GOD TRANSLATED BY J. STANLEY DURKEE, M.A., Ph.D. PASTOR, SOUTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH BROCKTON, MASSACF j SETTS THE PILGRIM PRESS BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO JttG COPYRIGHT 1915 BY J. STANLEY DURKEE THE PILGRIM PRESS BOSTON I rv DEC 17 1915 ©CU418095 TO ALL THOSE HELPFUL SOULS OF EVERY PARISH, WHO, BY THEIR LOVE AND PRAYERS, HAVE INSPIRED MY MINISTRY AND AIDED IN MOLDING MY MESSAGE, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK INTRODUCTION It has been my custom each year to preach on Sunday mornings a series of sermons follow- ing some trunk line of thought. The sermons in this volume are chosen from the series of last year which were studies in the Gospel of John. They sought to find the simpler and more human interpretation of Jesus, while, at the same time, they gave all reverence to that other omething we call the Divine. Ever since the populace of Jerusalem cried, |n that day of triumph, "Who is he?" the vorld has been repeating the question. Today, ^mid the wreck and ruin of our generation, we ask it with tenser meaning. The second sermon answers, — He is a translation of God. As Greek is translated into English, that the Eng- lish scholar may read and understand, so God is translated into human form, that human people may know and understand Him. Jesus Christ so perfectly translates God that we all may know the very thought and heart and love of God if we study the life and work of Jesus. From that standpoint have I thought and written. The sermons here printed deal with epochal hours in the life of our Lord and mark essential steps in the development of His Mes- [trii] Introduction sianic mission. Each sermon is meant to be a meditation at an important station along that via sacra of His blessed life. May the medita- tions by the way be sweet. May the terminus find us saying from a fuller heart, "My Lord and my God. ' ' J. Stanley Duekee. South Church Study, Brockton, Massachusetts, November 6, 1915. [viii] CONTENTS page Introi auction vii I. Who Is He? . 1 II. Life in Words . 21 III. Power from Doing . 37 IV. Fragrant Deeds 57 V. We Would See Jesus 75 VI. The Betrayer . 95 VII. On the Way Home . 113 VIII. A Gamble for a Coat 129 IX. Death Defeated 149 X. The Waiting Breakfast 169 [*] I WHO IS HE! ' ' Who is He? ' '—Matt. 21 : 10. 1 4* WHO IS HE? Eighteen hundred and eighty-seven years ago today, as we reckon time, a scene was taking place in an Eastern city, the significance of which is not yet fully appreciated. The central figure of that scene was, as a beautiful legend tells us, a young man thirty-three years of age, tall, fair, with high brow, deep blue eyes, of masterful appearance and wondrous voice. You could love him, or you could hate him, according as your thoughts run parallel to or cut across his standards and purposes. For three years people all over Galilee and Judea had been asking who he was, and what the meaning of his marvelous words and power. On this day he had come into Jerusalem accom- panied by a vast throng of singing and shout- ing people, and all the city was moved, crying, — "Who is he!" Let us get the strange scene before us ere we attempt to answer the question. It was a bright day in early spring of the year 29, when a great company of people set out from Bethany for Jerusalem. A national festival was open- ing in the city. It was the Feast of the Pass- over. We are told that possibly two or three [3] God Translated millions of pilgrims from all over the known world would assemble in Jerusalem for this Feast. No matter from what part of the world these pilgrims came they seemingly had all heard of Jesus of Galilee and were eager to see him and hear him speak. Just after leaving Bethany the young Prophet sent two of his disciples before him to a little village called Bethphage to secure a colt on which never man sat — the royal hint — to be used by him in riding into Jerusalem. The news spread quickly among the pilgrims of the village and to Jerusalem and the temple, that the Prophet was coming. It was a whisper that brought joy to the multitude, but hatred and almost terror to the Jewish rulers. The people streamed forth from the city to meet him. There had also been a great throng fol- lowing him up from Jericho and Bethany. The two streams of people ranged themselves be- fore him and behind. The multitude which came from the city preceded, bearing palm branches in their hands and strewed the road with them or spread their garments in the way. The company that followed after, shouted. The company that preceded answered back with a shout. The van called to the rear, and the rear to the van. The thunders of shout- ing rolled over the heads of Christ and his disciples in mighty volume. I now follow Edersheim's description: — "Gradually the long procession swept up and [4] Who Is He? over the ridge which first begins the descent of the Mount of Olives toward Jerusalem. At this point, the first view is caught of the south- eastern corner of the city. The temple and the more northern portions are hid by the slope of Olivet on the right. We would now see only a rough field, but at that time it rose, terrace on terrace, from the palace of the Maccabees to the magnificent gardens and palace of Herod. They had been greeting him, — ' Hosannah to the Son of David/ and the enthusiasm was con- tagious. We can imagine it all, and how fire would leap from heart to heart, — ' So he is the promised Son of David. The Messiah is at last here. The Kingdom is at hand.* The road descends with a slight declivity, and the glimpse of the city is withdrawn. A few moments and the path mounts again. It climbs a rugged as- cent. It reaches a ledge of smooth rock. In an instant the whole city bursts into view. Yon- der stands the temple tower, and there are the great temple courts. There is the magnificent city with its background of gardens and sub- urbs on the western plateau behind. Imme- diately before is the valley of the Kedron. As that vast throng caught the full view of the city of David, adorned as a bride to welcome her King, Davidic praise to David's greater Son echoed through the hills and valleys. We can fancy Olivet calling to Jerusalem across that valley in those familiar words of their familiar psalm, — 'Lift up your heads, ye gates; and [5] God Translated be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors : and the King of glory shall come in.' The queen city of Jerusalem shouts back to the Mount, — 'Who is this King of glory V The mountain top an- swers again, — 'The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle,' and again Olivet cries, — 'Lift up your heads, ye gates, even lift them up, ye everlasting doors: and the King of glory shall come in.' Once again the queen city calls back, 'Who is this King of glory V Then Olivet makes answer with a mighty shout, — 'The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory. ' ' ' The throng that went before called to the throng that followed after,—" Ho sannah to the son of David. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosannah in the high- est. ' ' Everywhere the tramp of their feet, the waving of their palm branches, the shouts of their acclaim, brought men and women into the streets and upon the house-tops. The city was moved, and from mouth to mouth the eager question passed, — "Who is this? Who is this?" and the multitude answered, — "This is the Prophet of Nazareth of Galilee. ' ' "Who is this Jesus? Why should he The city move so mightily? A passing stranger, has he skill To move the multitude at will? Again the stirring notes reply, — Jesus of Nazareth passeth by." Long years have gone since that strange, stirring scene was enacted amid the old and [6] Who Is He? narrow streets of Jerusalem; since the hills and valleys of Judea echoed with those mighty shouts, — "Hosannah to the son of David.' ' Centuries have gone since the people in the streets, the priests in the temple, and the popu- lace everywhere were crying, — "Who is this? Who is this?" And still the cry is uttered to- day : uttered by those who wonder, uttered by those who are ignorant, uttered by those who would know, — "Who is this?" May we turn to get a few of the answers which are shouted back to us today. "Who is he?" Jewish Nationalism Answers, — He Is Our Messiah. How the nation looked and longed for their Messiah. Forgetting the great mission to which they had been called, they thought only of political freedom and conquest. Their Mes- siah would break the Roman yoke and permit them to establish a national government of their own. Their Messiah would lead them to conquer the whole world. They were to be ab- solute masters. Their culture, their ideals, their beliefs were exactly what all peoples needed. Their Messiah would make them glorious forever. Strange what foresight was theirs ! Strange, also, what blindness was theirs! Their Mes- siah would come, but he would not be exclu- [7] God Translated sively theirs. Through them all the nations of the earth should be blessed, yet not by their conquests, not by their armies. They did have a mission of culture and of ideals, but it must not be mixed with political nationalism. They mistook their mission of spiritualizing the thoughts and impulses of all nations for a mis- sion of political conquest. How they have suffered for that blunder! The Jews have wandered over the earth, homeless, destitute, strange, but their real mission has been, and is being, worked out. Through their Messiah the nations are being spiritualized and saved. The Jews will ere long accept Jesus Christ as Messiah and then the whole world will be saved, for the Jews' passion for religion is his first call from chaos and will be his last call in salvation. How parallel to this Jewish conception is that of the German Empire for the last thirty years ! I believe the German people were called of God to teach this world great lessons in fru- gality, scientific culture of body, mind and soul, scientific control of the vast resources of nature and of the marvelous powers of united effort to save. Like the Jews, the German nation has dimly appreciated this, — only dimly. Political ambition to rule the nations through their superior culture and methods of dealing with nature and man captured them. That political ambition ere long obsessed them. Their real mission became lost in their pride of superior- [8] Who Is He? ity. By the sword would they rule the world. They grasped the sword. They forgot the Mes- siah 's word to Peter, — "Put up again thy sword into its place for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.' ' The sword has turned in the hand of the German and is cutting out his national heart. Ger- many bleeds to death. Strange, wonderful, but solemn, is the experience that we now behold, for the German has reproduced the blunder of the Jew. But the real lessons which they were called to teach the world will be learned by the world. German methods will be used by native Africans ere long. Nothing shall be lost, save the pride and egotism that invited Germany's national suicide. "Who is this Jesus of Nazareth ?" Philosophy Answers, — He Is the Great Ideal. And he is. This world is ruled by ideals. You hard-headed business men and women who fancy you are doing your tasks in cold blood are as deceived as children with their toys. There is no such thing as cold blood in business methods. You may calmly decide and coolly execute, but your decision and execution is dic- tated by emotion. One of the greatest psychol- ogists of today said to me, — "All men are moved and controlled by their emotions." The men and women of vision are your pilots. Your engines drive forward the ship by cool, scien- [9] God Translated tific calculation in steel and steam, but your pilots stand on the bridge to bring you and your engines and your calculations to port in safety. Jesus Christ was the great idealist,— the greatest the world has ever known. He saw what was to be and led forward to that. There is a great passage of Scripture which causes me to marvel more and more, — "Who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising shame.' ' Jesus Christ was an ideal- ist. He looked far beyond death to those limit- less eons of time when every knee should bow to him, and every tongue should praise him for his redemption. But he is infinitely more than an ideal. All that philosophy will say regard- ing him is true. All that the profoundest scholars of the ages have brought to lay at his feet is absolutely true. But when they have brought their choicest in philosophy, in litera- ture, in poetry, in music, in love, and laid them at his feet, — lo, they are only at his feet! He towers above them, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords, Jesus the Christ, the Saviour of the world. Never man spake like this man in practi- cal measures. Government, finance, poverty, riches, human relations and relations with the Divine, these were his constant themes, and from these words every organization and every leader in the forward movements of the race are gathering inspiration and vision. [10] Who Is He? "Who is this Jesus of Nazareth V 9 Socinianism, or Modem Unitarianism An- swers, — He Is a Good Man. And he is. Look carefully at his character. Not a blemish can be found. Look carefully at his words. "Never man spake like this man." Look carefully at his deeds. They shine with a brightness that challenges the admiration of the greatest. Where can you find a flaw with this man, Jesus of Nazareth? He was a good man, — the world's noblest and the world's best. But, he was more than a good man. An in- finite something plays about his life. Was he a good man? So was Gamaliel, the great teacher of the Jews, but Gamaliel is not here this morning in this church. Was he a good man? So was Paul, the Apostle, who went up and down the world preaching and teaching that men might be saved. But Paul, the Apostle, is not here this morning in this church. Was he a good man? So were Socrates, and Plotinus, and Gladstone, and Moody good men, but they are not in this church this morning. Yet Jesus Christ is here. We have spoken to him. He has answered. By the shining of your eyes I know you have seen him, — you of the spiritual vision. By that look upon your faces I know you have felt him near. He is [ii] God Translated here this morning, and we lift up glad hands and gladder hearts as we cry, — "Warm, sweet, tender, even yet, A present help is he; And faith has still its Olivet, And love its Galilee. 1 ' The healing of his seamless dress Is by our beds of pain, We touch him in life's throng and press And we are whole again. 1 ' Through him the first fond prayers are said, Our lips of childhood framed: The last low whispers of our dead Are burdened with his name." "Who is this Jesus of Nazareth V Sociology Answers, — He Is a Great Re- former. And he is. There has never been anything in the universe of such power to destroy evil and liberate the good as his Gospel. Wherever that Gospel has been preached fetters have snapped, chains have broken, old prisons have shaken down, slavery of every sort has been destroyed. His Gospel has been the dynamite of God for the blowing up and blowing out and blowing to pieces of every form of oppression and sin. Wherever that dynamite has been really applied, there has always been a terrific upheaval and a new adjustment on a righteous basis. Why! when he came to his own land there were only about two hundred thousand real [12] Who Is He? Romans, and all the rest of the world — about sixty millions — were slaves to Eome. Two hundred thousand genuine Romans keeping in captivity sixty millions of people ! No wonder they passed sleepless nights in that city of the seven hills, for fear the slaves would rise in revolution. It was into that sobbing, crying, yearning mass of humanity that Jesus Christ began to pour his great ideals of self-respect and human love. You may change the word " salvation' ' to " self-respect,' ' if you please, for that is what it is. No man or woman who fails to respect himself or herself can under- stand what salvation is. Into that mass of people Jesus Christ began to pour his Gospel, and I want to tell you that in the fifth, and sixth, and seventh chapters of the Gospel as written by St. Matthew, there are the most inflammatory utterances that were ever given voice by human lips. His Gospel was dynamite, in such terrible social conditions. Look what it did to the Roman Empire! Look what it did to super- stition ! Look what it did to the forms which had clustered around it until they had hardened into cement walls of error! Look what that Gospel did in the time of Luther, who was an- other Odin with a mightier sledge hammer to beat down the walls of oppression and sin! Look what it has done in India, in Japan, in China, in Africa, in every isle of the sea! [13] God Translated Note what this great Eeformer has done for womanhood. May I take but one instance from India, from the report of 1891. We discover that amid two hundred and twenty-two millions of people, there were more than seven millions of girls married before they were fourteen years of age. When one remembers the hor- rors of child marriage, and all its frightful at- tendant evils and sufferings, one cries out even today. When one looks at the condition of womanhood in China, in Japan, in India, in Africa, before the Gospel of Jesus Christ was ever there preached, and contrasts that with the condition today where that Gospel has been preached, one is amazed, is speechless. Why, when I think of what the Gospel has done for womanhood, I wonder that every woman in the world, who has ever heard the story, does not leap to embrace that Gospel with all the power of her womanhood. Yet there are some who are so little appreciative of what that Gospel means that in this land they become heralds of destruction and pilots to hell rather than leaders to eternal glory. Note what that Gospel has done for child- hood. Fifty years ago, we are told, between sixty and seventy per cent, of all the female infants in Foochou, China, were either drowned at birth or otherwise destroyed. All over China were erected what were called baby towers. Parents who did not kill their children might leave them in an exposed place, or cast [14] Who Is He? them into the baby towers. Such towers still exist in China, though they are supposedly used only for the disposition of the bodies of dead babies. Who can estimate the hundreds on hun- dreds of thousands of babies thrown into the Ganges, and into other rivers, for their de- struction ! Childhood has been glorified by this great Reformer. How the burdens have been lifted from the backs of labor by this mighty Reformer ! Men today, half-baked in the thought of what it means, obsessed by their own greed, forget as they turn from the church to curse her, that the church has been the greatest saviour that the world has ever known in the liberation of labor from its slavery and the bringing in of new freedom. Yes, he is a great social Reformer. He cham- pioned the common people. He awakened them to their sufferings and their needs. He took the scales off their dull eyes. He called the light of hope to their faces. Everywhere the people flocked to him. A strange spirit of expectancy takes possession of those whose lives he pos- sesses. They begin to be strong in giving vent to their long pent-up yearnings. He is a revo- lutionist. The most inflammatory utterances that ever escaped the lips of mortals came leaping, flaming from the lips of Jesus Christ. Into that seething, voluptuous spirit of his day, Jesus poured his Gospel of self-respect and freedom. The Magnificat of Mary was the [15] God Translated Marseillaise of a new Kingdom. Those Beati- tudes were a new Bill of Eights. ''That Ser- mon on the Mount ranks high among the manifestoes of the world." The whole G-ospel is a direct challenge to oppression. Teach slaves the truths of the Nazarene, and slavery is doomed. No words are uttered or thoughts breathed that call the people into the kingdom of self-respect like the words of the Carpenter of Nazareth. When he married work and worship, a new day dawned. At the time of his coming, he who worked was despised. Slaves, and slaves only, must toil. Today, all this has been changed because of his evangel. The person who does not work is despised. The men and women who have mil- lions in money and yet refuse to render some useful service to the world are anathematized by all honest people. The Carpenter's evangel was the marriage of human labor and divine love. Jesus regarded religion as the inspira- tion of the world's work and never as an end of itself. Religion must be expressed in terms of a day's work. Every stable shall become a holy place ; every work bench an altar ; every counting room a place of prayer, and the true apostolic succession in Christian service is ever marked by the real preachers of the Word, and not by the mere operators of the work. He was a great social Reformer, but, oh! in- finitely more, for around him there gathers an eternal love and adoration that lifts him out of [16] Who Is He? the ranks of mere reformers, giving him his place upon his throne alone. "Who is this Jesus of Nazareth V Christianity Answers, — He Is the World's Saviour. And he is. Amid the two hundred and fifty- two names by which he is called in the Bible is one which declares him to be the Christ Al- mighty. He is the world's Saviour. He is the Christ, all powerful. As a friend, some days ago on the street, passed a group of young men, he heard one of foul mouth and sin-sick soul cry, — "Christ Almighty. ' ' The oath, for oath it was, brought to him that sickening sense that always steals over a lover of the Christ when his name is thus taken in vain. But as the friend passed by, slowly, like a dissolving picture on the screen, the blasphemy faded and the words came in blessing. Yes, after all, he is the Christ Almighty. Here is a young man. Nature endowed him with splendid health. He threw it away. Nature endowed him with splendid mental power. He stifled it and made it sodden and soggy. Nature gave him a voice of won- drous range. He broke it with his base habits. Now he lies sick and alone. He looks back over that pathway along which he has come, and says, "What a fool I have made of myself. Jesus [17] God Translated Christ, forgive me. I know I have wasted my years, and wasted my powers, and broken the heart of my mother, but I tell you, Jesus, I want to give you all there is left. Here it is, and I promise you that from this moment what- ever of health I may have, what voice shall be mine, what endowment for good service, that to its last ounce I will give to thee and to service in the world. ' ' He became better, grew strong, went out into the world a servant of Jesus Christ, and when he died, thousands of people went by his bier and dropped their tears upon his cold face and said, "Without him I never would have known the way into everlasting life." He is Christ Almighty, for he can take a young man absolutely broken and helpless in sin and make him a mighty evangel in the world: and there is no other power in the universe, known to God or man that can do that. Here is an old and aged saint. The years have slipped by so rapidly. The names he loved to hear have been carved for many years on the tomb. He is walking alone, leaning on that staff which comforts and supports him, whispering to himself, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me." Christ Almighty is His name ! Near the close of the Revolutionary War, so I have read or have been told, the victorious [18] Who Is He? armies marched in review through Philadelphia which was then the Capital of the country. On a bright morning, the troops came riding in. Harry Lee, the wonderful captain of cavalry, led on. The streets were lined with people, and every window was crowded with human faces and forms. They cheered. They sang. Tears fell. They threw their bouquets of flowers as the troops marched past. Lafayette was in the procession, and they cheered, and cried, and threw their flowers at the brave Frenchman. But, listen, — away down the street there is a continual roar, like the roar of the breakers on the shore. The word rapidly spreads, — "The Continentals are coming — the Continentals are coming.' ' Yes, the Continentals were coming, — those soldiers who had fought through the long years of struggle. The shouting swells to greater and greater proportion. Soon the Continentals are in sight, — but look! Yonder there rides in the midst, the man of calm face and glistening eye. Where before there had been shouting and laughter and clapping of hands, now tears ran down the faces of those who beheld: and instead of flowers that were thrown at the victors who had passed, we are told that the women tore from their necks their lockets and chains and threw them out to him, to the father of his country, to Washington who thus was riding to victory through the capital. Washington, the immortal, rode in triumph [19] God Translated into the heart of the nation which he had saved and had given to the world forever. But he who rode into Jerusalem in triumph that day, upon whose face was prophecy only and the tear stains where he had wept over Jerusalem; he who received the acclaim of the people as they shouted, — "Hosannah to the Son of David"; — he has ridden in triumph through every capital of every nation of the earth. He is riding today, and when the world shouts, "Who is he?" the answer comes back from hearts that have been redeemed, from lives that have been saved, from men and women who have been transformed by his love, from boys and girls who have been kept by his care, — "He is Jesus of Nazareth: he is the Christ Almighty." "A Saviour who died our salvation to win, A Saviour who knows how to keep us from sin; Yes, this is the Saviour, the Saviour we need, And he is a Saviour indeed. "Is he yours? Is he yours? Is this Saviour who loves you, yours?' ■ [20] II LIFE IN WORDS "And the word "became flesh, and dwelt among us." — John 1 : 14. II LIFE IN WOBDS A word is a picture translated into sound. The listening ear catches the sound and trans- mits it to the brain. The listener, knowing the sound, recreates the picture, and thus one in- dividual may translate his thought by sound to another individual. For instance: — We stand on the hillside looking into a deep valley. The shadows have gathered. Darkness draws her curtains. The far call of the winding river and rapids is heard below, while above and aloft the great, silent stars are marching. Now and again, through the gathering gloom, the voice of the night bird sounds. All is peaceful and at rest. There is a wavering of the darkness on the eastern horizon. The night gives way. The light comes. The sun rises and looks down into the valley. Smoke from the chimneys is curl- ing upward. The low of the cattle and the voice of children are heard. All the valley life is stirring once more. Two pictures! Each of them put into one word, and with the speaking of that one word those who understand, instantly reproduce the [23] God Translated pictures. The dark valley, the stars marching, the river 's call, — Night! Light pouring in over the hillsides, smoke rising from the chim- neys, the low of the cattle, the voice of the children, — Morning ! The words are translated, and the pictures are ours. But the word must be understood if the sound shall convey any meaning. In describing that indescribable line between the receding of darkness and the beginning of light, I use the word "penumbra." To those who know its meaning, instantly the picture is created. To those who do not know, there is no picture. It is nothing but a sound. But I interpret the sound. I give it meaning. The penumbra is that indistinct line that marks the going of darkness and the coming of light. It is the penumbra of the morning. You answer, "Yes, I see that instantly, and when you use the word 1 penumbra ' in the future, whether it be the penumbra of history, or the penumbra of in- telligence, or the penumbra of day, I can see the indistinctness that marks the going of one and the coming of the other. The word is translated and I understand. ' ' Now, a new word understood, translated, al- ways brings new knowledge, new life, new light. The more words we know in our own or other tongues, the larger our knowledge, the wider our vision, the more universal our thought may become. Said Helen Keller, telling of the com- ing of a word into her darkness and what it [24] Life in Words meant to her life, "Once I knew the depth where no hope was, and darkness lay on the face of all things. Then love came and set my soul free. Once I knew only darkness and still- ness. Now I know hope and joy. Once I fretted and beat myself against the wall that shut me in. Now I rejoice in the consciousness that I can think, act, and attain heaven. My life was without past or future. But a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living. Night fled be- fore the day of thought, and love and joy and hope came up in a passion of obedience to knowledge. My early experience was thus a leap from bad to good. If I tried, I could not check the momentum of my first leap out of the dark: to move breast forward is a habit learned suddenly at that first moment of re- lease and rush into the light. With the first word I used intelligently, I learned to live, think, hope. Darkness cannot shut me in again. I have had a glimpse of the shore, and can now live by the hope of reaching it." Have you heard that wonderful woman tell the story of her endeavor to interpret the word "water" to Helen Keller, the little child? The deaf, dumb, and blind child, getting that one word, eagerly reached for the hand of the teacher that she might learn more. When Helen Keller stood on the platform at Radcliffe and received her diploma as a graduate of that college, she flung [25] God Translated in the face of every man and woman the chal- lenge never more to speak of the burden of receiving an education or the impossibility of climbing where they will, for if they have eyes to see and a brain that throbs aright, they may go onward to accomplish what they will. When boys and girls talk about the impossibility of getting an education or climbing where they want to climb, I like to bring back the story of Helen Keller, and say, "Look! Shame on you! Look again ! Now go and do ! ' ' Our text says, "The word became flesh.' ' The word was translated. John uses that old Greek word " logos.' ' It is a word that has changed its meaning four times in its history. You know words change their meanings. For instance, in I Corinthians, the thirteenth chap- ter, we say, in the old King James' version, "Charity suffereth long and is kind: charity envieth not : charity vaunt eth not itself, is not puffed up." When the King James' version was written, the word "charity" did not mean what the word "charity" means to us now. Today it means the gift of alms, the care for those in need. What the Greek word meant then, to us now means love, and so we say in the new version, "Love suffereth long and is kind: love envieth not: love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up." Charity has changed its meaning entirely from those early days. And so with this word "logos." Away back in the beginning of the history of the [26] Life in Words word, it meant human reason: and then, after some centuries went by, it came to mean divine reason, Godlike reason: then, after some more centuries, it came to mean the Son of God, or a Son of the Gods : then, after some more cen- turies, it came to mean a second God, — and that was the meaning of the Greek word at the time John took up his pen to write this Gospel. So John says, — In the beginning was the " logos/ ' and the " logos,' ' or the God, was made mani- fest in flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. We mingled with him and learned the meaning of God through the word trans- lated into flesh and blood. I want to invite your attention this morning to three subjects compassed in the thought of the text, — namely, the Word from the begin- ning, the Word translated, the Word making this life glorious. The Word from the Beginning. Said John, "In the beginning." When was it ? How far away ? In the beginning ! Where was it? Who can find it? The picture has been drawn of a man seeking to answer the question. It is supposed that he sat dreaming one night on the hills, when an angel came to him and touched him on the shoulder, saying, "Come and have thy desires made known," and to- gether they were lifted into the air. Up those far stretching avenues of light they sped to [27] God Translated the great stellar systems which swing yonder in those vast spaces. When the man and the angel had come amid those rushing spheres unthinkable millions of miles away, and passed through them into the illimitable spaces beyond, the heart of the man began to melt within him, and he cried out, "End is there none to the Universe of God? " But the angel touched him again, strengthening him, and together they sped on until they came to the second system. Guided by the angel, they passed safely through, and on into that second illimitable space, and the man again cried, "End is there none to the Universe of God?" But the angel comforted him once more and on they sped, past the third, and past the fourth, and past the fifth system, and on and out into the distances which were so much greater than the dis- tances over which they had come that those distances behind shrank into insignificance, and the man cried out in his last despair, "End is there none to the Universe of God!" And the angel answered, "End is there none of the Universe of God. Lo, also, there is no beginning. ' ' 1 ' In the beginning. ' ' Why, it was so far back of the creation of this little world of ours that, in comparison, this world was created yester- day and will be destroyed tomorrow! So in- finite are the reaches, that, in comparison, we were born the second that has passed and will die before the second to come! "Our [28] Life in Words little systems have their day. They have their day and cease to be." How often I repeat to myself that poem which was the loved favorite of Abraham Lincoln : — ''Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, He passes from life to his rest in the grave. ' ' The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, Be scattered around, and together be laid; And the young and the old and the low and the high, Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie." "In the beginning." Come from the days when that unknown writer uttered those words in the opening of the Book of Genesis, down across a thousand years of history to the time when St. John takes up his pen to write, "In the beginning was the word. ' ' Genesis speaks noth- ing of the beginning of God. It speaks only of the world beginnings, — a manifestation of material things. John says, "In the beginning was the word." God from the eternities; God to the eternities ; from everlasting to everlast- ing Thou art God. The reach simply staggers our mind and tires the wings of our strongest imagination, and hurls us back to our own little lives where we can repeat to ourselves the formulas of our daily tasks and our daily work. All we can say is, "In the beginning was the Word," was God. [29] God Translated The Word Was Translated. I said a little while ago, if the word shall bring any meaning to one, it must be known and understood. If it is not known, it is noth- ing but sound. For instance, I use the phrase, "Yana yesu val, sal neau." What does it mean? To you who have heard it translated, there is beauty in it. To you who know it not, there is nothing: but sound. I never hear the words but the tears seek to start from my eyes. It is the phrase of a song from the black Bassa tribe of the East coast of Africa. I can see them now trekking through the long grass and the jungles and the forests of Africa with their packs on their shoulders. The order is given; the night has come, and on the other side of the river they will encamp. Now I see them, those black faced men of the far interior, as they gather in the twilight and sing. I hear their voices coming through the forests, "Yana yesu val, sal neau. ' ' Listen ! ' Come to Jesus, come to Jesus, Come to Jesus just now; Just now come to Jesus, Come to Jesus, just now." That is what it means. Yana yesu, come to Jesus : sal neau, just now. "Why, the moment I have translated the phrase, it brings a mean- ing to you and you understand it perfectly be- cause you know it in your mother tongue and [30] Life in Words in your mother impulses. "Come to Jesus,' ' sings the African, and the common tune brings the meaning and language home. Says our text, "The word was made flesh.' ' That is, God was made understandable. God, the metaphysical, is very far away. We can- not get to Him. We cannot understand Him. There is no way for us to know Him. Who, by searching, can find God? Not one. How shall we get God near? Why, God must be trans- lated, as a word must be translated. Jesus Christ came as the translation of God. I won- der if I can make that very plain. Here is a page of Greek, and here the Greek is translated into your mother tongue. The Greek is un- known to you, we will say. Hence, the lines are but scratches. You cannot understand; but, word for word, the Greek is translated into the language you can read, and you get the mes- sage of the Greek word for word. The word is translated. Jesus Christ is God translated. That is all ! Jesus Christ is God translated. You cannot find God or understand Him. The human mind is always staggering over the thought of God's immensity in building these universes, sus- pending them in nothing and so finely balanced that they hang by their own weight. But Jesus Christ translates God. When I look at Jesus Christ, the translation, then I understand God and am able to get hold of the fact of God. Now, everything that Jesus ever said, or did, [31] God Translated you can put into one word "father." This was a new note when the Christ came. Father! Oh, is that what you mean when you talk of God ! Why, I had a father. I can see him now with that long white beard and silken white hair and kindly eyes that laughed in the cor- ners. I can hear his prayers now. I can feel the grip of his hand now as he sent me out to the world to do a man's job. Is that what you mean when you are talking about God f Is He Father? Yes,— "like as a father." But the human father makes mistakes, not purposely, and he sins, not willingly, and he is not perfect. My Heavenly Father never makes mistakes and never sins and never does the things that are wrong, and is absolutely perfect. Is that what you mean when you talk about God, that He is like my father, only multiplied to the nth. de- gree in perfectness! Why, then I can reach up and say, "My Father, my Father, God, my Father." Like as my human, and loved, and revered father, — that is God. That is the word Jesus translates. That is what John meant when he wrote, "the word was made flesh. " God walks around in the interpreted life of Jesus Christ. When I look at Christ I can see God translated into the language I understand. He is human as I am human, tempted as I am tempted, yet He is God trans- lated. Now, I can understand God, because I can read Him in Jesus Christ. [32] Life in Words The Word Alive Making Life Glorious. If God was translated into human flesh and blood so that we could understand Him, then two things of necessity follow, namely, — this life is worth living, and we are immortal even while we are here. This life is worth living, isn't it? God pity you if you have so much meanness of soul and vileness of nature and twist of character that you ever say, "this life is not worth living.' ' I should be ashamed to meet you by day or by night. Oh, the joy that comes to the heart that really feels and knows and lives! Why, what joy in tears! What joy in suffering! What joy in sadness! What joy in defeat! What joy in the inspira- tion of living in a world like this! What joy in living ! What joy in working ! It is infinitely worth living. Jesus Christ came into it that he might live in it with us. He tabernacled among us. Tabernacle is the old word for tent. He pitched his tent beside ours, that we might be neighbors and friends. He pitched his tent beside ours that he might live with us. Life is Heaven to those who use it rightly, and all life's sorrows, crosses, and losses are rungs of the ladder by which we mount to newer heavens. Life is Hell to those who use it wrongly, and all earth's sins and sufferings become the mill- stones that sink them to deeper despair. Jesus came with all the knowledge of the infinite. He lived with all the knowledge of the infinite. He [33] God Translated went back into all the knowledge of the infinite. He broke every bar, he opened every gate, he tore aside every obstruction, he led the way from this world straight home to that other. God lives. God loves. God is our Father. Jesus revealed it. God matches His life against mine, to make my life the best possible. Then I am immortal. Then I shall live and love forever. Said Jesus, "I am the resurrec- tion and the life : he that belie veth on me, though he die, yet shall he live : and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die. ,, God in the flesh means the extension of life forever. We could find no beginning ; we shall find no ending. Life goes out and goes on for- ever. I can never die; you can never die. They can never put us in the ground. I shall go away and leave this clay body to the ground, but I who live within it now shall go up to live forever, because God lives forever. The Christ I invite you to, Sabbath by Sab- bath, is the Christ who seeks to put his strength into your lives. The call of Jesus Christ today is that we become like him and measure our lives up to his standard. It is not an indefinite call. It is a plea from the heart of the Father, God, to the heart of His children. When I speak of God, as Father, I go back to childhood and climb up through the years. I recall my earthly father's love and care and protection. I remember how my heart turned to him for guidance and wisdom. I think of him the day [34] Life in Words he went home to glory. Where I leave the thought of my earthly father I take up the thought of my Heavenly Father. I can see His face. I can hear His voice. I cry, ' * Father, I am your child. You give your life to me. I give my life to you. Together we shall live and love forever.' ' It is said that a mechanic in Colorado has invented a phonographic safe lock which can be opened only by a spoken word of him who closes the safe. Instead of a knob on the door, the safe has the mouthpiece of a telephone. A delicate needle extends from the diaphragm of the mouthpiece to a groove in a sound recorder on the phonographic cylinder within the lock. The word on which the safe is locked is thus recorded on the cylinder in the form impressed on it by him who locks it. The moment, there- fore, he who made the record repeats the word in the magical tone which characterizes that in- dividual voice, the safe will fly open. No other can command it. The record and so the lock, like the door to the inmost chamber of the human soul, will respond only to the voice of one master. The word was translated. Jesus is the voice of God. There is only one word that can really open your heart and mine, and that is the word " Jesus.' ' When that word is spoken, and spoken with all the accent that records the deepest impressions of the human heart, in- [35] God Translated stantly the door opens and the heart is re- vealed. My friend, will you let me speak the word! Oh, that my voice might have the carrying power; that I could send into your heart today the word "Jesus," so that your barred and locked heart might open and the Christ might come in, and joy and gladness now and ever be yours, welling up like a spring into everlasting life. [36] Ill POWER FROM DOING ' ' When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am He, and that I do nothing of myself." — John 8: 28. Ill POWER FEOM DOING The Sandwich Islanders believe that the valor and strength of the enemy slain passes into the life of the one who slays. Therefore, the proud warrior would choose to kill the strongest and most valorous of his enemies, that he might gain their greater strength for other battles. One can readily see, with such a belief, how fierce the battles would be, how terrific the onslaught, and how proud the war- rior when his enemy at last lies dead at his feet, and he feels the valor of the fallen foe flowing, like tides, into his own body. There is a great, deep truth underlying this old belief. The error of the Sandwich Islander is, of course, in thinking that the actual valor and strength of the enemy can come into his own life. That cannot be. But the fact of the belief is that when one has defeated a foe, one is stronger because of his conflict, — stronger in courage and self-mastery. The truth is that the more the courage and valor challenged for any conflict, the greater will be the supply of courage and valor in the individual. The more crises that come to one, calling for the finest judgment, the quickest response, the keen- [39] God Translated est insight, the more will one grow in fine judgment and prompt action and large vision. It is true, also, if we turn to the thought of our temptations. We gain the strength of the temptation we resist. The greater the tempta- tion and the more we resist it, the stronger we have grown in our power of resistance. The line is very narrow over which we might step to declare with the Sandwich Islander that the actual strength of the temptation itself had gone over into our lives to make us strong. The law of nature seems everywhere to be, — Do the thing and you have the power. They who do not the thing have not the power. I master a book : I make its thoughts mine, then its life blood flows into me, and I become strong in proportion to the greatness and strength of the book I have mastered. I may forget every word of the book, but the power gained never leaves me. "When you have climbed the moun- tain peak and stand at last on the summit, the power of the climb has entered into your being, and though you live in the valley for years to come, yet the actual power of the climb is yours, and you shall use it where you will. Do the thing and you gain the power. When you have travelled far, the world at large becomes familiar to you, and its life impulses are your life impulses: hence, you become a world thinker, a world feeler, a world sympathizer. When you have done a good deed and gotten your reward in the doing, then you understand [40] Power from Doing the blessing of doing and the words of Jesus who said, — It is more blessed to do, than to have one do for you. The text of the morning says, " When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am He. ' ' It is the same law, — the natu- ral law in the spiritual world. When you have done a thing in the spiritual world, as in the natural world, then the power comes to you and the ability to do. When you have lifted up the Son of man, you have gained spiritual muscle in the doing. I repeat, — when you have climbed the mountain peak, you have gained strength in the actual climbing, and now the strength is yours. When you have mastered the poem and put it away, word for word, in your mental life until by day or night you may repeat it as your own, then you have gained the power, the life blood, of the poem. When you have won a friend, or have found one, for "We do not make our friends; we find them only Where they have waited for us weary years/ ' — when you have found a friend, then the strength of that friendship coming into your life makes you strong. 0, the glory of human friendship! I in- stantly am suspicious of those people who go their way through life without genuine and hearty friends. May I quote you a stanza or two from that justly celebrated poem of Alfred Noyes, — [41] God Translated 'What will you say when the world is dying? What, when the last wild midnight falls Dark, too dark for the bat to be flying Round the ruins of old St. Paul's? What will be last of the lights to perish? What but the little red ring we knew, Lighting the hands and the hearts that cherish A fire, a fire, and a friend or two ! 'Up now, answer me, tell me true! What will be last of the stars to perish? The fire that lighteth a friend or twol 'Up now, answer me, on your mettle, Wisest man of the Mermaid Inn, Soberest man on the old black settle, Out with the truth! It was never a sin. Well, if God saved me alone of the seven, Telling me you must be damned, or you, This, I would say, This is hell, not heaven! Give me the fire and a friend or two. 'Steel was never so ringing true: God, we would say, This is hell, not heaven! Give us the fire, and a friend or two ! ' ' When you have found a friend, and only then, will there come into your life the magnificent strength of human friendship. " When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know," — and only then, — who he is or what power he has in human life. So I say to you of the doubt- ing, the hesitating, the unbelieving and the fearful heart, you never can know Jesus Christ more than you can know a friend, or a book, until you have enthroned him in your hearts and lives. When once he is there, then you will begin to understand what the life of Jesus Christ means in the individual heart, or in the heart of the world. [42] Power from Doing I cannot tell you my love for a rose. But when you have stayed by a rose long enough to sense its divinity, gets its aroma, catch its beauty that is not of the earth beauty, and found every power of your being tingle at the suggestion of the rose, then you will begin to understand something of my love for a rose. I cannot tell you my love for Jesus Christ. But when you have stayed by him long enough to get the wonder of his presence, the sublimity of his friendship, the strange, sweet sense of his power that comes like waves from the in- finite ocean, along whose rim no foot has ever trod ; when you have kneeled alone, whether it be in the storm or the calm, with the face bathed in tears or in laughter ; when you have found that human Christ as yours and yours alone, — then you may begin to understand something of my love for Jesus Christ, personal Friend, Saviour, and Lover. "When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am He." We Gain Power by Doing Powerful Things. We walk by faith, not by sight. Nothing ever walks by sight. Could any of us have looked forward from twenty-five years ago we would have said that the places we occupy today, with all their environment, and their limitations, and their possibilities, would not be open to us. [43] God Translated We would have called such a vision only a dream. But here we are today, and every step has been taken by faith. We are what we are today by faith. It is the old doctrine enunci- ated by Paul at the beginning of his ministry, — we walk by faith, not by sight. Moses, called to his great life 's work, doubted, hesitated, was appalled at the enormity of the responsibility placed upon him. By fiercest fighting and struggle, he overcame his doubts. We are told in that beautiful and dramatic story how he debated the whole question with God, as a thousand men and a thousand more of our generation have debated their question of a life's work with God, face to face. When the final decision was reached, Moses went forward, through pestilence and disease, and death, through rivers of blood, and salt seas that flowed, and miles and leagues of miles of hot desert sands ; on and on for forty years, until he climbed to Pisga's peak and wrote his name among the immortals, and went on into that other life. He never dreamed at the beginning what would challenge him before the close of life. He walked by faith, and he won. Saul of Tarsus begins that wonderful career, which has not yet closed, with this question, /'What wilt Thou have me to do!" Then, he went out to find his answer. "Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have [44] Power from Doing I been in the deep," in perils often by robbers, among false brethren, and among the churches. But on and on he goes, twenty years and more, until at last, at the close of his life, he cries, "I know whom I have believed. I am ready now to be offered, and the time of my de- parture is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith." But all the way to his crowning hour he walked by faith and not by sight. Any men, or women, who have dared for God have always, like Abraham of old, gone out by faith, not knowing whither they went; but, like Abraham, have come to the land of God, and have set up their altars on which burned the sacrificial fires which will never die out. In the seventh chapter of John, the seven- teenth verse, there is a great statement of the Christ, — ' ' If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know." Some of you people have held back for years. Take that into your souls, — "If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know." It is the only way possible to know. You will never be convinced to the hour when you lie down to die, unless you are willing to take the child 's step. Vv 7 hen you will to do His will, then shall you know. If you will establish a home and have life with all its sweetness and beauty, then you will begin to understand something of what you [45] God Translated have been losing in these bachelor years, and you will be able to say to yourself, — 1 ' Mid pleasures and palaces, though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there 's no place like home. ' ' If any willeth to commit to memory "In Memoriam ' ' — I will never forget the day when my old Professor, Dr. Borden P. Bowne, said, "I never dreamed such life was there. I ought to have known, for the philosophy is true. I never consciously learned the poem, but I awoke one morning to find that I knew it from begin- ning to end." If anyone willeth to learn "In Memoriam ' ' he shall begin to have the life that Tennyson was reaching after. He cannot get it in any other way. I read in the paper a few evenings ago an extract by one of Boston's greatest business men. One paragraph particularly arrested my attention. I read it over and over. Here it is : — "A man creates a business and he creates it with sweat and toil and trouble, by thinking day and night, by meeting obstacles, and being beaten and refusing to be beaten. He comes out at last with the help of the men who have come to believe in the business, with a success- ful business. Now what follows? Almost surely, he believes that his methods, which have triumphed, are right. Unless he is super- human he will try to continue just those methods, and if he has any ideals he will try to impose them on all the people he can make ac- [46] Power from Doing cept them. Then what happens? Have you ever thought why businesses that dominated the retail trade in cities no longer dominate it, — either die of dry rot or grow so slowly that the new businesses outclass them and pass them by and leave them apparently standing still I" To most people there must come a time when they are jolted out of the accustomed things and thrown sprawling into new surroundings. Not many of us * ' Welcome each rebuff that turns earth 's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go. ,; Most of us have to be tossed overboard before we really swim. That is the kindest thing the fates can do for us, else we grow stagnant with present living and working, because no new ob- stacles challenge us, no new powers are de- manded from us to meet the challenges. Ah, we need the battling and the struggling to bring forth the best and the finest that is in us. If all this is true in business, it is true in religion. If it is true in religion, it is true in politics ; it is true in home government. The greatest blessings that come to us are those shocks which throw us out where new powers are demanded ; where it is, do something new; where abilities are challenged that have never been challenged before. In meeting these conditions we dis- cover that we are equal to the emergency because the new things develop new powers. [47] God Translated The story is told of an old German baron, who, having grown tired of the gay and idle life of the Court, asked leave of his king to withdraw from it. He built for himself a fort on a rugged rock, beneath which rolled the Rhine. There he dwelt alone. He hung wires from one wing of the fort to the other, making an .ZEolian harp on which the winds might play to solace him. Many days and nights had passed, the winds had come and gone, yet never had there been music from that harp, and the baron interpreted the silence as God's dis- pleasure. One evening the sky was filled with wild, hurrying clouds. The sun fought fiercely but was overcome and sank away in gloom. Night fell. A storm broke forth which shook the earth. The baron walked restlessly through his rooms in loneliness and disquiet. At length, he went out into the night and stood upon the precipices, hearing the Ehine below and the echo of the thunders on the far hills across. Then he stopped short and listened intently, for behold, the air was full of music. His iEoIian harp was singing with joy and passion, high above the wildness of the storm. Then the baron knew that those wires which were too thick to give out music at the call of common days had found their voice in a night of stress and storm. It needed the assault of nature to awake the slumbering song. All things are for our success. All things shall work together for good to those who love [48] Power from Doing God and to those who seek to follow His com- mand. Strain is a word which means stress; but it is likewise a word which means song. Only on the strained cord, or wire, does music sleep waiting to be awakened by a commanding touch. What Christ Took on Himself. All great problems have been solved by in- dividuals and worked out by groups. An indi- vidual solved the problem of the Atlantic Cable. An individual toiled over and sacrificed for the telegraph. An individual conceived the idea of the telephone. An individual gave us the wireless, and the picture will never fade from the generations of that man sitting, one wild day, amidst the storms of Newfoundland, listening intently that he might catch some faint impulse of a signal returned to him from the far coasts of England. An individual made possible the Brooklyn Bridge, the Hudson Tube, the Simplon Tunnel. An individual will give us the key to the solution of our social problems. An individual will write the music to which the feet of ages will march. An in- dividual will catch that new vision of God, while the group will build the stairway by which the nation shall mount to the newer heavens. An individual has always caught the vision, and by the aid of the group, has worked it out for the success and the glory of man. [49] God Translated Go over the lists in the moral world, and you will find the same thing to be true. David Livingstone yearns for unknown Africa, and taking his wife and children into its trackless jungles and long yellow grasses, he faces that unknown interior. But he opens up the roads along which come the traffic of the nations and the missionaries which train the wild tribes into peace loving Christian men and women. Take the history of that wonderful man of England, Dr. Barnardo. At midnight, in the fog and mist of London's wharves along the river front, the young man stopped and listened to the astounding words spoken by a boy of eight or ten. He had been teaching in one of the clubs and had asked this boy where he lived. The boy offered to show him. On the way he pointed out barrels, and boxes, holes in the wall, and burrows under buildings, in all of which boys were sleeping. In one such place, he found seven boys, the youngest nine and the oldest sixteen, dressed in rags not enough to keep them warm. " Shall I wake 'em up, or shall I take youse to another lay? There is lots and lots more." No sleep was possible for young Barnardo that night. When morning came, he had determined his life's work. He had a glimpse of the awful suffering and degra- dation of the boys of London, and in a great passion he took upon himself the hunger, and sin, and suffering of those homeless boys. Thus was his wonderful work built up. All [50] Power from Doing over the world went those boys, establishing for themselves homes, building character and busi- ness, gaining wealth and position. When Dr. Barnardo died, men of affairs and men who loved them, men leading their own sons by the hand, men strong in body and soul, men suc- cessful as the world counts success, men owning their own homes and their farms, men working in honorable trades and professions, stood with bowed heads and tear-filled eyes as they remem- bered how in their own poverty and neglect and sin, he had come and saved them for the life which now they lived. Take it in the history of Helen Keller. In a beautiful Southern garden, amidst lovely roses, was a young woman and a little child. In a wild rage the child had thrown herself on the soft grass and kicked and screamed. She had tried to make herself understood and had failed. The child was blind, and deaf, and dumb. The young woman's face grew strong and tender. There and then she determined that she would break those bars, she would un- shutter those windows and bring light, and life, and joy into that little child's soul. I have heard her tell the story, — a wonderful story. When Helen Keller stood on the platform to receive her diploma from her Alma Mater and go out into the world as one of the educated and beautiful young women, it was but the answer to the voice that came to that woman as she looked at the little child in the garden [51] God Translated and determined that life should unlock the blindness and darkness there. Now Miss Keller herself has gone out into the world to take the woes of all the blind children, and all the deaf children, and all the dumb children upon her own soul, and never again will it be possible for little children, like to herself as a child, to go without some one who can interpret to them what the world around them means. But what did Jesus Christ take on Himself? All the woes of Africa, and all the homelessness of the little boys in London, and in New York, and in Boston, and in every city of the globe, and all the woes of the blind, the deaf, and the dumb, and all the woes and sins of the whole wide world, that he might bring to all life and light and salvation. 0, what a burden! O, what a woe ! 0, what a load ! No wonder, at thirty-three, his heart broke, while the temple veil was torn and the rocks were rent asunder. No wonder he cried out in the agony of his spirit, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani!"! No wonder the heavens grew dark! No wonder nature shuddered ! But, the glory of the One who could take upon himself such woe and suf- fering, that he might lead the world out of darkness into light and life! No wonder the world worships him today! No wonder men and women fall passionately in love with him ! No wonder there is none other name under Heaven given among men whereby we can be saved! Only the matchless burden bearing of [52] Power from Doing the matchless Christ gives us our matchless Saviour and Eedeemer. Turning the point of those great words of Matthew Arnold, we say,— ' ' He took the suffering human race, He read each wound, each weakness clear, He struck His finger on the place, And said, — Thou ailest here and here.'* No wonder we can cry with Isaiah, "He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities ; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are are healed"! No wonder our eyes moisten as we repeat with John, 1 1 God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life"! Poetry, music, painting, sculpture, art in every form and in every language unite in all ages to lay at his feet sheaves of gladness and crown him with laurels of victory. The Knowledge that Satisfies. Earth knowledge is continually changing. Our scientific interpretations are ever being re- stated. We are always outgrowing the old and entering into the new, as children are always outgrowing their clothes. There comes a time when men and women have received their physical growth. I have heard of some people who have their clothes cut year after year from [53] Go d Translated the same pattern! If most people are more careful of their dress than that, how many are not more careful of their mental development. How many turn back to say, ' ' 'Twas good enough for my father, and it is good enough for me." A few days since I was reading over a lecture I gave at a college commencement seven years ago. I used words which today are out- of-date scientifically. We are continually out- growing old terms, if we are growing. We are continually outgrowing our old beliefs and our old loves, if we are growing. 1 ' Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll: Leave thy low-vaulted past, Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea. " Some of life's experiences satisfy us, and they are sources of satisfaction forever. The great wonder flowers bloom but once in a life- time. The wonder flowers in personal affection, the wonder flowers in art, the wonder flowers in poetry, the wonder flowers in nature, — when they have bloomed for us, their fragrance and their beauty satisfy forever. Jesus said to the woman at Samaria, "Everyone that drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst," and the woman cried out from natural impulse, "Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, [54] Power from Doing neither come all the way hither to draw. ' ' She misunderstood as so many thousands have since. The thought of Jesus was this, — when you once drink of that water of eternal life, you will be satisfied for you will know it is the last word in drink. You will know when you have once taken a drink of that water of life that you have drunk at the source of all life, and that there is nothing more beyond it. You will never ask for another kind of drink because you know you have the last word in divine and human satisfaction in drinking. But, you will want more of the same kind. You will want to come again, and again, and again, to drink of that water of eternal life, and the more you drink, the more you will want to drink. What men and women miss by refusing the challenge of the text, those only can know who have won ! What men and women miss by re- fusing to lift up the Son of man, is the knowl- edge of His friendship and the power of His love. What men and women miss by refusing to lift up the Son of man is the consciousness of their own strength and the transfiguration of their own lives. Only when I have committed a poem to memory can I understand its secret fountains of life. Only when I have drunk deep of the well can I understand the satisfying waters. Only when I have stood on the highest pinnacle and looked off from the top of the world can I understand the joys of climbing. Only when I have lifted up the Son of man can [55] God Translated I understand who he is or what his power, or what life's greatest glory is. May I invite you to the task? May I spread before you the Book? May I lay my finger on the new impulses to your life, crying, "Take this, and this, and win"? 0, the unspeakable joy of having found in the Christ your own manhood complete, your own womanhood com- plete, and the prophecy of that glad day when you shall be satisfied because you awake in his likeness ! [56] IV FRAGRANT DEEDS "And the house was filled with the odor of the ointment."— John 12:8. IV FRAGRANT DEEDS Certain places of earth will ever be associ- ated with certain persons or deeds. Gettysburg is linked with that great battle and the address of Abraham Lincoln. Trafalgar Bay and Nel- son's name are married forever. The Pass at Thermopylae, the thin red line at Waterloo, the little Belgian guards at Liege, can never be forgotten. There are also tender memories of immortal loves that cling around a place. Go down to t Ayr by the river Doon and you feel the spirit of Robert Burns as a living presence. Wander along the beautiful lake road at Windemere and William Wordsworth comes to walk with you and direct your thoughts. Speed away until you stand in far Galilee, by the shores of that lovely lake, and Jesus Christ is instantly by your side. ' ' My Saviour comes and walks with me, A sweet communion here have we, He gently leads me by the hand, For this is Heaven's borderland. ' ' A beautiful memory has come to be associ- ated in a not very strange way with a beautiful odor. We somehow think of the influence and [59] God Translated life of certain people in certain places in the sense of rare perfume. No one of sensitive nature may go out to Malmaison, twelve miles from Paris, and walk amid those beautiful grounds, enter those quiet old rooms, without seeming to gain a fragrance from the sorrow^ tragedy, and love of Josephine. But, if one be so dull that no fragrance of that life is known, by entering Josephine's private apartments, one may yet actually smell the odor of the musk of which she was so fond, and which yet clings to her rooms, though she has been gone this hundred years. In the same way, do we think of an odor of words or deeds. I can recall, from my own life, words and deeds the odor of which makes my blood hot and my muscles tighten. The mean coward who dominates because he happens to be in a position where he can do so is a mal- odorous mortal. How many boys and girls have I seen, discouraged and defeated, de- stroyed even, by such brutes. I carry hot in my heart today a story recently told me of such a bully and his brutal drive with a sensi- tive boy. I think my gladness has a genuine touch of glee at the downfall of such monsters. But there are memories that always bring the sense of the springtime, and the daisies, and the violets, and the clover. There are memo- x ries which always bring a smile to the cheek and a new gleam to the eye, — memories of love, memories of helpfulness, memories of kind [60] Fragrant Deeds words which can never die e'en though they fade. The story, as read this morning, of that ban- quet at Bethany with the deed of Mary will never be lost from memory, either in this world or in the world to come, for Jesus said, — Wherever my Gospel is preached the story of what she hath done will forever be told. Jesus had been the best friend of that home for possibly three years. But real friendship like that is never measured by years. It seems like a friendship that always has been and always will be. The greatest pleasure of that home had been to serve and entertain Jesus. Martha's specialty was serving, Mary's, entertaining. They had in some way understood him, and he had understood them. There was perfect confidence between them. But, by and by, sor- row flooded their little home. Great grief shook their souls. Lazarus was dead. They sent for Jesus. He came. He went with them to the tomb. At his command the grave was opened. Then he called with a voice that knew no boundaries, "Lazarus, come forth." He came ! No wonder that little home loved Jesus. No wonder they wanted to honor him. And they made him a banquet. Let us go back to the story as read, that we may know in a larger way the meaning of our lesson for the morning. You remember the chapter opens, "Jesus, [61] God Translated therefore, six days before the Passover came to Bethany." Ah, how much may be accom- plished in six days ! Some of us who are here today, well and strong, before six days are gone may take our feet from their accustomed paths, and our voice be silent to those who love us, and our souls be away to the eternities. Yes- terday's papers record the fact that a young man went to work at eight o 'clock in the morn- ing well and strong ; at ten o 'clock he fell from a stage; at twelve o'clock he died; at three o 'clock they buried him. Six days before the Passover! Those six days mean much here. All the rest of the Book of John, from the twelfth chapter to the twen- tieth chapter, is to deal with what happened in those six days. If we count time in the language of our pres- ent day, this banquet took place on Saturday. The next day was Sunday when the triumphal entry into Jerusalem occurred. The next day, Monday, the curse of the fig tree and the cleans- ing of the temple; Tuesday, the awful battle with the scribes and Pharisees against whom He hurled those awful anathemas. "Wednesday is the day of silence, — to me the most pathetic day. He wandered out over the hills I have no doubt. He talked with those he loved in the home. We have not a word of record of what came on that day. On Thursday he comes into Jerusalem. Thursday night he ordains the Lord's Supper, and is betrayed; on Friday, [62] Fragrant Deeds the mock trial, the crucifixion; on Saturday, he lies in his grave and the stone is before the door. Six days before the Passover Jesus came up to Bethany. Six days ! Why, we are told that in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth. The first day, light; the second day, firmament; the third day He divided the seas from the land and said to the land, — be fruitful; the fourth day, cre- ated He the sun, moon and stars ; the fifth day, all the lower orders of animal life; and the sixth day He created man, the triumph of His glory, and rested on the seventh. Six days before the Passover Jesus came up to Bethany. He had all the world before him and six days in which to live. Why didn't he go to Nazareth? Why didn't he go to Joppa? Why didn't he go to some of those villages and cities scattered over the land! He wanted to come to Bethany. Why? Out there, they could understand him. Out there, he could get the i kind of a welcome he needed, and the kind of atmosphere in which he could live. If Jesus were in trouble, would he come to your home? Would he? There are three con- ditions under which he would come and only three. First, personal love. I do not mean the shoddy stuff that you speak of so often these days as love. I mean the love man carries to man; that David and Jonathan love. Jesus Christ will come to your home if you love him. [63] God Translated If you do not love him, lie will never come. He cannot come, for there is no atmosphere into which he can enter and rest. The second thing is an understanding of what he wants to do. I seek out, and you seek out, in this world, the men you understand and who understand what you want to do, understand your mission and understand your ideals. I go to these men when I want their advice in any department of my life and work. Jesus will come to you, boys and girls, and men and women, when you can understand the meaning and mission of his life, and that is only after you have been with him alone to get from him what his life means. The third thing necessary is hearty hospital- ity. If Jesus Christ can come to your home and find personal love, and understanding of his mission, and a genuine hospitality, then he will come to your home as quickly as he went to Bethany. 0, the joy of being able to entertain Jesus Christ in our homes! To think that he would want to come to our homes and to our hearts above all other places, because he finds the kind of atmosphere that shall give strength to him in his hours of need. Note, also, — they made him a banquet. Strange is it not that we would do that same thing today? You see a banquet is more than a custom. A real banquet is love's expression for some personal benefit. I doubt not it will ever endure, — the impulse to express one's self [64] Fragrant Deeds thus, by taking a friend to table and there, by- eating with him and by conversation, tell to him more clearly than words can tell, our pride and joy in his life. They made Jesus a banquet and invited friends and loved ones. They seated them, or rather, reclined them at the table. We are told what each one of the three in that household did. Lazarus reclined at the table with his guests. You remember that they always had a divan on which they reclined, supporting themselves with the left hand while eating with the right. Lazarus was host. He had to talk with Christ. What a privilege! How we would treasure it ! What a memory ! Lazarus could never forget. But we have the same privilege. Do you recall those words in the Book of Bevelation? "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and sup with him and he with me. ' ' We may sit at table with Jesus and talk with him. It is a great thing to be able to speak frankly and under- standingly with Jesus Christ. Martha served. It is an honor to have the hostess serve the guests. A very great honor it was then; an honor it is still. Martha served, and you can see her as she went about with her eyes keen and quick to see every need, and fulfill every want, making those tables the happy places they were designed to be. With- out Martha, they could not have had the ban- [65] God Translated quet. Without some of the hostesses of this church, we could not carry on the work as we do. Martha served at the tables. He that is chief must be servant of all. But Mary, — what would Mary do? All this, thought Mary, was, so to speak, an external recognition. What could express the un- plumbed depths of love and devotion in her soul? She was satisfied in giving the banquet, in the joy of the restored home and the restored loves, but this expression by banquet did not reach deeply enough. Her heart called for something more. It was the custom for a guest to be received by the host, made to recline upon a divan, while a servant removed the sandals and bathed the tired feet with cool water, wiping them gently with towels provided. I wonder if Mary noticed that the servants were careless in doing this, and that particles of sand were left there still to irritate? I won- der if his feet had been scratched by the thorns as he came along those narrow foot-paths, and that even yet the blood could be seen? What- ever it was that gave the suggestion to her, love plunged to a deeper depth by employing the old custom to express undying devotion. As Christ lay at the table, Mary came in, kneeled at his feet, broke a flask of nard — most precious, — bathed those feet with the ointment and then gently wiped them with her own beautiful hair. Slowly, slowly the perfume steals out into [66] Fragrant Deeds the room, — the beautiful, beautiful perfume. Slowly those at table become conscious of its loveliness. Judas knew its value. He was a merchant from Jerusalem. John did not. John was a fisherman. He never forgot the odor. I wonder why? Our first experiences with things are generally the experiences we remember. John was not used to the more beautiful things of life. The first time John smelled that wonderful perfume stamped it for- ever in his memory. He said, ' i The house was filled with the odor of the ointment. ' ' The per- fumes of that act will reach to the farthest confines of eternity. I want you to note also, — there is a waste that is saving, and there is a saving that wastes. The price of that flask of perfumed ointment was worth a laborer's wages for a whole year. That would represent today hundreds of dollars in American coin. It was the most precious thing that Mary knew. Yet, she eagerly broke the flask that she might anoint the feet of Him whom they honored and whom she loved. Now, your utilitarian methods do not always fit. Judas threw up his hands in horror. Why wasn't this sold for three hundred shillings and given to the poor! Poor Judas, you have ten thousand brothers in this world today, just as limited as you. I want to tell you this, — the man or the woman who is most eager to give for love's sake, never forgets the poor. But [67] God Translated the people who are mean in love's expression are always mean to the poor. If we really learned how to express our loves, then we would know how to be kind to those less for- tunate than ourselves. I doubt if ever a soul or a basket went from Mary's door without being filled. But Mary knew how to give her all to express her love for her Master, the Christ. Why wasn't this sold! Didn't Judas have v some plea after all? Wasn't he right, some- what? Had Mary any right to waste things that way, when there were so many people who were hungry? Shall I get for myself money, and books, and culture, and friends, when there are so many people in need? Yes! No! It depends! Jesus answered it in his prayer, "For their sakes I sanctify myself." I went once to the Dean of the Divinity School in which I was studying, with a question that troubled me. Was I right in surrounding myself with all the beautiful things I could command, while I was being helped by what was called "the Lord's money"? "Is it right for me to spend money that way?" The old Dean looked at me for a moment and then said, "My boy, make yourself into the finest kind of a servant of Jesus Christ, and get every beautiful and lovely and inspiring thing into your life you can, that you may go out into the world a fit apostle to carry the message of God." Get money, comforts, [68] Fragrant Deeds graces? No, if it means selfishness; yes, if it means helpfulness to others. Mary broke the flask, for it meant a full ex- pression of that deeper love for Christ. Many lives and loves have been blighted because of an attempt to be too economical. It is some- times a question of giving all and sparing nothing. A little boy who spends his only ten cents that he may get a gift for mother is trying to express what Mary expressed. Is it wrong in the boy? Sydney Carton, described by Dickens in his "Tale of Two Cities," is expressing what Mary expressed. You remember that Charles Darnay was lying in prison under sentence of death. His beautiful wife, Lucie, was in despair. There was no escape from the fury of the Paris mob. Sydney Carton, whose life had been dissipated and worthless, hopelessly loved Lucie. He knew her fearful agony, and he rose to a sacrifice of beautiful love. By the aid of the jailor he entered the cell of Charles Darnay and took his place, after drugging the prisoner. Darnay was released. Carton was taken to the guillotine. Dickens described the last scene in the life of this man, "one of the few noble moments of his entire career," and he closes the scene as Carton goes to his execu- tion, saying, "It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done: it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known. " [69] God Translated Sydney Carton had given his all, as Mary did, to express his love. Such a gift enriches the giver more than the receiver. Charles Darnay and his wife, Lncie, could never, in the years to come, rise to the majestic heights to which this man rose in giv- ing his life thus. "They said of him about the city that night that it was the peaceful- est man's face ever beheld on that scaffold. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic. ' ' Once I gave two dollars and a half for one- half pound of grapes! You say, "I did not think the pastor would do that," especially as in that city where the grapes were bought, little babies were dying for the want of good milk, and many people were hungry and the bread line stretched far. "I didn't think the pastor would be as wasteful as that. ' ' Wait, — a letter had come from the bedside of my mother, say- ing this, "Mother has expressed a desire for some grapes." I scoured the city, up and down, in and out, and at last I found one-half pound of grapes imported from England, and I bought them and sent them to her? Did I waste the money? A hundred times the price wouldn't half express the love that went with the little half-pound of grapes, or the joy that now abides in my heart. Mary expressed her all. Love must express its all. That is why it is more blessed to give . than to receive. The giving of our best en- [70] Fragrant Deeds larges us most. Every true sacrifice we have made has enlarged us; every real self -grati- fication has shrunken us. May I say it with all the deepest reverence of my soul,— the heart of God was enlarged by the gift of His most precious love in the form and life of Jesus Christ. God's love was greater after the gift than it was before. We are now speaking in human terms and dealing in human thoughts as thus we speak, but if man's heart is enlarged through the gifts of perfect love, the heart of God, the Fa- ther, is enlarged through the gifts of perfect love. The attractive power of love for Jesus Christ is the most mighty power known. He seems to have possessed, and yet possesses, the power to draw all the finest and noblest impulses of our race. All the sublimest loves, both human and divine, center in and around Him. As long as Jesus Christ can attract such men as John, and such women as Mary, love's perfume will never fail, love 's gifts will never cease. As I have said, your utilitarian methods of \ yardstick and dollar do not work here. Judas was moved to cry out against this seeming waste. "When he would chide Mary for the ex- travagance, Jesus said, "Let her alone. Against the day of my burial hath she done this." Mary did not know her deed was pro- phetic. The impulse of her love prompted her to do, but the doing was a prophecy. It was [71] God Translated the first anointment by human love of the body of Jesus Christ. Wherever that Gospel of Jesus Christ is preached on this planet, or ten thousand others in ten thousand other worlds, and in whatever language it is told, and in whatever generation, the sacrifice of Mary's love shall be told, and he will live in the immor- tality of the deed as well as Mary, the sweet girl of Bethany. Such have ever been the great acts of life. The real outpouring of the heart's devotion has again and again become the prophetic note for coming generations. Amid the many, many marvels, I have often marvelled that in His great laboratory God could have compounded such different, and rare, and wonderful odors, — the odor of the rose, the odor of the lily, the odor of the violet : odors compounded in such a way that their very breath brings a sense of absolute satisfaction. The sweet odor of deeds abides, and we go often to the places where those deeds were per- formed, or those poems were written, or those songs were sung, to sense once again the odors rising from the deeds. "You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang 'round it still." The sweet odor of love, when hearts pour out the last expression of their unutterable affection is eternal. The sweet odor of the Christ life shall cling [72] Fragrant Deeds around those who live for him, and out from such a presence shall go influences like the odor from Mary's ointment, that will fill the house, will fill the community, will fill the world, and God will be honored and glorified. [73J V WE WOULD SEE JESUS 'Sir, we would see Jesus." — John 12:21. WE WOULD SEE JESUS We are now dealing with the second day in the Passion Week of our Lord, namely, — Tues- day. Matthew, Mark and Luke devote pages to its happenings. All day Jesus was in the temple preaching, teaching, asking questions, uttering parables, challenging the people, wear- ing himself out for a hungry and sin-sick world. Amid those temple porches there had been listening to him that day men of other tongues. Greeks there were, who were not permitted in the inner temple. A balustrade was put up be- tween the outer and the inner court, and upon it an inscription in Greek, forbidding any Gentile on pain of death to enter the inner enclosure. They had waited in the outer court, leaning upon the balustrade, and had listened and thrilled with wonder at his words. New hopes were born to them. Strange quickenings of spirit had come to them, — wonderful illumina- tions of their own yearnings. They had the great outlines of philosophy, of the beauties of art, and of the melodies of rhetoric, but they wanted something more. These could not sat- [77] God Translated isfy, especially after they heard such words as fell from his lips today. Now it is toward evening, and the sun is set- ting. He had been speaking of that other sun setting that should come with the day of judg- ment, and the darkness to follow. Slowly, the sun goes down over those western hills, drop- ping into the great sea, the sea of the Mediter- ranean. The day is done. Jesus comes from the inner court into the outer court, and his disciples follow him. Immediately there ac- costs one of those disciples this band of Greek men who had been listening the day through. Coming up to Philip, they said, ' ' Sir, we would see Jesus.' ' Our author, John, is the only one of the Gos- pel writers to mention this particular fact. The reason is that he had a definite thought in mind in introducing it. He desires to show the accumulative force of the work of Jesus thus far, so he introduces in rapid succession three epoch making incidents. The first was that beautiful story of the banquet at Bethany, — Martha serving, Lazarus the host, Mary pour- ing out her very soul in the sweet perfume that brought so much of joy from her heart into the heart of the Christ. By that, he reveals the power of Jesus to win personal love and devo- tion. That banquet scene will never be for- gotten. The second incident was the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. That was simply another way of telling the fact that [78] We Would See Jesus Jesus had gripped the imaginations of his own people, and that all the Jewish world was ready to acclaim him as their King. By this incident John reveals the power of Jesus to win the love of the nation. The third incident is that of our text. The Greeks came to him. This is de- signed to show that the Gospel of Christ not only claimed personal love and loyalty, and loyalty from his nation, but also that it was reaching into the widest circles, and the Gentile world was turning its attention toward him. The widest of human circles would ere long know the Christ. It is a wonderful climax our author is introducing, showing that Jesus has the power to win the individual, the nation, and the world. It will be interesting and instructive for us to study this last scene as a prophecy of that greatest triumph to be, — when every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess him as Lord to the glory of God, the Father: when they shall come from the East, and from the West, and from the North, and from the South, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of God : when "From Greenland's icy mountains, From India's coral strand, Where Afric's sunny fountains Eoll down their golden sand: From many an ancient river, From many a palmy plain, They call us to deliver Their land from error's chain": [79] God Translated when that vast throng that John saw, the thou- sands on thousands which no man could num- ber, coming up out of great tribulation, having washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, were filling Heaven with the grandest music as they sang, "Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto him who sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever more." The coming of these Greeks was but prophecy of that triumphal day when Jesus shall reign, whose right it is, and the kingdoms of this world shall have become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. The Gentile Greeks Sought Jesus. They came to Philip. The name "Philip" is Greek. Philip was of Bethsaida. Bethsaida contained a large colony of Greeks. These Greeks, then, appealed to one, if not of their own blood, at least of their own city, who un- derstood their language. It was a perfectly natural thing to do. We turn to people who understand our language and commune with them. We do not understand people of another tongue as well as we do people of our own tongue. Let an Englishman be ever so fine a scholar in French, or German, or Italian, he never can be a Frenchman, or a German, or an Italian. Only an American can thoroughly understand an American. Travellers reveal [80] We Would See Jesus some very distressing and some very pleasing mistakes when they are dealing with other peoples in their language. A friend of mine in Paris went into a shop to purchase some articles. He talked to the clerk in what he sup- posed was very fine Parisian. The clerk listened for a moment, and then said to him in good English, but with that slight French accent, "Sir, will you kindly ask me in English?" These Greeks came to Philip because Philip could doubtless understand their language, and, what was more, understand their yearnings. It is a great blessing that a missionary cannot go into India and at once begin to preach with- out learning the language. In learning the language, he has time also to learn the im- pulses of the people. Oh, we walk rough-shod over people of other nations, simply because we do not understand the impulses, the national desires and yearnings of those people of other education and other language. They came to Philip, saying, l ' Sir, we would see Jesus." The Greek word "Kurie" (Sir) is a title of respect. It meant to designate one who has some authority and control. Philip was a disciple : therefore, Philip had the power to introduce these Greeks to Jesus. Philip was not a very prominent disciple, but he had this inestimable privilege. It is a great thing to be in a position of trust. It is a great thing to be in a position to intro- [81] God Translated duce a person to Jesus Christ. Valets of kings have been greatly honored. Private secretaries to presidents have places of great responsi- bility. But the greatest of all positions is to be a personal friend and disciple of Jesus Christ, in a position to introduce others to him. Note, — Philip was honored because he could introduce these Greeks to Jesus, and the very address of the Greeks give him honor. The very word was applied by honorable men to a man in such a position. No Christian man or woman ever yet moved in a society represent- ing Jesus Christ without gaining honor from that society and from the Christ whom they serve. That is the reason why some of the lowest, the humblest, the most miserable, the most degraded of men and women have risen and gone out into the world to become giants of power. They received that honor from the presence of Jesus Christ. John B. Gough climbed out of the gutter, climbed up to everlasting fame, flinging his words of defiance in the face of the organized liquor traffic. John Hadley, throwing off the gunny sack of rags that had been his clothing, and taking on the clothing of power, goes out into New York City to win the destitute and the fallen ; goes out into the world as a mighty evangel; goes up to Heaven with the broken shackles of thousands on thousands of those who have been won from appetite and passion to a sweet love for Jesus Christ. [82] We Would See Jesus But I want you to note the language these Greeks used. The request is not as our English translation would imply. It was not a pleading request such that, if Philip refused, they would go away. It was vastly stronger than that. Their language, in deepest respect, rang with a challenge like this, "Sir, we propose and are determined to see Jesus.' ' There is a ring in that. There is good red blood behind that. There is power there. When you strike that kind of people, something will move. Your bowing, fawning, apologetic, hesitating, uncer- tain people always fail. That is the reason thousands of business men fail. That is the reasons thousands of Christians fail. They are of the lukewarm individuals who get spewed out. The great pivotal thought of the Gospel is determination. So many people fancy that with the Gospel, they are dealing with senti- ment. "Why, I do not feel just right. My feelings do not induce me to take this step." Feelings to the wind! "Whosoever will, may come." It is the will and not the feelings. Queen Esther knew that the life of her people was at stake. Her uncle, Mordecai, had called her, to show to her the impending doom of her- self and her people. She must act and at once. She must risk her life to save it and to save the life of her people. She dresses herself most beautifully, and ere the latch is lifted that per- mits her to step from her own apartments into [83] God Translated the presence of the king unannounced, she turns to her uncle saying, "I go, and if I perish, I perish." Will, resolution, determination, — that is what wins. If I know what I am after— and I had better find out before I start — and then put my life behind it, I will get it in spite of the whole world. "Sir, we propose and are determined to see Jesus." "Whosoever will . . . ." It is not, — whosoever wishes, who- sover desires, shall go into the Kingdom of Heaven. Such will never get into the Kingdom, and they would be no good if they could. "Whosover will . . . ." It is ivill. Your weakly sentimentality is no good in the Chris- tian religion, and I am very sure it is no good in the business world. "Whosoever will . . . ." A night I never will forget is one of those in that great temple in Philadelphia, when Billy Sunday, by an almost superhuman appeal, lifted by the elation of his own moving spirit, sprang to his chair, and to his pulpit, and lift- ing his hands far over his head, cried, "Come on, ye who would make Jesus Christ King of your lives." The dust began to rise in that great temple where twenty thousand people were assembled, and I watched as over four hundred men, with grim determination upon their faces, came marching up the aisles and took the hand of that great evangelist, thereby saying, "I crown Jesus Christ as King of my heart." Why, said Jesus, the Kingdom of Heaven is [84] We Would See Jesus taken by violence. When you get men like those Greeks saying, "Sirs, we propose and are de- termined to see Jesus," something is going to happen. The challenge made Philip jump. Philip was one of those weaker men who did not dare take responsibility. What should he do? Quick, Philip! And, he goes to Andrew and tells Andrew. Good, if you are afraid to lead a man to Jesus Christ, in God's name, go get somebody who is not afraid. Andrew and Philip lead these Greeks to Jesus. Jesus Answers Their Questions. What they said has been kept by no record. It makes no difference what they did say. Jesus knew what they wanted. In their desire to see and hear him, Jesus saw and heard the whole world longing, — the heart ache of the centuries. Here were the first fruits of that immeasurable harvest which should be gath- ered from all lands for all ages. How his heart leaped with joy ! He forgot the tired feeling of the day! He forgot the bitter opposition of those leaders whom he had come to save ! He forgot the treachery that was even now about him, planning for his own death ! He was swept away in the elation of his own spirit. It was the same elation that came to him on the day when he stood by the well at Samaria and the woman came to draw water. As he revealed to her his great mission and the all-conquering [85] God Translated future of his Kingdom, he forgot his tired feel- ing. His eyes grew bright, and his face was profuse with glory, so much so that when the disciples came back, they wondered, having left him tired and weary, that they should find him refreshed and buoyant. And they said, "Has anybody given him aught to eat 1 ' ' He replied, * * I have meat to eat ye know not of. ' ' Now, in the elation of his spirit, Jesus for- gets that day, — the day that is but four days over the hill-tops yonder, and the death that lies there waiting. His spirit springs in gladness and he cries out, "Now is the hour come that the Son of man should be glorified. " "No, Christ, no, you make a mistake, ' ' we cry. ' i You mean crucified. Now is the hour come that the Son of man shall be crucified." No, no, not crucified, glorified. You short-sighted people can see only the cross. His eye looks beyond the cross to the wonderful triumph that shall come, and the eternal glory that shall be his. How shall he be glorified? Here is a grain of wheat. Keep it and you have but one grain alone. As long as you keep it thus, you have but the one grain. Ere long decay shall destroy it and the grain of wheat is annihilated. Plant it, cover it up with the damp soil. Let the rain fall and the sun shine. That grain of wheat dies, but it lives again. It lives amid the waving heads of grain. It lives in a thousand, perhaps ten thousand, lives. Here is a life. Keep it and you have one life alone, consumed in its per- [86] We Would See Jesus sonal gratifications. Ere long that life is done. Plant it. Let it die in great service for others, and it shall spring up in a thousand, perhaps ten thousand, lives, and live forever and ever. That is the glorified life of the wheat. It shall live to multiply, and feed, and save. That is the glorified life of the individual. It shall live, and multiply, and feed, and save. That is the glorified life of Jesus Christ, dying that it may live in others and fructify generation after generation, worlds without end. Could those Greeks get the meaning? Their minds were alert, their senses quick. They saw the answer. Did they turn back to say to themselves, "Why, that is what Socrates did. He died that he might live. That is what Plato did. He died that he might live. That is what Phidias did. He died that he might live. ' ' That is the only way we can live. He that would save his life must lose it in service for God. Let life flow out for God, and life flows in from God. I store electricity and seek to keep it. It leaks away, seeps itself out and is gone, disseminated through the world. I store electricity and liberate it in the work I desire it to accomplish, and though I liberate it in the far corners of the earth, it will come back to the place from whence it began. Our life used for God means life coming back from God. He that will save his life, shall lose it. The Greeks stand for beauty. No other na- tion of ancient or modern days ever rose so [87] God Translated high in the art of beauty and culture. The Hebrews stand for duty. No other nation of ancient or modern days had such a sublime con- ception of the duty one owes to his Creator. These Greeks bring their sense of beauty to the touchstone of duty, and beauty and duty combine to produce the fairest result that earth or Heaven can ever know, — a Christian man, a Christian woman, growing into the likeness of Jesus Christ. Jesus Challenged Them. They came to him to know his life. He chal- lenges them. He says, — Do you want to be one of my disciples? Then get your cross and put it on your back and be ready. Perhaps, from the place where they stood, they could see Eoman crosses. History tells us that at one time there were eight thousand Eoman crosses on which had been crucified eight thousand Jews who had rebelled against Eome. Jesus said, "If you want to be my disciples, put your cross on your back and come after me. You will be crucified sometime if you follow me, so have your crosses ready and save the trouble of running around to find the wood on which to be crucified. " Ah, the old Bible never calls us to easy things. The Gospel challenges us to our limit. Jesus Christ invites us to the hardest campaign ever set for soldiers. When Garibaldi called to [88] We Would See Jesus the young men of Italy for the redemption of his nation, they answered him, "What will you give us?" He replied, "Coarse diet, sleepless nights, hunger, cold, wounds, blood, death, but glorious victory for our land. ' ' Italy answered with a shout, "We are ready," and Garibaldi led them to freedom. Eecently, in a great conference in America, a plea was made for recruits for the ministry. The need was vividly shown. The pleasant side of a pastor 's life was painted in brilliant colors. Those who entered the ministry would find position and honor waiting them. Not a re- sponse came. Later in the day, a missionary from the far East stood before that same con- gregation. He told of the conditions out of which he had come : the lonely vigils of those who kept watch on the frontiers of the King- dom of God. He told of the millions who were yet wandering in darkness and death. He pleaded for light-bringers. He revealed the sacrifices, the hardships, the death that would be theirs to die for the Kingdom's sake. Then, lifting his hand in a yearning over that con- gregation, he cried, "Who will volunteer in service like that for Jesus Christ?" and over a score of young men and women arose to surrender their lives for such a service. But if Jesus Christ was going to challenge those Greeks, he must himself be challenged, and so comes on the battle we shall see. Is he able to meet his own standard? My challenge [89] God Translated to you is of little use unless I have been able to stand my own appeal. An intoxicated man preaching temperance is a grotesque thing. A leper preaching health is a ghastly thing. A sinful, black-hearted man preaching Jesus Christ is a damnable thing. Before I may challenge you, I myself must answer my own challenge. I could not lead you unless I went before. I could not preach the Gospel in tri- umphant note unless I had been moulded by it. Jesus Christ must be challenged. If he calls to sacrifice, he must lead in that. Hence comes on his own fierce battle. "Now is my soul ex- ceeding troubled," he cries. "Have I the strength? Can I go on? Can I endure ?" There stands that cross over the hills just three days hence. He saw it all : he knew it all. Can you feel the intensity of his struggle, the humanness of his cry? Can you see the sweat that comes out on his face? This is the be- ginning of that awful struggle. You get it in a more intensive form on Thursday night, when he is in the Garden of Gethsemane alone under the trees. There he prays while drops of sweat and blood mingle and ooze from his skin. You get it in the most awful form, when, upon the cross, as the darkness gathered, He cried out in such agony, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" ("My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me!") Now he cries, "What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour ! No, no, for this cause [90] We Would See Jesus I came to this hour. I came to give my life for millions. I came to reveal your love, your Fatherhood. I came to redeem the world. Do you remember up in Heaven that day I made the decision? Do you remember the moment I left my home? The angels burst through and sang to the weary, sin-cursed, dying humanity, ' Unto you is born this day a Saviour. ' Nay, I cannot say, ' Father, save me from this hour. ' For this hour I came, and the world has been waiting, and I must be its Saviour. No, no, I will not say, 'Father, save me from this hour.' I get my victory over fear, over death ; then I say, ' Father, glorify thyself.' " A voice spoke, "I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. ' ' Ah, that voice that stills the storm. Ah, that voice that speaks peace in the soul. You have heard it in the fiercest battles of your life. You have felt a calm come stealing over you when the storm would almost overwhelm your little boat. Let others call it thunder, or angels speaking, you know it was the voice of God speaking in your soul, and you have arisen and gone out into the world a victor. The voice in his soul was the voice of victory. Now, he grows calm. He has won inside. Therefore, the outside victory is determined, is sure. Meanwhile, the sun has set. He leaves them at Jerusalem, and goes his way out to dear old Bethany that he may rest and grow calm. The hour of the cross has come. The Gentile world [91] God Translated will follow. He had answered all their ques- tions and challenged them. They were ready. He was ready. Heaven was ready. Earth was ready. Forward! March! And the tramp of that conquering host grows louder and louder, for they march to victory. Do you want to see Jesus Christ? Then get your heart right, and you shall see him, for the pure in heart see God. The pure heart is the portal of vision. Do you want to see Jesus Christ f Then, away with you to the firing line where the battle rages. "Lead where the most has been dared and done, Where the heart of the battle has bled," and there you will find him, the great Christ. There shall ye see him. Dr. Alexander Duff, the great Scotch mis- sionary to India, returned after his years had been spent in marvelously fruitful service in that far land. Coming to Edinburgh, he stood before a great congregation, and made one of the most moving pleas in missionary history for young men and women to consecrate their life to misionary service. As he closed that address, he said, "If the Queen of England should call you to go to the battle's front and carry with you the crosses of St. Andrew and St. George, how you would leap to your feet with a shout that you might give your life for Queen and nation. Today Christ calls. AVho will take his banner and carry it far on the [92] We Would See Jesus battle line of freedom in his name? Who will respond?" He reached out his arms to that great congregation. No one moved, and no answer was returned. He left the pulpit. He walked unsteadily down the aisle. When he reached the door he was heard to say some- thing, and two or three of the younger ministers came up to him. He said, "I must go back, I must go back to that platform and make yet another plea." They tried to dissuade him. "I must go back," he said, and tottering be- tween the strong arms of those who led him, he mounted the pulpit stairs once more, and standing there, before a breathless audience, he cried, "If there are none here who will vol- unteer, then I myself am going back, and let India know that there is one old Scotchman who bears the flag of the cross of Christ." Ah, friends, out on the firing line is where you shall see Jesus Christ, and your eyes shall behold him and not another. "We would see Jesus — for the shadows lengthen Across this little landscape of our life; We would see Jesus, our weak faith to strengthen For the last weariness, the final strife. "We would see Jesus — other lights are paling, Which for long years we have rejoiced to see; The blessings of our pilgrimage are failing, We would not mourn them for we go to Thee. "We would see Jesus — this is all we're needing, Strength, joy, and willingness come with the sight; We would see Jesus, dying, risen, pleading, Then welcome day, and farewell mortal night ! ' ' [93] VI THE BETRAYER il One of you shall betray me." — John 13: SI. VI THE BETKAYER The betrayal of Jesus by Judas has ever lain as the heaviest load on the heart of Christian- ity. It seems so impossible, so monumentally heinous, so outside the realm of total depravity even, that after two thousand years, thought is still staggering before its awfulness. In the beginning of Christianity, her foes made much of the betrayal, to condemn her. If the Christ himself had no power to keep one of his intimate, chosen disciples from such sin, then how could he have power over the multi- tudes beyond his influence, they exclaimed. I have sometimes wondered why the synoptic writers and John mentioned the fact at all; why they did not try to hold it to themselves and bar it from the cold stare of the world. They could appreciate what it must mean to them and to their Master, and to the cause. It was long after the deed that John wrote, when the church was just making its way against al- most insuperable obstacles. Yet he wrote it out clearly and in the blackest colors in which it could be painted, — this awful treachery of Judas. But here is another of those proofs which make the Bible so sure, so authoritative. It [97] God Translated tells all of the human story as well as all of the divine, — always the weakness of mankind, as well as its strength and joy. Side by side with men's sin, is God's salvation, and the old Book is constantly saying, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." We are told that Jesus knew who should betray him. Why, then, Judas as one of the twelve disciples? The answer is very quickly given. Jesus knew the possibilities of Judas, and he wanted to give them a trial in exactly the same way that he knows the possibilities of you and me and wants to give us a trial. Judas was the only man from Judea. All the others were rough and ready Galilean men. Judas brought with him from the south that reverence for form and ceremony which came from the beautiful temple worship at Jerusalem. He brought with him that particular gift of the merchant, the buyer and the seller. Jesus knew that Judas could develop along the lines of his own impulses, and all those impulses in Judas' life were the impulses of the trader. He could go out and make money where you and I would starve. He had the genius to see, to focus, to read, to know when to buy and when to sell. It was his impulse, and he was selected as the one disciple to be the treasurer, the merchant, of that little company, because of his particular ability along that line. [98] The Betrayer Any one of us can develop most rapidly along the line of our genuine impulse. Some of us can be preachers, and some teachers, and some musicians, and some merchants, and some home-keepers, — all according to the funda- mental impulses and loves and leadings of our lives; but every one of us can become strong in every other department, if we have a mind to put the time, the strength, the consecration, the life into it, and pay the price for the success which will come. The trouble is, an old doubt has lain upon the world like rust, until men and women everywhere have come to say, "0, I haven't talent for this, or for that; therefore, I cannot succeed.' ' This is only the excuse we make for our own laziness. Not that we have not the genius, but that we are too lazy to open up the fountains and let the waters flow and become what God knows we might become if we would. Jesus knew what was in the heart of Judas. He understood perfectly well what Judas could become when he called him as one of his dis- ciples. There stood a strong, young man with a limitless future. Will Judas make good? Here were all those other disciples. Not one of them had the possibilities, when they were called to the discipleship, that Judas had! Look at Peter! What an apology for a man! Look at John! Look at Bartholomew! Look at Thomas! Any of them! Judas stands out in the beginning as the one man to whom we [99] God Translated would look to climb to the very highest heights in disciple ship. But Judas brought along with him something that would destroy him if he did not watch out. TTith all his splendid possi- bilities, Judas brought along covetousness. If that grows, Judas, you are doomed! It grew, and Judas was destroyed. The man wanted to make money. He had the power. He had the ability. He said, "If Jesus Christ becomes the Messiah of the world, a Master of the Em- pire, then I shall become Secretary of the Treasury. I will become rich. I will gather the gold of the world." And he was the only man chosen who could do it. Ah, Judas, when that is your first impulse, you are damned before you begin. That hated sin grew. You recall from the story of Launcelot, when they were discussing why each had failed, save two, in beholding the Holy Grail, Launcelot said, — "But in me lived a sin So strange, of such a kind, that all of pure, Noble, and knightly in me twined and clung Round that one sin, until the wholesome flower And poisonous grew together, each as each, Not to be plucked asunder: and when thy knights Sware, I sware -with them only in the hope That could I touch or see the Holy Grail They might be pluck 'd asunder." That sin finally destroyed Launcelot. It was that sin of covetousness that finally destroyed Judas. Now Jesus knew all the possibilities for evil [100] The Betrayer that were in Judas. I have often wondered if the Christ called Judas to him and talked to him personally. There is not an account in the Bible regarding that. I have wondered if now and again the Christ did not call each of those disciples and talk to them as the Christ might talk, about the possibilities and dangers which were in the hearts of each. "We know that in the public talk of Christ, he was always warn- ing his disciples, and it seems to me now, as I read them, that he was particularly warning Judas. That parable of the net and the fishes, — they threw in the net and drew up every kind ; the good they would keep, the bad they must throw away. Be careful, Judas, you are gath- ering in every kind of thought and impulse and desire in your life. Be careful that you keep only the good, that you throw away the evil! That parable of the barren fig tree, — it should grow the fruit and then the leaves. The leaves appear and of course one in going by would look for the fruit. Lo, there is no fruit, only show! Cut it down. Why encumbreth it the ground? Be careful, Judas, the world looks for fruit in your life. Be careful, Judas. How those words of Jesus turn to the life of Judas as if he were warning him of the dangers that lay in his way for his own destruction. But Judas did not heed. That sin of covetous- ness kept growing. That desire to get every- thing for himself developed, until we find him, near to the close of those three years of min- [101] God Translated istry, a captive to his sin. One glimpse will suffice to reveal all. It is at the banquet in Bethany. Mary comes in, breaks the little jar of precious nard, and with a most delicate and tender touch spreads it over the swollen and tired feet of the Christ and wipes those feet with the hair of her own head, revealing the depths and passions and unspeakable reaches of human affection. Mary, uttering for us and for all the world love's deepest yearning! But, over against it, rises the face of Judas. Covetous, heartless, selfish, hypocritical Judas ! The very odor of the ointment angers him. "Why was not that sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor! Why all this waste? — he growls. Money! Money! Greed! Greed! When ambition, founded only on selfishness gives way, covetousness lies there as the next lower expression. Thus, greed grows. Love dies. Judas betrays. At last the three years are over. Tonight they are at the table. Judas is ripe for his own destruction. Sin conceived has brought forth death. Jesus knew the betrayal. He knew it when they entered the room. He knew it when he sat down beside Judas at the table. 0, the infinite love of Jesus for Judas! He would sit next to Judas at the table in that last hour! Perhaps, perhaps he could break that awful spirit even yet. Note carefully the at- tempt. As they did eat, Jesus said, "One of [102] The Betrayer you shall betray me." "What," said Judas to himself in his heart, "does he know me? I will confess. Already my plans are laid." "Who is it?" ask the disciples. Jesus an- swers, "He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. ' ' But, there are three or four dishes. Who can it be? The disciples could not tell, but the circle is nar- rowed. Judas can feel that it is focusing more and more upon him. Judas must feel that it is he, and there is forced from him those awful words, "Lord, is it I?" John turns to ask of the Christ, "Lord, who is it?" and Jesus answers in a whisper that only John could know, " He to whom I shall give the sop," and he handed it to Judas. As Jesus handed the sop to Judas, he looks him in the eyes. Yes, Judas, I know, and I know it is you who shall betray me. That was said only with the eyes, and then, in a voice that all at the table could hear, he said to Judas, "What thou doest, do quickly." The disciples interpreted those words to mean that Jesus had asked Judas to get some provision possibly for the supper which was now being held. When Jesus thus spoke, Judas left the table and went out into the night. But he went out to betray. He went out to those rulers who treated him as a contemptible betrayer. They had covenanted with him for money, but they made him ask that awful question, "What will you give me?" Contemptible as were those rulers, they had the [103] God Translated deepest contempt for this betrayer. Earth or hell has no scorn so smiting as the scorn for the base betrayer. What must have been Judas' loneliness as he left the room that night ! There was no one in heaven or on earth to whom he could appeal. His friends were in that room yonder. If ever he had possessed the love of woman, that must have been blighted and blasted. The rulers despised him. He had sold his Lord. How the blackness of darkness gathered, as insanely he pressed forward to his fearful deed and doom ! When, next morning, he saw the awful suf- fering of Jesus, and doubtless caught one look from those forgiving eyes, then his soul was rent asunder in horror. Blackness, darkness, frozen fear, lurid lightnings, fearful thunders played about him! The money! It burned! He takes it back. He hands it to those priests saying, "I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood; I cannot keep the money.' ' They answer with a leer, "What is that to us? See thou to it." But the money! It sticks to his hands ! It will not let go ! Pieces cling to the fingers, to the palms of his hands ! He tries to be rid of it. It clings ! He flings it to the pavement and, rushing out, hurls himself head- long into those swirling, sucking, pitiless waters of death, and they draw him down, down, down, to the awful hell of blackness and despair he had prepared for his own soul. [104] The Betrayer To Betray Is the Blackest of Crimes. We can forgive the open blow of a declared enemy. There you are on guard, or should be. You understood he was an enemy. I respect a true enemy. There is a "fierce joy that war- riors feel in foemen worthy of their steel." But what will you do with a person who uses the knowledge he has gained from the intimate friendship of years to basely betray you? What shall we say of those who deliberately knife in the back and in the dark? Jesus cried for the people who were crucifying him, say- ing, "They know not what they do." But Judas knew what he was doing. Deliberately he had planned. All the confidence reposed in him as one of the inner group of Christ's friends was prostituted to his awful sin of betrayal. In the category of sin, treachery is marked as the blackest. John does not deal gently with Judas. He plainly brands him as a traitor. We all must forgive much, — but treachery! — What shall be done with it? How shall we treat one who uses the knowledge he gains as a friend to betray the friend to enemies? I can forgive the man whose weakness leads him to sin, even some of those social sins at which people hold up their hands in such horror. I can forgive his weakness, his betrayal of himself, and gently lead him back to the ways of righteous- ness and truth. But the man who betrays the [105] God Translated love and confidence of a friend, who deliber- ately strikes in the dark, who calmly works out his plans of destruction, — why the adulterer, the impulsive murderer, the liar, the thief, are gentlemen in comparison with such a beast. You have noted with what profound skill Jesus eliminated Judas from the supper that night. Even Jesus could not talk as he did in the fourteenth of John, or ordain the Last Supper, with the awful traitor sitting beside him. Yet, by no word or sign did he reveal the betrayal to those disciples. If Jesus had un- masked Judas before those rough and ready Galileans that night, I doubt if he would have left the room alive. After Judas goes out to betray, Jesus speaks those eternal words of comfort and guidance as recorded in the four- teenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth chapters of John, utters that marvelous prayer as recorded in the seventeenth chapter, ordains the Last Supper, then sings a hymn with them and goes out to the Garden of Gethsemane where at midnight Judas finds him and betrays hiin with a kiss. Environment Does Not Save People. Thistles and thorns and weeds grow together in the same garden with flowers and fruits and vegetables. The same rain and the same sun cause both to grow. Environment does not make the weeds, or does not make the fruits. [106] The Betrayer What is in the weed shall come up and bear fruit, and the same sun and the same rain shall call it forth. Judas was in the choicest garden in all the world. There was an opportunity for him to grow under the rain and under the sun and under the gladness of the smile of Jesus Christ, until he became the kindest char- acter that the world has ever known. But he became the worst under that very influence. His sin grows blacker as his light grows brighter. Belonging to a church, living in a Christian community, doesn't save a man or a woman. Judas lived in that precious, most precious, of communions, and Judas became the blackest thief, and the worst robber, and the vilest crim- inal that the world has ever known. Why, in the beautiful Christian home, is the same story ! Some of the worst reprobates have come out of the most beautiful and cultured homes. Judas, out of the friendship and the love and the companionship of Jesus Christ, became a traitor. How could it be ! I could wish that I might have walked with Christ. I could wish that I might have known him intimately in the flesh. I think my life must have taken on an upward power and must have been lifted to the higher levels of such a character as he. Earth and Heaven, and ail the eternities, could not have compared with the privilege of being in the company and learning from Jesus Christ. But all Judas Iscariot could get out of Jesus [107] God Translated Christ was nineteen dollars, the price of betrayal. There are men and women in Massachusetts' — in Brockton — who are getting education, self- culture, manhood, womanhood, Christian char- acter, future promise, out of these homes, these churches, this glorious country of ours. There are men and women in Massachusetts — in Brockton — who are getting only meanness, the leprosy of sin, the blackness of darkness of death ; who sell themselves for a mess of pot- tage and betray all that is holy in mother love, church love, heavenly love. In return, they get the fiendish laugh of devils who gloat over such fools' deceptions. Why Bid Judas Betray Christ? John says, — the devil put it into his heart. It was too black a job for any other murderer. But who is this devil so much talked about in Scripture and out of Scripture? If we turn to the twelfth chapter of the Book of Eevelation, the ninth verse, we shall find a group of names that will help us to answer our questions. In this passage of Scripture, John uses four names, — the " great dragon," the "old serpent," the "devil," "Satan." The chief characteristic of the dragon is its mystery. Mythology and imagination have painted the dragon as a dread beast with fire issuing from its mouth, and having fearful [108] The Betrayer claws for destruction. That is sin, — mysteri- ous, fearful, full of fire, with claws that tear, no matter whether it be babe, or boy, or woman, or love. The " great dragon" would burn, and claw, and destroy. The chief characteristic of the serpent is its silence, its stealth. The serpent crawls and glides in the grass, its color changing to its surroundings. It coils, and waits, and strikes its deadly fangs and glides away again. Or, it seizes its victim and crushes by its awful pres- sure. That is sin, — it crawls, and hides, and glides, and strikes, and poisons, and crushes. The word "devil" means something thrown to entice and catch. It is like throwing seed to entice the birds, or a net to entrap them. The devil then becomes the enticer. That is sin, — . enticing, alluring, entrapping. It throws the seeds of physical pleasures, mental excitement, spiritual elation even, and while the revellers are lost in exuberation, nets its victims and destroys them. Satan means deceiver. Satan stands for lying, cheating, defrauding, blinding to all that is right, turning pure streams into cesspools of filth and poisoning every true impulse with death. That is sin. It deceives. It lies to everybody. It promises all the kingdoms of this world to those who will fall down and wor- ship it. Then it stamps the life out of those foolish victims who kneel. [109] God Translated This then is that monster dragon, serpent, devil, Satan, that put it in the heart of Judas to betray his Lord. It was that combination of evil and attractiveness, and light and fire, that induced Judas to betray. 0, don't be so circumscribed in thinking as to tie up that in one bundle and make it one being going about the world! It was that that allured Judas. It was that that Jesus Christ meant in the clos- ing of the fourteenth chapter of John when he said, "And when that shall come to me, it shall find nothing in me that it can attract because sin can have no power in me. I have risen above it, and sin shall not allure me to destruc- tion.' ' This is just another way of personify- ing that awful force, calling it a person, calling it the devil, when we simply mean that in us are the seeds and around us are the elements, the rain and the sunshine, that make them grow, and if we allow to grow in our hearts those seeds of evil, then we shall get the crop. It may be forty-fold, or sixty-fold, or a hundred- fold. This, then, was the allurement of Judas. A desire for wealth and position grew into covetousness, and greed generated a hate for all things pure and holy. At last Judas' heart was so full of greed and hate and self, that he could even commit the sin that stands as the blackest, most heinous, most awful sin that ever can be recorded, — the sin of treachery to and betrayal of his Friend and Lord. [110] The Betrayer Two great lessons confront us. Association cannot save us. Only thinking rightly and doing righteously can save us. Mother's prayers cannot save me; God cannot save me ; nothing can save me except the sur- render of my life to the will of the good God who will guide me in righteousness. Thistles, and thorns, and poisonous weeds grow by the same sun and rain, and in the same garden with fruits, and vegetables, and flowers. The seed of the thing planted determines what the growth and crop will be. The seed of sin was in Judas. It grew. The crop was that blackest crime at which even hell shudders. The seed of righteousness was in John. It grew. The crop was that most blessed life, which shall forever shed its radiance over the pathway of men and across the highways of eternity. Both lives were under the smile and presence of Jesus Christ. Each life developed what each life planted and nourished. So, in our midst, grow these precious lives. Here is our church with all its offerings of social, intellectual, and spiritual blessings. Here are our schools with heartiest invitation to culture and refinement and power. Here is our community with its loves, and books, and pleasures, and homes. Here grow our people. But, the horrible difference ! Some are grow- ing like Judas. Some are growing like John. Some are growing like Mary. Some are grow- ing like Sophia. Some are growing pure, true, [ill] God Translated righteous, Godlike in purpose and action. Some are growing sordid, and sinful, and vile. "Be not deceived,' ' God is not laughed to scorn. Whatsoever grows in our hearts shall bear its fruit, and that fruit shall be a John or a Judas. [112] VII ON THE WAY HOME "How 'know we the way?" — John 14: 5. VII ON THE WAY HOME Christianity has no possession so precious as the memory of that week when Jesus stood face to face with death. Matchless as he appears in every action and deed of his life, he yet, be it reverently said, never appears so regal, so sur- passingly great, so unapproachably grand as during those days of his closing earthly career. All that was deepest in the soul, most tender in love, most human in sympathy, most divine in character, was poured out with such a lavish prodigality that it immerses us, sinks us in an infinite ocean of light and love. But, when we come to that last night, and they are all to- gether in the upper room, he seems to shine forth in a blaze of moral and spiritual splendor, such that the world is still dazed by its light. His soul overflows in an indescribable tender- ness as he abandons himself to the love of his friends. He utters the deepest yearning of his being. He speaks the thoughts which lie at the very fountain-head of inspiration. He is the Christ, the Son of the living God, speaking out of the very heart of God himself. Judas has gone out into the night and to his treachery. Until he goes, the Christ cannot be [115] God Translated free. So, by wonderful tact, he eliminates Judas from the number at the table, without exposing his treachery to the other disciples. As soon as Judas is gone, Jesus finds his soul flowing free. He begins to speak to them those marvelous words in the 14th, 15th, and 16th chapters of John. Nowhere in Gospel history are there words so tender, revelations so holy, and feelings so sacred as here. What can equal the beauty, the tenderness, the scope, the eternal assurance of this 14th chapter! We have some lovely and inspiring things in literature, in song, in art. The old Bible is rich beyond words in such expressions. The closing words of Moses in Deuteronomy: the calm, prophetic call of Isaiah in the fifty- third chapter: the sparkling fountains of the Psalms, and that sweetest of all, the twenty- third: the love lyric of St. Paul in I Corin- thians, the thirteenth chapter, — these are lovely with an eternal loveliness of their own. But, of all words spoken, or thoughts expressed, in all time or for all eternity, the fourteenth chapter of John stands out as the super- eminent cheer and comfort of the world. How the martyrs drank at its spring! How the saints fed at its table! How tired and faint children of earth have pillowed their heads here until the ache was gone, and courage was restored ! One of the ineradicable memories of my life is the family circle, the glow of the lamp, the [116] On the Way Home hush of the evening, and my father sitting there reading, — "Let not your heart be troubled" — the voice shakes now and again — "ye believe in God" — (it was always the old version) — "be- lieve also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you," — and up that shining road he went and on to that Heavenly City of eternal peace. As in all his other teachings, Jesus used a familiar picture by which to make his meaning clear. In the old tribal days, the leader, or sheik, of the tribe kept his children and families together. When a son was married, the father would prepare a tent next to his own for the son and his bride, and when another son was married, another tent was prepared next his, and thus the sons brought their brides to the father's house, and with their families lived and loved and grew. All were tabernacled with the father at home. Jesus used this familiar fact to describe our Heavenly Father's care, and he said, "In my Father's house are many abodes: if it were not so, I would have told you ; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again and will receive you unto myself." We are on the way home as was Jesus that night in which he was speaking; as have been all of earth's children in all the centuries, for ' ' Our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave." [117] God Translated A beautiful world this iu which we live. Lovely- flowers bloom here. Gay are the orchards and meadows. Grand are the mountains and seas. Beautiful are human faces. Glorious is human living. But, — we are moving onward, we are marching away. "Drum-taps! Drum-taps! Who is it marching, Marching past in the night? Ah, hark, Draw your curtains aside and see Endless ranks of the stars o 'er-arching, Endless ranks of an army marching, Marching out of the measureless dark, Marching away to Eternity. ' ' See the gleam of the white, sad faces, Moving steadily, row on row, Marching away to their hopeless wars: Drum-taps, drum-taps, where are they marching? Terrible, beautiful, human faces, Common as dirt, but softer than snow, Coarser than clay, but calm as the stars. " What infinite numbers have gone before! What infinite numbers are now going! You are going ! I am going ! All are going ! 1 ' I 'm but a stranger here, Heaven is my home: Earth is a desert drear, Heaven is my home: Danger and sorrow stand Bound me on every hand: Heaven is my Fatherland, Heaven is my home. ' ' We Have an Abiding Home. Jesus told us so. "In my Father's house are many abodes : I go to prepare a place for you. ' ' Up to the time Jesus spoke those words, the whole question of the future life was very hazy [118] On the Way Home and uncertain. The Old Testament has little or no definite teachings on the subject. But as soon as Jesus Christ had spoken, life took on a new meaning. There was a way of assurance to an abiding place. The Ascension marked the way home. Instantly the disciples took on that great, new truth. Stephen, as they stoned him, looked up steadfastly to behold the new home into which he was going. Peter caught its gleam from afar and fought for the stairway that would lead him home. Paul and Barnabas prayed and sang praises in the night, but un- like Jacob of old who only had dreamed, they now see the ladder that leads from earth to Heaven. Why, from that hour to this, the way home has been known and loved. Saints and martyrs have gone gladly up that shining way. I see them go. Familiar forms and faces are there now. ' ' Onward they go, and still we hear them singing.' ' Jesus Christ is preparing the home for us. If a guest we love is coming to our home there is a keen joy in preparing to receive him. A favorite picture is hung where his eye may see it and his heart be made glad. Favorite flowers are arranged where they will speak a welcome that words cannot speak. An easy-chair is wheeled to the window and books are near for a quiet reading and rest. "We prepare for the coming of our loved ones. Said Jesus Christ, "I go to prepare a place for you." With what care will he make ready those mansions in [119] God Translated Heaven, and with what joy will he welcome our coming when our life's tasks are over and our life's work is done! The race believes in an abiding home. Fundamental impulses of the race are great primal truths. From earliest records we find this belief. All down the centuries it has been a beautiful light. Alfred Tennyson expresses it in language of longing, — ' ' Thou wilt not leave us in the dust, Thou madest man, he knows not why, He thinks he was not born to die: But Thou hast made him: Thou art just." Not only does the race demand it, but you and I demand it. There is not one of you here who does not, deep down in his own soul, de- mand that future and abiding home into which he may go. If I came this morning to say to you men and women, — I know there is no future beyond this, and no life when you have entered into your grave, — as one you would rise to de- clare, "Then life is absolutely useless, and the quicker the end, the better." But, said Jesus, "I go to prepare a place for you." ' ' Swift to its close, Ebbs out life's little day, Earth's joys grow dim, Its glories pass away: Change and decay In all around I 866," and then comes the heart-throb, — "O, Thou who changest not, Abide with me." [ 120 ] On the Way Home And we are conscious of his abiding place. Jesus Christ Is the Way to that Home. He is the official guide. He said to those dis- ciples, "Whither I go, ye know the way," but Thomas answers him, "Lord, we know not whither thou goest: how know we the way?" Jesus answered, "I am the way." He is the guide. You cannot get through save by his guidance. Germany has been saying to the neutral na- tions, "Sail your ships by such a course and up to such a place and there take on a German pilot. If you do not, your ship will come into the mine fields and ship and cargo and crew will be destroyed." England has been saying to neutral nations, "Sail your ships by such a course to such a point and there take on an English pilot. Mine fields and dangers of every sort are in the way. You must have an official pilot if you shall come in safety to the port you seek. ' ' Jesus says, "I am the way." That is why we sing, — ' ' Jesus Saviour, pilot me Over life's tempestuous sea, Unknown waves before me roll Hiding rock and treacherous shoal, Chart and compass come from Thee, Jesus Saviour, pilot me. ' ' People are trying to get in through other ways. Many will not take the pilot. They enter the [121] God Translated mine fields of sin and are destroyed. No one ever yet got to Heaven save by the guidance of Jesus Christ, and no one ever will, for there is no other name under Heaven given among men whereby we can be saved, except in and through the name of Jesus Christ. He is the daily companion. "Lo, I am with you always." Some of life's richest experi- ences have been those in days when I have been privileged to have as a companion some, one of earth's great souls. I think of the great, and then widely known, Dr. Benjamin Hayes, than whom there was no deeper, prof ounder, or more Godly man. I think of Dr. Stuckenberg, that wonderful German sociologist who came into our home in the years gone by, spending weeks with us and giving intellectual stimulus toward a higher life. I think of Dr. Borden P. Bowne, that giant among giants in philosophy, as he became to me a father and friend. I think of others, — Dr. Josiah Strong, Dr. Francis E. Clark, and that great soul who went home from the deck of the ship that was bound to his own English home, Dr. C. Sylvester Home, — yes, numbers of the great men and the great women whose lives have shed their light upon my own, until my own must be brighter because of asso- ciation with them. It is one of the most price- less treasures we may have, — the association of the great men and women of the world. But what are they in comparison with the opportunity of associating with Jesus Christ, [122] On the Way Home of walking with him, of talking with him, of laughing with him, of crying with him ! Oh, the privilege of the companionship of Jesus Christ ! Our lives get narrow and cramped. We lose our tempers. We fuss, and fret, and fume. The mole-hills enlarge into mountains and the motes become beams. We grow gnarled, and wrinkled, and sour, and crabbed. Deep lines are grooved by care on the face, while the heart shrivels up, and the shoulders bend to the same process of living. Oh, shame, shame, shame, when we have the possible companionship of Jesus Christ to keep our thoughts large, our faces smiling, our hearts sweet ! Shame to that life which takes on the sordid, the mean, the narrow, when all eternity opens wide before us, and the sweetest companionship of the ages is ours for the asking ! He is the revealer of the Father. "He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father.' ' Judas, not Iscariot, instantly answered, "Lord, what is come to pass that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world V That is what you men and women may be asking this morning. How is it that Jesus Christ will reveal himself to some and not to others ? I stand or sit by my telephone desk and talk. You cannot hear the one who is speaking to me, but I hear. I smile ; I laugh ; I grow serious ; I speak sorrowfully or gladly. What a ridicu- lous thing it is to watch a person who is talking over a telephone ! I know of nothing more ab- [123] God Translated surd than to stand up against the side of the house and talk into a hole in the wall ! If we were not accustomed to it, we would surely think that somebody had been bereft of his senses. But the fact is, I am speaking with somebody. I have the electric connection with some one. I can speak and he can hear. He can speak and I can hear. But you, sitting in the room, cannot hear because you have not the connection. I stand here this morning to speak with Jesus Christ. I look into his face. You call it prayer and hide under the word. No, there is no hid- ing. I am speaking with him, and I hear him speak with me, and because the spiritual world is even more wonderfully developed than our physical world, I can see him while I speak with him. How is it that he will manifest him- self to me and not to you ? Only that I have the connection and can hear and can see. Now, Jesus Christ does not beget hopes he cannot satisfy. Every word he spoke has been ful- filled. Every hope he awoke has been met. He answered Judas, "If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. ' ' The connection will be maintained. We Are on the Way Home. That night, as he spoke those marvelous words, "Let not your heart be troubled," and called them to such heights of joy, what about [124] On the Way Home his own heart? What about his own need of sympathy? Tonight at midnight the betrayer shall come slinking out of the gate of Jerusalem and down across the Kedron valley, piloting the soldiers and the hirelings of the high-priest, that he may betray his Lord and Master with a kiss ! Tomorrow shall come the cross and the agony and the tomb ! The young blood of Jesus Christ ran free. He was only thirty-three years of age. The horror of the surrender of himself to the dark swirl of death was even greater to him than to you or to me. But he was on the way home. Ah, what a way was that! All that should be packed into the next twenty hours will be the theme of men and women and children for ages and ages, forever and forever. He could speak so truly and reveal so plainly the way by which we all should come to our Father's house, because he knew the way home. We are on the way home. Here we dwell today in these clay bodies, but we are liable to be evicted at any hour. ' ' Our years are like the shadows, On sunny hills that lie, Or grasses in the meadows That blossom but to die: A sleep, a dream, a story, By strangers quickly told, An unremaining glory Of things that soon are old." Loved ones have gone over to that other life. They call to us. Our ears are dull. We cannot [125] God Translated hear. Alfred Tennyson's soul reaches out until in the dim distances he feels for the hand of his great friend, Arthur Hallam, and somehow through the mist and mystery and darkness and yearning, he seems to hear Hallam saying to him, — ' ' I stand upon this silent shore : Thy spirit up to mine can reach, But in dear words of human speech We two commune no more." But the hour came when Tennyson spoke again in the "dear words of human speech." The hour is coming when I, when you, when all of us who have followed him along the way that leads home, shall speak again, shall speak to loved ones gone, and to loved ones coming, in that language that knows no nationality and with that voice that knows no boundaries. 0, that will be joy unspeakable and full of glory! Do you know anything of the joy of home coming after your first years of absence? Never shall I forget the joy of that first re- turn. I was on the steamer. The afternoon sun was brilliant ; no land was to be seen. We careened away over the rolling blue. My heart was impatient. I would speed faster than the speeding ship. I went up to the bow of the boat and looked down at the waters before, and then far away on the trackless deep into that horizon so dim, so far, and I said, "Some- where on that horizon line, far back of where [126] On the Way Home the eye can see, is the homeland, and honle. ,, I watched as the sun went down, and the long shadows gathered. The sea became lonely as night was near. I went out into the night. The stars were bright. The whitecaps now and again appeared strangely distinct, and the call of the waves had a weird and lonely sound. But, somewhere out yonder through the night and through the sea and beyond my sight is home, and I shall come to it, please God, ere long. I went out again in the morning when the sun was shining, and, lo, there were the headlands, indistinct, dim, but growing larger. Yes, and there is the lighthouse. The light has gone out for the greater light is shining. Hark! Over the seas, I hear the call of the harbor bell. We are coming in : we are coming in. The headlands are slipping past on either side. The harbor is full for the tide is flood. Look ! Yonder is the dock. I can see the faces of those who wait. But why these misty eyes when I am coming home! Ere long the ropes are thrown and the ship is made fast, and I am home after these years of separation. Ah, dear friends, we are on our way home. Out beyond the horizon line is the Homeland. Jesus Christ is the pilot. He shows the way. If the storms come too heavily, he will speak to them and they will be still. If the quarter- master fails at the wheel, he will take control. The ship will come in, and some morning the headlands will be slipping by, and the bells will [127] God Translated be ringing, and they will throw the lines ashore, and we will be in the eternal life. I know many to whom I will shout. I am almost calling them now. I am home! I am home! I am home, eternally home, because Jesus Christ has made the way open and has piloted me home. ' ' Many loved ones have I in that beautiful land, They are waiting and watching for me : And they beckon me o 'er to that bright, happy shore Where forever in glory I '11 be. ' ' [128] VIII A GAMBLE FOE A COAT "They said, therefore, one to another, — Let us not rend it but cast lots for it, whose it shall be. ' '—John 19 : 24. VIII A GAMBLE FOR A COAT Nero fiddled while Eome burned! Philip toyed with anagrams and puzzled over childish rhymes while his great Spanish Empire was falling to pieces around him! Charles I of England wove theological ropes of sand while Cromwell was striking his mighty blows for England's freedom! Destinies of men and nations have been risked on the throw of dice. This present Ger- man war is a gamble with empires at stake. Prussia's mathematical calculations and pre- cisions left no place for the higher elements in diplomacy. She staked her all on the fierce rush of what she considered an irresistible army. Her throw was fatal. Today she is rimmed around with fire, and steel, and slowly, awfully, but surely, must be beaten to the ground. Pilate staked his all on a throw. His posi- tion, as governor, was tottering. He had made himself a person non gratia with the people of Judea. He had opened the sluice gates of his destruction by bribe taking, abuse of power, and false government. The people had a case against him, and the decision of Caesar would be [131] God Translated his downfall. The problem to Pilate was this, — defy the people and lose his governorship, or placate the people and save his power. He was not big enough to understand that he who compromises is lost when the principles at stake are the fundamental principles of righteousness. The scene of conflict between Pilate and Jesus, as pictured in this chapter, is very- striking. The brutal and domineering gov- ernor, overmastered by the sense of his own power and importance, speaks sharply and fiercely to Christ. Christ stands there, quiet and calm, looking him in the eye, but returning no answer. Pilate is startled, as any such brutish nature is, and he cries out, "Speakest thou not unto me? Knowest thou not that I have power to release thee and have power to crucify thee?" The calm lips of that strange prisoner moved, and he answers as quietly, "Thou wouldest have no power against me, except it were given thee from above. ' ' There has been many a fool like Pilate disconcerted and defeated by the quiet control of one who is supposed to be a victim, but, by that control, becomes a victor. Those soldiers to whom the clothes of Jesus fell as a prize when he was put upon the cross, found themselves gambling for his coat. They would crucify anybody for the sake of his clothes, as Pilate would condemn anybody for the sake of his governorship. [132] A Gamble for a Coat The crosses were up. The three men hung there. This strange young Galilean is in the center. The clothes of the thieves are passed by evidently as of little worth, but that seam- less coat of Christ's, — that is of value. "Let - us not rend it," they said, "but cast lots for it, whose it shall be." I have wondered whose hands made that coat. I wonder if Mary, or Martha, or his mother had woven the cloth and shaped the garment. I wonder what love was stitched into the seams, and what hopes went with the giving of the garment. But the sol- diers gambled for the coat, sitting there apart, while Heaven was looking on and the earth was trembling, and Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world was dying. They gambled for a coat while before their eyes was transpiring the central event in all history. Ages and ages had led up to this very hour. Ages and ages will stretch away from this hour. This hour will be the central scene forever. More eyes will turn to that cross than earth's millions can enumerate. More tears of gratitude to him will fall than the vials of God can contain. But, forever and forever, will those soldiers sit there gambling for a coat while the Son of God dies for the sins of the world. The scene is typical of that strange char- acteristic which is found in all virile peoples, — namely, the pleasure and excitement of taking a chance. It is a strange characteristic. Men and women of the virile races do take chances, [133] God Translated and there is a certain exhilaration in measuring one's mental alertness against what he knows to be the chances of death. The one who makes a noble endeavor for a righteous purpose, knowing the dangers he faces, is a hero. The one who gambles with death is a fool. We have them a plenty, — those who face death in a righteous cause. The marvel of human nature is that so many of the untried, the uneducated, the common, out of our common humanity, rise to those wonderful heights of self-sacrifice. We have them a plenty, — those heroes who wait their opportunity. But, we have them a plenty also, — those fools who gamble with death. You find them in the aeroplanes : you find them in the automobiles : you find them in the operating rooms: you find them in every walk and at every corner of life. Take a Case of a Whole People — Bar abbas or Jesus. Suppose another being, with an intelligence like our own, yet a stranger to our human char- acteristics, should come upon this platform this morning and give me an opportunity to ques- tion him. "Sir," I would say, "let me put before you this problem. Here are two men, one of whom we shall kill and one save. The one is a murderer : his hands are red with the life-blood of his victims. No person, no life is safe where he is free. He is an enemy to soci- [134] A Gamble for a Coat ety. He is a brigand in morals. His foot-steps are the echo of terror and evil. The other is a clean, strong, commanding man. No fault can be found with him save that he is a critic of his generation. He looks deeply into the hearts and lives of men and women, and sees certain wrongs there. He sees that wrong is covered up often by religious practices. Men have made the most precious thing in the world a cloak for their sins. Jesus looks through the cloak. He looks into the heart of his genera- tion. He says, 'You are wrong. Cease from your evil, all ye who make long prayers in the public and then go to steal widows ' houses and orphans' incomes.' He has been a critic of his generation, but he loves his generation, and seeks to lift it out of that evil condition into which it has come, that it may become the generation its possibilities suggest. Sir, which of these two men shall the nation liberate?" That strange being, not understanding the characteristics of humanity, would probably make answer something like this, "Why, sir, to state your proposition answers it. Surely, you shall confine to imprisonment, or even to death, according to your law, the one who mur- dered. You must do it for the sake of society. You must do it because the contagion of his evil spirit will spread beyond the reach of where he himself goes, and a large area of people will soon be affected because of his free- dom. Surely, you shall confine him. And, sir, [135] God Translated your critic is your greatest friend. The man who criticises you in love and for your own good is your choice friend. He can see where you are weak. He wants to make you strong. He strips from you your sophistries and lays bare your weaknesses. Confine your murderer and release your friend." But the people cried out, "Away with him, away with him : crucify him, crucify him, and release unto us Barabbas, the murderer.' ' They were blinded with passion. They had divorced their reason. Strange humanity! Strange characteristics, these, in the human heart ! Strange upbubbling of a something in the breast of the Hebrew nation that would call for the destruction of its friend and the liberation of its enemy! The nation gambled on Barabbas and Jesus. It took its murderer and slew its Saviour. That mob is typical of countless individuals who thus have chosen the wrong for the right. Some years ago I called a thoughtless young woman to me to show her very clearly whither such conduct as hers was leading her. I re- vealed the road to sin, the agony to come, and, most awful of all, the destruction of her own real self. Plainly, faithfully, did I tell her what life would do for her if she continued in the path that now was attracting her feet, and what life would do for her did she turn to the right, maintain an unblemished character, and give herself to the loyal support of Jesus Christ and [136] A Gamble for a Coat his work. She turned from me with a promise to be true, but the deadly allurement of sin called her. She yielded to that allurement and followed the pathway of sin. She is alive today, in another city. If I speak to her, there is a brazenness of front that brings the tears to my eyes because I know. There is a haughtiness of expression and dare that says to me frankly, — yes, you know and I know, but I do not care, — when away down in her soul she does care. She has crucified her Saviour and lib- erated her murderer and is going straight to her own death. It is characteristic of so many thousands of men and women this day, as it has been in the days which are gone. The Case of Personal Choices. Take a story from the chapter read. Nico- demus must choose. Shall it be the Sanhedrin or Christ? Shall it be worldly position or eternal truth? If that stranger from the other world still sat here, and I had the privilege of asking him another question, I would say, ' * Sir, let me give you a second proposition. Here is my worldly position. I think I am right in that position. I try to live up to the light I have. I am, how- ever, wise enough to know that my brain can- not compass all the eternal hinterlands of truth. As far as I can see, 1 am doing right, but I know there is an infinite knowledge beyond me. [137] God Translated I am proud of my life and attainments. I want to live true to my tasks. Now here comes a man who can lead me out into those hinter- lands of truth. I know new life will open. But my present living will then seem narrow. I shall have to move out into wider fields. I shall have to leave this business. I shall have to leave behind many friends. If I become a follower of this man, I know I must grow away from much that I now love. Y/hich shall I choose, — my own littleness or his bigness?" I think the stranger would answer me in- stantly, "Sir, to state your proposition is to answer it. No man, in his right mind, will stay by his littleness, his narrowness, his small con- ception of things, when he shall find a friend who can lead him out into the infinite spaces of life." "Yes, sir," I answer; "but suppose follow- ing in that new life means that my enemies shall turn against me and my very position be in jeopardy?" "Well," would respond this stranger, not knowing our characteristics, "to have the truth in the largest way is worth more than position, or society, or houses, or lands, or anything else under the blue dome of God's heavens. Always accept the new truth, when it is found to be truth, and of course accept the eternal friend- ship, for eternal friendship is lasting while temporary friendship passes. In other words, [138] A Gamble for a Coat always accept the eternal rather than the temporal. ' ' Nicodemus, the great Jewish scholar and member of the Sanhedrin, came to Jesus by- night that he might have opportunity for an unbroken conversation with this young prophet from Nazareth. He was prepared to argue. He was prepared to agree with this virile young prophet, as well as disagree. He was prepared to caution this young man against extreme views, but, at the same time, reveal his own passion for real truth. It did not take a man like Nicodemus very long, however, to discover that he was dealing with a new type of life and truth. As he talked that night with Jesus, vast vistas of new life opened before him. Old truths gained new meanings. Old beliefs must be reshaped. If he would be true to himself, he must move out into larger intellectual expe- riences. Nicodemus went away from the con- versation that night to think it through. A year passed, possibly two years go by, but still Nicodemus thinks and waits and compromises. Oh, how many evenings he might have enjoyed with Jesus ! How many of those rich and rare conversations he might have had! What en- largement to his own life and his own visions, what enrichment of his own thought and his own personality, — but he waits and compro- mises. Quickly, Nicodemus, or it will be too late! At last, a crisis has come. The hatred of his [139] God Translated people has martyred the young prophet. Christ is dead, and the sun is setting on the day of that fierce crucifixion. Now, as the shadows begin to gather, comes Kicodemus with a hundred pounds of aloes and myrrh to embalm the dead body of him who might have been his personal and everlasting friend. To me, one of the sad- dest pictures in all the Bible is Nicodemus coming with his spices to embalm the dead body, when Nicodemus might have had a living and eternal friend who would have widened and broadened his life to the richest and rarest that human nature might know. What do you think were the feelings of Nico- demus that night when he went back to his cul- tured and lovely home f The shadows hung over Judea, and the Syrian stars were looking down in all their beauty. What were the emotions of Nicodemus that night when he thought of his losses, — of his infinite, infinite losses ? Friends, make no mistake. Our re-action against some of the old doctrines of the past carry us far beyond the doctrines which really are. There come times when we simply pass beyond, and you never can recall what has gone by. Nico- demus could now have no more than the dead body of Christ. He could not have even that. What were his feelings? A dead body instead of a life-long friend ! Think of it ! What hours of conversation he might have enjoyed! How Christ would have enriched his life, opening doors into infinite truth! Now he has a dead [140] A Gamble for a Coat body only, and a hundred pounds of spices. After the burial, he has a dead body embalmed. He might have had a living friend enthroned. Ah, Nicodemus, it was the Sanhedrin or Christ ! You chose the Sanhedrin and lost, — eternally lost. What must be the thoughts of so many men and women, when suddenly they turn to behold their wreck and ruin, where might have been strength and gladness. I have in mind a man, fine, strong, noble, who blindly, weakly, tracks his way to his own destruction. Some hour he will stop, will look back over the pathway, will sense for a moment, at least, all the unutterable loss which has come to him. It may be with a sigh : it may be with a bitter wail, he shall cry out, ' ' Oh, that I had taken the other road ! Oh, that I had lived the life that was true ! ' ' I think of Edgar Allan Poe, who sat in his room that night, debating with his own con- science, and realizing the wrong of the past. Suddenly he heard a "tapping, as of some one gently rapping.' ' He opens the door, and a bird, a raven — his own conscience — comes in to sit on the bust of Pallas just over his chamber door. Poe draws his chair up close under where the light falls on that strange thing he calls a raven, and then he begins to talk to it, — 'tis his own soul. " 'Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou/ I said, 'art sure no craven, Ghastly, grim, and ancient Eaven, wandering from the nightly shore. [141] God Translated Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore ! ' Quoth the Raven, ' Nevermore. ' " 'Prophet!' cried I, 'thing of evil! — prophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above us, — by that God we both adore, — Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Leonore. ' Quoth the Eaven, 'Nevermore.' " Ah, "Whittier was right — was right — was right. "Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, — it might have been." That is hell. Dante and Milton are children picturing a hell, beside this one. Oh! when that man wakes up, as will thou- sands of others, in the morning, or at the noon, or in the night-time, to look back over the wreck and ruin wrought, then must come that blister- ing, blighting call, the only call that makes devils wince, — it might have been: it might have been, but it can be no more. Destiny for Dollars. Suppose, once more, I approached my stranger, saying to him, l ' Sir, one more propo- sition, a last one. Answer me truly. Our earthly life has a span of three-score years and ten. After that span of years, and a few more that may be added, we pass from this environ- ment, out of this physical body, into a larger environment of the spiritual body. So far as any revelations have been made to us here, the [ 142 ] A Gamble for a Coat conditions of that other life are controlled by our attitudes, and actions, and beliefs in this life. Now I have set before a young man two propositions. The one is that he shall earn money, build up a fortune, use that for self- gratification, give himself over to the physical and mental enjoyment of these three-score years and ten, making no plan for the future or taking no account of it. The other proposi- tion is that he shall make fortunes, if the power is resident in him, but he shall use his dollars to contribute to a more glorious destiny when this brief span of life is over. He shall live in this life to prepare himself, not only for the finest and best that this life can afford, but for the shaping of his eternal destiny in that life to which he hastens. Which, sir, shall be wis- dom's path for this young man to travel V 9 I think the stranger would answer, i ' Sir, the very setting of your questions answers them. No man, in his right mind, will sacrifice his destiny for dollars. No one, in his right mind, using the brain God has given him, will make his own body the grave-yard of his soul and limit to three-score years and ten gratifications which God means shall endure forever and ever in righteous living. The only path of wisdom for your young man to travel is to take this life in which he finds himself, gain from it all the finest and best things that it can afford, always making them contribute to that higher destiny into which he goes. ' ' [143] God Translated But, oh! strange perversity of human life. With all its wisdom given to reveal the right pathway, here comes the thoughtless boy, say- ing to his father, i ' Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me," and lie divided unto him his living. Not many days after, the young man, gathering all his possessions to- gether, goes away into the far country, and there wastes his substance in riotous living. Said a man to me sometime since, "0 well, sir, I will take my chance on the next world.' ' Chance! There are no chances with God and the next world. A man sits on a powder keg lighting matches. I cry to him, "Look out! Be careful !" "Oh, I'll take my chance," he cries, and carelessly lets a lighted match fall into the powder keg. Fool ! There is no chance with a lighted match and a powder keg ! A man says, "I live as I please here and take my chance with God hereafter." Fool! There is no chance to be taken with God. The answer to your folly is your destruction. It is the answer of God Himself, i ' The soul that sinneth, it shall die." You cannot take chances with that eternal law. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. ' ' There are no chances with God. He made the way so plain that a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. Serve God and live! Sin and die! There is no chance to be taken. Eternal life is at stake. You must accept Jesus Christ to gain eternal salvation. If this [144] A Gamble for a Coat were my opinion, you could doubt it and take a chance, but I disavow any responsibility for the opinion. It is not mine. I am no authority for it. I am but the mouth-piece of it. Aye, I quote the message itself, recorded in John 3 :16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. " There are no chances here. "Whoso- ever believeth on me shall not perish: whoso- ever refuseth me must perish.' ' There are no chances here. Yet men and women gamble their destinies for dollars, and throw the insults of their sin- burnt lives into the face of God Almighty, and cry for the drop of water to cool their awful thirsts. Yet men and women gamble their des- tinies for dollars and stake all upon the throw for mere physical garments or decoration, while heaven looks on in open-eyed wonder and earth trembles in fear, and the Saviour of the world is dying upon the cross. Come back again to the scene of the text. Yonder they hang on the three crosses. Jesus hangs in the midst. That is where we would look for him. When he was walking about the earth, he was in the midst of sorrow, and suf- fering, and at the wedding feast he was the center of its joy. He was always in the midst, and we would look for him there, even in death. But, over yonder, under the shadow of that great stone, shadowed from the heat, sit those [145] God Translated four soldiers gambling. Heaven is looking down and the angels are weeping. Earth is trembling, and already begins to draw her cur- tains of darkness that the face of God might not see the suffering of His Eternal Son. But They Gamble for a Coat! More eyes shall turn to that cross than the generations of men can count, and more tears of gratitude shall flow than the vials of God can contain, and yet they sit yonder by that stone gambling. For a coat they gamble, while the Son of God is dying for the sins of the world. Over yonder today, around their gaming tables in Brockton, are young men gambling away their destinies while empires are totter- ing, while the blood of nations cry out, while heathen darkness grows thicker and millions die in sin. But here stands the Christ. Calmly he looks down upon us. He says, "I have provided a way to life. Enter ye in by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction : for narrow is the gate, and straightened the way, that leadeth unto life. Everyone that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them shall be likened unto a wise man who built his house upon the rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house : [146] A Gamble for a Coat and it fell not, for it was founded upon the rock." All the giant forces of the centuries shall never move that soul whose life is founded on Jesus Christ. ' ' The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose He will not, he will not desert to his foes: That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, He'll never, no never, no never forsake." "Everyone that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand : and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and smote upon that house : and it fell: and great was the fall thereof." Sit down and gamble for a coat, for dollars, for place, while these eternal destinies wait! Gamble while the hours go by, and the dark- ness gathers, and the day is done ! Then stand in the chilly gloom that falls, and cry, — "Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill! Late, late, so late! but we can enter still. Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now. "No light: so late! and dark and chill the night! O let us in, that we may find the light! Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now. ' ' But I would not leave you there this morn- ing. Tense as the situation may be, here stands the Christ still. He reaches out his arms to you in this congregation, uttering the words of the great old Book, " Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow : though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool, [147] God Translated for the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. ' ' There are no chances. Accept Jesus Christ and live. Reject Jesus Christ and die, for this is the eternal plan of God. Kneel before him. Receive his forgiveness and cleansing. Then rise up and walk, going your way to eternal life. [148] IX DEATH DEFEATED 'Death is swallowed up in victory." — 1 Cor. 15:54. IX DEATH DEFEATED Paul, the Apostle, based his belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ upon two facts, — first, his own sight : second, his own experience. He confirmed his sight by applying to all those who had seen or known Jesus Christ be- fore and after his resurrection. He discovered that there were about five hundred people who saw him both before and after his resurrection : there were eleven disciples, and there was him- self, — making a total of five hundred and twelve people who knew Christ before his death, knew of his death, and knew him after his resurrec- tion from the dead. Now, the sworn testimony of five hundred and twelve people is evidence enough. Paul considered the fact established. He confirmed his own experience by examin- ing the experiences of others. He was a changed man. His name was formerly Saul. That a power had come into his life and changed him from Saul the bigoted, the ego- tistic, the haughty, the persecuting, the blas- phemous Saul of Tarsus into Paul the right- eous, the daring, the triumphant preacher to the Gentile world, was a fact that Paul could [151] God Translated not gainsay. He knew the change that had taken place in his own life. But that was not enough. He must examine other lives to dis- cover if a similar change had taken place in them. So he went about the world asking here and there from men and women if their lives had been changed because of the Christ who had come to them. He looked at Peter. Peter's name had been changed as well as his life. Before Peter knew Jesus Christ he was a restless, unstable, shift- less sort of a man. You could put no reliance upon him. He was forever changing his mind. He had no great moral purposes. He did not propose to do anything in the world. He could not. He was simply a rough and ready fisher- man. But after Jesus Christ came into his life, he became a mental and moral giant. That old shiftlessness was gone. That strange fear of the public was banished. His became the great- est voice among the Apostles for preaching the story of the blessed Son of Grod. Peter's life had been even more marvelously changed than the life of Paul. Paul looked at the life of John. John was a quick-tempered, unrestrained, passionate youth, — one of those fighting fishermen always in a brawl, but John was changed. He went through the list of the disciples. They were all changed men. He examined the lives of hundreds, and he discovered that wherever the life of Jesus Christ had come into the lives of men and [152] Death Defeated women, they were changed, as he had been changed. So, he confirmed his own experiences. When Paul put the two together, his knowl- edge, backed up by the sworn testimony of five hundred and twelve people, and his experience, backed up by the experiences of an equal num- ber of people, certainly Paul had a right to ex- claim, ' ' I know whom I have believed : I know Jesus Christ.' ' If a man cannot base his convictions on such evidence as his knowledge and his experience corroborated by a large number of people with similar knowledge and experience, then there is no foundation for any fact in the world. All our knowledge is so based. That is a founda- tion that cannot be shaken down. There is no man living today who will openly, frankly, and without any bias whatever, take the story of the life of Jesus Christ as written by John, and the Book of the Acts of the Apostles as written by Luke, read how the Christ came, what he did, how his life changed lives in the first years of the Christian ministry, follow honestly down through the years to discover that same power at work changing men and women, who will not be convinced that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came, gave his life, rose from the dead, broke the bars of death, and gave freedom to men. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the most momentous fact that ever came into human history. His was a beautiful and wonderful birth. The angels wandered through [153] God Translated the door-way of heaven and sang out their song to listening worlds. But we were born and angels sang, for the smile on the face and the note in the voice of a mother is a music that would make all the choirs of heaven blush. Angel mothers sang when every one of us were born, and it was sweeter music than angel choirs ever knew. His life was challenging. He uttered many revolutionary things, and led people to do many wonderful deeds. We, too, must live on and attain if we would gain something of his moral grandeur. We live and must live. His death was terrible. The agony in Geth- semane and the suffering on the cross was of the most acute kind, for the finer the nervous sensibility, the more awful is the suffering. But millions of people live and have their Geth- semane and die on their own crosses. Millions of people have suffered as great physical agony as did Jesus Christ. Now, if that were all, — his birth, his work, his death, — great as it all is, it would yet be little. He would be but as one among the great multitude of human beings. We know we are born ; we live ; we work ; we die. Is that all ? Is that all Jesus did? Around this little island of time I wander, finding the illimitable sea about me, and discovering no way off. Time, time, eternity, eternity, illimitable spaces, il- limitable spaces! What is it! What is it all? What does it all mean? [154] Death Defeated The Easter season comes to answer the pro- foundest longings of the human heart. Easter answers the world's doubt and the world's despair. Jesus Christ was born, and lived, and grew, and died: but death had no power over him. He broke the bars of death. He came back to this world as he left it, which simply proves that what has been called death is not death at all. I wander around my little island as before, but the boats are sailing away on the tide, and I know they are bound for the home- land. You may keep me here so long as there are tasks for me to perform, so long as God desires my voice and my life. But the moment God speaks, you cannot keep me here, for my boat will come for me, and I shall go out from my island home of time to the great continent yonder, just beyond the horizon line, to be forever in the eternal homeland. Let us turn to this chapter from which our morning lesson has been taken to ask very critically the meaning of the great writer, and find, if we may, the deeper meaning of the Easter season. Jesus Christ Arose from the Dead. As we have said, Paul the Apostle had two great proofs, — his own sight and his own expe- rience, backed up by the knowledge and the ex- perience of others. Paul knew, and everywhere his voice rings with assurance. [155] God Translated Only one of those proofs is available for ns today. There is no one living who has seen Jesus Christ in his physical form. We do not, indeed, need such testimony now. "The ladder rung the foot has left may fall, since all things change save God and truth." I would not look a moment at a person who declared he had seen Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such testimony is absolutely worthless now. But we challenge the second proof. Has Jesus Christ still the power to change human life f Has he the power to enter into a man all sin-sick, cursed with habits that destroy, and change him into a clean, strong, righteous man? Yes, he has. There are men and women in this church to whom Jesus Christ has come and absolutely changed them. Simon, the fisherman who was always like the sands of the sea or the change of the winds, coming over into Peter, that mighty man who preached at Pentecost, never had a greater change than some of you men and women have had because the life of Jesus Christ has come into your lives. There is a body of testimony in this church this morn- ing big enough to stand as a foundation upon which the faith of the world could be built. Why! look at those disciples! Six weeks after Peter had so basely and blasphemously denied Jesus Christ — but six weeks after — he was one of the greatest preachers of his age. Everywhere he went the tread of his foot was dreaded. There was something strange about [156] Death Defeated his personality. Six weeks after the death of Jesus Christ those eleven disciples were walk- ing about the world like monarchs, and whereas Sanhedrin and Ecclesiastical courts had been brazen before, they shrink away from them now in all the fear of conquered evil. What changed them? What changed those disciples? A dream? A vision? A hypnotic suggestion? No ! They had met Jesus Christ. They were possessed of the Holy Ghost. They were, every one of them, incarnate Christs, and where be- fore there had been but one Christ, now he was being multiplied by the hundreds, by the thousands. Why, look at that change ! Peter, on the Day of Pentecost, is as superior to Peter in Pilate's courtyard, as a strong man is superior to a crippled child. Peter had risen with Christ unto Christ. It was a prodigious climb that carried the sleeper of Gethsemane and the coward in the high priest's court up to the thunderer at Pentecost and the winner of three thousand souls for his Master. It was a long way up from Simon, whose Galilean brogue betrayed him, to Peter whose eloquence brought glory to Galilee. It is a marvelous power that has awakened so many thousands from the lower conditions of life in which they found themselves, so that they have flung off their grave clothes and put on the regal splendor of Jesus Christ, and gone up and down the world, — converted gamblers, [157] God Translated converted base-ball players, converted drunk- ards, converted harlots, — everywhere preach- ing the name and fame of Jesus Christ, and winning men and women by the thousands to an acknowledgment of him. But Some Men Will Say, — How Are the Bead Raised Up, and with What Body Bo They Comet For asking such a question as that, Paul ex- claimed, "Thou fool!" Then he proceeds to tell how the dead are raised, and why a man is a fool for asking such a question. He takes an illustration from the farm. A seed has three separate parts, corresponding to the trinity in us. We are body, mind, and spirit. The seed is shell, or body ; kernel, or brain matter ; life, or spirit. In other words, the seed is body, brain and spirit. Plant that seed. Ere long a green shoot comes pushing its way up through the dark earth, grows into the sunlight and upper air, becomes a tree, puts forth its blos- soms of wonderful fragrance, and soon luscious fruit hangs from its branches. The seed you planted did not come up as a seed. The life, or spirit, in that seed pushed its way up through, eating up the kernel or brain part of the seed, and bringing all the seed with it into a transformed state. All the seed came up, but not as a seed. It came up a new life, that life fed by the seed itself. [158] Death Defeated I might take the illustration more closely from the history of the bean. You plant beans in the ground. Ere long that green shoot will be coming up, but, strangely enough, on the top of that green shoot is the shell of the bean it- self. I am reminded of a retired Scotch min- ister, who did not understand gardening. He planted some rows of beans in his garden. To his utter amazement and confusion, one morn- ing when he went to view his garden, he dis- covered that the beans themselves were all up in the air on the top of the green shoots. He instantly pulled them all up, and put them down in the ground again, thinking he had planted the beans wrong side up! You discover, — he didn't know beans ! The bean shoot brings the shell of the bean with it, and then drops it off as much as to say to the bean itself, — You never dreamed what a new life was, and that is why we bring you up that you may see the sunshine and the airs above. "So," says Paul, "is the resurrection of the dead." We are physical, mental, spiritual. Permit me to keep the old word Paul uses that we may follow exactly his reasoning. We have the physical body, or the clay. We have the mental body, or the psychic. We have the spir- itual body, or the pneumatic. There is, Paul says, a natural or psychic body, and there is a spiritual or pneumatic body. We know that to be true. We know we have our physical bodies. We know we have our mental bodies. It is [159] God Translated when we come to that last and finest grade that so many are found wanting in knowledge. They fail to understand that the greatest part is the spiritual or pneumatic. Now along comes this something we call " death.' ' What is it? We plant the seed in the ground and life brings that seed in trans- formed being to live above the ground. We plant the human body in the ground, and that same body does not grow up any more than does the same seed grow up. As the seed appears in the life of the tree, so our natural or psychic body appears in the spiritual or pneumatic. It is sown a psychic or natural body. It grows up a pneumatic or spiritual body. It is sown in dishonor, — that is, coarse, weighted, corruptible. It is raised in glory, — that is, free, unhampered, incorruptible. It is changed from the old and the coarse into the new and the fine. Let me illustrate. I stand by the door of one of those great mills at Niagara Falls. I watch men bring in salt, sand, and sawdust, and throw them into a bin placed there to receive them. The three are mixed and absorbed. From the other side of the machine, I watch men carry- ing away carborundum, a material used instead of emery for sharpening tools. Now, all that was put into that machine was salt, sand, and sawdust : all that came out of that machine was carborundum, — a different product entirely. How is it done ? A current of electricity fused the three separate substances into a new [160] Death Defeated product. The old was changed into the new. "So also," says Paul, "is the resurrection from the dead." It has been taken a natural body: it has arisen a transformed, glorified body. Death, Then, Is Defeated. It was an awful battle ! In Scott's "Ivanhoe," you recall that fearful storming of the Castle Torquilstone. You re- member how Ivanhoe, wounded and a prisoner, watches the battle and especially the bravery of the Black Knight, as Eebecca, the Jewess, reports it to him while she looks out on the fearful scene. One can see the shower of ar- rows, can hear the thunderous strokes of the battle axes, the falling of the towers, the groans of the wounded and dying, but one 's soul glows with glory at the triumph of righteous arms and the defeat of those base marauders. History is full of fearful struggles for vic- tory. What sieges have been endured by what heroic souls! Sebastopol! Port Arthur! Przemysl ! But, take this scene from the Bible where the greatest battle was fought, and the greatest victory won that ever shall be known for time or for eternity. Jesus Christ hung there on the cross. Surely, he is defeated. Surely, death is victorious. Note the struggle. It is not the sound of the guns, the roar of the artillery, the shout of hosts, but it is a greater battle in awful silences. [161] God Translated See ! Though midday, the sun begins to darken. A strange yellow light creeps over the earth, followed by a darker shade, mingled with the purple and the gray, and then the black, — an awful light in which men look into men's faces and shudder in terror. Look! The lightning zigzags down the sky. The roar of the distant thunder increases, and far among the moun- tains, giant rocks are loosened and come crash- ing down to the valleys below. Thunder, light- ning, darkness! Nature is shuddering. The earth trembles. Why, even the graves are torn open. All this is an indication of the violent emotions in the spiritual world. Imagination opens for us that strange scene. Devils had gloated in the defeat of Jesus Christ. They jeered, as those Germans jeered the other day while they fired their cannon balls into the midst of helpless women and men struggling in the icy waters of the North Sea. Jeering at them, I say, and laughing, while they sank to their death, but those devils were to be taught a lesson, as these modern devils ere long will be. Defeated? Nay! Upon the cross he hung. All the fury of the nether world and the con- centrated hate of evil and passion was f ocussed to tear him to pieces, and they jeered and laughed in glee, as he cried out in his agony, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani V ' Then he bowed his head and gave up himself, but he gave up himself as a mighty victor. The sol- diers and those who stood by saw only the dead [162] Death Defeated body hanging on the cross. But down from that cross came the triumphant Jesus, and with scourges a thousand times more real than the ropes he had taken in the temple, he drove those shrieking demons to their dens in the nether world. He seized death, howling with rage, and tore him into atoms and flung him helpless into the endless abyss, and he is falling yet, shriek- ing in his fall. Then came the Christ as victor, and death had been defeated. 1 ' death, where is thy sting? ' ' Ask it of the seed, and the seed answers, — there is no sting. 6 ' grave, where is thy victory ? ' ' Ask it of the seed, and the seed answers, — there is no vic- tory. Death and the grave to the seed have been the kindest of friends, allowing the seed to germinate and come up into its new world where the sun shines, and the birds fly, and the wind sings, and life is beautiful. So will be that life beyond the grave, where the birds sing, and the sun shines, and the sky is blue, and love never dies, and human tears never trickle down human faces. So, also, has death been destroyed and defeated, and life and immor- tality has been brought to light through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That old power of death has been everywhere in the world seeking to fulfill its mission. Death sat enthroned in the wine cup. Great social and economic forces defied the death cries of home, and manhood, and womanhood. The battle of battles in this land was going [163] God Translated on, now succeeding, now losing. Then came this great war, and God saw to it that it was a war for infinitely more than the Germans in- tended it when they declared war. Eussia saw that if she would be successful, the wine cup must be destroyed, and the Czar of the Russians destroyed it with a stroke of his pen, though he took millions from his treasury. France, strug- gling in her death throe saw that if she would be victorious, the wine cup must be broken, and she broke it. England, with her brewers sit- ting in the House of Lords and defying every moral reform, — England, in her Gethsemane, sweating blood, wrinkled, haggard, is saying, — The wine cup must be broken ere England can be victorious, and the King, and Kitchener, and Lloyd George, and the nation dashes it on the rocks that surround their little island and it is broken. If this great war should do nothing more than bring the attention of the world to the awful infamy of the liquor traffic, every man who dies in the trenches, and every woman who weeps out her life, and every child that pleads in its orphan home will have paid a fitting ransom. Death sat enthroned in racial pride and wealth. To one land it grows more bitter. The contemptible iniquities inflicted on the black people of this nation cry out to heaven, and the American nation is preparing a more awful cataclysm than that of the Civil War, because of her inhuman treatment of the black [164] Death Defeated men struggling for their newer liberty. It was true in the old world, but along came this war, — and look! Racial pride and prejudice have vanished! Russian, Indian, Englishman, Negro, Frenchman, Canadian, Australian, New Zealander, Japanese, — all side by side, bivouacing on the same fields, fighting in the same trenches, charging with the same shouts, against a common enemy. Why, race prejudice has been broken from the allied nations, and Germany who jeered at the calling of these races finds herself slowly strangled by the strange powers that she never dreamed would awaken in human breasts. Death has always stood en- throned in human doubt, but human doubt is now defeated. Who doubts when the Easter message speaks! He but reveals the lack of his own thinking. Death was defeated. The battle was for eternal supremacy. When Jesus Christ on the cross cried, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me," it was as many a prayer that is going up today. But it was not the prayer of defeat : it was the challenge to victory. ' ' Death could not keep his prey, Jesus, my Saviour: He tore the bars away, Jesus, my Lord." Death has no more dominion. He led captivity captive, and brought freedom to men. We are told of a captive soldier who suddenly got a line with his rifle on his three captors. Speaking [165] God Translated calmly, lie said, "Make a move, and you die," and they knew death was in their slightest movement. He commanded, ' ' Drop your hands by your side when I speak three," and their hands went down. Then the captive led his captors into captivity. That is what Jesus Christ did. He led captivity captive; he destroyed death; and he brought life and im- mortality to light, and gave manhood its eternal freedom. As we have said, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most momentous event of all time and all eternity. Others pass into death and disappear. Christ reappears and is alive. Others leave the world and leave lonely hearts that have here lived and loved with them. Christ came back to the world and to the hearts with whom he had lived and loved. Others, so far as we know, when they leave this world, have nothing to do longer with this world, but Christ has all to do with this world, and is dwelling in the hearts and lives of millions. He is here. He is in the world. Come out to the cemetery and sing. Come into the homes where sorrow has been and sing. Come, let your gladness be real today, for "death is swallowed up in victory. ' ' 1 ' Go, hush thee in Zion the dirge of the weeper : Bestrew not his grave with thy cypress and rue, Nor with aloes and myrrh enfold Calvary's sleeper, For the day-star has risen ! Strike the anthem anew ! [166] Death Defeated 1 1 He speaks, — and the morning stars gather to listen : He smiles, — and the flocks upon Carmel rejoice: Eabboni! Oh, well may human eyes glisten At sound of that tender, compassionate Voice ! ' ' "She turned herself back, supposing him to be the gardener, and said unto him, — If thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him that I may take him away. He saith unto her, — Mary. She turned herself quickly, cry- ing, — Rabboni ! Eabboni ! ' ' for her Christ, and ours, was alive. [167] X THE WAITING BREAKFAST "Jesus saith unto them, — Come and break your fast. 1 * — John 21 : 12. (Our translators were afraid to say that in good modern English. It is really, — "Come to breakfast," — but in order to get it a little more in the biblical tone they say, — "Come and break your fast." It is our plain, ordinary English ex- pression, — come to breakfast.) THE WAITING BKEAKFAST A group of the disciples stood once more on the old hills in Galilee looking out over the lake and over the surrounding country. Two of them, a little detached from the group, stood speaking nothing ; then one turned to the other saying, "Well, John, at last we are back to the old land. The hills never looked so beautiful to me before. I see the old lake sparkling yon- der in the sunshine, though I see it through the mist of the tears that gather. Some way the horizon lines on the opposite shore of the lake, so blue, so dim, so far, have in them a call of mystery, — something like the mystical voice of that young Master who appeared to us one day on these very shores, saying, "Come ye after me and I will make you fishers of men.' You remember, John, and how we left our nets, our boats, our fishing, all we had been trained to from youth, and followed that mysterious voice of that wonderful stranger.' ' For these three years had been remarkable and wonderful years to these men who formerly were fishermen and now were going back to their old trade. Remarkable years, I say, they had been, for he had led them from their nar- row surroundings, their provincial life, out into [171] God Translated a broader and wider world. When their eyes were dull, he pointed out what he would have them see. They had beheld sickness, sorrow, and the burdens of their generation such as they never could have seen had they remained around their little lake to carry out their life's work. When they had not seen the oppression of the Eoman power that was crushing the very life from their nation, he pointed it out to them very clearly and awakened in them a new patriotism, while they sensed a new world mis- sion for their nation. Fine men, men of large vision, men of great influence, they had come in contact, as well as in close association, with him, the world's Master to whom all things were open. All this travel, this association, this mingling with people had cultured and culti- vated these rough young fishermen until they had become, not strangely, educated men. So, as they stand here this morning, they are dif- ferent men, — cultured, cultivated, broadened men. They look back in wonder at those three brief years, to the hour when he first appeared on the shores of Galilee and called them into that new life, and forward to those new and wonderful tasks. Are they the same men? John looks up at Peter, saying, " Peter, I have been looking over my life. I am not the same person, and yet I am the same. I looked into the mirror to see my face, but I have gone away to forget what kind of a presence I was. I have the same boyish impulses, but I am dif- [172] The Waiting Breakfast ferent, Peter. I do not understand it." And then there came back the memory of that last week down there at Jerusalem. They had staked everything on following their young Master. Then, they had seen cruel hands ar- rest him, take him, carry him away. They heard those foul men swear away his life with fearful blasphemy. They saw him nailed to the cross. They saw him die. They saw him put in the tomb. They saw the seal set. They saw their hopes die. Yes, but strangest of all, they had seen him come back from that death and talk with them again. He was the same when he spoke or performed some characteristic act, yet he was not the same. They never knew him until he spoke to them. He seemed to come in through closed doors. He seemed to appear suddenly when least expected. But he came and talked with them. What shall they do now? A whisper, "Back to Galilee," so back to Galilee they had gone, and this morning they find themselves on the shore of the old lake, wondering. Peter looks at John, "Well, John, it is no use. We did the right thing as we thought, but the old life is gone, and all our dreams have died. Yet, after all, there is something about it that stirs me to my depths. However, we cannot stand here doing nothing. I go a-fish- ing. ' ' John looks at him. * ' I will go with you. ' ' The others heard and answered, "We also go with thee." [173] God Translated There is life in activity when one grips the old things of the years gone by. Once more they make ready their boats and nets, and, with the coming of evening, they row away. They could not fish during the day for the waters are too clear. Their hands stiffen on the oars. They feel the lift of the sea. The breezes from off the hills fan and cool them. Here are the old fishing grounds, and out go their nets. They are fishermen once more. Their dreams have died behind them. ' l Cast after cast, by force or guile All waters must be tried." But, "that night they took nothing." I think I can feel the spirit of those men run down as the hours go by. They have lost their cunning. They have lost their markings on the shore. They cannot find the fishing grounds. When the morning breaks, without a word — for men like those do not use extra words at such hours — they quietly pull in their nets, bend to the oars and pull for the shore. As they come through the mist and the land looms up, there is a stranger standing on the shore. He puts his hand to his mouth and calls, "Have ye aught to eat!" And they answer, ' i No. ' ' Ah, that word " no. ' ' Sometimes when I have heard it, I have thought of the despair- ing cry of countless generations. "Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not." [174] The Waiting Breakfast The generations have answered, "No — No. Nothing to eat. Toiled all night and taken nothing ! ' ' I watched two men come down the street this morning, and knew them well. There was no thought of the Sabbath. There was no thought of the church. There was no thought of God. I said to myself, as I saw them pass, "Forty years and more of their life is now gone; an- other forty years and they will be beyond the reach of time. What will have been the use of this life to them? No food — nothing to pay them for their lifetime of fishing. ,, But it was the Christ who stood on the shore, and they knew him not. "Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and ye shall find," he called. Keen-eyed stranger is he! Had he seen the school of fish breaking on the surface? Did he know? Out go the nets. A deep sag is felt and yet a yielding. They know the feel. It is a net full of fishes ! A whisper goes through the boat, "It is the Lord." Then Peter snatches his great coat and thrusts it around him, throwing himself into the water that he might more quickly get to land. The others hasten to pull in that great load of fish. First, they count their fish, — only fishermen would have done it. A hundred and fifty and three ! When their nets were all up on the sand and the boats made fast, then hunger asserted it- self. We forget to be hungry when we are under excitement. When the excitement dies [175] God Translated down, then the physical makes its demand. Jesus, waiting for that moment, said, "Come to breakfast,' ' and they looked to see a little fire on the shore with some fish and bread cook- ing. Breakfast is ready for those tired, hungry fishermen who had been out all night and had taken nothing, until the catch of the morning had requited them for all the night of toil. Men and women, you may live to be fifty, sixty, seventy, or eighty years of age and toil all your life up to that hour without success, but if God will enable you even then to bring souls to Him that shall serve in the Kingdom of God, it will pay you for all your life's toil, all your life 's work. ' ' They that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever." Jesus Had Prepared the Meal. He had not cooked the fish they caught. "They see a fire of coals there and fish laid thereon and bread." Jesus had taken the fish himself. Somehow or other, food has never failed. The world has not gone hungry. The Lord God has been preparing His earth and granting food to His children in all these centuries, and He will go on preparing His earth and grant- ing food so long as His children here abide. "While the earth remaineth seed time and [176] The Waiting Breakfast harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night, shall not cease." Jesus had prepared the breakfast for them out of the fish which he himself caught. His invitation to them is an invitation to the hungry world. "Come to breakfast." "Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. ' ' "The spirit and the bride say, — come, and he that heareth let him say, — come, and he that is athirst, let him come, and he that will, let him eat of that breakfast which has been pre- pared by the Lord God for all His children. What an invitation to a hungry world ! But where are the fire and the food? Their eyes are fog-filled, these children of earth and clay. They cannot see the shore or the Master calling. But, breakfast is ready. Now, everyone who has ever eaten is thereby authorized to invite another to that breakfast. Let him that heareth say, — come, and whoso- ever hath eaten of that breakfast which the Lord has prepared for his children, let him give the invitation to another who is hungry and needy. We look to the churches to extend that invitation, but, alas, on how many altars are ritual and creed and other earth foods piled instead of the bread of life. Oh! Churches, Oh! Christians, let Christ prepare the meal. Hands off while he lays the fish and the bread! Then, call aloud to a hungry world and cheerfully give the eternal food that satisfies. [177] God Translated They Ate with Jesus. How many times they had done so ! I think the moment they sat down, they began to recall such other times. They remembered that after- noon as the sun was setting behind the moun- tains, when the little lad had come and pre- sented his five barley cakes and two small fishes, and Jesus had taken the bread and the fishes, held them in his hands, looked up to heaven, blessed them, and then, breaking them, gave to the disciples, and they to the multitude, until five thousand people were satisfied. I think they recalled that hour in the upper room when he took the bread, blessed it, brake it, and said, "Take, eat, this is my body; this do in remem- brance of me." How active would memory be as in silence they ate, by the shore this morning. There is an old promise in the Book of Rev- elation which says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with me." "I will come in and eat with the man, or the woman, who will give me an invitation. ' ' I have often said to you that our Lord, Jesus Christ, is a gentleman. He will not intrude in your home, he will not sit down at a meal at your table, he will not put his foot over the threshold of your door, unless you give him an invitation. Yet there are some [178] The Waiting Breakfast who go up and down the world saying, "If the Lord wants me, let him come and get me. If he wants me to be converted, let him come and convert me." The invitation is given to us. We accept or reject. God honors our per- sonality even though we make a fool's choice. There is a promise in the old Book that tells us we are to have a banquet with him in that other world, some day. Jesus seemed to be the same after his resurrection as before. The hint is that we are to be the same after our resurrection as before. We are to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of God, — and that means all the loved ones and friends, — to the great banquets that shall be prepared in the Kingdom of God. I sometimes try to picture to myself what heaven will be like. No sickness there! No sickness there! Think of it! All well! No sorrow there! Nobody's heart ever aches there! No bitter tears ever fall! No strange longings that call for the tears! No death there! No death there! No limitations there! Oh, how they cling to us, like ball and chain, to hold us, — these limitations of ours. All my life long I have desired that my hand might command the skill to carve in marble a living statue of my Lord, but I never can do it here. I have been too busy trying to do but "one thing." How often have I longed to sing. I have said, — ' ' Oh ! if I could lift my voice and interpret that which [179] God Translated cannot be interpreted by any speaking voice.' ' But I have been too busy trying to learn how to preach the Gospel. Whenever I have stood before a great painting, and my soul has stretched out to meet the genius of the painter, I have said, "Oh! that my hand had the skill, and my brain the training, to leave upon the canvas thoughts that might endure.' ' I shall never do it in this world. But when we get over into that other world, and the limitations are off, ah, then, what joy! Not one way only to tell of my love for him, but many ways. Not working, as here, day and night, with voice, and pen, and prayer, that I might in some way strike the wooing note that would lead men and women from their sins to their Saviour, but be able to chisel it, and sing it, and rhyme it, and preach it, and paint it, until my soul would at last express its perfect tribute to my Lord. Oh, what will heaven be like ! Did Kipling get a fore-gleam when he wrote, — "When Earth's last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried, When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died, We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it — lie down for an ason or two, Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew ! "And those that were good shall be happy: they shall sit in a golden chair; They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comets' hair; [180] The Waiting Breakfast They shall find real saints to draw from — Magdalene, Peter, and Paul; They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all! "And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame; And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame, But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star, Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are!" Sometimes I have imagined that great ban- queting room when all the hosts of glory were present. Through yon door Jesus Christ en- ters and that great host rises and shouts and cheers, and shouts again, and, then, as if by one impulse, they sing, — "All hail the power of Jesus' name, Let angels prostrate fall; Bring forth the royal diadem, And crown him Lord of alL "Crown him, ye martyrs of our God, Who from his altar call; Extol the stem of Jesse's rod, And crown him Lord of all. ' ' Sinners whose love can ne 'er forget The wormwood and the gall, Go, spread your trophies at his feet, And crown him Lord of all. ' ' We shall eat with him in the Kingdom of God. [181] God Translated They Ate of Christ. In the sixth chapter of John, Jesus had said, (< Iam the Bread of Life. I am the living bread which came down out of Heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. ' ' Who- soever eateth of this bread shall never hunger. Not that they would never hunger again, but, that having eaten of this bread, they would know it as the bread that would always satisfy. It is much like clear, cold water. "We may drink of all the concoctions man has ever mixed, but when we are thirsty, when we are dying of thirst, those concoctions never satisfy. We turn to the cold, clear water, and that satisfies, and we know that it alone was made to satisfy man ? s thirst. He that eateth of that bread shall understand that he is eating of that which will forever satisfy. "I tried the broken cistern, Lord, But, ah, its waters failed : E 'en as I stooped to drink, they fled And mocked me as I wailed. Now, none but Christ can satisfy, None other name for me: There is love, and life, and lasting joy, Lord Jesus, found in Thee." Eating of the Christ made men strong. It makes men strong today. After Peter, and John, and the rest of them, had eaten of that strength of Jesus Christ, how strong they be- came. What mighty moral and intellectual giants they were for the pulling down of the [182] The Waiting Breakfast strongholds of sin and the building up of those temples of the living God. All down these cen- turies, when men have eaten of that strength of the eternal Christ, they have gone out to defy kings, mock powers, level mountains, fill up the valleys, and make the way of the Lord straight that he might reign and rule whose right it is to reign and rule on earth and in heaven. When we have eaten of that Christ, how our strength has grown and our delight in life's conflicts increased. Blessed Christ, thy strength give us yet more and more. That eating also made them wise. Why, Christ knew more about their business than they did! They had failed as fishermen. He told them how to succeed. They did not know how they were to get money for their taxes. He told them how. They did not understand how they could feed that great multitude. He told them how to do it. He can tell you how to make shoes. He can tell you how to teach school. He can tell you how to run your busi- ness successfully. He is the .greatest sermon builder the world has ever known. Listen to these words of promise, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. ,, Jesus Christ is the storehouse of all wisdom. Oh, ye who lack, and wonder, and are weary, turn to him for that guidance which your temporal and eternal success demands. Our morning meditation completes the life [183] God Translated work of Christ as told by John the Evangelist. The lessons here taught are lessons eternal. We are almost afraid even to mention them to ourselves, but the lessons are here. Jesus Christ of the resurrection life is the same Christ of the earthly life. Jesus Christ of the resurrection life has the same interest in the common tasks and needs of his people. Jesus Christ in the resurrection life notes and cares for every need of his children in their common lives, and when we face that great word of promise that some day we are to be like him in his glorified life, then does it not follow that we shall be interested in the common life we have left behind, as he was interested in the common life he had left behind! What does it mean, this great hint, by that breakfast on the shore, but that ever and al- ways his eye is upon us and his care is over us, and he watches us truly. "Whenever I am tempted, Whenever clouds arise, When songs give place to sighing, When hope within me dies: I draw the closer to him, From care he sets me free : His eye is on the sparrow, And I know he cares for me. ' ' We gather about the table of our Lord this morning to eat with him while we eat of him. Calmly he sits with us today, — our host, and yet our guest. While we eat of this bread in emblem, may we eat spiritually of his strength. [184] Ctf«* * ii The Waiting Breakfast While we drink of this cup in emblem, may we drink of his life until there shall flow through our veins the life blood of the life-giving Christ. We shall eat with him in the Kingdom to come when these flesh veils are withdrawn, and we see eye to eye, and look into his face, and find his name written upon our foreheads. [185] Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: April 2006 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 1 1 1 Thomson Par* Drive Cranberry Township. PA 16066 .'724)779-2111