BV 4501 .M664 1897 
 Morgan, G. Campbell 1863 
 
 1945. 
 Discipleship 
 
Discipleship 
 

 
 
 
 Works by G. 
 Campbell Morgan 
 
 
 
 
 
 A Ttbst CenttjbyMes- 
 sageto Twentieth 
 Centtjbx Christians. 
 
 Addresses upon "The 
 Seven Churches o f 
 Asia." Cloth, net $1.00 
 
 The Spirit of God. 
 
 I2mb, cloth, $i.zs. 
 
 God's Methods with 
 Man-. 
 
 In *Pime — Past, Pres- 
 ent and Future. 
 With colored chart. 
 i2mo, paper, 50 cents. 
 Cloth, #1.00. 
 
 Whebein Have We 
 Robbed God? 
 
 Malachi's Message to 
 the Men of To-Day. 
 i2mo, cloth, 75 cents. 
 
 God's Pebfect 
 Wiul. 
 
 i6mo, cloth, 50 cents net. 
 
 IjIFE Phoblems. 
 
 Little Books Series. 
 Long l6mo, 50 cents. 
 
 The TexICommand- 
 
 MENTS. 
 
 Studies in the Law of 
 Moses and the Law of 
 Christ. 
 
 i2mo, cloth, 50 cents net. 
 
 DlSCIPLESHIP. 
 
 Little Books Series. 
 Long i6mo, cloth, 50c. 
 
 The Hidden Yeabs 
 at Nazabeth. 
 
 Quiet Hour Series. 
 i8mo, cloth, 25 cents. 
 
 The Tbtte Estimate 
 of Life. 
 
 i2mo, cloth, gilt top, 
 80 cents net. 
 
 "All Things New" 
 
 A Messagb to New 
 
 Converts. 
 
 i6mo, paper, 10 cents net. 
 
 Fleming H. Eevell Company 
 
 NEW TOBK CHICAGO TOBONTO 
 
Discipleship 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. G. Campbell Morgan 
 
 Pastor of New Court Congregational Church 
 Tollington Park, London 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 Publishers of Evangelical Literature 
 
Copyright, 1897, 
 
 BY 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
To my Wife. — In whose unobtrusive and 
 consistent discipleship I have found the in- 
 spiration of service, and that sense of "sanc- 
 tuary" in the home which has been largely 
 the strength of service also, — I dedicate this, 
 my first book. 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 This booklet is not intended to be a 
 contribution to theology, nor is it ad- 
 dressed to theologians as such. Not 
 that they or their work is undervalued. 
 They — of varied schools — have placed 
 the writer under a debt to them that he 
 is unable to discharge. 
 
 It is intended to be, along practical 
 lines, an aid to the disciples of Jesus, 
 and that, by endeavoring to show in 
 some measure, the eminent practicability 
 of being a Christian, in the power of 
 the life communicated by and sustained 
 in Christ through the Holy Spirit. 
 
 It is further intended to reveal the 
 
 actual effect on this present life, for 
 
 ennobling it in all its relations, and 
 
 filling it with all joy and beauty, of 
 
 7 
 
Author's Note 
 
 the ultimate intention of the Master 
 for all His disciples. 
 
 To the glory of God, and the help of 
 fellow-disciples it is therefore prayer- 
 fully sent forth on its mission. 
 
 G. Campbell Morgan. 
 
 New Court Congregational Church, 
 London, 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAG* 
 
 I. Becoming a Disciple U 
 
 II. First Lessons 22 
 
 III. The Method of Advancement . . 32 
 
 IV. The Disciple at Home .... 44 
 V. The Disciple at Business ... 55 
 
 VI. The Disciple at Play .... 66 
 VII. The Disciple as a Friend ... 75 
 VIII. The Disciple at work for the 
 
 Master 86 
 
 IX. The Disciple in Sorrow .... 93 
 
 X. The Disciple in Joy 108 
 
 XI. The Disciple Going Home . . . 117 
 XII. The Disciple in Glory , . , . 126 
 
Discipleship 
 
 BECOMING A DISCIPLE 
 
 At the feet of Jesus 
 
 Is the place for me, 
 There, a humble learner, 
 
 Would I choose to be. 
 
 —P. P. Bliss. 
 
 " Disciples " is the term consistently 
 used in the four Gospels to mark the 
 relationship existing between Christ and 
 His followers. Jesus used it Himself in 
 speaking of them, and they in speaking 
 of each other. Neither did it pass out 
 of use in the new days of Pentecostal 
 power. It runs right through the Acts 
 of the Apostles. It is interesting also 
 to remember that it was on this wise 
 that the angels thought and spoke of 
 these men ; the use of the word in the 
 days of the Incarnation is linked to the 
 11 
 
Discipleship 
 
 use of the word in the apostolic age by 
 the angelic message to the women, " Go, 
 
 tell His Disciples and Peter" 
 
 (Mark xvi. 7). 
 
 It is somewhat remarkable that the 
 word is not to be found in the Epistles. 
 This is to be accounted for by the fact 
 that the Epistles were addressed to 
 Christians in their corporate capacity 
 as churches, and so spoke of them as 
 members of such, and as the " saints " 
 or separated ones of God. The term 
 disciple marks an individual relation- 
 ship, and though it has largely fallen 
 out of use, it is of the utmost value 
 still in marking that relationship, exist- 
 ing between Christ and each single 
 soul, and suggesting our consequent 
 position in all the varied circumstances 
 of everyday living. It is to that study 
 we desire to come in this series of pa- 
 pers. 
 
 1. The word itself (/xa<V^?) signifies 
 a taught or trained one, and gives us 
 the ideal of relationship. Jesus is the 
 Teacher. He has all knowledge of the 
 ultimate purposes of God for man, of 
 the will of God concerning man, of the 
 
 12 
 
Becoming a Disciple 
 
 laws of God that mark for man the path 
 of his progress and final crowning. 
 
 Disciples are those who gather around 
 this Teacher and are trained by Him. 
 Seekers after truth, not merely in the 
 abstract, but as a life force, come to Him 
 and join the circle of those to whom 
 He reveals these great secrets of all true 
 life. Sitting at His feet, they learn 
 from the unfolding of His lessons the 
 will and ways of God for them ; and 
 obeying each successive word, they real- 
 ize within themselves, the renewing 
 force and uplifting power thereof. The 
 true and perpetual condition of dis- 
 cipleship, and its ultimate issue, were 
 clearly declared by the Lord Himself 
 u to those Jews which believed on Him. ,, 
 11 If ye abide in My word, then are ye 
 truly My disciples ; and ye shall know 
 the truth, and the truth shall make you 
 free " (John viii. 31). 
 
 Before considering the glorious en- 
 duement the Teacher confers on every 
 disciple, and the stern requirements that 
 guard the entrance to discipleship, it is 
 very important that we should have 
 clearly outlined in our minds the true 
 13 
 
Discipleship 
 
 meaning of this phase of the relation- 
 ship, which Jesus bears to His people. 
 
 It is not that of a lecturer, from whose 
 messages men may or may not deduce 
 applications for themselves. It is not 
 that of a prophet merely, making a Di- 
 vine pronouncement, and leaving the is- 
 sues of the same. It certainly is not 
 that of a specialist on a given subject, 
 declaring his knowledge, to the interest 
 tf a few, the amazement of more, and 
 the bewilderment of most. It is none 
 of these. 
 
 It is that of a teacher — Himself pos- 
 sessing full knowledge, — bending over 
 a pupil, and for a set purpose, with 
 an end in view, imparting knowledge 
 step by step, point by point, ever work- 
 ing on toward a definite end. That 
 conception includes also the true ideal 
 of our position. We are not casual lis- 
 teners, neither are we merely interested 
 hearers desiring information, we are dis- 
 ciples, looking toward and desiring the 
 same end as the Master, and therefore 
 listening to every word, marking every 
 inflection of voice that carries meaning, 
 and applying all our energy to realizing 
 14 
 
Becoming a Disciple 
 
 the Teacher's purpose for us. Such is 
 the ideal. 
 
 2. Now let us consider the privileges 
 that the Teacher confers upon those 
 who become His disciples. 
 
 I. The first is the establishment of 
 those relations which make it possible 
 for Him to teach and for us to be 
 taught. The question of sin must be 
 dealt with, and that which results from 
 sin — our inability to understand the 
 teaching. Christ never becomes a 
 teacher to those who are living in sin. 
 Sin as actual transgression in the past, 
 must be pardoned, and sin as a principle 
 of revolution within must be cleansed. 
 So before He unfolds one word of the 
 Divine law of life, or reveals in any 
 particular the line of progress, He deals 
 with this twofold aspect of sin. To the 
 soul judging past sin, by confessing it 
 and turning from it, He dispenses for- 
 giveness, pronouncing His priestly abso- 
 lution by virtue of His own atonement 
 on the Cross. To the soul yielded to 
 Him absolutely and unreservedly, con- 
 senting to the death of self, He gives 
 the blessing of cleansing from sin. 
 
 15 
 
Discipleship 
 
 This statement of His dealing with us is 
 not intended to mark an order of proce- 
 dure from pardon to cleansing. It is 
 rather the declaration of the twofold as- 
 pect of the first work of Christ for His 
 disciples, the bestowment of the initial 
 blessing. In practical experience, men 
 constantly, though not invariably, and 
 not necessarily, realize the first-named 
 first in order. That is the result of the 
 overwhelming and largely selfish desire 
 of personal safety, a desire which is the 
 natural and proper outcome of the di- 
 vinely imparted instinct of self-preser- 
 vation. Nevertheless they ought at 
 once, for the higher reason of God's 
 glory, to seek to realize the deeper side 
 of the one blessing, that of cleansing. 
 But His patience is manifested in our 
 folly. He forgives and graciously waits. 
 When we look at Him again and say 
 " Master, there is more in Thy cross 
 than pardon," then He makes us con- 
 scious of His power to cleanse. Certain 
 it is, that there can be no real disciple- 
 ship apart from the realization of the 
 twofold blessing. Beyond this there 
 lies the dullness of our understanding, 
 16 
 
Becoming a Disciple 
 
 our inability to comprehend the truths 
 He declares. This He overcomes by 
 the gift of the Holy Spirit, who makes 
 clear to us the teaching of the Master. 
 What a priceless gift this is. The dull- 
 est natural intellect may be, and is, 
 rendered keen and receptive Godward, 
 by the incoming of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 So He Himself provides for, and 
 creates, the relationships of communion 
 through cleansing, and intelligence 
 through the indwelling of the Spirit, 
 which constitute our condition for re- 
 ceiving what He has to teach. 
 
 II. The other great privilege to be 
 remembered is that the school of Jesus 
 is a technical school. He provides op- 
 portunities for us to prove in practical 
 life the truths He has to declare. This 
 is a great essential in His method, with 
 which we shall deal more fully in a sub- 
 sequent chapter. It is another evidence 
 of His abounding grace, that the prov- 
 ing in technical details of the lessons 
 He teaches, is just as much under His 
 personal guidance and direction as the 
 truth in theory is received directly from 
 Him. 
 
 1? 
 
Discipleship 
 
 3. Now, upon what personal con- 
 ditions may I become a disciple ? I 
 fain would have this enduement of 
 pardon, cleansing, and illumination. 
 How may this be ? No school of man 
 was ever so strictly guarded, so select, 
 as this, yet none was ever so easy of 
 access. No bar of race, or color, or 
 caste, or age stands across the en- 
 trance. Humanity constitutes the es- 
 sential claim. And yet, because of the 
 importance of the truths to be revealed, 
 and of the necessity for the application 
 of every power of the being to the 
 understanding and realization of these 
 truths, Jesus stands at the entrance, 
 forbidding any to enter, save upon cer- 
 tain conditions. Let us hear His three- 
 fold word. I. "If any man cometh 
 unto Me, and hateth not his own 
 father, and mother, and wife, and chil- 
 dren, and brethren, and sisters, yea, 
 and his own life also, he cannot be 
 My disciple " (Luke xiv. 26). II. 
 " Whosoever doth not bear his own 
 cross, and come after Me, cannot be 
 My disciple " (Luke xiv. 27). III. 
 " Whosoever he be of you that re- 
 
 18 
 
Becoming a Disciple 
 
 nounceth not all that he hath, he CAN 
 not be My disciple " (Luke xiv. 33) 
 The new relationship must be su 
 perior, in the urgency of its claims to 
 the claim of any earthly relationship 
 it must be considered and answered be- 
 fore any claims of the self-life. The 
 Teacher demands that we shall take up 
 the cross and so follow on, even though 
 the progress be through pain. More, 
 we must take the deep spiritual vow of 
 poverty, renouncing all, as possessions, 
 counting every word He shall speak, 
 and every truth He shall reveal, 
 through whatsoever methods, as our 
 chief and only wealth. In short, we 
 must not be held, either by being pos- 
 sessed by others, or possessing aught. 
 There must be a clean severance from 
 all entanglement, and an utter uncom- 
 promising abandonment of ourselves to 
 Him. Unless this be so, we cannot be 
 His disciples. If this be our attitude, 
 then, to us He gives pardon, cleansing, 
 light ; and so, becoming by relationship 
 His disciples, and entering His school, 
 we are ready for, and enter upon our 
 course of instruction. 
 19 
 
Discipleship 
 
 If these conditions seem hard and 
 severe, let it be remembered what de- 
 pends upon them. Character and des- 
 tiny depend upon this question of dis- 
 cipleship. Not to impart information, 
 and to satisfy curiosity, is Jesus the 
 Teacher. It is because the truth sancti- 
 fies and makes free that He reveals it, 
 and because, apart from the revelation 
 He has to make, there is no possible 
 way of realizing God's great purposes 
 for us. Compare Himself and His 
 teaching with the most sacred and 
 beautiful of earth's loves and posses- 
 sions, and these are unworthy of a mo- 
 ment's thought. They must all come 
 from between Him and ourselves, so 
 that we may know and do His will. 
 Such attitude does not rob us of the 
 enjoyment of all these things, so far as 
 in themselves they are right. It rather 
 adds to our joy. 
 
 Self, renders it impossible to know 
 Christ, when other loves and interests 
 intervene, and breeds dissatisfaction 
 with all else and makes that very self 
 sad and weak. Christ absolute, lights 
 the whole being with His love, and joy, 
 20 
 
Becoming a Disciple 
 
 and beauty, and shines on other loves to 
 their sanctification, and so, the abnega- 
 tion of self is self's highest develop- 
 ment. 
 
 So let us enter the school of Jesus, 
 and, receiving His gifts, await His teach, 
 ing. 
 
 21 
 
II 
 
 PIEST LESSONS 
 
 Saviour and Master 
 
 These sayings of Thine, 
 Help me to make them 
 
 Doings of mine ; 
 Words that like beams 
 
 Of humanity shine, 
 By them let me build up 
 
 The holy, divine. 
 
 — Paxton Hood. 
 
 The Sermon on the Mount — as it is 
 popularly styled, though the title al- 
 ways seems inadequate and poor — was 
 delivered specially to the disciples. 
 The first and second verses of the fifth 
 chapter of Matthew very clearly declare 
 this, " And seeing the multitudes, He 
 went up into the mountain ; and when 
 Fie had sat down, His disciples came unto 
 Him : and He opened His mouth and 
 taught THEM, saying." The multitude 
 followed and gathered round this little 
 group of Teacher and taught, but the 
 22 
 
First Lessons 
 
 teaching was for the disciples only — 
 that is, for such as were brought into 
 those necessary relations, of which our 
 first chapter spoke, and so could follow 
 and in some measure receive the won- 
 drous words. In actual experience the 
 teaching of this sermon is very far in 
 advance even of this advanced age. 
 Men have hardly begun to guess at the 
 glory and beauty of this wonderful 
 ideal, but in relation to the Teacher it 
 is elementary and initial. All the 
 wealth of His knowledge — knowledge 
 that He is waiting to impart — lies be- 
 yond anything said here. Here He 
 deals with the first ideals of true life, 
 and reveals to men the Divine purpose 
 for them to-day. These are His first 
 lessons. Any exhaustive dealing with 
 all the wonderful and delicate detail is 
 impossible, and it is not indeed the pur- 
 pose of this study. A general anatysis 
 of the whole, that we may catch its 
 sweep and scope, and obtain an outline 
 of the system, is what is possible and 
 necessary. We shall now proceed to 
 this consideration, noticing seven points 
 of importance. This study should be 
 23 
 
Discipleship 
 
 taken with your Bible as your com- 
 panion, tracing the teaching therein. 
 
 1. SUPREMACY OF CHARACTER 
 
 (Matt. v. 1-12). The very first word 
 that falls from His lips is a revelation 
 of the will of God for man. " Blessed." 
 " Happy." That is the Divine thought 
 and intention for us. Sorrow, tears, 
 pain, disappointment, all these may be, 
 and are, of inestimable value in the 
 Father's discipline ; but they are means 
 to an end, made necessary by man's sin. 
 The end, in the purpose of God is bless- 
 edness. Happiness is that after which 
 all men in every age seek, and the first 
 note in the Saviour's teaching reveals 
 it, as what God is seeking also. How, 
 then, is it to be realized ? This section 
 contains the Master's answer. Men 
 hold two views of what happiness con- 
 sists in, viz, having, and doing. To 
 possess much, or to do some great 
 thing, constitutes the sum of human 
 blessedness according to popular the- 
 ory. Our Teacher sweeps these con- 
 ceptions away by absolutely ignoring 
 them. No " blessed " of His lights up 
 for man either the "having" or "do- 
 24 
 
First Lessons 
 
 ing " of man. Being is everything. A 
 man's happiness depends upon what he 
 is in himself. These " blesseds " of 
 Jesus touch human life in its lowliest 
 phases, and reveal the highest possibil- 
 ities even for such. Henceforth for the 
 disciples of Jesus themselves, and for a 
 basis of their estimate of others, char- 
 acter is to be supreme. There is in- 
 finite tenderness in this on its positive 
 side, and it is stern and inexorable on 
 the negative. Such teaching will pro- 
 duce lives running contrary to all 
 worldly estimate and custom, and dis- 
 cipleship will mean persecution, and so 
 the Teacher adds a "blessed" for those 
 who suffer through character. 
 
 2. Influence the Intention (v. 
 13-16). This grows out of the former, 
 and is at once the statement of a fact 
 and the declaration of an intention. 
 The fact is that character tells upon 
 others. If a man live in the atmosphere 
 of the beatitudes of Jesus, his life bein£ 
 of the character described, he will, apart 
 from any effort along the line of actual 
 work, exert certain influences. This is 
 not only a fact, it is part of the Divine 
 
Discipleship 
 
 intention. Salt savorless, light under 
 a bushel, are worse than useless ; this is, 
 however, the statement of an impossible 
 hypothesis. Salt savorless ceases to be 
 salt. Light under a bushel goes out. 
 This the Master intends us to under- 
 stand, and hence the terrific force of 
 His figures of speech. 
 
 These symbols mark for us distinctly 
 the influence that the blessed life ex- 
 erts. Salt is antiseptic, pungent, pre- 
 venting the spread of corruption, and 
 making that portion where health bor- 
 ders on disease smart. Remember ab- 
 solute corruption never smarts. When 
 men smart under the influence of the 
 antiseptic life of righteousness, it is a 
 sign for which we should be thankful, 
 conscience is not altogether dead, they 
 are not " past feeling." The disciples 
 then are to be salt, preventing corrup- 
 tion, and arousing the dormant sense 
 of health. Light is here used, I think, 
 in its sense of guidance. Men are 
 groping after God in this age with no 
 light of their own by which to find Him. 
 Your life is to be a light, by the aid of 
 which men come to glorify God. Let 
 
 26 
 
First Lessons 
 
 no man whose life fails to be antiseptic, 
 and never helps another Godward, im- 
 agine himself living within the circle of 
 beatitudes. 
 
 3. The New Moral Code (v. 17- 
 48). Having thus seen the supremacy 
 of character as the secret of happiness 
 and the source of influence, we ask 
 what are the laws which govern the de- 
 velopment of such character. The new 
 code of ethics is startling. The Mosaic 
 law of conduct was easy to obey when 
 compared to this. The former is done 
 away in the sense in which the less is 
 included in the greater. Greater it 
 surely is. Let this section be carefully 
 read, remembering the following points : 
 — I. The righteousness of the disciples 
 is to exceed that of the Pharisees, as 
 inner purity exceeds external white- 
 ness. II. Gifts on the altar do not ex- 
 piate wrongdoing. III. To look on 
 sin with desire is sin; in other words, 
 suppression of sin is still sin, because it 
 recognizes the presence of a principle 
 antagonistic to God and excuses it. 
 IV. Retaliation is forbidden, and love 
 is to be the one law of relative life. No 
 
 27 
 
Discipleship 
 
 one can reverently study this ideal of 
 life without seeing the necessity for the 
 fulfilling of the conditions of entrance 
 to discipleship. 
 
 4. Self-stricken (vi.). This chap- 
 ter may, and undoubtedly does, contain 
 very much teaching along other lines, 
 but the underlying principle is that of 
 self-abnegation. Note how the injunc- 
 tions run counter to every popular idea 
 of life : — I. Alms are to be given 
 privately, not blazoned abroad. II. 
 Prayer is preeminently a matter 'twixt 
 the soul and God ; certainly not to be a 
 means of advertising self's piety. III. 
 Men are still to fast, but with glad face, 
 not " appearing " so to do, so that self 
 is to have no glory for its denial of it- 
 self. IV. Wealth is not to be held, save 
 on trust. V. Self is to be smitten so 
 that anxiety concerning necessities can- 
 not exist. Surely never were self-con- 
 sideration and self-consciousness so 
 smitten hip and thigh as here. 
 
 5. Relative Charity (vii. 1-5). 
 The consideration of my brother's fault 
 is to drive me to self-examination rather 
 that to the passing of judgment on him. 
 
 28 
 
First Lessons 
 
 I am ever to count my fault a beam 
 and his a mote. 
 
 6. The Open Treasure House 
 (vii. 7-14). With what light and glory 
 of tender love does this section come to 
 us. Just as one's spirit is in danger of 
 being overwhelmed with the sense of 
 the impossibility of realizing such ideals, 
 He reveals to us the wealth that lies at 
 our disposal in the love and power of 
 the Father, and in simplest and best 
 understood words, He reveals our priv- 
 ilege in that matter. "Ask." "Seek." 
 " Knock." For daily help remember 
 the acrostic here. Take the initial let- 
 ters A, S, K, and reflect that the words 
 for which they stand reveal the secret 
 combination that admits us into the 
 treasure house of love, where there is 
 stored for us all that we need for the 
 realization of the ideal. 
 
 7. Warning (vii. 15-23). What 
 solemn words of warning are these. 
 Siren voices will seek to lure us. No 
 teaching but His can produce the true 
 character. The truth of every message 
 is to be tested by the life of the Teacher, 
 and if failure is found there, we are to 
 
Discipleship 
 
 know him for " false " no matter how 
 cleverly the sheep's clothing conceals 
 the devouring wolf. How careful we 
 need to be, lest all should be marred by 
 our being drawn aside by specious 
 teaching which is contrary to His Will. 
 These lessons are all initial, lying at 
 the very foundation of all Christ has to 
 teach men. In proportion as they are 
 realized He is able to lead us forward 
 to deeper truths. An English Bishop 
 said that this Sermon on the Mount 
 could not be applied to the State. 
 Whatever the Bishop intended, there 
 is a side on which he was perfectly cor- 
 rect. These principles cannot be car- 
 ried out in any State, save where the 
 Kinghood of Jesus is recognized, and 
 men are His disciples. None save dis- 
 ciples can understand, much less obey 
 His teaching. The crowds leaving the 
 mountain were impressed with the au- 
 thority of the teaching, but they were 
 not captivated with its beauty, for all 
 this was beyond their comprehension. 
 Christianity did not come by force of 
 arms, nor could it. Christianity will 
 never come by Act of Parliament. The 
 
 30 
 
First Lessons 
 
 wisest of earth's scholars, and the most 
 astute of her politicians, can lift no 
 finger to help the Kingdom of God save 
 by coming in to the school of Jesus, and 
 learning of Him by the inshining of the 
 Holy Spirit. That lonely, laboring soul 
 in back court, or isolated village, or far- 
 off heathen hut, who is spelling out 
 under the unique Teacher the lessons 
 of this great deliverance, and so build- 
 ing character on these sayings of His, 
 is doing more to realize on earth the 
 Kingdom of God, and so to bring the 
 golden age, than all the company of 
 diplomatists and politicians, who are 
 forgetful in all practical things of the 
 Nazarene. To the learning of these 
 first great lessons, let us set ourselves 
 with all submission of spirit and sur- 
 render of life. 
 
 31 
 
Ill 
 
 THE METHOD OP ADVANCEMENT 
 
 No matter how dull the scholar whom He 
 Takes into His school, and gives him to see ; 
 A wonderful fashion of teaching He hath 
 And wise to salvation He makes us through faith. 
 The wayfaring men though fools shall not stray, 
 His method so plain, so easy His way. 
 
 — Charles Wesley. 
 
 The subject of this chapter is not in- 
 tended to suggest the idea that all the 
 " First Lessons " with which the last 
 chapter dealt are to be realized to the 
 full, and that not till then progress may 
 be made beyond. The thought is rather 
 that of advancement in those first great 
 lessons. They contain a statement of 
 the full possibilities of character in these 
 days of probation, and therefore it 
 would be impossible to go beyond them 
 in this respect. At the same time, it 
 must be remembered that Jesus said 
 very much beyond this to His disciples, 
 giving them to know and understand 
 32 
 
The Method of Advancement 
 
 many of the things of God that had to 
 do with their ultimate destiny and the 
 Divine purposes for the race ; and after 
 all His teaching at the last He had to 
 leave them, saying, " I have yet many 
 things to say unto you, but ye cannot 
 bear them now. Howbeit, when He, 
 the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will 
 guide you into all truth." The teach- 
 ing of the First Lessons is for the crea- 
 tion of that character to which the 
 deeper things of God become intelli- 
 gible, and advancement in the under- 
 standing and realization of these, fits us 
 for receiving and understanding what- 
 ever else may be beyond. The con- 
 sideration of this chapter includes both 
 these things, though directed principally 
 to the former. How, then, can we ad- 
 vance ? 
 
 1. Right Relationships with the 
 Teacher must be Maintained. Fail- 
 ure to understand this is perhaps one 
 of the subtlest dangers to which the 
 disciple is exposed. The idea is com- 
 mon that at some set time, through 
 some special season of blessing, one en- 
 ters into right relationships with Him, 
 33 
 
Discipleship 
 
 and that therefore, through all the 
 coming days, these relationships abide. 
 It is absolutely false. There is nothing 
 in all the realms of life more delicate, 
 more easy to interfere with than these 
 relationships. As the most tremendous 
 forces of which man knows anything 
 are set in operation by simplest meth- 
 ods, and may be hindered by means 
 equally simple, so in relation to this 
 greatest of all forces — the cleansing and 
 illuminating force of contact with Jesus. 
 By the simple method of cessation of 
 activity I come into living contact with 
 it, and by a moment's self-assertion, I 
 may hinder its working. Hence the 
 need for living daily and hourly and 
 every moment at the very place of be- 
 ginnings, ever as a child depending upon 
 Him, and ever as one of the weakest of 
 those who love Him, abiding in Him. 
 
 It is a glorious thing to know that my 
 cleansing and illumination depend upon 
 Him, and that the whole of my respon- 
 sibility in this matter is marked by my 
 maintaining personal relationship with 
 Him. This, however, is inexorable. 
 Daily personal communion there must 
 34 
 
The Method of Advancement 
 
 be, and the means of such, study of His 
 word, waiting upon Him in prayer, the 
 cultivation of close fellowship, by tell- 
 ing Him everything — joys as well as 
 sorrows — and the periods of silence in 
 which the soul simply waits and listens 
 in the stillness for His voice, these can- 
 not be neglected without a film, a veil, 
 a cloud, a darkness coming between the 
 soul and Himself, and so hindering the 
 possibility of advancement. 
 
 All this specially needs emphasizing 
 in an age, characterized by its rush and 
 unrest, its loss of the old spirit of medi- 
 tation and quiet, a characterization that 
 applies to Christendom to-day as evi- 
 denced by over-organization, never 
 ceasing rounds of societies, meetings, 
 doings, and the lessening of the seasons 
 of retirement and true worship. Per- 
 sonal relationship cannot be maintained 
 in crowds. The Master and I alone, 
 must be a perpetual need, and for its 
 realization opportunity must be made. 
 
 2. The Truth Taught Must Be 
 come Incarnate in the Disciples. 
 As we insisted at the outset, disciple- 
 ship is not a condition for amassing in« 
 
 35 
 
Discipleship 
 
 formation. Every doctrine has its issue 
 in some clearly defined duty, every 
 theory taught reveals a practical appli- 
 cation and responsibility. To the soul 
 in right relationship with the Teacher, 
 He reveals some new aspect of truth, 
 and straightway there occurs some cir- 
 cumstance in which that doctrine may 
 be tested by duty ; and as we are most 
 real in ordinary circumstances, — our 
 true selves appearing then, rather than 
 in the heroic and extraordinary days of 
 life, — it is in the simple and common- 
 place experiences that these testing 
 places are mostly to be found. All the 
 circumstances and surroundings of the 
 disciples are in the hands of the Su- 
 preme Lord who teaches, and these He 
 manipulates and arranges for the pur- 
 pose of the advancement and develop- 
 ment of His own. This is a great com- 
 fort. He knows the capacity and 
 weakness and strength of everyone in 
 His school, and His examinations do 
 not consist in a common testing for a 
 common standard, and so are not com- 
 petitive. They are rather individual, 
 special care being taken with each one, 
 36 
 
The Method of Advancement 
 
 and Peter will learn the supreme lesson 
 of love with John, but the opportunity 
 for manifesting it as a force in life will 
 be separate and special in each case. 
 
 Now, advancement is dependent al- 
 ways on our obedience in these hours of 
 testing, in our manifesting in actual 
 practice the power of the truth we have 
 heard in theory. No lesson is consid- 
 ered learned in the school of Jesus, 
 which is only committed to memory. 
 That lesson only is learned which is 
 incarnate in the life, and becomes beau- 
 tiful in its realization and declaration 
 in that way ; and until this is so there 
 can be no progress. " If any man will- 
 eth to do His will, he shall know of the 
 teaching" (John vii. 17). This is so, 
 because the teaching of Jesus is cumula- 
 tive and progressive. To attempt to 
 learn the lessons of to-morrow without 
 knowledge of to-day's would be the 
 utmost folly. Just as no boy can intel- 
 ligently do a problem in Euclid until 
 he knows the definitions and accepts 
 reasonably the axioms, and takes each 
 successive step to the one in hand, so 
 surely no disciple can possibly make 
 
 37 
 
Discipleship 
 
 progress in the truth of God, save as 
 the first steps are taken. You cannot 
 leave first principles and go on unto 
 perfection, save as these first things 
 have become principles, and not merely 
 theoiies. 
 
 Here we touch the secret of much of 
 the failure in Christian living to-day. 
 The powerlessness in service, the unat- 
 tractiveness in life, what do they mean ? 
 Has the system of Jesus failed in these 
 lives? Have the great lessons He came 
 to teach humanity broken down in their 
 application to human life? Take any 
 single example — it may be that of your 
 own experience. When you first be- 
 came a disciple, your days were days of 
 delight and joy, the words and will of 
 the Master thrilled and comforted you, 
 and you walked in His ways with a joy 
 and gladness that filled the days with 
 song. The people you touched in daily 
 life saw the beauty of Jesus in you. 
 Gentle, long-suffering, strong and pure, 
 you incarnated His lessons, and your 
 heart was glad, and other lives were 
 influenced Godward. All has changed. 
 Prayer is a duty. The scriptures are 
 
 38 
 
The Method of Advancement 
 
 dull and burdensome. You have no 
 quick sense of the Lord's will. Your 
 Christianity has become a restriction 
 through which you would like to break, 
 an encumbrance of which you would 
 fain be rid. These are confessions you 
 never make, but they tell the true inner 
 story of your life. Now what does this 
 really mean ? Just this. Somewhere 
 back in the past you will find a day 
 when the Teacher gave you some new 
 vision of truth that straightway revealed 
 an opportunity for you to know the 
 glory of that truth in the pathway of 
 obedience. Something to be given up. 
 Something to be done. Some word to 
 be said. You paused, argued, dis- 
 obeyed. No other lesson has been 
 given, nor can be. Every other de- 
 pended upon that. That was not final. 
 It was preparatory, and until that is 
 learned by obedience there can be no 
 advancement, and so for weeks, per- 
 chance months, aye, even years, you 
 have been a disciple making no prog- 
 ress, and there is no wonder that you 
 are weary of it all. 
 
 The Teacher's love is marked in your 
 
 39 
 
Discipleship 
 
 case by His fidelity to Himself and His 
 own lessons. Time after time, in meet- 
 ings, in conversations, in loneliness, He 
 brings you back to that old point, and 
 reiterates with a persistence and a pa- 
 tience passing all human understand- 
 ing : — " If any man willeth to do His 
 will, he shall know of the teaching." 
 
 I have known all progress hindered 
 for years because a letter was not writ- 
 ten, and I saw the face of the disciple 
 the day after that letter was despatched. 
 The old light was restored, and the old 
 joy returned as the great Teacher again 
 began to reveal His will. 
 
 3. Advancement Can Only be 
 Within the Limit of Divine Pur- 
 pose. While it is true that God has 
 for an ultimate purpose, some place of 
 high service far on, and out of sight, a 
 glory and fruition beyond these days of 
 learning and probation, a being and a 
 doing for which all the teaching and 
 discipline of to-day are preparing us, it 
 is also true that, as part of His great 
 progressive movement, He has an im- 
 mediate purpose in every life, some- 
 thing for us to accomplish for Him here 
 40 
 
The Method of Advancement 
 
 and now. It is to-day we are workers 
 together with Him. There is no waste 
 of time or material in the Divine meth- 
 ods. Every step He takes us, every 
 word He speaks to us, every testing He 
 permits us, contributes something to- 
 ward the development and progress of 
 all. Joseph sold into slavery, David 
 exiled from his kingdom, Job crouch- 
 ing under the whirlwind, Paul bearing 
 the buffeting of Satan's messenger, all 
 are examples. These experiences were 
 dark and mysterious for the time, and 
 while they formed part of the individual 
 training of these men, they were also in 
 each case a necessary part of the Di- 
 vine dealing with the larger circle. At 
 the time, the principal consciousness 
 was that of limitation, and consequent 
 longing for larger revelation, but at last 
 they all came to understand that for the 
 sake of others they suffered and bore, 
 and that was to them more than com- 
 pensation for all the restriction and 
 waiting. There are many things we 
 know not now because the greater issues 
 would be hindered by our knowing. So 
 what is best, the Teacher holds in re- 
 41 
 
Discipleship 
 
 serve, that we may moment by moment 
 bear our share in this march of God to 
 ultimate triumph and light. 
 
 This section of our study is a most 
 solemn one. So many disciples in name 
 have ceased to be taught of Jesus, and 
 we are all in such perpetual danger of 
 slipping out of the real circle of disci- 
 pleship, that we ought to ask ourselves 
 the questions suggested by these three 
 points on the subject of advancement. 
 These questions should be asked regu- 
 larly and always in the hour of loneli- 
 ness with the Master. 
 
 I. Am I in right relationship with the 
 Teacher to-day? Do I still live at the 
 Cross and know the power of its cleans- 
 ing moment by moment, and so am I 
 walking in the light, without which all 
 the words of Jesus are dark sayings, 
 and His testings crosses, burdens out of 
 which I can only gather reasons for 
 murmuring ? 
 
 II. If I am not in this place of main- 
 tained fellowship, where did I depart 
 therefrom ? What word of His have I 
 disobeyed? To that point let me re- 
 turn, whether it be but an hour ago, or 
 
 42 
 
The Method of Advancement 
 
 years, and there let me absolutely sur- 
 render, at whatever cost, and do what 
 He requires, however small, or however 
 irksome it appears to be. 
 
 III. Am I content to wait when His 
 voice does not speak — and I cannot find 
 the reason in myself — until He has ac- 
 complished His present purpose in me, 
 even though I understand it not just 
 now ? 
 
 With matchless patience and pity, 
 and tender love beyond all attempts at 
 explanation, this Teacher waits, and 
 stoops, and woos us, and ever for our 
 highest good and deepest peace. Let 
 us then, by consecrated watching, main- 
 tain the attitude of advancement, and 
 so, line upon line, precept upon precept, 
 here a little and there a little, as we are 
 able to bear, He will lead us on, until 
 we come to the perfect light and life 
 and love of God. 
 
IV 
 
 THE DISCIPLE AT HOME 
 
 Thus it is with the homely life around, 
 
 There hidden, Christ abides ; 
 Still by the single eye forever found 
 
 That seeketh none besides. 
 
 When hewn and shaped till self no more is 
 found, 
 
 Self, ended at Thy Cross ; 
 The precious freed from all the vile around, 
 
 No gain, but blessed loss, 
 
 Then Christ alone remains — the former things 
 
 Forever passed away ; 
 And unto Him the heart in gladness sings 
 
 All through the weary day. 
 
 —H. Suao. 
 
 So far we have considered the great 
 essential facts of discipleship. There 
 is a sense in which we hold most tena- 
 ciously that view of Christianity which 
 is spoken of to-day as "other-worldly." 
 Man's destiny lies beyond this life of 
 probation, and toward that great issue 
 the Master is ever working as He teaches 
 44 
 
The Disciple at Home 
 
 us the lessons of His love. Yet it has 
 ever been the glory of Christianity that 
 it is intensely practical, touching the 
 present life at every point with healing 
 and beauty, sweetening all the streams 
 by purifying the sources. In this and 
 the following papers it will be ours to 
 trace the effect of discipleship on the 
 common relationships of life. 
 
 We begin then with Home, because 
 of its paramount importance. Perhaps 
 there is no side of life more in danger 
 of being neglected in this busy, many- 
 sided age, than that of Home, and cer- 
 tainly there is no side which we can less 
 afford to neglect. No service for God 
 is of any value which is contradicted by 
 the life at home, neither have we any 
 right to neglect home on the plea of 
 multiplied engagements outside. 
 
 The home of the disciple may be con- 
 ducive to progress in grace, or it may 
 be quite the reverse, and of course the 
 duty will vary accordingly. 
 
 Let us first look at the great ideal of 
 the Christian home presented in the New 
 45 
 
Discipleship 
 
 Testament, and then make particular ap- 
 plication of the same. 
 
 1. To the follower of Jesus Christ, 
 there are certain central and unalter- 
 able facts which will touch and influ- 
 ence all the home relationships. Let 
 us look first at these. 
 
 I. The New Authority stands in the 
 forefront. The Teacher has claimed an 
 absolute and unvarying supremacy over 
 the life. That initial condition of dis- 
 cipleship now enters into every ques- 
 tion, and from it there can be no devi- 
 ation — no, not for a single moment. 
 This authority is one that will set up 
 the ideals of life, and declare the stand- 
 ard of action in all the larger and more 
 important matters of the days, and in 
 the most simple and trifling details of 
 the passing moments. This authority 
 becomes the gauge and measure of all 
 other government. The Tightness or 
 otherwise of any rule of life imposed on 
 the disciple by any other person is to 
 be tested by the Will of the Master. 
 So my obligation to any person as a dis- 
 ciple is limited or enforced by my su- 
 preme obligation to Jesus. Responsi- 
 
The Disciple at Home 
 
 bility to Him is higher than that of wife 
 to husband, or child to parents, or serv- 
 ant to master. These are all relation- 
 ships of His approving, but His claim is 
 first, and if any of these clash with that, 
 they are to be sacrificed, this to abide. 
 II. Then comes the New Attitude 
 created toward others. The relation- 
 ship of the disciple to Christ, as we 
 have seen, is that of life. Now, this life 
 is the life of Christ, and what it is in 
 itself must now become the governing 
 force, and so give new character to my 
 feeling and acting toward others. His 
 Life is Love. That Life, regnant in me, 
 creates the disposition of love toward 
 all. The old scheme of life was that of 
 a preeminent sense of the importance 
 of self, and all other interests were made 
 subservient to that, and all other per- 
 sons loved or disliked as they minis- 
 tered to or interfered with that. Now, 
 love governing, each will " esteem other 
 better than himself," and the need of 
 the outsider will become the touchstone 
 of life. The light o£ Christ's presence 
 will reveal the shortcomings of myself, 
 and the hitherto unrecognized excel- 
 47 
 
Discipleship 
 
 lences of others. So the attitude of the 
 disciple will become like that of his 
 Lord — the attitude of one who waits 
 not to be ministered unto, but to min- 
 ister, and the bearing of the cup of cold 
 water to the thirsty will be the delight 
 of all the days, opportunities for which 
 will not be waited for, but sought. 
 
 Out of these esssential considerations 
 there grows a new sense altogether of 
 what home really is. It is to be the 
 first, and perhaps the most simple and 
 beautiful manifestation of the authority 
 of Jesus. Every member of the home, 
 recognizing that supreme Kingship, will 
 find their relationship toward each other 
 ennobled and purified as they live in the 
 great realm of His love. Each willing 
 to sink personal aims for the sake of 
 the realization of the highest good of 
 all, no one desiring to gratify any part 
 of their own desire at the expense of 
 another, self-abnegation, the individual 
 law that realizes the general peace and 
 /estfulness, makes home at its highest 
 and best. So the manifestation of the 
 beauty of the kingdom of Jesus in real- 
 ization of His beatitudes in the home 
 43 
 
The Disciple at Home 
 
 being the supreme desire of each and 
 all, personal blessedness is also realized, 
 and every sacred tie of home becomes 
 in itself more delightful and satisfying 
 for Christ's mission amongst His dis- 
 ciples is ever the fulfilling, and never 
 the destruction of all high and noble 
 ideals. The real music and beauty of 
 home are only known to those who are 
 simple and faithful disciples of Jesus. 
 
 III. What a glorious picture is pre- 
 sented of a true home in the writings 
 of the Apostle Paul. Himself a man, 
 who for the highest reasons never per- 
 haps knew the joy of such life, he never- 
 theless understood its beauty, and if you 
 will take the different words he writes 
 in his Epistles as to the true position 
 and duty of husband, wife, parent, child, 
 master, servant, you will see the vision 
 of the perfect home life. At the prin- 
 cipal points let us look. 
 
 (a). Take first the husband and wife 
 in their relation to each other, and as 
 parents toward their children. What 
 more wonderful ideal than this can there 
 be ? " Husbands, love your wives, even 
 as Christ also loved the Church, and 
 49 
 
Discipleship 
 
 gave Himself for it." That is true love. 
 Absolute self-abnegation, the one over- 
 mastering passion being that of the high- 
 est good and greatest happiness of the 
 wife. How impossible in such love the 
 thousand little neglects which mar the 
 life of women, and render them heavy 
 with disappointed hope. How far more 
 impossible the selfish brutality that too 
 often has made home infinitely more 
 like hell than heaven. Again, " Wives, 
 submit yourselves unto your own hus- 
 bands, as unto the Lord." That can 
 only be obeyed when the husband is 
 loving with the Lord's love. When 
 that is so, see how beautifully there is 
 recognized here the true view of woman's 
 love, as that which finds its highest man- 
 ifestation in submission. Then the rev- 
 elation of Paul's writings concerning 
 the relation of parents to children is a 
 remarkable one and sorely needs re- 
 stating in these days. It is that of the 
 father's responsibility. It is he who is 
 to train them; and see how tenderly 
 this is to be, not by the methods that 
 will provoke anger, but in " nurture and 
 admonition of the Lord." 
 
 50 
 
The Disciple at Home 
 
 (6). Then the position of the child, 
 simply marked by the one thought of 
 obedience. What a glorious and tender 
 thought it is. It implies an authority 
 provided which frees the tender life 
 from the responsibility of thinking and 
 planning, and provides that it shall make 
 advancement toward perfection, within 
 the realm of a very definite and direct 
 government. How grand a provision 
 that is, perhaps we never fully realize 
 until we have passed beyond it, and 
 amid the strife of life, with its oft-re- 
 curring crises, when we are sore be- 
 wildered as to which path we ought 
 to take, we long for the days of child- 
 hood again, when we could ask Father, 
 Mother, and when in obeying them we 
 knew we were doing that which pleased 
 the Lord. That view of obedience as 
 the Lord's tender provision for their 
 safety and development, should ever be 
 presented to our dear disciple-children. 
 What a responsibility it entails upon us 
 parents that we seek our laws for them 
 from the King. 
 
 (<?). Then there is the presence in the 
 home of those who help and serve. The 
 
 51 
 
Discipleship 
 
 position of these is made very sacred in 
 the school of Jesus. Most distinctly is 
 it laid down that they can do "all 
 things " as unto the Lord, and that ex- 
 pression includes and lights up the most 
 trivial duties that they are called upon 
 to render. It is of such that the won- 
 derful possibility is declared, that they 
 may "adorn the doctrine of God our 
 Saviour." How beautiful the life of 
 some is, we know full well. Toward 
 them the Christian master is to exercise 
 the patience of his Master toward him- 
 self, making demands on eager, loving 
 service, not by threatening, but by lov- 
 ing, Christly recognition of the holiness 
 of their service, and its value to the 
 Lord Himself. 
 
 2. This is a glorious picture. No 
 such ideal of home has ever been pre- 
 sented to the world. It has been real- 
 ized in a large measure over and over 
 again. No truer fore-glimpse of the 
 heavenlies can be found than that of the 
 Christian home, with all its deep love, 
 quiet peace, and constant brightness and 
 merriment. Discipleship has often to 
 be maintained in very different home 
 52 
 
The Disciple at Home 
 
 surroundings. The husband, wife, par- 
 ent, child, servant, may either of them 
 be the only disciple, and their relation- 
 ship to Christ looked upon with pity, 
 contempt, or even open opposition. 
 The position of such is a very difficult 
 one ; but for this, as for all other cir- 
 cumstances, the grace and power of 
 Christ are sufficient. When this is so, 
 there is a twofold responsibility resting 
 upon the Christian, — 
 
 I. Remembering the great ideals, 
 there must be a realization of the Mas- 
 ter's will for the individual case. The 
 Christ-life of love must govern and 
 manifest itself toward others, even 
 though there be no return on the part 
 of the dearest earthly friends. 
 
 II. Then, if that manifestation bring 
 contempt and persecution, there is to be 
 an absence of the revengeful spirit, and 
 the presence of loving patience, that so 
 the unbelieving may be won by the be- 
 havior of the believing. 
 
 The creation of true Christian homes 
 is the splendid possibility of young dis- 
 53 
 
Discipleship 
 
 cipleship. The question of marriage 
 lies at the base of this. Unequal yok- 
 ing together of the disciples of Jesus 
 with unbelievers is one of the most dis- 
 astrous matters for the Church and the 
 world. And there should be no al- 
 liance of life even between believers 
 unless the Lord's will be so clearly re- 
 vealed that there can be no mistaking it. 
 
 The ideal Christian home, will ever 
 have a door open to welcome the home- 
 less ones of our great centres of popu- 
 lation, that its atmosphere of love may 
 help to guard and form the life of such. 
 
THE DISCIPLE AT BUSINESS 
 
 Yea, -we know that Thou rejoicest 
 
 O'er each work of Thine; 
 Thou didst ears and hands and voices 
 
 For Thy praise design ; 
 Craftsman's art and Music's measure 
 For Thy pleasure 
 All combine. 
 
 — F. Pott. 
 
 There is no more common mistake, 
 or more dangerous, than that work is in 
 some way connected with the curse. 
 Man was created for work. It is one of 
 the very first laws of his being. Un- 
 employed man is a contravention of the 
 Divine purpose. Hence, before man 
 fell, we see him in all the strength of 
 his perfect being, at work. " And the 
 Lord God took the man, and put him 
 into the garden of Eden to dress it and 
 to keep it" (Gen. ii. 15). Sin brought 
 weariness and disappointment, which 
 made work a burden, but work itself is 
 
 55 
 
Discipleship 
 
 a Divine arrangement for the gladden- 
 ing of life. 
 
 This law abides under the Christian 
 dispensation. No word Christ spoke 
 can be construed into a word revoking 
 it. It is rather taken up and enforced 
 by Christ Himself and the apostles. In 
 the " Sermon on the Mount " the Lord 
 recognizes the power to work as a 
 special gift which raises us above the 
 level of birds and flowers. Of the fowls 
 He said "Are not ye of much more 
 value than they?" (Matt. vi. 26); and 
 of the flowers " If God doth so clothe 
 the grass .... shall He not much more 
 clothe you?" (vi. 30). In each case, 
 the teaching is not that we should 
 neither " sow " nor " reap," and neither 
 "toil" nor "spin," but that, having 
 these powers and using them, how much 
 more likely it is that our need should 
 be supplied, rather than that of fowls 
 or flowers. The philosophy of the sit- 
 uation is that Christ recognizes all gifts 
 and callings as from God, and looks 
 upon them as the channels through 
 which God will supply our need. Paul 
 is most clear in his exposition of the 
 
 56 
 
The Disciple at Business 
 
 will of God in these matters. In writ- 
 ing to the Thessalonians (II. ii. 10) he 
 makes working the condition of eating, 
 and in writing to the Ephesians (iv. 
 28) he places working in antithesis to 
 stealing, and reveals the larger social 
 responsibility when he says, that a man 
 is to work not merely for his own sup- 
 port, but " that he may have whereof to 
 give to him that hath need ; " and in his 
 first letter to Timothy (v. 8) he de- 
 clares that " If any provideth not for 
 his own, and specially his own house- 
 hold, he hath denied the faith, and is 
 worse than an unbeliever." 
 
 Recognizing the great truth of the 
 solidarity of humanity, that each per- 
 son is part of the whole, that the whole 
 is incomplete in the incompleteness of 
 any, it is evident that all the great and 
 increasing needs of humanity for this 
 life are provided for by God in the gifts 
 He has bestowed, to every man sever- 
 ally as He will, His will ever being 
 the well-being and happiness of the 
 creature. Every ability to do some- 
 thing which will be for the support of 
 the worker, and at the same time con- 
 
 57 
 
Discipleship 
 
 tribute to the legitimate needs of others, 
 is a Divine gift, a Divine calling. Ca- 
 pacity for brain work, dexterity of 
 ringers, are each and in every variety of 
 application, Divinely bestowed. To 
 dig — whether with spade, or plough, or 
 shaft and machinery for metals — is a 
 calling of God. To construct with 
 wood, or stone, or iron, for permanence 
 or locomotion, is a Divine gift. To see 
 a vision and paint it, to hear music and 
 translate it, to catch glimpses of truth 
 and embody them in form poetic, these 
 and all the thousands of various gifts 
 bestowed upon men are of God. On 
 every individual some gift is bestowed, 
 save perchance upon those who, in these 
 days of humanity's sin and sorrow, are 
 from their birth limited in their powers. 
 Not only the preacher, but every man, 
 has a calling of God, and the duty of 
 each man to God, to the community, to 
 himself, is to find that calling, and 
 therein to abide. (See I. Cor. vii. 20- 
 24). 
 
 This is the great Divine ideal from 
 which humanity has wandered, to its 
 sorrow, shame, and undoing; and as 
 
 58 
 
The Disciple at Business 
 
 discipleship means a return to Divine 
 ideals through the teaching and power 
 of Jesus, we must now apply these 
 principles to the disciple as he or she 
 enters business. 
 
 1. The first serious question, then, 
 for the disciple is, " What is the gift be- 
 stowed upon me, the calling of God for 
 me?" The answer to that is to be 
 found within, rather than without. A 
 gift ever means fitness. To every man 
 God intends to make watches, He has 
 given the necessary fineness of touch 
 and nerve patience. To every woman 
 He designs to teach, He has given the 
 attractive force and lucid gift that fits 
 her to hold and teach the children. 
 Discipleship mean facility for discover- 
 ing the gift of God. The trouble is 
 that so many have thought that when 
 we begin to touch these things our 
 Teacher is uninterested, and so we have 
 made the greatest blunders of our lives 
 in choosing our occupation, rather than 
 setting ourselves to discover the Divine 
 calling. To the young disciple who 
 reads this and who has not yet decided 
 on life's work, let me say in all sim- 
 
 59 
 
Discipleship 
 
 plicity and confidence, seek to find your 
 right place in life by telling your Lord 
 your sense of need, and asking for His 
 direction. In this matter an enormous 
 responsibility rests upon parents, that 
 they seek to discover the Lord's purpose 
 for their boys and girls, and then train 
 them for that position. This can only 
 be done by patient watching for the 
 manifestation of the God-bestowed 
 powers of each life separately and this 
 cannot be, when in tender years we send 
 our children out of our homes to live, and 
 so transfer our responsibility to others 
 than those by God appointed. 
 
 2. The gift being discovered, now 
 follows the necessity for persistent ap- 
 plication for the most perfect develop- 
 ment thereof. The disciple of Jesus, 
 recognizing his calling in life as of God, 
 cannot possibly treat it carelessly or 
 with any measure of indifference. 
 Every power of the will must be 
 brought to bear on the application of 
 the mind to the mastery of the subject 
 in hand. A Christian carpenter will 
 master the use of every tool, and lay 
 himself out to embody in his work the 
 
The Disciple at Business 
 
 very spirit of the Christ. A Christian 
 doctor will leave no department of the 
 great science neglected, or will devote 
 himself with perfect consecration to 
 that department for which God has 
 given him the gift of a specialist. The 
 great advantage of discipleship is to be 
 found in the fact that if I recognize my 
 calling as a Divine one, then I am sure 
 that he who bestowed the gift under- 
 stands it, and all my personal applica- 
 tion to its mastery will be in the spirit 
 of dependent prayer. Christian me- 
 chanics, tradesmen, professional men, 
 should be the finest in the world, and 
 would be, if they lived in the power of 
 their relationship to Christ. 
 
 3. Fully equipped for qualified serv- 
 ice, the disciple now faces the sterner 
 work of the years, and under the pres- 
 ent conditions of life this is mostly 
 done as the servant of others. Again, 
 referring to Paul's words (in I. Cor. vii. 
 22-24), we see how that the disciple is 
 to consider his higher relationship to 
 God. He "is the Lord's free man," 
 and is "to abide with God " in his call- 
 ing. Now, how does that affect his 
 61 
 
Discipleship 
 
 work? It lights it up with the glory 
 of the Divine goodwill to men, so that 
 each piece of work becomes a part of 
 the Divine contribution to the need of 
 the community, and if I measure cloth, 
 or sell groceries, or paint a picture, or 
 play an instrument, or set a limb, or 
 anything that is an exercise of the Di- 
 vine gift, I do it, not as a means of live- 
 lihood first, but as part of God's work, 
 and so I become, down to the smallest 
 detail of everyday life, " a worker to- 
 gether with Him." Hold but that view 
 of life's work, and there can be no more 
 "scamping" of work — no, not even to 
 be in time for a prayer meeting. 
 
 How does abiding with God in my 
 calling affect my relation to my em- 
 ployer? It makes me treat him as 
 though he were in my place and I in his. 
 Hear the Teacher's own words : — " All 
 things therefore, whatsoever ye would 
 that men should do unto you, even so 
 do ye also unto them " (Matt. vii. 12). 
 To that nothing can be added. 
 
 4. Finally, the disciple in business on 
 his own account lives and acts within 
 certain very clearly defined principles. 
 
The Disciple at Business 
 
 He ever remembers that he is a steward 
 of his Master. He possesses nothing, 
 but holds on trust all he has, and is re- 
 sponsible to Christ for the way he gets, 
 the way he uses, and the measure of his 
 getting or holding. No disciple of 
 Jesus can amass a fortune simply for 
 the sake of possession. He may be 
 prosperous in his undertakings, but his 
 prosperity must ever mean increased 
 opportunity for Divine service. No 
 disciple can oppress the hireling in his 
 wages. That wage should be, not 
 merely the measure of keeping his 
 servant's body and soul together, it 
 should include provision for the culture 
 of all that his being demands. A " liv- 
 ing wage " in the common acceptation 
 of that term, is not the measure for a 
 Christian paymaster. 
 
 A Christian cannot consent to enrich 
 himself by taking advantage of the 
 downfall or misfortune of another man. 
 That man who strikes a bargain to his 
 own profit which takes advantage of 
 some pressing need on the part of an- 
 other, is none of Christ's. No Christian 
 can take part in the monopolies of the 
 
Disciplcship 
 
 day, which have as the very basis of 
 their operations the enrichment of the 
 few to the detriment of the many. 
 There is nothing perhaps more devilish 
 in commercial life to-day than the great 
 monopolies. America is cursed by them, 
 and England is threatened. No disciple 
 of Christ can touch them and abide in 
 the teaching of Jesus. The twofold law 
 of life, enunciated by our Teacher, will 
 purify commerce throughout, and noth- 
 ing short of that will ever do it. " Thou 
 shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
 thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
 with all thy mind. . . . Thou shalt 
 love thy neighbor as thyself" (Matt, 
 xxii. 37-40). 
 
 These are said to be impossible ideals 
 for business life to-day. We reply that 
 the very essence and genius of disciple- 
 ship is the realization of the impossible. 
 It is just because the Church of Jesus 
 Christ has stood in the presence of His 
 teaching and said " Impossible " that 
 She has become so weak and forceless 
 in all the affairs of this busy age. Let 
 64 
 
The Disciple at Business 
 
 us have a few men and women again 
 who, like the early disciples in Pente- 
 costal days, believe in Jesus and in the 
 eternal wisdom of all His teaching, and 
 who are prepared to suffer the loss of 
 all things rather than disobey, and the 
 potency and possibility of His ideals 
 will begin to dawn on the world again 
 as it did in those days, breaking up 
 dynasties, revolutionizing empires, and 
 turning the world upside down. 
 
 Nowhere is such work more needed 
 than in the realm of commerce, and no- 
 where can we make better investment 
 for the Master's Kingdom to-day than 
 by purifying rigidly that corner of the 
 great realm which we touch. 
 
 Let every disciple find his gift from 
 God, cultivate it for God, exercise it 
 abiding in God, and he will not only 
 secure his own highest success, but will 
 contribute his quota to the preparatory 
 work of this dispensation for the coming 
 of the King and the establishment of 
 His Kingdom on earth. 
 
 65 
 
VI 
 
 THE DISCIPLE AT PLAT 
 
 In that new childhood of the Earth 
 
 Life of itself shall dance and play, 
 Fresh blood in Time's shrunk veins make mirth, 
 
 And labor meet delight halfway. 
 
 — J. Bussell Lowell. 
 
 So far there has seemed to be no con- 
 tradiction of terms in the subjects which 
 have come under our consideration. 
 Among all sections of Christians there 
 would be a concensus of opinion as to 
 the Tightness of considering " The Dis- 
 ciple at Home" and "The Disciple at 
 Business." I do not anticipate any con- 
 flict of opinion concerning any subse- 
 quent division of this subject. I can, 
 however, imagine that there may be a 
 doubt in the mind of some with regard 
 to the title at the head of this chapter : 
 and yet it is of such enormous impor- 
 tance, that to omit it were not only to 
 render the study incomplete, but to do 
 66 
 
The Disciple at Play 
 
 rositive injustice to the follower of 
 Christ who, upon this of all subjects, is 
 feeling his or her need of direct and 
 wholesome teaching. The fact that 
 large numbers of young people lose 
 their spirituality here is due, not to the 
 inconsistency of play, but rather to lack 
 of clear teaching, and therefore of fail- 
 ure to understand the true position of 
 the child of God in reference thereto. 
 Let us apply ourselves to a twofold 
 consideration — firstly as to the fact of 
 play in the life of discipleship, and then 
 to the limits which are marked off for 
 those who are learning of Christ in this 
 as in all matters. 
 
 1. The very first truth to be under- 
 stood and kept in mind is that of the 
 purpose of Christ in the present pro- 
 bationary stage of human life. I have 
 already emphasized the fact that the 
 Master is preparing us for an end, which 
 is beyond the present life altogether. 
 By that I abide. It must, however, be 
 remembered that, while in Christ I gain 
 more blessings than my fathers lost, the 
 very first business of the great scheme 
 of redemption and instruction is the 
 67 
 
Discipleship 
 
 restoration of man to the Divine ideal 
 of human life here. The man who most 
 truly manifests the beauties of human 
 life in all its bearings, most truly proves 
 his progress toward and preparation 
 for the glory that has not yet been re- 
 vealed. A human being developed on 
 one side of his nature, to the damage or 
 contraction of another, is by so much 
 thwarting a Divine purpose, damaging 
 a Divine ideal. This we readily admit 
 in some cases. Such, for instance, as 
 the development of flesh to the injury 
 of spirit. It is just as true of a man 
 who loses his power for stern work in 
 his abandonment to play. It is equally 
 true of a man who cannot play because 
 his power to do so has become deadened 
 by ceaseless toil. The power to laugh, 
 to cease work, and frolic in forgetful- 
 ness of all the conflict, to make merry, 
 is a Divine bestowment upon man, and 
 its absence in any case is as sure a mark 
 of the blighting effects of sin, as is the 
 frothy life of the devotee of miscalled 
 pleasure who never contributes any- 
 thing to the work of his generation. 
 This power is based upon the wisdom 
 68 
 
The Disciple at Play 
 
 of God, and His knowledge of the needs 
 of the creatures of His hand. To this 
 all scientific statement bears witness. 
 Every inedical man knows the enormous 
 value of prescribing change, exercise, 
 cessation of toil, and pure amusement, 
 in order that there may be better work, 
 harder blows, more clear thinking, and 
 that the sum total of the life may be of 
 a higher order : and what is true medi- 
 cal science but a discovery of the laws 
 of God for the well-being of the crea- 
 tures of His love ? Now Jesus did not 
 come to contradict or set aside any 
 great law of human life, and most cer- 
 tainly not that which thus provides for 
 the highest development of man. He 
 has come to interfere here as everywhere 
 else, and to restore play to its proper 
 place in every life ; and though He gave 
 His followers no set of rules, He has 
 given them in His teaching great prin- 
 ciples, which will adjust these matters 
 as perfectly as all others. 
 
 Before turning to consider them, let 
 me state with perfect clearness that 
 especially in this age of ceaseless ac- 
 tivity, which is over and over again 
 
 69 
 
Discipleship 
 
 more worldly than godly, and in the> 
 whirl and rush of which every man, 
 whether he be a Christian or no, is nee- 
 essarily caught up and carried forward, 
 it is an absolute necessity, and therefore 
 a solemn duty, that the follower of 
 Christ should learn how to play within 
 proper limits, that so he may be the 
 stronger man for the stress of the age, 
 and to confront its rush, and restless- 
 ness, and weakness, with his testimony 
 to the peace, and quietness, and tre- 
 mendous force of the life possessed by, 
 and matured in God. Perhaps I may 
 put this most forcefully by a personal 
 illustration. I find no final preparation 
 for the delivery of the messages of God 
 on Sunday — messages for which I must 
 first solemnly have sought, not only by 
 prayer, but also by stern application to 
 study aud thought — equal to a Saturday 
 afternoon in company with some fellow- 
 disciple, with my bag of clubs, " driving " 
 a golf ball over, and sometimes into, 
 " bunkers," " teeing up " and " holeing 
 out ; " and I can stride over the grass 
 and through the heather and sand, sing- 
 ing with perfect sincerity : 
 70 
 
The Disciple at Play 
 
 " I feel like singing all the time, 
 My tears are wiped away ; 
 For Jesus is a friend of mine, 
 I'll serve Him every day." 
 
 2. Now as to the limits of play for 
 the disciple. They are found by nat- 
 ural sequence, in that condition of life 
 in which I never for a moment forget 
 that I am Christ's, and my loyalty to 
 Him is unquestioning and constant. 
 How will that one great principle affect 
 my play? In two ways: — firstly, in 
 the realm of my personal realization of 
 His purpose for me, and secondly, in 
 my relationship with Him for the ac- 
 complishment of His purpose in all 
 those with whom I come in contact. 
 
 I. As we have seen, the purpose of 
 Jesus is the perfecting of my being. 
 It follows, therefore, most clearly that 
 my play must ever be recreative in char- 
 acter, and never destructive. Farther, 
 the complexity of human life must be 
 considered. Man is neither body, soul, 
 nor spirit, separately He is body, soul, 
 and spirit, and between these different 
 sides of his complex nature there is the 
 closest and most subtle inter-relatio^ 
 71 
 
Discipleship 
 
 so that he cannot possibly do injury to 
 either side without injuring himself as 
 a whole. To destroy my physical power 
 is to weaken my mental, and that is for 
 to-day, at any rate, to limit the oppor- 
 tunity for the culture of the spiritual. 
 Any form of play, then, that injures 
 my physical powers or dwarfs my 
 mental vigor, or takes away my spirit- 
 ual sense, is impossible for me as a dis- 
 ciple of Christ. That play, and only 
 that, which recreates, and so fits for 
 larger service, is legitimate. 
 
 II. Then further, I cannot in the 
 power of the Christ-life live only for 
 myself. I am not to seek recreation by 
 any means which involves injury to my 
 fellow-being, even though the doing 
 thereof may seem to be of direct bene- 
 fit to me. Let me not be misunder- 
 stood. I do not say that because one 
 man abuses lawn -tennis by waste of 
 time thereat, I am not to play. I do 
 say that if I see lawn-tennis has such a 
 fascination for a friend of mine as to 
 make him liable to neglect his sterner 
 work, I am to be "narrow" enough ^o 
 refuse to play with him unless h& is 
 
 72 
 
The Disciple at Play 
 
 playing upon the very conditions which 
 make for his development only, as I 
 play upon for mine. The relative law 
 is that I only have fellowship, even in 
 play, with a fellow-being upon the 
 principles which are highest and best 
 for him, and never upon what he sets 
 up for himself, if they are lower than 
 the highest. Neither can I consent to 
 be amused in any form by that which 
 is debasing the life of those who amuse 
 me. I have purposely avoided naming 
 any forms of play save those that would 
 be looked upon as legitimate in proper 
 time and place by almost every Chris- 
 tian. This avoidance has been due to 
 the fact that I very strongly desire in 
 this, as in every detail of life, to throw 
 the disciple upon the Master for direct 
 guidance, and this because I am per- 
 suaded, there is no other safe course, 
 because there is no other unfailing and 
 infallible authority. Jesus makes a 
 specialty of every individuality, and 
 He alone can do this. That which may 
 be perfectly lawful and right for me 
 may be a sin to my brother, and that 
 which I dare not do at the risk of losing 
 
 73 
 
Discipleship 
 
 my spiritual force, he may find con- 
 ducive to his highest advancement. Let 
 each one seek the Lord's direct pleasure, 
 and be true to that, and there can be no 
 mistake ; but by following human ex- 
 amples, or making others the standard 
 of what one may or may not do, one 
 will be constantly liable to get into 
 places of positive danger. These prin- 
 ciples in application will be found most 
 drastic, and yet will bring us into the 
 air of perfect liberty. There are some 
 forms of wordly amusement debasing 
 and injurious in themselves, and some 
 which are procured at the cost of the 
 degradation and ruin of others. Against 
 all these the disciple by word and life 
 should be a constant protest. One of 
 the surest ways to combat them, is to 
 manifest in our lives the joyousness of 
 discipleship, and that, in our power to 
 play purely and perfectly, as surely in 
 the light of the Divine love as when 
 we pray or preach. 
 
 74 
 
VII 
 
 THE DISCIPLE AS A FEIEND 
 
 I would joy in your joy : let me have a friend's 
 
 part 
 In the warmth of your welcome of hand and of 
 
 heart, — 
 On your playground of boyhood unbend the 
 
 brow's care, 
 And shift the old burdens our shdulders must 
 
 bear. 
 
 —J. G. Whittier. 
 
 Of all the words in our language 
 which have been undergoing change of 
 meaning, perhaps none have been more 
 abused than this word " friend." Hav- 
 ing as its root idea the thought of love 
 — for it is really the present participle 
 of the old Anglo-Saxon verb " freon," 
 to love — it marked in old time the close 
 union of two persons — other than rela- 
 tives — in the bonds of sincere love for 
 each other, love that made each, care 
 for, and desire to serve, the other better 
 than himself. It is now used too often 
 
 75 
 
Discipleship 
 
 in a loose way. A man is my friend 
 to-day if he be but a passing acquaint- 
 ance, or if we are on speaking terms. I 
 want to write of the disciple as a friend 
 in the older sense of comradeship — 
 close heart — companionship. The word 
 is a Bible word, and comes by transla- 
 tion both from the Hebrew and the 
 Greek, from words conveying this 
 thought. The Hebrew word translated 
 friend signifies an associate, and comes 
 from the root " to pasture." So a friend 
 is one of the flock, feeding together, 
 sharing the very sustenance of life. 
 The Greek word is the word lover, and 
 so is in perfect harmony with the 
 thought of the English word used for 
 its translation. 
 
 Man, by virtue of his humanity, all 
 the world over, seeks for friendship. 
 The life of the hermit, the recluse, is 
 abnormal. It is contrary to the very 
 genius of human nature for man to live 
 alone. This desire for friendship grows 
 out of the deepest necessity of his na- 
 ture, he being created for others as well 
 as for himself. Sympathy, love, service, 
 are the very essentials of human nature 
 76 
 
The Disciple as a Friend 
 
 at its best, and these demand an object. 
 So, in the largest and most general 
 sense man is not intended to be alone. 
 Coming into a closer consideration of 
 this great law, we find among men this 
 further necessity for personal friend- 
 ship. Every man could not be a close 
 companion of every other. We have to 
 do with the selective law of affinity. 
 That is the subtle, almost undefinable 
 somewhat, which draws two people to- 
 gether in a brotherhood, sometimes 
 closer than the brotherhood of blood. 
 We say undefinable, because it is often 
 difficult to know why two particular 
 persons are such friends. Affinity may 
 mean conformity, agreement, resem- 
 blance ; it is also the union of bodies of 
 a dissimilar nature in one harmonious 
 whole. This law of personal friendship 
 has held in all time. David and Jona- 
 than have had their forerunners and 
 successors throughout the generations 
 of human kind. Now, in this, as in all 
 other matters, Christ comes to fulfill 
 and not to destroy. He sent His dis- 
 ciples out two by two, as I believe, on a 
 recognition of this great necessity in 
 77 
 
Discipleship 
 
 human life, and to this time in all 
 Christian service and Christian living, 
 the strength and joy of a strong per- 
 sonal friendship is almost beyond com- 
 putation. 
 
 1. Facing the disciple in this matter 
 of friendship is a great limitation. He 
 cannot enter into any close bond, save 
 with those who are, like himself, sub- 
 mitted to Jesus Christ. This is the 
 highest law of all to him, and nothing 
 that can possibly interfere with his re- 
 lation to his Lord must be tolerated for 
 a moment. The claim itself looks hard 
 and arbitrary, but the infinite wisdom 
 and love thereof has been evidenced by 
 the sad results accruing to those who 
 have disregarded it, and have formed 
 friendships with the world which have 
 proved to be enmity against God. The 
 reason is perfectly clear to those who 
 have a true conception of what dis- 
 cipleship really is, and how radically it 
 differs from all other life. 
 
 2. Remembering this, now for a mo- 
 ment consider how discipleship is in 
 itself a perfect qualification for the 
 highest form of friendship. Given two 
 
 78 
 
The Disciple as a Friend 
 
 disciples of Jesus, drawn toward each 
 other by the natural law of affinity, and 
 see how His work in them fits them for 
 a friendship of the strongest and most 
 lasting kind. 
 
 I. There is the self-denial which He 
 has enjoined upon them as the way of 
 entrance upon discipleship, and the con- 
 dition of its continuity. If self be 
 smitten to the death, the one most pro- 
 lific source of dissension, and the break- 
 ing up of friendship has gone. With 
 what strength we can love and serve if 
 we have lost our hold on self, with all 
 its unceasing demands. 
 
 II. Then the common consecration 
 of the life to the kingship of Jesus. 
 Two people, loving each other, and each 
 able to say, " That life which I now 
 live in the flesh, I live in faith," (Gal. 
 ii. 20), have the will and the impulse of 
 One, and that One, in way and work, is 
 ever love. 
 
 III. Then yet further, there is com- 
 munion of interest. It is written of the 
 hosts that gathered to Hebron, that 
 they were of " one heart to make David 
 king." That common cause made a 
 79 
 
Discipleship 
 
 people, a nation, solid and strong. So 
 with friendship in Jesus. The disciple 
 has nothing to live for but by word, and 
 deed, and prayer to bring on the day of 
 his Lord's crowning ; and when two of 
 these are brought into comradeship by 
 natural law, and their friendship be- 
 comes hot with the common fervor of a 
 great purpose such as this, how strong 
 and lasting must such friendship be. 
 
 8. Remembering the limitation and 
 qualifications of friendship let us now 
 proceed to consider the friendship of dis- 
 ciples in itself. Each will cherish for 
 the other a very high ideal of life, char- 
 acter, and service, no less than the 
 will of God in each. The prayer of 
 Epaphras for the Colossian Christians 
 44 that ye may stand perfect and fully 
 assured in all the will of God" (Col. iv. 
 12) is a delightful statement of the 
 desire that disciple-comrades ever cher- 
 ish for each other, and the friendship is 
 ever looked upon as a means to that 
 end. So the very heart of the golden 
 rule is reached in such friendship, for 
 each does to the other what he would 
 the other should do to him. When this 
 80 
 
The Disciple as a Friend 
 
 is so, there comes that delightful sense 
 of rest and naturalness in each other's 
 company which is the very essence of 
 friendship. 
 
 Some years ago a friend gave me a 
 quotation which I copied into my com- 
 monplace book. It was from Mrs. 
 Craik's M Life for a Life," and I give it 
 here as very beautifully expressing that 
 thought. " Oh, the comfort, the inex- 
 pressible comfort of feeling safe with 
 a person, having neither to weigh 
 thoughts nor measure words, but pour 
 them all right out just as they are, chaff 
 and grain together, knowing that a 
 faithful hand will take and sift them, 
 keep what is worth keeping, and then 
 with the breath of kindness blow the 
 rest away." 
 
 That is the abiding condition of 
 friends of Jesus. All necessity for re- 
 serve and hiding is gone, in the abso- 
 lute confidence born of the certainty of 
 high unselfish love. This laying bare 
 of each to each produces the true vision 
 of each to each. I shall thus be able to 
 recognize quickly all the excellencies in 
 the character of my friend which per- 
 81 
 
Discipleship 
 
 chance other persons may be slow to 
 discover. He will see with clearest 
 vision the points of my shortcoming 
 and failure. Love is never blind, and 
 we shall know each other more deeply 
 and truly in that life of mutual love, 
 than it is possible for man to know man 
 by careful calculation or closest critical 
 observation. It has been said that 
 41 Love will stand at the door and 
 knock long after self-conscious dignity 
 has fallen asleep " which is only another 
 way of expressing Paul's great word 
 11 Love suffereth long and is kind," and 
 because this is true the clear vision of 
 friendship ever makes demands on 
 eager, consecrated service. The good 
 recognized will be developed by fellow- 
 ehip, and where that good is costing my 
 friend much sacrifice and suffering, by 
 encouragement and fidelity. The short- 
 coming will be matter concerning which 
 the friend will mourn and pray in 
 secret, and of which he will speak in 
 such tones of tender love, that his 
 brother will be won to the higher sur- 
 render which ever means victory and 
 advancement. So together, and by the 
 
 82 
 
The Disciple as a Friend 
 
 reciprocity of this holy comradeship, 
 there will be a building of each other 
 up, and a several growth in grace. 
 
 There is no higher or more wonderful 
 description of the possibilities of true 
 friendship in Jesus than that contained 
 in Paul's words to the Romans (xii. 15) 
 44 Rejoice with them that rejoice ; weep 
 with them that weep." That is true 
 sympathy, and perfect sympathy be- 
 tween two is friendship. The word 
 sympathy has too long been robbed of 
 its glory by the narrowing interpreta- 
 tion which has considered it only as the 
 power 44 to weep with them that weep." 
 That is the smaller and easier part of 
 true sj^mpathy. Sympathy is the power 
 that projects life outside the circle of 
 personality and shares the life of an- 
 other, feeling the thrill of the other's 
 joy, and the pain of the other's woe. 
 That can only be realized when the 
 friendship is in Jesus. There it can be, 
 and is. Is my friend in trouble, in dif- 
 ficulty, in temptation ? I am his com- 
 panion still, and the sorrow, the per- 
 plexity, the anguish are mine also. 
 Leave him now he has fallen ? Impos- 
 83 
 
Discipleship 
 
 sible. When he fell, I fell, and I shall 
 not feel erect again until he has made 
 even that fall a " stepping-stone to 
 higher things." Is my friend in joy, in 
 prosperity, in victory ? I am yet with 
 him, and the rapture, the success, the 
 triumph are mine because they are his. 
 Be jealous of his promotion ? Again 
 impossible. If he rises so do I, and all 
 his advancement is my greatest prog- 
 ress, for we are one. 
 
 Blessed is the man that hath such a 
 friend. It is impossible to have many. 
 I do not believe that it is the Divine 
 ideal that we should. It is question- 
 able whether any person, apart from 
 the higher realm of relationship, ever 
 has more than one. Such friendship 
 cannot be separated. Oceans and con- 
 tinents may divide. The mutual love 
 laughs at these, and in daily service, 
 prayer, and meditation, each is still 
 with the other, and thinks, and plans, 
 and works under the old influences. 
 This friendship knows nothing of con- 
 ventionality's little axioms, but abides 
 in the great realm of love, and does 
 things strange to the outside beholder. 
 84 
 
The Disciple as a Friend 
 
 Such friendship cannot be broken. 
 Death is but a pause, wherein the one 
 hears from the great silence the old 
 voice, and feels drawing him thither, 
 the old love, and the other waits in the 
 splendors of that silence, with the Lord, 
 for the coming of the fellow — whose 
 song will add to heaven's music. 
 Friendship is always beautiful, but the 
 friendship of disciples, based upon the 
 law of affinity, and conditioned and 
 consummated in Christ, is peerless. 
 
VIII 
 
 THE DISCIPLE AT WOEK FOR THE 
 MASTER 
 
 Thou shalt tell Me in the glory 
 
 All that thou hast done 
 Setting forth alone : returning 
 
 Not alone. 
 Thou shalt bring the ransomed with thee, 
 
 They with songs shall come 
 As the golden sheaves of harvest, 
 Gathered home. 
 
 —T.P. 
 
 This is preeminently the "fussy " age. 
 Every one must be doing something. 
 Nothing more clearly reveals the spirit 
 of the age than the contrast between 
 the attitude of the thought of men to- 
 ward work now, and say, fifty years 
 ago. Then the busiest endeavored to 
 make it appear that they did nothing. 
 To-day the laziest are most eager for 
 their friends to think of them as over- 
 worked. Personally, taking the largest 
 outlook, I think this is a decided im- 
 provement, for it is an approximation 
 
The Disciple at Work 
 
 to the Pauline ideal that a man must 
 work or starve. It has touched the 
 Church however, and there has wrought 
 a great deal of mischief, if some good. 
 There never was such a day of organ- 
 izations, and meetings, and societies. 
 Why, the alphabet is nearly exhausted 
 in giving signs that stand for societies. 
 We preachers are in danger of be- 
 wilderment as we give out notices con- 
 cerning Y. M. C. A., Y. W. C. A., I. B. 
 R. A., P. S. A., P. M. E., Y. P. S. C. 
 E., S. S. U., and so on. Now, let no un- 
 kind word be said of any branch of 
 service. All the honest and consecrated 
 work represented by these very letters 
 I have quoted, we welcome with de- 
 light and thank God for. Yet this 
 very multiplication of work has in it an 
 element of danger, and one of the 
 perilous sides to it has been the setting 
 of unsanctified and even unconverted 
 persons to work. Side by side with 
 this demand for workers has come a re- 
 bound from that view of a " vocation " 
 which culminated in priestism, and the 
 fitness of a caste only for holy service. 
 As is so often the case, the rebound has 
 
 87 
 
Discipleship 
 
 gone beyond proper limits. We have 
 rightly contended for the rights of all 
 believers to familiarity with the things 
 of God, and freedom to serve. We 
 have wrongly extended to those outside 
 i he discipleship the opportunity of help- 
 ing in the work of the Master. This 
 has been to their detriment, giving 
 them a sense of security to which they 
 had no right, and it has also been to 
 the serious injury of the work itself. 
 We must return to first principles. 
 Personal relation to Christ is vocation 
 for service. Apart from it, there can 
 be none. On that occasion, when the 
 crowds, having come by sea to Caper- 
 naum " Seeking Jesus " asked Him 
 " What must we do that we may work 
 the works of God ? " He said, " This 
 is the work of God, that ye believe on 
 Him whom He hath sent " (John vi. 
 24-29). Of that saying Dr. Westcott 
 writes, " This simple formula contains 
 the complete solution of the relation of 
 faith and works. Faith is the life of 
 works ; works are the necessity of 
 faith." 
 
 It cannot be too strongly insisted 
 
The Disciple at Work 
 
 upon, or too frequently urged, that they, 
 and they only, who are disciples of 
 Jesus, are called to, and fitted for, fel- 
 lowship with Him in the great work io 
 which He is pledged. If I am a dis- 
 ciple, I am perforce a worker, for the 
 new life which creates my personal dis- 
 cipleship is the very life of Christ — 
 compassionate, mighty, victorious. If 
 I am not a disciple, I cannot do the 
 work of God, for I am devoid of that 
 life which alone is the Divine compas- 
 sion for man, and the Divine energy for 
 accomplishing the purposes of God. 
 
 So much being granted, and the view 
 gained, that the disciple at work for the 
 Master is really the Master working 
 through the disciple — that is, that there 
 is oneness, we may now proceed to 
 consider the aim, the methods, the 
 strength, and the issue of the disciple's 
 work by a contemplation of the Mas- 
 ter's. 
 
 1. Christ makes a great statement in 
 John ix. 4. " We must work the 
 works of Him that sent Me." This 
 " We " of the revised version teaches 
 us that Christ identifies us with Him- 
 89 
 
Discipleship 
 
 self in His work, and we shall best un- 
 derstand the force of these words by 
 gaining a clear understanding of their 
 setting. Take the paragraph chapters 
 viii. and ix. In chapter viii. 1-11 we 
 have the account of Christ's dealing 
 with the woman taken in adultery, in 
 chapter ix. 6 and on, that of His giving 
 sight to the blind man. Now, examine 
 the part that intervenes. The opening 
 statement (viii. 12) and the closing (ix. 
 5) are identical. Growing out of that 
 statement in chapter viii. we have a 
 long controversy on inherited privileges 
 and Divine Sonship. In chapter ix. 
 the disciple's question is in the same 
 realm, though it deals with the other 
 side, that of inherited sin. Christ dis- 
 misses their speculations, and announces 
 the fact of His work, and proceeds to 
 illustrate it by another example, which 
 at once answers their quibbling and 
 reveals that work. This blind man is, 
 as every man is, a revelation of human 
 condition, and an opportunity for the 
 display of the work of God. What, 
 then, is the work of God? The 
 remedying of the limitation and evil 
 90 
 
The Disciple at Work 
 
 that is in the world, and the restoration 
 of the natural — that is, the Divine pur- 
 pose. The illustration is simple. The 
 underlying revelation is sublime. The 
 Divine rest of Genesis ii. 1, 2, was 
 broken by man's sin. From that point 
 God has been at work. " My Father 
 worketh even until now and I work " 
 (John v. 17). This is not a small thing. 
 It grasps all in its compass. It cost all 
 in its effort. The Cross is the supreme 
 expression of that Divine work, and 
 that is onl} r understood when it is seen 
 as the eternal force by which man's 
 ruin and limitation are overtaken, and 
 the first Divine ideal for humanity 
 realized. In the disciples of Jesus 
 there moves that great life that works 
 with ceaseless and unconquerable en- 
 ergy. "Thy will be done, Thy king- 
 dom come," is the disciple's prayer ; it 
 is also the aim of all his life and work. 
 In the home, the business, the civic re- 
 lation, national life, the Church, we are 
 " workers together with Him," opening 
 blind eyes, loosing prisoners, healing 
 humanity's wounds, toiling ever on to- 
 ward the morning without clouds, in 
 
 91 
 
Discipleship 
 
 which God will rest in the accomplish- 
 ment of His purposes. 
 
 2. If our aim is identical with that 
 of the Master, it follows necessarily 
 that our methods must be identical also. 
 By reading carefully and in conjunction 
 John v. 17-19, and xiv. 10, we find that 
 all His works and words were done and 
 spoken, not on His own initiative, but 
 on the will of the Father. That is to 
 say, Jesus not only worked toward the 
 same great consummation as His Father, 
 but along the same lines, by the same 
 methods. How very wonderful are 
 these words " The Son can do nothing 
 of Himself, but what He seeth the 
 Father doing." " The words that I say 
 unto you I speak not from myself." 
 From this position the enemy directly 
 and indirectly perpetually sought to 
 allure Him, and, thanks be to God, uni- 
 formly and absolutely failed. In the 
 wilderness He declined the kingdoms 
 •f this world, even though for these He 
 hud come, on any condition, or by any 
 method save the divinely marked. It 
 is just here where the evil of the 
 44 mixed multitudes " in our churches is 
 
 92 
 
The Disciple at Work 
 
 manifest. The true disciple must be 
 as particular about the methods of work 
 as about the final issue ; but so many 
 have caught some faint idea of the 
 Divine intention, and now are prepared 
 to adopt any method that seems pol- 
 itic and likely to achieve the end. 
 And so the things that are worldly, 
 sensual, devilish, are being pressed into 
 the service of the churches — choirs of 
 professionals, who give performances 
 for their own glory, entertainments 
 which approach as nearly as possible to 
 the world ; bazaars, too often another 
 name for illicit trading. The devil's 
 most prolific move is the secularizing 
 of the things of God, tempting men to 
 seek to possess the kingdoms of Christ 
 by falling down and worshipping him. 
 The disciple worker will not expect to 
 find any " near cuts" to success, any 
 more than his Master did, but will 
 travel ever by the way of the Cross of 
 Offence and the Resurrection of Power. 
 The methods for the disciple are three- 
 fold, as it seems to me. 
 
 I. The example of the life, in all its 
 details loyal to the Master ; 
 
 93 
 
Discipleship 
 
 II. The influence exerted by the 
 character that is perpetually growing 
 in grace, by unbroken attention to the 
 lessons of the Teacher, and the resultant 
 incarnation of those lessons; 
 
 III. The specific urging of the claims 
 of Christ upon others, so that no day 
 passes in which an effort is not made to 
 win a soul for Christ, by word spoken, 
 or written, or intercession with God. 
 
 3. The next point is a remarkable 
 one, and we approach it reverently, yet 
 without hesitation. The strength in 
 which the Master accomplished His 
 work is that by which we are to ac- 
 complish ours. It is worthy of special 
 note that Luke, whose second treatise 
 is that which gives us the account of 
 the coming of the Holy Ghost, and of 
 His acts through the first disciples, 
 very clearly marks for us our Lord's 
 dependence upon that same Spirit. In 
 Luke iv. 1, we see Him returning from 
 Jordan "full of the Holy Spirit, and 
 " led by the Spirit in the wilderness." 
 From that wilderness experience He 
 enters upon the work of His public 
 ministry, and in Luke iv. 14, we are 
 94 
 
The Disciple at Work 
 
 told He did so " In the power of the 
 Spirit;" and in the passage He read in 
 the synagogue at Nazareth, He claims 
 the anointing of the Spirit for service 
 (Luke iv. 18). So, full of the Spirit 
 " He lived, and led of the Spirit" He 
 went fearlessly through all the great 
 conflicts of human nature, and "anoint- 
 ed of the Spirit " He undertook all 
 specific service. Before leaving His 
 disciples, in those wonderful discourses 
 John has recorded, He promised them 
 that His Spirit should come u to be with 
 them forever " (John xiv. 16), and 
 that His mission should be to reveal 
 to them the person and teaching of 
 the Master (John xvi. 13, 14). Thus, 
 then, the disciple goes forth to his work 
 in the self-same strength as that in 
 which the Master Himself went forth 
 to His. The only understanding I can 
 ever have of the purpose of God comes 
 by the revealing of the Holy Spirit, and 
 the only force by which I can accom- 
 plish anything is that of the self -same 
 Spirit. What a glorious reserve of 
 power there is in the Spirit -filled life, 
 and the Spirit-anointed worker. All 
 
 95 
 
Discipleship 
 
 life becomes part of the great Divine 
 activity. Daily duties can no longer be 
 drudgery, for every commonplace con- 
 tribution to the day's necessities is 
 done, for the hour present, and for the 
 <iges to come, toward that great con- 
 summation for which God works. 
 .Special forms of service have new 
 meaning and new delight; for no word 
 inspired of the Spirit returns void, and 
 no work energized by Him is lost or 
 worthless. 
 
 4. Of the issue of our work, few 
 words need be said. Again there is 
 identity with Christ. " If we endure, 
 we shall also reign with him " (II. Tim. 
 ii. 12). If Christ ultimately fails, then 
 the piece of work you did yesterday 
 and are doing to-day will perish. If 
 He accomplish all His great purpose, 
 then nothing I have done toward His 
 end, by His methods, in His strength, 
 can be lost. There will be a gracious 
 and searching day of testing, when 
 Love will burn up the hay, the wood, 
 the stubble, and purify, to the bright- 
 ness of the very home of God, the gold 
 and silver and precious stones. 
 96 
 
The Disciple at Work 
 
 Let us, then, do better work by liv- 
 ing nearer to the King, and know more 
 fully the privilege and joy of service 
 by a completer abandonment to Him. 
 
IX 
 
 THE DISCIPLE IN SORROW 
 
 Yet sweeter even now to see Thy Face, 
 
 To find Thee now my rest 
 My sorrow comforted in Thine embrace 
 
 And soothed upon Thy breast, 
 
 Lord there to weep is better than the joy 
 
 Of all the sons of men ; 
 For there I know the love without alloy 
 
 I cannot lose again. 
 
 — H. Suso. 
 
 Sorrow is the common heritage of 
 humanity. In all ages, in all lands, 
 under all conditions, man feels pain, 
 and suffers anguish. Is sorrow, then, a 
 part of the original Divine intention 
 for man ? Does God take pleasure in 
 human suffering in itself? Assuredly 
 not. He who created without sorrow, 
 will also wipe all tears away. And yet 
 to-day sorrow is a Divine provision hav- 
 ing an infinite meaning and exerting a 
 marvellous influence. What Cowper 
 sang is certainly true : 
 98 
 
The Disciple in Sorrow 
 
 11 The path of sorrow, and that path alone, 
 Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown ; 
 No trav'ller ever reached that blest abode, 
 Who found not thorns and briars on his road." 
 
 Sorrow came in the track of sin, not 
 the companion and ally thereof but 
 God's quick messenger, a sense of loss, 
 opening at once the door back to the 
 heart and home of His love. Sorrow is 
 a deep sense of loss, the consciousness 
 of lack, the natural experience of a 
 God-forsaken life. Had there been no 
 dethronement of the King, there could 
 have been no sorrow, for the whole 
 being, still and quiet in Him, could 
 have had no sense of loss. When man 
 committed the act of high treason, by 
 listening to a voice that called in ques- 
 tion the love and wisdom of the Divine 
 authority, there sprang up in that in- 
 stance the first sense of lust, ennui, 
 hunger, and sorrow, and it took the 
 form of a desire to know what God had 
 not revealed. And when, following 
 that desire, instead of returning then 
 and there to allegiance man passed 
 through the door, seeking liberty, he 
 found himself in a great darkling void, 
 
Discipleship 
 
 without God, and yet possessed of a 
 nature making demands perpetually 
 that neither he himself nor any other 
 could satisfy. 
 
 Sorrow, then, is the result of sin, but 
 it is the benevolent, tender, purposeful 
 messenger of the Eternal Love, who 
 cannot see His offspring lose all, with- 
 out causing within them this sense of 
 loss, and so ever by that means attract- 
 ing them homeward. Carry out that 
 view of sorrow, and see how wondrously 
 the person and work of Jesus agree 
 thereto. The prophet, long before He 
 came, spoke of Him, " A man of sor- 
 rows, and acquainted with grief," and 
 further declared " Surely He hath borne 
 our griefs and carried our sorrows." 
 (Is. liii. 3, 4). Turning from that 
 sacred forthtelling of the purpose of the 
 Messiah's coming to the historical ac- 
 count of His life, and work, I find the 
 very heart and centre of it reached 
 when on Calvary's Cross He cried from 
 the darkness into which He had passed, 
 seeking that which was lost, "My God, 
 My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? " 
 That is the greatest sorrow of all, there 
 100 
 
The Disciple in Sorrow 
 
 in the person of Christ all humanity's 
 sorrow and anguish and tears are 
 centred. That is the expression of all 
 agony. Beyond that there is no sor- 
 row. And that is also the great cry of 
 humanity's sin; God dethroned by 
 man ; man forsaken by God. Beyond 
 that there is nothing. So He bore our 
 griefs and carried our sorrows in that 
 awful hour when He was wounded for 
 our transgressions and bruised for our 
 iniquities. There all the world's sin is 
 borne and its sorrow felt. After that — 
 silence. Surely a stillness in heaven, 
 on earth, in hell, — and then " it is fin- 
 ished " from His lips, and He, the con- 
 queror, died by "laying down " His life. 
 Sin is put away, and sorrow is recalled. 
 Righteousness commences her new 
 reign and joy follows in her wake, the 
 glorious possibilities of humanity are 
 opened up, for Christ has lived and 
 died, and lives forever now, and is a 
 priest " after the power of an endless 
 life" (Heb. vii. 16). 
 
 Yet while in that Cross there was the 
 rediscovery of God to man, and the 
 rending of the veil for man's return, 
 
 101 
 
Discipleship 
 
 and all of healing provided, the appro- 
 priation of the purchased possession is, 
 in the wisdom of God, secured by proc- 
 esses that cover centuries in man's 
 measurement, and so sin is still here, 
 and sorrow must therefore remain also. 
 What, then, is the disciple's relation 
 thereto ? 
 
 1. To the disciple the realm of 
 sorrow has become circumscribed, and 
 that in a large measure. The great 
 sorrows of humanity are personal and 
 self-centred. Some loss experienced, 
 some injury inflicted, some disappoint- 
 ment realized, these are the common 
 causes of sorrow. In proportion as self 
 is subdued and God enthroned in the 
 life, this class of sorrows becomes ob- 
 solete. The soul finds its all in God in- 
 creasingly, and so is able not merely to 
 be resigned but to rejoice in denials as 
 well as in blessings bestowed. Very 
 slow we may be, even in the school of 
 Jesus, but this is the growing experi- 
 ence of those who are learning of Him 
 and are submissive to His teaching; 
 and witnesses, to the fact that God fills 
 all the gaps, and brings the heart into 
 
 102 
 
The Disciple in Sorrow 
 
 perfect rest, are not wanting, neither 
 are they few. "The heart at leisure 
 from itself" is a heart that has so 
 learned of Jesus as to rejoice in exactly 
 the circumstances that in the old life 
 caused the keenest sense of sorrow. 
 
 2. From this is seen the Mission of 
 Sorrow. It is ever a disciplinary force, 
 drawing the heart more and more 
 toward God, as it creates a sense of the 
 hollowness and uncertainty of all that 
 has been held most dear. How won- 
 drously this is manifest in the life of 
 the believer. Take two persons — one 
 whose will is rebellious and whose heart 
 is unregenerate, the other a disciple of 
 Jesus — and let them pass through iden- 
 tical experiences of bereavement, afflic- 
 tion, failure, and disappointment. In 
 the one case the spirit becomes embit- 
 tered and callous and the character de- 
 generates; in the other gentleness, love, 
 tenderness are the results, and the very 
 face catches a new glory and beauty. 
 The one defiantly faces sorrow, and 
 looking upon God's messenger as an 
 enemy attempts to destroy or banish it, 
 and so sinks into hardness and hatred; 
 
 103 
 
Discipleship 
 
 the other is drawn to the heart of God, 
 and finds the very pain is but God's 
 fire for the destruction of dross, and so 
 rises into that ineffable sweetness and 
 love which is such a revelation of the 
 power of the God of Love. 
 
 3. What, then, is the secret of this 
 effect of sorrow upon the life of the dis- 
 ciple? The companionship of Jesus. 
 He who touched the inner heart of all 
 the world's agony is ever present, un- 
 derstanding the very deep meaning of 
 that pain, the absence of God, knowing 
 that every form of anguish was ex- 
 pressed in that great cry on the Cross, 
 and then revealing Himself to whatever 
 form of the need is present. In your 
 darkest anguish, O believing heart, what 
 healed you? Was it not that Christ 
 said to you " I am just what you have 
 lost, and infinitely more " ? and as you 
 said, "Yes, my Lord, Thou art," did 
 not all the horizon kindle with a new 
 light, and all the pain as quietly ease as 
 by the magic of His own touch? 
 
 4. Looking back over our sorrows 
 since we entered the school of Jesus, 
 there is yet another truth to be recog- 
 
 104 
 
The Disciple in Sorrow 
 
 nized, and that is the fact of their trans- 
 mutation. When the Master was about 
 to leave His earliest disciples, He said 
 to them of the keenest pain of the time 
 — the thought of His departure — "Your 
 sorrow shall be turned into joy " (John 
 xvi. 20). And was it not so? They 
 learned in the coming of the Paraclete 
 how expedient it was for them that He" 
 should go away, and so His going their 
 greatest grief — became to them, in His 
 ascension and the consequent coming 
 of Himself, into nearer, dearer relation 
 by the indwelling Spirit, their greatest 
 joy. In that promise was there not a 
 statement of the whole philosophy of 
 pain to a believing, trusting heart ? How 
 perpetually sorrow is turned into joy. 
 Mark — not the sorrow removed, and so 
 joy coming, but the sorrow itself be- 
 coming the joy. Have we not all had 
 such experiences? Can we not look 
 back and see that some of the hourr 
 that throbbed with agony were the most 
 blessed of all the hours of life ? That 
 personal affliction, that grave, that 
 blighting disappointment, that lonely 
 hour of desolation, would you omit it 
 
 105 
 
Discipleship 
 
 from life's experience if you could? 
 No, a thousand times, no. That afflic- 
 tion was my door to strength, that grave 
 the prelude to resurrection power, that 
 disappointment my finding His appoint- 
 ment, that lonely hour the one in which 
 I found Jesus only. And so I come 
 to understand that sorrow means my 
 ignorance, my limitation, and by faith 
 I learn to triumph even in the hour of 
 darkness, having learned that God's 
 hand arranges warp and woof, and the 
 perfect pattern He knoweth, and for the 
 unfolding of that I wait and sing. 
 
 5. The disciple enters a new realm 
 of sorrow. Union with Christ means a 
 measure of " the fellowship of His suf- 
 ferings" (Phil. iii. 10). "A heart at 
 leisure from itself" is a heart to "soothe 
 and sympathize." Free from the blight 
 of sorrow, seeing my sorrows as His 
 choicest gifts and leaving them ever 
 with Him, I come to understand the 
 awful needs of humanity, and I go to 
 His cross to be in some measure a sharer 
 of His suffering for others. Out of that 
 compassion comes all service that really 
 does anything for humanity. There 
 
 106 
 
The Disciple in Sorrow 
 
 may be much activity in the self-life, 
 but it is little worth. In the death of 
 self on the cross, the new pain begins, 
 and so long as I remain here, the sorrow 
 and sin of the world must press on my 
 heart, for His life now holds and gov- 
 erns it. 
 
 And what is the end? Through all 
 earth's pain and anguish what is com- 
 ing? Let a seer of the old and new 
 covenants each answer : — 
 
 Isaiah : " The ransomed of the Lord 
 shall return, and come with singing 
 unto Zion ; and everlasting joy shall 
 be upon their heads : they shall obtain 
 gladness and joy, and sorrow and sigh- 
 ing shall flee away " (Is. xxxv. 10). 
 
 John : " And He shall wipe away 
 every tear from their eyes ; and death 
 shall be no more ; neither shall there be 
 mourning nor crying, nor pain any 
 more : the first things are passed away." 
 
 Hallelujah. Amen. 
 
 107 
 
THE DISCIPLE IN JOY 
 
 My heart is resting, O my God, 
 I will give thanks and sing ; 
 
 My heart is at the secret source 
 Of every precious thing. 
 
 — Anna L. Waring. 
 
 When Eliphaz the Temanite said 
 " Man is born unto trouble as the sparks 
 fly upward " (Job v. 7) he gave utter- 
 ance to a conclusion arrived at after 
 careful observation of the common lot 
 of man ; he did not declare the birth to 
 trouble to be an essential of human na- 
 ture per se. Under existing conditions 
 man is so born, but that is contrary to 
 the original purpose of God for Him. 
 The Divine intention is the joy, the 
 happiness, of all men. Sorrow is an 
 interpolation in the Divine plan, neces- 
 sary and beneficent as we saw in our 
 last chapter. Joy is the normal condi- 
 tion of man, God's highest work. Sad 
 and sorrowful as the earth is to-day in 
 
 108 
 
The Disciple in Joy 
 
 all lands and climes, man's capacity for 
 joy is evinced in the fact that, in the 
 vast majority of lives, there are more 
 days of happiness than sorrow. In the 
 face of overwhelming disaster in all the 
 regions of his being, man has set him- 
 self with indomitable courage to wrest 
 happiness in some form out of his cir- 
 cumstances, and to cry, " Begone dull 
 care." Much of the so-called happi- 
 ness of men is inexpressibly sad, and 
 poor, and sinful, yet the fact remains 
 that the great bulk of humanity has set 
 itself to seek for happiness, and in that 
 fact lies the proof that for joy man was 
 at first constructed. Every form of en- 
 joyment that man has devised for him- 
 self is his attempt to reconstruct out 
 of hopeless wreckage and ruin the 
 glorious past. Heartbreaking is the 
 picture, yet it is a lurid and appalling 
 testimony to the magnificent possibili- 
 ties of his being. The man with the 
 muckrake, missing the true vision of 
 glory and brightness in the crown held 
 out to him, does nevertheless witness to 
 his capacity for the crown by his dili- 
 gent attempt to gather the glitter of a 
 
 109 
 
Discipleship 
 
 straw, the color of purple, the shimmer 
 of tinsel. Following the argument that 
 sorrow is a sense of loss, we say that 
 joy is the true condition of God's hu- 
 manity, and that as sorrow entered with 
 the loss of the sense of God, so joy is 
 restored as man finds God. 
 
 1. The disciple restored to com- 
 munion with God, is restored to the 
 place of joy. That is a remarkable 
 word which the apostle uses in writing 
 to Timothy (I. Tim. i. 11) " The blessed 
 God." It might correctly be translated 
 " The happy God." It marks for us a 
 great fact in the character of God. He 
 is blessed for evermore, happy in the 
 very essential of His nature. Creation 
 complete, He saw it " very good ; " and 
 the " rest " of God was not recuperation 
 after toil, but complacency, satisfaction, 
 happiness in His work. The inspired 
 seers of the past saw Him, and, though 
 the surroundings of His throne were to 
 them, clouds and darkness, their con- 
 ception of Him was ever that of glory, 
 beauty, strength, love, peace, happi- 
 ness. When man fell, that very hap- 
 piness of God was the movement toward 
 
 110 
 
The Disciple in Joy 
 
 man's recovery. Read the closing words 
 of Zephaniab's prophecy (hi. 14-20), 
 especially noting the seventeenth verse: 
 " He will rejoice over thee with joy ; 
 He will rest in His love ; He will 
 
 JOY OVER THEE WITH SINGING." What 
 
 words can be more beautifully ex- 
 pressive than these of His blessed- 
 ness. When Jesus, the express image 
 of the Father came, He gave us in many 
 a graphic picture the same conception. 
 The glad Father, the rejoicing shep- 
 herd, the happy woman, all teach the 
 same truth. In the great charta of the 
 kingdom, He pronounces upon His dis- 
 ciples the same character. " Blessed " 
 here may be as correctly rendered 
 " Happy," and so those who are His to- 
 day, are restored to living communion 
 with the " Happy God " and are thus 
 themselves brought into the place where 
 it becomes possible for them to obey the 
 apostolic word, " Rejoice in the Lord 
 alway : again I will say Rejoice " (Phil, 
 iv. 4). 
 
 All human joy is tarnished by the 
 presence of the element of fear and 
 dread. Man cannot escape from the 
 ill 
 
Discipleship 
 
 deepest facts of his own nature, and 
 therefore in the midst of every form of 
 pleasure there comes the unnamable, 
 disturbing element of fear and appre- 
 hension. This may be concisely stated 
 by saying, no man has power to per- 
 fectly enjoy the present who cannot 
 look the future in the face with assur- 
 ance. So long as the undiscoverable 
 hour of death haunts the consciousness 
 of man with a vague terror, every glad- 
 ness may be blighted in a moment by 
 the recurrence of thoughts which man 
 would fain banish. I do not speak of 
 low forms of enjoyment, but of high. 
 Love, friendship, home, nature, art, 
 music, all suggest to the unforgiven 
 soul the awful possibility of cessation, 
 and then the unknown to-morrow be- 
 comes the tarnish on all gold, the blight 
 on all fruit, the spectre of all hours. 
 The disciple in union with Christ has 
 found the solution of all this mystery. 
 He is at peace with the end, and so is 
 free for the true enjoyment of the 
 "now." Because "to live is Christ," 
 " to die is gain," and because " to die is 
 gain " life is worth living, for the spectre 
 112 
 
The Disciple in Joy- 
 has been transformed into the gentle 
 angel who stands ever at the portal of 
 larger and more generous life. 
 
 2. Now, how does this effect the life 
 of the disciple ? This twofold fact, of 
 communion with the blessed God and 
 the consequent casting out of fear from 
 the life, introduces into all pure human 
 joy the element which perfects the same. 
 The greatest of earth's joy is in earth's 
 love. The ties of home and family, the 
 communion of friend and lover, how im- 
 measurably are these joys intensified to 
 the believer. The union of two in mar- 
 riage, based upon the law of supreme 
 affection between two, when these are 
 both united in Christ to God, how holy, 
 and restful, and satisfying to the heart. 
 The presence in the house of children, 
 when they are recognized as gifts of the 
 Eternal Love, to be nurtured for the 
 King, what glorious and genial sunshine 
 it is. The growth, and development, 
 and success of these when the King's 
 laws are obeyed, what pure and full joy 
 they bring. And then the other great 
 avenues of enjoyment — nature in her 
 thousand varying moods, art in its 
 113 
 
Discipleship 
 
 wondrous possibilities, music in its in- 
 terpretation of pure thought and high 
 enthusiasm, how the disciple enters all 
 because in his relationship to Christ he 
 holds the mystic key which admits him 
 to their inner secrets. Surely every- 
 where and at all times the anointed 
 soul can see and hear, and touch, with 
 keenness and precision such as is un- 
 known apart from Christ. Never allow 
 the enemy to suggest to you that dis- 
 cipleship is the limitation of joy. It is 
 the one condition of human life to-day 
 that opens every door of human delight 
 and permits man to walk in the splendid 
 spaces perfectly at home in the happi- 
 ness of the " Happy God." 
 
 3. The greatness of this joy overtakes 
 and overwhelms all the sorrows that re- 
 main to us. " How many children have 
 you?" asked one of a Christian father. 
 Hear the reply, " Seven — five live with 
 me, and two with Jesus." Surely this 
 was rejoicing in sorrow. Did he not 
 miss the prattle of the tongues now si- 
 lent, and the patter of the little feet? 
 Assuredly he did from his own home, 
 but he heard them still by faith in the 
 114 
 
The Disciple in Joy- 
 palace home of God, and the joy of 
 possessing some treasure of his very 
 own there, was more than compensa- 
 tion. The joy of sorrow lies, moreover, 
 in the fact that it preludes and prepares 
 for the joy beyond. Of our beloved 
 Lord it is said " Who for the joy tha 
 was set before Him endured the Cross, 
 despising the shame," and that marks 
 our glad pathway through all the dis- 
 ciplinary sorrow of probationary days. 
 To us on every sorrow falls the light of 
 the joy beyond, and that not merely as 
 compensation, but as result. So, while 
 we are ofttimes u sorrowful" we are 
 "yet always rejoicing." 
 
 4. In our last study we spoke of the 
 new sorrow that comes to the disciple 
 in communion with Christ — viz: — that 
 of sympathy with all the sin, and sor- 
 row of suffering humanity. Now, we 
 must also recognize the new joy that 
 springs out of service. To me it is 
 difficult to speak or write of that joy. 
 Have you ever led one soul to Christ ? 
 Then you know more than all words 
 can teach you of the essence of real joy. 
 To tell the evangel, to pray with the 
 
 115 
 
Discipleship 
 
 seeker, to travail in birth for souls, to 
 see the breaking of the light of God, to 
 find another passing to His kingdom, 
 this is life and joy indeed. Paul, the 
 great missionary, the man who so won- 
 drously, in those days of suffering and 
 peril, laid his whole being upon the 
 altar of His Master's cross for other's 
 blessing, could think of no greater joy 
 in heaven than that of souls newborn 
 through his toil and suffering. "For 
 what is our hope, or joy, or crown of 
 rejoicing? Are not even ye before our 
 Lord Jesus at His coming? For ye are 
 our glory and our joy " (I. Thess. ii. 
 19, 20). And surely that joy is the 
 Divine joy. It is over a redeemed peo- 
 ple that God "joys with singing," and 
 it is in the accomplishment of the great 
 purposes of the Eternal Love, that the 
 Master " shall see of the travail of His 
 soul, and be satisfied." 
 
 116 
 
XI 
 
 THE DISCIPLE GOING HOME 
 
 Soon the whole, 
 
 Like a parched scroll, 
 Shall before my amazed sight uproll, 
 
 And, without a screen, 
 
 At one burst be seen 
 The Presence wherein I have ever been. 
 — Thomas Whytehead. 
 
 When Bernard of Cluiiy wrote 
 
 " Brief life is here our portion " 
 
 as the opening words of his great hymn, 
 he penned a fact that is an abiding con- 
 sciousness with men of all ages and 
 every clime. The glory of the hope, 
 and certainty of the faith which charac- 
 terize that hymn, are beyond the ex- 
 perience of thousands, but that first 
 statement finds an affirmative echo in 
 every heart, whenever and wherever 
 sung. That life is passing, the number 
 of our appointed years becoming smaller, 
 by a perfectly quiet and orderly, yet 
 
 117 
 
Discipleship 
 
 irrevocable and absolutely unalterable 
 sequence, every person knows full well. 
 That the last, year, the last break of 
 day, the last moment will come ; and 
 moreover, that not a single one among 
 the millions of the race now moving on 
 toward the end can tell the year or day 
 or hour of that end, these are solemn 
 and self-evident truths. 
 
 That end, called death, is at once 
 the greatest certainty, and the greatest 
 mystery of all. To the consciousness 
 of the natural man there is no escape 
 from it, and yet around it has gathered, 
 for the thinkers of all ages, and the 
 teachers of all systems, and for those 
 also, the many, who will not think, and 
 who seek no teachers, a great darkness 
 and mystery, so that man naturally 
 shrinks from it, and by every means in 
 his power seeks to put off the day which 
 is the last. Yet, as man strives to do 
 this he knows how futile is the strife, 
 and so, by a sort of common consent, 
 unwritten and yet binding, man is en- 
 deavoring by a forced forge tfu In ess to 
 banish death and its awful dread. What 
 then is the attitude of the disciple to- 
 ns 
 
The Disciple Going Home 
 
 ward this fact of the onward movement 
 of this present life toward an end? 
 
 1. The answer may be very briefly 
 stated first as a matter of fact. The 
 disciple dares contemplate that end ; no 
 longer shrinking from thought of it, he 
 calmly faces it, questions it, smiles at 
 it, and standing in its presence con- 
 fronts it without fear or fainting. More 
 than that, the disciple thus facing the 
 end, from that very contemplation seems 
 to catch a new radiance as of a light 
 that never was on land or sea, his gaze 
 into what the world has ever thought 
 of as dark and mysterious, giving to his 
 eye a brightness which tells of visions 
 that add their lustre and their hope to 
 all the experiences of the passing hour, 
 so that to him, the contemplation of the 
 end, instead of shadowing all the pleas- 
 ures of the moment, fills the darkest 
 day with light, and makes every hour 
 of sorrow an occasion of rejoicing. To 
 the truth of this the experience of the 
 Master Himself, and the writers of the 
 New Testament, and the followers of 
 Jesus in each successive century bear 
 unequivocal testimony. Let us confine 
 
 119 
 
Discipleship 
 
 ourselves to the experience of the 
 Lord, and the testimony of New Testa- 
 ment writers. The writer of the letter 
 to the Hebrews (xii. 2) gives us an in- 
 spired and remarkable vision of our 
 Lord's view of the end of His human 
 life. He saw the " Cross " and " Shame," 
 and " endured " the one, " despising " 
 the other, for the " Joy " that was set 
 before Him. Of course this has a much 
 wider application, but it certainly con- 
 tains this revelation of our Master's 
 view of the end of His life, — the dark- 
 est and most mysterious end of all — ■ 
 that what bulked most largely on His 
 vision was a " Joy " that lit the dark- 
 ness, and negatived the " shame." 
 
 The experience of the writers of the 
 New Testament, as revealed in their 
 writings, is on the same plane. Paul's 
 writings abound with such conceptions. 
 "I reckon that the sufferings . . . . 
 are not worthy to be compared with 
 the glory . . . ." (Romans viii. 18). 
 " To die is gain " (Phil. i. 21). 
 My departure is come .... hence- 
 forth .... a crown " (II. Tim. iv. 6, 7, 
 8). These passages should of course 
 
 120 
 
The Disciple Going Home 
 
 be read in their entirety, and they are 
 but examples of many others, all reveal- 
 ing the same truth. Peter, looking 
 forward, speaks of "A living hope 
 . . . . an inheritance incorruptible, and 
 undefiled, and that fadeth not away" 
 (I. Peter i. 3-9). James, lights up the 
 darkness of trying circumstances with 
 the thought of the end, saying u Be 
 patient .... until the coming of the 
 Lord" (v. 7). John, exulting in pres- 
 ent blessedness, views the end, and 
 from the vision gathers new hope and 
 purifying power " Beloved, now are we 
 children of God .... we shall be like 
 Him " (I. John iii. 2). Jude sees be- 
 yond the present period of growth one 
 of perfection " Him that is able .... 
 to set you before the presence of His 
 glory, without blemish " (Verse 24). 
 To this strong, courageous, and victo- 
 rious outlook of the earliest saints may 
 be added the testimony of the disciples 
 of all the ages. 
 
 2. So far we have made a statement 
 only. Let us now endeavor to under- 
 stand this attitude of the Lord and His 
 disciples. There are two statements of 
 
 121 
 
Discipleship 
 
 the New Testament, which are so re- 
 markable on account of their clear un- 
 mistakable meaning, that we will con- 
 sider them only, as being sufficient to 
 account for all we have said. The first 
 is contained in the words of Jesus Him- 
 self to Martha at the grave of Lazarus 
 (John xi. 26). Let us in all simplicity 
 and straightforwardness read these 
 words " Whosoever .... believeth in 
 Me shall never die." The other is 
 a statement by Paul (II. Tim. i. 10). 
 " . . . . Our Saviour Jesus Christ, Who 
 
 ABOLISHED DEATH." 
 
 Nothing can be simpler or more force- 
 ful. Our Lord, speaking to Martha 
 meant just what the words convey in 
 our translation, that to the soul believ- 
 ing on Him there is no dying. Death 
 is not to that soul what it seems to 
 humanity at large. The life that one 
 already lives, is the very life of God 
 and eternity, and there is no death. 
 That is precisely the thought of Paul. 
 The word " abolished " literally means 
 rendered entirely useless, robbed of its 
 power to act. 
 
 3. How has this been brought about, 
 
 122 
 
The Disciple Going Home 
 
 aud how are the disciples of Jesus able 
 to appropriate the stupendous miracle 
 as an experience ? On the day of Pen- 
 tecost, Peter declared the fact of the 
 resurrection of Jesus, not only to be 
 the work of God, but to have been an 
 absolute necessity by virtue of what 
 Jesus was in Himself (Acts ii. 24). 
 " Whom God raised up, having loosed 
 the pangs of death, because it was not 
 
 POSSIBLE THAT He SHOULD BE HOLDEN 
 
 OF it." So much for the reason of the 
 Master's own view of the future. Now 
 read Heb. ii. 14, 15. "Since then the 
 children are sharers in flesh and blood, 
 He also Himself in like manner partook 
 of the same; that through death He 
 might bring to nought him that had the 
 power of death, that is the devil ; and 
 might deliver all them who through 
 fear of death were all their lifetime 
 subject to bondage." There we see 
 how through His death He has given us 
 victory over death, and taken from us 
 its fear. Before He left His disciples 
 He made that great declaration, " Be- 
 cause I live, ye shall live also " (John 
 xiv. 19). Therefore we are brought 
 
 123 
 
Discipleship 
 
 into the place of His victorious life, 
 through the overcoming of His victo- 
 rious death. 
 
 If then He has abolished death, what 
 now remains? It is still certain that 
 these probationary days will end, this 
 life of limitation and testing come to a 
 conclusion, all this changing scene pass 
 away, and still it is true that the end is 
 not known as to its time. Wherein do 
 we differ then, as disciples of Jesus, 
 from the crowd ? In this, that instead 
 of death being the end, He Himself 
 stands waiting for us and ever approaches 
 us, and whether we are among the 
 number of those " that are alive, that 
 are left unto the coming of the Lord," 
 or " them that are fallen asleep," still 
 the end of the present is Himself, for 
 to sleep is just to be " absent from the 
 body, at home with the Lord," not to 
 die, and to remain to His coming is just 
 to " meet the Lord in the air." So 
 when evening comes to the disciple 
 and he turns his back upon the glories 
 of the western sky and faces the east, 
 it is not cold, and dark, and cheerless, 
 but full of light, for the sun fills all the 
 124 
 
The Disciple Going Home 
 
 horizon, and so to the child of trust 
 " There is no night." 
 
 Disciples then are not called upon to 
 prepare for death, but for Htm, and 
 that hope purifies, refines, illumines all 
 the hours with the radiance of the 
 Eternal Day. We cannot fear death 
 then, for to us all is changed. The end 
 has become the beginning, mystery is 
 transformed into the vestibule of reve- 
 lation, rest from labor is entry upon 
 highest work, and at eventide there is 
 the light of the Eternal morning in 
 which is the disciple's home. 
 
 135 
 
XII 
 
 THE DISCIPLE IN GLORY 
 
 Bear me on thy rapid wing 
 
 Everlasting Spirit, 
 Where the choirs of angels sing 
 
 And the saints inherit. 
 
 — Anon. 
 
 How little we know, comparatively, 
 of the hereafter. " Life and incorrup- 
 tion have been brought to light" in the 
 Gospel of Jesus, and death has been 
 transformed from a foe to a friend, but 
 the Revelation is characterized by its 
 silence with regard to the future rather 
 than by its declarations. It is as though 
 God would not draw men toward 
 righteousness either by threatened pun- 
 ishment, or promised reward. Enough, 
 however, has been said to give us to 
 understand the terrors of being lost, 
 and the blessedness of being saved. 
 
 Of the occupation of the disciple of 
 Jesus in that life that lies beyond, 
 
 126 
 
The Disciple in Glory 
 
 more has heen said than appears on the 
 surface. There is one passage of Scrip- 
 ture which is constantly being half- 
 quoted, or quoted from the Old Testa- 
 ment, when surely we should quote it 
 with Paul's expository word. Let us 
 examine this. (Is. lxiv. 4). "For 
 since the beginning of the world, men 
 have not heard, nor perceived by the 
 ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, 
 beside Thee, what He hath prepared for 
 him that waiteth for Him." Now to 
 whatever that may refer, Paul writing 
 to the Corinthians (I. ii. 9, 10) dis- 
 tinctly goes on to say that these hidden 
 things are revealed to us by the Spirit, 
 and yet this quotation is used almost 
 invariably to prove that we can know 
 nothing of the future of the blessed. 
 Again, let closer attention be given to 
 these passages and the correct and much 
 more beautiful rendering of the Revised 
 Version be accepted, and it will at 
 once be discovered that there is no 
 reference whatever either by Isaiah, or 
 by Paul's use of Isaiah's words to the 
 future life. Both are referring to the 
 wonders of the wonder-working God in 
 
 127 
 
Discipleship 
 
 the progress of events which men could 
 not perceive or hear, save by the spirit 
 of God, who revealed them in due time 
 to those who waited for Him. That 
 men did not see the working of God 
 in history, witness the attitude of the 
 disciples of Jesus, until the Holy Spirit 
 came and illuminated that history. 
 This is the broad principle of the 
 teaching of the passages, and it may be 
 applied to the case now under consid- 
 eration. To the casual, unenlightened 
 reader the Scripture says very little of 
 the future. To the Spirit-taught it 
 says far more than we can comprehend, 
 and the purpose of this chapter is to 
 indicate the lines of that teaching 
 rather than to attempt to exhaust the 
 great theme. In our first ten divisions 
 we have dealt with the disciple in his 
 probationary life. That is by far, and 
 of necessity, the smaller part of his ex- 
 istence. Probation is of the greatest 
 importance, but it ever presupposes 
 something far more important stretch- 
 ing out beyond, and the great fact of 
 discipleship is, that it is a process of 
 preparation of one who is not a citizen 
 
 128 
 
The Disciple in Glory 
 
 of the earth, of one whose home and 
 place of service lie out beyond the 
 shadows that seem to bound the vision 
 to-day. In our last chapter we have 
 seen him meeting the Master at the end 
 of probation. May we now close this 
 study by very reverently looking within 
 the veil, so far as it has been lifted, at 
 the occupation and final destiny of 
 those, who through all this gracious 
 discipline have been so patiently trained 
 by the greatest of all, nay, the only 
 Teacher of humanity. 
 
 1. The abolishing of death makes it 
 perfectly certain that there can be no 
 unconscious gap in the existence of the 
 believer. What we have too constantly 
 spoken of as death, by virtue of its be- 
 ing the meeting of the disciple and his 
 Lord — without the limitations of mater- 
 ial trammels, which are always in some 
 sense a clog to the development of the 
 Spirit life — in that state where faith is 
 lost in sight, and hope in full fruition 
 dies, becomes clearer, fuller conscious- 
 ness. The phrases of the New Testa- 
 ment which describe that state give us 
 most suggestive and valuable teaching 
 
 129 
 
Discipleship 
 
 concerning it. Let us take two of 
 these, both from the writings of Paul. 
 
 I. II. Cor. v. 8. " Absent from the 
 body .... at home with the Lord." 
 The use of the phrase " at home," in- 
 stead of the word " present " as in the 
 authorized version, is necessary to 
 ensure consistency of translation for 
 the whole passage, as it is the same 
 word translated " at home " in verse 6. 
 What a perfect and beautiful thought 
 of the first consciousness of the dis- 
 ciple in that larger life. " At home." 
 The word analyzed conveys the idea of 
 being among one's own people, and that 
 is the true thought. We move in that 
 gracious transition into the condition 
 of being perfectly at rest in the Lord's 
 presence. In all the high spiritual as- 
 pects of our life, we have been strang- 
 ers here. There we shall be " at home." 
 Here our relationships have been those 
 of sojourners in tents, strangers, and 
 our sense of the Lord's presence, 
 blessed as it has been, compared to 
 what it will be then, has been partial, 
 limited. There we shall fit in to all the 
 conditions toward which He has led us 
 130 
 
The Disciple in Glory 
 
 and for which He has trained us, and so 
 there we shall first fully comprehend 
 the meaning of much of the training of 
 to-day. Oh the luxury of it. Only 
 those who have been away from their 
 earthly homes for awhile know how in- 
 tensely sweet is the sense of being " at 
 home " again. The one atmosphere in 
 which there is freedom from the sense 
 of disquietude and unrest. And yet 
 more marvellous is the grace of it. The 
 " at home " just beyond the shadows is 
 " with the Lord." That I, who feared 
 and shunned, and alas, slighted and 
 contemned Him, am at last to be " at 
 home " with Him passes all telling in 
 its evidence of His great grace. 
 
 II. Phil. i. 23. " To depart, and be 
 with Christ." This word to depart is 
 undoubtedly used here in the sense of 
 loosing a ship from its moorings, and so 
 Tennyson repeated the Pauline con- 
 ception when he wrote, 
 
 " Aud let there be no moaning of the bar 
 When I put out to sea, 
 And may there be no sadness of farewell 
 When I embark." 
 
 What then is this embarking and un- 
 131 
 
Discipleship 
 
 loosing ? Do I drift into unconscious, 
 ness for a season ? No, I am with 
 Christ. 
 
 1 ' I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
 When I have crossed the bar." 
 
 Note the immediateness of it. Dr. 
 Moule says, " Not a space, but a mathe- 
 matical line, divides the state of faith 
 this side death from the state of sight 
 that side." So then the first conscious- 
 ness of the disciple in the New Life is 
 that of the Master in clear and un- 
 clouded vision. 
 
 2. What then is the present condition 
 and occupation of those who have de- 
 parted ? Between the time of their 
 leaving this scene, and the morning of 
 the Resurrection there is an interval. 
 It is an interval of incompleteness, for 
 as yet they have not received their 
 Resurrection bodies. We have already 
 seen that this interval is spent in a 
 closer connection with, and clearer 
 vision of Christ. The nature of the oc- 
 cupation is the subject of our considera- 
 tion now. In the closing words of 
 Hebrews xi. (verses 39, 40), a great 
 
 132 
 
The Disciple in Glory 
 
 principle is declared with regard to 
 those who have gone before. Its ap- 
 plication by the writer of this Epistle is 
 to that great company of the heroes 
 and heroines of faith of whom he has 
 been speaking. It may also safely be 
 applied to all those who in this Chris- 
 tian Era have fallen on sleep or will do 
 so. " That apart from us they should 
 not be made perfect." In this applica- 
 tion of the passage we are to under- 
 stand that the perfecting of the dis- 
 ciples will only be when the Lord 
 gathers to Himself the whole company 
 of them. The occupation therefore of 
 those who thus wait, in blessedness, for 
 the end of the age, and the gathering 
 into the glory of the whole Church of 
 Christ may be gathered by a line of 
 reasoning to the correctness of which 
 Scripture itself bears testimony. 
 
 They are closer to Christ, and there- 
 fore their understanding of His work 
 and service must be much clearer. This 
 better knowledge must necessarily pro- 
 duce a deeper sympathy. The first 
 propulsion of the Christ-life in the 
 soul of the regenerate on earth was a 
 
 133 
 
Discipleship 
 
 movement of compassion toward the 
 souls for whom He died, and an act of 
 service on their behalf in some definite 
 form or other. Now that their posses- 
 sion by Christ is so much more com- 
 plete, it surely follows that their love 
 for those whom He so wondrously loves, 
 is far more intense. Can we possibly 
 think of them as having this deeper 
 love and yet being inactive ? Assuredly 
 not. The things that interest and oc- 
 cupy Him, must interest and occupy 
 them supremely ; and so we can only 
 think of them as raised into a region of 
 higher service within the same great 
 redemptive circle in which they moved 
 while still on the earth. I give it as 
 my firm conviction that all our loved 
 ones gone before, are serving the cause 
 of the work and purpose of God among 
 men in a better way than they ever did 
 while sojourners here below. Does not 
 this view light up for us many dark 
 events in our own lives ? Those, whom 
 God has wondrously blessed here, and 
 then suddenly called away just when 
 we were feeling they could not be 
 spared, have not ceased their work as we 
 134 
 
The Disciple in Glory 
 
 thought, but have been promoted to 
 some higher place and work. To this 
 view of the occupation of the departed 
 that word of (Rev. xiv. 13) agrees. 
 " That they may rest from their labors ; 
 for their works follow with them." The 
 immediate application is to the number 
 of the saints who will suffer martyrdom 
 in a subsequent era, but the truth has 
 a present application as well, and the 
 inner teaching may perhaps best be 
 gathered by a paraphrase, the result of 
 a careful analysis of the words actually 
 used : " They rest from that toil which 
 is painful and reduces the strength, but 
 their works, their activities, accompany 
 them." That is to say their activity 
 does not cease, but only that form of it 
 which brings weariness and suffering, 
 and so we think of beloved servants of 
 God, singers, teachers, preachers, sud- 
 denly, and to all human seeming pre- 
 maturely removed from earth, no longer 
 as beyond the province of redemptive 
 service, but as more than ever fully oc- 
 cupied in clearer light and fuller oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 3. This condition of incompleteness, 
 135 
 
Discipleship 
 
 for them and for us, will end when 
 44 The Lord Himself shall descend from 
 heaven with a shout, and the voice of 
 the archangel, and with the trump of 
 God : and the dead in Christ shall rise 
 first : then we that are alive, that are 
 left, shall together with them be caught 
 up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in 
 the air : and so shall we ever be with 
 the Lord " (I. Thess. iv. 16, 17). It is 
 there that the Church will be gathered 
 into one complete and conscious whole, 
 
 " Some from earth, from glory some, 
 Severed only Till He Come." 
 
 and so He will " present the Church to 
 Himself a glorious Church, not having 
 spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing" 
 (Eph. v. 27). 
 
 That will be an event of the utmost 
 importance as we shall now see in its 
 bearing on the future. 
 
 4. That surely is finality. No, every- 
 thing lies beyond that in the vocation 
 of the Church. All to that point in 
 the history of individual disciples and 
 of the whole Church has been prepar- 
 atory. It is then that the Church is 
 136 
 
The Disciple in Glory 
 
 ready to begin her great mission in the 
 purpose and counsel of God. The let- 
 ter to the Ephesians is specially occu- 
 pied in dealing with this great and 
 stupendous fact. The first three chap- 
 ters deal with the vocation in itself, 
 and the remainder make application of 
 the fact of that calling to all the de- 
 tailed life of the believer in view 
 thereof, while yet in this place of prep- 
 aration and discipline. Let us then in 
 concluding this study on Discipleship, 
 very reverently read the words in the 
 first three chapters of that Epistle 
 which light up for us the great future. 
 (Eph. i. 18). In this verse occurs a 
 phrase full of suggestiveness, and lead- 
 ing to the statements which follow. 
 " The riches of the glory of His inher- 
 itance in the Saints." That our inher- 
 itance is in Him, it is easy for us to un- 
 derstand, but we are at once arrested 
 by the statement that He has an inher- 
 itance in us. And ye that is the fact. 
 God has an inheritance in His people, 
 and Paul's prayer is that these Ephesian 
 Christians may have " the eyes of their 
 heart enlightened, that they may know 
 137 
 
Discipleship 
 
 what is the hope of His calling, what 
 the riches of the glory of His inherit- 
 ance in the Saints, and what the ex- 
 ceeding greatness of His power to us- 
 ward who believe." The " calling " of 
 God is the vocation of the Church. As 
 the Church fulfils that vocation, God 
 will enter into His inheritance in her. 
 This will be realized by the power 
 " which He wrought in Christ when He 
 raised Him from the dead." In the 
 paragraphs which follow, Paul proceeds 
 to deal with the final purpose of God, 
 and with the process by which this will 
 be achieved. We are now interested 
 only in that final purpose, in the fulfill- 
 ing of which God will Himself possess 
 His inheritance in His people, and so 
 we take the three verses which de- 
 clare it. 
 
 (Eph. ii. 7). " That in the ages to 
 come He might shew the exceeding 
 riches of His grace in kindness toward 
 us in Christ Jesus." The phrase "in 
 the ages to come " has reference to the 
 ages of the Eternal future. What 
 future dispensations there may be, and 
 what the movement of the ages none 
 138 
 
The Disciple in Glory 
 
 can tell but God Himself. Whatever 
 these may be, the Church is to be the 
 medium of shewing forth therein " the 
 riches of His grace." " When those 
 ages are to learn the love of God's 
 heart they are to do so by the testi- 
 mony borne by the ransomed Church 
 to His " kindness toward us in Christ 
 Jesus." Our vocation then contains 
 within it the mission of shewing to the 
 ages yet unborn that love of God which 
 He has exhibited to us in Jesus. 
 
 (Eph. iii. 10.) " . . . . Now unto the 
 principalities and the powers in the 
 heavenly places might be made known 
 through the Church the manifold wis- 
 dom of God." This reveals another 
 phase of vocation. The Church is to 
 reveal to the unfallen intelligences, the 
 principalities and powers of the heaven- 
 lies the manifold wisdom of God. These 
 shining ones whose glories so far exceed 
 anything of which we have dreaded, 
 whose powers of comprehension are so 
 wondrous, will only know through the 
 revelation of the Church, in all its ful- 
 ness the manifold wisdom of God. 
 
 (Eph. iii. 21.) " Unto Him be glory in 
 
 139 
 
Discipleship 
 
 the Church and in Christ Jesus unto all 
 generations forever and ever." Briefly 
 stated then, the vocation of the Church, 
 beyond all the preparation of this life, 
 beyond that intermediate state in which 
 •some now are, in that time when the 
 Church shall be completed and com- 
 plete, is to reveal the grace and wisdom 
 of God to the beings of other dwelling 
 places, the high unf alien ones of the 
 heavenlies, and that not to one age only, 
 but to the ages of the ages as they are 
 known only to the mind of God. In 
 all eternity that great " Now " of God 
 embracing our "past" and "future," 
 there has been no such proof of the 
 grace of His heart and the wisdom of 
 His workings as that of the ransoming 
 and uplifting in spotless purity of fallen 
 man, and those so ransomed and up- 
 lifted are to be the witnesses to the 
 great future of intelligence concerning 
 wondrous and overwhelming truths. 
 What an enormous range of possibility 
 does this view of the Church's future 
 open up before our vision. Our finite 
 surroundings make it impossible for us 
 to comprehend all the infinite spaces 
 
 140 
 
The Disciple in Glory 
 
 that appear only to us as blue sky, or 
 darkling night. What worlds are there, 
 what high forms of pure spirits, what 
 spaces still beyond, and what yet deeper 
 spheres of habitable places. Thought 
 is bewildered at the daring of its own 
 flight. Then what changes and move- 
 ments among all these in the procession 
 of the ages. Remember that to these 
 worlds and these beings and these ages 
 we are to be the messengers of the grace 
 and wisdom and glory of God. In that 
 view the future loses its sense of dread, 
 and one looks on to the new opportuni- 
 ties for art, and music, and poetry, and 
 above all perchance of preaching, that 
 are coming to the ransomed ones when 
 the discipline of time is merged into the 
 fitness of eternity, with reverent and 
 holy desire. 
 
 Some one ma}' say that is pure imag- 
 ining. Well it certainly is imagination 
 well within the limit of the possibilities 
 of these words of the apostle, who had 
 been caught up into the third heaven 
 and had seen things unutterable. Mark 
 how he closes this section. 
 
 (Eph. iii. 20,21.) " Now unto Him that 
 
 141 
 
Discipleship 
 
 is able to do exceeding abundantly 
 above all that we ask or think, accord- 
 ing to the power that worketh in us, 
 unto Him, be glory in the Church and 
 in Christ Jesus unto all generations for- 
 ever and ever." 
 
 So that the wildest flights of thought 
 are far short of the possibilities of what 
 God is able " to do." 
 
 This is but a faint glimpse then of 
 the glory of which Paul said " I reckon 
 that the sufferings of this present time 
 are not worthy to be compared with the 
 glory that shall be revealed to usward " 
 (Rom. viii. 18), but it is enough to turn 
 the heart of the disciple with fuller 
 purpose of consecration to that Beloved 
 One who with a perfect knowledge of 
 that future, too splendid yet for our 
 comprehension, is teaching and training 
 us ever with that in view. 
 
 How better can we close this contem- 
 plation of discipleship, in its beginning, 
 progress and consummation, than in the 
 words of Paul to these Ephesians (iv. 1). 
 " I therefore .... beseech you to walk 
 worthy of the vocation wherewith ye 
 were called." 
 
 142 
 
Date Due 
 
 n ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 An T >/• 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 FACULTY 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ~5P$SP^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 f) 
 
 
 
 
1 1012 01003 4074