LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 ©(tap. dontjngfjt If o. 
 
 Shelf ._ 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
% 
 
OUR ELDER BROTHER 
 
 THOUGHTS FOR EVERY SUNDAY 
 
 IN THE YEAR, FROM THE LIFE 
 
 AND WORDS OF JESUS 
 
 OF NAZARETH, BY 
 
 SARAH S. BAKER 
 
 
 l 24= 
 
 1892 
 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 A. D. F. RANDOLPH 
 
 AND COMPANY 
 
 (INCORPORATED) 
 
 182 Fifth Avenue 
 
 HV 
 
 ^V-N 
 

 Copyright, 1892, 
 By Anson D, F. Randolph & Company, 
 
 ( INCORPORATED.) 
 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 
 
r PHE picture that we have tried to copy is the 
 picture that we remember. Our results may 
 be poor and disappointing, unfit to show to our 
 nearest friend, but we have the original indelibly 
 fixed in memory. Every curve of the outline, every 
 delicate shade is ours. 
 
 So it is with the character of our Elder Brother. 
 We try day by day to be like Him. Our imitation 
 is a miserable copy indeed, but we have come to 
 know and love our Perfect Example. It may even be 
 that that wonderful transformation has been going 
 on within us which will be perfected in the Better 
 Home, when we shall (( see Him as He is," and 
 (< know as we are known." 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Before tije TOotlU m**. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Self-Sacrifice 11 
 
 II. Creation 14 
 
 III. Steadfastness 18 
 
 IV. Humility and Obedience 22 
 
 a CPU, 
 
 I. The Babe 29 
 
 II. The Child Jesus 33 
 
 III. Forms 37 
 
 IV. A Name 41 
 
 V. A Wide Circle 47 
 
 VI. Boys 52 
 
 iEHmtstermg. 
 
 I. Temptation 61 
 
 II. Babes in Christ 65 
 
 III. Recreation 71 
 
 IV. Seekers 76 
 
 V. Tired 81 
 
 VI. Relatives 84 
 
 VII. Faults 94 
 
 VIII. Mourn i;rs 100 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 IX. Self-denial 106 
 
 X. Economy Ill 
 
 XL Opposition 117 
 
 XII. Deformity 121 
 
 XIII. Parents 127 
 
 XIV. Seeming Death 131 
 
 XV. The Nursery .136 
 
 XVI. The Capital 139 
 
 XVII. Workmen 146 
 
 XVIII. Constancy 152 
 
 XIX. Forgiveness 161 
 
 XX. Trust .166 
 
 Crucified 173 
 
 Efefll, 
 
 I. The Grave . 177 
 
 II. In Remembrance 181 
 
 III. Vision 185 
 
 IV. By the Way 188 
 
 V. The Old Testament 193 
 
 VI. The Sheep '. 198 
 
 VII. Daily Bread 207 
 
 SijscentietJ. 
 
 I. Lost and Found 215 
 
 II. A Miracle 219 
 
 III. Union 224 
 
 IV. Dying Eyes 228 
 
 V. A Voice from Heaven 231 
 
 VI. Persecution 234 
 
 VII. Penitents 240 
 
 VIII. Gentiles 244 
 
CONTENTS. vii 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 IX. Cheer 249 
 
 X. Weakness 253 
 
 XL Priests 257 
 
 XII. Churches and Church Members .... 261 
 
 Coming again. 
 
 I. A Glad Welcome 271 
 
 II. The Jddge 275 
 
 En (Slorg. 
 
 I. Rest 283 
 
 II. The Bride 287 
 
 III. The Holy City 290 
 
 Index according to Texts . 295 
 
before tt>e Watlb Wag. 
 
 I. Self-Sacrifice. 
 II. Creation. 
 
 III. Steadfastness. 
 
 IV. Humility and Obedience. 
 
OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 before tf>e Wwlb Wa$. 
 
 SELE-SACKIFICE. 
 
 The glory which I had with the Father before the world 
 was. — John xvii. 5. 
 
 WE can know nothing of the character of a 
 human being, just born into the world. A 
 babe lies before us a helpless riddle. His future 
 development of body and soul, his gifts and his 
 graces, are all to us impenetrable mysteries. 
 
 Not so with our Great Example. We hear of 
 Him in the bosom of His Father before the world 
 was. He had had an existence and a character 
 already, in Heaven, before the opening of His 
 career on earth as the Messiah. The New Testa- 
 ment, like the Old, goes back to the beginning. 
 
 We cannot picture the glory and the beauty 
 and the holiness of the Heaven where the Only 
 
12 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 Begotten Son was in sacred fellowship with the 
 Father ; that dazzling brightness is veiled from our 
 poor human eyes. Of this one thing we are sure, 
 our Lord was willing to leave that blessed Home 
 and come down to the lost children of men. That 
 " infinite stoop " gives us our first lesson in fol- 
 lowing Christ. With self-sacrifice His intercourse 
 with man begins. His perfect joy was offered up 
 that He might minister to and save mankind. 
 
 What have we to offer in return for His bound- 
 less love ? Has not all that we have and are be- 
 come suddenly precious to us ? 
 
 Have you any special mental power or talent ? 
 It is to be used in the service of your Master. 
 Have you worldly standing, or in any way pre- 
 eminence among your fellow-men ? From this 
 day call it not your own. Be humble and modest 
 and unworldly ; be a brother or sister to the 
 destitute poor, a loving messenger of offered 
 mercy to the vilest of sinners. Have you rights 
 to contend for ? Is your own denied you at the 
 hearthstone ? Is some proper claim there over- 
 looked? Lowly in heart, set aside your petty 
 contentions ; offer them all to him who offered 
 all for you. 
 
 Riches ! What are they ? Passing dust of the 
 earth, not fit to be trodden upon by the Lord of 
 Glory ! They cannot profit Him ! Yet with them 
 you can succor those whom the Lord has been 
 
BEFORE THE WORLD WAS. 13 
 
 pleased to call His brethren, even the hungry and 
 the naked. Riches can even do the blessed work 
 of sending willing messengers to tell the story of 
 the Cross to " the nations that know not God." 
 Your riches are no longer to be used merely to 
 wrap yourself round with beauty and luxury, 
 forgetful of the sufferings of your fellow-men. 
 Not so can you follow the example of your Elder 
 Brother; not so can you show your sense of His 
 great offering for you. 
 
 What a glad thrill of heart when you can think 
 of something more to give up for Him who gave 
 up all for you ! Your faults, your very sins, 
 strange to say, have now a value. You can give 
 them up, small and great, for Jesus' sake. 
 
 Every whole-hearted offering draws you nearer 
 to Christ. Every gift is a fresh secret tribute of 
 love, perhaps known only to Him. 
 
 Here begins a new stage in your Christian life. 
 You are no longer your own, but your Lord's, — 
 His with all you are or have, or can attain to ; 
 His for time and eternity ! 
 
II. 
 
 CEEATIOK 
 
 All things were made by Him. — John i. 3. 
 
 WE have been allowed to have some knowl- 
 edge of our Lord's occupations as well as 
 His character before His Bethlehem birth. We 
 hear in various places in Holy Writ of His delight 
 in creation, in the exercise of the Divine power 
 of making something out of nothing, of blending 
 in delightful harmony beauty and order and util- 
 ity and beneficence. 
 
 There is a natural longing to visit the Holy 
 Land, where our Saviour walked in bodily form, 
 and so to draw near to Him in loving adoration 
 and human fellowship. 
 
 We need no far foreign journey to have present 
 to us what has met the eyes of our Lord, what 
 has been touched by His hand, fashioned by His 
 wisdom, and adapted to the use of man. The 
 light that gladdens us by day, the stars by night, 
 the air we breathe, the welcome voices that reach 
 our willing ears, the very friends that are dear to 
 us, are manifestations of His love. Not merely 
 
BEFORE THE WORLD WAS. 15 
 
 the Holy Land has been trodden by His foot, but 
 every atom of the round world is the work of our 
 Best Friend! The whole organization of nature 
 encompasses us about with mementos of His 
 tender care "without whom nothing was made 
 that was made." 
 
 If we would really know Christ, we must be 
 reminded of him by all the loveliness and com- 
 fort and joy provided for us here below. 
 
 There have been loving hearts who in their 
 devotion to their dead have left a room and 
 even a home untouched, as it was last used by 
 the dear departed. The whole earth is to us 
 such a home, ever bearing the impress not of the 
 dead but the living Lord ! We are surrounded 
 by works in whose creation He " had pleasure." 
 When we study the physical laws of any depart- 
 ment of natural science, we are coming into the 
 thought of the Divine Being who formed them. 
 Our earthly home is of His planning ; and what a 
 beautiful home it is for us, poor sinful children 
 of men! 
 
 Every power we ourselves possess, whether of 
 body or mind, is a direct gift from our Lord ; and 
 His is the gift to find satisfaction in the use of 
 these powers. In trying to develop to the ut- 
 most what we have best in us, we are following 
 out His faultless plan for our being; we are co- 
 workers with our Lord. He gives us the inno- 
 
16 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 cent enjoyment it is to exercise the strong body 
 and train it to grace and agility. He has made 
 it a delight to the musician to group sweet sounds 
 in pleasing accord, — to the poet to put great 
 thoughts into words of beauty and metrical har- 
 mony, to the inventor to plan and execute, to the 
 laborer to do skilfully his appointed task. 
 
 Whatsoever our gifts or our work may be, to 
 use the one or do the other to our best ability is 
 a kind of praise, a direct obedience to Him who 
 has made the soul and body of each individual 
 man. How this thought ennobles all labor, and 
 sanctifies the highest as well as the lowest work ! 
 
 And what has the beauty of the world made 
 for man to say to us ? He who made the bird to 
 build his pretty nest for the bright fleeting sum- 
 mer days, He who has strewn the wild-flowers 
 broadcast by the cottager's door, does iiot surely 
 look disapprovingly upon our efforts to make our 
 temporary dwellings here below tasteful and at- 
 tractive, if we do not do it in a spirit of extrava- 
 gance or ostentation. He would certainly have 
 us mindful of the poor in the wayside hovel or in 
 the crowded alleys of the city, in the miner's 
 " cabin" or the factory village, and do some- 
 thing to make their homes neat, comfortable, and 
 refining. He must look with pleasure on the 
 kindness that prompts to adorning the sick-room 
 of the invalid, the convalescent ward of the hos- 
 
BEFORE THE WORLD WAS. 17 
 
 pital or insane asylum, or even the nursery for 
 the little ones, so .beloved by the Good Shepherd. 
 We cannot create. Our tools of mind or body, 
 as well as our materials, are the gift of God. 
 We may, however, with the powers of which we 
 are possessed, group the materials to which we 
 have access in some new manner that may min- 
 ister to beauty or utility in this our lower home. 
 We may help to scatter, where we pass on our 
 earthly way, what may gladden the eye or cheer 
 the heart or ennoble the soul of our fellows. 
 For the possibility of such lowly following of 
 our Lord, without whom nothing was created, we 
 shall be called to account ! 
 
III. 
 
 STEADFASTNESS. 
 
 The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. 
 Rev. xiii. 8. 
 
 SELF-OFFEBED, our blessed Lord was "the 
 Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
 world." Men may be capable of great deeds in a 
 season of high enthusiasm, or through the long 
 maturing devotedness that finds its sudden cli- 
 max in a moment of daring unto death. We 
 cannot conceive the infinite love and compassion 
 and fixedness of purpose which could enable our 
 Lord to look forward through long ages to His 
 great humiliation and supreme self-sacrifice. 
 
 It is from our Elder Brother's unswerving re- 
 solve to be offered the Great Shepherd for the 
 sheep, that we must learn the patient continu- 
 ance in well-doing, the ceaseless pursuance of 
 noble aims, the unflinching cutting off all that 
 may lead us from God and holiness. 
 
 It is written that the Master, "for the joy set 
 before him, endured the cross, despising the 
 shame." Even higher joy than He had known 
 with the Father (and we may gather even higher 
 
BEFORE THE WORLD WAS. 19 
 
 honor) was pledged to our Lord in that He was 
 willing to humble himself and take upon Him 
 the form of man, and be on the cross the one 
 great offering for the sins of the whole world. 
 We, too, are not without the promise of an ex- 
 ceeding great reward. Not that our poor services 
 are to have wages. Wages are for sin, — even 
 the death that is wrapped up in evil doing ! 
 The gift of God is eternal life ; and this eternal 
 life of joy is promised to all who will accept 
 free forgiveness in Christ, and strive to follow 
 His example of love and purity. 
 
 We have also, in our little measure, something 
 to look forward to, from which human nature 
 shrinks. We have the hour of death, the one 
 thing of which we are certain in our otherwise 
 veiled future. Here we have the deep sympathy 
 of our Lord, who Himself passed through the 
 valley of the shadow, and has " tasted death for 
 every man." He knew through rolling centuries 
 upon centuries just what was in store for Him. 
 He knows as well just when and where we shall 
 lie down and die ; and He has in reserve for us 
 the sustaining strength that is to bear us through 
 that trying hour. The nearer we live to Him 
 now, the better it will be for us then. 
 
 Days or months or years may lie before us 
 ere we leave this our earthly path. He to whom 
 " a thousand years is as a single day," will be our 
 
20 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 strong consolation through all the vicissitudes 
 of the way ! 
 
 "Thine own friend and thy father's friend 
 forsake not," says the Scripture proverb; and 
 how we cling to those who have known and loved 
 us from childhood, and have loved our parents 
 before us ! Such friends do not turn coldly from 
 us in the hour of trouble or humiliation. 
 
 But what shall we say of a Friend who has 
 " loved us from the foundation of the world " ? 
 He has known us in advance as none other can 
 know us, with all our sins and our backslidings ; 
 and yet He has loved us with an everlasting 
 love ! He has chosen us for His own ! He who 
 has so loved us will never forsake us ! In Him we 
 may have " strong confidence ! " The wild waves 
 of earthly commotion may be tossing around us 
 — we are safe with Him who " holds the waters 
 in the hollow of His hand." He will not let us 
 sink in the billows of temptation, if we but cry 
 to him, " Lord, save us ! " He loves us with an 
 old, old love. Before Abraham lived his mortal 
 life, we were dear to our Lord, of His children 
 in the faith, for whom He was willing to be the 
 Crucified Saviour ! n 
 
 There are times when a sense of desolation and 
 loneliness creeps over us. We seem walking in 
 darkness, and fumbling in vain for the warm 
 hand of friendship to give us its cheering grasp. 
 
BEFORE THE WORLD WAS. 21 
 
 Do we forget the " Friend who sticketh closer than 
 a brother " ? Have we honestly tried to have 
 the bond close between us and our Lord ? Have 
 we sought His friendship and companionship as 
 assiduously as we might that of an earthly asso- 
 ciate whose affection was precious to us ? Have 
 we conformed our tastes and habits and wishes 
 to His, as we would to those of a beloved human 
 friend ? 
 
 May we so love this unchanging Great Friend, 
 that we may live in the glad remembrance of His 
 presence, and grow in His likeness, and have 
 His illimitable help in every hour of need ! 
 
IV. 
 
 HUMILITY AND OBEDIENCE. 
 My Father, — John xiv. 7. 
 
 AS in botanical studies, so in biography, it is 
 not only the flower and the fruit we ex- 
 amine, — we must know also the parent root. 
 
 It is not to David or Euth or Abraham that 
 we turn to find the spring and fount of the per- 
 fect character of the man Christ Jesus. He had 
 truly in His nature gathered up all the nobility of 
 the long line of His earthly ancestors, down to 
 that maiden, "blessed among women," who was 
 honored to be the mother of the promised Mes- 
 siah. But this Saviour of the world was not 
 merely a man ; He was Emmanuel, " God with us. " 
 He whose " compassions are new every morning," 
 who of old had "not despised the afflictions of the 
 afflicted," the pure and perfect Almighty God, 
 sent to the fallen world His Only Begotten Son, 
 the " express image " of the God of Love. 
 
 How incomprehensible to us is the humility of 
 the Son of God ! How the pride of the human 
 heart is humbled in His presence ! 
 
BEFORE THE WORLD WAS. 23 
 
 With what eager interest we read of our own 
 forefathers, and proudly flush at their achieve- 
 ments, as if we, unborn, had had a share in their 
 merit ! Our own family pride we can always tol- 
 erate, or excuse, or even indulge and foster. An 
 exhibition in our neighbor of this same family 
 pride, how unacceptable, how repulsive it is to us ! 
 We seem to desire to occupy ourselves a pinnacle 
 upon which few can stand,— a point from which 
 we can look down on less favored mortals. This 
 is not the innocent, honorable, natural satisfac- 
 tion in the merits of those who are allied to us by 
 blood. This is a seeking of our own honor. Men 
 must hear of our claims, that we may shine 
 before them with a reflected light. 
 
 There is a radical cure for this spirit in the 
 faithful following of our Elder Brother. The 
 Son of God, et full of grace and truth, " comes not 
 to us to claim the exclusive right to the honors 
 of sonship and a home in the "Father's house." 
 He wills that we shall be with Him where He is. 
 To them that overcome will He grant "to sit 
 with Him on His throne." 
 
 Wandering, sinful, unworthy as we are, He 
 would lead us to the Father's house, freely for- 
 given for His sake. Believing ourselves orphans, 
 waifs, or erring children who have forfeited their 
 inheritance, and hunger far astray, He comes to 
 us with the assuring words, " Your Father which 
 
24 
 
 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 is in heaven." He gladly tells us that the love 
 of the Father never fails, and that He is ready to 
 receive us, and even to come out to meet us and 
 welcome with great joy His repentant children. 
 
 What a lesson this is for us, proud despisers of 
 the lowly, haughty teachers of the fallen, niggard 
 dispensers of help to the needy ! 
 
 If we would learn at the feet of Jesus, and 
 truly follow His example, we must put aside at 
 once our pride, whatever form it may assume. 
 We must draw near to our Elder Brother simply 
 as sinners to share in His redemption, and to 
 walk lowly in His footsteps. Our Lord is not 
 only full of yearning love towards His sinful 
 brethren, we are told of His obedience to His 
 Father. 
 
 The will may be broken or bent to the wishes of 
 another by punishment or fear; but only love 
 subdues it and moulds it to spontaneous obedi- 
 ence. Our submission to our Heavenly Father 
 must not be that of the down-trodden slave to a 
 cruel master, or a servile subject to his earthly 
 monarch. It should rather be the glad yielding 
 of the will to that of the Best Beloved, stronger, 
 wiser, and holier than ourselves. Such obedi- 
 ence makes the fulfilment of the law an exceeding 
 joy- 
 In many of the great natural forces and forms 
 of creation there is much that we cannot fully 
 
 '"""""mmnnimnninnninniiiiii p niH i ffl i pM 
 
BEFORE THE WORLD WAS. 
 
 25 
 
 understand, yet they can be adapted to the use of 
 man. So the great mystery of the free obedience 
 of our perfect Lord can come with its wholesome 
 lesson to us poor revolted subjects of our Heav- 
 enly King. Dwelling on His loving submission, 
 we may learn to pray sincerely, as we are taught, 
 " Thy will be done," before " Give us this day our 
 daily bread." 
 
 It may well be said, "The will dies hard." 
 It springs early to life in the babe, and is still 
 strong in the tottering old man. 
 
 It is our earthly lesson, knowing the will of 
 God to do it instantly, constantly, lovingly, 
 whatever it may cost us. The words "So I 
 come to do thy will, God," should be the rev- 
 erent expression of our inmost wish and aim. 
 We may humbly add, "For this cause came I 
 into the world." "I myself am here in mortal 
 form to be fashioned by cheerful obedience into 
 the likeness of my Lord." 
 
 Human beings have but rarely an opportunity 
 for any one great conquest of the will. It is 
 rather by the daily, cheerful submission, in a 
 free and loving spirit, to small trials that beset 
 our commonplace life, that the soul is trained to 
 a childlike obedience. Scarcely an hour passes 
 that we may not accept some little uncongenial 
 duty, some passing pain, or trifling injury or 
 loss, in the yielding, gentle spirit that trains us 
 
26 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 to be the true servants of God. These little sac- 
 rifices can nurture no secret pride, as if we had 
 done some great thing. They are, therefore, less 
 dangerous for us who are so easily puffed up, 
 "as if we were somewhat." 
 
 Perhaps we may not dare, with our poor wav- 
 ering purpose and many inconsistencies, to say 
 the sacred words, " Lo, I come to do thy will, O 
 God ! " The prayer, "Teach me to do thy will," 
 offered from a sincere heart, will surely be 
 abundantly answered. 
 
% €i)ifo. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Babe. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Child Jesus. 
 
 [II. 
 
 Forms. 
 
 IV. 
 
 A Name. 
 
 V. 
 
 A Wide Circle. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Boys. 
 
2U €i)itt>. 
 I. 
 
 THE BABE. 
 
 The babe lying in a manger. — Luke ii. 16. 
 
 ^TEVER to our knowledge did the Lord 
 S Jesus more fully show the perfection 
 of His sonship than in His willingness to shroud 
 His divinity in the form of one of the most 
 helpless of new-born creatures, — an unconscious 
 babe. 
 
 He who in his manhood was powerful in 
 prayer, and could by a word have summoned 
 legions of angels to His aid, consented to begin 
 His mission on earth unable to utter a single pe- 
 tition. He was to depend upon human beings 
 for daily care. An inexperienced girl was to be 
 His mother. He was to be defenceless in the 
 midst of the world He had created. In the Father 
 of all was His supreme trust. He would be 
 watched over in His weakness, and be enabled to 
 
30 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 grow in grace and stature until the time of His 
 "showing unto Israel." 
 
 "My Father and your Father/' so the Lord 
 spoke of our Almighty King. Why should we 
 fear to cast ourselves wholly, body and soul, 
 earthly cares and heavenly hopes, upon this 
 unchanging Friend? We are no longer helpless 
 infants; we have the power of prayer and the 
 promise of help through prayer. " The Almighty 
 arms are under us." Let us lie peacefully and 
 quietly there, sure to be borne safely through all 
 that is before us. And our dear children, for 
 whom we have so many anxieties, let us trust 
 them to God, as Jesus trusted Himself in infant 
 form, sure of the superintending care of the 
 Father. Let us give our children wholly to God, 
 to be His and His alone, and believe that He will 
 grant us wisdom and strength to tram them for 
 His service. 
 
 Even we, poor mortals, have a tenderness for 
 those who are passing through the same experi- 
 ences by which we have been tried. A well- 
 known millionnaire gathered around him the little 
 newsboys of one of the world's largest cities. 
 When the joy was the highest he said to those 
 struggling children of poverty, "I was once a 
 little newsboy, like you." He could make no 
 long speech; his throat swelled, and hot tears 
 filled his eyes. His heart was warm towards 
 
A CHILD. 31 
 
 those little waifs, and they knew it. Their 
 hearts beat strong with answering love for him 
 who had once been like them, and knew so well 
 how to feel for them. 
 
 We can dimly think how every babe that is 
 born into this world is to our Lord a memento 
 of the Bethlehem Babe, who lay helpless in the 
 manger. No wonder that He loved, when on 
 earth, to take little children in His arms and bless 
 them ! 
 
 And what has a babe become to us? Even as 
 the cross, a sign, an image, a reminder of the 
 loving humiliation of our Lord. Christians have 
 felt as if they were expressing their devotion to 
 Christ Jesus by wearing a cross on their breasts, 
 or humbly kissing the sign of His crucifixion. 
 We have a living image of our Lord, which we 
 may clasp to our bosoms and caress and care for 
 in memory of Him, — even the babe that comes 
 helpless to the world in which Christ was born 
 a human child. 
 
 The son that we love in his infancy may prove 
 to us a cross of pain, through his misdoing, for 
 he is of the seed of Adam ; but we need not despair 
 of his final salvation. He whose grace seeks the 
 prodigal in the far country and brings him home 
 to the Father's house, He who pardoned the re- 
 pentant Magdalen and the thief on the cross, can 
 bring our wandering children at last to the blessed 
 
32 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 fold. Let us be instant in prayer, faithful in 
 teaching, pure in example, untiring in patience 
 and love, and trust to God as to how and where 
 and when our sons and daughters shall be brought 
 home to the Good Shepherd. 
 
II. 
 
 THE CHILD JESUS. 
 
 Thy holy child Jesus. — Acts iv. 30. 
 
 LITTLE children begin their lives as preachers 
 and teachers. We have them in their in- 
 fant years as hints of what our Creator meant us 
 to be. They have truly upon them the taint of 
 Adam ; but we get through them still an inkling 
 of his state in the happy garden. But what an 
 atmosphere is this into which they come ! Even 
 the best of Christian homes is no perfect place. 
 The most saintly of parents give no faultless 
 example. The seeds of evil, that seem to have 
 scarcely life in the tender infant's soul, find con- 
 genial surroundings in which to grow with a rapid 
 and rank luxuriance. They are fostered too 
 often by the jarring tones of the very mother's 
 voice and the fretful, angry concert of brothers 
 and sisters in contention. What a responsibility 
 it is to be in daily intercourse with a little 
 child! 
 
 3 
 
34 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 The tender little ones in baby years are our 
 living sermons. In them we find the utter un- 
 worldliness that bows down to no station, and re- 
 sponds to the smiles of the lowest as to the 
 condescensions of the crowned head. The atmos- 
 phere of love is all that the little ones crave, and 
 when they find it, they give freely responsive 
 love in return. They are ready to kiss the hand 
 that chastened them. They bear no malice, they 
 suspect no evil; they give to the uttermost, and 
 gladly. Things have no factitious value to them, 
 — grains of gold and sand of the seashore are 
 equally precious to them. They have no past to 
 regret, they fear no future. They live like the 
 plants in the dew and sunshine, and grow uncon- 
 sciously in grace and beauty, to gladden the 
 beholder. God be praised for the little children ! 
 
 This beautiful evidence of what our nature 
 might have been we see even in our little ones, 
 born of sin-stained parents, but what must the 
 Holy Child Jesus have been ! 
 
 The heart thrills at the thought that human 
 beings were privileged to see and love such a 
 little one. What must it have been to behold 
 linked with such perfection the humility that 
 touches us in ordinary childhood! Let us bow 
 low before Him, our Infant Master, and learn the 
 great lesson. We do so want to be something, 
 or seem like something, or to do some great 
 
A CHILD. 35 
 
 thing, or to seem to do some great thing. There 
 are men who would rather be called great sinners 
 than to sink into utter insignificance. To be 
 born among humble folk and cradled in a manger 
 would not be at all to their taste. To be saints 
 in high life suits them better. This is a claim 
 they are never willing to yield. Let these would- 
 be saints compare themselves with the Great 
 Pattern. 
 
 He who, " being in the form of God, thought 
 it not robbery to be equal with God, . . . being 
 found in fashion as a man," could be the little 
 child in the carpenter's home, submitting to 
 being managed and controlled by the humble pair 
 for the time set over him ! 
 
 There are few persons in the organization 
 of our civilized society who can be said to be 
 wholly independent. The body politic has its 
 parts, which must fit into one another. Each 
 works under some higher power, or must be 
 judged and controlled in a measure by his peers. 
 How men chafe at this subjection and supervision ! 
 What heartaches result from mortified pride, 
 and unsubdued wills ignored or thwarted ! Let 
 us be like our Pattern, the Child Jesus, subject to 
 them that are placed over us in the providence 
 of God. Let us serve our Heavenly Father faith- 
 fully, though it may be in an obscure corner He 
 has placed us, and look to Him alone for the 
 
36 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 approval of our work. It is the humility that 
 accepts its appointed place in life, and labors 
 conscientiously there, that wins the precious 
 commendation, " Well done, thou good and faith- 
 ful servant ! Enter thou into the joy of thy 
 Lord!" 
 
III. 
 
 FORMS. 
 
 Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. 
 Matt. iii. 13. 
 
 IT is sometimes fancied that the spiritual life 
 is most pure when it can dispense with all 
 forms and all ordinances. There are Christians 
 who claim that they can worship best, not in the 
 sanctuary with their fellow -believers, but in the 
 quiet chamber, or on the hillside, or in the woods, 
 alone with God and Nature. They crave no out- 
 ward sign, they say, of the grace given unto 
 them by the Holy Spirit and dwelling in their 
 hearts. 
 
 This is not the lesson taught us by the exam- 
 ple of our Elder Brother. The beginning of His 
 earthly life, and the opening of His career as the 
 Messiah, were marked by the acceptance of the 
 ordinances prescribed for Jewish and Christian 
 believers. He who knew no sin was circumcised 
 in His infancy, and baptized in His manhood. 
 The Lord Jesus and His disciples were frequenters 
 both of the temple and the synagogue. The 
 Master assembled around Him His chosen fol- 
 
38 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 lowers to eat of the Paschal feast, and Himself in- 
 stituted the simple supper to be taken in memory 
 of Him. 
 
 Surely it becometh as "to fulfil all righteous- 
 ness." Through whatever means God has prom- 
 ised to bless us, those means should be to us 
 precious. Souls that are hungering and thirsting 
 after righteousness will not willingly neglect any 
 God-sent manna by the way, any springs pro- 
 vided for their refreshment on their heavenward 
 journey. They rather wait upon the Lord accord- 
 ing to His appointment, and leave to Him to 
 send a rich blessing to His obedient children. 
 
 Through the whole ordering of nature and 
 grace, means are granted for desired ends, a con- 
 tainer for a thing contained, a medium for the 
 transmission of the most subtle influences. This 
 we cannot explain, but so it is. We can send our 
 message to our friend across the wide ocean; but 
 it must travel down in the deep water along its 
 allotted path. The loved voice that speaks to our 
 glad ears from a distant city is not borne on the 
 wings of the fitful breeze. Its way is along 
 the mysterious line that the ingenuity of man 
 has stretched beside the common road, or through 
 fields and woods, by homesteads and villages and 
 towns, to link heart to heart, and head to head, 
 for the courtesies and friendly interchanges and 
 the great business affairs of life. 
 
A CHILD. 39 
 
 It is when the container is pnt before or instead 
 of the thing contained, the means before the 
 sacred end, the form before the reality, that 
 the outward ministrations of religion become dan- 
 gerous. The nature of man is so prone to rest in 
 externals that he must ever be on the watch 
 against this danger. A so-called prayer may be 
 a worthless form, when it is thoughtlessly read 
 from the printed book, or glibly spoken by false 
 and fluent lips. It may, too, whether written 
 by saints of old or spoken from the momentary 
 promptings of a devout heart, be such a real cry 
 of the soul to God as insures a flood of blessing. 
 
 The Bible may be read as a tiresome duty, or 
 in a critical, carping mood, or in a state of list- 
 less indifference. It may, too, be sought as a 
 comforter, an adviser, a guide, and a pure chan- 
 nel for an influence that lifts the soul heaven- 
 ward, and fills it with a spiritual joy that makes 
 this life a glad pathway to the better home. 
 
 The Sabbath may be a time of cold and rigid 
 observance of religious duties, — a penance to the 
 young, and a bondage to the old. It may be, as 
 well, a day of growing in the spirit of love to 
 God and man, a taking a new strong step heaven- 
 ward, a refreshment to soul and body, and a fore- 
 taste of the rest and gladness in the Heavenly 
 City. 
 
 The sacraments may be dangerous, outward, 
 
40 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 soul-destroying fornis, or they may be to the 
 earthly pilgrim to the Land of Beulah wells of 
 water and the bread of life that nourish him with 
 angels' food. 
 
 Let all means prescribed for growth in the 
 religious life be welcomed in the spirit in which 
 they are given, employed in the way appointed, 
 and in the remembered presence of the Great 
 Giver, and they will be found sure channels of 
 that grace which sanctifies the willing soul ! 
 
IV. 
 A NAME. 
 
 Thou shalt call His name Jesus. — Matt. i. 21. 
 
 IT is delightful to think that in heaven there is 
 not an inseparable mass of rejoicing angels 
 and glorified saints, but a collection of individ- 
 uals with their own peculiar characteristics and 
 distinctive names. There, Abraham is still 
 Abraham, and Moses Moses. The holy men of 
 old have simply passed from life on earth to life 
 in heaven. Even the angels, when sent on special 
 messages to man, have been allowed to tell their 
 sacred names, and we may so think of them per- 
 sonally and individually. 
 
 What name our blessed Lord bore in the glory 
 He had before the world was we are not permitted 
 to know. An angelic messenger from heaven 
 declared the name that was appointed Him as the 
 Saviour of mankind, even Jesus, the name above 
 all others for the believer's ears. 
 
 When we name our children we doubt and 
 hesitate. The living great man, after whom we 
 
42 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 would call our son, may so sin that he will be 
 cast out from society, and his name be a shame 
 to the helpless child. Even the friend whom we 
 have trusted, and whose name we would give our 
 boy, may prove our enemy, or be to us as an 
 indifferent stranger, and the sound of his name in 
 the family circle be a source of poignant pain. 
 
 We give our children names, as it were, in the 
 dark. We know not what manner of children 
 they may be. We cannot hope to have their 
 names descriptive or especially appropriate. 
 
 The name of Jesus could well be given before 
 His birth, for He came to save His people from 
 their sins. He was to be the Universal Healer 
 of the universal plague. 
 
 Not by one name alone do we know our dear 
 ones on earth. Love contrives all sweet names 
 by which we breathe our affection for our nearest 
 and best beloved. The Bible is starred all over 
 with inspired names by which we may know our 
 Divine Friend, as He comes to help us in all 
 our human needs. We may think of our Lord as 
 the Shepherd ready to seek His wandering, help- 
 less sheep. He is our Captain in our strife with 
 evil, our High -Priest with His one perfect offering 
 for all mankind. Yes, we may not dwell on the 
 more than three hundred names by which our 
 Lord, in His manifold tender relations to us, is 
 described in the Sacred Scriptures. To seek out 
 
A CHILD. 43 
 
 and meditate upon these names is one way to 
 know our Master more intimately, and draw near 
 to Him with more loving confidence. So shall we 
 begin to understand how He meets every want of 
 our souls. So shall we grow in love to the name 
 Jesus, which comprehends all, as it brings the 
 dear Lord before us personally, as the one we 
 love best, our comfort, our confidence, our joy ! 
 
 May God give us grace to see and know Him 
 as He is ! Since the followers of our Lord were 
 "first called Christians at Antioch," they have 
 borne the name of Christ, which should pledge 
 them to "depart from all iniquity." Many of 
 them have nobly redeemed this pledge, by pure 
 and faithful lives, by a martyr's death, by un- 
 flinching steadfastness in the midst of strong temp- 
 tation, by warmth and zeal when surrounded by 
 worldliness and indifference in the Church itself, 
 by cheerful submission to sore affliction, by noble 
 devotedness to the sick and suffering, — yes, 
 by truly following the Great Example in all bold- 
 ness, in all holiness, in all simplicity, and in all 
 humility ! Of such men and women the world is 
 indeed ' not worthy," yet even the world gives 
 them its tribute of praise and makes their names 
 symbolical of the virtues they have most strik- 
 ingly represented. Who does not know what is 
 meant when the word of praise is, He is a Paul, a 
 John, a Poly carp, a Howard? or, She is a Mary, 
 
44 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 a Dorcas, a Monica? All along the centuries, 
 noble men and women have stood out as patterns 
 of some form of Christian excellence, and their 
 names have been adopted into common language 
 and have helped to keep up the idea of what 
 man ought to be, by showing what man has 
 been. 
 
 We cannot hope that our names will pass into 
 this honored vocabulary, yet all of us who bear 
 the Christian name embody some form of char- 
 acter to the little circle to which we belong. 
 
 Perhaps most of us would be painfully sur- 
 prised to know what we really represent to the 
 cool, critical, clear-sighted outside observer, who 
 is not blinded to our peculiarities by party feel- 
 ing or personal affection. The man who con- 
 siders himself an eloquent preacher of the Gospel 
 may be reckoned an unfaithful shepherd, who 
 will not himself lead his flock in the path he 
 points out, and whom it would be madness to 
 follow in the way he treads. He who counts 
 himself the champion of others' rights and a 
 pleader of the cause of the down-trodden may be 
 stamped as the ambitious self-seeker ! The 
 woman who calls herself shy and sensitive may 
 be the touchy and self-conscious, "minding her 
 own things'' instead of "the things of others." 
 She who would be known as the friend of the 
 poor is rather characterized as the busybody, who 
 
A CHILD. 45 
 
 puts herself forward, caring more for her own 
 prominence than for poverty or the poor. She 
 who thinks herself friendly, kindly, and hos- 
 pitable may be the seeker of admiration and the 
 praise of men, willing to help all outside the 
 family, but cold, disobliging, and indifferent 
 towards those bound to her by the ties of blood. 
 
 There is one name which belongs most truly 
 and certainly to us all, — the name of sinners. 
 " The blot is on us ! " We cannot escape it ! And 
 yet this name is in one way our safety. Christ 
 Jesus came to save us from our sins. He died 
 for sinners. We may come humbly and peni- 
 tently to the mercy-seat, and plead the name 
 above all others, and be forgiven and "accepted 
 in the Beloved ! " 
 
 There may be a " new name " laid up for us in 
 heaven. We may be already written by that 
 name in the Book of Life. That name may ex- 
 press that we are "saved as by fire," or that we 
 have "resisted unto blood, striving against sin," 
 or that we have been " conquerors through Him 
 that loved us." That great secret of the far 
 future no one now can know. That name may 
 tell the timid follower, who has almost feared to 
 call himself of the family of Christ, that he has 
 been a dear child of his Heavenly Father in the 
 midst of his trembling upward walk. The puz- 
 zled doubter, head-wrong and heart-right, who 
 
46 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 in a pure life and an earnest seeking of the 
 truth, has been "faint but pursuing," may find 
 that he has been as the blind, whom Jesus was 
 leading, though he knew it not. 
 
 When those new names are read, the lowest in 
 his own estimation may find himself the highest, 
 — "the first may be last and the last first." 
 Then, be our crowns shining with many stars or 
 dim with the shadows of our earthly past, we 
 shall cast them down before the Lord, who has 
 bought us with His blood and has given us, un- 
 worthy children of men, an abundant entrance 
 into His Heavenly Kingdom. 
 
A WIDE CIRCLE. 
 
 We have seen His star in the East, and are come to worship 
 Him. — Matt. ii. 2. 
 
 OUE Saviour was, in His teaching and in His 
 life, both democratic and cosmopolitan. 
 Not that it was His object to overturn existing 
 forms of government. Loyalty, not lawlessness, 
 is the spirit of the Christian religion. Our 
 Elder Brother was democratic in the sense that 
 the distinctions of life — high and low, rich and 
 poor, socially respectable or simply repentant — 
 were as nothing in His sight. At His very en- 
 trance into this world, this tendency was em- 
 phasized. He lay in the manger of a wayside 
 inn, a carpenter His foster-father, His mother a 
 humble young woman, made a wife through the 
 loving pity and firm faith of her betrothed. To 
 simple shepherds, pursuing their modest calling 
 at night, bands of angels announced His coming. 
 A Jew by blood and birth, limiting the scene 
 of His earthly ministry to His native land and 
 condemned to death in the sacred city of His 
 
48 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 people, He was yet, from the beginning of His 
 career below, to be not only the king of the Jews, 
 but the Eedeemer of all mankind. He rever- 
 enced the law and institutions of Israel's race, 
 and so loved the doomed capital that he cried 
 out with tears, "0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how 
 often would I have gathered thy children to- 
 gether as a hen gathereth her chickens under her 
 wings, and ye would not! Behold your house 
 is left unto you desolate ! " Yet in Him all the 
 families of the earth should be blessed. He was 
 not the prophet or Messiah of one people only, 
 but the ends of the earth should praise Him! 
 That lone star that guided those seekers of truth 
 from the far East to come with their offerings to 
 the stable of Bethlehem was the first flash of the 
 light that was to lighten the Gentiles, and the 
 promise of the distant day when all nations 
 should bow the knee to Jesus, and lift up to Him 
 united prayer and praise. How constantly, — by 
 direct teaching, by miracle, and by example, — 
 our Lord rebuked that selfish kind of patriotism 
 which would arrogate to itself all honor, and all 
 claim on the Divine blessing, to the contempt of 
 outside strangers and foreigners, and their exclu- 
 sion from the partaking of the richest blessings 
 of Heaven ! 
 
 The spirit that limits the circle of true Chris- 
 tians to this cluster of believers here, conducting 
 
A CHILD. 49 
 
 their public worship according to this established 
 rule, clothing their priests precisely so at the 
 altar, celebrating this feast in this authorized 
 manner, or giving that doctrine the supreme pre- 
 eminence, is quite foreign to the spirit of the 
 Great Founder of our religion. The glad revela- 
 tion of the Gospel of love and self-sacrifice comes 
 to us with a freedom that fits it for all times and 
 all nations. Many are the vessels and many the 
 forms that can convey its life-giving essence. 
 Away with the narrowness that divides brother 
 from brother by the church walls, which to Him 
 who sitteth in the heavens are but as are to us 
 the irregularities on a polished surface, invisible 
 to the naked eye. Let us love and give and 
 praise, walking in the purity of God's law, and 
 accepting the great redemption through Christ, 
 for all who will believe on His name and follow 
 His example! 
 
 True religion begins in the family, making 
 dearer every tie of blood, and through love oblit- 
 erating self and joining master and mistress, chil- 
 dren and servants, in one glad household, walking 
 heavenward together, each in its place, but with- 
 out pride of place, or murmuring rebellion, or 
 servile obsequiousness. Where love reigns there 
 are order and obedience and mutual help and sym- 
 pathy. Such households are the little temples 
 in which the Great High-Priest is ever present. 
 
 4 
 
50 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 After the family comes friendship. He who 
 loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus, and com- 
 panied specially with Peter and James and John, 
 understands this need of the human heart, and 
 provides for its innocent gratification. He gives 
 that Christian love and fellowship which can 
 make the room where two or three are gathered 
 together in love and prayer, as well as where 
 many are joined in the great congregations, as 
 the entrance gate of heaven ! 
 
 But true Christian love is not shut up to the 
 domestic hearth, or limited to the circle of friend- 
 ship. It is like the fountain that leaps to the 
 sunlight, and scatters refreshing drops not only 
 on the rich greenness that encircles it, but on the 
 thirsty grass far and wide, and refreshes the air 
 for the weary passenger who but sees in the dis- 
 tance its sparkling beauty. 
 
 It is a poor, narrow Christianity that does not 
 find its way to the poor, the ignorant, and the 
 wicked, and to the "nations that sit in darkness 
 and know not God ! " True Christianity makes 
 true patriotism a thing not of selfishness or am- 
 bition, but, in an enlarged and wider sphere, the 
 carrying out of all that is loveliest in family 
 life. It has, too, its friendship for outsiders, 
 a large and loving recognition of all that is noble 
 in other lands, and a willingness to grant them 
 their due meed of honor, and to insure them 
 
A CHILD. 51 
 
 their due share in the blessings of civilization 
 and religion. Such friendship recognizes that 
 the swarthy African and the subtle dweller in 
 Eastern magnificence, the sturdy men of the 
 frozen North, the listless loungers of the isles 
 of the sea, have hearts like our own, the same 
 loves and dangers and death. Do they not need 
 the chief joy of life, the comfort of the sick-bed 
 and the house of mourning, the light when the 
 world grows dark in the shadow of death? Let 
 the light to lighten the Gentiles shine in every 
 land ! In zeal and self-denial, in loving gener- 
 osity, let the Christian nations join in sowing the 
 good seed beside all waters ! 
 
VI. 
 
 BOYS. 
 
 And He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and 
 was sulject unto them. — Luke ii. 51. 
 
 "IT THAT shall I do with my boys?" is the 
 V\ anxious question of many a mother's 
 heart. If there were unlimited truth in the say- 
 ing that "The boy is father of the man/' well 
 might the mothers despair. Happily, there is 
 much in the wild, mischievous, thoughtless 
 nature of boys that passes away with early youth. 
 There is much, however, in the cast and drift of 
 character that always will remain the same, even 
 though the child should early have the best of 
 blessings, the beginning of a true Christian 
 life. 
 
 There was one mother who knew no anxiety as 
 to the development of her son. She could be 
 sure that He would grow in wisdom as in stature, 
 and "in favor with God and man." She had no 
 strange budding plant, entrusted to her care, 
 
A CHILD. 53 
 
 that might yield a beautiful fragrant blossom, or 
 possibly a poison flower. She had no mere 
 human child in her keeping. She was " blessed 
 among women." Her boy was the Son of the 
 Highest, Emmanuel, who should save His people 
 from their sins, and whose kingdom should have 
 no end ! What joy must have filled her heart 
 when she looked upon her perfect child, and dimly 
 foreshadowed the great future before Him ! 
 
 Once she sought Him sorrowing, not that she 
 could fear that He had gone astray from the path 
 of holiness. She was to find Him already about 
 His Heavenly Father's business, but ready to go 
 down with her to Nazareth to be the obedient 
 child in the carpenter's home. 
 
 What a comfort it is to know that Jesus is a the 
 same yesterday, to-day, and forever." He has 
 had a boyhood of His own. He has lived among 
 boys and knows their nature and their tempta- 
 tions. He was tempted not only "like as we are," 
 but like as they are, yet without sin. When all 
 human friends have lost patience with an erring 
 boy, we can think how tenderly our Saviour, 
 who understands so well to what boys are ex- 
 posed, looks upon the offender. 
 
 "Christian mother, go with your prayers for 
 your boys to the Lord Jesus ! He knows better 
 than you do the peculiar faults and temptations 
 of your son. He can make you wise to rule and 
 
54 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 guide him. He can give him the pervading in- 
 fluence of the Holy Spirit to quicken his con- 
 science. He can be to him "as a wall around 
 him by day and by night/' to preserve him from 
 the dangers that threaten him from without and 
 from the sins that are surging within. Mothers, 
 lean on the Lord Jesus, and go patiently and 
 hopefully forward. Go forward patiently and 
 hopefully, but still actively. Mothers may and 
 must fold their hands in prayer, yet not in indo- 
 lence or despair. Here, as everywhere, faith and 
 works are inseparably linked together. There 
 is no promise that your children are simply to 
 be borne heavenward on angels' wings, while 
 you look admiringly on, or busy yourself as 
 pleases you best, either inside or outside of 
 your home. 
 
 The plants that minister to our bodily neces- 
 sities need care and culture. The crops that fill 
 the garner and feed the hungry do not grow on 
 the neglected hillside, but in the fields culti- 
 vated by the toil of man. Human beings are 
 given to human parents to be cared for and 
 trained and educated. Their very helplessness 
 keeps them near to and dependent upon father 
 and mother, at an age when the young of the 
 beasts of the forests are free rovers by wood and 
 flood. 
 
 The first years of a child are all your own. 
 
A CHILD. 55 
 
 Begin at once to mould him for a pure life on 
 earth, and a bright future in the Heavenly Home, 
 Be methodical, be gentle, be firm with him, from 
 the very first. Let the boy be early taught good 
 habits, and to be subject to your will, as to food 
 . and sleep and cleanliness, before his own will 
 can assume the mastery over his fleshly habita- 
 tion. Give him an atmosphere of love to grow 
 in. Keep him happy by your cheerfulness, let 
 your smiles prompt his own. As soon as he can 
 fold his hands for thanksgiving, associate that 
 thanksgiving with his daily food. Let him early 
 remember to trust himself, loved and forgiven, 
 to the care of his Heavenly Father for the night, 
 and wake to thank that Father for peaceful sleep 
 and a new day of blessings. 
 
 But we cannot follow with the mother that 
 child's pathway through life. For her, while he 
 is under her care, there will always be self- 
 sacrifice in the present and the future. She is no 
 longer her own, since she has become a mother. 
 A tender child-hand, visible or invisible, is al- 
 ways drawing her, often when she would be wholly 
 free. It is written, "She that liveth in pleasure 
 is dead while she liveth." This is even true of 
 the maiden, in her glad days of girlhood. Mere 
 pleasure is not the end of any human life, at any 
 stage, though much innocent joy may be, and 
 should be if possible, the portion of all God's 
 
56 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 creatures. A mother, however, has turned 
 her back upon self-indulgence in any form, 
 when once her little one has been laid in her 
 arms. 
 
 How we are moved at the thought of that 
 mother swept away by the overpowering flood 
 that destroyed a whole town, — borne off by the 
 wild waters, her children clinging about her. 
 Clinging they still were, dead like the mother, 
 when stranger hands took them tenderly from 
 the wasting deluge, and strong men's tears fell 
 at the sight. 
 
 Such scenes we perhaps see unmoved around 
 us. There are mothers dead in pleasure, with 
 children "dead in trespasses and sins," fast 
 clinging to them. Poor little children, who 
 have mothers who cannot forego the follies and 
 pleasures of this life, to give time and thought 
 and love and wise, tender care to their young 
 families. How can such mothers expect a self- 
 denial and patience from servants, which their 
 own natural affection is not sufficient to prompt? 
 It is generally the neglected children who break 
 the mother's heart, or bring her to shame by 
 their misdoings. 
 
 The self-sacrifice of the mother does not end 
 in the nursery. There it merely begins. If you 
 would have your boys in any way like the Lord 
 Jesus, be to them at least a Christian friend, 
 
A CHILD. 57 
 
 who loves their society, and moulds them to pure 
 tastes, holy thoughts, and a blameless life. Be 
 what you should be, and be much with your boys, 
 ye dear mothers, who would lead those boys to 
 happiness and heaven. 
 
Ministering. 
 
 I. Temptation. 
 II. Babes in Christ. 
 
 III. Recreation. 
 
 IV. Seekers. 
 V. Tired. 
 
 VI. Relatives. 
 VII. Faults. 
 VIII. Mourners. 
 IX. Self-Dental. 
 X. Economy. 
 XL Opposition. 
 XII. Deformity. 
 
 XIII. Parents. 
 
 XIV. Seeming Death. 
 XV. The Nursery. 
 
 XVI. The Capital. 
 XVII. Workmen. 
 XVIII. Constancy. 
 XIX. Forgiveness. 
 XX. Trust. 
 
Ministering* 
 I. 
 
 TEMPTATION. 
 
 He Himself having suffered, being tempted. — Heb. xi. 18. 
 
 A PERSON" who has been surrounded from 
 childhood with the refinements and re- 
 straints of a high form of civilization in a Chris- 
 tian land cannot but be shocked and outraged by 
 finding himself in the presence of sin in an un- 
 abashed and flagrant form. The same sin may 
 have its essential root in his own heart, in self- 
 ishness or hate or irreverence or in the inability 
 to control bodily indulgence, yet it may still be 
 abhorrent to him in its ultimate and full de- 
 velopment. 
 
 Even more painful is the awakening to the 
 fact that the once despised sin of the open evil- 
 doer is now to him a temptation, is gaining 
 ground with him, is perhaps taking the mastery, 
 and binding him a hopeless victim. 
 
62 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 We, poor human beings, can have a horror of 
 sin, but we have no real conception of its true 
 danger and malignity. We cannot measure the 
 humiliation that it must have been for the na- 
 ture of the Lord from heaven to be blended with 
 the being and organization of a child of Adam. 
 It is true that He was tempted yet without sin, 
 yet He must have "suffered being tempted." We 
 can understand how this mysterious experience 
 draws Him near to His struggling, tempted breth- 
 ren, and how exactly He knows how to adapt His 
 sustaining grace to their needs in their lifelong 
 contest with evil without and within. He is and 
 ever must be touched with a feeling of our in- 
 firmities, and ready to stretch out to us the 
 helping hand. 
 
 What is usually called "the temptation of our 
 Lord" was a special experience at a definite 
 time. It is recorded how He triumphed in that 
 conflict, and it is added, " The devil left Him for 
 a season," — for a season only, it seems. Of his 
 future assaults we know nothing. The life of 
 our Lord has its own secret history, and so it is 
 with all those who strive to follow His perfect 
 example. 
 
 Only our Lord Himself knows how and where 
 His chosen saints have their most bitter strug- 
 gles. Of this one thing only we can be sure re- 
 garding our fellow-Christians: if they be Chris- 
 
MINISTERING. 63 
 
 tians indeed, and growing in the likeness of their 
 Master, they "suffer being tempted." 
 
 While temptation is suffering, there is always 
 hope for a human soul, — there is still left a trace 
 of the image of the God to whom sin is abhorrent. 
 When conscience has been silenced by the power 
 of evil habits, then indeed is the soul threatened 
 with a sickness unto death. The fools who 
 "make a mock at sin," and laugh at their own 
 wickedness or that of their companions, are far 
 gone in the dark downward path. 
 
 Do you shrink pained from finding in yourself 
 the slightest worldly motive or ambition, or bow- 
 ing of the heart to riches and high station? Do 
 you see its meanness, its opposition to the Bible 
 precept to be no respecter of persons? Then 
 you may still hope to escape the love of the world, 
 which cannot exist with the love of the Father 
 in heaven. 
 
 Is your most trifling departure from truth a 
 cause in you of shame and real repentance? 
 Then your lips may yet be made free from guile, 
 and from the thing- which God "hates," even 
 "the loving and making a lie! " Is a foul word 
 or story uttered in your presence a repulsive 
 source of pain to your inner consciousness? Then 
 you may yet be of the pure in heart who shall 
 see God. 
 
 When you have ceased to suffer from tempta- 
 
64 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 tion, and from even the slightest consent to sin, 
 the battle for yon is well-nigh lost. Eouse your- 
 self to renew the conflict before it is too late! 
 Keep near to Christ! Remember His presence, 
 and your conscience will grow tender by such 
 association and such remembrance. 
 
 Watch over your little children that they fall 
 into no such habits that any form of temptation 
 shall cease to be to them a source of pain. Bad 
 habits rob temptation of its suffering. Good 
 habits help to keep the conscience alive and 
 active. Oblige your child to do right, if you 
 cannot perusade him to do so of his own free 
 will. Form his tastes and his habits, and pray 
 that God may give him the inner life, that will 
 make those habits an expression of what he most 
 desires to be. Walk yourself blameless as far as 
 you can, and so you will do your part to keep 
 yourself and him sensitive to the evil of sin. 
 
II. 
 
 BABES IN CHRIST. 
 
 And He called unto Him whom He would, and they came 
 unto Him. — Matt. ii. 13. 
 
 BABES in Christ! It is a scriptural expres- 
 sion, not merely the language of man. 
 Nay ! Man would rather represent that the true 
 Christian, really born again, must have attained 
 at once to the perfect measure and stature of the 
 follower of Christ. Nor is this an unnatural 
 mistake. There is so unspeakable a difference 
 between life and death that even the new con- 
 vert himself, in his joy at the great change that 
 has passed over him, is tempted to believe that 
 he who has been chief of sinners has suddenly 
 become chief of saints. 
 
 Here the wise caution is necessary : " Let not 
 him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as 
 he that putteth it off." 
 
 The babe is a wonderful thing, a new crea- 
 ture. It is a being born to be developed to noble 
 manhood, an heir, if he will, of a life of endless 
 
66 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 joy. Well may there be gladness in a home to 
 which such a little one has been sent by the 
 Heavenly Father ! Yet the child's life is at its 
 beginning. It can only be rejoiced over as a 
 babe. 
 
 So it is with the beginners in the heavenly 
 walk. True Christian hearts throb with glad 
 thanksgiving when another soul is born into the 
 kingdom. There is even joy in heaven over one 
 sinner that repenteth. Such beginners must 
 remember, however, in the midst of their exu- 
 berant transports, that humility is the crowning 
 virtue of the Christian life. 
 
 How different is the babe with its helpless 
 body, its unawakened heart and dormant mind, 
 from the noble man with his muscularly devel- 
 oped, stately form, guided and governed by the 
 will within, — the heart with its deeply rooted 
 affections, the mature mind with its culture and 
 its mighty power to know and understand. Yet 
 they are one and the same being at different 
 stages of existence, the individuality never lost, 
 the full, mature beauty wrapped up in the poor 
 infant, less able to supply its own wants than is 
 the flower to open to the dew and the sunshine. 
 
 The saint in the new Jerusalem may be as 
 unlike the same saint on earth as is the babe to 
 the strong man, and yet he will be himself, 
 through all the stages through which he may 
 
MINISTERING. 67 
 
 pass, an individual being, created and developed 
 through the almighty power of the God of Love. 
 
 In the babe in Christ there may be infolded a 
 blessing to mankind. Let him but remember 
 that he is at the beginning of his course, and 
 humbly and modestly, with prayer and patience, 
 tread the Christian walk, ever looking to Him 
 who has given him this new life to sustain and 
 unfold it to full fruition. 
 
 The Jews who came out from the multitudes 
 who thronged to hear the wonderful words, they 
 who listened to His call and joined themselves to 
 Christ, He was pleased to reckon at once among 
 His followers. Yet how He instructed and warned 
 and reproved them, and even the chosen twelve 
 who were with Him by day and by night, and 
 constantly heard the blessed words that proceeded 
 out of His mouth ! How faithless, how human, 
 how far from sharing their Master's spirit were 
 they, one and all ! Yet He did not cast them 
 out. Let us learn from the love and patience of 
 our Lord to welcome warmly the beginners in 
 the Chistian life, and not to expect a sudden 
 perfection in the jaded sinners who have just 
 cast oft' the yoke of the world, the flesh, and the 
 devil. Let us be glad that they have set their 
 faces heavenward. Let us be careful that our 
 wandering footsteps do not lead them from the 
 right path. Let us strive to surround them by 
 
68 OUE ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 loving sympathy, and help them by a faithful, 
 consistent example. 
 
 You who walk in your uprightness, and would 
 condemn your fellows as unworthy members of 
 the Church of God, beware lest you are scorning 
 one of the "little ones," the babes in Christ, 
 struggling towards a stronger life ! Make them 
 feel that they are a part of the body of Christ, 
 dear to all its members, and dear to the great 
 Head Himself. The babe in the family is the 
 object of the tenderest care. 
 
 In taking our nature upon Him, our Lord be- 
 came part and parcel of us all. With what 
 divine compassion He regards those of His chil- 
 dren who have just awakened to a new life. He 
 will well know how to foster that life and bring 
 it to maturity. Let Him deal with His own. 
 Help if you can in the spirit of a devoted elder 
 sister or brother, not of the impatient stranger 
 or of the harsh heathen who would cast out the 
 weak and sickly babes to a certain death. 
 
 And you, beginners in the heavenly walk, do 
 not be content to be always babes. You must 
 grow, or you will be dwarfed, deformed, or droop 
 perhaps to a hopeless death. Growth is by food 
 and exercise and rest and tender care. This care 
 the Shepherd has promised to His lambs. The 
 food you know how to obtain. You know how 
 to have your needs supplied. LTse the means of 
 
MINISTERING. 69 
 
 grace. Lean on the ever-present Saviour. Do 
 the duty of the hour. Walk conscientiously, 
 courageously, consistently, and for you is the 
 path of the just into the perfect light. 
 
 Be patient, mothers, with your little children 
 who lisp of "love to Jesus," and a desire to "be 
 good," and yet are so full of childish faults and 
 shortcomings. Do not despair of them. Do not 
 taunt them with insincerity, because their ex- 
 pressed wish to be lambs of the flock is so soon 
 followed by conduct that is far from lamblike. 
 Let them see that you trust them, and believe in 
 their sincerity, while you must point out to them 
 their faults, and visit them with wholesome dis- 
 cipline or deserved punishment. Let them feel 
 that you would in this way carry out their ear- 
 nest wishes, so confidingly expressed. 
 
 And you, young Christian, who are ready to 
 lose courage, and doubt if you are in the way of 
 life, because your sins are so many, and your 
 character is so ill-regulated, do not let these signs 
 of babyhood make you doubt whether you are 
 living. Your very heplessness and danger may 
 lead you to trust more entirely and humbly to 
 the Great Friend, to guard and guide you. It 
 may be growth and development you need, not 
 life. If you want to be a child of God, want it 
 with all your heart as your chief desire, cherish 
 that beginning of a new life. The Lord Jesus 
 
70 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 stretches out His hand to such as you. Take it ! 
 take it firmly and walk by His side in prayer and 
 faithful practice, and you will grow out of baby- 
 hood into the sure and happy life of the true 
 children of God. 
 
III. 
 
 EECKEATION. 
 
 A nd both Jesus was called and his disciples to the wedding. 
 John ii. 2. 
 
 OTJK Lord is welcomed to the funeral and the 
 house of mourning, but how few bid Him 
 to their feasts or would have Him at their merry- 
 makings ! We seem to class Him with those 
 friends whose slumbering tenderness towards us 
 is drawn out by our afflictions, but who cannot 
 rejoice in our happiness. 
 
 Sorrow, in whatever form it may come, is in 
 the eyes of the world a kind of humiliation. 
 From the height of their better fortune, the hon- 
 ored, the happy, the successful may look down in 
 a kind of complacent pity on the mourning, the 
 disappointed, the sick, and the suffering. Not 
 so with our Lord. 
 
 If you fancy you love your brother, your friend, 
 your neighbor, question yourself whether you are 
 filled with glad sympathy when he has some 
 sudden joy or honor or success. If you ask your- 
 
72 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 self the question in the presence of God, the All- 
 knowing, perchance yon will be obliged to mur- 
 mur the " God be merciful to me a sinner ! " of 
 the conscience-smitten publican. 
 
 Our Lord Jesus when on earth was not a friend 
 only for dark days. He could stand by the grave 
 of Lazarus and weep with the sorrowing sisters, 
 but could as well be present at the wedding at 
 Cana of Galilee, an honored and welcome guest. 
 
 In our deep realization of the solemn mission 
 of our Lord to this sinful world, we are too apt 
 to forget that He came as an image and expres- 
 sion and embodiment of the God of Love. The 
 morose reformer is not likely to be bidden to 
 feasts where his presence is only a gloomy shadow, 
 and his countenance as a threatening cloud. We 
 may be sure that even in His holy purity this 
 was not the impression made by Him whose 
 " compassions are new every morning." There 
 was sunshine about Him, or the mothers would 
 not have thronged around Him with their little 
 ones, the despised sufferers would not have 
 looked trustfully to Him for help, the outcast 
 sinner would not have turned to Him for pardon. 
 
 We seem to fancy that God made our eyes for 
 tears, and that from some other power came 
 their glad twinkle of merriment, or their expres- 
 sion of innocent joy, in the midst of social con- 
 verse. Who wreathed the mouth with smiles 
 
MINISTERING. 73 
 
 that answer to smiles? Who made the dimples 
 to come and go in the baby's face? "Who lit the 
 glad, loving light in its eyes, as it begins to be 
 aware of the tender care of its mother? 
 
 Why will we not remember that joy is as 
 much the gift of God as sorrow, and to be as 
 freely accepted in His presence? We will hold 
 fast to the heathen idea of the Most High, and 
 think we must "cut ourselves before Him," and 
 rob ourselves of light and hope, to be His accept- 
 able worshippers. 
 
 In the beginning of His earthly ministry our 
 Lord gave an open protest against this concep- 
 tion of the Friend of Sinners, while at the same 
 time He stamped His approval on the glad honor- 
 ing of the institution that sets men in families. 
 Later, He was not slow to express plainly His 
 sense of the permanence of the marriage tie. 
 Our Saviour sanctified the mutual duties and the 
 sacred joys of home. 
 
 As parents should dare to be innocently happy 
 in the presence of God, so should their children 
 be encouraged to let their natural joyousness 
 have vent at the side of father and mother. 
 When all the merriment and gladness of the 
 little ones is shut up to the nursery, or only let 
 loose on the playground, or in the secret haunts 
 of the children, where schemes of mischief are 
 plotted and planned, a dangerous gulf is yawning 
 
74 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 in the home, a gulf that may ultimately cut off 
 the little ones from the affectionate sympathy, 
 the tender counsel, the wise guidance of those 
 whom God has set over them for good. 
 
 There is a worm in the rose when it does not 
 open to the glad sunshine. There is danger in 
 the joy that shrinks from the companionship of 
 the wise and good. That is a false happiness 
 that cannot be welcomed as a gift of God. 
 
 Amusements have come to be dreaded as a 
 power for evil, because they are too often an ex- 
 pression of a desire to escape from the lawful 
 restraints of soul and body, that are absolutely 
 essential for true and lasting happiness. 
 
 There are so-called amusements that are indul- 
 gence in questionable pleasures, or are the well- 
 known road to open sin. Here the rule should 
 be, " Touch not ! Taste not ! Handle not ! " 
 
 There are many amusements, in themselves 
 innocent, that are most dangerous when they 
 tempt pleasure-seekers to make them the busi- 
 ness of life. There are some people who are like 
 children who would ride the hobby-horse all day 
 long, to the utter neglect of all proper lessons 
 and all prescribed occupations, 
 
 Some amusements may not be objectionable in 
 themselves, but made dangerous indulgences be- 
 cause the sharers in them are not sufficiently self- 
 controlled, not sufficiently pure, to avoid making 
 
MINISTERING. 75 
 
 a destroying poison of what should be an innocent 
 recreation. 
 
 There are still other amusements that ought 
 to be high and ennobling, but public taste makes 
 them ministers to folly and prompters to sin. 
 
 When we harshly condemn this or that amuse- 
 ment, perhaps we should more justly blame our 
 own hearts, or the spirit of the social circle of 
 which we are a part, — which our own tastes and 
 principles do their share in forming. Let us all 
 dare to be both inwardly and outwardly what we 
 should be, happy children of a Heavenly Father, 
 and the question of lawful amusements will be 
 simplified for us and our families. We shall 
 so help to make it possible for others to enjoy 
 necessary recreation, without being sullied in 
 heart, or unfitted for the appointed duties of 
 life. We may cut off this indulgence, and this 
 place of amusement, and that diversion, and this 
 style of reading, all perhaps, in the present state 
 of things, reprehensible, but this cutting off will 
 not prepare us for innocent amusement, unless 
 the heart is so purified and the will so directed 
 that we can be naturally happy with the remem- 
 brance that we are in the presence of our Heav- 
 enly Friend. 
 
 Let us accept gratefully all blameless enjoy- 
 ment, and accept it ever as given of God. 
 
IV. 
 
 SEEKERS. 
 
 Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night. 
 John xix. 39. 
 
 THERE is perhaps no way in which we could 
 better judge of the real character of a dis- 
 tinguished man than by noticing the manner in 
 which he received the various persons coming to 
 him for aid or counsel. How often, in mere 
 human beings, there would be something of 
 pride of place, or consciousness of superiority, 
 or affected condescension, or selfish indifference, 
 or the deep-seated worldliness that has an ear 
 and a smile for the prosperous and great, but a 
 haughty disdain or a hasty rebuff for the down- 
 trodden or the needy. 
 
 It is in our dealings with men at large that we 
 show what we are. It is sometimes a sad surprise 
 to one who has found a stranger congenial and 
 attractive in a tete-a-tete, to see that same person 
 in other society, echoing or accommodating him- 
 self to the tone of thought of the vicious or of 
 the open scoffer. 
 
MINISTERING. 77 
 
 The unchangeableness of our Lord — the same 
 always in love and purity and dignity — cannot 
 but strike us as we follow Him in his intercourse 
 \\ T ith all states and conditions of men. When 
 the ruler Nicodemus came as a seeker of truth 
 to Jesus, but secretly and by night, he -met no 
 cold rebuke. He was given freely to drink of 
 the living waters, blessed words were spoken to 
 him, on which we Gentiles, at this remote day, 
 delight to dwell, as the bulwarks of our faith 
 and our strong consolation. 
 
 Our Lord gave loving and gracious answers to 
 Nicodemus, but He did not fail to add the great 
 lesson for all puzzled seekers, that the dawn, if 
 it be indeed dawn, must end in the perfect day. 
 It is the man ashamed of his earnest search after 
 truth and holiness who is unwilling to let his 
 fellow-men know that he considers such a search 
 the most important aim of a human life. It is 
 only he who is walking in the law of God, as 
 far as he knows it, and living in purity and sin- 
 cerity .while seeking immortal truth, who can 
 hope to find light, and rejoice in its life-giving 
 beams. 
 
 Far down in the ground the seed may be quick- 
 ening, or shooting patiently upward through the 
 dark soil, but this is but the beginning of life. 
 It must eventually up to the sunshine, the 
 dew, and the free, pure air, if it is to bios- 
 
78 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 som and bear fruit for the pleasure or profit 
 of man. 
 
 There are souls that in their conceit and self- 
 sufficiency are determined to find out a new path 
 heavenward for themselves. They will be in- 
 debted to no man, not even the Man Christ Jesus ! 
 The old trodden path of repentance and humility 
 is not to their taste. They will not even knock at 
 the gate of heaven. They would step boldly in, 
 claiming a right there, on account of their human 
 perfection. This is, alas ! a well-known class of 
 so-called seekers of truth. 
 
 There are persons who close their eyes to the 
 light because their inmost heart cannot bear its 
 pure rays. The lives of such persons generally 
 show in the end why they have been so averse 
 from the exactions of the pure law of God. They 
 have set their faces towards the outer darkness 
 of those who turn their backs on God and holi- 
 ness. On this form of unbelief we must look 
 with deep pain and sorrowful pity. From the 
 baleful influence of such unbelievers we would 
 gladly shield those puzzled doubters who would 
 willingly find themselves in the ways of faith 
 and peace. 
 
 The tender dealing of our Lord with Nico- 
 demus comes with its comforting whispers, when 
 we think of those seekers of truth among the 
 wise heathen philosophers of old. There may 
 
MINISTERING. 79 
 
 even now be lovers of truth, justice, and purity, 
 far from the light of the Everlasting Gospel, 
 who may be beloved by Him who opened the 
 eyes of the groping beggars at the gate of 
 Jericho. 
 
 Sometimes an experienced Christian finds him- 
 self in a mist as dark and chilling as that which 
 suddenly surrounds and bewilders the Alpine 
 traveller. He seems entering into a dreary 
 night of doubt and despair. Such a state of 
 mind may spring from many causes. It may 
 arise from some mere physical derangement that 
 for a time clouds the understanding and dulls 
 the heart. The yielding to some powerful temp- 
 tation may have changed the attitude of the 
 soul towards God, and left the voyager, before 
 going steadily onward towards his goal, like a 
 ship drifting anchor in a wild storm on a strange 
 sea. Such doubts may spring from the slow un- 
 dermining of Christian character, through a too 
 eager pursuit of lawful pleasures, or the chilling 
 influence of a worldly atmosphere become con- 
 genial, or from the cruel seeds of unbelief, wil- 
 fully and skilfully planted by some daring 
 infidel. 
 
 From whatever causes such a state of mind may 
 arise, it is night to the soul. In such a night 
 there is but one help, — to go simply to Jesus, 
 like a little child, telling Him of the trial, and 
 
80 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 seeking His all-powerful aid. This is no real 
 unbelief, to be met by the examining of evi- 
 dences and the study of Church history. This 
 doubt is pain, as of estrangement from a dear 
 friend. It is not disbelief in the existence of 
 that friend, or of his claims to confidence and 
 affection. Such a suffering Christian, in the 
 midst of his confusion of mind, would endure 
 much persecution, and perhaps even offer his 
 life, rather than range himself among the ene- 
 mies of the cause of Christ. If such doubters 
 truly go to Jesus, in their night of trouble, there 
 is a bright dawn in store for them. Repentant, 
 forgiven, received again to the near companion- 
 ship of the Master, they will go onward and 
 upward, fearing nothing so much as the possi- 
 bility of losing in any way the light of His coun- 
 tenance whose presence is fulness of joy. 
 
TIEED. 
 
 Jesus being wearied with His journey. — John iv. 6. 
 
 IT is astonishing how little we hear of the 
 personal discomforts to which our Lord was 
 exposed. He too could be weary in this toiling 
 world. He too could long for rest, and seek the 
 quiet mountain-top or the desert place to be 
 alone with His Father. 
 
 There is a weariness which overtakes us all at 
 times, in the midst of active life, and prompts 
 an overpowering desire to get somewhere, to 
 have some refuge, if but for a day, when not 
 even an hour of solitary peace can we dare to 
 claim. Such is often the weariness of the mother, 
 with many young children about her. She is 
 exhausted by nights of wakefulness beside an 
 uneasy babe, or by watching some little sufferer, 
 or by the very restlessness of the ever-moving, 
 ever-changing group about her, of which she 
 must be the centre and the irresistible attraction. 
 
 There is no escape for you, faithful mother, 
 but there is a loving smile of approval for you 
 
 6 
 
82 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 that could cheer and strengthen you, if you could 
 see it with your mortal eyes. Jesus, who so 
 loved little children, loves them still, and values 
 your every effort and sacrifice. He does not 
 think, because you go over the same duties day 
 by day, that they cost you nothing. He knows 
 your every weary moment, and all your throng- 
 ing cares. Let His love and sympathy help you 
 to go bravely on. The time is coming when the 
 little ones about you will be strong to love and 
 strong to labor. Even here, on earth, a great 
 reward may be in store for you! 
 
 And you, busy father, sacrificing personal am- 
 bition and even the exercise of your highest 
 mental gifts, in some plodding calling, where 
 you win daily bread for your dear ones, what 
 wonder that you are sometimes wearied with 
 the journey ! Sit down, then, by the well whence 
 the living waters are to be drawn. Look to your 
 Heavenly Friend ! You are doing the work He 
 has planned for you, and you have His approval. 
 Your character is strengthened and ennobled by 
 your every sacrifice. You have a present reward 
 in the tender love and unbounded confidence of 
 the helpless group entrusted to your care, and a 
 better reward, when your earthly labors are 
 over. 
 
 There are many weary pilgrims, but all may 
 have the same consolation. Life is indeed a 
 
MINISTERING. 83 
 
 journey, but, unlike most other journeys, it has 
 no fixed, known, and clearly appointed close. It 
 may last for long years, it may end to-night ! 
 
 What does the traveller in a strange country 
 care for passing inconveniences when he fancies 
 he is near his last station. He keeps watchful 
 and ready for the change. His ears are open 
 for the words that may be the summons for him 
 to leave his fellow-passengers and the comforts 
 and discomforts of the way. Perhaps there is 
 some friend gone before who is waiting to meet 
 him, and eye to eye will flash love, and hand 
 will grasp hand, telling of unchanging affection. 
 What, indeed, to such a traveller are the small 
 annoyances by the way? 
 
 "Gird up the loins of your mind," pilgrims 
 to a better Home ! Think of Him who has pre- 
 pared a place for you in the heavenly mansions. 
 Live much in the thought of the Friend who is 
 to meet you "beyond the river. 7 ' So will you be 
 insensibly fashioned into His likeness and into 
 fitness for the Home which awaits you when 
 life's long journey is over! 
 
VI. 
 
 RELATIVES. 
 
 And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, He saw his 
 wife's mother laid and sick of a fever. — Matt. viii. 14. 
 
 OTJB relatives by birth we have generally 
 known from childhood. The familiar in- 
 tercourse of years has created in us that sort of 
 attachment that comes from mutual interests and 
 the exchange of necessary courtesies and kind- 
 ness, even where there is no real congeniality 
 and no very near blood relationship. 
 
 We accept as we must the members of the 
 home circle, love them heartily and naturally in 
 most cases, and in all make the best of them. 
 Family quarrels are universally condemned, and 
 there is fixed upon them a certain measure of dis- 
 grace. The Scriptures go farther and enforce 
 family affection as a duty, as well as a privilege 
 and a source of the purest and most lasting 
 earthly joy. 
 
 As by common consent, mankind rebels more 
 stubbornly against the uncongenial relatives with 
 
. MINISTERING. 85 
 
 whom human beings become connected by mar- 
 riage. There is a noble as well as an unworthy 
 ground for this difficulty. The loving, loyal 
 heart is repulsed by the idea that persons, often 
 utter strangers till met at the wedding feast, 
 should at once be accepted on a par with the dear 
 ones of house and hearth, linked with a whole 
 past life, and near through strong and grateful 
 affection as well as by the natural bond. 
 
 There is often, too, a similarity in the modes 
 of thought, the perception of duty, and the aims 
 both for the inner and the outer life, in a whole 
 family connection. The bride or bridegroom 
 may be suddenly plunged into an atmosphere 
 quite new and uncongenial, to have long cher- 
 ished preferences and prejudices perpetually 
 shocked. The feelings may be wounded and the 
 taste offended because these strangers, who are 
 at once brought so near, are themselves playing 
 upon an unknown instrument, meeting on a 
 familiar footing fellow-creatures of whose habits 
 of thought and peculiarities of character they 
 are quite ignorant, or which they are wholly 
 unable to appreciate. 
 
 For all this there is a slow but certain cure in 
 the open-hearted willingness of the bride and 
 bridegroom to accept their new relatives as they 
 find them, not as they fancy they ought to be. 
 As a plain matter of fact, these relations are 
 
86 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 grown-up men and women not to be made over 
 or remodelled to suit a new young member of 
 the family. They are to be taken and loved and 
 cherished and made happy, in the spirit of frank 
 friendliness, in Christian submission, and in 
 whole-hearted unselfishness, though it may not 
 be easy to take at once quite near to the heart 
 these strangers, who must be called by the sacred 
 names of father or mother or sister or brother. 
 
 These real difficulties in accommodating one's 
 self to new relatives, which are so often met and 
 conquered by the warmth of a loving, conscien- 
 tious nature, are quite different from the cher- 
 ished opposition, the sharp-eyed spirit of 
 criticism, the mean, small seeking for oppor- 
 tunities of difference, that may be found on one 
 side or the other in the new relation. The bride 
 and bridegroom are sometimes so selfishly 
 wrapped up in each other that they consider the 
 outer world only worthy to exist as far as it can 
 conform to their wishes, or minister to their 
 already abounding happiness, or at least not in 
 any way intrude upon or diminish their unspeak- 
 able bliss. Such selfishness at the beginning of 
 married life may make permanent strangers or 
 even enemies of those who would gladly have 
 taken the place and office of near and affection- 
 ate relatives. Even a mother or father or sister 
 or brother, who cannot cease to love the selfishly 
 
MINISTERING. 87 
 
 absorbed offender, may fee! repulsed and thrown 
 off, and grow stiff and ceremonious with one 
 who has been dear to them as the apple of the 
 eye, blood of their blood, and heart of their 
 heart. 
 
 Into whatever household or family circle the 
 Saviour has truly entered, the Friend of all and 
 transforming all into His likeness, such animosi- 
 ties, such opposition of interests, such bickerings, 
 can find no place. 
 
 We know nothing of the moral condition of 
 things under Peter's roof at the time of our 
 Saviour's appearance there, which is honored by 
 the mention of three evangelists. That Peter's 
 wife's mother was a member of his family shows 
 that there was a strong bond of love or duty or 
 congeniality between them. That the Master 
 was at once taken to her bedside on His arrival 
 indicates an eagerness that she should profit by 
 the healing power that He was ever so lovingly 
 ready to exert. Her sickness is called a fever, 
 a " great fever " by one of the narrators of the 
 incident. The physicians of our own day speak 
 of a fever as if it were an enemy to be met 
 and defeated by a nice system of tactics. Our 
 physicians must often work in the dark. They 
 know much of family matters, but they are not 
 father confessors, to whom each member of the 
 household may fully open the heart. There is 
 
88 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 much that causes and sustains disease, into 
 which the wisest physician may not be able to 
 penetrate. 
 
 Who knows what anxieties may have preyed 
 upon the mind of Peter's wife's mother? How 
 wild, erratic, and unpractical she may have 
 thought him, to be forsaking his boats and his 
 nets to follow the new Master, who after all had 
 only promised to make him "a fisher of men." 
 She w^as perhaps familiar with the household 
 difficulties consequent upon his course. The 
 future of the family perhaps lowered gloomily 
 before her. She had a vision of the wife and 
 children sitting deserted in a home of poverty, 
 while the husband was madly following the new 
 Teacher to strange cities. 
 
 Who can say that Peter, with his hasty tongue 
 that could even rebuke the Lord Himself, may 
 not sometimes have wounded her to the quick, 
 by a sharp criticism or a bitter retort, and made 
 her feel that a home in his house was by no 
 means a bed of roses. Perhaps she had no con- 
 fidence in "this Nazarene," and had not cared to 
 meet Him. Now she lay on her bed sick with a 
 fever. She was not to be asked what physician 
 should be brought to her side. 
 
 Our Lord came like no ordinary physician to 
 seek out symptoms and sound body and soul. 
 He knew all the patient's pains and weaknesses. 
 
MINISTERING. 89 
 
 He knew her trials and her sins. He came not 
 on an official visit, for so much pay, so much ex- 
 perience, or so much renown. He came full of 
 ability to heal, and of love to understand and 
 forgive. What a visit that was from the Great 
 Physician ! He took the patient by the hand 
 and lifted her up. He lifted her up, doubtless, 
 both in body and in soul ! 
 
 " There went out virtue from Him." She felt 
 that loving confidence in His willingness to help 
 which His presence seemed so marvellously to 
 inspire. Here was just such a friend as she 
 needed, one who came with a kindly touch of 
 the hand, and a deep sympathy for her in all 
 her troubles ! 
 
 So our Lord is willing, even now, to come to 
 every sick-room and every troubled heart. If, 
 like the wise surgeon, He cannot always spare 
 the sharp knife, or dull the agonizing pain, He 
 can give courage to bear the worst torture, and 
 to triumph in the sorest mental struggles. 
 
 We need not say He will come to every lowly 
 patient. There is no sick-room so dark that He 
 is not already there, willing to give His won- 
 derful light. There is no sufferer so lowly that 
 the Friend of the poor is not ever beside his 
 bed! 
 
 If man would but turn in his distress to the 
 Great Physician, not despising the means He 
 
90 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 has graciously appointed, but looking to Him foi 
 a blessing on all means, and for support in all 
 suffering, what a different world this would be ! 
 
 We read of the patient, Peter's wife's mother, 
 that Jesus " rebuked her fever and it left her, 
 and immediately she rose and ministered unto 
 them." That was a sign of a recovery of body 
 and soul that does not always appear after ill- 
 ness. How often the contrary effect is produced 
 by being the centre of interest and attention on 
 the sick-bed and during convalescence. Who has 
 not seen the faithful servant nursed through 
 pain and danger to become an imperious mis- 
 tress in her exactions, or the little child tenderly 
 cared for by anxious love until it is a domestic 
 tyrant? We may judge of our real gratitude 
 for our recovery by the use we make of the life 
 newly given back to us, or the lost strength so 
 mercifully restored. 
 
 In our extremity what weary watching fell to 
 some one's lot for our sake! By what pa.tient, 
 thoughtful service we were nursed back to life ! 
 In what spirit have we risen from the sick-bed? 
 Have we a more tender feeling for all sufferers? 
 Are we querulously ready to insinuate that this 
 or that invalid has brought on himself by 
 thoughtless imprudence the pain of which he 
 complains? Have we become so used to being 
 waited upon that we have ceased to remember 
 
MINISTERING. 91 
 
 that hired feet can be tired as well as our own? 
 Have our hearts and our purses fully and freely 
 opened to relieve the poor who languish in sick- 
 rooms that are the family resort, the family 
 workshop, the family dormitory, and the family 
 nursery? 
 
 "What a joy it must have been to Peter's wife's 
 mother, after her sudden recovery, to be allowed 
 to minister to the Master, as a revered and be- 
 loved guest! Now she understood Peter's enthu- 
 siasm for Jesus of Nazareth! She needed no 
 longer to fear because her son-in-law had left all 
 to follow the new Teacher. In His care Peter 
 and Peter's house were safe ! 
 
 We have not the Lord to minister to on our 
 recovery, but if we have caught His spirit we 
 shall find it a delight to minister to the needs or 
 contribute to the joy of high or low, rich or poor, 
 friend or acquaintance, as the opportunity may 
 providentially be afforded us. We shall be a 
 new source of help and happiness in the home 
 in which our lot is cast. 
 
 In the times that are gone by, family affection 
 rarely allowed the sick to be entrusted entirely, 
 or any more than was absolutely necessary, to the 
 care of a hired nurse. Such a nurse was then 
 too commonly an ignorant if a willing help, and 
 sometimes an incompetent mercenary or an irre- 
 sponsible drudge. Then it was customary for 
 
92 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 friends to supplement the exertions of the over- 
 taxed family of the patient, by sitting with the 
 sufferer by day, or watching beside his bedside 
 at night. 
 
 That time has passed, and as to nursing, the 
 trained and capable Christian women who now 
 devote themselves to this self-denying occupa- 
 tion can in most cases give far better care tc 
 the sick than the nearest and most devoted rela- 
 tives. This is now everywhere acknowledged. 
 Yet this very fact is bringing evils in its train. 
 The sick-nurse is so kind and competent and 
 acceptable that the family of the patient, relieved 
 in a measure from anxiety, and feeling them- 
 selves superfluous in the sick-room, go on with 
 their ordinary occupations, cheerful, and often 
 indifferent and forgetful as regards the sufferer, 
 who finds the nurse truly very agreeable and 
 capable, but feels himself living in a dreary 
 world, apart from all he holds most dear, and 
 apparently as easily dispensed with as a worn- 
 out glove. Such is human selfishness, that this 
 may even happen in families accounted lovely by 
 outsiders, families in which business and pleasure 
 and self-indulgence are the ruling elements, 
 rather than true affection linked with deep Chris- 
 tian life. In such households it seems to be 
 taken for granted that the sick-nurse has super- 
 natural powers. She is supposed to need no rest, 
 
MINISTERING. 93 
 
 day or night, no recreation, no cheering social 
 chat, no friendliness, no fresh air. It is as if she 
 were bound to perpetual self-abnegation, and 
 almost to a slow self-murder ! 
 
 These things ought not so to be ! The good 
 sick-nurse does not come into the house to foster 
 pleasure-seeking, worldliness, and selfishness. 
 
 There is a ministry for all of us in our homes 
 and in the homes of others, in sickness and in 
 health, in joy and in sorrow. Not sickness 
 alone, not recovery, can teach us this lesson. 
 The Lord Jesus must take us by the hand and 
 lift us up, and give us of His loving spirit, and 
 then we shall arise and minister unto our fellows, 
 after His example and in His name. 
 
VII. 
 FAULTS. 
 
 Why are ye so fearful ? — Mark iv. 40. 
 
 NEVER does our Lord seem nearer to us than 
 when He lies in the little vessel on the Sea 
 of Galilee, fast asleep, like one of ourselves. 
 From the deep rest of weary human nature, He 
 is not even awakened by the roar of the tempest 
 about Him. We see in Him here our Brother, 
 who could suffer fatigue of mind and body, and 
 sink overpowered into the forgetfulness and un- 
 consciousness of kindly sleep. So it seems to us 
 now, but to the disciples that sleep was almost 
 like wilful desertion. Jesus was their Master, 
 to whom they looked for help and guidance. In 
 His power they were beginning to have unlimited 
 trust. Now He had laid aside his sceptre, and 
 seemed lost to them in the hour of trouble, even 
 unmindful of them and their needs. They dared 
 to wake Him, and address to Him the words of 
 wounded confidence and almost indignant re- 
 proach. 
 
 The majesty and power of our Lord crowned 
 
MINISTERING. 95 
 
 Him on awaking. The winds and the waves 
 were hushed into subjection. They who had 
 presumed to rouse Him from His quiet sleep 
 felt Him now an august stranger, and whispered 
 timidly together, " What manner of man is this, 
 that even the wind and the sea obey Him?" 
 
 What did the disciples expect the Master to 
 do, when they roused Him to come to their aid, 
 if they were so astonished at the execution of 
 His sovereign power? 
 
 What a picture we have of the Church of God, 
 and even of individual believers, in those few 
 men in the storm -tossed ship! "They cried 
 unto the Lord in their distress," but were filled 
 with stupefied surprise and timid awe when He 
 heard and answered their prayer. 
 
 There are few ways in which Christians show 
 more their lack of real faith than when they stand 
 astonished at a direct answer to their prayers. 
 In our troubles we besiege Heaven for help and 
 add in our hearts if not with our lips, "Master, 
 carest thou not if we perish?" Yet we are 
 hushed into convicted silence when the sudden 
 answer to our prayers overtakes us, perhaps as 
 we rise from our knees. 
 
 Real answers to prayers are not only a rebuke 
 to our latent unbelief, but a strengthening as 
 well to our atom of faith. We have seen what 
 manner of being our Lord is, and more truly 
 
96 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 than ever before rely on Him with childlike 
 trust. In such a response to our cry ; we have 
 perhaps a secret with Him alone, which we 
 should shrink, it may be, from naming to mother 
 or sister or brother, yet it sends us singing on 
 our way. 
 
 It is not to all Christians that the question 
 "Why are ye so fearful?" can with the same 
 pertinence be addressed. Individual character 
 sets its stamp on the spiritual life, its joys and 
 its difficulties and its temptations. Peter is born 
 Peter, if not in name, and John is born John. 
 We come into the world with fixed character- 
 istics, and probably each with his peculiar bias, 
 his weak places, where the enemy may most 
 readily make his assault. 
 
 This fact is most important for the educator to 
 remember, be he parent or teacher, A child's 
 natural gifts and tendencies must be patiently 
 and prayerfully studied, by one who would guide 
 and direct and develop him aright. There may 
 be points of character about which even the 
 mother of a boy may be long in doubt, while 
 others will be clear to her from his earliest 
 infancy. 
 
 There is no characteristic that shows itself 
 more early than timidity. Some children, from 
 the dawn of opening consciousness, are fearless 
 and confiding and friendly. Others shrink from 
 
MINISTERING. 97 
 
 strangers with a quivering lip, and lay the head 
 on the mother's shoulder, they know not why. 
 Some baby faces will cloud and fill with tears at 
 a harsh word, while others will answer frown 
 with frown, and hasty reproof with irritated 
 opposition. How few children have pains early 
 taken with them to soften and modify their 
 dangerous peculiarities ! 
 
 There is a time when a human being comes 
 into a new possession of himself, as something 
 given back to him, as Moses was to his mother, 
 to be trained not like Moses for an earthly 
 princess, but as a voluntary subject of the King 
 of Kings. Bought with a price, we are no longer 
 our own, but pledged to live in the midst of this 
 evil world in accordance with the laws of Him 
 who has bought us. The beginner in the Chris- 
 tian life sees in himself an instrument to be used 
 in his Master's service. What is the temper of 
 that instrument? What is its appointed work? 
 He hardly knows its strength or its deficiencies. 
 On a careful examination he is discouraged, 
 humbled, cast down. He seems made up of in- 
 congruous elements, diseased, out of joint, im- 
 perfect at every point. In the midst of this 
 natural and suitable humiliation he should take 
 courage. Every human character is an uncom- 
 pleted work. It is not to be judged of until the 
 last ingredient, the essential ingredient, is added 
 
 7 
 
98 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 to the composition. The cure for the appar- 
 ent disease must be applied. The hand of the 
 Master must set right the disordered machinery. 
 The Power that is the secret of all growth must 
 develop what is imperfect or existing only in the 
 hopeful germ. 
 
 Our very faults may be for us the source of 
 our virtues, if subjected to the healing touch of 
 the Great Physician. Have you an anxious, 
 timid, shrinking nature that you think unfits you 
 for a true soldier of the Cross? You are weak 
 that you may be strong. Natural courage, head- 
 long, thoughtless bravery, even to rashness, can 
 stand abashed before the courage of a Heaven- 
 sustained Christian woman. Such women, in 
 the strength that cometh from above, can face 
 danger and certain death with a calm and cheer- 
 ful offering of themselves for a high purpose that 
 ranks them among the noblest and bravest of 
 earth. The fearful who flee to the Lord in their 
 felt helplessness, have a source of courage that 
 is inexhaustible. Let them take heart, and an- 
 swer the self-reproachful question, " Why are ye 
 so fearful?" with the comforting words, "That 
 because we are fearful, knowing our own weak- 
 ness, we may so flee to the Lord and trust in Him 
 only, that no anxieties, no coming pains, no 
 threatening dangers can disturb our peace ! " 
 
 So we might make the round of human frailties 
 
MINISTERING. 99 
 
 and shortcomings and special temptations. 
 "Man's necessity is God's opportunity," here 
 as elsewhere. Our faults, our very sins, may be 
 made the prompters and sources of our virtues. 
 The place where the fort was known to be weak- 
 est has been made its strongest point. The 
 struggle, through God's grace, with our known 
 enemy, may make us excel where we have most 
 frequently failed. The tried and tempted may 
 not only be the forgiven and reformed, but the 
 rescuer of the falling and the fallen, and the 
 glad finder of the lost and despairing. 
 
VIII. 
 
 MOUENEES. 
 
 He had compassion on her. — Luke vii. 13. 
 
 THE human heart has a deep craving for 
 sympathy and compassion. Why else 
 does the invalid recount his pains and the 
 mourner tell her tale of sorrow though it costs 
 her a fresh outbreak of bitter tears? There is 
 a desire that others may know what we have 
 suffered, that may even become a morbid craving, 
 as in the case of a well-known afflicted child, 
 early developed in the spiritual life, but not 
 purified on earth from human weakness. As he 
 looked at his little wasted limbs his plaintive 
 voice pleaded, "Let my friends see my body 
 when I am dead, and then they will know how I 
 have suffered." 
 
 We may smile sorrowfully at that poor peti- 
 tion, but we all have within us the germs of the 
 same spirit. Yet we feel it as a weakness, for 
 there is in uncomplaining sorrow a majestic 
 power that appeals to every heart. 
 
MINISTERING. 101 
 
 Our Lord was ever ready to hear and respond 
 to the prayers of the sick or their friends, yet 
 His divine compassion seems to have been spe- 
 cially touched by the silent grief of the widowed 
 mourner beside the bier of her only son. His 
 tender sympathy for that desolate woman was 
 not only to cheer her .heart, but to be a stay and 
 comfort for bleeding human hearts down the long 
 centuries, until all the redeemed should come to 
 that home in which God shall wipe away the 
 tears from off all faces. 
 
 "The Lord's compassions fail not. They are 
 new every morning." He stands by the bier 
 with the sorrowing. He still says to the eyes 
 blinded with tears, "Weep not!" "I am the 
 resurrection and the life ! " Here we have the 
 full satisfaction for our natural craving for sym- 
 pathy. No human being is so desolate or so 
 isolated that the Great Comforter is not beside 
 him. No sorrow is so secret that He does not 
 know it in all its bitterness. No affliction is so 
 crushing that He cannot lift up the head and the 
 heart of the bowed mourner. 
 
 The afflicted may cry out in his anguish even to 
 the friends that would console him, " Miserable 
 comforters are ye all." The words of dear sym- 
 pathizing brethren may sound in the ear like 
 dim, far-off bells, that summon him whither 
 he cannot come. The voices of even the living 
 
102 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 beloved ones seem outside tiie sorrowing heart, 
 and powerless to hush its pain. The Lord Jesus 
 with His compassion comes into the heart, takes 
 up His abode there, and whispers a peace at 
 which the world must wonder. He can give in 
 the darkest hour a foretaste of the blessed time 
 when "sorrow and sighing shall flee away." 
 
 The son of the widow of Nain, waked from 
 the dead, "sat up," and the Lord "delivered him 
 to his mother." 
 
 That same Lord will not indeed now wake our 
 dead and give them bodily to our loving arms. 
 Yet in His own way He takes our treasures from 
 us, and yet delivers them to us again. As they 
 are in their heavenly home they are given back 
 to our loving hearts, — all blemishes blotted out, 
 all shortcomings forgotten, they are forever 
 enshrined in our memory. We love them here 
 below, we cherish them with the love that can 
 cover a multitude of sins. We see no faults, we 
 remember now no failings in the dear one in 
 heaven. We see him as God meant him to be, 
 as he wished to be, and as he now is. He is 
 delivered to us again, as one of the "just made 
 perfect," and so we treasure his image. The 
 light of heaven has fallen on the face that we 
 loved, the heart that was so near to ours has 
 been fully washed and made pure in the blood of 
 the Lamb. It is as if we unconsciously accepted 
 
MINISTERING. 103 
 
 this great truth, and from beyond the grave the 
 departed were delivered to us to cherish in all 
 his heavenly beauty. 
 
 Ye make no mistake, ye tender mourners, when 
 ye idealize and shed a halo around that dear 
 member of the household circle who has gone to 
 the great home above. He is so delivered to 
 you that you may love him with the full, unself- 
 ish love that forgets his human taint and sees 
 him as he is, accepted in the Beloved. 
 
 As you see him now, so should you strive to be. 
 You have had your pattern delivered to you 
 from heaven, where you believe him to be like 
 his Lord, for he sees Him as He is ! 
 
 Foreshadow in your relation to your living 
 friends the love you now feel towards him whom 
 the Lord has accepted. They too are the chil- 
 dren of God, but not yet perfected, lifted above 
 the struggles and temptations of this lower life. 
 See them, judge them, help them, forgive them, 
 as pilgrims towards heaven, though they have 
 not yet laid down the staff or exchanged the cross 
 for the crown. 
 
 All who are spared to you are delivered to you, 
 as it were, beside the bier of the departed, to be 
 as tenderly ministered to as you would minister 
 to him now if he were raised from the dead. 
 They are delivered to you to have their fail- 
 ings as patiently borne with, their trespasses as 
 
104 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 freely forgiven, their affection as tenderly fos- 
 tered and returned. 
 
 It is a tendency of the mourning heart to 
 glorify the lost at the expense of the living, en- 
 compassed here below with sin and temptation. 
 Rather let your love be increased towards those 
 who are still left in life's rugged way. The word 
 comes to you, "Weep not," or at least let not 
 your tears be a veil between you and the friends 
 still spared to you. Serve them with a new love, 
 labor for them with a new gladness. Be to 
 them a joy in all daily intercourse. Give your- 
 selves to them anew as a companion sanctified by 
 sorrow, to be more loving and forbearing and 
 unselfish, more fitted to help them towards the 
 home in which the loved and lost will be met 
 again in glory. 
 
 Nor are you to lack in this new nearness and 
 devotedness to the dear friends that are left you 
 the companionship of the loved and lost. He 
 whom you call dead is now first truly living. 
 He is now brought nearer to you, in a way, than 
 ever before. There is a fresh, sure, firm bond 
 between you. You are perhaps loosely, falter- 
 ingly clasping the hand of the Lord here on earth. 
 Think of that Lord as holding with the other 
 hand the sainted one who has just come into the 
 Heavenly Kingdom to walk with Him in white 
 beside the river of the water of life. 
 
MINISTERING. 105 
 
 Christ joins you. You speak to the Master, 
 the Master speaks to him who has entered into 
 his rest. The Lord sees alike your tears and 
 his joy. The Master holds you both in His lov- 
 ing keeping, — you for a while here a cross- 
 bearing pilgrim, your loved one a sainted com- 
 panion of God and the holy angels. 
 
 Live near to the Conqueror of Death, who has 
 the ransomed in His keeping. Weep not. 
 Be patient and hopeful and active and pure, and 
 in a few short days you too will have crossed the 
 dark river. Perhaps even now its waters are 
 rolling at your feet, and bright angels are tuning 
 their harps to give you a song of welcome to the 
 land where the loved and lost are with the Lord 
 in glory. 
 
IX. 
 
 SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint by the 
 way. — Matt. xx. 21. 
 
 OUR Saviour knew what it was to fast. His 
 fast was a strong expression of His deter- 
 mination to fulfil all duty, as well as to honor 
 every outward form wisely appointed for the 
 good of man. There would be among His fol- 
 lowers individuals who must fairly crucify the 
 flesh before they could be penetrated by the life 
 of the soul. To such He would give an example 
 of a triumph over the ordinary needs of human 
 nature, through a struggle with its importunate 
 cravings, a resistance even "unto blood." To 
 each of us practically He so gives a timely warn- 
 ing to keep the body in subjection by any and 
 all means. 
 
 Have we not, too, a word here specially to the 
 Christian himself free from all temptation to 
 drunkenness? May not the self-denial of one 
 strong through the habitual control of the body, 
 be a help to the weaker brother who feels within 
 
MINISTERING. 107 
 
 himself an inborn craving that may lead to a 
 destroying habit of vice? When more estab- 
 lished Christians are willing to forego the plea- 
 sures and elegancies and social amenities of wine 
 at their feasts, or the stronger drinks at enter- 
 tainments among men, it will be easier for the 
 struggling brother, whose one indulgence may 
 be the backward, downward step to a disgraceful 
 fall, and a hopeless return to a career of sin and 
 shame ! When there are hosts of refined and 
 self-controlled men and women and boys and 
 girls who dare to say, "I am for total absti- 
 nence," the tempted will more easily do likewise ! 
 How many a youth after a first carouse, a first 
 humiliation through intoxication, would promptly 
 resolve never again to touch the dangerous cup 
 if sustained by public opinion and a large mass 
 of consistent Christians, above all suspicion of a 
 tendency to sink into a drunkard's grave. Who 
 will set his face and his example deliberately 
 against the practices that lead to the vice that 
 fills our prisons, our insane asylums, and our 
 almshouses, — a vice that destroys the brain of 
 the thinker, robs the workman's arm of its 
 strength, and brings poverty and sorrow and 
 shame into thousands of homes? 
 
 Our Saviour knew what hunger was as few ever 
 can know it; He felt a tender compassion towards 
 those who to any extent suffered its gnawing 
 
108 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 pain. His miracles were not idle exhibitions of 
 power. His touch was to help or to heal. His 
 multiplying of the loaves and fishes seems to have 
 sprung as well from His true compassion as from 
 His willingness to prove that He himself, the 
 Bread from Heaven, was willing giver of daily 
 bread to the needy. 
 
 It was His tender mercy, too, to show plainly 
 that sources most insignificant could, at His com- 
 mand, be sufficient for great things. 
 
 What cheer these marvellous loaves bring to 
 the anxious heads of families, who cast a dreary 
 look towards the unpromising future, and can 
 only lift up in prayer helpless hands that have 
 craved in vain honest work ! For strong and 
 busy hands, with only the prospect of an inade- 
 quate result from their untiring efforts, there is a 
 voice of comfort. Your humble labors may be 
 blessed a hundredfold ! Your little store, your 
 small success, may be so increased as to keep the 
 "wolf from the door." Fear not! Trust in the 
 Great Giver of Bread. 
 
 There are persons who have been willing to 
 take a certain number of days in the year for 
 self-denial, in imitation of the example of Christ, 
 after which time of seclusion and abstinence they 
 have been ready to return with new zest to their 
 ordinary life of pleasure and self-indulgence. 
 This may be a useful exercise, but it is not a 
 
MINISTERING. 109 
 
 faithful following of the Elder Brother. His 
 sacrifice once offered began before His birth with 
 the "Lo, I come! " and found its climax at the 
 death on the cross. It is written even now, 
 He "niaketh intercession for us," His lost, wan- 
 dering brethren. 
 
 Let us not consider that our self-denial, that 
 any form of self-denial, can be accepted as our 
 finished work. We are to make an offering day 
 by day and hour by hour, through forgetfulness 
 of self, and loving fulfilment of distasteful duties. 
 We must deny ourselves and take up our cross 
 daily, not merely at an appointed season, or on 
 some great anniversary set apart for specially 
 solemn observance. 
 
 We perhaps shrink from the thought of this 
 lifelong self-denial. How consoling to us in this 
 prospect are the precious words, "I have com- 
 passion on the multitude; I will not send them 
 away fasting, lest they faint by the way ! " 
 
 We have no hard task -master, no Pharaoh to 
 wring the utmost from toiling Israel ! Our Lord, 
 as a tender Elder Brother, would lay no too 
 heavy burdens on the little ones. He appoints 
 our sacrifices and our pains in a spirit of love. 
 He would discipline and strengthen us and pre- 
 pare us for nobler and nobler effort. He is ready 
 to help when the way is hard and the courage 
 sinks and the load is intolerable. We do not 
 
110 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 labor and bear and struggle alone. He, the Great 
 Cross-bearer, is among us and with us. "My 
 Father worketh hitherto and I work " is still the 
 gracious word of our Lord. We are working 
 together with Hiin for our salvation and the 
 rescue and the joy of our suffering brethren on 
 earth. Fear not that ye shall faint by the way ! 
 Ye shall rather come off "conquerors through 
 Him who hath loved " you! 
 
X. 
 
 ECONOMY. 
 
 Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing may be 
 lost. — John vi. 12. 
 
 ECONOMY is generally considered as only a 
 suitable virtue for persons of narrow means. 
 For the rich to economize is reckoned a littleness 
 and almost a shame. "Let them that have much 
 spend freely and even lavishly if they will ! " 
 says the popular voice. 
 
 He who makes the bountiful grain to clothe the 
 fruitful fields, He who could say, "The cattle on 
 a thousand hills are mine," the Munificent Giver 
 of all things, could yet, when clothed in human 
 form, issue the unexpected and homely com- 
 mand, "Gather up the fragments that remain, 
 that nothing may be lost." 
 
 The universal neatness of the provisions of 
 nature might lead us to think it possible that 
 the Author of nature would unwillingly see the 
 lone place where flower and bee had kept com- 
 pany marred by the traces of the hasty meal of 
 
112 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 a great multitude. There is, however, added the 
 full reason of the command: "Gather up the 
 fragments that remain, that nothing may he 
 lost ! " 
 
 The lavish multiplication of the loaves by the 
 hand of the Lord was to give an abundance to 
 the hungry multitude. He is no churlish giver 
 to dole out His benefits with a sparing hand ! 
 
 Yet the twelve baskets full of fragments that 
 remained must not be lost. They must be care- 
 fully gathered, for no good gift should be wasted. 
 We know not what homes were to be gladdened 
 by these remains of the feast. Our Lord knew 
 what humble households would feed on the plenty 
 He had supplied. He knows where to send 
 succor in time of need. 
 
 The poor must economize if they would not 
 shiver or starve. Persons of moderate means are 
 prompted to this prosaic virtue by the desire for 
 more elegance or comfort, or for a provision for 
 sickness or old age, or for the great pleasure of 
 giving. To the rich comes the special privilege 
 of economizing as faithful followers of our Lord. 
 They must save, not waste, that they may de- 
 vote as much as possible of their superfluous 
 abundance to make comfortable and happy and 
 good the suffering brethren of the Master. 
 
 Few, even among the very rich, would willingly 
 cast out wantonly as worthless a wholesome 
 
MINISTERING. 113 
 
 loaf of bread, or a basket of luscious fruit, or the 
 sheaves of grain fresh from the hand of the 
 reaper. Yet how many thoughtlessly lavish in 
 worthless trifles or profitless expenses the money 
 that would supply food for a hungry child, or 
 light the dark hovel or kindle the cheerful fire 
 in the desolate home ! Call the little sums you 
 throw away so recklessly nourishing rolls for 
 starving children, or refreshing fruits for the 
 stinted invalid. Think of the gratification of 
 your expensive, fickle whims as the rent paid 
 down for the houseless, or work given to the 
 hands that can find no lawful labor to save 
 them from the shame of being stretched out to 
 beg. This will help you to practise economy. 
 
 You may say you do give. Very possibly. 
 You may give willingly and abundantly, but 
 while you spend thoughtlessly, lavishly, and 
 wastefully, you could give more, you are robbing 
 the Lord's poor! Use what you have carefully, 
 use it methodically, use it knowing and register- 
 ing the channels into which your expenditures 
 find their way ! You are but a steward. You 
 must one day give an account of your stew- 
 ardship ! 
 
 When you save, when you gather up the 
 fragments, give what you save. This is a wise 
 warning for the prosperous. This is the full 
 safeguard against the degeneration of the rich 
 
 8 
 
114 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 man's economy into meanness or avarice. Give 
 what you can properly spare, is the word for 
 persons of more moderate means. Economy is 
 the duty of all ! For the lack of this modest 
 virtue many a home is made comfortless, many a 
 family houseless at last. Make it your duty 
 before God to use the means He has given you, 
 in the constant remembrance that He is the Great 
 Householder whom you serve ! 
 
 When you save, when you gather up the frag- 
 ments, see that nothing is lost. These are the 
 days when by the ingenuity and charity of man 
 the fragments are carefully utilized. See that 
 nothing is wasted in your house, your office, your 
 workshop, that could do somebody good, that 
 could be transformed or combined or purified so 
 as to be a blessing to the needy ! 
 
 But there are fragments not of the nature of 
 loaves or fishes or any material thing. There 
 are fragments of time to be caught up and made 
 useful. It has been practically proved that one 
 may learn a new language by employing for a 
 year the odd moments of waiting or idling or 
 dawdling. By care and conscientious watchful- 
 ness you can learn and practise the language of 
 prayer, on what you call your most busy days, 
 and have times for meditation that will keep 
 your eyes open to the spiritual world that is ever 
 about you. 
 
MINISTERING. 115 
 
 Do not sit down in despair in the midst of 
 your broken fortunes. Gather up the fragments 
 cheerfully, and begin again, like the disturbed 
 bird, who lays straw by straw for a new home, 
 singing as gladly as when he made the pretty 
 nest that wantonness has destroyed. Begin again 
 in a better spirit than before, trusting to God for 
 a blessing. Let your foundation be on the rock 
 Christ Jesus, and your watchword, "As for me 
 and my house, we will serve the Lord! " 
 
 Gather up the fragments after illness. You 
 may not be what you have been, but you are still 
 an instrument for the service of God and your 
 fellows, — an instrument perhaps polished and 
 sharpened by the illness that has sapped your 
 once prided bodily strength. 
 
 Gather up the fragments in old age ! You have 
 not long to tarry here. Use your time and 
 powers and prayers lovingly, wisely, gladly, and 
 you may yet while you sojourn below be a joy- 
 and a blessing. 
 
 We are all poor fragments, unseemly bits, to 
 be fitted together to make a great building, the 
 temple of the Lord, His church, in which He is 
 pleased to dwell now, and which He will glorify 
 hereafter. Let us see to it that we have no un- 
 necessary irregularity of form, no queer, ragged 
 corners about us, that will not fit into the stones 
 beside us. Let us submit to be hewn, if neces- 
 
116 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 sary, to suit our proper place, and be contented 
 with that place however small and inconspicuous 
 it may be. There will be a day when our Lord 
 will himself gather up these poor human frag- 
 ments, the scattered members of His Church on 
 earth, and make them precious stones in the 
 new Jerusalem. 
 
XL 
 
 OPPOSITION. 
 
 Neither did His brethren believe on Him. — John vii. 5. 
 
 IT seems strange that any kinsmen or friends, 
 who had watched the youth of the blameless 
 Jesus, could have doubted His divine mission. 
 Their very familiarity with His daily life prob- 
 ably blinded their eyes to His superhuman char- 
 acter. It was hard for them to believe that He 
 who had simply and humbly mixed in the ordi- 
 nary interests and occupations of the carpenter's 
 home could be the Messiah promised for ages to 
 chosen Israel. 
 
 There is ever an unwillingness to acknowledge 
 the greatness that springs up at our side, and, as 
 it seems, might as well have been our own as our 
 more gifted brother's. With this doubt of their 
 powers in their home, in their native city, in 
 their fatherland, the great and good of all ages 
 have had to contend. There is everywhere a 
 strong prejudice against the homespun. The 
 foreign stamp on a fabric makes it more eagerly 
 
118 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 sought, be that fabric no better, or even worse, 
 than that woven by busy looms almost within our 
 own hearing. 
 
 How often some far-seeing scientist or discov- 
 erer or writer has failed to be appreciated at 
 home, until some people of another tongue have 
 sealed his claims to celebrity! How often the 
 forerunner of some large enterprise or some 
 needed reform has been greeted with the cry, 
 " Behold, this dreamer cometh ! " 
 
 The brethren of our Lord were not found 
 among His first eager advocates, but we do not 
 hear that His mother ever swerved from her 
 deep conviction that a great destiny awaited 
 Him. She was even too eager at Cana to have 
 her son show the wonderful power that she was 
 sure was indwelling with Him beside His loveli- 
 ness and humility. 
 
 How many a mother has so trusted her richly 
 endowed son, and waited patiently for his hour 
 of public acknowledgment ! And how many such 
 sons have been first fashioned by such a mother's 
 careful training, and been cheered by her affec- 
 tionate confidence ! ■ . 
 
 That the man Christ Jesus suffered from the 
 doubt and disbelief by which He was met where 
 He had a right to expect trust and allegiance, 
 we cannot question. So He was a sharer in the 
 sufferings of all who follow the lonely path of 
 
MINISTERING. 119 
 
 pioneers in great and blessed works, and are 
 scoffed at by their brethren as wild fanatics who 
 would draw men from the old highroads that 
 have been good enough for their honored fathers. 
 
 Be not discouraged, faithful struggler for some 
 great truth, or eager worker for some effort to 
 lift up the fallen or succor the lowly. There is 
 One who understands you and will crown at last 
 your humble labors with abundant success ! It 
 may be that here on earth you will never see 
 your finished work. Be not cast down. Good 
 done is never lost. If you but lay a strong 
 foundation, the towers of some great and beau- 
 tiful and beneficent edifice may lift themselves 
 towards the approving skies when your body has 
 been laid in the dust and your soul has gone to 
 its account ! 
 
 Alas ! there are many who claim that they 
 are misunderstood and unappreciated, when 
 they are chiefly laboring for their own advance- 
 ment, and seeking for themselves the honor of 
 men. There is One who fully understands them. 
 He reads the self-seeking that mingles with 
 their best efforts. He knows, too, perhaps, that, 
 in spite of this imperfection, they fervently 
 desire to be of use in their day and generation. 
 That Great Master will doubtless cast stumbling- 
 blocks in their way, and surround them with 
 discouragements till their motives are purified 
 
120 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 and they are made fit to be leaders in a good 
 cause. Work on, tired laborers, bold reformers, 
 but work as the bumble servants of the Most 
 High, and you will be less sensitive as to the 
 opinion of men ! Seek the success of your noble 
 cause, and not your own honor ! Be satisfied if 
 good be accomplished, if that be as the strong 
 fortress on the rocky headland, while your name 
 is but written in the wave-washed sand at its 
 feet! 
 
XII. 
 
 DEFORMITY. 
 
 Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he 
 was bom blind? — John ix. 2. 
 
 Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents, but that the 
 works of God should be manifested in him. — John ix. 3. 
 
 TT7E hear much complaint about the existing 
 VV unequal distribution of worldly goods. 
 The possibility of a fair division of property by 
 the State among its citizens is eagerly discussed. 
 Could this be done, the greatest inequalities, 
 and those that are the source of the most un- 
 happiness, would still remain. Were there a 
 certain standard of income to be doled out to all, 
 the thrifty would soon surround themselves with 
 added comfort; the liberal and hospitable would 
 have cheery homes, a source of pleasure to others 
 as well as themselves; the loving would give 
 love and win love ; the virtuous would have their 
 peace of mind, the true Christian his Heavenly 
 Father and his home beyond the grave. The 
 careless and idle would soon live in disorder and 
 squalor; the miser would be miserable in the 
 
122 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 midst of his gold; the cold and selfish would be 
 lonely and deserted; the vicious would be tor- 
 mented in mind and body; the unbeliever would 
 moan in his secret anguish, " There is no God ! " 
 
 Nor would the inequality end here. The beau- 
 tiful would still be beautiful, and the ugly ugly. 
 The old must content themselves with gray hairs 
 and declining powers, while the young man 
 would rejoice in his youth. The gifted would 
 have the pleasure of using his great powers and 
 winning the enthusiastic admiration of his fel- 
 lows, while the stupid must mope in his dul- 
 ness, and the silly be the object of contempt. 
 
 There would still be the house of mourning 
 and the house of feasting. There would be the 
 glad family circle, and the lone mortal shut out 
 from the voices of childhood and with no loving 
 hand to smooth his dying pillow. 
 
 The State could not make "the lame man to 
 leap as a hart," or give eyes to the blind. The 
 State could not make the deaf to hear or the 
 dumb to speak. The State could not give to the 
 giant or the dwarf the ordinary stature of man, 
 or change the negro's swarthy skin. The State 
 could not ordain that in any city "the inhab- 
 itant should no more say, I am sick," or that the 
 hungry grave should cease to claim its victims. 
 
 There is a natural rebellion in the human 
 heart against poverty and sickness and sorrow 
 
MINISTERING. 123 
 
 and personal misfortune. There is an indignant 
 desire in outsiders to lay the blame of these 
 drawbacks to human happiness on some short- 
 comings of the sufferers themselves or of their 
 ancestors immediate or remote. 
 
 Perhaps there is no kind of misfortune to 
 which it is more difficult to submit meekly than to 
 personal defects or deformity, none under which 
 there is cherished a more bitter and discontented 
 spirit. " What have I done that I should be so 
 afflicted?" is the involuntary question of the 
 sufferer. "Who did sin, this man or his par- 
 ents? " asks the observer, from the superior point 
 of view of his own perfections. 
 
 The majority of the inequalities of life are dis- 
 pensed by the mighty Creator. He knows where 
 to place the soul here below, and with what body 
 it should be clothed. Of this great school He is 
 the All-wise Master. He orders the discipline 
 and instruction as may suit His varied pupils. 
 A profound belief in His love and wisdom can 
 make the most stiff and stubborn bow cheerfully 
 to His mysterious decrees. 
 
 For those children of the Heavenly Father 
 who have received some bodily blemish or defect 
 as their portion, there is a special comfort in the 
 answer given by our Saviour to the question ad- 
 dressed to Him with regard bo the man born 
 blind: "Neither hath this man sinned nor his 
 
124 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 parents, but that the works of God should be 
 manifested in him." 
 
 Perhaps the world has never seen, more marked 
 instances of the triumph of the soul, and its as- 
 sertion of its superiority over the body, than in 
 the cases of some noble beings afflicted with a 
 personal deformity. Who has not stored in mind 
 as a treasure the remembrance of great, soul- 
 ful eyes, lighting the face and telling of the 
 conquest of the spirit, in a dwarfed and hump- 
 backed body? Who has not watched the coun- 
 tenance, when the lips were doomed to silence, 
 and the ear to stillness, to see it light with love 
 and friendliness or glow with deep devotion to 
 the Heavenly King. Here is a great and special 
 privilege of personal deformity! It is possible 
 by divine grace so to accept this outer misfor- 
 tune that the spirit within may be truly sancti- 
 fied, and honored to manifest that great work of 
 God, the triumph of a loving faith through the 
 unchanging days of a lifelong affliction. 
 
 A misfortune outside of one's personality may 
 be modified by time, or forgotten temporarily in 
 some strong, absorbing interest. The lame man, 
 though, must wake every morning to his lame- 
 ness, the blind to his blindness. These are not 
 misfortunes to be thrown off at will. There is 
 no let-up with them. There is no vacation in the 
 school in which they are the teachers ! 
 
MINISTERING. 125 
 
 Blessed are they who can so take personal 
 deformity or defects that they can make them 
 minister to the glory of Him who can make the 
 blind to see the light of His countenance, and the 
 deaf in their solemn stillness to hear His voice. 
 
 For these forms of affliction our Lord Jesus 
 seems to have had a peculiar tenderness. His 
 all-seeing eye could note each secret thought 
 of morbid anguish or swelling bitterness hidden 
 from mortal view. His hand delighted to give 
 to such sufferers the sudden joy of a full and 
 perfect cure. His sympathy is the same now. 
 He will not probably remove the trial, but He 
 can make it cease to be a source of cruel pain, 
 through the sweet submission of a heart that 
 bows lovingly to His sovereign will. He can 
 open the eyes to the shortness of this earthly 
 career, and the little consequence of the outward 
 form of this passing tenement of a soul that is to 
 be glad with Him forever. He can so sanctify 
 and beautify that soul here below as to compel 
 for it reverence and love, even from the little 
 reverent and the little loving. The dweller in a 
 body imperfect or deformed has often candidly 
 said, "I count my misfortune as nothing, wrapped 
 around as I am by love, and convinced as I am 
 that I could not be happier if I had the most 
 perfect body in the world." In such joy and 
 peace the work of God is surely manifest. 
 
126 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 With what thoughtfulness and love and ten- 
 derness the sound in body should meet the suf- 
 ferers under personal misfortune ! The right- 
 minded must feel the blood boil, and the flush of 
 righteous indignation crimson the cheek, when 
 so-called Christians, — men, women, or children, 
 — can presume to taunt the deformed with their 
 misfortune, or treat them with contempt in con- 
 sequence of it, or in their absence make it a 
 subject of ridicule or mimicry, or give it a pity 
 which is akin to disdain. Loving tenderness is 
 due to him whom the hand of the Lord has 
 touched. 
 
XIII. 
 
 PAKENTS. 
 
 Lord, have mercy on my son. — Matt. xvii. 15. 
 
 And his child was cured from that very hour. — lb. 18. 
 
 IT is not strange that our Lord, with His deep 
 appreciation of the sacred ties of family and 
 friendship, should have encouraged their natural 
 consequence, intercessory prayer. Those whom 
 we love we so naturally pray for that in all 
 languages invocations of blessing have become a 
 part of common speech, though sometimes so 
 changed and distorted by thoughtless use that 
 only the philologist can recognize them. To the 
 Christian, however, the " God be with you ! " 
 lingers in the " Good-by ! " as in the " Adieu ! " 
 A large proportion of the miracles of our Saviour 
 were performed in answer to the earnest petitions 
 of the friends of the sick and suffering, often 
 themselves beyond the power of even seeking the 
 help of the Great Deliverer. 
 
 Our Lord, too, here as ever, goes before us in 
 the path we should follow. What a treasure we 
 have in His great intercessory prayer ! What a 
 
128 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 comfort to know that we were remembered in 
 that prayer! " Neither pray I for these alone, 
 but for them also who shall believe on me through 
 their word ! " Not alone could our Elder Brother 
 pray for them who loved Him. Even for His 
 enemies we hear from the cross the strong cry, 
 " Father, forgive them; they know not what 
 they do*! " 
 
 Thus encouraged, we may come humbly but 
 confidently to the Lord, with our own eager, im- 
 portunate prayers, for our friends, for the sick, 
 the sinful, and the sorrowing, adding always the 
 submissive " Thy will be done ! " 
 
 It is with leaps of heart that we remember 
 that He who is the source of bodily help is 
 likewise mighty for the renewing and sanctify- 
 ing of the soul. But for this strong assurance, 
 how often Christian parents would be driven to 
 despair! They feel that they themselves are 
 like their own children in the care of their little 
 gardens, who with tiny rake and spade can 
 smooth the ground and with busy feet tread down 
 the narrow paths. They can even root out the 
 springing weeds, but until they lift up their 
 faces to the father with the trustful words, " We 
 are ready now; may we have the seeds?" their 
 work has been at the best but a work of prepara- 
 tion, which without help would have no satisfac- 
 tory result. 
 
MINISTERING. 129 
 
 In Christian education the ground must be 
 made ready. Good habits must be formed by- 
 precept and example. Special faults must be 
 worked against, and, if possible, early eradicated. 
 A reverence for holy things must be instilled and 
 cultivated. The love of God must be set forth 
 as a natural and joyous tribute to the Creator 
 and Redeemer. All this must be done, but the 
 Christian parent sees that it is but preparing the 
 ground for the seed, — that something which is 
 the beginning of a religious life, through which 
 the child, consciously or unconsciously, gives in 
 its allegiance to God, turns to Him in love, and 
 desires to live according to His perfect law. For 
 this we can pray with the hearty and sincere 
 addition, " Thy will be done ! " for is it not 
 written, "It is not the will of your Heavenly 
 Father that one of these little ones should 
 perish"? 
 
 Here we have a strong stay! Let us come 
 " boldly to the throne of grace, " sure that the 
 fervent prayer of a Christian parent " avail - 
 eth much ! " Such sincere, persistent, believing 
 prayers must eventually prevail ! These are the 
 prayers that follow the prodigal to the far coun- 
 try, and bring him home repentant. These are 
 the prayers that may even be powerful for the 
 rescue of the dying sinner. No human messenger 
 may come to tell of repentant last words, but 
 
 9 
 
130 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 the parent who has been instant in prayer for a 
 wandering child may take comfort in the re- 
 membrance of the strengthening words, "If ye 
 shall ask anything in my name, I will do it." 
 
 The stronger our interest or real affection for 
 the child, the parent, the brother, the friend, the 
 pupil, the servant, the stumbling, the fallen, 
 the more sure we may be that our prayers for 
 them will be frequent and earnest. Love is the 
 great power for good here, as everywhere. Those 
 whom we truly love we pray for. 
 
 Let us never say, "I can do nothing in this 
 world ! " The old, the sick, the little child can 
 bring down a blessing on beloved ones, on the 
 family, on the friends, on the native land, on the 
 far heathen ! Pray ! Pray without ceasing, and 
 many in answer to your prayers shall enter into 
 the Kingdom of Heaven ! 
 
XIV. 
 
 SEEMING DEATH. 
 He is dead. — Mark ix. 26. 
 
 ONLY He who is the fount and source of life 
 can certainly know that life in a human 
 being is extinct. The seemingly dead have been 
 resuscitated, and even the supposed coffined 
 corpse has awakened to begin anew the struggle 
 here below. Where to mortal view there is only 
 hopeless death God may see a secret living germ, 
 that is yet to rally and be developed in new and 
 wonderful power. 
 
 The child who after our Lord's transfiguration 
 was brought to Him to be cured fell senseless, in 
 one of the paroxysms of his mysterious disease. 
 The murmur " He is dead ! " was heard from the 
 solemnized crowd. The disciples had tried in 
 vain on the writhing patient their powers of 
 healing. The father had brought his son to Jesus 
 in a weak faith that uttered itself in the words, 
 " If thou canst do anything, have compassion on 
 us and help us ! " In the deep desire to have that 
 
132 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 faith strengthened, he cried out with tears, " Lord, 
 I believe ; help thou mine unbelief ! " Such a 
 petitioner could never be sent empty away. The 
 child might lie as one dead, but the Lord and 
 Giver of Life was present, and the Angel of Death 
 must fold his wings and yield up his victim. 
 
 There is a death when the full pulses beat 
 and the knit muscles are strong for action. 
 Throbbing with life, in the vigor of his manhood, 
 a human being may be " dead in trespasses and 
 sins ! " Yet how can we, fellow-sinners, know 
 when that awful point is reached when up in 
 heaven the angels sorrowfully whisper of one to 
 whom they would gladly minister, "He is 
 dead " ? 
 
 Of this we may be confident, we need not de- 
 spair of any soul while it is yet in the body. It 
 may yet be awakened, transformed, and sancti- 
 fied by the same power that has plucked us "as 
 brands from the burning." 
 
 We go out generally to seek the sheep that are 
 going astray. Our Saviour "came to seek and to 
 save them that were lost ! " 
 
 It is not uncommon to hear individual children 
 spoken of (sometimes even those growing up in 
 respectable families) as if they were already 
 abandoned criminals, beyond the hope of reform. 
 All physicians express their wonder at the vital 
 power in a child and even a young infant, which 
 
MINISTERING. 133 
 
 enables it to struggle through protracted, dan- 
 gerous, and wasting disease. The little patient 
 ordinarily recovers from its illness to a joyous 
 and healthy life. The child-invalids, thank 
 God ! are few. 
 
 There seems to be the same tension, so to 
 speak, in the souls of children. All efforts for 
 the rescue of street waifs have an astonishing 
 amount of success, considering the material pre- 
 sented to be acted upon. The mothers and rela- 
 tives and teachers who fold their hands in de- 
 spair and give up the hope of reforming the youth- 
 ful culprit, the son, the daughter, the nephew, 
 the pupil, who has shown a persistent inclination 
 to go wrong, should think of the love and pa- 
 tience and faith of the true philanthropists who 
 seek out the little ones of the scum of the city, 
 and train them up to be, if not always faithful 
 Christians, for the most part honorable, useful 
 citizens, redeemed from a career of vice, the 
 poorhouse, the prison, or a felon's death ! 
 
 Never despair in working for children, though 
 there may seem to be a hardness that nothing 
 can melt. Love and happiness and prayer and 
 wise discipline may yet do their blessed work, 
 and the Great Friend of the erring will rejoice 
 over every little one sought out and saved. 
 
 Never despair of the reformation of the most 
 abandoned sinner. He has been a babe, a child. 
 
134 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 He too had a mother. He has a soul, he has a 
 heart. Pray and hope and labor for him and 
 with him. Conversion is a supernatural thing. 
 The wonder may yet be worked in his dead soul. 
 
 There are times in life when one is tempted to 
 pronounce on one's own past personality, "It is 
 dead ! " Great affliction may so transform and 
 benumb the whole being that the mourner feels 
 himself dead to all previous interests, and even 
 lifeless and loveless towards the friends who 
 have been next to the dear one who has been 
 snatched away. 
 
 Think not, say not, in your sorrow, that you 
 are dead henceforward to life and love ! Turn 
 to the Master! He can wake you from this 
 seeming death. He has work for you to do. 
 It may be well that you are somewhat weaned 
 from the too absorbing interests of the past. Be- 
 stir yourself for the happiness of the friends still 
 left to you, and the warm currents of old affec- 
 tion will spring up anew within you. Be willing 
 to live, altered it may be, but not dead, rather 
 more truly living, and better fitted to serve the 
 Heavenly King. 
 
 But another, a mourner over an inner sorrow, 
 cries out in anguish, " It is my spiritual life that 
 is dead ! What I delighted in once, is distasteful 
 to me now. I see, I feel nothing but dulness 
 and deadness and indifference. Old sins are 
 
MINISTERING. 135 
 
 creeping over me, coiling around me. I am help- 
 less ! I am dead ! " 
 
 You are not hopelessly dead while Jesus still 
 lives, if you will but turn unto Him. Cease to 
 examine your own symptoms morbidly, almost 
 willingly dwelling in darkness! Come to the 
 love that waits to receive you ! For such as you 
 the Saviour came. He bears the lost sheep home 
 on His loving breast. He suffered that such as 
 you might look and be forgiven. He is the Kesur- 
 rection and the Life ! 
 
XV. 
 
 THE NURSERY. 
 
 Whoso receiveth one such little child in my name receiveth 
 me. — Matt, xviii. 4. 
 
 MANY a busy mother, shut off from the house 
 of God, and finding it hard to claim a few 
 moments in the hurried clay for private prayer, 
 would perhaps be astonished to know how she 
 is regarded in heaven. To the already, in the 
 opinion of outsiders, over-full home she has 
 lately welcomed the little babe she so tenderly 
 clasps in her arms, with the Benjamin portion 
 of love that was awaiting him. He is even more 
 precious than her first darling, received in her 
 untried and undisciplined youth. Then it was 
 often hard for her to be shut up to the duties of 
 the mother, for months deprived from mingling 
 with outward society and enjoying the innocent 
 pleasures that had been so much to her in her 
 girlhood. She was almost afraid, too, of the 
 helpless creature in her inexperienced arms. His 
 every expression of discomfort, she feared, fore- 
 boded ill, or was the result of her own unwise 
 
MINISTERING. 137 
 
 treatment. Many tears she shed in secret, to be 
 so transformed from the free glad being of her 
 untrammelled youth. She almost suspected that 
 not even her devoted husband appreciated the 
 sacrifice she was making. Now self is dead 
 within her, and maternal love has its sweet tri- 
 umph. Such love has its own reward in the 
 tender joy with which she presses this last best 
 gift to her motherly heart. She has received her 
 little one in Jesus' name, and she means to rear 
 him faithfully as a child of God. He has 
 brought her a new blessing from Heaven! 
 
 The Christian nursery-maid is doubtless hon- 
 ored with the approving smile of the Master. 
 She looks upon the little ones confided to her 
 care as given her by the Lord, to watch over for 
 His sake. She wraps them round with tender, 
 conscientious care, as ever in the presence of the 
 Lord Christ. She gives them the cheerful sunshine 
 of an affectionate, contented spirit. She folds 
 their little hands in prayer, she answers their 
 crude questioning with the wisdom that comes 
 from above. She leads them to look up lovingly 
 to the Good Shepherd. She feeds His lambs, 
 and is herself abundantly fed of Him. The aged 
 Lord Shaftesbury liked to acknowledge that he 
 owed his lifelong interest in active benevo- 
 lence to the influence of a nursery-maid, whom 
 he never saw after he was seven years of age. 
 
138 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 She passed into the heavenly kingdom or into 
 some other home to sow her seed, but her work 
 in the heart of her little charge was to be for 
 more than an ordinary lifetime a blessing to 
 many of Christ's suffering and wandering chil- 
 dren. Lo ! the nurses who receive little ones in 
 Jesus' name are indeed receiving Him ! They 
 bless and are blessed ! 
 
 How many Christians who could welcome to 
 their homes little children in the name of Christ 
 trifle away their lives in objectless dawdling or 
 belittling diversions ! How many a lonely woman 
 lavishes her affectionate care on some four-footed 
 pet, while in her neighborhood little pairs of 
 human feet are starting helpless on their earthly 
 pilgrimage, to be bruised by the way, or to 
 wander in desolate paths ending in the down- 
 ward road of open sin. Ye mourners, shutting 
 yourselves up to uncomforted sorrow, ye lonely 
 women who crave something to love, take one 
 little one in Jesus' name! Rescue it from want 
 and sin, and lead it tenderly in the heavenly way ! 
 If you cannot have such a child in your own home, 
 find some upright, honest family who will do the 
 work for you for a fair compensation. See your 
 little charge often, love it, and surely new joy 
 will fill your heart, something of the gladness 
 and peace that must come to all who receive a 
 little child in the name of Christ. 
 
XVI. . 
 THE CAPITAL. 
 
 He beheld the city and wept over it. — Luke xix. 41. 
 
 THE capital city is ever the type and represen- 
 tative of the whole nation. Here all that 
 is best and all that is worst are usually found 
 centred. Here we find the most culture and re- 
 finement and magnificence. Here dwell the 
 gifted men, the ruling spirits, and the head of 
 the government, crowned or uncrowned. Here 
 are the splendid buildings and the treasures of 
 art. Here are the great benevolent institutions 
 and the organized efforts for the poor and erring. 
 Here are the large givers and the devoted work- 
 ers. Here are the great churches and the elo- 
 quent preachers. 
 
 In the capital city, alas ! sin stands forward 
 unblushing. Here we have masses of human be- 
 ings living more like beasts than men. Here 
 we have want and squalor and crime. Here we 
 have the human heart more cold and fierce than 
 
140 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 the tiger's, sometimes through the selfishness of 
 unlimited prosperity, sometimes through the 
 hard experiences of bitter need. Here we have 
 monster frauds and evil living in high places. 
 Here we have drunkenness in the midst of splen- 
 dor. Here we have great names and long purses 
 silencing the voice of public indignation. Here 
 we must have the strong military force to keep 
 down the possible mob, the great hospitals to 
 receive the many sick, the giant prisons to shut 
 out from society the criminals it nurtures in its 
 midst. All this, too, in Christian countries ! 
 We hide our faces for very shame ! 
 
 Nor can the quiet dwellers in country places 
 stand in conscious innocence and cast the stones 
 of condemnation on the citizens of a great metrop- 
 olis. Whose children are they who build up 
 the city and keep it full with their annual influx? 
 Whence came that man whom high position could 
 not keep from crime ? " From my home ! " says 
 some aged owner of a beautiful rural home, 
 where nature is developed to the utmost beauty, 
 but the God of nature is forgotten. Whose son 
 was it who last entered that prison door a con- 
 demned criminal? "My son!" cries the hard- 
 handed peasant, in whose cottage the voice of 
 prayer was never heard, and where riches were 
 counted the highest earthly blessing. The nation 
 cannot cast oft' the shame of the deeds of its capi- 
 
MINISTERING. 141 
 
 tal city, which is but a concentrated development 
 of itself ! 
 
 In common parlance the city comes to be a 
 synonym for folly, extravagance, and temptation. 
 "What became of that young man?" we ask. 
 " He went up to the city ! " is the answer, and the 
 shrug tells the story of temptation and fall. 
 "Where is that pretty young country girl?" is 
 the question. " She went up to the city ! " is the 
 whispered reply, and pity and modesty draw a 
 veil over her end. 
 
 Not the city alone is responsible for the degra- 
 dation that too often overtakes the eager youth or 
 the adventurous girl who cannot be contented in 
 a cottage or a country town. The false standard 
 in the homes from which these young people 
 come, the false view as to what is allowable and 
 most desirable, blights the tender blossom before 
 it is borne within the city gates to wither and 
 die. The lads and unformed girls who go out 
 from Christian country homes in which wealth 
 and worldly honor are counted as nothing in com- 
 parison with purity, honesty, and godliness come 
 to the city like the pure water from the moun- 
 tain lake, that winds its way to house and hearth 
 to refresh and invigorate and keep life in the 
 dwellers in the crowded metropolis. Ye country 
 fathers and mothers, so train your families that 
 they may go to the city as fearlessly as the mis- 
 
142 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 sionary who trusts himself in a heathen land, to 
 lead like him a faithful, useful, Heaven-blessed 
 and Heaven-rewarded life! 
 
 Let every Christian home, high or low, in the 
 great city be a centre of virtue and holy example, 
 and the young from the free country life may 
 safely venture within its bounds, to live and 
 labor, and even " come up " to the capital for sol- 
 emn seasons of worship, as well as to earn daily 
 bread, or win a wise experience, or drink deep 
 of the fountains of knowledge. 
 
 The city is but the initial letter of the whole 
 nation's name. It stands for it, whether the 
 nation will or not. If ever there should be a 
 truly God-fearing people, the capital of that 
 nation will be an earthly reflection of the new 
 Jerusalem, and "the Lord God and the Lamb 
 will be the light thereof." 
 
 In all countries the capital city is in a mea- 
 sure the centre of interest and population. What 
 Jerusalem was to the Jews we can hardly imag- 
 ine. Jerusalem was not only the centre of gov- 
 ernment, but it was the site of the temple of the 
 Most High, and exalted by its holy memories as 
 well as by the nation's historical past. Not the 
 sacred privileges that had been Jerusalem's por- 
 tion, not its great buildings nor its greater hon- 
 ors, had been able to save the royal city from 
 a city's sins. Its cup was full! The time of 
 
MINISTERING. 143 
 
 retribution was at hand ! Its horrible siege and 
 utter destruction were present to the mind of 
 Jesus of Nazareth as its strong towers met His 
 eyes. What wonder that "when He beheld the 
 city, He wept over it." Its certain doom was 
 not to be averted by His suffering without the 
 gates ! 
 
 How does the same Lord look now upon our 
 cities? — wherever the seething, sinful elements 
 of destruction are underlying the outward pomp 
 and magnificence? He knows when the bubble 
 will burst! He knew when the swelling lava 
 that had smouldered in the volcano's crater 
 should suddenly roll down its sides, not only to 
 destroy the dwellers on its slopes, but to be ac- 
 companied by the hot showers that should bury 
 in far-away graves those cities of old in the 
 midst of their luxury and sin. He only knows 
 what is in store for the great sinful cities of our 
 own day! 
 
 Individuals make up the population of cities, 
 and give them their character. It is upon the 
 repentance and reformation and godly living of 
 individuals that the fate of each great city de- 
 pends. This brings an imperative duty as a 
 Christian and a patriot on every citizen of a 
 mighty metropolis, and is a warning for every 
 home protected by municipal law. 
 
 The Almighty would have spared Sodom for 
 
144 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 the sake of ten righteous men. Eepentant Nin- 
 eveh was freely forgiven. Merciful and full of 
 loving kindness is the Lord of Heaven. 
 
 And what are the special sins of the city from 
 which we are to cleanse heart and tongue and 
 daily walk? Like the venomous snakes, it is 
 more simple to name them than to destroy them! 
 
 In the city it is easier to "follow the multi- 
 tude to do evil/' harder to dare singly and in 
 singularity always to do right. In the privacy 
 of the crowded dwellings, it is easier to lead an 
 evil life than in the publicity of the rural dis- 
 tricts, where neighbor knows neighbor, and one 
 man's business is the business of all. It is only 
 each man's obedience to a conscience enlightened 
 by God's law that can prevent the moral decline 
 of the dwellers in the city's tempting crowd. 
 
 It is to the outward advantages of family, 
 wealth, and distinction that the multitudes of 
 the city bow the knee. Has a Christian a right 
 to give his sanction to sin, however honored the 
 name of the offender? Has the Christian a right 
 to reckon the rich righteous because of his 
 money-bags, or to seek gold for himself as the 
 one thing needful? Are fashion and pleasure 
 and praise to be the objects of life and the 
 moulding influences for old and young? Is a 
 man to be an article valued according to its label, 
 not according to its quality? 
 
MINISTERING. 145 
 
 Has God a different law for a family in a 
 quiet, country home than for the closely packed 
 tenants of the hived palaces of the city ? No ! is 
 the clear answer of every honest conscience ! 
 
 Let that conscience rule, by day and by night, 
 in company and alone, and the dweller in the 
 city is as safe as the hermit in his cell. He is 
 safer, for he has a better sphere in which to act 
 out the great law of love! For his own sake, 
 for the sake of his native land, let every dweller 
 in a great city make himself an offering unto the 
 Heavenly King, to live in purity, in charity, in 
 unworlclliness, in holiness, in peace ! 
 
 10 
 
XVII. 
 WORKMEN, 
 
 / have finished the work Thou gavest me to do. 
 John xvii. 4. 
 
 THE workmen's question is often called the 
 great question of the day. Taken in its 
 widest sense it certainly is, for it touches the in- 
 terests of all mankind. All are, or should be, 
 workmen. There is no place for drones in the 
 human hive! We may even with reverence 
 speak of the Creator as the Master Workman, 
 since all things created are the works of His 
 hands. We have, too, our Saviour's words, "My 
 Father worketh hitherto, and I work," as a still 
 further sanction for the dignity of labor. 
 
 It is a low view of duty which looks forward 
 to middle life or declining years as a time of full 
 freedom from all care and occupation, a period of 
 which the daily expression may be, " Soul, take 
 thine ease; thou hast much goods laid up for 
 many years ! " From another point of considera- 
 tion we have the same lesson. How often it has 
 
MINISTERING. 147 
 
 been seen that the eager toiler with mind or 
 body, possessing at last what is to him an abun- 
 dance of worldly goods becomes, in his longed-for 
 time of rest and self-indulgence, a lethargic, a 
 broken-down, a purposeless idler, or a slave to 
 the pampered body, now become a brutal master. 
 
 No! .We are not made for perfect rest, but 
 for action, for work ! 
 
 We cannot always even choose the career for 
 ourselves or our children. Nor have we the 
 wisdom necessary for such a choice, since the 
 future must always be unknown to us. Many a 
 devout mother has set apart her infant for the 
 ministry, and accustomed him from childhood to 
 consider that his destined mission. Such a 
 mother has too frequently lived to see that son 
 performing his priestly functions without the 
 gifts or the graces requisite for the position. 
 Many a man has droned out his life as an un- 
 profitable preacher of the Word, who would have 
 instructed better by a faithful example, his hand 
 on the plough, or guiding or constructing some 
 intricate modern machine. That labor is truly 
 honorable for which the instrument is fitted, and 
 which is done conscientiously, as apportioned by 
 the Great Euler of all things! 
 
 God-granted ability and providential circum- 
 stances hedge around most human beings, and 
 shut them up to a certain path. Many a wilful 
 
148 OUR ELDER BROTHER, 
 
 youth fancies himself, at the start, free to choose 
 his own career. He is disappointed here, cut off 
 there, disabled for this, proved incompetent for 
 that, till he finds himself at last at a work he 
 never dreamed of, and perhaps develops gifts 
 and powers of which he himself has been hitherto 
 unconscious. 
 
 It is in vain that we imagine that we are mis- 
 placed in life, out of our proper sphere, and thus 
 crippled in our exertions and doomed to come 
 short of our proper destiny. We are not put 
 here simply to shine, but to grow nobler and 
 better ! And who can say what is of importance 
 in this strange world? One man's neglect of 
 some simple duty, or unfaithfulness in some tri- 
 fling detail, may be a source of appalling calamity 
 and widespread destruction. On one honest 
 laborer's conscientious work hundreds of human 
 lives depend, on sea or land, in the factory, or in 
 the far journey ! 
 
 When we are discontented with our work, it is 
 almost always because we are looking forward to 
 a long, weary round of these uncongenial, un- 
 imposing duties. How do we know that we have 
 any earthly future? The clock may be ready to 
 sound out the hour for our appointed change. 
 The trifling duty which we are now despising 
 may have a solemn, momentous importance as 
 our last earthly act. When death pronounces 
 
MINISTERING. 149 
 
 our work finished, the awful question will be how 
 that work was done, not how it was regarded in 
 the eyes of men ! 
 
 And if our lives are spared, how do we know 
 that this treadmill round is really before us? 
 It may be that, like the man who is to superin- 
 tend large mechanical undertakings and must 
 therefore himself learn practically the first 
 humble duties of the workshop, we, too, must 
 begin at the beginning to be able afterwards to 
 lead and command. Be that as it may, it is ours 
 so to labor in our appointed field that we can 
 lay down at last our little sheaf before the Lord 
 of the Harvest, like the faithful reaper, who is 
 no longer a servant but has been accepted as a 
 son! 
 
 It may be that in our humble daily work, which 
 we think unworthy of our acquirements or abili- 
 ties, there is shut up some opportunity of higher 
 usefulness, which in our self-seeking has escaped 
 us. There may be some soul, precious to God, 
 in whose neighborhood we have been placed to 
 be a comfort or stay or guide. There may be 
 some doubter whose eyes we are to open, some 
 timid penitent we should point to the cross, some 
 lost sheep we should tenderly lead home to the 
 peace and security of the fold. It may be that 
 our faithful fulfilment of uncongenial duties is 
 to give a testimony to the power of Christian 
 
150 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 principle, better than ten sermons. It may be 
 that our struggle to do well where we do not want 
 to be is to strengthen our own tottering religious 
 life, and plant our feet firmly on the Eock of 
 Ages. 
 
 Perhaps you have never yet begun your des- 
 tined, your all-important work, ever to "work 
 out your own salvation with fear and trembling." 
 Perhaps you have never laid the willing hand 
 in those blessed hands that were stretched on the 
 cross that they might lead us to the Heavenly 
 Kingdom . 
 
 There has been but one being in human form 
 who could look up to the Father and say, " I have 
 finished the work Thou gavest me to do." We 
 hear often of men cut off in the midst of their 
 labors, leaving in youth or in manhood an unfin- 
 ished work. So the world speaks, as if alone 
 the sudden close of an earthly career caused the 
 incompleteness of the work. Look at the aged 
 saint who, after a pure outward life and long 
 years of active usefulness, lays down his hoary 
 head in the grave. Does he presume to come 
 before his Heavenly Master as with a finished 
 work? He too must bow down before the throne 
 of the All-Perfect as an unprofitable servant, a 
 helpless sinner, a transgressor of the strict law, 
 a banished dweller in outer darkness, but for the 
 one faultless life, the one all-sufficient sacrifice ! 
 
MINISTERING. . 151 
 
 We cannot know the peace of that nature 
 which in the presence of the Omniscient could 
 say, "I have finished the work Thou gavest me 
 to do." Yet we have been brought into brother- 
 hood with the One Perfect Man. 
 
 He has owned us in the words, " I go to my 
 Father and your Father, my God and your God ! " 
 Through Him we may draw near as welcome sons 
 and daughters of the Lord God Almighty! Our 
 poor deeds shine with a light reflected from Him 
 who is the Light of the World. He has been 
 pleased to choose us as His own, and will gather 
 us at last into His Father's House. 
 
XVIII. 
 
 CONSTANCY. 
 
 Having loved His own which, were in the world. He loved 
 them unto the end. — John xiii. 1. 
 
 THEEE is a special sacredness about the last 
 hours of Jesus among His disciples. He, 
 who was the Lord from heaven, humbly ministers 
 to His human followers. Knowing all their stum- 
 bling past and their faltering future, He serves 
 them in the fulness of His love, and for a per- 
 petual example to all believers. We behold and 
 wonder and adore. 
 
 We may not comment on the condescension 
 of our Master, but we turn towards the daily life 
 that surrounds us, resolved to be more humbly, 
 willingly, unselfishly, and lovingly ready for the 
 modest help we can render to those whom we are 
 bound to succor and cherish. In humility and 
 in constancy we will try to love as our Lord 
 loved, and to minister in the spirit in which He 
 ministered. 
 
MINISTERING. 153 
 
 Among the most painful of all the vicissitudes 
 that try us here below are perhaps the estrange- 
 ment and alienation of persons to whom we have 
 been closely allied. This is even not impossible 
 in the tie that is purely voluntary, which we 
 ourselves form as the closest and dearest that 
 earth can know. Where this tie has been formed 
 between Christians who have the deepest conge- 
 niality as to the great purpose of life, and its 
 highest aims ana hopes and joys, this change is 
 happily rare. The broken engagement is most 
 common where the pair have pledged themselves 
 to each other after trivial intercourse in the midst 
 of giddy pleasure, or for the mere attraction of 
 external charms, or from the mercenary hope of 
 worldly advantage from the connection. Such 
 ties, so lightly formed, are naturally most easily 
 broken. Yet even here the rupture may be to 
 the forsaken one a source of bitter pain. Some- 
 times, while deep in the shadow of this peculiar 
 trial, there comes a burst of cheering light. The 
 world is for the time thrown into the background. 
 It has proved itself uncertain footing and a poor 
 reliance. In the midst of unreasonable doubts 
 of all earthly affection comes the strong conviction 
 of the constancy of One who, " having loved His 
 own, loved them unto the end." Here is a reve- 
 lation of enduring joy. Slowly but surely there 
 is an alteration in the whole purpose and tenor 
 
154 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 of that human life, and the sorrow of youth be- 
 comes an inestimable blessing. 
 
 Estrangement may happen even after marriage, 
 when before there has been true affection or its 
 deceptive counterfeit. Happy, then, if the joined 
 hands are held together by soft baby fingers 
 clasping them both ! Happy if so a common 
 love, a common responsibility links again the 
 hearts that were beginning to cherish mutual 
 animosity and repulsion. 
 
 It may be that love languishes in but one of 
 the wedded pair, while with the other it is fresh 
 and strong. Here, with ordinary wisdom and 
 self-control, there is always hope. There is ever 
 in love a mighty power. If that love is stayed 
 on the higher love which beautifies and ennobles 
 the character, in time it is almost sure to win 
 the day. Let the wife, in such a case, never 
 despair, but humbly pray and minister and cher- 
 ish and wait ! 
 
 But what if affection has died out on both 
 sides? Here comes in the great word of "duty." 
 Love is but one part, though the great part, in 
 the marriage promise. Duty well done is good 
 ground on which it is even possible for the ap- 
 parently dead growth of wedded affection to 
 spring to life. Perhaps the two are harsh, un- 
 lovely, selfish, low-toned. Let them both, with 
 God's help, try to be all that they should be. Is 
 
MINISTERING. 155 
 
 the bond galling? Death may dissolve it to- 
 morrow ! Then how will your reckoning stand 
 before the Heavenly King, who has " set men in 
 families " ? How will your reckoning stand for 
 thought and word and deed? The highest form 
 of friendship can never die out, though the 
 friends may be separated by the wide ocean or 
 by the long waves of time. The pen brings heart 
 near to heart, and with perhaps the more open- 
 ness when the deep-down congeniality is more 
 and more felt as friends are so placed that they 
 cannot share the every -day interests that first 
 helped to unite them. True friendship declines 
 but through the deterioration of character on one 
 or both sides. Increased riches or other worldly 
 advantages may till one heart with selfish pride. 
 Misfortune may assail the other and open the 
 way for suspiciousness and morbid bitterness. 
 These sad changes must be watched and guarded 
 against by the constant interchange of simple and 
 even humble offices on both sides. 
 
 Let the prosperous remember that with his 
 prosperity his intimate friend should be made 
 more comfortable and happy. This need not be 
 done necessarily by direct gifts, but by sharing 
 with an old friend, as far as possible, in a quite 
 natural way the many charms and privileges of 
 a beautiful home and its accessories, and a life 
 free from pressing care. 
 
156 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 Let the friend in the shadow of misfortune or 
 limited means remember that he has still earth's 
 best gift to offer, which no money can buy. and no 
 high position can insure, even a true unworldly 
 affection. Attention may be given to outward ad- 
 vantages, but love is a tribute they cannot buy. 
 The prosperous have their times of bitter need. 
 To them sorrow and sickness come as well as to the 
 dwellers in the humblest homes. Then the face 
 of a real friend must be counted by them as an in- 
 estimable blessing. There are times of contagious 
 illness in palatial homes, when hired strangers can 
 hardly be procured or trusted in the sick-room. 
 Then only true affection offers its efficient aid. 
 Let friends love unto the end, like the Master, 
 and nourish love by acts of unselfish affection. 
 
 Even in*families joined by the closest ties of 
 blood hearts may be alienated or grow cold. The 
 little feet that have kept step with each other 
 often take widely diverging paths in life. Jeal- 
 ousy separates brothers and sisters who have 
 knelt at the same mother's knee. A conscientious 
 and habitual effort to be useful to each other, and 
 to lovingly share each other's joys and sorrows, 
 may forestall estrangement and knit more closely 
 the family bond. The simplest means for this 
 purpose should not be despised. A garment 
 made by a sister's hand for the brother's new 
 baby, joy promptly expressed for the success of 
 
MINISTERING. 157 
 
 a sister's boy at school, an invitation to meet an 
 agreeable stranger or to join a choice gathering 
 of friends, may give pleasure, and show the sin- 
 cere wish to keep old ties strong and childhood's 
 affection unchanged. Frequent letters during 
 times of necessary separation, free, familiar let- 
 ters, can keep hearts far separated by space very 
 close together. This often costs real self-sacrifice, 
 but it should be perseveringly and conscientiously 
 done, if you would not have your distant brothers 
 and sisters and their families become to you as 
 indifferent strangers. 
 
 We may not wash one another's feet in our form 
 of society, bat we can strive by kindly offices, 
 humble though they be, to keep near to those 
 whom God has given us, and not only to love 
 them to the end, but to make them feel that we 
 love them, and be the happier for it. 
 
 There are times when the strong faults of 
 friends or relatives are forced upon us by circum- 
 stances, or moments to them of overpowering 
 temptation. They show themselves in an un- 
 lovely light. They are perhaps harsh or selfish 
 or unjust or grasping. We feel a chill creep over 
 our affection, and we nourish a misgiving that 
 they are worse than we had ever dreamed possi- 
 ble. Now is the time to summon to our remem- 
 brance the great example of Him who, "having 
 loved His own, loved them unto the end." Now 
 
158 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 there must be prompt resistance with resolution 
 and prayer, or there will be real alienation from 
 friend or brother. No slights, no suspicions 
 should prompt us to willingly withdraw our 
 loving interest from those who have been bound 
 to us by the ties of friendship or the sacred bonds 
 of a common home ! 
 
 A widowed mother may find that she is left 
 alone in her old age. She who has been first 
 with her children is now fifth or tenth instead. 
 She is tempted to shrink into herself in a hurt 
 and wounded spirit. Let her rather unselfishly 
 remember that if she were now indispensable to 
 her children, as she was in their youth, she must 
 soon leave them comfortless. That she can be 
 more easily spared is the promise of less sorrow 
 to her sons and daughters. Nor must she be- 
 lieve that her chlidren are really estranged. New 
 duties and new affections have become for the 
 time paramount; but the old love is there, to 
 bloom and blossom and perhaps come to perfec- 
 tion beside her grave. If her love and influence 
 have been worth anything, they will have their 
 softening trace for good, when she lies low in the 
 silent tomb. While she is in the body, let her 
 be ingenious in finding ways of showing thought- 
 ful love to her children, though they may seem 
 to be unmindful of her. She will thus nourish 
 her own best treasure, a heart full of love, and 
 
MINISTERING. 159 
 
 perhaps keep warm their love in return. How 
 precious to the aged mother's heart is the remem- 
 brance that the Great Friend, to whom she gave 
 her solemn vows in her girlhood, " loveth His own 
 unto the end." He knows no shadow of change. 
 Let her lean upon Him, and love unto the end, 
 in those declining years of life, when a kind of 
 torpor may creep over the heart, and the affec- 
 tions be chilled in the sombre evening hour. 
 The old must keep up the practice of loving, not 
 sink into a dull, selfish round of little daily com- 
 forts and purely personal interests. If they 
 cannot do much for their dear ones, there are still 
 some simple, tender offices to fill. They can 
 have at least the willing ear to hear of others' 
 joys and sorrows, the willing lips to speak sym- 
 pathy and hope and holy trust, the willing heart, 
 that while it beats can thrill its warm response 
 in the spirit of devoted, unselfish, true affection. 
 The unutterable love of our Lord for His own 
 is a deep source of consolation in hours of spiri- 
 tual depression. The Christian pilgrim feels 
 himself sometimes so sinful and unlovely, it is 
 hard for him to believe that man or angel can 
 care for him, much less the high and holy God, 
 who knows exactly what he really is, in spite 
 of his best efforts to be faithful and true and 
 pure. With a rush of joy comes at such an hour 
 the remembrance of the loving ministry of our 
 
160 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 Lord to His own, whom "having loved, He loved 
 unto the end." The discouraged pilgrim cries 
 out, "I am of His own. He wishes it. I wish 
 it. It is done now, if never before, — His 
 abounding love will accept me, and will sanctify 
 me more and more. He will love me all along 
 my uncertain and perhaps dark and erring future. 
 He will not let me utterly fall. He whose exis- 
 tence is without end will love me evermore ! " 
 
XIX. 
 
 FORGIVENESS. 
 
 Father, forgive them ; they know not what they do. 
 Luke xxiii. 34. 
 
 HUMAN beings judge others by themselves. 
 Each must apply to all his fellow -creatures 
 his own measure, a measure formed after his own 
 limited experiences, outward and inward. Per- 
 haps unconsciously, poor, short-sighted, sinful 
 man would even judge his Almighty Creator by 
 the low standard of his own heart. It is one of 
 the hardest tasks of the earnest Christian pastor 
 to convince his flock, collectively and singly, of 
 the willingness of God to forgive the sincere 
 penitent at once, wholly, and forever. The con- 
 science-stricken offender will cherish the secret 
 thought that there is some lingering grudge 
 against him, some hidden record of his past mis- 
 doings, to be sometime brought forward to his 
 utter condemnation. It is not so that God for- 
 gives, for Jesus' sake. Our Lord, by His great 
 
 11 
 
162 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 sacrifice, has fully redeemed us. He has bought 
 us with a price we cannot estimate. The gold 
 has been paid down that ransoms every atom of 
 the poor dust of the earth, the clay of Adam's 
 race. The love that has bought us was not 
 blind love. Our Lord knew the human heart as 
 no man can know it. He had fathomed it by 
 His divine power. He had companied with weak 
 mortals as His fellows. He had been side by side 
 with them in pain and sorrow and temptation and 
 death. He who could understand the horrible 
 danger and malignity of sin could tenderly plead 
 the ignorance of His enemies, as an excuse for 
 the cruelty and injustice of His deserved death. 
 Let us turn to our fellow-men with the consid- 
 eration for their shortcomings that we have 
 learned at the cross. 
 
 Forgiveness seems to us a passive virtue when 
 we have nothing to forgive ; but let us once be 
 really wronged, and the passive virtue forsakes 
 us. Forgiveness is a Christain attainment, and 
 generally developed through struggle and prayer. 
 The clearer the sense of right in the offended 
 one, the more difficult he often finds forgiveness. 
 What perpetrated towards outsiders he would 
 have considered an offence without excuse, rouses 
 his righteous indignation, of course, when he him- 
 self is the sufferer, with the added sharpness of 
 the feeling of personal injury. A deep Christian 
 
MINISTERING. 163 
 
 realization of our own position towards our Heav- 
 enly Judge, as blind, helpless, and unworthy, 
 should soften our hearts into forgiveness of our 
 erring fellow-ereatures. 
 
 Much pain is inflicted, much injustice is shown 
 by offenders so absorbed in their own selfish 
 interests, so thoughtless of the claims of others, 
 or so brutally stupid as to what may harass and 
 wound the human beings about them, that they 
 are hardly responsible for the direct injury invol- 
 untarily inflicted. They are solemnly respon- 
 sible for the unloving and unlovely state of mind 
 w r hich makes self and self-indulgence the chief 
 and absorbing interest of life. 
 
 It may truly be said of nine tenths of those 
 who pain and wrong their neighbors, " They know 
 not fully what they do." This consideration robs 
 the injustice and unkindness of its personality 
 towards its object, and may help him to feel less 
 resentment towards the offender. The remaining 
 one tenth may be so actuated by wilful malice 
 that the more pain they can inflict the greater 
 their gratification. Such natures, so far degraded, 
 can well call for pity instead of anger. Where 
 the image of God is so defaced, the indignation 
 of the true Christian must ever be tempered by 
 holy sorrow. 
 
 In the " short madness " of anger, cruel words 
 may be said that break old bonds and leave 
 
164 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 wounds that only the Heavenly Hand can heal. 
 The fury passes by with the hot-tempered man. 
 He can hardly remember what "he has said in 
 his rage. He wonders that others cannot as 
 easily forget words that he is sure in his calmer 
 moments he could never indorse. Of him whose 
 offence was so committed it may well be said, " he 
 knew not what he did/' and his regret and ac- 
 knowledgment may be frankly accepted. Yet he 
 must remember that he is guilty of so indulging 
 his violent temper that he becomes for the time 
 like the irresponsible madman, who may in a 
 wild moment become one of the race of Cain. 
 
 When chafing under some supposed injury, 
 some seemingly cruel word that has wounded us 
 to the quick, let us look to it if there be not in 
 us some peculiarity of character, or some cher- 
 ished sensitiveness or suspiciousness of nature, 
 that may make us susceptible to the slightest 
 appearance of unkindness or lack of considera- 
 tion as regards our feelings or our claims. The 
 blame may be really in ourselves, rather than in 
 our blundering, tactless companion. 
 
 In dealing with children the plea of our 
 Saviour for His murderers should be ever kept 
 in mind. Parents and teachers see often in chil- 
 dren faults and sins the dangerous germs of future 
 crime, and feel the same indignation towards the 
 erring child as if he could grasp all the evil that 
 
MINISTERING. 165 
 
 is shut up in his hasty act in a moment of over- 
 powering temptation. 
 
 Such sin should be looked at, if possible, as 
 it seems in the eye of the child. He should be 
 tenderly dealt with, though his punishment must 
 be in a measure in proportion to the danger 
 to his own soul and to society from the per- 
 sistence in the kind of offence of which he has 
 been guilty. 
 
 In the haunts of ignorance and vice much that 
 is known as sin in the Christian home has be- 
 come the natural atmosphere, and offends neither 
 the uncultured taste nor the deadened conscience. 
 This too must be remembered in pitying love, 
 while at the same time it should prompt to a 
 stronger and more sustained effort to open those 
 poor darkened eyes to the beauty of holiness and 
 the only way of happiness and peace. 
 
 What can the most advanced Christian know of 
 the real danger and the venomous character of 
 sin? What are our downfalls in the view of a 
 pure and perfect God, or even to the holy angels? 
 We may well be gentle towards all the lost sheep 
 of the Good Shepherd ! 
 
 It is never to be forgotten that the whole 
 church of Christ must be washed and made clean 
 by the blood of the Lamb before it can be pre- 
 sented before the throne of God, accepted in the 
 Beloved. 
 
XX. 
 
 TRUST. 
 
 Into Thy hands I commend my spirit, — Luke xxiii. 40. 
 
 THE suspicious despots of old dared not 
 drink of any cup before it had been tasted 
 by some submissive subject. Our Lord and 
 King drank of mankind's most bitter cup that 
 it might be freed from its poison, even for His 
 most humble followers. He tasted death for 
 every man, and robbed it of its terrors. He has 
 shown his brethren in mortal form where to find 
 their trust and help in the dying hour. 
 
 How many saints on the verge of glory have 
 echoed the words of the crucified Master, " Father, 
 into thy hands I commend my spirit ! " In peace 
 and trust they have passed from earth to heaven. 
 
 Why is it that the faith on which alone we 
 can rely for support in our last moments is not 
 summoned to sustain us in the worries and emer- 
 gencies that throng around our daily path? We 
 seem content to leave the stars in their courses 
 to the care of the great Creator, never fearing 
 
MINISTERING. 167 
 
 that they shall swerve from their appointed 
 round; yet we shrink from wholly confiding the 
 details of our insignificant lot to the ordering of 
 the All-wise. We are too much like the timid 
 woman who, in a moment of sudden danger by 
 the way, snatches the reins, stupidly fancying 
 her weakness and inexperience her best reliance. 
 Why cannot we trust our Heavenly Friend day 
 by day and hour by hour, in the sacred confidence 
 which says sincerely, "Father, into Thy hands 
 I commend my spirit ! " It is the spirit for 
 which we fear. We tremble lest it should not 
 have strength to triumph over the bodily pain 
 which threatens us, or to endure the affliction that 
 is hanging over us or the humiliations and morti- 
 fications that are in store for us. We fear the 
 temptation that has before mastered us, the 
 doubts that have once desolated our peace, the 
 loss of the consciousness of the presence of 
 God, which is our best treasure. We are har- 
 assed by forebodings and distressed by cir- 
 cumstances, instead of quietly, without anxious 
 misgivings, commending the spirit to God, and 
 doing faithfully in simplicity and peace the 
 present duty that is plainly set before us. Here 
 is the secret of calm serenity in the midst of 
 "the chances and changes of this mortal life." 
 This mortal life! That we are mortal, doomed 
 to die, is sometimes the secret source of the 
 
168 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 gloom that overshadows some sincere but trem- 
 bling Christian. This may be, though our Lord 
 has Himself descended into the grave that there 
 should be light from the tomb, and hope in the 
 valley of the shadow. 
 
 Death is, must be, for the true believer, the 
 rising of the Sun. Not that the physical sun 
 really rises for us, but we are turned so that we 
 see its perpetual shining. So is it with the Sun 
 of Eighteousness. He knows no shadow, but 
 the veil of the body hides the fulness of His 
 light from our spiritual vision. Even while yet 
 in the flesh, many devout souls have been able 
 to say in the hour of departure, "Whereas I was 
 blind, now I see." The burst of heavenly glory 
 has reached the dying saint, even before the 
 parting pang. The eye has glowed with rapture, 
 the face has been glorified by a holy light, telling 
 of a foretaste of heavenly joy in the Christian 
 life's triumphant close. 
 
 Why should we fancy we have a long journey 
 to take to reach the loving Lord, whom we have 
 believed to be ever at our side, and to whom, in 
 the stillness of the solemn night, we have 
 spoken, in the depths of our spirit, in voiceless 
 prayer? Away with the thought that we are to 
 be suddenly thrust into an unknown and awful 
 presence ! " God is Love ! " The Lord Jesus is 
 His express image! He with whom we have 
 
MINISTERING. 169 
 
 walked by the way and sat down at meat, lie 
 who has been our chosen companion and comfort 
 and refuge all the days of our pilgrimage, will 
 not be suddenly withdrawn from our side. It 
 is the will of the risen Lord that we should be 
 with Him where He is. Of His welcome of 
 indescribable love beyond the bed of death we 
 may be sure. Let us not fear the dying hour, 
 but rather fear anything that may separate us 
 from the present companionship of Him who 
 is the Resurrection and the Life. 
 
 There may even be no death awaiting us. 
 The light of the everlasting day may give us 
 a glad surprise, and we may see the Lord com- 
 ing to claim as His own the most humble of 
 His followers. 
 
 How human nature clings to the conviction 
 that death is to be prefaced by some sacred, 
 hallowed time, in which the heart will be purified 
 and prepared for the great change ! The common 
 hours of this workaday world are in most cases 
 the only time of preparation for the solemn 
 moment of departure. There is generally an 
 illness, trifling it may be at first, but growing 
 more and more serious, with more and more 
 absorbing pain, or discomfort, or dimness and 
 wandering of mind, and then a short, hurried 
 close, a surprise to the surrounding friends, 
 perhaps, as well as to the patient. 
 
170 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 The messenger of death may even come to 
 the strong man in the midst of the struggle of 
 life, and call him at once to an account. A long 
 period of discipline is awarded to some earthly 
 pilgrims, and blessed to open their eyes to holy 
 things and their souls to a personal share in the 
 great salvation. These are exceptions. The 
 Christian's life is the only wise, sure preparation 
 for the Christian's death. 
 
 Men would also fancy that some great change 
 is to take place on earth before the second com- 
 ing of our Lord. He tells us that in the midst 
 of the ordinary occupations of life, the round of 
 pleasure or the stir of business, the sudden glory 
 may dawn. When we lie down tranquilly at 
 night we may wake to the coming of the Lord, 
 "with ten thousands of His saints," to reign the 
 King Everlasting. 
 
 Can we say from the depths of our heart, 
 "Even so! Come, Lord Jesus!" death has 
 indeed no power over us, for we have already 
 passed from death unto life ! 
 
<£rucifie&. 
 
Crucified 
 
 CRUCIFIED. 
 
 And sitting down they watched Him there. 
 Matt, xxvii. 36. 
 
 IT is only a kind of doubt that thrusts its un- 
 feeling hands into the pierced side of our 
 Lord, and puts its curious fingers into the prints 
 of the nails. These sacred wounds are ap- 
 proached with loving awe by the true believer. 
 No human words, no sensational appeal to the 
 feelings, can rightly impress upon us the suffer- 
 ings of the cruel cross endured for our sake. 
 
 We stand silent before the Man of Sorrows, in 
 His hour of deepest humiliation. We bow low 
 before the cross, in humble, voiceless adoration. 
 Its solemn mysteries, that angels desire to look 
 into, are shrouded from our mortal eyes. We 
 can but pray that God will so lift the sacred veil 
 that we may more clearly see and feel the great 
 sacrifice in its loving majesty, and yield in re- 
 
174 OUR ELDER BROTHER, 
 
 turn the grateful, willing obedience of a devoted 
 heart. 
 
 Let us read in faith and humility the Gospel 
 account of the close of the finished work of our 
 Lord. Let us strive to remember that those last 
 hours are ever fresh in the memory of the Un- 
 changeable. It is as if He were now willingly 
 offered for us, for the sins of the whole world. 
 So standing beside the cross, may our hearts be 
 moved to new penitence and deeper love. 
 
fti^ett. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Grave. 
 
 II. 
 
 In Remembrance. 
 
 III. 
 
 Vision. 
 
 IV. 
 
 By the Way. 
 
 V. 
 
 The Old Testament, 
 
 VI. 
 
 The Sheep. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Daily Bread. 
 
i. 
 
 THE GRAVE. 
 
 They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where 
 they have laid Him. — John xx. 13. 
 
 HOW often since the weeping Mary uttered 
 the words, "They have taken away my 
 Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him," 
 has the same cry come again from a sorrowing 
 heart ! How many Christians have fallen asleep 
 at night in such calm trustfulness, such vivid 
 consciousness of the presence of the Heavenly 
 Friend, that death could hardly have been a more 
 wholly leaving of the soul and body in the hands 
 of the dear Master! Yet, after a night of quiet 
 rest, these very Christians have awakened in 
 such spiritual dulness and dimness that the 
 lonely heart has cried out almost in despair, 
 " They have taken away my Lord, and I know 
 not where they have laid Him ! " 
 
 How blessed for such mourners is the thought 
 of the resurrection ! Jesus is risen once for all. 
 12 
 
178 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 He is not now merely present for the few follow- 
 ers who could see Him with their mortal eyes, 
 but in every land and in every place. We may 
 close our eyes, an unwelcome film of dulness or 
 doubt may shroud them, but He is there, ever 
 present and at our side. He is it not with us only 
 when our souls glow with devotion and we are 
 almost lifted out of the body by the sense of His 
 nearness and abounding love! He is around us 
 and within us in the mists of the early morning, 
 when we, groping, seek Him in our blindness and 
 find Him not. Perhaps He is looking with espe- 
 cial tenderness on His darkened, fumbling chil- 
 dren, grieving for the lost joy of the eventide. 
 We may change ; our bodily or our spiritual eyes 
 may be open or closed; but the Lord Jesus knows 
 no alteration, no alienation. He is eternally 
 the same. 
 
 Let us comfort ourselves with these cheering 
 thoughts on such dreary mornings, and begin 
 anew our daily duties, counting no appointed 
 path too narrow, since there, where He has fash- 
 ioned our way, we can follow His footsteps in 
 humility and patience and love ! We cannot ex- 
 pect to be like the saints in the New Jerusalem, 
 who need no sun nor moon, for the Lord God is 
 their temple and their light. Let us accept 
 gratefully the gleams of heaven that come to 
 brighten our earthly journey, sure that if it be 
 
RISEN. 179 
 
 onward and upward, it must end in the perfect 
 day. 
 
 Let us not sit weeping at the grave of our 
 lost spiritual joy, perhaps the deep sense of ac- 
 ceptance of our early discipleship. Let us rather 
 turn to the loving Lord at our side, who is lead- 
 ing us, as it seemeth Him best, to His Father and 
 our Father, His God and our God. 
 
 Those devoted women who were early at the 
 sepulchre, with the natural longing to do some- 
 thing more for the body of the dear departed, 
 have their kindred spirits in our own days, How 
 our hearts cling even to the poor fleshly tabernacle 
 in which our friend has dwelt ! God has wisely 
 doomed that body to a great and awful change. 
 We must put it away from us. Some heathen 
 nations have tried to set this change at defiance ; 
 but no voice comes from the dry lips, no light of 
 love brightens the dull features. Were it possi- 
 ble to keep near us the unchanged faces and forms 
 of the dear household companions whose souls 
 are in heaven, how tantalizing, how agonizing, 
 would be that bodily nearness, when hand gave 
 no response to hand, and for the throbbing heart 
 there was no answering throb in the cold, silent 
 corpse ! Thanks be unto God, the dead body 
 must be put out of our sight, and our fond hearts 
 can only find their treasure in heaven. 
 
 Even Christians will "seek the living among 
 
180 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 the dead." How many eyes full of tears look 
 down on the mound where the silent sleeper has 
 been laid, rather than up to the heaven where 
 he is rejoicing! How many mourners willingly 
 linger in the churchyard to indulge and perpetu- 
 ate their grief! Let them rather accept their 
 affliction, and, leaning on God, who alone can 
 support them, go forward as cheerfully as may 
 be, like penitent, disciplined children who bow 
 to the Father's will! 
 
 Yet not even the poor graves of our departed 
 should be neglected. Who would not be pained 
 to hear the name of the departed lightly or dis- 
 respectfully mentioned? Who would not be 
 wounded to see his garments, his books, his 
 favorite possessions handled like ordinary things 
 of earth? "The grave is but his wardrobe 
 locked." We know "he is not there." Yet let 
 us pay due respect to the resting-place of the 
 body which has been the dwelling of one who 
 has been dear to us. Let us beautify that last 
 earthly home, if we will; but let us remember 
 "He is not here," is its appropriate inscription. 
 
 When we think of our own departure, let it not 
 be with any gloomy associations of the cemetery 
 and the silent tomb. Let us rather look rejoi- 
 cingly forward to the time when, free from care 
 and temptation, we "shall be ever with the 
 Lord ! " 
 
II. 
 
 IN KEMEMBKANCE. 
 In remembrance of Me. — Luke xxii. 19. 
 
 THE thronging cares and pleasures of this 
 life so fill the minds, even of the devout, 
 that it is only by determined effort and some- 
 thing like a fixed routine that they keep the 
 reality of spiritual things frequently and lov- 
 ingly before them. God, who knows so well our 
 needs, has helped us to a holy order for this 
 sacred purpose. 
 
 We have the one day in seven, when the toilers 
 may cease from their weary labors, and the anx- 
 ious may turn from their necessary thought for 
 the future. The stir of innocent social pleasures 
 is hushed, that the "still small voice" may be 
 heard. A silence steals over the busy, noisy 
 world, and lo ! the far-off harmonies of heaven 
 break upon the ear. Sweet Sabbath bells call to 
 the house of prayer, where dull lips and duller 
 hearts are helped to petitions for all the soul and 
 body need. Then a priceless blessing falls on 
 
182 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 the few gathered together in the humble sanc- 
 tuary, as well as on the great congregation in the 
 lofty temple. 
 
 But there is not alone given the public worship 
 on the Lord's Day as a reminder of holy things 
 and a help in the Christian life, There is the 
 Lord's Supper, — that simple sacrament, adapted 
 to all times and all climates and all peoples, the 
 rich and the poor, the wise and the unlearned, 
 which when devoutly received, in remembrance 
 of the Lord Jesus, brings its deep and special 
 blessing. 
 
 For our homes we have the commands, " Search 
 the Scriptures!" and "Pray without ceasing!" 
 We have the closet and the family altar and the 
 grace at table, to give a holy flavor to our food 
 and remind us of the Giver. 
 
 Such beneficent landmarks are set up along 
 the path of the pilgrim heavenward, that in the 
 manifold interests of this life he may not forget 
 its object and end, Such an outward framework 
 we have around our inner life. Such a body have 
 we, in which our higher being lives and grows. 
 Such a fair cup is given us from which to taste 
 the healing waters. Landmarks they may be 
 for the blind, — an empty framework, nothing 
 growing in it; a fair cup, the contents untasted; 
 a dead body, quickened by no spirit within ! 
 
 We may forget God in the midst of the sacred 
 
RISEN. 183 
 
 order of His own planning. He may be remem- 
 bered only in the dark hours, when some sudden 
 and awful warning reminds us that we must 
 stand at last before the Almighty Judge. 
 
 How welcome to the soul is this holy order 
 when there is the true sonship, the devotion to 
 our Lord Jesus, that gladly accepts all aids to 
 His loving remembrance and to the faithful fol- 
 lowing of His example ! 
 
 But it is not alone our spiritual duties that are 
 to be done in remembrance of our risen Lord. 
 Not so we cherish the memory of an earthly 
 friend. The slightest wish of the loved and 
 departed has for us the sanctity of law. The 
 simplest act becomes a hallowed pleasure if we 
 can say of it, "So my father wished me to do; " 
 " This my mother taught me ; " " To do this re- 
 minds me of my sister, my brother." So we 
 feel towards our human friends who have "gone 
 before us." 
 
 Let us remember the Lord Jesus more lov- 
 ingly and constantly; then will His least precept 
 become a cherished treasure. How diligently 
 we should read over and over His sacred .words, 
 to see how He would wish us to live and labor 
 and love ! 
 
 How much would be left undone if we should 
 ask ourselves, " Can I do this in remembrance of 
 my Lord? Can I do it remembering His love for 
 
184 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 mankind? Can I do it remembering His eye is 
 upon me ? " 
 
 Let us be living momuments in memory of our 
 Lord, His character, His words written upon us, 
 poor stones of earth, honored to be raised in 
 remembrance of Him ! 
 
III. 
 
 VISION. 
 
 Then were the disciples glad, ivhen they saw the Lord. 
 John xx. 20. 
 
 HOW often after an ordinary parting between 
 friends, the sudden and unexpected return 
 of the traveller, perhaps for some trifle forgotten, 
 or perhaps for a few more tender words, has 
 lightened to all the pain of separation and given 
 it a milder form. 
 
 The parting between our Lord and His disci- 
 ples was no severing of a common tie. Daily 
 intercourse with a being of a life and character 
 like His must have called out the warmest feel- 
 ing of which our nature is capable. The adored 
 Master had not been merely taken away by death. 
 The Messiah had suffered a shameful crucifixion 
 amid the revilings of the scoffing crowd. For 
 the resurrection, the disciples, in their blindness, 
 seem not even to have looked. The very women, 
 whose devotedness kept them near their Master 
 through all His last bitter pains, had no thought 
 
186 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 of meeting Him in the early morning, risen from 
 the dead. What wonder, then, that "the disci- 
 ples were glad when they saw the Lord," unmis- 
 takably living, triumphant over the dark grave? 
 
 There are thousands of instances on record 
 where, by the converting grace of God, wan- 
 derers in the dreary paths of sin have been sud- 
 denly allowed to see with the soul's clear vision 
 the beauty and love of the Lord Jesus, and have 
 been so transported by the sight that they have 
 seemed for the time lifted above the common 
 sorrows of humanity. Not so is the spiritual 
 light generally given to the renewed soul. There 
 are devout men and women who might truly use 
 the words, "When Thou saidst unto me, 'Seek 
 ye My face,' ray heart said, 'Thy face, Lord, will 
 I seek;' " yet there has been with them no sud- 
 den transition from darkness to light, but a 
 gradual dawning unto the fulness of day. 
 
 The child who goes forth in the crowded city 
 to meet his returning father, sees with bounding 
 joy the longed-for form in the distance amid the 
 moving, changing throng. Now he loses him 
 for a moment in this group or that, but still the 
 eager little one presses on. His father once 
 seen, he knows where he is, though he may for 
 an instant be shut out from the loving, seeking 
 eyes. The meeting comes at last, and how pure 
 and full is its joy ! Hands are joined, and 
 
RISEN. 187 
 
 onward the two together go homeward in sweet 
 communion. 
 
 Such even is the experience of some Christian 
 disciples. They are glad, indeed, when they 
 have their first far-away glimpse of the Lord they 
 are seeking. He is not always in sight for them, 
 yet they go on in the path of prayer and duty, 
 now brightened by a clear view of Him who is 
 the Eternal Truth, and now in dimness in the 
 midst of this toiling, changing world. At last 
 they are privileged to feel, as it were, a firm 
 hand clasping theirs, and leading them steadily 
 towards the Better Country. They may not have 
 the brightness of the face of the Lord revealed 
 to them, but they are sure of His holy presence, 
 and walk gratefully towards the Kingdom of 
 Light. 
 
 There are other sincere inquirers, who, through 
 some mental or physical peculiarity, or some 
 spiritual discipline of the Great Physician, never 
 seem to find on earth the Lord they are truly 
 seeking. How great must be the joy of such 
 wanderers in this vale of tears, who in a pure 
 practice have sought the Lord, by careful inves- 
 tigation, by loving ministry to their fellows, and 
 by pouring out the soul in prayer, to find His 
 sure promise fulfilled at the gate of heaven, and 
 for the humbled pilgrim the blessed welcome 
 ready, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord! " 
 
IV. 
 
 BY THE WAY. 
 
 What manner of communications are these, that ye have one 
 to another, as ye walk ? — Luke xxiv. 17. 
 
 HOW naturally we fall into unstudied talk 
 with a friend who draws near to us by the 
 way. He has voluntarily thrown himself into 
 our company, and our heart opens to him. 
 How often a traveller has revealed the secrets of 
 his soul to an attractive stranger, met for the 
 first and perhaps the last time, and yet soon felt 
 to be a fellow-pilgrim to the same Heavenly 
 Home. It is sometimes easier to give such con- 
 fidence to a stranger than even to the well-known 
 members of the domestic circle. For a person 
 of a reserved nature it is sometimes trying to see 
 daily face to face one to whom the inmost heart 
 has been opened. The stranger who has heard of 
 our trials, our longings, and our aspirations, goes 
 his way, and we see him no more till we stand 
 together before the "great white throne." Men, 
 ill at ease in a godless life, have laid bare their 
 
RISEN. 189 
 
 souls' secrets to a devout fellow-traveller, and in 
 that one interview the good seed has been sown 
 to spring up and bear fruit for the far future. 
 
 There is something peculiarly friendly and 
 human in the manner in which the risen Lord 
 joined the dejected disciples on the way to Em- 
 maus, and would share their conversation and 
 inquire into their sorrow. With the same loving 
 sympathy He is ever drawing near to us "by the 
 way," whether we are alone or in company. 
 With no human friend at our side, we may 
 often, as we walk, have the sweetest communion 
 with our Elder Brother. No one of the hurrying 
 passers-by may know what manner of conversa- 
 tion we are having by the way, but we may re- 
 turn to our homes, not only refreshed by exercise 
 in the open air, but by converse with the one 
 Heavenly Master. 
 
 The Lord is our companion in our walks when 
 forgotten, as well as when remembered. How 
 often He might address to us, in a tone of re- 
 proach, the question to the sorrowing disciples. 
 How much foolish talk, gossip, and worse, may 
 be uttered in the secrecy of the public street, or 
 in the silent woods, where eye need not meet 
 eye, and the mouth may be prompt to speak and 
 the ear to listen. It is in these unexpected and 
 unstudied talks that the real person is more 
 surely met than in more conventional intercourse. 
 
190 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 The child prattling at the father's side in the 
 open daylight is different from the same child as 
 one of the family group, and often more free 
 and confiding. The father reads deep down in 
 the little heart, and is the better prepared to lead 
 it to the Children's Best Friend. 
 
 Turning their backs on the church door, the 
 late subdued listeners start for their homes. 
 Too many Christians act as if their Lord had 
 been shut into the temple behind them, and 
 could no longer hear their words or read their 
 hearts. They who have apparently joined in 
 prayer and praise, they who have listened de- 
 voutly to the exhortation, have their thoughts 
 let loose like birds to fly east or west, on a good 
 or an evil errand. Their light, unprofitable talk 
 may dissipate or blot out the good impression 
 made in the church on some unstable soul. How 
 great the responsibility of such careless trifling 
 in the very shadow of the temple of the Most 
 High. Happily there are Christians who leave 
 the house of God deeply solemnized themselves, 
 and unconsciously, by their power of sympathy, 
 or through an unstudied utterance of their own 
 holy thoughts, strengthen the impression for 
 good that has been made on the companion at 
 their side. 
 
 Let us not forget that the Lord ever draws 
 near us by the way, and has a share in all our 
 
RISEN. 191 
 
 natural talk, Nor need this remembrance make 
 us either gloomy or sanctimonious. He who 
 made the golden sunset, the sparkling water, and 
 the many-hued flowers that gladden us in the 
 open air, would not cloud our cheerfulness, or 
 even check our innocent smiles. He cannot 
 frown on the kindly greeting or the friendly 
 grasp of the hand at the church door, for He is 
 the God of Love. 
 
 To mourners and to all the sorrowing comes 
 with peculiar pertinence the Saviour's searching 
 question, " What manner of communications are 
 those that ye have one to another by the way, 
 as ye walk, and are sad ? " It is not uncommon 
 for the human heart to be full of bitterness in 
 the time of trial, or even of passing depres- 
 sion. The ordinary self-restraint is relaxed, and 
 murmurs and complaints flow spontaneously from 
 the lips. Let such gloomy, desponding talkers 
 fancy the question of the risen Lord addressed* 
 to them in gentle reproof. It is in deep affliction 
 that the rounded Christian life gives its best 
 testimony. The hand that on the sunny path 
 has surely clasped the hand of the Son of Man, 
 is tenderly led by Him through the waters of 
 tribulation. 
 
 The gentleness of our Saviour's address to the 
 unbelieving and sorrowful disciples should be 
 imitated by us in all our dealings with the 
 
192 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 afflicted. We need not be chafed by their repin- 
 ings or their rebellion. Let it be rather our 
 precious privilege to lead them lovingly to the 
 Man of Sorrows. If He but join them on their 
 troubled path, they will be sustained and cheered 
 and filled with God-given strength to overcome 
 the difficulties of their thorny way. They too 
 may be witnesses of the power of the Great Phy- 
 sician to give health and joy to the broken heart. 
 Our poor faulty communications to each other 
 in this time of our pilgrimage will soon be over. 
 May we so speak that no word of ours, in glad- 
 ness or in tears, may linger in a human heart 
 to give secret pain or prompt to evil when our 
 lips are closed in death, and we have gone to 
 answer for thought, word, and deed in the sacred 
 courts above ! 
 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 Then opened He their understanding, that they might un- 
 derstand the Scriptures. — Luke xxiv. 45. 
 
 IT is the fashion in certain quarters to depre- 
 ciate the Old Testament, to enhance by con- 
 trast the value of the New. This is much like 
 taking away the foundation to increase the gran- 
 deur and security of the house. 
 
 Jesus Christ, as an historical character, must 
 ever stand first among men. To the devout 
 Christian He is far more, even the Lord from 
 heaven. If we look to Him as authority and 
 example, how definitely He fixes the estimate of 
 the Old Testament. "It is written, " was for our 
 Lord an imperative sanction as to all points of 
 doctrine and practice, and even His strong re- 
 source in the sorest assault of the tempter. In 
 those last days of His intercourse with His dis- 
 ciples on earth, when He came to them in the 
 majesty of One risen from the dead, it seems to 
 13 
 
194 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 have been His chief mission, when they were 
 once convinced of His identity, bo expound to 
 them the Scriptures treating of Him and His 
 great mediatorial work. Our Lord understood 
 the meaning and value of revelation as no one 
 else has ever understood them. 
 
 They who truly love the Lord Jesus will not 
 be robbed of the beautiful Old Testament de- 
 scriptions of the coming Messiah. How the in- 
 spired psalmist and the fervent prophets stamp 
 on the mind the image of Him "by whose 
 stripes we are healed," and who was "wounded 
 for our transgressions, and bruised for our in- 
 iquity! " We cannot spare those types and fore- 
 shadowings that open the deep mysteries' of 
 redemption, and give us the Man of Sorrows to 
 lean on in our utmost need. We cannot have 
 blotted out the record of the Lamb of the con- 
 tinual sacrifice, forever pointing to the " Lamb of 
 God who taketh away the sins of the world," the 
 "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," 
 the Lamb to whom are lifted up heaven's songs 
 of praise, the Lamb who, with the Father, is the 
 light and the temple of the New Jerusalem ! 
 
 We cannot give up the endeared and sacred 
 names by which our Elder Brother is so impres- 
 sively described by inspired historian and prophet 
 and poet and judge. We cannot give up the 
 story of those wonders wrought for the chosen 
 
RISEN. 195 
 
 people of God! We cannot give up the triumphs 
 of faith by which "holy men of old" passed 
 through danger and temptation and death. When 
 we stand at some perilous point in life, with the 
 strong enemies of past spiritual conflicts behind 
 us, and before us the wild waves of the threaten- 
 ing future, how we welcome the remembrance 
 of the deliverance of the children of Israel 
 when they stood with the Eed Sea before 
 them, and the hosts of Pharaoh in their rear; 
 and yet the command of the Lord was, "Go 
 forward ! " 
 
 The threatening waters were obedient to the 
 God-given rod of Moses ! We turn trustfully to 
 the Leader stronger than the great lawgiver, sure 
 that the "Captain of our salvation" will guide 
 us safely all the way He has bidden us take to 
 the Promised Land. 
 
 When tempted and overcome and smitten with 
 the bite of the most venomous of all serpents, the 
 poison-fangs of sin, we remember the writhing 
 Israelites brought back from the gates of death 
 by one look at the symbol raised aloft as 
 a perpetual sign of the Great Healer. We 
 lift our eyes to the cross of Calvary, we look, 
 we repent, we believe, we are forgiven, and are 
 at peace. 
 
 We cannot give up those dear old friends of 
 our childhood whom we learned to know and 
 
196 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 love as we gathered around our mother's knee, — 
 Joseph and Daniel and Kuth and Esther and Job; 
 and the Bible children too, — Naaman's little 
 maid, the lame Mephibosheth, and Samuel nur- 
 tured in the temple, and ever faithul to Israel's 
 God! We cannot give up the human old patri- 
 archs, who are described as they were, with the 
 sins of their time upon them, but who, f alteringly 
 taking the hand of the great God, were accepted 
 and forgiven. We have the promise of meeting 
 them in heaven, where all the redeemed shall 
 "sit down in the Kingdom." 
 
 We cannot give up those blessed Psalms which 
 through centuries on centuries have expressed 
 the aspirations, the repentance, the rapturous 
 exaltation, of the long line of saints who have 
 passed by grace to glory ! 
 
 We cannot lose the Old Testament, with its 
 strong corroboration of the New ! It is rooted 
 in our hearts; it has supported us in time past. 
 
 We yield to no man this strong staff of our 
 pilgrimage journey! 
 
 We will not give up, we must not give up, we 
 need not give up, we dare not give up, the pre- 
 cious treasure of the inspired Word of the Old 
 Testament! 
 
 What is the command of the Lord Jesus? 
 " Search the Scriptures ! " Let us indeed search 
 them, "as one who seeketh for hid treasure. 7 ' 
 
RISEN. 197 
 
 May our eyes be more and more opened to their 
 holy teaching, to the strengthening of our faith, 
 and the enlightening of our minds to the true 
 character of the Lord, just and righteous and full 
 of compassion, whose day Abraham "saw and 
 was glad." 
 
VI. 
 
 THE SHEER 
 
 Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep. — John xxi. 15, 16. 
 
 MUCH is said and written of the proper quali- 
 fications and preparation for the ministry. 
 Much, doubtless, needs to be emphatically said 
 as to gifts, learning, and inner life. The cham- 
 pion for Christ must be armed at all points, for 
 warfare offensive and defensive. He must meet 
 wickedness in high places and in the dark dens 
 of vice, lukewarmness within the Church, and 
 unbelief triumphant without. While all this is 
 true, we must not forget that most important for 
 the consecrated servant of Christ is the answer 
 he can honestly give to the simple question, 
 thrice urged by our Saviour on Peter before that 
 disciple received his parting commission from 
 the Great Shepherd of the Sheep. 
 
 How many students of theology, how many 
 settled clergymen, how many exhorters and evan- 
 gelists, how many mothers and Sunday-school 
 
KISEN. 199 
 
 teachers, if in their still solitude they should 
 hear the voice of the Lord asking them, "Lovest 
 thou Me? " would be shamed into an abashed and 
 conscience-stricken silence ! How few would 
 dare to answer, "Thou, who knowest all things,'' 
 Thou, who knowest my sins and my backslidings, 
 " Thou knowest that I love Thee. " Yet only they 
 who can so answer have the essential element of 
 the true call to the cure of souls. 
 
 In this personal love of Christ we have the 
 secret of the success of many simple and un- 
 learned men in so telling the " old, old story " 
 that hearts are stirred and souls renewed. 
 
 Happily the true Christian life is ever devel- 
 oping, going on towards perfection. It may be 
 quickened into existence where all before has 
 been deadness and desolation. There are in- 
 stances on record where clergymen who have 
 begun their ministry in a cold and formal spirit 
 have been awakened, through outer or inner 
 experiences, to a sense of their individual needs 
 and of the solemn responsibilities of a faithful 
 shepherd of the sheep. 
 
 And what is it to feed the sheep? Of the 
 domestic animals, the sheep perhaps needs the 
 greatest care. Lavish nature spreads for him a 
 banquet in the " green pastures and beside the still 
 waters." Thither he is to be gently and persis- 
 tently led. He must be watched, that he does not 
 
200 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 stray into dangerous places. He must be guarded 
 from the ravenous beasts that would gladly de- 
 vour him. A shelter must be provided for him ; 
 for night and cold and storm. 
 
 The sheep has his relish for food as a gift 
 from God. That we cannot impart to him. 
 We try to lead a friend, an ignorant sinner, an 
 unbeliever, a circle of little children, to a true 
 knowledge of the Lord Jesus. We find it impos- 
 sible to give a single soul a desire, a relish for 
 spiritual things. Let that be once sent by 
 Heaven, then we feel that we can really feed the 
 sheep, now longing for food. Let them who 
 would feed the sheep of the Good Shepherd be 
 instant and faithful in prayer that God will give 
 this appetite for holy things to the souls to whom 
 they would minister. 
 
 We may not, however, be satisfied with simply 
 praying. We have here our responsibility for 
 active exertion. Of the Heavenly Shepherd it is 
 said, "He maketh me to lie down in green pas- 
 tures, He leadeth me beside the still waters." 
 This leading of the sheep to the food convenient 
 for him, through the services of the sanctuary, 
 the solemn sacraments, and the preached word, 
 is the work of all the churches. Form and 
 method there must be in this, as in all efforts 
 that are lasting and effective; but not a stiff 
 form, not an iron method. 
 
RISEN. 201 
 
 The sheep are not tethered, each by himself, to 
 graze upon his allotted bit of ground. The shep- 
 herd leads the flock in the open meadow or on the 
 wild hillside, glad to see them, perhaps in groups 
 here and there, feasting on a rich bit of pasture, 
 or tasting the spring at the fountain-head. But 
 there must be no wandering for tempting tufts 
 on the edge of the hanging precipice, or ventur- 
 ing to dark thickets, the hiding-places of devour- 
 ing beasts. 
 
 Sorrow and sickness and the bed of death are 
 to human beings what night and storm and cold 
 are to the humble sheep. For these times of 
 peril, special provision must be made. They 
 come to each soul separately, and the true pastor 
 will care individually at such times for the mem- 
 bers of his flock. Then he must gently urge the 
 suffering sheep to the protection of the needed 
 shelter. He must prayerfully lay the weary 
 sheep in the arms of the only One who can bear 
 him safely home. The solemn direct personal 
 appeals that might have been rejected before, or 
 have proved ineffectual, may not only now be 
 welcomed, but abundantly blessed. 
 
 And as to the lambs, how are they to be fed? 
 God gives the mother food for them to suffice for 
 their tender infancy. So is it with the spiritual 
 life of the child. Many a babe drawn to its 
 mother's breast for its necessary food has at the 
 
202 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 same time all unconsciously received a blessing, 
 sent from Heaven, through a mother's fond look 
 of love and a mother's fervent prayer. She is, 
 later, the first to clasp his baby hands, as a silent 
 expression of assent to the petitions he cannot 
 yet understand. So she leads him, little by 
 little, to the "green pastures and the still 
 waters." She has no stiff, conventional way with 
 him. He follows naturally where she goes, 
 happy at her side. He knows the spot where 
 she daily bows the knee, and bows himself beside 
 her, before he can realize the meaning of the at- 
 titude. He has found out the Book that is dearest 
 to her, and the songs she best loves to sing. He 
 learns to lisp the name that is for her "the name 
 above all others." He loves the Lord Jesus first 
 because she loves Him, and later he thanks Him 
 for such a mother. So by degrees the child learns 
 to share the spiritual food that is so welcome and 
 strengthening to the mother. 
 
 With wise parents there will be no stuffing 
 children with religious nourishment, no expecta- 
 tion of a development beyond their years. Yet 
 children, too, must be methodically led in the 
 spiritual life. Here a short time of family 
 worship in the morning is most efficient. For 
 their own sake, for the children's sake, parents 
 should find time to lead their household in family 
 prayer. They may have a fixed allegiance to 
 
RISEN. 203 
 
 their Heavenly King, but it is not so with the 
 children. They have no confirmed, habitual 
 longing for holy things. They live in the pres- 
 ent. All things are new to them every morning. 
 The joys and sorrows and even the teachings 
 of yesterday are often with them altogether things 
 of the past. They have no abiding sense of duty 
 or responsibility. They have no stable affec- 
 tion for an ever-remembered Heavenly Father. 
 With the new morning comes the fresh, eager 
 interest in play and school and simple work and 
 childish plans and undertakings. Their thoughts 
 do not, like the lark, fly upward with the open- 
 ing day. It has on them an immense influence 
 to know that the whole household pays its united 
 tribute of prayer and praise, gladly, lovingly, 
 day by day, to the Great God above, whom the 
 little ones, too, must learn to love and serve. A 
 few such moments of family prayer, begun with 
 a cheerful hymn in which the children soon 
 willingly join, sends them on their way, rightly 
 started for the coming day. 
 
 Nor must the children's own private prayers, 
 morning and evening, be neglected. They must 
 as soon as possible cease to be merely repeated 
 prayers, but rather a natural expression of thank- 
 fulness, with added simple petitions for help 
 and protection such as a child can really mean. 
 So they must be led on to a true and aifec- 
 
204 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 tionate intercourse with the Great and Loving 
 Friend. 
 
 And the lambs on Sunday? How are they 
 then to be fed? Freely, happily, abundantly. 
 The Lord's Day is to be made to them a delight, 
 not a bondage. But it is to be the Lord's Day, 
 not to be given up, wholly or in part, to week-day 
 interests or the pursuit of selfish pleasure. 
 There should be a specially joyous, loving spirit 
 in the family on Sunday. 
 
 More free time given by the father to the 
 children on the First Day of the week, gives it a 
 certain glad pre-eminence, and helps them by 
 degrees to think of the Heavenly Father as One 
 to be loved as well as revered. 
 
 The mother who has a full nursery, naturally 
 wishing her servants all possible Sabbath rest 
 and Sabbath privileges, has often but little time 
 on Sunday to spare for her older children. On 
 the father the duty so presses of keeping them 
 happy and good ; and it is a blessed duty. In its 
 performance, little hands may draw him from the 
 path of worldliness, and little lips prompt him 
 to the trust and simplicity of which the child is 
 the best teacher. The mother may have time for 
 a hymn or two, sung with the eager group about 
 her, or for a little pleasant, profitable reading 
 aloud, but possibly no more. Happy for her if 
 she herself can be so refreshed in the midst of 
 her Sunday afternoon cares. 
 
RISEN. 205 
 
 To the house of God the lambs in a truly 
 Christian family soon learn to love to go. They 
 are to be led thither, not driven. Where the 
 parents go with evident joy, the children will 
 soon wish to follow. A row of devout little 
 children keeping up with the service as they best 
 can, and happy to be at church, may perhaps 
 unconsciously prove the most profitable sermon 
 for some indifferent worshipper who has come to 
 up to the courts of the Lord because it is seemly 
 to do so. 
 
 The lambs must be guarded from bad compan- 
 ions, worse for them than the wild beasts for the 
 helpless sheep. The wolf devours the lamb at 
 once; but the bad companion poisons the life of 
 the child and leaves him to a low existence, to 
 his own misery and the contamination of his 
 fellows. 
 
 Keep your little one, if you can, from bad 
 companions, but he is not safest when most 
 strictly penned in. When he does break loose, 
 he will probably run as far as possible from 
 the place of his confinement. Try to form his 
 tastes and his principles, and by all means strive 
 to keep his confidence. Let him know the kind 
 of company you yourself enjoy, and would like 
 to have for him. Have his schoolmates and 
 friends about him sometimes under your own 
 eye. Watch them and him as a guardian angel, 
 
206 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 not as a snappish house-dog, to have subject for 
 growling. 
 
 Let love season all you do for your little ones. 
 Above all, pray for and with your children. 
 Christ loves the lambs. "It is not the will of 
 your Heavenly Father that one of these little 
 ones should perish." Prayer, purity, and pa- 
 tience will in the end have their perfect work. 
 
 Remember that in feeding the lambs you are 
 yourself drawing near to the Good Shepherd. 
 What you do for them you do for Him. In the 
 end, when our Elder Brother gathers His own, 
 may you be able to say joyfully, not one lacking, 
 "Here am I, with the children God has given 
 me! " 
 
VII. 
 DAILY BREAD. 
 
 Children, have ye any meat? — John xxi. 5. 
 
 HUMAN nature runs to extremes. Once 
 heartily determined to cast off the bonds 
 of the world, the flesh, and the devil, it imagines 
 for itself a purely spiritual religion, above and 
 beyond all earthly cares and interests, rather than 
 a new life thrown into all old activities and rela- 
 tions and affections. The Christian man longs 
 to be a pure spirit. God has linked him with a 
 body and set him among his fellows to be loving 
 and honest and pure and true. 
 
 The whole tenor of the Saviour's example and 
 teaching is calculated to counteract all tendency 
 to the overstrained and unnatural. Let once 
 the divine life have been implanted in the soul, 
 our Lord will have it developed like the quick- 
 ening seed, to adorn and bless the place where it 
 is appointed to grow. He was not pitched too 
 high for human sympathies. Preaching and heal- 
 
208 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 ing, supplying physical needs and soothing and 
 uplifting sorrowing hearts, went hand in hand 
 with Him. He whose mandate could call back 
 the ruler's little daughter from beyond the gates 
 of death could yet, in homely phrase, remind the 
 rejoicing parents to give the rescued child " some- 
 thing to eat." 
 
 After our Lord's resurrection He appeared 
 miraculously among His disciples and discoursed 
 to them of the sublime mysteries of the King- 
 dom; yet He could sit down simply with the two 
 friends at Emmaus, or tenderly ask the weary, 
 disappointed fishermen by Tiberias, "Children, 
 have ye any meat?" and satisfy, too, their press- 
 ing needs. 
 
 Let us treasure up this question of our Lord's 
 for our comfort in this work-a-day world. It 
 encourages us to dare to go to Him for help in 
 all the affairs and interests that encompass us 
 in our outward life. He will give us our daily 
 bread as well as forgive us our trespasses, and 
 keep us from temptation and lead us into the 
 Heavenly Kingdom. 
 
 With regard to our spiritual life, too, our Lord 
 comes to us with the striking words, " Children, 
 have ye any meat?" Sometimes, in answer to 
 His tender questioning, the Christian soul would 
 tell its Lord of its unsatisfied wants. It would 
 say, " I have no pastor, no devout friend to whom 
 
RISEN. 209 
 
 I can open my doubts and struggles and perplex- 
 ities. He who should teach me in the house of 
 God is too dull in his own spiritual life, or too 
 little gifted, to give me, Sunday after Sunday, 
 the help I so bitterly need. I go to the sanc- 
 tuary hungering and thirsting, and come empty 
 away." This would be the statement of many 
 an inexperienced Christian longing to be coun- 
 selled and led in the way of life. 
 
 There are times with almost every true fol- 
 lower of our Lord when the depths of sorrow or 
 anxiety or spiritual distress are to be passed 
 through alone, as far as human comforters are 
 concerned. May not this be the discipline sent 
 of God to lead the harassed and afflicted one to 
 close and trustful communion with the Heavenly 
 Friend? 
 
 When we think the appointed messenger gives 
 us no satisfactory food in the sanctuary, the 
 Lord is still there, "where two or three are gath- 
 ered together in His name." He has ever a sure 
 blessing for all who are " truly seeking His face." 
 Let the souls that are "hungering and thirsting 
 in a dry and parched land" make at least for 
 themselves the house of God a house of prayer, 
 and their souls will be fed abundantly, and satis- 
 fied with water from the living spring. 
 
 The practical question, " Children, have ye any 
 meat? " should be on the lips and in the hearts of 
 
 14 
 
210 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 the followers of the merciful Lord, as addressed 
 to the suffering poor. In our homes of comfort 
 we too often forget the very existence of the 
 hungry and the houseless. When we do not see 
 the poor, it may be for us as if they did not exist. 
 If once, while we sat at our abundant meal, we 
 could suddenly see, in a vision, our glad family 
 table circled about by starving children, whose 
 faces, haggard with want, and old before their 
 time, looked with ravenous eagerness at our in- 
 viting fare, how the heart would be moved! We 
 could not touch a morsel before we had fed the 
 hungry we had too long forgotten in our land of 
 plenty. 
 
 Think of these little ones, if you will, some- 
 times when you take your daily food, or sit 
 down at your feasts, and you must for them 
 freely open heart and purse. At that moment of 
 real feeling, let wisdom come to your aid to 
 show how and where and when such children 
 should not only be temporarily fed, but be taught 
 by honest labor to earn their daily bread. 
 
 And those boys and girls who lack "the meat 
 that perisheth," have they sustaining nourish- 
 ment for their tempted souls? Look at the little 
 ones near to you by the ties of blood. How you 
 shrink from the thought of their being even 
 contaminated by the knowledge of the sin in the 
 midst of which these outcast children must live. 
 
RISEN. 211 
 
 How anxious you are to have your dear children 
 take early the Saviour's offered hand, and be led 
 in the ways of purity and joy. Have you no 
 love to spare for the children who in the homes 
 of want are breathing the very atmosphere of 
 vice? They, too, have souls to be washed and 
 made white in the blood of the Lamb. The 
 Good Shepherd is their Shepherd too. He hears 
 their far-away bleating in the wilderness of sin. 
 He bids you see to it that they are brought home 
 to the fold, to rejoice with your own little ones 
 one day in heaven. 
 
3tgcentie&, 
 
 I. 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 II. 
 
 A MlKACLE. 
 
 III. 
 
 Union. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Dying Eyes. 
 
 V. 
 
 A Voice eeom Heaven. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Persecution. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Penitents. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Gentiles. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Cheer. 
 
 X. 
 
 Weakness. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Priests. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Churches. 
 
i. 
 
 LOST AND FOUND. 
 
 He lifted up His hands, and blessed them. . . . While 
 He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up 
 into heaven. — Luke xxiv. 50, 51. 
 
 POETS and painters, and even preachers, im- 
 pressed with the beauty and glory of the 
 ascension of our Lord, seem to have striven to 
 keep in our minds the idea of our Master gono 
 from us, lost in a cloud, shut out from us, until 
 He shall appear again in majesty to judge both 
 the quick and the dead. 
 
 The human life of our Saviour finished, indeed, 
 when He was received up again to the bosom of 
 His Father. Yet why should we, like the awed 
 disciples, still stand gazing up into heaven? Our 
 Lord was from the time of His ascension to be 
 no longer approached only in the one place where 
 He could appear in His mortal form. He was 
 to be henceforward present in all homes, and 
 
216 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 indwelling in all hearts that would receive Him. 
 He was not to be the companion and friend alone 
 of the little company of faithful ones whom He 
 had gathered around Him during His short min- 
 istry, but of all those who through them should 
 believe in His name. The King, the Messiah of 
 the Jews, had become the Eedeemer of all the 
 nations of the earth. 
 
 This is our inheritance. Let us not stand 
 gazing up into the impenetrable heavens, lost in 
 trying to imagine the glories not yet revealed to 
 us. Let us rather fold our hands in humility, 
 and pray, with the blind man, to see Jesus walk- 
 ing at our side. We need to feel the presence of 
 our Lord, drawing near to us with human sym- 
 pathies, but with the divine riches of inexhaus- 
 tible love, infinite patience, illimitable willing- 
 ness to help, and almighty power to fashion our 
 souls, comfort us in our sorrows, and deliver us 
 in our dangers. 
 
 This is the Saviour we need. This is the 
 Saviour who is given to us, through His finished 
 work. We are no longer strangers and outcasts, 
 we are no longer aliens and slaves. We may, 
 through the Great Substitute, our Elder Brother, 
 be forgiven children of the Heavenly Father and 
 u fellow-citizens of the house of God." Born into 
 the kingdom, bought with the blood of the Lamb, 
 we may journey joyfully to the Heavenly Home. 
 
ASCENDED. 217 
 
 Holding his nail-pierced hands out to bless, 
 our Lord passed at His ascension from human 
 eyes. It was His last expression of full forgive- 
 ness of His enemies, and His love for the world 
 He had redeemed. 
 
 Do we so deal with those who have wounded 
 and despised us? Have we "the mind of 
 Christ " ? Come we with blessings to those who 
 have wronged us? Can we further their happi- 
 ness, and delight to minister bo their needs? 
 This is the spirit of those who would " ascend up 
 where Christ has gone before. " There have been 
 Christians who, in a wild transport of expecta- 
 tion of the near coming of Christ in glory, have 
 left their ordinary occupations, in the hopes of 
 so fixing their eyes on heaven as to be doubly 
 ready to greet the Lord at His great Second Ad- 
 vent. Such enthusiasts have even prepared for 
 themselves special white robes, in which, free 
 from all stains of earth, they hoped to mount in 
 the air and join the Lord with His glorious train 
 of saints and angels. 
 
 Alas for poor mortality ! We cannot form for 
 ourselves a purity that shall make us fit for the 
 Kingdom of Heaven. It is only the Master of 
 the marriage feast who can give us the wedding 
 garment. We must wait to be "clothed upon," 
 when "mortality shall be swallowed up in 
 life." We do not wing our way to the skies. In 
 
218 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 the midst of ordinary, every-day occupations we 
 must mount upward, step by step, through faith- 
 fulness, humility, and self-sacrifice. We climb 
 the " Hill Difficulty " leaning on our Lord, but 
 while in the body we walk an earthly road. Here 
 we are to serve, not reign. Here we are to pray, 
 not prophesy. Here we are to follow, not lead. 
 Here we are to live in meekness, not majesty. 
 Here we are to strive to be like our Elder Brother, 
 when " found in fashion as a man." There we 
 shall be with Him and see Him as He is. There, 
 in the kingdom of the Father, He will not be 
 ashamed to call us brethren. 
 
 Faithfully walking our humble path here below, 
 we shall welcome the summons of our Heavenly 
 Master, whether it be "to meet the Lord in the 
 air," or to sleep in Jesus, to wake in glory. 
 
II. 
 
 A MIEACLE. 
 
 When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto 
 you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which pro- 
 ceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me. — 
 John xv. 26. 
 
 IT is a common saying that the days of miracles 
 are over. Yet there is a supernatural won- 
 der in our days, which gives perpetual witness to 
 the mighty power of God. When a man is sud- 
 denly changed in his aims, his hopes, his tastes, 
 and his affections, a great wonder has been 
 wrought. When the openly vicious begin to 
 strive for the sake of Jesus, and, relying on His 
 help, to lead a sober, pure, and useful life, and 
 even succeed in the undertaking, they give strong 
 testimony to the power of the Spirit of God. The 
 opening of the eyes of the man born blind seems 
 hardly more the result of a superhuman power 
 than the change that makes the late worldling, 
 or profligate, or criminal, a man walking in the 
 ways of simplicity, virtue, and holiness. 
 
220 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 These great changes are all marked by one 
 distinguishing trait. The power of the Holy 
 Ghost in the heart of man shows itself by open- 
 ing the spiritual eyes to the character, work, 
 commands, and promises of Jesus of Nazareth. 
 Sometimes the converted soul, but late sunk in 
 sin, seems almost transported by a view of the 
 purity, the holiness, the indescribable love of 
 Christ, and His amazing sacrifice for sin. 
 
 Who has not seen instances where from this ec- 
 stastic beginning had been developed the rounded, 
 beautiful life of the mature Christian? 
 
 But to begin well is not always to end well. 
 This period of rapturous acceptance of the great 
 truths of religion has been known to pass away 
 without producing the corresponding change in 
 the outer and inner life. This joyous clearness 
 in seeing for a time the beauty and preciousness 
 of the Eedeemer's life and teaching, remarkable 
 as it is, is not enough to produce the great miracle 
 of which we are speaking. It is, when it stops 
 here, a half work, an uncompleted thing. 
 
 The commands of our Lord Jesus should be 
 as dear to the Christian as His promises, and as 
 affectionately responded to for His sake. That 
 is a safe form of rapturous devotion to the great 
 Elder Brother which gratefully welcomes every 
 opportunity to do in His name the unwelcome 
 duty, or forego the favorite sin. That is a sure 
 
ASCENDED. 221 
 
 work of the Holy Ghost which opens the eyes to 
 the deceitfulness of the human heart, as well as 
 to the "glory of the King in His beauty." That 
 is a true conversion which prompts to penitence 
 and purity as well as to psalms of praise. 
 
 For the golden fields of the harvest we must 
 have the God-given seed, the heaven-sent rain 
 and sud shine; but we must have also the timely 
 work of the sower, the patient toil of the husband- 
 man, and the glad garnering of the faithful 
 reaper. So is it in the kingdom of grace. God 
 gives freely and abundantly, but on His own 
 conditions. 
 
 There are persons who perhaps honestly pray 
 for the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, 
 and then go their way to their pleasures and 
 their cares, their absorbing pursuits or their 
 morbidly nurtured sorrows, as if they themselves 
 had nothing further to do with the matter. 
 
 The Spirit will take of the things of Christ 
 and show them to us, but we must look to be 
 healed. We must day by day take time to dwell 
 on the life and character, the words and the 
 works, of our Lord, and try to become so impressed 
 by their preciousness and importance to us that 
 in our leisure moments our thoughts turn as 
 naturally to such meditations as do the child's 
 to his play, or the mother's to her little ones. 
 
 The closet and the sanctuary, the Word and 
 
222 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 the sacraments, the book of nature and the voice 
 of friendly counsel, honest labor and well-earned 
 rest, prosperity and adversity, joy and sorrow, 
 family affection and social intercourse, the wise 
 book or the lone meditation, the poor and the 
 penitent, the sunshine and the shadows of life, 
 may be so blessed to the seeker of sanctiflcation 
 as to become to him channels of divine grace. 
 
 He who folds his hands and sits statue-like to 
 be made a saint, may be a cold image of a Chris- 
 tian, but never a living likeness of the living 
 Lord. We must seek God if we would find Him; 
 and He is ever found of them who truly seek 
 Him. 
 
 The disciples waited at Jerusalem in prayer 
 and supplication after the glorious parting at 
 Olivet. When, on the day of Pentecost, they 
 were filled with a strange power, above and be- 
 yond their own personality, how joyous must have 
 been their conviction that the Lord, who is the 
 Truth as well as the Life, had remembered His 
 promise, and sent to them the Comforter to bide 
 with them always ! What an encouragement 
 they now had to ask all things in His name, who 
 could so redeem His pledge ! Now they were 
 freshly linked to the Friend who seemed to have 
 passed from them to a far, foreign land. He had 
 sent them a token of His continual remembrance 
 of their needs. They were in touch with Him 
 
ASCENDED. 223 
 
 once more. Not once alone was this blessing 
 given. It was henceforward to be a means of 
 perpetual intercourse with the Lord of their 
 future home, and a wonderful power to prepare 
 them for its endless joys. 
 
 What that glorious gift was to the first disci- 
 ples it may be to us. It is for us the same en- 
 couragement to prayer that it was to them, — 
 even that the faithful Lord is ever true to His 
 word. We may not expect to work their miracles, 
 or to speak with tongues as they did, but there 
 are wonders to be worked in us in the sanctifi- 
 cation of heart and life. Who is it among us 
 who is really trying to order thought, word, and 
 deed after the perfect law, who does not find 
 here a work too great for human power? Here 
 the divine aid must be granted, or we cannot come 
 off conquerors. The "unruly member" must be 
 robbed of its deadly poison, and taught to speak 
 the loving language of "the kingdom." The 
 heart-springs must be cleansed by the living 
 water. These great miracles are the work of 
 the Holy Spirit, for which we must persistently 
 pray. We must pray for the spirit of sanctifica- 
 tion; but while we pray we must watch and 
 work. Living the life of love, prayer, and 
 watchfulness, we shall persevere unto the end. 
 
III. 
 
 UNION. 
 
 That they may he one ; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I 
 in Thee, that they may he one in us. — John xvii. 21. 
 
 OUE, Elder Brother, in His teaching, now 
 lifted up the poor things of earth to be the 
 symbols of things heavenly, and now solemn 
 mysteries from above were allowed to be examples 
 for our humble imitation in our simple, every- 
 day life. The household objects about us in our 
 homes were thus taught a speech by which to re- 
 mind us of holy counsel and a heavenly dwelling- 
 place. Great truths, too deep for our full com- 
 prehension, were made to be to us in our earthly 
 walk a source of guidance and consolation. 
 
 There is, there must be, much in the Bible 
 that exceeds our poor comprehension; but our 
 Saviour has illustrated and simplified much that 
 it is difficult for us to grasp. We might not 
 have dared to compare the divine unity with our 
 poor fellowships here below. Our Lord, who 
 so well knew the oneness of the God of Love, 
 
ASCENDED. 225 
 
 has set it before us as an example. He prayed 
 for all who should believe in His name "that 
 they may be one as we are one." 
 
 God has given us the family as a perpetual 
 embodiment of the truth that love is the one 
 principle of real unity in the midst of diversity. 
 It has been said that for the exercise of the 
 highest affection there should be love between 
 two, and a mutually shared affection for a third 
 object or some great outside interest. This is 
 specially exemplified by the structure of the 
 family. The husband and wife, dear to each 
 other, have a common devotion to their little 
 ones. Brothers and sisters have their reciprocal 
 affection and their filial love. Yet how often 
 the seeds of discord spring into rank, unwhole- 
 some growth in the very bosom of the family. 
 Where there should be oneness there may be 
 envy and jealousy, contention and alienation. 
 
 Selfishness may prompt husband or wife to be 
 dissatisfied with the way influence or rule is 
 shared between the heads of the family. The 
 shy husband ma} r even feel himself cast into the 
 shadow by the brilliant conversational powers of 
 the wife. Even a loving wife may sometimes 
 find herself almost crushed by the force and wis- 
 dom and attainments of the husband. She may 
 be depressed and extinguished in the presence 
 of him whom she so cordially admires. 
 
 15 
 
226 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 Self dies hard in human nature. The once 
 strong-minded father may think it trying to see 
 in his declining years that it is his brilliant son 
 who now draws around him the eager, listening 
 circle, while the remarks of the old man are 
 hardly heard at all, or little regarded. The 
 mother may be wounded as she sees time after 
 time the love of her early friends grow cold 
 towards her, while it has taken new life towards 
 her winning daughter. 
 
 Envy, jealousy, and selfishness cause these 
 painful feelings, which are not the less sinful 
 and destructive of inner peace because they are 
 hidden from human eyes, in the depths of the 
 turbulent heart. 
 
 Among brothers and sisters the struggle for 
 pre-eminence, or the contests about mine and 
 thine, may creep in, even to make the nursery a 
 scene of quarrels, — the promise of the lifelong 
 bickerings and small rivalries that take the 
 place of true brotherly affection. 
 
 Mutual love makes a family a blessed unity. 
 Without love a family is only an aggregate of 
 uncongenial items. 
 
 Our Lord prays for His followers, "That they 
 may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in 
 Thee, that they also may be one in us, that the 
 world may know that Thou hast sent Me." To 
 reach this loving unity must be the aim of the 
 Church Catholic ! 
 
ASCENDED, 227 
 
 When one throb of love for our Elder Brother 
 and for all His true followers passes round the 
 world as the electric current speeds from land 
 to land, then will all the nations begin to 
 be indeed of the kindgom of our Lord and His 
 Christ. 
 
 We can each do something to bring about that 
 happy day, by suppressing in ourselves party 
 prejudice, and using our influence against the 
 animosity of a contentious spirit of division. 
 We can join hand in hand with all them who 
 love the Lord Jesus in sincerity and truth, and 
 give them a brotherly greeting. We can own the 
 likeness of the Master wherever we see it. We 
 can acknowledge a fellow-disciple who does not 
 use the same attitude in prayer that we do, or 
 sing the same sacred songs, or have the name of 
 the same country or the same man as the label of 
 the Church to which he belongs. 
 
 Let us "love as brethren, be pitiful, be cour- 
 teous;" and true Christian sympathy will in- 
 crease by exercise, and win responsive warmth. 
 So shall we grow in likeness to the God of Love, 
 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 
 
IV. 
 
 DYING EYES. 
 
 n 
 
 Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Ma 
 standing at the right hand of God. — Acts vii. 56. 
 
 WHEN our friends pass away to the Better 
 Country, we have heard their last words, 
 we have seen their dear faces for the last time 
 on earth. Not so was it with the departure of 
 our Elder Brother from the scene of His great 
 work here below. 
 
 As we know something of our Lord's life and 
 His high and solemn purpose before He was 
 the Babe of Bethlehem, so we are also permitted 
 to have tidings from Him after He was received 
 up into heaven. We have the evidence as well 
 as the assurance that He is " the same yesterday, 
 to-day, and forever." 
 
 To see Jesus in His glory was, as far as we 
 know, first granted to faithful Stephen, in the 
 midst of his martyrdom. " He, being full of the 
 Holy Ghost, looked up into heaven and saw the 
 glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand 
 
ASCENDED. 229 
 
 of God." What wonder that after such a revela- 
 tion he was so lifted above mortal pain and fear 
 that in the midst of the fast-falling stones he 
 "fell asleep" ! 
 
 Stephen really saw his Master and spoke to 
 Him when he said, "Lord Jesus, receive my 
 spirit. . . . Lord, lay not this sin to their charge I" 
 Faith had been changed to sight while he was 
 yet in the body. Who can tell how many of the 
 persecutors of Stephen went home believers in 
 the Jesus to whom the martyr had so evidently 
 spoken, and who had given him power to pass 
 peacefully through a cruel death ! 
 
 Since the time of Stephen, many true Chris- 
 tians seem to have had their eyes opened to see 
 in the dying hour something of the glory await- 
 ing them beyond the dark river. Who has not 
 had, among his circle of friends, devout believers 
 who have been permitted to see in their last 
 moments Him who had long been their dearest 
 companion? Others have murmured of visions 
 of angels, others of the well-beloved face of a 
 sainted mother or a departed friend, welcoming 
 them to the Heavenly Home. Dying eyes have 
 been filled with rapture, the lips could not speak, 
 and the still, cold face was stamped with the im- 
 press left by the joy and peace of a glad foretaste 
 of heaven in the moment of departure. This is 
 sight, not merely faith. 
 
230 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 That no such revelation lias been granted to 
 this or that dying Christian must not be taken 
 as an evidence against the reality of his spirit- 
 ual life. God deals out His special blessings in 
 the kingdom of grace, as in the providential 
 world, as seemeth to Him best. He has His 
 great purposes for us and the souls about us, in 
 the way in which He leads us even to the gates 
 of heaven. 
 
 To one He gives the angels' sight in the 
 dying hour. Another, beyond the dark tomb, 
 may have the tender welcome, "Blessed are they 
 who have not seen, and yet have believed ! " 
 How many faint-hearted Christians, discouraged 
 and despairing under mere ordinary worries and 
 disappointments, pant for the martyr's sight, 
 while all unprepared to show the martyr's cou- 
 rage in the time of trial. They want to grasp 
 the crown, but will not bear the cross! 
 
 Work, not rapture, is the usual portion of the 
 believer's commonplace path. Patient continu- 
 ance in well-doing, with persistent penitence and 
 prayer, bring quiet joy and peace. Love to our 
 fellow-men lifts us slowly up to God. They 
 who have humbly looked down to find some 
 lowly work for Christ will surely one day look 
 up to heaven to see Him, "not through a glass, 
 darkly, but face to face." 
 
A VOICE FBOM HEAVEN". 
 
 Much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from 
 Him that speaketh from heaven. — Heb. xii. 25. 
 
 \ POSTLES in the midst of the trials of their 
 XjL ministry were privileged to hear again and 
 again the voice they best loved, and to have 
 words of cheer from the ascended Lord. He 
 spoke not only for them, but for us also. The 
 express command concerning the revelation made 
 to the honored John at Patmos was, " What thou 
 seest, write in a book." Of those who should 
 receive this precious testimony it is plainly said, 
 "Blessed is he that readeth ! " It is even 
 written, " It is I, Jesus, who have sent mine angel 
 to testify these things to you in the churches." 
 
 How worthy of our affectionate, careful study 
 are all the known words spoken from heaven 
 by our ascended, glorified Elder Brother ! How 
 solemn for us is the warning, "Much more shall 
 not we escape, if we turn away from Him that 
 speaketh from heaven i " 
 
232 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 And how tender and loving are many of these 
 our Lord's utterances from the throne to His 
 struggling foster-brethren below! 
 
 "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." Our 
 Eoyal Brother is with us in heart, yet "without," 
 beyond the sorrows and sufferings of this lower 
 world, outside of our sphere of vision, too often 
 far from our thoughts, hidden from our souls in 
 our utter absorption in the cares and follies of 
 this visible world. Our Lord, our Master, is 
 knocking at our lowly door. He comes from His 
 throne of glory to our poor hearts, and bids us let 
 Him in. He comes out as our Judge and King. 
 In the simple, familiar words of earthly friend- 
 ship, He pleads to come in and sup with us. He 
 will lay aside His royal dignity, and be to us as 
 our nearest and dearest on earth, with whom we 
 share our daily food, and the sweet intercourse 
 of family life. So our Lord speaks to us, His 
 poor unworthy brethren. 
 
 And how is it with us? We would have Him 
 far away in His glory, to be prayed to at stated 
 times, to be worshipped in the hallowed sanctu- 
 ary, to be met occasionally at His Holy Table, 
 after a solemn time of repentance and sacred 
 preparation. 
 
 Not so alone our Master would meet with us. 
 He would come to us in our ordinary daily life, 
 to sanctify all we do or think or say, — to make 
 
ASCENDED. 233 
 
 holy our simplest joys and interests. He would 
 be with us at table, " about our bed," walk with 
 us by the way, join us with our guests, take us 
 by the hand on the couch of sickness and in the 
 dying hour. 
 
 Shall we let Him knock in vain? Shall we 
 close to His tender appeal the hearts we have 
 given to Him? Shall we answer to His friendly 
 knock, " Not now, Lord ! In heaven we shall be 
 ever with Thee. Here we must lead our work- 
 a-day life, apart from Thy holy presence"? 
 
 Nay! Let the Lord purify our walk and con- 
 versation. Let them be what He hath cleansed, 
 and so " not common or unclean." 
 
 Let us open our hearts and our homes, that 
 our Lord may be always with us, that He may 
 dwell with us, going no more out, and consecrat- 
 ing all we do and are, until we go in with Him 
 to His Upper Kingdom! 
 
 For our guidance on the way let us cherish 
 every word of our Saviour, whether spoken in 
 His mysterious union with the Father, before 
 He was the Son of Mary, or during His earthly 
 ministry, or when in the "voice like many 
 waters," from His abundant glory, He warned 
 and counselled and comforted with unfailing 
 tenderness the faltering, wandering children of 
 men! 
 
VI. 
 PERSECUTION. 
 
 / am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. — Acts ix. 5. 
 
 TT strikes us with wonder that our Lord could 
 ■*■ say, even when He was in human form, of 
 all ministry to suffering man, " Inasmuch as ye 
 have done it unto one of the least of these My 
 brethren, ye have done it unto Me." It is even 
 more difficult to grasp the great fact that in the 
 midst of the joys at the right hand of God the 
 ascended Lord could so feel Himself one with 
 His humble followers that He could make to the 
 affrighted Paul the declaration, "I am Jesus, 
 whom thou persecutest." 
 
 What had the wrongs of those lowly men and 
 women in that little spot of earth to do with the 
 "Only Begotten Son, full of grace and truth,'' in 
 the glory of His Father's presence? 
 
 Our Lord in His great compassion has chosen 
 to link Himself, the Head with the body, even 
 the Church of faithful believers. Ascended into 
 
ASCENDED. 235 
 
 heaven, it had not pleased Him to sever that 
 connection. He could feel the sufferings of His 
 humblest members, and count their persecution 
 as directed against Himself. Our sense of our 
 unworthiness to be brought into this sacred rela- 
 tion with our Great Redeemer fosters a kind of 
 unbelief in this most consoling of realities. As 
 the soul resides in the body and permeates and 
 influences its every part, so, it is revealed to us, 
 our Master dwells, after His wonderful fashion, 
 in the hearts of His true servants one and all. 
 "Know ye not that Christ dwelleth in you, ex- 
 cept ye be reprobates?" — "I in them, and they 
 in Me." 
 
 Let us welcome with deep adoration this great 
 mystery, in which the Lord makes us, His poor 
 human children, His temple, consecrated to His 
 use. And let us not stupidly and self -righteously 
 assume that we individually alone are to have 
 this privilege, or that it is limited to the small 
 body of Christians to which we ourselves belong. 
 Let us respect the humblest and most faltering 
 of the servants of Christ as a part of His body, 
 — a trifling part, a diseased part possibly; yet a 
 part to be healed and exalted and made useful 
 through the indwelling power of God. 
 
 Let us not set ourselves on a pinnacle, as so 
 perfect in the interpretation of the Word that 
 we may cast out in scorn the self-denying fol- 
 
236 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 lowers of Christ who may differ from us in 
 some minor point of doctrine, at best but dimly 
 revealed, lest we hear the voice of the Master 
 saying, "I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest 
 in the form of My blinded and devoted disciple." 
 
 We are not to suppose that in the early days 
 of the Church, when converts were suddenly 
 made by thousands, they were all deeply versed 
 in the subtle truths of the new religion. In- 
 deed, we know through the inspired Epistles 
 that many of those first Christians were in dark- 
 ness as to what we might now consider cardinal 
 points of belief and practice. Yet they had a 
 devotedness that risked all for the cause of 
 Christ. They would rather die than deny their 
 Master, and He was so one with them that He 
 reckoned their persecution as persecution of 
 Himself. 
 
 If our Lord so unites Himself with the whole 
 Church, how specially He must consider Him- 
 self represented by the appointed ambassadors 
 who preach and minister in His name. An am- 
 bassador at an earthly court must be honored, 
 because he represents his ^ sovereign and his 
 people. He may be awkward and uncouth, and 
 personally unworthy, but he must receive a 
 certain amount of outward respect, as he stands, 
 not for himself, but for the power from which he 
 is accredited. To his own master he is respon- 
 
ASCENDED. 237 
 
 sible for what lie is, and for his fitness for the 
 office he holds. 
 
 An indulged, unfounded dislike for this or 
 that clergyman, for what he is privately and 
 personally, a light criticism of his manners and 
 peculiarities, an assumption of superiority in 
 speaking of him, as if he were responsible to 
 the critic for his amount of gifts and graces, 
 may seem trifling offences; yet by disrespect to 
 a clergyman, an undeserved reproach cast on his 
 person and name, his influence may be slowly 
 undermined, and his office brought into con- 
 tempt. The Lord, identifying Himself with 
 His servant and ambassador, may whisper 
 reproachfully to the self-satisfied fault-finder 
 and scandal-monger, "I am Jesus, whom thou 
 persecutest." 
 
 It is a serious matter, that touches the honor 
 of the King of kings. Let those who know 
 certainly of real wrong-doings by such authorized 
 messengers of the Gospel be ready to suffer 
 themselves for the purifying of the Church. Let 
 them be willing to testify openly against such 
 offenders before the proper authorities, and so 
 have them lawfully deposed. This is a far 
 better way to show zeal for truth and right- 
 eousness than by casting slurs upon the whole 
 clerical body, or privately denouncing this or 
 that clergyman as unfit to minister at the altar. 
 
238 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 What a solemn responsibility rests on the 
 clergy, who so particularly and officially repre- 
 sent the Heavenly King ! How pure they should 
 be in life and conversation, how above all re- 
 proach ! How sound they should be in doctrine ! 
 How diligent they should be in their high call- 
 ing! How they should shine with the bright- 
 ness of them who are much " on the Mount " in 
 sweet, loving communion with the Great Head 
 of the Church ! 
 
 It is not alone private Christians and cler- 
 gymen who are honored images and substitutes 
 of the King of kings. We have His messengers 
 in the nursery and the hovel, in the hospital, and 
 even sometimes in the prison. If we withhold 
 rights from the lowly, freedom to worship from 
 the devout, and help from the needy, to us comes. 
 the voice of reproof, "I am Jesus, whom thou 
 persecutest." 
 
 David could cherish the lame Mephibosheth, 
 and welcome the unfortunate cripple to the royal 
 table, for the sake of the princely friend of his 
 humble youth. Is there no sufferer you can 
 succor for the sake of a higher Prince, who has 
 given you a share in His birthright, and an 
 inheritance with Him in His kingdom? 
 
 Observing children might tell of flattering 
 guests who have praised and caressed them in 
 the presence of their parents, but, meeting them 
 
ASCENDED. 239 
 
 in other society, have shown a profound indiffer- 
 ence to their merits and attractions. How do 
 we meet the despised, the distressed of this 
 world, when forgetful that the eye of the Great 
 Friend of all is upon us? 
 
 Let us beware lest we, now heartlessly in- 
 different to the sufferings of our brethren, should 
 hear, at the last solemn Day of Retribution, the 
 voice of the Judge Himself pronouncing our 
 doom in the words, "I am Jesus, whom thou 
 hast persecuted! " 
 
VII. 
 PENITENTS. 
 
 / am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee : 
 for I have much people in this city, — Acts xviii. 10. 
 
 THE gold ring and the goodly apparel are 
 always in the Father's house for the re- 
 turning penitent. The Lord Jesus has His own 
 special mercies for those who have wandered 
 into a far country. In their deep sense of their 
 own sinfulness they need an unusual assurance 
 that their souls, too, can be "washed and made 
 white in the blood of the Lamb." 
 
 To see the ascended Lord, to be spoken to by 
 Him again and again, were Paul's seal, not only 
 of the authority of his apostleship, but of his 
 own free and full forgiveness. As such, he ac- 
 cepts them humbly and gratefully, never forget- 
 ting to think of himself as the "chief of sinners." 
 
 Paul, who knew the converting power of God 
 in the experience of his own strong manhood, 
 
ASCENDED. 241 
 
 had hope for all to whom he could preach the 
 Gospel. To Festus and Agrippa, to jailers and 
 prisoners, to idolaters and pharisees, he could 
 tell the story of the cross, believing it possible 
 that the miracle that had been wrought in him 
 could be repeated in the souls of his hearers. 
 He was a living witness of the truth and power 
 of the Gospel which he preached. 
 
 To speak fearlessly to the Jews and Gentiles 
 in idolatrous Corinth he had a double encourage- 
 ment. In a vision of the night, the voice of the 
 Lord had said to him, "Be not afraid, but speak 
 and hold not thy peace ; for I am with thee, and 
 no man shall set on thee to hurt thee, for I have 
 much people in this city." 
 
 In the wonderful list which Paul has given of 
 the afflictions and dangers and sufferings through 
 which he had passed, we have a clear evidence 
 that his Master did not mean that he should 
 be spared pain or peril or difficulty in his work 
 as an apostle. He was but to be strengthened 
 by the thought that it was not in the power of 
 infuriated man to injure one to whom the Lord 
 had said, "I have chosen thee," "I am with 
 thee." 
 
 Evil men may assail the Christian. They may 
 defame or belie him, degrade him in the eyes 
 of whole communities, but they cannot hurt him 
 if his name is written in heaven. He is safe in 
 
 16 
 
242 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 the midst of the wildest storms, for Jesus is 
 with him in the ship. 
 
 How little could Paul imagine that the Lord 
 had much people in corrupt and heathen Cor- 
 inth, — that the Good Shepherd was seeking 
 those wandering sheep in that worse than 
 wilderness. 
 
 Discouragements await the active Christian, 
 wherever he may have his field of labor. He 
 must be often tempted to withdraw his hand 
 from his work, in helpless despair. Let such 
 workers ever remember our Lord's loving ex- 
 pression of ownership in the future Christians 
 of Corinth. 
 
 Perhaps we see only dead souls and obstinate 
 offenders where the Lord sees His own people 
 who are to come out from their sins and be 
 "sons and daughters to the Lord Almighty." 
 
 There will be joy in heaven if you can win 
 one wanderer from the error of his ways, or help 
 one puzzled, stumbling pilgrim on the narrow 
 upward path. You may work and pray, and 
 believe that the Lord will bless all that you 
 undertake in His cause. You may have an abun- 
 dant harvest where all has seemed barrenness 
 and blight. 
 
 Labor in the loving spirit of your Master, not 
 as if you were on one side and the wrong-doers 
 on the other, opposed and inimical. You are 
 
ASCENDED. 243 
 
 working for your brethren, — love and seek them 
 as brethren. Look for the lost sheep with the 
 mind of the Good Shepherd. Remember that it 
 is only through the abounding grace from on 
 high that you yourself have been brought home 
 to "the Shepherd and Bishop of your soul." 
 
VIII. 
 
 GENTILES. 
 
 Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles. 
 Acts xxii. 21. 
 
 THE Jews are not the only nation who have 
 looked upon all of a different race as fit 
 for scoffing and reproach. It is not alone the 
 Chinese who regard all other peoples as mere 
 outside barbarians. We are all tainted with the 
 same exclusiveness. 
 
 I Extravagant claims to superiority, which a man 
 would shrink from putting forward for himself 
 individually, he does not hesitate loudly to vin- 
 dicate for the nation of which he is a citizen. 
 
 In some quarters the unchristianized world is 
 so thoroughly despised that the missionary to 
 distant idolaters is looked upon as a mistaken 
 fanatic or a drivelling weakling. 
 
 "Why not look after the heathen in our 
 midst?" say these objectors, with no little show 
 of truth. Yes ! Why not look after the heathen 
 
ASCENDED. 245 
 
 in our midst? Let that be done thoroughly and 
 faithfully. At the same time let not the com- 
 mand be neglected which bids us " teach all 
 nations " the way of life. 
 
 It is a singular fact that the objectors to 
 foreign missions are rarely themselves active in 
 bearing the Gospel to the heathen at their doors. 
 Most commonly they comfortably sit inactive in 
 their own pleasant homes, perhaps within gun- 
 shot of the homes of poverty and sin. Some of 
 the most devoted foreign missionaries have been 
 first zealous workers among the poor and wicked 
 at home. These devout men and women, moved 
 with pity for "the nations that know not God," 
 have left all to enlighten the dark places of 
 the earth. May God bless these noble pioneers, 
 and wake up the dwellers at ease to something 
 of their zeal in the good cause at home or 
 abroad ! 
 
 For special work among the Gentiles our Lord 
 was pleased to choose one of the most gifted, 
 instructed, and devoted of His followers, and 
 even to single him out for peculiar honor. Again 
 and again the ascended Lord Himself spoke 
 words of encouragement to Paul, and indicated 
 and located his work. The persecuting Saul 
 was to become the persecuted Paul, the great 
 Apostle to the Gentiles. Let the Christian 
 mother never despair of seeing her wayward 
 
246 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 sons the children of God. The might of divine 
 grace is boundless. The power of prayer is 
 immeasurable. Hedley Vicars, recklessly plung- 
 ing into the wild career of a young soldier at a 
 foreign station, was to have in the future the 
 blessed work of leading as a Christian officer 
 his fellows and his subordinates, not only in the 
 front of battle, but to the better victory over the 
 world, the flesh, and the devil. 
 
 A long line of mothers, before and after the 
 untiring Monica, could point to their noble sons 
 and say, " Behold the results of earnest, faith- 
 ful prayer ! " Such wandering sons, once turned 
 towards the upward path, are sure to be eager 
 workers for the good of their fellow-men. They 
 may have neither the power of Paul nor of 
 Apollos, but God will appoint them a field of 
 labor, and bless their every honest effort to win 
 others from what they know to be the way of 
 danger and death. 
 
 There is one whole class of men who have a 
 world-wide mission. They are at one time in 
 so-called Christian ports ; at another in the lone 
 islands of the ocean; at another in the crowded 
 cities of the East. The seamen on merchant 
 vessels, in the whalers of the North, and in the 
 ships of proud navies, where do they not go? 
 What traces do they leave behind them in 
 the lands they visit? What picture of Chris- 
 
ASCENDED. 247 
 
 tian manhood do they paint for the peoples with 
 whom they have intercourse? 
 
 This is the era in the Church when lay workers 
 are brought to the front, to stand side by side 
 with the clergyman in the great struggle. In 
 ministering to the poor, in the cause of temper- 
 ance, and even in preaching the Word in cottage 
 and street and mine, and sometimes in the Sab- 
 bath assembly, the layman is actively at work. 
 Nor is he idle on the sea. There are pious sail- 
 ors who make their ships a Bethel, and who, free- 
 handed, bear the printed Bible and the instructive 
 book to the nations whose language they cannot 
 speak. The faces of such hardy sailors, telling 
 of body subject to spirit, and both gladly devoted 
 to the Lord, must mike an impression wherever 
 they are seen. Alas that there are so few such 
 workers among the men of the sea ! Let the 
 quiet dwellers on land do their part to increase 
 this missionary band. Let them provide more 
 Christian homes for Jack in their own great 
 cities, in which he can be protected from temp- 
 tation. Let such homes be ready for him in 
 foreign ports, where, in the warm gush of glad- 
 ness at being on shore again, he may have his 
 heart taught to lift itself in thankfulness to the 
 God who preserved him from the dangers of 
 the sea, and to devote himself henceforward to 
 the faithful service of the Captain of our Sal- 
 
248 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 vation. Let him there be reminded of his 
 mother's teaching and his mother's prayers. 
 Let good books be provided for the quiet mo- 
 ments of the sailor on board ship, books to keep 
 him from unprofitable talk and amusements, and 
 to give him a happy, instructive hour, and books, 
 above all, to lead him in the way of life. 
 
 Let the seaman be properly ministered to by 
 the landsman, and we shall have a band of self- 
 supporting missionaries who will bear the Gos- 
 pel to every shore, and show the unbeliever the 
 living Christian man. 
 
 Many stay-at-home Christians have awakened 
 to a sense of their duty towards the honest tars, 
 but more must be done. Let us each and all 
 have a part in truly Christianizing the men of 
 the sea, who ever on their watery path are going 
 "far hence to the Gentiles." 
 
IX. 
 
 CHEER. 
 
 Be of good cheer, Paul — Acts xxiii. 11. 
 He calleth his own sheep by name, — John x. 3. 
 
 HEDGED round by danger, how welcome it 
 must have been to the great apostle to 
 hear in the night the voice of his Master saying, 
 "Be of goodcheer, Paul ! " To be called by name 
 as brother speaks to brother ! 
 
 In the midst of sorrows, discouragements, and 
 temptations, let the child of God put his own 
 familiar name in the place of Paul's, and listen 
 to the Lord Jesus saying, "Be of good cheer, 
 
 !" What trial would seem unendurable 
 
 could you hear such a voice so speaking? Take 
 hold gladly of the idea that you are not simply 
 to the Lord as a stumbling follower, but as 
 yourself, in all your individuality. By name 
 you are known and loved by your Elder Brother 
 in heaven. 
 
 "God is no respecter of persons." From our 
 fellow-men we have titles of honor, or perhaps 
 
250 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 terms of contempt. From the palace to the 
 poorhouse, from the crowned monarch to the 
 crippled beggar, all are the same to the Lord, 
 sinful human beings in need of a Saviour and 
 Friend, He knows each of His wandering 
 children by name. 
 
 How pleasant it is to the aged Christian who 
 has seen his generation pass away, no one left 
 to call him by the name of his boyhood, to re- 
 member that he is the same to the Lord Jesus as 
 in his early days. His name is known in heaven, 
 and the Lord is ever at his side to whisper, "Be 
 of good cheer, — — ! " 
 
 And what was the consolation given to Paul to 
 encourage him to good cheer? His present dan- 
 ger was to pass by, but no flowery future was 
 promised him. He was to have the privilege of 
 witnessing for his Master at Eome, as he had 
 witnessed for Him at Jerusalem. More life, 
 more service, and more suffering were in store 
 for him, therefore must he be of good cheer. 
 
 How often it happens that in the midst of ac- 
 tive life, some faithful laborer is by the force of 
 circumstances suddenly removed from his field 
 of usefulness, and placed in a position where he 
 is more like a caged creature than a free man. 
 His natural powers seem deprived of their law- 
 ful action, his zeal but a burning pain within. 
 
 Let such a desponding soul hear the words, 
 
ASCENDED. 251 
 
 "Be of good cheer, ! for as thou hast testified 
 
 of Me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness*' 
 also at Kome ! " Patiently wait, and the time 
 of usefulness will come again. God has no un- 
 necessary tools in His workshop. They are all 
 to be employed when and where it seemeth Him 
 best. 
 
 " Be of good cheer ! " is the motto for the whole 
 Church, collectively as well as for each individ- 
 ual by name. Sin and unbelief may seem to 
 prosper and threaten to triumph, but the great 
 day must come when the Lord shall reign King 
 of Nations, as He is King of Saints ! 
 
 "Be of good cheer! " Pass it along the lines 
 of the laborers in the great vineyard, weary with 
 toil, and speaking drearily of the blighted har- 
 vest ! B/ing it out for the lone missionary in the 
 far foreign land! Whisper it to the humble 
 women ministering by sick-beds and in the 
 homes of want ! Say to them all, " Your labor is 
 accepted, and in due time you shall reap an abun- 
 dant blessing ! " 
 
 And you, ye followers of the Light of the 
 World, what brightness are you casting around 
 your earthly path? Do you so rejoice in the 
 Lord that you are sunshine in your home? Are 
 you sour or bitter or murmuring for the ears for 
 which you speak in your daily walk and conver- 
 sation? Are you cast down by trifles and dis- 
 
252 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 couraged by slight obstacles? Have you no 
 *hope or consolation but success in the undertak- 
 ings of the present hour? If this scheme or that 
 enterprise should fail, would your all be lost? 
 Have you no Heavenly Friend? Have you no 
 hope beyond this fleeting life? If you are de- 
 jected, momentarily wrecked by every chafing 
 disappointment, how are you different from a 
 heathen in the same case? Have you no stay 
 for small troubles as well as for great? Think 
 you are spoken to by name, and to you the ex- 
 hortation is, " Be of good cheer, ! " Be cheer- 
 ful in your daily life. Have the sunny face 
 and the glad heart that befit the child of God 
 journeying heavenward. 
 
 If the small cares and disappointments and 
 mortifications of your common life so destroy 
 your peace, can it be that your treasure is in 
 heaven? On what is your heart fixed, and what 
 is the source of your joy? 
 
 "Kejoice in the Lord, and again I say unto 
 you, rejoice ! " Wear a cheerful face, because 
 you have a happy heart, unmoved by the passing 
 cares and annoyances of earthly life. Be o£ 
 good cheer, and you will be a source of cheer. 
 Let your light so shine that you will lighten 
 your household and home with the brightness 
 reflected from the Sun of Righteousness ! 
 
X. 
 
 WEAKNESS. 
 
 My strength is made perfect in weakness. — 2 Cor. xii. 9. 
 
 " ]\ yf Y strength is made perfect in weakness. " 
 iV-L Another of the precious utterances of the 
 ascended Lord to the Apostle Paul, Paul's treas- 
 ure first, and then a rich inheritance for all 
 believers. 
 
 Weakness of body is generally considered a 
 condition cutting off truly the possibility of 
 lively pleasure, but happy in its freedom from 
 positive pain. This is in many cases a true de- 
 scription. There can, however, be weakness to 
 such an extent that soul and body seem to have 
 lost the powers of organized life. There is no 
 tension anywhere. All is relaxed. The mind is 
 incapable of consecutive thought. The body 
 shrinks from the slightest exertion. There is a 
 weariness, an exhaustion, that is positively and 
 painfully felt through the whole frame. An 
 overwhelming sense of helplessness fills the eyes 
 
254 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 with tears, and drops the jaw in a powerless- 
 ness that is almost imbecility. The slightest in- 
 terest in anything is so great an exertion that it 
 beads the forehead with a cold perspiration that 
 creeps like a chilly mist over the whole body and 
 wraps the sufferer round, perhaps when he is 
 alone in the dark night, with what seems like the 
 very atmosphere of the cold, damp grave. Even 
 at this climax there can come to the soul the 
 comforting thought of the sympathy of the cruci- 
 fied Saviour. Human friends may talk lightly 
 of this kind of suffering, or bid the patient be 
 thankful it is not actual pain. The stricken 
 invalid silently remembers Him whose sweat in 
 the solemn garden was as great drops of blood, 
 and who endured the long-drawn death of sacred 
 Calvary. Our Lord feels for the weak as well 
 as the tortured, and He can give a strength that 
 is made perfect in weakness, a victory over 
 nature that He best can understand. 
 
 The patient, loving smile of many a weak, 
 wasted sufferer has been registered in heaven as 
 a triumph as great as that which is courageously 
 won on a bloody battle-field or in some strong 
 man's struggle with a besetting sin. 
 
 There is, too, a spiritual weakness that is hard 
 to bear, humiliating as it is, when the victim 
 comes to a full consciousness of his condition. 
 He sees himself overcome by the slightest temp- 
 
ASCENDED. 255 
 
 tation, now tossed by doubt, now harassed by a 
 vacillating, unsteady purpose, — beginnings of 
 good ending in a return to old habits of evil, — 
 prayers begun in earnestness, but dispersed into 
 wandering, unconnected thoughts of pleasure or 
 care or sin. How many such a weak penitent 
 has cried out in despair, "Wretched man that 
 I am, who shall deliver me from the body of 
 this death?" Here, also, the strength of the 
 Lord may be made perfect in weakness. Let 
 such a one remember the words of the great 
 apostle, " When I am weak, then am I strong. " 
 Strong he was as the child is who lets himself 
 be tenderly led by a wise and loving hand. He 
 clasps that hand closely, takes one step at a 
 time, without anxiously looking forward, fear- 
 ing to fall. Conscious of weakness, the totter- 
 ing, unstable Christian leans on Him who is 
 mighty to save, leans trustfully, leans ever, goes 
 forward, and is safe ! 
 
 As it is with the weak Christian, so is it with 
 the weak invalid. The sufferer from debility 
 must cherish no fears for the future, must not 
 think even of the endurance of the next hour. 
 The present is sufficient. For the present, strength 
 will be given. The hand may hang down feebly, 
 the soul may seem unable to seek courage or 
 help, but " underneath are the Everlasting 
 Arms." He who is like the shepherd who 
 
256 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 u bears the lambs in his bosom and gently leads 
 them that are with young " can carry you home, 
 poor trembling one, unable even to lean on the 
 Strong Stay. He who could speak so graciously 
 to His ancient people, He who " bore and carried 
 them all the days of old," will gently support 
 you, as the eagle taketh her young on her wings 
 and soars with them from mountain-top to 
 mountain-top. "In quietness and confidence is 
 your strength!" Your strength will be made 
 perfect in weakness, and all the glory will be 
 to Him who has loved us and has given Himself 
 for us with an everlasting love. 
 
XI. 
 
 PEIESTS. 
 We have a Great High Priest. — Heb. iv. 14. 
 
 AMONG the strongest ties that bind man to 
 man is the bond that is knit between the 
 soul and its spiritual father, that other soul that 
 has led it go the cross, and is its guide towards 
 heaven. Here there is always the danger of the 
 blind devotion of the beginner in the Christian 
 life, who looks up to his experienced friend or 
 pastor as almost inspired, a saint upon earth, a 
 necessary medium between him and God. 
 
 Even apostles must exclaim, " We are men of 
 like passions as ye are! " in repelling the idola- 
 trous worship thrust upon them. 
 
 A perfect priesthood is what all who would be 
 themselves holy earnestly long for. God be 
 praised, there are in all the churches men so 
 sanctified that they are lifted as near heaven 
 as is possible for poor human nature here below. 
 We may love them and trust them and profit 
 
 17 
 
258 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 by their ministry, but we are not to set them on 
 a pinnacle to be adored, or imagine that this or 
 that man is necessary for our real growth in the 
 spiritual life. 
 
 Strange to say, this devotedness to the hand 
 that has led a man into the right path may de- 
 generate into a selfish appropriation of the wise 
 teacher. A lawful reverence and affection may 
 be blended with the low spirit of contention 
 between "mine" and "thine." "My pastor is 
 the best," is the declaration too often heard in 
 spirit, if not exactly so couched in words. All 
 other preachers and Christian teachers must be 
 depreciated, criticised, and, if possible, brought 
 to contempt, to exalt the one man who has had 
 the power to reach the soul of the speaker. 
 Away with this kind of monopolizing of one 
 noble instrument for good! 
 
 Devout clergymen suffer much from this blind 
 devotion and foolish adulation. They want no 
 flattering words after an earnest appeal, but the 
 fruit in human souls of humble penitence and 
 holy faith. 
 
 The priests of earth must have their own con- 
 flicts, but our High Priest, who stands ever in 
 the presence of God for us, is without sin. He 
 need offer no sacrifice for Himself. He is the 
 pure offering, sufficient for the sins of the whole 
 world. 
 
ASCENDED. 259 
 
 We can imagine the solemn hush among the 
 Jewish worshippers when once a year the high 
 priest entered alone into the holy of holies, 
 there to present the appointed sacrifice for his 
 own sins and the sins of his people, in the 
 presence of the Perfect and Almighty God. 
 In helpless unworthiness the penitents stood 
 without. So we stand here in our earthly lot. 
 We are not yet admitted to the glory above, but 
 there we have our Surety, our Representative, 
 our Intercessor, our Elder Brother, who "appear- 
 eth in the presence of God for us." Our poor 
 prayers are for His sake accepted. He is 
 touched with a feeling for our infirmities, for 
 He was tempted in all points like as we are, 
 yet without sin. He offers again His loving 
 prayer, the trustful wish of His divine yet 
 human heart, "Father, I will that they also 
 whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I 
 am." "Seeing, then, that we have a Great High 
 Priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the 
 Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. . . . 
 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne 
 of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find 
 grace to help in time of need." Let us re- 
 member the blessed words, "He is able also to 
 save them to the uttermost that come unto 
 God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make 
 intercession for them." 
 
260 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 Our High Priest shall come again to us from 
 the great holy of holies. Then will he seal the 
 full forgiveness He has even for us, with the 
 glad words, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, 
 inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the 
 foundation of the world ! " 
 
XII. 
 CHUKCHES AND CHURCH-MEMBERS. 
 
 /, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify unto you these 
 things in the churches, — Rev. xxii. 16. 
 
 THERE are many who propose to reform 
 churches. There are few who are in 
 earnest about reforming themselves. If you 
 find yourself in a church where you think de- 
 vout, consistent Christians are few, make it your 
 business soberly and solemnly to see to it that 
 you are, in thought, word, and deed, living up 
 to your own high standard of discipleship. 
 
 It may be that if you should go over to some 
 other branch of the Church Catholic, or some 
 other parish or congregation, you might find 
 that what you most needed was not a change in 
 church association, but the prayer of the con- 
 verted Indian, "Lord, save me from that bad 
 man, myself! " 
 
 Stay where you are if your objection to your 
 church be the low state of piety among its mem- 
 bers. If you think you have light, why not let 
 it shine in what you consider a dark place? Go 
 
262 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 forward yourself in the Christian life! Take 
 those around you by the hand, — your wife, your 
 children, your servants, your employees, your 
 friends, — and lead them, if you can, to a nobler, 
 more Christ-like walk and conversation! You 
 cannot, butterfiy-like, flit hither and thither 
 to enjoy your Christian course, your Christian 
 feelings. You are to do the most good you can 
 in your day and generation. Do you want to 
 move your little candle into what you consider 
 the full sunshine? Better that it should give light 
 to your own house, the "household of faith," 
 where the Providence of God has placed you. 
 
 A wise man has said, " The difficulties in this 
 world are not so much the faults of organizations 
 for high purposes, as in being able to find noble, 
 holy men to make up such organizations, and 
 wisely, fearlessly, and conscientiously to work 
 in them and through them.' 7 Churches are not 
 to be reformed wholesale. Changing people by 
 the mass is no easy matter. Thousands are not 
 converted in one day in our time. The true 
 Christian advance is made by the slow, sure 
 method of individual consecration to a life of 
 holiness, and a faithful, consistent continuance 
 in love to God and man, and humble obedience 
 to law, human and divine. 
 
 Some complainers like to lay on the clergy the 
 blame of the shortcomings of Christian churches. 
 
ASCENDED. 263 
 
 A devout people will not long endure a clergy 
 worldly or wicked. The clergy are, as it were, 
 the blossom, the fruit of the plant, its ultimate 
 result. As is the root, so will be the flower. 
 As is the Church at large, so will the clergy be. 
 Let the private Christians see to themselves that 
 they are walking in the way of life, and there 
 will grow up from among them, even at their 
 own hearthstones, men who will preach with 
 power, and live the holy life which becometh 
 them who minister at the altar. 
 
 For individual self-examination and individ- 
 ual reformation there is no better guide for lay- 
 man or priest than the searching words of the 
 Master as He addressed the Seven Churches of 
 Asia. The ascended Lord had spoken to dis- 
 ciples and apostles singly and severally, and 
 now He comes with counsel and correction for 
 the churches at large, for all time, collectively 
 and separately. 
 
 " He that hath an ear, let him hear what the 
 Spirit saith unto the churches." This solemn 
 trumpet giveth no uncertain sound. It is " On- 
 ward, Christian soldier," through and through. 
 
 The message to the churches is for each indi- 
 vidual member. The body is but an association 
 of parts imbued with one life. So was it of old 
 in Smyrna and Pergamos, in Sardis, in Phila- 
 delphia, in Thyatira, in Ephesus, in Laodicea. 
 
264 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 That same message is addressed to us now. 
 Somewhere in its warnings, as in its encour- 
 agements, there is a whisper to the soul of each 
 one of us personally, and to the church of which 
 we are a part. May God give us the grace to 
 understand and to take home the needed lesson, 
 to oar instruction and growth in the religious 
 life ! Let us listen with the willing ear and the 
 bowed head and the humble, penitent cry, "Lord, 
 is it I?" even though at a Judas may be pointed 
 the reproachful finger of the Kedeemer. 
 
 And what has our Lord to say to us? Is there 
 a Christian, filled with devout love and earnest 
 zeal in the early days of his consecration, who 
 has lost his first joy and devotedness amid the 
 pleasures and cares and fond affections of this 
 lower world? For him is the word, "Remember 
 therefore from whence thou art fallen, and re- 
 pent, and do the first works ; or else I will come 
 unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candle- 
 stick out of his place." What might sudden 
 death be to the dull and darkened believer? If 
 such wandering children really repent, even to 
 them is promised that they shall "eat of the tree 
 of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of 
 God." 
 
 Is there a Christian whose works praise him 
 who has passed through tribulation? Let him 
 not boast himself as if his victory were already 
 
ASCENDED. 265 
 
 won. There may be more trouble in store for 
 him. He must be faithful unto death, and then 
 he will receive a "crown of life," — a life that 
 knows no "second death." 
 
 Is there a Christian living in the midst of 
 them who love not God, who has yet kept the 
 faith, and so fancies himself perfectly pure in 
 doctrine and life? The Lord has "a few things " 
 against him. He too must search his heart and 
 repent, if he will not have the Lord "fight 
 against him with the sword of his mouth." If 
 he overcome, there are for him precious blessings, 
 no promises that will gratify his pride or raise 
 him publicly above his fellows, but a "new 
 name,'- 1 secretly given, that shall speak the ap- 
 proval of his Lord. " Let him that thinketh he 
 standeth take heed lest he fall ! " 
 
 Even the Christian to whom the Lord might 
 say, " I know thy works and charity and service 
 and faith and thy patience and thy works," may 
 have a "few things" against him, hidden things 
 known only to "the Son of God, who hath His eyes 
 like unto a flame of fire." Faults, sins, tempta- 
 tions, that lurk deep down in the heart, must 
 be burned out, given up in humble repentance. 
 The good already done must not be relied on. 
 There must be a continuance in well-doing, and 
 the remembrance of the warning, "Hold fast 
 till I come!" 
 
266 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 Is there a Christian who has " a name to live 
 and is dead," if he be not awakened by the voice 
 of his Master? His "works are not perfect be- 
 fore God." The little good that is in him is 
 ready to die. There may be one who has a name 
 to live on earth as a Christian, and yet he is 
 already blotted out of the Book of Life ! Re- 
 member, thou who art fair without and foul 
 within, "how thou hast received and heard, and 
 hold fast and repent. If therefore thou shalt 
 not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and 
 thou shalt not know what hour I will come 
 upon thee." 
 
 Is there a Christian who " has a little strength " ? 
 He knows his weakness, however he may win the 
 praise of men, and even the approval of his Lord. 
 Be encouraged, faltering, trembling disciple. Here 
 it is feebleness and stumbling, inward fears and 
 outward falls. Above, thou shalt be "a pillar in 
 the temple of thy God," something stable, fast, 
 and sure. Thou shalt "go no more out." Thou 
 shalt be marked with the name of thy God, as 
 a sheep is marked with the name of his master. 
 Thou wilt be at home in the New Jerusalem, 
 safely folded at last! 
 
 Is there a so-called Christian who has no sus- 
 picion that all is not right with him, whose boast 
 is, "I am rich, I lack nothing," while he is "poor 
 and blind and naked "? Baptized into the Church 
 
ASCENDED. 267 
 
 of Christ, trained in sound doctrine and dogma, 
 admitted to the sacred Supper of the Lord, he 
 fancies his path the straightest road to heaven. 
 He is yet a miserable outcast, a prodigal in his 
 clays of revelling. Happy if he awake to know 
 that he is blind and hungry and naked, and to 
 turn towards the home of the Merciful Father. 
 The door is not yet closed. The door is never 
 closed to the true penitent. From the depths of 
 His love the Lord will say to this self-satisfied 
 disciple, " I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried 
 in the fire, that thou mayest be rich ; and white 
 raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that 
 the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and 
 anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou 
 mayest see." It is the echo of the old appeal, 
 "Why will ye die, ye house of Israel?" The 
 Lord in His love may rebuke thee with sorrow 
 and chasten thee with sore disappointment. 
 He may awake thee with bitter pains, or show 
 thee the face of sudden death, to rouse thee 
 to a knowledge of thy condition. Once knowing 
 thy poverty, thy shame, once repentant and 
 humbled, the Lord will receive thee to be His 
 fore verm ore. 
 
 To "overcome," — that is the exhortation that 
 rings out again and again from the " voice like . 
 many waters." It is only to "him that over- 
 cometh," not to him that goes bravely at first 
 
268 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 into the battle, that rich rewards are promised. 
 Finally, the pledge is given, "To him that over- 
 cometh will I grant to sit with Me in my throne, 
 even as I also overcame, and am set down with 
 My Father in His throne." 
 
 Our merciful Elder Brother knows the diffi- 
 culties and dangers of the way. He has tried 
 our human life. He knows what it costs to 
 overcome. He longs to say to us all, "Come, ye 
 blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom pre- 
 pared for you before the foundation of the 
 word ! " 
 
 Lord, make us ready for Thy coming ! Wash 
 us from our sins ! Sanctify us by Thy grace \ 
 Clothe us with the white garments of Thy right- 
 eousness ! Eeceive us into Thine Everlasting 
 Kingdom ! 
 
Coming 3tgaitn 
 
 I. A Glad Welcome. 
 II. The Judge. 
 
Coming %ain, 
 
 i. 
 
 A GLAD WELCOME. 
 
 Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints. 
 
 JlJDE 14. 
 
 "XT 7*HAT affectionate father, returning suddenly 
 V V after a long absence, would like to have his 
 children, instead of rejoicing at the sound of his 
 footsteps, shrink away in terror, remembering 
 their own wrong-doings, and fearing his pitiless 
 wrath? Yet this is the spirit in which many 
 believers honestly think of the coming of our 
 Lord Jesus in the clouds of heaven. They fancy 
 that humility is the ground of all their fears. 
 Is it not rather their habitual unbelief in the 
 willingness of God to forgive freely, and to grant 
 abundantly the grace that shall transform the 
 true follower into the likeness of his Master? 
 
 This timid, affrighted spirit was not inculcated 
 by the Lord when on earth, nor afterwards by 
 His disciples. The servants and friends of the 
 
272 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 Bridegroom were to watch truly, and never relax 
 in their faithful preparations for His coming, 
 but they were to account that coming a cause 
 of rejoicing. They were eagerly to meet Him, 
 and comfort one another in tribulation with the 
 promise of His glad appearing. 
 
 That great Advent, though described in words 
 of majesty, is yet to be in the familiar beauty of 
 the clouds of heaven, that can even now glow at 
 the sunset hour with a transcendent richness of 
 coloring and a mysterious, wonderful light that 
 might well surround the triumphant return of our 
 Lord and King. 
 
 He who gave us the blessing of family affec- 
 tion, the dear ties of friendship, and an enthusi- 
 asm for the great and good of bygone times, has 
 not left out this human element in the joy of 
 His coming. He is not to be alone, or only ac- 
 companied by those sinless, far-off beings, the 
 holy angels. Even from the time of "Enoch 
 the seventh from Adam," it was promised that 
 the Lord should come to judge the world, with 
 ten thousand of His saints about Him. 
 
 As in the pictures of some of the old painters 
 the Madonna and the Infant Jesus may be seen 
 looking out from a mist of sweet child-angels or 
 cherubs, so we can imagine our Lord at His 
 coming encompassed by the beautiful faces of 
 our human brethren, "the just made perfect," 
 
COMING AGAIN. 273 
 
 their features luminous with the sacred bright- 
 ness that may even now seem to transfigure the 
 countenances of devout souls after long and true 
 communion with God. Nor will those holy faces 
 all be new and strange to us. Our dead who 
 have passed from among us will be with the 
 Lord at His coming. Beaming from eyes accus- 
 tomed to see our Elder Brother and behold His 
 glory will be their old love for us, increased, 
 sanctified, perfected. Those eyes will be lit with 
 glad recognition and the blessed knowledge that 
 our trials and temptations are over, and we 
 too are to taste the full blessedness in the pres- 
 ence of the Divine Master. 
 
 We sometimes shrink under the nervous fear 
 of physical death, the wrenching asunder of 
 body and soul, and the entering into a new state 
 of existence. The valley of the shadow may 
 perhaps be made dark to us by the thought of 
 the friends we must leave to mourn and struggle, 
 it may be, unprotected and unprovided for, when 
 we are summoned to glory. We may have great 
 plans for good, unrealized or uncompleted, that 
 we feel it would be hard to leave begun and 
 never finished. These misgivings must not be 
 cherished. Our end may be the end and solemn 
 closing of this earthly drama. We may have 
 no death in store for us, no separation from loved 
 ones, no career of usefulness cut short. 
 
 18 
 
274 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 The time of the Lord's coining is the secret of 
 the Father. We may have no future beyond the 
 present hour. The sun, now high in the heavens, 
 may have no common setting; it may pale before 
 the brightness of the Sun of Eighteousness. 
 
 Let us be found faithful in the little duties 
 committed to our charge. Let us be among those 
 who "love the Lord's appearing." Let us so 
 live that from a joyful heart we may answer to 
 the great announcement, "Lo, I come!" "Even 
 so, come, Lord Jesus ! " 
 
II. 
 
 THE JUDGE. 
 
 The Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the 
 dead at His appearing. — 2 Timothy iv. 1 . 
 
 AMONG the untold secrets of sensitive child- 
 hood, hidden in the little quivering heart, 
 are those sudden wakings from sound sleep, in 
 the dead of night, with a strong conviction that 
 something terrible is happening. "Perhaps it 
 is the Judgment Day ! " whispers the accusing 
 conscience. Real sins and small peccadilloes, 
 in indiscriminate confusion, rise up before the 
 memory of the affrighted child, filling it with 
 a vague feeling of unutterable horror. The sub- 
 lime picture of the solemn throne and the un- 
 speakable glory of the Divine Presence flashes 
 on the mind. The child, in dread waiting, hides 
 its head till, strange to say, nature comes to its 
 aid with the same sweet sleep as before that 
 startled waking. The angels again watch over 
 the little culprit, who opens his eyes in the morn- 
 ing refreshed, and with only a dim remembrance 
 
276 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 of that wild, troubled hour, as of a passing 
 dream. 
 
 More terrible is the awakening which some- 
 times comes in maturer years, in a critical mo- 
 ment of utmost danger, or in the quiet sick-room, 
 when the possible peril of the patient is written 
 on the anxious faces round his bed. Here is 
 often the same bewilderment as in the case of 
 the child, — a sense of general sinfulness and cer- 
 tain doom, rather than penitence for particular 
 sins and a sincere prayer for pardon. There 
 may be a real call for mercy, and an honest 
 purpose to lead a new life in case of recov- 
 ery or escape from danger. More often it is a 
 spurious conversion, like that of the wicked 
 sailor who prays for help during his swift fall 
 from the rigging, but resumes his cursing and 
 his old life as soon as his feet firmly touch the 
 deck. 
 
 A sudden deathbed repentance is always pos- 
 sible. The recovery of such apparent converts 
 shows too often, however, that their temporary 
 religiosity has been but a self-seeking, a longing 
 for safety, with no horror of sin, and no true 
 acceptance of our Lord as Saviour and Example 
 and Purifier. 
 
 Doubtless, on the other side, there have been 
 many sufferers who in the retirement of a pro- 
 tracted illness have passed from death unto life, 
 
COMING AGAIN. 277 
 
 and yet, through the weakness of mind and body 
 consequent upon extreme prostration, have been 
 unable to breathe even to the fond friends beside 
 them a word of their new hope, or the separation 
 they believe to be so near. The patient knows 
 he could not bear a conversation that would 
 deeply move him. He undertakes it no more 
 than he does to get up and go about his room 
 as usual. A wistful eye, a meaning glance, or 
 a pressure of the hand may be all of which he 
 is capable, save the sweet patience and loving- 
 ness that spring from a heart renewed. Our 
 friends who have gone from us without a word 
 of a new hope or a new Master may have been 
 welcomed by rejoicing angels, and received to 
 the kingdom of the Father by the merciful Son, 
 who has seen their deep penitence and accepted 
 their helpless reliance on Him at the eleventh 
 hour. 
 
 What have old, experienced Christians to offer 
 at the great tribunal after their years of stum- 
 bling along the narrow path? What but the 
 "full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice" of the 
 Lamb once ottered for the sins of the world? 
 
 For that great day when the secrets of all 
 hearts shall be revealed, and the dead, small and 
 great, shall stand before God, He has reserved a 
 token of His infinite loving-kindness. One may 
 have been long in the Christian life before one 
 
278 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 fully grasps the precious truth, known theoreti- 
 cally from childhood, that it is by Christ Jesus 
 "that Man whom He has ordained," that God 
 will judge the world. He who was " tempted in 
 all points like as we are, " He who has been child 
 and youth and man, He who has had bitter ene- 
 mies and faithless friends, He who washed the 
 feet of His unstable disciples, — He, our Elder 
 Brother, is to judge the poor children of earth, 
 for whom He was willing to leave His Father's 
 Home of glory and suffer a malefactor's death ! 
 
 He who has heard our first faltering prayer 
 to be led in the right way, He who has known 
 our sins and our repentance, He who has accepted 
 our poor offering of ourselves and all we are, 
 and has been pleased to acknowledge us as His 
 own, He who has companied with us all the days 
 of our pilgrimage, He on whom we have leaned 
 in sorrow and sickness and approaching death, — 
 will not desert us when we stand before the great 
 white throne, awaiting our final sentence. Be- 
 cause we are His, we shall share His home, and 
 to His great name be the glory ! 
 
 And what revelation have we of the test of 
 discipleship in that awful hour? We hear of no 
 questionings as to devout frames and glowing 
 feelings, no mention but as warning, of having 
 prophesied in His name. 
 
 What, then, is the test? 
 
COMING AGAIN. 279 
 
 Christ has left on earth His types, His substi- 
 tutes, His ambassadors, — the poor, the stranger, 
 the widow, and the fatherless, — the helpless and 
 distressed of the human race. What is written? 
 " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the 
 least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto 
 Me!" 
 
 Searching, solemn, condemning words ! Lord, 
 "deal not with us according to our sins, neither 
 reward us according to our iniquities ! " Give 
 us all grace to love as brethren, and share with 
 glad, grateful hearts the blessings Thou in mercy 
 hast given us ! Make us so to trust and follow 
 Thee that we may dare to meet Thee, our Re- 
 deemer, as our Judge and King ! 
 
I. Eest. 
 II. The Bride. 
 III. The Holy City. 
 
I. 
 
 BEST. 
 
 And so shall we be ever with the Lord. — 1 Thess. iv. 17. 
 
 TO be constantly in the society of the best be- 
 loved is for many human hearts the ideal 
 of joy. It is for this the bride is willing to 
 leave the sheltering arms of her mother, the 
 well-tried faithful care of her father, and all the 
 dear associations of her childhood's home. 
 
 And what; is the result for the newly married 
 pair? If their union has been founded on true, 
 affection, deep congenialitj^, and a common holy 
 end and aim, both may find a happiness beyond 
 what they ever dreamed of, — a happiness so pure 
 and deep that it is wonderful that it is left in 
 this poor world, for mere mortals to enjoy. 
 
 All this is true, but the expectation to be 
 always with the beloved object is in this case a 
 passing delusion. Time wears on, and the young 
 
284 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 husband, if lie be a man to do his work in his 
 day and generation, becomes involved in cares 
 and interests and efforts that must take him 
 during many hours of the day from the hearth- 
 stone. He returns, perhaps weary or perplexed 
 or pre-occupied, his wife not his one thought, 
 not even his time to be wholly offered to her, in 
 his so-called leisure hours. Nor is she always 
 ready for that endless tete-a-tete of her girlish 
 imagination. A mother's cares and privileges 
 have probably come upon her. Her little ones 
 claim her attention and ever-increasing interest. 
 They gather around her, each developing new 
 needs, according to its age, and requiring a 
 different training, adapted to its peculiar char- 
 acter and abilities. 
 
 The glad pair who started out to journey to- 
 gether hand-in-hand have found out that their 
 life is no lingering pleasure promenade. It is a 
 path thick-set with individual duties, where each 
 must walk faithfully, gratefully welcoming the 
 short time for mutual sympathy and converse 
 that may be left amid the thronging occupations 
 of every-day life. 
 
 There must come change and disappointment 
 and sorrow to the Christian home, yet there we 
 have the best idea and image of the eternal rest, 
 where love will be the foundation of joy, and the 
 presence of the Great Friend our highest bliss, 
 
IN GLORY. 285 
 
 and the glad fulfilment of His commands our 
 ceaseless employment. 
 
 "There remaineth a rest for the people of 
 God," but we are not to suppose it to be a state 
 of self-indulgence and inactivity. " The Father 
 worketh hitherto/' and the angels are minister- 
 ing spirits. Occupation will, no doubt, be pro- 
 vided for us, adapted to our new sphere and our 
 new powers. With the universe at command, 
 there will be no lack of space or opportunity for 
 noble exertion. 
 
 Beauty and joy in abundance will, no doubt, 
 be found in heaven. If here, in our poor school- 
 room, we have the surpassing charms of nature 
 in its manifold forms, above, where tasks have 
 become willing service and discipline reward, 
 what gladness there will be in obedience, what 
 joy in exploring the wonders of God's endless 
 creation ! 
 
 Even the Home, where power and holiness and 
 love are the essence of the Great Being who is 
 the centre of its exalted bliss, would lose much 
 of its blessedness if there we should be sub- 
 ject to change and uncertainty. How shadowed 
 would be the brightest joy if the soul in the 
 midst of its transports must echo its old cry in 
 its sorrows, "How long, Lord? How long?" 
 The fixedness of our heavenly state, to be "ever 
 with the Lord," is the great element of eternal 
 
286 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 rest. The very thought brings a sweet restful? 
 ness to our weary souls, here " tossed on life's 
 tempestuous ocean." Let us take this great 
 promise for our comfort amid the accepted dis- 
 appointments and instabilities of our earthly 
 home. Our longing shall at last be satisfied. 
 We shall be ever with the Lord. 
 
 Let us see to it that we have characters, tastes, 
 and affections modelled after our Elder Brother, 
 who has gone before us and opened the way to 
 the Heavenly Mansions. 
 
 A stranger cannot come home to the Father's 
 house. It is only His child who can know that 
 joy. Let us not be distant, suspicious strangers 
 towards our loving Lord, but here obedient, 
 trustful children; and then none of us will come 
 short of entering into the rest that remaineth for 
 the people of God. 
 
II. 
 
 THE BRIDE. 
 
 The marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has 
 made herself ready. — Rev. xix. 7. 
 
 NO royal bridegroom who makes his wife a 
 queen bestows on her as great an honor as 
 that which she shares with the humblest maid 
 who takes the marriage vows. Our Lord has set 
 the human bride as a type of the invisible 
 Church, the redeemed souls who are to be His 
 in His eternal home. 
 
 He has chosen them, and they have given their 
 free consent to be His, and His alone. 
 
 What a whisper this is for the earthly bride 
 on her marriage morning ! She is to be an image 
 of the sanctified Church of God, to be one day 
 presented to the Lord " without spot or wrinkle 
 or any such thing." Wha/fc a motive for one who 
 is leaving her girlhood behind her, to leave with 
 it her old faults, her old sins, and to begin her 
 new life in charity and faith, in childlike reli- 
 ance on God alone, determined to be in the 
 
288 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 coming relation holier and therefore happier 
 than ever before. 
 
 The humblest bride comes not to the altar in 
 the every-day dress of this working world. 
 Adorned as befits the occasion, she is given to 
 her husband not even in the garments that have 
 served for this feast or that merry-making. 
 There must be the freshness as of a new creation 
 about her. She is leaving her past behind her. 
 All things for her are to be new. In how many 
 lands she wears the modest veil that sets her 
 apart ! She is already not her own, not belong- 
 ing in the same sense as before to her family 
 and friends and the outer world. She is to be 
 given to him whose name she is to bear, and 
 whose home is to be henceforward hers. 
 
 And the Bride, the Church of Christ? Because 
 she is loved, because she has been bought at the 
 price of the Bridegroom's humiliations and suf- 
 ferings, and is confident of her welcome to His 
 Home, is she in a kind of slipshod indifference 
 to await in her earth-stained garments the com- 
 ing of the Lord? Is she to look forward to the 
 sound of the solemn trump with a kind of self- 
 sufficient composure, as if it were an every-day 
 affair? Not so do we learn from the Scriptures. 
 It is written, "The marriage of the Lamb has 
 come, and His wife has made herself ready." 
 
 There is a presumption that speaks of the 
 
IN GLORY. 289 
 
 abounding love of Christ and His free forgive- 
 ness, as if we might continue in sin because 
 grace has so abounded. Knowing that we have 
 nought to fear, we must still have a horror of 
 sin, a tender sensitiveness that there may be no 
 taint on our bridal garment, itself the gift of the 
 Lord. 
 
 19 
 
III. 
 
 THE HOLY CITY. 
 
 The Holy City, New Jerusalem. — Rev. xxi. 22. 
 
 T^HE Bible is full of surprises for us. It 
 does not seem strange that the story of 
 man, like the history of civilization, should 
 begin in the open air, with human beings sur- 
 rounded by fruitful trees, and in free companion- 
 ship with nature in all its forms. That the story 
 of man should end, like the history of civilization, 
 in the magnificent city, is indeed a surprise. 
 
 Cities, as we know them, do not seem to give 
 us an image of the Home of the Blessed. Yet 
 in the promise of the Holy City, New Jerusalem, 
 we have forced upon us one of the great lessons 
 of Christianity. The true religion is not a re- 
 ligion of selfishness and solitude, but of love and 
 sympathy and companionship. How can we de- 
 scribe outward beauty to the blind? How can 
 we make the deaf understand the loving, touch- 
 ing cadences of the human voice, or the delight 
 that gladdens the ear awake to music? What can 
 we, mortals of clay, know of the glories of heaven, 
 
IN GLORY. 291 
 
 or the joys of that holy place? Little indeed! 
 It is only by its being likened to things with 
 which we are familiar that we can catch a 
 glimpse of its glory and purity. 
 
 In the city we have the highest forms of de- 
 velopment to which man can attain in works of 
 beauty and splendor from the skilful hand or the 
 thinking mind; yet it has its horrible taint of 
 sin, — sin in its most rank and vigorous growth. 
 
 In the Holy City there will be nothing that 
 defileth, no dark and gloomy shadow. In the 
 midst of its dazzling magnificence there will 
 appear in its bright streets no long funeral train, 
 with its solemn hearse and mocking pageantry. 
 No mourners, no tears, no secret anguish will be 
 there. There will be no care-wrinkled, sin- 
 marked faces in the glad throngs of the golden 
 streets. No one there will pine for dear ones 
 across the wide ocean, for in the Holy City there 
 will be "no more sea" to divide true hearts. 
 There will be no crime there, no night when 
 deeds are done that would shun detection and 
 shame. 
 
 The great evil of the earthly city that flour- 
 ishes even in the daylight, will not enter the 
 pearly gates. He that "loveth and maketh a 
 lie " dare not venture within the jewelled walls 
 of the New Jerusalem. 
 
 The lie acted and spoken, that drags down the 
 
292 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 soul of the man of business, will not be there. 
 The social lie, that speaks fair words, when the 
 heart is full of bitterness, or that flatters and 
 cringes to win the favor of those who have long 
 purses or sit in high places, will not be there. The 
 beggar's lie will not be there, to harden the heart 
 of speaker and hearer. The religious lie will not 
 be there. No one will solemnly promise in that 
 Holy of Holies to keep the law of God and walk 
 in purity and truth, and then turn thoughtlessly 
 again to his old ways of folly or sin. No one 
 will sit down to the supper of the Lamb, and rise 
 up to profane His holy name. There will not be 
 the acted lie of the worshippers who seem to 
 pray and praise, while their thoughts are on 
 pleasure or business or anxious care. No one 
 there will be outwardly proper and seemly and 
 righteous, with a foul and evil heart within. 
 
 Away with the lie here, if we would live here- 
 after in the glad presence of the God of Truth ! 
 
 It is not alone in negatives that the Holy City 
 is described. We have its walls flashing with 
 jewels, its gates of pearls, its golden streets, its 
 river that makes a garden in its midst, where 
 trees with healing leaves bear perpetually their 
 fruit in the glad light that knows no shadow. 
 
 All that we can imagine of outward beauty will 
 be there. " Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, 
 neither hath it entered into the heart of man to 
 
IN GLORY. 293 
 
 conceive the things which God hath prepared for 
 them that love Him." 
 
 This world with its worldliness will have 
 passed away. The covetousness that is idolatry 
 will find no place in the Holy City. The gar- 
 ments given by the Lord our Eighteousness 
 will be signs of purity, not of pride. "They 
 that overcome shall walk with Him in white." 
 
 The Lord God and the Lamb will be that City's 
 light. There will be nothing to hide there. 
 Accepted in the Elder Brother, the saints shall 
 see the face of God, and not shrink from the 
 All-seeing Eye, but rejoice in the light of His 
 countenance. 
 
 All happiness that is innocent will be there, all 
 that is ennobling, exalting, all that is holy and pure. 
 
 " The nations shall bring their glory and honor 
 into it. 3STot that the torn standards captured in 
 war, and the records of bloody victories, will be 
 offered to God. The men who have really been 
 an honor to their native land and its true glory, 
 will be there. What converse there will be with 
 the great and good of all time ! God's best 
 works, noble souls ! " 
 
 What worship there will be there ! Here, 
 where we are but creatures of a day, some of us 
 have heard in the great gatherings of Christians 
 from the wide world, in the grandest of its cities, 
 prayer and praise go up at once from thousands 
 
294 OUR ELDER BROTHER. 
 
 of adoring worshippers, from every clime, an# 
 can dimly, very dimly, imagine something of the 
 chorus of holy halleluias in heaven ! 
 
 There will be music there. God, who gave the 
 human voice its sweet modulations, and formed 
 the subtle laws of sounds that can be grouped to 
 harmony and melody, will have music around 
 His throne, music among the rejoicing saints and 
 angels. 
 
 There will be love in the Holy City. Earth's 
 best joy will be there, exalted, purified, made 
 holy and eternal. 
 
 There we shall be with the Elder Brother, in 
 His glory, as He was with us in His humiliation. 
 There He who hath loved us, will love us unto 
 the end. There we poor orphans of earth will 
 find our Father, and be welcomed to His Home. 
 There we shall be in the presence of our Al- 
 mighty King, the All-powerful, the All-wise, 
 whose name is Love. 
 
 What a city that will be, "whose Builder and 
 Maker is God " ! 
 
 " Here we have no continuing city. " Cities rise, 
 cities fall, and their inhabitants are as the dust of 
 the earth. The Holy City, New Jerusalem, is the 
 Eternal Home of the redeemed in Christ Jesus. 
 
INDEX ACCORDING TO TEXTS. 
 
 before tfje fflBorto TOag, 
 
 Self-Sacrifice. 
 
 Creation. 
 Steadfastness. 
 
 Humility and 
 
 Obedience. 
 
 41 The glory which I had with the Father 
 
 before the world was." 
 "All things were made by Him." 
 " The Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
 
 world." 
 
 ""My Father." 
 
 The Babe. 
 
 The Child Jesus. 
 
 Forms. 
 
 A Name. 
 
 A Wide Circle. 
 
 Boys. 
 
 a Gflttb. 
 
 " The Babe lying in a manger." 
 
 "Thy Holy Child Jesus." 
 
 "Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteous- 
 ness." 
 
 "Thou shalt call His name Jesus." 
 
 " We have seen His star in the East, and 
 are come to worship Him." 
 
 " And He went down with them and came to* 
 Nazareth, and was subject unto them." 
 
 iWmfetertng. 
 
 Temftation. " Himself having suffered, being tempted." 
 
 Babes in Christ. "And He called unto Him whom He would, 
 and they came unto Him." 
 
296 
 
 INDEX ACCORDING TO TEXTS. 
 
 Recreation. "And both Jesus was called and His dis- 
 
 ciples to the wedding." 
 Seekers. "Nicodemus, which at the first came to 
 
 Jesus by night." 
 Tired. "Jesus being wearied with His journey." 
 
 Relatives. "And when Jesus was come into Peter's 
 
 house, He saw his wife's mother laid, 
 
 and sick of a fever." 
 Faults. " Why are ye so fearful ? " 
 
 Mourners. "He had compassion on her." 
 
 bELF- Denial. " I will not send them away fasting, lest they 
 
 faint by the way." 
 Economy. " Gather up the fragments that remain, that 
 
 nothing may be lost." 
 Opposition. "Neither did His brethren believe on Him." 
 
 Deformity. "Master, who did sin, this man or his 
 
 parents, that he was born blind V " 
 Parents. " Lord, have mercy on my son! " 
 
 Seeming Death. "He is dead!" 
 The Nursery. "Whoso receiveth one such little child in 
 
 my name, receiveth me." 
 The Capital. "He beheld the city, and wept over it." 
 
 Workmen. "I have finished the work Thou gavest me 
 
 to do." 
 Constancy. "Having loved His own which were in the 
 
 world, He loved them unto the end. 
 Forgiveness. "Father, forgive them; the}' know not what 
 
 they do." 
 Trust. "Into Thy hands, I commend my spirit." 
 
 ffrurifirt. 
 
 " And sitting down, they watched Him there." 
 
 The Grave. "They have taken away my Lord, and I 
 
 know not where they have laid Him." 
 
 In Remembrance. "In remembrance of Me." 
 
 Vision. "Then were the disciples glad when they 
 
 saw the Lord." 
 
INDEX ACCORDING TO TEXTS. 
 By the Way. 
 
 297 
 
 "What manner of communications are these 
 that ye have one to another ? " 
 The Old Tes- 
 tament. " Then opened He their understanding, that 
 they might understand the Scriptures." 
 The Sheep. l< Feed my lambs! Feed my sheep ! " 
 
 Daily Bread. " Children, have ye any meat V " 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 A Miracle. 
 
 Union. 
 Dying Eyes. 
 
 "He lifted up His hands, and blessed them. 
 
 . . . While He blessed them, He was 
 
 parted from them, and carried up into 
 
 heaven V " 
 " When the Comforter is come, whom I will 
 
 send unto you from the Father." 
 " That they may be one." 
 "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the 
 
 Son of Man standing at the right hand 
 
 of God!" 
 
 A Voice from 
 
 Heaven. 
 
 Persecution. 
 
 Penitents. 
 
 Gentiles. 
 
 Cheer. 
 Weakness. 
 
 Priests. 
 Churches. 
 
 "Much more shall not we escape if we turn 
 
 away from Him that speaketh from 
 
 heaven." 
 "'I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest." 
 "I have much people in this city." 
 " Depart! for I will send thee far hence unto 
 
 the Gentiles." 
 " Be of good cheer, Paul ! " 
 " My strength is made perfect in weakness." 
 " We have a great High-Priest." 
 "I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify 
 
 unto you these things in the churches." 
 
 A Glad Wel- 
 come. 
 
 The Judge. 
 
 Coming Sgairt. 
 
 "Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thou- 
 sand of His sainV. " 
 
 " The Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the 
 quick and the dead at His appearing." 
 
298 
 
 INDEX ACCORDING TO TEXTS. 
 
 En ©Iorg. 
 
 Rest. " And so shall we be ever with the Lord." 
 
 The Bride. " The marriage of the Lamb has come, and 
 
 His wife has made herself ready." 
 The Holy City. "The Holy City, New Jerusalem." 
 
fdKi^ 
 
LIBRARY