:Mp

YALE
DIVINITY SCHOOL
LIBRARY

Gift of
ROLAND H. BAINTON

THE ROYAL PREACHER:

ttduxm m €uhmmiw.

BY JAMES HAMILTON, D.D., F.L.S.

LONDON :
JAMES NISBET AND CO., 21, BERNERS STREET ;
HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO., PATERNOSTER-ROW.
MDCCCLI.

Ul6r

ALEXANDER MACINTOSH,
PRINTER,,
GREAT NEW-STREET, LONDON.

'-^'sUf-'r-

In the form of translations, expositions, and literary
parallels, there is now connected with each book of
the Bible a very extensive authorship ; and we might
fill a little volume with a historical review of the
illustrations of Ecclesiastes, from the Commentary of
Jerome to the illuminated edition of Owen Jones.
a 2

IV PREFACE.
Jerome tells us that his work originated in an
effort to bring over to the monastic life a young
Roman lady, Blesilla. This object gives an ascetic
tone to every chapter, and many of his interpretations
are so fanciful that alongside of them any modern
Cocceius would be deemed sober and hteral. For
instance, applying to the Saviour the language of the
second chapter, the " slaves," or men-servants there
mentioned, he thinks are Christians afflicted with the
spirit of bondage ; the " great and small cattle," are
the simpletons and drudges of the Church, — its
"sheep and oxen," who, without exerting their
reason or studying the Scriptures, do as they are
bidden, but are not entitled to rank as men, &c.
His own reason the learned father freely exercised in
his scriptural studies ; and he takes care to apprise
his readers that his version is the result of his
independent research. * For this he has been
curiously rewarded. The Council of Trent has
declared his version " authentic," and' has virtually
decreed that henceforth Jerome's private judgment
must be the judgment of Christendom. The most
painful thing in his writings is the tone of litigious
* " Nullius autoritatem seeutus sum ;" " nee contra con-
scientiam meam, fonte veritatis omisso, opinionum rivulos
consectarer.''

PREFACE.

infelicity by which they are pervaded. It is a sort of
formic acid which flows from the finger-points not of
our good father alone, but of a whole class of Divines ;
and, like the red marks left by the feet of ants on
litmus-paper, it discolours all his pages. But although
we cannot subscribe to every rendering of the Latin
Vulgate, and must demur to its author's principles
of interpretation as well as his spirit, — the zeal and
industry of Jerome, and the curious information which
he has transmitted, must always secure for his name
a prominent place in the history of Biblical literature.
To the monk of Bethlehem, we have a curious
contrast in Martin Luther. "Fathers and doctors
have grievously erred in supposing that in this book
Solomon taught contempt of the world, as they call
it, meaning thereby contempt of things ordained and
created. The creatures are good enough, but it is
man and man's notions which Solomon pronounces
vanity. But his expounders, forsooth ! make it
out that the creatures are the vanity, and that they
themselves and their dreams are the only solidity !
And thus, from the Divine gold of our author they
have forged their own abominable idols." And
then, in that spirit of genial life-enjoyment with
which the "Table Talk" and Merle D'Aubigne's
History have made us so familiar, he states it as the

VI PREFACE.

true scope of Ecclesiastes : " Solomon wishes to
make us tranquil in the ordinary on-goings and
accidents of this existence, neither afraid of future
days nor covetous of remote possessions ; * as St. Paul
saySj ' careful for nothing.' " And then in a strain
very different from that which sought to decoy
Blesilla into a convent, and like the uncaged captive,
which he really was, the Saxon swan f goes on *°
celebrate the joys of Christian liberty.
Since that period, versions and commentaries
have appeared sufficient to store a little library.
In one thing they all agree. They, all allow that
Ecclesiastes contains many things hard to be under
stood. "Mea sententia inter omnia sacra scripta
liber longe obscurissimus," says Mercer, the learned
Hebrew professor in Paris University; "le plus
difficile de tous les livres de l'Ecriture>" re-echoes his
still more learned countryman, Calmet. " Of all the
Hebrew writings, none present greater obstacles to
the expositor," is the prehminary remark of one of
the most intelligent English translators, G. Holden;
and even German clairvoyance acknowledges "Fin-
sterniss " and " Dunkelheit." " Zwar hat das Licht
* " Sine cura et eupiditate futurorum."
f Luther's crest was a swan, as those will remember who
recall the narrative of Huss's Martyrdom.

PREFACE. VU
der neuern Exegese die dunkle Wolke zertheilt, aber
sie doch noch nicht in vollige Klarheit aufgelost,"
was the confession of Umbreit thirty years ago, and
it is still repeated by most of his critical successors.
There is another respect in which these commen
tators are all agreed, and in consequence of which
their productions remarkably vary. Unconsciously
they transfer to their authors their own subjectivity,
and Solomon is made to assume a sanguine or an
atrabilious aspect, or he becomes a poet, a logician,
a satirist, or a penitent, according to the mood of his
interpreter. As meteorologists employ a cyanometer
for ascertaining the depth of azure in the atmosphere,
so we once thought of preparing a physiognomic
scale, where the academic learning and sober sense
of Bishop Patrick might have served as a medium
between the dry severity and pomt-splitting precision
of Broughton * at the one extreme, and the good-
natured excursiveness and hazy idealism of Green-
away f at the other. But remembering how it has
* See " The works of the great Albionean Divine renown' d
in many nations for rare skill in Salem's and Athens tongues,
and familiar acquaintance with all Rabbinical learning, Mr.
Hugh Broughton." London, 1662.
t In Greenaway's curious medley the only unity is indig
nation, not wholly unmerited, at Houbigant. The very
index reads, " Houbigant, tolerable, 190 ; intolerable, 61 ;

Vlll PREFACE.
fared with the inventors of dangerous instruments,
from the days of Lord Morton downwards, we have
thought it better to leave our criticometer incomplete
for the present.
Not to enumerate the older works of Desvceux,
(1760), L. Holden (1764), and Hodgson (1790), and
the well-arranged and scholar-like pubhcation of G.
Holden (1833), two very goodEnghsh translations of
Ecclesiastes have lately appeared. Of these, the most
elaborate is by the Rev. T. Preston, of Cambridge, and
is accompanied by the ingenious Commentary of Rabbi
Mendlessohn (1845). The other by Dr. Noyes of
Boston, U.S., (1846), with less show of erudition, is
clear and straightforward; but, like Mendlessohn,
the American professor gives to the book an air
of theological tenuity, and mere worldly wisdom,
which carries neither our conviction nor our sym
pathy. In the " Presbyterian Review" (Edinburgh), for
October, 1846, there was inserted a brief but in
teresting paper on this book, ascribed, we beheve
correctly, to our friend, the Rev. A. A. Bonar.
Full of fine fancy and delicate insight, its only
impertinent, passim ; his spiteful and scandalous attempt
to wound the Sacred Text, 67 ; disgusting, 197 ; corrects
ing Virgil, 234."

PREFACE.

fault is its shortness ; and although we have taken
another view of the book's purport and ground-plan,
we could wish that its text were illustrated by
a mind so rich in Eastern lore and Christian ex
perience. Our own labours were nearly ended before there
came into our hands the "Biblical Repository"
(New York) for April, 1850, containing a Lecture
by Professor Stowe, of Cincinnati. The plan of Eccle
siastes as given by this ingenious expositor, is so
nearly akin to that which will be found in the
subsequent pages, that we feel bound to transcribe it:
"The method of the writer is the most vivid and
effective that can be conceived. Instead of describing
the various processes of thought and feeling through
which Solomon passed in the course of his eventful
life, the whole heart of the king is taken out and
held up before our eyes, with everything it contains,
both good and bad. The secret chambers of his soul
are thrown open, and we see every thought and feel
ing as it arises in the mind, and in the exact shape
in which it first presents itself, without any of those
modifications by which men soften down the harder
features of their first thoughts before they give them
utterance to their fellow-men." " Solomon ....
seeking happiness in the things of earth, ... is

PREFACE.

disappointed and disgusted ; and instead of repent
ing of his errors, he becomes dissatisfied with the
arrangements of Providence, misanthropic, and
sceptical. His conscience, however, is not entirely
asleep, but occasionally interposes to check his
murmurings and reprove him for his follies. In
this state of mind he is introduced, and in the
character of Koheleth, gives full and strong utter
ance to all his feelings. Hence, inconsistent state
ments and wrong sentiments are to be expected in
the progress of the discourse ; and it is not till the-
close of the book that all his errors are corrected,
and he comes to ' the conclusion of the whole matter,'
a humbled, penitent, believing, religious man."
Of those older commentators who are hortatory
rather than explanatory, Reynolds is by far the best.
The " Homilies" of Thomas Cartwright, and the
"Expositions" of Granger (1631), andNisbet (1694),
contain many pious and useful reflections ; but they
are not likely to find many modern readers. In our
Own day Dr. Wardlaw has published two volumes of
Lectures, which are distinguished by richly scriptural
illustration and faithful enforcement of truth on the
conscience, conveyed in language remarkable for its
clearness and elegance, and which promise long to
retain a firm hold of the public mind.

PREFACE. XI
Two poetical paraphrases of Ecclesiastes have
been written by authors whose opposite fortunes are
striking illustrations of their theme. One is entitled,
" The Design of Part of the Book of Ecclesiastes : or,
the Unreasonableness of Men's Restless Contentions
for the Present Enjoyments, represented in an
Enghsh Poem."* It was the maiden effort of
William Wollaston, afterwards sufficiently known
through " The Religion of Nature Delineated." He
pubhshed it in all the gaiety of his spirits, when,
from being an ill-paid schoolmaster, he found him
self suddenly the hen of a rich kinsman, and when
with his newly-married wife, also an heiress, he had
settled in a handsome house, and surrounded him
self with a splendid library in Charter House-square.
The other is "Choheleth; or, the Royal Preacher, a
* London, 1691. It is anonymous ; but the Preface is
signed " W. W." It is now very rare. The author after
wards wished to suppress it. See Biogr. Brit. 4304.
Amongst other bibliographical curiosities connected with
this portion of Scripture may be mentioned, " King Solo
mon his Solace. Containing (among many thinges of right
worthy request) King Solomon his Politie, his true Re
pentance, and finally his Salvation. [By John Carpenter.]
London, 1606." It is a dialogue between Zadoc and Solo
mon's chief lords, filling a black-letter quarto. It is quaint
and ingenious ; but owing to its tediousness, its rarity is
neither to be wondered at nor regretted.

XJ1 PREFACE.

Poetical Paraphrase of the Book of Ecclesiastes;
printed for J. Wallis, at Yorick's Head, Ludgate-
street, 1768." It was probably written within a few
yards of WoUaston's former mansion ; for its author
died a pensioner in the Charter House, Jan., 1795,
aged eighty-eight years. " He was at the time of the
earthquake a considerable merchant at Lisbon, and
narrowly escaped with his life, after seeing all his
property swallowed up. Some time after his arrival
in England he lost his eyesight, when Her Majesty
was pleased to give him her warrant for the comfort
able asylum he enjoyed till his death. He was well
versed in different languages, and was the author of
several detached publications." * What an example
of the " time to get and the time to lose ! " The
fagged schoolmaster transformed in a few months
into the full-blown gentleman, and admitted to
courtly circles with his beautiful heiress ; and the
prosperous merchant seeing his wealth in a moment
engulfed by the earth whence it came, and then
* From a MS. note appended to our copy of " Choheleth.''
"We have not been able to find any notice of Brodick in print.
His paraphrase was reprinted at "Whitchurch, Salop (1824),
" "With Supplementary Notes, by Nathaniel Higgins j " but
the editor does not appear to have known even the name
of his author.

PREFACE. Xlii
losing the eyes that beheld it, and thankful for a home
in a public hospital ! Brodick's Paraphrase indicates
considerable poetical talent, and, although too
copious, it is so good a transfusion of the original
that the Commentary of the learned Dr. Clarke in a
great measure consists of extracts from it. On the
score of neither versification nor fidelity is WoUaston's
poem entitled to equal praise; and by treating
Solomon as a satirist he has evidently misapprehended
his character; but as the book is now seldom seen,
we may give a short sample of the opening chapter : —
" Here Mocher bustles in a thronged shop,
That swallows all his hours to feed his hope ;
And pants, by business elbow'd every way,
"Within the narrow limits of the day.
There sails a Tyrian by some distant star,
Bolder than fits of men in deep despair :
"While Iccar keeps within his native sphere,
Always at home, yet, too, a traveller :
For daily tramping o'er his spacious fields,
He views their state, and what each of them yields ;
O'erlooks his flocks, o'erlooks his men, that plough,
Or (his own emblem) corn and fodder mow ;
"While sweat, the curse, that vanquish'd all our race,
In pearly drops does triumph on his face.
But Oh, that here the catalogue might close ! *l
For still worse ends men to themselves propose ; >¦
And still worse roads to reach their goals they choose. J
Methinks I see the crafty Gilonite,
Broke from the cords of duty and of right,

XIV PREFACE.
Within his study (forge of treasons) sit,
.And scratching prompt his head and stir his wit,
Seeking through policy and state essays
Himself, tho' by his master's fall, to raise.
While Absalom (what pity 't should be he !)^
The fairest youth e'er blotted family, >
A more compendious rebel strives to be ; J
Through David's and his father's breast would bore
A purple passage to the sovereign power."
An effort of a much higher order than either of
the above is Prior's " Solomon." However, being
neither a paraphrase nor an independent poem, but
a monologue composed of materials which Ecclesiastes
supplies, wit, learning, and melodious verse fail to
sustain the interest of the huge soliloquy through its
three successive books. And we are inclined to
think that the spirit of our author has been as hap
pily caught and his design as successfully carried out
by sundry productions which neither profess to
translate nor to imitate him. Among these literary
parallels we would name Johnson's " Vanity of
Human Wishes;" Hannah More's "Search after
Happiness;" and Tennyson's "Two Voices;" and
above all, "Rasselas."* May we not add the sadly
* "The first sentence of Rasselas would serve equally
well as an introduction to Ecclesiastes : ' Ye who listen with
credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness
the phantoms of hope ; who expect that age will perform

PREFACE. XV
beautiful " Consolatio Philosophise," in which the
last of the Romans has given us everything except
the grand conclusion?
Having gone over two books of the New Tesr
tament, the author selected Ecclesiastes as the
subject iof a congregational lecture. He chose it
because it is a book of the Old Testament, and
because it is peculiarly adapted to the present
wistful and restless times. He also hoped that its
.illustration might promote, especially among the
younger members of his flock, the intelligent and
expectant study of the sacred Scriptures. With a
similar hope he now publishes a portion of these
lectures.* The space which it would occupy has
compelled him to forego any attempt at detailed
exposition, and he has felt constrained to omit many
important texts ; but he trusts that the friendly reader
may be able to glean a few of the Royal Preacher's
-lessons from the following fragments ; and he is sure
that in gratitude for brevity every reader will forgive
an occasional abruptness. And, although he cannot
the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present
day will be supplied by the morrow, attend,'" &c. — Prof.
Stowe.
* The series extended to forty discourses, of which the
half are now published, most of them somewhat condensed.

XVI PREFACE.

claim the attention of the theologian, yet he trusts
that the following hints may assist some readers
who, revering the Word of God, regret that they
peruse it with little zest or imperfect understanding.'
One pleasant use of a preface is that it enables
a writer to record his obhgations. To his learned
co-presbyter, Professor Lorimer, the author is
indebted for the use of many German commentaries,
some of which were unknown to him even by
name. To his kind friend, Sir William J. Hooker,
he sent an inquiry on behalf of the artist who
designed the accompanying vignette, and received an
answer which will be read with much interest by
students of Bible botany : — " I have thought much
and read what botanists have written on the ' lily '
of Matt. vi. 38; as I have lately been reading a
learned dissertation on the mustard-seed of Scripture.
But" I grieve to say, the more I read on such sub
jects the more I doubt the possibility of coming to
satisfactory conclusions on such points. They may
amuse the understanding, but cannot convince the
judgment. I remember at one time being satisfied
that the Amaryllis lutea was the lily of Scripture!
I think Sir J. Smith first maintained that, in his
pamphlets entitled, ' Considerations respecting Cam
bridge,' and ' Defence of the Church,' &c, and in

PREFACE. Xvii
' Flora Graaca,' vol. iv., p. 10, where he says : — ' Haec
(Am. lutea)est apud Atticos planta coronaria, et etiam
ad Turcorum sepulchra, amoris ac pietatis causa, fre-
quentiusplantatur. Flores ejus, splendore aureoetvere
regali, campos varios Europse, sole fervidiori illus
trates, messe peracta, pulcherrime ornant. Hinc
liliis agrestibus Evahgelii, longe mehus quam lilia
Candida hortorum, nunquam in Syria, sponte\cres-
centia, proculdubio respondent; quod nomine Grseco
(f 'Aypio Kpiva r) 'Aypto \aXe<s, potius XaXos, hodie)
confirmatur.' Kirby rephed to this in a little disser
tation, pubhshed in the " Christian Remembrancer,"
1819, or thereabouts. He knocks this pretty hypo
thesis on the head, by saying this plant could not be
used for fuel, — and that our Saviour ' begins his ex
hortation with an emphatical word (Karafiadere),
which enjoins particular attention to an object so
as to know it well, implying that an individual must
be studied/ &c. Thus he gives his verdict in
favour of Lilium candidum (not L. Martagon *),
the Kpivov of Dioscorides, the withered stems of
which are very likely to be 'cast into the oven.'
Smith had maintained that this was not a native of
Palestine : — but it is clearly ascertained to be so,
" * L. Martagon is rather a northern plant — middle of
Europe and Siberia." b

xvm

PREFACE.

and of several parts of Syria, Persia, &c. Were a
similar comparison to be drawn in our country at
the present day, how would a commentator 1800
years hence, determine what was the ' Lily' alluded
to, — a term applied to a hundred kinds, varying
in beauty, and other qualifications, from the mag
nificent ' Victoria Water-Lily' to the humble ' Lily
of the valley ? ' In the case in question, I rather
agree with Kirby, than with Smith, and the former
has brought more learning to bear on the subject."

CONTENTS.

Lecture Page
I. The Peeacheb  1
II. The Seemon  9
III. A Gbeateb than Solomon .... 30
IV. The Vestibule oe Vanity .... 43
V. The Museum  57
VI. The Play-house and the Palace . . 80
VII. The Monument  88
VTII. The Clock ob Destiny .... 97
ES. The Dungeon  113
X. The Sanctuaby  126
XI. The Exchange  136
XH. Bobbowed Lights eob a Dabk Landing-elaoe 146
Xin. A Good Name  159
XTV. The Poweb oe Patience .... 165
XV. Dead Flies  169
XVI. Blunt Axes; ob, Science and Good Sense . 181
XVII. Bbead on the Watebs . . . .197
XVni. Beight Moments on the Wing . . . 206
XIX. Old Age  215
XX. The Wicket Gate  230
XXI. Geeen Pastuees  242

LECTURE I.

" I the Preacher was King over Israel in Jerusalem." —
Eccles. I. 12.
There is no season of the year so exquisite as the
first full burst of Summer : when east winds lose
their venom, and the firmament its April fickleness ;
when the trees have unreefed their foliage, and under
them the turf is tender ; when, before going to sleep,
the blackbird wakes the nightingale, and night itself
is only a softer day ; when the dog-star has not
withered a single flower, nor the mower's scythe
touched one ; but all is youth and freshness, novelty
and hope — as if our very earth had become a bud, of
which only another Eden could be the blossom — as
if, with all her green canvas spread, our island were
an argosie, floating over seas of balm to some bright
Sabbatic haven on the shores of Immortality.
With the Hebrew commonwealth, it was the
month of June. Over all the Holy Land there rested
a blissful serenity — the calm which follows when

LECTURE I.

successful war is crowned with conquest — a calm
which was only stirred by the proud joy of posses
sion, and then hallowed and intensified again by the
sense of Jehovah's favoui-. And amidst this calm the
monarch was enshrined, at once its source and its
symbol. In the morning he held his levee in his
splendid Basilica — a pillared hall a hundred cubits
long.* As he sate aloft on his lion-guarded throne,
he received petitions and heard appeals, and astonished
his subjects by astute decisions and weighty apoph
thegms, till every case was disposed of, and the toils
of kingcraft ended. Meanwhile, his chariot was
waiting in the square; and, with disdainful hoofs,
the light coursers pawed the pavement, impatient for
their master ; whilst, drawn up on either side, purple
squadrons held the ground, and their champing
chargers tossed from their flowing manes a dust of
gold. And now, a stir in the crowd — the straining
of necks and the jingle of horse-gear announce the
acme of expectation ; and, preceded by the tall pano
ply of the commander-in-chief, and followed by a
dazzling retinue, there emerges from the palace, and
there ascends the chariot, a noble form, arrayed in
white and in silver, and crowned with a golden coro-'
net; and the welkin rings, "God save the King;"
for this is Solomon in all his glory. And, as through
the Bethlehem gate, and adown the level causeway,
* See 1 Kings vii.; Josephus' Antiquities, Bk. viii. chaps.
5—7 ; and Fergusson's " Palaces of Nineveh Restored^
(1851,) pp. 225—232.

THE PREACHER.

the bickering chariot speeds, the vines on either side
of the valley give a good smell, and it is a noble sight
to look back to yon marble fane and princely man
sions which rear their snowy cliffs over the capital's
new ramparts. It is a noble sight, this rural comfort
and that civic opulence — for they evince the abund
ance of peace and the abundance of righteousness.
And when, through orchards and corn fields, the
progress ends, the shouting concourse of the capital
is exchanged for the delights of an elysian hermitage.
After visiting his far-come favourites — the " apes and
the peacocks," — the bright birds and curious quad
rupeds which share his retirement ; after wandering
along the terraces, where under the ripening pome
granates roses of Sharon blossom, and watching the
ponds where fishes bask amid the water-lilies, — we
can imagine him retiring from the sunshine into that
grotto which fed these reservoirs from its fountain
sealed; or in the spacious parlor, whose fluttering
lattice cooled, and whose cedar wainscot embalmed
the flowing summer, sitting down to indite a poem,
in which celestial love should overmaster and replace
the earthly passion which supplied its imagery.
Dipping his pen by turns in Heaven's rainbow, and
in the prismatic depths of his own felicity, with joy's
own ink this Prince of Peace inscribed that Song of
Songs which is Solomon's.
It was June in Hebrew history — the top-tide of
a nation's happiness. Sitting, like an empress,
between the Eastern and Western oceans, the navies
b 2

LECTURE I.

of three continents poured their treasures at her feet ;
and, awed by her commanding nsttne, the drome
daries of Midian and Ephah brought spontaneous
tributes of spice, and silver, and precious stones. To
build her palaces, the shaggy brows of Lebanon had
been scalped of their cedars, and Ophir. had bled its
richest gold. At the magical voice of t^e Sovereign,
fountains, native to distant hills, rippled down the
slopes of Zion ; and miraculous cities, like Palmyra,
started up from the sandy waste. And whilst peace,
and commerce, and the law's protection, made gold
like brass, and silver shekels like stones of the street,
Palestine was a halcyon-nest suspended betwixt the
calm wave and the warm sky ; Jerusalem was a royal
infant, whose silken cradle soft winds rock high up on
a castle tower: all was serene magnificence and
opulent security.
Just as the aloe shoots, and in one stately blossom
pours forth the life which has been calmly collecting.
for a century, so would it appear as if nations were
destined to pour forth their accumulated qualitiesVin-
some characteristic man, and then they droop away.
Macedonia blossomed, and Alexander was the flower
of Greece ; fiery and effeminate, voluptuous in his
valour, and full of chivalrous relentings amidst hiSi
wild revenge. Rome shot up in a spike of glory, and
revealed Augustus — so stern and so sumptuous, so
vast in his conceptions, so unquailing in his projects,
so fearless of the world, and so fond of the seven-
hilled city — the Imperial nest-builder. Mediseval,

THE PREACHER. 5
martial Europe blossomed, and Godfrey and Richard
were the twin-flowers of chivalry — Godfrey the captor
of Rome and King of Jerusalem ; Richard of the lion-
heart, Richard of the hammer-hand. And modern
France developed in one Frenchman, the concentra
tion of a people vain and ambitious, restless and
rapid, brilliant in sentiment, and brave in battle;
and having flowered the fated once, the Gallic
aloe can yield no more Napoleons. So with Pales
tine at tfce time we speak of. Half-way between
the call of Abraham and the final capture of Jerusa
lem, it was the high summer of Jewish story, and
Hebrew mind unfolded in this pre-eminent Hebrew.
Full of sublime devotion, equally full of practical
sagacity ; the extemporiser of the loftiest litany in
existence, withal the author of the pungent Proverbs ;
able to mount up on Rapture's ethereal pinion to the
region of the seraphim, but keenly alive to all the
details of business, and shrewd in his human inter
course ; zealous in collecting gold, yet lavish in ex
pending it ; sumptuous in his tastes, and splendid in
costume ; and, except in so far as intellectual vastitude
necessitated a certain catholicity — the patriot intense,
the Israehte indeed : like a Colossus on a mountain-
top, his sunward side was the glory toward which one
Millennium of his nation had all along been climbing,
— his darker side, with its overlapping beams, is still
the mightiest object in that nation's memory.
You have seen a blight in "summer. The sky is
overcast, and yet there are no clouds; nothing but a

LECTURE I.

dry and stifling obscuration — as if the mouth of some
pestilent volcano had opened, or as if sulphur mingled
with the sunbeams. " The beasts groan ; the cattle
are oppressed." From the trees the embryo fruits and
the remaining blossoms fall in an unnoticed shower,
and the foliage curls and crumples. And whilst
creation looks disconsolate, in the hedgerows the
heavy moths begin to flutter, and ominous owlets
cry from the ruin. Such a blight came over the
Hebrew summer. By every calculation it ought to
have been high noon ; but the sun no longer smiled on
Israel's dial. There was a dark discomfort in the air.
The people murmured. The monarch wheeled along
with greater pomp than ever ; but the popular prince
had soured into the despot, and the crown sat defiant
on his moody brow ; and stiff were the obeisances,
heartless the hosannas, which hailed him as he
passed. The ways of Zion mourned; and whilst
grass was sprouting in the temple-courts, mysterious
groves and impious shrines were rising everywhere :
and whilst lust defiled the palace, Chemosh and
Ashtaroth, and other Gentile abominations, defiled
the Holy Land. And in the disastrous eclipse
beasts of the forest crept abroad. From his lurking-
place in Egypt Hadad ventured out, and became a
life-long torment to the God-forsaken monarch. And
Rezon pounced on Damascus, and made Syria his
own. And from the pagan palaces of Thebes and
Memphis harsh cries were heard ever and anon,
Pharaoh and Jeroboam taking counsel together,

THE PREACHER.

screeching forth their threatenings, and hooting
insults, at which Solomon could laugh no longer.
For amidst all the gloom and misery a message
comes from God : the kingdom is rent ; and whilst
Solomon's successor will only have a fag-end and a
fragment, by right Divine ten tribes are handed over
to a rebel and a runaway.
What led to Solomon's apostasy ? And what,
again, was the ulterior effect of that apostasy on him
self ? As to the origin of his apostasy the Word of
God is exphcit. He did not obey his own maxim.
He ceased to rejoice with the wife of his youth; and
loving many strangers, they drew his heart away
from God. Luxury and sinful attachments made
him an idolater, and idolatry made him yet more
licentious : until, in the lazy enervation and languid
day-dreaming of the Sybarite, he lost the perspicacity
of the sage, and the prowess of the sovereign ; and
when he woke up from the tipsy swoon, and out of
the swine-trough picked his tarnished diadem, he
woke to find his faculties, once so clear and limpid,
all perturbed, his strenuous reason paralysed, and his
healthful fancy poisoned. He woke to find the
world grown hollow, and himself grown old. He
woke to see the sun bedarkened in Israel's sky, and
a special gloom encompassing himself. He woke to
recognise all round a sadder sight than winter — a
blasted summer. Like a deluded Samson starting
from his slumber, he felt for that noted wisdom
which signalised his Nazarite days; but its locks were

8

LECTURE I.

shorn; and, cross and self- disgusted, wretched and
guilty, he woke up to the discoveiy which awaits the
sated sensualist : he found that when the beast gets
the better of the man, the man is cast off by God.
And like one who falls asleep amidst the lights and
music of an orchestra, and who awakes amidst
empty benches and tattered programmes — like a man
who falls asleep in a flower-garden, and who opens
his eyes on a bald and locust-blackened wilderness,
— the life, the loveliness, was vanished, and all the
remaining spirit of the mighty Solomon yawned
forth that verdict of the tired voluptuary: —
" Vanity of vanities ! vanity of vanities ! all is
vanity ! "

LECTURE II.
©fie ^trmon.

" The words of the Preacher, the son of David, King of
Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity
of vanities; all is vanity." — ECCLES. I. 1, 2.
There are some books of the Bible which can only
be read with thorough profit, when once you have
found the key. Luther somewhere tells us, that he
used to be greatly damped by an expression in the
outset of the Epistle to the Romans. The apostle
says, " I am not ashamed of the Gospel ; for therein
is the righteousness of God revealed." By " right
eousness" Luther understood the justice of God — his
attributes of moral rectitude ; and so understanding
it, he could scarcely see the superiority of the Gospel
over the Law, and at all events, his troubled con
science could find no comfort in it. But when at
last it was revealed to him that the term here alludes
not to an attribute of God, but to the atonement of
Immanuel — that it means not justice, but God's
justifying righteousness — the righteousness which
God incarnate wrought out, and which is imputed to

10 LECTURE II.
the sinner beheving — the whole epistle was lit up
with a joyful illumination ; and the context, and many
other passages which used to look so dark and hostile,
at once "leaped up and fondled" him with friendly
recognition: and to Luther ever after the Gospel
was glorious as the revelation and the vehicle to the
sinner of a righteousness Divine. To take another
instance : many read the Book of Job as if every
verse were equally the utterance of Jehovah ; and
they quote the sayings of Bildad and Zophar as the
mind of the Most High; entirely forgetting the
avowed structure of the book — forgetting that
through five-and-thirty chapters the several collocu
tors are permitted to reason and wrangle, and
" darken counsel by words without knowledge," hi
order to make the contrast more striking, when
at last Jehovah breaks sflence and vindicates his own
procedure. But when you advert to its real structure
— when you group the different elements of its poetic
painting — when, under the canopy of a dark cloud,
you see the patriarch cowering, and his three friends
assailing him with calumnious explanations of his
sore affliction ; but above that cloud you see Jehovah
listening to his loyal servant, and to his pious, but
narrow-minded neighbours — listening with a look of
fatherly fondness, and from heaven's cornucopia*
ready to shower on his servant's head the most
overwhelming of vindications — the blessings twice-
repeated, "which Satan snatched away : when you see
* Job xlii. 14, Keren-happuch ; i. e., Horn of Plenty.

THE SERMON. 11
this, and when you know that Jehovah is to be the
last speaker, instead of nervously striving to torture
into truths the mistakes of Bildad and Zophar, and
of Job himself, you feel that their mistakes are as
natural and as needful to the plan of the book, as
are all the cross-purposes and contradictory colloquies
of a well-constructed drama. And when so under
stood, you feel that all the rather because of the
misconceptions of the human speakers, the book is
eloquent with Divine vindication, and teaches what
Cowper sings so touchingly : —
" Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take !
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessing's on your head.
" Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain ;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain."
Perhaps no portion of Holy Writ more needs a
key than the subject of our lecture. On the one
hand, Ecclesiastes has always been a favourite
book with Infidels. It was a manual with that
coarse scoffer, Frederick the Great of Prussia; and
both Volney and Voltaire appeal to it in support of
their sceptical philosophy. Nor can it be denied
that it contains many sentiments at seeming variance
with the general purport of the Word of God. " Be
not righteous overmuch ; why shouldest thou destroy
thyself ? " " All things come alike to all : there is

12 LECTURE II.
one event to the righteous and to the wicked ; to him
that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not."
" There is a time for everything. What profit hath
he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?"
" As the beast dieth, so dieth man. Do not both
go to one place ? " "A man hath no better thing
than to eat and drink and be merry." These texts,
and many like them, are quoted by the moralists of
expediency; by the fatalist, the materialist, the
Pyrrhonist, the epicure.
On the other hand, many able commentators
have laboured hard to harmonise such passages with
the sayings of Scripture ; I may add, they have
laboured hard to harmonise them with other sayings
of Solomon, and other passages of this selfsame
book. But I cannot help thinking they have
laboured in vain. For the moment, and when read
ing or listening to some eloquent exposition, you
may persuade yourself that such texts are, after all,
only peculiar and paradoxical ways of putting im
portant truths ; but when Procrustes has withdrawn
his pressure, and the reluctant sentence has escaped
from the screw and lever, it bounds up elastic, and
looks as strange and ungainly as ever. Therefore,
others have met the difficulty by suggesting that,
like Canticles, Ecclesiastes is a dialogue ; and into
the mouth of an imaginary objector, they put every
sentiment which they deem unsuitable to an inspired
penman. For such interpellations, however, there
is no foundation in the context, where nothing is

THE SERMON. 13
more obvious than the continuous identity of the
speaker ; and, like another exegetical stratagem
which would invert the meaning of such passages by
turning them into interrogatories, you feel that it is
a clever evasion rather than a conclusive solution.*
You would prefer a straightforward exposition which
would maintain the unity of the book and the analogy
of Scripture, whilst it took the words as they stand.
This is the sentence with which Ecclesiastes closes :
" Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter :
Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is
the whole of man. For God shall bring every work
into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be
good, or whether it be evil." This is the conclusion
of the matter, and a wise and wholesome conclusion,
worthy of Him who said, " Seek first the kingdom
of God and his righteousness, and all these things
shall be added unto you." But what is the "matter"
* As specimens of the interrogatory subterfuge, the reader
may compare with the original or with the authorized version
the following : — " Shall there then be no remembrance of past
or future events ? Shall there be no memorial of them
among those who shall come after us ?" — i. 11. " For can
not that which is «rpoked be made straight ? Cannot that
which is wanting be supplied?" — i. 15. " Shall I therefore
hate life, because anything wrought under the sun becomes
a grievance unto me? Shall I hate all my labour which I
take under the sun, because I must softie time leave it to the
man who shall succeed me?" — ii. 17, 18. (Barham's Cor
rected Translation.) Surely the sense is too feeble to justify
such a forced construction.

14 LECTURE II.
of which this is the " conclusion ? " To ascertain
this we must go back to the beginning. There you
read, " I the preacher was king in Jerusalem, and I
gave my heart to search out by wisdom concerning
all things that are done under heaven. Then I said
in] my heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with
mirth: therefore enjoy pleasure," &c. In other
words, you find that this " matter" was a long expe
riment, which the narrator made in search of the
Supreme Felicity, and of which Ecclesiastes records
the successive stages. But how does it record them'?
By virtually repeating them. In the exercise of his
poetic power the historian conveys himself and
his reader back into those days of vanity, and feels
anew all that he felt then ; so that, in the course of
his rapid monologue, he stands before us, by turns
the man of science and the man of pleasure, the
fatalist, the materialist, the sceptic, the epicurean, and
the stoic, with a few earnest and enlightened inter
ludes ; till, in the conclusion of the whole matter, he
sloughs the last of all these "lying vanities," and
emerges to our view, the noblest style of man, the
believer and the penitent.
This we believe to be the true idea of the book.
We would describe it as a dramatic biography, in
which Solomon not only records but re-enacts the"
successive scenes of his search after happiness; a
descriptive memoir, in which he not only recites his
past experience, but in his improvising fervor be
comes the various phases of his former self once

THE SERMON. 15
more. He is a restored backslider, and for the
benefit of his son and his subjects, and, under the
guidance of God's Spirit, for the benefit of the
Church, he writes this prodigal's progress. He is a
returned pilgrim from the land of Nod, and as he
opens the portfolio of sketches which he took before
his eyes were turned away from viewing vanity, he
accompanies them with lively and realizing repe
titions of what he felt and thought during those
wild and joyless days. Our great Edmund Burke
once said that his own life might be best divided
into " fyttes" or "manias :" that his life began with
a fit poetical, followed by a fit metaphysical, and
that again by a fit rhetorical ; that he once had a
mania for statesmanship, and that this again had
subsided into the mania of philosophical seclusion.
And so in his days of apostasy, the soul intense of
Solomon launched out into a fit of study, succeeded
by a fit of luxury. He had fits of grossness and re
finement, a mania of conviviality, a mania of mis
anthropy. He had a fit of building, a fit of science,
a fit of book-making ; and they all passed off in
collapses of disappointment and paroxysms of down
right misery. And here, as he exhibits these suc
cessive tableaux, these facsimiles of his former self,
like a modern lyrist on St. Cecilia's day, he runs
the diapason of departed passion, and, in the
successive strophes and antistrophes, he feels his
former frenzies over again, in order that, by the very

16 LECTURE II.
vividness of the representation, we may be all the
better " admonished." *
"The preacher was king over Israel, and, because
he was wise, he taught the people knowledge. He
sought to find out acceptable words, and that which
was written was upright," t a true story, a real state
ment of the case. " And by these, my son, be ad
monished." 'Do you, my son, accept this father's
legacy; and do you, my people, receive at your
monarch's hand this " Basilicon Doron," this auto
biography of your penitent prince. These chapters
are "words of truth:" revivals of my former self —
reproductions of my reasonings and regrets — my
fantastic hopes and blank failures, during that sad
voyage round the coasts of vanity. " By these he
admonished." Without repeating the guilty expe
riment, learn the painful result — listen to the moans
of a melancholy worldling; for I shall sing again
some of those doleful ditties for which I exchanged
the songs of Zion. Look at these portraits — they
are not fancy sketches — they are my former self, or,
rather, my former selves : that lay figure in the
royal robes, surmounted first by the lantern-jaws of
the book-worm, now exchanged for the jolly visage
of the gay gourmand, and presently refining into the
glossy locks and languid smile of the Hebrew ex
quisite : now chuckling with the merriment of the
laughing philosopher, curling anon into the bitter
* Chap. xii. 12. f Uhap. i. 12 ; xii. 9, 10.

THE SERMON. 17
sneer of the Cynic, and each in succession exploding
in smoke; not a masque, not a mummery, not a
series of make-believers, but each a genuine evolution
of the various Solomon — look at these pictures, ye
worldlings, and as in water face answers to face, so
in one or other of these recognise your present like
ness and foresee your destiny.'
"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God,"
and it is not the less " profitable " because some of it
is the inspired record of human infirmity. The seventy-
third Psalm is a lesser Ecclesiastes. There Asaph
tells us the workings of his mind when he saw the
prosperity of the wicked. " Behold, these are the
ungodly, who prosper in the world. Verily, I have
cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in
innocency." And he was so full of resentment and
envy that his "feet were almost gone." He had
" well nigh slipped " into utter apostasy : when a
timely visit to the sanctuary intercepted his fall.
There two forgotten verities flashed upon his mind :
— the coming retribution, and the all-sufficiency of
the believer's portion. " Nevertheless, I am continu
ally with thee : thou hast holden me by my right
hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and
afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in
heaven but thee ? and there is none upon earth that
I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth :
but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion
for ever. For lo, they that are far from thee shall
perish : thou hast destroyed all them that go a
c

18 LECTURE II.
whoring from thee. But it is good for me to draw
near to God : I have put my trust in the Lord God,
that I may declare all thy works." And just as
Asaph's heart for a time was "grieved," — "So
foolish was I, and ignorant : I was as a beast before
thee,"— so Solomon's feet actually slipped, and in
this book he gives us his various reasonings Whilst
still a backslider. And just as Asaph's " conclusion
of the whole matter " was the blessedness of piety
and the certainty of righteous retribution, — " It is
good for me to draw near to God : they that are far
from thee shall perish," — so Solomon's conclusion is
identical ; " Fear God, and keep his commandments :
for this is the whole of man. For God shall
bring every work into judgment, with every secret
thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."
It need, therefore, in no wise surprise us . if we find
in these chapters many strange questionings and
startling opinions, before we arrive at the final con
clusion. Intermingled with much that is noble
and holy, these " doubtful disputations " are not the
dialogue of a believer and an infidel, but the soliloquy
of a " divided heart " — the debate of a truant will
with an upbraiding conscience. As we listen to the
inward colloquy we could sometimes fancy that we hear
a worldling and a sceptic contending with an Abdiel.
But, after all, it is only the fitful meditation of one
who once knew better, and who, by bitter discipline,
is learning anew the lesson of his youth. We know
not to what better to compare it than a labj'-

THE SERMON. 19
rinthine journey underground. Impatient of the
daylight — quitting those pastures green and paths of
righteousness in which he had walked with his saintly
sire — tired of religion and its simple pleasures, he
dives into a subterranean avenue which is to end in
a Goshen of central light — a poet's paradise with
emerald turf and flaming flowers. And the first
portion of his fantastic path is lighted by radiance
from the entrance — the re-collected knowledge of his
wiser days. But that dim twilight fades, and the
explorer quickly finds that even Solomon is not
phosphorescent, and, stumbling on, he souses into a
fetid quag. Strugghng through the slough of
sensuality, he reaches a brilliant cave, where sta
lactites of crystal glorify the beams transmitted
through the fissured roof, and where the very stones
are musical; and, for a season, the royal pilgrim
expatiates in a temple sacred to architecture and each
fine art. But, wearied with its splendour, shivering at
its frosty elegance, he presses on again ; and, except
when now and then a shaft overhead lets down some
light into the dreary tunnel, all benighted, — as on the
rugged roof he strikes his brow, or on the flinty
splinters wounds his feet, — we can overhear the muffled
voice which execrates the vexation and the vanity.
And when, at last, with sullied robes and grisled
locks he emerges to the spot from which he started,
he grudges so long a journey, and a route so painful,
back to his better self; and, resuming his old
position, though scarcely regaining his original
c 2

20 LECTURE II.
cheerfulness, he advises us to be content with his
experiment and to begin with his "conclusion."
If, therefore, we remember the real structure of the
book, and as a lamp to its dim passages take the
light from its final landing-place, much of its obscu
rity will flee away ; and we may listen without dis
quiet to the darkest queries and most desperate
declarations of Solomon benighted, when in Solomon
recovered we expect the answer and the antidote.
There is little difference in men's bodily stature.
A fathom, or thereabouts — a little more or a little
less — is the ordinary elevation of the human family.
Should a man add a cubit to this stature, he is fol
lowed along the streets as a prodigy ; should he fall
very far short of it, people pay money for a sight of
him, as a great curiosity. But, were there any exact
measurement of mental statures, we should be struck
by an amazing diversity. We should find pigmy
intellects too frequent to be curiosities. We should
find fragile understandings to which the grasshopper
is a burden, and dwarfish capacities unable to
grapple with the easiest problems : whilst, on the
other hand, we should encounter a few colossal
minds, of which the altitude must be taken not in
feet, but in furlongs — tall, culminating minds,
which command the entire tract of existing know-
ledge— minds whose horizon is their coeval hemi
sphere ; or, loftier still, prophetic minds, on which is
already shining the unrisen sun of some future century«

THE SERMON. 21
Such a mind was Solomon's. His information
was vast. He was the encyclopedia of that early
age. He was an adept in the natural sciences : —
" He spake of trees, from the cedar to the hyssop ;
he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping
things, and of fishes," as the sacred historian
simply words it; or, in modem terminology, he
was a botanist, and acquainted with all depart
ments of zoology, from the annelida up to the
higher vertebrata. His wisdom excelled the wisdom
of all the children of the East country, and all the
children of Egypt. And then his originality was
equal to his information. He was a poet : his
" Songs " were upwards of a thousand. And a
moralist : his proverbs were three thousand. He
was a sagacious politician ; and as the chief magis
trate of his own empire, he was famous for the equity
and acuteness of his decisions. He had a splendid
taste in architecture and landscape-gardening ; and
his enormous wealth enabled him to conjure into
palpable realities the visions of his gorgeous imagina
tion ; whilst, to crown the whole — unlike Moses and
many others, men of stately intellect, but stammering
speech — the wisdom of Solomon found utterance in
language like itself; and whilst the eloquence still
lived of which the Bible has preserved some ex
amples, crowned students and royal disciples came
from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the
wisdom of Solomon.
Now, this man, so mightily endowed ; if you add

22 LECTURE II.
to his intellectual elevation the pedestal of his rare
good fortune, mounting the genius of the sage on
the throne of the sovereign — this peerless man, this
prime specimen of humanity — it would appear that
Providence raised up, for this, among other purposes.
From the day when Adam fell it had been the great
inquiry among men, Where and how to find the true
felicity ? And though the Most High assured them
that they could only find it where they had formerly
enjoyed it — in unison with Himself, and in his con
scious friendship : of this they were quite incredulous^
It was still the problem, Apart from infinite excellence,
how shall we be happy ? Though blessedness was
not far from any one of them, in delirious search of it,
men burrowed in gold mines, and rummaged in the
rubbish-heaps, drilled deep into the rock, and dived
deep into the sea. And though none succeeded, few
despaired. There was always an apology for failure.
They had sought in the right direction, but with
inadequate appliances. They were not rich enough |
they were not strong enough; they were not clever
enough. Had they been only a little wealthier; had
they been better educated ; had they possessed more
leisure, talent, power — they were just about to
touch the talisman: they would have brought to
light the philosopher's stone. And as it is part of
man's ungodliness to believe his fellow-sinner more
than his Creator, the Most High provided an unim
peachable testimony. He raised up Solomon. He
made him healthy and handsome — wise and brilliant.

THE SERMON. 23
He poured wealth into his lap, till it ran over ; he
made him absolute monarch of the finest kingdom
which the world at that time offered ; and, instead of
savages and pagans, gave him for his subjects a
civilised and a religious people. And that he might
not be distracted by wars and rumours of wars, he
put into his hand a peaceful sceptre, and saved him
from the hardships of the field and the perils of the
fight. And thus endowed and thus favoured, Solo
mon commenced the search after happiness. Every
thing except godly, he devoted himself to the art of
enjoyment. And in carrying on his own experiment
he unwittingly, but effectually, became God's demon
stration. Into the crucible he cast rank and beauty,
wealth and learning ; and, as a flux, he added youth
and genius ; and then, with all the ardour of his vehe
ment nature, he urged the furnace to its whitest glow.
But when the grand projection took place, from all
the costly ingredients the entire residuum was,
Vanity of vanities ! And ere he left the laboratory,
he made ink of the ashes ; and in the confessions of
a converted worldling, he was constrained to write
one of the saddest books in all the Bible.
His first recourse was knowledge. Communing
with his own heart, he said, "Lo, I am come to
great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all
they that have been before me in Jerusalem : yea,
my heart had great experience of wisdom and know
ledge. And I gave my heart to know (more) wisdom,
and to know madness and folly (that is, mirth and

24 LECTURE II.
satire) : I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.
For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that
increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." ,And, as
he adds elsewhere, " Of making many books there is
no end ; and much study is a weariness to the flesh."
No, no. Carpe horam. Life is short, and learn
ing slow. Quit that dingy study, and out into the
laughing world. Make a bonfire of these books,
and fill your reed-quiver with bird-bolts. Exchange
the man of letters for the man of pleasure. And so
he did. " I gave myself to wine, I made me great
works, I builded me houses, I planted me vineyards."
But here, too, he was destined to disappointment.
For the coarse pleasures of the carouse and the wine-
cup his cultivated mind had little affinity ; and when
next morning revealed the faded chaplets, the goblets
capsized, and the red wine-pools on the floor of the
banquet-hall; when the merry-making of yester
night only lived in the misery of the morning, he
exclaimed, " Such laughter is mad ; and such mirth,
what doeth it ?" And so of the more elegant pas
times — the palace, the fish-pond, the flower-garden,
the menagerie, — the enjoyment ended when the plan
was executed; and as soon as the collection was
completed, the pleasure of the collector ceased.
" Then I looked on all the works that my hands had
wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to
do : and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit,
and there was no profit under the sun."
But there still remained one solace. There must

THE SERMON. 25
be something very sweet in absolute power. Though
the battle has been going on for six thousand years,
and the odds are overwhelming — a million resisting
one — yet still the love of power is so tremendous, —
to , say to one, Go, and he goeth ; and to another,
Do this, and he doeth it — the right to say this is so
delicious, that sooner or later, the million lose the
battle, and find the one their master. Now, this
ascendancy over others Solomon possessed to a rare
degree. "The Preacher was king in Jerusalem."
He was absolute monarch there. And to flatter his
instinct of government still more, surrounding states
and sovereigns all did homage at Jerusalem. But no
sooner did he find his power thus supreme and un
challenged, than he began to be visited with misgiv
ings as to his successor — misgivings for which the
sequel showed that there was too good reason.
"Yea, I hated all the labour which I had taken
under the sun, because I should leave it unto the
man that shall be after me. And who knoweth
whether he shall be a wise man or a fool ? Yet
shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have
laboured, and wherein I have showed myself wise
under the sun. This is also vanity."
And I need not say how the experience of most
worldlings has been Solomon's sorrow repeated, with
the variations incident to altered circumstances, and
the diminished intensity to be expected in feebler
men — vanity and vexation of spirit all over again.
And as we are sometimes more impressed by modern

26 LECTURE II.
instances than by Bible examples, we could call into
court nearly as many witnesses as there have been
hunters of happiness — mighty Nimrods in the chase
of Pleasure, and Fame, and Power. We might ask
the statesman, and, as we wished him a happy new
year, Lord Dundas would answer, " It had need to
be happier than the last, for I never knew one happy
day in it." We might ask the successful lawyer, and
the wariest, luckiest, most self-complacent of them all
would answer, as Lord Eldon was privately record
ing when the whole Bar envied the Chancellor, — "A
few weeks will send me to dear Encombe, as a short
resting-place between vexation and the grave." We
might ask the golden millionaire, " You must be a
happy man, Mr. Rothschild." " Happy ! — me happy!
What ! happy, when just as you are going to dine
you have a letter placed in your hand, saying, 'If you
do not send me £500, 1 will blow your brains out'?"
Happy ! when you have to sleep with pistols at your
pillow ? We might ask the clever artist, and our
gifted countryman would answer of whose latter days
a brother writes, "In the studio, all the pictures
seemed to stand up like enemies to receive me. This
joy in labour, this desire for fame, what have they
done for him ? The walls of this gaunt sounding
place, the frames, even some of the canvases, are
furred with damp. In the little library where he
painted last, was the word 'Nepenthe?' written in
terrogatingly with white chalk on the wall."* We
* Memoir of David Scott, R.S.A.

THE SERMON. 27
might ask the world-famed warrior, and get for an
swer the " Miserere" of the Emperor-monk,* or the
sigh of a broken heart from St. Helena. We might
ask the brilliant courtier, and Lord Chesterfield would
tell us, " I have enjoyed all the pleasures of the world,
and I do not regret their loss. I have been behind
the scenes. I have seen all the coarse pulleys and
dirty ropes which move the gaudy machines ; and I
have seen and smelt the tallow candles which illu
minate the whole decorations, to the astonishment
of an ignorant audience." We might ask the dazzling
wit, and, faint with a glut of glory, yet disgusted with
the creatures who adored him, Voltaire would con
dense the essence of his existence into one word,
" Ennui." And we might ask the world's poet, and
we would be answered with an imprecation by that
splendid genius, f who
"Drank every cup of joy, heard every trump
Of fame ; drank early, deeply drank ; drank draughts
That common millions might have quenched — then died
Of thirst, because there was no more to drink."
But without going so far as these historic in
stances, I make my appeal to all the candour and
self-knowledge here present, and I ask, Who is there
that, apart from God's favour, has ever tasted solid
joy and satisfaction of spirit ? You have perhaps
tried learning. You have wearied your flesh ac
quiring some branch of knowledge, or mastering
the arcana of some science; and you promised
yourself that, when once you were an adept, it would
* Charles V. f Byron.

28 LECTURE II.
introduce you to a circle of transcendental friends,
or would drown you in a flood of golden fame. You
won the friends, and, apart from this special accom
plishment, you found them so full of petty feuds and
jealousies, so cold-hearted or so coarse-minded,
that you inwardly abjured them, and vowed that
you must follow learning for its own rewards ; or
you won the fame — you secured the prize — you
caught the coveted distinction, and like the senior
wrangler,* you found that you had "grasped a
shadow." Or you tried some course of gaiety. You
said, " Go to now — I will prove thee with mirth ;
therefore enjoy pleasure." You dressed — you took
pains with your appearance ; you studied the art of
pleasing. But even self-love could not disguise that
some rival was more dazzling, more graceful and self-
possessed, and had made a more brilliant impression :
and you came home mortified at your own sheepish-
ness and rustic blundering ; or, if content to mingle
passively in others' merriment, tattling with the
talkers, and drifting along the tide of drollery, was
there no pensive reflection as, late at night, you
sought your dwelling ? — did you not say of laughter,
" It is mad ? and of mirth, What doeth it ? " Or,
perhaps, at some pleasant time of year, you made up
a famous ploy. And the excursion went off, but the
promised enjoyment never came up. Mountain
breezes did not blow away your vexing memories,
nor did the soft sea-wind heal your wounded spirit.
In the rapid train you darted swiftly, but at the
* Henry Martyn.

THE SERMON. 29
journey's end you were mortified to find that your
evil temper had travelled by the same conveyance.
And though it was a classic or a sacred stream into
which you looked, not even Arethusa nor Siloah
could polish from off your countenance the furrows
of carking anxiety, or the frown of crossness which
wrinkled there. The truth is, all will be vanity to
the heart which is vile, and all will be vexation to
the spirit which the peace of God is not possessing.
When you remember how vast is the soul of man,
and also what a mighty virus of depravity pervades
it, you might as well ask, How many showers will it
need to make the salt ocean fresh ? as ask, How
many mercies will it need to make a murmuring
spirit thankful and happy ? You might as soon ask,
How many buckets of water must you pour down
the crater of Etna before you convert the volcano
into a cool and crystal jet-d'eau? as ask, How many
bounties must Providence pour into a worldling's
spirit before that spirit will cease to evaporate them
into vanity, or send them fuming back in complaint
and vexation ? — " Attempt how vain —
With things of earthly sort, with aught but God,
With aught but moral excellence, truth, and love —
To satisfy and fill the immortal soul !
To satisfy the ocean with a drop ;
To marry immortality to death ;
And with the unsubstantial shade of time,
To fill the embrace of all eternity ! " *
* Pollok's " Course of Time," book iv.

LECTURE III.
gl CBfreater tijaw Solomon.

" The Queen of the South .... came from the uttermost
parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon ; and,
behold, a greater than Solomon is here." — Matt. XII. 42.
It was autumn with the Hebrew commonwealth.
Like withered leaves from the sapless tree, the Jews
easily parted from the parent Palestine, and were
blown about, adventurers in every land ; and like that
fungous vegetation which rushes up when nobler
plants havj faded, formalism and infidelity were
rankly springing everywhere; and it was only a
berry on the topmost bough — some mellow Simeon
or Zacharias^that reminded you of the rich old
piety. The sceptre had not quite departed from
Judah, but he who held it was a puppet in the Gen
tiles' hand ; and with shipless harbours, and silent
oracles, with Roman sentinels on eveiy public build
ing, and Roman tax-gatherers in every town, pa
triotism felt too surely, that from the land of Joshua
and Samuel, of Elijah and Isaiah, of David and

A GREATER THAN SOLOMON. 31
Solomon, the glory was at last departing. The sky
was lead, the air a winding-sheet ; and every token
told that a long winter was setting in. It was even
then, amid the short days and sombre sunsets of the
waning dynasty, when music filled the firmament, and
in the city of David a mighty Prince was born. He
grew in stature, and in due time was manifested to
Israel. And what was the appearance of this greater
than Solomon ? What were his royal robes ? The
attire of a common Nazarene. What were his palaces ?
A carpenter's cottage, which He sometimes exchanged
for a fisherman's hut. Who were his Ministers and
his Court attendants ? Twelve peasants. And what
was his state chariot ? None could He afford ; but
in one special procession He rode on a borrowed ass.
Ah ! said we so ? His royal robe was heaven's splen
dour, whenever He chose to let it through; and
Solomon, in all his glory, was never arrayed like
Jesus on Tabor. His palace was the heaven of
heavens; and when a voluntary exile from it, little
did it matter whether his occasional lodging were a
rustic hovel, or Herod's halls. If fishermen were
his friends, angels were his servants ; and if the bor
rowed colt was his triumphal charger, the sea>was
proud when, . from crest to crest of its foaming
billows, it felt his majestic footsteps moving; and
when the time had arrived for returning to his Father
and his God, the clouds lent the chariot, and obse
quious airs upbore Him in their reverent hands.

32 LECTURE III.
Solomon's pulpit was a throne, and he had an audk
ence of kings and queens. The Saviour's synagogue
was a mountain-side — his pulpit was a grassy knoll
or a fishing-boat — his audience were the boors of
Galilee; and yet, in point of intrinsic greatness*
Solomon did not more excel the children playing in
the market-place, than He who preached the Sermon
on the Mount excelled King Solomon.
Looking at Solomon as a Teacher, the first thing
that strikes us is, that he was a great querist. Next
to the man who can answer a question thoroughly, is
the man who can ask it clearly. Our world is full of
obscure misery — -dark wants and dim desiderata : like
a man in a low fever, its whole head is sick, and its
whole heart faint ; but it can neither fix exactly on
the focus of disease, nor give an intelligent account
of its sensations. But in this respect Solomon was
the mouth-piece of humanity. Speaking for himself,
he has so described the symptoms, that a whole
ward — an entire world of fellow- sufferers — may take
him for their spokesman. "These are exactly my
feelings. I have experienced all that he describes.
I am just such another fitful anomaly — just such a
constant self-contradiction. One day I wish time to
fly faster; another I am appalled to find that so
little remains. One day I believe that I shall die
like the brutes ; and, frantic in thinking that a spirit
so capacious is to perish so soon, I chafe around
my cage, and beat those bars of flesh which inclose a

A GREATER THAN SOLOMON. 33
captive so god-like; I try to burst that cell which
is ere long to be a sepulchre : anon I am content,
and I say, ' Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow
you die:' and no sooner is the carnival over than I
start up, conscious of my crime — descrying the for
gotten judgment-seat, and aghast at my own impiety
in embruting an heir of immortality. One day I
deny myself, and save up a fortune for my son and
successor ; another, it strikes me he may prove a
prodigal, and I fling the hoard away. Now it seizes
me that I must needs be famous ; and then I grow
disgusted with the praise of fools. What will cure a
broken heart ? What will fill an abysmal gulf ? What
will make a crooked nature upright ? What will re
store his Creator unto man, and man unto himself?"
And Jesus answers : " Believe in God and believe
in me, and that faith will heal heart-trouble. Hunger
after righteousness, and your craving spirit will be
filled. The words that I speak unto you are spirit
and hfe : imbibe them, ponder them, delight in
them, and they will satisfy the vastest desires of
the most eager soul. What will make the crooked
upright ? Be born again. What will restore the
Creator to revolted man ? God so loved the world,
that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever
beheveth in him should have eternal life." And
thus, one. by one, the great Evangelist answers the
queries of the great Ecclesiastes. And if the sage
has done a service, who, in articulate words, de
scribes the symptoms of the great disease, how

34 LECTURE III.
incomparably greater is the service done by the
Saviour, who prescribes the remedy ! After all,
Solomon is only an eloquent patient; Jesus is the
Divine Physician.
Again: Solomon's teaching is mainly negative.
Five centuries later, it was the business of the wisest
Greek to teach his brethren knowledge of their
ignorance. And so dextrously did he manage his
oblique mirrors — so many of his countrymen did he
surprise with side-views and back-views of them
selves; so much fancied knowledge did he confute,
and so many Athenians did he put out of conceit
with themselves, that at last the Athenians lost
conceit of him, and killed the mortifying mis
sionary. And, like Socrates, Solomon is an apostle
of sincerity. His pen is the point of a diamond;
and as it touches many of this world's boasted
jewels, it shows that they are only coloured crystal.
His sceptre is a rod of iron, and as it enabled him
to command all pleasures, so it enables him to prove
their nullity; and before his indignant stroke they
crash like potsherds, and dissipate in dust. But
more sincere than Socrates. His tests, his probes,
his solar lamp, the Greek employed for his neigh
bors' benefit ; such an awful earnestness had God's
Spirit enkindled in the Hebrew sage, that his grand
struggle was against self-deception : and the illusions
on which he spends his hottest fury are the phantoms
which have befooled himself. Socrates gossips;
Solomon communes with his own heart. Socrates

A GREATER THAN SOLOMON. 35
gets his comrade to confess ; Solomon makes his
own confession. And so terrible is his intensity,
that if it be well for our modem idoloclasts and
showers-up of shams that there is no Socrates
now-a-days to show them to themselves, it will be
well for us all if we take a pattern from Solomon's
noble fidelity, and if we strive after his stern self-
knowledge. And yet the result was mainly negative.
He had dived deep enough into his nature to find
that there was no genuine goodness there ; and from
the heights of his stately intellect he swept a wide
horizon, and reported that within his field of view
there was perceptible no genuine happiness. If he
was taller than other men, he was sorry to announce
that, far as he could see, no fountain of joy now
sprang in this desert : no tree of life grew here-away.
If he was stronger than other men, he had bad news
for them : he had tried the gate of Eden, and shoved
it and shaken it : but he feared no mortal shoulders
could move it on its hinges, nor any human contri
vance force it from its fastenings.
But if Solomon in his teaching was mainly
negative, Jesus was as mainly positive. Solomon
shook his head, and told what happiness is not :
Jesus opened his lips, and enunciated what it is.
Solomon said, " Knowledge is vanity. Power is
vanity. Mirth is vanity. Man and all man's pur
suits are perfect vanity." Jesus said, " Humility is
blessedness. Meekness is blessedness. Purity of
heart is blessedness. God is blessed for evermore,
d 2

36 LECTURE III.
and most blessed is the creature that is likest God.
Holiness is happiness." " We labour and find no
rest," said Solomon. Jesus answered, " Come unto
me, all ye that labour, and I will give you rest."
" All is vanity," sighed the Preacher. " In the world
ye shall have tribulation, but in me ye shall have
peace," replied the Saviour. "What is truth?"
asks Ecclesiastes. " I am the truth," returns the
Divine Evangelist. Solomon was tall enough to scan
the most of earth and see an expanse of sorrow;
the Son of Man knew all that is in heaven, and
could tell of a Comforter who fills with peace
unspeakable the soul immersed in outward misery.
Solomon could tell that the gate of bliss is closed
against human effort. Jesus has the key of David,
and opens what Adam shut ; and into the Father's pro
pitious presence He undertakes to usher all who come
through Him. Solomon composed Earth's epitaph,
and on the tomb of the species wrote, All is Vanity.
Accustomed to date men's history from their death,
Jesus substituted, All is Heaven or Hell.*
Nay, so positive was the Saviour's teaching, that,
in order to understand him rightly, we must remem
ber that he was not only the Prophet, but the doc
trine ; not only the Oracle uttering God's truth, but
his very self that Truth. Other prophets could
tell what God's mind is: Jesus was that mind.
" The law " — a portion of God's will — " was given
* Matt. v. 3—12 ; xi. 28—30. John xvi. 33 ; xiv. 6, 16,
17. Rev. iii. 7. John x. 9; vi. 37. Luke xvi. 19—31.

A GREATER THAN SOLOMON. 37
by Moses; but grace and truth" — the gracious
reality, the truthful plenitude of the Divine perfec
tions, " came by Jesus Christ." He was the express
image of the Father. He was the Word Incarnate.
And to many a query of man's wistful spirit, He was
the embodied answer. Is there any immortality to
this soul ? Is there any second life to this body ?
"In my Father's house are many mansions. I go
to prepare a place for you, and I will come again and
receive you to myself." " I am the Resurrection
and the Life : he that believeth in me shall never
die : I will raise him up at the last day." Is there
any mediation betwixt man and his Maker ? — is there
any forgiveness of sin ? " I am the way. Whatsoever
ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it
you. Go in peace : thy sins are forgiven thee." Is
there any model of excellence exempt from all in
firmity ? — any pattern in which the Most High has
perfect complacency ? " He was holy and harmless,
separate from sinners." " This is my beloved Son, in
whom I am well pleased : hear ye Him." Solomon
was wise; but Jesus was Wisdom. Solomon had
more understanding than all the ancients ; but Jesus
was that eternal Wisdom of which Solomon's genius
was a borrowed spark — of which the deep flood of
Solomon's information was only an emitted rill.
To which we only add the contrast in their tone.
Each had a certain grandeur. Solomon's speech was
regal. It had both the imperial amplitude and the
autocratic emphasis, — stately, decisive, peremptory.

38 LECTURE III.
But the Saviour's was Divine. There was no pomp
of diction, but there was a God-like depth of mean
ing ; and such was its spontaneous majesty, that the
hearer felt, How easily He could speak a miracle !
And miracles He often spake ; but so naturally did
they emerge from his discourse, and so noiselessly
did they again subside into its current, that we as
frequently read of men astonished at his doctrine, as
of men amazed at his doings. But though both
spake with authority — the one with authority as a
king of men, the other with authority as the Son of
God — there is a wonderful difference in point of the
pervasive feeling. Like a Prometheus chained to the
rock of his own remorse, the Preacher pours forth his
mighty woes in solitude, and, truly human, is mainly
piteous of himself. Consequently, his enthroned
misery — his self-absorbed and stately sorrow, moves
you to wonder, rather than to weep ; and, as when
you look at a gladiator dying in marble, in your com
passion there is not much of tenderness. But though
greater in his sorrows, the Saviour was also greater in
his sympathies ; and though silent about his personal
anguish, there is that in his mild aspect which tells
each who meets it, If his grief be great, his love is
greater. And whilst Solomon is so king-like that he
does not ask you to be his friend, the Saviour is so
God-like that he sohcits your affection, and so
brotherly that he wins it. Indeed, here is the
mysteiy of godliness — God manifest in flesh, that
flesh may see how God is love ; and that through

A GREATER THAN SOLOMON. 39
the loveliness of Jesus we may be attracted and
entranced into the love of God. 0 melancholy
monarch ! how funereal is thy tread, as thou pacest
up and down thy echoing galleries, and disappearest
in the valley of Death-shadow, ever sounding — Vanity
of vanities ! 0 Teacher blessed ! how beautiful
are thy feet on the mountains, publishing peace !
How benign thy outstretched hand, which, to the
sinner weeping over it, proves God's golden sceptre
of forgiveness, and which then clasps that sinner's
hand and guides him to glory ! 0 Thou greater
than Solomon ! " let me see thy countenance, let me
hear thy voice ; for sweet is thy voice, and thy coun
tenance is comely."
A greater than Solomon. The cedar palace has
long since yielded to the torch of the spoiler ; but
the home which Jesus has prepared for his disciples
is a house not made with hands, eternal in the
heavens. Thorns and thistles choke the garden of
Engedi, and the moon is no longer mirrored in
the fish-ponds of Heshbon ; but no briar grows in
the paradise above, and nothing will ever choke or
narrow that fountain whence life leaps in fulness, or
stagnate that still expanse where the Good Shepherd
leads his flock at glory's noon. And Solomon — the
wonder of the world — his grave is with us at this
day ; his flesh has seen corruption ; and he, too, must
hear the voice of the Son of Man, and come forth to
the great account : but Jesus saw no corruption.
Him hath God raised up, and made a Prince and a

40 LECTURE III.
Saviour ; and hath given him authority to execute
judgment, because He is the Son of man. And,
reverting to the allusion of our outset: Solomon
effloresced from his country's golden age; a greater
than Solomon appeared when miry clay was mixing
with its age of iron. Solomon was, so to speak, an
effusion of his age, as well as its brightest ornament:
the Son of Mary was an advent and an alien — a
star come down to sojourn- in a cavern — a root of
Deity from our earth's dry ground. But though it
was the Hebrew winter when he came, he did not
fail nor wax discouraged. He taught, he hved, he
fulfilled all righteousness — he loved, he died. It
was winter wheat ; but the corn fell into the ground
ungrudgingly ; for as he sowed his seeds of truth,
the Saviour knew that he was sowing the summer
of our world. And as, one by one, these seeds spring
up, they fetch with them a glow more genial; for
every saved soul is not only something for God's
garner ; but an influence for mankind. Already of
that handful of corn which this greater Solomon
scattered on the mountain-tops of Galilee, the first-
fruits are springing ; and by and by the fruit shall
shake like Lebanon, and the Church's citizens shall
be abundant as grass of the earth. On the wings of
prophecy it is hastening towards us; and every
prayer and every mission speeds it on — our world's
latter summer-burst, our earth's perennial June —
when the name of Jesus shall endure for ever, and
be continued as long as the sun : when men shall be

A GREATER THAN SOLOMON. 41
blessed in Him, and all nations shall call Him
blessed. So great is this Prince of prophets, that the least
in his kingdom is greater than Solomon. The
saint is greater than the sage, and discipleship to
Jesus is the pinnacle of human dignity. In Him are
hid all the treasures of wisdom, and all the germs
of undeveloped goodness. He is the true theology,
the perfect ethics, the supreme philosophy ; and no
words can limit the mental ascendancy and moral
beauty to which that young man may aspire, who,
in all the susceptibility of an adoring affection, con
secrates himself to the service and society of the
Son of God. My brothers ! is it a presumptuous
hope that, even whilst I speak, some of you feel
stirring within you the desire to join yourselves to
blessedness by joining yourselves to Jesus ? Is it
too much to hope that some of you, who are Christian
young men already, are wishing and praying that
God would make you characters less commonplace,
and render you 2 influences in your day more
abundant and benign ? Is it too much to hope that,
even from this rapid survey, some shall retire with a
happy consciousness, — Blessed be God ! I belong to
a kingdom which cannot be moved, and am em
barked in a cause which cannot be defeated ? Is it
too much to hope that some one who has found, in
regard to godless enjoyment, "All is vanity," may
now be led to exclaim, with the gifted youth to whom
our poet-laureate has inscribed "In Memoriam,"

42 LECTURE III.
"Lord, I have viewed this world over, in which
thou hast set me ; I have tried how this and that
thing wdl fit my spirit, and the design of my creation,
and can find nothing on which to rest, for nothing
here doth itself rest ; but such things as please me
for a while in some degree, vanish and flee as shadows
from before me. Lo ! I come to thee — the Eternal
Being — the Spring of Life — the Centre of Rest —
the Stay of the Creation — the Fulness of all things.
I join myself to Thee; with Thee I will lead my
life and spend my days, with whom I am to dwell
for ever, expecting, when my little time is over, to be
taken up into thine own eternity."*
* From a deeply interesting account of Arthur H.
Hallam, in the " North British Review," for February, 1851.

LECTURE IV.
®5e Fcsttbule of Fantrg.
Read Eccles. i. 2 — 11.
"Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities;
all is vanity."
Ecclesiastes is Solomon the Prodigal, re-exhibited
by Solomon the Preacher. The wisest of worldlings
here opens a window in his bosom and shows us all
those fluctuating emotions and conflicting passions
which whirl and eddy in every heart whose currents
run opposite ways.
In this separate enclosure, so unlike the surround
ing Scripture ; such a contrast to the joyous parterre
which blossoms beside it,* the traveller has planted
the wormwood and the rue, all the bitter herbs and
the lurid which he gathered in his grand tour of
vanity; and he has left them, at once, a memorial
and a medicine — a record of his own painful experi
ences, and a corrective to curious speculation and
sensual indulgence.
The right way to understand Ecclesiastes is to
read it alongside of the other Scriptures. Obscure
* The Song of Solomon.

44 lecture iv.
in itself we must take the day-light at the end as a
lamp, to guide us as we go ; and, for its duskier
recesses, we may borrow the bright lantern of prophets
and evangehsts. We shall thus not only find its
perusal safe and profitable, but, as its dark sayings
flash into significance, and its negations are filled up
by counterpart verities, in its very sternness we shall
recognise another feature of Revelation's symmetry.
Solomon will tell us the vanity of doubt ; the rest of
the Bible will tell us the blessedness of a firm behef.
Solomon will tell us the misery of the selfist, who
seeks to be his own all in all; the evangelists
will tell us the blessedness of a true benevolence.
Solomon will tell us the vanity of the creature ; the
rest of the Bible reveals the sufficiency of the great
Creator. Solomon will tell us how he amassed
unprecedented riches, but found no comfort in them :
his shepherd sire will answer by anticipation, " My
cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life ; and I shall dwell in
the house of the Lord for ever." Solomon will tell
us how, in a palace and a crown, and in imperial
fame, he found nothing but chagrin : Jesus will
answer, " In the world ye shall have tribulation ; but
in me ye shall have peace." Solomon the sage will
tell us, " Vanity of vanities ; all is vanity." Solomon
the saint will answer, " 0 Saviour, thy love is better
than wine. Draw me, and I will run after thee.
Tarry with me until the day break and the shadows
flee away."

THE VESTIBULE OF VANITY. 45
This passage is the preamble to the book. And
it is an appropriate preface. Like sentinels of
cypress, cold and glaucous, at a winter-garden's gate,
like sphinxes of solemn stone flankmg the entrance
of the Silent Land, this prologue is a fit introduc
tion to the mournful story we are about to read, and
ushers us at once into its realms of dreariness.
As much as if he said, " It is all a weary go-
round. This system of things is a perpetual self-
repetition, — quite sickening. One generation goes,
another comes. The sun rises, and the sun goes
down. That was what the sun did yesterday, and what
I expect it will do to-morrow. The wind blows north,
and the wind blows south ; and this is all it has been
doing for these thousand years. The rivers run into
the sea, and it would be some relief to find that sea
up-filling ; to perceive the clear waters wetting the
dry shingle, and brimming up to the green fields, and
floating the boats and fishes up into the forest : but
even that inconvenient novelty is denied us ; for
though the Nile and many a river have been tumb
ling a world of water into it, this tide will not
overstep its margin ; the flood still bulges, but stfll
refuses to cross its bounds. Words* themselves are
weariness, and it would tire you to enumerate those
everlasting mutations and busy uniformities which
make up this endless screw of existence. There are
no novelties, no wonders, no discoveries. This
universe does not yield an eye-full, an ear-full, to its
* ami, so rendered by Knobel and others.

46 LECTURE IV.
occupant. The present only repeats the past, the
future will repeat them both. The inventions of
to-day are the forgotten arts of yesterday, and our
children will forget our wisdom, only to have the
pleasure of fishing up, as new prodigies, our obsolete
truisms. There is no new thing under the sun, yet no
repose. Perpetual functions and transient objects;
— permanent combinations, yet shifting atoms,
sameness, yet incessant change, make up the mono
tonous medley. Woe's me for this weary world !'
In such feelings I think it possible that a few of
my hearers may sympathize. To you it is very pain
ful — this fugacity of time — this flight of years and
ages — this coming and going of the generations.
And to you it is very oppressive — this monotony of
life — this constant recurrence of the same small
pleasures — and this total absence of any magnificent
enjoyment. You both want something of which you
may say, " See, this is new," and something of
which you may feel, "Now this is good — this is
noble : here is something which will never pass
away : a joy that will be my comrade through eternity
— for neither it nor I/shall ever die." From such
vexing thoughts might you not escape by taking
refuge in one permanence and one variety to which
the royal Preacher does not here advert ? I mean
the soul's immortality, and the renewed soul's per
petual juvenescence ; that attribute of mind which
makes it the survivor of all changes, and that faculty
of regenerate humanity which renders old things

THE VESTIBULE OF VANITY. 47
new, and suffuses with perpetual freshness things the
most familiar.
It is true that, compared with many visible
objects, man is ephemeral. Compared with the sun
that shines over him — the air which fans him — the
ocean on which he floats, his "duration is a swift
decay." And there is much pensiveness in the
thought of his own frailty. To look out, as we were
last week looking, on the plenitude of summer, — to
view the exuberance of verdure in the woods, and the
soft warmth upon the waters — to inhale the fragrance
of roses, mingling with earth's ripeness, and think
how soon our eyes must shut for ever on that land
scape — how soon aromatic breezes and blushing
flowers shall stir no animation in our tombs, — to
think that there will be as much of ecstasy in the
season, but in that ecstasy we shall be no sharers ;
or, as the poet has expressed it in his " Farewell to
the Brook,"— Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver ;
No more by thee, my steps shall be,
For ever, and for ever.
But here will sigh thine alder tree,
And here thine aspen shiver ;
And here by thee, will hum the bee,
For ever, and for ever.
A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver ;
But not by thee, my steps shall be,
For ever, and for ever.*
* Tennyson.

48 LECTURE IV.
In such contemplations'there is a deep pathos, and to
surrender the spirit to then habitual mastery would
be to live a life of constant melancholy.
But, whatever may be the sensations of worldlings,
these ought not to be the feelings of Christians.
Jesus Christ hath brought immortality to hght
through the Gospel. He has taught us that amidst
all sublunary perpetuities, the most perpetual is the
soul of man. He has assured us that the man who
believes in Himself shall never die, and that of all
things which ever tenanted this planet, the most*
enduring are Himself and those whom faith and
affection make one with Himself; the great Alpha
and Omega, and all the redeemed existence included
in his own.
But more than that, have you thought, my
friends, on the immortalizing faculty of your own
immortal minds ? The soul of man is not only
earth's true amaranth, but earth's only antiseptic.
It is only in that soul that this visible creation
will by and by exist at all. It is only in your
deathless memoiy that its fair scenes and curious
objects will, ere long, survive ; but there they can
never die. Already the face of things has entirely
changed since the days of Solomon. No limner has
preserved the aspect of Palestine as his poetic father
viewed it. But there are memories in which it lives.
The well of Bethlehem — its streets, its houses, and
its stables, as they stood a thousand years before
the Saviour of the world was born in one of
them; the copse where the young shepherd cut

THE VESTIBULE OF VANITY. 49
his crook, and the bazaar ,where he bought his
harp ; the slopes tufted with hyssop and elastic with
thyme, where his broad-tailed flocks cropped the
herbage, and the trees where they rested at noon ;
the muster of the Philistines on one side of the
torrent, and Israel's tents on the other — all these have
vanished from under the sun, but all these are still
vivid in the spectator's strengthened memory. And
there, too, are still depicted portraits which the
artists of earth can only imagine; — Jesse's manly
port as, with yeoman pride, he stalked out and in
among his thriving herds and soldier sons, —
Samuel's reverend visage as he poured the anointing
oil, — Goliath's mighty bulk as he fell over on
the quaking turf, — Jonathan's tearful smile as he
bade farewell for that fatal Gilboa. And even
so, if you be the chfldren of God, this earth is
your unfading heritage. Its best things will subsist
as long as you care to preserve them. And, even
after that earth and all its works, all its present
features and all its present productions have disap
peared, there will be as many records of creation as
there are holy recollections in heaven. When the
aspen and the alder, when the bee in the fox-glove,
and the roses round the bower, are extinct species,
or are only enshrined in the amber of celestial
reminiscence; you will still remember, what like
earth's sanctuaries looked, and how its summers
shone. Or should even sun and moon grow pale,
their image will endure so long as you remember
E

50 LECTURE IV.
the happy hour when you gave yourself to God : so
long as you remember the mossy bank where first,
in the Saviour's invitations, you read your title to a
mansion in the skies : so long as you remember the
bright winter-night returning from the country com
munion, when the peace of God was a full tide in
your bosom, and in the melting admiration of
redeeming love, you looked up into the heavens and
said, " What is man, that thou art mindful of him ?"
Ah ! yes ; the immortality of material forms is the
immortality of the soul of man.
And of these material forms it is the highest func •
tion,- — so to speak, it is their greatest privilege, to
tell on man's immortality ; — to get so blended with
man's being as to survive the wreck of matter, and
share that existence which alone is undissolving.
And though this suggests some painful thoughts,
though it is sad to think how objects of cupidity
and avarice, and how the incentives to unholy passion
may survive only in that self-accusing conscience
which they helped to make a child of hell, boasting
no monument beyond such miscreant memory : still
there is a fitness, and one feels happy in the thought
that God's good works shall be eternally embalmed
in those immortal natures which they have helped
to make good and beautiful, and shall never die so
long as those spirits live to whose growth in grace
they once gave aliment. Generations will cease to
come and go. The earth in its present arrange
ments, will not " abide for ever." It will soon be

THE • VESTIBULE OF VANITY. 51
burned up, along with all its works. Its present
races will be annihilated, or only recognised as dim
fossils in the calcined strata ; and the very books
which have been engraven and painted to represent
their forms, shall perish in the mighty conflagration.
But even then there will be tablets of Nature nume
rous as the spirits of the just made perfect; and
what museums have failed to keep will be still secure
in the fire-proof cabinets of saintly recollection. No
eagle will then poise in the vacant firmament, but
its restful gyrations, its sunward aspiring, will still
be present to that mind which used to associate with
it the self-renovating efforts of prayer : " They
that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength :
they shall mount up on wings as eagles." And
from another planet the pilgrim coming would vainly
search for Syria's far-famed lily : but its image still
will linger both in the memory and the character oi
that modest disciple to whom Jesus said not in
vain, " Consider the lilies, and be clothed like them."
There will then be no Jacob's well ; but its deep
shaft and shady canopy will still be pictured in her
memory, who, one summer afternoon, found resting
there a stranger, and obtained from him water of
everlasting life. And there will be no Patmos then,
but its creeks and caverns will all be mapped in his
affectionate fancy, who found it the open gate of the
New Jerusalem ; and who will recall the lizards on
its cliffs and the little fishes in its pools, with Apoca
lyptic light and Sabbath joy around them.
e 2

52 LECTURE IV.
There is another sense in which these material
agencies are working a moral progress, and so pro
moting the scheme of God. Looking up at the
weather-cock, says the sage of vanity, " Woe's me
for this weary wind! There, it was south this
morning, and now it is north ! How many ways it
blows, and never long the same ! What's the use of
all this whirling?" And if it were only to make
the vane spin round, the air as well might stagnate :
there were no need of such wasted power. But
whilst the valetudinarian is looking at the vane, the
wind is careering over a continent, and doing the
Creator's work in a hundred lands. It has called at
yon city, fetid with miasma and groaning with
pestilence ; and, with its besom of brisk pinions, it
has swept the plague away. It has looked into yon
haven, and found a forest of laden ships sleeping-
over their freights, and it has chased them all to sea.
And finding the harvest arrested in a broad and
fertile realm — the earth chapped, and the crops
withering, — it is now hurrying with that black arma
ment of clouds to drench it in lifesome irrigation.
To narrow observation or to selfishness that wind is
an annoyance : to faith it is God's angel,* forwarding
the mighty plan. 'Tis a boisterous night, and
Pictish savages curse the noisy blast which shakes
their peat-hovels round their ears ; but that noisy
blast has landed the Gospel on St. Andrew's shore.
It blows a fearful tempest, and it sets some rheu-
Ps. civ. 3, 4.

THE VESTIBULE OF VANITY. 53
matic joints on aching; but the morrow shows
dashed in pieces the awful Armada which was fetch
ing the Spanish Inquisition to our British Isle. The
wind blows east, and detains James's ships at
Harwich : but it guides King William to Torbay.
Yes, "the wind blows south and the wind blows
north ; it whirleth about continually, and returneth
again according to its circuits." But in the course
of these circuits the wind has blown to our little
speck of sea-girt Happiness, the Gospel, and Protest
antism, and civil and religious liberty. And so, not
of our islet only, but of our globe entire, and its
continuous population. So far as the individual is
concerned, so far as it affects the weather-index in
the wind, there may be httle seeming progress ; nay,
so far as concerns any plan which society proposes
to itself, the favouring gale may shift and shift again,
and the story of a nation be little better than the
register of a stationary vane pirouetting on its windy
pivot; but so far as affects the scheme of God,
there is an aura in the universe which always drives
one way. Predestination is a vane which never
vibrates, and Providence a wind which never whirls
about. The breath of God's Spirit and the strength
of God's purpose are steadily wafting our world and
all the worlds in one mighty convoy towards God's
appointed haven in the distant future. So cheer
up, Solomon, and all ye sighing sages ; cheer up, you
that complain of the sameness and insipidity of
mundane affairs. Cheer up, you that pine for some

54 LECTURE IV.
grand disclosure, and long for something that will
fill your eye and satisfy your ear. When in the
harbour of God's finished mystery, the sails of
history are furled, and the eternal anchor is dropped
— when the last generation falls in and the last holy
intelligence comes home, you who have so often
asked, Is there anything whereof it may be said,
See, this is new ? you will see " all things made
new;" you, whose eye has never been satisfied with
seeing, will be satisfied when you see Him as He is ;
and you, whose ear was never satisfied with hearing,
will long for nothing fuller when responsive to the
overture which morning-stars sang so long ago, the
grand finale shall burst from Infinitude exclaiming,
"Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be
unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the
Lamb, for ever and ever."
If, as we have said, the immortality of material
forms is only that which they achieve through the
immortality of the human soul; and if the true
glorification of matter is its sanctifying influence on
regenerate mind, we may learn two lessons from om1
argument :
First, that there is no harm in a vivid suscep
tibility of those material appearances and influences
with which God has replenished the universe. Some
religionists would make contempt of the creation a
test of piety ; but they greatly err. It was of the
material universe that six times over God said that

THE VESTIBULE OF VANITY. 55
it was " good." And it was in that material
universe that the Son of God Incarnate evidently
sought refreshment for his eyes when weary with
viewing vanity. Yes, Jesus himself has taken to
heaven some of its relics of Eden :
" Oh, Saviour, gone to God's right hand,
Yet the same Saviour still ;
Graved on Thy heart is this lovely strand
And every fragrant hill." *
Secondly. But that susceptibility is good for
nothing if it be not sanctifying. There is an idola
try of nature. There are some whose God is the
visible creation, and not the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ. And there is a voluptuousness
in the enjoyment of nature. There are some to
whom the landscape and its ingredients are neither
the recreation fitting them for more active duties,
nor the ladder of easy steps leading them up to
adoring and loving thoughts of God ; but, like the
epicure over his viands, they sit down to the banquet
as if they cared for no higher paradise. At this
moment, when so many are panting for a purer air,
and preparing to migrate to other scenes in search
of it, it may be a word in season. Go, you that
have worked hard for it — go and enjoy your holiday.
But whithersoever you go, let all your religion go
with you. If you go among foreigners, instead of
gruffness and hauteur, take with you Christian
complaisance, and do justice at once to the good
* M'Cheyne's " Sea of Galilee."

56 LECTURE IV.
feeling of England and the courtesy of real
religion. And whether among compatriots or
foreigners, take with you the Sabbath-day. Keep its
hours as sacred in the hired lodging or the inn, as
you keep them in your own well-ordered home.
Pray for the places where you sojourn, and as seeds
for the eternal harvest, it were well if you could
drop some good words or arresting tracts as you
pass along. And then, when bursts of beauty or
surprises of grandeur come in upon your soul, let
the thought also come in of your " Father," who
"made them all." And thus associated with the
profitable books you read, or the Christian inter
course you enjoyed, or the efforts at usefulness you
there put forth, — places which to the vacant mind
recall no memories, and to the profligate are only
identified with dissipation and riot, — will, to you be
fraught with pleasant recollections ; and, thus bea
tified and sanctified, the resorts and recreations of
earth will be worthy of a mental pilgrimage even
from the bowers of Paradise Restored.
July 19, 1850.

LECTURE V.
©fie Jfflusetmt.
Read Eccles. i. 12 — 18.
" In much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth
knowledge increaseth sorrow."
Solomon's first recourse was philosophy. He was a
king, and he could pursue his researches on a
splendid scale. We know that he collected natural
curiosities from distant countries, and it is likely that
he attracted to his court the learned of many lands.
Nor is it improbable that he attained an insight to
natural phenomena, possessed by none of his cotem-
poraries. To the present day Eastern magicians
invoke his name as if he were a controller of the
elements; a circumstance from which some have
very gratuitously inferred that he must have been a
magician himself. But the fact is interesting. It
looks as if tradition still preserved a recollection of
certain prodigies which science enabled him to per
form, and it would suggest that he was an ex
perimenter as well as an observer.
But it was not only apes and peacocks, cedars and

58 LECTURE V.
hyssop, which he studied, and the elements on which
he experimented; he studied man. He looked at
man's position in this world. He examined his story
in time past. "He sought and searched out by
wisdom concerning all things that are done under
heaven;" "he saw all the works that are done
under the sun." And he did not confine himself to
grave generalities ; he did not read solely the stately
history of kings. " He gave his heart to know
madness and folly," as well as " wisdom ; " nor was
he so pedantic as not to gather instruction from the
frivolous and fantastic as well as from the august in
human nature. His appetite for knowledge was
omnivorous, and whilst hungering for the harvest he
was thankful for crumbs.
The result was, satiety without satisfaction; or
rather, it was the sober certainty of " sorrow." " All
the works done under the sun are vanity and
vexation of spirit." Look at this Mesech of mor
tality ! What a hot and noisy hive it is, and how
each insect hums out and in on his consequential
errands, till some night Death, the grim owner, comes
and stifles all, and takes the honey. " I have seen
all the works done under the sun ; " I know their
object, I know their result. It is comfort, soul-con
tent for which the millions moil and bustle. For
this the clodpole delves in the stiff clay, and the
pearl-fisher dives in the deep lagoon. From his
fragrant woods the herbalist of Gilead would fain
distil it, and from his royal dainties the Asherite

THE MUSEUM. 59
strives to confect it. With its rich cargoes the ships
of Tarshish and the dromedaries of Midian have
many a time been laden ; but when the time came to
open the bales, nothing was found save ocean-brine
or desert sand. All was transmuted into vanity
and vexation of spirit. " This sore travail hath God
given to the sons of men." The very pursuit of
knowledge is penal. The search after happiness is
itself a sore punishment. Here, like a gin-horse, has
the world been for ages tramping round and round,
hoping to fetch up the golden bucket' from the deep
shaft of thought and effort ; but alas ! sin has cut the
rope, and there is now no golden bucket at the end.
StiU, however, the blind gin-horse limps and wheezes
on, and jades himself to death with this sore travail.
I see the misery ; I see not how to mend it. "That
which is crooked cannot be made straight." There
is a twist in man's destiny, a bias in man's will, a
crook in man's constitution which science cannot
rectify. "And that which is wanting cannot be
numbered." I have a list of those ingredients which
constitute well-being, and which I am told that man
once possessed, e.g., peace of conscience, elasticity of
temper, health, contentment, exemption from death,
faith in the future ; and I have made a survey of hu
manity and come back with an inventory of mere
desiderata. These joys have vanished. The spoiler has
been here. The regalia are rifled, and the onyx of
Havilah has been torn from the crown which
Adam wore in Paradise. And as the upshot of all I say,

60 LECTURE V.
" Much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth
knowledge increaseth sorrow." Happier that beggar
child who can fancy his reed a sceptre, than that
grey-haired monarch who knows that a sceptre is
only gilded copper. Happier the fisher boy who,
with his kettle, hopes to bail the sinking boat, than
his wiser father who, through the widening leak
already sees their watery grave. Happier the peasant
who fancies the magazine inexhaustible, than the
governor who knows that it will be all consumed
months before the harvest. In a world hke this
much science is much sorrow; for it is the know
ledge of our penury, — the statistics of starvation, —
the assurance that our case is desperate. Therefore,
I break up my encyclopaedic elysium, and on my
temple of art inscribe, " Vanity and vexation of
spirit : " — " Where ignorance is bliss ;
'Tis folly to be wise." *
Unless it include the knowledge of the Living God,
there is sorrow in much science ; that is, the more a
man knows, unless he also knows the Saviour, the
* As Lord Byron has expressed it, with his usual mixture
of force and flippancy : " The lapse of ages changes all things:
time, language, the earth, the bounds of the sea, the stars of
the sky, and everything 'about, around, and underneath'
man, except man himself, who has always been, and will
always be an unlucky rascal. The infinite variety of lives
conduct but to death, and the infinity of wishes lead but to
disappointment. All the discoveries which have yet been
made have multiplied little but existence."

THE MUSEUM. 61
sadder may we expect him to become. Of this we
have an instance in a late philosopher, who, hke
Solomon, united to ardour of physical research a
thoughtful and musing spirit, and who in his "Last
Days of a Philosopher," has bequeathed to the world
a manual of mournful " Consolations." It was not
from any drawback in his outward lot, nor from any
disappointment of his hopes, that Sir Humphrey
Davy took leave of hfe so gloomily. Of the sons of
science few have been so favoured. In his grand
discovery of the metallic bases, and in his more
popular invention of the safety-lamp ; in the com
mand of a laboratory which opened a royal road to
chemistry, and in the splendid crowds who thronged
to his lectures; from the moment that he found a
generous patron till he became a Baronet of the
United Kingdom, and President of the Royal Society,
his whole career was a series of rare felicities. Nor
was he the anchoret of science, a lonely and smoke-
dried alchemist. He was a man of fashion, and, like
Solomon, mingled " madness and folly" with graver
pursuits. Yet with all his versatile powers, — orator,
philosopher, poet; and with all his distinctions
glittering around him, his heart still felt hollow,
and in his later journals the expressive entry was,
"Very miserable." What was it that he wanted?
He himself has told us : "I envy no quality of mind
or intellect in others, — not genius, power, wit, or
fancy; but if I could choose what would be most
dehghtful, and I believe most useful to me, I

62 LECTURE V.
should prefer a firm religious belief to every other
blessing ; for it makes life a discipline of goodness,
creates new hopes when all earthly hopes vanish, and
throws over the decay, the destruction of existence,
the most gorgeous of all lights, calling up the most
delightful visions, where the sensualist and sceptic
view only gloom, decay, and annihilation."
Whilst the philosopher has here truly said that
nothing can fill the central gulf in man's spirit,
except a sound religious behef, he speaks of its
attainment despondingly ; and probably he felt, what
many have expressed, that it is not easy for a man of
science to " receive the kingdom of God as a httle
child." It is possible that some one now present
may be in the same predicament. You wish to be
lieve, and are sorry to doubt ; but you find that it is
not easy to be at once the votary of science and the
hearty disciple of Jesus Christ. When examining
the evidence, or when reading the Bible itself, you
are convinced that it is the Book of God. You
recognise on its pages the same autograph with which
you have long been familiar, in the volume of creation,
the same inimitable style of majesty, wisdom, good
ness, and power; and you own that to refuse its
authenticating credentials would be to set at defiance
all the laws of evidence. You believe the Bible as
long as you are in its own society ; you love it as
long as you commune with it. Looking into its face
you perceive the halo, and tarrying in its precinctl-
you are conscious of the Divinity indwelling. But

THE MUSEUM. 63
passing away from it, and no longer warmed by its
immediate inspiration ; mingling with the cold mate
rialisms which it is your province to explore ; handling
the dry preparations, or the gritty fossils, or the
fuming retort, — the joy and the fragrance and the
vital influence of that Bible fade, and your devotion
expires. Or, when you bore into the strata, and find
yourself drilling down through cycles of unhnagined
time; or, when you look up into the starry vault,
and find yourself transported into a measureless
abyss, and its unnumbered worlds, — then all sorts of
doubts and queries seem to rise like dragons from the
deep, or they come trooping home like spectres from
the dark immensity. You begin to feel yourself an
atom in creation, and this world a mere mote in the
universe, and you cannot help thinking revelation too
great a boon for such an atom, and the Advent too
great a wonder for such a world. You catch
yourself saying, not in adoration, but in doubt,
" What is man, that Thou art mindful of him ?
Or, what the son of man, that Thou shouldest visit
him?" Now I will not stop to suggest the cure for all
these cavils. I might say that the best cure for
nervous spectres or nightmare horrors, is to get a
light or look at something familiar and real; and
the best cure for sceptic doubts is to look at the
Bible itself. And I might farther say, that the mind
is soundest and best constructed which receives all
truth on its own evidence, and which does not suffer

64 LECTURE V.
every wandering chimera to disturb a truth thus
ascertained. But as it is a difficulty embarrassing
to some thoughtful minds, we may just glance a
little at the religious doubts occasioned by the extent
of the universe.
Twenty years ago some Enghsh voyagers were
standing on a flat beach within the Arctic Seas.
From the excitement of their looks, the avidity with
which they gazed into the ground, and the enthusiasm
with which they looked around them, it was evident
that they deemed it a spot of signal interest. But
anything outwardly less interesting you could hardly
imagine. On the one side, the coast retreated in low
and wintry ridges, and on the other a pale ocean
bore its icy freight beneath a watery sky, whilst under
the travellers' feet lay neither bars of gold nor a
gravel of gems, but blocks of unsightly limestone.
Yet it was the centre of one of nature's greatest
mysteries. It was the reward of years of adventure
and hardship ; it was the answer to the long aspira
tions and efforts of science ; it was the Magnetic
Pole. The travellers grudged that a place so im
portant should appear so tame. They would have
liked that it had been marked by some natural
monument, a lofty peak or a singular rock. They
were almost disappointed at not finding an iron
needle as high as Cleopatra's own, or a loadstone as
big as Mont Blanc*
* " We could have wished that a place so important had
possessed more of mark or note. I could even have par-

THE MUSEUM. 65
One day, a few summers since, sailing up the
Rhine on a dull and windy afternoon, with little to
look at but the sedgy banks and the storks exploring
for reptiles among them — the vessel halted over
against an old German town. We were looking
languidly at its distant spires, and carelessly asked
some one what town it was ? " Worms." Worms !
The battle-field of the Reformation; the little Ar
mageddon where light and darkness, truth and error,
liberty and despotism, the Son of God and the
Prince of Darkness fought together not so long ago !
Suddenly it seemed to swarm with Imperial troops
and bluff old burghers; and had we been near
enough we should have glanced up to the tiles on the
house-tops, and in the streets looked out for Luther ;
but though it was the very spot where Protestantism
gained its decisive victory, the spot where modern
Europe threw off the cerements of the middle age
and emerged to life, to enterprise, and freedom, there
was no outward sign to tell it, a dreary German town
on a swampy plain — that was all.
Thus is it usually with memorable places. There
is nothing external to arrest the eye; no gigantic
landmark nor natural sign to serve for a Siste, viator :
and the more refined and reflective do not grudge
this. They feel that morally there is nothing so
doned any one among us who had been so romantic or
absurd as to expect that the magnetic pole was an object as
conspicuous and mysterious as the fabled mountain of Sind-
bad," &c — Moss's " Second Voyage.'' F

66 LECTURE V.
sublime as simplicity, and that it is God's way to
work great wonders, not only by means of the things
which are despised, but in despicable localities. Man
is a materialist, and he tries to give a material mag
nitude to memorable places; but God chooses any
common spot for the cradle of a mighty incident, or
the home of a mighty spirit. Elbowing through
Bread-street, amid trucks and drays and Cheapside
tumult, who would fancy that here was the bower
where the bard of Paradise was born ; or looking up
to that small window in the Canongate, who would
guess that from these narrow precincts the spirit
which new-created Scotland passed away? Or,
sailing along the deep, what is there to tell you that
this rock was the cage of the captured eagle, the
basaltic prison where he chafed and pined and died ;
and yon, the willow-tree, under which he quietly
slept, the Magor-Missabib of modern history ? Or,
floating on the soft iEgean, and looking up to the
marble cliffs, where the aconite grows and the halcyon
slumbers in the sun, what trace is there to tell that
heaven's windows once opened here; that here the
last thrill of inspiration was felt, and here the last
glimpse of a glorified Redeemer vouchsafed? To
the passing glance or the uninstructed eye, they are
mean and inconspicuous places — so mean, that ascer
taining the wonders connected with them, the vulgar
world declares them unworthy of such distinction till
otherwise distinguished, and exclaims, " Let us build
a monument, a mausoleum, or a church." But to

THE MUSEUM. 67
spirits truly great every place is great which mind or
moral glory has aggrandized. Patmos could not be
improved though it were expanded into a continent ;
nor the house where a poet was born or a Reformer
died, though it were enshrined beneath a national
monument. There is another remark which we may make re
garding memorable places. They are usually more
interesting to strangers than to the regular residents.
Had the Esquimaux seen Captain Ross and his
party, they would have marvelled what brought a
band of Enghshmen from their comfortable homes
to that bleak and barren shore. And, far from sym
pathizing in their errand, they could hardly have
been taught to understand it. Food, not informa
tion, being their chief motive to exertion, they
would gladly have sold the magnetic pole for a
few pounds of blubber or a few pints of oil. It
was interesting enough to British science to bring
many at the peril of their lives; but to the poor
benighted natives it never had occurred that there
was anything more important in that particular spot
than in any other bend of their frozen beach. And so
of historic scenes. You know more about Luther's
bold appearance at the Imperial Diet than do most
of the people who now reside at Worms. The spot
where a great battle was fought, or where 'a hero
breathed his last, is often interesting to its inhabit
ants only as a source of gain; and unless they be
men of congenial taste and strong emotion, people
F2

68 LECTURE V.
will hurry daily past the places consecrated by de
parted greatness, without finding then step detained
or their spirit stirred. It is reserved for the far-
come traveller to stand still and wonder where the
incurious native trudges on, or only wonders what it
is that the stranger is gazing at.
Our earth is a little world. In bulk it is little as/
compared with some of its neighbours. Even the
same planetary system contains one world a hundred
times, and another three hundred times as large;
whilst, if suns be peopled worlds, there are suns
hundreds of thousands of times as large. And there
are races of intelligence and capacity far beyond our
own — races both fallen and unfallen, to which our
highest genius may seem a curious simplicity, and
our vastest information an interesting ignorance, even
as we may smile at the wit and knowledge of the
Esquimaux. But this is the little world, and ours
the lowly race, which God selected as the scene and
the subject of the most amazing interposition. Like
its own Bethlehem Ephratah, little among thousands
of worlds ; hke its own Patmos, a point in the ocean
of existence, our earth already stands alone in the
universe, and will stand forth in the annals of eternity;
illustrious for its fact without a parallel. It is the
world on which the mystery of redemption was trans
acted ; it is the world into which Christ came. And
though lower than the angels, ours is the race which
Jehovah has crowned with one peerless glory, one
unequalled honour. It is the race which God haa

THE MUSEUM. 69
visited. Ours is the flesh which Incarnate Deity
wore, and ours is the race for whose sinners the Son of
God poured forth a ransom in his blood. This is
the event which over our small planet sheds a solemn
interest, and draws toward it the wondering gaze of
other worlds. And just as in traversing the deep,
'when there rises on the view some spot of awful
interest or affecting memory, you slack the sail, and
passengers strain the eye, and look on in silent
reverence ; so, in their journeys through immensity
the flight of highest intelligences falters into wonder
and delay as they near this little globe. There is
something in it which makes them feel hke Moses at
Horeb, "Let me draw near and see this great
sight," — a marvel and a mystery here which angels
desire to look into. It is a little world, but it is the
world where God was manifest in flesh. And though
there may be spots round which the interest gathers
in most touching intensity ; though it may be pos
sible to visit the very land whose acres were trod by
" those blessed feet which our offences nailed to the
accursed tree ; " though you might like to look on
David's town where the advent took place, and on
the hills of Galilee where his sermons were preached,
and on the limpid Gennesareth which once kissed his
buoyant sandals, and on that Jerusalem which He
loved and pitied, and where He died, and that Olivet,
from whose gentle slope the Prince of Peace ascended,
I own that with me it is not so much Jerusalem or
Palestine as Earth, Earth herself. Since it received

70 LECTURE V.
the visit of the Son of God, in the eye of the uni
verse the entire globe is a Holy Land ; and such let
it ever be to me. So wicked and sin-tainted that it
must pass through the fire ere all be ended, it is
withal so consecrated and so dear to heaven that it
must not be destroyed; but a new earth with
righteousness dwelling in it shall perpetuate to
distant ages its own amazing story. And though
an illustrious author wrote, " I have long lost all at
tachment to this world as a locality," * I do not wish
to share the feeling. I like it for its veiy littleness.
I like to stand on its lonely remoteness, and look
aloft to vaster and brighter orbs ; and when I con
sider the heavens, the moon and the stars, then say
I, " What is man that thou shouldest visit him ? "
And, as in the voyage of the spheres, I sail away in this,
the little barque of man, it comes over me with melting
surprise and adoring astonishment that mine is the
very world into which the Saviour came ; and as I
farther recal who that Saviour was, — that for Him to
become the highest seraph would have been an infinite
descent, or to inhabit the hugest globe a strange
captivity, — instead of seeking to inflate this tiny ball
into the mightiest sphere, or stilt up this feeble race
to angelic stature, I see many a reason why, if an
Incarnation were at all to be, a httle world should be
the theatre and a little race the object.
It would indeed give melancholy force to the
* Foster.

THE MUSEUM. 71
saying, "Much wisdom is much grief," if much
wisdom were fatal to the Christian faith, and if he
who increased his general knowledge must forfeit his
rehgious hopes. But whilst science is fatal to super
stition, — whdst fatal to lying wonders and monkish
legends, it is fortification to a scriptural faith. The
Bible is the bravest of books. Coming from God,
and conscious of nothing but God's truth, it awaits
the progress of knowledge with calm security. It
watches the antiquary ransacking among classic ruins,
and rejoices in every medal he discovers, and every
inscription he deciphers ; for from that rusty coin or
corroded marble it expects nothing but confirmations
of its own veracity. In the unlocking of an Egyptian
hieroglyphic, or the unearthing of some ancient im
plement, it hails the resurrection of so many wit
nesses; and with sparkhng elation it follows the
botanist as he scales Mount Lebanon, or the zoologist
as he makes acquaintance with the beasts of the
Syrian desert, or the traveller as he stumbles on a
long-lost Petra, or Nineveh, or Babylon; for in
regions hke these every stroke of the hammer and
every crack of the rifle awaken friendly echoes, and
every production and every relic bring home a
friendly evidence. And from the march of time it
fears no evd, but calmly abides the fulfilment of those
prophecies and the forthcoming of those events with
whose predicted story Inspiration has already in
scribed its page. It is not light but darkness which
the Bible deprecates ; and if men of piety were also

72 LECTURE V.
men of science, and if men of science would "search
the Scriptures," there would be more faith in the
earth, and also more philosophy.
Few minds are sufficiently catholic. The psy
chologist is apt to despise the material sciences, and
few mathematicians are good historians. But al
though there may be indifference, or rivalry amongst
their votaries, there is no antagonism between the
truths themselves. There exists a mind as well as a
material universe, and there are laws of thought as
well as laws of motion ; and although it cannot he
proved by algebra, yet it is pretty certain that Julius
Csesar invaded Britain, and that George Washington
achieved the independence of America. All truths
are friendly and mutually consistent, and he is the
wisest man who, if he cannot be an adept in all
knowledge, dreads none and despises none ; the Ba
conian intelligence to which the Word and the
works of the Most High are alike a revelation, and
to which both alike are faithful witnesses, though
both are not alike articulate.
Be sages then, not sciolists. In the world of
knowledge be cosmopolite, and be not the pedants of
one department. Be historians as well as mathe
maticians. Receive every truth on its appropriate
evidence, and there is nothing to prevent your faith
in the Gospel from being equally strong with your
faith in the course of nature. And although the
Cyclops of science may have an eye for only one
half of tmth's horizon; although the bigot of de«

THE MUSEUM. 73
monstration may jeer at testimony; although the
sectary of physics may repudiate history ; if your
knowledge be really " general ; " if it be sufficiently
comprehensive and catholic, and correct withal, — the
more you grow in knowledge the more will you be
confirmed in that most excellent of all knowledge, — a
positive and historical Christianity.*
But you say, the natural sciences are all certain ;
theology is all conflict and confusion. Let us under
stand one another. If you say that the phenomena
of nature are all patent and explicit, I reply, And so
are the sayings of Scripture. If candour and ingen
uousness can interpret the one, they may equally ex
pound the other. But, if you say that, unlike the
Word of God, his works have never been misunder
stood, you surely forget that the " History of the
Inductive Sciences" is just a history of erroneous
interpretations replaced by interpretations less erron
eous, and destined to be succeeded by interpretations
* Of how much scepticism has Bacon given the rationale
in his noted sentence, " A little philosophy inclineth man's
mind to Atheism ; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's
minds about to religion." — Essays 16. And of how many
Freethinkers might the foolish boasting be silenced in the
words which Newton retorted on the infidel Halley, " I have
studied these things, and you have not." There are various
sources of unbelief; but next to the " evil heart," the most
fruitful is ignorance. It is easy for a sciolist to be a sceptic ;
but it is not easy for a well-informed historian to reject
the records of faith.

74 LECTURE V.
still more exhaustive and true. If you smile at the
Hutchisonian or Cocceian systems of exegesis; if
you quote the hostile theories which still linger in
the field of polemics, I ask, Is this pecuhar to the
ology ? Have you forgotten how the abhorrers of
a vacuum abhorred Torricelli and Pascal ? Have
you forgotten how the old physiologists were vexed
at Harvey for discovering the circulation of the
blood? Do you not remember how the Stahlian
chemists, like a burnt-out famdy, long lingered round
the ashes of phlogiston, and denounced the wilful
fire-raising of Lavoisier and oxygen ? In early
youth have you never seen a disciple of Werner, and
pitied the affectionate tenacity with which he clung
to the last plank of the fair Neptunian theory?
Or would every world-maker forgive Lord Rosse's
telescope if it swept from the firmament all trace of
the nebular hypothesis ? Or, because there is still
an emissionary as well as an undulatory theory of
light, must we deny that optics is a science, and
must we hold that the laws of refraction and reflexion
are mere matters of opinion ? Nature is no liar,
although her " minister and interpreter " has often
mistaken her meaning; and, notwithstanding the
errors which have received a temporary sanction from
the learned, there is, after all, nothing but truth in
the material universe ; and, so far as man has sagacity
or sincerity to collect that truth, he has got a true
science, a true astronomy, a true chemistry, a true
physiology, as the case may be. And even so, what-

THE MUSEUM. 75
soever vagaries particular persons may indulge, or
whatsoever false systems may receive a transient
support, there is, after all, nothing but truth in the
Bible, and so far as we have sincerity or sagacity to
collect that Bible-truth, we have got a true religion.
Nay, the most important facts and statements in that
Word speak for themselves and require no theory.
And just as the mariner might safely avail himself
of Jupiter's satellites, though Copernicus had never
existed ; just as the gunner must allow for the earth's
attraction, whatever becomes of the Newtonian phi
losophy; just as the apothecary would continue to
mix his salts and acids in definite proportions, even
although some mishap befel the atomic theory ; just
as we ourselves do not close our eyes and dispense
with hght, until the partizans of rays shall have
made it up with the advocates of ether, — so the
Scriptures abound in statements and facts on which
we may safely proceed, whatever becomes of human
theories. " God so loved the world, that He gave
his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in
Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation,
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."
" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be
saved." " If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new
creature : " so far as it is founded on such sayings
as these, rehgion is not only the simplest, but, being
immediately from God, it is the most secure of all
the sciences.

76 LECTURE V.
However, we must add one remark. In the region
of revealed truth, increasing knowledge will not
always be increasing conviction, unless that knowledge
be progressively reduced to practice. If knowledge
be merely speculative, in extending it a man may
only "increase sorrow;" for it is "with the heart
that man believeth unto righteousness," and it is to
the " doers " of his Father's will that the Saviour
promises an assuring knowledge of his own "doc
trine."* The mind needs tonics. For the body,
next to wholesome food, the best toning is vigorous
exercise ; and if long cradled in a luxurious repose,
the penalty is paid at last in so many imagin
ary ills as constitute a real one. And just as the
child of sloth is haunted by visionary fears; as he
dreads that his pulse will stop or the firmament fall
in : so the man who arrests his moral activities and
lets his fancy wander at its will ; the man who is
doing no service to God and no good in the world,
will soon become an intellectual hypochondriac.
Musing, day-dreaming, marvelling, he will soon be
lieve the phantoms of his own creating, and will not
be able to believe the facts of God's revealing. And
as the meet recompense of his indolence and useless
ness, if he be not given up to believe a lie, his relaxed
and pithless grasp will not be able to hold fast a
single truth : like an interesting scholar, whose life
we lately read, and who during years of speculative
inactivity, dwindled down from a devout and laborious
* Rom. x. 10 ; John vii. 17.

THE MUSEUM. 77
clergyman to a shpshod and etiolated free-thinker,*
and like those voluptuous theologians of Germany
who mope away their lives in selfish meditation, and
who, never letting their brethren taste the fruits of
their practical beneficence, are never themselves per
mitted to taste the blessing of a sure belief. The
true remedy for this spiritual moodiness is a holy
and abundant activity. So deemed the Apostle
Paul. In the midst of a glowing argument, and
when refuting certain cavils against the Resur
rection which had arisen in the Church of Corinth,
he ejaculates all at once, "Be not deceived; evil
communications corrupt good manners. Awake to
righteousness and sin not, for some have not the
knowledge of God."f Like a sagacious physician
who finds his patient haunted by fantastic fears, and
who orders him out into the open air, and compels
him to dig, or row, or wrestle ; and after a few days
of this rough regimen the crystal arm grows flesh
and blood; and he who was afraid that the sky
might fall and smother him, begins to have faith in
the firmament, — so the apostle sounds a reveilles in
the ear of these drowsy reasoners. 'Awake to
righteousness ! These doubts and difficulties are
the fruits of sloth. They are the hypochondriac
fancies which lazy loungers nurse in one another.
Evil communications corrupt good manners. Rouse
* See the remarks at the close of Archdeacon Hare's
"Life of Sterling."
t 1 Cor. xv. 33.-35.

78 LECTURE V.
you ! — Awake to righteousness. Bestir you in the
business of practical Christianity, and these shadows
will flee away ! ' And so to any haunted or unhappy
mind here present, we give the same advice. Do
you admit the Bible to be the Word of God, and yet
are you haunted with speculative doubts and evil
surmisings as to any of its particular doctrines?
Then, awake to righteousness ! Your doubts are
ridiculous, your fears are unfounded, and each idle
hypothesis might be easily refuted. But the real
remedy is, not reasoning, but righteousness ; not the
arguments of others, but your own practical piety.
Awake, then, to righteousness. Embody in your
conduct your present limited stock of conviction.
Try to pray more, or praise more; try to cure the
bad temper or the unholy passion ; try to do some
good to your neighbours : and that very effort wfll
be the cure of some cavils. It will teach you, for
one thing, that the heart is desperately wicked, and
that if God does not change it, nothing else can.
And that discovery will prompt you to prayer, and
that prayer will procure an answer, and that answer
wfll deepen your trust in God ; and thus item by
item your faith will grow exceedingly. Thus, by the
corrective of wholesome discipline and by being con
fronted with realities, your foolish doubts will dissi-:
pate; and the doctrine which was incredible to a
lazy and dyspeptic intellect, will soon be absorbed
and assimilated by a sound understanding, and
become the joy and rejoicing of a sanctified souk .

THE MUSEUM. 79
Alas ! for the knowledge which knows no Sa
viour. Alas ! for the science which includes no Gospel.
The most erudite of lawyers was Selden. Some days
before his death he sent for Archbishop Ussher, and
said, " I have surveyed most of the learning that is
among the sons of men, and my study is filled with
books and manuscripts on various subjects, yet at
this moment I can recollect nothing in them all on
which I can rest my soul, save one from the sacred
Scriptures, which lies much on my spirit. It is
this : ' The grace of God that bringeth salvation
hath appeared to all men, teaching us, that deny
ing ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live
soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present
world ; looking for that blessed hope, and the glori
ous appearing of the great God, and our Saviour
Jesus Christ ; who gave Himself for us, that He
might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto
Himself a pecuhar people, zealous of good works !"'
Nor is it only at the close of the pilgrimage that
the hope full of immortality is a pearl of great price.
Without it, life is so transient that every invention is
a melancholy plaything, and the vastest acquire
ments are a laborious futility. But the student
who toils for immortality need never want a mo
tive in his work ; and, however sad some of his
discoveries may be, the sage who knows the Saviour
will always have in his knowledge an overplus
of joy.

LECTURE VI.
Wbz ^lap&ouse anU t&e palate.
Read Ecgi.es. ii. 1 — 11.
" Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth." . . "I said
. of laughter, It is mad." ..." I gave myself to wine,
yet acquainting myself with wisdom.' . .'. "I made me
great works." . . . "Then I looked on all the works
that my hands had wrought : and, behold, all was vanity
and vexation of spirit."
This passage describes a mental fever. The writer
tells how, by quitting the wholesome climes of piety,
his spirit caught a deadly chill, and how, in the
morbid excitement which followed, he tossed to and
fro, and tried every change, — burning in the breeze,
and shivering in the sun, — distracted till he gained
his wish, and disgusted to find that what he wished
was not the thing he wanted. First mad after
wisdom, then came a surfeit of learning — a glut of
information, and he denounced much wisdom as
much grief. He would try frivohty. He would
take things easily, and, as far as might be, cheerily.
" Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth : there
fore, enjoy pleasure." He would sip the surface of

THE PLAYHOUSE AND THE PALACE. 81
things, and snatch the joys which divert the mind,
but which do not fatigue the brain : he would be a
wit, a man of humour, a merry monarch. And he
was. But his own mirth soon made him melancholy.
Like phosphorus on a dead man's face, he felt that
it was a trick, a he ; and, like the laugh of a hyaena
among the tombs, he found that the worldling's
frolic can never reanimate the joys which guilt has
slain and buried. "I said of laughter, It is mad;
and of mirth, What doeth it ?" So, after a moody
interval, he bethought him how to blend the two.
Philosophy by itself had failed, and folly by itself
had also failed. But how would it do to combine
them? — the sprightly with the grave, the material
luxury and the mental vivacity, the wisdom and the
wine ? Yes ; into his ivy- wreath he would twine
the laurel, and the flat potions of philosophy he
would enliven with social effervescence. " I sought
in mine heart to give myself unto wine, (yet ac
quainting mine heart with wisdom,) and to lay
hold on folly, till I might see what was that good
for the sons of men, which they should do under
the heaven all the days of their life." But this
also proved a failure. " Wine, wisdom, wit," became
a mutually destructive mixture, and the experimenter
abjured them, in order to try the pleasures of taste.
Sculpture and painting were scarcely known to the
Hebrews ; but in gardening, music, and architecture,
they were good proficients, and to these the sovereign
now directed his sumptuous ingenuity. Like a
G

82 LECTURE VI.
petrified dream, the palace stood forth in all the
freshness of virgin marble, and in all the pride of its
airy pinnacles. In the wilderness waters brake forth,
and spreading their molten coolness over the dust of
yesterday, artificial lakes surrounded artificial isles;
whilst from the fragrant thickets of the terraced
gardens, the dulcet sounds of foreign minstrelsy de
scended where the royal barge lay floating, or through
the lattice wafted into the banquet-hall their hints
of superhuman glory, — till the vessels of gold and
silver sparkled like a galaxy, and the repast was
enchanted into a Divine refection; and in proud
apotheosis the monarch smiled upon his guests from
a godlike throne. " I builded me houses, I planted
me vineyards, I made me pools of water to water the
groves of trees. I gat me men singers and women
singers, and musical instruments of every sort. And
whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from thern^;
I withheld not my heart from any joy. Then I
looked on all the works that I had wrought, and on
the labour that I had laboured to do ; and, behold,
all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was
no profit under the sun."
Solomon tried mirth and abjured it. And, per
haps, the most melancholy hfe is that of the professed
merrymaker. You remember the answer of the wo-
begone stranger, when the physician advised him to
go and hear the great comedian of the day — " You
should go and hear Matthews." " Alas ! Sir, I am
Matthews !" Akin to which is the account of one

THE PLAYHOUSE AND THE PALACE. 83
who for many years manufactured mirth for the
great metropolis, the writer of diverting stories,
and the soul of every festive party which was able to
secure his presence.* But even when keeping all
the company in a blaze of hilarity, his own heart was
broken; and at one of these boisterous scenes,
glimpsing his own pale visage in the glass, he ex
claimed, " Ah ! I see how it is. I look just as I
am — done up in mind, in body, and purse," — and
went home to sicken and die. And who can read this
passage without recalling one who was sixty years
ago the most dazzling speaker in our British Parlia
ment, whose bow had as many strings as life has
pleasures, — the wit, the orator, the dramatist, the
statesman, the boon companion and the confidant of
princes ?f But when "wine" had quenched the
"wisdom;" when riot had bloated the countenance,
and debt had dispersed the friends of the man of
pleasure ; when in splendid rows his books stood on
the shelves of the brokers, and the very portrait
of his wife had disappeared, — on a wretched pallet,
trembling for fear of a prison, the gloomy, forsaken
worldling closed his eyes on a scene which he was
loth to quit, but which showed no wish to detain
him — leaving " no profit under the sun," and without
any prospect beyond it.
Nor can we promise a satisfaction more solid to
the godless virtuoso. Every other year the public is
startled with some grand explosion. A great tower
* Theodore Hook. t Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
G 2

84 LECTURE VI.
of Babel comes toppling down. There is a tinkle
in the belfry, — a premonitory jangling of the crazy
chimes, — a crackling of the timbers, a thunderous
down-pouring of bricks and beams and tiles and
plaster, and through the dust and smoke the groans
of the crushed inmates are heard, stifled and soon
stilled : and then come the excavators, — the collectors
who carry off the curiosities to decorate other toy
shops, and the builders who buy the bricks, in order
to construct new Babels elsewhere.
Not long ago a wealthy compatriot erected such
a palace for his pride, and reared it with such imr
patience that the workmen plied their labours night
and day. When finished, "a wall, nearly twenty
miles in circumference, surrounded it. Within this
circle scarcely any visitors were allowed to pass. In
sullen grandeur the owner dwelt alone, shunning
converse with the world around. Majesty itself was
desirous of visiting this wonderful domain, but was
refused admittance. ... Its interior was fitted
with all the splendour which art and wealth could
create. Gold and silver cups and vases were so
numerous that they dazzled the eye; and looking
round at the cabinets and candelabra and ornaments
which decorated the apartment, was like standing in
the treasuiy of an Eastern prince." * But a hundred
thousand pounds a-year failed to support this magni
ficence, and the gates which " refused admittance to
a monarch were thrust open by a Sheriff's officer ; "
* " The Mirage of Life," a publication of the Tract Society.

THE PLAYHOUSE AND THE PALACE. 85
and whilst its architect pined in unpitied sohtude,
the gorgeous structure was pulled down by its new
owner. More frequently, however, it is the structure
which stands, and it is the architect who becomes the
ruin. Many of you have visited Versailles. As
you stood upon its terraces, or surveyed its pictures
furlong after furlong, or wandered among its en
chanted fountains, did it strike you, How fresh and
splendid is Versailles ; how insignificant is now its
author ! Or did you think of that gloomy day
when in one of its chambers lay dying the monarch
who has identified Versailles with his royal revelries,
and near the silken couch a throng of courtiers
lingered, not in tears, — not anxious to detain his
spirit, — not sedulous to soothe the last moments
of mortal anguish ; but wearying till their old master
would make an end of it and die, that they might rush
away and congratulate his son and successor ? * And
did you think that thus it is with every one who
layeth up treasure for himself, and who is not rich
towards God ? Did you think of him who said to his
soul, when he had built his larger barns, " Soul, thou
hast goods laid up for many years ; take thine ease,
eat, drink, and be merry ; " and to whom God said,
" Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of
thee : then, whose shall these things be ? "
What is it then ? Shall we denounce learning,
genius, wit ? Shall we proscribe architecture and all
* See the death-scene of Louis XV. at the opening of
Carlyle's " French Revolution."

86 LECTURE VI.
the arts ? For this some have contended, and under
pretence of piety they have sought to become bar
barians. But, 0 man, who hath required this at thy
hands ? It is the work of God's Spirit to sanctify
taste and consecrate talent ; and that alone is exces
sive which is not given to God. In " walking about
Zion," we must ever admire the noble " bulwarks"
reared by Lardner and Butler, and the other de
fenders of the common faith, as well as the "towers"
of orthodoxy erected by the learned labours of Owen/
and Haldane, and Magee, and other mighty engi
neers ; nor less the " palaces" which at once adorn
the city and commemorate the genius of Watts, and
Howe, and Chalmers, and Vinet. Nor is there any
reason why wit should always be " mad." Religion
may be sprightly, and dulness may be undevout
A Home or a Cowper may be permitted to answer a
fool according to his folly ; and when, with the tender
precision of a Tell, the polished shafts of Wilberforce
split in twain an opponent's argument, but never
"hurt his head,"* you could not wish fanaticism to
destroy a weapon which religion guides so wisely.
Though pride may be the busiest architect, let us not
forget that piety and philanthropy have been great
builders also. And though sensuality may abuse the
arts, let us not forget how often to its youthful inmates
music has helped to endear the earthly home, and
* Ps. cxii. 5. See the sketch of Wilberforce, in Sir James
Stephen's " Historical Essays," and in Lord Brougham's
" Statesmen," first series.

THE PLAYHOUSE AND THE PALACE. 87
how much devotion is indebted to " the service of song
in the house of the Lord." Let us not forget that
almighty Artist who, every spring paints new
landscapes on the earth, and every evening new
ones in the sky, — whose sculptures are the melting
clouds and everlasting hills, — and whose harp of
countless strings includes each note from a hare
bell's tinkle to the "organic swell" of ocean's
thunder. What is it then ? The " instrument of righteous
ness" when not " yielded to God," becomes an idol ;
and every idol is at once a curse and a crime.
July 28, 1850.

LECTURE VII.
©Se JWonummt.
Read Eccles. ii. 12—23.
" There is no perpetual remembrance of the wise more than
of the fool." " Who knoweth whether his successor shall
be a wise man or a fool ? "
The noblest renown is posthumous fame; and the
most refined ambition is the desire of such fame.
A vulgar mind may thirst for immediate popularity ;
and very moderate talent, dexterously managed, may
win for the moment the hosannas of the million.
But it is a Horace or a Milton, a Socrates or
a Sidney, who can listen without bitterness to
plaudits heaped on feebler rivals, and calmly
anticipate the day when posterity will do justice
to the powers or the achievements of which he
is already conscious. And of this more exalted
ambition it would appear that Solomon had felt
the stirrings. When he looked on the temple and
the cedar palace, and still more when he thought
of his literary exploits, his songs and his proverbs,

THE MONUMENT. 89
and his lectures in science, the Non omnis moriar was a
thought as natural as it was pleasing, and from the
sense of flagging powers and the sight of a failing
body he gladly took refuge in the promise of post
humous immortahty. But even that cold comfort
was entirely frozen in the thought which followed.
From the lofty pinnacle to which, as a philosophic
historian, he had ascended, Solomon could look
down and see not only the fallibility of his coevals,
but the forgetfulness of the generations following.
He knew that there had often been great men in the
world; but he could not hide it from himself, how
httle these great men had grown already, and how
infinitesimal the greatest would become, if the world
should only last a few centuries longer. And so far,
Solomon was right. Few things would be more
pathetic than if we had some micrometer for measur
ing great men's memories, — some means for ascer-
taing the decimal of a second which those great
names subtend in our historic firmament, who filled
their hving age with lustre. Even Solomon's own,
— intellectually the brightest of a bygone dispensa
tion, and with all the advantage of the Bible tele
scope to bring it near, — how little it enters into the
actual thought of this modern world ! What a tiny
spark it twinkles through the foggy atmosphere
of this material time ! Had a life in the hearts
of future men been all his immortahty, how little
worth the purchase ! and how much wiser than
their phdosophic monarch were those "fools" in

90 LECTURE VII.
Jerusalem, who took no thought to add this cubit
to their age !
So, brethren, it is natural to wish to be remem
bered when gone ; and as a substitute for the highest
motive, or a succour to other motives, it is well to
think of the generation following. But, as it usually
flatters worldly men, this posthumous fame is a
fallacy.* " A living dog is better than a dead lion."
Amidst the importunate solicitations of daily business,
many of us must accuse ourselves of unfaithfulness
to the dead; and when tranquil moments call up
their familiar images, we marvel how we can deal so
treacherously with the great and good departed.
Vanished from our view, expunged from our corre
spondence, dropped from our very prayers, no
longer expected as visitors in our homes, — it is mar
vellous how faint and intermitting their memory has
grown ; and we upbraid our ungrateful fancy that it
preserves so httle space for old benefactors, and the
once-cherished friends of our bosom. But the same
* " Are not all things born to be forgotten ? In truth, it
was a sore vexation to me when I saw, as the wise man saw
of old, that whatever I could hope to perform must neces
sarily be of very temporary duration ; and if so, why do it?
Let me see! What have I done already? I have learnt
Welsh, and have translated the songs of Ab Gwilym ; I have
also rendered the old book of Danish ballads into Enghsh
metre. Good! Have I done enough to secure myself a
reputation of a thousand years ? Well, but what's a thou
sand years after all, or twice a thousand years ? Woe is
me ! I may just as well sit still." — Lavengro.

THE MONUMENT. 91
fate awaits ourselves; we, too, are going hence, and
when we are gone,
" A few will weep a little while,
Then bless our memory with a smile."
One or two may cling to it with tender fondness,
while existence lasts; but even with friends affec
tionate and true, tenderness will soon soften into
resignation, and resignation will subside into con
tentment, and contentment will dull away into sheer
forgetfulness ; and it will only be on some rare oc
casion, — some wakeful night, when memory is
holding a vigil of all-souls, or when a torn letter, or
an inscription in a book, or a name carved on the
beechen tree conjures up the past, " and a spirit
stands before you," that tbe fountain of early love
will flow anew, and you will pay the tribute of the
long-suspended tear. But even that will end. A
race will arise that know not Joseph, and to whom
Joseph's friends will not be able to transfer their
attachment ; and when a fourth or a fifth generation
comes upon the stage, so dim will be the name, and
so diluted will be the interest in it, that the youth
would be more concerned for the loss of a favourite
hound than for the extinction of his grandsire's
memory. But if this be the phantom for which the world
ling toils and sighs, there is a posthumous fame
which is no illusion. If there be no eternal remem
brance of the world's wise men any more than of its
fools, it is otherwise with the wise ones of the

92 LECTURE VII.
heavenly kingdom. God has so arranged it that
" the righteous shall be held in everlasting remem
brance." "They that," in his sight, "are wise,
shall shine as the firmament, and they that tum
many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and
ever." Great men may covet admiration, but good
men crave affection. Admiration is the state-room,
formal and rarely used ; but to be admitted into the
affections is to be domiciled in the heart's own home,
— to hve Where lives the soul itself. And into this
inmost shrine of good men's souls God admits all the
holy ; nay, with reverence speaking it, He admits
them into his own. The love of Jehovah is a sanctu
ary where every holy being has a home. But not
content with giving to the just made perfect, the
immortahty of his own unchanging love, a gracious
God secures them the attachment of congenial minds ;
and at this instant there is not in all the universe a
holy being but God has found for it a resting-
place in the love of other holy beings, and that
not temporarily, but for all eternity. The only
posthumous fame that is truly permanent is the
memory of God ; and the only deathless names are
theirs for whose living persons He has found a place
in his own love, and in the love of holy beings like-
minded with Himself. Many a casket has been broken,
and the gems of fine fancy have been scattered on the
world, and the name of the self-immolating genius is
now forgotten ; but that box of ointment which the
weeping penitent crushed over the feet of Jesus, will

THE MONUMENT. 93
pour its fragrance through all time; for wherever
there is a Gospel the Lord Jesus has secured that
there shall be spread the story. And so — war,
wisdom, wit, — these three have all made deep in
dentations on the mind of man ; and some deeds
have been so brave, and some inventions so beautiful,
and some sayings so brilliant, that people vowed they
never would be forgotten. But, alas ! it was the fragile
imagination of sinful man, and it has long ago
disintegrated. It was the soft and viscid memory of
selfish man, and new interests and new objects have
since flowed in and filled up the oozy record. But
although we dare not say that any thought of earth
is so sublime as to merit a record in heaven, on
the highest authority we know that no act of faith is
so insignificant but it secures a registration there.
And although, fearful of posthumous flattery, the
dying Howards of our species may direct, " Place a
sun-dial on my grave, and let me be forgotten," —
they cannot expunge their labours of love from the
book of remembrance, and they will never be for
gotten by God.
But even beyond posthumous fame, most men
would like to be perpetuated in well-doing and affec
tionate children. And here again, a gloomy fore
boding darkened the mind of Solomon. He had
greatly extended his hereditary kingdom; he had
amassed an unprecedented fortune ; he had built
such palaces as only Eastern extravagance had dared

94 LECTURE VII.
to dream ; he had covered his name with glory as a
statesman and a lawgiver and a sage; and all this
glory — these palaces, — yon piles of treasure, — that
splendid empire, — the whole was such a prize that if
he felt sadness in leaving it, he also felt anxiety
about transmitting it. He had a son; but, from
expressions here escaping, it would almost seem as if
Rehoboam already betrayed the senselessness and
arrogance which were afterwards to make him the
detestation of his subjects, and the butt of his neigh
bours. The heathen marriages and the on-goings of
the father, at once unkingly and ungodly, were des
tined to yield their bitter fruits in the son ; and it
is possible that the backslider already felt punished
in foreseeing all the mischief coming on the kingdom
through the pride and the blunders of this wayward
youth. " Yea, I hated all my labour which I had
taken under the sun ; because I should leave it unto
the man that shall be after me. And who knoweth
whether he shall be a wise man or a fool ? Yet shall
he have rule over all my labour wherein I have kv
boured, and wherein I have showed myself wise
under the sun. This also is vanity."
Let those be very thankful who feel that they
are better off than Solomon. You have not a sceptre,
a title, a vast income to bequeath; but you have
well-doing children. By their industry and mutual
affection, above all, by promising appearances of per
sonal piety, you are encouraged to hope that those
who come after you will be an honour to your name.

THE MONUMENT. 95
What a mercy ! Solomon would have given his sceptre
in exchange for your son. But why should not this
mercy be yet more frequent ? It is true that " grace
does not run in the blood, though sin does." But it
is also true that God makes his grace more gracious
by often causing it to run in the channel of the
natural affections. " The promise is unto you,
and to your children." And where there is a
pious affection, the best gifts will be those we
shall covet most earnestly for its objects. Where
parental affection is also devout, it will prompt the
prayer which David offered at once for himself and
for Solomon : " Give the king Thy judgments, 0
God, and Thy righteousness unto the king's son."
And in that pious affection the Lord sympathizes,
and such parental intercessions He delights to
hear. And although, when we think what sort of life
Solomon for a long period led ; when we reflect that
Rehoboam's boyhood and youth were spent in the
lap of luxury, and amidst scenes of the most extra
vagant revelry ; when we consider that a polygamist
like Solomon can never have a home, and a child
like Rehoboam can have no such playmates as are
found in an undivided family ; when we recall the
idolatry and impiety to which his early years had
been inured, and remember how bad was the ex
ample which his own father set him, — we can scarcely
wonder that the son of Solomon proved a heart
break to his father and a stigma on his line : still

96 LECTURE VII.
we are not the less persuaded, that where there is
faithfulness to God as well as affection to one's
children ; where there are earnest prayer and a corre
sponding pattern ; and, especially, where both parents
are of one mind, and agreed as touching this thing,
God will do it for them, and the promise still hold
true, "to you and to your seed after you." The
" entail of the covenant " is largely borne out by
rehgious biography, and our Churches are mainly
composed of the pious children of Christian parents.
Happy they who, instead of a tablet in the church
yard wall, are thus commemorated by polished stones
in the hving temple ! *
* Isaiah liv. 11—13.
September 22, 1850.

LECTURE VIII.
®6e ©locfc of Besting.
Read Eccles. hi. 1 — 15.
" To everything there is a season." . ..." In the heart of
everything God hath set its era."*
According to the mood of the spectator the same
phenomena will exert a depressing or a reviving in
fluence; and according to the bias of the reasoner
the same facts will be adduced for purposes the most
opposite. If we were sure that in this passage
Solomon was giving the matured opinion of his
latest and penitent life, the text would be a lesson
of resignation derived from the absolute sovereignty
and all-controlling providence of God ; but if, as we
have all along held, Solomon writes these verses
somewhat in sympathy with his former self; if he be
recalling for wise purposes the reasonings and sur-
misings of the days of his vanity, we would be pre
pared to find intermingled with the sublime theology
of this section a tincture of fatalism. Accordingly,
in the ninth and tenth verses we read, " What profit
* Vs. 11, Dbw eternity, duration, &c. LXX. amv.
H

98 LECTURE VIII.
hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth ?
I have seen the travail which God hath given to the
sons of men, to be exercised in it." ' This universe
is moving in a groove of adamant. Man's activity
is a make-believe, — an imposition on himself; for
the wheel spins round equally fast whether the blue
bottle push it forward or backward. What profit is
there in human industry ? It is the unproductive
travail to which the offended Creator has doomed his
sinful creature; — the ploughing of the sand, the
weaving of the air, the manufacture of elaborate
nonentities.' And yet, so true are the facts which
this section notes, and so solemn the inferences from
them which forced themselves on the mind of the
royal reasoner, that few texts contain the germs of a
grander theology. Passing over the impotence and
helplessness of the creature, he saw how glorious was
that Omnipotence which held in hand the guiding
reins of ponderous orbs and mighty incidents, and at
the predestined moment would bring the chariot of
his sovereignty to its triumphal goal in the far-off
eternity. He saw how vast is that Wisdom which
from the beginning had planned the great year of
existence, and planned it so complete that nothing
needed to be supplemented nor superseded, but
through its cycle inconceivable the universe moved
on from the moment of its starting, ever waxing,
ever waning, and through its summer and winter of
uncounted ages circling round to its successive
springs. " He hath made everything beautiful in

THE CLOCK OE DESTINY. 99
his time, and in the heart of everything He hath set
an eternity : so that no man can find out from be
ginning to end any work that God maketh — any
process that God conducteth. I know that what
soever God doeth, it shall be for ever. Nothing
can be put to it, nor anything taken from it.
That which hath been is now; and that which is
to be hath already been : and God brings back the
past." " To everything there is a season, and a time to
every purpose under the heaven." As if he had
said, Mortality is a huge time-piece wound up by
the almighty Maker ; and after He has set it a-going
nothing can stop it till the angel swears that time shall
be no longer. But here it ever vibrates and ever
advances, — ticking one child of Adam into existence,
and ticking another out. Now it gives the whirr of
warning, and the world may look out for some great
event ; and presently it fulfils its warning, and rings in
a noisy revolution. But there ! as its index travels on
so resolute and tranquil, what tears and raptures attend
its progress ! It was only another wag of the sleep
less pendulum ; but it was fraught with destiny, and
a fortune was made, — a heart was broken, — an em
pire fell. We cannot read the writing on the mystic
cogs as they are coming slowly up ; but each of them
is coming on God's errand, and carries in its graven
brass a Divine decree. Now, however, — now that
the moment is past, we know ; and in the fulfilment
¦we can read the fiat. This instant was to say to
h 2

100 LECTURE VIII.
Solomon, "Be born!" this other was to say to
Solomon in all his glory, "Die !" That instant was
to "plant" Israel in Palestine; that other was to
" pluck him up." And thus inevitable, inexorable,
the great clock of human destiny moves on, till a
mighty hand shall grasp its heart and hush for ever
its pulse of iron.
See how fixed, how fated is each vicissitude!
how independent of human control ! There is
" a time to be born," and however much a man may
dislike the era on which his existence is cast, he
cannot help himself : that time is his, and he must
make the most of it. Milton need not complain
that his lot is fallen on evil days ; for these are his
-days, and he can have no other. Roger Bacon and
Galileo need not grudge their precocious being, that
they have been prematurely launched into the age
of inquisitors and knowledge-quenching monks, —
for this age was made to make them. And so with
the time to die. Voltaire need not offer half his
fortune to buy six weeks' reprieve ; for if the ap
pointed moment has arrived it cannot pass into
eternity without taking the sceptic with it. And
even good Hezekiah — his tears and prayers would
not have turned the shadow backward had that
moment of threatened death been the moment of
God's intention. Yes, there is a time to die; and
though we speak of an wntimely end, no one ever
died a moment sooner than God designed, nor lived
a moment longer. And so there is a time to plant.

THE CLOCK OP DESTINY. 101
The impulse comes on the man of fortune, and he
lays out his spacious lawn, and studs it with massive
trees ; and he plans his garden, and in the sod im
beds the rarest and richest flowers, or he piles
up little mounts of blossomed shrubbery, till the-
place is dazzled with bright tints and dizzy with per
fume. And that impulse fades away, and in the
fickleness of sated opulence the whole is rooted up,
and converted into wilderness again. Or by his own
or a successor's fall, the region is doomed to de
struction ; and when strangling nettles have choked
the geraniums and the lilies, and, crowded into
atrophy, the lean plantations grow tall and branch
less, the axe of an enterprising purchaser clears
the dank thickets away, and his ploughshare turns
up the weedy parterre. There is a time when to
interfere with disease is to destroy ; when to touch
the patient is to take his life : and there is a time
when the simplest medicine will effect a marvellous-
cure. There is a time when the invader is too happy
to dismantle the fortress which so long kept him at
bay ; but by and by, when he needs it as a bulwark
to his own frontiers, with might and main he seeks
to build it up again. Nor can any one fix a date
and say, I shall spend that day merrily, or I must
spend it mournfully. The day fixed for the wedding
may prove the day for the funeral; and the ship
which was to bring back the absent brother, may
only bring his coffin. On the other hand, the day
we had destined for mourning, God may turn to

102 LECTURE VIII.
dancing, and may gird it with irresistible gladness.
Nor are earth's monuments perpetual. The statue
reared one day will be thrown into the river another,!
and the trophy commenced by one conqueror shall
owe its completion to his rival and supplanter.
" There is a time to embrace, and a time to refrain
from embracing." " There is a time when the
fondness of friendship best^vs its caresses, and re
ceives them in return with r iprocal sincerity and
delight ; and a time when the ardour cools ; when
professions fail; when the friend of our bosom's
love proves false and hollow-hearted, and the sight
of him produces only the sigh and tear of bitter
recollection. We refrain from embracing, because
our embrace is not returned."* "There is a time
to get, and a time to lose." There is a time when
every enterprise succeeds; when, as if he were a
Midas, whatsoever the prosperous merchant touches,
is instantly gold ; then comes a time when all is ad
verse, — when flotillas sink, when ports are closed,
and each fine opening only proves another and a
tantalizing failure. And so there is " a time to keep,
and a time to cast away." There is a time when in
the cutting blast the traveller is fain to wrap his
cloak more closely round him ; a time when in the
torrid beam he is thankful to be rid of it. There is
a time when we cannot keep too carefully the scrip
or satchel which contains the provision for our
journey; a time when to outstrip the pursuing
* Wardlaw in loco.

THE CLOCK OF DESTINY. 103
assassin, or to bribe the red-armed robber, we fling it
down without a scruple. It was a time to keep
when the sea was smooth, and Rome's ready market
was waiting for the corn of Egypt ; but it was a time
to cast the wheat into the sea, when the angry ocean
clamoured for the lives of thrice a hundred pas
sengers.* There is " a time to rend, and a time to
sew :" a time when .calamity threatens or grief has
come, and we feel &;rt: trained to rend our apparel
and betoken our inward woe ; a time when the peril
has withdrawn, or the fast is succeeded by a festival,
when it is equally congruous to remove the symbols
of sorrow. There is a time to keep silence — a time
when we see that our neighbour's grief is great,
and we will not sing songs to a heavy heart ; — a
time when, in the abatement of anguish, a word of
sympathy may prove a word in season ; — a time when
to remonstrate with the transgressor, would be to
reprove a madman, or, like the pouring of vinegar on
nitre, would be to excite a fiery explosion against
ourselves ; but a time will come when, in the dawn
of repentance or the sobering down of passion, he
will feel that faithful are the wounds of a friend.
" There is a time to love and a time to hate." There
is a period when, from identity of pursuit, or from
the spell of some peculiar attraction, a friend is our
all in all, and our idolatrous spirits live and move
and have their being in him ; but with riper years or
changing character, the spell dissolves, and we
* Acts xxvii. 38.

104 LECTURE VIII.
marvel at ourselves that we could ever find zest in
insipidity or fascination in vulgarity. And just as
individuals cannot control their hatred and their
love ; as the soul must go forth to what is amiable,
and revolt from what is odious, — so nations cannot
regulate their pacifications and their conflicts. But
just at the moment when they are pledging a per
petual alliance, an apple of discord is thrown in, and
to avenge an insulted flag, or settle a disputed
boundary, or maintain the tottering balance of power,
wager of battle is forthwith joined ; and where early
summer saw the mingled tribes tilting in the tournay,
or masquerading on the fields of cloth of gold,
autumn sets on unreaped harvests, and blackened
forests, and silent villages. And conversely : when
the clouds of battle frown on one another, and
there is no prospect but long and sanguinary cam
paigns, a magazine explodes, an heir-apparent dies,
or two daring spirits of the opposing hosts transfer
the issue to the point of their single swords; and
with the awful incubus so suddenly thrown off, the
knit brows of either nation relax into an expansive
smile, and the year destined for mutuaI%xtermination
is spent in blended jubilee.
Such is the fact. Such are the unquestionable
alternations in human affairs; and thus accurately
do occasions and events fit into one another. So
much of mechanism does there appear to be in the
on-goings of mortality, and thus helpless seems man
as the maker of his own destiny. But lifting our

£aE CLOCK OP DESTINY. 105
eyes from the mundane side of it, what shall we
say concerning Him who is the Contriver and Con
troller of it all ?
And should it not be enough to say that God
has so arranged it ? To Him are owing all this
variety and vicissitude, and yet all this order and
uniformity. And is not it enough that He so wills
it ? Shall the thing formed say to Him who made
it, Why hast thou made me thus ?
But not only has God made everything, but
there is a beauty in this arrangement where all is
fortuitous to us, but all is fixed by Him. " He hath
made everything beautiful in its time ;" and that
season must be beautiful which to infinite Love and
Wisdom seems the best.
Amongst modern processes one of the most beauti
ful is the art of taking sun-pictures. Instead of the
artist copying the object, he lets the object copy itself;
and if the light were profuse enough and properly ad
justed, the picture would be as true as noon, and as
minute as the original. Now, would not it be a
curious thing if, from a station high enough, one
could take a vast sun-picture of this city, — this
island, — this hemisphere? — showing precisely how
at the selfsame instant all its inhabitants are occu
pied? — where every one of them is this moment
posted, and what each one of them is doing ? And
would it not be very curious if along with this there
were preserved a similar picture of the selfsame
people and their employments, at a given instant ten

106 LECTURE VIII.
or twenty years ago ? But most curious of all would
it not be, if some one could show a photographic
panorama of how it will appear ten or twenty years
hereafter? — projecting eveiy person in his proper
place ? — exhibiting the groups which have meanwhile
gathered round him or melted from his side ? — the
changes which have passed over himself, or which he
" has been the means of inducing over others ? But,
my friends, there is one repository where such
pictures are preserved, — far more exact and vivid
than the finest sun-painting ever drawn ; there is not
a day in our world's past history but its minutest
image lives in the memory of God, and more than that,
there is not a day in all the coming history of our world
but its portrait precise and clear is already present to
the Divine foreknowledge. " Known unto God are all
his works from the beginning of the creation ; " and
so to speak, each day that dawns, though its dawn
ing include an earthquake, a battle, or a deluge, —
each day that dawns, however many it surprises, is
no surprise to Him who sees the end from the begin
ning, and who, in each evolving incident but sees the
fulfilment of "his determined counsel," — the transla
tion into fact of one other omniscient picture of the
future. And which is best ? "A mighty maze and all
without a plan ?" — a world whose progress takes
even Providence by surprise, and whose future stands
before even the Infinite Mind in no clearer outline
than those dim guesses and dusky foreshadowings

THE CLOCK OF DESTINY. 107
to which even shrewd mortals attain? — or a world
of which the successive epochs shall only be the
outworking of a purpose so wise and good from the
first that it cannot be changed for the better ? — the
realization in persons and actions and results of that
series of prescient maps or plans whose aggregate
will constitute the optimism of the universe ? — as we
read in verse 11, " God hath set its destined
duration in the heart of every thing." To
every incident or event He has not only given its
immediate effect, but also its remoter errand afar in
the future. Each such incident or event may be
regarded as a mechanism wound up to travel so far
or accomplish so much, so that, till its course is
finished, till the beginning comes round to the end,
no man can say positively what was God's first pur
pose in it. When the young German grew earnest,
you would have said there was some hope that he
might next be enlightened; but when the earnest
youth became a monk, you would have said, Farewell,
light ! farewell, all hope of the Gospel ! And yet
Luther's entombment in the Erfurth convent was to be
the resurrection of apostolical religion. In the heart
of that little incident God had set the Reforma
tion. When a king arose in Egypt who knew not
Joseph, and who hated and tormented the Hebrews,
you would have said, There's an end of the old pro
mise. This order to exterminate the Hebrew chil
dren will soon annihilate Abraham's family. And
any Jew who had been gathered to his fathers at the

108 LECTURE VIII.
time they were slaying all the male-children, would'
have been apt to die despairing of his nation's
prospects. And yet that murderous edict was to be
the deliverance of Israel. In the heart of that
despot's decree God had set the exodus. And to
the sublime theology of Solomon, the only addition
we would make is that Evangelic supplement:
"All things work together for good to them that
love God; to them which are the called according
to his purpose." Their path is thickly strewn with
incidents. Of these, some are for the present not
joyous but grievous : nevertheless in their heart God
hath set the peaceful fruits of righteousness. They
are seeds with a thorny husk, and they hurt the pil
grim's naked feet ; but when next he passes that
way, or when Christiana with her children follows
him, they have germinated into bright flowers or cool,
overshadowing trees. And they will not perish.
The incidents along the believer's path are seeds of
influence, scattered by the hand of God. And
sanctification of some sort is the germ which He has
set in the heart of every one of them. Nor can they
die till they have thus developed. They cannot
perish and pass away till the Christian has set in his
heart the lesson which God has set in theirs.
The works of God are distinguished by opportune
ness of development and precision of purpose. There
is a season for each of them, and each comes in its
season. All of them have a function to fulfil, and
they fulfil it. To which, verse 14, he adds that they

THE CLOCK OF DESTINY. 109
are all of their kind consummate, — so perfect that no
improvement can be made, and, left to themselves,
they will be perpetual. "I know that whatsoever
¦God doeth, it shall be for ever ; nothing can be put
to it, nor anything taken from it." How true is this
regarding God's greatest work, redemption ! What
more could He have done to make it a great salva
tion than what He had already done ? or what feature
of the glorious plan could we afford to want ? And
now that He has Himself pronounced it a "finished"
work, what is there that man can put to it ? — what is
there he dare take from it ? And in doing it He
has done it "for ever." The merits of Immanuel
are as mighty this evening as they were on the day
of Pentecost. Jesus is as able to save us if we come
unto God by Him now, as He was to save Zaccheus
and Legion, and Mary Magdalene. It is into the same
bright heaven that these merits and that mercy will
take us as that into which the white-robed company
have already gone, and by a process as swift as that
which translated the dying thief, these merits could
transport any sinner amongst us, from the verge of
perdition to Paradise.
Of these theological conclusions the 15th verse is
the last. " That which hath been, is now, and that
which is to be hath already been, and God requireth,
— God resuscitates and repeats the past." There is
an uniformity in the Divine procedure. True to itself,
amidst all the diversity of incidents which chequer an
individual's history, there are certain great principles

110 LECTURE VIII.
from which Infinite Wisdom never deviates. In the
natural world there is always a summer and a winter,
a seed time and a harvest, a day succeeded by the
night. And in the moral world sin will always be
sorrow ; principle will, in the long-run, always prove
the highest expediency; the sinner will always
sooner or later be filled with the fruit of his own
devices ; and sooner or later there will always be a
reward to the righteous. And amidst all the di
versities of national character, and all the vicissitudes
of civil history, there is an essential identity, — variety
enough to spread romantic fascination over the page
of Thucydides or Robertson, but such identity that
the fifteenth Psalm, or a single section of this book, is
the abridgment of all history. Nor will there be
any material change till the story is ended. Hun
dreds of millions may yet be born, but they will all
repeat the past. A few may be more clever, and a
few may be more virtuous than any that have hereto
fore been ; and alas ! a few may be more abandoned)
more desperately wicked. But whether for good or
evil they will all be human, — human in their good
ness, human in their guilt. There will not be a
Gabriel among them all, nor will there be a Lucifer;
and in dealing with that humanity the principles
of the Divine procedure will be as uniform as the
material itself. With the reprobate it will be calls
and refusals, warnings and resistings, startling provi
dences and sullen stupor, momentary alarms, fol
lowed by deeper slumber; and then, "he who being

THE CLOCK OF DESTINY. Ill
often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be
cut off, and that without remedy ;" and, on the othe
side, the converse process. "Whom He did fore
know He also did predestinate. Moreover, whom
He did predestinate, them He also called, and whom
He called, them He also justified, and whom He
justified, them He also glorified." * And thus,
through all the operations of nature, providence,
and grace, "that which hath been, is now, and
that which is to be hath already been, and God
repeateth that which is past."
One final reflection from the whole passage.
Some of you, my hearers, may read the description
of mortality here recorded ; and you may give a ve
hement assent to its truth. " Yes, it is all a mas
querade of the same everlasting events wearing new
vizors ; it is all mutation without novelty and
change without real variety. The world itself is
a gourd whose root the worm is already gnawing,
— a palace whose quicksand basis the flood is
already sapping. " What is this passing scene ?
A peevish April day !
A little sun, a little rain,
And then night sweeps along the plain,
And all things fade away." t
So be it. But if so, how should it endear that
state where all is perfection, and all is permanence i
* Rom. viii. 29, 30. f Kirke White.

112 LECTURE VIII.
To everything " under heaven " there is a fixed but
a fleeting season; but to those who are in heaven
the moments are not thus precarious, nor the sea
sons thus short. And still better, there are many
of the things for which there is a "time" on earth
for which there is no time there. To those who
are born into that better country there is no time to
"die." Those that are "planted" in God's house
on high, shall never be "plucked up," but shall
flourish there for ever. There, there is nothing to
hurt nor to destroy, but perpetual "health," and
lasting as eternity. There, the walls of strong salva
tion shall never be broken down. There, there is no
time to weep; for sorrow and sighing are for ever
fled away: — no "time to mourn;" for, when they
left this vale of tears the days of their mourning
ended. There, it is all a time of " peace," and all a
time to love. There, monuments are never defaced nor
overthrown ; for those who are pillars in the temple
above, with the new name written on them, shall go
out no more. There, in the sanctity of the all-
superseding relationship, there will be no severance;
but those friends of earth, who have been joined
again in the bonds of angelhood, will never need to
give the parting embrace ; for they shall be ever with
one another, and ever with the Lord.
September 29, 1850.

LECTURE IX.
©5e Dungeon.
Read Eccles. iii. 16—22; iv. 1—3.
" Behold ! the tears of the oppressed ! "
When composing himself for a contented life, a
shriek of anguish reached the monarch's ear and
startled his repose. It was a cry from the victims of
tyranny and oppression, and as he listened it grew
more articulate, and it filled him at once with
sympathy for others, and solicitude for himself. " I
saw the place of judgment, that wickedness was there ;
and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.
I considered all the oppressions that are done under
the sun : and behold the tears of such as were op
pressed, and they had no comforter ; and on the side
of their oppressors there was power ; but they had no
comforter." How is it possible for a prince to " eat
and drink, and enjoy the fruit of his labour," whilst
the wail of evicted peasants and houseless orphans is
louder than all the music of his orchestra ? For a
moment he felt relief in recalling the future judg
ment. " I said in mine heart, God will judge the
i

114 LECTURE IX.
righteous and the wicked." But what care they for
the judgment ? What fear of God is before their
eyes ? So brutish are they that they neither look
forward nor look up ; but are content with their
daily raven. Yes, beasts, I half believe you.
Your grossness almost converts me to your own
materiahsm. I wish that God would manifest you
to yourselves, and show you how brutish you are
living, and how brute-like you will die. Yes, tyrants
and oppressors, you have power at present ; but you
will fall like the beasts that perish. You and they
will all go to one place, — will all resolve into promis
cuous clay ; for " all are of the dust, and all turn to
dust again." And as for your very soul, so unfeel
ing, so undevout as you have been, what is there to
mark your spirit more aspiring, more empyrean, than
the downward and dissolving spirit of the beast ?
No ; there are sharks in the ocean, and wolves in the
forest, and eagles in the air'; and there are tyrants on
thrones, and there are tormentors in many a cottage.
It is painful to know the miseiy they are daily inflict
ing, and, perhaps, I myself may yet become their prey.
But they must not spoil this transient life-luxury;
they shall not fill me with vain compassion or
fantastic fears. After all, there is nothing better than
to " rejoice in one's own works," and be, as long as he
can, oblivious of surrounding misery, — regulating his
own movements and rejoicing in his own resources.
"For that is his present portion; and who can
reveal the future ?" Said I so ? Ah ! vain resolu-

the dungeon. 115
tion and unavailing vow ! That ciy of tortured
innocence is in my ear again. I hear the groans of
the victim, and I see the tears of the oppressed. And
my heart grows sick, and I wish that I were dead,
or rather that I had never been bom into a world
where all proceeds so sadly.
Very ghastly is the picture which our world pre
sents when we look at it as the scene of injustice and
cruelty ; and very painful is the view it gives us of
our arbitrary and oppressive human nature. Could
we only see what God is daily seeing, and hear what
God is daily hearing, we would be apt to join with
Solomon in praising the dead who are already dead,
and who are past our pain or danger. For, even now,
in this noon of the nineteenth century, which, in the
ear Eternal, is the loudest of earth's voices ? — which
is the loudest in the ear of History ? Is it the psalm
of thanksgiving ? Is it the harvest hymn of ripe
fruition and cheerful prospects ? Is it the new song
of redeemed and regenerate adoration ? What is the
speech which day utters unto day, — the watchword
which one terrestrial night passes on to another ?
Alas ! it is lamentation and mourning. It is the
music of breaking hearts ; it is the noise of the
oppressor's millstone, whose grinding never waxes
low. It is the sighing of the prisoner whom the
despot has doomed; the groaning of the victim
whom lucre has enslaved, or whom superstition
means to immolate. That heavy plunge far out
on the moon-lit Bosphorus is the close of one house-
i 2

116 lecture ix.
hold tragedy ; in that sudden shriek and weltering
fall on the Venetian pavement ends another. These
cries of horror announce the funeral of some Ashanti
prince, and the wholesale slaughter which soaks
his tomb ; whilst from Austrian dungeons and Ural
mines, the groans of patriots confess the power of
tyrants. And even if the modern surface were silent,
History cannot be deaf to the voices underneath.
For, wheresoever she sets her foot, there is a
stifled sob, — that cry which nothing can deaden
or keep down, — the quenchless cry of blood, —
blood like Abel's, blood hke Stephen's, blood hke
the Saviour's own; and as if the turf were all
one altar, and every pore a several tongue, she
hears the slain of centuries invoking heaven's pity,
— Bethlehem's innocents, Roman martyrs, Bartho
lomew victims ; and the ground begins to quake as
the muffled chorus waxes louder : " How long, 0
Lord, holy and true, dost thou not avenge our blood
on them that dwell on the earth ? " *
There are few deeds of kindness which are not
sufficiently notorious, — few acts of munificence or
mercy which the world's right hand has not hinted
to its left. But when History begins her sterner
survey, — when from Popedoms and dynasties, and
Republics even, she lifts the gilt and purple canopy,
— what sights of paltry vengeance or ingenious
cruelty offend the reluctant gaze! What secrets
of the prison-house do Bastiles and Inquisitions,
* Rev. vi. 9—12.

the dungeon. 117
San Angelos, and London Towers disclose, as the
daylight of inquiry breaks in, and the earthen floor
gives up its slain, and the stone wall gives out its
skeletons ! There are depths of the ocean to which
the plummet of the mariner, and the dredge of the
naturalist, and the exploring foot of the diver, have
never travelled down ; but even there, as she takes
her telescope, History sees the bones thick strewn of
the hapless men whom the buccaneer, and the pirate,
and the flying slaver, have flung quick into the deep :
and there are dim recesses of old story from which no
gleams of humanity or tenderness beam forth; but
even thence, by the light of Egyptian brick-kilns,
and Druid bale-fires, and Assyrian conflagrations, we
are reminded that the anguish of his fellow has
always been the amusement of the warrior and the
solace of the priest. So that, morally regarded, and
taking in the continuous survey of all places and all
time, green may be the colour of the globe, but red
is the livery of man. Babel may have spht the
dialects of earth into a thousand tongues ; but
amidst them all, the old vernacular of anguish still
survives. And in the music of the spheres its
Maker may have given to our world its proper
note ; but it is a minor tune which is ever sung by
its inhabitants, by neighbour nations, and by the
several classes of society, evermore to one another,
crying, Woe, woe, woe.
Such oppressions Solomon beheld, and more

118 lecture ix.
especially judicial oppressions, — cruelty in the cloak
of law (iii. 16) — and from the contemplation his
mind sought refuge in the Supreme Tribunal. "I
said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous
and the wicked." And though, in the agitated
state of his spirit, the recollection did not long
abide, the fact is true and the consolation lasting.
The Lord has a bottle, and into that bottle He
puts his people's tears, and the tears of all who are
oppressed. When Joseph wept at Dothan, and the
Jews at Babylon, it was not the sand of the desert
nor the stream of Euphrates which intercepted the
tear ; but God's bottle. When the poor man works
hard, and, coming for his wages, gets only rough
words or coarse ridicule ; when, from the hapless
negro, his wife and children are torn by some
vindictive master, and sold into a distant State;
when, in her new mourning, the bewildered mother
goes to claim the scanty provision for her babes,
and finds that a cunning quirk has left her not only
a widow, but a pauper, — man may mock the misery,
but God regards the crime. And whether it be the
scalding tear of the Southern slave, or that which
freezes in the Siberian exile's eye, God's bottle has
received them all; and when the measure is full, the
tears of the oppressed burst in vials of vengeance on
the oppressor's head.
So true is this that, whenever it foretels retribu
tion, poetry becomes prophetic : —

the dungeon. 119
" Ye horrid towers, the abode of broken hearts ;
Ye dungeons, and ye cages of despair,
That monarchs have supplied from age to age
With music, such as suits their ears, —
The sighs and groans of miserable men !
There 's not an English heart that would not leap
To hear that ye were fallen."
So sang the bard of Olney in the hey-day of the
Bourbons ; and a few years later the heart of Eng
land did leap, for the Bastile was fallen. And two
centuries have passed since, like a Hebrew seer, our
Milton prayed : —
"Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones
Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold."
And there is not a succeeding age which has not
seen an instalment of the vengeance ; and our own
is witnessing that fulfilment which "the triple tyrant"
most abhors, — the resurrection of their ashes in
Roman Protestants and Italian friends of freedom.
This is a great principle, and not to be lost sight
of — the weakness of oppression, the terrible strength
of the oppressed. I do not allude to the elasticity
of the human heart, though that is very great, and
is apt, sooner or later, to heave off despotisms and
every sort of incubus. I do not so much allude to
that — for elastic though it is, it sometimes has been
crushed. But I allude to that all-inspecting and
all-adjusting Power which controls the affairs of
men. And though Solomon felt so perturbed by
the prosperous cruelty he witnessed; though he

120 LECTURE IX.
"beheld the tears of such as were oppressed, and
they had no comforter; for on the side of their
oppressors there was power ;" — had he bent his eye
a little longer in the direction where it eventually
rested, he would have found a Comforter for the op
pressed, and would have seen the impotence of the
oppressor. For " God shall judge the righteous and
the wicked " (iii. 17), or as the close of the book more
amply declares it, " God shall bring every work into
judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be
good, or whether it be evil." And with two worlds in
which to outwork the retribution, and with a whole
eternity to overtake the arrears of time, Oh ! how
tyrants should fear for God's judgments; and that
match which themselves have kindled, and which is
slowly creeping round to explode their own subjacent
mine, in what floods of repentance, if wise, would they
drench it ! Had they been wise enough to remember
that " on the side of the oppressed " there is always
infinite "Power," Pharaoh would have dreaded the
Hebrew infants more than the Hebrew soldiery, and
Herod would have been more frightened for the
babes of Bethlehem than for the legions of Rome.
To David the most dreadful of foes would have.
been the murdered Uriah, and to Ahab the hosts of
Syria, compared with the corpse of Naboth, need
have given no uneasiness. More than all the might
of Britain had Napoleon cause to dread the blood of
D'Enghien, and, beyond all foreign enemies, should

THE DUNGEON. 121
modem nations tremble for their slaves : por on the
SIDE OF THE OPPRESSED IS OMNIPOTENCE, AND THE
MOST DEATHLESS OF FOES IS A VICTIM !
My friends, the Gospel is the law of liberty.
Such an antagonist is it to all that is unfair and
arbitrary and oppressive, that it is only where there
is a reign of darkness that there can be a reign of
despotism. Even as it is, every Christian is a free
man. His loyalty to God is liberty. It is freedom
from tyrannical lusts and task-master passions. It
is the bond of iniquity broken. It is emancipation
from the thraldom of Satan. And if there were two
countries, one of which the Son of God had made
free,* and the other of which had freed itself; in
one of which Christians were ruled by an absolute
but God-fearing Dictator, and in the other of which
the slaves of Satan ruled themselves, — we know
very well where we should find the greater freedom.
But still, the tendency of the Gospel is to do away
the pride and imperiousness and unfairness which
are here called " oppression ;" and if there were any
land where these two truths were practically realized,
"God is Light," and "God is Love,"— that land
. would be a land of hberty.
Still, liberty, or exemption from man's oppres
sion, is a priceless blessing. And it may be worth
while to ask, What can Christians do for its culture
and diffusion ?
And, first of all, yourselves be free. Seek free-
* John viii. 32, 36.

122 LECTURE IX.
dom from fierce passions and dark prejudices. If
you are led captive by the devil at his will, you are
sure to become an oppressor. In the greed of gain
you will be apt to defraud the hireling of his wages ;
and that is oppression. In the fury of affronted
pride, you will be apt to wreak disproportionate
wrath on the offender ; and that also is oppression.
In the narrowness of sectarianism you will be ready
to punish men for their convictions ; and such per
secution is oppression. He who governs his family
by fear is an oppressor. He who tries to accomplish
by force what can be effected by reason, is an
oppressor. And if he would only look, such a man
might see the tears of those whom he oppresses.
He might see the tears of the broken-hearted sup
plicant who with case unheard and with a rude
rebuff, has been driven from his door. He might
see the tears of the conscientious labourer who has
been deprived of bread and bereft the maintenance
for his family by refusing Sunday work. He might
see the tears of his dependant who, for attendance
on some interdicted place of worship or for- adher
ence to a sect proscribed, has received his warning.
And though a tear be a httle mirror, did he but
behold it for one calm moment, it might reveal
the oppressor to himself, and save a multitude of
sorrows. Beware of confounding liberty with licence. One
of the greatest blessings in a state, or in a' Christian
Church, is good government; but from mistaken

THE DUNGEON. 123
notions of independence, it is the delight of some to
" speak evil of dignities." They carp and cavil at every
law, and they set "at defiance every regulation of the
powers that be, and one would almost fancy that in
their esteem rulers were ordained as a target for pub-
he rancor, or a safety-valve for national spleen. On
the other hand, an enlightened Christian and patriot
will always remember that a constitutional Govern
ment, — a Government where himself and the rulers
have given mutual guarantees, — is too great a mercy
to be lightly imperilled : and he will also remember
that where obedience is order, anarchy is pretty sure
to end in oppression. It was a noble sentiment, not
only for a soldier but for a subject, " I like to be at
my post, doing my duty; indifferent whether one
set or another govern, provided they govern well."*
And, like the hero who originally uttered it, the man
who is thus magnanimous in obeying is likely to be
mighty in command.
And, finally, cultivate a humane and gentle
spirit. Every master, every parent, every public
functionary, must, from time to time, pronounce
decisions or give commands which cross some one's
wishes or derange some one's plans. But it will go
far to propitiate compliance when it is seen that it is
not in recklessness, but for good reason ; or, perhaps,
from a regretted necessity that the unwelcome
order is given : for where there is tenderness, there
never can be tyranny. On the other hand, wherever
* " Life of General Sir John Moore," vol. ii. p. 14.

124 LECTURE IX.
there is thoughtlessness there will be tyranny ; and
wherever there is a hard or cruel nature, it only
needs that power be added in order to make a Nero.
Here it is that the mollifying religion of Jesus
comes in as the great promoter of freedom and the
great opponent of oppression. By infusing a bene
volent spirit into the bosom of the Christian, it
makes him the natural guardian of weakness and
the natural friend of innocence. And whether
it be the savage sportsman who gloats over the
tears and dying shudders of the harmless forest-
ranger, or who, shooting the parent-bird on her
way to the eyrie, leaves the callow nestlings to
pine away with slow hunger; — or the kidnapper
who carries off the struggling boy from his mo
ther's arms, or stows away in separate ships bound
for far-sundered shores, the young chieftain and
his bride; — or the Moslem conqueror who hews
his way from land to land through fields of quiver
ing slain ; — or the
" Cowl'd demons of the inquisitorial cell,
The worse than common fiends from heaven that fell,
The baser, ranker sprung, Autochthones of hell :" — *
Whichever be the form of oppression which night
mares our sympathies, or the form of cruelty which
lacerates our feelings, we foresee an end of it in the
final triumph of the cross. We foresee an end of
it when the Saviour asserts his rightful supremacy,
and subdues all things under Him. "For the
* Coleridge.

THE DUNGEON. 125

earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the
manifestation of the sons of God :" and tiththen, in
every groan of the creature we must recognise a
pledge and a prayer that the Son of God will be
manifest once more, and that the disciples of Jesus
will yet be numerous enough to secure a reign of
peace and justice in this sin-cursed world. ' _And as
we listen to these inarticulate groans of the burdened
creation, we, who are nature's interpreters and the
world's intercessors, must translate them into the
petition, " Thy kingdom come : Thy will be done on
earth as it is in heaven. Even so, come, Lord
Jesus." October 6, 1850.

LECTURE X.
tEile Sbanctuarg.
Read Eccles. v. 1 — 7.
" Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God."
Vanity of vanities : human occupation, human ex
istence is all fantastic and foolish. Verily, each man
walketh in a vain show ; surely they are disquieted in
vain. Like the fly-plague in Egypt, every scene of
mortal life is infested by frivolity and falsehood ; and
it is hard to tell which is the sorest vexation, — the
buzz and bewilderment of vanities still hving, or the
noisomeness of those that are dead. The cottage and
the palace, the student's chamber and the prince's
banquet-room all teem with them, and there is no
secure retreat from those vanities which on the wing
are a weariness, and, in the cup of enjoyment, are the
poison of pleasure. ' Nay, we have not tried that
temple, — we have not yet gone to the house of God.
There, perhaps, we shall find a tranquil asylum.
There, if anywhere, we should find a heaven on
earth, — a refuge from the insincerity and unsatis-
factoriness which elsewhere abound.' Ah, no; the

THE SANCTUARY. 127
temple itself is full of vacant worship. It resounds
with rash vows and babbling voices. It is the house
of God, but man has made it a nest of triflers, a fair
of vanity, a den of thieves. Some come to it as
reckless and irreverent as if they were stepping into
a neighbour's house. Some come to it and feel as if
they laid the Most High under obligation because they
bring a sheaf of corn or a pair of pigeons ; whilst they
never listen to the lessons of God's Word, nor strive
after that obedience which is better than sacrifice.
Some come and rattle over empty forms of devotion,
as if they would be heard because of their much
speaking. And some come, and in a fit of fervor
utter vows which they forget to pay; and when
reminded of their promise by the "angel" of the
church, — the priest or his messenger, — they protest
that there must be some mistake ; they repudiate the
vow, and say " it was an error."
A thoughtless resorting to the sanctuary ; inatten
tion and indevotion there ; and precipitancy in re
hgious vows and promises, are still as common as
in the days of Solomon. And for these evils the only
remedy is that which he prescribes, — a heartfelt and
abiding reverence. " Fear thou God; " " God is in
heaven, and thou upon earth ; " " Keep thy foot
when thou goest to the house of God."
I. There is a preparation for the sanctuary. Not
only should there be prayer beforehand for God's
blessing there, but a studious effort to concentrate
on its services all our faculties. In the spirit of that

128 LECTURE X.
significant Oriental usage which drops its sandals at
the palace door, the devout worshipper will put
off his travel-tarnished shoes, — will try to divest
himself of secular anxieties and worldly projects, —
when the place where he stands is converted into
holy ground by the words, " Let us worship God."
Be " ready to hear." We freely grant that dull
hearing is often produced by dull speaking. We
allow that there is a great contrast when the same
ness of sermons is set over against the variety and
vivacity of Scripture. And so often is the text injured
by its treatment, that we have often wished that some
power could give it back in its original pungency, and
divested of its drowsy associations. That passage of
the Word was a burning lamp, till the obscuring inter
pretation conveyed it under a bushel. It was a fire,
till a non-conducting intellect encased it, and made it
like a furnace in felt. It was the finest of the wheat,
till a husky understanding buried it in chaff. It
was " a dropping from the honey-comb," till tedious
insipidity diffused it and drowned it in its deluge of
commonplace. And we allow that much of the im
patience and inattention of hearers may be owing to
the prolixity of preachers. But still, admitting that
on the one side there is often the fault of common
place as well as " the sin of excessive length, " * and
conceding to every hearer the same right to exert his
tasteful and intellectual faculties when listening to a
sermon as when perusing a printed book ; you will not
* Bishop Shirley.

THE SANCTUARY. 129
deny that on the other side there are often a languor
and lukewarmness of which the cure must be sought
not so much in the greater power of the preacher as
in the growing piety of the hearer. There are two
sorts of instruction to which if we do not hearken
we are utterly without excuse. One is the direct
instruction of God's Word ; the other is truth and
earnestness embodied in a Christian teacher. But
how often are the lively oracles read in pubhc wor
ship, and a relief experienced when the lesson is
ended ! and how often does some fervent evangehst
pour forth appeals full of that rarest originality, — the
pathos of a yearning spirit, — and find no response
save stolid apathy, or a patronizing compliment to his
energy !
Half the power of preaching lies in the mutual
preparation. The minister must not serve God with
that which cost him nothing ; but it is not the minister
alone who should "give attendance to reading, to
exhortation, to doctrine." There is a reciprocal duty
on the part of the hearer. He should come with a
purpose, and he should come with prayer. He should
come hopeful of benefit, and bestirring all his facul
ties, that he may miss nothing which is " profitable
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction
in righteousness." He should come with a benevolent
prepossession towards his pastor, and with a friendly
solicitude for his fellow-hearers. And thus, as iron
sharpens iron, so his intelligent countenance would
animate the speaker; and, like a Hur or an Aaron,
K

130 LECTURE X.
his silent petitions would contribute to the success
of the sermon.
Nor can aught be more fatal than a habit, of
indolent hearing. Like one who glances into a
mirror, and sees disorder in his attire, or dust on his
face, and says, " I must attend to this," but forth
with forgets it, and hurries out on his journey; or
who, in the time of plague, sees the livid marks on
his countenance, and says, " I must take advice for
this," and thinks no more about it till he drops
death- stricken on the pavement : so there are lan
guid or luxurious listeners to the Word of God. At
the moment, they say. Very true, or, Very good, and
they resolve to take some action : but just as the
mirror is not medicine, — as even a watery mirror
cannot wash from the countenance the specks which it
reveals, if merely looked into, — so a self- survey in
the clearest sermon will neither erase the blemishes
from your character, nor expel the sin-plague from
your soul. "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let
every man be swift to hear. And, laying apart all
filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, receive with
meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save
your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not
hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any
be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is hke
unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass :
for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and
straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty,

THE SANCTUARY. 131
and continueth therein," — Hke a man who seeing his
bedusted visage in the mirror of that polished flood,
loses not a moment but makes a laver of his looking-
glass, — " he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer
of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed ;"*
he shall be saved by his promptitude ; or, if saved
already, he shall become a more beautiful character
by his strenuous self- application.
2. In devotional exercises be intent and deli
berate, vers. 2, 3. Like a dream which is a medley
from the waking day, — which into its own warp of
delirium weaves a shred from all the day's engage
ments : so, could a fool's prayer be exactly repro
duced, it would be a tissue of trifles intermingled
with vain repetitions. In all the multitude of words
it might be found that there was not a single sincere
confession, not one heart-felt and heaven-arresting
supplication. For such vain repetitions the remedy still is
reverence. " Be not rash," but remember at whose
throne you are kneeling ; and be not verbose, but
let your words be few and emphatic, as of one who
is favoured with an audience from Heaven's King.
It is right to have stated seasons of worship ; but it
were also well if with our acts of devotion we could
combine some special errand; and it might go far
to give precision and urgency to our morning or
evening prayer, if for a few moments beforehand we
considered whether there were any sin to confess,
* James i. 19—25.
K 2

132 LECTURE X.
any duty or difficulty demanding special grace, any
friend or any object for which we ought to inter
cede. And when the emergencies of life — some
perplexity or soitow, some deliverance or mercy, at
an unwonted season sends us to the Lord, without
any lengthened preamble we should give to this
originating occasion the fulness of our feelings and
the foremost place in our petitions.
3. In like manner, be not rash with vows and
religious promises, verses 4 — 7. In the old Leviti
cal economy there was large provision made for
spontaneous vows and votive offerings ; and in our
own Christian time there are occasions for vows
virtual or implied. It is a vow or a solemn promise
which a pastor makes when he assumes an office in
the Christian Church ; and it is a virtual vow which
every disciple makes when he becomes a member of
that Church : equivalent to the oath of fidelity which
a citizen takes when he becomes a soldier, or a servant
of the Crown. And occasionally, for the carrying
out of some great enterprise, it may be expedient
that like-minded men should join together, and
covenant to stand by one another till the reform or
the philanthropic object is effected. But if Christians
make voluntary vows at all, it should be with clear
warrant from the Word, for purposes obviously
attainable, and for limited periods of time. The
man who vows to offer a certain prayer at a given
hour for all his remaining life, may find it perfectly
convenient for the next six months, but not for the

THE SANCTUARY. 133
next six years. The man who vows to pious use3
half the income of the year may be safe ; whereas, the
Jephthah who rashly devotes contingencies over
which he has no control may pierce himself through
with many sorrows. And whilst every believer feels
it his reasonable service to present himself to God a
living sacrifice, those who wish to walk in the liberty
of sonship will seek to make their dedication, as a
child is devoted to its parents, not so much in the
stringent precision of a legal document, as in the
daily forthgoings of a filial mind.
The glory of Gospel worship consists in its free
dom, its simplicity, and its spirituality. We have
boldness to enter into the holiest, by the blood of
Jesus ; and we are encouraged to draw near with a
true heart in full assurance of faith. We are not
come to a burning mount, nor to the sound of a
trumpet and a voice of terror; but we are come
" to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, and to
the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things
than that of Abel." The Father seeks true wor
shippers, such as will worship Him in spirit and in
truth; and now that sacrifice and offering have
ceased, — and now that burdensome observances have
vanished away, praise and prayer and almsgivmg
are the ordinary oblations of the Christian Church.
But surely the freedom of our worship should not
abate from its fervor; and because it is simple,
there is the more scope for sincerity, and the more
need that it should be the worship of the heart and

134 LECTURE X.
soul. But do we sufficiently realize our privileged
but solemn position as worshippers of Him, to whom
Seraphim continually do cry, " Holy, holy, holy is
the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his
glory?" Do we sufficiently realize our blessedness
as fellow-worshippers with those who sing on high,
"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain?" In the
house of prayer, do we make worship our study, and
devotion our business ? Do we " labour mightily in
prayer," and do we " wake up our glory to sing and
give praise?" Or are not many of us content to
be lookers-on at the prayers, and listeners to the
psalmody ? and instead of " a golden vial full of
odours," is not many a devotional act a vain oblation,
a vapid form ; a tedium to ourselves, and an offence
to the Most High ?
Beloved, let us bestir ourselves in worship. Let
us "make a joyful noise unto the Lord;" let us
" serve Him with gladness." Let us sing his praises
" with grave sweet melody," and " with grace in our
hearts." And let us concentrate our thoughts, and
join zealously in the confessions, the thanksgivings,
and the supplications of the public prayers. And
thus, like the restful activity of the temple above,
we shall find moments pass swiftly which may now
be a weariness ; and refreshed by the sacred exertion
which enlisted our faculties, and which enlivened our
feelings, we shall retire sweetly conscious that it was
" good to be there."
Finally, my friends, amidst the assurance and

THE SANCTUARY. 135
gladness of Gospel worship, let us take care that we
lose nothing of our veneration and godly fear. " God
is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints,
and to be had in reverence of all them that are about
Him." " Thou hast a mighty arm ; strong is Thy
hand, and high is Thy right hand. Justice and
judgment are the habitation of Thy throne ; mer°y
and truth shall go before Thy face." It is a poor
religion in which reverence is not a conspicuous
element ; and, like Moses in the mount, if a man
has really communed with God, there will be some
thing awful in the shining of his face. And just as
in a far inferior matter, — our relations to one an
other, — just as you never respect the man who does
not respect the noble spirits and exalted intellects
among his fellows ; whilst you always feel that wher
ever there is admiration of the great and good there
is the germ of principle, the possibility of eminent
excellence: — so be it the homely peasant or the
village patriarch ; be it the philosopher * always
pausing before he uttered the Name Supreme, or
Israel's destined lawgiver, putting his shoes from off his
feet on Horeb's holy ground ; — you always feel that
to reahze heaven's majesty is itself majestic, and that
there is nothing in itself more venerable than habi
tual veneration. * Boyle.
November 10, 1850.

LECTURE XI.
©fie lExcfiange.
Read Eccles. v. 9—20; vi. 1—9.
" He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver."
This passage describes the vanity of riches. With
the enjoyments of frugal industry it contrasts the
woes of wealth. Looking up from that condition on
which Solomon looked down, it may help to reconcile
us to our lot, if we remember how the most opulent
of princes envied it.
1. In all grades of society human subsistence is
very much the same. " The profit of the earth is for
all ; the king himself is served by the field." " What
hath the wise more than the fool ? " Even princes
are not fed with ambrosia, nor do poets subsist on
asphodel. Bread and water,, the produce of the flocks
and the herds, and a few homely vegetables, form the
staple of his food who can lay the globe under tribute ;
and these essentials of healthful existence are within
the attainment of ordinary industry. " The profit of
the earth is for all."

THE EXCHANGE. 137
2. When a man begins to amass money, he
begins to feed an appetite which nothing can ap
pease, and which its proper food will only render
fiercer. " He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied
with silver." To greed there may be "increase,"
but no increase can ever be "abundance." For,
could you change all the pebbles on the beach into
minted money, or conjure into bank-notes all the
leaves of the forest; nay, could you transmute the
solid earth into a single lump of gold, and drop it
into the gaping mouth of avarice, it would only be
a crumb of transient comfort, a cordial drop
enabling it to cry a little louder, Give, give.
Therefore, happy they who have never got enough
to awaken the accumulating passion, and who,
feeling that food and raiment are the utmost to
which they can aspire, are therewith content.
3. It is another consideration which should re
concile us to the want of wealth : that, as abundance
grows, so grow the consumers, and of riches less
perishable, the proprietor enjoys no more than the
mere spectator. "When goods increase, they are
increased that eat them ; and what good is there to
the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them
with their eyes ? " It is so far well that rank in
volves a retinue, and that no man can be so selfishly
sumptuous but that his luxury gives employment
and subsistence to others. On the other hand, it is
also well that riches cannot retain in exclusive mo
nopoly the pleasures they procure. A rich man buys

138 LECTURE XI.
a picture or a statue, and he is proud to think that
his mansion is adorned with such a famous master
piece. But a poor man comes and looks at it, and;
because he has the aesthetic insight, in a few minutes
he is conscious of more astonishment and pleasure
than the dull proprietor has experienced in half a cen
tury. Or, a rich man lays out a park or a garden,
and, except the diversion of planning and remodel
ling, he has derived from it httle enjoyment; but
some bright morning a holiday student or a town-
pent tourist comes, and when he leaves he carries with
him a freight of life-long recollections. The porter
at the gates should have orders to intercept such
appropriating sight-seers ; for, though they leave the
canvas on the walls, and the marble in the gallery, —
though they leave the flowers in the vases, and the
trees in the forest, they have carried off the glory
and the gladness; their bibulous eyes have drunk
a delectation, and all then senses have absorbed a
joy for which the owner vainly pays his heavy yearly
ransom. 4. Amongst the pleasures of obscurity, or rather
of occupation, the next noticed is sound slumber.
"The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether
he eat little or much ; but the abundance of the rich
will not suffer him to sleep." Sometimes the wealthy
would be the better for a taste of poverty ; it would
reveal to them their privileges. But if the poor
could get a taste of opulence, it would reveal to
them strange luxuries in lowliness. Fevered with

THE EXCHANGE. 139
late hours and false excitement, or scared by visions
the righteous recompense of gluttonous excess, or
with breath suppressed and palpitating heart list
ing the fancied footsteps of the robber, grandeur
often pays a nightly penance for the triumph of the
day. As a king expresses it, who could sympathise
with Solomon : —
" How many thousands of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep ! — Sleep, gentle sleep !
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness !
Why rather, sleep, Hest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody ?
Then, happy, lowly clown !
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." *
5. Wealth is often the ruin of its possessor. It
is " kept for the owner to his hurt." Like that King
of Cyprus who made himself so rich that he became a
tempting spoil, and who, rather than lose his trea
sures, embarked them in perforated ships ; but,
wanting courage to draw the plugs, ventured back
to land and lost both his money and his life:f so
a fortune is a great perplexity to its owner, and is
* Henry IV., Second part.
t Procul dubio hie non possedit divitias, sed a divitiis
possessus est ; titulo rex insulse, animo pecuniae miserabile
mancipium. — Valerius Muximus, lib. ix. cap. 4.

140 LECTURE XI.
no defence in times of danger. And very often, by
enabling him to procure all that heart can wish, it
pierces him through with many sorrows. Ministering
to the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the
pride of life, misdirected opulence has ruined many
both in soul and body.
6. Nor is it a small vexation to have accumulated
a fortune, and when expecting to transmit it to
some favourite child, to find it suddenly swept away.
(Vers. 14 — 16.) There is now the son, but where
is the sumptuous mansion ? Here is the heir, but
where is the vaunted heritage ?
7. Last of all, are the infirmity and fretfulness
which are the frequent companions of wealth. "All
his days also he eats in darkness, and Suffers anxiety
and peevishness along with sickness." You pass a
stately mansion, and as the powdered menials are
closing the shutters of the brilliant room, and you
see the sumptuous table spread and the fire-light
flashing on vessels of gold and vessels of silver, per
haps no pang of envy pricks your bosom, but a glow
of gratulation for a moment fills it : Happy people
who tread carpets so soft, and who swim through
halls so splendid ! But, some future day, when the
candles are lighted and the curtains drawn in that
selfsame apartment, it is your lot to be within ; and
as the invalid owner is wheeled to his place at the
table, and as dainties are handed round of which he
dares not taste, and as the guests interchange cold
courtesy, and all is so stiff and so common-place, and

THE EXCHANGE. 141
so heartlessly grand, — your fancy cannot help flying
off to some humbler spot with which you are more
familiar, and " where quiet with contentment makes
her home." Nay, how curious the contrast could
the thoughts be read which sometimes cross one
another ! That ragged urchin who opened the
common-gate, and let the silvery chariot through,
— oh, " what a phantom of delight " the lady
looked as in clouds of cushions and on a firmament
of ultramarine she floated away ! What a golden house
she must have come from, and what a happy thing
to be borne about from place to place in such a
carriage, as easy as a bird and as brilliant as a queen !
But, little boy, that lady looked at you. As she
passed she noticed your ruddy cheeks, and she
envied you. That glittering chariot was carrying
what you do not know — a broken heart ; and death-
stricken and world-weary, as she looked at you, she
thought, How pleasant to have lived amongst the
blossomed May-trees on this common's edge, and
never known the falsehoods of fashion and the evil
ways of the world !
We have glanced at the sorrows of the rich ;
some will expect that we should now descant on the
sinfulness of riches. And a certain class of religion
ists, misunderstanding the Saviour's precept, "Lay
not up for yourselves treasures on earth," have spoken
of money as if it were a malignant principle, and have
canonized poverty as a Christian grace. Fully car-

142 LECTURE XI.
ried out, this theory would prohibit the flagon of oil
and the barrel of meal, and would reduce us all to
the widow's cruse and handful ; — for it makes little
difference whether the hoard be in kind, or packed
up in the portable form of money. It would justify
the life of the anchorite who has no funded property
except the roots in the ground and the nuts on the
trees; and it would suit very well such a state of
society as Israel spent in the desert, when no skill
could secure a week's manna beforehand, and when
the same pair of shoes lasted forty years. But as it
was not for a world of anchorites or ascetics, — as it
was not for a society on which the clouds should
rain miraculous supplies that the Saviour was legis
lating, — his words must have another meaning.
And what is that ? Live by faith. Look forward :
look upward. Let nothing temporal be your trea
sure. Whether your abode be a hut or a castle,
think only of the Father's house as your enduring
mansion. Whether your friends be high or low,
coarse or refined, think only of just men made per
fect as your permanent associates. And whether
your possessions be great or small, think only of the
joys at God's right hand as your eternal treasure.
Lead a life disentangled and expedite — setting jrour
affections on things above, and never so clinging to
the things temporal as to lose the things eternal.
Translated into its equivalent, money just means
food and clothing, and a salubrious dwelling. It
means instructive books, and rational recreation.

THE EXCHANGE. 143
It means freedom from anxiety, and leisure for per
sonal improvement. It means the education of one's
children, and the power of doing good to others.
And to inveigh against it, as if it were intrinsically
sinful, is as fanatical as it would be to inveigh
against the bread and the raiment, the books and
the Bibles, which the money procures. It would be
to stultify all those precepts which tell us to provide
things honest in the sight of all men; to do good
and to communicate ; to help forward destitute
saints after a godly sort ; to make friends of the un
righteous mammon.
'And as there is nothing in the Bible to prohibit
the acquirement of wealth, there is much to guide
us in its right bestowment. Using but not abusing
God's bounties, the Christian avoids both the waste
ful and the penurious extremes, and is neither a
miser nor a spendthrift. With that most elastic and
enlightened disciple, who knew so well how to be
abased and how to abound, the believer can say,
" I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith
to be content. Everywhere and in all things, I am
instructed, both to be full and to be hungry, both
to abound and suffer need. I can do all things
through Christ who strengtheneth me."
It was a sultry day and an avaricious old man
who had hoarded a large amount, was toiling away
and wasting his little remaining strength, when a
heavenly apparition stood before him. " I am Solo
mon," it said, with a friendly voice; "what are

144 LECTURE XI.
you doing ?" " If you are Solomon," answered the
old man, " how can you ask ? When I was young
you sent me to the ant, and told me to consider her
ways ; and from her I learned to be industrious and
gather stores." " You have only half learned your
lesson," replied the spirit ; " go once more to the
ant, and learn to rest the winter of your years and
enjoy your collected treasures."* And this lesson
of moderate but cheerful spending, nothing teaches
so effectually as the Gospel. Reminding the be
liever that the life is more than meat, and the body
more than raiment, it also suggests to him that
meat and raiment are more than money; and by
saving him from the idolatry of wealth, it emboldens
him to use it : so that far from feeling impoverished
when it is converted into some worthy equivalent, he
can use with thankfulness the gifts whieh his Hea
venly Father sends him. Within the bounds of
temperance and forethought, he subscribes to the
sentiment of our text, "It is good and comely to
eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of one's
labour ; for the power to eat thereof and to take his
portion is itself the gift of God."
But Christianity teaches a lesson higher still.
" Remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, how
he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive,"
the true disciple will value wealth chiefly as he can
spend it on objects dear to his dear Lord. To him
money is a talent and a trust ; and he will feel it a
* Lessing's Fables.

THE EXCHANGE. 145
fine thing to have a fortune, because it enables
him to do something notable for some noble end.
And whether, like Granville Sharpe, he spends it in
pleading the cause of the oppressed and the friend
less ; or, like Howard, devotes it to reclaim the most
depraved and degraded; or, like Simeon, purchases
advowsons in order to appoint faithful pastors ; or,
like Thomas Wilson, multiplies places of worship in
a crowded metropolis; there is no fortune which brings
to its possessor such a return of solid satisfaction as
that which is converted into Christian philanthropy.
Our houses tumble down; our monuments decay;
our equipages grow frail and shabby. But it is a
fine thing to have a fortune, and so be able to give
a grand impulse to some important cause. It is a
happy thing to have wealth enough to set fairly
afloat an emancipation movement or a prison reform.
It is a noble thing to be rich enough to provide
Gospel ordinances for ten thousand people in a vast
and world- wielding capital. It is a blessed thing to
be " a man to whom God has not only given riches
and wealth," but so large a heart, — so beneficent, so
brotherly, that his fruition of his fortune is as wide
as the thousands who share it, and the reversion as
secure as the heaven in which it is treasured.
December 1, 1850.

LECTURE XII.
53oncfortj Hfgfits for a Barfc lanifag-jilace.
" That which hath been is named already, and it is known
what man is : neither may he contend with him that is
mightier than he. Seeing there be many things that
increase vanity, what is man the better? For who
knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days
of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow ? for who
can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun? "
— Eccles. vi. 10—12.
You have ascended a staircase which, inside the
solid rock, wound up from the sands of the sea
shore to green fields and beautiful gardens. Some
what of this sort is the structure of Ecclesiastes.
And now we have reached the half-way landings
place, the dimmest and coldest station in the entire
ascent ; and very mournful is the strain in which our
moralist reviews his progress. "Fate is fixed, and
man is feeble ; joy is but a phantom, and life a
vapour, and darkness veils the future." Truly,
we have need to borrow lamps and suspend them
in this dark place. We must send for some brighter
minstrel ; for our hearts will break if we only listen
to the bard of vanity.

BORROWED LIGHTS FOR A DARK LANDING. 147
I. Fate is fixed. "That which hath been or
which is to be, hath been named already; neither
may man contend with him that is mightier than
he." AU the past was the result of a previous
destiny, and so shall be all the future. Everything
is fate. Such is the sentiment of the third chapter,
and such appears to be the import of this passage.
" Since fate bears sway, and everything must be as
it is, why dost thou strive against it ? " *
Brethren, is there never such a feeling in your
minds? Do you never feel as if you were the
subjects of a stern ordination ? Do you never say,
" I must obey my destiny ? It is of no use contend
ing with fate. Mine is an unlucky star, and I can
change neither my nature nor my nativity; so I
must bide my time and take my doom." Do you
never feel as if you were driven along a path over
which you have no control, and as if the power
propelling you were a blind and inexorable necessity ?
Partly imbibed from the old classics, and partly
from a sound theology sullenly spoken; and partly
indigenous to the human heart, which, even when
it does not believe in God and in Jesus, cannot
believe in chance, the feeling now expressed is far
from rare; and just as it seems to have visited
Solomon in the thoughtful interludes of his vanity,
so the more pensive and musing spirits are likely to
feel it most. As it contains a certain admixture
of truth, on a principle which we have frequently
* Marcus Antoninus xii. 13.
L 2

148 LECTURE XII.
adopted in these lectures, we shall go to a greater
than Solomon in order to get that partial truth cor
rected and completed.
In the outset, it must be conceded that the
Saviour assumed a pre-ordination in all events. He
was constantly using such language as this : " The
hour is come ; " " The hairs of your head are all
numbered ; " " Your names are written in heaven ; "
" Many be called, but few chosen ; " " No man can
come to me, except the Father draw him ; " " For
the elect's sake, whom He hath chosen, God hath
shortened the days ; " " To my sheep I give eternal
life." But then, what sort of pre-ordination was it
which the Saviour recognised ? Was it mechanical,
or moral ? Was it bhnd destiny, or a wise decree ?
Was it the evolution of a dark necessity, or "the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God ? "
Was it the fiat of an abstract law, or the will of a living
Person ? In one word, was it Fate, or was it Pro
vidence ?
Most comforting is it to study this doctrine with
the great Prophet for our tutor, and so to see the
propitious aspect which it bears when rightly under
stood. As interpreted by "the only-begotten Son
from the bosom of the Father," that pre-arrangement
of events which the theologian calls predestination,
and which the philosopher calls necessity, and which
old heathenism called fate, is nothing more than the
will of the Father, — the good pleasure of that blessed
and only Potentate whose omniscience foresaw all

BORROWED LIGHTS FOR A DARK LANDING. 149
possibilities, and from out of all these possibilities
whose benevolent wisdom selected the best and gave
it being. And he alone can understand election, or
exult in Providence, who in right of the Surety can
look up to God as his Father, and so take the same
views of the Father's purposes as the Saviour took,
equally revering the majestic fixity of the firm
decree, equally rejoicing in its wise foresight and
paternal kindness. " Fear not, little flock ; it is your
Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
" I thank Thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
because thou hast hid these things from the wise and
prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even
so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight."
" The hour is come, that the Son of man should be
glorified. Father, glorify thy name." And just as
you might imagine some poor wandered child waking
up amidst the din and tumult of a factory, and
cowering half-delinquent, half-stupified, into his
dusky corner, — afraid lest this thunderous enginery
rush in on him and rend him to pieces, and still
more paralyzed when he perceives in its movements
the indications of an awful order, — the whole spin
ning and whirling, clashing and clanking, in obedi
ence to a mysterious and invisible power. But whilst
he is watching from his hiding-place, another child
comes in, of an age about his own ; and this other
walks fearlessly forward, for his father leads him by
the hand, and shows him the beautiful fabrics which
are flowing forth from all the noisy mechanism ; or

150 LECTURE XII.
if there be some point in their progress where there
is risk to his child from the flashing wheels, he
speaks a word and that portion stands still ; for his
father is owner of it all. So to the poor waif of
mortality, the outcast child of apostate Adam, — to
the godless spirit waking up in this World of rapid
revolution and tumultuous resonance, there is an
awful aspect of fatality on the one side and a crush
ing sense of impotence on the other. So selfish is
man and so cruel is the world ; so strange are life's
reverses, and so irresistible is the progress of events,
that he momentarily expects to be annihilated by
the strong and remorseless mechanism; — when, in
the midst of all the turmoil he perceives one of like
passions with himself walking calmly up and down,
and fearing no evil, for his Father is with him, and
that Father is contriver and controller of the whole.
So, my friends, it depends on our point of view
whether the fixed succession of events shall appear as
a sublime arrangement or a dire necessity. It de
pends on whether we recognise ourselves as found
lings in the universe, or the children of God by faith
in Jesus Christ, — it depends on this, whether in the
mighty maze we discern the decrees of fate, or the
presiding wisdom of our heavenly Father. It de
pends on whether we are still skulking in the obscure
corner, aliens, intruders, outlaws; or walking at
hberty, with filial spirit and filial security, — whether
we shall be more panic-striGken by the power of the
mechanism, or more enchanted with its beautiful

BORROWED LIGHTS FOR A DARK LANDING. 151
products. It depends on whether we are spectators
or sons, whether our emotion towards the Divine
foreknowledge and sovereignty be, "0 fate, I fear
thee," or, " 0 Father, I thank thee."
II. Man is feeble. " It is known what man is ;
neither may he contend with him that is mightier
than he." And Christless humanity is a very feeble
thing. His bodily frame is feeble. A punctured
nerve or a particle of sand will sometimes occasion it
exquisite anguish ; a grape-seed or an insect's sting
has been known to consign it to dissolution. And
man's intellect is feeble; or, rather, it is a strange
mixture of strength and weakness : —
" Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides;
Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides ;
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,
Correct old Time, and regulate the sun ;
Go, soar with Plato to the empyreal sphere,
To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;
Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule —
Then drop into thyself, and be a fool ! " *
Nevertheless, redeemed and regenerate humanity
is only a httle lower than the angels. Its ma
terialism was worn by the Son of God Incarnate,
and as He wore it, it was found a shrine in which
perfect goodness could exist, and one from which
not a few of its endearing rays could emanate ;
and, celestialized, that corporeity will find a place in
the new heavens and new earth where righteousness
dwelleth. And, sublimed and sanctified, man's
* Pope's " Essay on Man," Ep. ii.

152 LECTURE XII.
intellect is fit for the noblest themes in the loftiest
society. Not to speak of Moses' meek sagacity, and
David's lyric raptures, and Solomon's startling intui
tions ; there are sons of Adam who, here, on earth,
possessed no knowledge beyond simple apprehen
sion or idiot ignorance, and who are now the im
mediate pupils of the Bright and Morning Star, and
fellow-students with the seraphim. And though
it be madness in man to contend with his Maker, it
is man's prerogative that his very weakness is a pur
chase on Omnipotence. Insane when contending
with One that is mightier, he is irresistible when in
faith and coincidence of holy affection he fights the
battles of the Most High, and when by prayer and
uplooking affiance, he imports into his own imbecility
the might of Jehovah. It is known what man is,
and what mere man can do. A Samson can rend the
ravening lion, and return to find his bleached' ribs a
hive of honey. A Goliath can hold at bay the em
battled host, and with his beam-like lance beat back
a charging company. David's three champions can
hew their way through the host of the Philistines, and
from the well of Bethlehem bear triumphant to the
camp their costly flask of water. And thus, the pot
sherds of the earth can strive with the potsherds of
the earth, and a strong one destroy the weaker. But
it is hardly known yet what man can do when his
Maker contends for him and fights through him ;
although the temptations which Joseph and Daniel
have vanquished, and found their demolished strength

BORROWED LIGHTS FOR A DARK LANDING. 153
replaced by sweetness; the terror of God which a
solitary Elijah or John Baptist has stricken into an
idolatrous or hypocritical generation; the water of
life which Paul and Silas and Timothy have carried
into the midst of a dying world through pain and
peril, through bitter mockings and daily deaths, —
although these moral triumphs and rehgious trophies
are earnests and examples of what may be done by
man when, through Christ strengthening, man is
rendered superhuman.
III. Every joy is futile. It is only fresh food for
the life-wasting vanity ; more fat kine for the lean ones
to devour and convert into tenuity; more must poured
into the working vat in order to acidify and augment
the brewage of vexation. " Seeing there be many
things that increase vanity, what is man the better ?"
What the better is man of that reputation which only
makes him more envied ? What the better is he of
that wealth which only makes him more obnoxious to
plots and dangers ? What the better of that philoso
phy which, like a taper on the face of a midnight
cliff, only shows how beetling is the brow above him,
and how profound the gulf below, whilst he himself
is crawling a wingless reptile on the ever-narrowing
ledge ? What the better is acquirement, when, after
all, man's intellect, man's conscience, man's affec
tions must remain a vast and unappeasable vacuity ?
Here it is that the other Royal Preacher comes
forward, and, instead of echoing, answers the
demand of Solomon. Jesus says, " I am the bread

154 LECTURE XII.
of life : he that cometh to me shall never hunger,
and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."
Jesus is God manifest, and, therefore, Jesus known
is satisfaction to the famished intellect. He is God
reconciled, and, therefore, Jesus trusted is comfort
to the aching conscience. He is God communicated,
and, therefore, Jesus loved is a continual feast to the
hungry affections. Incarnate, atoning, interceding,
Immanuel is the bread of life, — the only sustenance
and satisfaction of the immortal soul. And, 0 my
hearers, if any of you are hungry, make trial of this
food. If your conscience hungers, feed on some
faithful saying till you find it as sweet as it is solid,
as refreshing as 'tis true. " God loved the world and
gave his Son." " Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners." " His blood cleanseth from all sin."
"Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast
out." "Behold the Lamb of God ! " Dwell on such
sayings till they have sunk into your spirit's core
and spread through your consenting nature in real
izations glad and blissful. Does your understanding
hunger? Do you pine for some knowledge abso
lute, conclusive, positive? Then no man knoweth
the Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son
shall reveal him. Look to Jesus. Study the Word
made flesh. In Him dwells all the fulness of the
Godhead bodily. In Him, the express image of the
Father, behold at once your Teacher and your task ;
for Jesus is the true Theology. Sit at the Saviour's
feet, and listen to his words ; for God is all which

BORROWED LIGHTS FOR A DARK LANDING. 155
Jesus says. Look into his countenance, for God is
all which Jesus is. And do your affections hunger ?
Prom the festivals of earth, — from its feasts of
friendship even, do you sometimes retire mortified and
almost misanthropic ? or, like the reveller glancing
up at the thread-suspended sword, or gazing at the
fulgorous finger as it flames along the wall, have
you misgivings in the unhallowed mercies which
you enjoy aloof from God, or in the place of God, or
beneath the wrath of God? Then, through the
Mediator be reconciled to God. In Christ accept
Him as your Friend and Father. Enter into his
peace, and learn to delight in his perfections ; and
thus, whilst sinful pleasures lose their relish, lawful
joyS will acquire a flavour of sacredness, and the zest
of a sweet security. Or should the cistern break
and the creature fail, the infinite joy is Jehovah, and
the soul cannot wither whose roots are replenished
from that fountain unfailing.
IV. Life is fleeting. It is a " vain life," and all its
days a "shadow." A shadow is the nearest thing to a
nullity. It is seldom noticed. Even " a vapour " in
the firmament, — a cloud may catch the eye, and in
watching its changing hues or figure you may find
the amusement of a moment ; and if that cloud con
dense into a shower, a few fields may thank it for its
timely refreshment. But a shadow, — the shadow of
a vapour ! who notes it ? who records it ? As it
sails along the mountain side, with morning bright
behind it and summer noon before it, the daisy does

156 LECTURE XII.
not care to wink, nor does the hare-bell droop, nor
does the bee suspend its labours ; and at eve, the
shepherd-boy cross-questioned cannot tell if any
cloud there were. And the ease is rare where some
panting traveller sighs, " Return, 0 shadow ! Kind
vapour, I wish you would not vanish ! "
But Jesus Christ hath brought immortality to
light. This fleeting life He has rendered important
as " a shadow from the rock eternity." " I am the
Resurrection and the Life : whosoever liveth and
believeth in me shall never die." In his own teach
ing, and in the teaching of his apostles, the present
existence acquires a fearful consequence as the germ,
or rather as the outset of one which is never-ending.
To their view, this existence is both everything and
nothing. As the commencement of eternity, and as
giving its complexion to all the changeless future, it
is eveiything ; as the competitor of that eternity or
the counterpoise to its joys and sorrows it is nothing.
" What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the
whole world, and lose his own soul ? " " Fear not them-
who kill the body, but are not able to kill the
soul : but rather fear Him who is able to destroy
both soul and body in hell." " Our light affliction,
which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far'
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory ; while
we look not at the things which are seen, but at the
things which are not seen : for the things which are
seen are temporal; but the things which are not
seen are eternal." " How vain, then, are men, who,

BORROWED LIGHTS FOR A DARK LANDING. 157
seeing life so short, endeavour to live long and not
to live well !"* How vain are men who, pro
nouncing the present life a shadow, neglect to secure
the everlasting substance !
V. The future is a dark enigma. "Who can
tell a man what shall be after him under the sun ? "
Says Dr. Stewart of Moulin, "I remember an
old, pious, very recluse minister, whom I used to
meet once a-year. He scarcely ever looked at a
newspaper. When others were talking about the
French Revolution, he showed no concern or curi
osity about it. He said he knew from the Bible how
it would all end, better than the most sagacious
politician, — that the Lord reigns, — that the earth
will be filled with his glory, — that the Gospel will be
preached to all nations, — and that all subordinate
events are working out these great ends. This was
enough for him, and he gave himself no concern
about the news or events of the day, only saying, It
shall be well with the righteous." f And although
no man can tell the conqueror how it shall be with
the dynasty he has founded; nor the poet how it
shall be with the epic he has published; nor the
capitalist how it shall be with the fortune he has
accumulated; it is easy to tell the philanthropist
and the Christian how it shall be, not only with
himself, but with the cause he is so eagerly promoting.
And without quenching curiosity, it may quiet all
* Jeremy Taylor's " Works," vol. iii. p. 418.
f Memoirs of Dr. Stewart, p. 336.

158 LECTURE XII.
anxiety to know that when he himself is gone to be
for ever with the Lord, Christ's kingdom will be
spreading in the world. " Then said I, 0 my Lord,
what shall be the end of these things ? And He
said, Go thy way, Daniel ; for the words are closed
up and sealed. Go thou thy way till the end be,
for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end
of the days."
December 8, 1850.

LECTURE XIII.
& ffiootr :tfarae.
" A good name is better than precious ointment." —
Eccles. vii. 1.
At this point we come out into a purer atmosphere ;
we emerge upon a higher platform ; and, if we have
not day-spring, we have the harbingers of dawn.
Hitherto the book has chiefly contained the
diagnosis of the great disease. Repeating the suc
cessive symptoms as they developed in himself, the
Royal patient has passed before us in every variety
of mood, from the sleepy collapse of one who has
eaten the fabled lotus, up to the frantic consciousness
of a Hercules tearing his limbs as he tries to rend
off his robe of fiery poison. He now comes to the
cure. He enumerates the prescriptions which he
tried, and mentions their results. Most of them
afforded some relief. They made him "better."
But they were only palhatives. There was something
which always impaired their efficacy ; and it is only
at the very end that he announces the great panacea,
and gives us what is better than a thousand pallia
tives, — an unfailing specific.

160 LECTURE XIII.
The recipes contained in this and the subsequent
chapters availed to mitigate Solomon's vexation, but
they failed to cure it. They mitigated it, because
each of them was one ingredient of the great specific;
they failed to cure it, because they were only isolated
ingredients. Each maxim of virtue is conducive to
happy living ; but the love of God is the vitahty of
all virtue ; and, in order to secure its full practical
value, we must supply to each separate maxim the
great animating motive. A rule of conduct which
is " dead, so long as it abideth alone," may be very
helpful when quickened, and when occupying its
appropriate place in a system of evangelical ethics.
Solomon's first beatitude is an honourable repu
tation. He knew what it had been to possess it;
and he knew what it was to lose it. And here he
says, Happy is the possessor of an untarnished cha
racter ! so happy that he cannot die too soon ! "A
good name is better than precious ointment; and
(to its owner) the day of death is better than the day
of birth." A name truly good is the aroma from virtuous
character. It is a spontaneous emanation from gen
uine excellence. It is a reputation for whatsoever
things are honest and lovely, and of good report. It is
such a name as is not only remembered on earth but
written in heaven. The names of Abel and Enoch
and Noah are good names, and so are all which have
been transmitted in that " little book of martyrs,"
the eleventh of Hebrews : those " elders " who not

A GOOD NAME. 161
only obtained the Church's good report, through
faith, but who had this testimony, "that they
pleased God." But in order to a good name some
thing else is needed besides a good nature. Flowers
have bloomed in the desert which were only viewed
by God and the angels ; and there have been solitary
saints whose holiness was only recognised by Him
who created it, and by just men made perfect. And
so wicked is this world that much excellence may
have vanished from its surface unknown and unsus
pected. The Inquisition has, no doubt, extinguished
many an Antipas, and in the Sodoms of our earth
many a Lot has vexed his soul and died with no
Pentateuch to preserve his memory. To secure a
reputation there must not only be the genuine ex
cellence but the genial atmosphere. There must be
some good men to observe and appreciate the good
ness while it lived, and others to foster its memory
when gone. But should both combine, — the worth
and the appreciation of worth, — the resulting good
name is better than precious ointment. Rarer and
more costly, it is also one of the most salutary in
fluences that can penetrate society. For, just as a
box of spikenard is not only valuable to its possessor,
but pre-eminently precious in its diffusion ; so, when
a name is really good, it is of unspeakable service to
all who are capable of feehng its exquisite inspira
tion. And should the Spirit of God so replenish a
man with his gifts and graces, as to render his name
thus wholesome, better than the day of his birth will
M

162 LECTURE XIII.
be the day of his death ; for at death the box is
broken and the sweet savour spreads abroad. There
is an end of the envy and sectarianism and jealousy,
the detraction and the ealumny, which often environ
goodness when living ; and now that the stopper of
prejudice is removed, the world fills with the odour
of the ointment, and thousands grow stronger and
more lifesome for the good name of one. Better in
this respect, better than their birth-day was the
dying day of Henry Martyn and Robert M'Cheyne ;
for the secret of their hidden life was then revealed,
and, mingled as it is with the name of Jesus, the
Church will never lose the perfume. And in this
respect better than their birthday was the dying-day
of Dr. Arnold and Sir Fowell Buxton; for men
could then forget the offence of controversy and the
irritation of party politics, and could surrender to
the undiluted eharm of healthy piety and heroic
Christianity. And better, thus regarded, was the
dying-day of Stephen and James and Paul; for
every disciple could then forget the infirmities by
which some had been annoyed and the faithfulness
by which others had been offended, and could trea
sure up that best of a good man's relics, the
memory of a devoted life, — the sweet odour of an
unquestioned sanctity.
Do not despise a good name. There is no better
heritage that a father can bequeath to his children,
and there are few influences on society more whole
some than the fame of its worthies. The names of

A GOOD NAME. 163
Luther and Knox, of Hampden and Washington, of
Schwartz and Eliot, are still doing good in the world.
Nor is there in a family any richer heir-loom than
the memory of a noble ancestor. Without a good
name you can possess little ascendancy over others ;
and when it has not pioneered your way and won a
prepossession for yourself, your patriotic or benevolent
intentions are almost sure to be defeated.
And yet it will never do to seek a good name as
a primary object. Like trying to be graceful, the
effort to be popular will make you contemptible.
Take care of your spirit and conduct, and your
reputation will take care of itself. It is by " blame-
lessness and good behaviour," that not only bishops,
but individual believers, are to gain " a good report
of them who are without." The utmost that you
are called to do as the custodier of your own reputa
tion is to remove injurious aspersions. Let not your
good be evil spoken of, and follow the highest
examples in mild and explicit self-vindication. Still,
no reputation can be permanent which does not
spring from principle ; and he who would maintain
a good character should be mainly solicitous to
maintain a conscience void of offence towards God
and towards men.
Where others are concerned the case is different.
To our high-principled and deserving brethren, we
owe a frank commendation and a fraternal testimony.
"To rejoice in their good name; to cover their
infirmities; freely to acknowledge their gifts and
m 2

164 LECTURE XIII.
graces ; readily to receive a good report, and un
willingly to admit an evil report concerning them;
to discourage tale-bearers and. slanderers,"* are
duties which we owe to our neighbours ; and good
names are not so numerous but that the utmost care
should be taken of them. When Dr. M'Crie pub
lished the Life of our Reformer, it was very noble
in Dugald Stewart to seek out the young author in
his humble dwelling and cheer him with his earnest
eulogy. And when one of the Reformation heroes
was maligned, it was fine to see their advocate rum
maging amongst the archives of the Public Library,
till the discrepant date enabled him to exclaim,
" Thank God ! our friend was by that time safe in
Abraham's bosom!" It was a happy thing for
Paul to have so good a name among the Gentile
Churches, that his mere request was enough to bring
large contributions to the poor saints at Jerusalem ;
but, if so, ' what a happy thought to Barnabas to
know that when Paul himself was an object of sus
picion to the Church at Jerusalem,f his own good
name had been the new convert's passport and
guarantee. * Westminster Larger Catechism.
t Acts ix. 26, 27.
December 15, 1850.

LECTURE XIV.
®fie ^ofoer of $atfence.
" The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit." —
Eccles. vii. 8.
The lion was caught in the toils of the hunter. The
more he tugged, the more his feet got entangled;
when a little mouse heard his roaring, and said that
if his majesty would not hurt him, he thought he
could release him. At first the king of beasts took
no notice of such a contemptible ally; but at last,
like other proud spirits in trouble, he allowed his
tiny friend to do as he pleased. So one by one, the
mouse nibbled through the cords, till he had set free
first one foot and then another, and then all the four,
and with a growl of hearty gratitude, the king of the
forest acknowledged that the patient in spirit is some
times stronger than the proud in spirit. And it is
beautiful to see how, when some sturdy nature is
involved in perplexity, and by its violence and voci
feration is only wasting its strength without forward
ing its escape ; there will come in some timely sym
pathizer, mild and gentle, and will suggest the simple
extrication, or by soothing vehemence down into his

166 lecture xiv.
own tranquillity, will set him on the way to effect his
self-deliverance. Even so, all through the range of
philanthropy, patience is power. It is not the water
spout, but the nightly dew which freshens vegetation.
They are not the flashes of the lightning which mature
our harvests, hut the daily sunbeams, and that quiet
electricity which thrills in atoms and which flushes in
every ripening ear. Niagara in all its thunder
fetches no fertility; but the Nile, coming without
observation, with noiseless fatness overflows, and
from under the retiring flood Egypt looks up again,
a garner of golden corn. The world is the better for
its moral cataracts, and its spiritual thunder-bolts;
but the influences which do the world's great work,
— which freshen and fertilize it, and which are
maturing its harvests for the garner of glory, are not
the proud and potent spirits, but the patient and the
persevering; they are not the noisy and startling
phenomena, but the steady and silent operations.
They are the Sunday-schools which line upon line
repeat the Gospel lesson, and keep alive in our youth
ful millions some fear of God. They are the good
and loving mothers who begin with cradle hymns,
and who try to make the sweet story of Jesus as dear
and as memorable as their own kind voices. They
are the weekly Sabbaths which softly overflow the
land, and which, when they ebb again, leave every
where the freshness and the fertilizing elements
conveyed in their heaven-descended tide. Patience
is power. In a thirsty land, one farmer digs

THE POWER OF PATIENCE. 167
a pit, and as no water fills it he opens another,
and as that also continues, like the well in Dothan,
dry, he commences a third in a spot more promising,
and a fourth, and many more, till he has tried all
his territory without success, and then, chafed and
chagrined, he abandons all effort in despair. His
neighbour chooses a spot, and begins. No water
flows, but he is not discouraged. The spade and
the mattock he exchanges for the drill and the auger ;
and after hammering through the flinty rock for
days and weeks, at last the long-sought fountain
gushes, and at his threshold he secures a perennial
spring, which neither feels the summer drought
nor dreads the winter's cold. And so, on behalf of
some right object, one man is anxious to enlist the
good feeling of humanity : and he brings his project
before one influential mind after another, and he is
mortified to find how drily it is received by this
celebrated philanthropist and how many difficulties
are started by another, — till he is ready to declare
that benevolence is all a sham and every patriot a
hypocrite. But, strong in faith and patience, another
takes the Artesian auger. He knows that deep
under our hard humanity there are tender feehngs
and kind sympathies. Or if it be the Church on
which he seeks to operate, he knows that under all
its callousness and formalism there circulates a con
science, — there flows a fresh current of principle and
love fed from the crystal river, and he is resolved to
reach it. He takes the Artesian auger. "One

168 LECTURE XIV.
thing I do." Preserving his temper amid all rebuffs,
and persevering amidst all impediments, he keeps
urging this one object, — and at last the vein is
struck — the fountain flows. Charles sees the Bible
Society organized, and Carey is sent to India. Raikes
sets his Sabbath-schools agoing, and Naysmith the
City Mission. Sadler sees infant emancipation be
come a popular movement, and Agnew finds the
Church at last roused to the claims of the Sabbath-
day. January 5, 1851.

LECTURE XV.
5@raU JFIits.
" Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send
forth a stinking savour : so doth a little folly him that is
in reputation for wisdom and honour." — Eccles. x. 1.
The people of Palestine dealt largely in aromatic
oils, and it was a chief business of their apothecaries
to prepare them. A little thing was enough to
spoil them. Although the vase were alabaster, and
although the most exquisite perfumes were dis
solved in the limpid ohve, a dead fly could change
the whole into a pestilent odour.
And so, says the Royal Moralist, a character may
be carefully confected. You may attend to all the
rules of wisdom and self-government which I have
now laid down ; but if you retain a single infirmity
it will ruin the whole. Like the decomposing influ
ence of that dead fly, it will injure all the rest and
destroy the reputation which you otherwise merit.
The principle is especially applicable to a Chris
tian profession ; and the best use we can make of it
is to exemplify it in some of those flaws and failings
which destroy the attraction and impressiveness of

170 LECTURE XV.
men truly devout and God-fearing. Our instances
must be taken almost at random; for, like their
Egyptian prototypes, these flies are too many to be
counted. Rudeness. — Some good men are blunt in their
feelings, and rough in their manners ; and they
apologise for their coarseness by calhng it honesty,
downrightness, plainness of speech. They quote in
self-defence the sharp words, and shaggy mien of
Ehjah and John the Baptist, and, as affectation, they
sneer at the soft address and mild manners of gentler
men. Now, it is very true that there is a certain
strength of character, an impetuousness of feeling,
and a sturdy vehemence of principle, to which it is
more difficult to prescribe the rules of Christian
courtesy, than to more meek and pliant natures. It
is very possible that Latimer in his bluntness, and
Knox in his erect and iron severity, and Luther in
the magnificent explosions of his far-resounding in
dignation, may have been nobler natures, and fuller
of the grace of God than the supple courtiers whose
sensibilities they so rudely shattered. But it does
not follow that men who have not got their warfare
to wage are entitled to use their weapons. Nor does
it even follow that their warfare would have been
less successful had they wielded no such weapons.
The question, however, is not between two rival
graces, — between integrity on the one side, and affa
bility on the other; but the question is, Are these
two graces compatible ? Can they co-exist ? Is it

DEAD FLIES. 171
possible for a man to be explicit, and Open, and
honest, and, withal, courteous and considerate of the
feelings of others ? Is it possible to add to fervor
and fidelity, suavity, and urbanity, and brotherly
kindness ? The question has already been answered,
for the actual union of these things has already been
exhibited. Without referring to Nathan's interview
with David, where truth and tenderness triumph
together, or Paul's remonstrances to his brethren, in
which a melting heart is the vehicle of each needful
reproof, we need only revert to the great example
itself. In the epistles to the Asiatic Churches, each
begins with commendation, wherever there was any
thing that could be commended. With the magna
nimity which remembers past services in the midst
of present injury, and which would rather notice
good than complain of evil, each message, so far as
there was material for it, is ushered in by a word of
eulogy, and weight is added to the subsequent admo
nition by this preface of kindness.* And it was the
same while the Lord Jesus was on earth. His tender
tone was the keen edge of his reproofs, and his un
questionable love infused solemnity into every warn
ing. There never was one more faithful than the
Son of God, but there never was one more considerate.
And just as rudeness is not essential to honesty, so
neither is roughness essential to strength of character.
The Christian should have a strong character; he
should be a man of remarkable decision; he
should start back from temptation as from a bursting
• Fuller on the Apocalypse, p. 16.

172 LECTURE XV.
bomb. And he should be a man of inflexible pur
pose. When once he knows his Lord's will, he
should go through with it, aye, through fire and
water with it. But this he may do without renounc
ing the meekness and gentleness which were in
Christ. He may have zeal without pugnacity, deter
mination without obstinacy. He should distinguish
between the ferocity of the animal and the courage
of the Christian. And whether he makes the dis
tinction or not, the world will make it. The world
looks for the serene benevolence of conscious strength
in a follower of the Lamb of God; and, however
rude its own conduct, it expects that the Christian
himself will be courteous.
Irritability. — One of the most obvious and im
pressive features in the Saviour's character was his
meekness. In a patience which ingenious or sudden
provocation could not upset; in a magnanimity which
insult could not ruffle ; in a gentleness from which
no folly could extract an unadvised word, men saw
what they could scarcely understand, but that which
made them marvel. Though disciples were strangely
dull, He never lost temper with them ; though Judas
was very dishonest, He did not bring any railing
accusation against him ; though Philip had been so
long time with Him, and had not understood Him,
He did not dismiss him from his company. When
Peter denied Him, it was not a frown that withered
him, but a glance of affection that melted him. And
so with his enemies ; it was not by lightning from
heaven, but by love from his pierced heart, that He

, DEAD FLIES. 173
subdued them. But many Christians lack this beauty
of their Master's holiness; they are afflicted with
evil tempers, they cannot rule their spirits, or rather
they do not try. Some indulge occasional fits of
anger; and others are haunted by habitual, daily,
life-long fretfulness. The one sort is generally calm
and pellucid as an Alpine lake, but on some special
provocation, is tossed up into a magnificent tempest ;
the other is like the Bosphorus, in a continual stir,
and even when not a breath is moving, by the con
trariety of its internal currents vexing itself into a
ceaseless whirl and eddy. The one is Hecla — for
long intervals silent as a granite peak, and suffering
the snow-flakes to fall on its cold crater, till you forget
that it is a burning mountain; and then on some
sudden and unlooked-for disturbance, hurling the
hollow truce into the clouds, and pouring forth in
one noisy night the stifled mischief of many a year.
The other is Stromboli, a perpetual volcano, seldom
indulging in any disastrous eruption ; but muttering
and quaking, steaming and hissing night and day,
in a way which makes strangers nervous ; and ever
and anon spinning through the air a red hot rock,
or a spirt of molten metal, to remind the heedless
natives of their angry neighbour. But either form,
the paroxysmal fury, and the perennial fretfulness,
is inconsistent with the wisdom from above, which is
peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated. Worldly
men can perceive the inconsistency, but instead of
ascribing it to its proper causes, they are more likely

174 LECTURE XV.
to attribute it to the insincerity of Christians, or
the insufficiency of the Gospel ; and even the more
Willing sort of worldlings, those who have some pre
disposition in favour of the truth, are very apt to be
shocked and driven off by the unhallowed ebullitions
of religious men. Suppose such an individual, with
his attention newly awakened to the great salvation
— with his mind impressed by some Scriptural de
lineation of regenerate character; his ear, it may
be, still charmed with a glowing description of the
Gospel's magic power, making wolfish men so lamb
like, and teaching the weaned child to play on the
cockatrice den : suppose such a man in the way of
business, or kindness, or spiritual inquiry, to ap
proach a stranger of Christian renown, and accosting
him in full persuasion of his Christian character,
prepared for a cordial welcome, a patient hearing at
the least, — but alas ! coming in at some unpropitious
moment, he is greeted with a shout of impatience, or
annihilated by a flash from his lowering countenance,
— why, it is like putting your hand into the nest of
the turtle-dove, and drawing it out with a long slimy
serpent, dangling in warty folds, and holding on by
its fiery fangs. There is horror in the disappoint
ment, as well as anguish in the bite ; and the fright
ful association cannot easily be forgotten.
Akin to these infirmities of temper, are some
other inconsistencies as inconvenient to their Chris
tian brethren as they are likely to stumble a
scoffing world. Some professors are so whimsical

DEAD FLIES. 175
and impracticable, that it needs continual stratagem
to enhst them in any labour of usefulness, and after
they are once fairly engaged in it, nothing but per
petual watchfulness and the most tender management
can keep them in it. In all your dealings with them,
like a man walking over a galvanic pavement, you
tread uneasily, wondering when the next shock is to
come off, and every moment expecting some paradox
to spring under your feet. In the Christian societies
of which they are members, they constitute non-con
formable materials of which it is difficult to dispose.
They are irregular solids for which it is not easy to
find a place in rearing the temple. They are
the polyhedrons of the church, each punctilio of
their own forming a several face, and making it
a hard problem to fix them where they wfll
not mar the structure. Apostolical magnanimity
they deem subserviency or sinful connivance; and
simultaneous movements or Christian co-operation
they deem lawful only when all conform to them.
Like those individuals whose bodies are non-con
ductors, and who can stop an electric circuit after
it has travelled through a mile of other men, sectarian
professors are so positively charged with their own
peculiarities, that the influence which has been trans
mitted through consenting myriads, stops short as
soon as it reaches them.
Selfishness. — The world expects self-denial in the
Christian; and with reason, for of all men he can
best afford it, and by his profession he is committed

176 LECTURE XV.
to it. You are on a journey, and because you have
been distributing tracts or reading the Bible, or have
made some pious observations, your fellow-travellers
set you down for a Christian. By and by one of your
companions makes a civil remark, but not being in
a mood for talking, you turn him off with a short
answer. A delicate passenger would like your side
of the carriage, but you wish to see the country or
prefer the cooler side; so you make no movement,
but allow your neighbour to change places with
the invalid. And at last an accident occurs which
will detain you an hour beyond the usual time; so
you lose all patience, and fret, and scold, and talk of
hiring post-chaises, — while, some good-humoured or
philosophic wayfarer sits quiet in the corner, or gets
out, and looks leisurely on till the misfortune is
mended, and then resumes his journey, having lost
nothing but his time, whilst you have lost both your
time and your temper. In such a case it would be
better that you had left the tracts and the Bible at
home, for your inconsistency is hkely to do more
evil, than your direct efforts are likely to do good.
As a worldly man you would have been entitled to
indulge your own indolence, your own convenience,
or your own impatience as much as you pleased ; but
if you really are a disciple of Christ, you owed it to
Him to " deny yourself."
The subject is uninviting, and time would fail
did we speak of the parsimony, the indolence, the
egotism, the want of intelhgence, the want of taste,

DEAD FLIES. 177
by which many excellent characters are marred, and
by which the glory of the Gospel is often com
promised. We would not be accusers of the
brethren. We only suggest a subject for self-
examination, and we indicate an object to which
the Church's energy might be advantageously
directed. We fear that we have failed to culti
vate sufficiently the things honest, lovely, and of
good report, and that we have sometimes allowed
ourselves to be excelled by worldly men in those
beauties of character which, although subordinate,
are not insignificant. Attention to the wants of
others, care for their welfare, and consideration
for their feelings, are Scriptural graces for which
all Christians ought to be conspicuous. Chris
tianity allows us to forget our own wants, but it
does not permit us to forget the necessities of our
brethren. It requires us to be careless of our own
ease, but it forbids us to overlook the comfort and
convenience of other people. Of this the Lord
Jesus was Himself the pattern. He was sometimes
a-hungered, but in that case He wrought no miracle.
But when the multitude had long fasted, He created
bread to supply them, rather than send them away
fainting. And though his great errand was to save
his people from their sins, none ever saved so many
from their sorrows. And in this disciples should
resemble Him. Although they know that the soul
is better worth than the body, and the interests of
eternity more precious than those of time, they also
N

178 LECTURE XV.
know that it is after these things that the Gentiles
seek ; and, therefore, if they would win the Gentiles,
they must attend to their personal wants, and
temporal comforts. Nay, more, as a system of
universal amehoration, Christianity demands our
efforts for the outward weal of our worldly neigh
bours, and our delicate attention to the minutest
comfort of our Christian brethren. It was on this
principle that, seeking the salvation of his peasant-
parishioners, Oberlin felt that he was not going out
of his way as an evangelist, when he opened a school
for children, wild as their own rock-goats ; when he
taught the older people many humble but useful arts
hitherto unknown in the Ban-de-la-Roche; when
he set them to the planting of trees, and clearing
of roads ; when he established an agricultural society,
and published a calendar, divested of the astrological
falsehoods with which their almanacs were wont to
abound. Oberlin's Christianity would have prompted
these humane and beneficent actions, even though no
ulterior good had accrued from them; but first in
the love of these villagers, and then in their conver
sion to God, he had his abundant reward. And it
was on the same principle that the apostolic Williams,
brim-full of sense and kindness, came down like a
cornucopia on his South Sea Islanders, and startling
them with the prodigies of civilization, and enriching
them with its inventions, at once conveyed an idea of
the bountiful spirit of the Gospel, and conciliated
their affection to its messenger. And it was on

DEAD FLIES. 179
the same principle that the benignant Wilberforce, —
himself the best "practical view of Christianity," —
was so studious of the feelings, and so accommo
dating to the wishes of his worldly friends, — so
abounded in those considerate attentions to the
humblest acquaintance, which only a delicate mind
could imagine, and a dextrous skill could execute,
— and would subject himself to all sorts of
inconvenience in order to "carry a ray of glad
ness from the social circle into the sick man's
cottage," or to temper with his own diffusive
gladness the bitter cup of some humble disciple.
No disciple can resemble his Lord, who does
not maintain this benignant bearing to all
around him. Grace was infused into the lips of
Jesus, None in the guise of humanity was ever
conscious of such power within; none ever gave
outlet to inherent power in milder coruscations. His
gentleness made him great ; and so engaging was
his aspect, so compassionate his mien, that frail
mortality could lay its head securely on his bosom,
though a Shekinah slept within. Behevers should
in this resemble Jesus. They should be mild and
accessible, and, like the Sun of Righteousness,
they should carry such healing in their wings, as to
make their very presence the harbinger of joy. It
was said of Charles of Bala, that it was a good
sermon to look at him. And so much of the
Master's mind should reside in each disciple as to
n 2

180 LECTURE XV.
make that true of him which the old elegy says of
one of England's finest worthies : —
" A sweet attractive kind of grace,
A full assurance given by looks,
Continual comfort in a face
The lineament of Gospel-books ;
For sure that count'nance cannot lie,
Whose thoughts are written in the eye."
February 16, 1851.

LECTURE XVI.
Munt glxes : or, defence anb CEfooti gbense.
Read Eccles. ix. 13—18; x. 1—15.
" If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then
must he put to more strength ; but wisdom is profitable
fodifetrt."
Lord Bacon said, " Knowledge is power," and dur
ing the last hundred years no aphorism has been so
often quoted, nor has any been so largely illustrated.
In this little island, and during the present week,
machinery will be in motion doing the work of
five hundred millions of men; that is to say, the
machines of England and Scotland will this week
weave as much cloth and prepare as much food, and
supply the world's inhabitants with as many com
modities, as could be made by hand if all the up-
grown natives of the globe were exerting all their in
dustry. Could you convert into artificers and labourers
every man and woman in either hemisphere, and
from the Caffres at the Cape to the Peers in our
Parhament, did all agree to toil their utmost, and
had they no implements besides those which primitive

182 LECTURE XVI.
man possessed, — with all the expenditure of their
vital powers, with all the sweat, and waste of fibre,
and straining of eyesight, at the week's end it would
be found that they had not done the same amount of
work, nor done that work so well as a few engines
peacefully revolving under the impulse of some
hogsheads of water, or so many tons of coal.
In the barbaric civilization of the old Mexicans,
it was thought a wonderful exploit to transmit intel
ligence at the rate of 200 miles in four-and-twenty
hours. As they had neither horses nor dromedaries,
in order to accomphsh this feat posts were estab
lished at intervals of three or four miles ; and snatch
ing the dispatch from one reeking messenger, the
courier burst away with it and flew over hill and
valley till he reached the next station, and thrust it
into the hand of another express, who, in his turn,
bolted off and conveyed it farther inland, till at last
it reached the Emperor. How amazed one of these
old Aztecs might be could he revive from the slumber
of three centuries, and see the whole accomplished
without fatigue to a single human being ! How
amazed did he know that without shortening the
breath or moistening the brow of a single messenger,
communications could come and go betwixt a king
and his commander-in-chief, a hundred leagues
asunder, fifty times in a single day !
We see that " knowledge is power," and we con
stantly repeat the saying as if Bacon had been the
first who remarked the strength of skill. But six-

BLUNT AXES. 183
and-twenty centuries before the days of Lord
Verulam, King Solomon had said, " A wise man is
strong." " Wisdom is better than strength."
" Wisdom is better than weapons of war." Perhaps
it is owing to the imperfect sympathies which exist
between theologians and philosophers, that such
scriptural sayings and many others fraught with
great principles have received so little justice. And
hence it has come to pass that many a maxim has
got a fresh circulation, and has made a little fortune
of renown for its author, which is, after all, a medal
fresh minted from Bible money : the gold of
Moses or Solomon used up again with the image
and superscription of Bacon, or Pascal, or Benjamin
Franklin. The particular example which Solomon here gives,
will bring to your remembrance many parallels, from
the time when Archimedes with his engines on the
wall, sank the ships of Marcellus in the port of
Syracuse, down to the gallant and successful defence
of Antwerp conducted by the old mathematician,
Camot.* "There was a little city, and few men
within it ; and there came a great king against it,
and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it.
Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he
by his wisdom delivered the city." And surely
science is never more sublime than when thus she
wins and wears the civic crown. Or even should
there be no invader at the gates, when a beneficent
* Livy, lib. 24, cap. 34. Alison's " Europe," chap. 78.

184 LECTURE XVI.
ingenuity is exerted to enhance the pleasures of
peace ; when discovery chemical or dynamical floods
our streets with midnight radiance, and bids clear
water spring up in the poorest attic ; when it mitigates
disease or multiplies the loaves of bread ; when by
making them nearer neighbours it forces nations to
be better friends, and by diminishing life's interrup
tions lengthens our span of probation and our power
of usefulness ; — surely the " poor man " whose " wis
dom " thus enriches the species deserves to sit among
the princes of the people ; and whilst religion should
render praise to that Wonderful Counsellor who
teacheth man such knowledge, patriotism and phi
lanthropy must enrol the discoverers among the
benefactors of mankind.
" Wisdom is better than strength," and the mOre
that wisdom spreads the more human strength is
saved, and the more is comfort enhanced. The bird
who is about to build her nest next month will toil as
long and work as hard as the sparrows and swallows
who frequented the temple in the time of Solomon,
and the building will be no improvement on the
nests of three thousand years ago. But if Solomon's
own palace were to be builded anew, modern skill
could rear it much faster than Hiram's masomy;
and there are few houses in London which do not
contain luxuries and accommodations which were
lacking in "the house of the forest of Lebanon."
It is the kindness of the Creator to the inferior
animal that He gives it instinct, and puts it from the

BLUNT AXES. 185
outset on a plan sufficiently good for its purpose.
But the prerogative of man is progress. His instincts
are faint and few; whilst to reason and faith the
vistas are boundless. And betwixt that " wisdom "
which God has directly revealed, and those expedients
which are constantly occurring to painstaking intel
ligence, it is so arranged that the glder humanity
waxes, the lighter grow its toils and the more copious
become the alleviations of its lot. Already a pound
of coals and a pint of water will do the day's work
of a sturdy man ; and with a week's wages a me
chanic may now procure a library more compre
hensive and more edifying than that which adorned
the Tusculan villa, — nay, such a store of books as the
wealth of Solomon could not command.
These statements meet a certain misgiving of
some truly Christian minds. They love the Bible,
because it is God's book. To some degree they love
the landscape and the seasons, because they are
God's handiwork. They can take pleasure in watch
ing the proceedings of the lower animals, because in
the dyke-building of that beaver, or the nest-building
of that bird, they can mark evolutions of the all-
pervading Mind. But when they come to the opera
tions of the artisan or the architect, they are conscious
of an abrupt transition, and with the poet they exclaim,
" God made the country, but man made the town."
Here, however, there is a fallacy. So far as sinful
purposes may be designed or subserved in their
construction, the town and its contents are the

186 LECTURE XVI.
work of man; but the materials and the skill
which moulds them are the good and perfect
gifts of God. It is true that He has not taught
man to make palaces and railways instinctively,
as He has taught ants to build hillocks and
construct covered galleries; but He has furnished
the human mind with those faculties and tend
encies which, under favouring circumstances,
develop in railways and palaces as surely as beaver-
mind develops in moles and embankments, or as
bee-mind develops in combs and hexagons. And
although it may be very true that the artificer is
often undevout, — perhaps a libertine or an atheist;
and although the curious contrivance or exquisite
elaboration may be designed for any end but a holy
one; when you separate the moral from the me
chanical, — the sin which is man's from the skill
which is Jehovah's, — in every fair product, and
more especially in every contribution to human
comfort, you ought to recognise the wisdom and
goodness of God as their ultimate origin no less
than if you read on every object, " Holiness to the
Lord," and in each artificer discerned another Ahohab
or Bezaleel. The arts are the gift of God; their
abuse is from man and from the Devil. And just
as an enlightened disciple looks forth on the land
scape, and in its beautiful features as well as its
curious ingredients, beholds mementoes of his
Master : so surveying a beautiful city, its museums
and its monuments, its statues and fountains; or

BLUNT AXES. 187
sauntering through a gallery of arts and useful
inventions, — in all the symmetry of proportions and
splendour of colouring, in every ingenious device
and every powerful engine, he may discern the
manifestations of that Mind which is wonderful
in counsel and excellent in working; and so far
as skill and adaptation and elegance are involved,
piety will hail the Great Architect Himself as the
Maker of the town.*
So Christian is art, — so truly a good gift of the
Father of lights, that, wherever the Gospel proceeds,
this companion should go with it. When the mis
sionary, Van der Kemp, was setting out for Africa,
passing one of the brick-fields of London, he thought
it would be such a boon to the Hottentots if he could
improve their dwellings that he offered himself as a
servant to the brick-maker, and spent some weeks in
learning the business. And he was right. It is not
easy to live godly and righteously amidst filth and
darkness; and although the Gospel will not refuse
to enter a Hottentot hut or an Irish cabin, when
once it is admitted its tendency is to improve that
cabin or hut into a cottage with tiles on the floor and
glass in the windows. And, to the honour of Chris
tian missionaries, it should be remembered that
wherever they have gone they have carried those
useful arts which render godliness profitable to all
* Those who are interested in such topics will find them
fully discussed in " The Useful Arts ; their Birth and Develop
ment," edited by the Eev. S. Martin.

188 LECTURE XVI.
things. " In the schools of Sierra Leone, the girls
are taught to spin and the boys to weave." In the
South Sea Islands the missionaries have taught the
people smiths' work and wrights' work ; they have
taught them to build ships and boil sugar ; to print
books and plant gardens. And even that race, once
so besotted that its claim to the common humanity
was disputed, — the Hottentots are now excellent
farmers and artificers, and in the words of one of
themselves, "they can make everything except a
watch and a coach." *
In concluding this part of the subject, I would
only remark that the more things which a Christian
is able to do the better. " If the iron be blunt, and
he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more
strength." A little skill expended in sharpening the
edge, wfll save a great deal of strength in wielding
the hatchet. But, just as the unskilful labourer who
cannot handle the whetstone, must belabour the tree
with a blunt instrument, and after inflaming his
palms and racking his sinews, achieves less result
than his neighbour whose knowledge and whose
knack avail instead of brute force : so the servant
who does not know the right way to do his work,
after all his fatigue and fluster, will give less
satisfaction than one who has learned the best and
* Harris's Great Commission, pp. 196, 197. The in
dustrial is admirably combined with the evangelistic in the
French-Canadian Mission, and in the Home Mission of the
Presbyterian Church in Ireland.

BLUNT AXES. 189
easiest methods; the young emigrant who has no
versatility must forego many comforts which more
accomplished comrades enjoy; and the householder
who knows nothing of the mechanic arts, or who
knows not what to do when sickness and emergencies
occur, must compensate by the depth of his purse, or
by the strength of his arm for the defects of his skill.
A blunt axe implies heavy blows and an aching arm ;
coarse work with a blistered hand. But " wisdom is
profitable to direct." Intelligence is as good as
strength, and a little skill will save both time and
materials, money and temper.
Important, however, as is mechanic skill, there is
a wisdom still more profitable, — a wisdom which can
turn to its own account the mechanic skill of others.
The clever engineer who saved the httle city was a
poor man, and so little understanding had his fellow-
citizens, that it was with difficulty he obtained a
hearing for his project, and so little gratitude had
they that when the danger was past, "no one
remembered the poor man." And it is sad when
people have neither the skill to help themselves, nor
the sense to accept the services of others. It is sad
when men have neither the sagacity to devise the
measures which the emergency demands, nbr can so
far rule their spirits as to keep " quiet" and listen to
what " wise men" say. And next to his wisdom
who can offer good counsel, is the wisdom of him
who can take it.
" A wise man's heart is at his right hand," never

190 LECTURE XVI.
off its guard.* He is calm and collected, and is
not easily taken by surprise. Whereas, a fool's wits
are at his left hand. His presence of mind is
posthumous. He sees what he should have done
when the mischief can no longer be undone. He
hits on the very repartee he ought to have uttered
when his assailant is already out of hearing. He
suggests what would have saved the ship, when
they are already raising the wreck. But, not only
is it in ready resources that the fool is deficient;
there is a transparent shallowness in his vacant gaze
or self-conceited simper, and instead of that " su
stained sense and gravity," f which marks the man
of mind, his garrulous egotism and confidential
childishness are constantly betraying the secret of
his silhness. Reserve is none of his fadings. He is
as frank as he is foolish ; and when " he walketh by
the way, his wisdom faileth him, and he saith to
every one that he is a fool."
One rare manifestation of good sense is mag
nanimity. " If the spirit of the ruler rise up against
thee, leave not thy place; for yielding pacifieth
great offences." If, acting as the king's adviser,
you incur his displeasure ; if, in obedience to con
science, or in concern for your country, you are
constrained to urge unpalatable counsel, and if your
faithfulness proves offensive, instead of retiring into
some other land, be patriotic, and keep your post.
Instead of obeying your offended dignity and re-
* G. Holden. f Dr. Chalmers.

BLUNT AXES. 191
turning spleen for spleen, await the propitious season.
For a soft answer turneth away wrath, and self-con
trol will conquer your sovereign. Nor is it only
from the ministers of despots that such a sacrifice
may be demanded. It extends to every official
person. If you are a representative of the people,
and if you are sometimes vexed and worried with
unreasonable demands or ungracious remonstrances :
— if you occupy some municipal station, and are
brought into conflict with foul tongues and coarse
natures : — if you are a member of any court, civil or
ecclesiastical, where you are frequently outvoted,
and measures are often carried, which you utterly
abhor, — the impulse is to abdicate. Why should
you serve heads so thick, and hearts so thankless ?
Why should you mingle with such a rabble rout,
and submit day by day to have your good name
kicked along the kennel ? And rather than be
always making motions which are lost, and protests
which are laughed at, would it not be better to
retire into private hfe, and spend your influence on
those who may both take your advice, and spare
your feelings ? True, if it were the love of praise or
the love of power which put you in that post, now
that popularity is waning and influence lost, by
all means relinquish it. But if it were a higher
motive, let the motive which took you keep
you there. If it was the love of your country, or
the zeal of the Gospel which drew you into office,
let neither reproaches nor rough usage drive you

192 LECTURE XVI.
out. Though the spirit of the populace rise up
against you, — though the majority for the time
overrule you, leave not your place. Calmness in the
midst of contumely, equanimity under defeat will
pacify great offences : and if you do not live to carry
your point, when a subsequent age sees your prin
ciples triumph, you will be commemorated among
the proto-martyrs, who, when the cause was forlorn,
laboured, and never fainted.
Then, after a parenthetical reference to certain
infatuations of princes, having already described the
patience of wisdom, he next specifies its prompti
tude. "If the serpent bite before enchantment,
what advantage has the charmer ?" In the East,
there have always been persons who, by means of
music and legerdemain, exert great influence over
some species of serpents ; so that whilst under their
spell, the deadly cobra may be handled, as if he were
utterly harmless. But if the charmer tread on the
snake unawares, or be bitten when off his guard, he
wfll be poisoned like another man. And to certain
minds, God has given ascendancy over other minds,
like the influence of the serpent-charmer. Saga
cious and eloquent, they are able to soothe the fury
of fierce tempers, and mould rancorous natures to
their will. Like David's transforming harp, as the
strain advances, it looks as if a new possession had
entered the exorcised frame, and a seraph smiled out
at those windows, where a demon was frowning
before. But alas for the harper, if Saul should

BLUNT AXES. 193
snatch the javelin before David has time to touch
the strings ! Alas for the wise charmer, and alas
for the good cause, if the tyrant's passion towers up,
or the decree of the despot goes forth before a
friendly counsellor has time to interpose !
" The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious."
It is a pleasure to hear him, and so enriching is his
discourse, that to listen is to be wiser and better.
"But the lips of a fool will swallow up himself."
He is the sepulchre of his own reputation ; for as
long as he was silent, you were willing to give him
credit for the usual share of intelligence, but no
sooner does he blurt out some astounding blunder
— no sooner does he begin to prattle forth his
egotism and vanity, than your respect is exchanged
for contempt or compassion. Nay, it is not only
himself that his hps swallow up : for all unlike the
"gracious" discourse of the wise man, the gossip of
the fool is heartless or malignant, and often ends in
" mischievous madness." From recklessness, or from
finding that a tale of slander will secure an audience
even for a fool, he is constantly retailing calumny,
and damaging other people's reputation. The rest
of his talk is mere word-rubbish. " A man cannot
tell what shall be;" and, "what shall be after
him, who can tell?" — such trite and irksome
truisms is he retailing all the day to the sore vexa
tion of some hapless hearer. He is consistent. He
is no wiser in deed, than in word; but even the
road to the market — so patent and so frequented,

194 LECTURE XVI.
he contrives to miss ; and in the evening he and his
ass return to the farm with their unsold produce,
because he had forgotten the way to the city, and
would not follow his wiser .companion.
It is very important that Christians should be men
of high accomplishment. Crowded as is the world,
it has still abundant room for first-rate men; and,
whosoever would ensure a welcome from society, has
only to unite to good principle eminent skill in his
own calling. But the day for stone hatchets and
blunt axes is past, and from the humblest craft
to the most intellectual profession, in order to suc
ceed, it is requisite to be clever and active and well-
informed. Doubtless, sickness and other calamities
may interpose ; but assuredly, no one has a right to
quarrel with the world if it refuses to pay for mis
shapen garments and unreadable poems. And
therefore I would say to my young hearers, Make
diligence in business a part of your religion. Add
to virtue knowledge. Whatever you intend to do,
pray, and study, and labour till no one can do that
thing better than yourself; and then when you enter
on active life, you wfll find that you are really
wanted. And, much as you have heard of glutted
markets and a redundant population, you will find
that there is yet no surplus of tradesmen, or servants,
or scholars, who with exalted piety combine pro
fessional excellence. Large as is the accumiflation
of people who through misconduct have broken

BLUNT AXES. 195
down, or who through indolent mediocrity never
can get on, you will find no glut of talented good
ness, or of intelligence in union with principle.
In short, you will find that there is room enough
for all who are able and wilhng to serve their
generation. It is especially important that those who are
trying to benefit others should possess the wisdom
which is profitable to direct. Much good has been
defeated by the want of skill or practical wisdom in
Christian professors. Many children have grown up
with gloomy notions of religion from the mismanage
ment of parents, who so enforced its authority as to
obscure its attractions. Many amiable persons have
been repelled from the Gospel by the long lectures
of friends who were faithful enough to reprove them,
but not wise enough to win them. Many a preju
dice has been created by a single imprudence, which
long-sustained exertions have failed to countervail.
And many a noble enterprise, when almost safe
in port, has at last been shipwrecked by well-mean
ing wilfulness, or through that infirmity of vision
which mistaking a house-lamp for a lighthouse, has
steered, by a denominational crotchet in the belief
that it was a Christian principle.
Nor is the cultivation of sound sense unimportant
with a view to personal piety.
" That thou mayest injure no man, dove-like be,
And serpent-like that none may injure thee." *
* Matt. x. 16, paraphrased by Cowper.
o 2

196 LECTURE XVI.
In a world like this, and not least in a capital
like this, there is frequent need for such Christian
sagacity ; and, wherever he lives, a conscientious man
must often encounter problems in conduct which tax
not only all his principle but all his prudence. For
such exigencies there is provided a great and precious
promise : " If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask
of God, that giveth to all liberally, and upbraideth
not ; and it shall be given him." But, like all the
gifts of God, this talent grows by trading ; and he
who prayerfully exerts his understanding in order to
maintain the right-forward path of duty, will soon
be fit to guide and counsel others. For, if " religion,
placed in a soul of exquisite knowledge and abilities,
as in a castle, finds not only habitation but de
fence ;"* it is by devout self-culture, and by "behav
ing wisely " in his more personal affairs, that the
judicious and high-minded Christian becomes at last
a tower of strength to his friends, and a defence to
the Gospel itself. * South.
March 23, 1851.

LECTURE XVII.
23«ab on tfie SSKaters.

" Cast thy bread upon the waters : for thou shalt find it
after many days." — Eccles. xi. 1.
Were you going at the right season to Mysore or
China, you would see thousands of people planting
the corn of those countries. They sow it in the mud
or on the dry soil, and then immediately they turn
on a flood of water, so that the whole field becomes
a shallow pond. You would think the seed was
drowned. But wait a few weeks, and then go and
view one of these artificial lakes, and from all its sur
face you will see green points rising, and day by day
that grass shoots taller, till at last the water is no
more seen, and till eventually the standing pool has
ripened into a field of rich and rustling grain. So
that in its literal sense the farmers of these lands
are every year fulfilling the maxim of the text. For
should the spring come on them, and find their
supply of rice-corn scanty, instead of devouring it
all, they will rather stint themselves. They will
rather go hungry for weeks together, and live on a

198 LECTURE XVII.
pinched supply: for the bread which they cast on
the waters this spring, creates the crop on which they
are to subsist next autumn and winter; and they
are content to cast it on the waters now,, for they
are sure to find it after many days.
Or suppose that you are in the South Sea Isles,
where the bread-fruit grows,* and that by chance or
on purpose, you scatter some of its precious bunches
on the sea. At the moment you may feel that they
are lost : but should the winds and waters waft them
to one of those reef islands with which such seas are
thickly studded, the wandering seeds may get washed
ashore, and beneath those brilliant suns may quickly
grow to a bread-fruit forest. And should some
disaster long years after wreck you on that reef,
when these trees are grown and their clusters ripe,
you may owe your sustenance to the bread which
you cast on the waters long ago.
Such is God's husbandly. Do the right deed.
Do it in faith, and in prayer commend it to the care
of God. And though the waves of circumstance
may soon waft it beyond your ken, they only carry
it to the place prepared by Him. And whether on
an earthly or a heavenly shore, the result will be
found, and the reaper will rejoice that he once was a
sower. Dr. Dwight of America tells how, when the
countiy near Albany was newly settled, an Indian
came to the inn at Lichfield, and asked for a night's
* The cultivated sort, however, has seldom any seeds.

BREAD ON THE WATERS. 199
shelter, — at the same time confessing that from
failure in hunting he had nothing to pay. The
hostess drove him away with reproachful epithets,
and as the Indian was retiring sorrowfully, — there
being no other inn for many a weary mile, — a man
who was sitting by directed the hostess to supply
his wants and promised to pay her. As soon as his
supper was ended, the Indian thanked his benefactor,
and said he would some day repay him. Several years
thereafter the settler was taken a prisoner by a hostile
tribe, and carried off to Canada. However, his life was
spared, though he himself was detained in slavery.
But one day an Indian came to him, and giving him
a musket, bade the captive follow him. The Indian
never told where they were going, nor what was his
object; but day after day the captive followed his
mysterious guide, till one afternoon they came sud
denly on a beautiful expanse of cultivated fields,
with many houses rising amongst them. " Do you
know that place ?" asked the Indian. "Ah, yes —
it is Lichfield ;" and whilst the astonished exile had
not recovered his surprise and amazement, the Indian
exclaimed, " And I am the starving Indian on whom
at this very place you took pity. And now that I
have paid for my supper, I pray you go home."
And it is to such humanities that the text has
primaiy reference ; for the context runs, " Give a por
tion to seven and also to eight; for thou knowest not
what evil shall be upon the earth." That is, miss no
opportunity of performing kind actions. Though you

200 LECTURE XVII.
should have bestowed your bounty on seven, — on a
number which you might deem sufficient, — should
an eighth present himself, do something for him
also; for you know not what evil shall be upon
earth. You know not in this world of mutation
how soon you may be the pensioner instead of the
almoner. You know not how soon you may be glad
of a crust from those who are at present thankful
for your crumbs. Beneficence is the best insurance.
When Jonathan was young he was the heir-
apparent of the throne; and in those days his favourite
friend was a young Bethlehemite, whom they had
brought to the palace to amuse the monarch with
his minstrelsy. The young Bethlehemite was brave
and high-hearted, and Jonathan loved him for his
genius and his lofty piety, till he and the Prince
Royal were fast and firm as any brothers. At length
one morning Jonathan embraced a merry boy some
five years old, and donning corslet and casque he
followed his own sire to the battle. Next morning
their corses lay stiff on the blasted heights of Gilboa,
and the young minstrel was monarch of Israel.
Years passed on, and the new sovereign found him
self in Saul's "old palace ; and whichsoever way he
looked there rose upon his spirit touching memories.
Here was the very throne before which he had often
kneeled, harp in hand, and watched the grim tyrant's
features ; and there was the wainscot in which his
furious javelin had hung and quivered. And now
he trode again the terraces where he and Jonathan

BREAD ON THE WATERS. 201
had paced together, and sworn eternal friendship as
they dreamed out a radiant future. He visited again
the field in which they had set up their target and
contended in friendly rivalry. He visited again the
bower in which they took sweet counsel, and where
they sang " The Lord is my Shepherd," and " Make
a joyful noise," whiles yet these psalms were new.
And everything brought back that pure and noble
friend so tenderly, that the whole soul of the sove
reign yearned for some living relict on whom to lavish
his regretful fondness. "And is there none?"
No, none; except this feeble, limping youth, the
little boy that was, and who dates his lameness from
his father's funeral. Yes, but fetch him ! Fetch
Mephibosheth. He is all of Jonathan which now
survives on earth ; and for his dear father's sake, he
shall possess again his patrimony, and, if he must
not be the King, he shall never eat bread at meaner
board than mine. And as he looked on the counte
nance so suggestive of one yet dearer ; and as he
rejoiced to see the poor youth reinstated in that
home of which he was the natural heir ; and as he
eyed Mephibosheth filling in the banquet-hall the
place which Jonathan had filled, whilst as yet him
self was but a menial, David could sing with much
significance, " I have been young and now am old ;
yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed
begging bread. He is even merciful and lendeth,
and his seed is blessed." And David's own son,
when he saw that sight, — when he saw Jonathan's

202 LECTURE XVII.
old kindness requited in this princely provision for
his child, — Solomon might say, as here he says,
" Cast thy bread on the waters, and thou shalt find
it after many days."
Although so often exemplified in cases of common
humanity and kind-heartedness, the maxim of our
text is especially applicable to the efforts of Christian
philanthropy. These are pre-eminently amaranthine.
There are seeds which, after being borne on the
current for a few days or weeks, lose their vitality ;
they rot and sink and disappear. So is it with much
of human effort. So is it with many a worldly
scheme, many a plausible suggestion, many a
patriotic enterprise. It finds little favour in its
day ; it cannot get deposited in a sufficient number
of appropriate minds ; and thus, ere long, it becomes
old and obsolete ; the thought perishes, the seed dis
solves and vanishes. But not so with pious effort.
It is more than the lucky thought of fallible and
short-sighted man ; it is more than the well-meaning
purpose of a feeble and sinful worm. It is a thought
suggested by God's own Spirit ; it is a purpose
sustained and animated by One whose wisdom is
infinite and who is alive for evermore. And though
the mind in which that wish or effort first originated
may long since have passed from these scenes of
mortality; — though forgetful of its cunning, the
hand which first launched on the tide of human
thought that project or that principle, may long
since be crumbling in the clay, a heavenly life is at

BREAD ON THE WATERS. 203
its core, and, as it journeys on its buoyant path, a
covenant God will keep alive its little ark till it reach
the predestined creek, and after many days be drawn
forth from the waters, — a Moses of the mind.
So was it with the first Reformers. Searching
in their Bibles they found truths of God which had
vanished from the memories of men, — great truths
and glorious, no longer current in the vernacular of
Christendom. But after their own understandings
and hearts had been filled and expanded by them,
they gave them utterance. That it is through the
justified Surety that a sinner is just with God ; that
betwixt that sinner and that Surety nothing mediates
nor intervenes, neither Mary in heaven nor mother
Church on earth, neither the sainted mediator of the
Calendar nor the sacerdotal mediator of the Con
fessional ; but that to his great High Priest, the God-
man, Immanuel, the sinner may come boldly and
may come direct ; that in order to receive the atone
ment and rejoice in Christ Jesus no preliminaries of
penance, or pilgrimages, are requisite, but that for this
great salvation, conscious sin is sufficient fitness, and
the Word and will of God sufficient warrant : these
and other golden truths, fresh gleaned from the
Bible, they published, some preaching them from pul
pits, some proclaiming with their pens. And the
hosts of darkness took alarm. Wickliff went to the
dungeon; Huss and Jerome to the flaming pile.
But, though the witnesses perished, the Word of God
could not be bound: the truth of God was nei-

204 LECTURE XVII.
ther burned, nor buried : but over the troubled
deep of a dark and stormy century this bread of
life, these seeds of saving knowledge floated on, till
God the Spirit landed them and planted them in
minds prepared, and from these rescued waifs there
sprang the glorious Reformation.
It were only to tell the same tale a little varied
to rehearse how once upon a time every enterprise
of Christian charity was once a project in some soli
tary and prayerful mind ; and how, when cast forth
on the waters of thought and opinion, it first halted
and hovered, and looked as if it would never get to
sea : and how, after touching at one point after
another, and finding momentary favour only to be
rebuffed again, some great gulf-current swept it clean
away, and its author hoped to see it no more. And
away it went ; and it was bandied on the billows, and
it was battered on the rocks, and it was frozen in the
iceberg, and it was roasted in the tropic, till at last
the Eye that watched it and the Hand that steered it
from above, conducted it to its sunny haven, and,
safely landed on an honest soil, it burst and bour
geoned and waxed a mighty tree.
So understood, the principle admits of boundless
application; and it should be very cheering to all
who are engaged in labours of Christian love. For
instance, if you are engaged in teaching your own
children, or the children of other people, and your
great anxiety is to see some good thing towards the
Lord — some dawn of pious feeling, some development

BREAD ON THE WATERS. 205
of personal earnestness; — but notwithstanding all
the endearment which you throw into your words,
and all the prayer with which you follow up your in
structions, you dare hardly say that you perceive any
hopeful sign. Be not discouraged. It is God's own
truth, and if all your heart be in it, it is living truth,
and will blossom up some day. It may be in that
soul's salvation out and out. It may be in restraining
it from much sin, or in urging it to duties which it
would otherwise have never thought of doing. And
it may be after many days. It may be after your
own day altogether. It may be on the shores of
another continent. It may be on the shores of
another world. But still, God's Word shall not go
forth a living power, and come back a vacant nullity.
That Word shall never go forth without returning,
and when it returns it shall never be void. " In the
morning, then, sow thy seed, and in the evening
withhold not thy hand : for thou knowest not which
shall prosper, this or that, or whether both shall be
alike good." Sow thy seed. Sow tracts and Bibles,
and good books. Sow friendly hints and words in
season. Sow cordial looks and substantial services.
And sow beside all waters. Cast thy bread not only
on Jordan's flood, but on the streams of Babylon.
Cast it on the Thames and the Ganges. Let thy
field be the world ; let it also be thine own family.
March 30, 1851.

LECTURE XVIIL
23rfgfit Jflftotnnus on tfie Mfng.

Read Eccles. ii. 24—26; in. 12, 13, 22 ; v. 18—20; Till. 15;
IX. 7—10.

" I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to
rejoice, and to do good in his life. And also that every
man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his
labour : it is the gift of God."
Every moment brings its mercy; why should not
mercies bring content ? To the man who finds
favour in his sight, God gives " wisdom and know
ledge." He is conscious of his comforts, and he has
sense to use them. But to the sinner God gives
" travail." He has the toil of acquirement without
the power of enjoyment. " There is nothing better
for a man than that he should eat and drink, and
that he should make his soul enjoy good in his
labour." Throughout the whole of the book language like
this is constantly recurring. And, without pausing
to enter a caveat against Epicurean perversions of
the sentiment, we may at once proceed to its legiti-

BRIGHT MOMENTS. 207
mate applications. Of all philosophies the most
eclectic is evangehcal Christianity; and many a
sentiment which, isolated, would be an error, is not
only innocent but useful, when acting as a tributary
to this master principle.
Even in the days of his vanity, Solomon " saw "
that there would be more happiness if there were
less hankering. He saw it in mankind; he sus
pected it in himself. Like the November bee, with
its forehead smeared in the honey of the hive, and
which, smelling that deceitful lure, fancies that it is
the nectar of far-off flowers, and which, still scenting
somewhere ahead a land of honey, flies farther and
farther afield, till the evening mist enshrouds it
and congeals upon its wings, and drags it benumbed
to the frozen furrow : so Solomon had often seen
his neighbours flying far into the winter in search
of that honey which they had left at home ; and he
said, It would have been better that they had " eaten
and drunken " from the produce of their previous
toil ; — it would have been better if, instead of always
labouring after more, they could have halted, and
enjoyed " the good of their former labour."
And surely this principle is of extensive applica
tion. Without disparaging the pleasures of hope,
or seeking to quell the zeal of progress, are the cases
not numberless where, for all purposes of enjoyment,
labour is lost, because coupled with the constant
lust of farther acquirement ? or because of a strange

208 LECTURE XVIII.
oblivion of his own felicity on the part of the
favoured possessor ?
Behold us here in Britain, in the heart of
the nineteenth century, surrounded with the
broadest zone of peace and material comfort to be
found in all the map of history. Looking at our
temporal lot, we of this generation and this country
stand on the very pinnacle of outward advantage;
in all our hves never once affrighted by the rumour
of invasion ; exempt from all the horrors of impress
ment and conscription; ignorant of martyrdoms
religious and political; — free, self-governed, inde
pendent. Who knows it ? Who remembers it ?
Who in these matters adverts to his own happiness ?
As she presses to her bosom her little boy, or parts
on his open brow the darkening hair, amidst all her
maternal pride, where is the mother who praises God
for her young Briton's privilege ? How many
hearts remember to swell with the joyful recollection,
Thank God, he may leave me if he pleases ; but he
can never be dragged from me against his wfll !
He may become a More among lawyers, a Latimer
among preachers, a Sidney among statesmen, and
need dread neither stake nor scaffold. He may become
the victim of false accusation and malignant perse
cution ; but he will not languish, without trial, slow
years in the dungeon, nor by the rack be frenzied into
a false witness against himself. He may turn out
unwise, he may turn out unhappy ; but, thank God,
the son of British sire can never feel the tyrant's

BRIGHT MOMENTS. 209
torture in his limbs, nor the brand of slavery on his
brow! Behold that home of yours ! What an Eden a
thankful heart might make it ! What a concentra
tion of joys it will appear, as soon as the Spirit the
Comforter has revealed its brightness ; or as soon as
its little groups and its daily scenes can only be
viewed in the pictures of gold and ebony which
furnish the mourner's memory ! And yet, how
often does your own peevishness embitter all its
joy ; and how often, with foolish hankering, do you
quit its hoarded pleasures, and fly away to clubs and
crowded rooms, to theatres, or lonely travel, in
search of the honey you have Jeft at home !
Behold your position as a candidate for immor
tality ! What could you desire which the God of
grace has not done for you already ? A salvation
more complete — a Bible more plain — a revelation
more abundant ? And yet, instead of sitting down
contentedly and thankfully to this "feast of fat
things," and abandoning yourself to all the blessed
ness which is so freely given you, do you not usually
find a barrier of dilatoriness or distrust rising up
betwixt you and the costly provision ? With that
Gospel spreading blandly before you, there is nothing
better for you than to eat and drink of its mercies,
and enjoy the good which it brings you. Oh,
study to realize your amazing position, as one whom
Jehovah all-sufficient is daily inviting into his friend
ship, and whom the Wearer of a sinless humanity is

210 LECTURE XVIII.
willing to call his brother. Fear not to think it,
that to you, poor tenant of the dust, a white robe
and a golden harp are offered. Fear not to think it,
all sin-laden and sin-pervaded as you are, that to
the fellowship of angels and his own society, the
Holy One invites you. Fear not to think it, that as
a believer in Jesus, and so a member of his great
ransomed body, your very self are soon to be an
inhabitant of that world where there is neither
sin nor sorrow, and a burgess of that city whose
streets are gold, and whose gates are pearl. Fear
not to think such things ; but fear to forget them.
Fear not to believe such things ; but fear to credit
them in a cold and vacant manner. Fear to get into
that habit which engulfs any amount of God's
mercies as the ocean engulfs the argosie, without
feehng richer or fuller, or giving any revenue
back. One great source of our prevailing joylessness is
our inadvertency. Living in Rome, a famous anti
quarian and artist* tells us that he gave himself half
an hour every day to meditate on his Italian happi
ness. There was wisdom in the rule. Thousands
have lived in Rome, with the same pure sky
smiling over them and the same articulate antiquity
on every side accosting them, and never been aware
of their felicity; just as there are thousands who
growl and grumble through long years of English life,
and never bless God for the greater mercy of being
* Winkehnan.

BRIGHT MOMENTS. 211
born in Britain. Few of us need to be better off —
we all need to know how well off we are. We need
to meditate on our human happiness. We might
have been lost angels, of whose race no Redeemer
took hold. We might have been cut off in our sins
long ago, and now been in the place where God for-
getteth to be gracious. We might have been
born in dark or despotic lands, where faith is a
miracle, and where piety is martyrdom. We might
have laboured under those prejudices of education
which make belief in the faithful saying, as hard as it
is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.
Then absolutely : there is for our meditation, daily,
hourly, life-long, God's chief mercy, — that largess of
unprecedented love which is not the envied distinc
tion of some far-off world, but is God's gift unspeak
able to you, to me. Oh, let us for once dwell on our
peerless prerogative, till we become a wonder to our
selves, — till but for our faith in God we would not
be able to beheve our own distinguished blessedness.
"This is the record that God hath given to us eternal
life, and this life is in his Son." " He that hath the
Son hath life." " He that spared not his own Son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not
with him freely give us all things ? " " Who is he
that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea,
rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right
hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us."
" Bless the Lord, 0 my soul, and all that is within
me, bless his holy name : who forgiveth all thine
p 2

212 LECTURE XVIII.
iniquities, — who healeth all thy diseases, — who re-
deemeth thy life from destruction, — who crowneth
thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies."
Another source of depression is distrustfulness.
Am I wrong, my friends ? Are not some of you in
this predicament ? You have no particular evil to
record against the past, and yet you have great fears
for the future. If you be a Christian, on the whole
your life has been a happy one, — and yet with all that
past happiness, you are afraid that you cannot be so
happy hereafter. You are afraid that grief is
coming — all the more afraid that grief is coming
because so much joy is past. But this is wrong.
This is perverse reasoning. If a child of God, your
greatest happiness is coming yet. You are going up
into a future where mightier than the mightiest trial
— a grief-transforming, cloud- dispelling Friend awaits
you. If God be your chiefest good, and conformity
to God be your great desire, the future contains no
real evil for you. In that future there may await you
some painful incidents. The loss of this and that
other loved one may await you there, — the loss
of your substance, — the loss of your health may
await you, and they may not ; sufficient unto the day
is the evil thereof. But whatever else is in store for
you, if you go piously and prayerfully forward into
that future, you will find that many sweet mercies
are there awaiting you, — many blessings at this
moment unsurmised and unsuspected, — blessings,
some of them, which the mourner only knows ; and

BRIGHT MOMENTS. 213
you will find that in that future God awaits you, as
present, as powerful, and as kind as He has been in
the most favoured past. So, summon up courage
and go cheerfully forward. " Hope in the Lord ;
for with the Lord there is mercy." And whatever
else you limit, set no hmits to the lovingkindness of
the Lord, nor to the largeness of those petitions by
which the needy suppliant honours the liberal Giver.
Many indulge a complaining spirit who scarcely re
flect how wicked it is, and how provoking to the
Most High. They take up the Bible, and they read
the murmurings of Israel on the march to Canaan,
and they pity poor Moses, and they do not wonder
that, wearied with their petulance and peevishness,
the Lord smote these rebels, so that all their carcases
fell in the wilderness. And when they have read the
narrative, they close the book ; and the first member
of the family that comes in their way, they have
ready a long lecture of rough reprimanding and per
verse fault-finding ; or the first visitor that arrives,
they inflict on him the story of their grievances ;
they tell how good and meritorious they have been,
but how severely the Lord has frowned upon their
wishes and how cruelly the Lord has baffled all their
plans. Yes, brethren, we marvel at old Israel, be
cause we are ignorant of ourselves. If, just as
Canaan was the prize of meekness, and a single
murmur was enough to forfeit it, — if the Lord sus
pended any blessing on the same condition, — if those
only were to find next year prosperous who never

214 LECTURE XVIII.
grumbled this one, and those only were to get to
heaven who never murmured by the way, which of
us, — who of all the two millions of London, would
be the modern Joshua and Caleb ? And yet, as it is,
who would not try ? Who is there that would not
court the panegyric which God pronounced on the
sons of Nun and Jephunneh ? Who is there that
would not wish the perpetual feast of a contented
spirit, and the perpetual ornament of a praising one ?
Let us, brethren, combat our natural fault-finding,
and our no less natural foreboding. Let us rejoice in
the present, and let us trust for the future. Let us
pray and strive till our frame of mind is more in
unison with the Lord's kindness ; and in the fulfil
ment of any wish and the disappointment of any
fear, — in the kindness of any friend, andin the
answer to any prayer, — in every gracious providence,
and in every spiritual mercy bestowed on ourselves or
others dear to us, — in all these let us recognise the
merciful kindness of the Lord, and let us acknow
ledge what we recognise. "It is a good thing to
give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto
thy name, 0 Most High : to show forth thy loving
kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every
night : for thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy
work : I will triumph in the works of thy hands."

LECTURE XIX.
©IK &ge.
Read Eccles. xii. 1—7.
" Remember thy Creator, . . . while the evil days come
not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have
no pleasure in them."
A dissipated youth is sure to be followed by a cross
and joyless old age. During the years of his un
godliness, Solomon had been a fast hver, and, most
likely, he now felt creeping over him the jejune and
dreary feelings which foretel a premature decline.
No dew of youth survived to create a green old age,
and having forestalled the reserve of strength and
spirits, he had failed withal to lay up against this time
a good foundation of faithful friends and pleasant
memories. The portrait is general; but an old
worldling seems to have supplied the original.
Of his last years this old man says, " I have no
pleasure in them." Once on a time existence was a
joy, and the exuberant spirits overflowed in shouts
and songs and hilarious ditties. So abundant was
the joy of life that, like the sunbeams in a tropic

216 LECTURE XIX.
clime, it was needful to shade it, and with a Venetian
lattice of imagined sorrows and tragic tales the young
man assuaged the over-fervid beams of his own
fehcity. " In youth he loved the darksome lawn,
Brushed by the owlet's wing ;
Then twilight was preferred to dawn,
And autumn to the spring.
" Sad fancies did he then affect,
In luxury of disrespect
To his own prodigal excess
Of too familiar happiness." *
Now there is no need of such artificial abatements.
It is not easy for the old man to get a nook
so warm that it will thaw the winter in his veins.
To say nothing of a song, it is not easy for him to
muster up a smile; and as he listens with languid
interest to the news of the day, and, in subtile
sympathy with his own failing faculties, as he dis
parages this modern time and its dwindled men, it
is plain that, as for the world, its avocations and
amusements, its interests and its inhabitants, he
has httle pleasure in them.
It adds to the evil of such days that the pleasures
of expectation are constantly lessening. Old age is
a Terra del Fuego, — a region where the weather
never clears. Once, when a trivial ailment came the
hardy youth could outbrave it, and still go on with
his daily duties. But now, every ailment is im-
* Wordsworth.

OLD AGE. 217
portant, and they are never like to end. The cough
is cured only to be succeeded by an asthma, and
when the tender eyes have ceased to trickle, the ears
begin to tingle. Once upon a time a few drops
might fall into the brightest day, like a settling
shower in June; and there were apt to be hurri
canes, equinoctial gales, great calamities, drenching
and devastating sorrows. But now, the day is all
one drizzle, and life itself the chief calamity, and
there is httle space for hope where the weather is all
either clouds or rain.
Then in the third and three following verses,
there is given an allegorical sketch of the infirmities
of age. "The keepers of the house tremble."
Those arms once so brawny wither. The Priam
who could have cleft a brazen panoply, can now fling
'a spear with scarce an infant's force, — and the
David who could hurl his pebble straight into the
centre of Goliath's brow, can scarcely carry to his
own lips a cup of water. In either arm the sturdy
champion used to feel that he had two stout defenders,
— two trusty keepers of the castle ; but now that he
is old, any one can bind them and carry him whither
he would not. " And the strong men bow them
selves." Those active limbs can do no more. The
pedestrian tells how once on a time he walked his
hundred miles in four-and-twenty hours, and then, as
he gets up to give a specimen, he stumbles on the carpet.
That other disciple who outran Peter can no longer

218 LECTURE XIX.
creep from his couch to the sanctuary, but is fain to
be carried in his chair. Be thankful, Asahel, that
you die so soon, or none would believe that your feet
were once swifter than a roe. Be thankful, Samson,
that you perish in your prime, or it would not be
easy to believe that those bending legs of yours
once bore the gates of Gaza. " The strong men bow
themselves, and the grinders cease because they are
few." The daily meal is itself a drudgery ; for the
teeth have fallen out, and the masticating process is
a fatigue and a trouble. And, still sorer privation,
the eyes are dim. "Those that look out of the
windows are darkened." The landscape is a blot, —
the very world is misty. The writer's inkhorn is
allowed to dry, and the virtuous woman who clothed
all her household with scarlet, — her needles now rust
in the unopened case. Whatever may have been
the pleasure derived from works of information or of
fancy, that pleasure has faded ; for, except in the brief
winter's noon, the eye can no longer decipher the
wavering lines, and even though by reading aloud,
friendship endeavours to supply their failure, the effort
is defeated by the dulness of the ear. " The doors are
shut in the street." Soft sounds no longer get in ;
and though by bawling lustily, a son or a daughter
may ask or answer some occasional question, — poor
substitute, these volleyed and intermitting utterances,
— poor substitute for the whispers of affection, and
the sweet accents of familiar voices, and that calm,

OLD AGE. 219
effortless participation in all the passing converse
which were the privilege of happier days. But, not
only is the door of audience closed, the door of
utterance is also shut. " The grinders have ceased,"
and with lips collapsed and organs all impaired, it is
an effort to talk ; and bending silently in on his own
sohtude, the veteran dozes in his elbow-chair the
long summer hours when younger folks are busy.
But if he dozes in the day, he does not sleep at
night. At the voice of the bird, at the crowing
of the cock, although he does not hear it, he can
keep his couch no longer. He rises whilst industry
is still locked in needed slumber, and even before
the sleep-cloud has melted from the eyes of infancy.
He rises, but not because he has any work to do, or
any pleasure to enjoy. " He is afraid of that which
is high, and fears are in the way." He has neither
enterprise nor courage. Once it was a treat to press
up the mountain side and enjoy the majestic prospect.
Now, there is no high place which is not formidable ;
and even to the temple it is a sad drawback that it
stands on Zion, and that it is needful to " go up."
" The almond-tree flourishes, and the grasshopper is
burdensome." Teaze him not with your idle affairs.
In that load of infirmities he has encumbrance enough
to carry, and though it be not the weight of a feather,
do not augment his burden, who totters under
the load of many years. For " desire has failed."
You can grapple with heavy tasks, — you can submit

220 LECTURE XIX.
to severe toil and protracted self-denial, for you
have a purpose to serve — you have an end in view, —
you have an inducement which countervails toil and
cheats the self-denial. But with him there is no
inducement, for there is no ulterior. "Desire has
failed." "Barzillai, come and live with me at the
palace," says David. And, answers Barzillai, " I am
this day fourscore years old ; can I discern between
good and evil ? Can thy servant taste what I eat or
what I drink ? Can I hear any more the voice of
singing men and singing women ? Let thy servant, I
pray thee, turn back, that I may die in mine own
city, and be buried in the grave of my father and of
my mother." Yes, that is all of " desire" that now
remains, — the desire to die at home, and be buried
in the family grave. And it is presently fulfilled.
For now the old man goes to his long home, and his
funeral walks the streets. The other morning his
children came and found nothing but the ruin.
The silver cord by which it was suspended had
worn out at last, and the lamp of life was fallen
to the ground, — the lights extinguished and the
golden bowl which fed them broken. * The pitcher
was shattered beside the fountain, and the cistern-
wheel demolished. The eye was glass. The heart
was still. And now dust goes back to dust, —
for the soul has already gone to the God who
gave it. * Noyes.

OLD AGE. 221
This description gives great emphasis to the ex
hortation of the outset. Remember thy Creator in
youth — for if you do not remember Him then, your
next leisure will be old age, and now you see what
sort of leisure that is. How foolish to calculate on
a time which not one youth in ten ever sees ! How
fatal to calculate on a time which, were it really
come, you could tum to no account ! Suppose that
by an interposition of Omnipotence, you were lifted
over the interval of years. Suppose that you, who
are this day fifteen, were to awake to-morrow and
find yourself fourscore. You know what it is to
be very sleepy, and how tiresome it is to have people
talking to you when you can scarcely keep open your
eyes. You know what it is to be very sad, and when
your heart is breaking you know how painful it is to
be obliged to go about your daily tasks, and how
little progress you make in this disconsolate diligence.
You know what it is to be very sick ; and if, when
you cannot lift your head from the pillow, your little
sister were bringing in lilies of the valley or new
wall-flowers of the spring, you would look languidly
at them, and soon put them away; or if they asked you
to rise and take a ride, you would feel that they were
mocking you. So is it with old age. It is drowsy,
and sad, and full of infirmity ; and to go to an old
man who has never minded religion in his youth —
to go to him and ask him to mind it now, would be
like singing songs to a heavy heart ; it would be like

222 LECTURE XIX.
telling stories to a sleepy man; it would be like
showing pictures or presenting;giosegays to a tor
tured invalid. Were you now waking up to a
sudden old age, you would find all over you a strange
stupor : the windows darkened, and the street-doors
closed. And you would find yourself very dull.
These are days when you would say, "I have no
pleasure in them." And like a man constantly in a
dim disease, you would feel as if you never were
hale enough to throw all your heart into the subject.
And when pious friends pressed you and entreated
you to think of your soul, you would pray them,
"I cannot attend. Everything fatigues me now.
The grasshopper is a burden. I know that the sub
ject is awfully important. So much the worse for
me — for I cannot take interest in anything. Desire
has failed. My heart is weary — my soul is dim.
Oh, leave me, leave me to repose!" 0 my dear
young friends, give the Saviour your heart whilst
you have a heart to give. Listen to his voice whilst
your feelings still are fresh, and give Him your affec
tions before your natures grow dry and arid.
For this is our next lesson : The Creator remem
bers in their old age, those who in youth remember
Him. This is a woful picture, but some of the
features would scarcely be recognised in an old dis
ciple. At least it cannot be truly said by an aged
Christian, " I have no pleasure ;" and though there
may be " clouds," he has also long and sunny inter-

OLD AGE. 223
vals, and beyond this cloudy region he has blessed
prospects. The peace which the Saviour gives to
his people, is a well of water springing up unto ever
lasting life; and there is nothing which keeps the
feelings so fresh and youthful as a perennial piety.
" Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the
young men shall utterly fall." The young men of
this world must grow old; and a few years hence
the young man rejoicing in his youth shall be lean
ing on his staff for very feebleness. " But they that
wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength."
And if you want to know the difference between
animal and spiritual youth, just compare that young
spendthrift who bows his head like a bulrush, because
he is conscious of debt and dishonesty and the dis
respect of all around ; compare him with that old,
but frugal and contented saint, who carries his head
erect as the palm-tree, and who, like the palm-tree,
has constant sunshine on it. Compare that young
profligate who, after a night of riot, is now dragging
his reluctant steps to his hated post, and with bleared
eyes and throbbing temples, is yawning forth his
vacancy, or ejaculating his chagrin ; — compare him
with yon serene and cheerful Christian who, now that
life's working-day is over, is resting from his labours
•for a little before he passes to his reward, and whose
evening is so bright that the youngest are glad to
come forth and bask in its beams. Compare that
young sceptic who has half persuaded himself into

224 LECTURE XIX.
the disbelief of God and hereafter, — and whose forced
unbelief is often interrupted by intrusions of un
welcome conviction, — compare him with Paul the
aged in prison, writing, "I know whom I have
beheved. I am now ready to be offered, and the
time of my departure is at hand; I have fought a
good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept
the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me a
crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous
Judge, shall give me at that day."
It is not very long ago since the hves of two vete
rans appeared so simultaneous as almost to compel
the contrast. Their dechning days were somewhat
similar. When getting old and feehng frail, they
lost some of their dearest friends, and each lost his
fortune. In these circumstances Sir Walter writes :
" I used to think a slight illness was a luxurious thing.
 It is different in the latter stages — the old
post-chaise gets more shattered at every turn ; win
dows will not pull up, doors refuse to open, or, being
open, will not shut again. There is some new sub
ject of complaint every moment — your sicknesses
come thicker and thicker ; your sympathizing friends
fewer and fewer. The recollection of youth, health,
and uninterrupted powers of activity, neither im
proved nor enjoyed, is a poor strain of comfort. ....
Death has closed the long dark avenue upon loves
and friendships ; and I look at them as through the
grated door of a burial-place filled with monuments

OLD AGE. 225
of those who were once dear to me, with no insincere
wish that it may open for me at no distant period,
provided such be the will of God. I shall never see
the threescore and ten, and shall be summed
up at a discount. No help for it, and no matter
either."* Recovering from a similar slight illness,
Mr. Wilberforce remarked, " I can scarce understand
why my life is spared so long, except it be to show
that a man can be as happy without a fortune .as with
one." And then, soon after, when his only surviving
daughter died, he writes, " I have often heard that
sailors on a voyage will drink, ' Friends astern,' till
they are half way over, then ' Friends a head.' With
me it has been 'friends a head ' this long time."t
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of
his saints ; and God's kindness to his aged servants
is often displayed in their gentle dismissal. In view
of advancing years it has been sweetly sung by an
Enghsh poetess : — J
" Life ! we've been long together,
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather.
'Tis hard to part when friends are dear,
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear.
Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time ;
Say not good night, but in some happier clime,
Bid me good morning."
* " Scott's Life," Second Edition, vol. ix., pp. 60, 61.
t " Wilberforce's Life," vol. v., pp. 326, 328.
| Mrs. Barbauld. Q

226 LECTURE XIX.
And the boon has oft been vouchsafed to the mature
and Simeon-like disciple. Many of you remem
ber " Father " Wilkinson, who preached the Golden
Lecture so many years in London. One evening he
told his daughter that he had long dreaded dying in
his sleep, and that he had nightly prayed that it
might not be so : " But this night," he added, " I have
withdrawn that petition, and will leave this and all
my matters in God's hands." It was the last link of
bondage broken ; the last fibre of self-will uprooted ;
and having thus completed his meetness, the Lord
surprised his servant into blessedness that selfsame
night. Last week, in an old book, we read a similar
instance of a veteran's gentle home-going. In the days
of Gallican persecution, Pastor Faber sat at the table
of the Queen of Navarre one afternoon, when some
other Protestant refugees were present. He was
looking sad, and, when they asked the reason, he
replied with tears, " I am now a hundred years
old, and when many young men are sealing their
testimony with their blood, here have I, the
craven, saved myself by flight." The Queen and
her friends assured him that in consulting his own
safety he had only fulfilled his Lord's command;
and by and by he brightened up, and said, "Then
nothing remains but that I go back to God ; for I
perceive that He calls me. But, first, if you please,
I shall make my will." Then turning his eyes on
the Queen he said, " I constitute you my executrix
and residuary legatee. My books I bequeath to M.

OLD AGE. 227
Gerard, the Preacher. My clothes and whatever else
I have I give to the poor. The rest I commit to
God." At which the Queen smiling, asked, " Yes,
but, James, what will revert to your residuary
legatee ? " " The charge of dispensing to the poor,"
he answered. "And I," exclaimed her Majesty,
" accept it, and I vow that it is to me a more grateful
heritage than if my Royal brother had bequeathed to
me the kingdom of France." Thereupon the old
man, saying that he wanted rest, bade the guests a
cheerful " good night " and retired into an adjoining
chamber. They thought that he was sleeping, and
so he was. He had fallen asleep in a palace, and he
awoke in heaven. *
My young friends, let me claim your kindness
for the old. They are well entitled to your sympathy.
Through this bright world they move mistily, and
though they rise as soon as the birds begin to sing,
they cannot hear the music. Their limbs are stiff,
their senses dull, and that body which was once
their beautiful abode and their willing servant, has
become a cage and a heavy clog. And they have
outhved most of those dear companions with whom
they once took sweet counsel.
" One world deceas'd, another born,
Like Noah they behold,
O'er whose white hairs and furrow'd brows
Too many suns have roll'd." t
* " "Witsii Miscellanea Sacra," tom. ii., p. 184.
t Young.
Q 2

228 LECTURE XIX.
Make it up to them as well as you can. Be eyes to
the blind, and feet to the lame. On their way to
the sanctuary be their supporting staff, and though
it may need an extra effort to convey your words
into their blunted ear, make that effort; — for
youth is never so beautiful as when it acts as a
guardian angel, or a ministering spirit to old age.
And should extreme infirmity or occasional fretful
ness try your patience, remember that to all intents
you were once the same, and may be the same
again ; — in second childhood, as in first, the debtor
of others' patience and tenderness and magnanimity.
And, my aged friends, let me commend you to
the sympathy of the Saviour. The merciful High
Priest knows your frame. The dull ear and the dim
eye are no obstacles to intercourse with Him ; and
the frequent infirmities prayer can convert into pleas
for his compassion. " What are you doing ?" said a
minister, as he one day visited a feeble old man, who
dwelt in a windy hovel. " What are you doing ?" as
he saw him sitting beneath the dripping rafters in
his smoky chamber, with his Bible open on his knee.
" Oh, Sir ! I am sitting under his shadow with great
delight, and his fruit is sweet to my taste !" That
is dainty food, which even Barzillai might discern.
Feed upon its promises ; draw water from its wells
of salvation. And when one sight after another
fades away from your darkening eyes, look more and
more to Jesus ; — for if He be your joy, your hope,
your life, the faster you are clothed with the snows

OLD AGE. 229
of eld, the sooner will you renew your youth in the
realms of immortahty.
" In age and feebleness extreme,
Who shall a helpless worm redeem ?
Jesus, my only hope Thou art,
Strength of my failing flesh and heart ;
Oh, could I catch a smile from Thee,
And drop into eternity !"
April 6, 1851.

LECTURE XX.
Wcfi. aSKcfctt-pte.

" Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter : Fear God,
and keep his commandments : for this is the whole of
man." — Eccles. xii. 13.
God is Almighty. Some beings concentrate in
themselves a large amount of power. Some of
our fellow-mortals have possessed so much vital
energy, — minds so inventive and vigorous, as to leave
their impress on a realm or on a continent; and
when you ask, Who engineered this road? who
devised this law ? who erected this monument ? you
are amazed to find everywhere the trace of one
imperial intellect. But ascend into Heaven or plunge
into Hades,— take the wings of the morning and
visit the farthest isles of Immensity, and there is one
Presence which will still invest you, and one great
footstep which still you must fail to measure. Who
made this worm which grovels in the clay? who
made yon seraph who hovers round the Light of
lights ? Who lit the glow-worm's taper ? who
filled with bright millenniums the sphery lamp of
yonder sun ? Who gives this dancing atom its

THE WICKET-GATE. 231
afternoon of life ? who is it that has kindled
immortahty in the soul of man ? Who is it that
fills that hive with industry, that home with peaceful
joy, that heaven with adoring ecstasy ? The Alpha
and Omega, the first and the last, who is, and was,
and is to come, the Almighty.
God is all-wise. When as yet nothing existed
except the great I AM, to his infinite understanding
all combinations of existence were present. They
stood forth so many beautiful and Divine ideas, and
from this panopticon of all the possible his holy
wisdom chose the best, and willed that universe
which is. And now that alongside of all the past
his boundless comprehension includes the farthest
future, each evolving incident owes its being to that
Providence which is particular because it is universal ;
and nothing comes into existence which is a surprise
to Omniscience, or which does not instantly find its
place prepared in the glorious whole : so that from
the falling sparrow to the dying martyr, and from
the fortunes of some poor human family to the
events of an Incarnation, all history is an anthem
ascribing "to the King eternal, immortal, invisible,
the only wise God," " honour and glory for ever
and ever."
God is all-holy. He is the infinite Excellence.
That river of pleasures which makes glad the celestial
city, is just so much of his goodness as God is pleased
to reveal ; but the full fountain remains in Jehovah
himself, — an ocean which Gabriel's line cannot

232 LECTURE XX.
fathom, and athwart which the archangel's wing
cannot traverse, — an abyss of brightness of which
immensity alone is the margin, and of which each
holy intelligence is but a sparkling drop. Yet, little
as our searching can find out God, we know that his
name is just the highest name for goodness and
blessedness. We know that his is the mind to
which evil is the supreme impossibility. We know
that He is the God of truth, and without iniquity :
just and right is He. Amidst the multitude of pro-
miseswhich his munificence has prompted him tomake,
we know that not one good word hath failed, but
every Yea has found its Amen. Amidst the multi
tude of creatures over which his sovereignty extends,
we know that there exists no instance of unkindness,
or neglect, or oppression. And amidst the multitude
of thoughts and emotions which make up the joys
of Deity, we know that there is not one malevolent
affection ; but all is condescension to his creatures,
care for their well-being, and delectation in their joy.
But if God be the only good and the all-inclusive
joy, a creature's blessedness must consist in a right
relation and a right emotion towards Him. To be
separated from the supreme felicity, must itself be
misery ; and to entertain unkind or hostile feelings
towards infinite excellence, must itseK be the deepest
depravity. What then is a right relation to God ? It is
that coincidence with his good pleasure, and that
compliance with his revealed will which Solomon

THE WICKET-GATE. 233
calls "keeping his commandments." He is our
Creator, and whether we will or will not, we must
be his creatures. But He is also the King of the
universe, and we ought to be his loyal subjects.
And in Christ Jesus He is prepared to become our
Father, and we should reciprocate the matchless
condescension, and with wonder and astonishment
exclaiming, " Our Father which art in heaven," we
should become the sons and daughters of the Lord
God Almighty.
And what is the right feehng towards God ?
Almighty and all- wise, we should devoutly adore
Him. Our righteous Ruler, we should with cheerful
submission acquiesce in his disposal, and with strenu
ous activity should fulfil his commands. Our kind
and merciful Father, we should give Him unhesi
tating love and confidence without reserve. And
altogether, did we realize his perfections and our own
position, it would become our " chief end to glorify
God and to enjoy Him for ever."
Many, however, will feel that the great difficulty
lies in getting into this right relation. Allowing it
to be the creature's highest end to glorify and enjoy
the Creator, how shall a sinful creature begin to
taste this blessedness ? How shall I assure myself
that the Most High is no longer offended with me ?
And how shall I bring myself to that state in which
my Creator shall be able to regard me with habitual
complacency ? Is the process very arduous and
very long ? Must I relinquish my present calling,
and give myself wholly to the business of working

234 LECTURE XX.
out my peace with God ? Had I not better retire
into a desert or a hermitage ? And how long will
the ordeal last ? In how many months or years may
I begin to hope that God is propitious, and that
heaven will be mine ?
Some people once lived in a Happy Isle, but for
their misdeeds they had been banished. Their place
of exile was a cheerless coast ; but it lay within
distant sight of their former home. Soon after their
expulsion a message had come from their injured
Sovereign, offering to all who pleased an amnesty.
Few minded it. They had grown sour and sullen,
and they tried to persuade themselves that the earth-
holes in which they burrowed were more com
fortable than the mansions of his land, and that the
mallows among their bushes were more nutritious than
all the fruits of his gardens. One man, however,
was of a different mind. He was a musing, thoughtful
person. Often might you have seen him pacing the
beach when the rays of evening shone on the Happy
Isle, and whilst the sea-bird wailed over his head and
the wrack crackled under his feet, from his own dreary
prison he wistfully eyed the forests on its coast, and
the mountains of purple streaked with silver which
sate enthroned in its interior ; and as he fancied
that he could sometimes hear faint murmurs of its
joy, he wished that he was there. One morning
when he awoke it struck him that the opposite shore
was unusually nigh, and so low was the tide that he
fancied he might easily ford it, or swim across.
And so he hastened forth. First over the dry shingle,

THE WICKET-GATE. 235
then over the sad and solid sand from which, with
scarce a ripple, the sea had smoothly folded down,
he •hurried on till he reached the damper strand,
where streams of laggard water still were trickling,
and then he was astonished at his own delusion ; for it
was still a mighty gulf, and even whilst he gazed the
tide was rising. But another time he tried another
plan. To the right of his dwelling the hne of coast
stretched away in a succession of cliffs and headlands,
till the view was bounded by a lofty promontory
which seemed to touch the farther side. To this
promontory he resolved to take a pilgrimage in the
hope that it would transport him to the long-sought
realm. The road was often a steep clamber, and for
many an hour the headland seemed only to flee away.
But after surmounting many a slope and swell, at
last he reached it. With eager steps he ran along the
ridge, half-hoping that it was the isthmus which
would bear him to the blessed Isle. Ah, no ! He
has reached its extremest verge, and here is that
inexorable ocean still weltering at its base. Baffled
in this last hope, and faint with his ineffectual toil,
he flung himself on the stones and wept. But, by
and by, he noticed off the shore a little boat with
whose appearance he was quite familiar. It used to
ride at anchor opposite his own abode, and had done
so for ever so long ; but, like his neighbours, he had
got so used to it that it never drew his notice. Now,
however, seeing it there, he looked at it, and as he
looked it neared him. It came close up to the rocks

236 lecture xx.
where he was seated. It was a beautiful boat with
snowy sail and golden prow, and a red cross was its
waving pennon. There was one on board, and only
one. His raiment was white and glistening, and his
features betokened whence he came. " Son of man,"
he said, " why weepest thou ? " " Because I cannot
reach the blessed Isle." " Canst thou trust thyself
with me ? " the stranger asked. The poor wayfarer
looked at the httle skiff leaping lightly on the waves,
and he wondered, till he looked again at the pilot's kind
and assuring countenance, and then he said, " I can."
And no sooner had he stepped on board than, swift
as a sunbeam, it bore him to the land of light ; and,
with many a welcome from the Pilot's friends, he
found himself among its happy citizens, clothed in
their bright raiment, and free to all their privileges,
as now a subject of their King.
The happy isle is peace with God, — that position
which man occupied whilst innocent. The dreary
land is that state of alienation and misery into which
fallen man is banished. The little skiff denotes the
only means by which the sinner may pass from
nature's alienation over into the peace of God. It is
a means not of the sinner's devising, but of God's
providing. It is the atonement, and He who so
kindly invites sinners to avail themselves of it is the
Lord Jesus Himself.
I may suppose the case of a hearer who longs for
acceptance with God. At present you feel like an
exile looking to a distant Eden with a gulf between.

THE WICKET-GATE. 237
You feel that between you and God's favour there
rolls a tide of trespasses and sins which all your
efforts cannot get over. Sometimes, like the poor
outcast on that bright morning, you have flattered
yourself that the separating interval had narrowed,
and if all went favourably you did not despair of
finding yourself ere long in the climes of ascertained
salvation. But even then, hke a broad and powerful
tide, the current of worldliness set in again, and the
interval betwixt God and your own soul again grew
vast as ever ; or, the dark stream of guilt began once
more to roar and deepen. Therefore, ceasing to hope
that your soul's salvation would come about spon
taneously, you set to work on purpose to achieve it.
Like one who would bridge across the mighty
channel; or rather, like one who sets out on pilgrim
age to yon inviting promontory, — you go about to
estabhsh a righteousness of your own. You resolve
to read so many chapters and to pray so many times
a-day. You determine that you will henceforth
never more be angry, nor deceitful, nor neglectful of
your trust. You try to think holy thoughts and
make your own mind spiritual. And in this way
you hope to go on by degrees till you are really
good, — so good that you may be at last forgiven.
But how far must the traveller march around the
coast of Europe before he arrives in Britain ? And how
many things must the sinner do in a state of nature
before he finds himself in a state of grace ? They
that are in the flesh cannot please God, and instead
of being good in order to be forgiven, you had need

238 LECTURE XX.
to be forgiven as the first movement towards becom
ing good. The separating gulf is too deep for the
tallest specimen of human virtue to ford, and too wide
for the sincerest repentance or the most faultless
morality to bridge over; and were you confronting
the realities of the case you would find that
Christless painstaking is only a pilgrimage along
a sea-girt promontory. Peace with God is not a
boon which it requires good deeds to purchase or
prayers to ensure ; but peace with God is a gift from
God, already come from heaven and awaiting your
acceptance. And, just as the vexed wanderer lifted
up his eyes, and in the boat, with its benignant
pilot, recognised the httle skiff which had so long
hovered unheeded near his own abode ; so, were the
Spirit of God to make you earnest now, — were He
convincing you of sin or of the futility of your own
exertions, you would see your salvation in some
thrice-told tale, — some text with which you have
been familiar long ago. "Eternal life is the gift
of God." " God hath given to us eternal life, and
this life is in his Son." " To as many as received
Him Jesus gave power to become the sons of God,
even to them that believe on his name." " The Son
of man must be lifted up, that whosoever beheveth
in Him may not perish, but have eternal life."
" Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the
earth." Like some dim object anchored near your
dwelling, texts like these are associated with your
earliest memory. These texts are gospels. Any one
of them is such " a faithful saying," that fully

THE WICKET-GATE. 239
realized and implicitly credited it would carry your
soul to heaven. Any one of them is an ark of
salvation, with none less than the Friend of sinners
in it ; and you have only to be persuaded of its good
will and its trustworthiness, so as to transfer your
immortal interests to the Saviour's keeping, and
you will soon discover that trust in Christ is
peace with God.
A justifying righteousness is not a privilege
which you buy, but a present which you receive.
It is not a result which you accomplish, nor a
reward which you earn, but it is a gratuity which
you accept. It is the " gift of righteousness," — a
gift promiscuous to sinners of our race, — a gift as
wide as the human " whosoever ;" a gift outstanding
which was within the reach of your earliest intel
ligence had you been so disposed, and which is not
yet withdrawn, — a gift which it needs neither prayer
to bring nearer, nor a price before or after to make
surer, but which it only needs your open hand, your
open heart to make your personal possession ; — not
a bargain, but a boon ; not an achievement, but an
acquiescence ; the gift of righteousness ; — the right
eousness of God which seeks, — not that we deserve it,
but that we " submit " to it. Being justified freely
by his grace through the redemption that is in
Christ, God's righteousness is declared through the
remission of sins that are past. And being justified
by faith we have peace with God, through our Lord

240 LECTURE XX.
Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God for his unspeakable
gift! *
Thus is it that the right relation between God
and the sinner is established ; a relation which bor
rows all its security and blessedness from the sinner's
substitute, God's own Son. Our redemption is in
Christ, and it is in the Beloved that we are accepted.
Our safety is all in the Saviour whom we trust. He
is our peace. Immanuel is the door. It is by Him
that we enter into the fold and become the sheep of
his Father. And when once the right relation is brought
about, the right affection must follow. It could not
come before. It did not come whilst the portion of
goods held out, and amidst his riotous hving the
prodigal was jeering at the decorum and dulness of
his Father's house. And it did not come when
the penniless outcast was envying the swine, and yet
was too proud to go home. And it did not come
when crushed and crest-fallen the runaway bent his
steps towards the forsaken threshold, and all his
thought was how to propitiate an angry father, and
how, if he could only get a hearing, he might get
leave to labour for his food, and so, from an out-door
menial, gradually work his way back to the hearth
and the family board. But when, instead of an
angry and upbraiding stranger, he found a yearning
parent ; and, instead of the menial's garb, saw him
self invested in the honoured guest's best robe ; and

THE WICKET-GATE. 241
instead of the meanest hireling's place, was installed
at a sumptuous festival: when he saw those eyes
suffused with all the love of dehghted fatherhood,
and still felt on his neck where that father's tears
had fallen, — then it came — the filial affection came ;
the long- dormant instinct of sonship revived, and the
love of a fervent gratitude mingled, — so that in all
the Holy Land the fullest heart that night was the
restored and forgiven prodigal.
And even so, that filial emotion which here and
throughout the Old Testament is often called
"fear;" that blended emotion of reverence, trust,
and affection, can only arise where the spirit of son-
ship reciprocates God's revealed aspect of compas
sionate and forthgoing fatherhness. It matters
httle whether we call the affection fear, or, with the
first and great commandment, call it love. In that
fear which reahzes God's fatherhness, there cannot
be terror ; and in the love which recollects that its
Father is God there cannot be petulant boldness.
Fear God, therefore, for this is the great duty of
man. To love Him with all the heart and soul and
strength and mind, is the first and great command
ment ; and till once Jehovah is supreme, an orderly
and respectable hfe is only rebellion without violence,
and even benevolence without godliness is only a
beautiful impiety.
April 13, 1851.

LECTURE XXI.
©rem pastures.

" Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter : Fear God,
and keep his commandments : for this is the whole
of man."— Eccles. xii. 13.
"This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true
God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." To
get this knowledge is to enter into blessedness.
Reconcihation to God is like entering the gate of a
beautiful avenue, which conducts to a splendid man
sion. But that avenue is long, and in some places it
skirts the edge of dangerous cliffs ; and therefore, to
save the traveller from falling over where he would be
dashed to pieces, it is fenced all the way by a quick
set hedge. That hedge is the commandments. They
are planted there that we may do ourselves no harm.
But, like a fence of the fragrant briar, they regale the
pilgrim who keeps the path, and they only hurt him
when he tries to break through. Temperance, justice,
truthfulness ; purity of speech and behaviour ; obe
dience to parents; mutual affection; sanctification
of the Sabbath ; the reverent worship of God ; — all

GREEN PASTURES. 243
these are righteous requirements, and in keeping
them there is a great reward. Happy he who only
knows the precept in the perfume which it sheds,
and who, never having kicked against the pricks,
has never proved the sharpness of its thorns !
In its happy influence, religion, or a filial com
pliance with the will of God, includes " the whole of
man." It is self-contained felicity.
A new heart itself is happiness. The rain as it
falls from the firmament is never poisonous ; but by
the time it filters through strata filled with lead or
copper, it may become so pernicious that whosoever
drinks of the water dies. The juice of the grape, as
it flows from the fermenting vat, is generous wine ; but
if the wine-skin which receives it is old and musty,
or if it be poured into a jar of acidulous pottery, it
soon grows sour and vapid. Gifts as they come
from God are always good and perfect ; but by the
time that they have distilled through our murmuring
spirits, they assume another character. From the
way he speaks of them, you would fancy that the
worldhng's joys had all been drawn from Marah ; or
that, however carefully he had covered over his own
cistern, the star Wormwood had dropped into it, and
changed the whole to a deadly bitter. The truth is,
his mind is its own Marah, and his morose and mur
muring nature is the Wormwood which renders acrid
to the taste the mercies sent from God. But Chris
tianity is a new creation. The Gospel renovates the
soul; and, putting a right spirit in the man, it
r 2

244 LECTURE XXI.
makes him a blessed being by making him a right
recipient. When the water is as clear as was the
well of Bethlehem ; or when the wine flows as rich
as the vintage of Lebanon, — all that is needful is a
pitcher of crystal or a goblet of silver, which, by
infusing no new element, will preserve its freshness
and purity. And when gifts are so good as the
Gospel and the promises ; — so good as our kindred
and friends ; — so good as the flowers of the field and
the breath of new summer, — it only needs an honest
heart which takes them as they come, and which tastes
unaltered the goodness of God that is in them. This is
what the worldling wants ; this new heart is what the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus offers to you — to me.
The very faculty of joy is the gift of the Holy
Ghost. There is a canker in the heart of man which
hinders happiness even when the materials are most
abundant ; and it is mournful to observe how little
gladness is felt even when corn and wine most
abound. In the midst of affluence still anxious, the
munificence of the Creator cannot give contentment
to worldlings and worldly professors ; but whilst the
green pastures re-echo their grumblings, they may
see their peevish faces reflected in those still waters
to which their kind Shepherd has led them. It
needs more than good and perfect gifts to awaken
melody and praise : and unless the Spirit of God
make it a thankful heart, the providence of God
cannot make it a happy existence. But, when the
Comforter is come, he gives a new heart and creates

GREEN PASTURES. 245
a right spirit. He heals the canker of the churl and
sweetens the bitterness of the misanthrope ; and, by
imparting the faculty of joy, he has often exalted
life into a jubilee and made a very humble dwelling
ring with hallelujahs. Ever since it was broken at
the fall, the heart of man is a cracked pitcher from
which happiness runs out with amazing rapidity;
and the finer the fluid — the more subtle the element
of joy, — the faster does it trickle through; and
often it is not till the last drop is oozing, — it is not
till the latest film is regretfully vanishing, that the
soul knows it ought to have been happy, and is
sorry for not knowing it sooner.* Far otherwise is
it with the Christian's pleasures. He who has made
him a new creature, has given him a new capacity
of receiving and retaining joy. The new heart does
not leak ; at least, there is one gladness there which
will abide to all eternity, and which, even when it
has for a season disappeared, needs nothing but the
jolts of sorrow to shake it up again in all its spark
ling zest and fragrant exhilaration. The soul into
which God has put the gladness can never be empty
of all joy; for the "joy of salvation" heals the
broken heart, and so long as itself remains it makes
it possible for other joys to stay.
* " The sweetness that pleasure has in it
Is always so slow to come forth,
That seldom, alas ! till the minute
It dies, do we know half its worth."
¦ — Moore's Melodies.

246 LECTURE XXI.
A devout disposition is happiness. It is hapj
piness, whether outward things go well or ill. A
comfortable home, fond kindred, health, a successful
calling, are sweet mercies when you accept them
direct from God, — thus rendering dearer to yourself,
at once the Giver and the gifts. But these mercies
may, one by one, withdraw. Lover and friend may
be put far from you, and your acquaintance may
vanish into secret ; your house may dilapidate ; your
industrious efforts maybe defeated; and your pros
perous state may be exchanged for penury. But
"although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither
shall fruit be in the vines ; the labour of the olive
shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the
flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall
be no herds in the stalls ; yet you will rejoice in the
Lord, and will joy in the God of your salvation."
With shattered constitution you may find yourself
confined to your couch or your chamber, and in pain
and depression you may miss that presence which
would have been a " sunshine in this shady place."
But lonely and languid you can say, " Whom have I
in heaven but thee ? and there is none upon earth
that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart
faileth ; but God is the strength of my heart, and
my portion for ever." Public affairs may take a
sombre turn, and in the growth of pauperism, or in
the wider gulf which sunders the classes there may
be prognostics of uproar and anarchy ; or in one of
those fits of infatuation which occasionally seize

GREEN PASTURES. 247
society, you may stand aghast at educated men
flinging away their human rights and their reason,
and surrendering to a grim superstition which puts
out their eyes and binds them in the fetters of Baby
lon;* or under the spurning hoof of some colossal
despotism, you may hear human hearts crushing, as
the sea-weed crackles under the school-boy's wanton
heel, and in vain sympathy you may burst your own ;
or, when in volcanic reaction pent-up indignation
explodes, and thrones and altars are hurled through
mid-heaven, whilst, like grass under lava, civilization
is overwhelmed beneath the fiery tide, and, as it
spirts into the air, the gory geyser tells where the
earth has opened her mouth, and swallowed alive
a weltering multitude ; — in moments like these,
when the most hopeful philanthropy is para
lysed, and "men's hearts fail them for fear," the
behever can sing, " God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not
we fear, though the earth be removed, and the
mountains be carried into the midst of the sea:"
and beyond all the crash and the turmoil, his purer
ear can catch the cadence of heavenly harpers, and
through all the smoke of burning mountains
quenched in boiling seas, his penetrating eye can
glimpse the tokens of a bright Epiphany ; and from
the reehng soil, he lifts up his head, knowing that
redemption draweth nigh. Oh, brethren ! in those
solemn conjunctures which prefigure final judgment;
* 2 Kings xxv. 7.

248 LECTURE XXI.
in those awful conflicts where man appears not so
much the combatant as the arena; in those Arma-
geddons where man cannot look to man, for the
contending powers are Jehovah and Apollyon, — how
blessed to have a friend in Omnipotence, and a
citadel within the tabernacle of the Most High !
A benevolent disposition is happiness. The
first and great commandment is, "Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy soul; and the second is
hke unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself." To keep these two commandments is
the whole of man. The two feelings are very
different. It is with an adoring complacency that
you love the ever-blessed God, desiring that his glory
should be advanced, and that his will should be the
mind of the universe. It is with an affectionate
good- will that you love your fellow- creatures, de
siring that they should be happy in loyalty to God.
The one love is simply outgoing ; the other ascends.
The one is kindness ; the other is full of worship.
The one is filial devotion; the other is fraternal
fondness. When a rose-bud is formed, if the soil is soft and
the sky is genial, it is not long before it bursts ; for
the life within is so abundant that it can no longer
contain it all, — but in blossomed brightness and
swimming fragrance it must needs let forth its joy,
and gladden all the air. And if, when thus ripe, it
refused to expand, it would quickly rot at heart, and
die. And Christian charity i3 just piety with its

GREEN PASTURES. 249
petals fully spread, — developing itself, and making
it a happier world. The religion which fancies that
it loves God, when it never evinces love to its brother,
is not piety, but a poor mildewed theology, — a dogma
with a worm in its heart.
Benevolence is blessedness. It is God's life in
the soul, diffusing in kind emotions, and good offices,
and friendly intercessions ; but, unlike other expend
itures, the more it is diffused, the more that life
increases of which it is the sign, and to abound in
love one towards another, is to abound in hope
towards God.
This was Solomon's calamity. In his auspicious
outset he lived for others. To make Jehovah's
temple exceedingly magnificent, and to see his people
prosperous, were the great desires of his forthgoing
patriotism and piety. But in a mysterious moment
he was forsaken by God's Spirit. To his introverted
egotism his own interest became more urgent than
all the universe, and the saint and the patriot became
a selfist. The hly crept back into its bulb. It said,
I am myself the summer. Yon sun shines, because
I am to be seen. This air is balm, because it
encircles me. I wfll go down into myself, and what
a self-suffering Eden it will be when all my glory is
reserved for Solomon ! And down it went ; but
though its disappearance left less of summer in the
world, nothing but winter was found below. And
it was not till he took another thought, and resolved

250 LECTURE XXI.
once more to keep these two commands, that aught
of his old glory came again.
Benevolence is blessedness ; and if the present
age is happier than some that have gone before it,
a chief reason is because its heart is kinder. Doubt
less, the amount of material comfort is amazingly
increased; but this is not enough. Man is not a
dormouse ; and however warmly he lines his nest,
and however snug the pose of orbicular self-com
placency into which he rolls himself, he cannot
become his own all-in-all. Material comforts multi
ply; but these alone have not made it a happier
age. It is happier because it is kinder. We would
rather convert the Turks than kill them. We would
rather see France virtuous and God-fearing, than see
it subject to Britain. We would rather teach the
Jews the Gospel than torture from them then'
money hoards. This is the age which wishes well
to the slave, and has paid a great price for his free
dom. This is the age which wishes well to the
Heathen, and is paying, if not a great price, yet a
greater than was ever paid before, for his Christian
civilization. This is the age which wishes well to
the poor and the outcast, and which is taking great
pains to enlighten his mind and exalt his condition.
God forbid that we should boast. Human nature is
the same now as ever ; but if the Father of mercies
has somewhat softened the spirit of this age, let us
not forget to bless his holy name. We think he

GREEN PASTURES. 251
has. We think on the whole that the world is happier,
because of late the Lord has made it somewhat kinder.
And its happiness will advance in proportion as it
learns to realise that object of the advent, — " on
earth peace ; good- will towards men."
Malevolence is misery. It is the mind of Satan.
He is the great enemy, — an outcast from all joy, and
an opponent of all goodness and all blessedness.
His mind is enmity against God; enmity against
angels fallen and unfallen; enmity against man
both redeemed and reprobate; and, because thus
hateful and hating, utterly unhappy. And the carnal
mind is so far Satanic because it is enmity against
God; just as the misanthrope is so far Satanic
because he is enmity against his fellows. On the
other hand, benevolence is happiness. It is the
mind of God, whose tender mercies are over all his
works, and who joys in the joy of his creation. And
hence it comes to pass that some who have never
tasted the full blessedness of piety, have enjoyed
many sweet satisfactions in the exercise of benevo
lence. " Oh, world," says the Emperor Antoninus,
"all things are suitable to me which are suitable to
thee. Nothing is too early or too late for me which
is seasonable for thee. All is fruit to me which thy
seasons bring forth. Shall any man say, 0 beloved
city of Cecrops ! and wilt not thou say, O beloved
city of God !" " And you, my brothers," exclaimed
the German Richter, after he had spent some years
in severely satirizing men and manners : — seized with

252 LECTURE XXI.
a sudden compunction, or rather yielding to a genial
visitation, — " And you, my brothers, I will love you
more. I will create for you more joy. I will no
longer turn my comic powers to torment you ; but
fantasy and wit shall be united to find consolation
and cheerfulness for the most limited of life's rela
tions." * He kept his word. Moroseness and mood
iness fled away, and from that period onward there are
few lives not saintly, on which care's shadow has lain
so lightly. But if there be such a solace in mere bene
volence ; if there be such a Divine delightsomeness
in drying tears and diffusing happiness ; if some have
passed a very pleasant hfe who were only kind-
hearted without being Christian; — how incompar
ably more blessed are those who unite the two, —
whose brotherly kindness is the fruit of faith, and
whose charity is a devout benevolence ! the John
who, basking in the rays of uncreated love, returns
into the midst of our mortality with a glow which
ever since has raised the temperature of time ! the
Paul who, catching the spirit of his Master, is the
daily medium through which heaven's kindness finds
its way to the heart of our humanity, and whose
very soul, like a libation on a sacrifice, goes up a
sweet savour to God, and leaves on earth a grateful
memory !
Such is true religion. The Gospel is grace
abounding, and vital Christianity is that Gospel met
by an abundant gratitude. It is that truth discovered
* Richter's Autobiography, vol. ii., 196.

GREEN PASTURES. 253
which converts into a lover of his Creator and his
brethren, the man who was an unholy and unthank
ful self-seeker. That wanderer who, along vistas of
vanity was ever arriving at blanker vexation, it
transfers into the way of peace; and turning his
face God-ward, it sets him on the path which shines
more and more unto tbe perfect day.
Seek then, my brethren, loving thoughts of God.
Pray for them. Cherish them. Strive to realize his
true character. Look not at the distortions drawn by
the lurid fancy of superstition ; look not at the dark
pictures sketched by your own guilty conscience.
But look at the Bible revelation. Look at Immanuel.
Behold the brightness of the Father's glory — behold
the Word incarnate, full of grace and truth. Surrender
to the manifestation. Let your aspect towards
Jehovah be the reciprocal of his aspect towards you.
Look towards Jesus, and with the pleasant counte
nance wherewith he views his beloved Son, he will
behold you, 0 looking transgressor ! I should
rather say, 0 justified believer ! And by praise,
and bright obedience, and cheerful trust, seek to
augment your love to your heavenly Father. When
happy thoughts come into your mind, let the
thought of God come with them ; and when you go
into beautiful or attractive scenes, let the reconciled
Presence go with you; till at last earth is suffused
with heaven, and with the immortal morning spread
upon the mountains death is done away and the
dark valley superseded.

254 LECTURE XXI.
And seek, as a fruit of the Spirit, love. As a
Christian principle cultivate a broad benevolence,
and by and by you will come to feel it as a delight
ful and spontaneous instinct. Having, in virtue of
your redeemed relation, " a covenant with the beasts
of the field and with the creeping things of the
ground," you will come to share the creature-ward
complacency of that kind Creator whose tender
mercies are over all his works, and perhaps may
realize the description with which you have sometimes
been charmed : —
" In the silence of his face I read
His overflowing spirit. Birds and beasts,
And the mute fish that glances in the stream,
And harmless reptile coiling in the sun,
And gorgeous insect moving in the air,
The fowl domestic, and the household dog —
In his capacious mind he loved them all.
Rich in love
And sweet humanity, he was, himself,
To the degree that he desired, beloved." *
But even this creature-ward kindliness will profit
you little unless it be combined with that sublime
love towards your immortal fellows which constitutes
Christian charity. Love man as man. Fallen and
sinful, he is still your brother. Pity the sinner even
whilst you abhor the sin ; and, in order to deepen
and purify your compassion, let it assume a practical
form. Ask yourself, What am I doing to make it a
* Wordsworth's " Excursion," book 2.

GREEN PASTURES. 255
hoher and so a happier world ? And if you find
that you are doing nothing in this Divine direction,
be not surprised that there is still a crook in your
lot and a discomfort in your spirit. Existence will
only run smooth when you learn to be a fellow-
worker with God. And love the believing brethren.
Rejoice in their increase. Rejoice in their prosperity.
Glorify the grace of God in them, and be so heartily
solicitous for their progress and improvement as
really to help them forward. And loving without
dissimulation, you will soon find yourself the centre
of much affection in return, and whatever joy you
diffuse you will find it all returning with increase
into your own bosom.
April 20, 1851.

Macintosh, Printer, Great New-street, London.

JAMES NISBET AND CO.

A Memoir of Lady Colquhoun, of Luss. By the
Eev. James Hamilton, D.D. Third Edition, 8vo. 7*. 6d.
cloth.
Life in Earnest. Six Lectures on Christian Activity
and Ardour. By the Same Author. Sixtieth Thousand.
18mo. Is. 6d. cloth.
The Mount of Olives, and other Lectures on Prayer.
By the same Author. Fifty-fifth Thousand. 18mo.
Is. 6d. cloth.
A Memoir of the late Rev. W. H. Hewitson, Dirleton.
By the Eev. John Baiilie. Crown 8vo. 5s. cloth.
The Four Witnesses ; or, the Gospels harmonized on
a New Principle. By Isaac Da Costa, LL.D., Amsterdam.
8vo. 12s. cloth.
Plain Sermons for all the Sundays and Chief Holy-
days of the Year. Preached to a Village Congregation. By
the Eev. Abthur Eobeets, M.A. In Two Volumes.
Crown 8vo. 10s. cloth.
The Rainbow in the North ; a Short Account of the
First Establishment of Christianity in Eupert's Land, by
the Church Missionary Society. By Miss Ttjckeb. Pools-
cap. 3s. 6d. cloth.
Words to Win Souls ; being Sermons Preached A.D.
1650, by Eminent Divines of the Church of England. Ee-
vised and abridged by the Eev. T. S. MilhnOton. Crown
8vo. 6s. cloth.
Africa Redeemed, and the Means of her Relief illus
trated by the Growth and Prospects of the Commonwealth
of Liberia. Foolscap. 3s. 6d. cloth.

WORKS RECENTLY PUBLISHED BY
The Night Lamp. A Narrative of the Means by which
Spiritual Darkness was dispelled from the Death-bed of
Agnes Maxwell Macfarlane. By the Eev. John Maceab-
lane, LL.D. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 5s. cloth.
The Serpent in the Wilderness. By the Rev. Wm.
Tate, Author of " Exposition of St. Paul's Epistle to the
Hebrews." 18mo. 2s. cloth.
A Sevenfold Aspect of Popery. By the Rev. George
Fisk, Author of " A Pastor's Memorial." Foolscap. 4s.
cloth.
The Morning of Joy; a Sequel to "The Night of
Weeping." By the Eev. Hobatitjs Bonab. Fifteenth
Thousand. 18mo. 2s. cloth.
Heavenly Thoughts for Morning Hours. Selections
in Prose and Verse, with Passages from Scripture. With a
short Introduction, by Lady Cathabine Long. 32mo.
4s. 6d. cloth.
Du Bourg ; or, the Mercuriale ; an Episode from
History on the Points at issue between the Eefonnation and
the Papacy. By M. A. S. Babbee. Foolscap. 3s. 6d.
cloth.
The Saved Soul's Work described in Three Discourses.
By the Eev. David C. A. Agnew. 18mo. Is. cloth limp.
God in Disease ; or, Proofs of Design manifested in
Morbid Phenomena. By Jambs F. Dt/ncan, M.D.,
Dublin. Foolscap. 3s. Gd. cloth.
Pencillings in Palestine ; being Scenes descriptive of
the Holy Land and other Countries in the East, written
during a Visit in 1850. By the Eev. John Andebson,
Helensburgh. Crown 8vo. 3s. Gd. cloth.
A Memoir of the Rev. Spencer Thornton, A.M., late
Vicar of Wendover, Bucks. By the Eev. W. E. Fee-
mantle. Crown 8vo. Second Edition, enlarged. " 5s.
cloth.
Lectures to the Young Men's Christian Association, at
Exeter Hall, during the Winter of 1850-51. Foolscap
3s. Gd. cloth.

JAMES NISBET AND CO.
Ellen Mordaunt ; or, the Effects of True Religion.
Foolscap. 5s. cloth.
The Church of Christ Portrayed. As to the peculiar
Character of its Unity, Ordinances, Visibility, and Spiritual
ity. By the Eev. C. I. Yobke, MA., Eector of Shenfield.
Foolscap 8vo. 4s. cloth.-
Ears of the Spiritual Harvest ; or, Narratives of
Christian Life. Edited by Chaelotte D. Geeville.
Foolscap 8vo. 3s. Gd. cloth.
Tales and Sketches of Christian Life in different Lands
and Ages. Foolscap. 5s. cloth.
Norman Leshe ; a Scottish Tale of the Sixteenth
Century. By the Author of "Amy Harrington," &c.
Foolscap 8vo. 6s. cloth.
The Flower of Spring ; a Call to the Young from the
Early Grave of his Eldest Daughter. By John Pembeeton
Pltjmptee, Esq., M.P. Foolscap. 2s. Gd. cloth.
The Retrospect ; or, a Review of Providential Mercies :
with Anecdotes of Various Characters, and an Address to
Naval Officers. By the Eev. Eichabd Masks. Twenty-
first Edition. 12mo. 5s. cloth.
The Children of the Manse. By the Author of
" Memoirs of Mrs. Mary Lundie Duncan." Foolscap 8vo.
6s. cloth.
The Night of Weeping ; or, Words for the Suffering
Family of God. By the Eev. Hobatius Bonab. Thirtieth
Thousand. 18mo. 2s. cloth.
The Believer's Guide to the Holy Communion. Trans
lated from the French of M. Grandpierre, by the Countess
as Ellesmebe. 18mo. 2s. Gd. cloth, gilt edges.
A New and Simple Analysis of the Book of Revelation.
With Expository Notes. By Delta. Foolscap 8vo.
5s. cloth.
Letters, selected from the Correspondence of Miss
Helen Plumptre, Author of " Scripture Stories." Second
Edition. 12mo. 6s. cloth.

PUBLISHED BY JAMES NISBET AND CO.
The Word of ¦ God, its Importance and Power. By
the Hon. and Eev. H. Montagu Villiebs, M.A. 12mo.
6s. cloth.
A Narrative of Iniquities and Barbarities practised at
Bome in the Nineteenth Century. By Eaeeaelle Ciocci.
Fifth Edition. 18mo. 2s. 6d. cloth.
The Scripture Reader's Guide to the Devotional Use
of the Holy Scriptures. By Caboline Fbt. Fourteenth
Edition. 18mo. 2s. cloth.
The Early Days of Faith and Love.; or, the Soul
arising to Newness of Life. By M. A. S. Baebeb, Author
of " Eedemption in Israel," &c. 18mo. 2s. Gd. cloth.
The Family of Bethany; or, Meditations on the
Eleventh Chapter of the Gospel according to St. John. By
L. Bonnet. Translated by ;the Eev. Hugh White,
Dublin. Twelfth Edition. Foolscap 8vo. 5s. cloth.
Sermons Preached at the Chapels Royal of St. James's
and Whitehall! By the Hon. and Eev. Baptist W. Noel,
M.A. 12mo. 5s. cloth.
Derry : a Tale of the Revolution. By Charlotte
Elizabeth. Eleventh Edition. Foolscap 8vo. 5s. cloth.
A Volume of Lectures. By the Hon. and Rev. Low-
theb Baebington. 12mo. 4s. cloth.
Pool's Annotations on the Bible. In three vols, im
perial 8vo. £3 3s. cloth.
Incomplete Conversions ; or, " One Thing Thou Lack-
est." By a Protestant Fbench Magisteate. Trans
lated from the Original. 18mo. Is. Gd. cloth.
Memoir of Elizabeth Lindsay. By Charlotte D.
Geeville. With a Eecommendatory Preface by the Eev.
James Hamilton, D.D., F.L.S. Second Edition. 18mo.
Is. Gd. cloth.
The Sailor's Hope for Himself and the Nation. By a
Naval Oeeiceb. Foolscap 8vo. 5s. cloth.

3 9002 02456 Q22 1

-¦¦.¦¦':