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 * OCT 27 1903 * 
 
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 Section ^ '10 
 
A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
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 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 THEODORE LEDYARD CUYLER, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
 AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK 
 
 1903 
 
Copyright, 1903, by the Trustees of 
 The Presbyterian Board of PubUcation and Sabbath- 
 School Work 
 
 Published October, jgoj 
 
 The first two sermons in this collection have never appeared 
 before in book form. The others are taken from the volume, 
 " Stirring the Eagle's Nest," with the kind permission of the 
 publishers. The Eaker and Taylor Company. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. Barnabas — A Model Christian 
 
 II. Burden-Bearing 
 
 III. Pivot Battles in Life 
 
 IV. The Little Coat 
 V. The Journey of a Day 
 
 VI. Jesus Only 
 
 VII. Right Views of Things 
 
 VI 1 1. The Dove That Found Rest 
 
 PAGE 
 3 
 
 21 
 
 43 
 6i 
 
 79 
 
 97 
 
 115 
 
 133 
 
 The first and third sermons in this volume have never appeared 
 in book form. The others are taken from the volume "Stirring 
 the Eagle's Nest," with the kind permission of the publishers, the 
 Baker & Taylor Company, New York. 
 
A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 BARNABAS— A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 *' For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of 
 faith." — Acts xi. 24, 
 
 Peter's vision at Joppa introduced a new era 
 in human history. To the fishernian-apostle, as 
 he kneeled at his noontide hour of devotion, was 
 revealed the glorious truth that God is no re- 
 specter of persons. This was not only the " gos- 
 pel of democracy " for every land, leveling up all 
 castes and classes into a common brotherhood 
 before God ; it was a gospel of foreign missions 
 which proclaimed that the Gentile had as good a 
 right to the offer of eternal life as the children of 
 Abraham. That vision of Peter's opened the way 
 to the evangelization of western Asia as Paul's 
 vision at Troas opened the way to the evangeli- 
 zation of Europe. 
 
 The persecution which arose on account of the 
 
 3 
 
4 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 heroic martyr Stephen " scattered abroad " many- 
 new converts from Jerusalem, even as a sturdy 
 blow of the blacksmith's sledge scatters the fiery 
 sparks from the anvil. Some of them enter the 
 maritime coast of Phoenicia ; some of them cross 
 over to the luxurious and licentious island of 
 Cyprus ; others move northward to the superb 
 city of Antioch. These early pioneers of the 
 cross were not commissioned by " boards " or 
 other missionary organizations. The book of 
 The Acts is mainly the record of individual 
 efforts for the conversion of individual souls. 
 The souls thus evangelized were in great centers 
 of influence like Jerusalem, Ephesus, Rome, and 
 Antioch. 
 
 The American tourist who visits now the 
 shrunken and miserable hamlet called Antdkia 
 can form but a poor conception of what Antioch 
 was in the days of its flashing splendor. It was 
 the queen of the Orient, the capital of Syria, the 
 third city in influence on the globe. Its popula- 
 tion was about equal to that of Chicago to-day. 
 Its natural situation was commanding, with the 
 river Orontes flowing past it and the magnifi- 
 cent mountains of Lebanon towering above its 
 walls. Grecian art and Roman wealth had en- 
 riched it with gorgeous temples of heathen dei- 
 
BARNABAS 5 
 
 ties, with sumptuous baths and theaters, with 
 elegant villas upon its hillsides, and with expen- 
 sive aqueducts carried across its adjacent plains. 
 No capital outside of Rome was more imperial 
 in its splendor or more corrupted by wealth and 
 sensuality. 
 
 Among the mixed population of this Oriental 
 mart of commerce were many Greeks. Some 
 commentators insist that the word " Grecian " in 
 the twentieth verse describes Hellenistic Jews. 
 But as we are told in the previous verse that 
 some of the gospel itinerants " preached the word 
 to none but the Jews only," it is probable that 
 this verse announces that the good news of salva- 
 tion had begun to be offered to the Gentiles. 
 
 An immediate blessing followed. The omnipo- 
 tent " hand of the Lord was with " these earnest 
 preachers of the truth. The instruments were 
 human, the power was divine. We pastors and 
 Sunday-school teachers can do nothing without 
 God, and it is equally true that in our depart- 
 ments God will do nothing without us. When 
 God's hand and man's hand combine, then comes 
 the spiritual harvest. The results which followed 
 this pioneer preaching work at Antioch were of 
 an admirable type, and a model of the best 
 modern revivals. We are told that " a great num- 
 
6 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 ber believed, and turned unto the Lord." Ob- 
 serve this process : the inward must precede the 
 outward — the root must be planted before we can 
 expect the tree. The root here is heart-faith in 
 the crucified Jesus. As the result of this internal 
 acceptance of Christ there was a conversion or 
 " turning " from a life of sin to a life of serving 
 Christ. When the hand of the Holy Spirit is 
 laid on the helm the whole vessel swings round 
 on its keel and " heads " in the opposite direction. 
 We have no doubt that this fleet of new converts 
 bore the colors of an open confession of Christ 
 at the mast-head, and were all ready to go into 
 action for Him at once. True conversion demands 
 prompt confession and union with the church. 
 As soon as a lamp is lighted let it straightway 
 shine. 
 
 Good news flies fast. Jerusalem was the head- 
 quarters of Christianity, and what was going on at 
 Antioch could not be kept long from the mother 
 church. According to the literal rendering of 
 the twenty-second verse, " the tidings concerning 
 these things " (or converts) " was heard with the 
 ears of the church which was in Jerusalem." In 
 the judgment of that parent church the impor- 
 tant work that had opened at Antioch demanded 
 a master workman. 
 
BARNABAS 7 
 
 The man whom the Jerusalem church selected 
 to be the city missionary at Antioch, and after- 
 wards the foreign missionary to Cyprus, has never 
 received the high honor through after ages to 
 which he is fairly entitled. In our humble judg- 
 ment he stands next to Paul, as the second most 
 remarkable character who is presented to us in 
 the roll of converts after the days of Pentecost. 
 A gratuitous slur has been cast upon him because 
 he afterwards had a " contention " with Paul about 
 certain matters ; but may it not be possible that 
 in that contention Paul was as much in the wrong 
 as Barnabas ? Good men may easily differ and 
 often dispute warmly about the best method of 
 prosecuting God's work. 
 
 The original name of the gospel preacher who 
 was delegated from Jerusalem was Joses or 
 Joseph. As the brightest light is kindled on a 
 point that comes out of a bed of charcoal, so this 
 light-bearer of the gospel came out of one of the 
 darkest regions of debauchery and idolatry. He 
 was a native of the island of Cyprus. He was 
 of a Levitical descent, but his country was pro- 
 verbial for its licentiousness, and the name of 
 " Cyprian " is to this day applied to one who has 
 sinned away the purity of her womanhood. But 
 as the sun can attract heavenward pure particles » 
 
8 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 of moisture from a slimy pool, so God's grace 
 elevates many human souls from very filthy sur- 
 roundings. One of the earliest converts to the 
 gospel of Calvary was Joseph the Cyprian ; and 
 what a thorough out-and-out work was his con- 
 version ! In our times we discover conversions 
 of the head without a change of heart ; again, we 
 see both head and heart renovated without much 
 perceptible influence on the purse. But Joses 
 was the subject of a spiritual revolution that 
 reached to the bottom of his pocket. 
 
 Make way for him as the pioneer of the noble 
 army of generous givers for the gospel. He 
 may be called the father of Christian beneficence, 
 for he is the first one specifically named who, 
 "having land, sold it, and brought the money, 
 and laid it at the apostles' feet." The whole host 
 of Christian givers — the Thorntons, the Pea- 
 bodys, the Lenoxes, the Dodges, the Tappans, 
 the Stuarts, and the Baldwins — are all the suc- 
 cessors of this " son of consolation." In modern 
 days we do not often hear of Christians who sell 
 their real estate in order to fill Christ's treasury. 
 The reason why there are so many stingy pro- 
 fessors in our churches is that their hearts are 
 not warm enough to thaw out their purses. 
 
 With his new nature Joseph receives a new 
 
BARNABAS 9 
 
 name. He is christened " Barnabas," which in 
 our Authorized Version is translated a "son of 
 consolation." This would bespeak a fine char- 
 acter. " He who has consolation gives it, and he 
 that gives consolation has it." 
 
 This were an enviable cognomen for every 
 pastor and Sunday-school teacher, whose offices 
 are not only to instruct in the truth, but to visit 
 their flocks and to heal the broken-hearted. The 
 later Westminster revisers give to the name of 
 Barnabas the more literal meaning, " son of ex- 
 hortation," or of persuasion. This would describe 
 him very happily as a zealous and successful ex- 
 horter and preacher of the word. Being familiar 
 with his gifts and his graces, the mother church 
 at Jerusalem appointed him to "go as far as 
 Antioch." 
 
 On his arrival there he found himself in the 
 midst of what we now designate a " work of 
 grace." So visible and impressive was this 
 mighty work that Luke tells us that Barnabas 
 " saw the grace of God " — /. e., the manifest 
 effects of the Holy Spirit's power in the conver- 
 sion of heathen idolaters. This gladdened his 
 heart with an unselfish and inspiring joy. Noth- 
 ing quickens the hungry soul of a true minister 
 or Sabbath-school laborer like visible results. 
 
lo A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 The spiritual atmosphere is charged with a sort 
 of Divine electricity. It is a luxury to fish when 
 the gospel net incloses a great multitude of 
 fishes, yet he is not worthy of the name of 
 Christ's servant who is not wilHng to spend the 
 labor of a life to win even one precious soul from 
 the pains of hell. 
 
 Barnabas comes in no jealous or fault-finding 
 temper to criticise the labors of others; he re- 
 joiced in the rich results already achieved, and 
 "exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart 
 they would cleave unto the Lord." Some ancient 
 authorities read, "that they would cleave unto 
 the purpose of their heart in the Lord." He di- 
 rected them immediately to Christ, and bade 
 them cleave fast to Him. He taught those awak- 
 ened souls that faith was a transaction by which 
 they joined their own weakness unto Christ's 
 strength, their unworthiness to His merits, and 
 their guiltiness to His full, pardoning grace. The 
 atoning blood not only cleansed — it cemented. 
 This is the secret of the only religion that holds 
 out ; and it holds out because it liolds on to Him 
 who declares that " none shall be able to pluck 
 them out of My hand." 
 
 We always know what manner of spirit a man 
 is of when we ascertain what gladdens him the 
 
BARNABAS 1 1 
 
 most or what grieves him the most deeply. Bar- 
 nabas " was glad" to see these early fruits of the 
 gospel of the cross. " For he was a good man, 
 and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith." The 
 Bible is chary of personal eulogies, and leaves us 
 to form our estimate of men's character by their 
 conduct. I do not now recall any laudations of 
 Paul or Peter or the beloved John such as sur- 
 viving partiality often inscribes on the tombs of 
 the departed. But here is an encomium, uttered 
 by the Holy Spirit, that would outshine burnished 
 gold if it were carved on the monument of any 
 servant of God. Brethren, how sweetly might 
 you and I sleep in our last narrow bed if over our 
 dust the Divine hand could write, " A good man, 
 and full of the Holy Ghost." This description 
 does not imply miraculous inspiration ; it simply 
 describes what is attainable by the humblest 
 Christian here, for we are all commanded to be 
 filled with the Spirit. In proportion as we are 
 emptied of pride and self-seeking may we be 
 filled to the brim with the Divine indwelling — yes, 
 filled unto all the fullness of God. 
 
 The harvest soon becomes too great in Antioch 
 for any one man to gather, for " much people was 
 added unto the Lord." Please to mark this ex- 
 pression well. The narrative does not say that 
 
12 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 many people joined the church, but that many 
 people joined Christ. When a soul has joined it- 
 self to Jesus then union with His church is the 
 most natural step imaginable. Barnabas finds that 
 the gospel net is becoming so full that he requires 
 a partner to assist him in drawing it to land. He 
 has in his eye a new convert who is not very far 
 away — one who is in the prime of his powerful 
 manhood, and one who has a prodigious driving- 
 wheel in his mental machinery. Once before ^ 
 he had introduced this same extraordinary con- 
 vert to the leaders of the church in Jerusalem. 
 So he departs from Antioch to Tarsus to look 
 for Saul. When Sir Humphry Davy was asked 
 what was the greatest discovery he had ever made, 
 he replied, " It was young Michael Faraday." 
 To the quick eye of Barnabas was due the honor 
 of first recognizing the fiery vigor, the intrepid 
 couracfe. and the indomitable zeal of him who 
 was yet to be the very chiefest of the apostles. 
 
 Since Saul — who had not yet received the fa- 
 miliar name of Paul — had left Caesarea we have 
 lost track of him. He seems to have returned to 
 his native city of Tarsus in Cilicia. How long he 
 had been residing there, or what occupation he 
 was pursuing there, the inspired history does not 
 ^ Acts ix. 27. 
 
BARNABAS 13 
 
 inform us. He may have been intent upon his 
 sacred studies in preparation for his after-work, or 
 he may have been undergoing a portion of that 
 discipHne to which he refers in his subsequent 
 Epistle to the Corinthians. Quite Hkely it is that 
 he was not idle among his neighbors, for we are 
 informed afterwards that there were churches in 
 Cilicia, and he may have had a hand in planting 
 them. 
 
 I am incHned to think that Saul was not in 
 Tarsus when Barnabas reached there, because the 
 Greek word translated " seek " signifies a sharp 
 search, as though Barnabas had some trouble to 
 find him. When he did capture the prize he 
 " brought him unto Antioch " with the happy feel- 
 ing of one who has found great spoil. At once 
 they enter upon their work, Barnabas and Saul, in 
 holy and loving partnership, '' assembling them- 
 selves with the church" for worship and for work. 
 Their chief business was spiritual instruction in the 
 elementary truths of Christianity. Not with sen- 
 sational claptrap or curiosity-seeking devices did 
 they aim to attract popular attention. They 
 simply "taught" their auditors, but taught them 
 with such winsome skill and affectionate zeal that 
 they had "much people" to listen to them. 
 Literally translated, they had a "sufficient 
 
14 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 crowd." The word implies a miscellaneous con- 
 gregation of rich and poor, cultured and igno- 
 rant, from the various classes of society. No 
 splendid sanctuary gave them shelter ; no costly 
 music baited their aesthetic appetites ; no luxuri- 
 ous pews invited the rich while the poor were 
 kept standing at the gates ; none of the ecclesias- 
 tical pomps and pageantries of modern worship 
 had yet intruded into the sweet, primitive sim- 
 plicity of apostolic Christianity. Two anointed 
 preachers, filled with the heavenly unction, stood 
 up and proclaimed Christ crucified and Christ 
 risen from the dead. If any of the assembly 
 were troubled with difficulties, they asked ques- 
 tions and the two teachers answered them. 
 Psalms and spiritual songs were sung, fervent 
 prayers were offered, and alms were distributed to 
 the poor. On every first day of the week those 
 Antioch disciples gathered for an " agape," or 
 love feast, and with simple fragments of bread 
 and cups filled with the fruit of the vine they 
 commemorated the dying love of their blessed 
 Lord. From beginning to end their Sabbath ser- 
 vices, their week-day work, their preaching, their 
 prayers and their social fellowship, all tasted of 
 Christ. The aroma of Christ pervaded every- 
 thing. They knew nothing of theological systems 
 
BARNABAS 15 
 
 — they knew only one divine Person; they just 
 beheved, and preached, and loved, and lived out 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 With the new nature came a new name. Hith- 
 erto the followers of Jesus had been known as 
 His "disciples." Sometimes they were sneered 
 at as "Nazarenes" or " GaHLneans," but they 
 always spoke of each other as " the brethren " or 
 as "the saints" or as "the faithful in Christ 
 Jesus." A new word was coined at Antioch ; for 
 there, we are told, the disciples were first called 
 Christians. The coinage is not their own ; it was 
 a nickname invented by their enemies and flung 
 at them as a reproach. The Jews did not invent 
 it, for they would not admit that the crucified 
 Gahlaean had been the Christ, the anointed 
 Prophet of God. The word has a Roman ending, 
 and probably came from those who used the 
 Latin tongue. Just as the name of Puritan or of 
 Methodist was first bestowed in ridicule and after- 
 wards worn as a title of nobility, so the name 
 Christian was scornfully applied to the new sect 
 as a term of ignommy. As Farrar finely re- 
 marks, " An hybrid and insulting designation was 
 invented in the frivolous streets of Antioch, and 
 round it have clustered forever the deepest faith 
 and the purest glory of mankind." Scoffer of 
 
i6 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 Antioch, we thank thee for that word " Chris- 
 tian." The prophecies of the ancient seers, the 
 hght of Bethlehem's star, the precious power of 
 Calvary's blood, the dawn of the resurrection 
 morn, the devotion of the early martyrs, the 
 civilizations of the best peoples of the globe, the 
 mission schemes of all times, and the redemption 
 of the race — are all linked with that glorious 
 name. It is the enduring witness that our salva- 
 tion stands not in a system, but in a Person^ the 
 ineffable and almighty Christ Jesus. Whoever 
 V would be saved must be Christ's man. 
 
 Having narrated the signal services of Barna- 
 bas and Paul at Antioch, the chapter concludes 
 with an account of a visit made by certain 
 prophets, or inspired teachers, from Jerusalem. 
 They come to warn the church at Antioch that a 
 famine is approaching. The chief object of nar- 
 rating this prophecy would seem to be its beauti- 
 ful illustration of Christian beneficence. A relief 
 fund is raised by the Antioch brethren, and the 
 rule of giving was the golden rule for all right 
 giving to the end of time. Here it is : " Every 
 man gave according to his ability." The measure 
 of his purse was the measure of his charity, and 
 nobody robbed himself of the luxury of con- 
 
BARNABAS 
 
 17 
 
 tributing. When the Antioch rule is thoroughly 
 practiced by Christians in America there will be a 
 speedy end of raising money for the Lord's 
 treasury '* by hook and by crook " — a system 
 which often practices petty larceny and then 
 varnishes it with the sacred name of charity. 
 Promptly was the money raised and put into the 
 hands of Barnabas and Paul ; they, in turn, de- 
 livered it to the presbyters or elders of the 
 church at Jerusalem. This is the first time that 
 the New Testament mentions the important office 
 of " elder " — an office which was essential in the 
 Jewish Church, and has been and will be a per- 
 manent office in the church of Christ as long as 
 it endures. From the name of that office comes 
 our venerable and honored name of Presbyterians. 
 Having now walked round this goodly and 
 fruit-laden tree of Antioch, let us give it one 
 hearty shake, and the following truths will drop 
 like ripe apples into our laps : — 
 
 1. The devil always outwits himself when he 
 persecutes God's people. The blood of Stephen 
 the martyr was the seed of the churches of Syria. 
 
 2. The only preaching that ever saves a sinner 
 from hell is that which wrought such wonders at 
 Antioch ; it is simply and faithfully " preaching 
 the Lord Jesus." 
 
i8 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 3. Spiritual success is secured only when God 
 and man work together in partnership. If the 
 " hand of the Lord " is withheld, the hand of the 
 strongest man is paralyzed. 
 
 4. The only title worthy your ambition or mine 
 is this : " He was a good man, and full of the 
 Holy Ghost and of faith." It is a great thing 
 to have a church of men modeled after such a 
 pattern as Barnabas. 
 
 5. " Cleaving unto the Lord Jesus " is the true 
 secret of the higher life. When my weak, wicked 
 heart is grafted, by faith, into His bleeding heart, 
 then doth the blood of the Vine flow into the branch. 
 
 6. The only name that you or I can ever carry 
 in through the gate of heaven will be the name 
 
 l^' of Christian. If we are not willing to bear it as 
 
 a cross, we never can wear it as a crown. 
 
 7. The golden word that shines through the 
 whole passage we have studied is the word give. 
 The master-spirit of the Antioch church was a 
 bountiful giver ; he gave his real estate, and then 
 gave himself The first recorded act of that 
 church was that " every man gave according to 
 his ability." Never could there have been a 
 Christian in Antioch or a Christian here had not 
 God given His only begotten Son, and had not 
 that Son given His hfe a ransom for us all. 
 
II 
 
 BURDEN-BEARING 
 
II 
 
 BURDEN-BEARING 
 
 ♦* Every man shall bear his own burden." — Galatians vi. 5. 
 *' Bear ye one another's burdens." — Galatians vi. 2. 
 "Cast thy burden upon the Lord." — Psalm Iv. 22. 
 
 Here is a threefold cord that is not easily 
 broken. I trust that you will all grasp hold of 
 it and be lifted out of your cares and complain- 
 ings, out of your doubts and your despondencies. 
 While there is an apparent contradiction between 
 these three texts, there is not really the slightest 
 discordance. They blend beautifully together 
 hke the bass, the tenor, and the alto in some 
 sweet melody. God's truth has no discords. 
 Errors conflict with each other, but all truths run 
 parallel Hke railway tracks, that might belt the 
 globe and never come in conflict. 
 
 With this preliminary fact in mind, let us study 
 these passages. They treat of the bearing of 
 burdens. Can any topic be more thoroughly 
 practical ? For every human life — high or hum- 
 ble — has its loads ; and much of the comfort, the 
 
22 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 strength, and the joy of our lives depends upon 
 the way that these loads are dealt with. Which 
 of them ought to be carried, and which of them 
 none of us should attempt to carry, is a question 
 that ought to be examined. How to make our 
 own loads the lighter, and how to relieve other 
 people of their burdens, is another question to be 
 carefully considered. Upon these questions a vast 
 deal of heavenly light streams in through the 
 triple windows now opened before us. 
 
 I. The first of the texts to be looked at is this : 
 " Every man shall bear his own burden." We 
 are too apt to regard burden-bearing as some- 
 thing menial or degrading. But this is a great 
 mistake. God has so ordered it that no station 
 in life is exempt from its inevitable loads. Many 
 years ago, during the days of the " old dispensa- 
 tion," I was visiting a hospitable planter on the 
 Savannah River. He took me out to see a com- 
 pany of his negro slaves, who were carrying bags 
 of rice on their heads to freight a vessel which 
 was moored at the riverside. They were carry- 
 ing their burdens, and cheering their task by 
 chanting a wild negro melody. After he returned 
 to his mansion, the planter said to me, " It is a 
 tremendous responsibility to be the owner of a 
 hundred human beings." There was his burden. 
 
BURDEN-BEARING 23 
 
 Perhaps some of you merchants envy your book- 
 keepers or your porters who have only to carry 
 on their tale of labor, and to receive their wages. 
 They, in turn, may often say, "What an easy 
 time our employer has ! He performs no drudg- 
 ery; he sits in his countingroom, signs checks, 
 and then rides home to his fine house in his car- 
 riage." Yet on your busy and often overworked 
 brain depends the continuance of their salaries. 
 For so has God wedded capital and labor to- 
 gether, and what God hath joined, let no dema- 
 gogues tear asunder! 
 
 Some burdens are inseparably attached to us, 
 and deliverance from them were as impossible as 
 to exist without eating or sleeping. Every boy 
 at school must task himself with words of one 
 syllable at first, and so on, with advancing years, 
 must advance into more difficult lessons. If he 
 shoulders up the calf he will gain each year in- 
 creasing strength, until in time he can carry the 
 full-grown bullock. Every lot in life must answer 
 to the roll call of duty. There is no discharge in 
 that war ; and behind every horseman sits dark- 
 browed Care. Sorrow also is no respecter of 
 persons. It puts aching heads under royal 
 crowns, and aching hearts on beds of down and 
 couches of rosewood. Perhaps, during your 
 
24 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 summer outings you may have seen some pictur- 
 esque mansion reposing on its sunny lawns, and 
 surrounded with its wealth of foliage ; and you 
 have said to yourself, " Happy is the owner of 
 that house ; I wish it were mine." Ah, my friend, 
 the owner of that superb residence is only a man ; 
 and where man lives sin dwells and sorrow dwells 
 likewise. We pastors find out that none of our 
 flock build walls high enough to shut out dis- 
 ease, disaster, or death ; and there is never a 
 house without some "skeleton in a closet." 
 Every heart knoweth its own bitterness. As no 
 one can take your toothache into his face, so no 
 one can take your heartache into his bosom. 
 
 This text has manifold applications. As no 
 one can feel the twinge of my pain — bodily or 
 mental — so no one can do my work but myself 
 You may engage a dozen assistants for a busy 
 pastor, but all combined cannot lift off an ounce 
 of his responsibility ; the strain finally falls back 
 upon his nerves and his conscience. The bodily 
 infirmities that we all suffer, to a greater or less 
 degree, are often a heavy clog. My beloved 
 friend Spurgeon often hobbled in intense agony 
 to that pulpit which he flooded with sunshine. 
 Cheerful old Paul had his physical load to carry, 
 and he exclaims, " We that are in this tabernacle 
 
BURDEN-BEARING 25 
 
 [or tent] do groan, being burdened." With 
 what ? With a sense of guilt or dread of hell ? 
 No ; that load had been left where we may leave 
 ours, at the foot of Calvary's cross. But the 
 fleshly hut, in which Paul's imperial soul was 
 locked up, was scarred with the lash, and full of 
 aches and thorns in the flesh. Yet under this 
 burden of bodily pain, and of the " care of all the 
 churches," and of crosses that galled the shoul- 
 der, the grand old hero marched on to glory, 
 shouting. There is not a blood-bought heir of 
 heaven in this assembly who ought not to shout 
 as loud as he did. 
 
 A true Christian grows stronger by his loads. 
 Train up your boy on confectioneries, and never 
 lay fifty pounds weight on him, and the poor, 
 flabby little creature will be all pulp. Give him 
 stiff tasks to do and heavy loads to carry, and he 
 may have some chance of being yet a man. In 
 that way God deals with His children. He 
 knows that burdens will make them strong. So 
 He says to each of them : " Every one shall bear 
 his own burden. There is thy load, carry it; 
 there is thy place, fill it ; there is thy work, do it ; 
 and'as thy day, so shall thy strength be." The 
 route to heaven is not over a macadamized road 
 with easy grades. It has many a " hill difficulty," 
 
26 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 where the cHmber goeth from running to walk- 
 ing, and from walking to a tough clambering on 
 his hands and knees. Let us not murmur, nor 
 vainly ask for '' elevators " to hoist us ; for one, I 
 have lived long enough in this world to thank 
 God for difficulties. The grapple with them 
 sinews our graces and gives us spiritual force. In 
 God's school some hard lessons are to be 
 learned ; and there are no " elective studies." It 
 is very pleasant to work out problems in addition 
 and in multipHcation ; but when our Master puts 
 us into a painful problem of subtraction — when 
 the income is cut off, or the crib is emptied, or 
 the staff is broken — then we cry out, " O God, 
 let this cup pass from me." It requires great 
 grace to be able then to say, " Nevertheless, 
 Father; not as I will, but as Thou wilt!" For 
 the hardest lesson of all in this world is — to let 
 God have His way. 
 
 The Master's command to His disciples has 
 evermore been, " Go work in My vineyard." 
 This is not merely for the crop to be raised there, 
 but for the invigoration of our spiritual sinews 
 and to utilize our powers. A work for every 
 man, and every man to his work, is the law of 
 honest discipleship. There is another Hke unto 
 it, " Take up thy cross, and follow Me." Why ? 
 
BURDEN-BEARING 27 
 
 Because we are yet in a sin-cursed world, and the 
 word sin and the word cross are twin brothers. 
 Where sin is there must be an attendant cross — 
 whether it be my own sin to plague me, or that 
 of others to try my patience or to arouse my 
 efforts to save them. There is no house room for 
 crosses in heaven; and simply because sin has 
 never entered those pearly portals. Here, in this 
 world of sharp antagonisms, th-e crucial test is, 
 " Whosoever doth not take up his cross, and 
 follow Me, cannot be My disciple," 
 
 Now, these are ultimate facts, verified by every 
 Christian's experience. The Captain of our sal- 
 vation has ordered that each one of us shall en- 
 dure hardness as good soldiers — that every one 
 must shoulder his own weapons and bear his own 
 brunt in the bivouac and the battle. And all this 
 regimen is indispensable to the growth of the 
 soul in spiritual force, and to the development of 
 the grandest thing this side of heaven, and that 
 is — pure, vigorous and Christlikc cJiaractcr. It is 
 not to their credit, nor for the honor of their 
 Master that some Christians seek to hide their 
 own indolence or unbelief under that other in- 
 junction, "Cast thy burden upon the Lord." 
 Every text in this book hath its own place and its 
 own purpose. No truth overlaps or obscures or 
 
28 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 contradicts another. There are certain burdens 
 that no fellow-creature can carry for us, and that 
 our Lord and Saviour never offers to carry. His 
 imperative command is, " Every man shall bear 
 his own burden " ; and the object of this is that 
 he may become strojig in the Lord. 
 
 II. After this brief study of the first text, let us 
 now look at the second, which does not contra- 
 dict, but rather confirms it. ** Bear ye one an- 
 other's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." 
 We have just seen how the carrying of certain 
 loads gives us strength. But there are other 
 loads which we can help our fellow-pilgrims to 
 carry, and the object of that service is to teach us 
 sympathy. Happily we have the motive for this 
 brotherly service given in the text itself We are 
 thus to "fulfill the law of Christ." That law is 
 love. Yes, Jesus Christ Himself is love. He so 
 loved us that He bore our sins in His own body 
 on the tree. He so loved the wandering sheep 
 that He descended from the skies to seek for and 
 to save the silly truant that was entangled in the 
 thickets or foundering in the mire. And when 
 He lays it on His shoulders — the clean bearing 
 the unclean, the Holy bearing the unholy — He 
 brings it back to the fold, "rejoicing." He is 
 glad for the sake of the restored sheep, but still 
 
BURDEN-BEARING 29 
 
 more for His own sake — love has its own ecstasy 
 of reward. You will remember how our hearts 
 were thrilled when Mr. Sankey first sang for us 
 that exquisite paraphrase of the parable : — 
 
 " There were ninety-and-nine that safely lay 
 
 In the shelter of the fold, 
 But one was out on the hills away, 
 
 Far off from the gates of gold — 
 Away on the mountains wild and bare, 
 
 Away from the tender Shepherd's care. 
 
 *♦ But none of the ransomed ever knew 
 
 How deep were the waters cross' d ; 
 Nor how dark was the night that the Lord pass'd thro' 
 
 Ere He found His sheep that was lost. 
 Out in the desert He heard its cry — 
 
 Sick and helpless, and ready to die. 
 
 " But all thro' the mountains, thunder-riven. 
 
 And up from the rocky steep, 
 There arose a glad cry to the gate of heaven, 
 
 * Rejoice ! I have found My sheep !' 
 And the angels echoed around the throne, 
 
 ' Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own !' " 
 
 Brings back His own ! redeemed by His own 
 precious blood for the joy set before Him! If 
 you and I, fellow-sinners, are ever landed safe 
 among the ringing trumpets and the sounding 
 harps in glory, it will be entirely because that 
 loving Shepherd has brought back His own. 
 
30 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 As Jesus Christ came to the rescue of the per- 
 ishing, so He bids us hasten to the reHef of the 
 overloaded and the recovery of the fallen. This 
 is His law of love. Yonder, for example, is a 
 poor wretch who is reeling down to perdition 
 under the weight of his own folly and sin. Sharp- 
 eyed Selfishness says : " Good enough for him ; 
 why was he such a fool as to drink ?" Jesus says : 
 " Go pull out of the fire that man for whom I 
 have died !" That is sympathy in action. When 
 the Good Samaritan found the bleeding Jew by 
 the wayside, he did not insult the sufferer with 
 the taunt, " You ought to have known better 
 than to travel by this dangerous road alone." 
 He takes up the burden of the wounded body, 
 and, when he reaches the inn, he slips the shilling 
 into the keeper's hands, and delicately whispers, 
 " If thou spendest more, when I come back again, 
 I will repay thee." There spake the prince of 
 gentlemen ; for true politeness is kindness of heart 
 kindly expressed. 
 
 The law of Christian sympathy works in two 
 directions : either it helps our fellow-creatures to 
 get rid of their burdens entirely, or, if failing in 
 that, it helps them to carry the load more lightly. 
 Yonder is a poor widow with more children than 
 she can feed and clothe. Take one of those lads 
 
BURDEN-BEARING 31 
 
 into your shop or warehouse, and let that widow's 
 thanks sweeten your cup and soften your pillow. 
 A youth comes to you from the country, friend- 
 less and seeking employment. Just as on a rail- 
 way one inch at the switch determines whether 
 the train shall move on its straight track or be 
 shunted over an embankment, so a single sym- 
 pathetic act of helpfulness to that youth may 
 decide his whole future for weal or woe. The 
 Lord makes some of His servants rich, or strong, 
 or kind, in order to be His switch-tenders. Here 
 are you, worshiping in a well-manned and affluent 
 church. Yonder is a feeble church struggling for 
 existence. Divide your forces with them, and 
 make both churches the richer; one by what it 
 gives, and the other by what it gets. 
 
 As I have said already, there is one sense in 
 which sorrow can be borne only by the sufferer 
 himself; there is another in which that sorrow 
 can be lightened by your tender sympathy. Bear 
 ye one another's burdens. Sometimes a small lift 
 is very timely. A single kind word, a little oil of 
 sympathy on a sore spot, a message of condo- 
 lence when crape hangs at the doorbell, a gift in 
 the hour of need, an approving smile, all such 
 things do help a fellow-creature most wonder- 
 fully. It is to the reproach of us all that we do 
 
32 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 not oftener act the Good Samaritan in little 
 things. 
 
 Some of you may recall that beautiful incident 
 narrated by our noble American missionary to 
 the Orient, Miss Fidelia Fiske. She tells us that 
 on a warm Sabbath afternoon she was seated on 
 the earthen floor of her mission-chapel and feel- 
 ing utterly exhausted. " Just then, as God would 
 order it, a Syrian woman came and seated herself 
 right behind me, so that I could lean on her, and 
 she invited me to do so. I declined, but she drew 
 me back and said, ' If you love me, lean hard.' 
 Very refreshing was that support. Then came 
 the Master's own voice, ' If you love me, lean 
 Jiard' ; and I leaned on Him too, for He had 
 preached to me through that poor woman. I was 
 rested before the service was over ; then I spent 
 an hour with the woman and, after sunset, rode 
 six miles to my own home. I wondered that I 
 was not weary that night, and I have rested ever 
 since on those sweet words." They belonged to 
 the choicest vocabulary of love. Many a mother 
 has had the same thought as she pressed her 
 infant to her bosom. More than one true-hearted 
 husband, as he lifted from the couch the pre- 
 cious burden — which he sadly found was growing 
 lighter every day — has whispered into eager ears, 
 
BURDEN-BEARING 33 
 
 •' My darling, if you love me, lean hard." Love 
 likes to feel the weight of trust. 
 
 This beautiful " law of Christ " was the germi- 
 nal principle from which sprang the primitive 
 Christian Church. The power from on high 
 which descended at Pentecost was essentially a 
 love-power. Those unselfish men and women, 
 who went forth from that upper room in Jerusa- 
 lem, were burden-lifters in the name and in the 
 strength of Him who had just borne the burden 
 of human guilt in His bleeding body on the 
 cross. The only genuine successors of the 
 apostles have been the load-lifters. Their creed 
 and watchword have always been, " Unto Him 
 that loved us and loosed us from our sins by His 
 blood ; to Him be the glory and the dominion for 
 ever and ever !" Every stream of Christian sym- 
 pathy that has gladdened human hearts came 
 from this Divine fount-head in the heart of Jesus. 
 All labors to Hghten the overload of human 
 guilt and misery and want — the enlightenment of 
 the ignorant, the rightening of the wronged, the 
 deliverance of the oppressed, the visitation of the 
 sick, and comforting of the bereaved, the gospel- 
 ing of the heathen and the whole magnificent 
 enterprise of missions; all these are the precious 
 product of this principle, " Bear ye one another's 
 
 3 
 
34 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christy The 
 most successful missionaries and ministers are 
 those who come closest to human hearts. The 
 secret of power with General Booth and his " Sal- 
 vationists " is their personal sympathy with the 
 wretched and the wrecked. When the members 
 of our churches become " sons of consolation " in 
 the broadest sense of the word — bestowing not 
 only their dollars but their time, their presence, 
 and their heart-beats upon the unchristianized 
 masses, we shall have a primitive and pentecostal 
 revival. Pulpits speak only for an hour or two 
 each week, and then only to those who occupy 
 the pews before them; it is only by sermons in 
 shoes that the suffering and the sinning can be 
 reached. The need of the time is not for more 
 geniuses in the pulpit, but for more personal con- 
 secration among Christians to this "law of 
 Christ." 
 
 III. Let us push on now to the third and last 
 of this beautiful triplet of texts. The first one 
 taught self-help : " Every man shall bear his own 
 burden." The object of it is to give us spiritual 
 strength. The second text teaches brotherly 
 help : " Bear ye one another's burdens." The 
 object of it is to inspire sympathy. Of these three 
 texts the third is the Kohinoor jewel ; for it leads 
 
BURDEN-BEARING 35 
 
 us up to the Divine help : " Cast thy burden upon 
 the Lord." 
 
 This passage has suffered at the hands of some 
 mystics, who have volatiHzed it into a very thin 
 and vaporous meaning. The Hebrew word trans- 
 lated " burden," really signifies that which is 
 given to us, or that which is appointed to every 
 man to bear. We must, therefore, understand the 
 Psalmist to say — whatever thy God lays upon 
 thee, thou must lay it upon the Lord. He has 
 cast thy lot for thee. Then cast thy lot upon 
 Him. 
 
 But can this text be reconciled with the two 
 others ? Yes ; quite easily. We are commanded 
 to bear our own burdens, and this requires 
 the resolute performance of our own duties. 
 God will not release us from duty; but He 
 will sustain us in the doing of it. The load 
 which is laid upon us will not crush us ; for He 
 will give us strength equal to our day. If other 
 people wonder why and how we march along 
 under the load without breaking down, our only 
 answer is : " We put this load upon the strength 
 which God put into us. His grace was sufficient 
 to enable us to bear the burden." God's wonder- 
 ful and gracious offer is to lighten our loads by 
 putting Himself, as it were, into our souls, and 
 
36 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 underneath the loads. This is a supernatural 
 process ; and the whole walk of faith through 
 hfe is the simple but subHme reliance upon an al- 
 mighty arm that is never seen but always felt. 
 This accounts for the fact that the word ** trust " 
 is the key word of Old-Testament theology, and 
 the word " beheve " is the key word in the New 
 Testament. They both mean substantially the 
 same thing. And when our heavenly Father 
 saith, " Cast thy burden upon Me," and our loving 
 Redeemer saith, " Cast the load of thy sins upon 
 Me," they expect us to take them at their word. 
 
 There is a universal and perpetual need for this 
 tonic text. 
 
 On every side we meet overloaded people, and 
 each one thinks his burden is the biggest. One 
 is worried about his health, and another about his 
 diminished income, and another about her sick 
 child, and another about her children yet uncon- 
 verted ; and so each man or woman that has a 
 worry of some sort goes staggering along under 
 it. In the meantime a loving and omnipotent 
 Father says to every one of them : " Cast thy 
 burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee." 
 As if this one offer were not enough, the Holy 
 Spirit repeats it again in the New Testament: 
 " Casting all your anxktics upon Him, for He 
 
BURDEN-BEARING 37 
 
 careth for you." This is the more accurate ren- 
 dering in the Revised Version ; because the word 
 " care " does not signify here wise forethought for 
 the future, but that soul-harassing thing called 
 " worry." The reason given for rolling our wor- 
 ries over upon God is very tender and touching. 
 " He careth for you " means that He takes an 
 interest in you — He has you on His heart! 
 Beautiful and wonderful thought ! It is the same 
 idea which the Psalmist had in his mind when he 
 declares that the Lord telleth the number of the 
 stars, and yet He healeth the broken in heart and 
 bindeth up their wounds. 
 
 He is the one who says, " My child, don't carry 
 that burden." The infinite Ruler of the universe, 
 who is wise in counsel and wonderful in working ; 
 the God who guarded the infant Moses in his 
 basket of rushes ; who sent His messenger birds 
 to Elijah by the brook Cherith ; who quieted 
 Daniel among the ravenous beasts and calmed 
 Paul in the raging tempest — He it is who says to 
 us, *' Roll your anxieties over on Me, for I have 
 you on My heart." Yet how many of us there 
 are who hug our troubles and say to God, " No, 
 we will not let anybody carry these troubles but 
 ourselves." What fools we are ! Just imagine a 
 weary, foot-sore traveler tugging along with his 
 
38 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 pack on a hot July day. A wagon comes up, and 
 the kind-hearted owner calls out : " Friend, you 
 look tired. Toss that pack into my wagon." But 
 the wayfarer, eyeing him suspiciously, mutters to 
 himself, " Perhaps he wants to steal it," or else 
 sullenly rephes, " I am obHged to you, sir, but I 
 can carry my own luggage." The folly of such 
 conduct is equal to that of the man who should 
 check his trunk through to Chicago and then 
 run into the baggage car every hour to see if his 
 trunk is safe. We do not hesitate to trust our 
 own valuable property to railway officials and ex- 
 pressmen, and we laugh at the folly of those who 
 refuse to do it ; would it not be well then for us 
 to *' check through " all our dearest interests as 
 well as our cares ? When we reach the door of 
 our Father's house we shall find that all our 
 treasures worth keeping are safe, and. that not one 
 of them has been lost by the way. 
 
 I cannot close this discourse without reminding 
 you that the mightiest burden that can ever weigh 
 down a human soul is Sin ! Everything else 
 seems light by comparison. Poverty, friendless- 
 ness, reproach, sickness, bereavement, all can be, 
 and have been, endured cheerfully; and the valley 
 of the death-shade has often rung with songs of 
 triumph. But who can stand up under that 
 
BURDEN-BEARING 39 
 
 weight that has crushed myriads into hell ? 
 Who can bear through life, and on up to the 
 judgment seat, an evil conscience and a guilty, 
 unpardoned soul? 
 
 Here comes in the sweetest and the sublimest 
 truth in all the realm of Divine revelation. Listen 
 to it, all ye sin-burdened ones ! If all the rest of 
 our Bible were torn away from us, we could find 
 enough to inspire our hope and to insure our 
 heaven in this one glorious verse, "All we like 
 sheep have gone astray; we have turned every 
 one to his own way ; and the Lord hath laid on 
 Him the iniquity of us all." Surely He hath 
 borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, and 
 with His stripes we are healed. Jesus, the Divine 
 Burden-bearer, is the sublime and ineffably lov- 
 able figure that I now present before you. All 
 the paths of the gospel lead to Calvary. Does 
 any one of you cry out, " Mine iniquities have 
 gone over my head, and as a heavy burden, they 
 are too heavy for me " ? Listen to that match- 
 less voice, " Come unto me, all you who are 
 weary and heavyladen, and I will give you rest." 
 
 Oh, I pray for some practical and lasting fruits 
 from these triple texts. I long to behold all of 
 you lifted by this threefold cord out of your griefs 
 and out of your guilt. Methinks I see some 
 
40 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 poor burdened heart pass out of yonder door 
 saying : — 
 
 " I lay my griefs on Jesus, 
 
 My burdens and my cares ; 
 He from the load releases, 
 He all my sorrows shares." 
 
 There is another whose load is the heaviest of 
 all ; for he came hither " condemned already " by 
 his conscious guilt. The Holy Spirit has opened 
 his eyes to behold the Lamb of God who taketh 
 away sin ; and he has opened his heart to the 
 Saviour. He will go homeward to-day singing 
 this new song : — 
 
 " I've laid my sins on Jesus, 
 
 The spotless Lamb of God, 
 He bears them all, and frees us 
 
 From the accursed load. 
 I've brought my guilt to Jesus, 
 
 To wash my crimson stains 
 White in His blood most precious 
 
 Till not a stain remains !" 
 
Ill 
 
 PIVOT BATTLES IN LIFE 
 
Ill 
 
 PIVOT BATTLES IN LIFE 
 
 *• And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the 
 Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man : for the Lord fought 
 for Israel." — Joshua x. 14. 
 
 With these words concludes the narrative of 
 that decisive battle which gave Canaan into the 
 hands of the children of Israel. There were 
 other conflicts, indeed, before this battle. There 
 were several after it — fierce conflicts and furious. 
 But on this battle of Gibeon the whole campaign 
 turned as on a pivot. Victory there proved to be 
 victory everywhere, until Israel's land of promise 
 became Israel's land of possession. 
 
 And so the civil and martial history of the 
 world has turned on a few decisive battles. Had 
 they resulted differently, the whole history of 
 mankind might have been changed. On the 
 field of Marathon, for example, Greece was saved 
 from the heel of Persian despotism. On the field 
 of Arbela Alexander conquered the Oriental 
 world. The question whether Britons or French- 
 
 43 
 
44 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 men should rule France was determined when 
 Joan of Arc, in her snow-white armor, rode her 
 coal-black steed up the heights of Orleans. The 
 battle of Marengo placed the iron crown on Na- 
 poleon's brow ; Waterloo swept it off, and sent 
 the desolator to the prison rock of St. Helena. 
 Our Revolutionary War lasted through eight 
 long weary years, and had its dark nights when 
 the patriot father would "put none but Ameri- 
 cans on guard " ; but the whole war turned on 
 the pivot of Saratoga. All these battles just 
 named w^ere decisive. They settled the fate of 
 empires or of dynasties. Had they resulted 
 differently the history of the world would have 
 had a very different reading. God so ordered it, 
 in His wise providence, that mighty results hung 
 on the issue of those encounters. Kingdoms, 
 systems, dynasties were balanced on the point of 
 a sword. 
 
 Now every man is a miniature nation, and 
 every human life has its one or more decisive 
 battles. They are like Joshua's conflict at 
 Gibeon. There is no day like those days, either 
 before or after them, in all that man's existence. 
 
 It is my purpose to discuss those moral con- 
 flicts on which depends the destiny of. souls for 
 time and for eternity. I cannot, of course, in one 
 
PIVOT BATTLES IN LIFE 45 
 
 brief sermon review all the conflicts of soul to 
 which each one may be exposed throughout a 
 lifetime. But I will try to indicate the principle 
 struggles of life — what they are, and how to 
 make these moral battle grounds scenes of glori- 
 ous victory. 
 
 And, at the outset, I would observe that every 
 effective influential life is marked with sharp and 
 severe struggles. There is but one way to avoid 
 these, and that is to sacrifice living to bare exist- 
 ence. Such a thing is possible. I can show you 
 human beings whose existence is as meaningless 
 and monotonous as that of an oyster. To sleep 
 through so many hours, to feed the body so 
 many times a day, to walk over a certain dreary 
 routine of uselessness, and at last to drop through 
 into an unnoticed grave and be buried forever, 
 makes up the sum of the only existence that 
 some immortal beings ever accomplish. But life 
 is quite a different matter. And the loftier, the 
 grander the life, the more eventful is it in conflicts. 
 All history teaches this. Every day's observa- 
 tion confirms it. Daniel, the conqueror of lions 
 in the den, and of imperial brutes in the Baby- 
 lonian palace; Ezra, the Jewish reformer, Paul, 
 the peerless, preacher of the cross, Augustine, 
 Knox, Luther, Palissy the Huguenot, Buiiyan, 
 
46 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 Clarkson, Payson — were they not all men of 
 strife and struggle ? They were type-men, model 
 men, not perfect, indeed, but earnestly pressing 
 toward the fullness of the stature of Jesus Christ. 
 And their entire careers turned on a few decisive 
 encounters. Had those critical conflicts of soul 
 resulted differently, it is not unlikely that we 
 should never have heard these now celebrated 
 names at all. There is an especial reason why 
 every strong impressive Hfe should be one of con- 
 flict. It is a necessity. For strong resolute wills 
 must encounter opposition, and make it too, just 
 as the impetuous locomotive meets more opposi- 
 tion from the air than the slow-creeping dray or 
 the tiny child's coach. Strong-willed, intellectual, 
 gifted men and women are more fiercely fought 
 for than inferior people. They are the prizes. 
 Virtue and vice contend for such precious posses- 
 sions. " The Lord hath need " of such ; and the 
 devil aims to make them his splendid spoil. 
 Every man's Hfe-march has its conflicts ; the more 
 conspicuous and influential the life, the more 
 memorable spots are its battlefields. 
 
 The conflict of life is threefold. That is, sin 
 presents itself in three modes; every soul has 
 three spiritual enemies to meet : The world, the 
 flesh, the devil. By the "world" we mean that 
 
PIVOT BATTLES IN LIFE 47 
 
 whole system of self-seeking, pride, and covetous- 
 ness that is so congenial to the human heart. 
 The " flesh " typifies sensual appetites. And the 
 devil is the author of doubt and unbelief, of soul- 
 enmity to God. These are the " triple alliance " 
 from the pit. Against one or all of these must 
 every soul do battle on its way to heaven. Be- 
 fore these powers of darkness so well trained and 
 so well equipped, so deadly in assault, and so flush 
 with arrogance, every one of you young men 
 may well call out to your will and your con- 
 science, as Wellington called out in the critical 
 moment behind Hougomont : " Here are the 
 enemy ! Up, guards, and at them I" 
 
 I. In offering you now some practical sugges- 
 tions for these moral warfares, let me remind you 
 that your first conflicts will probably be with 
 sensual temptations. It is not the fault but the 
 trial of youth that its blood is warm, its impulses 
 are ardent, and its physical appetites clamorous 
 for gratification. So far as these appetites are 
 natural you are not to blame for them. The sin 
 does not lie in possessing them, but in indulging 
 them. The appetite for strong drink when con- 
 trolled is as harmless as a caged tiger. The dan- 
 ger comes from uncaging the monster. While 
 young men have sensual appetites, and while 
 
48 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 thousands of abandoned people are incessantly 
 inflaming those appetites by the most enticing 
 and fascinating lures, there must be a warfare be- 
 tween the conscience and the passions. This is 
 inevitable. My friend, you cannot walk our 
 streets without running the gauntlet of ten thou- 
 sand decoys to ruin. All these lighted, decorated, 
 chandeliered, and tapestried saloons are so many 
 fortresses of the enemy. Their danger to you 
 lies in the temptible material in your own breast. 
 You may fling as many burning brands as you 
 choose into a snowbank ; there is no harm done. 
 But one spark is enough to send a powder maga- 
 zine into the air. Your peril is in direct proportion 
 to the strength of your appetites and the weakness 
 of your moral principle. A very weak tempta- 
 tion will send a weak conscience to perdition. It 
 requires more than a strong temptation to over- 
 throw a strong-souled man of God. But no 
 temptation is an overmatch for a soul steel clad in 
 celestial armor and sentineled by God's protect- 
 ing Spirit. 
 
 What allurements could be stronger than those 
 which Potiphar's wanton wife brought to bear 
 upon the youthful Joseph ? For remember that 
 he was just at an age when passion flames the 
 fiercest and beauty is most intoxicating to the 
 
PIVOT BATTLES IN LIFE 49 
 
 eye. Remember that he was an underling, and 
 completely in the power of his profligate mistress. 
 Remember, too, that the high road to wealth and 
 luxury lay through that mistress's guilty favor; 
 while she could doom him to insult and imprison- 
 ment if he thwarted her salacious lust. That was 
 the decisive battle in Joseph's career. It was his 
 pivot moment. Defeat then would have been 
 swift destruction. But after he had once spurned 
 the jeweled duchess of a court, it was easy to 
 spurn the filthy drab from the kennel. It was 
 easy to keep his integrity in a prison when he 
 had already kept it in a palace. If you, my 
 friend, would make your battles with appetite as 
 successfully decisive as Joseph did, imitate his 
 example. Give the subtle enemy no quarter. 
 Set your faces Hke a flint. Do not yield an inch 
 if you would not be drawn a league. There is 
 but one sure way to escape the doom that lies in 
 the bottom of the wine cup, and that is to let the 
 cup alone. No matter who may proffer it — even 
 the sister of your childhood, or her who is dearer 
 than any sister can be. 
 
 As soon touch strychnine as that intoxicating 
 
 glass. There is also but one certain way to avoid 
 
 the gambler's infamy and ruin — don't touch a 
 
 card. Stick to this resolution and the battle is 
 
 4 
 
50 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 won. Would you preserve yourself chaste (and 
 God commands men to be pure as much as He 
 does women or angels) ? Would you keep chaste 
 in a city whose very air is tainted with pollution ? 
 Shut your eyes and ears to every tempter. In 
 five minutes passion may kindle far enough to 
 consume the good resolutions of a lifetime ; and 
 when passion gets under way it is like the Rus- 
 sian's burning of Moscow, where a thousand 
 places are lighted at once. The question whether 
 you shall be a sot or a sober man ? whether you 
 shall be a companion of honest men or of game- 
 sters ? whether you shall be clean-hearted or pos- 
 sess an imagination that shall be but a hideous 
 brothel ? is often decided in a moment. Oh, 
 what a moral battlefield is this great city, where 
 on each successive night is waged a conflict more 
 momentous than ever roared on the streets of 
 Montebello or raged about the heights of Sol- 
 ferino ! When the moonlight flings its silver 
 spell over quiet streets, and leafy parks, and glit- 
 tering spires ; when the cheek of innocence 
 presses its pillow, and the weary are at rest, the 
 eye of God beholds in ten thousand hearts the 
 most terrible combats between conscience and the 
 tempter, between the legions of lust and the little 
 Spartan band of virtue, temperance, and purity. 
 
PIVOT BATTLES IN LIFE 51 
 
 What struggles docs that all-sccing eye look 
 down upon ! What victories ! What defeats and 
 incipient damnations ! Where no father is by to 
 give aid, how many a son is struck down ! 
 Where no dear mother's voice can be heard in 
 warning or in entreaty, how many a darling child 
 of affection is stabbed through the soul by 
 Satan's midnight assassins ! Said we not rightly 
 that these are decisive conflicts ? For in the 
 great day of judgment it will often appear that a 
 single hour on earth did determine the destiny of 
 the man for heaven or hell to all eternity. 
 
 II. But there are other battles beside those 
 with sensuality. The " world " is as dangerous 
 an enemy as the flesh. By the " world " we 
 mean the spirit of the world, the selfishness that 
 cares not for God, the covetousness that worships 
 mammon, the ambition that sacrifices every one 
 and everything on its own selfish altar, the god- 
 Jessness that knows no Bible but a ledger, no 
 heaven but a splendid mansion or a high office, 
 no law but policy, and fears no hell but poverty 
 or political defeat. I need not tell you that this 
 spirit is most destructive to religion and most 
 offensive to God. You know all that. No man 
 is so selfish as not to hate selfishness. The miser 
 pities the covetousness of other men. The world- 
 
52 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 ling sees how the world is ruining its devotees, 
 just as every drunkard sees that his comrades are 
 in danger of a drunkard's grave. There is no 
 spirit more absorbing, more insinuating, more de- 
 ceptive, more soul hardening than this very spirit 
 of worldliness in its manifold developments. 
 You must conquer it or it will enslave you. 
 
 Whenever this subtle monopolizing spirit comes 
 into antagonism with your conscience then you 
 are put to the test to prove " what manner of 
 man ye are of" In business, in public life, in 
 social life, in your innermost religious life, will 
 arise these decisive conflicts, often the most de- 
 cisive when you least expect it. At an unlooked 
 for moment you may be called to determine some 
 question on the issue of which depends your 
 peace of mind, your spiritual health, your Chris- 
 tian character. You will pass through ordeals 
 which will test exactly how much you are willing 
 to do and how much you are glad to suffer for 
 Jesus' sake. Duty will call you one way — a 
 thorny way. Self-interest will beckon you into 
 the opposite path — carpeted with velvet. That is 
 a decisive moment for you. A simple "yes" or 
 an emphatic " no " may cost you a fortune, may 
 cost you a troop of friends, may cost you political 
 promotion, may cost you your character, may cost 
 
PIVOT BATTLES IN LIFE 53 
 
 you your soul. How many a public man has had 
 his whole career decided by his course in some 
 trying emergency or on some one great question 
 of right ! He is led up into the mount of tempta- 
 tion where some gigantic iniquity bids him bow 
 down and worship it, and promises in return " all 
 the world and the glory thereof" From that 
 mount of trial he comes down a hero or a fool. 
 The die is cast If he has honored justice and 
 truth, then justice and truth will honor him ; if 
 not, his bones will be left bleaching on the road 
 to a promotion he can never reach. 
 
 That was a hard struggle for Nathaniel Ripley 
 Cobb, of Boston, when he decided to accumulate 
 no more than fifty thousand dollars during his 
 life, and to give all the surplus to the treasury of 
 the Lord. But after the noble resolution was 
 once taken, selfishness was a conquered lust in 
 that man's breast forever. He had come off more 
 than conqueror. How many a minister of Christ 
 has been charged upon and overcome by this ac- 
 cursed spirit of "worldly wisdom " ! He was put 
 to the decisive test, not in Nero's judgment-hall 
 or before Agrippa's tribunal ; not before a Popish 
 inquisitor or in sight of Smithfield's fires of mar- 
 tyrdom. But in his quiet study, when some timid 
 friend counseled a treacherous silence in his pulpit 
 
54 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 on some vital question of right, his " yes " or his 
 "no" has either called from his Master the pre- 
 cious benediction, " Well done, thou good and 
 faithful servant," or else the fearful anathema, " Ye 
 were ashamed of Me and of My truth, and of thee 
 will I be ashamed before My Father and His holy 
 angels !" We all have our moral Marengos and 
 our Waterloos, where we win or lose the crown 
 of Christian character. When these decisive con- 
 flicts come on between your conscience on the 
 one hand, and some selfish scheme or satanic 
 iniquity on the other, then try to remember a 
 few simple rules of moral war: — 
 
 1. Never change your position in sight of an 
 enemy. This was a fatal policy to the allies at 
 Austerlitz. It has cost many a disgraceful defeat 
 in spiritual warfare. 
 
 2. Never place on guard a doubtful or a ques- 
 tionable principle. Your sentinel will be sure 
 to betray you. 
 
 3. Never abandon the high ground of right for 
 the lowlands of expediency. Before you are 
 aware you will be swamped in the bottomless 
 morass of ruin. 
 
 4. Get your moral armor from God's word, and 
 " put on the whole armor." An exposed spot in 
 character may admit the fatal weapon of the foe. 
 
PIVOT BATTLES IN LIFE 55 
 
 Ahab was wounded through the joints of his 
 harness. Do not mind blows in the face. Heroes 
 are wounded in the face, cowards in the back. 
 
 5. But whether wounded by foes or deserted 
 by friends, never surrender. It is said that not 
 one of the old Imperial Guard survived the wreck 
 of Waterloo. Toward the sunset of that long 
 bloody day, when the surviving remnant of the 
 guards was summoned to lay down their arms, 
 the scarred veterans of fifty victorious fights cried 
 out: "The old guards can die, but they never 
 learned to surrender !" The glorious Captain of 
 our salvation could die for us, but He could not 
 desert us. Blessed is he who is found faithful. 
 He shall wear the crown of amaranth in the 
 paradise of God. 
 
 III. But we are driven on to our third and last 
 head — the conflict between faith and unbelief 
 This is the most momentous of all the struggles 
 in which your souls can be involved — faith, 
 evangelic faith on the one side and unbelief on 
 the other. By unbelief I mean something besides 
 ordinary skepticism. You are not skeptics. Not 
 many young men are infidels, especially if their 
 infancy has nestled against the heart-throb of a 
 pious mother, or if their childhood has been led 
 up through a Sabbath school. By "unbelief" I 
 
56 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 refer to the heart's rejection of Jesus Christ. 
 Here hes the real battle after all. The simple 
 issue is, Shall Christ have possession of the soul 
 or not ? That is the conflict. Faith is believing 
 in Christ and following after Christ. And he that 
 believeth on the Lord Jesus shall be saved. He 
 that believeth not shall be condemned. The ulti- 
 mate conflict with every one of you will be, Shall 
 Christ or Satan rule my heart ? 
 
 My friend, you may have gained decisive vic- 
 tories already over sensuality, over selfishness, 
 and over the truckhng cowardice of "worldly 
 wisdom." But the great encounter that decides 
 the life-campaign is between Christ and Christ's 
 enemy. What other conflict than this was in the 
 mind of Paul when he wrote that most plaintive 
 outcry in the seventh chapter to the Romans ? 
 Of what other battle did he sing the exultant 
 pean in those jubilant words : " I have fought a 
 good fight, ... I have kept the faith : henceforth 
 there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, 
 which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give 
 me at that day "? And bringing it right home to 
 yourself, I ask you, what was that struggle in 
 your own bosom when you trembled under God's 
 word, when your own nature fortified itself against 
 the blessed assaults of redeeming love, when your 
 
PIVOT BATTLES IN LIFE 57 
 
 aroused conscience cried out, " Lord ! what must 
 I do to be saved ?" Of all life's conflicts this, this 
 is the decisive one. It decides the destiny of the 
 deathless soul forever. And it can be decided 
 aright only by giving up your soul to Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Do that at once I beseech you. The Spirit of 
 God may now be striving with you. The Saviour 
 of sinners, with pierced hand, is holding open to 
 you the door of hope. It is a critical moment 
 with you, 
 
 " For there is a time we know not when, 
 A point we know not where, 
 That marks the destiny of men 
 To glory or despair." 
 
 Make this critical hour the hour of your soul's 
 salvation. And when, by the grace of God, you 
 have done that, you may say of the day of your 
 conversion, as was said of Joshua's victory at 
 Gibeon, " There w^as no day like that before it or 
 after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice 
 of a man." Thanks be unto Him who giveth us 
 the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
IV 
 THE LITTLE COAT 
 
IV 
 
 THE LITTLE COAT 
 
 *♦ His mother made him a little coat, and brought it to him 
 from year to year." — I. Sam. ii. 19. 
 
 You may smile at this text. Well, it is but a 
 little text, about a little garment that turned to 
 dust many hundred years ago. We cannot al- 
 ways be discussing the great central and com- 
 manding themes, such as the Divine attributes, 
 redemption, regeneration, immortality, and the 
 judgment to come. Life is largely made up of 
 small things, and the small things are often very 
 great in their influence upon character and des- 
 tiny. This little text about a lad's " wee " coat 
 has a connection with some of the most vital 
 concerns of life, and is suggestive of many im- 
 portant truths — especially for parents. 
 
 In a parent's eye there is no greater personage 
 in this world than a little child. As the least of 
 the planets floats nearest to the sun, so the baby 
 of the household gets the central place in the 
 home and the warm chimney corner in the heart. 
 
 61 
 
62 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 What a marvel of beauty — nothing short of a 
 miracle — is a first-born child ! With what a glow 
 of honest pride has many a young mother made 
 for her infant treasure the tiny garment in which 
 it was to be presented to the Lord, in the beauti- 
 ful rite of baptism ! And in many a home there 
 is carefully packed away — as above all price — the 
 little white dress in which was baptized the dar- 
 Hng one whom Jesus took home long ago. 
 
 There is a sweet touch of nature in the passage 
 which I have chosen to-day. Away back in 
 those distant lands and ages there was a young 
 wife, whom the Lord remembered and to whom 
 He gave a son. How overflowing was her joy ! 
 (For Hannah was not like some heartless women 
 of our day who regard children as a burden and a 
 nuisance, and would rather risk child-murder 
 than become mothers.) The grateful soul of 
 Hannah broke forth in thanksgiving : " For this 
 child I prayed ; and the Lord hath given me my 
 petition which I asked of Him. Therefore also I 
 have lent him to the Lord ; as long as he liveth 
 he shall be lent to the Lord." 
 
 As soon as the infant Samuel was weaned, 
 Hannah goes up to Shiloh, the sacred city, to 
 perform the vow which she had promised in the 
 days of her childless affliction. With a happy 
 
THE LITTLE COAT 63 
 
 heart she makes her pilgrimage to the shrine of 
 Jehovah — not only presenting her beloved boy to 
 the Lord but also offering several costly sacrifices. 
 God had remembered her sorrow and had made 
 her weep for joy. He had given her a son, and 
 she consecrates him to the service of the temple. 
 He could not have been more than three or four 
 years old when Hannah placed him under the 
 care of Eli the high priest, and he found his home 
 thenceforward in the dwelling place of the Most 
 High. 
 
 Moreover, his mother made him a little coat 
 (or tunic), and brought it to him from year to 
 year when she came up with Elkanah to offer 
 their annual sacrifice. What sort of a garment 
 could the little tunic have been ? Well, I can- 
 not satisfy your curiosity ; but we may well be- 
 lieve that so sensible a mother as Hannah did 
 not degrade her child into a doll, to be bedecked 
 with fooHsh fineries. It must have been a modest 
 and becoming garment which the godly mother 
 made each year for the appareling of her child. 
 I wish that I could say as much of the apparel 
 which thousands of Christian parents now load 
 upon the forms of their children ; as if God did 
 not make a child beautiful enough without the 
 aid of elaborate fineries and expensive uphol- 
 
64 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 sterings. I tell you that this overdressing of 
 the body strikes through into the mind and heart 
 — poisoning the mind with affectation and with 
 most unchildlike greed of admiration and vain- 
 glory. How can a check ever be put upon the 
 crop of fops and fashion-worshipers if children 
 are trained into fopperies and fooleries from 
 the nursery? How can a child be instructed 
 to frugality, humility, self-denial, or any sort of 
 spiritual-mindedness while its free young graces 
 are smothered under the artificial trappings of 
 pride and extravagance ? I entreat you, Chris- 
 tian parents, that if you lend your children to 
 the Lord, not to disfigure the sacred loan by 
 turning an immortal being into a doll. That wise 
 Hebrew mother made for her son such a garment 
 as became his station ; for Samuel was devoted to 
 the service of God, and not to the " lust of the 
 eye and the pride of life." 
 
 Going now more deeply into the spiritual sug- 
 gestions of our text, let me remind you that 
 clothing has a figurative signification in the word 
 of God. We are exhorted to be clothed with 
 humility, and to keep our garments unspotted 
 from the world. Christianity is hkened to a 
 vesture; and believers are commanded to "put 
 on Christ," so that they need not be found naked 
 
THE LITTLE COAT 65 
 
 or disfigured with the " filthy rags " of self-right- 
 eousness. As our dress is the part of us most 
 visible to everybody, so should our Christ-like- 
 ness be visible at first sight to all whom we meet. 
 This illustration of character by clothing extends 
 even into the heavenly world ; for we are told 
 that " whosoever overcometh shall be clothed in 
 white raiment," and the saints shall be attired in 
 robes that have been washed to spotless purity 
 in the blood of the atoning Lamb of God. 
 
 Nor is it a mere pulpit pun that the very word 
 " habit " is employed to signify both the dress of 
 the body and the moral tendency and disposition 
 of the mind. We parents clothe our children in 
 both senses of the word. We provide the rai- 
 ment for their bodies, and, in no small degree, 
 we provide the habits of their thought and con- 
 duct. We make for them coats that will last — 
 which no moth can eat nor time deface — coats 
 which they may never outgrow as long as life 
 endures. 
 
 Mothers, the Creator puts into your hands 
 an unclothed spirit as well as an unclothed 
 body. You make a garment for the one ; 
 and in many a home there is hardly a rest 
 for your busy needles through all the year. 
 But shall the mind— the immortal spirit— be left 
 S 
 
66 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 naked, or be compelled to pick up at random its 
 habits of thinking and acting ? This were impos- 
 sible. Our children will put on our ways and our 
 habits in spite of us. Our character streams into 
 our children, entering through their eyes and 
 ears and every faculty of observation. What 
 they see us do, they will do ; what they hear 
 from us lodges in their memory, and, like seed 
 dropped from a parent stock, will come up in 
 their conduct, for good or evil. We are forming 
 their habits ; and, in the primary school of home, 
 we are educating them every hour. Upon their 
 plastic, susceptible minds we are printing con- 
 stantly the impressions which come out in char- 
 acter. No photographic plate is so sensitive to 
 the images which lodge upon it as are the recep- 
 tive minds of our children to whatever they are 
 seeing or hearing. The sagacious Dr. Bushnell 
 has happily said that "every sentiment which 
 looks into the little eyes looks back out of the 
 eyes, and plays in miniature on the countenance. 
 The tear that steals down a mother's cheek 
 gathers the little face into a responsive sadness. 
 A fright in the mother's face will frighten the 
 child. Our irritations irritate them ; our dissimu- 
 lations make them tricky and deceitful." 
 
 If a boy is handled harshly, is thumped or 
 
THE LITTLE COAT 6^ 
 
 jerked into obedience, he will probably turn out a 
 sulky, obstinate, and irritable creature — just what 
 our impetuous impatience made him. If malicious 
 gossip or scandal sour our talk at the table or 
 fireside, our children's "teeth will be set on 
 edge." Give your boy a dollar for the toyshop 
 or the place of amusement, and only a dime for 
 the Lord's contribution box, and you will teach 
 him that self-indulgence is ten times more impor- 
 tant than charity. If we live for the world, it is 
 very likely that our children may die of the 
 world. If we set our affections on things above, 
 and seek first the kingdom of God for ourselves 
 and for them, we may reasonably hope to win 
 them into the upward pathway we are treading. 
 And thus, my fellow-parents, are we making 
 " little coats " for the younger children, and the 
 larger coats for the older ones, all the while. 
 When they go away from home they will wear 
 the habits which we put upon them. We really 
 send ourselves to the boarding school or the 
 college in the bearing and breeding which our 
 sons and daughters carry thither. Our older 
 children are wearing now the coats of character 
 which we cut out for them ten or twenty years 
 ago. How do we Hke their dress? Is it after 
 the good Bible pattern ? Mr. A. used to think it 
 
68 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 a genteel and hospitable practice to set the de- 
 canter on his table ; and his sons learned to love 
 the wine too well. They have practiced on these 
 home lessons until their *' redness of eyes " and 
 thickness of tongue prove their too great famili- 
 arity with the bottle. How does he like the coat 
 they wear ? 
 
 Brother B. thought that, after all, the theater 
 was not so perilous a place as his pastor or other 
 Puritanic people had pictured it. So instead of 
 providing unexceptionable recreations for his chil- 
 dren he gave them carte blanche for the playhouse, 
 with all its lascivious attractions and salacious se- 
 ductions. Some of them have gone too often for 
 their purity of heart or peace of conscience. Can 
 he now pull off the " habit " which he permitted 
 or encouraged them to put on ? Mrs. C. insisted 
 that the assembly room was the best place to 
 acquire gracefulness of carriage and elegance of 
 deportment. Her daughters learned everything 
 that the ballroom teaches — even to that style 
 of dance that is " the last sigh of expiring mod- 
 esty." As she looks now upon their gay apparel 
 of fashion and frivolity, so different from the 
 "ornament of a meek and quiet spirit," her 
 motherly eyes are sometimes moistened at the 
 sight. 
 
THE LITTLE COAT 69 
 
 Here is a father who spends his Sabbath over 
 his cigar, his Sunday morning newspaper, and his 
 business letters. His sons put on the coat and 
 wear it to their soul's peril ; they are not likely 
 to lay it aside unless the grace of God shall open 
 their eyes to the solemn fact that to lose the 
 Sabbath is to lose the soul. In one family the 
 prevailing topic is " money — money " ; in another 
 dress and parade ; in another sporting ; in another 
 music and fine art ; in another the tone of daily 
 conversation is toward the best things worth 
 living for ; and the pattern which the parents set 
 the children copy. How will all these " habits " 
 of thought and conduct look when they are sub- 
 jected to the test of experience and the searching 
 light of the day of judgment? Ah, these mind- 
 garments, which beautify and adorn, or else dis- 
 figure and deprave, are very apt to last for a life- 
 time; they will be worn by our offspring long 
 after many of us have turned to dust. They will 
 be garments of light and loveliness, or else of 
 shame and sorrow. 
 
 Do not imagine, therefore, that the " little 
 coat " is worthy of only slight attention. The 
 sum of life is made up of little things. They 
 determine character and often decide destiny. 
 As the peasant's coarse frock and the monarch's 
 
^o A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 robe are both made up of many small threads 
 woven together, so is the garment of character 
 woven out of the innumerable thoughts and 
 words and deeds of each person's daily existence. 
 It is in the little things that Bible piety makes 
 itself most winsome ; and the mischief wrought 
 by inconsistent Christians arises from the indul- 
 gence of petty sins that are as destructive as 
 moths upon the garment. Dr. McLaren pithily 
 says that " white ants pick a carcass clean sooner 
 than a lion will." I fear that you and I are often 
 great sinners in little things. The little mean- 
 nesses of word and look, the irritations of tem- 
 per, the small duplicities of speech, the " white 
 lies " that are only whitewashed, the small af- 
 fronts and petty spites, the thoughtless neglect 
 of other people's welfare, and the paltry ex- 
 cuses by which we strive to excuse ourselves 
 from painful duty — all these make up an awful 
 aggregate of sin. A snowflake is a tiny thing, 
 that might melt in an infant's hand. But enough 
 of these may be heaped up by a blizzard on a 
 railway track to stall the most powerful engine 
 and its train. So is it the aggregate amount 
 of inconsistent acts and neglects of duty that 
 impair the influence of the individual Christian ; 
 they may accumulate into snow banks that block 
 
THE LITTLE COAT 71 
 
 up revivals and bring a whole church to a stand- 
 still. No sin is a trifle; no sin can be safely 
 allowed to get headway. " Let that worm alone 
 and it will kill your tree," was said once to a 
 gardener in a nobleman's park. Sure enough ; 
 the gardener neglected the little borer, and the 
 next year's yellow leaves showed the slow assas- 
 sination of the tree. 
 
 On the other hand, it is the sum total of daily 
 good deeds that make up the "beauty of holi- 
 ness." The richest crops of grace spring from 
 tiny seeds — especially when they have been 
 watered by prayer. 
 
 Let no one despise the day of small things. 
 The noblest Christian lives often have their origin 
 in some faithful word spoken in love, or in the 
 reading of a tract, or in some small occurrence, 
 or in a single resolution to break with some be- 
 setting sin. One sentence seems to have brought 
 the ardent Peter and the beloved John to their 
 decision of discipleship. One sentence converted 
 the jailer of Philippi. The outcome of those few 
 words has been felt in the spiritual histor}^ of 
 thousands of others since that day. Paul little 
 knew how many souls, in all time, he was ad- 
 dressing when he said to the frighten ec} jailer, 
 " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt 
 
72 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 be saved." In fact, nobody ever knows how 
 much good he is doing when he does just one 
 good thing. 
 
 A word of praise from his mother made Ben- 
 jamin West a painter and president of the Royal 
 Academy. A kind sentence or two of commen- 
 dation, bestowed in a short talk in a prayer 
 meeting, led me to enter the sacred ministry. 
 From that incident I learned never to underrate 
 the influence of a few words spoken at a critical 
 moment. 
 
 A godly wife told her husband that she " trem- 
 bled for him " ; and that single sentence spoken in 
 love sent him trembling to the cross. Dr. Pay- 
 son, of Portland, once asked a group of young 
 men to let him read to them a hymn ; and when 
 it was ended they were all in tears. The Divine 
 Spirit was in that tender voice. Harlan Page, 
 reared like his Master to the humble trade of a 
 carpenter, became a marvelously successful winner 
 of souls to Christ by uttering a few "words in 
 season " with an emphasis of love that penetrated 
 to the core. 
 
 That noble Boanerges of the western New 
 York pulpit. Dr. Wisner, of Ithaca, said that he 
 stopped, on a hot summer day, at a farmhouse 
 for a glass of water. The farmer's daughter 
 
THE LITTLE COAT 73 
 
 handed him the refreshing draught, and he re- 
 paid her by a kind, tender word about Jesus as 
 the water of Hfe. Several years afterwards a 
 middle-aged woman recognized him on the deck 
 of a steamboat, and thanked him for the few 
 plain, faithful words which led her to Christ. It 
 is a sin and a shame that we Christians let slip 
 so many opportunities to drop a word of truth 
 through an open ear into an open soul. Grant 
 that many a truth thus dropped has not sprouted ; 
 neither has every sermon preached been the 
 means of converting a soul. But the awakening 
 power of a discourse has often lain in a single 
 point pressed home. It is the tip of the arrow 
 that penetrates the "joints of the harness." 
 
 The great lesson in the saving of souls is never 
 to " despise the day of small things," never to 
 lose an opportunity, and never to underrate the 
 power of a single truth spoken in love. Revivals 
 in a church commonly start in one or two hearts. 
 The first revival in the little church in which 
 my own early ministry was spent began in the 
 heart of a little girl. Her few words awakened 
 one woman, and that woman came at once to me, 
 and proposed special meetings ; they were worth 
 more to me than any year in a theological semi- 
 nary. 
 
74 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 I might multiply these illustrations of the 
 greatness of the littles ; for nothing is small that 
 has God's Spirit in it and working through it. 
 In conclusion, I would impress once more upon 
 the hearts of all parents the prodigious impor- 
 tance of all those numberless words and deeds 
 by which they weave those garments of character 
 that shall be worn long after they are in their 
 silent sepulchers. No office is comparable to 
 that of parentage; no trust is so sacred as that 
 of an immortal spirit in the plastic period of 
 childhood. When the Creator lays a newborn 
 babe in the arms of its parents, He says to them, 
 " Take this child and nurse it for Me and I will 
 give thee thy wages." The answer of gratitude 
 and faith ought to be : O God, Thou hast put 
 Thy noblest work into our hands. We accept the 
 precious trust. We will shelter this young life 
 under Thy mercy seat. We will nurse this soul 
 in its infancy with the sincere milk of truth, that 
 in after years it may bear strong meat, for strong 
 service of God and righteousness. Help us to 
 order our own lives in harmony with Thee, so 
 that this young life may reflect Thine image in 
 reflecting ours ! 
 
 To such conscientious fidelity God offers the 
 only wages that can satisfy the claims of love. 
 
THE LITTLE COAT 75 
 
 He pays the heart's claim in the heart's own coin. 
 Faithful, painstaking, prayerful Hannah found her 
 rich reward in the sight of Samuel's after-career 
 as Israel's upright judge. Timothy's " little coat " 
 outlasted his mother Eunice. The mother of the 
 Wesleys was repaid for all her patient, loving 
 discipline when her sons reared the world-wide 
 tabernacle for Methodism. God never breaks 
 His covenant with those who fulfill their cove- 
 nants to Him. 
 
 Fathers, mothers, we are weaving the habits of 
 our children every hour! We do it, as clothes 
 are fashioned, stitch by stitch ; and most of all 
 by the unconscious influence of example. The 
 estate which we can bequeath to them may be 
 small. We may not all be able to afford them 
 the costly education of great schools or universi- 
 ties. But day by day we can be patiently weav- 
 ing for them that garment of godliness that, by 
 Divine grace, shall grow brighter and fairer until 
 they shall walk in shining apparel before the 
 throne of God. 
 
V 
 THE JOURNEY OF A DAY 
 
THE JOURNEY OF A DAY 
 
 "I pray Thee, send me good speed this day." — Genesis 
 xxiv, 12. 
 
 In those early patriarchal times God and His 
 people seemed to live very near together and to 
 hold very close personal intercourse. Their faith 
 was as simple as their style of living. Abraham 
 often conversed with God as one of our children 
 converses with father or mother, on terms of filial 
 and yet familiar affection. Eliezer, the steward 
 of Abraham, addresses Jehovah in the same 
 direct, though reverent manner. 
 
 The story from which our text is taken gives 
 us a charming picture of the pastoral life of the 
 Orient in those early times. Abraham sends 
 EHezer, the "eldest servant of his house," to 
 Mesopotamia on a search for a wife for his son 
 Isaac. Eliezer sets off with his caravan of 
 camels, and soon reaches the city of Nahor, near 
 which resides Bethuel, who was a kinsman of 
 Abraham. The caravan halts beside a well in 
 
 79 
 
8o A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 the vicinity of the town. With straightforward 
 directness Eliezer offers up this prayer : " O Lord 
 God of my master Abraham, I pray Thee, send 
 me good speed this day, and show kindness unto 
 my master Abraham. Behold, I stand here by the 
 well of water ; and the daughters of the men of 
 the city come out to draw water. And let it 
 come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, 
 Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may 
 drink ; and she shall say. Drink, and I will give 
 thy camels drink also : let the same be she that 
 Thou hast appointed for Thy servant Isaac ; and 
 thereby shall I know that Thou hast showed 
 kindness unto my master." The speedy appear- 
 ance of the beautiful Rebekah, with her pitcher 
 upon her shoulder, attested the answer which 
 Eliezer sought for his petition. 
 
 It is not my custom to use passages of Holy 
 Writ as mottoes for my discourses ; but I shall 
 do so on this occasion. My theme is The Journey 
 of a Day, and how, by God's blessing, to make 
 good speed upward and heavenward through 
 every hour. Life is frequently presented as a 
 journey or a pilgrimage; and John Bunyan was 
 only following the line of scriptural suggestion 
 when he conceived the plan of his immortal alle- 
 gory. The actual journey of human life is sub- 
 
THE JOURNEY OF A DAY 8i 
 
 divided into several stages. Of these a day is 
 the most visible and definite, for it is measured 
 by the motion of our globe on its axis. A 
 person of the average age (thirty years) sees 
 about eleven thousand days; a veteran of four 
 score sees about thirty thousand. In ordinary 
 phrase we apply the word " day " to those hours 
 of the twenty-four which are marked by sunlight. 
 The period we call " night " is the bivouac after 
 the march ; and the hours of sleep are the blank 
 leaves in the diary of life. 
 
 After a few hours of unconscious slumber the 
 rosy finger of the morning touches us as the Divine 
 Restorer touched the motionless form of Jairus' 
 daughter, and saith to us, Arise ! In an instant 
 the wheels of conscious activity are set in motion, 
 and we leap up from that temporary tomb, our 
 bed. Was yesterday a sick day? Sleep, like a 
 good doctor, may have made us well. Was yes- 
 terday a sad day ? Sleep has kindly soothed the 
 agitated nerves. Was it (like too many of its 
 predecessors) a lost day ? Then our merciful 
 Father puts us on a new probation, and gives us 
 a chance to save this newborn day for Him and 
 for His holy purposes of our existence. 
 
 Do we lose the morning either by oversleep 
 or indolence or aimlessness ? Then we ' com- 
 6 
 
82 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 monly lose the day. One hour of the morning 
 is worth two or three at the sunsetting. The 
 best hours for study, for invention, or for labor 
 are the first hours after mind and body have their 
 resurrection from the couch of slumber. Napo- 
 leon, who made time a great factor in all his suc- 
 cesses, seized the early dawn. The master of 
 modern fiction wrote nearly all his " Waverley " 
 romances while his guests were sleeping. The 
 numerous commentaries of good Albert Barnes 
 are monuments to early rising ; they attest how 
 much a man may accomplish who gets at his 
 work by five o'clock in the morning. To the 
 student, the artist, the merchant, the manual 
 laborer, the most useful hours are reached before 
 the sun climbs to the meridian. I am well aware 
 that a vast deal of traditional nonsense has come 
 down to us about the " midnight lamp." But 
 those who use the midnight lamp, for either 
 mental toil or sensual dissipations, are very apt 
 to burn their own lamp of life out the soonest. 
 Make it a rule, then, that he who would begin 
 the day aright must seize and save its earliest 
 hours. How often do we see some poor dilatory 
 fellow rushing in blundering haste through the 
 whole day in vain pursuit after the time he lost in 
 the morning ! 
 
THE JOURNEY OF A DAY 83 
 
 Every day should be commenced with God 
 and upon the knees. " In the morning will I 
 direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up," 
 said the man after God's own heart. He begins 
 the day unwisely who leaves his chamber without 
 a secret conference with his heavenly Friend. 
 The true Christian goes to his closet both for his 
 panoply and his " rations " for the day's march 
 and its inevitable conflicts. As the Oriental 
 traveler sets out for the sultry journey by loading 
 up his camel under the palm tree's shade, and by 
 filling his flagons from the cool fountain that 
 sparkles at its roots, so doth God's wayfarer draw 
 his fresh supplies from the unexhausted spring. 
 Morning is the golden time for devotion. The 
 mercies of the night provoke to thankfulness. 
 The buoyant heart, that is in love with God, 
 makes its earliest flight — like the lark — toward 
 the gates of heaven. Gratitude, faith, dependent 
 trust, all prompt to early interviews with Him, 
 who, never slumbering Himself, awaits on His 
 throne for our morning orisons. We all re- 
 member Bunyan's beautiful description of his 
 Pilgrim's lodging over night in the " Chamber of 
 Peace" which looked toward the sunrising, and 
 at daybreak he "awoke and sang." If stony 
 Egyptian " Memnon " made music when the first 
 
84 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 rays kindled on his flinty brow, a devout heart 
 should not be mute when God causes the out- 
 goings of his mornings to rejoice. 
 
 No pressure of business or household duties 
 should crowd out prayer. An eminent Chris- 
 tian merchant told me that it was his rule to 
 secure a good quiet half-hour in his chamber on 
 his knees and over his Bible before he met his 
 family; and then he went into his business — as 
 Moses came down from the mount — with his 
 face shining. Doctor Arnold, of Rugby, had a 
 favorite morning hymn, which opens with these 
 stirring lines : — 
 
 " Come, my soul, thou must be waking ; 
 Now is breaking 
 
 O'er the earth another day. 
 Come to Him who made this splendor ; 
 See thou render 
 
 All thy feeble powers can pay." 
 
 Closet devotions are the fit precursor to house- 
 hold worship. Family religion underlies the 
 commonweath and the church. No Christian 
 government, no healthy public conscience, no 
 Bible philanthropies, no wholesome church life 
 can exist without being rooted beneath the 
 hearthstone and the family altar. The glory and 
 defense of dear old Scotland are found in those 
 
THE JOURNEY OF A DAY 85 
 
 scenes of ingle-sidc worship which Burns has so 
 finely pictured : — 
 
 "From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, 
 That makes her loved at home, revered abroad." 
 
 No prelude to the day is so fitting, so impress- 
 ive, and so potent in its influence as the union 
 of household hearts round the throne of grace. 
 Family worship is a strong seam well stitched on 
 the border of the day, to keep it from raveling 
 out into indolence and irreligion. Wise is that 
 Christian parent who hems every morning with 
 the word of God and fervent prayer. 
 
 When the early devotions of the day are over, 
 then let us shoulder up its load cheerfully. The 
 happiness and the serenity of the whole day de- 
 pend very much upon a cheerful start. The man 
 who leaves his home with a scowl on his brow, 
 with a snap at his children, and a tart speech to 
 his wife, is not likely to be a very pleasant com- 
 panion for anyone, or to return home at night 
 less acid than a vinegar cruet. We never know 
 what the day may bring forth, or when we shall 
 leave our threshold for the last time, or hear the 
 last " good morning." Let us, therefore, set out 
 on the day's journey under the wing of God's 
 loving care, and committing our way unto Him. 
 
86 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 The steps of a good man are ordered by the 
 Lord. Eliezer described his happy and success- 
 ful day's journey by saying at its close, " I being 
 in the way, the Lord led me to the house of my 
 master's brethren." When you and I are in the 
 path of duty, and have sought the Divine direc- 
 tion, we may feel sure that the Lord always will 
 lead us likewise. 
 
 In order to make " good speed " in your day's 
 journey, do not go overloaded. I do not refer so 
 much to your undertaking too many things as to 
 your carrying too many cares. Honest work is 
 strengthening; but worry frets and fevers us. 
 The temptation to worry should be resisted as 
 a temptation of the devil ; to yield to it is a sin 
 against our own peace, and a reproach upon 
 our Christian character. The journey made by 
 any pedestrian is simply a succession of steps. 
 In accomplishing your day's work you have 
 simply to take one step at a time. To take that 
 step wisely is all that you need to think about. 
 If I am climbing a mountain, to look down may 
 make me dizzy ; to look too far up may make me 
 tired and discouraged. Take no anxious thought 
 for the morrow. Sufficient for the day — ^yes, and 
 for each hour in the day — is the toil or the trial 
 thereof. There is not a child of God in this 
 
THE JOURNEY OF A DAY 87 
 
 world who is strong enough to stand the strain 
 of to-day's duties and all the load of to-morrow's 
 anxieties piled upon the top of them. Paul him- 
 self would have broken down if he had attempted 
 the experiment. We have a perfect right to ask 
 our heavenly Father for strength equal to the 
 day ; but we have no right to ask Him for one 
 extra ounce of strength for anything beyond it. 
 When the morrow comes, grace will come with 
 it sufficient for its tasks or for its troubles. 
 
 ** Let me be strong in word and deed 
 Just for to-day ; 
 Lord ! for to-morrow and its need 
 I must not pray." 
 
 The journey of each day — yes, and of every 
 day until we reach the Father's house — is a walk 
 of faith. We are often perplexed, and in our 
 short-sighted ignorance we cry out : " Lord, how 
 can we know the way?" The answer comes 
 back to us : "I will lead the blind in paths that 
 they have not known ; I will make the darkness 
 light before them." When Eliezer humbly asked 
 God to guide him, he made " good speed " in- 
 deed ; he was directed to the very place and to 
 the very person that he was in quest of. His 
 master Abraham before him had made the jour- 
 
88 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 ney from the land of the Chaldees to the land of 
 Canaan entirely by faith ; for he " went out, not 
 knowing whither he went." He had no maps 
 and no itinerary; yet one thing he was sure of: 
 he knew that God was his guide, and that he was 
 heaven-bound. Every Christian should be a close 
 and attentive observer of providential leadings. 
 A conflict often arises between choosing our own 
 way — that "jumps with our own selfish inclina- 
 tion " — or walking in God's way. Lot chose his 
 own way, and it led him into Sodom. When he 
 obeyed God's directions they led him in safety to 
 Zoar. Jonah chose his own way, and it sent him 
 overboard into the raging sea; then he took 
 God's way, and it brought him to Nineveh on a 
 mission of mercy. 
 
 Whatever perplexities may arise as to the 
 meanings of the Divine providences, or however 
 fallible may be our own judgments, yet of one 
 thing we may feel perfectly sure: God has given 
 us a guidebook for every day's journey that is 
 both divinely inspired and perfectly infallible. 
 " This is the Book," as Coleridge said of it, " that 
 always finds us." There is not a difficult ques- 
 tion in ethics on which this heaven-lighted lamp 
 does not shed a clear light, and for every step in 
 life it has a precept and a principle. The Bible is 
 
THE JOURNEY OF A DAY 89 
 
 emphatically a book for everyday use; and the 
 healthy Christian runs his Christianity through 
 all the routine of his everyday experience. 
 Some people keep their religion, as they do their 
 umbrellas, for stormy weather ; they may think it 
 a convenient thing to have when their physician 
 pronounces a fatal verdict, or when death is at the 
 door. Others reserve their piety for the Sabbath 
 and the sanctuary, and on Monday fold it up and 
 lay it away with their Sunday clothes. But every 
 day of the week ought to be a " Lord's day," and 
 carry us twenty-four hours nearer heaven. A 
 healthy religion cannot be maintained simply by 
 Sundays, and psalms, and sacraments; it must 
 be fed both from the " upper springs " and the 
 " nether springs." Brethren, let us see to it that 
 the higher regions of our lives toward God are 
 not more plentifully watered than those lower 
 regions which embrace our conduct and our con- 
 nection with our fellow-creatures. The lowly 
 valleys in which we meet our families, our friends, 
 and our business associates ought to be just as 
 verdant and well-watered as those Sabbath eleva- 
 tions on which we " see no man save Jesus only." 
 In the journey of each day we cannot^ predict 
 what lies before us. We know not what the day 
 may bring forth — whether of joy or sorrow. This 
 
90 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 is well; for our joys are heightened when they 
 come as glad surprises, and to forecast our 
 sorrows would only increase our sufferings with- 
 out increasing our strength to bear them. Temp- 
 tations, however, owe much of their peril and of 
 their power to the fact that they commonly 
 spring upon us unawares. Satan is no more 
 likely to advertise the time and method of his 
 assaults in advance than a burglar is to send us 
 word that he will be trying the bolts of our front 
 doors at one o'clock to-morrow morning. *' I 
 say unto you all. Watch,'' is the command of our 
 Master. You may remember how, during the 
 Civil War, the Union forces, flushed with victory 
 and a false sense of security, were taking their 
 morning meal very leisurely at Cedar Creek. 
 Suddenly the Confederates pounced upon them 
 and scattered them into a rout — which was only 
 checked by the timely arrival of Sheridan after 
 his famous and romantic ride from Winchester. 
 We are all liable to have our Cedar Creeks ; and 
 the times in which we lay our armor off or relax 
 our vigilance, and over-estimate our own spiritual 
 strength, are the most disastrous in our life- 
 record. '' He that trusteth in his own heart is a 
 fool : but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be de- 
 livered." 
 
THE JOURNEY OF A DAY 91 
 
 There is no journey of life but has its clouded 
 days ; and there are some days in which our eyes 
 are so blinded with tears that we find it hard to 
 see our way or even read God's promises. Those 
 days that have a bright sunrise followed by 
 sudden thunderclaps and bursts of unlooked-for 
 sorrows are the ones that test certain of our 
 graces the most severely. Yet the law of spirit- 
 ual eyesight very closely resembles the law of 
 physical optics. When we come suddenly out 
 of the daylight into a room even moderately 
 darkened we can discern nothing, but the pupil 
 of our eye gradually enlarges until unseen ob- 
 jects become visible. Even so the pupil of the 
 eye of faith has the blessed faculty of enlarging 
 in dark hours of bereavement, so that we dis- 
 cover that our loving Father's hand is holding 
 the cup of trial, and by and by the gloom be- 
 comes luminous with glory. The fourteenth 
 chapter of John never falls with such music 
 upon our ears as when we catch its sweet strains 
 amid the pauses of some terrific storm. ** Let 
 not your heart be troubled : ye believe in God, 
 believe also in Me." " I will not leave you com- 
 fortless." 
 
 What are the happiest hours we spend in every 
 day ? I will venture to say that they are those 
 
92 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 which see us busy in doing good to others and in 
 serving our Master. A cup of cold water costs 
 only the trouble to get it ; its refreshing draught 
 may revive some fainting spirit. That is a bright 
 hour in which we lift up some poor fellow- 
 traveler and set him on his feet, A still brighter 
 one is that in which we lead him to the Saviour. 
 Harlan Page made it his rule never to talk to 
 anybody for ten minutes without trying to do 
 him or her some good. If all our hearts were 
 more highly charged with the Divine electricity, 
 we should flash out sparks of loving-kindness to 
 everyone with whom we come in contact. 
 
 I very much fear that most of you see but very 
 few days that are really full of joy in large meas- 
 ure, pressed down and running over; and whose 
 fault is it but your own ? One of the happiest 
 Christians that I know is happy on a small in- 
 come and in spite of some very sharp trials. 
 The secret of happiness is not the size of one's 
 purse, or the style of one's house, or the number 
 of one's butterfly friends ; the fountain of peace 
 and joy is in the heart. If you would only throw 
 open your heart's windows to the sunshine of 
 Christ's love, it would soon scatter the chilling 
 mists, and even turn tears into rainbows. Some 
 professed Christians pinch and starve themselves 
 
THE JOURNEY OF A DAY 93 
 
 into walking skeletons, and then try to excuse 
 themselves on the plea of ill-health or " constitu- 
 tional " ailments. The medicines they need are 
 from Christ's pharmacy. A large draught of 
 Bible taken every morning, a throwing open of 
 the heart's windows to the promises of the 
 Master, a few words of honest prayer, a deed or 
 two of kindness to the next person whom you 
 meet, will do more to brighten your countenance 
 and help your digestion than all the drugs of the 
 doctors. If you want to get your aches and 
 trials out of sight, hide them under your mercies. 
 Bear in mind, my friends, that your happiness 
 or your misery are very much of your own mak- 
 ing. You cannot create spiritual sunshine any 
 more than you can create the morning star ; but 
 you can put your soul where Christ is shining. 
 Begin every day with God. Keep a clean con- 
 science and a good stock of Bible promises 
 within reach. Keep a strong, robust faith that 
 can draw honey out of a rock and oil out of the 
 flinty rock. Never spend a day without trying to 
 do somebody good ; and then, keeping step with 
 your Master, march on toward home over any 
 road, however rough, and against any head winds 
 that blow. It will be all sunshine when we get 
 to heaven, and '* there is no night there !" 
 
94 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 As I close this discourse and look over this 
 assembly I cannot but observe how a day is a 
 type of human life. That little child nestling 
 beside its mother is now in the rosy dawn of its 
 existence. Yonder young men and maidens are 
 still in the morning — under skies flushed with 
 hope. These men of business and these mis- 
 tresses of households are in the busy noontide. 
 Many of you are far on in the afternoon ; and on 
 some of our heads the gray hairs bespeak the 
 approaching sundown. Be the journey long or 
 short, may God give you ** good speed " heaven- 
 ward, and enable every one of you to do a round 
 day's work for Him ! Marble and granite are 
 perishable monuments, and their inscriptions may 
 be seldom read. Carve yoicr names on human 
 hearts ; they alone are immortal ! Work while 
 the day lasts ; for " the night cometh !" Let it 
 come ! If Christ come with it, we can listen 
 calmly for the sunset gun. 
 
 "Just when Thou wilt, Oh, Master ! call, 
 Or at the noon or evening-fall, 
 Or in the dark or in the light, 
 Just when Thou wilt ; it shall be right. 
 
 Just when Thou wilt ; no choice for me, 
 Life is a trust to use for Thee ; 
 Death is the hushed and glorious tryst 
 With Thee, my King, my Saviour-Christ !" 
 
VI 
 
 JESUS ONLY 
 
VI 
 
 JESUS ONLY 
 " They saw no man, save Jesus only." — Matthew xvii. 8. 
 
 There has been much discussion over the 
 scene of our Lord's transfiguration ; but to my 
 mind it seems probable that it occurred upon one 
 of the southern spurs of Mount Hermon, north 
 of Caesarea PhiUppi. The outlook from such a 
 point would carry the eye from Lebanon, with its 
 diadems of glittering ice, southward to the silvery 
 mirror of Gennesareth. But it was not that vision 
 of natural beauty that the three disciples looked 
 at chiefly. They saw Jesus only. Two illustri- 
 ous prophets, Moses and Elijah, had just made 
 their miraculous appearance on the top of the 
 mount. But neither of these mighty men ap- 
 peared any longer to the disciples' view ; " they 
 saw no man, save Jesus onlyT These two words 
 are large enough to suggest many a sermon; let 
 us gather up some of their teachings to us to- 
 day. 
 
 7 97 
 
98 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 I. In these words we find a clew to the power 
 of the apostolic preaching. That majestic figure 
 on the mount became the central figure to the 
 eye and the heart of the apostles. One Person 
 occupied their thoughts ; one Person inspired all 
 their most efiective discourses. It was no such 
 combination of philosopher and philanthropist 
 as Renan has portrayed, or Theodore Parker 
 preached; it was the omnipotent and ineffable 
 Son of God. They saw in Him " God manifest 
 in the flesh " ; they saw in Him an infinite Re- 
 deemer, a Divine Model of Life, a constant In- 
 tercessor, a never-failing Friend. When Peter 
 delivered his first sermon at Pentecost, and when 
 John described his sublime visions on the isle of 
 Patmos, they directed all eyes to the Lamb of 
 God, who taketh away the sin of the world. 
 Paul gave utterance to the heart of the whole 
 apostolic brotherhood when he said, " I deter- 
 mined not to know anything among you, save 
 Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." Has not this 
 been the keynote to the best sermons of the 
 best preachers ever since ? Is not that the most 
 powerful sermon which is the most luminous 
 with Christ? Depend upon it, my fi-iends, that 
 the pulpit, the theological seminary, the Sabbath 
 school, and the printed volume which God owns 
 
JESUS ONLY 99 
 
 with the richest success are those which present 
 most prominently " no man, save Jesus only." 
 
 We open our New Testament and we discover 
 in its earliest pages a wonderful Child. It is a 
 childhood that savors not of this world ; it has a 
 celestial flavor about it. At the age of twelve the 
 Lad is astonishing the rabbis in the temple by 
 His questions and His modest, sagacious an- 
 swers. He opens the secret of His life when of 
 His wondering mother He inquires, " Wist ye 
 not that I must be about my Father's business ?" 
 Over the next eighteen years there hangs a thin 
 veil through which we rather dimly discern a 
 guileless young man toiling at the humble, honest 
 trade of a carpenter; the only record of it is that 
 He " increased in favor with God and man." The 
 greatest of our American Presidents found it to 
 his advantage that he was cradled on the hard 
 rocks of poverty, and was reared among the 
 "plain people," with whom he kept in constant 
 touch through his whole grand career. With an 
 infinite wisdom Jesus of Nazareth chose to be 
 born among the poor and never aimed to rise 
 beyond the poor. When, in after years, some of 
 the dignitaries of church or state offered Him 
 some attentions, He put on no airs and made no 
 sycophantic homage to them in return. He 
 
loo A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 knew that He was higher than the highest, yet 
 loved to stoop as low as the lowliest. When He 
 entered upon His public ministry and received 
 the ordinance of baptism, it was preceded by no 
 repentance of sin or regeneration by the Holy 
 Spirit. Neither of these experiences was need- 
 ful to a person who " did no sin, neither was guile 
 found in His mouth." 
 
 The three years of His marvelous ministry are 
 all condensed into the one simple, matchless line 
 — *' He went about doing goody Sorrow was the 
 appeal to which He always opened His ear; 
 suffering was the surest passport to His kind 
 attention ; sin He infinitely abhorred, but the 
 sinner He pitied and loved with an infinite com- 
 passion. His simple purpose was to create anew 
 our poor sin-cursed race, and to lift that race up 
 to God. As a teacher He had an unique origi- 
 nality : He spoke by authority, and not as the 
 scribes or the savants. Untaught Himself in any 
 academy or university like those of Athens, He 
 floods the world with a knowledge as much more 
 profound than the philosophy of Socrates or 
 Plato as the Atlantic is deeper than the wayside 
 pool. His telescope reaches into eternity ! Look 
 also at His works of love, which are really no 
 tasks to Him ; at His miracles of sight-restoring, 
 
JESUS ONLY loi 
 
 health-recovering and death-conquering, all of 
 which came as easy to Him as the lifting of His 
 finger and the opening of His lips! What 
 manner of man was this, that even the winds 
 and the sea obeyed Him? His life is power 
 personified ; it is benevolence on foot ; it is holi- 
 ness filling every spot He touches with the at- 
 mosphere of the celestial climes. 
 
 See, too, how, without hardening Himself 
 against sorrow. He takes the sorrows of others 
 into His own bosom. No little annoyances pro- 
 voke Him to petty displays of passion; no stu- 
 pendous agony shakes the constancy of the hand 
 that holds the bitter cup to His own lips. As a 
 lamb He goeth to the slaughter, and as a sheep 
 before its shearers is dumb, so He opens not His 
 mouth. He willingly consents to die the "just 
 for the unjust," when the latent power of His 
 right arm might have laid Pilate and his ruffian 
 crew in stiffened silence on the pavement of their 
 judgment hall. He is willing to die that a dy- 
 ing world of sinners might live ; *' and when He 
 hangs upon the cross a drooping flower of inno- 
 cence," and the earth shudders with horror at the 
 sight of such barbarities, a heathen soldier can- 
 not refuse the involuntary confession, " Truly 
 this was the Son of God." 
 
I02 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 Did such another being as this ever tread our 
 old sinning and sobbing world? Does history 
 — sacred or profane — record such a wonderful 
 career ? Search through all the annals of human 
 kind, in all lands and ages, and you will find no 
 man that answers to this description but one! 
 As the three disciples saw Him lifted o'er the 
 mount, His face shining as the sun and the rai- 
 ment of His character white as the light, so has 
 the world beheld Him ever since ; in all the uni- 
 verse there has been and there is but one such 
 personage; it is Jesus only! 
 
 I have come to preach this Jesus to you to- 
 day. Before me are many immortal souls who 
 have brought hither certain troubles and difficul- 
 ties, certain sorrows and spiritual wants. They 
 have come to inquire : Who will show me any 
 good ? who will help me ? Here, for instance, is 
 a person who is not quite satisfied with himself; 
 nay, he is thoroughly dissatisfied. If I should 
 bluntly tell him that he is a great sinner and 
 wicked enough to deserve an eternal condem- 
 nation, he might resent it and throw back the 
 retort, " I am as good as you, sir." But in his 
 secret heart he knows that he is far from what 
 he ought to be, and would frankly acknowledge, 
 " I don't pretend to be a religious man." He 
 
JESUS ONLY 103 
 
 admits that he is not prepared to die ; and some- 
 times the thought of dying in his present condi- 
 tion sends a shiver over him. To-day he is yet in 
 his sins, unforgiven and unconverted, with a tre- 
 mendous score running up against him on God's 
 record-book. " How shall I clear off that score 
 against me, and make a new departure into a 
 better life ?" — the old question, you see, " What 
 shall I do to be saved ?" 
 
 If you sincerely wish to be saved, there is a 
 way to be saved. Repentance of your sins, how- 
 ever sincere, is not enough. Regret for sin in 
 the past will not atone for it, nor keep you from 
 sin in the future. Repentance is essential, is in- 
 dispensable, but it is not enough to save your 
 soul. It would be like a man's quitting a leaky 
 boat at sea with no better one in sight ; you may 
 leave the swamping boat only to be sv/allowed up 
 in the deep. What you need is a positive per- 
 sonal work wrought for you and wrought within 
 you. There is One who can do this work, and 
 one only. Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh 
 away the sin of the world, — if the sin of the 
 world, then your sins. The atonement He made 
 for your guilt on the cross was perfect > He 
 obeyed the demands of God's broken law per- 
 fectly ; He wrought out His work of redemption 
 
I04 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 perfectly, and no man need perish for want of an 
 atonement. But in order to receive your share 
 of the benefit of that work you are required to 
 go directly to Jesus Christ. Your Bible is valu- 
 able to you chiefly as a guide to Jesus Christ. 
 Prayer is availing to you mainly as a means of 
 approaching God in Christ. If you are thirsty, 
 a cup — whether of coarse pottery or chased 
 silver — is of value to you only as the utensil for 
 bringing the water to your parched lips. The 
 cup alone and empty would be a mockery. The 
 sincerest prayer for salvation is an empty cup, 
 unless it become a channel through which shall 
 flow your confession and your desires toward 
 Christ, and pardoning grace shall flow back to 
 you from Christ. Whoever would have his sins 
 blotted out and a new heart created in him, must 
 go to Jesus only. And if the means which he is 
 employing — the Bible, the sermons, the prayers, 
 or any other means — become his chief reliance, 
 then they are a bane rather than a blessing. 
 There is none who takes away sin save Jesus 
 only. There is one way, and but one way to be 
 saved, and the sooner you reach it the better. 
 
 If you should happen to be at the Grand Cen- 
 tral Railway Station in New York when the Eas- 
 tern express train is about starting, you would 
 
JESUS ONLY 105 
 
 see a certain number of people entering the cars 
 that are labeled, " For Boston." The doors of 
 those cars stand open ; the passengers enter and 
 dispose themselves for the journey. They take 
 it for granted that the station master has directed 
 them rightly; and they do not run round in- 
 quiring if those be the right cars, or if they are 
 safe and are likely to keep to the track. They 
 have made up their minds to go to Boston, and 
 they have faith enough in the directors of the 
 company and in its rolling stock to take the pre- 
 scribed cars and trust their lives there. " There 
 are a million of people in New York," you might 
 say; "there are only a half-dozen cars provided." 
 Very true; but there is room enough on that 
 train for all the people of New York who desire 
 to start for Boston at that hour and by that route. 
 That train carries those who come to it and no 
 others. If you shall desire to reach Boston and 
 yet fail to come to the station, or if you fail to 
 procure the required ticket at the station, it is not 
 the fault of the railway company that you do not 
 get to Boston. 
 
 Pray do not think that this illustration belittles 
 our solemn theme. I simply aim to draw your 
 mind's eye to the glorious truth that Jesus Christ 
 has " opened a new and living way " to escape 
 
io6 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 from the " City of Destruction " (as Bunyan 
 phrases it) to the city of God. Every vehicle 
 that bears the inscription, " He that beheveth on 
 the Lord Jesus Christ hath everlasting life," is 
 the right one for you to take. ** Is it safe ?" 
 Myriads of penitent sinners have reached heaven 
 by that road ; try it ! " I am ashamed to con- 
 fess that I have not the means to procure a 
 ticket." Yes; but one is offered to you gratu- 
 itously if you will accept it on certain conditions. 
 At infinite cost our loving Redeemer has opened 
 this way, and has provided the conveyances. " I 
 am the way, the truth, and the life; whosoever 
 cometh unto Me, shall in no wise be cast out." 
 You are to come to Him only, obey His direc- 
 tions, trust your immortal soul to His keeping, 
 and render to Him your heart's service and your 
 unending gratitude. 
 
 When Jesus Christ paid the ransom of your 
 soul He took away its guilt and condemnation. 
 When He provided what, without irreverence, 
 we may call " the gospel train " and opened wide 
 its doors, He took away all your foolish and 
 wicked excuses. When you break away from 
 your favorite sins and come to Him in honest 
 contrition and offer to do His will, He will take 
 away your wicked heart. And every furlong 
 
JESUS ONLY 107 
 
 that you go onward with Him, He will take away 
 your doubts and lift off your heavy burden ; and 
 when you reach that unbridged river we call 
 death, He will take away your fears, and land 
 you safely on the shining shore, and of all the 
 countless multitude you will find there, not one 
 but will gratefully acknowledge that they were 
 saved by Jesus only. 
 
 Perhaps one reason why you are not yet a 
 Christian is that you have been mistaken as to 
 what you ought to do, and just how to do it. 
 Your experience may have been similar to that 
 of the woman to whom a faithful minister once 
 said : — 
 
 " Have you been in the habit of attending 
 church ?" 
 
 " Yes, I have been to every church in town ; 
 but the little comfort I get soon goes away again, 
 and leaves me as bad as before." 
 
 " Do you read the Bible at home ?" 
 
 " Sir, I am always reading the Bible ; some- 
 times I get a little comfort, but it soon leaves me 
 as wretched as ever." 
 
 " Have you prayed for peace ?" 
 
 "Oh, sir, I am praying all the day long; some- 
 times I get a little peace after praying, but I soon 
 lose it. I am a miserable woman." 
 
io8 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 " Now, madam, when you went to church, or 
 prayed, or read your Bible, did you rely on these 
 means to give you comfort ?" 
 
 " I think I did." 
 
 " To whom did you pray ?" 
 
 " To Gody sir ; to whom else should I pray ?" 
 
 " Now, read this verse, * Come unto Me and I 
 will give you rest' Jesus said this. Have you 
 gone to Jesus for rest ?" 
 
 The lady looked amazed, and tears welled up 
 into her eyes. Light burst in upon her heart 
 like unto the light that flooded Mount Hermon 
 on the transfiguration morn. Everything else 
 that she had been looking at — church, Bible, 
 mercy seat, and minister — all disappeared, and 
 to her wondering, believing eyes there remained 
 no man, save Jesus only. She was liberated from 
 years of bondage on the spot. The scales fell 
 from her eyes and the spiritual fetters from her 
 soul. Jesus only could do that work of deliver- 
 ance ; but He did not do it until she looked to 
 Him alone. . 
 
 This incident reached us during the first years 
 of my ministry. With this " open secret " in my 
 hand, I approached the first Roman Catholic 
 that ever attended upon my preaching. He had 
 turned his troubled eyes for a long time to the 
 
JESUS ONLY 109 
 
 Holy Virgin and to sainted martyrs in the cal- 
 ender. He had been often to a priest ; never to 
 a Saviour. I set before him Jcstis only. He 
 looked up and saw the Lamb of God that taketh 
 away the sin of the world. ** My Romish 
 mother," said he to me, "would burn up my 
 Bible if she knew I had one in my house." But 
 she could not burn out the blessed Jesus from his 
 emancipated and happy heart. 
 
 Next I took this simple revelation to a poor 
 invalid of three score and ten. His sight was 
 failing, and the vision of his mind was as blurred 
 and dim as the vision of his body. I set before 
 him, in my poor way, Jesus only. The old man 
 could hardly see the little grandchild who read 
 aloud to him. But he could see Jesus with the 
 eye of faith. The patriarch who had hardened 
 under seventy years of sin became a little child. 
 The skepticism of a lifetime vanished when the 
 Holy Spirit revealed to his searching, yearning 
 look the Divine form of a Saviour crucified. 
 
 I never forgot these lessons learned in my min- 
 isterial boyhood. From that time to this I have 
 found that the only sure way of bringing light 
 and peace to anxious inquirers is to direct them 
 away from themselves, away from ritualities and 
 stereotyped forms, away from agencies of every 
 
no A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 kind, away from everything save Jesus only. 
 John the Baptist held the essence of the gospel on 
 his tongue when he cried out, " Behold the Lamb 
 of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." 
 My anxious friend, be assured that you never will 
 find pardon for the past and hope for the future ; 
 you never will know how to live or be prepared 
 to die until you look to Jesus 07ily. 
 
 Here is a hint, too, for desponding Christians. 
 You are harassed with doubts. Without are 
 fightings and within are fears. Why? Because 
 you have tried to live on frames and feelings, and 
 they ebb and flow like the seatide. You have 
 rested on past experiences and not on a present 
 Saviour. You have looked at yourself too much, 
 and not to Him who was made to you righteous- 
 ness and full redemption. Do you long for light, 
 peace, strength, assurance, and joy ? Then do 
 your duty, and look to Jesus only. 
 
 When the godly-minded Oliphant was on his 
 dying bed, they read to him that beautiful passage 
 in the seventh chapter of Revelation, " And God 
 shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." (It is 
 the passage which poor Burns could never read 
 with a dry eye.) The old man exclaimed : " Per- 
 haps that is so. The Bible tells me that there is 
 no weeping in heaven ; but I know I shall cry 
 
JESUS ONLY III 
 
 the first time I see my Saviour." He was right. 
 And it will be so with all of us who come off 
 more than conquerors. The first object that will 
 enchain our eyes on entering the gates of glory 
 will not be the jeweled walls or the shining ranks 
 of the seraphim. It will not be the parent who 
 loves us or the pastor who pointed out the way 
 of life. But amid the ten thousand wonders of 
 that wonderful world of light and joy the be- 
 liever's eye, in its first enrapturing vision, will 
 " see no man, save Jesus only." 
 
VII 
 RIGHT VIEWS OF THINGS 
 
VII 
 
 RIGHT VIEWS OF THINGS 
 "Thou hast well seen/' — Jeremiah i. 12. 
 
 There is a right way and a wrong way of 
 looking at almost everything. Some persons 
 seem to have no eye for beauty ; and others see 
 every object through a distorted vision. To 
 such persons one of Turner's fine landscapes is 
 merely so much paint and canvas ; to a man like 
 Ruskin it is a masterpiece of golden sunlight, 
 bathing field and forest with its splendors. 
 Niagara is a disappointment to many on a first 
 view; the mighty cataract gradually educates 
 the eye to a right conception of its crumbling 
 cliff of snow-white waters shot through with 
 emerald. 
 
 " Thou hast well seen " were God's words to 
 Jeremiah when He called him to be a prophet to 
 the people of Israel. The modest young man 
 had just said, " I cannot speak, for I am a child." 
 The Lord touches his mouth and inspires him 
 with the gift of words. He then tests the accu- 
 
 "5 
 
Ii6 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 racy of his vision by the question, " What seest 
 thou ?" Jeremiah does not reply, " I see a bit of 
 wood," or " I see a staff" ; his answer is, " I see a 
 rod of an almond tree." This was just what the 
 Lord meant that the young prophet should see. 
 The almond was a tree of rapid growth which 
 put forth its blossoms early in the spring ; it was 
 a type of speedy action. As Jeremiah had shown 
 his quickness of apprehension and accuracy of 
 discernment, God commended his answer and 
 said unto him, " Thou hast well seen." 
 
 It is vastly important that you and I should 
 seek for spiritual discernment; for many of our 
 joys and many of our sorrows proceed from our 
 method of looking at those things which most 
 concern our peace. How differently, for example, 
 the Lord Jesus Christ appears to different eyes. 
 Long ago it was predicted that the Messiah 
 would be to many as a root out of dry ground, 
 having no form or comeliness. When they shall 
 see Him, there is no beauty that they should de- 
 sire Him; He will be despised and rejected of 
 men. When Jesus came, therefore, to His own, 
 they received Him not. As many as beheld Him 
 rightly and welcomed Him, to them gave He the 
 precious privilege to become the children of God. 
 To all such, in every age and land. He is the 
 
RIGHT VIEWS OF THINGS 117 
 
 chiefest among ten thousand, and the altogether 
 lovely. Jesus Christ never changes. The differ- 
 ence between the thoughtless sinner and the same 
 person after he is regenerated is that now he 
 looks at Christ with a new eye, and has dis- 
 covered Him to be the very Saviour that he 
 needs. 
 
 Some people look at Jehovah only as a con- 
 suming fire, and are struck through with despair. 
 Others go to the opposite extreme and see in 
 Him only an infinite goodness and tender mercy ; 
 such are in danger of becoming bhnd to the sin- 
 fulness of sin, and they easily slide away into a 
 belief in universal salvation. The man who 
 magnifies God's mercy at the expense of His 
 justice, and who does not believe that God will 
 punish unrepented sin as it deserves, has not 
 "well seen." He will discover his delusion, at 
 his terrible cost, on the " last great day." Those 
 wise men in the Westminster Assembly saw the 
 Divine attributes in their right proportion when 
 they framed that wonderfully comprehensive an- 
 swer — " God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and 
 unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holi- 
 ness, justice, goodness and truth." 
 
 I. We are all apt to make egregious mistakes 
 when we look at our heavenly Father's provi- 
 
ii8 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 dential dealings. Even some Christians are be- 
 trayed into a heathenish habit of talking about 
 " good luck " and " bad fortune," and using other 
 expressions that convey the idea that this life is a 
 game of chance. Blind unbelief may be expected 
 to err, and to scan God's work as either a riddle 
 or a muddle. A Christian who has had his eyes 
 opened ought to know better than to make such 
 mistakes. Yet how prone we are to regard many 
 of God's dealings in a wrong light and to call 
 them by wrong names ! We speak of things as 
 afflictions which are really blessings in disguise. 
 We congratulate people on gaining what turns 
 out to be a terrible snare or worse than a serious 
 loss. Quite as often we condole with them over 
 occurrences which are about to yield to them 
 blessings more precious than gold. The patri- 
 arch Jacob evidently thought that he was a fair 
 subject for commiseration when he groaned out 
 in his grief, " Me have ye bereaved of my chil- 
 dren : Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye 
 will take Benjamin away : all these things are 
 against me." His dim vision could not foresee 
 that happy evening when the returning caravan 
 from Egypt would bring to him Simeon and 
 Benjamin, and the thrilling announcement that 
 the long-lost Joseph was governor over all the 
 
RIGHT VIEWS OF THINGS 119 
 
 realm of Pharaoh. He had not " well seen " 
 what sort of a God he had once vowed to serve. 
 
 Let us hesitate before we condole with a 
 brother who is under the chastisement of our 
 loving Father in heaven. Be careful how you 
 condole with a man who has lost his money and 
 saved his good name, or congratulate the man 
 who has made a million at the expense of his 
 piety. When a Christian is toppled over from a 
 dizzy and dangerous height, and " brought down 
 to hard pan," he is brought down to the solid 
 rock at the same time. In the valley of humilia- 
 tion he has more of the joy of God's counten- 
 ance and wears more of the herb called " heart's- 
 ease " in his bosom than he ever did in the days 
 of his giddy prosperity. Sickness has often 
 brought to a man spiritual recovery; suffering 
 has often wrought out for him an exceeding 
 weight of glory. 
 
 I have seen people condole tenderly with a 
 weeping mother whose child has flown away 
 home to heaven ; but they never thought of con- 
 doling with her over a living child who was a 
 frivolous slave of fashion, or a dissipated sensu- 
 alist, or a wayward son, the " heaviness of his 
 mother." A hundred times over have I pitied 
 more the parent of a living sorrow than the 
 
I20 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 parent of a departed joy. Spare your tears from 
 the darlings who are safe in the arms of Jesus, 
 and spend them over the Hving who are yet 
 dead in sin and sheer impenitence. Let us learn 
 to see things rightly, and call them by their 
 right names. We often drape our real blessings 
 with a pall and decorate our dangerous tempta- 
 ■•tions with a garland. Let us all pray for spiritual 
 discernment and often be putting up the petition, 
 " Lord, open Thou our eyes." Then we may 
 discover that this life is only a training school 
 for a higher and a better one ; then we shall see a 
 Father's smile behind the darkest cloud ; and at 
 the end of the pilgrimage of duty it will be one 
 of the raptures of heaven to behold the King in 
 His beauty, and to know even as we have been 
 known. 
 
 II. Let me, in the next place, remind you that 
 if we possessed more spiritual discernment we 
 would not so often torment ourselves with sinful 
 anxieties about the future. Our loving Lord 
 knew what was in man when He reiterated His 
 remonstrances against borrowing trouble in ad- 
 vance, and when He said, " Be not therefore 
 anxious for the morrow : for the morrow will be 
 anxious for itself Sufficient unto the day is the 
 evil thereof" Worry is not only a sin against 
 
RIGHT VIEWS OF THINGS 121 
 
 God, it is a sin against our own peace. It some- 
 times amounts to a slow suicide. Honest work, 
 however hard, seldom hurts us ; it is worry that 
 corrodes and kills. 
 
 There is only one practical remedy for this 
 deadly sin of anxiety, and that is to take short 
 views. Faith is content to live "from hand to 
 mouth," enjoying each blessing from God as it 
 comes. This perverse spirit of worry runs off 
 and gathers some anticipated troubles and throws 
 them into the cup of mercies and turns them to 
 vinegar. A bereaved parent sits down by the 
 newly-made grave of a beloved child and sorrow- 
 fully says to herself, " Well, I have only one more 
 left, and one of these days he may go off to live 
 in a home of his own, or he may be taken away ; 
 and if he dies, my house will be desolate and my 
 heart utterly broken." Now who gave that weep- 
 ing mother permission to use the word "if"? 
 Is not her trial sore enough now, without over- 
 loading it with an imaginary trial ? And if her 
 strength breaks down it will be simply because 
 she is not satisfied with letting God afflict her; 
 she tortures herself with imagined afflictions of 
 her own. If she could but take a short view, 
 she would see a living child yet spared to her, to 
 be loved and enjoyed and lived for. Then, instead 
 
122 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 of having two sorrows, she would have one great 
 possession to set over against a great loss ; her 
 duty to the living would be not only a relief to 
 her anguish, but the best tribute she could pay to 
 the departed. 
 
 That is a short view which only takes in im- 
 mediate duty to be done, the immediate tempta- 
 tion to be met, and the immediate sorrow to be 
 carried. My friend, if you have money enough 
 to-day for your daily wants and something for 
 God's treasury, don't torment yourself with the 
 idea that you or yours may yet get into an alms- 
 house. If your children cluster around your 
 table, enjoy them, train them, trust them to God, 
 without racking yourself with a dread that the 
 little ones may some time be carried off by scarlet 
 fever, or the older ones may yet be ill-married or 
 may fall into disgrace. Faith carries present loads 
 and meets present assaults and feeds on present 
 promises, and commits the future to a faithful 
 God. Its song is : — 
 
 ** Keep Thou my feet ; I do not ask to see 
 The distant scene ; one step's enough for me." 
 
 We shall always take that one step more 
 wisely and firmly and successfully if we keep 
 our eye on that only. The man who is cHmb- 
 
RIGHT VIEWS OF THINGS 123 
 
 ing the Alps has but to follow his guide and set 
 his foot on the right spot before him. This is the 
 way you and I must let Christ lead, and have 
 Him so close to us also that it will be but a short 
 way to behold Him. Sometimes young Chris- 
 tians say to me, " I am afraid to make a public 
 confession of Christ; I may not hold out." 
 They have nothing to do with holding out ; it is 
 simply their duty to hold on. When future trials 
 and perils come their Master will give them help 
 for the hour if they only make sure that they 
 are His. The short view they need to take is a 
 close, clear view of their own spiritual wants, and 
 a distinct view of Jesus as ever at hand to meet 
 those wants. If the fishermen of Galilee had 
 worried themselves over the hardships they were 
 to encounter they might have been frightened 
 out of their apostleships and their eternal crowns. 
 We ministers need to guard againt this malig- 
 nant devil of worry. It torments one pastor with 
 a dread lest, if he preach certain truths boldly, 
 he may offend his rich pew holders and drive 
 them away. Let him take care of his conscience, 
 and his Master will take care of him. Another 
 is worried lest his cruse may run dry and his 
 barrel fail. But his cruse has not yet run dry. 
 Oh, no ! it is his faith that is running low. Some 
 
124 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 of us, at the beginning of a year's work, are 
 tempted to overload ourselves with the anticipa- 
 tion of how much we have to do ; we need not 
 worry if we will only remember that during the 
 whole year there will be only one working day, 
 and that is — to-day. Sufficient to each day is the 
 labor thereof 
 
 Once more we say — let us take short views. 
 Let us not climb the high wall till we get to it, 
 or fight the battle till it opens, or shed tears over 
 sorrows that may never come, or lose the joys 
 and blessings that we have by the sinful fear that 
 God will take them away from us. We need all 
 our strength and all the grace God can give us 
 for to-day's burdens and to-day's battle. To- 
 morrow belongs to our heavenly Father. I 
 would not know its secrets if I could. It is far 
 better to know whom we trust, and that He is 
 able to keep all we commit to Him until the last 
 great day. 
 
 " Wliy forecast the trials of life 
 
 With such sad and grave persistence, 
 And look and watch for a crowd of ills 
 That as yet have no existence ? 
 
 " Strength for to-day is all we need, 
 For we never will see to-morrow ; 
 When it comes, the morrow will be a to-day. 
 With its measure of joy or sorrow." 
 
RIGHT VIEWS OF THINGS 125 
 
 III. If a right spiritual discernment tends to 
 correct false views of God and His providence, 
 and to repress sinful anxieties, it will also check 
 our impatience in regard to the issue of God's 
 wise dealings and discipline. " I never let bairns 
 or fools see my pictures until they are done," 
 said a Scotch artist to me, quoting a familiar 
 proverb of his countrymen. As the artist was 
 unwilling to have any judgment pronounced on 
 his work until it was completed, so our heavenly 
 Father bids us possess our souls in patience. 
 "What I do thou knowest not now; but thou 
 shalt know hereafter." We must wait and see. 
 This world is but a preparatory school in which 
 character is on the easel or under the chisel. 
 God's hand sometimes lays on dark colors ; his 
 chisel often cuts deep. No trial of our faith is 
 joyous, but grievous ; nevertheless afterwards it 
 may work out the eternal weight of glory. Now 
 we know but " in part," and what we do discern 
 is seen through a glass darkly. Why the most 
 pleasant room in our dweUing is turned into a 
 hospital — why the pillow in that little empty crib 
 is unpressed to-day — why that income on which 
 so many mouths depended is now reduced — 
 why this or that staff is broken, our poor blind, 
 aching hearts cannot understand. God keeps His 
 
126 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 own secrets. The only answer which He vouch- 
 safes to us now is, " All things work together for 
 good to them that love Me." Impatient and re- 
 bellious as we may be, we cannot displace God's 
 hand from the canvas ; there is no help for us but 
 to wait until the picture is completed. Some of 
 the colors He is laying into our lives are fright- 
 fully somber; but by and by in the reveahng 
 light of the last day they may be only a back- 
 ground on which faith and submissive trust will 
 stand out in hues of golden glory. It is the 
 duty of " bairns " to sit still and practice docility. 
 
 " When my boy with eager questions, 
 Asking how, and where, and when, 
 Taxes all my store of wisdom. 
 
 Asking o'er and o'er again 
 Questions oft to which the answers 
 
 Give to others still the key, 
 I have said, to teach him patience, 
 < Wait, my little boy, and see. ' 
 
 " And the words I taught my darling, 
 
 Taught to me a lesson sweet ; 
 Once when all the world seemed darkness, 
 
 And the storm about me beat. 
 In the 'children's room' I heard him. 
 
 With a child's sweet mimicry. 
 To the baby brother' s questions 
 
 Saying wisely, ' Wait and see.' 
 
RIGHT VIEWS OF THINGS 127 
 
 *' Like an angel's tender chiding 
 
 Came the darUng's words to me 
 Though my Father' s ways were hidden 
 
 Bidding me still wait and see. 
 What are we but restless children, 
 
 Ever asking what shall be. 
 And the Father, in His wisdom, 
 
 Gently bids us ' wait and see.' " 
 
 I am ready to confess that it is not from the 
 open assaults of infidelity or from the skeptical 
 pages of the Strausses or Spencers that the 
 severest strain has come upon our faith. It is 
 from the mysterious permissions of Divine Provi- 
 dence that we are oftenest in danger of hav- 
 ing that faith shipwrecked. We not only turn 
 cowards in the dark, but Hke fools we doubt 
 whether there ever will be a day-dawn. In such 
 hours it is wise to bring in the lamp of that 
 bright passage of the thirtieth Psalm : " Weep- 
 ing may endure for a night, but joy cometh in 
 the morning." The original Hebrew is far more 
 forcible ; it literally reads, " In the evening sorrow 
 lodgeth, but at the day-dawn cometh shouting." 
 The " shouting " will be raised by the discovery 
 of what was in existence all the while, and that 
 is God's marvelous wisdom and unfailing love. 
 I once spent a night on the summit of Mount 
 Righi, and the darkness was so dense that I 
 
128 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 could not see a single yard from my window. 
 But when the sun arose the polished mirror of 
 Lake Lucerne spread beneath me, and the icy 
 coronets of the Jungfrau and the Finsteraarhorn 
 glittered in the rosy beams. They had been 
 there all through the night waiting for the un- 
 foldings of the day-spring from on high. 
 
 A great deal of our work in this world may 
 be called night-work. Weary with rowing, we 
 even get frightened by the apparition of the 
 Master, and, like the disciples, cry out, " It is a 
 ghost !" — until He reveals Himself in the words, 
 " Be of good cheer ; It is I ; be not afraid !" 
 The history of every discovery of new truth, of 
 every enterprise of benevolence, of every Chris- 
 tian reform, and of almost every church revival is 
 the history of long working, watching, and wait- 
 ing through seasons of dark discouragement. 
 "We have toiled all the night, and have taken 
 nothing," was the lament of the tired, hungry, 
 and sleepy disciples. But in the early gray of 
 the day-break they espy the Master on the 
 beach ; the net is cast afresh, and lo ! it swarms 
 with a shoal that breaks through the meshes. 
 So doth our Lord test His children before He 
 blesses them. The lesson for every pastor, every 
 missionary, every teacher, every reformer, and 
 
RIGHT VIEWS OF THINGS 129 
 
 every sorely-tried child of God is in these 
 heaven-taught words, ** I wait for tlie Lord, . . . 
 and in His word do I hope. My soul waiteth 
 for the Lord more than they that watch for the 
 morning." 
 
 IV. We come back, in closing, to the point 
 whence we set out — that there is a right way, and 
 a wrong way of looking at all things. To the 
 eye that has spiritual discernment this world is 
 mainly an avenue to that one which lieth beyond 
 it. Talents, wealth, and influence are simply 
 loans that are to be held in trust for God. Social 
 promotion signifies a more commanding position 
 in which to serve the Master. A Christianized 
 eye sees in money just so much bread for the 
 hungry, just so many Bibles for the godless, just 
 so many lifts of the outcast and degraded — as well 
 as innocent and refining enjoyments for one's 
 own household. My friend, if thou findest the 
 " image and superscription " of Christ on every 
 dollar you earn, "thou hast well seen." To a 
 truly regenerated soul all things become new; 
 and we may well doubt the genuineness and the 
 depth of that conversion which does not bring 
 an altered estimate of everything earthly. Faith 
 breaks the charm of this world and adds a charm 
 to the better world. 
 9 
 
I30 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 Are there any here who desire to have their 
 spiritual vision purged? I would commend to 
 them the example of that blind man who came 
 and besought Jesus to touch him ; for he fancied 
 that a simple touch of the miracle-worker would 
 restore his sight. Jesus led him along through 
 the streets and " out of the town " ; and then, 
 putting spittle on his closed eyes, He inquired, 
 " Do you see anything ?" The poor man replied, 
 " I see men ; for I behold them as trees, walking." 
 The Master again lays His hands upon his eyes 
 and bids him look up; he looks and seeth the 
 bright earth round him and the Son of God 
 standing at his side. Even so it may be with 
 you, if you will permit that Divine Friend to lead 
 you " out of town " where sin and self have 
 tasked and troubled you, and will intrust your- 
 self to His restoring power. He will touch the 
 eye of your soul. Truth will become clearer. 
 Faith will become stronger. The old darkness 
 will pass away, and all things will become new. 
 " Thou hast well seen " when thou dost behold 
 Jesus Christ as the Lord of thy life, His service 
 thy sweetest occupation, and His presence thy 
 perpetual joy. 
 
VIII 
 THE DOVE THAT FOUND REST 
 
VIII 
 
 THE DOVE THAT FOUND REST 
 
 "Then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in 
 unto him into the ark." — Genesis viii. 9. 
 
 We can picture to ourselves this scene. For 
 forty days the keel of the ark has rested on the 
 summit of Mount Ararat ; but on every side 
 stretches a melancholy waste of waters. Not 
 an inch of dry ground is visible, nor has been for 
 over twenty weeks. Noah wearies of his im- 
 prisonment, and, like a long voyager, is hungry 
 for a sight of land. He can see none from his 
 single porthole; but perhaps the birds in his 
 floating menagerie can find some. So he sends 
 forth a raven which flies back and forth — feeding 
 perhaps on the floating offal, and lighting occa- 
 sionally on the ark. The raven takes care of 
 itself, but brings him no information. 
 
 Then he lets fly a dove to see if the waters 
 are abated from off the face of the ground. 
 But the dove finds no rest for the sole of her 
 foot ; nor is there within her reach such granifer- 
 
 133 
 
134 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 ous food as she could eat. Weary with her flight 
 and finding no tree to alight on, the poor bird 
 comes back to her old home. Noah watches the 
 tired little creature as she flutters back to the 
 window of the ark. He puts forth his hand and 
 catches the weary bird and draws her in unto 
 him, and gives her welcome. 
 
 As we watch the pretty creature eating her 
 seed, and then curling her head under her glossy 
 plumage and dropping to sleep, we are set upon 
 a meditation about that bird. It represents a 
 wandering soul. Whose soul ? Vo^/fs, my 
 brother sinner? it is probably a picture of your 
 past experience. Like that wandering bird, you 
 have flown far and looked in many directions, 
 but you have not found rest. You have tried one 
 place after another, one pursuit after another, one 
 pleasure after another, but none of them gave 
 you solid peace. None of them satisfied the 
 hunger of your immortal soul. None of them 
 made you feel sa/c for this world or for the next. 
 Perhaps you tried money and all it could buy, 
 but it could not purchase peace for your dis- 
 quieted spirit. Perhaps you flew up on some 
 perch of ambition ; and then found yourself as 
 sadly off as that rich and distinguished English 
 statesman to whom a friend wished a " Happy 
 
THE DOVE THAT FOUND REST 135 
 
 New Year!" and whose melancholy reply was, "It 
 had need to be a happier one than the last year, 
 for I did not see a single happy day in it !" What- 
 ever you may have tried, it furnished your soul 
 no substantial rest. The very idea of rest im- 
 plies something solid and substantial underneath 
 you. No mind can be at rest while tortured by 
 an uneasy conscience or by the dread of losing 
 its most cherished treasures. What could you 
 know of peaceful repose when one of your own 
 household was lying at the point of death in the 
 next room ? or when the cry of " fire !" was 
 ringing in the street beneath your window ? The 
 human soul, like the body, must have a sense of 
 security before it can realize a perfect rest. Does 
 this world afford you that? Can your soul be 
 insured by it against disquietude, disappointment, 
 disaster, and the havoc of death ? Does that 
 weary bird, your heart, ever find any rest for the 
 sole of the foot? 
 
 Answer this question honestly, all ye who have 
 tried hard to draw a gill of happiness out of a 
 whole cask of sensual pleasures. Answer this, 
 ye who have built up lofty expectations of wealth, 
 or professional success, or social eminence, or 
 any other of this world's attractive and inviting 
 perches. When did a man ever get himself 
 
136 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 snugly fixed and determine to nestle down amid 
 his creature-comforts, that God has not routed 
 him up again ? This world is not a Christian's 
 rest; no, nor an impenitent sinner's either. God 
 has vetoed that. You may rear, for example, 
 your tasteful residence, and decorate it with the 
 most elegant products of art; you may gather 
 round your fireside a cheerful household, who 
 shall sing a melodious " Sweet home " to your 
 affections; but just as surely as you let the dove 
 of your heart bear its whole weight on this frail 
 bush, the bush will break, sooner or later, and 
 break when you least expect it ! Perhaps the 
 flames will destroy your dwelling, or bankruptcy 
 bring it " to the hammer," or the angel of death, 
 on its mysterious mission, may alight on the 
 couch or the crib that contains your treasures. 
 Mayhap domestic strifes or disappointments may 
 embitter your cup, and you may discover that no 
 wall can be built so high or so strong as to wall 
 out trouble and sorrow. 
 
 Well — if the mind cannot find abiding happi- 
 ness in any of the perishable things of earth, 
 neither can your immortal spirit find rest in any 
 mere human reliance — whether human opinion, 
 human prayer, or human promises. Have you 
 ever obtained an assurance of salvation on the 
 
THE DOVE THAT FOUND REST 137 
 
 ground either of your best purposes or best per- 
 formances ? Are you willing to risk the everlast- 
 ing future of your soul on either what any man 
 has done for you or you have ever done for 
 yourself? Pushing the probe in deeper, let me 
 ask you in all kindness — will your present style 
 of thinking and living satisfy conscience and 
 satisfy God, and will it secure to you spiritual 
 health and a peaceful death and an immortality 
 of glory ? Ah, I see you shake your head, and 
 a shadow passes over your countenance. Then 
 you are not at rest ! You do not feel safe. You 
 cannot bear your whole weight on any brittle 
 spider's web. No! And God does not mean 
 that your uneasy and sin-troubled soul shall find 
 rest anywhere outside of that ark which redeem- 
 ing love has provided. Millions upon millions 
 have flown from one direction to another, like 
 Noah's dove, and found that this wide world 
 from pole to pole " had not for them a home." 
 They have been forced to the same confession as 
 Lord Tennyson's gifted young friend, Arthur 
 Hallam, when he exclaimed : " Lord, I have 
 viewed this world all over. I have tried how 
 this thing or that will fit my spirit. I cgn find 
 nothing to rest on; for nothing here hath any 
 rest itself Oh, blessed Jesus — center of light 
 
138 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 and strength ! — the fullness of all things — I come 
 back and join myself to Thee, and to Thee 
 alone !" 
 
 ' ' I heard the voice of Jesus say, 
 ' Come unto me and rest ; 
 Lay down, thou weary one, lay down 
 Thy head upon my breast !' " 
 
 When Noah's dove could find no rest for 
 the sole of her foot, whither did she fly? We 
 read that she " returned unto him into the ark." 
 She saw nothing to alight upon anywhere else, 
 and so she spread her weary wings toward the 
 huge vessel on the peak of Ararat. To-day I 
 sound in your ear the invitation of the Divine 
 love and the Divine authority — " Return unto 
 Me!" To do this you must abandon all trust 
 in self-righteousness and all hope of self-salva- 
 tion. To do this you must confess that you are 
 a guilty wanderer — that God is right and you are 
 wrong. You must renounce your past sins, how- 
 ever dear to you, and break with your old habits 
 and your old self The voice to you is Return ! 
 There must be no delay. The weary bird could 
 bring nothing but herself; and you can bring 
 nothing to Jesus Christ but a weak and wander- 
 ing sinner. Don't bring your sins ; don't bring 
 your excuses or apologies ; don't bring your 
 
THE DOVE THAT FOUND REST 139 
 
 merits, for they arc not worth the transportation. 
 Bring to the compassionate Saviour yourself, just 
 as you arc, and just what sin has made you. The 
 prodigal's rags and wretchedness were his only 
 letter of recommendation. 
 
 Whither did the dove return? To the only 
 refuge amid the whole wide waste of waters. 
 There was but one. Beneath it lay a drowned 
 world ; round it spread the devouring deep ! 
 God has provided but one ark for your soul. 
 " There is none other name under heaven given 
 among men, whereby we must be saved." In this 
 wide world there are many systems of religion ; 
 but God has provided only one — just as He has 
 created but a single sun to " rule the day." At 
 that single gateway of salvation the prince must 
 enter alongside of the peasant; the philosopher 
 must walk in by the side of the little child. We 
 seem to see that tired, homesick bird sailing along 
 through the air toward the solitary ark, and 
 when it gets there it finds only one window. 
 There was a first, a second, and a third story in 
 Noah's huge leviathan of a ship, but all the 
 light was admitted through that single opening. 
 Beautifully does that single window illustrate the 
 illumination of the Holy Spirit. And most strik- 
 ingly does it set forth that every soul that comes 
 
I40 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 to Jesus Christ must come into a saving union 
 with Him through the Holy Spirit's regenerating 
 work. This vital truth our Lord announced to 
 Nicodemus in that wonderful conversation which 
 contains the most comprehensive body of theol- 
 ogy found on any page of the Bible. 
 
 There was only one window to the ark and 
 that was open. We cannot imagine that the 
 weary bird did so foolish a thing as to drive its 
 head against the walls of the ark, or to alight on 
 the roof, or to fly round the vessel. It wanted 
 to come in, and there was only one place of en- 
 trance. My troubled friend, seeking to be saved, 
 can you not learn from that bird just what you 
 must do? 
 
 A certain awakened soul was once taught 
 by a bird how to find admission into the peace 
 that passeth understanding through Christ Jesus. 
 The late Dr. Nicolas Murray tells us that he 
 was preaching, on a bright spring day, in the 
 ancient church of Elizabeth. During the service 
 a bird flew in through the open door, and 
 sailed up to the vaulted ceiling. There sat in the 
 audience an intelligent lady who had been for 
 weeks under deep conviction of sin and had 
 found no rest for her bewildered soul. She be- 
 gan to watch the bewildered bird as it flew to one 
 
THE DOVE THAT FOUND REST 141 
 
 closed window after another, and she kept saying 
 to herself, ** Why doesn't it see the open door ?" 
 The poor thing flew round and round till it 
 grew weary, and then, lowering itself toward the 
 floor, it caught a view of the open door, and 
 was out in an instant into the sunshine. When 
 it was gone the troubled woman said to herself: " I 
 have been acting just like that bird. I have been 
 trying to find peace where it could not be found. 
 I have tried to find escape from the bondage and 
 burden of sin through windows that were closed 
 against me. Christ is the door. As that bird 
 escaped into the light and the sunshine, just so 
 may I." And she actually found peace that day 
 by a simple yielding of her weary and sin-plagued 
 heart to her Saviour. 
 
 I fear that many in this assembly have found 
 no rest for their souls because they have been 
 seeking it in the wrong place and by wrong 
 methods ; they have flown everywhere but to the 
 right spot. One has tried to reform his life, but 
 was not able to regenerate his heart ; and the old 
 diseases broke out again. Another has said, " If 
 I read God's word and pray enough I shall find 
 peace." Another has betaken himself to some 
 special service of an evangelist, or has gone to 
 converse with his pastor, or in a kind of forlorn 
 
142 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 desperation has entered an "inquiry meeting" to 
 find relief. None of these is God's ark ! Noth- 
 ing but life can produce life. Jesus declares : " I 
 am the Way; I am the Life!" He that hath 
 the Son, and he only, hath life ; and the Divine 
 Spirit leads only to the almighty and the cruci- 
 fied Christ. In short, oh, anxious and troubled 
 soul — who art in danger of being misled by the 
 devil or of being lost by delay — there is but one 
 window into the ark, and that stands wide open ! 
 Coming to that is faith. For faith, you must re- 
 member, is not a sentiment, not an opinion ; it is 
 an act. It is the act of joining your weakness to 
 Christ's strength, your unworthiness to His in- 
 finite merit, yourself to Himself. The obedience 
 of your soul to the leading of the Holy Spirit 
 brings you to Jesus Christ, and the infinite love 
 puts forth the pierced hand and draivs you in — 
 as Noah drew that returning dove into the ark. 
 Then comes peace, wondrous peace, such as this 
 world can neither give nor take away. All the 
 disquietude of this world cannot shake it. There 
 is no condemnation to them who are in Christ 
 Jesus. The soul fears no evil tidings; for the 
 perfect love has cast out fear. Conscience no 
 longer torments; and death no longer alarms, 
 for Jesus has conquered death. Wondrous peace 
 
THE DOVE THAT FOUND REST 143 
 
 ineffable ! There is only One in all the universe 
 who can bestow it, and when He does bestow it, 
 all the powers of Hell cannot give it a single jar ! 
 It is the peace of God, and the peace with God 
 which passeth all understanding. 
 
 " Can I do anything for you ?" said an officer 
 on the battlefield, who came across a wounded 
 Union soldier who lay weltering in his blood. 
 " Nothing, thank you." " Shall I bring you a 
 little water ?" " No, I thank you ; I am dyingy 
 " Is there not something I can do ; shall I not 
 send some message to your friends ?" " I will 
 not trouble you to do that; but there is one 
 thing for which I would be much obliged. In 
 my knapsack you will find a Testament. Please 
 open it to the fourteenth chapter of John, and 
 you will find a verse that begins with the word 
 * peace.' Please read it to me." The officer got 
 out the book and read : " Peace I leave with you. 
 My peace I give unto you : not as the world 
 giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be 
 troubled, neither let it be afraid." " Thank you, 
 sir," said the dying man. " I have got that 
 peace ; I am going to that Saviour ; I do not want 
 anything more." His fluttering spirit, Hke a 
 home-bound dove, flew heavenward, and the 
 blessed Jesus put forth His hand and sweetly 
 
144 A MODEL CHRISTIAN 
 
 drew him in ! Although but an humble private 
 in the army of the Lord as he was in the army 
 of the land, yet he found his place among the 
 crowned conquerors in glory. 
 
 " Ten thousand times ten thousand 
 
 In sparkling raiment bright, 
 The armies of the ransomed saints 
 
 Throng up the steeps of light : 
 'Tis finished, all is finished, 
 
 Their fight with death and sin : 
 Fling open wide the golden gates, 
 
 And let the victors in /' ' 
 
Date Due 
 
 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 
 
 
 ■y^.' -48 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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