^o^cP^ 
 
 v^l 
 
 BOOK 252.B391F v. 1 c. 1 
 BEPCHER # FORTY- SIX SERMONS 
 
 3 1153 DDDbbTD? D 
 
_F0RTY-S1X ^9.-^3 
 
 SERMONS 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY WARD BEECHER, 
 
 PLYMOUTH CHURCH, BROOKLYN. 
 
 Selected from Published and Unpiihlished Discourses, and Revised 
 by their Author. 
 
 i 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 LONDON: 
 R. D. DICKINSON, 89, FARRINGDON STREET, E.G. 
 
 1885. 
 
PRINTED BY R. FOLKARD AND SON, 
 
 22, DEVONSHIRE STREET, QUEEN SQUARE, DLOOMSEURY, 
 
 LONDON, W.C. 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE, 
 
 The friends of Mr. Beecher have long desired some 
 collection of his sermons, such as would present an 
 authoritative statement of the views which he has main- 
 tained, and the methods which he has employed for their 
 presentation. Yielding to this desire, often and urgently 
 repeated, Mr. Beecher has placed in my hands over five 
 hundred sermons, published and unpublished, from which, 
 after careful examination, and in constant consultation 
 with him and some personal friends to whom he referred 
 me, the sermons comprising this volume have been selected. 
 To take so little from so much that is every way worthy 
 of permanent preservation has been a task of rare difficulty. 
 If any reader, therefore, is inclined to complain of the 
 omission of special sermons which were deserving of in- 
 sertion, I shall heartily concur in his regrets. The limits 
 of space have compelled me to omit more that ought to 
 be preserved than it was possible to insert. 
 
 There is, perhaps, no man of ancient or modern times 
 whose preaching is so diverse in manner as that of Mr. 
 Beecher — a fact which partly accounts for his perpetual 
 freshness and his permanent success. The diversity of 
 method and unity of truth, which he combines in a rare 
 degree, I have endeavoured to illustrate in these volumes. 
 The reader will here find, therefore, not only a'presenta- 
 tion of his theological system, as in the sermon on The 
 Importance of Correct Belief, and his doctrinal views on 
 special subjects, as in the sermons on the Incarnation 
 and the Divinity of Christ, but also sermons addressed 
 to modern scepticism, as The Decadence of Christianity; 
 
IV. INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 sermons of practical ethics, as Love the Essence of ReH- 
 gion : of personal appeal, as What will you do with Christ ? 
 of description, as Spring-time in Nature and in Experience ; 
 of personal experience, as The Walk to Emmaus ; sermons 
 addressed to the Church and the clergy, as Fishers of 
 Men, and the two on "Jesus Christ and Him Crucified;" 
 and sermons that are poems in prose, as The Sepulchre in 
 the Garden. In short, the sermons have been selected in 
 the spirit in which they were preached, with reference not 
 so much to the demands of theological scholarship as to 
 the wants of the popular heart. 
 
 The w^hole selection has been made under the super- 
 vision of Mr. Beecher. Each sermon has been carefully 
 revised by him, and several have been re-written in whole 
 or in part. The collection may be accepted, therefore, as 
 an authoritative' presentation of his views and teachings, 
 so far as its compass permits, — the only one before the 
 public which really is so. 
 
 These pages "afford' no 'fitting place for an analysis or a 
 eulogy of Mr. Beecher, his tenets, or his pulpit methods- 
 But these discourses of his have been thus collected by 
 one who, personally grateful to him, under God, for much 
 in his own spiritual experience, believes that Mr. Beecher 
 needs no other defence from his assailants, no other com- 
 mendation to the sincere and unbiassed friends of Christian 
 truth, than a faithful portraiture of his customary teachings 
 for the past quarter of a century. 
 
 Lyman Abbott. 
 
 New England Church, 
 New York City, 
 
 January, 1868. 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 For nearly ten years past one or both of the sermons 
 deHvered every Sunday in Plymouth Church have been 
 published, week by week, in the religious and secular 
 newspapers, until now many hundreds have been given to 
 the pubhc. From this great number the Rev. Lyman 
 Abbott, at my request, and acting in connection with me, 
 has selected the sermons contained in this volume, and 
 undertaken the editorial care of them through the press. 
 
 Besides those which have already been printed, a number 
 have been taken down specially for this volume which have 
 not been printed before in any authorized manner. 
 
 These sermons were prepared, week by week, for the 
 wants of my congregation. They are, therefore, not only 
 in theory practical sermons, but they have been drafted 
 from the actual field of work. Had they been originally 
 prepared for the press, I know not what difference that 
 would have made in form and style. But, in fact, they 
 are so many arrows shot in the day of battle, and every 
 one of them with a real and definite aim. 
 
 I have never read one of my sermons after it was 
 printed, that I did not burn to reconstruct and improve 
 it. I have never attempted to re-write one of them, that 
 I did not find that it would lose in freedom and directness 
 more than it gained in Hterary excellence. In preparing 
 them for this volume, therefore, with one or two excep- 
 tions, I abandoned all idea of reconstruction, and have 
 removed only the more obvious faults where they did not 
 inhere in the very structure of the discourse, and have, in 
 the main, left them as they were originally delivered. 
 
VI. PREFACE. 
 
 It has been my habit to prepare the matter of my dis- 
 courses, to arrange carefully the plan in copious written 
 notes, but beyond that to rely wholly on the inspiration 
 of their delivery for their literary clothing and for moSt of 
 the illustrations. 
 
 In making a selection among so many, those discourses 
 have been chosen which would, as far as possible, give a 
 correct view of the range of subjects which I am accus- 
 tomed to employ in my ministry. An important exception 
 is made in regard to the application of Christian truth to 
 public questions of the day. These it has been thought 
 best to reserve, and, should they ever be republished, to 
 place them in a volume by themselves. 
 
 I am indebted for the reports of my sermons for many 
 years to the skill and fidelity of T. J. Ellinwood. 
 
 I have always been glad that I chose the ministry of 
 the gospel of Christ as the business of my life. My work 
 has been a joy to me all the way. I cannot conceive of 
 another profession in which the noble enjoyments are so 
 many and the drawbacks so few. If, when I am too old 
 to labour, these sermons shall still be read, it will complete 
 my satisfaction, and extend my joy and reward down to 
 the very end of my life. 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher. 
 
 Brooklyn, 
 
 January, 1868. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON PAGE 
 
 I.— Thirteen Years in the Gospel Ministry : a Sermon 
 
 OF Ministerial Experience (i Cor. ii. 2 — 5) . i 
 
 II.— The Love OF God (i John iv. 9— II) . . . .17 
 
 ni.— The Sepulchre in the Garden (John xix. 41, 42 ; 
 
 Matt, xxvii. 61) 31 
 
 IV.— The Divinity of Christ maintained in a Consider- 
 ation OF His Relations to the Soul of Man (Eph, 
 i. 15-23) 44 
 
 V, — The Gentleness of God (2 Cor. x. i) . . . .54 
 
 VI.— The Life of Christ :— Without (John i. 4, 5) . . 74 
 
 VII — The Life of Christ :— Within (John xii. 24, 25) . 90 
 
 VIII. — Crowned Suffering (Mark xv. 15-20) . . .104 
 
 IX. — The Lilies of the Field : a Study of Spring for 
 
 the Careworn (Matt. vi. 26, 28, 29) . . . .120 
 
 X.— The Hidden Manna and the White STONE(Rev,ii. 17) 134 
 
 XI. — The Storm AND ITS Lessons (Isa. Iv. 10, 11) . . 149 
 
 XII.— Faithfulness IN Little Things (Luke xvi. 10) . . 160 
 
 XIII.— The Blind restored to Sight (Mark x. 46—52) . .172 
 
 XIV.— Martha and Mary; or, Christian Workers and 
 
 Thinkers (Luke x. 38—42) 184 
 
Vlll. CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON I'AGE 
 
 XV.— Moth-eaten Garments (James v. 2) . . . . 194 
 
 XVI.— Spring-time IN Nature and in Experience (Solomon's 
 
 Song ii. II— 13) 204 
 
 XVir.— Three Eras in Life: God— Love— Grief ; as Exem- 
 plified IN the Experience of Jacob (Genesis xlviii. 
 
 1—7) 217 
 
 XVIIL— What will you do with Christ ? (Matt, xxvii. 22) . 233 
 
 XIX.— Life: its Shadows and its Substance (i Cor. vii. 
 
 29—32) 244 
 
 XX.— On the Decadence of Christianity (i Cor. i. 22—24) 261 
 
 XXI. — The Fatherhood of God (Romans viii. 14, 15) . . 280 
 
 XXIL— The Sympathy of Christ (Ileb. iv. 14—16) . . 294 
 
 XXIII.— Fishers of Men (Matt. iv. 18, 19) ^ . . . 312 
 
SERMONS 
 
 I. 
 
 THIRTEEN YEARS IN THE GOSPEL MINISTRY: 
 
 A SERMON OF MINISTERIAL EXPERIENCE.* 
 
 ^'For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, 
 and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and 
 in much trembhng. And my speech and my preaching was not with 
 enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit 
 and of power ; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, 
 but in the power of God." — i COR. ii. 2 — 5. 
 
 From this passage we are perpetually worried with false inter- 
 pretations of duty. A minister's business is said to be to 
 preach nothing but Christ ; that is, to preach upon no other 
 topic. But if we were looking for a text from which to advo- 
 cate a wider range of preaching, and one more in sympathy 
 with the every-day wants and experiences of men, we should 
 select this, in connection with the rest of the Epistle ; for 
 there seems to have been scarcely a subject in civil society, or 
 in social life, which had any direct or indirect influence upon 
 man, that is not handled in the Corinthian letters of the 
 apostle. 
 
 For in this passage the apostle discloses the nature of that 
 poiver by which he hoped to affect men in his journey to 
 Corinth ; not at all the topics which he meant to speak about. 
 The topics upon which he meant to speak were in the minds 
 and lives of men. The power which he meant to exert upon 
 men in the discussion of these topics was Christ — Christ 
 crucified — the life, and death, and teaching of Christ. No 
 matter what topic he spoke about, he intended to discuss it 
 from a heart perfectly inspired by Christ ; from the standpoint 
 of the truths revealed by Christ. He determined that every 
 topic which he touched upon should be Christianly discussed. 
 
 * Preached in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, Sunday evening, January 
 8th, i860, at the commencement of the thirteenth year of Mr. Beecher's 
 settlement over the Church as its Pastor. 
 
2 THIRTEEN YEARS IN THE 
 
 Corinth was a city, I need not say, that for splendour, 
 wealth, pleasure, intelligence, luxury, and the utmost license, 
 stood second to none in the age in which Paul lived. It was a 
 grand thoroughfare. It was the central point between Greece 
 and Asia on the east, and Rome, and Italy, and the whole 
 Western world in the other direction. Streams of men, actuated 
 by motives of pleasure, or business, or curiosity, were con- 
 stantly passing both ways, tarrying for a time at this central 
 point, which may therefore be said to have been cosmopolitan. 
 The entrance into Corinth of one more Jew, alone, without 
 any personal appearance of distinction; without any circum- 
 stances of attraction ; without heralds ; without the sympathy 
 of even his own countrymen— for he had receded from the 
 Jewish faith, or rather, had fulfilled it in Christ, and acceded 
 to it in his spiritual teaching ; wholly opposed to the reigning 
 religion of Corinth ; without wealth ; without any one element 
 of human power ; a poor foreigner, and a mechanic at that — 
 for he sustained himself by manufacturing tent-cloth and 
 fashioning tents; neither eloquent, nor, as we should judge 
 from many circumstances recited in his own epistles, even 
 fluent — the entrance of such a man into Corinth was seemingly 
 a matter of very little consequence. How insignificant that 
 history to this old magnificent city— the incoming of one small 
 man, dusty from travel on foot, putting up at the house of a 
 poor man, and beginning to teach doctrines entirely at variance 
 with all the religions of Jews and Gentiles ! And yet Paul's 
 entrance proved to be the most memorable event that ever 
 occurred in the history of Corinth ! 
 
 Entering thus, and proposing to himself the revolution of 
 Corinth, how should he produce any impression ? He must 
 neetis have thought of that as he neared the city. He doubt- 
 less said to himself, How shall I gain the ear and heart, how 
 shall I influence the lives of this great people ? Many ways, 
 it may be presumed, presented themselves to his mind. He 
 could not but have perceived— for he had already travelled in 
 Grecian cities— that there was an element of influence very 
 much in vogue, by which men gathered to themselves a great 
 train of followers, great personal influence, great wealth, and 
 great consideration. It was this element that he called " excel- 
 lency of speech"— the attractions and persuasions of an orator 
 who wins men's admiration by his exquisite periods and dainty 
 devices of language, who makes thought, and feeling, and 
 utterance but a varied strain of music. But such an influence 
 as this, although normal in certain relations, would not strike 
 
GOSPEL MINISTRY. j 
 
 deep enough to do the work which he desired to accomplish ; 
 for it was not admiration for himself, but character in his 
 hearers, that he sought. Eloquence had no power to produce 
 that. It might dazzle, it might for the moment excite and give 
 pleasure, but it would produce no lasting effect ; for mere 
 eloquence is like the light of shavings, which burn with a 
 sudden flash, blazing for an instant, and then going out, with- 
 out leaving either coals or heat behind. 
 
 There were thousands every day, in the various schools of 
 philosophy, who yielded themselves to the attractive displays of 
 the Sophists. The higher thinkers, such as Socrates and Plato, 
 and their schools, had died out, and there was a degenerate set 
 called Sophists, who had substituted ingenious casuistries and 
 fine word-reasoning for moral thinking. But, although these 
 philosophies had some power, and these teachers had in their 
 schools many disciples, and exercised a certain public influence, 
 they could not do what Paul desired to do — namely, reform the 
 life and save the souls of men. He alludes to them in the 
 most explicit terms in the first chapter of this epistle : " After 
 that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, 
 it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that 
 beheve. For the Jews require a sign " — the intervention of the 
 Divine power in such a way as to be manifest to the senses — 
 '* and the Greeks seek after wisdom" — philosophy. " But we 
 preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and 
 unto the Greeks foolishness ; but unto them which are called, 
 both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the 
 wisdom of God." 
 
 That was the thing that he was seeking — the salvation of 
 men; and he was asking himself: ''Where shall there be found 
 a power that is adequate to cope with men's dispositions ; that 
 shall reach down to the very centre of feeling ; that shall take 
 hold of men's wills ; that shall permanently change the currents 
 of men's feelings ; that shall be more to men than the sight of 
 their eyes or the solicitation of their senses ? Here are men 
 thralled in wealth, and perilled by ten thousand potent in- 
 fluences ; where shall I find a power that can be successfully 
 brought into antagonism with these things that are binding men 
 in the bundles of destruction ? " He declares that it shall be 
 found in Christ crucified, in Christ as the manifestation of God. 
 
 This, therefore, must be the source and secret of all power 
 for the regeneration of men as individuals, and of human 
 society. It is Christ faithfully preached and rightly understood 
 that has power to do for this world what it needs to have done, 
 
 B — 2 
 
4 THIRTEEN YEARS IN THE 
 
 I desire, then, to affirm this grand fact, that the truths re- 
 vealed in the life and teachings of Christ are of sovereign 
 power, and are the most influential upon the motives and the 
 conduct of human life. They go to the very root of moral con- 
 sciousness. They reveal human character by applying to it a 
 standard higher than any that was ever before applied to it. 
 They define and mark the nature of sin in human conduct. 
 They establish obligations upon immutable grounds, leaving 
 them not to the shifting ingenuity of human reason, but im- 
 posing them according to Divine principles. They reveal the 
 infinite reach of moral conduct and its eternal consequences. 
 Thus they reveal to man the nature of himself, the nature of 
 the government under which he lives, the nature of God, and 
 the nature of immortality. 
 
 These truths of Christ carry with them, in signal and eminent 
 degree, the Spirit of God, which gives them an energy and an 
 efficacy that does not belong to any ordinary and natural truths. 
 There is a power in all truth, because of the natural adaptation 
 between a thing believed and the faculty which receives it. 
 But the truths of Christ carry with them a special Divine illu- 
 mination and Divine power, which no other truths do. 
 
 The secret of all real advance in this world, since the days 
 of Christ, has been the truths of Christ preached in their sim- 
 plicity, and set home by the Spirit of God upon the conscience 
 and upon the heart. Organisations, and systems, and forms 
 of faith and modes of reasoning — these, and various other 
 collateral influences, have done something ; but, after all, the 
 real advance in this world during the last eighteen hundred 
 years has been wrought by the blessing of God's Spirit upon 
 the preaching of Christ, the manifestation of God, and the 
 Saviour of mankind. 
 
 Nor has the truth of Christ yet lost its power. The eternal 
 youth of God belongs to this most precious truth. It can 
 never grow old ; it can never grow feeble. And to-day, just as 
 much as at the Pentecost, it has a direct and efficacious relation 
 to the conscience, the character, and the life of man. To-day, 
 Christ, when faithfully preached, will be the wisdom of God 
 and the power of God, and will be for the salvation of every 
 man that believes. And to-day, after all the civilisation that 
 has issued from the bosom of Christianity, after all the advances 
 that have been made in social life and civil affairs, to-day, just 
 as much as when Christ came, men need a Saviour, an illumi- 
 nator, a guide, a God revealed and manifested in the flesh. 
 
 All mere efforts of religious worship, appealing to the 
 
GOSPEL ^IINISTRY. 5 
 
 sentiment of veneration; all mere philosophic teaching, appeal- 
 ing to the instructed reason ; all mere philanthropism, however 
 good, if it has no other strength than that of the natural senti- 
 ment of benevolence ; all mere justice, however excellent, if it 
 stands only in human ideas, will be found to grow dull and to 
 wane in force. They never can carry that electric, enthusiastic 
 impulse which is necessary to the propagation and permanence 
 of any influence in the community and the world. Nothing, 
 indeed, will endure, nothing will have endless power equal to 
 the emergencies of human life, but that which brings the very 
 God before the soul, and sets it home with the power of God 
 upon the understanding, and the conscience, and the heart of 
 men. 
 
 And the pulpit in our day will be powerful in the degree in 
 which Christ is the power of its ministrations. There is no 
 power to arouse men, no power to instruct them, no power to 
 correct their lives, no power to sanctify their hearts, in any 
 eminent degree, except the power that is in Christ Jesus. In- 
 stead of losing confidence in Christ as the wisdom of God and 
 the power of God for salvation, by the side of pretentious 
 systems and revelations, the more I look into these new dis- 
 coveries the more do I feel the indispensable need there is of 
 this wisdom and power for human society and for individuals. 
 As much as ever it is needed to inspire men to lives of 
 heroism ; to console them under their troubles and afflictions ; 
 to give them strength to carry their burdens ; to give them 
 power, in the midst of all the complications of human life — 
 right and wrong, good and evil, expectations and disappoint- 
 ments, hopes and fears — to lift themselves up superior to their 
 circumstances, so that they will be neither puffed up by pros- 
 perity nor cast down by adversity, and so that they will be 
 content with either extreme. I know of no other influence 
 that can do this beside the living truth of the living Christ, the 
 Redeemer of men from their sins. 
 
 I am now labouring among you, my dear people, in the 
 thirteenth year of my ministry. I have endeavoured to make 
 Christ both the theme and the secret of power in my preaching 
 to you. And I desire to-night, with your permission, to speak 
 somewhat of myself and my own preaching. It would seem 
 proper, at the beginning of another year, that one should make 
 a declaration of faith. If there is any time when one may 
 be indulged, without an imputation of vanity, in speaking_ of 
 himself, it is when a pastor, for purposes of future co-operation 
 and good understanding among the people of his charge, tellSj 
 
6 THIRTEEN YEARS IN THE 
 
 as Paul told in writing to the Corinthians, what have been the 
 secret thoughts that have animated his procedure among them. 
 
 Let me say, then, that I have looked upon men as, invariably 
 and without any exception, so spiritually dead, so sinful and 
 carnal, as to need a change of heart wrought by Divine power. 
 I believe that men universally, just as much where the gospel 
 is preached as where it never has been heard, are in a state 
 which, if they are not redeemed from it by God's Spirit, will be 
 fatal to them. I believe there is a character to be built up by 
 the truths of Christ, and by the influence of God's Spirit, in 
 men. The conversion of men from their sins, and their edifi- 
 cation in the Christian life, therefore, I have proposed to 
 myself as the very aim of my ministry. To that I have given 
 the burden of my life among you. Although, that I might not 
 weary you with endless repetitions, that I might draw the 
 attention of the young, that I might adapt my teaching to the 
 ever-varying disposition of this great congregation, I have sought 
 to come at these substantial things from many different sides — 
 from the side of fact, of sympathy, of reason, of imagination — 
 yet the target at which I have aimed has been the redemption 
 of men from their sins, and their salvation through faith in 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 Now there is more in this than the mere general statement. 
 When I say that I have proposed to myself the salvation of 
 men, I mean that I have had — as I do still have — a living and 
 distinct thought, in my preaching, of men, not merely in masses, 
 but as individuals. There is a remote way of affecting men. A 
 minister may say, *' I propose to preach a system of theology, 
 which, although no one sermon may seem to have any parti- 
 cular relation to any one, and although I may think of no one 
 while speaking, will influence men little by little, and so do 
 them good." I hope such preaching will do those good who 
 sit under it. And some good may result from that remote way 
 of presenting the truth ; but it is a way which has not been 
 consistent with my ideas of preaching, and which I have not 
 therefore adopted. I have felt as though preaching was a direct 
 work, bringing living thought and soul immediately in con- 
 nection with men's thoughts and souls. 
 
 My aim among you, then, has been to preach directly to 
 men, rousing them to a sense of their sinful state, and bringing 
 them into Christian dispositions. And to this end it has been 
 a part of my purpose to study you, as well as my Pnble ; to 
 make myself accjuainted with your wants, your habits, your 
 occupations, and your feelings ; to bring myself into commerce 
 
GOSPEL MINISTRY. 7 
 
 with human nature, and into sympathy with every possible 
 phase of men's lives, that I might understand you, and know 
 how to preach a truth that would reach the case of every 
 individual. I have sought, as far as I knew how, to go 
 around and touch human nature on every single side, and 
 always with one object in view, namely, the redemption of 
 men and their justification before God. 
 
 I have attempted to gain this by the presentation of Christ 
 in all His Hfe and all His teachings. I have sought first — I 
 would that I had met with better success — to be myself under 
 the full power of Christ, that I might speak with the unction 
 that belongs to experience. Brethren, I count this the weakest 
 place in my ministry. I should have been a better minister if 
 I had been a better man. I have never attempted to preach 
 God that I have not felt the leanness of my own soul. I have 
 never attempted to set before you the glory of Christ that I 
 have not felt how little of Christ there was in me ; for no man 
 can preach any more of Christ than he has in him. And there 
 has been my conscious weakness. I have felt that I was not 
 enough like my Master to preach Him successfully. But I 
 can say, that I never attempted to preach anything which I did 
 not believe as I do my own existence. I have most scrupu- 
 lously let alone everything that did not seem to me to be true. 
 I have never sought to mislead you in any degree, that I might 
 stand well with my own brethren. I have sought you, and the 
 glory of God in you, by the most faithful teaching of Christ 
 that I knew how to utter. And I have sought to have the 
 spirit of Christ as a preparation for this work. 
 
 I have set this end before me with a determination to use 
 any and all proper means that experience has shown would 
 affect the human soul, and with a determination to reject, at 
 all hazards, whatever things seemed to me to stand in the way 
 of man's good. I have studiously avoided entering into any 
 such affiliations with ecclesiastical organisations as should make 
 me a preacher in sympathy with them rather than in sympathy 
 with you, I have zealously watched the things which threatened 
 to take away from me the power of Christ as my instrument, 
 and the salvation of men as my end, in the ministry. 
 
 It has pleased God to give us many powerful revivals of 
 religion, and hundreds have been converted, and the Word of 
 God in your midst has been a living Word. Blessed be His 
 name, the Spirit of God has not forsaken the old appointed 
 channels, and the truth of God as in Christ Jesus has been in 
 your midst. What a work has the power of God wrought 
 
8 THIRTEEN YEARS IN THE 
 
 among you ! How many that now would have been dead, and 
 going down to perdition, have been saved by the truth of 
 Christ I How many that, blindfold, were getting further and 
 further into the mazes of infidelity, have been brought in faith 
 to the Lord Jesus Christ ! Oh that I could read the histories 
 which I see, and express the thoughts of my soul, as I stand 
 looking, sometimes, in those moments of inspiration that God 
 gives men, when they see all things at a glance ! There is 
 here a history. How voluminous it is, running back through 
 many years ! Before me lies a mighty volume, every page of 
 which is covered with strange histories. I look into this Book 
 of living salvation, and see what the Gospel has been to you 
 through the instrumentality of my ministry in your midst. But 
 you are not all. We have great singings in heaven. And if 
 God needs angels to convert you, and minister to you, to make 
 you heirs of salvation, they that have gone up are enough, 
 methinks, to take care of you. We have our double in heaven, 
 each one of us. 
 
 In the thirteen years of our tarrying together, what a history 
 has been developed for our eternity, when we have time to 
 look back, and when we are able to trace all the secret affilia- 
 tions, and causes, and influences which have had to do with 
 our destiny ! And, brethren, you and I, of all others, should 
 not forget to bear witness, day by day, and with emphasis, that 
 God has not forgotten to be gracious to us, that He has not 
 left His word without a witness in our midst, and that He has 
 made the preaching of the truth of Christ here the means of 
 salvation and the means of sanctification. 
 
 I have allied my life, as I have said, to the welfare of living 
 men, and I have continually endeavoured to make the work of 
 my ministry the production of both remote and immediate 
 effects upon the life and character of men. Leaving to others 
 the liberty of employing such means as were rational and 
 proper to them, I have adopted such as belong to me. No 
 man can preach the truth in a perfect form, for there is no man 
 that is more than a fragment of a man. The largest, and 
 richest, and roundest, are all fragmentary. And I think that 
 no person who is deeply imbued with the spirit of Christ can 
 help sympathising with the Apostle when he says, in substance, 
 '' Now, we see partially, and teach partially. When that which 
 is perfect is come, in heaven, then that which is in part shall 
 be done away; and not till then." No man, however wise he 
 may think himself, is wise, for no man is more than a partialist. 
 And the wisdom of every man is to accept himself as he is, 
 
GOSPEL MINISTRY. 9 
 
 and say, " I cannot do everything. God did not mean me to 
 be a universal machine to make universal products, but a 
 limited machine to do particular things." 
 
 It seems to me that I have understood what God meant in 
 respect to myself; that he has given me strength, and courage, 
 and hopefulness, that I might affect men at once. I have pro- 
 posed to myself nothing higher than that. I have accepted my 
 own disposition and my own power. I know they are not to 
 be compared with that which I can think of, or that which I 
 see in other men, or that which I read of in the history of other 
 days ; but when I see others who are broader, and stronger, 
 and wider than I am, I comfort myself with this thought : " It 
 is all the same in heaven. I will not work for the sake of being 
 a large man ; I will work for Christ, and for the love I have of 
 ray work ; and as to the reward, I will take that when I get 
 through — I will take that in heaven." 
 
 I think that if anybody wants to find saintship, he had better 
 look somewhere else than in the church. It will do for children 
 to worship father and mother, but any other man-worship I do 
 not believe in. Many of you have lived a better life than I 
 have ; but I can say that I have in sincerity and truthfulness 
 endeavoured to inspire you with the highest thoughts and the 
 most ennobling aspirations, and to bring your souls under the 
 direct influence of the Lord Jesus Christ, for His glory and 
 your salvation. So far I have been faithful. I have been weak 
 and imperfect, but to this great purpose of my life I have 
 adhered. 
 
 If at any tim.e I have seemed to you or to others to speak 
 with undue severity of men, or churches, or orders of men, of 
 institutions, it has never been from any personal bitterness. 
 I do not think I feel personal bitterness toward any man. 
 
 Nor has it ever been from any partisan zeal. I have refused 
 to ally myself to any party any further than to take sides with 
 all good men. But my zeal for the welfare of men, as being so 
 dear to Christ that his love for them is represented only in the 
 extreme act of dying, my earnestness that nothing should inter- 
 pose between God's purposes and men's good, my opposition 
 to anything that tends to separate mankind from Christ, have 
 led me to indulge in denunciations at times. 
 
 I think I would give my own life, if called to do so, for the 
 cause of Christ and the welfare of men. Why, then, should I 
 hesitate to denounce anything that is opposed to the cause of 
 Christ. Why should I hesitate to inveigh against anything, 
 however sacred it may be to others, which is injurious to the 
 
lO THIRTEEN YEARS IN THE 
 
 welfare of men ? I will not fear to condemn any organization, 
 or any institution, that seems to me to stand in the way of 
 God's glory or man's redemption. It is not, as I said, personal 
 bitterness that leads me to use severity. It i^for men, and not 
 against men, that I am inflamed and aroused. And my indig- 
 nation is strong just in proportion as those for whom it is called 
 out are weak and unable to defend themselves. 
 
 I cannot forget the answer which Christ, who had been 
 rejected by all the organizations of his day, and who was 
 labouring among the poor, made to the disciples of John that 
 were sent to ask him if he was the Messiah. He said, " Go 
 your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard ; 
 how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, 
 the deaf hear, the dead are raised " — then one step beyond 
 that — "to the poor the gospel is preached," as if this were the 
 most significant and the most unquestionable indication, in the 
 view of that age, that he was God upon earth. 
 
 And just in proportion as men are ignorant, and outcast, 
 and despised, and oppressed, my soul goes out for them, with- 
 out regard to colour, or nationality, or anything, except the fact 
 that they are children of God and heirs of immortality. 
 
 Bear me witness whether this is not the right side for a 
 Christian minister to take. Would you want a gospel that made 
 ministers to be only friends and parasites of those in power ? 
 Would you respect a teacher who was always seeing which way the 
 currents of respectabiUty went, and avoiding all doctrines except 
 those which ran safely along in those currents ? Are they not 
 true ministers of the gospel who count not their life dear, who 
 fear not to advocate what is right, though it be unpopular, and 
 who speak in behalf of the weak, the ignorant, and the sinful ? 
 
 In this work, then, of the salvation of men, and their edifi- 
 cation in the Christian life, I have sought the utmost liberty of 
 this pulpit in your midst. I revere the Sabbath-day ; I love the 
 Church ; I have no objection to church organizations, and 
 believe they must exist for unknown centuries yet. But, on 
 the other hand, I have counted everything in this world as a 
 mere instrument to be used for the benefit of the human soul. 
 There is not a thing, therefore, that I can make influential on 
 the understanding, the affections, and the conscience, that is 
 not good enough to use on Sunday. The use sanctifies the 
 instrument under such circumstances. 
 
 Many men seem to feel — and I am not bound to ridicule 
 their convictions — that the Sabbath-day is so sacred, in and of 
 itself, that there are topics which, though they may properly be 
 
GOSPEL MINISTRY. II 
 
 discussed in the newspapers, and talked of on week-days, ought 
 not to be preached about on Sunday in the church and from the 
 pulpit. But I say that the soul is of more value than the 
 Sabbath, the church, the pulpit, or anything else on earth. 
 "The Sabbath was made for man/' — that is, to be his servant, 
 — " and not man for the Sabbath." The Bible was made for 
 man, the church was made for man, the pulpit was made for 
 man ; and I have a right to bring, on the Sabbath-day, into 
 this church, and on this platform, any instrument that God 
 may place within my reach which I can make contribute to 
 the awakening of men and their salvation. 
 
 Some persons think it is a great sin to speak of secular 
 events in the pulpit on Sunday. What if secular events can be 
 so treated of on the Sabbath as to touch men's hearts, and 
 bring them under the power of Christ's gospel ! Is the day too 
 sacred to be employed in doing good? Is not this notion 
 about the sanctity of the Sabbath a superstition ? Is it not the 
 very thing which Christ rebuked when He said — " You will pull 
 an ox or an ass out of a pit on the Sabbath-day, and yet you find 
 fault with Me for making a man whole on the Sabbath-day." 
 
 In the matter of preaching on the Sabbath-day, I have taken 
 the liberty to touch the human soul without any care whatever, 
 except to see to it that the touch has been efficient. There is 
 not a faculty of the human soul that I have not a right to ply 
 with the great truths of the Gospel for the redemption of that 
 soul. I have as much right to touch your imagination as your 
 reason, or any other faculty of your mind. The minister of 
 God has carte hlanche liberty to touch men's mirthfulness even, 
 so far as by so doing he can help them toward the right and 
 away from the wrong. I regard this superstitious, unsmiling 
 Christianity as a relic of the old Vandal times. 
 
 I have never sought to make you laugh for the sake of merri- 
 ment. I should have a loathing contempt of myself if I had 
 made it a part of my business to peddle witticisms from the 
 pulpit. But when, in the eager rush of thought, an opportunity 
 for making a bright stroke has presented itself, I have struck, 
 and struck boldly, without any care as to whether mirth would 
 be excited in my hearers or not. There is no part of man's 
 nature that is not an open, fair mark. 
 
 To those, therefore, who have no sort of objection to the pro- 
 found sleep of the sanctuary, I must stand as an enigma. As 
 for me, I have no sympathy with sleeping in the sanctuary, 
 whether it be orthodox sleeping or heterodox sleeping. I 
 abhor everything that looks like apathy or indifference under 
 
12 THIRTEEN YEARS IN THE 
 
 the preaching of the Gospel. I abhor that state of a man in 
 which he is dead in trespasses and sins ; for I am called to be 
 a minister ^life and to life — a minister of feeling and emotion, 
 that shall wake you from evil, and give you an impulse toward 
 good in every part of your nature. 
 
 In respect to doctrines and forms of truth, I have also used 
 my liberty to do God's work upon men in that way in which it 
 seemed to me best that it should be done. I have sought to 
 build up no philosophical system, not because I think there 
 may not be such work done, but because I do not feel called 
 to do it. Whether or not I have erred in judgment, and have 
 sought immediate effects at the expense of remote ones, time 
 will show. I have not sought to cast aspersions upon doc- 
 trines ; but when I have found doctrines so covered up with 
 rubbish as to work mischief among men, I have not hesitated 
 to tear off the rubbish and reveal their true nature. To me 
 there is no sacredness in forms. To me two things are sacred, 
 and only two : one is the living soul of man, and the other is 
 the living soul of God. To everything besides I am indifferent, 
 except so far as it may be used with reference to the good of 
 the one and the glory of the other. 
 
 I have, I need scarcely say, used the widest liberty in the 
 choice of topics, for I have felt that he who cares for men 
 must regard all the things that influence men. I could not, 
 with my views, have been a faithful preacher, if I had forborne 
 to speak upon any subject which had a material bearing upon 
 your welfare. A minister, to be successful, must adapt himself 
 to the wants of the age in which he lives. The work to be 
 done in different ages varies, not in kind, but in specialities, 
 and God raises up men and qualifies them for the work to be 
 done in their own age. 
 
 The work of summer is one ; but March, and April, and 
 May, and June, and July, and August, each have their separate 
 part in the one great harvest of the year. So each age has its 
 particular work in God's harvesting, and every man must adapt 
 himself to the nature and needs of the age in which he lives, or 
 else he cannot successfully apply himself to that work. 
 
 And in the times in which I have lived, I have not only 
 sought to preach Christ to you in respect to your personal 
 relations to God and God's claims upon you, but, having read 
 in the New Testament, "Whether ye eat or drink, or whatso- 
 ever ye do, do all to the glory of God," I have attempted to 
 tell you how to obey this command in the family, in society, 
 in your business, in your social relationships, in your civil 
 
GOSPEL ?.IINISTRY. 
 
 13 
 
 duties, in all the emergencies that come upon you in life. And 
 I do not apologise for it. I only wish I had done it more 
 faithfully. I have not regarded it as a thing to be excused, 
 or even explained. I have spoken about the organisation of 
 society ; about your social pleasures and amusen>ents ; about 
 your relations and duties in the family and in the community. 
 I have brought physiological questions into my preaching when- 
 ever I thought they would enable me to throw the least light 
 upon the training of your children and your own training ; and 
 I have dealt with those subjects of slavery and liberty which 
 have agitated the whole American community, and attempted 
 to tell you what was the law of the gospel respecting them. 
 
 When I hear men say that they are ordained to preach the 
 Gospel, and that they are consequently not to meddle with 
 pubHc questions which disturb the peace, I always ask myself 
 what Gospel it is that man is ordained to preach, which forbids 
 him to meddle with public questions that disturb peace ; for it 
 is explicitly declared that the Gospel of Christ should cause 
 disturbance. It is true that the angel foresaw a time when 
 peace and good-will toward men should reign upon the earth, 
 but that is to be the harvest-period of the world. Christ says, 
 *' I came, not to bring first peace, but to bring first the sword. 
 I shall set at variance every man that stands for a moral prin- 
 ciple with every man that will not stand for it. Every man 
 that is for purity I shall set at variance with every man that is 
 for impurity. Every man that is for truth I shall set at variance 
 with every man that is against truth. Every man that is for 
 God I shall set at variance with every man that is against God." 
 And if there was anything plainly taught by Christ, it was that 
 His Gospel should cause disturbances and revolutions among 
 men. Peace is to come by-and-bye. We are to look for 
 peace after victory, but not before battle. 
 
 Therefore, when I hear men say that it is the business of a 
 minister of the Gospel to preach truisms and platitudes and to 
 read old psalms and old epistles, reading them so as not to 
 disturb anybody — so as to send his hearers away in a peaceful 
 state of mind— meaning somnolency by peace — when I hear 
 men say this, I say, " Those may. be your views, but they do 
 not accord with my conception of the Gospel." If I am true 
 to my convictions, I can never measure my duty as a minister 
 by such views. I am bound, however, to respect the man who 
 holds them, if he is consistent. When a man believes that the 
 preaching of the Gospel should be a simple enunciation of 
 moral truth, and confines himself to that, I respect liim^ but 
 
14 THIRTEEN YEARS IN THE 
 
 not his judgment. If he holds that he has no right to preach 
 anything but the genealogy of Christ, His life and His doctrines, 
 and never wanders in his preaching upon any collateral ques- 
 tions, I say, " That man is consistent, and is to be respected, 
 although he is in an error." But when a minister professes to 
 hold that he has no right to preach anything but the Gospel, 
 and yet steps aside and preaches historical sermons, geogra- 
 phical sermons, sermons on travel, and the like, till it comes to 
 some critical question, the discussion of which would produce 
 excitement, and then throws himself back, and says he is 
 ordained to preach nothing but the Gospel of Peace, I both 
 dissent from the man and his doctrines. I do not say that he 
 is a wilful deceiver, but I do say that he is under a delusion. 
 
 I hold that it is a Christian minister's duty not only to 
 preach the Gospel of the New Testament without reservation, 
 but to apply its truths to every question which relates to the 
 welfare of men ; and, as far as I am concerned, I am willing 
 to do this and take the consequences, whatever they may be. 
 Moreover, I hold that in preaching concerning secular things 
 for the good of men, I am preaching the Gospel. 
 
 Do you not know that a man may be preached to litur- 
 gically, and doctrinally, and never be touched by the truth, or 
 understand that to which he listens ? Suppose I were to preach 
 to you in Hebrew, how much would you understand ? 
 
 Now, when I preach so that a banker, who has all along 
 been sitting under doctrinal preaching, but has never felt its 
 application to his particular business, feels the next day, when 
 counting his coin, a twinge of conscience, and says, " I wish I 
 could either practise that sermon or forget it," I have preached 
 the Gospel to him in such a way that he has understood it, I 
 have apphed it to the sphere of life in which he lives. When 
 the Gospel is preached so that a man feels that it is applied to 
 his own life, he has it translated to him. And it needs to be 
 translated to merchants and lawyers, and mechanics, and every 
 other class in society, in order that all may receive their portion 
 in due season. 
 
 This I have not attempted to do in a spirit of wantonness. 
 In my ministrations among you, I have in all things guided 
 myself by this one thought, " What is best for men, and what 
 is most to the honour of Christ? " 
 
 In doing this, I have had to a very great extent, I believe, 
 the sympathy, the prayers, and the co-operation of the people 
 of my charge. I could almost say that I know that every 
 Sabbath you watch in prayer for mc, that I may be able to 
 
GOSPEL MINISTRY, 
 
 15 
 
 Utter the truth of Christ with power and with success. I have 
 not been wont to ask much in that regard. I have scarcely 
 felt that anything was left me to ask. I have felt as though 
 I had beforehand whatever I needed of sympathy and prayer- 
 ful help. 
 
 My Christian brethren, I have just entered upon another 
 year. The results of my teaching may vary, but the principle 
 upon which I teach will be the same. I shall exercise the 
 same liberty of speech. I shall exercise the same liberty of 
 discoursing upon any topics, the discussion of which seems to 
 me to be demanded by the times, or the welfare of men. I 
 shall exercise the same zeal. I shall pour out my feelings with 
 just as much freedom. I shall play upon the different faculties 
 of your soul according as I feel moved. By the help of God I 
 shall labour for the awakening of your children and of your- 
 selves. I shall attempt to make you more just, more honest, 
 more simple, more humble, more conscientious, more affec- 
 tionate; in every respect more like Christ Jesus. I have already 
 learned that my fidelity to you will not provoke your anger. 
 
 God has been gracious to you, and He has been gracious to 
 me in you. It is not often, I think, that, in the history of a 
 Church, twelve years roll around with so few discrepancies and 
 with no breaks. There never has one single question arisen 
 between my people and myself. In this great Church, which, 
 twelve years ago, began with but twenty-five members, which 
 now has not far from fifteen hundred members, and in which 
 the temperance question, the anti-slavery questions, questions 
 of policy, and various other questions, have been freely 
 discussed, no rupture has occurred. You have dissented from 
 me, and have passed upon me wholesome criticism; but no 
 question has for a single moment divided between you and 
 me. This a great comfort to me. I thank God for it. May 
 God give us the same mutual confidence, the same peace 
 founded on fidelity, in time to come. 
 
 And now, Christian brethren, you are dear to my soul. Your 
 households are dear to me. I cannot visit you as a pastor. I 
 am sufficiently advanced to know, if anything can be indicated 
 by Providence, that I am a preacher, not a pastor. It would 
 be exceedingly pleasant to me to do that other much-needed 
 labour. I wish I could, but I cannot. I am to be your 
 teacher, and I am to do my work among you, and in this 
 community, by the power of Christ and Him crucified. I bear 
 you in my thoughts and in my prayers, day by day. Your 
 children — those that I know, and those that I do not know, 
 
1 6 THIRTEEN YEARS IN THE GOSPEL MINISTRY. 
 
 except in the general and remote sense of knowledge — are 
 very dear to me, and I preach with them in my mind. I am 
 endeavouring to do that by you which I shall not be afraid to 
 face when, before long, you and I shall stand in the presence 
 of Christ. I would rather have one smile from Christ than to 
 have the acclamation of a world. I would rather that He, 
 pointing to you, should say to me, " Well done, good, and 
 faithful servant," than to have anything of which my imagina- 
 tion can conceive. And that is what I am trying to labour for. 
 
 I am a man of passions like your own. I am a man proud 
 and fiery, and were it not for the grace of God I should be 
 more so. I am sensitive, quick, full of feeling, and strong in 
 will and purpose, or I never could have done what I was set 
 to do. I shall labour among you hereafter with bodily and 
 mental imperfections, and with limitations — those limitations 
 which come from the want of grace and the want of sufficient 
 piety. I know my own estate and my own weaknesses. I 
 shall labour among you with these weaknesses in time to come. 
 But that grace which has hitherto appointed may yet appoint, 
 so that weaknesses shall be mighty through God to the pulling 
 down of strongholds. 
 
 Bear then with me. co-operate with me, strive in prayer 
 with me. Let this one thing be before us all— the glory of 
 God in the salvation of men. Perform your part in the family, 
 and help me by your prayers to do my part in the congrega- 
 tion ; and all of us will do our parts in the great community in 
 which we dwell. And before long, when that empurpled sun, 
 which for most of us has gone past the meridian, and is 
 slanting its light upon us, shall sink in the west, we shall have 
 permission, in its flood of glory, to go forth and take hold of 
 the morning of that eternal day which awaits us. And then 
 how sweet will be the recounting of the labours we have per- 
 formed, and the trials we have borne ! In the hope of that 
 day, let us begin the year, working for God and for man. 
 
II. 
 
 THE LOVE OF GOD. 
 
 " In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent 
 His only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 
 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent 
 His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved 
 us, we ought also to love one another. — i John iv. 9 — 11. 
 
 Ix every part of the New Testament the distinction is noted 
 between disinterested love, springing from the goodness of the 
 Divine nature, and a love which is excited and developed by 
 moral quality in the object of it. It is taught abundantly that 
 God's nature is such that He overflows with love from a Divine 
 fulness and richness of heart, and that out of this fulness and 
 richness, without regard to the quality of a man's being, there is a 
 form of love developed from God toward him. " He maketh His 
 sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on 
 the just and on the unjust." It is not meant that there is no 
 difference before God between men whose characters are 
 altogether evil and those whose characters are beginning to be 
 good, but only this, that God does not love, as it were, upon 
 an agreement — He does not love simply upon the perception 
 of a cause or of an occasion. There is a fulness of His love which 
 is spontaneous. There is such richness, and depth, and treasure, 
 and abundance of Divine feeling, that it tends to flow over im- 
 measurably, unless there is something which absolutely stops 
 it. This is the pulse that beats out from the heart of God 
 through creation. This is the nature and first tendency of 
 the Divine disposition. 
 
 We perceive among men the difference between natures 
 whose activities may be excited by outward occasion and those 
 who excite themselves and produce occasion. One man thinks 
 when his mind is played upon so that it is excited to think ; 
 but another man finds his mind for ever rising into thought, 
 in solitude, in society, in darkness, in light, when he sees, or 
 when he sees not. From his mind there is a perpetual shooting 
 out of these flame-jets of thought. One man has kindness 
 latent within him, but he needs some excitement to kindle it. 
 Such a man's heart, too long clouded, like a sun in a storm- 
 muffled day, shoots through some opening rift, and glows for 
 
 c 
 
l8 THE LOVE OF GOD. 
 
 a period in glory. But there are other natures that are always 
 cloudless. With them a cloud is the exception ; shining is the 
 rule. They rise radiant over the horizon ; they fill the whole 
 heavens with growing brightness, and all day long they over- 
 hang life, pouring down an undiminished flood of brightness 
 and warmth. Some men have a taste and an imagination 
 susceptible of being carried up, by constant stimulus, almost 
 to the very creative point; but there are other men that neither 
 need nor wait for provocation. It seems as though imagina- 
 tion was beforehand in them, without special inducements or 
 incitements, and as though it wrought and created from an 
 automatic nature. 
 
 Now, these are not merely curious shades of difterence in 
 men's natures : they are characteristic. It is upon this 
 equatorial line that men are divided into different hemispheres ; 
 one hemisphere including geniuses, and the other common 
 men. A man whose nature can be brought into action only 
 by external influences may be a very good man in his way, 
 but never a great man ; whereas a man whose nature is for ever 
 working of its own accord is destined to be great. He has a 
 creative nature, and is therefore a genius. Those who need 
 plying, rousing, and special outward incitement, are never 
 reckoned as of a higher nature. They may be good, virtuous, 
 refined, honourable, and most estimable ; they may be indis- 
 pensable to the filling up of society ; but never will they be 
 reckoned great, nor typical of the highest manhood. Those, 
 on the other hand, who have spontaneous activity, we put in 
 the rank of genius ; for the term genius, so much used, and so 
 little understood, is that word by which men signify a mind 
 whose constitution is such that it acts automatically, and out of 
 its own fulness, rather than from any stimulus outside of itself. 
 
 Genius is applied to the intellectual part, and not to the 
 disposition. When this high nature is found in the moral 
 sentiments and the affections, we say that men are mag- 
 nanimous, heroic, saintly, according to the shades of conduct 
 designated. But these last terms point to precisely the same 
 constitution of moral sentiment that the word genius does in 
 regard to the intellect. 
 
 This view becomes yet more important when we inquire from 
 which side we shall take our ideas of God — for our ideas of 
 God must be learned through ourselves. There is nothing 
 else in the world but ourselves that can teach us what God is. 
 We are made in His image, and it is only so far as that image 
 is developed in and recognisable by us that we can think of or 
 
THE LOVE OF GOD. 
 
 19 
 
 understand Him. Is the Divine nature one that overflows with 
 thought, feeling, and power, from a need that it has in itself, by 
 reason of its infinite richness, vitality, and activity ? or does it 
 act upon special inducement. 
 
 There are two notions of God that have more or less pre- 
 valence among men. One represents Him as a vast organ 
 located in the very centre of heaven, and giving forth majestic 
 sounds when touched, and silent when not. The other repre- 
 sents Him as a Being that is never silent, never still, never 
 unheard ; one that has such a nature that if there were not 
 an angel in heaven, if there were not a man on earth, if there 
 were nothing in all creation from side to side, there is that in 
 Himself that would make Him for ever overflow with taste, 
 and feeling, and love. The one ascribes to Him a nature that 
 is merely susceptible of being called out upon the application 
 of the motive. The other ascribes to Him a nature that pours 
 itself abroad in the earth by reason of its own fulness and 
 richness. It is the latter of these two ideas that I hold, and 
 suppose the Scriptures to teach. 
 
 Of all applications of this inquiry, none is more transcendent 
 than this : Does the Divine nature imply spontaneous and 
 universal love ? Upon this subject Scripture is emphatic. It 
 affirms it not only directly, but by negation. Great wisdom 
 may be required to state this so that men shall not take advan- 
 tage of it, but more wisdom is required to so state it as not to 
 obscure the charity and magnificence of the moral view which 
 inheres in this idea of the central nature of God. 
 
 Love is God's nature. Not that no other feeling exists in 
 Him ; not that justice and abhorrence of evil are not co- 
 ordinated with it ; not that these do not take part in the Divine 
 administration among men ; but that the central and peculiarly 
 Divine element is love, in which all other feelings live, within 
 whose bounds they all act, to which they are servants, and for 
 which they are messengers and helpers. 
 
 The passage selected is one that marks this truth. The love 
 which God has for us did not, does not, spring from moral excel- 
 lence in us ; and still less does its depth and breadth answer to 
 the lovableness of our dispositions. No man can ponder for a 
 moment the facts in our case without being obliged to say that 
 God loves men, not so much from the adaptation of human 
 nature and disposition to produce love, as from a Divine nature 
 that overflows from the necessity of its own richness and fulness. 
 The reasons must needs be in God, and not in us. 
 
 In our text God's love for us is not affirmed to exist because 
 
 c— 2 
 
20 THE LOVE OF GOD. 
 
 God perceived a spark kindled in us, gradually flaming forth 
 and reaching up toward Him. It is not affirmed to exist because 
 our hearts, feebly beating, seemed to knock at the door of His 
 heart, rousing, by their very spent and weak sounds, the com- 
 passion of the hospitable Divinity. 
 
 Do the roots, and grass, and early flowers, break forth from 
 winter and send messengers for the sun to come back ? Or 
 does the sun come from its far voyaging to overhang the sleep- 
 ing-places of flowers until they feel his presence, and, drawn by 
 his warm hands, wake and come forth into a warmth and a 
 light that waited above them while they were dead, and that 
 would have bathed them yet, and all summer long, though they 
 had still lain torpid ? 
 
 The declaration of the Bible is not this, that God, looking 
 upon us, and beholding us imperilled, and overwhelmed, and 
 vexed with evil passions, and seeing that, notwithstanding our 
 condition, some germs of love were beginning to develop and 
 blossom in us toward Him, felt kindly drawn toward us, 
 and began to love us because we loved Him ; but this, that He 
 began to love us when we began to be ; that at the beginning 
 of our existence He began to pour out His efl"ulgent nature 
 upon us, and that it was the sunlight of His being that deve- 
 loped affection in us, and caused us to love Him. God did 
 not love man because man had prepared himself and made 
 himself lovely, nor did Divine love spring forth from any deed 
 of God's by which He, for purposes of government, aroused 
 and incited Himself to strong emotion. Love springs not from 
 an act, not from a fact of redemptive sacrifice. There is an 
 impression among some that God loved the world after He had 
 sent His Son to die for it; but the scriptural view is, that His 
 love for the world was the cause of His sending His Son to die 
 for it. The love of God for the world was manifested in that 
 act, instead of being created by it. 
 
 The plough prepares the field, deeply furrowed, to receive 
 the benefit of the summer sun, but the plough does not make 
 the sun shine. God did not, then, begin to love when Christ 
 died. His death prepared the human family to perceive, 
 to understand, to be moved by that wondrous love that 
 had gone on glowing through infinite ages, and kindling 
 throughout the universal domain the glorious summer of 
 Divine goodness. Before creation, and the cause of it, was 
 God's benevolence. Before the development of the human 
 race, and as the prolific cause of it, was Divine love. Before 
 the advent of Jesus Christ, and as the cause of it, was God's 
 
THE LOVE OF GOD. 21 
 
 love. And, in each individual case, in each Christian's history, 
 before his own volition, and as the very moving influence and 
 cause of it, is this love of God, which precedes being, and 
 precedes volition, and precedes comfort, and which is the 
 cause of all that is good in man or in races. 
 
 With this fact before us, I wish to employ it for our quickening 
 and our enlargement in Divine knowledge and virtuous life. 
 
 I. God's love does not depend upon our character, but 
 upon His own. I do not mean to say that it makes no dif- 
 ference whether a man has a good or a bad character. I do 
 not mean to affirm that there do not spring up, between the 
 Divine nature and ourselves, by reason of our relations to that 
 nature, certain deeper intimacies, and more wonderful affec- 
 tions. But I do mean to affirm this, that there is a great 
 overshadowing of love of God to us, that exists, not on 
 account of our character, but on account of His. We have it 
 distinctly stated, in respect to the sinful, that God loves them, 
 and sends all the ordinary gifts of nature upon them, although 
 He knows they are evil. And it is made the ground and 
 motive of conduct for us. We are taught by Christ on this 
 very point. *' If ye love them which love you, what reward 
 have ye ? Do not even the publicans the same ? And if ye 
 salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others ? Do 
 not even the publicans so ? Be ye therefore perfect, even as 
 your Father which is in heaven is perfect." And what is God's 
 perfection? It is boundless benevolence. It is the perfection 
 of a Being who sends all providential blessings upon men, 
 whether they are good or bad, deserving or undeserving. AVe 
 must be perfect as He is. There is to be a comprehensive 
 beneficence in us. We are to be in a state of feeling that 
 shall lead us to do good to men without regard to the 
 mere question of desert. Our conduct towards men is to 
 proceed, not upon the kindness springing from justice, but 
 upon the justice which springs from love. The teaching of 
 Christ is that we should serve men, not because they are deserv- 
 ing, but because there ought to be such a fulness and richness 
 of nature in us that we cannot refrain from doing it. 
 
 It is very certain that when God looks upon men, whether 
 Christian or otherwise. He cannot love them because He sees 
 that they are lovely, for when measured by that rule which God 
 must needs employ — His own perfectness and His own purity 
 — I suppose there never has been a human character that could 
 not look otherwise than wretchedly sinful and distorted. 
 Calling men Christians does not make them symmetrical, nor 
 
2 2 THE LOVE OF GOD. 
 
 beautiful, nor lovely. ]\Ien are good and noble in relation to 
 their fellow-men : but when they are considered in relation to 
 God, how difierent does the case become ! 
 
 Let a man be brought up in a hospital, and let him draw his 
 ideas of beauty from it, and then bring before him a hand- 
 some man, and how homely do the men that he has regarded 
 as handsome appear in the contrast ! Take the best man in 
 this life, and lift him up and measure him, not by his fellow- 
 men, weak and imperfect, but by those higher conceptions 
 which men have of the Divine Being, and how they are dwarfed 
 and humbled by the comparison ! There is no standpoint 
 from which a man, when measured by the Divine character, 
 appears beautiful ; and if God loves men, it must be because 
 there is a nature in Him that can love what is not beautiful, 
 not symmetrical, not perfect, not lovable. 
 
 If with a microscope you examine the sting of a bee, mag- 
 nifying it a million times, you will find that still it is so smooth 
 that the eye can detect no variations upon its surface. But if 
 you take the finest needle that is manufactured, and look at it 
 through a powerful microscope, it will appear rough in the 
 proportion in which it is magnified. This figure illustrates 
 the difference between the Divine nature and the nature of 
 man. The more you magnify a true conception of God's 
 nature, the more beautiful does He appear ; whereas, the more 
 you magnify the nature of man, the more imperfect does it 
 appear. And it is evident that if God loves man it is because 
 He has something in Himself that moves Him to love, and not 
 because there is anything in man that calls forth His love. 
 
 II. The Divine love exists and works upon us, not alone 
 when we are conscious, but evermore. iMen mount up under 
 flashes of glorious realisation, and it seems as if God then began 
 to love them, because they then first become sensitive to His 
 love. When a man has passed through religious changes from 
 darkness to light ; when he has put off his wordly character, 
 and taken on the character of Christ ; when, coming out of 
 despondency, the compassionate Saviour rises before his imagi- 
 nation, and he says, ''Christ has begun to love me" — his 
 impression is that the Divine love for him began when the 
 burden which had weighed down his soul was rolled off. 
 
 This is as if a blind man, who had never seen the heavens, nor 
 the earth, nor the sweet faces of those who loved him, should 
 have a surgical operation performed upon his eyes, resulting in 
 the restoration of his sight, and he should think to himself, on 
 going out of doors, " Oh I how things are blossoming ! The 
 
THE LOVE OF GOD. 23 
 
 earth is beginning to be beautiful ! Mountains and hills are 
 springing up in every direction ! The forms of loving friends 
 are being raised up to meet my gaze ! And the sun has just 
 begun to shine forth from the heavens ! " But have not these 
 things existed since the creation, although the man's eyes have 
 not before been in a condition to enable him to see them ? 
 
 When we are brought into the consciousness of what God's 
 love is to our poor sinful natures, we oftentimes have the 
 feeling that God is beginning to be reconciled to us. We 
 take it for granted that as we were at enmity with Him, so He, 
 in the same sense, was at enmity with us. We have an idea 
 that He was just as hard toward us as we were persistent in 
 violating His will, and that it was when we began to love Him 
 that He began to love us. It was then that we began to 
 realise His love, but His love for us had existed from the time 
 we came into being, and had ever continued with us. All the 
 experiencies of our mward and outward lives had been baptised, 
 although unconsciously to us, in His tender thoughts. Those 
 thoughts run after us more than a mother's for her child that 
 has gone recklessly away from home. 
 
 Do you suppose that a child, absent from his parents, is con- 
 scious of one in a million of the thoughts that follow him? 
 There is love enough in one human heart to deluge the whole 
 earth ; and if man is capable of such love, what must be the 
 love of which God is capable ? 
 
 This conception of God's love does not always dawn upon 
 the Christian at the beginning of his experience. God rises 
 upon the sight of some Christians as the sun comes right up 
 against a clear sky, and over a sharp-cut horizon, and upon 
 others as the sun comes up behind clouds, which it is his first 
 work to wear out and disperse with his bright beams. I have 
 seen men that never realised God till they were dying. Some 
 never see Him till the mid-day of their life. Others see Him 
 early in the morning. Some see Him during sickness; some 
 after sickness ; some on the occurrence of some special provi- 
 dence. Sometimes Christians are lifted up through the suscep- 
 tibility of their imagination, their affections, and their reason, 
 all conjoined, into such an extraordinary sense of God's glory 
 that it seems as though their soul could not abide in the body, 
 and they think, " Praise God ! At last He has had mercy on 
 me, and revealed Himself to me," — supposing that He had not 
 before cast the light of His countenance upon them. 
 
 A man has lived in a cellar, where he has been a poor, dun- 
 geoned creature, striving to live a life which was but like a pro- 
 
24 THE LOVE OF GOD. 
 
 longed death. At last he is permitted to go up one storey, and 
 then one storey higher, and then yet another storey. Thus he 
 keeps on exploring and going up, until finally he reaches the 
 roof. There he beholds the heavens over his head, and the sun 
 in the east, and he is tranced with amazement by the glory of 
 the things which surround him. And yet, every single day 
 during his existence, and for countless ages, the heavens have 
 hung above the earth, the sun has shone forth in splendour, and 
 the creations which astonish his vision have been beheld by 
 men. For forty years he has been in the cellar, and now he has 
 come up where he can see, it seems to him that objects now 
 appear for the first time, because he sees them for the first time. 
 
 So it is with the disclosures of the love of God in Christ 
 Jesus to Christians. They think that the time at which they 
 first realise God's love is the time when it is first shed upon them. 
 But as God pours abroad infinite breadths of His being without 
 an eye except His own to behold, so He spreads over our heads 
 an unknown, an unmeasured, and an immeasurable love, 
 waiting for our recognition, but in no wise depending upon it. 
 I know of nothing that is calculated to give more hope to the 
 Christian in the midst of his discouragements than this feeling 
 — namely, " I am not to be saved because I am so good, but 
 because God is so good." 
 
 I know that you can abuse this for your own destruction. A 
 man may say, " I can live as I have a mind to, and yet God will 
 love me," and relax his own eff"orts, and work his own ruin. 
 Nevertheless, there is nothing so comforting and inspiring to 
 the Christianas this : the belief that our hope and safety do not 
 stand in the fact that we are good, but in the fact that God has 
 undertaken to take care of us and save us. 
 
 Some men have asked me, *' How is it that a Christain can 
 sin every day,, and still have hope that he will be forgiven by a 
 God that abhors iniquity?" Do not I know the way in which 
 God forgives those who sin thus ? Do not I feel it myself in a 
 small measure ? Tell me if, in your own experience, there is 
 not something that interprets it to you ? Is there not a wife, 
 a husband, a child, a friend, a ward, some human being on 
 whom you have set your aftections, but whom you see to be 
 imperfect ? And do you not find that the more you love them 
 the more sensitive you are to their faults, and yet the more able 
 you are to endure their imperfections and unsymmetries ? 
 When they do wrong, violate generosity and magnanimity, act 
 selfishly, and show themselves proud, you grieve, but forbear ; 
 you resent their evil by seeking to correct it. What do you do 
 
THE LOVE OF GOD. 25 
 
 when a loved one does wrong ? Do you sit in judgment on 
 him, and cut him off from your affections? On the contrary, 
 does not your heart go out after him all the more? One whom 
 you soundly and deeply love, you love in spite of his faults not 
 only, but you are conscious that you love to cure. A certain 
 yearning to help him shows that true love is the true physician. 
 
 Now, as it is with us, so it is with God ; and I am more 
 ashamed to sin against God on this very account. If I were 
 greatly in want of money, and I went for aid to an old usurious, 
 miserly man, who hated to give, and only gave for a con- 
 sideration, and scolded when he gave, I do not know but I 
 should take a little comfort in pestering him. I suppose there 
 is a little relish of torment which everyone feels in dealing with 
 such a man. But if I went for aid to a man of a kind and 
 generous nature, the case would be different. I am in trouble; 
 he meets me with a face bright with smiles, and says: "You 
 have come again to give me the pleasure of assisting you." I 
 say : " I have liabilities to the amount of five hundred dollars, 
 which I am unable to meet." " What ! is that all ? " he 
 exclaims, and gives me a thousand. As I start to go away, he 
 says : " I shall see you again ; I shall get another chance at 
 you; I shall have more pleasure out of you? " By-and-bye I 
 go to him again, hanging my head, when his first words to me 
 are : " Ah ! your pocket is empty, and your head is down. 
 Come in ! come in ! You cannot get away so easily." And 
 again he gives me the money I need. Again I get into deeper 
 trouble. Sickness enters my family, and my means give out. 
 In my distress I go to him once more. The moment he sees 
 me he says : " What ! spent your money so soon ? I declare, 
 I do not know but I shall have to make you my son. I must 
 look after your affairs. I see you cannot attend to them 
 yourself" He sweeps away my debts, supplies my present 
 wants, and urges me to come whenever I find myself pressed 
 for means. Now suppose I say, when I get by myself : "This 
 old man is so kind and good that I can practise on him, and I 
 will take advantage of his kindness and goodness;" what ought 
 I to be called ? Would any name of contempt be too severe ? 
 
 It is argued by some that men will take advantage of this 
 love of God of which I am speaking. No, not iiieri. You 
 must get some other name for those creatures that are capable 
 of doing that. The apostle, when the expediency of preaching 
 the grace of God in Christ Jesus was questioned, argued that 
 the very nature of love estopped a disposition to take mean 
 advantage of it. If a man loves Christ enough to secure the 
 
2 THE LOVE OF GOD. 
 
 benefit of His grace, it is inconsistent with the very nature of the 
 experience to suppose that he can take base advantage of it. 
 
 III. There is something unspeakably affecting to me in this 
 thought of — what may I call it ? — the solicitude of Divine love 
 for men, and its patient continuance in God without con- 
 sciousness on our part. There is something sweet in inter- 
 preting the nature of God from the family. Now who can 
 tell the sum of the thoughts which the mother bestows on 
 the child? All through his infancy he is scarcely out of 
 her mind. She watches him as he sleeps in the cradle. She 
 wakes at night to go and see if all is safe in the room where he 
 is. All day long, as he plays, her eyes are upon him, to see 
 that no harm comes to him. And all through his boyhood her 
 love and care surround him. And yet he is unconscious of 
 most of her solicitude concerning him. He knows that she 
 loves him, but he only feels the pulsations of her love once in 
 awhile. I think we never know the love of the parent for the 
 child till we become parents. When we first bend over our 
 own cradle God throws back the temple door, and reveals to 
 us the sacredness and mystery of a father's and a mother's 
 love to us. And I think that in later years, when they have 
 gone from us, there is always a certain sorrow because we 
 cannot tell our parents that we have found out their love. One 
 of the deepest experiences of a noble nature in reference to 
 loved ones that have passed beyond this world, is the thought 
 of what he might have been to them, and what he might have 
 done for them, if he had known, while they were living, w^hat 
 he has learned since they died. 
 
 Now when I think how the love of Christ, and the love of 
 God in Christ, has overhung my life ; when I think of the long 
 period during which I had no conception of that love, of the 
 long period during which I resisted it, and struggled against it; 
 when I think that during these long periods God, unchanged 
 and unchangeable, brooded over me, and yearned for me 
 without my knowing it, I am inexpressibly affected. 
 
 Not only does God think of us constantly, and love us 
 steadfastly, but there is a healing, curative nature, for ever 
 outworking from the Divine mind upon ours, even although 
 we may not co-operate voluntarily with His will. All those 
 moral tendencies which we feel, all those yearnings which we 
 have for good, are the crying out of the soul for God, under 
 the influence and ministration of His love to us. Every throb 
 of our spirits that answers to spiritual things is caused by the 
 influence of God. We are attracted by Him, though we may 
 
THE LOVE OF GOD. 27 
 
 not be conscious of it. As the child that is sent away from 
 home to school grows home-sick, and sobs, and cries for 
 brothers and sisters, and father and mother, so there are many 
 home-sick men who feel in themselves strange yearnings for 
 they know not what. It is their soul crying out for God, 
 because He is working upon them by the power of His thought 
 and love — only they do not know the language. 
 
 And that is not all. We have testimony in the workings of 
 the providence of God in the experiences of our daily life, that 
 God's love is sUll shed upon us, although we may be un- 
 conscious of it. I recollect to have read the case of a man in 
 a city of Southern Europe, who spent his life in getting 
 property, and became unpopular among his fellow-citizens on 
 account of what seemed to them his miserly spirit. When his 
 will was read after his death, it stated that he had been poor, 
 and had suffered from a lack of water ; that he had seen the 
 poor of the city also suffering from the same want, and that he 
 had devoted his life to the accumulation of means sufficient 
 to build an aqueduct to bring water to the city, so that for 
 ever afterward the poor should be supplied with it. It turned 
 out that the man whom the poor had cursed till his death, had 
 been labouring to provide water for the refreshment of them- 
 selves and their children. Oh ! how God has been building 
 an aqueduct to bring the water of life to us, He not interpret- 
 ing His acts, and we not understanding them ! 
 
 IV. God's love is not, as too often ours is, the collateral and 
 incidental element of His life and being. It is His abiding state. 
 All time and all eternity are filled with it. All plans are con- 
 ceived and directed by it. All histories and all administrations 
 are transfused with, and carried forward in it. All triumphs are 
 to end in it, while all that cannot be made to harmonise, and 
 blend, and co-operate with it shall be utterly swept away. 
 
 With this interpretation, let me give a few words of application. 
 
 I. Can any other truth so justify and enforce an earnest, 
 instant, manly search, to see if these things be so ? There are 
 a great many persons that will resist an appeal made from the 
 pulpit, if that which is meant is ecclesiasticism. I mean no 
 such thing. I do not ask you to join a church. Men will 
 resist an appeal to become Christians if a doctrinal basis is 
 implied. I now and here imply no such thing. But I make 
 this appeal to every fair-minded, thoughtful, honest, and 
 morally-susceptible man : if there is such a Divine nature as I 
 have described, can any man justify himself a moment in 
 leaving it unappreciated and unknown ? We are commanded 
 
28 THE LOVE OF GOD. 
 
 to search for God as for hid treasures. Ought you not to search 
 for Him as you do for hid treasures ? Is there such a Being ? 
 Is He your father ? Are His thoughts toward you those of 
 paternal love -, and is that love infinite, exquisite, and over- 
 flowing ? Are you living unconscious, ungrateful, unrequiting ? 
 Are you cared for and sustained through the love of God ? And 
 is it consistent with manhood that you should be unthankful? 
 
 We are grateful toward the bountiful Benefactor of all men, 
 as that man would be grateful who should show his gratitude 
 for a whole life's service by merely making a New Year's call 
 on his benefactor. You are perpetual recipients of God's 
 mercies. In the round year there is not one moment in which 
 He does not brood over you with His thoughts. His love 
 and tenderness are to you what the sun and dew are to the 
 plant. During the long experience of forty or fifty years He 
 has not left you nor forsaken you. And has there been 
 manifested on your part any love, or gratitude, or recognition, 
 that answered to the noble affection which He has displayed 
 toward you ? I do not ask whether you believe in this church 
 or that, or whether you hold to this doctrine or that. I present 
 to you this love of God that has upheld you all the days of your 
 life, and ask you this question : Can you with reason, with 
 honour, with gratitude, with any sentiment that a man ought 
 to cherish, be indifferent to it ? There are many in this con- 
 gregation who are exemplary men, who do nothing in violation 
 of a decent respect for the customs of society, but who are 
 living so as not to fulfil the first condition of their life — a 
 recognition of the love of God toward them. Need they seek 
 further for evidence of their great sinfulness and urgent danger? 
 Are they not wearing out or burying their moral natures ? 
 
 2. If what I have said is true, can any honourable man 
 justify himself for not coming into a living faith in, and 
 communion with God ? Can such excellence as His be near 
 you, and you care nothing for it, without degradation ? We 
 judge men not merely by the acts which they positively 
 perform, but by the sensibility which they display. If we see 
 a man indifferent when in an assembly where most weighty 
 matters are being discussed, we pity him. We say, " That 
 circumstance shows what his nature is." I have sometimes 
 had the misfortune to sit in concerts where persons would 
 chatter and giggle and laugh during the performance of the 
 profoundest passages of the symphonies of the great artists, 
 and I never fail to think, at such times, "• I ask not 7C'ho you 
 are ; I know w/iaf you are by the way you conduct yourself 
 
THE LOVE OF GOD. 29 
 
 here — by the want of sympathy and appreciation which you 
 evince in what is passing around you.'' Who could restrain his 
 contempt for a man who should stand looking upon Niagara 
 Falls without exhibiting emotions of awe and admiration? 
 
 I ask you to pass upon yourselves the same judgment. What 
 do you suppose angels, that have trembled and thrilled with 
 ecstatic joy in the presence of God, think when they see how 
 indifferent you are to the Divine love and goodness in which 
 you are perpetually bathed, and by which you are blessed and 
 sustained every moment of your lives ? How can they do 
 otherwise than accuse you of monstrous ingratitude and moral 
 insensibility, which betoken guilt as well as danger. 
 
 3. Will not the realisation of such a nature, brought home 
 to us personally, account for all the sometimes discredited 
 Christian experiences ? When men are convicted of sin, they 
 are sometimes subjects of ridicule, because it is supposed that 
 they are merely acting under the influence of an excited imagi- 
 nation. There may be cases in which this is so. I do not 
 afhrm that all terror-quaking for sin is normal and rational. 
 But, let me ask, if there is such a Being as God is supposed to 
 be, is it strange that a man, when he comes to the conscious- 
 ness that that Being is his Father, should be so wrought upon as 
 to even lose control of himself? A conviction of sin may be 
 spurious, or it may be overlaid by misteaching, but the consti- 
 tution of man is such that if he undergoes genuine conviction 
 of sin, he is apt to experience strong feelings of fear, shame, 
 and remorse. When one brings himself before God, and 
 falls down in His presence, comprehending the mystery of His 
 love, and understanding the redemptive manifestations of it, is 
 it strange that he finds himself swallowed up in it, and that, 
 having joy unspeakable and full of glory, he expresses it ? 
 
 Suppose I sit musing on the Acropolis, and my whole being 
 is carried into the days that have gone by, so that 1 can 
 scarcely eat or sleep, does anyone say that I am unduly ex- 
 cited ? Is not my susceptibility to the things that occupy my 
 mind a mark of manhood ? If I stand and look with wonder 
 and admiration upon those magnificent cathedrals of mediaeval 
 times, does anyone say that I exhibit signs of madness ? Do 
 I not, rather, exhibit signs of taste and refinement ? If I read 
 with pleasure and satisfaction the thought penned by the pro- 
 foundest thinkers of the past, does anyone say that I degrade 
 myself? Do I not, on the contrary, honour myself? And is 
 not this the natural and spontaneous utterance of a noble 
 heart, when it is lifted up into the conscious presence of God : 
 
30 THE LOVE OF GOD. 
 
 •' We thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead ; 
 and that He died for all, that they which live should not 
 henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died 
 for them, and rose again ? " 
 
 I have in my house a little sheet of paper on which there is 
 a faint, pale, and not particularly skilful representation of a 
 hyacinth. It is not half as beautiful as many other pictures 
 that I have, but I regard it as the most exquisite of them all. 
 My mother painted it, and I never see it that I do not think 
 that her hand rested on it, and that her thought was concerned 
 in its execution. 
 
 Now suppose you had such a conception of God that you 
 never saw a flower, a tree, a cloud, or any natural object, that 
 you did not instantly think, *'My Father made it," what a 
 world this would become to you ! How beautiful would it 
 seem to you ! How would you find that nature was a revela- 
 tion of God, speaking as plainly as His written Word, though 
 not so deeply or variously. If you are alone, desolate in your 
 circumstances, it is because you have not that inner sense of 
 the Divine love and care which it is your privilege to have, and 
 v;hich you ought to have. 
 
 Throughout the Bible it is declared that the things that we 
 are permitted to see in this life are but intimations, glimpses 
 of what we shall see hereafter. " It doth not yet appear what 
 we shall be." There are times when it seems as though our 
 circumstances, our nature, all the processes of our being, con- 
 spired to make us joyful here ; yet the apostle says we now see 
 through a glass darkly. What then must be the vision which 
 we shall behold Vv'hen we go to that abode where we shall see 
 face to face ? Into what a land of glory have you sent your 
 babes ! Into what a land of delight have you sent your 
 children and companions ! To what a land of blessedness 
 are you yourselves coming by-and-bye ! Men talk about 
 dying as though it was going toward a desolate place. All 
 the past in a man's life is down hill, and toward gloom, and all 
 the future in a man's life is up hill, and toward glorious sun- 
 rising. There is but one luminous point, and that is the home 
 towards which we are tending, above all storms, above all sin 
 and peril. Dying is glorious crowning ; living is yet toiling. 
 If God be yours, all things are yours. If Christ be yours, all 
 heaven is yours. Live while you must, but yearn for the day 
 of consummation, when the door shall be thrown o])en, that the 
 bird may fly out of his netted cage, and be heard singing in 
 hisher spheres and diviner realms. 
 
III. 
 
 THE SEPULCHRE IN THE GARDEN : 
 A SERMON TO THE SORROWING. 
 
 " Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden; and in the 
 garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid 
 they Jesus.'' — ^John xix. 41, 42. 
 
 " And there was Mary Magdalene, and the other INIary, sitting over 
 against the sepulchre." — Matt, xxvii. 61. 
 
 How Strange a watch was that ! but how oftentimes repeated 
 since ! How strange a combination of circumstances, that the 
 cross should have been lifted up so near to a garden ; that the 
 garden of all places should have held, amid its treasures, such 
 a thing as a sepulchre hewn in a rock ; that thus a cold grave 
 should have been embosomed among flowers, and waited, for 
 weeks, and months, and years, the coming of its sacred Guest ! 
 And now, how striking the picture ! A few words, and the 
 whole stands open to the imagination as to the very sight ! 
 The two women, side by side, silent, and yet knowing each 
 other's thoughts, with one grief — with one yearning— with one 
 suffering! Home was forgotten, and nature itself was un- 
 heeded. The odorous vines, the generous blossoms, the world 
 of sights around them, were as if they were not. There was 
 the rock, and only that to them. There was neither daylight, 
 nor summer, nor balm, nor perfume. There were no lilies by 
 their feet, nor roses around them : for though there were ten 
 thousand of them, there was to them only that cold, grey, 
 sepulchral rock. 
 
 See what a life theirs had been ! First was their own birth. 
 It is strange that one should be grown in years before being 
 able to recognise his own birth; but so it is. We are not born 
 when the body is — we are born afterward— sometimes through 
 silent influences developing, and oftentimes rudely born by the 
 stroke of some over-mastering sorrow, or led forth by some 
 exceeding joy. So it was with them. They had lived years 
 without fulfilling one year. They had loved without really loving. 
 They had known without really knowing. Their nature and 
 
32 THE SEPULCHRE IX THE GARDEN. 
 
 full power lay in them, but as buds lie in branches, and there 
 had been no summer to bring them forth. Only when Christ 
 came did they find themselves ; for men never can find them- 
 selves of themselves, but always in the touch of some other 
 and higher one. And only then, when these women saw a 
 nature full of strength, full of purity, with a heart that went like 
 summer through the land, did they know what it was to live. 
 Before, they had been as they are who, neither asleep nor 
 awake, hover between dreams and realities, fully possessed by 
 neither. But in the fall presence of Christ these Marys received 
 their own life. They loved, and loved worthily and upwardly. 
 And then they knew what hidden life the soul possesess. 
 
 Now life blossomed at every step to them. There can be no 
 barrenness in full summer. The very sand will yield something. 
 Rocks will have mosses, and every rift will have its wind- 
 fiower, and every crevice a leaf, while from the fertile soil will 
 be reared a gorgeous group of growths that will carry their life 
 in ten thousand forms, but all with praise to God. And so it 
 is when the soul knows its summer. Love redeems its weak- 
 ness, clothes its barrenness, enriches its poverty, and makes its 
 very desert to bud and blossom as the rose. And these two 
 Marys had in the presence of Christ waked into life. They 
 were not born until He gave them their life. They followed, 
 therefore, reverently, all His goings. They waited for Him 
 when absent as they that wait for the morning. Now there was 
 a future to them. Everyday increased their conscious treasure. 
 Each day, however, they knew that they had come to the end 
 and bound of their capacity, were full, and could hold no more 
 love, nor joy of loving. And yet every next day they smiled at 
 the barrenness of the past, and wondered how that could have 
 seemed enough which was so much less than the present. 
 
 The future glowed brighter and brighter to them. Not that 
 they were not mortal, and did not expect troubles. But storms, 
 even, are radiant when the sun shines upon them, and troubles 
 upon an orb of hope and love are sunlit clouds, whose gorgeous 
 hues take all terror from the bolt and the stroke. 
 
 And so these loving souls, I suppose, followed Christ, and 
 found a daily heaven. His serene nature; His beneficence; 
 His all-encompassing sympathy; His disinterestedness, that 
 gave everything, but asked nothing ; His supernal wisdom ; 
 His power over life ; His regency over nature ; His lordship 
 over the winds, that flew to His hand as a dove to its nest ; 
 His mastery over darkness and death itself, calling back the 
 departed spirit from its far-oft" wandering to life again ; His 
 
THE SEPULCHRE IX THE GARDEX. 33 
 
 effluent glory, as He hung in mid-air, sustained by white 
 clouds, or as He walked the night-sea, carpeted with darkness ; 
 but, above all, that inspiration, that heavenly purity, that 
 spiritual life that touched their life, and aroused them as never 
 before were they aroused — in short, the presence of their 
 God ! — all these things, abiding with them, travelling from day 
 to day with them, measuring out their golden year, gave them 
 their first full knowledge of life as the soul recognises it ! And 
 these were, to their fond hope, doubtless, a perpetual gift. 
 
 Nothing seems ever to have awakened the disciples to such 
 instant fear, even to chiding and rebuke, as the intimation of 
 their Master that He would leave them ! It seemed like a 
 threat of destruction to them. They were the more amazed 
 and confounded, therefore, when the treacherous disciple 
 betrayed Him, when He yielded Himself to authority, when 
 injustice condemned Him, smote Him, tortured Him, crucified 
 Him. Life was to them, now, no longer a waking bliss, but 
 the torment of a wild and hideous dream. A horrible insanity 
 it seemed. Yet it was constantly before them. They followed 
 Him to the city ; they followed Him out of the city ; they 
 followed Him till the procession stopped upon the hill. They 
 saw ; they heard ; they agonized. And when the earthquake 
 shook the ground, not another thing did it jar so heedless and 
 so grief-ful as those wondering, amazed, and disappointed 
 women. They stood in a very darkness, and their life was 
 like a grave. All the past was a garden, and this present hour 
 stood up in the midst of it like a sepulchre. 
 
 At first grief was too great. They were winter- stricken. The 
 very rigour of their sorrow would let nothing flow. But as 
 warmth makes even glaciers trickle, and opens streams in the 
 ribs of frozen mountains, so the heart knows the full flow and 
 life of its grief only when it begins to melt and pass away. 
 
 There, then, sat these watchers. The night came, and the 
 night went, "and there was Mary Magdalene, and the other 
 Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre." What to them was 
 that sepulchre ? It was the end and sum of life. It was the 
 evidence and fact of vanity and sorrow. It was an exposition 
 of their infatuation. It proved to them the folly of love and 
 the weakness of purity. The noblest experience of the purest 
 souls had ended in such bitter disappointment that they now 
 know that they only are wise who can say, " Let us eat and 
 drink, for to-morrow we die." Could such a one be stricken 
 and die? Could such a one be gathered into the shapeless 
 rock ? Could such a light go out, and such a soul be over- 
 
 D 
 
34 THE SEPULCHRE IN THE GARDEN. 
 
 whelmed ? What star, then, was there for hope in human life ? 
 What was safe ? What use in love, in trust, in honour, in purity, 
 since the Head and Glory of them all was not saved by them ? 
 
 This rebuke of life, of soul, of their heart-love, at length 
 drove them away. There was no garden to them where such 
 a sepulchre stood. They returned ; but oh, what a return ! 
 There was no more life when they went away from Him that 
 had awakened by love true life in them. The night was not 
 half so dark as were their souls. In a great affliction there is 
 no light either in the stars or in the sun. For when the 
 inner light is fed with fragrant oil, there can be no darkness 
 though the sun should go out ; but when, like a sacred lamp 
 in the temple, the inward light is quenched, there is no light 
 outwardly, though a thousand suns should preside in the 
 heavens. To them life was all darkness. 
 
 And yet, while that garden held the sepulchre, and the 
 women sat watching it, and saw only darkness and desolation, 
 how blind they were ! How little, after all, did they know ! 
 When first all was a bright certainty, how little then did they 
 know ! And when, afterward, all was dark woe, how little yet 
 did they know ! The darkness and the light were both alike 
 to them, for they were ignorant alike of both. How little did 
 they expect or suspect ! Of all the garden, only the rock itself 
 was a true soil, for in it lay the " root of David." Forth from 
 that unlikely spot should come a flower whose blossom would 
 restore Eden to the world ; for if a garden saw man's fall, forth 
 from the garden came his life again. But their eyes were 
 holden that they should not see. Their hearts were burdened 
 that they should not know. They saw only the sepulchre, and 
 the stone rolled against the door. They saw, they felt, they 
 despaired ! 
 
 And yet, against sight, against sense, against hope, they 
 lingered. If they departed, they could not abide away; they 
 must needs come again ; for " in the end of the Sabbath, as it 
 began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary 
 Magdalene, and the other Mary, to see the sepulchre. And 
 behold, there was a great earthquake ; for the angel of the 
 Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the 
 stone from the door, and " (like them that triumph) *' sat upon 
 it." And now their sad musings, the utter despair of the 
 reason and of the senses, the anxiety, the vigilance of the 
 heart — these were the only things that were left to them. And 
 yet, as in many cases, their hearts proved surer and better 
 guides than their reason or their thoughts ; for as a root 
 
THE SEPULCHRE IN THE GARDEN. 35 
 
 scents moisture in a dry place, or a plant even in darkness 
 aims always at the light, so the heart for ever aims at hope 
 and at immortality. And it was a woman's heart here that 
 hung as the morning star of that bright rising of the Sun of 
 Righteousness. In the end of the Sabbath Christ came forth, 
 and they were the ones whose upturned faces took His first 
 
 Such is this brief history ; and if we were to carry it out in all 
 its analogies, if we were to stretch forth its light so as to en- 
 compass all those who have had a like experience with these 
 two women, how wide would be its reaches ! how long would 
 be the rehearsal 1 
 
 I. There is a sepulchre in every garden. We are all of us in 
 this life seeking for beauty and seeking for joy, following the 
 blind instincts of our nature, every one of which was made to 
 point up to something higher than that which the present 
 realises. We are often, almost without aim, without any true 
 guidance, seeking to plant this life so that it shall be to us 
 what a garden is. And we seek out the fairest flowers, and 
 will have none but the best fruits. Striving against the 
 noxious weed, striving against the stingy soil, striving against 
 the inequalities of the season, still these are our hope. What- 
 ever may be our way of life, whatever may be the instrumen- 
 talities which we employ, that which we mean is Eden. It is 
 this that they mean who seek the structure of power, and follow 
 the leadings of ambition. This they mean who dig for golden 
 treasures, not to see the shining of the gold, but to use it as a 
 power for fashioning happiness. They who build a home and 
 surround themselves with all the sweet enjoyments of social 
 life are but planting a garden. The scholar has his garden. 
 The statesman, too, has a fancied Eden, with fruit and flower. 
 The humble, and those that stand high, are all of them seek- 
 ing to clothe the barren experiences of this world with buds 
 that blossom, blossoms that shall bear fruit. No man sees the 
 sepulchre among his flowers. There shall be no lurking 
 corner for the tempter, overleaping the wall of their happiness, 
 to hover around their fair paradise ! There shall be nothing 
 there that shall represent time, and decay, and wickedness, and 
 sorrow ! Man's uninstructed idea of happiness in this life is 
 that of a serene heaven without a cloud — a smooth earth without 
 a furrow — a fair sward without a rock. It is the hope and ex- 
 pectation of men, the world over (and it makes no difference 
 what their civilisation is, v/hat their culture, or what their 
 teaching), that they shall plant their garden, and have flowers 
 
 D — 2 
 
36 THE SEPULCHRE IN THE GARDEN. 
 
 without thorns, summer without a winter, a garden without a 
 rock, a rock without a sepulchre. 
 
 It makes very Httle difference that we see other men's delu- 
 sions. Nay, we stand upon the wall of our particular expe- 
 rience, as upon the walls of a garden, to moralise upon the 
 follies of other men. And when they have their hands pierced 
 in plucking their best fruits, when disappointments come to 
 their plantings, we wonder that they should be so blind as to 
 expect that this world could have joys without sorrows, or 
 sunshine without storms. We carry instructions to them, and 
 comfort them with the talk that this life is short and full of 
 affliction ; we speak to them of the wreaths to be worn by 
 those who bear sorrows ; and yet we go as fondly and ex- 
 pectantly to our dream of hope as ever. Ah ! it was the cradle 
 of your neighbour that was left empty, and not your own ! 
 That fair blossom that was picked was plucked from the next 
 household ! You turn with even more than your wonted in- 
 fatuation to your own cradle, to rejoice in its security. It 
 shall never be desolate. 
 
 The experience of every fresh mourner is, " I knew that 
 Death was in the world, but I never thought that my beloved 
 could die." Every one that comes to the grave says, coming, 
 *' I never thought that I should bury my heart here." Though 
 from the beginning of the world it hath been so ; though the 
 ocean itself would be oveiflowed if the drops of sorrow unex- 
 pected that have flowed should be gathered together and 
 rolled into its deep places \ though the life of man, without an 
 exception, has been taken away in the midst of his expec- 
 tations, and dashed with sorrow, yet no man learns the lesson 
 taught by these facts, and every man lays out his paradise 
 afresh, and runs the furrow of execution round about it, and 
 marks out its alleys and beds, and plants flowers and fruits, 
 and cultures them with a love that sees no change and expects 
 no sorrow ! 
 
 No man means to have anything in his paradise but flowers 
 and fruits. If there is a rock in it, it is only a rock for shadow 
 and coolness, or a rock for decoration and beauty. No man 
 will have a garden with a sepulchre in it. Your garden has no 
 sepulchre in it. If you are young and fresh, if you are begin- 
 ning life, you will hear this sermon as a poetic descant, as a 
 tender, musing homily. In the opening out of your expectant 
 wealth and life it is all garden-like, but no sepulchre is there ! 
 There is no open mouth of consuming bankruptcies ; there are 
 no disappointments, miscalculations, and blunders that bring 
 
THE SEPULCHRE IN THE GARDEN. 37 
 
 you to the earth ; there is no dismaying of ambition — no 
 thwarting or turning back of all encompassing desires. There 
 is fresh dew on the leaf, and rain at the root, and in your mind 
 a full expectation that your garden shall blossom as the rose. 
 
 And thus men live as they have lived, every man making his 
 life a garden planted ; every man saying, '' Flowers ! flowers ! 
 flowers !" and when they come, every man saying, *' They shall 
 abide ; they shall blossom in an endless summer." And we go 
 round and round the secret place, the central place — we go 
 round and round the point where in every man's experience 
 there is a sepulchre — and we heed it not, and will not know it. 
 
 2. But in spite of all this care and painstaking there is no 
 garden in the world, let it be as beautiful as it may, that has not 
 in the midst of it a sepulchre. When we sit over against it 
 with untaught hearts, we find out what we would not permit 
 ourselves to know in all the earlier stages, though it was there 
 all the time. Every one of us is travelling right toward the 
 grave. I mean not the extreme of life; I mean not that 
 common truth that every man is born to die : I include that ; 
 but I mean that every man has a sphere of life where there is 
 a sepulchre in which all that makes his life valuable to him 
 while he yet lives in this world is liable to be buried and hidden 
 from his sight. There is no man that is sure of anything except 
 of dying and living again. We see on every side such revela- 
 tions, such changes, such surprises, such unexpected happen- 
 ings and events, that it is not mere poetical moralising to say 
 that no man is certain of anything except death, to be succeeded 
 by life. 
 
 A plough is coming from the far end of a long field, and a 
 daisy stands nodding, and full of dew-dimples. That furrow 
 is sure to strike the daisy. It casts its shadow as gaily, and 
 exhales its gentle breath as freely, and stands as simple, and 
 radiant, and expectant as ever; and yet that crushing furrow 
 which is turning and turning others in its course, is drawing 
 near, and in a moment it whirls the heedless flower with sudden 
 reversal under the sod ! 
 
 And as is the daisy, with no power of thought, so are ten 
 thousand thinking, sentient flowers of life, blossoming in places 
 of peril, and yet thinking that no furrow of disaster is running 
 in toward them — that no iron plough of trouble is about to 
 overturn them. Sometimes it dimly dawns upon us, when we 
 see other men's mischiefs and wrongs, that we are in the same 
 category with them, and that perhaps the storms which have 
 overtaken them will overtake ns also. But it is only for a 
 
38 THE SEPULCHRE IN THE GARDEN. 
 
 moment, for we are artful to cover the ear and not listen to 
 the voice that warns us of our danger. 
 
 And so, although every man's garden is planted without a 
 sepulchre, yet every man's garden has a sepulchre, and he stands 
 near it, and oftentimes lays his hand upon it, and is utterly 
 ignorant of it. But it will open. No man will ever walk 
 through this life and reverse the experience, " Man that is born 
 of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble." It comes to us 
 all; not to make us sad, as we shall see by and bye, but to make 
 us sober; not to make us sorry, but to make us wise; not to 
 make us despondent, but by its darkness to refresh us, as the 
 night refreshes the day ; not to impoverish us, but to enrich us, 
 as the plough enriches the field — to multiply our joy, as the seed 
 is multiplied a hundred-fold by planting. Our conception of 
 life is not divine, and our thought of garden-making is not 
 inspired. Our earthly flowers are quickly planted, and they 
 quickly bloom, and then they are gone ; while God would 
 plant those flowers which, by transplantation, shall live for 
 ever. 
 
 3. When, then, our sorrow comes, when we are in the unin- 
 structed surprise of our trouble, when we first discover this 
 sepulchre in our garden, we sit, as these women sat, over against 
 the sepulchre, seeing, in our grief, nothing else but that. How 
 strangely stupid is grief! How it neither learns nor knows, nor 
 wishes to learn nor know ! Grief is like the stamping of invisible 
 ink. Great and glorious things are written with it, but they do 
 not come out till they are brought out. It is not until heat has 
 been applied to it, or until some chemical substance has been 
 laid upon it, that that which was invisible begins to come forth 
 in letter, and sentence, and meaning. In the first instance we 
 see in life only death — we see in change destruction. When 
 the sisters sat over against the door of the sepulchre, did they 
 see the two thousand years that have passed triumphing away.-* 
 Did they see anything but this : *' Our Christ is gone? " And 
 yet your Christ and my Christ came from their loss ; myriad, 
 myriad mourning hearts, have had resurrection in the midst of 
 ///^/> grief; and yet the sorrowful watchers looked at the seed- 
 form of this result and saw nothing. What they regarded as 
 the end of life was the very preparation for coronation ; for 
 Christ was silent that He might live again in tenfold power. 
 They saw it not. They looked on the rock, and it was rock. 
 They looked upon the stone door, and it was the stone door 
 that estopped all their hope and expectation. They mourned, 
 and wept, and went away, and came again, drawn by their 
 
THE SEPULCHRE IN THE GARDEN. 39 
 
 hearts to the sepulchre. Still it was a sepulchre, unprophetic, 
 voiceless, lustreless. 
 
 So with us. Every man sits over against the sepulchre in his 
 garden, in the first instance, and says, *'It is grief; it is woe; 
 it is immedicable trouble. I see no benefit in it. I will take 
 no comfort from it." And yet, right in our deepest and worst 
 mishaps, often and often, our Christ is lying, waiting for resur- 
 rection. Where our death seems to be, there our Saviour is. 
 Where the end of hope is, there is the brightest beginning of 
 fruition. Where the darkness is thickest, there the bright 
 beaming light that never is to set is about to emerge. 
 
 When the whole experience is consummated, then we find 
 that a garden is not disfigured by a sepulchre. Oar joys are 
 made better if there be a sorrow in the midst of them, and our 
 sorrows are made bright by the joys that God has planted 
 round about them. The flowers may not be pleasing to us, 
 they may not be such as we are fond of plucking, but they are 
 heart-flowers. Love, hope, faith, joy, peace — these are flowers 
 which are planted round about every grave that is sunk in a 
 Christian heart. For the present it is "not joyous, but grievous; 
 nevertheless, afterward, it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of 
 righteousness." 
 
 In so great a congregation as this, where there are so many 
 thousands that by invisible threads are connected with this 
 vital teaching-point, sorrow becomes almost a literature, and 
 grief almost a lore ; and we are in danger of walking over the 
 road of consolation so frequently, that at last it becomes to us 
 a road hard and dusty. We are accustomed to take certain 
 phrases, as men take medicinal herbs, and apply them to bruised, 
 and wounded, and suffering hearts, until we come to have a 
 kind of rituahstic formality. It is good, therefore, that every one 
 of us, now and then, should be brought back to the reality of 
 the living truth of the Gospel by some heart-quake — by some 
 sorrow, by some suffering. Flowers mislead us, beguile us, 
 enervate us, and make us earthly, even if they assume the most 
 beautiful forms of loveliness ; while troubles translate us, 
 develop us, win us from things that are too low to be worthy 
 of us, and bring us into the presence and under the conscious 
 power of God. 
 
 4. But it is Christ in the sepulchre that is to give us all our 
 joy and all our hope in the midst of disappointments and re- 
 versals. Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. Blessed 
 are they that sleep in Jesus. Blessed are they that have heard 
 the Bridegroom's voice, and have gone out to meet Him. 
 
40 THE SEPULCHRE IN THE GARDEN. 
 
 Blessed are they that can see in their troubles such a resur- 
 rection of Christ that, in the joy they experience from the 
 realisation of the rising of the Sun of Righteousness upon them, 
 they shall quite forget the troubles themselves. 
 
 When once the sisters that watched had been permitted to 
 gaze upon the risen Christ, to clasp His hand, to worship Him, 
 \vhere was the memory of their past trouble ? What was their 
 thought of the arrest, of the shameful trial — which was no trial — 
 of the crucifixion, and death, and burial? These were all gone 
 from their minds. As when the morning comes we are apt to 
 forget the night out of which it came ; so when out of trouble 
 comes new happiness, when out of affliction comes new joy, 
 when out of the crucifixion of the lower passions comes purifi- 
 cation, we are apt to forget the process through which this 
 happiness, this joy, this purification, came. As there can be 
 no sepulchre which can afford consolation that hath not a 
 Christ ready to be revealed in it, so there can be no sorrow 
 from which we can be well delivered that hath not in it a Christ 
 leady to be revealed. 
 
 As, then, these Marys, in their very weakness, were stronger 
 than when they thought themselves strong, as in the days of 
 their sorrow they were nearer joy than when they were joyful, 
 as when their expectations were cut off they were nearer a 
 glorious realisation than at any other period of their life : so, 
 when we are weakest we may be strongest, when we are most 
 cast down we may be nearest the moment of being lifted 
 up, when we are most oppressed we are nearest deliverance, 
 when we are most cut off we are nearest being joined for ever 
 and ever to Him who is life indeed and joy indeed. 
 
 My Christian friends, we are very apt, in the regularity of 
 teaching, to carry forward our faith of Christ to the dying hour, 
 and to think of a Christ that can rise upon us in that mortal 
 strife with heaHng in His beams. We are not apt to have 
 Christ with us every day in its vicissitudes and disappointments; 
 we are not apt to take Christ into that which belongs to 
 universal life; we are not apt to take Christ into the checks, and 
 frets, and hindrances, and misdirections of this world, into our 
 bereavements and misfortunes. We are apt to regard Christ 
 as remote from us, and to put Him forward to the time of our 
 final dismission from this world. 
 
 He that knows how to die in his passions every day, he that 
 knows how to die in his pride from hour to hour, he that has 
 Christ in each particular thwarting and event of life, he that 
 knows how, from the varied experiences of life, to bring forth, 
 
THE SEPULCHRE IN THE GARDEN. 41 
 
 day by day, a Christian character, need not fear the grand and 
 final experience of earth to which he is coming. There is no death 
 to those that know how to die beforehand. Those who know 
 how to lay themselves upon Christ, and take the experiences 
 of every-day life in the faith of Christ ; those who see the will 
 of God in everything that abounds, whether wounding or 
 healing — they have nothing left at the end of life except peace, 
 translation, and the beginning of immortality. 
 
 It is this Saviour that has so sweetened life, if we would but 
 know it, who is our Master ; and He stands in our midst to- 
 day, saying to us, " In the world ye shall have tribulation." 
 I am sent to say it to every one in this congregation. Tribula- 
 tion may not come to you in the way in which you expect it, 
 or in the way in which you see it developed in other persons. 
 It may come unheralded. But the voice of the Lord hath 
 spoken to every one of you, and said, " In the world ye shall 
 have tribulation." 
 
 More than that. It pleased God to comfort you beforehand 
 by the assurance that affliction is the token of paternal love. 
 Nay, God puts it so strongly that one almost shrinks : " If ye 
 be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye 
 bastards, and not sons." Christ says, again and again, that if 
 you belong to His family you shall have trouble. Is it worth 
 your while, then, to go on making your Eden without a 
 sepulchre ? Is it worth your while to go on making your 
 picture all lights and no shadows ? Is it worth your while to 
 go on building and rebuilding the structure of life without 
 considering that it is a part of human necessity, and a part of 
 God's plan of mercy, that every man should have trouble, not 
 once, not twice, but often ; as he has his food — as he has his 
 very being itself? 
 
 This is one side of Christ's message to every one of you to- 
 day. How many of you have I seen in your troubles ! How 
 many of you have I walked with in your hour of anguish for 
 sin ! I look upon a congregation with one in every six of 
 whom, it seems to me, I have gone down to the baptismal 
 water, or sprinkled, and walked with through all the stages of 
 their heart-distress. For how many of you have I spoken 
 words of consolation at funerals ? Where are the children, 
 where are the brothers and sisters, where are the parents, where 
 are the kindred of this church ? Where are our old friends and 
 co-workers ? Where are those that were in the height of 
 personal expectation ten years ago ? We have lived ten years 
 together, most of us — some of us longer than that — and have 
 
42 THE SEPULCHRE IN THE GARDEN. 
 
 we not tracked God at every step, verifying His declaration, 
 " Ye shall have tribulation ? " And are we to look forward to 
 •the time to come with less expectation of tribulation ? Look 
 upon your household. Who shall be unclothed next? I 
 desire to take this to myself. I desire to look at my plans and 
 expectations in the light of this inquiry. For I, too, have made 
 a garden, and have forgotten to put a sepulchre in it. I desire 
 to commence a new survey. Let me go up to that central 
 mound covered with flowers, and let me see if underneath 
 those flowers there is not an opening mouth — the darkness of 
 the grave. And if there is, then let me rejoice, for I am sure 
 that that is an unwatered garden which has no sepulchre. May 
 God grant that I shall have no garden in which there is no 
 sepulchre with a Christ about to emerge from a fruitful death. 
 Will you look into your gardens — your money-garden, your 
 pleasure-garden, your love-garden, your household-garden, 
 your taste-garden ? All the plants of your various gardens — 
 will you look at them, and see if in the midst of them there is 
 a place for a sepulchre ? Will you see that there is a sepulchre 
 in your gardens ? And will you make that the centre of all 
 your plantings ? 
 
 I am sent by Christ to say to you another thing. First, " In 
 the world ye shall have tribulation ; but," next, '* be of good 
 cheer ; I have overcome the world," and ye shall overcome it 
 also. " Because I live, ye shall live also." That is the end of 
 trouble. Now sorrow is crowned with hope. Now the gate is 
 thrown open ! Now the angel sits upon the stone ! Now the 
 emergent Christ walks forth light and glorious as the sun in the 
 heavens ! Now the lost is found ! Now all the stars hang like 
 gems, and jewels, and treasures for us ! Now, since Christ says 
 that out of all these experiences He shall bring forth life, even 
 as His own life was brought forth out of the tomb, what is 
 there that we need trouble ourselves about ? 
 
 Christian brethren, do you know how to be glad, and to 
 make others glad, in the midst of your trouble ? Do you know 
 how to stand in the midst of your losses and disappointments 
 so that men shall say, " After all, it is not troublesome to be 
 afflicted? " Do you know how to be peaceful in the midst of 
 deepest bereavements ? Do you know how to seek Christ in 
 the very tomb ? Do you know how to employ the tomb as the 
 astronomer employs the lens, which in the darkness reveals to 
 him vast depths and infinite stretches of created tilings in the 
 space beyond ? Do you know how to look through the grave 
 and see what there is on the other side — the glory and power 
 
THE SEPULCHRE IN THE GARDEN. 43 
 
 of God ? Blessed are they to whom Christ hath revealed the 
 meaning of the sepulchre. 
 
 And when, after a very little time, we go away from our 
 sorrows and our sepulchral burying-places, we shall, as did 
 these faithful watching women, meet our Christ victorious from 
 the grave, glorified, exalted. And whatever we lose here that 
 is worth weeping for, we shall find again. When man reaps 
 there is something for the gleaner's hands behind him. He 
 shakes out many kernels for the soil, and drops many heads of 
 wheat for the gleaner. But when God reaps He loses not one 
 kernel, and drops not one single heavy head of grain. And 
 whatever that is good has been taken from you — every straw, 
 and every kernel, and every head— shall be garnered. Only 
 that will remain in the earth which you would fain give to the 
 earth, while that which the heart claims, and must have if it 
 live, awaits you. Great are the joys that are before you, but 
 they do not lie level with the earth. Great are the joys to 
 which we are to come ; we are traveUing up to them. 
 
 Let us, then, to-day, renew, in the presence of our Master, 
 our consecration to Christ, the Deliverer.-' Let us accept Him 
 once more as our life. Let our life be hid in Him. And when 
 He shall appear, then we also, at last, shall be made known to 
 each other. We shall see Him as He is, and v/e shall be like 
 Him. 
 
 After the blessing is pronounced, we will remain, Christian 
 brethren, a short time at this joyful hour, not to mourn over a 
 broken Christ symbolised — for we know better — but to rejoice 
 that the broken Saviour is now the ever-living Prince, risen and 
 clothed with immortal victory. We meet around these memo- 
 rials. We take them for a starting-point. But we may go 
 beyond them, and rest and rejoice in the bosom of ever-living 
 love. 
 
 If there be present any that mourn for their sins, that despair 
 of help in themselves, that feel their need of Christ, that yearn 
 toward Him, that long for Him, and that are willing to accept 
 Him, them also I bid come home. This is your Father's house, 
 and this is your Father's table. If you will be children of 
 Christ, come and partake with us of these emblems. May 
 God grant that every one of us who sit together in these earthly 
 places in Christ Jesus may have the unspeakable joy, by-and- 
 bye, of sitting together in heavenly places. 
 
 '•■ The Lord's Supper was administered at the close of the sermon. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST MAINTAINED 
 
 IN A CONSIDERATION OF HIS RELATIONS TO THE SOUL 
 OF MAN." 
 
 "Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and 
 love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making 
 mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and reve- 
 lation in the knowledge of Him : the eyes of your understanding being 
 enlightened ; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and 
 what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what 
 is the exceeding greatness of His power to us- ward who believe, accor- 
 ding to the workhig of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, 
 when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right 
 hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and 
 might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this 
 world, but also in that which is to come; and hath put all things under 
 His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the Church, 
 which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all." — 
 Eph. i. 15—23. 
 
 The Divinity of Christ is the one central truth of the New 
 Testament. What Christ said and what He did are profoundly- 
 important, but what He luas is transcendently more important. 
 Christianity is not a system of ethics, of worship, of belief. 
 Christianity is Christ. Personal influence, not intellectual in- 
 structions, is its peculiarity. The New Testament, as a record, 
 presents a person who drew about Him a band of disciples, 
 and exerted upon them an influence which transformed their 
 characters, and led them to bestow upon Him that affection, 
 reverence, and worship, which men are at liberty to render only 
 to God. They worshipped Christ rather because they felt the 
 power of His Divine nature than from an intellectual conviction 
 that He was God. 
 
 One source of the conflicts in modern arguments for and 
 against the Divinity of Christ arises from the fact that a great 
 truth presented to the mind of one age is tested by intellectual 
 conceptions which have grown up since. We bring an abstract 
 
 ■'• This Sermon, joreachcd in Plymouth Cliurch, Brooklyn, Sabbath 
 morning, May 6th, i860, has been entirely rewritten for this volume. 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 45 
 
 philosophy to bear upon simple, practical truths. We attempt 
 to deal with feelings, sentiments, enthusiasms, as if they were 
 ideas. A few illustrations will make this manifest. 
 
 The old Hebrews taught the unity of God as opposed to 
 Polytheism. It was not a discussion of abstract attributes, but 
 of concrete facts, Jehovah was God— not Baal, Ashtaroth, 
 idols, and enthroned powers of nature. But idols have perished, 
 and all the famed gods of antiquity are but as dreams at day- 
 break. 
 
 In Christendom, for ages, men have gone on discussing the 
 unity of God, but now it is an idea of unity unborn when 
 Moses lived ; it is modern, abstract— the child of philosophy. 
 This is proper enough. But is it right to lay this modern view 
 back upon the ancient, as if they were one and identical, and 
 to employ the words of the archaic to clinch the ideas of the 
 recent arguments ? 
 
 The New Testament records the presentation to men of a 
 person who differed from His fellow men by such transcendent 
 excellence that His disciples worshipped Him, and after His 
 death paid Divine honours to Him — exalted to the heavenly 
 sphere. Was this Person privy to such results in the minds of 
 His disciples ? Did He employ language which naturally 
 favoured the impression, not that He was an uncommon man, 
 but really Divine. Did He present Himself to them in such 
 aspects and relations as must inevitably have fascinated their 
 imaginations, thralled their aftections, and drawn from them that 
 hom.age and devotion which men should render only to God ? 
 
 To argue the Divinity of Christ from His creative acts, from 
 His participation in moral government, from implied or direct 
 claims made by Him to Divinity, will not be without a Scrip- 
 ture warrant. But while it will be a scriptural method, it will 
 not be the scriptural method— peculiar, simple, and original — 
 by which Christ's Godship is presented in the New Testament, 
 
 An argument for the Divinity of Christ derived from His rela- 
 tions, now and hereafter^ to the hujtian soul, will approach ?iearest 
 to the genius of t/ie Gospels. 
 
 May the soul yield itself without reserve to the guidance of 
 Christ? May it bestow upon Him its affection without 
 measure? May its love kindle the imagination till His 
 pictured greatness and excellence draw forth a profound 
 reverence and a rapturous homage ? May man call upon his 
 soul, and all that is within him, to laud and magnify the name 
 of Christ, until it is set above every other name, and not below 
 the very name of God .'* 
 
46 THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 
 
 This will be an argument for the Divinity of Christ drawn 
 from the human soul, and which will be new in every age, and 
 which will never change with progressing philosophies or new 
 civilisations. And it will have this pre-eminent advantage over 
 all other methods, that it will not be more an argument than an 
 experience ; that it will carry practice with reasoning ; that it 
 will convince from moral experience more than from a mere 
 championship of ideas. As there can be no argument of 
 chemistry in proof of odours like a present perfume itself; as 
 the shining of the stars is a better proof of their existence than 
 the figures of an astronomer ; as the restored health of his 
 patients is a better argument of skill in a physician than 
 laboured examinations and certificates ; as the testimony of 
 the almanac that summer comes with June is not so convincing 
 as is the coming of summer itself in the sky, in the air, 
 in the fields, on hill and mountain : so the power of 
 Christ upon the human soul is to the soul evidence of His 
 Divinity, based upon a living experience, and transcending in 
 conclusiveness any convictions of the intellect alone, founded 
 upon a contemplation of mere ideas, however just and sound. 
 
 If Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God in the 
 experience of those who trust and love Him, there needs no 
 further argument of His Divinity. The whole interest of the 
 question centres and exhausts itself in the question of man's sal- 
 vation. Curiosity, and even philosophy, may task itself with 
 insoluble questions, with the quantitative argument, with the 
 argument from Divine relations to nations and to governments, 
 but the one question with every earnest, thoughtful mind will 
 be, Alay I love and luorship Christ with all my heart, and mind, 
 and soul ? 
 
 In this spirit I shall present some considerations adapted to 
 settle and comfort those who desire to believe in the Divinity 
 of Christ, but are moved with fear lest they shall derogate from 
 the honour due to God by according to a creature that worship 
 which belongs to God alone. 
 
 I. We have said that Christianity is Christ. We do not 
 mean that it is the history of His life, the record of His deeds, 
 and the statement of the truths which He left to the world. 
 Christianity has its ethical system, its didactic truths, its history, 
 and place in time. But these are only the body, the members, 
 through which its soul acts. A living person stands in the 
 midst of these truths, himself the grandest truth, the grandest 
 fact. While Christ excelled all teachers in the breadth and 
 richness of His moral instructions, the most striking difference 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 47 
 
 between Him and all other teachers was \hQ personal allegiance 
 which He demanded to Himsdf. He urged Himself upon 
 men as the embodiment of truth, and demanded of His 
 followers not simply an assent to His doctrines, but the inter- 
 weaving of their lives with His. Plato and Socrates have been 
 often mentioned as the greatest teachers of men. Imagine 
 Socrates standing in Athens, even when men were most affected 
 by him, and, amid influences the most propitious, saying to his 
 followers, " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy 
 laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and 
 learn of me : for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall 
 find rest unto your souls." Or imagine Plato, when, in some 
 favoured day, he had carried up his disciples with great enthu- 
 siasm by his discourse, saying, "I am the light of the world. 
 He that foUoweth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have 
 the light of life." These are not sentences flashing from the 
 extreme excitement of some rapturous moment. They are 
 specimens of Christ's manner. They run through all His dis- 
 courses. As His end drew nigh, and the minds of His disciples 
 were more open, the frequency and boldness with which He 
 presented Himself as the epitome of truth, as the source of 
 spiritual life in heaven, as the object of supreme trust, as the only 
 authentic conception of God, as the exclusive way and door, 
 rnust have struck every attentive reader. Listen to His conver- 
 sation with Philip. " Philip saith unto Him, Lord, shov/ us the 
 Father, and it sufflceth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been 
 so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip ? 
 He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father ; and how sayest 
 thou, then. Show us the Father ? " The passage is remarkable, 
 not only for the grandeur with which He claimed to stand for 
 God, but it is conclusive that this personal presentation of Him- 
 self was habitual from the beginning of His ministry, or why that 
 question of rebuke and surprise, *' Have I been so long time with 
 you, . . . and yet how sayest thou, then, Shoiv us tJie Father ? " 
 
 The apostles afterward entered fully into this view. They 
 never presented Christianity, but always Christ. They never 
 assumed or implied that the truths which Christ taught were 
 enough for salvation. The whole tenor and spirit of their in- 
 struction was, '^Believe on the Lord yesus Christ, ^^ They did 
 not seek for disciples to a school of morality, or of religion, or 
 of philosophy; it was a personal allegiance which they every- 
 where demanded. Every knee shall bow, and every tongue con- 
 fess that Jesus Christ is Lord ! — that was their purpose. 
 
 To accept Christ was, of course, to accept His teachings. 
 
48 THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 
 
 But no man could accept His teachings, and yet reject a personal 
 Saviour. By every form of identification was this personal rela- 
 tion manifested. Men took on the name of their Prince. 
 They were baptized, not in their own name, but into Christ's 
 name, as if they had passed into a new family relation. The 
 whole record of the feelings of the apostles is in the spirit of a 
 Divine hero-worship. Let Paul's language stand for all : " None 
 of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For 
 whether w^e live, we live unto the Lord ; and, whether we die, 
 we die unto the Lord ; whether we live, therefore, or die, we 
 are the Lord's." 
 
 It is incontrovertible that the New Testament idea of 
 piety is not simply a good life, with sound belief, but that it is 
 a personal u?iion with the Lord Jesus Christ. From such a 
 vital sympathy and unity will flow the whole train and sequence 
 of moral and religious experiences. But Christ is the First ; 
 Christ is the Last ; Christ is the Author and Finisher of faith. 
 Not a single step has been taken in Christianity until men have 
 come into personal allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 2. If now we examine the aspects in which this Person is 
 presented, the claims which He makes, the natural effects which 
 must inevitably flow from the performance of what He commands, 
 it will become plain that, if it be wrong to worship Christ, the 
 whole Gospel scheme is exquisitely adapted to mislead every 
 susceptible and worshipping nature, and to entrap them into 
 idolatry. 
 
 The child Jesus was surrounded with such portents as 
 brought upon Him the expectant eyes of all who knew Him. 
 His manhood did not discredit the expectations of men. His 
 intelhgence placed Him at once at the head of teachers. After 
 a few trials of debate, the wisest men of His nation, skilled in 
 debate, relinquished all further attempts to measure words with 
 Him. His reputation for purity and goodness equalled His 
 wisdom. He manifested extraordinary insight of the human 
 heart, and singular power in reading it. Wherever He went the 
 whole community was moved. Such was the popular excite- 
 ment which followed His steps, that it became necessary for 
 Him to hide from men, and to enjoin silence upon the recipients of 
 His beneficence. Men of deeply religious and earnest natures, 
 like Nicodemus, sought Him with reverence ; the common 
 people sought Him with curiosity ; and the wicked and wretched 
 sought Him with hope. More stricking than His wonders or 
 His wisdom was this power of exciting among the vile a pro- 
 found yearning for purity. Parents ran to Him with their sick ; 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 49 
 
 men came as to a natural judge with their disputes in business. 
 Women of a foreign tongue brought their daughters tormented 
 with evil spirits for exorcism, and Roman officers bowed rever- 
 ently to this remarkable Person, although they heartily des- 
 pised the enslaved nation from which He sprang. 
 
 These impressions of the multitude were heightened by an 
 extraordinary control of nature. The winds, at His command, 
 were still ; the boisterous sea sank down to quiet. When He 
 spoke, new powers were developed in natural causes : clay 
 healed bhndness ; water cured leprosy. Diseases of every kind, 
 and in uncountable numbers, were healed at His word. A few 
 loaves of bread fed thousands of hungry people, still increasing 
 as it was broken and distributed. The dead were restored to 
 life again. There was no doubt whatever as to the reality of 
 these acts. That miracles were wrought was never disputed, 
 not even by shrewd enemies, lying in wait to destroy Him. 
 The power was admitted ; the origin and source of the power 
 alone were questioned. He said that it was Divine, and an 
 evidence of His superior mission. His enemies said that 
 it was infernal, and a token that He was leagued with the 
 devil. 
 
 This extraordinary power could not but raise in the minds of 
 His disciples the most exalted opinion of their Master. And 
 when, on one occasion, upon Mount Tabor, they saw Him 
 transfigured, hanging in the air before them like a star, and 
 surrounded with glorious light, in converse with celestial spirits, 
 is it strange that they fully believed Him to be Divine? and that 
 there was every probability that they w^ould, unless cautioned 
 and restrained, worship Him ? 
 
 Consider, then, the language and conduct towards His dis- 
 ciples of One so eminent in wisdom, so extraordinary in power, 
 and so fascinating in manner and influence. He is not known 
 €ven once to have cautioned them against an idolatrous affec- 
 tion. But He did continuously exert upon them influences, 
 and address to them language, which could have but one ten- 
 dency, and that to kindle enthusiastic affection, and boundless 
 reverence and worship. He declared that He came from God; 
 that He and the Divine Father were one ; that the surest 
 method of knowing and worshipping the Father, was to know 
 and love Him, His Son. He declared Himself empowered to 
 forgive sin, and to inspire a new life in all who would love Him. 
 He depicted His own aftection for them in language whose 
 tenderness and dignity have never been equalled. Such was 
 His love for them that it had driven Him from above; that it 
 
 E 
 
50 THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 
 
 had animated His earthly career ; that it was leading Him to a 
 shameful and dreadful death, which He would not shun. 
 
 But He declared that death itself was to be but a short 
 absence from them, while He was gone to prepare a place in 
 Paradise, " that where I am there ye may be also." 
 
 No literal language could enough convey His idea of the 
 intensity and entireness of that love which He gave and sought 
 in return. He therefore employed figures. He declared that 
 their life depended upon Him; that He was the light; that 
 He was the bread of life, the water of life ; that His very flesh 
 was their food, and His blood their drink. He declared that 
 He was their Master, and yet their servant. So wholly were 
 they dependent upon Him, that He was their way, along which 
 their feet came to walk as upon a road, and He stood between 
 them and life eternal, as the door or gate in a city between 
 strangers without and citizens within. He declared that He 
 watched over, tended, guarded, and led them as a shepherd 
 does his flock. 
 
 And then, in describing the eflects which He desired their 
 love to produce in them — the intimacy and entireness of it — 
 He declared that they were to grow out of Him as a branch 
 out of a vine; while, on the other hand, He would enter into 
 them, as one does into his house, and dwell with them; and 
 that this intimacy between them should be of the same kind as 
 that which existed between Himself and the Father, and that 
 it should be constant and perpetual — a secret inspiration, a 
 pure joy, an unfailing strength on earth, and the earnest and 
 presage of endless fehcity in the world to come ! 
 
 With all these ecstatic words in their hearts, the disciples 
 beheld this Singular Being arrested, tried with circumstances of 
 indignity, and condemned unjustly, while the compromising 
 magistrate declared that he '* found no fault in Him." They saw 
 His calmness. His fortitude, and His disinterestedness in these 
 scenes of excitement and peril. They beheld Him toiling under 
 His own cross ; they heard the muflled strokes of the hammer as 
 He was nailed to it ; they saw the cross lifted up, and their Master 
 with it, while, to add every indignity to the cruelty, two thieves 
 were crucified with Him — an unconscious symbol of His work — 
 the highest dying for and with the lowest — God united to man 
 in weakness, that man might be lifted up to God by His 
 strength ! When the agony was over, and the three days of 
 burial, He canie again to them, bearing about with Him a 
 certain unworldly aspect. But no change was there in the 
 demands for their love and service. He commanded them to 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 5 1 
 
 dedicate their lives to His Name, to make that universal which 
 he had addressed to them personally, to go forth to every 
 nation and declare to all mankind those truths of God's love 
 and mercy, through Jesus Christ. And then, while He yet 
 spoke, He rose up slowly before them and disappeared, as a 
 star goes out in the growing light of morning ! 
 
 "And they worshipped Hlm, and returned to Jerusalem 
 with great joy."* Did they sin in woj^shipping the Lord Jesus 
 Christ ? After their long career of intimacy, did love to such 
 a Being, who had exhausted the symbolism of life to express 
 His life-giving relations to them ; with every conceivable in- 
 citement to reverence and worship; with love, wonder, joy, 
 and gratitude kindling their imaginations toward Him ; without 
 a solitary word of caution lest they should be snared by their 
 enthusiasm, and bestow upon Him the worship which belonged 
 only to God, did they sin in worshipping Christ? If they did, 
 was not Christ Himself the tempter ? If they did not, may not 
 every loving soul worship Him? Is there any other question of 
 Divinity that man need be troubled about but a Divinity which 
 the soul may worship, and on which it may rely for salvation ? 
 
 Let me place another case before you for judgment. A 
 maiden, the daughter of a prince, has wandered from her father's 
 house, and has lapsed from virtue, seeking pleasure in ways every 
 year more degrading. A noble youth appears among her gross 
 companions, not to partake in their orgies, but with a gentle 
 grace and eloquent persuasion to inspire an ambition of better 
 things. To her he brings her father's importunity. Drawn to 
 him by all that is attractive in pure manhood, she is met with 
 more than encouragement — with sympathy, with tenderness, 
 with expressions of love so exquisite, so new, so eloquent, that 
 her soul dies in her with a sense of unworthiness. But he 
 comforts and encourages her. "Because I live thou shalt live 
 also." And when she fears to weary him, and seeks alone to 
 find her upward way, he whispers, "Not without me, for without 
 me you can do nothing." When the returning power of habits, 
 conquered but not subdued, drives her to despair, he re-illumines 
 hope, saying, " Be of good cheer ; I have overcome the world, 
 and you shall also." And then, amid blushing flowers, he 
 pours the tide of love in strange words that thrill the heart and 
 fascinate the imagination. " I will never leave thee nor forsake 
 thee. Come to me in every hour of trial, and I will give thee 
 rest. Grow to me, and mingle my life with your own, as the 
 branch derives its life from the vine. Thy heart is my home ; I 
 * Luke xxiv. 52. 
 
 E — 2 
 
52 
 
 THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 
 
 will dwell there. Not God and his dearest ones are more united 
 than I and thou." 
 
 By all these words, by all this love, by all these hopes, by the 
 ineffable joy of his presence, by his noble example and his un- 
 wearied teachings, by the inspiration of his Hfe, and the lifting 
 power of his soul put beneath hers, she comes back to virtue 
 and womanhood, and with sacred ardour turns to him who has 
 saved her, to love him with a love that leaves nothing unmingled 
 in it, that carries up with it the dew from every flower that 
 blossoms in her heart ! What if he sternly shuts her opening 
 heart, and puts away the reverence of her love and the devotion 
 of her soul, saying, "Give these to your father. It is wicked 
 to bestow them upon me !" If it be wicked to love, what is it 
 to have deliberately inspired such love, and then to refuse it ? 
 
 And shall I follow Christ through all my life ; behold His 
 beauty ; twine about Him every aftection ; lean upon Him for 
 strength; behold Him as my leader, my teacher; feed upon 
 Him as my bread, my wine, my water of life ; see all things in 
 this world in that light which he declares Himself to be — in His 
 strength vanquish sin, draw from Him my hope and inspiration, 
 wear His name and love His work, and, through my whole life, 
 at His command, twine about Him every affection, die in His 
 arms, and awake with eager upspring to find Him whom my 
 soul loveth, only to be put away with the announcement that 
 He is not the recipient of worship ? Well might I cry out in 
 the anguish of Mary in the garden, " They have taken away my 
 Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him." 
 
 It is impossible to fulfil the commands of Christ and not be 
 carried into worship. Not texts and arguments, but the laws 
 of mind and the nature of the soul rise up to argue Him Divine. 
 
 If I may rest my being on Him ; If I may feel that He has 
 suffered for my sins, that He has borne my sorrows, and that 
 my life is grafted into His ; and if I may pour out everything in 
 me of thought, and zeal, and worship toward Him — then, 
 blessed be God for Christ ! But if it is wicked for me to do 
 these things, then I cannot thank God for Him. God should 
 not have added to the misery of our condition by giving us 
 such a Being, and then make it wicked for us to worship Him. 
 
 But I am not afraid to worship Christ ! I will trust myself 
 to worship Him. I will trust those dearest to me to worship 
 Him. In the arms of Christ's love nothing shall hurt you. 
 Love on, trust on, worship fearlessly ! Let go your most ardent 
 devotions toward Him. There is no Divine jealousy. The 
 anxieties that afflict the sons of earth in their ideas of God 
 
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. 
 
 S3 
 
 never exist in heaven. Christ is the soul's bread— eat, ye that 
 hunger ! He is the water of life — drinl^, ye that thirst ! He 
 is the soul's end — aim at Him ! He is the soul's supreme 
 glory — yield to every outgush of joy, of enthusiasm, of worship 
 that springs up in your heart toward Him ! Those that are in 
 heaven bow down before Him, and ascribe "blessing, and 
 honour, and glory, and power unto Him that sitteth upon the 
 throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever." Let us not 
 fear to do the same. 
 
 *' Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? Shall 
 tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, 
 or peri], or sword ? " " Nay, in all these things we are more 
 than conquerors, through Him that loved us. For I am 
 persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor princi- 
 palities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor 
 height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to 
 separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our 
 Lord." 
 
 When two souls come together, and unite with each other, 
 no one has a right to meddle with them, to know their most 
 blessed intercourse, or to interpret their thoughts to each other. 
 They are to be let alone. And when a soul goes up in the 
 enthusiasm of its affianced love to unite itself to Jesus Christ, 
 shall not its trust be respected ? Shall anything separate it from 
 Him ? No ; nothing. It is God that surrounds us ; it is the 
 eternal Father that rejoices in us ; and at no time does He 
 rejoice in us more than when we are giving our life and our 
 being to Jesus Christ our Saviour. 
 
 This morning, then, dear Christian brethren, let us renew the 
 testimonies of our love and confidence toward this ascended 
 One. If there be those present who, though they do not bear 
 the same ecclesiastical name and relationship which we do, by 
 faith bear the same relationship to Christ which we bear, hoping 
 in Him, trusting Him, loving Him, taking Him to be their soul's 
 Saviour, and who desire to unite with us to-day in the celebra- 
 tion of the Last Supper of Christ, we cordially invite them to 
 remain after the blessing is pronounced, and participate in this 
 joyous festival. 
 
V. 
 THE GENTLENESS OF GOD. 
 
 "Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of 
 Christ."— 2 Cor. x. i. 
 
 Among all the motives which (in turn) are addressed to men, 
 in dissuasion from evil and persuasion to good, none seems 
 more impressive and touching than that of God's generosity. 
 Authority, command, sublime threatening, sentence, and 
 judicial penalty — all these seem natural to supremacy. But 
 personal kindness, tenderness of feeling, gentleness, and 
 benignity, as motives to obedience, are not possible under 
 constitutional governments, which are not governments by 
 arbitrary monarchs, but of laws and constitutions — abstract and 
 without feeling. The Divine government, on the contrary, is 
 personal. In human governments men represent institutions 
 and laws. Exactly the reverse is true in the Divine government : 
 laws and institutions represent a person — God. 
 
 In an argument designed to authenticate his apostolic claims 
 as an authoritative teacher of the gospel of Christ, Paul employs 
 the Divine feelings as a powerful motive. He lays g-reat stress 
 upon tJie meekness and gentleness of Christ. And this is the 
 theme of my discourse this morning — the gentleness of Christ. 
 
 Gentleness is not a separate and distinct faculty. It is the 
 method by which strength manifests itself. Softness and tender- 
 ness, from want of strength, constitute weakness, not gentleness. 
 
 Nothing can be less influential than kindness springing from 
 imbecility. That kind of gentleness which springs from weak- 
 ness increases as things approach zero. 
 
 Gentleness is not, then, the mere absence of rude vigour. It 
 is the softness and tenderness of vigour and great power. It is 
 sweet in the degree in which it is the attribute or the fruit of 
 power, and in the degree in which it springs from authority and 
 dignity. The greater the power of the being, the greater will 
 be the marvel and the delicacy of gentleness. In a woman we 
 expect gentleness. We are shocked by its absence rather than 
 surprised l)y its presence. But in a warrior we scarcely expect 
 it, and therefore it creates an admiration that it does not in 
 woman. 
 
THE GENTLENESS OF GOD. 55 
 
 It is wonderful, too, in proportion to the provocation to con- 
 trary feelings. That beauty should beget admiration, that 
 goodness should attract benignity, that purity should find the 
 face of God reflected from its tranquil surface, as the sun from 
 still and silent lakes, does not surprise us. But that all rude, 
 and vulgar, and hateful things, should find themselves, at one 
 time or another, the subjects of a true and Divine gentleness, 
 this is surprising. 
 
 Gentleness, likewise, is wonderful in proportion to the moral 
 sensibility and discriminating purity of the mind which exercises 
 it. Divine moral indifference would extract all merit and efficacy 
 from goodness and gentleness. If God were gentle to sinful 
 men, simply because He cared nothing for moral character, and 
 because indifference were easier to Himself, gentleness would 
 then be an inflection of indolence and selfishness, and ^vould 
 neither produce surprise nor admiration. Gentleness, springing 
 from easy good-nature, which will not take the trouble to vin- 
 dicate justice and right, will not command even respect. 
 
 That goodness which worldly men ascribe to God, that they 
 may presume upon it and abuse it, is simply the absence of 
 moral sensibility, and not voluntary and intelligent kindness. It 
 is much more an indifference to sin than a positive, painstaking 
 love. But a Divine kindness and a Divine goodness, springing 
 from indifference to evil, and fi"om an easy good-nature which 
 makes it, on the whole, rather pleasanter to shine on in un- 
 observant indolence than to frown upon evil, would take the 
 tone out of all government, and respect from the hearts of all 
 subjects. 
 
 Consider, then, with these qualifying and interpreting remarks, 
 what must be the nature of gentleness in God. He dwells alone 
 from eternity to eternity, because there is none other that can 
 be of His proportion, and of His grandeur of being. Supreme 
 by His nature, supreme by the acclamation of heaven, but also 
 supreme simply because He is more than all else, being the 
 cause of everything ! There is none with whom He can take 
 counsel. All powers of nature are but the commonest servants 
 of God. Tornadoes and earthquakes, and fire, and air, and 
 water, are but His servants that do His errands. Nor is there 
 an angel in heaven, or human being on earth, nor are there 
 spirits of just men made perfect above, to whom He does not 
 stoop down, through infinite degrees, when He communicates 
 His thoughts. And who among them can advise and counsel 
 with God, since their light is but His own reflected light? They 
 throw back to the sun only that which they take from it? Self- 
 
56 THE GENTLENESS OF GOD. 
 
 sustained, and pouring out from the fountain of His own life 
 into the souls of all created intelligences, as oil is poured into 
 lamps. How wonderful is His greatness ! How vast is He, and 
 how superior to all others ! His vast movements are along the 
 circuits of eternity. The whole earth is said to be but a drop 
 of the bucket before Him. What must that ocean-universe be, 
 of which this earth is but a single drop ? 
 
 Did you ever, in a summer's day, when you had drawn from 
 the bottom of the well the cool water to slack your thirst, stand, 
 and dream, and gaze at a drop orbed and hanging at the 
 bucket's edge, and reflecting the light of the sun ? What the 
 rounded form and size of that drop is, in comparison with the 
 whole earth itself, that the round earth itself is in comparison 
 with God's majesty and immensity of being ! And that such 
 a One, living in such a wise — so far above the earth, so far 
 above its inhabitants, so far above the noblest spirit that stands 
 in the unlost purity of heaven — that such a One should deal 
 with His erring children with a gentleness and patience such as 
 characterises the administration of God toward man, is won- 
 derful and sublime ! 
 
 Consider, not alone the greatness of God's absolute being, 
 and His gentleness as a Being of infinite strength, but also His 
 moral purity and His love of purity. His goodness and His 
 love of goodness, and His abhorrence of evil. But how shall 
 we measure these things ? 
 
 God has left the impress of His genius upon the natural 
 world in such a way, that if we know how to read it aright, this 
 globe contains indications of the truths that Scripture itself 
 develops. These truths, however, are not to be first learned 
 from nature ; they are to be recognised in nature after Scripture 
 has unfolded them to us. 
 
 Now all over the world the repugnance of nature to the 
 violation of her appointed laws is patent and familiar. I do 
 not like to think that the arrangements of nature are the result 
 of a cold calculation on the part of God, or of a deliberate con- 
 clusion on His part that they are needful. I think, rather, 
 that certain things in nature express the very elements of God's 
 mind, as it were, without design. Nature is saturated, so to speak, 
 with God. She bears in her structure the feelings and disposition 
 of the Divine Creator, as a picture bears in its parts the feelings 
 and disposition of the man who painted it, or as Christ's face ex- 
 pressed His feelings of love, pity, and authority. Nature is full 
 of indications of Divine attributes. Natural law, through all 
 time, and round the world, conveys hints and germs of heaven, 
 
THE GENTLENESS OF GOD. 57 
 
 of hell, of vicarious suffering, and of remedial mercy. It 
 teaches these four things. Disobey and suffer, obey and 
 enjoy ; these are its first and fundamental lessons, which are 
 the rude seed-forms of those higher truths : purity and heaven, 
 impurity and hell. Then throughout the world we see illustra- 
 tions of the fact that one man can suffer for another. In the 
 mother's suffering, and in the father's watch and care, the child 
 grows out of impurity and rudeness into purity and gentleness. 
 Vicarious suffering is a law of the household and of society. It 
 is one of the eternal truths of God's nature. Remedial mercy 
 is also a truth which nature hints. In the natural world, within 
 certain bounds, a man's wrong-doing may be repaired, if he turn 
 from his transgression and repent. There is provision for every 
 bone to knit together again when fractured, for every muscle to 
 heal when lacerated, and for every nerve, when shattered and 
 diseased, to return again to health. Thus in nature we see pre- 
 figured the great scheme of redemption. Purity gives heaven; 
 impurity eternal wail and woe. But there is vicarious suffering 
 to bring men from the one to the other. If through Christ 
 there be repentance and turning from evil, there is also health 
 and restoration. And these things are indicated in nature — 
 when we know how to see them there — but are authoritatively 
 taught only in the New Testament. In nature they are as twi- 
 light, while in the Gospel they glow with noonday brightness. 
 
 Now this I understand to be an infusion into nature of a 
 testimony to God's moral sensibiHty. He is not a Being to 
 whom all things are alike. He is not a Being to whom all 
 conduct is but the manifestation of so many instincts, or but the 
 inevitable working out of laws that necessitate human action. 
 God has given, through the natural world, indications that He 
 regards some things as right and beautiful, and some things as 
 wrong and hateful ; some things as worthy to be crowned, and 
 some things as deserving to be punished. 
 
 Now what is the interpretation of these indications of God's 
 disposition in nature ? If you would understand them, you must 
 go to the Scriptures. Listen, then, to the words of God through 
 His servant j\Ioses, as recorded in the thirty-fourth chapter of 
 Exodus, beginning with the fifth verse : " And the Lord de- 
 scended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed 
 the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before him^ 
 and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and 
 gracious, long-suftering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 
 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgres- 
 sion, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty ; 
 
58 THE GENTLENESS OF GOD. 
 
 visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon 
 the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth genera- 
 tion." 
 
 Again, listen to the words of God which He spake, under 
 circumstances scarcely less momentous, by the mouth of the 
 same servant, -as recorded in the thirty-second chapter of 
 Deuteronomy, beginning with the thirty-ninth verse : " See 
 now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god with Me : I kill, 
 and I make alike ; I wound, and I heal : neither is there any 
 that can deliver out of My hand. For I lift up My hand to 
 heaven, and say, I live for ever. If I whet my glittering sword, 
 and Mine hand take hold on judgment, I will render ven- 
 geance to Mine enemies, and will reward them that hate Me. 
 1 will make Mine arrows drunk with blood, and My sword shall 
 devour flesh ; and that with the blood of the slain, and of the 
 captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy. 
 Rejoice, O ye nations, with His people ; for He will avenge the 
 blood of His servants, and will render vengeance to His adver- 
 saries, and will be merciful unto His land, and to His people." 
 
 Do these words interpret a God of moral indifference ? Do 
 they not, rather, reveal a God sensitive to every pulsation of 
 right or wrong — a God affected with admiration and gladness 
 by everything that looks toward virtue, and truth, and holiness ; 
 and aroused to a moral repugnance and judicial abhorrence by 
 everything that looks toward corruption, and selfishness, and 
 wickedness? God stands between the right and the wrong, 
 not looking pleasantly on the one, and equally pleasantly on the 
 other — not looking, as the sun looks, with a benignant face on 
 the evil and on the good, and not as man looks — with only a 
 less benignant face upon the evil. He stands with all the 
 fervour of His infinite love, and all the majesty of His un- 
 limited power, approving good, and legislating for it ; disap- 
 proving evil and abhorring it, legislating against it and bringing 
 it into infamy and under eternal penalty. If there be one 
 truth that speaks throughout the Bible like the voice of God, 
 and resounds through all nature with all the grandeur of 
 Divine intonation, it is the truth that God does not look with 
 an equal eye upon the evil and the good ; that He is a discrimi- 
 nator of character, a lover of that which is right, and a hater of 
 that which is wrong. 
 
 God's sensibility is exceedingly acute. We are accustomed 
 to connect fineness and acuteness of feeling with delicacy and 
 subtleness of organisation; and we are apt to think that as Ciod 
 is a Being so vast that His latitude is infinity, and His longitude 
 
THE GENTLENESS OF GOD. 59 
 
 is eternity, He must be comparatively insensitive — less sensitive 
 than men are. But He is more sensitive than men can possibly 
 be. Sensitiveness is a peculiarity of His nature. Because He 
 is vaster than men there is no reason why He should not be 
 more sensitive than they. Divinity does not consist in bulk, 
 but in quality. He is exquisitely sensitive to the finest shades 
 of character. He has an infinite relish for, and sensibility to that 
 which is good in the soul, and He has a corresponding hatred 
 for, and abhorrence toward, that which is evil in the soul. 
 
 That a Being such as this, who is independent of all other 
 beings; who has made them all; who by the mere act of His 
 will can obliterate them ; who can rub them out easier than I 
 can rub out the colours from the butterfly's wings; who is full 
 of infinite creative resources, with the power alike to crush this 
 earth to atoms, and make it over again easier than the potter 
 can mould again an unburnt earthen vessel after he has dashed 
 it in pieces — that such a Being who is in no wise obliged to 
 study economies; who is unbounded in thought, unbounded in 
 skill, unbounded in wisdom, and unbounded in power ; who 
 has all eternity in which to mark out His pictures and build 
 His architectures, and who, with all His vastness, is extremely 
 sensitive to moral qualities, so that He cherishes the most 
 ardent love for that which is good, and the intensest hatred for 
 that which is evil — that such a Being should carry Himself with 
 care, with quiet, with softness, with delicacy, with gentleness 
 toward men, and toward those, too, who have by their conduct 
 forfeited all claim to mercy and gentleness — this is wonderful ! 
 That the eternal Father, who forbids us to look upon the sun 
 and say, " Thou art my god," or to look upon the moon and 
 stars and say, *' Ye are my gods," and who disdains with infinite 
 scorn to be represented by the chisel of the sculptor or by the 
 pencil of the painter — that He should carry Himself with ex- 
 ceeding tenderness and patience toward us erring creatures, and 
 say, " A bruised reed I will not break, and smoking flax I will 
 not quench, till I send forth judgment unto victory" — this is a 
 miracle surpassing all wonders. 
 
 " A bruised reed shaU He not break." Is there anything 
 that grows so high, carrying up so little strength of stem, as the 
 reed, that rises twenty or thirty feet in the air, and has a stalk 
 not larger than my finger? Now a beast, breaking through the 
 thicket, eager, with his unquenched thirst, for the cooling 
 draught, strikes against the slender reed, shattering it, so that it 
 has but just strength to sustain its own weight. So weak is it 
 that if there be so much wind as to lift one of its leaves, or to 
 
6o THE GENTLENESS OF GOD. 
 
 bend it in the least degree in either direction, it must surely 
 break. But God says, " My gentleness is such that when I go 
 down among men whose condition is like that of a bruised 
 reed, I will do nothing to complete their overthrow, but will 
 deal with them in such a way that they shall gather strength^ 
 till I have sent forth judgment unto victory." 
 
 *' And smoking flax shall He not quench." If the flame is 
 just dying out in a lamp, it is not in danger of being suddenly 
 extinguished, for the old warmth in the wick serves for a time 
 to nourish and sustain it. But immediately after the wick is 
 lighted, and before any warmth is communicated to it, the least 
 movement is sufficient to extinguish it. God says, " Wherever 
 there is a spark of grace lighted in the soul, if it flickers so that 
 the breath of the person who carries it, or the least motion of 
 his hand, is in danger of putting it out, I will deal so gently 
 with him as not to quench that spark. I will treat it with such 
 infinite tenderness that it shall grow into a flame which will 
 burn on for ever." And these are the symbols by which God 
 measures His wonderful gentleness. 
 
 Now with a conception before your mind of what God is in 
 His moral aptitudes and discriminations, as well as what He is 
 in His infinity, omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, 
 consider what tax He has had on His patience and His for- 
 bearance, and what His gentleness must be in the light of 
 human provocations. 
 
 The life of every individual is a long period of moral delin- 
 quency. No one who has not had the experience of a parent 
 can have any adequate conception of the patience and gentle- 
 ness exercised even by a mother in rearing her child, from the 
 cradle to the door of the world, when, at twenty-one years of age, 
 he goes forth from her care. It is only after-experience that can 
 give the child a true idea of how much the mother bore with him, 
 and how much kindness, and love, and forbearance, and gene- 
 rosity, and delicacy, and gentleness she showed toward him 
 during his passage from infancy to manhood. True mothers are 
 God's miniatures in this world ; and we see portrayed in them, 
 on a small scale, the very traits and delineations of that character 
 which makes God the eternal Father of sinful men. 
 
 How great will be the disclosure which shall be made when, 
 in the great day, Christ shall enrol from the archives of eternity 
 the history of each individual soul, and make known what not 
 even the watching mother saw, nor the wide-thinking father, 
 and what not even the subject himself dreamed of! How great 
 will be the disclosure which shall be made when Christ shall 
 
THE GENTLENESS OF GOD. 6 1 
 
 expose to view all the secret throbbings of every soul ; all the 
 jutting motives of his heart ; all the thoughts and intents of his 
 mind that never took form in action ; all the acts that he has 
 performed and forgotten ; and all the impulses of his interior 
 life, upon which God has hung with close inspection, and which 
 he has felt with all the sensibility of a heavenly Father's heart. 
 
 The history of any individual soul will appear far different 
 when it is unrolled in the light of God's countenance, from what 
 it does when unrolled in the light of earthly considerations. If 
 we could see a man as he is when developed and wrought upon 
 by the whole mingled influence of human life, what a view 
 should we behold ! If we look upon a human being from below, 
 and measure him by our own selfishness, and the notions that 
 obtain in human society, we form what we consider to be a 
 charitable judgment of him ; that is, we do not scan his motives 
 closely, and judge him according to them, but we call him good 
 without stopping to inquire what his real character is. God has 
 no such charity as this. He sees everything, and sees it just as 
 it is, and measures it by immutable principles. Nothing per- 
 taining to human conduct or character can escape His notice. 
 When measured thus, what must be the character of that man 
 who has passed through all the sinuous ways of life ; who has 
 been wrought upon by all the temptations of the world ; who 
 has been subjected to the multitudinous influences of society; 
 and in whom have been at work during the twenty, or fifty, or 
 eighty years of his earthly existence, the various conflicting 
 passions of his nature? When human life is looked at and 
 judged through the eyes of God, how wonderful does it become, 
 and how much patience must be exercised by the Divine Being 
 in rearing a single one of his creatures ! 
 
 Now consider, not individual life, great as that is, but national 
 life. Consider that men perish at the rate of thirty millions a 
 year ; that in any one day ten hundred millions of men live on 
 the face of the earth ; that every man has a history, complex, 
 continuous, and almost infinite in detail ; that these ten 
 hundred millions of human souls are walking toward the door 
 of darkness from life to death, or rather from life to life — 
 consider these things, and then that, which is marvellous as 
 exercised toward an individual man, becomes transcendent and 
 amazing when exercised toward the whole race and extended 
 through all time ! Consider that this has been taking place for 
 six thousand recorded years, and in regard to this one globe ; 
 and that the Divine administration toward mankind has been 
 one not devoid, indeed, of the sword and flashing spear — not 
 
62 THE GENTLENESS OF GOD. 
 
 devoid of terrific justice ; but that by nothing has it been more 
 characterised than by God's forbearance, and long-suffering, 
 and patience, and gentleness, and how wondrous do the 
 qualities of the Divine mind seem ! 
 
 Consider what turmoil of nations there has been. Consider 
 what have been the many and long-continued oppressions and 
 wrongs that have been practised by man upon man. Consider 
 how God hates tyrants ; and yet how almost every man that 
 ever lived has been a petty tyrant. Consider how God hates 
 under-minings ; and yet how men, the world over, are striving 
 to undermine each other. Consider the jealousies, the hatred, 
 the feculent vices, the hideous crimes, the degrading selfishness 
 of national life. 
 
 Did you ever, of a hot afternoon, witness the contest of 
 innumerable worms over a carrion carcase ? Did you ever 
 notice the greediness, and selfishness, and quarrelsomeness 
 displayed by the actors in a scene like that ? And yet such a 
 contest is decent compared with the gigantic contest that has 
 been carried on for thousands of years by the vermicular 
 human race, and God has looked upon it, dwelt and pondered 
 over it, and carried it in His heart ; and all this time He has 
 not ceased to pour out upon the world, in rich abundance, the 
 blessings of His never-failing love ! 
 
 Think how poor has been the best part of human life ; how 
 slow has been the growth of the moral element ; how rudely 
 developed it is even now; how, the moment that any great 
 element of power in human society has been well developed, it 
 has almost invariably turned around and served the lower 
 nature of man ; how wealth, when acquired, has dominated for 
 the passions ; how learning, when it came to be, in some 
 measure, free from the husk and shuck in which it grew, became 
 the ready servant of ambition and selfishness ; how, when art 
 began to shine, it was employed for the embellishment of vice, 
 and as the instrument of untold wrongs, and how imperfect the 
 world is, notwithstanding all its advancement, whether viewed 
 in its individual or national character ! Remember that God 
 has, with infinite patience, night and day, watched over and 
 nourished this groaning world through all the thousands of 
 years that it has been travailing in pain. 
 
 Consider the events which have marked the long line of 
 history ; reflect upon the number, and succession, and cruelty 
 of wars. For I believe that from the beginning of the world 
 one war has not gone out before some fiendish hand has seized 
 the brand from its smouldering heap and kindled a new one, so 
 
THE GENTLENESS OF GOD. 63 
 
 that war has touched and kindled war in an unbroken succes- 
 sion through all time. There is nothing else that begins to 
 compare in cruelty with the human race. Sharks are merciful 
 and lions and serpents are angelic compared with men. Man 
 is the chief monster that the earth ever bred. 
 
 Consider what despotisms have inflicted their dominations, 
 their outward violence and injury, their inward cruelty, and 
 their corrupting influences upon the world. Consider what 
 slavery has done, what barbaric savagery it has brought upon a 
 large portion of the human race. 
 
 These things are done before God, who looks upon every 
 part of the human family as His own. How should you feel if 
 you were to enter the room where your child is sleeping, and 
 find upon it a stealthy cat, stationed at the portal of life, and 
 stopping its very breath ? How should you feel were you to find 
 upon your child a vampire that had fastened into his flesh his 
 blood-sucking bill, and was fast consuming its vitality ? How 
 do you feel when one of your children tramples upon another ? 
 or when your neighbour's children crush yours ? or when ruflian 
 violence strikes against those whose hearts for ever carry the core 
 of your heart ? 
 
 Judge from your own feelings how God, with His infinite 
 sensibility, must feel when He sees men rising up against their 
 fellow-men ; performing gross deeds of cruelty on every hand ; 
 waging wars that cause blood to flow like rivers throughout the 
 globe ; when, in short. He sees them devastating society by 
 every infernal mischief that their ingenuity can invent. 
 
 The Bible says that God is past finding out. But it does not 
 merely mean that His physical power is past finding out. It is 
 His disposition — his moral nature, that are peculiarly beyond 
 research and measurement. The unsearchableness of the love 
 of God in Christ Jesus ; the greatness, the grandeur, and the 
 glory of the heart that, hating iniquity with an intense hatred, 
 can love the doer of it, and that, abhorring sin with an infinite 
 abhorrence, can give itself to save the sinner — these are the 
 things that are past finding out. The marvel of meekness, and 
 sweetness, and love, in the arch-thunder of eternity — this it is 
 that is past finding out ! 
 
 If God cared for the misconduct of men no more than we 
 do for the fiery strifes of an ant-hiU, there would be no foun- 
 dation for such a conception of Divine gentleness and Divine 
 goodness. There are some who seem to think that God, when 
 He created men and placed them in the world, set on foot an 
 experiment ; that He does not care what they do, but that He 
 
64 THE GENTLENESS OF GOD. 
 
 is satisfied to let them act as they choose, and see what they 
 will come to. Let them have such an idea of God ! I will 
 have none of it ! If God in moral elements were a sun shining 
 on the good and on the evil just alike, as He does in His 
 physical administration, we could not have the view of Him 
 which I have been presenting; but He is the righteous judge 
 of all the earth. He is the eternal author and lover of equity. 
 Listen to what He Himself says in the fiftieth Psalm : — 
 " Unto the wicked God saith. What hast thou to do to declare 
 My statutes, or that thou shouldst take My covenant in thy 
 mouth ? seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest ]My words 
 behind thee. When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst 
 with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers. Thougivest 
 thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit. Thou sittest 
 and speakest against thy brother ; thou slanderest thine own 
 mother's son. These things hast tliou done, and I kept silence ; 
 ihoii tJwiightest that I was altogether such aji one as thyself; but 
 I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. 
 Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, 
 and there be none to deliver." 
 
 Is this the language of one that does not care what men do? 
 If God regarded human conduct as a mere matter of present 
 good or evil, and was content to let things work out their own 
 w^ay, fixing His eye mainly on the great future, the attributes 
 of gentleness and goodness, as belonging to His nature, would 
 not shine forth with that unspeakable grandeur which they now 
 have; but He "so loved the world that He gave His only- 
 begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not 
 perish, but have everlasting life." 
 
 Evil is eternal in the sight of God, unless it be checked and 
 cured. Sin, like a poisonous weed, re-sows itself, and becomes 
 eternal by reproduction. Now God looks upon the human race 
 in the light of these truths. And tell me what other attribute 
 of God, what other inflection of His character, is so sublime as 
 this — His gentleness ? How wonderful has been its duration ; 
 how deep its nature; how exquisite its touches; how rich its 
 fruit ! What assurance does it bring to our hope ! How 
 boundless is the scope it opens to our eye I How wonderful is 
 the combination of traits in His disposition ! It was because 
 the lion and the lamb first lay down together in the heart of Crod 
 that the prophet declared that they shall yet do it on earth. 
 
 Now, while these statements are fresh in your mind, and your 
 imagination glows, and your affections are warm, I desire to 
 present to you a clear conception of God as your /^rj-w/r?/ God. 
 
THE GENTLENESS OF GOD. 6$ 
 
 They who are accustomed to present God almost entirely through 
 the ideas of law, as an official, gubernatorial personage, have 
 produced upon the minds of multitudes the disastrous effect 
 of substituting a mere abstraction for a living, glowing person- 
 ality. Much as I may esteem theologians, and much as I 
 believe in and admire a great deal that they say or write, yet 
 against such a mode of presenting God my soul kindles in the 
 proportion in which I myself do love the Saviour, and in the 
 measure of the desire that I have to lead men to Him. If 
 sometimes I have seemed to tread down, rudely, opinions that 
 have hitherto been reverently held, it has not been so much 
 from disrespect, as from an eagerness to brush away and to de- 
 stroy everything that lifts itself up between the soul of man and 
 a living Saviour. 
 
 From all the human passions there have risen up vapours 
 densely concealing the face of God as clouds hide the sun. 
 All the active world, too, by its unhallowed forms of pleasure, 
 by its ambitions, by its mighty whirl of business, by its swel- 
 tering strifes, has joined to exclude from men any heart-saving 
 conception of God ; and it has always seemed to me too much 
 that religious men should inadvertently increase this very mis- 
 chief, and so present God as to make a conception of him by 
 ordinary men impossible, or possible only in a way that shall 
 take all influence from the thought of Him. 
 
 Not long ago there was a researcher of art in Italy, who, 
 reading in some book that there was a portrait of Dante painted 
 by Giotto, was led to suspect that he had found where it had 
 been placed. There was an apartment used as an out-house 
 for the storage of wood, hay, and the like. He sought and ob- 
 tained permission to examine it. Clearing out the rubbish, and 
 experimenting upon the whitewashed wall, he soon detected 
 the signs of the long-hidden portrait. Little by litde, with 
 loving skill, he opened up the sad, thoughtful, stern face of the 
 old Tuscan poet. 
 
 Sometimes it seems to me that thus the very sanctuary of God 
 has been filled with wood, hay, and stubble, and the Divine 
 lineaments of Christ have been swept over and covered by 
 human plastering, and I am seized with an invincible desire to 
 draw forth from its hiding-place, and reveal to men the glory 
 of God as it shines in the face of Christ Jesus ! It matters 
 little to me what school of theology rises or what falls, so only 
 that Christ may rise and appear in all His Father's glory, full- 
 orbed, upon the darkness of this world ! It matters little to me 
 what Church comes forth strong or what becomes weak, so only 
 
 F 
 
66 THE GENTLENESS OF GOD. 
 
 that the poor, the sinful, the neglected, the lost among men, may 
 have presented to them, in the Church, a Saviour accessible and 
 available in every hour of temptation, of remorse, or of want ! 
 
 It is this Christ that I would make personal to you to-day. 
 He is not a Being that dwells in the inner recesses of the eternal 
 ■world, inaccessible, incomprehensible. He is not the stern king, 
 unbending, upon a throne of justice, lifted up above the reach 
 of sighs and soul-wants. He is not as one fortified behind the 
 bulwarks of law, so that we must cannonade, and breach the 
 walls with prayers, and then rush in to take him captive. Men 
 never find Christ, but are always found of Him. He goes forth 
 to seek and to save the lost. It is not the out-reaching of our 
 thought, it is not the abstraction of our heart, it is not the strong 
 drawing of our sympathy and yearning that brings him to us. 
 It is the abounding love of His heart that draws us up toward 
 Him. His love precedes ours. " We love Him, because He 
 first loved us." We kindle our hearts at His. As the sun is up 
 before the sluggard, so the twilight and dawn of His love is upon 
 the hills when we wake; and when we sleep, even, His thoughts 
 burn above us as the stars burn through the night. 
 
 It is this willing, winning, pleading Christ, who wields all the 
 grandeur of justice and all the authority of universal empire 
 with such sweet gentleness that in all the earth there is none 
 like unto Him, that I set before you as your personal friend. 
 He knows each of you better than your mother knew you. He 
 has called you by name. In your households you are not so 
 familiar to your most cherished friend as you are to the heart 
 of Christ. Not so indelibly is your name recorded in your 
 father's memory, or in the baptismal register of the sanctuary, 
 or in the Family Bible, where the tabular leaf for births holds 
 your infant name, as upon the ever-remembering heart of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 He does not set His holiness and His hatred of sin like 
 mountains over which you may not climb. He does not hedge 
 himself about by the dignities and superiorities of Divinity. All 
 the way from his throne to your heart is sloped ; and hope, and 
 love, and patience, and meekness, and long-suffering, and kind- 
 ness, and wonderful mercies, and gentleness, as so many banded 
 helping angels, wait to take you by the hand and lead you up 
 to God. And I beseech you by His gentleness, too, that you 
 fear Him no longer; that you be no longer indifferent to Him; 
 that you wound Him by your unbelief no more, but that, now 
 and henceforth, you follow Him — " for there is none other 
 name under heaven among men whereby we must be saved." 
 
THE GENTLENESS OF GOD. 67 
 
 But can any be saved except those who voluntarily and intel- 
 ligently believe in the Lord Jesus Christ ? Most assuredly they 
 can. One half the human race die in infancy, before the child 
 knows its right hand from its left, and is the blessed truth of 
 their salvation to be annihilated? or, falling like sparks through 
 the lurid air of hell, shall we beUeve that they burn for ever? 
 Does not universal Christendom believe that they go straight, 
 in the bosom of angels, to their Father's kingdom? So do I 
 believe. So would I believe if there were not another man on 
 the face of the earth that thought so ! 
 
 Yet they are too young to understand the name of Christ, or 
 to believe in Him. Their ear has never been formed to hear 
 the very sound of His name. Yet blessed be God, the salva- 
 tion of Christ Jesus, that they could not understand on earth, 
 shall greet them and glorify them in heaven ! It is settled, 
 then, that Christ saves men who have never heard of Him, and 
 who cannot hear. But has this salvation a wider scope than 
 infant children ? Are there any others who will experience the 
 grace of Him whom they never knew? Let those answer that 
 seem to know so much, who have searched out God's whole 
 government, and know all about it. I say again, I do not 
 know. I yearn, and hope, and long ; but I do not know. As 
 in the case of infants the benefit of Christ's atonement is 
 applied to their unknowing souls, so I hope that there are 
 earnest and conscientious men, to whom no Gospel ever came, 
 who will yet be made subjects of redemptive love. ]\Iay we 
 not hope that that which came to us through Jesus Christ, clear 
 and disclosed as the noonday sun, may have fallen with reflex 
 beams upon others before His day and since ? And as we are 
 led by the Morning Star, or the Sun of Righteousness, may 
 they not, at least, have had some twilight leading? 
 
 But forjw/:, to whom the Gospel is preached ; for you, upon 
 whose cradle rested the dew of grace, and whose earliest years 
 were made acquainted with the sacred name of Jesus — the 
 children of pious parents, reared within sound of the sanc- 
 tuary, never beyond the sound of a Sabbath bell ; surrounded 
 and hedged in by ten thousand influences of religion, persuading 
 the understanding, importunate upon the conscience — for such 
 ^-s, you, if Christ be rejected, there is no salvation ! For those 
 who never heard Him; to whom no sweet sound of the Gospel 
 ever came; whose week was one long rolling surge, unbroken 
 by the tranquil shore of any Sabbath, and who, in this darkness 
 and neglect, yet always groped upward, endeavouring to live a 
 life better than their times, yearning and longing to know a 
 
 F — 2 
 
68 THE GENTLENESS OF GOD. 
 
 a better way — may we not hope, in the inscrutable mystery of 
 Divine wisdom, that there was some mode of applying to such 
 the benefit of the death of Christ ? that the vision rose, at last, 
 upon their eye, cleansed from the films of flesh ? and that 
 among the myriad voices of heaven there are some from the 
 heathen world, who, though on earth they could give no name 
 to that after which their souls yearned and searched, no sooner 
 beheld the Divine glory of the Saviour than they cried out : 
 '•'This is He for whom we have waited?" Yes, I firmly believe 
 that it is by the power of Christ that every man is saved who 
 shall touch the shore of heaven ; but I am not authorised to 
 say that God cannot, in the sovereignty of His love, conduct 
 men who are in darkness to that salvation which we reject, and 
 give them a reflected light, at least, of that glory which shines 
 full on us. 
 
 But for all those who have been clearly taught, who have been 
 moved by their wicked passions deliberately to set aside Him of 
 whom the prophets spake, whom the Apostles more clearly 
 taught, whom the Holy Spirit, by the Divine power, now makes 
 known to the world through the Gospel — for them, if they reject 
 their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, there remaineth no more 
 sacrifice for sin. If they deliberately neglect, set aside, or reject 
 their Saviour, He will as deliberately, in the end, reject them. 
 
 Sometimes, in dark caves, men have gone to the edge of un- 
 speaking precipices, and, wondering what was the depth, have 
 cast down fragments of rock, and listened for the report of 
 their fall, that they might judge how deep that blackness was ; 
 and listening — still listening — no sound returns ; no sudden 
 plash, no cUnking stroke as of rock against rock — nothing but 
 silence, utter silence ! And so I stand upon the precipice of 
 life. I sound the depths of the other world with curious 
 inquiries. But from it comes no echo and no answer to my 
 questions. No analogies can grapple and bring up from the 
 depths of the darkness of the lost world the probable truths. 
 No philosophy has line and plummet long enough to sound the 
 depths. There remains for us only the few authoritative and 
 solemn words of God. These declare that the bliss of the 
 righteous is everlasting ; and with equal directness and 
 simplicity they declare that the doom of the wicked is ever- 
 lastmg. 
 
 And therefore it is that I make haste, with an inconceivable 
 ardour, to persuade you to be reconciled to your God. 1 hold 
 up before you that God who loves the sinner and abhors sin ; 
 who loves goodness with infinite fervour, and breathes it upon 
 
THE GENTLENESS OF GOD. 69 
 
 those who put their trust in Him ; who makes all the elements 
 His ministering servants : who sends years, and weeks, and 
 days, and hours, all radiant with benefaction, and, if we could but 
 hear their voice, all jDleading the goodness of God as an argument 
 of repentance and of obedience. And remember that it is this 
 God who yet declares that He will at last by no means clear 
 the guilty ! Make your peace with Him now, or abandon all 
 hopes of peace. 
 
 Be not discouraged because you are sinful. It is the very 
 office of his love to heal your sins. Not, then, only when you 
 have overcome them yourself is He prepared to receive you ; 
 it is His delight to give you help while in the very bitterness of 
 wrestling with your sins. He is your pilot to lead you out of 
 trouble. No pilot would he be who only then would take my 
 ship when I had gone through the narrows, and could see the 
 city, and was quite free of all danger. Who would need a 
 physician if he might not come to his bedside until after the 
 sickness was healed ? What use of schoolmaster if one may 
 not go to school till his education be complete ? What hope 
 of salvation if God would give us no help till the whole work of 
 subduing the natural heart were completed ? And our Saviour 
 is one who begins and completes in us the work of grace. He 
 is the author of our faith, and the finisher of it. It is His power 
 that works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure. He 
 comes to you when you are morally dead, and by his touch 
 brings you to life. When you are weak he inspires you with 
 strength. When you are tempted He opens the door of escape. 
 When you are vanquished He appears to lift you up and bind 
 your wounds. Yea, bending under all your burdens, and loaded 
 down with our own sins, behold that Christ of whom it is said, 
 "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for 
 our iniquities ; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him ; 
 and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have 
 gone astray ; we have turned every one to his own way ; and 
 the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." 
 
 A great many of you have heard of the "terrors of the law;" 
 you have heard of the Divine threatenings, of the penalties to 
 be visited upon the wicked ; and as a man in a gale of wind 
 draws his garments tighter about him, so you have drawn your 
 pride more closely about you, and said, " I will not be driven 
 by fear ; I will not be flailed into heaven ; I am too much of a 
 man for that." 
 
 Now what are you going to do ? When I come to you and 
 preach gentleness, do you not say, **I will not be cozened 
 
70 THE GENTLENESS OF GOD. 
 
 either. It is of no use for you to try to play upon my feelings." 
 How can I persuade you, then ? If all the motives that touch 
 your conscience, your fear, your reason, and your affections, 
 will not bring you to God, what motive can I present to you 
 that will? Or do you count yourself unworthy of eternal life? 
 Have you made up your mind that in no way shall God find 
 you out ? If all the motives that have been thrown round about 
 you have failed to bring you to Christ, what is there that can 
 bring you to Him ? 
 
 Perhaps you have not long to live. The nail is forged and 
 the screw is made that shall hold down the lid of your coffin. 
 The loom is built, and the thread is spun, and the shroud is 
 woven that is to wrap some of your lifeless forms, and you 
 almost feel the coolness of the air of the grave. You ought, 
 without delay, to make your peace with God, and secure a 
 hope of immortaUty. You have no time to lose ! Death, that 
 is always busy, is no less so now than it has been at any period 
 in the past. 
 
 I know what your lives have been. I know what worm it is 
 that makes those leaves yellow at the surface. I know the rock 
 on which you are stumbling. I know the rod that is being 
 lifted higher and higher to break you in pieces. 
 
 Dear friend, I must be faithful to your soul. You and I will 
 meet before long at the judgment-seat of God. You shall not 
 be left in doubt as to whether I think sin is damnable. I stand 
 here to speak the word of God to you. I stand here to declare 
 to every one of you that, whatever hope there may have been 
 for men who lived before the Gospel was known upon earth, 
 and whatever hope there may be for the heathen to whom the 
 Gospel has not been carried, there is in the Gospel of Christ no 
 hope and reversion for you to whom Christ has been preached, 
 and to whom all the avenues of salvation have been opened, if, 
 having counted the blood of the atonement an unholy thing, 
 and having trampled it under your feet, you die unbelieving ! 
 
 I surround you with the generosity of God. I take the radiant 
 robe of Christ's love, more glorious than the sun, and throw it 
 about you. I surround you with Divine gentleness, and meek- 
 ness, and mercy. Why should you be naked ? Why should 
 you be defiled ? Why should you impotently strive to cover 
 yourself with your own poor devices, when Divine love would 
 clothe you with light and glory ? Will ye be eternally beg- 
 gared in the presence of an infinite supply ? Will ye wander 
 eternally, homeless and lost, when your Father's house stands 
 open, and all heaven cries to you, *' Come ! " 
 
THE GENTLENESS OF GOD. Jl 
 
 PRAYER. 
 
 We draw near to Thee, eternal Father. There is none to 
 whom we can go but unto Thee for such wants as we have. 
 There is none that is wise enough for us if we seek each other's 
 counsel. All men alike are ignorant. We understand but 
 little of the world in which we live, and less of our own selves. 
 We cannot interpret the great courses of Thy providence with 
 which Thou art administering human affairs. All before us is 
 best but twilight, and mostly darkness ; but Thou seest the end 
 from the beginning, and are unerringly wise. We rejoice that 
 Thou dost think for us, that all our paths are laid by Thee, and 
 that all Thy influences are with us and around us. Blessed are 
 They that put their trust in the wisdom of God ! We rejoice that 
 we may draw near to Thee, for of sympathy with men there is 
 but little. We are drawn to our own way and work. We under- 
 stand but little, and only that part of life which is cast up before 
 us. Hidden thoughts; wrestlings of the inward man; hopes 
 and fears ; the bitterness of grief and disappointment — these 
 we cannot perceive, nor bear for one another. And we rejoice 
 that Thou, O God, art a High Priest that can be touched with 
 the feeling of our infirmities. We may draw near to the throne 
 of grace to obtain mercy and help in time of need, for our in- 
 most thoughts are open before Thee, and in Thy gentleness, 
 and loving kindness, and grace Thou art concerned with each 
 one of us. There are none so remote, there are none so igno- 
 rant, there are none so humble or insignificant, as to be beyond 
 Thy care and thought. Thou dost delight to descend to the 
 humble and the contrite, and to dwell with such as are of a 
 broken spirit. AVe rejoice that in our conflicts we are not left 
 to our own power and will. Thou dost work mightily in us and 
 upon us. We cannot understand all the truth that there is in 
 Thy moral administration. We know that we have liberty ; we 
 know that we are responsible for the misuse of the power of 
 choosing ; and yet we know and feel that Thou Thyself dost 
 love us through all laws and in the midst of all human liberties, 
 and that Thou dost, by the greatness and the fulness of Thine 
 own power, help our infirmities and feebleness of thought and 
 volition, and overrule even things that we purpose and desire. 
 We come to Thee because Thou art the source of supply for 
 our understandings ; for our religious life ; for our affections ; 
 for our weakness ; for our strength ; for our joy ; for our 
 sorrow ; for our troubles ; for our f:ets and vexations ; for all 
 our moods and dispositions. Thou art a God that hast help, 
 
72 THE GENTLENESS OF GOD. 
 
 patience, and forgiveness. Thou hast succour and reHef. 
 Where can we find such a schoolmaster or such a parent as 
 Thou art? We rejoice in the manifestations of Thy goodness 
 that have made us what we are. We rejoice that Thy ven- 
 geance has been so slow, and that Thou hast been long- 
 suffering, and so unwilling that any should perish. It has 
 been our salvation. There are some among us that have sinned 
 so much, and so clearly and unmistakably, against our own 
 education and convictions, and have covered our sins with so 
 many other transgressions, and walked in so many ways that 
 wereforbiddenof Thee, and so disallowed our own judgment, that 
 if Thou hadst been strict with us we should have been cut off 
 and swept away. Thy patience has saved us. Many of us 
 have ignorantly lived in ways that led down toward destruction, 
 and Thou, O God, has turned away from them, hiding them, or 
 blocking them up, that we might go no further. And with tears, 
 and wonder, we perceive that it is Thy wisdom that has been 
 our salvation, and that we should have ruined ourselves hadst 
 Thou not interfered in our behalf. O God, on every side that 
 we look we see how hasty we are, how we thrust forth our inex- 
 perience, how we trust our own strength and wisdom, that are 
 but weakness and folly, and how we carry with ourselves, day 
 by day, all the elements of self-destruction. And we recognise 
 Thy Divine power. We look back to behold many instances of 
 Thy signal interposition. But we have beheld only a small 
 portion of Thee. It is only now and then that one of Thy at- 
 tributes is so obvious to us that we can see it. Every day is 
 laden with God's forgiveness and forbearance. And how won- 
 derful is Thine administration ! Thou art jealous for holiness ; 
 Thou dost abhor iniquity; Thou dost yearn for our love ; 
 Thou dost desire our obedience; and yet Thou art most 
 patient and most gentle. We desire to be led by Thy good- 
 ness to repentance. We would fain have that wicked heart 
 taken away from us by which we have sinned. We ^vould 
 repent heartily of our transgressions, and turn away from 
 them, and cast them far from us, and turn our face toward 
 the New Jerusalem. We desire, O Lord, that we may have 
 Thy Spirit to help us, to guide us, to encourage us, to lift 
 us up, and, when we fail, to strengthen us, till we appear in 
 Zion and before God. 
 
 Accept our thanks that there are, from time to time, so many 
 that are called of God, and that hear Thy call and come to 
 Thee. Accept our thanks that there are so many that have 
 begun the Christian life, and that day by day are overcoming 
 
THE GENTLENESS OF GOD. 73 
 
 evil habits and are establishing habits that are good. We thank 
 Thee that Thou art inspiring faith and hope so strongly in many 
 and many a bosom, that Thou art making them very powerful, 
 and that more and more are being educated for the kingdom 
 of Thy glory. 
 
 Even so, O Lord Jesus, cease not Thy work of love and 
 compassion in our midst. Teach Thy people how to pray and 
 how to live, so that their life shall be a Gospel preached per- 
 petually. And we pray that out of our families, out of our 
 Sabbath-schools, out of our Bible-classes, out of all the circles 
 wherein we live and labour, there may be continually gathered 
 those that are being prepared for immortality. We thank Thee 
 that this people have been called to labour for Thee not un- 
 successfully. Prepare them for greater labours. And grant 
 that we may sow abundantly, in order that we may reap 
 abundantly. 
 
 Prepare us for the services of the evening — for the speaking 
 of Thy truth, and for the hearing of it. Grant that as we meet 
 from Sabbath to Sabbath, we may mark how we are coming 
 nearer and nearer to that blessed Sabbath which shall never 
 end, when the sanctified shall be gathered together, when we 
 shall find our loved and lost ones, when they shall be given to 
 us with immortality of love, and when, above all, we shall meet 
 Thee, O Lord God of our salvation ! and w^e will give the praise 
 to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 
 
VI. 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHRIST, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 
 IX TWO SERMONS. 
 
 I. — CHRIST WITHOUT. 
 
 " In Him was life ; and the life was the light of men. And the light 
 shineth in darkness; ard the darkness comprehended it not." — 
 John i. 4, 5. 
 
 We have all read of princes walking among their subjects in 
 disguise ; and there is a certain suggestion of contrast between 
 the seeming and the real, under such circumstances, that 
 touches the imagination of all people. The ignorant and un- 
 cultured are just as much delighted and excited by such a 
 scene as the most wise and cultured. 
 
 A disguise does not necessarily depend upon external 
 raiment, or any material or physical change. A man may be 
 incognito simply from his superior quality, if he differs wholly 
 in his moral character from those among whom he walks. For, 
 although they that are superior can understand the inferior, the 
 inferior cannot understand the superior, except so far as they 
 have in themselves some seeds and beginnings of that which 
 the superior nature possesses. A fine artist, among rude lumber- 
 men, may work with them, eat with them, sleep with them, and 
 not seem to any of them to be anything else than just one of 
 them ; whereas he is utterly disguised to them, and has a life 
 within which they suspect not ; he is as effectually disguised as 
 a prince would be who should exchange his robes for beggar's 
 garments. Many a woman of fine organisation and delicate 
 nature has been reared to the coarsest offices of labour, and has 
 carried a hidden life which no one besides her understood, and 
 which she herself scarcely understood; and, though she was 
 superior, her superiority was hidden, and she walked unknown 
 to those who knew her best. Moral disguise is the most im- 
 penetrable of all disguises. 
 
 Christ was a king in disguise ; and no being ever walked less 
 known than He. And now, although some eighteen hundred 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHOUT. 75 
 
 years have been turned in scrutiny upon Him, He is still but 
 little known. 
 
 It is a matter of profound interest and of profit to look at 
 Christ from the stand-point of the intelligent Jew, and from his 
 own stand-point, and to ask the question, why was He not 
 known among His own kindred, in His own age, and among 
 His owh countiymen? There are lessons to be derived from 
 such a question. It is also a matter of profound interest and 
 of profit to inquire what, judged from his own stand-point, was 
 the history of Christ's life. Was it a success, or was it a failure? 
 
 I propose to do two things, in two discourses : to look at 
 Christ's life from the external point of view, and to look at it 
 from the internal point of view. 
 
 Who, then, was Christ, the anointed? A being that came 
 down from heaven into this world to shed the light of moral 
 truths upon it ! The globe and human society contain in them- 
 selves the causes of development in everything except higher 
 moral truths and the facts of our future life. This highest point 
 requires some added help above that which is stored in the pro- 
 visions of nature. And to this Christ's mission was confined — 
 namely, bringing that higher moral light which could not be de- 
 veloped except by some Divine inspiration. We shall find, 
 therefore, that Christ did not touch one in ten thousand of the 
 questions that belong to ordinary life, and that are proper in it, 
 but that He left them to be solved as all other questions are, 
 by the process of consecutive evolution. He confined His 
 teaching to the one department of higher moral conditions and 
 higher moral relations. He came not to disturb, nor to super- 
 impose anything upon the true course of nature, or of things 
 physical, secular, civil, and social. He brought to light God's 
 nature, man's immortality, and the highest elements of moral 
 character. 
 
 The facts of his career are very few. He was born of humble 
 parentage. He became from childhood an exile, returning after 
 some years, inconspicuously and unknown, to His native land. 
 Until He was thirty years old He lived in such obscurity that, 
 with the exception of one single fact, we are without a hint of 
 knowledge concerning Him. At the age of twelve He held a 
 memorable dispute with the Jews in the temple, causing them 
 to marvel at His superiority. That momentary glimpse we are 
 permitted to catch between the cradle and the cross ; but, aside 
 from that, it may be said that literally, from his childhood until 
 he was thirty years of age, he lived in perfect obscurity. 
 , When He reached the age appointed for the priesthood — the 
 
76 THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHOUT. 
 
 age of thirty— He entered upon a career of public teaching. 
 He did not put Himself under the care of official teachers. 
 There is no evidence that He was appoinied to teach by any 
 regular authority. By the right of the individual He began to 
 be a public teacher ; not officially or ecclesiastically, but morally 
 and substantially, He was a teacher among the Jews during the 
 three years that He pursued that work which we have in part 
 recorded in the New Testament. Then He was cut off as a 
 malefactor, suffering the indignity of the most ignominious 
 execution. But the things which He taught in this brief period, 
 caught up and only in part reported as they were, have since 
 that time been the radical, revolutionary forces of the world. 
 A man came into the world obscurely and ignobly; he was 
 unknown for thirty years ; then for three years he taught ; and 
 his teachings, not reduced by himself to writing, and only in 
 part by his disciples, have from that time to this been the marrow 
 of thought, and the source and fountain of moral influence on 
 the globe, and have revolutionised it. 
 
 Contrast this fact, for one single moment, with the influence 
 of other men upon the world — for there have been other teach- 
 ers whose influence has not died, and never will die. Socrates 
 was a man of great mental endowment, of great common sense, 
 and of great moral courage. He wrote nothing ; but his dis- 
 ciples recorded his teachings, and they became a moral force in 
 the world. Plato, his disciple, was second to no human teacher; 
 he wrote copiously and elaborately ; he never will be surpassed 
 in the art of thinking and writing ; his works have never died. 
 Though they were once buried in mediaeval superstitions, they 
 have risen and come forth again ; and never were they so do- 
 minant as to-day. The force of that Greek mind that lived 
 thousands of years ago not only is not spent, but does not seem 
 to be weakened. After him came Aristotle, who was as great 
 as Plato, only his mind was turned toward material and scien- 
 tific truths, while Plato's mind was turned toward social and 
 metaphysical truths. 
 
 All of these masters were morally and intellectually great ; 
 but, undeniable as their influence has been and is, no man will 
 pretend for one single moment that their power would at any 
 time, or will now, at all compare with the power of that Jew 
 who only lived three years as a teacher, who wrote not a word, 
 and who spoke his wisdom, not to scholars that would make 
 accurate registry of it, but to ignorant fishermen that remem- 
 bered only a part of it, so that it was declared by one of them 
 that the part that was left unrecorded was so great that, if it 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHOUT. 77 
 
 should be written, the world would not hold the books that 
 would be required. If you take the combined moral influence 
 of Aristotle, of Plato, and of Socrates, and put it beside the 
 moral influence of Christ, it will be found that the light of the 
 Jew is greater than all the illumination of the Greeks. 
 
 As to the Romans, they were repeaters and organisers, and 
 not original teachers, and it is not worth while to compare Christ 
 with them. 
 
 What was the source of this marvellous power of Christ ? 
 
 It was not the result of any mere intellectual attainments. 
 It was not His genius of thought that made Him what He was. 
 The literary works which hold their way from generation to gen- 
 eration are almost invariably finely and artistically finished. It 
 is not enough for a man to think wisely and well. It is neces- 
 sary that his thoughts should take such shape in literature that 
 men shall be fascinated with their form as well as their substance. 
 And the doctrines of the Greeks were clothed in such a manner 
 as to be attractive. But in Christ's teachings there was Httle 
 that appealed merely to the imagination or the taste. And, 
 although we are conscious that the teachings of Christ are ex- 
 quisite in one way of looking at them, yet they are without 
 those qualities which usually give continuity of influence to any 
 literary fruit of the human mind. The power of Christ's 
 teachings has arisen from the mere superiority of their moral 
 characteristics. 
 
 The secret of the power of Christ did not lie in any subtle 
 poetic or philosophic views. His teachings were fragmentary. 
 They may be said, as literary results, to have been mere crumbs. 
 Yet there was in them an inherent power which gave them im- 
 mortality upon the earth. In the progress of years, all that 
 was resplendent in literature, all that was stately in organised 
 religion, and all that was august in political power, paled and 
 went down before this rude, homely Gospel. 
 
 Here, then, is a being that comes down from heaven, and for 
 three years, after having attained the age of thirty, walks among 
 His countrymen, teaching them not in science, literature, or 
 politics, but with regard to moral relations and moral truth. 
 
 Now look at the other elements in the picture. Among the 
 ruling Jews there were two sects — the Sadducees and the Phari- 
 sees. Who were the Sadducees? They were men who were 
 sceptics in religion. They were men who disbelieved, therefore, 
 in penal moral government and moral restraint. They were 
 men who were lenient toward human feelings ; who sought to 
 make life agreeable ; who amiably took the side of their fellow 
 
78 THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHOUT. 
 
 men, and, assailing the ruling religious faith and observances, 
 broke down also the superstitions of their day. They laboured 
 with those about them, not for the sake of lifting them higher, 
 but of making them happier. 
 
 There are many Sadducees in our day. All that seek to 
 content men with merely a secular life ; all that seek to make 
 the conscience quiet ; all that attempt to break the power of 
 Divine government upon the conscience, are Sadducees. 
 
 And who were the Pharisees ? They were those who sought 
 to lift men above their ordinary condition, and bring them 
 under moral restraints, and impose upon them spiritual duties. 
 They were ignorant of the right methods of doing those things, 
 as we shall see ; but they were the men of their day who 
 sought to maintain that which was right, to enlighten that 
 which was dark, and to reform that which was abusive. They 
 were men that sought to introduce religion, such as it was, and 
 morality in the temple, in the state, and in the household. 
 They were not all to be despised. The severe denunciations 
 of Christ reveal the corruptions of those who were the leaders 
 of the party at Jerusalem. But it is often true that the leaders 
 are corrupt while the body of the party is well-meaning. They 
 were men that we might perhaps pity and blame ; but among 
 the Pharisees of the time of Christ were some of the noblest 
 specimens of men who were at that time living in the world. 
 The Pharisee has been called the Puritan of the Jews. He 
 was. If you contrast the Pharisee with the Greek and the 
 Roman, he seems transcendently nobler than they in moral 
 aspirations and endeavours. If you contrast the Pharisees 
 with the heathen, they shine like stars in the firmament. It is 
 only when you contrast them with life immeasurably higher 
 than theirs, and with moral character transcendently purer 
 than theirs, that they suffer. The reason that the Pharisee has 
 come to be regarded with such contempt is that we have 
 been accustomed to judge him in contrast, not with his times, 
 not with his fellows, but with the Master whom he misunder- 
 stood and crucified, and with the moral law as that Master 
 interpreted it. Relatively to other men, the Pharisees were 
 superior. Relatively to Christ, they were low, and even 
 despicable. Their chief sins were selfishness, bigotry, and 
 narrowness in religious duties and views. It was not charged 
 against them that they were not religious or ethical. They were 
 denounced for rigour in the externals of religion, and for the 
 absence of its merciful elements. Their fault was on the side 
 of excessive zeal. It was a zeal that scorned compassion and 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHOUT. 79 
 
 kindness. It was a zeal that sprang from a selfish and bigoted 
 adhesion to religious views. They had no true pity and 
 humanity in their religion. And there are thousands of reli- 
 gionists yet that have no humanity in them. They have wor- 
 shipping qualities, they have sentimentality, but they are 
 divested of the humane ethical emotions. A religion that does 
 not take hold of the life that now is, is like a cloud that does 
 not rain. A cloud may roll in grandeur, and be an object of 
 admiration ; but if it does not rain, it is of little account so far 
 as utility is concerned. And a religion that consists in the 
 observance of magnificent ceremonies, but that does not touch 
 the duties of daily life, is a religion of show and sham. 
 
 The religion of the Pharisees was a religion of ecclesiastics. 
 They confounded religion itself with the instruments or institu- 
 tions by which the religious spirit or feeling acts. They learned 
 to regard religious forms and religious ordinances as sacred, for- 
 getting that these are the mere vehicle of feeling, and that, there- 
 fore, they cannot be sacred, since nothing that is material can 
 be sacred. Sacredness belongs to moral qualities, and not to 
 physical; to spirit, and not to matter. There is no such thing 
 as a sacred foundation-stone, or a sacred wall, or a sicred place, 
 except in poetic or popular language. That which is sacred 
 must inhere in the living thing. It is mind-quality, soul-quality, 
 that is sacred. They have drifted far from the spirit of religion 
 who believe that the instruments of religion are sacred, instead 
 of religion itself. They who look upon days, and ecclesiatical 
 ceremonies, and garments, and ordinances as holy, in the modern 
 sense of that word, and worship them, are idolaters. They have 
 set up, right in the threshold of God's church, the worship of 
 forms and ceremonies, instead of the service of true religion. 
 
 If it was the nature of the Pharisee to be selfish, to leave 
 humanity out of his religion, and to worship the instruments of 
 religion, and not the thing itself, you may be sure that Phari- 
 saism is not dead. You do not need to go to the New Testa- 
 ment to see where Pharisees are. They sit in our churches ; 
 they are in all sects. Pharisaism is a quality of human nature. 
 It is the way by which the mind of a man with inferior illumi- 
 nation develops itself. It is one of those methods in which the 
 imperfections of human nature manifest themselves when it is 
 acting in the direction of religion. 
 
 If this is a fair description of the Pharisees, they were stern, 
 earnest men, seeking to reform and exalt human society, in the 
 main, by a rigorous use of secular and ecclesiastical forces. 
 They were not without many good qualities; they were not 
 
8o THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHOUT. 
 
 without much that was praiseworthy; but they failed in the 
 essential points of spirituality and love. And as these were the 
 foundation qualities of God's nature and government, they 
 failed at the very pivotal point. It was in the presence of these 
 rulers that Christ enacted the scenes that are recorded as having 
 passed during the three official years of His life. 
 
 The question which I propose briefly to answer is, How 
 must such a being as Christ have appeared to these men, such 
 as they were ? First, taking his origin, how must Christ have 
 appeared to the Pharisees ? 
 
 The Jews were probably the most democratic people that 
 ever lived. We ourselves owe many of our democratic forms 
 to the law^giver of the desert. Moses was the democrat of the 
 Jewish nation. And though the Jews afterward had a monarch, 
 and ran through various forms of absolute rule, yet there was 
 among them a strong element of democracy. They brought 
 up their children to work ; and work is one of the most trans- 
 forming of influences. They that respect work may not be 
 religious, but they are apt to be virtuous ; and they that despise 
 it may not be, in a technical sense, irreligious, but they are 
 tending in that direction. The Jews believed in the funda- 
 mental idea of work. They believed in the common people. 
 They believed that every man had a right to disclose and 
 to use any gift that he might possess. They did not hesitate 
 to follow a woman with a timbrel, and permit her to rule 
 them in their rejoicings. A woman judged the nation ! And 
 the fact that a prophet sprang up from among herdsmen did 
 not deter them from acknowledging him. They were ready 
 to accept a gift that was a real gift, though it showed itself among 
 the common people. Nevertheless, they had a feeling that the 
 presumptions were that God would manifest Himself through 
 the upper rather than through the lower classes. There was a 
 double element among the Jews. There was a feeling, not that 
 God would necessarily manifest Himself through the aristocratic 
 portion of the community or through political organizations, or 
 by a throne, but as there is such a thing as a higher class in 
 morality, as an aristocracy of virtue, or supposed virtue (and 
 there is no aristocracy that is more imperious, more domi- 
 neering, more tyrannical, than ecclesiastical aristocracy), so the 
 Jew supposed that the Messiah would spring from this class. 
 
 Now, among the good Jews, although they were democratic 
 in their feelings, and had regard for the common people, the 
 first question, when Christ came among them with His new^ 
 doctrines, \Yas, "Is He going to do anything for us?" They 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHOUT. 8 1 
 
 felt as you feel, when a moral principle that is inconvenient 
 thrusts itself for the first time between you and your customs. 
 They said to themselves, " If God meant to do anything for the 
 world in this age, do you suppose that He would pass by the 
 Church, and do it through some other channel?" The Jews 
 felt about Christ as many now do about any reformation when 
 it springs up in our midst — that if it is not in the Church it is 
 not good, no matter what it is. 
 
 Therefore, the mere fact that Christ was born in obscurity, 
 though it was not a final bar to his being accepted of the Jews, 
 was an occasion of prejudice against him. Yet, having been lea- 
 vened with true democratic ideas, they perhaps suspended their 
 judgment concerning him, and watched him to see what he would 
 do. And Christ, in his ministering years, passed through a pro- 
 bation. His miracles filled the whole land with wonder. His 
 popular discourses drew the common people, they knew not why, 
 to him, and swept them in his train. As a ship in passing sweeps 
 the moveable objects that are near it, and sets them following 
 in its wake, so Christ, wherever he went, drew men to him. 
 
 Now this was something for the ruling class to look at. They 
 said, " There is a man of great power, and we must see whether 
 we can bring him to our side and use him." The question in their 
 mind was not this : " Is he truer than we are ? Is he better than 
 we are? Will his truth make mankind better, and the world 
 happier ?" Their thought was this — and it is not very different 
 from the thoughts of men now-a-days : " If this man is with us, 
 we are for him ; if not, we are against him." The syllogism was, 
 " God has made us the instruments of enlightening this people ; 
 therefore it is essential that we should be kept in authority and 
 power. And if this man goes with us, he goes with religion, and 
 we accept him. If he goes against us, he goes against religion, 
 and we reject him." 
 
 The president of a theological seminary says, *' This seminary 
 was endowed for the purpose of teaching the true doctrine. If 
 this seminary is taken out of the way, the true doctrine falls. 
 Therefore, whatever opposes this seminary opposes the true 
 doctrine." The president of a tract society says, " This society 
 is to diftuse a pure gospel ; and anything that breaks up this 
 society is an obstacle in the way of the diffusion of a pure 
 gospel." If men do not say these things in so many words, 
 this is the syllogism which they employ practically. The same 
 is true in respect to churches. I\Ien say, '•' The Church is the 
 grand pillar of religion : and if you destroy the Church, religion 
 will be destroyed, for then it will have no means of propagating 
 
 G 
 
82 THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHOUT. 
 
 itself." They therefore contend for what? Religion? No; 
 for the Church, the instrument of religion. There is the same 
 difference between the Church and religion that there is between 
 the hand and the soul. The hand is important, and I do not 
 propose to cut it off; but if it is a choice between the hand and 
 the soul, I know which I should choose. Now, churches, and 
 seminaries, and Christian institutions of all kinds, are feet with 
 which religion walks. They are hands with which it helps it- 
 self. They are instruments which God employs in carrying it 
 forward. But when a comparison is made between institutions 
 or ordinances, and the things which they serve, there is no 
 question w^hich is superior. 
 
 But the Pharisees said of Christ, " If he goes with our insti- 
 tutions, if he goes with Jewry, he is right ; if he does not, he 
 is wrong." And because He did not go with them, they turned 
 against Him. 
 
 There is some evidences that there was a disposition to 
 secure Him, even by appointing Him king; and on one occa- 
 sion the enthusiasm ran so high that the people were about to 
 rise and make Him king, and He had Himself to interfere to 
 prevent such a foolish enterprise. No doubt this would have 
 taken place with the tacit consent of the Pharisees, who che- 
 rished the hope that they might be a power behind the throne, 
 and that they might manage Him. When that hope was effect- 
 ually destroyed, all favour on their part towards Christ was also 
 destroyed. And it is not strange that they turned against Him. 
 They were totally ignorant of His real nature and mission. 
 They did not and could not see what He saw, or know what 
 He knew. And that, you will observe, was the point which 
 was made between Him and them over, and over, and over again. 
 The light came upon them in vain. They did not understand 
 it. God was presented to them as a spirit, and they did not 
 accept Him. He came to them incarnated in Christ, and they 
 rejected the Son and the Father at the same time. Often and 
 often He attempted to show them why they should accept Hiniy 
 urging as reasons that His spiritual elevation, His purity, and 
 His moral nobleness made Him divine; that divinity consisted 
 in spiritual influence, and not chiefly in physical power ; and 
 that He had in His character all the signs and tokens of being 
 divine. He charged them with blindness — and rightly, too — 
 because they could not see these things. 
 
 But they did see and feel what to them was more to the point 
 — that Christ's influence was against them ; that He stood in 
 their path ; that if He increased, they would decrease ; and thatz 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST WITHOUT. 83 
 
 if the people were to be taught by Him, they could no longer 
 teach them. In other words, they were partisans. Here was 
 an individual that refused to join their party, and did things 
 which had a tendency to disintegrate and destroy that party, 
 and they turned against Him. 
 
 How do men act under such circumstances now? Is it 
 strange to see a party turn against a man because he does not 
 go with them, without any consideration of his character, or of 
 what the result of his teachings will be ? The Pharisees were a 
 party in religion ; and when they found that Christ would not 
 sustain them, they eschewed him. 
 
 Let us see, then, how, in some points, Christ's independent 
 spiritual career traversed party considerations, and how He went 
 to His crucifixion. 
 
 In the first place, if you look at Christ's manners and social 
 traits, you will observe that, while He was never less than the 
 greatest, the serene and transcendent light which His words and 
 deeds shed was never so pure and white as when He was in 
 conversation with the most eminent and cultured men of His 
 time. When, however, He was left to Himself, it was not their 
 society that He sought. He liked to go among the common 
 people. And notice the effects which resulted. First, it is 
 declared that it was a cause of offence. The charge against 
 Him was that He ate with publicans and sinners, and that He 
 sat down with them. There is a great difference, you know, 
 between preaching to people and govagzuith people. He might 
 ha»ye preached to publicans at appointed times and places, and 
 He would^have had small audiences; but He went where the 
 publicans and sinners were ; He sat down with them, ate with 
 them, and they found Him an agreeable companion. He was 
 pure enough and noble enough to bear the test to which He 
 was subjected in so doing. When he was charged with it as an 
 oftence contrary to the Jewish customs. He declared, " I go as 
 a physician goes among the sick. They need me, and I go to 
 them because they need Me, not because I need them. But 
 this was very offensive to the purest of the Pharisees. 
 
 More than that, He taught the common people, not in rab- 
 binical phrase, but in the vernacular. You will take notice 
 that a minister that joins himself to a sect, and avows that it is 
 his purpose to exalt that sect, is permitted by them to speak in 
 any way he pleases, so that all the benefit inures to his party. 
 But let a man refuse to belong to any sect, let him claim brother- 
 hood with all sects so far as they are Christ's, let him preach 
 the great truths of religion so that the common people shall 
 
 G— 2 
 
84 THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHOUT. 
 
 hear him gladly, and what is the impression produced but this ; 
 that the man is an innovator ; that he is leaving the old paths ; 
 that he is seeking novelties ; that he sets his sail to the popular 
 breeze? 
 
 Now Christ would not use rabbinical language in His teaching. 
 He did not speak as the Jews did. When He taught the com- 
 mon people, all said, *' This man speaks with authority." What 
 does that mean ? Weight. He spoke right home to their con- 
 sciences, and that is always speaking with weight. He brought 
 the gospel into their houses, into their business, into their dis- 
 positions, into their very superstitions. He brought it into their 
 religion. That was a strange place to bring it, it is true ; but 
 He brought it there. It was His habit to preach the gospel, 
 not professionally, but personally, so as to make it a gospel to 
 the common people. And this was offensive to the Pharisees. 
 More than that, the practical superiority which He gave to 
 truth, or principle, over usages and institutions, was offensive to 
 them. It was an indirect assault upon them ; for the Pharisees 
 were men that believed in regularity and order, and subordina- 
 tion and discipline. The Pharisees were superlatively the 
 model conservatives of the world. They did not disdain 
 growth : but after all, their sympathies and feelings, first and 
 mainly, inclined them to the pohcy of taking care of what was 
 already obtained. They did not ignore advancement, but the 
 key-note of their life was conservation. Therefore, when they 
 saw a man of great power and extraordinary gifts disseminating 
 principles which did not belong to their theological system, and 
 raising moral tides which could not but work mischief to them, 
 they felt that He was making not only a personal, but an eccle- 
 siastical attack upon them ; and, as conservative religious men, 
 they thought they were bound to oppose Him. 
 
 For example, was there anything more sacred to them than 
 sacrifice ? The idea of sacrifice was to them what the idea of 
 atonement is to orthodox men now, who hold it to be the centre 
 of the Christian arch. Sacrifice was never despised by Christ, 
 but relatively he undervalued it. The idea of sacrifice among 
 the Jews had taken precedence of humanity, justice, and right. 
 Christ said, "If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there 
 rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave 
 there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way ; first be recon- 
 ciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." What 
 does it mean but this, Do not think that sacrifice to God is the 
 highest rehgious duty. Sacrifice depends for its value on pre- 
 ceding moral qualities. A principle is higher than the ordi- 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHOUT. 85 
 
 nance which you take to exhibit that principle. The life of 
 religion in the soul is first in importance ; the instruments by 
 which you develop that life are of secondary consideration. 
 
 Which is the most important, your boy or the arithmetic 
 which he studies ? If there should arise in your mind a super- 
 stitious worship of the slate, and pencil, and book, and a for- 
 getfulness of the boy, you would be in the same position that 
 the Pharisees were in of reverencing the instruments of religion 
 instead of religion itself, which these instruments were meant 
 to develop and elevate. Christ selects the element of true 
 religion — namely, love — and says to men, " If you bring your 
 sacrificial gift before God in the temple, in the sight of God, it 
 is condemned and despised unless it is brought with a loving 
 heart behind it." 
 
 The same is true of His teaching concerning the Sabbath- 
 day. It is remarkable that almost every mention of the Sab- 
 bath-day in which Christ expresses any opinion respecting it 
 was seemingly adverse to its sacredness. Some have supposed 
 that Christ was opposed to the Sabbath-day ; but He was not. 
 The Sabbath-day had become an oppressive day to the common 
 people. It had lost its peculiar fragrance and sweetness ; and 
 Christ, meeting it at its oppressive point, put the duty of love 
 in religion higher than any ordinance. He only undervalued 
 the Sabbath as contrasted with the object for which it was 
 ordained. It was the outside ordinance as contrasted with the 
 inside spirit that led Christ to denounce the Pharisaic observ- 
 ance of the Sabbath. 
 
 These are instances of Christ's customary teaching, that the 
 truth is higher than the ordinance or usage by which that truth 
 is expressed. The result was, that those who felt themselves 
 condemned, those who felt their methods of religious teaching 
 set aside, those who felt that there was a tendency to unsettle 
 the minds of the Jewish hearers, did not hesitate to declare 
 that He was an infidel. And thus we see how ecclesiastical 
 party-men, blinded by their selfishness, came to regard Christ, 
 first as an invader, then as an aggressor, and finally as a 
 criminal, upturning the foundations of religion. 
 
 The whole course of Christ was so influential, that the 
 Pharisees could not let Him alone. Such was the power of 
 His life and teaching, that they were in the condition of many 
 men of our day, who have said of reformers that were labour- 
 ing to correct the evils of society, '^ Why will not these men 
 let these things alone? Why are they always agitating the 
 people ? " Christ made Jerusalem too hot for the Pharisees. 
 
S6 THE LIFE OF CHRIST — V\^ITHOUT. 
 
 The public mind had become filled with these new-fangled 
 notions of morality and religion which he promulgated, and the 
 Pharisees wondered why, if He was a minister of the true 
 rehgion, He would so stir up the people. 
 
 That is not all. Christ was the most impracticable man 
 that ever lived, and yet the most practical. He could not be 
 used by the Pharisees for their purposes. He could not live 
 simply for the present, as they did. They were living for 
 immediate results. He lived for results universal and remote. 
 They were a party. He was the Saviour of the world. They 
 were Jews. He belonged to the human kind. They sought 
 immediate success. He was establishing the foundations of 
 that kingdom in which dwelleth righteousness. They were for 
 the present and the transient. He was for the future and the 
 stable. How could they use such a man ? He was larger than 
 they were ; He saw something more than their plans contem- 
 plated ; He was for ever labouring for a more resplendent end 
 than they had conceived of; they could not use Him. 
 
 Christ was, lastly, a sublime radical. *' How dare you," one 
 will say to me, "apply such a term to Christ ? " Because my 
 glorious Master is one that has got used to wearing ignominious 
 terms, and any term of ignominy that is made such by contempt 
 of the higher classes against the lower I put upon the brow of 
 Christ. Another thorn it may be, but it is one that brings blood 
 for salvation. And I declare that Christ was the first and the 
 sublime radical " Now also," says the New Testament, speak- 
 ing of the coming of Christ, " the axe is laid unto the root of 
 the trees."* What is radical but a word derived from radix^ 
 which means root ? He was a root man. He came right at 
 the worm at the root of the trees. A physician that, instead of 
 attempting to palliate a difficulty, deals sharply with the organic 
 lesion, is a radical. In morals the man that does not attempt 
 to smooth over the surface, but asks what is the fundamental 
 cause of wrong, and then attacks that cause, is a radical. 
 Christ, then, was declared to be a radical. The axe was laid at 
 the root of things. And from the days of Christ to this, the men 
 that have been the most known and felt, and the longest felt in 
 the world, have been men that, passing over compromises and 
 petty ways of settling difificulties, have struck the foundation 
 
 * It is immaterial whether this is interpreted to signify striking at the 
 root, or, as is the more accurate interpi-etation, lying at the root in readiness 
 for use. In either case it indicates the radical cliaracter of Christ's work. 
 He cut up fruitless growths, as we say. "root and branch.'' Compare also 
 Matt. xii. 33, a proverbial saying, ai)])arcnt]y a favourite with Christ. 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHOUT 87 
 
 causes of things, and insisted upon having health and right, and 
 refused partnership with men that were in favour of letting 
 matters take their own course. They have been, like their Master, 
 radicals, and therefore reformers ; cursed while they lived, and 
 worshipped when they were dead ; thorns in the side of parties, 
 and crucified by them ; but held up as the martyrs and heroes 
 of their age by the next generation, who none the less crucify 
 the men of their age that are just like them. So it is, and so I 
 suppose it will be as long as human nature is what it is. 
 
 Is it possible, then, when you consider the foregoing facts, to 
 suppose that the Pharisees and Christ should have been recon- 
 ciled to each other? They could not understand Him, though 
 He could understand them. They knew half as much as He 
 did, for He declared to His disciples that the wisdom of life was 
 to be cunning as serpents and harmless as doves. They had 
 learned the first half, but they had never learned the second. 
 And can one who is only cunning as a serpent understand Him 
 as gentle as a dove? Is it strange that men under the inspira- 
 tion of worldly ambitions ; men in sympathy with parties ; 
 men actuated by the feelings which are most influential in the 
 age in which they live ; men not taught in the sanctuary, or en- 
 lightened on the subject of their moral duty ; men that were 
 living for the time being, — is it strange that they should not 
 understand the pure spirit that refused to identify itself with 
 anything that was merely secular or transient ? Is it strange 
 that they who despised the poor should have despised Him who 
 was the friend of the poor, and who preached the Gospel to the 
 poor ? Is it strange that a man who consorted with publicans 
 and sinners should have been despised by men who would not 
 touch a sinner without afterward washing their hands, lest they 
 might be defiled ? It does not show that they were to an extra- 
 ordinary degree depraved. They were fair specimens of average 
 human nature. You can hew out such men from the timber 
 that we have to-day. They acted exactly as you and I act ; as 
 this nation has been acting ; as every nation acts. The men 
 that prove to be regenerators of mankind begin as Christ did, 
 despised and subjected to obloquy. All men that hold in their 
 hands the supposed authorities of religion turn against these 
 on-coming men of power, who, though they are uncomely, shape 
 the foundations of the New Jerusalem, which are to be laid, not 
 as the foundations of human institutions, of hay, wood, clay, 
 and stubble, but of precious stones — which are immortal princi- 
 ples of truth, never to pass away. But as long as there is a 
 God, and a providence in this world, you never shall lay the 
 
S8 THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHOUT. 
 
 foundations of any party or sect in anything less than absolute 
 justice and right, and have them stand. Build your house on a 
 rock, and it will not be shaken to pieces ; build it on the sand, 
 and the first tide that flows and ebbs carries it down. They that 
 build on purity and rectitude are steadfast and safe, but they 
 that build on arrangements, on nice and cunning devices, on 
 compromises, are liable at any moment to be overthrown and 
 destroyed. 
 
 We have been living for years in a period in which men have 
 sacrificed principle for the sake of quieting the community, for 
 the sake of gaining peace, for the sake of settling in an easy 
 manner questions which God Almighty was determined should 
 not be settled till they were settled right. We have been living 
 for years in a period in which men have exhausted all their in- 
 genuity to suppress those Christian influences which have been 
 at work in the world. For a time the religion of the churches 
 was arrayed against the Christ of Providence. We have had 
 the law against Christ. Government and commerce have been 
 against Christ. And they have all joined in the cry, " Crucify 
 Him ! crucify Him ! " When justice was demanded, men cried 
 out, " Not justice, but peace; give us peace I " But did they 
 get it ? Did peace come either to the Church or the State ? 
 God threw wide open the doors of hell, and out came the flames 
 of w^ar ! They burned up peace like chaff. Why? Because 
 for so many years men absolutely refused to come up to the 
 grounds of moral truth and moral principle, and stand on them, 
 and say, " Here will we abide, and we will for ever seek that 
 which is just and good. I summon the great leaders of our 
 past and crumbling parties, one by one, laden with sin and bur- 
 dened with iniquity, to rise and come to judgment, that they may 
 bear witness that when truth and right are persecuted, there' is 
 no peace ! 
 
 Now, having gone through five bloody years, we come again 
 to great questions which stand petitioning at our doors, and 
 God says, *' Settle them on principles of justice and rectitude, 
 and you shall have peace." But the whole nation are asking, 
 " Ought we not, after so long a time, so to arrange as to have 
 peace ? " And men are saying, '' Why insist upon such radical 
 ideas? Why not accept more temperate views?" Those views 
 which they call temperate, and which they are urging us to 
 adopt, are views that have lies in them. I stand here again to 
 say, Truth has no revolution in it. Right has no change in it. 
 Justice is always safe and sure. If you must crucify Christ 
 because He will not join your party, your faction, your church, 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHOUT. 89 
 
 your religion, then crucify Him ; but remember the eighteen 
 hundred years of darkness, and revolution, and turmoil that 
 followed His first crucifixion. The great battle of God Almighty 
 is not fought out yet, and you will have more of it in your day. 
 If you want peace, do right. If you will not do right, remember 
 that God is the incendiary of the universe, and that He will burn 
 your plans, and will by and bye burn you with unquenchable 
 fire. 
 
 I would point you this morning to Him who, when on earth, 
 was mocked and despised. See Him, going from the city 
 where the prophets had been persecuted. Behold with Him 
 that very mob hooting at Him and deriding Him, that but 
 the day before crowned Him and followed as He rode into 
 Jerusalem, shouting, " Hosanna I Hosanna ! " See Him on 
 the cross when His disciples, afraid, had deserted Him, and 
 there were only women to stand near Him. Behold how He 
 died, and the earth lost its light ! And see how He came to 
 life, and went up on high again, to carry out those truths in 
 which is the life of nations, and in which is the health of 
 man's soul. 
 
 By that Christ, crucified but victorious, I bring you the truths 
 of righteousness, and of justice to the poorest; and I say to 
 you, Will you do right ? If you crucify Christ in His poor 
 and despised ones, be assured there is blood yet; there is 
 revolution yet ; there is war again ! If ten years ago I had told 
 you that there would be war, you would have laughed ; but, 
 sobered by experience, you may not now scorn the idea, and 
 think it to be wild. In rectitude there is safety, and in un- 
 righteousness there is always the fire of hell. 
 
 Young men, take your ideal of what is right not from the 
 great of this world. Go not to presidents, or secretaries, or 
 generals, or merchants, or ministers, nor to any man, for your 
 ideal. Even the highest and best men are so sympathetic with 
 their age, and nation, and time, that they are not fit to be 
 models. Take your measure of character and duty from Him 
 that was despised. Imitate Him that was crowned with thorns. 
 Follow Him that bore the cross. Bear Christ's cross, and you 
 shall be an heir of Christ's throne. 
 
VII. 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHRIST, WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 
 IN TWO SERMONS. 
 
 II. — CHRIST WITHIN. 
 
 *' Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the 
 jrround and die, it abideth alone : but if it die, it bringeth forth much 
 fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it ; and he that hateth his life 
 in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." — JoiiM xii. 24, 25. 
 
 These words — "he that loveth his life shall lose it; and he 
 that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life 
 eternal " — are, in substance the same, though in form varied, 
 frequently repeated. They are several times recorded in the 
 evangelical histories,* showing that they made a deep im- 
 pression upon the disciples' minds ; and showing, also, that the 
 Saviour, after the manner of his countrymen in the East, 
 reduced His teachings to proverbial forms. This epigrammatic 
 method favoured the retention of truth in the memory. 
 
 A seed carries with it the preparation for a new structure. 
 The greatest part of a seed is mere bulk, whose office is to 
 wrap up and protect the vital principle or germ. It also is food 
 for the earliest life of that germ. So the body carries a vital 
 principle which is hereafter to be developed : and the body is 
 a mere vehicle and protection of this vital principle. The seed 
 cannot give forth the new plant within it except by undergoing 
 a chemical decomposition and absorption. Our Saviour teaches 
 that this is the law of the evolution of spiritual life in man. 
 Our physical life must expend itself, not necessarily in the 
 immediate act of death, but by ministering to the spiritual 
 element in us. 
 
 Of this doctrine of the subordination of the outward to the 
 inward, of the material to the spiritual, Christ's own life was the 
 most illustrious exemplification. He threw away His life. And 
 yet no other life of which we have any knowledge was ever so 
 successful, so powerful, and so glorious. 
 
 * Matt. X. 39 ; xvi. 25 ; Mark viii. 35 ; Luke ix. 24 ; xvii. 33. 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHIN. 9T 
 
 I propose to illustrate both of these facts — that Christ utterly- 
 lost His life, and that in so doing He saved and augmented it. 
 
 In one point of view, then, Christ's life was an entire failure. 
 Remarkable it was in its failure, whether you measure it by the 
 objects which men ordinarily seek as the chief good of life, or 
 by the gratification of those faculties which carry in them among 
 men the principal motives of human life, or by the productive- 
 ness of those powers which He gave evidence of possessing. In 
 each of these three respects He lost the ends of life. He did not 
 get the things which men think to be most valuable ; neither 
 did He derive much gratification in those faculties which men 
 live to gratify; nor, though endowed with a wondrous versa- 
 tility of powers, did He employ those powers in such a pro- 
 ductive manner as to make it appear that he gained the object 
 of life. You cannot conceive of one endowed with such oppor- 
 tunities who, measured by the temporal and earthly standards, 
 so utterly squandered them, and was so completely bankrupt 
 of results. 
 
 This is the outside view. Let us look at it a little. 
 
 Regarding our Saviour in His general relations, it would seem 
 as though He could scarcely have entered life at a worse door 
 than at the portal of Jewish nationality. For in that age of the 
 world it was a misfortune to be born a Jew in the estimation 
 of everybody except a Jew. That is not wonderful; for every- 
 body thinks it unfortunate to be born anything but what he is. 
 Every nation thinks all other nations are to be pitied, if not 
 hated. And in that age every nation despised all other nations. 
 But the Jew had a special measure of contempt meted out to 
 him. However nations differed in their likes and dislikes, they 
 all agreed in a common hatred of the Jew. Nor can you 
 imagine what this would be in the history of the life of one 
 like Christ, unless you take some parallel experience. 
 
 Suppose, for instance, you had been born an African; what 
 would have been your opportunities of life, of social intercourse, 
 of entrance into the great professions, of gaining poHtical dis- 
 tinction, of amassing wealth, or of securing those enjoyments 
 which are within your reach now ? Measure your present 
 chances in life with what they would have been if you had 
 been born black instead of white. 
 
 Now, it was very much that, in Christ's time, to have been 
 born a Jew. And Christ was born a Jew. So far as worldly 
 opportunity was concerned, He might better have been born a 
 heathen or a barbarian. Although of noble lineage, yet, re- 
 garding Him in His relations to His own nation. He scarcely was 
 
92 THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHIX. 
 
 better off than He otherwise would have been ; for His parents 
 were not in influential position, and they could not give Him 
 the privileges of education. He had but few opportunities in 
 youth; and He was dependent for His training almost entirely 
 npon the natural evolution of His own faculties. You recollect 
 how He was reproached as being illiterate, or, rather, how 
 people marvelled that one who was illiterate should know so 
 much. '• How knoweth this man letters, havinsj never learned?" 
 said His adversaries and the spectators. He had inherited 
 neither name, place, nor influence. ^Many men are dependent 
 for their standing upon the fact that they began with the capital 
 of those who went before them. Christ had nothing of the kind. 
 
 He never strove, either, to repair these conditions of fortune. 
 He was born of parents both poor and low in life, inconspicuous 
 and uninfluential, and He does not seem ever to have felt the 
 sting of the deprivations which He suffered, as many a man 
 does who is conscious all his life long that the impulse and 
 spur to exertion is the narrow and pinched estate of His youth. 
 
 Let us exclude the pleasure and the vicious practices that 
 were disallowed by the morals of all nations, and contemplate 
 only those ends which are laudable, and by which society is 
 built up and civilisation advanced. It may be said that Christ's 
 life, in connection with these laudable ends, externally viewed, 
 was a failure. 
 
 He secured no wealth — not even enough to redeem Himself 
 from dependence. The food which He ate was ministered to 
 Him by the hands of those who loved Him. He had not where 
 to lay His head. Only love redeemed Him from pauperism. 
 This is the more remarkable in one who had power, either by 
 miracles, or by an easy use of His sagacity, to create wealth. 
 He did not deride it in others. No word of His, justly con- 
 strued, will be found to conflict with the Divine law of political 
 economy. He seemed like a scholar in an artificer's shop, all 
 about whom are tools, good and useful to the artificer, but of 
 no use to the scholar. He does not despise them, but He 
 never touches them. Wealth was a minor good to some, and 
 was to have its power and history in the world's elevation ; but 
 Christ walked in the midst of it almost unconscious of its pre- 
 sence, or of the want of it. 
 
 Though He had great power of exciting enthusiasm, atten- 
 tion, and momentary feeling, there is no evidence that Christ 
 ever gained or kept a steady influence over the common 
 people — not even over those among whom He came, and with 
 whom He consorted. By discourse, by personal bearing, and 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHIN. 93 
 
 by His miracles, He attained great power over the imagination 
 and the enthusiasm of the people with whom He associated. 
 But never did He seem to gain any particular influence over 
 their habits. He never controlled their radical ideas, nor 
 changed the secret springs of their life. In regard to the most 
 of men, it was effervescent enthusiasm, transient admiration, 
 that they felt in His presence. A striking illustration of this will 
 be found in the history of His own disciples. For three years 
 they were His intimate and private companions, and had the 
 benefit not only of His conversations, but of His instructions, 
 based upon their ignorance and mistakes ; and yet, at His death, 
 they had not entered in any appreciable degree into His ideas 
 or into His career. They seem to have been almost untouched 
 except by a vague, blind, attraction toward Him. They had 
 not become the partners of His intellectual or His moral life. 
 They saw, when He was coming toward suffering and death, 
 only confusion and dismay. And after He died, all hope for- 
 sook them. They thought the errand of His life had utterly 
 failed. Long after the very Pentecost, long after the inspiration 
 of the Holy Ghost had begun its work upon them, it was only 
 spring, not summer, of knowledge with them, for they still felt 
 that Jesus was the Jew's God ; and it was years before it ceased 
 to be a matter of amazement to them that Christ was the 
 Saviour of the whole World. 
 
 Now, if these men that were selected by Christ could dwell 
 with Him. and talk with Him every day for three years, with 
 so little effect of His ministry upon them, what must have been 
 the effect of His ministry upon those men that never saw Him 
 except occasionally, and never sustained any intimate relations 
 to Him ? If we measure the power of Christ's life by His im- 
 mediate influence upon the common people, it was a failure. 
 
 It scarcely needs to be said that He failed even more, if it 
 were possible, to secure any personal or professional influence 
 on the minds that ruled His age. There were political rulers 
 of great sagacity whom He seems never to have fallen in with, 
 except to stand before them to be judged and condemned. 
 There is no evidence that Christ ever turned His thoughts or 
 His instructions to political questions, except so far as they tra- 
 versed humanity and morality. If He found them in His way 
 as He travelled the great road to morality and humanity, He 
 trod them under foot or expounded them. Otherwise He 
 never seemed to touch the dynastic questions of the day. 
 
 Neither did He secure any influence over the literary and 
 philosophical minds of His own time— not in His own nation, 
 
94 THE LIFE OF CHRIST— WITHIN. 
 
 and certainly not in any other. Though He was sent to be 
 the Saviour of the world, His influence did not extend beyond 
 His own country. With the exception of a journey to Egypt in 
 His infancy, He never was outside his own native land. He 
 never had a place among men of letters, nor was He a power in 
 any philosophical circle. 
 
 But even more remarkable is it that He did not produce any 
 immediate impression upon the religious opinions and feelings 
 of His age. And after His resurrection there could be discerned 
 no change which He had wrought in the religious ideas of the 
 Jews. 
 
 If you measure Christ's influence, therefore, upon the mass of 
 His countrymen, it was null and void. If you measure His in- 
 fluence upon the higher minds that controlled the governments, 
 the philosophies, and the literature of His day, there is no evi- 
 dence that when He died He had produced any impression 
 whatever upon them. He had not. " The light," it is declared, 
 " shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it 
 not." The light of Christ's presence shone into the darkness of 
 this world, but the darkness did not comprehend it, and it was 
 just as dark during His life on earth as it had been before. 
 
 Neither did He found a family. Men are born to love and 
 marriage by a decree broad as humanity ; and while each man 
 has his own Uberty, and exercises his own choice of selection, 
 yet underneath that voluntary power of choice is a necessity of 
 selecting which, in relation to the race, is as irresistible as fate 
 itself. Bat Christ, though He belonged to mankind, was not 
 carried in any such stream to any such destiny. Upon no one 
 did He ever bestow His heart's treasured affection. He never 
 knew the sweet relationship of husband and father in the house- 
 hold. Among the useful ambitions which men have, none is 
 more amiable than the wish to found a family, to pour it full of 
 noble influences, and to rear in it a troop of children that shall 
 carry forward the fomily name, adorned with all the priceless 
 qualities of virtue and services worthily performed, down with 
 honour and power to remote times. But no such ambition 
 entered the mind of Christ, or, if it did, there was no result that 
 answered to any such thought or purpose. 
 
 Having then passed through life, not concerned with wealth, 
 and therefore not connected with business ; without any im- 
 portant apparent relations to the common people among whom 
 He moved ; failing to make any impression upon the dominant 
 minds of His times in politics, literature, and religion ; and not 
 having, in any way whatever, entered into the relationships of 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHIN. 95 
 
 the family, what could His life produce that should remain? 
 Nohing, apparently. What an arrow is, that shoots quickly 
 through the air, and drops far off in the thicket, and is lost, that 
 Christ's life seemed to have been. The air which is parted by 
 the passage of the arrow instantly rushes together again, and 
 nothing is left to mark the course of the flying missile. And 
 Christ seemed to have been hurtled through His time, and to 
 have fallen in death, without leaving the slightest trace, after 
 a few weeks, of His having been alive. 
 
 His arrest, trial, and condemnation were more than ordina- 
 rily ignominous, and apparently more than ordinarily fruitless. 
 There are men the most glorious event of whose history is their 
 trial and condemnation. When, for instance, some noble nature 
 makes his last hours the occasion of defending a great principle 
 of right, and thus sows the seed for blessed results in the future, 
 his sunset into death is more illustrious than any common life 
 could be. But no principle was set forth in the death of Christ. 
 It was the occasion of advancing no great argument in favour 
 of the right. It brought to light no important truth. There 
 was nothing remarkable about His trial. It was an ordinary 
 criminal sacrifice of justice on the part of His judge. He was 
 crucified as a criminal, ignominiously. He died, and all seemed 
 utterly lost. There was no prophecy in His cross. Theie was 
 no background of light on which that cross lifted itself. Dark- 
 ness fell upon the earth, and the earth trembled. Not even His 
 mother, nor the women that were with her, nor the disciples, 
 saw anything but eclipse, disaster, and final confusion in His 
 death. He died, having left no trace behind. Neither in the 
 act of His dying was there any conspicuous power, or the 
 promise of power. Nor afterward, when His resurrection came, 
 was there much alleviation, except in the case of a few, for 
 Christ never appeared publicly again. He never appeared to 
 any, subsequent to that time, except His disciples, to whom He 
 appeared as to witnesses. And when He had done this, He 
 went up on high. And that closes the career of the Saviour. 
 
 Now, was there ever a life, when you come to look at it in its 
 details, that seemed to be thrown away more than Christ's ? 
 Considering what men live for, judging from the great ends of 
 human life that you see accomplishing around you, if you were 
 to ask, "Did Christ gain anything by living?" would not the 
 irresistible answer of every man be, " He threw His life away ! " 
 He lost it. It was worth nothing for common wealth. It 
 earned nothing of popular influence. It did not change a law. 
 It did not estabUsh a new principle. It did not make a dis- 
 
gG THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHIN. 
 
 covery. It did not put up or put down one ruler. It did not 
 overturn one altar. It was irradiated by not one single victory 
 over outward circumstances ; and, unless there is some mys- 
 terious inward thing that took place, something beyond the 
 reach of the ordinary historic senses, then the life of Christ 
 was one prolonged suffering unto disaster and unto death. 
 
 Bat what are the facts on the other side ? It is declared that 
 he that will save his life shall lose it, and that he that will lose 
 his life shall save it, and save it unto eternal life. Did Christ 
 lose His life? Did He not save it by the losing? 
 
 Born a Jew, He belonged to the most accursed and detested 
 of nations ; and yet is it not a great fact that no man ever 
 thinks of Christ as a Jew? So totally is this all changed, that 
 it never occurs to any man, except it comes to us by historical 
 research, that He was of that scattered, despised people. All 
 nations on the globe are now followers of this Jew, whom they 
 never suspect of being a Jew. There is victory in the fact 
 that that which hung about him as a cloud of gloom in the 
 early parts of His life has been utterly dissipated. 
 
 He was born without opportunity in His social relations; He 
 had a parentage that made Him familiar with the lowest cha- 
 racteristics of life; He was without education or privilege; and 
 yet, do you not know, to-day, that in Christendom there is not 
 a household, not a potent body, not a church, not a community, 
 that is not proud to call itself C//m/-ian ? He had no family 
 to fall back upon; He received no important help from any 
 source ; and yet, after the lapse of a thousand years, there is 
 scarce a household that does not claim to be Christ's, and that 
 does not call its children His. The very kings of the earth 
 bring their glory and baptize it with His name ; and all the 
 world are inheriting something that He earned. 
 
 Having no opportunities for learning, He had to rely upon 
 the use of His unaided faculties. But where has there been, 
 for a thousand years, a school, a university, or a system of 
 ethical philosophy that has not been conscious that it derived 
 Its germ from this same Christ, who was never a scholar, was 
 never a man of literature, who wrote not a line, and left not a 
 volume ? 
 
 He seemed to be quite indifferent to ordinary sources of 
 wealth, and to its power. And yet do not you know that to- 
 day wealth is more and more known to have moral relations? 
 Has there not been growing an influence interpenetrating all 
 business and secular pursuits, so that men recognise an ethical 
 principle that reigns and governs in the great realms of mammon? 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHIX. 97 
 
 From out of the life of Christ has there not issued an influence 
 that is to have control in wealth making ? All over the world 
 is there not more of the Christian spirit in the use of wealth ? 
 And though the world is not regenerated, and is not Christian, 
 •except in a limited degree, yet is not this work begun in it, and 
 is not the kingdom of wealth yet to own the name of Christ ? 
 
 He never gained much influence with the common people — 
 His own people. And yet now, is there any name named under 
 heaven which arouses so much enthusiasm among the common 
 people as Christ's ? If you take Christendom through, is it not 
 understood more and more that, if there is a name to live by, 
 if there is any influence which can defend the weaker classes 
 from the injustice of the stronger who are leagued against them, 
 it is the name and influence of the Lord Jesus Christ ? 
 
 He made little impression in his lifetime upon the rulers of 
 ■His own people and those who were versed in learning and 
 philosophy. But is there now anything that is more influential 
 than Christ ? If I were to be asked, What is the characteristic 
 of the literature of our time ? I should say that it was a searching 
 after natural justice, and the expression of every form of 
 humanity ; and humaftiiy is only another word for love toward 
 the necessitous. Indeed, justice and love were the two especial 
 attributes of Christ's spiritual life, though they made Httle 
 impression on the time in which He lived. But He has now 
 filled the channels of thought and poetic sentiment with His 
 peculiar nature; and more and more, since Christ's day, do 
 you find, even in treatises of law, the principles of Christian 
 justice. 
 
 His life was thrown away ; but it was thrown away just as I 
 throw away my handful of grain when I cast it into the soil. I 
 iose it. It dies. But it dies that it may give growth to another 
 life. He took His life and buried it, and there was nothing of 
 it. It was disintegrated. But it was given to another life that 
 was coming forward slowly and gradually through long periods, 
 'but that at length was to fill the world. A handful of corn in 
 the earth shall grow, and shall wave like Lebanon, and like the 
 forest that covers the hills and mountains, in the end. 
 
 In the body Christ was planted and lost ; but as soon as He 
 had died He began to bring forth fruit. Like some plants, like 
 young trees. He bore fruit in a small measure at first ; but, like 
 •those same plants and trees, He has grown and grown until 
 now he bears fruit in abundance. And Christ, that lost every- 
 thing, has gained everything. He has filled the world with His 
 influence \ He has revolutionized its affairs ; old political laws 
 
 H 
 
9S THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHIN. 
 
 have been taken away, and new political laws have come into- 
 the ascendant ; new religious ideas have taken the place of old 
 and effete religious systems ; old philosophies have been laid 
 aside as antiquarian relics, and new philosophies have sprung 
 up in their stead. And all these new laws, and ideas, and philo- 
 sophies have sucked at the bosom of Gospel truth. The world 
 is full, in every vein and channel, of the power of that Man 
 who went down in darkness, and was lost, apparently, in 
 eclipse and final disaster. 
 
 Did not He throw His life away? and did not He get it 
 again ? Was he not sacrificed ? and was He not saved ? Was 
 He not utterly given up to ruin ? but out of that ruin has there 
 not been the building of a new heaven and a new earth, in 
 which dwelleth righteousness ? 
 
 Looked at from an exterior point of view, Christ's life was 
 an utter failure ; but looked at from the interior, it was a most 
 illustrious victory. 
 
 You are to take notice, too, that the gain which comes to a 
 moral or spiritual life is one which involves in it time, and 
 therefore faith. And the fruit of Christ's life has shown itself 
 gradually. There was but little at first. Then there was more. 
 It has increased ever since. The life of Christ became con- 
 structive and organic. It w^as not an influence from without 
 imposed on the ordinary lav.'s of nature. It was part and parcel 
 of that economy of God which was established at the creation 
 of the world. He was as much a part of the organic law of the 
 human family and of history as any other element. And, taking 
 the natural course of its evolution, the life of Christ has been a 
 life of ages. There never was conceivable a life that, being 
 thrown away, so re-asserted itself, and so munificently re- 
 developed itself. 
 
 In view of this enunciation of facts, I ask you, first, to see 
 how the same thing is going on, in a small way, in our time. 
 Christ walked like a shadow in His day; and if you had asked 
 at that time, "Where are the secrets of power in the world ?" 
 any Jew would have pointed to the old temple, and said, 
 *' There are the secrets of the world's power." Jf, as he said 
 it, you had seen some Greek smiling, and you had asked him, 
 *' Where is the secret of power in the world? " he would have 
 said, " Have you been in Athens ? Have you seen her temples 
 and statues ? Have you seen the Parthenon ? Have you seen 
 her art and read lier literature ? Have you entered into the 
 depths of the learning of her Plato and Aristotle? The world's 
 history is wrapped up in Athenian art and literature." And if. 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST— WITHIN. 99 
 
 while he yet spoke, a disdaining Roman had passed by, and 
 you had followed him and said, " Wherefore that smile ? " he 
 would have said, " The Jews and the Greeks are filled with 
 superstitions, and are blinded as to the true source of the 
 world's power. That power is centred in Rome, whose great- 
 ness is unequalled by that of any other nation on the globe." 
 And how would Jew, and Greek, and Roman have joined in 
 mirthful derision if you had pointed to that person, Jesus 
 Christ, who was to be crucified, and said: " In that man is the 
 secret of the whole world's power." But the Jews, the Greeks, 
 the Romans, with their philosophies, their governments, and 
 their power, have gone down, while this shadow has risen into 
 greater and greater power, until it fills the world. 
 
 This leads me to speak, next, of the greatest truth that Christ 
 enunciated — namely, the superiority of the moral over every- 
 thing else. All the world beheved in the power of force. The 
 patrons of force are the passions and desires of the human 
 heart. The Greek had learned to believe that the secret of 
 power was in the understanding. But the apostle Paul, re- 
 peating what the Master had taught, declared that it was the 
 spiritual kingdom of righteousness in Christ Jesus that was the 
 dominant power. Our Saviour, when He said : " Seek ye first 
 the kingdom, and His righteousness, and all these things shall 
 be added unto you," propounded the most original and the 
 most revolutionary principle of human life that ever was made 
 known. The man that lives under the supreme influence of 
 moral elements is the man that is victorious over all the 
 elements that are represented by those faculties which are 
 lower than the moral. So that, if any one would be great in 
 wealth, literature, learning, or any dynastic quality, the secret 
 of strength is not in money, or knowledge, or understanding, or 
 political influence, but in the supremacy of the moral elements. 
 
 We are still repeating that at which we smile, in reading of 
 the ambitious mother who brother her two sons to Christ, and 
 said: "Grant that these my two sons may sit, one on Thy right 
 hand, and the other on Thy left, in Thy kingdom." We are 
 every one of us seeking greatness by outside measures ; and 
 Christ is perpetually saying to us : '* Can ye drink of the cup 
 that I shall drink of? and be baptised with the baptism that I 
 am baptised with ? Can you throw away your life ? Can you 
 mortify your pride ? Can you subdue your selfishness ? Can 
 you lay aside the old man ? Can you die that you may life? " 
 We are running eagerly, one after wealth, another after praise, 
 another after honour. One feels himself secure because the 
 
 H— 2 
 
TOO THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHIN. 
 
 golden foundations of his wealth are so deep and broad; another 
 because his ideas are built into systems and sciences. And we 
 still are making our manhood to lie in these external elements, 
 in which Christ had no life, and in which He desired to have 
 none. We are seeking to be Christians by achieving worldly 
 eminence and power. We have not yet learned that it is not 
 by the outward and physical, but by the inward and spiritual, 
 that men become true men, and that manhood is to be 
 measured. 
 
 Now, may we not learn from the example of Christ and His 
 history, the inevitable weakness of any course or career that is 
 founded in externals merely? And may we not learn, also, that 
 there is immortality and victory in any course that is founded 
 on the Divinely spiritual? We are living in an age in which we 
 are in danger of having our senses overshadowed. We are being 
 impressed so much by physical things, that we are in danger of 
 forming our judgments of what is right, and safe, and perma- 
 nent from the fleshly side, and not from the spiritual. There 
 never was a time when it was more needful for us to recur to 
 the reason of Christ's power in the world than now ; never a 
 time when we were more in danger of throwing away true per- 
 manence for barren change ; never a time when we were more 
 in danger of missing the secret of inevitable success. That man 
 who has the truth with him ; who has a principle higher than 
 any that has gone before ; that man whose policy, whose 
 statesmanship, whose legislation, whose faith involves the highest 
 reach possible of the human understanding in the spiritual 
 direction — that man will endure, and is bound to immortality. 
 How many there are who are throwing the corn away, and 
 running after the husk and cob, because these are more bulky ! 
 There are many who are not only doing this, but despising 
 those who count the exterior to be comparatively worthless, 
 and uho insist upon a higher standard. Just as soon as men 
 are willing to accept the truth in its higher relationships, just so 
 soon they begin to grow strong. If they despise it, and crucify 
 it, and cast it out utterly unto death, nevertheless it cannot be 
 destroyed. It will come up again, and again, and again ; for the 
 life of God is in every particle of truth and justice in this world. 
 
 Men may crucify their Christ again in this law or that policy; 
 may hustle Him out of Jerusalem to His Calvary, and may 
 shake their garments as the Sanhedrim did, and say, "We 
 have got rid of the disturber ; " may lift Him on the cross to 
 ignominy, and say, "He shall never again touch this law or 
 that policy ; " may bury Him in the rock, and put a stone there, 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHIN. lOE 
 
 and seal it with official seals, confident that no man can ever 
 bring Him out again ; and, after all, when three days have gone 
 by, Christ will break open the tomb, and men, on going to the 
 spot, shall find there angels of prophecy, bright and radiant. 
 Out of the tomb of many and many a buried Christ-truth have 
 come angels of benefaction and mercy. 
 
 Our times are full of struggling Christs — Christ in laws, in 
 humanities, in poHcies ; and you are passing them by, or cast- 
 ing them out, or treading them under foot. But immmortality 
 is with every one of them. You will perish, wealth will change, 
 laws will explode, policies will be scattered like chaff from the 
 summer's threshing-floor ; but that which is eternally right and 
 true, and just and good, cannot be pierced by sword or buried 
 by the ballot, since it has the decrees of God behind it. And 
 blessed be they that have the wit and wisdom to know that it 
 is best to do right, to do it at once, and so to abbreviate the 
 labours of society. 
 
 To that army of ignominious and profitless sufferers that 
 work out by the imagination fantastic troubles, to be repeated 
 over, and over, and over again, I have nothing to say. But to 
 those who suffer for a good reason ; to those who are bearing 
 their Gethsemane ; and to those who are carrying their cross, 
 and living as Christ lived — and there are thousands of them — 
 I wish to address a word. Are there not in this audience 
 hundreds that, when they turn their thoughts inward and back- 
 ward, think that if they could have consented to have done 
 such and such things they would have been better off? Some 
 persons are said to stand in their own light. Are there not 
 some of you that apparently have stood in your own ]i2;ht ? 
 Are there not men whom you have known from their youth up 
 who were not over scrupulous in business affairs, who went into 
 craft and deceits, who became millionaires, and rose to 
 eminence and power, and who now stand high, and are 
 prospered ? and do you not say, " If I could have got over 
 some prejudices that I had, so as not to have been afraid of 
 departing a hair's-breadth from the line of rectitude, I might 
 have been better off than I am now ; but I stood in my own 
 light, and I have been struggling against the current ever since, 
 beaten back at every step ? " You have maintained your 
 conscience, though, have you not ? " Oh, yes, what there was 
 of it." And you have maintained your love of truth ? " Yes ; 
 I have that yet." You have maintained also your aspiration 
 after higher manhood ? " Yes ; that I have still ; but, then, I 
 have no funds ; I have no homestead ,; I have nothing before 
 
102 THE LIFE OF CHRIST— WITHIN. 
 
 me." Nothing before you I You have the kingdom of God 
 Almighty before you. You have all glory before you. If you 
 have saved truth, and conscience, and love, and manhood, and 
 faith, do not envy anyone. The wealth of the world will pass 
 away very soon, but what bankruptcy can come over the 
 exchequer of God ? And you are heirs of God. You did not 
 stand in your own light when you refused to yield to temptation. 
 
 Are there any young men here who think it is not profitable 
 to serve God? Which will you take, the prosperous Jew, or 
 the despised Christ ? See what each of them was in his own 
 time — the one clothed in purple and fine linen, faring sumptu- 
 ously every day, flattered, feasted ; the other poor, neglected, 
 cast out, persecuted. But which would you rather be to-day ? 
 In the long fight, which had the strongest arm ? Where is the 
 Jew to-day ? and where is Christ ? Look up for the Prince and 
 Saviour ! Look down for his enemies ! 
 
 Take heart, then. Do not think that a man has thrown his 
 life away because he has not silver and gold. You will get, 
 perhaps, more of these than you expect ; but whether you get 
 a penny or not, you will get transcendently more in that life 
 which is near at the door. For you that life is nearer than you 
 think. Many of you will go before another year rolls round, 
 and will put to proof my words in the kingdom of your Father. 
 
 But others still suffer. Are there none here that suffer for 
 their children ? I stood in the public burning-place at Oxford, 
 where the old reformers were burned, and with inexpressible 
 feelings I went back in thought and history to their time ; but 
 I have seen cases of martyrs that were burned at the stake 
 which were much more piteous than these. I have seen many 
 a woman who, because she would not betray fealty, and because 
 she could not yield love, was day and night burned at the stake 
 of an intemperate husband, bound to him, suft'ering more than 
 he suffered, covering his shame, hiding his faults, repairing his 
 mistakes, studying his welfare, pouring out her life for his 
 worthless life. And if there are such martyrs here to-day, I say 
 to them, Do not be discouraged. You are following in the 
 steps of the great Victor, who by defeat was victorious. 
 Remember that Christ gained His victory by patient waitinj^ 
 in suffering. Remember that by His servant He said, *' Xo 
 chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous ; 
 nevertheless, afterward, it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of 
 righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." 
 
 Is there not here many a heart that is sorrowing in family 
 matters ? Are there not many of you who are conscious that you 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST — WITHIN. 103 
 
 are bound with bonds and cords from which you could only re- 
 lease yourself by rending what are called the decencies and pro- 
 prieties of life ? Are there not those here who are bearing 
 the yoke and suffering for a parent, a brother, a sister, an 
 orphan, some helpless or dependent one ? You who are yield- 
 ing your opportunities, and joys, and life for another, patiently, 
 are carrying the cross of Christ. Yes, and it is Christ in you 
 that is inspiring you to do that, and saying to you, '* Child, a 
 little while longer lose your life. Do not be afraid to be lavish of 
 it. Pour it out. Do not be economical. Lose it, lose it, and 
 you shall save it unto life eternal." 
 
 Who are they that I see triumphing in the heavenly host ? They 
 that lived in ceiled houses ? They that walked the earth with 
 crowns upon their heads ? They that knew no sorrow ? No ; 
 "These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have 
 washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the 
 Lamb ;" they that cried from under the altar, " How long, O Lord, 
 how long ? " — these are they that stand highest in the kingdom 
 of God. Heaven is just before you. And many of you that 
 ^eem to have a long and weary path of suftering will soon be 
 done with your period of trial, and will rise to honour and glory- 
 in Christ Jesus. 
 
 Oh that I could pour in upon the young the majesty and the 
 sanctity of living for the invisible ; that is to say for honour, and 
 truth, and fidelity 1 Oh that I could make you feel how essen- 
 tially brittle, how friable, how perishable are all material sources 
 of strength ! God is the centre of life, and spiritual realities 
 are the only things that will endure. Stone and iron, and silver 
 and gold, and timber, and cities, and nations, and outward 
 things, are but pictures, painted soon to fade away ; while truth 
 and love, and fidelity and purity, shall last for ever and for ever. 
 
 May it please God, then, when we rise in the morning of the 
 resurrection, to let shine upon us the hope of our coming glory, 
 that, when we enter heaven, our faces may be as the stars on the 
 horizon, bright, and still rising into greater beauty, so that we 
 may evermore shine as the brightness of the firmament. 
 
VIII. 
 CROWNED SUFFERING. 
 
 *'And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas untO' 
 them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged Him, to be crucified. 
 And the soldiers led Him away into the hall, called Praetorium ; and' 
 they call together the whole band. And they clothed Him with purple, 
 and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about His head, and began 
 to salute Him, Hail, King of the Jews ! And they smote Him on the 
 head with a reed, and did spit upon Plim, and bowing their knees, wor- 
 shipped Him. And when they had mocked Him, they took off the 
 purple from Him, and put His own clothes on Him, and led Him out 
 to crucify Him." — Mark xv. 15 — 20. 
 
 These events followed the trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrim. 
 He had gone through the suftering of Gethsemane. He had 
 been arrested through the treason of one of His own disciples. 
 He had been examined by His countrymen and tried. Then^ 
 having suffered buffetings and abuse, He was taken to Pilate. 
 There He was questioned without answering. To please the 
 people at last, though he publicly declared that he found no 
 fault with Him, Pilate gave Jesus to the soldiers. 
 
 The Roman ferocity that looked upon suffering as a luxury,, 
 that made its joy in beholding gladiators and wild beasts in 
 hideous conflict, here showed itself in characteristic exhibition. 
 The whole band was called together, that not one of them might 
 lose the sport. Then the Saviour was arrayed in purple, a 
 wreath of briers, or small thorns, was " platted," and with this 
 He was crowned. Then they jeered Him, and put a reed or 
 cane in His hand for a sceptre : and they began, with laughter 
 ill suppressed, to bow, and to worship this ]\Ian. With a 
 double-edged derision they called him " King," for it was a 
 mockery of Him, surely, and to call such a one " King of the 
 Jews " was also an exquisite satire on the nation. It cut both 
 ways. 
 
 He had already been spit upon and severely smitten before 
 the Sanhedrim. He spake nothing. His silence was so re- 
 markable, that it attracted attention. Pilate even noticed it. 
 There was great dignity in it. There was a moral meaning in 
 it that meny^//, even if they could not understand it. It was 
 
CROWNED SUFFERING. I05 
 
 not the silence of nothing, but of something too mighty for 
 words. All that a man hath ivill he give for his life ; but Christ 
 would not give even a word for His. He now stood among 
 the ribald soldiery. They renew the indignities of the Jews. 
 They empurple Him. They nod and beck, and laugh and 
 roar, as the most lithe and mountebank soldier assumes with 
 greatest success the airs of a courtier, and with mock reverence 
 and adroit humility acknowledges the kingship of the silent, 
 thorn-crowned sufferer. 
 
 Consider this scene in its external relations. He was a Jew 
 before Romans that despised Jews. He was a Jew rejected of 
 His own rulers and people, and therefore lower than a Jew. 
 Abandoned by His disciples. He was alone. All the laws of 
 His country had profited Him nothing. Those whom He had 
 saved v.-ere not there. Those whom He had healed, and fed, 
 and taught, were far away. He was doomed and deserted. 
 Before Him was the cross looming up. Solitary He stood, and 
 silent, in utter helplessness. Can anything be more hopeless ? 
 Was ever such a life so wasted ? And thus it appeared to the 
 Jewish priests, and thus to the soldiers, and thus to His own 
 disciples. They saw nothing but what their eyes could minister, 
 and that seemed the extremity of woe, the very depth of dis- 
 aster and degradation. 
 
 But pierce this external appearance, and what is it ? A body 
 weakened, disgraced, suffering, and just coming to more awful 
 agony. Was this all ? Within that unspeaking form was the 
 home of a great and suffering love. A nature which Time shall 
 never be able fully to interpret was now at its point of greatest 
 grandeur — the full of love. It was not that love which gives and 
 takes, but that love which is the highest ecstasy of mortal life — 
 that love which suffers for another. To say that suffering for 
 another's good is the highest element of Deity would be to 
 venture beyond knowledge; but we may say that it is the 
 highest element yet unfolded to us, and that all other concep- 
 tions of character are far behind this. A love without self- 
 assertion, without self-thought, with a spirit that takes upon 
 itself another's woe; a love that purposely, consciously, calmly, 
 and long, suffers rather than that another should sufter — this is 
 the very and peculiar revelation of God in Christ Jesus. To 
 be sure it had been true from the beginning; but it was needful 
 in some way to disclose it to this world. It was needful, there- 
 fore, that some one should suffer, that in the example men 
 might have concrete teaching of that love which, by mere 
 words, could never be made understandable. The secret, the 
 
IC6 CROWNED SUFFERING. 
 
 fount, the hidden reason of that influence which the cross lias 
 exerted, and the pledge of its perpetual power, is in this love- 
 -suffering for others. There is no other power in heaven, and 
 there shall be no power on earth, that, for majesty and pro- 
 ductiveness of effects, shall equal or match, or shall be men- 
 tioned in common with this, when it shall be well understood. 
 Love-suffering for others is the highest justice, the highest 
 purity, the highest truth, the noblest government. 
 
 If, then, you look within, and see the soul of Christ standing 
 solitary, and suffering silently, and know that He meekly stood 
 bearing a love which, for others' sake, suffered, and suffered 
 patiently, you will find that your heart is kindled as before an 
 unveiled divinity ; and behold, you will see beneath these 
 mockings really a king ! for, though in derision they crowned 
 Him, He luas crowned ; and the thorns are typical of the 
 crown that love wears upon its heart ! 
 
 He was, the greatest of all His contemporaries. King of 
 the world, of time, and of eternity, just because He was crowned 
 Sutferer. Other kings there were, but He was the greatest. 
 Other crowns flashed splendour from stones beyond price, but 
 no stone ever yet was to be valued with these spines of thorns 
 for glorious beauty. What is a stone, a diamond, an emerald, 
 an opal, but mere cold, physical beauty? But every thorn in 
 that crown is a symbol of Divine love. Every thorn stood in 
 a drop of blood, as every sorrow stood deep in the heart of the 
 Saviour. And the great anguish, the shame, the indignity, the 
 abandonment, the injustice, and that other unknown anguish 
 which a God may feel, but a man may not understand — all 
 these were accepted in gentleness, in quietness, without repel- 
 ling, without protest, without exclamation, without surprise, 
 without anger, without even regret. He was to teach the world 
 a new life. He was to teach the heart a new ideal of character. 
 He was to teach a new power in the administration of justice. 
 A Divine lesson was needed— that love is the essence of 
 Divinity; that love, suffering for another, is the highest form of 
 love ; that that love, when administered, carries with it every- 
 thing that there is of love, and purity, and justice; and not only 
 that love is the fulfilling of the law, but that God Himself 
 is love. 
 
 This was the hour, then, of Christ's grandeur. He was Kins: 
 then, and was indeed crowned. No throne was like the stej^s 
 on which He stood. No imperial person was so august as this 
 derided and martyred Jew. If He had, by a resort to violence, 
 relieved Himself, He would have been discrowned. To suftjr 
 
CROWNED SUFFERING. 107 
 
 'in sweet willingness ; to have the suffering roll to unknown 
 depths, and not to murmur— this was to be a king far beyond 
 the ordinary conception of kingship. 
 
 Oh, could some prophet's prayer have touched the eyes of 
 •those that stood about him, that for a moment they might have 
 seen behind and within the flesh, how strange would have been 
 their gazing ! How would the spiritual beauty and power have 
 risen up before them ! Once, when they would have arrested 
 him, he said, '' I am he whom ye seek, " and they fell as if 
 struck to the ground ; and now, had there been a spiritual un- 
 lolding that should have disclosed his real character and, as it 
 were, declared " I am he, " methinks it would have thrown the 
 soldiers to the ground, or sent them flying everywhither. 
 
 Stand by him now, and look down through the times to come. 
 From this point of view interpret the passage, " Who for the 
 joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the 
 shame. " Ages are to roll by ; nations are to die, and na- 
 tions are to rise and take their places ; laws are to grow old, 
 and from new germs laws are to unfold ; old civilizations are to 
 crumble, and new eras are to dawn with higher culture ; but to 
 the end of time it will be seen that this figure stands high above 
 every other in the history of man ! " A name which is above 
 every name " was given lo him — not for the sake of fame, but 
 in a wholly different sense : a name of power ; a name of moral 
 influence ; a name that shall teach men how to live, and what 
 it is to be men in Christ Jesus. The crown of thorns is the 
 world's crown of redemption. The power of suftering love, 
 which has already wrought such changes in the world, is to 
 work on with nobler disclosures, and in wider spheres ; it is to 
 teach men how lo resist evil ; how to overcome sin ; how to 
 raise the wicked and degraded ; how to reform the race ; how, 
 in short, to create a new heaven and a new earth, in which is to 
 dwell righteousness. 
 
 It is this crowned sorrow in Christ which proved him to be 
 King of redemption. It is the very focus of the redemptive 
 element, that one was found with love enough to suffer reme- 
 dially for the world. We often contrast law and love; and in 
 our inferior being, perhaps, it is necessary to analyse and take 
 them apart, and contrast them, although in the divine mind and 
 administration they are doubtless inseparably mingled. As 
 presented to us in the human condition, law may be considered 
 rather as a preventive— seldom as a curative. Love is both. 
 It prevents, but, still more, it heals transgression. Law punishes 
 for the sake of society. Human penal laws are devices of 
 
108 CROWNED SUFFERING. 
 
 human weakness, needful for our state, simply because other 
 and better ways are scarcely within our reach. But, while law 
 makes transgressors suffer, love suffers for transgressors. Both 
 carry justice ; both vindicate purity, truth, mercy; but law, in 
 the whole sphere of human administration, puts the burden, the 
 woe, the deep damnation on the transgressor. Love, yet juster, 
 higher, purer, takes the suffering and the woe upon itself, and 
 releases the transgressor. Which carries the sublimest justice, 
 law or love ? Which rules highest, reaches deepest, spreads 
 widest, and best meets the want of man's whole being — the 
 penal justice that says, " The soul that sinneth, it shall die, " or 
 the disclosed justice of love, which says, *' I have found a 
 ransom ; I bear the stripes; I carry the guilt and the penalty ; 
 I suffer, that the world may go free " ? 
 
 Laws are for merely human conditions. As such, they are 
 needful ; but they are never to be considered as being perfect ; 
 nor, indeed, as being the truest symbols of the perfect admini- 
 stration of Divine government. It is folly for us to expect to 
 understand all that is within us and round about us ; but of the 
 things that are round about us. we are to take heed which of 
 them are symbols of Divine character and Divine adminis- 
 tration. If there is anything in this world that is weak, it is a 
 human government or human law administered by human beings. 
 Law attempts to supply what it never can — a rule of perfect fair- 
 ness, perfect justice. Therefore, in a system of law, a thousand 
 things are necessary, simply because you are attempting to do, 
 by external framework, that which God does, with absolute 
 certainty, by knowledge, and equity, and righteousness of spirit. 
 
 To reason that God must administer justice with such equiva- 
 lents as men do, is to reason from weakness to strength, from 
 imperfection toward perfection. As men exist on earth, laws 
 are indispensable ; but they are devices to maintain society. 
 There is, however, a view of individual value that sinks all laws 
 and governments on earth into relative insignificance. I can 
 conceive that to the mind of God, looking upon a single soul, 
 and unrolling it as it shall be disclosed through the cycles of 
 eternity, there may come in the far perspective such a thought 
 of the magnitude of a single soul, as that in the view of God 
 that soul shall outweigh in importance the sum total of the 
 governments and populations of the globe at any particular 
 period of time. I can understand that God may sound a soul 
 to a depth greater than earth ever had a measure to penetrate, 
 and find reasons enough of sympathy to over-measure all the 
 temporal and earthly interests of mankind. And I can con- 
 
CROWNED SUFFERING. 
 
 109 
 
 ceive that God should assume to himself the right to execute his 
 government of love by suffering for a single soul in such a way 
 as quite to set aside the ordinary courses of the secular and 
 human idea of justice. 
 
 This is to my mind the redemptive idea. I do not believe it 
 is a play between an abstract system of law and a right of mercy. 
 I think that nowhere in the world is there so much law as in 
 redemption, or so much justice as in love. 
 
 The redemption of Christ is a revelation to men, not that love 
 has triumphed over justice, or government, or law, but that there 
 was a higher way of justice. There was a conception of justice 
 in love that, when unfolded, would be a power for cleansing, and 
 restraining, and building up such as belonged to no other period 
 before. And, as I conceive of the redemptive idea, it was a 
 spectacle of love suffering for others in such a way as shall 
 redeem them from the power of sin. This is a higher justice 
 and a nobler assertion of purity than any mode of punishing can 
 be. Punishing may be the final alternative, but it is not the 
 divinest method. Penal laws are secondary adjuncts ; whereas, 
 towering up, central, and radiant as the New Jerusalem, is dis- 
 closed in Christ Jesus the one great Divine motive-power — that 
 heart-love which is pure, and just, and true, suffering for those 
 that are impure, and unjust, and untrue, cleansing them, and 
 justifying justice. Love is fatherhood, justice is kingship, and 
 Christ was the Kingly Father. 
 
 Christ did not come to teach the world the guilt of sin, and 
 its desert of penalty. These the whole world knew before He 
 came : it was the knowledge of these things that was pressing 
 noble spirits down. He did not come to secure punishment. 
 Men thought Him to be a judge, like the stern old prophets that 
 came to revolutionise society on account of wickedness ; but 
 He says, " I did not come to condemn ; I come to say." He 
 emphasises and repeats that thought. He did not come to 
 teach the fact of guilt, or to punish guilt. There was no need 
 of His coming for either of these. The whole framework of 
 the universe is appointed to secure penalty. There is no man 
 that can hide sin so that God's officers shall not overtake him. 
 There is no need of attempting to secure punishment, for the 
 natural course of things, first or last, would overwhelm every 
 sinner with condign punishment. Rescue, not penalty, was 
 that which needed a Divine revelation. Christ came to save, 
 to rescue, and by this vicarious suffering to redeem them from 
 the penalties of their wrong-doing. And when I see men busy 
 about the method of atonement, 1 marvel at them. It is as if a 
 
no CROWNED SUFFERING. 
 
 man that was starving to death should insist upon going into a 
 laboratory to ascertain in what way dirt germinated wheat. It 
 is as if a man that was perishing from hunger should insist upon 
 having a chemical analysis of bread. How many books have 
 been written, and how many sermons have been preached, to 
 show ho7v God could be just, and yet justify a sinner ; how He 
 had a right to do it ; and what were the relations of forgiving 
 mercy to law I These questions are not immaterial, but the 
 spirit of atonement is far more important than its method. The 
 secret truth is this : crowned suffering ; love bearing the penalty 
 away from the transgressor, and securing his re-creation. Love 
 bearing love ; love teaching love ; love inspiring love ; love re- 
 creating love — this is the atonement. It is the opening up of 
 elements which bear in them cleansing power, inspiration, aspi- 
 ration, salvation, immortality. It is the interior working force 
 of atonement that we are most concerned in, though we are apt 
 the least to concern ourselves with it. 
 
 Our practice, and knowledge, and intuition of love, and its 
 constitutional elements and personal and administrative power, 
 are very low. But, after all, love is the blood of the universe. 
 It carries life, and repair, and healing everywhere, just as our 
 food carries life, and repair, and healing throughout the whole 
 body physical. And unless we understand the force of that 
 love in character, in conduct, in our administration over our- 
 selves, in the family, and in our affairs and estate, we fail to 
 appreciate the peculiar characteristics, the internal and distin- 
 guishing elements of Christ's atoning love. 
 
 I. Hitherto religion, considered comprehensively and syste- 
 matically, has not extended its force enough in the right direc- 
 tion. It has been a matter of educating the conscience. Good 
 men have been under the dominion chiefly of conscience since 
 the world began ; and although religion has in it, unquestion- 
 ably, an element of education for the conscience, yet that is not 
 the distinguishing element. Religion has been a code of rules 
 for conduct ; it has been a system of ethics or morality; it has been 
 introduced into external laws, and institutions, and functions ; and 
 it is to-day, to a limited extent, an instrumentality for external 
 recreation ; but this is only the lower and earlier development of 
 religion. Religion, as a Love, taking precedence of all the 
 other elements of the soul, asserting its authority, and compel- 
 ling everything else to bow to it, and to take law from it, has 
 hardly been known except in single individuals. It has been 
 but little Icnown as an idea, and still less as a practical matter. 
 We have had sporadic cases, but it has never been to any con- 
 
CROWNED SUFFERING. Ill 
 
 siderable degree wrought into the public sentiment of any age. 
 The active force of the world has never been this great motive- 
 power of the Divine government. Religion has spent itself in 
 marking out right paths for conduct, or securing penalties, or 
 building churches and ecclesiastical institutions ; religion has 
 spent itself in worship, in minor charities, in refinements, in a 
 thousand beneficent ways ; but it has not thus fulfilled its whole 
 mission. The day, however, is coming when the Church, when 
 religion itself, is to take on the form of suffering love. Men 
 seek to shield their love from suffering ; or, if it must suffer, 
 they seek to reap the field for themselves. A love that suffers 
 for others, not once, and by a heroic struggle, but always, and 
 easily and naturally, is almost unknown. But there is to be a 
 new disclosure in this matter. Much light has dawned ; more 
 is yet to dawn. And it is to come, not by dry mathematical 
 problems ; it is to come, not by the text ; it is to come by 
 putting on this suffering love of Christ Jesus ! The full light is 
 to come by development. Out of a nobler conception of love is 
 to come nobler life — out of the experience of the full, tropical 
 summer of sacrificing, suffering Love ! And then the earth will 
 put forth fruits such as were never suspected or dreamed of. 
 
 2. The great struggles that are going on in human life, the 
 world over, are for the most part struggles after the manner of 
 this world. We do not see far down the path of time. Two 
 thousand years, almost, have rolled along, and we have not 
 learned, in our efforts to reconstruct the world and regenerate 
 it, to employ the peculiar elements of the Gospel, and we are 
 working yet after the old natural methods. We are struggling 
 as men of the world struggle. We are using force against force. 
 There are conflicts of justice with injustice. There is the 
 dashing of governments more or less right against governments 
 more or less wrong. It is the era of legislation and convulsion. 
 Industries are rising up at the bottom of society, and demanding 
 that they shall have other rights. The poor and the ignorant 
 in every land are beginning to demand recognition. Nations 
 are demanding that their nationality shall be respected. A 
 thousand questions are seeking adjustment, and, for the most 
 part, these questions are seeking to adjust themselves by the 
 application of physical force or by mere intellectual power. 
 The world is making some progress, but only by hard working, 
 accompanied by reaction, opposition, and conflict. God accepts 
 these partial developments, for they belong to the lower and 
 undeveloped conditions of human life and society; but they 
 are on a plane below the gospel. 
 
112 CROWNED SUFFERING. 
 
 I believe in war. I believe there are times when it must be 
 taken. I believe in it as a medicine. Medicine is not good to 
 eat, but when you are sick it is good to take. War is not a 
 part of the Gospel, but while men and the world are travelling 
 on a plane where they are not capable of comprehending the 
 Gospel, a rude form of justice is indispensable, though it is 
 very low down. If you go to a plane still higher, w^ar seems 
 to be a very poor instrumentality. And if you go yet higher, 
 and higher, till you reach that sphere where the crowned 
 Sufferer stands, how hateful and hideous war seems ! In the 
 earlier periods of society it is recognised as having a certain 
 value; but its value is the very lowest, and at every step 
 upward, till you come to this central. Divine exhibition, it loses 
 in value. Always it is a rude and uncertain police of nations. 
 It is never good. It is simply better than something worse. 
 Physical force is the alternative of moral influence ; if you have 
 not one, you must have the other. 
 
 The day is coming, I think, when the Quaker idea shall have a 
 new interpretation, a larger sphere ; when men shall love their 
 enemies, bless those that curse them, do good to those that hate 
 them, and pray for those that despitefully use them and persecute 
 them ; v.'hen they shall receive injury and not resent it ; when 
 they shall requite wrong with love. To one who sees the re- 
 vengeful, vindictive feelings of men ; the volcanic heavings 
 which are so common in the most harmonious families ; how 
 business is carried on regardless of rectitude ; how governments 
 in their course will hardly stop for justice; how in all depart- 
 ments of life the law of might is made the law of right — to such 
 a one it seems almost absurd to hear a minister say that a day 
 is coming when, the world over, the law of love shall be the 
 reigning law. But that day is coming, or else prophecies are 
 false, and Christ came in vain. That which we need, and that 
 which we are yet to have, is the exemplification of this highest 
 force — suffering love. That is the highest form of justice, and 
 the highest form of administration. There is not, either this 
 side of the throne of God or beyond it, anything else yet revealed 
 or known so supreme and effective as suffering, love-sufiering for 
 others, rather than the making them suffer. 
 - 3. Men that mean to be Christ's reconstructors of the 
 world must learn the secret of His power over the world. We 
 are not to reform it by carnal logic. We are not to do it by 
 the mere exposition of evil. I may lay a diseased man on the 
 surgeon's table, and demonstrate morbid anatomy all day long ; 
 but it does not cure a man to demonstrate his disease. To 
 
CROWNED SUFFERING. IIJ 
 
 reveal evil is not necessarily the way to cure it. They are not 
 the men that are doing the world the most good who, as with 
 a surgeon's knife in their mouth, go into society cutting and 
 slashing, and making the blood flow in every side. Surgery is 
 good in its place, but a man's head ought not to be a case of 
 surgeon's tools. There are men who have an intense hatred 
 of evil, and who make it their business to expose it, expound 
 it, dissect it; they ridicule it, they condemn it, and denounce 
 it; but such cormorants are employed of God only as He 
 employs all mordant things. They are not His beloved instru- 
 ments; for this world's need is not condemnation, nor denuncia- 
 tion, nor exposition. What it needs is somebody to suffer for it. 
 What men need is somebody to suffer for them. Inexperience 
 wants experience that is willing to bear with it till it learns. 
 Hardness of heart wants softness of heart to teach it the quality 
 of softness. Stumbling imperfection wants perfection to take 
 it by the hand, and lead it in the right way. We have had 
 thunder enough, and sword enough, and dungeons enough, 
 to reform the world a thousand times, if mere justice or mere 
 force would do it; but these are not sufficient. The spirit 
 which Christ manifested when, crowned with thorns, He suffered 
 for others, is what we need. The mother-heart keeps alive in. 
 the world this secret of Divinity; but kings, judges, magis- 
 trates, warriors, fierce with justice, fill the world with the suffer- 
 ings of punishment. Some quail, some resent, and many grow 
 desperate. Still justice is proclaimed. Justice, justice, justice! 
 As if justice itself was anything but the birth of passions until 
 it is the child of love I As if the rude justice of the earlier 
 developments of society was 'to be exalted above love, to limit 
 it, define it, subordinate it, and thus a mere leaf and stem 
 arrogate superiority over that blossom and fruit for whose 
 coming they were created ! 
 
 We are not to expect to reform the world in which we dwell, 
 either by attempting merely to repair and mend its systems^ 
 That we shall do, but we must do moj'e. " These things ought 
 ye to have done, but not to have left the other undone." Why, 
 my brethren, there is a way of forging justice that is better 
 than picking up broken fragments of justice and putting them 
 together. 
 
 When Cromwell's soldiers were in Winchester, they dashed 
 out the cathedral windows, and the people were at a loss how 
 to replace the saintly figures that lay scattered and broken on 
 the pavement. Suppose some glazier had undertaken to put 
 together again and cement the ten thousand fragments ? He 
 
 I 
 
114 CROWNED SUFFERING. 
 
 would have resembled those men who are going about and 
 trying to find the fragments of justice, and to put them together. 
 It is not patched justice that we want. What we want is an 
 atmospheric power of development, like summer on a continent, 
 to inspire growth away from passion, and toward love. Love 
 is the mother of all things. Justice and truth will spring from 
 this Divine weather in regal beauty and with hitherto unknown 
 sweetness. We do not want glaziers, but inspiration. We 
 need something higher than mending. We need soul-power. 
 We need the power of God. We want God's creative power 
 in Christ Jesus; and that is the power of a pure and great 
 nature to suffer for impure and little natures. 
 
 Where shall we find that? Men that grow wise are apt to 
 grow proud, and spend their time looking after their reputations. 
 instead of standing as lighthouses in society, they carry them- 
 selves as closed lanterns. With their wisdom comes selfishness. 
 And where shall we find men, that, as they become wise, 
 become thoughtful in regard to others, and willing to suffer for 
 their sakes ? 
 
 There are men that seek refinement all the world through ; 
 that seek grace of manner, and posture, and gesture ; that seek 
 whatever makes life elegant; but they seek them for themselves 
 and their families, and call themselves " select," and will only 
 associate with those that delight them as natural friends, and 
 are ashamed to affiliate with those that do not belong to their 
 set. Men are taking the powers of their being, both natural 
 and acquired, and forming themselves into classes by themselves, 
 studiously excluding the uncongenial, instead of employing their 
 gifts to elevate and save those that are less fortunate than they. 
 They withdraw themselves from the world as they become strong 
 in the higher elements of their being. A man instructed in 
 virtue, oh, how he abhors wickedness ! A good man would 
 not break Sunday, how he hates Sabbath-breakers ! He breaks 
 a higher law in hating the Sabbath-breaker than he keeps in 
 keeping the Sabbath. The man who loves the truth is apt not 
 to be satisfied with hating lies, but hates liars. We are to hate 
 wickedness, but not wicked men. Are you good ? You owe 
 it to that man who is not good to give your life for his life. 
 He needs some one that is willing to sufter for him, and if you 
 are to be his saviour, you must be to him what Christ was to 
 those that He saved. I never saw the time when my heart 
 rose up against men (and my heart carries tempests in it) that 
 I was not rebuked by the thought, *' How has Cluist to bear 
 with you ?" I know my nature, and I know what a lime Christ 
 
CROWNED SUFFERING. II5 
 
 'lias had with me ; and if He can afford to be patient with me, 
 is there a man that I cannot afford to be patient with ? 
 
 My brethren, if we could have this nearer view of Christ, and 
 bring it home, it would make us patient and forbearing with 
 wicked men. By applying those precepts which Christ taught, 
 and by cultivating^: those traits which He manifested, we shall 
 come nearer to Him than by mere prayer or ecstatic vision. 
 We shall be like Christ in proportion as we are willing to suffer 
 for others. It is the spirit of suffering love that brings men 
 near to Christ Jesus and makes them like Him. 
 
 Who, then, are the world's regenerators? I do not call my- 
 self one of them. I know men in society whose shoes' latchet 
 I am not worthy to unloose. It pleased God to put me in 
 circumstances of ease ; and though you contrive to give me 
 some thorns, they are not half enough to make a crown of 
 Your kindnesses far outnumber them. And, so far as I am 
 concerned, I do not suffer. I cannot. I have to go out of my 
 way to do it. But there is many a minister that works with his 
 hands on week-days to earn his bread, and preaches every 
 Sunday, and toils through obloquy from week to week, laying 
 down his life for others. And nobody understands him, or 
 praises him. He stands almost alone, suffering for his people. 
 And I honour him, and look far up to him. Nobody may know 
 him here, but he will be known there / 
 
 There is many a woman who has consecrated her virginity to 
 those that have no mother \ who seeks neither place nor praise ; 
 and who, by her example and instruction, is nourishing into 
 refinement the excellence the children of others about her. She 
 is a sufferer for others. She is one of those saints of the house- 
 hold that far surpass the saints of the church calendar. 
 
 There are many teachers that have taken their life in their 
 hands, and abandoned wealth and luxury, and have gone to 
 dwell with the poor freedman in his hovel, who has not learned 
 enough to understand them ; and they are despised j and by- 
 and-bye they will be pelted, it maybe ; and very likely they will 
 shed their blood in attempting to give knowledge to those igno- 
 rant people. 
 
 These are the ones that are regenerating the world. These 
 are the ones that are obeying the j^recepts and following the 
 example of Christ. These are our exemplars. Their example 
 is the best theology of our days. 
 
 It is a great thing to know how in love to suffer patiently, and 
 give up one's life in suffering, for the sake of saving men from 
 ignorance, and vice, and crime, and want. We shall never save 
 
 I — 2 
 
Il6 CROWNED SUFFERING. 
 
 any people, or any part of our states and nation, unless we can- 
 find those that are willing to do for them what Christ did for us 
 — suffer for them, instead of making them suffer. And there 
 must be this suffering of love all the world over, everywhere, or 
 there will not be regeneration and peace. 
 
 Let me, in closing, bring this matter home as a test of per- 
 sonal piety. 
 
 Have you not been attempting to live a Christian life ? And 
 yet, when you have examined your interior consciousness, what 
 have you found to be the drift of your life ? Have you not 
 sought to get rid of care, and been impatient under suffering ? 
 Have you not been inclined to get away from people because 
 they vexed you ? Have you been patient with men ? Have 
 you borne with their faults as Christ bears with yours ? Have 
 you carried their burdens as Christ carried yours ? Have you 
 ever coveted the privilege, as a part of your religious duty, of 
 silently suffering for them ? It seems to me that Christ has 
 brought us a crown, and men have desired, as it were, with a 
 pair of pincers, to pull out every thorn, and then they have put 
 it on, and said, " Am I not like Christ ? " But Christ's crown- 
 had thorns in it ; has yours ? When you are pierced by the 
 thorns of trouble, do you not almost impute injustice to Provi- 
 dence ? Do you not ask, '' Why should I suffer?" Do you 
 not say, " What have I done that God should so afflict me ? " 
 
 Consider Paul's view of suffering. He comes to us saying, 
 " To you it is given " — this is the language of one who confers 
 a reward ; thus a monarch honours a well-beloved subject — 
 " To you it is given " what ? an order ? an office ? an estate ? no 
 — ^^ to suffer with Christ /^^ If we suffer with Him, we shall 
 reign with Him. He shall reign who has worn the crown of 
 thorns ! 
 
 Are you not trying to build your nests high, and to feather 
 them with down ? Are you not trying to provide for the future, 
 so that you shall escape trouble and care ? Has the idea 
 entered into your mind that sufiering is the baptism of holiness ? 
 that it brings you into the likeness of Christ, and that it is to be, 
 not suffering for your own sake, but suffering that other men 
 may be wiser and purer, and truer and juster ? Is this the foun- 
 dation upon which you are building your activity. Can we be 
 saviours of the world, and none of us be willing to suffer, and 
 all of us be fierce for vengeance. Can we be saviours of the 
 world, and all of us carry the whip of justice, and none of us 
 carry the sweet incense and perfume of love ? Shall all pulpits, 
 all papers, all churches, all Christians of every name, clamour 
 
CROWNED SUFFERING. II7 
 
 for ]\ist\cef justice, justice, and not one speak of that crowned 
 Sufferer who stood silent and meek, though the world thundered 
 -about Him and rolled in upon Him, and overwhelmed Him 
 even unto death ? Go ! go ! ye sons of Zebedee, that want to 
 stand high, but do not want to take the cup or the baptism ! 
 But if any man would follow Christ, let him be silent in the 
 presence of that most august spectacle of time — the Saviour 
 .crowned with thorns ! 
 
 PRAYER. 
 
 Thou hast entered into Thy rest, Man of Sorrows, and 
 •acquainted with grief. No more shall men pursue nor way lay 
 Thee. Never again shalt Thou stand before the judgment of 
 an earthly tribunal, nor bear the cross that crashed Thee in 
 bearing, nor suffer. For Thou hast past through Gethsemane, 
 and endured Calvary once and for ever. 
 
 And now, lifted into eternal glory, with all power in Thine 
 liand. Thou art not conscious of Thine own pleasure and joy 
 alone. Thou still dost behold the great race of man, that toils, 
 and struggles, and sins, and suffers, and groans for redemption, 
 and is without the knowledge of a Redeemer. Thou art bearing 
 the world in the arms of love. Having finished Thine earthly 
 exibition and atonement. Thou art in Thine own peace working 
 out peace for ages to come, and art out of Thine own love 
 pourmg forth ceaseless tides of love that yet shall roll in the 
 human soul as in thine. And though tears are yet in the world 
 for numbers as the rain-drops ; though sorrows are as the 
 storms ; though darkness yet rests upon the earth as a swad- 
 dling band, yet thou art the Deliverer. Into Thine ear come 
 the cries of the oppressed and the groans of the prisoner. 
 Before Thee, and beheld of Thee, are all the ways of men. 
 And their follies, their mistakes, their sins— Thou seest 
 these as they are portrayed in the ever-changing and ever-the- 
 same panorama of experience. Unrolled as a scroll before 
 Thee is time, that comes and goes, and is for ever present, 
 bearing the same turbulent race, that know not what they are ; 
 that have not learned of God ; that sometimes blindly seek 
 Thee, but that seldom find Thee. And Thou, O God, in Thine 
 infinite patience, in Thy wonderful love, art still bearing the 
 succession of generations of wounded, and weak, and wicked 
 >men. Even as " a father pitieth his children, so the Lord 
 
Il8 CROWNED SUFFERING. 
 
 pitielh thein that fear him. " And as a father chastiseth, so art 
 Thou chastising. We rejoice to beheve that it shall not be al- 
 ways so. By and bye shall come that glorious day when men 
 shall know the Lord, when to know shall be to love, and when 
 out of love shall spring obedience and joy. Even so, Lord 
 Jesus, come quickly. 
 
 Come to us that severally, in our own spheres, have our ex- 
 perience of sin, and temptation, and sorrow, and disappointment^ 
 our wrestlings and our griefs. Come, we beseech of Thee, to 
 every wounded conscience, with the balm of forgiveness. Come 
 to every benighted soul with that light which, once arisen, shall 
 never set, but be the dawn of eternal life. Come with Divine 
 motives to them that are pulseless, and know not how to stir. 
 Rescue those that are tempest-tossed, and bring them safely to 
 the shore again. 
 
 Be pleased, we beseech Thee, to comfort those that mourn^ 
 and to cheer the despondent. Breathe upon every soul in thy 
 presence a sense of Immanuel — God wiih us. ]\[ay we have 
 this morning the sweet liberty of saying, in the fulness and reali- 
 sation of its blessedness, "Thy will be done. " May w^e open 
 our hearts, our understandings, our ambitions, our joys and 
 pleasures, our plans and anticipations, all of them, to Thy 
 cleansing. And we beseech of Thee that it may seem, as it is, 
 that nothing on earth — no delight, no honour, no power, no 
 joy — can be compared with those things which are to be found 
 in the palace of the soul. AVe pray Thee, lift up the gates, 
 that the King of Glory may come into every heart here to-day. 
 Come in to cleanse and cast out ; me in, as into a tabernacle, 
 to build there thine own seat ; come m to say, " Peace be unto 
 you ! " come into break the bread of life to every longing soul ! 
 
 ]\Iay there be those this morning that, having known Thee^ 
 and gone away from Thee, and become strangers to Thee, shall 
 hear again, afar oft', those accents that they once heard with joy 
 unspeakable. May there be many that, having backslidden* 
 shall review their life, and turn and come again to Thee. May 
 there be those that, having hngered in the precincts of the sanc- 
 tuary, having at times almost resolved to be Christians, yea 
 having even tried and failed, shall to-day hear God calling 
 to their soul in a voice not to be mistaken. 
 
 We beseech of Thee, O Lord, that Thou wilt grant to eveiy 
 one that is seeking to live a Christian life, greater light, more 
 power of the Spirit of God, clearer views, ampler experiences in 
 Christ Jesus. Be with those that are giving their testimony for 
 Christ, bearing His cross, and upholding His cause. i\Lay they 
 
CROWNED SUFFERING. II9 
 
 not be discouraged, and yet may they feel humbled on account 
 of their unfaithfulness. And may they look with gentleness 
 upon the shortcomings of others. May there be that same 
 compassion in their souls toward their fellow-men which there 
 was in the soul of Christ toward them. And may they, forgiven, 
 not go out to take any by the throat and drag them to justice. 
 IMay they evermore love, as Christ loves. May they have that 
 love of Christ, as the principle of their life, which shall cleanse 
 them while they cleanse others. 
 
 We pray that Thon wilt be pleased to revive thy work in this 
 church, and in all the churches of this city and of our whole 
 land. And as Thou hast wrought with a wonderful hand, in 
 Thy providence, leading this people as a fiock, so now, by a 
 more wonderful grace, lead them, and lift up their hearts and 
 souls into such communion with God, into such a sense of 
 justice, and of that love which attempers it, that they may be 
 able to meet all exigencies — to frame laws, to establish institu- 
 tions of learning, and to send everywhere the preached Gospel — 
 until this whole land shall know the Lord, and yield obedience 
 to that which is right and true.'"' 
 
 ]\Iay Thy kingdom come in every land. Bless those that are 
 preaching among the heathen. i\Iay they see of the travail of 
 their souls, and be satisfied. 
 
 Bless all those that stand in desolate places, well-nigh dis- 
 couraged. Lift upon them the light of Thy countenance, and 
 draw near to them with the blessings of Thy salvation. 
 
 Bless all for whom we should pray. Look into Thine own 
 soul, O God, and take the measure of Thy benefaction, not 
 from our feeble petitions, but from the greatness of Thine own 
 desires. For Thy Name's sake, bless, forgive, and save. And 
 to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, shall be praises ever, 
 lasting. Amen. 
 
 ■•■ The civil war was ended and peace re-established at this time. 
 
IX. 
 
 THE LILIES OF THE FIELD:* 
 
 A STUDY OF SPRING FOR THE CAREWORN. 
 
 '* Behold the fowls of the air : for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor 
 gather into bai-ns : yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye 
 not much better than they? . . . Consider the lilies of the field, 
 how they grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin : and yet I say 
 unto you, that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one 
 of these." — Matt. vi. 26, 28, 29. 
 
 I KNOW he never was ! nor has anybody else ever been ; nor 
 will anybody ever be. I can show you one apple tree that puts 
 to shame all the men and women that have attempted to dress 
 since the world began. 
 
 *' Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which 
 to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not 
 much more clothe you, O ye of little faith ? " 
 
 Have you ever fulfilled this command ? Have you, as a part 
 of your obedience to Christ, taken time to sit down and think 
 what birds and flowers mean? You have taken flowers, and 
 you have enjoyed them— their forms, their colours, their 
 odours — simply as objects which had a relation to a certain 
 sense of beauty in yourself. That is very well, although it is 
 the merest superficial treatment of that profound subject, and 
 does not fulfil the command of God. The command of prayer, 
 of meekness, of humility, may rank higher in the moral scale, 
 but they are not one whit more commands than is this passage 
 a command in relation to birds and flowers ; and they do not 
 address you one whit more than this does. " Consider." It is 
 not smell, it is not admire, it is not enjoy, it is not even look at ; 
 it is CONSIDER. And to consider is to ponder ; it is to take a 
 thing up into your mind, and turn it over and over, that you 
 may know what it means. 
 
 Do you observe how our Saviour turned from revelation to 
 
 * Delivered as a familiar Wednesday evening lecture, in the lecture- 
 3 com of Plymouth Church. Mr. Beecher has a farm near Peekskill, on the 
 North River, where he usually spends a portion of the summer. This 
 lecture was delivered at the close of a spring day spent on the farm, [May 
 i6th, i860. 
 
THE LILIES OF THE FIELD. 121 
 
 revelation ? Do you observe how, while He taught men by- 
 quoting to them the words of the inspired Testament which 
 they had — for the New Testament was not then written; it was 
 being Hved, and it had not yet come to the period of record : 
 so their only Testament was the Old Testament — do you 
 observe how, while He taught men by quoting to them the 
 words of the Old Testament, He also taught them by referring 
 them to that other revelation, which is just as much God's, and 
 has as universal a moral purpose, although it is not, perhaps, 
 as easily comprehended ? 
 
 This is the season of the year when, if ever, one must needs 
 have his senses attracted. It is a peculiar year. More than 
 any that I remember of my life is it a year of blossoms. I 
 never saw anything like it. I always knew that Nature was 
 prodigal, because she was attempting to express God's thoughts; 
 but I never knew before what she could do. I do not believe 
 she ever knew herself! It seems to me as though the prodi- 
 gality she displays is almost extravagant. Every twig is doubled 
 and quadrupled with blossoms. The apple-trees stand almost 
 like white clouds in the air, from the multitudes of their blossoms. 
 Such is their profusion, that you can scarcely see leaf or twig. 
 All through the country it is so. The peach-trees are holding 
 up their silent lessons in pink ; the cherry-trees and the pear- 
 trees are holding up their silent lessons in white ; the apple- 
 trees are holding up their silent lessons in both colours ; all the 
 grass is full of germinant flowers ; and, since it pleased God to 
 give us the rains of a day or two past, the grass is lifting up its 
 hands, and clapping them for joy. Already the common birds 
 are here— the several sparrows, the robins, the bluebirds, and 
 the goldfinches or yellow-birds. The wanderers, also, are 
 coming back. Last night I heard geese flying, and to-day the 
 bobolinks were in the field ; and almost every other bird that 
 we shall have through the summer is present with us. 
 
 All day long I have been thinking — sometimes birds, some- 
 times Bible, sometimes flowers, sometimes Saviour. It is difiiicult 
 to tell where the transition is from one to the other. I have 
 been sitting and looking at the meadows and at the trees, and 
 thinking of the expressions in the Old Testament of the 
 Psalmist, who spoke of the multitude of God's thoughts toward 
 him. Innumerable, unaccountable, are God's thoughts, and 
 unspeakable is the tenderness of them. 
 
 In the human mind there are two tendencies in connection 
 with the study of spiritual and ])hysical things. One is to take 
 •the spiritual, and bring it down into physical forms. That is a 
 
122 THE LILIES OF THE FIELD. 
 
 process of degeneration. The attempt to understand spiritual 
 things by bringing them down into physical forms, although it 
 may be indulged in occasionally, and for special purposes, is, 
 as a tendency, one of degeneration. The other tendency is to go 
 from the material to the spiritual, thus spiritualising the material. 
 This is a process always of elevation. And as I sat and looked 
 to-day at the meadows and at the trees, I thought within my- 
 self, " What message have they for me of my God, and from 
 my God ? " And all day long I have felt that never was there 
 such an interpretation of munificence ; that never was there 
 anything that so indicated what it was to give without money 
 and without price— to give out of a nature whose spontaneity 
 is generous, profuse, magnificent. 
 
 As, in wandering from one thing to another, I looked at the 
 freshness of nature, and at the multitude of her children — those 
 hidden in coverts, those under dark, cool rocks, those laid in 
 where mosses are, those growing in the broad fields, those 
 springing up under the shadow of forest-trees, and those sus- 
 pended upon their boughs in the air — as I looked at all these 
 things, I found I could scarcely estimate in one square yard 
 where I sat, how many notes God had rung, how many thoughts 
 He had bestowed, how much care He had lavished, how much 
 power He had exerted, and how much wisdom He had displayed. 
 And there came to my mind such a sense of God's overruling 
 Providence and presence as has made the whole day one of 
 unexampled sweetness to me. There was not a single bird 
 that I had time to hear — (for you must wake earl}^ or you 
 cannot hear the birds sing in chorus ; from four to five o'clock 
 is the time for their family prayers, and they always have con- 
 gregational singing then ; if you miss that you will not hear 
 anything like it during the whole day, although during the 
 whole day there is not an hour in which they are silent) — there 
 was not a single bird that I heard that did not direct my 
 thoughts to Go(i. And all through the day, in the singing of 
 the birds, in the blossoming of the trees, on the broad green 
 sward, along the sides of the walls, skirting the edges of the 
 woodlands, through the glades, in the air, on the earth, every- 
 where, it seemed as though God were almost so near that I 
 should hear Him, and see Him, as certainly I felt Him. 
 
 And what a joy there is in knowing that the earth is not 
 merely something that God thought of when He made it, and, 
 as it were, spun out of His hand, saying, " Go, take care of 
 thyself;" but that it is God's daily care, that it is His estate, 
 that He works it as I work my garden, and that He watches 
 
THE LILIES OF THE FIELD. 123. 
 
 all things in it with that same interest ^vith wliich I watcli one 
 plant after another that I mean to see blossom, and that I mean 
 to help blossom ! To me nothing makes the world so precious, 
 nothing makes it so profitable, nothing makes it so little barren 
 and so much rich, nothing so takes away its sordid ness, as the 
 knowledge of God's solicitude concerning it, and his care over it. 
 
 I do not believe that any one can fully read the natural world 
 who does not read the Bible ; and I am satisfied that no one can 
 read the Bible to the best advantage who does not read the 
 natural world a good deal. These things are very much to each 
 other what blossom is to fruit, or what germ is to blossom. One, 
 if not the cause of the other, helps to produce it. And so these 
 two revelations — the external and the internal — work together, 
 and both work to the same purpose. 
 
 But aside from these general thoughts of the significance of 
 natural things, as made and preserved by the Divine Being, 
 Christ teaches us not merely to look upon them, but to consider 
 that they have a significance in our daily life. The general 
 principle is this : that God cares so much for you that it is a 
 shame for you to be uneasy and over-anxious about yourself. 
 
 There is nothing in the teachings of the Bible that tends to 
 remove the stimulus to industry, or to take away the necessity of 
 enterprise. It is neither industry nor enterprise that ever hurts 
 anybody. They are pleasurable and wholesome, and we shall 
 not wish the motive which inspires them taken away. It is with 
 men as it is with machinery. P2verybody that knows anything 
 about machinery knows that it wastes faster when it is allowed 
 to stand still llian when it is worked, if it is worked aright. If 
 a watch stands still a year, it wears out as much as it would in 
 running properly two years. But where machinery runs without 
 oil, and squeaks and grinds, it get hot, and wears out speedily. 
 Now anxiety is in human life just what squeaking and grinding 
 are in machinery that is not oiled. In human life, trust is 
 the oil. Confidence in God is that which lubricates life, so 
 that industry and enterprise develop the things we ought to 
 liave, and do it in such a way that they bring pleasure with 
 them. 
 
 How many are there, however, who know how to apply this 
 principle to their life, and who, being industrious and enter- 
 prising, are always cheerful, and cheerful on this basis : God 
 takes care of me when I take care of myself? It is, after all, 
 only God working in me when I work. What am I but a bundle 
 of causes which God is making work ? What are my wisdom, 
 and thought, and skill, but an outgrowth of Divine wisdom, and 
 
124 THE LILIES OF THE FIELD. 
 
 thought, and skill ? And those myriad conjunctions of which 
 ray life is being woven — who puts them into the loom ? and who 
 throws the shuttle ? Not I, surely. All the events of my ex- 
 perience stand materially connected with thought, with applica- 
 tions of thought, and with results of thought, with which I have 
 nothing to do. Whatever I do, God opens the way for me to 
 do. If I work figures, those figures were prepared by the fore- 
 thought and pre-arrangement of my God. Although in what I 
 do I work, God works more ; and the very fidelity of my work 
 is that I work in Him, and that He works through me. 
 
 The teaching of Christ, then, is this : There is a providence 
 not a fataHty, not a coercive necessity, but a broad, beneficent 
 system of Divine love, which has such a relation to you and to 
 this world that you have no occasion to be uneasy. You can 
 afford, when you have done your best, to be easy and enjoy 
 yourself. Think, if you want to think, as long as it is pleasant 
 to think ; plan where you ought to plan ; labour where you 
 ought to labour ; achieve where you ought to achieve ; but 
 thinking, planning, labouring, achieving, let all be done in a 
 spirit of confiding trust. As little children will frolic and play, 
 and talk to themselves, and sing, and be happy, if every time 
 they look up they can see their mother's form or shadow, or 
 hear her voice, so we are, in God's greater household, to have 
 such a consciousness of our Father's presence as shall make us 
 happy, cheerful, contented in our sports and duties. We are 
 dear to God. He will not forget us, nor cease to take care of 
 us. We are so much more precious than many things which 
 He never forgets, that we stultify ourselves if we refuse to be 
 serene, as they are serene. Did you ever know a spring forget 
 to come ? Did you ever know a spring in which the dandelions 
 forgot to mock the sun with their little sparkling faces in the 
 grass? Did you ever know a spring in which the ten thousand 
 vines that creep along the breast of the earth, and send out their 
 little flowers, in which the grass, or in which the mosses forget 
 their turn, and time, and function? God never yet let these 
 things oversleep. He always calls them, and they always come. 
 And He has been calling them, and they have been responding 
 to His call, for six thousand years. 
 
 Now Christ says, "Are ye not much better than they?" 
 Yes, I hope so, though now and then I feel mean enough to 
 say *' No," to this question. Now and then I have such a sense 
 of the poverty and the miserableness of human life, that I am 
 tempted to say that a man is no better than birds. When I 
 consider what a man has had committed to him, and then con- 
 
THE LILIES OF THE FIELD. I 25 
 
 sider what an unthrifty creature he is, how he has traded on the 
 capital which God has given him, how he has diminished 
 instead of increasing it, it seems to me as though birds were 
 better than he. When I consider what inspiration we have had, 
 what hope, what Divine touch, what overpowering influence in 
 the hfe and teachings of Jesus Christ, and then consider what a 
 poor account we make of these things, I say " No " to the ques- 
 tion, " Are we not much better than birds ? " A bird fulfils all 
 that it was sent to do, and men do not. If I am asked, " Are 
 you not much better than flowers ? " I reply that if there is 
 nothing in me better than I have thus far developed, then I 
 can hardly be said to be better than even flowers ; that is con- 
 sidering that flowers answer the end of their constitution, and 
 that I do not. 
 
 It is only when you come to consider, not merely our rela- 
 tions to this w^orld, but our relations to the future ; when, in 
 contrast with our imperfections and ungrowth here, you consider 
 our immortality in the world to come, that we seem better than 
 birds or flowers. When you take in the root, and the stem, and 
 the everlasting growth, and the fruit of human life, then are we 
 not much better than birds and flowers. And if God takes 
 care of birds and flowers, will He not take care of us ? May 
 we not at least have such an assurance of God's watchfulness 
 over us that we can shake hands with care, and say, " I never 
 will know you again " ? May we not have such a trust in God 
 that we can bid good-by to anxiety, and say, '' I never will 
 again bear your despotic burden " ? Was it not for the very 
 purpose of giving us such an assurance and such a trust that 
 Christ gave us the passage of which I am speaking ? Did He 
 not design that we should rid ourselves of the harrassing solici- 
 tudes and troubles of life? Did not Christ mean that every- 
 day, when we Ufted up our eyes and beheld the flowers and 
 birds, we should recognise a remembrancer, saying to us, " Are 
 ye not much better than they ? And if I love them, and care 
 for them, do I not love you, and care for you ? " 
 
 Did God ever die for birds ? Did He ever lay down His life 
 for flowers, for the grass, or for the trees ? But for us He did. 
 And, rising, will He forget that for our sakes He himself was 
 forgotten and laid in a sepulchre ? By how many direct afflr- 
 niations, by how many commands, by how many of these 
 glancing and suggestive images, is this lesson brought home to 
 us .'' And yet is there one other thing so little heeded ? Chris- 
 tian brethren, how many of you can say that you fulfil the 
 wish of the apostle, when he says, "I would have you without 
 
126 THE LILIES OF THE FIELD. 
 
 carefulness ? " How many of you are leading an unfretting, 
 unanxious, a hopeful, cheerful life? 
 
 Let us for a moment, then, consider what are some of the 
 reasons when we have such teaching as this, when we know 
 the mind and will of God, that we are so little free from care 
 and anxiety. 
 
 One reason, I suppose, is the inordinate desire which we 
 have to attain certain objects of life — such, for instance, as 
 wealth or honour. We are greedy, and we measure oar 
 prosperity by the relation which exists between our present 
 condition and that which we desire to attain. If we are proud 
 as well as greedy, we are always thinking ourselves to be ill- 
 used. We are not content to accept, for the time being, that 
 lot to which we have come, and say, ''This is a providential 
 indication. Here I am, and here it was meant that I should 
 be. I accept my lot as the hand of God laid it upon me.'' 
 We over-estimate our own importance. There is an undue 
 sovereignty which we mean to assert. We are determined to 
 augment our resources. And we are perpetually measuring 
 what we are by what we wish to be, and what we mean to be. 
 We take away the satisfaction of the present by comparing it 
 with the glowing and longed-for results of the future. 
 
 Another reason why we are not trustful and cheerful is that 
 we believe that there will be fulfilments of the promises of God 
 only in so far as we are able to understand His methods of 
 fulfilling them. I have had a great many persons say to me, 
 when I have propounded this faith to them, in view of their 
 adversities and extremities, " I cannot understand how there 
 should be a special providence of God. I cannot reconcile 
 the theory of special providences with my ideas of general law, 
 and of God's agency in nature." That is to say, when God 
 lays down an unquestionable command, of the most explicit 
 kind, unless you can go behind that command, and can find 
 out the philosophy of it, you will not accept it at His hands ! 
 Simply as a thing commanded by your Father, you will not, 
 with the faith of a child, accept it. If you can spin it on 
 your wheel, and then weave it in your loom, and make it 
 conform to your pattern, you will accept it; but as simply 
 from the hand of God, you will not accept it. 
 
 Now, I like to reason ; I like to search out results from 
 causes; but it is sweet, also, in the midst of the turmoils and 
 troubles of life, to rest in faith in God. It is sweet to be able 
 to say, " I do not care for to-morrow. I do not fear what shall 
 befall me. I will trust in God." To understand the philosophy 
 
THE LILIES OF THE FIELD. I 27 
 
 of a Divine command, where I can, affords me satisfaction ; 
 but where a command comes from such authority, and with such 
 variety of illustration in nature, as this one, I do not care 
 whether I understand the philosophy of it or not. My soul is 
 hungry for it, and I accept it because my God has given it. I 
 trust and rest in God simply because He has said, " You may 
 and you must." That is ground enough. 
 
 Another reason why we are so borne down by care and 
 anxiety is that we have not been trained. 
 
 We have been taught, but not trained. To teach is to convey 
 ideas to the mind. To train is to bring the individual into the 
 habit of putting those ideas in practice. No doubt w^e have 
 been taught that we ought not to worry, and that we ought to 
 have a reliance upon God so supreme that it shall bring cheer- 
 fulness, and confidence, and rest to the soul ; but we have not 
 been so trained that we have formed the habit of putting that 
 teaching into practice. One of those good, kind nurses, in 
 whom the radiant fires of life have burned out ; one of those 
 round, sun-setting mothers, that glow without scorching heat ; 
 one of those rich, ripe, cheerful, sweet-speaking persons, that 
 seem to carry blessings wherever they go — one such person, 
 bringing up a child to take the individual events of life without 
 fretting, or worrying, or feeling anxious, is worth more to him 
 than all the preaching he could hear in his whole lifetime. To 
 bring up a child in that way is to train him, for training is that 
 which puts us in possession of the best gifts of God's teaching. 
 Therefore it is said, not " TeacJi up a child in the way he should 
 go, and when he is old he will not depart from it," but '■ Train 
 up a child in the way he should go, and when he his old he will 
 not depart from it." Habits do not easily slip, but teaching 
 does. If we would have rest and quiet in the midst of the 
 trials and perplexities of life, w^e must not be for ever looking 
 out of the window of expectation, and scanning the horizon, to 
 know what the w^eather is to be — we must not be for ever search- 
 ing for arguments of trouble in the possibilities of the future. 
 Let this principle be taught to your children in such a way that 
 to act upon it becomes a fixed habit with them, and it will be 
 invaluable to them through life. No princely fortune could be 
 such a boon to any man as a disposition or grace which should 
 lead him to say, " God is my father ; I am heir with Christ of 
 an eternal inheritance ; and I cannot be poor, I cannot be 
 forsaken." How valiant a man is who can say that ! 
 
 I adopted this principle as much as twenty years ago as a 
 rule of my life. I can almost remember the day when it 
 
128 THE LILIES OF THE FIELD. 
 
 became fixed upon my mind. I was living in tlie West, and 
 was in straightened circumstances. I think that for a period 
 of four years there had not been a time when some member of 
 my family was not sick from the malaria which prevailed in that 
 part of the country. I did not expect or desire to be anything 
 except a missionary. I was poor, so far as money was con- 
 cerned, but quite contented. But there came a time when it 
 seemed to me that I should be ousted from even the humble 
 berth I occupied, and I made up my mind that if I was, I 
 would go to some smaller place where my services would be 
 acceptable. The reason why I expected to be ousted was that 
 I had attempted to stand up against the leading men of the 
 vicinity where I was on the slavery question, at a time when the 
 people of Indiana did not dare to say that their souls were 
 their own, or that the negro's soul was his own. It seemed to 
 me that my church would be shut up, and that I should be de- 
 prived of the means on which I depended for the support of 
 my family. And I recollect that on a certain day, while reflect- 
 ing upon the unhappy state of my affairs, I read this passage : 
 " Let your conversation be without covetousness," — that is. Do 
 not borrow trouble about where your salary is coming from, — 
 " and be content with such things as ye have." '* Why, yes," 
 I thought, " I have not many things, but I will be content with 
 them." And now for the royalty of the reason for content- 
 ment : " For He hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake 
 thee." These words, as I read them, seemed as really a 
 message from God to me, as if the white form of an angel had 
 spoken to me, saying : " Henry, I am sent to tell thee, from 
 your God, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." And the 
 rest of the passage is this : " So that we may boldly say, the 
 Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto 
 me." I then thought, '^ Now, Mr. Elders, shut up the church 
 if you have a mind to. I am not afraid of any man that lives^ 
 since I have this message from my God." It sank like a seed 
 into my soul, and it has never been rooted out. If there is any 
 text of the Bible that has been an anchor to me, it is that one. 
 I have held fast by it through many a storm. It has held me a 
 thousand times if it has once. I never think of it that it is not 
 to my soul like a touch on the keys of a piano. There is always 
 music in it to me. "Let your conversation be without covetous- 
 ness." Do not fidget, and worry, and vex yourself about how 
 the ends are going to meet. You may be sure that they always 
 will meet, though you may not always see how they can meet. 
 If they do not meet in this life, a man dies, and then they meet. 
 
THE LILIES OF THE FIELD. I2C 
 
 I used often to think, " If they do their worst, they can only 
 kill me, and I shall thank them for that." When to shove a 
 man through a door is to shove him into heaven, you cannot 
 do him any great indignity. 
 
 They that travel in pioneer countries have little axes slung 
 across their shoulder, with which they can easily cut a path 
 through a cane-brake, or make their way in the midst of the 
 tangled undergrowth of a forest. One good text is enough for 
 a man to cut his way through life with. One text like the one 
 I have quoted to you, which will not break down, you may ride 
 as a steed through the desert, through the populous city, through 
 the world. One text that binds a man to God, and that makes 
 him feel that in Him he has a Father who wheels the bright 
 army of the stars, who carries the globe in its revolutions, who 
 is the controller of time and of eternity, who is the Creator and 
 sustainer of all mankind — one such text, oh, how it takes away 
 care, and anxiety, and sorrow ! How much food there is in 
 your Father's house that you never tasted ! In that house there 
 is bread enough and to spare; and yet you go fretting and 
 worrying through Hfe, borrowing trouble about the future, with 
 which you have no concern, and making yourself miserable in 
 the present, with which you have all concern. 
 
 Now, when you go to your home to-night, will you try to 
 make it brighter ? It is not necessary that you should have 
 more candles burning ; or that you should make the floor 
 cleaner — though that would do no harm ; or that you should 
 rub up your furniture ; but, when you go to your home, will 
 you carry the thought of God with you, caring for you, loving 
 you, providing for you ? In every night God is making a path 
 by His hand for the morning and for you, and in every day 
 God is making a bed of darkness for the night and for you. 
 From day to day the speech of God is uttered, and from night 
 to night Divine knowledge is shown. And since you are 
 guided by such a one ; since all your paths are laid down by 
 Him ; since He has made provision for you ; since He has 
 cherished you and nourished you ; since He has comforted you 
 with the assurances of His word ; since, looking at the birds 
 and flowers, He has said to you, "I will remember you, and I 
 will do more for you than I do for these, because you are worth 
 more;" since you are kept from year to year because God 
 made you and cares for you — since these things are so, need 
 you have any fears that you will not be divinely cared for in the 
 future? Oh, what beautiful messengers those are that sit on 
 two legs, fly with two wings, and send out of one little throat a 
 
 K 
 
130 THE LILIES OF THE FIELD. 
 
 whole breastful of texts, each one of which is a song of God to 
 the believing soul ! I heartily thank God for them ! 
 
 I promised myself to-day that I would come down and say 
 some of these things to you from the hill-side where my family 
 are stopping, but I have not expressed one in ten of the thoughts 
 that I meant to when I was among the things that inspired them. 
 If I had you on the lawn I think I could have preached to you, 
 but to night it is dry work. However, you must do your own 
 preaching. To-morrow, even in the city, you cannot but see 
 the amazing bounty of God ; and if you will step out toward 
 the suburbs of the town — and you can, if you will but rise 
 early enough, without any prejudice to your ordinary work or to 
 your health — you will gain some idea of the boundlessness and 
 profusion of that bounty, as exhibited by the flowers in the 
 country. And whenever you see flowers, understand that there 
 is a meaning in them, and remember that Christ has said, with 
 reference to them, *' Consider." You have no right to pass by 
 the smaflest, the tiniest, the most inconspicuous flower, and say, 
 " Oh, it is a little common flower." A common flower ? It is 
 God-opened, and God-built, and Christ has said respecting it, 
 •• Consider." Yes, there is a meaning in flowers. It is a 
 precious meaning — one that you need, and one that will kindle 
 up your life, and make your soul glow with radiance. Take it, 
 and profit by it. 
 
 "Behold the fowls of the air : they sow not, neither do they 
 reap, nor gather into barns." 
 
 I thought of that to-day ; for when I was very busy sowing 
 some seed, a bobolink flew over my head with a wild, sarcastic 
 descant, as much as to say, " Go on, old clod-crusher ! you sow, 
 and I will rejoice." He flew past, and I understood him. 
 
 " They sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns ; 
 yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better 
 than they ? Which of you, by taking thought, can add one 
 cubit unto his stature ? And why take ye thought for raiment ? 
 Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, 
 neither do they spin ; and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon, 
 in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, 
 if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to- 
 morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe 
 you, O ye of little faith?" 
 
THE LILIES OF THE FIELD. 131 
 
 PRAYER. 
 
 We rejoice, O Lord our God, that Thou hast endowed us 
 with reason, and with some of Thine own attributes, so that we 
 are inspired to speak or chant Thy praises blindly. We rejoice 
 that we are taken up into communion with Thee ; and though 
 yet we are in the shadowy land, and all things are compara- 
 tively vague, we know that there is right, and justice, and love, 
 and purity, and sympathy, with thee. We know the royalty of 
 that nature of love which spends itself, and for evermore 
 renders service to the needy; and though by searching we 
 cannot find thee out unto perfection, we find out enough for 
 joy and consolation, enough for inspiration and imitation; and 
 all our Hfe long Thou art stimulating us by the bright concep- 
 tion of Thine own nature, and drawing us toward thee, that we 
 may become more and more like Thee. Accept our thanks, 
 O Lord our God, for this revelation of Thy parentage, and for 
 that spirit of adoption which Thou dost breathe into our hearts. 
 Every day, now, our souls call Thee '* Father." Every day 
 we walk with growing confidence and hope. Every day Thou 
 art ripening in us, that love that casts out fear — servile fear, 
 ignoble and selfish fear — and art planting in us that higher fear 
 which love breeds — the fear of grieving or wounding the one we 
 love. Thus Thou art ministering to the sources of our inward 
 life, and making more powerful the shadowy realm of thoughts 
 and feelings, of heart resolves and aspirations, than is the 
 measured life of things without, so that the things that seem- 
 ingly are not, are mightier than the things which are. Thou 
 art, by the glorious power of weakness, destroying strength. 
 Thou art filling our emptiness with Thyself, so that our very 
 infirmities and our very wants are becoming our blessings. 
 We thank Thee for that wondrous way in which Thou hast led 
 us, and for all the unfilled and spoken promises that yet await 
 us. We rejoice that there can be no fulfilling of Thy promises 
 — that they are, as they empty themselves, filled again, and are 
 inexhaustible. 
 
 So, O Lord, Thou art leading us day by day, not wearied 
 with Thy work. Thou art not weary of giving, nor weary of 
 watching, nor weary of forgiving. Thou art not weary of bear- 
 ing us. Thou dost carry us in the arms of Thy love, an ever- 
 lasting tax and burden unfelt. We rejoice in this wonder of 
 Divine and all-merciful love and care. 
 
 And now grant that the time past may be sufficient in which 
 we have disregarded Thy authority. May we begin with more 
 
 K — 2 
 
132 THE LILIES OF THE FIELD. 
 
 implicit confidence to lean upon Thy bosom, to trust Thee in 
 present troubles, and to rely upon Thee in the future. May 
 we be delivered from those fears that populate the future, and 
 that rise to threaten us. We have seen hov/ they vanish as- 
 they draw near. We have seen that they are but mists and 
 shadows that disappear of themselves. Grant that we may 
 learn wisdom at length, and hear Thee saying, "Sufficient 
 unto the day is the evil thereof." May we rest on those 
 promises of Thy providence and care, those assurances of Thy 
 fidehty and watchful love. And whatever may be the ills that 
 threaten or betide us, that touch us or reach toward us, may 
 we have that quieting faith in Thee that shall hush our appre- 
 hension, and give us that peace which they have that love and 
 trust Thee. We bear Thee witness that Thou hast sustained 
 us in all our troubles. We bear Thee witness that Thou hast 
 done abundantly more than we asked or thought in days past. 
 O that we might at last have faith given us to trust Thee I 
 Thou that art infinitely more than the noblest among men — 
 infinitely more just, more noble, more faithful, more tender, 
 more generous ; thou that art the fountain whence spring all 
 our conceptions of magnanimity, grant that we may treat Thee 
 at least as well as we treat each other. We take each other's 
 promises — forbid that we should only fail when it is God that 
 promises. 
 
 We beseech of Thee that Thou wilt draw near to every one 
 in Thy presence. Minister to them according to the abun- 
 dance of Thy goodness. We ask blindly. We know not what 
 to ask for as we ought. We frequently would minister to our 
 own evil. We beseech of Thee, O God, that Thou wilt grant 
 the wisdom of Thine answer as a supplement to the folly of 
 our asking. Do for us the things that we need, and withhold 
 from us the things that are harmful. We pray Thee, whatever 
 Thou takest away from us, that Thou wilt not take away the 
 certainty of Thy favour, and the assurance of immortal life ; 
 and whatever Thou dost put upon us of trouble, we beseech 
 of Thee that thou wilt not forbear burdening us with cross 
 upon cross. Grant that we may have so much as is necessary 
 for our soul's salvation. When we arc chastened by the Lord, 
 may we remember the hand ; may we remember the heart ; 
 may we remember the covenant of love ; may we bear our 
 chastisement and drink the cup. 
 
 We pray that Thou wilt grant that any that sit in darkness 
 may see a light arise upon their path. May any that are 
 care-worn and burdened begin to find that under a crown of 
 
THE LILIES OF THE FIELD. 1 33 
 
 thorns there may be royalty. Are there any in Thy presence 
 that are pursued by fears and threatenings ? Thou, O Lord, 
 canst dehver Thy darUng ones from the lion and the bear. We 
 beseech of Thee, pluck those out of the snares and toils of 
 temptation that are thralled therein. Are there those that are 
 perplexed as to duty, that know not the way of right ? Wilt 
 Thou give them disclosures of duty and of right? Are there 
 any that see the right way, and fain would walk therein? Wilt 
 Thou grant, O God, that they may be able more and more to 
 approach the true path, and to be established therein? Appoint 
 Thou their goings for evermore. 
 
 We pray that Thou wilt bless all whom we love. Gather 
 underneath Thy ordainings of blessing all whom our hearts 
 gather in fond remembrance to-night; and wherever they are — 
 afar off in distant lands, or upon the sea, or in the wilderness, 
 or in places of peril — God grant that they may receive to-day, 
 and this hour, the blessing of the sanctuary. Grant unto them, 
 we beseech of Thee, faith, fidelity, firmness unto the end. 
 
 Bless our land in this time of our darkness.* May we have 
 faith that there yet shall be the bright dawning of the morning 
 of hope in this day of sorrow and distress. O may we have 
 assurance that, though there be weeping in the night, joy shall 
 come with the morning. And we pray, O God, that Thou wilt 
 grant that slavery may cease, and that all the evil plans that 
 are built for it may be utterly destroyed. Thou God of justice 
 and truth, who hast inspired in the human breast the hope of 
 a glorious future, who hast been stirring up the nations of the 
 earth through centuries to rise to nobler and nobler tasks and 
 attainments, be Thou on the side now of those that seek to 
 carry forth Thine own blessed truths, and to realise Thine own 
 inspired ideas. And we pray that Thou wilt not give Thy 
 cause to contempt. Let not Thine adversaries laugh. And 
 we beseech of Thee, O God, that Thou wilt so appear for the 
 oppressed, that all shall stand in awe of Thee, and, beholding 
 the work of righteousness that Thou hast done in this nation, 
 admire, revere, and praise. Let Thy kingdom come, and Thy 
 will be done in all the earth, as it is done in heaven, and to 
 Thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son, and Spirit. Amen. 
 
 * The civil war was in progress at that time, 1864. The emancipation 
 proclamation had been issued. 
 
X. 
 
 THE HIDDEN MANNA AND THE WHITE STONE: 
 A SERMON OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 *' To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will 
 give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which 
 no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it." — Rev. ii. 17. 
 
 This text is a solemn call to victorious perseverance in Chris- 
 tian life. As a motive, two promises are made — one of hidden 
 manna^ and the other of aji unknown 7ta?ne upon a white stone. 
 One refers to the past, the other to the future. The one is 
 founded upon fact, the other is mystical. Let us elucidate a 
 little each of the figures, and derive from them such spiritual 
 profit as is appropriate to them respectively. 
 
 The Israelites, who were God's typical people — not His only 
 people, but the people by which pre-eminently He developed 
 and made known the moral side of truth — had been cruelly 
 oppressed and held in bondage in Egypt. We are not left to 
 our own fancy when we say that this is, spiritually, the expe- 
 rience of all men, for the New Testament appropriates that 
 historic condition. We, too, are represented as being in bondage, 
 or as having been in bondage. Whom a man serves, to him he 
 is in bondage ; and we have been under the dominion of the 
 world, under the power of our appetites, under the control of 
 our own propensities, and so we have been in Egypt. 
 
 God appeared in a special and glorious manner, and set His 
 people free, and brought them forth with a high hand and an 
 outstretched arm from Egypt ; and so, vrith a continuous 
 parallel, it is represented in the New Testament that the Chris- 
 tian is brought from the house of bondage into light and 
 liberty; for in the New Testament, tliough religion is sometimes 
 represented as a service, at other times, and more comprehen- 
 sively, it is represented as an enfranchisement, as an act of 
 emancipation, as freedom conferred, as liberty achieved. 
 
 When the Israelites had been delivered from their pursuers, 
 and had crossed the sea, instead of making straight for the 
 
THE HIDDEN MANNA AND THE WHITE STONE. 1 35 
 
 promised land, they took counsel of their fear and their love 
 of ease, and were obliged, in consequence, for forty years to 
 wander up and down through the great desert land. But at 
 length, after a generation had perished, after those that first 
 set out had, as a punishment of their cowardice, died in the 
 wilderness, the people came into the promised land, where long 
 ago they might have been settled. And so those that have 
 been brought out from under the dominion of their sins into 
 newness of life, through Christ Jesus, instead of aiming at once 
 at the highest Christian states, attempt to avoid, as much as 
 they may, labours and self-denial, and, in consequence, impose 
 upon themselves the very things which they seek to avoid, 
 and make their life a life of wanderings in the desert. They 
 may well be compared to the children of Israel, who wandered 
 in the wilderness of Arabia. In old age, often, God's people 
 only at last, as the sum of all the conflicts of their life, reach 
 that which they should have stepped into almost at the very 
 beginning of their Christian course. If men had Christian 
 enterprise, Christian courage. Christian fidelity, they might 
 begin at the very beginning of their Christian experience, 
 where, in the ordinary course of things, they end after scores 
 of years. 
 
 During this long pilgrimage of the Israelites it was impossible 
 for them to sow and to gather harvests. They were dwellers 
 in tents. They had been shepherds and husbandmen; but 
 they could not pursue for a livelihood their old avocations. It 
 was needful, therefore, that there should be a supply granted 
 to them miraculously; and by Divine command manna fell 
 daily from heaven. They gathered it each day for the day's 
 use, and on the day preceding the Sabbath for two days, that 
 the Sabbath might be unbroken. 
 
 And the revelator says : " I will feed conquering Christians 
 with manna." As we are like the Israelites in bondage, in 
 deliverance, and in wandering in the wilderness, " so," saith the 
 revelator, " the parallel shall continue ; and as God fed His 
 people, not through their own skill and industry, but by a 
 direct power, so God promises that those who are victoriously 
 faithful in the Christian life in all their wanderings and vicissi- 
 tudes shall have Divinely-bestowed manna." 
 
 But, lest it should seem as though it was to be a repetition 
 of the old miracle, it is declared that it is not to be substantial 
 and visible manna, such as the Israelites plucked from the 
 ground, but "hidden," or secret manna; that is, invisible, 
 spiritual manna, in distinction from that which is visible and 
 
136 THE HIDDEN MANNA AND 
 
 material. Heavenly cheer, spiritual comfort, the soul's bread — 
 that is the manna which is here promised. 
 
 Let us then see, for one single moment, what is the scope of 
 this promise. To theju that overcome 1 zuill give hidden inafina. 
 The implication is that Christians are in great conflict and 
 peril, and that, in consequence of the strifes and dangers of 
 Christian life, they need something more than they can minister 
 to themselves. They need food that is better than the daily 
 bread for which we are taught to pray. And the promise is, 
 that if they are faithful in their Christian life, God will give 
 them this other food that they need. 
 
 It is only a mystic and poetic expression of the same thought 
 that our Saviour indulged in when He declared, ''Take no 
 thought, saying, What shall we eat ? or, what shall we drink ? 
 or, wherewithal shall we be clothed ? " " but seek ye first the 
 kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things 
 shall be added unto you." Here the same truth is set forth in 
 another mode of expression— namely. Fight the battle of 
 temptation, wage the conflict of Christian life, be bold, be 
 faithful, and God will feed your souls. As in the one case God 
 will take care of the body according to the literal promise of 
 Christ, so here we have included something higher and better. 
 Be faithful to all your Christian duties and affections, and God 
 will feed and strengthen every power of the soul. 
 
 We are incessantly tempted, in this life, to conform our 
 ethical conduct either to our direct or implied physical con- 
 dition. There is a natural, but not too good tendency to make 
 the metes and bounds of ethical truth and duty conform to 
 natural law, and then to interpret natural law on the side of 
 selfishness. We are perpetually tempted by compliances, by 
 customs, by seeming physical necessities, by social sympathies, 
 and even by moral biases, to depart from propriety and rectitude. 
 In all the relations of life — in the family, in the neighbourhood, 
 in business, in their whole estate — men are strongly inclined, if 
 not to give up right and duty, yet to moderate their ideas of 
 what is right ; to take on milder conceptions of duty ; to see if 
 the cross cannot be evaded or avoided, or to make it as incon- 
 spicuous as possible. That tendency is natural, using the word 
 natural in its lowest acceptation. 
 
 There is always present, more or less obtrusively, the 
 economic argument in the soul, and we find ourselves resort- 
 ing to it to excuse ourselves from adhering to that which is 
 incumbent upon us. When we are irradiated with conceptions 
 of Christian life, when we have heroic ideals, we mean to be 
 
THE WHITE STONE. 
 
 137 
 
 absolutely trae men; we mean to have unadulterated faith in God; 
 we mean to have the utmost sincerity of life ; we mean to burn 
 with a courage that shall never know a decline; we mean to be 
 enterprising, abounding in work. And yet, when we come out 
 of the inspired hours that come to us, and enter upon the daily 
 duties of life, we come into the economic and argumentative 
 mood, and the question arises, whether it is proper in our 
 circumstances — which are always peculiar — for us to do so and 
 so. And in this mood we are tempted as much as possible to 
 avoid the cogency and urgency of the reasons which incHne us 
 to fulfil our duties, and to argue whether it is best for us, for 
 ours, and for the world about us, to press forward in the path 
 of duty which is opened before us. 
 
 Now, I do not undertake to say that these casuistical ques- 
 tions are not a part of our necessity; but I do say that the 
 application of truths and principles requires right judgment 
 and the continuous exercise thereof. It is not half so much 
 trouble what the truth is in general, as it is to know what the 
 truth is at any particular time, and in its applications to parti- 
 cular phases of experience. And it is at this point, not that 
 we are necessarily deceived, but that we are extremely liable 
 to lean toward a compliance with worldly ways and customs, 
 for the sake of getting along easier, for the sake of having 
 more certain, solid, assured success. 
 
 " Man shall not live by bread alone," said the Saviour, when 
 He was Himself tempted. And the promise of our text is, Do 
 not comply with evil under any circumstances ; do not give 
 way to worldly counsels where they are distinctly opposite to 
 spiritual counsels ; do not consume yourselves with anxieties ; 
 do not use your strength needlessly; do not expend it on this 
 thing or that, when it might be better spent on something else; 
 do not judge your prosperity by outward signs alone ; and you 
 shall have your reward. I will give to every man that is a true 
 soldier — to every man that holds the faith of Christ, and that 
 means to maintain a godly and pure life — to every such man, 
 whatever may be his trials, his perils, and his inducements, if 
 he will only overcome his temptations, I will give a hidden 
 support. I will feed him inwardly. As the Israelite had visible 
 manna, so he shall have manna that is invisible, hidden, 
 mystic. 
 
 I would to God that in some adequate way the experience of 
 this truth might be gathered out of that army of suffering ones 
 that the world has seen, and framed into a history, and poured 
 forth upon men, that the world might know how God does do 
 
138 THE HIDDEN MANNA AND 
 
 exceeding abundantly more than we ask or think for those that 
 are willing for Christ's sake to cut off the right hand, or pluck 
 out the right eye, or forego any temptation or any inducement 
 of pleasure. 
 
 There is nothing that seems more foolish to men of the world 
 than for a man to stand, as it is said, in his own light ; for a 
 man to give up positive, and in many respects, it may be, inno- 
 cent, good for the sake of some notion, some ism, some moral 
 scruple. But yet it has been the experience and the testimony 
 of more than one can count of blessed saints in heaven, and of 
 multitudes that still dwell upon earth, and are engaged in its 
 conflicts, that, no matter how rugged or steep the path may 
 have been, they have been best fed and best sustained when 
 they have followed Christ the nearest. I will not say that those 
 who follow Christ at all hazards will be best sustained out- 
 wardly (though they will have enough for their outward wants, 
 or, when they do not have this, what is better, they will die), 
 but they will have, in spite of their circumstances, more of 
 those ends for which men strive, than they could have attained 
 if they had conformed to the world. 
 
 Why do men strive ? There is a pleasure in the use of our 
 faculties that makes men industrious and enterprising, that leads 
 them to become engineers, mechanics, labouring men, or scholars. 
 There is pleasure in a life of activity. But mainly men are 
 living for the sake of supplying themselves with a multitude of 
 worldly benefits ; that they may have a broader foundation for 
 their family; that they may, if possible, derive more enjoyment 
 from leisure ; that they may multiply the sources of their im- 
 provement. In other words, various joy, that shall develop the 
 mind, and fill up the heart, and the evading of evil, which 
 is a reflex seeking for possible joy — these are the springs, the 
 grand motives of human action ; and when you take away from 
 a man the fear of evil and the hope of joy, your paralyze him. 
 No man would be more than a leaf on a stream that had not 
 this fear or this hope. 
 
 Now it is the experience of men — and one of those experiences 
 which we come to slowly and reluctantly, and which dawn upon 
 us only after we have gone through a long course of struggle — 
 that, after all, we find more happiness in the faithful perform- 
 ance of Christian duty at every hazard and sacrifice, than we 
 would have found wuth unobstructed freedoQi along the course 
 of prosperity. 
 
 Let me take the case, for instance, of a man that pursues the 
 most innocent course of life. It is thought of industry that it is 
 
THE WHITE STOXE. 1 39 
 
 good, right, praiseworthy. It is. But, little by little, a man, 
 in the course of duty, perils himself for others' sake, and begins 
 to undermine his health and strength. He would draw back, 
 but there is an obligation imposed upon him. He is a soldier, 
 in time of war, and he is called to do duty in places of danger, 
 and to sacrifice his bodily health. And, ere long, by maims 
 and wounds, or by rheumatic twistings and contortions, or by 
 organic weaknesses, the man is laid aside from labour. And 
 men say, " It is a pity that this man should not have avoided 
 this excessive taxation upon his physical system. There is 
 moderation in all things." But I have taken notice that, when 
 it is moral things, moderation is known to all men ; but when 
 it is physical things, moderation is known to nobody. There 
 is a general public sentiment that zeal and fervour for the 
 animal system is all right enough, but that for the moral nature 
 there should be great moderation and self-restraint. And so 
 men look with pity upon a man that has been laid aside from 
 activity by reason of over-exertion in the discharge of the most 
 solemn duties that can be known in the providence of God. 
 
 It is hard to stand still enforcedly. It is hard to see the 
 thunderous processes of industry go past your skilled hand and 
 willing feet, and you not be called to take part and lot in them. 
 And yet many a man has learned, after the first days of bitter- 
 ness, that he could reap more joy bed-ridden than he could on 
 his feet. In many a case, helpless hands, that could not be 
 lifted even in prayer, have reaped better harvests, if you 
 measure by the soul's satisfaction, than they could under any 
 other circumstances. Many a man that has been laid aside 
 early in life, and for long and useless years, has realized, with- 
 out knowing it, the promise of God, " I will give you hidden 
 manna." And I call, from thousands and thousands of 
 cottages, and prisons, and poorhouses, witnesses to rise up, 
 among the most ghastly to the eyes of men, but the brightest 
 and purest to the eyes of God and angels, to testify, '' Of all 
 that live on earth we have been the most favoured, and we 
 have the most peace, the most joy, the most deep meditation 
 of good, the most hope, the most certainty of eternal reward." 
 
 It is the royal road to learn of love. Is there anything 
 better than that a man should love his wife, or that a woman 
 should love her husband ? Is there anything nobler than the 
 love which they give to their children ? Is there anything that 
 is a more fit emblem of heaven than a Christian family, where 
 conscience and knowledge, and pure and true love unite all 
 the members of it ? And may not a man say, with some 
 
140 THE HIDDEN MANNA AND 
 
 reason, " Let us build here three tabernacles, and abide in this 
 paradise of God"? But in the providence of God one child 
 dies, and another child is prostrated with sickness, and aliena- 
 tions come in to disturb the peace of the family circle, and the 
 household is divided and scattered, and the paradise is invaded, 
 and thorns and thistles come up where were blossoms and 
 fruit. Under such circumstances a man is tempted to charge 
 God falsely. And where there has been such temptation, and 
 waste, and sickness, and desolation, and the heart has been 
 burdened with sorrow, and the head has been bowed down 
 with grief, and suffering has written its lines on the face, at 
 last, though for the present these things are not joyous, they 
 begin to bring hunger for that which the earth cannot supply, 
 and to cause the soul to cry out, " O God, feed me, and give 
 me the hidden manna out of the cloud and darkness," and in 
 answer, come divinely-supplied patience, and peace, and 
 inward joy. How many persons have at last borne witness, 
 *• I have learned what I could not have learned if I had been 
 spared from sorrow." 
 
 There is nothing that is better, seen from a purely economic 
 point of view, than to build up society by material productions 
 and external wealth. Far be it from me to say a word that 
 undervalues these things ; but you know very well that we are 
 dwelling in communities where everything is as uncertain as a 
 a shepherd's tent. You build up your fortune, and God takes 
 it down almost as often as the patriarchs did their tents. You 
 are feeding from pasture to pasture. You are finding that here 
 and there God meets you with overthrow and reverse. And 
 you feel, "To what profit is it that I have served God? What 
 is there for me, whose whole life seems cross-ploughed and 
 harrowed?" You are tempted to complain of the allotments 
 of Providence. But do you suppose a man's life consists in 
 the abundance of the things that he possesses ? Is this your 
 estimate of man, that he is merely a thing to put raiment on ? 
 Is it your idea of life to build a treasure-house and put gold in 
 it ? Have you never had a conception of the royalty of son- 
 ship, and learned to love God and your fellow-men ? And, 
 though all your worldly possessions have been scattered, is 
 there nothing left for you ? Are you bankrupt because you 
 have neither silver nor gold ? Why, you have come to that 
 state in which all the holy men on earth were ! Prophets, 
 patriarchs, apostles, ministering teachers of God, and the best 
 men that have dwelt upon the face of the earth, had not where 
 to lay their heads. Silver and gold had they none, but they 
 
THE WHITE STONE. 141. 
 
 had manhood: they had courage; they had the power to sing 
 and pray Uke Paul and Silas in the midnight prison ; they had 
 that which enabled them to influence men for good. There are 
 many such now-a-days. To them I say, bear this witness among 
 your fellow-men : " God comforts me ; He makes my life 
 better than any power on the globe could make it ; food which 
 no man can give gives He me — hidden food, soul-manna. 
 And so I am sustained in going through persecutions for 
 righteousness' sake." 
 
 Who is there that does not know that there is a joy higher 
 and more stately than is known to our ordinary experience? 
 There are some natures that only tempests can bring out. I 
 recollect being strongly impressed on reading the account of an 
 old castle in Germany with two towers that stood up mighty 
 and far apart, between which an old baron stretched large wires, 
 thus making a huge yEolian harp. There were the wires 
 suspended, and the summer breezes played through them, but 
 there was no vibration. Common winds, not having power 
 enough to move them, split, and went through them without a 
 whistle. But when there came along great tempest-winds, and 
 the heaven was black, and the air resounded, then these winds, 
 with giant touch, swept through the wires, which began to ring, 
 and roar, and pour out sublime melodies. 
 
 So God stretches the chords in the human soul which 
 ordinary influences do not vibrate; but now and then great 
 tempests sweep through them, and men are conscious that 
 tones are produced in them which could not have been pro- 
 duced except by some such storm-handling. 
 
 Are there not those that can bear witness here to-day that 
 a man may lose all things, in the common acceptation of the 
 term, and yet be exceeding happy and blest of God ? A man 
 may be stripped of property, may be bereft of friends, may lose 
 his health, may have the way of usefulness blocked up to him, 
 and yet he may experience a happiness that is indescribable if 
 he only has left this thought : " Heaven cannot be touched. 
 On earth I am tossed about and rolled over, and am like a 
 vessel borne down before a tempest, and swept hither and 
 thither ; but ah ! there is a rest that remaineth : God keeps it 
 for me, and ere long I shall reach it ! I am sure that I am a 
 better and happier man by reason of the things which I have 
 been made to suffer, since they have rendered my soul 
 susceptible to the mysterious touches of God's hand." It is the 
 fulfilment of the promise, '* To him that overcometh will I give 
 to eat of the hidden manna." The man that is willing to stand 
 
142 THE HIDDEN MANNA AND 
 
 up wherever, in the providence of God, his lot may be cast, 
 and that stands victoriously, God will feed, not outwardly 
 alone, but inwardly. 
 
 Now comes the other mystic promise of something nobler 
 yet. The explanation that I shall give of the 7uhite sto?ie, with 
 the name luhich no man knoweth saving he that rcceiveth it, will 
 seem fanciful to you, unless you think of the difference which 
 there is on this subject between modern Occidental thought and 
 ancient Oriental thinking. But no one who is acquainted with 
 the sentiment of antiquity will think this explanation fanciful, 
 for precious stones were almost the very form of literature for 
 the expression of the idea of precious truths — so much so that 
 God, when He wished to describe how heaven itself was built, 
 instead of saying that it was a building whose tower was justice, 
 and whose foundations -were mercy, and love, and sympathy, 
 described it as built of sapphire, and ruby, and other precious 
 stones.'"' Precious stones were identified with great moral 
 truths and qualities. Just as we say ernmie in referring to the 
 office of a judge or niagistrate, just as we speak of white fur as 
 signifying purity ; so to the ancient, the Oriental, a precious 
 stone was associated with moral truths and moral qualities. 
 And God speaks in conformity to this use of precious stones in 
 representing such truths and qualities. They were largely 
 employed in the description of heaven, whose walls, it was 
 said, were of jasper, and whose pavements were likened to a 
 sea of glass. 
 
 But, more significantly, though less poetically, perhaps, 
 precious stones were set, and worn as breast-stones. All the 
 Jewish priests wore them. On the ephod they were placed. 
 And kings wore them. Now, in modern times, they are worn 
 merely for show ; but then they were worn to signify moral and 
 regal qualities. Crowns carried them symbolically, much as in 
 coronets they still flame. 
 
 But more frequently than in any other way precious stones 
 were made into signet rings, and, as such, they carried authority, 
 because they suggested the personal identity of the wearer. 
 Where precious stones were set as signet rings, they were worn, 
 probably, in part, on account of their brilliancy, and for mere 
 private and personal pleasure ; or else they were presents given 
 as tokens of ordinary regard by neighbour to neighbour or 
 friend ; or else they were bestowed as honours. Where a prince 
 or a monarch desired to confer the highest testimony of his 
 
 * Revelation xxi. iS— 21. 
 
THE WHITE STONE. 
 
 143 
 
 appreciation of one that had served him or the kingdom, he 
 gave them a precious stone, with his name cut on it. 
 
 But a more precious use of these stones was as love-tokens, 
 and in this case they were cut with mystic symbols. As two 
 lovers agree upon names the meaning of which is known only 
 to themselves, or as they speak to each other in endearing terms 
 which belong to them severally, not in baptism, not in common 
 parlance, but by the agreement of the heart, so it was cus- 
 tomary to cut in stone names or initials which no one could 
 understand but the one who gave it and the one to whom it 
 was given. 
 
 Now these last two uses of precious stones — that by which 
 monarchs conferred honour upon their favourites, and that by 
 which lovers gave token of their affection for each other, with 
 names inscribed, and known only to love — are blended. And 
 this, I apprehend, is the origin of the figure of our text, "To 
 him that overcometh will I give a white stone, and in the stone 
 a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that 
 receiveth it." God says, "I am the eternal King, and I am 
 the eternal Lover, and to him that is faithful to Me, and that 
 overcometh, I will give, as a token of My love and honouring, 
 a white stone." What is meant by a white stone I do not know, 
 but I prefer to think that it was an opal — the most human of all 
 stones. The diamond is the more spiritual — there is less of 
 colour and more of suggestion in it; but the opal has in it 
 more sympathy, more feeling, more wondrous beauty, more of 
 those moods that belong to the human heart ; and of all the 
 stones that are worn to signify human affection, none is to be 
 compared to the opal. And methinks, when God makes this 
 promise of the white stone, it is as if He said, ^' I will cut your 
 love-name in an opal, and as your King and Lover I will give 
 it to you, and no man shall know the meaning of that name 
 but you yourself." 
 
 That which love and power bestow on their favourites, and 
 which fills men with joy and rejoicing, God says he will bestow 
 on every soul that overcometh, and is true to itself and to God. 
 To all those that are faithful in His cause He promises the 
 name, engraved, by which He Himself will call them — a new 
 name ; that is, etched, cut, ground. 
 
 I am fond of thinking, in this matter of writing that new name, 
 that it will grow out of circumstances. Two, walking together 
 and discoursing of love, meet, perhaps, some experience like 
 this : a bird, hawk-chased, flies down, and with wondrous con- 
 fidence, seeks the bosom of the fair one as a protection. She 
 
144 "THE HIDDEN MANNA AND 
 
 rescues it. It is in the moment of high discourse, and both are 
 strangely struck and thrilled by this incident, and it is agreed 
 that it shall be significant of their aftection ; and this sparrow 
 or thrush becomes associated with their personal history. 
 
 Or, it may be, lovers walk the field. It is the hour of the 
 disclosure of their highest and purest feelings one toward the 
 other. And as they sit and talk of love, they are unconscious 
 that lilies are blooming about them on every hand ; but by and 
 bye rising, they perceive that the lilies have been the witnesses 
 of their vows and joy, and from that moment they never can 
 dissever the thought of the lily from the memory of that 
 hour. 
 
 Now I think that the letters that are to constitute the name 
 of Love are to grow out of some such circumstances. God puts 
 His disciples through one experience of life, and one of the 
 letters which are to spell that name is ground into stone ; in 
 another experience another letter is ground in ; and in another, 
 another is ground in, until by and bye, with the attritions and 
 discipline of life, God, by the cunning and skilful hand of 
 providence, has cut out, on this white and precious stone, the 
 whole name of Love, and thenceforth it is worn as a testimonial 
 of God, and of the joy and delight of the soul. 
 
 Are there, then, those that suffer in their faithfulness, and are 
 conquering in their sufferings, or rising above them ? Are there 
 others that in the performance of duty know how not only to 
 labour, but the harder task of patience when labour is for- 
 bidden ? Are there others that know how to gather and admi- 
 nister property, but who can bear witness, " I know, also, how 
 to do more than that : I know how to walk unclothed, and lose 
 not one particle of my joy, and peace, and manhood, and to be 
 stronger, more hopeful, and more songful than I ever was 
 before " ? Are there others that know how to walk in unhealth 
 and pain, and yet to be so penetrated with faith, and prayer, 
 and love, that their life is more radiant in sickness than the life 
 of ordinary men is in health ? Are there those that know how 
 to administer in the common realm of affection, hut that, by 
 bereavements and infelicities of life, have learned also how to 
 dismiss love, to go widowed and solitary, and how to do it with 
 such a sweet and noble temper, that all men shall see that they 
 are more lovely without love than they ever were when they 
 were enthroned in its midst ? Are there those in the battle of 
 life who are tempted. and who overcome the temptation? Are 
 there men that are bankrupt, and that are walking in obscure 
 places, and that remember the promises of God } 
 
THE \VHITE STONE. 1 45 
 
 Be faithful to Christ ; be faithful to the truth ; be faithful to 
 ■your honour and integrity ; be faithful to heaven, that is nearer 
 than when you believed ; be faithful to all right things that you 
 have been taught ; be faithful in the discharge of every duty, 
 and then rejoice ! And when you cannot rejoice in anything 
 else, rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in wealth ; rejoice in health ; 
 rejoice in pleasure; rejoice in love: rejoice in activity; but, 
 above all, rejoice in the Lord; and then, when reverses come, 
 and troubles press upon you, and these other things fade away, 
 your joy in the Lord shall stand like Mount Zion, that never 
 sh^U be moved. 
 
 If we had nothing to show but a well-ordered life, that would 
 not be much ; but a joy that never proceeds from the ordinary 
 provocatives of joy is better testimony to our children and to 
 the world of the power of grace than anything else. If you 
 are serene, and are surrounded by the comforts of life, people 
 say, " Oh yes, I do not wonder that he is happy. I should be 
 happy if I were in his place. Fill my cellar with wine, and my 
 gallery with pictures, and my library with books ; fill my house 
 with welcoming friends, and with many tokens of neighbourly 
 respect, and see if I will not be happy." " Ah !" men say, "it 
 is not much for one that has health, and wealth, and strength to 
 be cheerful and happy." But when a man stands in darkness, 
 and poverty, and contempt ; when he sees the whole community 
 swept like a tide away from him ; when he sees his friends turn 
 their backs on him and leave him, and yet he never loses his 
 courage or temper, and is as sweet-minded as ever, and says, 
 *' I am as happy as ever I was, and as hopeful and cheerful ; 
 for God is my support. He is my lover ; He fulfils his promises 
 to me, and he gives me the hidden manna, and also the white 
 stone, on which my well-understood love-name is written '* — 
 there is a testimony that the world cannot mistake; there is 
 something mysterious and awful in this ! There is something 
 in the idea of the soul's communion with the other life that 
 carries a kind of terror to those that are strangers to it ; but 
 there is in it a wonderful depth and power to those with whom 
 it is a familiar experience. 
 
 Ah ! my Christian friends, give up the outside, if need be, 
 -that you may get at the inside. Let your life be hid with Christ 
 in God. Its disclosure here is but premonitory ; not without 
 its value, and not to be undervalued, but of little account as 
 compared with its appearing in heaven. Take hold of the other 
 life, believe in it, dwell in it, and God shall ere long bring you 
 to it. 
 
 L 
 
146 THE HIDDEN MANNA AND 
 
 PRAYER. 
 
 We bless Thy name, Thou all-giving Father, that Thy mercies 
 have come to us in a stream that ceases not, and that will flow- 
 on for ever. Giving doth not impoverish Thee, and withholding 
 doth not make Thee rich. Thou art bountiful, and knowest of 
 Thine own self that it is more blessed to give than to receive. 
 And this is our hope — the unfailing mercy of our God ! Thy 
 thoughts will never cease to us-ward. Thy providential care 
 shall never remit its charge, and all Thy purposes of grace shall 
 stand. Thou hast decrees, and no one shall disannul them. 
 We rejoice that with Thee is plentiful power ; that with Thee 
 is wisdom to direct ; that with Thee is all goodness ; that every- 
 thing w^hich we lack Thou hast in abundance. And we rejoice 
 that it is Thine office and Thy delight to minister unto men ; 
 for the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to 
 minister. Thou art serving us ; Thou art our server. We are 
 as children whom parents care for and serve in all the humblest 
 offices of necessity \ and Thou as Father art bearing us in 
 Thine eternal arms of care and love. And herein is our 
 stability, herein our hope, for we trust Thee for what Thou art. 
 It is impossible that Thou shouldst forget us till Thine heart 
 forgets to love. We bless Thy name that Thou hast made 
 known to us Thy nature. We thank Thee that Thou hast dis- 
 closed it to us in the life of Jesus Christ our Saviour. We bless 
 Thee that Thou hast made it known by the communications of 
 the Holy Ghost, and hast given us personal experiences so many 
 of the love of Jesus to our souls. We have known what it was 
 to stand in darkness unfriended. We have known what it was 
 to mourn in bitterness of spirit and in obduracy of will. We 
 have known what it was to be cast down and broken, to be 
 found of God, to have our wounds bound up, and to hear 
 peaceable words of comfort. We have known what it was to 
 find a Saviour, and to rejoice in Him. And since the day that 
 Thou didst make Thyself known to us. Thou hast never 
 departed from us. We often have hid ourselves from Thee, 
 but, wandering, have never gone beyond the sound of Thy 
 voice or the touch of Thy reclaiming power. And thou hast, 
 by Thy grace, made our life one continuous memorial of good- 
 ness. Thou hast been with us in sickness, and Thou hast been 
 with us in dangers ; Thou hast been with us in bereavements 
 and sorrows ; Thou hast been with us when troubles have 
 pressed down, and our burdens have seemed more than we 
 could bear. Thon hast put beneath us the arms of Thine own 
 
THE WHITE STONE. 1 47 
 
 Strength. We have been carried through strange vicissitudes. 
 Thou hast ploughed our way, and turned it upside down, and 
 filled it with confusion, but hast not forsaken us. In all our afflic- 
 tions, Thou too hast been afflicted ! Thou hast gone with us into 
 our temptation, and striven for us. We have been beset before 
 and behind, and Thou hast rescued us. Yea, when we have been 
 carried away captive ; when, by outspringing sin and temptation, 
 we have gone away from Thee and from ourselves, Thou hast 
 not suffered us to be utterly cast away, and hast followed after 
 to reclaim the wanderer and bring back the lost. O Lord 
 Jesus, we thank Thee that Thou hast revealed Thyself as the 
 eternal Rescuer, and that Thou hast given us a sense of Thine 
 own nature. 
 
 Now we turn with thanksgiving to Thee. We rejoice over 
 Thy mercies. We praise Thee for being what Thou art. Shall 
 anything separate us from Thee ? What shall be a gift to us 
 except that which Thou givest ? What is life except that which 
 Thou breathest ? What are treasures except those which Thou 
 bestowest? What is joy, what is friendship, what is love, what 
 is hope, or what is honour, disconnected from Thee? We 
 desire that Thou shouldst enter into us, and sanctify all the 
 avenues and all the springs of life, and make our hearts a 
 temple for Thine indwelling. We are weak, and blind, and 
 stumbling, and the hand that lifted us up must sustain us. Thou 
 that hast been the Author of our faith must be its Finisher. 
 We cling to the promises of our God. Leave us not, nor for- 
 sake us. We know the disastrous end and issue if we are given 
 up of Thee. But Thou wilt not forsake us. We are Thine, 
 and for Thine own heart's sake Thou wilt be faithful unto 
 the end, for, loving Thine own, Thou dost love them unto 
 the end. 
 
 And now, we beseech of Thee, draw near to Thy dear people, 
 and, according to their several needs, bless them. Thou seest 
 those that mourn; Thou knowest the children of sorrow. Deliver 
 those that are in perplexity. Give wisdom to those that lack it, 
 light to those that are in darkness, and confirmation to those 
 that are unstable. We beseech of Thee, O Lord our God, that 
 Thou wilt revive Thy work in the midst of Thy people. Bring 
 them nearer to God. Renew their covenant vows. May there 
 be searchings of heart. May Thy people cast out their evil 
 doings, and return unto God, that He may return unto them. 
 Awake in their hearts a growing desire for the salvation of men 
 round about them. The time is short, and it is growing day 
 by day less. Night comes, in which no man can work. O 
 
 L— 2 
 
148 THE HIDDEN MANNA AND THE WHITE STONE. 
 
 Lord God, arouse us all to greater diligence, to a more earnest 
 enterprise for the kingdom of our God. 
 
 We beseech of Thee that Thou wilt grant a blessing to all 
 those now gathered together who are not Thine; who have 
 chosen another way ; who are without God, prayerless and 
 hopeless; to whom is no heaven assured, and no promise that 
 is a girdle about them. We pray that Thou wilt arouse those 
 that feel secure, and disclose to them their dangers. But, above 
 all, reveal to them the wickedness of ingratitude and of an 
 unloving disposition. And we pray that Thou wilt bring them 
 to Thee, disclosing Thyself to them, that they may see Thy 
 charms, and begin to love and serve the Saviour. And may 
 there be many added to this Church of such as shall be saved. 
 
 Bless, we pray Thee, all people. Let the light of the Gospel 
 shine as the daylight. May all kingdoms see Thy salvation. 
 May all iniquity be purged out, and the glory of the Lord stand 
 as an unsetting sun above this earth. We ask these things in 
 the name of Jesus, to whom, with the Father and the Spirit, 
 shall be praises for ever. Amen. 
 
XI. 
 
 THE STORM AND ITS LESSONS. 
 
 " For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth 
 not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, 
 that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater ; so shall 
 My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth : it shall not return unto 
 me void ; but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall 
 prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." — Isa. Ix. lo, ii. 
 
 The figures of the Bible are not mere graceful ornaments- 
 arabesques to grace a border, or fairy frescoes, that give mere 
 beauty to a chamber or saloon. They are language. 
 
 Human speech articulate is marvellous beyond all our 
 thought, and a literature of words is more strange and important 
 than a miracle. The occasional interjected facts in nature 
 which we call miracles are not half so surprising or marvellous 
 as the regular courses of cause and effect. 
 
 But human words are not sufficient even for human thoughts 
 and feelings. All high and grand emotions scorn the tongue, 
 that lies as helpless in the mouth as would be artillery to 
 express the sound and grandeur of mountain thunders in 
 tropical storms. All deep griefs, and, for the most part, tender 
 and exquisite affections, are voiceless. 
 
 Then it is, if any speech is attempted, that nature yields 
 another language, and figures, word-pictures, and illustrations, 
 if they do not express, at least vividly suggest, truths far beyond 
 the reach of words or the compass of sentences such as men 
 frame for the common uses of life. The Bible stands far 
 beyond all other books in this use of the language of nature. 
 The great globe is but an alphabet, and every object upon it is 
 a letter ; and, from beginning to end of the Bible, these sublime 
 letters are used to set forth in hieroglyphic the truths of im- 
 mortality. And there is this nobility in the use of natural 
 objects for moral teaching, that to the end of time, and to all 
 people, of how different soever language, the symbol used is the 
 same. Artificial hieroglyphics differ with age and nation. The 
 Oriental cities had their special characters — the Egyptian his — 
 the Aztec his ; and they differ one from another, so that one 
 
150 THE STORM AND ITS LESSONS. 
 
 could not have read the written signs of the other. But the 
 sun, the mountain, the ocean, the storm, the rain, the snow, the 
 winds, lions and eagles, the sparrow and the dove, the lily and 
 the rose, grass, earth, stones, and dirt, are the same in all ages, 
 in all latitudes, to all people. And those truths that are ex- 
 pressed in the figures drawn from the natural world have re- 
 lationships, and they are the most universal of any in the Bible, 
 and the most frequent. 
 
 The passage before us is a teaching by picture. It gives 
 prodigious stir to the imagination. As we read it, we cannot 
 help feeling the truth opening, spreading, and shooting up stems 
 and blossoms in every direction. 
 
 We shall not attempt to extract the truth in this case, and 
 present it to you separated from its peculiar receptacle, as honey 
 is served separated from the flower that produced it, but shall 
 take up, in the same spirit and way, several of the truths 
 included in this sublime teaching, for your consideration. 
 
 I. God works both by death and by life — by rain and by 
 snow. Snow and rain seem so utterly unlike, that no sense 
 would, at first experience, report them to be the same. Snow- 
 is conservative rain. It is good to keep, and it is good for little 
 else until it stops being snow and comes to be rain. Except 
 its beauty, it has only mechanical benefits. Before it can inspire 
 life, it must change its nature. 
 
 How wonderful is the touch of nature ! The air calls to the 
 seas, and to the moist lands, and instantly invisible particles 
 fly upward j and at length, touched by the authority of cold, 
 they obey its word, and marshal themselves in clouds, and 
 range through the heavens ! Clouds drop, and sweep their 
 skirts along the mountains, or bank up the sun, and hide the 
 stars from wishful eyes. Again, at a word, every drop changes, 
 brilliant lines of frost shooting from its tiny centre until flakes 
 of snow seem like the glorified forms of these rain-drops. No 
 artist soul ever thought such variety ; no artist finger ever was 
 skilled to touch and produce such exquisite things as are the 
 smallest snow-flakes. 
 
 There they hang, far up, in grey clouds, a suspended winter, 
 a fleece unshorn. But when, ejected from their eyrie, they come 
 down upon the earth, each little spickle mute and soft, waving 
 like a feather, what can be thought of more harmless, less 
 powerful than they ! A child is mightier than any one of them. 
 A litde palm is stretched forth, and the flake dissolves upon it 
 before it can be drawn back. A breath dissolves it. The lightest 
 puff of wind changes its course, and whirls it withersoever it 
 
THE STORM AND ITS LESSONS. 151 
 
 will. The bird directs his own flight ; the tiniest insect that 
 whirls in gauzy maze along the evening sunset aims at some- 
 thing in its flight, and touches what it seeks for rest. But these 
 wandering flakes of snow aim at nothing, seek nothing, but fall 
 in unconscious weakness, it may be upon rock, or upon open- 
 faced pools, or into the forge and chimney ; or, caught by 
 some side wind, they are whirled in a white obscurity, and 
 made crazy with haste, and pitched into dark gorges, or lifted 
 into eaves of houses, or let fall upon the boughs and quivering 
 fingers of the pine, pluming again with white its green tufts, 
 that sigh all summer, and mourn all winter. 
 
 Surely, of all things that are, snow is the most beautiful and 
 the most feeble ! Born of air-drops, less than the fallen dew, 
 disorganised by a puff of warmth, driven everywhither by the 
 least motion of the winds, each particle light and soft, and fall- 
 ing to the earth with such noiseless gentleness that the wings 
 of ten minion times ten million make no sound in the air, and 
 the footfall of thrice as many makes no noise upon the ground, 
 what can be more helpless, powerless, harmless ! 
 
 But not the thunder itself speaks God's power more than 
 this very snow. It bears His omnipotence, soft and beautiful 
 as it seems ! While it is yet in the air, it is lord of the ocean 
 and the prairies. Ships are blinded by it. It is a white dark- 
 ness. All harbours are silent under this plushy embargo. The 
 traveller hides. The prairies are given up to its behest; and woe 
 to him that dares to venture against the omnipotence of soft- 
 falling snow upon those trackless wastes ! In one night it hides 
 the engineering of a hundred years. It covers down roads, 
 hides bridges, fills up valleys. It forbids the flocks to return 
 to the fields. The plough cannot find its furrows. Towns and 
 villages yield up the earth, and obey this white diffusive despot ! 
 
 Then, when it has given the earth a new surface, and 
 changed all vehicles, it submits itself again to the uses of man, 
 and becomes his servant, in its age, whom it ruled and defied 
 in the hour of its birth. But, when flake is joined to flake, and 
 the frosts within the soil join their forces to the frosts 
 descended from the clouds, who shall unlock their clasped 
 hands ? Who shall disannul their agreement ? or who shall 
 dispossess them of their place ? Gathered in the mountains, 
 banked and piled till they touch the very clouds again in which 
 once they were born and rocked, how terrible is their cold, and 
 more terrible their stroke, when, slipping, some avalanche 
 comes down the mountain side, the roar and the snow-stroke 
 loud as thunder, and terrible as lightning ! God gives to the 
 
152 THE STORM AND ITS LESSONS. 
 
 silent snow a voice, and clothes its innocence and weakness 
 with a power like His own. 
 
 But, behold again ! That august might that buried the fields,, 
 that shut up husbandry, and drove back fi-om the field its 
 herds, that wound the very wilderness with a burial-sheet, and 
 from the tops of mountains sat watchful over all its work, defy- 
 ing men and storms even ; which, when it was once enthroned, 
 could not move nor change its mighty power — that very might, 
 when God pleases, shall go, as quick and as silent as it came. 
 When God remembers the earth from the south, and his breath 
 returns again, warm and life-giving, in an instant the snow goes 
 back to its former state. Its flakes die to drops of dew, and 
 the field drinks up the drifts and banks that hid its face ; and 
 the ice and snow, that sat silent on the hills, now sing down, 
 the brooks and rills, prophets of the coming flowers ! 
 
 Behold ! The buried earth is yet alive ! It was not dead ; 
 it only slept. The great population of roots beneath the soil 
 is yet there. The wheat is ready, the early-springing weeds 
 are ready, the flowers are ready. At the voice of God, from 
 the brown heath shall come living greenness, from the empty 
 stick shall nod and wave tufts of leaves, and ten thousand 
 flowers shall unfurl their banners, and begin the royal march of 
 the year, to the music of heaven full of birds and small singing 
 insects ! Nothing has been lost — nothing has been harmed. 
 
 Nothing lost? Then where are the leaves of last summer? 
 Where are the roses of last June, the grass of August, the 
 rushes and reeds, the orchards and their fruit, the golden-rod 
 of September, and the asters and chrysanthemums of October ? 
 They have changed, not perished. They have fallen down to 
 the earth, and lie at the root, and yield themselves to the uses 
 of the new summer, and new life is springing from the old. 
 The old nurses the new. Life is feeding at the breast of death. 
 Dying is but a new start for life. 
 
 So the very death of the year is not harmful. God 
 watches the snow, and all that is beneath it. The very winter 
 is his stern messenger of good — a rugged benefactor, every one 
 of whose strokes are kind, whose very chains arc the prophecies 
 of unloosing, and whose destructions are but preparations for 
 resurrection. 
 
 Under all our winters lie flowers. Yea, beneath death itself, 
 heaven is waiting ; and immortality sings but just beyond the 
 sigh of desolation and the touch of weakness. 
 
 But we must not spend our time in this only view, though 
 much more might be reaped in this harvest-field of snow. 
 
THE STORM AND ITS LESSONS. 1 5 3, 
 
 II. This whole representation strikes, in the very centre, a 
 feeling, almost universal, of unfaith in moral power in com- 
 parison with physical power. It was this that called forth 
 some of the siiblimest teachings of the Old Testament. Men 
 have become used to judge by their senses, and to estimate 
 causes by physical tests. 
 
 We are obliged to transfer language and illustration from the 
 physical to the moral realm. But the laws of the two are so 
 very diverse, that no error is more sure to follow false reasoning 
 than that which follows the application of the rules of judgment 
 in the one realm to the other. It was because of this that 
 Christ said : " The kingdom of heaven cometh not with obser- 
 vation " — that is, it does not address itself to the senses, the 
 eye, the ear, the hand. The kingdom of heaven is a silent and 
 hidden thing, like leaven hidden in three measures of meal. 
 The kingdom of heaven begins a great way off from its end, 
 dawning Hke the faintest star, and shining brighter and brighter 
 unto the perfect day. 
 
 And so is the reverse true ; namely, that the existence and 
 prevalence of powers apparently adverse to moral progress is 
 no token of decadence of good, and no cause of fear. 
 
 If we had had no experience, I cannot imagine anything more 
 shocking than a summer storm. It is because we have outlived 
 so many that we do not fear them. We have seen both ends, 
 and measure now the terrible brow of the coming storm by our 
 memory of its retreating glory. But what if one who had never 
 known any such experience could be placed in summer so as 
 to witness the coming, the power, and the end of a thunder- 
 shower ! 
 
 The whole heaven is calm and blue. The tallest-stemmed 
 flowers stand quiet in the windless air, except when a bee rocks 
 them — not the topmost leaf stirs. Children are all a-frolic. 
 Beasts roam at leisure through the pastures. The brooks gurgle, 
 and flash the colour of their pebbles through their changing 
 waters. Birds sing, or sit in cozy corners to plume their feathers. 
 Still the furrow follows the plough, and the shout of the driver 
 to his oxen comes back from the hill-side in soft mockery. 
 
 But suddenly, straight out of the west come clouds, that 
 gather w^ithout call of trumpet, and make haste, and spread, 
 rushingsilent, but swifter than the swiftest steed. The sun is 
 gone out. Strange colours, awfully contrasted, sully the blue. 
 Puffs of wind whirl dust along the road. Men drop their work, 
 unyoke the uneasy oxen, and run for the nearest shelter. Crows 
 and gulls are making their way through the air. Children run 
 
154 THE STORM AND ITS LESSONS. 
 
 home. The traveller lays on the whip, with eye askance at the 
 coming clouds. The cliffs of darkness are mounting higher. 
 Already the distant haze shuts out the horizon and the remote 
 fields from sight. Uncertain winds, like aides-de-camp on the 
 eve of battle, rush with might, or suddenly lull and stand 
 utterly still. A few drops come down. 
 
 All at once the heaven crashes with outspeaking thunders. 
 The skies have suddenly fallen down. Trees writhe, and bend, 
 and groan. Chimneys sound hoarse diapason. The founda- 
 tions are broken up. The roar of rain, and the wrench and 
 rock of winds, the settled gloom of cloud and water, em- 
 broidered with lines of lightning, and the mingling of all things 
 above and beneath in a wild fury of commotion — tell me ! 
 would it be strange if an unaccustomed man, seeing this without 
 previous experience, should deem the end of the world itself to 
 have come ? 
 
 But what has happened? After a due course, the rain 
 grows lighter ; the winds now drive away what first they drove 
 on ; they dash upon the grey wreaths grown thin by raining. 
 The blue was never so blue, never so pale, never so all-hued ; 
 but grey-blue or indigo-blue, it was never so pure to our thinking. 
 The fields come to sight again. Yonder is an oak that the 
 lightning struck and split. A few twisted branches lie by the 
 trees. Besides this, nothing has suffered harm. The furrow 
 has not yet swallowed its water. The roads and fields have a 
 thousand mirrors, in which grass and flowers may arrange their 
 dishevelled tresses. Birds were never so unwet, and chant 
 down the storm that silently moves away in the distance, with 
 God's banner of victory lifted up in rainbow upon it. And 
 men, regaining their liberty, laugh and gratulate each other at 
 the blessings of the storm. Nothing is hurt ; everything is safe, 
 everything is fed, and everything rejoices. 
 
 III. But one other point I will make before passing to some 
 applications, still following out this figure. 
 
 Can any man imagine a greater difference between cause and 
 effect than that to which we are accustomed in the survey of 
 nature ? Who can imagine a greater difference than exists 
 between the rain-drop when it tails, and the rain-drop when 
 it re-appears speedily in vegetable growths — in the grass, the 
 flower, the stalwart tree ? It comes from the cloud, and rests 
 upon the earth; but speedily it is caught up, and set to work 
 in the strange enginery of nature. It finds its way into life, 
 and in that life it makes acquaintance, through the leaves, with 
 the sun. How different is it from the rain-drop that fell in 
 
THE STORM AND ITS LESSONS. 1 55 
 
 the late shower, when it shakes itself in the leaf, rustles in the 
 grass, or forms a part of those luscious juices of the fruit that 
 tempt the eye and the palate ! It fell rain ; it comes forth a 
 leaf. It fell a liquid, transparent drop : it rises in varied forms 
 of beauty and use. Who, looking upon the leaves of to-day, 
 would dream that they are those drops that fell last week in 
 that grey storm ? And yet they are. You cannot tell by the 
 way a cause strikes the earth what is the form of the effect it 
 shall produce when it enters the laboratory where God is the 
 chemist and the worker. 
 
 Having sufficiently followed out, in the spirit of the figure 
 itself, these images in nature, let me now pass, in closing, to 
 speak of one or two points of application^, which I shall treat 
 purely in their moral forms. 
 
 I. The power of goodness, even in its least forms, in this 
 world is never lost. And it was with reference to this very 
 thing that this whole passage was spoken : — " Seek ye the 
 Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is 
 near : let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man 
 his thoughts : and let him return unto the Lord, and He will 
 have mercy upon him ; and to our God, for He will abun- 
 dantly pardon. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, 
 neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the 
 heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than 
 your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the 
 rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth 
 not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth 
 and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the 
 eater; so shall My word be that goeth forth out of my mouth : it 
 shall not return unto me void ; but it shall accomplish that which 
 I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." 
 
 It is the continuity, the certain preservation, and the final 
 efficiency of every moral influence for good that issues from 
 the heart of God that is here taught, and guarded against 
 scepticism. We, divinely instructed, borrow these same 
 influences from God, who broods over us. And as there shall 
 not be one single influence for good let forth from the mind of 
 God that shall dare to report itself an empty-handed servant — 
 as every such influence shall do the errand whereto it is sent, 
 so likewise every single influence for good that we borrow 
 from God, in the lowest as well as the highest spheres, shall 
 not return unto us void. Like the rain, it maybe hidden; 
 like the snow, it may dissolve out of our sight, but it shall not 
 fail to accomplish its legitimate result. 
 
156 THE STORM AND ITS LESSONS. 
 
 There has not been one single genuine cause of good; there 
 has not been one single good enthusiasm that has set on fire 
 some heart ; there has not been one single breath of love that 
 has touched the higher feelings of some soul ; there has not 
 been one single volition or power that has been followed by 
 appropriate action, in all the periods of time, that has failed to 
 do its appointed work. Seeds perish by the thousand; ten 
 thousand things in the vegetable world seem to be cut short 
 in the initial stage of their growth ; but there has not been one 
 influence for good, for purity, for justice, for mercy, for 
 integrity, for spirituality in the world, that has come to nothing. 
 Such influences have in every case accomplished the thing 
 whereto they were sent, and prospered in their errand, though 
 we may not have been able to trace them to their final issues. 
 However much good you may do, you may be sure that none 
 of it will be done in vain, although the effects which it 
 produces may be hidden from your view. You are not to 
 know by the registering of the eye, or the measuring of the 
 senses, all the results of the good you accomplished. 
 
 Some men seem to themselves to be useful only when they 
 can measure_ the effects of their conduct; but these things 
 have been hidden from the eye of men. Heroic men, who 
 lived before the days of Christ— noble old prophet souls- 
 longed to behold the sight of coming glory to hasten which 
 their deeds had contributed, but they died without that sight. 
 They could not trace those deeds to their consequences. But 
 all the stripes and persecutions that men have borne for the 
 sake of goodness ; all the sympathy that they have treasured 
 up in their hearts for their fellow-men ; all the blood that they 
 have poured out for the cause of truth and righteousness— all 
 this has been garnered and placed to their account, not in the 
 books of men— God has taken care of it ; and He stands say- 
 ing, for the encouragement of His fainting children, "As the 
 rain and the snow which come down about you to-day shall 
 not return without accomplishing that whereto it is sent, so not 
 the slightest thing put forth for goodness, and usefulness, and 
 purity shall perish. Though it disappear, though it be hidden, 
 it is that it may do its oftice-work." 
 
 Do not work when you are in the sunshine alone. Do not 
 count only those things useful the effects of which you can see. 
 The results of usefulness are often covered up. It is well that 
 it is so, for man's pride and vanity easily get drunk on the wine 
 of success. From those, therefore, that do the most is hidden 
 much that they do. It is not best that they should know it all. 
 
THE STORM AND ITS LESSONS. 1 57 
 
 But God knows it; and there comes a registering day, a 
 reaping day, an exhibition day, a day of welcoming and 
 gratulation, when good men go home to heaven to be surprised 
 with the harvest of which they only sowed the seed — the much 
 that has come from the little. 
 
 A farmer goes to market to purchase grain. He puts the 
 bags containing it into his waggon, and drives slowly home. 
 As the waggon jolts over the stony road, one of the bags 
 becomes untied, and the grain is scattered along the way. 
 The birds catch some, fly off with it, and drop it in distant 
 places. Some is blown in different directions by the winds. 
 Thus the farmer goes on for leagues w^ithout knowing what he 
 is doing. But the next summer finds the scattered seed; it 
 starts, and grows, and when he sees his own grain he does not 
 know it. He did not even know that he lost it. And so with 
 good deeds. Men often perform them unconsciously, and they 
 bear fruit ; and when they see that fruit they do not know that 
 it is the result of anything they have done. 
 
 2. The advance of this world in goodness is not to be 
 judged by the outward sight. It is not to be judged by the 
 opinions of men — not by the opinions of even good men. 
 We cannot tell the power of moral influences by any external 
 signs. One thing we know, and that is, that there is nothing 
 so powerful in nature as there is in the moral influences which 
 God exerts on the world. Napoleon used to say that the 
 moral influence of his army was worth forty thousand soldiers. 
 The invisible moral influence which he carried with him then 
 was another vast army ! And men are finding out in these 
 later days that there is no other power so strong as influence — 
 and by influence we mean the power received by one mind from 
 other minds, in distinction from physical power. You are not to 
 form your estimate of the power of civilisation in the world from 
 what you see of civilising processes, nor of the power of love 
 from the exponents which you see of this power. You cannot 
 see what has been the power of Christianity in the world for 
 the last eighteen hundred years. Men speak of the long 
 delay of the fruits of Christianity. They say, " It began more 
 than eighteen hundred years ago, and yet the things that it 
 was promised should be wrought by it have not yet been 
 wrought." But who can tell how much has been wrought by 
 it ? You might as well undertake to tell how many seeds have 
 grown since the flood, as to tell what has been wrought by 
 Christianity in the world ! What data have you from which to 
 reckon respecting ?uch things? The subtle, hidden, recondite, 
 
158 THE STORM AND ITS LESSONS. 
 
 unknown, mysterious influences that are working in the nursery, 
 in the school, in all forms of business, in the mechanic arts, in 
 commerce, in politics, in literature, in the ten thousand 
 departments and organisations of society — who can estimate 
 them ? The root or the stem w^e can see, but it is only by and 
 bye that we shall see the blossom ; and those who live in the 
 harvest periods of the world will say, " How fast the world 
 grew when men thought it stood still ! " 
 
 3. The seeming disasters which come upon the cause of 
 rehgion, and upon the various virtues which it is sending forth 
 among men, need not give us any concern. You can kill a 
 seed, and that which has sprouted from it, in the vegetable 
 kingdom ; but not so in the moral kingdom. When a seed is 
 dropped from the hand of God you cannot kill the seed, and 
 you cannot kill that which has sprouted from it ; neither can 
 you crowd that which has sprouted back into the seed. You 
 may be sure that when any moral influence for good has begun 
 to grow, it will continue to grow. It may be hidden in one 
 age, but it will be revealed in another. It may be eclipsed in 
 one hemisphere, but it wall shine forth in another. It may 
 change in its manner of working, but it will never go backward. 
 The world has never lost any of its influences for good. It 
 has been steadily adding to those influences. Winter broods and 
 preserves under its protecting snow the very roots whose leaves 
 it slew, and gives them a new lease of summer. Reactions 
 and reverses are but leaf-stripping, not root-killing powers ! 
 
 In 1848 all Europe stood on tiptoe to see liberty, which 
 they thought was very near. Then a reaction came on, and all 
 Europe mourned because tyranny had reasserted its strength. 
 But tyranny had gained nothing, and liberty had lost nothing. 
 Liberty, like leaven, has been working there all the time, in 
 channels where men have failed to discern it, so that there is 
 more liberty in Europe now than there was in 1848. Italy 
 could not have maintained such liberty in 1848 as she has in 
 1859 ; and what she is achieving by moral power she is 
 prepared to sustain with physical courage. There was never 
 before so much liberty in the world as there is to-day. 
 
 It is said that such terrible disasters as that which has just 
 taken place in a sister state put back the cause of emanci- 
 pation.* Put back the cause of emancipation ! You might as 
 
 * In October, 1859, Harper's Ferry, Virginia, was invaded by a band 
 of twenty-two men, under the lead of John Brown, for the purpose of 
 instigating a general slave insurrection. The attempt failed. John Brown 
 was captured, tried on a charge of treason and. murder, and executed on 
 the 2nd of December, 1859, two days before the preaching of this sermon. 
 
THE STORM AND ITS LESSOXS. 1 59 
 
 well talk of reversing the decrees of God ! It was said that 
 the insurrection of 1830 put back the liberty of the slave ; yet 
 ever since that time a spirit of liberty has been at work among 
 us, which was unknown even in revolutionary periods, and it 
 has accomplished for human rights that which it would ordi- 
 narily have taken hundred of years to accomplish. 
 
 A man takes a seed, and says: "You want to grow; you shall 
 not; I will put you where you cannot;" and he stamps it into 
 the ground. It is gone ! There is not a thing to be seen of it ! 
 But the rains will find it, and the sun will come and whisper 
 hope to it, and the root will not ask permission to grow the 
 downward way, and the stalk will take permission to grow the 
 upward way, and that which was supposed to be stamped into its 
 grave shall find itself alive, and shall multiply a hundred-fold. 
 
 Now all the efforts that are being made to put back the cause 
 of liberty will prove to be but so many means for hastening the 
 day of its consummation. I like the tyrant's flail. I like to see 
 him plough. I like to see him make himself asinine for breaking 
 up the ground. I like to see him do a yeoman's duty in the 
 field. He is sowing the seed for the harvest of liberty. For 
 God, and not man, reigns in the earth. Men think they are 
 directing their own course, but God is steering them into His 
 own harbours. 
 
 God presides over all things, and over all men. He shapes 
 our courses. He loves the world, and bears it in His arms as 
 a mother carries her child in her bosom. He watches over it. 
 He smiles at the fantasies of tyranny, and mocks the heirs of 
 oppressors. He knows in his heart that the day is coming 
 when every man shall sit under his own vine and fig-tree, and 
 none shall make him afraid. 
 
 There is to me promise in the rain-drops of to-day, now that 
 I have learned to read them. I hear the voice of God saying 
 to my heart: "As the rain cometh down from heaven, and 
 returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it 
 bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and 
 bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goeth forth out of 
 My mouth ; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accom- 
 plish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing 
 whereto I sent it." Even so: Thy word is for religion, for love, 
 for liberty, for justice ; and Thy word shall abide for ever ! 
 
XII. 
 FAITHFULNESS IN LITTLE THINGS. 
 
 " Hf. that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much : and 
 he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much." — Luke xvi. lo. 
 
 The teaching of our Lord may be characterised as instinct with 
 a direct formative power upon the disposition and character. 
 The instruments He employed were the great moral truths of 
 nature and of grace. He spent no time in teaching us the 
 relations of one truth to another, and the coherence of the whole 
 into a system. This was a point in which He differed from, 
 and contrasted with, philosophic teachers. He mainly taught 
 the relation of grand moral truths to our moral sense, to our 
 feelings, and to our conduct. The record of Christ's teachings 
 is peculiarly full of ethical matter. It is rich beyond all other 
 teaching in sentiment, in spiritual truth, in food for the highest 
 reflection, and for the profoundest mystical experience. But 
 its front, its most noticeable aspect, is that of a scheme of 
 education, designed immediately as well as remotely to act 
 upon men's lives and upon their characters, to fashion them for 
 immortality and glory. 
 
 As we might suppose, the very root of moral character is 
 represented in Christ's teachings to be Truth. The term 
 righteousness covers the whole product of the faculty of con- 
 science. It is justice, truth, equity, fairness, uprightness, 
 integrity, purity, frankness, and whatever other word we employ 
 to signify truth in its ramification, and in its application to 
 human disposition and life. Even love, that is the highest 
 attainment of the human soul, cannot be developed indepen- 
 dently of conscience. Truth is the golden sandal in which 
 love must walk. Without the sandals of truth, love is like a 
 fair virgin wandering in a wilderness full of thorns and nettles, 
 with naked feet, which soon are torn and poisoned so that she 
 cannot move. There is not one of the moral sentiments that 
 can unfold from any other basis than that of conscience, or, in 
 its large sense, truth. Truth and justice, therefore, are the soil 
 
FAITHFULNESS IN LITTLE THINGS. l6l 
 
 out of which all moral faculties may be said to grow. It is, 
 consequently, either commanded, exhorted, or, yet more 
 emphatically, implied, in every part of the Lord's teachings. 
 
 In our text the Master declares that fidelity, which is an 
 element of conscience, must be thorough. It must not be 
 an optional thing, chosen when we see that it will be better 
 than any other instrument to secure a desired end. It must 
 belong to every part of life, pervading it. It must belong to 
 the least things as much as to the highest. It is not a declara- 
 tion that little things are as important as great things. It is 
 not a declaration that the conscience is to regard all duties as 
 of one magnitude and of one importance. It is a declaration 
 that the habit of violating conscience, even in the least things, 
 produces mischiefs that at last invalidate it for the greatest, 
 and that is a truth that scarcely can have contradiction. 
 
 Every man is bound to love the truth; not simply 
 the great truths of religion, of poUtical society, of philosophy 
 in its wide range — but every man is bound to love the 
 truth of things in personal affairs ; in minute matters ; in 
 daily thoughts ; in feelings ; in taste ; in trifles, as well as in 
 things of magnitude ; in matters of praise or blame ; in 
 raillery and wit ; in that immense microscopic realm of 
 human life down below human law, and even below the 
 •reach of public sentiment, where men are themselves the 
 sole spectators of themselves ; yea, lower than that, in that 
 unconscious region where unperceived influences well up, and 
 automatic impulses and spontaneous thoughts fly out from the 
 soul, as sparks snap from the burning brand, and yet carry 
 wiih them, in their minute atomic form, the whole nature of 
 that brand from which they shot. Down in that very realm of 
 germs and beginnings of thought, God requires truth. He 
 fequires tn^f/i in the intvard parts. 
 
 Our Lord declares that infidelity to the conscience in small 
 things is intimately connected with a like dereliction in larger 
 ones. Little lies are seeds of great ones. Litde cruelties are 
 germs of great ones. Little treacheries are, like small holes in 
 raiment, the beginnings of large ones. Little dishonesties are 
 like the drops that work through the banks of the levee ; a 
 drop is an engineer : it tunnels a way for its fellows, and they, 
 ■rushing, prepare for all behind them. A worm in a ship's 
 •plank proves, in time, worse than a cannon ball. 
 
 The whole truth comes to this : human life cannot be sound 
 without the presence of a sober and robust conscience in all its 
 parts. A series of minute derelictions, long continued, though 
 
1 62 FAITHFULNESS IN LITTLE THINGS. 
 
 of comparatively little consequence in the result of each upon 
 the apparent life, are of incalculable influence upon the interior 
 life, in their sum and final result. They deteriorate conscience 
 itself. They injure its tone and sensibilityc Human conduct 
 works in two ways. As the cannon that sends the missile far 
 across the field, to damage the enemy, also springs back, and 
 by recoil violently strains the gun carriage, and even injures 
 those that stand heedlessly near, so to our actions there is not 
 only a spring outward, but a rebound back. A great many 
 men attempt to judge whether a thing is right or wrong simply 
 by what they see that it does. Now the least part of a man's 
 action is that which he can see in its immediate consequences. 
 There be many courses of conduct in which the results before 
 a man's face are indifferent, or perhaps partially good, but in 
 which the reactive influence, the recoil upon the man's own 
 constitution and nature, is morally fatal. And in estimating 
 what is right and what is wrong, and how right and how wrong, 
 we are to take into account this double action — the effect 
 which a man's thoughts, and feelings, and judgments, and 
 conditions have upon his own moral nature, as well as upon 
 his fellows and upon the state of society. The little transgres- 
 sions in which men indulge, though they have no power upon 
 the setded course of human sflairs, even if they are swept out 
 into a current of public sentiment that carries them down, as 
 leaves are carried by the Amazon, are not harmless nor indiffer- 
 ent, because, aside from the influence of minor delinquencies 
 upon the sum of affairs outwardly, there is another history and 
 record, namely, their influence upon the actor. I repeat that 
 they deteriorate conscience. You can by a blow crush and 
 destroy the conscience, or you can nibble and gnaw it to 
 pieces. There is one way in which a lion strikes down his 
 prey, and there is another way in which a rat comes at its prey ; 
 and in time the gnawing of vermin is as fatal to beauty and life 
 itself as the stroke of the lion's paw. These little infidelities 
 to duty, truth, rectitude, lower the moral tone, limit its range, 
 destroy it sensibility. In short, they put out its light. It is 
 recorded of a lighthouse erected on a tropical shore, that it was 
 like to have failed for the most unlooked-for reason. When 
 first kindled, the brilliant light drew about it such clouds of 
 insects which populate the evening and night of equatorial 
 lands, that they covered and fairly darkened the glass. There 
 was a noble light that shone out into the darkness and van- 
 (juished night, that all the winds could not disturb, nor all the 
 clouds and storms hide ; but the soft wings and gauzy bodies 
 
FAITHFULNESS IN LITTLE THINGS. 1 63 
 
 of myriads of insects, each one of which was insignificant, 
 efFectuaJly veiled the light, and came near defeating the pro- 
 posed gift to mariners. And so it is in respect to the 
 conscience. There may be a power in it to resist great 
 assault, to overcome strong temptations, and to avoid fearful 
 dangers, but there may be a million little venomous insect 
 habits, unimportant in themselves taken individually, but 
 fearful in their results collectively. 
 
 I propose to illustrate this truth in some of its relations to 
 life. 
 
 In the first place, I shall speak of the heedlessness and 
 unconscientiousness with which men take up opinions and 
 form judgments, on every side and of every kind, in daily life. 
 In regard to events, men seldom make it a matter of conscience 
 to see things as they are, and hear things as they really report 
 themselves. They follow their curiosity, their sense of wonder, 
 their temper, their interests, or their prejudices, instead of 
 their judgment and their conscience. There are few men who 
 make it a point to know just what things do happen of which 
 they are called to speak, and just how they happen. How 
 many men were there round the corner ? " Twenty," says the 
 man, quickly. There were seven. How long did you have to 
 wait? *'Two hours, at least." It was just three-quarters of 
 an hour by the watch. So, in a thousand things that happen 
 every day, one man repeats what his imagination reported to 
 him, and another man what his impatient, irritable feelings 
 said to him. There are very few men that make it a matter of 
 deliberate conscience to see things as they are, and report 
 them as they happen. 
 
 The impressions that pass through men's minds of current 
 events, if they were taken out, measured, and analysed, would 
 be found not simply partial and crude — for partialness and 
 crudity belong to our uneducated and undeveloped state — but 
 without much proper moral effort to secure correctness. 
 
 Did you ever look at a camera-obscura without the double 
 glass by which objects are reversed ? If you take simply the 
 glass of the camera, everything is reflected upside down, and 
 inside of your room you shall see men going like flies on the 
 ceiling, with their feet up and their heads down, and trees 
 hanging with their roots up and their tops down. And if you 
 were to turn men's minds inside out, you would find that their 
 impressions of the events of life and current things are all in a 
 jumble, and you would see trees upside down, and men 
 walking unnaturally. 
 
 M — 2 
 
164 FAITHFULNESS IN LITTLE THINGS. 
 
 This becomes a great hindrance to business, clogs it, keeps 
 men under the necessity of revising their false impressions ; 
 expends time and work ; puts men on false tracks and in 
 wrong directions ; multiplies the burdens of life. As men that 
 walk in northern climates find that their own breath, rising in 
 a; cloud before their eyes, and freezing on their eyelashes and 
 upon their beard, hinders their vision, so the thoughts, and 
 feelings, and prejudices that rise up before the minds of men 
 Nind their judgments of the common things of life. More 
 than half of the burdensomeness of men's daily lives consists 
 in this — that they are obliged to turn out and trundle away 
 their misconceptions, and false imaginations, and wrong 
 measurements, and hasty judgments, and unconscientious 
 experiences. We are all like Penelope, except in purpose. 
 We knit one day, and the next unravel what we have knit. 
 Our life consists of zigzags instead of perpetual onward 
 movements, and for this reason we have a very imperfect 
 moral sense. We are for ever ciphering the sum over again. 
 Most men, I think, in respect to questions in life, are as I am 
 in counting money. I count only for confusion. The first 
 time going over the amount is a hundred dollars ; and, to 
 make it sure, I count again, when it is a hundred and ten ; and 
 as there must be an error somewhere, I count again, and it is 
 ninety-five ; and the longer I count the more utterly uncertain 
 I am what the sum is. So it is with men in reference to their 
 moral judgments of afi"airs. They go over, and over, and 
 over them, because there is a fundamental want of moral 
 accuracy, arising from a want of training and right habit in 
 that regard. 
 
 But its worse effect is seen in the judgments and prejudices 
 which men are Hable to entertain about their fellow-men, and 
 the false sentences which they are accustomed to issue, either 
 by word of mouth or by thoughts and feelings. In thousands 
 of men, the mind, if unveiled, would be found to be a Star- 
 chamber filled with false witnesses and cruel judgments. If 
 you were to go back into the old Star-chamber of England, and 
 read the records made of testimony given and sentences 
 passed by men of partial information, what a literature of hell 
 would those records be ! But worse than these are the cruel, 
 rash, hateful judgments which men form of each other in the 
 silence of the mind, simply because they follow their interests, 
 their feelings, their ]Drejudices, and not their conscience, in 
 ascertaining facts and coming to conclusions. Tnerefore it is 
 that the Word of God says, "Judge righteous judgment;" 
 
FAITHFULNESS IN LITTLE THINGS. 1 65 
 
 that is, according to conscience and equity, and not according 
 to passion or carelessness. 
 
 Few men would dare, if they were sworn upon a jury, to 
 give a heedless or a false verdict. Still fewer, if they sat as 
 judge, to determine law and promote justice, would consent to 
 employ their high position for the subversion of law and justice. 
 But every man is juror and judge both, sworn by God's law to 
 just judgments about his fellow-men. Human actions are 
 passing before the mind, and if conscience is in the judgment- 
 seat, men are apt to form right judgments of character and 
 conduct; but if pride, or arrogance, or selfishness, or heed- 
 lessness, or any of the rebel crew are sitting in that seat, then 
 men are accustomed to form about their fellow-men such judg- 
 ments as, if made in court, would outrage every principle of 
 justice. It only needs that a judge should once deliberately 
 pervert justice to blast his reputation. But there is not a single 
 day in which you do not, in your silent thoughts, if not in 
 words, asperse the character, and motives, and conduct of your 
 fellow-men. Although you may not do men harm by pub- 
 lishing your thoughts, you injure yourself by entertaining them. 
 It does any man harm to have wrong judgments proceed from 
 a biassed moral sense. 
 
 The effect in each case may be small, but if you consider the 
 sum-totals of a man's life, and the grand amount of the endless 
 scenes of false impressions, of wicked judgments, of causeless 
 prejudices, they will be found to be enormous. 
 
 This, however, is the least evil. It is the entire untrust- 
 worthiness of a moral sense which has been so dealt with that 
 is most to be deplored. The conscience ought to be like a 
 perfect mirror. It ought to reflect exactly the image that falls 
 upon it. A man's judgment that is kept clear by commerce 
 with conscience ought to reveal things as they are, facts as 
 tbey exist, and conduct as it occurs. 
 
 Now it is not necessary to break a mirror to pieces in 
 order to make it worthless. Let one go behind it with a 
 pencil, or with a needle of the finest point, and, with delicate 
 touch, make the smallest line through the silver coating of 
 the back; the next day let him make another line at right 
 angles to that; and the third day let him make still 
 another line parallel to the first one; and the next day let 
 him make another line parallel to the second, and so con- 
 tinue to do day by day, and one year shall not have passed 
 away before that mirror will be so scratched that it will 
 be good for nothing. It is not necessary to deal it a hard 
 
l66 FAITHFULNESS IN LITTLE THINGS. 
 
 blow to destroy its power; these delicate touches will do 
 it, little by little. 
 
 It is not necessary to be a murderer or a burglar in order to 
 destroy the moral sense; but ah ! these million little infelicities, 
 as they are called, these scratchings and raspings, take the 
 silver off from the back of the conscience — take the tone and 
 temper out of the moral sense. 
 
 Nay, we do not need even such mechanical force as this; 
 just let the apartment be uncleansed in which the mirror stands ; 
 let particles of dust, and the little flocculent parts of smoke, 
 settle, film by fihn, flake by flake, speck by speck, upon the 
 surface of the mirror, and its function is destroyed, so that it 
 will reflect neither the image of yourself nor of anything else. 
 Its function is as much destroyed as if it were dashed to pieces. 
 
 Not even is this needed ; only let one come so near to it 
 that his warm breath falling on its cold face is condensed to 
 vapour, and then it can make no report. 
 
 Now there are comparatively few men who destroy their 
 moral sense by a dash and a blow, but there is many a man 
 whose conscience is seared as with a hot iron. There are but 
 few men of whom it cannot be said that the warm breath of 
 passion covers their moral sense with vapour ; that the dust 
 and smoke of neglect settle on it and hide its face ; or that the 
 gentle touches of their own thoughts, and feelings, and actions 
 destroy its reflecting power. It is these little things, working 
 day by day, for weeks, and months, and years, that destroy the 
 purity, and so the trustworthiness, of conscience. 
 
 And so it has come to pass that men are so unreliable and 
 untrustworthy that, in fact, we do not trust their reports. 
 Children do. We trust a few men whom we have proved and 
 known. But it is a sad fact that as we grow older, we do not 
 trust men in general ; but are on our guard, and cautious whom 
 we trust. There is something charming in that innocence of 
 children which leads them to run to every one that smiles, and 
 something sad in that reserved, cautioning look with which the 
 mother draws the child back, as much as to say, " My darling, 
 you know nothing about him." The child is right. It follows 
 the impulse of its better nature. Its conduct is an index of 
 what this life should be, and what the heavenly life will be. But 
 the mother's caution is not unwise, because she has learned 
 that the consciences of men have little to do with their character 
 and conduct, and that men are not to be trusted until more 
 known than we ordinarily know them. 
 
 How is it with yourselves ? How many men do you trust ? 
 
FAITHFULNESS IN LITTLE THINGS. 1 67 
 
 How many men do you know that you would trust ? Could 
 you not count them on your hand, and then have at least four 
 lingers to use for something else ? I do not mean that if they 
 were to be waked up, and put upon their honour, and fortified 
 and hedged about, they could not be in some measure trusted; 
 but, taking affairs as they are, do you not think it necessary to 
 look on each side of a man, and ask, " What is his interest ? 
 where did he come from? what does he represent?" before 
 you will trust him? Is not that the process in life of men 
 among men ? Not bad men among bad men merely — is it not 
 the spontaneous action of men? Do you not find that instinc- 
 tively you deal with one man differently from another ? And 
 does not the difference turn on this — that one man goes by 
 obstinacy in a certain direction ; that imagination in another 
 leads him to exaggerate ; and that yet another is cautious, 
 reserved, and suspicious ? Are you not persuaded that all men 
 have to be taken according to their dispositions ? Do you not 
 know that before you take a man's testimony there is an 
 instantaneous sifting, like the questioning by lawyers of 
 witnesses on the stand, who are like shuttlecocks between 
 battledores, thrown back and forth, both ways, in order that 
 you may know whether to trust him or not, and whether what 
 he says is true or false ? 
 
 Look at the way in which men of the world treat other men 
 of the world. Look at the degree of trustworthiness which has 
 impressed itself upon your mind as belonging to men, and 
 which comes out in your involuntary daily business. Are those 
 men only to be characterised as equitable that have truth in 
 the inward parts ; that form righteous judgments ; that are 
 faithful in little things in order that they may be faithful in 
 large ? Do you find such men ? Blessed be God, I do ; just 
 enough to make it sure that such men can exist in this world ; 
 just enough to make me feel that I shall not give up humanity; 
 just enough to make me sure that there are ideals and models 
 to which I can point the young. And yet the prevaiUng experi- 
 ence is one that humbles us, and saddens the heart, as an 
 evidence of our moral deterioration. 
 
 We must know the man, and make allowance for his pecu- 
 liarities. We have to bring together concurrent testimonies, 
 and make an average, and so arrive at conclusions respecting 
 probabilities. The judgment and conscience are rarely, if ever, 
 presumed to give a true report. We have to go into a calcu- 
 lation to find out what is true. 
 
 This is revealed in all our courts. Men's senses are known 
 
l68 FAITHFULNESS IN LITTLE THINGS. 
 
 to lie, not merely on purpose, but through heedlessness. It is a 
 very common thing for men not to see what they look at, and 
 not to hear what sounds in their ears. It is supposed that a 
 man's eyesight is the most reliable testimony. You will often 
 hear a man say, " Do you not believe me ? I saw it myself." 
 That is the very reason why I do not believe most men, 
 because there is nothing wath reference to which men are so 
 often mistaken as the things that they look at ; for having eyes 
 they see not. 
 
 I stayed last Friday night at the Continental Hotel in Phila- 
 delphia, where they have a sliding chamber that runs up from 
 a lower floor to the fifth storey, following an immense column 
 of iron, cut like a screw, which is stationary, in the centre. If 
 you stand below the chamber, no person can persuade you 
 that that column does not rise and fall, such is the effect 
 produced on the eye by the spiral motion. You cannot make 
 yourself feel that that column is not ascending and descending, 
 carrying with it a fixed chamber. Your eye lies. The column, 
 turns round, but it does not ascend or descend a particle. 
 Now get into the chamber. There is an iron column extend- 
 ing from top to bottom of the building. In that chamber yoU' 
 are carried up and down, and the column stands still ; and yet 
 I defy you to make it seem as though anything moved but the 
 column. If you went by your sense of seeing, you would 
 declare that the chamber did not move. Under such circum- 
 stances, one would be apt to say, "The chamber is stationary, 
 and the column moves, or there is no truth in eyesight."' That 
 is it— there is no absolute or infallible truth in cyeright. The 
 column is the only thing that is stationary. Men say, " I saw 
 it," as though that settled the controversy. Ah ! if you saw it, 
 then I do not believe you. And cur courts have pronounced 
 an implied judgment upon the fallibleness of men's senses. It 
 is not till you have put one eyesight with another, and one ear 
 with another, and made a sort of equation of errors, that you 
 can come to anything like a certainty of judgment. 
 
 The effect of this is not merely to teach us the moral lesson 
 that man is fallible: it is to diminish the trust of man in man. 
 And what is the effect of diminishing that? It is to introduce 
 an element which dissevers society, which drives men away 
 ^rom one another, and takes away our strength. Faith in man, 
 trust in man, is the great law of cohesion in human society. 
 Anything that makes men distrust or waver in their confidence, 
 anything that wakes up their suspicions, really lends to disin- 
 tegrate and separate them. By as much as you lack faith, you 
 
FAITHFULNESS IN LITTLE THINGS. 1 69 
 
 lose unity, and with it power and helpfulness, and lay the 
 foundation for mischiefs. 
 
 And so this infidelity in little things and little duties works 
 both inwardly as well as outwardly. It deteriorates the moral 
 sense ; it makes men unreliable ; it makes man stand in doubt 
 of man ; it loosens the ties that bind society together, and 
 make it strong; it is the very counteracting agent of that 
 divine love which was meant to bring men together in power. 
 
 The same truth, yet more apparently, and with more melan- 
 choly results, is seen in the untrustworthiness and infidelity of 
 men in matters of honesty and dishonesty. The man that 
 steals one penny is — ^just as great a transgressor as if he stole 
 a thousand dollars? No, not that. The man that steals one 
 single penny is — as great a transgressor against the laws of 
 society as if he stole a thousand dollars ? No, not exactly 
 that. The man that steals one penny is — just as great a 
 transgressor against the commercial interests of men as if he 
 stole a thosand dollars? No, not that. The man that steals 
 a penny is just as great a transgressor against the pimiy of liis 
 own conscience as if he stole a million of dollars. When a man 
 makes up his mind that he will be a thorough-paced villain, 
 and steal like a cashier, he does not do himself any more 
 damage in his moral sense than when he says, " I will filch a 
 ])enny." To steal large sums damages the firm, damages the 
 bank, damages the commercial interests of the community; 
 but, so far as moral deterioration is concerned, the moment a 
 man says, '* I will do wrong," the damage is done ; the glass is 
 broken; the mirror is defaced ; the conscience is soiled. He 
 cannot do more if he says, "I will do a double wrong, or a 
 triple wrong." And there is the great mischief of it. There 
 is an impression that the culpability of things bears some 
 proportion to their magnitude. To steal an apple is not much. 
 In steahng it you do not get much ; but you get all the damage 
 that you would if it was a golden apple. To betray a small 
 trust has the same moral effect as to betray a large one. 
 
 Do you stand at a bank counter, and present a check for a 
 thousand dollars? and does the man behind the counter, in 
 his haste, hand you eleven hundred dollars? and do you walk 
 away, saying, ''It is his business to take care of his own aftairs : 
 I will take care of mine?" You are a thief! The law of 
 honesty is that no man shall take a thing without rendering an 
 equivalent, and that law you have violated. If that man 
 blunders in finance, it is no reason why you should steal. And 
 yet how many men are there, that, if they were to take a 
 
lyo FAITHFULNESS IN LITTLE THINGS. 
 
 thousand, a hundred, or ten, or five dollars too much, would 
 think of returning it? You say that corporations have no 
 souls. Vou will not have any that is worth anything long if 
 you pursue such a course. 
 
 How many men are there that, when looking over the 
 money that they have received during the day, and, seeing a 
 bill that appears like a counterfeit bill, do not like to look at 
 it again, and thrust it into the drawer? You have taken a 
 circuitous way to make yourself a scoundrel. You saw it 
 sufficiently to produce the conviction on your mind that it was 
 counterfeit ; and the moral effect of passing it is the same as 
 though you knew it to be counterfeit. Or do you take it up 
 and say, " Well, somebody has passed it on me, and I have a 
 right to shove it along ? " Why, you are a counterfeiter ! I 
 tell you, my friend, it only requires the opportunity to lead you 
 to forge bills and put them on other men ! Do you protest 
 and say, " Do you expect that I am going to lose that 
 money? " It is a choice between losing the money and losing 
 your conscience. I do not know what a person would not do 
 who is willing to throw his manhood away for the sake of a 
 little money. And if you are going to sell yourself, do not 
 sell yourself for a dollar bill, or a five-dollar bill— though I 
 think such a man would get enough for himself even at such a 
 price. 
 
 I do not know of any buyer that pays such high prices as 
 the devil pays when he buys men. Here is a man that sells 
 himself for about one-eighth of a pound of chicory in a pound 
 of coffee. He sells himself to every customer that comes in. 
 He adidterates. He prepares his commodity v.dth a lie, and 
 retails it with another lie. Every time a man commits a known 
 dishonesty, he sells his soul ; and thousands of men are selling 
 themselves by little driblets. A man who sells himself thus — 
 cheats himself? No, he cheats the devil. The devil pays too 
 much for him ! 
 
 How many men are there who, if, through carelessness, the 
 conductor neglected to punch their railroad ticket, and they 
 found it in their pocket the next day, would not take it out, 
 and look at it, and say, " I think I will use that again ? " You 
 paid for that ticket a dollar ? Yes. You have had service to 
 the amount of a dollar? Yes. If, then, you ride with that 
 ticket again, you steal one dollar from the railroad company 
 as much as if you went to the till and took a dollar. And yet, 
 how many men would not ride twice with a ticket under such 
 circumstances — yes, forty times ? 
 
FAITHFULNESS IN LITTLE THINGS. 171 
 
 I am informed that before the commutation system was 
 abandoned by the ferry company, men of property and good 
 standing in society would boldly declare that they had a 
 commutation ticket in their pocket when they had none, for 
 the sake of going through without paying; They did this 
 when the ferryage was but one penny. They lied for one cent ! 
 
 I pity the devil. I do not know what he does with such 
 men. It is awful to be chief magistrate of a parcel of men like 
 these, I cannot understand how these exiguous, thrice- 
 squeezed men can be managed. 
 
 I have given you but one or two instances of this kind ; bat 
 if you comb society you will find it to be full of just such little 
 meannesses — things that men do with the cock of the eye, or 
 with dexterity of finger ; misunderstandings ; overreachings ; 
 underplottings ', all sorts of trickery — which pivot on essential 
 dishonesty. 
 
 And these rebound. They destroy the moral sense. If you 
 go to-night to a bank, and break through the door and rob the 
 safe, or work above it, and spUt the granite over it, you are not 
 more dishonest than you would be if you only ran away with a 
 sixpence that did not belong to you. 
 
 The danger of these little things is veiled under a false im- 
 pression. You will hear a man say of his boy, " Though he 
 may tell a little lie, he would not tell a big one ; though he may 
 practise a little deceit, he would not practise a big one ; though 
 he may commit a little dishonesty, he would not commit a big 
 one." But these Httle things are the ones that destroy the 
 honour, and the moral sense, and throw down the fence, and 
 let a whole herd of bufi'aloes of temptation drive right through 
 you. Criminals that die on the gallows ; miserable creatures 
 that end their days in poorhouses ; wretched beings that hide 
 themselves in loathsome places in cities ; men that are driven 
 as exiles across the sea and over the world — these are the ends 
 of little things, the beginnings of which were thought to be safe. 
 It is these little things that constitute your peculiar temptation 
 and your worst danger. 
 
 Take heed, parents — you that are training your children — 
 take heed what God says to you ; ye that are young, take heed 
 what God says ; and let us all take heed. *' He that is faithful 
 in that which is least is faithful also in much ; and he that is 
 unjust in the least is unjust also in much." 
 
xni. 
 
 THE BLIND RESTORED TO SIGHT. 
 
 *' And they came to Jericho : and as Jesus went out of Jericho with His 
 disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimseus, the son of 
 Timseus, sat by the highway-side begging. And when he heard that 
 it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say, Jesus, thou son 
 of David, have mercy on me. And many charged him that he should 
 hold his peace : but he cried the more a great deal, thou son of David, 
 have mercy on me. And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be 
 called. And they called the blind man, saying unto him, be of good 
 comfort, rise ; He calleth thee. And he, casting away his garment, 
 rose, and came to Jesus. And Jesus answered and said unto him, What 
 wilt thou that 1 should do unto thee? The blind man said unto Him, 
 Lord, that I might receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, Go thy 
 way ; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received 
 his sight, and followed Jesus in the way." — Mark x. 46 — 52. 
 
 The place was near Jericho, a city about eighteen miles north 
 of Jerusalem, and seven west of the Jordan. The scene was 
 one of wondrous interest. 
 
 Emerging from Jericho came the more nimble and excitable 
 part of the people, for the narrative shows that there were some 
 who came up to the blind man in advance of the Saviour. Then 
 following were women leading their little children, and old men 
 making their way as best they could. There was a mixed multi- 
 tude, doubtless, surging around the Saviour, and in turn coming 
 up, or dropping back to let others come ; while He came, 
 patient, collected, clear-faced, large-eyed — eyes that looked full 
 upon you ; not jjiercing, or searching, as if seeking to know, but 
 with a comprehending gaze, as if He included, and understood 
 fully, every one that He looked upon, and needed not that any 
 should tell Him what was in man ; talking to those about Him, 
 never with outward excitement, but with that deep inward feeling 
 which causes one's words to rebound from your heart, fluttering 
 it with strange excitement and mysterious feelings. 
 
 By turns He listened to (juestions, and replied ; or he heard 
 with a gentle attentiveness the interchange of words in the crowd, 
 one with another, answering matters only when referred to Him. 
 Now and then some event would be seized, or some object pointed 
 out, by which He would illustrate a truth so vividly that no 
 man ever saw the fig-lrce, the stone, the flower, the sparrow, 
 
THE BLIND RESTORED TO SIGHT. 1 73 
 
 the city or building again, without recalling the truth for which 
 it had served as a text. When the noon grew torrid, the crowd 
 would scatter and shelter themselves. At evening, gathering 
 again, they would move on. In this, to us, strange way our 
 Saviour accomplished the greater part of His teaching. He ivenf 
 about doing good. And along the path of such wanderings it was 
 that He met the occasions for His most remarkable miracles. 
 
 It was such a progress as this that had now just begun. 
 
 The contrast to this picture could not have been thrown in 
 more artistically, by opposition of circumstances, had the scene 
 been arranged merely for effect, for, in truth, nature and life 
 are the true artists. 
 
 A blind man there was, sitting by the wayside. Oh, to be 
 blind ! To see no face ; to read no book ; to behold no field, 
 or tree, or flower ; to have no morning and no evening, but 
 unbroken night for ever ; to see no coming spring, no changes 
 in the purpling bark of yet unleaved trees, no sprouting grass, 
 no coming birds ; to see neither father nor mother, neither 
 friend nor companion ; and oh ! to lose the ineffable bounty 
 of God in little children, that fill the eyes with such delight 
 that one might for hours ask only to wander and gaze upon 
 them ; to be among those that see, and you not to see ; to be 
 unable to look when one cries, '' Lo here— lo there ! " to 
 almost forget that you do not see, and accept darkness as if it 
 were light, timid steps and groping for manly walking — this is 
 indeed a bitter thing ! 
 
 Yet there are many consolations to the blind who have 
 kindred, and maintenance, and home. But to be blind and 
 be a beggar ; to make your misfortune the capital of your trade ; 
 to parade your sightless eyes ; to sit with professional expec- 
 tancy till the face fixes itself to the piteous look of mendicancy; 
 to solicit and gather nothing ; to become used to rebuff and 
 neglect; to sit all day by the street or road, as a fisher by a 
 stream; to cast your angle for a dole, as he his bait for a 
 hungry fish— this is bitter; bitterer yet if the victim -feels his 
 degradation, and still worse if he does not, for then the man is 
 blind inwardly : he has lost two pairs of eyes, the outward and 
 the inner. 
 
 It was such a one that sat begging by the wayside. It was 
 near, I have said, to Jericho. Past him there would flow the 
 double stream. He had chosen his place skilfully. It was 
 where two streams met — the coming in and the going out of 
 the people, to and from the city ; those whose journey was 
 almost done, and who felt good-natured at the prospect of 
 
174 THE BLIND RESTORED TO SIGHT. 
 
 soon reaching home ; and those who were just going away, and 
 were lithe and fresh upon the outset of their travel. No step 
 could fall and his ear not detect it. Rendered acute by 
 serving for two senses, the ear discriminated whether it was an 
 old man, by the heavy and unspringing tread; or mid-manhood, 
 by its energy and haste ; or youth, by its nimbleness and 
 waywardness; whether the soft step was a maiden's, or the 
 heavy tramp a soldier's. 
 
 To such an ear there came a sound which it could not miss. 
 What was it? Many feet, and the murmuring sound of voices. 
 An army? Was there an insurrection, then? It was not a 
 measured tread — it was no array. Was is some procession of 
 people for religious observance ? No festival day was this. 
 Such days were too good harvests for the blind man to miss 
 the calender of charity. It was a strange' sound coming on — 
 drawing nearer. He turned to it. Now came the clearer 
 sounds of those that led the crowd. Their voices grew near, 
 and he cried out as they came, asking what it meant. The 
 more affable of them told him, " Jesus of Nazareth passeth by." 
 
 What thing has happened to him? His face grows pale. 
 He trembles all over. His hands begin to learn a new art of 
 supplication. What was there in this name, Jesus of Nazareth, 
 that should work such an excitement as fills the poor beggar? 
 Ah ! he had heard of him. Who had not ? It was he who 
 had raised the dying from death. It was he who had restored 
 cripples innumerable. He had touched with coolness those 
 that were parched with fevers. Wherever He went, somebody 
 got well. Whoever had ailments, and came to Jesus, was 
 healed of whatsoever plague he had. The news was not 
 sluggish. Everybody had heard of it. The very air was full 
 of it. He had heard and pondered it. He had doubtless 
 known that Christ had put clay on the eyes of a blind man — a 
 man blind from birth — and restored him to sight. Know who 
 it was ? Indeed he did ! He had promised himself, I doubt 
 not^ often, that if ever he had a chance, there should be an 
 opportunity for a new miracle. And now, oh, unlooked-for 
 happiness ! oh, joyful chance ! here came that very being who 
 filled the land with tumult, the priests with rage, and the 
 people with joy. 
 
 Our troubles are not at all times alike troublesome to us. 
 Even the sea ceases its motion at times, and its surf forgets to 
 murmur. Griefs -and cares, bitter memories, and heavy troubles 
 intermit their tyranny, and come again with redoubled oppres- 
 sion. Like tides, sorrows seem sometimes to flow out, and 
 
THE BLIND RESTORED TO SIGHT. 
 
 175 
 
 leave the sands bare. But again they sometimes rush in upon 
 us like tides, as if they feared that something should have 
 snatched from them their lawful prey. 
 
 And just so, I trow, came over this begging blind man, at this 
 moment, an unutterable pang at the consciousness of his blind- 
 ness. A moment before he could have laughed, and shot back 
 a merry quip at some thoughtless jest that touched his eyes. 
 But now that the Healer has come, now that he might be 
 restored, he was in a serious and earnest mood. Why, to open 
 a blind man's eyes is to give him the whole world ! And oh, 
 to be so near a cure, to be within the sound of that voice that 
 commanded life and death, that awoke the grave, that drove 
 diseases from the body and sins from the soul, and yet to lose 
 the chance 1 Such a piercing sense there must have been of 
 his deprivation, such an unutterable desire for sight, such eager 
 hope that his deliverance was at hand, and such trembling fear 
 lest it might fail, that it is no wonder that he lost all sense of 
 propriety, and did so cry and demean himself as to strike sur- 
 prise and offence to the nearest men around about him. 
 
 And what did he cry? "Jesus, thou son of David, have 
 mercy on me." 
 
 It is given in Luke's Gospel with some variations, and with 
 some additional circumstances, though the account is substan- 
 tially like that in Mark. 
 
 " Hearing the multitude pass by, he asked what it meant. 
 And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth passeth by. And 
 he cried, saying, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me." 
 
 It is a little interesting to notice how differently a man's 
 troubles strike him and those that are only spectators. 
 
 While he thus cried out, and the irresistible necessity of im- 
 ploration was upon him, while his heart was like a rushing 
 river, and was seeking the flow out from his mouth, his eyes 
 being stopped, those about him naturally had a sense of the 
 violation of propriety : for it was out of place for a beggar to 
 make such a clamour as the royal procession with the Master 
 of life and death was going by. 
 
 And so they said to him, " Hush ! be still ! be decent ! be 
 quiet ! " They " charged him that he should hold his peace." 
 But what did he care for their advice ? He walked over it as 
 lordly as ever a king walked among peasants. Nay, " he cried 
 the more a great deal, Thou son of David, have mercy on me." 
 The attempt to stop him only excited him, and made more 
 impetuous that which was sufficiently earnest before. 
 
 Now the scene changes : the crowd surge, and stop, and 
 
176 THE BLIND RESTORED TO SIGHT. 
 
 gather around the centre; for the jNIaster has heard and seen, 
 and He knows all. "Jesus stood still, and commanded him 
 to be called." And now all were curious, and with that fitful 
 change which is so characteristic of the ignorant, they who 
 before had been clamorous to keep him still, ran good-naturedly 
 to say to him : " Be of good comfort; rise, He calleth thee." 
 And the blind man, " casting away his garment," throwing 
 everything away from him that encumbered him, sprang toward 
 the sound, and wondered from whence it came. He "rose, 
 and came to Jesus." He could not see Him. He could only 
 know of His presence by the sound of His voice. "And Jesus 
 answered and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should do 
 unto thee?" He knew what he wanted to have done, but 
 Christ always loved to be asked. " The blind man said unto 
 Him, Lord, that I might receive my sight." There was not in 
 all the world another thing that he would have Christ to give 
 him. He might have offered him wealth, honour, all bounty 
 of life ; but the intense desire of his soul was wrapped up in 
 that one thing — "Cure me of my ailment; give me light; make 
 me as other men that see the sun and all the fair things of 
 earth; heal me." Then Christ spake, and it was done. He 
 that brought forth the light in the morning of creation, by a 
 word brought dawn upon this blind man's eyes. He said to 
 him, "Go thy way; thy faith hatli made the whole." No man 
 ever put trust in Christ that did not find Him more than He has 
 promised. And what was the way that He went ? "' Imme- 
 diately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way." 
 
 Luke, in narrating the same scene, says, " Jesus said unto 
 him. Receive thy sight : thy faith hath saved thee. And imme- 
 diately he received his sight, and followed Him, glorifying God; 
 and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise unto God." 
 
 Here was another of those marvels. The crowd, no longer 
 indifferent, now, doubtless, gather about to participate in won- 
 drous joy, and praise God, when the man began to give utter- 
 ance to his pious feeling. It seems that he saw twice : he saw 
 with the outward man and with the inward man : and he was 
 healed more than he himself meant to be. 
 
 Was he only the blind man ? Was his blindness the only 
 misfortune? Since the days of Christ, to this hour, has the 
 Saviour, in His Providence or His grace, passed by in any 
 v;ay when there have not sat blind men heedless, ignorant of 
 His coming? I am not speaking alone of those who are blind 
 so that they cannot see the sun, the moon, the stars, and all 
 the endless objects that God has created. There is another 
 
THE BLIND RESTORED TO SIGHT. 177 
 
 realm besides the physical. There are other things besides 
 those that can be discerned with the material eye. There is a 
 spiritual realm. And that man who cannot perceive God in 
 nature is blind. The heavens declare His glory, and the firma- 
 ment showeth His handiwork. The world is full of the 
 evidences of His being and presence. And yet there are many 
 that gaze minutely upon all these letters written upon sky and 
 ground, and never discern the secret of the literature. They 
 admire nature, but never God. They admire the treasures of 
 nature, but never the Hand that created them. 
 
 There be many that do not see the providence of God as it 
 is displayed in them, and through them, and about them, in the 
 order of things, and in the accomplishment of divine purposes. 
 In the complex affairs of men, in all the concerns of life and 
 society, there is a living God, divining, deciding, ordering, and 
 yet there be many that set their faces against this procession of 
 things, and neither discern it nor understand it. 
 
 Nay, there be those that understand neither the things that 
 are outside of them, nor the things that are in them ; men that 
 do not know what they are themselves, and that do not see 
 what is their miserable condition. The blind man knew that 
 he was blind ; but in the case of those of whom I speak, there 
 is added to their blindness the curse of not knowing that they 
 are blind. Like those mentioned in the Apocalypse, they are 
 naked, and hungry, and sick, and miserable, though they are 
 where there is an abundance of everything that they need. 
 
 There are those who see nothing in spiritual life ; nothing in 
 their own sinful condition and its misery ; nothing in the 
 Christian's life — no joy, no triumph, no argument of courage 
 and hope. 
 
 There are those who see no beauty in the source of Christian 
 life, in the revelation of God. Especially they are enlightened 
 in all the elements of the character of Christ— in all the 
 processes of His official work. In all His promises or truths 
 there is to them nothing that has form or comeliness. They 
 look upon these things, they hear them described, and they 
 follow the disquisition, and yet they are blind to them. 
 
 Are there no such blind persons here ? Are there none that 
 have looked wisfully upon the offices of the Church, and longed 
 that they might see ? None that have often and often in mind, 
 turned toward God and wished that they might discern ? None 
 upon whom spiritual darkness rests like a pall ? None that have 
 sought by various ways to lift the veil and curtain, and have 
 obtained no benefit, but grown rather worse by much helping? 
 
 N 
 
lyS THE BLIND RESTORED TO SIGHT. 
 
 It is to such that Jesus comes to-night. Ke passes by when- 
 ever His name or word is proclaimed. As along the road from 
 Jericho He passed within sound of the blind man, so to-night, 
 by His spirit and by His truth, He passes not far from every 
 one that is here. And if there were the same sense of misfor- 
 tune, the same intense yearning for relief, the same impetuous 
 outcry, and the same irresistible faith with which Bartimseus, 
 the son of Timceus, came to Christ, there should be no blind 
 man among you unsuccoured or unhealed. 
 
 But there are special cases of blindness. There are those w^ho 
 seem to have lost, almost entirely, the sense of their condition, 
 so as no longer to be able to gauge, in any wise, their progress. 
 
 Men grow worse and worse — harder and harder ; and they 
 go further and further from God and from hope, and yet do 
 not see nor appreciate their danger. There are those who are 
 fast preparing to leave these earthly scenes, who have upon 
 them all the signs and tokens that they are departing, and yet 
 they are blind to these marks of decay, which all others note. 
 You only do not notice the frosts upon your own head. The 
 teeth drop from their places, the eye grows dim, the hearing 
 is a little less acute, there is a hea\ier tiead as you walk, there 
 are various infirmities that are beginning to touch you, and 
 that are paying their visits to you more and more frequently. 
 Others see that you are past the climax of life ; but you are 
 blind, and you see nothing of it. 
 
 Old age comes as autumn and winter come. There is a 
 colour to the leaf in the tree ; one and another tree begins to 
 glow with yellow and red ; for when death comes in nature, it 
 comes not with signs of black, but with all glowing colours and 
 elements of attractive beauty. 
 
 Then the trees grow thin and bald at the top, as men do, 
 and, one by one, all things retreat to the root; the fields 
 become bare ; the hill-sides take on a russet colour ; all nature 
 strips herself. As one casts aside his raiment for sleep, so all 
 things token the advance of autumn and the coming of winter. 
 We know these things in respect to the year and the things 
 beneath us; we do not recognise them as true in respect to 
 ourselves. But they are as true of us as of the year. We are 
 tending toward the root ; we are drawing near the final sleep. 
 Others see it and know it. We only are blind, and do not 
 understand it. 
 
 There are those whose joys are passing or past. There are 
 those who have gone far along in the world toward that point 
 Irom which they shall leave it, and all the signs and tokens are 
 
THE BLIND RESTORED TO SIGHT. 1 79 
 
 that they are marked for death. Is there anything more 
 miserable in this world than to see how men cling to life when 
 it has lost its savour and all its benefits ? The old who are 
 decrepit, who are without taste or sight, or much activity, or 
 function, for whose places the young are waiting, and who 
 should be garnered, and who should long to be gathered in — 
 that they should be serene and patient so long as it is God's 
 will that they should abide here, is wondrously beautiful ; but 
 that they should cling with trembling hands to the things of 
 this world, and long to live, and find to-morrow empty, and 
 yet long for another empty day, and find that empty, and yet 
 beseechingly petition that God would lengthen out their days — 
 this is piteous in the extreme. Oh, to be gone when a man 
 can do no more here ! Oh, to fly when summer is over, as birds 
 fly to other lands and other skies ! But how many there are 
 that clasp the bough, and fain would sit upon the tree without 
 a leaf through all the shivering snows of winter ! To see men 
 who are infirm, who are worn out though they have not wasted 
 half their years, and who are marked for misery, the least 
 willing to go, the most reluctant to give up life, the most eager 
 for it ; to see men who are poor, who are trodden down, who 
 know that their prospects are in the main destroyed, whose 
 faces are seared with sadness and dissatisfaction, who do not 
 know that life is misfortune and death is emancipation, and who 
 yet long for more of life — to see such men is painful without 
 measure. Wretched, miserable, blind are they. 
 
 And how many are there of such ! How many are there 
 that have tasted the ways of wickedness ; that have sought, in 
 various ways, pleasure, so called ; that have entered upon the 
 foul career of intoxication, and experienced the insanity and 
 delirium of it ; that have looked for happiness in the ways of 
 illicit pleasure, and that have only grasped hideous shadows, 
 and tears, and bitter pangs of body and soul ! How many are 
 there that have learned the deceitful ways of craft, and cunning, 
 and deception, and know it, and do not know it ; that have 
 parted from virtue, and know that, and do not know it ; that 
 have been embraced in the sorcerer's arms, and know that, and 
 do not know it I They know that they are struck through with 
 wickedness, and that in the main it does not make them happy. 
 They know that running out of the present to seek some 
 promised good is always illusive and delusive, and yet how 
 blindly they go on in the same way, and seek the same things ! 
 How many are there that are blind in a thousand ways that I 
 cannot stop now to describe ! 
 
 X — 2 
 
l8o THE BLIND RESTORED TO SIGHT. 
 
 All that live without a thought or sight of immortality: all 
 that live without a vision of the eternal blessedness of that land 
 which awaits God's children ; all that live without seeing those 
 dear ones that have gone out from among us ; all that have no 
 consciousness of God, of Jesus, not far from them ; all that live 
 as though the opaque terraqueous globe were all that there is 
 of substance, and as though this miserable life were all that 
 there is of experience ; all that live without perceiving the 
 wonder of the spiritual realm which is constantly passing before 
 them — all these are blind. 
 
 Ah ! that there were some touch that could be applied to 
 their eyes, that their eyes might be opened, and that they mi.yht 
 behold God, and heaven, and the judgment-seat, and the 
 coming doom or the coming reward ! 
 
 Are there none here to-night whose convictions follow my 
 words, and who say to themselves, " I am blind ? " Are there 
 none that have drifted so faraway from their earlier instructions 
 and faith that their memories of them seem almost like the 
 memories of a foreign shore ? Are there none who remember 
 the days when their mother took them on her knee, and folded 
 their hands to prayer? Are there none who remember the 
 village church and the Sabbath day ? Do you not hear, with- 
 your memory, that far-off" swinging bell? It rings in the valley 
 where you were brought up. It rings over the home where 
 your father and mother, and your broihers and sisters dwelt. 
 It rings of all your early associations. Are there not those 
 that walk with the air of the scoffer, and in the ways of vice 
 and crime, who are the children of Christian parents ? Have 
 you not had many and many a struggle with your own con- 
 science as you have been going from bad to worse ? Have you 
 not gone far toward, not darkness only, but blackness for ever ? 
 Are there not those that feel burdened by their sins? I think 
 that there are sometimes raised up lights that strike through 
 this spiritual blindness, and enable rr.en to catch a glimpse of 
 their unfortunate condition. I think that in the history of the 
 worst men there are luminous days, revelatory days, days of 
 memory, in which they are made to feel their present misery, 
 and long and yearn for deliverance. 
 
 To every such a one I proclaim that Jesus, who walks up 
 and down the ways of life ; who passes everywhither, who in all 
 his passage is going about to relieve, to release, to restore ; 
 whose mission it is to give sight to the blind, to give hearing to 
 the deaf, to give to dead hearts life, and to bring out of the 
 sepulchres ol men's wicked ratures, in blessed resurrection^ 
 
THE BLIND RESTORED TO SIGHT. iSl 
 
 iheir spiritual selves. I preach that Jesus to you who is ten 
 •thousand times more earnest, and instant, and present, and 
 willing to give you spiritual sight than ever He was to give 
 'Bariimceus physical sight. 
 
 Rise. Call for help, if you feel that you need it. Call, not 
 ■once, nor twice, but until your cry is heard. If checked, if 
 hindered, if seemingly drawn away, call again, and put your 
 heart and soul into the supplication. And there shall come to 
 you the voice, the influence of one that says, "Bid him come 
 >to Me." Go to Jesus, and if He says : '•' What wilt thou that I 
 should do unto thee?" — and He says it to every needy sup- 
 ]-)licant — say with him of old, " Lord, that I might receive my 
 sight." 
 
 Oh yes, to see — to see what you are, what your nature is, 
 what your character, what your course, what your destiny ; to 
 •see what is the glory reserved by God for those that serve and 
 follow Him ; to see the sweet face of Jesus reconciling your souls 
 •to God; to see all the blessed joys that await those who through 
 faith and patience are to inherit the promises — this is vision, 
 indeed ! this is seeing, truly ! 
 
 Oh, ye blind, let me call for you. Jesus is not far from many 
 that are here. Perhaps He calls you who will not call to Him. 
 Are there not in this house those that feel the need of Christ ; 
 that feel themselves lost without the Saviour ; that are willing to 
 take the Divine and recreative touch ? Come, gather with me 
 >iound about the feet of Him who ever liveth to do merciful 
 works. Let me plead for you, and may you ratify every word 
 <of imploration that I shall utter in your behalf. 
 
 PRAYER. 
 
 Blessed Saviour, art Thou passing? Pass not by. Here 
 are those that need Thee. We know Thy wondrous power. We 
 are those that Thou aforetime didst heal, and shall we forget 
 that darkness which was in our souls? What cheerless years 
 were those in which the earth meant nothing, and life was 
 worth nothing ! What years were those in which we sought, 
 .and found not ; in which we went chained, and could not loose 
 our shackles ! What wondrous joy was that of the morning 
 when Thou didst come, O Jesus, to our heart; when out of 
 Thy Word Thou didst seem to us to rise statelier than any 
 vision that ever came before the mind of prophet, or seer, or 
 
l82 THE ELIND RESTORED TO SIGHT. 
 
 any other one! Jesus, the helpful, the patient, the healing; 
 Jesus, come to nurse, to nourish, to teach; Jesus, come to take 
 a sinner in his sins, Thou knowest, and we remember, the 
 blessedness of the revelation that sank down into our souls and 
 transformed them. Thou knowest the unutterable joy, the 
 strange and wild delight, with which we hailed Thee, filling 
 heaven and earth with praises of Thee. All things did praise 
 Thee, and we more than all. 
 
 Lord Jesus, many days have passed since then, and many 
 things have we forgotten, and many found out, but this we have 
 never forgotten — Thy wondrous power to bring light to the 
 dark and distressed soul. And nothing hath ever been revealed 
 to us comparable to the joy of Jesus formed in us a hope of 
 glory. It has been our comfort when we were desponding. It 
 has been our strength when we were wearied and exhausted. 
 It has been our courage. We have dared, and cared not for 
 men. We have ventured on new and untried ways. We have 
 cast anchor, amid the darkness of night, in turbulent waters, 
 and without fear have awaited the calmness and brightness of 
 the morning. We have gone trusting in Thee, and have never 
 been betrayed, and now we are ready to walk through the very 
 valley and shadow of death. We fear no evil. Thy rod and 
 Thy staff, they comfort us. Give what Thou wilt. Thou canst 
 not trouble us ; and take away what Thou wilt, we shall bear 
 it. There shall be clear skies above, for Thou art there. There 
 shall be treasure in reserve. Our throne awaits us, and our 
 sceptre. Thou canst not destroy whom Thou lovest. Our 
 hope is in Thee, our trust is in Thee, Lord Jesus. We were 
 blind, but now we see. 
 
 And are there not in Thy presence those that are as blessed 
 as we were? Are there not such here to-night, who, like our- 
 selves, were taught by Christian parents, and who, like ourselves, 
 were instructed in the Word of God, and in the duties and 
 ordinances of religion? O Lord Jesus, wilt Thou not pass this 
 way, and wilt Thou not call for them ? We beseech of Thee 
 that they may see ; that they may have this wondrous miracle 
 of grace wrought upon them ; that their inward sight may be 
 opened; that they may fall down before the majesty of God, 
 and with ineffable joy seek the unexampled favour of Christ, 
 and accept and understand those holy glowing words which 
 make known to men what is the inspiration of the Divine Spirit. 
 
 These are many that are now coniing toward the end of their 
 years. Let not their sun go down in darkness, but rescue them. 
 There are those upon whom rest heavily the burdens of life, 
 
THE BLIND RESTORED TO SIGHT. 183 
 
 which gall the back, so that they cannnot bear them. We 
 beseech of Thee that they may not be crushed by care and 
 trouble. 
 
 We pray for all that need comfort. Wilt thou comfort 
 them? Enlighten the dark, raise the faint, cheer the dis- 
 consolate, heal the sick. 
 
 Grant, we beseech of thee, mercy to all in thy presence. 
 Though they are not worthy, yet do it for Thine own majesty's 
 sake, and for the glory of Thine own name. 
 
 Teach us better to pray for men. Teach us the Divine love 
 of impleading, not because Thou art hard, and doth with- 
 stand any earnest supplication, but because Thou art moved, 
 as we are, with importunity. It pleases Thee to give, but it 
 pleases Thee better to give things that are earnestly sought. 
 And we beseech of Thee that Thou wilt teach us how to pray. 
 And may we pray much one for another ; for the glory of Thy 
 kingdom; for the welfare of men; for our own household; 
 for our dear children ; for all that have shown us any kindness 
 in life ; for our enemies and Thy enemies ; for all that are 
 making with us the perilous pass of this stormy sea. We pray 
 for all, and as long as we live we will pray, and when we can 
 pray no more we can rise to glory to shout Thy praise in 
 heaven to the Father, to the Son, and to the Spirit. Amen. 
 
XIV. 
 
 MARTHA AND MARY. 
 
 "Now it came to pass, as they went, that He entered into a certahi village ; 
 and a certain woman, named Martha, received Him into her house. 
 And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and 
 heard His word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and 
 came to Him and said, Lord, dost Thou not care that my sister hath 
 left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me. And 
 Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful 
 and troubled about many things ; but one thing is needful ; and 
 Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from 
 her." — Luke x. 38 — 42. 
 
 This is one of those windows through which, being open, 
 we look in and see something of the interior of Christ's life. 
 This took place, as we learn from other passages, at Bethany, 
 not a great way from Jerusalem,'-' It was at the house, as we 
 should say, of Lazarus, since the house is usually designated by 
 the male rather than by the female members of the household. 
 
 These two sisters, Martha and Mary, and this brother 
 Lazarus, probably constituted the whole family. It was a 
 family of wealth and distinction. That they were wealthy is 
 indicated by the entertainments which they seem to have given, 
 and the facility with which one of their number could purchase 
 a costly ointment as a gift of affection. That they were 
 distinguished is indicated, not by the fact that the Saviour 
 was their guest so often, but that when Lazarus died, there 
 poured forth from the city not a few to mingle their tears with 
 the sufferers. This is not the history of poverty. The family 
 that is in straitened circumstances, or that is without note, 
 have but few neighbours for joy or sorrow ; and the fact that 
 this family had numerous sympathisers in their bereavement 
 implies that they were a family of at least local influence. 
 
 One of the remarkable things stated in respect to this house- 
 hold is not only that Christ was accustomed frequently to be 
 with them, but that he /oc'ed them. It is true that God loves 
 all ; and in so far as Christ was setting forth the Divine nature, 
 He undoubtedly had love to all ; but there is something 
 
 * The other principal passages relating to this family ar- the following: — 
 Matt. xxvi. 6 — 13 ; Mark xiv. 3 — 9 ; John xii. i — 9 ; John xi. 
 
MARTHA AND MARY. 1 85 
 
 different from that meant. There were those among the 
 disciples of Christ that attracted His special liking. In other 
 words, Christ had personal likings, personal affections, indi- 
 vidual preferences, as we have, founded on the beauty and 
 attractiveness of certain dispositional and moral elements. 
 And here is a family that stood out in His history ; for, at one 
 time and another, it is mentioned, in respect to each of them, 
 that He loved them. The sisters sent to Him, saying, " He 
 whom Thou lovest is sick." It is understood, therefore, that 
 Christ was much attached to Lazarus. Then the evangelist 
 speaks of Mary as one that Christ loved. And Martha is 
 spoken of as the Martha that Christ loved. 
 
 So we have evidence of one kind and another that this was 
 a good and wholesome family. Without doubt they were of a 
 good stock and a good disposition. They maintained in the 
 household, evidently, such a carriage. There was so much 
 character, there was so much duty fulfilled, that even such a 
 one as Christ, amid all the jarrings and discomforts of human 
 imperfection, repaired from Jerusalem to their abode to find 
 rest. He gave them His confidence and His heart. He did 
 not hesitate to say that He loved them. Nor was He ashamed 
 to have it said of them, " These are the ones that the Master 
 loves." 
 
 I am glad that Christ was such a one; for that view of God 
 is cheerless that represents Him as so serene, and tranquil, and 
 self-contained, and remote and unsympathizing, that He does not 
 need, nor often accept, the individuality or specialty of personal 
 love. There is something frigid about such a view. It repels. 
 
 I should like to behold icebergs, but I should not like to 
 sleep under them or near them, i should like to look at them 
 as marvels of beauty, but it is not where they are that I should 
 choose to have my home. And there may be lifted up a con- 
 ception of God so massive, so grand, and so remote from 
 human sympathy, that, though we may admire it, we cannot 
 love it. What we need is a God that, while we admire, we shall 
 love, since we are commanded to love Him with all the mind, 
 and heart, and soul, and strength. Where Christ is represented, 
 therefore, as having great depth of feeling, as endearing Himself 
 to those whom He loved, and as being beloved by them, just 
 as you are by those to whom you make yourself pleasing, it 
 indicates an element in His character which is a thousand 
 times more attractive and winning than any that could be 
 shown by a mere abstract delineation of the perfectness of the 
 Divine attributes. You will perceive how strong was the 
 
1 86 MARTHA AND MARY. 
 
 feeling which He excited in the bosom of this family, which 
 \ve may perhaps call a Christian family— d, Jewish Christian 
 family. 
 
 Mary and Martha represent the two types of piety which 
 have always existed — the outward and the inward. One was 
 busy with ads^ the other with dispositions and 7'eflections. One 
 was doings the other was being and p07idering. Yet both of 
 them, though in different ways, were strongly drawn in con- 
 fidence and love to Christ. IMartha added double alacrity to 
 every step and motion. And when Christ was in the house, 
 she was always, if possible, more than ordinarily active. Too 
 much could not be done for Him ; nothing was too good for 
 Him ; and those who did not join in her zeal to minister to 
 His comfort, seemed to her to be dishonouring the one that 
 her soul loved. She chid them. She spoke even frowardly 
 of her sister Mary. 
 
 Mary loved Him with a love that had no expression. It 
 was pent up within. It had its heights and depths, but it had 
 neither word nor gestures. Only once was there an exhibition 
 of it — when, seized with an ecstasy, when love mounted into 
 adoration, she broke the alabaster box of precious ointment 
 on the head of Christ ! That was the symbol of her love. 
 While Martha made the house ring with quick, flying foot- 
 steps ; while every room, with things removed or brought in, 
 was a witness of her love, shown by ten thousand serviceable 
 deeds, Mary loved not only as much as Martha, but more, 
 because she was more capable of loving. But neither by deed 
 nor word did she show her love as ]\Iarlha" showed hers. It is 
 said of her, " She sat at Jesus' feet." As a child, that by a 
 thousand troubles is pursued to tears, betakes itself at last to 
 its mother's lap, and, surrounded by her arms, forgets them 
 every one, and is as still as if it were a flower and could not 
 speak, so Mary found that simply to sit and look upon Christ 
 was enough. Or, if it was not, there was no expression more. 
 
 And as it was with the sisters, so it is still. We have in 
 every church Marthas— faithful Christians, laborious with an 
 outward development of activity ; and Marys, not efficient in 
 outward activity, but chiefly deep in the inward life and rich 
 in the soul's aff"ections. 
 
 The brother appears only as an object upon whom Christ 
 performed a miracle. I read in your hearing, in the opening 
 services, an account of the scenes that were transacted during 
 His sickness, at His death, and after His burial. 
 
 Let us draw from this little picture, as it were by the wayside, 
 
ilARTHA AND MARY. 187 
 
 and Christ's connection with it, some lessons of practical 
 moment. 
 
 Let us first look at workers and thinkers — using the word 
 think in the largest sense, so that it shall include the whole 
 action of the mind ; or, that piety which works upon visible 
 materials, and that which works upon the invisible; that piety 
 which is developed toward this world, and that piety which is 
 developed toward the other world. I have said that these two 
 classes will always be found co-ordinated in the Church. They 
 spring from certain organic tendencies. They are true to nature. 
 Oh that it might be in the Church as it was in this household, 
 that they that ponder and they that do, that they that think 
 and they that act, should be sisters ! for, although there were 
 little jars, slight disagreements, there was not more of discord 
 than in any good piece of music. 
 
 Martha was not peevish or fretful — certainly not in our ordi- 
 nary acceptation of that term. She and Mary loved one 
 another, and they both loved Christ. But Martha did not 
 understand Mary, although Mary understood ?^Iartha. And so 
 it still is. Those that are genuine Christians, that are sincere 
 workers, though they work outwardly, and work on, multi- 
 plying their tasks, never growing weary of them, or becoming 
 easily rested, are well understood by the deeper but more quiet 
 natures. These last know their own superior life. They under- 
 stand also the others. Bat the former do not understand the 
 latter. Mary always understands both herself and her sister 
 Martha ; but IMartha, though she understands herself, does not 
 understand Mary. 
 
 Still there are persons that, deeply loving and faithfully serving 
 Christ, do not show it, and are chid by those that, with their 
 bustling activities and with their instant industries, fill up the 
 hours, and wish that there were more hours in every day that 
 they might fill. How often they turn upon those that never 
 appear in the street, or in the committee, with the feeling that, 
 because they do not serve Christ as they serve Him, they are 
 not serving Him at all ! As though there were not more ways 
 than one of serving Christ ! As though there were no piety 
 except that which works outwardly ! Nay, as Mary helped 
 Martha in the household, and Martha Mary, so it should be 
 in this world. Those that work for piety in external ways 
 should lean upon those that turn more toward the other life. 
 And those that live inwardly should help themselves by the 
 practicalness of those that abound in outward Christian life. 
 
 We find in Martha the faults, or tendencies to faults, to which 
 
1 88 MARTHA AND MARY. 
 
 the outward life of piety, where it is exclusive, is liable. Her 
 activity evidently was excessive. There are those that wear 
 themselves out with incessant activity. And usually, in propor- 
 tion as we are indolent, we find excuses for our inactivity, while, 
 in proportion as we are intense in our activity, we condemn 
 ourselves for not doing more. Men that are conscientious 
 condemn themselves on the side where they are strongest. They 
 are conscious of duty in the direction of their strong faculties, 
 and they always condemn themselves where relatively they are 
 best developed. Doubtless Martha condemned herself for 
 indolence, who scarcely took a moment of rest the whole day 
 long. Her activity broke out into anxiety. The carefulness 
 here spoken of is not attention to duty. The apostle says: " I 
 would have you without carefulness." I would not have my 
 children without carefulness. They never start on any errand 
 that I do not say to them, "Now, be careful!" We enjoin 
 upon men in the affairs of life the duty of being careful ; for 
 ^arefidness means, with us, attention to what one is doing. It 
 used to mean being full of cares. It was csiXQ-fulL It was hi7ig 
 ^.nxious. When it is said that Martha was careful, it meant 
 that she was one of those slender, nervous persons, of over- 
 wrought sensibility, that labour incessantly under pressure of 
 anxiety from youth to age. She suffered because she never felt 
 that she was enough active. Full was never full with her. There 
 was always that state of mind in her experience which we call 
 anxiety. Did you never see persons that are kind-hearted and 
 good-natured, but that are continually anxious? Not that they 
 are peevish ; not thaf they are cross ; but they are filled with 
 anxiety. Did you never see a boiler that carried just enough 
 steam, so that there was no sound in the machinery? And 
 have you never seen a boiler that carried a little too much 
 steam, so that it hissed at every rivet, making a disagreeable 
 •sound day and night ? There are persons that carry a little 
 more steam than they can work, and that sing and hiss all the 
 time ; and Martha was one of those. 
 
 Where this anxiety is brought suddenly in collision with those 
 that are associated with us, and expresses itself with sharpness, 
 it is called chidi7ig if you are charitable, and fretfuliicss or 
 peevishness if you are a little cross yourself. And so it seemed 
 to be in Martha's case. When Christ came, nothing must be 
 left undone ilia^ could be done for Him. Every room must be 
 set aright. Bountiful provision must be n)ade. The servants 
 flew on wings of zeal by her direction. When she had for 
 hours bubiled about the house, till weariness had come upon 
 
MARTHA AND IMARY. 1 89 
 
 her, suddenly she came upon ]\Iary, and found her sitting at 
 the feet of Christ, taking matters very calmly; and she could 
 not but fret at that. She says : " Bid her that she help me." 
 You will see that this amounted to censoriousness. A great 
 many who would be ashamed to make a comparison between 
 their own virtues and those of another openly, do it covertly; 
 and if the Saviour had expressed His own feeling to Martha 
 concerning herself, He probably would have said, " Martha, 
 you know you are active and vigilant, and when you rebuke 
 Mary for being indolent, you call My attention to the fact that 
 you glow wath zeal, and that she does nothing; and your con- 
 demnation of her is self-praise." 
 
 Are there any Marthas here? Are there here any good 
 women, that really want to do good, that love their friends, 
 and that rejoice in hospitalities toward them, but that carry 
 their life with such sensitiveness that they turn on those very 
 friends with criticism or ill-timed severities ? Is there not such 
 ii thing as loving outwardly, and having that nervous industry 
 which, carried too far, becomes querulousness or censoriousness? 
 
 ]\Iartha's fault was not her outward activity, but that it led 
 to wrong judgments, and depreciating comparisons, and to the 
 lowest form of Christian life. Yet Martha was good, true, 
 honest, trustworthy, or else it never would have been said that 
 Jesus loved her. And it will do you good, when you are vexed 
 with people's faults, to remember that a person may be loved 
 of God though he has many faults. You have many faults, 
 and it will do your soul good to know that God can get along 
 with faulty people. And it may help you to get along with 
 them to know that God has to get along with them and with 
 you too. I beg you to notice, too, how sweetly Christ chided. 
 I can conceive that one might have power to raise the dead, 
 as in the case of Lazarus, or of the widow's son at Nain; but 
 the contemplation of this power in God does not bring before 
 me such a vision of His moral character as the thought of the 
 sweetness with which Christ looked on those in whom were 
 hateful things ; His very rebuke was balm, and His admonition 
 healing. When the disciples quarrelled in His presence as to 
 who should be first in the coming kingdom, Christ took a little 
 child, and held him up before them, and said, " Whosoever 
 shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in 
 the kingdom of heaven." How gently He said to them, 
 '' Whosoever of you will be the chiefest shall be the servant of 
 all." It wys not anger ; it was not rebuke ; it was instruction. 
 
 With this household Christ was accustomed to dwell, and 
 
190 
 
 MARTHA AND MARY. 
 
 He loved them in spite of their faults. If God loved only the 
 faultless, who of us could ever stand ? 
 
 Look next at the true meaning of Christ's preference as 
 represented in this scene. It must not be interpreted as a 
 depreciation of work and enterprise. His own example showed 
 that He was not averse to activity. He went about doing good. 
 Three times He traversed the whole length of His country on 
 His mission. The activity of Christ was astonishing. He is 
 said to have laboured day and night, violating the laws of 
 prudence in relation to the body. He actually fell asleep on 
 the sea from over-fatigue. Often He had not time to eat. 
 Such a one would not find fault with a true and zealous per- 
 formance of household duties, since the household is the 
 highest church on earth, and those that serve in it are God's 
 s'.veetest messengers. 
 
 It was not, then, because Martha was so active that she was 
 in fault. Nor is it to be assumed that Mary was not, in her 
 own way and at her own times, an actor. Mary unquestionably 
 performed active duties. But a nature whose activity springs 
 from fulness and richness of soul, and whose deeds carry 
 breadth and depth of life, is higher than a nature that merely 
 acts without deep feeling. Soul-feeling stands higher in the 
 ranking of God and Christ than action. Action is valuable 
 from two elements. It is valuable, first, from the changes 
 which it works in affairs. One of the values of activity is what 
 it does. The amount of mind and soul which it introduces 
 into things is its other value. It is what you bring down and 
 incarnate that measures the value of acdon. A fly is more 
 active than a bee. It is amazing how active the fly is. To 
 look at him, you would think him' a master mechanic. He 
 buzzes all summer long. And yet he is not worth his keeping. 
 The bee buzzes too, but his buzzing means something. He 
 produces much and eats little. The fly produces nothing and 
 eats much. There may be an activity which, though it has 
 few results, is more effective than an activity that has many. 
 And a nature may work out few effects, and yet each one of 
 these may be so clothed with high moral feelings as to exceed 
 in value more numerous results that are not thus clothed. 
 
 Take the action of weeping. It is not always the same. A 
 child weeps, and what does it mean ? Nothing at all. Some 
 children cry as easily as flowers spill their dew in the morning, 
 and their crying means no more than that a flower has shaken 
 itself. But when the child has grovvn to be a man, and has 
 long been fortified against declarative grief, and something 
 
MARTHA AND MARY. I9I 
 
 happens which brings tears from his eyes, his weeping means 
 more than it meant when the child cried. 
 
 Take another instance. In the passage that I read to you 
 this morning, it is declared that Christ came to the grave, and 
 stood, and, seeing the sorrow of the sisters, and sympathizing 
 with their trouble, wept. That means a great deal ; but there 
 was another occasion on which Christ wept when His weeping 
 meant even more. He stood and looked over Jerusalem, con- 
 templating her future and her past, and wept over her. When 
 He wept at the grave of Lazarus it was touching; when He 
 wept over Jerusalem it was sublime. 
 
 Take the fact of Judas's betrayal of Christ. He kissed Him — 
 for that was the sign. On another occasion, one who had been 
 a sinner approached Christ, anointed His head, washed His 
 feet with her tears, and Vv'iped them with the hair of her head, 
 and kissed them. How much more was there in the penitence 
 of that woman, which expressed itself in those humble tasks of 
 love, than there was in the betraying kiss of Judas ! 
 
 A look is not always the same. When Christ looked upon 
 men transiently, as I look upon you, one and another, His 
 look was of but little meaning; but when, after three years of 
 deprivation and suffering, greater trouble came, His disciples 
 forsook Him, and He was arraigned in the judgment-hall, and 
 Peter, who stood not far from Him, being accused of being 
 His friend, denied it, not only once, but the second and the 
 third time, and He turned and looked at Peter, and Peter went 
 out and wept bitterly, how much more there was in the look of 
 Christ than when He was with His disciples, and simply looked 
 upon them as upon friends ! It is what an act has in it that 
 determines what is its power of usefulness. 
 
 Now a person may for many weeks multiply activities and do 
 special things which do not mean much morally ; but a nature 
 that is full of deep thought, of deep fervour, or sacred ecstasy, 
 of faith, and hope, and love, may perform one single act which 
 shall amount to more in moral value, as God rates it, than a 
 ceaseless, buzzing activity of a lower nature. And it was this 
 ranking of natures that took place when Christ preferred ^Mary's 
 comparative stillness to Martha's bustling ways. 
 
 One step further, now, in this history, may be taken under- 
 standingly, namely, that of considering the sublimity and beauty 
 of iNlary's outward activity when it was developed. We are to 
 suppose that she ordinarily performed her part of the house- 
 hold duties. In so far as Christ was concerned, she was one of 
 those that loved to cherish her. thoughts and feelings in silence, 
 
192 MARTHA AXD ^lARY. 
 
 rather than to manifest them in outward service. But when 
 she did come to that state in which she could no longer seclude 
 her thoughts and feelings, how beautiful was her manifestation 
 of them, as described by Matthew : — " Now, when Jesus was 
 in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, there came unto 
 Him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious oint- 
 ment, and poured it on His head as He sat at meat. But when 
 His disciples saw it they had indignation, saying, To what pur- 
 pose is this waste ? For this ointment might have been sold 
 for much, and given to the poor. When Jesus understood it, 
 He said unto them. Why trouble ve the woman ? for she has 
 ■wrought a good work upon Me. For ye have the poor always 
 with you, but Me ye have not always. For in that she has 
 poured this ointment on My body she did it for My burial. 
 Verily I say unto you. Wheresoever this Gospel shall be 
 preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this 
 woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her " (Matt. xxvi.). 
 
 The evening fire and the light have gone out. What raiment 
 Martha provided no man knows ; what food, what comfort, 
 what luxury, no man knows. The endless and repetitious 
 activities of Martha have passed away without a record and 
 without remembrance. But it has been as Christ declared it 
 should be, and it shall be to the end, that this solitary act which 
 Mary performed, though it was small, shall be mentioned to 
 her honour and praise as long as the Gospel shall be preached. 
 The fragrance of this ointment is in the world yet. This noble 
 soul, by silent thoughts wrought up to an enthusiasm and 
 ecstasy, expressed her love and affection for Christ in this 
 mute symbol of anointing Him, and thus joined herself to her 
 Master in death as she was joined to Him in life; and Christ 
 said, "It shall be made known as long as the Gospel shall be 
 preached." And when the last spicy breeze shall have died 
 away from Araby the Blest, when the last garden shall have 
 been planted and shall have withered, and when the last rose, 
 and honeysuckle, and violet, dying, shall have given out their 
 perfume, the fragrance of this deed shall rise Iresh upon the 
 air, and sweet smell before God. 
 
 In closing, let me say, first, that there is a place in Christ's 
 kingdom for all dispositions. Bring what you have. Though 
 your gifts are of the lowest, and your activities are of the least 
 importance, bring them. It does not need that you should be 
 first in order to be accepted. It may be that you are like 
 Martha, who brought to Christ's service much activity, and but 
 little depth of thought and feeling. It maybe that your duiies 
 
MARTHA AND MARY. 1 93 
 
 are mostly of a physical nature. If so, let them be consecrated, 
 and Christ will accept them at your hands. It may be that an 
 outward life of activity and usefulness, such as you see in 
 others, seems to be withheld from you ; but remember that 
 there is such a thing as an externally inactive life that means 
 more than one externally active. 
 
 There be many that sit in the silence of the household, when 
 all others are asleep, pondering over the leanness of their 
 service, their inactivity. They grieve in their souls, and wish 
 that they could do more for Christ. They wander oft' in 
 silent thoughts and secret fancies, and are much with Him ; 
 but they return to chide themselves often, because their life is 
 so poor, so barren. To such let me say, holy thoughts are 
 acceptable to God. Deep meditations and reverend states of 
 mind God regards as outward acts, and accepts them. 
 
 There be many who envy those that have gifts of external 
 service. There be many that say, " Oh, if I had access to 
 men ; if it were permitted to me to persuade them ; if I had 
 the tongue of an orator or the pen of a poet; if I could go 
 about doing good in this world, how grateful I would be to 
 God 1 " Well, it is not that which makes the most impression 
 on men that makes the most impression on God. It is that 
 which is deepest in your conscience, and love, and faith, that 
 is the noblest offering. 
 
 There are those that by sickness are prematurely laid aside 
 from usefulness, that are bed-ridden, and that feel that, in 
 being denied the opportunity of engaging in the active duties 
 of life, they have lost life itself. But it will be found that it is 
 not the sunflower, garish and possessed of power to lift itself up, 
 that is most esteemed; but the hidden flower that blossoms in 
 the shadow of the hedge, that in every adversity is fragrant still. 
 Christ will do as you do that never wear the sunflower, but often 
 the violet. God will take the humble ones, and make them 
 into that precious knot which he will wear on His very heart. 
 
 If God has called you to an inactive sphere. He has called 
 you there that, by holy thought and affection, you may wreathe 
 for Him offerings of silent love, and hope, and desire, which 
 are more precious in His sight than mere outward activities. 
 
 Let us, then, have this love that jNIary had, and be content, 
 like her, not to walk in the high and eminent places of the 
 earth, but to sit at the feet of Jesus. And He who, sitting 
 there, knows how to love, looking into the Divine face to find 
 out heaven, is not, be assured, far from the heart of Christ. 
 
XV. 
 
 MOTH-EATEN GARJvIENTS. 
 
 *' Your garments are moth-eaten." — ^James v. 2. 
 
 In the earlier ages of the world riches assumed but few forms. 
 Houses and land could scarcely be much to a Bedouin Arab 
 who pastured his flocks wherever he could find sustenance, 
 and carried his house and all his property with him. Bonds, 
 notes, mortgages, bills, are the wealth-signs of a highly com- 
 mercial people. In early days, besides silver and gold, which 
 always and everywhere have been considered wealth, garments 
 were stored up, and were regarded as an evidence of riches. 
 It is so in a narrow sphere even yet. Many a thrifty house- 
 keeper deems herself rich in the fulness of her wardrobe ; in 
 stores of linen ; in materials laid up for household uses ; in 
 beds and bedding; in napkins and towelling; in silk, and 
 cotton, and linen, and wool, and feathers. These are house- 
 hold wealth. 
 
 Against all these things time has a grudge. They wear out 
 if you use them, and waste more if you do not. If you store 
 them away, mildew and damp searches for them to rot them. 
 If you too incautiously expose them to the cleansing air, you 
 give knowledge of your treasure, excite cupidity, and draw the 
 thief to your dwelling. And while men covet, and the elements 
 enviously consume your garments and your fabrics, there are 
 insects created, it would seem, expressly to feed upon them. 
 Why not ? It is the order of nature. To eat and be eaten are 
 the two terms of life. To destroy and to be destroyed is the 
 history of animated creation. The moth would appear to be 
 peculiarly adapted to take property in that condition in which 
 a vigilance against all other enemies leaves it. We mark 
 aggressors ; we take account of violence, and of the various 
 inroads of the elements ; and, having put our property out of 
 all danger of them, there is yet appointed a further enemy. 
 
 First is the moth miller. It is harmless. Small, silken, and of 
 pearly white, it hovers without sound at twilieht, or in our dark 
 rooms. It is not impertinent, like the robust flies of summer. It 
 carries no sting, like vexatious insects that pester your skin. It 
 
MOTH-EATEN GARMENTS. 1 95 
 
 does not sound in your ear the shrill notes of the cricket, or the 
 stridulous scrapings of the locust, or the fine, shuddering hum 
 of the mosquito. It does not nibble and gnaw with the mouse 
 and rat; nor, as roaches do, indecently overrun your food. It 
 is most fair, silent, harmless. Not a sunbeam could do less 
 harm in moving through the air. And yet every housewife 
 springs after it with electric haste. It is a dreaded pest — not 
 for what it is, but for what it becomes. It is the mother of 
 moths. 
 
 And there are ten thousand moral moths just like them — 
 soft, satiny, silent, harmless in themselves ; but they lay eggs, 
 and the eggs are not as harmless as the insects. There are 
 sins that have teeth, and there are sins that have children 
 with teeth. 
 
 In great dweUings there are many apartments. There are 
 long dusky halls. There are closets and storing rooms that are 
 not often visited. There are spare-rooms, attics, lumber-rooms. 
 While the faithful housekeeper watches in the living-rooms 
 against dirt and insect foes, the insidious enemy has silently 
 retreated to these remoter camps, ' where broom and brush 
 seldom come. There they rear their undisturbed families. They 
 nest in corners. They brood in old garments. They make 
 cities of refuge out of rolls of cloth. These children of the 
 moth wake to raven and fatten upon juiceless thread. Dust and 
 sweepings are good enough for their ordinary food, but woollen 
 is a high living, while feathers and fur are a banquet and a 
 royal luxury to them. The old man dozes below, and dreams 
 his battles over again, while the silent moth up-stairs is eating 
 his feathers, piercing his hat, and wasting the threads of his 
 uniform. So while men doze and dream, their honours fade 
 away, and their glory is consumed. And when, on some 
 anniversary day, the garments are brought forth, the feathers 
 fall to powder, the coat is cut with a sharper tool than the 
 sword, and the whole suit is perished for ever. Sharp is the 
 needle, but sharper the invisible tooth of the moth, and no 
 needle-skill can repair its cunning desolations. 
 
 So it comes to pass, often, that enemies individually weak 
 are more dangerous on that account. We can watch against a 
 thief — scarcely against the miller. We suspect the sounding 
 elements. Sun and air are our friends against mould and must. 
 But these soft-winged motes, that hover between daylight and 
 dark, that bring lorth unseen, that hide by the process of 
 eating, and build burrows by the masonry of their teeth — these 
 are most fatal to our hidden possessions. How many carpets 
 
 0—2 
 
196 MOTH-EATEN GARMENTS. 
 
 are cut and scissored that still look fair to the eye, and reveal 
 no mischief ! How many apparellings of reserved rooms hang 
 in all their folds with seeming soundness, that need only to be 
 shaken to show all the mischief done 1 
 
 Alas ! the waste is revealed only when no help can avail. 
 The muffs and tippets come forth in November, but they are 
 fleeced and shorn, and they can be mended no more. The 
 coarse raiment that was to have turned the frosty wind is 
 creased, and pierced, and cut, and destroyed. Too late you 
 learn that your garments are moth-eaten. 
 
 A2;ainst all these enemies there are endless nostrums tried — 
 pungent odour, caustic powders, incasing linen ; but, after all,. 
 vigilance, light, and continuous using are the truest remedies. 
 Moths do not eat things in use. They are pests of silence and 
 darkness. Things of day and things of life are guarded by the 
 powers of activity. And this is true of moral moths as well, and 
 more eminently. 
 
 Could there, then, have been selected a figure more perti- 
 nent more striking in its analogies, than this ? Could anything 
 more clearly show to us the power of the sins of neglect? of the 
 sins of indolence and of carelessness? of sins of a soft and 
 gentle presence, that in themselves are not very harmful, but 
 that are the breeders of others that are? of the silent mischiefs 
 of the unused faculties or rooms of the soul, that are not ven- 
 tilated, nor searched with the broom and the brush ? Men do 
 well to watch and fight against obvious and sounding sins. 
 They are numerous. They exist on every hand. They are 
 armed and are desperate. They swarm the ways of life. Not 
 one vice, not one crime, not one temptation, not one sin of 
 which the Word of God warns us, is to be lightly esteemed. 
 They are to be watched, and in armour, too ; we are to be 
 proof against them. 
 
 But these are not our only dangers. Tens of thousands of 
 men perish, not by the lion-like stroke of temptation, but by 
 the insidious bite of the hidden serpent; not with roar and 
 strength, but with subtle poison. More men are moth-eaten 
 than lion-eaten in this life ; and it behoves us in time to give 
 heed to these dangers of invisible and insidious little enemies. 
 
 The real strength of man is in his character. Popular estimate 
 makes it consist in his circumstances. A man's strength is 
 measured by the number of his friends, by his wealth, by his 
 social position ; and his inliuence is in proportion to his repu- 
 tation in the world's esteem. But, in truth, a man is strong 
 only in his manhood. How much there is in a man you must 
 
MOTH-EATEN GARMENTS. 1 97 
 
 ascertain by measuring his character ; for one may be the 
 possessor of houses and lands, of stocks and bonds, of gold 
 and silver, of ingots and chests filled and re-filled therewith ; 
 one's possessions may be vast, and, after all, the wealth may 
 have a fool for an owner. A man is not strong by what he 
 tias, but what he is ; and in measuring v/hat a man is, we are 
 to measure his character. 
 
 Now character is not a massive unit ; it is a fabric, rather. 
 It is an artificial whole made up by the interply of ten thousand 
 threads. Every faculty is a spinner, spinning every day its 
 threads, and almost every day threads of a different colour. 
 Myriads and myriads of webbed products proceed from the 
 many active faculties of the human soul, and character is made 
 up by the weaving together of all these innumerable threads of 
 daily life. Its strength is not merely in the strength of some 
 simple unit, but in the strength of numerous elements. 
 
 There are crimes that, like frost on flowers, in one single 
 night accomplish their work of destruction. There are vices 
 that, like freshets, sweep everything before them. Men may 
 be destroyed in character and reputation, utterly and suddenly. 
 But there are other instruments of destruction besides these. 
 We do well to mark them, and to watch against them ; but we 
 also do well to remember that a man may be preserved from 
 •crimes and from great vices, and yet have his character moth- 
 eaten. We do well to remember that a little tooth, which is 
 almost too small for the microscope, may nevertheless be large 
 ■enough to cut one thread, and another thread, and another 
 thread ; and when you have begun to cut threads, you have 
 begun to make holes ; and when you have begun to make 
 holes, the destruction of the garment is at hand ; and a 
 character that is moth-eaten, that has begun to be pierced by 
 petty sins and vices, is weakened, and is being prepared for 
 destruction. 
 
 I therefore, in the spirit of the text, bid you beware, search, 
 and see whether your garments are moth-eaten. We are told 
 in the Apocalypse to take care of our garments, that no man 
 may take them from us. Beware lest men steal your garments ; 
 beware lest the elements consume them ; but, most of all, 
 beware lest they become moth-eaten. Watch against little 
 sins and little faults. 
 
 First, aside from great vices and crimes, there are the moths 
 of indolence. Indolence may be supposed to be morally 
 wrong ; but it is thought to be wrong rather in a negative way 
 than otherwise. No, no ! The mischief of water is not that 
 
198 MOTH-EATEN GARMENTS. 
 
 it does not run, but that, not running, it corrupts, and corrupt- 
 ing, breeds poisonous miasma, so that they who live in the 
 neighbourhood inhale disease at every breath. The mischief 
 of indolence is, not that it neglects the use of powers and the 
 improvement of the opportunities of life, but that it breeds 
 morbid conditions in every part of the soul. An indolent man 
 is like an unoccupied dwelling. Scoundrels sometimes burrow 
 in it. Thieves and evil characters make it their haunt ; or, if 
 they do not, it is full of vermin. A house that is used does 
 not breed moths half as fast as a house that, having the 
 beginnings of them, stands empty. Woe be to them who take 
 an old house, and carry their goods into it ! A lazy man is an 
 old house full of moths in every part. 
 
 And yet there are very many who seem to suppose that the 
 very end in life to be chiefly sought is a blissful indolence. 
 They make this fool's paradise the aim of their ambition, and 
 say within themselves, *' I will give my youth and my earlier 
 manhood to indefatigable enterprise, that in my later years I 
 may retire." Retire ? When the worms retire they have some- 
 thing worth retiring on. They have at least a silk cocoon to 
 live in while passing through their dormant state. But for a 
 man to retire with nothing but indolence, with no higher end 
 of life than self-indulgence, ease, and leisure, is ignominiouSc 
 For a man in the midst of health and strength to abandon the 
 active pursuits of life, and enter upon a round of uselessness, 
 is to adopt a course that is sin-breeding, moth-eating. The 
 very conditions of manhood, honour, integrity, and piety, 
 require that every man not only should make his life cease- 
 lessly active, but should jealously and vigilantly scrutinize every 
 part of himself, to see that no hall, no chamber, no upper room, 
 no attic, no basement, no part of his whole soul-house, is un- 
 ventilated, unswept, and uncared for. Look out for indolence 
 even in little things. There is health in activity, but there is 
 disease in indolence. 
 
 There are moths also in things unsuspected. All men agree 
 that a glutton and a drunkard are opprobrious and ignominious. 
 All men join in decrying them and inveighing against them ; 
 and we are perhaps not in danger of becoming drunkards and 
 gluttons. But there are excesses from over-eating on this side 
 of gluttony, and excesses from over-drinking this side of 
 drunkenness. There are moths of appetite. There are many 
 men who eat beyond the necessities of nature. They obscure 
 their minds. You must take your choice between your brain 
 and your stomach. If you fill the one, you must relieve the 
 
MOTH-EATEN GARMENTS. 1 99 
 
 Other. If you will work your head, you must carry temperance 
 into your diet. Full-feeding and full-thinking never go hand 
 in hand. There are hundreds of men, who, being of a vigorous 
 physical frame, and of an active appetite, unconsciously eat to 
 repletion, and then, through feverishness, and indigestions, 
 and the disturbed functions of their whole system, they labour 
 through the day to discharge their duties, toiling, fretting, and 
 troubled, and do not know that the cause of the mischief is 
 simply an excess in eating. There are many men who, by this 
 simple act of taking too much food, twice or thrice a day re- 
 peated, keep all their feelings upon an edge, so that they are 
 quick and irritable, or stupid and slow. There are many per- 
 sons who, by mere over-eating, take from sleep its refreshment, 
 and from their waking hours their peace, by the gnawing of the 
 worm of appetite. 
 
 This is a little thing. Your physician does not not say much 
 about it. Your parents hardly ever speak of it. It is a thing 
 for every man to consider for himself. But it is a serious fact 
 that two-thirds of the men who live a sedentary life impair 
 their strength by the simple act of injudicious feeding — over- 
 eating. 
 
 And that which is true of food is still more true of stimuli : 
 not alone of spirituous liquors, with regard to which you are 
 warned abundantly, but also of domestic stimuli. The world 
 is full of such great sins that it seems as though a minister 
 might find better business than talking about such petty evils. 
 There are some people who think, or seem to think, that in the 
 pulpit a man ought to preach about great and glaring vices 
 only, and that for a minister to speak of tea, and coffee, and 
 tobacco is a very small business. I know it is a very small 
 business ; and I never should trouble you with one word on 
 this subject if it were not for the fact that these little moths 
 cut the very threads of health and life. I know a great many 
 young men who will be good for nothing. What is the matter ? 
 They are moth-eaten. The eagle will not eat them. They 
 are not in danger of buzzards or serpents. Still less are they 
 in danger of lions. They will not die from an ass's kick. They 
 will be eaten of worms, and perchance by moths — little insigni- 
 ficant faults, so small that they are ashamed of a minister that 
 will spend his time and breath in talking about them. 
 
 If there was but one, or if there were many but once, it would 
 be difterent ; but the habit of tampering with your nerves is one 
 that cannot be indulged in with impunity. The nerve is the 
 seat of life itself — soul-life. It is in the' nerve and brain that 
 
200 MOTH-EATEN GARMENTS. 
 
 man is, if anywhere ; and he that touches these, touches home 
 to the very quick of himself. It is the peculiar nature of every 
 kind of stimulus to reach beyond the muscle, and affect the 
 very centre of sentiment and emotive existence. And the 
 habit of using narcotics or stimuli of any kind is a habit of 
 moth-eating. 
 
 I do not mean to be understood as saying that every man 
 who employs tobacco is moth-eaten; that every man who 
 indulges himself moderately in the use of tea and coffee is 
 injured thereby. I do not mean to go so far as to say that 
 every man who uses, unfrequently and in small quantities, wines 
 and Hquors, is himself physically injured by them. But I do 
 mean to say, comprehensively — and you know it is true — that 
 in this sphere lie a multitude of mischiefs and of temptations, 
 each of which is minute, but the sum of which is exceedingly 
 dangerous. And it is a part of my business, as a pastor and 
 teacher, to warn you of the swarm of silent-winged, apparently 
 harmless, and yet deadly mischiefs, that gnaw and consume 
 men in these regards. 
 
 There are two mischiefs of the mouth. One is the mischief 
 of the tongue — that untamable wild beast against which we are 
 warned. A terrible thing it is. That is the outward mischief 
 of the mouth. But there is this other one of eating and drink- 
 ing. Whichever way the tide goes, it may carry life or death. 
 And there are innumerable mischiefs of the mouth which men 
 should be put on their guard against, since that is the great 
 feeding-part of the soul. 
 
 The carriage of our affections also develops a class of ten- 
 dencies which are fitly included in this subject. There are 
 many men who never give way to wrath on a great and sound- 
 ing scale. It is wholesome to be mad thoroughly. It does a 
 man good to subsoil him by stirring him up down to the 
 bottom. A man that does not know how to be angry, does not 
 know how to be good. A man that does not know how to be 
 shaken to his heart's core with indignation over things evil, is 
 either a fungus or a wicked man. " Abhor that which is evil," 
 is the Divine command, just as much as "Cleave to that which 
 is good." High and gusty passions that sweep through the soul 
 are sometimes like fierce summer storms that cleanse the air, 
 and give the earth refreshment by strong winds and down-pelting 
 rains. Men are better for knowing how to be angry, provided 
 the sun does not go down on their wrath, and provided it is 
 justified by the occasions of it. If a man hates meanness and 
 dishonour, he may be angry at them ; if it is men's sins, 
 
MOTH-EATEN GARMENTS. 201 
 
 and not their faults, not their foibles, not their unintentional 
 offences, not their piques of his pride and vanity that made him 
 angry. Soul-destroying wickedness among men — these should 
 excite your anger. I would that men were fretful less and angry 
 more. For it is these little petty moths of perpetual fretfulness, 
 moroseness, sourness ; these little fribbles of temper that cut 
 the thread of life, — it is these that destroy men, inside and out. 
 Nothing is nobler than the beauty of that face on which fair 
 dispositions and generous sentiments blossom. The face is the 
 garden of the soul. What you raise within, you show without. 
 And there is nothing that shows so quick, so homely, and so 
 irreparably, in the countenance, as a sour temper, and petty, 
 frivolous, irritable, moth-eating dispositions. Beware of them. 
 The garment of the soul is eaten by them. 
 
 We read about some of the passions of which we see traces, 
 but of the nature, and progress, and power of which we scarcely 
 ever form an adequate conviction, either in others or in our- 
 selves. Some of them are such as these : greediness, envy, 
 jealousy. Youth is seldom afflicted with them. They are like 
 asters and the golden-rod in blossoming late. They are unlike 
 them in being homely, early or late. There are some faults that 
 are spring-faults, and that are found in children, such as lying, 
 deceit, and equivocation. These are the instruments of con- 
 scious helplessness. The child has not courage to lift itself up 
 against authority, and it leaks where it dare not boil over. For 
 faults like these, old age gives us correctives. But there are 
 some faults which never come in early youth, which are of later 
 growth. Among these is greediness of gain. Children may be 
 greedy for the mouth, but they are seldom greedy for property, 
 for honour, or for position. A desire for these things comes little 
 by little. Very few men set out in life intending to be greedy. 
 This disposition grows silently and gradually, so that one can 
 scarcely distinguish the progress of it from year to year. 
 
 The same is true of envying and jealousy, that, with health 
 and prosperity, scarcely show themselves, but that, with a 
 deranged physical system, and with trouble, are like weeds that 
 spring up suddenly and of their own accord. Envies and 
 jealousies, that are but small mischiefs at first, and that often 
 take on the form of wit, and serve simply as the salt with which 
 to season social life, are apt, with waning health and declining 
 years, to assume a more malignant form, with a cutting tendency 
 which grows more and more sharp as age advances. These 
 things, which at first are minor faults, become, after a little 
 time, corruptions of the mind, that score it and threaten its 
 
202 MOTH-EATEN GARMENTS. 
 
 destruction. Under such circumstances the soul is moth-eaten. 
 And there is a great deal more of jealousy, a great deal more 
 of envy, and a great deal more of greediness among men than 
 any of us suspect. They are latent. They lurk. They lie 
 concealed. 
 
 There is a sphere in men's lives into which they are accus- 
 tomed to sweep a whole multitude of petty faults without 
 judging them, without condemning them, and without attempt- 
 ing to correct them. There is a realm of moral moths for almost 
 all of us. We all hold ourselves accountable for major morals, 
 but there is a realm of minor morals where we scarcely suppose 
 ethics to enter. There are thousands and thousands of little 
 untruths, that hum, and buzz, and sting in society, which are 
 too small to be brushed or driven away. They are in the 
 looks; they are in the inflections and tones of the voice; they 
 are in the actions ; they are in reflections rather than in direct 
 images that are presented. They are methods of producing 
 impressions that are false, though every means by which they 
 are produced is strictly true. There is a way of serving that 
 which is wrong while you are prepared to show that everything 
 that you say or do is right. There are little unfairnesses 
 between man and man, and companion and companion, that 
 are said to be minor matters, and that are small things ; there 
 are little unjust judgments and detractions ; there are slight 
 indulgences of the appetites ; there are petty violations of con- 
 science ; there are ten thousand of these plays of the passions 
 in men, which are called foibles or weaknesses, but which eat 
 like moths. They take away the temper ; they take awaj" 
 magnanimity and generosity; they take from the soul its 
 enamel and its polish, ]\Ien palHate and excuse them ; but 
 that has nothing to do with their natural effect upon us. They 
 waste and destroy us, and that, too, in the soul's silent and 
 hidden parts. 
 
 The same may be said of other destroyers. The world is 
 full of things that are dangerous and that are overt, and moths 
 are not the only destroyers. They are the type of a whole class 
 of destroyers ; but none are more dangerous than they. The 
 waves that beat against the ship are not so dangerous to it 
 as plank-boring worms. Head-winds do not drag ships back 
 any more than the seeds and shells that collect upon their 
 bottoms. Posts driven into the water seem fair and strong 
 while being honey-combed by the worm that eats. In silence 
 and secrecy treasures are thus being consumed. 
 
 So it is with man the world over. While he has his obvious 
 
MOTH-EATEN GARMENTS. 203 
 
 and open enemies, he has his enemies under water, unseen, 
 silent, excoriating, and piercing. 
 
 I beg of you, therefore, when you lay out the paths of duty, 
 and make an inventory of things to be examined, to be weighed, 
 and to be tested, not only carefully to enumerate all obvious 
 dangers, but to remember when the thief is guarded against, 
 when the roof is proof against the elements, when the walls and 
 windows are sufficient to keep out the wind and the rain, and 
 when the hand of greed and of ruthless destruction are fortified 
 against, there is still lurking in the house a victorious insect — 
 the destroying moth—the ravages of which only ceaseless care 
 and vigilance can prevent. And as it is with the dwelling out- 
 side, so, more, it is with the dwelling of the soul. Beware of 
 robber passions, of intrusive temptations, of those sympathetic 
 sins which draw men by their better affections to their worst 
 ends. Beware of the wind, of the rain, of the sea, of savage 
 beasts, and of summer and winter in the soul. Beware also of 
 moths, of foibles, of faults, of little, mean, sharp-toothed sins, 
 that cut, and eat, and destroy the garment. And when God shall 
 bring us to judgment, may He grant that we be not as are 
 summer-kept garments which were hung in supposed safety and 
 fnncied security, waiting for the coming of the winter, to protect 
 our limbs from the severity of the weather, but which, when the 
 housewife brings them out, to her horror fall to the ground as 
 beggar's trash, unfit to be used — ruined, and full of the seeds of 
 mischief, and good for nothing but to be gathered up and given 
 to the flames. Many a man keeps the fair proportions of man- 
 hood in life, and seems to be without crime, or vice, or great 
 fault, who is pierced, and channeled, and granulated, and eaten 
 by petty faults, that when he is lifted up in the eternal world, 
 like a garment that is moth eaten, he vv'ill fall to pieces and be 
 fit only for eternal burning. "Your garments are moth-eaten." 
 There is in that a declaration as terrible as in that other sentence 
 which God shall pronounce upon those who reject Him, and 
 with effrontery of wickedness array themselves on the side of His 
 open enemies. May God keep us from secret sins ! 
 
XVI. 
 SPRING-TIME IN NATURE AND IN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 ^' For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone ; the flowers appear 
 on the earth ; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of 
 the turtle is heard in our land ; the hg-tree putteth forth her green figs, 
 and the vines, with the tender grape, give a good smell. Arise, my 
 love, my fair one, and come away." — Solomon's Song, ii. ii — 13. 
 
 Almost all of every degree of sensibility are conscious of re- 
 ceiving some influence from nature at two periods of the year — 
 autumn and spring. The shortening of the days is the first token 
 that acts seriously upon the mind. The early morning hour, that 
 used to be full of sun, at length comes ; but no sun is in it : he 
 is not yet risen. The cars that brought you in June from the 
 city to the distant station left you yet a full half-hour of evening 
 sunshine ; but now, in September, at the same hour, the sun has 
 gone down, and the very twilight is fading out. The days are 
 going ; and every day, with a gentle sigh, we say, " The days 
 are shortening ; the year is closing ! " The days lose at both 
 ends : they are clipped in the morning, and sheared in the 
 evening. Something of exhilaration goes with them. The 
 full and overflowing day, that was like a wine-cup put to the 
 lips, is gone, and smaller ones are coming. If days are goblets 
 sent to us with the water of life, with the wine of light and 
 warmth, then they are no longer those great festal beakers, but 
 less of rim, of depth, of contents, till that which in July filled 
 the double hand, in November is like a tapering glass held with 
 two fingers. And this sense of departure is so indissolubly 
 associated with the decrease of human life, the passing away of 
 our years, the shortening of our days, the ending of pleasures 
 and ambitions, that no one can help feeling a certain sadness, 
 though it be a sweet sadness ; a certain gladness, though it be 
 a solemn gladness. 
 
 Then, too, along with these changes in the heavens, are others 
 upon the earth. The first colour of red in the maples upon some 
 single branch, set like a lamp in the whole topful of green leaves, 
 is the earliest hint of autumn ; and we parry the thought. We 
 say, " Ah ! it is only a sickly limb, prematurely ripe; it is not 
 autumn yet." So, in consumptions, men find reasons for the 
 
SPRING-TIME IN NATURE AND IN EXPERIENCE. 205 
 
 hectic blush ; but death is under it. Soon come the crimsons 
 and scarlets of the forest edges — the sumach, the vines. We 
 find no more flowers when never a day refused us one all 
 summer long. The asters flourish — the asters, that are fitly 
 called star-flowers, not only from their rayed disk, but because, 
 when the day is gone, stars redeem the night from utter 
 darkness; and asters are the latest flowers of autumn, and are 
 bright though the golden-rod is dim, and trees are sear, and 
 russet leaves are rustling around their stems. They blossom 
 bravely on till the very frost comes. 
 
 And so, as fires go out, the blaze growing less, the great 
 sticks turning to coals, the coals to ashes and embers, and 
 these, little by little, dying silently away, until only sparks are 
 left, which one by one fly up or become extinguished, so is it 
 with the summer, that blazes in August, that turns to coals all 
 ruddy in September and October, which pale and hide them- 
 selves in November, and whose last sparks are quenched in 
 December. 
 
 The spirit goes with the seasons. Our thoughts may not be 
 expressly busy with all these signs in the heaven and on the 
 earth, but we sigh oftener ; we sit silent more frequently ; our 
 walks are shortened ; we remember the absent ; we muse upon 
 the worth of life, upon its course and issues. We are not 
 sombre exactly, but we are sweetly sad. 
 
 There is something even more touching than this ; it is the 
 flight of birds. All summer they have filled the woods. They 
 sing from the trees. They rise from thickets and weed-muffled 
 fences as in our wanderings we scale them. They sing in the 
 air. They wake us with their matins. They chant vespers 
 with glorious discordance of sweet medley. They flit across 
 the lawn, rise and fall on the swinging twig, or rock to the 
 wind on their aerial grass-perch. 
 
 But after August they become mute, and in October days 
 they begin to recede from the dwellings. No more twittering 
 wrens ; no more circling swallows ; no more grotesque bobo- 
 links ; no more meadow-larks, singing as if they were broken- 
 hearted. They begin now to come in troops in the distant 
 flelds. At sunset the pasture is full of flocks — hundreds and 
 thousands of birds ! At morning they are gone. And every 
 day brings its feathery caravan. Every day they pass on. 
 Long flocks of fowl silently move far up against the sky, and 
 always going away from the north. At evening the weary 
 string of water-fowls, flying low, and wistful of some pond for 
 rest and food, fill the air with hoarse trumpeting and clangour. 
 
206 SPRING-TIME IN NATURE AND IN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 They are going— the last are going. Winter is behind them ; 
 summer is before them ; we are left. The season is bereft. 
 Light is short ; darkness is long. Flowers are sunken to rest. 
 The birds have flown away. Winter, wiiite?'^ winter is upon 
 earth ! 
 
 At last come the December days. The shortest is reached. 
 Then a few days stand alike. Then the solar blaze creeps for- 
 ward a minute in the evening ; a little more ; again more, till 
 half -hours swing round the horizon — till hours are strung 
 upon the days — till noons grow warm — till storms are full of 
 melted snow— till the earth comes back — till ponds unlock 
 themselves. The forests grow purple-twigged ; the great winds 
 sigh and rage. March blusters and smiles by turns — a giant 
 that now is cross, and now kind. The calves begin to come ; 
 lambs bleat ; the warm hills are ploughed. At last the nights 
 are without frost. 
 
 At length we wake, some unexpected morning, and the blue- 
 bird's call is in the tree. We throw up the sash. The sun 
 lies flush on all the landscape. There is a smell of soil and 
 leaf in the air. The poplar buds are fragrant as balm. The 
 air is warm and moist. The birds are surely here ; they 
 answer each other — the sparrow, the bluebird, the robin, and 
 afar off, on the edges of the swamp, the harsh twanging notes 
 of the blackbird. It is spring ! It is the time of the singing 
 of birds. No one forgets the wild thrill of the heart at the 
 first sound of birds in spring. 
 
 Oh ! with what a sense of emancipation do we hear the 
 birds sing again. God sends His choirs to sing victory over 
 night and death for us. Winter, that buried all, is herself put 
 away. Death is swallowed up in victory, and nature chants 
 the requiem of the past and the joy of the future. Now days 
 shall grow longer and warmer. Now industry shall move more 
 freely. Now flowers shall come up ; seed shall be sown ; 
 doors and windows shall stand open all day long. Round 
 about the barn the hens shall cackle. Children shall shout. 
 Spring has come, and all things rejoice at their release. No 
 more locking ice : no more inhospitable snow ; no more blight 
 of cold. All is promise. Men go forth with seed, and roots, 
 and scions. The orchard, and gardeuj and field are full of life. 
 "The winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the llowers 
 appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, 
 and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land." 
 
 Is this, now, a mere ornamental passage of Scripture? 
 Scripture has no passages that are mere ornaments. Unlike 
 
SPRING-TIME IN NATURE AND IN EXPERIENCE. 207 
 
 all Other literature, Scripture never merely decorates. If there 
 is a figure, it is always for some errand of moral meaning, 
 there is no description for description's sake. There is no 
 poetry for mere cesthetical pleasure. There is always profit 
 withal. 
 
 Nature, then, teaches that to every season of trouble and 
 overthrow there comes resurrection. In the deepest January 
 of the year there is a nerve that runs forward to June. Life is 
 never extinguished. That which seems to be death reaches for- 
 ward and touches that which is vital. 
 
 The year breaks cloudily, with many slips and many retroces- 
 sions. To day open, to-morrow shut. Birds too early tempted 
 are driven away by bleak winds. And yet spring, once coaie 
 upon the earth, is never banished again until it has reaped a 
 victory. All checks, and haUings, and struggles, and storms 
 cannot alter the inevitable year. So it is in human affairs. 
 There are cold and dark December days. Bat be patient; 
 they too have a June waiting for them. To the earlier open- 
 ings which come among men in darkness aad trouble there are 
 retrocessions, there are promises suddenly blighted; but every 
 spring has its March, and March never killed a spring. Men 
 that have early hopes beginning may have them checked and 
 driven back ; but this is not a sign that summer has not come 
 to them, or begun to come. The time of the singing of birds 
 is the time of hope. 
 
 The year lies open before us. We open the furrow. We 
 hide therein our seed. We sow in hope, with eager industry, 
 and rejoice beforehand. Oar seed is not sprouted, our flowers 
 are not blossomed, our fruits are not ripe, and yet by faith we 
 rejoice in them, foreseeing the future. If we let the seed time 
 go past, we lose the year. And so it is in human life. In the 
 state, in the church, in the household, and in the individual 
 heart, there is a time for the sowing of seed. We sow amid 
 hopes and expectations. The result is not yet. We wait for 
 it, and are sure it will come. 
 
 But we may make a more full and particular moral applica- 
 cation of the change of seasons. Nations have their autmun, 
 their leaf-falUng, their winter, and their spring. So do commu- 
 nities, churches, families, individuals. 
 
 I. Nations seem to have their periods like the year. Neither 
 in civilisation nor in Christian elements do they seem to mount 
 up with steady growth. They move, rather, as it were, in 
 spirals. They often return as if falling back, and yet their pro- 
 gress, on the whole, is onward. There are times of struggle. 
 
208 SPRIKG-TIME IN NATURE AND IN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 of darkness, and of disaster in the history of every nation. 
 And we have had our hours in this nation, young as we are, of 
 winter. But, God be thanked, though it be this blowing, 
 blustering, March of our affairs, the winter has gone, the spring 
 has come, and the sound of birds is in the air. Summer is 
 not yet. Now is the time for sowing seeds; now is a time of 
 expectation. The past — let it not be forgotten j but let us not 
 take our lessons of joy from that. The autumn is ended, the 
 winter is gone, the spring is come ; and virtue, religion, justice, 
 liberty, truth, and the freedom that truth gives to its children 
 are ours. 
 
 Tell me where the wheat is, farmer ! You will point to the 
 side-hill, where it lies covered with snow, and say, " JNIy harvest 
 is there." No yellow stems are to be seen rockmg in the wind. 
 Nothing is visible of the grain but the blades just springing 
 from the earth. And yet the farmer says, " My harvest is 
 there; and when the summer shall have brought it forth and 
 ripened it, I will gather it, and it will be mine in the granary 
 and in the hand." And if you say to me, " Where are your fair 
 days of liberty and hope ?" I point to the side-hills. Though 
 they are yet clasped in ice, or covered with snow, I have heard 
 the sound of the trumpet ; and that is God's bird that sings in 
 the air to his nation. I have heard the rushing sounds of 
 battle. * March winds are they that God blows across the 
 continent. Though the earth is still unlocked, and the edges 
 of winter are so near that we feel chilled, yet the time of the 
 singing of birds has come to this land, and we shall never again 
 go so far back into winter and death as we have been. Our 
 course is onward, now, toward summer, and every month, will 
 grow warmer and warmer. 
 
 II. Deep convulsions and embarrassments of all industrial 
 pursuits are wont to go along with national trials. So it has 
 been with us. As though it were not enough that our govern- 
 ment should be almost paralysed, and that so many hundreds 
 
 * This sermon was preached in the midst of the civil war. The disas- 
 trous battle of ]5ull Run had been followed by a loni; inactivity in the East, 
 not yet broken in upon by the advance on Yorktown. General P'reemont 
 had been called back from Springfield, and lower Missouri had not yet been 
 redeemed by the battle of Pea Ridge. Commodore Foote had not yet 
 passed Island No. lo, the northern gate of the Mississippi ; and New 
 Orleans had not surrendered to Commodore Farragut. On the other hand, 
 the capture of Forts IJonelson and Henry in the West, and the occupation 
 of Roanoke and Newburn in the East, had given the loyal heart the first 
 real gleams of light and inspiration of hope since the gloom which the defeat 
 at Bull Run had cast over the nation. 
 
SPRING-TniE IN NATURE AND IN EXPERIENCE. 209 
 
 of thousands of our most able-bodied men should be sent to 
 the tented field, all home industries have suffered. Nor is it 
 merely that the harbours are choked, as it were, the loom has 
 ceased to clank, and the shop has become silent. Human life 
 itself is connected with all industrial pursuits ; that which 
 disturbs the loom disturbs the cradle ; that which disturbs the 
 -counting-room disturbs the parlour ; that which disturbs 
 business disturbs the family. All the North and South have 
 felt the burden, the grief, the trouble, the anxiety, the difficulty, 
 which has come from the universal derangement of commercial 
 affairs consequent upon war, rebellion, and revolution. Never- 
 theless, I stand upon the second day of spring-. This is the 
 •second of March. All day yesterday I walked conqueror. I 
 said to myself, *' It is the first day of spring;" and I stood 
 triumphing over the past, and rejoicing in the coming future. 
 And to-day is the second day of spring. I send words of 
 cheer to our beloved land. I send words of cheer to those 
 that are enduring hardships on the field of battle, and to those 
 that at home are struggling with embarrassments and diffi- 
 •culties. To all those whose wheels of enterprise are blocked ; 
 to all those whose past growths are withering; to all whose 
 roots are locked in the icy soil ; to all whose leaves are touched 
 by the frost of disappointment — to them I say, the winter is 
 past ; the time of the singing of birds has come. Wait a little : 
 some more snows may fall, and there may be some more 
 frosts ; but the time of the singing of birds has come, and the 
 voice of the turtle is heard in your affairs. 
 
 III. There are the same experiences in families as in nations 
 and industrial communities. There are some families that 
 seem compelled to go to the promised land, as the Israelites 
 did, through a desert. There are many that, having expe- 
 rienced long years of toil and suffering, come out only at last. 
 Bat there are many that, having been prospered and happy, 
 lapse into a state of want and trouble. The streams that 
 swelled with prosperity, swell no more ; the birds that sang of 
 prosperity sing no more. They come from wealth and comfort 
 into distress and poverty. 
 
 It is hard to go down into the winter of trouble. It is hard 
 to find one's-self beset with all the difficulties that oftentimes 
 attend the household. But when a family has through trouble 
 and affliction found the way to God ; when through trials and 
 sufferings a family has come to the knowledge of an ever- 
 present Saviour, who is afflicted in all our afflictions, who bears 
 our sins, and who carries our sorrows, to that family, though it 
 
 p 
 
2IO SPRING-TIME IN NATURE AND IN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 be in its darkest January days, has come the time of the sing- 
 ing of birds. It is not so much matter that you should be 
 lifted out of your want, as that you should have peace and joy 
 in the Holy Ghost. Are there not some households upon 
 whose walls first fell the pale light of spring, and then arose 
 the Sun of Righteousness in their deep distress ? Are there 
 not some here that can say this morning, " The time of the 
 singing of birds is come to us ?" 
 
 There are times of great sickness, bereavement, and sorrow 
 that befall our families. There are days that, though they are 
 very short and mid-winter days, are, oh ! how long ; for, as a 
 short distance is long to one that carries a heavy burden, so 
 days that are sorrow-clad, and that measure the minutes by the 
 tick and fall of tears, are long days, though they are short ones. 
 How many wade the sea of troubles ! How many that seek 
 to ford the stream of grief are unable to go from bank to 
 bank, and are caught when but half-way across, and carried 
 down; and you cannot ford a stream by going lengthwise in it. 
 How many seem to be going down in sickness ; and yet, either 
 the sickness departs, or the spirit departs. How many are 
 borne down by bereavements ; and yet consolations come, or 
 the prayer asking that the trouble may be removed is answered 
 by the voice that says, •' Let it abide, that my grace may be 
 sufficient for you." There is great joy of prosperity, of love, 
 of victory; but there is a joy that belongs to the experience of 
 suffering and sorrow which is more divine and exquisite than 
 any joy the heart ever knows outside of trouble. When a soul 
 is afflicted till it is driven into the very pavilion of God ; till 
 Christ, as it were, wraps his arms about it, and says, Rest here 
 till the storm be overpast, that soul experiences an exquisite- 
 ness of joy which only those who have felt it can understand. 
 
 There are times of anguish in those nameless sorrows which 
 belong to the sacredness of households. The best parts of the 
 history of households are never written. What is it to us that 
 kings go out with armies, and trample each other under foot, 
 and produce great revolutions on the surface of the earth ? 
 What is it that all these external and more obvious events are 
 occurring in the world? The real life is, after all, going on 
 behind these things. You see a few leaves, but all those 
 myriad drops of vital sap that, beginning with the root, work 
 up through the tree, and minister to those leaves, are never 
 seen. The sap of life is the invisible life of the household. 
 The nameless experiences of the hearts of parents and children,, 
 which have no expression, these are the sap of life. 
 
SPRING-TIME IN NATURE AND IN EXPERIENCE. 211 
 
 How many men there are prospered outwardly; whose 
 account at the bank is ample ; whose credit is abundant ; who 
 are envied by all that know them ; and who are congratulated 
 on every hand upon their supposed good fortune, but who say 
 of the little boy that springs ragged and buoyant into their 
 path, " All I have in the world I would give if I could be as 
 merry as that little child ! " How many men there are that 
 have honour such that thousands would be willing to give life 
 itself if they might obtain it, but who have behind that a son, a 
 daughter, or a companion that is a source of unutterable grief. 
 It is an old saying that every house has its skeleton. You may 
 sit in the portico and never suspect it. You may go through 
 the hall and never suspect it. You may enter the parlour of 
 festivity, and it is not there. You may go into the sitting-room, 
 and it is not there. 'You may trace it to the room where it is, 
 and then not see it. But if, at last, you touch some hidden 
 spring in the wainscoting, all unsuspected, open flies a door, 
 and there is some ghastly sorrow or trouble uphung. Every 
 household has its skeleton. Blessed be God that there is such 
 a household. What would become of this world if our griefs 
 and sorrows were hung, as in some ages and countries criminals 
 have been, at the corners of the streets, so that they could be 
 seen by every passer-by ? The family, like old Noah's ark, 
 carries over the heart from the old world to the new, while guilt, 
 and shame, and disgrace sink under the flood and are drowned. 
 
 But are there no spring-like days that come upon the winter 
 of troubles in the household ? Is it all blast, all blight, all bury- 
 ing ? Is there nothing but pale, white, enwrapping snow ? Are 
 there no birds that ever fly athwart the sky of the bereaved 
 family ? Is there an utter absence of everything like comfort 
 and cheer ? Blessed be God, even though trouble may abide, 
 joy comes too. 
 
 I sometimes think that it is in the household as it is in those 
 matchless Miltonic symphonies of Beethoven, or of Weber's 
 overture to Z>er Freischutz. There seems to be the discord, the 
 wail, the fierce fight, the struggle of spirits that come together 
 and blend in terrific clash and controversy ; and yet some ex- 
 quisite strain of melody begins here, and flashes out there again, 
 and grows louder and louder, till at last it seems to predomi- 
 nate over all the rush of other sounds, and they become an 
 undertone of harmonious bass, while high above them, filling 
 the air with ecstasy and joy, rises the descant and song of 
 triumph. And above the wail of sorrow and trouble in many a 
 household rises a song of rejoicing. Aspirations and longings, 
 
 p — 2 
 
212 SPRING-TIME IN NATURE AND IN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 and yearnings, and prayers, and anxiety, and discontent throng 
 together, and mingle in harsh discord ; but by-and-bye hope, 
 faith, gleams of expectation, take possession of the soul, and at 
 last, ransomed, it begins, with victory, to rise above all these 
 struggles, and its very sorrows roll beneath it as only a kind of 
 foundation thunder on which to lift up its notes of joy and 
 triumph. 
 
 IV. The same is eminently true of individuals. There are 
 those who have broken away from the thralls of life. There 
 are some here (excuse me if I am personal) who were born 
 to better things than they have seen ; to truer companions than 
 they have found; to holier thoughts, higher purposes, and 
 nobler aspirations, than they have had. They have been caught; 
 been snared; been swept part way down — almost quite down, 
 perhaps. But a brighter day has begun to dawn for them. A 
 loftier ambition has inspired them. They have begun to feel 
 that the evil influences that have surrounded them and thralled 
 them are withdrawing from them. They have formed worthier 
 purposes. They have entered upon a more honourable life. 
 The winter has gone from their soul. Some rude storms may 
 yet beat upon them, but a new spring has come to them ; a new 
 light has dawned upon them ; a new summer is just before 
 them ; a new hope is theirs. 
 
 There is the exclamation of the Psalmist, '' Our soul is 
 escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler." There are 
 those who have been going through transitions of life in which 
 great ambitions, of pride, of vanity, of love, of various descrip- 
 tions, have been overthrown. They know not why things have 
 gone against them. If you were to hear some men's expe- 
 rience, you would think that they grow as the white pine grows, 
 v/ith straight grain, and easily split — for I notice that all that 
 grow easy split easy. But there are some that grow as the 
 mahogany grows, with veneering knots, and all quirls and con- 
 tortions of grain. That is the best timber of the forest which 
 has the most knots. Everybody seeks it, because, being hard 
 to grow, it is hard to wear out. And when knots have been 
 sawn and polished, how beautiful they are ! 
 
 There are many who are content to grow straight like weeds 
 on a dunghill; but there are many others who want to be stal- 
 wart and strong like the monarchs of the forest ; and yet, when 
 God sends winds of adversity to sing a lullaby in their branches, 
 they do not like to grow in that way. They dread the culture 
 that is really giving toughness to their soul, strength to its fibre. 
 But the moment a man submits to the discipline and affliction 
 
SPRING-TIME IN NATURE AND IN EXPERIENCE. 213 
 
 that he is called to pass through in the providence of God, that 
 moment he sees that the way against which his pride and vanity- 
 have rebelled is the right way. Nine parts out of ten of your 
 griefs are cured the moment you accept with cheerfulness the 
 lot to which God has appointed you in this life. Nine hundred 
 and ninety-nine parts of a thousand of human trouble are only 
 rebellion ; and the moment a soul says, " Lord, Thy will be 
 done," that moment its trouble is over, and the time of the 
 singing of the birds has come. There will still be wind in the 
 pine and winter in the field, but when birds have once sung 
 they will sing again. 
 
 There are those who have fought the fight of great trouble in 
 sickness. Not all the soldiers of God are in the battle-field. 
 There are those there who are strong-backed, whose muscles 
 are like brawn, whose bones are like flint, and whose faces, for 
 zeal, are like the face of January, and for enthusiasm are like 
 the face of July. But these are not God's only soldiers, nor 
 his strongest soldiers. Some of God's most heroic soldiers are 
 the bedridden. Look at that sweet child of eighteen, full of 
 aspiration and hope, to whom has been denied, not loving 
 father, not loving mother, not sisters, and more than anxious 
 brothers, but health. She has made a weary fight for one year, 
 for two years, for three years, and at last she says, "If God has 
 planted me to grow as a nightshade here ; if I am to be a 
 flower in the forest, that knows no sun ; if it is here that God 
 wants me to show patience and zeal, — then I am content with 
 my lot ; I accept it, and I will ask and expect nothing more. 
 Let this be my sphere of duty, and let my life be spent on the 
 bed, the couch, the cot, if God wishes it. If sickness be God's 
 will, even so. His will be done, not mine. The time of the 
 singing of birds has come to such a heart. To such a heart 
 spring has come, and summer is not far off. Such I have seen. 
 
 V. There are applications innumerable to spiritual condi- 
 tions. There are persons in this church who have seen the 
 days of summer. Many of you, three or four years ago, you 
 recollect, stood here, on this anniversary, and yielded up your 
 vows and covenants, and plighted your troth to God. The 
 spectacle was touching and sublime. You have known a truce 
 and a vacation. You have had your summer. Many of you 
 have cast your leaves. You have seen November, and gone 
 wading through the cold winter of backsliding. But March has 
 come round to you. A little bird began to sing right in your 
 family. Before you thought of such a thing, you heard the 
 singing of birds. It was your daughter that sung ; or, it was 
 
214 SPRING-TIME IN NATURE AND IN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 the little child of your next-door neighbour. There is beginning 
 to be a warmth in your heart. You are beginning to think of 
 your declining days. You are beginning to yearn for the old 
 love. You are beginning to say, " Is it not time for the winter 
 to be gone, and for the spring to have come in my heart ?" The 
 time, oh ! backsliding Christian ; oh, wandering professor of re- 
 ligion ; oh ! child of God, beloved of Him, and yet forgetful of 
 your Father and your Saviour — the time of the singing of birds 
 has come to you. Rise up and rejoice ! 
 
 And as it is to individuals in the Church, so it is to the whole 
 Church itself ; so it is to us. Although, as a Church, we have 
 been having many blessings, and have not been without wit- 
 nesses of His Spirit, yet, owing partly to our sympathy with 
 human affairs, and with the affairs of our nation and our time, 
 and partly to other causes, as regards the peculiar blessing of 
 the sanctuary — the awakening and the conversion of sinners — 
 we have come to autumn and to winter ; and behold ! word 
 comes from our Sabbath- school, and from many famiUes that 
 are related to us, that the time of the singing of birds has come. 
 Birds and children — God be blessed for them. How much I 
 thank God that He did not let men come into the world as 
 soldiers go into the battle-field, full-grown, but that they come 
 in children. Give me children in the house. Give me children 
 in the school. Give me children in the street. If I am sick, 
 let me hear their voices through the open window. The 
 sweetest birds that ever sang in the air are these birds of the 
 house, and school, and street — children. And there are many 
 that have just begun to sing in the air. Some are here to-day 
 that have just flown up into the branches of the tree of Hfe. 
 There may they find protection from heat and storm, and food 
 for their everlasting want. 
 
 And some are singing outside yet. In the Sabbath-school 
 there is a singing of birds. In this Church, God be thanked, 
 birds are singing. Oh ! father, could God roll such a burden 
 off my heart as to let you know that your children are truly 
 converted to Christ ? When a Christian man's child is con- 
 verted, he says to himself, " I have a policy for that child; that 
 child is insured." You have done up your work of life ; it is 
 completed when you can put your children into the bosom of 
 the Saviour. 
 
 Covenant-believing parents, are your children among those 
 who are yearning for Jesus Christ, and hoping and singing? 
 Have you done anything? Have you thought? Have you 
 prayed ? Have you asked before the open heart of God, that 
 
SPRING-TIME IN NATURE AND IN EXPERIENCE. 215 
 
 sounds out louder than the ocean in your presence, saying, 
 " Whatever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive"? 
 Have you asked that your children might be gathered into the 
 kingdom of Christ ? 
 
 There are many classes and many schools that are very happy 
 now. I congratulate you, dear teacher. You see of the travail of 
 your soul, and are satisfied. Now you know something of Jesus 
 that you did not know before ; for when word came to you of 
 the conversion of such and such a one, what a thrill of joy did 
 it give you, that God should bring your dear pupils to a know- 
 ledge of the truth as it is in Jesus ! How sweet was the ecstasy 
 and gladness of your soul ! Now take what you feel and transfer 
 it to Christ, remembering that there is joy in heaven over one 
 sinner that repenteth more than over ninety and nine just 
 persons that need no repentance. This is the way Christ feels 
 respecting us. Take that thought, and when you experience 
 the feeling of joy and gladness, use it as an interpretation of 
 your God and Father. Make more of Him ; for we grow in 
 grace in proportion as we grow in the knowledge of our Lord 
 and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 
 There are many families that are now strangely united. In 
 times of flood, at the West, it sometimes happens that families 
 are surprised. In the morning they rise up, and find their 
 dwelling surrounded by water. I recollect an incident that 
 occurred on the Miami Bottoms when the Ohio overflowed, and 
 the country for four or five miles about was submerged. To 
 one dwelling, in which the water had driven the family from the 
 bottom of the house to the roof, which was then crumbling, 
 boats came, and the father and mother, and two or three 
 children, were taken off", and it was supposed that all were 
 rescued ; but after they had gone a little distance, it was found 
 out that one of the children had been left behind. Great con- 
 sternation and alarm was occasioned by the discovery, and a 
 boat was instantly sent to secure the child. The house was 
 already disjointing, and the timbers from it were floating off; 
 but the child was found, and taken into the boat. Thus the 
 last child was saved. Then suddenly the flood swelled, and in 
 a short time the fragments of the building were swept down. 
 
 Oh ! what joy, what gladness is there in families whose last 
 child is finally converted to Clirist ! The floods of temptation 
 and sin swell and surge, and threaten the household, and one 
 is rescued from danger, and another, and at last the ark of life 
 is sent to take the last child, and it is saved. Is it not time to 
 bring in the whole of your household? Can you imagine any 
 
2l6 SPRING-TIME IN NATURE AND IN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 happiness greater than that of the parent who can say, '' Christ 
 has twice given me my children : once for this w^orld,and once 
 for the w^orld to come. Now, happen what may, nothing can 
 befall me or mine, whether poverty or riches, joy or sorrow. 
 Pledges of immortality God has given me in my children ! " 
 Sing ! sing ! break forth into rejoicing ! There are seldom places 
 in this world for such triumphs as there are in such experiences 
 — experiences of souls renewed and sins forgiven ; in these 
 victories of grace, and, above all, these victories of grace in the 
 family, where God sanctifies the father's and the mother's heart, 
 and brings in, one by one, the children. 
 
 But the prodigals, that seem sometim.es sent away from hope :, 
 that seem sometimes sent down the broad way, almost to the 
 lurid gate, that at last God might snatch them as brands from 
 the burning, with amazing grace — the return of these is a source 
 of unspeakable joy in the household that shall go on sounding 
 to eternity. 
 
 VI. We are all of us going through life as a kind of winter. 
 We are, as we go toward age, dropping our hair, and losing,. 
 one by one, our senses. We are drifting toward autumn. Then 
 come the vacuous days of the winter of seeming uselessness — 
 declines which men dread. How many hate age ! This is the 
 winter of human life, to be sure : but just beyond is the rising 
 of that bright, immortal spring where the birds of heaven sing, 
 and which, when it has once begun, shall never be followed by 
 winter, and shall never be visited by storms. We are all of us 
 drawing near to the sweet spring of resurrection. Some have 
 gone. Methinks I hear, to-day, strange sounds. ]\Iy mother, 
 my brother, my children, and my friends many, have gone 
 before ; but their voices come back, and I hear them to-day. 
 The time of the singing of the birds is come. Our spring is 
 not far away. Our summer is near. Let every one lookup, and; 
 in the light and glory of the eternal world, take cheer. With a 
 holier faith and a truer consecration, let us to-day march on in 
 our Christian life, believing that He that hath pledged His word 
 will never leave us nor forsake us. Wherever you may be, 
 whether in battle, in the hospitals, among enemies, or in 
 business ; whatever may befall you, whether you be wounded, 
 or captive, or sick, or maligned and traduced, or tossed hither 
 and thither, sweet spring is coming on, and the summer of 
 heaven is just before you. Be patient to the end, and finally 
 you shall be saved. 
 
XVII. 
 THREE ERAS IN LIFE: GOD-LOVE— GRIEF ; 
 
 AS EXEMPLIFIED IN THE EXPERIENCE OF JaCOB. 
 
 *' And it came to pass after these things, that one told Joseph, Behold, thy 
 father is sick : and he took with him his two sons, ^lanasseh and 
 
 U- Ephraim. And one told Jacob, and said, Behold, thy son Joseph 
 Cometh unto thee. And Israel strengthened himself, and sat upon the 
 bed. And Jacob said unto Joseph, God Almighty appeared unto me 
 at Luz in the land of Canaan, and blessed me, and said unto me, 
 Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make 
 of thee a multitude of people ; and will give this land to thy seed after 
 thee for an everlasting possession. And now thy two sons, Ephraim 
 and Manasseh, which were born unto thee in the land of Egypt, 
 before I came unto thee into Egypt, are mine : as Reuben and Simeon, 
 they shall be mine. And thy issue, which thou begettest after them, 
 shall be thine, and shall be called after the name of their brethren in 
 their inheritance. And as for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel 
 died by me in the land of Canaan in the way, when yet there was but 
 a little way to come unto Ephrath : and I buried her there in the way 
 of Ephrath; the same is Beth-lehem." — Genesis xlviii. i — 7. 
 
 How Strange human life appears to us in these remote ages ? 
 Society, customs, occupations, in the earliest antiquity, seem 
 scarcely recognisable. Patriarchs of that far-off day are clothed 
 with the romance of a thousand years. As, when a village 
 stands on a summer afternoon flooded with a golden haze, we 
 see it through the dust and the vapour which rise from the in- 
 dustry of the village itself, so we look at these old men of a 
 distant time through an atmosphere which the minds of millions 
 of men has created. It seems irreverent, if not wicked, to 
 dissolve this golden mist, and to lay bare literal realities. 
 
 Esau and Jacob were brothers. They could not have been 
 better contrasted had their characters been merely dramatic. 
 Esau, the eldest, was bold, abrupt, heedless, yet with much in 
 his nature that was generous and loveable. He united a kind 
 of rashness, which produces the effect of wickedness, with 
 qualities which still draw the heart toward him. He had no 
 settled plan of life, no governing principle. He was a man of 
 impulses — capable of generous ones, yet more habitually act- 
 ing under others. He acted resolutely, but thoughtlessly, 
 along the line of impulse. When his worse nature prevailed, 
 
2l8 THREE ERAS IN LIFE: 
 
 he seemed hateful and cruel, though when his better nature 
 was touched, he seemed far more noble than his brother Jacob. 
 
 Jacob was a man of deep nature, but his depth lay chiefly 
 in his domestic affections. He was considerate, wise, and 
 politic. Esau's feelings were first ; his thoughtfulness was 
 second. Jacob's reason was dominant. Nothing in him acted 
 that he did not permit. He looked before him. He foresaw 
 advantages, anticipated evils; secured the one, and avoided 
 the other. 
 
 Now a character that is perfectly round and balanced is 
 never so interesting in its details as one that is fitful. Not 
 that landscape which is smoothest is the most taking to the 
 eye, but the roughest and the rudest. And characters that are 
 well knit together do not catch men's admiration as those do 
 that have chasms, and falls, and cliffs — strong qualities. It is 
 always easier to live with a round and well-balanced mind, but 
 we admire the other sort, and make heroes of them. So it is 
 that the young and inexperienced are perpetually tempted to 
 make heroes of men that are not heroic, and that are unfit to 
 be imitated. And hence it has come to be a saying that the 
 faults of strong men are the things that are the easiest copied. 
 
 Jacob's feelings were always under the control of his judg- 
 ment. He indulged them or repressed them as seemed the 
 best. Such a nature seldom captivates. The imagination 
 always loves a certain uncontrollable course of feeling. One 
 loves to see a strong man regulated and good, but regulation 
 ought not to stand in the place of great natural impulses in the 
 right direction. We want the heart to think for the head as 
 well as the head for the heart. Where a man measures every 
 step, limits every feeling, analyses every motive, controls every 
 impulse to the scruple, he may seem to us more nearly right, 
 but neither magnanimous nor strong. We conceive of a nature 
 to which principle is like the banks of rivers, fixed and 
 definite ; but within those banks one loves to see the waters 
 rising with awful freshets, or moving in uncontrollable power, 
 now wrinkled and swirled, and making headlong haste to over- 
 come all hindrances, and now spreading wider, and growing 
 calmer, and flowing deeper, as if victory had subdued all fret 
 and anger. 
 
 But a man whose banks have been laid for him, stone by 
 stone, smooth and even, is a canal whose waters are economi- 
 cally regulated, just enough for profitable use, and not a drop 
 more. Every wave and swell is combed out, every wrinkle is 
 smoothed, and every drop seemingly is walking down to the 
 
GOD— LOVE — GRIEF. 219 
 
 mill with a sense of its duty to turn the wheel round. Canals 
 are very good, but men do not sing or make poems about 
 canals. 
 
 Esau was not a river, but a torrent, that, when rain fell on 
 the mountains, roared down the ravines, but in summer was 
 dry. Jacob was more than a canal. He was a river, but a 
 stream that had long since forgotten the mountains, and 
 flowed through level plains smoothly, beautifully, but not 
 grandly. 
 
 This wise and politic nature, however, was suited to the 
 position of a leader. He was to develop a nation. He was 
 to found a religious economy. He was fitted to be a states- 
 man. He had an eventful life and a long one. Yet so 
 adroitly did he manage circumstances, so discreet was he in 
 dealing with human nature, that we see, even in the simple 
 and rude affairs of a shepherd's Hfe, a statesman, and one 
 able to control himself (an ability which constitutes the first 
 element of statesmanship), and then able to control other men, 
 and, last of all, able to seek human ends by the use of princi- 
 ples rather than by expedients. Such was Jacob's gift. 
 
 As he became old, time seemed to make him, if not nobler, 
 yet more dignified. The unconscious grandeur of the contrast 
 between him and Pharaoh, when they met, ought long ago to 
 have inspired some brush. In the land of Pyramids, then 
 second to none on earth in civilisation, with cities whose mere 
 ruins now fill us with wonder, with an educated priesthood, 
 and a nobility far above any other on earth, the seat of 
 learning, and the bright centre of art, the king called for this 
 shepherd, this leader of a tribe, this patriarch of a kingdom. 
 The scene is recorded in the chapter preceding that from 
 which our text is borrowed. I will read a few verses of it to 
 you : — 
 
 " And Joseph brought in Jacob, his father, and set him 
 before Pharaoh : and Jacob blessed Pharaoh." 
 
 He took the position of a superior instinctively. There sat 
 the glittering old king, on his jewelled throne, surrounded by 
 his satraps ; and there sat altogether the king, as between the 
 two, and blessed him. 
 
 "And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old art thou? And 
 Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pil- 
 grimage are an hundred and thirty years : few and evil have 
 the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained 
 unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days 
 of their pilgrimage." 
 
2 20 THREE ERAS IN LIFE I 
 
 Which of those two came out best in conversation ? Pharaoh, 
 ■who said, How old art thou ? or Jacob, who made this most 
 exquisite answer ? 
 
 "And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from before 
 Pharaoh." 
 
 And it was dark when he had gone out ; for all the light of 
 that court was not equal to his face. 
 
 The natural monarch was apparent. It was the old shepherd 
 that stood up grandest, and looked down on the king and 
 blessed him. Mark the simple summing up of his life. How 
 strangely such words must have sounded to the monarch in 
 his palace, surrounded by all the luxuries of human life ! 
 
 At length, as his end drew nigh, and he began to fail, Joseph 
 was informed, and hasted to him. The passage that I have 
 read gives the result of the first interview. It was in the 
 nature of a review of his own life— rather a statement of its 
 results. He looked back on all the long reach of his life, and 
 there were but three impressions that stood up so high above 
 all forgetfulness, above all interests, that he saw nothing else. 
 
 When I stood upon the Gorner Grat, in Switzerland, right 
 over above me were IMonts Rosa, Breithorn, and Matterhorn. 
 A hundred smaller swells, peaks, and mountains there were, 
 which, if alone, would have been commanding, but which, in 
 the presence of these grander summits, one did not see. They 
 were but so many approaches to the higher mountains, and 
 seemed to serve them, to watch their skirts, and finish off their 
 lines of grandeur and beauty. 
 
 So, in human life, myriads of separate events in our conscious- 
 ness run together, and report themselves as units in some few 
 great experiences which swallow up the individuality of those 
 elements which once had a separate sphere and seemed 
 important. 
 
 Jacob looked up and saw but three things. "God Almighty 
 appeared unto me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and blessed 
 me." "And as for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel 
 died by me in the land of Canaan." God, Love, Grief— these 
 were the sum of his life in retrospect. They were all that he 
 had to speak of. A trinity of the past they were. They 
 dwarfed everything else. Had he forgotten his early ambition? 
 Had he forgotten the heat and fire of his youth ? Had he 
 forgotten his unrighteous management and supplanting of his 
 brother ? Had he forgotten his fear and enforced flight ? 
 Had he forgotten his residence with Laban? Had he for- 
 gotten his toils and watchings, and the shrewdness by which 
 
GOD — LOVE — GRIEF. 221 
 
 he came off at last rich ? Did he forget the return to Palestine, 
 the dreaded meeting of his brother, his troubles with neio-h- 
 bouring chiefs, and his wrangling children, deceitful, harsh, and 
 cruel ? Had he forgotten the horror that spread over him at 
 Joseph's reported death, his inconsolable grief, or his surprise 
 afterward at Joseph's glory in Egypt, which was so great that 
 it could not be spoken in words ? 
 
 These experiences had been buried. All time could not 
 efface them, nor age overgrow them ; yet, in comparison with 
 other influences, they sank down pulseless and voiceless. As 
 he looked back across the plain of life, the three summits that 
 lifted themselves up above all others, and seemed alone worthy 
 of name, were God, Love, Grief. 
 
 " God appeared to me at Luz." This one, first, and great 
 appearance of God was memorable in all his life, because it was 
 the first. Others came after, without a doubt. Dreams and 
 visions, supplementary intimations, he had. But there is some- 
 thing in a full first experience which nothing can ever rival or 
 supersede. Many results come so gradually, that we watch their 
 unfolding as we do that of a flower whose seed we plant, and 
 all of whose stages we watch and help, and whose blossoming, 
 though it be a pleasure, is never a surprise. But now and then 
 a great experience comes unexpected and unsought. It touches 
 the greater chords of the soul, and lifts it above the common 
 level of emotion, outruns all former knowledge, and fills the 
 soul and overflows it, and amazes it with its own capacity of 
 joy, or love, or grief, or fear, or awe. In the presence of its 
 own intense and surpassing emotions the soul is conscious of 
 nothing else in life. It seems to itself to be the height and 
 centre of the universe, and all other things fall off and grade 
 away from it. The reality of immortality, the indestructible- 
 ness of the soul's life, is revealed to it in some of these higher 
 and transcendent experiences, that seem not to have come 
 from natural causes, but to have been let down from above by 
 Divine inspiration. 
 
 These memorable moments cannot be renewed. You may 
 go to the same place, and to the same events, or even to 
 greater ones, but not with the same result. Knowledge always 
 ends mystery. A first experience brings its mystery, and its 
 surprises are very exhilarating. The surprise, the wonder, the 
 eager expectancy, ihe half-sense of translation, comes but once 
 in the same faculty. 
 
 But what other experience is like that of the personal dis- 
 closure of God in the soul ? We have read of God in books. 
 
2 22 THREE ERAS IN LIFE: 
 
 and believed. We have gazed upon the earth and the sky, and 
 worshipped. We have yielded faith and feeling to inspirations 
 of the sanctuary, and rejoiced withal. But there comes an hour 
 to some, to many, of transfiguration. It may be in grief; it 
 may be in joy ; it may be the opening of the door of sickness ; 
 it may be in active duty ; it may be under the roof or under the 
 sky, where God draws near with such reality, glory, and power, 
 that the soul is filled, amazed, transported. All before was 
 nothing ; all afterward will be but as a souvenir. That single 
 vision, that one hour, is worth the whole of life, and throws back 
 a light on all that went before. It solves doubts, it glorifies 
 mysteries which no longer seem abysses beneath us, but golden 
 floods above us. It shoots radiant arrows through all doubts 
 and scepticisms, and gives to the soul some such certainty of 
 invisible spiritual truths as one has of his own personal identity. 
 When one has had this hour of Divine disclosure, of full and 
 entrancing vision, it never can be retracted, or effaced, or 
 reasoned against, or forgotten. The impression remains, and 
 the soul goes back to it with assurance and trust, from all its 
 fears, and scruples, and intellectual uncertainties. It fulfils the 
 words of the Master, " And He shall give you another Com- 
 forter, that He may abide with you for ever, even the Spirit of 
 truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him 
 not, neither knoweth Him ; but ye know Him ; for He dwelleth 
 with you, and shall be in you. 
 
 Such was Jacob's vision of God. That one interview stamped 
 itself upon his life. As a gold coin receives|under the die one 
 pressure which stamps upon it the features that it is to bear in 
 all its rounds of commerce, so the soul of the patriarch received 
 upon it the image and the superscription of God. 
 
 When old age was obscuring his reason, and memory, like a 
 worn and wasted bag, was scattering all along the road its con- 
 tents, yet from the dim horizon of his decrepitude that great expe- 
 rience, " God appeared to me at Luz," was not effaced, or 
 weakened, or dimmed, or forgotten, but was with him in the 
 valley of the shadow of death ; and he might say, with Asaph, 
 " My flesh and heart faileth ; but God is the strength of my 
 heart, and my portion for ever." If one such vision of God, to 
 one confused and feeble miOral nature on earth, cross-ploughed 
 and harrowed by cares and duties, is yet of such wondrous 
 power, what will the sight of God be in the heavenly land, 
 where we shall see Him as He is, and face to face ? 
 
 Though less august, yet perhaps even more affecting, was the 
 second of his three remembered experiences of his life — Love. 
 
GOD LOVE— GRIEF. 223. 
 
 Of all those whom he had known, only two names remained 
 to him in that twilight between this life and the other — where 
 he stood — God and Rachel. There is something in the help- 
 lessness of former days to express affection that touches every 
 generous soul. Modern loves have had their literature. Dante 
 has lifted up his Beatrice, and made her the world's admiration. 
 Petrarch's Laura will not be forgotten while letters last. Poets 
 build temples in verse, wherein they enshrine love and give it 
 immortality. The letters of Abelard and Heloise will make their 
 names famous to the end of time, which show that they spent 
 their life in repenting of that which was the noblest thing that 
 belonged to that life — the fact that they loved each other. In 
 the days in which they lived, love, under the touch of supersti- 
 tion, had withered. 
 
 But in those far-away days in which the patriarch lived men 
 were without literature, without the instruments of expression, 
 and the great heart carried its love unspoken. Yet this simple 
 scene on the boundary of the other life is a testimony to Rachel 
 more touching and exquisite, by its very helplessness, than any 
 man has ever laid at the feet of his beloved. The simple mention 
 of her name by the side of God, in this last tremulous moment 
 of his life, is itself a monument to her, to her goodness, to her 
 loveableness, to the ascendancy which she gained over the 
 patriarch's heart. I would rather be Rachel than Laura. 
 
 Is it not among the things of note and of grandeur to see a 
 soul walking along life upheld by a full and perfect love ? Others 
 had been dear to him, but Rachel alone filled his capacity of 
 love. She left no part of his Hfe unfertiHzed. The outward Hfe 
 had been full of cares, dangers, business, and change. This 
 inward life had been silent, and had had little expression. 
 Persons approaching this chief would not have dreamed of its 
 depth and power. They would have seen his state, his authority, 
 his wealth, but not that spring which, though hidden, fed his 
 joy and made it green. 
 
 But in his last hours the flocks were forgotten. The gold and 
 silver, the raiment and the riches— these external elements sank 
 out of sight, and left disclosed that deep and hidden source of 
 his life, a soul-satisfying love. 
 
 Next to God, a true human love is the most powerful for 
 good, and fruitful in joy. Of all human possibilities, whether it 
 be of father or mother, of wife or child, of friend or hero, no 
 one has lived to his whole capacity who has not felt the fulness 
 of an over-mastering love. 
 
 To most men love is a kind of well to which they resort when 
 
2 24 THREE ERAS IN LIFE : 
 
 they are thirsty, and draw the crystal treasure for their present 
 need, and then resort again to other satisfying experiences. 
 But there is a love that, like a fountain, needs no cord or pole 
 to draw withal, but, full, pulsing night and day, in all seasons, 
 sparkling, abundant, pours forth its treasure, not by the measure 
 of a bucket, or by the capacity of a need, but according to the 
 fulness of its own life. To have had such a vision of God, and 
 such a love for Rachel, was to connect Him with all that is 
 highest and noblest in the experience of the human race. 
 
 The third of these experiences was that Rachel was buried. 
 All men know grief, and griefs ; but to be taken possession of; 
 ■filled full ; to have the soul rolled in an abyss of darkness, with 
 no east for a morning, and hardly a west ; with a memory of 
 a sun that has gone down apparently into darkness — this is a 
 great experience. Such to Jacob was the death of Rachel. His 
 very love was swallowed up in his grief. His whole life, seen in 
 retrospect, was this : — " I lost her. As I was in the way, she 
 left me." This man, that stood so high among his own people — 
 this man, that was admitted to the presence of the king, and 
 that was full of years, and honours, and wealth, in looking back 
 upon his life, said, *' I remember God, and I remember Rachel 
 that died." These were all he had left to remember. The wail 
 measures the foregoing joy. The loss is the sign of the precious- 
 ness. What the heart can suffer tells what the heart can enjoy. 
 It is not the rude and spontaneous outburst that tells what love 
 is. It certainly is not the exquisite and ecstatic description that 
 tells what love is. Sorrow is the measure of love. Sorrow is the 
 true symbol of love. How much we suffer for another tells how 
 much we love that other. Therefore mother above all others is 
 the lover, AVhen Rachel died, the whole world had but one 
 man in it, and he was solitary, and his name v^'as Jacob. 
 
 But what are common griefs but a variation of prosperity, 
 the shadow which joy casts? There is no substance without a 
 shadow ; there is no joy without a sorrow ; but, after all, both 
 sorrows and joys are, for the most part, like clouds in summer, 
 whose fleecy substance in the air, and whose moving shadow on 
 the fields, are both fleeting and effectless. 
 
 But griefs of the heart are as visitations of God. They are 
 powers in the soul. They rule and endure. Jacob, at the very 
 ciose of life, looking back across the desert, saw but three great 
 landmarks in all his life. The first as he looked back, the one 
 next to him, was grief. That led him still higher, to love. And 
 that stood up against the background of a higher and the 
 highest — God. 
 
GOD — LOVE — GRIEF. 225 
 
 With this unfolding, and the suggestions which I have 
 carried with me in the narrative, let me close a few points of 
 application. 
 
 I. See how perfectly we are in unity with the life of this one 
 of the earliest men. How perfectly we understand him ! How 
 the simplest experiences touch us to the quick ! Our tears fall 
 for him that passed away four thousand years ago as if we 
 stood and heard his voice. The unity of the race of man is 
 proved, not by monuments, not by the results which he 
 achieves, but by the common experiences of the soul. The 
 fundamental affections, the great faculties, which God put into 
 man at his making — these stand related from the beginning of 
 the world down to the end, so that wherever you go you find 
 that which is original and constituent in man. You recognise 
 in every nation, in every tribe, your fellow-men, your brethren. 
 Go to Egypt, and stand among the Sphinxes, the Pyramids, the 
 old and wondrous temples, and you are a stranger in a stransje 
 land, and it seems scarcely less than a ghastly dream. Go 
 farther East, behold the ruined architecture, revive the manners 
 and customs of the Syrian and Babylonian empires, and you 
 seem still among a strange people. If they should rise and 
 speak to you, their tongues would be as strange to you as yours 
 rt'ould be to them. But let a maiden speak her love, and 
 instantly you know that voice. The works that their hands 
 wrought are wondrous. The affections that throb in their heart 
 are familiar. The things that they lived for outwardly — see 
 how widely you are separated from these. How different are 
 their laws, their institutions, and their methods of commerce 
 from ours ! How strange to us are their political economy and 
 their ecclesiastical system ! Touch that which man fashioned 
 and formed, and man is disjointed, and split apart by rivers, 
 and mountains, and times, and ages; but touch the human 
 •heart, and let that speak, and all men rise up and say, "That 
 voice is my voice." Reach but the feeling of love, and every 
 human being says, "It is my brother; it is my sister." 
 Strike those chords that bring out the experience of grief, and 
 every man wails with the hoary wallers of antiquity. ]\Ian is 
 not a unit by virtue of the fruits of his intellect and the works 
 of his hand, but by virtue of those eternal identities of senti- 
 ment and affection which are common to all men in all nations 
 and ages. We stand by the side of Jacob to-day, and are 
 familiar with every step of his inward life ; whereas, if we go 
 back to the literature, and customs, and institutions of the age 
 in which he lived, they are all strange to us. That which 
 
 Q 
 
226 THREE ERAS IN LIFE : 
 
 comes out of men estranges one from another. That which we 
 keep in us makes all men kin. 
 
 2. The filling up of Hfe, however important in its day, is in 
 retrospect very insignificant. When the patriarch looked back 
 through his life, there were but two or three things, as I have 
 said, that seemed to have happened to him, and yet there were 
 a million. They grouped themselves into two or three, and it 
 seemed to him as though his life might be expressed by that 
 brief formula — God, Rachel, Grief. And with us it will be so. 
 The frets that come upon us ; the anger that rolls its storms in 
 our sky ; the jealousies, the envyings, the fears, the hopes, the 
 petty piques, the burdensome cares, the satisfactions, the 
 thousand lights and shadows of superficial life — these speck 
 the hour and clothe the summer of our experience ; but, after 
 all, when you have gone a little way from them, they are as if 
 they had not been. 
 
 Where is all that gay plumage which the trees lifted up some 
 six months agone ? Where is all that purple garniture of the 
 fields that delighted every eye that looked upon it? The 
 fields are bare and russet, and the trees hold up their branches 
 against the sky, without leaf, or blossom, or fruit. 
 
 Look back upon those ten thousand experiences which you 
 passed through last year. How many of them can you revive ? 
 How many of them could you now recite? If narrated to you, 
 how hke the history in a novel would they be to you ! We are 
 neither as happy nor as miserable as we think. There are but 
 few fast colours in human experience. The dyes that seem so 
 bright to-day wash out to-morrow. The substance of man's 
 life — how useful and needful it is ; and yet how fragile and 
 insignificant compared with certain great spiritual features, 
 certain grand, fundamental elements which shape life and 
 character, immortality and destiny ! 
 
 3. The significance of events is not to be judged by their 
 outward productive force, nor by their power of reporting 
 themselves to our senses, but by their productiveness in the 
 inward life. All that a man constructs out of matter, all that 
 he does as a member of society, must have its importance; 
 but, after all, these things are temporal, and therefore transient. 
 It is wise to build up men according to methods that God has 
 ordained. Human government, human society, industries of 
 every kind, are ordinances of God — not such ordinances as the 
 Church has. Men ought to dig, to smelt, to construct, to store; 
 men ought to be seamen and landsmen ; men ought to be 
 husbandmer, manufacturers, merchants. The business of life 
 
GOD — LOVE — GRIEF, 
 
 227 
 
 is of consequence, but it is not of the highest consequence. It 
 is an instrument, and not the end ; for all that a man accumu- 
 lates, the matter that makes him powerful here, stays on this 
 side of the grave. All that he constructs in himself of thought 
 and feeling he will carry with him. 
 
 Now, tell men that those are the strongest that stand yonder, 
 and they will ask, "What are they worth? " Of bonds, nothing; 
 of houses and lands, nothing ; of ships and goods, nothing. And 
 when you tell them this, they say, smiling, " You are given to 
 poetry, to tell me that those are the men of power. For my 
 part," say they, "give me a good farm and substantial funds to 
 manage it with ; give me a bank ; give me ships ; you may have 
 your inside treasures, but I would rather have material treasures 
 so long as I live in a physical world." But when men come to 
 walk the shadowy way; when the great Tax-gatherer calls all 
 men before Him, to the one he says, " Give me thy ships." 
 *' O Death, they are thine," saith the man. To others he says, 
 "Give me thy houses and lands;" and they and their possessions 
 part company without papers. To another he says, " Give me 
 thy funds that thou hast toiled for ; " and the man that stood 
 highest in his day and generation is stripped bare, and shoved 
 out of the world, with no capital for the life to come. 
 
 Then comes another man, a man of dreams, as he is called. 
 Death says to him, "Yield up thy ships." "I have none." 
 " Yield up thine acres." "I have none." *' Yield up thy bonds 
 and funds." " I have none." " Yield up thy thoughts." " Nay, 
 O Death, my thoughts are mine, and beyond thy power." 
 " Yield up thy affections." " Nay, Death, thou canst not touch 
 my affections. And my hope, my immortaUty — these are not 
 in thy schedule. That which I am by the grace of God, thou 
 canst not tax or hold. I carry all that with me." The man 
 that is mightiest in this world leaves his might behind him ; and 
 the man that is weakest in this world carries his might with 
 him. When we step into that other world where things are 
 measured according to their realities, the man that has the most 
 has the least, and the man that has the least has the most. 
 And so the first shall be last, and the last shall be first. 
 
 4. In looking back through the events of life, though they 
 are innumerable, though they are amazing in their variety and 
 in their diversity, yet those that remain at last are very few — 
 not because all the others have perished, but because they 
 group themselves and assume moral unity in the distance. We 
 find that the patriarch's Hfe, in looking at it retrospectively, 
 summed itself up in two or three experiences which had their 
 
 Q— 2 
 
228 THREE ERAS IN LIFE I 
 
 respective types. He speaks of bis life as being all represented 
 by these few things. And our life will appear, by-and-bye, in 
 the same way. It consists not in the abundance of the things 
 we possess. The things that now seem of the least account 
 will seem of the most transcendent importance. What you retain 
 that connects you with God, what you have known in life that 
 was most generous, and deep, and sweet of love, and what 
 great cleansing griefs you have suffered— these will stand 
 highest in the last hours of life. Though they seem to perish, 
 yet they are more in number and more precious as we draw 
 near to heaven. And sorrowers and sufferers, when they look 
 back upon their sorrow and suffering at the close of life, will 
 see beyond it love, beyond that God, and beyond them all 
 eternity and blessedness. 
 
 Let us, then, not revoke the duties of the day; but let us 
 remember that there is a higher fruit than that of which man 
 thinks. And while we are building up the family and the 
 state, and discharging our functions in the great realm of civi- 
 lised life, let us remember that these are but instruments ; that 
 the true life is that which is carried on in man's silent thought 
 and deeper affections, and that only he lives that day by day 
 is projecting his life into the other sphere. 
 
 And as you look back from your last hours, may it be yours, 
 joined, as you are, in a common faith with the old patriarch, to 
 behold, standing clearest in the horizon, these higher experi- 
 ences of your moral nature. There may they stand, fixed and 
 radiant, when the fret, and fever, and suffering of the body 
 have ceased, and have no more record for ever. 
 
 PRAYER. 
 
 We are drawn, O Thou ascended One, by all the memories 
 and associations of this day, to look up that bright and shining 
 way whither Thou hast gone, and to behold Thee where Thou art, 
 a Friend and a Saviour, exalted far above all human suffering — 
 far above the weakness that once befell Thee. Thou hast burst 
 the bonds not only of death, but of human life, that imprisoned 
 Thee, and now Thou art God over all, blessed for ever. We 
 rejoice that we are related to Thee. By Thine own grace Thou 
 hast made us blood kindred, and nothing can be Thine which 
 shall not also, in measure, be ours ; nor canst Thou ascend in 
 glory without taking Thine own, that where Thou art, they may 
 
GOD — LOVE — GRIEF. 229 
 
 be also. And all that there is of blessedness in heaven, and all 
 that there is in the coming ages, Thou art holding for Thine 
 own as much as for Thyself. And we rejoice that Thy abode, 
 for ever filling, shall never be filled, and that there is to be 
 room for the incoming of all the generations of time. There is 
 in Thine heart ample love and provision, and in Thine hand 
 power inexhaustible. Thou canst not augment the bounds of 
 Thy kingdom beyond Thy power of care and of love ; and there 
 is no such thing as weariness with Thee — Thou that art without 
 shadow of turning, the unslumbering Watchman of Israel ! 
 We rejoice, therefore, and are strong, not in the sources of 
 human joy and strength, but in Thee. We rejoice this morning, 
 and acclaim Thee God, Redeemer, Father ; and we call our- 
 selves Thy children, since it is that sweet name which Thou hast 
 been pleased to hold forth to us, and to lay upon us, and which, 
 resting on us, is more than a coronet. We rejoice in all the 
 fulness and sweetness of its meaning. We mourn that we can 
 carry it with us so little. We mourn that as by the winds the 
 leaves of flowers are blown away, so our sweetest thoughts of 
 Thee are taken away from us ; but as, swift-growing, the leaves 
 come again, bearing rich perfumes, so these thoughts return, 
 and, by help obtained of Thee, we continue to be blessed by 
 thee. 
 
 And now we commend ourselves to Thy fatherly care. Thou, 
 in whose hands is all power ; Thou, that hast all wisdom ; Thou, 
 that art goodness itself; Thou, that hast taught to love all that 
 know how to love, be pleased, we beseech of Thee, to accept 
 the offering of ourselves which we make. Consecrate us to Thy 
 service. Make us more worthy of Thy taking and of Thy keep- 
 ing. By Thy providence and by Thy grace, educate us so that 
 we may rise, step by step, to purity, and spiritual wisdom, and 
 godliness. 
 
 Remember all in this congregation according to their several 
 wants, and interpret, not as they interpret, but as thou seest 
 and thou knowest. How much better are Thy thoughts toward 
 us than our own ? How much better is that way which we 
 shun, and which God marks out, than that way which we seek, 
 and which God forbids ! We beseech of Thee, look into the 
 heart of every one. Are there those that sit under great 
 trouble ? Thou, that hast been in trouble, dost know how to 
 succour them. Are there any that are in grief? Thou hast 
 been a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Are there 
 any that are heart-sick from hope deferred ? Has not thine 
 own heart felt the spear? Hast thou not mourned in darkness? 
 
230 THREE ERAS IN LIFE: 
 
 Are there those who, with all their losses, have lost the 
 evidence of Christ's acceptance of them, and their hope of 
 God? Didst not thou cry out, '' Why hast thou forsaken me? 
 and dost thou not know their pang and extremity of sorrow? 
 O God, draw near to all that sit beneath the cloud. Minister 
 strength and consolation to them. Let the light begin to shine 
 into their darkness. Grant that they may feel that if God is 
 for them, none can be against them. May they rise up and put 
 their trust in Thee. 
 
 We beseech Thee that Thou wilt sanctify to every one the 
 afflictions which Thou art laying upon them. It is a time of 
 trouble.* All through our land are mourners in unwonted 
 numbers. We behold Thy providence, the mystery and the 
 wonder of it; and therefore we lay our hands upon our mouth, 
 and our mouths in the dust. For our sins Thou art chastising 
 this people. But, we pray Thee, look upon the individual 
 mourners. Whilst Thou art doing a fearful and marvellous 
 work in this great nation, O Lord, forget not to be gracious. 
 Enter in and comfort the widow, the orphan, and all that in 
 sorrow drink their daily cup and eat their daily bread. 
 Remember all that are distressed, and bind up their bruised 
 and wounded hearts. 
 
 And we beseech of Thee that Thou wilt look upon those in 
 this congregation who are in the midst of cares, and duties, 
 ana burdens of life, and that are harassed with various 
 perplexi^'es. Grant to every one whatever he needs, that his 
 strength may be as his day is. May all have occasion to thank 
 God for His presence and for the richness of His grace. We 
 pray Thee, instruct each of us how to take the aftairs of this life 
 without being overborne by its responsibilities, and without 
 being led by them away from Thee. Teach us, we beseech 
 of Thee, how to carry ourselves so that we shall evermore have 
 the presence of Christ, and the sweet suggestions of the Spirit 
 of God. And teach us how to bear more and more of the 
 humanity of the Gospel and of the love of Christ into our 
 fellowship with each other — into our intercourse with man. 
 Teach us how to do as thou dost, according to the measure of 
 our power. 
 
 Bless any strangers that may be in our midst ; and if, in the 
 suggestions of this place and of this worship, they bethink 
 them of the dear ones that are far from them, and of the house 
 of God in which they have been accustomed to sit ; and if in 
 their ears are sounds of melodies remembered long, grant that 
 ■'•' The civil war was in progress at this time. 
 
GOD — LOVE — GRIEF. 231 
 
 Still among those who are their brethren, though they be of 
 strange names, they may feel children's comfort in their 
 Father's house. Heed their tears. Answer their prayers. 
 Comfort their hearts. Bless those whom they fain would have 
 blessed. 
 
 Go forth with all our hearts and thoughts to those that are 
 separated from us, wherever they may be. Remember, we 
 beseech of Thee, those of our brethren who are in circumstances 
 of peril and toil. Many yet walk in the battle-field. God 
 preserve them ! ^Many are wounded and suffering ! God 
 comfort and heal them ! Many are scattered hither and thither 
 through this land. Though they be wanderers, let that thread 
 of faith, which invisibly connects us to Thee, hold them, that 
 we and they may still be one in Christ Jesus. And we pray 
 that all who are in distant lands, or in remote portions of our 
 own land, and who remember us Sabbath by Sabbath, and 
 sing the songs that we sing, and look to the hours that we 
 observe, may be blessed of Thee. Give them evermore to 
 partake of the food of which we partake, and that it may 
 strengthen them as we are strengthened. 
 
 Look upon the poor and sick in our midst, to comfort them, 
 to cheer them, and to heal them. And grant that our sym- 
 pathies may be exercised more toward them. Look upon all 
 the classes round about us that need the Gospel, and have it 
 not. May there be more light and power in the churches, 
 whereby to go forth and preach Christ Jesus to those that lack 
 a knowledge of the Saviour. Bless all eftbrts for the reformation 
 of morals. Stay the flood of intemperance that threatens us. 
 Hold back this great people, we beseech of Thee, from sottish 
 and besotting sins. 
 
 Grant, we pray we, a blessing to rest upon this nation. 
 Remember the President of these United States,* whom Thou 
 hast placed in a position of great responsibility and of trying 
 labours. Thou hast been his God. Thou hast given the 
 spirit of wisdom to rest upon him. Thou hast led him out of 
 dangerous and difficult places. Still guide him unto the end, 
 and grant that he may never be without Thy presence and 
 Thy conscious guidance. May his thoughts be lifted up to 
 Thee evermore, that not the transient favour of man, but the 
 abiding wisdom of God, may be his rule. Bless all others 
 that are in authority about him, and that are his counsellors. 
 Bless all that are assembled to make laws for this nation. 
 Remember the generals of our army, and the soldiers, every 
 * AlDraham Lincoln. 
 
232 THREE ERAS IN LIFE : GOD— LOVE — GRIEF. 
 
 one. Grant that victory may be given us for the sake of 
 humanity, and justice, and liberty. Remember the poor 
 outcast slaves. Give to them that freedom which is their right. 
 and with it give them that instruction which shall open to 
 them that more noble liberty wherewith Thou makest Thy 
 people free. We thank Thee that Thou hast guided these poor 
 creatures of Thine, and kept them from imprudence, and 
 caused them to be praised for their wisdom. Grant that the 
 day appointed for their deliverance may soon come, and that 
 at last they may go free. And in their freedom may we too, 
 at last, be free. And we beseech of Thee, when Thou hast 
 purged out the sins from this nation, when Thou hast punished 
 us for our transgressions, that there may be a staying of the 
 red cloud of war. Some wind may there arise that shall sweep 
 it away into the wilderness, with all its devastations. In Thy 
 good time deliver us from chastisement, and suffering, and 
 peril. Grant that our relief may so come that all nations shall 
 see the salvation of God therein, that Thy name may be 
 glorified thereby, and that this people may become a mightier 
 witness for Christ and for Christianity than has ever before 
 existed. While so many are watching for our downfall, grant 
 that they may behold a nation rise, not for the terror of other 
 nations, but for the consolation of the poor, for the instruction 
 of the ignorant, and for the hope of the oppressed ; and may 
 this great people be self-restrained, and tempered in their 
 ambition ; and may their prosperity, and wealth, and power all 
 swell and augment the glorious triumphs of Christ in the 
 world. Hasten that day which has been so long prayed for^ 
 and which so many have died without seeing; let it at last 
 begin to dawn over the mountains, and all flesh shall see Thy 
 salvation. We ask it for Christ's sake. Amen. 
 
XVIII. 
 
 WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH CHRIST? 
 
 "Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called 
 Christ?" — Matt, xxvii. 22. 
 
 Pilate, a Roman procurator, was for ten years governor of 
 Judea under the Emperor Tiberius. History represents him 
 as stern, cruel, stubborn, and avaricious. Nor is there anything 
 in the Gospels to modify such a characterisation. He acts as if 
 he were just such a man as he is represented by history to be. 
 
 The question which Pilate puts indicates expostulation full 
 as much as perplexity. An honest man, sitting in his place, 
 would have found no trouble — would certainly have had no 
 doubt as to duty ; for Christ had lived and taught during Pilate's 
 administration, and there is evidence, also, in the text of 
 Scripture, that Pilate had a general knowledge of the purity of 
 His doctrine and the integrity of His life. All the allegations 
 made against Him and the evidences which had been presented 
 in confirmation of them were so manifestly insufficient for 
 condemnation, nay, even for blameworthiness, that Pilate's 
 mind was not affected in the slightest degree with trouble from 
 conflicting evidence, or the intricacy of principles involved. It 
 was a case perfectly clear in itself. Pilate sat there as a 
 supreme arbiter— as a ruler and judge. It was his business to 
 consider Christ's conduct in relation to the laws of the land, 
 and in that relation there was not a shadow of evidence against 
 Him. He stood morally acquitted of every charge upon which 
 He was arraigned. Nay, Pilate w^as perfectly well acquainted 
 with the accuseds of Christ. He knew them to be selfish, 
 ambitious, vindictive men : and he was entirely convinced in 
 this particular case that Christ was persecuted by them from 
 reasons of malice ; for it is declared that " he knew that for 
 envy they had delivered Him." 
 
 This, then, was a case which to an honest and a just man 
 would have had no difficulties whatever. There was but one 
 plain duty to be performed, and that was to acquit Christ, and 
 to discharge Plim. But to a politic man, who only regards 
 men's moods as they affect his own interests, and their moral 
 qualities only as so many collateral elements of his own welfare 
 
234 WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH CHRIST? 
 
 — to such a one there may be trouble in such a case ; for the 
 people had been stirred up by their rulers, and were almost 
 riotous ; and the chief priests and influential men were hot with 
 rage. Pilate was satisfied that Christ was innocent, and ought 
 to be released. But how could he acquit Him, and yet stand 
 well with the ruling classes? That was the perplexity. He 
 wanted to do two opposite things ; he wished to reconcile two 
 irreconcilable courses. He therefore reasons with them per- 
 suasively— "Wh-^.t evil hath He done?"— hoping to bring them 
 into a better, juster state of mind. He endeavours to appease 
 them by offering another victim for their wrath — Barabbas. And 
 so he tries various expedients to get rid of pronouncing con- 
 demnation upon Christ — the thing that they wanted him to do, 
 and that he shrunk from doing. 
 
 The most extraordinary part, however, of this scene, and the 
 one which shows at once the greatest moral sensibility in Pilate, 
 and the most profound moral ignorance, is that recorded in the 
 twenty-fourth verse of this narrative. — " When Pilate saw that 
 he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he 
 took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, 
 I am innocent of the blood of this just person; see ye to it." 
 
 This man wn/o appointed to administer justice, and in the 
 clearest possible case he refused to do it. He was appointed 
 to stand between men and the law, and to secure punishment 
 for disobedience and safety for obedience, and he utterly refused 
 to perform this high duty. He denied the instinct of common 
 humanity. He broke the law he was to administer. He 
 violated his own knowledge and sense of justice. He delibe- 
 rately gave an innocent Man over into the hands of His raging 
 enemies to be put to the most cruel death known to that age, 
 ingenious in cruelty. And then, having been faithless in every 
 duty, he coolly puts off all his own responsibility upon the Jews ! 
 for they were conspirators with him. There were two parties to 
 this crime — the Jews, who demanded Christ's crucifixion, furious 
 with rage ; and Pilate, who gave Him over to them, cool calcu- 
 lating, politic, selfish. However impressive, then, it may have 
 been to the spectators, and however much it may have eased 
 hmi to wash his hands, it could not touch his guilt, or wash 
 away the blackness of it from his memory. In this awful 
 tragedy he was second to none in guilt. 
 
 But, my dear friends, is Pilate the only one to whom this 
 question comes : " What shall I do with this Jesus that is called 
 Christ ? " He had to meet this question, and to answer it ; and 
 every man that is before me has Christ upon his hands, and is 
 
WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH CHRIST ? 235 
 
 called to answer this question. You have not been born in a 
 heathen land. Had you been, you would have escaped the 
 settlement of this question. But, born in a Christian land, amidst 
 Christian institutions, and especially instructed carefully in 
 Christian truth, you can scarcely forget for an hour that there 
 is a Christ who claims authority ; who demands obedience ; 
 who solicits love; who is declared to be Son of God, Saviour of 
 the world, your Judge ! He is now your Guide and Governor, 
 and is by and bye to be your Rewarder or Punisher. And this 
 august Personage is before you, with claims that reach the very 
 marrow of your life and the very centre of your nature, and 
 which include the whole scope of your being. 
 
 It makes no difference in this matter whether you adjourn the 
 settlement of this question or not. You may put it off from one 
 year to another ; you may adjourn it throughout youth, and from 
 youth to manhood ; you may neglect it through every period of 
 manhood, and from manhood to old age ; but there is no such 
 thing as finally getting rid of it. It must come up for answering, 
 first or last, by every one of you. 
 
 You may seek to forget this question in pleasure ; may thread 
 its mazes, may drink its ruby cup, dance its gay revel through, 
 filling the day with laughter, and the night with joyous gaiety, 
 until one who looks upon you may think that no such thing as 
 serious trouble can ever reach you ; and yet there will come 
 pauses when out of all your joys there will rise this question, 
 *' What shall I do with this Jesus that is called Christ ? " He is 
 something to you. He has a hold upon you. If, as is the case, 
 we sprang forth from God, and bear in us something of His 
 nature and spirit, there are sympathetic cords that bind us to 
 Him ; and this question will be borne in upon us, in spite of 
 pleasure, '^ What shall I do with this Jesus that is called Christ ? " 
 
 You may overlay this question with business. You may ex- 
 haust your energies with work ; you may fill up the hours with 
 zealous industry ; and in this great Babel, amid outcries, and 
 grinding wheels, and fierce encounters of selfish men, each deter- 
 mined to secure wealth or honour, you may get rid, for a time, 
 of this question ; and yet there is leisure in all occupations ; the 
 busiest business has its pauses; there are still hours and thought- 
 ful hours to every one ; and in them the question will come up, 
 *' What shall I do with this Jesus that is called Christ? " 
 
 Men may put off and put away the question ; they may 
 demand that it be let alone, and say, •' What have I to do with 
 Thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth ? I will not have Thee to rule 
 over me ; " but this is a question that will not be silenced, that 
 
236 V/HAT WILL YOU DO WITH CHRIST? 
 
 will not be shaken off. Every time you behold a true Christian 
 roan with the power of God resting upon him, and wiih a face 
 shining as if he had been in heaven, this thought will come back 
 to you, " What shall I do with this Jesus that is called Christ ? " 
 Every heroic deed done in the name of Christ ; every great grief, 
 or wrong, or sorrow borne in the name of Christ; every joyful 
 death made triumphant through Christ, will bring back to you 
 the question, *' What shall I do with this Jesus that is called 
 Christ? " Every time you part company with trusted and loved 
 friends, and they go to the Lord's table, and you turn away and 
 go otherwheres, the question will come back to you, " What shall 
 I do with this Jesus that is called Christ?" 
 
 It is written on the sanctuary ; it sounds out through every 
 Sabbath ; it comes from the Bible ; it rises from the lives of 
 good men ; it meets you in the field ; it questions you sharply 
 in health ; it dwells with you in sickness ; the chamber of be- 
 reavement whispers it ; the grave breathes it — " What shall I do 
 with this Jesus that is called Christ ? " You cannot get rid of 
 this question. Living or dying, it urges itself upon you. 
 
 In dealing with this momentous duty which is thus inevitably 
 rolled upon you, you may deal with Christ, first, as if you were 
 merely a historical critic. You may sit in judgment upon Him — 
 upon His life, His disposition, His deeds, His faith; you may 
 sit in judgment upon His disciples and upon His crucifiers ; 
 upon His whole iniluence on the age in which He lived, and on 
 subsequent ages ; but you cannot in this way dispose of the 
 question, " What shall I do with this Jesus that is called Christ?" 
 It is a personal question. It is not historic. You are not for- 
 bidden to go into historic investigations of it ; but these are 
 only the husks — the kernel is inside. 
 
 Nay, you may bring your reason to bear on Christ, and, on 
 the one hand, you may, by proofs and arguments, produce con- 
 victions in your bosom which shall exalt Him into all heavenly 
 dignity ; you may ascribe to Him all honour ; you may rank 
 Him as not unequal to His own eternal Father ; you may pro- 
 nounce, in a most orthodox manner, the very truth needful to 
 the perfect divinity of Christ, and may even be jealous for this 
 truth ; or, on the other hand, still using your reason, you may 
 discrown Him; you may strip Him of the robes of empire; you 
 may, as some do, rank Him among men, till He stands a fellow- 
 sinner by your side, erring and fiillible — you may employ your 
 intellect upon Christ in either of these ways, but you will fail 
 thus to settle this question, " What shall I do with this Jesus that 
 is called Christ?" It will not down under any such treatment. 
 
WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH CHRIST? 
 
 237 
 
 You may bring your passions or your suppositions to bear, 
 but they will not settle it. You may revile Hmi and buftet Him 
 in the spirit of a ribald infidelity, or you may surround Him 
 with a system of formal observance which shall occupy your 
 external zeal, leaving Him meanwhile in the centre untouched ; 
 but neither one nor the other of these ways will put to rest this 
 question, " What shall I do with this Jesus that is called 
 Christ ? " It will come back in spite of formal observance or 
 of cold unbelief. 
 
 You must meet this question in the very way in which Christ 
 is presented to you. ..> 
 
 Let us, then, look a moment at the way in which Christ is 
 presented to us. 
 
 " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the 
 world." I present jesus to you as the atoning Saviour: as 
 God's sacrifice for sin ; as that new and living way by which 
 alone a sinful creature can ascend and meet a pure and a just 
 God. I bring this question home to you as a sinner. Oh man ! 
 full of transgressions, habitual in iniquities, tainted and tar- 
 nished, utterly undone before God, what will you do with this 
 Jesus that comes as God's appointed sacrifice for sin, your only 
 hope, and your only Saviour ? Will you accept Him ? Will 
 you, by personal and living faith, accept Him as your Saviour 
 from sin ? I ask not that you should go with me into a dis- 
 course upon the relations of Christ's life, of His sufferin2;s, of 
 His death, to the law of God, or to the government of "Cod. 
 AVhatever may be the philosophy of those relations, the matter 
 in hand is one rather of faith than of philosophy; and the 
 question is, Will you take Christ to be your souls Saviour? 
 What will you do with Christ ? This question must be met 
 and answered, either fairly, or by the fact of life itself. You 
 wi/l setde it in one way or the other. You will decide to do 
 something with Christ. 
 
 " Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, 
 and I will give you rest." In the midst of all the burdens and 
 trials of this mortal life. He presents Himself to you as your 
 strength and your Redeemer. I ask you what you will do with 
 this Jesus ? Have you any need of Him ? Have you any- 
 place for Him ? Have you any desire for Him ? Is He to 
 you the chiefest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely? 
 Or do you feel that in your own strength, or skill, or prosperity, 
 you have provision enough for all that you need, and that He 
 is an intruder upon your world-plans? He says, "Come to 
 i\Ie for strength and support." What will you do with this 
 
238 WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH CHRIST? 
 
 Jesus that thus proffers His aid to you ? Again He says, ^' If 
 any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink." That is, 
 over and above the wants that pertain to this Hfe, there are 
 yearnings, and hungerings, and longings for the higher nature, 
 that some men seek to satisfy in poetry, some in art, and some 
 in other food adapted to our spiritual being ; and Christ says, 
 Only I can satisfy the highest nature — the need of the soul." 
 I present Christ to your reason, to your nobler nature, and say, 
 What will you do with this Jesus, that places Himself in such 
 a relation to your wants ? 
 
 Nay, He is presented to us as our forerunner, gone to stand 
 before God for us; as our mediator; as our intercessor. Have 
 you any business to be transacted in heaven ? Have you any 
 interests there? Have you sent there any that were as dear to 
 you as your own life ? Do your children seem to have gone 
 from this world without a nurse ? Do they seem to have gone 
 into the great invisible abysm without parentage and without 
 guidance? Has your own soul any business to be trans- 
 acted there ? Have you any hope of immortality and of the 
 glory of another and a better state? Have you anything that 
 is worth more to you than silver or gold, or honour, or pleasure? 
 Have you anything invested in the other life ? And do you 
 need that some one there should think for you, feel for you, 
 and arrange for you ? Do you need a forerunner, a mediator, 
 an intercessor ? Christ stands at the right hand of God, and 
 ofters Himself to every living soul as one that is there to inter- 
 cede for him. What, then, will ye do with this Jesus that so 
 offers Himself to you ? Do you need Him ? Will you accept 
 Him? 
 
 But more particularly Christ comes to us, not only as a 
 Being of infinite love, so loving as willingly to give Himself a 
 sacrifice for us, but as a Being that needs love, and solicits 
 human love. There is a way of presenting this offensively, so 
 that it shall not touch any noble thought or feeling; but, on the 
 other hand, it may be so represented that it shall be pleasing, 
 and touch the noblest thoughts and feelings We may con- 
 ceive of a Divine parental heart that cannot be satisfied 
 without the love in return of every one of those that it loves. 
 There is a conception of God bending over men, and awaken- 
 ing their love, developing it, and then rejoicing in it, even as 
 we bend over our children and solicit their affection. If such 
 a thought is not full of beauty and loveliness to us, it is because 
 we are so low as not to be able to appreciate it. Christ comes 
 to every man, and demands of him love. He presents Himself 
 
WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH CHRIST? 239 
 
 in every aspect in which a greater mind can be presented to a 
 lower ; He presents Himself as the Son of God, the Saviour 
 of the world, your personal friend, and your elder brother ; He 
 embodies in Himself every tender relationship of which we 
 can conceive ; and He asks, He claims as His right, that you 
 should love Him. What will you do with this Jesus that so 
 pleads for and demands your love ? 
 
 If love were a sealed fountain, if you had never learned to 
 love, you would be less to blame for neglecting to love Christ. 
 But among the things taught earliest is love ; among the 
 most variously educated in life is love ; and among the things 
 remembered latest is love. When the child comes into life, 
 almost the first thing he does is to send out his heart in trust, 
 and confidence, and love ; and though the objects of his 
 primal affection are limited and imperfect, they are sufficient 
 to excite in him the dormant spark of love. But when it is 
 the infinite Creator ; when it is the glorious God ; when it is 
 He that for you has laid down His own life ; when it is He, 
 rather, that has taken it up again, and lives to intercede for 
 you ; when it is He that sends you, day by day, fresh glories, 
 and that, night after night, surrounds you with mercies ; when 
 it is He that through all the periods of your life watches over 
 you with most tender solicitude and scrupulous fidelity ; that 
 outvies all other affections, and showers His own upon you 
 more copiously than clouds ever rained drops, or seasons ever 
 gave forth fruit — when it is He that comes to you saying, 
 " My son, give me thine heart," — what will you do with this 
 Jesus that yearns for your love ? Will you love Him ? 
 
 He claims, likewise, from us a filial obedience springing 
 from the spirit of love. There are inexorable demands of 
 obedience inwrought into the fibres of creation. There are 
 laws demanding obedience that take no refusal, and that carry 
 punishment close behind their demands. Fire, water, poisons, 
 heat, cold, warmth — these, and ten thousand other agents and 
 elements of nature, come demanding obedience, and give us 
 no choice. With them it is do or die ! But it is not so that 
 God comes to us. He demands that we shall obey Him 
 because we love Him. He comes to us with this most 
 reasonable appeal to our conscience through our affections : 
 '' Because My commandments are holy, and just, and good 
 — because I am your Father, and because I love you and seek 
 your welfare, I demand your obedience." I present Christ to 
 every man here to-night, claiming, not the obedience which 
 comes from a fear of damnation in case of disobedience, but 
 
240 
 
 WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH CHRIST? 
 
 the obedience which comes from a spirit of love. I present 
 Him to you on grounds of generosity and affection, and say, 
 What will you do with this Jesus, that comes to ask of you the 
 obedience of love ? 
 
 Nay, Christ demands that there shall be on our part that 
 appreciation' of divine excellence which breaks forth in rapture 
 and joy, or, in other words, in worship and adoration. 
 
 When a man, standing before a magnificent work of art, or 
 some wonderful phenomenon of nature — some rugged moun- 
 tain, some thunderous fall, like that of Niagara, or some 
 ■beautiful landscape — finds his taste so awakened that he loses 
 command of himself, and breaks forth into an ecstacy of 
 admiration, his sensations are transcendent. 
 
 But when we stand, not before unspeaking canvas, or inert 
 mountains, or senseless water, but in the presence of some 
 hero : some man that has stood among men nobler than the 
 noblest, and truer than the truest, and has carried the fate of 
 a nation in his hand without betraying it — some Kossuth or 
 some Garibaldi— then how do we tremble in transports of 
 delight ! It is a joyful intoxication. It is an ecstacy. We 
 need now and then to break away from common relations. 
 We need occasionally to go where our intellect can pour itself 
 forth unrestrained, where our faith can soar without hindrance, 
 and our joyous, generous feelings can freely take a holiday. 
 How grand a thing is a true man, that carries in his life and 
 conduct something of God ! And who is there that is so 
 unfortunate as not to know what a glorious thing it is to go out 
 in admiration, almost in worship, toward such a man? 
 
 What, then, ought our feelings to be when we stand, not 
 before a man, but before the everlasting God; that Being who 
 created the innumerable orbs of which this earth is but a 
 specimen ; whose ways generations and ages have sought in 
 vain to find out; of whose love all the affections of father, 
 and mother, and husband, and wife, and child, and brother, 
 and sister, and friend, and lover, are but faint intimations, and 
 of whose attributes the divine qualities of men are but the 
 slightest hints? And when He comes as our IMaker and 
 Preserver, and the Author of the eternal bliss prepared for us, 
 how blessed ought to be the prerogative and privilege of 
 making Him the object of our highest worship ! 
 
 What will you do with this Jesus, that stands before you ask- 
 ing for your admiration ? He that was discrowned once, but 
 is crowned now ; He that was once a man of sorrows, and 
 acquainted with grief, but is now a Prince and a Saviour ; He 
 
WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH CHRIST? 241 
 
 that once walked the weary way of Jerusalem, and climbed the 
 heights of Olivet, and the steeper heights of Calvary, but now 
 walks the streets of the New Jerusalem with unclouded glory — 
 He stands before you. What will you do with Him ? He is 
 proffered to you ; He is yours by good right ; you were born 
 for Him, and are to be born again for Him : what will you do 
 with Him ? 
 
 Christ holds up His own beautiful life before you, with all 
 that majesty, and purity, and justice, and simplicity, and truth, 
 that has made Him the admiration of ages, and demands that 
 you shall live as He lived. I present Him to you to-night. 
 What will you do with this Jesus ? 
 
 Such, then, are the claims upon you of your Judge, your 
 Saviour, your Deliverer, your Friend, your Teacher, your 
 Prophet, Priest, and King — your God! I present the Lord 
 Jesus Christ at every single man's door. He stands and 
 knocks. He claims admission. He lays these claims before 
 you. What will you do with this Jesus ? 
 
 My dear friends, you may think that you can put off this 
 matter ; you may think that because you forget it, and cover it 
 down in various ways, it has passed from you ; but this is one 
 of those cases in which a man's life is itself a judgment and 
 decision. What you will do with Christ is being determined every 
 single day you live. " I will neglect Him :" if that is your con- 
 duct, then that is your decision. *' I will dishonour Him :" if 
 that is your conduct, then that is your decision. " I will cast Him 
 off, and tread Him under foot :" if that is your conduct, then 
 that is your decision ; for it does not need that a man's tongue 
 should interpret his life. A man's life interprets itself; and 
 what one does and continues to do, that is what he decides to 
 do. He that is mean, decides to be mean; he that is a robber, 
 decides to be a robber ; he that is gross and grovelling, decides 
 to be gross and grovelling ; he that lives for the world, decides 
 to live for the world. There is nothing that interprets a man's 
 decisions as do actions. Now what is your decision in respect 
 to Christ, whom I bring to you ? What are you now doing 
 with Him ? Judging from the decisions of your actions and 
 life, what_ have you done, what are you doing, and what will 
 you do with Him ? 
 
 My dear friends, there is something awful in the contrast 
 between the scenes that took place in relation to Pilate and 
 Christ. See that Roman procurator, with barbaric glory calcu- 
 lated to strike with powerful effect the ignorant masses, with 
 immense power and wealth in his hands, and with the lives of 
 
 R 
 
242 WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH CHRIST? 
 
 men at his disposal — see him, selfish, cold, without moral feel- 
 ing, issuing judgments simply with reference to his own worldly 
 interests ! Before him stood Christ, accused of wishing to be 
 the King of the Jews. Pilate asked him, ''Art thou the King 
 of the Jews?" He said, "Thou sayest." His enemies made 
 their accusations against Him, and Pilate said, " Hearest thou 
 how many things they witness against Thee?" To this question 
 He answered not a word. He refused to reply to any of the 
 base charges brought against Him. Pilate knew that this man, 
 unbefriended, betrayed, deserted, mute, stripped, and about to 
 be mocked, was innocent, and that He would go forth, if he 
 gave Him into the hands of the fierce, cruel soldiery, to be 
 crowned with thorns, and to be spit upon. And Pilate sat 
 regal on His throne while Christ was despised, rejected, con- 
 demned, and led forth to the cruel death of the cross. That is 
 one scene. 
 
 After a few years, Pilate, accused of treachery, w^nt to Rome. 
 The emperor meanwhile dying, his successor banished him. 
 Afterward he committed suicide. His spirit ascended, and 
 before the crowned Judge, whom all angels loved and revered, 
 stood Pilate, the unjust judge ! Behold the change that has 
 taken place in their relative positions ! See how the once weak, 
 and despised, and lowly, and down-trodden, and scourged, and 
 crucified Jesus sits supreme Lord and Head over all, while 
 before Him Pilate quails and trembles, and calls upon the 
 mountains and rocks to fall on him, and hide him from the 
 face of the Lamb ! That is the other scene. 
 
 Is there not to be such a contrast in your case ? Now you 
 live gaily through the days as they pass. Now, when the 
 question comes, in ten thousand forms, *' What wilt thou do 
 with this Jesus?" you prorogue it ; you adjourn it ; you cover 
 it, sometimes with business, sometimes with pleasure j you put 
 it oft', sometimes in one way and sometimes in another. 
 Meanwhile your life is settling it. You deny Christ, you reject 
 Him, you treat Him with contempt ; but the day will come, 
 and that speedily, when you too will stand before the throne of 
 God, to give an account of the way in which you have lived. 
 And then Christ will render that irreversible sentence which 
 shall control your eternal destiny. 
 
 Is it not, then, wise that eveiy one should give heed to this 
 question, "What wilt thou do with this Jesus?" You were 
 born of God; you are living upon His bounty in nature; you 
 are guided and guarded by His Providence ; you are watched 
 over by His fostering care; you are clothed from His wardrobe ; 
 
WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH CHRIST? 243 
 
 you are maintained at His table; your very ability to support 
 yourself is borrowed from Him ; your power to think, and will, 
 and act, and the power of your heart to throb health for days, 
 and weeks, and years, comes from Him. And all He asks is 
 that for the benefits you receive at His hands you shall feel 
 toward Him a corresponding gratitude. I appeal to your reason ; 
 I appeal to your honour ; I appeal to every generous feeling, 
 every devout instinct, every magnanimous sentiment; and I 
 ask if, in the light of these facts, your life of sins unrepented 
 of, of disobedience — your life that contemptuously puts Christ 
 aside, is not base and damnable ? The meanest man on earth, 
 I think, is he that sins without compunction and without re- 
 pentance, and buffets Christ with daily contempt. 
 
 But the time will soon come when all these things will be 
 revealed in another life ; and then the excuses which you urge 
 now will not stand a moment. It will be with men's excuses 
 in the day of judgment, when God looks upon them, as it is 
 with the frost-pictures on a window of a winter morning, when 
 the sun looks upon them— they will be gone with His looking. 
 The excuses which you paint in this life to justify pride, and 
 selfishness, and disobedience, and recreancy, will, the moment 
 you stand before God, melt away. And then it will be too 
 late to rectify mistakes. 
 
 I beseech of you, while it is a day of grace, while there is yet 
 opportunity, turn from evil^ turn from thoughtlessness, cease to 
 buffet Christ by your lives, honour Him, trust in Him, and live 
 by faith in Him, that you may die in His strength, and reign 
 with Him for evermore. 
 
 j^Ji-n R — 2 
 
XIX. 
 
 LIFE : ITS SHADOWS AND ITS SUBSTANCE.* 
 
 " But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they 
 that have wives be as though they had none ; and they that weep, as 
 though they wept not ; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced 
 not ; and they that buy, as though they possessed not ; and they that 
 use this world, as not abusing it ; for the fashion of this world passeth 
 away. But I would have you without carefulness." — i Cor. vii. 29 — 32. 
 
 Is it, then, the aim of Christianity to turn this world into a 
 dream-land ? Are we to strive for an unnatural judgment as if 
 things were not what they seem to be ? Are we to undervalue 
 life's sweetest affections and deepest sentiments as if they were 
 but appearances ? Can that be a sound ethical state which 
 idealises all realities, and turns all substance into shadow, and 
 transmutes the most potent verities into abstraction, and 
 changes fact into fiction ? 
 
 What ! to love as if you did ?io/ love ? To have a kind of 
 hollow-hearted affection? To regard relationship as but a 
 
 * Preached in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, Sabbath morning, June 17th, 
 1866, on occasion of the death of the Hon. James Humphrey, son of Rev. 
 James Humphrey, President of Amherst College. He graduated at that 
 institution at the early age of nineteen, and after several years of the prac- 
 tice of law in Louisville, Ivy., removed to New York in 1S3S, and as one 
 of the firm of Barney, Humphrey, and Butler, soon took a leading position 
 at the New York bar. He entered politics early, was for two terms a 
 member of the Common Council of Brooklyn, where he resided, for one 
 term, served as Corporation Counsel, and in 1S58, retiring from the law, 
 was nominated and elected to Congress by the Republican party at the age 
 of forty-eight. Succeeded by Hon. M. F. Odell during the years 1S60 and 
 1S62, he was re-elected in 1S64. Throughout his life he had suffered 
 severely from disease, which did not, however, incapacitate him from 
 arduous and successful labours. An earnest and uncompromising friend of 
 freedom, he opposed all compromise with slavery, and all temporising mea- 
 sures with the rebellion. An earnest and practical Christian, he witnessed a 
 good profession before many witnesses by his godly life. On Tuesday, 
 the I2th of June, he started for his place at Washington, found himself too 
 ill to proceed, and had barely strength to retrace his steps and reach his 
 home, where he died, Saturday morning, June i6th, 1S66. Universally 
 beloved, personally popular beyond the limits of his own party, the sorrow 
 of the community in his death was increased by the fact that it followed 
 almost immediately upon the death of his predecessor, Hon. M. F. Odell. 
 The prayer appended to this sermon is one pronounced by Mr. Beecher at 
 the funeral services. 
 
LIFE : ITS SHADOWS AND ITS SUBSTANCE. 245 
 
 dream ? To call by one name, and that name Nothingness, all 
 variations and inflections of feeling — joy and sorrow, laughter 
 and tears ? Is this the instruction of God's Word? Has God 
 established the physical globe, with its vast economy, and 
 planted us in the middle of it, educating us by its laws, only 
 that we might not recognise them ? Has He established the 
 household, the sweet relations of neighbourhood, the complex 
 structure of society, only that men might be obliged to deny 
 their sense, and call them grand and glittering negations ? 
 
 Sarely no ! If any one from this exhortation is tempted to 
 such an interpretation, he doubtless misconceives, not the 
 meaning of this passage alone, but the whole Bible teaching ; 
 for if there be one thing plainer than another in Scripture, it is 
 the solemnity and value which it throws upon common life and 
 the common things in life. No other book is more intensely 
 realistic than the Word of God. It teaches us to honour 
 life, men, society, occupation, and the homely virtues which 
 have their sphere in secular duties ; and surely it cannot be 
 so inconsistent with itself as then to undervalue all these 
 things. 
 
 Let us therefore look around and recall some of the ex- 
 periences of our own lives, to see whether we may not find a 
 clue to this remarkable passage. 
 
 When, on some summer afternoon, like the glorious, golden, 
 hazy yesterday, parents sit, the labour of the day mostly past, 
 and listen to the sports of their children that are playing beneath 
 the window, and see their houses made of lines scratched upon 
 the ground, and hear them talk of their mimic supper, in which 
 both the dishes and the food are imaginary, and perceive their 
 wild realization of the game at which they play, do they not feel 
 that to the child, as a child, and measured by its then capacities, 
 there is both value and importance in these things ? And would 
 they, by a word, discountenance the child's sports, or break 
 their charm, or teach the child that they are but a fantasy and 
 a folly ? And yet, when the parents consider the after-life of 
 the child, which they understand, though the child does not, 
 do they not smile at his dream-land ? It is to the parents as if 
 it were nor. It is so, not by taking anything away from it, but 
 simply by placing alongside of it the same essential qualities in 
 a higher sphere, in larger proportions, in a more gloritied estate. 
 And when these very children grow up, and come to remember 
 their childish joys, they do not pour contempt upon them, nor 
 in anywise diminish what was in them. They recognise that 
 there was to them value and joy in these things ; yet they feel 
 
246 LIFE : ITS SHADOWS AND ITS SUBSTA^XE. 
 
 that, when compared with the larger experience into which they 
 have entered, that early joy was shadowy and unsubstantial. 
 
 In like manner, it is in the power of the ripened mind to take 
 one look further forward toward a coming state whose glory and 
 perfectness shall cast all present realizations, not into contempt, 
 but into such relative inferiority that they shall seem to be but 
 shadows, while the invisible and the future shall seem to be 
 the real. 
 
 There are two states of mind in which men have an experience 
 in commercial business which is analagous to this of which I 
 have been speaking. The reality and importance of business 
 is not to be denied. It is solemnly to be affirmed. Secular 
 occupation is a part of religious culture. It is a part of the 
 systematic and regular moral education which God designs for 
 the world. It builds up society. It augments the conditions 
 of happiness. It enlarges the powers of men. It multiplies the 
 sources of satisfaction. And, not least, it educates the race in 
 morals. We are not, therefore, in any way to undervalue the 
 constructive and accumulative forces of society. The making 
 of wealth and the using of wealth may be corruptly, selfishly, 
 and arrogantly turned into mischief, but were designed in the 
 Divine economy to minister to our moral benefit, and to make 
 us larger and better in our whole being. 
 
 And yet there are times when men feel disgust at wealth, and 
 at all the means by which it is sought. There are times of weari- 
 ness and disappointment, when men are vexed with rivalries, or 
 are overtasked, or have mistaken, or come short ; and at such 
 times there is a species of disgust which not only is not to be 
 encouraged, but which is positively mischievous. It is without 
 moral discrimination. It is without just reason. It is the testi- 
 mony simply of man's weariness, and not of his judgment guided 
 by his moral sense. 
 
 But there are hours given to men — to all, I hope sometimes, 
 and to many often — clear, high, noble, in which they are con- 
 vinced, not of the unimportance of these secular things, but of 
 the transcendently greater importance of a higher class of 
 realities, of which these are but the shadows and foretokens. 
 There are times in which men feel, not that earthly treasure is des- 
 picable, but that there is a kind of treasure with which that which 
 the earth affords bears no comparison. There are hours when men 
 toil for the money that perishes, and for those treasures that 
 feed the secular and physical conditions of life ; and there are 
 happily other hours in which there is an inlooking into a man's 
 spiritual state, and the soul feels itself destined to a wealth that 
 
LIFE ; ITS SHADOWS AND ITS SUBSTANCE. 247 
 
 never can fade — that is subject to no bankruptcy. Out of such 
 higher musings (they are but for an hour ; they are sometimes 
 but a glance of the soul) the man looks back upon the lower 
 state, not to deride it, but to say, " That which I rightly strived 
 for is all that I thought it to be, but it suggests something yet 
 better — a higher sphere and a nobler realm of achievement, 
 compared with which, though it be invisible, the visible is the 
 shadow, this being the substance." 
 
 He who has built a palace for his affections, and cherished 
 them there as very princes, knows two experience^ of the like 
 kind in respect to the affections. The earnest reality of heart- 
 life — nothing can take from its importance. Man's life does 
 not lie so much in his physical executive forces, nor in that 
 which he has achieved by wisdom physically applied. Man's 
 life in this sphere rests far more largely on the diffused action 
 of his social sentiments than he is wont to think. And no 
 man that is wise, or humane, or Christian, should undervalue 
 heart-life — I would scarcely say in its intensities and rap:;ures, 
 but rather in its milder manifestations and in its distributive 
 influences. 
 
 Yet there are wondrous hours when there rises before the 
 mind such a sense of the imperfections of human love as to 
 make it wholly unsatisfactory to the soul. It must be so. It 
 is not a question of blameworthiness. There is a vision of the 
 coming love in comparison with which all that we here know 
 in respect to heart-love is but a germ, or a plant in its early 
 years. There is such a sense of men's inner and higher life, 
 that their ordinary daily experience seems like a dream — like a 
 tale that is told. When we are in a low estate, we call higher 
 visions reminiscences, and settle back again to that which we 
 know and feel in its homelier and ruder forms, and say, " This 
 is substantial. Whatever the body can help me to understand 
 is real." But there are times when the Spirit asserts its 
 superiority, and recognises that all those affections which are 
 expressed by their bodily experiences partake of matter, and 
 that the real higher life is that which is to be embodied, disen- 
 thralled, and brought into a liberty, the largeness of which is 
 not suspected here. There are times when men feel that the 
 invisible and latent is far more to be received than the visible 
 and disclosed ; and that those things which are able to make 
 an impression on the senses must in their nature be coarse and 
 low, whereas those things that are unable to make any 
 impression on the senses belong to a higher sphere, and cannot 
 be reduced to incarnation. 
 
248 LIFE : ITS SHADOW AND ITS SUBSTANCE. 
 
 In these hours of musing, of inspiration, of imagination, it 
 you choose to call it imagination, or of faith, if you choose to 
 dignify it by caUing it faith — in these hours it is that we look 
 upon all our relationships on earth, not with indifference, not 
 as if they were not real, but as if in some sense they were 
 dreamy and visionary. 
 
 Of those who through sorrow and griefs have reached the 
 high seats of wisdom, some there are who will tell you that in 
 sorrow there is an experience like to that which I have spoken 
 of as belonging to love or occupation. The reality, the power, 
 and the dominion of sorrow no man disputes. In this life, the 
 sorrows of the moral sentiment are crowned kings. Their 
 crowns are iron. Midnight is in their eye. Awful sternness 
 seem.s to be in their hearts. Men lie as victims in dungeons 
 under the dominion of sorrow, and know not that in this 
 strange way God prepares men for coronation, and that these 
 stern-browed kings of misery are, after all, angels of mercy and 
 of love. 
 
 Yet, as in storms, sometimes there are moments when the 
 clouds part and let through the whole gush of the sun, and 
 change in a moment the terror to sublime beauty ; so, out of 
 anguish, often, the soul rises to a vision of the work which 
 sorrow does for men, and of what is its real interior and after- 
 nature ; and there comes a comprehension of the apostle's 
 declaration, *' No chastening for the present seemeth to be 
 joyous, but grievous ; nevertheless, afterward, it yieldeth the 
 peaceable fruit of righteousness." And in these higher moods 
 we look back upon sorrows as if they had been no sorrows. 
 
 Who remembers, when once his feet are upon land again, 
 those weary storms that well-nigh rocked the life out of him 
 but yesterday ? How soon we forget the darkness and 
 wretchedness of a life upon the sea when we are again on land, 
 which God anchored fast so that it should neither swing nor 
 swell ! While men are in the midst of overflowing sorrows, 
 those sorrows are more real to them than they deserve to be ; 
 but when they rise above their sorrows, and look down upon 
 them, they seem so unimportant as not to be worthy of thought. 
 Ey sorrow men learn that they need to be fed with higher 
 food ; that they must rest on stronger supports ; that they 
 must have other friends and friendships ; that they must live 
 another life ; that there must be something that neither time, 
 nor chance, nor accident can undermine and sweep away. 
 When men have learned this interior lesson of sorrow, they 
 look upon the trouble not as being less troublous than it was. 
 
LIFE : ITS SHADOWS AND ITS SUBSTANCE. 249 
 
 but as, from the higher point to which they have risen, unreal 
 and dreamy. 
 
 Thus in joy we learn to rejoice as though we rejoiced not. 
 In sorrow we learn to weep as though we wept not. In marriage 
 relations and the ecstatic enjoyments of social life we learn to 
 live as though these were not the real things, but rather the 
 prefiguring of them ; as though we saw but the semblance here 
 of that which we should realise hereafter. We learn, blessed 
 and beautiful as is the present, to wait for the more glorious 
 disclosure that is just beyond. We learn, as we dig, and build, 
 and accumulate, to feel, not that there is not a reality in what 
 we are doing, but that there is another reality which far exceeds 
 what most men know; that what men know is a semblance of 
 something beyond; that it is a foretoken of other treasures, of 
 the coming possessions and dominions of the soul. These 
 present things become shadowy, not because we say to them, 
 " Be annihilated ! Melt out of sight ! " but because we say to 
 them, " Ye are prophecies " — and the word of prophecy is 
 never so much as is the fulfilment itself. 
 
 Have we not, then, in these and like experiences, the inter- 
 pretation of this sublime truth of the sacred Scriptures ? The 
 realities of life are not degraded by a consideration of their 
 poorness, their faults, and their mingled sinfulness. But I 
 doubt whether it is wise to look too often upon human life on 
 the side of its squalor and misery. I should as soon think of 
 looking, not at the gallery and library, nor at living men, but 
 at the sewers of the city, and at the dead and decaying bodies 
 of men, to know the power, the beauty, and glory of civilisa- 
 tion, as of looking at society and at individuals on the evil side 
 to know what belongs to their best estate. There is a strong 
 attraction of like to like; and when we are ourselves morbid, 
 bitter, vindictive, we see only how poor and untrustworthy men 
 are ; in looking upon the household, we see only a want of 
 virtue and peace. There are those that will tell you that, after 
 all, men are hollow and untrustworthy ; that the household is 
 a' sham; that neighbourhoods, and cities, and states are but 
 decent devices to cover immense and ever-rolling imperfections, 
 and miseries, and wickednesses. 
 
 Now there is enough of shortcoming, and of wrong, and of 
 positive wickedness and meanness, but it does not follow that 
 we are to search them out and hold them up for ourselves and 
 others to gaze at. When a leaf drops and dies, it goes down 
 to mingle with the ground. When moss falls off, it disappears. 
 • Everything in nature, as it decays, hides itself. And so it 
 
250 LIFE: ITS SHADOWS AND ITS SUESTANCE. 
 
 should be in human life. All the ten thousand decaying im- 
 perfections in society we are as soon as possible to forget and 
 cast under foot. We are to accustom ourselves to look chiefly 
 at that which is innocent, and beautiful, and aspiring, and in 
 which are the possibilities of education. It is a bad thing for 
 a man, in looking at himself, and at his neighbours, and at 
 communities, to look at the side of fault and failing, and mean- 
 ness and imperfection, and wickedness and rottenness. These 
 things will force themselves upon his notice full enough — more 
 than enough for his good. 
 
 It is, then, no part of the errand of the text to teach you to 
 undervalue the present relations of life, nor to study those 
 morbid aspects of its ignorance, its imperfections, or its sins, 
 which lie so heavy on it. It is, on the contrary, to tell you 
 that the experiences and joys of life are blessed realities — more 
 blessed than you think. It comes not to tell you that friend- 
 ship is not friendship, but to say to you, " Friendship is so 
 really friendship that you do not begin to know it from what 
 you have experienced of it." It says to the father and mother, 
 not that the love which they bear to their children is no love, 
 or worthless love, but that it is a love of which their experience 
 is so minute that, when they come to see that that is the feeling 
 with which God, in the amplitude of His infinite being, looks 
 as a father upon human weakness, the affection which they bear 
 to their children will, in this larger interpretation, seem as a 
 shadow. It is to say to aflianced hearts, not that the love 
 which draws them together is a passion that burns for an hour 
 and then goes into ashes ; but to husband and wife, lover and 
 friend, it says, " Love on : love is truer then men would make 
 you think ; it is richer ; it is more potent. Your own experi- 
 ence of it does not tell you what it is, nor what it is to be. 
 There is more to come. There will be an education and dis- 
 closure which will make that which men teach you to under- 
 value seem so divine and so omnipotent for joy, that you will 
 think the most ecstatic moods in this world are as if you loved 
 not." This is a different process from undervaluing. It is to 
 teach men the intense potency of things, to teach them to take 
 all these elements of human experience as so many symbols, 
 hints, and prophecies, out of which is to grow, by-and-bye, a 
 fulfilment so much larger than is implied by the words of pre- 
 diction, that no man can at present determine what is the 
 fulness of it. 
 
 In another way the apostle John comes at the same truth, 
 where he says, " Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it 
 
LIFE: ITS SHADOWS AND ITS SUCSTANXE. 25 1 
 
 doth not yet appear what we shall be." As much as if he had 
 said, "We are the sons of God; but do not imagine that the 
 common meaning of the word sons can convey to you an idea 
 of what God means when He calls you His sons. There is such 
 a thing as being a son of God in a sense so much sweeter, and 
 nobler, and more blessed than you would suppose there could 
 be from anything that you see on earth, that it does not appear 
 by that language what we shall be." That is the argument of 
 the apostle. It is the same style of reasoning as that which we 
 find in this passage. You are to live as if all things here below 
 were transient. You are not to rest in things of this world as 
 though you were satisfied with them. There is much that is good 
 in the world, but you are not to seek it as ultimate good. 
 Friendships and social relationships — these are not to be 
 quibbled away ; they are not to be stigmatized with sneering 
 and cynical bitterness. Imperfect as they are, low as they are, 
 weighed down as they are by human weakness and depravity, 
 washed as they are by the m.ire as well as by the wave, you are 
 to see in these things the germs of such glorious and eternal 
 affections as shall make heaven unspeakably attractive and 
 desirable to you. 
 
 You are to love, then, as though you loved not — as though 
 the experience of this life was no measure of that to which you 
 aspire, and to which you are going. 
 
 When our boys went forth to the war, how many went never 
 to return ! and how many hearts were carried with them that 
 never came back again except broken ! How many a maiden 
 sat waiting after the battle, long, and long, and long, with tears 
 that counted the seconds! How many sleepless nights were 
 passed ! At last hope deferred made the heart of some maiden 
 sick, and she consigned to darkness and an unknown grave him 
 who was the light of her life, and who was to have been the 
 leader and prophet of all her expected joy in the future. When 
 all hope has gone, and all light with it, on a day that she looked 
 not for, and by a hand that she knows not, there comes a letter. 
 Her dimmed eyes will not let her read the superscription. Her 
 heart is better than her head, and knows that it must be from 
 him ! It is but a little. " Mary, I have been imprisoned. I am 
 escaped. This will be borne to you by a prisoner who escaped 
 with me. I am on my way home. I shall be with you almost 
 as soon as this." Where is he that can frame language for her 
 overflowing love and thankfulness ? What angel would not be 
 glad to bear the thanksgiving of that virgin's heart before the 
 throne of God, that its sweet perfume might be mingled with 
 
3^2 life: its shadows and its substance. 
 
 the praise of the saints ? And how, as she thanks God, and her 
 heart lives again in a glorious resurrection out of despair, does 
 her soul look at that letter? The letter is nothing, and yet it 
 has brought her to life again. That poor paper, that soiled page, 
 those faint lines of ink — the feeling that they have produced is 
 ten thousand times more precious than are they ! And yet ofter 
 her new the diadem of a queen, the richest bracelet that eye 
 ever rested on, for that letter, and how will she press it to her 
 heart, and say, *' Never — never." It is sweeter than her life to 
 her. But, compared with the feelings to which it gave rise, it is 
 as if it was not. It is poor, low, mean, when measured by the 
 state of soul which it has excited in the maiden's bosom. 
 
 And so of the various experiences and relationships of life. 
 Out of them are to be unfolded such results, from them is to 
 come such a higher life, and they are the prophets and foretokens 
 of such amazing perfectness therein, that we may now, instructed 
 of faith, well say with the apostle, " Let us live as though all 
 these symbols of the life to come were but shadows and 
 ■dreams." 
 
 The whole globe is but one symbol, and human life is a pro- 
 phetic literature ; and nothing will so exalt the literal reality as 
 such a view of the overhanging spiritual truth as shall make 
 these literal things seem like a dream in comparison with the 
 exceeding glory which they foretoken. In view of this exposi- 
 tion and these illustrations, consider how the deepening and 
 ennobling of human life depends, not on the idolatry of its 
 present low estate, but on so employing its earthly letter as to 
 descry what it is going to be. 
 
 Take love, the finest feeling, the most generous and self- 
 sacrificing — for love and selfishness are incompatible. Love is 
 as gold in the rock. The mountain is but stone, and the gold 
 is rare and scarce, and is found in veins here and there. So in 
 this life it is in loving. We are too proud, too coarse, too selfish, 
 too ungenerous ; we are not magnanimous enough. Love runs 
 in veins through us ; and we are to take the experiences of love 
 when it is in its most perfect moments, in its ecstatic state, as 
 it were purified gold, seven times purified and made clean — we 
 are to take these as our ideal. Then we are to lift up, by the 
 imagination, our conceptions to a state in which our character 
 will turn on this feeling, not occasionally, but as an ordinary 
 experience. Nay, we should rise up so completely into the 
 influence of the purity and disinterestedness of this feeling as 
 that it shall control all the other feelings, and harmonize them, 
 till the conscience, and the reason, and the moral sentiments all 
 
LIFE : ITS SHADOWS AND ITS SUBSTANXE. 253 
 
 penetrated with the summer of love, as the whole atmosphere 
 to-day is penetrated by the warmth, and fragrance, and beauty 
 of nature. And when we have thus by loving raised the ideal 
 of loving, that very ideal comes back to rebuke, to correct, ta 
 restrain. It does not diminish and undervalue love ; it 
 augments the value of it. It teaches us how small it is ; how 
 it should be developed ; and how pure, how unselfish, how 
 generous, how noble it ought to be. 
 
 Nothing else is a better guard against immoderation and the 
 vulgarising tendencies of business than that habit of mind 
 which the apostle here indicates. We take business too often 
 as an ultimate end. We do not let it prophesy anything to us. 
 We see it in its mere letter, and not in its spirit. We do not 
 consider it in its relations to society, nor as it stands connected 
 with our future and eternal development. The wickedness 
 of this world does not consist in this, that men are addicted 
 to business, but in this, that they follow their business so 
 incompletely; that they look at it only on the earth side; 
 that they fail to hear its testimony of higher things; that they 
 stop on it as a thing sufficient in itself, whereas it is a symbol 
 of things yet to come, that shall be higher, and nobler, and 
 better than present things. So soon as a man is satisfied that 
 there is higher wealth than this world affords ; that his life 
 consists not of the abundance of the things which he possesses, 
 he is fitted to acquire wealth and administer it. No man is so 
 fit to be a merchant, a mechanic, a shipmaster, a husbandman, 
 an operator in any department of secular life, as that man who 
 has learned to so look at the things of this world as to see 
 their higher interpretation, their nobler revelations. 
 
 All the experiences which we have in our varied life of this 
 habit of mind which the apostle enjoins, will tend, not to 
 destroy our conscious enjoyment in the present sources of 
 innocent good, but to give us a finer joy. When the world is 
 spiritually contemplated ; when you connect it with the world 
 to come ; when you look at it Irom a high point of vision, it 
 not only is not diminished in its revenues and treasures of joy, 
 it becomes finer, sweeter, nobler. 
 
 jNIen, for the most part, do not know how to find the honey 
 in the things of this world. You would never suspect where 
 the honey of a flower is ; or, if you did, too large is your hand 
 to be thrust in to get it. But the insect buries itself in the 
 flower, and then, with a prehensile instrument, far-reaching, 
 searches the cells for the honey, and draws out the hidden 
 stores. Its very fineness gives to it what your coarseness 
 
254 LIFE : ITS SHADOWS AND ITS SUBSTANCE. 
 
 witholds from you. We are not fine enough to discover the 
 joy that is hidden in many of the relations of this Hfe. 
 
 So, too, cares and disappointments, and anxieties, and fears, 
 and consumings, such as waste hfe by various attrition, are 
 forestalled and resisted by this habit of mind. And this is the 
 meaning of that last clause — " they that buy, as though they 
 possessed not; and they that use this world, as not abusing 
 it : for the fashion of this world passeth away. For I would 
 have you without carefulness." Not without occupation, not 
 without duties, not without responsibilities, but without goading 
 cares, without corrosive anxieties, without oppressive burdens, 
 which come from duties that are hard to be performed. He 
 that feels that his life here is but transient, and that his true 
 life is coming to him ; he that is used to looking down on 
 this world by taking his standpoint above and beyond it, and 
 is conscious of his power and dignity — he lives above those 
 troubles and annoyances that one stumbles upon and falls 
 headlong into who regards this life as all-important, and looks 
 upon it from a low and earthly stand-point. The higher our 
 conception of life, of character, of human destiny, the easier 
 will life become. The purer your ambition, the nobler your 
 animating motive, the more cheerfully will your lot in life be 
 borne. 
 
 There is only one other application that I shall make of this 
 view. It lifts us above those fluxes and refluxes of pain and 
 suffering that come from grief. If you were to mourn every 
 time that grief strikes out the light of intelligence, then there 
 would not be one single moment of the round day that you 
 would not be in tears. There is not an hour in which some 
 heart is not breaking. As there is not one second in which 
 there would not be heard the ticking of that clock in the 
 steeple which is lifted up so far above the stir and bustle of 
 life if it were not for the din and bustle below, so there is not 
 one moment in the apportionment of destiny in which some 
 staff is not broken in the hand that leans on it ; in which some 
 wife is not made desolate ; in which some mother is not left 
 childless; in which some sister is not bereft of all that was 
 dearest to her. There is not a moment in which there are not 
 hearts charging God falsely, and saying, " Thou art cruel." 
 There is not a moment in which there are not dark waves 
 passing over some souls about us, so that they might adopt the 
 language of inspired writ, and say, '-All Thy waves and Thy 
 billows are gone over me." There runs a chain of sorrow 
 through time. The world groans and travails in pain. 
 
life: its shadows and its substance. 255 
 
 Such thoughts as these passed through my mind yesterday, 
 as, walking the sunny street, I pondered upon the departure 
 of such a man as had just gone — Mr. Humphrey ; upon the 
 departure of such a man as went just before him — Mr. Odell, 
 his predecessor in Congress ; and upon the departure of others 
 that I knew to be lying in the pomp, and state, and darkness 
 of death. 
 
 Shall we then mourn ? What is departing ? What is dying ? 
 What is death ? Is there any place where we need to stand 
 more than by the side of the grave? And ought we not to 
 learn, looking upon the sepulchre, to say, ^' Thou holdest only 
 the physical body," and to mourn as though we mourned not : 
 and, looking upon death, to say, "Thou, death, art thyself 
 dead " ? For is not dying as much a part of God's mercy as 
 being born? When the apple-tree blossoms you laugh, and 
 you do not cry when you pick the apple; but when man 
 blossoms man laughs, and then, when God picks the fruit, he 
 cries. Fool that understands so little ! When will you re- 
 cognise that which constitutes your highest good ? Glorious is 
 the hour when God says, "Come up hither;" and yet you look 
 upon that hour with fear and dread. 
 
 Long before winter would let me plant out of doors, I planted 
 under glass, and depended upon artificial heat, and waited for 
 the time when I might remove my early plants. And, as soon 
 as I dared, I set them in the open air in some sheltered nook 
 where the frost should not touch them. But now, in these 
 June days, I have taken them into the broad, exposed garden, 
 and put them where they are to blossom, and they did not 
 weep when I put them there. 
 
 Now God has raised us under glass, and nurtured us there, 
 that we might bear transplanting into another and better sphere, 
 and when He comes, and takes us, and plants us out in His 
 open garden, is that the time for us to cry ? Beloved, ye are 
 the sons of God; and when the bell strikes, and the angel, 
 hearing the sweet sound, flies swiftly to call you to your son- 
 ship and coronation, is that the time for tears ? Beloved, it 
 doth not yet appear what ye are to be ; and yet are ye so pure, 
 and noble, and true, that men cannot bear your going from 
 them ? And are you lost because all the fragmentary deve- 
 lopments of your being are taken into that higher sphere where 
 they are more, not less ? 
 
 Why, your child is not your child till you have lost him ! 
 That which you can put your arms about is that which you 
 cannot afford to love. No bird cries when the shell is broken 
 
256 LIFE : ITS SHADOWS AND ITS SUBSTANCE. 
 
 and the birdling comes forth, or when, a little later, it leaves the 
 nest, and wings its way through the air. Only mothers do that 
 when their children, released from earth, fly away to a better 
 world. And yet only they are worthy of immortal love that 
 escape from the clog of this mortal state. 
 
 Now let us thank God, not that men die, but that they live. 
 So far as it pleases God to develop and endow them, let us be- 
 glad; but when they go to a better realm, let us say, " Thank 
 God, they have gone where they shall be perfect ; they have 
 blossomed and are bearing fruit." Is not this the Christian way? 
 
 Ah ! brethren, we are not Christians about dying. We are 
 taught that we go to heaven through the prison of death. 
 Everybody feels that to sicken and die is to go into Egypt and 
 into the wilderness. We are apt to think of sickness and dying 
 as so many horrible, gloomy stages in our progress toward the 
 future. But dying is a process as simple as the parting of the 
 stem from the bough, or as the swinging of the door that lets 
 one in from the wintry blast outside to the pleasant home inside. 
 It is not hard to die. It is harder a thousand times to live. 
 To die is to be a man. To live is only to try to be one. To 
 live is to see God through a glass darkly. To die is to see 
 Him face to face. To live is to be in the ore. To die is to be 
 smelted, and come out pure gold. To live is to be in March and 
 November. To die is to find midsummer, where there is per- 
 fect harmony and perfect beauty. 
 
 Let us not mourn, then, as other men. Let us mourn as 
 though we mourned not. Let us rejoice as though we rejoiced 
 not. Let us work as though we worked not. Let us love as 
 though we loved not. Let us feel that the life that is above is 
 the only thing that is worthy of our thought and our striving. 
 Living for God, for glory, and for immortality — that is life 
 enough ! 
 
 PRAYER.^- 
 
 Our Father, we render Thee our thanks that life and immor- 
 tality are brought to light in the Gospel through Jesus Christ, 
 our Lord and Saviour. No longer need we wander alone in 
 dust, and darkness, and blindness, longing after and having 
 aspirations to discern what others have longed for and have 
 not attained. No longer are we left lingering amid the mys- 
 teries and ignorance that have bewildered the minds of men 
 
 * Offered at the funeral of Hon. James Humphrey. 
 
life: its shadows and its substance. 257 
 
 in times past. Thou art the Way, and the Life, and in Thee 
 and through Thee we behold the glorious realities of the spiri- 
 tual world — the heaven, the future, the realisation of that for 
 which we long. And we know that these inward strivings are 
 of the Spirit, thus uttering things by us imperfectly conceived, 
 and which alone we could not know until we experienced the 
 witness of God sent to us through them; and away from home, 
 and almost ignorant of our Parent or of our needs, Thou dost 
 by the Holy Ghost awaken in the soul longings again for the 
 higher and better land; Thou dost teach us to love Thee; Thou 
 dost teach us how litde estate there is in this life — of how little 
 worth is everything here ; and dost teach us of the eternal life 
 beyond, by the Holy Spirit and Word ; and Thou, by Thine 
 own royal nature, dost love us — a Saviour loving us indeed, and 
 loving us for ever, not alone according to the power or the 
 measure of excellence in us, but according to the measure of 
 our beauty when we shall stand arrayed before Thee in the 
 fulness of Thy glory. Thou hast made all that which of old 
 seemed dark or murky, transparent and luminous to us. Joys 
 are greater with those who walk in this light than with those who 
 walked without it. Sorrows are no more, now, to us sorrowful. 
 Thou hast taken away from us the bitter pangs that have 
 afflicted us, in giving strength to those of us that are weary, and 
 comfort and consolation to those of us that are sorrowing and 
 in disappointment. We are enabled to rejoice in infirmities, 
 and to wear them as a badge of triumph. These things, which 
 men aforetime have called misfortunes, and grievous burdens, 
 and calamities, we bear with fortitude through faith in Christ. 
 We find our life and our faith come up in the presence of 
 sorrow; all its griefs, mortifications, and self-diffidences are 
 taken away, and He gives us to feel that we have, wrought in 
 us, the hope of glory. And now, O Lord Jesus, we thank thee 
 that there are so many witnesses to this blessed work — to these 
 truths which Thou hast revealed to us in the Word, and that 
 Thou hast so far transformed, and art still transforming, the 
 ordinary course of human experience, that we walk not as other 
 men — for to us, in our experience, death is not the victor, but 
 the captive. Sorrows that are around and about the Christian 
 are no longer victorious. These tears that we shed are but as 
 dew-drops that fall in the night, and to make all things more 
 beauteous in the morning. We render Thee thanks, O thou 
 blessed Saviour, for this power of Thy love and this inspiration 
 of faith. We are to-day gathered here, O Lord, to weep and 
 to rejoice, to be glad in sorrow, to speak somewhat of our loss, 
 
 s 
 
258 LIFE : ITS SHADOWS AND ITS SUBSTANCE. 
 
 but more of our gain. We thank Thee for Thy servant's life and 
 ministrations ; we thank Thee that Thou hast thus sealed again 
 Thy covenant with parents, and that Thou hast caused them to 
 remember that they may rear a child in the way he should go, 
 and it shall not be in vain. We thank Thee that in him the 
 virtues of his ancestors have been made manifest and augmented. 
 The prayers of father and mother have not been in vain, and 
 the early consecration came early in abundant fruit and blessing 
 upon him who was the object of it. We thank Thee for his 
 gentleness, for his meekness, and for his humility. We thank 
 Thee for all in him that won men to admiration and to love ; 
 and that he bore these gifts of beauty and grace, not for himself, 
 but for others. We thank Thee that Thou didst give him 
 clearness of perception and firmness of conscience, and that in 
 the midst of political influences, and in commercial connections, 
 he maintained a generous and disinterested character ; that he 
 so walked before men as to show them that men could be firm 
 and not harsh, that one could be full of love and yet strong. 
 We thank Thee for this testimony that he has borne for Jesus, 
 and has left for us to profit by. We thank Thee that in public 
 afi"airs he was a witness and an example for us — that in public 
 affairs, where men are so carried about by currents of selfishness 
 and ambition, he discharged all his duties to his friends, his 
 party, his country, and his God, and maintained a name and 
 character bright and spotless ; a memory pure in the sight of 
 men. We thank Thee that Thou hast given our you^g men an 
 example, showing that a man can succeed, and be true, and 
 pure, and unselfish ; that manhood in the Lord JesuS Christ is 
 consistent with worldly prosperity. For all this which Thou 
 hast presented unto us, we render Thee thanksgiving. And yet 
 how much more have we to praise Thee for— for that store of 
 wealth that he has left to the household — for the power and 
 beauty of that love to those who may speak henceforth, not of 
 their loss, but rather of his infinite gain — for being assured that 
 he now enjoys the highest glories around the throne of God. 
 For his truth, and pureness, and gentleness and love, which 
 built the house of his affections, we thank Thee ; for that which 
 Thou didst make him by a discipline of suffering — it is Thy 
 work, O Lord God of his fathers, and to Thy name be all the 
 praise. We thank Thee that Thou hast made it to appear in 
 his life how easy it is to gain the victory over bodily infirmities ; 
 that Thou hast rebuked our oft-repeated repinings at the voice 
 and call of disease and pain ; that Thou didst make him stead- 
 fast and immoveable, always abounding in the work of the 
 
LIFE : ITS SHADOWS AND ITS SUBSTANCE. 259 
 
 Lord ; and in the midst of the sea, in the waves that seemed 
 going over him, in the long period of darkness and suffering, 
 that Thou didst give him songs in the night, and caused him 
 to rejoice. This is Thy work, O Lord God of his fathers, and 
 to Thy name we give the praise. And now Thou hast taken 
 him to Thyself, and we are glad, and heartily give thanks that 
 He shall not wear this body in darkness and suffering any more. 
 Thou hast completed the work for which Thou sentest him 
 into life, and hast called him back again, after long waiting, to 
 be blessed, with a crown, and song, and eternal rest. Thou 
 art glorified; heaven is happier; new victories speak forth, 
 and new graces, and a new element, in that harmonious love 
 around Thy throne. The flood is passed; the winds are 
 behind ; no darkness shall ever know him more ; his day of 
 triumph has come, his period of probation is ended. For him 
 is henceforth only the rising of that glory as a star that shall 
 know no setting in the nobler firmament above. For his trans- 
 lation to glory. Lord God of his fathers, we thank Thee. 
 
 Be pleased to remember those to whom, on earth. Thou 
 hast given so great a blessing. Remember them still. Thine 
 handmaiden — Thou didst love, and comfort, and sustain those 
 women that knew Thee when on earth ; Thou didst remember 
 them ; Thou didst know the very heart of woman ; Thou didst 
 knov/ pain, and bore it with all its extremity of suffering ; be 
 pleased to do Thine office work here, and whatever is meant 
 for her in this affliction beyond the interpretation of our finite 
 minds, whatever is meant for her in this affliction, put comfort 
 and consolation into her heart. Lord, draw near to her, and 
 let her feel, by day and by night, that Christ thinks of her and 
 loves her. And be near, O Lord, to his dear children ; and 
 may they not, in these moments of greatest grief, in the tempest 
 of affliction, forget how he hath builded up their whole life ; 
 how rich they are in Christian memories ; how full is that 
 example of religion that he hath given them in time past, which 
 is for them for all time to come ! May they by faith and 
 patience walk in the same path, trusting in the same Saviour, 
 since every thought wings them nearer to Him, and every day 
 brings them one step further on. Grant, we beseech Thee, Thy 
 blessing to those that are connected with his household in 
 various relations. Grant, we beseech Thee, all that consola- 
 tion that they need, and all the sanctifying influence which we 
 so earnestly beseech in their behalf Lord God, draw near to 
 those that are afflicted as parents, and are full of sorrow. Lift 
 the whole burden of their sorrow from them. Speak to the 
 
 S~2 
 
26o life: its shadows and its substance. 
 
 brothers and the sisters. Let them know that it is the voice of 
 Jesus speaking to them out of the gates of the City of Life. 
 And grant to all Thy blessing — most to those that need most ; 
 to all that are in pain. Grant that impression to them of the 
 Holy Ghost, in which, by faith, they shall see beyond this 
 earthly experience, and be enabled to rise where he is, 
 and from that luminous vision behold his departure as he 
 now beholds it, and show their love by mingling, in a degree, 
 their sympathy with his, and joining with him in that glorious 
 realm in which he walks, crowned and royal, in his Father's 
 kingdom. Blessed Saviour, sanctify this dispensation of afflic- 
 tion and this triumph of Thy servant — this going forth which 
 has made his whole life seem blessed to us. Sanctify it to all 
 those who were his companions in the discharge of public trust, 
 and all that counselled with him ; to all those that laboured 
 with him in public affairs. Sanctify it to his Church and its 
 pastor ; to all the brothers that have prayed and sung with him 
 in days gone by. May this day be made rich by its gain in 
 heavenly truth to us. AVe beseech of Thee that everything 
 which added strength and grace to him, and which made him 
 fittest for heaven, may be approved to our judgment ; and may 
 we follow the example left us, waiting for the time when some 
 time blessed angel shall be commissioned to call for us, and 
 men shall say, •' He is not, for God took him." Hear us in 
 these things, and answer us, we beseech Thee, for the sake of 
 Christ Jesus ; and to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit 
 shall be the praise for evermore. Amen. 
 
XX. 
 
 ON THE DECADENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 *' For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom ; but we 
 preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the 
 Greeks foolishness ; but unto them which are called, both Jews and 
 Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." — i COR. 
 i. 22 — 24. 
 
 Whether Christianity has run through its period of power, and 
 is to fall back, as the Mosaic economy did, is not a question 
 much pondered and discussed. Was Christianity an interme- 
 diate stage of development ? Was it an outgrowth of the human 
 soul in such a sense that it was relative to the times, and the 
 nations, and the influences which surrounded it ? or was it based 
 upon absolute truth ? Was it truth in such a sense Divine that 
 it was interjected into the world long before the period when it 
 could have been developed out of the human understanding in 
 the normal course of education, and is it, therefore, permanent 
 and universal ? 
 
 I propose to argue this morning that Christianity is not a 
 system of relative truths; that in its nature it cannot wane; 
 that it is destined, not to be supplanted, but to enlarged power, 
 and to continuous triumphs to the end of time. 
 
 Consider, then, the text. " The Jews require a sign, and the 
 Greeks seek after philosophy ; but we," as distinguished from 
 both, " preach Christ crucified." A king without a crown is in 
 symbol no king ; and the apostle felt that, unless cross or crud- 
 fixion was attached to the name of Christ, He was not King. 
 It was not merely Christ that he preached, but Christ crucified 
 — Christ the sufferer. And then he proceeds to say, *'We 
 preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and 
 unto the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called " 
 — unto them which are capable of rising into the true spirit of 
 it — '^ both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the 
 philosophy of God." 
 
 The last phrase is remarkable. The word is the same that 
 had been used in the context, and that is used throughout the 
 New Testament to designate Grecian philosophy — sophia. The 
 Jews wanted a sign or a wonder — that is, a miracle — and the 
 Greeks wanted philosophy; but the apostle says, I preach 
 
262 ON THE DECADENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Christ crucified ; and this, in its full disclosure, is at once the 
 highest element of Divine power and of Divine philosophy. It 
 is the succouring God incarnated, that concentrates in Himself 
 the highest moral energy and the deepest philosophy — the 
 philosophy which shall prevail when all others shall have passed 
 away — the true philosophy of the human race, whose develop- 
 ment is found in the Lord Jesus Christ — God manifest in the 
 flesh, suffering, and crucified. 
 
 There are one or two influences now prevailing which tend 
 to produce the impression that the power of Christ is waning 
 in society ; that the system of truth which has clustered about 
 the name of Christ is a purely human development, and subject 
 to such curtailment, and modifications, and final suppression as 
 all relative and partial truth is liable to. Let us consider some 
 of the influences which have tended, and still are tending, to 
 produce this impression. 
 
 I. Christianity has been confounded with the doctrinal 
 forms which it has assumed. I find no fault with those that 
 attempt to throw the facts of Christianity into a doctrinal form. 
 The process is inevitable. But then, one should not confound 
 his philosophic rendering or solution of facts with the facts 
 themselves. One should not confound Christianity with the 
 purely human process of reasoning npon the facts of Christianity. 
 This has been largely done, and for a variety of reasons that I 
 have not time now to consider. But religious doctrinal systems 
 will change after every great development in the philosophy of 
 the human mind. They have changed hitherto, they are chang- 
 ing, and they will continue to change, because they are the 
 result of mere hum.an reasonings. Controversies that seemed 
 to good men to threaten the very destruction of Christianity, 
 we can now see, as we look back upon them in history, only 
 set Christianity, as a spirit, as a power, as a Divine philosophy, 
 free from the cerements that had been wrapped around it by 
 the imperfection of human reason. 
 
 Now when, in any age^ careless men, who have confounded 
 the spirit of Christ and of Christianity with the human doctrines 
 of religion, see those doctrines attacked and modified, it is not 
 strange that they should say, ''Religion is passing away." But 
 the external form that a principle assumes may change without 
 in the sfightest degree changing the principle itself. 
 
 2. Christianity has been confounded with the instruments 
 through which it has acted on this world. As a pure truth, it 
 is impossible that Christianity should be universally and con- 
 tinuously powerful. It raised up for itself, therefore, institutions. 
 
ON THE DECADENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 263 
 
 The Church is one of them. Those institutions were relatively- 
 adapted to nationalities, to the civilisations of the world, to the 
 necessities of the times in which they were developed. All 
 forms of religious associations — the vehicles through which 
 religious influence has been brought with power upon the 
 world — are apt to be confounded with religion itself. There 
 are a great many men who think the Bible is religion, because 
 it is an instrument through which religion is kept in and made 
 known to the world. There are many men who think that 
 Sunday is religion, because it is one of those instruments by 
 which God brings to bear upon the world the great interior 
 truths of Christ. Many persons suppose that the ministers 
 of the Church represent religion, because they are instruments 
 employed in producing religious effects. 
 
 Now, not undervaluing instruments, which are indispensable 
 in this world, we are never to confound religion itself with the 
 ordinances and institutions, the books and sermons which it 
 employs. These are separate from the thing itself, just as 
 much as my hand is separate from my mind, though it is the 
 indispensable instrument of the mind in working any manual 
 craft. My whole body is the instrument which my mind 
 employs, but my mind is something separable from my body, 
 interior, and not perishable like the body. 
 
 Christianity is a soul-power— an invisible, immutable power 
 in the world. It employs ordinances and organizations ; and 
 men properly change and modify them from age to age, 
 according to the exigencies of the civilisation that exists ; but 
 religion does not change because its instruments do. Justice 
 employs at one period of the human race one kind of laws. 
 At another period, justice changes those old laws and employs 
 others. Laws change from generation to generation, and from 
 nation to nation, not for the sake of destroying public welfare, 
 but for the sake of maintaining it. The vehicles and instru- 
 ments of religion are changing, but the spirit and the letter are 
 never to be confounded. 
 
 3. Christianity has been incorrectly identified with mere 
 morality and philanthropy. It has undertaken to inspire 
 morals, to refine manners, to elevate justice, to purify love, to 
 ennoble governments, and to civilize the world as well as to 
 save it. In attempting this, mistakes have been made. Cor- 
 ruptions have entered in. Men have confounded the Spirit of 
 Christ with the very imperfect, and often perverse and ruinous 
 application of religion to civil affairs and to political economy. 
 
 Because the wrongs which the people of Europe are resenting 
 
264 ON THE DECADENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 and correcting have been closely identified with the Church, 
 they are thought to proceed from religion. Religion is not 
 hurt, but helped by the revolution of hierarchies and the 
 destruction of State Churches. Undoubtedly Christianity has 
 leavened these various elements of civil society, but religion is 
 not to be identified with the imperfect materials upon which 
 it works, and still less with the imperfect workers by whom it 
 is administered. Is the sun identical with all the things which 
 it does ? The seasons change. Does the sun that produces 
 them ? Vegetation comes and goes. Is the autumnal perishin,2: 
 of summer growths the sign of decadence and weakness ? 
 The sun evokes, and nurses, and matures a whole continent 
 of growths, but is there no difference between the sun that 
 produces these effects and the effects themselves ? and may 
 not all the works of the sun perish, and it not change ? 
 
 4. Another element that may perhaps come under this head 
 is the popular estimate of the Bible. Formerly the Bible was 
 regarded as an encyclopaedia — as a guide to all knowledge. 
 Devout men have sought for authority in texts for every phrase 
 of conduct. The impression has prevailed that there was no 
 element in life for which there was not some authoritative 
 direction in the Word of God. It is quite true that indirectly 
 the Bible touches every human interest ; but it is neither an 
 encyclopedia, nor a universal text-book of knowledge. By 
 enlightening the understanding, purifying the conscience, and 
 changing the heart, truth prepares men for every function and 
 department of life. But the Bible only attempts to touch the 
 master-springs of character, and so to set men right with God, 
 with themselves, and with their fellow-men. Having done 
 that, it leaves them to work out the details of the various 
 departments of life themselves. 
 
 If men suppose that the Bible is a book of universal instruc- 
 tion, then the growth of medical science, putting to shame 
 any knowledge found in the sacred Scriptures on this subject, 
 will very soon assert itself as its rival j civil treatises will by-and 
 bye become rivals of its early and artless institutions of justice, 
 and treatises on sociology will show how meagre and poor is 
 the form of social economy which it shadows forth. But the 
 Bible never undertook to teach sociology, or medicine, or 
 engineering, or political economy, or politics. It undertakes 
 to reconcile man's soul with his God. It undertakes to put 
 the spiritual reason on its right plane, that it may exert a right 
 influence. Its office may be compared to a key which winds 
 up a machine that has run down. It develops and puts in 
 
ON THE DECADENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 265 
 
 order that of which God gives the creative idea, that it may 
 more perfectly perform its organic functions. It undertakes 
 to bring man where he shall be qualified for all the duties of 
 life. It does not undertake to teach everything that men do 
 in the light; it merely furnishes them light to do what their 
 circumstances and necessities require to be done. The Word 
 of God is bread. Bread does not undertake to reap the harvest, 
 or plough the field, or blast the rock, or delve in the mine, or 
 fish in the sea, but it makes a man strong so that he can do it„ 
 The Word of God is light. It gives a man the medium neces- 
 sary to enable him to exercise his faculties correctly. If men 
 suppose that the Bible is designed to impart universal know- 
 ledge, then the growth of science will naturally produce the 
 impression that it is a worn-out book; and men will say, "What 
 can the Bible tell us about the important duty of voting? What 
 can it tell us with regard to electricity, that is playing so great 
 a part in the economies of society? What can it tell us about 
 any of the great elements of philosophical research or modern 
 inquiry?" It does not undertake to touch those subjects. It 
 implies that moral elements are the master elements of the 
 human soul; that when they are developed and rightly trained, 
 the whole mass will go rightly; and the Bible essays simply to 
 inspire and guide the moral centres of the mind. 
 
 " That is narrowing the Bible, and bringing it within a very 
 small compass." I beg your pardon ; it is not narrowing it at 
 all. Is not the key that winds the clock the most important 
 thing that you can bring to the clock ? Is not the clock help- 
 less without it? It is a little thing, it goes into a small hole, 
 and in turning it makes but a little noise ; but, after all, it con- 
 trols the whole economy of the clock. The clock is wound up 
 by it. Now the Bible is the key that winds up, and sets in 
 motion, and regulates all human life and conduct. 
 
 A man says, "I own all the water that has been brought into 
 Brooklyn, and distributed through all the mains of the city." 
 '•'Ah! " says another man, "I own more than that; I own 
 Ridgewood reservoir, whence you get it all." " Ah ! " says a 
 third, "I own more than that; I own all the land from which 
 the water comes that fills Ridgewood reservoir." " Ah ! " says 
 still another, "I own more than that ; I own all the clouds that 
 rain down the water." One man more steps in and says, *' I 
 own more than that ; I own that constitution of nature by which 
 water is formed in the air, and by which it rains down." Has 
 not he got behind and beyond them all ? Is not all that 
 they own comprehended in that great, comprehensive, organ- 
 
2 66 ON THE DECADENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 ising fact? And so the power of Christ goes back of all 
 originating and formative powers to their very source. It not 
 only antecedes and antedates all other power, but surpasses all 
 other power in quality. 
 
 5. There are many who seem to have the impression that 
 the developments of science in our time, in mental philosophy, 
 in sociology, in civil government, in political economy, in 
 natural history, in all those elements which show the Divine 
 conception in the development of the physical world, are super- 
 seding Christianity. They speak of religion with respect. They 
 say that it has done an admirable work ; that it has filled an 
 interregnum ; that before we could come to these higher know- 
 ledges, it was an invaluable aid to human development ; that it 
 deserves all honour ; that there are many elements in it which 
 ought to be preserved ; but they hold that it is to be dis- 
 possessed by the developments of science. On the other hand, 
 my own belief is that science is itself, however reluctantly in its 
 first strides, ultimately to come round into perfect subjection to 
 the law that is in Christ Jesus ; and He that has ruled over 
 priests, over kings, and over nations for ages past, is just as 
 much in days to come to rule over laboratories, and lecture- 
 rooms, and professional chairs, and all that belongs to scientific 
 knowledge. In our day there is apparent collision, seeming 
 discrepancies ; but they are only apparent. Or, if they are real 
 discrepancies, it will be found that they lie in that human 
 element which has been wrapped around the exposition of reli- 
 gion. Religion itself, set free from imperfect human handling, 
 is to emerge and be brighter than it ever was before, because 
 it will be purer. 
 
 Let us consider, then, some of those grand elements which 
 constitute Christianity — inquiring, as we proceed with the 
 enumeration of them, whether there is any sign of their growing 
 weak; whether the elements themselves are in the nature of 
 transient elements; whether there is any token that their function 
 is exhausted ; whether they can be adjourned, prorogued, or 
 superseded. 
 
 The first grand characteristic element of the Gospel is the 
 new presentation which is made of the Divine character, and of 
 God's peculiar relations to the individual soul. This is not 
 only the first and most striking element of Christianity, but it 
 is its most important element. At the coming of Christ there had 
 been developed in the world the conception of God as a God 
 of justice, and wisdom, and power, and truth, and goodness. 
 There had been developed the idea of a regnant God, a God 
 
ON THE DECADENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 267 
 
 in dominion, a God to be worshipped and obeyed, to be feared 
 and to be loved. But there was one peculiar element which, 
 although it had been foreshadowed, had never been disclosed in 
 such a manner as to become a universal conception, a working 
 power — the element of Divine love-suffering. In all the world 
 outside of the Jewish Church, the conception of suffering in 
 a God was perfectly abhorrent. I will not say that in the 
 Jewish idea of the Divine nature the conception of suffering 
 was abhorrent; but it was obscure, Httle understood, and 
 scarcely at all felt. Christianity brought into the world the 
 idea that God, sitting in the centre of perfectness, Himself in 
 all conceivable elements without bounds, and beyond the possi- 
 bility of change in order of perfection, was of such a disposition 
 that He was willing to subject Himself to toil, to trouble, to 
 sorrow, to suffering for His creatures. 
 
 When it is said that God can suffer, and does suffer, thousands 
 are shocked. One of the most potential arguments that act 
 upon men's minds in considering the question of the Divinity 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ is that it was unworthy of the dignity 
 of a God, who is supposed to be the sum of all perfectness, to 
 suffer. Now that God should suffer in any way that indicated 
 moral obliquity ; in any way that indicated that He had violated 
 laws ; in any way that indicated that He had not the wisdom 
 and the power to avoid those courses which lead to suffering — 
 in short, in any such way as impHed weakness, or imperfectness, 
 or impurity, is abhorrent to our fundamental notions of Deity. 
 But that One who is the perfect God ; who is without variable- 
 ness or shadow of turning ; who is the Creator of all sentient 
 beings that, beginning at the seminal point, work their way up 
 from weakness to strength ; and who, during the long period in 
 which they are subject to temptations, and are perpetually 
 falling into sin, is universal father and universal mother — repre- 
 sents, in other words, those elements which are m.ore perfectly 
 shown to us in father and mother than in any other form — that 
 such a One should be a sufferer; that He should bestow pains- 
 taking and care upon men, that He should put His experience 
 in the place of their inexperience, and His love in the place of 
 their hate ; that He should pour out His soul for them as a 
 universal inspiration and power; that He should do these things, 
 notwithstanding men are poor, and mean, and debased, and 
 wicked, and ungrateful, and proud, and selfish ; and that He 
 should do it, not by virtue of any arrangement or plan, but on 
 account of the inherent and everlasting qualities of the Divine 
 character — this is an astounding revelation ! It revolutionizes 
 
268 ON THE DECADENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the former notions of Divine character. It struck at the foun- 
 dations of Greek reasoning on the subject of perfection in 
 Deity. 
 
 Christianity tells us that there is in God that element which 
 
 makes Him self-sacrificing, self-abnegating ; that there is that in 
 
 Him which leads Him to suffer, not on account of any relation 
 
 of His own obedience or disobedience to law, but that He may 
 
 lift up the low, strengthen the weak, enlighten the ignorant, 
 
 save the lost. That is the great revelation of the New Testament. 
 
 It is what Paul meant when he said : " I will preach Christ and 
 
 Him crucified. I will not preach Christ the Son of God ; I will 
 
 preach Christ and His cross. I will not preach the crowned 
 
 Saviour, unless it be the tho7'n-crowned \ I will not preach Christ 
 
 upon the throne, living for ever in the plenitude and beauty of 
 
 eternal youth, and pomp, and power infinite : I will preach the 
 
 despised, the rejected, the hlood-siveating Christ of Gethsemane, 
 
 the cross-dome Christ iipoji Calvary. That is the Christ that I 
 
 will preach." He it is that is " the power of God and the 
 
 wisdom of God." Why? Because there is a material medicinal 
 
 effect produced by Him upon the soul ? No ! but because God 
 
 is disclosed in Him as One that, for the poor and needy, for 
 
 sinners, for His enemies even, gave for ever and for ever of the 
 
 very substance of His being and love, and revealed Himself to 
 
 be a nourishing God and Father ! And any man who has once 
 
 had his soul penetrated with a conception of the immensity of 
 
 God in His aspect of suffering for others has realised what the 
 
 apostle preached. It is not only the philosophy of the universe, 
 
 but it is the power of God in his soul to salvation. I do not 
 
 believe that any man who has had that conception of God ever 
 
 lost it. There is an energising moral power produced by it 
 
 which, when it is brought upon the soul, can neither be effaced 
 
 nor forgotten. 
 
 Is that first great element — the suffering of God — burned 
 out? Has the world drawn out of it all its moral nutriment? 
 Must that truth lie fallow ? As yet the truth has shined almost 
 wholly into darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. 
 The amazing power of love developed by the story of love- 
 suftering in God has yet dawned but as a twilight. The efful- 
 gence of this great truth, this central orb in the heavens and the 
 earth, has scarcely yet risen above the horizon. It will be ages, 
 I think, before it shines full upon the world. Men talk about 
 the seed having spent itself before it has fairly sprouted. But 
 I believe this wonderful divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, as 
 representing God suffering for the creatures under His govern- 
 
ON THE DECADENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 269 
 
 ment, is yet to have its history ; that it is in its initial period, 
 and that there are vast stages of development through which it 
 is to pass in long cycles of coming days ; and yet men talk 
 about Christianity being worn out! You might as well talk 
 about the acorn that has grown but five years being an almost 
 spent oak, when you know that hundreds of years of batding 
 storms will yet thunder against its rugged health. 
 
 Look at the next element that is characteristic of Chris- 
 tianity, namely, its implications or direct teachings in respect 
 to the character and condition of man. The assumption of the 
 New Testament is that men by nature are animals. The 
 scriptural use of the word flesh in the New Testament writings 
 indicates that men by nature are living in the animal condition. 
 And it is taught that in that condition it is not possible for 
 them to understand higher truths, nor to feel higher influences, 
 nor to enter into the experience of those regal joys which 
 belong to a man when he is developed in his higher faculties. 
 It is declared evervvhere in the new Testament — not so much 
 declared as assumed — that the heart is sinful. The apparent 
 fact that the whole creation groans and travails in pain is 
 argument enough on that subject. The tears, the sorrows, the 
 sufferings of men, which we behold on every hand ; the conflicts 
 of the whole world, of which we are cognisant — these things 
 make it evident enough that men are sinfuU When a machine 
 is out of order, and the various parts grate and grind against 
 each other, it is not necessary to say to one who hears the 
 grinding. " It is out of order." Therefore no time is spent 
 in the New Testament to prove that men are depraved. It is 
 assumed to be a thing of universal consciousness — as it is. 
 
 But there is a declaration that is marvellous, though it is less 
 remarkable to us than it was to those to whom it was made, 
 namely, that this state of sinfulness may be reversed, and men 
 reconstructed — **born again," as it is said. Right after the 
 declaration of the loving, and self-sacrificing, and suffering 
 nature of God, comes this declaration in respect to universal 
 human sinfulness, that it is possible for men to break away 
 from it utterly immediately. The declaration that although 
 men in the animal conditions of life tend to go on and repeat 
 their degrading thoughts, and feelings, and habits, yet that 
 there comes in a law of the Gospel which traverses this other- 
 wise natural tendency ; and it is in the power of men, under 
 the Divine infiuence, to stop bad moral processes, and to rear 
 a new class of experiences \ that as, where a soil is growing 
 weeds, and nothing but weeds, if you will prepare the ground. 
 
270 ON THE DECADENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 and put in good seed, germinant elements will be thrown up 
 which will supplant the weeds, so the human soul, though if it 
 be left to its animal conditions will repeat its depravities, yet, 
 inspired by the Divine mind, has in it the power of sovereign 
 change ; that men may everywhere, high and low, black and 
 white, bond and free, savage and civiUsed, ignorant or 
 enlightened, without regard to class, emerge from their sinful 
 state ; that such is the universal condition of the human soul 
 that it can, under the stimulating influence of God's Spirit, be 
 lifted from the sphere of the brute creation into the realm of 
 spiritual beings — this is one of the most original and most 
 potential of all truths. That in this universal race of man, 
 beggarly, miserable, selfish, proud, hating, and hateful, there is 
 inherent, under the Divine influence, the power of recreation, 
 counting the past as nothing, balancing the old bankrupt books, 
 shutting them up, and laying them aside all settled, without 
 money and without price, throwing them away where the 
 memory even shall not find them, with no harassing debt, and 
 no frowning creditor — is not this a transcendent thing to tell? 
 Because it is told so often, because it is so frequently repeated, 
 it does not make much impression upon those who hear it. 
 Nobody seems to think there are earthquakes and revolutions 
 in it; but there are. Nobody seems to think it is a part 
 of the *' power of God and the wisdom of God;" but 
 it is. Not the thunder that cracks and rolls through the 
 mountains, not the summer storms that sweep across the 
 earth, not the volcano and the earthquake, are for prodigious- 
 ness of power to be compared with this simple enun- 
 ciation, "Ye must be born again." Must 2 take out that 
 word, and say, with tears of gratitude, " We can be born again !" 
 
 There is no other truth so full of hope as this. Men think 
 it a hateful truth. Men argue as though it was slandering 
 human nature. It is slandering human nature, just as it is 
 slandering human nature when it is said of a drowning man 
 that some kind hand, placed under him, drew him to the shore. 
 There is salvation in it ! 
 
 Now, is that truth worn out ? The truth of the salvation of 
 men — call it by any name you please — that elasticity, that 
 constitutional element, by which the soul, when brought under 
 God's influence, can break away from the animal in him, from 
 all the clogs which bind him down to lower things, and rise to 
 higher realms, and become a man in Christ Jesus — is that 
 worn out ? 
 
 Not only is there some room yet for the application of this 
 
ON THE DECADENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 27 1 
 
 sovereign truth of Christianity, and some need of it, but there 
 is no sign that age or weakness has passed upon it. The 
 regenerating power of the Holy Ghost in the hearts of sinful 
 men is a truth neither decrepit nor shrunken. It is as fresh as 
 rains, as the sun, as the spring after long winters ! 
 
 Consider, next, some of the grand ideals which are presented 
 in the Gospel of Christ, and ask yourselves whether those 
 which are peculiar to it are worn out and passing away. Ask 
 yourselves whether, instead of being relative, they do not par- 
 take of the nature of the absolute. 
 
 The first is the doctrine of immortality. This truth of life 
 and immortahty, which were brought to light in Christ Jesus, 
 had been before believed in a doubting way. It had been in 
 the world as a suggestion, as a hint, as a rumour, one might say, 
 but never as a power. 
 
 You are a poor man, and ignorant. There is a written docu- 
 ment lying in a chest in your room. You cannot read writing. 
 and you do not know what that document contains, but you 
 have a suspicion that by it you might become the inheritor of 
 great treasures. You take it out, and look at it, and vainly wish 
 that you could read it ; you put it back without gaining any 
 knowledge of its purport. By-and-bye some kind friend comes 
 to your relief. A light is kindled in your dwelling, and that 
 document is taken out. He examines it for you. He reads, and 
 as he reads, grows more and more attentive. He stops to ask 
 you, " Who was your father ? who was his father ? what was 
 your uncle's name ? " " Something concerning my uncle, my 
 father, and my father's father?" you say. You are impatient to 
 know what it is. But, instead of telling you, he turns the 
 p per over again, and says, *' Well, well ! " Unable longer to 
 restrain your eagerness to know what are its contents, you say 
 to him, " Tell me what it is. Do not hold me in suspense. 
 What is the news ?" At length he says, "Why, sir, do you know 
 that that whole estate is yours ? Here is your title. I have 
 brought it out of its hiding-place. This is the will. The 
 evidence is unquestionable. You are a millionaire. Your 
 poverty is gone." *'Read the paper again. Is it so — that I 
 own that estate ? " The man reads it again ; you are assured 
 that you are heir to the property. Your neighbours hear the 
 news, and tell it to others ; presently it is known through the 
 whole town; great is the rejoicing that you have come to your 
 rights at last ! 
 
 The world had heard whispers of immortality. There had 
 been fables and pictures, cloud-pictures, and fables grotesque 
 
272 ON THE DECADENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 or fantastic. Christ came, and opened God's will, as it is 
 revealed in the New Testament, and made known the love — 
 the suffering love of God. Men iDegan to listen to His glorious 
 teachings. '' All that is God's is yours. By faith you may 
 become His sons. You are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with 
 Jesus Christ. All that God owns you shall inherit — of joy, 
 of power, of nobleness, of dignity, of society, of existence 
 throughout eternity." Such is the revelation. Sound the mu- 
 sical word ! Proclaim to all nations and generations the glad 
 tidings that for ever and for ever man shall live ! 
 
 Is this doctrine of immortality, of eternal existence, worn out? 
 Is it passing away ? Has weakness struck through it ? Has 
 it now no stimulation and hope ? Has the world no longer any 
 need of it ? Are we to wrap up these great truths of the God- 
 bead and of human nature as one would wind up a bundle of 
 raiment worn out, and lay them aside? When your soul is sick, 
 and you fain would be better, will you turn away the physician 
 if He comes ? Where will you get your medicines if not from 
 Him ? And what medicines will reach your case if not this 
 truth of immortality ? Where, outside of the Gospel, can you 
 point me to one single ray of hope or joy comparable thereto ? 
 The revelations of natural science are important, but of what 
 value compared with the revelation of God's inmost disposition? 
 AVho is my God ? Where is He ? Where can I find Him ? 
 What am I myself? What is my destiny? Is the grave the 
 end of time ? Is the life of the flitting midge of evening, or of 
 the poor foolish moth that extinguishes himself in my taper, a 
 symbol of my life, except that mine is a little longer ? Is there 
 naught of me but dust, that shall return to dust ? Every fibre 
 in me, all the faculties of my being, and with more and more 
 emphasis and power as they rise in the scale, declare that I 
 cannot sleep for ever ! And if it is said on good authority that 
 I have in Christ Jesus immortality. I clasp that truth as the 
 very bosom of God, full of milk. The sweetest, the most 
 nourishing, the most hope-inspiring, the most regenerating 
 doctine, the doctrine that is most noble in its influences on the 
 human character, is this doctrine of immortality — the cardinal 
 truth that the soul lives for ever through Jesus Christ the Lord. 
 
 Tell me, then, is truth stricken in years and infirm ? Does 
 it limp or go on crutches? It is crowned yet; and all the signs 
 of authority and power are upon it. 
 
 The next ideal held up before men in the Word of God is 
 the great element of Love, which, as it is God's law to Himself, 
 is made our law too. Love carries in it those elements on 
 
ON THE DECADENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 273 
 
 which man's character is to be reconstructed. It embraces in 
 itself, in a condensed form, the sum of all the other godlike 
 qualities in the human soul. It is the perfection of the faculties 
 that lie below it. It is the fulfilling of the law — not of cere- 
 monies, but of the human mind. Love is the very harmony of 
 perfect being. In it will be found, in more perfect condition 
 than when acting separately, reason, justice, and imagination ! 
 Love is the condition of the whole being when aroused to full 
 activity, in perfect harmony, and all concentrated and pointing 
 to the production of happiness in others. 
 
 '*None of us liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself; 
 for whether we live, we live unto the Lord, and whether we 
 die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live, therefore, or 
 die, we are the Lord's." This, and a hundred like golden 
 sentences, all the way through the New Testament, syllable 
 this grand truth of love. Love is to be the germinant point of 
 reconstructed character. And in you, as in your God, love is 
 to be of such a nature that it will bear with others, and seek 
 to benefit others. 
 
 Is the period drawing near when love is to die as a thing 
 worn out ? Had science so nourished and fed the human soul 
 that it has risen to some higher sphere, above and beyond the 
 need of love ? Or does this very marrow of the New Testament 
 fill the bones of the world with health and strength ? 
 
 But there is a mood of love so peculiar and beautiful, and 
 in a sense so eminent the product of Christianity, that it 
 deserves a special mention. It is Self-denial. So indispen- 
 sable is this virtue, that without it, in some degree, society 
 would be but a den of ravening beasts. It is an inflection or 
 mood of love. And as love was provided and designed in the 
 very structure of the human soul, so in a low and imperfect 
 way — in a way of germ and rudiment — Nature teaches the 
 great need of self-denial. 
 
 But Christ by His words, and yet more sublimely by His 
 sufferings, has taught the world a royal lesson of self-denial, 
 which cannot die out of it until the sun refuses to cheer the 
 day, and the stars forget to shine upon the night. It constitutes 
 an integral element of Christianity. If the world has out- 
 grown Christianity, then it has outgrown love, suffering love, 
 self-denial ! 
 
 Has the world seen the ascendancy of self-denial — all men 
 giving preference to the higher moral elements, all men 
 denying the fleshly lusts, all men cheerfully suffering that they 
 might bring good to each other? Do the strong no longer 
 
 T 
 
2 74 ON THE DECADENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 lord it over the weak ? Is wealth a servant of poverty ? Is 
 refinement the teacher of rudeness ? Is that example of Him 
 "who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, 
 that we through His poverty might be rich," no longer solitary 
 and peculiar, but become so much a part of universal daily 
 life that self-denial is a stale and shrivelled thing of the past, 
 while the young world, having sucked all the wine out of it, is 
 lustily going on to something higher than Christianity and 
 beyond it ? 
 
 Have individuals, and families, and groups of families, and 
 communities, and states, and nations so long practised self- 
 denial, in pleasure, in business, in civil affairs, that nothing 
 more is to be learned, and the New Testament now become the 
 horn-book of a primary school, to be thrown aside by a world 
 that has learned its letters and passed on to a higher literature? 
 
 There are men who seclude themselves from the world, and 
 refuse to go into the active spheres of life, that they may 
 preserve themselves from contamination and from sin, and they 
 are pointed out to me as representing the ideal of Christianity. 
 Why, you might as well bring me a stick twenty years old of 
 seasoned oak wood, and tell me that that represented a forest I 
 Where are the leaves? Where is the sap? Where are the 
 singing birds? Where is there anything that likens it to a 
 forest ? Away with your stick ! Bring me none of these old 
 disbranched, leafless, sapless things called INIonks, or Shakers, 
 or whatever other name you choose to put upon them, nor tell 
 me that they represent the plenitude, and power, and saliency 
 of the Divine nature in all the ranges of society, now once 
 again reaHsed in human experience. I will have none of 
 those for my ideal ! A man keyed to love, made pure, and 
 powerful by it, putting himself among men, and under them, 
 weeping for them, saving their tears by shedding his own, 
 inspiring and leading the way, seeking, in love and suffering, 
 for others to follow the Lord Jesus Christ — such a man 
 represents what I consider to be the Christian ideal. 
 
 Now tell me whether this idea has lost power and function 
 in this world. Is Christianity waning, either in its God, or in 
 the great facts that disclose Him to men, or in those elements 
 which are represented in the New Testament as ideals of 
 reconstructed human character? The spirit of Christianity is 
 alive yet, though its instruments may be passing away or 
 changing. 
 
 I meant to have presented one other thought under this 
 head, but I shall merely announce it, namely, that in the 
 
ON THE DECADENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 275 
 
 present condition of the world, it is difficult to find examples 
 of what is meant by true Christian character. I know it is 
 said that we are having as good men now as there ever were. 
 Point out to me a man like Paul. I would make a pilgrimage 
 around the globe to see him. Point out to me a man like 
 Christ. I would make a pilgrimage round the universe to see 
 him — whom I shall see for myself ! 
 
 Oh ! tell me, has this august purity, this sweet simplicity, 
 this transcendent wisdom, this wondrous love, this smypa- 
 thetic mind, that moved among men while not of them ; that 
 was so connected with them, not by passion, but by sentiment, 
 and that waked hope in the bosom of corruption, so that 
 publicans and harlots followed Him, at last saying in their 
 darkened souls, " A great light hath risen upon us " — tell me, 
 has this Divine nature no longer any function on the earth ? 
 
 Even sceptics bow down before the name of Jesus ; and men 
 that reason away the authenticity, and authority, and power of 
 the New Testament begin by confessing that human history has 
 never set up, nor poetry nor fiction imagined, any character so 
 perfect as the character of the Lord Jesus Christ; and is that 
 book likely to die out of the world which has in it the bright 
 consummation of the highest conceptions of royalty in beauty, 
 love in suffering, and purity in power? 
 
 In view of this exposition thus far, let us make a few applica- 
 tions. It is a subject difficult to deal with, because there is so 
 much of it. Christian character in all its relations is so broad, 
 that the discussion of the entire question would be encyclopedic, 
 and I can only touch a few salient points, which will serve as 
 hints to give you some conception of the whole. 
 
 I. If you distinguish between the vehicle and the thing v/hich 
 it conveys, if you distinguish between the embodying element 
 and the thing embodied, then there is one part of Christianity 
 that may be said to be growing cJd, namely, that part which 
 comprises its instruments. I think I shall not be misunderstood. 
 For instance, there are many parts of the New Testament which 
 have grown old — the miracles have. They were meant to be 
 local and temporary. Their power was substantially expended 
 on the day they were performed. And at every successive 
 generation, as men have developed in reason and moral sense, 
 and become able to gain, by the appropriate use of their now 
 educated faculties, a knowledge of the truths which miracles are 
 wrought to authenticate, miracles have become less needful. 
 They were designed to produce certain moral conditions before 
 men could come to them by a normal process of the under- 
 
 T — 2 
 
276 ON THE DECADENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Standing. And no man since the time of Christ has ranked 
 miracles so low in the moral scale as Christ did. He often 
 refused to perform them when asked to do so, and strove to lift 
 men above their desire for such material evidences, preferring 
 that they should believe Him for His work's sake. If, however, 
 a man must have a wonder rather than an argument, He wrought 
 the miracle, but in a way that he should feel that it was an 
 appeal to the very lowest form of moral sense. IMiracles are 
 none the less to be believed now than formerly, but their 
 authority and power wanes with the lapse of time. 
 
 There is a large part of the New Testament (for instance, 
 almost the whole book of Hebrews) devoted to an argument 
 intended to detach the Jew from the Jewish religion without 
 detaching him from the core of that religion — immortality in 
 God. But we are not Jews. We never did believe the Jewish 
 doctrine. We never worshipped as they did, nor sacrificed, nor 
 had a priesthood like that of Aaron. We were brought up from, 
 the cradle in the faith of Christ. To us those arguments are 
 empty, except as histories of other men's difficulties. 
 
 There is much, therefore, in the New Testament that is 
 relative, but it is only the exterior forms of truth, the vehicles 
 of it. That which constitutes the essential elements of the 
 gospel ; that which relates to the nature and government of 
 God, the character and destiny of man, the ideal of human 
 conduct, and the great motives that are to inspire it — surely that 
 is not relative, changeable, or transitory. Of this not one iota^ 
 not one jot or tittle, shall pass away. 
 
 2. In view of these statements, you will agree with me when 
 I say that the formative power of the New Testament, and of 
 Christianity as represented in it, was never needed more than 
 now. The amelioration of the condition of society, the eleva- 
 tion of thousands and millions of human minds — is not this the 
 work that is set before us ? How immensely selfish and egotisti- 
 cal we are ! We seem to think that the world is well enough. 
 So long as we enjoy the blessings of Christian civilisation our- 
 selves, it does not occur to us that people outside of our circle, 
 or village, or state, or country, are the victims of ignorance and 
 heathenism. Eight hundred millions of the human race are 
 without a knowledge of the true God, or of salvation through 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. Down through scores and hundreds of 
 years God has rolled upon men the great question, What will 
 you do with your fellow-men in your day and generation ? And 
 if there is to be, not the reconstruction of a few fragments 
 broken off from this invulnerable nation, but the reconstructioiv 
 
ON THE DECADENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 2 77 
 
 of the miserable heathen that populate and desecrate the islands 
 of the sea ; of the low, animal, worthless tribes in the interior 
 of Africa ; of the effete Oriental nations — if the vast world that 
 lies in darkness is yet to be touched with a sovereign and reviv- 
 ing power, then there must come a spring for sowing the seed 
 of regeneration, and a summer to ripen the harvest thereof. Has 
 philosophy thus far discovered any new principle by which the 
 work can be done without the gospel ? We know that for 
 eighteen hundred years, not philosophy, but the gospel, has 
 marked out the plan of justice, and set up ideals for men to 
 follow, and raised the scale of social and moral purity in the 
 world. We are advancing to even a greater work. There is as 
 much to be done to-day as there was when the apostles left 
 Jerusalem. The earth is a thousand times more populous now 
 than it was then. ]\Ien are intrenched behind stronger pre- 
 judices and better organised laws now than they were then. 
 The world has but just commenced its march toward universal 
 emancipation, universal freedom, and universal intelligence. 
 
 Just on the eve of battle — is this the time to throw away the 
 shield and spear, and forge some new contrivance with which 
 to wage the conflict? Never was there a time when the Bible 
 was so indispensable. Never was there a time when the know- 
 ledge derived from it was so valuable. Never was there a time 
 when its prophecy was so luminous. 
 
 3. If there are any that doubt, let it not be the poor. There 
 is no excuse for a poor man's being an infidel ; for, if there 
 has been one patron of the poor in all the history of the world, 
 it has been He who was born in poverty ; He who, though rich, 
 for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might 
 become rich. If Christ is not the poor man's guardian, then 
 then there is for him no guardian on earth. The Gospel is 
 the charter of the poor man's liberty. Christ is the hope of his 
 emancipation. Ciirist is his morning star. Let him follow 
 Him. If the poor cast Christ away, they are indeed without 
 God and without hope in the world ; for Nature refuses to say 
 one word of hope to the weak against the strong. Nature says, 
 in the conflict of forces, " The weaker force must go down as 
 the stronger comes up; the greater brain must rule the lesser; 
 the more powerful head must circumvent the weaker ; the 
 longer arm must take advantage of the shorter; the more 
 cunning finger must weave its own prosperity out of the lack 
 and want of those that are less cunning and powerful." In 
 your need there comes the doctrine of the Lord Jesus Christ — • 
 Yd are brethren ; ye arc to hear one another's burden ; ye arc to 
 
278 ox THE DECADENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 die for one another^ and so fulfil the law of love. If there is hope 
 for the poor and struggling, it is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Do 
 not, then, give up the New Testament, while the weak yet 
 abound, while the strong are arrogant, while wealth is selfish, 
 while prosperity is heartless, while ignorance afflicts the mass 
 of men, and blinds them to their own good and to God's 
 mercy. 
 
 4. If these views are correct, there are themes yet for men 
 to preach about besides the theology of nature. It has been 
 said that the pulpit ought not to be turned into a lyceum for 
 the discussion of customs and policies, and such-like topics. 
 Anything that it is right to talk about at all, it is, or it may be, 
 right to talk about in the pulpit. Relatively speaking, I do 
 not know where else you will find such liberty of discussion as 
 there is in the New Testament. Considering the age he lived 
 in, Paul taught on a greater breadth of topics than any man does 
 in this age, or dares to do. And I hold that, in a proper way, 
 there is no theory or philosophy which relates to the welfare 
 of states, or communities, or families, or individuals, or to any 
 part of a man's life, that may not be discussed in the pulpit, 
 and measured by the law of love, and truth, and justice. But 
 when a man tells me that the power of the pulpit is to be the 
 discussion of social questions, and that that is to be the chief 
 element of the ministry, I look upon him with amazement. 
 Give me the root of the oak, and I will very soon produce the 
 leaves ; but if I have only the leaves of the oak, can I with 
 them produce the root? All these various subjects are but 
 outgrowths — the branches, the leaves — of the great central 
 spiritual truths that evolve the nature of God and man, and 
 reveal man's destiny. 
 
 The power of the pulpit lies partly in its breadth, partly in 
 its versatility and richness, and partly in its faculty for gather- 
 ing treasure from all nature : but ah ! it lies mainly in this, that 
 it is inspired by God— by Christ the Son of God — by Jesus, the 
 atoning Saviour. The atoning sacrifice of Christ — this is the 
 central power of the pulpit. Do I speak of taste ? The power 
 with which I speak of it comes from this radiating centre. Do 
 I speak of intellection ? The power with which I speak of it 
 is derived from the Divine Spirit. Do I speak of philanthropy ? 
 It is not from an easy instinct of benevolence, but from the 
 impulse of the natural faculty of benevolence inspired by the 
 Holy Ghost. Do I speak of organisation or of society ? I 
 gain authority to do it because I stand higher than these things, 
 on the ground of the reconstruction of the universe. It is the 
 
ON THE DECADENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 279 
 
 wisdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, who died once, but who lives 
 now, but as much as ever a sacrifice. The Lamb slain from 
 the foundation of the world, and yet to be a sacrifice to the end 
 of the world — Christ Jesus, everlasting Model, everlasting 
 Master, everlasting God — this, with the power of union with 
 Him and love to Him, is the secret and centre of the power of 
 the pulpit. 
 
 For twenty years I have unfolded the truth among you, and 
 not without results. Those results, in my judgment, have 
 been due, not to a good understanding, not to versatility, not 
 to imagination, not to playing with men's sympathies and 
 tastes, but to the fact that, down deeper than everything else, 
 I have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. I have not made 
 that belief ostensible in words, perhaps, as many do, but it is 
 that which has constituted the power of my ministry. 
 
 It is my solemn conviction that the power of preaching is 
 not to be found in human elements. It is to range over every 
 topic of human life, but its power is not to be derived from 
 secular and natural influences, but from that Divine enthusiasm, 
 that exaltation of every sentiment and faculty, which results 
 from an indwelling Saviour and from the inspiration of the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 Let science still explore. Let study bring forth God's secret 
 thoughts buried in the natural world. Let experiments go on, 
 and civil ameliorations be hastened. There is no antagonism 
 between that old organic revelation of God's architectural 
 thoughts and that newer revelation of God's domestic thoughts. 
 He built the globe as a house for man, and Nature reveals 
 a God in that. He put man into that builded dwelling, and 
 the New Testament reveals the will of God in respect to them. 
 Both revelations are Divine. They are co-ordinate, co-relative, 
 complementary. Yet one day they will with intersphering rays 
 shine together : but it will be as the morning star and the 
 rising sun shine, for Nature is the star, and Christ the Sun of 
 Righteousness ! 
 
XXI. 
 THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 
 
 *' For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. 
 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear ; but ye 
 have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." 
 Romans viii. 14, 15. 
 
 Luther translates the passage Abba Father, " Dear FatJier^"^ 
 In our own language, the expression which perhaps comes 
 nearer to the original than any other vi My Father. "Abba 
 Father," means not Father, Father, as some think, but My 
 own Father. " Ye have not received the spirit of bondage 
 again to fear ; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, 
 whereby we " — instinctively and spontaneously — " cry out, 
 My own Father!" "The Spirit itself beareth witness with 
 our spirit that we are the children of God; and if children, 
 then heirs ; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ ; if so be 
 that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together." 
 Suffering, then, is not an evidence that God is averse to us, 
 'but one of the evidences, if it be cheerfully borne, of our 
 adoption as His children. 
 
 The eighth chapter of Romans, and the preceding one, are 
 the most profound psychological passages in the Bible; and 
 in the higher spiritual elements, they are more profound than 
 anything in literature. The seventh chapter is the problem of 
 conscience. The eighth is the solution of that problem by 
 the formulas of love. In the seventh, a just man, tender of 
 conscience and clear of understanding, with an active ideality, 
 seeks to make a symmetrical life and a perfect character — a 
 thing which is impossible in this world. Under such circum- 
 stances every mistake rebounds, and every imperfection is 
 caught upon the sensitive conscience, and becomes a source of 
 exquisite suffering and of discouragement; so that, from the 
 necessary conditions of human life, a just man will be made 
 miserable in proportion as he seeks more vehemently to be just. 
 One way out of this trouble would be to lower the standard 
 character, and to lower the moral value of conduct. But 
 the ease that comes from lowering our rule of right, and our 
 lesponsibilities to it, is degrading. Thus to seek ease sends us 
 
THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 251 
 
 down toward animals ; and that is the true vulgarity. Exquisite 
 as are the pains of a high ideal, and the penalties of violating 
 it, the sorrow, the remorse, and even the despair, are more 
 wholesome than the relief which we gain by lowering our con- 
 ception of law and character. It is better to die in the prison- 
 house of the seventh of Romans, than, missing the eighth, to 
 get relief in other direction. 
 
 The problem of the higher moral life is how to maintain a 
 transcendent ideal of character and conduct above any possible 
 ■realisation by us, and yet have joy and peace, even in the face 
 of sins and imperfections. How to hold up constantly the ideal 
 of what man ought to be, and then every day to measure on 
 that ideal what we are, and yet, seeing how unmatched they 
 are, and how far the real is below the ideal, still to find a peace 
 and a comfort which shall be wholesome to the soul, and not 
 detrimental — that is the problem. And its solution can only 
 be found in one direction — in the direction of Divine love. A 
 proper conception of God in the aspect of love, and a habit of 
 bringing the instruments, and customs, and laws of paternal 
 love to the consideration of our personal religious life, will go 
 far to enlighten, stimulate, and comfort us. 
 
 There is not a sensitive child that has that most transcendent 
 of all fortunes, the fortune of a noble parentage, who does not 
 know the whole of the eighth of Romans before he is eight 
 years old — practically I mean, although many a child has read 
 that chapter through without any conception of what it meant. 
 But where an aspiration after virtue and true nobility of cha- 
 racter begins early ; where this aspiration is checked, and the 
 character is scarred and marked with many shortcomings, and 
 failures, and imperfections ; and where, again, the child is 
 brought to rest in the bosom of a mother's forgiving love and 
 father's benedicdon ; where there is in the child a sense of 
 imperfection and wrong, and, at the same time, a consciousness 
 of being comforted and built up by the love and forgiveness of 
 father and mother — there you have the germ of the eighth of 
 Romans. How to aspire through manifold imperfections 
 toward perfection ; how, through daily weakness and want, to 
 look up to the highest ideals of what is right, and to press for- 
 ward to the realisation of those ideals ; and how to do it by taking 
 hold of father and mother — that is the Gospel. How a man, 
 by clinging to the Lord Jesus Christ, and by maintaining his 
 hold upon the sympathy, and patience, and forgiving love of 
 God, can strive for an ideal Christian mmhood, and can do it 
 without lowering his sense of what he ought to be, having all 
 
282 THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 
 
 the time a consciousness of sin, and yet not giving way to 
 feelings of remorse and discouragement — that is the lesson 
 which the New Testament is designed to teach. 
 
 Consider, then, a little, our text. I have said that the ex- 
 perience of the household, the family experience, was itself the 
 interpretation of this eighth chapter of Romans. Listen to 
 what is said here. "For as many as are led by the Spirit of 
 God " — what are they led to ? — " they are the sons of God." 
 The direction in which God leads them is toward sonship. 
 And, as if it were not enough to enunciate it, it is said, further, 
 "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear" — 
 that is to say, " You have not received such a view of God as 
 leads you to feel that you have occasion to fear and tremble 
 because you are in such a thrall of sin and transgression ; " 
 "but ye have received the Spirit of adoption" — that is, the 
 sign and token that you are Christians. What is the "Spirit of 
 adoption"? It is such a state of heart as makes one feel that 
 he is taken into God's family. It is a child's feeling. And, as if 
 that were not enough, it is explained still further, " Whereby 
 we cry, Abba, Father — dear Father." It is not dear God ; it 
 is not dear King; it is not dear Governor; it is not Majesty 
 or Universality. It is Father; and not Father alone, but my 
 Father, or, as Luther would put it, my dear Father. And you 
 have evidence that you are under God's real teaching when that 
 feeling breaks out in the soul which leads you to say, " Not- 
 withstanding sin, and in spite of wickedness, I am God's child, 
 and He is my Father." That is the token of conversion. "The 
 Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children — 
 the children^ the children— of God." Do not put the em- 
 phasis in the wrong place. It is not, "The Spirit beareth 
 witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God!' It is 
 this : " The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit, that we are 
 the children of our God." It is the sense of being children 
 that is emphatic. 
 
 There are a great many ways in which the character of God 
 is necessarily presented to us. He is the Builder of the natural 
 world, and in that aspect He manifests chiefly wisdom and 
 power. He is Lawgiver ; He is King ; He is Warrior ; He is 
 Judge ; He is Shepherd ; He is Husbandman ; He is House- 
 holder ; He is Father ; He is Brother ; He is Friend ; He 
 is Advocate ; and there are many other aspects of the Divine 
 nature given in the Word of God. And there is something 
 in each of these aspects which gives us a truer conception 
 of one element of God's character, probably, than can be 
 
THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 283 
 
 obtained in any other way. Each one of them interprets some- 
 thing, through our experience, of the unknown and invisible God. 
 
 No one epithet can embody all the aspects in which God has 
 been presented to us. His titles, therefore, are numerous, and 
 all of them have a designed use. But all are not alike useful. 
 Those titles which arise from the relation which God sustains 
 to the material world are not so important to us as those arising 
 from His relations to man. The title Creator touches admira- 
 tion. King, Lord of Lords, Ruler — these react closer, and touch 
 more chords. But Saviour, Redeemer, Father, bring the Divine 
 nature to our hearts in those aspects and relations which move 
 us more deeply than any other. 
 
 This is the style and title by which God seems best pleased 
 to be known. It includes in it whatever there is in Lordship, 
 but adds a personality, an element of tenderness familiar to 
 our experience. 
 
 In cultivating Christian affections, and especially the senti- 
 ment of love to God, it is not a matter of indifference what 
 Divine title is commonly used. Some views of God touch fear, 
 some reverence, some admiration, some love and trust. It is 
 these last qualities that we most need to develop. We should 
 keep our God before our mind, not as Lord, Judge, Governor, 
 but as a gracious Father. The word Father includes in it all 
 the elements which we seek to express in the terms Ruler, 
 Judge, King, but invests them with that highest and most 
 characteristically Divine element, love — love, too, in action, 
 helping, bearing, educating, suffering for us ! 
 
 We cannot love an abstraction. A governor is an abstraction. 
 It is not the name of a person, but of an executive. It does not 
 express a sympathetic, loving being, but merely a cluster of 
 powers held for the common good by one who uses reason and 
 conscience, but is not at liberty to be biassed by favour, by 
 like or dislike. It is not a personality, but an artificial character, 
 a civil creation. 
 
 Because we transfer to the Divine nature the elements of 
 magistracy, it does not follow that all which belongs properly 
 and necessarily to an earthly magistrate is also found in God. 
 He may rule, and yet by no such devices as human weakness 
 requires of earthly governors. He may and does govern by law; 
 and yet our systems of laws, administered by human hands, are 
 full of weaknesses — necessary, it may be, but not to be trans- 
 ferred in our thought to God's administration. 
 
 Now you may love the man who is governor, but no man can 
 love the gcver?ior. Governor is an official title, and not a 
 
2S4 THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 
 
 personal one; and if you train yourself to think of God as an 
 official personage, the soul does not go out after him. The heart 
 does not twine around abstractions. There are many, therefore, 
 who say, " I desire to love God, and I strive to love Him, but 
 I cannot." A man cannot compel his own love; and if he 
 views God in an aspect that does not inspire his love, he cannot 
 love Him. You look at God ; you believe Him to be great, and 
 wise, and good : you fear Him and reverence Him, but you 
 cannot love Him, because you are trying to make the soul love 
 that which its very nature renders it impossible for the soul to 
 love — an abstraction — an official character. 
 
 This way of looking at God also presents to you a being 
 acting, not from personal sympathy with you, but from con- 
 siderations of universal law and government, or, as it is said, 
 on the principle of seeking the greatest good of the greatest 
 number. Our conception of a governor is that he is a ruler, 
 who, being restricted by laws which are designed to secure the 
 highest benefit to the whole, is not at liberty to follow his own 
 personal feelings. And with this conception persons go to God 
 in prayer, and say, "Lord, have mercy on me, provided Thou 
 canst do it consistently with the greatest good of all Thy sub- 
 jects." What is a prayer good for that is circumscribed by an 
 abstract consideration of law? What chance is there for heart- 
 clasping where there is no freedom for the manifestation of 
 spontaneous emotions ? Who would make love to a fellow- 
 being by propounding an abstract theory of mental philosophy 
 as the basis of it ? And how many persons' prayers are made 
 to be abstractions, founded on abstract notions of a government 
 administered by an abstract governor ! It is not to be wondered 
 at that such persons come back from their devotions and say, 
 " I cannot love." It would be a miracle if they could, under 
 such circumstances. It is this that the Word of God declaims 
 against and rebounds at, where God is represented as saying, 
 ^' I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy." It is as if 
 an objector had said, " God is the God of the Jews, and He 
 can have mercy on the Jews because it is according to law," 
 God resents the imputation, and says, " Am I to be restrained 
 by this or any other imaginary law or necessity ? My nature is 
 such that wherever I choose to have mercy I can do it, and 
 can do it consistently with the greatest good of all ; and 
 wherever I do not choose to have mercy I can forbear. Whom 
 I will, I will harden, even if he is a Jew, and it will be just 
 and right ; and whom I will, I will save, no matter if he be a 
 Gentile, and it will be just and right. 1 am of a sound con- 
 
THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 285 
 
 science, and it is just and right for Me, as God, to act accord- 
 ing to ;My own feelings and judgment. For I am not such a 
 God as you imagine — an abstraction, administering a machinery 
 of laws outside of Myself. My thoughts are pure, My law is 
 true, My sym.pathies all carry rectitude and health; and 
 wherever I choose to pour out My feelings, it is safe to do it. 
 I assert My liberty to love where I will love, and to bless 
 where I will bless." 
 
 We need to have that echoed again in our hearing often and 
 often, for it brings back our lost God, and clothes the abstrac- 
 tion with sympathies, and volitions, and loves, and personahties, 
 ■which make it possible for us to find our way to Him. 
 
 You cannot bring yourself into the posture and the feelings 
 of a child, as you are commanded to do, if you are all the 
 time praying to a governor, to a lawgiver, or to a judge. If 
 you go before a judge, you go before him in some relation of 
 law; if you go before a lawgiver, you go before him as a 
 subject ; if you go before a governor or ruler, you go in your 
 citizen's character, and in a civil relation. If you are going, 
 to God as a child, you must find a God that shall answer to a 
 father. There must be that which shall draw the child ; and 
 hence Christians should accustom themselves to think of God 
 as paternal, and not as governmental. It makes a great deal 
 of difference whether you draw your rules for measuring sin, 
 and the desert of sin, from a government administered over a 
 state, or from a government administered over a household — 
 from a government administered by a father, or from a govern- 
 ment administered by a ruler. 
 
 The family, then, and not the state, is the fittest model for 
 contemplation. The father, and not the governor, is the true 
 ideal of the Christian's God. All the justice which is needed 
 in the state exists just as really in a government which is 
 characterised by fatherhood as in a magisterial government. 
 The person who administers over a state cannot yield to the 
 influence of sympathy and love, and can only execute justice; 
 while in the family, though justice is no less secured, it is 
 carried out under the influence of love and sympathy. In so 
 small a circle as the family you may make justice the servant 
 of love, and make love the true power of administration ; but 
 if you augment that circle, and take in hundreds, and thousands, 
 and millions, no 7/ia?i can administer on the same principle. 
 No man is built large enough to administer over a miUion by 
 the same process that he would over five, or ten, or fifteen. 
 
 The fact to be kept in view is, that God is able to do toward 
 
2 86 THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 
 
 the race what the father in the family is able to do toward a 
 few persons. God is able to carry His mind so that love shall 
 be predominant, and justice shall be but a modification of 
 love toward all mankind, as easily as father or mother is able 
 to do it toward four or five little children. The family govern- 
 ment, with all its imperfection, is the ideal of government in 
 this world ; and the mode in which father and mother bring 
 their children up through the spirit of love, not voiding or 
 setting aside justice, presents the clearest conception of the 
 way in which God governs the whole realm of any that ever 
 was presented ; so that, when you measure God by the con- 
 ceptions which you form outside of the family, you measure 
 Him by a false standard. You take that which springs from 
 human weakness and impose it upon the Divine mind, instead 
 of taking the model which is afforded in the Divine character 
 and the Divine government. 
 
 Let us, then, look at some of the results that may be 
 expected to flow from the contemplation of God as a parent, 
 in distinction from God contemplated as the governor of a 
 state, or empire, or realm. 
 
 And, first, Christians will be set free from that endless list of 
 what may be called questions of spiritual statesmanship. I 
 will take the most famiUar instance, namely, the ground and 
 reason of our acceptance with the Lord Jesus Christ. While 
 there is a great truth of atonement and of its preparation, 
 constituting the means or plan of salvation, and while, in the 
 process of religious education, the profound questions at the 
 root of these truths should be studied, yet when one is seeking 
 the Saviour, it is unwise to withdraw his mind from the 
 concrete person and fix it upon the modes by which such 
 personage was prepared to love and forgive the repentant. 
 There stands the undimmed and undying picture of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, pure, lovely, winning, living for others, and, for 
 the love He bears, dying for them. He was made a sacrifice 
 for sin. The atoning w^ork is complete, and forgiveness and 
 Divine friendship are proferred to all who repent and come to 
 Him. The act of faith in Christ, an implicit trust springing 
 from love, is one of the simplest actions possible to the soul. 
 But the theory of moral government, the nature of Christ's 
 atoning w^ork, and the ground and reason of it, demand for 
 their acceptance no inconsiderable power of analysis and of 
 reasoning. Faith in one's Father is the shadow of that 
 grander faith in God. To make the faith in Christ wait until 
 men understand the theory of atonement, is not to help. 
 
THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 
 
 287 
 
 but to hinder the soul. It is true that men sin against law, but 
 it is equally true, and far more effective, to teach them that 
 they sin against God. Very different will be the sorrow for 
 grieving a person from that for breaking a law. 
 
 Shall one be obhged to wait for believing till he knows how 
 an atonement was made? in what it consists? what is its 
 relation to God's nature, to moral government, and to each 
 individual under that Government? The question is not 
 whether such philosophic views may not be fairly deduced 
 from Scripture facts, but whether Christ is presented to our 
 minds through such abstractions as a living Saviour, as He was 
 to those to whom the aposdes preached ? Is it necessary to 
 bring down the abstract view of God as a Governor, as a 
 medium through which to exercise towards Him feelings which 
 a child exercises toward a parent ? The simple conduct of a 
 child towards its parent when it has done wrong, and when it 
 is sorry for the wrong, and grieves over it, and throws itself in- 
 to its mother's bosom — this better epitomises the coming back 
 to the God of sinners than any possible explanation derived 
 from governmental policy. And why should you take the 
 familiar experience that belongs to the family, cloud and 
 darken it by bringing in a conception of God as a governor, 
 with a whole train of doctrinal issues ? I hold that you are, 
 by representing God as a governor instead of a father, em- 
 barrassing and not helping men in their endeavours to become 
 Christians. It is said that these views make stronger Christians. 
 Yes, very much as among Indians children are made strong by 
 killing the weak ones, and leaving only those that are so tough 
 that nothing can kill them ! If it is right to destroy twenty 
 men to get one strong Christian, then these methods are right ; 
 but if I understand the spirit of the Gospel, it was sent to the 
 weak. '' Him that is weak to the faith," the apostle says, 
 "receive ye; but not to doubtful disputations." And any 
 view that destroys twenty, even if it does make the twenty-first 
 a stronger man, is not the Gospel view. 
 
 Now let no man say that I am preaching against high 
 doctrines. I am not doing that at all. But, on the other hand, 
 I assert my liberty. I recognise the liberty of anybody who is 
 called and moved to enter into such generalisations as these ; 
 but when a pastor is appointed to bring up a congregation, he 
 has no right to dwell upon abstract and philosophic views to 
 the exclusion of views that develop the fatherhood of God, and 
 represent Christians as children in the household of faith. Such 
 views are best calculated to meet the average want of men. It 
 
2 88 THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 
 
 is your liberty to take those other views ; but they are not the 
 common food of the Christian Church, and they ought not to 
 be made the common food of the Christian Church. And yet 
 high doctrines have been made so indispensable that, if a man 
 did not preach them, his orthodoxy was suspected and he w^as 
 denounced as a heretic. A man, though he preached the sin- 
 fulness of the human heart, though he preached Christ as the 
 Saviour of mankind, though he declared that faith in Christ was 
 essential to the salvation of the soul, though the whole burden 
 of his preaching was to develop the highest and sweetest moral 
 elements, if he did not preach that framework of doctrine from 
 which it is claimed that Christianity derived its validity, was 
 thought to be unsound. There is an idolatry of spiritual 
 mechanism. Philosophy stands in the place of a living person ! 
 We are called to grieve for an abstraction, to yearn for 
 generic ideas, to love and praise a system ! There is an 
 abstract piety that is made despotic over the simpler elements 
 of God in Christ, and these operate to shut out that view of 
 God which makes Him the father of those who put their trust 
 in Him. 
 
 What is needed, then, is that men should be set free. They 
 are in a bondage like that spoken of in the Bible. There are 
 some who are all their lifetime subject to bondage through fear 
 of death. Many great natures have I seen that all their lifetime 
 have striven, and prayed, and sought justice and truth, and 
 effulged on every side the sweetest affections, who, if they had 
 been in their own conscience at liberty to throw their arms 
 about God, and said, "Thou art my Father, and I am Thy 
 child," would have been happier and more cheerful Christians. 
 But they were reared to feel that there was a way appointed, 
 not by which they could go to God as a Father because they 
 were children, but a governmental way by which they must 
 approach Him as a governor. And so they led a life of unsatis- 
 fied longing and yearning — a life of bondage. 
 
 Oh, sweet-faced death ! that comes with a mask of iron, and 
 seizes many and many a trembling captive, and drags him to 
 execution, and that, while he waits for the terrific stroke, 
 behold it is an angel of deliverance that discloses the glory of 
 God to him, and brings him at last to see his Creator as He is 
 — not a Governor, but a Father — thus furnishing him an object 
 for that struggling affection which should have gone out earlier, 
 and which did go out earlier, which did not know its own 
 rights and liberties ! There is many and many a man that has 
 gone dropping tears of sadness to the grave, and emerged bear- 
 
THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 289 
 
 ing the beginnings of that choral song which shall roll for ever 
 in the presence of God ! 
 
 I remark, next, that the use of this view of God as father 
 instead of governor, will make our daily life an interpreter of 
 God's providence, and will bring all our ethical and casuistical 
 questions to a rule most familiarly understood and most easily 
 applied. 
 
 Not everything that a father would do must be supposed to 
 be a part of God's government. We all discriminate, naturally, 
 between things that are weaknesses in a parent and things that 
 are right; and in the judging of the Divine administration by 
 that of the family, we are in danger of attributing to the father- 
 hood of God elements which are found in human parents, but 
 only because they are imperfect and sinful. But the danger is 
 not peculiar to this source of our knowledge of God. It is 
 as great, and even greater, in the case of those whose con- 
 ceptions are modelled upon the administration of the magistrate 
 or governor. In forming a judgment of the feelings of God 
 toward men, and of their relations to Him, a man of an in- 
 structed conscience and understanding will come nearer to a 
 right judgment if he take his measures of interpretation from 
 the experiences of the family than if he takes it from the expe- 
 riences of the civil state. 
 
 Do you suppose that it was an accident that led God to 
 assume the name of Father, and to give to the Church the 
 name of that institution into which all mankind are born, 
 through which they pass, and which colours every thought and 
 feeling, and gives shape to the whole of human life? It is 
 declared, *' Except ye be converted and become as little child- 
 ren, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." And 
 where we are called sons ; where the Church is called a house- 
 hold ; where the form of address is " Our Father; " where we 
 are spoken of as heirs and joint heirs ; where every allusion to 
 God represents Him as a father, and every allusion to the 
 Church represents it as a family, is there no meaning in it ? 
 
 There are many aspects of Christian experience that are very 
 difficult, upon which this view throws light. For instance, it is 
 very difficult to understand how, when we have done wrong, 
 and are overwhelmed with contrition, God, who is holy, and 
 just, and true, can look upon us with emotions of sympathy or 
 affection. We think of some worthy judge, of some worthy 
 magistrate like Washington ; we turn ourselves everywhither, 
 and all the models within the range of our comprehension are 
 able to give us only imperfect light and satisfaction. 
 
 u 
 
290 THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 
 
 A man is asked, " Are you a father? " " Yes," he replies. 
 " Have you a son ? " " Yes." " Do you love him ? " ** Better 
 than my own life." " Does he ever do wrong ? " " Yes." 
 " When he does wrong, how do you feel ?" "I feel indignant, 
 because I love him so ; for wrong in one that I love is like a 
 sore in my heart." Now, from such an experience as this, do 
 you not begin to have an interpretation of what God's feeling 
 is toward sin ? Do you not have it in your own experience ? 
 Can you understand how God hates, not the sinner, but the 
 sin that is a spot upon his beloved child, from the hatred that 
 you feel toward the vices and wickedness that disfigure your 
 child, because you so love that child ? 
 
 " Well," you say, "if God is so holy, and just, and true, does 
 He not destroy sinners ? " When your child has been gambling, 
 and first find it out, do you draw a line, and say to him, " If 
 you ever transcend that line again, I will exclude you from my 
 house? " Some persons take this course, and everyone blames 
 them. They are not true parents. The fatherhood and mother- 
 hood is not deep in such hearts as theirs. What does a parent 
 do for a child that goes wrong ? Is there anything that you 
 have in your house that you would not give to redeem a 
 wandering son? Is there any property that you would not 
 willingly part with to get him out of trouble, and to hide his 
 disgrace ? If to live on a crust, if to drink only water from 
 the spring, and eat only roots from the ground, would reform 
 the child of your heart, would you not give all your means, and 
 think that you had bought him back cheaply ? Nay, more than 
 that, if for his sake it was necessary that you should bear with 
 him ; that you should lie awake nights till your whole heart 
 was like a furnace of fire ; that you should be mortified in your 
 pride, disappointed in your expectation, or wounded in your 
 affections, would you not willingly submit to the necessity? If, 
 in carrying his burden, or bearing his sorrow, there was a 
 glimmer of hope that in ten or fifteen years you could save 
 your child, would you not cheerfully suffer on in his behalf? 
 
 Now, when it said that God carries our sorrows and bears 
 our sins, is there no light thrown upon the statement by the 
 experience of the parent in bringing up his child? And when 
 it is said that God hates sin, is there no light thrown upon the 
 statement by the feelings of the parent toward the sin in the 
 child ? And is it because the parent does not care for the sin 
 that he bears with it ? Is there any one that realises how hateful 
 sin is so much as the parent who is bearing it for the sake of 
 the child ? 
 
THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 29 1 
 
 And when your child comes back to you, and says, *' Father, 
 I am reformed, but I may not be able to walk entirely right ; I 
 understand what you have done for me; I feel it, and I am 
 taking another course of life, I may stumble in the way ; " oh, 
 with what inexpressible tenderness do you receive him ! Why, 
 the child does not know how to be glad. It takes a father or 
 a mother to be glad. 
 
 When I stood in Antwerp, and heard the chime of some fifty 
 or sixty bells, I could not bear to go anywhither, lest I should 
 get out of the sound of those exquisite peals that rolled every 
 hour, and half hour, and quarter hour, filling the air with a 
 weird and yet wonderful sweetness ; and I thought to myself, 
 *' There, just such are all the feelings of a father's heart when 
 it is lifted up with hope, and all things ring, at every hour, and 
 half hour, and quarter hour, and minute, of the return of some 
 wandering child." And does the experience of that father 
 whose child has begun to come back from a career of wrong- 
 doing give you no conception of God's feelings when the sinner 
 begins to return to a life of virtue ? How sweet it is ! how deep 
 it is ! how real it is ! Do not stop at any legal question. Do 
 not wait till you can reconcile law and grace. Take the idea of 
 your earthly father and apply that to God, and it will give you 
 the best view of the gladness of God at the sinner's reformation 
 which it is possible for the human mind to conceive of. 
 
 And when the child who has wandered from the true path 
 returns, and though he strives earnestly to live aright, after the 
 first or second day falters, so that the father sees that there is a 
 relapse, or falls, so that he bears the marks of condemnation, 
 does the father say, '* If that is your reformation, I am weary 
 of you ; you made me many fair promises, but you have broken 
 them, and I will have nothing more to do with you ? " On the 
 contrary, he says, " My son, I feared that if you mingled with 
 your old associates you would fall. Now help yourself by me. 
 I will go with you, and sustain you. I will forget this fall. It 
 came near taking away all that you had gained ; but do not be 
 discouraged. You must lean more on me. You must not trust 
 yourself till you are strong enough to stand alone." The father 
 thinks almost more of the child than the child does of himself. 
 From this familiar experience of parental hfe, do you not get a 
 conception of the Divine patience with men in their helpless- 
 ness, and of the training and educating force of the love of God 
 in Christ Jesus ? 
 
 And so of every other one of the strains of Christian ex- 
 perience. I hold that, in the case of those things which are 
 
 u— 2 
 
292 THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 
 
 peculiarly Christian, and that are elements of personal ex- 
 perience, you can scarcely measure them by the conception of 
 God as a governor without darkening counsel. But, on the 
 other hand, if you measure them by the conception of God as 
 a loving father, you will get light and consolation. 
 
 '' As many as are led by the Spirit of God " — that is, as m.any 
 as are being truly led, as many as are being led by right things 
 in the right way — " they are the sons of God." 
 
 Then God is father, and all the relations between Him and 
 them must be judged by the relations which a parent bears to 
 a child. 
 
 " For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to 
 fear." 
 
 Reference is made to the moral principle enunciated in 
 Galatians, where it is said, " Cast out the bond-woman and her 
 son ; for the son of the bond-woman shall not be heir with the 
 son of the free-woman." The posterity of the bond-woman were 
 held to fear, but the posterity of the free-woman were inheritors 
 of liberty. And the apostle says, " We are not children of the 
 bond-woman, but of the free," — that is, *' You are held to God, 
 not as a governor, but as a father ; and you are not servants 
 under a governor, but you are children of a father." 
 
 " Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear ; 
 but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, 
 my dear Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our 
 spirit, that we are the children of God : and if children, then 
 heirs ; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." 
 
 If you think that the afflictions which you suffer show that 
 you are not much favoured ones. He nips your doubts and 
 scepticisms in the very bud, and says, " If so be that we suffer 
 with Him, that we may be also glorified together." As He 
 worked out consolation, and became perfect through suffering, 
 so we must all have our share of the cross which He bore. 
 
 My dear Christian brethren, I cannot follow out this subject 
 into all the details that I meant to. You have your children to 
 educate, and you have in your feeling toward them an interpre- 
 tation of the feeling of God toward you. You have your children 
 to teach, that they, in their turn, may by and bye become edu- 
 cators. See to it that they do not found their character upon 
 abstract speculative notions and doctrines. Present to them 
 that which they can comprehend— the fatherhood of God, and 
 the love that is every day translated and interpreted to them by 
 your love. And let your dealings with your child furnish an 
 idea of God's dealing with His children ; for the notion of 
 
THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 293 
 
 fatherhood which the child gets from you is that by which 
 he is to interpret his God, and to form his Christian character. 
 You are the child's Bible. God made it to be so. In the 
 earlier years of their life you stand in the place of God to your 
 children ; and what you are for justice, and truth, and simplicity, 
 and love, that God will be to their thought. And if you are 
 narrow, and mean, and hard, and cold, and ungenerous, you 
 have torn the leaf out of their Bible by which they should know 
 the highest attributes of the Divine mind. 
 
 God grant that you may be able so to live, that your children, 
 through you, may see God, and inherit life eternal. 
 
XXII. 
 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 
 
 " 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. For 
 we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling 
 of our infirmities ; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet 
 without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, 
 that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.'"' — 
 Hebrews iv. 14—16. 
 
 When it is said that Christ was tempted in all points like as 
 we are, we are not to understand that He stood in every relation 
 in which we stand. He sat on no throne. Neither did He, as 
 some have done, linger from year to year in dungeons. He 
 was not a husband or a father. He did not trade or traffic. 
 So that there are special varieties of external history which 
 befall men that did not come to Christ. It is not therefore 
 true that He experienced each particular fret, nor each parti- 
 cular form of external trouble, which comes upon us. But 
 these external things are only so many occasions and avenues 
 of internal disturbance. The experiences which men have 
 through these reach back upon certain sensitive faculties ; they 
 become soul experiences. It is in this inward respect that 
 Christ was tried as we are. There is no part of our being, 
 there is no faculty in our nature, which is ever tried, that was 
 not tried in Christ; and though He was not tried in the same 
 way in which we are, though He was not tried by the same 
 events in His external history by which we are pressed in our 
 external history, yet the trials which He endured were, in respect 
 to intensity, greater than they ever could be in us ; and there 
 is no part of a man's nature which any combination of circum- 
 stances or conditions, either in the religious, the social, or the 
 civil departments of life, can meet and disturb, which had not 
 a corresponding element in Christ. There was not an experi- 
 ence of this inward sort with which he was not perfectly familiar. 
 It is not important, therefore, to show the identity of ex- 
 ternal experience, AVhat we wish, according to the spirit of 
 this passage, is to be sure that we have a Saviour who is in inti- 
 mate relations with us, and who is tenderly alive to every stage 
 of our growth, so that we may freely, unhesitatingly, and in all 
 
THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 295 
 
 things trust Him ; that we have a Saviour who has been, by 
 His personal appearance, so conversant with our suffering and 
 want, that He understands us by understanding Himself. 
 
 The second things to be explained in this passage is the idea 
 of Divine sympathy as arising from the training which is said 
 elsewhere to be necessary to make Christ the leader of his 
 brethren ; as in the second chapter of this epistle, at the tenth 
 verse, where we read, " It became him, for whom are all things, 
 in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their 
 salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He that sancti- 
 fieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which 
 cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren." Out of this 
 training, this schooling, this experience of suffering on earth, 
 there has been developed a sympathy of Christ with us. In us, 
 so far as our knowledge extends, sympathy is the most exquisite 
 and perfect expression of love. It signifies such an interest, 
 such a peculiar affection, that the person sympathising receives 
 another's experience as a part of his own ; whether it be joy or 
 sorrow, he is so intimately united to another, that he feels with 
 him ; that whatever feeling, pleasant or painful, trembles on 
 another's heart, trembles upon his. 
 
 We can imagine a being to be helpful in various degrees 
 without being sympathetic; as when a man, acting from a cold 
 sense of duty, helps another with a sort of police helpfulness, or 
 from considerations of general benevolence, without being 
 greatly moved himself. It is possible for a truly benevolent 
 man to be entirely serene (as a physician, who bends over a 
 patient to whom he is giving great pain, may be kind and 
 gentle), and yet not experience in himself any correspondence 
 of feeling, and not be, to any considerable degree, in sympathy 
 with that patient. 
 
 But there are relationships in which men are affected by 
 another's experience, when they come nearer than mere duty or 
 ordinary benevolence would draw them, as when persons are 
 connected together by bonds of personal affection. When a 
 child falls, it hurts the mother a great deal more than it hurts 
 the child, though nothing touches her except the sound of its 
 fall. We often suffer more on account of others' troubles. than 
 they themselves do in those troubles, for both love and sorrow 
 take their measure as much from the capacity of the nature 
 that expiences them as from the power of the externally 
 exciting cause. How much a great nature loves does not 
 depend wholly upon how much there is to love, but upon how 
 much there is to love with. In like manner, how much one 
 
296 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 
 
 suffers with or for another does not depend altogether upon 
 how much that offer is suffering, but upon how much that 
 nature which sympathises has with which to suffer. 
 
 Now the teaching here — and it only corroborates what is 
 abundantly taught elsewhere in the New Testament — the teach- 
 ing here, in respect to our Saviour, is, that He sympathises 
 with us as His children. He feels with us, so that our experi- 
 ences throw their waves upon the shore of His soul. He carries 
 us so near to His heart that all our feelings, which are of 
 any moment, reproduce their effects, in some degree, in His 
 bosom. 
 
 It seems very strange that the Maker of all the earth should 
 permit Himself to be a participant in all the petty experiences 
 that belong to any human life. No man would have dared to 
 conceive such an idea of God, and to have believed any such 
 thing as that, if it had not been revealed in unequivocal terms ; 
 for men would have said, " It is beneath any true idea of the 
 majesty of God to suppose that He bends His bosom to all the 
 rippling waves of human hearts, and feels again what they are 
 feeling in their lower courses." 
 
 A great mountain lifts itself up, with perpendicular face, over 
 against some quiet valley ; and when summer thunders with 
 great storms, the cliff echoes the thunder, and rolls it forth a 
 second time, with majesty increased ; and we think that, to be 
 sublime, storms should awaken mountain echoes, and that then 
 cause and effect are worthy of each other. But so, too, an 
 oriole, or a song-sparrow, singing before it, hears its own little 
 song sung back again. A little child, lost, and crying, in the 
 valley, hears the great cliff weeping just as it weeps ; and, in 
 sooth, the mountain repeats whatever is sounded, from the 
 sublimest notes of the tempest to the sweetest bird-whisper or 
 child-weeping ; and it is just as easy to do the little as the 
 great, and more beautiful. Now God is our rock, and from 
 His heart is inflected every experience, every feeling of joy or 
 grief, that any human soul utters or knows. 
 
 Consider the nature of the Divine Being, and the condition 
 of those into whose life He enters by sympathy. Christ, as 
 God, is possessed of all possible excellence. He is Head over 
 all. Nothing is so impossible as to conceive the perfections of 
 God — the symmetry and the beauty of the Divine nature. It 
 is not merely impossible to understand, with any degree of 
 perfectness, the kind and quality of the Divine excellence ; but 
 when we attempt to put one trait with another, and see how 
 one balances another, and goes to make up the perfect ideal 
 
THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 297 
 
 of character, we are too small and too sinful to reproduce in 
 our experience a conception of God that answers to the glory 
 and the fulness of the reality. 
 
 Gold is gold everywhere, and yet imagine a piece of undug 
 ore in California, under the rocks and dirt, attempting to 
 conceive of the exquisite forms which art has placed upon 
 gold elsewhere — in crowns, embroideries, paintings, gildings, 
 carvings, and what not, the world around. It is not enough 
 that gold lying in the ore should say, *'A11 gold is like me." 
 It may be in quality; but when it shall know what art has 
 done with other gold — that it has dug it out, and smelted it, 
 and wrought it into beautiful forms — it very soon sees that 
 mere ore has in itself no test or measure of the gold that has 
 been dug, and purified, and wrought. So by our love we 
 understand something of the quality of the love which God 
 feels, our benevolence interprets something of His benevolence, 
 and our justice discovers to us something of His justice. But 
 oh ! how little do we conceive of what is the overflowing 
 abundance, the majesty, the measure, the applications, the 
 combinations of the life-history of One dwelling in eternity 
 from eternity, and bearing, with infinite majesty, all the com- 
 bined strains of these many-tempered feelings ! How little is 
 there in our time, how little has there been in any age, by 
 which men could take any adequate thought of God ! It is 
 impossible, by searching, to find him out. 
 
 Consider, too, that universal government is on the shoulders 
 of this Being, who is so great in all excellence that He trans- 
 cends our highest conceptions. The heavens, the earth, the 
 created universe, are all in His care. And this government of 
 God includes time — the past and the future ; and includes an 
 inconceivable number of separate creatures. 
 
 We gain some sort of an idea when we say infinite in re- 
 lation to physical things, but in respect to God infinity relates 
 to feeling. Although there is an infiniteness in the nature of 
 His natural attributes, yet it is the administration of His heart 
 that makes Him God. 
 
 Now the teaching of the New Testament is, that this princely 
 and Divine Being, who is lifted up to an inconceivable height 
 of excellence, from whom all things that are good or noble did 
 proceed, epitomizes in Himself all these quahties which, in 
 fragmentary and scattered states among rare and great souls 
 on earth, excite our most enthusiastic admiration. He who 
 unites in Himself all these is One that, of His own nature and 
 choice, is perpetually bearing us with such tenderness and 
 
298 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 
 
 emotion, that our own life is, as it were, re-written, re-registered 
 in His sympathetic feeling. 
 
 When the French Government took steps to adorn the 
 Academy of Design in Paris, they gave to Delaroche the 
 painting of that picture which has now become world-renowned, 
 called " The Hemicycle," in which, in some seventy or eighty 
 figures, he grouped around an imaginary art-tribunal all the 
 great architects, sculptors, engravers, and painters both of the 
 ancient and modern world. Now imagine a larger court than 
 this, and that in some vast area you had gathered together all 
 the great souls that have adorned human life, and made the 
 world rich, from the beginning ; all great thinkers ; all great 
 legislators, commencing with the greatest — ^Moses ; all great 
 poets, who stand next to legislators as ordainers of the people's 
 life j all great diplomatists ; all great philosophers ; all men 
 who have had a deep insight into nature ; all men of great 
 bounty, and benevolence, and liberality ; all men of princely 
 wealth ; all men eminent as artists ; all noted scholars ; all 
 men of every age and class who have risen so high that their 
 names have come down to us in history — imxagine that you had 
 gathered together such an assemby of men, and that each one 
 was full of exquisite consciousness and susceptibility as regards 
 the speciality in which he excelled, so that Michael Angelo 
 had a full consciousness of all those wonderful combinations 
 which populated his mind; so that Raphael had a full con- 
 sciousness of all those sweet and exquisite conceptions which 
 presented themselves to his interior vision ; so that all that 
 IMurillo saw, and all that Claude fancied, and all that every 
 other artist who had become eminent had ever conceived, 
 should stand forth in them with exquisite, living sensibility, 
 and then bring down from the highest point of heaven this 
 Christ, and let Him stand in their midst, and let one after 
 another speak to Him, each of the thing that is most to him ; 
 and, one by one, as they speak to Him, let them find that all 
 of thought which they possess is His thought, that all of con- 
 ception which they have is His conception, that all of sensi- 
 bility and taste which they are conscious belong to their being 
 are His sensibility and taste ; let them find that He is familiar 
 with everything in which they have stood pre-eminent ; let the 
 poet find that, as compared with Christ, he is but a pratthng 
 child ; let the sculptor find that, as compared with Christ, he 
 is but an unbegun artist ; let the orator find that his words, in 
 comparison with those of Christ, fall paralysed upon his lips, 
 and they would, every one of them, bow before Him, and say, 
 
THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 299 
 
 •'Never man spake like this man." The architect, the sculptor, 
 the painter, the poet, the orator, the philosopher, the scientist 
 — every man in his own speciality ; he that has ransacked the 
 world in the line of beauty : he that has explored nature in 
 the range of colours ; they who have produced works of art 
 that have challenged the admiration of the world ; they who 
 have moved masses with their eloquence; they who have 
 soared anywhither in the fields of knowledge, or science, or 
 art — these would each say, "I am but a spark, and here is the 
 great and glowing soul out of which I flew as a mere spark." 
 They would cry, " Were all of us gathered and tempered into 
 one great nature, melted into one living being, we should still 
 be less than nothing in the presence of this majesty of excel- 
 lence, that includes everything in heaven, and all that can be 
 on earth, and out of whom sprang everything that is, and 
 everything that has been." The universal acknowledgment 
 to Him would be, " In Thee we live, and move, and have our 
 being." 
 
 Now that such a Being should, by reason of His nature, 
 stoop, with ail these endless excellences, with this weight of 
 glory upon Him, to bestow His care upon us ; that, having 
 surrounded Himself with whatever things we might suppose a 
 godlike mind would want. He should still, on the throne, and 
 amid the crowns and praises of heaven, never think of luxury, 
 or leisure, or retirement, or seclusion ; that, fresh as on the 
 morning of primal creation. He should still make conditions 
 which require that the hand which struck man into being 
 should be interposed to nurse, and watch, and care for him ; 
 that He should carry in His own almighty but infinitely sensi- 
 tive heart His own creatures for ever, so that all the pulsations 
 of their endless being should be echoed and reproduced in 
 Him; that, from His very nature, He should be a sympathising 
 God, so that it may be said literally that He feels what you 
 feel, sorrows with your sorrow, and joys with your joy — that 
 God should be such a Being, and do these things, is calculated 
 to fill the imagination with astonishment and the heart with 
 joy. 
 
 What is His language to us ? Cast all your care on IMe ; 
 come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I 
 will give you rest; I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee; 
 take no thought even for food or raiment ; your Father knoweth 
 what things ye have need of; the very hairs of your head are 
 all numbered; not a sparrow can fall to the ground without 
 your Father's notice, and ye are better than many sparrows ; I 
 
300 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 
 
 am touched with a feeling of your infirmities. These are ex- 
 pressions indicative of the real nature of God. In His height 
 of infinite excellence He still addresses Himself to His crea- 
 tures in such language as this. 
 
 Let us now bring home this thought of God in His greatness 
 and majesty, and yet in His tender sympathy, by detailing 
 some of the elements in us which are included in this 
 sympathy. 
 
 Firsts Christ's sympathy for us includes our whole state as 
 physical beings in a material world, and all that belongs to us 
 in our social and physical relations, and all that befalls us on 
 that account. I think that God loves the material world just 
 because it carries us. I think that He administers it just because 
 He love us. 
 
 I see a mother that, as the twilight falls, and the baby sleeps, 
 and because it sleeps out of her arms, goes about gathering from 
 the floor its playthings, and carries them to the closet, and 
 carries away the vestments that have been cast down, and 
 stirring the fire, sweeping up the hearth, winding the clock, and 
 gathering up his dispersed books, she hums to herself low 
 melodies as she moves about the room, until the whole place 
 is once again neat, and clean, and in order. Why is it that 
 the room is so precious to her ? Is it because there is such 
 beautiful paper on the walls ? because there is so goodly a 
 carpet on the floor? because the furniture in the room is so 
 pleasing to the eye ? All these are nothing in her estimation 
 except as servant of that litde creature of hers — the baby in 
 the cradle. She says, "' All these things serve my heart while 
 I rock my child." The whole round globe is but a cradle, and 
 our God rocks it, and regards all things, even the world itself, 
 as so many instruments for the promotion of our welfare. When 
 He makes the tempests, the pestilence, or the storm, when He 
 causes ages in their revolutions to change the world, it is all to 
 serve His own heart through His children — men. When we 
 are walking through this world, we are not walking through 
 long files of laws that have no design ; we are walking through 
 a world that has natural laws, which we must both know and 
 observe; yet these must have a master, and Christ is He. And 
 all of these are made to be our servants because we are God's 
 children. 
 
 I went back last summer to the place where I was born. I 
 would not go into the house where my mother died — there is 
 a school kept there now — but I walked around the ground, and 
 I do not think it required any special poetical imagination to 
 
THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 
 
 301 
 
 feel that I was at my father's old homestead. Here was I born, 
 and earliest knew what father and mother meant. Although 
 the whole village was beautiful, there was to me no such spot 
 of ground there as that little yard where I first learned life, 
 just because it was my father's. There is something in home, 
 in the homestead, in paternal acres, that gives a feeling of 
 ownership. 
 
 Thus I feel in walking about the world. I have never seen 
 a lease or a deed that could wipe out God's ownership in the 
 things He has created. When I see a rich man's garden, I say, 
 " You are only a tenant here ; my Father owns it." When I 
 walk through the fields, I say to myself, "These are God's." 
 When I move through forests, or climb over mountains, or pass 
 along sreams that are for ever singing, singing freely, unpaid, 
 and for the mere joy of singing, I say to myself, "They are my 
 God's. He is in the world, and the world was made by Him. 
 Jesus, my Saviour, who made the world, made them." And I 
 look upon the world more fondly on this account. I say of 
 the world, '* It is God, my Father, who made it, and shall I 
 not be safe in my own Father's house, and on my own Father's 
 homestead ? " 
 
 In all the various vicissitudes of this life, amid all the trials 
 to which you are exposed, you are never in danger of getting 
 beyond your Father's domain. In Asia, in Africa, in South 
 America, in North America, on the sea and on the land, 
 wherever you are, whatever is about you, you are always at 
 home, if you will only think so. 
 
 But, secojidly, all that befalls us on account of our relative 
 weakness, our ignorance, and our troubles, are within the sym- 
 pathy of God. There are ten thousand troubles which come 
 upon us because we do not know how to avoid them. It is 
 great consolation which men give us when they say, "All sin is 
 disobedience to natural laws, and if men would only observe 
 natural laws, there would never be any more suffering nor any 
 more sin." Well, possibly there would not, but I perceive no 
 relief in the thought. In the first place, you do not know half 
 of these laws ; and, in the second place, you do not know how 
 to fulfil those which are discovered. I think there is nothing 
 in this world, with all its oscillating tendencies, more dreary 
 than for a man to attempt to carry all his feelings in obedience 
 to natural laws. 
 
 Here is a man with a great head, a vast volume of sensitive 
 brain, and a slender body. He had no part in making himself. 
 He awoke to consciousness in a body prefigured. The scheme 
 
302 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 
 
 of material laws is relative to each man. His temperament and 
 organisation determines what is obedience or disobedience to 
 natural law. Now suppose you were to shove that man, 
 organised as he is, out into life, where he is in the midst of men 
 who are constantly pouring excitement in upon him from every 
 direction — where influences that come down upon him are like 
 streams of living fire — and you were to say to him, " You must 
 not use up your susceptibility, for if you do, you will violate 
 natural laws." You might as well say to Niagara, " Do not 
 tumble down so fast," when the whole weight of the mighty 
 lake is continually forcing it forward. To tell a man who has 
 a nature which he cannot control, to bear himself in obedience 
 to natural laws, would be like saying to a child, *'' Keep your 
 feet," when it was being rolled and whirled about by a fierce 
 tornado. 
 
 The fact is, natural laws are almost as much above our reach 
 as God Himself is, and they are cold, and stern, and relentless, 
 and unforgiving. It is exceeding consolation to me to know, 
 after having violated a natural law, that if I had avoided its 
 violation, I might have escaped the consequences ! It is a 
 great comfort to me to be told, " You would not have had this 
 headache to-day if you had not taken that indigestible dinner 
 yesterday ! " It is too late to tell me of it now after the dinner 
 is taken. There is no such thing as observing natural laws 
 when to-day is but the prophet of yesterday. And when I do 
 not know the nature of things — when there are so many natural 
 laws that I cannot know them all — when I am making every 
 effort, amid all kinds of discouragements, to carry thirty or forty 
 feelings so as to be in harmony with natural laws, and through 
 ignorance which I cannot help I fail to accomplish all I could 
 wish, then to tell me, " Nobody cares for you, nobody pities 
 you ; you have violated natural laws, and you are receiving the 
 just penalty of such violation," is heartless — is unfeeling. 
 
 Now God says, " I am in this respect just as you are to your 
 own child that is attempting to walk, but does not know how ; 
 that does not know the nature of food ; that has no knowledge 
 of what is good for it and what is not; and whose experience 
 you are endeavouring to supply by your own experience ; teach- 
 ing it to help and protect itself as fast as the development of 
 its faculties will allow." He is a Being of compassion toward 
 his creatures in respect to those troubles which arise on account 
 of their ignorance of natural laws. 
 
 Thirdly, this sympathy of God is a sympathy which takes in 
 all our aspirations, all our yearnings, all our unanswered aftec- 
 
THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 303 
 
 tions. For example, a poor man would be rich, and for the 
 noblest reasons. I see men who mean to be rich, not because 
 they want pelf, but because they have a strong desire to make 
 those who are dependent on them comfortable and happy. 
 The poor man would place his wife in easier circumstances. It 
 is love which inspires toil. If avarice speeds some, the affec- 
 tions awaken more to industry, frugality, and prudence. He 
 looks upon his sons or daughters, and says, '^ It is but little to 
 me that they are of humble birth, and that they have to eat 
 coarse bread ; but oh ! that I could give them the advantages 
 of learning ; oh ! that I could afford them the opportunity of 
 travelhng and of seeing what other people's children see, and 
 of becoming refined in their tastes and manners. For the sake 
 of my household I am willing to be a drudge all my life." I 
 have seen men, the burden of whose life was to give their 
 children the advantages of education, and who have devoted 
 thirty or forty of the best years of their life to this laudable 
 object, and who were yet unable to do for their children all 
 they wished. 
 
 Now do you suppose that when such aspirations are locked 
 up in a man's bosom, God does not know it ? Do you suppose 
 there is one such aspiration that He does not sympathise with ? 
 Do you suppose there is one worthy desire which God does 
 not notice, and which, if disappointed, will not come into the 
 final account ? Here are hearts made wondrously to love, and 
 by some strange conjunction of circumstances, which we are not 
 prepared to understand, they have never had anywhere that 
 they could bestow their treasures. There are natures that go 
 palpitating to the end of their earthly existence, who, in the 
 allotments of a mysterious Providence, seem to have no standing- 
 place or foundation in life. And do you suppose that when a 
 heart turns back for ever from aspirations unsatisfied, pained, 
 and yet not impatient, God does not understand all the feelings 
 which it experiences, and sympathise with them ? 
 
 There are persons to whom God has given sensitive, poetic 
 natures— silent poets, with hearts overflowing with elevated 
 thoughts and lofty aspirations, but denied opportunity. They 
 toil in menial stations. They wear out in uncongenial labours. 
 Golden thoughts rise like vapours over secluded lakes, and, 
 like them, condense and fall back unnoticed. Do your suppose 
 that such great souls are marching in their obscurity unseen of 
 God, and unthought of and uncared for by Him ? Do you not 
 frequently see persons who seemed to be possessed of superior 
 powers, and to be capable of accomplishing wonderful achieve- 
 
304 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 
 
 ments in the world, yet who were so beset with difficulties that 
 it was impossible for them to render their powers available as 
 they could wish ? I have seen men who, having made one 
 mistake in life, have toiled thirty years to extricate themselves 
 from the thraldom into which that mistake had thrust them. I 
 have seen men who started on the threshold of life with every 
 prospect of a useful and honourable career, but whose light had 
 gone down before they touched the age of twenty years, when 
 they said, *'Now I must navigate the ocean without star or 
 compass. I have no one to go before me in this troublous way. 
 I am manacled, I am handcuffed, I am kept down by this 
 accident, or this allotment of Providence. I have no longer 
 any power or any place in the world." Do you suppose that 
 men standing in the midst of such circumstances — and there 
 are thousands who do ; there are many before me who do — do 
 you suppose, I say, that men standing in the midst of such 
 circumstances as I have described are without the notice and 
 the sympathy of God ? 
 
 It is an unspeakable pleasure to know that there is a Being 
 who has a heart of exquisite susceptibility, and that He knows 
 you intimately, and what your troubles are, and says, " I 
 sympathise with you ; I am touched with the feeling of your 
 infirmities." " Ah ! but," you say, " I could get along with the 
 infelicities of life if it were not for this consciousness of wicked- 
 ness — if it were not for these throes of ignominious guilt. If I 
 was worthy of God, I could bear anything." When we have 
 the greatest sense of our unworthiness and of our sin, it is the 
 hardest thing in this world to strive toward God. And yet the 
 sympathy of Christ includes our sin. He is sorry for us, and 
 sympathises with us on account of our sin. Calvary, mountain 
 of blessings, is testimony that God so loved the world that He 
 gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
 should not perish, but have everlasting life. No trumpet will 
 ever speak as the death of Christ speaks in evidence that our 
 woes and sorrows affect the sympathetic heart of God, and make 
 Him sorrow for us. Living, He gave Himself for us ; dying, 
 He gave himself for us ; living again, He lives to intercede for 
 us ; and the further we can remove this idea from all our hearts, 
 and the nearer we can bring it home to our consciousness of 
 guilt, the more nearly shall we come to the feelings of Christ 
 toward those who are sinful. Let me, in this connection, read 
 a verse or two preceding our text : — '' The word of God " — that 
 is, God's mind — " is quick and powerful, and sharper than any 
 two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul 
 
THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 305 
 
 and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of 
 the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any 
 creature that is not manifest in His sight; but all things are 
 naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have 
 to do." 
 
 What a tremendous expression of God's insight into, His 
 familiarity with, and the universality of His knowledge of, every 
 throb and fluctuation of the wickedness of the human soul ! 
 It is anatomized, dissected, laid open, and God looks upon it, 
 and He sees the whole of it perfectly. And it is in view of this 
 knowledge of God of the intensity and the interiorness of our 
 moral unworth and sinfulness that we have this exhortation : 
 " Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that 
 we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of 
 need." 
 
 A man goes to his physician, and says to him, " I have, sir, 
 very great suffering; I have very sharp pains that shoot through 
 my breast ; I have very acute pains in my spine ; and my head 
 s^ems to have abandoned all its uses." The physician interro- 
 gates him, and says to him, "What has been the course of 
 your life ? " The man is ashamed to tell ; he says, " Well, sir, 
 I have been exposed to dampness in various ways, and my 
 impression is that I am troubled with neuralgia." The phy- 
 sician proceeds to prescribe for him on the supposition that his 
 difficulty is neuralgia ; but as he gets no better, but a good 
 deal worse, he says to himself, " I do not believe my physician 
 understands my case. I do not believe the medicine he is 
 giving me is doing me any good." But he has withheld the 
 truth from his physician. He has not let him into the secret 
 of his trouble. At length he goes to another physician, and 
 says, " Can you do me any good ?" This physician knows so 
 much that he don't know anything; and after putting a few 
 pompous questions to the man concerning his case, he says, 
 "Yes, I can cure you," and accordingly gives him a few 
 remedies. But they afford him no relief. After a few weeks 
 he says to himself, "I do not believe this physician under- 
 stands my case either." And by-and-bye, after suffering nights 
 and suffering days, his strength becomes much reduced, and 
 there is a prospect of a speedy termination of all his earthly 
 hopes and expectations, when he says to himself, " What a fool 
 I am for lying, and hiding the real cause of my difficulty ! '^ 
 He now goes to his physician again, and hangs down his head 
 — he ought to have hung it down before — and explains the 
 cause of his disease, which he had so long been concealing. 
 
 X 
 
306 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 
 
 The physician says, " Why did you not tell me of this before? 
 Since you have given this explanation, your difficulty is per- 
 fectly plain to me. It is very late, but I think I know now 
 just where to put the remedy. Now I will undertake your 
 case, and I can cure you." It is a world of relief to him that 
 he has told the physician all he knows about his difficulty. 
 
 Now this is the foundation of the comfort of this passage. 
 The apostle says, "Here is this God, with clear, unblemished 
 eye, which no darkness can shroud, from which no man's 
 thoughts can be hid, which can penetrate into the deepest 
 recesses of man's being. There is no imagination of the mind 
 or aspiration of the heart which He does not know. The soul 
 and body are open and naked to His gaze, and He knows 
 perfectly whatever takes place in connection with either. Now, 
 then, let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may 
 obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." God 
 sees every thought and motive on our part, and He knows 
 what we need in order to obtain mercy, and find grace, and 
 live, and, knowing all this, He says to us, " Now come — now 
 come." 
 
 Is there, in the conception presented this morning of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, a view of the Divine Person which comes 
 home to you, and takes hold of your heart by sympathy? I 
 present this Saviour to you as yo2Lr Saviour. Do not look upon 
 Christians as having a Saviour while others have not. This is 
 an entirely false idea. There is not a person in this house 
 who has not a right to claim the Saviour as his own — who has 
 not a right to say to Christ, " Thou art mine." If you wish to 
 do it, your wishing to do it gives you the right to do it. There 
 is not a man, no matter how bad or wicked he is, who, if he 
 sincerely desires the Saviour to be his Saviour, may not say, 
 " Lord Jesus, thou art mine.'' 
 
 Are there those here who have long been wandering after, 
 and striving to trust in, a poetic, a transcendental, a vague, a 
 visionary God of the beautiful, but who have never found food 
 or rest ? I present to you this morning a personal God — a 
 Father, a Friend, a sympathising Saviour — who takes you by 
 the hand, who takes your life into His own, who loves you, 
 and who offers to give you of His Spirit, and to lead you on 
 from strength to strength, until you shall stand in His presence. 
 
 Ought not confession of sin and repentance before such a 
 Being as this to be hearty — to be whole-souled ? I think men 
 sometimes commit more sin in repenting than they do in per- 
 forming the sins of which they repent. They impute to God 
 
THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 
 
 307 
 
 a character that is unworthy of Him. They seem, from the 
 way in which they come into His presence, to take it for 
 granted that He is a Being unworthy of all trust — suspicious, 
 vengeful, and inexorable. But a right view of the character of 
 God, and of His love, and kindness, and sympathy for His 
 creatures, methinks, should bring every honourable nature 
 straight to Him, with open confession and frank faith. Where 
 else can you go and be received with such leniency and such 
 grandeur of love as He feels and manifests toward His children ? 
 
 But there are persons who are timid in such matters, because 
 they are more conscious of their self-pollution or deficiency 
 than of the riches and glory of God's nature. Now I ask, 
 ought not this view of God which I have held up before you 
 this morning to be encouraging to you to come boldly to the 
 throne of grace, and to obtain mercy, and find grace to help in 
 the time of need ? Do not wait till you have seen more of your 
 own heart ; you have seen enough of it already if you have had 
 one look at it. Do not brood upon your own sinfulness. Look 
 up and see the glory and goodness of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Ought it not to be easy for every true and generous nature 
 to consecrate all his affections, all his powers and faculties, his 
 friends, his children — everything — to the service of such a 
 Being as this ? And if His providence in this world is the way 
 in which God reveals His will to us, ought it not to be easy for 
 us to be submissive to that providence? Nature is very strong 
 when we lose our children, our companions, the things in 
 which our strength stands in this world ; but it ought not to be 
 difficult for us to give up everything to such a Saviour as I have 
 presented to you, and say, " Thy will, not mine, be done." 
 
 Are there any in this congregation who have hitherto expe- 
 rienced feelings of attachment for the Saviour, but who are 
 to-day conscious that they are not in intimate connection with 
 Him ? What do these flowers on the desk before me make 
 you think of? Look at them. Do you know that it is a year 
 to-day since flowers, large and small, beautiful in form and 
 fragrant in their nature, crowded this platform, before which 
 those hundreds were to be received into this church ? They 
 were heralds of joy. This is the anniversary of your bridal 
 Sabbath. I think there is not one of you that can now look 
 upon this platform without being reminded of the events of that 
 day, the blessedness and the joys of which you will never forget. 
 Twelve months have gone past. Where are you now ? What 
 has been that year's experience ? I know how some of you 
 have reeled to and fro, going zigzag in your way of life. 
 
 X — 2 
 
308 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 
 
 Now if your year has not been what you meant to have 
 it ; if you are filled with confusion and shame on account of 
 your backsliding; if you are obliged to say, *' My love to God 
 has burned out," or, " It is like a burnt brand by the fireside of 
 my heart," then is not this the day, and is not this the place, 
 and is not this the subject that should bring you back again 
 from your wanderings and infidelity to the love, and sympathy, 
 and presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, your Saviour ? He has 
 been here every Sabbath waiting for you, and He is here to-day, 
 especially in these external symbols. He sends me to say to 
 you, *' Come." 
 
 Is there any one here who says, " Lord Jesus, I have not been 
 to Thy table since the first day I took communion here " ? To 
 you more than to any others, because you need His sympathy 
 more, He reaches out His hand, and says, *^ Let Me draw you 
 back to Me," Are there some here who say, " I have trampled 
 under foot the blood of the covenant ; I have done despite to 
 the grace of God, and there is no help for me ! " Oh ! say not 
 so. Do not despair. The Lord has not permitted you to 
 wander so far from Him that you have sacrificed your soul's 
 salvation. If you have been sinful, if you have stumbled and 
 fallen, I am empowered to invite you, because your are sinful, 
 and because you are fallen, to come back to Him whose love 
 for you is so great that it over-measures all thought of your 
 sinfulness. Your salvation does not stand in your goodness, 
 but in the power and glory of Him who loves you, and will 
 love you unto the end. 
 
 PRAYER. 
 
 We bless Thy name, Thou eternal Father, that Thou has made 
 known to us, through Thy Son, our Saviour, that there is in 
 this new and living way full access to Thee. Now all that it is 
 possible for us to understand of God is made known in Christ. 
 He is brought near to us, becoming a man ; suffering as we 
 suffer; tempted in all points like as we are, and yet without 
 sin ; speaking to us in our own tongue ; doing the deeds that 
 we must do, and walking the passes through which we must 
 tread. How strange that Thou hast thus brought down the 
 love of the Godhead, and interpreted it, translated it, not by 
 words alone, but by an outflowing life ! Ever-blessed Saviour, 
 Thou crowned One, now a Prince exalted to the right hand of 
 the Majesty on high, we hail and bless Thee as our sovereign 
 
THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 309 
 
 Lord, our heart's rest, our joy, our hope, our all ! When we 
 were lying dead, Thou didst come to be our life, and to bring 
 us forth by Thy sovereign touch and reviving power. When 
 we walked in darkness. Thou didst come over the top of the 
 hills, and hang as the bright and morning star ; nor didst Thou 
 change till the Sun of Righteousness arose with healing in His 
 wings, pouring daylight on our path. When in the toil of the 
 day we could not bear the wilting, withering power of the sun, 
 Thou wert pleased to declare Thyself to be for us the shadow 
 of a great rock in a weary land. When we are faint with hunger, 
 and have nowhither to go, then Thou art to us the bread of 
 life. And when we are sick, and know not how to restore 
 ourselves, unnursed and untended, Thou drawest near to us to 
 proclaim that Thou art the Physician, and that in Thee is 
 healing and remedy. When we are poor and needy, then Thou 
 tellest us that Thou art wealth for us— our exceeding great 
 reward. Thou art our raiment, and we are clothed with Thee. 
 Thou art our road, and we tread along that sacred way to 
 Divine realms in heaven. Thou art all to all. What need have 
 we that points heavenward ; what necessity have we in our life ; 
 what do we lack in body or in soul, for which Thou hast not 
 made amazing provision in nature or in grace? And we are 
 beloved of Thee. Revolving as we are amid innumerable 
 creatures transcending in number all our thought or capacity of 
 thinking, we are never forgotten. How precious to us are Thy 
 thoughts, O God ! 
 
 We rejoice in Thee. What are we when we think of God ? 
 How small the sum of our life; of how little account do we 
 seem to ourselves in the great thronged whirl of Divine affairs ! 
 The earth, which is but as a cup in Thy hand, might be emptied, 
 and none know it but the heart of God. So full of goodness 
 and love art Thou, that not a sparrow can fall and Thou not 
 feel it. Not one of all Thy creatures can suffer without Thy 
 knowing it. Of all the poor and the despised ; of all the 
 ignorant and the heathen ; of all the outcast ; of all those that 
 wander amid dreary superstitions and besotted services, there 
 is not one so wicked, so low, so brutal, that Thou dost not 
 think of him, and dost not feel in his heart lying against Thine 
 the throb of beginning immortality. What are the ways through 
 which Thou wilt lead men, and what are the mysteries of Thy 
 dealings in providence with them, we do not know. Why should 
 we expect to know God and His ways ? But we rejoice in that 
 great disclosure which Thou hast made to us through Jesus 
 Christ, that man has not come forth separated from Thee, but 
 
3IO THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 
 
 that he is Thy child. All men are Thine, and Thou art the un- 
 forgelting Father. And now we rejoice in this truth of God. 
 We cling to it. If we take measures of safety from what we see 
 in ourselves ; if our hope is in our own potency for good ; if it 
 is because we have attained righteousness that we are to be 
 saved, if saved at all, then we are of all men most miserable ; 
 for we are only advanced enough to take a higher rule of con- 
 demnation, and to feel how obscure are our highest thoughts, 
 and how impure are our best feelings. In all things we come 
 short, and in many we entirely fail. We are sinful in character, 
 in feeling, in deed, in action, and in disposition. And if it was 
 only ourselves that stood underneath ourselves, we should have 
 no hope and no courage ; or, if we thought that Thou wert 
 saving us for the good that is in us, we should fear the daily and 
 hourly disclosure of our lives before Thee. But Thou knowest 
 Thine own work, and Thou hast been pleased to take us up 
 into Thine arms as we take little children, knowing that they 
 are children ; knowing their weakness, and inexperience, and 
 faults ; knowing their transgressions, and yet loving them. We 
 do not expect that they will grow up without sin, but we love 
 them. We expect that they will vex and harass our lives, but 
 we love them. We love them all the more as we think they 
 need us by reason of their delinquency. 
 
 O God, is this that is written in our heart a revelation of Thy 
 truth ? and dost Thou love us as sinful creatures ? Dost Thou 
 love us because, being sinful, we need Thee ? Dost Thou take 
 us in our littleness and weakness ? and art Thou making Thy- 
 self unto us righteousness, sanctification, justification? We 
 rejoice, we hope, we trust and believe. 
 
 And now what can harm us ? If God be for us, who can be 
 against us ? What arrow can wing its way through Thy shield? 
 What temptation can spring, lion-like, to crush us, and crush 
 Thee, thou Lion of the Tribe of Judah ? In Thee we are strong 
 — in Thy fidelity ; in Thy remembrance; in Thy love ; in Thy 
 watchful care. Ourselves we commit to Thee. We commit more 
 than ourselves — we commit our children and our dear friends. 
 We commit more than our heart — we commit those that are 
 dearer than our own life. We commend ourselves and ours to 
 Thee, not for time alone. We trust for prosperity, under Thy 
 wisdom and guidance ; but, O Lord God, we trust Thy faith- 
 fulness also for dying. Thou wilt not forsake us in the trying 
 hour. When heart and flesh shall fail, Thou wilt not fail. And 
 as in that hour friends recede, and we drift further and further 
 from their voices on the shore, Thou wilt open the ears of our 
 
THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 3II 
 
 spirit to hear unutterable things in heaven. We will trust thee 
 in the judgment, when Thou shalt appear, with all Thy blessed 
 angels, to separate between the good and the bad, and when, if 
 left alone, we should shrink in our inmost parts with fear, and 
 shrivel before the light of Thy countenance. In that great hour 
 of division and sentence. Almighty God, we will lay our hand 
 upon the promise and upon the Saviour, and plead for His sake. 
 And Thou wilt accept us ; Thou wilt do it for Thine own sake. 
 Great is the mystery of the love of God to sinful souls. And 
 when we shall stand gathered out of all our sorrow, and tempta- 
 tion, and sin, out of all mortal fears and struggles, and out of 
 death itself having come forth victorious, then in Thy presence, 
 with all whom we love, we will cast our crowns at Thy feet, 
 saying, " Not unto us, not unto us, but unto Thy name be the 
 praise of our salvation for ever and ever." Amen. 
 
XXIII. 
 
 FISHERS OF MEN. 
 
 "And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called 
 Peter, and Andrew his brother,, casting a net in the sea : for they were 
 fishers. And he saith unto them. Follow me, and I will make you 
 fishersof men."— Matt. iv. i8, 19. 
 
 God's whole work in this world aims at the development of 
 man. He is not only highest in the scale of earthly creaturess 
 but all other things have their rank and use by their relation, 
 to Him. Except for man's development and advancement^ 
 natural laws, seasons, and all the flow of phenomena would be 
 but as the flowing of the Gulf Stream or the crashing of Polar 
 ice in the solitary nights of northern winters. 
 
 In the Divine economy all influences are labouring together 
 for him. All science and art, all political economy and good 
 government, all growth of refinement and of good morals, all 
 that is involved in civilisation, directly or indirectly, promotes 
 the welfare and advancement of man. Not only are certain 
 official persons appointed to affect him by truth, but it is the 
 whole office of human society to teach him. Not only is the 
 Church an appointed instrumentality, but time and the world 
 are instrumentalities. All things workj^r him; all things work 
 tipon him. In a general sense, it may be said that the whole 
 globe is an organised institution designed to educate men. 
 But in this general economy some influences act indirectly and 
 remotely, some very directly. While great influences are taking 
 hold of men in masses, there is a provision for special action 
 also upon individuals ; and in this work of producing individual 
 impressions on individual men, there is no instrumentaUty that 
 can compare with the heart of a Christian man. Seasons do 
 much, directly or indirectly. Natural laws have their ministra- 
 tions, and should not be overlooked. National economies, 
 customs, occupations, and providential events of joy or of sorrow 
 — these are all working mightily and working always. But 
 there comes that in their midst which is mightier than all of 
 them, namely, the throb of one heart against another. Of all 
 earthly things that influence men, God has made the human 
 heart to be the master influence, that can do what nothing else 
 can do. And when this special human instrumentality acts 
 
FISHERS OF MEN. 3 1 5; 
 
 harmoniously with and within these general influences, man is 
 brought under the highest conceivable degree of human moral 
 influence. 
 
 The Christian religion differs in this one thing, grandly and 
 fundamentally, from all other religious systems. It has, indeed, 
 its system of truth or theology to be beHeved, and its code of 
 ethics to be obeyed and practised, the value of which cannot 
 be over-estimated. But over and above any natural laws, 
 economies, institutions, customs, and ordinances, it is the 
 distinctive peculiarity of the Christian religion that it has 
 introduced the heart-power of a personal being as the grand 
 master influence by which men are to be moved. 
 
 It is the personal influence of God in Christ upon the hearts 
 of men that makes the Gospel the power of God unto salvation. 
 Its grand and fundamental feature consists in the fact that it 
 introduces into life, and to the experience of men, a livings 
 throbbing, personal God of love and power. And as this 
 personal influence constitutes the characteristic power in Chris- 
 tianity, so, in accordance with this spirit, all Christians are em- 
 powered and commanded to exert their own personal influence 
 for the conversion and edification of men — not as an occasional 
 duty ; not as an exceptional duty resting only upon profes- 
 sional priests and ministers, but as one of the constituent 
 elements of Christian character, one of the signs of Christian 
 allegiance, and one of the chief of human forces upon which 
 Christ rehes in building up and extending His kingdom. 
 
 Christ Himself, our great exemplar and leader, laboured 
 with men individually ; for while he preached God to men 
 publicly, He also influenced them privately and personally. He 
 not only exerted a professional influence upon them as a prophet 
 and teacher, but he eminently and most beautifully exerted a 
 personal influence upon them as a companion and friend. And 
 He called His disciples to the very same work. 
 
 ''Follow Me," He says to these fishermen — (and you might 
 have known, if you waked up in Asia and heard that passage, 
 that it emanated from Christ. It has internal evidence of 
 having been uttered by Him ; for He had a peculiar habit of 
 drawmg instruction and knowledge from the symbolisms of 
 nature and the events of life. Everything to him thought some- 
 thing. And, seeing these men in the ship, and perceiving that 
 they were fishermen, He said) — " Follow Me, and I will make 
 you fishers of men" — I will enlarge your business. The more 
 you look at this figure, the more important it becomes. 
 
 To fish well, it is necessary to study the peculiarities of fish. 
 
314 FISHERS OF MEN. 
 
 It is necessary to know more than the science of ichthyology. 
 What a book can tell a man about fishes is worth knowing, but 
 it is little that a book can do toward making a man a true fisher- 
 man. If a man is going to fish iorjish, he must become their 
 scholar before he becomes their master ; he must go to school 
 in the brook, to learn its ways. And to fish for men, a man 
 must learn their nature, their prejudices, their tendencies, and 
 their courses. _ A man, to catch fish, must not only know their 
 habits, but their tastes and their resorts; he must humour them 
 according to their different natures, and adapt his instruments 
 to their peculiarities — providing a spear for some, a hook for 
 others, a net for others, and baits for each one, as each one will. 
 To sit on a bank or deck, and say to the fishes, "Here I am, 
 authorised to command you to come to me and to bite what I 
 give you," is just as ridiculous as it can be, even though it does 
 resemble some ways of preaching. The Christian's business is 
 not to stand in an appointed place and say to men, " Here am 
 I ; come up and take what I give you as you should." The 
 Christian's business is to find out what men are, and to take 
 them by that which they will bite at. 
 
 You must go to the fish. They certainly will not come to 
 you. You must note times and seasons. You must be in- 
 formed as to their caprices. You must creep sometimes, lie 
 down sometimes, sometimes hide, sit patiently in the leafy 
 covert at other times, and work frequently without filling your 
 basket, and await a better time. You must study the sky, and 
 for their food you must search all manner of insects, and every- 
 thing that relates to the work in which you are engaged. The 
 one act of catching fish must determine your whole manner. 
 
 Luke adds to the force of this figure very much. Matthew 
 says, "Ye shall be fishers of men;" but Luke says, "Ye shall 
 catch men." It is very well to be a fisher, but it is a great deal 
 better to catch what you fish for. 
 
 It will be my object, in further discoursing this morning, first, 
 to enforce the duty of labours for the edification and conversion 
 of men ; next, to point out some of the means by which we 
 should attempt to do it ; and, finally, to direct the whole to 
 some personal applications. 
 
 What, then, is the source of this duty of labouring for men's 
 conversion, and their education in the Christian life after their 
 conversion ? The duty begins in this : " Freely ye have re- 
 ceived, freely give." This applies to every truly Christian man. 
 God has thought of him personally ; God has given the Holy 
 Ghost to rest upon him ; Christ has loved him and drawn him 
 
FISHERS OF MEN. 315 
 
 unto Himself. And every man that is truly a Christian is one 
 who has been the object of special personal Divine thought, 
 and love, and transforming influence. The same that He has 
 done to us He commands us to do to others. Not that we are 
 clothed with the same attributes, nor that we have the same 
 official relations; but as God, according to His sphere and 
 nature, adapts Himself to the wants of every individual heart, 
 so we, according to our sphere and nature, are to adapt our- 
 selves to the wants of the individual hearts that are about us. 
 
 Our obligations, then, to Christ for our own salvation, and the 
 possession of Christ's spirit of sympathy and love — these are 
 the grounds on which men ought to labour for their fellow men. 
 Hence, though parents, teachers, and ministers are expected to 
 labour on account of professional reasons, the root of the obli- 
 gation is not that we are parents, or teachers, or ministers, but 
 that we are Christians. If a man, being a Christian, and 
 acknow^ledging this duty, finds himself possessed either of 
 opportunities or gifts which make it specially important that he 
 should devote his life to this one work, that may be a reason 
 why he should become a minister ; but because he is a minister 
 is not the reason why he should labour for the individual wel- 
 fare of men. The reason why we are bound to use our life for 
 the benefit of our fellow men is that we are in Christ, and that 
 He says, ^' Freely ye have received from Me, freely give." And 
 while it is true that every parent, every teacher, everyone that 
 is put in relations of influence and authority with others, is 
 bound to accept those relations as providential, and as afford- 
 ing an opportunity for the exercise of a gift or power in fulfil- 
 ment of the obhgation growing out of personal faith and love to 
 Christ Jesus, we ought not to consider this obligation as spring- 
 ing originally and chiefly from any external or superficial reason, 
 or from any professional relation. It is because you are a 
 Christian that the obligation rests upon you. 
 
 This reason makes the duty, then, of all Christians substanti- 
 ally the same. It may be that some have better adaptations 
 and better opportunities than others. That may be a reason 
 why some should do more than others, but it is not a reason 
 why some should not do anything. Every man has some 
 power, and is under obligations to the Master to exert it. If 
 you have ten talents, you are responsible for ten ; if you have 
 five, you are responsible for five ; and cursed be the man that, 
 having but one, wraps it in a napkin, and digs a hole and 
 buries it. If a man, being a professional man, can do more 
 than you, it does not justify you in not doing the little that 
 
3l6 FISHERS OF MEN. 
 
 you can do. The obligation is not professional, but moral. 
 To live days, and months, and years without personal solici- 
 tude and personal effort for some individual soul is a sign so 
 bad as to invalidate the evidence of piety. I know many 
 persons will say, **That is an offensive way of putting this 
 obligation. Are there not other methods of usefulness ? Is 
 not teaching important .? I am a teacher of the truth and its 
 relations to religious conduct ; my habits incline me to build 
 up the great systems of truth; and I am working for the 
 welfare of men, not individually indeed, but in the mass." I 
 do not say a word against this departmental way of working. 
 Influences that are comprehensive, intricate, and remote, are 
 good. But the fact that you may be giving yourself mainly to 
 this form of work does not release you from the duty of per- 
 forming personal and individual labour. You must have some- 
 body to love, and watch over, and sympathise with. Every 
 single heart should have its part in this great, common, 
 universal, individual, and personal duty of acting upon others 
 for their religious growth, as God acted on you for yours. 
 
 This being the grand duty and its foundation, let us speak, 
 then, next, of the methods. Do not think that I am going 
 merely to urge the duty of going out and talking to impenitent 
 sinners. Talking is only one method of influence. Many of 
 you might not converse to edification. Talking? Is the tongue 
 the only servant of the heart ? Must the heart send just that 
 one servant for all errands ? Wretched heart, if it is so poorly 
 served as that ! But the ways of the heart are almost infinite. 
 Its instrumentalities and devices are almost numberless. Let 
 it speak when it is best to speak ; but I urge upon you per- 
 sonal influence, not simply the influence of speech. Talking 
 does not set you free from doing other and mightier things — 
 things that will tax your attention and your time. Let me 
 specify. 
 
 First. — in the very beginning, as a preparation for any in- 
 fluence upon our fellow-men, there must be cultivated in us a 
 sympathy with and a desire for them. The heart is to be a 
 fountain out of which our thoughts and feelings flow toward 
 others. Do you say, " I am ready to go out and call men to 
 come in to the feast ? " But stop ! Do you care yourself for 
 men? Have you ever been inspired by the Holy Ghost to 
 feel for them ? Is your heart drawn toward them ? Are they 
 to you something more than mere secular actors in time and 
 political society? Do you recognise them as your own kindred? 
 Do you recognise their immortality ? Do you think of them/ 
 
FISHERS OF MEN. 
 
 317 
 
 as belonging, above all, to Christ ? Does your soul yearn 
 toward your fellow-men as brethren — as, with you, children of 
 God? 
 
 Honesty, uprightness, kindness, generosity, these are well ; 
 but they are not equivalents in the sight of God for a loving 
 heart, for true sympathy with man as a creature of God, an 
 heir of eternity, imperilled, lost, and to be redeemed by some 
 power that is to be exerted upon him. This inherent sympathy 
 is the beginning. You might just as well, when the street- 
 lamps are burning, and the street is full of light, attempt to 
 veil that light, as to attempt so to veil a heart full of love and 
 sympathy for man and for Christ that it shall not show itself 
 in the gestures and tones, and fill the life full of sweet and 
 blessed activity. You must feel and pray for men with a kind 
 — if I may so call it — of maternal instinct. You are to win 
 them ; to catch them ; to hunt them. They are the true game 
 of love. You are to find in studying them, even in their per- 
 versities, something that shall fill you with deep interest. 
 
 Not easy places, and not easy men, are the true preacher's 
 ambition. It should be with us as with true sportsmen, who 
 rejoice in searching out the shy and cunning fish, in tempting 
 the most wary to take the hook, and who glory in a fish that 
 sturdily refuses to be taken, but resists to the last, and is 
 landed only after long and skilful handling of the tackle. A 
 sullen mud-fish he may take, if he can do no better. But he 
 covets difficulty. He searches the country. He knows every 
 pool and covert. He makes himself acquainted with the very 
 fancies and whims of his game. He never thinks of standing 
 upon his dignity. He knows that he must make himself the 
 servant of trout if he will catch trout — that he must go down 
 to the sea, and not wait for the waters to come after him. He 
 lies down. He creeps. He watches and waits. He studies 
 the wind and weather. He submits himself to every incon- 
 venience cheerfully if he may thereby win. 
 
 There are a great many men that like to preach among good 
 folks; that like to talk to people that are already in the 
 kingdom, or that need but a word to be brought in. But the 
 spirit of our text requires that a man should go among un- 
 willing and wicked men, pursue them, and catch them. There 
 ought to be for a man nothing more manly ttlan to attack men ; 
 to put his eye on them, and study them, as a merchant does 
 his customer, to see how much he can make out of him not as 
 an antagonist, to see whether he can match men or overmaster 
 them, but as a Christian fisherman, saying, " How can I bring to 
 
3l8 FISHERS OF MEN. 
 
 them something to check their downward career, and save them 
 from ruin ? " You put your eye on a man, and study him, and 
 try one thing, and miss him; you study him again, and try 
 another thing, and miss him again ; you pray over him, and 
 carry him home with you, and live and sleep with him con- 
 stantly in your mind; you w^atch your game; and at length you 
 begin to make an impression upon him. And then you expe- 
 rience an ecstasy, a joy that is unutterable. You concentrate 
 other influences upon him — fail with some, and succeed with 
 others ; at last you land him, and the thrill of triumph is more 
 glorious than that experienced by a buffalo-hunter, a lion-killer, 
 or a fisherman ! To land a man, and land him, not on the 
 shores of streams that will run out, but on the shores of streams 
 where there shall be no more lapse and flow, is glorious indeed. 
 
 Consider the apostles' method of training for this work. 
 
 -' Though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself 
 servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the 
 Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews ; to them 
 that are under the law as under the law, that I might gain them 
 that are under the law; to them that are without law as without 
 law (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ), 
 that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak 
 became I as weak, that I might gain the weak ; I am made all 
 things to all men, that I might by all means save some. And 
 this I do for the Gospel's sake, that I might be partaker thereof 
 with you." 
 
 Can you conceive of a more magnificent description of the 
 universal adaptation of the total of a man's being to this great 
 work of saving men ! Sympathy, love, time, talent, official 
 character and position — these are all mere instruments by which 
 he is seeking this one most glorious end of which the heart of 
 man can conceive — the redemption of human souls from death. 
 Some persons — frivolous natures they must be— have seen in 
 this passage evidence of a want of principle. They understand 
 the apostle's declaration to be that he would do anything if he 
 could gain his ends; that he would do evil that good might 
 come. It is not so. The apostle says, " I study men under 
 every circumstance in which I find them. If they are heathen, 
 I will see if there is not some point of sympathy between them 
 and me. If I find that they are Jews, there are some points 
 in which I can sympathise with a Jew, and I will take those 
 points, and from them I will work to bring him into a higher 
 and better sphere. Wherever I am, whether among barbarians 
 or Jews, my first thought is, 'How can I get hold of these men, 
 
FISHERS OF MEN. 519 
 
 and draw them out of their evil Hfe into a higher and better 
 one ? ' All my time, and power, and inspiration, and prophetic 
 and apostolic office, I use in my endeavours to gain men/' 
 That was the whole of his life ; and is there anything nobler 
 than such a Hfe ? No artist that has left gallery or statues, no 
 builder that has left cathedrals or palaces, can compare with 
 that man who has filled the heaven so full of redeemed souls as 
 has the apostle Paul. 
 
 Then, next, when we have this deep feeling preparatory to 
 the work, and this training for it, we are to use every prac- 
 ticable instrument for carrying it on ; not that which others use, 
 but that which we find to be pertinent to us. 
 
 In some respects laymen can perform this personal labour 
 better than ministers ; and neighbours can do some things for 
 children better than parents themselves can. What men are 
 officially appointed to do they do from mere habit or a sense 
 of duty. Accordingly, children are often led to feel that their 
 parents govern them because it is their duty to do it. And 
 there come exigencies in children's lives when they are im- 
 patient of authority at home, and when, if they are away from 
 home to school, they will take the same amount of government 
 patiently, without resistance. A person outside of the family 
 can sometimes influence a child when its parent can exert but 
 little influence upon it. And there are a multitude of instances 
 where laymen can do what no minister can. The minister is a 
 professional man, and people say, " His attention to me is not 
 an evidence of his personal sympathy for me, but a matter of 
 business." I stand here on Sunday, and preach to men, and 
 my influence upon them is diminished by the fact that I am 
 appointed to do it. They say, " He is hired, and the message 
 which he delivers to us is not his own messsage of love. He 
 is paid, and he labours among us on that account." A man 
 at the bank hands you the money for your cheque. It is ten> 
 thousand dollars, and it is going to save you from bankruptcy. 
 But you do not account him a benefactor. You express not a 
 word of gratitude to him. He is the cashier ; you hand him 
 the cheque, and he pays you the money ; he does not care 
 for you, and you do not care for him. It is his business to 
 hand you the money, and he does it, and that is all there is of it. 
 And so men seem to think of a minister, salaried and appointed 
 to stand in the pulpit and dispense the Gospel, that he does it 
 professionally and as a matter of course. A business friend 
 whose life is consistent, and whom you believe to be a good 
 man, comes to you and says, <'My friend, I do not believe any- 
 
520 FISHERS OF MEN, 
 
 body will tell you what you ought to know ; but the fact is, 
 you are becoming hard and selfish ; you are becoming sharp 
 and grasping. I feel it, and your friends all feel it. Probably 
 nobody would have said this to you if I had not, and I never 
 told it to a soul but you, and I never would have said it to you 
 if I had not been your friend. Now do not be angry with me, 
 but just think about it." He will give heed to Mju. But if I 
 should go to you with like message, saying, *' Sir, do not you 
 know that you are getting very worldly and very hard ? " you 
 would think to yourself, " Oh, yes, my minister gets a good 
 salary, and feels that he has a duty to perform ; " but what 
 effect would it have ? When a man who is not paid a salary 
 to teach you your duty, and whom you do not expect to do it, 
 comes to you and concerns himself in your welfare, there is a 
 freshness about it that does not belong to mere professional 
 service. The general feeling of men is, " Let every one take 
 care of his own business." It is very hard to tell a disagreeable 
 truth to a friend ; and when a man makes the self-sacrifice to 
 do it, you feel it. And so an officer can help an officer as a 
 minister cannot ; a business man can help a business man as a 
 professional man cannot ; a poor man can do what a rich man 
 cannot ; an ignorant man can do what a learned man cannot. 
 There is not a man, though he is not a minister, that has not 
 power to accomplish great results in this way. There is an 
 opening for laymen to do this work that can be filled by none 
 but such. 
 
 This is not all. We are to remember that we have derived 
 almost all our Church customs from periods previous to the 
 Reformation in England. Before that time the clergy, as a 
 body, though they were intelligent compared with their hearers, 
 were so ignorant that they would not now be considered 
 worthy to be entrusted with any holy function. And if the 
 clergy were but little cultured, how much worse must have 
 been the condition of their parishioners ? At that time, when 
 the masses of men were in such a low state, a thousand things 
 were expected to be done by professional men, because 
 nobody else could do them. But there have been many steps 
 of progress in Christianity since that time. Intelligence has 
 spread. In a majority of Christian families parents are better 
 able to instruct the young, a thousand-fold, than ministers. In 
 this church there are many persons that are qualified to explain 
 the Scriptures and disseminate the gospel among their fellow- 
 men as few ministers in the olden time were qualified to do. 
 Under such circumstances, for you to wait for professional men 
 
FISHERS OF MEN. 
 
 321 
 
 to do all the talking and preaching is an abuse of your privi- 
 leges, and a neglect of the higher duties which belong to you in 
 the time in which you live. 
 
 I roll no burdens off from my own shoulders ; I would fain 
 work to the end of my life. I live to work, and pray that, as 
 God's best gift to me, when I cannot work any more, I may die 
 at once. I desire to fall in the harness. But you are waiting 
 for ministers and churches to do the work that God has given 
 you to do, while you are intelligent enough, and have oppor- 
 tunities and means enough to do it. God's solemn obligation 
 rests on you, and your whole soul calls out for gratitude which 
 you can express only by helping those that are in need. You 
 are to watch and work for men, and ask, " Lord, what wilt 
 Thou have me to do ? " 
 
 But the best of all labour is that which is co-operative. 
 Where the Church provides all the necessary instrumentalities 
 of instruction, and the minister works for individuals and the 
 whole congregation, and his members, co-operating, work with 
 him, the combined labour of him and them is better than their 
 working alone, or his working alone. 
 
 Christian brethren, I feel at this time as though I needed 
 help. I need help always, of course — help in ray heart and 
 disposition, which you cannot give me, but God can. But I 
 need help from you. I need that while I preach you should 
 be ready to co-operate. Do you believe that for the last two 
 months there has been one single sermon preached in this 
 house, morning or evening, when there have not been men 
 present v/ho did not gravitate more strongly toward a Christian 
 life than ever before? Have there not been backsliders power- 
 fully moved to be restored ? Have there not been young men 
 that felt, " I ought to turn about ? " Have there not been 
 scores of men whose eyes were wet with tears? Now I cannot 
 follow them, and you cannot follow them ; but if your heart 
 was running over with love to Christ and men, could you not 
 take one day in the week to labour for others ? We have some 
 seventeen hundred members in this church, and suppose one 
 half of them gave a portion of their time to Christian work, 
 may we not at least calculate, with entire moderation, that 
 each of them might be the instrument of bringing one soul a 
 year into the church? According to that estimate, there would 
 be eight hundred conversions among us annually. But let us 
 make it smaller, and suppose that one third of the members 
 did it, and call the membership fifteen hundred, then there 
 would be five hundred added to the church during every period 
 
 Y 
 
322 FISHERS OF MEN, 
 
 of twelve months. And do you not believe that, if you were 
 to go into it as you t'o into your business, you might at least 
 bring in one, if not more than that? 
 
 My dear Christian brethren, by the love that you bear to 
 Christ, and that He bears to you, are you doing what you ought 
 to do for the salvation of men round about you ? Bringing it 
 nearer, are you doing it in your store, and with your employees ? 
 Are you doing it in friendship ? Let me bring it nearer still. 
 Parents, are there not children who only want the concentrated 
 glow of your faith and love to lead them into the fold of Christ ? 
 Are there not companions who are united in blissful love, and 
 who yet are separated for ever? And when you clasp your 
 dearest love, is there not between you a gulf as wide as the 
 space between heaven and earth — one being Christ's and the 
 other not ? Is there no call for thought or consideration in this 
 matter ? 
 
 Dearly beloved Christian brethren, I do not ask you to wake 
 up to a paroxysm of zeal, that shall rush as streams do in the 
 spring when the snows melt on the mountain, and shall then 
 subside as streams do in the summer, leaving their beds dry and 
 barren. I ask you to rise to a higher conception of your duty 
 in Christ to those that are round about you. I do not say that 
 you ought to preach ; I do not say that you ought to talk; but 
 I say that there ought to be something in your Christian life 
 that shall act as a personal influence on the hearts of those with 
 whCiU you have to do. It may be that you cannot talk. I have 
 known persons that could not, who exerted a more powerful 
 influence than others that could. You may touch persons at 
 almost any point, so that you inspire them with a confidence 
 that you are sincere. Do not go as an authoritative man. Every 
 one of us likes to be pope. Do not go dictatorially. It is not 
 for us to dictate this, that, or the other duty to men. Our 
 business is to win men. It is to use love, and gentleness, and 
 patience, and self-denial, in gaining men. It is to employ our 
 example in such a manner as to guide them in the right way. 
 It is to speak when we can do good by speaking, and keep 
 silence when we cannot. It is not to be ashamed of Christ, 
 but to stand up for Him. It is to watch your opportunities, 
 and take the young man the next day after his debauch, while 
 his conscienc is up in arms against him, and endeavour to con- 
 vince him of the error of his ways. When rains begin, when 
 the streams are dark-faced, and the clouds hang low and are 
 dripping, and the sky is lowering, then is the time, as fishermen 
 well know, for fishing. And when the clouds of life hang low. 
 
FISHERS OF MEN. 323 
 
 and men are sick, and in trouble, and need help, then step in 
 and be their friend, and soothe them, and help them. Be ye 
 ready. There are ten thousand opportunities. All that is 
 wanting is that you should have a heart to improve the oppor- 
 tunities and make use of the means. 
 
 Now Christ says to every one of you, *' Follov/ me, and I 
 will make you fishers of men." Is there anything worth living 
 for more than such a mission ? It is good for a man to write a 
 book. A book will live, and shall have no sexton ; but he him- 
 self will soon die, and be laid away. A book is an invention 
 by which men live after they are dead, so far as this world is 
 concerned. A hymn or song that deserves to live is lifted 
 above persecution. The tyrant or despot cannot touch it. But 
 oh ! neither book, nor hymn, nor song, nor any product of the 
 human mind, is to be compared with the immortal life; and ye 
 that save one soul, and lift it, by the power of your instru- 
 mentality, blessed of God, into the sphere of immortality and 
 glory, shall shine as the stars in the firmament ! Such achieve- 
 ments will be a source of more joy, when you stand in Zion and 
 before God, than all the treasures of the world. For when death 
 comes, not your ships, not your store-houses, not your piles of 
 gold, not your reputation among your- fellow citizens, not even 
 the joys of the future state, if you could rise and see them in 
 the light of eternity, would you value in comparison with the 
 satisfaction of having been permitted to save one soul. 
 
 Some of you are just beginning life. Learn early that to help 
 others is to bless yourself! Your joy is bound up in others' 
 benefit. Some of you are in the midst of life. I do not ask 
 you to lay aside your profession or your trade that you may 
 preach the gospel. Some men, perhaps, might well become 
 preachers. One of the most eminent lawyers in Boston, who 
 was lately converted, has given himself to the work of preaching 
 the gospel, and he promises to be as useful, if not more useful, 
 than many of the ministers of that city. I think it is glorious 
 for men, when they have made enough to live on, to say, " I 
 am satisfied, and now I will devote all my time to my fellow- 
 men." I Hke to see men rising from lower to higher spheres 
 of activity. But most of you will go on in your present spheres. 
 Go on, then, as you are ; but remember that there is somebody 
 at your hand that needs succour which you can give. All you 
 need is consecration ; all you want is God with you ; your 
 greatest need is a holy heart, a real love, an honest purpose, a 
 manly disposition to save men. God will give you the oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
324 FISHERS OF MEN. 
 
 Some of you are drawing near to the end of life. Take one 
 more companion along toward heaven with you. There are 
 many of you that, if you could look into heaven, would see 
 waiting for you, a part of that host that shall throng the gate, 
 and give you a choral entrance into the Celestial City. You 
 have saved many souls ; but are you satisfied not to save one 
 more ? No man ever hunted that he did not want to take yet 
 more game, though his bag was full. No man ever fished in 
 the brook that he did not want to catch one more fish. You 
 are coming to the last turn in the brook. Throw again. You 
 cannot carry up too many souls for Christ. 
 
 Brethren, our time is near at hand. Some of you will never 
 meet here again. Some of you will never hear me preach again. 
 But in the judgment day, at that hour when we stand before 
 the throne, one thought, one feeling, will rise above every other 
 — that which relates to God and eternity. Live, then, as in 
 that hour you will wish you had lived. 
 
TEXTS AND SCRIPTURE PASSAGES 
 COMMENTED UPON. 
 
 [Those marked with an asterisk (*) are passages quoted and commented on in the 
 body of the sermon. The others are the texts of the discourses. 
 
 Genesis *xlvii. 7 — 10, 219. 
 
 xlviii. 1—7, 217. 
 *Deut. xxxii. 39 — 48, 58. 
 Sol. Song ii. 11 — 13, 204. 
 *Isa. xlii. 3, 59, 60. 
 
 *Iv. 6 — 12, 155. 
 
 Iv. 10, II, 149. 
 Matt. iv. 18, 19, 311. 
 
 *v. 46—48, 21. 
 
 vi. 26, 28, 29, 120. 
 
 *^xx. 20 — 28, 99. 
 
 *xxvi. 6 — 14, 191. 
 
 xxvii. 22, 233. 
 
 xxvii. 61, 31, 
 Markx. 46—52, 172. 
 
 XV. 15—20, 104. 
 Luke X. 38—42, 184. 
 
 xvi. 10, 160, 
 John i. 4, 5, 74. 
 
 John xii. 24, 25, 90, 
 
 *xiv. 8, 9, 47. 
 
 xix. 41, 42, 31. 
 Romans viii. 14, 15, 2S0, 
 
 1 Cor. i. 22 — 24, 261, 
 
 ii- 2—5, I. 
 
 vii. 29—32, 244. 
 
 *viii. 19—23, 317. 
 
 2 Cor. x. I. 54. 
 *Gal. iv. 30, 292. 
 Eph. i. 15—23, 44. 
 •Hebrews iv. 12, 304. 
 
 iv. 14 — 16, 294. 
 
 **xii. II, 248. 
 James v. 2, 194. 
 *i John iii. 2, 250. 
 
 iv. 9— II, 17. 
 Rev. ii. 17, 134. 
 *Prov, xxii. 6, 127. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Activity, value of, 190. 
 Appetite, sins of, 19S. 
 Atonement, 237. 
 
 Belief contrasted with faith, 
 
 286—288. 
 Bible, object of, 264. 
 Brotherhood of man, 225. 
 
 Care, causes of, 126 — 128, 18S. 
 
 cure of, 254. 
 Character, 196. 
 Christ a present Saviour, 41, 69. 
 
 a sublime radical, S6. 
 
 as He appeared to the Jews, So, 
 
 characteristics of His teachings, 
 83-86. 
 
 contrasted with Greek philo- 
 sophers, 76. 
 
 crucified, true power of preach- 
 ings I— 5> 99, 277. 
 
 cure of the blind man, 1 72 — 1 76. 
 
 earthly circumstances, 91 — 96. 
 
 God revealed in, 66. 
 
 influence on society, 96, 97, 
 
 mock coronation described, 
 104—108. 
 
 moral power of His teachings, 
 76. 
 
 object of our allegiance, 46. 
 
 object of our love, 238. 
 
 object of our obedience, 239. 
 
 object of our worship, 8 — 53, 
 240. 
 
 only hope of salvation, 67. 
 
 our comfort in sorrow, 39 — 43, 
 209. 
 
 personal claims on us, 235. 
 
 relation to the human soul, 45 . 
 
 seeming failure and real success, 
 96—98. 
 
 j Christ, source of His power, 77. 
 I suftering love of, 104. 
 
 I sympathy of, 1S5, 294. 
 
 trial before Pilate, 233 — 235, 
 
 242. 
 with jNIartha and Mary, 184 — 
 
 186. 
 with the common people, S3. 
 See Atonement, Divinity, Jn- 
 j carnation. Suffering. 
 
 I Christian experience, necessary to a 
 I successful ministry, 7. 
 
 of God's love, 23. 
 of God's presence, 221. 
 Christianity, divine and permanent, 
 261. 
 still a vital power, 4. 
 Church, imperfections in, 9. 
 Conscience and love contrasted, 
 
 108, 110. 
 Conversion, duty of labouring for, 
 
 313- 
 how to secure, 315. 
 
 Death contemplated, 254 — 256, 288. 
 
 to the Christian, glorious, 30. 
 Depravity. See Man. 
 Divinity of Christ, 44, 66, 296. 
 Doctrines, not the essence of reli- 
 gion, 262. 
 Doctrinal preaching, 12. 
 
 Earthly good a symbol of things to 
 come, 252. 
 
 not to be despised, 249, 250. 
 
 unsatisfying, 246. 
 Esau and Jacob, 217. 
 Ethics, duty of preaching on, 12 — 
 
 Everlasting punishment, 69, 70. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 327 
 
 Faith in Christ contrasted with doc- 
 trinal belief, 286—288. 
 Flowers, lessons from, 120. 
 
 Garden, sepulchre in, 31. 
 Genius defined, 18. 
 God, fatherhood of, 2S0. 
 
 gentleness, 54. 
 
 greatness, 56. 
 
 His care of us, 123 — 126. 
 
 in nature, 300. 
 
 knows the heart, 302, 305. 
 
 our help, 302. 
 
 revealed in Christ, 65. 
 
 sensitiveness of, 5S. 
 
 sovereignty, 2S4. 
 
 titles, 282. 
 
 unsearchablenes>, 6^' 
 
 See Love, Suffering. 
 Gospel, for the poor, 277. 
 
 Happiness, popular id^a of, 35. 
 Hope in trouble, 208. 
 Humour in the pulpit, 1 1. 
 Humphrey, Hon. James, sermon 
 after the death of, 244. 
 
 Immortality, 215. 
 
 revealed by Christ, 271. 
 Incarnation, object of, 109. 
 Indolence, 197. 
 Infants, salvation of, 67. 
 Institutions and ordinances not reli- 
 gion, 82. 
 
 Jacob and Esau, 217. 
 Jacob's sorrow, 224. 
 
 Laws, natural, 301. 
 
 Laymen, responsibility of, 31S — 
 
 323^ 
 Liberty of the pulpit, 10 — 15. 
 Little sins, 196. 
 
 danger of, 162, 203. 
 
 described, 163 — 171. 
 Lord's Supper, invitations to, 43, 53- 
 Love and conscience contrasted, 
 108, no. 
 
 the essence of religion, no. 
 Love of God, 17, 297 — 299. 
 
 abuse of, 24. 
 
 a reason for faith, 28. 
 
 a reason for gratitude, 27. 
 
 Love of God, a reason for repent- 
 ance, 29, 70, 306. 
 
 continuous, 22. 
 
 curative, 26. 
 
 illustrated, 20, 24, 25, 26, 142 
 —144. 
 
 manifested in nature, 29. 
 
 spontaneous, 17. 
 
 to sinners, 21, 290, 304. 
 
 unrecognised, 26. 
 
 Man, sinful, 21, 60—63, 269. 
 
 spiritually dead, 6. 
 Manna, spiritual meaning of, 134 — 
 
 137. 
 Marys, at the tomb, 31—34. 
 Miracles, 275. 
 Moral, the, its power, 99. 
 
 Nature, a manifestation of God's 
 love, 29. 
 flowers, 120. 
 spring, 204 — ^208. 
 storm, 149. 
 teachmgs of, 56, 
 the moth-miller, 194. 
 
 Passions, sins of, 200. 
 
 Paul at Corinth, 2. 
 
 Peace, not obtained by sacrifice of 
 
 principle, 88, 89. 
 Personal experiences of trust, 127. 
 purpose in preaching, 6 — 16- 
 Phaiisees and Sadducees described, 
 
 77—80. 
 Plymouth Church, 7, 15. 
 . Power of Christ's teaching, 76. 
 of goodness, 155 — 159. 
 of spiritual truths, 99— lor. 
 Prayers, 71, 117, 131, 145, 181. 
 Preaching Christ crucified, true 
 power of, 1—5, 99, 277. 
 Christian experience necessary 
 
 to, 7. 
 doctrinal, 12. 
 humour in, 11. 
 methods of, 12. 
 to the poor, 10, 
 liberty in, 10 — 15. 
 See Personal Experiences. 
 Public affairs, duty of preaching on, 
 
 12. 
 Punishment, everlasting, 69, 70. 
 
328 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 Redemption through sufferhig, io6 
 
 — 109. 
 Reform, love the true instrument 
 
 of, 112. 
 Regeneration, 269. 
 ReUgion, love the essence of, no. 
 Revivals among children, 213. 
 in Plymouth Church, 7. 
 
 Sabbath, Christ's estimate of, S5. 
 Sadducees, description of, 77. 
 Salvation of infants, 6"]. 
 
 only through Christ, 67. 
 
 present, 40, 69. 
 Self-denial, 115, 116, 273. 
 Sepulchre in the garden, 31. 
 Sinners, spiritually blind, 177 — 181. 
 Sorrow, always a surprise, 36. 
 
 a universal experience, 210. 
 
 Christ our comfort in, 39 — 43, 
 209. 
 
 Sorrow, first effect of, 38. 
 
 inevitable, 37. 
 
 true blessedness of, 39 — 42. 
 
 of Jacob, 224. 
 Special providence, 122. 
 Spiritual truths, power of, 99 — loi. 
 Submission, joy of, 212. 
 Suffering, of Christ, 104. 
 
 of God, 266. 
 
 ministration of, loi — 103, 21 r, 
 248. 
 Sympathy of Christ, 185, 294. 
 
 Tomb cf Christ, Marys at the, 31 
 
 .--34- 
 Trust in God, 124. 
 Truth superior to institutions, 84. 
 
 Vision hours, 245 — 247. 
 
 Workers and thinkers, 186. 
 
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