they may 
 make us sad because of our inability im- 
 mediately to reach them. Emerson says: 
 " A man is known by his aspirations," and 
 that saying is true, truer than even Emer- 
 son realized. The man who aspires for 
 earthly honor or glory or knowledge is, of 
 course, a little higher than the sluggard 
 who cares for none of these things but only 
 wants to sleep and eat. But the man who 
 aspires for holiness, goodness and God, who 
 is dissatisfied with himself and with the 
 world and in his dissatisfaction tries to 
 make both better, he is known indeed by 
 these very lofty and glorious sighings of 
 his spirit for the things which God has 
 placed before His children. 
 
 Again, with the soul we are to commune Com- 
 with God. When Christ prayed that we ™£ icn ' 
 might abide in Him even as He abides in God. 
 us, He referred particularly to the spirit 
 of man which can take to itself the very 
 nature of Christ and can itself enter into 
 His divine nature. It is not easy to ex- 
 
218 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 press this great truth, but through expe- 
 rience it comes so mightily that one can 
 never doubt the fact. As we read the 
 Psalms of David we are impressed by the 
 way in which his soul communed with 
 God. As we study the life of St. John 
 the Evangelist, and read his words urging 
 to love, we know that his soul communed 
 with his Maker. So all of the real Chris- 
 tians in the history of the world, whether 
 they were great writers and fathers of the 
 church, or whether they were the humble 
 people whose names are not known on earth 
 but are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, 
 had this spiritual communion with God. 
 Tennyson urges to this in those beautiful 
 lines : 
 
 " Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, 
 And Spirit with Spirit can meet — 
 Closer is He than breathing, 
 And nearer than hands and feet." 
 
 It is through this communion of the soul 
 with God, and through it alone, that we 
 find peace. The body may be in the midst 
 of great tumult, and tossed in pain hither 
 and thither with agonizing suffering; the 
 mind may be confused, and unable to see 
 clearly or to comprehend; but the soul, 
 drawing near to God, finds in Him the 
 
lowship. 
 
 THE SOUL. 219 
 
 peace which passeth understanding, and 
 then comes with that glorious calmness to 
 make the body strong and the mind quiet. 
 The Christian, therefore, must learn and 
 practise the joy of this spiritual commun- 
 ion with God, without which he cannot 
 live, without which he cannot grow, with- 
 out which he cannot endure. 
 
 Let us remember again that it is the Soulfel- 
 soul which really brings us near to our 
 fellows, even as it brings us near to God. 
 I cannot really help my brother unless, in 
 a measure, at least, I understand him, and 
 this understanding is not mental or phys- 
 ical, but spiritual. It has indeed an ele- 
 ment of the physical in it, for I think we 
 are learning to-day that there is a peculiar 
 strength in physical association and near- 
 ness which is something more than mere 
 animal propinquity, and we are learning 
 also that mind can read and perhaps influ- 
 ence mind in such a way as to help or 
 hinder; but in spite of this the soul holds 
 the ascendency in our relationship with 
 others. I commune with my friend in 
 spirit, that is, I realize how he feels, and 
 I feel with him. I see things more and 
 more from his point of view. I enter into 
 the deep emotions of his nature. I am 
 
220 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 one with him in his longings, and so I am 
 privileged to help him, even as he in like 
 manner helps me. In dealing with men at 
 large who do not perhaps come into such 
 close spiritual touch with me as my friend, 
 the same rule still applies. I cannot help 
 a man unless I enter into his emotions. I 
 cannot help the drunkard unless I realize 
 something of the despair or passion or 
 weakness which may lead him to seek to 
 drown his troubles in drink. I cannot 
 help the fallen woman unless, in a high 
 and pure way, and yet very absolutely, I 
 grasp her trouble, and the way in which 
 temptation comes to her. There is some- 
 thing very beautiful in this thought of the 
 soul communing with the souls of others, 
 because it has already communed with God. 
 It seems like bringing the divine very 
 close to the human in our earthly struggle, 
 and it assures us that we are bound to do 
 good simply because God's Spirit is work- 
 ing through our spirit. St. Paul expresses 
 this in many ways, and beautifully, as, 
 for instance, when he speaks of the Spirit 
 of God making intercession for us with 
 groanings which cannot be uttered ; and 
 when he speaks of the fruits of the Spirit, 
 and when he urges our living in the Spirit. 
 
THE SOUL. 221 
 
 It is the whole secret of usefulness in the 
 world. It is the whole secret of true love. 
 It is the whole secret of that blessed 
 human relationship which makes a man 
 feel as the divine Christ felt, when, in 
 order to save men, He took upon Himself 
 the shape of humanity. 
 
 Finally, the Christian man must re- soul 
 member that his soul above all else is to stains - 
 be kept clean. Sin stains the soul before 
 it touches the mind or the body. The 
 consciousness of having done wrong comes 
 to our spirits even when the body is yet 
 untouched and the mind is yet uncon- 
 vinced. It is wonderful how what we call 
 conscience speaks to us, both in warning 
 and in reproof, when there is temptation 
 or when we have yielded to sin. It is like 
 a sensitive plant which feels the touch. 
 It is like the ear which catches the sound 
 before the brain can interpret the sound. 
 It is like the music of the spheres of which 
 the ancients wrote, which gives harmony 
 always, and yet of which we are scarce 
 conscious. To keep the soul sensitive so 
 that it may feel the touch of God's hand 
 and revolt against the touch of evil; to 
 keep the soul pure so that, washed in the 
 blood of Christ, it may be ready to bring 
 
222 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 the body and the mind also for sanctifica- 
 tion to Him Who alone can heal; to keep 
 the soul so near to God that His light shall 
 be reflected by it even as the moon reflects 
 the light of the sun, — this is that which 
 will make the Christian a true follower of 
 the Master in all holiness and joy. 
 God's voice If it is thought that these words about 
 soul. the soul are a little perplexing and incom- 
 prehensible, let us strive to bring the truth 
 right down to our daily living, and so find 
 help for ourselves. Let me think of the 
 way in which God speaks to me through 
 everything which comes to me — my expe- 
 riences, my joys and sorrows, the beauties 
 of nature, and the things I hear and read. 
 They speak to my soul, and my soul is to 
 take them and gather from them the good 
 which God sends and reject the evil which 
 Satan may have sought to mingle with 
 them. Day by day I am to let my soul 
 rise up towards God. Day by day I am to 
 worship Him with the spirit. Day by day 
 I am to help my brothers through this 
 power of divine sympathy which works 
 first in my soul and the/i goes out with 
 intelligence and physical strength to render 
 aid. May God grant us such an unceasing 
 in-flooding of His Holy Spirit that we 
 
THE SOUL. 223 
 
 may worship Him with all our souls and 
 so become more and more like the Master ! 
 
 Dear Lord, Who hast made me a living 
 soul and hast breathed into me Thine own 
 divine breath, help me, I beseech of Thee, 
 to worship Thee in spirit and in truth. 
 Suffer me to draw near to Thee in my 
 soul. Join Thyself to me, even as I am 
 by Thy grace joined to Thee, that so I 
 may will only those things which Thou 
 dost will and may find peace in communion 
 with Thee. Let me in my daily life serve 
 my fellow men through that divine power 
 which Thou hast implanted within me, 
 feeling their infirmities, and recognizing 
 their needs, and longing to bless them. 
 And above all, dear Lord, in order that I 
 may have these gifts for which I have 
 prayed, wash my soul and keep it clean. 
 Let it not be stained by anything which is 
 unpleasing to Thee, and may it ever be so 
 pure that it may see Thee. For Thine 
 
 , own dear sake. Amen. 
 
 f 
 
CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 TEMPTATIONS. 
 
 Tempta- 
 tions 
 from 
 without. 
 
 We come now to the battle of life, and 
 that battle is marked by just as real a 
 conflict and by just as many trials as is 
 the battle of the body in the midst of foes. 
 "No one can read the Bible from Genesis to 
 Revelation without seeing how this earthly 
 life is ever noted as a contest. Even the 
 Master Himself is represented in the Book 
 of Revelation as going forth conquering 
 and to conquer. St. Paul bids us " Put 
 on the whole armor of God." The 
 Church of God is put in the world to es- 
 tablish Christ's Kingdom. She has her 
 battle-field ; and the individual has within 
 himself a battle-field where temptations 
 come as really and as mightily as they 
 came to Jesus Christ in the wilderness 
 when He was tempted of the devil. 
 
 Temptation comes to us from without 
 when we are urged by others or by the 
 circumstances of life to do wrong. They 
 224 
 
TEMPTATIONS, 225 
 
 eome directly from the devil when he puts From with- 
 in our hearts evil thoughts and paints in * 
 pleasures which do not exist in order that 
 we may be deceived and yield. Temp- 
 tation comes from our own hearts some- 
 times, so that we can hardly tell the differ- 
 ence between our good selves and our bad 
 selves. The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. 
 Hyde is wonderfully true to life. The 
 ancients used to believe that every man had 
 within himself really two men — one good 
 and the other bad. St. Paul himself says : 
 " When I would do good, evil is present 
 with me." It is this internal conflict 
 which is the most trying of all. We can, 
 in a measure, understand the temptation 
 which another man places in our way, and 
 steel ourselves to resist it. We can under- 
 stand the direct temptations of Satan even 
 though he sometimes may come as an angel 
 of light, and cry with the Master, " Get 
 thee behind me." But when we are 
 tempted from within, when our own selves 
 seek to lead us astray, then indeed we are 
 perplexed. But in all these temptations 
 the same general rules will apply. 
 
 Before speaking of these rules let us au are 
 note two or three truths for our comfort. tem Ptel 
 And first, we must remember that we are 
 
knows. 
 
 226 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 all tempted, that no man has ever lived who 
 was not subject to trials, and that the 
 Master Himself endured temptation. 
 Sometimes when one is sorely vexed by 
 temptings to do wrong, and wonders 
 whether he is not utterly corrupt, it is well 
 for him to remember that all flesh from 
 Adam's day has had this old conflict, and 
 that it is a part of the world's experience, 
 and so must have something to do with the 
 world's progress. 
 God Secondly, let us remember that these 
 
 temptations, or at least our consciousness 
 of them, proves to us, not that we are cast 
 away but that we are really God's children 
 whom Satan is trying to steal from the 
 Father. I love that verse of the old hymn : 
 
 " Did I meet no trials here, 
 No temptations by the way, 
 Might I not with reason fear 
 I should be a cast-away? " 
 
 If Satan did not think there was danger 
 of his losing us he would not bother to 
 tempt us. When a man loses conscious- 
 ness of temptation or trial, that is, when 
 he does not know that he is being tempted 
 and does not care, he has, indeed, fallen 
 into a condition of sleep which is sad and 
 
TEMPTATIONS. 227 
 
 hopeless unless some great power shall 
 awaken him. 
 
 And third, let us always remember that Making 
 these temptations and trials should, if we 
 deal with them rightly, make us better. 
 The man who comes unscathed through the 
 battle is hardly the hero whom we revere; 
 but he who comes out of the battle dusty 
 and worn and perchance wounded, nay, he 
 who has fallen in the battle and died strug- 
 gling, he is the hero whom men delight 
 to honor and whom God loves. So the con- 
 flict is not a hopeless one, nor is it, although 
 endless, a battle without final victory. 
 The victory may not be marked here. We 
 may, indeed, die in the very midst of the 
 battle with the guns thundering and the 
 swords flashing, and our last sight be one of 
 carnage and misery. But if we preserve 
 our courage and never yield, we may be 
 sure that the temptations have made us 
 what God would have us be through His 
 grace, and have proved that we are truly 
 soldiers of the King. 
 
 And now how shall we deal with these Meeting 
 temptations? First, surely, by going to tions.*" 
 meet them rather than waiting for them to 
 catch us. It has always seemed to me a 
 wonderful thing that our Lord after His 
 
228 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 baptism was " led up of the Spirit into the 
 wilderness to be tempted of the devil." 
 He began His ministry with a conflict 
 which He Himself sought. And we, His 
 children, are not merely to stand on the 
 defensive, but we are to go out where 
 the battle with wrong is raging and take a 
 part in it. If the man who is tempted to 
 drink would begin a conflict against intem- 
 perance and try to save others who are 
 being carried away, and cultivate by his 
 zeal a hatred of the saloon, and of the 
 drink which seeks to make him captive, he 
 would find himself far stronger to over- 
 come. If the man who feels within himself 
 the temptation to laziness, or doubt, or 
 selfishness, would at once attack these foes, 
 going into the very thickest of the battle, 
 he would find himself victorious. Of 
 course a man is not justified in throwing 
 himself wantonly into the way of temp- 
 tation; he wants to go out to meet temp- 
 tation with the idea of battling with it. 
 He wants to fight his enemy because it i3 
 the enemy of his brothers. ISTo man can 
 really fight his battle alone if he wishes to 
 be successful. 
 
 Again, we must remember how our 
 Lord quoted Scripture in resisting Satan. 
 
TEMPTATIONS. 229 
 
 We cannot do better than follow His ex- Quoting 
 ample. When temptations assail me, if t ^' 
 I will remember how God has spoken and 
 how God has blessed me and how He has 
 bidden me work for Him, and bring from 
 the Bible words proving all these things 
 and hurl them at Satan, then I am sure to 
 conquer. It is wonderful how the Bible 
 has texts for every single temptation. The 
 Christian should arm himself with the 
 Word of God even as the warrior arms 
 himself with his sword, for St. Paul calls 
 the Word of God the " sword of the 
 Spirit." 
 
 Again, in meeting these temptations we Undis- 
 must never be discouraged. No matter 
 how severely cast down we may seem to be 
 or how sorely wounded, no matter how low 
 we may feel ourselves to have fallen even 
 in our own eyes, and much more then in 
 God's sight, we must never for one moment 
 believe that the struggle is useless. The 
 true victor is the man who will not give 
 up. He may fall again and again, but if he 
 rises up and renews the conflict he is 
 proving himself to be the hero whom God 
 loves. It is not the man who never falls, 
 or thinks he never falls and boasts of it, 
 and so esteems himself as better than 
 
230 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 others, and whom our Lord so tremen- 
 dously rebukes when he says : " Woe unto 
 you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! " 
 but it is the man who, like Peter, weeps 
 bitterly for his error and then goes on 
 fighting; it is the man who, like David, 
 though falling again and again will not 
 let go of God and of hope; it is the man 
 who, realizing his own weakness and fight- 
 ing with all his might, and yet sometimes 
 swept off his feet, prays to God and will 
 not yield — it is such an one who is really 
 victorious and at last will be crowned. 
 Future And finally we want to remember that 
 
 all of these temptations have something to 
 do with our future glory. We cannot tell 
 what they mean. We do not know how 
 they are to work good for us when we battle 
 with them, but we do know that since 
 God permits them to come to us they 
 must have a divine purpose which, if we 
 are true and loyal and steadfast, will at 
 last be revealed. And this is the most 
 inspiring fact of all. Everything in my 
 life, as we have already seen, has a mean- 
 ing; not one single experience or sorrow 
 or joy or struggle is without significa- 
 tion. To realize this, and so to go bravely 
 onward, never giving up, never despairing, 
 
 glory. 
 
conflicts, 
 
 TEMPTATIONS. 231 
 
 broken-hearted it may be, and yet never 
 losing sight of the glory to come, is to live 
 as God would have ns live. 
 
 Let me say one word more. A glorious Helps in 
 time is coming when the temptation days 
 will be over. St. John gives us an account 
 of the day when Satan shall be bound 
 and cast into the bottomless pit, and when, 
 as a result, sorrow and sighing shall flee 
 away. The Christian helps bring that day 
 nearer by the earnestness of his conflict. 
 He looks forward to it as a supreme event 
 connected with his entrance into heaven. 
 He knows it as a fact which cannot be 
 disputed. He can stand before Satan or 
 before the temptations which come to him, 
 and cry out : " You may try me, you may 
 attack me, you may seem to get the better 
 of me, but I will never for one instant 
 yield to you or count you victorious, for 
 the time is coming when you will be cast 
 down and destroyed, and when I, by the 
 grace of my Saviour, shall be redeemed and 
 live forever ! " This splendid cry of en- 
 thusiastic faith should never leave the 
 Christian's lips ; his heart must be buoyed 
 up by it; his weary nerves find through it 
 their recuperation; his grief and remorse 
 be buried in it, and his song of thanks- 
 
232 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 giving rise up from it, because it is the 
 great promise of the Gospel, and, next to 
 seeing the face of the Master in heaven, 
 it will be the great joy of eternity. 
 
 O, Thou Who in the wilderness didst 
 meet and vanquish the Prince of evil, 
 come Thou to me as I am tried, and give 
 me Thy grace that I may resist and con- 
 quer! Help me, dear Christ, to know 
 that these temptations are the lot of hu- 
 manity and that I, even as all Thy 
 children, must fight if I would reign. 
 Save me from discouragement and despair. 
 Let me not think that though wounded I 
 am helpless. Teach me how to cry to 
 Thee and to rely upon Thee in the hour 
 of need. Help me more and more to gain 
 the victory. Support me with Thine 
 ever present strength, and O, dear Lord, 
 may my struggle itself hasten the day when 
 all evil shall be destroyed, when the battle 
 shall be over, the victory eternally won, 
 and I shall see Thy face, and hear Thy 
 voice saying "Well done." Amen. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 HOPE. 
 
 One of the greatest elements in the 
 Christian life and one which St. Paul 
 places side by side with faith and love, is 
 hope. We need it when we are in the 
 midst of temptation, and so it is well to 
 consider its real meaning here, for the 
 Christian cannot really serve God and live 
 his life as he ought unless he has this 
 divine grace. What then is hope? We what is 
 ordinarily think of it as something very p 
 intangible, a possibility of something hap- 
 pening at some time and in some way and 
 in some place — a curious and uncertain 
 emotion of the soul that there must be an 
 escape from the things which distress us. 
 But surely hope is more definite than that ! 
 It is a real thing. It is a positive and sure 
 glory, even as faith is a substance and love 
 a power. Hope is that by which we catch 
 sight of a vision and bring it down to the 
 present and live by it. Hope is the power 
 233 
 
234: THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 by which the sculptor stands before his 
 marble and notes not the chips flying from 
 his chisel, but sees only the figure impris- 
 oned in the stone, which he is seeking to 
 bring out that others may see it too. 
 Hope is the power by which the musician 
 brings from the instrument or from his 
 voice that which has already sung its 
 symphony in his own soul. Hope is the 
 power by which the artist, standing before 
 his canvas and unmindful of his brush or 
 paints, sees the landscape or the face, and 
 seeks to place it upon the canvas that others 
 also may rejoice in it. Hope is the power 
 by which the author puts into words the 
 truth which has already been revealed to 
 his own mind. It is the grasping of things 
 to be, and making them the ever-present 
 models in the daily effort. It is the sight 
 of great good which, burning itself into 
 the soul, incites that soul to longings, and 
 the soul in its turn calls upon the mind to 
 plan, and the mind in its turn calls upon 
 the body to act, so that hope seizes upon 
 the whole man and exalts and makes ready 
 for action every part of him. 
 Hope a It is very important for us to remember 
 
 power. ^. g definition, for hope is a power which 
 God has given to enable us to endure and 
 
HOPE. 235 
 
 to work. If I am not sure whether my 
 work is going to result in anything or not ; 
 if I wonder whether this struggle is worth 
 while ; if I question as to the final outcome 
 of all these years of striving and suffering 
 and agony of soul, then there cannot possi- 
 bly be either any joy in my life or any 
 intelligence in my conflict. It is hope 
 which inspires, for it brings the vision and 
 holds it before me. It is hope which en- 
 fires, so that my sleeping energies are 
 aroused, and I go forth with new and ever 
 greater determination. It is hope which 
 fills me with delight, for it shows me, even 
 while all I am doing seems imperfect and 
 unformed, that glorious completeness which 
 I am slowly working out. It is hope which 
 binds us together as fellow-strugglers, mak- 
 ing us know that that for which we in com- 
 mon, although with varied emotions, long 
 for, is coming at last in a perfect world 
 and in perfect conditions. The wonderful 
 writings of men, like the New Atlantis 
 and the New Republic, the poems which 
 have thrilled the heart of humanity, the 
 music which has lifted up the deadened 
 senses until they tingled with a new force, 
 the cries of men which have moved the 
 multitudes and made them leap to their 
 
236 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 feet with a deathless ambition — these are 
 only expressions of hope which have seized 
 upon men, making them see the vision, and 
 making them strive anew for its realization. 
 Indeed, everything which helps us 
 brings, as the secret of its help, this won- 
 derful grace of hope. I try to help my 
 friend because I see the vision of what my 
 friend would be if he only had that which 
 I long to give him. I can only comfort 
 the one who is in trouble as I realize that 
 there is peace for him if I can only get him 
 to accept it. I can only educate the mind 
 of the child as I place before myself and 
 try to place before him a splendid image 
 of truth and of knowledge and of useful- 
 ness. I can only help the world as I see 
 the world, by the power of hope, made 
 blessed and perfect. 
 
 Hope in Jf j despair concerning myself, that 
 
 Christ. . .__, l . _ , ,. , . ! 
 
 is, if 1 nave no nope, I can do little m the 
 
 way of progress. If I look at myself and 
 say : " You poor, miserable worm of the 
 dust, how is it possible for you ever to 
 amount to anything ? " then in my hope- 
 lessness I at once lose power. If I look 
 at the world and cry : " Oh, you miserable 
 world, you are not worth saving, and you 
 never can be saved; I shake off the dust 
 
HOPE. 237 
 
 of my feet against you ! " then I am 
 doomed to failure in any effort I may make 
 to lift the world up. Indeed, it was the 
 fine hopefulness of Christ, we may rever- 
 ently say, which was the secret of His 
 power in His salvation of mankind. 
 When, for instance, He came to the man 
 at the pool of Bethesda, who had been 
 helpless for thirty-eight years, and who 
 must have been an exceedingly unattractive 
 specimen of humanity, how could our Lord 
 with His divine perfection and His hatred 
 of things crude and coarse and unclean, 
 have drawn near to him, had He not seen 
 in him that which He was to make him — 
 a pure, strong, clean, healthy man! How 
 could our Lord have died for the world if 
 He had questioned whether the world was 
 worth saving or whether it ever could be 
 saved? Did He not look upon men with 
 great longing? Did He not declare that 
 being lifted up He would draw all men unto 
 Him ? Did He not, with this divine glory 
 of hope, catch a vision, which to Him as 
 the Son of God was more than a vision, of 
 the time when at last all that God had 
 created, man and the universe, should be 
 sinless and complete? 
 
 Yea, we may even say in all reverence 
 
238 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 that God Himself has patience with us 
 only because He has hope, that is, because 
 He sees us as we are going to be. Dr. 
 Stalker in a little book called "The 
 Four Men " says that in every man there 
 are really four men: the man as he sees 
 himself, the man as his best friend sees 
 him, the man as the world at large sees 
 him, and the man as God sees him. Now 
 how does God see man? He looks upon 
 him, we say, as poor and weak and human 
 and sinful. Yes; but is that the only or 
 the real way in which God sees man? 
 Does He not see me, poor and unworthy 
 though I am, as He longs to make me, and 
 as He knows by His grace I will become — 
 a man perfect and strong and true? The 
 father looks upon his son, and sees him not 
 as he is, incapable, unformed, without 
 strength of character, but as he is going to 
 be when he has been educated and has 
 gained strength through development, and 
 has become a man. So God looks upon the 
 world and is patient with it and loves it, 
 because He knows what the old world is 
 going to be by and by. 
 Hope Practically, how does this hope come to 
 
 the Christian man and help him? First, 
 it gives him a vision which is to be the 
 
HOPE. 239 
 
 model of his life ; he is to catch sight of that 
 vision of himself as God wants him to be, 
 and as God will make him, and try his best 
 to fashion his life after it. Second, it 
 makes him patient with himself though he 
 is very weak and though he does not seem 
 to reach the heights. As his hope speaks 
 to him he knows that the vision is not a 
 mockery, and that at last he shall attain. 
 And so he struggles on cheerfully, faith- 
 fully, and with a song, knowing that for 
 him, as God's child, there is no such word 
 as failure. And lastly, this wonderful 
 hope comes as a power to stimulate. When 
 a man climbing the mountain-side catches 
 sight of the top of the mountain bathed in 
 sunlight and calling him enticingly to rest 
 and to a glorious view, he feels new vigor 
 in his wearied limbs, his feet though they 
 slip will not give up any more, and he 
 presses on to the summit. So it is that the 
 Christian feels himself thrilled, not by 
 a vague emotion or desire, and not by an 
 uncertain possibility of success, but by the 
 sight of himself as successful and as victo- 
 rious, which he sees and which he knows is 
 genuine and true. The Christian is made 
 courageous, not by dreams — that is, by 
 intangible suggestions which mock through 
 
240 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 their unreality, — but by visions which hold 
 before him, while waking as well as while 
 sleeping, the good which is to be, the joy 
 of victory, and of friendship, and of love, 
 and of seeing the dear Christ, visions in 
 which his Christian life is to end and by 
 which his toil is at last to be crowned. 
 
 O, my King, I thank Thee for hope! 
 Thou hast given me a vision of myself 
 by which I may fashion my life. Thou 
 hast given me a vision of the world made 
 perfect so that I may know what to do for 
 the world's good and may not lose heart 
 because the end is so slow in coming. Yea, 
 Thou dost open Heaven to me, and cause 
 me to hear already the songs and to see 
 already the mansions, and to feel already 
 the thrills of delight, so that I may go 
 on my way as one who seeks a certain 
 country. Dear Lord, let me never deny 
 Thee by any poor doubts. Let me never 
 turn from Thee, and think that the struggle 
 of my life is vain and the end vague. But 
 oh, keep me full of that divine enthusiasm 
 which is born of the vision which Thou 
 dost give, and which shall make my weary 
 feet like the springing feet of the hart, 
 and which shall set me up on high. For 
 Thine own dear sake. Amen. 
 
CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 The Christian instinctively asks, in the 
 midst of his struggles, and while holding 
 firmly to the faith once for all delivered : — 
 " What shall come to me after this life is 
 over ? " It is a question which the human 
 naturally asks, and which God answers for 
 us. We must never think that God hides 
 anything from us. He does not always re- 
 veal the fulness of His truth, because we 
 are not able to bear it, but He gives us 
 enough light to show us our way and to 
 make us sure concerning that which is to 
 be. We need not stop now to go into the 
 interesting study of the way in which men 
 of all ages and of all forms of religion 
 have tried to penetrate the mystery of the 
 life after death. They all elaborated 
 theories, but they had no revelation. Only 
 to the children of Israel was a partial rev- 
 elation given, and that was so vague that 
 even amongst the best of the Jews there 
 241 
 
242 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 was doubt, and, amongst many, absolute 
 
 unbelief. Job seems to have bad a vision 
 
 when he cried : " I know that my Redeemer 
 
 liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter 
 
 day upon the earth : And though after my 
 
 skin worms destroy this body, yet in my 
 
 flesh shall I see God." David also threw 
 
 his great cry out : " I shall not die, but 
 
 live, and declare the works of the Lord." 
 
 But there was no positive declaration from 
 
 God concerning our future life until Jesus 
 
 Christ came. 
 
 Eternal Now, what did Jesus teach about immor- 
 
 life. 
 
 tality ? First, He declared very positively 
 
 that there was a place to which He was 
 going when He ascended, and where He 
 was to prepare a home for His followers. 
 He did not describe this place nor tell 
 where it was, but His words are so strong 
 that we can have no doubt as to the certain- 
 ty of two or three facts : first, that we shall 
 be with Him; second, that we shall be 
 free from sorrow and sin; and third, that 
 we shall live forever. 
 
 Again, Jesus taught that this eternal 
 life is the real life and that our life on 
 earth is but a preparation for it. Indeed, 
 it becomes so real, through His teaching, to 
 the Christian, that virtually it seems al- 
 
IMMORTALITY. 243 
 
 most to begin here, for Christ said : " He 
 that believeth on me hath everlasting life." 
 That is, the life of struggle and service here 
 is so inspired by the certainty of the life 
 hereafter that everlasting power seems to 
 enter into the Christian as he battles and 
 prays. 
 
 Once more, Jesus implies that we are to 
 be together and know one another in that 
 world, even as we are together and know 
 one another here. He said to His disciples : 
 " Ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, 
 judging the twelve tribes of Israel ; " 
 and again those wonderful words : " I will 
 see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, 
 and your joy no man taketh from you." 
 And yet again those dear words : " Rejoice 
 not, that the spirits are subject unto you; 
 but rather rejoice, because your names are 
 written in heaven." These are only sug- 
 gestions of the many words which our Lord 
 spoke, proving that His children are to 
 know each other even as they are to know 
 Him in the life beyond. 
 
 r And then by His resurrection and the 
 taking of His glorified human body up into 
 heaven, Jesus taught us that we are to 
 live forever with our bodies glorified. All 
 that He passed through on earth was but 
 
244 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 an example of what we are called upon to 
 pass through. He lived the perfect human 
 life ; He died ; He arose from the dead, and 
 He ascended into heaven. Even as He 
 was born — save that His birth was mirac- 
 ulous — so we are born; even as He grew, 
 so we grow; even as He struggled, so we 
 struggle ; even as He died, so we must die ; 
 and even as, after His resurrection, He 
 ascended into heaven, so also shall we. 
 Living We must also remember that immedi- 
 
 Christ. ately after death, according to the expe- 
 rience of Christ, our souls shall live with 
 Him. When our Lord died upon the Cross 
 He said to the penitent by His side : " To- 
 day shalt thou be with me in Paradise," 
 and in this place or state called " Para- 
 dise " during the three days before His 
 resurrection, he lived, and, according to St. 
 Peter, preached. Without any long argu- 
 ment we can clearly state what has been 
 believed in the church from the first : that 
 when we die our souls shall go where the 
 soul of Jesus went and shall be with Him, 
 and that we too shall have an occupation 
 which He will give us, associated with His 
 own. The life of the soul after death will 
 be work without weariness, and joy and 
 peace untold. 
 
IMMORTALITY. 245 
 
 When we come to the Epistles we find, 
 particularly by St. Paul, this same wonder- 
 ful truth of immortality declared. Noth- 
 ing can equal in all literature, outside of 
 the words of our Lord, that wonderful 
 fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians. It 
 not only teaches the resurrection of the 
 body, but it teaches that body, mind and 
 soul shall finally, after the last great day, 
 dwell forever in bliss with Him the Ke- 
 deemer and King. The Christian ought 
 to read the Epistles through, in order to 
 gather together the wonderful declarations 
 which our Lord's followers gave, they being 
 inspired by the Lloly Ghost, and therefore 
 speaking the truth concerning the after- 
 life. 
 
 And when we come to the revelation of 
 St. John, we find so much that is gloriously 
 comforting in the vision which was vouch- 
 safed to him of the future, that our hearts 
 and tears overflow in gratitude, and we 
 feel assured of the joy which is awaiting 
 us. 
 
 The simple faith of the Christian, then, 
 is this, — that if he holds his confidence 
 steadfast unto the end and believes in 
 Christ and loves Him and tries to serve 
 Him, when he dies his body will rest in 
 
246 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 the grave and his soul will go to a place 
 which Christ called Paradise where it 
 shall rest and work and serve and grow 
 until the great day of resurrection when 
 all of God's children shall rise together; 
 then with body, mind and soul re-united 
 and made glorious because redeemed by 
 Christ, he will go to his final abode called 
 heaven, where with his fellows and with 
 his King he will enjoy the dear vision of 
 the Almighty, and with unlimited powers 
 and ever-increasing delights, live forever- 
 more. 
 Preparing Now what, practically, has this to do 
 
 future w * tn tne daily ^ e °^ tne Christian? 
 
 life. Very much indeed, for first of all it enables 
 
 him to know that his struggle and his 
 labor are not in vain. He is preparing 
 here for another life, and as he fits himself, 
 or suffers himself to be fitted by God, for 
 the glory which is to come, he will find 
 his burdens less oppressive, and will feel 
 already the strength which comes from an 
 assurance concerning the future. Again, 
 he will realize that he himself is bringing 
 that day nearer by his efforts. He is in 
 the world to establish, under Christ's direc- 
 tion, the Kingdom of God, and if he labors 
 faithfully and belie vingly, and tries to per- 
 
IMMORTALITY. 247 
 
 suade men, and holds fast through all to 
 the King, he will hasten the coming of that 
 great day. And again he will feel more 
 and more entering into him, even now, 
 the blessedness of the good things which are 
 to be. In his love for his friends, for in- 
 stance, he will know that that love is to 
 continue forever, and that death cannot 
 destroy it. In his pains and griefs because 
 of the severity of the battle he will look 
 beyond and be comforted by the thought 
 of the peace which at last shall come, and 
 the victory which shall result from his ef- 
 forts. He will be, not like one who beateth 
 the air, but as one who sees the end and 
 at once struggles both to attain it and to 
 help others attain it. Even nature herself 
 will become more beautiful to the Chris- 
 tian because he believes that the whole 
 creation now groaning shall at last be 
 delivered and made a perfect part of the 
 eternity of God. 
 
 Our worship not only teaches concerning life in 
 
 , , .v. 11 • »± worship. 
 
 the eternal life, and thence gams its sig- 
 nificance, but it also draws us wonderfully 
 near, while we live, to the blessedness of 
 that day. Our hymns and our prayers, the 
 messages from the pulpit and the messages 
 from God to our souls all imply — indeed, 
 
248 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 they are based upon the fact — that we are 
 to live forever after this life is over and 
 after the great day of judgment, in happi- 
 ness and peace. Worship would be a very 
 vague and indefinite thing and our own 
 private prayers would be simply the sigh- 
 ings of a hopeless heart were it not for the 
 hold this great truth of immortality has 
 upon us. How could I pray to God to for- 
 give me and to bless me and to give me 
 strength and wisdom in my conflict if I 
 did not feel the influence of the far-off 
 horizon beyond which there is glory and 
 rest ? How could I pray for my friends, 
 loving them as I do, if I did not believe 
 that our friendship, sanctified by the 
 friendship of Jesus Christ, was to be eter- 
 nal? How could I read God's Word if I 
 did not draw from it, not only lessons bear- 
 ing upon my daily life and work but also 
 revelations concerning God's care for me 
 and His plans for my infinite happiness? 
 At the root of all our Christianity lies the 
 certainty of immortality, even as at its 
 centre lies the redemption of Jesus Christ. 
 No doubts. M ore an( j more the Christian wants to 
 hold fast to and accept the inspiration of 
 this great and blessed truth. He must 
 never suffer himself to doubt. He must 
 
IMMORTALITY. 249 
 
 take the great words of Christ and of the 
 Bible and comfort himself with them un- 
 ceasingly. He must picture to himself the 
 great day of perfection and what he will be 
 and do when at last the victory is gained 
 and the King has complete control of 
 His Kingdom. And he must bring to 
 others in their sorrow and in their doubt 
 the strong force of his own faith so that 
 they, buoyed up by his confidence, may 
 themselves see a vision and be brought to 
 the certainty of God's love and care. 
 
 Finally, let it be remembered that im- 
 mortality is a revelation from God even 
 as it is to be His gift. Scientists and phi- 
 losophers have tried and tried in vain to 
 prove immortality. Lectures have been 
 given and theories have been advanced, and 
 even scientific experiments carried on hav- 
 ing as their object the answer to this great 
 human question : " Shall a man die and 
 live again ? " But, like all the wonderful 
 truths of our faith, immortality can only 
 be known as the soul trusts and loves and 
 serves and believes Jesus Christ. He only 
 can say : " I know that I shall live forever, 
 and that with all of God's people I shall 
 enjoy everlasting felicity," who in his 
 heart gives himself to Christ and tries to 
 
250 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 do what He asks. So that the Christian 
 need not be troubled when men come to 
 him and cry : " Prove to us what you believe 
 concerning eternal life." There are things 
 which are beyond proof here on earth 
 and yet we know they are true ; so it is with 
 immortality. 
 
 Dear Lord, I thank Thee that Thou 
 hast not left me uncertain concerning what 
 and where I shall be when I die. In thine 
 own Book and by Thy blessed words Thou 
 hast made clear the answer which satis- 
 fies my heart. I know not what bliss 
 awaits me there, and I am too feeble to 
 understand the greatness of the glory 
 which Thy love has prepared ; but oh, dear 
 Master, I know that even as Thou hast 
 cared for me from my creation, so Thou 
 wilt care for me through all the ages, and 
 in Thee have I put my trust. Amen. 
 
CHAPTEK XXIII. 
 
 THE JOY OF THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 As we draw now to the end of this sim- Joj in 
 pie declaration concerning the faith and u{ ™ 
 life of a Christian man it may seem to 
 some as if there was little of joy in that life 
 and much of conflict and sorrow and suffer- 
 ing. Indeed, it has heen too often the 
 assertion of Christianity that in this world 
 there can be no peace. Men have set their 
 faces like a flint and tried to go through 
 the battle with no idea of present inspi- 
 ration or delight; and men have believed 
 that they were in the world simply to get 
 ready to die, and that life was a pilgrimage 
 and an exile. The fuller and larger view of 
 Christianity certainly dispels any such idea 
 as that. While on earth we cannot, of 
 course, have the fulness of joy which shall 
 be hereafter, and while in the midst of 
 struggle there must be pain and suffering; 
 yet the true Christian rejoices in his life 
 here. With confidence in God and with a 
 251 
 
252 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 clear understanding of his relationship to 
 God he sees beauties everywhere and draws 
 them to his heart, and sucks from them the 
 consolation which God intends to give to 
 His children. No one has any right to 
 laugh save the Christian, for he alone 
 knows what joy means. No one can really 
 be happy but the Christian, for he alone 
 knows the meaning of happiness. Into all 
 of his life there come flashing great beams 
 of light, and there come throbbing great 
 assurances of love which fill him with a 
 consciousness of security which nothing 
 can destroy. 
 Glory of The glory of life — that is the truth 
 
 which we Christians need more and more 
 to learn. Upon what is this glory based % 
 Let us consider for a moment. 
 
 First, we know what our life means. 
 We know whence we came, and whither we 
 are going, and what we have here to do, so 
 that there is no indefiniteness in our ex- 
 istence ; and from the very clearness of our 
 knowledge we draw a strength which is 
 akin to delight. The Christian man alone 
 can say : "I know ; " and in knowledge 
 there is not only power but comfort. 
 
 Second, the Christian has an unceasing 
 association with his Maker; he communes 
 
 life. 
 
THE JOY OF THE CHRISTIAN. 253 
 
 with God and God speaks to him. He is 
 not travelling a lonely road with no voice 
 to speak and no hand to touch ; he is in con- 
 stant association with the Christ Who is 
 ■ with him all the days. Therefore he has 
 that great joy which always comes through 
 association with the highest and best. A 
 man is happy when he is with his friends 
 — with, those whom he loves and can trust ; 
 how much happier must he be when he 
 knows that he is with God even as God is 
 with him, and that being pure-hearted, that 
 is, sincere, he can already see God! 
 
 And third, the Christian finds in his Delight in 
 work a delight. As we said before in 
 speaking of service, the true man who is 
 healthy in spirit loves to work. He knows 
 what work means, and he finds a delight 
 in doing it because he knows what it means. 
 Whether it be the daily toil, or the special 
 effort to accomplish some desired end, or 
 the carrying out of some plan, or the put- 
 ting forth of some definite and useful thing 
 j for the pleasure of others, all work becomes 
 .' a delight just in the doing of it. One can 
 measure himself as well as his Christianity 
 pretty accurately just by asking and an- 
 swering the question : " Do I love to do 
 the things which I am trying to do ? " 
 
 work. 
 
254 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Joy in And then finally, there comes a joy even 
 
 in sorrow, because the Christian knows that 
 sorrow and pain have their uses and that 
 without them he could not be made what 
 God wishes to have him become. We will 
 realize at last that which we cannot per- 
 fectly comprehend here, how every tear 
 (and that is what God means when He 
 speaks of putting our tears in His bottle), 
 every grief, every pain has had a wonder- 
 ful part in fitting us for the glory of God's 
 home. It is a poor suggestion that suffer- 
 ing and pain come from the devil. What- 
 ever sufferings do come as a result of Sa- 
 tan's temptings, we may be sure (and this 
 is the lesson from the Book of Job) 
 that God permits them, and that He per- 
 mits them in order that good may finally 
 result. He who uses grief aright finds a 
 joy which cannot be measured in words or 
 described even in the richest of language. 
 I knew a man who had prayed for days 
 that his friend might be delivered from a 
 certain evil. At last a message came, 
 and it told him that the evil had fallen 
 upon his friend. With trembling lips he 
 looked up and said : " I thank Thee, God ! " 
 He realized that God answers prayer, but 
 answers it in the best way, and he reasoned 
 
THE JOY OF THE CHRISTIAN. 255 
 
 that if he would have thanked God for an 
 answer which seemed to his earthly mind 
 comforting, how much more should he 
 thank God for that which seemed at the 
 time hard, but which he knew would, in 
 the providence of God, become a blessing ! 
 So it is that the Christian all through his 
 life finds joy even in sorrow, and rejoices 
 in tribulation. 
 
 Should the Christian, then, it is asked, Delights 
 enter with a free heart into the delights 
 of life ? Should he mingle with his 
 friends in happiness and laughter, and 
 fling himself into the harmless pleasures 
 of the day \ Should he rejoice in the thrill- 
 ing strength of his body and in the pleas- 
 ures of love and in the riches of thought ? 
 The answer is, most certainly, if he real- 
 izes that he is God's child and that God 
 loves him and that he longs to do and is 
 trying to do God's work. It is a sin for the 
 Christian to be gloomy, for gloom denies 
 God's word. To doubt is to question 
 God's power; to be happy and sing while 
 the heart relies upon God is to prove to the 
 King Himself and to those about us that 
 we believe the great truth of Christianity, 
 and that that truth is so resplendent that 
 nothing can dim its brilliancy. Of course 
 
256 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 the Christian cannot, it goes without say- 
 ing, enter into those frivolities which are 
 harmful and which tend to degrade. He 
 must draw a clear distinction between real 
 pleasures and apparent pleasures. But on 
 the other hand he must prove to the world 
 the joy which God gives — a joy based upon 
 such magnificent truths and upheld by such 
 absolute assurances that nothing can take 
 away their sustaining character and their 
 exhilarating influence. The gloom of the 
 Christian bears false witness to the truth 
 of Christ. The happiness of the Chris- 
 tian bears witness to the love of Christ. 
 What And here let us say one word more. We 
 
 anityis. mus ^ always remember that Christianity 
 is not merely living a life but it is a 
 close relationship to the King of life. 
 How can I live near to my King and not 
 be happy? How can I hear His gracious 
 words and not rejoice ? How can I do 
 His work which He has called me to do, 
 and so honored me, and not be glad ? It is 
 all very well for a Christian to keep him- 
 self from sin and to work righteousness, 
 but if he has not constantly springing up 
 in his soul a consciousness of the near- 
 ness of his Best Friend and does not find 
 
THE JOY OF THE CHRISTIAN. 257 
 
 in that consciousness an eternal sunshine, 
 then he is not drawing from Christ's life 
 that which he ought, and he is not proving 
 by his Christianity the fulness and large- 
 ness of God's great love. 
 
 Mrs. Browning's lines should be the ex- 
 pression of every man's feeling: 
 
 " And I smiled to think God's goodness flowed 
 around our incompleteness: 
 Round our restlessness His rest." 
 
 Dear Lord, help me to rejoice in Thee. 
 "No matter how cast down I may be, no 
 matter how seemingly dark my way, no 
 matter how I may suffer, no matter how 
 weary I may be in the midst of my toil, 
 help me to look up and see Thy face, and 
 rejoice in the light of Thy countenance. 
 Till me with the most blessed assurance of 
 Thy love and care. Inspire me with the 
 highest enthusiasm to do the will of One 
 Who loves me so. Let me rejoice just in 
 the living, the breathing, the seeing, the 
 speaking. Let me rejoice in my friend- 
 ships which are sanctified by Thee. Let 
 me be glad to bear Thy cross after Thee, 
 and let me be filled with comfort as I 
 think not only of Thy present grace but of 
 
258 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 the glory which at last shall come when I 
 see Thee face to face, and with my dear 
 ones enter into Thine eternal home. 
 Amen. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 We have tried in this little book to ex- 
 press simply and categorically, without 
 going into the proofs, which would make 
 the book too large, the great principles of 
 the Christian life. As we turn away there 
 are certain conclusions which come to us, 
 and which we may well express in a clos- 
 ing word. 
 
 And the first is this, that after all, the The only 
 only life worth living is the Christian life. e * 
 Even as Christianity has made the world 
 what it is and is destined to make it what 
 God would have it be, so to the individual 
 it brings a strength and a power which can 
 be found in no other way and which can 
 never fail. To make a man a Christian is 
 to bring him into a newness of living which 
 cannot be described to him, but which he 
 will acknowledge when once he has intelli- 
 gently taken his place amongst God's peo- 
 ple. Oh, the blessedness of a Christian 
 259 
 
THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 life ! No matter how imperfect the Chris- 
 tian may know himself to be, no matter 
 how he may be encompassed by infirmities 
 and perplexed by problems, this great, 
 glowing, human existence upon which the 
 light of Christ shines becomes so real and 
 holy that nothing can dampen or darken it. 
 
 Shared If the Christian really feels this, and 
 
 others. g° es on m * ne richness of this assurance, 
 then he will want to do all that he can to 
 bring others into the joy which he has 
 found. Certainly the conclusion which the 
 true Christian comes to very readily is that 
 he must do all he can in every way and at 
 every opportunity to make men believe in 
 and follow Jesus Christ. We are the wit- 
 nesses of the Master, and we are sent out 
 by Him to tell others of the good which He 
 has brought to us. The Christian church 
 denies its birth and refuses its natural 
 blessedness when it is not essentially mis- 
 sionary. If these great truths which we 
 have been considering amount to anything, 
 we cannot, we dare not, keep them to our- 
 selves. 
 
 Bond of r ^ n( j ^en we must remember how won- 
 
 umty. , 
 
 derfully Christianity binds men together; 
 
 how it heals wounds and covers up hostili- 
 ties, and makes one long, above all else, to 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 establish peace. The Master is called the 
 " Prince of Peace." The angels sang the 
 song at His birth: " Peace, good will 
 toward men." In Palestine was born the* 
 new word, "brotherhood." So the Chris- 
 tian in his friendships and in his associa- 
 tion with men wherever he is and however 
 he may be situated, always feels within him 
 that love for his brothers which can never 
 die. Men may hate him and abuse him, 
 but he will pray for them and keep on 
 loving them. Men may go about to kill 
 him, even, in the wildness of their blind- 
 ness, but he will, like his Master, say: 
 " Father, forgive them ; for they know not 
 what they do." His heart will go out to 
 little children ; his sympathies will be 
 touched by the sicknesses and sorrows of 
 his fellows ; his hand will be stretched out 
 to lift up the fallen. His desire to help 
 will be so much stronger than his spirit of 
 criticism that even where he might find 
 fault he will feel himself overflowing with 
 graciousness. Never must this great fact 
 be forgotten by the Christian; in the ful- 
 ness of that which has come to him, he 
 must go out and bless men. 
 
 And then finally, let us remember that 
 we are to keep our eyes ever upon the 
 
 261 
 
262 THE FAITH AND LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Vision of vision of that which is to be. We have 
 
 what is 
 
 to be. dwelt upon this before. Let it be our 
 final thought. As we work and worship, as 
 we endure and are patient, as we rejoice and 
 are glad, we must ever lift up our eyes to 
 that great day towards which Christianity 
 points and of whose coming it is the evi- 
 dence, when God shall say concerning each 
 child and concerning His whole creation: 
 "It is very good." That day is coming; 
 the Christian can see it by faith. Already 
 its glad music comes floating over the sea of 
 time. Through the surging contests and 
 through the cries of battle it sounds its 
 clear note of assurance. In the lonely 
 hours of the night it sings its song. In 
 the active labors of the day it gives its 
 strong tone. Oh, the joy of knowing that 
 there is a great day coming when imper- 
 fect things shall be made perfect; when 
 eyes shall be opened, and the heart's long- 
 ings satisfied, and the struggle rewarded, 
 and the King Himself shall stand forth 
 in all His glory saying : " Come, ye blessed 
 of my Father!" 
 
 " O sweet and blessed country, 
 The home of God's elect ! 
 O sweet and blessed country 
 That eager hearts expect! 
 
CONCLUSION. 263 
 
 Jesus, in mercy bring us 
 To that dear land of rest; 
 Who art, with God the Father, 
 And Spirit, ever blest." 
 
 O God ; Who hast prepared for those who 
 love Thee such good things as pass man's 
 understanding, pour into our hearts such 
 love towards Thee that we, loving Thee 
 above all things, may attain Thy promises 
 which exceed all that we can desire. 
 Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 
 (From the P. E. Prayer Booh.) 
 
INDEX 
 
 All are brethren, 51, 103, 104 
 
 All sanctified in consecration, 187 
 
 Amusements, the Christian and, 
 
 255 
 Attendance, at church services, 152 
 
 Bible. The, 132-141; God's revela- 
 tion, 133; genuine, 134; devotional 
 use of, 136-138 ; in our need. 138, 
 139; refreshes, 139; learned by 
 heart, 139 ; messages to me, 140 
 
 Blessings, in need, 156 ; of public 
 worship, 158 
 
 Body, The, 193-200; a temple, 193; 
 care of, 194; its development, 
 195 ; in worship, 196 ; sound mind 
 in sound, 197; sin, enemy of, 198; 
 love for, 199 
 
 Books, good and bad, 207 
 
 Brethren, Christians as, 51, 104 
 
 Brother, Christ our, 50 
 
 Brotherhood, of Christ, 50, 51 ; of 
 men, 103, 104 
 
 Burdens, bearing and sharing, 107 
 
 duties of, 115-121 ; a place for edu- 
 cation, 116 ; open daily, 157 
 
 Common duties, 186 
 
 Compassion, 86 
 
 Conclusion, 259 
 
 Conflict, mental, 205 ; helps in the, 
 231 
 
 Consecration, 181-192; what it is, 
 181 ; a complete giving, 182 ; fills 
 the whole life, 185; brings har- 
 mony, 187 ; sanctifies all, 187 ; joy- 
 ous power of, 188 ; makes every- 
 thing holy, 189; hymn, 190 
 
 Culture, 74 
 
 Definite object of Christian work, 
 
 64 
 Delight in Christian service, 84 
 Desire, the Christian's, 108 
 Despondency, 77 
 Divorce, deplored, 146 
 Doing and knowing, 67 
 Duty, 186, 209 
 
 Employers and employees, 97 
 Endurance, Christian, 77, 
 
 Capital and labor, 97 
 
 Care for those we serve.88 
 
 Christ, The Centre, 15-27 ; redemp- 
 tive power of, 33; the Saviour, 
 37, 45 ; without Him, what ? — 45 ; 
 the Intercessor, 48; our Example, 
 49 ; our Brother, 50 ; our Friend, 
 52; our life, 54; person of, 56; 
 real, 65 
 
 Christ's relationship to man, 42- 
 55 
 
 Christian, the, as salt, 93 ; as shep- 
 herd, 119 ; how helped, 124 ; joy 
 of, 251-258 
 
 Christian life, perplexity in, 10; its 
 meaning to the individual, 65; 
 how helped, 124; characteristics 
 of the, 171 ; the only life, 171, 259 
 
 Christian work, 62-65, 115-121 
 
 Christian worship, 152-160 
 
 Christianity, spasmodic, 128 ; what 
 it really is, 256; a bond of unity, I Giving, 155, 172 
 260 I Glory of life, the, 252 
 
 Church, the, 102; what it is, 111; , God, as power, 30; fatherhood of, 
 life, 111-122 ; unity, 115 ; members, ! 34; deeper knowledge of, 66; 
 
 265 
 
 Eternal life, 242; preparation for, 
 
 246; in worship, 247 
 Evil, hatred of, 74 ; fighting, 85 
 Example, Christ our, 49; the Chris- 
 tian an, 91 
 
 Family prayer, 146 
 Father and child, 36 
 Fatherhood of God, 34 
 Fellowship, the life of. 102-110 
 Fighting, our battles, 78, 224 ; evils, 
 
 85 
 Foreigners, 96 
 Friend, Christ our, 52 ; earthly, 52, 
 
 53 
 Fulness of fellowship, 109 
 Future glory and temptation, 230 
 Future life, hope of, 25, 242; prep- 
 aration for, 246 
 
266 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 keeping near to, 77; taught of, 
 117; works, 129; speaking, 132; 
 first, 183; knows our temptations, 
 226 
 
 God's child, 28; mercy, 31; will 
 and goodness, 70; voice to the 
 soul, 222 
 
 Gospel message, 11; need of the, 
 12 
 
 Grace, means of, 123 ; efficiency of, 
 126 ; from God, 159 
 
 Growth, moral, measure of, 73 
 
 Guides and workers, church mem- 
 bers as, 113, 115 
 
 Hatred of evil, 74 
 
 Helps, for the Christian, 124 ; in the 
 
 conflict. 231 
 Hope, 233-240; of the future, 25; 
 
 results of, 26; sees ideals, 100; 
 
 what it is, 233 ; a power, 234 ; in 
 
 Christ, 236 ; how it helps, 238 
 Human relationship, 23 
 
 Immortality, 241-250; of the soul, 
 214; no doubts concerning, 248; 
 a revelation from God, 249 
 
 Intercessor, Christ our, 48 
 
 Interpreter, Jesus the, 16 
 
 Jesus (see Christ). 
 Joy, of sacrifice, 178 ; of the Chris- 
 tian, 251-258 ; in pain, 254 
 
 Keeping near to God, 77 
 Knowledge of God, 66 
 
 Law, of the spirit, 125 ; of sacrifice, 
 171 
 
 Life, future, 25, 241, 246; new, in 
 Christ, 39 • the moral, 70-80 ; prob- 
 lems hard, 75; the fuller, 79; of 
 service, 81-89 ; of fellowship, 102- 
 110; eternal, 242; glory of, 252; 
 delights of, 255: the only, 259; 
 shared with others, 260 
 
 Light, of the world, 18 ; and life, 35 
 
 Living, thrill of, 179; with Christ, 
 244 
 
 Lord's Day, The, 152 
 
 Lord's Supper, The, 161-170; how 
 instituted, 161 ; what it means, 
 163; what it recalls, 164; meets 
 our needs, 167; ever to be ob- 
 served, 169 
 
 Love, for God, 71; of our Lord, 
 164 ; for the body. 199 
 
 Loving God with the soul, 214 
 
 Man, God's child through Christ, 
 ■2§-41 ; brotherhood of, 103, 104 
 
 Matfs relationship to Christ, 56-69 
 
 Meaning of Christian life to the 
 individual, 65 
 
 Means of grace, the, 123-131 
 
 Measure of moral growth, 73 
 
 Meditation, 209 
 
 Members, church, 115-121 
 
 Mental conflicts, 205 
 
 Message of the Gospel, 11 
 
 Mind, The, 202-212; sound, in sound 
 body, 197 ; for God, 202 ; in har- 
 mony, 203 ; cultivation of, 204 
 
 Ministers human, 154 
 
 Money, use of, 177 
 
 Moore, Thomas, quoted, 106 
 
 Moral life, the, 70-80 ; God's bless- 
 ing, 70 ; growth in, 73 
 
 Morality should be enforced, 76 
 
 Mother and child, 186 
 
 Need of Gospel, 12 
 New life in Christ, 39 
 
 Obedience, 59 
 
 Object of Christian work, 64 ; of the 
 
 church, 76 
 Our Saviour, 37, 45 
 
 Patience, 86 
 
 Perplexity, in Christian life, 10 
 
 Person of Christ, 56 
 
 Pleasure, the Christian and, 255 
 
 Political life, 98 
 
 Poor and rich, 95 
 
 Prayer, 142-149 ; in private, 144 ; fam- 
 ily, 146; in public, 146; for ene- 
 mies, 147 ; always, 148 ; use of, 177 
 
 Preparation for future life, 246 
 
 Problems of life hard, 75 
 
 Public life, 90-101 ; two sides of, 91 
 
 Public worship, 150-160 
 
 Purity, 94 
 
 Purpose, single, of Christian, 184 
 
 Reading, discriminate, 207 
 Redemptive power of Christ, 33 
 Regularity at church services, 152 
 Revelation of God, Bible the, 133 
 Rich and poor, 95 
 Right, and wrong. 21 • judgment, 
 74 ; position, 90 ; thinking, 210 
 
 Sacrifice, 171-180; and the cross, 
 174; is not gloom, 174; specific, 
 177 ; joy of, 178 
 
 Salvation, three parts of, 45; 
 through Christ, 45-55 
 
 Sanctiflcation, in consecration, 187 
 
 Saviour, Christ our, 37, 45 
 
 Seeking and saving, 118 
 
 Service for Christ, 62 ; definite ob- 
 ject of, 64 ; twofold, 81 ; life of, 
 81-89 ; how rendered, 83 : delight 
 in, 84 ; difficult, but not hard, 84 
 
 Shepherd, the Christian a, 119 
 
 Sin, 47 ; enemy of body, 198 
 
 Single purpose of the Christian, 184 
 
 Socialism, true, 24 
 
 Sonship and service, 34 
 
INDEX. 
 
 267 
 
 Soul, The, 213-223; in God's pres- 
 ence, 215; aspiration of, 216: com- 
 munion of, with God, 217 ; fellow- 
 ship, 219 ; stains, 221 ; God's voice 
 to the, 222 
 
 Spasmodic Christianity, 128 
 
 Specific sacrifices, 177 
 
 Spirit, Holy, 79, 91, 117, 129, 134, 193, 
 220 ; of service, 81-89 ; of oneness, 
 104 ; law of the, 125 
 
 Stalker, Dr., cited, 238 
 
 Sunday observance, 152, 153 
 
 Sunday-school teacher, spirit of, 120 
 
 Taught of God, 117 
 
 Teaching, spirit of Sunday-school, 
 120 
 
 Telling our needs to God, 145 
 
 Temple worship, 151 
 
 Temptations, 224-232; from with- 
 out, 224; from within, 225; to all, 
 225 ; resisted make us better, 227 ; 
 meeting, 227 ; met by Scripture, 
 228; undismayed by, 229; tri- 
 umph over, 231 
 
 Thinking, sensible. 210 
 
 Three questions, 94 
 
 Thrill of living for others, 179 
 
 Till He come, 166 
 
 Time, use of, 176 
 
 Trust, 57 
 
 Truth, the Christian firm for, 119 
 
 ppy 
 
 God, 114 
 Union with Christ, 60 
 Upper Room, The, 163 
 Use, of the Bible, 136 ; of time, 176 ; 
 
 of money, 177 ; of prayer, 177 
 
 Virtue, tokens of, 176 
 
 Vision of that which is to be, 262 
 
 Voting, 99 
 
 Watson, John (Ian Maclaren), 
 
 quoted, 164 
 Wilberforce, quoted, 74 
 Work, not ease, 63 ; definite object 
 
 of, 64 ; delight in, 84, 253 ; taking 
 
 part in all, 116 
 Workers, church members as, 113, 
 
 115 
 World, making it better, 72; its 
 
 struggle, 92 
 Worship, public, 150-160; Joining 
 
 in, 154 ; blessing of, 156, 158