The Call of ths Cros: 
 
 GEORGE D. HERRONV 
 
10,11,-).}, 
 
 LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 * Presented by 
 
 BV 4310 .H47 1892 
 
 Herron, George Davis, 1862- 
 
 1925. 
 The call of the cross 
 

 ^JX-^JL ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
THE CALL OF THE CROSS 
 
FROM THE N. Y. CRITIC. 
 
 *' Mr, Herron is a man of power. What is most attractive about 
 his book is its moral rather than its intellectual seriousness, to 
 adopt Matthew Arnold's phrase. Mr. Herron aims at producing 
 impressions, not by iteration, as Matthew Arnold does, for he has 
 none of the tricks of that literary magician, but by earnest and em- 
 phatic statements. He writes with immense enthusiasm and fine 
 culture. Mr. Herron, like a prophet — a speaker of God, that he 
 is — does not argue; he appeals to one's moral nature; he pleads, 
 he commands." 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 The Larger Christ, introduction by Rev. 
 
 JosiAH Strong, D. D. i6mo., Vellum Cloth, Gilt 
 Top, 75 cents. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. The Discovery of Christ— The Need of our Times. 
 
 n. Innocen'ce Suffering for Guilt. 
 
 HI. The Growing Christ— The Dying Self. 
 
 VI. The Resurrection of Life. 
 
 PRESS NOTES. 
 
 "A truly stimulating book."— In<e?-ror. 
 
 "At once searching, persuasive and suggestive, rich in idea, 
 but still richer in cogent appeal to conscience."— independent. 
 
 "A small book of great force. One cannot conceive such mes- 
 sages remaining unuttered.-iV. Y. Christian Advocate. 
 
 "For earnestness, thoughtfulness, clear views, vivid pictur- 
 esqueness, we recommend this work."— Z<o?i's Herald. 
 
 "Will surely help many to a larger conception of Christ and a 
 clearer view of ixuih."— Christian at Work. 
 
 "To all those who would have their thoughts deepened and 
 widened we always commend such literature as ih\s.— Western 
 Christian Advocate. 
 
 "In this volume there speaks a man with the profound convic- 
 tion and intense earnestness of one of the old Hebrew prophets." 
 —Rev. J osiah Strong, author '■'Our Country.'''' 
 
 Message of Jesus to Men of Wealth. 
 
 A Tract of the Times. Vellum Series, 20 cents. 
 Cheap Edition for Circulation, loc, $1.00 per doz, 
 
 "It is electric, and needs not the impassioned utterance of the 
 speaker to give it emphasis. It flashes with a fire that is internal, 
 and contams even more than it imparts. It is timely, courageous, 
 Christian"— Rev. Lyman Abbott, D. D. 
 
 "Nothing so eloquent and timely has appeared for many a 
 month."— Rev. John H. Barrows, D. D. 
 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY, Publishers. 
 
OCT 171923 
 
 A 
 
 THE CALL OF THE CROSS 
 
 FOUR COLLEGE SERMONS 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. GEORGE D. HERRON, D. D. 
 
 Introduction by President George A. Gates 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company, 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 30 Union Square: East. 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 148 and 150 Madison Street. 
 
 Publishers of Evangelical Literature 
 
Entered according to act of Congress, in the office of the 
 Librarian of Congress, at Washington D. C. by Fleming H 
 Revell Company in the year 1893. 
 
TO MY FRIEND, 
 
 CARRIE RAND, 
 
 AN ELECT LADY, 
 I DEDICATE THIS CALL OF THE CROSS. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 All truth that has vitalizing power comes 
 home to men in visions. The visions may 
 be of the head or heart. Through whatever 
 tributary the waters first are seen to be flow- 
 ing they must all merge in the main current of 
 experience, or the vision is no real vision but 
 some cheap fancy, such "stuff as dreams are 
 made of." The contents of this little volume 
 are a real vision. The author is distinctively 
 a seer. The one vision under which may be 
 classified all the others is a divine-human life, 
 real to thought, actual in living, realized al- 
 ready in part, to be perfected in a kingdom of 
 God on earth, ON EARTH, nota bene. 
 
 Christianity is more than any church or all 
 churches, more than any and all creeds. Christ 
 has not come into the world to establish sal- 
 vation by the ark theory of separating a few 
 from an inevitable general wreck. Christ has 
 come to redeem humanity. That redemption 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 is established; but redemption is essentially a 
 process. Consequently, the completion must 
 be wrought out through the ages of human- 
 ity's development. The Hebrew root from 
 which is derived the word Pharisee is a verb 
 signifying to separate. That is the spirit of 
 Pharisaism. "Come ye out from among them 
 and be ye separate," is fatal or vital according 
 to whether the injunction be considered as a 
 means or an end. The original Pharisees mis- 
 took it as an end. They brought upon their 
 heads the accumulated woes from the lips of 
 Jesus. He taught and lived and died for the 
 exact reverse of that spirit of Pharisaism. 
 The only separatism that true Christianity 
 knows is a withdrawal in order to gain an ac- 
 cumulation of power for service. Christianity 
 is not separation but permeation. 
 
 The church is not to withdraw itself into 
 an organization gathered out of the world; 
 it is to pour itself in the consecrated sacrifice 
 of service into the world. The two disciples 
 who were on the mount with Jesus wanted to 
 take advantage of their opportunity to make 
 a little private high church establishment and 
 suggested that they abide there. The lower 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 section of Raphael's great picture of the 
 Transfiguration has immortahzed in art their 
 rebuke. 
 
 The author of this book is an optimist. 
 The writer of this Introduction heard a man 
 say, "He is a pessimist; he thinks the world 
 is going to the devil and the church going 
 along with it." On the contrary, he thinks 
 the world is going to God. It is going 
 to accelerate its speed thither immeasur- 
 ably in the near future. Humanity is going 
 thither, whether ina the church, or a church, 
 or without any church — that is, by some new 
 and different organization of the divine life. 
 Till the Almighty abdicates the throne of the 
 universe there is no mission for the pessimist. 
 The author believes in the divine development 
 of the human race with all the passion of a 
 Hegelian. He believes in the cross as the 
 symbol of the method of that development 
 with all the intensity of the most strenuous 
 evangelical. The contents of this volume are 
 not visionary except in the sense already in- 
 dicated. The author is no church-steeple 
 dreamer; he is a practical preacher and evan- 
 gelizer. The most successful evangelist of our 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 modern days begins always with the church. 
 First let the church be born again, re- 
 converted, then the church may pour itself 
 upon the community. 
 
 Two of these sermons were preached before 
 the students of Iowa College in connection with 
 the day of prayer for colleges. It is pleasant 
 to testify to their evangelistic power as deter- 
 mined by that practical test. No test is more 
 practical. A body of college students is some- 
 what unconventional and entirely frank in 
 the response to what comes before them. 
 The combination in these sermons of strong 
 intellectuality with, if possible, yet more pro- 
 found spiritual experience, is precisely adapted 
 to effectiveness before college students. 
 These sermons lift up Christ in order that 
 he may draw all men unto him. 
 
 The appeals of the elements of the gospel 
 here emphasized address themselves to the 
 heroic in young men and women. Therein 
 consists their power. There is very little real 
 and abiding help for the young in anything 
 which falls short of calling for their heroism. 
 To tell them that they need Christ to save 
 them will many times help as nothing else 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 can. But there is a profounder impulse than 
 that; there is a higher motive than seeking 
 one's personal safety here or anywhere, now 
 or any when. That higher motive is a call 
 to sacrifice. Sacrifice at its best is a sacri- 
 fice of consecration to service. Dulce et de- 
 corum est pro patria viori, sang the old 
 Roman poet. Though no poet ever sang it, 
 it is true that it is sweeter and more beauti- 
 ful to live for one's country. Ay, and infi- 
 nitely harder. The sacrifice of use is an im- 
 measurably severer test of character than the 
 sacrifice of renunciation. It is just that ap- 
 peal to the great sacrifice of use and service 
 that stirs the hearts of young men and women 
 as no other appeal can do it. The gospel 
 must be seen to be not a philosophic specula- 
 tion, but a real life which can enter into men 
 and women and send them out consumed with 
 the fire of a Christian consecration. The most 
 glorious call that ever sounds in the souls of 
 them who have ears to hear, is when the 
 voice of God calls, as he calls every one: 
 "Come; I want you to help me to help men." 
 This little book contains such an appeal. 
 It must do good among those in whom is the 
 
10 INTRODUCTION 
 
 best hope of the future of our race, the stu- 
 dents in our institutions of higher learning. 
 lozva College, George A. Gates. 
 
 GrinnelL Iowa. 
 
 * -'The Call of the Cross" and "The Divine Method of Culture' 
 were preached at the 1892 commencement of Tabor College, Iowa. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I 
 
 THE CALL OF THE CROSS 
 
 II 
 
 THE QUESTION OF THE AGES 
 
 III 
 
 THE DIVINE METHOD OF CULTURE 
 
 IV 
 
 A LESSON IN EDUCATION FROM THE INCARNATION 
 
I 
 
 The Call of the Cross 
 
I do not believe the world is dying for new ideas. A teach- 
 er has a high place amongst us, but some one is wanted here 
 and abroad far more than a teacher. It is power we need, 
 power that shall help us to solve our practical problems, pow- 
 er that shall help us to realize a high, individual, spiritual 
 life, power that shall make us daring enough to act out all we 
 have seen in vision, all we have learnt in principle from Jesus 
 Christ. . . . And I do trust that, among all the teachings 
 of our churches, there will be a clear and forceful exposition 
 of the wider aspects of Christian citizenship and responsibility, 
 and that we shall never again, if ever our fathers did in the 
 past, sink back into that exclusive individualism which thinks 
 so much and strives so much to forget that personal salvation 
 is only the beginning of a renewed individualism through 
 which societies and nations, and at last the world, shall be 
 overtaken for Jesus Christ. — Rev. Charles A. Berry. 
 
The Call of the Cross 
 
 Arise, let us go hence. — John xiv: 31. 
 
 Our Lord by these words is not bidding the 
 apostles go with him from the room where 
 they have been eating the parting supper. 
 In that sacred place they probably remained 
 until after the Prayer of Intercession. More 
 than place or time is meant by going hence. 
 Master and apostles are standing together in 
 one of God's moments in history. Now is 
 the crisis of this world. The cross is calling 
 the faith of Christ to make its last and in- 
 finite leap, ere Satan be cast out, and the 
 Father glorified in the redemption of the 
 world. The Son of Man had broken with 
 the past before, when he went out from his 
 home at Nazareth to receive the baptism of 
 John; when he emerged victorious from the 
 wilderness, the glory of the world behind him, 
 
16 THE CALL OF THE CROSS 
 
 and the cross ahead; when he made choice 
 of the twelve apostles to be his trained wit- 
 nesses. But now the past has drunk its fill 
 from the springs of his life, and the prepa- 
 ration of the world for its redemption is 
 complete. The future is impatient, and 
 the calling cross stands waiting. And 
 Jesus, knowing that his hour is come, 
 having finished his Father's work, is ready 
 to be offered. He foresees that the fruit 
 of his sacrifice will be a redeemed hu- 
 manity, and his cross a throne of sovereign 
 love, under the dominion of which he will at 
 last unite all men in a kingdom of righteous- 
 ness and fellowship of truth. In order that 
 the world may know that I love the Father, 
 and as the Father gave me commandment, 
 even so I do. In obedience to him, that he 
 may be glorified before the children of dis- 
 obedience, and they from sin be delivered, let 
 us arise and go hence. It was the call of the 
 cross to the Master that uttered itself in his 
 command to the apostles to go hence with 
 him upon their world-wide mission. 
 
 The call of the cross to Christ was the 
 summons of the disciples to a larger career in 
 
THE CALL OF THE CROSS 17 
 
 God's great world of need and sorrow and 
 sin. It was a call to move out from the old 
 life of self-seeking and misunderstanding, of 
 pupilage and correction, into a new life of 
 self-renunciation and intelligent and tireless 
 action. The old life was closing in disaster 
 and disappointment," disgrace and seeming 
 defeat. The baptism of the Spirit, soon to be 
 received, was the inward creation of a new 
 life, the gift of a new energy, the kindling of 
 a divine enthusiasm, that would niake them 
 beacons of truth to weary centuries of false- 
 hood. The cross that called their Lord to a 
 sacrificial death called the disciples to a sacri- 
 ficial life. 
 
 How much was involved in that summons 
 to go hence, what labors and sufferings, they 
 could not then be made to understand. The 
 Lord had many things to say unto them 
 which they were not yet able to bear. What 
 he had told them they now comprehended 
 not. That they were to be social outcasts, 
 despised and hated of men, arraigned as 
 criminals before judges and kings, seems not 
 yet to have impressed itself upon them as a 
 fact. The first steps of the new life were 
 
18 THE CALL OF THE CROSS 
 
 taken in utter darkness. So far as their faith 
 could see, they were walking the ways of 
 failure and death, not life and victory. They 
 heard the call of the cross, but saw neither 
 throne nor crown. 
 
 But the Lord went with them; not merely 
 through the night to the cross, but henceforth 
 evermore. They were not, as they after- 
 wards learned, called to obey the commands 
 and imitate the example of a dead Christ, but 
 to follow and trust a living Redeemer. 
 Though the cross called them in ways they 
 knew not, with a profounder meaning and to 
 a greater work than they at first understood, 
 in no walk or work were they absent from 
 their Lord. Wherever he sent them, in the 
 years which followed that night in which he 
 bade them arise and go hence, his presence 
 was always with them, an unfailing source of 
 cheer and strength. As he led the way to 
 his own cross, so he went before them in all 
 the paths of obedience and action. Death 
 did not take away their Lord, but only united 
 him with them in closer and higher, holier 
 and mightier, relations. He was with them 
 always as a living Christ, rejoicing them 
 
THE CALL OF THE CROSS 10 
 
 through all tribulations, sustaining them 
 through all labors, inspiring all their words 
 through the Spirit. While the call of the 
 cross was indeed an appeal to their faith, a 
 call to grief and loss, it was also a call to a 
 life of joyous fellowship with Christ in the 
 redemptive work of his love. 
 
 The calling cross forever stands, a continu- 
 ous summons to our faith and devotion to 
 manifest themselves in self-denying lives of 
 love and work. The cross of our Christ can 
 never rightly mean less to us than the entire 
 dedication of all our powers and energies to 
 him as our ever-present Saviour and King. 
 But there are times when the call of the cross 
 is instinct with a new emphasis; when the 
 summons of Christ to a completer self-surren- 
 der, to a more consecrated life, is as clear to 
 us as it was to the twelve upon that memo- 
 rable night. There are epochs in our lives 
 when we see that the old way of living, how- 
 ever full of hope it may once have been, is 
 not the way of life in which we must hence- 
 forth set our feet. The low ambitions of the 
 past are seen to be shameful. Dreams of 
 power and happiness once so fair have grown 
 
20 THE CALL OF THE CROSS 
 
 repulsive. Needs once embracing our esti- 
 mate of the worth of life are felt no longer. 
 Old hopes are now forgotten. New revela- 
 tions of truth make wrong what once was 
 right. Things once the end of life are seen 
 to be but means. Past fellowships and joys, 
 moral achievements, plans and toils, were 
 but a preparation for the time when we must 
 go forth upon a new course of life. The cup 
 of the past is full, and to give it more of life 
 is waste. We are at the end of the old way, 
 and to turn our steps backward, in the paths 
 from which we are clearly called, is to out- 
 rage conscience and deny the living Christ. 
 To these epochal moments, summoning us 
 to a larger life, we are all brought. The Lord 
 comes to us in some sudden flash of light; 
 some proffered opportunity of larger service; 
 some life-long sorrow that comes to make the 
 heart its home; some fruitful fellowship with 
 a new friend, whose life reveals hitherto un- 
 seen possibilities in our humanity; some 
 great vacancy left in the soul by a departed 
 hope; some great wrong that presses upon us 
 as meant for our righting; some appeal of a 
 great need in city, church, or state; — in some 
 
THE C/ILL OF THE CROSS 21 
 
 moment like one of these the Son of God 
 comes to each of us, perhaps when we think 
 not, bidding us arise and enter upon a diviner 
 course of life. But however unexpected the 
 moment or the hour, he has yet made himself 
 known, commanding that we let self alone 
 for awhile, and work out the larger problems 
 of life with the new resources which he puts 
 in our hands. In that rare hour of commun- 
 ion we stood close by the cross of our Christ, 
 and heard its sweet, strong call to purer, 
 greater and more unselfish living. There 
 spoke a voice in our souls: "Arise, let us go 
 hence." When we obeyed that call a new 
 world of truth and work opened to our vision. 
 
 " And there have fallen from us, as we traveled, 
 Many a burden of an ancient pain — 
 Many a tangled cord hath been unraveled, 
 Never to bind our foolish heart again." 
 
 The call to larger life, to wider usefulness, 
 to more heroic endeavor, to truer consecra- 
 tion, is always the call of the cross. When- 
 ever the Son of Man appears to summon you 
 to action, by the way of the cross he invari- 
 ably leads you. The first principle of all well- 
 done work is self-renunciation. A faith that 
 is not strong enough to leap away from self 
 
23 THE CALL OF THE CROSS 
 
 into the unseen and unknown is not the faith 
 that works righteousness in the world. He 
 is no loyal follower of Christ who demands 
 to see along the ways he is being led. En- 
 tire self-abandonment, the surrender of all 
 claims to the disposal of one's own life, the 
 willingness not to see, is the first condition 
 of all discipleship. All righteous work is 
 vicarious. It is impossible that you serve your 
 age, in its crises and opportunities, without 
 bearing away its sins and burdens in your 
 own soul. Christ never pointed out a path 
 of duty, or commanded a service, or disclosed 
 a new career of life, that had not somewhere 
 in it a Gethsemane and a Calvary. T«o be a 
 Christian according to Christ means, first and 
 always, the unreserved surrender of self to 
 him as Master, for him to do with as he wills. 
 The call to be a Christian, or a better Chris- 
 tian, is a summons to be no more your own 
 man but Christ's self-renounced man; to 
 dedicate your life with all its powers and 
 possessions, your occupations and energies, 
 to the righteousness to which Christ dedicated 
 himself; to live among your associates, in 
 whatever sphere of life you move, in your 
 
THE CALL OF THE CROSS 23 
 
 church and out of it, for the very same end 
 that Christ Hved. It is a call to make Christ's 
 cause your cause; to make the accomplish- 
 ment of that for which Christ spake and lived 
 and died the authoritative mission of your 
 life; to make Christ's faith in the fatherhood 
 of God and the brotherhood of man your 
 faith. To live a Christian life means, in the 
 real sense, the giving of your whole course of 
 procedure to the direction of Jesus as your 
 living King. 
 
 It is this element of continuous loyalty to 
 Jesus, in the faith that he is a present and 
 reigning Christ, that not only constitutes the 
 distinctive feature of Christianity, and thus 
 differentiates it from other religions, but also 
 makes it the permanent creative and construct- 
 ive force in human history. It is the faith 
 of the New Testament that loyalty to Christ 
 fruits in all virtues, because they are the 
 outgrowth of the indwelling Christ who is 
 himself the source of all righteousness. And 
 it is the failure to keep foremost the fact that 
 Christianity is loyalty to Christ, accompanied 
 by the fact that loyalty to Christ means the 
 entire surrender of self to his authority and 
 
24 THE CALL OF THE CROSS 
 
 guidance, that constitutes the shameful weak- 
 ness of Christendom in the face of the great 
 needs and duties which are calling the church 
 of our day to a new career and a more com- 
 prehensive mission. 
 
 For, let it be clearly understood, so far as 
 this voice is to interpret, that being a Chris- 
 tian is something more than being a good 
 man, according to common standards of good- 
 ness. It is a sad misconception of Chris- 
 tianity, fatal alike to doctrine and practice, 
 which permits the thought to get abroad in 
 the world that being a Christian is simply 
 obedience to current moral and religious cus- 
 toms. One may possess the natural quali- 
 ties that make up an admirable character, 
 and yet lack the distinctive feature and ex- 
 perience that belong to a genuine Christian 
 manhood or womanhood. He may live an 
 agreeable and peaceful life, disturbing not his 
 times, and quietly attending to his own busi- 
 ness, faultless in his conduct so far as it com- 
 prehends the meaning of life, yet be without 
 Christ and his hope in the world. He may 
 be good in the sight of God as well as man, 
 and yet not be Christian, just as a violet may 
 
THE CALL OF THE CROSS 25 
 
 be perfect after its kind, and beautiful to look 
 upon; harmless, too, where a flame would be 
 terribly destructive, but still a violet; and 
 God does not light the world with violets. 
 
 Natural goodness is not Christian virtue. 
 It is good as far as it goes. It may be the 
 basis, or even a fruit, of the Christian life; but 
 it does not in itself make one Christian. Christ- 
 ianity is infinitely more than natural goodness. 
 A Christian is a supernatural being, who has 
 had a supernatural experience, and possesses 
 more than natural resources for thought and 
 action. He does not live an unnatural life, 
 nor is the natural evil in his sight; but there 
 is more of him than there is in nature. The 
 Christian takes in, more or less perfectly, the 
 good of nature; but he takes to it the good 
 that is supernatural. The new birth, which 
 is a supernatural experience, whether its trav- 
 ail be long or short, invests character with 
 more than the most faultless natural quali- 
 ties. It is a second creation, making a^ 
 man a citizen of another world than the one 
 he sees with the eyes of sense. The new- 
 born man is a distinctly different creature from 
 the man at his side, who, so far as the un- 
 
26 THE CALL OF THE CROSS 
 
 spiritualized eye can see, is every whit his mor- 
 al equal. For the natural man, though truly 
 a work of God, naturally good as he may be, 
 receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; 
 for they are foolishness unto him; and he can- 
 not know them; because they are spiritually 
 examined. One may be a careful and con- 
 scientious student of Christianity, knowing 
 Christianity as a religious science, and a cata- 
 logue of religious facts, yet know nothing of 
 Christianity as a spiritual life. Except a 
 man be born again, he cannot see the king- 
 dom of God. Not that nature is evil — it is 
 good and beautiful — but transient, shadowy, 
 and insubstantial; only meant to serve a tem- 
 poral and educational purpose. The spiritual 
 alone is the real and eternal. The natural 
 is not bad; it simply does not comprehend 
 the spiritual. The whole natural world may 
 be squeezed dry, and there is not enough in 
 it to make a Christian character. From the 
 natural point of view, the Christian life is a 
 sustained miracle, a supernatural career. It 
 is greater than the powers of nature, tran- 
 scending all the possibilities of nature. It is 
 nourished by moral meat and drink that 
 
THE CALL OF THE CROSS 27 
 
 nature cannot supply. And what we now need 
 for the future development of Christian 
 thought is not so much the knowledge of 
 natural law in the spiritual world as the re- 
 discovery of spiritual law in the natural 
 world. 
 
 The Christian is Christ continued — divine 
 incarnation increased and carried along. He 
 is a man of whom God has gotten possession 
 and anointed with Christ's anointing, which 
 is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Christian 
 virtue is natural goodness aflame with God. 
 That which distinguishes Christian virtue 
 from natural goodness, and from the undis- 
 turbed repose which is the ideal of Epictetus 
 and the Stoic philosophers, is a divine and 
 quenchless enthusiasm. The apostles worked 
 and spoke at white heat. They burned as 
 white flames of holiness, the breath of God 
 flashing their light across the nations. They 
 spoke with tongues of fire, and dipped their 
 pens in the blood of their hearts. They en- 
 treated and rebuked with an intensity that 
 seemed to men of the world as madness. 
 They entered the godless cities as men turn- 
 ing the world upside down. They walked 
 
28 THE CALL OF THE CROSS 
 
 the earth as its conquerors, armed with 
 weapons handed down from the skies. They 
 were in the world but not of it, and the 
 stars were their friends. They were serene; 
 but theirs was the serenity of high and holy 
 passions. And others have been 'caught in 
 their flame, the Florentine monks of Saint 
 Mark's, the Waldenses and Huguenots, the 
 Lollards and the Pilgrims, Edwards and 
 Wesley and Finney, and a great multitude 
 ivhom no man can number, keeping faith 
 alive in the race, lavishing themselves upon 
 an unfriendly world, and growing large 
 through burning and rich in giving. And 
 faith and virtue have not perished from 
 among men because some have always lived 
 to whom faith was a life, and not an opinion; 
 to whom virtue was a passion, and not a 
 pleasant study. It is the baptism of the Holy 
 Christ-Spirit, which is the passion of God 
 for righteousness, kindling, illuminating, 
 transforming the life of the man until he be- 
 comes a living, burning word of God — it is 
 this baptism, this being caught up in a flame 
 from the sin-consuming fire of God, this con- 
 version of one's whole being into an energy 
 
THE CALL OF THE CROSS 29 
 
 of truth and love, that makes virtue dis- 
 tinctively Christian. It is the virtue that 
 cannot and dare not take its ease in the face 
 of the sin and woe of the world. When good- 
 ness becomes merely passive, like that of the 
 professional Christian of our day, or a mere 
 moral self-culture, like that of the philoso- 
 phers, it ceases to be Christian. It is, I do 
 not forget, good, what there is of it, and 
 brings with it happiness; but it lacks the one 
 element that would make it Christian; it has 
 not the power that saves the world. Chris- 
 tian virtue finds its rest in wearing a yoke of 
 toil, and enters the joy of the Lord on the 
 field of conflict against unrighteousness. The 
 rest of Christ is the burden of others. The 
 peace of Christ is the armor of God for battle 
 and conquest. The faith of Christ is omnipo- 
 tent power to work righteousness. 
 
 Now the fact that the Christian life is 
 supernatural, and is so supreme a life, so far 
 beyond the reach of the natural man, is not 
 a discouragement, but an overwhelming en- 
 couragement. If I supposed myself sent 
 forth on a Christian career dependent upon 
 any natural resources, or any help or strength 
 
30 THE CALL OF THE CROSS 
 
 I can feel or see in nature, I should think the 
 Gospel a divine tantalism. But I know that 
 I am sent, as you are sent, in the power of 
 the immanent and sovereign Christ, renewing 
 our life when the resources of the world are 
 exhausted, giving a quenchless joy when hap- 
 piness takes wing. He, the ever-living and 
 all-present Christ, is our strength and song. 
 The transforming power of the indwelling 
 Christ is our purification. Unqualified sub- 
 mission to him, not obedience to any code of 
 morals, is our safety. By faith in Christ as 
 a constant and personal Redeemer is the 
 fallen human life made divine. We are 
 sent hence from this sacred place, to make 
 righteousness the purpose and passion of our 
 life, in company with Christ. Fellowship 
 with him is our growth. He is our peace, his 
 love, our strength. Through bringing all we 
 have to his feet, through the entire commit- 
 ment of our lives unto his keeping, through 
 the absolute dedication of all self-interest to 
 his kingdom, we are able to see the sin of our 
 hearts and make no terms with it, neither 
 despair at our weakness. By faith in his 
 power to make us whole may we see God 
 
THE C/fLL OF THE CROSS 31 
 
 and live. In the faith that Christ, through 
 the Spirit, is working out his redemption to 
 its full fruition have we courage and power to 
 make righteousness our occupation, and all 
 material things its ministers. Because he 
 lives we live also. Because he is in the world, 
 we can live as sons of God who fear not the 
 world, facing its confident and jeering battal- 
 ions of selfishness serene and triumphant, 
 knowing that he who began the good work 
 of straightening out this crooked wurld has 
 power in heaven and on earth to complete 
 the work. 
 
 Wherefore, though a man of Christ be 
 driven to shame and sickness of heart by 
 the question of what one poor, sinful soul can 
 do, he may arise and go about his work in the 
 faith that the Son of Man has overcome the 
 world, and is going forth conquering and to 
 conquer. Though the forces of wrong have 
 endured so long and strong; though Cain 
 takes Christ's name, and hides his brother's 
 blood in silken garments, and sits on mam- 
 mon's throne, and rules awhile the nations; 
 yet faith acts as seeing the invisible Christ al- 
 ready upon the throne of universal dominion, 
 
THE CALL OF THE CROSS 
 
 and is persuaded that neither powers nor 
 principalities, things present nor things to 
 come, can separate the world from the love 
 of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, 
 unto whom every knee in heaven and on earth 
 shall yet rejoice to bow. Though the world 
 smile while the life of faith flings reputation 
 and comfort away to beat itself against the 
 mountain masses of human sin, to be mangled 
 upon the rocks of human pride, to be trampled 
 under the feet of human selfishness, yet faith 
 knows that God and history will vindicate its 
 wisdom. 
 
 And because this life is of God and not of 
 man, of the Spirit and not the flesh, it is 
 offered without measure unto all the sons of 
 men. Whoever will may freely drink of the 
 water of this spiritual life. The reason why 
 some more clearly than others are seen to be 
 the sons of God is in the fact that some re- 
 ceived the gifts of God, while others doubt 
 and delay. I doubt not there were many in- 
 tellects in Galilee as great as Peter's, but they 
 did not devote themselves with the same self- 
 abandon to their Lord. Not in any divine 
 partiality, but in the quality and continuity 
 
THE CALL OF THE CROSS 33 
 
 of self-surrender, is the difference in the 
 spiritual power of the followers of Christ. 
 That some are divinely exalted, is due to the 
 fact that they have humbled themselves un- 
 conditionally at his feet. The offers of the 
 Spirit are made without discrimination. As 
 empty as any of you are of self, so full you 
 may be of the living Christ. Whoever will 
 may make the self-surrender that is rewarded 
 with the gifts of God. Whoever will sell all 
 that he hath, may buy the pearl of a price- 
 less character. Whoever will bear the cross 
 of absolute self-renunciation, may wear the 
 crown of divine righteousness. Whoever is 
 willing to part with all the garments of pride 
 and selfishness, may carry the sword of re- 
 sistless holiness. 
 
 My brother, there is no reason in heaven or 
 beneath, why you should not, at this moment, 
 in this holy place and hour, lay your heart 
 upon the altar of a perfect sacrifice in the 
 service of your Lord Christ. There is not an 
 excuse that will stand at the judgment seat of 
 mercy, not an excuse that will stand at the 
 judgment bar of your own conscience, before 
 the cross of the living Christ, now calling you 
 
34 THE CALL OF THE CROSS 
 
 to make an unconditional and immediate 
 dedication of all your powers and possessions 
 unto the work of fulfilling his redemption in 
 an unbelieving world. I am not asking you 
 to agree with any set of opinions, nor whether 
 you are a member of a church, or ignorant or 
 wise; I ask you, yea, in Christ's stead I be- 
 seech you, to make a surrender of yourself 
 that shall be unreserved and complete, keep- 
 ing nothing back. I plead with you to go 
 from here with Christ as your Master, as well 
 as Saviour, to work with him in the holy 
 determination that your occupation, whatever 
 it may be, shall be a communion with God; 
 that the city in which you live shall be a city 
 of God; that the church you make your home 
 shall flash far and wide the flame of the 
 Christ-Spirit. I appeal to you to take the 
 mission of Jesus as your mission, and live to 
 make this world in which you live a new 
 world. Whatever your circumstances or 
 temptations; be your past what it may, your 
 future to you uncertain; though many your 
 doubts and fearful your struggles; however 
 long you may have been at ease, and walked 
 your own religious way; be you in the church 
 
THE C/4LL OF THE CROSS 35 
 
 or out of it; I entreat you to present yourself 
 a living sacrifice to the slain Christ, and re- 
 ceive grace whereby you may offer well-pleas, 
 ing service unto God. You have no right to 
 suit the convenience of your opinions or cir- 
 cumstances. You are bought with a price, 
 and are not your own. You belong to God; 
 and one is your Master, even Jesus, who 
 pleased not himself, but for the joy of serving 
 endured the cross, despising the shame of 
 worldly scorn and failure. 
 
 However narrow your sphere of life, how- 
 ever grinding your occupation and hard your 
 daily task, there is room for you to quit your- 
 self as a man of the cross in this world of 
 strife and want. You have the same re- 
 sources, and a vaster scope for your powers, 
 than the apostles who went out to Geth- 
 semane with their Lord, on the night of his 
 betrayal. There is work, and to spare, and 
 reason for sacrifice, for all souls brave enough 
 to follow the conquering Christ through the 
 great doors of opportunity the questions of 
 our day are swinging open for the leadership 
 of the sons of God. We live in a world that 
 has well-nigh won the church which was sent 
 
36 THE CALL OF THE CROSS 
 
 to conquer it. And the church which bears 
 Christ's name is coming to the end of its old 
 ease-loving and self-satisfied way of living, 
 with the ideal of the cultured pagan substi- 
 tuted for the changeless cross, and must be 
 started upon a new career of action by apos- 
 tles who dare make themselves of no reputa- 
 tion, that they may lift the cross anew above 
 the wisdom and customs of the world. 
 Worthless as we feel ourselves to be, the 
 Lord hath need of you and me in this match- 
 less work. However fettered by circum- 
 stances, though helpless we feel before the 
 arrogant forces of evil, the Holy Spirit will 
 come upon us in power if we arise and go 
 hence from this room and hour with self- 
 emptied souls at the bidding of the Lord 
 Christ. 
 
 The calling cross stands waiting for you and 
 me to go and have our wills nailed upon it, 
 that we may witness for the saving Christ in 
 the power of a deeper experience. Into the 
 sanctuary of our souls there comes, this 
 morning, the Christ of our redemption, ap- 
 pealing to our gratitude and loyalty, our man- 
 hood and womanhood. By the power of his 
 
THE CALL OF THE CROSS 37 
 
 pierced hands; by his deathless love which 
 took into itself the suffering of our sins; 
 by the sorrow that broke his heart, and the 
 blood that flowed from his side; by the 
 sublime opportunities for service, and the 
 perils which cry aloud to the sleeping church 
 from the future; by the wide wastes of 
 human woe, and the hungry voices of human 
 need; by the great harvests of human souls 
 that wait for loving hands to reap; — by these, 
 and countless more, the living Christ speaks 
 to our devotion, calling us to go hence with 
 him as our Master, and we his loyal subjects. 
 The word I bring you, at this time, is not 
 mine, but his who calls and sends. It is the 
 call of the cross, sounding down through the 
 centuries, growing sweeter with each new 
 crisis, articulate with judgment, victory and 
 peace. The changeless cross of the living 
 Christ calls you and me, this very hour, to a 
 larger life of sacrifice, prayer and action. 
 Arise, let us go hence. 
 
II • 
 
 TJie Qjiestion of the Ages 
 
So Donal lives a present power of heat and light in the 
 place. Most of his early friends are gone, but he wears yet 
 the same solemn look, with the same hovering smile. It seems 
 to say to those who can read it, "I know in whom I have be- 
 lieved." And he in whom he believed more and more was 
 that God who is the Father of the Lord. His life was hid 
 with Christ in God, and he had no anxiety about anything. 
 The wheels of the coming chariot, moving slow or fast to fetch 
 him, were always moving; and whether it arrived at night, or 
 at cock-crowing, or in the full blaze of noon, is all one to him. 
 He is ready for the new life his Arctura knows. "God is," 
 he will say, coming out of one of his talking moods; "God is, 
 and all is well." When he has said that, he never says any- 
 thing more, but listens only to those about him. He never 
 disputes, rarely seeks to convince. "I will do what I can to 
 let what light I have shine; but disputation is smoke, and 
 serves only to obscure the light. It is to no profit — and I do 
 like," he will say, "to give and to get the good of things!" 
 
 — George MacDonald. 
 
II 
 
 The Question of the Ages 
 
 Pilate said unto them, What then shall I do with Jesus, 
 which is called Christ? They all say, Let him be crucified.— 
 
 This was a question Pilate had no right to 
 ask. The final judgment of the case of Jesus 
 rested with himself. The attempt to evade 
 his responsibility by casting it upon the Jews 
 was shameful and cowardly. The washing of 
 his hands before the multitude, instead of ac- 
 quitting him of Christ's blood, was Pilate's 
 self-condemnation. It was for him, not the 
 rabble, to decide what should be done with 
 Christ. In turning from the decision of his 
 conscience to the clamors of the envious 
 priests; in listening to the voice of the mob 
 rather than the divine voice that was speak- 
 ing in his soul; in consulting his political 
 safety rather than what he knew to be justice, 
 Pilate partook of the guilt of the Jews. In 
 
42 THE QUESTION OF THE AGES 
 
 the crisis of his Hfe, in the supreme moment 
 of history, in one of the subHmest opportu- 
 nities God ever gave to man for moral great- 
 ness, Pilate failed. 
 
 Nor can it be said in his justification that 
 the sacrifice of Christ was a foregone conclu- 
 sion, divinely decreed before the beginning of 
 the world, and determined upon by the Jews 
 even at the cost of rebellion against the 
 Roman authorities. He cannot be excused 
 on the ground that all Jerusalem would had 
 to have been sacrificed had not Christ been 
 delivered up. He believed in Christ's inno- 
 cence of moral sin or legal crime. As a min- 
 ister of justice it was his duty, as a Roman 
 governor it would have been to his honor, to 
 protect Christ from persecution and violence, 
 though it cost him his own life. 
 
 The answer to Pilate's question was freight- 
 ed with vaster consequences than the replying 
 Jews understood. The chief men of Israel 
 did not know, what was nevertheless true, 
 that the destiny of their nation and the fate 
 of their religion depended upon their decision 
 concerning Christ. Their rejection of Christ 
 was a revelation of their own murderous self- 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE AGES 43 
 
 ishness and hopeless hypocrisy. In reject- 
 ing Christ, they rejected the highest mani- 
 festation of God's goodness. When they 
 cried unto Pilate their willingness to have 
 the blood of Christ rest upon themselves 
 and their children they were unknowingly 
 prophesying the fate which befell their chil- 
 dren, and the dreadful destruction which 
 came to their city and temple a few years 
 later, when besieged and taken by Titus and 
 his Roman legions. Then uncounted thou- 
 sands perished by fire and sword and famine, 
 and mothers mad with hunger ate their babes, 
 and the Jewish nation became extinct; the 
 people filled up the measure of their father's 
 iniquity, to become wanderers upon the face 
 of the earth, which they are to this day. 
 
 Do not think by this that God arbitrarily 
 punishes men for intellectual unbelief. I 
 wish I might dispel such a notion, right here, 
 from your thoughts forever. The teaching 
 that God accepts or rejects men on account 
 of their religious opinions is a frightful per- 
 version of the gospel of Christ. It is not 
 upon the forms in which we apprehend or 
 misapprehend the truth that eternal judgment 
 
44 THE QUESTION OF THE /IGES 
 
 is passed; but upon the attitude of soul which 
 lies behind all belief and unbelief. A man 
 may have intellectual doubts about the truth 
 he believes in and lives by; he may build his 
 character out of moral stuff which he has 
 never been able to analyze. And the most 
 Christless living, the most heartless infidelity 
 I have ever seen, stalked about in an impene- 
 trable garb of orthodoxy. 
 
 Salvation through faith in Christ is as sim- 
 ple as the law of gravity. Christ is the mag- 
 net which God passes over the souls and 
 institutions of men, revealing their moral 
 quality. When a soul is brought face to 
 face with Christ, the attitude it assumes to- 
 wards Christ reveals its inmost spiritual sub- 
 stance. The moment he appears, when his 
 call comes to follow him in living to do good 
 to others and deny self, the way in which we 
 look upon him and hear and heed his call is 
 a manifestation of our real character. As 
 many as repent and turn unto him are saved, 
 because they reveal that beneath all the folly 
 and shame, the hate and deceit, the waste 
 and misery, there is alive within them a moral 
 essence like the essence of Christ. The 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE AGES 45 
 
 most fallen life that creeps in the moral dark- 
 ness of the earth, the vilest creature that 
 wears a human face, if he looks at the life of 
 Christ and sees therein what he longs to be 
 like, no matter how feeble and hesitating the 
 hands of faith that reach piteously up to the 
 divine mercy, he reveals at once that inside 
 of his corruption and weakness is a living 
 germ of the divine life; for Christ has never 
 drawn, nor can he ever draw, a soul to him- 
 self "that has not something of the Christ- 
 nature within. But if a man sees in Christ 
 what he does not want to be, if the life of 
 Christ is not such as he would give his all to 
 live, then he does not in any vital sense, be- 
 lieve in Christ; his opinions as to what Christ 
 was, or who he is, have nothing to do with his 
 salvation from sin, and its wages of death. If 
 there is no affinity between a soul and Christ, 
 if the soul's hard selfishness is not melted by 
 the supreme manifestation of God's goodness 
 in Christ, then the soul is lost, though its re- 
 ligious opinions m.eet the unqualified endorse- 
 ment of all the scribes of traditionalism. 
 Christ cannot help himself in the matter of 
 judging it lost. Being what he is, he cannot 
 
46 THE QUESTION OF THE AGES 
 
 judge otherwise than he does. The judgments 
 of Christ are something infinitely more serious 
 and divine, more reasonable and natural, than 
 a judgment upon our theological beliefs and 
 unbeliefs. Christ's judgment is a bringing to 
 light our real self, whether it be good or evil; 
 a calling forth of the man or the woman hid- 
 den from the eyes of the world by theological 
 clothes and religious etiquette. Customs 
 and opinions, books and clothes, creeds and 
 manners, count for nothing in the presence 
 of Christ. True and righteous altogether are 
 his judgments. It is this tremendous fact of 
 the righteousness of his judgments which 
 makes our dallying with our opportunities to 
 know and serve Christ supremely awful. 
 A man's moral attitude toward Christ is a 
 perfect revelation of what the man is. Christ 
 himself is God's eternal judgment upon 
 human character. 
 
 What shall I do with Christ ? Every prob- 
 lem of life reduces itself to this question. 
 Every soul is a judgment-hall wherein Christ 
 is always on trial. Life with each of us is a 
 continuous crucifixion or a continuous ex- 
 altation of Christ. Whether we so intend it 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE /1GES 47 
 
 or not, every thought, word, or deed, is an 
 answer to Pilate's question. In every step, 
 so far as my life counts, I am deciding the 
 fate of Christ in the world; either defeating 
 or fulfilling the eternal purpose of God con- 
 cerning the world. What will or will not be- 
 come of me, whether what I am doing or not 
 doing is right or wrong, is not the real state- 
 ment of the question that always confronts 
 me. Every word and deed of mine inwraps 
 the destiny of the race, and is a judgment 
 upon Christ. Every compromise with wrong, 
 every tolerance with sin, every failure to be 
 a brother to my fellow-men, is a betrayal of 
 Christ to his enemies. Every selfishly spoken 
 word, every selfishly done deed, is a new 
 crucifixion of our Lord. 
 
 You have a business transaction in hand. 
 What will you do with Christ in that.^ You 
 cannot act as though he were not; for he was, 
 and is, and is to come. He has bought you 
 with an unreckonable price. Out of the sac- 
 rificial agony of his great soul was your re- 
 demption born. You belong to him, every 
 breath of your being. You can have no spirit- 
 ual existence apart from him. You can be 
 
48 THE QUESTION OF THE AGES 
 
 nothing good, nor do nothing right, that is 
 not the impulse of his Spirit. The least that 
 you can do to show that you cherish his great 
 salvation is to make his presence manifest in 
 every affair of your life. Nothing short of 
 his absolute supremacy in this business deal- 
 ing is honorable. What will you do with 
 him.^ Will you make this trade a confession 
 of your faith in Christ, of your confidence in 
 the practicability of his Golden Rule, or make 
 it simply a matter of gain.? You have afflic- 
 tions. Will you commit the sin of consuming 
 in idle, selfish grief the strength 'that belongs 
 to him to use in blessing others.'* Will you 
 make the thorns in your flesh the ministers of 
 his glory, or the witnesses of your selfishness.'* 
 You sustain relations to your fellow-children 
 in Christ. Shall Christ or self rule in your 
 affections and friendships.? Will you make 
 Christ the joy of your human fellowships, or 
 will you sink to the degradation of using them 
 only as a means of enjoyment.? Has Christ 
 been crucified or enthroned in your earthly 
 relationships.? What will you do with Christ 
 when you go to places of amusement .? What 
 will you do with Christ when you buy and sell? 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE /1GES 49 
 
 Have you placed your ballot in the palm that 
 was pierced for you? You can think nothing, 
 love nothing, decide nothing, that is not either 
 a rejection or acceptance of Christ. 
 
 And, while you are considering this ques- 
 tion, let me ask you to keep in mind that you 
 are deciding the fate of a living, and not a 
 dead Christ. He is the same human Christ 
 to-day as when he toiled at Capernaum or 
 rested at Bethany. His relation t^ men is 
 not different now from what it was when he 
 taught the multitudes on the mountain. He 
 lives as a man; he lives as our Master, in 
 whom God still treasures all hidden knowl- 
 edge; he lives as a Redeemer, showing us the 
 Father, revealing us to ourselves. He is with 
 you always. He is here this morning. What 
 to do with him is a question as inevitable in 
 your life as it was in the life of Pilate. As 
 truly as Pilate you are sitting in judgment 
 upon a living Christ, to-day, and deciding, 
 so far as you are concerned, his acceptance 
 or rejection by the world. What will you 
 do with him? 
 
 Sometimes, as in the case of Pilate, the 
 lines of inward conflict are clearly drawn. It 
 
50 THE QUESTION OF THE AGES 
 
 is clearly seen that upon a single decision 
 depends the destiny of Christ in the life. 
 And there is, besides, the consciousness, or 
 fear, that vast and unseen interests of the 
 kingdom of God are involved in the conflict. 
 A man is sometimes overborne with the feel- 
 ing, which he cannot rid himself of, nor yet 
 understand, that he is deciding larger things 
 than he knows of. A soul sometimes finds 
 itself staggering under the weight of great re- 
 sponsibilities, while ignorant of what they are. 
 Every man who has heeded Christ's call to 
 surrender, and gird himself for a divine work, 
 has had to choose, sometime and somewhere, 
 between crucifixion with Christ and the king- 
 doms of the world and their glory. While 
 the whole life seemed condensed into a su- 
 preme and solitary struggle, the Lord suffered 
 Satan to press into one cup all the essence of 
 the joy and sweetness of the world; all the 
 heart craved; all the soul yearned to possess. 
 Eager hands of quenchless passion reached 
 to seize and drink the cup. Just then Christ 
 passed to the soul his own cup— the cup of 
 absolute death to the world; of entire surren- 
 der of all selfish interest in everything that 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE /tGES 51 
 
 would have made life glad and glorious and 
 strong. Would the soul drink of the cup of 
 the world's joy and glory, or of the cup Christ 
 gives it? Could not some drops of worldly 
 bliss be mixed in the cup of Christ? No. Did 
 it need to be drunk to the last drop? Yes. 
 The issue was clearly defined, and there was 
 no mistaking it. Either self or Christ had 
 to be crucified. As the conflict deepened, all 
 the truth of Christ, all the power of faith, 
 all the soul's hope of a resurrection, was 
 called upon to stand up and prove itself. 
 Great gaps appeared in the soul's faith, and 
 depthless abysses about it yawned. But 
 when the crisis had done its work, and the 
 soul came forth with the bonds of the world 
 broken, and the sacrifice of self complete, 
 it found itself ensphered with the freedom of 
 God, and borne on by the deep sweep of 
 God's Spirit. And if this experience I have 
 been rudely describing is unreal to you, think 
 not that it will always be so. Every soul 
 great and daring enough, as every soul can 
 be, needs to be watching as one who expects, 
 yet knows not when, the Lord may appear to 
 it in some vast spiritual crisis, out of which 
 
52 • THE QUESTION OF THE AGES 
 
 it will issue like Pilate, the master opportunity 
 of life irrecoverably gone, or come forth a 
 new soul, strong in the delight of its own 
 triumph, and the joy of the Lord its strength. 
 And the rich, new life born out of the anguish 
 of such an experience — just a year of such 
 life — is worth a myriad ages of the unheroic 
 professional Christianity that is the staple of 
 our modern churches. 
 
 But in whatever ways we are deciding, 
 whether in our common tasks, or in great 
 moral crises, we are each moment, as I said 
 to you when I began, giving our decision as 
 to what shall be the destiny of Christ in the 
 life of the world. 
 
 Whenever we turn from the divine voice 
 within our souls, the answer will always be. 
 Let him be crucified. We crucify Christ 
 when we refer the question of what we shall 
 do with him to some experience in the past, 
 What shall I do with Christ, is always a pres- 
 ent question. It always demands a present 
 answer. We cannot make some past con- 
 secration a substitute for a present decision. 
 Yesterday's experience will not answer for 
 to-day's call for reconsecration. No conver- 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE AGES 53 
 
 sion is safe that is not followed by a con- 
 tinuous self-dedication to Christ. No con- 
 secration is honest that is not made a point 
 from which to advance to profounder conse- 
 crations. No victory can be secured except 
 by greater victories. No deliverance is lasting 
 that does not prove itself by delivering others. 
 No salvation is eternal that is not tremblingly 
 wrought out by the inworking energy of God, 
 No faith is more than an indolent profession 
 that does not speak to the world in loving 
 service. It is useless to you to have been 
 born again unless you keep growing again. 
 God's Christ and man's need are the two 
 changeless facts of all spiritual growth. What 
 you did with Christ yesterday is no reply to 
 the question of what you will do with Christ 
 to-day. To try to make the past answer for 
 the present, is a piece of moral cowardice 
 as childish as Pilate's washing of his hands. 
 Neither can we depend upon our nearest 
 friends to decide for us what we shall do with 
 Christ. The best of them will unknowingly 
 advise his crucifixion when they see the cru- 
 cifixion of self to be the other alternative. 
 Few friends are divinely true enough to look 
 
54 THE QUESTION OF THE AGES 
 
 beyond the pains and losses, and rejoice in 
 the griefs and disappointments of those they 
 love, and see the ennobled character which 
 God is forming in the furnace. It is a rare 
 son that has an Abraham for a father, willing 
 to put the knife to all his son's worldly hopes 
 in order that the will of God may be done in 
 his son's life as it is done in heaven. It is 
 an uncommon friend that can thrust the one 
 he loves best into the consuming flames of 
 divine purification. The highest expression 
 of friendship ever uttered upon earth was that 
 of our Lord in his Intercessory Prayer: "I 
 pray not that thou shouldst take them out of 
 the world, but that thou shouldst keep them 
 from the evil." The great human heart of 
 Christ yearned to enfold those stricken and 
 bewildered disciples and bear them out of the 
 tribulation and sorrow which he knew they 
 must endure because of their love for him. 
 When he put aside those impulses, and com- 
 mitted them with perfect trust unto his Father 
 and their Father, willing to have them sacri- 
 ficed as he was being sacrificed, rejoicing to 
 have them suffer for redemption's sake as 
 he had suffered, he shows us the friendship 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE AGES 
 
 for man which springs from the heart of God. 
 But seldom do our friends bless us with this 
 deepest and divinest quality of friendship. 
 Rarely do they fail to mix the world's wis- 
 dom with the wisdom of the gospel in their 
 advice. Only the Word that was in Christ, 
 and seeks to dwell in you and me, can tell 
 us what to do with Christ. 
 
 Surely the world cannot tell us what to do 
 with Christ. It has always clamored for his 
 crucifixion; and all our selfish impulses join in 
 the clamor. And the larger the power of 
 Christ in the world, the greater the manifesta- 
 tions of his glory, the angrier will be the de- 
 mand for his crucifixion. The devils always 
 tear a man most violently just before Christ 
 casts them out. The more fully Christ gets 
 things in order to deliver the world from the 
 last of evil, and turn the key on the pit of 
 darkness, the more boastful and desperate 
 grow the demons of wickedness. There has 
 never been such a cry for the death of the 
 living Christ as there is in our day, because 
 there is a feeling abroad in the world that 
 Christ holds the key that alone can unlock 
 the problems of the nations. Society would 
 
56 THE QUESTION OF THE AGES 
 
 crucify his authority because the times are 
 instinct with the approaching doom of selfish- 
 ness. Politicians affect to despise the eternal 
 legislation of the Sermon on the Mount be- 
 cause the people are beginning to discern the 
 moral humbuggery of a vast deal of what has 
 hitherto passed in the world for statesman- 
 ship. Even the rulers of the church appear 
 to be willing that Christ should be delivered 
 to his enemies rather than that their creeds 
 should be crucified. So the world, in none 
 of its spheres, can rightly tell you what to do 
 with Christ. It will, at its best, tell you that 
 you do not need to be stretched upon Christ's 
 cross of self-renunciation, which is the first 
 law of discipleship. At its worst, it will 
 scornfully repudiate Christ's doctrine of self- 
 sacrifice, which is the essence of the gospel. 
 What to do with Christ is the question of 
 the ages. It is the master question of our 
 generation. God seems in these later days 
 to be tightening his grip on the reins of human 
 affairs, and to be driving the race with the 
 swiftness of judgment to choose between the 
 kingdom of Christ and no government at all; 
 between the absolute reign of Christ and the 
 
THE QUESTION OE THE AGES 57 
 
 anarchy of absolute atheism. Though the 
 world may try to evade the real issue, try to 
 shut its eyes to the divine signals, try to halt 
 between mammon and Christ, yet the inevi- 
 table issue of the swiftly converging crises of 
 history will be the acceptance of Christ's law 
 of love, with its thousand years of peace, or 
 the triumph of the world-spirit of selfishness 
 with its universal confusion and violence. 
 The problems of our times are essentially the 
 old conflict between Christianity and heathen- 
 ism, refined and intensified. Believe in the 
 Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, is 
 God's answer to all modern questions. God 
 is pushing the church to the point where it 
 must exalt the supremacy of Christ as the 
 king unto whom every knee must bow, and 
 every affair of man be subject, or crucify the 
 Lord afresh and bring upon itself a judgment 
 that shall not leave one stone of its goodly 
 temples upon another. The separation of 
 life from religion, the division of human affairs 
 into secular and spiritual, the artificial and 
 immoral meanings which have been put into 
 the word faith, the conception of redemption 
 as a bridge between heaven and earth — this 
 
58 THE QUESTIOhl OF THE AGES 
 
 is the infidelity which the church has fostered, 
 and which has given rise to the suspicion that 
 Christ is not fairly represented by Christen- 
 dom. I am sometimes oppressed with the 
 fear that the church is sleeping within the 
 gates of Gethsemane, while the soul of Christ 
 agonizes in the birth-throes of some huge and 
 universal crisis that is about to spring upon 
 the earth, separating the true and faithful 
 from the false and faithless. It may be that 
 some of us will live to see the approach of 
 Christ in some event that will make the earth 
 pause and tremble, and decide what manner 
 of men we are. But be our calls to service 
 great or small — if there can be opportunities 
 for good that are small — we need, above all 
 else, to get close to Christ, and hear what he 
 would say to each of us, and follow his leader- 
 ship, rejoicing to share his fate at the hands 
 of our generation, toiling with that victorious 
 faith which can smile while the world works 
 its worst upon it. He gives us no time to 
 unravel the past or question the future. He 
 calls us to leave all at once and follow him, 
 from thought to thought, from deed to deed, 
 caring not for reputation or happiness, but 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE /fGES 59 
 
 absorbed altogether in that divinest of human 
 motives — the redemption of the world in his 
 name. 
 
 I have not asked you, dear friends, to con- 
 sider what Christ may do with you. That 
 would be indeed a question of great and seri- 
 ous moment. What becomes of your soul is 
 a question in which God and all the universe 
 are interested. But your soul's salvation 
 has been pressed upon your concern times 
 without number. And the religious thought 
 of the past few years has undergone a great 
 change in its ways of apprehending Christ. 
 We are trying to say, "1 am Christ's," as well 
 as, "Christ is mine," and say it with a new 
 emphasis and larger meaning. We are be- 
 ginning to dimly see and understand some- 
 thing of what our Lord meant by saying that 
 the truly saved life is the one that has been 
 lost. A religion that is occupied with no 
 more than the saving of one's soul is not 
 Christian, whatever else it may be. What 
 will or will not become of your soul is only 
 the beginning of what is involved in your de- 
 cisions. They affect the whole kingdom of 
 God. Every moral victory of yours is a 
 
GO THE QUESTION OF THE AGES 
 
 triumph for the race. All humanity shares 
 in the shame or the glory of your deeds. No 
 man ever casts the wealth of his life and the 
 crown of his devotion at the feet of Jesus 
 •without quickening the earth with a diviner 
 life, and uplifting it with new courage. 
 
 So, it is not alone for your soul's sake that 
 I ask you to cast in your lot with Christ. It 
 is for the sake of the living Christ himself who 
 has bought your allegiance with his blood, to 
 whom you belong, body and soul, heart and 
 brain, that I appeal to you to give him the 
 life which is justly his. He has earned his 
 right to your life; he has won his kingship 
 over the world, and them that dwell therein. 
 Your king appears, in this morning of match- 
 less need and peerless opportunities, to claim 
 your loving loyalty and grateful obedience as 
 a reasonable service. He is doing the same 
 work to-day that he did when followed by 
 Peter and John. He needs the same quality 
 of discipleship from you and me that he asked 
 of them; the same heroic personal devotion, 
 the same enthusiasm for righteousness, the 
 same self-abandonment in service. You have 
 no right to revolve about the question of 
 
THE QUESTION OF THE /iGES 01 
 
 personal salvation in the presence of the slain 
 Christ, who calls for you to deny yourself and 
 follow him, in overcoming the world for God. 
 It is Christ who is on trial in the courts of 
 your mind. Out of moral necessity your judg- 
 ment upon Christ will be Christ's judgment 
 upon you. He could not make it otherwise 
 if he would. 
 
 And not only for his sake, but for the sake 
 of the world which he has redeemed, do I ask 
 you to ally yourself with Christ. It was for 
 the redemption of Israel that Peter and John 
 followed Christ. It was for his disciples' sakes 
 Christ sanctified himself unto the Father. 
 It was for the redemption of a lost world he 
 joyfully endured the cross and despised its 
 shame. And to the measure of your capacity you 
 are as responsible for tJie fate of the world as 
 Jesus was. You have no more right to make 
 your soul's safety your fundamental object 
 than Jesus had. For the sake of all your fel- 
 low-men you are morally bound to follow this 
 Christ. No man liveth or dieth unto himself. 
 The race is one as your body is one. Just so 
 surely as no member of your body can suffer 
 without the whole body being weakened, that 
 
62 THE QUESTION OF THE AGES 
 
 surely no man sins without every human be- 
 ing suffering pain and moral weakness. The 
 race must stand or fall together. Without 
 regard to your intention, you are in ways un- 
 known forming the characters and making the 
 histories of unnumbered lives. You are living 
 for the weal or woe of the earth. Your words 
 and deeds are as far reaching as life. You are 
 sent, as Jesus was sent, charged with the eter- 
 nal responsibility of making God glorious in 
 the eyes of men by manifesting him in your 
 life. For the sake of the lives you touch, for 
 good or ill, I beseech you to follow the call- 
 ing Christ. 
 
 What will you do with this Christ.? He is 
 now on trial in your soul. The final judgment 
 of his case rests with you alone. Would that 
 I might say some word to turn the scale of 
 your judgment in his favor! I have tried this 
 Christ of ours, and know him to be true. I 
 have found his promises more than fulfilled. 
 His sufficiency has been greater than my needs. 
 The word of life I bring you is what I have 
 handled, and I know it is able to make the 
 humblest life of sternest toil a song of God. 
 
 What will you do with Christ.? This is the 
 
THt QUESTION Oh THE AGES G3 
 
 question that is sounding in every modern 
 question. It is a question I hear when I place 
 my ear upon the earth and hear the steady 
 march of coming revolutions. It is a ques- 
 tion which will answer every other question 
 of your life. It is the question I bring you, 
 this morning, from the heart of God. It is 
 the question that is borne to you upon every 
 wail of human woe and every cry of human 
 need. It is the question your sciences are 
 writing on your brains, and your dollars burn- 
 ing on your palms; that stares at you from 
 every printed page, and leaps in every pulse- 
 beat, and appeals to every instinct of human 
 nobleness. It is the question that gathers an 
 eternity into every moment, and invests the 
 smallest deed and idlest word with an infinite 
 significance. It is the question you will decide 
 to-day, whether you would or not. You can- 
 not escape the question, nor avoid the an- 
 swer. Before the night closes you in its rest 
 you will have either crucified or enthroned 
 the Christ. What will you do with him.^ 
 
 O, my brother! come and clasp hands with 
 me and let us follow this slain yet living 
 Christ in the victory of faith that is conquer- 
 
64 THE QUESTION OF THE AGES 
 
 ing the earth for God, and making it new for 
 man. There will be conflicts and sorrows; 
 and as you come to know Christ you will 
 be dumb before the visions you get of your 
 uncleanness of heart and selfishness of action. 
 You will sometimes cry in anguish that it is 
 not meet that Christ's holy name be on your 
 lips; and nothing will so stagger your under- 
 standing as his willingness to use you. But 
 when the day of battle is done, and the night 
 of rest comes on, we shall sleep the sweet 
 sleep of victors, who were of good cheer 
 amidst life's tribulations; who scorned the 
 world's defeats, and beat down its demons of 
 doubt, and trampled upon its dragons of lust, 
 and made servants of its sorrows, and pressed 
 on through the illusions of its prosperity up 
 the heights of faith where the Son of God 
 leads the way. And when the morning breaks 
 over our souls, we shall awake satisfied in 
 Christ's likeness, crowned with his righteous- 
 ness, the heat of the conflict cooled in the 
 dew of the morning, our scars touched with a 
 sacred glory, and our heart-aches healed for- 
 ever. And from out the throne that rules the 
 deathless land shall come forth the Lamb of 
 
THE QL'ESTION OF THE /1GES 05 
 
 God to feed us with the bread of love, and 
 lead soul to soul by the still waters of un- 
 troubled life. 
 
Ill 
 
 The Divine Method of Cidttire 
 
Before the monstrous wrong he sets him down — 
 One man against a stone-walled city of sin. 
 For centuries those walls have been a-building; 
 Smooth porphyry, they slope and coldly glass 
 The flying storm and wheeling sun. No chink, 
 No crevice lets the thinnest arrow in. 
 He fights alone, and from the cloudy ramparts 
 A thousand evil faces gibe and jeer him. 
 Let him lie down and die. What is the right. 
 And where is justice in a world like this? 
 But by and by, earth shakes herself, impatient; 
 And down in one great roar of ruin, crash 
 Watch-tower and citadel and battlements. 
 When the red dust has cleared, the lonely soldier 
 Stands with strange thoughts beneath the friendly stars. 
 — Edward Rowland Sill. 
 
Ill 
 
 The Divine Method of Culture 
 
 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear 
 them now, Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth iscome,he 
 will guide you into all truth.— _/(?//« xvi: 12, 13. 
 
 At the time they were spoken these words 
 doubtless conveyed Httle meaning to the 
 apostles. He whom they had hoped would 
 redeem Israel was about to be taken from 
 them, so he was saying, with the past yet a 
 mystery and the future undisclosed. Jesus had 
 trained them to obey him as their king, prom- 
 ising that his kingdom should overcome the 
 world; yet the rulers had rejected him, and 
 now it seemed that he was mistaken in re- 
 gard to himself, though they loved and trusted 
 him unto the end. Often, during the hours 
 of precious intercourse with their Lord, 
 through the eager days of hopeful toil in his 
 service, it had seemed to the disciples that the 
 
70 THE DiyiNE METHOD OF CULTURE 
 
 time was near when he would take his place 
 on the throne of David, and lead the waiting 
 populace to the overthrow of Rome; but they 
 were always disappointed. Now they stood 
 together in impenetrable darkness, clinging to 
 their Lord with a blind, bewildered and pa- 
 thetic faith — a faith sustained by a love too 
 great to die. The nature of Christ's kingdom 
 and its weapons of conquest they had not yet 
 grasped. His vision of a spiritually redeemed 
 earth had not yet purified their hopes. Be- 
 tween the promises of the Lord and their ful- 
 fillment spread a passless sea of contradic- 
 tion. The things that Christ had done to them, 
 and the words he had spoken, they under- 
 stood not They knew not yet the scriptures, 
 nor the meaning of the Lord's teachings, nor 
 the reason of his deeds, nor the work for 
 which he had chosen them. They had not 
 apprehended that for which Christ had appre- 
 hended them. And he had yet many things 
 to say to them which they were not able to 
 bear. 
 
 But after the ascension of the risen Christ 
 they would be enabled to interpret the life he 
 had lived among them, and understand the 
 
THE DIVINE METHOD OF CULTURE 71 
 
 words he had spoken. When the apostles 
 were humbled under the hand of God, their 
 wills prostrate before the divine will and their 
 selfish hopes all perished, so that they were 
 ready to rejoice in whatever God might teach 
 them, then there would come to them a great 
 inspiration, even the Spirit of truth, who 
 should guide them unto all truth. Things the 
 apostles could not bear to hear while stand- 
 ing there in the shadow of the cross, deeds 
 waiting their doing that would now outrage 
 their devotion, words waiting their speaking 
 that would now stagger their understanding, 
 highways of sacrifice along which they were 
 to toil — all these would be made plain to 
 them by the coming of the Spirit, who would 
 reward their surrender and obedience in light- 
 ing up their minds to clearly understand the 
 things of Christ. In other words, they should 
 fully know the will of God when they were 
 prepared to do that will, being emptied of all 
 self-will. Obedience would lead to knowl- 
 edge. They would learn the truth by doing 
 the truth. The Spirit of holiness, the Spirit 
 of truth, would be their guide into the realm 
 of truth, the torch to light them through the 
 darkness of the world. 
 
72 THE DiyiNE METHOD OF CULTURE 
 
 The Holy Spirit is the mind of God. And 
 when the mind of a man is brought into abso- 
 lute subjection to the mind of God, so that he 
 is completely under God's influence, he is 
 baptized with the Holy Spirit; the soul of the 
 man has been won by the soul of God, and 
 his thoughts are henceforth God's thoughts, 
 and the power of his life the power of God. 
 Thus the pure in heart who see God, the 
 meek who hear the whisper of God's secrets, 
 the poor in spirit who receive the kingdom 
 of heaven as little children, have a knowledge 
 of God that is unsearchable to the natural 
 mind — the world by wisdom knowing not God 
 — and wield a power that transcends all the 
 powers of the natural man. 
 
 God would freely give his Spirit without 
 measure unto all. This is the end for which 
 God is working. It is the completion of crea- 
 tion and the fulfillment of redemption. The 
 time when all men shall know the Lord, when 
 the knowledge of his glory shall fill the earth 
 as the waters cover the sea, and his word be 
 written in every human heart, was the vision 
 of the prophets, lifting their hopes above the 
 corruption of their times, and sustaining them 
 
THE DiyiNE METHOD OF CULTURE 73 
 
 through great tribulations. An earth at one 
 with heaven, the will of God done alike in 
 each, is the divine expectation which the hand 
 of God, in spite of the blindness and blun- 
 dering and unbelief of man, has wrought into 
 all the social fabrics of history. It is the 
 thought with which Jesus worked, and the 
 belief which inspired the letters of the apos- 
 tles to the churches. It is the promise of 
 God which crowns and closes the scriptures. 
 It is the purpose for which the earth stands, 
 that it may be the field in which God shall 
 raise unto himself a race of children who shall 
 be perfect images of his own character. With 
 each successive generation God seeks to raise 
 a better crop of men. Nor will his love be 
 discouraged nor his patience fail, until the 
 earth bring forth abundantly the fruits of 
 heaven, and men know good but not evil, and 
 God find no shame in the face of man when 
 he walks his garden in the evening hour in 
 search of human fellowships. For the heart 
 of God is human and the heart of man divine; 
 and the humanity of God can be satisfied 
 with no less than the perfected divinity of 
 man as it is in Jesus. 
 
74 THE DII^INE METHOD OF CULTURE 
 
 But divine revelation,though always leading 
 human progress; though a new vision of God, 
 a larger apprehension of truth, has ever begun 
 the great upward movements of man's career; 
 God is yet limited in his power to reveal the 
 truth by man's capacity to understand. God 
 is always speaking; but man does not hear. 
 The angels of promise are always on the wing, 
 and the messengers of truth move to and fro 
 upon the earth, never leaving God without a 
 witness; but unbelief blinds the eye and 
 hardens the heart. God reveals himself in 
 vain to eyes that see not, and speaks only for 
 man's woe and his own sorrow to ears that 
 hear not. He always has many things to say 
 which must wait until men are ready to obey. 
 The Spirit of truth guides into the realm of 
 truth as far and fast as men are prepared to 
 be led. God makes known as much truth 
 as men are able to act upon. Not until we 
 are enabled to bear the truth of God, the truth 
 about ourselves, the truth supremely needful 
 to our generation, the knowledge of our duty, 
 does the revelation come. This is the divine 
 method of culture. And it is rational. It is 
 simply impossible for one whose whole mind 
 
THE DIVINE METHOD OF CULTURE 75 
 
 is centered on the material to understand the 
 spiritual. The soul that is all absorbed in 
 pleasure and gain will not be interested in 
 efforts that make for righteousness. The man 
 who is self-centered, whose religious motive 
 is no larger than happiness and comfort on 
 the earth and heaven after death, will be deaf 
 to all appeals to deny himself and renounce 
 all that he hath in favor of his Lord. Christ's 
 doctrine of self-renunciation is incomprehensi- 
 ble to the self-seeking life. The preaching of 
 the cross is foolishness to the selfish man. 
 The Sermon on the Mount is meaningless to 
 the so-called practical man of the world — who 
 is in reality the most short-sighted and imprac- 
 ticable of all fools. Right-doing is the only 
 sure road to right-thinking. The fruit of knowl- 
 edge unmixed with evil grows on the tree of 
 obedience. A clear vision belongs only to 
 righteousness. The first step towards being 
 guided into all truth is self-surrender to the 
 Spirit of truth. We may see and explore the 
 universe of truth only by moving out from un- 
 der the dominion of selfishness. Except a 
 man be born again he cannot see the kingdom 
 of God, which is the kingdom of knowledge 
 
76 THE DIVIhJE METHOD OF CULTURE 
 
 and righteousness. Whosoever shall not re- 
 ceive the kingdom of God as a little child, 
 who is the type of trustful obedience, shall in 
 no wise enter therein. Blessed are the poor 
 in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, 
 in which the proud and the wise in their own 
 eyes have no part. Jesus lifted up his eyes in 
 thanksgiving that the truth hidden from the 
 great and wise and prudent was revealed unto 
 babes in worldly knowledge. None but the 
 spiritually minded can intelligently examine 
 spiritual facts. The anointing from the Holy 
 One, by which we may know the truth direct 
 from God, comes alone upon the waiting and 
 self-surrendered disciples. They who stand 
 willing and ready to do God's will, whatever 
 it may be, however it thwarts all selfish hopes 
 and cuts across all previous conceptions of 
 truth and duty, be the cost of doing however 
 great, — these only can bear the revelations of 
 God's will and be guided in the truth, and be 
 shown the things to come. This is the divine 
 method of human culture. 
 
 It has been a slow method, I know, and 
 fraught with pain, while the cry for God to lay 
 bare his holy arm and make all things new 
 has ever gone up — 
 
THE DinNE METHOD OF CULTURE 77 
 
 " From the spirits on earth that adore, 
 From the souls that entreat and implore 
 
 In the fervor and passion of prayer, 
 From the hearts that are broken with losses, 
 And weary with dragging of crosses 
 
 Too heavy for mortals to bear." 
 
 But the slowness has been in man and not 
 in God. The sorrow of delay and the burden 
 of human need have weighed more heavily 
 upon God than ever upon man. Surely he 
 hath borne our griefs and in all our afflictions 
 he is afflicted. Not in the will of God, but in 
 the self-will of man, is the answer to the cry, 
 How long, O Lord, how long must the pray- 
 ers and sacrifices of thy saints await the day 
 of their prevailing ! It is the blindness of man 
 which cannot bear the light, and not the will 
 of God which withholds its rays of truth from 
 shining. Before each soul, each age, each 
 nation, God raises the highest moral standard 
 possible of achievement. Through many vile 
 centuries God waited for the birth and growth 
 of a tribe unto whom he could deliver the 
 Ten Commandments. And in order to pre- 
 serve and scatter them as the seed of better 
 fruit to come God patiently tolerated, and 
 wisely encouraged, the most detestable bigotry 
 and prejudice. Then fifteen centuries more 
 
78 THE DIVINE METHOD OF CULTURE 
 
 of war and blood, idolatry and woe, passed 
 over the earth before there was born upon 
 it One of whom he could say, "This is my 
 beloved Son: hear ye him." But that Son, 
 with all the truth of God's great universe as 
 the light of his countenanee, sweeping aside 
 the traditions of men and transcending the 
 authority of Moses, pouring the blood of God 
 into the fields of human endeavor that the 
 precious seed of love might take root and fruit 
 in a regenerated society, putting a new earth 
 of brotherhood beneath the feet of men and 
 spreading a sky of hope above their heads, 
 himself a fountain of exhaustless life where 
 whoever will may freely drink — he, the life- 
 giving Son of God, was worth all he cost to 
 God^or man. With him was manifested tEe~~ 
 authority of love, and the freedom of faith to 
 learn the truth direct from God under the 
 leadership of the Spirit. From his face shone 
 the grace that shall evermore effulgent grow, 
 until the last shade of the night of sin fades 
 from the horizon of man's spiritual vision. 
 The Son of Man brought immortality to light, 
 only a dream of philosophers and a troubled 
 hope of prophets before his day, and revealed 
 
THE DiyiNE METHOD OF CULTURE 79 
 
 the life of man as an eternal development, 
 an unending growth in the knowledge of 
 God. The God whom Moses knew as law 
 spake in Christ as love, and the God whom 
 Elijah served as King of Israel Jesus made 
 known as the Father of man. He showed 
 that the present must not be the slave of the 
 past but the past the servant of the present. 
 He revealed revelation itself as an eternally 
 increasing flood of light, a continually enlarg- 
 ing vision of God, and not a stagnant pool of 
 traditionalism. Christ made human life a 
 divine expectancy, a constant looking forward 
 for better things to come, a continuous re-sur- 
 render to the Spirit of truth, that each to-mor- 
 row might look upon larger revelations of truth 
 and sublimer opportunities for service than to- 
 day could bear to see. The best, which is 
 ever the costliest, is always to come. 
 
 The Son of Man himself grew in wisdom 
 and learned obedience through this divine 
 method of spiritual development. The early 
 calls to his Father's work were answered by 
 faith, plans unveiling themselves before the 
 advance of duty, truth coming forth to greet 
 obedience, the cross growing nearer as the 
 
80 THE DIVINE METHOD OF CULTURE 
 
 life was made ready to be offered. Though 
 the shadow of the cross rested upon the peace- 
 ful village home, whispering sad presentiments 
 of Calvary, yet many things too great for his 
 mortal endurance, during the quiet years of 
 preparation at Nazareth, were revealed to 
 Jesus as he followed the Spirit of truth from 
 the wilderness of temptation along the path 
 of obedience to his Father's will. 
 
 So the Spirit of truth, who was the light 
 and power of Jesus' self-emptied soul, en- 
 lightens and empowers all the sons of God 
 according to the measure of their self-renun- 
 ciation. No man who does a good work knows 
 altogether how it is to be done when he be- 
 gins. The builders of righteousness build at 
 greater cost, though more wisely, than they 
 know when the call to work is first obeyed. 
 God sees how much greater is the life of man 
 than man himself knows. There are deeds of 
 sacrifice to be done, brave words to be 
 spoken, disappointments to be endured, the 
 sorrow of failures to be borne, from which 
 the faith of the strongest love for God and 
 man would turn if the vision of duty were not 
 a growth, and the revelations of truth made 
 
THE DIVINE METHOD OF CULTURE 81 
 
 one by one, and the path of toil pointed out 
 step by step. In every way of duty in which 
 God sets the feet of men, in every noble work, 
 whether wrought out unseen or done before 
 the eyes of the world, there are many things 
 to be met, many truths to be learned through 
 suffering, that the doer could not bear to know 
 save in submissive waiting upon the Spirit of 
 truth. The price of being the servant of one's 
 brothers for righteousness' sake, the voca- 
 tion to which many are called but few are 
 chosen, is always a cross. Wherever a John 
 Baptist appears calling men to repentance 
 there waits a Herod with his sword. When- 
 ever a Savonarola arises to herald the break- 
 ing light of a new day of God, somewhere in 
 the lurking shadows the jealous demons of the 
 night are gathering fagots for a new martyr- 
 fire. If Cromwell, iron-faithed as he was, 
 could have seen the immediate end of the Pur 
 itan revolution, the sword of God would have 
 fallen from his stricken hand. If the soldiers 
 who marched through the American civil war 
 in defense of the Union could have seen that, a 
 generation after their battles were done, the 
 race question would be one of the most peril- 
 
83 THE DIVINE METHOD OF CULTURE 
 
 ous and neglected problems of American 
 statesmanship, and that some of the most 
 piteous appeals on the part of the weak to the 
 strong in all history would then be made by 
 the black man of the south to the white man 
 of the north, I question if the revelation would 
 not have turned them homeward. The Chris- 
 tian youth, aflush with holy fervor, wrathful 
 at the wrongs and hypocrisies of his age, the 
 arms of his endeavors reaching about the 
 throne of God, knows not that the golden days 
 of justice which hope paints on the mystic 
 walls wherein God holds communion with his 
 soul will dawn above the victorious cross of his 
 Christ only after many diviner faiths than his 
 arise to bear the cross to its consummation. 
 The young missionary, aflame with a divine 
 enthusiasm for souls sitting in darkness, sees 
 not that the search for his unknown grave 
 must be the highway over which the gospel 
 will march to the conquest of the heathen na- 
 tions. The young mother, proudly folding' 
 her first-born babe upon her joyful breast, 
 understands not yet that the birth of every 
 child into this sinful world is the birth of a 
 parent's undying heart-ache. Young disciples 
 
THE DiyiNE METHOD OF CULTURE 83 
 
 of the Lord, under the impulse of high ambi- 
 tion, declaring their willingness to drink of 
 their Lord's cup, know not the wine of anguish 
 for which they ask, nor the bitterness of its 
 dregs. Fresh pilgrims to the celestial city 
 see not the gruesome valleys of dragons and 
 devils to be met in mortal combat on the way. 
 Young lovers know not that love thrives alone 
 on sacrifice, without which it withers away, 
 a lifeless thing, its glory a forgotten dream. 
 And so at every stage of human experience, 
 in every epoch of human history, in every 
 triumph and defeat, in every joy and disap- 
 pointment, the Spirit of truth stands treasur- 
 ing many things unsaid, waiting till obedient 
 souls are submissive to know the truth, and 
 pure enough to see the purposes of God un- 
 fold. I have many things to say unto you, 
 so speaks the living Christ to all, but ye can- 
 not bear them now, while selfish plans de- 
 ceive you, and the power of disappointment 
 enthralls you, and the night of hopelessness 
 comes on. But when the Spirit of truth comes 
 into your life to rule, making you his humble 
 learner, possessing your thoughts and direct- 
 ing your deeds, then you shall know the truth 
 
84 THE DIVINE METHOD OF CULTURE 
 
 about your experiences, about your questions, 
 about what work you ought to do, about what 
 sacrifices God would have you make, about 
 the needs and problems of your day. As fast 
 as you are ready to act you shall know. As 
 fast as you are ready to be offered will the 
 cross of self-denial be made glorious as well as 
 grievous. 
 
 For the things you cannot bear to hear are 
 full of joy as well as pain. God always pro- 
 vides some better, vaster issue of our hopes 
 and toils than the illusions we chase. The ful- 
 fillments of God transcend the holiest dreams 
 of man. There is not room in earth's to-day 
 for the blessings of the heavenly to-morrow. 
 John Baptist knows now that Herod's sword 
 was but cleaving the way of the Lord. Sa- 
 vonarola lives, and his spirit, which is the 
 Spirit of truth, spake not alo^e in Luther and 
 Zwingli, but will speak in braver days to be, 
 when other prophets will arise to behold the 
 city of righteousness coming down out of 
 heaven from God, not to abide alone at Flor- 
 ence, but to enclose the earth with its walls 
 of peace. Cromwell now, his own ambitions 
 washed in the blood of the Lamb, may behold 
 
THE DIVINE METHOD OF CULTURE 85 
 
 the Puritan spirit purified building silently and 
 secure the walls of the kingdom of God upon 
 the earth. The soldiers of the civil war who 
 have been marshaled in the invisible ranks of 
 the conquering Christ foresee universal issues, 
 and a glorious mission waiting a despised race, 
 which they saw not, nor were able to compre- 
 hend, a generation gone. The impetuous con- 
 secration of the youth gained its power in the 
 school of baffled effort. The young missionary 
 took his place among the white-robed throngs 
 who enter the glory of the slain and suffering 
 Christ through great tribulation, to learn that 
 the sacrifice of precious human lives is the 
 seed of God which is fruiting the earth with 
 righteousness and joy so abundant that briers 
 and thorns shall in due time have no ground 
 in which to grow. The mother's heart-ache 
 became her bond of sympathy and fellowship 
 with her Father in heaven. Young love, in 
 proving true and brave, found its divinest 
 rapture in the sorrow from which it shrank. 
 Through trial faith learned that all things 
 work together for good to those who love 
 God. 
 
 The Christian life is a continuous revela- 
 
86 THE DiyiNE METHOD OF CULTURE 
 
 tion of truth, unfolding before a continuous 
 revolution of conduct. And some of the trans- 
 forming experiences of life cannot be under- 
 stood until they are patiently and painfully 
 undergone, their meanings being discerned 
 only in the light of long years of retrospect. 
 We know that certain things and certain 
 persons make great changes in all our thoughts 
 and plans of life, but to what end we do not 
 see until the end suddenly apppears in new 
 and unexpected work — work we take up gladly 
 when it comes, not knowing, perhaps, till 
 long after it has been begun, that it was the 
 end for which our life was made anew through 
 sore perplexity, or mystery, or disappoint- 
 ment, or fellowship with another, or suffering. 
 We could not have borne, at the beginning, 
 to see the way in which we were being led. 
 But Christ our Lord knew that the mission 
 we once would have refused, the work we 
 would have declined or evaded, would be the 
 music of our souls after he led us to our duty 
 by the Spirit of truth through ways we could 
 not see. The things we cannot bear to know, 
 the work we cannot bear to undertake, the 
 truths we cannot bear to hear and speak, the 
 
THE DiyihlE METHOD OF CULTURE 87 
 
 self-abandoned life of devotion we cannot bear 
 to live, are welcomed as gifts of joy from the 
 hand of God when we put ourselves under the 
 leadership of the Spirit of truth, willing to 
 hear whatever God may speak, willing to do 
 whatever his Son commands. Then our sur- 
 render is unconditional, and no burden is too 
 great to bear, no sacrifice too great to make, 
 nothing too good for hope or too high for 
 effort. Each new step of life is quickly and 
 bravely taken in the faith that future steps, 
 and ways and means of doing, will be made 
 plain when we are prepared for the revelation. 
 And before the eye of faith — for faith is the tru- 
 est sight — boundless vistas of life are opened, 
 and the universe is seen to be alive with God. 
 The kingdom of truth surrenders, we find, to 
 obedience. And as we follow the Spirit of 
 truth into his limitless realm of knowledge we 
 learn that vast and joyous revelations of the 
 things of Christ, things which eye cannot yet 
 see, nor ear hear, are treasured up in the heart 
 of God for the loving and believing. So we 
 grow perennially hopeful as we walk the way 
 of the cross, our hearts aglow with a divine 
 expectancy and full of the yearning love of 
 
88 THE DIVINE METHOD OF CULTURE 
 
 Christ for our unseeing and discouraged 
 brothers. 
 
 There is more vital power in the truth as it 
 is in Jesus than either the church or the world 
 believes. The influence of the living Christ, 
 the power of his love, is greater than the world's 
 sight or the church's faith. Sometimes it 
 seems to me that in these days the heavens 
 are bursting with pent-up revelations, soon to 
 flood the earth with living light, and manifest 
 the redemptive power of the gospel of Christ 
 in a regenerated human society. The truth of 
 Jesus is already beginning to clasp the hands 
 and link the hearts of nations, putting hu- 
 manity in the place of a selfish nationalism, 
 showing that the race is a unit and that the 
 interests of one is the responsibility of all and 
 the interest of all the responsibility of each, 
 making men better than their political and 
 sectarian creeds, moving America to fulfill her 
 divine vocation in speeding cargoes of wheat 
 to starving Russia rather than rejoice in a 
 material prosperity that impoverishes the 
 homes and ruins the industries of Europe. 
 The nations shall yet walk in the light of 
 Christ's throne; and-unto him shall the gath- 
 ering of the peoples be, confederate in the im- 
 
THE DiyiNE METHOD OF CULTURE 89 
 
 mutable law of love, rejoicing in the peace of 
 the everlasting gospel. 
 
 The possibilities of our humanity, in the 
 fellowship of man with God, in the power of 
 brotherhood, in the fruitfulness of sacrifice, 
 in the influence of mind over m.atter, and the 
 power of soul over soul, all manifested in 
 Christ, are things that yet await the revela- 
 tion of the Spirit of truth. But the number 
 ready to obey the truth is increasing, and the 
 faith of man in the redemptive work of the 
 living Christ is broadening, and a new Pente- 
 cost is preparing to quicken the life of the 
 world with a new energy. And the mission 
 God gives us each is that of making men ready 
 to bear the divine light that is breaking in 
 upon the present from the future by making 
 our Christianity fresh and vivid, real and 
 hopeful. Our part is to renew the springs of 
 our own life through personal contact with 
 Christ, that we may fill the earth with a new 
 and living hope, uplifting the faith of men 
 with a great vision of a divine future, when 
 God shall make all things new, dwelling with 
 us in the power of his Christ, whose Spirit 
 of truth shall be the spirit of a redeemed and 
 glorified humanity. 
 
IV 
 
 A Lesson in Education from the Incarnation 
 
Now before the feast of the passover, Jesus knowing that 
 his hour was come that he should depart out of this world 
 unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the 
 world, he loved them unto the end. And during supper, the 
 devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, 
 Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father 
 had given all things into his hands, and that he came forth 
 from God, and goeth unto God, riseth from supper, and lay- 
 eth aside his garments; and he took a towel, and girded him- 
 self. Then he poureth water into the basin, and began to 
 wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with a towel where- 
 with he was girded. So he cometh to Simon Peter. He saith 
 unto him. Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered 
 and saith unto him. What I do thou knowest not now; but 
 thou shalt understand hereafter. Peter saith unto him, Thou 
 shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him. If I wash thee 
 not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, 
 Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus 
 saith unto him. He that is bathed needeth not save to wash 
 his feet, but is clean every whit. And ye are clean, but not 
 all. For he knew him that should betray him; therefore said 
 he, Ye are not all clean. 
 
 So when he had washed their feet, and taken his garments, 
 and sat down again, he said unto them. Know ye what I have 
 done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: And ye say well, 
 for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Master, have washed 
 your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I 
 have given you an example, that ye also should do as I have 
 done unto you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, a servant is 
 not greater than his Lord; neither one that is sent greater 
 than he that sent him. — John the Apostle. 
 
IV 
 
 A Lesson in Education from the Incarjiation 
 
 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we 
 beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father) 
 full of grace and truth. — John i: 14. 
 
 You know how difficult it is, how well-nigh 
 impossible, to put your highest thoughts and 
 holiest feelings into words. You have never 
 been satisfied with any expression of your 
 truest self that you were able to give. You 
 are sure there is more of you than your friends 
 see; more than you know how to reveal; more 
 than you yourself understand. Away in the 
 deeps of your being are halls of divine com- 
 munion and chambers of thought which you 
 have never dared explore, nor invite a friend 
 to enter. You have deathless hopes that know 
 no language. Your divinest spiritual yearn- 
 ings are speechless, even unto God. Within 
 you is the unresting strife of moral possibilities, 
 which lack both courage and power to assert 
 
94 A LESSON IN EDUCATION 
 
 themselves in the face of the world. You are 
 a stranger to yourself. Your ideal self, the 
 self you would be, the self your hidden aspi- 
 rations enfold and cherish, seems only a mock- 
 ery to your real self — the self you would not 
 be, the self the world sees. You are sure 
 your ideal self, notwithstanding your failure 
 and folly, is your real self. 
 
 If you could lay hands on that ideal, and 
 show it to your friends, you feel they would 
 see you as you are. You will not believe that 
 the self the world sees, and would force you to 
 accept as your moral portion, is your real be- 
 ing. And though inability to utter your po- 
 tential life sometimes fills you with a sad un- 
 resting silence, you are never content with the 
 self-repression of these voiceless struggles of 
 your soul. 
 
 " Often in the din of strife, 
 
 There rises an unspeakable desire 
 After the knowledge of our buried life." 
 
 Now your own experience of sorrow and de- 
 lay, suffering and sacrifice, will help you to 
 some understanding of the sorrow and sacri- 
 fice through which God reached the perfect 
 expression of himself in Christ. I do not 
 
A LESSON IN EDUCATION 95 
 
 mean that you can compass with your finite 
 thoughts all the truth of the incarnation. I 
 would not have you try to imprison eternal 
 facts in temporal and variable forms of speech. 
 I do not want you to think that the eter- 
 nally unfolding life of God is something you 
 can anatomize and label, and your mind have 
 done with. The incarnation is a subject for 
 exhaustless study. No one age will be, or 
 ought to be, satisfied with what the preceding 
 age has learned about the Word becoming 
 flesh. You have no right, as a trustful and 
 loyal disciple of Christ, to ever rest wholly 
 content with yesterday's knowledge of Christ. 
 From the revelation of God in Christ you 
 should never take eyes of reverent inquiry. 
 In no way can you so belittle Christ, so 
 surely petrify your faith, as by formulating 
 the truth you have already attained to as if it 
 were the whole truth. Paul and John were 
 always disciples — that is, learners. The knowl- 
 edge of the past was to them the foundation 
 for future knowledge. The joy of learning 
 what they yet knew not, as well as an unwav- 
 ering confidence in the truth they knew, was 
 their quenchless inspiration to prayer and toil. 
 
96 A LESSO'N IN EDUCATION 
 
 I should be sorry indeed to have the time 
 come when you felt you could fence in the 
 eternal Word of God with little words of your 
 own. Great spiritual facts are always cramped 
 in words. You read the utterances of pro- 
 phetic souls, and you see that the words they 
 use to utter their messages seem stretched and 
 bleeding, crowded with meaning beyond their 
 capacity to contain, leaping for joy in the 
 presence of hearts pure enough to read the 
 spirit within the letter. 
 
 Words at best are mysteries. They bear, 
 as you trace back their history, the marks of 
 heroic struggles. There are single words in 
 whose primal meaning you may feel the divine 
 impulses attending the birth of a great revo- 
 lution. Saxon words are histories of tremen- 
 dous moral convictions. Latin words reveal 
 the essential inhumanity of Roman thought 
 and aspirations. Greek words are dramas in 
 themselves. Words have all, sometime, been 
 wrenched from the inmost life of man by the 
 necessity of making himself understood; they 
 are the outgrowth of moral achievement. 
 Every new discovery of natural law, every 
 new revelation of divine truth, compels the 
 
A LESSON IN EDUCATION 97 
 
 creation of new and greater words. The use 
 of language is a moral more than an intellect- 
 ual attainment. A man's language is always 
 a moral self-revelation, whether he wills it 
 so or not. Sooner or later a man's words 
 bear the stamp of his character. Be he low- 
 born or high, ignorant or possessing all knowl- 
 edge, the words of a man will bring forth the 
 moral cargo his soul carries, to enrich or im- 
 poverish the world. Coddle and sculpture 
 them as we will, our words are sure to lay 
 bare our moral quality before we get done 
 with them; they simply will not, they cannot, 
 long be hypocrites for us. Many words have 
 fallen from grace, and dishonored their divine 
 ancestry; but they proceeded from the mouth 
 of God before they were spoken by the mouth 
 of man. All our human words began in God, 
 and are fragments of the eternal Word that 
 became flesh. 
 
 When we think of words as the product of 
 moral necessity, born through the union of the 
 spirit of man with the Spirit of God, we do 
 not wonder that the ancients regarded them 
 with superstitious awe, and finally came to 
 think of them as demons — supernatural be- 
 
98 A LESSON IN EDUCATION 
 
 ings mediating between the gods and men. 
 The Word, or words, of God came to be the 
 mediums through whom God made himself 
 known. The Word of God was, at John's 
 time, a common term of philosophy in Alexan- 
 dria and the Greek cities. Plato had taught 
 that God would have nothing to do with men 
 by direct intercourse; he would communicate 
 with men only through intermediary beings — 
 thus beginning that theology which regards 
 the world and they that dwell therein as totally 
 depraved, the offspring of devilish ingenuity 
 rather than divine love. Then the Word of 
 God was a familiar term with the Jews, in 
 both the Old Testament and apocryphal lit- 
 erature. No man had seen God at any time. 
 Yet God had talked with Abraham and Moses, 
 with the leaders and prophets of Israel, with 
 all who would hear his voice. The Word of 
 God was God's will going forth and express- 
 ing itself in creation, in the direction and ref- 
 ormation of man, in the process of history. 
 Men had longed to see God in some compre- 
 hensible form. This was Job's plaintive de- 
 sire. This longing, wrongly directed, had 
 given idolatry to the nations. But it was only 
 
A LESSON IN EDUCATION 99 
 
 by his Word that God could, or had, made 
 himself known. So Philo, the Greek-Jewish 
 philosopher, with others before and after him, 
 had invested the Word of God spoken to the 
 Jews with the personality of the Greek de- 
 mons, and thus sought to unify Moses and the 
 prophets with Plato and the philosophers. 
 Philo's philosophy grew out of the desire to 
 make God comprehensible to the intellect. 
 The Word of God, whether one or many, 
 came to be the term of both Jews and Greeks, 
 of religion and philosophy, for God in the 
 process of self-revelation. The Word of God 
 was the self-expression of God, God speaking 
 his mind, God acting out his will. The Word 
 was God as certainly as the sun's rays are the 
 sun; as truly as your words in their last 
 analysis, are you. 
 
 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt 
 among us, in the full glory of the Father's 
 grace and truth. John the fisherman, the 
 practical mystic, the most inspired of sacred 
 writers, grasps these delayed hopes and disap- 
 pointed yearnings of Israel and Greece, and 
 the divine searchings of the ancient world, and 
 fixes them upon Christ. Here was God within 
 
100 A LESSON IN EDUCATION 
 
 the compass of human understanding. Here 
 was God perfectly manifested. Here was a 
 complete expression of God's character; an 
 absolute revelation of what God eternally is. 
 Here was God speaking his mind to man in a 
 way that could not be misunderstood. Here 
 was God's heart laid bare to the gaze of his 
 children. The Word speaks God's moral qual- 
 ity, revealing the glory of his love and the full- 
 ness of his grace and truth. Here, thought 
 John, is what the ages have been searching 
 and praying for: the Word of God made flesh; 
 God manifested in human character. What 
 was there in the character of Christ that could 
 not satisfy all men as a revelation of God.-* 
 Was not this Christ the desire of all nations, 
 all philosophies, all religions? What more 
 could man want to win his affection and con- 
 fidence than the revelation of God in Christ .»* 
 What excuse could a man have for abiding 
 in unrighteousness after the Word of such a 
 Father had spoken in such a Son? 
 
 By the Word becoming flesh, then, I under- 
 stand John to mean that Christ was a com- 
 plete self-expression of God. And the Eternal 
 Word had never been silent. The Word was 
 
A LESSON IN EDUCATION 101 
 
 with God in the beginning, going forth in 
 creation and redemption. God's love for 
 man is eternally what Christ reveals it to be, 
 the same yesterday, to-day and forever. 
 Christ was not an after-thought of God. He 
 was what God had in mind from the first. The 
 creative purpose of God was to make man a 
 complete revelation of himself. Christ was 
 the ideal which God started out with; the ideal 
 which Adam, by self-assertion, failed to realize; 
 the ideal to which God clu»g through all the 
 weary centuries of man's ingratitude and 
 shame. Though the Word long sought in vain 
 a perfect human habitation, the Father would 
 not suffer human inappreciation and wicked- 
 ness to repress his love for his offspring. God 
 was able to delight in Abraham and David; to 
 find some measure of satisfaction in Moses 
 and Elijah; to get very near to Isaiah and 
 Daniel. But before Christ the divinest and 
 most obedient of men had been but fragments 
 of the Word; while the great multitudes were 
 blind and indifferent to God's yearnings for 
 human fellowship, and deaf to his warnings 
 of death as the result of disobedience. Man 
 disfellowshiped God; God did not disfellow- 
 
103 A LESSON IN EDUCATION 
 
 ship man. Man shut God out of his society; 
 God never withdrew from man. Man turned 
 the Word of God out of doors; but the Word 
 kept on speaking to men's souls, and knock- 
 ing at the door of men's hearts. The race 
 willfully misunderstood God's holiest expres- 
 sions of his deepest life, and mocked and re- 
 sisted the mightiest entreaties of his love; but 
 God surrendered not his purpose; he would 
 not give up his ideal. Rather than desert 
 man, rather than fail or be discouraged in 
 making man a perfect expression of himself, 
 rather than leave man without his companion- 
 ship, God took upon himself all the conse- 
 quences of human sin; he made the guilt of 
 man his own suffering; he entered into fellow- 
 ship with man's deepest woes, and made 
 man's wrecked and prostitute life his own 
 shame. Though his own received him not, 
 he came to them as a Redeemer; though hu- 
 man darkness apprehended it not, the divine 
 light shone in upon it. Though man pierced 
 the Father's heart, and trampled upon his 
 outpoured life, and reviled his holiest words, 
 and crucified his ideal, God yet unveiled *to 
 man his inmost being. Though sin had long 
 
A LESSON IN EDUCATION 103 
 
 delayed the divine consummation, and made 
 it necessary for God to reveal himself in the 
 agony of Gethsemane and the sorrow of Cal- 
 vary, God made a complete revelation of him- 
 self in the face of human mockery; God com- 
 pletely expressed all there was of himself in 
 Jesus Christ, who was the best that God could 
 be and do for man, in whom all things in 
 heaven and on earth are summed up, through 
 whom every spiritual blessing in the heaven- 
 lies is poured out upon an undeserving world. 
 God was so unselfish, cared so little for his 
 own glory as a self-possession, so loved the 
 unloving world, that he gave his only begot- 
 ten Son; he brought out the best there was 
 of him and made a gift of it to those who 
 would scorn the gift; he would not suffer sin 
 to forever repress his infinite thoughts concern- 
 ing man. In spite of human sin the Word 
 became flesh and dwelt among us. And in 
 the glory and truth of that Word we are find- 
 ing our way home to God. Man's unbelief 
 and faithlessness could not extinguish God's 
 eternal hope. Man's inappreciation and in- 
 gratitude could not repress God's inmost life. 
 It would have been a sort of infinite atheism 
 
104 A LESSON IN EDUCATION 
 
 on God's part, an unbelief in himself, a sur- 
 render of faith in the omnipotence and finality 
 of goodness, to have withheld the Word from 
 becoming flesh. Being our .Father, having 
 made man in his own image, the Father could 
 do no less than make himself known in his true 
 character to his children. Nothing else than 
 a complete self-expression within the compass 
 of man's understanding, and in the terms of 
 man's experience, no matter what man's con- 
 dition might be, was consistent with the good- 
 ness of God, or could justify his creation of 
 man. With what a strange, infinite joy, then, 
 was God able to speak through the clouds of 
 human misunderstanding at last, and say to 
 the world, "This is my beloved Son, in whom 
 I am well pleased." Sin had delayed the joy- 
 ous event; but the amazing love of God had 
 brought it about in spite of our sin, making the 
 cross of his unspared Son the glorious revela- 
 tion and pledge of his love and mercy towards 
 man. 
 
 The revelation of God in Christ is our obli- 
 gation to reveal and give the best of our life 
 and thought to the world. The gift of Christ 
 leaves us no choice but to receive his grace 
 
A LESSON IN EDUCATION 105 
 
 and show it to men as the Hght in which they 
 are to walk. Every vision of truth is a call 
 to duty; all knowledge is responsibility; the 
 purpose of all God's revelations is to make us 
 like himself. And this complete self-expression 
 of God in Christ should mean nothing less to 
 you and to me than absolute consecration to 
 the work of revealing God to men. As the 
 Father sent the Son so the Son sends us to 
 be divine incarnations and revelations. Since 
 God gave his best to man the best there is in 
 each of us is the moral property of the race. 
 Our richest and sacredest experiences are 
 God's investment in humanity. A religion 
 that goes not beyond the saving of one's own 
 soul, an education that has for its purpose 
 only the selfish development of one's own life, 
 is essential infidelity. It is, as Lotze says, 
 only a shining vice. 
 
 To fulfill the divine obligation the revela- 
 tion of God in Christ lays upon us, we must 
 give ourselves to God. We must let God 
 have his way with us; speak his thoughts in 
 us; do his deeds through us; let God's Word 
 dwell in our flesh, so that everything we do, 
 in work or play, in public or private, shall be 
 
106 A LESSON IN EDUCATION 
 
 a communion with God. Property and study, 
 eating and drinking, are forms of communion 
 with God; and when otherwise regarded they 
 are perversions of divine trusts. We must seek 
 to enter, and must enter, if we are obedient 
 to the heavenly revelation, that sphere of life 
 where all that we do shall be done in the 
 name of the Lord Jesus, for the glory of God 
 and salvation of men; where we shall follow 
 our divinest instincts, without asking to see 
 where they will lead us; where we shall live 
 for what God lives, and do the work we see 
 him doing. 
 
 Then we shall reveal to men all the truth 
 and grace God gives us. We shall offer the 
 flesh and blood of our souls to be the meat 
 and drink of the world. We are faithless to 
 God's revelation and gift of himself in Christ 
 if we repress the revelation of our holiest im- 
 pulses, of our most precious experiences and 
 divinest ideals, in the face of human stupidity, 
 scorn and ridicule. This is the divine purpose 
 of devotion and education — t/ns is education 
 — the drawing out and giving to the world the 
 best there is in the soul of man. Education is 
 the unfolding and outgiving of the life, at any 
 
A LESSON IN EDUCATION 107 
 
 temporal cost. I know much that used to be 
 called education was in reality a shutting in 
 rather than a leading out of the deepest life; 
 an attempt to get something into a man rather 
 than call something out of him; an effort to 
 improve upon what God had already made 
 rather than bring it to light for the world's 
 good and God's glory. But we are learning 
 that life is the true object of all teaching and 
 preaching, all praying and revealing. Any 
 sort of spiritual life is better than death. 
 Gushing sophomorism is infinitely more hope- 
 ful than petrified intellectualism and religious 
 mummyism. And he who slams the door of 
 a soul in the face of its crude and awkward 
 originality is one of the devil's servants; but 
 he is not one of God's workmen. 
 
 As the redeemed children of God, as the 
 heirs of Christ's grace and truth, we have no 
 right to repress, much less distrust, our holi- 
 est feelings; our visions of moral beauty; our 
 noblest ideals of duty and truth. Thoughts 
 exist for the sake of deeds. They are the best 
 we have to give to the world. God has a 
 right to use them as moral material to work 
 into the new earth he is making. The self- 
 
108 A LESSON IN EDUCATION 
 
 repression of that which is deepest within us, 
 whether at the bidding of our intellectual and 
 religious superiors, or from distrust of the 
 practicability of our ideals, is a kind of athe- 
 ism. To shrink from unveiling our purest and 
 most loving selves, because of the scoffing 
 skepticism and shameless selfishness of the 
 world, is in itself a refined unbelief and subtle 
 selfishness. There is a moral cowardice in 
 our concealment of the spiritual deeps of our 
 beings through disgust at the baseness of the 
 real life we see about us. We whose fallen 
 lives have been high-lifted by Christ's pierced 
 hands; we who have looked into the face of 
 truth that was spit upon; we whose foul hearts 
 have been cleansed by the mercy that flowed 
 in the blood of Golgotha; we who have 
 watched the Lord Christ bear upon his 
 scourged back the cross of our shame; — what 
 infidels are we to repress and turn into dark- 
 ness the light that struggles to shine, even 
 dimly, from our poor lives! 
 
 Grow, my dear friend, at any cost. Let 
 your deepest thought leap into boldest action. 
 Be willing to blunder and stumble times with- 
 out number; but do not dare to disobey the 
 
A LESSON IN EDUCATION 109 
 
 Word that speaks in your flesh. Fear not 
 failure and ridicule; but fear to be false to 
 your divine instincts, your noblest impulses. 
 God is not dumb. Revelation is not some- 
 thing that belongs alone to the past. God is 
 not helpless before human inquiry. You are 
 his child. The anointing you have received 
 from Christ abideth in you. And if you abide 
 in him, and let his words abide in you, then 
 the living Christ will take up his abode in you, 
 and show you the truth and lead you to the 
 Father. Then God will come down and dwell 
 in your life, and walk the earth with your feet; 
 and your brains will throb with God's great 
 thoughts; and your weakness will work with 
 the energy that is omnipotent; and men will 
 believe in God because they see him living 
 and working in you. 
 
 There are messages of truth, I would like 
 to say to each one of you, which no one else 
 can carry to needy souls as well as yourself. 
 There are waste places which you only can 
 redeem with goodness; deserts of bodily and 
 spiritual want for each of you to sow with 
 timely words and kindly deeds that they may 
 blossom and fruit with righteousness; wilder- 
 
110 A LESSON IN EDUCATION 
 
 nesses of wandering pilgrims whom you alone 
 can safest homeward guide. There are spheres 
 of holy influences of which you alone can be 
 the radiating center. There are affections 
 which none but you may lift from things on 
 earth to things in Christ. There are starving 
 souls which you only may feed; blind eyes 
 which no one else may open; troubled lives 
 which you alone may rest; stubborn wills 
 which no other touch than yours may bend to 
 God. You are each sent, as Christ was sent, 
 to so love the lost sheep of God that you will 
 lay down the selfish life and live the divine 
 life for their salvation. Live in and for your- 
 self, and your life will consume itself; go out 
 of yourself into the impoverished souls within 
 your reach, and God will make your life the 
 wealth of the world, and break your sacrifices 
 as bread and meat unto a hungry generation; 
 he will set before you the joy of Christ, and 
 purify your spirit with the fire that will make 
 your life a revelation of his glory to those who 
 sit in the darkness of selfishness. 
 
 You have no right to tarry from casting in 
 your lot with Christ because of intellectual 
 difficulties. It is not your opinions God wants, 
 
A LESSON IN EDUCATION 111 
 
 but your life. You may not be able to satisfy 
 your intellect about the relations of the Father 
 to the Son — though they are simpler than 
 theology would have us think. But when you 
 enter the moral realm all difficulties vanish. 
 If you find in Christ such a revelation of God's 
 character as satisfies you, then why turn to 
 thedistractionsof human opinion? If you see 
 in Christ the man you would like to be, then 
 follow him; your path of duty is clear. If you 
 are honest you will follow the best you know. 
 Take your stand at Christ's side, and you will 
 know the truth and the truth will make you 
 free. And by and by, when you have passed 
 from these wintry skies into the unending sum- 
 mer of his presence, when God's moral pro- 
 cesses have done their work, you will be 
 where Christ is, there — 
 
 '♦The Christ of God to find, 
 In the humblest of thy kind." 
 
A SELECTION 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company's 
 
 CATALOGUE. 
 
SUGGBSTIVB BOOKS 
 
 BOR BIBI^B RBA.DBRS. 
 
 THE OPEN SECRET; or, the Bible Explaining 
 Itself. By Hannah Whitall Smith. 
 
 That the author of this work has a faculty of presenting 
 the "Secret Things" that are revealed in the Word of 
 God, is apparent to all who have read the exceedingly pop- 
 ular work, " The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life," 
 and such will not be disappointed in expecting to find in 
 this new volume a fullness and sweetness in the unfolding of 
 God's Word, in its application to the practical and daily du- 
 ties of Christian living. i2mo, 320 pages, cloth, |i.oo. 
 
 BIBLE BRIEFS; or, Outline Themes for Scrip- 
 ture Students. By G. C. and E. A. Needham. i6mo, 
 224 pages, cloth, $1.00. 
 
 " Here are sermons in miniature, which any preacher will find it 
 
 f)rofitable to expand into sermons in full measure. True Biblical out- 
 ines are here ; not artificial ' sketches,' but Scripture frame-works. 
 Oh, that the preachers would depend on such frame-works, rather than 
 on such ^re-worjks as many of them attempt !" — Jiev. A.J, Gordon^ 
 D. Z>., in The Watchword. 
 
 *' Here you have meat without bones, and land without stones. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Needham will have the gratitude of many a hard-pressed 
 teacher when he is hard up for a talk." — Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, 
 
 BIBLE HELPS FOR BUSY MEN. By A. C. P. 
 
 COOTE. 
 
 Contains over 200 Scripture subjects, clearly worked out 
 
 and printed in good legible type, with an alphabetical 
 
 index. 140 pages, i6mo, paper, 30c. ; cloth, 6oc. 
 
 •' The topics are familiar in thought and form, and are in many cases 
 admirably adapted for Bible readings and for prayer meetings. ' Busy 
 Men,' upon whom rests the responsibility of leading a meeting and 
 choosing a topic, and especially of conducting an evangelistic meeting, 
 will find this little book of decided value."— T:*.? Golden Rule. 
 
 *' Likely to be of use to overworked brethren,"— C. H. Spurgeon. 
 
 " Given in a clear and remarkably telling form."— C4r/j//a» Leader, 
 
 CHICAGO. Fleming H. ReYell Company, newyork. 
 
H<l\u f[ot^s for Bible I^eadii?($8, 
 
 BT THE LATE 
 
 S. R. BRIGGS, 
 
 with brief Memoir of the author, 
 by Rev. JAS. H. BROOKES, D.D. 
 
 Every one of the many readers of "Notes 
 and Suggeetions for Bible Readings" 
 will welcome this entirely new collection 
 containing selections from D, L. Moody, 
 Maj. Whittle, Rev.J. H. Brookes, D.D.,Prof. 
 W G. Moorehead, Rev. E. P. Marvin, Jno. 
 Currie, Rev.W J.Erdman, Rev. F. E.Marsh 
 Dr. L. W. Munhall, and many others. 
 
 " This practical and valuable compeud is not to be confounded 
 with the well-known 'Notes and Suggestions for Bible Read- 
 ings,' edited by S. R, Briggs and J. H. Eluott, which has 
 reached, during the past six years a sale of 30,000 copies. The 
 entire new volume is suggestive and serviceable." — The JPresby- 
 terian. 
 
 " The book is admirably adapted to its purpose. Through Dr. 
 Brookes' brief memoir the reader becomes exceedingly interested 
 in the personality of the late author and so enjoys studying 
 Scriptures under his leadership."— T'A^ Golden Bule. 
 
 "The readings are practical, helpful, full of suggestiveness, 
 and bring out the most important points and truths in the subjects 
 on which they are based. It is, in fact, the best thing of th« 
 kind we have seen."— T/ie Christian at Work. 
 
 233 pages, crown 8vo, with Complete Index. 
 
 Bound In Cloth, Library Edition, . . - - $1.00 
 
 Clotii Flexible, Travellers' Edition, 
 
 .76 
 
 <♦ • » 
 
 ffotes aijd Sa5g(?stioijs 
 
 for Bibl(^ I^eadipgs. 
 
 Compiled bt S. R. BRIGGS and J. n. ELLIOTT. 
 "It is a capital book, and if possible, would like to reprint It 
 and place a copy in the hands of each of our students." — C. H. 
 Spubgeon. 
 
 262 pages, Crown 8vo, with Complete Index. 
 
 Bound in Cloth, Library Edition %\ 00 
 
 Cloth, Flexible, Travellers' Edition 75 
 
 Cheap Paper Cover Edition 5* 
 
 KBw YORK. : : Fleming H. Revell Company : •• Chicago 
 
K ^TirrF^TTrtN ^^"^ ^°^ *^* ^^^^ volume and sec what a mine of 
 
 '• wealth is in these " Notes." You will surely 
 
 want the full set. 
 
 "C. H.M.'s" NOTES, 
 
 OR 
 
 THEG08PEL1NTHEPENTATEUGH 
 
 These Books are not Commen* 
 taries, in the ordinary under- 
 standing of that word ; they are 
 of a more popular style ; helpful, 
 suggestive, inspiring. 
 
 GENESIS, EXODUS, LEVITICUS, 
 
 NUMBERS AND DEUTERONOMY. 
 Read thefollowing Commendations from well-known 
 Pastors, Evangelists, Laymen, Etc. 
 *'Some years since 1 had my attention called to C. H. 
 M.'s Notes, and was so much pleased, and at the same 
 time profited by the way they opened up Scriptural 
 truths, that I secured at once all the writings of the 
 same author. They have been to me a very key to the 
 Scriptures." D. L. MOODY. 
 
 "Under God they have blessed me more than any 
 books outside of the Bible itself, that I have ever read, 
 and have led me to a love of the Bible that is proving 
 an unfailing source of profit." 
 
 maj. d. w. whittle. 
 
 Deuteronomy is issued in two volumes, the others complete in one 
 volume each. 
 
 Separate volumes may be had if desired. Sent post paid to any 
 address on receipt of price. 
 
 The complete set in six volumes, covering over 8,300 Pages, ta 
 offered at the reducedprice 0/ 75c. per Vol. Of $4.60 per ' 
 
 >et. 
 
 Mew YorL FLEMING H. REVELL CO. Chicago. 
 
ATTRACTIVE TRUTHS, 
 
 IN LESSON AND STORY. 
 
 Y. jp. s. c. n. 
 
 TEXT-BOOK FOR JUNIOR SOCIETIES. 
 
 A series of outline lessons, with il- 
 lustra live stories for Junior Chris- 
 tian Endeavor Societies, Child- 
 ren s Meetinf^s, and Home 
 
 Teaching. 
 By Mrs. A. M. SCUDDER, 
 
 With Introduction by Rev. Francis 
 E. Clark, President Y. P. S. C. E. 
 
 12mo, 351 pages, Clotli, $1.25. 
 
 Dr Clark, in his introduction, says:-" This book we most heartily 
 welcome, not only for what it indicates, but for what it is, for we have 
 never seen any work more admirably fitted to its purpose. In fact lit- 
 erature of this sort is very scanty, and so far as we know, this book 
 occupies a place all its own. In the home, in Sunday-school class, in 
 the mission circle, above all, in the children's meeting, this volume will 
 find its place, and will be welcomed eagerly by many a perplexed par- 
 ent, pastor, and teacher. 
 
 We do not see why this book, with its weafin of suggestive material, 
 its outline studies on all matters of practical Chnstjan.ty and its hap- 
 pily chosen stories, may not be used »■ a text-book by leaders of these 
 societies." 
 
 " This book occupies a new field, and occupies it well. No other 
 book in the language, so far as we know, has even attempted just this 
 task of providing a manual for teachers of children's classes, superin- 
 tendents of Junior Kndeavor Societies and the like. Each lesson be- 
 gins with certain T-..b: texts bearing on the subject, to be marked 
 and explained, then an outline of the subject, followed by a story 
 which illustrates and enforces it. There is nothing weak or puerile 
 about the book, but there is a wealth of information and suggestion, of 
 which theusands of workers among the children will avail themselves. 
 Superintendents of Junior Christian Endeavor Societies will find it very 
 useful, in fact, almost indispensable. We commend it most cordially." 
 -^Golden Rule. 
 
 CHICAGO. Fleming H. ReYell Company, newyork. 
 
Popular MissionaryBiograpMes 
 
 12rao, 160 pages. Fully illustrated. Cloth extra, 75 cents each. 
 
 From The Missionary 
 Herald. 
 
 " We commended this ser- 
 ies in our last issue, and a 
 further examination leads us 
 to renew our commendation, 
 and to urge the placing of 
 this series of missionary 
 books in all our Sabbath- 
 school libraries. 
 
 These books are handsome- 
 ly printed and bound and are 
 beautifully illustrated, and we 
 are coniident that they will 
 prove attractive to all young 
 people." 
 
 *' These are not pans of milk, but little pitchers of cream, compact and 
 condensed from bulkier volumes."— Dr. A. T. Pierson. 
 
 8AMJJEL CBOWTSEB, the Slave Boy who became 
 Sishoiy of the Niger. By Jesse Page, author of " Bishop 
 Patteson." 
 
 THOMAS J". COMBEB, Missionary Pioneer to the 
 
 Congo. By Rev. J. B. Myers, Association Secretary Baptist Mis- 
 sionary Society. 
 
 BISHOP PATTESON, the Martyr of Melanesia. By 
 
 Jesse Page. 
 
 GRIFFITH JOHN, Founder of the Hankow Mission, 
 Central China. By Wm. Robson, of the London Missionary 
 Society. 
 
 It OB EST MOBBISON, the Pioneer of Chinese Mis- 
 sions. By Wm. J. Townsend, Sec. Methodist New Connexion 
 Missionary Society. 
 
 BOBEBT MOFFAT, the Missionary Hero of Kuruman, 
 
 By David J. Deane, author of " Martin Luther, the Reformer," etc. 
 WILLI AM CABET, the Shoemaker who became a Mis- 
 sionary. By. Rev. J. B. Myers, Association Secretary Baptist 
 Missionary Society. 
 
 O^AMES CHALMEBS, Missionary and Explorer of 
 Marotonga and New Guinea. By Wm. Robson, of the 
 London Missionary Society. 
 
 MISSIONABT LADIES IN FOBEIGN LANDS. By 
 
 Mrs. E. R. Pitman, author of *' Heroines of the Missionary Fields," 
 etc. 
 
 J^AMES CALVEBT; or. From Dark to Dawn in Fiji, 
 JOHN WILLIAMS, the Martyr of Polynesia. By Rev. 
 James J. Ellis. 
 
 HENBT MABTTN, His Life and Labors, By Jsass 
 Page, author of "Bishop Patterson," etc. 
 
 NEW YORK. Fleming H. Revell Company. cHicAoa 
 
IPopuIar Dellum Scrlea. 
 
 Chxiste Paper Covers, 16mo, 52 pages, each 20c. 
 31ay also be had with very choice hand-painted floral designs 
 on covers, each 50c. 
 
 f)OW to ^Become a CbrlStlan. Five Simple Talks. 
 
 By Rev. Lymau Abbott, D.D. 
 
 1. Disciples or Scholars. 2. Believers or Faithfu 
 3. Followers or Soldiers, 4. Brethren oi Members of the 
 Household. 5. Saints or the Holy. 
 
 XLbC JfOUC IWSOh By Rev. James Stalker, D. D., 
 author of ''The Life of Jesus Christ," etc. 
 1. The Man the World Sees. 2. The Man Seen by the 
 Person Who Knows Him Best. 3. The Man Seen by Him- 
 self. 4. The Man Whom God Sees. 
 
 XLbc 3Flabt of ifaitb anD tbe Cost of Gbaractcr* 
 
 Talks to Young Men. By Rev. Theodore L. Cuy- 
 ler, D.D. 
 
 To those who have not yet become acquainted with Dr. 
 Cuylers original and brilliant productions, this booklet will 
 serve as an acceptable introduction. 
 
 Ibope : The Last Thing in the World. By Rev. A, T. 
 
 Pierson, D.D. 
 
 This brochure has been prepared to complete the series of 
 articles on "The Triple Graces." to which Prof. Drummond 
 and Dr. A. J. Gordon are contributors. 
 
 XLbC ^iV6t XLbUXQ in tbe llClOrlD ; or, the Primacy 
 of Faith. By Rev. A. J. Gordon, D.D. 
 Dr. Gordon has rescued us from the danger of forgetting 
 
 that faith in Christ is the foundation of our Christian life." 
 
 — Record of Christian Work. 
 
 XLbc /iRcssage of Jesus to jflften of THHealtb. a 
 
 Tract for the Times. By Rev. George E. Herron. 
 
 Introduction by Rev. Josiah Strong. 
 
 "Mr. Herron has put the law of Christ to all men, 
 whether with wealth or without it -the law of self sacrific- 
 ing love — with a clearness and cogency, which demands for 
 his paper this permanent form."— 22ev. Lyman Abbott, D.D. 
 
 power from on 1bigb: Do You Need It, What is 
 
 It, Can You Get It ? By Rev. B. Fay Mills. 
 
 " Earnest, cogent, bright, this brief discussion must appeal 
 
 to all classes of readers. The mark it will make on mind 
 
 and conscience will not soon fade away."— ^. Y. Evanadi**. 
 
 New York. FLEMING H. REYELL CO. Cnicago. 
 
1imorft6 bs Dr, B» 5» <5ort>on. 
 
 IX CHRIST ; or. THE BELIEVER'S UNION WITH HIS 
 
 Lord. Seventh Edition, 12mo, fine clotli, 210 pages. $1.00. 
 
 We do not remember since Thomas b Kempis a book bo thorough- 
 ly imbued with great personal love to Christ. It is evidently the 
 happy result of hours of high communion with him.— Boston 
 Courier. 
 
 The true standard of Christian excellence is nobly upheld and 
 displayed in these pages, which cannot fail to impress every 
 thoughtful reader by whom the volume is taken in hand.— Rock. 
 THE MINISTRY OF HE AUNG; or, MIRACLES OF 
 
 Cure in all Ages. Third Udition. ISmo, fine cloth, 250 
 
 pages, $1.25. 
 
 An interesting and thoughtful work. Dr. Gordon marshals to- 
 gether witnesses from all ages and all classes in favor of his belief 
 that cures may still be wrought through prayer. — British and 
 Foreign Evangelical Review. 
 THE TWO-FOLD LIFE; or CHRIST'S WORK FOR US, 
 
 AND Christ's Work in Us. 12ino, fine cloth, 385 pages, 
 
 $1.25. 
 
 Distinguished by exquisite purity of thought, by deep spiritual 
 insight, and by great strength of practical argument. The work 
 is one of great spiritual beauty and helpfulness.— Baptist Maga- 
 zine. 
 
 Its perusal will amply repay the reader who wishes to be- 
 come a full-grown Christian. — C. H. Spuegeon. 
 GRACE AND GLORT; SERMONS FOR THE LIFE THAT 
 
 Now Is AND That Which Is To Come. 12mo, fine cloth, 
 
 355 pages, $1.50. 
 
 Here we have power without sensationalism; calm thought, liv- 
 ing and earnest, expressed in forcible language; the doctrine or- 
 thodox, evangelical, practical. We shall be surprised if these 
 discourses are not reprinted by an English house.— C. H. Spurgeon. 
 
 The author's manner of treating spiritual truths is both 
 
 powerful and impressive.- London MoBNiNG Post. 
 
 ECCE VENIT; BEHOLD HE COMETH. 12mo, fine cloth, 
 
 311 pages, $1.25. 
 
 Written in a singularly graceful style, as also in a singularly 
 gracious spirit.— Watchman and Reflector. 
 
 Dr. Gordon is a writer with whom to differ is better and more 
 suggestive than to agree with some others. He loves the truth; he 
 gives his readers much that is true and deeply of the essence oi 
 Christianity ; it is impossible to read his book without being stim- 
 ulated by it and getting higher and fresher views of some aspects 
 of Christianity which are perhaps dwelt on less than they should 
 be.— Independent. 
 THE FIRST THING IN THE WORLD; or, The 
 
 Primacy of Faith. Vellum paper covers, $.20. 
 
 *** Any of the above sent, post free, to any address on re- 
 ceij)t of price. 
 
 FLEMING H. 
 
 New York. 
 
 REVRLL COMPANY, 
 
 Chicago. 
 
No. 01. 
 No. 02. 
 No. 03. 
 
 Worthy of universal circulation.— CTirfetian Union. 
 The Christian Secret cff a Happy Life. 
 
 By H. W. S. 
 The 16mo "Standard Edition" as follows : 
 
 Paper covers S 50 
 
 Cloth, fine 75 
 
 Cloth, full gilt edges 100 
 
 The '•Handy Classic Edition" may be had in the fol- 
 lowing bindings, 18mo, 293 pages : 
 
 Cloth, full gilt edges 85 
 
 French seal, gilt edges, round corners 1 50 
 
 Persian seal, gilt edges, round corners, rustic 
 
 and gold band 1 50 
 
 Persian calf, gilt edges, round corners, oroken 
 
 glass pattern 1 75 
 
 Plain calf 2 00 
 
 Best German calf, embossed design 2 25 
 
 Best German calf, padded 2 50 
 
 No. 
 No. 
 No. 
 
 No. 8. 
 
 No. 10. 
 No. 12. 
 
 No. 14. 
 
 By the same Author. 
 
 The Open Secret. 
 
 A Series of Practical Bible Keadingg. 
 
 820 pages, 16mo, cloth $1 00 
 
 Envelope Series of Tracts. 
 Being chapters from "The Christian's Secret of a Happy 
 Life," comprising the following; 
 Is it Scriptural. Concerning Will? 
 Life on Wings. The Chariot of God. 
 How to Enter into Life. Faith ; What is It? 
 Concerning Consecration. Practical Results. 
 Concerning Guidance. Is God in Everything? 
 Concerning Faith. The Joy of Obedience, 
 May be had assorted or otherwise. 
 Price, per dozen 20 
 
 New York. FLEMING H. REYELL. Chicago. 
 
Mi88 Hayergal'8 Poems, 
 
 Author's Edition. 
 
 THE 
 
 PoetlcBcarilJerSg 
 
 -OF- 
 
 FRANCES 
 RIDLEY 
 
 HAVERGAL. 
 
 THE ONLY COMPLETE UNABRIDGED 
 
 AUTHORIZED EDITION PUBLISHED 
 
 IN AMERICA. In i Vol. i2mo, 880 Pages. 
 
 Miss Havergal stands without a peer in the English language 
 in the department of religious poetry. The enormous sale of her 
 eeparate books is evidence of a world-wide appreciation. 
 
 Cloth extra $2 00 
 
 Cloth bevelled boards, full gilt edges 2 50 
 
 Half white vellum cloth, gilt top, uncut edges 2 50 
 Full Levant, Antique finish 6 00 
 
 We quote the following from the Publishers' Weekly : 
 
 •' It is in answer to many requests, that the various 
 Poems, Hymns and Songs of Frances Ridley Hav- 
 ergal, are comprised in this library edition. The 
 labor of love was undertaken by Miss Havergal's 
 niece, who revised and arranged with much care this 
 complete and final edition. The book in paper, print 
 and binding is all that could be desired." 
 
 CHICAGO. 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company. 
 
 NEWYORK. 
 

 Date Due 
 
 
 ^^CULTY 
 
 
 
 
 ,- 
 
 
 
 
 All) ; (V--/| 
 
 
 
 
 N--" ' •/ 
 
 
 
 
 D-.'.;0 
 
 
 
 
 
 m- 
 
 
 
 
 -^tti^ 
 
 
 
 
 ■ ■■**; 
 
 t 
 
 
 
 ^^00mmmm 
 
 %/»> 
 
 
 
 „„*--«'-" 
 
 
 
 
 U. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 f