*.!:'r ll'ii LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON. N. J. PRESENTED BY Princeton University Library XT bR 123 .G3 1897 Gannett, William Channing, 1840-1923. The faith that makes faithful THE FAITH THAT MAKES FAITHFUL THE FAITH THAT MAKES FAITHFUL BY WILLIAM CHANNING GANNETT AND JENKIN LLOYD JONES Sj nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, Thou muat. The youth replies, lean. T WENTY-SIX TH TH O USA ND CHICAGO UNITY PUBLISHING COiMPANY 1897 Copyright, 1896, By Charles H. Kerr & Company. (dedication in iS86) TO OUR YOKE-FELLOW 3obn Calvin Xearne^ AND GOOD GREETING TO HIM NOW, IN THE NEW LIGHT August, 1894 CONTENTS. Page Blessed Be Drudgery. — W. C. G. - - - • ii ' Faithfulness.— J. Ll. J. - - - - - 37 V "I Had A Friend."— W. C. G. - ... 64 Tenderness. — J. Ll, J. 89 A Cup OF Cold Water.— W.C. G • - yi7 The Seamless Robe. — J. Ll, J. - - - 145 Wrestling and Blessing. — W. C. G. - - - 170 The Divine Benediction. — J. Ll. J • • 200 BLESSED BE DRUDGERY Of every two men probably one man thinks he is a drudge, and every second woman is sure she is. Either we are not doing the thing we would like to do in life; or, in what we do and like, we find so much to dislike, that the rut tires, even when the road runs on the whole a pleasant way. I am going to speak of the Culture that comes through this very drudgery. "Culture through my drudgery!" some one is now thinking: "This tread-mill that has worn me out, this grind I hate, this plod that, as long ago as I remember it, seemed tiresome, — to this have I owed 'culture'? Keeping house or keeping accounts, tending babies, teaching primary school, weighing sugar and salt at a counter, those blue overalls in the machine 12 BLESSED BE DRUDGERY shop, — have these anything to do with 'cul- ture'? Culture takes leisure, elegance, wide margins of time, a pocket-book: drudgery means limitations, coarseness, crowded hours, chronic worry, old clothes, black hands, head- aches. Culture implies college: life allows a daily paper, a monthly magazine, the circulat- ing library, and two gift-books at Christmas. Our real and our ideal are not twins, — never were! I want the books, — but the clothes- basket wants me. The two children are good, — and so would be two hours a day without the children. I crave an out-door life, — and walk down town of mornings to perch on a high stool till supper-time. I love Nature, and figures are my fate. My taste is books, and I farm it. My taste is art, and I correct exercises. My taste is science, and I measure tape. I am young and like stir: the business jogs on like a stage-coach. Or I am not young, I am getting gray over my ears, and like to sit down and be still: but the drive of the business keeps both tired arms stretched out full length. I hate this overbidding and this underselling, this spry, unceasing competition, BLESSED BE DRUDGERY I3 and would willingly give up a quarter of my profits to have two hours of my daylight to myself, — at least I would if, working just as I do, I did not barely get the children bread and clothes. I did not choose my calling, but was dropped into it — byjny innocent con- ceit, or by duty to the family, or by a par- ent's foolish pride, or by our hasty marriage; or a mere accident wedged me into it. Would I could have my life over again! Then, what- ever I should be, at least I would not be what I am to-day !" Have I spoken truly for any one here? I know I have. Goes not the grumble thus with- in the silent breast of many a person, whose pluck never lets it escape to words like these, save now and then on a tired evening to hus- band or to wife? There is often truth and justice in the grum- ble. Truth and justice both. Still, when the question rises through the grumble, Can it be that drudgery, not to be escaped, gives "cul- ture"? the true answer is, — Yes, and culture of the prime elements of life; of the very fun- damentals of all fine manhood and fine woman- hood. 14 BLESSED BE DRUDGERY Our prime elements are due to our drudgery, — I mean that literally; the fundamentals^ that underlie all fineness, and without which no other culture worth the winning is even pos- sible. These, for instance, — and what names are more familiar? Power of attention; power of industry; promptitude in beginning work; method and accuracy and despatch in doing work; perseverance; courage before difficul- ties; cheer under straining burdens; self-con- trol and self-denial and temperance. These are the prime qualities; these the fundamen- tals. We have heard these names before! When we were small. Mother had a way of harping on them, and Father joined in emphat- ically, and the minister used to refer to them in church. And this was what our first em- ployer meant, — only his way of putting the matter was, "Look sharp, my boy!" — "Be on time, John!" — "Stick to it!" Yes, that is just what they all meant: these are the very qual- ities which the mothers tried to tuck into us when they tucked us into bed, the very qual- ities which the ministers pack into their plati- tudes, and which the nations pack into their BLESSED BE DRUDGERY 15 proverbs. And that goes to show that the}^ are the fundamentals. Reading, writing and arithmetic are very handy, but these funda- mentals of a man are handier to have; worth more; worth more than Latin and Greek and French and German and music and art-history and painting and wax flowers and travels in Europe, added together. These last are the decorations of a man or woman : even reading and writing are but conveniences: those other things are the indispensables. They make one's sit-fast strength, and one's active momentum, whatsoever and wheresoever the lot in life be, — be it wealth or poverty, city or country, li- brary or workshop. Those qualities make the solid substance of one's self. And the question I would ask of myself and you is, How do we get them? How do they become ours? High school and college can give much, but these are never on their pro- grammes. All the book-processes that we go to the schools for, and commonly call "our education," give no more than opportunity to win these indispensables of education. How, then, do we get them? We get them some lO BLESSED BE DRUDGERY what as the fields and valleys get their grace. Whence is it that the lines of river and meadow and hill and lake and shore conspire to-day to make the landscape beautiful? Only by long chisellings and steady pressures. Only by ages of glacier-crush and grind, by scour of floods, by centuries of storm and sun. These rounded the hills, and scooped the valley- curves, and mellowed the soil for meadow- grace. There was little grace in the operation, had we been there to watch. It was "drudg- ery" all over the land. Mother Nature was down on her knees doing her early scrubbing- work ! That was yesterday: to-day, result of scrubbing-work, we have the laughing land- scape. Now what is true of the earth is true of each man and woman on the earth. Father and mother and the ancestors before them have done much to bequeath those elemental quali- ties to us; but that which scrubs them into us, the clinch which makes them actually ours, and keeps them ours, and adds to them as the years go by, — that depends on our ov/n plod, our plod in the rut, our drill of habit; in one BLESSED BE DRUDGERY I7 word, depends upon our "drudgery." It is because we have to go, and go, morning after morning, through rain, through shine, through tooth-ache, head-ache, heart-ache to the ap- pointed spot, and do the appointed work; be- cause, and only because, we have to stick to that work through the eight or ten hours, long after rest would be so sweet; because the school- boy's lesson must be learnt at nine o'clock and learnt without a slip; because the accounts on the ledger must square to a cent; because the goods must tally exactly with the invoice; be- cause good temper must be kept with chil- dren, customers, neighbors, not seven, but seventy times seven times; because the beset- ting sin must be watched to-day, to-morrow, and the next day; in short, without much mat- ter what our work be, whether this or that, it is because, and only because, of the rut, plod, grind, hum-drum m the work, that we at last get those self-foundations laid of which I spoke, — attention, promptness, accuracy, firm- ness, patience, self-denial, and the rest. When I think over that list and seriously ask myself three questions, I have to answer each with l8 BLESSED BE DRUDGERY No: — Are there an}' qualities in the list which I can afford to spare, to go without, as mere show-qualities? Not one. Can I get these self-foundations laid, save by the weight, year in, year out, of the steady pressures? No, there is no other way. Is there a single one in the list which I can not get in some degree by undergoing the steady drills and pressures? No, not one. Then beyond all books, beyond all class-work at the school, beyond all special opportunities of what 1 call my "education," it is this drill and pressure of my daily task that is my great school-master. Afy daily task, whatever it be, — that is what mai}ily edu- cates me. All other culture is mere luxury compared with what that gives. That gives the indispensables. Yet fool that I am, this pressure of my daily task is the very thing that I so growl at as my "drudgery" ! We can add right here this fact, and prac- tically it is a very important fact to girls and boys as ambitious as they ought to be, — the higher our ideals, the viore we need those foundation habits strong. The street-cleaner can better afford to drink and laze than he BLESSED BE DRUDGERY IQ who would make good shoes ; and to make good shoes takes less force of character and brain than to make cures in the sick-room, or laws in the legislature, or children in the nursery. The man who makes the head of a pin or the split of a pen all day long, and the man who must put fresh thought into his work at every stroke, — which of the two more needs the self- control, the method, the accuracy, the power of attention and concentration? Do you sigh for books and leisure and wealth? It takes more "concentration" to use books — head-tools — well than to use hand-tools. It takes more "self control" to use leisure well than work- days. Compare the Sundays and Mondays of your city; which day, all things considered, stands for the city's higher life, — the day on which so many men are lolling, or the day on which all toil? It takes more knowledge, more integrity, more justice, to handle riches well than to bear the healthy pinch of the just- enough. Do you think that the great and famous es- cape drudgery? The native power and tem- perament, the outfit and capital at birth, counts 20 BLESSED BE DRUDGERY for much, but it convicts us common minds of huge mistake to hear the uniform testimony of the more successful geniuses about their genius. "Genius is patience," said who? Sir Isaac Newton. "The Prime Minister's secret is patience," said who? Mr. Pitt, the great Prime Minister of England. Who, think you, wrote, "My imagination would never have served me as it has, but for the habit of com- monplace, humble, patient, daily, toiling, drudging attention"? It was Charles Dickens. Who said, "The secret of a Wall-street mil- lion is common honesty"? Vanderbilt; and he added as the recipe for a million (I know somebody would like to learn it), "Never use what is not your own, never buy what you can- not pay for, never sell what you haven't got." How simple great men's rules are! How easy it is to be a great man! Order, diligence, pa- tience, honesty, — just what you and I must use in order to put our dollar in the savings- bank, to do our school-boy sum, to keep the farm thrifty, and the house clean, and the babies neat. Order, diligence, patience, hon- esty! There is wide difference between men, BLESSED BE DRUDGERY 21 but truly it lies less in some special gift or opportunity granted to one and withheld from another, than in the differing degree in which these common elements of human power are owned and used. Not how much talent have I, but how much v/ili to use the talent that I have, is the main question. Not how much do I know, but how much do I do with what I know? To do their great work the great ones need more of the very same habits which the little ones need to do their smaller work. Goethe, Spencer, Agassiz, Jesus, share, not achievements, but conditions of achievement, with you and me. And those conditions for them, as for us, are largely the plod, the drill, the long disciplines of toil. If v/e ask such men their secret, they will uniformly tell us so. Since we lay the firm substrata of ourselves in this way, then, and only in this way; and since the higher we aim, the more, and not the less, we need these firm substrata, — since this is so, I think we ought to make up our minds and our mouths to sing a hallelujah unto Drudg- ery: Blessed be Drudgery,— \.\i^ one thing that we can not spare! 22 BLESSED BE DRUDGERY II But there is something else to be said. Among the people who are drudges, there are some who have given up their dreams of what, when younger, they used to talk or think about as their "ideals; " and have grown at last, if not content, resigned to do the actual work before them. Yes, here it is, — before us, and behind us, and on all sides of us; we cannot change it; we have accepted it. Still, we have not given up one dream, — the dream of success in this work to which we are so clamped. If we can not win the well-beloved one, then success with the ill-beloved, — this at least is left to hope for. Success may make it well-be- loved, too, — who knows? Well, the secret of this Success still lies in the same old word, "drudgery." For drudgery is the doing of one thing, one thing, one thing, long after it ceases to be amusing; and it is this "one thing I do" that gathers me together BLESSED BE DRUDGERY 23 from my chaos, that concentrates me from possibilities to powers, and turns pov/ers into achievements. "One thing I do," said Paul, and, apart from what his one thing was, in that phrase he gave the watchword of sal- vation. That whole long string of habits, — at- tention, method, patience, self-control, and the others, — can be rolled up and balled, as it were, in the word "concentration." We will halt a moment at the word : — *'I give you the end of a golden string: Only wind it into a ball, — It will lead you in at Heaven's gate, Built in Jerusalem's wall." Men may be divided into two classes, — those who have a "one thing," and those who have no "one thing," to do; those with aim, and those without aim, in their lives: and practi- cally it turns out that almost all of the suc- cess, and therefore the greater part of the happiness, go to the first class. The aim in life is what the back-bone is in the body : with- out it we are invertebrate, belong to some lower order of being not yet man. No wonder that the great question,therefore,with a young man 24 BLESSED BE DRUDGERY is, What am I to be? and that the future looks rather gloomy until the life-path opens. The lot of many a girl, especially of many a girl with a rich father, is a tragedy of aimlessness. Social standards, and her lack of true ideals and of real education, have condemned her to be frittered : from twelve years old she is a cripple to be pitied, and by thirty she comes to know it. With the brothers the blame is more their own. The boys we used to play our school-games with have found their places; they are winning homes and influence and money, their natures are growing strong and shapely, and their days are filling with the hap- py sense of accomplishment, — while we do not yet know what we are. We have no meaning on the earth. Lose us, and the earth has lost nothing; no niche is empty, no force has ceased to play, for we have got no aim and therefore we are still — nobody. Get your meanings first of all! Ask the question until it is answered past question, What am I? What do I stand for? What name do I bear in the register of forces? In our national cemeteries there are rows on rows of unknown bodies of our sol- BLESSED BE DRUDGERY 25 diers, — men who did a work and put a meaning to their lives; for the mother and the towns- men say, "He died in the war." But the men and women whose lives are aimless, reverse their fates. Our bodies are known, and answer in this world to such or such a name, — but as to our inner selves, with real and awful mean- ing our walking bodies might be labeled, "An unknown man sleeps here!" Now since it is concentration that prevents this tragedy of failure, and since this concen- tration always involves drudgery, long, hard, abundant, we have to own again, I think, that that is even more than what I called it first, — our chief school-master ; besides that, drudg- ery is the gray Angel of Success. The main secret of any success we may hope to rejoice in, is in that angel's keeping. Look at the leaders in the profession, the "solid" men in business, the master-workmen who begin as poor boys and end by building a town in which to house their factory-hands ; they are drudges of the single aim. The man of science, and to-day more than ever, if he would add to the world's knowledge, or even get a reputation, 26 BLESSED BE DRUDGERY must be,in some one branch at least, a plod- ding specialist. The great inventors, Palissy at his pots, Goodyear at his rubber,Elias Howe at his sewing-machine, tell the secret, — "One thing I do." The reformer's secret is the same. A one-eyed, grim-jawed folk the reformers are apt to be: one-eyed, grim- jawed, seeing but the one thing, never letting go, they have to be, to start a torpid nation. All these men as doers of the single thing drudge their way to their success. Even so must we, would we win ours. The foot-loose man is not the enviable man. A wise man will be his own necessity and bind himself to a task, if by early wealth or foolish parents or other lowering circum- stances he has lost the help of an outward ne- cessity. Dale Owen in his autobiography told the story of a foot-loose man, ruined by his happy circumstances. It was his father's friend, one born to princely fortune, educated with the best, married happily, with children growing up around him. All that health and wealth and leisure and taste could give, were his. Robert Owen, an incessant worker, once went to spend a rare rest-moment with him at his BLESSED liE DRUDGERY 27 country-seat, one of the great English parks. To the tired man, who had earned the peace, the quiet days seemed perfect, and at last he said to his host, "I have been thinking that, if I ever met a man who had nothing to desire, you must be he : are you not completely hap- py?" The answer came: "Happy! Ah, Mr. Owen, I committed one fatal error in my youth, and dearly have I paid for it! I started in life without an object, almost without an ambition. I said to myself, T have all that I see others contending for; why should I struggle?' I knew not the curse that lights on those who have never to struggle for any- thing. I ought to have created for myself some definite pursuit, no matter what, so that there would be something to labor for and to over- come. Then I might have been happy." Said Owen to him, "Come and spend a month with me at Braxfield. You have a larger share in the mills than any of us partners. Come and see for yourself what has been done for the work-peo- ple there and for their children; and give me your aid." "It is too late," was the reply; "the power is gone. Habits are become chains. 28 BLESSED BE DRUDGERY You can work and do good; but for 7ne, — in all the profitless 5^ears gone by I seek vainly for something to remember with pride, or even to dwell on with satisfaction. I have thrown away a life." — And he had only one life in this world to lose. Again then, I sa}^, Let us sing a hallelujah and make a fresh beatitude : Blessed be Drudg- ery! It is the one thing we can not spare. Ill This is a hard gospel, is it not? But now there is a pleasanter word to briefly say. To lay the firm foundations in ourselves, or even to win success in life, we must be drudges. But we can be artists, also, in our daily task. And at that word things brighten. "Artists," I say,— not artisans. "The differ- ence?" This: the artist is he who strives to perfect his v/ork, — the artisan strives to get through it. The artist would fain finish, too; but with him it is to "finish the work God has given me to do!" It is not how great a thing BLESSED BE DRUDGERY 29 we do, but how well we do the thing we have to, that puts us in the noble brotherhood of artists. My Real is not my Ideal, — is that my complaint? One thing, at least, is in my power : if I can not realize ray Ideal, I can at least idealize my Real. How? By trying to be per- fect in it. If I am but a rain-drop in a shower, I will be, at least, a perfect drop; if but a leaf in a whole June, I will be, at least, a perfect leaf. This poor "one thing I do," — instead of repining at its lowness or its hardness, I will make it glorious by my supreme loyalty to its demand. An artist himself shall speak. It was Michael Angelo who said, "Nothing makes the soul so pure, so religious, as the endeavor to create something perfect; for God is perfection, and whoever strives for it strives for something that is God-like. True painting is only an image of God's perfection, — a shadow of the pencil with which he paints, a melody, a striv- ing after harmony. " The great masters in music, the great masters in all that we call artistry, would echo Michael Angelo in this; he speaks the artist-essence out. But what 30 BLESSED BE DRUDGERY holds good upon their grand scale and with those whose names are known, holds equally good of all pursuits and all lives. That true painting is an image of God's perfection must be true, if he sa37s so ; but no more true of painting than of shoe-making, of Michael An- gelo than of John Pounds the cobbler. I asked a cobbler once how long it took to become a good shoe-maker; he answered promptly, "Six years, — and then you must travel!" That cob- bler had the artist-soul. I told a friend the story, and he asked his cobbler the same ques- tion : How long does it take to become a good shoe-maker? "All your life, sir." That was still better, — a Michael Angelo of shoes! Mr. Maydole, the hammer-maker of central New York, was an artist: "Yes," said he to Mr. Parton, "I have made hammers here for twenty- eight years. " "Well, then, you ought to be able to make a pretty good hammer by this time." "No, sir," was the answer, "I 7iever made a pretty good hammer. I make the best ham- mer made in the United States." Daniel Mor- ell, once president of the Cambria rail-works in Pittsburg, which employed seven thousand BLESSED BE DRUDGERY 3I men, was an artist, and trained artists. "What is the secret of such a development of busi- ness as this?" asked the visitor. "We have no secret, " was the answer; "we always try to beat our last batch of rails. That's all the secret we have, and we don't care who knows it." The Paris book-binder was an artist, who, when the rare volume of Corneille, dis- covered in a book-stall, was brought to him, and he was asked how long it would take him to bind it, answered, "Oh, sir, you must give me a year, at least; this needs all my care." Our Ben Franklin showed the artist, when he began his ovv^n epitaph, "Benjamin Franklin, printer." And Professor Agassiz, when he told the interviewer that he had "no time to make money;" and when he began his will, "I, Louis Agassiz, teacher." In one of Murillo's pictures in the Louvre hs shows us the interior of a convent kitchen; but doing the work there are, not mortals in old dresses, but beautiful white-winged angels. One serenely puts the kettle on the fire to boil, and one is lifting up a pail of water with heav- enly grace, and one is at the kitchen-dresser 32 BLESSED BE DRUDGERY reaching up for plates; and I believe there is a little cherub running about and getting in the way, trying to help. What the old monk- ish legend that it represented is, I hardly know. But as the painter puts it to you on his can- vas, all are so busy, and working with such a will, and so refining the work as they do it, that somehow you forget that pans are pans and pots pots, and only think of the angels, and how very natural and beautiful kitchen- work is, — just what the angels v/ould do, of course. It is the angel-aim and standard in an act that consecrates it. He who aims for perfect- ness in a trifle is trying to do that trifle holily. The trier wears the halo, and therefore the halo grows as quickly round the brows of peasant as of king. This aspiration to do per- fectly, — is it not religion practicalized? If we use the name of God, is this not God's pres- ence becoming actor in us? No need, then, of being "great" to share that aspiration and that presence. The smallest roadside pool has its water from heaven, and its gleam from the sun, and can hold the stars in its bosom, as BLESSED BE DRUDGERY 33 well as the great ocean. Even so the humblest man or woman can live splendidly! That is the royal truth that we need to believe, — you and I who have no "mission," and no great sphere to move in. The universe is not quite complete without my work well done. Have you ever read George Eliot's poem called "Stradivarius"? Stradivarius was the famous old violin-maker, whose violins, nearly two centuries old, are almost worth their weight in gold to-day. Says Stradivarius in the poem, — "If my hand slacked, I should rob God, — since he is fullest good, — • Leaving a blank instead of violins. He could not make Antonio Stradivari's violins Without Antonio." That is just as true of us as of our greatest brothers. What, stand with slackened hands and fallen heart before the littleness of your service! Too little, is it, to be perfect in it? Would you, then, if you v/ere Master, risk a greater treasure in the hands of such a man? Oh, there is no man, no woman, so small that they can not make their life great by high en- deavor; no sick crippled child on its bed that 34 BLESSED BE DRUDGERY can not fill a niche of service that way in the world. This is the beginning of all Gospels, — that the kingdom of heaven is at hand just where we are. It is just as near us as our work is, for the gate of heaven for each soul lies in the endeavor to do that work perfectly. But to bend this talk back to the word with which we started : will this striving for per- fection in the little thing give "culture"? Have you ever watched such striving in operation? Have you never met humble men and women who read little, who knew little, yet who had a certain fascination as of fineness lurking about them? Know them, and you are likely to find them persons who have put so much thought and honesty and conscientious trying into their common work, — it may be sweeping rooms, or planing boards, or painting walls, — have put their ideals so long, so constantly, so lovingly into that common work of theirs, that finally these qualities have come to permeate not their work only, but so much of their being, that they are fine-fibred v/ithin, even if on the out- side the rough bark clings. Without being schooled, they are apt to instinctively detect BLESSED BE DRUDGERY 35 a sham, — one test of culture. Without haunt- ing the drawing-rooms, they are likely to have manners of quaint grace and graciousness, — another test of culture. Without the singing- lessons, their tones are apt to be gentle, — an- other test of culture. Without knowing any- thing about Art, so-called, they know and love the best in one thing, — are artists in their own little specialty of work. They make good company, these men and women, — why? Be- cause, not having been able to realize their Ideal, they have idealized their Real, and thus in the depths of their nature have won true "culture." You know all Beatitudes are based on some- thing hard to do or to be. "Blessed are the meek: " is it easy to be meek? "Blessed are the pure in heart:" is that so very easy? "Blessed are they who mourn." "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst — who starve — after righteousness." So this new beatitude by its hardness only falls into line with all the rest. A third time and heartily I say it, — "Blessed be Drudgery!" For thrice it blesses us: it gives us the fundamental qualities of 36 BLESSED BE DRUDGERY manhood and womanhood; it gives us success in the thing we have to do; and it makes us, if we choose, artists, — artists within, whatever our outward work may be. Blessed be Drudg- ery, — the secret of all Culture! FAITHFULNESS "She hath done what she could." — Mark xiv: 8. And yet how little it was that she did do! Look at the two figures in this picture, and mark the contrast. On this hand one of the great world-reformers, the founder of Christian- ity, is being caught in the clutches of mad- dened bigotry. He is spit upon and threat- ened by the presumptuous dignitaries of the land. He is scorned by the scholarly, almost forsaken by his friends, probably abandoned by his relations, — save that one who never ceases to cling to the most forsaken child of earth, — the mother. The fate of an evil-doer is bearing dov/n upon him, the inevitable agony of the cross is before him, there seems to be no honorable chance of escape, there is no effort being made to save him. On that hand is a poor, weak, unnamed and 37 38 FAITHFULNESS unheralded woman; a woman with little influ- ence and less means. Her vision is neces- sarily very limited. She can poorly understand the questions at issue. What does she know of the philosophies and the theologies, the law and the prophets, which engage the atten- tion of the excited and disputing groups at the street corners? She can plan no release, she can frame no defense, she can not speak a word in his justification. Limited so in time, strength, means, influence and knowledge, what can she do? She can love him. She can give of her heart's best affection. She can be true to that inexpressible attraction, that towering nobility, that she feels. She knows that the gentle one is hated. She can read sorrow upon his benign face; she can discover loneliness in his tender eyes, and she can take his side. She dares cling to him in the face of derision and weep for him in defiance to the mocking crowd. She can with willing hands bring what seems to her to be the only precious thing in her possession. She can break the flask that contains what is probably her own burial oint- FAITHFULNESS 39 ment upon his head. This she can do, and how little it seems! She dreams of no future fame for him or for herself. She knows lit- tle of the poetic significance or symbolic fit- ness of the act. Merited seems the contempt of the lookers on. Why the approving words of Jesus? Why the perpetuation of the story? Because she gave all she had; she said all she knew; she loved with all her heart. Be- cause she '\iui what she could." Can mind conceive of higher commendation than this? Where is the hero of successful wars, the ex- plorer of unknown countries; where is the cap- italist who has established commerce, encour- aged industries, founded homes for the needy or schools for the ignorant; where is the states- man who has blessed his nation ; the philan- thropist who has lifted burdens from the op- pressed; the moralist who has saved souls from sin, dried up cesspools of human corruption, lifted the inebriate into sobriety; where is the prophet of religion who has led souls heaven- ward and touched restless hearts with the peace of God, that deserves any higher commen- dation than this unnamed woman of Bethany? 40 FAITHFULNESS She did what she could: none of those could do more. While that woman's tears fell upon the head of the persecuted, and her fingers passed through the ringlets of the brow that was so soon to be pierced by the thorns in the derisive crown, she was the peer of the noblest child of God. During that brief moment, at least, the anointed and the anointer stood on a comm.on level ; they were equal children of the Most High; she did what she could, and the very Lord from heaven could do no more. "She hath done what she could." This is not the text but the sermon. There is scarcely need of expansion. The heart promptly en- larges upon it, applications rush through the mind, and the conscience recognizes the test and asks, — How far do we deserve this envi- able commendation that was given to the Beth- any woman? Are we doing what we can, as she did, to defend the right and encourage the dutiful? Are we doing all we can to console the outcast and the despondent around us? Are we doing what we can to elevate our lives and to ennoble our calling? Are we doing, simply, what we can to stem the subtle tide of FAITHFULNESS 4I corruption, to stay the insidious currents of dissipation that eddy about us as they did the Bethany woman of long ago? This story comes to us with its searching questions, measuring our efforts to resist the flood of grossness, sectarian pride and arrogance that seeks to overwhelm gentleness, tender feeling and lov- ing thought, here and now in America as then and there in Judea. Young men and women, the sermon of the hour for you is in the words "She hath done what she could." Let it preach to you of the work you have to do in these high and rare years of youth that are so rapidly gliding by. Do what you can towards bringing out the noblest possibilities of your nature. Do what you can to think high thoughts, to love true things and to do noble deeds. Temptations beset you like those that have filled hearts as light as yours with inexpressible sorrow. Are you doing what you can to make yourself strong to resist them? Before you hang the gilded trinkets of fashions, the embroidered banners of selfish lives. Do what you can to live for higher aims than these. Your lives 42 FAITHFULNESS are growing riper,your heads are growing wiser. Are you doing what you can to balance this with growth of heart, making the affections as much richer and warmer; the conscience, God's best gift to man, brighter and more command- ing? Are you doing what you can to follow your truest and to do your best? Mothers, you dream of homes made sacred by holy influences into which the dwarfing ex- citements of superficial life, fashion and sen- sation, that so endanger your children, may not enter; are you doing all you can to realize this dream? Fathers, are you doing what you can toward leaving your children that inestimable herit- age, a noble example; the record of a life of uncompromising integrity, a sublime devotion to truth, a quiet but never failing loyalty to conscience? To all of us, young and old, men and wom- en, this scene in the house of Simon the leper comes across the feverish centuries with its quiet sermon, asking us if we are as faithful to the best impulses of our natures as this woman was to hers; if we are doing what we FAITHFULNESS 43 can to testify to the gospel of love and patience, working with all the power we have to dispel the clouds of superstition that overhang the world; doing the little we can to break the fetters of bigotry, to increase the love and good will of the world ; toward making our religion a life and our life in turn a religion of love and self sacrifice. Are we breaking a single flask of precious ointment in disinterested self-for- getfulness in behalf of any oppressed and in- jured child of the Eternal Father? Are we simply striving the best we may to "Look up and not down, Look out and not in, Look forward and not back, And lend a hand"? Now, as then, the real struggle of life is not for bread and clothing, but for ideas, for truth and purity ; into this higher struggle this peas- ant woman of Bethany entered and did what she could. Are we doing as much? Alas! the sad truth is too patent to need statement. Rare are the souls who live on these Bethany heights of consecration and good will. The humiliating confession is 44 FAITHFULNESS forced from our lips that none of us do all that we can for these high things; and the second question of our sermon presses, — Why is it thus? And to this I find two fatal and almost universal answers, namely: 1. We hardly think it worth while, because what we can do is so little. 2. We are ashamed to try, for fear people will laugh at us. Let us look to these answers. First, then, we hardly think it pays; we doubt if an3'thing is accomplished. We have so little faith in the efficacy of all that we can do. This is be- cause we are still in the bondage of matter. We are still enslaved in the feeling that the material quantity is of more importance than the spiritual quality of our lives. We forget that it is not what, but how, we do, that de- termines our character. The Almighty in his providence does not ask of us uniform rents for our rights and lives, as earthly landlords sometimes do. He only asks for the rightful use of the talents entrusted to us. The taxes of Heaven are never per capita, but always pro rata. Not the formal observance of each and FAITHFULNESS 45 all alike, but every heart's best love, every hand's readiest service. Not the number of acres you till, but the quality of your tilling determines the profit of the harvest in spirit- ual as in material farming. This standard exacts no promises, but it accepts no apolo- gies, for there is no occasion for apology when you have done all you can, and until that is done no apologies are accepted. "Oh, if I were not so poor, had more time, strength or money!" Hush! from the loyal Bethany sister comes the gentle rebuke, "She hath done what she could;" do thou as much and cease your bemoaning. But you say, "I would so like to build a church, to establish a hospital, to found a home for the afflicted, if I only could." Not you, unless out of your present revenue you have a tear for the unfortunate, a hope in your heart for him who has no hope for himself, a smile and a word for the sad and lonely that go about you ; or should you build a hospital or found a home, they would scarcely carry a blessing, for within their walls there would be no aroma of the precious ointment drawn from the flask of holy sacrifice. It is the fragrance 46 FAITHFULNESS of consecrated souls alone that is helpful. This age is in danger of being cursed with too many so-called "charitable institutions," built with the refuse of rich men's pocket-books, the rag ends of selfish fortunes; "institutions" with no cement stronger than the mason's mortar to keep the walls together ; institutions in which there is no heat to protect the inmates from winter's cold save that which comes from a furnace in the cellar, and no cooling balm in summer to alla}^ the feverish pulse save that found in a physician's prescription; no relig- ious consecration, no precious ointment poured by hands willing to do all they can. "If I only had speech and the knowledge adequate, I v/ould so gladly testify to the faith that is in me ; I would advocate the precious doctrine, — but — but — " Hold! Restrain the impiety of that "but." "She hath done what she could." An advocacy more eloquent than speech is possible to you. A kind heart is a better vindication of your doctrine than any argument. Deeds go further than words in justifying your creed. Character, and not logic, is the credential to be offered at FAITHFULNESS 47 Heaven's gate; conduct is higher than confes- sion ; being more fundamental than doing. "She hath done what she could." There is a potency in this standard greater than in any of your dogmas; a salvation higher than can be found in words or forms, however high or noble. The master voice of Jesus in this sentence pleads with us to put no skeptical measure upon the power of a loving soul, the strength of a willing heart. The power of that Bethany woman is an open secret: the fame that came unsought is but the world's glad tribute to the forces it most loves. This standard always par- takes of the inspiration of the Most High. Friends, we have not faith enough in the far- reaching power of every soul's best. You re- call the dark days of 1861 to 1865, the time when the nation was being riddled by traitor- ous bullets, when acres of southern soil were being covered by the bleeding sons of the North. They were days when school-boys were translated into heroes by the tap of a drum, ploughmen were transformed into field marshals, women were stirred with more than 48 FAITHFULNESS masculine heroism, as the avenues of war be- came clogged with their commerce of love. How their fingers flew, how the supplies of lint, bandages and delicacies poured in from hamlet and country-side! Then there was none too weak, too busy or too poor to make a con- tribution to that tiding life that made the atroc- ities of war contribute to the gospel of peace, and used the horrors of the battle-field to teach the sweet humanities. Thirty-five years ago, millions of human beings were chained in slavery in America. They were driven to the auction-block like fettered cattle, the sanctities of home were ruthlessly violated, the sacred rights of the human soul were trampled upon, and all this sanctioned by intelligent commonwealths, and authorized by a powerful government. What could an unknown printer do; what could a busy matron distracted by domes- tic cares, surrounded by a houseful of chil- dren, accomplish? They could open their hearts and let the woes of their fellow-beings in, they could imitate the Bethany woman and do all they could ; and this became the mighty FAITHFULNESS 49 inspiration which gave to our country William Lloyd Garrison, its greatest moral hero, and "Uncle Tom's Cabin," its greatest novel and most famous and prolific book. Miserable indeed were the prison-pens of Europe a century ago ; barbarous was the treat- ment of the vicious ; arbitrary, cruel, and often- times stupid and brutal, v/ere the officials into whose custody these moral invalids were en- trusted. A gentle soul housed in a puny body felt all this, but he was untitled, unknown, was considered a dunce, at school always at the foot of his class. What could he do? He could do as much as the Bethany woman did, he did do all he could, and by doing that he revolutionized the prison systems of Europe, and wrote the name of John Howard in letters of light high upon that obelisk dedicated to earth's immortals and reared in the heart of humanity. Paul, studying the prospects of a new gos- pel, looked out upon an inhospitable world. Things looked very unfavorable; the first teacher had met the fate of a criminal ; mighty Rome stretched far and near with her religious 50 FAITHFULNESS indifference on the one hand, and Jewry with its persecuting bigots and jealous sectarians on the other. Paul himself, with a "thorn in the flesh," suspected by even the painful minority to which he belonged, what could he do? He could climb to that height whereon stood the Bethany woman, he could break the alabaster box which contained the precious ointment of his life for the blessed cause, and thus make Christianity possible. One step still further back. How small were the chances for success, how unfavorable were the prospects for an hum- ble carpenter's son in the backwoods of Gal- ilee for doing anything to improve the morals and purify the religion of the world! What ridicule and contempt were in store for him; what disappointment and defeat were inevita- ble! But he could do what he could. He anticipated his lowly sister, and out of the full- ness of that uncalculating consecration came the parables and the beatitudes, the morality of the 'Golden Rule' and the piety of the Lord's Prayer, the insight by the well and the triumph on Calvary. Out of that consecration came the dignity of soul that has led the centuries to FAITHFULNESS 5I mistake him for a God, and that divine humil- ity that at the same time has led the weak and the ignorant to confidently take his hand as that of an elder brother. What potency there is in a human soul where all its energies are called into action and wholly consecrated, con- secrated after the fashion of the Bethany wom- an, — "She hath done what she could !" But let not my illustrations over-reach my sermon. I would enforce it with no excep- tional achievements, no unparalleled excellency. What if the approving words of Jesus in my text had fallen upon ears too dull to remem- ber them, and the inspiring story had not been told in remembrance of the woman of Bethany throughout the whole world? What if Mother Bickerdyke and her asso- ciates of the Sanitary Commission had been forgotten, and "Uncle Tom's Cabin" had been a literary failure? Suppose Lloyd Gar- rison had been silenced, and John Howard had failed to lessen the inhumanity visited upon a single convict in all Europe? What if Paul had been forgotten and the crucifiers of Jesus had 52 FAITHFULNESS succeeded in putting down the great movement of spirit which he started ; would not these records have been as clear within and above for all that? Would not God have filled their souls with the same peace and blessedness? In God's sight, at least, would not the service have been as holy and the triumph as great? I have cited but a few illustrations of a law that obtains throughout the universe. No more assured is science that no physical im- pulse ever dies, but goes on in increasing waves toward the farthest confines of an infinite uni- verse, than are we that every throb of the spirit for the best and the truest over-rides all obstacles, disarms all opposition, overcomes contempt, and survives all death. •'What is excellent, As God lives, is permanent." «»*■»«•» "House and tenant go to ground, Lost in God, in God-head found." Just as truly as every material picture the light of sun has ever fallen upon is forever photographed somewhere upon the tablets of space, so surely is every kindly smile, that FAITHFULNESS 53 ever lit the face of any pain-stricken woman, or calmed the storm in the passionate heart of man, transformed into a bit of everlasting light, that makes more radiant some section of the spiritual universe, "Gone are they, but I have them in my soul!" God is not wasteful. He poorly apprehends the Divine that regards him as balancing his books according to some scheme in which the glory or doom of the mortal is determined by some sacrificial, ceremonial or theological entry; a book-keeping in which kindly deeds, pleas- ant smiles and clieerful words are not entered. The salvation of the Bethany v/oman, and the salvation we should most covet, is the result not of faith, but of faithfulness; not the ac- ceptance of a saving scheme proffered from without, but loyalty to a saving grace spring- ing from within; not the acceptance of belief, but the dispensing of kindness. This salvation which comes by fidelity finds its exemplifica- tion not simply or perhaps chiefly in the mus- ter-rolls of our churches and those whom our preachers class among the "saved," but among the uncounted millions of sincere souls that 54 FAITHFULNESS are content to do their daily work faithfully, carry their nearest duty with patience, and thankfully live on the near loves of dear hearts, though they "Leave no memorial but a world made better by their lives." This Bethany woman become a saint in the Church of the Holy Endeavor. She is an apostle of that gospel that makes religion glo- rified morality and morals realized religion; that makes life, and not doctrine, the test of religious confidence and fellowship; character the only credential of piety; honesty the only saviour; justice the "great judgment-seat" of God, and a loving spirit his atoning grace. This Bethany woman is a missionary of the evangel, the good news that helpfulness to one's neighbor is holiness to the Lord; that kindness is the best evidence of a prayerful spirit ; and that the graces of Heaven are none other than the moralities of earth raised to com- manding pre-eminence. This faith that makes faithful enables us to rest in our humblest endeavor. It is not for him who sits at this end of yon telegraph line, FAITHFULNESS ^^ and with deft and diligent fingers transmits the message into its electric veins, to anxiously stop and query whether it will ever reach its destination, and to wonder who is to receive and transcribe it upon its arrival. That is not his business. The management is adequate to that work. Other minds and hands will attend to that. It is for him faithfully to transmit. So, friends, it is not for us to query the efficacy of those small acts; the saving power of these lowly graces ; the daily, hourly messages of humble faithfulness. It is only for us to transmit : the Infinite will receive the dispatches. Like faithful soldiers, it is "ours not to reason why" but to ^o, and, if need be, die. The lawyer may not, can not, purify his pro- fession; but he can be a pure member in it. The merchant can not stop the in- iquitous practices of trade, but he can be an honest merchant or else go out of the bus- iness. The mother may not be able to keep down the shallow standards that bewitch her daughters; but she can pitch the key of her own life so high that the dignity of her soul 56 FAITHFUI-NESS will rebuke these standards and disarm them of their power. The father may not be able to keep his sons from temptations, but he can himself desist from the filthy habit, the loose language, the indifferent life, that his admiring child is more likely to copy from him than from any one else. Our lives can not escape dis- appointments and weaknesses ; but if we could only have faith in the efficacy of doing all we can, until faith ripens into faithfulness, there would flow into our lives a sweetness, a whole- someness, a strength and a peace that will ul- timately overflow into the world and into eter- nity. Studying thus, we shall find in this brief story the secret of a salvation that most of the creeds miss. "What shall I do to be forever known?" "Thy duty ever." "This did full many who yet slept unknown." "Oh, never, never! Thinkest thou perchance that they remain unknown Whom thou know'stnot? By angel trumps in Heaven their praise is blown — Divine their lot." "What shall I do to gain eternal life?" "Discharge aright FAITHFULNESS 57 The simple dues with which each day is rife, Yea, with thy might. Ere perfect scheme of action thou devise, Will life be fled, While he, who ever acts as conscience cries, Shall live, though dead." The second reason why we do not do all we can is that we are ashamed to try for fear people will laugh at us. Next to a lack of faith in the efficacy of what we can do, comes the blighting dread of exposing our weakness and our littleness to others. Sad as it may be, it is yet true that many worthy souls shrink not only from their simplest, plainest duties, but their highest, noblest opportunities, from the mere dread of being laughed at. So they indolently hide themselves behind the screen of what they "would like" to do and be rather than royally reveal what they can do and what they are. How many people to-day go to churches they do not believe in, and stand aloof from causes their intellect approves, be- cause of the ridicule and the social ostracism such loyalty would bring to them ! I doubt not the hands of a dozen women in Bethany ached that morning to do the very thing this 58 FAITHFULNESS woman did do. But they did not dare; the disciples or somebody else would laugh at them, and they were right about it. They certainly would, and they did. The woman knows that this or that fashion is ridiculous; that custom meaningless, or worse, criminal; but others do it. For her to refrain would be to make herself peculiar. She's afraid cf being laughed at. The young man knows that the cigar is a filthy thing, that the intoxicating glass is a dangerous enemy; yet to set his face against them like flint would be to "make himself odd." He does not dare to do all he can to dispel these curses by refusing them for himself, for fear cf being laughed at. I dare not push these inquiries into the more internal things of life, lest I might be unjust. I fear that the spiritual, in- tellectual and social servility that might be discovered is something appalling. This moral cowardice is a practical infidelity more alarming than all the honest atheism and avowed skepticism of this or any other age. Moral courage is the great want of our times, and all times. Not courage to do the great FAITHFULNESS 59 things, so called, but to do the greater things which we call "little." There is always hero- ism enough to snatch women and children from burning buildings, or to make a bayonet charge on the battle-field, whether spiritual or mate- rial, but always too little courage to befriend the forsaken; to do picket duty for advanced ideas, to stand as lonely sentinels in the van- guard of progress. More heroic is the smile that robs the pain of its groan than is the defiant hurrah of a charging column. More daring is the breaking of a single flask of ointm.ent by a shrinking, trembling, despised soul in behalf of what seems to be a losing cause, than volumes of wordy rhetoric from arrogant believers. It was not the presump- tuous Pharisee who emptied his fat purse into the treasury box, but the poor widow who dared to come after him and dropped in her two mites, which made a farthing, that stirred the heart of Jesus ; for she gave out of a quiv- ering life. "Two mites, two drops, but all her house and land, Fell from an earnest heart but trembling hand; The others' wanton wealth foamed high and brave; The others cast away, she only gave.'*^ 6o FAITHFULNESS It was not the Chicago Board of Trade that out of growing fortunes equipped a battery, recruited a regiment, and filled the coffers of the Sanitary Commission, and then drove home to sleep on sumptuous couches and eat from groan- ing tables, that did the brave thing or gave grandly to the war, but the mother who kissed her only son on the door-step and through her tears said, "Go, my child, your country needs you," and then turned around to find all the light gone out of her humble home. It is not the man who gives fifty thousand dollars to found an institution, while he has several hun- dred thousand more to misuse in selfish ways, that is generous; but he who gives the half of yesterday's toil, the half of his night's sleep, foregoes an expected pleasure, or does the still harder thing, stands up to be laughed at; who sides with truth — "Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just," — that is true to the standard of the Bethany woman. Giving is not the throwing away of that which we never miss, but it is the conse- crating to noble uses that which is very dear rAI'lHFULNESS 6l to us, that which has cost us much; it is the bravely daring to be faithful over the few things given us. Doing this is what makes transcendent the courage of the Bethany wom- an. Probably she was one of the three women who, a few days after, stood by the cross, en- dured the wrong they could not cure, — "Undaunted by the threatening death, Or harder circumstance of living doom." From the saddened radiance upon their faces streams a mellow light which reveals the rot- tenness of the timbers in that well-painted bridge of expediency, popularity and pros- perity over which our lives would fain pass. Now, as then, would-be disciples withdraw from the conflict of truth with wrong; absent themselves from the service of the ideas and the rights they believe in, instead of standing on the Golgotha grounds where rages the bat- tle of life against forms, freedom against sla- very, honesty against pretense, candor against equivocation, intelligent reason against con- ventional creed. These women bore testimony to the truth in the grandest way it is possible for human souls to testify, by standing with it 62 FAITHFULNESS when there is no crowd to lower the standard; by voting at a place where the popular stand- ards give way to the divine; for surely when is swept the chaff " From the Lord's threshing floor, We see that more than half The victory is attained, when one or two, Through the fool's laughter and the traitor's scorn. Beside thy sepulcher can abide the morn, Crucified truth, when thou shalt rise anew. ' This Bethany loyalty, friends, is the simple requirement of religion. Not one cent, not one moment, not one loving impulse, not one thought, not one syllable of a creed, more than comes within the range of your possibilities is expected, but all of this is expected; nothing less will do. God asks for no more and man has no right to expect it, but all of this he does expect and no man can evade it. Bring your flasks of precious ointment, break them, anoint with them that which is worthy, and there will escape therefrom a fragrance as per- vasive, as lasting, as that which filled the air of Bethany nineteen hundred years ago; for it will be the same flask of consecration broken FAITHFULNESS 63 by the same hand of courage, the same oint- ment of good will, the same spikenard of love, very precious. Let duty be its own reward; love, its own justification. "She hath done what she could." This is the fullness of the Chris- tian excellence; it is the ultimate standard of religion. "I HAD A FRIEND*^ Our Bible is a book of lives. It is a book of men praying rather than a book of prayer, of men believing rather tlian a book of beliefs, of men sinning and repenting and righting themselves rather than a book of ethics. It is a book, too, of men loving: it is full of faces turned toward faces. As in the proces- sion-pictures frescoed on rich old walls, the well-known men and women come trooping through its pages in twos and threes, or in little bands of which we recognize the central figure and take the others to be those unknown friends immortalized by just one mention in this book. Adam always strays with Eve along the foot-paths of our fancy. Ahram walks with Sarah, Rebecca at the well suggests the Isaac waiting somewhere, and Rachel's presence pledges Jacob's not far off. Two brothers and a sister together led Israel out from Egypt. G4 *'I HAD A friend" 65 Here come Ruth and Naomi, and there go David and Jonathan. Job sits in his ashes for- lorn enough, but not for want of comforters, — we can hardly see Job for his friends. One whole book in the Old Testament is a love- song about an eastern king and one of his dusky brides; although, to keep the Bible bib- lical, our modern chapter-headings call the Song of Solomon a prophecy of the love of the Christian Church for Christ. Some persons have wished the book away, but a wise man said the Bible would have lacked, had it not held somewhere in its pages a human love-song. True, the Prophets seem to wander solitary, — pro])hets usually do ; yet, though we seldom see their ancient audience, they doubtless had one. Minstrels and preachers always presup- pose the faces of a congregation. But as we step from Old Testament to New, again we hear the buzz of little companies. We follow Jesus in and out of homes; children cluster about his feet; women love him; a dozen men leave net and plough to bind to his their fortunes, and others go forth by twos, not ones, to imitate him. *' Friend of publi- 66 *'I HAD A friend" cans and sinners" was his title with those who loved him not. Across the centuries we like and trust him all the more because he was a man of many friends. No spot in all the Bible is quite so overcoming as that garden-scene where the brave, lonely sufferer comes back, through the darkness under the olive-trees, to his three chosen hearts, within a stone's throw of his heart-break, — to find them fast asleep! Once before, in that uplifted hour from which far off he descried Gethsemane, — we call it the "Transfiguration," — we read of those same three friends asleep. The human lo?ieliness of that soul in the garden as he paused by Peter's side, — "You! could you not watch with me one hour?" — and turned back into the darkness, and into God! Then came the kiss with which another of his twelve betrayed him. No pas- sage in the Gospels makes him so real a man to us as this; no words so appeal to us to stand by and be his friends. Jesus gone, we see the other hero of the New Testament starting off on missionary jour- neys, — but Barnabas or Mark or Silas or Timo- thy is with him. The glowing postscripts of his **I HAD A friend" 67 letters tell how manj^ hearts loved him. What a comrade he must have been, — the man who dictated the thirteenth of Corinthians! What a hand-grasp in his favorite phrases — ''fellow- laborers, " "/^//^w-soldiers, " "/^//^z£/-prisoners ! " We wonder who the men and women were he names, — "Luke the well-beloved physician," and "Zenas the lawyer," and "Tryphena, and Tryphosa, " and "Stachys, my beloved. " Just hear him send his love to some of these friends: it is the end of what in solemn phrase we call the Epistle to the Romans, — what Paul would perhaps have called "the letter I sent the dear souls in that little church in Rome": — "I commend unto you Phebe, our sister, that ye assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of you" (help that woman!) "for x/^^ hath been a succourer of many, and of myself, too. Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my helpers in Christ Jesus, who have for my life laid down their own necks. Greet Mary who bestowed much labor on us. Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. , Greet Amplias, my beloved in the Lord. Salute Ur- bane, our helper in Christ, and Stachys, my be- 68 **I HAD A friend" loved. Salute Tryphena and Tryphosa, who labor in the Lord, and the beloved Persis, and Rufus chosen in the Lord, and his mother — and mine.'' And soon. "His mother — his and mine:" no doubt Paul had a dozen dear old mothers in those sea- board cities where he came and went. It brings him very near to us to read such words. Why, if we had lived then and had been "rad- ical" Jews like him, and like him had dared 2Lrv^ joyed \.o speak our faith, and for it had been brave enough to stand by his side in la- bors and in prisons, our names might have slipped into those letters, and we have been among the dozen or twenty picked out from all the Marys and Lukes and Pauls of the Roman Empire to be enshrined in a Bible postscript, and guessed about eighteen hun- dred years afterward, — because Paul had once sent his love to us in a letter! I would far rather spare some of the words in which he tells us his thought of the Christ and the Church than those names that huddle at his letter-ends. They make the Epistles real let- ters, such as we mailed yesterday. They bring *'I HAD A friend" 69 Paul down out of his Bible niche, and forward out of the magnificent distance of a Bible character, and make him just "Paul," alive and lovable; a man to whom our hearts warm still, because his own heart was so warm that men fell on his neck and kissed him when he told them they should see his face no more. So much for the friendships of the Bible. Now for our own, as sacred. It is happiness to have some one "glad you are alive." No wonder that poor girls take their lives when they come to feel that not one face lights up because they are in the world, or would be shadowed if they left it. We who have the friends know how much of all earth's worth to us lies in certain eyes and faces, cer- tain voices, certain hands. Fifty persons, or perhaps but five, make the wide world popu- lous for us, and living in it beautiful. The spring-times and the sun-sets, and all things grand and sweet besides, are at their grandest and their sweetest when serving as locality and circumstance to love. The hours of our day are really timed by sounds of coming feet: if 70 **I HAD A friend" you doubt it, wait till the feet have ceased to sound along the street and up the stair. Our week's real Sabbath is the day which brings the weekly letter. The year's real June and Christmas come at the rare meeting-times; and the true "Year of the Lord" was the time when certain twos first met. Let the few hands vanish, the few voices grow still, and the emptied planet seems a whirling graveyard; for it no longer holds the few who wanted us and whom we wanted. "Who wanted us," — that is the word to start with: the deepest of all human longings is simply to be wanted. So Mother Nature has seen to it for the most of us that, at least upon arrival here, we shall be wanted. She sends the wee ones into the world so wondrously attractive that we get more worship then than ever afterwards, when it might do us harm. We are prayed for be- fore we come, we are thanked for with the family's thanksgiving at our advent, a mother's sense of motherhood and a father's sense of fatherhood have been begotten to prepare self- sacrifices for us: all this by way of welcome. In one word, we are "wanted" in the world 'I HAD A FRIEND' 71 when we reach it. "No entrance here except on business," true; but the babies /lave the business, — who so much? Very pitiful are the young lives for whom these pre-arrangements of love fail. But soon our helplessness is past, and what ought to be the period of our helpfulness has come; and then is there anything that we can do to make that title, "Wanted," sure? Is there any recipe for winning friends? In old Rome young men and maidens used to drink love-potions and wear charms to eke out their winsomeness: in this modern time is there any potion, any charm, for friend-making? The question is worth asking, for it is no low am- bition to wish to be desired in the world, no low endeavor to deliberately try to be love- worthy. Wise father he — "the Lord's chore- boy" one called him, — the sunny-faced old Abolitionist, who brought his children up to know that "the one thing worth living for is to love and to be loved." But as to recipes for lovableness, the young soul in its romance laughs to scorn so kitchen-like a question. And right to laugh the young soul is; for much 72 *'I HAD A friend" in the business passeth recipe. We speak of "choosing" friends, of "making friends," of "keeping" or of "giving up" friends, and if such terms were wholly true, the old advice were good, — In friend-making first consult the gods! Jesus, it is said, prayed all the night before he chose his twelve. But the words are not all true; friendship is at most but half- "made, " — the other half is born. What we can chiefly "choose" and "make" is, not the friend, but opportunity for contact. When the con- tact happens f something higher than our will chooses for us. Fore-ordination then comes in. "Matches are made in heaven," and before the foundation of the world our friendships are arranged. "Thine they were and thou gavest them me," we feel of those whom we love best; — borrowing words which, it is said again, Jesus used of his disciple-friends. Nothing supernatural in this; but it is so supremely nat- ural, the secret of it roots so deep in the heart of Nature, that it passeth understanding. We can not cross the laws of attraction and repul- sion ; can only attract and be attracted, repel and be repelled, according to those laws. *