LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
The Library 
 of Congress 
 
 AFTWSTOMSdL 
 
 AND 
 
 SWEET COMFORT. 
 
 MESSAGES FOR THE YOUNG. 
 
 ( 
 
 By Rev. C. C. Albertson 
 
 ■ •■ -,=YRIGHr ■% 
 
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 yiemins 1b. IRevell Compang. 
 
 Chicago : New York : 
 
 148 and 150 madison street. | 12 bible house, astor place. 
 
 : : publishers of Evangelical literature. : :■ 
 
yo 
 
 ISA- 
 
 Entered according to act of Congreas in the year eighteen hundred 
 
 and ninety-one by Fleming H. Revell Company in the 
 
 office of the Librarian of Congress at 
 
 Washington. 
 
TO 
 
 THE YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN OF OUR LAND, IN 
 WHOM RESTS ALL THE HOPES OF CHURCH AND 
 STATE, THESE SERMONS ARE AFFECTIONATELY 
 DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR, WHOSE HEART 
 BEATS IN UNISON WITH THEIRS, AND YEARNS IN 
 SINCERE LOVE FOR THEIR SALVATION. 
 
 C. C. A. 
 
 January i, 1891. 
 
"Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, 
 while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when 
 thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them." — Solomon. 
 
INDEX. 
 I. 
 
 WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN? 7 
 
 II. 
 
 WHY SHOULD I BE A CHRISTIAN? 22 
 
 III. 
 
 WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 38 
 
 IV. 
 
 HOW MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? S7 
 
 V. 
 
 WHEN SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? .... 76 
 
 VI. 
 
 WHAT AFTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 93 
 
 VII. 
 THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE — THE COMING KING- 
 DOM 115 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN'S ULTIMATE REWARD — THE 
 
 CITY OF GOD 137 
 
COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN? 
 
 " And this is life eternal, that they might 
 know Thee } the only true God, and Jesus 
 Christ, whom thou hast sent. 11 — John xvii. j. 
 
 SEATED here to-night, silent while you 
 were singing, my thoughts have can- 
 vassed many a theme. I have asked 
 myself, For what are all these people here? 
 I am not sufficiently egotistic to persuade my- 
 self that you have come solely to hear the 
 minister. You are seeking something that 
 will help you, and do you good in life. That 
 you may not be disappointed in your quest, 
 I have prayed that He whose name is but an- 
 other form of "good" may grant you, accord- 
 ing to the riches of His grace, "exceeding 
 abundantly above all that you ask or think." 
 I have queried, too, For what purpose am I 
 here? Not to entertain. Not to amuse. Cer- 
 
 7 
 
COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 tainly not to court your favorable mention. 
 Rather, to speak the words that you have 
 come to hear. I will be happy if I may be 
 but the mouth-piece of my Master, able to 
 say, like Ehud of ancient ages, "I have a 
 message from God unto thee." Even if my 
 lips were dumb, I would delight to point with 
 mute but speechful motions to a hill-top of 
 history, whose summit bears a Roman cross, 
 on which there hangs the form of One, bleed- 
 ing and pleading — the form of Him, by whom, 
 "God, who at sundry times, and in divers 
 manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by 
 the prophets, hath spoken unto us" the words 
 we are dying to hear. 
 
 Said an eminent divine, who still preaches 
 to large multitudes across the sea: "The sole 
 purpose of all true preaching is the prepara- 
 tion of character for Heaven." Before me are 
 hundred of young men and women, whose spir- 
 itual welfare has been the burden of my morn- 
 ing, noontime, and evening prayers. And I am 
 not alone in my solicitude for you. There 
 are others, nearer to you than the minister 
 can be, whose prayers have risen, and whose 
 tears have fallen a thousand times in your be- 
 
WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN 9 
 
 half. Well I know that if the prayers of earth 
 are kept on record in the archives of eternity, 
 some time you may see a sacred book, on 
 every page, and in every line of which, your 
 names have been inscribed. Well I know 
 that if the ransomed souls in glory, whose 
 feet, once weary with the toilsome paths of 
 life, now touch the shining sands "which meet 
 the crystal sea with many a caress," if ever 
 angels plead before the throne in soulful song 
 or importunate petition, more than tongue 
 can tell, your names have been repeated by 
 those who once were yours, whose lips have 
 taken the sacrament of dust. 
 
 Now, to be perfectly candid, my only aim 
 in the series of sermons, of which this dis- 
 course is the first, is to persuade you who are 
 unsaved to give your lives and love to God, 
 and to start you in the King's Highway of 
 Holiness. At another time, I will ask you in 
 plainest language, Will you not become a 
 Christian? But before I address such a ques- 
 tion to you, or expect an answer, it is proper 
 that we should consider together what it means 
 to be a Christian, what preparation such an 
 
10 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 act involves, and what responsibilities, if any, 
 it entails. 
 
 That is a wise bit of advice embodied in the 
 old motto-proverb, "Count the cost." He is 
 inexcusably reckless, if not criminally care- 
 less, who engages in any important enterprise, 
 or takes any fateful step, without first weigh- 
 ing the matter in the balances of deliberate 
 judgment. Mr. Ruskinsays: "In nothing is 
 a gentleman better to be discerned from a 
 vulgar person than in this: his feelings and act- 
 ions are the just results of due contemplation 
 and of equal thought." If this be true, that it 
 is a mark of gentle breeding to enter hastily 
 into no undertaking, then let us show our- 
 selves gentlemen and gentlewomen, by decid- 
 ing advisedly, and discreetly, what shall be 
 our attitude toward Christianity. And be 
 assured that such a course of action is not only 
 prudent, and refined, but Scriptural, as well. 
 Like leaves on the velvet aisles of the autumn 
 forests, or, like stars, blossoming in the in- 
 finite meadows of midnight, so, liberally and 
 plentifully, over the pages of God's revealed 
 Word are scattered invitations to reason 
 about, ponder over, and weigh carefully the 
 
WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN? 11 
 
 doctrines of religion. "Come now, and let us 
 reason together. Think on these things; and 
 be ready always to give an answer to every 
 man that asketh you a reason." 
 
 When the Man of Galilee brushed the dew 
 from the Judean lilies, as He went about do- 
 ing good, and preaching the gospel of the 
 kingdom, He called around Him men whom 
 He afterward commissioned to go forth into 
 all the world as his ambassadors. But, be- 
 fore He admitted them to his discipliship, 
 and delegated to them authority as his repre- 
 sentatives, He impressed upon them the serious 
 fact that their work was to be no easy task, 
 no merry May-day picnic, no life of luxury 
 and delirious delight, but an earnest, painful, 
 and outwardly unattractive warfare. Just as, 
 in recent years, the liberator of Italy cried to 
 his gathering hosts, "Whosoever is in love 
 with cold, hunger, disease, and death, let him 
 come with me!" so the Nazarene set before 
 his friends the difficulties they were to meet. 
 "If any man will come after me, let him deny 
 himself, take up his cross daily and follow 
 me." And who was He, that they should 
 follow him? A king? He wore upon his 
 
1% COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 head no crown, upon his form no purple robe. 
 A rich man? He was penniless. Hospitable? 
 He had nowhere to lay his head. Yet, crown- 
 less, poor, and without a home, confessing 
 himself such, He said, "Follow me." Follow 
 him where? Everywhere — anywhere. "Down 
 
 in the valley, or upon the mountain steep." 
 Through direst poverty and persecution, or 
 
 up to sun-gleaming glory. "Are ye able to 
 
 drinkof the cup that I shall drink of?" You 
 
 see, He bade them count the cost before they 
 
 espoused his cause, lest some, having put 
 
 their hands to the plow, might look back. 
 
 Just as truly to-day as when the sands of 
 
 Galilee were fresh with his footsteps, and the 
 
 Temple's marble pavements echoed with his 
 
 tread, He is saying, "Follow me." Let us 
 
 reverently reflect before we make the choice. 
 
 "This is life eternal, that they might know 
 
 Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ 
 
 whom thou hast sent." It needs no critcial 
 
 exegesis, or subtle analysis of these words to 
 
 understand their meaning. A sublime truth 
 
 is declared in transparent Anglo-Saxon: to 
 
 be a Christian is to be acquainted with God. 
 
 That is to say, salvation is friendship with the 
 
WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN? 13 
 
 Eternal Father. "Acquaint now thyself there- 
 fore with the Lord, and be at peace." Then, 
 it may be asked, What does acquaintance 
 with God imply? To which I answer: 
 
 I. First, an introduction to God, by which 
 it is understood that sometime, somehow, 
 somewhere, the soul comes into the presence 
 of, and contact with, the Father; and whereas, 
 before, it knew of God, by having seen His 
 hand in nature, and His will in Providence, or 
 by having heard His name spoken, or His 
 grace extolled, now it knows Him, con- 
 sciously and personally, feels the pressure of 
 His guiding hand, the touch of His reconcil- 
 ing kiss, and the pulsation of His immaculate 
 heart. To know of God in his power to save 
 from the guilt, power, and love of sin, is a 
 precious boon. Myriads of earth's popula- 
 tion have lived and died, and have never heard 
 of Him to whom we pray; whose only con- 
 ceptions of Deity have been extravagant per- 
 sonifications of power and passion, as Jupiter, 
 Jove, Vishnu, Odin, and Thor; but how much 
 greater is the privilege of those whose ears 
 have been banqueted, not only by the "precious 
 name, O how sweet," but by the voice of the 
 
14 COUNSEL AND COMFORT, 
 
 Blessed Father, saying, "I have called thee 
 by name, thou art mine." 
 
 But we are afar off from God, not in meas- 
 urable material distance, but in character. 
 We are aliens from him, and strangers, be- 
 cause sinners. How can we be "made nigh?" 
 Who will introduce us? Who can? Is there 
 a mediator? If so, who is he? It is evident 
 the intercessor must be one who knows both 
 God and us. Can any man perform that 
 office? Not so, for however familiar a man 
 may be with the nature of his fellows, he, too, 
 is foreign to the Father. Shall an angel wing 
 his flight down from the crowned company, 
 to bridge the breach? Equally true it is that 
 no white-pinioned intelligence from the sky 
 can bring together God and man, for, though 
 he may have rejoiced with the morning stars, 
 and shouted for joy with the sons of God in 
 creation's morning, he is a stranger to the 
 human race, does not know the results of sin, 
 and hence, is incompetent to reconcile us to 
 God. Where is the intercessor? Where? 
 
 Behold in Jesus Christ the all-sufficient Ar- 
 biter! Ecce Homo! Ecce Deus! "If ever 
 man was God, or God man, He is both." As 
 
WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN? 15 
 
 the Son of Man, he knows the language of 
 humanity; as the Son of God, he knows the 
 vernacular of Heaven. This is He, who, fa- 
 miliar with the condition of man as with the 
 heart of God, can conduct us into the presence 
 of, and obtain for us mercy with, the King. 
 "But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometime 
 were afar off, are made nigh." Hear him: "No 
 man knoweth the Father save the Son, and 
 he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. 
 No man cometh unto the Father but by me. I 
 am the way, the truth, and the life." So, if 
 we would know God, Christ must introduce 
 us to Him. 
 
 II. Next, acquaintance with God implies an 
 approximate equality of standing. Not equal- 
 ity of power, or wisdom, or purity, but of 
 lineage. Only those of royal blood are friends 
 of royalty. Kings and peasants, millionaires 
 and woodchoppers, do not commingle. The 
 rustic would be as uncomfortable in the 
 presence of courtly society, as a monarch 
 would be in the rude cabin of the charcoal- 
 burner. 
 
 God is the King, "eternal, immortal, invis- 
 ible," the King of kings, the King above kings. 
 
10 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 All other kings that rule, rule on his territory. 
 Caesar, and Alexander, and Charlemagne, were 
 subject to his will. "By Him princes reign, 
 and rulers decree justice." What are we that 
 we may claim his friendship. "Poor, and mis- 
 erable, and blind, and naked;" insects of an 
 hour; dependents on His mercy; pensioners 
 on His bounty. Yes — but kings and queens! 
 When to the time-dimmed, but faith-clear 
 vision of the Seer of Patmos, Heaven was 
 opened, and he saw the pearly gates, the 
 golden streets, the shady avenues, and the 
 shimmering sea, and beheld the glory of an 
 innumerable company, "ten thousand times 
 ten thousand, in shining garments clad," his 
 praise exultant voiced itself in song, "Unto 
 Him that loved us, and washed us from our 
 sins in His own blood, and hath made us 
 kings, and priests unto God and His Father, 
 to him be glory and dominion, forever and 
 ever." When are we kings? Now. To be a 
 Christian is to experience not alone a change 
 of mind and of heart ,but a change of lineage. 
 We are convicted of sin, converted by grace, 
 and adopted into the family of God. "For 
 we have received the spirit of adoption, 
 
WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN? 17 
 
 whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Henceforth, 
 I call you not servants, but friends. Heirs 
 of God, and joint heirs with Christ. As many 
 as received Him, to them gave he power to 
 become the sons of God. Behold what man- 
 ner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us 
 that we should be called the sons of God. He 
 that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I 
 will be his God, and he shall be my son." 
 
 Every Christian is a prince or prince&s. 
 Every believer can say: 
 
 " My Father is rich in houses and lands: 
 Heholdeththe wealth of the worid in his hands." 
 
 If this be true, then, what higher nobility 
 can there be on earth than that of Christian- 
 ity? What depths of poverty and woe cannot 
 be made sunny as the eternal heights by a 
 consciousness that the sufferer is a child of 
 the infinite God? Peter the Great, of Russia, 
 letf his throne, and went to a shipyard as an 
 apprentice, to learn the trade of a shipbuilder. 
 Think you not he was sustained in trials and 
 toils by the knowledge that he was a monarch, 
 only in disguise? It is so with many a Chris- 
 tian. Poor, despised, forsaken, he is still 
 happy all day long, for he knows his royal 
 
18 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 standing, though the world may know it not- 
 I shall not soon forget a funeral I attended 
 once, the funeral of an Indian queen, the 
 heiress to large estates in the Wabash valley. 
 The services were held in a grand cathedral. 
 The church was filled. The coffin was gor- 
 geous in purple and gold. The form of the 
 dead queen was robed in a costly shroud. 
 The dignitaries of the diocese were there. 
 Bells tolled. The choir chanted. Priests in- 
 toned. Sweet and solemn music floated from 
 a thousand-throated instrument, among the 
 Corinthian pillars. Incense rose from silver 
 censers. And a long procession followed her 
 to the tomb, because she was a queen. Now, 
 I am thinking of another funeral I attended. 
 It was not in a cathedral, but in the chapel of 
 an unpretentious little mission church. Not 
 many people were there. The coffin was fur- 
 nished by charity. Paupers' coffins are not 
 elegant — only plain pine boxes. No choir 
 chanted. No organ rolled. It was the funeral 
 of a girl of seventeen, who had supported her- 
 self and her widowed mother by working in a 
 flax-mill. Her hands were brown and bruised. 
 They tried to hide her stained fingers with 
 
WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN? 19 
 
 flowers, but they could not. Her mother laid 
 her palsied hand on the dead girl's forehead 
 in a last, long, lingering touch. Her mother's 
 hands were gloved, but the gloves were ragged 
 and torn, and so her withered fingers touched 
 the dead girl's face. O God, what penury! 
 O Christ, what poverty! Yet, that was a 
 grander funeral than the other. It was the 
 funeral of a princess in disguise, for that poor 
 girl was a Christian, and as she died, she sang 
 with feeble breath and parching lips: 
 
 "A tent cr cottage, why need I care? 
 The're building a palace for me over there, 
 Though exiled from home, yet stilll may sing 
 All glory to God, I'm the child of a King." 
 
 III. Thirdly, acquaintance with God im- 
 plies similarity of character. If among the 
 circle of your acquaintance, there are tw r o 
 
 souls that delight in each other's presence, 
 seek each other's society, and are happy in 
 each other's sight, and there are many such — 
 modern Davids and Jonathans, you doubtless 
 recall that they are persons of similar dispo- 
 sitions, tastes, and tendencies. Poetic minds 
 associate together. Philosophic natures move 
 in the same orbit of companionship. Astron- 
 omers seek the association of astronomers, 
 
20 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 mathematicians of mathematicians. Do not 
 birds of the same genus, flock together? Do 
 not persons of the same genus of mentality 
 affiliate? It is the same in the realm of 
 morals. The sober do not fraternize with the 
 drunken, the industrious with the idle, the 
 refined with the vulgar, or the decent with 
 the dissolute. Character determines com- 
 panionship. Character simulates thought. 
 Character is determined by likes and dislikes. 
 The Apostle enjoins us to "put on godliness," 
 that is, to cultivate likeness to God. We 
 cannot be His friends if we are not like Him. 
 How can we attain a similarity of character 
 to God? By learning to love what ha loves, 
 and hate what he hates. He loves righteous- 
 ness. Do we? He loathes sin. Do we? Do 
 we loathe ourselves when we yield to the sin- 
 syren, even for a moment? He yearns in 
 affection for the wandering, and seeks to win 
 them back to a clean life. Do we? In that 
 same degree then, have we attained the char- 
 acter of God. 
 
 IV. Lastly, friendship with God implies a 
 continuity of association. Americans in Eu- 
 rope count it a great honor to be presented to 
 
WHAT IS IT TO BE A CHRISTIAN? 21 
 
 the Queen of England, or the Emperor of Ger- 
 many. An introduction and transient ac- 
 quaintance is as much as they hope for. But 
 our introduction to the Lord of Glory does not 
 thus end. It is only the genesis of an endless 
 commnuion with him. Enoch walked with 
 God. So may we. Moses talked with God. 
 So may we. I know a man who falls asleep 
 conversing with God, and wakes with His 
 name upon his lips. An aged German saint 
 prayed, "O God, I thank thee that we are on 
 the same old terms as ever." Many of us can 
 truly claim, 
 
 "The Saviour comes and walks with me, 
 And sweet communion here have we; 
 He gently leads me by the hand, 
 For this is Heaven's border land." 
 
 "The tabernacles of God are with men." 
 
 "He holds me by his own right hand, 
 And will not let me go, 
 And lulls my troubled soul to rest, 
 In Him who loves me so." 
 
 Oh blissful union! Oh Heavenly com- 
 munion — one with God on earth, one with 
 him in Heaven! Brother, sister, friend, young 
 man, maiden, be this your choice to night, be 
 this your lot forever. 
 
II. 
 
 WHY SHOULD I BE A CHRISTIAN? 
 
 "Godliness is profitable unto all things, 
 having promise of the life that now is, and 
 of that which is to come." — /. Timothy, iv. 8. 
 
 THREE men stood within sight of the Niag- 
 ara Falls, where the river, gathering its 
 water from a thousand rills and rivulets, 
 plunges it over rocks and crags, and breaks it 
 into spray, and rainbow-tinted mist, which 
 rises like incense toward heaven. One man 
 wrote an ode upon the beauty of the scene. 
 He was a poet. Another sketched upon can- 
 vas the matchless picture. He was a painter. 
 The third, with pencil and note-book, figured 
 the probable amount of power which might be 
 utilized if the unspent force of the water-fall 
 could be employed. He was a business man. 
 I see before me to-night a congregation of 
 several hundred. Some are here who are old — 
 I know it by your walk as you come down the 
 aisle. You are not as erect as you once were; 
 
 22 
 
WHY SHOULD I BE A CHRISTIAN? 23 
 
 your step is not so elastic; your hair is gray. 
 Now is the winter of your life. In your locks 
 is the silver of time's snow-flakes. Beautiful 
 old age! Some are here in middle-age. Upon 
 your stalwart shoulders rest the burdens of 
 active life. Manufacturers, laborers, doctors, 
 lawyers, merchants, commercial travelers, 
 men of business, strong, energetic, and en- 
 thusiastic. Noble middle-age! Many more 
 are here who are young. Bright eyes, hopeful 
 faces, buoyant step, quick hands, merry 
 hearts. Beyond you bends the sky of the 
 future, with no break in the blue, save where 
 in the distance, "golden clouds crown emerald 
 mountains." Beautiful youth! 
 
 But I am not thinking of the dignity of old 
 age, the activity of maturity, or the promise 
 of adolescence. Like the third man at Niag- 
 ara, I am wondering how much of latent possi- 
 bility there is in this audience, how much 
 unused power, how much undeveloped talent. 
 I am thinking of the wrongs that might be re- 
 dressed, the skies that might be brightened, 
 the lives that might be redeemed, if every 
 soul in this house would only open its entrance- 
 door to the Holy Ghost, the Holy Guest, the 
 
24 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 mighty Savior. 
 
 I am appalled by the magnitude of the task 
 I have undertaken — to prove to you that you 
 should be Christians, to give you reasonable 
 arguments, sufficiently plain and forceful to 
 induce you to yield your intellects, affections, 
 and wills to God. I am more and more every 
 day sensible of the utter insufficiency of human 
 power to convert a soul, or even to convince 
 it to the point of obedience to divine com- 
 mands. It would be useless to argue to a 
 child that the atmosphere in a room is full of 
 floating dust. He will not believe it until he 
 has seen it for himself. But just puncture the 
 curtain, and let a ray of sunlight in, and in a 
 moment it is revealed to him that the air is 
 full of hitherto invisible, but none the less real, 
 atoms of dust. So, if only the infinite Spirit 
 of Light will shine down into your heart, you 
 will see what I alone cannot reveal. It will 
 be impossible for you to argue satisfactorily to 
 an inexperienced traveler his need of a guide 
 in the White Mountains. The way seems so 
 plain, the air so clear, the sky so cloudless; 
 but let him undertake a journey; then let the 
 storm come, and the sky be darkened, and the 
 
WHY SHOULD I BE A CHRISTIAN? 25 
 
 thunders roll, and the lightnings flash; or let 
 the snow-storm envelop him in an impene- 
 trable twilight, and he understands what he 
 could not appreciate before. If only the om- 
 nipotent Christ will speak to you to-night, He 
 will discover to you your need of a guide in 
 life, in such a manner as no other can. I 
 wish I knew that you who are not Christians, 
 would become Christians as soon as you are 
 satisfied that it is right, persuaded that it is 
 reasonable, and convinced that it is no less 
 an inestimable privilege, than a sacred duty. 
 
 I would that He whose gospel I preach 
 might stand here in visible form to-night. 
 
 He would not have to speak a word. An- 
 tony only needed to uncover the corpse of 
 Caesar and let the populace see the murder- 
 ous dagger-thrusts, to enrage the city against 
 Brutus. Caesar's wounds were eloquent. 
 
 So, I think, the stripes on those shoulders 
 lashed for you, the nail-prints in those hands 
 and feet pierced for you, that open side, lac- 
 erated for you, those tender eyes, those benig- 
 nant lips, would induce you to say: "I will fol- 
 low Thee." If you only knew how much He 
 loves your soul, how much it cost Him to 
 
3« COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 purchase your redemption, you would no 
 longer hesitate to lay your hands upon the 
 altar, and with grateful voice, cry out, "Lord 
 Jesus, I am thine." If some tall and tender 
 angel would only lift the veil that hides futur- 
 ity from your view, that you could see the 
 things He has prepared for you, it would not 
 be necessary for me to reason with you to 
 surrender your soul to Him. Or, if you could 
 only hear the wailings of the lost, tormented 
 day and night in the regions of despair with 
 remorseful memories, you would no longer 
 linger in the wild, "while God is waiting to 
 receive His sinful child." 
 
 But I will not appeal to your desire to gain 
 Heaven, nor to your fear of hell, in showing 
 you the reason why you should begin a Chris- 
 tian life. There may be too much of that 
 spirit of desire for reward and fear of punish- 
 ment in the world already. While it is not 
 advisable — indeed, not possible — wholly to 
 divorce from our thought the future recom- 
 pense of the good, or the retribution of the 
 wicked, it is desirable that we should have in 
 mind the more immediate inducements to 
 love God. There are some that associate 
 
WHY SHOULD I BE A CHRISTIAN? 27 
 
 religion only with death and death-beds, coffins 
 and funerals. There are some that purpose 
 to be Christians some time, but they enter- 
 tain a hope to be able to repent in time to die 
 a decent death, merit a Christian burial, and 
 go to Heaven, and be happy forever. They 
 may do that, but I have always thought that 
 it was a sinister motive that prompted such 
 reformations, and that it was not altogether 
 an honest thing to spend one's life in the pur- 
 suit of wealth or fame, or pleasure, and then, 
 when death draws near, to thrust into God's 
 hands the torn and wasted threads of a useless 
 character. Post-mortem religion is better than 
 none at all, but how much more manly it is to 
 spend the strength and beauty of life in God's 
 service, and enter Heaven as a piece of finished 
 workmanship, early begun, long continued, 
 and well ended here, ready to adorn the palace 
 of the King. 
 
 If this world were all — if all of life lay this 
 side the tomb, there are many reasons why 
 religion should claim our time and talents. A 
 man who had lived a pious life, instructed his 
 friends to write upon his monument this epi- 
 taph: 
 
28 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 "If there is another world, I am in bliss; 
 If not, I made the very best of this." 
 
 Very similar is this sentiment to that con- 
 tained in the text, "Godliness is profitable unto 
 all things, having promise of the life that now 
 is." Godliness is profitable. This is a good 
 reason why we should "exercise ourselves unto 
 godliness. " Why does that mercahnt invest 
 his capital, that mechanic years of time, that 
 professional man untold pains and labor, each 
 in his chosen vocation? Because it pays. 
 Why am I a Christian? Because it pays. 
 
 Every good thing has a right to exist. It is 
 its own vindication. You have heard some 
 one say, "The world owes me a living." I 
 am not so sure of that. Dr. Johnson says, 
 "The world does not owe house-room to any- 
 body or anything that is of no value." At 
 the very outset, Christianity was challenged 
 with the inquiry: "What does this new Gospel 
 mean?" The world has been asking of the 
 church: "What reason has the religion of 
 Jesus for being? What are its fruits?" I re- 
 peat the query, What is Christianity for? If 
 I urge you to yield to the claims and control 
 of Christ, you are entitled to know what 
 Christ can do for you. Why am I a Christian? 
 
WHY SHOULD I BE A CHRISTIAN? 29 
 
 I. First ; , for my own good. If there were 
 but one mortal on earth, that one soul would 
 find it profitable and expedient to put itself 
 into an attitude of obedience to divine law. 
 The human soul is under condemnation. To 
 quarrel with this declaration is to controvert 
 self-consciousness. The facts of sin and sin- 
 fulness are among the most undeniable con- 
 victions in all the range of consciousness. I 
 know my tendencies to sin. My sins rise up 
 before me mountain-high. They point their 
 bony fingers to a coming judgment. My evil 
 passions and appetites are sure to overcome 
 me. "When I would do good, evil is ever 
 present with me. The good I would do, that 
 I do not, and the evil I would not, that I 
 do." My life is full of necessities, but none 
 so urgent as the demand for some relief from 
 my own iniquitous tendencies. God offers me 
 resisting strength. The history of others 
 proves that he can impart to a soul grace and 
 power to overcome. So he did to Joseph. 
 So He did to the three youths of Babylon, and 
 to Daniel. Many another has been enabled, 
 in the presence of sin, when the wine flowed 
 as joyfully, and women smiled as temptingly 
 
30 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 as in Belshazzar's banquet-room, to say no to 
 the syren. God has helped his people in 
 every age, to resist evil, by reinforcing and for- 
 tifying the power of the inner man. This he 
 will do for me, if I ask Him. 
 
 My soul is cast down within me, and dis- 
 quieted. I am "tossed about with many a con- 
 flict, many a doubt." My mind is a battle- 
 field, on which is waged a warfare fierce as 
 Austerlitz, or Waterloo. My soul is a sea, 
 stormy as was the Galilean lake when the dis- 
 ciples "toiled in rowing against a contrary 
 wind." I have heard of peace. Is there any 
 such thing as peace for me? If there is, I want it. 
 Is there any voice that can speak my tumul- 
 tuous life to rest? The Book says there is. 
 My friends say there is. I believe there is. 
 "Come unto me, and I will give you rest." 
 Thus speaks the tender Savior. If I can have 
 respite from "fightings without and fears with- 
 in," by coming to Him, why not come now? 
 
 God helping me, I will. 
 
 That was a beautiful salutation of the early 
 Christians, "Peace be unto you." But it was 
 only another form of that beatitude which the 
 departing Savior pronounced upon his sorrow- 
 
WHY SHOULD I BE A CHRISTIAN? 31 
 
 ing disciples, "Peace I leave with you; my 
 peace I give unto you." When Dr. Addison 
 was dying, he sent for the young but wicked 
 Lord Warwick to come to him. The young 
 man entered his room. 
 
 "Why did you send for me? Have you aay- 
 thing to say to me?" 
 
 The dying man replied: "I only wanted you 
 to see in how great peace a Christian can die." 
 
 Yes, Christians die in peace, but it is be- 
 cause they live in peace — peace with God, 
 peace with men. 
 
 I am young. My pulses thrill with a strange 
 delight. My steps are buoyant with the 
 vitality of young manhood. Like all other 
 young people, my dream is of pleasure. More 
 than treasure, more than fame, more than 
 study, more than health, more than honor; 
 young people set their desire upon pleasure. 
 Where is pleasure; the best, and the most 
 enduring? If there is a source of joy and hap- 
 piness, to which I can go and drink, as from a 
 fountain, and be satisfied, show me the way, 
 and I will seek it. There is. The Book says 
 so. My friends say so. The purest, noblest, 
 truest souls of all the ages say so. "In Thy 
 
32 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 presence is fullness of joy, and at thy right 
 hand are pleasures forevermore. All Thy 
 ways are ways of pleasantness, and all Thy 
 paths are peace." There is no joy worth ex- 
 periencing, no pleasure worth possessing, no 
 rapture worth knowing that I am deprived of 
 by becoming a Christian. Indeed, there are 
 a thousand experiences of unspeakable delight 
 which come to me, and alike to all the follow- 
 ers of the Christ. 
 
 Then, I am anxious to succeed in life. 
 Whatever success may mean, I presume it 
 is fair to say. that it includes the idea of 
 pre-eminence in some especial line of endeavor. 
 
 Whatever line of activity promises success, 
 that line I will pursue. Then, I must become 
 a Christian. Christianity produces such a 
 habitude of mind, state of heart, quality of 
 character, and condition of spirit as is con- 
 ducive to success in any honorable line. What 
 better mottoes, rules of conduct, laws of action 
 in any business or profession can there be than 
 these: "Fervent in business, diligent in spirit, 
 serving the Lord. The just man walketh in 
 his integrity. Ye shall not steal, neither deal 
 falsely, neither lie to one another. Be not 
 
WHY SHOULD I BE A CHRISTIAN? 33 
 
 slothful." There is success and success. The 
 question is, How may I gain permanent suc- 
 cess? Only by doing what I do, as in the 
 presence of the Lord. 
 
 II. I am a Christian for the good of others. 
 "None of us liveth unto himself." In a thous- 
 and ways, in our associations with those about 
 us, our lives influence the character and des- 
 tiny of others. 
 
 "The smallest bark on life's tumultuous Ocean 
 
 Will leave behind a track forevermore: 
 The lightest wave of influence, set in motion, 
 
 Extends and widens to the eternal shore. 
 We should be wary, then, who go before 
 
 A myriad yet to be, and we should take 
 Our bearing carefully where breakers roar 
 
 And fearful tempests gather: One mistake 
 May wreck unnumbered barks that follow in our wake." 
 
 A beautiful principle is the mainspring of 
 Christian self-denial and service. "We are not 
 our own, we are bought with a price." Who 
 bought us? The Sufferer of Calvary. He who 
 bought by his passion, and by his death 
 gives us to the world to live again the life He 
 lived in Judea nineteen hundred years ago. 
 What kind of a life was that? It is all summed 
 up in these words, "He pleased not himself." 
 He came not to be ministered unto, but to 
 minister; not to be served, but to serve others. 
 
34 COUNSEL AND COMFORT, 
 
 This is the life that we must duplicate. This 
 is the life, high and heavenly, which we must 
 reflect, as a mountain lakelet reflects upon its 
 bosom the star that shines above it in the sky. 
 
 Jesus said: "Ye are the light of the world." 
 What is light for? It shines for others. He 
 said, "Ye are the salt of the earth." What 
 is salt for? Not to keep itself, but to preserve 
 other things from purification. Why do the 
 flowers bloom? That they may make glad 
 the hearts of others. Why do the clouds cur- 
 tain the sky in summer? That they may shel- 
 ter others from the scorching rays of the sun, 
 and fructify the fields with gracious showers 
 of rain. Nothing in nature, except selfish man 
 alone, exists for itself. Some people live for 
 themselves, and for themselves only. When 
 urged to abstain from the use of wine at a 
 public feast, out of regard for the welfare of a 
 young man who sat beside him, whose father 
 died a drunkard, a gentleman said, "I will 
 not abstain. Who is he, that I should deny 
 myself pleasure for his sake? He is nothing 
 to me." The idea of Christianity is to do 
 good and be good for the sake of others. 
 
 What do you live for? 
 
WHY SHOULD I BE A CHRISTIAN? 35 
 
 " I live for those who love me, 
 
 Whose hearts are kind and true; 
 For the Heaven that smiles above me, 
 
 And awaits my spirit too: 
 For all human ties that bind me, 
 
 For the task that God assigned me, 
 For the bright hopes left behind me, 
 
 And the good that I can do. 
 I live to learn their story, 
 
 Who've suffered for my sake; 
 To emulate their glory, 
 
 And follow in their wake, 
 Bards patriots, martyrs, sages, 
 
 The noble of all ages, 
 Whose deeds crown history's pages, 
 
 And time's great volumne make. 
 I like to hold communion 
 
 With all that is divine; 
 To feel there is a union 
 
 'Twixt nature's heart and mine; 
 To profit by affliction. 
 
 Reap truths from fields of fiction, 
 Grow wiser from conviction 
 
 And fulfill each grand design. 
 I live to hail that season, 
 
 By gifted minds foretold, 
 When men shall live by reason, 
 
 And not alone by gold; 
 When man to man united, 
 
 And every wrong thing righted, 
 The whole world shall be lighted 
 
 As Eden was of old. 
 I live for those who love me, 
 
 For those those who know me true; 
 For the heaven that smiles above me, 
 
 Aud awaits my spirit too: 
 For the cause that lacks assistance. 
 
 For the wrong that needs resistance, 
 For the future in the distance, 
 
 And the good that I can do." 
 
 III. I am a Christain for God's glory. I 
 believe in this much of the Calvinist cate- 
 chism: "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and 
 
36 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 enjoy him forever." "Herein is my father 
 glorified, that ye bear much fruit. I have chosen 
 you, that you should bring forth fruit." God's 
 delight is in saving sinners. He is represented 
 as a Shepherd, seeking the sheep that have 
 wandered away from the fold. Happy are 
 we, like lost sheep, when the Great Shepherd 
 has found us. Happy? The Great Shep- 
 herd is happier than we! Significant idea is 
 this, that we can add to the glory of God him- 
 self, by accepting his overtures of mercy and 
 becoming the agents of His Gospel in the sal- 
 vation of other souls. 
 
 The very noblest and highest incentive to 
 Christian effort is that we may afford pleasure 
 to our Creator, by doing the work He has 
 given us to do. The Savior said, "There is 
 joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth." 
 Joy in heaven! Joy among the angels and 
 archangels; joy among the enthroned and 
 imparadised, who were once God's witnesses 
 on earth; joy among the families that gather 
 on the flowery hills, and under the branches of 
 the trees that grow beside the unending River 
 of Life; but joy that fathoms greater depths, 
 and rises to loftier heights, in the heart of 
 
WHY SHOULD I BE A CHRISTIAN? 3? 
 
 Him, who for this joy of seeing sinners saved 
 "endured the cross, despised the shame, and 
 is now set down on the right hand of the 
 majesty on high." 
 
III. 
 
 WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 
 
 " Why will ye die?" — Jer. xiii. 2J. 
 
 INHERE is a story of a vessel's crew in a 
 far-off Northern latitude, who sighted a 
 ship in the dim light of an Arctic morn- 
 ing, apparently three or four miles away. They 
 approached the strange vessel, and hailed her 
 to know her name and destination. No reply 
 was heard. The glass showed forms upon her 
 decks; a banner waved from her flag-staff. 
 Again they hailed her; no answer still. Curious 
 to know why they were not recognized, a boat 
 put through the icy waters, and several men 
 boarded the ship. Then they understood the 
 strange behavior of the stranger crew. The 
 sailors on the vessel were dead — stiff, stark 
 dead — frozen like statues at their stations. 
 They entered the cabin, and found the cap- 
 tain and mate seated at the table, bent above 
 the log-book, motionless and dead. Strange 
 
 38 
 
WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 39 
 
 circumstances were these, but no stranger 
 than facts around us every day. The world is 
 full of active, moving forms of those who, as 
 regards the inner life, are as dead as the 
 ghostly ice-corpses of the Arctic ship. What 
 a graveyard this world would be, if all the 
 dead were buried — as, indeed, what a crowded, 
 overflowing world the earth would be were 
 all the truly living still in bodily form among 
 us. 
 
 What meant the inspired penman when he 
 wrote, "Awake, thou that sleepest, arise from 
 the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." 
 What mean the Holy Scriptures, where it 
 is declared, "Christ came to bring life and 
 immortality to light?" What meant the proc- 
 lamations of Christ himself, when he said: 
 "I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am 
 the resurrection and the life. The words 
 which I speak unto you, they are spirit, and 
 they are life. I am come that ye might have 
 life, and that ye might have it more abund- 
 antly?" What mean these? Simply this: 
 That that part of our existence which we 
 spend on earth is not all of life. All, did I 
 say? It is only an infinitesimal fraction of 
 
40 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 the life for which we were created, the life 
 we may possess. That man who bounds life 
 by the grave is as short-sighted as an ox in 
 the pasture, to which all the world seems 
 only a clover-field; or, as the child, who 
 thinks that the first touches on the ivory keys, 
 the first fingering of the harp-strings, the first 
 notes of the violin, the first strains of the 
 flute, in the orchestra, as the players tune 
 their instruments, make up the whole chorus. 
 O brother mine, O sister, if you are here this 
 morning who have thought that the few fleet- 
 ing years that we spend below are all of life, 
 to you I say, our little time on earth 
 bears a smaller relation to the great space of 
 life God's plan marks out for us, than the 
 width of this room bears to the flight of a 
 bird, which might be fancied to start on a 
 journey from pole to pole, and on its winged 
 pilgrimage to soar in at yonder window, and 
 out of that one on the South. To one who 
 wills. 
 
 "This life of mortal breath 
 
 Is but the suburb of the life elysian 
 Whose portals we call death." 
 
 Beyond this sphere of time lie endless 
 
WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 41 
 
 cycles of centuries, like a shoreless sea, like 
 a boundless plain. Foolish is the ocean 
 mariner who anchors before he leaves the 
 bay. Foolish, the pilgrim who thinks his 
 journey ended ere it is begun. 
 
 I do not mean to teach the doctrine of con- 
 ditional immortality, or possible annihilation, 
 when I say that the only soul that has eternal 
 life is the soul in which abides faith in Christ; 
 that the soul that has not faith in Christ is 
 dead. I do not mean the idea of death which 
 attaches to cessation of being, but death in 
 another sense — spiritual death. What that 
 death is I do not know. I only know that the 
 sentence of that death is entered against every 
 soul that sins. It is in accord with eternal 
 justice. It is the fiat of stern law. The 
 Judge could not do otherwise. Not to gratify 
 His anger, but that law may be vindicated, 
 and that government may not be abrogated, 
 He has decreed that "the soul that sinneth, 
 it shall die." 
 
 But one comes with power and authority to 
 offer to guilty sinners, life, conditionally. He 
 says: "I am the bread of life. Whoso drink- 
 eth of the water that I shall give him (the 
 
43 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 Water of Life) shall never thirst. " In explana- 
 tion of this idea of spiritual life, Paul says, 
 "To be carnally minded is death, but to be 
 spiritually minded is life and peace." The 
 purpose of Christ's coming, and of his written 
 biography is clearly stated thus: "These are 
 written that ye might believe that Jesus Christ 
 is the Son of God, and, believing, that ye 
 might have life through His name." 
 
 I have spoken thus long that I might found 
 a substantial basis for reasoning from the 
 morning text, that he who chooses to be a 
 Christian, chooses to have life, and that he 
 who neglects to choose to be a Christian, or 
 who positively chooses not to be a Christian, 
 chooses spiritual death. The Christian life is 
 the only complete life, in that it takes up 
 existence ending here, and continues it in the 
 Great Beyond. Said Moses to the people of 
 Israel, "I call Heaven to record against you, 
 that I have this day set before you life and 
 death, blessing and cursing; therefore, choose 
 life." 
 
 I purpose to discuss this morning some rea- 
 sons offered by persons, by way of excuse, for 
 not becoming Christians. That I might speak 
 
WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 43 
 
 fairly and intelligently, I consulted, in the 
 preparation of this sermon, many men who 
 candidly admit that they are not Christians, 
 and asked them their reasons for not espous- 
 ing the Christian religion. With equal can- 
 dor, some of them gave me their reasons for 
 withholding the exercise of faith in Christ; 
 among them I have selected several which I 
 will name presently, and attempt to answer, 
 aiming to show their insufficiency, as it appears 
 to me. Said one to whom I spoke: "I do not be- 
 long to the church but I pray regularly, read the 
 Bible, and trust in Christ as my Savior " 
 There may be others who occupy a like posi- 
 tion. To such I am not speaking. To such 
 I do not address this sermon. In the church, 
 or out of the church, God bless you, brother. 
 You are my brother; you are God's son; you 
 are Christ's disciple — a secret disciple, to be 
 sure, but when Jesus was on earth, He had 
 some friends who followed Him secretly, or 
 "from afar off." 
 
 Nicodemus was one, the same that came to 
 Jesus by night; and note that whenever he 
 is spoken of, he is mentioned as "the same 
 that came to Jesus by night." He did not 
 
44 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 see his way to acknowledge openly his rela- 
 tion to Christ, but he believed in Him, and 
 came to Him for instruction. There was 
 another secret disciple — a judge — Joseph of 
 Arimathea. He was known as a friend of the 
 Nazarene only by his gift of a grave. If you 
 love Christ, and have his grace in your soul, 
 you have His life; you are not dead spiritu- 
 ally, and, therefore, this question, "Why will 
 ye die?" is not pertinent to you. At another 
 time, if God allows me, I will speak with 
 particular reference to you, and urge upon 
 you a step you have not yet taken, enjoined 
 upon you by Christian duty; but I will not 
 this morning. 
 
 Another said: "It is not to your interest to 
 urge that inquiry, for if I should become a 
 Christian, I would certainly find my home in 
 another church than yours. I do not like 
 your church. I like better the doctrines and 
 
 polity of the church. I attend your 
 
 services, because I like you and the people, 
 but I would go to another denomination if I 
 became a Chfistian. ,, To which I answer: 
 That makes no difference in the urgency with 
 which I press the inquiry. I love you, and 
 
WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 45 
 
 your presence here inspires me with hope 
 and courage. But if, by becoming a Chris- 
 tian, you would be separated from this congre- 
 gation, I will bid you Godspeed, and bless- 
 ings attend you; and to whatever church you 
 go, you bear my heartiest greetings. The 
 question is not "Why are you not a Metho- 
 dist, or a Presbyterian, or a Baptist, or an 
 Episcopalian?" but "Why are you not a 
 Christian?" — in that broad and extended mean- 
 ing of the term, which takes in all true believ- 
 ers of whatever name, under whatever ecclesi- 
 astical government, or wherever found. In 
 the times of old, when gallant knights went 
 out to battle with sword and armor, they were 
 accustomed to have mottoes on their shields. 
 In the Christian warfare, we are required to 
 do battle. Let our motto be no such an in- 
 scription, as "For my Church," but rather, 
 "For Christ, and for souls." In all my in- 
 quiries pertaining to this subject, I have 
 been reminded of a story related of the Duke 
 of Ferrera, Alfonso de Este, who at one 
 time proposed, in a familiar way, the ques- 
 tion, "In what are most men engaged?" 
 One said the most were shoemakers; an- 
 
46 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 other, tailors; and a third, pettifoggers. 
 Gonelle, the duke's buffoon, said there were 
 more physicians than any other class of men. 
 He sought to prove it in this wise: wrap- 
 ping a white cloth about his face, he walked 
 down the street. Almost every one who 
 knew him greeted him with the question, 
 "What is the matter?" to which he answered 
 dolefully, "Toothache, toothache; bad case." 
 And there was not one of those who met him, 
 and inquired his ailment, but that offered him 
 some remedy, warranted to cure. Gonelle 
 wrote down their names and nostrums, and in 
 a few hours' time returned to his friends, 
 prepared to prove conclusively that there 
 were more physicans in that city than members 
 of any other profession. Now, I have not been 
 looking for that class of men, or possibly I 
 might have found them. But in my inter- 
 course with numerous persons, during the 
 preparation of this sermon, I was surprised 
 to find how large a number of people are en- 
 gaged in manufacturing. More numerous 
 than physicians, or lawyers, or cobblers, or 
 mechanics, are manufacturers — of excuses. 
 By this I mean no disrespect to any; nor 
 
WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 47 
 
 would I impugn the motive of any man in 
 attempting to justify himself for failing to 
 accept the tenets of Christianity. I only call 
 your attention to the marvelous readiness of 
 people generally to excuse themselves. Ex- 
 cuses are so easily made. "The archer shot 
 ill because his bow was bent, or the cord was 
 twisted, or the arrow crooked. The work- 
 man did an uncomely job because his tools 
 were dull. The doctor did not cure because 
 he was not called sooner." A lady who had 
 not been to church for a year, when her pastor 
 asked her the cause of her absence, replied: 
 "Well, we haven't good enough clothes; then, 
 the children are small, and can't be left alone; 
 and I have had the rheumatism; and the 
 horses work so hard during the week, they 
 aren't able to be driven on Sunday; besides 
 they are not shod; and the roads are bad, 
 and its a long distance, and we can't walk, 
 because it's up-hill all the way there, and all 
 the way back — that's the reason we stay at 
 home." 
 
 Her wants were innumerable; but there was 
 one want she did not name, which overshad- 
 owed all the rest — she wanted the will to go 
 
48 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 to church. I do not say this is the reason 
 many do not become Christians. There may 
 be obstacles between you and the Christian 
 life that I do not know. If so, if you have a 
 sufficient excuse, keep it — yea, write it out, 
 inscribe it on marble, cast it in bronze, that it 
 may never molder. Keep it — cherish it. It 
 may be your only escape from condemnation. 
 When you come to the hour of death, clasp it 
 to your heart; take it with you to the grave. 
 When the trump of God sounds, convey it to 
 the throne, and show it to the Judge. If it 
 will be sufficient there, it is sufficient here. 
 
 I. It is a fact well known, because often 
 repeated by many as a reason for holding 
 themselves aloof from the cause of Christ, 
 that there are those who do not confess the 
 Savior because they do not believe the entirety 
 of the Bible. "Why are you not a Chris- 
 tian?" "Because I cannot accept the Gene- 
 setical account of the* creation. I cannot 
 believe the story of the overthrow of the walls 
 of Jericho at the sound of the rams' horns. I 
 cannot believe that Samson carried off the 
 gates of Gaza, or that he pulled down the 
 temple pillars. I do not believe that the 
 
WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 40 
 
 prophet's axe floated on the water. I 
 cannot believe that Jonah was swallowed by 
 a whale." To these objections I answer: It 
 does not concern this question whether or not 
 these things are true. It does not matter so 
 far as regards your present happiness, or your 
 eternal destiny, where Cain got his wife, or 
 whether Noah built an ark, or what was the 
 confusion of tongues at Babel. Why stum- 
 ble over these things? Why allow such triv- 
 ial, puerile questions and quibblings to keep 
 you from your inheritance? The great ques- 
 tions are, Is there a God — a personal God; a 
 God who thinks, and thinks of you? Is there 
 a God who feels for, sympathizes with, and 
 compassionates, you in your sorrow? Is there 
 a God who wills, and wills that you may be 
 saved? If there is such a God, you need 
 Him. Why not seek Him? Another great 
 question is, Is man immortal? "If a man die, 
 shall he live again?" Do we perish like the 
 grass of the field? If man is immortal — if he 
 has a soul indestructible and eternal — it be- 
 hooves you to cultivate your soul, foster its 
 nature, and give it the benefit of every help 
 the universe affords. Another problem 
 
50 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 freighted with awful significance is, Does 
 Christ save men? Will He save us from sin, 
 and from its consequences? If Christ does 
 save, if He will save, you want Him for your 
 Savior. Now, why do you spend your time 
 and toil in such non-essential speculations as 
 I mentioned a moment ago, when the inex- 
 pressibly greater queries concerning God, 
 immortality, and salvation appeal for answer? 
 II. Another says, "I do not care to adopt 
 a system of belief and code of practice which 
 has among its adherents so many who are 
 notoriously unrighteous. There is A, who 
 doesn't pay his debts. There is B, who 
 talks like an angel, yet in his family he 
 is as cruel as the grave. There is C, who 
 prays often and long, but never was known 
 to contribute a penny to feed the hungry, 
 clothe the naked, or relieve the poor. There 
 is X, who shouts sometimes, and cries 
 Amen! aloud, and yet he failed in business, 
 and compromised with his creditors for fifty 
 cents on the dollar. There is Y, who 
 teaches a class in Sunday School, and yet 
 cannot refrain from speaking evil of her neigh- 
 bors. There is Z, who is an officer in the 
 
WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 51 
 
 church, a deacon, a steward, yet when he gets 
 mad he swears like a pirate." Do you not 
 hear this every day? And the worst feature 
 of the case is that in many instances the 
 charge cannot be wholly refuted. I will not 
 attempt to justify these moral delinquencies. 
 I might, if I had time, and if I had the inclina- 
 tion, show you that A has tried to pay his 
 obligations, and failed because he was not as 
 prosperous in business as you. I might be 
 able to show you that B has an inherited 
 predisposition to sternness, or that he has the 
 dyspepsia, or liver disease, which affects his 
 temper — and you know that the relation be- 
 tween the body and the mind is intimate as it 
 is mysterious. I might show you that he has 
 prayed over his infirmities, and agonized, and 
 wept, and yet has not been able to conquer 
 his inclinations. I might demonstrate to 
 you that C does not contribute to charity, 
 because he cannot spare from his meager 
 means so much as a dollar. I might paint 
 his picture, as he sits down at his scanty table 
 and rises up hungry. I might prove to you 
 that X failed honestly, as many do, and that, 
 in paying fifty cents on the dollar, he invited 
 
52 COUNSEL AND COMFORT, 
 
 poverty and destitution to his own home. If 
 we could look into the secrets of hearts, we 
 might find that Y and Z have tried again 
 and again to conquer their evil tendencies, the 
 one to slander, and the other to profanity, 
 but that with all their endeavors, they have 
 not been able to overcome entirely the nat- 
 ural dispositions of their minds. But I will 
 not. I will admit that all these charges are 
 true, and that they are without excuse. I 
 will admit that these you have particularized 
 are wilfully and maliciously mean; but even if 
 this is true, there is every reason why you 
 should all be Christians, and strive by the con- 
 sistency of your life to redeem a worthy cause 
 from disgrace. I might argue that the same 
 reasons you give for not becoming a Chris- 
 tian, are equally competent to lead you to 
 shun the society of the world, for 
 are there not many, very many, outside 
 of the church, who are as bad, or worse, than 
 these you have named within the church? 
 After all, the best answer to the excuse of 
 those who stumble over the misconduct of 
 others, is in the language of the Savior to 
 Peter, when that impulsive disciple was con- 
 
WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 53 
 
 cerned for the conduct of a comrade, "What 
 is that to thee? Follow thou me." 
 
 III. Another says, "I am not a Christian, 
 because I have not time to think of such 
 things. My time is occupied with more im- 
 portant matters. After a while I may think 
 about religion, but not now. " Ah I see that you 
 are suffering from a confused idea of values. 
 Not the Indian chief who bartered a thous- 
 and acres of land for a looking-glass; not the 
 child who chose a tinsel toy in preference to 
 a legacy of bonds, is more confused in his 
 idea of values than are you. What are the 
 things of greatest value to us? Business suc- 
 cess? Social preeminence? Pleasure of any 
 kind? The acquirement of knowledge? No; 
 none of these are of prime importance. 
 Hear the injunction of the Master: "Seek ye 
 first the Kingdom of God and His rightous- 
 ness, and all these things shall be added unto 
 you." I pray that none of us who are here 
 may make the fatal error of underestimating 
 the worth of the soul, and its interests, or of 
 counting these subsidiary to temporal affairs. 
 I see also that you are suffering from a con- 
 fused idea of the right order of things. You 
 
54 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 say: "I will first give my attention to the 
 affairs of business, and afterward turn to 
 Christ and be saved." You should reverse 
 that order. The woman who, in the panic of 
 a fire, carried a feather pillow down stairs 
 and laid it carefully in the yard, and after- 
 ward returned to rescue her baby, and could 
 only save it by throwing it from the window, 
 had a confused idea of the order of action. 
 The soldiers who, in the midst of a battle, 
 forgot duty, and sought safety in flight, were 
 laboring under the same confusion. Their 
 first concern should have been for the safety 
 of the flag, and not for their own. We can 
 understand such actions, for the panic of a 
 fire and the excitement of a battle some- 
 times serve to unsettle reason for a time. But 
 is it not strange that so many men deliber- 
 ately and willfully pay attention first to mat- 
 ters which they admit are not of first import? 
 Is not eternity of greater worth than time? 
 Is not the soul of larger value than the 
 body? 
 
 IV. One, of whom I asked the ques- 
 tion (he was in prison), "Will you not 
 accept Christ?" said: "I am too wicked. These 
 
WHY AM I NOT A CHRISTIAN? 55 
 
 hands are stained with blood. My heart is 
 full of sin. My hair has grown gray serving 
 Satan." It may be there are others here, the 
 memory of whose transgressions seems a bar- 
 rier to your progress in the line of Christian 
 living. To you I can say no more encoura- 
 ging, no more hopeful, no more inviting words 
 than the words of the Holy Book itself: "Let 
 the wicked man forsake his way, and the 
 unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him 
 return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy 
 upon him; and to our God, for He will abun- 
 dantly pardon. Though your sin be as scarlet, 
 they shall be as white as snow; and though 
 they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. 
 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just 
 to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from 
 all unrighteousness. ,, 
 
 Hear the testimony of St. Paul: "This is a 
 faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, 
 that Christ Jesus came into the world to save 
 sinners, of whom I am chief. For this cause 
 I obtained mercy, that in me, first, Jesus 
 Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for 
 a pattern to them which should hereafter 
 believe on Him to life everlasting." 
 
56 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 Ah! my brother unsaved; you have heaped 
 up no mountain of guilt, but that the surges 
 of the infinite sea of love can submerge it. 
 My prayer is, and let your prayer be: "Ye 
 tides of grace divine, roll up and on, till, in 
 your own overwhelming flood, you bury all 
 our sin uncounted fathoms deep! Sweep over 
 us, O fountains of salvation, and cleanse us in 
 the baptism of that blood that speaketh bet- 
 ter things than the blood of Abel! Now, 
 even now, let the heavenly deluge come!" 
 
IV. 
 
 HOW MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 
 
 "With the heart man believeth unto right- 
 eousness, but with the mouth confession is 
 made unto salvation" — Romans x. 10. 
 
 THE question foremost in our minds tonight 
 is the same expressed by Thomas, when 
 the Master tried to comfort the hearts of 
 his wondering scholars with those words upon 
 which we delight to dwell, as upon the surpass- 
 ing sweetness of some song that lingers in our 
 memories long after the singer has ceased to 
 sing: "Let not your heart be troubled; ye 
 believe in God, believe also in Me. Whither 
 I go ye know, and the way ye know." 
 Thomas said: "We know not whither Thou 
 goest; how, then, can we know the way?" 
 This is our request to-night, What is the way? 
 It is the same query which the Phillippian 
 warden uttered when, ere yet the echo of the 
 falling chains, and snapping bolts, and break- 
 ing bars, and creaking walls had ceased, he 
 
 57 
 
58 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 exclaimed to the two prisoners: "What must 
 I do to be saved?" This is the problem of the 
 world. This is the question of the soul. It is 
 not difficult to solve. There are principles to 
 observe, and laws to obey. True, these laws 
 and principles may be intricate and unfathom- 
 able, but we do not have to understand them; 
 we have only to obey them. In all the range 
 of Scripture, there is no plainer answer to the 
 question, "How may I become a Christian?" 
 than the language of the text, "With the 
 heart man believeth unto rightousness, but 
 with the mouth confession is made unto salva- 
 tion." 
 
 Let us study these words. This is a 
 familiar text; but that it is well known does 
 not signify that it is well understood. The 
 fact is, we sometimes least understand the 
 words we best remember. Think not that 
 the meaning of this text has been exhausted, 
 because it has been oft repeated. Turn not 
 away from anything old for the reason that it 
 is old. Old books, old pictures, old statues, 
 old friends, old wine — these are precious be- 
 cause they are old. The earth is old, but 
 there is still silver in the pockets of her hills 
 
HOW MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 59 
 
 and gold in the generous lap of her moun- 
 tains. The sun is old, but time plows no 
 furrows in its blazing disc. This verse is old, 
 but it has treasures yet sufficient to enrich un- 
 numbered lives. A familiar text is like a coin 
 that has been long in circulation. Its charac- 
 ters become obscure. It frequently becomes 
 necessary to examine critically a well-worn 
 coin, in order to read its inscription. Let us 
 put this verse under the glass of meditation, 
 and pray the Holy Ghost, the Divine Illumina- 
 tor, to grant us brighter light to aid us in our 
 study. Texts, like coins, are not all alike 
 valuable. They are of different denomina- 
 tions. All may have come from the same 
 authoritative source, but some are of more 
 precious worth than others. This is a golden 
 text. A pauper may look at a coin, may even 
 handle it, and be a pauper still. A man may 
 read this verse and analyze it, and yet be 
 none the richer. Only those who possess it, 
 who make it theirs, are enriched by it. I 
 entertain a hope that we may all not only 
 think upon these words and enter into their 
 significance, but into their ownership as well. 
 Coins have two sides. So have some texts. 
 
60 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 So has this text. On one side, read: "With 
 the heart man believeth unto righteousness." 
 On the other, read: "With the mouth con- 
 fession is made unto salvation." There be 
 many who think they have this coin. Are 
 you one? Examine your coin. Is one side 
 blank? Then you are deceived. Your coin 
 is ungenuine. Heart-belief and mouth-confes- 
 sion are co-ordinate. "What God hath joined 
 together, let no man put asunder." 
 
 To be a Christian is to possess faith, and 
 exercise confession. What is faith? 
 
 I. It is the assent of the mind to certain 
 facts or propositions, involving certain princi- 
 ples. These facts are not always within the 
 range of sensuous apprehension. They may 
 have been established by long experience. 
 They may have been discovered by patient 
 study. They may have been developed by ear- 
 nest toil, or they may be based on testimony 
 alone. They may be attended with difficul- 
 ties, mysteries, apparent contradictions, but 
 faith affirms that the preponderance of evi- 
 dence requires that they be received as true. 
 For instance, our faith in friendship has been 
 established by experience. The fact that we 
 
HOW MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 61 
 
 have had friends, tried, tested, proven friends 
 — friends in need, and friends indeed — argues 
 to us the certainty of the principle of friend- 
 ship. This fact is within the range of sensu- 
 ous observation. We have seen our friends; 
 we have felt the silent pressure of their hands. 
 We have looked into their faces, and beheld 
 in their love-lit eyes the sign of sympathy. We 
 have marked their falling tear-drops on the 
 grave of our buried hopes; hence, we believe 
 in friendship. Our faith in certain scientific 
 facts Is founded more on testimony than on 
 our own observation. We believe in the 
 earth's dual motion, but this is not itself a 
 fact of personal observation to most of us. 
 Neither is it a theory formulated by our own 
 calculation; but we accept it as truth, by the 
 dicta of scientific men whom we may not know, 
 and may never have seen. Our faith in most 
 of the principles known to astronomy is based 
 on the statements of those who are better 
 informed than we, whose conclusions have 
 been reached by earnest toil. It is a mere 
 statement that in one second of time, in one 
 swaying of the pendulum of yonder clock, a 
 ray of light travels 192,000 miles — a mere 
 
62 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 statement. But we believe it, because we 
 have faith in the conclusions of Herschel, and 
 Lockyer, and Proctor, and Mitchel. Our 
 faith in many of the doctrines of the Bible is 
 supported by testimony alone; that is to say, 
 left to itself, the reason could never have 
 originally discovered, and cannot now fully 
 comprehend them. In this respect the Bible 
 is not unlike nature. 
 
 "Never a daisy grows, but a mystery guideth the growing. 
 Never a river flows, but a mystery scepters its flowing." 
 
 Nevertheless, this is true. While there is 
 nothing, either in nature or religion, that is 
 not in some respects above reason, there is 
 nothing in either that is not in some respects 
 within the scope of reason. "Now, we know 
 in part," only in part, but, thank God, we do 
 know in part. 
 
 The same laws of thought, which require us 
 to accept, and by which we do accept, scien- 
 tific statements on faith, require the assent of 
 our minds to certain religious dogmas. By 
 the measure of orthodox Christianity, he has 
 fulfilled this requirement, who has come to 
 the honest acknowledgment, "I believe in 
 God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven 
 
HOJV MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 63 
 
 and earth, and in His only Son, Jesus Christ our 
 Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, 
 born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under 
 Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; 
 the third day He rose again, and ascended in- 
 to heaven, from whence he shall come to judge 
 the quick and the dead. I believe in the 
 Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic church, the 
 communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, 
 the resurrection of the body, and life everlast- 
 ing. Amen." 
 
 This is the Apostles' Creed. This is our 
 creed. But it is too long for most of us to 
 remember. Our minds are full of figures — 
 dry, dull figures, stock reports, debits and 
 credits, profits and losses, receipts and expen- 
 ditures, assets and liabilities, partisan politics, 
 and tariff-bills. Is there not some shorter 
 creed, some single statement of a doctrine, 
 which, if we embrace, we embrace all; in which, 
 if we believe, we believe in all? Inseparable 
 from the text, which I have quoted, is the 
 verse which precedes it: "If thou shalt confess 
 with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt 
 believe in thine heart that God hath raised 
 Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." 
 
64 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 "I believe in my heart that God hath raised 
 the Lord Jesus from the dead." There it is. 
 That is all. 
 
 You have heard of Homer's "Iliad," written 
 in characters so small that the whole manu- 
 script could be inclosed in a nut-shell. Here 
 is the gospel in a nut-shell — multum in parvo 
 — "many in few." Here is a perfect body of 
 divinity in a small compass. Here is one 
 of those verses which Luther declared are 
 "little Bibles." 
 
 That a man has reached the summit of the 
 Matterhorn — the summit, lofty, snow-crested, 
 and sun-crowned — is sufficient evidence that 
 he has climbed up its slopes. He has mas- 
 tered all the mountain. "I believe in my heart 
 that God hath raised the Lord Jesus from the 
 dead." No man ever planted his feet on that 
 doctrine, who had not already mounted up the 
 slopes that lead to it, the slopes that are 
 crowned by it, and are incomplete without it. 
 Belief in the resurrection of Jesus is belief in 
 every other doctrine that is essential to the 
 Christian faith. A gentleman once asked to 
 see a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation. 
 The librarian pointed him to a picture on the 
 
HOW MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 65 
 
 wall — a picture of the immortal Lincoln. 
 Approaching it, and studying it minutely, the 
 gentleman perceived that it was a curious 
 specimen of the penman's art, by which the 
 document had been so written as to outline 
 the seamed, sad features of its author. He 
 could not study that face long, without read- 
 ing all the proclamation which made its 
 signer's name luminous with the glory of a 
 deed that cannot die, and hallowed by the 
 adoration of the good and true of every age. 
 Come with me across the ocean, and the 
 mountains, and the sea. Stand with me in 
 the purple shadows of a Judean garden, on the 
 first Easter morning of the ages. The seal 
 of a rocky tomb is broken. Angels have 
 rolled away the stone from the door of the 
 sepulcher, and lo! the Crucified Carpenter 
 walks out from the darkness, with victory in 
 His mildly-beaming eyes, and triumph in His 
 hands for you and me forever. Behold the 
 dead but risen Savior! Behold the defeated 
 but triumphant Christ! Now look into that 
 face, if its immaculate radiance and transpar- 
 ent purity do not blind your vision, and read 
 in its suppressed power the story of creation's 
 
66 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 beginning; read in its ineffable beauty the 
 story of the divine conception; read in its 
 sorrow the story of the Bethlehem manger; 
 read in its sadness the story of the Judgment 
 Hall; read in its pity the agony of that fateful 
 afternoon on Golgotha; read in its love the 
 forgiveness of your sins, and in His body behold 
 the promise and prophecy of your resurrec- 
 tion. Tell me, as you look upon Him, if in 
 Him all truths do not center, all prophecies 
 converge, all doctrines meet. "I believe that 
 God hath raised from the dead the Lord 
 Jesus." Is that all? Is not that enough? 
 No; not all. Not enough. "Believest thou 
 in thy heart that God hath raised the Lord 
 Jesus from the dead?" 
 
 Religious faith is not alone an act of the 
 mind, but a quality of the heart. Intellectual 
 belief is a theory, a thesis, a dogma, or a 
 system of dogmas. Heart-belief is a spiritual 
 power, a personal presence, a governing genius 
 of life, a real comforter of sorrow, an active 
 quickener to every noble work. Intellectual 
 faith is the seed. Heart faith is that same 
 seed — growing, budding, blooming, fruit-bear- 
 ing, and its fruit is righteousness. There is 
 
HOW MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 67 
 
 the same difference between belief about 
 Christ and faith in Christ, that there is be- 
 tween a book on botany, with Latin names 
 and scientific terms, and a garden rare with 
 the perfume of blossoms that rises like incense 
 from the altars of the angels. It is our faith 
 in Christ, by which we are justified, and not 
 our belief about Christ. 
 
 Some minds want to analyze Christ, dissect 
 his character, and write down opinions con- 
 cerning Him on a sheet of paper they can carry 
 around in their vest pockets. Ask such a one: 
 "Have you Christ ?" and he produces and 
 reads a census of dogmas on a page about five 
 by seven inches. Is that your religion? That 
 religion is worth nothing. That religion has 
 crucified the Savior, and buried Him beneath 
 uncounted volumes of theology — dry, hard, 
 heavy theology. A servant girl came into the 
 presence of an examining committee, applying 
 for entrance to the church. She was unable 
 to answer the questions asked her. She knew 
 little theology. She was ignorant of the canons 
 of the church, and entirely innocent of any 
 logical understanding of the doctrines, assent 
 to which was necessary for admittance to 
 
68 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 membership. Discouraged with her failure, 
 and ashamed of her ignorance, baffled and 
 confused, she turned to go, but stopped at 
 the door, and looking back, said tearfully: 
 "Oh, sirs! I don't know much about theology, 
 I don't know much about anything but dusting 
 and sweeping; but I do know this: I 
 love Jesus, and I would die for Him, if He 
 wanted me to/ 7 What would Christ have 
 said to such an one? Would he not have 
 taken her by the hand, identified Himself 
 with her by a touch, and pronounced a beati- 
 tude upon her faith? 
 
 The great question is not, "Where is your 
 creed?" but "Where is your experience?" Do 
 you love? Do you pray? Do you yearn for 
 a closer acquaintance with God? Do you strive 
 after holiness? Do you "weep o'er the erring 
 one? Do you lift up the fallen?" Then you 
 are a Christian. What shall I do to be saved? 
 "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." That is 
 all. But that is much more than you think it 
 may be. " Lord" means " Master. " And when- 
 ever, or however, or wherever, a man makes 
 Jesus the Master of his life, there is born 
 within him the divine life. "Christ in you." 
 
HOW MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 09 
 
 Have you an experience like that? Then you 
 know what Paul meant, when he wrote, "I 
 am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, 
 yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life 
 I now live, I live by faith on the Son of God." 
 Is Christ in you the hope of glory? Then you 
 can say, like Thomas, "My Lord, and my 
 God. ,, You can say, like Mary, "Rabboni, my 
 Master." Then He is your Companion, your 
 Partner, your Helper, your Friend, your Hope 
 on earth, and He will be your Joy in Heaven. 
 I would that your prayer might be to-night, 
 
 "A guilty, weak and helpless worm, 
 On thy kind arms, I fall, 
 Be thou my strength and righteousness 
 My Jesus, and My all." 
 
 II. Now look at the other side of the text. 
 "With the mouth confession is made unto sal- 
 vation. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth 
 the Lord Jesus." Deceive not yourselves into 
 the vain belief that to live justly, deal fairly, 
 and abstain from any open offense is to con- 
 fess Christ. A man may do all that, and yet 
 not confess Christ at all. A man may do all 
 that, and be only a respectable pagan. While 
 it is true that mouth-confession without con- 
 sistent conduct is like a coin which bears a 
 
70 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 good inscription, but has a bad ring, it is like- 
 wise true that a virtuous character without 
 verbal confession is like a coin that has the 
 right ring, but has no inscription, so that it is 
 a matter undetermined, and indeterminate to 
 what kingdom it belongs, whether to Caesar 
 or to God. 
 
 Mary's testimony to the disciples was, "The 
 Lord is risen indeed." Such was one saluta- 
 tion of the early Christians. Such has been 
 the testimony of the church in every age since 
 then, "The Lord is risen indeed." Such is 
 the testimony of the confessing Christian, 
 "The Lord is risen" — crucified by my sins, but 
 risen in the once stony sepulcher of my heart. 
 It is this testimony that has spread the Gospel 
 over the continents and islands of the sea. It 
 is this testimony before which the altars of 
 Buddhism are deserted. It is this testimony 
 before which the Crescent pales, and the mina- 
 rets and pagodas of heathendom and the ram- 
 parts of atheism fall. John, the Revelator 
 saw the throng of ransomed spirits before the 
 throne, "who had overcome by the word of 
 their testimony." It is this testimony which 
 shall yet conquer the world. "The Lord is 
 
HOIV MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 71 
 
 risen indeed." 
 
 Confession — it is not much, but it is half 
 the gospel. As such, it is necessary to salva- 
 tion. Faith implies the whole inward root, 
 and confession the whole outward fruit of god- 
 liness. Faith is the heat, and confession the 
 light of the Christian life. Confession is the 
 outward act by which is expressed and com- 
 pleted the inward choice. It is supplemental 
 to faith. It is necessary to obedience. "Ye 
 are my witnesses to these things, " saith the 
 Lord. "In the mouth of two or three wit- 
 nesses shall a thing be established. Whoso- 
 ever shall confess me before men, him will I 
 confess before my Father and the holy angels. " 
 It is necessary to gratitude. If you had been 
 in Washington, on the fourth of March, 1881, 
 you might have seen a touching picture. A 
 noble man was inaugurated Chief Magistrate 
 of the Republic. With his right hand upheld 
 toward Heaven, swearing to support the con- 
 stitution, he kissed the open Bible, and then, 
 turning, embraced an aged woman, gray- 
 haired and wrinkled, and printed a loving kiss 
 upon her lips. She was his mother. The 
 gratitude of his heart, in loving recognition of 
 
72 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 his obligation to her who walked through the 
 Valley of the Shadow of Death to give him 
 birth, whose tired feet rocked his cradle, and 
 whose heart yearned in affection for him, 
 prompted him to confess her before the onlook- 
 ing multitude. A patient in a hospital, suffer- 
 ing from a painful, if not mortal disease, said 
 to the surgeon: "Recover me to health and I 
 will shout your name high as the heavens." 
 Gratitude inspired that promise. What shall 
 we say of, what shall we do for, Him who 
 hath been more than a mother, more than a 
 physician to our souls? Shall we not confess 
 him before men? 
 
 Finally, it is necessary to service. "Out of 
 the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou 
 ordained strength." In the economy of God, 
 He has made it possible for us to labor for 
 Him in numberless ways, not the least effect- 
 ive among which, is "the word of our testi- 
 mony." 
 
 In a certain congregation was a man who, 
 though he supported the gospel liberally with 
 his means, had never yielded himself to the 
 will of God. He was the subject of many 
 prayers, the object of deep solicitude. One 
 
HOW MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 73 
 
 Sabbath morning, he arose from his pew, 
 walked down the aisle, and as he extended 
 his hand to the pastor, said, "During the last 
 week, I have been brought to see my need of 
 a personal Savior. I desire to ally myself 
 publicly, with His people." All who knew 
 him were rejoiced at his open avowal of faith 
 in Christ. A little later, the minister, in a 
 private interview with him, inquired what it 
 was that influenced him most powerfully to 
 begin the Christian life. ( Possibly the pastor 
 was anxious to know which of his sermons 
 brought the man to conviction.) He was 
 surprised to hear the answer, "I chanced to 
 attend a meeting of the young people last 
 Tuesday evening, in the chapel. They were 
 relating their experience. A boy of ten or 
 twelve years of age spoke. His speech was 
 artless and simple, and perfectly sincere. The 
 boy said, 'One Sunday, not long ago, the 
 minister preached on the call of Samuel. I 
 went home, and thought all day about the 
 closing words of the sermon, If God calls you, 
 O children, answer Him, or He may never 
 call again. I retired early, but could not 
 sleep. I thought, it may be God is calling 
 
74 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 me. I got up and knelt at the bedside to 
 pray. My father heard me, and asked if I 
 was sick. I told him I was not, but that I 
 felt very bad. Then father came into my 
 room, and found me kneeling, and he came 
 and knelt by me, and prayed for me, and — 
 well, I don't know how it is, but somehow, 
 I felt so happy, I could not keep from saying 
 Glory! Glory! I am happy now. My soul 
 is full of joy, and peace, and love. '" The 
 gentleman continued: "The words of that 
 child were the most convincing and persua- 
 sive sermon I ever heard. His testimony was 
 so positive, yet so modest; so sublime in its 
 unaffected simplicity, that it touched my heart 
 like an angel's message. That child led me 
 to Jesus." As the pastor heard this explana- 
 tion, he remembered the prophecy of Isaiah, 
 "A little child shall lead them." 
 
 One of the pleasantest surprises in store for 
 us, when we enter Heaven, will be to dis- 
 cover that our acts and words in life, which 
 we counted of little significance, but where- 
 in we confessed Christ before men, have been 
 the means, in the providence of God, of turn- 
 
HOW MAY I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 75 
 
 ing many to righteousness. Then, 
 
 "When Jesus has found you, tell othejs the story. 
 
 Thus, believing in Him unto righteousness, 
 and confessing Him unto salvation, having 
 glorified Him on earth, you shall be glorified 
 with Him presently. 
 
WHEN SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 
 
 "Behold, now is the accepted time, behold 
 now is the day of salvation." — II Corinthians, 
 vi. 2. 
 
 IN the Yosemite Valley, the wonder garden 
 of the Western world, in the sunset shadow 
 of El Capitan, is a little lakelet, scarce 
 three times larger than this room, on whose 
 level brim no breeze e'er made a ripple or storm 
 produced a wave. Silent and serene it sleeps 
 hidden in its bed among those everlasting 
 hills, "rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun." 
 Flowers and grass grow on its border, each 
 petal and each spear reflected in the glassy 
 surface beneath. Birds bathe their plumage 
 at its edge, and see their perfect image in its 
 mirror. When clouds in the sky roll east- 
 ward, eastward roll the shadows on the pool 
 beneath. When the stars twinkle in the dome 
 of night, on the bosom of that little lakelet 
 glitter the stars below. The natives say that 
 
 76 
 
 
IVHEN SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 77 
 
 once an Indian maiden, proud of her beauty, 
 bent from a birch canoe to see her face in 
 that water. She lost her balance and fell 
 over, and sank. Friends sought for her body, 
 but could not recover it, for the little lakelet 
 is so deep that they had no instrument of 
 sufficient length to reach the bottom. Possibly 
 this is a mere fancy. However that may be, 
 the pool is there, and the plummet line sounds 
 a depth of more than a hundred feet. No 
 one would suppose, on looking at the little 
 lakelet that it is so deep. 
 
 So, there are some little words in the Eng- 
 lish tongue, so easy an infant's lips can utter 
 them, yet in meaning and in depth of thought 
 conveyed, they are unfathomed and unfathom- 
 able. Think of the word "God," only three 
 letters, yet that name represents the source 
 of all blessings, the fountain of all life, the 
 infinite and self-existent power. Or the term 
 "love." Four letters spell that mystic pas- 
 sion, "the key of all history, the soul of all 
 tragedy." Think of the word "sky." Three 
 letters name a vast array of worlds and firma- 
 mental fires, with unceasing chronometry of 
 revolutions. The word "sea" suggests, little 
 
78 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 as it is, the mighty liquid plane on which float 
 all the fleets and navies of the world. 
 
 It is so with the word which occurs twice in 
 our text, "Now." How much it means! 
 Adapting Tupper's words to suit the theme, 
 we might well say, 
 
 "A volume in a word, an ocean in a tear, 
 A seventh Heaven in a glance, a whirlwind in a sigh, 
 The lightning in a touch, a millennium in a moment. ' ' 
 
 Bound up in this word are life, or death; 
 success or failure; wailing dirge or happy an- 
 them; barren desert or blooming garden; sal- 
 vation or condemnation; Heaven or Hell. It 
 touches time; it touches eternity Like the 
 thunderings of Jehovah from Sinai, like trum- 
 pet tones from some archangel's lips, rings out 
 the great, deep, immeasurable word "Now," 
 through all the periods of God's word. Lis- 
 ten: "Turn now every one from his evil way. 
 Come, for all things are now ready. Do ye 
 now believe? There is therefore now no con- 
 demnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. 
 Beloved, now are we the sons of God. Now 
 therefore ye are no more strangers, but friends. 
 Christ hath entered into Heaven, now to ap- 
 pear in the presence of God for us. Now the 
 
WHEN SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 79 
 
 God of all peace be with you. Behold, now 
 is the accepted time; behold, now is the day 
 of salvation." 
 
 The frequency with which the word occurs 
 in the Holy Scriptures, joined as it is so often 
 with invitation, injunction, warning, and ex- 
 hortation, teaches us 
 
 I. First, the value of the present. — 
 Said Garfield, "To-day is a king in disguise." 
 Alexander the Great, in answer to the ques- 
 tion, how he had conquered the world, replied, 
 "By not delaying." Every man who has at- 
 tained success in life, every hero of renown, 
 every prominent actor on the world's stage, 
 every character whose life marks an epoch in 
 the history of nations, every great reformer, 
 who, like Luther, has battered down the 
 thrones of tyranny in Church or State, owes 
 the accomplishment of his desires, the attain- 
 ment of his purposes, and the fulfillment of 
 his aims to a recognition of the worth of the 
 present. Napoleon knew the necessity of tak- 
 ing advantage of passing time, when, contrary 
 to the advice of many of his counselors, he 
 crossed the Alps at midwinter, and marched 
 triumphantly into Italy. Both in national 
 
80 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 and individual history, much depends upon 
 the utilization of present opportunities. I 
 doubt not, when the Israelites came to Kadesh 
 Barnea, and heard the report of the spies con- 
 cerning Canaan, and refused to go over and 
 take possession of the land, they intended to 
 go over some time, after a while, when they 
 were stronger, whenever that might be. In 
 a year, or five years, or ten years, they might 
 undertake the conquest, but not now. Two 
 thirds of that number never had another op- 
 portunity to go over into the promised land. 
 They never came to Kadesh again. I never 
 think of that place on the border land between 
 the wilderness of Sin and the fruitful fields, 
 orchards, and vineyards of Canaan, but that 
 I involuntarily think of present opportunities 
 postponed. 
 
 In the life of Saul there is an example 
 of this same blunder men make by slight- 
 ing passing privileges. While he was king, 
 proud of his lofty position, and vain of 
 his successes in battle, he grew forgetful of 
 his vows to God. Once he loved God. It 
 was the Divine hand that placed him on the 
 throne. But he forgot his dependence on the 
 
WHEN SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 81 
 
 King of Kings, and willfully neglected the ad- 
 vice of Samuel, the prophet, who had been 
 his counselor in years gone by. Adversity 
 came, "But in the time of his distresses did 
 he trespass still more against the Lord." By 
 and by, on the eve of an awful battle, shorn 
 of his glory and his power, he comes to a 
 clairvoyant by night and asks to see Samuel 
 Up before him rises the venerable form of the 
 prophet, who informs him that the Lord hath 
 rent the kingdom out of his hands and to- 
 morrow he and his sons shall die. The result 
 of that battle would have been different had 
 he heeded Samuel's voice, when the prophet 
 was still alive. "Bring me up Samuel." 
 Through the ages those tearful words have 
 come, to show how sad it is and useless to 
 call up wasted opportunities. 
 
 "Of all sad words of tongue and pen, 
 The saddest are these: 'It might have been.-' 
 
 "Might have been" is only the past tense of 
 may be. 
 
 I know of no sight beneath the skies of 
 heaven half so sad as a wrecked and ruined 
 man. Health ruined because he neglected 
 to correct his evil habits when it was possible 
 
82 COUNSEL AND COMFORT 
 
 and easy to do so. Fortune wrecked, because 
 he neglected to make a safe investment, which, 
 if made would have secured him wealth ample 
 for his comfort all through life. Soul-wrecked, 
 because he neglected to make the start in 
 Christian faith and conduct when he was 
 susceptible to the influences of the Gospel, 
 when the Stranger was knocking at the door. 
 Do you know of anything better calculated to 
 make men weep and angels mourn, if angels 
 ever mourn, than the torn and tangled threads 
 of such a life? 
 
 As failure so often results from delay, so 
 success as often is contingent upon faithful- 
 ness in the improvement of now, the omnipo- 
 tent now, the living now. "Now is the watch- 
 word of the wise. Now is the balance of the 
 prudent. To-day is the trial of thy fortitude. 
 To-day is thy watch, O sentinel. To-day is 
 thy reprieve, O captain." "To-day is an 
 angel; wrestle with him and say, *I will not 
 let thee go, until thou bless me.'" To-day is 
 a garden; pluck flowers in it, ere the flowers 
 fade and wither. To-day is a banquet; feast 
 upon its manna while the manna is fresh. To- 
 day is a temple; worship in it while the en- 
 
WHEN SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 83 
 
 trance is ajar. 
 
 I see before me so many young people. To 
 you I say to-day, if you would in the end of 
 life look back upon a happy, useful record, 
 take advantage of the present. Eternity alone 
 can tell how much of good has been done in 
 the way of stimulating youth to noble effort 
 by Longfellow's lines, 
 
 " Let the dead past bury its dead, 
 Act, act in the living present, 
 Heart within and God o'erhead." 
 
 Many people live wholly in the past. They 
 talk of the "good old times" in the years of 
 yore, and long for their return. They lament 
 the decline of the church, and say with solemn 
 face and mournful tones, "The church isn't 
 what it once was. When I was young they 
 had sermons that were sermons, they had 
 singing that was singing. Everybody and 
 everything was better then than now." God 
 pity such people! They are in every com- 
 munity and in every church. You know them. 
 You can feel their presence near you like an 
 iceberg. They have their parallels in the old 
 colored people of the South, whose most fre- 
 quent phrase is "Befo' de wah." In their be- 
 nighted minds, the degrading slavery of olden 
 
84 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 times was vastly better than liberty. God 
 pity all such! They are living in the past. 
 
 They are dead to the present. A man said 
 to me once (he was a minister), "Why sir, our 
 church is ancient, our church has a history." 
 That is a good thing to have — a history, but 
 if that's all we have, we are in poor condition 
 for present work. The "Great Eastern" has 
 a history, an heroic history, but it isn't reli- 
 able now to carry freight or passengers. If 
 there is one within my hearing who lives in 
 memory more than in the present, this text is 
 for you, "Now is the day of salvation," not 
 yesterday, but now. 
 
 It is quite possible that some postpone 
 the claims of Christianity, on account of 
 a remembrance of the guilty past. The 
 recollection of your sins is a bar to your 
 progress in religion. Your past, you say, is a 
 Paradise Lost. A great dark blot covers the 
 page of your spent biography. In answer 
 to the preacher's inquiry, "Will you receive 
 Christ to-day?" you reply, "Not to-day. I 
 cannot get away from the past." To you I 
 quote the text, "Now is the accepted time." 
 Leave the past to your Savior, commit your 
 
WHEN SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 85 
 
 scarred and mutilated record to His mercy, 
 and do the best you know just now. 
 
 11 O what a glorious record had the angels of me kept 
 
 Had I done instead of doubted, had I walked instead of 
 crept, 
 
 Yet my soul, look not behind thee, thou hast work to do 
 at last. 
 
 Let the brave toil of the future overarch thy crumbling 
 past, 
 
 Build each great act high and higher, build it on the con- 
 quered sod 
 
 Where thy weakness first fell bleeding, where thy first 
 prayer was to God." 
 
 Yesterday, with the memory of all its sins, 
 should be a storm to drive your bark into the 
 haven of to-day. The arms of God alone can 
 rescue you from the past. After the Savior 
 has said, "Thy sins be forgiven thee;" after 
 God has said, "I will cast thy sins behind 
 me;" after the Judge has said, "I will blot 
 out thy sins, and remember them against 
 thee no more forever," you are ineffably fool- 
 ish to dwell longer in the past. "The past is 
 gone and gone forever — it is thine no longer, 
 but there is a present which is still thy own." 
 Marvelous was the impression made upon an 
 audience of drunkards by the sentence of a 
 prominent preacher, "Your lives are still be- 
 fore you," and it was true. 
 
80 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 There is another class of persons who treat 
 the present equally unwisely. They live not 
 so much in the past as in the future. Their 
 word is not "yesterday," but "to-morrow." 
 They pledge themselves to high and holy 
 vows — they will begin keeping them to-mor- 
 row. They make great resolutions — they 
 will carry them out to-morrow. They will 
 turn over a new leaf — to-morrow. They will 
 do better — to-morrow. They will give their 
 hearts to God — to-morrow. To-morrow is a 
 fated lie. "Tomorrow is in the calendar of 
 sluggards, but nowhere can it be found in all 
 the hoary registers of time. To-morrow is a 
 weakling child: Fancy is its mother, folly its 
 father." 
 
 •'To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow, 
 Creeps in this pretty pace from day to day, 
 To the last syllable of recorded time; 
 And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
 The way to dusty death. ' ' 
 
 So says the Bard of Avon; and Persius 
 echoes the same thought, 
 
 * 'Unhappy he who does his word adjourn, 
 And to to-morrow would the search delay; 
 His lazy morrow will be like today.*' 
 
 If we could take a census of this city upon 
 the question, "Do you expect some time to be 
 
IVHE N SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 87 
 
 a Christian ?" we would find few, if any, who 
 would not say, "I will be a Christian some 
 time." Yes, but when? Some other time, 
 but not to-day. How prone we all are to 
 adjourn attention to our soul's salvation. It 
 should not be so. You look for victory in 
 the future. God grant that you may attain 
 the highest summit of your worthy ambition. 
 God grant you your desire to conquer in the 
 battle of the years. If all good gifts were 
 mine to give, my heart would prompt me to 
 offer you this day the crown you covet. But 
 I cannot — it is not mine to give. It is yours 
 to gain, and you alone can gain it. Hear 
 me: you will conquer when the battle comes, 
 in proportion as you prepare for the battle 
 before the trumpet sounds, and the drum- 
 beat is heard. Make ready for the future in 
 the present, so that when opportunity offers 
 itself for promotion and preferment you will 
 not be found wanting. Now is the period of 
 preparation. 
 
 Regarding delay in important matters (and 
 you will admit that religion is not unimport- 
 ant), I remark: 
 
 II. It is unscriptural. If I can prove this 
 
88 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 proposition, it should be sufficient to pursuade 
 you to immediate action. The Bible is a sure 
 and sufficient guide, a revelation of God's 
 will concerning us. Perfect discipline is con- 
 ditioned upon perfect obedience. Shall the 
 child refuse to carry out the commandment 
 of his father? No, if he is a true son, he 
 will not hesitate or inquire why. Shall a 
 soldier delay to obey an order from his com- 
 mander, or stop to reason why? God is our 
 Father, our Commander, and so, when He 
 bids, when we hear his call to duty, shall we 
 not respond? What are his wishes concerning 
 us? Listen: "Choose ye this day whom ye 
 will serve. Consecrate yourselves to-day. 
 Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. To- 
 day if ye will hear his voice." 
 
 Is this not enough? He has said it. We 
 will obey. 
 
 III. Delay is unnecessary. There is no 
 reason of convenience or expediency that 
 prompts us to procrastinate this vital matter 
 of our soul's salvation. Will it be easier to 
 repent to-morrow? No. You know and we 
 all know that the 'longer repentance is post- 
 poned, the harder it will be to repent when 
 
WHEN SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 89 
 
 we decide to take Christ as our Savior. Not 
 that it will be harder for Him to save, but 
 there is such a thing as a seared conscience, 
 a hardened heart, a spirit unimpressionable 
 and unsusceptible to heavenly influences. 
 This leads me to remind you that — 
 IV. Delay is dangerous. 
 
 "That we would do 
 We should do when we would: for this would changes, 
 And hath abatements, and delays as many 
 As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents.' ' 
 
 It is an old saying that the road of By and 
 By leads to the town of Never. To postpone 
 praying is, possibly, never to pray at all. I 
 think some one is saying secretly, "Oh, you 
 need not try to scare me." I do not purpose 
 to scare you, but I have known people to be 
 terrified by a less dreadful thing than a warn- 
 ing from God. The falling of a window in 
 church, the simultaneous rush of an audience 
 toward the door at an alarm of fire, the crash 
 of a railroad train — these things have been 
 known to cause terror in the minds of stal- 
 wart men. It would be the part of wisdom 
 for you to heed the words of the Savior, 
 "Watch therefore, for ye know neither the 
 
90 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 day nor the hour wherein the Son of man 
 cometh." 
 
 Do you hope to repent at the eleventh hour? 
 There was one who turned to Christ in his 
 death moment, and received the assurance 
 of acceptance. As the old divines say, one 
 death bed repentance is recorded in the Script- 
 ures, that none might despair, but only one, 
 that none might presume. I knelt once at 
 the death-bed of a man, and tried to comfort 
 him by speaking words of hope, that if he 
 would, he might still be saved. His wail still 
 echoes in my ears, "Too late, too late, I have 
 sinned away my day of grace!" So he died. 
 The blind man at the outskirts of Jericho 
 heard the footsteps of a passing throng. 
 "What is it? Who is it?" He asked. "Jesus 
 of Nazareth passeth by." He cried aloud, 
 and the Savior heard him, and touched his 
 long unopened eyes to behold the sky and 
 earth, and most of all, the Great Physician's 
 face. Well was it for him that he cried to 
 Jesus then, for the Savior never passed that 
 way again. Young man, you who hear my 
 words, Jesus of Nazareth passeth by. When? 
 Now. Where? Here. He may never pass 
 
IVHEN SHOULD I BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 91 
 
 this way again. Call on him this very hour. 
 Say not no to his overtures of mercy. Say 
 not no, I beseech you, else sometime when 
 you stand before His judgment seat, you 
 should cry, "Is there no mercy for me?" and 
 the answer should come, a reverberation of 
 your denial here, preserved on the sensitive, 
 but indelible phonograph of eternity, "No! 
 No!" 
 
 A few years ago, a young man in Brooklyn, 
 passing a church on Sabbath evening, attracted 
 by the songs that floated out, entered the 
 sanctuary, took his seat, and listened to the 
 preaching of the Gospel. At the close of the 
 sermon, the pastor said, "If there is one here, 
 who will yield his will to Christ, and start out 
 on the line of eternal life, will he now come 
 forward, and give me his hand and name,;" 
 The young man's heart was touched. He 
 remembered the training of his early years, 
 his mother's prayers, his father's blessings. 
 He stepped from the pew, walked down the 
 aisle, and as he gave his hand and name to 
 the minister, he pledged himself to spend the 
 balance of his life in the service of Christ. 
 He went out of the church that night, anticipat- 
 
92 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 ing a long lifetime in religious labor. Little 
 thought he that he had heard the evening bells 
 chime for the last time — that he had seen the 
 sun go down upon the last day that he would 
 spend on earth. The next day he went out 
 upon the bay in a boat with some friends. 
 The boat capsized, and he, with his com- 
 panions was drowned. Happy was that 
 choice. 
 
 I close by repeating the lines of Fanny 
 Crosby: 
 
 "So near to the kingdom, yet what dost thou lack, 
 
 So near toithe Kingdom, what keepeth thee back? 
 Break down every idol, though dear it may be, 
 
 And come to the Savior now pleading with thee. 
 
 So near that thou hearest the songs that resound 
 
 From those who believing, a pardon have found; 
 
 So near, yet unwilling to give up thy sin, 
 
 When Jesus is waiting to welcome thee in. 
 
 O come, or thy season of grace will be past, 
 
 The door wilj be closed, and this call be thy last; 
 
 O where wouldst thou turn if the light should depart 
 
 That comes from the Spirit, and shines on thy heart? 
 
 To die with no hope, hast thou counted the cost? 
 To die out of Christ, and thy soul to be lost! 
 
 So near to the Kingdom; O come we implore, 
 
 While Jesus is knocking, come enter the door." 
 
VI 
 
 WHAT AFTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 
 
 "But we all, with open face, beholding as 
 in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed 
 into the same image from glory unto glory, 
 as by the Spirit of the Lord." — 2 Cor. Hi. 18. 
 
 IN Italy there is a cathedral, far-famed 
 among pilgrims to that land for its snowy 
 statues, and the exquisite paintings that 
 adorn its frescoed walls. Away up above the 
 main chapel is a tower-room to which leads a 
 long flight of narrow stairs. The traveler fol- 
 lows a guide up the weary way, until amidst 
 darkness that seems at first like midnight, he 
 stands in silence waiting for the guide to 
 speak. "Look at that wall." He looks, and 
 says, "I see nothing there." "Wait a little 
 while," replies the guide. He waits. Soon 
 a dim light floods the room. "Now 
 look." The traveler sees nothing yet 
 except the misty surface of a wall. But 
 little by little the light grows brighter, 
 
 93 
 
94 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 until he descries upon the wall the faint out- 
 lines of a picture. As yet, no figure nor feat- 
 ure can be seen. The guide says, "Be pa- 
 tient; keep on looking." Presently, in the 
 increassing light he catches the vision of a 
 wing here, a flower there. "Keep on look- 
 ing." Now see — the twilight has melted into 
 day, and there, in all the beauty of a master's 
 skill is a painting which transfixes the eye, 
 and charms the mind. 
 
 Such, for four thousand years, was the 
 gradual unfolding of God's truth to the world. 
 
 For twenty- five hundred years, the vast 
 majority of the children of men were in the 
 dim mist of starlight. Then came the Mosaic 
 dispensation, which, though the darkness 
 had grown somewhat less dense, was but a 
 partial revelation, shining dimly through a 
 veil, obscurely taught in types and emblems, 
 vaguely hinted at in rites and ceremonies, half 
 disclosed, yet half concealed in mystic prophe- 
 cies. Fifteen hundred years went by, and 
 the starlight melted into the gray dawn of 
 the world's first Christmas day, when the Sun 
 of Righteousness arose with healing in His 
 wings. For the first time in the ages, the full 
 
AFTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 95 
 
 daylight shown, touching with its earliest 
 beams the hill-tops and valleys of Judea, and 
 afterward diffusing its brightness throughout 
 the world. When Jesus came, the dimming 
 veil fell from the face of Truth, and the sec- 
 ond gospel — the gospel of Love, fronted the 
 world with open face, on which shone the 
 blazing glory of the Holy Ghost, with a far 
 greater luster than that of the Holy Place in 
 the old-time Tabernacle where the Shekinah 
 dwelt, under the wings of the Cherubim that 
 over-arched the Mercy Seat. 
 
 Christianity is an open-faced revelation. 
 It has no esoteric symbolism. It is a posi- 
 tive, intelligible, and absolute declaration of 
 truth to men "in thoughts that breathe and in 
 words that burn." The chapter from which 
 this text is taken is a comparison of the Chris- 
 tian and Mosaic dispensations by means of a 
 series of contrasts. 
 
 I. The first difference between the old and 
 new covenants is in the fact that we behold 
 the glory of the Lord with open face. Moses' 
 face was veiled when he appeared before the 
 people, to hide the glory of Divinity imparted 
 to his countenance by association with God 
 
96 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 upon the mountain. That was but the type 
 of the whole Mosaic economy; the glory of 
 the Lord was veiled. From Moses to Christ, 
 the Church of God was in the twilight shad- 
 ows, as though the promise of the morning 
 was but a mockery; as though the sun had 
 halted just a few degrees below the horizon; 
 as though God's time-piece had stopped at 
 the figure of despair, and left His people to 
 dwell in the dim mist forever. Prayerfully, 
 yet almost impatiently, the souls of the faith- 
 ful cried out, "How long, O Lord, how long? 
 Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants, and 
 Thy glory unto their children. The Lord 
 bless us, and keep us, and cause His light to 
 shine upon us." At last the light came. The 
 sentinel upon Mount Sier cried out, "Watch- 
 man, what of the night?" The watchman, 
 scanning with the telescope the heavens of 
 the future, saw the Star of Bethlehem, the 
 morning star, and shouted back, "Lo, the 
 morning cometh." The morning came when 
 the angel's song burst upon Bethlehem at 
 midnight, and startled the shepherds on the 
 plains. But the sun had not fully risen until 
 a generation later, amidst the earthquakes 
 
AFTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 97 
 
 and thunderings of Calvary, the veil of the 
 Temple was rent in twain. Then, for the 
 first time the people beheld the glory of the 
 Lord with open face; for the first time in the 
 tide of years the Church beheld the secret of 
 the Holy of Holies. 
 
 II. The second disparity between the old 
 and new dispensations, is in the universality 
 of the revelation here expressed in the words, 
 "We all, beholding, are changed. " The first 
 revelation of God to men was an unequal one. 
 It was unequal because men were unequal. 
 Just as the rosy rays of the morning kiss first 
 the lofty peaks of mountains, so, at first the 
 glory of Divine truth touched only great and 
 overtowering souls, like Enoch, Abraham, 
 Moses, David, Elijah and Isaiah. The masses, 
 the majorities, were all in the valley below, 
 where the mists hid the sky; but since Jesus 
 came into the world, the Sun has been ascend- 
 ing to His zenith, and His radiance pierces the 
 solitude of the narrowest gorge, and every sin- 
 sick, temptation-haunted, passion-blasted soul 
 may behold His light, and the glory of His 
 face. We have no religious aristocracy, no 
 inspired few for an unenlightened multitude. 
 
98 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 We are all priests, all kings, made so by 
 Christ. In Christianity there are no revela- 
 tions of truth designed for, and understood 
 by, the favored circle of specially initiated 
 alone. Hand-maidens prophesy; young men 
 see visions. Old men dream dreams. There 
 is but one bar to a clear understanding of 
 Christian doctrine, a bar, not of caste or of 
 rank, but of character. "If any man — (thank 
 God for those words) if any man will do my 
 will, he shall know the doctrine." We need 
 not stand in the outer court, while an anointed 
 priesthood enters within the veil, beholds for 
 us the glory of the Lord, and interprets for 
 us the Word. We all may behold the glory 
 of the Lord. He will commune with us all, 
 and accept sacrifices from our own hands. 
 There is now no one place to which alone 
 may be applied the term "Sanctum Sanc- 
 torum." Yonder in that dug-out on the prai- 
 rie; yonder in the rude log cabin in the forest, 
 where the woodsman lives; yonder in the 
 little vine-grown cottage in the hamlet, where 
 a poor sewing woman toils for her daily bread — 
 there is the Holy Place, there the Most Holy 
 Place, because there God imparts His power 
 
AFTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 99 
 
 to faithful souls, and grants them grace to 
 help in time of need. 
 
 Herein is the democracy of the gospel. Not 
 a Wesley, not a John Huss, not a Luther, not 
 a Calvin, not the elect and great of any age 
 or zone, be he pope, preacher, priest, or doc- 
 tor of divinity, is commissioned to see God 
 in our stead. "There is neither Jew nor 
 Greek, bond nor free; all are one in Christ." 
 Any system of belief or form of practice that 
 excludes the people from the Holy Place, the 
 altar of prayer, the communion table, the 
 private study of the Scriptures, is a system 
 and a form that is offensive to God, and cruel 
 to humanity. Wherever the whispered prayer 
 of a little child, wherever the feeble petition 
 of the feeblest saint, spoken in words, or ex- 
 pressed in sighs or sobs, or yearnings of the 
 heart, or upward glancings of the eye, wherever 
 any cry of helplessness is heard, there is the 
 Mercy Seat, and there, wherever it may be, 
 in answer to the cry of want, God flashes 
 down, like an electric current, His saving 
 grace, His mightiest power, His profoundest 
 truth. Have you not seen that old wash- 
 woman in faded calico dress and sun-bonnet, 
 
100 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 she who sits back in an obscure corner of the 
 church, she who can scarcely spell out the 
 promises of her Bible — have you not seen her 
 eyes grow bright with a strange rapture, and 
 a smile peaceful as an angel's make beauteous 
 her wrinkled face, as she voiced the emotions 
 of her soul by saying, "Glory! Glory! Glory !" 
 She has a right to say it. With open face, 
 she has beheld the glory of the. Lord. 
 
 This is the beauty of the Christian dispen- 
 sation. There is not one of us so poor, so 
 weak, so ignorant, but that into his dark life, 
 that light may shine, and upon his soul that 
 glory rest. An old colored woman, in a class- 
 meeting, in the African Church at Evanston, 
 cried out, "O, Fse happy! I'se happy as I 
 can be! De mornin' star am shinin' in my 
 heart!" Inelegant as were her words, I think 
 that in the sudden brightness of her Christian 
 experience, intensified as it was by the emo- 
 tional nature peculiar to her race, she had 
 seen with open face the glory of the Lord. 
 
 III. The author of our text calls attention 
 to the fact that the Chrisian life is one of 
 contemplation — of beholding. The prayer of 
 Moses on Sinai, was "O Lord, I beseech 
 
AFTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 101 
 
 Thee, show me Thy glory." That prayer 
 was not answered then. The Lord explained, 
 "There shall no man see Me and live." There 
 is a beautiful tradition among the Jews that 
 nearly forty years later as Moses stood upon 
 Mount Pisgah, and looked westward across 
 the fair valleys and vineyard-clad hills of 
 Canaan, he fell to praying again, as of yore, 
 "Show me Thy glory," and the Lord granted 
 him his request, and looking on the face of 
 God, he died. That is only a tradition, but 
 it is suggestive of the fact that in Old Cove- 
 nant times no man saw God at any time, be- 
 cause human vision was not yet ready for the 
 revelation, not yet strong enough to bear a 
 sight of Him, from whose face "the earth and 
 the heavens fled away, in the Apocalypse." 
 
 Men had seen God's wisdom in the stars, 
 His infinite design in the flowers, His terrible- 
 ness in plague and pestilence, in overwhelm- 
 ing flood, descending fire, and opening earth. 
 They had seen the manifestation of His will 
 in Providence, the unfolding of His purpose 
 in history; but not until Jesus came were 
 mortal eyes banqueted with a glimpse of the 
 glory of the Lord; not until then had men 
 
102 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 beheld the likeness of Deity, the real glory of 
 God. In the fulness of time He came, whose 
 office was to reveal the glory of God to men. 
 He was "God manifest in the flesh, Immanuel, 
 God with us. We beheld His glory, the glory 
 as of the only begotten of the Father, full of 
 grace and truth. Who was the brightness of 
 God's glory, and the express image of His 
 person." He himself said, "I and the Father 
 are one. He that hath seen me, hath seen 
 the Father." But Jesus went away; how 
 then can we behold him now? Must we suffer 
 martyrdom with Stephen, who, bruised, bat- 
 tered, mutilated, and bleeding, "looked stead- 
 fastly into Heaven, and beheld the Son of 
 God standing on the right hand of the Father?" 
 Or must we be exiles like John, who as he 
 wandered over the barren wastes of Patmos, 
 saw Heaven opened, and described One 
 "upon whose vesture and upon whose thigh a 
 name was written, Lord of Lords and King 
 of Kings?" No, we may discern Him with 
 spiritual vision. The testimony of every be- 
 liever since the Christian Church was founded 
 has been, in the words of Mary on the Resur- 
 rection morning, "I have seen the Lord." His 
 
AFTEP I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 103 
 
 promise was, "I am with you alway, even unto 
 the end of the world. " Once He stood at 
 our heart's door knocking. We opened, and 
 He came in, and abides within us, and now 
 we behold Him, for He is in our hearts. 
 
 Beauty is largely subjective; that is to say, 
 many a face, and many an object is beautiful 
 to us, for the reason that there is a love in 
 our hearts that responds to the perception of 
 that face or object. To illustrate: you might 
 not think that my mother is very handsome, 
 but I think she is the handsomest woman in 
 the world. Her hands are beautiful to me — 
 her hands, toil-marked and thin, that led me 
 when I could not walk alone, that smoothed 
 my crumpled pillow, and bathed my fevered 
 brow. Her feet are beautiful to me — her feet 
 that rocked my cradle many a sleepless night, 
 when father was away, and none other but 
 God was near. Her voice that sang to me 
 when I was wakeful and restless; her shoulders, 
 bent with the weight of years; her eyes, that 
 looked affection at my obedience, and wept 
 tears at my waywardness. Ah! she is beauti- 
 ful, because I love her. I see her now — I 
 shall always see her with the wonderful sight 
 
104 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 of the soul, long after she has gone to Heaven. 
 
 So it is, in some sense, with Jesus. We 
 apprehend Him by spiritual sight. We see 
 Him in His Word, all the way from Moses to 
 Malachi; we see Him in sacrifices, and cere- 
 monies; more plainly than in prophecies, we 
 see Him in His recorded life by the Evangel- 
 ists. We see Him in everything good, and 
 we see everything good in Him. In that 
 bright star, we see some sign of the Star of 
 Bethlehem; in the flowers of the field, we 
 see reminders of the Rose of Sharon, and the 
 Lily of the Valley; in the great rock, that 
 stands like a sentinel on the hill-side, we see 
 a symbol of Him who is the shadow of a great 
 rock in a weary land; in the bread we eat, 
 and in the water we drink, there come to us 
 thoughts of the Bread of Heaven, and the 
 Water of Life, which He declared Himself to 
 be. We look toward Heaven, and there we 
 see Him, "The fairest among ten thousand, 
 the Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
 world, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, pre- 
 vailing to open the book and unseal the seals." 
 
 The vision of His face strengthens us in 
 trial, fortifies us against temptation, arms us 
 
ASTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 105 
 
 for battle, inspires us to activity. You may 
 have seen a copy of that painting of a race in 
 a Roman Amphitheatre. There in the race- 
 course are two trained athletes. Their mus- 
 cles are like ship cables. Their necks are like 
 the stag's for brawn. They are stripped of 
 every weight that might impede their motion. 
 They seem almost to breathe, upon the canvas. 
 Above and around them, tier over tier, gallery 
 beyond gallery, are the hosts of people. Yon- 
 der is the Emperor; yonder the Vestal Vir- 
 gins. The populace looks on, eager for the 
 race to begin. I see that one of the two is 
 glancing up to a far gallery, where waves a 
 tri-colored flag. There are his friends. His 
 wife is there. That is she who waves the 
 banner. Looking at them, thinking of them, 
 his strength is as the strength of ten. Their 
 presence is a potent inspiration. I know 
 which of those two racers first reached the 
 goal. So do you. "Wherefore, seeing we 
 also are compassed about with so great a 
 cloud of witnesses, let us run with patience 
 the race which is set before us, Looking 
 Unto Jesus." 
 
 The secret of a pure life is keeping our eyes 
 
106 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 on Jesus. Amidst the perils and dangers that 
 meet us at every step, and surround us on 
 every side, amidst the nameless temptations 
 that assail us at the critical period of youth, 
 our only security is to keep Jesus in sight, to 
 be able to say with the Psalmist, "I have set 
 the Lord always before me." Could that boy 
 who not long ago left his home to go to a 
 great and wicked city, yield to the voice of 
 the tempter so long as he remembered his 
 mother's words? As she gave him a parting 
 kiss, she handed him a picture of herself and 
 said, "Be good, my son, be good, and pure, 
 and noble, and when you are tempted, take 
 out this picture, look at it, and for my sake, 
 say no." I think I see him, one night, as he 
 has been solicited to do what would com- 
 promise his honor and degrade his name, as 
 he stops under the gas-light, and takes from 
 his breast-pocket a photograph, and, looking 
 upon the sweet face of her whose love is next 
 to the Christ-love, says, "For her sake I will 
 be a man." Such is the power of keeping 
 before one's eyes a human face. What, then, 
 is the omnific influence of always beholding 
 Jesus, a Divine Ideal, a Heavenly Friend. 
 
AFTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 107 
 
 The secret of Christian endurance in hard- 
 ships, privations, and persecutions is keeping 
 the eyes on Jesus. What were imprisonment, 
 poverty, scourgings, ridicule, shipwreck, con- 
 tumely, martyrdom— what were these all to 
 Paul? He endured, "as seeing Him who is in- 
 visible." A little boy who had been mangled 
 on the railroad was carried to the hospital, 
 where the doctors told him his limb must be 
 amputated, and asked him if he thought he 
 could stand the ordeal. He replied, "Send 
 for my father; if he will hold my hand, I 
 think I can stand it." Ah, my friends, we 
 can endure animosities and disappointments, 
 and sufferings of any kind, with Jesus standing 
 by us all the time. His love is our comfort. 
 His power is our shield. His wisdom is our 
 counsel. His justice is our restraint. His 
 mercy is our hope. His presence is our sup- 
 port. The glory of His face is Heaven begun 
 below. 
 
 IV. I find that the words, "As in a glass," 
 do not correctly intrepret the undoubted mean- 
 ing in the Apostle's mind. The revised ver- 
 sion reads, "Reflecting as a mirror does the 
 glory of the Lord." One of the principles of 
 
108 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 optics is that a necessary accompaniment of 
 vision is the reflection of the thing beheld. 
 By the operation of this law, the world has 
 been furnished one of the most unfailing de- 
 tectors of crime. A mysterious murder has 
 been committed: whom to suspect and arrest 
 is not certain. Expert scientists say that if 
 we examine the sensitive surface of the eye 
 of the murdered person, we may discover a 
 miniature photograph of the murderer. This 
 may not be true; but it is true, in a very sig- 
 nificant sense, that what we see we are likely 
 to show. If we are beholding Christ, our 
 characters will mirror Christ, and in time, 
 men will say of us, as they look at our faces, 
 hear our voices, and observe our deportment, 
 "They have been with Jesus." An unbeliever 
 in the Bible said tauntingly to a young Christ- 
 ian, "Your religion is all moon-shine." This 
 he said, meaning to charge that Christianity 
 is a mere delusion. The young man replied, 
 "You say Christianity is all moon-shine. Yes, 
 it is. The moon shines by reflection from 
 the sun, and I shall be happy if I may be able 
 to reflect in my life, the light of Christ — the 
 Sun of Righteousness." 
 
AFTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 109 
 
 Here is a practical lesson. We must mani- 
 fest what we believe. The thoughts of our 
 minds, the hopes of our hearts, the emotions 
 of our souls, the true motive of our lives, will 
 be reflected from within, through the cold 
 exterior, and appear to others. "We are liv- 
 ing epistles, known and read of men." Our 
 words, our walk, our work, our very faces, 
 are scanned to see if in us is a reflection of 
 Christ. If we have steadfastly beheld him, 
 the beauty born of that contemplation will be 
 visible. 
 
 A little vagabond, friendless, homeless, shoe- 
 less, coatless — save his coat of dirt — solicited 
 pennies, in the fashion of his profession, of 
 passers-by. He was crying, "Here ye are! 
 Here ye are! Stand on my head twice for a 
 penny!" An old lady came by, one of God's 
 saints, in whose face was more of the gospel 
 than in many a sermon. She heard him, and 
 taking a few coins from her purse, she gave 
 them to him, saying, "No, darling. Never 
 mind standing on your head. Here's some 
 money for keeping right side up. Good-bye." 
 The little arab stood with wide-open eyes, 
 looking after her, as she passed on, as if she 
 
110 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 were an angel. A sudden idea seized him; 
 he turned to a comrade, and, pointing at the 
 retreating form of the good old lady said, "Did 
 you see that there lady's face? Did you hear 
 her speak? She's God's wife!" Well, if she 
 wasn't that, she was a member of His Church, 
 which is a bride of Christ. 
 
 V. Notice, that the Christian life is not 
 only a life of beholding, and reflecting, but 
 also a life of transformation. " Beholding, 
 we are changed." This is the explanation of 
 Christian morality, that those who behold the 
 glory of the Lord, are changed. This change 
 is wrought in the mind, producing conviction, 
 in" the heart, producing regeneration; in the 
 conduct, producing consecration; in the entire 
 nature, resulting in sanctification. The best 
 proof of the divinity of the Christian religion, 
 the best answer to every argument that is 
 urged against the gospel, is that men are 
 changed by it. It transforms character. It 
 beautifies homely faces, with the beauty of 
 holiness. It changes lives of weakness and 
 impotence into lives of power. It translates 
 selfishness into sympathy, weariness into vigor, 
 sadness and sighing into praise, dirges into 
 
AFTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? Ill 
 
 doxologies, and from the soul it takes the love 
 of vice, and supplants it with a desire for 
 purity. 
 
 You remember how, after Peter had healed 
 the impotent man, the kindred of the high 
 priest and their allies sought to controvert it. 
 Doubtless some said, "We do not believe he 
 healed the man; it is contrary to human ex- 
 perience." Public interest was intense, and 
 public passion was clamorous. The record 
 says: "And beholding the man which was 
 healed, standing with them, they could say 
 nothing against it." Ah, that was the proof — 
 the man standing there. And no matter what 
 the world may say, no matter what infidelity 
 may argue, the only effective answer that the 
 Church can give is "the man standing there." 
 He was sick; now he is whole. Here is one 
 who was dumb; now he speaks. Here is one 
 who was lame; now he leaps for joy. Here 
 is one who was' a drunkard; now he is a sober 
 man. Here is one who stole; he steals no 
 more. Here is one who was cruel to his 
 friends, his wife, his own sweet little child; 
 now he is kind and gentle. Here is one who 
 was narrow-minded; his soul and sympathy 
 
112 COUNSEL AND COMFORT, 
 
 did not take in a large number of people; 
 last night I heard him pray "Thy kingdom 
 come; Thy will be done in earth as it is in 
 Heaven." Here is one who was ambitious, 
 he aspired to power, and he coveted popu- 
 larity; now he says, "Yea, doubtless, and I 
 count all things but loss for the excellency of 
 the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." 
 
 By what process, and by what power, is 
 this transformation wrought? "From glory 
 unto glory, into the same image, as by the 
 Spirit of the Lord." Notice, the transforma- 
 tion is wrought upon us by a power not our 
 own. We behold; we are changed. Having 
 Jesus in sight, by the operation of a law by 
 which we simulate the character of that we 
 love, "we are changed into His image." "Think 
 of Buddha, and you become like Buddha." 
 Think of Christ and you are changed into 
 the same image. The Church of the middle 
 ages has transmitted this idea to us in stories 
 of monks that set before them an image, and 
 looking on it for years, in their old age bore 
 on their brows, and hands, and feet, and in 
 their sides, the marks of the Calvary Cruci- 
 fixion. Far better for us, and for the world, 
 
AFTER I HAVE BECOME A CHRISTIAN? 113 
 
 if we bear on our hearts the marks of Jesus' 
 death. Far better for us and for the world, 
 if we bear in our hearts the power of Jesus' 
 life. 
 
 I walked along the aisles of a cathedral not 
 long ago. I came to a bright spot on the 
 marble floor. The marble seemed to be col- 
 ored and tinted in the finest lights and shades. 
 There on the floor was a picture — the picture 
 of a mother and her child, the latter' s head 
 halo-encircled. Around were seraphs and 
 cherubs, white-pinioned and fair. What was 
 it? A mosaic in marble? No. Look up. Do 
 you see that stained-glass window? The sun- 
 light as it streams through, casts this reflec- 
 tion on the unconscious stone. Now suppose 
 that marble could be replaced with the sensi- 
 tized plate of the photographer; if the light 
 above is strong enough, and the light below is 
 not too strong, the image of the Madonna 
 and the Christ-child will be so indelibly im- 
 printed upon the plate that it can never be 
 effaced. So, upon a heart made sensitive by 
 the influence of the Holy Spirit, the image 
 not of the infant Jesus and His Mother, but 
 of the Divine Savior, is indelibly imprinted. 
 
114 COUNSEL /MD COMFORT. 
 
 It is a slow process; it takes a life-time to 
 to arrive at perfect beauty, but as the years 
 go by the image is more and more developed, 
 and sometime "we shall come in the unity of 
 the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of 
 God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of 
 the stature of the fullness of Christ." 
 
VII. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE — THE COMING KINGDOM. 
 
 u Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed 
 be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will 
 be done in earth, as it is in Heaven." — Matt, 
 vi. p-io. 
 
 THUS, He who came to earth to teach 
 men how to live and how to die, taught 
 men to pray. Thus the Church has 
 prayed for nearly nineteen hundred years. In 
 these words the palsied tongue of age and the 
 lisp of childhood's voice have joined as patri- 
 arch and babe have knelt before the mercy 
 seat, snowy locks and golden curls comming- 
 ling. Thus we have often prayed the Savior's 
 prayer. And what a prayer it is! So brief, 
 yet long as eternity. So simple, yet so pro- 
 found that sages and philosophers have 
 adopted it as the expression of their souls' 
 desires. So small, yet so comprehensive, 
 and so almost infinite in its scope! 
 
 There have been other prayers. They have 
 
 115 
 
116 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 been formulated by the fancy of billiant genius, 
 the mind of eminent learning, the heart of 
 deep piety. They adorn our stately rituals, 
 and dignify our awesome liturgies. Their poe- 
 try has been perfect — just beautiful enough; 
 their oratory has been perfect — just eloquent 
 enough; their rhetoric has been perfect — just 
 polished enough; their dimensions have been 
 perfect — just long enough; but this prayer, 
 artless and unembellished as it is, is still the 
 wonderful prayer, the unexampled prayer, the 
 church prayer, the prayer universal, the prayer 
 of prayers. 
 
 The world never knew such a prayer as 
 this before Christ came. It may be true, as 
 some have asserted (though their proof is 
 slender), that it is but a modification of an 
 invocation that had been used in the Temple 
 service a thousand years before the advent of 
 the Savior; nevertheless, when He uttered it, 
 who by breathing His warm spirit into earth's 
 chilly air, changed the whole destiny of the 
 race, He gave to it a meaning it never had 
 before. He widened and deepened and length- 
 ened its significance. 
 
 Said one who, years ago, was privileged to 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE. 117 
 
 hear the matchless melody of the world's 
 sweetest song as sung by Jenny Lind: "I had 
 heard it sung before. Its words were as 
 familiar to my mind as my a b c's. But 
 when I heard that plain-faced Swedish girl, 
 herself far away from friends and native land, 
 pour out her soul in the song of 'Home, Sweet 
 Home,' I thought I had never heard that 
 song before. It was a revelation to me. I 
 shall not soon forget it." 
 
 So men may have pronounced this prayer 
 millenniums before, but never until that morn- 
 ing when the incarnate Son of God sat on the 
 Judean hill-side, and declared unto his dis- 
 ciples and the multitude the New Gospel, the 
 Gospel of peace on earth and good will to 
 men, never until that day had any one fully 
 realized what it meant to say "Our Father." 
 This was God's own and only Son speaking 
 unto us all, and bidding us call His Father 
 ours. In these words, "Our Father," is the 
 seed-truth of two principles, namely, the pa- 
 ternity of God and the fraternity of man. In 
 the Old Testament, there as now and then a 
 great soul who towered up above his fellows 
 like a mountain top — who got a view of God's 
 
118 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 fatherhood; but this other idea, the brother- 
 hood of man, had never dawned upon the 
 thought of prophet, priest, or king before 
 Christ taught it. 
 
 Men had been praying thus, "Thy kingdom 
 come in Israel; Thy will be done among the 
 children of Abraham.' 7 Christ said, "Pray — 
 pray Our Father which art in Heaven; hal- 
 lowed be thy name among all nations; Thy 
 kingdom come everywhere; Thy will be done 
 in all the world. In Judea and in Samaria. 
 In Jerusalem and in Rome. In Germany and 
 Scandinavia. In England and in Ireland. In 
 North America and in South America. In 
 China and Japan. Among the Esquimaux of 
 the Arctic zone, and the Zulus of the equato- 
 rial Africa — everywhere. The kingdom come 
 wherever man is found!" Great idea is this — 
 the solidarity of society, the sisterhood of 
 nations, the unity of the race, the Fatherhood 
 of God, the Brotherhood of man. 
 
 This was a new idea. Wendell Phillips 
 said, "Ideas are more powerful than armies. 
 They go booming through the world like can- 
 non." This is the idea that has come rumbl- 
 ing down the ages, at the same time the most 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE. 119 
 
 dynamic destructive force, and the most divine 
 reconstructive force the world has ever enter- 
 tained. It has overthrown tyrannical govern- 
 ments. It has deposed iniquitous dynasties. 
 It has annihilated unjust institutions. It has 
 revolutionized inequitable systems of society, 
 and upon the ruins of what was, it has laid 
 the foundation for governments more inde- 
 pendent, institutions more merciful, and so- 
 ciety more democratic. This idea reaches 
 down and lays its sinewy but gentle hands 
 upon the shoulders of a slave and says, "Come 
 up, come up from the mire. You are not a 
 brute; you are a man; come up." This idea 
 teaches up and lays hand its upon the shoulders 
 of a king, and says, "Come down, come down 
 from the throne. You are not a god, you are 
 a man; come down." Then this idea puts 
 the hard hand of the sable African into the 
 soft palm of the blue-eyed Saxon, and says, 
 "Be at peace, be at peace; you are not ene- 
 mies, you are brothers." 
 
 Hear this, O Senators and Congressmen, 
 Statesmen and Reformers, would-be solvers 
 of the vexed and vexing race-problem! Hear 
 this, ye gentlemen from Kansas and Carolina, 
 
120 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 this is the only voice, that like the Savior's 
 on the Galilean Sea can hush to peace those 
 troubled waters. Every other voice will only 
 lash the more to fury the already furious 
 storm. 
 
 Do we need another statesman to help us 
 settle the negro question? We need ten thou- 
 sand men and women who have heard this 
 prayer, and who pray it, and believe it, to 
 assert the rights, to redress the wrongs, to 
 heal the bruises, to feed the hunger, to quench 
 the thirst, to clothe the nakedness, and train 
 the hands, the heads, and the hearts of their 
 brothers, be their skin yellow as saffron, white 
 as snow, or black as a raven's wing. 
 
 11 For all the sons of men are sons of God, 
 Nor limps a begger but is nobly born, 
 Nor wears a slave a yoke, nor czar a crown, 
 That makes him more or less than just a man." 
 
 Christ wrote no Magna Charta, Republican 
 Constitution, or Emancipation Proclamation, 
 but he gave utterance to an idea, which, when 
 it developed, was the heart and center of those 
 documents. That idea is the one I have men- 
 tioned, the equality of man. It was not so 
 much Grant, or the Army of the Potomac, or 
 the Union, as it was this idea, that triumphed 
 
THE CHRISTIANS HOPE. 131 
 
 at Appomattox, a quarter of a century ago, 
 when for the first time in two centuries and 
 a half, on American territory, a black mother 
 could press a baby to her breast and call it 
 hers. 
 
 This prayer contains more than we think, 
 more than we can understand, and yet an 
 infant's lips can utter it, and an infant's mind 
 take in somewhat of its meaning. 
 
 I think that if all the record of Christ's life 
 could be destroyed (the thought is almost 
 irreverent, for not one word or work of His 
 can be destroyed by man, not till man puts 
 out the flaming torch of the sun, or dries up 
 the ocean's liquid fountain), but were such a 
 thought possible, and we were to see the 
 whole Christian system going, would not we 
 all, with one accord, Jew and Gentile, Papist 
 and Protestant, Unitarian and Trinitarian, 
 Liberal and Orthodox, unite in saying, "Stop! 
 Spare us something to cling to!" What shall 
 it be? The Sermon on the Mount, containing 
 as it does the beatitudes and this prayer, the 
 brightest gems in the Savior's crown of 
 speech. 
 
 Have we not thanked God again and again 
 
122 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 for the gift of this prayer in His Word? Have 
 we not found in it expressed the emotions of 
 our souls which struggle for utterance? As 
 we fainted on some sun-scorched pathway of 
 life, or as we crept through some tangled 
 wilderness, or as we struggled up some rugged 
 road, or, like the disciples of old, as we toiled 
 in rowing against a contrary wind, when our 
 spirits were disquiet and our souls sad, when 
 our words were choked with tears, and our 
 quivering lips were dumb, then have we not 
 turned faith's vision beyond the sun-scorched 
 path and the tangled way, beyond the rugged 
 hillside road, and beyond the mountains in 
 whose caverns the winds hide that toss the sea, 
 toward the sky, and thought this prayer when 
 we could not speak it? 
 
 "Thy kingdom come." These words alone 
 are enough to take us a life-time to learn. 
 Each one weighs a ton. "Thy kingdom 
 come." What does that mean? It means 
 that things are not what they ought to be. 
 It means that things shall sometime be what 
 they ought to be. It means that when things 
 are what they ought to be it will only be when 
 His will is done on earth as it is done in 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE. 123 
 
 Heaven. 
 
 Three years ago, I officiated at the funeral 
 of a lovely little girl, the pride of her parents' 
 eyes, the joy of their life. We buried her 
 angel face and waxen form in a grave-yard 
 thirty miles from the city in which the family 
 had lived, because the family burial-place and 
 monument were there. The train did not 
 arrive till late. The sun had gone down be- 
 fore we entered the cemetery. I can never 
 forget that April evening. The little coffin 
 was lowered into the grave. The ceremony 
 of the church was finished, and we heard the 
 falling of the clods on the coffin-lid. Ah, is 
 there any sound like that in all the world so 
 fit to break a mother's heart? How that 
 young mother wept! What could I say? 
 Nothing. I, too, was a mourner there. So 
 were we all. Looking down, I saw beside the 
 grave, as yet untrodden by our feet the first 
 frail flower of Spring-time. Symbol of the 
 resurrection! I pointed the mother to it, and 
 through her tears she smiled. Emblem of a 
 precious promise! Looking up, I saw just 
 above the grave-yard as it seemed, the bright- 
 est star of all the sky, silent and serene. I 
 
124 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 pointed upward, and the mourners, ere they 
 left the little mound, beheld it, emblem of 
 eternal hope. The father wrote me a little 
 while ago, "We never think of Bessie's grave 
 without thinking of that Easter flower that 
 grew beside it, and the star that shone above 
 it." Thank God for hopes and promises! 
 
 Such is the view of the world that this 
 prayer takes. It sees the graves of weakness 
 and the graves of age; the graves of igno- 
 rance and the graves of sin; the graves of 
 hatred and the grave of lust; it sees the whole 
 earth honeycombed with graves, but it says, 
 "See! beside the graves are flowers of prom- 
 ise, and look! there in the sky of the future 
 is the bright star of the millennial morning. 
 These tell us of better things to come." 
 
 So this prayer is more than a prayer. It 
 is a prophecy. He who taught us to pray 
 "Thy kingdom come," knew all things, and 
 saw the end from the beginning. He took 
 in the divine perspective, and this prayer 
 authorized by Him, is a promise that His 
 kingdom will come. It is either a glorious 
 prophecy or an infinite mockery. Christ 
 would not teach us to pray for that which 
 
THE CHRISTIANS HOPE. 125 
 
 shall never be. 
 
 You say, "Then, if His kingdom is sure to 
 come, why need we pray for it?" Do you 
 not know that every special blessing is con- 
 tingent upon two laws, and is secured only by 
 compliance with them? These are, divine 
 interposition and human co-operation. You 
 will observe that so far as the ultimate ratio 
 is involved, either of these laws is inoperative 
 independent of the other. 
 
 The Savior's disciples preached often, say- 
 ing "Repent and be converted." It is easy to 
 see in this command two parties and two 
 parts concerned. Man's part is to repent. 
 God's part is to convert. This is equivalent 
 to the promise, "You do the repenting, and 
 I will do the converting." This same Savior 
 said "Come unto me and I will give you rest." 
 It is for us to come. It is for Christ to give 
 us rest. Paul said to the Philippian jailer, 
 "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou 
 shalt be saved." We believe. God saves. 
 Believing is active. Being saved is passive. 
 Saith the Spirit, "Behold I stand at the door 
 and knock. If any man will hear my voice, 
 and open unto me, I will come in and sup 
 
126 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 with him and he with me." On one side, and 
 that is our side, there are hearing and opening 
 the door. On the other side, and that is His 
 side, there are coming in and imparting the 
 joy of communion. Oh, brother mine, which 
 factor in that series is wanting in your life? 
 The Savior has knocked. You have heard. 
 He waits to come in, but do you not know 
 that the door is locked, and the key is on the 
 inside? 
 
 Now some blessings God gives us uncondi- 
 tionally. On the just and unjust alike falls 
 the rain, shines the sun, beam the stars. For 
 the just and unjust alike, the winds blow and 
 the flowers bloom. But every spiritual bless- 
 ing that comes to intelligent and enlightened 
 men, is contingent on these two pinciples I 
 have named. 
 
 Now the tendency of too many of us is to 
 fix our thoughts and fasten our faith upon one 
 side of a truth, forgetful that it may have 
 another side. So some Christians apprehend 
 but one of these two great laws. Individually 
 they look for some sudden work of trans- 
 formation, some overwhelming experience of 
 grace, some meteoric revelation of truth, with- 
 
THE CHRISTIANS HOPE. 127 
 
 out any especial cause or antecedent on their 
 part. They say they are waiting for a bless- 
 ing. Well, they may wait until 
 
 " The sun grows cold, 
 And the stars grow old 
 And the books of the judgment day- 
 unfold. 
 
 but never a current of grace or a vision of 
 truth will flash into their souls — they have 
 forgotten the law of human co-operation. 
 
 In matters of more universal relations, they 
 look for revivals of religion, and for success 
 in missionary enterprises, yet refuse to move 
 a muscle or donate a dollar, taking refuge, 
 when they are urged to betsir themselves to 
 earnest prayer and practical benevolence, in 
 the words of Zechariah the prophet, "Not by 
 might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith 
 the Lord." 
 
 Have they not read that before the walls of 
 Jericho fell (though it was by God's omnific fiat 
 that they fell) the people were commanded to 
 fulfill certain conditions, upon obedience to 
 which the result depended. Naaman was 
 doubtless healed of his loathsome leprosy by 
 divine interposition, but preliminary and ante- 
 cedent to his recovery was faithful obedience 
 
128 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 to an apparently useless prescription. That 
 was human co-operation. 
 
 I need not illustrate the confluence of these 
 two principles at greater length. The mar- 
 riage miracle at Cana, the healing of the blind 
 man, the resurrection of Lazarus, corroborate 
 what I have said. Recall the promise re- 
 corded by Malachi: "Bring ye all the tithes 
 into the store- house, that there may be meat 
 in mine house, and prove me now herewith, 
 saith the Lord of Hosts if I will not open you the 
 windows of Heaven and pour you out a bless- 
 ing that there shall not be room to contain it." 
 It is here clearly declared that churchly pros- 
 perity is contingent on churchly liberality. 
 "You bring in the tithes. I will pour out the 
 blessing," saith the Lord of Hosts. 
 
 In this last promise, and in the several in- 
 stances I have enumerated as well as in many 
 other cases, the census of which would weary 
 you, it is clearly demonstrated that there is 
 a work to do on the part of humanity in order 
 to verify the preciousness of the promise of 
 Divinity. 
 
 In this prayer, and not only in this prayer, 
 but in a comfortably large number of Scrip- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE. 129 
 
 tural prophecies, is the assurance that some 
 time the kingdom of God shall come, and the 
 angels that sang of the birth of the Christ- 
 child in Judea shall again make the glad air 
 of earth vibrate with the announcement of 
 the glorious consummation of the plan God 
 wrought out back in the sad bowers of Eden, 
 for the absolute redemption of the race from 
 sin, and the absolute enthronement of his Son 
 in every nation and in every heart. 
 
 "Thy kingdom come." It will come. It is 
 coming. His truth will prevail, because it is 
 His truth. Spring is coming soon. You plant 
 flower seeds in the earth, and have faith that 
 they will grow from seed to root, from root 
 to stem, from stem to stalk, from stalk to 
 branch, from branch to bud, and from bud to 
 bloom. On what is your faith founded? On 
 the life wrapped up in the seed? Somewhat 
 but not entirely. Upon the richness of the 
 soil? Somewhat, but not entirely. Your 
 faith is founded on the moral certainty that 
 after the seed has been planted, the warm 
 rain will water it, the bright sun will smile 
 upon it, and the forces from the sky will woo 
 it from the sod and win it to perfection. 
 
130 COUNSEL j4ND COMFORT. 
 
 We preach the Gospel here, and send it to 
 the far-off continents and islands of the sea, 
 and thus we sow the good seed in the soil of 
 human hearts. The seed will grow. It will 
 grow until the whole world is covered with 
 the golden grain. It will grow because God's 
 spirit will supplement the work of the sower, 
 and give the harvest. It is for us to sow, but 
 He that gives the increase is above. 
 
 Wonderful thought is this: the coming of 
 God's kingdom in the world contingent on 
 what we do, and how soon we do it. When 
 He bids us pray, "Thy kingdom come," He 
 bids us work to the end for which we pray. 
 Prayer is not a substitute for effort, but the 
 natural antecedent to, and attendant of, effort. 
 Work is not a substitute for prayer, but the 
 natural subsequent to, and interpreter of, 
 prayer. He who prays most earnestly, most 
 really, will most put forth his energies in be- 
 half of that for which he prays. He whose 
 energies are most aroused in behalf of any- 
 thing, will pray most sincerely for its accom- 
 plishment. Melancthon prayed for the recov- 
 ery of Luther. And straightway he went to 
 the kitchen to prepare such food as would 
 
THE CHRISTIANS HOPE. 131 
 
 give his friend nourishment. Many years ago 
 a plague raged in London. The citizens peti- 
 tioned the Crown that a form of prayer might 
 be prepared by the clergy for use during the 
 pestilence. Lord Palmerston was Prime Min- 
 ister. He responded that such an action was 
 in order, but not until the people were suffic- 
 ently in earnest in the matter of staying the 
 plague, to clean their streets and stables, and 
 to flush their sewers. There was an outcry of 
 indignation at the answer, and yet, though it 
 may have been somewhat open to criticism in 
 form, it was in fact both orthodox, and com- 
 mon-sense-odox. It is an unspeakable im- 
 pertinence to besiege the throne of grace for 
 ends, the means to which are in our hands all 
 unemployed. 
 
 A little girl had fallen into a cistern, and 
 had been rescued by her mother. Some one 
 asked her if she was not afraid down there. 
 "Oh no!" she replied, "tause I knew if I 
 reached up dest as high as I tould, mamma 
 would reach the rest." Ah, little darling, you 
 have taught us a lesson in theology. We 
 want a revival in this church. We want this 
 altar consecrated by the tears of penitence. 
 
133 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 We want other music, sweeter melody than 
 comes from this treasury of soft and soothing 
 sounds — the hallelujahs of sinners saved by 
 grace divine. Shall we have it? Yes, if we 
 do all we can to invite it, God will send the 
 revival. We want Christ's kingdom to come 
 in the world. Will it come? Yes, if we do 
 all we can to spread His gospel, He will do 
 the rest. Have you noticed the electric light 
 on the street-corner yonder? See! A carbon 
 point extends upward a little distance from 
 below. There an electric current ends. An- 
 other carbon point extends downward a little 
 distance from above. There another electric 
 current ends. The carbons meet. The currents 
 meet. A light flashes out in the darkness. 
 So, up from the earth there goes the carbon 
 point of human co-operation. Down from 
 Heaven there comes the carbon point of divine 
 interposition. The carbons meet, andlo! a 
 great light radiates from the point of meeting. 
 It is the light of the Coming Kingdom — the 
 Kingdom of Heaven among men. 
 
 Praying is working, and working is praying. 
 While it is true that no suffering saint, from 
 the bed of pain ever prayed unheard the whis- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE. 133 
 
 pered prayer, "Thy kingdom come;" and while 
 it is true that no discouraged man, at the end 
 of a day, all worn and weary with conflict 
 against wrong, ever cried in vain with tearful 
 eagerness, "Thy kingdom come," yet, no less 
 it is true that he who for Christ's sake makes 
 any sad heart lighter, any heavy burden easier, 
 is also praying potently, "Thy kingdom come." 
 What is God's kingdom? It is "righteous- 
 ness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." 
 So, when his kingdom comes, when the mil- 
 lennium dawns, it will be when righteousness, 
 and peace,, and joy from the Holy Ghost fill 
 every heart. Then, in ratio as we implant 
 or increase all these elements, or any one of 
 them in any heart, by that much we are con- 
 tributing to the eventual triumph of the Re- 
 deemer's kingdom. My brother, you who in- 
 vited that homeless boy to your house last 
 Sunday, and bade him sit at your table to 
 dine, you, by so much, brought God's king- 
 dom into the world. Lady, you who took an 
 erring sister by the hand, and with a word of 
 hearty cheer, and a "God bless you," sent 
 her on her way in greater hope than she has 
 ever known since she became an outcast, by 
 
134 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 so much you brought God's kindgom into the 
 world. Young lady, you who visited that old 
 blind woman, who lives on a back street, and 
 read to her out of the Book, the promises God 
 has written for blind people, and sang to her 
 that song, 
 
 " I will guide thee with mine eye." 
 you by so much brought God's kingdom into 
 the world. Young man, you who amidst dis- 
 couragement, and doubt as to your success, 
 are teaching the members of a little Sunday- 
 school class, the way to Heaven God de- 
 signed, you, by so much, are helping to bring 
 in the kingdom. Little child, you who on 
 your way to school last Wednesday, passing 
 a sick boy's window, stopped to smile and 
 say, "Good morning," or inquire, "How are 
 you?" and thereby brought a ray of gladness 
 into a room of pain, you thus helped to bring 
 in the kingdom. Unsaved soul, you who will 
 to-night cleave the air of earth and Heaven 
 with the prayer of the publican of the parable, 
 "God be merciful to me a sinner," which cry, 
 from an earnest soul, never went up but that 
 there flashed down the answering pardon, and 
 the peace which passeth understanding, you, 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE. 135 
 
 by so much, will help to bring into the world 
 Christ's kingdom. Fellow-sharers are we all 
 in the work that must be done before his king- 
 dom comes. Sharers oft in toil and tears, 
 sharers always in grace, sharers soon in glory! 
 Oh, rejoice, my friends, for the coming of 
 the kingdom draweth near! The night has 
 been long; the darkness has been dense; sin 
 has cursed and curses still the world. Thorns 
 infest the ground. I hear the wail of the 
 world's sorrow, like the undertone of the 
 waves that break on the long sea-shore. But 
 "be not weary in well doing, for in due sea- 
 son we shall reap, if we faint not." With the 
 faith of Christian optimism, I see the Orient 
 sky grow gray with the signs of the morning. 
 The day is dawning over the mountains — the 
 day "by prophet seers foretold," when crime, 
 and cruelty and ignorance shall be forgotten; 
 when war shall cease; when holiness shall 
 dwell in every heart, and abide in every home, 
 and shine from every dome and echo on every 
 breeze, and ring from every steeple; when 
 intemperance shall be banished, and fields of 
 golden grain shall be garnered, not be crushed 
 in distilleries, but to feed the hungry; when 
 
136 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 the shriveled hand of want shall be filled with 
 plenty; when each man's weal shall be all 
 men's care; when strife and quarrel shall 
 hush, and they who have been foes shall clasp 
 each other's palms, and swear to be brothers 
 forever; when angels in Heaven, looking 
 down, shall strike with glad fingers the harp 
 of joy at the sight of a world redeemed and 
 happy. Then shall the anthem of one be the 
 anthem of all, "Glory be to the Father, and 
 to the Son and to the Holy Ghost!" The 
 fountains shall whisper it to the brooklets, the 
 brooklets to the rivers, the rivers to the 
 ocean, the ocean shall repeat it to the infinite 
 sea, and the sea shall roll its waves on high, 
 and beckon to the tossing forests to welcome 
 the coming of Him who trod its waters cent- 
 uries ago, with the doxology, "As it was in 
 the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, 
 world without end, Amen!" 
 
VIII. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN'S ULTIMATE REWARD — THE CITY 
 OF GOD. 
 
 " Glorious things are spoken of thee, City 
 of God" — Psalms, Ixxxvii. 4. 
 
 I^HE eighty-seventh Psalm probably be- 
 longs to that period of Jewish history, 
 during which that kingdom enjoyed the 
 greatest prosperity. Jerusalem was the capi- 
 tal. The temple was there. Its massive form 
 adorned the summit of Mount Moriah. Its 
 polished pillars glimmered in the sunlight, 
 visible from Gerizim, thirty miles away. 
 There was the palace of Solomon, bedecked 
 with burnished gold from Sheba, with 
 snowy silk from Araby, and with purple cloth 
 from Babylonian looms. The city was famous 
 also for wealth. With greedy haste the com- 
 merce of all nations, in fleets that sailed the 
 sea, and in caravans that crossed the deserts, 
 poured treasures into the coffers of the king. 
 
 The armies of Israel, victorious over every foe, 
 
 137 
 
138 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 contributed to the glory of the capital. Not 
 the eagles of Caesar in Gaul or Britian, not 
 the banners of Alexander on the shores of the 
 Indian Ocean, floated more triumphantly than 
 the battle-flags of Israel. Once a year the 
 people came from all parts of the empire to 
 the temple, to keep the Passover feast. They 
 blended the religious and patriotic ideas into 
 one by prayer and praise and song. It is not 
 strange that the Psalmist writes of such a city: 
 "Glorious things are spoken of thee, O City 
 of God." 
 
 There, beneath the outspread wings of 
 cherubim, dwelt the Shekinah, the visible 
 token of the presence of an invisible God. 
 Glorious things were seen there. Glorious 
 things were taught in her synagogues. Glori- 
 ous things were heard in her streets. She was 
 the emblem of the most glorious things of 
 all — she was a symbol of God's Church in all 
 the world and the type of Heaven. John of 
 Patmos, in the Apocalyptic vision, beheld 
 Heaven and called it Zion, the new Jerusa- 
 lem, the City of God. Inspired by the Holy 
 Ghost, with the beauty of poetic imagery, and 
 the power of a classic tongue, he wrote things 
 
THE CHRISTIANS ULTIMATE REWARD. 139 
 
 concerning it, so glorious that even our fleet- 
 est fancy and our fondest hope droop with 
 weary wing, unable to follow him in his flight. 
 Whatever glorious things the Psalmists wrote 
 of the ancient capital are but feeble shadows 
 of what poets say, and what God himself de- 
 clares concerning Heaven. "Glorious things 
 are spoken of thee, O City of God." 
 
 I am of the opinion that ordinarily, it is 
 with promise of better success in awakening 
 to activity the energies, and to holiness the 
 hearts of worshipers, that attention is directed 
 to the present life, its duties and responsi- 
 bilities, its worth and its dignity than to the 
 Hereafter. For this reason, I have thus far 
 refrained from preaching to you on any theme 
 that looks wholly to the future. However, I 
 have this morning solicited your thought con- 
 cerning the life to come, with the desire that 
 new hopes may be engendered in your minds, 
 and old hopes awakened and strengthened; 
 for I know that no worthy hope was ever be- 
 gotten in the heart, nor holy ambition cher- 
 ished, without making the present life better. 
 "Every man, then, that hath this hope within 
 him, purifieth himself." 
 
140 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 When we speak of Heaven, we understand 
 it to mean a place. There are some persons 
 who represent Heaven to be merely a condi- 
 tion of being, a state of dreamless and uncon- 
 scious rest. Such a belief has no foundation 
 in the Bible. The language of Scripture 
 everywhere embodies the idea of Heaven as a 
 place. Did not the Savior teach that there 
 are positions of honor in Heaven? Position 
 contemplates relativity, which pre-supposes 
 locality. He comforted his mourning disci- 
 plines with the assurance, "In my Father's 
 house are many mansions. I go to prepare a 
 place for you." It is impossible to imagine 
 deathless happiness apart from associations, 
 to the thought of which locality is essential. 
 It is as rational to speak of throwing our arms 
 around the neck of nothing, and holding sweet 
 converse with nobody, as it is to speak of 
 Heaven as a state of blessedness in which the 
 soul loses its identity, and sustains no rela- 
 tions to any especial place. Heaven is a 
 place. This is argued from the forms of 
 speech by which it is represented — a King- 
 dom, a Country, a Home, a Banquet, a "City 
 which hath foundations." But if Heaven is a 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S ULTIMATE REWARD. 141 
 
 place, where is it? We naturally look upward 
 when we speak of the abode of the blest. But 
 that act is not a declaration that we regard 
 the sky which happens to be above us at the 
 time, as that particular part of space which 
 contains Heaven. We instinctively look up- 
 ward at the thought of anything supremely 
 good, or true, or beautiful. It is that im- 
 pulse of the mind, discoverable everywhere by 
 which we, "look up to" superior objects, that 
 has caused us to think of Heaven as above. 
 Where is Heaven? Could our vision take in 
 the universe, we might answer the question. 
 But even the astronomer, with the most pow- 
 erful telescope, can view but a small part of 
 the infinite expanse of suns and moons and 
 stars. Beyond our farthest sight are stellar 
 systems, the light of which requires untold 
 ages to reach the earth. Our globe, even our 
 entire solar system, with its tremendous sweep 
 of uncounted millions of miles, might be 
 obliterated from the universe, and not be 
 missed as much as a flake of snow from an 
 Alpine avalanche, or a grain of sand from Sa- 
 hara. The astronomer tells us that, vast as is 
 the starry space, there is somewhere a center 
 
143 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 around which revolve all other bodies. Our 
 planet revolves around the sun, but the sun 
 itself is bowling around some great orb, that 
 has never been sighted by mortal vision. 
 That may be Heaven. At least, we are con- 
 vinced that the great God and Father of us 
 all, who made the stars and hung them out 
 like jewels in the crown of night, like beads 
 in an infinite rosary, has prepared some place 
 where He more plainly reveals himself to His 
 ransomed people than on earth. Where that 
 place is, we may not know till our spirits are 
 emancipated from the entanglements of the 
 flesh, and we are borne to it on the wings of 
 angels, sent to convey us there. 
 
 "The Beautiful City! forever 
 
 Its rapturous praises resound, 
 And we fain would beheld it, but never 
 
 A glimpse of its glory is found. 
 We slacken our lips at the tender 
 
 White breasts of our mothers, to hear 
 Of its marvelous beauty and splendor, 
 
 And catch — but the gleam of a tear; 
 We compass the earth and the ocean, 
 
 From the Orient's uttermost light, 
 To where the last ripple in motion 
 
 Lips hem of the skirt of the night, 
 But the Beautiful City evades us, 
 
 No spire of it glints in the sun, 
 No glad bannered battlement shades us, 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S ULTIMATE REWARD 143 
 
 When all our long journey is done. 
 Where lies it? we question and listen; 
 
 We lean from the mountain or mast, 
 
 And see but dull earth, or the glisten 
 
 Of seas inconceivably vast. 
 We kneel in dim fanes, where thunders 
 
 Of organs tumultuous roll, 
 And the longing heart listens and wonders, 
 
 And the eyes look aloft from the soul. 
 But the chanson grows fainter and fainter, 
 
 Melts wholly away and is dead, 
 And our eyes only reach where the painter 
 
 Has dabbled a saint overhead. 
 The Beautiful City ! O mortal, 
 
 Far hopefully on in thy quest, 
 Pass down through the green grassy portal 
 
 That lead to to the Valley of Rest. 
 There first passed the One who in pity 
 
 Of all thy great yearning, awaits 
 To point out the Beautiful City, 
 
 And loosen the trump at the gates." 
 
 Ah, that is our comfort. That is our cheer. 
 We know not where Heaven is, but we have 
 a Savior who knows. And the angels know. 
 That angel that came into your home a little 
 while ago, and bore away on snowy pinions 
 your darling child, knew how to find the way 
 safe through the twinkling lights of the sky, 
 to the home where children are forever pure 
 and beautiful, and where all are childlike in 
 innocence and joy. We may not know where 
 
144 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 Heaven is, but we do know something of 
 what Heaven is. "Eye hath not seen, nor 
 ear heard, neither hath it entered into the 
 heart of man the things God hath prepared 
 for those that love Him. But He hath re- 
 vealed them unto us by the Spirit." And so, 
 as sometimes between two mountains peaks, 
 we behold a long line of plain and valley far 
 beyond; or, as through a rift in sunset clouds, 
 we catch a view of the vast extent of sky, 
 even so, here and there in God's word we 
 catch a glimpse of the wonders that belong 
 to the Heavenly life. "Glorious things are 
 spoken of thee, O City of God!" 
 
 I. Heaven is eternal. In the closing chap- 
 ter of the Book, the promise is to the inhabi- 
 tants of the city, "They shall reign for ever 
 
 and ever." How long is that? We have no 
 conception of it. We stand with uncovered 
 heads before an octogenarian. Eighty years 
 of life mean so much to us. We measure 
 time by hours. Our thoughts are slow and 
 halting when we try to travel over a thousand 
 years. It seems so long. Six thousand years 
 — why that seems forever. Yet six thousand 
 years are insignificant when eternity is to be 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S ULTIMATE REWARD. 145 
 
 considered. Eternity! "Flowers fade, the 
 heart withers, man grows old and dies, the 
 world lies down in the sepulcher of ages, but 
 time writes no wrinkles on the brow of eter- 
 nity." It was an Athenian painter who, bend- 
 ing over an unfinished canvas, lifted his eyes 
 toward the sky in despair, and cried: "O that 
 
 I could paint a dying groan!" So here, I 
 would that there might come to you some 
 faint idea of eternity. Infinite duration. 
 "Punctum stans" — an ever-abiding present. 
 Youth without old age. Life without death. 
 To-day without to-morrow. The life-time of 
 Deity. An ocean with no shore. A laby- 
 rinth with no exit. How much is that? Is it 
 as much as one moment of delirious delight? 
 Is it as much as one night of sin? Is it as 
 much as a life-time of May-day pleasure — a 
 life-time, say of seventy years? Have you 
 bartered an eternal Heaven for these? Then 
 you are like the man in Bunyan's allegory 
 who heaps up straw and stubble, withered 
 leaves and faded flowers, and heeds not that 
 above him hovers a radiant angel offering a 
 golden crown. 
 
 Eternity means stability. Amidst the tran- 
 
140 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 sient scenes of earth, how the human heart 
 craves something that is changeless! Our 
 childhood's home has passed away. The old 
 landmarks are gone. The faces that made it 
 beauteous are sleeping beneath the nesting 
 grasses of the grave. Earthly homes are not 
 eternal. Heaven is. Where are the cities of 
 the past? Tyre and Sidon are in ruins. Even 
 their site is lost. Jerusalem is buried under- 
 neath the debris of centuries. Pompeii and 
 Heculaneum are in ashes. Babylon is fallen. 
 The Rome of Caesar is no more. Earthly 
 cities are not eternal. The City of God is. 
 Call the roll of nations that were once the 
 boast of warrior kings — proud Egypt, haughty 
 Assyria, victorious Macedonia, classic Greece, 
 imperial Rome. They have passed away. 
 Their palaces are heaps of crumbling marble, 
 broken pillars, and ruined walls, where vipers 
 hide, and the night birds moan their threnody 
 of despair. Earthly nations are not eternal. 
 The Kingdom of God is. All the world is 
 mutable, but the Heaven of our God shall en- 
 dure forever. The permanence of Heaven is 
 glorious. A changeless Christ, a changeless 
 Gospel, and a changeless Home! 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S ULTIMATE REWARD. 147 
 
 II. Another glorious thing spoken of the 
 City of God is that it is a place of entire sat- 
 isfaction. "When I awake, I shall be satisfied 
 with thy likeness." Satisfied — earth knows 
 no such experience. The cup of pleasure may 
 be brimming, the fullest measure of success 
 may be attained, the laurel wreath of honor 
 may crown the victor's brow, wealth may 
 wait upon the winner, but after all, there is a 
 something left unsatisfied, a thirst no earthly 
 fount can quench, a hunger no earthly food 
 can appease, a void that naught on earth can 
 fill. 
 
 There was Burke — learned, eloquent, suc- 
 cessful in all that men call success, and yet 
 toward life's close, he said he would not give 
 a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called 
 fame in this world. Pollock writes of Byron: 
 
 "Great man! the nations gazed and wondered much, 
 And praised: and many called his evil good. 
 Wits wrote in favor of his wickedness: 
 And kings to do him honor took delight. 
 Thus, full of titles, flattery, honor, fame, 
 Beyond desire, beyond ambition full, 
 He died. He died of what? Of wretchedness. 
 Drank every cup of joy, heard every trump 
 Of fame; drank early, deeply drank; drank draughts 
 That common millions might have quenched, then died 
 Of thirst because there was no more to drink." 
 
148 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 There was Alexander. Conqueror of the 
 world, he died unsatisfied because he thought 
 there were no other worlds to conquer. Ah, 
 he had not thought of Heaven! He might 
 have gained that too; then he would have 
 been satisfied. Then there was another. He 
 was a King. Sitting upon an ivory throne 
 within a gorgeous palace, he wielded a sceptre 
 over submissive millions. Surely he was sat- 
 isfied. Far from it. He sums up all in that 
 pathetic plaint, "vanity of vanities, all is 
 vanity." There was another, a king and a 
 warrior. On many a battle-field he had 
 pitched his tent, and in many a conflict his 
 sword had flashed on high. He had slain 
 "his tens of thousands." He was a poet. He 
 was a musician. He was a statesman. But 
 he was not satisfied. He it was who wrote, 
 When I awake I shall be satisfied." He 
 looked for satisfaction in Heaven. Thank 
 God, there, and there alone, is satisfaction. 
 Every longing hope shall find its full fruition 
 there. Every eager eye shall behold its ideal 
 image there. Every worthy ambition shall 
 meet its cherished ultimate there. Every faith- 
 ful prayer shall have granted its supplication 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S ULTIMATE REWARD. 149 
 
 there. Every throbbing instinct shall realize 
 its answer there. Every trusting soul shall be 
 entirely satisfied there. Hallelujah! "Glori- 
 ous things are spoken of thee, O City of God." 
 What would it take to satisfy you? Health? 
 There are no fevers, weaknesses, pestilences, 
 there. Milton thought that if he could only 
 have his sight, he would be satisfied. There 
 is no blindness in heaven. A little lame boy 
 inquired: "Do angels ever have curvature of 
 the spine?" No, dear, you shall be erect and 
 graceful there. Tom Marshall said when he 
 was dying, "I have been crowded all my life." 
 There is plenty of room in Heaven. A black 
 boy said: "Sometime I shall be as white as 
 you." Yes, little one, for there we shall all 
 be "washed in the Blood of the Lamb." A 
 little girl, the child of poverty, who never had 
 heard music but once, and then only through 
 a door that opened but for a moment and let 
 out a flood of golden light and harmony that 
 seemed divine, cried out as her tired feet 
 touched the river's bank, "Now I shall hear 
 music." In Heaven nothing shall be want- 
 ing to satisfy the soul completely. Our Indi- 
 ana poet sings (I change two words): 
 
150 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 "There, weary one, don't cry: 
 
 They have broken your heart, I know, 
 And the rainbow gleams of your youthful dreams 
 
 Are things of the long ago. 
 But Heaven holds all for which you sigh; 
 There, weary one, don't cry, don't cry." 
 
 3. It is a glorious thing to remember that 
 in Heaven we shall possess perfect knowledge. 
 "Now we see through a glass darkly, but then 
 face to face. Now we know in part, but then 
 shall we know even as also we are known. 
 For when that which is perfect is come, then 
 that which is in part shall be done away." 
 Dr. Dick used to argue that the redeemed in 
 Heaven will cultivate arithmetic, and geome- 
 try, and trigonometry, and conic sections, and 
 astronomy, and philosophy. That may be 
 true, but it would make an unwelcome Heaven 
 to some of us, I fear. Southey imagined 
 Heaven as the home of genius. He longed to 
 see and converse with the gifted minds of our 
 race whose names are honored in the realm 
 of letters, Milton, Dante, and Shakespeare. 
 Others have thought of Heaven as a place, 
 where, free from the weariness of mind and 
 body, we may soar from star to star, and 
 solve the mysteries of creation. Still others 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S ULTIMATE REWARD. 151 
 
 long for Heaven as an opportunity to enjoy a 
 knowledge of religious truth, holiness, salva- 
 tion, perfection. That view is more spiritual, 
 to know God and dwell in his visible presence, 
 and behold the face of "Him that sitteth upon 
 the throne." At least we may be certain that 
 an eternity of untiring activity is for us, and 
 the whole universe of thought will be our field. 
 
 We are babes in knowledge now, but in that 
 place we shall learn to read the economy of 
 God, the mysteries of grace, the Book of 
 Providence. We shall learn why God dealt 
 with us as He did, while we were on earth. 
 That will be a glad surprise. We shall know 
 why some of our prayers were unanswered, 
 why some we thought unanswered, really were 
 answered, and we knew it not. 
 
 We prayed for success, God gave us poverty. 
 We prayed for holiness, God gave us tears. 
 We prayed for the conversion of a friend; 
 God smote that one with a life-long sickness. 
 We prayed for the removal of a flesh-thorn. 
 We prayed, not once nor thrice, but many 
 times. The flesh-thorn remained, but in the 
 stillness of some night of pain, there came the 
 words, "My grace is sufficient for thee." We 
 
153 COUNSEL AND COMFORT, 
 
 prayed for nearness to God. A cross was laid 
 upon our shoulders that seemed too heavy to 
 bear. We cried out, "O Father, why is it 
 thus!" In Heaven we shall know why. 
 
 "Sometime, when all life's lessons have been learned, 
 
 When sun and moon forevermore have set, 
 The lessons our weak judgments here have spurned, 
 
 O'er which we sat and grieved with lashes wet, 
 Shall flash before us out of life's dark night 
 
 As stars shine most in deepest tints of blue, 
 And we shall see how all God's plans were best, 
 
 And how, what seemed reproof, was love most true." 
 
 Then, with perfect knowledge, there shall 
 come a better acquaintance with one another. 
 
 We do not know each other here. You met 
 a man yesterday, and talked with him a little 
 while, and went away saying, "I don't like 
 him very well." Of course not. You don't 
 know him yet. If you only knew him better, 
 you would love him more. If we knew the 
 hidden sorrows, the secret hopes, the conflicts, 
 the yearnings of our neighbor's life, we would 
 be more patient, and more kind. Some time 
 we shall know. 
 
 "When the mists have risen above us, 
 As onr Father knows his own, 
 Face to face with those that love us, 
 We shall know as we are known. 
 
THE CHRISTIANS ULTIMATE REWARD. 153 
 
 "Far beyond the Orient meadows 
 Floats the golden fringe of day, 
 Heart to heart we bide the shadows 
 Till the mists have cleared away." 
 
 Perfect knowledge in Heaven! "Glorious 
 things are spoken of thee, O City of God." 
 
 4. There shall be ample compensation for 
 all our losses. Did we confess Christ? He 
 will confess us. Did we contribute our mite 
 to His cause? He will repay it with compound 
 interest. Did we sacrifice one hour of time 
 for His service? That was the best investment 
 we ever made. Did we incur the ridicule of 
 a few deluded world- worshipers? One smile 
 of welcome, one approving word from Christ, 
 will compensate us for all that. Did we part 
 company with a friend, when we became 
 Christians? Never mind, we have gained the 
 companionship of angels by it. Did we forsake 
 father, mother, brothers, sisters, houses and 
 lands, for Jesus' sake? We shall receive an 
 hundred fold, and life everlasting. Were we 
 imprisoned for conscience ' sake? We are be- 
 yond the reach of prison bars and bolted doors, 
 beyond the fear of clanking chains, and gloomy 
 cells. Were we burned at the stake for allegi- 
 ance to the truth? No hell-kindled fagot can 
 
154 COUNSEL AND COMFORT. 
 
 torture the quivering flesh now. Were we 
 counted poor, or foolish, or fanatic, because 
 we turned our backs to fashion's form, and 
 turned deaf ears to the sin-sirens that lured 
 us to ill? The riches of God are all ours now. 
 Such is Heaven. 
 
 "Light after darkness, 
 
 Gain after loss, 
 Strength after weakness, 
 
 Crown after cross, 
 Sweet after bitter, 
 
 Songs after fears, 
 Home after wandering, 
 
 Praise after tears.' ' 
 
 Oh, strive to win Heaven. A prepared 
 place for prepared people. Heaven may be 
 nearer than any of you think. Some of you 
 who hear me to-day will spend Christmas in 
 Heaven. Then you shall know its joy, its 
 bliss ineffable. Then you shall see that after 
 all, the most glorious thing in Heaven is not 
 its eternity, nor its effulgent light; not its liv- 
 ing trees, nor its silver river; not its glittering 
 crowns, nor its grassy sea; not its golden 
 streets, nor its fragrant flowers, but the all 
 embracing, all-enrapturing, all-satisfying, all- 
 compensating presence of the Blessed Christ. 
 That will be glory, that will be beauty, that 
 will be music, that will be Heaven for you. 
 
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