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CRUZ 

MAULDIN 






LIBRARY. 



Library No d...%J.y. Shelf JVo t.i . 

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Purchased from the Estate of 

i!!B:<3?E! m. %mm, m~ BJ 

Of Spriiiigfield, Mass. 
Chicago, March Isi, 1873. 





of CbicaQO 
KHbrcmes 




Baptist Urfe TT:?^1. Bern, doll. 



SEEDS AND SHEAVES; 



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T H E I 



A. C. THOMPSON, X D. D., 

AUTHOll OP "THE BETTBlt LAND," "THE IJEIiOr SEAT," "LYRA CffiLESTIS," 
"MOKVIKO UOUJtS IJf 1'ATJIOS," ETC., ETC. 



" Let me, glean and gather after the reapers." 



Baptist Unitm ThfldL Sem. Odll. 



BOSTON: 

G- O TJ L D A. N D LINOOL 

SO W A S II I N G T O IT STREET. 
NEW YOUK: SHELDON AND COMPANY. 

CINCINNATI: GEO. s. BLANCIIAKD AND <.o. 
1869. 




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Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1SGS, by 

GOULD AND LINCOLN, 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 



KOCKWKLL & KOU.I3S, Sl'EUeOTYI'EJiS AA'D PltlNTKHS. 



CONTENTS. 



I. 

INITIAL. 
I. THE FIRST THEME. 

PAGE 
"BiCHOLD THE LAMBl" HOAV TO LOOK KNILL AT MADRAS JAXK 

GRAHAM DR. SAMUEL Jouxsos THE CENTEXNARIAN ROGER 
CLARK, THE MAKTYR DR. J. MASON GOOD 21 

II. FIRST THINGS FIRST. 

"SEEK FIRST" CONSCIENTIOUS YOUNG HEN CONSCIENTIOUS MIN- 
ISTER . 24 

m. THE PRIME PETITION. 

" GOD BE MERCIFUL I "AWAKENED HOTTENTOT Two SEA-CAPTAINS 
-^DR. J. BROWN NEW-ZEALAND WOMAN WILKINSON OLD 
WASIIBURN CARLOS WILCOX J. II. STEWART Da. T. SCOTT 
II. ERSKINE GROTIUS ROWLAND HILL USIIEH Du. L. WOODS . 26 

17. THE OUTSET. 

"STRIVE TO ENTER" GEN. A. BUUN BUNYAN BRADFORD, THE 
REFORMER 32 



II. 
PERIODS OF LIFE. 

/. THE LITTLE ONES. 

"FORBID THEM NOT" LITTLE JESSIE 1 THE ' CHILD'S GOSPEL 

LAURA WOODS "JESUS BETTER THAN You" "LITTLE" A PRE- 
CIOUS WORD HENRY NOT AFRAID A CHICAGO BOY LOG HUT 
AND HEAVEN Mu. CADOGAN'S SON HINDOO MOTHER JOHN, THE 
. UNDERTAKER Sins. ESTHER BURR " WITH HIM IN GLORY" . . 38 

3 



IV CONTENTS. 

II. YOUTHFUL PIETY. 

PAOB 

"KEME31BER NOW". EJIMA SHARPINGTON JAJIKS SIJIMONS ... 46 

III. PROFLIGATE YOUNG MAN. 

"I WILL ARISE" -A CONVICT A BRITISH SOLDIER . KUFUS, A 
HINDOO IN DYING 48 

IV. AN OLD MAN. 

" NOW LETTEST THOU " HERVE Y BIBLE TRANSLATORS AUTHORS 
AGED MOTHERS LE TELLIKR MARTYRS 51 



in. 

MESSIAH. 

I. MY REDEEMER. 

" MY REDEEMER LIVETII " KICIIES OF FAITH COPAUL HANDEL'S 
EPITAPH PHILIP DE MORNAY DR. G. C. KNAPP SAJI. BUTHER- 
FORD ANNE STEELE 57 

II. MESSIANIC DOXOLOGY. 

"AMEN AND AMEN" "WONDROUS THINGS" A LADY DYING- 
BISHOP BKOUGIITON EAUL OF DERBY 60 

///. MESSIANIC P^EAN. 
"His EIGHT HAND" AN IRISH BOY JER. TAYLOR 61 

IV. CHORUS OF ANGELS. 

"GLORY TO GOD" MRS. LUKE EDWA.RD PERRONET DR. BACKUS 61 

V. THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 
CHARACTERISTICS CLAUDIUS TITTM ANN 66 i 

I 

VI. THE LOGOS. j 

A PHILOSOPHER FRANCIS JUNIUS SABBATH-SCHOOL TEACHER . . 67 \ 



CONTENTS. T 
VII. THE GREAT INTERCESSION. 

PAOB 

FEATURES UNBELIEVERS DEATH-BED OF BOSSUKT ,OF. KNOX 

OF SPENER 70 

VIII. THE WORK DONE. 

YINET A. L. NEWTON 71 



IV. 

THE LIVELY ORACLES. 
L THE BEGINNING. 

" IN THE BEGINNING " SUB LIMB PARAGRAPH GUSTHMAN GEOKGE 
GILFILLAN VERSIONS MRS. EAST 72 

II. THE OBITUARY. 

" HE DIED" OLDEST EPITAPH I TOO MUST DIE A LIBERTINE 
ALDERMAN READ FUNERAL SERMON 73 

Iff. THE PSALTER. 

THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. OP PRAISE DUCHESS OF ALEN^ON JOHN 
M0LLER THE UNIVERSAL LITURGY Ouu SAVIOUR'S USE LU- 
THER AUGUSTINE CIIRYSOSTOM DOMESTIC USE IN HEBREW 
COTTON MATIIEU USE ON DEATH-BED ........... 75 

IV. THE BIBLE PSALM. 

SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY TO SCRIPTURE GOLDEN ALPHABET P. 
HENRY MRS. SAVAGE WILLIAM MASON PRES. EDWARDS 
JEK. TAYLOR 81 

* 

7. THE PSAfrMS BY HEART. 

EARLY CHRISTIANS GREGORY PAULA BENEDICTINES CLUG- 

AIDAN THE EFFORT REQUIRED 8G 



VI CONTENTS. 

' VI. LONGING FOR THE WORD. 

PAGE 

" MY SOUL BREAKETH " PRESIDENT EDWARDS Dit. CHALMERS 
BISHOP HANTON 87 

VII, PERPETUITY OF THE WORD. 

\ 

"ENDURETH FOREVER" V. D. M. I. jE. THE VAUDOIS A POOR 
BOY S3 



GOOD NEWS. 



I. SEEKING THE LOST. 

"To SEEK AND TO SAVE" CHRIST'S LOVE WHITFIELD'S BROTHER 
A PHYSICIAN ..................... .91 



II. THE INVITATION. 

" COME UNTO ME " SWEDISH SAILOR A YOUNG MAN SABBATH- 
SCHOOL CHILDREN MATTHEW HENRY A SCOTTISH CONVICT 
JAMES, A SOLDIER PRINCESS ELIZABETH .......... 93 



///. NONE REJECTED. 

"IN NO WISE CAST OUT" BUOWNLOW NORTH UP. BUTLER A 
YOUNG WOMAN " BLESSED SIXTH OF JOHN A LITTLE GIRL 
AN OLD MAN ....................... 100 



17. THE FAITHFUL SAYING. 

"To SAVE SINNERS" A NEGRO Pucv. J. BROWN POOR JOSEIMI 
DEAF MUTE BOY SOUTH AFRICAN BOY BEST KEWS JOHN 
NEWTON BILNEY SELDEN LUTHKR E. D. JACKSON GEL- 
LEHT DR. ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER Gico. B. LITTLE ..... 103 



CO A T TEXTS. . . ' TIT 

"P. TO THE UTTERMOST. 

' . PAGE 

BUNYAN BP. WILSON JOHN NEWTON REV. 'J. PAYNE DR. T. 
SCOTT 113 



VI. 

FORGIVEN AND SAVED. 

/. THE WAY. 

"I AM THE WAY" A PERSONAL SAVIOUR A HEATHEN CONVKET 
FITZRALPII 117 

II. PROPITIATORY BLOOD. 
"FAITH IN HIS BLOOD" COWPER A SCOTTISH BELIEVER . . . .120 

///. ALL-CLEANSING BLOOD. 

" CLEANSETII FROM: ALL SIN " KERUBA A HINDOO DEVOTEE 
A HIGHWAYMAN CAPT. IT. VICARS A YOUNG MAN A NAVVY 

OAPT. M. M. HAMMOND A YOUNG LADY A LAD LUTHER 
BENGEL BROWN OF HADDINGTON AN AGED HINDOO . . . .122 

IV. THE PARALYTIC. 

"TlIY SlNS BE FORGIVEN TlIEE" HINDOO CONVERT CHRISTIAN 

GERMAN WOMAN CARGILL MARQUIS OF ARGYLE 133 

V. PEACE AND HOPE. 

"PEiCE WITH GOD" REYNOLDS OF BRISTOL AGED WOMAN 
WISBY, A PAUPER 136 

71. "NOT I, BUT CHRIST." 

BROWN OF HADDINGTOX A NEW PERSONALITY LUTHER A 
GERMAN Du. H. UGH DR. GOODWIN 138 



TTII CONTENTS. 

VII. "I KNOW." 

PAGE 

J-. W< ALEXANDER W. B. MONTGOMERY A. L. NEWTON JADY 
MARGARET STEWART , 143 

7777. LIFE ETERNAL. 

"Tins is LIFE ETERNAL" BUGENHAGEN SAVING KNOWLEDGE 
Bi'. FISHER 1 146 



vn. 

PURPOSE AND PRACTICE. 

I. NOBLE DECISION. 

"WE WILL SERVE THE LORD " JOSHUA KING OF PRUSSIA DR. 
MALAN 148 

II. AN EVERGREEN. 

"IN HIS SEASON" THE DATE-PALM Miss MART LYON REV. DR. 
FRANKLIN . 149 

177. DOING GOOD. 

" VEKILY THOU SHALT BE FKD " SABBATH-SCHOOL BOYS AND THEIR 
TEACHER COLUMBAN EXILE ARRESTED .150 

IV. "MY PORTION FOREVER." 

ASAPII'S CONFESSION REV. J. WARRKN JOHN OWEN GOD ONLY 

BROWN OF HADDINGTON ANDREW FULLER MRS. SAVAGE . . 152 

V. LOVE FOR ILL-WILL. 

" LOVE YOUR ENEMIES " HINDOO YOUTHS NOT IN HUMAN NATURE 

CHEKOKKE WOKEN TOHTUGUE-.E CONVKKTS " STRENGTH OF 
MY HEART " JOHN NKWTOX J. SUTCLIFFE 168 



CONTENTS. IX 

VI. BOTH CHEEKS. 

PAGE 

" THE OTHER ALSO " THE WORLD'S MAXIM CUEIST'S TEACHING 
AN ABB:fi A WIFE MARY LUNDY DUNCAN 161 

VII. "WE WOULD SEE JESUS." 

MADAME GUYON AN ENGLISH LABORER GEN. A. BURN A 
CHRISTIAN WOMAN 163 

VJII. PETER'S LOVE. 

"THOU KNOWEST THAT I LOVE THEE" A SAILOR A SABBATH- 
SCHOOL GIRL AN AFRICAN BOY JOHN EUOT BP. FITZ JAMES 
HCCHEYNE 106 

IX". " UNTO HIM." 
MISSIONARY MOTTO HENRY MARTYN MRS. COMSTOCK 170 



VIII. 
GREAT GIFTS. 

I. HERITAGE OF THE MEEK, 

"THEY SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH " A WEALTHY POOR WOMAN 
MEEKNESS ITS OWN REWARD KET..J.W. BROOKS 173 

71 REMUNERATION. 

" MANIFOLD MORE v JOHN WESLEY THK BEST PAYMASTER JOHN 
FRYTH A SERVANT GIRL AN AGED CHRISTIAN 175 

III. THE CHIEF DONATION. 

" THE HOLY SPIRIT " COTTON MATHER HEAVENLY LOGIC DR. 
GRIFFIN JOHN NEWTON LUTHER ............. 177 



X CONTENTS. 

IV. THE KEEPSAKE. 

PAGE 

" MY PEACK I GIVE " A SOLDIER AT WATERLOO CHRIST'S TOKEN 

A CRIMEAN SOLDIER ISO 

V. THE WONDERFUL GIFT. 

" HlS ONLY-BEGOTTEN SON " AN AGED NEGRO A CHILD A 

BRAHMIN A HINDOO BY THE GANGES GERMAN FATHER A 
NEGRO WOMAN BROWN OF II ADDINGTON SOUTH SEA ISLANDER 

ABANDONED WOMAN IDIOTIC MARTHA MAUGA RET A. WAL- 
TONLITTLE MARY A SHIELD AGAINST SATAN DR. HUGH 
HEUGH . , 183. 



IX. 

PASTORAL. 

I. MY SHEPHERD. 

PSALM TWENTY-THIRD THE SHEPHERD POET SIGATEA DAAID 
G. SCUTCHER THE VALLEY EOWAUD IRVING Bi>. SANDERSON 
L. G. HAMSEY WILLIAM GORDON DR. J. HOPE CARL HITTER 
JANE TAYLOR A FINNISH MILKMAID A SOLDIER JAMES LAING 
A SCOTTISH BOY A DYING GIRL CAPT. WILSON A SHEPHERD 
B.OY MARGARET DAVIDSON 193 

17. IN THE SHEPHERD'S ARMS. 

" IN HIS BOSOM " CHRIST'S CARE PASTOR'S DAUGHTER A 
CHINESE BOY ONE OF CHRIST'S LAMBS 201 

III. "ON HIS SHOULDERS." 
AN OCTOGENARIAN CONVERTED BRAHMIN ARMENIAN CONVERT 

JIOHAJIMED liA HEM 204 



CONTENTS, XI 



X. 

DEVOTIONAL. 

/. THE MISERERE. 

PAGE 

"HAVE MERCY" PEAYED AND SUNG JOHN VISE HALL ORCO- 
LAMPAD1US BULLINGER JOHN ROGERS ARNOLD JANE GREY 

. _SIR THOMAS MOKE H. VAUGIIAN DR. CAREY LIMA A PHY- 
SICIANAUGUSTINE BERNARD MATTHEW HKNUY A NAVVY 

NESTORIAN GIRL JER. TAYLOR 208 

II. SUMMONS TO PRAISE. 

"BLESS THE LORD" HOLY GHOST COL. BLACKADDER DR. HUGH 
HicuGH JOHN ANGKLL JAMES DR. SANDERSON BIJOWN OF 
IIADDINGTON "Mr FATHER A TYRANT " A MOTHER DR. MC- 
WHOUTER 212 

III. "LORD, HELP ME!" 

WOMAN OF CANAAN ROWLAND HILL R. MCCHKYNE DR. GRIFFIN 

MR. MOFFAT . . 216 

IV. ASPIRATIONS UNEXPRESSED. 

"TriE SPIRIT MAKKTH INTERCESSION "_ DR. GRIFFIN Miss A. L. 
NEWTON 220 

7. UNCEASING PRAYER. 

THE ACOMETJE A SERVANT GIRL A SAILOR DR. AND MRS. 
JUDSON 221 

VI. COVENANTS OF SUPPLICATION. 

"IF TWO OF YOU AGRKE" HARMONY OF HKARTS Two SISTERS 
FiiiiAns PRAYER-MEETING A FAMILY COVENANT 225 



XII CONTENTS. 



XI. 

TUTELARY. 
I. OUR REFUGE. 

PAGE 

PSALM FORTY-SIXTH ROCKALL LUTHER 233 

II. MY DWELLING-PLACE. 
PSALM NINETY-FIRST DR. Muis HESSIAN SOLDIER REV. MR. 

TOMS IlEDLEY VlCARS PRAYING SERGEANT EltPEROR ALEX- 
ANDER POPE ALEXANDER CAPT. HAMMOND DR. BROWN OP 
EDINBURGH BEZA 235 

III. MY REST. 

"RETURN UNTO THY KlSST" BABYLAS PRIESTLEY 237 

IV. IN FLOODS AND FLAMES. 

' "I WILL BE WITH TlIEE" TlIOS. BlLNEY 11. CKCIL'S MOTHER . 246 

V. " WHERE JS THY GOD.?" 
MASSACRE AT TROIS WOUTS DR. DODD ........... 248 

VI. "NEVER FORSAKE THEE." 

BUSYAX HANSARD KNOLLYS JOHN OWEN YTOOLSEY ISAB KLLA 
BROWN 250 



CONTENTS. XIII 

XII. 

CONSOLATORY. 

7. "OUT OF THE DEPTHS." 

PAGE 

PSALM ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY LEIGHTOX LUTHER OWEN 
HARRIET STONEMAN PUES. EDWARDS ON THE PEAIIUE LIMBUS 
.PATRUJI 254 

-II. " EVEN SO, FATHER." 
JOHN THOMAS DEAF MUTE BOY 259 

III. "ALL THINGS WELL." 

MRS. GRAHAM MRS. VEITCII MRS. SENSESIAN PRES. BROWN 
"VANDERKliMP HOWKLL HARRIS DR. AlOISTHONG AT A FUNE- 

RAL SCO 

77. UNDER THE HARROW. 

" IN THE WORLD TRIBULATION " LUTHER A SUFFEUER A POOR 
SEWING WOMAN 265 

7. ALL FOR OUR GOOD. 
JOHN CAUSTAIRS THORP'S MOTHER UKV. 11. BRUCE 263 

77. JOYFUL ENDURANCE. 

" LONG SUFFERING WITH JOYFULNESS" BCNY AN HARRIET STONE- 
MAN 271 

777. ALL-SUFFICIENT GRACE. 
BUNYAN SUICIDE PREVENTED 272 



XIV CONTENTS, 



XIII. 
VALEDICTORY. 

I "LAMA SABACTHANI." 

PAGE 

LUTHER. CHRIST'S SOUL SUFFERINGS A GERMAN FEMALE SUF- 
FERER JOB T HROGMORTON 275 

//. "FATHER, FORGIVE THEM." 

THE PROTOMARTYR JOHN Huss WISHART A HUNGARIAN GEN- 
TLEMAN WADDELL 278 

III. "INTO THY HANDS." 

HALLER CHRIST'S DEATH VOLUNTARY LADY JANE GREY Jons* 
Huss Bp. RIDLEY AYMOND DE LAVOY SALVESTHO TASSO 

COLUMBUS 282 

IV. "RECEIVE MY SPIRIT." 

PATRICK HAMILTON BP. HOOPER BP. JEWELL CRANMER AND 
Boos COL. HAMPDEN DR. BATKMAN W. B. TAPPAN MAR- 
GARET WILSON MRS. S. L. SMITH NESTORIAN GIRL COMFORT 
THEREIN 284 

7. THE CROWN. 

" THERE is LAID UP FOR ME A CROWN " DR. L. BEECHES RIVET 

E. MATHER REV. SAM. WHITNEY HOWELL DAVIES PADDY 
CONNOR DUKE OF HAMILTON'S SON JANE GREY SIR T. BOD- 
LEY A FRENCH OFFICER 2&6 



CONTENTS. XV 



XIV. 

RETRIBUTIVE. 

I. " CUT IT DOWN." 

PAGE 

FRUIT DEMANDED HENRY OBOOKIAH A YOUNG MAN 292 

II. THE FEARFUL THING. 

"TO FALL INTO THIS HANDS OF THE LIVING GOD" SlR FRANCIS 
NEWPORT THE VISNEKABLE BEDB 294 

III. THE GREAT PROBLEM. 

" WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT " VERGERIO A MERCHANT A MATH- 
EMATICIANA STUDENT THE LOST TICKET FRANCIS XAVO- 
RIAS 295 



XV. 
HARVEST HOME. 

I. "WELL DONE." 

\ 

HAMANN TALENTS AND THEIR USE KEV. T.CHARLES 300 

II. " WITH CHRIST." 

LADY COLQUHOUN CHRIST AND HEAVEN DR. SAMUEL DUEL 
KEV. J. BENNET 303 

III. "EVER WITH THE LORD." 
A MINISTER THOS. GOODWIN BROWN OF HADDINGTON ..... 301 



XVI CONTEXTS. 

IV. "HOLY, HOLY, HOLY." 

PAGE 

Bliss A. L. NEWTON EARL OF BALCAKRES DR. NISBET 305 

7. "NO NIGHT THERE." 
HEAVEN ALL LIGHT LITTLE GIKL'S EPITAPH CATHERINE ADAMS . 307 

VI. "EVEN SO, COME." 

P0RK1TT BP. ABBOTT J. JANEWAY R. HALL LADY COLQIT- 
HOUN DR. A. ELIOT DR. J. SEWALL HENRY HAINES REV. 
MR. ROWE THE KENT ON FIRE A SOLDIER LUTHER -* RIDLEY 
GROSSE BAXTER INCREASE MATHER 308 

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES 315 

INDEX OF NAMES t ,. 317 



INTRODUCTION. 




HE following work gives illustrations of the use 
) which God has made of particular passages of his 
Word. The biography of certain texts .of Scrip- 
ture is more wonderful .and more valuable than the 
biography of a hero". If every passage of Holy Writ were 
itself an intelligence, or, by some self-registering process, 
could keep a memorandum of each instance of perusal, and 
of the feelings awakened in different minds, what a record 
should we have ! What a revelation of the secrets of many 
hearts ! Here we should find a conscience bleeding under 
a fresh-made wound, and there a wounded spirit made 
whole by this balm of Gilead. One humble saint might 
be seen chanting praises to the Kedeenier ; and another^ 
with some sacred promise as his signet-ring, venturing 
boldly into the presence of the Great King. All varieties 
of experience would be chronicled in the daily life of many 
a Scripture text, as it moves on from generation to gener- 
ation in the different lands and dialects of Christendom. 

The lively oracles are touchstones of character ; they 
are keys to the soul, with wards wonderfully suited to all 
its intricate windings ; they are weapons of warfare against 
sin and Satan; the sword of the Spirit whereby his achieve- 
ments are wrought. As the warrior rehearses the exploits 

17 



18 INTRODUCTION. 

of his trenchant blade, so will our gracious Conqueror 
have occasion to recount a long list of triumphs over 
rebels, and of victories Avon in behalf of his friends. To 
him as Author of the Bible, and Dispenser of converting 
grace, do saints on earth give thanks for the -whole vol- 
ume of sacred truth, while each gives special thanks for 
particular passages made memorable in his own experience. 
What Christian's pocket-Bible has no illuminated texts 
that to his heart seem written in golden characters ? Open 
the Holy Volume almost anywhere, and you find some 
passage which has proved the beacon-light to bewildered 
mariners, or a life-boat to those perishing. Should not 
the ministrations of such angels from heaven be acknowl- 
edged ? If Grace Darling and John Howard have their 
monuments, 'may we not well erect one to commemorate 
the services of such a blessed agent as the life-giving, life- 
saving Word? 

We have museums, with varieties of arms, implements, 
and articles of interest : the axe of the headsman, under 
which distinguished victims have fallen ; the sword of this 
and of that renowned leader is shown ; the tattered flag 
under which this and that victory was won. Is it not 
time to make a collection of spiritual trophies : the King's 
arrows, "whereby the people fall under him;" the pan- 
oply in which believers have fought the good fight of faith? 
Luther's drinking-cup is kept as a great curiosity : have 
we not greater interest in contemplating the cup wherewith 
thirsty souls have drunk the water of life ? Shall we not 
find peculiar satisfaction in looking into the cool, deep 
well whence our father Jacob drank? We have Bodies 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

of Divinity enough; there is needed more theology of 
the soul, less of antiquarian and more of spiritual ar- 
chaeology. 

It was with a perfect knowledge of the human heart as 
well as the circumstances of mankind, and with an eye 
upon every individual to whom the Holy Volume would 
come, that its omniscient Author caused each verse to be 
written. Next to ascertaining the mind of the Spirit by a 
study of Scripture itself, what research can be more ap- 
propriate than inquiry after those uses which the Holy 
Ghost has actually made in given instances of his own 
words ? And is not this one of the best helps to the best 
use of those words? "So far as I have ever observed 
God's dealings with my soul," remarks John Brown of 
Haddington, "the flights of preachers sometimes enter- 
tained me; but it was Scripture expressions which did 
penetrate my heart, and that in a way peculiar to them- 
selves." 

Such an experimental commentary, such an exposition 
illustrative of God's special providence and grace, would, 
if complete, be more valuable than the most elaborate 
volumes of human learning. It would be in the highest 
sense God in history, Christ in. biography, the Holy 
Spirit's own practical exegesis of what he himself commu- 
nicated centuries ago. 

Christian experience being the outgrowth of divine 
germs, which are "the incorruptible seed that liveth and 
abideth forever," the fruits of everlasting ages to come 
will be only the forth-putting of that which is implanted 
here. Must not a large item in the disclosures of heaven 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

be a narrative of what takes place now, as the words of 
revelation and their divine Author meet decisively in hu- 
man hearts ? How much of our occupation hereafter may 
be a comparison of such experimental notes on the Holy 
Scriptures ! Will not -the two disciples who took a walk 
on the morning of Christ's resurrection, with great delight 
tell those around how " One drew near and went with 
them," and what he said when, "beginning at Moses and 
all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scrip- 
tures the things concerning himself"? Will not their 
hearts burn with a still-increasing flame at the remem- 
brance of what he said to them on their way to Ernmaus ? 
Will the Ethiopian eunuch ever cease pondering upon the 
fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, or cease singing " Hallelujah 
that I once read of Him who was led as a lamb to the 
slaughter"? The songs and narratives of heaven will 
form a vast illustrative exposition of the Word of God. 




I. 

INITIAL. 

I. THE JF1EST THEME. 

Behold the Lamb ! 
Archangels, fold your wings ; 
Seraphs, hush all the strings 

Of million lyres : 

The Victim, veiled 011 earth, in love 
Unveiled, enthroned, adored above, 

All heaven admires. 

EMORABLE moment when the Forerunner 
first uttered these words, "'Behold the Lamb 
of God!" 1 Every preacher may well find 
here the theme of his first sermon. With sublime sim- 
plicity John solves the deep problem, " How shall man be 
just with God?" 

It is in his representative position, undergoing what is 
due to us, that we are to look upon the Lamb. Behold him. 
The mere gaze of curiosity avails nothing. To admire 
him only as a teacher and martyr is quite insufficient. 
The soul's acceptance of his dying merits as the ground 
of pardon, is the saving act. We cannot have him for half 
a Saviour j redemption is all or not at all by him. 




1 John i. 29. 



2\ 



22 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

The Key. Richard Knill, who began his missionary life 
at Madras, makes this record : " We landed on Tuesday, 
and the next evening I preached my first sermon from 
these words, ' Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away 
the sin of the world ! ' and God blessed it to the conversion 
of a young widow, who afterwards became the wife of Dr. 
Medhurst, our oldest Chinese missionary." 

Mary Jane Graham, haying begun to read the Bible, 
was arrested by these same words. Her father explained 
who the Lamb of God is, and, being taught to flee to him, 
she was at length filled with joy and peace in believing. 
So deeply were her feelings stirred that she would gladly 
at once have quitted this life to go and dwell with Jesus. 

Hannah More relates that Dr. Johnson, on his death- 
bed, was in great distress of mind. Friends tried to 
comfort him by speaking of his writings in defence of 
virtue and religion. He replied: "Admitting all you 
urge to be true, how can I tell when I have done enough?" 
Not being comforted by the ordinary topics of conversa- 
tion, he desired to see a minister, and described what kind 
of a minister he wanted. After some conversation, a Mr. 
Winstanley was named, and the doctor requested him to 
be immediately sent for. Sir. Winstanley received the 
invitation, but, being a nervous man, felt appalled by the 
very thought of encountering the talents and learning of 
Dr. Johnson. He therefore wrote to the doctor a letter, 
as follows : 

11 SIR : I beg to acknowledge the honor of your note, 
and am very sorry that the state of my health prevents 
my compliance with your request. Permit me, therefore, 



THE FIEST THEME. 23 

to write what I should wish, to say were I present. I can 
easily conceive what would he the subjects of your inquiry. 
I can conceive that the views of yourself have changed with 
your condition, and that, on the near approach of death, 
what you once considered mere peccadilloes have risen into 
mountains of guilt, while your best actions have dwindled 
into nothing. On whichsoever side you look, you see only 
positive transgression, defective obedience; and hence, in 
self-despair, are eagerly inquiring, ' What must I do to be 
saved ? ' I say to you, in the language of the Baptist : 
' Behold the Lamb of Grod, that taketh away the sin of the 
world ! ' ' 

When this was read to the doctor, he anxiously asked, 
"Does he say so?" The consequence was that lie was 
brought to the renunciation of himself, and a simple re- 
liance on Jesus as his Saviour, which communicated to him 
that peace which he had found the world could not give, 
and which, when the world was fading from his view, was 
to fill the void, and dissipate the gloom even of the valley 
of the shadow of death. 

During the revival in Ireland, in 1853, an aged convert 
at Achile, a poor man one hundred and four years old, 
walked ten miles to make a public profession of his faith, 
at a confirmation held by the Protestant Bishop of Tuam. 
Mr. E. had a most interesting conversation with this aged 
man. He said, " I lived one hundred and three years and 
six months in total darkness, knowing nothing of the way 
to heaven, blind and ignorant." "And now," said Mr. 
E., "what is your hope?" "My hope, sir, is in the 
Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world. Oh, 



2-i SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

to think that I have gone on one hundred and three years 
and six months, caring not for my soul, and then that this . 
blessed truth should have burst upon me ! How can I 
praise him enough for his wondrous love towards such a 
poor old sinner?" 

In the hour of death a clearer anticipatory glimpse is 
often caught of Him who was slain. Roger Clark, one of 
the English martyrs at the stake, cried out to the people, 
" Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of 
the world ! " 

When Dr. J. Mason Good had nearly reached the mo- 
ment of departure, the power of distinct articulation being 
gone, a clerical friend said to him, "Behold the Lamb of 
God!" He added, with an effort that surprised by- 
standers, " Who taketh away the sin of the world ; " and 
these were the last words he uttered intelligently. 

" Happy, if with ray latest breath ; 

I may but gasp his name, 
Preach him to all, and cry in death, 
Behold ! behold the Lamb ! " 

II. FIRST THINGS FIEST. 

FIRST things first : so says common sense. But the One 
.acquainted with all beings and interests in all worlds says, 
" Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness," ' 
seek citizenship and fellowship in that kingdom, be- 
coming a friend of God and of his friends. In study, in 
business, in recreation, make that the crowning aim. 

1 Matthew vi. 33, 



FIRST THINGS FIRST. 25 

A young man at Alfriston having embraced the gospel, 
and made open profession of it, his father, who was much 
offended, gave him this advice : " James, you should first 
get yourself established in a good trade, and then think of, 
and determine about, religion." " Father," replied James, 
" Christ advises me very differently. He says, ' Seek ye 
first the kingdom of heaven, and the righteousness thereof, 
and all these things shall be added unto you.' Is not this 
word of Jesus enough for any .man or any family to live 
upon ? " 

It is related of the non-conformist, Mr. Lawrence, of 
Baschurch, that when some one reminded him that he had 
eleven good arguments against giving up his living, and 
asked him how he meant to maintain his wife and ten chil- 
dren, he answered, "They must all live on the sixth of 
Matthew : ' Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat ? 
or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? but seek first the 
kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things 
shall be added unto you.' " 

Seek the greater, and you will not fail of the less. Do 
the will of God, and God will take care of you. Securing 
the pearl, you will get the shell, of course. When you 

purchase a costly jewel, is not the case thrown in ? 
3 



26 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 



III. TEE PRIME PETITION. 

" I smite upon my troubled breast, 
With deep and conscious guilt oppressed; 
Christ and his cross my only plea : 
God, be merciful to me ! 

" Far off I stand with tearful eyes, 
Nor dare uplift them to the skies ; 
But thou dost all my anguish see : 
God, be merciful to me ! " 

THE publican begs for mercy, not for money. 1 How 
short his prayer ! Who need say he does not know what 
to ask or how to ask, so long as this cry of the tax-gatherer 
is on record? How humble ! not lifting so much as his 
eyes up to heaven, but he lifts his heart. How earnest ! 
smiting on his breast. 

This is the first prayer for an awakened sinner. A 
Hottentot of bad character, being under deep conviction of 
sin, was anxious to know how to pray. He went to his 
master, a Dutchman, for advice; but his master gave him 
no encouragement. The sense of his wickedness increased, 
and there -was no one near to direct him. Occasionally 
he was admitted with the family to domestic worship. The 
portion of Scripture read one day was the parable of the 
Pharisee and Publican. Listening to the prayer of the 
Pharisee, the poor Hottentot thought within himself : < l This 
is a good man; there is no hope for me;" but when his 
master came to the prayer of the publican, "God be merci- 
ful to me a sinner," "That suits me," he cried; "now I 
know how to pray ! " With this petition he immediately 

1 Luke xviii. 13. 



THE PRIME PETITION. 27 

retired, and prayed night and day for two days, and then 
found peace. Full of joy and gratitude, he went into the 
fields, and, as there was no one to whom he could speak, 
he exclaimed, " Ye hills, ye rocks, ye trees, ye rivers, 
hear what God has done for my soul ! He has been merciful 
to me a sinner." 

The Kev. D. M. Mitchell, for several years a devoted 
lahorer in the employ of the Eliot City Missionary Society, 
in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and who had been similarly em- 
ployed in Portland, Maine, gave the following incident re- 
specting a retired irreligious sea-captain in that city. ' ' As 
I was calling upon him, when sick, he said to me, ' I have no 
confidence in these Unitarian and Universalist doctrines. 
They make the way to heaven too- easy. I want to die in 
the faith of my old mother. She was a Christian. I have 
been driven up and down the world, have lived a thought- 
less, wicked life; but I now feel the necessity of being pre- 
pared for heaven.' At his request I prayed with him. 
Looking at me earnestly, with moistened eyes, he said, 
' Oh that I could pray ! I have tried to pray ; but I cannot 
think of anything to say. I cannot put a sentence together. 
Can't you teach me a prayer ? ' I replied, ' It is not neces- 
sary to make a long prayer. God will hear a short prayer 
when offered with right feelings.' I then referred him to 
the publican, and repeated several times the petition, 
1 God be merciful to me a sinner,' assuring him, on the 
authority of the Bible, that this short prayer was heard 
and immediately answered: ' He went down to his house 
justified.' ' Now, if you make this short prayer in the same 
earnest manner, with the same deep conviction of your sin- 



28 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

fulness, you will be heard and pardoned.' The next time 
I called, he said, ' I have had a sleepless night, and have 
not ceased to cry earnestly all the while, ' God be merciful 
to me a sinner ! ' This was said with great solemnity. I 
repeated my calls, and endeavored by conversation and 
prayer to lead his mind to Christ the atoning Lamb. After 
that memorable night there was a manifest change in his 
spirit and character. From being extremely peevish and 
irritable, he became quiet as a lamb. His sufferings, though 
great, were borne with patience ; so much so. that his nurse 
and the servants would say, ' It is no trouble to wait on 
him now.' " 

Another sea-captain who had a pious wife, but who had 
himself been more than -indifferent to the subject of religion, 
became awakened in 1858. After many anxieties and 
struggles, light began to dawn upon his mind, and he 
entered into a promise that he would go home and pray 
with his wife. This promise was kept. He read the 
Bible, and then they kneeled down to pray. After she 
had prayed, he attempted to do so; but all he could say 
was, " God be merciful to me a sinner ! " This he repeated 
more than fifty times. He could not go to sleep that 
night, but continued to weep and pray, hearing the clock 
strike and tick till near morning. Every tick of the clock 
seemed to say, " Jesus lives ! Jesus lives ! " Suddenly 
he found himself walking the room in an ecstasy of delight, 
and, as he looked out of the window, such beauty never 
met his eyes before. He longed for morning to come, 
that he might tell of his Saviour, and how he had found 
him, and what a blessedness there is in believing. From 



THE PRIME PETITION. 29 

tliat time he had light and joy in his soul, and he shed the 
light all around him. He became an active Christian, 
spending his whole time in recommending Christ, and seek- 
ing the .salvation of others. 

On one occasion, Mr. James Morison having stated his 
views as to prayer very strongly, denying that a sinner 
can pray, Dr. John Brown, turning to the moderator, said. 
"Sir, let a man feel himself to be a sinner, and, for any- 
thing the universe of creatures can do for him, hopelessly 
lost, let him feel this, sir, and let him get a glimpse .of 
the Saviour, and all the eloquence and argument of Mr. 
Morison will not keep that man from crying out, ' God be 
merciful to me a sinner!' That, sir, is prayer; that is 
acceptable prayer." 1 

What other is more appropriate for constant use ? An 
itinerant native teacher, in New Zealand, asked an aged 
woman, " Do you know what it is to pray?" " Do you 
mean long prayers, as those sometimes used in public wor- 
ship ? 5> " No, short prayers, like that of the publican, 
'God be merciful to me a sinner ! ' " She replied, " That 
prayer is my sleeping friend ; " meaning that she used it 
night, morning, and all times. 

It is the prayer for a mature Christian. When the 
venerable Mr. Wilkinson had nearly reached the close of 
life, he said to a relative who came to visit him, and who 
attempted to cheer him by referring to his Christian char- 
acter : " Ah, you cannot see my heart. It has always been 
my endeavor not only to abstain from evil, but from all 

1 Spare Hours, p. 212. 
3* 



80 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

appearance of evil. But I would be jealous of my own 
heart. ' The heart is deceitful above all things, and desper- 
ately wicked : who can know it ? 7 Well, I must do as I 
have ten thousand times before under such feelings, cast 
myself entirely on the mercy of God. ' God be merciful 
to me a sinner ! ' the vilest of sinners; and, after all I 
have received, a most ungrateful sinner. I shall never 
get beyond that prayer." 

Old Washburn, of London, expiring in his eighty-eighth 
year, said to his daughter, "My dear child, 'God be 
merciful to me a sinner ! ' I have never got beyond that 
prayer." 

"If I have any evidence of piety," said Carlos Wilcox, 
" it is that I see more and more suitableness in the prayer 
of the publican to my wants : ' God be merciful to me a 
sinner ! '" "I have not," said Rev. J. H. Stewart,' " got 
beyond ' God be merciful to me a sinner ! ' " 

Those eminent in services rendered to Christ can use it 
as well. Dr. Thomas Scott, when near his end, received a 
message from the Rev. Daniel Wilson, a valued friend, 
containing allusion to the benefit of his labors to the church. 
"Now this," said Dr. Scott, "is doing me harm. 'God 
be merciful to me a sinner ! ' is the only ground on which I 
rest. If I am saved, God shall have all the glory." 

The Rev. Henry Erskine, minister of Falkirk, and son 
of the Rev. Ralph Erskine, exhibited during his last illness 
deep abasement, mingled with lively hope. " The prayer 
of the publican," said he, "must be my prayer. ' God be 
merciful to me a sinner ! ' " When his brother James at 
one time made the remark, " We all need to settle our 



THE PRIME PETITION. 31 

accounts with God betimes," Henry replied, "I know no 
way, dear brother, of settling my accounts, but by receiv- 
ing a free pardon from my Redeemer." 

It is a prayer for the man of learning. On his way to 
Sweden, the celebrated G-rotius was overtaken by mortal 
sickness, and when the clergyman, Quinstorp, reminded him 

* 

of his sins on the one hand, and on the other, not of his 
services and world-wide reputation, but the grace of God 
and Christ Jesus, with a reference to the publican, "I 
"am that publican," replied Grotius, and then expired. 

It is appropriate to every dying man. Rowland Hill 
remarked, " People talk about looking back on a well-spent 
life. I look up to Him who spent his life gloriously to 
redeem the life of my precious soul ; and there alone I dare 
to look. I thank God who has kept me far from the grosser 
sins of the world ; but there is not a prayer more suitable 
to my dying lips than that of the publican, l God be 
merciful to me a sinner ! '" 

Archbishop Usher often said he hoped to die with this 
language of the publican in his mouth. His wish was 
fulfilled ; for his -last words were, " God be merciful to me 
a sinner ! " Dr. Woods, of Andover, the night before his 
death, replied to a friend who asked if he should pray with, 
him, " There is no prayer that meets my case but that of 
the publican, ' God be merciful to me a sinner ! ' " 



82 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 



IV. THE OUTSET. 

THE Great King has prepared an entertainment at his 
palace. Admission is not to be had by the broad oriental 
gateway, but by a wicket-gate. The relation of life, how- 
ever long, to the glorious future, is as a- wicket to the 
palace. The course of penitence, faith, and public confes- 
sion of Christ, be it the three hours of a thief on the cross, 
or threescore-and-ten years of Christian activity, is only 
passing the gate. 

" Strive to enter in at the strait gate." l Vanity 
must lay aside everything it dotes upon ; self-righteousness 
put off its valued garments, and the sinner, with self-aban- 
donment, must strive to enter in. 

Major-General Andrew Burn, of Scotland, who became 
a decided Christian after the death of his brother, had a 
very striking and significant dream, which was more than 
a dream. He thus gives it: "I thought I was sitting, a 
little before daylight in the morning, with my deceased 
brother, on the wall of the parish church-yard, where we 
had lived many years together. He remained silent for 
some time, and then asked me if I would not go with him 
into the church. I readily consented, and, immediately 
rising up, walked with him towards the porch, or outer 
gate, which I thought was very large and spacious ; but, 
when we had passed through it, and came to the inner door 
that led directly into the body of the church, some way or 
other, but how I could not well conceive, my brother 

1 Matthew vii. 13, 14. 



THE OUTSET. 88 

slipped in before me ; and when I attempted to follow, 
which I was all eagerness to do, the door, which slid 
from the top to the bottom, like those in some fortified 
towns on the continent, was instantly let down more than 
half way, so that I found it requisite to bend myself almost 
double before I could possibly enter. But, as I stooped to 
try, the door continued falling lower and lower, and, con- 
sequently, the passage became so narrow that I found it 
altogether impracticable in that posture. Grieved to be 
left behind, and determined to gej; in if possible, I fell 
down on my hands and tried to squeeze my head and 
shoulders, through; but, finding myself still too high, I 
then kneeled down, crept, wrestled, and pushed more 
eagerly ; but all to no purpose. Yexed to the last degree, 
yet unwilling to be left outside, I came to the resolution 
of throwing off all my clothes, and crawling like a worm ; 
but, being very desirous to preserve a fine silk-embroidered 
waistcoat, which I had brought from France, I kept that on, 
in hopes of being able to carry it with me. Then, laying 
myself flat on my face, I toiled, and pushed, and strove ; 
soiled my embroidered waistcoat, but could not get in after 
all. At last, driven almost to despair, I stripped myself 
entirely, and forced my body between the door . and the 
ground, till the rough stones and gravel tore all the skin 
and flesh upon my breast, and, as I thought, covered me 
with blood. Indifferent, however, about this, and per- 
ceiving I advanced a little, I continued to strive with more 
violence than ever, till at last I safely got through As 
soon as I stood upon my feet on the inside, an invisible 
hand clothed me in a long white robe ; and, as I turned 



84 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

round to view the place, I saw a goodly company of saints, 
among whom was my brother, all dressed in the same 
manner, partaking of the Lord's Supper. I sat down in 
the midst of them, and, the bread and wine being adminis- 
tered to me, I felt such seraphic joy, such celestial ec- 
stasy, as no mortal can express." 

In the midst of his seeking and striving, John, Bunyan 
had what he calls "a kind of vision." The happiness of 
the Christian people at Bedford was presented to him; 
" I saw as if they were on the sunny side of some high 
mountain, there refreshing themselves with the pleasant 
beams of the sun, while I was shivering and shrinking in 
the cold, afflicted with frost, snow, and dark clouds. 
Methought, also, betwixt them and me I saw a wall that 
did compass about this mountain. Now, through this wall 
my soul did greatly desire to pass ; concluding that, if I 
could, I would even go into the very midst of them, and 
there also comfort myself with the heat of the sun. 

"About this wall I bethought myself to go again and 
again, still praying as I went, to see if I could find some 
way or passage by which I might enter therein ; .but none 
could I find for some time. At the last, I saw, as it were, 
a narrow gap, like a little door-way in the wall, through 
which I attempted to pass. Now, the passage being very 
strait and narrow, I made many offers to get in, but all 
in vain, even until I was well-nigh beat out by striving to 
get in. At last, with great striving, methought I did at 
first get in my head, and after that, by a sidelong striv- 
ing, my shoulders and my whole body. Then I was ex- 



THE OUTSET. 



35 



ceeding glad, went and sat down in the midst of them, and 
so was comforted with the light and heat of the sun." 

Decisive as regeneration may be, it is not a finality ; it 
marks the beginning of a life-long warfare. "Welcome 
home " is the signal for songs of triumph. The last words 
of John Bradford, reformer and martyr, as he embraced 
the fagots, were : " Strait is the gate and narrow is the 
way that leadeth to eternal salvation, and few there be 
that find it" 



II. 

THE PERIODS OF LIFE. 

L TEE LITTLE ONES. 

" I wish that His hands had been placed on my head, 

That his arms had been thrown around me, 
And that I might have seen his kind look when he said, 
' Let the little ones come unto me ! '" 




children;" they can believe and love as 
well as others ; that is the main thing. By their 
lives and in their deaths they may show, no less 
strikingly than those older, that Christ is in them the hope 
of glory ; that he is to them more than father or mother. 

"'In Jesus' words, ' Suffer little children to come unto 
me, and forbid them not/ l does ' come unto me ' mean 
dying, mamma; leaving you, and going away?" asked 
a little child. "Don't you love and think a great deal 
about your papa when he is away?" said her mother. 
"Yes, mamma; I feel full of papa sometimes," answered 
Jessie ; . " I love him so dearly." " It is not necessary to 
see him and be with him to love him." "No, mamma, 
for he is in my heart really," said the little girl. "That 
is what the Lord Jesus means when he asks you to come 

1 Marks. 14. '86 



THE LITTLE ONES. 37 

to him. It is not to go where he is, in body ; but it is to 
love him, to have your heart full of him, that makes him 
. near to you and you near to him. And it is so sweet to 
come to him, for he forgives our sins, and takes away our 
naughty wilfulness, and helps us to correct our faults, and 
makes us love to do right, and love each other and every- 
body." "Then I want to come to Jesus; I wasn't quite 
ready to leave you and papa," whispered the child. " If 
Jessie finds Jesus, Jessie will be willing to do his will, 
whatever it may be," said the mother, with a prayer in 
her heart that hers might be one of the little ones in the 
kingdom of heaven. 

Another very little girl had been early taken to church, 
and taught to behave reverently there. She was told that 
public worship is appointed by God, and that she must 
attend seriously to its several parts. So she would fix her 
eyes on the preacher, and listen to all he said, though able 
to understand but little. Once a smile of joy was observed 
to pass over her expressive face ; her eyes grew bright, 
and her lips parted as if to speak. In the midst of his 
discourse the minister had repeated the Saviour's invita- 
tion, " Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid 
them not." She had learned this passage by heart in her 
infancy ; but with the voice of the clergyman, whom she 
revered, it came to her with special force. It was like an 
old friend in a new garment. Hastening home to her 
mother, who had been detained by indisposition, she threw 
her arms around her neck, exclaiming, " mamma ! dear 
mamma ! I have heard to-day the child's gospel ! " 

" Does Jesus Christ love little children now, mother?" 



38 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

said Laura "Woods, as she was leaning upon the arm of her 
mother's rocking-chair. " Does he love them just as he 
did, when he was here, in this world ? " " Yes, my dear, 
he loves them; and in the Bible invites them, with a great 
deal of earnestness and affection, to come to him. He died 
to save them, my child, and he is now gone to prepare 
homes in heaven for all who will give him their hearts." 
"I have thought about what father read this morning a 
good many times to-day. How kind it was in the Saviour 
to bless the little children, and to tell his disciples to have 
them come to him ! Albert and I have been learning the 
words that he said." Laura repeated them : " Suffer the lit- 
tle children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of 
such is the kingdom of Grod. " " They are beautiful words. ' ' 
said Mrs. Woods, ' ' and full of promise to children. " " And 
it is beautiful about his taking them up in his arms, and 
putting his hands upon them, and blessing them. I almost 
wish I had been one of them, mother." " You can be one 
of the lambs in the Saviour's fold, if you choose, now, my 
dear. You have only to go to him, the best and kindest 
friend that a child can have, and ask him earnestly to give 
you a new heart, to teach you to forsake sin, and to love 
and obey him. Then he will bless you as really as he did 
the little children whom he took in his arms on earth." 
"And we shall see him in heaven, mother?" "Yes, if 
you love and serve him here, you will not only see him in 
heaven, but will live with him there forever." 

A dear child, between six and seven years of age, on 
her death-bed, seeing an older sister with a Bible in her 
hand, asked her to read. This passage having been read, 



THE LITTLE ONES. 39 

and the book closed, the child said : "How kind ! I shall 
goon go to Jesus; he will soon take me up in his arms, 
and bless me too. No disciple shall keep me away." The 
sister kissed her, and said, "Do you love me? " " Yes, 
my dear," she replied; "but do not be angry, I love 
Jesus better." 

A lad seven years old said, "0 mamma! what a pre- 
cious word this 'little ' is ! ' Suffer little children to come 
unto me, and forbid them not ; ' for if it had not been for 
that word 'little,' I never could have dared to come. I 
could not have believed that Jesus Christ would listen 
to such a little boy as I am." 

" ' Forbid them not ! ' the Saviour said, 
' Oh ! suffer them to come to me ! 
Of such my heavenly kingdom is, 

Like them may all my followers be ! * 
Young children are the gems of earth, 
The brightest jewels mothers have ; 
They sparkle on the throbbing breast, 
But brighter shine beyond the grave." 

Another lad, in western New York, was very sick, and 
had been given up by the physician. "Henry," said his, 
father, "the doctor tells me that you cannot get well, but 
that in a little while you will die.- Tell me, Henry, are 
you afraid to die? " He seemed not at all disturbed, but 
with a smile looked up, and replied, "Pa, will you please 
open the Bible, and read what Jesus says about little 
children? " His father found the place, and read aloud 
these beautiful words: "Suffer little children to come 
unto me, and forbid them not." "No, pa," said little 



40 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

Henry, " I am not afraid to die. When I die Jesus will 
take me, and take care of me. I am not afraid to die." 

" 'Tis from the Better Land I 

There, bathed in radiance that around them springs, 
Thy loved one's wings expand ; 

As with the choiring cherubim he sings, 
And all the glory of that God can see, 
Who said, on earth, to children, ' Come to me.' " 

A boy ten years old, belonging to a Sabbath school in 
Chicago, was taken very sick. One day, lying on his bed, 
he murmured something in a low voice, which his little 
sister did not understand. She went and called her mother 
to come, and hear what he was saying to himself. The 
mother came and, putting her ear close to the little fellow, 
heard him say, " Suffer little children to come unto me, and 
forbid them not ; for of such is the kingdom of God." She 
was an ignorant Roman Catholic, and did not know that 
saying of Christ. She asked her little boy where he had 
learned them. He replied, "In the Sabbath school." 
The mother was interested, and wished to know more of 
the school where such beautiful words were taught. When 
the teacher went to visit his sick scholar, she readily 
allowed him to pray with and for them, and listened to his 
conversation. All the family, including father and mother, 
became members of the Sabbath school. 

One dark and stormy night, a missionary his horse 
jaded, and he himself wet and weary had for some time 
been looking in vain for a light in the lonely woods. At 
length he saw a faint glimmer through the trees; it came 
from a small log cottage. On entering the cabin, he 



THE LITTLE ONES. 41 

thought he had never seen so wretched a place ; cold, dirty, 
and almost entirely without furniture. In one corner was 
a ra|ged bed, on which lay a pale little .girl. She was very 
ill, and a great sufferer, yet not impatient. She smiled, 
and thus showed that peace was in her heart, while her 
body was suffering with disease. From under her pillow 
peeped a little book; it was the New Testament. An 
agent from the Bible Society had left it in that desolate 
place. The missionary inquired, " Can you read this 
book ? " ' { Yes, sir. " " Can you understand it-? " "A 
great deal of it, sir. I see there how Jesus Christ came 
into the world to save sinners. He said, ' Suffer little 
children to come unto me, and forbid them not ; for of such 
is the kingdom of heaven.' In the dark night, when I lie 
here and cannot sleep for pain, I think of my Saviour and 
heaven, and he seems to be saying, ' Suffer that little child 
to come up to me, and forbid her not.' I am soon going 
to be with him forever." 

A little son of the Rev. Mr. Cadogan, friend and cor- 
respondent of John Newton, was being carried by his father 
in his arms, as he walked to and fro in the room. The 
head of the young sufferer rested on his shoulder. It had 
become evident that death drew near. Breathing with 
much difficulty, he raised his head by a great effort, and, 
looking up in his father's face, said, " That was a sweet 
saying, was it not?" " What saying, my child ?" "Why, 
' Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them 
not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven,' " replied the 
child. So saying, he laid down his head again upon his 
father's shoulder, and died ! 
4* 



42 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

When I was at Dlioas, writes a missionary's wife, my 
husband opened the new chapel, which holds one hundred 

^ 

and fifty people. Sixty-five persons were baptized ; among 
the rest, several women. I proposed meeting them alone 
on Tuesday evening. One very nice-looking woman had 
a sweet-looking girl at her side, about ten years old. I 
said, "Amah, would you like me to teach your daughter ? " 
With an indescribable look of tenderness, she drew her to 
her side, and, putting her arm around her, said, " This is 
my only one." " Have you not had more children? " I 
asked. " Ah ! yes, ma' am, I have had six; but they are ' 
dead. Yes, they all died, five of them, one after the other ; 
they all died." "And you, poor thing, how sorry you 
must have been ! " " Heigh-ho ! how sorry ! Too much 
trouble I took ; too much expense. After the first died 
I took sacrifices to the temple, and made worship to the 
idol, and told him I would give him all I could if my 
second might live ; but he died. Then my heart was very 
sore; and when my third came, I went to a guru and 
took a cloth, and fowl, and rice ; and he said muntrums 
and made pujah (worship) ; but no, that child, he died. 
My heart was like fire, it burned so with sorrow. I was 
almost mad ; and yet I tried some fresh ceremony for every 
child." " What did you think had become of the spirits 
of your children?" I asked. "You knew their bodies 
died, but did you think much of their spirits ? " " Ah ! 
that was the thing that almost made me mad. I did not 
know. I thought perhaps one devil took one, and another 
took another ; or perhaps they were gone into some bird, or 
beast, or something, I did not know ; and I used to think 



THE LITTLE ONES. ' 43 

and think till my heart was too full of sorrow."- "But, 
Amah," I replied, "you do not look sorry now." With 
a look almost sublime, she said, " Sorry now ! Oh, no, 
no ! Why, I know now where my children are. They 
are with Jesus. I have learned that Jesus said, ' Suffer 
little children to come unto me.' My sorrow is all gone, 
and I can bear them not being with me. They are happy 
with him, and, after a little while, I shall go to him too, 
and this little girl, my Julia, and my husband too." 

Mr. Gray had not been long minister of the parish before 
he noticed the odd practice of the grave-digger ; and one 
day when he came upon John smoothing and trimming the 
lonely bed of a child which had been buried a few days 
before, he asked why he was so particular in dressing and 
heaping the graves of infants. John paused for a moment 
at his work, and looking up, not at the minister, but at the 
sky, said, " Of such is the kingdom of heaven." " And 
on this account you tend and adorn them with so much 
care," remarked the minister, who was greatly struck with 
the reply. "Surely, sir," answered John; "I canna 
make over braw and fine the bed-covering o' a little inno- 
cent sleeper that is waitin' there till it is God's time to 
wauken it and cover it with white robe, and waft it away 
to glory. Where sic grandeur is awaitin' it yonder, it's 
fit it should be decked oot here. I think the Saviour will 
like to see white clover spread abune it ; dae ye no think 
sae tae, sir ? " "But why not thus cover larger graves ? ' ' 
asked the minister, hardly able to suppress his emotions. 
" The dust of all his saints is precious in the Saviour's 
sight." " Very true, sir," responded John, with great 



44 ' SEEDS AND SHEA7ES. 

solemnity, " but I canna be sure wlia are his saints, and 
wha are no. I hope thear are many of them lyin' in this 
kirkyard ; but it wad be great presumption to mark them 
oot. There are some that I'm gey sure aboot, and I keep 
their graves as nate and snod as I can, and plant a bit 
floure here and there as a sign of my hope, but daurna 
gie them the white shirt," referring to the white clover. 
" It's clean different, though, wi the bairns." 

Mrs. Burr, the beautiful Esther Edwards, writes thus 
to her father, just after the death of her husband, President 
Burr, and from the bedside of her sick, perhaps dying, son : 
" Oh, how good is God ! He not only kept me from com- 
plaining, but comforted me. I saw the fulness there was 
in Christ for little infants, and his willingness to ac- 
cept such as were offered to him in faith. ' Suffer little 
children to come unto me, and forbid them not,' were most 
comforting words. God also showed me, in such a lively 
manner, the fulness there was in himself of all spiritual 
blessings, that I said, ' Although all streams are cut off, 
yet so long as my God lives I have enough.' In this time 
of trial I was led to enter into a renewed covenant with 
God, in a more solemn manner than ever before, and with 
the greatest freedom and delight did I give myself and my 
children to him. This act of my soul left me in a great 
calm, and steady trust in God. A few days after, one 
evening, in talking of the glorious state of my dear depart- 
ed husband, my soul was carried out in such large desires 
after that glorious state, that I was forced to retire from 
the family to hide my joy." 

Do parents, tea'chers, and pastors consider sufficiently 



THE LITTLE OA T ES, 45 

that very young children may become Christians? Do they 
labor and pray with suitable directness for this end ? The 
gift of young hearts, very young hearts, is an offering pe- 
culiarly acceptable to the Saviour. " Of such'' the child 
is an emblem of the Christian, and childhood of character 
is a glory. - 

A little child, six summers old, 

So thoughtful and so fair, 
There seemed about her pleasant ways 

A more than childish air, 
Was sitting on a summer eve 

Beneath a spreading tree, 
Intent upon an ancient book 

"Which lay upon her knee. 
She turned each page with careful hand, 

And strained her sight to see, 
Until the drowsy shadows slept 

Upon the grassy lea; 
Then closed the book, and upward looked, 

And straight began to sing 
A simple verse of hopeful love, 

This very childish thing : 
" While here below, how sweet to know 

His wondrous love and story, 
And then, through grace, to see his face, 

And live with him in glory ! " 

That little child, one dreary night 

Of winter wind and storm, 
Was tossing on a weary couch 

Her weak and wasted form ; 
And in her pain, and in its pause, 

But clasped her hands in prayer, 
Strange that we had no thoughts of heaven, 

While hers were only there, 



4:6 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

Until she said, "0 mother, dear, 

How sad you seem to be ! 
Have you forgotten how He said 

' Let children come to me'? 
Dear mother, bring the blessed Book, 

Come, mother, let us sing ! " 
And then again, with faltering tongue, 

She sung that childish thing : 
" While here below, how sweet to kuow 

His wondrous love and story, 
And then, through grace, to see his face, 

And live with him in glory 1 " 

Underneath a spreading tree 

A narrow mound is seen, 
Which first was covered by the snow, 

Then blossomed into green ; 
Here first I heard that childish voice 

That sings on earth no more ; 
In heaven it hath a richer tone, 

And sweeter than before ; 
'For those who know his love below, 

So runs the wondrous story, 
In heaven, through grace, shall see his face, 

And dwell with him in glory ! 

PKOTBSTANT CHURCHMAN. 



II. YOUTHFUL PIETY. 

REMEMBER, now thy Creator. 1 Something more than an 
act of memory is meant ; a reverent, affectionate remem- 
brance, the memory of the heart is wanted. The mind 
should be so occupied with thoughts of God as to have 
its whole tone affected, and a heavenly coloring imparted 
to its conceptions. 

1 Eccl. xii. i. 



JOUTHFVL PIETY. 47 

The Bible is one great souvenir of the Creator Tracing 
there the lines of his love, we come into immediate contact 
with the mind of its glorious Author. He made us too ; 
and for what save that he might fill the entire horizon of 
pur eye ; that his Word should be the Day-Star of our ad- 
miring gaze ; that he might dwell richly in these hearts, 
set to beating only that they might beat for him ? 

Many a one, who lives to a good old age, remembered 
him in the days of youth ; and for not a few, dying early, 
have these words supplied the theme of funeral meditation. 

An interesting girl, Emma Sharpington, intimated a 
wish that after her death a funeral sermon should be 
preached from them. She slowly and solemnly repeated, 
"Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, 
while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh 
when thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them." 

In one instance this verse itself was both funeral sermon 
and obituary. A letter received in New York from At- 
lanta, Ga., gives this incident of the battle at Bull Run : 
"A staff officer from Charleston, engaged in the battle on 
the 21st of July, 1861, says : ' I rode out the day after 
the battle to view the ground, and passed piles of dead in 
various positions. Under a large tree I saw a body lying, 
very handsomely dressed, with a fancy sword, and a hand- 
kerchief over the face. It attracted my curiosity. I 
stopped, removed the handkerchief, and saw one of the 
handsomest faces I ever met with, of a boy not more than 
twelve or fourteen years old. His appearance and dress 
indicated high social position ; probably he was a tempo- 
rary aid to some general officer. To ascertain who he was, 



48 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

I examined his pockets, and found a Testament, in which 
was written, "James Simmons, New York. From his 
loving mother. My son, remember thy Creator in the 
days of thy youth." I wished very much to take the body 
away, but I was six miles from quarters, on horseback, 
and it was impossible.' " 

III. PROFLIGATE YOUNG MAN. 

lu countries far from home, 

On earthly husks we feed; 
Back to our Father's house, Lord, 

Our wandering footsteps lead. 

Then at each soul's return 
The heavenly harp shall sound ; 

He that was dead now lives again ; 
He that was lost is found. 

H. ALFOKD. 

CAPT. SIR W. E. PARRY observes, "There is nothing 
even in the whole compass of Scripture more calcu- 
lated to awaken contrition in the hardest heart than the 
parable of the Prodigal Son. I knew a convict in New 
South Wales, in whom there appeared no symptoms of re- 
pentance in other respects, but who could never hear a 
sermon or comment on this parable without bursting into 
an agony of tears, which I witnessed on several occasions. 
Truly he who spoke it knew what was in man." 1 It is 
the prince of parables, a gospel within the gospel, a mirror 
of man, an artless yet profound little drama of human ruin 

1 Luke xv. 11-32. 



PROFLIGATE YOUNG MAN. 49 



and recovery. Wonderful, indeed, is its power to touch the 
sensibilities. 

"I have wept but once these forty years," said a vet- 
eran military officer, " and that was when I heard Jesse 
Bushyhead, the Cherokee preacher, address his countrymen 
from the parable of the Prodigal Son, the tears flowing 
faster than he could wipe them away." 

How often do young men break away from the whole- 
some restraints of home and of religious society, promising 
themselves peculiar enjoyment in pursuing their wayward 
fancies, dreaming of wealth, of fame, or flattering them- 
selves with the delusive idea of a good time in some vague 
'adventure ! In the journal of a soldier belonging to the 
"72d Regiment of the English army, published at the close 
of the last general continental war, an instance of this 
occurs. The writer of the journal had been induced, in 
hopes of a life of pleasure, to enlist, and to .forsake his 
quiet and respectable home, greatly to the grief of his 
parents. A few years afterwards, he was, when serving 
in the Peninsula, glad to be allowed to eat of the biscuits 
which he was employed to break for the hounds of the 
commander-in-chief, at a time when provisions were 
scarce. " I ate them with tears," he says, " and thought 
of the Prodigal Son." 

Mr. Campbell, a missionary in India, relates the fol- 
lowing: "Rufus, a native helper, after he fell into sin, re- 
nounced his profession of Christianity, wore the marks of 
superstition, and went to great lengths in wickedness. As 
if to make atonement for the crime he had committed in 
forsaking the religion of his fathers, he determined to be- 
5 



50 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

come an ascetic, to practise austerities, to go on a pilgrim- 
age to Benares, and to pass through every kind of suffer- 
ing, that he might propitiate the favor of Vishnu. With 
these views he had travelled four hundred miles, and was 
enduring the most dreadful poverty and distress, when ho 
came to himself, and exclaimed, ' What a fool I am ! I 
am trying to obtain peace and rest to my soul in delusions 
and lies. When I was a Christian I experienced true joy, 
comfort, and happiness ; but I am now, in reality, the poor 
prodigal, and am living upon the husks that the swine do 
eat. Is there not bread enough in my Father's house, and 
to spare ? Why, then, should I perish with hunger ? I 
will arise, and will go to my Father, and will say unto him, 
" Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, 
and am not worthy to be called one of thy sons ; only make 
me as a hired servant." In spirit and in truth he returned 
to his Father, and was numbered among the repenting 
prodigals. He came back to Bangalore. I have never 
seen a Hindoo so humbled, so contrite, and so deeply aifected 
with a sense of sin. He lay at the foot of the cross. He 
confessed, before all, his iniquities, and manifested that 
godly sorrow that worketh repentance to salvation. Since 
then he has maintained a very consistent deportment, and 
he is now a powerful and impressive speaker." 

The rise of penitence is the pivot of the parable, while 
the chief thought of a true penitent is that he has sinned 
against God. He frames no palliating excuse out of the 
circumstances of age, place of residence, occupation, or 
anything else. The words of the prodigal are often re- 
peated in later stages of Christian life, and they are some- 



AN OLD MAN. 51 

times on the lips of a believer as he leaves this far country 
for one of the mansions in his Father's house. 

A few years since a minister, 1 in the midst of public 
worship, while reading the fifteenth chapter of Luke, and 
after pronouncing the words, "I will arise and go to 
my " exclaimed, " my friends ! " fell in the pulpit, 
and almost instantly expired. 



17. AN OLD MAN. 

Lord, now let thy servant 

Pass in peace away ; 
I have had enough of life, 

Here I would not stay ; 
Let me go, if such Thy will, 

With a heart at rest and still. 

DAVID BOHJIB. 

OLD age is the period of wisdom, the autumn of life, 
when frosts begin to reveal the wealth of ripened fruits ; 
and great is the joy of that later harvest-home. Exulting 
Simeon said, " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart 
in peace according to thy word ; for mine eyes have seen 
thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of 
all people." 2 Long time has the venerable man been 
waiting for the consolation of Israel. Now in his own 
arms he holds the embodied fulfilment of most weighty 
predictions and most ardent aspirations. 

The pious Hervey, with great serenity of countenance, 

1 Eev. Mr. Culbert, of Cattaratigus, N. Y. 2 Luke ii. 29. 



52 ' SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

though the pangs of death were upon him, said, "Lord, 
now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to 
thy most holy and comfortable word ; for mine eyes have 
seen thy precious salvation. Here, doctor, is my cordial. 
What are all the cordials given to support the dying, in 
comparison with that which arises from the promise of salva- 
tion by Christ? This, this now supports me." 

An enterprise or event intimately connected with the 
advancement of Christ's kingdom is often hailed with feel- 
ings similar to those entertained upon his personal advent. 
When the " Bishop's Bible," one of the two new transla- 
tions published in the reign of Elizabeth, under the super- 
intendence of Archbishop Parker, who employed in it 
eight bishops and six other persons, himself revising the 
whole, a work that occupied three years, was at length 
finished, 1 the Archbishop said, "Now, Lord, lettest 
thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; 
for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." 

Long time, and with ardent prayers, had Dr. Hilclersly, 
the pious Bishop of Sodor and Man, waited for a complete 
translation of the Bible into the Manks language ; and 
when at length it came, to his inexpressible joy, he sang, 
Nunc, Domine, dimittis. "Lord, noAv lettest thou thy 
servant depart in peace, according to thy word ; for mine 
eyes have seen thy salvation." He urged his family, in 
the most aifectionate and solemn manner, to be ready for 
the summons of death, and the next day was himself 
stricken down. 

David Paraeus, who bestowed great labor in polishing 

1 1658. 



AN OLD MAN. 53 

the Body of Christian Doctrine collected by Zachary 
Ursine, desired not to die till he had finished that task ; 
but when it was concluded, he joyfully uttered substantially 
the same words, "Lord, suffer thy servant to depart in 
peace, because 1 have done that which I desired." 

Bishops Burnet states in relation to his "Pastoral 
Care," ." These things lie heavy on my thoughts con- 
tinually, and have all concurred to draw this treatise from 
me ; which I have writ with all sincerity of heart, and purity 
of intention, that I should have had, if I had known that 
I had been to die at the conclusion of it, and to answer for 
it to God. To him I humbly offer it up, together with 
my most earnest prayers that the design here so imperfectly 
wrought out may become truly effectual, and have its full 
progress and accomplishment ; which, whensoever I shall 
see, I shall then with joy say, Nunc dimittis" etc. 

Many an aged Anna has there been whose overflowing 
heart could find utterance in no language so appropriate as 
the song of Simeon. {The Rev. Richard Cecil once broke 
out in the pulpit thus : " As a public witness for God and 
his truth, I must tell you that you should never despair. 
No distressed woman ever hoped more against hope than 

T- * 

the mother of your preacher. But she prayed and waited 
patiently. She put her trust in the Omnipotent Arm. 
She not only prayed, but she instructed his mind, and then 
waited God's season. She lived long enough to hear that 
child preach the gospel which he had once despised. And 
she said, ' Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in 
peace.' " 

5* 



54 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

During the last illness of a pious mother, her only 
remaining child, the subject of many an agonizing prayer, 
who had been roving on the sea, returned to pay his parent 
a visit. After the tears of their first meeting, the hardy 
sailor said, "You are near port, mother, and I hope you will 
have an abundant entrance." " Yes, my child, the fair 
haven is in sight, and soon, very soon, I shall be landed 

" * On that peaceful shore, 
Where pilgrims meet to part no more.' " 

"You have weathered many a storm in your passage, 
mother ; but now God is dealing very graciously with you, 
by causing the winds to cease, and by giving you a calm at 
the end of your voyage." " God has always dealt gra- 
ciously with me, my son ; but this last expression of his 
kindness, in permitting me to see you before I die, is so 
unexpected, that it is like a miracle wrought in answer to 
prayer." " mother ! " replied the sailor, weeping, 
"your prayers have been the means of' my salvation, and 
I am thankful that your life has been spared till I could 
tell you of it." She listened with devout composure to 
the account of his conversion, and at last, taking his 
hand, she pressed it to her dying lips, and said, ' ' Yes, thou 
art a faithful God ! and as it hath pleased thee to bring 
back my long-lost child, and adopt him into thy family, I 
will say, Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace; 
for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." 

As a general thing cheerfulness is indispensable to long 
life, indeed, is the chief ingredient in the elixir of 
life. With such a book as the Bible before him, who 



AN OLD MAN. 55 

would not be always buoyant ? Who that has once seen 
the salvation prepared before the face of all people can be 
otherwise than jubilant ? 

But what spectacle can be more melancholy than that of 
an aged man who has grown gray in sin, and especially 
if he keeps alive the fires of fanaticism ? Le Tellier, the 
old chancellor of Louis XIV., at the age of eighty-three, 
being a violent Romanist, and thinking to do God service, 
requested the king to allow him the consolation, before he 
died, of signing the revocation of the edict of Nantes. 
His desire was granted, and all the Huguenots in the king- 
dom were abandoned to military execution. The dying 
chancellor, on signing the edict, actually quoted the 
beautiful words of Simeon. 

These words have, however, been the triumphant death- 
song of true martyrs. One of them, in the fourteenth 
century, Maximilian Hostialick, told the officer on the 
scaffold that he would repeat the song of Simeon, and 
then the executioner might do" his duty. He accordingly 
lifted up his voice : " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant 
depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes 
have seen thy salvation; " and then fell the blow that 
severed his head from the body. 

G-uthrie, the Scottish martyr, closed his address on the 
scaffold thus: "Jesus Christ is my light, my salvation, 
and all my desire. Him ! Him ! do I with the strength 
of all my soul commend unto you. Bless Him, my 
soul, from henceforth and forever ! Rejoice, rejoice, all 
ye that love him ; be patient, and rejoice in tribulation. 
Blessed are ye, and blessed shall ye be forever and ever. 



56 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

Everlasting righteousness and eternal salvation are yours ; 
all is yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's ! " 
adding, "Now let thy servant depart in peace; for mine 
eyes have seen thy salvation." 

" Though head with age is hoary, 

Young pleasure swells my heart; 
Now to the realms of glory, 
Would I in peace depart. 

" And while my soul is singing, 

' Hosanna ! Lord, appear ! ' 

The heavens back be ringing, 

* Hosanna ! He is near 1 ' " 



III. 

THE MESSIAH. 
I. MY REDEEMER. 

I shall see him with these eyes, 

Him whom I shall surely know ; 
Not another shall I rise, 

With his love this heart -shall glow; 
Only these shall disappear, 

"Weakness in and round me here. 
From the German of HENRIETTA, JElectress of Brandenburg. 

the depths of anguish Job's soul grows far- 
sighted, and he becomes a man for the ages. 
He is lifted into that sublime sphere of trium- 
phant trust where alone dwell the spiritual educators of 
our race. It was worth more than all the flocks and herds, 
all the vineyards and olive-orchards of the East, to be able 
to say ' ' I know that my Redeemer liveth." 1 Those words 
became an heirloom, to believers in after generations, a 
treasure that will make any poor ma,n more than million- 
naire. With that an orphan or outcast is no longer desti- 
tute. 

There was one Copaul, a poor Hindoo boy, who lived in 
a pit which had been dug for him. He was drawing near 

1 Job xix. 25-27. 

67 




58 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

to death ; but his mind had been enlightened through the 
instructions of a missionary and by the Spirit of God. 
" Let me die," said he; " I do not like to stay in this dark 
place ; I shall go where there is light. I know the words 
are true that God sent his Son to die for the sins of the 
world." He then repeated one verse after another which 
he had learned at school. This pleased him above all 
others: "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he 
shall stand at the latter day upon the earth ; and in my 
flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and 
mine eyes shall behold, and not another." In his last 
moments, catching glimpses of what was before him, he 
exclaimed, " I see ! Now I have light ! I see him in his 
beauty ! Tell the missionary that the blind boy sees ! I 
glory in Christ ! I glory ! " 

My Redeemer will come sensibly and triumphantly. 
This clod of earth will lie beneath him as a footstool. I 
shall be there then. What if soul and body are now part- 
ing ? It is not with an endless farewell. In my integrity 
of flesh and spirit I shall see him. How grandly did Han- 
del give expression in his Oratorio of Messiah to a jubilant 
faith in this glorious truth ! What more fitting memento 
of the great composer could Roubillac have graved on his 
statue in Westminster Abbey than the delicately traced 
words, with the notes, " I know that my Redeemer liveth" ? 

" Whom I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall be- 
hold." Decisive words ! Many an afflicted dying believ- 
er has found his heart soothed and strengthened by them. 
Thus did the gallant, the learned, and pious Philip de Mor- 
nay. With broken speech, but unfaltering faith, he said, 



M T REDEEMER. "59 

" I fly to heaven ; the angels carry me into the bosom of 
my Saviour ; I know that my Redeemer liveth. I shall 
see him with these eyes, Msce oculis ; " and his vision 
failing the while he yet repeated the words again and 
again, "hisce oculis , hisce oculis." 

" I know that my Redeemer liveth." I do not conjec- 
ture it, nor hope it, nor merely believe it ; I know it ; no 
arguing, no suffering can drive me from it ; I rest my all 
upon it. This is not presumption, for I have the word of 
Him who lives forever. 

"Let it only be witnessed of me," said an eminent and 
truly pious German divine, 1 " that I have lived by faith 
in the words, ' I know that my Redeemer liveth.' " With 
the genuine modesty that always characterized him, he re- 
quested that in public notices of his death there should be 
nothing said to his honor, but only the testimony that he 
had lived by faith in the words, "I know that my Re- 
deemer liveth." 

"Now I feel; I enjoy," said Samuel Rutherford, one 
of the persecuted Scottish writers for Christ's cross and 
crown, at the prospect of death ; "I rejoice ; I feed upon 
manna; I have angels' food; my eyes see my Redeemer; 
I know that he shall stand at the latter day upon the 
earth, and I shall be caught up in the clouds to meet him 
in the air." 

Mrs. Anne Steele, the poetess, quietly took an affection- 
ate leave of weeping friends around her bed, then uttered 

1 George Christian Knapp. 



60 * SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

the triumphant words, " I know that my Redeemer liveth," 
closed her eyes, and fell asleep in Jesus. 

" He lives, to grant me daily breath ; 
He lives, and I shall conquer death ; 
He lives, my mansion to prepare ; 
He lives to bring me safely there. 
Oh, the sweet joy this sentence gives, 
* I know that my Redeemer lives ! ' " 



IT. MESSIANIC DOXOLOGY. 

"BLESSED be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only 
doeth wondrous things ; and blessed be his glorious name 
forever ; and let the whole earth be filled with his glory. 
Amen and Amen." l Thus closes this second book of the 
five into which the Psalms are divided. " Wondrous 
things ! " the creation of all things and their preservation 
by God, his government universal and wise ; and then the 
more wondrous things of his grace, souls renewed, and 
the forgiveness of iniquity, transgression, and sin. An 
orderly world emerging out of chaos, or a purified earth 
out of the deluge, was not so marvellous an event as spirit- 
ual regeneration, a miracle constantly going on. 

This concluding doxology is an echo from the heart of 
the kingdom, responsive to that magnificent prophecy 
which goes before, the church's universal voice, like the 
sound of many waters. 

In proportion as believers come into sympathy with the 
great Messianic reign will their hearts become possessed 

1 Psalm Ixxii. 18,19. 



MESSIANIC PJEAN. 61 

with this desire. It will give form and tone to their spirit- 
ual life, and will engage their thoughts in death. A lady 
of distinction, whose piety had been of a high order, was 
sinking to her final rest, when a Christian friend repeated 
to her an account of the remarkable success of missionary 
labors in the South Sea Islands. The dying saint had for 
some time ceased to speak or move. She was not, how- 
ever, insensible ; for, on hearing the intelligence, she roused 
somewhat, and distinctly articulated, " Now blessed be the 
Lord God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things ; and 
let the whole earth be filled with his glory ! " Scarcely 
had she finished this, when she commenced singing the 
Song of Moses and the Lamb in heaven. The dying 
words of Bishop Broughton, and also of James, Earl of 
Derby, were, "Let the whole earth be filled with his 
glory." 



III. MESSIANIC P31A.N. 

Let ocean respond with his roar, 

All his waves in the chorus employ ; 
Let it spread through the world, shore to shore 

Repeating and spreading the joy. 

From the floods let the hills catch the strain, 

Earth's Saviour and King to adore ; 
He cometh, in justice to reign, 

And his throne shall endure evermore. 

COADER. 

THE swelling melody of Psalm ninety-eight is set to the 
6 



62 SEEDS AND SHEAVES, 

key of " Glory to Grod in the highest ! " If the prophetic 
eye were not resting on the Messianic advent and the 
marvellous things of later times, such lyric raptures would 
be extravagant. 

This outburst is suited alike to the advent at Bethlehem, 
and to the later advent in clouds. There is, too, a recur- 
ring occasion for this lofty hymn one's life long, in every 
fresh discovery of our Lord's righteousness, and onward 
till the end of time. The humblest, loneliest believer 
belongs equally to the choir. 

A clergyman in the county of Tyrone had, for some 
weeks, observed a little Tagged boy come every Sunday, 
and place himself in the centre of the aisle, directly oppo- 
site the pulpit, where he seemed exceedingly attentive to 
the service. He was desirous of knowing who the child 
was, and for this purpose hastened out, after the sermon, 
several times, but never could see him, as he vanished the 
moment service was over, and no one knew whence he 
came, or anything about him. . At length the boy was 
missed from his usual situation in the church for some 
weeks. At this time a man called on the minister, and 
told him a person very ill was desirous of seeing him ; but 
added, " I am really ashamed to ask you to go so far ; but 
it is a child of mine, and he refuses to have any one but 
you. He is altogether an extraordinary boy, and talks a 
great deal about things that I do 'not understand." The 
clergyman promised to go, and went, though the rain 
poured down in torrents, and he had six miles of rugged 
mountain country to pass. On arriving where he was di- 
rected, he saw a most wretched cabin indeed, and the man 



MESSIANIC PJEAN. 63 

he had seen in the morning was waiting at the door. He 
was shown in, and found the inside of the hovel as miser- 
able as the outside. In a corner, on a little straw, he be- 
held a person stretched out, whom he recognized as the 
little boy who had so regularly attended his church. As 
he approached the wretched bed, the child raised himself 
up, and, stretching forth his arms, said, " His own right 
hand hath gotten him the victory," 1 and immediately 
expired ! 

Joining with Jeremy Taylor, let us pray: "0 most 
glorious and powerful Jesus, who with thine own right 
hand and thy holy arm hath gotten to thyself, on our be- 
half, the victory over sin, hell, and the grave ; remember 
this thy mercy and truth, which thou hast promised to all 
that believe on thee : give us pardon of our sins sealed unto 
us by the testimony of thy Holy Spirit and of a good con- 
science; and grant that we by thy strength may fight 
against our ghostly enemies, and by thy power may over- 
come them, that we may rejoice in a holy peace, and sing 
and give thee thanks for our victory and our crown. Ex- 
tend this mercy, and enlarge the effect of thy great 
victories to the heathen, that all the ends of the world 
may sing a new song unto thee, and see the salvation of 
Grod ; that when thou comest to judge the earth we may 
all find mercy, and be joyful together before thee in the 
festivity of a blessed eternity, through thy mercies, 
blessed Saviour and Redeemer, Jesus. Amen." 

1 Ps. xcviii. 1. 



64 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 



IF. CHORUS OF ANGELS. 

Blessed night, when first that plain , 

Echoed with the joyful strain, 
" Peace has come to earth again! " 

Happy shepherds, on whose ear 
Fell the tidings glad and dear, 
" God to man is drawing near ! " 

BONAR. 

"GlORY to God in the highest!" How strange the 
doxology, and the array for such spectators ! " On earth 
peace," peace amidst the warring world within ; sooner 

or later peace among the nations who have worried one 



another; peace between a rebel world and its rightful 
Sovereign. " Good-will toward men." l God manifest in 
the flesh as Saviour ; Christ the Lord, the Son of the 
Highest, born here at Bethlehem, that he may save his 
people from their sins ! 

That proclamation has brought joy to many a despair- 
ing soul. Gillies once repeated it during a discourse, and 
enlarged upon it with holy rapture ; and while expatiating 
upon God's infinite condescension to men, he again and 
again reiterated the words, " Good-will to men ; good-will 
to men ; oh, how sweet is this ! " A woman present, Mrs. 
Luke, who had long been under spiritual distress, cried 
out, "And to me also." Deliverance from spiritual 
bondage had come. 

Scarcely has the angel finished his announcement, 

1 Luke ii. 14. 



CHORUS OF ANGELS. 65 

u . 

" When swift to every startled eye 
New streams of glory light the sky; 
Heaven bursts her azure gates to pour 
Her spirits to the midnight hour. 

" On wheels of light, on wings of flame, 
The glorious hosts of Zion came ; 
High heaven with songs of triumph rung, 
While thus they struck their harps and sung" 



" Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good- 
will to men." 

This doxology of the angels has sometimes filled the 
thoughts of dying saints. The final words of the Rev. 
Edward Perronet, author of the hymn, % " All hail the 
power of Jesus' name," were, " Glory to God in the height 
of his divinity! Glory to God in the depth of his 
humanity ! Glory to God in his all-sufficiency ! and into 
his hands I commend my spirit." The last words, too, of 
Rev. Doctor Backus, first President of Hamilton College, 
were, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good- 
will toward men." 

The angels have had two great gala days, the first 
when creation was finished, the next when Christ was 
born. They are to have a third, Avhen he shall come again 
in the clouds of heaven. None on earth have heard the 
angels sing except humble shepherds at Bethlehem ; none 
will hear them sing hereafter except those who meekly 
receive the testimony concerning Jesus, and are not offended 
at his being born in a stall, or that all heaven should be 

moved exultingly on his account. 
6* 



66 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

" Hail the night, all hail the morn, 
When the Prince of Peace was born 1 
When, amid the -wakeful fold, 
Tidings good the angel told. 

" While resounds the joyful cry, 
' Glory be to God on high, 
Peace on earth, good-will to men ! ' 
Gladly we respond, 'Amen ! ' " 



F. THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 

PRECEDING evangelists deal more with the outward 
life, and the humanity of Jesus Christ ; John pictures his 
interior life, and writes the gospel of Christ's deity. He 
gives fewer miracles, fewer journeys, but more discourses; 
tells us what Christ was, and what he said, rather than 
what he did ; supplies less of outward history, and more 
of divine biography. The very heart of Immanuel is here 
laid open. Superstition ascribes to this gospel power to 
work as a charm. 1 It is so plain the child may under- 
stand it, and so profound the most mature mind cannot 
fathom it. 

The venerable Claudius said, "I love best of all to read, 
in St. John. There is in him something so perfectly won- 
derful, dusk and night, and the quick lightning throb- 
bing through them ! The soft clouds of evening, and be- 
hind the mass the big full moon bodily ! something so 

1 When, in one instance, a water-spout near Porto Bello excited 
great alarm among the Spaniards, it would, says a writer, have 
certainly sunk whatsoever it fell upon if they had not dissolved 
it by saying the Gospel of John. 



THE LOGOS. 67 

sad, so high, so full of presage, that we can never weary 
of it. When I read John it always seems to me that I 
see him before me, reclining at the Last Supper on the 
bosom of his Lord, as if his angel held the light from me, 
and at certain parts would place his arm around me, and 
whisper something in my ear. I am far from understand- 
ing all I read, yet often John's idea seems to hover before 
me in the distance; and even when I look into a place that 
is entirely dark, I have a presension of great, glorious 
sense, which I shall some day understand, and hence I catch 
so eagerly at every new exposition' of the Gospel of John. 
'Tis true, most of them only ruffle the evening clouds, 
and never trouble the moon behind them." 

Another distinguished German 1 says 'of himself : "I 
confess that from my early years I have taken great delight 
in the perusal of the sacred writings, and have spent the 
greatest and most pleasant part of my life in the study and 
exposition of them ; and I have learned from experience 

* . 

that these studies are the nutriment of youth, the e'nter- 
tainment of old age, the ornament of prosperity, and the 
refuge and consolation of adversity. I have, however, a 
decided preference for the Gospel of John, and have been, 
and still am, of opinion that among the sacred writings it 
holds the chief place." 

VI. THE LOGOS. 

THE opening eighteen verses of John's Gospel form an 
introduction to the book, a passage almost without par- 

1 Tittmaun. 



68 SEEDS AND SHE APES. 

allel. Augustine relates that his friend Simplieius told him 
of a Platonic philosopher, who said that these first verses 
"Were worthy of being written in letters of gold. 1 The dis- 
tinguished scholar, Francis Junius, gives the following ac- 
count of his spiritual enlightenment: "My father, who 
was frequently reading the New Testament, and had long 
observed with grief the progress I made in infidelity, had 
put that book in my way in his library, with a view to 
attract my attention, if it might please God to bless his 
design, though without giving me the least intimation of it. 
Here, therefore, I unwittingly opened the New Testament 
thus providentially laid before me. At the very first view, 
as I was deeply engaged in other thoughts, that grand 
chapter of the evangelist and apostle presented itself to 
me, 'In the beginning was the Word.' I read a part of 
the chapter, and was so affected that I instantly became 
struck with the divinity of the argument, and the majesty 
and authority of the composition, as infinitely surpassing 
the highest flights of human eloquence. My body shud- 
dered ; my mind was all in amazement; and I was so agi- 
tated the whole day, that I scarce knew who I was. ' Thou 
didst remember me, Lord my God, according to thy bound- 
less mercy, and didst bring back the lost sheep to thy flock.' 
From that day God wrought so mightily in me by the power 
of his Spirit that I began to have less relish for all other 
studies and pursuits, and bent myself with greater ardor 
and attention to everything which had a relation to God." 
So, too, a young man, at a more recent date, who in- 

* 

1 John i. 1-18. 



THE LOGOS. 69 

dulged a hope without coming to believe in the divinity of 
Christ, and was teaching a class of children on this section of 
the chapter, found it impossible to explain the same on his 
principles. Being thus led to examine the sacred text more 
closely, he was brought to a full belief in the supreme 
divinity of our Saviour, whom he had before looked upon 
as created and finite. 

Biographers usually give some notices of ancestry; 
other evangelists do it, Matthew taking us back by four- 
teen generations to the captivity, fourteen more to David, 
and yet fourteen to Abraham; while Luke conducts us 
through four thousand years to the father of mankind. 
Here we are taken at once to the home of eternity. Of 
what nationality, of what family is the Word ? Visit the 
city of God, the ancient capital of the universe ; examine 
the records, and there amongst the everlasting hills will 
you find the early dwelling-place of the Word. Out of 
thee, Bethlehem Ephratah, has come one whose goings 
forth have been of old, from everlasting. 

Ere the blue heavens were stretched abroad, 

From everlasting was the Word ; 
With God he was ; the Word was God, 

And must divinely be adored 

By his own power were all things made ; 

By him supported all things stand; 
He is the whole creation's head, 

And angels fly at Ms command. 

WATTS. 



70 SEMDS AND SHEAVES. 



VII. THE GREAT INTERCESSION. 

AFTER sermon a prayer. 1 The most memorable of our 
Lord's discourses is followed by the most remarkable of 
his recorded prayers. Three chapters of Matthew's Gospel 
give Christ's Sermon on the Mount, early in his ministry ; 
now, at the close of his ministry, the three going before this 
seventeenth of John give another sermon of his, a confi- 
dential valedictory. Here the inmost soul of Immanuel 
pours out itself to the Infinite Heart above. 

How strange the blindness of unbelievers, such as 
Strauss and Bretschneider, who pronounce this prayer 
frigid, dogmatical, and metaphysical ! Not thus did the 
eloquent Bossuet esteem it ; his secretary read to him the 
seventeenth of John sixty times while the bishop was 
lying on his death-bed. Not thus did the reformer, John 
Knox, account it ; he had the same read to him every day 
on his death-bed. Not so did the saintly Spener regard 
it, who would have it read in his hearing repeatedly just as 
he was leaving the world, though he had never ventured to 
expound this chapter, deeming its comprehension to be be- 
yond the measure of faith which our Lord usually bestows 
on his followers in their pilgrimage. 

1 John xvii. 



TEN WORK DONE. 71 



FIJI. TEE WORK DONE. 

" 'Tis finished ! ' let the joyful sound 
Be heard through all the nations round ; 
" 'Tis finished ! ' let the echo fly 
Through heaven and hell, through earth and sky." 

"I HAVE finished the work which thou gayest me to do." * 
Yinet repeated this, without being aware that his course 
was run, when he gave his last theological lecture upon 
these same words of our Lord. 

Anticipation overleaps Kedron, passes through Geth- 
semane, and, looking down upon Calvary, cries, "It is 
finished ! " So collected is our Lord in his own purpose, 
so at home amidst the certainties of the future, that with- 
out the slightest assumption he affirms, "I have finished 
the work which thou gavest me to do." Only eighteen 
hours more, and in literal act and moment is it to become 
true. 

" I have been so struck lately," wrote Miss A. L. New- 
ton, " with those words of Jesus, ' I have glorified thee on 
the earth ! ' It was his appointed place, and of course it 
must be ours ; and did it ever strike you how beautifully 
silent he was about the time of his leaving it till the 
time came ; and then how his heart seemed to bound with 
delight towards his Father, as he exclaimed, ' Father, the 
hour is come!' 'I have finished the work,' etc., 'and 
now, Father, glorify thou me,' etc. ' Now I am no 
more in the world.' ' Now come I to thee' ? " 

1 John xvii. 4. 



IT. 

THE LIVELY OEACLES. 

J. THE BEGINNING. 

Then moved upon the waveless deep 

The quickening Spirit of the Lord, 
And broken was its pulseless sleep 

Before the everlasting word. 
" Let there be light ! " and listening earth, 

With tree, and plant, and flowering sod, 
" In the beginning" sprang to birth, 

Obedient to the voice of God. 

BUELEIGH. 

N the beginning God created the heaven and the 
earth. And the earth was without form and void ; 
and darkness was upon the face of the deep ; and 
the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 
And God said, Let there be light : and there was light." l 
The oldest extant paragraph ever written. What a ma- 
jestic introduction to sacred literature ! These few prime- 
val words embody the truth of creation, creation of all 
things out of nothing; they bring us at once into the 
presence of the only living God, who was before and 
above the world ! Specially worthy of note it is that the 
Holy Scriptures begin with an utterance so clear and grand, 

'Gen. i. 1-3. 72 




TEE OBITUARY. 73 

which carries an effective rebuke to heathen belief in the 
eternity of matter, and to pantheistic dreams of emanation, 
as well as atheistic theories of development. 

Wonderfully suggestive is this brief enunciation. 
JErgidius Gusthman, a professor at Vienna, wrote so exten- 
sively on the .first five verses, of Genesis, as to make it 
necessary that he should divide his lectures into twenty- 
four books. "Never," says George Gilfillan, "shall be 
forgotten the emotion with which we read those words in 
the original tongue. The words themselves, perhaps the 
earliest ever written; their information so momentous; 
the scene to which in their rugged simplicity they hurried 
us away, gave them a profound and almost awful interest, 
and we sat silent and motionless, as under the response of 
an oracle on which our destiny depended." 

The Latin version of the third verse has. a similar 
succinct and forceful expression with the original, Sit lux, 
et luxfmt. The Septuagint is inferior ; and yet it was 
from the 'Greek of that version that Longinus obtained his 
impression of the sublimity of this passage. 

The whole chapter is in keeping. Every verse is 
marked by simplicity and grandeur. With a look of 
indescribable lustre an eminently Christian woman 1 said 
at midnight, " He made the stars also," and fell asleep 
without waking again. 



II. THE OBITUARY. 
IN reading the fifth chapter of Genesis we seem to hava 

1 Mrs. East. 



74 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

entered the antediluvian cemetery, and to "be slowly 
deciphering epitaphs of more than four thousand years' 
standing. Passing from one gray * tombstone to another, 
we notice that the inscriptions close thus: " He died." 
Before the flood, as well as now, death, however slow, 
was sure. "I have been reading," said one, "the 
fifth chapter of Genesis ; and I find that the long lives 
there spoken of all end in one way. 'And he died,' 
' and he died,' at the end of every name, rings 
out like a tolling bell. Surely, then, it is wise for me, 
who am to live so short a time in comparison with them, to 
give all my thought and care' to provide for death." An 
abandoned libertine once strolled into a church where he 
heard it read. Listening to this repeated statement, " He 
died," the man was so forcibly struck that he became an 
exemplary Christian. Alderman Read, of Norwich, Eng- 
land, after reading this chapter in the Council Chamber 
one morning, died suddenly at the table among his asso- 
ciates in office. 

In respect to longevity our wonder culminates as we 
pass on to the oldest man. ''Nine hundred sixty and 
nine years ! " A longer period than most kingdoms and 
empires have existed; four times as long as the period 
since the settlement of New England ! "All the days of 
Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years ; 
and he died." Fitting words for a text, selected by Rev. 
M. Stebbins, in preaching at the funeral of Kev. Nathan 
Birdseye, formerly of West Haven, Ct., who died in 1818, 
aged one hundred and eight years, five months, and nine 
days. 



THE PSALTER. 75 

And was this all ? He died ! He who beheld 
The slow unfolding of centimal years, 
And shook that burden off unharmed that turns 
Our temples white, and in his freshness stood, 
While firm oaks mouldered, hath he left no trace. 
Save this one line, he died I 

What mighty plans 

Might in that time-defying bosom spring, 
And wear their harvest diadem, while we, 
In the poor hour-glass of our seventy years, 
Scarce see the bud of a few plants of hope, 
Ere we are laid beside them, dust to dust. 

gay flower-gatherers on this crumbling brink, 
Howe'er amid thick bowers ye hide .and think 
To let the pale king pass, it will be said 
Of you, as of earth's oldest man, he died! 
Add to your epitaph, he lived to God I 

MBS. SKSOOHXEY. 



III. THE PSALTER. 

HERE we have the chief volume of Hebrew anthology, 
the sacred lyric poetry of the most remarkable ancient 
nation, their great temple liturgy and psalmody, which, in 
one form or other, is to-day the common vehicle of praise 
and prayer throughout Christendom. It has supplied the 
penitent with words of confession, the reverent with words 
of adoration, and the jubilant with words of exultation, for 
scores of centuries. It contains national odes, and hymns 
for the individual believer. 

"You ask me," writes Margaret, Duchess of Alengon, 
the favorite sister of Francis I. of Franco, and a devoted 
Christian woman, " you ask me, my children, to do a very 



76 . SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

difficult thing, to invent a diversion that will drive away 
your ennui. I have been seeking all my life to effect 
this ; but I have found only one remedy, which is, reading 
the holy Scriptures. In perusing them ray mind experi- 
ences its true and perfect joy, and from this pleasure of 
the mind proceed the repose and health of the body. If 
you desire me to tell you what I do to be so gay and well 
at my advanced age, it is because as soon as I get up I 
read those sacred books. There I see and contemplate 
the will of God, .who sent his Son to us on earth to preach 
that holy word, and to announce the sweet tidings that he 
promises to pardon our sins and extinguish our debts, by 
giving us his Son, who loved us, and who suffered and died 
for our sakes. This idea so delights me, that I take up 
the psalms and sing them with my heart, and pronounce 
with my tongue, as humbly as possible, the fine hymn 
with which the Holy Spirit inspired David and - the 
sacred authors. The pleasure I receive from this exer- 
cis.e so transports me, that I consider all the evils which 
may happen to me through the day to be real bless- 
ings ; for I place- Him in my heart by faith, who endured 
more misery for me. Before I sup, I retire in the same 
manner to give my soul a congenial lesson. At night I 
review all that I have clone in the day. I implore pardon 
for my faults ; I thank my God for his favors ; and I lie 
down in his love, in his fear, and in his peace, free from 
every worldly anxiety." 

A distinguished German writer 1 says : "David yields 
me every day the most delightful hour. There is nothing 

1 John Miiller, the historian. 



THE PSALTER. 77 

Greek, nothing Roman, nothing in the West, nor in the 
land towards midnight, to equal David, whom the God of 
Israel chose to praise him higher than the gods of the 
nations." 

The psalms are the heart of the Bible, its great centre 
of throbbing life. Deprived of them it would indeed be a 
form of wondrous beauty, but would it breathe as now ? A 
temple would remain, symmetrical and imposing, but 
would the many-voiced choir and supplicating priest be 
there? 

The psalms are the book of common prayer for believers 
in all ages, the inspired hand-book of devotions ; a manual 
of holy musings and aspirations. Elsewhere in the Bible 
God speaks to us ; here he helps us to speak to him. 

What words did our Saviour employ when breathing his 
final address to the Father, and closing up the wondrous 
work of atonement ? Breaking forth into an appeal that 
smites the heart with mysterious dread, he adopts the 
opening of the twenty-second Psalm, "My God, my God, 
why hast thou forsaken me ! " and tradition reports that 
he rehearsed the whole, word for word. What was his 
last utterance in humiliation, his valedictory on departing 
to the world of spirits? It was in words from the thirty- 
first Psalm, " Into thy hand I commit my spirit." 

Our Lord will honor and interpret the psalms, and he 
also teaches us a lesson as to the drapery of prayer. He 
who came down from heaven, and was so at home in the 
* dialect and all the high proprieties of that world, indicates 
to us what words of our lips may be especially acceptable 
there. He teaches us that the Old Testament, and partic- 



78 ' SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

ularly this part of it, is eminently Christian. He takes 
it up, brings it over from the former dispensation, re-hal- 
lows it for devotional use throughout the new dispensa- 
tion. 

'The ages all lift up their voice in commendation of this 
as a book of devotions. Let the great German reformer, 
giving his own experience, speak for the whole : 

" Where do we find a sweeter voice of joy than in the 
psalms of thanksgiving and praise? There you look into 
the heart of all. the holy, as into a beautiful garden, as 
into heaven itself. What delicate, fragrant, and lovely 
flowers are there springing up of all manner of beautiful, 
joyous thoughts towards God and his goodness ! On the 
other hand, where do you find more profound, mournful, 
pathetic expressions of sorrow than the plaintive psalms 
contain ? There again you look into the heart of all the 
holy, but as into death, nay, as into the very pit of despair. 
How dark and gloomy is everything there, arising from all 
manner of melancholy apprehensions of God's displeasure! 
I hold that there has never appeared on earth, and that 
there never can appear, a more precious book of examples 
and legends of saints than the Psalter is. For here we 
find out, not merely what one or two holy men have done, 
but what the Head himself of all the holy has clone, and 
what all the holy do still ; how they stand affected towards 
God, towards friends and enemies ; how they behave in all 
dangers and sustain themselves in all sufferings. Besides 
that, all manner of divine and salutary instructions and 
commands are contained therein. Hence, too, it comes 
that the Psalter forms, as it were, a little Bible for all 



THE PSALTER. 79 

saints, in which every man, in whatever situation he may 
be placed, shall find psalms and sentiments which shall 
apply to his own case, and be the same to him as if they 
were for his own sake alone, so expressed as he could not 
express them himself, nor find nor even wish them better 
than they arc." 

"How did I then," says Augustine, addressing God, 
" converse with thee, when I read the psalms of David, 
those songs full of faith, those accents which exclude all 
pride ! How did I address thee in those psalms ; how did 
they kindle my love to thee ; how did they animate me if 
possible to read them out to the whole world as a protest 
against the pride of the human race ! And yet they are 
sung in the whole world; 'nothing is hid from their 
heat.' " 

Chrysostoin says, respecting the Christians of his day : 
" In the morning David's psalms are sought for. In the 
night, when men are asleep, David wakes them up to sing ; 
and gathering the servants of God into angelic bands, 
turns earth into heaven, and makes angels of men, chant- 
ing David's psalms." 

One pleasing variation is 'the responsive method of re- 
citing psalms at family worship, the parent or some one 
else leading off with a verse or strophe, and followed alter- 
nately by a child, or by the whole household. Tertullian, 
late in the third century, states that pious husbands and 
wives were accustomed to repeat psalms thus interchange- 
ably. Domestic worship may in this way be rendered 
more social. 

For the encouragement of younger persons, mention 



80 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

might be made of Wilberforce Richmond, an interesting 
and pious son of Legh Richmond, who died early, and 
who could say, " There is not a psalm I have not 
turned into a prayer." The same has been done by some 
who were familiar with the original Hebrew of the book. 
Thus the Rev. David Brown, a devout English clergy- 
man, accustomed himself to use them in that language as 
the medium of his most private and earnest devotions, 
whether of contrition, supplication, or praise. In all 
affliction and in -all rejoicing, he alike called upon God in 
the language of David. 

Cotton Mather, in his diary, Feb., 1712, speaks of one 
of his Saturday-night vigils, and his prayers for various 
objects, and adds : " Having spread these and other 
desires before the Lord, until the sun had made a progress 
in his return unto us from the meridian of the other 
hemisphere, I applied myself to sing some suitable things. 
It surprised me, that my psalm-book opened at that pas- 
sage, Psalm cxix. 148 : 

" ' Mine eyes did timorously prevent 

The watches of the night, 
That in thy word with careful mind 
Then meditate I might.' 

" Without turning over another leaf, several other pas- 
sages in Psalm cxix., and in cxx., cxxi., cxxiv., were suffi- 
cient for me. So ' God, my maker,' did, without a meta- 
phor, ' give me songs in the night.' " 

In his last days, John Foster would have nothing but 
the holy Scriptures, and chiefly the psalms, read to him. 



THE BTSLE PSALM. 81 

Salmatius, the celebrated French scholar, at the end of 
life found he had so far mistaken true learning and the 
source of solid happiness as to cry out, " Oh ! I have 
lost a world of time ! time, that most precious thing in 
the world ! whereof had I but one year now, it should 
be spent in David's psalms and Paul's epistles." Many 
another learned man has uttered dying regrets that he had 
not given more of his hours and heart to the Book of 
books. Death is a stern and faithful teacher. Fitting 
words of godly sorrow and of faith then seem worth more 
than all -the eloquence and science of earth. In his last 
sickness Augustine had the penitential psalms inscribed on 
the wall of his room. 

IV. THE BIBLE PSALM. 1 

THIS Psalm is a bible upon the Bible. It is the longest 
chapter in the volume, numbering one hundred and 
seventy-six verses ; more than are found in the book of 
Ruth or Esther, in the Song of Solomon or the Lamenta- 
tions of Jeremiah, or most of the minor prophets ; more 
than in the Epistle to the Galatians or the Ephesians; 
indeed more than in two-thirds of the books composing 
the New Testament. It is the Holy Spirit's testimonial 
to his own wonderful work. If in the great temple of 
Revelation, where Moses and all the prophets give oracles, 
where Evangelists rehearse their narratives, where apos- 
tles discourse, and where are mighty harpers harping with 
their harps, one would behold an appropriate inscription, 

1 Psalm cxix. 



82 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

he is bidden to look round upon the vast fabric itself. A 
visitor to the Cathedral of Strasburg, after surveying the 
gigantic mass from without, the eye lingering long on 
its wonderful spire, the highest in the world, enters 
the edifice ; and, looking round with admiration, he ob- 
serves, just above the Gothic border that runs along the 
wall, a figure of the architect, Erwin of Steinbach, carved 
by himself. There he has stood for centuries, apparently 
in pleased contemplation of his achievement. Such in the 
majestic temple of revealed truth stands this psalm; it is 
the divine Author's own image ; his special and enduring 
memorial of himself and of his masterpiece. 

This is the longest portion of holy writ devoted so ex- 
clusively to one theme. Only two of the verses (122, 
132) do not expressly mention the great topic running 
through the whole. At least ten different words are em- 
ployed to designate the holy volume as it existed in the 
time of the psalmist, word, way, law, statute, command- 
ment, precept, testimony, faithfulness, truth, and right- 
eousness; which, for the sake of variety, appear to be 
used promiscuously and with interchangeable signification. 

The psalm consists of twenty-two equal divisions, ar- 
ranged in accordance with the number and succession of 
letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Each division contains 
eight verses, and, in the original, each verse of the several 
divisions begins with the same Hebrew letter as stands for 
its heading in our English Bible. Thus the first eight 
verses begin each with a word whose initial letter is Aleph ; 
the second division with words whose first letter is Beth ; 
and so through the psalm and through the alphabet. In 



THE BIBLE PSALM. S3 

accordance, too, with that subdivision, the name Jehovah 
occurs in the Hebrew twenty-two times. 

In the German Psalters it is styled, probably on ac- 
count of its alphabetical character, Der Christen goldenes 
A, B, 0, the golden Alphabet of Christians ; but it is 
also an advanced lesson for mature believers. 

We here have a sacred acrostic. One reason for such a 
method probably was to aid the memory. In conformity 
with that design, Philip Henry used to give this advice 
to his children. "Take a verse of Psalm one hundred 
and nineteen, every morning to meditate upon, and so 
go over the psalm twice a year, and that will bring you 
to be in love with all the rest of the Scriptures." 
Agreeably to that recommendation, we find his godly 
daughter, Mrs. Savage, writing thus in her diary (1687-8, 
March 9), "Friday morning: I have been of late 
taking some pains to learn by heart Psalm one hundred 
and nineteen, and have made some progress therein." 

"I once offered," says the Sabbath-school teacher of 
William Mason, "a new waistcoat to any boy in my 
class who would learn the one hundred and nineteenth 
Psalm by the following Sabbath. All, except William, 
were ready enough to make the promise ; but he seemed 
to take time to consider first. He sat for a few min- 
utes, turning over the leaves of his Bible, and then said, 
'I think, sir, I can learn it; I will try, at any rate: 
thirty verses each day will do it; and I think I may 
promise to do that.' Having set himself his daily task, 
he took good care always to perform it before he went 

to bed. It is true he met with many difficulties, and 



84 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

once or twice he was tempted to give up the under- 
taking ; but he said to himself, I have given my promise, 
and I must perform it; so he persevered, and the fol- 
lowing Sabbath repeated it, much to my satisfaction ; while 
the other boys were unable to say even a fourth part of 
the psalm." 

"I know of no part of the Holy Scriptures," remarks 
President Edwards, " where the nature and evidences of 
true and sincere godliness are so fully and largely insisted 
on and delineated, as in the one hundred and nineteenth 
Psalm. The psalmist declares his design in the first verses 
of the psalm, keeps his eye on it all along, and pursues 
it to the end. The excellency of holiness is represented 
as the immediate object of a spiritual taste and delight. 
God's law that grand expression and emanation of the 
holiness of God's nature, and prescription of holiness to 
the creature is all along represented as the great object 
of the love, the complaisance, and the rejoicing of the 
gracious nature which prizes God's commandments above 
gold, yea, the finest gold, and to Avhich they are sweeter 
than honey and the honeycomb." 

We join with Jeremy Taylor in the prayer, which is a 
summary of the psalm : " blessed Lord God, whose 
words are light and life to the obedient and believing soul, 
let thy grace so purify our hearts and actions that we 
may be undefiled in thy way, keeping thy testimonies, and 
seeking thee with our whole heart ; that our ways being 
made direct without wandering into by-paths, we may go 
into our country, the land of eternal and glorious promises, 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." 



THE PSALMS BY HEART. 85 



7. TEE PSALMS BY HEART. 

"THY- word have I hid in my heart." Great pains 
may well be taken to commit these holy hymns to memory. 
It has been conjectured that the alphabetical psalms 
each verse of which begins with a letter of the Hebrew 
alphabet in succession were constructed thus with 
reference to easier recollection. From certain early fathers 
of the Christian church it would seem that in their times 
the Psalter was generally committed to memory ; and that 
it was particularly expected ministers would be able to 
repeat the same. A priest, by the name of John, is men- 
tioned as having been rejected from the bishopric of 
Ravenna for inability to repeat the psalms without book. 
When Gregory was ordained bishop 1 the celebrated 
Jerome's inquiry respecting his canonical qualification 
was whether he knew the psalms by heart. The last- 
named father, in the fifth century, writing to a woman by 
the name of Eustochium, concerning her deceased mother 
Paula, says: " The Holy Scriptures she knew by heart. 
Indeed, I must say more, what perhaps to every one seems 
incredible, she also understood the Hebrew language so 
well that she sang the psalms in Hebrew, even as we find 
it to be the case with her daughter Eustochium." 

In the Roman Catholic Church the Benedictines were 
formerly expected to learn the Psalter by heart, and their 
rules required special pains to be taken in this behalf. 
Pachomius says, "There shall be no one whatever in the 

H 

1 Of Ancona. 



86 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

monastery who will not learn to read, and get part of the 
Scriptures bj heart ; at least the New Testament and Psal- 
ter." St. Basil directs that such as neglect to commit the 
Psalms to memory shall be shut up in solitude, or kept 
fasting till they do. Another writer l declares that ' ' no 
one, who claims the name of a monk, can be allowed to be 
ignorant of letters ; moreover, he must know all the 
psalms by heart." The old Clugniacs, when travelling, 
were wont to beguile the whole distance with chanting 
the psalms in order, partly to prevent evil thoughts and 
vain discourse. No weariness of the way, nor robber dem- 
onstration, could check this exercise. 

Aidan, Bishop of Lindesfarne. who flourished in the 
seventh century, was particularly studious in the Scriptures, 
and not only read them himself, but obliged those who 
travelled or associated with him to spend their time either 
in reading the Scriptures or learning the Psalter by heart. 

There are in the whole book of Psalms two thousand 
three hundred and forty-five verses, making an average of 
fifteen and a fraction to each psaim. Any one, treasuring 
up that amount weekly, fifteen or sixteen verses, 
would, in the course of three years, master the whole ; or, 
at the rate of one verse daily, would, in the course of six 
years and something over, accomplish the same. What 
has been done may be clone. Duly garnered and -used, 
these words of sacred song dwell in us richly in all wis- 
dom. 

There are various seasons when it is particularly desir- 

1 St. Ferreol. 



LONGING FOJt THE WORD. 87 

able that treasures of this kind should be in readiness. 
What can be more fitting, for instance, at family prayers, 
than to have one' or more of the psalms repeated in addition 
to the passage read, or, occasionally, in place of the regular 
reading as a home Sabbath exercise ? 



VI. LONGING FOE THE WORD. 

PRESIDENT EDWARDS could say of his early, and indeed 
of his whole religious life, "I had vehement longings of 
soul after God and Christ, and after more holiness, where- 
with my heart seemed to be full and ready to break ; which 
often brought to my mind the words of the Psalmist : " My 
soul breaketh for the longing that it hath." 1 One of his 
wel [-known resolutions reads thus: "Resolved, When I 
find those ' groanings which cannot be uttered,' of which 
the apostle speaks, and those ' breakings of the soul for the 
longing it hath,' of which the Psalmist speaks, that I will 
promote them to the utmost of my power, and that I will 
not be weary of earnestly endeavoring to vent my desires, 
nor of the repetitions of such earnestness." 

Dr. Chalmers more than once refers to this verse, as 
giving the best expression to his own intense desires for a 
. full acquaintance with the Divine Word. " I have long 
fixed on the twentieth verse as the most descriptive of my 
own state and experience of any in the Bible. What strain- 
ing have I had after a right understanding of God and his 



1 Ps. cxix. 20. 



88 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

ways, more especially the way of salvation ! ' My soul 
breaketh ' Even this does not express the full force of 
the original. ' Crushed ' comes nearer to 'it; my soul ab- 
solutely is overborne, completely under the power of thy 
testimonies." 

Instead of such lively interest, what satiety there is on 
the part of many ! Mantoh, remarking on this verse, says, 
" There is a plenty of means, even to a surfeit. Men are 
gospel-glutted, Christ-glutted, and sermon-glutted; and 
therefore are at a very great indifferency,. and under a 
mighty coldness as to the word of God. Usually we are 
more sensible of the benefit of the word in the want of it, 
than we are in the enjoyment of it. ' The word of the 
Lord was precious in those days. There was no open vis- 
ion.' When the public ministry of the prophets was rare 
and scarce, then it Was precious and sweet. When the 
Papists denied the use of the Scriptures in the vulgar 
tongue, oh, what would we give then for a little scrap and 
fragment of the word of God in English, a load of hay 
for a chapter in James ! " 



VIL PERPETUITY OF THE WORD. 

IN the year 1549, reformation grew so much in repute, 
even among the nobles and higher classes of Germany, that 
many of them had the five letters, Y. D. M. I. JS., initial 
letters of the words Verbum Domini manet in aster- 



PERPETUITY OF THE WORD. 89 

mm, "The word of the Lord endureth forever," 1 
embroidered, or set in plates, some upon their cloaks, and 
others upon the sleeves of their garments. This was done 
to signify that, forsaking all popish traditions, they would 
now cleave to the pure doctrines and discipline of the 
eternal Word. 

Prior to 1535, the Vaudois had only the New Testa- 
ment, and some books of the Old, translated into their 
language ; . but after that they participated in the benefits 
of the Reformation, and possessed themselves of the whole 
Bible in a printed form. Their spirit was expressed in the 
words of their heroic pastor, Geoffry Yaraille : "You will 
sooner want wood wherewith to burn us, than men ready 
to burn in witness of their faith. From day to day we 
multiply, and the word of God endureth forever." 

A poor boy, about ten years old, brought a few jJcnce, 
his savings from the small presents which his father had 
occasionally made him, to obtain a Bible. He was asked 
if, when the fruit should be ripe, he would not repent 
having given away all his money. " Oh, no ! " he replied, 
with great vivacity ; ' ' what we eat is soon gone, but the 
word of God endureth forever." 

That word, received in faith, gives life and feeds life. 
The same truths that are now building up holy character 
will keep on doing it through eternity. For aught that 
appears to the contrary the Bible holds the germs of all 
spiritual truths ; all truths that can minister to the soul's 
advancement in holiness. It may be that in heaven we 
shall not learn anything absolutely new ; that everlasting 

1 1 Pet. i. 25. 

8* 



90 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

ages will only serve to unfold more fully what the sacred | 

Scriptures contain in brief. 

Ay, fixed for everlasting years, 

Unmoved amid the wreck of spheres, 
Thy Word shall shine in cloudless clay, 

When heaven and earth have passed away. 

GRANT. 




V. 

GOOD NEWS. 

I. SEEKING THE LOST. 

HY the long journey from heaven ? Why the 
long sojourn amidst poverty and scorn? 
Why the toilsome ministry amidst cities and 
villages of Galilee and Judea? Wily put up with such 
fault-finding and abuse as assail him everywhere ? Why 
the journey to Jerusalem, and the known betrayal, re- 
jection, and cruel death there? Ah ! "the Son of Man 
came to seek and to save that which was lost." 1 

A brother of the noted preacher, Whit-field, had fallen 
into a backslidden state ; but, under a sermon by his 
brother, in the Countess of Huntingdon's chapel, at Bath, 
it pleased God to arouse him. from that state ; after Avhich, 
however, he became melancholy and despairing. He was 
taking tea with the Countess of Huntingdon, on a service 
evening, in the chapel-house, and her ladyship endeavored 
to raise his desponding hopes by conversing on God's in- 
finite mercy through Jesus Christ. "My lady," he re- 
plied, " I know what you say is true. The mercy of God 
is infinite. I see it clearly. But, ah ! my lady, there is 
no mercy for me : I am a wretch entirely lost." "I am 
glad to hear it, Mr. Whitfield," said she; "I am glad at 

'Lukexix. 10. 91 



92 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

my heart that you are a lost man." He looked up with 
great surprise. " What, my lady, glad ! glad at your 
heart that I am a lost man?" "Yes, Mr. Whitfield, 
truly glad ; for Jesus Christ came into the world to save 
the lost ! " He laid down his cup of tea. " Blessed be 
God for that ! " said he ; " Glory to God for that word ! " 
he exclaimed. "Oh, what unusual power is this which 
I feel attending it ! Jesus Christ came to save the lost ! 
Then I have a ray of hope ; " and so he went on. The 
same evening he died in peace. 

An English physician, towards the close of his last sick- 
ness, said to a friend, "I want you to print for me, in 
large letters, these words, ' The Son of Man is come to 
seek and to save that which was lost ; ' and these words, 
from Rutherford's Letters, ' I want nothing now but a 
further revelation of the beauty of the unseen Son of 
God,' and hang them on the posts at the foot of rny bed, 
to remain there till I die." Much of the time he seemed 
to be engaged in communion with his Saviour, repeating 
again and again these words : " The Son of Man is come 
to seek and to save that which was lost." Later, collect- 
ing his struggling breath, he said, solemnly, "He came 
to seek and to save that which was lost ! I was lost ; 
you know well, lost." " And he found you ? " " Yes ; 
stop there : ' He found me.' " 

Make that precious truth the pillow for your dying 
head. There rest your soul's hope without wavering 
while life lasts. Let it bring immortal comfort to your 
heart, that "the Son of Man is come to seek and to 
save that which was lost." 



THE INVITATION. 93 



17. THE INVITATION. 

" With tearful eyes I look around, 

Life seems a dark and stormy sea; 
Yet, 'midst the gloom, I hear a sound, 
A heavenly whisper, ' Come to me.' 

"When nature shudders, loth to part 

From all I love, enjoy, and see ; 
When a faint chill steals o'er my heart, 
A sweet voice utters, ' Come 1 to me.' 

" voice of mercy ! voice of love ! 

In conflict, grief, and agony, 
Support me, cheer me from above, 
And gently whisper, 'Come to me.'" 

AT the noonday prayer-meeting in New York, 1 a Swe- 
dish sailor spoke thus : " One night, as I was standing at 
the wheel, I bethought me of Christ," and my heart turned 
to him for help. With my very first thoughts of him, he 
met me at the wheel, and, oh, what words of love and 
mercy he spoke to me there at the wheel ! ' Come to me, 
ye heavy laden, come to me ; I cast none out. I am meek 
and lowly of heart. Learn of me ; take my yoke ; it is 
easy. Take my burden; my grace shall make it light.' 
There, at the wheel, in the dark and solemn hour, the 
Saviour showed himself to me. I love him because he 
first loved me. I cannot speak your language Avell ; but 
Christ understands me, and I understand him. ,Ever 

1 1858. 



94 SEEDS AND SHEA7ES. 

since I met him at the wheel, poor sinners' friend, 
I live very close to him. I hear him tell me to hold up 
my sails to the gales of the blessed Spirit, and he will 
waft me straight to heaven." 

These words, " Come unto me," 1 fall like music from 
heaven upon our ears. They come like a cooling breeze 
and a refreshing draught to one who pants in the desert. 
If the rest of Scripture were lost, what a Bible would 
remain in this passage ! Here is the very marrow of 
divine love. 

The Rev. David Nelson relates that after attending a 
brilliant party at the house of a young man of wealth, 
when the crowd had dispersed, he sat down with him for 
the purpose of religious conversation. His young friend 
acknowledged that he would gladly become a Christian if 
he knew what to do. " Suppose," said Dr. Nelson, " the 
Lord Jesus stood in this room, and you knew it was the 
Lord Jesus, and he should look kindly on you, and 
stretch out his hand towards you, and should say, ' Come 
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will 
give you rest,' what would you do?" " I would go to 
him, and fall down before him, and ask him to save me," 
was the reply. "But what if your gay young companions 
were in the room, and they should point and laugh at 
you ? " "I should not care for that. I should go to the 
Lord Jesus." "Well, the Lord Jesus is really in this 
room, though you cannot see him; and he stretches out 
his hand to you, and says, ' Come unto me ; ' and you 

1 Matthow xi. 28. 



TUE INVITATION. 95 

should believe what he says in his letter, the Bible, as 
much as though you heard the words." Soon after the 
conversation, Dr. Nelson had the pleasure of meeting this 
young man at the table of our Lord. 

What is coming to Christ? It is a movement of the 
heart ; it is believing in him ; it is turning from self and 
looking unto Jesus, with the cry, " To whom shall we go 
but unto thee ? " 

The Rev Samuel Kilpin, after catechizing the children 
of his Sabbath school, on one occasion, proposed to them 
certain questions founded on these same "words. The at- 
tention of the children being attracted to the Great 
Preacher, the Lord Jesus, different boys said he was "the 
eternal Son of God," "the Redeemer," "the Everlasting 
Father," " the Prince of Peace." The pastor then asked 
how persons are to come to Christ. The children said we 
must come as " poor sinners," " helpless sinners ; " " not 
as righteous, but as needy sinners." A little girl was 
addressed thus : "Who do you think is the person who 
speaks in the text?" " Christ, sir." "Is it important 
that we go to him? " " We shall perish if we do not." 
''Do you go to him?" "I hope I do." "How?" 
"Through his grace; by faith and prayer." "But sup- 
pose you were to go once or twice without obtaining your 
request, how would you act?" "I would go again and 
again.; I would go forever, but I would have it." This 
was said with so much earnestness of look and counte- 
nance, as to make it evident she felt what she said. Per- 
ceiving the attention of the children all fixed upon him 
through this little creature, he said, "You then think 



96 SEEDS AXD SHEAVES. 

that the Saviour will save you at last?" "Yes, sir." 
" Now, then, every one of you tell me in turn," said he, 
"what you think of him." The ardor of all their minds 
was at oneo perceptible ; and the first said, " I think, sir, 
lie is an able Saviour ; the next, a willing Saviour ; 
others, a gracious Saviour, a ready Saviour, a justifying 
Saviour, the ever-blessed Saviour, a sanctifying Saviour, 
a Saviour that is God and man, a holy Saviour, a right- 
eous Saviour, the Saviour of all that come unto God by 
him, an indulgent Saviour, a meek Saviour, a dying 
Saviour, a risen Saviour, a blessed Saviour, a pleading 
Saviour, an all-sufficient Saviour, a prayer-hearing and 
answering Saviour, a faithful Saviour." They had nearly 
exhausted their theme, when a little boy exclaimed, with 
much gravity, "He is the chiefest among ten thousand; 
he is altogether lovely." 

Those invited are bidden to take Christ's yoke upon 
them ; and, when the love of Christ once eonstraineth, 
they, being sweetly vanquished, pass under his yoke as 
glad captives of such a conqueror. 

" I remember," says the Rev. Matthew Henry, in writ- 
ing the account of his father's life, " a passage of his in a 
lecture, in the year 1674, which much affected many. 
He was preaching on that text, ' My yoke is easy ; ' and, 
after many things insisted on to prove the yoke of Christ 
an easy yoke, he at last appealed to the experiences of all 
who had drawn in that yoke : ' Call, now (if there be any 
that will answer you), and to which of the saints will you 
turn ? Turn to which you will, and they will all agree 
that they found wisdom's ways pleasantness, and Christ's 



THE INVITATION. 97, 

commandments not grievous; and, said he, I will here 
witness for one who, through grace, has, in some poor 
measure, been drawing this yoke now above thirty years ; 
and I have found it an easy yoke, and like my choice too 
well to change.' " 

Rest ensues, a holy, satisfying rest to the weary soul, 
to the soul heavy laden with sins, temptations, doubts, 
and griefs. Finding Christ, the heart finds, like the 
magnet, its pole. 

A Scottish penitent, at the place of execution, was en- 
abled to lay hold on this promise, saying, "I challenge 
thee, Lord, by that promise which thou hast made, that 
thou perform and make it good unto me, who call for ease 
and mercy at thy hands." 

Mr. Dudley, an agent of the British and Foreign Bible 
Society, relates the following : 

In the county of Kent -lives or lived a clergyman and 
his lady, who took a very active part in the Sunday 
school connected with his church. They had in the school 
a boy' the only son of a widow, who was notoriously 
wicked, despising all the earnest prayers and admonitions 
pf the clergyman, who, out of pity for his poor widowed 
mother, kept him in the school eighteen months ; at length 
he found it absolutely necessary to dismiss the lad as a 
warning to others. He enlisted as a soldier in a regiment 
that was soon ordered to America, during the last Ameri- 
can war. Some time after, the poor widow called upon 
the clergyman to beg a Bible of the smallest size. Sur- 
prised at such a request from an individual who was on the 
verge of eternity, and who he knew had one or two Bibles 
9 



98 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

of large print, -which she had long used to good purpose, 
he inquired what she wanted it for. She answered, " A 
regiment is going out to America, and I want to send it to 
my poor boy ; and, sir, who knows what it may do? " 
She sent the Bible, which the clergyman gave her, by a 
pious soldier, who, upon his arrival at their destination, 
found the widow's son the very ringleader of the regiment 
in every description of vice. After the soldier had made 
himself known, he said, " James, your mother has sent 
you her last present." " Ah ! " he replied, in a careless 
manner, "is she gone at last? I hope she sent me some 
-cash." The pious soldier told him he believed the poor 
widow was dead; "but," said he, "she has sent you 
something of more value than gold or silver (presenting 
him with the Bible) ; and, James, it was her dying re- 
quest that you would read one verse, at least, of this book 
every day ; and can you refuse her dying charge ? " 
" Well," said James, " it is not too much to ask (opening 
the Bible), so here goes." He opened the Bible at the 
words, " Come unto me, all ye that are weary and 1 heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest." " Well," said he, " this 
is very odd. I have opened to the only verse in the Bible 
that I could ever learn by heart when I was in the Sunday 
school ; I never could, for the life of me, commit another. 
It is very strange ; but who is this me that is mentioned 
in the verse?" The pious soldier asked if he did not 
know. He replied that he did not. The good man then 
explained it to him, spoke to him of Jesus, and exhibited 
the truth arid invitations of the gospel, They walked to 
the house of the chaplain, where they had farther conver- 



THE INVITATION. 99 

sation ; the result was, that from that hour he became a 
changed man, and was as noted for exemplary conduct 
as before he had been for his wickedness. Some time 
after this conversation, the regiment in which he was, 
engaged the enemy; at the close of which, the pious 
soldier, in walking through the field of blood, beheld, 
under a large spreading oak, the dead body of James, his 
head reclining on his Bible, which was opened at the pas- 
sage, " Come unto me, all ye that are weary." Mr. 
Dudley said he had frequently held the Bible in his hand ; 
there were no less than fifty pages stained with the blood 
of poor James. 

In the Newport church, Isle of "Wight, is a monument, 
erected by Queen Victoria, which consists of a female 
figure, reclining her head on a marble book, with the text 
now referred to engraved on the open page. It is in 
memory of the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Charles 
I, who lies buried there. She languished in Carisbrook 
Castle during the Commonwealth wars, a prisoner, alone, 
and separated from all the companions of her youth, until 
death set her free. She was found dead one day, with 
her head leaning on her Bible, and the Bible open at the 
words, " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest." 

" Come hither," says the Son of God, 
Whoever loathe sin's weavy load, 

And would no longer bear it; 
Come hithev, young and old, in me 
One knowing well your ruin see 

Whose grace, too, can repair it. 



100 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

My yoke is mild, my burden light, 
And all who choose Us easy weight, 

Their souls from hell deliver ; 
I'll give them strength, when theirs would fail, 
And by my strength they shall prevail, 
Exulting in the Giver. 

From the German of WITZSTAEDT. 



III. NONE REJECTED. 

A CLERGYMAN was called to visit a poor, dying woman, 
whom he found wholly unacquainted Avith the truth. He 
conversed with her on the guilt and wretchedness of man, 
and the way of salvation by Jesus Christ ; that it is all of 
grace, and that there is no limit as to person or state. The 
woman listened with great attention ; tears began to trickle 
down her cheeks, and at last she said, " I know nothing of 
the man whom you have been speaking of," immediately 
adding, " I was never brought up in the way of religion, 
never taught to know a letter of a book, nor attend any 
place of worship." The clergyman visited her next day, 
and spoke of the ability and willingness of Jesus to save 
perishing sinners. ' " And do you think, sir," said she, " he 
will save such a vile wretch as I am ? " He replied, ' l The 
promise runs thus : ' Him that cometh to me I will in no wise 
cast out.' " l Here she found something to rest upon. Her 
knowledge of divine things rapidly increased, and fervent 
devotions seemed to be the constant breathings of her soul. 
She continued in this state several weeks, soliciting the 

'John vi, 37. 



NONE REJECTED. 101 

company of Christian friends to converse and pray with her, 
and gave, evident marks of being a subject of renewing 
grace. These same words proved a refuge to Brownlow 
North. 

Bishop Butler on his death-bed was deeply exercised 
with a sense of his sins, finding, upon review, so much of 
imperfection, even in his best and most pious endeavors to 
serve God. One of his chaplains said to him : " Admit-, 
my lord, all you say to be true, that your very alms have 
partaken of sin, that the ' Analogy ' would condemn you 
for mingling your own glory with that which should have 
been given solely to God ; yet, why all this anxiety and 
alarm ? Jesus has said, ' Whosoever conieth unto me shall 
in no wise be cast out; ' and in that promise you should 
find peace." The bishop raised himself .in his bed, and 
exclaimed, ' How wonderful that, as often as I have traced 
every line of the Bible, the full force of that passage has 
never struck me before ! ' Whosoever ' includes all, 
all may come ; ' shall in no wise be cast out,' gives the 
assurance that no amount of sin, no depths of guilt, of 
which men may be guilty, shall prevent God from receiving 
and accepting them, if they come to him through Christ ; 
his blood has atoned for all sin, and his righteousness will 
hide the iniquities of all who accept his offers of mercy." 
He lived many weeks after, and preached to all who 
approached him the full and free salvation of the gospel, as 
it is condensed in this blessed passage. 

Few as these words are, they have a heaven of meaning. 
Christ is infinitely sincere, and every one who goes to him 

finds that, so far from being cast out, he is made most 
9* 



102 . SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

welcome, and is taken into the very heart of a sacred 
home. 

The Rev. William Jay one day attended the dying-bed 
of a young woman, who thus addressed him : "I have a 
little to relate as my experience. I have been much tried 
and tempted, but this is my sheet-anchor : He has said, 
' Him that corneth to me I will in no wise cast out ! ' I 
know I come to him ; and I expect he will be as good as 
his word. Poor and unworthy as I am, He will not trifle 
with me ; it would be beneath his greatness as well as his 
goodness. I am at his feet, as you have often said : 

" ' Tis joy enough, ray All in all, 

At thy dear feet to lie ; 
Thou wilt not let me lower fall ; 
And none can higher fly.' " 

" Ah, what did I now see in that blessed sixth of John ! " 
exclaimed one : " ' Him tl^at cometh to me I will in no 
wise cast out.' Oh, many a pull hath my heart had with 
Satan for that blessed sixth of John ! A word, a word to 
lean a weary soul upon, that it might not sink forever ! It 
was that I hunted for." 

At one of the Fulton Street prayer-meetings, in 1858, 
a gentleman arose and said, ' ' I came to hear, not to say a 
word. But when, on coming into the room, I saw hanging 
on the wall this passage, ' Him that cometh unto me I will 
in no wise cast out ; ' and when I hear these requests read, 
and feel that there are some poor sinners in this room that 
need just such an assurance as that, I cannot hold my 
peace." Then he told of another place and another scene. 



NONE REJECTED. . 103 

He was from the West ; and in the West he accosted a little 
girl, not, supposing she was a Christian. u 'Do you love 
the Bible ? ' said I to her. ' Yes, sir, I love the Bible.' 
' Is there any one portion of it, or one passage of it, which 
you love better than the rest ? ' ' Yes, sir, there is, though 
I love all the Bible. If I may be permitted, I love this 
more than any other: " Him that cometh to me I will in 
no wise cast out." ' There she rested," said the speaker, 
" and there every sinner may rest his hopes for eternity. 
I feel impelled to speak, because I believe and feel 
that the destiny of souls hangs upon the hour. Look, 
sinners, at the passage on the wall. There is a whole 
sermon in it. No matter what a sinner you have been, 
' Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.' " 

There is the glorious gospel in one line,' the hope of all 
repenting sinners; the consolation of all true believers, 
living or dying. Who need go beyond or back of that ? 

Who ever tried aright and failed ? Who ever met with 
mere cold civility ? Who ever found Christ indisposed or 
unable to 'do all that he has promised ? Rev. James 
Durham, a minister of Glasgow, in the seventeenth century, 
said, on his death-bed, to Carstairs, an intimate friend: 
" Brother, for all that I have preached and written, there 
is but one Scripture I can remember, or dare to grip to. 
Tell me if I dare lay the weight of my salvation upon it ? 
' Whosoever cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.' " 
Mr. Carstairs answered, " You may depend upon it, though 
you had a thousand salvations at hazard." 

A young minister came to see an old man by the name 
of Job. As he came from the light and airiness of out-doors 



104 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

to his little dark bedroom, the change, quite likely, looked 
dismal enough. " I am an old plank, sir," said Job, " but 
the Lord Jesus will find some spot in his temple where 
such as I fit in. The good book says he will in no wise 
east out those that put faith in him. My mother used to 
make a great point of that. ' No wise,' says she ; and I 
have to bless God that I had a mother who knowed Jesus 
Christ. She took me on her knee and told me about him ; 
she took me to prayer-meeting ; she fetched me to God's 
house, and I used to like hearing the singers praise him. 
Afore she died she saw me fairly set in the way, the { liv- 
ing wayj says she. { Job,' says she, ' you must be a live 
Christian ; they don't have dead things to make up the 
living way.' So I've tried to pull foot, and when I've been 
lame and discouraged, and sometimes wasn't so sure how 
the way went ? I set to praying as my mother used to, and 
then such a shining as there was ! There was shine on 
the track, and shine inside me, and these old rafters 
overhead sometimes have a look like his glorious temple. 
sir, God is a good God. Those who follow hard after 
him have good pay good pay ; not that they 'arn their 
wages, for we are poor, sinful, lazy creatures of ourselves ; 
but we have a merciful God that is willing to try the 
refuse." The young minister had a long sitting at old 
Job's bedside, and he thought within himself, as he went 
away, "How can I ever be anxious about my house or sal- 
ary, when my God can make a poor little liack bedroom 
like that one of the brightest and happiest spots on 
earth?" 



THE FAITHFUL SAYING. 105 

" ' Iii no wise cast thee out; ' the words are spoken, 
And, Jesus, never can thy word be broken ! 
Here then I lay me down and take my rest, 
Calm as an infant on its mother's breast. 

" ' In no wise cast thee out,' I need not care 
To seek in this dark heart what is not there ; 
Alike from good or ill in self I flee, 
To find my righteousness, my all, in Thee. 

" 'In no wise cast thee out,' I live, I die, 
And, fearless, pass into eternity, 
Eesting on this alone. Thy word is .given ! 
That word secures my safety and my heaven." 



IV. THE 'FAITHFUL BATING. 

THE ancient saying, "Know thyself," alleged to have 
come down from heaven, was indeed worthy to be set in 
gilded letters where it would attract all eyes. There are 
multitudes of aphorisms which it is well to treasure up ; 
but what is the value of the whole compared with one of 
Paul's, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all 
acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save 
sinners " ? l 

Bishop Hedding stated, at a missionary meeting, a cir- 
cumstance related to him. by a missionary from the West 
Indies. A minister gave out for his text these words : 
' ' This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, 
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." 

1 1 Tim. i. 15. 



106 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

A poor negro in the congregation, -who had but recently 
felt the power of religion, was so affected by the text that 
he requested the minister to read it again. The minister 
did so. "Be so good, rnassa, read the text again." He 
read it once more. " Do," says the negro, " massa, read 
it again; it makes my soul feel so good!" Faithful 
saying, and worthy of all acceptation ! It is just the one 
for the ignorant and the simple ; they can understand it 
as well as any one. 

"Those promises," so writes the Key. John Brown, 
"have been sweetest to me which extend to men, if they 
are but out of hell. ' It is a faithful saying, and worthy 
of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world 
to save sinners, of whom I am chief.' Once these words 
were sweet to my soul. I thought, ill as I was, I could 
not be worse than the chief of sinners. Conscience said 
that I was the most wicked wretch that ever breathed, and 
that I had showed myself to be such, especially by rebel- 
ling against convictions, and by trampling on Christ's 
alluring words; yet, since Christ came to save sinners, 
even the chief, why, thought I, should I except my- 
self?" ' . 

" Oh, how precious to my recollection," exclaims Dr. 
James W. Alexander, "is St. Mary's Church, Alderman- 
bury, near which I once lodged, because there it was that 
poor Joseph, having a large parcel of yarn hanging over 
his shoulders, went in and heard the text which saved him ! 
1 Timothy i. 15. On his dying-bed, the happy, simple 
soul possessed the certitude of God's love to him as a 
sinner. For, you remember, when some of the religious 



THE FAITHFUL SAYING. 107 

sort' asked, 'But what say you of your own heart, 
Joseph ? is there no token of good about it ? no saving 
change there? Have you closed with Christ, by acting 
faith upon him? ' 'Ah! no,' replied he, ' Joseph can act 
nothing, Joseph has nothing to say of himself but that 
he is the chief of sinners ; yet, seeing that it is a faithful 
saying that Jesus, he who made all things, came into 
the world to save sinners, why may not Joseph, after all, 
be saved ? ' We have stood by the dying bed of great and 
learned Christians, long the guides of others in theology, 
but their faith was that of poor Joseph, a divinely- 
wrought persuasion of G-od's love to them, evidenced by 
the gift of his own Son." 

Children can apprehend the meaning. A clergyman 
once visited a deaf and dumb asylum in London, for the 
purpose of examining the children in the knowledge they 
possessed of divine truth. A little boy was asked, in 
writing, "Who made the world?" He wrote, underneath 
the question, "In the beginning God created the heaven 
and the earth." The clergyman then inquired, in a simi- 
lar manner, "Why did Jesus Christ come into the 
world? " A smile of delight and gratitude rested on the 
countenance of the little fellow, as he wrote, " This is a 
faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus 
Christ came into the world to save sinners." A third 
question was then proposed, peculiarly suited to call into 
exercise his most powerful feelings : " Why were you 
born deaf and dumb, while I can hear and speak?" 
"Never," said an eye-witness, "shall I forget the look 
of holy resignation and chastened sorrow which sat on his 



108 SEEDS AND SHEAVES, 

countenance, as he took the chalk and wrote, 'Even so, 
Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.' " 

An incident took place at Long Kloff, one of the stations 
of the London Missionary Society in South Africa, which 
shows how even young children may get good, and do 
good, by what they learn at school from.the Word of God. 
A wicked man, who cared nothing for his soul, was per- 
suaded by a relative to send two of his children to the 
mission school, one a boy of eight, and the other a girl 
of six years old. As the station was some distance from 
their home, the missionary took care of them ; but, after 
a few weeks, the father wanted the boy to take care of 
some cattle, and came to fetch him from school. The 
little fellow, however, loved his teachers and liked his 
lessons. He did not wish to go home, and told his father 
so. When asked the reason, he said, "It is because I ' 
can learn nothing, good at the place where father lives." 
" But," said the father, " what good can such a thing as you 
learn here do? " " Father," answered the boy, " I have 
learned something." "Repeat it, then," said the man; 
when the boy replied, " ' This is a faithful saying, and 
worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the 
world to save sinners.' Does father know who Jesus 
Christ is? He is the Son of God. Does father know 
who are sinners? All are sinners." This conversation 
so affected the father that he returned home without the 
boy, and in a few weeks came back an altered man, 
having, as he expressed it, met with the precious Word of 
God. 

Said a teacher to his boys, one day, "Tell me, now, 



THE FAITHFUL SAYING. 109 

what was the best news that you ever heard ? " One boy 
said it was, that his father, who had been long away at 
sea, was coining home. Another, that he was to have a 
new Bible all his own. One, who had lived almost all 
his life in the country, said "the news that pleased him 
best was, that he was going to London. Another, brought 
up in London, had been most glad to hear that he was 
going into the country. One little boy, the last of all, 
said, " I think the best news I ever heard, teacher, was, 
that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners." 

John Newton, in preaching once to the prisoners in 
Newgate, chose this for his text. He wept, and they 
wept, as he told his own history, and enlarged upon "this 
faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ 
Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am 
the chief." Who should not burn with desire to report 
that saying ; to whisper it in the ear of companions ; to 
go forth among the perishing and proclaim it ? 

"A poor man," says one, "who had been a member of 
a church and a teacher in a Sabbath school, had fallen 
first into bad living, and from that into lax views, and at 
last into professed Atheism. On his death-bed he was 
visited by great horror of mind. No one who saw him 
can ever forget his terror-stricken aspect, his continual 
groans, his despairing cries. The very bed shook under 
his trembling frame. His friends earnestly desired the 
presence of a minister. It so happened that no ordained 
minister could be procured, and I, then a preacher fresh 
from college, was the only spiritual help at hand. I had 
studied infidelity in books, but I had never seen it in the 

10 



110 SEEDS jlJVI> H a BAY EH. 

life before. I now saw it breaking like a frail reed under 
the pressure of a soul's agony. When I asked the poor 
man the cause of his terrible distress, he replied, 'My 
sins, rny many sins ! ' Unable, in the emergency, to 
speak any fitting words of my own, I kept repeating some 
of those great Bible texts which have been the stay of 
sinking souls in all ages. One of these texts was 1 Tim- 
othy i. 15 : ' This is a faithful saying, and worthy of 
all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the AYorld to 
save sinners, of whom I am chief.' The man caught 
the text, or rather the text laid hold of him ; he requested 
me to repeat it, which I did ; he asked me whether it was 
true, and I assured him that it was indubitably true, 
the word of God, who cannot lie. He believed it. The 
effect was instantaneous, literally in a single moment 
the expression of horror on his countenance was changed 
into a smile of peace. It was like a miracle. Never, 
before or since, have I seen anything so wonderful. The 
poor man remained quietly resting on this word, often 
repeating it to those around him, till, two days after, he 
died, as I trust, in the Lord." 

Thomas Bilney, the reformer, had already excelled in 
the study of the civil and canon law, had become a 
Fellow of Trinity Hall and a Doctor of Laws, when, fall- 
ing into great distress of mind, he applied to the priests. 
They appointed him fastings and watching, with the pur- 
chase of pardons and masses. "But, at the last," says 
he, "I heard speak of Jesus, even then, when the New 
Testament was first set forth by Erasmus. Which, when 
I understood to be eloquently done by him, being allured 



THE FAITHFUL SAYING. Ill 

rather for the Latin than for the Word of God, for at 
that time I knew not what it meant, I bought it even 
by the Providence of God, as I do now well understand 
and perceive. And, at the first reading, as I well remem- 
ber, I chanced upon this sentence of St. Paul (Oh, sweet 
and comfortable sentence to my soul!), in his first epistle 
to Timothy, and first chapter : ' It is a true saying, and 
worthy of all men to be embraced, that Christ Jesus came 
into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief and 
principal.' This one sentence, through God's instruction 
and inward teaching, which I did not then perceive, did so 
exhilarate my heart, being before wounded with the guilt 
of my sins, and being almost in despair, that immediately 
I felt a marvellous comfort and quietness, insomuch that 
my bruised bones leapt for joy. After this, the Scripture 
began to be more pleasant to me than honey and the honey- 
comb. Wherein I learned that all my travels, all my 
fasting and watching, all the redemption of masses and 
pardons, being done without truth in Christ, who alone 
saveth his people from their sins, these, I say, I learned 
to be nothing else but even, as Augustine saith, a hasty 
and swift running 'out of the right way." 

"I have taken much pains," says the learned Selden, 
"to know everything that was esteemed worth knowing 
among men ; but, with all my disquisitions and reading, 
nothing now remains with me to comfort me, at the close 
of life, but this passage of St. Paul: 'It is a faithful 
saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus 
came into the world to save sinners.' To this I cleave,' 
and herein I find rest." 



112 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

Here is a shield and buckler against the assaults of 
Satan. Luther records: " Once upon a time, the devil 
came to me, and said, l Martin Luther, you are a great 
sinner, and you will be damned ! ' ' Stop ! stop ! ' said 
I, ' one thing at -a time ; I am a great sinner, it is true, 
though you have no right to tell me of it. I confess it ; 
what next ? Therefore you will be damned. That is not 
good reasoning. It is true, I am a great sinner ; but it 
is written, < Jesus Christ came to save sinners,' therefore 
I shall be saved. Now, go your way.' So I cut the devil 
off with his own sword, and he went away mourning be- 
cause he could not cast me clown by calling me a sinner." 

Rev. E. D, Jackson, when very near his end, was 
asked by one of his deacons if he preferred any text from 
which his death might be improved to his people. He 
said " No ; " but, pausing a moment, added, " Except that 
which has been my living doctrine, and is now my dying 
hope : ' It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all accepta- 
tion, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sin- 
ners, of whom I am chief.' Give my love to the church, 
and say that I wish them a better and: more faithful 
pastor." 

On hearing of G-ellert's danger, Mr. Heyer came to 
Leipsic to see him. The moment Gellert recognized him, 
he said, " This is a truth, and worthy to be received of all 
men, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sin- 
ners; this, my dear friend, this is my confession of faith 
on my death-bed." 

Dr. Archibald Alexander, of Princeton, ' New Jersey, 
said, on his death-bed, "All my theology is reduced to 



" TO THE UTTERMOST." 1 13 

this narrow compass, ' Jesus Christ came into the world 
to save sinners.' " 

Approaching the close of his last sickness, the Rev. 
George B. Little said, "You remember that last verse in 
my German hymn, 

i 

" < Ah ! then T have my heart's desire, 
When singing with the angels' choir , 
Among the ransomed of thy grace. 
Forever I behold thy face.' 

If I have any verse on my tombstone^ I should like that ; 
and if I have any passage of Scripture upon it, I think of 
no other I prefer to this : l This is a faithful saying, and 
worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the 
world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.' " 

It is not as preachers, but as men, that ministers die 
and are to be saved. The Master will not accept sacred- 
ness of office in place of the atoning sacrifice. Pastors, 
in common with the humblest of their flocks, need the 
plain assurances of holy writ for the support and comfort 
of their own souls in all trying hours. 



7. "TO THE UTTERMOST" 

WHA.T can be so unreasonable as unbelief, or what less 
authorized than despair, while such words as these are on 
record, "Wherefore he is able to save them to the utter- 
most that come unto God by him" ? [ 

1 Hebrews vii. 25. 
10* 



114 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

John Bunyan relates that, after continuing one day, 
from morning until seven or eight at night, " much under 
this question, ' Whether the blood of Christ is sufficient to 
save his soul,' suddenly, as he is quite worn out with fear, 
these words ' sound within. his heart. He is able! Me- 
thought," says he, "this word 'able' was spoke loud to 
me ; it showed a great word ; it seemed to be writ in great 
letters, and gave such a jostle to my fear and doubt as I 
never had from that time, all my life, either before or 
after." 

Those who have read the memoir of Bishop Wilson, 
must have been struck with the clear views which he had 
of sin and the Saviour. His own convictions of guilt were 
deep and thorough. Speaking of himself previous to con- 
version, though he had lived comparatively blameless, he 
says, "Such is the total depravity and vileness of my 
soul, that words cannot express its abominations. Indeed, 
the sum-total of my present situation is, that I am the 
most miserable, vile, and wretched creature that ever 
lived; and all I can do is, to look unto Jesus as my 
only helper, and cry unto him for mercy; and but for 
that blessed word, ' uttermost,' my case would be help- 
less." 

The longest life only confirms this truth. At the age 
of seventy-nine, John Newton testified: "I have been 
enabled to commit my soul to him who says, c Him that 
conieth to me I will in no wise cast out,' and 'who is able 
to save to the uttermost.' These two texts have been as 
two sheet-anchors, by which my soul has rode out many a 
storm, when otherwise hope would have failed. ' In no 



" TO THE UTTERMOST" 115 

wise ' takes in all characters, and ' to the uttermost ' goes 
many a league beyond all difficulties. I recommend these 
anchors; they are sure and steadfast." 

This can give confidence amidst the dissolution of soul 
and body. "My dear," said the wife of Eev. J. Payne, 
one of the early Methodists, to her husband, "you seem 
as if your heart was breaking." "Let it break, let it 
break," was his reply; " Jesus saves to the uttermost, 
to the uttermost." 

'Dr. Thomas Scott, after a season of peculiar enjoyment 
on his death-bed, suffered for a while under a cloud, much 
confusion and gloom being experienced. He cried earnestly 
to God, and said, "All my calm and comfort are gone; 
nothing remains of them but a faint recollection. Well, 
after all, God is greater .than Satan. Is not Christ all- 
sufficient? 'Can he not save to the uttermost? Has he 
not promised to save ? Lord, deliver me, suffer not 
Satan to prevail. Pity, pity, Lord, pity me! " 

The uttermost, upon the skirts 

Of the far host of life, 
Who share not, on the heights of power 

Its glory, or its strife ; 
They bear the burden and the toil, 

Nor banner lift, nor plume, 
Yet there's an Eye that marks them all 

Amidst their rayless gloom. 

The uttermost, the lost in sin, 

The lost, whom men condemn, 
And banish from the realm of hope, 

He careth even for them ; 



116 SEEDS AND SHEAVES, 

He listeneth at their prison-gate 
For prayer, or contrite sigh ; 

He knockcth long, he knocketh late, 
Even where is no reply. 

The uttermost, till life recedes, 

Even to the latest sand 
Of time's most frail and brittle glass, 

He still doth waiting stand ; 
He bendeth o'er the dying man 

Till the glazed eye is dim ; 
He saveth to the uttermost, 

That all may trust in him. 

MRS. SIGOURNEY. 



VI. 

FORGIVEN AND SAVED. 

I. THE WAT. 

" Thou art the "Way ; and he who sighs, 

Amid this starless waste of woe, 
To find a pathway to the skies, 

A light from heaven's eternal glow, 
By thee must come, thou gate of love, 

Through which the saints, undoubtiug, trod ; 
Till faith discovers, like the clove, 

An ark, a resting-place in God." 

AM the way." 1 I stand between thee and Him 
who came dow-n upon Sinai. One hand I place 
on thy head ; the other on the top of that burning 
mount, Thunderings cease ; indignation no longer flashes 
from the summit. The Father is well pleased with me, 
and with thee, too, for my sake. This is the way opened 
for complete salvation, escape from wretchedness into 
blessedness, from sin into holiness, from earth into heaven. 
" I am the way." We are to believe and receive, not so 
much Christianity as Christ. The heart is claimed by a 
person rather than by a system. The voice here speaking 
does not announce a guide-book, nor merely a guide, but 
the way ; and that way not an abstraction, not a subject 

1 John xiv. 6. 

117 




118 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

for speculation, not a theme for meditation, but a living 
personage. 

" I am the way," not a way. There are many ways to 
ruin ; there is only one to heaven ; and that is neither by 
merit, as good works ; nor by ceremony, as baptism ; nor 
by corporate relation, as church-membership ; but imme- 
diately by Christ, and by him not as medium, but as 
Mediator. 

A student for the Christian ministry was brought, in the 
course of providence, into the company of a young lady 
just recovering from a dangerous illness. She was still 
very weak, but liked, as most persons do when recovering, 
to tell how much she had suffered, and how remarkable was 
the preservation of her life. 

Among other things, she said, " At one time, I sent for 
my aged parents, and my beloved brothers and sisters, and 
took, as I thought, my last farewell of them. Both the 
physicians had given me up, and my friends expected to 
see me no more." 

As she finished this sentence, the student said to her, 

" We seldom meet with a person who has been so near 
to death as you have been. Pray tell me what were your 
feelings when you were on the verge of eternity." 

"I was happy," she replied. 

"And will you please to tell me what were your 
prospects?" 

" I hoped to go to heaven, of course," 

" Had you no doubts, no fears, no suspicions? " 

"None." . 

"Perhaps almost all hope to go to heaven. But I 



THE WAY. 119 

fear," said the young man, " there are very few who have 
a good foundation for their hope. Pray, on -what was 
your hope founded? " 

"Founded ! " she replied; " why, I had never injured 
any person ; and I had endeavored to do all the good in my 
power. Was not this sufficient ? " 

"It is a delightful reflection," said the student, "that, 
you have never injured any person ; and it is still more 
delightful to think that you have done all the good in your 
power. But even this is a poor foundation for a sinner to 
rest upon. Was this the foundation of your hope ? " 

She seemed quite astonished at this question, and eagerly 
inquired, " Was not this sufficient? " 

A convert at one of our mission stations, just before 
departure to another world, was visited by his Christian 
friend, who inquired what had been the means of his 
conversion. " Master Missionary," said the dying believer, 
" do you remember a sermon you preached here, on the 
glories of heaven?" "I remember it well," replied 
the minister. "Master Missionary, do you remember a 
sermon you preached on the terrors of hell?" "I 
remember it well,'' ' said the minister. ' ' Master Missionary, 
do you remember a sermon you preached on the words of 
Jesus, 'I am the way' ?" "I remember it well," was 
the reply. "So do I," said the expiring man; "and 
what you said was the means of my conversion." 

The beginning of Fitzralph's prayer was as follows : " To 
thee be praise, and glory, and thanksgivings, Jesus, 
most holy, most powerful, most amiable, who hast said, ' I 
am the way, the truth, and. the life ; ' a way without devi- 



120 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

ation ; truth without a cloud, and life without end. For 
thou hast shown me the way ; thou hast taught me the 
truth ; and thou hast promised me the life. Thou wast 
my way in exile ; thou wast my truth in counsel j and thou 
wilt be my life in reward." 



II. PROPITIATORY BLOOD. 

THERE must be faith in Christ's blood ; not in his doc- 
trines merely ; not simply in the historical existence of 
such a person ; but in his propitiatory death. With 
respect to one's deliverance from condemnation there is 
nothing seen, felt, or done, to purpose, till faith discerns 
and accepts the all-satisfying blood of Jesus. 

Cowper, the poet, speaking of his religious experience, 
says, " But the happy period which was to shake off my 
fetters and afford me a clear opening of the free mercy of 
God in Jesus Christ, was now arrived. I flung myself 
into a chair near the window, and, seeing a Bible there, 
ventured once more to apply to it for comfort and instruc- 
tion. The first verse I saw was the twenty-fifth of the 
third of Romans: l Whom God hath set forth to be a 
propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his 
righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, 
through the forbearance of God.' Immediately I received 
strength to believe, and the full beams of the Sun of 
Righteousness .shone upon me. I saw the sufficiency of 
the atonement he had made, my pardon sealed in his blood, 
and all the fulness and completeness of his justification. 



PROPITIATORY BLOOD. 121 

In a moment I believed, and received the gospel. What- 
ever my friend Maclan had said to me so long before, 
revived in all its clearness, with demonstration of the 
Spirit, and with power. Unless the Almighty arm had 
been under me, I think I should have died with gratitude 
and joy. My eyes filled with tears, and my voice choked 
with transport. I could only look up to heaven in silent 
fear, overwhelmed with love and wonder. But the work 
of the Holy Ghost is best described in his own words : it is 
'joy unspeakable, and full of glory.' Thus was my heav- 
enly Father, in Christ Jesus, pleased to give me the full 
assurance of faith, and out of a strong, stony, unbelieving 
heart, to raise up a child unto Abraham. IIow glad should 
I now have been to have spent every moment in prayer 
and thanksgiving ! I lost no opportunity of repairing to 
a throne of grace, but flew to it with an earnestness 
irresistible, and never to be satisfied. Could I help it? 
Could I do otherwise than love and rejoice in my recon- 
ciled Father in Christ Jesus ? The Lord had enlarged my 
heart ; and I ran in the way of his commandments. For 
many succeeding weeks tears were ready to flow, if I did 
but speak of the gospel or mention the name of Jesus. To 
rejoice day. and night was all my employment. Too happy 
to sleep much, I thought it was but lost time that was 
spent in slumber." That experience and those precious 
words, "A propitiation through faith in his blood," must 
then have been the/ons et orlgo of his deeply experimen- 
tal hymn : 

" There is a fountain filled with, blood." 
11 



122 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

All our best lyrics, those having any heaven-born 
vitality and force, have flowed from hearts quickened by 
the truth and Spirit of God. 

" E'er since by faith I saw the stream 

Thy flowing wounds supply, 
Redeeming love has been my theme, 
And shall be till I die." 

Such faith alone gives genuine peace in death. The 
late Rev. Archibald Hall of London, when in Scotland, 
visited a dying Christian at Borrowstounness. After 
much serious conversation, he took hold of Mr. Hall's 
hand, and said, ,." Now, sir, I can, with as much pleasure, 
take hold of death by its cold hand. You may justly 
wonder at this ; for I see and believe myself to be most 
unworthy ; but, at the same time, I see Christ to be my 
great propitiation ; and faith in his blood gives me ease. 
I see myself all vile and polluted ; but I view Jesus as the 
fountain opened, and faith in him supports me under a 
sense of my vileness." 



III. ALL-CLEANSING BLOOD. 

A SACRAMENTAL service at Ahmednuggur, in India, is 
impressed with peculiar vividness on the mind of the 

t 

writer. It occurred in a chapel belonging to the mission 
of the American Board. The extremes of human society 
met there on a common level. There were English mili- 
tary officers with their costly equipage, and also miserably 



ALL-CLEANSING BLOOD. 123 

clad communicants from the almshouse. Despised pariahs, 
accounted the filth and offscouring of the world, sat down 
at the table of our Lord with a son of the Earl of Bucking- 
hamshire and his accomplished lady, hoth of them warm- 
hearted, unassuming Christians. The blind, halt, and 
maimed ; the ignorant Mahar ; the once proud Brahmin, 
and Mohammedan, with the honorable and refined from 
England. Scotland, and America, made one glad brother- 
hood. 

The natives left their sandals at the door, according to 
Oriental usage, and came in barefooted, but wearing tur- 
bans in several varieties of colors and every variety of 
form. The entire dress of many of them could not have 
cost fifty cents. The greater part were seated upon plain 
benches ; some, however, on their feet, and some on the 
floor. 

On my left hand sat Keruba, who, a few years pre- 
vious, strolled into the chapel and heard Mr. Ballantine 
preach from these words: "The blood of Jesus Christ 
his Son cleanseth from all sin." 1 "Is that, indeed, so? " 
inquired the man. "Will that blood cleanse from all 
sin? " " Certainly," replied the preacher. " Suppose a 
man had committed murder, will it cleanse from that ? " 
"The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth from all 
sin," rejoined Mr. Ballantine. " And suppose a man has 
committed ten murders, what then?" "Though your 
sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; though 
they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool," was the 

1 1 John i. 7. 



124: , SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

reply. "But, if one has been guilty of killing twenty 
men, can such sin be washed away?" The missionary 
assured him yet again, "The blood of Jesus Christ his 
Son cleanseth us from all sin." " That is what I 
want ! " exclaimed the anxious interrogator. He then 
confessed that he had been in the service of one of the 
Bhils, a caste or tribe of professional robbers and mur- 
derers, and that he had taken many lives. As I shook 
hands with him, I felt the deep scars of wounds received 
in his bloody struggles. I hope yet to shake hands with 
him in heaven. 

A man on the Malabar coast, after inquiring of various 
devotees and priests how he might make atonement for his 
sins, was at last directed to the following means : He was 
to drive iron spikes, sufficiently blunted, through his san- 
dals ; on these spikes to place his naked feet, and walk a 
distance qf five hundred miles. He undertook the jour- 
ney; and, as he halted under a large tree, where the 
gospel was sometimes heard, one of the missionaries came 
and preached in his hearing, from these words : " The 
blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." 
During the sermon, the man rose, threw off his torturing 
sandals, and cried, aloud, "This is what I want! " He 
became a living witness to the efficacy of the all-cleansing 
blood. Is not that what every one needs ? Off with the 
sandals; off with the rags of self-righteousness; away 
with implements of penance, and all human efforts at 
expiation; the blood of Jesus Christ alone can cleanse 
from sin. 

John Wesley was once stopped by a highwayman, who 



ALL-CLEANSING BLOOD. 125 

demanded his money. After handing it to the robber, he 
called him back, and said, "Let mo speak one word to 
you. The time may come when you will regret the 
course of life in which you are engaged. Remember this, 
' The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all 
sin ' " He said no more, and they parted. Many years 
afterwards, as Wesley was leaving a church where he had 
been preaching, a person came up to him and asked if he 
remembered being waylaid. Wesley replied that he did. 
"I," said the individual, "was that man; that single 
verse on that occasion was the means of a total change in 
my life and habits. I have long since been attending the 
house of God, and the word of God, and I hope I am a 
Christian." 

The well-known Captain Hedley Vicars, who had been 
a daring leader in gayety and sin, while awaiting the re- 
turn of a brother officer to his room, idly turned over the 
leaves of a Bible which lay on the table. The words 
caught his eye, " The blood of Jesus Christ his Son 
cleanseth us from all sin." He closed the book. That 
night he scarcely slept, pondering in his heart whether it 
were presumptuous or not to claim an interest in those 
words ; but he was enabled to believe, as he rose in the 
morning, that the message of peace was "true for him," 
"a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation." 
Afterwards, this brave, kind soldier, whilst breathing clay 
and night the poisonous air of a wretched Greek hospital, 
crowded with the men of his regiment, who were dying by 
scores, of black fever and cholera, would sit by their side 
and read the Word of God, and pray that they might 
11* 



126' SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

"behold the Lamb of God, -which taketh away the sin of 
the world." " Should I die now," he wrote to a friend, 
11 you know my only ground of hope, my only confidence, 
is in the cross of Christ, and in the knowledge that the 
precious ' blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin ; ' 
words as full of sweetness and power to me now as on the 
day when they were first made to my soul ' the power of 
God unto salvation.' " 

His biographer gives, in another work, 1 the folloAYing 
account of a rude young man, whom she encountered in 
one of her walks of benevolence : 

"Have you a Bible of your own at home? " she in- 
quired. . " Quantities ! but they have never done me any 
good. They do for women and cowards." "Very good 
for them, without a doubt," I replied; "and for brave 
men too. I happen to have in my pocket a letter from a 
young friend of mine, who writes from the Guards' camp, 
at Varna. Listen to what he says about the comfort of 
the Word of God and prayer for the Holy Spirit." The 
young man listened to it with melting eyes, and then 
said, "There's a power and beauty in that." He was 
moved to tears by the story of Hedley Vicars' conver- 
sion ; and, when it was pressed upon him that the words, 
" The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all 
sin/'' were just as true for him, and would he not, like- 
wise, say, "Then, henceforth, by the grace of God, I will 
live as a washed man should " ? he was entirely over- 
come. 

1 English Hearts and English Homes, p. 109. 



ALL-CLEANSING BLOOD. 127 

The following, also, is given in the same work, relative 
to one of the navvies : "On Sunday week, both husband 
and wife walked from London for the afternoon service at 
Beckenharn church, and were invited into the rectory, 
afterwards, for refreshment. I asked him what were the 
words which God had made a message to his heart on the 
day they had first met. He replied, 'The story of a 
young officer who had read in another man's Bible that 
the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin, and had 
made up his mind at once to live as a washed man should; 
and then you said we had better begin that morning, and 
so I did ; and have been going on the same ever since, by 
God's help.' " 

Captain Maximilian M. Hammond, whose history re- 
sembles that of Vicars, wrote thus the night before he 
fell in an assault upon the Redan: "I have not yet been 
down to the trenches, so that my inauguration will prob- 
ably be a serious one. But I can calmly leave the event 
in the hands of a Saviour God. Come life or come death, 
my only hope is in the blood which cleanseth from all 



sin." 



One Sabbath evening a pastor in a Massachusetts village 
was speaking to his people from the words, " The blood of 
Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin." Before him sat 
a young lady, a stranger, bathed in tears. In the morn- 
ins; he sought her out, and learned that she was a native 

O O '* / , 

of Boston, where she had attended a ministry in which 
this doctrine had not been taught; that she was on a 
brief visit to her friends in the village ; and, more im- 
portant than all, was under deep conviction for sin. She 



128 ' SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

quickly answered the summons to the parlor, and, recog- 
nizing the speaker of the previous evening, at once asked, 
abruptly, "Is the doctrine you preached last night true? 
Are those words, ' The blood of Christ cleauseth us from 
all sin,' true? 7 ' "Certainly they are true, my child," 
answered the venerable man ; and referred her for proof 
to passage after passage expressing the same doctrine. 
She frankly told him her story. Some months before, she 

\ 

had seen her mother and sister die. It flashed upon her 
" with new distinctness, " I, too, must die." She was con- 
scious of sin, and hence shrank from the thought of death. 
From that moment she had been deeply depressed. Sent 
by a mistaken father to the resort of fashion and gayety in 
the hope of diverting her attention, she could not shake 
off the fearful thought, " I am a sinner, and I must die." 
In vain had she turned to her pastor for relief. In vain 
had she been reminded of the goodness of God. She was 
a sinner ; and the mere goodness or mercy of God did not 
meet her case. Now, for the first., time, had the gospel 
been clearly presented to her mind; and she felt, "If it 
be true, it just meets my case and satisfies my wants." 
Gradually doubt disappeared before the dawning light, 
and peace took the place of distressing mental conflicts. 
The next morning she met the man of God, with a glad 
smile, exclaiming, "It is true, it is true : the blood of 
Christ does cleanse from all sin." She now believed, not 
because of his word, for she had felt the power of that 
blood upon her own guilty conscience. 

Some time since, Dr. Rogers, then of Albany, gave an 
account of a dream which led to the conversion of a 



ALL-CLEANSING BLOOD. 129 

gentleman who became a member of his church Before 
his conversion, the man prided himself on the high-toned 
morality of his life. He was a moralist in the strict sense 
of the word, and felt that he was ready to go before God 
in judgment at any time. One night he dreamed that he 
left this world and went to another. He soon found him- 
self in a large audience-room, the door of which led to the 
abode of the blest. Over this door were written these 
words: "None can enter here but those who have led a 
strictly moral life, and have paid their honest debts." 
The words did not alarm him; he felt that he was sure 
of entering. He had led that moral life, and paid his 
honest debts. Oh, yes, he could surely enter there. 

Yery soon a poor, wretched old man came up to him, 
and said, "You cannot enter; you have not paid your 
honest debts." " Why, yes, I have." "Ah, no; don't 
you remember me ? Once while on earth you were riding 
in your carriage, and I asked you for alms, but you rode 
swifty and scornfully by. You have not paid your honest 
debts." 

Shortly another, seeing him, stepped up to him and 
said, " My dear sir, you cannot pass that door ; you have 
not paid your honest debts." " Certainly I have." " Do 
you remember buying a yoke of oxen of me?" " Yes, 
but I paid the price you demanded." " So you did; but 
you cheated me; you took advantage of my necessity. 
You cannot enter there." 

And so it was with one after another. He began to 
feel that his morality would avail him nothing. Shortly 
the letters faded away, and then came in their place, 



130 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

shining in clear, beautiful characters, this sentence: " The 
blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." In his 
agony he grasped Christ as his only hope. And when he 
awoke, he renounced all his boast of morality, accepted 
Christ as his only salvation, and became a living example 
of faith and trust in him. 

A little lad was trying to amuse himself in his mother's 
sick-chamber, without making a noise, and so employed 
'himself in printing his name with a pencil on paper. Sud- 
denly his busy fingers stopped. He had made a mistake, 
and, wetting his finger, he tried again and again to rub out 
the wrong mark, as he had been accustomed to do on his 
slate ; but in vain. His mother having observed his dis- 
tress, and his useless eiforts, said, " My son, do you know 
that God writes down all you do in a book? every 
naughty word and wicked thought, all your acts of wick- 
edness, peevishness, and disobedience ? And do you sup- 
pose, my boy, you can ever rub out these marks against 
you? " His face grew red, and then pale. He was evi- 
dently much agitated about his standing in the sight of 
God. His mother observed him affectionately, but said 
nothing. At last he caine to her bedside, and said with 
great earnestness : " Dear mother, cannot the blood of 
Jesus Christ rub them out? " Yes, dear boy, you have 
the secret now, a secret the whole world cannot give 
you without the gospel: "The blood of Jesus Christ 
cleanseth us from all sin." 

In the fierce onsets of Satan this passage has proved 
shield and buckler. So intense were Martin Luther's 
spiritual experiences that he often stands before us like 



ALL-CLEANSING BLOOD. 131 

pilgrim and Apollyon in. a hand-to-hand encounter. At 
one time the great reformer puts the adversary to flight 
with a joyous hymn of praise : at another time, he dares 
him to write at the bottom of a catalogue of sins these 
words, " The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all 
sin," and the tempter flees. 

- When the learned Bengel was ill, he sent for one of the 
students of his university, to impart to him some word of 
consolation. The youth replied: " Sir, I am but a pupil, 
a mere learner; I don't know what to say to a teacher like 
you." " What ! " said Bengel, " a Divinity student, and 
not able to give a word of scriptural comfort ! " The 
student, abashed, contrived to utter the text, " The blood 
of Christ, the Son of God, cleanseth us from all sin." 
"That is the very word I want," said Bsngel; "it is 
quite enough ;" and. taking him affectionately by the. hand, 
dismissed him. 

The Rev. John Brown, of Haddington, on his death-bed, 
remarked: " The gospel is 'the only source of my comfort, 
and every sinner is as welcome as I. How pleasant that 
neither great sins nor great troubles can alter these con- 
solations ! The finished righteousness of Christ is the only 
foundation of my hopes. Ever since God dealt savingly 
with my heart, I have never had any comfort in the 
thought that my sins were small, but in the belief that 
the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin." 

There was once a caravan crossing the north of India, 
and numbering in its company a devout missionary. As 
they moved on, a poor old man. overcome by the heat and 
labors of the journey, and sinking down, was left to perish 



132 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

/ 

ft 

on the road. The missionary saw him, and, kneeling at 
his side when the rest had passed along, whispered in his 
ear, "Brother, what is your hope?" The dying man 
raised himself a little to reply, and with great exertion 
succeeded in answering, " The blood of Christ cleanseth 
from all sin/' and immediately expired. The missionary 
was astonished at the answer ; and in the calm and peace- 
ful appearance of the man he felt assured that he died in 
Christ. " How or where," thought he, " could this man, 
seemingly a heathen, have got this hope ? " But he ob- 
served a piece of paper grasped tightly in the hand of the 
corpse, which he succeeded at length in getting out. It 
proved to be a single leaf of the Bible, containing this first 
epistle of John, in which occur the words, " The blood of 
Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." On that 
page the man had found the gospel. 

Such are some of the known instances in which the Holy 
Spirit has employed these words. Bat how many similar 
unrecorded cases have there been ! How many, no doubt, 
now living, turn to this text as the blessed pledge which 
first brought peace to their guilty and agitated souls ; who 
with liveliest gratitude remember it, as the lost traveller 
remembers the first way -mark that directed him to the city 
of safe habitation ! How many glorified saints have taken 
it with them as the most hallowed reminiscence of earth, 
and to them the most precious sentence in this Guide- 
Book to heaven ! 



THE PARALYTIC. 133 



IV. THE PARALYTIC. 

A CONVERT, who, in his heathen days, had been priest 
of a temple, said, on being baptized at Goobee, "I have 
' travelled daj by day to gather flowers ; I have talked, and 
put on temple garments ; I have made offerings to the 
idols. Yet no idol, either in dreams or when awake, has 
said to me, ' Thy sins are forgiven ; 1 thou receives! sal- 
vation ; thy sins are washed away.' I have fasted and 
prayed ; but it has never said to me, l Thou shalt escape 
hell, and enjoy heaven ! ' The idol is a lie. I forsake 
it, and embrace Jesus Christ as my Saviour and my 
God." 

Faith is something besides mere hope, opinion, or spec- 
ulation ; it is simple trust in the truth and might of our 
Lord. Opinion is ruled by the world ; faith overcomes the 
world. 

The paralytic was let clown through the opening in the 
roof with all his sins upon him ; he is now a pardoned man. 
In one moment the Lord Jesus brought him into his own 
household, and he is ready to ascend to Paradise. Imme- 
diately after Christian had been lightened of his burden at 
the cross, three shining ones came to him. " The first said 
to him, ' Thy sins be forgiven thee ; ' the second stripped 
him of his rags, and clothed him with change of raiment ; 
the third also set a mark on his forehead, and gave him a 
roll with a seal on it, which he bade him look on as he ran, 

1 Matthew ix. 2. 
ff 12 



134 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

and that lie should give it in at the celestial gate ; so they 
went their way." Of all the wondrous words that have 
fallen 'on the ear of man, what can outweigh these : " Bon, 
thy sins he forgiven thee." 

Melancthon 'mentions a godly woman, who, on her death- 
bed, being in great 'conflict, and afterwards much com- 
forted, broke out in these words : " Now, and not till now, 
I understand the meaning of these words, ' Thy sins are 
forgiven ; ' " the sense of which did greatly cheer and 
quiet her. 

Professor Wodrow relates the following: '"Mr. Car gill 
was under very deep convictions of sin before his entry into 
the. ministry, and while a student ; and that, with grievous 
temptations and fiery darts mixed in with it, and his too 
great reservedriess, and not communicating his case to such 
as might have given him counsel and support under it, 
drove him to terrible excesses : in short, lie came to the 
very height of despair ; and through indulging melancholy, 
and hearkening to temptations, he at length came to the 
resolution of putting an end to his miserable life. He was 
then living with his father, or some relation, in the parish 
of Bothwell, and, in the horrible hurry of these fiery darts, 
he went out once or twice to the river Clyde, with a 
dreadful resolution to drown himself. He was still diverted 
by somebody or other coming by him, which prevented his 
design at that time. But the temptation continuing, and 
his horror, by yielding to it, increasing, he fell upon a 
method,. in the execution of which he thought he should 
not be prevented. On a summer morning, very early, he 
went from the house where he dwelt to a more unfrequented 



THE PARALYTIC. 135 

place, where there were some coal-pits, and, on coming up 
to one of them, "was fully determined to throw himself in ; 
but, when very near it, a thought struck him, that the 
coat and vest he had upon him, being new, might be of 
some use to others, though he was unworthy to live, and 
deserved to be in hell; and so he stepped back and threw 
them off, and then came up to the very brink of the pit; 
and when just going to leap in, these words entered his 
mind, ' Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee.' 
He said it came with that power and life upon his spirit, 
which it was impossible for him to express, and he did not 
know whether it was by an immediate impression on his 
mind, or a direct voice from heaven, which last he was 
inclined to think, but it had such an evidence and energy 
accompanying it, as at once put an end to all his fears and 
doubts ; and which he could no more resist than he could 
the light of a sunbeam darting upon his eyes. 

Visit the Marquis of Argyle, one of Scotland's noble 
witnesses for Christ's cross and crown. It is the forenoon 
of the day on which his execution takes place. He is 
engaged in settling certain worldly affairs, a number of 
persons of quality being present with him. His soul is 
suddenly visited with such a sense of divine favor, as 
almost overwhelms him. Why is this ? Gro to a retired 
room in another part of the city ; you will find the 
marchioness and the Rev. John Car stairs wrestling with 
God in his behalf ; their special plea being that the Lord 
will now seal his charter by saying to him, " Son. be of 
good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee." Turn again to the 
marquis. He attempts to conceal his emotions. He goes 



136 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

to the fireplace and stirs the fire ; but soon turns round, 
and, melting into tears, exclaims, " I see this -will not do. 
I must now declare what the Lord has done for my 
soul. He has just now, at this very instant of time, 
sealed my charter in these words : ' Son, be of good 
cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee ! ' " Follow him to the 
scaffold, and you will witness the wonderful power of 
prayer in securing for a man, at such a fearful hour, the 
most perfect assurance, and a niost triumphant calmness. 



V. PEACE AND HOPE. 

THE late Mr. Reynolds, of Bristol, England, being im- 
portuned by a friend to sit for his portrait, at last con- 
sented. The artist inquired, "How would you like to 
be painted?" " Sitting among books." "Any book in 
particular?" "The Bible." " Open at any part ?" "At 
the fifth chapter of Romans ; the first verse to be legible : 
' Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with 
God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.' " 

Disquieted conscience goads men to toil and toil, trying 
now this and now that, in a vigorous endeavor to pur- 
chase favor from above. But the one thing needful is to 
obtain a satisfying view of the all-sufficient oblation. No 
heaven-born peace can come to the soul till there is an 
appropriating discovery of the great sacrificial offering. 

A minister of the gospel, was once preaching in a public 
hospital, where an aged woman, who, for several weeks, 
had been aroused to the concerns of her soul, was in a 



PEACE AND HOPE. 137 

state of wretchedness approaching to despair. Hearing 
the word of God from the lips of his servant, she trembled 
like a criminal in the hands of the executioner, For- 
merly, she had entertained hope of acceptance -with God, 
but had departed from her comforter, and had become the 
prey of a guilty conscience. A short time after, the same 
minister was preaching in the same place; but, during 
prayer, his text, and the whole arrangement of his dis- 
course, went so completely from him he could not recall 
a single sentence. This passage, however, took possession 
of his thoughts and his soul : " Therefore, being justified 
by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus 
Christ." He considered this a sufficient intimation of his 
duty, and descanted freely on justification by faith, and a 
sinner's peace with God, through the atonement of Christ. 
It was the hour of mercy to that poor, distracted woman. 
A ray of divine consolation penetrated her heart, and she 
said to the minister, when taking leave, "I am. a poor, 
vile sinner, but I think, being justified by faith, I begin 
to have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 
I think Christ has now got the highest place in my heart; 
and, oh, I pray God he would always keep him there ! " 

"One windy afternoon," says Dr. James Hamilton, 
"I went with a friend into a country almshouse. There 
was, sitting before a feeble fire, a very aged man ; and, 
the better to keep from his bald head the cold gusts, he 
wore his hat ; he was never likely to need it out of doors. 
He was very deaf, and so shaken with the palsy that one 
wooden shoe constantly pattered on the brick floor. But, 

deaf, and sick, and helpless, it turned out that he was 
12* 



138 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

happy. ' What are you doing, Wisby ? ' said my friend, 
'Waiting, sir.' 'And for what?' 'For the appearing 
of my Lord.' .''And what makes you wish for his 
appearing ? ' ' Because, sir, I expect great things then. 
He has promised a crown of righteousness to all that love 
his appearing.' And, to see whether it was a right foun- 
dation on which he rested that glorious hope, we asked 
old Wisby what it was. By degrees he got on his specta- 
cles, and, opening the great Bible beside him, pointed to 
that text, ' Therefore, being justified by faith, we have 
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom 
also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we 
stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.' " 



VI. "NOT I, BUT CHRIST." 

"Lord Jesus, are we one with tliee ? 

height ! depth of love ! 
With thee we died upon the tree ; 
In thee we live above." 

" IE there were such a thing," says John Brown, of 
Haddington, " as exchange of learning, I would willingly 
quit with all niy acquaintance with languages, etc.j to 
know, experimentally, what that meaneth, ' I am crucified 
with Christ : nevertheless, I live ; yet not I, but Christ 
liveth in me ; and the life which I now live in the flesh, 
I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and 
gave himself for me.' " 1 

1 Gal. H. 20. 



U NOT I, BUT CHRIST." 139 

Do you ask, Who lives here ? Not the former occu- 
pant ; not the Jewish self, the earthly self'; that one is no 
longer recorded among the living ; he has been displaced ; 
a heavenly self, a sanctified self, is here now. Jesus 
Christ has moved into this tenement. The heart that 
beats here is his ; a new and peculiar vitality is felt ; a 
heaven-born activity is at work. Though I live in the 
flesh, I live not after the flesh ; sin is mortified. Mine is 
now the life of faith, having its origin in Christ, and which 
so unites to his person, as, by strange and blessed mys- 
tery, to identify me with him. Thus speaks the believer 
taught of God. 

"Now," says Luther, on Gal. ii. 20, "as it is the 
greatest knowledge and cunning that Christians can have 
thus to define Christ, so of all things it is the hardest. 
For I myself, even in this great light of the gospel, where- 
in I have been so long exercised, have much ado to hold 
this definition of Christ which Paul here giveth ; so deeply 
hath this doctrine and pestilent opinion, that Christ is a 
lawgiver, entered even as it were oil into my bones. Ye 
young men therefore are in this case much more happy 
than we that are olcl. For ye are not infected with these 
pernicious errors, wherein I have been so nursed and so 
drowned even from my youth, that at the very hearing of 
the name of Christ my heart hath trembled and quaked 
for fear ; for I was persuaded that he was a severe judge. 
Wherefore it is to me a double travail and trouble to cor- 
rect and reform this evil. First, to forget, to condemn, 
and to resist this old grounded error, that Christ is a law- 
giver and judge ; for it always returneth and plucketh me 



140 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

back. Then to plant in my heart a new and. true per- 
suasion of Christ, that he is a justifier and a Saviour. Ye, 
I say, that are young, may learn with much less difficulty 
to know Christ purely and sincerely, if ye will." 

( A few years ago," says a writer in the "Protestant 
Magazine/ 5 " while travelling on a railway in Germany, an 
incident occurred which, at the time, made a very deep 
impression on my mind. The remembrance 'of it will re- 
main fresh and vivid to my dying day. I was seated in a 
third-class carriage, which was filled with Germans. A 
feeling of loneliness and isolation for a while oppressed me. 
I tried to amuse myself by listening to the animated con- 
versation of those who sat near me, the language being not 
quite unfamiliar to my ear. I found that the principal 
topic that occupied the busy talkers was the Evangelical 
Alliance, which had met in the city of Berlin. The papers 
that had been read and the addresses that had been 
delivered during the several clays of meeting, had evidently 
awakened a deep interest in the minds of all. The fact 
that the King and Quoon of Prussia had attended some of 
the meetings of the Alliance, and had also shown much 
personal kindness to its members, by inviting them to the 
palace at Potsdam, could not fail to add to the eclat of the 
proceedings, and draw public attention more directly 
toward them. 

" Amid the general noise of many voices and the smoke 
from many cigars, my attention was especially directed to 
two men, in a corner of the compartment I occupied, sit- 
ting vis-a-vis, engaged in the most earnest conversation on 
a subject which was plainly deeply interesting to both of 



" NOT i, BUT CHRIST" 141 

them. I listened attentively, and heard that the theme 
was Christ. I instantly leaned forward, to catch, if pos- 
sible, every word. I discovered that the principal speaker, 
an elderly gentleman, was narrating a remarkable change 
that his views had undergone, in consequence of an address 
which he had heard at one of the meetings of the Alliance. 
From this conversation I learned that, up to the time of 
his hearing that address, he had always regarded himself 
a sound and honest Christian. He had been regular in 
his attendance at church, and had paid all respect to the 
ordinances of religion. He had maintained an outwardly 
decent and respectable character, and would have taken it 
highly amiss if any one had suggested doubts about the 
genuineness of his claim to be regarded as a true Chris- 
tian. He told his companion how entirely that good 
opinion he had formerly entertained of himself had been 
dissipated by the truths he had heard expounded in Berlin. 
They had forced him to the sorrowful conclusion that all 
his former good opinions of himself, and of his relation to 
Christianity, were wholly a delusion. 

" But now," said he, and his beaming eye and quiver- 
ing voice betokened the warmth of his emotion, "now I 
have discovered what it is to be a Christian." Opening 
his New Testament at the place, he read, with distinctness, 
and with an emphasis which showed that he understood 
and felt what he read, these words of the apostle, in the 
fine old translation of Luther: "Ich bin mit Christo 
gekreuziget ; Ich lebe aber ; cloch nun nicht Ich, sondern 
Christus lebt in mir." " I am crucified with Christ; 
nevertheless I live ; yet not I ? but Christ liveth in me." 



142 SEEDS AND SHEAVES, 

Gal. ii, 20. " The man who can say that," he continued, 
"is a Christian." He expatiated with great earnestness 
and warmth on the vast importance of the truth which he 
had discovered, explaining to his willing hearer all the 
precious things which lay hid in this, to him, most mar- 
vellous text. The warmth and impressive seriousness of 
his manner, when, in the course of his remarks, he again 
and again exclaimed, laying, at the same time, his hand 
on his heart, " Nicht ' Ich, sondern Christus lebt in inir," 
"not I, but Christ liveth in me," deeply moved me, and I 
could not help saying within myself, "If- this stranger 
has made a great discovery as to the Christian character, 
so, too, have I." Familiar with the words he quoted and 
commented upon, they never appeared to me before so 
full of meaning, so luminous. The text came upon me 
with all the freshness and power of a new discovery. No 
commentary ever written, no critical exposition, however 
learned, could exhibit it with so much power as did the 
simple, fervid utterance of my fellow-traveller." 

"The causes," wrote Dr. Hugh Heugh, " the causes of 
any satisfaction or peace that I have got are these : He 
delights to save, and is honored in saving ; the certainty 
that I am invited to seek him in the confidence of finding 
him, because all are invited ; the amazing testimony to his 
love, ' He loved me, and gave himself for me. 7 After 
this, why should I doubt ? Death is awful ; but Christ 
can make it otherwise, and has promised his presence in 
it. I am unfit for heaven ; but we get there as under his 
own righteousness, as washed in his own blood, and in 
answer to his own intercession." 



i mow. 1 ' 143 

"Is this dying ?" exclaimed Dr. Good-win; "is this 
what for so many years I have been dreading? Oh, how 
precious does the righteousness of the Saviour now appear ! 
I never could have imagined that I should have had such 
a measure of faith at this hour. No, I never could have 
imagined it. My bow abides in strength. Is Christ 
divided ? No ; I have the whole of his righteousness. I 
am found in him ; not in my own righteousness, which is 
of the law, but in the righteousness which is of God, which 
is by faith of Jesus Christ, who loved me and gave himself 
for me. Christ cannot love better than he cloth. I think 
I cannot love better than I do; I am swallowed up in 
God." 



VII. "I KNOW." 

DR. JAMES W. ALEXANDER remarked, upon his death- 
bed, in the midst of great exhaustion, " Let me say one 
word more with respect to the solemn event to which you 
have called my attention. If the curtain were to drop 
now, and I were this moment ushered into the presence of 
my Maker, what would be my feelings ? They would be 
these : first, I would prostrate myself in an unutterable 
sense of niy nothingness and guilt ; but, secondly, I would 
look upon my Redeemer with an inexpressible assurance 
of faith and love. A passage of Scripture which expresses 
my present feeling is this: ' I know whom ' " (with great 
emphasis) " ' I have believed, and am persuaded that he is 
able to keep that which I have committed to him against 



144 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

that day.'" 1 In quoting this sentence he remarked: 
"Some persons read it, 'mwhorn I have believed/ but 
there is no preposition. Christ himself was the direct 
object of the apostle's faith." It was about twenty hours 
before his departure that this took place, after which 
he fell into a sweet sleep, and so remained till the last. 

" I know whom I have believed." I have had dealings 
with him the most delicate and confidential. There has 
been a secret transaction between him and me. I have put 
my soul into his hands. Such is my confidence in him 
that I have made him the unreserved trustee of my all till 
the judgment-clay, and for eternity. 

William 33. Montgomery, missionary among the Osages, 
died triumphantly, saying, "Can it be that in less than 
twenty-four hours I shall be walking the streets of the 
New Jerusalem ? ' I know in whom I have believed.' " 

" Will you now," wrote Miss A. L. Newton to a friend, 
"accept the text I choose for you on entering on the new 
year : ' I am persuaded that He is able' ? (2 Tim. i. 12.) 
Is it not a rock for our feet to be set upon in encountering 
neAv difficulties under an ever-increasing and deepening 
sense of our own inability ? ' He is able to keep that 
which I have committed unto him.' ' In that he hath 
suffered, being tempted, he is able to succor them that are 
tempted.' .(Heb. ii. 18.) 'He is able to subdue all things 
unto himself.' (Phil. iii. 21.) ' God is able to make all 
grace abound toward you,' etc. (2 Cor. ix. 8) ; ' Able to 
keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before 

1 2 Tim. i. 12. 



"I KNOW." 145 

the presence of his glory with exceeding joy ' (Jude 24) ; 
1 Able to do exceeding abundantly above .all that we can 
ask or think ' (Eph. iii. 20). Oh, is it not a happy 
feeling to be able, when He puts the question to our hearts 
about anything, ' Believe ye that I am able to do this ? ' 
instantly to respond, ' Yea, Lord ! ' Precious faith, is 
it not ? " 

Lady Margaret Stewart said to her husband, "My 
dear, resign nay soul to God ; I have resigned it to him 
already. I had it from God, and I have given it back 
to him." After prayer she fell quietly asleep, being 
heard to breathe out the words, " feeling High Priest, 
keep that which I have committed to thee ! " 

I know whom I've believed, 

When my sins remembered roll, 
With the bitter pains of penitence, 

Like billows, o'er my soul : 
Contritely, then, in Jesus' name, , 

As near my God I come, 
I see him stretch a Father's arms 

To take his wanderer home. 

I know whom I've believed, 

When the hour of death draws near, 
When the painful heat of day is cooled, 

And evening shades appear : 
My Jesus, by his death, has brought 

On Death destruction sure ; 
He lives ! therefore my soul with him 

Shall evermore endure. 

FROM THE SWEDISH. 



13 



14:6 SEEDS AND SEE AYES. 



FIJI. LIFE ETERNAL. 

JOHN BUGENHAG-EN, the learned and zealous reformer, 
an intimate friend of Luther and Melancthon, continued 
in prayer on his death-bed, often repeating, "This is life 
eternal, to know thee the only true God, and thy Son 
Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." l 

What is it to know God ? Something more than 
knowing of him, hearing about him, getting information 
concerning him. Being able to discourse upon God, 
prove his existence, define his attributes, illustrate them 
from his works, is not the thing. The knowledge of God 
which is vital resides in an enlightened heart, a believing, 
loving heart. 

Our Lord adds, "And Jesus Christ whom thou hast 
sent." The life-giving, life-evincing knowledge of Christ 
is no dreamy belief respecting him, but a well-defined 
apprehension of him in his true character and offices. 

Our Saviour puts the knowing of God and himself 
together. All that can be known of God apart from 
Christ is speculative. It is brain -work. It sends no 
warm blood through the system. Mere reasoning and 
study give one only the God of natural religion. 

When the guard came to conduct Bishop Fisher to the 
scaffold, he was so weak as to be scarcely able to go down- 
stairs. He was accordingly placed in a chair by two of 

1 John xvii. 3. 



LIFE ETERNAL. 147 

the lieutenant's men. While they were waiting at the 
Tower gate, he rose, leaned against the wall, and, opening 
his New Testament, prayed to this effect, that as that 
book had been his companion and chief comfort in im- 
prisonment, so then some place might turn up to him that 
might give him comfort in his passage. He then opened 
the book, and read these words: "This is life eternal, to 
know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou 
hast sent." Closing the book, he said, "Here is even 
learning enough for me to my life's end." 




VII. 

PURPOSE AND PRACTICE. 

I. NOBLE DECISION. 

HERE are in the history of all nations a few, and 
never but a few, decisive days and scenes ; some 
Marathon; some protestation before God at the 
Diet of Worms ; some affixing of signatures in Independ- 
ence Hall ; some collapse of a wicked Confederacy, which 
give permanent direction and coloring to their career and 
character. So is it with individuals. There conies now 
and then, or it may be once only, some scene or juncture 
when the mind receives a lasting impulse, and the course 
of life is definitely determined. How fitting at any time 
the avowal of such a purpose as that of Joshua at 
Shechem ! 1 The late King of Prussia, Frederic William, 
ascended the throne June 7th, 1840. When the chief 
officers of State and heads of the army came to pay their 
homage, the king solemnly uttered these words : "As for 
me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Great moral 
courage was necessary to make such a declaration, for 
infidels held the highest position in the country and were 
numerous. He remained faithful to his promise; he 
served the Lord in spite of mental infirmities, which 

1 Josh. xxiv. 15. 

148 



AN EVERGREEN. 149 

were often exaggerated by the malice of the enemies of 
religion. Well in a monarch, well in the head of a house- 
hold ! " As we lingered to say our farewell," writes one, 
after visiting the late Dr. Malan, of Geneva, "it was 
beautiful to see the calm benignity of his face, and the 
inscription which he had carved in deep letters on the 
stone lintel over the door : ' Quant a moi et ma maison, 
nous servirons 1'Eternel.' " 



II. AN EVEEGEEEN. 

That man shall flourish like the trees 

Which by the streamlets grow ; 
The fruitful top is spread on high, 

And firm the root below. 

EGBERT BUKNS. 

JOURNEYING- in the desert, we mount a dromedary of 
Midian and traverse arid sands. A furnace breath fans 
us. Our lips become swollen, and our eyes bloodshot. 
After wearisome days we espy an oasis, and hasten to its 
grove. From the fountain we see little artificial channels 
conducting the water around a graceful palm-tree, that 
towers majestically above surrounding objects. There it 
has stood for scores of years, clothed in perpetual green, 
and yielding delicious dates with generous freedom. We 
behold an emblem of the happy man, -r- one who has no 
fellowship with the wicked; whose chief joy is in the con- 
templation of divine things. He can be relied upon. He 
is prompt in meeting duties. This comparison of a good 

13* 



150 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

man to a tree which "bringeth forth his fruit in his 
season," l was the favorite sanction of punctuality often 
urged by one of the most distinguished educators in our 
land. 2 Every godly man will be a punctual man ; no one 
irregular and tardy can be happy. 

The Rev. Dr. Franklin was peculiarly prompt, and 
always intent upon usefulness. His signet-ring had for 
its device a fruit-bearing tree, with this third verse as a 
motto. When near his end, being asked by his son and 
pastoral successor for some word of condensed wisdom that 
might be treasured as a remembrancer and prompter, he 
breathed into his ear the word, " Faithful." 

He shall be as a tree which planted grows 
By watery streams, aud in his season knows 
To yield his fruit, and his leaf shall not fall ; 
And what he takes in his hand shall prosper all, 

MILTON. 



III. DOING GOOD. 

PSALM thirty-seventh is not a devotional but an eth- 
ical psalm. It contains no praises, petitions, or confessions. 
It is. a series of aphorisms embodying a single truth, and 
is not designed to unfold progressive thought, but to 
enforce one sentiment, with line' upon line,. like variations 
on a recurring strain of music. The third verse gives a 
practical inference suggested at every point along the 
psalm. " Do good," not merely think about it. Will 

1 Ps. i. 3. 2 Miss Mary Lyon. 



DOING GOOD. 151' 

imaginary subscriptions help on good objects? "Do 
good," not merely talk about it. Will words bind up 
wounds and clothe the naked ? "Do good " yourself, not 
wait for others, not complain of others, not merely set 
others to work, but up and about it your own self. 

A number of boys, who had been taught in a Sabbath 
school, near Sheffield, England, met in a field, and, 
instead of spending their money for oranges, on what is 
called Shrove Tuesday, they agreed to give all they had 
to their teacher, whom they knew to be in great distress. 
They tied up the money in an old cloth, and when it was 
dark, opening his door, they threw it into the house. In- 
side the parcel, on a small piece of paper. was written, 
"Trust in the Lord, and do good, and verily thou shalt 
be fed." 

" To dwell in the land " denotes the sum of good things. 
It is the great covenant pledge of Jehovah. All needed 
supplies will come. When a foreign priest once visited 
Columban, at his settlement in the Vosges, he expressed 
surprise that he could feel so easy, although he had so 
little corn in his granary. Columban replied : "If people 
faithfully serve their Creator, they will suffer no want, as 
is written in the Psalms ; ' I have never seen the righteous 
forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.' " 

All needed supplies will come. That truth is reiterated 
throughout the psalm ; it has kept many a one from the 
rash steps and the despondency of unbelief. 

A good man, overwhelmed with trouble, and unable to 
extricate himself, came to the resolution, as his last 
resource, of leaving his native country. There remained 



152. SHEDS AND SHEAVES. 

one Lord's day more previous to his departure, and from 

an apprehension that it -would be the last he should ever 

spend in his own land, it impressed him with more than 

usual solemnity. At the house of God, the text which the 

minister selected for the subject of his discourse was this : 

" Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in 

the land, and verily thou shalt he fed." At the hearing 

of these words, his attention was particularly arrested ; nor 

did he feel himself less interested in the sermon, every 

sentence of which appeared peculiarly applicable to his 

circumstances. He regarded the whole as the voice of 

Providence. Impressed with this conviction, he changed 

his purpose, resolved to struggle against the torrent of 

adversity, and await the pleasure of God concerning him. 

The appointed time to favor him soon came. The Lord 

turned his captivity like that of Job, and caused his latter 

end to be more blessed than his beginning. 



, IV. MY PORTION FOEE7ER. 

PSALM seventy-third is Asaph's miserere, his confession 
to all the world of a spiritual decline, and the sad obscu- 
ration of faith under which for a time he suffered. 

Along some line of mistaken reasoning and feeling he 
had worked himself into a dangerous position, had come 
to fret on account of inequalities in the divine distribution 
of worldly favors. Thus he permits himself to drift into 
a quarrel with Providence, and lacked but little of losing 
all evidence that he was a child of God. "My feet were 



MY PORTION FOEEVEE. 153 

almost gone." He had travelled among rocks and moun- 
tain defiles. 

Any such perilous way may well make one think of 
verse second. 

The Rev. J. Warren, a missionary in the north of Hin- 
dostan, gave a narration of his travels in 1854, in which 
he says of his journey among the Himalayas: "The 
mountain roads are very narrow. They are not often 
wide enough for more than two men to walk together, and 
we generally find it easier to follow in single file. I 
never saw the men who carry loads walking two abreast. 
There are ascents and descents so steep as to require the 
traveller to plant his foot firmly and carefully in order to 
prevent his falling sliding down the hill. In some 
places the road leads around the side of the mountain, . or 
along the bank of a torrent, with a precipice either per- 
pendicular, or nearly so, immediately on one side of it, of 
hundreds of feet in height. Sometimes the sharp ascent 
or descent is combined with the precipice on one side, and 
a further complication of the difficulty is made by both a 
slope of a road towards its outer edge, and a chalky or 
friable kind of stone in the pathway, affording no safe hold 
to the feet. In many of these places the traveller looks 
down a giddy slope of a hundred, a thousand, or two 
thousand feet, on which no foothold could be found, with 
the consciousness that a false step, or .a breaking of the 
bank under his feet, would precipitate him into the ravine 
below, without his having the least ability to prevent the ca- 
tastrophe. Once, when riding along the bank of a ravine 
filled with stones, I came to a place where the bank above 



150 SEEDS AND SHEA7ES. 

man to a tree which "bringeth forth his fruit in his 
season," 1 was the favorite sanction of punctuality often 
urged by one of the most distinguished educators in our 
land. 2 Every godly man will be a punctual man ; no one 
irregular and tardy can be happy. 

The Rev. Dr. Franklin was peculiarly prompt, and 
always intent upon usefulness. His signet-ring had for 
its device a fruit-bearing tree, with this third verse as a 
motto. When near his end, being asked by his son and 
pastoral successor for some word of condensed wisdom that 
might be treasured as a remembrancer and prompter, he 
breathed into his ear the word, "Faithful." 

He shall be as a tree which planted grows 
By watery streams, and in his season knows 
To yield his fruit, and his leaf shall not fall ; 
And what he takes in his hand shall prosper all. 



III. DOING GOOD. 

PSALM thirty-seventh is not a devotional but an eth- 
ical psalm. It contains no praises, petitions, or confessions. 
It is a series of aphorisms embodying a single truth, and 
is not designed to unfold progressive thought, but to 
enforce one sentiment, with line upon line,. like variations 
on a recurring strain of music. The third verse gives a 
practical inference suggested at every point along the 
psalm. " Do good," not merely think about it. Will 

1 Ps. i. 3. 2 Miss Mary Lyon. 



DOING GOOD. 151 

imaginary subscriptions help on good objects? "Do 
good," not merely talk about it. Will words bind up 
wounds and clqthe the naked ? " Do good " yourself, not 
wait for others, not complain of others, not merely set 
others to work, but up and about it your own self. 

A number of boys, who had been taught in a Sabbath 
school, near Sheffield, England, met in a field, and, 
instead of spending their money for oranges, on what is 
called Shrove Tuesday, they agreed to give all they had 
to their teacher, whom they knew to be in great distress. 
They tied up the money in an old cloth, and when it was 
dark, opening his door, they threw it into the house. In- 
side the parcel, on a small piece of paper. was written, 
" Trust in the Lord, and do good, and verily thou shalt 
be fed." 

" To dwell in the land " denotes the sum of good things. 
It is the great covenant pledge of Jehovah. All needed 
supplies will come. When a foreign priest once visited 
Columban, at his settlement in the Vosges, he expressed 
surprise that he could feel so easy, although he had so 
little corn in his granary. Columban replied : " If people 
faithfully serve their Creator, they will suffer no want, as 
is written in the Psalms : ' I have never seen the righteous 
forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.' " 

All needed supplies will come. That truth is reiterated 
throughout the psalm ; it has kept many a one from the 
rash steps and the despondency of unbelief. 

A good man, overwhelmed with trouble, and unable to 
extricate himself, came to the resolution, as his last 
resource, of leaving his native country. There remained 



152. SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

one Lord's day more previous to his departure, and from 
an apprehension that it -would be the last he should ever 
spend in his own land, it impressed him with more than 
usual solemnity. At the house of God, the text which the 
minister selected for the subject of his discourse was this : 
" Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in 
the land, and verily thou shalt be fed." At the hearing 
of these words, his attention was particularly arrested ; nor 
did he feel himself less interested in the sermon, every 
sentence of which appeared peculiarly applicable to his 
circumstances. He regarded the whole as the voice of 
Providence. Impressed with this conviction, he changed 
his purpose, resolved to struggle against the torrent of 
adversity, and await the pleasure of God concerning him. 
The appointed time to favor him soon came. The Lord 
turned his captivity like that of Job, and caused his latter 
end to be more blessed than his beginning. 



IV. MT PORTION I OREVER. 

PSALM seventy-third is Asaph's miserere, his confession 
to all the world of a spiritual decline, and the sad obscu- 
ration of faith under which for a time he suffered. 

Along some line of mistaken reasoning and feeling he 
had worked himself into a dangerous position, had come 
to fret on account of inequalities in the divine distribution 
of worldly favors. Thus he permits himself to drift into 
a quarrel with Providence, and lacked but little of losing 
all evidence that he was a child of God. "My feet were 



MY PORTION FOREVER. 153 

almost gone." He had travelled among rocks and moun- 
tain defiles. 

Any such perilous way may well make one think of 
verse second. , 

The Rev. J. Warren, a missionary in the north of Ilin- 
dostan, gave a narration of his travels in 1854, in which 
he says of his journey among the Himalayas: "The 
mountain roads are very narrow. They are not often 
wide enough for more than two men to walk together, and 
we generally find it easier to follow in single file. I 
never saw the men who carry loads walking two abreast. 
There are ascents and descents so steep as to require the 
traveller to plant his foot firmly and carefully in order to 
prevent his falling sliding down the hill. In some 
places the road leads around the side of the mountain, . or 
along the bank of a torrent, with a precipice either per- 
pendicular, or nearly so, immediately on one side of it, of 
hundreds of feet in height. Sometimes the sharp ascent 
or descent is combined with the precipice on one side, and 
a further complication of the difficulty is made by both a 
slope of a road towards its outer edge, and a chalky or 
friable kind of stone in the pathway, affording no safe hold 
to the feet. In many of these places the traveller looks 
down a giddy slope of a hundred, a thousand, or two 
thousand feet, on which no foothold could be found, with 
the consciousness that a false step, or, a breaking of the 
bank under his feet, would precipitate him into the ravine 
below, without his having the least ability to prevent the ca- 
tastrophe. Once, when riding along the bank of a ravine 
filled with stones, I came to a place where the bank above 



154 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

the road had slipped and filled the pathway, except about 
eight inches at the outer edge. As the ravine was not 
very deep, and therefore it did not look very fearful, I 
rode around the heap, and ray horse's hind feet broke 
down the remainder of the pathATay. He carried me safely 
over, however, but I could not help quoting to myself the 
words of the psalmist, ' My steps had well-nigh slipped.' " 

God designs that the mysteries of his providence should 
be a discipline to faith. He would teach us that danger 
attends the possession of worldly wealth, luxuries, and 
comforts ; that the abuse of these good things is an un- 
speakably greater evil than the absence of them. 

At verses 23-26 the psalm culminates. Here the man 
of God, who has been down among the mists and mire of 
a marshy region, regains an elevated plateau, and regales 
himself in its clear, pure, bracing atmosphere. The re- 
mainder of the psalm runs on in the calm, full flow of chas- 
tened yet exulting song. Matchless forbearance of God ! 

" Those are the things," said John Owen, of the British 
and Foreign Bible Society, to his attached co-secretary, 
Mr. Hughes, who was then laying hold of his dry, cold 
hand, and comforting him with this passage, " Thou shalt 
guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to 
glory," "Those are the things " said he, but death 
prevented his finishing the sentence. 

" Whom have I in heaven but thee ? " Who is Gabriel, 
who Michael, who Enoch, Abraham and all the patriarchs, 
that they should come into mind when thou art thought of? 

" There is none upon earth that I desire besides thee." 
Has the psalmist become misanthropic ? Has he forgotten 



MY PORTION FOREVER. 155 

wife, children, friends? Will he turn enthusiast, an 
Eastern devotee, discarding the amenities of life, looking 
with a proud indifference or sour contempt on all the 
sweet little auxiliaries to comfort and joy with which the 
world abounds? Not he. He may have even a finer 
relish for these than ever before ; but in such good gifts 
he sees only the Giver. 

In one instance, John Brown, of Haddington, at tea, 
gave vent to his grateful heart in these words: "I am 
much obliged to you all, and particularly to you," ad- 
dressing his wife, " for your kindness to me; yet I must 
go back to this, ' Whom have I in heaven but thee ? and 
there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee,' " 

"This morning," says Andrew Fuller, "I have read 
another of Edwards 1 sermons, on God the Christian's 
Portion, from Psalm Ixxiii. 25. The latter part conies 
very close, and I feel myself at a loss what to judge as to 
God's being my chief good. He asks whether we had 
rather live in this world rich and without God, or poor 
and with him. Perhaps I should not be so much at a loss 
to decide this question as another, namely : had I rather 
be rich in this world, and enjoy but little of God, or poor, 
and enjoy much of God ? I am confident the practice of 
great numbers of professing Christians declares that they 
prefer the former ; and, in some instances, I feel guilty 
of the same thing." 

It matters little what world or what outward condition 
one is in so long as he has God. " Resolved," so wrote 
the more than queenly sister of Matthew Henry, " Re- 
solved, to call nothing mine but God." Was not such an 



156 'SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

entry in her diary evidence that all things were hers? 
Oh, what a pitiable object is the millionnaire, the mere 
king on his throne, by the side of one protesting, "Whom 
have I in heaven but thee? ; and there is none upon earth 
that I desire besides thee " ! 

Under outward ills a resolute heart may bear up ; but 
when the foundation of courage and cheerfulness itself 
gives way, when the very fountain of fortitude itself 
runs dry, what shall be done? Who does not know 
what sinking of soul means ? Is there anything to keep 
one from utter prostration, from falling irrecoverably 
into despondency or despair? "God is the strength of 
my heart," the rock of my heart. I am resting on a 
firm foundation. I lean upon no arm of flesh. 

I have not only a strong foundation, but strong conso- 
lation. In each of the four thousand hourly strokes of 
this heart, he sustains and quickens. When this frail 
organ, beating fainter and fainter, ceases at length al,to- 
gether, when body and soul are rent apart, shall .1 be 
confounded ? No, indeed. 

Cecil states that John Newton, about a month before 
his death, said, " It is a great thing to die, and, when 
heart and flesh fail, to have Gocl for the strength of our 
heart, and our portion forever. I know whom I have 
believed, and he is able to keep that which I have com- 
mitted unto him against that great day." " It is come ! " 
said the Rev. J. Sutcliffe ; " perhaps a few moments 
more ! Heart and flesh fail ! But God, that God is 
the strength of his people, is a truth that I now see as I 
never saw it in my life." 



M7 PORTION FOREVER, 157 

Lord of earth ! Thy forming hand 
Well this beauteous frame hath planned; 
Woods that wave, and hills that tower, 
Ocean rolling in his power ; 
All that strikes the eye unsought, 
Friendship, gem transcending price ; 
Love, a flower from paradise ; 
Yet amidst the scene so fair, 
Should I cease Thy smiles to share, 
What were all its joys to me ? 
Whom have I on earth but Thee ? 

Lord of heaven ! Beyond our sight 
Eolls a world of purer light ; 
There, in love's unclouded reign, 
Parted hands shall clasp, again ; 
Martyrs there, and prophets high, 
.Blaze, a glorious company ; 
While immortal music rings 
3?rom unnumbered seraph strings ; 
Oh, that world is passing fair ! 
Yet, if Thou wert absent there, 
What were all its joys to me? 
Whom have I in heaven but Thee ? 

Lord of earth and heaven ! My breast 

Seeks in Thee its holy rest. 

I was lost ! Thy accents mild 

Homeward lured thy wandering child; 

I was blind ! Thy healing ray 

Charmed the long eclipse away. 

Source of every joy I know, 

Solace of my every woe, 

Oh, if once thy smile divine 

Ceased upon my soul, to shine, 

What were earth or heaven to me ? * 

Whom have I in each but Thee? 

Sin EGBERT GRANT. 

U 



158 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 



V. LOVE FOB ILL-WILL. 

WHEN Dr. Duff read to some intelligent Hindoo youths, 
for the first time, this precept of our Saviour, " I say unto 
you, Love your enemies; bless them that curse you," l one 
of them could not help giving vent to his feelings : " Oh, 
how beautiful ! " Eor days and even weeks he continued 
repeating, "Love your enemies; bless them that curse 
you ! How beautiful ! Surely this must be the truth ! " 

Am I suffering from reproaches ? Are slanderous re- 
ports circulated ? Are my actions misconstrued ? It was 
so with Joseph, and so with Jeremiah. Paul was styled 
a " pestilent fellow." The enemies of truth called Atha- 
nasius Sathanasius. So is it ever. Satan and his emis- 
saries, and good men too, so far as they lend themselves 
to the adversary, will impeach motives and call hard 
names. What then ? It is all needful for discipline. The 
chief question is, How do I bear it ? 

"An estimable lady," writes one, "a personal and be- 
loved friend of mine, said to me, when urged to forgive an 
injury, ' It is not in human nature to forgive injuries as 
goading as these.' ' You are right, my friend,' I replied; 
' it is not in human nature, but it is in the grace of 
Christ. He has charged us, "Love your enemies; bless 
them that curse you ; do good to them that hate you ; and 
pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute 
you ; that ye may be the children of your Father which is 

1 Matthew V..44. 



LOVE FOR ILL-WILL. 159 

in heaven." ' The lady had a vehement struggle with her- 
self, but, through the grace of Christ, she overcame. She 
forgave from her heart, and was a happier woman, and a 
more exemplary Christian ever after." 

She made at last the same high attainment as did a 
Christian sister who had been brought out of the darkness 
of heathenism. A few Cherokee women, who had been 
converted, formed themselves, though poor, into a society 
for propagating the gospel. The avails of their first year's 
efforts amounted to ten dollars ; and the question was, to 
Avhat object this should be appropriated ? One of them at 
length proposed that it should be given to aid in circu- 
lating the gospel among the Osage nation; "for," said 
she, "the Bible tells us to. do good to them that hate 
us ; and I believe the Osages are the greatest enemies the 
Cherokees have." 

Nominal Christian or Pagan, if once truly renovated, 
will alike exhibit the same grace. When the. Portuguese 
converts of Madeira were compelled, not long ago, to flee 
in haste from their homes and seek refuge in Trinidad, 
"many of them," says an eye-witness, "came on board 
with nothing but the clothes they had on, and these in 
tatters, from their wanderings in the Sierras. Yet, dur- 
ing the days we sojourned among them in that ark of 
refuge, not a word of repining reached our ears, except 
from one or two unconverted members of large families, 
who had not yet learned to love the cause for which the 
rest rejoiced to suffer. The language of all the others 
was that of joy and thankfulness to Him who had called 
them ' out of darkness into His marvellous light,' and who 



160 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

had now in his mercy delivered them from their enemies 
on every side, and gathered them into one family, and 
into one refuge. The more that was seen of this perse- 
cuted flock, in circumstances the most trying, the higher 
did their Christian principle rise in the estimation of all. 
Those only who know the general character of the Portu- 
guese can form a just estimate of the total change that 
must have passed on these converts. They had become 
' new creatures ' indeed. In the distribution of clothes to 
the necessitous, it was most gratifying to witness the good 
feeling shown by all on the occasion, to see not merely 
their willingness to share with one another the bounty of 
their Christian friends, but their eagerness to tell of the 
wants of others more destitute than themselves. And in 
no one instance was there an attempt to deceive, by any 
concealment of what they possessed. The mate and stew- 
ard both frequently remarked, ' that they had never seen 
folk love one another as these folk did.' Among the two 
hundred and eleven passengers of the William, there was 
one Romanist family, who had long persecuted the con- 
verts, 'and was now seeking a passage to Trinidad as 
emigrants. Their extreme poverty excited the lively 
sympathy of those around them. After the converts had 
each received from the hand of charity their small supply 
of clothing, some of them came aft to their benefactors on 
the poop, and begged to know if they might now consider 
it as their own property, and act accordingly. They were 
asked the reason of the question, when they said, ' It was 
their wish to obey their Lord's command: "Love your 
enemies ; bless them that curse you ; do good to them that 



BOTH CHEEKS. 161 

hate you; and pray for them which despitefully use 
you and persecute you." ' They were cheerfully assured 
that they might, and it was pleasing to see them share 
their scanty store with their former enemies, thus afford- 
ing a most beautiful specimen of the spirit by which they 
were animated." 

" The sandal- tree perfumes when riven 

The axe that laid it low ; 
Let him who hopes to be forgiven, 
Forgive and bless Ms foe." 



71. BOTH CHEEKS. 

"BLOW for blow, a kick for a cuff," is the common 
maxim. Christ says, meet not violence with violence; 
better suffer wrong than do wrong ; better take two blows 
than give one. 

Christ does not, however, in Matthew v. 39, lay down 
the Quaker doctrine of absolute non-resistance, a formal, 
rigid rule of conduct to be carried out to the letter, come 
what may. When he, himself was struck by one of the 
officers who stood by at his trial, he did not turn the other 
cheek for the same gross indignity, but answered with a 
calm rebuke. He would have us, under the greatest prov- 
ocation, still carry a heart fall of the Holy Spirit, full of 
Christ-like love, 'yet does not require a course that would 
invite injury, that would set a bounty on wrong-doing. 

"I lately,'' says Cowper, "heard a story from a lady, 
who spent many years of her life in France, somewhat to 
the present purpose. An abbe, universally esteemed for 
U* 



162 ' SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

his piety, and especially for the meekness of his manners, 
had, yet undesignedly, given some offence to. a shabby fel- 
low in his parish. The man, concluding he might do as 
he pleased with so unoffending and gentle a character, 
struck him on one cheek, and bade him turn the other. 
The good man did. so, and when he had received the two 
slaps, which he thought himself obliged to submit to, 
turned again, and beat the fellow soundly. I do not wish 
to see you follow the French gentleman's example, but I 
'believe nobody who has heard the story condemns him 
much for the spirit he showed upon the occasion." 

Such a proceeding, if justifiable at all, can be so only in 
rare and extreme cases. Much more frequently will a 
literal compliance with the words, "Turn the other cheek 
also," have our Saviour's approbation. A woman who had 
derived spiritual benefit from the discourses of Mr. Robin- 
son, of Leicester, was often threatened by her wicked 
husband for going to St. Mary's church, in which Mr. R. 
officiated. His feelings were at length wrought up to such 
a pitch that he declared, with an awful oath, that if ever 
she went to St, Mary's again, he would cut off her legs. 
Having sought direction in. prayer, she was strengthened 
to go to the place where often she had been made joyful in 
the Lord. On her return from church, she found her 
husband waiting her arrival, and, as soon as she had shut 
the door, he said, in an angry tone, " Where have you 
been?" She replied, "To St. Mary's." He instantly 
struck her a violent blow on the face, and she fell to the 
ground; but, rising from the floor, she turned the other 
side of her face, and in a mild and affectionate manner 



" WE WOULD SEE JESUS." 1C3 

said, " My clear, if you serve this side the same, I hope I 
shall bear it with patience." Struck with' this meek 
answer, for she had been a very passionate woman, he said, 
"Where did you learn that?" She replied, in a gentle 
manner, "At St. Mary's church, niy dear." "Well," 
said he, "if that is what you learn at St. Mary's, you 
may go as often as you like ; T will never hinder you 
again." This good woman enjoyed her privileges undis- 
turbed, and also had the pleasure, a short time afterwards, 
of having her husband accompany her. 

When Mary Lundy Duncan was in her fourth year her 
little brother struck her in a fit of anger ; she instantly 
turned the other cheek, and said, mildly, "There, Oorie." 
The uplifted hand was dropped ; and when the child was 
asked who taught her to do that, she replied that she 
heard papa read it one morning out of the Bible at 
prayer-time. 



VII. WE WOULD SEE JESUS. 11 

" We -would see Jesus." We are worn and weary 

Beneath the heat and burden of the day ; 
Each with his load of care, or toil, or sorrow, 

Eeacly to faint and falter by the way ; 
Yet, in the very patli winch we are treading 

On earth, Lord, we know thyself hast gone; 
Oh, to behold thee there, our Friend, our Brother, 

Guiding and guarding, as we journey on! 

" We would see Jesus." Oh, that blissful vision 
Is all we ask, to bid our fears depart ! 

So shall we hasten on, in shade or sunshine, 
With step unwearied, and unshrinking heart. 



164 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

Abide with us, good Lord ; the evening closes ; 

No longer leave us till the shadows flee, 
Till the bright morning dawn, when thou shalt call us 

Forever, where thou art, to dwell with thee. 

H. L. L. 

THE accomplished Madame Guyon, in her persecutions, 
could say. "I had no sight but of Jesus Christ alone." 
Amidst trials and losses, who, besides him, can put an 
everlasting arm underneath the sinking spirit ? The life 
. imparted from above does not consist in a set of notions, 
or in attendance upon ordinances. It is the meeting of a 
renewed soul with its Saviour on terms of amity. Philip 
can do little comparatively for me ; Philip and Andrew 
together can do but little for me ; I must come myself to 
Jesus ; must see and know him for myself. 

As our ^own dissolution approaches, should not the 
prayer be, " We would see Jesus " ? 1 In the New Testa- 
ment there is a particular description of only one Chris- 
tian man's departure. The outward circumstances of his 
death were the most painful that could be. Yet the sight 
of our Saviour gave him perfect composure and complete 
victory. " He looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw 
the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand 
of God." 

What dying believer does not find him near? "Oh, 
do you see him?" said an humble English laborer, who 
had been longing for the sight. "I see him now. He is 
near. He is with me. He is around me. He will 
never let me go. How could I ever doubt him ? He is 

'Johnxii. 21. 



" WE WOULD SEE JESUS." 165 

the Saviour of sinners. He is my Saviour. Jesus is mine, 
and I am his. His blood has bought me. I never knew 
what he is till now. Oh, tell them all to come to him ; to 

ft- 

come now ! Tell every man you meet. Christ is for 
every man, I say," and his mellow voice rang through the 
room, "Jesus Christ for every man!" He paused for 
breath, then gently added, " My blessed, blessed Saviour, 
world without end ! Amen. Blessed, blessed Jesus ! " 
And these were his last words. l 

As the friends of General Andrew Burn noticed that the 
symptoms of death were upon him, they asked, " Do you 
wish to see any one in particular? " He answered with 
emphasis, "Nobody, nobody but Jesus Christ. Christ 
crucified is the stay of my poor soul." And so he fell 
asleep. Christian biography and blessed Christian ex- 
perience are crowded with such fulfilled longings to see 
Jesus in the closing hour. 

A friend, of great firmness and symmetry of religious 
character, who was many months in a decline, and who, for 
the last two years of life, rested in almost perfect assurance 
on the righteousness and the arm of her Lord, said to the 
writer, just before death, "This is my favorite text, 
'We would see Jesus,'" and, opening a little book of 
hymns, added, "Here are some lines I have found on 
those sweet words : 

" ' We would see Jesus,' for the shadows lengthen 

Across this little landscape of our life ; 
'We would see Jesus,' our weak faith to strengthen 
For the last weariness the final strife. 

." A Light for the Line." 



166 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

" ' We would see Jesus' the great rock foundation, 
Whereon our feet were set by sovereign grace ; 
Not life nor death, with all their agitation, 
Can thence'remove us, if we see his face," 



VIII. PETERS LOVE. 

Hark, my soul ! it is the Lord ; 
'Tis the Saviour; hear his word ; 
Jesus speaks ! he speaks to thee : 

" Say, poor sinner, lov'st thou me? " 

COWPER. 

IN the year 1853, while travelling in Virginia, the 
writer spent a night at Wainsborough, and was there 
introduced to Mr. Waddell, then aged eighty-two, a son of 
the celebrated blind preacher. Among several unpublished 
incidents of his father's life, he related to me the follow- 
ing : When Dr. Waddell was preaching one Sabbath at 
Portsmouth, Va., a ship came into port, of which the 
master and two of the men were Christians. Learning 
that the blind preacher was conducting a service at one of 
the churches in the evening, they made their way to the 
place, but found the crowd such that they could only press 
their way into one of the aisles. The discourse was a 
plain and earnest one, from the words of Christ to Peter, 
when they had dined on the shore of the lake. Toward 
the close the preacher appealed to the audience repeatedly, 
"Who of you can say, 'Lord, thou knowest all things; 
thou knowest that I love thee ' ? * Who ? " The deepest 

1 John xxi. 15-17. 



PETER'S LOVE. 167 

silence prevailed ; but the heart of one of the sailors was 
full ; he could not restrain himself, and, bursting out, he 
exclaimed in thrilling tones, '"Lord, thou knowest all 
things, tliou knowest that Hove thee.' " The congrega- 
tion were melted to tears. 

So was another audience under circumstances somewhat 
similar. At one of the general associations, held in Wales, 
of different Sunday schools to be publicly catechized, a 
young girl answered the close question put by the Saviour 
to Peter : " Lovest thou me ? " When she came to answer 
the third time, she was overcome by her feelings, and 
burst into tears, in which she was accompanied by the 
larger part of the congregation. Silence continued for a 
few minutes, all the people solemnly waiting her reply, 
when, recovering herself, she cried out, " Thou knowest 
all things ; thou knowest that I love thee ! " 

And here is yet another who witnessed a good confes- 
sion. A poor black boy, a slave in Africa, having heard 
of the preaching of missionaries, felt a strong desire to. 
go and learn something about Jesus Christ. For this 
purpose he crept secretly away one evening, but being 
obliged to pass under the window of the house, his master 
observed him, and called out, " Where are you going? " 
The poor fellow came back trembling, and said, "Me go 
to hear the missionaries, massa." " To hear the mission- 
aries, indeed ! If ever you go there, you shall have nine 
and thirty lashes, and be put in irons." With a disconso- 
late look, the poor black replied, "Me tell Massa, me tell 
the great Massa." " Tell the great Massa," replied the 
master, " what do you mean ? " "Me tell the great 



168 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

Massa, the Lord in heaven, that my massa was angry with 
ine, because I wanted to hear his word." The master was 
struck with astonishment, .his color changed, and, unable 
to conceal his feelings, he hastily turned away, saying, 
" Go along, and hear the missionaries." Being thus per- 
mitted, the boy gladly went. In the mean time, the mind 
of the master became restless. He had not been accus- 
tomed to think that he had a Master in heaven, who knew 
and observed all his actions ; and he, at length, determined 
to follow his slave, and see if there could be any peace 
obtained for his troubled spirit ; and, creeping unobserved, 
he slunk into a corner, and eagerly listened to the worcb 
of the missionary. That day, Mr. Kircherer addresse 1 
the natives from those words : " Lovest thou me ? " " Is 
there no poor sinner," said he, " who can answer this ques- 
tion ; not one poor slave who dares to confess him ? " Here 
the slave-boy, unable to restrain himself any longer, sprang 
up, and raising both his hands, while the tears streamed 
down his cheeks, cried out, "Yes, massa, me love the 
Lord Jesus Christ ; rne do love him, me love him with all 
my heart." The master, still more astonished, went home 
convinced of the blessings the gospel brings, and became a 
decided Christian. 

Boastfulness had been Peter's failing. Self-confident, 
severe in judging others, he had betrayed much impulsive- 
ness, and great ignorance of himself. The main point 
needing to be made manifest is, whether he has been 
effectually cured, and is prepared for the special service to 
be assigned him. Peter no longer answers, " Though all 
should be offended, yet will not I." He casts no side 



PETES' s LOVE. ' 169 

glances now ; he omits all comparisons. True affection to 
Jesus never shows itself by censuring others. He gives a 
plain, modest, honest answer: "Yea, Lord, thou knowest 
that I love thee." The third time will there be a 
remembrance of the thrice-repeated denial? Christ puts 
the question. Peter was grieved. It is needful that his 
heart should bleed as well as glow. 

Speaking of John Eliot, Cotton Mather says, "I have 
cause to remember with what a hearty, earnest, zealous 
application he addressed himself when, in the name of the 
neighboring pastors and churches, he gave me the right- 
hand of fellowship, at my ordination, and said, ' Brother, 
art thou a lover of the Lord Jesus Christ ? Then, I pray, 
feed his lambs.' " 

Fitzjames, Bishop of London, aged eighty, had long 
entertained a grudge against Colet, one of Wickliff's dis- 
ciples. With two others like himself, he complained 
against Colet to Archbishop Warham. The first article of 
complaint .was for speaking against the worship of images, 
and the second in regard to hospitality. Fitzjames alleged 
against Colet, that in treating upon this passage, " Feed, 
feed, feed," when he had expounded the two first as sig- 
nifying to feed with example, and with doctrine, in the 
third, which schoolmen expound for feeding with hospi- 
tality, he left out the feeding of the belly, and applied it 
another way. 

" Feed my flock," not the preacher's, but the Lord's 
congregation. Not amuse them, but feed them. Mere 
story-telling is not food ; mere exhortation is not food ; the 
15 



170 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

great doctrines of the Bible must be dwelt upon; else 
growth and strength need not be expected. The pastor 
should be able to say something more than, I hope I love 
Christ- I think I love him. This is required: "Lord, 
thou Imowest all things; thou knowest that I love 
thee." 

After McCheyne's death, a note was found unopened, 
which had been sent him while he lay sick of the fever. 
It ran thus : "I hope you will pardon a stranger for 
addressing to you a few lines. I heard you preach last 
Sabbath evening ; and it pleased God to bless that sermon 
to my soul. It was not so much what you said, as your 
manner of speaking, that struck me. I saw in you a 
beauty in holiness that I never saw before. You also said 
something in your prayer that struck me very much. It 
was, ' Thou knowest that we love thee.' sir, what 
would I give that I could say to my blessed Lord, Thou 
knowest that I love thee ! ' " 

" Do not I love thee, my Lord ? 

Behold my heart, and see ; 
And turn each cursed idol out 
That dares to rival thee." 



IX. "UNTO HIM." 

CHRIST spared not himself in dying for us. Shall we 
spare ourselves in living to him ? What do we think of 
the man rescued from drowning who says nothing and 



UNTO HIM. 



" 



171 



does nothing for his deliverer? " fle lived to Christ " is 
the concentrated biography of a true disciple. How ap- 
propriate for every one the motto, " Not to myself" ! and 
also its correlative, " For him." " Unto him who loved 
me and gave himself for me." a 

A missionary tutor at Basle used to give this advice to 
his pupils: "Whatever you are studying, even if it be 
the driest grammar, think that you are doing it for Christ, 
and you will find it easy and pleasant." 

Mrs, Sherwood relates that, pained at seeing Henry 
Martyn completely prostrated by his tormentor, Sabat, the 
apostate, she exclaimed, " Why subject yourself to all 
this ? Rid yourself of this Sabat at once." He replied, 
"Not if his spirit were ten times more acrimonious and 
exasperating." Then, smiling in his gentle, winning 
manner, he pointed upwards and whispered in low but 
earnest tones, " For Him." The whole of Christian life 
and of missionary work rests upon this principle, to 
Christ, not to ourselves. Such is the true law and im- 
pulse, Spiritual progress is measured by increasing de- 
light in the habit of such self-abnegation, and doing all 
for the glory of God. Every religious meeting and meas- 
ure fails of its full and proper object, if this principle 
gain no additional strength in the soul. 

Memorable was the case of a missionary mother, 2 who 
placed her children on shipboard, parting with them for 
life, and then, kneeling down upon the sand, said, "Dear 
Jesus, this I do for thee ! " So would we feel in all our 

*2 Cor. v. 15. 2 Mrs. Comstock. 



172 SEEDS AND SHEATHS. 

transactions. Parting with children, denying ourselves 
luxuries and comforts in order to advance his cause, we 
would say, " Dear Jesus, this we do for thee." 



" It is ' not place above, below 

My bliss, my heaven can be ; 
To live for Him who died for man, 
Oh, this is life to me ! " 




Till. 

GREAT GIFTS. 

I. HERITAGE OF THE MEEK. 

HUNTINGDON mentions a Christian 
minister who had often expressed a desire to under- 
stand the meaning of these words, "Blessed are 
the nieek, for they shall inherit the earth," l but remained 
a long time unsatisfied. One morning he Avas surprised, 
on approaching a very poor cottage, to hear the voice of 
praise. Drawing nearer, and looking in at the window, 
he saw a woman in the most wretched poverty. On a 
little stool before her she had a piece of black bread and 
a cup of cold water. With hands and eyes lifted to heaven, 
as if in a rapture of praise, she uttered these words : 
" What ! all this, and Jesus Christ too ! What ! all this, 
and Jesus Christ too ! " He went home with a vivid 
apprehension of the meaning of our Master's language. 

He had found a woman of wealth. In her grateful 
lowliness, what she had was more than Alexander's em- 
pire to him. Hers seemed a vast donation from Heaven, 
of which she was not worthy, and for which lively thanks 
were due ; his was a proud achievement of his own, proudly 
held, with no acknowledgment of indebtedness to man or 
God. She was more than conqueror. 

J Matt. v. 5. 
15* 173 



170 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

great doctrines of the Bible must be dwelt upon; else 
growth and strength need not be expected. The pastor 
should be able to saj something more than, I hope I love 
Christ; I think I love him. This is required: "Lord, 
thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love 
thee." 

After McCheyne's death, a note was found unopened, 
which had been sent him while he lay sick of the fever. 
It ran thus : "I hope you will pardon a stranger for 
addressing to you a few lines. I heard you preach last 
Sabbath evening ; and it pleased God to bless that sermon 
to my soul. It was not so much what you said, as your 
manner of speaking, that struck me. I saw in you a 
beauty in holiness that I never saw before. You also said 
something in your prayer that struck me very much. It 
was, ' Thou knowest that we love thee.' sir, what 
would I give that I could say to my blessed Lord, ' Thou 
knowest that I love thee ! ' " 

" Do not I love thee, my Lord ? 

Behold my heart, and see ; 
And turn each cursed idol out 
That dares to rival thee." 



IX. "UNTO JZOf." 

CHRIST spared not himself in dying for us. Shall we 
spare ourselves in living to him ? What do we think of 
the man rescued from diwning who says nothing and 



UNTO HIM. 



" 



171 



does nothing for his deliverer? " Se lived to Christ " is 
the concentrated biography of a true disciple. How ap- 
propriate for every one the motto, " Not to myself " ! and 
also its correlative, " For him." " Unto him who loved 
me and gave himself for me." 1 

A missionary tutor at Basle used to give this advice to 
his pupils : " Whatever you are studying, even if it be 
the driest grammar, think that you are doing it for Christ, 
and you will find it easy and pleasant." 

Mrs. Sherwood relates that, pained at seeing Henry 
Martyn completely prostrated by his tormentor, Sabat, the 
apostate, she exclaimed, " Why subject yourself to all 
this? Bid yourself of this Sabat at once." He replied, 
"Not if his spirit were ten times more acrimonious and 
exasperating." Then, smiling in his gentle, winning 
manner, he pointed upwards and whispered in low but 
earnest tones, " For Him." The whole of Christian life 
and of missionary work rests upon this principle, to 
Christ, not to ourselves. Such is the true law and im- 
pulse. Spiritual progress is measured by increasing de- 
light in the habit of such self-abnegation, and doing all 
for the glory of God. Every religious meeting and meas- 
ure fails of its full and proper object, if this principle 
. gain no additional strength in the soul. 

Memorable was the case of a missionary mother, 2 who 
placed her children on shipboard, parting with them for 
life, and then, kneeling down upon the sand, said, "Dear 
Jesus, this I do for thee ! " So would we feel in all our 

1 2 Cor. v. 15. * Mrs. Comstock. 



172 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

transactions. Parting with children, denying ourselves 
luxuries and comforts in order to advance his cause, we 
would say, " Dear Jesus, this we do for thee." 

" It is not place above, below 

My bliss, my heaven can be ; 
To live for Him who died for man, 
Oh, this is life to me ! " 




Till. 

GKEAT GIFTS. 

I. HERITAGE OF THE MEEK. 

HUNTINGDON mentions a Christian 
minister who had often expressed a desire to under- 

_ r 

^ ' . stand the meaning of these words, ' ' Blessed are 
the meek, for they shall inherit the earth," l but remained 
a long time unsatisfied. One morning he was surprised, 
on approaching a very poor cottage, to hear the voice of 
praise. Drawing nearer, and looking in at the window, 
he saw a woman in the most wretched poverty. On a 
little stool before her she had a piece of black bread and 
a cup of cold water. With hands and eyes lifted to heaven, 
as if in a rapture of praise, she uttered these words : 
" What ! all this, and Jesus Christ too ! What ! all this, 
and Jesus Christ too ! " He went home with a vivid 
apprehension of the meaning of our Master's language. 

He had found a woman of wealth. In her grateful 
lowliness, what she had was more than Alexander's em- 
pire to him. Hers seemed a vast donation from Heaven, 
of which she was not worthy, and for which lively thanks 
were due ; his was a proud achievement of his own, proudly 
held, with no acknoAvledgment of indebtedness to man or 
God. She was more than conqueror. 



t. v. 5. 
15* 173 



174 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

"Happy are the meek." They are fortified against 
some of the most active enemies to human peace. To be 
petulant, self-willed, or defiant, is to be uncomfortable; 
while a subdued, tractable disposition contains within 
itself the chief element, and is an indispensable condition 
of enjoyment. Where is there a wretched man, if not the 
one whose arrogance and asperity keep up a state of civil 
war with neighbors ? Even during the present life, meek- 
ness brings a large heritage. It associates with itself con- 
tentment, gratitude, and the whole sisterhood of beautiful 
and blessed graces. 

Those who believe in the pre-millennial reign of Christ, 
will, of course, give a somewhat different interpretation. 
The Rev. J. W. Brooks, Rector of St. Mary's, in Notting- 
ham, England, related to a visitor, in 1846, how he was 
led to believe that the renewed earth is to be the abode of 
the redeemed. He was delivering a course of sermons on 
the Beatitudes, and came to this text, "Blessed are the 
meek, for they shall inherit the earth;" which he ex- 
plained as meaning that the meek now inherit it <J)y 
having as much of it as is good for them. His mind, 
however, became impressed with the idea that he was not 
giving the true meaning of the passage, that the bless- 
ing is in the future. This impression had such an effect 
at the time that certain of his hearers noticed it, and at the 
close of the service asked him if he was not unwell. He 
then began to examine the subject anew, and was led to the 
conclusion that the earth restored will be the possession of 
the meek, and that this blessedness will be introduced at 
the coming of Christ and the resurrection of the just. 



REMUNERATION. 175 

There certainly is a reversion for the meek, a glorious 
and enduring inheritance. They are citizens and heirs 
in the kingdom of love, a kingdom evermore coming, 
boundless in wealth and endless in duration. 



II. REfflJNEEATION. 

WHEN John Wesley was about leaving England for 
Georgia as a missionary to the Indians, an unbeliever 
said to him, "What is this, sir? are you one of the 
knights-errant? How, pray, got Quixotism into your 
head? You want nothing; you have a good provision 
for, life, and are in a way of preferment ; and must 
you leave all to fight windmills, to convert savages in 
America? " He replied, " Sir, if the Bible be not true, 
I am as very a fool and madman as you can conceive; 
but if it is of God, I am sober-minded. For he has 
declared, ' There is no man who hath left house, or 
lands, or brethren, for the kingdom of God's sake, 
who shall not receive manifold more in the present time, 
and in the world to come everlasting life.' " 1 

" Manifold more." We reckon a hundred per cent, to 
be large profits, but here it is manifold ; one evangelist 
says an hundred-fold. Any sacrifice from love to Christ 
is sure to bring reward ; not in kind it may be, but none 
the less certain. In that which maketh really rich, there 
will be ample compensation spiritual peace, joy, and 

'Lukexviii. 29, 30. 



176 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

growth. Christ sees to it that no one shall be a loser by 
him ; and that whatever is renounced for him shall be a 
great deal more than made good. 

Who ever had more relatives than the Apostle Paul ? 
Wherever he labored he won brethren and sisters to him- 
self. " Salute Rufus chosen in the Lord, and his mother 
and mine." Many a witness for Jesus, banished from his 
kindred, finding that his foes are they of his own house- 
hold, rises up to say that he has met with more than a 
father's or mother's, more than a brother's or sister's, 
tenderness. 

" Yea, he shall so provide for you," writes John Fryth, 
from the Tower of London, where he was prisoner in 
1532, "that ye shall have an hundred fathers for one ; 
an hundred mothers for one; an hundred houses for 
one; and that in this life, as I have proved by experi- 
ence ; and after this life, everlasting joy with Christ our 
Saviour." 

A young person, who had been a Sabbath scholar, went 
to live with a family in which religion was wholly 
neglected. On the other side of the street was a pious 
family who strictly observed the Sabbath. The young 
woman perceived that the servants were allowed to attend 
public worship twice every Lord's day, while she could 
not go to church at all, as her master generally invited 
company to dinner on that day. She reminded her mis- 
tress of this circumstance, and requested that she might 
go to chapel one part of the Sabbath. This was refused, 
on the ground that she could not be spared. She then 
resolved, that if any vacancy occurred in the family 



TEE CHIEF DONATION. 177 

opposite, she -would offer herself. This happening soon 
after, she waited upon the lady, who observed, "I am 
afraid that, as you have high wages where you now live, 
my place will not suit you, as I give but five pounds a 
year ; but if you will come for that, I will try you." The 
young woman consented, and entered into the family. A 
gentleman visited the house, and being made acquainted 
with the case, presented her with a Bible, on the blank 
leaf of which he wrote, " Verily I say unto you, there is 
no man who hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or 
wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, who 
shall not . receive manifold more in this present time, 
and in the world to come life everlasting." 

An aged Christian man was one day walking to the 
sanctuary, his Bible in hand, when a friend, at that 
time in sorrowful circumstances, met him, and said, 
"Good-morning, Mr. Price; what are you reading 
there?" "Ah, good-morning," replied he; "I am 
reading my Father's will, as I walk along." "Well, 
and what has he left you?" said his friend. "Why, 
he has bequeathed to me a hundred-fold more in this life, 
and in the world to come life everlasting." 



121. THE QHIEF DONATION. 

COTTON MATHER, whose endeavors as a parent were 
highly blessed, says: "Let my prayers for my children 
be daily, with constancy, with agony. Yea, by name, let 
me mention each one of them every day before the Lord. 



178 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

I would importunately beg for all suitable blessings to be 
bestowed on them ; that God would give them grace, and 
give them glory, and withhold no good thing from them ; 
that God would smile on their education, and give his good 
angels charge over them and keep them from evil, that it 
may not grieve them ; that when their father and mother 
forsake them, the Lord may take them up. With impor- 
tunity I would plead that promise on their behalf, ' The 
heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to them that 
ask him.' 1 Oh, happy children, if, by asking, I may 
obtain the Holy Spirit for them! " 

By the Spirit's indwelling, we understand something 
else than a mere quickening and development of native 
germs of goodness, something more than the common and 
transient influences bestowed upon men without saving 
benefit to them. We mean his lasting residence, and 
effectual working in the production and growth of heavenly 
graces, however scattered and dwarfed they may be. 

" How much more shall your heavenly Father give the 
Holy Spirit to them that ask him ! " Blessed a fortiori ! 
Heaven-descended logic, to reason in such wise, from the 
less to the greater, from the worse to the better ! Earthly 
parents, close-handed though they may be, wicked though 
they may be,, never are so cruel as to offer hungering 
children things useless, a stone for a loaf; or things 
mischievous, a serpent for a fish, a scorpion for an 
egg. " How much more shall your heavenly Father give 
the Holy Spirit to them that ask him ! " The only condi- 
tion is that prayer be offered. He first gave the Son 

'Lukexi. 13. 



TEE CHIEF DONATION. 179 

without being asked ; he never gives the Spirit, but upon 
the terms of supplication. , .. , . .:. 

Speaking of his daughter at a time of special religious 
interest, Dr. Griffin says : "Louisa's last chance appeared 
to have come. She and her husband were very interest- 
ing objects to me and my absent child also. That passage 
in Luke XL 5-18 opened upon me with a most interesting 
reality, particularly the last verse, ' How much more 
shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them 
that ask him ! ' I believed the truth of that promise as 
fully as I believed my own existence, and applied it to 
supplications for the Spirit on others as well .as on 
myself." . - 

" One of the first helps I received," says John Newton^ 
just escaping from shipwreck, literal and spiritual, " one 
of the first helps I received, in consequence of a determi- 
nation to examine the New Testament more carefully, was 
from Luke xi. 13. Here I found a Spirit spoken of who 
was to be communicated to those who ask it. Upon this 
I reasoned thus : If this book be true, the promise in this 
passage must be true likewise. I have need of that very. 
Spirit by which the whole was written to understand it 
aright. He has engaged here to give that Spirit to those 
who ask. I must therefore pray for it;, and if it be of 
God, he will make good his own word." 

God did make good his word to him, a debased, heathen- 
ized slave-trader. No one, in going before God, needs 
any other credentials, or letter of introduction, than 
Luke xi. 18. , .-- 

Why do Christians go sighing in such an unsatisfactory 



180 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

life, with no more of faith, love, and joy? Need they 
look elsewhere than to the want of an appreciation of such 
a promise, such a golden key to the great storehouse of 
choicest heavenly bounties ? "Though," remarks Luther, 
" we had no motive or incentive to prayer except this kind 
and precious saying, it should be enough of itself." 



IF. TEE- KEEPSAKE. 

IN the conflict at Waterloo, a soldier, mortally wounded, 
was carried to the rear by comrades, and at some distance 
from the battle-field was laid down under a tree. The 
dying man asked to have his knapsack opened, that he 
might obtain' his pocket-Bible. He then requested a com- 
rade to read to him before he should breathe his last. 
Being asked what passage, he fixed upon John xiv. 27 : 
"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you; 
not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your 
heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." " Now," said 
the dying soldier, "I die happy. I desired to have peace 
with God, and I possess the peace which passeth all un- 
derstanding." A little while after, one of the officers 
passed near, and, seeing him in such an exhausted state, 
inquired how he felt. He replied, " I die happy, for I 
enjoy the peace of God which passeth all understanding; " 
and then expired. Rich man he ; beautiful the wreath he 
wore ! He belonged to the favored family in which part- 
ing gifts have been distributed by their head. 

Jesus Christ, about to be separated from his immediate 



THE KEEPSAKE. 181 

circle, will give them a keepsake. What is his legacy ? 
What pledge of friendship will he give, characteristic of 
the family, to he a bond and remembrance ? Has he a 
signet-ring ? Will he bring out a casket of rare jewels ? 
Does he lead the disciples to an excavation beneath the 
temple, or to some cave in Mount Carmel, where hidden 
treasures may be found ? The One who brings tribute- 
money out of the lake can be at no loss for means or 
material. "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give 
unto you ; " l peace in war time and all times ; peace that 
shall smile on us in the dungeon ; that shall go out with 
us into the storm and on to the battle-field; that will 
stand by us as we look into the grave, and look over into 
the world of retribution. 

Have we a right to be disquieted at anything ? If we 
are Christ's, we are disciples of One who has no fears, no 
anxieties, and who would fain bring us into such close 
union to himself, that we may not only become like 
him, but may share with him in the blessed calm of per- 
fect trust, perfect submission. To lose one's own will, to 
sink one's self in the adorable sovereignty, wisdom, and 
love of Immanuel, is to find the peace of God which pass- 
eth all understanding. 

These sweet and mighty words of Jesus are enough for 
any scene, enough for the final hour. An incident, simi- 
lar to that at the opening of the chapter, is related re- 
specting one of the battles in the Crimea. 

A wounded soldier, borne from the field, said to his 

1 John xiv. 27. 
16 



182 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

companions, " Put me down. You need not carry me any 
further ; I am dying." They put him down, and returned 
to their posts. Soon, an officer, observing him, inquired 
if he could do anything for him. " Nothing, thank you, 
replied the man. " Shall I get you a little water? 
asked the officer, kindly. " No, thank you : I am dying. 
"Is there nothing I can do for you? Shall I write to 
your friends?" "I have no friends you can write to. 
But there is one thing for which I should be obliged. In 
my knapsack you will find a Testament ; will you open it 
at the fourteenth of John, and, near the end of that chap- 
ter, you will find a verse that begins with < Peace;' will 
you read it?" The officer read the words, "Peace I 
leave with you ; my peace I give unto you ; not as the 
world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be 
troubled, neither let it be afraid." "Thank you, sir," 
said the dying soldier; "I have that peace; I am going 
to that Saviour; God is with me ; I want no more," and 
expired. 

Having such peace in the heart, we may march with com- 
posure amidst the din of battle, calmly outride any storm, 
and, when heaven and earth shall dissolve, may fold our 
arms in perfect serenity. 

" Let not your heart be faint, 
My peace I give to you, 
Such peace as reason never planned, 
Nor sinners ever knew. 

" It tells of joys to come ; 

It soothes the troubled breast ; 
It shines a star amid the storm, 
The harbinger of rest. 



THE WONDERFUL GIFT. 183 

"Then murmur not, nov mourn, 

My people, faint and few ; 
Though earth to its foundation shake, 
My peace I leave "with you." 



F. THE WONDERFUL GIFT. 

Oh, ponder this, my soul ! 

Our God hath loved us thus, 
That e'en his dearest, only Son, 

He freely giveth us. 
Thou precious gift of God, 

The pledge and bond of love, 
With thankful heart I kneel to take 

This treasure from above. 

TEKSTEEGEN. 

ALL mountains and hills are equally the work of God ; 
yet the world presents only here and there a Mount 
Ararat or a Mount St. Elias. So all Scriptures are alike 
given by inspiration ; but certain passages have peculiar 
prominence. Here is one : " For God so loved the world 
that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever be- 
lieveth in him should not perish, but have everlasting 
life." 1 

It would be worth one's study for life to learn how 
to read, if these words should be all that the learner ever 
perused. So thought an aged negro in the West Indies, 
living at a distance from the missionary station, but 
strongly desirous of being able to read the Bible. He came 
regularly for a lesson, yet made little progress. His 

1 John iii. 16. 



184 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

teacher, almost disheartened, said to him, "Had you not 
better give it over ? " " No, master," said he, with great 
emphasis, "I will never give it over till I die;" and 
pointing to this verse, "God so loved the -world that he 
gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in 
him might not perish, but have everlasting life," "It is 
worth/' he added, " all the labor to be able to read that 
one single verse." 

At a missionary meeting in England, one of the speak- 
ers related an anecdote of a little boy, who, having heard 
it said that for every penny subscribed a verse of Scrip- 
ture might be translated into a foreign language, went 
home and begged that he might subscribe a penny, and be 
the means of translating a verse ; "and, "said the dear 
child, " I should wish it to be that verse, ' For God so 
loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life.' " 

At the same meeting another speaker arose, and stated 
that the Rev. Daniel Come, afterwards Bishop of Madras, 
was one day sent for to visit a dying brahmin. He went, 
expecting to find him sunk in all the darkness of heathen- 
ism and superstition. To his surprise, he found him a 
true believer in Christ, and rejoicing in the hope of heaven. 
-Mr. Corrie inquired how he had been brought to the 
knowledge of the truth. " Do you remember," said the 
poor man, "distributing verses of Scripture at such a 
place ?" naming the village where he lived. " You gave 
one to me, and the verse was, ' For God so loved the world 
that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever be- 



THE WONDERFVL GIFT. 185 

lieveth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. ' 
That verse was the means of my conversion." 

In one of his speeches, the Rev. Amos Button gave this 
incident : ' ' We had an excellent old man in the commissary 
department, who spent his time in distributing tracts. 
One day he met a number of natives taking a sick man to 
the Ganges, to put an end to his illness and his life, ac- 
cording to custom, by stopping his mouth and nose with 
the mud of the river. The sick man kept exclaiming, I 
don't want to go to the Ganges, for I am a Christian. I 
won't have any Saviour but Christ.' The history of the 
sick man is remarkable. Many years before, he had seen 
a missionary the late Bishop of Madras preaching from 
the Bible. He went up to the preacher, and told him that 
he wanted that book. The preacher said he could not read 
it, it was English. The man insisted, and finally he tore 
out a fly-leaf, and gave to him a translation of two or 
three passages; as, 'God so loved the world,' etc. The 
man lived for a number of years, and, in consequence, 
refused to have any other Saviour but Jesus Christ." 

Preaching from these words, John Flavel related the 
following : "During a famine in Germany, long time ago, 
a poor family was reduced to such straits that the husband 
proposed to his wife to sell one of the children for bread to 
keep the rest of them alive. Consent was finally given ; 
but then came the question, which of the four should be 
sold ? The eldest was mentioned ; they refused to part 
with him, because he was the first-born. Should it be the 
second? He was the very picture of his father. The 
third ? That one strongly resembled his mother. When 

16* 



186 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

they came to the fourth, he was the youngest, the child of 
their old age ; and how could they think of such a thing? 
So they chose rather to perish altogether than part with 
either child." God did not spare his Son, his only Son, 
his Son infinitely beloved. He gave him as bread from 
heaven ; gave him, not because he himself had any need, 
but because he so loved a famished, perishing world. Men 
give as they find it convenient, give as they are impor- 
tuned, throwing a crust to a beggar, and bidding him 
begone. God, -in the self-moved overflow of eternal love, 
gave his only-begotten Son to this world. 

What a place for such a Son to c,;me to was this world, 
a world in arms ; a rendezvous of felons ! The rose of 
Sharon was planted amidst polar ice. Who shall take the 
gauge of that gift, or of the benevolence that furnished 
it ? Only God knows the love of God ; no other love sup- 
plies similarity. " Mary," said a preacher speaking from 
this text to a negro convert, " Mary, is not the love of 
God wonderful ? " and then enlarging on the proof of that 
love in the gift and atonement of Christ, he appealed 
again, "Is it not wonderful? " Mary simply replied, 
" Master, master, I do not think it is so wonderful, because 
it is just like him." " Oh ! that is a strange text," ex- 
claimed the Rev. John Brown of Haddington, " 'God so 
loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but havo 
everlasting life.' This declaration would set our hearts 
all on fire, if they were not infernally frozen; and, 
indeed, closely applied by the Holy Ghost, it would 
get them on fire, even though infernally frozen. He once 



THE WONDERFUL GIFT. 187 

applied it with such power to my soul, that I think the 
application would have inflamed the heart of a devil, had 
it been so spoken to him." 

A missionary, in the South Sea Islands, was once read- 
ing this chapter to a number of natives. When he had 
finished the sixteenth verse, an islander, who listened 
eagerly to the words, interrupted him, saying, " What 
words were those you just read? What sounds were 
those I heard? Let me hear those words again." The 
missionary read again the words, " God so loved the 
world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that who- 
soever believeth in him should not perish, but have ever- 
lasting life;" when the native rose from his seat and 
said, "Is that true? Can that be true? God love the 
world, when the world not love him ! God so love the 
world as to give his Son to die that man might not 
die! Can that be true?" Mr. Nott, the preacher 
referred to, again read the verse ; told him it was true, 
and that it was the message God had sent to them; and 
that whosoever believed in him should not perish, but be 
happy after death. The feelings of the wondering man. 
were too powerful for expression or restraint. He burst 
into tears, and, as these chased each other down his face, 
he retired to meditate in private on the great love of God 
which had that day touched his soul. 

"Whosoever believeth," of whatever nation or cul- 
ture, Jew or Gentile, learned or ignorant. Great sins 
are not a bar ; the greatest sinners, if they believe, shall 
as certainly not perish, shall as certainly have everlasting 
life, as any. The wife of a gentleman of high standing 



188 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

had so far swerved from the proprieties of life as to seem 
beyond possible recovery. She was once lodged in a 
police station-house, and there attempted frantically and 
repeatedly to commit suicide. A man of God providen- 
tially came in. He read these wonderful and soul-subdu- 
ing words: "God so loved the world that he gave his 
only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should 
not perish, but have everlasting life." He kneeled and 
prayed for the poor object before him. "Is it possible," 
thought she, " that this stranger can pray for me ? that he 
has sought and found me just when, for the second time, 
I meditated my own destruction? " From that hour she 
became a new creature ; and returned to her home, where 
she has since been an ornament and a blessing. 

Martha was a bed-ridden paralytic, living in a narrow 
back street. Her home consisted of two rooms, meagrely 
furnished, but tidy, and were all that she and her husband 
needed. They were alone in the world, and the poor man 
was feeble and rheumatic ; yet with loving care he waited 
on his stricken wife. " She has been a good wife to me," 
he would say, with tears in his eyes. 

The trial, however, was one not of days or weeks 
merely, but of months and years. The use of her limbs 
was quite gone, and her mind enfeebled even to childish- 
ness. She never tried to speak except to her husband, 
who seemed but partially to comprehend her incoherent 
efforts. In this state she was visited by a lady, who was in 
the constant habit of reading the Word of God to the sick 
in her neighborhood. "It has been proved," she re- 
marked, "that the soul of the poor idiot is capable of 



THE WONDERFUL GIFT. 189 

embracing the gospel, even when the mind is unfitted for 
the affairs of this life. Who shall dare to say the soul is 
always incapable of receiving scriptural truths when the 
functions of the body appear to be suspended ? " She 
resolved to read the Scriptures to Martha, and continued to 
do so for many weeks. Sometimes the man was present, 
but he listened with almost as much apathy as his 
wife, though very grateful for any attention to their 
bodily necessities. It was discouraging, but the visitor 
persevered. 

One morning she sat alone by the poor woman, who 
cast a vacant gaze into the face of the reader, yet scarcely 
seeming to see her. The portion selected was the third 
chapter of John's Gospel ; and just as she had concluded 
the sixteenth verse, " God so loved the world, that he gave 
his only-begotten Son," etc., the woman, half raising her- 
self in bed, with some excitement, vainly endeavored 
to make herself understood. At length the lady conjec- 
tured that Martha was asking for a repetition of the verse. 
It was read again and again, and was listened to with 
eager attention. It was evidently as water to a thirsty 
soul. ~ 

The lady, astonished at what had passed, quickly re- 
peated her visit. Martha looked up at her approach, as 
she had never done to any one but her husband since the 
stroke fell on her. The same verse was read and re-read, 
in answer to repeated petitions, imperfectly expressed. 
Her husband stood by, listening with a surprised and puz- 
zled air. This man, so intelligent, so kind-hearted, so 
grateful, could hear unmoved the divine exposition of 



190 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

Almighty love, while his wife, who seemed almost dead to 
thought and feeling, appeared to have grasped the salvation 
which God offers in his Son. To the end of her life, the 
text by which God had chosen to teach her retained its 
power. No other passage seemed to awaken interest ; but 
a gleam of intelligence and joy almost invariably shone 
in that dull eye on hearing how " God so loved the 
world." 

Margaret A. Walton, of Charleston, Virginia, died at 
seven years of age, giving good evidence of piety. One 
night she appeared to forget that there was any person in 
the room besides herself and her Saviour. She realized 
his presence, and began to plead with him as if she saAV 
him seated on his throne. " Jesus, Jesus, you did 
promise me, you did promise me that whosoever believeth 
on thy name should not perish, but have everlasting life ; 
you did promise me so ! " 

In one of the union . prayer-meetings of New York 
city, 1 a gentleman gave the following: "At the West 
lived a Catholic family in which was a little girl seven 
years old. She was induced to go to a Protestant 
Sabbath school. The father became anxious about his 
soul. His distress increased daily, and one night he 
arose from his bed in agony, and begged his wife to 
pray for him, saying he did not know how to pray for him- 
self. She told him she could not pray any better than he. 
'What shall I do, then?' 'Perhaps,' said she, 'our 
little Mary can pray.' So the father went up to her 
chamber, where she was fast asleep, took her up in his 

1 1858. 



TRE WONDERFUL GIFT. 191 

arms, bore her down stairs, and said with great earnest- 
ness, ' Mary, can you pray ? ' ' Oh, yes, father, I can ! ' 
' Will you kneel down and pray for your poor father ? ' 
'Yes, I will pray for you.' So she kneeled down, put up 
her little hands, and said, ' Our Father, who art in 
heaven,' going through with the Lord's Prayer. 
Then she prayed for him in her own language, asking God 
to love him and have mercy upon him, and to pardon all 
his sins for Jesus Christ's sake. When she had finished, 
her father said, ' Mary, can you read in your Bible? ' 
' Oh, yes, father, I can read.' She began at the third 
chapter of the Gospel according to John, and read till she 
came to that verse, 'As Moses lifted up the serpent in 
the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up ; 
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but 
have everlasting life.' ' Mary ! ' said he, ' is that 
there?' 'Yes, father, it is here; Jesus Christ said so.' 
' Well, that is just what I need, what your poor father 
needs.' 'Yes, father, and hear the rest of it. "For 
God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, 
but have everlasting life." ' , ' Oh, that is for me, for just 
such as me. "Whosoever believeth in him." I can. 
believe in him, I do believe in him.' From that hour the 
father went on his way, rejoicing in Christ Jesus with 
great joy." 

Who shall despair? Here is a warrant broad enough 
for the race. These blessed lines are all that 'any' poor 
sinner, however vile, needs to authorize the fullest 
encouragement. These lines are all that any trembling, 



1192 'SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

dying saint needs to quiet his fears, and to put the 
meddlesome adversary to flight. 

An old author mentions a story of Satan's appearing to 
a dying man, and showing him a large parchment roll, 
wherein were written on each side the numberless sins 
of the sick man. There were written his idle words, 
which made up three-quarters of all he had ever spoken, 
together with the false words, the unchaste words, the 
angry words ; afterwards came in order his vain and 
ungodly words ; and lastly his actions, arranged according 
to the commandments ; whereupon Satan said, " See here 
thy virtues ; see here what thy examination must be." 
The man answered, " It is true, Satan ; but thou hast not 
set down all ; for thou shouldest have added and set down 
here below, ' The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from 
all sin ; ' and this also ought not to have been forgotten, 
' That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but 
have everlasting life;' " whereupon the devil vanished. 

"About half-past eleven," says the biographer of Dr. 
Hugh Heugh, "he repeated four times, 'Whosoever 
believeth on him shall not perish, but have everlasting 
life.' He said, .' There are many testimonies in the 
gospel,- but the outline of them all is just this, "Who- 
soever believeth in him shall not perish, but have 
everlasting life." ' He said in a little, ' It's a terrible 
thing to overlook the gospel by stinting it. It's a terrible 
thing to stint the gospel. Men should neither be dividers 
nor contractors of the gospel.' " 



IX. 

PASTOBAL. 

7. MY SHEPHEED. 

God, wlio the universe clotli hold, 

In his fold, 

Is my shepherd ; kind and heedful 
Is my shepherd, and cloth keep 

Me, his sheep, 
Still supplied with all things needful. 

He feecleth me in fields which lie 

Fresh and green, 

Mottled with spring's flowery painting, 
Through which creep, with murmuring crooks, 

Crystal brooks, 
To refresh my spirits fainting. 

When my soul from heaven's way 

Went astray. 

With earth's vanities seduced, 
For his name's sake, kindly he, 

Wandering me, 
To his holy fold reduced. 

Yea, though I stray through death's dark vale , 

Where his pale 

Shades did on each side enfold me, 
Dreadless, having thee for guide, 

Should I bide, 
For thy rod and staff uphold me. 

17 193 



194 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

Thou my board with messes large 

Dost surcharge ; 

My bowls full of wine thou pourest; 
And, before mine enemies' 

Envious eyes, 
Balm upon my head thou showerest. 

Neither 'dures thou bounteous grace 

For a space, 

But it knows nor bound nor measure ; 
So my days, to my life's end, 

Shall I spend 
In thy courts with heavenly pleasure. 

F. DAVISON. 

WEETEST psalm ! Amidst the heat and dust 
of life, we come to a little paradise. A land- 
scape opens 'before us, quiet and beautiful as 
a celestial valley. This psalm has been termed "The 
bleating of Messiah's sheep ; " we would rather call it the 
repose of the flock. 

In an hour of holy and grateful musings, King David 
dwells upon his career before he "was taken from the 
sheepfold" onward. His whole course of early pastoral 
life, as well as later regal responsibilities, come under 
review ; and, at the reminiscences of constant divine care, 
his heart wells up in the glad testimony, " The Lord is 
my Shepherd; I shall not want." 

When the Rev. John Cotton was minister in Boston, 
intelligence came respecting the distress of some poor 
Christians at Sigatea, where was a small church, the mem- 
bers of which were reduced to great extremity by persecu- 
tion. Mr. Cotton immediately began to collect for them, 




HY SHEPHERD. 195 

and remittee! seven hundred pounds sterling. This relief 
arrived the very day after they had divided their last 
portion of meal, with no other prospect than that of a 
lingering death. It was immediately after their pastor 
had preached to them from the words, "The Lord is niy 
Shepherd ; I shall not want." 

In hard times and dark clays the Lord is no less my 
Shepherd, "He leadeth me besicle the still waters." 
Sweet waters of repose from the holy fountain, God's 
word, how ye quiet and enchant the soul ! Along 
your sacred margin may I ever be led, and on your faith- 
ful bosom discern the clear heaven above ! 

At the summit of the Pulney Hills, in Southern India, 
may be seen the grave of one who lost his life in the midst 
of an overwhelming flood on the plain below. The memo- 
rial stone by that quiet grave bears this inscription : "David 
Coit Scudder. He leadeth me beside the still waters." 

There is a narrow valley which I must pass through. 
No other way is there out of the present field, whether it 
be wilderness or green pastures. The friends around my 
bed must tarry behind ; but the great Giver and Defender 
of life has promised to guide and guard. Will he not, 
with his rod and staif, scatter the whole brood of serpents 
bruising the head of Him that hath the power of death ? 
There will be only at most a shadow, but no substantial 
reality of death there, and I will not start nor shrink. 

How many have gone down the valley, sustained by these 
words ! It was while repeating the Hebrew of this psalm 
that the erratic Edward Irving died; and Bishop Sander- 
son, also, while repeating our English version of the same. 



196 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

The Rev. Samuel G. Ramsey, of Tennessee, on the 
night of his death, though apparently unconscious and in- 
different to surrounding objects, yet joined in singing, with 
a clear, sweet voice : 

" The Lord my Shepherd is, 
I shall be well supplied," etc. 

He did not rouse again. 

The pious William Gordon was once speaking to a 
friend on his rapid approach to death, and the hope he 
entertained of a full pardon through the atonement of our 
reconciling Saviour. This occurred shortly before his de- 
cease, and the friend, in order to strengthen his hopes and 
administer further consolation, read to him, " Yea, though 
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will 
fear no evil, for thou art with me ; thy rod and thy staff 
they comfort me." "Yes, "said the dying man, "yes, 
if He were not with me how dark it would be ! but it's 
all light." 

In the last hours of Dr. James Hope, a London phy- 
sician, when the same passage was quoted, he said, " They 
do comfort me ; there is no darkness. I see Jordan, and 
the heavenly Joshua passing over dry-shod." It was at 
eighty years of age that Professor Carl Ritter, the cele- 
brated geographer, finished his course. The night before 
that event, as his pastor pressed his hand, quoting this 
beautiful psalm, "The Lord is my Shepherd," Ritter 
replied, '"'He has guided me thus far, and he will not 
desert me now." 

Almost the last words Jane Taylor was able to articu- 
late in her extreme weakness, were : "Though I walk 



JUT SHEPHERD. 197 

through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no 
evil, for thou art .with me ; thy rod and thy staff they 
comfort me ; " and, on the evening of that clay, she calmly 
breathed her last. Strange, sweet power have these lines 
to captivate and cheer the heart ! 

The Eev. Richard Knill gives the following incident 
of his labors in St. Petersburg: "Just as the Bibles 
were passing through my hands, a milkmaid from a 
village called with milk. As she passed me, I said, 
'Good woman, can you read?' 'Yes, sir, in my own 
language.' ' What language is it? ' 'The Finnish.' ' Oh, 
here is a Finnish Bible; read the twenty-third Psalm.' 
She read very fluently until she came to the words, 
' Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow 
of death, I will fear no evil ; for Thou art with me ; Thy 
rod and Thy staff they comfort me ; ' and then her voice 
faltered ; she began to weep, and returned me the book. 
' Have you a Bible ? ' I inquired. ' No, sir ; I never 
had money enough to buy one.' 'How much money 
have you now?' 'Only a ruble 7 (lOcl). 'Then 
give me,' said I, 'the ruble, and I will give you the 
book.' She looked at me with astonishment, but I said 
I meant what I told her, when she fumbled in her dress 
for the ruble, and gave it to me, and I handed her the 
Bible. The ecstasy of the woman cannot be described. 
She looked at it, opened it, shut it, and looked again, then 
pressed it to her heart, kissed it, and burst into tears." 

A chaplain of the United States Army stated, in 1862, 
that among the dead on one of the battle-fields before 
Kichmond, was a Southern soldier, who lay unburied 
17* 



198 SEEDS AND SHEAVES, 

several days after the conflict. The flesh had already 
been eaten by the worms from his fingers ; but under- 
neath the skeleton hand lay an open copy of the Bible, 
and the fingers were pressing upon those precious words 
of the twenty-third Psalm, "Thy rod and thy staff, 
they comfort me." 

Dear lambs of the flock are rendered fearless by the 
same words. McCheyne, in a sketch of the little boy, 
James Laing, states: " On one occasion he said, 'I am 
glad this psalm is in the Bible.' ' What psalm ? ' James 
replied, ' Yea, though I walk through death's dark vale. 
He has promised to be with me, and God is as good as 
his word.' " 

Dr. Hugh Heugh, of Scotland, says : "A boy, a poor 
boy,' fatherless, about twelve years of age, died last week, 
like a patriarch, reposing on the twenty-third Psalm, and 
having a strong desire ' to depart and be with Christ, which 
is far better.' The good Shepherd spared this lamb from 
the usual storms of fear and temptation. I saw, with 
much emotion, his placid countenance in death." 

A little girl, three or four years old, had been to 
an infant school, where she heard about the valley of 
the shadow of death. She was taken ill, and soon became 
so sick that friends said she must die. She was much 
affected by this. " Mother," said she. " will you go with 
me through the valley of the shadow of death?" Her 
mother replied she could not go till God called her. 
Turning to her father she said, " Father, will you go 
with me ? " He affectionately told her he could not go till 
God sent for him. This grieved the little girl, and, turn- 



MY SHEPHERD. 199 

ing her face to the wall, she cried. But shortly after, she 
said with a sweet smile, "I have found. one to go with 
me. Jesus will go with me through the valley of the 
shadow of death." 

The provision made is abundant ; all things needful for 
refreshment and entertainment are bestowed. "I con- 
fess," says Captain Wilson, " that, since my return from 
India, I have been forcibly struck with several things 
which prove the Scriptures to be an Eastern book. For 
instance, the language of one of the psalms, where David 
says, ' Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth 
over,' most likely alludes to a custom which continues to 
this day. I once had this ceremony performed on myself, 
in the house of a rich Indian, in the presence of a large 
company. The gentleman of the house poured upon my 
hands and arms a delightfully odoriferous perfume, put a 
golden cup into my hand, and poured wine into it till 
it ran over, assuring me, at the same time, that it was 
a great pleasure to him. to receive me, and I should find a 
rich supply in his house. I think the inspired poet ex- 
pressed his sense of the divine goodness by this allusion." 

What if I am an orphan child, and pinched by poverty ? 
I am not too young for my pastor, earthly and heavenly, 
to care for. My family is an honored one. This psalm is 
meat and drink for me. 

Some years ago, a minister in Scotland, riding his High- 
land pony along a green lane, overheard a young voice 
repeating, " The Lord is my Shepherd." He stopped, 
crossed the pasture, and found a little boy, who tended a 
few sheep, busily engaged in committing these precious 



200 SEEDS AND SUEAVE8. 

words to memory. He was the only son of his mother, 
and she a widow, poor and in feeble health. His father, 
who was a herdsman, had been killed by an enraged ani- 
mal. His mother had given him this passage to learn, 
that he might think of the Lord as the Shepherd of his 
soul. The good man, on hearing these things, said to him, 
" Well, my child, what will you do if your mother becomes 
worse and dies? Have you any friends to go to?" 
"Oh, no," he replied, "but my mother tells me that 
God's book says, ' When my father and my mother forsake 
me, then the Lord will take me up.' " The aged pastor's 
heart was gladdened, and, kneeling down on the green field, 
he prayed God to bless the lad, and be to him and do for 
him more than the best earthly parent. 

Our young American poetess, Margaret Davidson, 
loved this psalm, and when only nine years of age wrote 
the following version : 

" My Shepherd is the faithful Lord, 
I shall not want, I trust his word ; 
He lays me down in pastures green, 
He leads me by the lake serene, 
Comforts my soul, and points me on 
To pure religion's holy shrine. 

" I wander through the vale of death, 

Yet he supports me still ; 
He will receive my dying breath 
If I perform his will. 

"Even in the presence of my foes 

He doth a meal of plenty spread; 
My cup with blessings overflows, 
With oil he does anoint ray head." 



IN THE SHEPSMED'S ARMS. 201 



II. IN THE 8HEPHEB&S ARMS. 

THE Shepherd calls and beckons. Well for men if 
their shyness is overcome, and, drawing nigh, they let him 
take them into his arms. They have neither to. buy 
nor earn help. The soul must be committed, all helpless 
and vile, to the Grood Shepherd's hand, to be taken to the 
fountain and cleansed. 

"He carries them in his bosom." 1 Deep and rapid 
streams, snares, pits, and wild beasts beset the way. 
How watchful Jesus is ! Who ever accused him of being 
careless ? When was he ever so busy here and there, or 
had so -much on his hands, as to forget or drop one of 
the little ones? 

How tender he is ! Ah, yes, the tenderest spot in the 
universe is the heart of our Lord Jesus. He does not 
drive the flock, he leads them ; does not oblige the little 
ones to go alone. He gathers the lambs with his arms, 
and carries them in his bosom. In Eastern countries you 
may see a shepherd, with his loose outer garment made fast 
by a girdle round the waist, take up a feeble lamb and lay 
it in his bosom on one side, and then take up a second 
timid little creature and put it in the other side. They can 
feel how his heart beats for them. A blow aimed at them 
falls on him. 

Many years ago, a little girl stood weeping at the door 
of her pastor's study. He kindly invited her in, and bade 

1 Isa. xl. 11. 



202 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

her open her heart to him. "0 sir," cried she, "I 
have been a great sinner all iny life ! I have lived seven 
years without God, and without Christ. Do you think 
such a sinner as I can be forgiven? He told her how 
Jesus had died to take away sin, and was ready to save 
her. She soon found peace in believing, and wished to 
join the church. Her mother thought she was too young, 
and said, ' ' My clear child, I am afraid that you will go 
back to the world and bring disgrace upon the church of 
Christ." With a bursting heart she replied, " Cannot the 
Lord Jesus keep a child in the right way as well as a 
grown person? He has promised to take the lambs in his 
arms, and carry them in his bosom. I believe in him 
with all my heart. I know that I love, and I want to 
obey, him." Why should she not? She was permitted 
to obey the Saviour, and is now at the head of a large 
Christian family. There is something quite unanswerable 
in the tender logic of such a lamb of Jesus. We would 
much rather try tp meet the subtlest arguments of infidel- 
ity than the warm reasoning of a child who desires a place 
in the fold of our Lord. 

A little boy in a Christian Chinese family, at Amoy, 
asked his father to allow him to be baptized ; but was told 
he was too young, that he might fall back if he made a 
profession then. He answered, and could the father 
gainsay it? "Jesus has promised to carry the lambs in 
his arms. As I am a little boy, it will be easier for 
Jesus to carry me." 

The attention of a servant-maid in Edinburgh to the 
spiritual interest of a little girl committed to her charge, 



IN THE SHEPHERD'S ARMS. 203 

and -who died when nine years old, was peculiarly owned of 
God. The servant was accustomed to attend on the. min- 
istry of the late Mr. Patison, and the child was permitted 
to accompany her. By degrees the attention of her young 
charge was so drawn out to the sermons she heard that 
the account she gave of many of the precious truths which 
fell from the lips of that worthy minister of Christ far 
exceeded what might have been expected from her tender 
years. Happening, one clay, in the course of his family 
visits, to call at the house where the dear child and her 
maid lodged during the bathing season, Mr. Patison en- 
tered into conversation with her, and, from her punctual 
attendance on public ordinances, took occasion to ask her 
if she recollected his preaching on Isaiah xl. 11: "He 
shall feed his flock like a shepherd ; he shall gather his 
lambs with his arms," etc. " Yes," replied the child, "I 
remember it very well ; for all the time you were preach- 
ing I was wishing with all my heart that I were one of 
Christ's lambs." "Ah, my dear ! " said the good man, 
not a little affected, "what a happy day would it have 
been in Bristo Street, had all my hearers been employed 
in a similar manner ! " 



204 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 



III. ON HIS SHOULDERS. 

The Shepherd sought his sheep ; 

The Father sought his child ; 
They followed me o'er vale and bill, 

O'er deserts waste and wild. 
They found me nigh to death, 

Famished, and faint, and lone ; 
They bound me with the bauds of love ; 

They saved the wandering one. 

H. BONAK. 

NEVEK will the writer forget his last brief interview 
with a venerated and godly man, who lived to be ninety 
years of age. A smile of recognition, a hearty grasp of 
the hand, and a few pleasant words, were all which the 
circumstances admitted. Before parting with my hand, 
he remarked : u One passage of Scripture has been dwell- 
ing much upon my mind. It is in the parable of the 
Lost Sheep : ' He layeth it upon his shoulders.' l The 
thought of lying upon Christ's shoulders is very delightful 
to me in my weakness; I feel so secure and so happy 
resting upon his shoulders ! " His look and gesture cor- 
responded with the similitude. I went away soliloquizing, 
' ' Ah. yes, aged saint, there is no place to lie on like 
Christ's shoulders ; no one can pluck thee thence. Why 
fear the ravening, howling wolf? What mountains did 
the Great Shepherd and Bishop of souls cross ; what ene- 



xv. 5. 



oy ms SHOULDERS. 205 

mies did he meet! Of the people there was none with 
him ; yet on he went in his search, with bleeding feet and 
hands, his head filled with dew, and his locks with the 
drops of night. As the rescued ones are borne back to 
the fold, and as they feel the gentle pressure of the Good 
Shepherd's hand, how do joy and love overflow ! " 

A converted brahmin had lost his houses, fields, and 
wells, his wife and children. He was asked how he bore 
his sorrows, and if he were comforted under them. " Ay," 
said he, "I am often asked that; but I am never asked 
how I bear my joys ; for I have joys within with which a 
stranger intermeddles not. The Lord Jesus sought me 
out, and found me a poor stray sheep in the jungles ; and 
he brought me to his fold, and he will never leave me. 
To whom else should I go if I were to leave him?" 

".Rejoice with me." The joy of the Great Shepherd 
is no private or selfish joy ; it is diffusive. He has a 
social heart ; he will have friends share in his gladness. 
He is truly man, man in his sympathies, man in the elec- 
tric ties of brotherhood. The more of holy rapture there 
is in our hearts, the more there will be in his. 

A pious Armenian, calling on Mr. Hamlin, missionary 
at Constantinople, remarked that he was astonished to see 
how the people are waking up to the truth; how even 
among the most uncultivated some are seeking after it, as 
for hid treasure. " Yes," said he, " it is going forward; 
it will triumph ; but. alas ! I shall not live to see it. 
Alas ! that I am born an age too soon." " But," re- 
plied the missionary, " do you remember what our Saviour 
18 



206 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

said : ' There shall be joy in the presence of the angels 
over one sinner that repenteth ' ? Yoii may not live to 
see truth triumphant in this empire ; but should you, 
through divine grace, reach the kingdom of heaven, and be 
with the angels, your joy over your whole nation repent- 
ant and redeemed will be infinitely greater than it could 
be on earth." He seemed surprised at this thought; but, 
after examining the various passages to which reference 
had been made, he yielded to the evidence with the most 
lively expressions of delight, and seemed perfectly enrap- 
tured at the thought that our interest in the church of 
Christ and the progress of his kingdom on earth is some- 
thing which death cannot touch, and which, instead of 
ceasing with this life, will only be increased and perfected 
in another. " fool, and slow of heart," said, he, "to 
read the gospel so many times without perceiving such a 
glorious truth ! If this be so, no matter in what age a 
Christian is born, nor when he dies." 

Mohammed Rahem, a Persian who was converted through 
the agency of a well-known English missionary, closes the 
account of his change of religious sentiments thus : " Just 
before he, the missionary, quitted Shiraz, I could not 
refrain from paying him a farewell visit. Our conversa- 
tion the memory of it will never fade from the tablet of 
my mind sealed my conversion. He gave me a book; 
it has ever been my constant companion ; the study of it 
has formed my most delightful occupation; its contents 
have often consoled me." " Upon this," says the narrator, 
"he put into my hands a copy of the New Testament in 
Persian. On one of the blank leaves was written, ' There 



ON HIS SHOULDERS. 207 

is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. Henry 
Martyn.' J? 

There's joy before the face of God, 
While, from th' eternal throne, 

Unwonted rapture streams abroad, 
And o'er all heaven hath shone. 

The seraphim to cherubim 

With glad responses call, 
And loud rejoice, with harp aud hymn, 

Angel, archangel, all. 

And loftily the choral strain 
Swells through the skies around : 

" A soul once dead now lives again ! 
A sinner lost is found ! " 

G. W. BETHUNE. 





DEVOTIONAL. 

I. THE MISERERE. 1 

E might take this for a leaf from David's 
diary, recording his most private and con- 
fidential exercises, which could never with 
propriety see the light ; yet it is sent to the chief musi- 
cian to be sung and prayed in all ages. 

Here is the crown prince of penitential psalms ; it has, 
from earliest Christian times, been called, by way of emi- 
nence, The Penitential Psalm, the Miserere, from its 
opening words in the Vulgate, Miserere mei, Domine. 
It forms a part of various liturgies, and many of the great 
composers have taken it as a subject. Specially famous is 
the Miserere of Allegri ; and as sung in the Sistine chapel 
at Rome, during Passion week, produces the deepest mu- 
sical effect. 

How often do portions of it enter into the devotional 
language of God's people; and how often, too, is the Avhole 
of it read in a prayerful frame of mind ! At one period 
of his Christian life, John Vine Hall says : "I pray the 
fifty-first Psalm every morning, beseeching the Lord to 

1 Ps. li. 

208 



THE MISERERE. 209 

give me a humble, contrite spirit, soul-sorrow for sin, with 
humble yet implicit confidence in that precious blood 
which cleanseth from all sin." 

This psalm has been on the lips of many a one when 
dying. The last words of John Orcolampadius, the Swiss 
divine, who died in 1531, were those which distinctly, 
though with panting, breathed for the remission of his 
sins, using this impressive prayer of David. So, too, a 
few years later, another Swiss divine, Bullinger. The 
martyr, Rogers, recited the same on his way to the stake ; 
and it was read to Arnold, of Rugby, just before he ex- 
pired. When Lady Jane Gray came upon the scaffold, 
she repeated the Miserere in a most devout manner ; after 
which she tied the handkerchief about her eyes and laid 
her head upon the block. 

Sir Thomas Moore, too, a very different person, when 
brought to the place of execution, kneeled down, and, with 
a loud voice, rehearsed it to the end. 

Nearly every verse has also its special history. Take 
the first. Henry Vaughan, the poet, who departed this 
life in 1695, desired the following inscription should be 
placed on his tomb : 

" SEEVUS INUTILIS, 
PECCATOR MAXIMUS, 

Hie JACEO. 
GLOEIA! f MISEEEKE ! " 

" An unprofitable servant, the chief of sinners, I lie here. 
" Glory to God ! f Have mercy upon me !'" 

<s 

Dr. Carey, the missionary, suffering from a dangerous 

18* 



210 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

illness, was asked, " If this sickness should prove fatal, 
what passage would you select as the text of your funeral 
sermon?" He replied, ." Oh ! I feel that such a poor, 
sinful creature as I, is unworthy to have anything said 
about him ; but, if a funeral sermon should bo preached, 
let it be from the fifty-first Psalm and first verse : ' Have 
mercy upon me, God, according to thy loving kindness; 
according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot 
out my transgressions.' " 

Lima, the capital of Peru, with Oallao, its port-town, 
was completely desolated by an earthquake, Oct. 28, 1746. 
The city contained about three thousand inhabitants, of 
whom one only escaped. This solitary survivor, standing 
on a fort which overlooked the harbor, saw the sea retir- 
ing, then, in a mountainous surge, returning with awful 
violence, and the inhabitants, at the same instant, run- 
ning from their houses in the utmost terror and confusion. 
He heard a cry ascending from all parts of the city, Mis- 
erere,; and instantly there was universal silence. The 
sea had overwhelmed the city. The same inundating wave 
drove a little boat near to the spectator, and by throwing 
himself into it he was saved. 

Pass to the seventh verse. The physician, of whose 
spiritual healing Miss Marsh gives us a narrative in the 
"Victory Won," remarked, as at one time in his sick- 
ness he intently watched the falling snow : " The ancients 
said there was nothing so pure as snow, but we know of 
something purer, a human soul washed in the blood* 
of Christ. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." 

Pass on to the seventeenth verse. j Augustine found so 



THE MISESKRE. 211 

much sweetness in this promise that he had it written on 
the Avail opposite his bed where he lay sick, and where he 
died. It was also a cordial to Bernard on his sick-bed, 
and was on his lips when he died. 

Matthew Henry, when about thirteen years of age, 
wrote thus of himself: "I think it was three years ago 
that I began to be convinced, hearing a sermon by my 
father, on Psalm li. 17, 'The sacrifices of Grod are a 
broken spirit ; a broken and a contrite heart, God, thou 
wilt not despise.' I think it was that that melted me j 
afterwards I began to inquire after Christ." 

A young navvy, in whose spiritual welfare Miss Marsh 
of Beckenham had become interested, said in conversa- 
tion with her : "I went to see a friend at the village of 
Beddington, and went to church with him. There I heard 
a beautiful sermon on a verse of the psalm that first spake 
home to me when I was at sea, a few years ago, the 
fifty-first Psalm, and the verse was, 'A broken and 
contrite heart, God, thou wilt not despise.' Then it 
kept troubling my heart how to get my spirit broken." 

No composition can be better suited to deepen and to 
express feelings of penitence. During the revival of 1848 
in the Female Seminary at Oroomiah, the Bible of a pu- 
pil was found on one of their wooden stools, open at this 
psalm, and the page blotted with weeping, as she read it 
preparatory to retiring for prayer. Her teacher could put 
her finger on no part of those large pages without touch- 
ing a tear. 

Jeremy Taylor reduces the whole to the form of prayer, 
thus : 



212 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

"0 most merciful God, whose goodness is great, and 
the multitudes of thy mercies are innumerable, have mercy 
upon us, for our sins are ever before us, presented by the 
continual accusation of a troubled conscience. We have 
sinned against thee and done evil in thy sight ; and yet, 
because thou art the God of mercy and Fountain of eter- 
nal purity, delighting in the conversion and salvation of a 
sinner, we present unto thee the sacrifice of a troubled 
spirit, of broken and contrite hearts, beseeching thee to 
let the dew of thy favor and the fire of thy love wash 
away our sins and purify our souls. Make us clean 
hearts, God, and pure hands; though our sins be as 
scarlet, yet make them like wool ; though they be as 
purple, yet make them white as snow. Restore the voice 
of joy and gladness to us ; let us not be forever separate 
from the sweet refreshings of thy favor and presence ; but 
give us the comforts of thy help again, and let thy free 
spirit loose us from the bondage of sin, and establish us in 
the freedom and liberty of the sons of God : so shall we 
sing of thy righteousness, and our lips shall give thee 
praise in the congregation of thy redeemed ones, now, 
henceforth, and forever. Amen." 



II. SUMMONS TO PRAISE. 

u BLESS the Lord, my soul." So begins, so ends this 
precious one hundred and third Psalm, the church's 
universal favorite. David stirs up laggard heart and 
tongue. None of the faculties may be left out ; not one 



SUMMONS TO PRAISE. 213 

of the powers excused from taking part in so high 
and holy an office. 

" my soul ! " Jehovah has set a diadem on thee. 
Thou wearest the badge of royalty such an emblem of 
honor, such a masterpiece of beauty, as earth cannot give. 
It is the tiara of G-od's loving kindness, decked with pre- 
cious ornaments, even tender mercies. 

Devout gratitude, holy joy, social praise, are peculiarly 
congenial to religious growth. They expand the soul and 
give it vigor. What is religion, what is heaven, but joy 
in God? Whoever would have his heart enlarge with 
divine raptures should often repeat this lyric. 

"My thoughts," wrote Col. Blackadder, after a severe 
engagement, "ran much on the hundred and third Psalm, 
which I sang repeatedly on the march. Our regiment 
was not properly engaged in attacking ; but, what was 
worse, we were obliged to stand in cold blood, exposed 
to the enemy's shot." 

" What a feast," writes Dr. Hugh Heugh, "for example, 
the one hundred and third Psalm is ! one of the latest 
I have been examining. What a source of eternal rest 
the love and pity of him who is our Father opens up ! 
What a provision for hope and peace is supplied by the 
frequent introduction of the blessing of pardon, in God's 
own way, free, ample, and forever ! and how delightful 
the assurance that while ' our days are as grass ' (the wind 
passes over us and we are gone), yet ' the mercy of the 
Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that 
fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children ' ! " 
Should it not have its place in seasons of bereavement ? 



214 SEEDS AND SHEAVES, 

It was John Angell James' custom to read this psalm 
at family prayers every Saturday evening. On the 
Saturday of the week in which Mrs. James died, he 
hesitated with the open Bible in his hand before he began 
to read ; but, after a moment's silence, he looked tip and 
said, " Notwithstanding what has happened this week, I 
see no reason for departing from our usual custom of 
reading the one hundred and third Psalm : ' Bless the 
Lord, my soul, and all that is within me bless his 
holy name.' " 

Can it not give wings to the soul at its departure? 
As Dr. Sanderson, chaplain to Charles I., approached 
death, he continued night and day very patient and 
thankful for any of the little offices performed for his ease 
and refreshment ; and during that time often repeated to 
himself this one hundred and third Psalm. 

Individual verses have their special interest. Thus the 
tenth. "I am weak," said John Brown, of Haddington, 
" but the rnotto of each of my days is, ' He hath not dealt 
with us as we have sinned, neither rewarded us according 
to our iniquities.' " 

Pass to the thirteenth. A gentleman once said to the 
writer, " There is one verse in the Bible I could never 
appreciate : ' Like as a father pitieth his children.' My 
father was a tyrant." 

Said a young mother who had just seen her little child 
laid in the grave, " I understand now. as never before, the 
jneaning of the words, l Like as a father pitieth his chil- 
dren, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.' I stood 
beside my dear little E while he was dying, and when 



SUMMONS TO PHAISE. 215 

I saw him in such distress and knew that I could do 
nothing for his relief, my anguish was almost greater than 
I could bear. I seemed to suffer with him, and oh, how I 
prayed that his sufferings might get better. None but par- 
ents who have looked upon their children when struggling 
with death can understand my feelings. And since little 

E died, those Bible words have very often been in 

my mind. A mother's and a father's pity for a child in 
pain I know are one. The pity of the Lord then is like 
mine, and this thought fills my heart with joy and peace. 
My Father sees my suffering. I love and fear him ; and 
with a tenderness and pity differing from what I felt for 
my child only in that his is the tenderness and pity of 
a Grod, and mine that of a helpless mortal, he regards 
poor, unworthy me. And if this is so, how can I again 
doubt that whatever he does, Avith or for me, though it may 
cause me pain, is all done in love, and will work for me a 
' far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory ! ' " 

Glance at the sixteenth verse: "And the place 
thereof shall know it no more." After an absence of 
many years from his native place, the late Dr. McWhorter 
resolved, a little before his death, to visit once more the 
spot on which he was born. In his little carriage, driven 
by a colored servant, he went, by slow stages, from his 
home in Newark to his early home in Delaware. Driving 
up to the door of the house in which he was born, now 
old and dilapidated, he asked a woman who came to the 
door who lived there. Being answered, he again asked 
who lived there before them. Having received a reply, 
he again asked who lived there before them. The woman 



216 SEEDS AND SHELVES. 

could not tell. He then asked if she had ever heard 
of a family who once lived there by the name of Mc~ 
Whorter. " What name did you say ? " said the woman. 
" McWliorter," replied the doctor. "I never heard of 
such a family," said she. He then drove to a neighboring 
house, where his uncle, a brother of his father, used to 
live. He asked the same questions, and received the same 
answers. Returning to the house of his birth, he left his 
carriage, and asked for a tumbler, saying, "There is one 
place here that knows me, and that I know ;' and, leaning 
on the arm of his servant, he hobbled to a spring at the 
bottom of the garden, from which he used to drink when 
a boy. He stood over it for some time, and drank of 
its waters until he could drink no more. He then 
hobbled back to his carriage, repeating these words as 
he entered it, the tears streaming from his eyes, "The 
places that now know us will know us no more forever." 



III. " LORD, HELP HE ! 

Oh, help us, Lord ! each hour of need 

Thy heavenly succor give ; 
Help us in thought, and word, and deed, 

Each hour 011 earth we live. 

Oh, help us, when our spirits bleed, 

With contrite anguish sore ; 
And when our hearts are cold and dead, 

Oh, help us, Lord, the more! 

MILJIAN. 



" LORD, HELP ME." 217 

SPEAKING of his daughter, who came to him in great 
distress of soul, Dr. Griffin said, "After some conversa- 
tion, I knelt down with her bj my library. The spot 
and the time I shall never forget. The Syrophenician 
woman had been much before me. She was before me 
then; and so was the glorious Personage to whom she 
applied. And he appeared as near to me as he did to her, 
as near as though he had been bodily present. And it 
was as easy for me to put my child into his arms as 
though he had been visibly in the room. And I did put 
her into his arms with all my heart and soul." 

"And she said. Truth, Lord; yet the dogs eat of the 
crumbs which fall from their master's table." Christ can 
say nothing, nor do anything, which will make this woman 
think ill of him. She takes as low a view of herself as he 
does. What if she is ranked among the dogs ? Since 
they are not allowed to starve, since the refuse is for 
them, she will hope. Genuine faith is always accom- 
panied by humility. To the severest things said by God, 
it meekly replies, " Truth, Lord.". It never thinks hard 
of him; nor ever utters murmurings. It sees how un- 
worthiness even is not an impediment, since mercy alone 
is its plea. The force which carries the kingdom of 
heaven by storm lies in the gentle violence of complete 
self-renunciation. 

" Lord, help me ! " 1 Piercing cry ! Her own case and 
her child's are one. In anguish of soul she utters the 
briefest, simplest petition. It is a prayer for emergencies; 
a prayer for those decisive moments on which hang life- 

1 Matthew xv. 22-28. 
19 



218 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

interests, or on which eternity depends. " Lord, help 
me!" all supplications in one. It was the frequent 
cry of Rowland -Hill ; as well of Robert McCheyne, who 
often wrote it at the close of his sermons. 

Here is a contrast. The Hottentots of South Africa 
were formerly very badly treated by some of the Dutch 
farmers, who held them as slaves, or employed them as 
laborers. At that time there were no schools for the old 
or young among them, and, except the missionaries, 
few cared for their souls. Indeed, many thought, or pre- 
tended to think, that a Hottentot had no soul ; that he 
was little, if anything, better than the brutes that perish, 
.Mr. Moffat once met with a striking instance of this. He 
was travelling in South Africa, when, towards evening, he 
went to the house of a Butch farmer, and asked for a 
night's lodging. This request was granted, and he made 
himself at home with the strangers. After a short time 
the farmer and his wife learned that their visitor was a 
minister; and, as the Dutch profess some respect for 
the form, at least, of godliness, Mr. Moffat proposed 
to hold a religious service with the family. To. this 
the farmer agreed, and the preparations for it were soon 
made. A great Dutch Bible, with heavy clasps, and 
which, it is feared, was not often opened, was placed upon 
the top of a long table in a very large room, and a lighted 
candle by which to read it. Mr. Moffat took his seat be- 
fore the Bible, with the farmer on his right hand, and the 
farmer's wife on his left. Below these, on both sides of 
the table, were grown-up sons and daughters, and other 
members of the family. All seemed now to be ready, and 



"LOItD, SELF ME." 219 

everybody expected that Mr. Moffat would begin. But 
he was not satisfied. He knew that, besides those who sat 
before him } there were many Hottentot laborers on the 
farm who never heard the name of Jesus, and to whom he 
was resolved, if possible, to preach the gospel of salvation. 
But how to get them into the room he did not quite know. 
Ho resolved, however, to try. 

So, instead of beginning to read the Bible, he leaned 
forward, and seemed as if he was straining his eyes to see 
something in the distant and dark parts of the room. 
After a little the farmer noticed this movement, and asked 
Mr. Moffat what he was looking for. " Oh," said the 
missionary, "I was only looking for the Hottentots!" 
In a moment a frown gathered upon the farmer's brow, 
his lip curled, as if to show his contempt, and then, in a 
loud, rough, harsh tone, he said, "Hottentots, is it, you 
want? Hottentots! Call in the dogs!" This would 
have upset some men ; but Mr. Moffat was prepared for 
it, as he knew well that many, like the farmer, thought 
that ministers might just as well preach to dogs as Hot- 
tentots. Without, therefore, using any arguments of his 
own, he opened his Bible at the fifteenth chapter of Mat- 
thew, and read, with as much force and solemnity as he 
could, the twenty-seventh verse: "Truth, Lord; yet the 
dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their master's table." 
He then sat silent for a minute, and looked towards the 
farmer. But, as the rough man made no motion, Mr. 
Moffat repeated the verse, and while he did so fixed his 
dark eye. full upon his host. Still the man sat silent, 
and did not seem to be moved. A third time, therefore, 



220 SEEDS AND SHEAVES.' 

Mr. Moffat, turning towards him, and looking him full in 
the face, repeated the words, "Yet the clogs eat of the 
crumbs which fall from their master's table." At once 
the farmer roared out, " !3top ! I can stand it no longer; " 
and then added, " Call in the Hottentots ! call in the 
Hottentots ! " 



IV. ASPIRATIONS UNEXPRESSED. 

" In us, for us, intercede, 
And with voiceless groanings plead 
Our unutterable need, 

Comforter divine ! " 

"!T appeared, indeed," wrote' Dr. Griffin, u a wonder 
that God should regard the prayers of such polluted worms,. 
until I discovered, in the light of that text (Rom. viii. 
26, 27), that it was the Holy Ghost that prayed. I could 
not help exclaiming, ' No wonder that God hears prayer 
when it is the Holy Ghost that prays.' What $in awful 
place is the Christian's closet! The whole Trinity is 
about it every time he kneels. There is the Spirit pray- 
ing to the Father through the Son." 

By him there is a nexus and gravitation between earth 
and heaven. When he moves such as are saints in Christ 
Jesus to the mercy-seat, they as princes have power with 
God and prevail. In such wrestling intercessions it is 
God with God at Peniel. Human infirmities need not 
prevent nor spoil prayer. Our chief deficiency lies in 
ignorance of what to ask, and in torpor of desires ; but 



UNCEASING PEAYER. 221 

the Holy Spirit stirs up the heart, and, through us, brings 
petitions to the Father's ear. 

"I was so thankful," wrote Miss Adelaide L. Newton 
to a friend, " the other day for this thought on Rom. viii. 
26, I can't help telling you of it, though probably you 
know it. c Helpeth our infirmities ' literally implies a 
taking hold of our burden, putting his shoulder under it, 
and sustaining the weight so as to prevent its crushing us." 

We have two intercessors, one in heaven and one in 
the heart : Christ for us, the Spirit within us ; Christ at 
the mercy-seat, the Comforter in the suppliant's breast 
The Father knows well what the intention of the Spirit is ; 
there is a perfect understanding between them. Inward 
sighs are stirred by one who is versed in the counsels of 
the Godhead: "for he searcheth the deep things of 
God." He maketh intercession for the saints according 
to the will of God; and all such genuine groanings are 
only God working in us both to will and to do of his 
good pleasure. 

7. UNCEASING PBATEB. 

SHALL we pray three times a day, as the psalmist did ? 
" Pray without ceasing." Is it a time of revival ? " Pray 
without ceasing." Is it a time of declension ? " Pray with- 
out ceasing." Is some friend wrongfully imprisoned? Let 
prayer be made unto God without ceasing for him. The 
apostle never enjoins anything that he does not himself 
practise. He told the Christian's at Rome, "Without 
ceasing, I make mention of you always in my prayers ; " 

19* 



222 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

and his dear son Timothy, "Without ceasing, I have 
remembrance of thee in my prayers night and clay." 

The Acoinetse or Watchers, an order of monks at Con- 
stantinople in the fifth century, performed divine service 
day and night without intermission, dividing themselves in- 
to three classes, who succeeded one another in such a way 
as to maintain a constant course of worship. They founded 
their custom on this passage, " Pray without ceasing." 

A number of ministers were assembled for the discussion 
of difficult questions, and, among others, it was asked how 
the command, " Pray without ceasing," ] could be complied 
with. Various suppositions were stated, and at length one 
of the number was appointed to write upon the subject, and 
read it at the next meeiing ; which being overheard by a 
plain, sensible girl, she exclaimed, "What, a whole month 
wanted to tell the meaning of that text ? It is one of the 
easiest and best texts in the whole Bible." "Well," said 
an old minister, "Mary, what can you say about it; can 
you pray all the time?" "Oh, yes, sir." "What, 
when you have so many things to do ? " " Why, sir, the 
more I have to do, the more I can pray." "Indeed, 
Mary, J let us know how it is, for most people think other- 
wise." " Well, sir, when I first open my eyes in the 
morning, I pray, Lord, open the eyes of my understand- 
ing, to behold wondrous things out of thy law. And 
while I am washing. I pray that my soul may be washed 
and sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus. 
And while I am dressing, I pray that my heart may be 
clothed with humility. And as I begin my work, I pray 

1 1 Thess. v. 17. 



UKCBASING PRAYER. 223 

that I may have strength unto my day. When I begin to 
kindle the fire, I pray that the love of God may bum in 
my heart. And as I sweep the house, I pray that my 
heart may be cleansed from all impurity. And while I 
am preparing and partaking of breakfast, I desire to be fed 
with the hidden manna and sincere milk of the word. 
And when I am busy with the children, I look up to God 
as my Father, and pray for the spirit of adoption, and 
that I may be his child. And so, all the day, everything 
I do famishes me with something for prayer." 

A sailor, who had long been absent from his native 
country, returned home, flushed with money. Coming to 
London, where he had never been before, he resolved to 
gratify himself with the sight of whatever was remarkable. 
Among other places, he visited St. Paul's. It happened 
to be at the time of divine service. When carelessly 
passing, he heard the words, " Pray without ceasing," 
uttered by the minister, without having any impression 
made on his mind by them. Having satisfied his curiosity 
in London, he returned to his marine pursuits, and con- 
tinued at sea for seven years, with no remarkable occur- 
rence in his history. One fine evening, when the -air was 
soft, the breeze gentle, the heavens serene, and the ocean 
calm, he was walking the deck, with his feelings soothed 
by the pleasing aspect of nature, when, all on a sudden, 
darted on his mind the words, " Pray without ceasing ! " 
"' Pray without ceasing' ! What words can these be?" he 
exclaimed. " I think I have heard them before. Where 
could it be?" After a pause, "Oh, it was at St. Paul's, 
in London, the minister read them from the Bible. What ! 



224: SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

and do the Scriptures say, ' Pray without ceasing ' ? Oh, 
what a wretch must I be to have lived so long without 
praying at all ! " God, who at first caused him to hear 
this passage in his ear, now caused it to spring up, in a 
way, at a time, and with a power peculiarly his own. The 
poor fellow found the lightning of conviction flash on 
his conscience, the thunders of the law shake his heart, 
and the great deep of destruction threaten to swallow him 
up. Now he began for the first time to pray; but pray- 
ing was not all. " Oh," said he, "if I had a Bible, or 
some good book ! " He rummaged his chest, when, in a 
corner, he espied a Bible which his anxious mother had, 
twenty years before, placed in his chest, but which, till 
now, he had never opened. He snatched it up, put it to 
his breast, then read, wept, prayed. He believed, and 
became a new man. 

"Beware of desperate steps; the darkest day, 
Live till to-morrow, will have passed away." 

" I declare," said Dr. Judson to his wife, and his whole 
face brightened, "if I could only believe in transmigra- 
tion, I should have no doubt that we had spent ages 
together in some other sphere, we are so alike in every- 
thing. Why, those two lines have been my motto. I 
used to repeat them, over and over, in prison, and I have 
them now, written on a slip of paper, for a book-mark." 
He stood a few moments, thinking and smiling, and then 
said, " Well, one thing you didn't do ; you never wrote 
' Pray without ceasing ' on the cover of your wafer-box." 
" No," she replied, "but I wrote it on my looking-glass." 



COVENANTS OF SUPPLICATION. 225 



PI. COVENANTS OF - SUPPLICATION. 

IT is noteworthy that among the canons of prayer 
Christ should give only two that have respect to our 
social relations. One of them, the first in order of time 
and importance, is his injunction of secret prayer : 
" Enter into thy closet, and shut to the door." The other 
is the assurance that a limited number of believers, 
among whom there is spiritual concord, shall have an 
answer to any specific petition. 

" If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any- 
thing that they shall ask." 1 Something more is here 
meant than to have it occur to a couple of persons that 
a particular blessing would be a good thing. There is 
need that two minds be disposed to heed reverently the 
suggestions of God's providence and of the Holy Spirit. 
Hearts must harmonize ; a true spiritual accordance com- 
ing about, like that of different musical instruments at- 
tuned to the same key. Two or more souls need to be 
moved by the indwelling Comforter to sympathetic desires 
and faith. Such inmost unity is just that to which it is 
the prerogative and delight of the Holy Ghost to bring 
devout hearts. The passage reads not simply, "If two 
of you shall agree to ask," but, " If two of you shall 
agree as touching anything that they shall ask." 

Another vital condition in such covenants of prayer is, 
that their motive and carrying out should be truly Chris- 

1 Matthew xviii. 19, 20. 



226 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

tian. A deficiency that would be fatal in any other 
method of prayer will be fatal here. It is implied not 
only that there will be agreement to petition for a specific 
object, but that there will be social prayer ; that ordina- 
rily persons so confederating will meet and pray together. 
il In my name," Christ declares; " in hearty acknowledg- 
ment of mine atoning work, of mine intercession, with 
a desire for mine honor by the advancement of the king- 
dom of grace." 

Mention might be made of two sisters who agreed to 
spend half an hour every Saturday, at sunset, in prayir^ 
for their brothers, who had gone to a distant part of the 
country, and had embraced dangerous errors. The con- 
straining motive with those pious sisters was not their 
own gratification, but the honor of our Lord Jesus Christ; 
and their prayer was heard. 

Another condition in such covenants of supplication is 
a specific subject of request. Agreement to pray in 
general, to pray for all sorts of blessings, or for the mere 
welfare of an individual, a church, or a good cause, is too 
vague. The more powerful the Holy Spirit's influence, 
the more does he individualize desires ; the more vividly 
does he impress minds with a sense of personal responsi- 
bility. 

Our Saviour adds: "For where two or three are 
gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst 
of them." These two verses should always go together 
as a simple sentence. In this second one Christ gives, 
as a reason of success in the united prayers of a few 
according souls, that he is with them. " There am I," 



COVENANTS OF SUPPLICATION. 227 

to preside over the asking ; to see to it that the two 
harmonized hearts are drawn forth aright in faith, in 
humility, in dependence^ and to look after their interests 
at the mercy-seat. If two meet truly in Christ's name, 
there will always be a third one present. It is a prayer- 
meeting with the Lord Jesus in attendance. Suppli- 
cation from such a spot must prevail. "It shall be 
done for them of my Father which is in heaven." He 
has peculiar delight in co-operative faith ; he puts honor 
on spiritual union. 

A few females, who had long been associated as a " pray- 
ing circle," were assembled, and one of them read from 
the eighteenth of Matthew. On reading the promise, "I 
say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as 
touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for 
them of my Father which is in heaven," she paused a 
moment, and then said, "Is it possible that we have so 
often met to make known our requests unto God, and have 
never noticed this promise ? I have read it all my life, but 
it seems new to me. Why should our prayers be unavail- 
ing, when we have such an assurance from the Saviour's 
lips? Perhaps it is because we have not agreed upon 
some definite object for which to pray." 

She then proposed that some individual should be made 
the particular object of their supplications. The propo- 
sition was acceded to, and a merchant of high respecta- 
bility and worth, who seemed to lack only " the one thing 
needful," was the friend mentioned. Fervent and repeated 
supplications were made on his behalf by this little com- 
pany ; and when they dispersed they agreed not to men- 



228 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

tion the course they had pursued, but to continue to en- 
treat the richest blessings on the individual until they 
should meet again at the expiration of a fortnight. At 
the next weekly prayer-meeting the gentleman for whom 
they had been so much interested entered the room, a 
place where he had never been seen before. In the course 
of the evening he rose and said he felt constrained to state 
that a few days since he became deeply impressed with the 
thought that he was living " without hope, and without God 
in the world; " that he had been wretched ever since, and 
now had come to ask the prayers of those present. Before 
the next meeting of the praying circle this friend was 
clothed and in his right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus. 
Encouraged by this signal answer to their prayers, these 
ladies united in another object. There were two brothers 
in the village, both members of the church, but between 
whom such hostility existed that years had passed without 
their speaking to each other. They were next made the 
subject of fervent prayer. That very night one of them 
was sleepless, and, musing on the unhappy state of feeling 
between himself and a brother once so clear to him, on the 
effect such alienation was calculated to produce on their 
own character and on the cause of Christ, which they both 
professed to love, he felt the stings of an awakened con- 
science, and resolved to attempt a reconciliation. Early 
the following morning he repaired to the dwelling of his 
brother, who saw him approaching, and went out to meet 
him. They greeted each other most affectionately, and in 
tears "confessed their faults one to another." Each de- 
clared himself the aggressor, and the other comparatively 



COVENANTS OF SUPPLICATION. 229 

blameless. After a melting interview they separated, for- 
giving and forgiven, loving brothers in Christ. 

"Let us not be weary in well-doing," said the ladies; 
"we will ask yet more of a prayer-hearing and a prayer- 
answering God." They knew that one of their brethren 
in the church was rendered almost wretched in consequence 
of being " yoked to an unbeliever." His wife was another 
Xantippe, and openly opposed everything connected with 
Christianity. Her conduct was so obviously reprehensible 
that she was the object of universal censure, and to her 
own family was a terror. Nothing but the 'power of God 
could subdue a heart like hers. Importunate entreaties 
for her conversion were reiterated, and wrestling prayer 
prevailed. 

There had been sunrise meetings for some weeks, and on 
the morning after this meeting of females, the brother who 
had so long writhed in anguish from this "thorn in the 
flesh," and gone in solitude to the place of prayer, was 
seen walking thither, his wife leaning on his arm, who 
seemed bending under the weight of some terrible emotion. 
During the services, the husband told the audience that he 
had passed a sleepless, anxious night, and his wife one of 
indescribable agony ; that her sin, like a mountain, was 
pressing her into the dust ; and he besought all to pray 
for her relief. Before many days elapsed she was, with 
the spirit of a little child, learning in the school of Christ. 

"If two of you shall agree." Christ makes this special 
promise to the very minimum of fellowship, to the smallest 
number that can constitute society! Fewer could not frame 

an agreement. It does not take a. large number to make 
20 



230 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

the most effective of prayer-meetings. " If two of you," 
any two. It need not be two aged or eminent disciples. 
The essential thing is not a large company, but a sacred 
agreement. Mere numbers have no power to bring down 
a blessing. 

How very fitting it is that members of the same family 
should so covenant and pray ! What facilities they have ! 
If that were done, IIOAV much fewer would be the excep- 
tional cases of notorious and continued impenitence in 
religious households ! Most of the children in a certain 
family had become hopefully pious. But the father, at the 
age of sixty-five, was yet "without God, and without hope 
in the world." He was a moral man and seemed near the 
kingdom of heaven, but still did not enter it. He had 
seen prosperity and adversity; he had passed through 
several revivals of religion. All this time his conversion 
had been a subject of much solicitude and prayer to his 
wife ; but with no visible effect. At length she proposed 
to her children, at home and abroad, to unite with her in 
prayer for him at a certain hour of the day. This family 
concert was observed ; and still no visible effects. The faith 
of some of the children began to fail; but not so the 
mother's. Her faith grew stronger and more importunate. 
Her spirit had no rest. One night, after they had retired, 
she expressed in a few words her concern for him. He 
gave but an indifferent answer, and fell asleep. She arose 
in the fulness of an anxious heart, and, returning to the 
sitting-room, raked open a bed of coals, and spent the night 
in prayer. It was in the month of February. As the 
morning approached, she fell into the following train of 



COVENANTS OF SUPPLICATION. 231 

recollections : " I have borne this burden forty years ; I can 
carry it .no farther ; it is too heavy for me ; I must roll it off 
on God. I feel that I have done. I cannot change his heart. 
I can't convert him, however much I distress myself. Per- 
haps I have sinned in distressing myself as much as I have. 
God may have seen in me the want of a simple reliance upon 
him, or the want' of true and absolute submission to his 
will. He may have seen me unwilling or afraid to com- 
mit the matter of my husband's salvation entirely to him. 
But I feel that I must, and do thus commit it to him now. 
I will afflict myself no longer. I shall still pray for him, 
and use such means as may seem advisable ; but, saved or 
lost, I leave the result to God." In the morning, after 
breakfast, finding him alone, she addressed him, in a 
few kind but earnest words, respecting the prospect of 
their speedy and eternal separation, and closed by say- 
ing, " And now I have this one request to make, 
devote this day to the concerns of the soul, devote it 
to reflection and prayer. If you cannot do it for your 
own sake, do it to oblige me." Struck with her earnest 
manner, he said, decisively, "I will." She saw no 
more of him till quite night, when he returned sad and 
thoughtful. The next day he again disappeared, and 
was gone till evening. He returned thoughtful, but 
calm and serene. " I do not know," said he, " what has 
ailed me to-day ; my feelings have been unusual, and 
.indeed very strange. It has seemed to me this after- 
noon as if everything was changed. Everything appeared 
to speak of God. The trees, the hills, the skies, every- 
thing seemed to praise him. And I felt that I loved 



232 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

everybody. If there is any one I have hated, it is Mr. Gr., 
but I have felt to-day that I loved him like a brother ! " 
His heart seemed overflowing with emotions of this kind, 
as new and strange to him as the expression of them Avas 
to his astonished and rejoicing, though trembling, wife. 1 

Are there enough of these strictly private two-and-two 
prayer-meetings, in all which the Adorable Third One is 
present ? It is a great desideratum that all in our churches 
should, with Christian alacrity, come under these sacred, 
blessed bonds, and, unobserved by the world, present 
themselves as yoke-fellows in supplication before the 
throne of grace. Is any disciple of Jesus Christ at 
liberty to live in neglect of this ? 

1 Power of Grace, p. 364. 



XL 

TUTELARY. 

I. OUR REFUGE. 

God is our refuge, ever near, 

Our help in tribulation ; 
Therefore his people shall not fear 

Amid a wrecked creation ; 
Though mountains from their base be hurled, 
And ocean shake the solid world, 

The Lord is our salvation. 

CONDEB. 

OU have been at sea, and have witnessed the tem- 
pest in its wrath, and have felt the heaving of 
ocean when roused like a giant for battle. Did 
not thoughts of a quiet haven, and the Bible images of 
stability and refuge, throng your memory ? Never can 
the "writer forget one scene of the kind off the western 
coast of Scotland. A gale had been raging. Our stanch 
bark was tossed about as if a mere feather upon the bil- 
lows, and for days " neither sun nor stars appeared." In 
the wild waste of waters we passed a solitary rock, lofty 
and massive. 1 The waves beat furiously against it. 
White-winged sea-birds, weary with their long struggle 

1 Eockall. 
20* 233 




234 SEEDS AND SHEA7ES. 

in the tempest, were clustering on the summit, and plum- 
ing themselves in the warm rays that, to appearance, 
broke through the clouds just there only. Scripture im- 
agery of God as a refuge and high tower rushed upon the 
mind. It seemed as if those birds, nestled in such secu- 
rity, must be singing the forty-sixth Psalm. The Church 
of Christ, in her seasons of peril, safe on the Rock of Ages, 
and having the light of God's countenance, came to view. 
At such a moment one could hear Moses giving forth his 
triumphal song ; the sweet singer of Israel striking aloud 
his harp ; Paul -and Silas lifting up their prison psalms 
as they stand firm on the foundation of the Lord. One 
could see Martin Luther marching fearlessly to the Diet 
of Worms, and on the way composing his famous version 
of this animating lyric, and, amidst the storm of imperial 
and papal wrath, uttering the sublime words, "Here I 
stand; otherwise I cannot do ; God be my helper." Often, 
in later seasons of darkness and peril, would he say to the 
less courageous Melancthon, " Come, Philip, let us sing 
the forty-sixth Psalm." Never was there sent to the 
chief musician, and never did the sons of Koran practise, 
a more inspiring composition. How stately, how concise, 
how energetic ! It is the Gibraltar of sacred song. It 
lifts the soul up out of a sea of alarms, giving calmness 
and firmness. 



NT DWELLING-PLACE. 



II. M7 DWELLING-PLACE. 1 

Call Jehovah thy salvation, 

Rest beneath the Almighty's shade ; 
In his secret habitation 

Dwell, and never be dismayed : 
There no tumult shall alarm thee, 

Thou shalt dread no hidden snare ; 
Guile nor violence can harm thee, 

In eternal safeguard there. 

From the sword at noon-day wasting, 

From the noisome pestilence, 
In the depth of midnight blasting, 

God shall be thy sure defence. 
Tear not thou the deadly quiver, 

When a thousand feel the blow ; 
Mercy shall thy soul deliver, 

Though ten thousand be laid low. 

Only with thine eyes the anguish 

Of the wicked thou shalt see, 
When by slow disease they languish, 

When they perish suddenly. 
Thee, though winds and waves be swelling, 

God, thine hope, shall bear through all ; 
Plague shall not come nigh thy dwelling ; 

Thee no evil shall befall. 

He shall give his angel legions 

Watch and ward o'er thee to keep, 
Though thou walk through hostile regions, 

Though in desert wilds thou sleep. 
On the lion vainly roaring, 

On his young, thy foot shall tread, 
And, the dragon's den exploring, 

Thou shalt bruise the serpent's head. 

1 Psalm xci. 



235 



236 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

Since, with pure and firm affection, 

Thou on God hast set thy love, 
With the \vings of his protection 

He will shield thee from above : 
Thou shalt call on him iu trouble, 

He will hearken, he will save ; 
Here for grief- reward thee double, 

Crown with life beyond the grave. 

MONTGOMERY. 

" COULD the Latin, or any modern language," says 
Simon de Muis. " express thoroughly all the beauties and 
elegancies as well of the words as of the sentences, it would 
not be difficult to persuade the reader that we have no 
poem, either in Greek or Latin, comparable to this He- 
brew ode." Its composition is marked by this peculiarity, 
that the psalmist, speaking from the fulness of a large 
experience, is himself theme as well as poet. Almost in- 
sensibly the person described is merged in the one pictur- 
ing him, as an artist executing his own portrait looks at 
himself in the mirror and then paints alternately, till the 
likeness is complete. Object and subject, the ideal and 
real, mingle in a truthful unity. 

The child of God makes it home with God. The Most 
High is his daily temple ; and his house is his castle. All 
that peculiar feeling of contentment, quiet security, un- 
suspecting confidence, which pertains to home, pertains to 
this holy dwelling-place. When the soul becomes domes- 
ticated in God, there is reverent freedom and joyous ease 
of heart. 

" I have heard," said a clergyman 1 once to his daughter, 

" ' Rev. Isaac Toms, of Hadleigh, Eng. 



MY DWELLING-PLACE. 237 

" I have heard of Dryden's contentment when sitting under 
the statue of Shakespeare ; and that Buffon, the celebrated 
naturalist, felt himself happy at the feet of Sir Isaac 
Newton; but," said he, pointing to a picture which hung 
over his desk, "here you find me under the shadow 

* 

of good Richard Baxter. Yet, my dear," adds the aged 
saint, " the most desirable situation in which we can be 
placed is to be under the shadow of the Almighty, under 
the protection of the great Redeemer." 

Dr. A. Patze, of Philadelphia, a surgeon in the Fourth 
Pennsylvania regiment, relates this incident : A captain 
came into the doctor's tent and picked up a Bible, regard- 
ing it with much interest. In reply to some questions on 
the part of Dr. Patze, he related the following with regard 
to his grandfather^ who was among the Hessians sent 
hither by England in the Revolutionary war : " My grand- 
father was one hundred and five years old when he died. 
Having served in the Hessian army during the Revolution- 
ary war in this country, he was captured at Trenton, New 
Jersey, and sent to a farmer to work, where he experienced 
the kindest treatment he could possibly have expected. 
The war over, he returned to his native country, Hessia, 
and since 1830 drew a pension until he died. He was, 
even at .the commencement of his pension, an. old, helpless 
man, and liked to have me always with him as a guide. 
His residence being at a considerable distance from the 
office where the pension was issued, the journey thither 
gave him sufficient time to talk to me of his military 
experience, and of the peculiarities of America, that far 
trans- Atlantic country. Inspiring his little grandchild 



238 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

with courage and ambition to become a hero, he never 
forgot to add : ' But, my dear boy, if ever you should take 
up the life of a soldier, do not forget to make the ninety- 
first Psalm your motto ; commit it to memory ; never let 
it be forgotten ; and as often as you go into battle, always 
remember that psalm, and appropriate it as your own ear- 
nest prayer. I assure you no harm shall ever befall you.' 
And so I did," said the captain, " and have thus far found 
it proof against the hail-storm of bullets, grapeshot, and 
canister, and bursting shells. ' I will say of the Lord, 
he is my refuge and my fortress : my God ; in him will 
I trust.' " 

The imagery of the psalm is for the most part of a 
martial character. Safety within fortifications and on the 
battle-field, as well as amidst a devastating epidemic, is 
brought to view. The whole lyric might well be entitled 
" The Commander's Ode, the Soldier's Psalm of Life." 

It helped to fortify the courage as well as piety of 
that brave and admirable man, Captain H'edley Vicars. 
"The. little book of Psalms you gave me," he wrote to a 
friend, "I take with me whenever I go out to walk. I 
have just learned by heart Psalm ninety-first, and it has 
filled me with confidence in Jesus." 

In the late war the rebels made an attack upon one of 
our regiments doing picket duty on the Maryland side of 
the Potomac. There were three houses, standing upon the 
Virginia shore, which afforded shelter to the enemy, and it 
became necessary to have them removed. The colonel 
tried the effect of shelling them ; but, owing to the short 
range of . his guns, and the great distance, could not 



MY DWELLING-PLACE. 239 

demolish them. The only thing accomplished by this 
was driving the enemy out of them, to the shelter of the 
woods beyond. The colonel asked for volunteers to cross 
the river and burn the buildings. Only two men came 
forward, one a private, the other an orderly sergeant. 
The colonel gave the command to the sergeant, and told 
him to select as many men as he needed, and go. Select- 
ing three men from his own company to manage the boat 
and assist him, the brave fellows departed on their perilous 
mission. Ere they reached the middle of the stream they 
were greeted with a shower of bullets ; volley followed 
volley, each passing over their heads without touching a 
man. As they neared the shore, the house immediately 
in front of them, which was a large brick one, offered them 
shelter for landing ; and it was not many minutes after 
ere the smoke issuing from the roof showed their work 
was accomplished there. The next house was soon in 
flames also; but the third stood some distance from the 
river ; to get to it they must cross a ploughed field directly 
under fire of the musketry. Here, as in crossing the 
river, they were made the target for the enemy's bullets. 
Strange to say, this forlorn hope returned uninjured, and 
were received with enthusiastic cheers from their brave 
comrades. The young sergeant, on being complimented 
upon his courage, and interrogated as to the source of it, 
replied : "It is not in me ; give God the glory. When I 
started, I committed my beloved wife and child to his 
fatherly care should I never return. I breathed a prayer 
for myself and the little band with me. I went further : 
I entreated that we might all return in safety ; and as 



240 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

I stepped from that boat, these "words of the ninety-first 
Psalm came forcibly to my mind : ' A thousand shall fall 
at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand ; but it 
shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt 
thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because 
thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the 
Most High, thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee, 
neither shall any plague, come nigh thy dwelling.' I re- 
ceived it as an answer to my prayer; and though we could 
hear the bullets whizzing by, almost touching us, I felt no 
more fear of them than if they had been hailstones." 

When almost all at the court of St. Petersburg were 
agitated with the threatened invasion by French troops, 
Prince . Galitzin maintained calmness. His companions 
were astonished. Had he become a traitor? It could 
not be; his loyalty was undoubted. At this crisis, he 
thought it his duty to acquaint the Emperor Alexander 
with the rock on which he rested. He asked an interview. 
The invasion was naturally first introduced, and next, as 
closely connected with it, the prince's conduct. The 
emperor demanded upon what principle he remained calm 
in the midst of universal alarm. The prince drew from 
his pocket a small Bible, and held it towards the emperor. 
As the latter put out his hand to receive the book, it fell, 
and opened at this chapter. " Oh that your majesty would 
seek this retreat ! " said the prince, as lie read the words of 
the psalm. A day was appointed for public prayer. The 
minister who preached took for his subject the ninety-first 
Psalm. Alexander inquired of the prince, with surprise, 
if he had mentioned the circumstance that had ocsurred at 



MY DWELLING-PLACE. 241 

their interview. He assured him that he had not. A 
short time after, the emperor, having a few minutes to 
spare, sent for his chaplain to read the Bible to him in his 
tent. He came, and commenced reading the ninety-first 
Psalm. " Hold ! " said the czar ; " who told you to read 
that?" "God, 77 replied the chaplain. "How?" ex- 
claimed Alexander. " Surprised at your sending for me," 
continued . the chaplain, "I fell upon my knees before 
God, and besought him to teach my weak lips what to 
speak, I felt that part of the holy Word which I have 
begun to read clearly pointed out to me. Why your 
majesty interrupted me, I know not." The result was 
a great change in the emperor's conduct, and he showed 
much zeal in the circulation of God's Word. 

Yerses eleven and twelve call to mind a memorable per- 
version. So far as is known, these are the only words 
ever formally quoted by the great adversary. When he 
would tempt our Saviour to a presumptuous risk, a needless, 
unauthorized exposure to peril, he cites this promise of 
angelic preservation. 

The verse following was once the subject of a perversion 
emanating from a source quite kindred to the foregoing. 
There is a memorial of it near the main entrance of the 
church of St. Mark's, at Venice. A lozenge of reddish 
marble is there shown, marking the spot where Pope 
Alexander III. placed his foot on the head of the prostrate 
Emperor Barbarossa, repeating the words, " Thou shalt 
tread upon the lion and the adder." 

Writing to his wife the night before the attack on the 
Redan, October 7th, 1858, Captain Maxie M. Hammond, 
21 



242 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

in a postscript, sajs: "I have had a peaceful time for 
prayer, and have committed the keeping of my soul and 
body to the Lord my God, and have commended to his 
care my wife and child, my parents, brothers, and sisters, 
and all dear to me. Come what will, all is well. This 
day will be a memorable one. Farewell once more! 
Psalm xci. 15 is my text for to-day, especially the words 
' I will be with him in trouble.' " 

The Rev. John Brown, of Edinburgh, in his last sick- 
ness, had this question put to him: "Do you remember 
who it was that said on his death-bed, that God had ful- 
filled all the promises in the ninety-first Psalm but the last, 
'His eyes shall see my salvation,' and now he was going to 
receive the accomplishment of that, too?" Dr. Brown 
replied, " No ; " and added, raising his voice, " but I know 
a man to whom almost all the lines of that psalm have 
been sweet. I think, if ever God touched my heart, he 
went through that psalm with me." 

The celebrated Theodore Beza was deeply wrought upon 
in his younger years by this psalm, at the church of 
Charenton. Listening to an exposition of it,' he found 
these inspired Avords singularly sweet to him, and was 
enabled to appropriate the promises to himself with a com- 
fortable assurance that the Lord would make good to him 
all that is here pledged. When past fourscore years of 
age, he bore witness to the faithfulness of the Most High. 
These engagements, he declared, had been verified. He 
set his seal to the testimony that, as, at the early period 
referred to, he had been graciously helped to adopt the 
second verse as his own, taking the Lord for his God, his 



MY DWELLING-PLACE, 243 

refuge and fortress, he had found him to be wonderfully 
such in all the after-changes of life ; that he had delivered 
him from the snare of the fowler, and the noisome pesti- 
lence, when his life had often been in danger from the 
lying-in-wait of enemies, and sometimes from a sweeping 
epidemic ; that, amidst the fierce civil wars of France, he 
had had many singular deliverances from danger, while 
attending Protestant princes upon battle-fields where 
thousands fell around him. Not long before his death he 
went through all the promises of this psalm, dwelling on 
their fulfilment in his behalf, saying how he had found the 
Lord did give his angels charge over him ; how the Lord 
had answered when he called upon him in his trouble, yea, 
had satisfied him with long life. " And now,' 7 said he, 
" I have no more to wait for but the last, 'I will show 
him my salvation,' and for the fulfilment of that I 
am now waiting." 



He that within the secret place 

Where God Most High stores up his grace, 

Hath chosen his abode, 
Shall lodge, where fears shall ne'er invade,- 
Beneath the everlasting shade 

Of God Almighty God. 



Of the Eternal I will say, 
He is my refuge and my stay, 

My strong embattled tower; 
My Lord, in whose protecting arm 
I will confide, amid alarm, 

When gloomy clangers lower. 



244 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

By guile shalt them not be decoyed, 
For lie will help thee to avoid 

The subtle fowler's snare ; 
His favor shall preserve thy life 
When noisome maladies are rife 

And plagues infest the air. 

With love paternal, o'er thy head 
His feathers will be kindly spread, 

To foster thee in youth ; 
Beneath his wings shalt thou repose, 
Thy shield and fortress from thy foes 

His everlasting truth. 



-'a 



To thee the dangers of the night 
Shall bring no terror, nor the flight 

Of deadly shafts by day ; 
Nor pestilence, that darkling walks, 
Nor fell destruction when it stalks 

Abroad at noon to slay. 

A thousand at thy side shall die, 
On thy right hand ten thousand lie ; 

But thee it shall not reach ; 
Only thine eyes shall surely see 
What retribution theirs shall be 

Whom nought can wisdom teach. 

Because the Lord, my safe retreat, 

Even God Most High, with heart discreet, 

Thy dwelling thou hast made ; 
No evil shall on thee alight, 
No pestilence thy person smite, 

Or thine abode invade. 

He will appoint an angel guard, 
From clanger all thy paths to ward ; 
Thou shalt not walk alone ; 



MY HE ST. 245 

Their hands shall bear thee up with care. 
In case thou injure unaware 

Thy foot against a stone. 

Since he has set on me his love, 
For him deliverance from above 

I surely will provide ; 
Him will I raise to highest fame, 
Because he has to know my name 

His heart and mind applied. 

Mine aid shall he invoke in prayer, 
I will attend, and him my care 

Shall, 'mid distress and woe, 
Deliver, and to honor raise ; 
To him will I give length of days, 

And my salvation show. 

JEWISH CHRONICLE, 



III. MT EEST. 

Cradle an infant on the softest bed, 
Soothe it with songs of lullaby to rest ; 

More gently will it lay its little head, 
More sweetly slumber on its mother's breast; 

Where the first draught of health aud life it found, 

There will its sleep be sweet, its slumber sound : 

Return, my soul, to God, thine only rest, 

Then and then only thou art truly blest. 

From the German of SPUTA. 

COME home, my soul '; I cry after thee to hasten back 
again. It is no place for thee out upon the dark waters. 
Keturn, dove, return to the ark. Thy home is with thy 

God. In the body or out of the body, there is perfect 
21* 



246 SEEDS AND SSEAVES. 

peace for thee. Well did Babylas, Martyr of Antioch, em- 
ploy these words at his execution : 1 " Keturn, my soul, 
unto thy rest, because the Lord hath blessed thee. Because 
thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from 
tears, and my feet from falling ; I shall walk before thee 
in the land of the living." Sadly were the same abused 
by a reference to the dogma of a sleep of the soul, in an 
inscription on the tombstone of Dr. Priestley: "Return 
unto thy rest, my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bounti- 
fully with thee." 



IV. IN FLOODS AND FLAMES. 

3?ear not, I am with thee ; oh, be not dismayed, 
Tor I am thy God, I will still give thee aid ; 
I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand, 
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand. 

When through the deep waters I call thee to go, 
The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow ; 
For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless, 
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress. 

KIRKHAM. 

THE night before his execution, the martyr, Thomas 
Bilney, being composed and even cheerful, dwelt much 
on this among other passages of Scripture : " Fear not ; for 
I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name ; 
thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I 
will be with thee ; and through the rivers, they shall not 

1 Ps. cxvi. 7. 



IN FLOODS AND FLAMES. 247 

overflow thee ; when thou walkest through the fire, thou 
shalt not be burned ; neither shall the flame kindle upon 
thee." 1 It was not that he expected any other than men- 
tal support, or superstitiously anticipated exemption from 
pain; but " a pain for the time," said he, " whereon, not- 
withstanding, followeth joy unspeakable." The copy of" 
the Latin Bible once belonging to him is still in existence, 
and belongs to one of the libraries at Cambridge, England. 
There are many annotations on its pages in his own hand; 
and this passage of Isaiah, which shed its light in the re- 
cesses of his dungeon, was specially marked with a pen on 
the margin. 

Did the flames kindle upon that martyr's inner man? 
Do the floods overwhelm any trusting soul? True, Provi- 
dence constructs very few natural bridges along the 
believer's path ; but whoever walks with God will find this 
promise, " The rivers shall not overflow thee," fulfilled. 
Our heavenly Father gathers up the trusting child in his 
arms and bears him safely over. He is evermore teaching 
lessons of confidence and submission. 

" My first convictions on the subject of religion," says 
the Rev. Richard Cecil, " were confirmed by observing that 
really religious persons had some solid happiness among 
them which I felt the vanities of the world could not give. 
I shall never forget standing by the bedside of my sick 
mother. 'Are you not afraid to die?' I asked. 'No.' 
' No ! Why does the uncertainty of another state give 
you no concern?' 'Because God has said, Fear not; 

1 Isa. xliii. 1, 2. 



248 SEELS AND SHEAVES. 

when thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee, 
and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.' " 



F. "WHEBE IS THY 



IN the St. Bartholomew massacre, at Vassy, when any 
of the victims desired to have mercy shown them for the 
love of Jesus, the murderers would say, "You use the 
name of Christ ; but where is your Christ now ? " So in 
the massacre of the prisoners at Trois, "Where is now 
your God ? " l cried the demons ; " what has become of all 
your prayers and psalms now ? " " Let your God, whom 
you call upon, save you, if he can." Some of the 
wretches sung in scorn to their victims these words, 
" Judge me, God, and plead my cause; " while others, 
beating them, cried, "Sing now, 'Have mercy on me, 
God. 3 

The Rev. Thomas Worts, having been ejected, in 1662, 
from the church of Burningham, Norfolk, afterwards be- 
came pastor of a congregation at Guestwick, in the same 
county. He was brought from Burningham into Norwich, 
with a sort of brutal triumph, his legs being chained under 
the horse's belly. As he was conducted to the castle, a 
woman, looking from a chamber-window near the gate 
through which he passed, called out, in contempt and 
derision, "Worts, where is now your God? " The good 
confessor desired her to turn to Micah vii. 10. She did 

1 Micah vii. 10. 



" WHERE IS THY GOD ?" 249 

so, and was so struck with the passage that she became 
a kind friend to him in his long confinement. 

When Dr. Dodd, who suffered for forgery, in 1777, 
was led to the place of execution, several of the populace 
seemed to exult at the condemnation of a dignified eccle- 
siastic. One woman reproachfully called out to him, 
"Where is now thy God?" Having the foregoing inci- 
dent in mind, it may be, he instantly referred her to the 
seventh chapter of Micah : " Therefore I will look unto 
the Lord ; I will wait for the God of my salvation : my 
God will hear me. Rejoice not against me, mine 
enemy : when I fall, I shall arise ; when I sit in dark- 
ness, the Lord shall be a light unto me. I will bear the 
indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against 
him, until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for 
me; he will bring me forth to the light, and I shall 
behold his righteousness. Then she that is mine enemy 
shall see it, and shame shall cover her which said unto me, 
Where is the Lord thy God ? mine eyes shall behold her : 
now shall she be trodden down as the mire of the streets." 
The wretched woman, proceeding to witness the execution, 
was thrown down, in the pressure of the throng, and 
literally trodden to death ! 

Not unfrequently now are personal jeers in private life 
heard, and sometimes public threats, which help one to 
enter into the experience of Old Testament saints. " As 
with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me, 
while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God ? " But 
let them taunt us otherwise as they please; let them sneer 
as they will, and say all manner of evil against us, if only 



250 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

their reproaches fall not on Thee ! To be mocked, or 
maltreated in any way that reflects upon our best friend, 
wounds to the quick ; it is martyrdom of heart. That is 
what gives the deadliest thrust in persecution. 



71. "NEVER FORSAKE THEES" 

MANY uncertainties compass my path, but this is not one 
of them, whether my best Friend will keep his word. Joho 
Bunyan soliloquizes thus : " But have you not, like Esau, 
sold Him?" "Well, suppose I have; does not that 
mean, ' I have freely left the Lord Jesus Christ to his 
" choice, whether he will be my Saviour or no ' ? for the 
wicked suggestion is, ' Let him go if he will.' But He 
tells me, ' I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.' " l 
"Yes, but thou hast left him." "But /will not leave 
thee." 

The Rev. Hansard Knollys, one of those Christian 
ministers who, in the seventeenth century, suffered for 
righteousness' sake, was persecuted in the high commis- 
sion court, and fled to America, whence he afterwards 
returned. Having lived for some time in obscurity in 
London, he had but sixpence left, and no prospect of being 
able to provide for the support of his family. In these 
circumstances he prayed, encouraged his wife to remember 
the past goodness of God, and to reflect on the promise, 
"I will never leave thee nor forsake thee," paid his 

1 Hebrews xiii. 5. 



"NEVER FORSAKE THEE" 251 

lodging, and then went out, not knowing where the provi- 
dence of God would lead him to seek the means of subsist- 
ence. He had walked but a few steps, when he was met 
by a woman, who told him that some Christian friends had 
prepared a residence for him and his family, and had sent 
him money and other comforts. They were deeply im- 
pressed with this manifestation of divine goodness to them, 
and his wife exclaimed, " Oh, dear husband, how sweet 
it is to live by faith, and trust God's faithful word ! Let 
us rely upon him whilst we live, and trust him in all 
straits." 

John Owen, in a letter dictated to his friend Charles 
Heetwood, says, " Live and pray, hope and wait patiently, 
and ,do not despond ; the promise stands invincible, that 
he will never leave nor forsake us." 

The five negatives in this passage are thus rendered in 
Doddridge's " Expositor " : "I will not, I will not leave 
thee ; I will never, never, never forsake thee." Forcibly 
are they also rendered by Kirkham in his well-known 
hymn : 

" The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, 
I will uot, I will not desert to his foes ; 
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, 
I'll never, no, never, no, never forsake." 

How sad the confession of Cardinal Wolsey, when he 
was leaving the world: "Had I been but as careful to 
please God as I have been to serve my prince, he would 
not have forsaken me now in the time of my gray hairs " ! 
How beautifully in contrast with his were the last mo- 



252 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

ments of Mrs. Isabella Brown ! A quarter of an hour 
before she died, she was reading a list of Scripture prom- 
ises ; and, noticing particularly this tender declaration, 
"I will never leave thee nor forsake thee," she said, 
faintly, "Oh, they are sweet!" After her death, 
the list was found on her breast, with her hand upon 
them. 

These words were addressed originally to Joshua, and 
they made him a great man, a model president and leader. 
Well would it be for the world if all statesmen understood 
this promise, as did Wilberforce and Frelinghuysen ! It 
is well that in the Service for the Accession of English 
Sovereigns, the early portion of the Book of Joshua, con- 
taining those words, is read. 



The voice that from the glory came 

To tell how Moses died unseen, 
And waken Joshua's spear of flame 

To victory on the mountains green, 
Its trumpet-tones are sounding still; 

When kings or parents pass away, 
They greet us with a cheering thrill 

Of power and comfort in decay. 



Behind the soft, bright summer cloud, 

That makes such haste to dwell and die, 
Our wistful gaze is oft allowed 

A glimpse of the unchanging sky : 
Let storm and darkness do their worst ; 

Eor the lost dream the heart may ache ; 
The heart may ache, but may not burst ; 

Heaven will not leave thee nor forsake. 



"NEVEE FORSAKE TREE" 253 

Not upon kings or priests alone 

The power of that clear word is spent; 
It chants to all in softest tone 

The lowly lesson of content : 
Heaven's light is poured on high and low ; 

To high and low Heaven's angel spake : 
" Resign thee to thy weal or woe, 

I ne'er will leave thee nor forsake." 

KEBLK. 

22 



XII. 

CONSOLATOKY. 

I. "OUT OF THE DEPTHS" 

As a watchman waits for clay, 

And looks for light, and looks again ; 
When the night grows old and gray, 
To be relieved lie calls amain : 
So look, so wait, 

So long mine eyes, 
To see my Lord, 
My Sun, arise. 

Wait, ye saints, wait on our Lord ; 

From his tongue sweet mercy flows ; 
Wait on his cross, wait on his word ; 
Upon that tree redemption grows : 
He will redeem 

His Israel 

From sin and wrath, 
From death, aud hell. 

PHISEAS FLETCHER. 

KECIOUS psalm ! l the sixth of those styled Peni- 
tential. Well does Archbishop Leighton say : 
"Such is the composition of this excellent prayer, 
which, thus compounded, like a pillar of aromatic smoke 
from myrrh, frankincense, and every other most fragrant 
perfume, ascends grateful to the throne of God." 

1 Psalm csxx. 

254 




" OUT OF THE DEPTHS." 255 

What child of heaven does not sometimes find himself 
in the water-depths of spiritual perplexity and grief! 
And what thoughts of God's mercy are entertained down 
in the dark regions of sorrow and amazement at sin ! The 
deeper the pit, the longer the measurement of divine 
compassion. How natural it was that a man with Luther's 
experience should be drawn to this psalm, and that lie 
should give a version of its first verses thus : 

" Out of the depths I cry to thee, 

Lord God ! Oh, hear my prayer ! 
Incline a gracious ear to me, 

And bid me not despair : 
If thou rememberest each misdeed, 
If each should have his rightful meed, 

Lord, who shall stand before thee ? " 

The origin of Dr. Owen's valuable work on the For- 
giveness of Sin, based upon this psalm, is thus related by 
him: 

A young man, who afterwards became a minister, be- 
ing under serious impressions, came to him for counsel. 
In the course of conversation the doctor asked, " Pray, in 
what manner do you think to go to God ? " " Through the 
Mediator, sir," said the young man. , To which Dr. Owen 
replied, " That is easily said ; but it is another thing to go 
to God through the Mediator, than what many who use the 
expression are aware of. I myself preached some years 
when I had but very little if any experimental acquaint- 
ance with access to God through Christ, until the Lord 
was pleased to visit me with sore affliction, by which I was 
brought to the mouth of the grave, and under which my 



256 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

soul was oppressed with horror and darkness. But God 
graciously relieved my spirit by a powerful application of 
Psalm cxxx. 4 : ' There is forgiveness with thee that 
thou mayest be feared ; ' from whence I received special 
instruction, peace, and comfort in drawing near to God 
through the Mediator, and I preached thereupon after my 
recovery." From that resulted the valuable treatise 
above referred to, extending, to about four hundred octavo 
pages. 

What shall one who is in the depths do but wait upon 
the Lord, wait and still wait upon the Lord ? God 
certainly hears; help will come. The psalmist did not 
utterly despair. 

" So was it," says Dr. James Hamilton, " with a happy 
sufferer whose history we lately read. 1 Poor and depend- 
ent, for six and thirty years the victim of incurable mal- 
adies, often undergoing excruciating agony, sometimes for 
a lengthened period blind, few have experienced the ex- 
quisite enjoyment of which her shattered tenement was the 
habitual abode. As she wrote to a friend, 'My nights 
are very pleasant in general. I feel like David, when he 
said, "I wait for the Lord; my soul doth wait; and in 
his word do I hope." And while I am enabled to con- 
template the wonders of redeeming grace and love, the 
hours pass swiftly on, and the morn appears even before I 



am aware.' " 



As the sufferer on the couch, as the sentinel at his post, 
as the mariner on his foundered bark, keeps earnest vigils 



'Harriet Stoneman. 



" OUT OF THE DEPTHS" 257 

for the morning light, so, yea, more, does the penitent 
heliever long for the light of God's countenance. 

"In September, 1725," says President Edwards, "I 
was taken ill at New Haven, and, while endeavoring to go 
home to Windsor, was so ill at the N. Village, that I could 
go no further; where I lay sick for about a quarter of a 
year. In this sickness God was pleased to visit me again 
with the sweet influences of his Spirit. My mind was 
greatly engaged there on divine and pleasant contempla- 
tions, and longings of soul. I observed that those who 
watched with me would often be looking out wistfully for 
the morning, which brought to my mind these words of 
the psalmist, and which my soul with delight made its own 
language : ' My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they 
that watch for the morning.' I say, more than they that 
watch for the morning ; and when the light of day came 
in at the window, it refreshed my soul from one morning 
to another. It seemed to be some image of the light of 
God's glory." 

While traversing a portion of the Grand Prairie, far 
west of the Mississippi, some years since, the writer was 
obliged to spend a night in the open air. There was no 
pillow but a saddle, and no couch but the earth. A belt 
of woods near by seemed alive with hooting and ill-omened 
birds. Growls of the bear and wolf, not far off, were dis- 
tinctly heard. An ambush of Indians had been discovered 
the day before; pursuers were expected; and there was no 
white man's residence within a score of miles. Want of 
sleep, food, fire, road, and companion, made the night a 
memorable one. It was natural that this one hundred and 

22* 



258 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

thirtieth Psalm should come to mind: "I wait for the 
Lord ; my soul cloth wait, and in his word do I hope. My 
soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for 
the morning." What a herald of joy was the morning 
star, and the first beam of sunlight that shot up the fir- 
mament ! And when at length the sun arose, and wild 
beasts slunk away, it seemed as if God's smile on that pri- 
meval wilderness had transformed it into a paradise. The 
scene and the Scripture referred to became inseparably 
associated. 

Let the Israel of God take heart. For them redeeming 
mercy is exhaustless. If there were a purgatory, the 
right arm of everlasting love would raise them thence. 
But it is by a monstrous perversion that Papists, tak- 
ing "the deep " here as the type of Limbus Patrum, 
recite this psalm as if in the person of one who has died in 
their communion. It was not designed to minister relief 
to the dead, but strength to the living. 



" The Lord's good time abiding, 
In his sure word confiding, 
I wait in meek suspense ; 
Those all the long night waking, 
Watch for the morning's breaking 
With longing less intense." 



so, FATHER" 259 



If. "EVEN SO, FATHER" 

" "What was there in you that could merit esteem, 

Or give the Creator delight? 
'Twas ' Even so, Father,' you ever must sing, 
' Because it seemed good in thy sight.' " 

THE first ascription recorded in the New Testament is 
found in Matthew xi. 25, 26. Its surroundings are note- 
worthy, for it stands between a denunciation and an in- 
vitation. Our Lord has just upbraided unbelieving cities; 
and then, after rendering thanks to the Father, he speaks 
tenderly to all oppressed souls. 

Happy they, young or old, who can take up these words 
in. view of the darker and more trying appointments of 
Heaven. John Thomas, a pious lad of Bristol, England, 
in the midst of his severe sufferings and the known ap- 
proach of death, selected these two verses as the text from 
which he wished the pastor, Mr. Winter, to preach his 
funeral sermon. In mentioning them, he said, "I am 
aware they do not refer to babes in years, but to the hum- 
ble disciple of Jesus Christ ; but I hope they will in some 
sense apply even to me." Mr. Winter complied with 
the request, and considered the passage as remarkably 
suited to the character of his dear young friend. 

Several gentlemen were visiting a Trench school, in 
which was a boy both deaf and dumb. One of them asked 
him who made the world. The boy took his slate and 
wrote the first verse of the Bible : " In the beginning God 



260 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

created the heaven and the earth." He was then asked, 
" How do you hope to be saved ? " The child wrote, " This 
is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that 
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." The 
last question proposed was, " How is it that Grod has made 
you deaf and dumb, while those around you can hear and 
speak? " The poor boy appeared puzzled for a moment, 
and a suggestion of unbelief seemed to pass through his 
mind, but, quickly recovering himself, he wrote, "Even 
so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." 

" Even so ; " Thou never canst do aught that is unwise 
or wrong ; the strongest argument in favor of anything is 
that Thou hast ordained it. Thy will is the highest 
reason, 



III. "ALL THINGS WELL.* 1 

So they said, who saw the wonders 

Of Messiah's power and love ; 
So they sing who see his glory 

In the Father's house above ; 
Ever reading, in each record 

Of the strangely varied past, 
" All was well which God appointed ; 

All was wrought for good at last." 

Times are changing, days are flying, 
Years are quickly past and gone, 

"While the wildly mingled murmur 
Of life's busy hum goes on ; 

1 Mark vii. 37. 



" ALL THINGS WELL" 261 

Sounds of tumult, sounds of triumph, 

Marriage chimes and passing bell, 
* Yet through all one key-note sounding, 

Angel's watchword, " It is well." 

H. L. L. 

WHEN Mrs. Isabella Graham heard that her only son 
had been seized by a. press-gang, and the assortment of 
necessaries, prepared by herself and daughter with so much 
labor and expense, had been carried off, she wrote : " Dare 
I utter a word, or harbor a murmuring thought ? Would 
I withdraw the blank I have put into the Redeemer's 
hand ? Has he not hitherto done all things well ? Have 
not my own afflictions been my greatest blessings ? Have 
I not asked for my children their mother's portion? " 

Some things well is the ready admission of every one. 
My health, my comfort, my success, are good gifts. Many 
things well is the confession of candid minds, accustomed 
to a little wider range of reflection ; while a few, penetrat- 
ing more deeply, and generalizing more broadly, are able 
to say, Most things well. But faith, resting on the word 
of infinite goodness and wisdom, can say, "All things 
well." 

Mrs. Veitch, one of the " Ladies of the Covenant," wife 
of Rev. William Veitch, a godly Scottish minister of the 
seventeenth century, during the imprisonment of her hus- 
band, conducted herself with a degree of composure which 
surprised even the rude and heartless military. Narrating 
one scene, she says, " It bred some trouble and new fear 
to my spirit ; but He was graciously pleased to set home 
that word : ' He does all things well j ' ' Trust in the 



262 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

Lord, and fear not -what man can do,' which brought peace 
to me in such a measure, that I was made to wonder ; for 
all the time the officers were in the house, he supported 
me so that I was not in the least discouraged before 
them." 

When the Indians, in 1*755, attacked Gnadenhiiten ; a 
missionary station of the United Brethren, in Pennsylvania, 
and set fire to the settlement, the house of Sesueman, one 
of the missionaries, was destroyed with the rest ; but in 
the midst of the flames his wife was seen standing with 
folded hands, and was heard to exclaim, " 'Tis all well, 
dear Saviour." 

The loss of health, property, or friends, does not make 
earnest believers any poorer or less joyful, for they learn 
how to solve the paradox : " As sorrowful, yet always re- 
joicing ; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things." 
What teacher is there like bereavement to introduce one to 
the higher mysteries of spiritual science ? 

" I remember well my sorrow as I stood beside her bed, 
And my deep and heart-felt anguish when they told me she was 

dead; 

And oh ! that cup of bitterness, let not my heart rebel ; 
God gave, he took, he will restore, ' He doeth all things well. 1 " 

As the testimony of dying resignation and assurance, 
these words are peculiarly delightful. They were nearly 
the last uttered by Dr. Brown, President of Dartmouth 
College: "Be quiet; all is well, I believe." A friend 
asked Vanderkemp, a day or two before his departure, 
what was the state of -his mind. His spirit rallied once 



"ALL THINGS WELL" 2G8 

more, and, with a smile, the earnest missionary gave this 
short reply : " All is well." Making the same declara- 
tion, Howell Harris went to his rest: "Blessed be God, 
my work is done, and I know that I am going to my God 
and Father, for he hath my heart, yea, my whole heart ! 
Glory be to God, death hath no sting, all is well ! " 

" tliou who mournest on thy way, 
With longings for the close of clay, 
He walks with thee, that angel kind, 
And gently whispers, ' Be resigned : 
Bear up, bear on, the end shall tell 
The clear Lord ordereth all things well.' " 

Speaking of the wreck of the steamer in which Dr. 
Armstrong, Secretary of the American Board, perished, 
Dr. J. W. Alexander says : " They already expected to go 
to pieces at sunset ; but they did not till four A. M. All . 
night in the howling storm, the fires all out, the cold in- 
sufferable, a few biscuits, but no drink, and the bell tolling 
all the while. The last time Dr. Armstrong is reported 
to have been seen, he was standing above, surveying the 
scene, perfectly calm ; he then uttered these words, I 
think, to a hearer of mine : ' I entertain hope that we 
may reach the shore ; but, if not, my confidence is firm in 
that God who doeth all things in wisdom and love.' " 
Surely no man in the serenity of a dying chamber could 
be better employed. 

A friend, of unusual consistency in deportment, and of 
undisturbed Christian cheerfulness during a long sickness, 
suggested to the writer the reading of the following hymn 
at her funeral, which was accordingly done : 



264 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

" What is this that steals upon my frame ? 

Is it death, is it death, 
That soon will quench this vital fiame? 

Is it death, is it death ? 
If this be death, I soon shall be 
From every pain and sorrow free ; 
I shall the King of glory see : 

All is well, all is well ! 

" Weep not my friends, weep not for me : 

All is well, all is well ! 
My sins are pardoned ; I am free : 

All is well, all is well! 
Bright seraphs are from glory come, 
They're round my bed, they're in my room,- 
They wait to waft my spirit home : 

All is well, all is well! 

" Tune, tune your harps, ye saints in glory : 

All is well, all is well ! 
I will rehearse the joyful story : 

All is well, all is well ! 
There's not a cloud that doth arise 
To hide my Saviour from my eyes ; 
I soon shall mount the upper skies : 

All is well, all is well ! 

" Hark, hark ! my Lord and Master calls me ! 

All is well, all is well ! 
I soon shall see his face in glory : 

All is well, all is well ! 
All, all is peace and joy divine, 
And heaven and glory now are mine ! 
All hallelujah to the Lamb ! 

All is well, all is well ! 

" Hail ! all hail ! ye blood- washed throng, 
Saved by grace, saved by grace ! 



265 



UNDER THE HARROW. 

I come to join your rapturous song, 
Saved by grace, saved by grace ! 

Adieu, ray friends, adieu, adieu! 

I can no longer stay with you, 

My glittering crown appears in view : 
All is well, all is well!" 



IV. UNDER THE HARROW. 

LUTHER, writing to Melancthon, quotes the verse, 
"These -things have I spoken unto you that in me 
ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have 
tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome 
the world;" 1 and adds, "Such a saying as this is 
worthy to be carried from Rome to Jerusalem on one's 
knees." 

This farewell sermon is Christ's treatise on consolation, 
the overflow of his tender heart towards his then anxious 
disciples. He knows that his disciples in coming ages 
will have a cup of bitterness to drink, and will be 
harassed from within and without. Hence he speaks 
-of the many mansions above ; he promises the Comforter's 
advent; he dwells on their union to himself, intimate 
as the branches to the vine; and their privilege of 
supplication without limit in his name. Two legacies 
are theirs, tribulation and peace. The miracle of grace 
is, that, notwithstanding tribulation, there may be spirit- 
ual repose ; that, like the passenger sleeping on shipboard 
during a storm, the believer may be at once in the 

'John xvi. 33. 
23 



266 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

midst of quiet and of agitation. You may have seen the 
coral polypi, assailed and swayed by the surges of the 
sea, yet remaining securely attached to the reef. So is 
it with souls cleaving to the Rock of Ages ; therein they 
have peace, but in the unquiet elements around they have 
tribulation. 

" Be of good cheer " even in prison, saith Christ. Two 
men in the Philippian jail at midnight soon show how that 
is possible. " Be of good cheer" in sickness, saith Christ ; 
I will make all thy bed. Amidst the ravages of disease 
ye shall suffer greatly; but in me ye shall have peace. 
How many thousands find that true ! "I have pain," 
said one saint, and he spoke for many, "I have pain ; 
but, blessed be Grod, I have peace." " Be of good cheer " 
amidst outward poverty and soul distresses, saith Christ. 
" It was last spring," wrote a Brooklyn city missionary, 
"that a tract distributor directed my steps to the home of 
a very poor family, which had been visited and supplied 
with tracts, with the most interesting effect. The father 
was an inoffensive, inefficient man, who found very little 
employment; the mother, a toiling, worn, and shattered 
slave of the needle, mainly supporting the family, husband 
and all. I learned that she made thick cloth pants at 
three shillings a pair, working eighteen hours out of 
twenty-four, aided by a young daughter; and between 
them both, a pair in a day was all they could do. In 
addition to the distracted state of mind and nerves, 
resulting from incessant application to the needle, without 
exercise, air, or 'rest, the condition of Mr soul now 
excited a mind of no common order to the verge of 



UNDER THE HARROW. 267 

insanity. Her feelings were pitiable. After toiling over 
her needle till nigh morning, though quivering and 
fainting with nervous exhaustion, her spiritual concern 
and her fearful convictions of sin drove sleep from her 
eyelids. She dared not go to sleep, for fear she might 
never wake again in a state of probation. The Saviour 
was pleased, in pity, to send quick relief, and grace 
so rich and full as I have seldom seen, in place of her 
sharp sorrow. In the state above described, I found her. 
She needed only a view of the Saviour's grace, and 
was ready to cast herself upon it. I endeavored to 
place it before her mind, and then I said to her, ' Now, 
Mary, at the proper hour to-night lay by your work and 
go to rest. But first go to Christ, and commit your soul 
to his compassion and care ; give your soul to his disposal, 
and then lie down with every anxiety cast away upon him, 
and go to sleep like a little child, just as if you were in 
his arms.' Feelingly and heartily she promised to .do 
this ; and so interested was I in the eifect of the exper- 
iment, that I went early the next morning to see. What 
a change ! Her haggard countenance was softened and 
placid with spiritual repose ; her eyes were full of joy, 
and her mouth of praise. From that .first hour of trust 
and self-surrender, that first act of faith, Jesus took her, 
as it were, like a lamb in his bosom, and she has ever 
since exhibited the most joyous and affectionate and 
humble faith, and intimate, constant union with Christ. 
Her conversation and experience have gladdened and 
benefited many witnesses ; and, in. her deep poverty and 
not-yet-ended afflictions, she enjoys the perpetual presence 



268 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

of her exalted Friend, realizing to the full his promise, 
'In the world ye shall have tribulation, but in me ye 
shall have peace.' " 



V. ALL FOR OUR GOOD. 

EVEN the great army of afflictions are only so many 
auxiliaries for helping on. the highest welfare of God's 
people. The administration of Providence is a vast 
mechanism for securing, in the best possible manner, 
their spiritual and everlasting advancement. Distressed 
Jacob may sigh, "All these things are against me;" 
but he will soon exult in finding that they have turned to 
his benefit. 

John Carstairs writes to the Marchioness of Argyle, 
after the execution of her husband, "God hath given 
the- highest security, ' that all things ' (having a special 
look at all their afflictions, as the context, in the confession 
of most, if not all, judicious commentators, putteth beyond 
debate) ' shall work together for good to them that love 
God, and are the called according to his purpose ; ' 1 
where he hath, to speak so with reverence to his majesty, 
condescended some way to abridge his own sovereignty and 
absolute dominion, engaging himself by covenant, that 
though he may do that he will, yet he shall will to do nothing 
but what shall be for his peopled good ; so that in all his 
dispensations towards them, his absolute dominion and his 

1 Eoin. viii. 28. 



ALL FOR OUR GOOD. 269 

good will shall be commensurable and of equal extent, the 
one of them never to be stretched one hair's breadth beyond 
the other. And even in the most dark, involved, intricate, 
abstruse, and mysterious providences, wherein they can 
read and take up least of his mind, and wherein he, 
seeming to walk either in the greatest absoluteness of his 
dominion, or in the sharpest severity of his justice, 
refuseth to give a particular account of his matters and 
motions, he hath wonderfully stooped and condescended to 
give this general, soothing, sweetly satisfactory account, 
that they shall work for good, even their spiritual good 
and profit, to the purging of sin, and their further 
participation of his holiness." 

The Rev. William Thorp, preaching from this passage, 
at the Tabernacle, Moorsfields (1828), on the subject of 
beneficial afflictions, introduced the following tribute to 
his mother's memory, and the bright example of that 
mother's faith : " The words of the text are, doubtless, in- 
tended for the common benefit of the Christian church ; 
but I have looked upon them likewise as a kind of family 
heritage. They formed the favorite text of my venerated 
father, who found in it consolation and support in the 
course of a difficult and laborious ministry. It was no less 
dear to the heart of my mother, who used to quote it in 
her easy-chair, and on her pillow of rest. When the 
weight of affliction overcame her feelings in the hour of 
trial, then she used to say, 'Let me sit down and rest 
myself, for we know that all things work together for 
good to them that love God, to them who are the called ac- 
cording to his purpose.' My father was removed in the 
23* 



270 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

midst of his pious career, and in the vigor of his manhood, 
leaving hehind him a large and uneducated family, -and 
but little of the goods of earth. My mother was then con- 
fined in childbed, having been delivered the day before my 
father expired. The last words uttered by him to my 
mother, in this distressing situation, were, ' Call the child 
Christiana: all things must work together for good to 
them, that love God.' To make the measure of sorrow 
full, it happened that all the rivers of the neighborhood 
were overflowing at that season, causing on all sides 
inconvenience, damage, and distress ; and the -water was a 
foot deep on the ground-floor of the house ! Still she 
always affirmed that this season of calamity was the 
happiest period of her life, in which she derived the 
fulness of consolation from the words of our text. When, 
a few days after my father had been carried to his place of 
rest, our house was robbed of everything that could be 
borne away, and also of the last quarter's salary wliich 
my mother had received; and when, having discovered 
our loss, my eldest sister ran breathless into her mother's 
chamber, exclaiming, 'Mother, the thieves have stolen 
all we had in this world, will this also work together for 
good ? ' she replied, ' Yes, for we know that all things 
work together for good to them that love God.' And the 
result justified her confidence." 

" We know." Room for doubt or hesitation does not 
exist. The first and predominant thought, in regard to 
losses and trials of every kind, should be that they are a 
needful part of the divine method of promoting spiritual 
good; and that this will be seen sooner or later, here 



JOYFUL ENDURANCE. 271 

or hereafter. This is a passage to live upon and die 
upon. The Rev. Robert Bruce of Scotland, when near 
death, his sight having failed, called for the great 
Bible, and desired to have his finger placed on the above 
verse, saying that he died in the belief that all things, 
even death, would work together for good. 



VI. JOYFUL ENDURANCE. 

SOME appear to spend all the religion they have on 
their afflictions : as if it were the design of the new heart 
to lie always bleeding, a weak, comfortless thing. Grod 
would have it bound up, and filled with all joy. He 
would have something more than what the world calls 
bravery ; something else than the stout stoicism of an iron 
will ; he would have buoyant Christian endurance. 

Before his imprisonment, Bunyan " could seldom go to 
prayer but this sentence, or sweet petition, to be ' strength- 
ened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto 
all patience and long suffering with joyfulness,' l would 
thrust itself into his mind, and persuade him that if even 
he should go through long suffering, he must have pa- 
tience, especially if he would endure it joyfully." 

Such joyfulness is the believer's privilege in sickness. 
One may be full of pains, and yet full of patience and 
peace. How many rooms have witnessed the extremes of 
bodily distress and of spiritual rapture ! A lady, shud- 

1 Col. i. a. 



272 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

dering at the spectacle of Harriet Stonemaii's sufferings, 
said that, if called to endure so much herself, her faith 
must fail. Harriet quoted the text, " Strengthened with 
all might, unto all long suffering with joy fulness; " and 
added, " Yes ; and I think this is one end to be answered 
in my long afflictions, encouragement for others to trust 
in Him. This precious book is my constant companion, 
and its truths and promises my unfailing support." 

Strange alchemy of God's grace, which so transmutes 
tribulation into triumph ; turns waters of Marah into a 
healthful fountain ; enables one to gather grapes of thorns 
and figs of thistles ; causes the rose to flourish through 
the whole winter of trials ; and helps one to regard afflic- 
tions as promised rather than threatened ! 



FIT. ALL-SUFFICIENT GSAOE. 

ALL Scripture is profitable, but certain texts are spe- 
cially so, texts short, easily understood, .and easily 
remembered ; texts with peculiar fulness of meaning and 
breadth of application, that seem a specific for all circum- 
stances, and lift the soul at once to a position of erect and 
poised readiness for duty or trial. Such an one is this : 
" My grace is sufficient for thee." l The feeblest intellect 
can apprehend it ; the poorest memory retain it. Paul 
found these words all he needed in his strait. Unnumbered 
believers have since felt their power. 

1 2 Cor. xii. 9. 



ALL-SUFFICIENT GRACE. 273 

One evening, as Bunyan was in a meeting of Christian 
people, full of sadness and terror, suddenly there "break 
in " upon him with great power, and three times 'tdgether, 
the -words, "My grace is sufficient for thee; my grace is 
sufficient for thee ; my grace is sufficient for thee." And 
"Oh! methought," says he, "that every word was a 
mighty word unto me; as 'my,' and 'grace,' and 'suffi- 
cient,' and 'for thee; ' they were then, and sometimes are 
still, far bigger than others be." 

The hearing of these words, in the sense of pardoning 
grace, no less than of sustaining grace, has brought hope 
to those in despair as well as strength to those already 
believers. A young woman was strongly tempted to de- 
stroy herself; and so far did the temptation succeed that 
she went to a river to put the dreadful purpose into execu- 
tion. While adjusting her clothes, that they might not 
float, she felt her Bible, and took it out of her pocket to 
look into it for the last time. This passage, " My grace 
is sufficient for thee," attracted her attention, impressed 
her mind, and induced her to return home praising God 
for having delivered her from temptation. The relation 
of this circumstance, remarkable in itself, was still more 
so in its results. A man and his wife, who were living in 
a state of constant enmity, happened to be present. The 
wife one evening left her house to go to the river to drown 
herself; but, as it was still rather too light, she stepped 
for a while into the place where Rev. Mr. Wills was 
preaching, and heard him relate the preceding anecdote. 
She listened with attention, and returned home quite an 
altered woman. Her husband looked at her with surprise ; 



274 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

for her countenance, which before indicated great malevo- 
lence, seemed to manifest the meekness of a lamb. He 
asked her where she had been. She told him, and he in- 
quired further, " Did you see me there? " She replied, 
"No." He added, "But I was, and, blessed be God, I 
found his grace sufficient for me also." The reality of 
the change which each of them now felt was evidenced in 
their future lives, which were such as became the gospel 
of Christ. 

"Thus I can triumph in distress, 
And find that even pain can bless ; 
Feeling how sure thy word to me, 
' Sufficient is my grace for thee ! ' 

"0 Saviour! grace on me bestow; 
Then, though my tears may sometimes flow, 
The precious truth my faith shall see, 
* My grace sufficient is for thee ! ' " 




XIII. 

VALEDICTORY. 

I. LAMA SABACHTHANI. 

HE great German Beformer, who could look pope 
} and emperor in the face undaunted, once sat a long 
time without food, motionless as a statue, in pro- 
found meditation and amazement at the words, "My 
God, why hast thou forsaken me;" till at length he 
broke forth with vehemence, "God forsaken of God! 
Who can understand it?" 

With a loud voice, Jesus cries, saying, " Eloi, Eloi, 
lama sabachthani ? " which is, being interpreted, "My 
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " l That 
is, indeed, the translation ; but who shall give the full in- 
terpretation thereof? The Holy Spirit will have them go 
as Jesus uttered them, wherever the gospel goes, to the 
end of time. And if on the archways of New Jerusalem 
there are inscriptions, or on the deeply shaded jasper 
foundation of her walls, or, with burning rubies, inlaid 
upon the great white throne, are not these words there, 
ij Eloi 3 lama sabachthani ? " 

1 Mark xv. 34. 

275 



276 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

Evidently our Lord's chief suffering is not bodily. 
There is a deadly anguish of the spirit, a crucifix- 
ion of the soul. Here the premonition of G-ethsemane 
is brought home in the fulness of bitter reality. He 
is, it would seem, but slightly sensible of the nails that 
pierce his hands. The sufferings of his soul are the 
soul of his sufferings. He is bearing our sins, and God 
turns away from him, not for what he is in himself, but 
for those whom he represents. That dreadful desertion 
is the inner wound, " the sting of death," which destroys 
his natural life. He does not live so long as the thieves 
beside him, or as many a crucified person has; he dies 
while yet able to cry with a loud voice; he dies of a 
deserted heart. 

Out of this scene comes a suggestion for those who 
experience painful inward conflicts ; who find themselves 
at times left alone in a hopeless solitude; who seem 
abandoned at sea, and floating helplessly within the rim 
of some maelstrom. 

"There was one who "lay two whole years in the 
concealment of a gloomy attic, sick of a grievous and 
painful disease, as if on thorns ; but she was thought to 
be lying on a bed of roses, so full was she of heavenly 
peace and cheerful resignation. The cause of this was 
Christ had become her life. The more her body wasted, 
the more was her spirit visibly strengthened in God. 
The more her outward man decayed, the more gloriously 
did her inner man unfold and transfigure itself. If, 
occasionally, the flood of suffering penetrated into her 
soul, we never heard her sigh, much less despond. If 



"LAMA SABACHTHANI" 277 

her faitli grew dark, her eyes were immediately directed 
to Calvary, and beneath the echo of "Eloi, Eloi, lama 
sabachthani ? ' the cloud on her brow was rapidly dispelled. 
'He cannot forsake me,' said she, with a smile, /after 
.forsaking him for me, who paid my ransom.' And 
once when, in the days of her last agony, compassion 
forced from her pastor the words, ' Oh that it might please 
the Lord in some measure to alleviate the cross of suffer- 
ing ! ' she replied, waving her hand, and with solemn and 
serious emphasis, ' Oh, be silent ! Not one drop less ! 
each of them is carefully measured out by his wisdom 
and love.' " l 

One of the Puritan ministers, 2 pronounced by his con- 
temporaries to be "as holy and cnoice a preacher as any 
in England," lived thirty-seven years with no comfortable 
assurance as to his spiritual condition. On his death-bed 
he addressed to a venerable brother in the sacred office 
this question : " What will you say of him who is going 
out of the world, and can find no comfort? " The reply 
was, " What will you say of him who, when he was going 
out of the world, found no comfort, but cried, ' My Grod, 
my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'" The dying 
man received consolation; and, within an hour after, 
departed rejoicing in the Lord. 

Yea ! once Immanuel's orphaned cry 

His universe liath shaken ; 
It went up single, echoless, 

" My God, I am forsaken ! " 



1 Kraramachcr's Suffering Saviour. - Job Throgmorton. 

24 



278 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 



It went up from the Holy's lips 

Amid his lost creation, 
That of the lost, no son should use 

Those words of desolation. 

MBS. BROWNING. 



II. "FATHER, FOEGIVE THEM." 

" Hark ! his dying word Eorgive ! 
Father, let the sinner live : 
Sinner, wipe thy tears away, 
I thy ransom freely pay." 

"FATHER, forgive them, for they know not what they 
do." l With what powr have those words come down the 
course of ages, unnerving the arm raised for a blow, and 
quieting the excited pulse ! Christ's prayer on the cross 
soon became the last prayer of Stephen, amidst a shower 
of stones. It taught the Bohemian martyr, John Huss, 
to kneel calmly, and, with eyes lifted heavenward, to say, 
"May thy infinite mercy, my God, pardon the injus- 
tice of my enemies. Thou knowest the injustice of their 
accusations ; how deformed with crimes I have been repre- 
sented ; how I have been oppressed by worthless witnesses, 
and an unjust condemnation : yet, my God,- let that 
mercy of thine, which no tongue can express, prevail with 
thee not to avenge my wrongs." It taught the Scottish 
martyr, Wishart, to pray, "I beseech thee, Father of 
heaven, forgive them that have, of any ignorance, or else 
of any evil mind, forged lies upon me. I forgive them 

1 Luke xxiii. 84. 



FORGIVE THEM." 279 

with all my heart. I beseech Christ to forgive them that 
have condemned me to death this day ignorantly." 

When the cholera first broke out in Hungary, in 1831, 
the Sclavic peasants of the North were fully persuaded 
they had been poisoned by the nobles, to get rid of them. 
Hence they rose in revolt, and committed the most dread- 
ful excesses. One gentleman was seized by the peasants 
of a village, among whom he had, up to that moment, been 
exceedingly popular ; he was dragged from his home to 
the public street, and beaten several hours, to make him 
confess where he had concealed the poison. At last, 
wearied with inflicting blows, they carried him to the 
smith, and applied hot ploughshares to his feet at three 
different times. As the poor man, exhausted with this 
dreadful torture, and finding all entreaties and explana- 
tions vain, fell back from weakness, and was apparently 
about to expire, these beautiful words of our dying Saviour 
escaped his lips: "Father, forgive them, for they know 
not what they do." As if by a miracle, the savage fury 
of the peasantry was calmed. Struck with the innocence 
of the victim and the enormity of their crime, they fled 
and concealed themselves. 

" I was one Sunday travelling through the county of 
Orange, on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge," says 
Wirt, in his British Spy, "when my eye was caught by 
a cluster of horses tied near a ruinous wooden house in the 
forest, not far from the roadside. Having frequently seen 
such objects before, I had no difficulty in understanding 
that this was a place of religious worship. Curiosity to 
hear the preacher of such a wilderness induced me to join 



280 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

- r V 

the congregation. On my entrance, I was struck with his 
supernatural appearance. He was a tall and very spare 
old man ; his head, which was covered with a white linen 
cap, his shrivelled hands, and his voice, were all shaking 
under the influence of palsy ; and a few moments ascer- 
tained to me that he was perfectly blind. It was the day 
of the sacrament. His subject was the passion of our 
Saviour ; and he gave it a new and more sublime pathos 
than I had ever before witnessed. When he descended 
from the pulpit to distribute the mystic symbols, there was 
a peculiar, a more than human solemnity in his voice and 
manner, which made my blood run cold, and my whole 
frame shiver. His peculiar phrases had that force of de- 
scription, that the original scene seemed acting before our 
eyes. We saw the very faces of the Jews ; the staring, 
frightful distortions of malice and of rage. But when he 
came to touch on the patience," the forgiving meekness of 
our Saviour ; when he drew to the life his blessed eyes 
streaming with tears, his voice breathing to God the gentle 
prayer, ' Father, forgive them, for they know not what 
they do ; ' the voice of the preacher, which had all along 
faltered, grew fainter and fainter, until, his voice being 
entirely obstructed by the force of his feelings, he raised 
his handkerchief to his eyes, and burst into a loud and 
irrepressible flood of grief. The efiect was inconceivable. 
The whole house resounded with mingled groans, and sobs, 
and shrieks. I could not imagine how the speaker could 
let his audience down from the height to which he had 
wound, them, without impairing the solemnity of his sub- 
ject, or shocking them by the abruptness of .his fall. But 



11 FATHER, FOEGIVM THEM." 281 



the descent was as beautiful and sublime as the elevation 
had been rapid and enthusiastic. The tumult of feeling 
subsided, and a death-like stillness reigned throughout the 
house; when the aged man removed his handkerchief 
from his eyes, still wet with the torrent of his tears, and, 
slowly stretching forth his palsied hand, he exclaimed, 
1 Socrates died like a philosopher ! ' then, pausing, clasp- 
ing his hands with fervor to his heart, lifting his 'sight- 
less balls ' to heaven, and pouring his whole soul into his 
tremulous voice, he continued, 'but Jesus Christ died 
like a God ! ' Had he seen an angel of light, the effect 
could have scarcely been more divine." 

" Father, forgive them." A memorable office has that 
prayer already fulfilled in our world ; and the wonderful 
words are to sound on still, falling with strange power 
upon the ears of men, till their efficacy as a prayer has 
found final accomplishment in the last human heart to be 
renewed. 

" Father, forgive." Our countless sins 

Stand forth in dark array, 
Yet for thy boundless mercy's sake 

Turn not thy face away ; 
But by our dear Kedeemer's prayer, 

Breathed forth in mortal pain, 
Grant, while our lips its language bear, 

Our souls its grace may gain. 

SlGOTJENEY. 

24* 



282 SEEDS AND SHEAVES, 



III. "INTO THY HANDS" 

IN December, ITTT, Haller, the celebrated Swiss physi- 
cian, wrote in his diary, "This is probably the last time 
that I shall use a pen. I cannot conceal it, that the view 
of the approaching Judge is awful to me. How shall I 
stand before him, since I am not so prepared for eternity 
as I think every Christian ought to be? my Saviour, 
be thou my Intercessor and Redeemer in this fearful 
hour ! Give me the assistance of thy Spirit, to guide me 
through the awful valley of death, and when I die, may I, 
like thee, exclaim triumphantly and full of faith, l It is 
finished ! Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.' ' ;1 

These words were Christ's valedictory to earth and his 
salutation to heaven. The form of expression, " He gave 
up," together with the preceding, "Into thy hand I com- 
mend my spirit/' indicates the voluntariness of Christ's 
dying. In describing this event, the evangelists do not call 
it dying, but employ terms implying our Saviour's consent, 
and, as it were, his own activity in the same. The mo- 
ment of dissolution does not come upon him suddenly, nor 
when he is in only a h'alf-conscious condition. With the 
faculties in full exercise he announces the reason and the 
moment of his departure: "It is finished! Father, into 
thy hands I commend my spirit." He has power to lay 
down his life. 

To teach us how to die is only an incidental purpose of 

Lukexxiii.46. 



" INTO THY HANDS." 283 

our Saviour. In his dying there is far more that we can- 
not than that we can imitate. Yet die we must ; wander 
whither we will, we come at last to the place of a skull. 
What we need is some one the other side kindly to receive 
the disembodied spirit ; some one who can hear our feeblest 
articulation in the moment of failing powers. The Great 
Teacher dies with Old Testament Scripture on his lips ; 
and those words, now a precious portion of the New Testa- 
ment, have been the last breathed by many a one. 

While William the Conqueror expired, saying, " I com- 
mend my soul to Mary," the devout Lady Jane Grey, 
laying her head upon the fatal block, said, " Lord, into 
thy hands I commend my spirit." The pious Basil, dis- 
coursing awhile to those about him, at length drew his 
latest breath in the ejaculation, " Into thy hands I com- 
mend my spirit." 

Arriving at an island in the Rhine, where he was to 
suffer martyrdom, John Huss knelt down, and said, "Lord, 
I thank thee that thou hast heard me. In thee do I put 
my trust. my rock, and my fortress, into thy hands I 
commend my spirit ! " 

Bishop Ridley, when he saw the flames approaching 
him, said, " Into thy hands, Lord, I commend my spirit! 
Lord, receive my soul ! Lord, have mercy upon me ! " 
So, too, the French minister and martyr, Aymond deLavoy, 
at his execution, cried, " Lord, my God, into thy hands 
I commend my soul ! " When the halter was placed round 
the neck of Salvestro, a friend of Savonarola, he ex- 
claimed, " Into thy hands, Lord, I commend my spirit ! " 

Did the immortal Tasso ever sing so sweetly as when in 



284 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

death he breathed out the prayer, "Father, into thy hands 
I commend my spirit " ? or did Columbus make any such 
discovery as when, in the moment of departure for the 
world of spirits, opening the eye of faith, he repeated the 
same petition, " In manus tuas, Domine, commendo 
spwitwm m&um " ? 



IV. "RECEIVE MY SPIRIT." 

THE dying Saviour called upon the Father; the dying 
protomartyr calls upon Jesus : " Receive my spirit." l He 
does not invoke Mary or Gabriel ; his eye is directed to 
Him whom all saints and angels adore. Who but He that 
holds the keys of hell and of death is competent to this 
last office ? " The Lord is my keeper," and let him alone 
have charge of my soul at its departure. The Holy Spirit 
supplied from the lips of this earliest Christian witness a 
fitting prayer for all dying believers. Patrick Hamilton, 
the first native of Scotland who died for the Word of God 
and our right to read it, was distinctly heard, amidst the 
fury of the flames and of an angry multitude, praying 
thus: "How long, Lord, shall darkness cover this 
realm ? How long wilt thou suffer this tyranny of men ? 
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!" So, too, prayed Bishop 
Hooper, in the midst of the flames: "Lord Jesus, have 
mercy upon me ! Lord Jesus, have mercy upon me ! 
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!" The venerable Jewell, 
bishop and reformer, prayed similarly, in his last moments: 

1 Acts vii, 59. 



" EECEI7E MY SPIRIT." 285 

" Lord, take from me my spirit ! Lord, now let thy servant 
depart in peace ! Break off all delays ! Suffer thy servant 
to come to thee. Lord, receive my spirit ! " Such was 
also the valedictory prayer of Cranmer, and for substance 
that of Martin Boos. Colonel Hampden, when mortally 
wounded} uttered these same words, in a choked and faint- 
ing voice. Dr. Bateman died crying, " What glory ! The 
angels are waiting for me ! Lord Jesus, receive my soul ! 
Farewell ! " The last words of William B. Tappan were, 
"I'm going, my sight is gone, wife, daughter, fare- 
well ! Lord Jesus, receive my. spirit ! " 

Holy women, too, have been taught by the dying 
Stephen. In the reign of King James, the papists took 
Margaret Wilson/ with an aged Scottish female, down to 
the Bay of Wigton, at low water, and bound her to a stake, 
there to await the flood-tide. The waters came slowly in, 
closing round her, rising higher and higher. They reach 
her throat ; but the young martyr of eighteen still sings 
with a loud, clear voice the twenty-third Psalm. .Her 
mouth 'fills at length ; she gurgles forth, " Lord Jesus, 
receive my spirit ! " and goes to sleep beneath the tide. 

Mrs. Sarah Lanman Smith, falling back gently upon 
her pillow, said, in a faltering whisper, "Lord Jesus, 
receive my spirit ! " 

A little Nestorian girl, when near death, ,said, in a clear 
voice, " Mother, raise me, that I may commit my spirit," 
for she would never approach her Saviour but on her 
knees. Supported, as she had been hundreds of times 
before, by that strong mother's arms, in the attitude of 
prayer, she said, " Lord Jesus, receive " and there she 



286 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

stopped ; prayer had ended. Instead of the closing words 
of the earthly petition, was the opening of the new song 
in heaven. The Saviour did not wait for the finishing of 
her prayer before he answered it. 1 

How many, no doubt, silently breathe this supplication 
when just entering the dark valley, or when too<far down 
the same to communicate with friends watching eagerly 
this side ! What delightful calmness of satisfaction there 
is in committing the soul to such a faithful guardian, 
just as when a parent places a child in the hands of a trust- 
worthy, long-tried friend ! The treasure is not despatched 
by public conveyances and unknown changing agents. It 
is given into the immediate keeping of One who has sole 
charge of the transit, One fully competent and faithful. 



F. THE GROWN. 

DURING- the later months of Dr. Lyman Beecher, who 
died at the age of eighty-seven, his mental condition was 
one of extreme feebleness. About two weeks before his 
death he called for '" that passage." His son states that, 
"After reading a multitude of passages, for he was una- 
ble to designate the particular one desired, the reader 
opened, by the good providence of Grod, to these verses : 
( For 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 

1 Woman and Her Saviour, in Persia, p. 133. 



TEE GROWN. 287 

there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which , 
the IJord, the righteous Judge, shall give unto me at that 
day ; and not to me only ' l They were proceeding to 
read farther, but my father cried ' Stop ! that is not for 
me ! ^This is my testimony ; write it down as mine. 3 " 

" Not only ready to be offered, but I am actually poured 
out, so testifies the apostle, as a drink offering upon 
the sacrifice. My blood even now flows a libation at the 
altar. My struggle on the arena is over ; on the race- 
course I have reached the goal. I am to have the victor's 
wreath ; the reward, not of merit, but of grace ; the joyful 
recompense which he will award me when the prizes are 
distributed." These words were the last which the cele- 
brated Andrew Rivet endeavored to utter. They were the 
theme of the last sermon preached by Richard Mather. 

Samuel Whitney, missionary to the Sandwich Islands, 
said in his closing sickness, "I have fought the good 
fight." In twenty-six years of service the Saviour had 
been with him. "Christ is the rock on which I rest." 
Throwing up his arms, he exclaimed, "And is the 
victory won ? Giory, glory, glory ! Hail, glorious im- 
mortality ! " 

About one hundred years ago, two clergymen happened 
to meet, one Sabbath morning, in a certain district of 
Wales. For a time they travelled the same road, the one 
on foot, the other on horseback. Though strangers to 
each other, they entered into conversation, and it appeared 
that both were on their way to preach. " Our profession," 



. 6-8. 



288 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

said the one on horseback, " is one of great drudgery, and 
by no means profitable. I never get more than half a 
guinea for preaching a sermon." 

" You preach for half a guinea, do you? " said the one 
on foot ; " I preach for a crown." " Preach for a drown ! 
You are a disgrace to your cloth." "Perhaps so; and 
you may think I am a still greater disgrace, when I tell 
you that I am now walking nine miles to preach, and have 
but seven pence in my pocket to bear my expenses out and 
in, and I do not expect to receive even that amount from 
those I go to serve. But I look forward to that crown of 
glory which my Lord and Saviour will bestow upon me 
when he makes his appearance before an assembled 
world." The horseman, it may be well supposed, did 
not care to continue conversation with one who was 
ready to disgrace his cloth by preaching for a ' crown, 
The foot-soldier was the Rev. Howell Davies, a man 
whose labors were greatly blessed to the revival of religion 
in Wales. He had four stated places for preaching, 
besides often preaching in barns and on commons and 
hill-sides. He had more than two thousand communicants 
in his church. On communion days the church was 
frequently emptied twice, to make room for a third congre- 
gation to partake of the Supper. 

A Roman Catholic priest, addressing a recent convert 
to Protestantism, said, " Confess what you get for leaving 
the church, and I'll give you more for turning back." 
" Neither more, then, since you must know it, than a crown, 
each and every one of us," was the reply. "A crown, 
Paddy Connor! only a crown?" said the priest. "You 



THE CROWN. 289 

shall have that and more too." " Oh, but," said Paddy, 
"the crown we are looking for is a crown. of glory, 
reserved in heaven for us by the only Intercessor between 
God and man." 

What succession to royalty on earth, or what donation 
of the same, shall be so much as mentioned ? The Lord, 
the Lord of heaven and earth, is to .confer the prize. The 
late Duke of Hamilton had two sons. The eldest fell into 
a consumption when a boy, which ended in his death. 
Two ministers went to see him at the family seat, near 
Glasgow, where he lay. After prayer, the youth took 
a Bible from under his pillow, and turned to 2 Tim. 
'iv. 7, 8 : "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; " and added, " This, sirs, 
is my comfort ! " When his death approached, he called his 
younger brother to his bed, and spoke to him with great 
affection. He ended with these words: "And now, 
Douglas, in a little time you will be a duke, but I shall be 
a king!" 

"A crown of righteousness." No question of equity 
can arise respecting it. Lady Jane Grey declared, 
"that the laws of the kingdom and natural right stand- 
ing for the king's sisters, she would beware of burdening - 
her weak conscience with a yoke which did belong to 
them;. that she understood the infamy of those who had 
permitted the violation of right to gain a sceptre ; that it 
were to mock God and deride justice, to scruple at the 
stealing of a shilling, and not at the usurpation of a 
crown. Besides," said she, " I am not so young, nor so 

25 



290 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

little read in the guiles of fortune, to suffer myself to be 
taken by them. . If she enrich any, it is but to make 
them the subject of her spoil ; if she raise others, it is but 
to pleasure herself with their ruin ; what she adored yes- 
terday is to-day her pastime ; and if I now permit her to 
adorn and crown me, I must to-morrow suffer her to 
crush and tear me to pieces. Nay, with what crown doth 
she present me ? A crown which hath been violently and 
shamefully wrested from Catherine of Arragon, made more 
unfortunate by the punishment of Anne Boleyn and others, 
that wore it after her ; and why, then, would you have 
me add my blood to theirs, and be the third victim from 
whom this fatal crown may be ravished, with the head 
that wears it?" 

A crown "laid up." Will any curious hand find its 
way to the regalia of heaven? Will any thief break 
through and steal ? Sir Thomas Bodley had for his coat 
of arms three crowns, with the motto, Quarto, perennis 
erit, "The fourth will not fade." 

A French officer, while prisoner on parole at Reading, 
met Avith a Bible, read it, and was so struck with the 
contents as to be convinced of the folly of his sceptical 
principles, of the truth of Christianity, and to resolve upon 
becoming a Protestant. When his gay associates rallied 
him for taking so serious a turn, he said, in vindication, 
"I have done no more than my old school-fellow, Bsr- 
nadotte, who has become a Lutheran." "Yes, but he 
became so," said his associates, "to obtain a crown." 
" My motive," said the Christian officer. " is the same ; Ave 
only differ as to place. The object of Bernadotte is to 



THE VllOWN. 291 

obtain a crown in Sweden ; mine to obtain a crown in 
heaven." 

Olympia's boasted pride was made 

Of humble oaken bough, 
Whose perishable leaves decayed 

Upon the victor's brow ; 
The Christian eye a crown surveys, 

Unrivalled and divine, 
Whose glories never fade, whose rays 

Shall never cease to shine. 

CHANETOK. 




XIV. 

BETKIBUTION. 

J. " GUT IT DOWN." 

HE fig-tree is not planted for ornament, for 
shade, nor for fuel, but for fruit. We in this 
world are surely not planted in the wilderness, 
in a territory unclaimed by the Lord Paramount. Nor 
is the Proprietor of this vineyard a careless landlord. 
He is jealous of his rights. He comes often, and with 
a piercing scrutiny which nothing can elude. Leaves 
are not enough ; nor are blossoms enough : fruit is 
wanted. What right have trees, what right have men, 
to fail of the end for which they were made? Why 
should not one as much as the other fall before the 
axe ? Fearful doom, from the vineyard to the fire ! 
Henry Obookiah, the Sandwich Islander, snys, in his 
imperfect English : " Mr. F. one day sent me into the 
woods, not far from the house, to work. I took an axe 
and went, and worked there till towards noon. But here, 
oh, I coma to myself again ! Many thoughts came 
into my mind that I was in a dangerous situation. I 
thought, if I should then die, I must certainly be cast off 

292 



" CUT IT DOWN." 293 

forever. While I was working, it appeared as it was 
a voice crying, ' Cut it down ; why cumbereth it the 
ground ? ' I worked no longer, but dropped my axe, and 
walked a few steps from the place (for the people in 
the house would send a lad after me, for it was noon) ; I 
fell on my knees and looked up to the Almighty Jehovah 
for help. I was nothing but an undone and hell-deserving 
sinner. I felt that it would be just for God to cast me off 
whithersoever he would ; that he should do with my soul 
as it seemed to him fit." 

"I wish to bear my testimony," said a young man in 
New York city, " and tell what the Lord has done for me. 
Fifteen years ago I came from a neighboring village into 
this city. I had pious parents, who prayed constantly for 
me all these fifteen years. Yet, in all that time, I do not 
know that I had a single serious impression. I don't 
remember that I ever had any anxiety on the subject of 
religion till last January, when I heard a sermon upon this 
passage : ' Cut it down ; why cumbereth it the ground ? ' 
I heard as if every word of it was addressed to me. I did 
not suppose that there was another one in the house that it 
applied to. I was the unfruitful fig-tree. I was plunged 
into the deepest anxiety, and knew not what to do. I 
had a wife, and I did not know how she would regard my 
state of feeling. At length I found that she had been 
awakened by the same sermon. We went to our pastor, 
and told him all our hearts, and in a little while were 
permitted to hope for pardon and peace through our Lord 



1 Luke xiii. 7. 
25* 



294 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

Jesus Christ I have been often at these meetings, and 
have wished often to speak, but never could get courage to 
do so. There may be some young man who hears me, 
whom I may persuade to come to Jesus; some one for 
whom a father and mother are praying, or have prayed in 
times past. I have exchanged the theatre for the church, 
and. the drinking-saloon for the prayer-meeting. I ear- 
nestly entreat you to do the same." l 

How many years hast tliou, ray heart, 
Acted the barren fig- tree's part, 

Leafy, and fresh, and fair, 
Enjoying heavenly clews of grace, 
And sunny smiles from God's own face ; 

But where the fruit? ah! where? 



II. TEE FEARFUL THING. 

"IF," said the wretched Sir Francis Newport, in his 
last agonies, "if Christ died for sinners, it was such as 
repent and believe ; but, though I would, I can do neither; 
I have outstood my day of grace, am hardened and rep- 
robate. If Grod delight not in the death of sinners, it is 
of such sinners as repent and turn to him ; but his justice 
will vindicate itself on such obstinate sinners as I, who 
have denied his power and providence both in my words 
and actions. Now he has met with me for it; and, oh ! 

1(4 Power of Prayer," 1858. 



THE GREAT PROBLEM. 295 

'it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of "the living 
God.' " ! 

Do we in time of war shudder at the thought of being 
seized by incensed enemies ; or at sea of being captured 
by pirates ? No disaster of earth can* be so fearful as 
falling into the hands of the living God. Who can de- 
liver out of his grasp ? He never grows weary. He is 
strong forever, and can punish forever. But, reconciled 
through the blood of the everlasting covenant, who need 
tremble ? 

Outhbert tells us, that the venerable Bede, during his 
last illness, A. D. 875, " lived joyfully, praising God day 
and night, yea, at all hours, till the feast of ascension. 
He. gave us, his scholars, daily lessons, and the rest of his 
time he occupied in singing psalms. The whole night, a 
small part excepted, he spent in watching with joy and 
thanksgiving, and, when he woke from a short sleep, he 
lifted up his hands, and began his thanksgiving again. He 
sang the words of the Apostle Paul : l It is a fearful thing 
to fall into the hands of the living God.' " 



III. THE GREAT PROBLEM. 

"HAVING weighed," says Vergerio, an Italian of the 
sixteenth century, " these words, ' What shall it profit a 
man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own 
soul ? ' 2 against all the brilliant prospects which fortune 

1 Hebrews x 31. * Mark viii. 36 . 



296 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

and papal power held out to me, I found the scale in- 
clined to the side of the gospel." Strange that it should 
ever seem to incline the other way ! 

On the world's great exchange a problem is evermore 
brought forward by One who has the calm, benignant 
bearing of a prince; one who has latest intelligence from 
every quarter of the universe ; who is no stranger to the 
remotest spheres. He says to the man of business You 
desire to be rich. Grant that your largest desires are to 
be fulfilled; that you will become another Croesus; that 
you will have more gold than the Incas of Peru : Will it 
furnish food for your soul? Will you be any nearer a 
happy man ? Seeking wealth for its own sake, or for any 
selfish end, you make a bad bargain, even if this life Avere 
all, and there were nothing beyond. Acquiring or using 
otherwise than as a steward of mine, you are losing your- 
self. Of what avail can the world be to you ? What can 
you do with it ? Can you carry it with you for a pillow 
when you make your bed in everlasting torments ? Will 
its springs cool your parching tongue ? 

A merchant, convinced that he was a sinner, found that 
he must renounce the world, or perish forever. He 
paused ; he pondered : there was a struggle, for his busi- 
ness had become lucrative. He felt that his choice was 
for eternity. At last he said. " Give me my portion 
here ! " Riches accumulated, yet he confessed, " I know 
that, to gain the world, I have lost my soul ! " 

A young man who had graduated at one of our colleges, 
and who was distinguished for scholarly attainments, par- 
ticularly his knowledge of mathematics, settled in a village 



THE GREAT PROBLEM. 297 

where lived a faithful minister of the gospel. It was not 
long before the clergyman met him in one of his evening 
walks, and. after some conversation, as they were about to 
part, addressed him as follows: "I have heard you are. 
celebrated for your mathematical skill ; I have a problem 
which I wish you to solve." "What- is it?" eagerly 
inquired the young man. The clergyman answered, 
" What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole 
world and lose his own soul?" The youth returned 
home, and endeavored to shake off the impression fastened 
on him by the problem ; but in vain. Amidst the giddy 
round of pleasure, in his business, and in his studies, the 
question still forcibly returned to him, " What shall it 
profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his 
own soul?" The result was his conversion; he became 
an able advocate and preacher of that gospel which he once 
rejected. 

A fellow-countryman of ours, ambitious to madness, had 
toiled for years, working early and late, denying himself 
every comfort, absorbed in the one fixed purpose of achiev- 
ing intellectual superiority. His eye at length caught 
these words: "When all is gained, how little then is 
won ! And yet to gain that little, how much is lost ! " 
The words sunk into his heart. The whole truth flashed 
like lightning across his soul. He now beheld the fame 
he had toiled for as absolutely worthless. " When all is 
gained, how little is won ! " said he. " Yes, how little ! 
Oh, what is it ? It is nothing. Fame oh, what is it ? 
The breath of fools and devils. That is the object on 
which I have set my whole heart, and for which I have 



298 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

been laboring. ' When all is gained, how little then is 
won ! And yet to gain that little, how much is lost ! ' 
Oh, how have I been laboring and suffering for it! 
I have given all for it; all of this world, and all of 
the next." Renouncing his schemes t and possessions, 
he became a follower and preacher of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

A ticket was once dropped in the street by a Sunday 
scholar. A lady, passing that way in her carriage, dis- 
covered it, and, supposing it to be a treasury note, or small 
bill, such as were then used for change, ordered her ser- 
vant to bring it to her. He did so, when, lo ! instead of 
its representing a small amount of earthly treasure, she 
found the following words : " What shall it profit a man, 
if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? " 
The inquiry was deeply impressed upon her mind, and in 
vain did she attempt to banish it ; in vain she sought the 
circles of folly and dissipation ; the thought still pressed 
upon her mind : " What shall it profit ? " nor did she find 
rest till brought to the feet of Jesus. 

Sin indulged is suicide. By unbelief, indifference, and 
procrastination, thousands run the amazing risk. Steer- 
ing their boat out into the rapids, they gather the momen- 
tum of a whole probation wherewith to leap into outer 
darkness. Say, thou Alexander of conquest, thou Alex- 
ander of science, thou Alexander of pleasure, what avails 
it? Ah, you sit down and weep. Other worlds are 
wanting. 

Frarnbis Xavorias counselled John III. of Portugal to 
meditate every day for a quarter of an hour on this text : 



THE GREAT PROBLEM. , 299 

" What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole 
world, and lose his own soul? " 

What is the thing of greatest price, 

The whole creation round? 
That which was lost in Paradise ; 

That which in Christ is found. 

MONTGOMERY. 




XY. 

HARVEST HOME. 

I. " WELL DONE." ' 

ELL did Hamann write to Lindner, " Save 
yourselves the trouble of digging, and the 
expense of a napkin; betake yourselves to 
the bank of exchange, where we may invest and exchange 
our talent." 

Everything by which we may promote the interest of 
our Lord's kingdom is to be regarded as talents. The 
culture and results of mental faculties are goods held in 
trust. Attainments in the exact sciences or other sciences, 
skill in the fine arts and the mechanical arts, are talents ; 
so are the pen of the ready writer and the tongue of the 
ready speaker. 

To one, God gives five talents; to another, two; and to 
another, one. This is true of communities as of individuals. 
Ruimer, a Flemish preacher, was of the opinion that the 
Reformed Church had five talents, the Lutheran two, and 
the Roman one. All have something, and no one has a 
right either to boast or to complain. 

1 Matthew xxv. 14-29. 

300 



" WELL DONE." 301 

A little supplies as good a test of faithfulness as a great 
deal. It is a question of principle, not of quantity ; and 
principle shoAvs itself as quickly in smaller as in greater 
concerns. The Master's eye is upon the aim and effort, 
rather than the result. He does not say, xWell done, 
good and successful, but good and faithful, servant. He 
looks at what a man is, rather than what he has. 

It is noteworthy that the servant with one talent turns 
out to be the unfaithful servant. How reproachful and 
defiant is the account of himself which the churl gives to 
his lord ! how merited his doom ! 

The Rev. T. Charles, of North Wales, at a time when 
unemployed in the ordinary work of his ministry, and 
hesitating what step he should take in a change contem- 
plated by him, had the following dream : The day of 
judgment, with its awful accompaniments, appeared to 
have come. He saw millions assembled before the Judge ; 
and what attracted his notice particularly was the trial of 
the idle and slothful servant, as recorded in Matthew 
twenty-fifth. He imagined these dreadful words uttered 
from the judgment-seat: "Take him, 'and bind him 
hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness ; there 
shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." He thought 
this a representation of his own case. It seemed to say to 
him as Nathan said to David, " Thou art the man." On 
awakening, he felt greatly alarmed. The dream dis- 
tressed him exceedingly. The fear of being like the idle 
and unprofitable servant greatly harassed his mind. Hav- 
ing such a dream when he was doing nothing, he could 
not but be much affected by it. He regarded it as a 

26 



302 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

warning, and, by his subsequent activity, he appears to 
have improved it to the best of purposes. 

" Oh, that each from his Lord may receive the glad word, 

' Well and faithfully done ! 
Enter into my joy and sit down on my throne.' " 



II. " WITH CHRIST" 

LADY COLQTJOHOUN- makes this record in her diary: 
" Read in Scott's Commentary, and a French Bible. One 
passage in the latter l delighted my heart, it strikes me 
as more impressive than the English, ' Pere, mon desir 
est, touchant ceux que tu m' as donnez, que la ou je suis, 
ils y soient aussi avec moi.' Is this the desire of my 
Lord ? How much more should I desire to be with him, 
and where he is ? And why, sweet Jesus, dost thou de- 
sire to have me with thee ? From love it must be, 
everlasting love! From a delight, too, in the fruits of 
redemption." 

The man Christ Jesus is man still, and heaven would 
not be heaven to him without his human friends. He 
who walked to Emmaus will renew his converse with be- 
loved disciples ; he who went often to Bethany will have 
his whole family together. Never did an affectionate 
parent so long to have children and children's children 
come home at the joyous gathering. Delightful thought, 

1 John xvii. 24. 



" WITH CHRIST," 303 

that every saint will contribute to the happiness of our 
Lord in glory ! 

"That they may behold my glory ; " such is our Lord's 
definition of heaven. The Eternal Son, being the bright- 
ness of his Father's glory, has fitted up a magnificent 
abode, which he is to illumine forever. His transcendent 
form and his all-enlightening countenance are reflected 
from every part of the sea of glass, at every bend in the 
river of life, and from every garnished stone in the walls 
of New Jerusalem. 

The nearer a saint comes to heaven, the more distinct 
the glimpses he obtains of Christ's glory. Dr. Samuel 
Buell, of Long Island, when asked, in his last sickness, 
concerning the state of his mind, requested his friends, in 
order to obtain it, to read the seventeenth chapter of John, 
repeating several times the twenty-fourth verse : " Father, 
I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with 
me where I am, that they may behold the glory which 
thou hast given me." 

"I am sure," said another, 1 "past a doubt, or even a 
scruple, that I shall be with the Lord, to behold his 
glory. The blood of Jesus Christ hath cleansed me from 
all sin. I long to be dissolved. Come, Lord Jesus, loose 
me from the prison of this clay ! Oh, sweet, sweet 
dying!" 

1 Kev. John. Bennet, Derbyshire, Eng. 



304 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 



III. "EVER WITH THE LOBD. 

A DISTINGUISHED Christian minister, absorbed in the 
Contemplation of future blessedness, moved back from the 
table after being silent for some time, and exclaimed, with 
great energy, " my friends, consider what it is to be 
forever with the Lord forever forever forever!" 
Are we not borderers on eternity ? Do we not live on the 
marches between two worlds ? We have but to strike our 
tents and cross the line. Does sorrow overwhelm me ? 
Have I become immersed in the world, and lost my savor 
of things unseen? Am I tempted to repine? Let me 
think a moment of " life everlasting," "eternal glory.-" 
So shall we ever be with the Lord. 

Dr. Thomas Goodwin, on the eve of his departure, ad- 
dressing his two sons, exhorted them to value the privileges 
of the covenant. "It hath taken hold on me," said he. 
"My mother was a holy woman. She spake nothing 
diminishing of it. It is a privilege which cannot be valued 
enough nor purchased with a great sum of money; " al- 
luding to the words of the chief captain to Paul. ' "Then 
he exhorted them that they should do nothing to provoke 
God," and added, " Now I shall ever be with the Lord." 1 

"Beading tires me," said Brown, of Haddington, 
"walking tires me, riding tires me; but, were I once 
with Jesus, fellowship with him will never .tire me. ' So 
shall we ever be with the Lord.' " " Oh, that sweet little 

1 Thess. iv. 17. 



HOLY, HOLY." 305 



sentence, ' We shall be forever with the Lord ! ' Oh 3 how 
sweet ! forever with the Lord ! And that which makes 
the wonder is this, that it is we that are to enjoy this 
happiness ; we pitiful wretches are to be forever with God 
our Saviour, God in our nature ! " 

"Forever with the Lord ! " 

Amen ! So let it be ; 
Life from the dead is in that word ; 
. "Tis immortality. 

"Forever with the Lord ! " 
Father, if 'tis thy will, 
The promise of that faithful word 
E'en here to me fulfil. 

Knowing " as I am known," 

How shall I love that word, 
And oft repeat before the throne 

" Forever with the Lord ! " 

MONTGOMERY. 



IV. "HOLY, HOLY, HOLY" 

" Lord, thy glory fills tlie heaven ; 

Earth is with its fulness stored : 
Unto thee be glory given, 

Holy, holy, holy Lord ! 
Heaven is still with anthems ringing; 

Earth takes up the angels' cry, 
Holy, holy, holy, singing, 

Lord of hosts, thou Lord most high." 

JOHN beholds a throne, and One seated thereon, who to 
look upon- is like a jasper and a sardine stone, present- 



306 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

ing the ruddy hue of justice. An iris the emblem of 
mercy spans the throne; yet thunderings and light- 
nings are witnessed, and the whole aspect awes not less 
than it wins. The words he hears are, "Holy, holy, 
holy," l not merciful, merciful, but holy, holy, not once 
alone, but thrice repeated. The conspicuous element in 
the divine character and the divine abode is holiness ; it 
absorbs the heart of every inhabitant. 

A friend was talking to Miss Adelaide L. Newton, 
when extremely weak, about Christians in affliction being 
able to say, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty! " 
and her answer was, "Yes; he is holy when he sends us 
into deep waters, and, if he goes on and adds one trouble 
to another, he is holy still; and, without repining or 
murmuring when the knife cuts us even to the quick, we 
can go on saying ' Holy.' Yes, it is the character of God, 
and that alone supports me." 

The Earl of Balcarres, when near his end, said to his 
wife: "How sweet is rest to a wearied soul, and such a 
rest as this is that I am going to ! blessed rest ! 
where we shall never cease, day nor night, from saying, 
' Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty ! ' where we shall 
rest from sinning, but not from praising." Dr. Nisbet, 
too, the first President of Dickinson College, in his last 
efforts at vocal utterance, articulated with peculiar fervor, 
the words, "Holy, holy, holy ! " and, with that exclama- 
tion on his lips, fell asleep. 

1 Eev. iv. 8. 



"jv r o KIGRT THERE" 307 



v. " NO NIGHT THERE:' 

"No night " shall be in heaven, no dreadful hour 
Of mental darkness, or the tempter's power; 
Across those skies no envious cloud shall roll, 
To dim the sunlight of the enraptured soul. 

Tiros. RAFFLES. 

THE Bible description of heaven winds up with the fifth 
verse of the last chapter of the Apocalypse, and leaves us 
in the midst of broad, brilliant, unending day; " No night 
there." Nothing will be found of which night is the 
emblem. "The rulers of the darkness of this world" 
have no access there. 

In New Jerusalem are no narrow lanes, no under-ground 
dens, nor any possible darkness where the workers of in- 
iquity may hide themselves. No spiritual obscuration 
will take place; no decline in the hidden life ; no night-time 
of hope or love ; no eclipse of faith ; no dark ages in the 
general history of the church triumphant. The effulgence 
of divine glory and favor cannot for a moment be dimmed. 
Light, endless light, nothing but light, is there sown for 
the righteous. 

The tombstone of a sweet girl, blind from her birth, 
bears this inscription, " There is no night there." " Names 
of Christ flowed in upon my mind," said Catherine Adams, 
when made acquainted with the fact that she could live 
but a short time, " and I once awoke with these words in 
my thoughts, 'and there shall be no night there.' Now, 



308 SEEDS AND SHEAVES, 

I know that I am to die. I feel less nervous. I have a 
calm, unruffled feeling." 



VI. "EVEN SO, COME" 

We long to hear thy voice, 

To see thee face to face, 
To share thy crown and glory then, 

As now we share thy grace. 
Should not the loving bride 

The absent bridegroom mourn ? 
Should she not wear the weeds of grief 

Until her Lord return? 

" Come, then, Lord Jesus, come ! " 

BONAR. 

" AMEN. Even so, come, Lord Jesus." These words 
have often been in the lips of departing believers. They 
were the last uttered bj Purkitt. They were the closing 
prayer of Bishop Abbott, who died early in the seventeenth 
century. In his remarkable death-bed experiences, John 
Janeway said to his brothers: " Would you keep me 
from my crown ? The arms of my blessed Saviour are 
open to receive me. The angels stand ready to carry my 
soul into his bosom. Oh ! did you but see what I. see, 
you would all cry out with me, ' How long, dear Lord ! 
Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly ! ' " 1 

"It is death, it is death!" exclaimed Robert Hall; 
" Oh, the sufferings of this body ! " His wife then asking 

"Rev. xxii. 20. 



" EVEN SO, COME." 309 

him, "But you are comfortable in your mind?" he 
answered, "Very comfortable;" adding, " Come, Lord 
Jesus, come." He then hesitated as if unable to utter the 
next word, and one of his daughters added, "quickly," 
whereupon her dying father gave her a look expressive of 
the utmost delight. 

Lady Colquohoun seemed to long for her release, and 
frequently repeated these words, " Come, Lord Jesus, come 
quickly." Dr. Andrew Eliot of Boston, in his last sickness, 
expressed unshaken confidence -in the doctrines of grace 
which he had preached, and would frequently breathe the 
ejaculation, " Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly ! " Under 
similar circumstances, Eev. Dr. Joseph Sewall was some- 
times heard to say with great pathos, " Come, Lord Jesus, 
come quickly!" The last words of the pious and benev- 
olent Henry Homes, of Boston, were, "Lord Jesus, come 
quickly ! " 

Not unfrequently do believers more strongly desire to 
depart than others desire to live. They have such love 
to their Lord, such longing to be with him, that they 
think little of what lies between, the pains and the 
dread of dying. 

" Come quickly " is made to mean both soon and sudden, 
and it often occurs to the mind when a summons to go 
hence is heard unexpectedly. 

"My father," said Mrs. Elizabeth Ro we, "often felt 
his pulse, and complained that it was still regular, and 
smiled at every symptom of approaching death. He would 
be often crying out, ' Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly ! 
Come, ye holy angels, that rejoice at the conversion of a 



310 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

sinner, come, and conduct my soul to the skies, ye propi- 
tious spirits ! ' and would then add, i But thy time, Lord, 
not mine, is best.' " 

When the Kent, an East Indiaman, was found to be on 
fire,* several of the soldiers' wive.s and children, who had 
fled for temporary shelter into the after-cabins on the 
upper deck, engaged in prayer and reading the Scriptures, 
with the ladies. Some of them were enabled, in wonder- 
ful self-possession, to offer to others those spiritual consola- 
tions which a firm and intelligent trust in the Redeemer 
appeared at this awful hour to impart to their own breasts. 
The dignified deportment of two young ladies, in partic- 
ular, formed a specimen of natural strength of mind, 
finely modified by Christian feeling, and attracted the 
notice of every one who had the opportunity to witness it. 
On the melancholy announcement being made that all hope 
must be relinquished, and that death was rapidly approach- 
ing, one of the ladies referred to, sinking down calmly on 
her knees, and clasping her hands, said, " Even so, come, 
Lord Jesus ! " and immediately proposed to read a portion 
of Scripture to those standing around. Her sister, with 
nearly equal composure, selected the forty-sixth, and other 
appropriate psalms, which were accordingly read, with 
intervals of prayer. 

Rev. Mr. Alvord wrote from the Army of the Potomac 
thus: "I have seen a Testament pierced with a Minie 
ball which also pierced the owner's heart. Opening the 
book, I found name and date, and pencilling which seemed 



1825. 



COME" 311 



to indicate premonition. On one of the fly-leaves he had 
commenced as follows : 

" ' With tearful eyes I think I see ' 

and then, as if he had recollected the verse, he began, just 
below : 

" ' With tearful eyes I look around ; 

Life seems a dark and stormy sea ; 
Yet midst the gloom I hear a sound, 
A heavenly whisper, " Come to me."' 

" I followed the bullet, and the first passage struck was, 
' Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord 
Jesus.' The journey of the messenger from that passage 
to the life of the poor fellow was very short. The whisper 
of the herald was scarcely heard ere he was in eternity. 
The mutilated Testament, with its touching record, goes 
home to mourning friends." 

In their primary sense, as referring to Christ's personal 
and glorious advent, these words, " Amen ! Even so, come, 
Lord Jesus," have often dropped from the lips and the 
pens of earnest believers. In a somewhat desponding 
mood, Martin Luther broke out : " May the Lord come at 
once ! Let him cut the whole matter short with the day 
of judgment, for there is no amendment to be expected." 
The martyr Ridley wrote : " The world, without doubt, 
this I do believe, and therefore say it, draws towards an 
end. Let us, with John, the servant of God, cry in our 
hearts unto our Saviour Christ, ' Come, Lord Jesus, 
come ! ' " A dissenting minister, of the seventeenth cen- 



312 SEEDS AND SHEAVES. 

tury, Grosse, expressed himself thus: "No man rightly 
desires Christ's coming but he that hath assurance and ben- 
efit of his coming. To them the day of Christ is as the day 
of harvest to the husbandman, as the day of deliverance to 
the prisoner, as the day of coronation to the king, the day 
of wedlock to the bride ; a day of triumph and exultation, 
a day of freedom and consolation, a day of rest and satis- 
faction. To them the Lord Jesus is all sweetness, as 
wine to the palate, and ointment to the nostril, saith Solo- 
mon; honey in the mouth, saith St. Bernard; music in 
the ear, and a jubilee in the heart. Get assurance of 
Christ's coming, as a ransomer to redeem you, as a con- 
queror to subdue all your enemies under you, as a friend to 
comfort you, as a bridegroom to marry you, and then shall 
you, with confidence and boldness, with joy and gladness, 
with vehement and holy longings, say, ' Come, Lord 
Jesus.' " A little later Richard Baxter wrote : " For my 
own part I must confess to you that death, as death, ap- 
peareth to me as an enemy, and my nature doth abhor and 
fear it. But the thoughts of the coming of the Lord 
are most sweet and joyful to me, so that if I were but 
sure that I should live to see it, and that the trumpet 
should sound, and the dead should rise, and the Lord ap- 
pear, before the period of my age, it would be the joyfulest 
tidings to me in the world. Oh, that I might see his 
kingdom come ! It is the character of his saints to love 
his appearing, and to look for that blessed hope. ' The 
Spirit and the bride say, Come; even so, come, Lord 
Jesus.' " Increase Mather wrote : " I die in the faith of 
the speedy accomplishment of those glorious things which 



''EVEN' so, COME" 313 

are spoken concerning the city of God and the kingdom 
of Christ. ' Amen : Even so, come, Lord Jesus ! come 
quickly ! '" 

The servants of Christ ought not to hare a servile 
fear of the great day of judgment, but rather to pray 
and long "for it. Should they not long for the coming 
of Christ? Is it not the spirit and the character of the 
true believer to do so? Does not the Song of Songs, 
which is Solomon's, conclude with these words : "Make 
haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe, or to a young 
hart on the mountains of spices " ? And does not the 
blessed Book of God conclude with like fervent desires? 
" The Spirit and the bride say, Come, Amen. Even so, 
come, Lord Jesus ! " 

Come, Lord Jesus ! haste the day 

Of thy universal sway : 

Lord of lords, thy power display. 

Come, Lord Jesus ! come in light; 
With the spirit of thy might * 

All the powers of darkness smite. 

Come, that wars and strife may cease ; 
Come, thy captive church release ; 
Bring the reign of Truth and Peace. 

CONDER. 
27 



INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES. 



PAGE ! 

GEN. i. 1-3 72 

GEN.V 73 

JOSHUA xxiv. 15 148 

JOB xix. 25-27 57 

PSALMS 75 

" i. 3 . . 150 

" xxiii 194 

" xxxvii .150 

" xlvi 233 

" Ii. 208 

" Ixxii. 18, 19 60 

" Ixxiii 152 

" xci 235 

" xcviii. 1 63 

" ciii 212 

" cxvi. 7 246 

" cxix. 20 87 

" cxxx. . 254 

ECCL. xii. 1 46 

ISA. xl. 11 201 

" xliii. 1, 2 247 

MICAII vii. 10 248 

MATT. v. 5 173 

" v. 39 161 

" v. 44 158 

" vi. 9-13 

" vi. 33 24 

" vii. 13, 14 32 

" ix. 2 133 

" xi. 25, 26 259 

" xi. 28,29 04 

" xv. 25 217 

" xviii. 19, 20 ...... 225 

" xxv. 14-29 300 

MARK vii. 37 260 

" viii. 36 294 

" x. 14 36 

" xv. 34 275 

LUKE ii. 14 64 

" ii.29 51 

" xi. 13 178 

" xiii. 7 292 

" xv. 5 . 204 



PAGE 

LUKE xv. 11, 32 ....... 48 

" xviii. 13 26 

" xviii. 29, 30 175 

" xix. 10 91 

" xxiii. 34 278 

" xxiii. 46 282 

JOHN, Gospel of 66 

" i. 1-18 68 

" i. 29 21 

" iii. 16 183 

" vi. 37 100 

" xii. 21 .104 

" xiv. 6 117 

" xiv. 27 180 

" xvi. 33 265 

" xvii 70 

" xvii. 3 146 

" xvii. 4 .71 

" xvii. 24 302 

" xxi. 15-17 166 

ACTS vii. 59 254 

ROMANS iii. 25 120 

" v. 1 136 

" viii. 26, 27 220 

" viii. 28 203 

2 COR. v. 15 171 

" xii. 9 272 

GAL. ii. 20 138 

COL. i. 11 271 

1 THESS. iv. 17 304 

" v. 17 ........ 222 

1 TIM. i. 15 i05 

2 TIM. i. 12 144 

" iv. 6-8 287 

HEB.vii. 25 113 

" x. 31 .294 

" xiii. 5 ......... 250 

1 PETER i. 25 88 

1 JOHN i. 7 ......... 123 

KEY. iv. 8 305 

" xxii. 5 307 

" xxii. 20 308 



INDEX OF NAMES. 



..PAGE 

ABBOTT, BISHOP 308 

ACOMET/E . 222 

ADAMS, CATHERINE 307 

AIDAN 86 

ALEXANDER, Dit. ARCHIBALD . 112 

ALEXANDER, DR. J. W 106, 143 

ALEXANDER, EMPEROR 240 

ALEXANDER, III, POPE , , . 241 

ALEN?ON, DUCHESS OF ........... 75 

ALLEGRI 208 

ARGYLE, MARQUIS 135 

ARMSTRONG, DR. ............. 263 

ARNOLD . . 209 

AUGUSTINE 79, 210 

AYMOND 283 

BABYLAS 246 

BACKUS, PRESIDENT 65 

BALCARRES, EARL OF 306 

BALLANTINE, HENRY ............ 123 

BASIL .............. 86, 283 

BATEMAN, DR 285 

BAXTER, RICHARD 312 

BKDE, VENERABLE 294 

BEECHER, DR. LYMAN 286 

BENEDICTINES 86 

BENGEL 131 

BENNETTj JOHN , , ... 303 

BERNARD 211 

BEZA, THEODORE 242 

BILNEY, THOMAS 110, 246 

BIRDSEYE, NATHAN 74 

BLACKADDER, COL 213 

BODLEY, THOMAS 290 

Boos, MARTIN 285 

BOSSUET 70 

BRADFORD, JOHN 35 

BRETSCHNEIDER ............. 70 

317 



318 INDEX OF NAMES. 

PAGE 

BROOKS, J. W . . . . .174 

BROUGHTON, BISHOP 61 

BROWN, DAVID 80 

BROWN, DR. JOHN . 20, 100, 242 

BROWN, Mua. ISABELLA . . . .252 

BROWN, OF HADDINGTON 131,138,155,186,214,301 

BROWN, PRESIDENT , . 202 

BRUCE, KKV. EGBERT .271 

BUELL, DR 303 

BuGENiiAGiiN, JOHN 146 

BULLINGER 209 

BUNYAN, JOHN . . 34, 114, 250, 271, 272 

BURN, GEN. ANDREW . . . ' . 32, 165 

BURNET, BISHOP 53 

BURR, MRS. ESTHER . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 

BUSHYHEAD, JESSE . 49 

BUTLER, BISHOP 101 

CADOGAN 41 

CAREY, Du 200 

CARSTAIRS, JOHN . 1G5, 203 

CECIL'S MOTIIKU . 53, 247 

CHALMERS, Du 87 

CHARLES, Kiev. T 301 

CHRYSOSTO?,! 70 

CLARKE, KOGER 24 

CLAUDIUS . GO 

CI.UGNIACS 80 

COLET . * -109 

OOLQUHOIIN, LADY 302, 399 

COLUMBAN 151 

COLUJIBUS, CHRISTOPHER . . . . . . . . . . .284 

COJISTOCK, MRS 171 

COPAUL . 57 

CORRIE, BISHOP 184 

COTTON, JOHN ... 104 

COWPER, WILLIAM . 100 

CRANJIER . 285 

CULBERT, KEV. MR , . . 51 

DAVIDSON, MARGARET 200 

DAVIES, HOWELL 288 

DE Muis 236 

DERBY, EARL OF 61 

DODD, DR 249 

DUFF, DR . . . . . . .158 

DUNCAN, MARY LUNDIB . 103 

DURHAM, JAMES 103 



INDEX- OF NAMES. 319 

PAGE 

EAST, Mrs. . . . . . 73 

EDWAKDS, PRESIDENT . . . . . . . . . 84,87,257 

ELIZABETH, PRINCESS . 99 

ELIOT, ANDREW . . . . . . . * 309 

ELIOT, JOHN 169 

ERSKINE, HENRY 30 

ERWIN OF STEINBACII 83 

EUSTOCIIIUM 85 

FISHER, BISHOP . . . 146 

FlTZJAMES ICO 

FlTZRALPH 119 

FLAA'EL, JOHN . 185 

FOSTER, JOHN . SO 

FRANKLIN, EEV. DB. . . 150 

FREDERICK WILLIAM . 148 

FRYTII, JOHN 17G 

FULLER, ANDREW 155 

GALLITZIN, PRINCE 240 

G KLLERT 112 

GILFILLAN, GEORGE 73 

GlLLlKS 01 

GOOD, DR. J. MASON 2-1 

GOODWIN, DR. THOS 143, 304 

GORDON, "W.u 190 

GRAHAM, MARY JANE 22 

GRAHAM, MRS. J 201 

GREGORY OF ANCONA 85 

GREY, LADY JANE 209, 283, 289 

GRIFFIN, DR. E. D 217, 220 

GRIFFIN, DR. E. D.'s DAUGHTER 170 

GROSSE 312 

GROTTOS 31 

GUSTIIMANN, J5GIDIUS 73 

GUTHRIE . 55 

GUYON, MADAME 104 

HALL, ARCHIBALD 122 

HALL, JOHN VINE 208 

HALL, EGBERT 308 

HALLER 2S2 

HAMANN 300 

HAMILTON, DR. JAMES 137 

HAMILTON, PATRICK . 284 

HAMLIN, CYRUS , 205 

HAMMOND, CAPT. M. M 127, 241 

HAMPDEN 285 

HEDDING, BISHOP 105 



820 INDEX OF NAMES. 

PAGE 

HENRY, PHILIP . 83 

HENRY, MATTHEW 98, ail 

HERVEY 51 

HEUGII, DR. HUGH ......... 142, 192, 198, 213 

HlLDERSLEY, BISHOP 52 

HILL, ROWLAND 31, 218 

HOMES, H 300 

HOOPER, BISHOP 284 

HOPE, DR. JAMES '....,. 196 

HOSTIALICK, MAXIMILIAN 55 

HUNTINGDON, LADY 97, 173 

Huss, JOHN 278, 283 

iKVixr,, EDWARD 195 

JACKSON, E. D , . . . . . .112 

JANKWAY, JOHN 308 

JAMES, EARL OF DERBY 61 

JAMES, J. ANGELL 214 

JAY, WILLIAM 102 

JEWELL, BISHOP . 284 

JEROME 85 

JOB 104 

JOHNSON, DR. SAMUEL 22 

JOHN, A PRIEST 85 

JUDSON, DR 224 

JUNIUS, FRANCIS . 68 

KERUBA 123 

KILPIN, SAMUEL t 95 

KlRCHERER 1G8 

KNAPP, G. G 59 

KNILL, RICHARD ... 22, 197 

KNOLLYS, Ruv. HANSARD ... . .250 

KNOX, JOHN , - 70 

KRUMMACIIER . 27? 

LAING, JAMES 198 

LAWRENCE, OF BASCHURCH 25 

LEIGHTON ,..,.. 254 

LE TELLIER ' . .55 

LITTLE, GEOKGB B. ............ 113 

LONGINUS . 73 

LUKE, MRS 64 

LUTHER, MARTIN ...... 78, 112, 130, 139, 234, 265, 275, 311 

LYON, MARY 150 

MALAN, DR 149 

MANTON, DR 88 

MARGARET, DUCHESS OF ALENON ........ 75 

MARTHA .......,..,.,.. igg 



INDEX OF NAMES. 321 



PAGE 



MARTYN, HENRY ............. 171 

MASON, WILLIAM 83 

MATHER, COTTON . 80 177 

MATHER, INCREASE ............ 312 

MATHER, EICHARD 287 

McCiiEYNE, EGBERT 170, 218 

MCWIIORTER, DK 215 

MELANCTHON 134 

MITCHELL, D. M. 27 

MOFFAT, DK. .............. 218 

MONTGOMERY, W. B. . . . , .144 

MOORE, SIR THOMAS 209 

MORE, HANNAH 22 

MORISON, JAMES 29 

MORNAY, PHILIP . 63 

Muis, SIMON DE 236 

MOLLER, JOHN ............. ?6 

NEWTON, A. L 71, 144, 2 .>1, 306 

NEWTON, JOHN 109, 114, 150, 179 

NEWPORT, SIR FRANCIS 294 

NEW ZEALAND WOMAN 29 

NISBET, DR. 306 

NORTH, BROWNLOW 101 

NOTT, MR. IS? 

OBOOKIAII, HENRY 291 

GGCOLAMPADIUS , 209 

OWEN, JOHN 154, 2 5l, 255 

PACHOMIUS .............. s5 

PAEAEUS, DAVID .52 

PARKER, ARCHBISHOP ........... 52 

PAERY, SIR W. E 48 

PATISON, Eisv, MB. 203 

PATZE, DR. A. 237 

PAULA 85 

PAYNE, J , ........ 115 

PERUONET, EDWARD C5 

PRICE . 177 

PRIESTLY, DR. ............. 246 

PURKITT ,308 

EAHEM, MOHAMMED .206 

EAMSAY, EEV. S. G 196 

EKAD, ALDERMAN , 74 

EEYNOLDS, EKV. MR. , , . . 136 

ElCIIMOND, WlLBERFORCE 80 

ElDLEY, BISHOP 2S3, 311 

EITTER, CARL . 196 



322 INDEX OF NAMES. 

PAGE 

RIVET, ANDREW . . . V 287 

ROBINSON, REV. MR. . . . . .. . , . . . . .162 

ROGERS, DR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 

ROGERS, JOHN 209 

RUFUS, A HINDOO . . ... . , 49 

RUIMER 300 

RUTHERFORD, SAMUEL 59 

SALMATIUS 81 

SALVESTRO 283 

SANDERSON, BISHOP 105, 214 

SANDERSON, DR 214 

SAVAGE, MRS 83, 155 

SCOTT, THOS. . 30, 115 

SCUDDEK, DAVID COIT 195 

SELDEN Ill 

SENSEMAN, MRS 2C3 

SEW ALL, JOSEPH 30J 

SHARPINGTON, EMMA 47 

SHERWOOD, MRS. . . . 171 

SIMMONS, JAMES 48 

SIMPLICIUS '...... os 

SMITH, MRS. S. L 285 

SPENER 70 

STEEBINS, REV. MR 74 

STEELE, MRS. ANNE 59 

STEWART, LADY MARGARET 145 

STEWART, REV. J. H. . . . . , 30 

STONEMAN, HARRIET . . . . . . . . . . . 256, 271 

STRAUSS . . ... . . . .70 

SUTCLIFFE, J. 156 

SUTTON, AMOS 185 

TAPPAN, WM. B 285 

TASSO , 283 

TAYLOR, JEREMY 63, 64, 211 

TAYLOR, JANE ...,,...,.... 196 

TERTULLIAN 79 

THOMAS, JOHN 259 

THORP, WILLIAM . 269 

THEOGMORTON, JOB 277 

TITTMANN >67 

TOMS, ISAAC 236 

USHER, ARCHBISHOP 31 

URSINE, ZACHARY 53 

VANDERKEMP 262 

VARAILLB, GEOFFRY 89 

YAUDOIS, THE 89 



INDEX OF NAMES. 323 

PAGE 

YAUGHAN, HENRY . . . ,209 

VEITCH, MRS. . . , . . . . . .261 

YERGERIO 294 

VICARS, HEDLEY 125, 126, 238 

VICTORIA, QUEEN . . 99 - 

VINET .71 

WADDELL . 166 

WALTON, MARGARET A 190 

WARREN, REV. J 153 

WASHBURN 30 

WESLEY, JOHN . . . f . . 124, 175 

WHITFIBLD'S BROTHER 91 

WHITNEY, SAJIUEL ....... 287 "* 

WILLIAM, FREDERIC OF PRUSSIA .148 

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 283 

WILCOX, CARLOS 30 

WILKINSON 29 

WILLS, REV. MR . 273 

WILSON, CAPT. ............. 199 

WILSON, DAVID 30, 114 

WILSON, MARGARET .283 

WlNSTANLEY ......... . . > . . 22 

WIRT, WILLIAM 279 

WISBY 138 

WISHART ,278 

WOLSKY, CARDINAL 251 

WOODROW, PROF 134 

WOODS, LAURA 38 

WOODS, DR. L 31 

WORTS, THOMAS 248 

XAVORIAS, FRAMBIS . , 2S8 



A-. 




UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 





(ibe University of Cbica^o 
Hibrcmes 




, I .-, "0 



PREAC 




,*>','' ' 

WITH 



! 3 
3 1 I 




THE LYMAN BEECHER LECTURES ON PREACHING 
DELIVERED AT YALE IN APRIL, 1929 



BY 

EDWIN DuBOSE MOUZON 

ONE OF THE BISHOPS OF THE METHODIST 
EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH 




DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC, 

GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK 
1929 



* 

* 
1 * 



COPYRIGHT, 1929 
BY DOUBLEDAY, DORAK & COMPANY, IHCt 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT 

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS 

GARDEN CITY, H. Y. 



TO 

MY WIFE 

MARY PEARL 

A TRUE FRIEND AND HELPFUL COMPANION 



PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 



PREFACE 

I AM under obligation to the Rev. Plato T. Durham, 
A.B., B.D., D.D., Professor of Church History in 
Candler School of Theology, Emory University, 
Atlanta, Georgia, and to the Rev. Gilbert T. Rowe, 
A.B., S.T.D., Litt.D., D.D., Professor of Christian 
Doctrine in the School of Religion, Duke University, 
Durham, North Carolina, who were guests in my 
home for a day and a night and listened patiently to 
the reading of these lectures. I am also under obliga- 
tion to President Henry N. Snyder, A.M., D.Litt, 
LL.D., of Wofford College, Spartanburg, South 
Carolina, who kindly read the manuscript before 
these pages went to the press. These friends made 
valuable suggestions. For the suggestion, in the latter 
part of Lecture II, that one wing of the liberal move- 
ment in the modern Church has drifted far from the 
liberalism of the New Testament Church, the Ref- 
ormation, and the Evangelical Revival, I am in- 
debted to the Rev. H. B. Trimble, M.A., B.D., D.D., 
Pastor of Central Methodist Church, Asheville, 
North Carolina. Besides, I am indebted to the Rev. 
G. Ray Jordan, M.A., B.D., Pastor of Dilworth 
Methodist Church, Charlotte, N.C., who was good 
enough to read the proof. 



VH 



via PREFACE 

I wish to express to the publishers who freely and 
gladly granted me the privilege of making quotations 
from their publications my sincere appreciation of 
their courtesy: to Charles Scribner's Sons for quo- 
tations from Gwatkin's The Knowledge of God and 
Edward's Religious Experience; to the Macmillan 
Company for quotations from Montague's Ways of 
Knowing and from Temple's Christ the Way; to 
Harper & Brothers for a quotation from Dodd's The 
Authority of the Bible; to Doubleday, Doran & Com- 
pany for quotations from Moffatt's Everyman's Life 
of Jesus and from Gordon's Prophets of the Old 
Testament; to Houghton Mifflin Company for short 
extracts from Allen's The Continuity of Christian 
Thought; and to D. Appleton & Company for a pas- 
sage from Campbell's A Spiritual Pilgrimage. The 
Bible text used in this book, with the exception of the 
chapter quoted in the Personal Foreword, is taken 
from the American Standard Edition of the Revised 
Bible, copyright, 1901, by Thomas Nelson & Sons, 
and is used by permission. 

I desire also to give expression to my deep appre- 
ciation of the many courtesies extended me by Dean 
Luther A. Weigle of the Divinity School of Yale 
University while I was visiting in New Haven and 
giving these lectures. And I shall not forget the de- 
lightful association I had with members of the faculty 
and with earnest-minded students. 



CONTENTS 

I. AUTHORITY AND AUTHORITIES .... 3 

II. PERILS OF TRADITIONALISM AND VALUES 

IN TRADITION 35 

III. AUTHORITY AND THE BIBLE 6$ 

IV. THE BASIS OF AUTHORITY IN HISTORY . 95 
V. THE BASIS OF AUTHORITY IN 

EXPERIENCE 123 

VI. AUTHORITY FROM THE CROSS 153 

VII. THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH . . 181 
VIII. PREACHERS HAVING AUTHORITY . . .217 



PERSONAL FOREWORD 

MY CERTIFICATE of license to preach bears the date 
November 20, 1888. It is signed by the Rev. Thos. 
G. Herbert, Presiding Elder, and A. H. Kirby, Sec- 
retary of the Quarterly Conference of Central 
Methodist Church, Spartanburg, South Carolina. 
My father, Samuel Cogswell Mouzon, was a modest 
layman. He had, during all the period of my child- 
hood and youth, regularly conducted family worship 
morning and evening, reading one of the Psalms in 
the morning and a lesson from the New Testament in 
the evening. The evening I was going up for my 
examination he turned aside from the regular course 
of his reading and read instead the second chapter 
of Second Timothy. He offered no explanation for so 
doing and he made no comment. But the reading of 
that scripture made on my mind a profound impres- 
sion. I am printing that lesson here with the hope 
that the message it conveyed to me many years ago 
may be conveyed to such young men as may read 
these lectures. 

V 
Thou, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in 

Christ Jesus. 
And the things that thou hast heard of me among many 

witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall 

be able to teach others also. 



XI 



i PERSONAL FOREWORD 

Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus 
Christ. 

No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs 
of this life; that he may please him that hath chosen him 
to be a soldier. 

And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, 
except he strive lawfully. 

The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of 
the fruits. 

Consider what I say ; and the Lord give thee understanding 
in all things. 

Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised 
from the dead according to my gospel : 

Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds ; 
but the word of God is not bound. 

Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that 
they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus 
with eternal glory. 

It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall 
also live with him: 

If we suffer, we shall also reign with him : if we deny him, 
he also will deny us: 

If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful : he cannot deny 
himself. 

Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them 
before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, 
but to the subverting of the hearers. 

Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that 
needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 

But shun profane and vain babblings : for they will increase 
unto more ungodliness. 

And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is 
Hymenaeus and Philetus; 

Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the 
resurrection is past already ; and overthrow the faith of some. 

Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having 
this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every 
one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. 

But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and 



PERSONAL FOREWORD xiii 

of silver, but also of wood and of earth ; and some to honour, 
and some to dishonour. 

If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a 
vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, 
and prepared unto every good work. 

Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, 
charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure 
heart. 

But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that 
they do gender strifes. 

And the servant of the Lord must not strive ; but be gentle 
unto all men, apt to teach, patient. 

In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if 
God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowl- 
edging of the truth ; 

And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of 
the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will. 

EDWIN DuBosE MOUZON. 

Charlotte, North Carolina. 



AUTHORITY AND AUTHORITIES 

"He taught them as having authority and not as the scribes." 
-MARK i : 22. 



AUTHORITY AND AUTHORITIES 

SOME time since I received a letter from a young man 
just about to enter the ministry in which he submitted 
a most vital question. This is what he asked: "The 
old authorities are gone. What are we to do? Where 
is any new authority?" I wrote him in the following 
language : " 'When the half-gods go, then the whole- 
gods come.' If the things that can be shaken have 
been shaken, it is in order that the things that cannot 
be shaken may remain." 

We recognize at the very beginning of this series 
of lectures that we are living in the midst of times 
of profound interest in religion. The heart hungers 
for reality; the mind is in search of the ultimate. Also 
we live in the midst of widespread theological unrest 
and upheaval. In all this there is much that is un- 
mixed good; there is also much that is evil. If asked 
the reason for the present situation we should have 
to reply that the explanation is not altogether simple. 
There are many reasons for it. 

We should say that it is in part occasioned by a 
generally prevalent spirit of rebellion against the 
established order of things. It is what the Germans 



4 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

would call the Zeitgeist, the very spirit of the tfmcs. 
Men are in opposition to authority everywhere. Old 
established governments have been overturned and 
new experiments in government put in their stead. 
Even the old morality has been called in question, and 
our innovators are trying to work out a new morality 
on a purely naturalistic basis. Especially are the 
young trying out new ways and seeking out new foun- 
dations. The present theological unrest is one phase 
of what we call "the revolt of youth." 

A second explanation will come somewhat nearer 
to the heart of the matter. In the year 1901 W. Rob- 
ertson Nicoll wrote to James Denney: "I am sure 
that when the people get to understand what is in- 
volved in the critical view of the New Testament, 
they will be deeply moved, some to complete rejec- 
tion of Christianity, and many to a fierce unreason- 
ing bigotry." And this is precisely what has hap- 
pened. On the one hand, the critics have advanced 
theories that have been an offense to the common 
sense of the rank and file of Christians, and on the 
other hand men with a superficial knowledge of 
science have taken such extreme positions that now 
Nicoll' s prophecy is in the midst of its fulfillment 
some people have been moved to a complete rejection 
of Christianity and many to a fierce unreasoning 
bigotry, while between the two are many others in a 
state of great perplexity. 

But we offer a third reason for the present state of 
theological upheaval. The profound and underlying 



AUTHORITY AND AUTHORITIES! 5 

reason for the conflict now seen in the religious world 
traces back to two diametrically opposed views of 
the essential nature of religion. With some religion 
is static, fixed, finished, and finite a thing for defi- 
nition and codification, to be handed down from 
antiquity and enforced by external authority. With 
others religion is dynamic, living, growing, and in- 
finite a matter for faith and experience, a thing to 
be kept alive by holy living and passed on to others 
by the inward authority of the Spirit of God speak- 
ing directly to the spirit of man. Here is the water- 
shed of all religious systems, of all systems of 
theology in all lands and all ages. Here they divide 
and part company. Equally honest and earnest men 
are to be found on the one side as on the other. The 
two systems correspond to two different types of 
mind. 

Permit me now in a f ew, words to make my own 
position clear before we proceed further. I believe 
in a universe that is alive. I believe in the living God. 
I believe in a God who is in the midst of things. I do 
not believe in a God who stands on the outside of 
things and occasionally breaks in as in the creation 
of life, the creation of man, the giving of the law 
through Moses, and the coming of Christ. But never 
is all of God seen in nature or in history; God is tran- 
scendent as well as immanent. God is more fully seen 
in a flower than in a stone ; he is more fully revealed 
in a song-bird than in a violet ; he is more fully dis- 
closed in man than in any of the lower animals. He is 



6 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

seen supremely in Jesus Christ. And God is always 
near. In him we live and move and have our being. 
God is always at work in all things in nature, in 
history, and in the life of the world to-day as truly as 
when life was first created or man was made. 

At this very point there emerges a truth that sep- 
arates asunder, as far as the poles, the two views of 
religion mentioned above. And this is the truth that 
lies basal in all truly spiritual religion, the truth that 
God made man in his own image and after his own 
likeness. God and man are not unlike and disparate ; 
God and man are akin. They are alike as father and 
child. There is a spark of the divine shining in all 
men. There is that within man which responds to the 
approach of God. There is an inner ear that is able 
to hear the divine voice. The human child knows when 
the divine Father calls. There is an inward light that 
kindles up brightly when the light of God's truth 
shines forth. And we need not fear to trust the 
authority of this inward light. If we follow on to 
know the Lord he will make himself more and more 
fully known. Nor do we need anything more than 
this only this and all that this implies. 

Oman, in his Vision and Authority, has a chapter 
entitled, "The Authority of the Optic Nerve." At 
first thought it seems surprising that our entire knowl- 
edge of things seen should rest on the slender 
authority of the optic nerve, but so it is. If the optic 
nerve should be cut in two, then we should be plunged 
into total darkness. If the optic nerve be diseased, 



AUTHORITY AND AUTHORITIES 7 

then with great pain do we see at all. If the optic 
nerve be damaged, then do we see a blurred world. 
But as a matter of fact, the entire world as seen rests 
on the authority of so delicate an instrument of 
knowledge. For us the chaste beauty of the early 
morning, the glory of sunset skies, the splendor of 
the noontide all depend upon a sound organ of 
sight. And in like manner there is a most delicate 
organ of spiritual vision, and it was with reference 
to this that Jesus said: "If the light that is in you be 
darkness, how great is that darkness." 

"I have a little inward light, which still 
All tenderly I keep, and ever will. 
I think it never wholly dies away; 
But oft it seems as if it could not stay, 
And I do strive to keep it if I may. 



"0 God ! Father I hear thy child who cries I 
Who would not quench the flame; who would not 

dare 

To let it dwindle in a sinful air ; 
Who does feel how all-precious such a prize, 
And yet, alas ! is feeble and not wise." 1 

The essential difference, then, between the two 
views of religion as mentioned above is that one rep- 
resents the religion that rests upon outward authori- 
ties and the other represents the religion that depends 



iHenry Septimus Sutton. 



8 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

on the authority of spiritual vision, the authority of 
the voice of God sounding in the souls of men. We 
proceed now to show how this distinction runs through 
the entire history of religion. 



As soon as one opens the Old Testament and be- 
gins to read it carefully one sees therein two types of 
writing, the priestly and the prophetic. 

For the student of the Old Testament this is his 
introduction to the historic study of the Bible. Not 
until this has been pointed out is he able intelligently 
to go on. The priestly writers are the conservatives 
and reactionaries. They are interested in genealogies 
and chronicles. They are careful about ritual. They 
codify the laws. They treasure up the traditions. On 
the other side are the prophetic writers. They are 
the innovators. They are the reformers. They do 
startling things. They listen for the voice of God not 
alone in the records of the past, but in the stillness and 
silence of their own souls. They are God's spokesmen ; 
they speak in the name of God and for God. They 
see how God is moving in the events of the present. 
They urge that men move along with God. What 
sounds as but a faint whisper in other souls sounds 
as a loud voice in their hearts. Said Amos : "The lion 
hath roared: who will not fear? The Lord hath 
spoken, who can but prophesy?" They care but little 
for codified laws and elaborated ritual. They cry, 
"Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heark- 



AUTHORITY AND AUTHORITIES 9 

en than the fat of lambs." In the true prophetic 
spirit the Psalmist enunciated the spiritual prin- 
ciple, "Thou delightest not in sacrifice, else would I 
give it : thou hast no pleasure in burnt offering. The 
sacrifices of God are a broken spirit ; a broken and a 
contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." But a 
later priestly writer was not willing to let the Fifty- 
first- Psalm end that way, and added the amendment, 
"Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion : Build thou 
the walls of Jerusalem. Then wilt thou delight in the 
sacrifices of righteousness, in burnt offering and whole 
burnt offering: Then will they offer bullocks upon 
thine altar." 

The most interesting and illuminating instance in 
the Old Testament of this conflict of ideals, this con- 
trast between the religion of authority and the re- 
ligion of the spirit, may be seen during the reign of 
King Josiah in the Eighth Century B. c. While im- 
portant work of repair was going on in the temple a 
surprising discovery was made. The high priest an- 
nounced to Shaphan the scribe that he had found the 
Book of the Law in the temple. When the King 
learned the contents of the book he was alarmed 
over the manner in which the law had been violated 
and over the direful threats of punishment contained 
therein. Straightway he took steps to bring the prac- 
tices of the people into harmony with the Book of 
Deuteronomy. It was a thoroughgoing reform, and 
nothing, let it be noted, is here said in discount of the 
deep-seated and far-reaching consequences of Josiah's 



io PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

reform. Its influences were felt in all subsequent his- 
tory of the Jewish people. Deuteronomy has much 
of the prophetic spirit in it. It is a beautiful book. 
Jesus and Paul read the Book of Deuteronomy. But 
the religion of the Book of Deuteronomy is, in the 
main, the religion of external authority. It is defi- 
nitely a state religion. The nation became the Church 
and the Church the nation. Religion was henceforth 
definitely legalistic ; Judah became for the first time 
the people of the Law. 

Deuteronomy, as George Adam Smith points out, 
has three cardinal doctrines : the One God, the One 
Altar, the One People. The monotheism of the book 
is moral and warmly spiritual. There is one God and 
he must be loved with all the heart and mind and soul 
and strength. There is to be only one altar* Various 
shrines in different places had led gradually to shame- 
less idolatry. Now all sacrifices must be offered upon 
the one altar at the capital of the nation. And Israel 
is to be the one people. Next to pride in the one God 
comes pride in the nation. The Book of Deuteronomy 
presents "as comprehensive a system of national re- 
ligion as the world has ever known." 

The reading of the book stirred to the depths the 
people as well as the King, and presently a great 
religious revival was inaugurated. All the high places 
were swept away, a ban was placed on private sacri- 
fices, and all offerings were restricted to the temple in 
Jerusalem. "A sharp distinction was thereby drawn 
between the laity and the priests, between secular and 



AUTHORITY AND AUTHORITIES a 

.holy things. Religion, henceforth became something 
formal, above and apart, rather than in all which 
concerned the nation or individual." 2 For the time 
being all seemed to go well. Vast changes had passed 
over the whole outward look of things. But as a mat- 
ter of fact, the reform had been almost wholly out- 
ward rather than inward, and religion having become 
national and having been centralized in Jerusalem, 
became less personal and intimate and spiritual. As 
A. B. Davidson says, "Pharisaism and Deuteronomy 
came into the world on the same day." 

Now the period of Josiah is also the period of 
Jeremiah. Both men were interested in reform. But 
Josiah and Jeremiah are wide apart in the kind of 
reform that concerned them most. The sort of re- 
form that Jeremiah strove to bring about was not 
formal, legal, and ritualistic, but spiritual, intimate, 
and inward. The "covenant" Jeremiah was most in- 
terested in was not a covenant that codified ancient 
laws and was written down in a book. It was rather a 
covenant between the individual and his God, open to 
all men everywhere, and having spiritual and final 
authority. Such a covenant, Jeremiah saw plainly, 
would, if allowed to have its way, change the nation 
by remaking individuals, would reform the outward 
order by re-forming the heart and life. In all the 
literature of religion there are not to be found any 
nobler words, words of deeper spiritual insight, than 



2 Kent, A History of the Hebrew People, p. 180, "The Divided 
Kingdom." 



12 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

the words of Jeremiah wherein he advocates the sort 
of reform that will abide : 

"Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I 
will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and 
with the house or j udah : not according to the cove- 
nant that I made with their fathers in the day that 
I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land 
of Egypt ; which my covenant they brake, although 
I was a husband unto them, saith Jehovah, But this 
is the covenant that I will make with the house of 
Israel after those days, saith Jehovah : I will put my 
law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I 
wiiEe.it;. and 1 will be their God and they shall be 
my people. And they shall teach no more every man 
his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 
Know Jehovah ; for they shall all know me from the 
least of them unto the greatest of them, saith 
Jehovah : for I will forgive their iniquity, and their 
sin will I remember no more." 3 

And let us pause here long enough to mention the 
fact that the very words, "the new convenant," "the 
New Testament," come to us in direct spiritual 
descent from Jeremiah. The Christianity of Jesus 
and Paul and John cannot be essentially different in 
spirit from the religion of Jeremiah. We at the pres- 
ent time, therefore, should be careful to see to it 
that we are in fact, and not in name only, "Ministers 
of a new covenant ; not of the letter, but of the spirit; 
for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." 

- Jeremiah 31: 31-34. 



AUTHORITY AND AUTHORITIES 13 

II 

Passing now to the New Testament period, we 
see these two types of religion, these two ways of 
approaching the entire matter of authority in religion, 
in the sharpest sort of conflict. 

See how this is illustrated both in Jesus and in Paul. 

The preaching of Jesus startled the scribes and 
Pharisees. It was revolutionary. It was observed at 
once that "he taught as one having authority, and 
not as the scribes." The point is exactly this: the 
scribes had authorities a plenty behind them, but they 
had no spiritual authority. On the other hand, Jesus 
cared little for ancient authorities; he spoke with 
authority, direct, personal, divine. 

At the time of Christ the voice of the prophet had 
long been silent, save only the voice of John the Bap- 
tist which had begun to wake men from their slumber 
in such a way as to remind them of Elijah and Jere- 
miah. In Judaism the scribe had taken the place of 
the prophet. The scribe had become the divine aristo- 
crat among the vulgar herd -of rude and profane 
"country people" who "know not the law" and are 
"cursed." More than that, the scribe had become the 
ultimate authority on all questions of faith and prac- 
tice. He was "the exegete of the laws," the "teacher 
of the law," and along with the "chief priests" and 
"elders," a judge in the ecclesiastical tribunals 
whether in the capital or in the provinces. Says Eder- 
sheim,"Such was the respect paid to their sayings, that 



H PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

they were to be absolutely believed, even if they were 
to declare that to be at the right hand which was at 
the left, or vice versa" 

The essential fault of their system, the entire sys- 
tem of Judaism, was that it was deistic. Their God 
was not immanent but wholly transcendent not in 
the midst of things, the ground and source of all that 
is, but outside of all things and distant from men. 
Once God had done something; now he was idle. 
Once God had spoken ; now he was silent. His words, 
written down in their Sacred Scriptures and inter- 
preted in the traditions of the elders, had been de- 
livered as a sacred deposit into the keeping of the 
scribes, who alone now had the right to interpret 
them. Their universe was not dynamic, it was static. 
Their world was not alive, it was dead frozen. 

No wonder Jesus startled people ! He spoke with 
authority, not as one who had to bolster up what he 
said by quoting ancient and superior authorities. 
Jesus was alive and his universe was alive. Said he, 
"My father worketh even until now and I work." 
And observe carefully how Jesus taught: "Ye have 
heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou 
shalt not kill But I say unto you, Thou shalt not 
harbor anger nor contempt." "Ye have heard that 
it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not com- 
mit adultery But I say unto you that adultery traces 
back to the lustful heart." "Ye have heard that it 
was said, Thou shalt not swear falsely But I say 
unto you, Let your speech be a simple Yes or No." 



[AUTHORITY AND AUTHORITIES 15 

"Ye Have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye 
and a tooth for a tooth But I say unto you, Resist 
not the evil man, but rather return good for evil." 
"Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, 
Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy 
But I say unto you, Love your enemies." "Ye, 
therefore, shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father 
is perfect." 

That is the way Jesus put it. And he left it there, 
not buttressing it up with external authority but 
simply affirming, "I say (unto you," and trusting 
the truth to find its native home in the human heart. 

And why should it ever be supposed necessary to 
buttress the truth with something other than the 
truth and different from it in order to get people 
to believe the truth ? There is no truth greater than 
the truth. We should just as wisely seek to find some- 
thing superior to light to enable us to be sure 
that the light is shining, or superior to heat, to con- 
vince us that there is warmth in the sunshine. 

Jesus set himself squarely against everything char- 
acteristic of Pharisaism. In the twenty-third chapter 
of Matthew the entire system is brought to the judg- 
ment bar. Seven times in that chapter we have it: 
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites 1" 
But even so his heart was breaking, and he cries: "0 
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets, and 
stoneth them that are sent unto her 1 how often would 

/ 

I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen 



16 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

gathereth her chickens under her wings, and you 
would not 1" 

And in contrast with Pharisaism see how inward 
and spiritual the religion of Jesus is: "The kingdom 
of heaven is within you." "Blessed are the pure in 
heart for they shall see God." "The Sabbath was 
made for man and not man for the Sabbath" ; that is 
to say, institutions exist for men, not men for institu- 
tions. "Perceive ye not, that whatsoever from without 
goeth into a man, it cannot defile him. . . . This he 
said, making all meats clean." "Believe me, the hour 
cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jeru- 
salem, shall ye worship the Father . . . but when the 
true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit 
and in truth." 

It was precisely over these two divergent views of 
religion that the great battle raged in New Testa- 
ment times. It was the ever-recurrent struggle be- 
tween the spiritual and the legalistic. Peter made a 
brave beginning in the house of the gentile Cornelius. 
But even Peter's vision of the sheet let down by the 
four corners from heaven and filled with all manner of 
beasts ceremonially unclean and the accompanying 
command, "Rise, Peter, kill and eat," did not per- 
manently change his Jewish outlook. It was Paul, 
the converted Pharisee, who saved the day for the 
religion of the spirit. The persistence of some of 
Peter's earlier prejudices calls to mind an amusing 
thrust that Jesus made at the scribes : "And he said 
unto them, therefore, every scribe who hath been 



AUTHORITY AND AUTHORITIES 17 

made a disciple unto the kingdom of heaven is like 
unto a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth 
out of his treasure things new and old" "Old" it 
will be observed as well as "new." Something of the 
scribe still remains in the scribe after his conversion 
and he continues to count the old as being in his treas- 
ure,, whereas Jesus came to make all things new. 
But Paul, as did his Master, laid the ax at the root 
of the tree. He is the great protagonist of freedom 
among the writers of the New Testament. The Epistle 
to the Galatians is the Magna Charta of New Testa- 
ment religion. The apostle begins this letter with the 
sure note of spiritual authority: "Paul, an apostle 
(not from men, neither through man, but through 
Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him 
from the dead) ."There and there alone was the source 
of his authority. And the keynote of the Galatian let- 
ter, and of the religion of the New Testament, is to 
be found in these memorable words: "For freedom 
did Christ set us free : stand fast, therefore, and be 
not entangled again in a yoke of bondage." For no 
one book in the New Testament should we be more 
grateful than for this Epistle to the Galatians. In 
every period of reaction it has called men back to 
liberty and progress. Everybody knows how Martin 
Luther rejoiced in this book. In his own intimate and 
human way he said, "The Epistle to the Galatians is 
my epistle. I have betrothed myself to it. It is my 
wife." 

And at the present time, when even in evangelical 



iS PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

circles literalism and dogmatism are striving to gain 
the mastery, we need once more to urge that the true 
evangel is a gospel of liberty. 

in 

The line of cleavage, which we have seen running 
through the Old Testament and the New, cuts all 
the way down through the history of the Church. 

A careful reading of history makes this perfectly 
evident. In the early days of the Church two types of 
mind were in conflict, two methods of approach to 
religion struggled for the mastery, the Greek on 
the one hand and the Latin on the other. In the 
breaking up of the Eastern Empire Greek culture also 
collapsed and with it failed the Greek method of ap- 
proaching theological questions. Greek thought was 
the ripe fruit of centuries of culture. The Greek mind 
had the instinct for reality. I do not doubt that if the 
situation had been different, that if the West had col- 
lapsed, and the East had been able to live through 
the vast changes of the time, that if we modern men 
had inherited our theology from Clement and 
Athanasius rather than from Tertullian and Augus- 
tine, our adjustment to the new world of knowledge 
opened during recent years by scientists, philosophers, 
and scholars would have been natural and easy and 
reassuring. For the Greek theologians brought out 
into clear light the implications of John's great say- 
ing : "In the beginning was the Word and the Word 
was with God and the Word was God. . . . And 



AUTHORITY AND AUTHORITIES 19 

the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (and we 
beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten of 
the Father) , full of grace and truth." 

But the Latin mind had no instinct for philosophy. 
It was almost wholly practical. It had a genius for 
organization and government. The Roman Church 
easily fitted itself into the governmental forms of the 
dying Roman Empire, and is indeed the continuation 
of that empire. "The Latin Church had no more apti- 
tude for theology than the Latin people had for 
philosophy throughout their history. ... A deep 
and instinctive aversion to all speculative thought, a 
desire for a definite faith firmly grounded on tradi- 
tion as the only stable basis, a faith that could be as 
exactly formulated as a code of law, the slightest 
variation from which could be easily detected and ex- 
posed such was the characteristic, the ideal, and 
the ambition of the Latin Church in the Second and 
Third centuries, and such they have remained 
throughout her entire career. 4 

Tertullian had been a Roman lawyer, and his 
legal mind is seen in his defense of the faith set forth 
in his famous "Prescription of Heresy." According 
to Tertullian the faith is the property of the Church, 
which the Church must protect and defend against 
all comers. Christianity can have nothing to do with 
philosophy. Heresy is nothing but self-will. "Away 
with all efforts to produce a mottled Christianity of 
Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic composition." There is 

4 Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, p. 114. 



20 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY , 

no need of seeking after Truth; the Church has it 
in her possession. It is to be found only in the Church, 
and when once found all inquiry should cease. 

The great name, however, in the Latin Church is, 
of course, the name of Augustine, and his shadow 
still falls athwart our path. In his earlier years he had 
come strongly under the influence of Greek thought. 
His Confessions is a book of devotions for Protes- 
tants as well as for Catholics. But Augustine became 
of necessity an administrator and at a time when only 
a strong hand could save the Church from being 
overwhelmed in the general overthrow. And as Allen 
says, "the necessities of ecclesiastical administration 
in the see of Hippo had revolutionized his intellectual 
methods and led him to economize the truth in the 
interest of the Church.'^ Thus it came about that 
Augustine made it his life work "to adjust special 
institutions and even humanity itself to the claims 
of a hierarchy divinely appointed to teach and rule 
the world." 5 

All the way down through Christian history the 
two differing views of God and the two contradictory 
views of human nature have determined men's atti- 
tude toward things theological and ecclesiastical. If 
I may borrow a suggestive classification, one view is 
seen in the disciplinarian and the other view is seen 
in the mystic. To the disciplinarian, Christ is the bread 
of life which came down from heaven in such a year 
of Caesar Augustus; to the mystic he is also the 

6 Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, pp. 148, 149, 150. 



AUTHORITY AND AUTHORITIES 21 

bread of life which is ever coming down and ever giv- 
ing his life for the whole world. A quotation from 
Gwatkin will state succinctly and set forth clearly the 
significance and the implications of these two views : 
"The one looks back to the majestic memory of a 
revelation given once for all, a faith delivered once 
for all, a visible Church set up once for all, with a 
sacred trust of laws and ordinances to be maintained 
against a wicked world. He is the materialist of 
Christian thought, as firmly convinced as any un- 
believer that the Gospel works contrary to nature 
and reason. So he looks for its evidence in breaches 
of natural order, finds the grace of heaven in sacra- 
ments and mysteries outside the domain of reason, 
and waits for salvation in the horrors of the Lord's 
return, when he shall overthrow like Sodom a world 
beyond his power fully to redeem. The other lives 
by a growing revelation and a growing knowledge of 
an ever-living Person whose kingdom ruleth over all, 
but only by the appeal of love divine to the image of 
God in man. He is the idealist of Christian thought, 
who sees in reason and Nature no mirage of hellish 
magic, but shadows of the eternal truth incarnate in 
the Son of Man. So he looks for the evidence of the 
Gospel in its revelation of this world's true estate 
and order, sees the grace of heaven in every work that 
is done on the wide earth for love and duty, and looks 
for life eternal here and now, not simply as the future 
issue of some far-off divine catastrophe." 6 

6 Tke Knowledge of God, Vol. n, pp. 57-58. 



ii PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

IV 

It is here at this great watershed that the two 
systems, Catholicism and Protestantism, part com- 
pany and go on each in its own way. Catholicism re- 
lies upon authorities set up and obedience enforced 
from without. Protestantism is true to herself only 
when she relies upon the authority that comes from 
God alone. 

At the close of the Fifteenth Century the religion 
of external authority was everywhere dominant and 
Catholicism seemed secure in its absolute control of 
the intellect and conscience and life of men. How- 
ever, it was only a time of silence before a great awak- 
ening. Indeed, God had never left the truth entirely 
without witnesses. All along through the so-called 
Dark Ages there had been holy men and significant 
movements that indicated that the lamp of truth had 
not entirely gone out. There had been John the Scot 
in the Ninth Century who taught that "there are as 
many unveilings of God as there are saintly souls." 
There had been Francis of Assisi in the Thirteenth 
Century, who came at a time when genuine Christian- 
ity was almost extinct and brought back religion to the 
common people, making it a thing of joy and glad- 
ness. And at the beginning of the Fourteenth Cen- 
tury there had been Meister Eckhart, who dropped 
his plummet deep into the mysteries of religion and 
whom the Pope condemned as having "wished to 
know more than he should." And in the same century 



AUTHORITY AND AUTHORITIES 23 

lived John Tauler, who insisted that "the man who 
truly experiences the pure presence of God in his 
own soul knows well that there can be no doubt that 
there is an entrance into union of the created spirit 
with the uncreated spirit of God." The Waldenses, 
the Friends of God, the Brethren of the Common 
Life, and many other groups of mystics had found 
their way to the Father in spite of all the bars erected 
by the Church between the individual and his God. 
And there, too, had been England's greatest religious 
prophet, Wycliffe, "the morning star of the Reforma- 
tion," who stands among the foremost prophets of 
the Christian Church. 7 All these had found where the 
ground of Christian certitude lies, namely, in the 
soul's experience of communion with God. 

But it was, of course, Martin Luther who, com- 
ing in the fullness of time, taught that salvation is the 
free gift of God, not to be bought with money nor 
purchased through merit; who taught that the per- 
fect Christian life is not to be found in monasticism, 
but in daily holy living and in love of our neighbors ; 
who taught the priesthood of all believers that all 
men may without the intermediation of another have 
direct access to the Father ; who opened the Bible and 
gave it to the co'mmon people that therein they might 
hear sounding the "word of God" ; who overturned 
the false authorities of Catholicism and showed how 
neither Pope nor Councils had unerring authority, 

7 For these references see Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion. 



24 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

but only the Gospel, the power and truth of which the 
soul inwardly knows. 

Over against this definitely spiritual view of the 
essence and authority of religion is set the Catholic 
view, the same in principle whether found in the 
Anglican, the Greek, or the Roman Church. 

Here, by way of illustration, is a scholarly volume 
written by Dr. Charles Harris of the Church of Eng- 
land under the title, Creeds or No Creeds? in 
which the position is strongly maintained that the 
ultimate ground of authority is in the Church, and 
that in the Catholic Creeds infallible and final inter- 
pretation of the Christian faith is to be found. Jesus, 
according to the Fourth Gospel, had given to his 
disciples the promise of "the Spirit of truth" to "guide 
into all truth." The author of Creeds or No 
Creeds f denies that this was a promise to individual 
apostles and "still less to individual Christians." He 
maintains that it was a promise to "the Apostles col- 
lectively" "our Lord thus indicating that it was his 
will that the Church should determine its Faith col- 
lectively, acting through its constitutional rulers." 8 
Dr. Harris stakes everything on this position. The 
voice of God, he insists, sounds through the Church 
acting officially as a corporate body. The Catholic 
Creeds are the official utterances of the Church before 
it was divided into Roman Catholic and Greek Cath- 
olic sections. In the Ecumenical Creeds, therefore, the 
faith of the Church was determined collectively and 

^Creeds or No Creeds?, p. 356. 



AUTHORITY AND AUTHORITIES 25 

finally. Then and there the faith of the Church was 
fixed exactly and unchangeably. And ever thereafter 
only the Church, "acting through its constitutional 
rulers," has any right to interpret the Christian 
Creed. (Note especially that phrase, "constitutional 
rulers" as if the Church of Christ could have "rul- 
ers," men who lord it over their brethren's faith and 
practice.) Dr. Harris makes his position perfectly 
plain. He writes : "To allow individuals to determine 
or interpret the Christian Creed spells anarchy!' 

All this cuts directly athwart all that Protestantism 
stands for all that our Puritan and Huguenot ances- 
tors died for all that has made possible the freedom 
of the evangelical churches to-day. The fundamental 
Protestant principle is that every Christian man has 
. a right to think for himself, and that each humblest 
Christian may lay claim to Christ's promise of the 
Spirit to guide him into the truth. 

By way of illustrating further the point at issue, it 
will be recalled that although the Greek Orthodox 
Church had graciously sent representatives to the 
Lausanne Conference on Faith and Order, yet when 
the crucial test came they found it necessary to make 
their position perfectly plain. Archbishop Germanos, 
therefore, read a statement signed by the Orthodox 
delegates, which they had asked him to present to the 
Conference. In this paper they declared : 

"The Orthodox Church adheres fixedly to the prin- 
ciple that the limits of individual liberty of belief 
are determined by the definitions made by the whole 



26 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

Church, which definitions we maintain to be obliga- 
tory on each individual. 

"Therefore, the mind of the Orthodox Church is 
that reunion can take place only on the basis of the 
common faith and confession of the ancient, undivided 
Church of the seven Ecumenical Councils of the first 
eight centuries. 

"We cannot entertain the idea of a reunion which 
is confined to a few verbal statements ; for according 
to the Orthodox Church, where the totality of the 
faith is absent there can be no commumo in sacris," 

And it is too recent to be forgotten that in Febru- 
ary, 1928, Pope Pius XI issued his encyclical, "On 
the Promotion of True Religious Unity," a communi- 
cation addressed to all Christians in the world not 
Roman Catholic. From this I quote briefly : 

"The Church was established by Divine Providence 
in the world to the end that truths revealed might be 
conserved always unchanged, and easily and with 
security brought before the notice of men. 

"In this Church no one is to be found, as no one 
can persevere, who does not recognize and accept 
with obedience the supreme authority of Peter and 
his legitimate successors. 

"Let them" (all the sons who have abandoned the 
paternal house) "return to the Common Father, 
who, forgetting the injuries they have heaped 
upon the Apostolic See, will receive them with all 
affection of heart. For if, as they say, they desire to 
be united with us and ours, why do they not hasten 
to return to the Church, 'Mother and Teacher of 
all the followers of Christ.' " 



AUTHORITY AND AUTHORITIES 27 

How insistent is this claim to authority to be en- 
forced from without! And how persistent is the 
desire, deep-seated in the human mind, to find some 
outside prop to lean on in matters of belief and prac- 
tice! "Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a 
conviction of things not seen." And not having had 
"witness borne to them" as did the heroes of the faith 
of old and as do the best of Christians to-day, there 
are still many good people to be found even in our 
Protestant churches who "worship majorities for 
want of a reason for their belief" and who look for 
some sort of outward authority to determine for them 
just what is the faith that has been "delivered unto the 



saints." 



But our position is that it matters little what your 
outward authority is and where it is to be found. 
The thing that matters is that you find it necessary to 
depend on another and to bow down before the 
authorities. "What have I gained," asks Emerson, 
"What have I gained that I no longer immolate a bull 
to Jove or Neptune, or a mouse to Hecate, or that I 
do not tremble before the Eumenides, or the Catholic 
Purgatory, or the Calvinistic Judgment Day if I 
quake at opinion? If I quake, what matters it at what 
I quake?" And just so we ask, What have I gained 
from a spiritual standpoint that I do not bow to the 
authority of the Pope, or acknowledge the final 
authority in religion and theology of ancient creeds 
and councils? If I accept as final any authority that 



28 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

can be imposed upon me from without, what matters 
it what authority I accept? 

Therefore, as against a creed to be signed, we 
affirm the value of an inward experience and the 
necessity of a Christlike life ; as against a doctrine of 
human nature in such wreck and ruin that a revelation 
from God could come only from without as the Koran 
was supposed to have been given to the Moham- 
medans, we affirm that man is essentially akin to God 
and that within there shines an inner light and there 
may be heard echoes of the divine voice ; as against 
the religion of the letter, we affirm the religion of the 
spirit ; as against the religion that leans on outward 
authorities, we affirm the religion of authority the 
sole authority of God's voice sounding in the hearts 
of men. 

It will immediately be asked : Is this not a most 
dangerous position to take ? Is not freedom fraught 
with perils ? We answer, Yes, there is danger in this 
position. But life invests itself with danger. God in 
his wisdom willed to create free men and not mere 
things. With freedom comes danger, but also possi- 
bility of moral character, possibility of communion 
with God, the privilege of becoming the children of 
God, the privilege of knowing the truth and being 
established in freedom by the truth. 

And it needs to be added that there are various 
ways in which liberty is saved from mere license. 
There are various methods by which the experience of 
the single individual is confirmed, or corrected, or 



AUTHORITY AND AUTHORITIES 19 

held in proper balance. Let some of these be men- 
tioned briefly just now. 

Religious experience means much more than "mo- 
ments of personal awareness of God." One is face to 
face with God when one feels the compelling power 
of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good realities 
that can be alive only in God and in men made in the 
image of God. One is face to face with God when 
conscience cries out in pain over sins committed. And 
one is face to face with God when one tries to pray 
and finds somehow a wall shut down between him and 
the All-Holy because of his having lived down below 
his best. By religious experience, therefore, we mean 
much more than our psychologists seem to think we 
mean when they send out their psychological ques- 
tionnaires and write books on "varieties of religious 
experience." 

Furthermore, our definitely Christian experience 
is born in society and many things have gone to make 
that society what it is. We were not set adrift on the 
sea of life without impulse in any direction and with- 
out guide from any source. There are perils enough 
in traditionalism, but it will be seen that there is 
much that is of permanent value in traditions 
traditions of the family, of the community, and of the 
Christian Church. And the Bible is the classic book 
of religious experience. Here is found not the experi- 
ence of prophets and saints alone, but the experience 
of all sorts and conditions of men men of like 
passions with ourselves. Here, in the Bible, we have 



30 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

a spiritual guide. And into this world of confused 
ideals and conflicting types of experience came the 
Son of Man. His soul speaks directly to our deepest 
selves. He is the very Word of God. He stands as the 
moral absolute. What he said about God is true. For 
he spoke with authority. And from the cross where 
he died there has come the ultimate word touching 
the dark mystery of human pain, the revelation of 
the suffering that God endures for the salvation of 
men a sacrifice that is reconciling. Down in the heart 
of our experience "He is our peace." And besides all 
this, the Church has lived through the centuries, and 
no matter how dark the period, there have never been 
wanting Christians who testified victoriously to the 
inner confirmation of the facts and principles of our 
religion. In the Christian fellowship, the Church 
which is "the communion of the saints," continuous 
witness has been borne to the truth of the gospel. And 
there are millions living to-day who would die rather 
than surrender this truth. 

Surely the time has come to be done with negative 
preaching. Hearts are aching for some sure word of 
prophecy. Too often the people have been like sheep 
scattered and without a shepherd. Too much have 
hungry souls broken their teeth on stones offered in 
the place of bread. Too frequently the blind have led 
the blind and both have fallen into the ditch. It is now 
high time that in all pulpits the prophetic voice 
should speak in tones of authority. The sort of 
authority the people are waiting for is the authority 



AUTHORITY AND AUTHORITIES 31 

that comes from God and passes directly to the souls 
of men. For spiritual authority is always self-authen- 
ticating. 

"The word unto the prophet spoken 
Was writ on tables yet unbroken ; 
The word by seers and sibyls told, 
In groves or oak, or fanes of gold, 
Still floats upon the morning wind, 
Still whispers to the willing mind. 
One accent of the Holy Ghost 
The heedless world hath never lost." 



II 

PERILS OF TRADITIONALISM AND 
VALUES IN TRADITION 

"And ye have made void the word of God because of your 
tradition." MATTHEW 15 : 6. 



II 

PERILS OF TRADITIONALISM AND 
VALUES IN TRADITION 

I PURPOSE in the present lecture calling attention to 
certain perils that lie in traditionalism. This, I trust, 
will contribute toward a better understanding of 
what I have in mind in the discussion which is to fol- 
low, dealing more directly with the question of 
authority as it refers to the preacher and his message. 
We must, of course, distinguish between tradi- 
tionalism and traditions. Traditionalism is an atti- 
tude of mind and a habit of life. Our traditions 
embody many of the most precious possessions of the 
race, such as our family traditions, our national tra- 
ditions, and the traditions of faith and heroism that 
the Church will never willingly let die. And I do con- 
fess to some hesitancy in entering upon the discussion 
of this theme lest my purpose be misapprehended and 
I be looked upon as an iconoclast ready to lay ruthless 
hands on the treasured possessions of the race. I say 
at once, therefore, that there are large values in our 
traditions ; but they must all stand the searchlight of 
history, they must submit to the test of experience, 
and they must be tried in the crucible of life. I am not 

35 



3 6 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

to be understood, then, as meaning that there is noth- 
ing but peril in the preservation of traditions. On 
the contrary I maintain that in them lie racial gains 
that should by all means be saved to society. 

In life and thought there must be not only change 
and progressive development, there must also be con- 
servation of gains and protection against forces of 
disintegration. In the physical world there are always 
two forces at work pulling against each other, the 
centripetal and the centrifugal, the pull toward the 
center and the tendency to fly off into space. And 
the same thing we find in our various ecclesiastical 
organizations and our different theological systems. 
Too much pull toward the center gives us traditional- 
ism with its attendant reactionaries, while too great 
a tendency to fly off at a tangent gives us radicalism 
and revolutionists. It will be seen as we proceed that 
I am not speaking in negative terms ; I mean to speak 
in a very positive and affirmative way, and before I 
have concluded all this will be properly emphasized. 

I wish just here to put behind my presentation the 
supporting words of the Master himself. In the Gos- 
pel according to Matthew and in the twenty-third 
chapter, we read as follows: "For ye build the sepul- 
chres of the prophets, and garnish the tombs of 
the righteous, and say, If we had been in the 
days of our fathers, we should not have been par- 
takers with them in the blood of the prophets. There- 
fore, ye witness to yourselves that ye are sons of 
them that slew the prophets." 



PERILS OF TRADITIONALISM 37 

These are very arresting words. What can they 
mean? How can it be that men will praise the ancient 
prophets and erect monuments in their honor, flatter- 
ing themselves that they are congenial spirits bent 
upon following in their steps, while all the time they 
are wholly unlike the prophets and are in truth the 
lineal descendants and legitimate representatives of 
whose who killed the prophets ? In answer I quote a 
notable paragraph from that Christian classic, Ecce 
Homo: 

"The glory of the original man is this, that he does 
not take his virtues and his views of things at second 
hand, but draws fresh wisdom from nature and from 
the inspiration within him. To the majority in every 
age, that is, the superficial and the feeble, such origi- 
nality is alarming, perplexing, fatiguing. They unite 
to crush the innovator. But it may be that by his own 
energy and by the assistance of his followers, he 
proves too strong for them. Gradually, about the 
close of his career, or it may be after it, they are com- 
pelled to withdraw their opposition and to imitate the 
man whom they have denounced. They are compelled 
to do that which is most frightful to them, to abandon 
their routine. Then there comes to them a thought 
which brings inexpressible relief. Out of the example 
of the original man they can make a new routine. They 
may imitate him in everything except his originality, 
for one routine is as easy to pace as another. What 
they dread is the necessity of originating, the fatigue 
of being really alive. The original man broke the 
chains by which men were bound ; he threw open to 
them the doors leading into the boundless freedom 
of nature and truth. But in the next generation he 



38 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

is idolized, and nature and truth as much forgotten 
as ever. If he could return to the earth, he would find 
that the crowbars and files with which he made 
his way out of the prison-house have been forged 
into the bolts and chains of a new prison called by 
his own name." 

Here lies a danger, the ever-recurrent danger of 
the dead hand, the traditionalism that worships the 
past because it is the past and appeals to the God of 
the dead as against the God of the living. 



We do this when we rest satisfied in confessing the 
creeds of our fathers while we ourselves have no liv- 
ing experience of the realities these creeds were 
originally written to set forth and defend. 

Let no man underestimate the importance of the 
great creeds of Christendom. They are not without 
their significance. They played an important part 
in the history of Christianity and they may still be 
made to serve a place of usefulness in the Church of 
to-day. The Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, the 
Lutheran and Reformed Confessions, the Edwardine 
and Elizabethan Articles these are most important 
historic documents, and the history of Christian 
thought cannot be understood without them. A creed 
is a milepost ; it shows how far the Church had come. 
A creed is a boundary line ; it indicates how large an 
area of well-defined truth the Church believed it had 
been able to conquer. A system of thought always 



PERILS OF TRADITIONALISM 39 

lives by the truth that is in it, not by the error it con- 
tains. It lives as it makes vital contact with experi- 
ence. For example, the Apostles' Creed is both fac- 
tual and symbolic and therefore remains the one creed 
in which all Christendom can unite ; the Nicene Creed 
at its heart embodies the hard-earned victory of the 
Church over Arianism, an alien element which would 
have disintegrated Christianity if allowed to win the 
battle; the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of 
England are Protestant through and through and of 
abiding interest and significance to all who trace their 
spiritual ancestry through English origins. Further- 
more, as Martensen has said, U A mind starved by 
doubt has never been able to produce a dogmatic sys- 
tem." But it needs always be kept in mind that the 
great truths of religion are not primarily intellectual, 
that Christianity did not originate in logical proposi- 
tions, and that it cannot be kept alive by insistence 
on rigid acceptance of ancient creedal statements. Let 
it be remembered, then, that the vital truths of Chris- 
tianity are all truths of experience. 

What Christian men had experienced they sought 
to put into appropriate words, so as to lead others to 
see the truth as they had seen it, and to experience 
what had satisfied their souls and transformed their 
lives. For instance, the very first creed of the Church 
"J esus is Lord" was to begin with a truth of ex- 
perience, not something set forth in theological 
propositions that could be argued into a man's mind. 
Rather, "No man can say that Jesus is Lord but by 



40 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

the Holy Spirit." Faith in the Holy Trinity Father', 
Son, and Holy Spirit was first given in experience. 
Afterward effort was made to give intelligent and 
intelligible expression to this fruitful truth revealed 
first in the hearts of believers in Jesus. The early 
Christians were not first theologians and afterward 
Christians ; they were first Christians and later some 
of them became theologians. And it should not be 
overlooked that men are never to be called upon first 
of all to be orthodox and then afterward to become 
sincere disciples of Jesus. One's moral and spiritual 
attitudes are of primary importance. The perpetual 
peril of traditionalism is that it will come to value 
outward conformity to intellectual statements rather 
than spiritual sincerity; that it will insist on a form 
of sound words rather than an inner apprehension of 
spiritual reality. 

Creeds, then, do have their value, but the thing 
that really matters is the experience that gave birth 
to the creeds. From history take two familiar illus- 
trations : 

What made Martin Luther great, overwhelmingly 
the mightiest man of his age? Everybody knows the 
answer. It was his experience of God. God had be- 
come to him the Living God.He knew for a certainty 
what it is to have God to be his God how God 
grasps a man and holds him ; how faith in God takes 
away fear and makes a man more than conqueror. 
There is the swing of the battle-ax and the shout of 
victory in his great hymn : 



PERILS OF TRADITIONALISM 41 

"A mighty fortress is our God, 
A bulwark never-failing : 
Our Helper He, amid the flood 
Of mortal ills prevailing." 

The Reformation in Germany had its spiritual 
origin in the soul of the great Reformer. 

Permit me to remind you that the Evangelical 
Revival in the Eighteenth Century called men back 
to reality. The preachers of the Eighteenth Century 
believed in the God of the past, but they had little 
vital faith in the God of the present. They believed 
in a God who had once spoken, but had no faith in a 
God .who is able to speak now in the human heart. 
John Wesley, the Oxford scholar and clergyman of 
the the Church of England, was thoroughly sincere 
and perfectly orthodox. He was representative of the 
best in his century, but like others he lacked personal 
experience of God. It was August Spangenberg, head 
of the little Moravian community in Georgia, who 
asked Wesley certain disconcerting questions: "Have 
you the witness within yourself ? Does the Spirit of 
God bear witness with your spirit that you are a child 
of God?" Wesley was surprised and did not know 
what to answer. Wesley's professed creed was sound, 
but he lacked the experience which interprets and 
vitalizes the creed. Now a stammering and unsure 
faith can never move the world. No wonder that hith- 
erto the young clergyman's life had been a disappoint- 
ment and a failure. 

The story of Wesley's evangelical conversion has 



42 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

become one of the classic things in the study of 
Christian experience: "In the evening I went to the 
society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading 
Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About 
a quarter before nine, while he was describing the 
change which God works in the heart through faith 
in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed, I felt 
I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and 
an assurance was given me that he had taken away 
my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of 
sin and death." Straightway Wesley began to tell 
his experience to others. 

That was the beginning of the Evangelical Re- 
vival. What Wesley had experienced, others experi- 
enced also, and soon England was aflame with a re- 
vival movement the warmth of which has not yet 
wholly cooled down. Wesley and those associated 
with him still used the same form of words that the 
Church of England had used, but their words went to 
the hearts of men with a new message new because 
coming out of hearts having a new experience. Here 
was a new sunrise in Christian history. The lost secret 
of the power of Christianity had been rediscovered. 
Their religion became a singing religion. It was their 
experience that had let loose that "nest of singing 
birds." In various ways they were all saying : 

"What we have felt and seen 
With confidence we tell, 
And publish to the sons of men 
The signs infallible." 



PERILS OF TRADITIONALISM , 43 

This vital experience of what the creeds stand for 
of the everlasting reality behind transient forms 
this is what our present age is most interested in. And 
I must say at once what needs to be understood all 
along, that by ''experience" I mean more than mere 
emotionalism, much more than "feeling" alone. 
Mysticism stands for the noetic element in religion, 
that is to say, for the fact that actual knowledge of 
reality is given in religious experience. Besides this, 
there is another aspect of the matter that tradition- 
alists are likely to overlook. The universe is not dead, 
but alive. Its life is in God, and if I may so speak, God 
is going somewhere. Purpose is written into the very 
structure of the world. There is one far-off divine 
event to which the whole creation is moving. We come 
to know God not as we sit idly by and study the uni- 
verse objectively. We can truly know only in fellow- 
ship with God and cooperation with him. It is, there- 
fore, when we throw ourselves whole-heartedly into 
the mighty purpose of God that we come to know 
God. It is perfectly evident, then, why the will as 
well as the intellect and the emotions must be brought 
into play if God is to become the Great Reality in our 
experience and life. 

Nothing, therefore, can be more futile than reiter- 
ated insistence on the part of solemn ecclesiastical 
assemblies that assent must be given to certain ancient 
creedal statements before there can be opened a path 
to Christian unity. It will turn out to be a hopeless 
task to endeavor to reverse the clock of human his- 



44 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

tory and make it run backward. And besides this, too 
often creeds have created divisions. Creeds do nat 
bring about unity; the one way to Christian unity is 
the way of Christian experience. When the Spirit 
gives us utterance we all speak with united voice. 
For Pentecostal tongues are always heard as one 
language. 

II 

Another peril of traditionalism is that we should 
remain satisfied to proclaim loyalty to customs and 
institutions handed down from the past, while we 
ourselves have no originality nor power of adapta- 
tion for the needs of the present. 

Now only fools despise the past. If we are to meet 
the needs of to-day and make wise provision for to- 
morrow we must know and appreciate what was done 
yesterday. Certain forces have entered into the mak- 
ing of us, certain principles have become the very life- 
blood of our people. We cannot break with the past 
if we would. Wisdom was not born with us. Only as 
We gather wisdom from the past shall we be able to 
serve our day and generation according to the will of 
God. And we modern evangelicals ought to know 
our own history. Just at the present time I think 
nothing would be more refreshing and rejuvenating 
than for the people who have the Protestant inheri- 
tance to take up the study of the Reformation in Ger- 
many or read once more the marvelous story of the 
Evangelical Revival in Great Britain and America. 



PERILS OF TRADITIONALISM <& 

We should then clearly see how our creeds and in- 
stitutions sprang out of the great experiences of men 
who had come into communion with God, and how 
they are rooted in our spiritual past. The interesting 
question would then arise : How true to the spirit and 
genius of those early and creative days has been our 
subsequent development? And we should come face 
to face with this other question: How far have we 
departed from that spiritual interpretation of Chris- 
tianity which was once our power and glory? 

But what I have chiefly in mind just now is the fact 
that antiquity alone is not enough to make a custom 
binding and of lasting value. Professor Montague, in 
his interesting study of The Ways of Knowing, points 
out clearly the fallacy of holding that the age of an 
authority is a mark of its reliability. The familiar 
saying has it, "As age is wiser than youth, we should 
revere the opinions of our ancestors." But the opin- 
ions and institutions handed down from the fathers 
were opinions and institutions of their youth and 
from a time when the race was much younger and 
more immature than it is now. Their opinions, in 
many instances, are the expression of the experience 
and childhood of the race and not its maturity. We 
ourselves are much older than our ancestors, and are 
riper in experience than they. It is a hurtful error, 
therefore, to give to ancient customs and venerable 
institutions the same respect and reverence that we 
very properly render to mature and wise men. 

An institution handed down from the fathers is 



46 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

good just as long as it serves a good purpose. A cus- 
tom is good just as long as it gives opportunity 
for the free expression of the spiritual life of a people. 
It has been said that "an institution is the lengthened 
shadow of a man." It may be something else and 
worse ; it may be a dead hand reaching down from 
the past and strangling the present. We may indeed 
build the sepulchres of the prophets and garnish the 
tombs of the righteous, thinking that we have the 
spirit of the fathers, when, as a matter of fact, we 
are the direct descendants of the men who slew them. 
And, by urgent insistence upon the continuance of 
certain institutions and customs, we may be curbing 
the very spirit which formerly found expression in 
those institutions. Every changeless thing is lifeless ; 
every living thing is changing. Life is a continuous 
progressive change. 

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
And God fulfils himself in many ways, 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." 

But let it never be overlooked that prophets do 
not always start out with the expressed purpose of 
changing things. Often they are very reluctant of 
change in customs that have grown hoary with years, 
and not every man is a prophet who proclaims him- 
self such. Oftener such a man is a false prophet. The 
true prophet is always modest. He cries, "Ah, Lord 
God I behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child." He 
waits and wonders why other men older and better 



PERILS OF TRADITIONALISM 47 

qualified do not speak out in the name of God. He 
questions for a time whether the voice he hears is 
after all the voice of God. Then the word within him 
becomes like fire in his bosom and he can remain silent 
no longer. He departs from custom only when custom 
stands in the way of doing what God would have 
done. He seeks to fill old institutions with new life 
and establishes new institutions only as new life re- 
quires a new way in which to express and perpetuate 
itself. He seeks to fulfill rather than to destroy. 

What I am seeking to emphasize is the fact that 
serviceable institutions grow out of vital needs and 
that they are serviceable only so long as they minister 
to the real values of human society. What I am 
pleading for is a return of the spiritual experience out 
of which all worth-while Christian institutions and 
customs spring. Christianity is a religion growing out 
of experience ; Christian theology is the theology of 
experience; Christian institutions are institutions 
shaped by Christian experience to meet the need of 
the age to which they came. Our fathers and founders, 
in the first Christian centuries, in the heroic days of 
the Reformation on the continent of Europe and in 
England and Scotland, and here in our own land 
our fathers, I say, were mighty men of God men 
of vision, men of daring, men of action. They were 
all this because first of all they were men of God and 
God's free men. John Knox, John Wesley, Jonathan 
Edwards, Francis Asbury, Phillips Brooks, and 
others that followed in their train, these saw the sin 



48 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

and sorrow and ignorance of their day; these had 
prophetic insight to meet living issues as they 
emerged; these had their faces turned to the future, 
not to the past; and all these believed in a God who 
is not far from every one of us that the God of 
Abraham, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, the God of our fathers, is also our God to-day, 
not only the God of the dead, but the God of the 
living as well. 

It is well enough to ask, What is the precedent in 
such and such a case? It is also the part of wisdom to 
inquire, What is the usage and what has been the 
ancient custom? But we. have returned to Pharisaical 
traditionalism when we profess loyalty to ancient in- 
stitutions as such and are not alive to the needs of the 
present hour. If our fathers had done no more than 
this progress would have died at its birth, and we 
should now be held fast in the icy grip of a dead past. 

This is the message that sounds in the Ninety-fifth 
Psalm. The Psalmist celebrates the glory of God in 
nature and in the past history of the chosen people, 
but he breaks forth with the exhortation : 

"To-day, oh that ye would hear his voice ! 
Harden not your hearts." 

He would have us hear the voice of God in the stirring 
life of to-day. In the ongoings of the present age 
God's voice speaks to men. The best and truest 
Christian, then, is not the one who seeks to do pre- 
cisely what the fathers did, but the one who meets 



PERILS OF TRADITIONALISM 49 

living issues as the fathers' met them, believing in the 
God of to-day as well as in the God of yesterday. 

The traditionalist, on the other hand, if I may 
borrow a figure, wishing to assure himself of God's 
interest in human affairs, goes to the stern of human- 
ity's ship and watches the wake far in the rear ; but 
he never stands on the ship's bridge, and feels it 
sway and turn at the touch of a present Captain in 
control. The Living God is now in the world. We see 
him best when we most closely follow his progres- 
sively unfolding purpose for men. 

Ill 

The traditionalism against which we need to be on 
our guard is the traditionalism that professes rever- 
ence for dead heroes while having none of the spirit 
of heroism which it claims to hold in high regard. 

Reverence for dead heroes is not enough. The age 
needs living heroes. How great is our condemnation 
if having a mighty past we ourselves are faint-hearted 
and afraid in the presence of to-day's demands. For 
we are living in the midst of stirring days, which call 
for the best that men can give and do. 

And yet, how persistent is that type of mind that 
lives almost wholly in the past, whose most insistent 
article of faith is that God was certainly with the 
ancients! To illustrate: A minister charged with 
administrative responsibilities was, during a certain 
gathering of ministers and laymen, telling of new 
life that had come to an old and long decadent con- 



5 o PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

gregation the ancient and out-of-the-way location 
had been abandoned, a beautiful church building had 
been secured on a prominent street, a new educational 
building was being planned, all church activities had 
taken on new life when another minister, who knew 
something of the situation, walked quietly across the 
room and inquired, "What became of that old grave- 
yard?" The question was entirely proper. If we are 
not interested in the graves of our dead we are not 
worthy of the spiritual inheritance handed down 
from our fathers. If we do not value our own history 
we are not qualified to make history for our children. 
But the question, "What became of that old grave- 
yard?" stuck me with considerable force. I had not 
been thinking about the graveyard. I was at that time 
thinking about the living and about their children. I 
was thinking, not of a church standing where monu- 
ments had been built to the prophets and where de- 
voted hearts laid flowers on the graves of the right- 
eous, but of a church standing in the midst of the life 
and activities of a modern city, speaking of Christ 
to men who had sinned and lost their way, giving 
inspiration and guidance to the rising generation, and 
helping to shape in harmony with the principles of 
the Kingdom of God the institutions of modern 
society. 

And what kind of heroism is it that we need to-day ? 
I answer briefly : The same sort of heroism the Church 
has always needed : heroism to speak out the thing 
that is in us regardless of personal consequences; 



PERILS OF TRADITIONALISM 51 

heroism to live the life which before God we know 
we ought to live, following not the customs of the 
day but obeying the voice of God that sounds in the 
soul ; heroism to do the thing we know ought to be 
done for God and for his Church, whatever that thing 
may be. 

But no man ever made a hero out of himself just 
by saying that he was going to be one and starting out 
to do something unusual. Such a man always makes a 
ridiculous spectacle out of himself like Don Quixote. 
Heroism is never a manufactured article. It is a living, 
breathing thing, born out of a great experience. Chris- 
tian heroism is never born of negations ; it is born of 
affirmations. It never comes from love of the foot- 
lights; it abhors the spectacular. It is never self- 
seeking; it embodies the principle of the cross. It is 
only when men see deeply into human need and 
themselves have entered into an experience that 
satisfies their own needs it is only then that they 
are ready to rise to the sublime heights of heroism. 

The kind of men described by the Master in the 
words that suggested the theme of this lecture, men 
who believe in the voice of God sounding in the past 
but not in the present, men who believe in institutions 
and customs fixed and finished by divine authority, 
men who glory in the vision and daring of the found- 
ers of the Church, but call in question the wisdom 
and sanity of the forward-looking movements of the 
present time such men stand squarely across the 



52 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

path of human progress. For, as a matter of fact, the 
standpatter is the true revolutionary. 

I quote from a letter written by Thomas Arnold. 
Said he : "There is nothing so revolutionary, because 
there is nothing so unnatural and so convulsive to 
society, as the strain to keep things fixed, when all the 
world is by the very law of its creation in eternal 
progress : and the causes of all the evils in the world 
may be traced to the natural but deadly error of 
human indolence and corruption, that our business 
is to preserve and not to improve. It is the ruin of 
us all alike, individuals, schools, and nations." 1 
1 In human history evolution is always better than 
revolution. Progress is naturally slow and orderly: 
"first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn 
in the ear." Most unfortunately there are many men, 
sincere and able men some of them are, who view 
all change with deep alarm. They, therefore, expend 
their great strength in constant strain to keep things 
fixed. They are able to do this for a time, it may be 
a long time. But after a while the push of progress 
becomes greater than their strength and suddenly 
a revolution takes place. The force of an onward- 
moving stream would naturally carry the logs float- 
ing on down to the mill. It is when the logs encounter 
an eddy or strike a swirl in the current that their 
onward progress is stayed and they get in a jam; and 
then it may require dynamite. But it was not the 
onward-flowing stream that caused the jam; it was 

Quoted in Batten's The Social Task of Christianity, p. 175. 



PERILS OF TRADITIONALISM 53 

the eddy or the back-wash of the water that did it. 
Now a revolution does good; but it is always un- 
fortunate, for it does much harm also. It destroys 
treasures of faith and life that should continue to 
live. But it should be remembered that it is the stand- 
patter who is responsible for revolution. For "the 
greatest enemy of progress is not bad men, but good 
men who have ceased to grow." And the ultimate 
responsibility for the harm done rests always with 
the reactionaries. 

IV 

We are not overlooking the important fact that 
there are values in tradition which the race will not 
readily consent to lose and without which we shall be 
poor indeed. 

We shall make no real progress by jauntily plung- 
ing into the untried future. The air of too many people 
nowadays seems to be, "We don't know where we are 
going but we are on the way." Or if not that gay 
spirit, then the sad tone of agnosticism : 

"Where lies the land to which the ship would go? 
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. 
And where the land she travels from ? Away, 
Far, far behind, is all that they can say." 

If we do not know the land we are sailing from, we 
are not likely to know our port of destination. If we 
have cared little for the hoarded riches of the past, 
we are not likely to care much about any treasure 



54 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

hidden off somewhere, we do not know where, down 
below the horizon. The pragmatic method will never 
bring us to the heart of reality. And the trouble with 
too many preachers and theologians to-day is that 
they are mere pragmatists. They do not ask, Is this 
real? but, Will it work? They are at about the same 
scientific stage as were the medical doctors of a 
hundred years ago, their remedies are mostly em- 
pirical. They are not sure that they know anything, 
except they are sure that the past is to be disregarded. 
Montague calls attention to the folly of over- 
emphasis on pragmatism in the tendency to carry to 
an extreme the elective system in education. I quote, 
"To leave a child free to study any subject or none 
is simply to deprive him of his social inheritance. He 
cannot choose intelligently until he knows what there 
is to choose from. If we wished to make a civilized 
man out of a savage, we should not take him direct 
from his forest and put him naked in a department 
store, bidding him choose whatever clothing caught 
his fancy. The child is intellectually and culturally 
naked, and the only life he knows independent of our 
teaching is the forest life of his instincts. Why should 
we expect him in the name of 'individuality' and 
'self-realization' to repeat all that the race has learned 
by generations of trial and error ? To abstain from all 
compulsion and all prescription in the teaching of 
children is, we repeat, merely to rob them of their 
rightful social heritage." 2 

2 The Ways of Knowing, p. 143. 



PERILS OF TRADITIONALISM 55 

Now if this be true in the field of education, it is 
also certainly true in the sphere of religion. And as a 
matter of racial experience, the religion of external 
authority did serve a useful purpose in the education 
of the race in its childhood. The religion of the Old 
Testament with its commandments and ordinances 
was necessary and valuable in its time and place. Not 
until the time was fulfilled and the race had matured 
could the religion of the New Testament claim the 
right to displace the lower order of faith. And during 
the long period when barbarous races had overrun 
the Roman Empire and a strong hand was needed to 
hold them in order, and a rigid discipline required to 
tame their wild passions, the religion of external com- 
pulsion was useful as a schoolmaster to lead them on 
to higher things. 

But beware of the application of this principle; 
else we shall doom ourselves to perpetual childhood ! 
Only in the exercise of liberty can the highest powers 
of the soul flourish and grow. 

And exactly so with our rightful religious inherit- 
ance. For just as riches in civilization, in literature, 
in art, in music, and in science have come down from 
the past, so also with religion. It is true that men 
have been more conservative in religion than in any 
other department of life, but this is because religion 
means more to us than science, music, art, letters, or 
anything else whatsoever. It is our most prized pos- 
session. It is our holy thing. It treasures up those 
interests which have abiding value. It is conservative 



56 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

because it conserves. There are dangers in traditional- 
ism, but there are spiritual values in traditions. If 
we should beware of the pull toward the center that 
makes us traditionalists glorying in the past because 
it is past, we need also to look out for the impulse to 
fly off at a tangent as seen in the radical and the 
iconoclast. 

And it must be admitted that with numbers of 
men who call themselves progressive thinkers the 
love of novelty is greater than the love of truth. The 
one important question with them seems to be, Is 'it 
new? They are like a graduate student in some uni- 
versity, perplexed to find a subject for a thesis. He 
must look through the entire literature to see that 
nobody ever did it before ; then he is ready to proceed. 
And when we have read what he has to say we feel 
like saying, "Your thesis is approved. We accept 
what you have to say as an original piece of work 
done in scholarly fashion. Now try again sometime 
with equal diligence to see if you cannot find out what 
the actual facts are and what the real truth about the 
matter is." Lovers of novelty among the liberalists 
remind one of the men of like mind whom Paul in his 
day encountered in Athens: "They spend their time 
in nothing else, but either to tell or hear of some new 
thing." Glibly proclaiming "new truth," they would 
be willing any time to sacrifice old gold for common 
tinsel, provided only that the tinsel bore the marks 
of recent manufacture, 

I was recently discussing these matters with one 



PERILS OF TRADITIONALISM 57 

of the scholarly and progressive ministers of the 
Church. I desire to set down here some of the things 
he was then saying to me. They are worthy of most 
serious consideration. 

At the present time, as he suggested, there is an 
essential agnosticism seeking shelter in the house of 
liberalism. Apostolic Christianity, the Protestant 
Reformation, and the Evangelical Revival were all 
liberal movements. The freedom they desired was 
to clear away the restrictions of externalism for a 
better growth of the spirit as the motivating power 
of the new religious order. In the religious move- 
ments just mentioned three things at least were held 
in common : First, the sinfulness of man and of 
society was clearly and fully recognized; secondly, 
the power of the gospel of Christ to save individuals 
and the world was asserted with all confidence; 
thirdly, the Christian duty of proclaiming this salva- 
tion at all costs was accepted by all these liberal 
believers. It appears now, however, that one wing 
of the liberal movement in our churches has drifted 
far from the liberalism of the New Testament, the 
Protestant Reformation, and the Evangelical Re- 
vival. These new liberals seem to have a decided 
leaning in the direction of agnosticism. From the 
souls of some of these men doubt has taken away 
nearly all positive conviction as to the validity of the 
historic faith. Hence there is no enthusiasm for the 
conversion of the world, either as to the potency 
of the gospel in this respect, or indeed as to the need 



58 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

of conversion itself. They spurn the past; but they 
have discovered no new method of salvation that the 
world would think of trusting. By mere inertia such 
persons are in the Church seeking a negative liberal- 
ism as a means of security against responsibility and 
sacrifice. 

Moreover, it should be noted that Paul, Luther, 
and Wesley were all by native instinct and religious 
conviction conservative. They did not break with the 
ecclesiasticisms of their day till forced to do so, nor 
until they broke their own hearts in disappointed 
loyalty. 

Our most significant religious values are to be 
found in history and in experience. History brings 
over the inheritance of the past; experience lives in 
touch with the present. Also experience puts to the 
test the value of history. It is never safe, it is always 
dangerous, to depart from tradition except in the 
light and under the guiding influence of experience. 
And by experience in this connection is meant not the 
isolated experience of individuals only. Adequate 
personal experience must be rooted in racial experi- 
ence. Satisfactory Christian experience must grow 
out of and be in harmony with the vital faith of the 
Christian Church. Not the single individual is the 
final authority, but the experience of the individual 
coming to birth in the Christian community, con- 
firmed by the Christian brotherhood, and corrobo- 
rated by the experience of the past. The living present 
must grow out of the fruitful past. 



PERILS OF TRADITIONALISM 59 

It is not to be wondered at that Jesus startled the 
traditionalists of his day. They could not fail to see 
that his teachings were creating a stir and were likely 
to upset their entire system of legalism and ritualism. 
But Jesus was not a destroyer. Everything good in 
the old he loved. One jot or one tittle would in no wise 
pass away till it had served its rightful purpose, and 
the vital principle in it had been fulfilled. Said he: 
"Think not that I came to destroy the law or the 
prophets : I came not to destroy, but to fulfill." And 
even so, at the present time, timid and fearful souls 
are often startled by the ring of reality sounding in 
modern voices. Such originality is alarming and per- 
plexing. They are afraid that the very foundations 
will be destroyed. The opportunity of the modern 
preacher is to be found in following the way of the 
Master and saying to all who are troubled : Think not 
that we have come to destroy: we have not come to 
destroy, but to fulfill. 



Ill 

AUTHORITY AND THE BIBLE 

"Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for 
teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is 
in righteousness: that the man of God may be complete, 
furnished completely unto every good work." II TIMOTHY 
3: 16-17. 



Ill 

AUTHORITY AND THE BIBLE 

THE historical method of studying the Bible has 
opened a door into the treasure house of Holy Scrip- 
ture which no man can now shut. The Bible to us is 
a much more human book, and also much more divine, 
than it was to our fathers. Unfortunately, the wine 
of the new knowledge has frequently gone to the 
head, and some preachers, in a manner wholly aca- 
demic and unspiritual, have raised doubts in the mind 
and brought distress to the heart where positive and 
affirmative presentation would have brought relief 
and comfort and reassurance. The Bible of the 
modern preacher is not a smaller Book than was the 
Bible of our fathers, but larger and more authorita- 
tive "inspired of God and profitable for teaching, 
for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is 
in righteousness : that the man of God may be com- 
plete, furnished completely unto every good work." 
You will permit a preacher whose life has been 
spent almost entirely in the pastorate and pulpit to 
give personal testimony. A generation ago George 
Adam Smith's Isaiah had just been published. That 
was at the beginning of my ministry. I had been try- 

63 



64 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

ing to find out something about the Old Testament. 
Nothing that I had read satisfied me. My com- 
mentaries and Biblical histories helped very little. It 
was then that Smith's great exposition came from the 
press. I read the two volumes with wonder and 
delight. The book of Isaiah was no longer made up 
of detached utterances hanging up in the air. Here 
was a flesh-and-blood man with a living message to 
the age in which he lived. Often as I read Smith's 
pages I was not able to keep my seat; I would get up 
and walk the floor. I read Isaiah at family worship ; 
I preached on Isaiah Sunday after Sunday. I knew 
that in discovering Isaiah I had discovered the Old 
Testament. One day when I had come home from 
my study and dinner was about to be served, I was 
asked to get a bucket of water. I went to the cistern 
thinking about Isaiah only Isaiah and down into 
the cistern I let bucket, rope and all ! I tell this story 
because, as a matter of fact, I had let my bucket down 
not into a cistern, but into a well of living water, and 
out of that well I have been drawing water ever 
since. From the time George Adam Smith introduced 
me to Isaiah, the entire Old Testament began to take 
its proper place in my spiritual life, and in the entire 
Bible I hear sounding the Word of God. By introduc- 
ing me to the historical method, Smith had intro- 
duced me to the whole Bible. 

What is to be said in the present lecture is of a 
positive and affirmative character. But it seems neces- 



AUTHORITY AND THE BIBLE 65 

sary at once to make a few preparatory remarks of 
a somewhat negative nature. 

(1) Bacon, in one of his essays, speaks of the 
Bible as having been written by "the pencil of the 
Holy Ghost." Now nothing has been more mischie- 
vous in the history of Christian thought than the 
"verbal dictation theory" of the inspiration of the 
Bible. This theory, of course, has no basis in the 
Bible itself, and upon even the most hurried examina- 
tion of the pages of the Bible it is seen to be contrary 
to the facts in the case. But still the opinion persists 
that the very words of the Bible were dictated by the 
Holy Spirit and that they are authoritative and 
infallible in all matters, whether of history, or of 
science, or of faith. Well, it has not pleased God to 
give us that kind of Bible. And for this we are 
devoutly thankful. 

(2) And there is the companion view, that the 
Bible is all on one level and that any one part of it is 
of equal value and authority with any other part. But 
an examination of any devout Christian's Bible would 
disprove that theory at once. There are parts of the 
Bible where the saints live; there are other parts 
where they occasionally make visits ; there are other 
parts where they never go at all or if they do, it 
is in blind devotion and without spiritual profit. And 
certain men of spiritual intuition saw this long before 
the method of historical approach had brought 
moral relief. Luther, by way of illustration, felt free 
to say that the Epistle of James was "an epistle of 



66 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

straw." In that Luther was wrong. And John Wesley, 
in the Psalter which he prepared for the American 
Methodists, left out the imprecatory Psalms entirely, 
and in doing so added this comment : "Many psalms 
are left out, and many parts of others, as highly im- 
proper for the mouths of a Christian congregation." 
In that Wesley was exactly right. 

(3) Let it be clearly understood, then, that the 
revelation conveyed through the Bible comes through 
a long historical process and was necessarily gradual 
and progressive. 

For education is always a slow process, both be- 
cause we must wait for the child to grow and because 
knowledge is never a ready-made article that can be 
transferred bodily into the human mind. And just so 
with the spiritual education of the race, slowly and 
painfully does the race rise. Slowly and painfully 
does the race learn its moral and spiritual lessons, 
going forward a little and then slipping back and then 
starting over again. The Epistle to the Hebrews sees 
this plainly: "God having of old time spoken unto 
the fathers in divers portions and in divers manners, 
hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his 
Son." In many parts and in many ways God spoke. 
The revelation was piecemeal, coming as it did 
through many spokesmen and through different ages 
and to people variously circumstanced, and coming in 
different modes through history, prophecy, the 
words of the Wise Men, and the psalms of many 
singers. 



AUTHORITY AND THE BIBLE 67 

Always the significance and value of a process must 
be judged not from its lowly beginnings but from 
what it produces in the final outcome. We judge the 
possibilities of an acorn from an oak; we judge the 
value of a bud from the flower ; we judge the signifi- 
cance of the babe in its mother's arms from the value 
of the strong man to society. And we judge the Bible 
properly when in it we hear sounding, at the com- 
pletion of a long process, the full tones of the divine 
voice. Which is to say, the early beginnings of revela- 
tion in the Old Testament must be read in the light 
of the messages of the great prophets ; the Old Testa- 
ment in its entirety must be read in the light of the 
New Testament ; and the entire Bible must be read in 
the light of Jesus. 

What has just been said may seem to be entirely 
superfluous, but it is not, for among the majority of 
church members unenlightened notions still continue 
to damage their faith. And quite frequently we are 
surprised at criticisms directed at Christianity from 
college professors and university men. When we read 
what they sometimes say we wonder what these men 
have been doing that so successfully they have kept 
their shutters closed to the morning light so persist- 
ently beating against their windows. And we wonder, 
too, what we preachers have been doing that we have 
failed to bring the light to intelligent and open- 
minded men. 

Now when we take up the study of the Bible from 
the historical method of approach, speaking broadly 



68 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

we see in the Holy Scripture three things : First, we 
have here the history of the Hebrews from the call of 
Abraham to the coming* of Jesus and the beginnings 
of the Christian Church; secondly, we have the 
literature of a highly gifted people, preserving the 
best of the ethical and spiritual teachings of the 
prophets and giving the wonderful words which fell 
from the lips of the supreme Master ; and thirdly, we 
have an account of the religious experience of many 
men, in different lands, down to the time of the New 
Testament when Jesus spoke of his fellowship with 
the Father and the apostles told of the meaning to 
them in experience of Jesus himself. 

Let us think of these three aspects of the Bible 
separately and in the order given. 



The Bible presents an outline of the history of the 
Hebrew people leading on up to the story of Christ 
and the beginnings of the Christian Church. 

Now history as such is not self-authenticating. 
This is to say history is not a matter of faith, but 
rather a subject for belief. Any record purporting to 
recite history must stand or fall with the evidence 
brought forward in its support. Now belief is simply 
the acceptance of evidence. Belief is purely an intel- 
lectual matter. There is nothing necessarily moral 
in it. A man cannot will to believe that Moses wrote 
the Pentateuch. Nor can he will to believe that Paul 
wrote the letter to the Galatians. If the evidence does 



AUTHORITY AND THE BIBLE 69 

not convince him, then he cannot believe it. On the 
other hand, if the evidence is sufficient, then he has 
no recourse he must believe. As we shall see a little 
later on, there is much in the Bible that can be tested 
by experience. What produced experience, experience 
can verify. But such questions as the authorship of a 
book in the Bible, or the composition of a book, or 
the date of its writing these questions cannot be 
settled by reference to faith. And the same thing is 
true of facts of history. Whether the things written 
about Abraham, or Moses, or Elijah are in exact 
harmony with the facts of history none of these 
things falls within the realm of faith ; all fall within 
the realm of intellectual belief. None of these things 
can be. tested in religious experience ; all must be 
submitted to exactly the same tests that we apply 
when studying the history of Rome or the history of 
China. 

It will appear, however, as we proceed with these 
lectures that there is a point where facts of history 
become matters of faith. The history of the Hebrew 
people and, in a very special way, the history given 
in the New Testament, at certain well-defined points 
becomes the history of the deeds of God, rather than 
the acts of men. The Hebrews did certainly view 
some of the great events of their history in this light. 
The call of Abraham, the deliverance of the people 
from Egyptian bondage, the restoration after the 
captivity in Babylon these and many other things 



7Q PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

they looked upon as acts of God. Of such things as 
these they wrote : 

"Jehovah doth build up Jerusalem ; 
He gathered together the outcasts of Israel. 

* 

He hath not dealt so with any nation; 
As for his ordinances, they have not known them. 
Praise ye Jehovah." 

And we who are Christians build our religion on 
the faith that in Jesus Christ God appears visibly 
upon the earth, and that the redemptive deeds of 
Jesus are the acts of God. Furthermore, we are con- 
vinced that where the sphere of history is the scene 
of redemptive deeds the acts of God become self- 
authenticating. We dare affirm that when God 
actually appears man is so made that he can see him. 
But we shall have more to say about this in subsequent 
lectures. 

And let this also be kept clearly in mind : the trust- 
worthiness of the Bible as a vehicle of revelation does 
not stand or fall with belief in the scientific accuracy 
of all its narratives. History wherever found is sub- 
ject to all the canons of historical study. We ask 
nothing special for the Bible in this respect. We do, 
however, make bold to ask that the Bible be treated 
not unfairly, that students bring to it the same open- 
ness of mind and intellectual fairness that they would 
properly bring to the study of the records of any 
other ancient people. 



AUTHORITY AND THE BIBLE 71 

All that really concerns us is the fundamental 
trustworthiness of the main outlines of history con- 
tained in the Bible. The details do not matter. The 
only thing that does matter is that we accept the 
Bible as giving in the Old Testament, in broad outline, 
the story of preparation for the advent of Christ; 
and that we see in the New Testament the supreme 
achievement of God's purpose through the Hebrew 
people, namely, the fulfillment of their hopes and 
ideals in the coming of Jesus. 

And we do not discount the importance of history. 
It is not a weakness of the Christian religion, but 
rather a point of strength, that we see in the Bible 
a foundation for our faith both in history and in 
experience. "For," to quote A. S. Peake, "if the 
proof from experience has its limitations, so also, as 
every historical critic knows only too well, has the 
argument from history. Let alone, neither can bear 
the weight of the Christian case. Locked in an arch, 
when each supports the other, we can securely trust 
our faith to them." 1 

II 

In the Bible we have the loftiest ethical teaching 
to be found in all the literature of the world. And this 
ethical teaching is self-authenticating. 

We have already seen that the revelation of God 
and of His truth, of 'necessity, came gradually. We 



Bible: Its Origin, Its Significance and Its Abiding Worth, 
P- 473- 



72 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

have suggested that there has come immense moral 
relief to Christian men in understanding something 
about the slow and age-long progress of the Hebrews 
toward an understanding of the highest ethical ideals. 
To illustrate : Abraham's faith set him apart as the 
father of the faithful, but much that Abraham does is 
on the moral level of his time. Samson's bad morals 
and bad manners are quite offensive, but he has dis- 
covered the power of faith. David was in a certain 
sense a man after God's own heart, but David would 
not be admitted to membership in any of our churches 
to-day. The well-instructed Christian of the Twen- 
tieth Century finds no difficulty in such matters. He 
now knows how to read his Bible, namely, as the 
record of God's progressive self -revelation in history 
and in experience, growing from less to more and 
from more to more still until the supreme hour comes 
and Christ stands on earth as the Word of God made 
flesh. 

The long period of preparation in the early history 
of Israel comes to completion in the Eighth Century 
with the coming of the great prophets of a pure, 
ethical monotheism, that is to say Amos and Hosea 
and those who came after them. In the light of their 
teaching all lower standards are superseded. And it is 
affirmed that their lofty moral messages need no 
higher authority than themselves to enforce them. 
They shine in their own light. 

Amos was a countryman. His home had been in the 
"wilderness of Tekoa." In the loneliness of his 



AUTHORITY AND THE BIBLE 73 

country life he had meditated on the sins of the 
Northern Kingdom. Wealth and luxury had brought 
with them all their attendant evils. The rulers aped 
the fashions of their neighbors, lolling on soft-cush- 
ioned divans, drinking wine and singing foolish songs. 
Rich men trampled on the rights of the poor, and 
for the debt of "a pair of shoes" sold them into 
slavery. Religion seemed to share in the outward 
prosperity. Gilgal, Dan, and Beersheba were filled 
with crowds of worshippers. Tithes and sacrifices 
were offered in lavish abundance. But utterly hollow 
and immoral it all was. Then suddenly appeared 
Amos with his cry of justice : 

"Hear this, ye that trample the needy, 
And oppress the poor of the land, 
Saying, When will the New Moon pass, 
That we may sell our corn. 
And the Sabbath ; that we may open 
And sell the refuse of grain, 
Making the ephah small and the shekel great, 
And forging scales of deceit? 

** 

"By the glory of Jacob hath Jehovah sworn 

Your deed I will never forget ! 
I will turn your feasts into mourning, 

And all your songs into dirges. 
I will bring up sackcloth on all your loins, 

And baldness on every head: 
And I will make it like mourning for an only son, 

And the end thereof as a bitter day." 2 



2 Gordon's translation in The Prophets of the Old Testament. 



74 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

Amos's message of social righteousness, based 
upon his knowledge of the righteous character of 
Israel's God, stands for all time and especially for 
the time in which we prosperous Americans now live. 
It speaks with authority, the authority of ultimate 
and everlasting truth. 

In a very special manner Hosea's message came 
out of his own sad and broken heart. In his time of > 
bitter sorrow God had come near and revealed him- 
self to him. It is a message of divine love and com- 
passion. He had loved a woman, Gomer by name. 
But she had not loved him. She had proved false to 
him and sold herself to other lovers. But Hosea 
loved her still and brought her back home in spite 
of all her adultery and shame. With the deep and 
passionate love of utter purity he had loved her. And 
now "he boldly transferred his human affections to 
God. Uplifted by them, he stormed the heavens 
by his love." In the words of his prophecy we can 
hear the very heart throbs of the divine compassion : 

"How can I give thee up, Ephraim 

Abandon thee, Israel? 
How can I make thee like Admah, 
Treat thee like Zeboim ? 

"My heart is turned within me, 

My compassions are kindled together; 

I cannot work out the heat of my wrath, 
I cannot make havoc of Ephraim. 

For I am God, and not man- 



AUTHORITY AND THE BIBLE 75 

The holy one in thy midst ; 

I come no more to consume [thee]." 3 

The tenderness of Hosea's message finds no equal 
in Holy Scripture till he came who told of the lost 
sheep "and he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing" ; 
and told also of the son who had gone into the far 
country and came back home again and his father 
"ran, and fell on his neck and kissed him." 

In full accord with Amos and Hosea a/re the 
prophecies of Isaiah, who saw the Lord high and 
lifted up, and interpreted all religion and all human 
duties in the light of his awful holiness; and the 
preaching of the heartbroken Jeremiah, who identi- 
fied himself fully with the suffering of his people and 
lost his life in their service. 

In the century following Amos and Hosea the 
truth concerning God's requirements and man's obli- 
gation finds perfect and final expression in the prophet 
Micah, where Israel asks what God requires, and 
God makes answer through the mouth of his servant : 

Israel inquires : 

"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, 
And bow myself before the high God? 
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, 
With calves of a year old? 
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, 
Or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? 
Shall I give my first born for my transgression, 
The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul ?" 

8 Gordon's translation in The Prophets of the Old Testament. 



76 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

And God answers : 

"He hath shown thee, man, what is good; 
And what doth the Lord require of thee, 
But to do justly, 
And to love mercy, 
And to walk humbly with thy God." 4 

These lofty messages, I say, need no authority be- 
yond themselves. One recalls the well-known saying 
of Kant's, that there are two things which the of tener 
he contemplated them the more did they fill him with 
admiration and wonder, namely, the starry heavens 
above him and the moral law within him. And when 
one reads Amos and Hosea and Micah and others of 
the great prophets the moral law withiiv utters 
a profound Amen to the moral law as set forth by 
these messengers of God. By the authority of "the 
inward Sinai" their teachings are declared to have 
come from God. 

And this process of gradual revelation comes to 
its supreme completion in Jesus Christ. In very truth 
does Christ fulfill the prophets. What they saw truly, 
he reaffirms. What they saw dimly, he saw clearly; 
what was revealed to them in part, is revealed fully 
in him. Thus God spoke "in his Son" not through 
him as a passive instrument, not in his words alone, 
but "in his Son." And here part the two historic 
theories of Christianity, "whether the Gospel is law 
or life, whether the Lord's teaching or his Person is 



Hebrew Prophets, by F. H. Woods and F. E. Powell, 
. I, p. 179- 



AUTHORITY AND THE BIBLE 77 

the final truth." We hold that the supreme message 
of the Bible is in the Person of Christ. In his Son, 
God hath spoken. Here the heart of God has uttered 
itself. In him the secret of the universe is told. 

Canon Streeter in his book, Reality } has a thought- 
ful chapter on "The Christ." One follows Streeter 
with increasing interest all the way to his conclusion : 
"It is in no impoverished sense that we recite the 
ancient phrase, Christ is of 'one substance with the 
Father'; and to describe Him we shall find no words 
more true than 'Son of God.' " But Streeter tells us 
that when finally he read in proof his chapter on "The 
Christ," there came over him a feeling of acute dis- 
satisfaction. In discussing problems about Christ he 
had seemed to miss the Christ himself. Then he adds 
these significant words: "But perhaps that does not 
really matter. The Gospels are there; from their 
pages who will may find the Master's personality in 
all its grace and majesty." And this in truth is quite 
remarkable. The evangelists were not taught in the 
schools ; they knew nothing of art. But what perfect 
artists they were ! In what sharp contrast they stand 
with the writers of the Apocryphal gospels, pitifully 
puerile. And although beginning with such fine studies 
as we have in Ecce Homo and ending with Bruce 
Barton's The Man That Nobody Knows, whom 
Barton seems to know quite well as a down-to-date 
American business man, all kinds of Lives of Christ 
have in these latter years been coming constantly 
from the pen of scholars, Christian, Jew, and others 



78 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

of no faith not one of these Lives is satisfactory; 
all are disappointing. But this does not really matter, 
for the four Gospels do not disappoint us. They con- 
stantly amaze us. However the story came to be told, 
here it is. However the picture got itself together, 
here is the picture of Christ. We read these Gospels 
and see in them a sort of perpetual incarnation. That 
great statement at the end of the prologue to the 
Fourth Gospel sums it up: "No man hath seen God 
at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the 
bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." When 
we read the gospel story this fact is brought home to 
our hearts. This also is a statement of fact, not the 
presentation of a theory. 

And let it be observed that nowhere does Jesus 
in his teaching deal in mere rules of correct behavior. 
Rather he enunciates fundamental principles in the 
light of which men must reach their own decisions 
touching the details of their conduct. 

"Moreover, the decisions at which He arrived, in 
their fundamental principles, hold good against all 
lapse of time. When moral and religious advance is 
made it is not true to say that it antiquates the teach- 
ing of Jesus; on the contrary, it presents itself as a 
fresh unfolding of what Jesus meant. The more His 
Gospel goes out into the wider world, the more clearly 
does it exhibit its universal character." 3 

Professor George John Romanes was greatly im- 
pressed with this consideration at the time he was 

5 Dodd, The Authority of the Bible, p. 282. 



AUTHORITY AND THE BIBLE 79 

painfully working his way back from atheism to 
Christian faith. He states it thus : 

"One of the strongest pieces of objective evidence 
in favor of Christianity is not sufficiently enforced 
by apologists. Indeed, I am not aware that I have 
ever seen it mentioned. It is the absence from the 
biography of Christ of any doctrines which the 
subsequent growth of human knowledge whether 
in natural science, ethics, political economy, or else- 
where has had to discount. This negative argument 
is really almost as strong as the positive one from 
what Christ did teach." 6 

But to Jesus himself, let it be emphasized, rather 
than to anything he said and taught, must we always 
turn to see the fullest manifestation of the spiritual 
and the ethical the perfect revelation of moral love 
raised to the highest. In him is no imperfection ; in 
him is every holy quality. 

"But Thee, but Thee, O sovereign Seer of time, 
But Thee, O poet's poet, Wisdom's tongue, 
But Thee, O man's best Man, love's best Love, 
O perfect life in perfect labor writ, 
O all men's Comrade, Servant, King or Priest 
What if or yet, what mole, what flaw, what lapse, 
What least defect, or shadow of defect, 
What rumor, tattled by an enemy, 
Or inference loose, what lack of grace 
Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's or death's, 
Oh, what amiss may 1 forgive in Thee, 
Jesus, good Paragon, thou Crystal Christ?" 



^Thoughts on Religion, p. 167. 



8o PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

Now all this the growing revelation of the right- 
eous character of God, culminating in the writing of 
the great prophets; the teachings of Jesus, filling to 
the full the teachings of the Old Testament ; and most 
of all the life of Christ, carrying it all up to perfection 
all this, we have here in the Bible. And it can be 
found nowhere else in the literature of the world. 
This does make an imperative appeal to men. Thus 
does the Word of God find us and find us in the 
deepest places of our being. 

in 

We have seen that in the Bible is to be found history 
and the sublimest ethical teaching. We now call at- 
tention to the fact that the Bible is preeminently a 
book of personal religious experience. 

Indeed, this is the most characteristic and most 
essential feature of the Bible. And if there had not 
been deep and satisfying experience of religious 
reality on the part of the men who wrote the Bible, 
the history would not have been recorded and the 
literature of instruction in righteousness would never 
have been written. It is the experience that makes the 
recorded history worth while and the ethical teach- 
ings profoundly significant. 

The men of the Bible are sure that they have met 
God. Call over certain names and see what the very 
mention of their names has to suggest : Abraham, the 
friend of God ; Enoch, who walked with God ; Moses, 



AUTHORITY AND THE BIBLE ,81 

who endured as seeing him who is invisible ; Samuel, 
who heard God's voice when only a little child in Eli's 
house ; David, strong to do battle because of his faith 
in God; Isaiah, who saw the Lord high and lifted up 
and had the- revelation of his holiness; Jeremiah, 
whose heart was broken with the afflictions of his 
people and who found solace through fellowship with 
God; and John the Baptist, who through communion 
with God in the desert gained the strength of Elijah. 
I will dare also to mention the name of Jesus, who 
lived so close to the borders of the other world that 
once the light of it shot him through and through and 
his very garments became strangely white. Paul also 
will I name, to whom was given a vision of the risen 
Jesus and who tells us that once he was caught up to 
the third heaven and heard things not lawful to utter. 
Also the Bible tells of experience as bringing new 
power for moral living. All the experiences men- 
tioned above have value for daily' life and for heroic 
endeavor. And it is because of its definitely ethical 
quality that all religious experience recorded in the 
New Testament becomes especially significant. The 
Spirit of God in the New Testament is more than a 
Spirit giving great physical strength, or a Spirit giving 
cunning as to a skilled workman, or a Spirit giving 
wisdom to the wise, or a Spirit giving power and 
knowledge to do battle against one's enemies. The 
Spirit of God in the New Testament is the Holy 
Spirit, essentially holy and creating holiness. 



82 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

The Synoptic Gospels would never have been 
written but for the experience of Christ as the Son 
of the Living God. And what a book of experience is 
the Fourth Gospel! Herein lies its priceless value: 
What Jesus had been to John and what Jesus was to 
the Church at the end of the First Century, all that 
is here in this book called John's Gospel, the best-loved 
book in the New Testament. Furthermore, what Paul 
and the others do, in the remaining books of the New 
Testament, is to let all men know what Jesus Christ 
had come to mean to them in their own personal 
experience. 

The Bible, then, is the classic book of religious 
experience. It contains the most valuable collection 
in existence of utterances out of personal experience 
touching the meaning of religion. It is a collection of 
testimonials to Christian experience from various 
men, in different lands, and under various circum- 
stances of life. 

Here also in the Bible is an experience of another 
kind a deep and satisfying experience of companion- 
ship with the Father which brings a new feeling of 
value to life and a new meaning to human personality. 
This experience led some of the Old Testament saints 
to feel sure that God would not let them lie forever 
in the grave. Thus writes one of the psalmists : 

"But God will redeem my soul from the power of 
Sheol ; 

He will receive me." 



AUTHORITY AND THE BIBLE 83 

Another goes on with complete faith to say : 

"Thou wilt guide me with thy counsel, 
And afterwards receive me to glory. 
Whom have Lin heaven but thee? 
And there is none upon earth that I desire besides 

thee. 
My flesh and my heart f aileth : 

But God is the strength of my heart and my 
portion forever." 

This faith in immortality seen rarely in some of the 
Old Testament saints is traceable directly to their 
experience of fellowship with the Living God. 

When we pass to the New Testament this confi- 
dence is triumphant. The question will, of course, be 
raised: Can immortality be a matter of experience? 
And the answer will at once be given that immortality 
as endless life cannot possibly be an experienced fact. 
But in the New Testament, and especially the Fourth 
Gospel, eternal life is far more than endless existence. 
It is quality of life. And whosoever has faith in 
Christ already has the quality of life that is destined 
to survive death and outlast time. This kind of life 
is to Christians of to-day a matter of experience. And 
here again does the Bible authenticate itself in living 
experience. 

In this particular the truth of the Bible is supremely 
authoritative. While it is such a record of religious 
experience as cannot be found anywhere else in the 
world, the religious experiences described therein are 



84 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY k 

not unlike our own. For we too have experience of 
religious reality, and when we go to the Bible we see 
that the men of the Bible had the same needs and 
the same fulfillment of those needs that we ourselves 
have had. Here in the Bible are heard the cries of 
broken and contrite hearts, and we know what those 
cries mean. Here are sinners who have received power 
to live a new life of faith, and we too have by faith 
come into newness of life. Here in the Bible are 
stories of men who had fellowship with God and to 
whom the unseen world was the real world. Upon us 
this visible world presses with insistence every day 
and the fellowship we have with God is often broken. 
But when we read what faith meant to the men of 
the Bible in power to overcome the world and to 
walk with God, while we stand condemned for our 
shortcomings, we find victorious hope springing up 
within us that we also shall attain some day to 
perfection of faith and steadfastness of life. Some- 
times we have had deep and satisfying experiences. 
But they are transitory : they come and go ; and we 
wonder then whether or not we had them at all. But 
when we turn to the Bible, here they all are. Here is 
a great cloud of witnesses to the everlasting reality of 
our religion. And here the Bible speaks home to our 
hearts with a message of compelling power. 

For these reasons the Bible has been the friend 
and companion of holy and heroic souls through all 
the centuries. And for these reasons the Bible is an 
eternal book. 



AUTHORITY AND THE BIBLE 85 

\ 

IV 

If now again we ask, Where lies the authority of 
the Bible ? we shall say once more that the authority 
of the Bible lies within the truth which the Bible itself 
teaches, validated in the corporate experience of the 
Church and the experience of all the individuals of the 
family of God. 

There cannot possibly be any authority outside of 
and beyond the Bible with power to enforce the 
authority of the Bible. The Bible needs no such 
authority. For in the realm of the intellectual and 
spiritual external authority is simply out of place. 
And religion is such an intimate and personal thing 
that to talk about enforcing it from without is simply 
an impertinence. 

But as everybody knows, the religion of external 
authority holds that the authority of the Bible traces , 
back to the authority of the Church and that it was 
the Church that gave the Bible to the world. I quote 
from an able advocate of this view : 

"By a strange inconsistency, the Modernist, who 
denies the right of the Church Universal to determine 
the Christian Creed, does not contest its right to 
determine the canon of Scripture. The Church, as 
everyone knows, existed before any New Testament 
book was written, and possessed a defined Creed 
before there was a canon of the New Testament at 
all. Nor is it denied by any, that not the least impor- 



86 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

tant of the tests which a book claiming admission into 
the canon had to pass was the test of orthodoxy." 7 

With Dr. Harris's position we are in complete 
disagreement. We call attention to the point at 
issue. The evangelical Christian denies the right of 
any ecclesiasticism to determine what the canon of 
Scripture shall be, and also denies the power of the 
Church to decide what any man shall believe. No 
General Council determined what books should go 
into the Bible. And to say that the Church as an 
ecclesiasticism existed before there was a Bible and 
had a standard of orthodoxy by which to test all 
books proposed for admission into the canon, is not 
to write history but to write fables. For the books 
that finally went into the canon were only the books 
that had already been able to win their way to the 
hearts of Christian people. Various religious writings 
had been sifted out by the Christian consciousness, 
and before that court had been found to have 
authority. The final decision of the Church simply 
registered an accomplished fact. The final authority 
then as now was in the high council of the Christian 
soul. 

And this position cannot properly be spoken of as 
"Modernistic." On the contrary, it is in perfect 
harmony with the claims of the Bible itself, and is 
the position taken with reference to the authority of 



^Creeds or No Creeds?, pp. 255-256. 



AUTHORITY AND THE BIBLE 87 

the Bible that won its way during the days of the 
Reformation. 

a ln describing the authoritative character of Scrip- 
ture, the Reformers always insisted that its recogni- 
tion was awakened in believers by that operation 
which they called the witness of the Holy Spirit 
(Testimonium Spiritus Sancti) . Just as God Himself 
makes us know and feel the sense of pardon in an 
inward experience by faith which is His own work, so 
they believed that by an operation of the same spirit, 
believers were enabled to recognize that God is speak- 
ing authoritatively in and through the words of 
Scripture." 8 

Said Professor Robertson Smith, speaking in per- 
fect harmony with the faith of Protestantism : 

"If I am asked why I receive Scripture as the word 
of God, and as the only perfect rule of faith and life, 
I answer with all the fathers of the Protestant 
Church, Because the Bible is the only record of the 
redeeming love of God, because in the Bible alone I 
find God drawing near to men in Christ Jesus, and 
declaring in Him His will for our salvation. And this 
record I know to be true by the witness of His Spirit in 
my heart, whereby I am assured that no other than 
God Himself is able to speak such words to my soul." & 

God's Word and the human soul need no third 
party. The divine revelation speaks directly to the 
heart of man. 



8 Lindsay, The Reformation in Germany, p. 461. 
9 Quoted in Denney's Studies in Theology, pp. 204-205. 



88 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

". . . the Truth in God's breast 
Lies trace for trace upon ours impressed : 
Though he is so bright and we are so dim, 
We are made in his image to witness him: 

"And were no eye in us to tell, 
Instructed by no inner sense, 
The light of heaven from the dark of hell, 
That light would want its evidence." 

And a study of the Bible itself will show that it is 
just here that it bases its authority to speak to men. 
The Bible makes no other claims, nor does it need any 
other. 

At no time did the Old Testament prophet make 
any appeal to any historic ecclesiasticism to back him 
up, nor did he appeal to any venerable creed to give 
him support. Thus spoke Amos: "Thus saith the 
Lord," and again, "Thus saith the Lord." And when 
his words alarmed Amaziah the priest and Jeroboam 
the king and they commanded him to flee away to his 
own land, the land of Judah, and there receive sup- 
port as a professional prophet and prophesy there, 
Amos made answer : "I was no prophet, neither was 
I a prophet's son : but I was a herdsman and a dresser 
of sycamore trees : and the Lord took me from follow- 
ing the flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go, prophesy 
unto my people Israel. Now, therefore, hear thou the 
word of the Lord." That, and that alone, was his 
authority, and still through all the centuries do we 
hear "the word of the Lord" sounding through his 



AUTHORITY AND THE BIBLE 89 

message. In like manner spoke all the prophets, be- 
lieving that the soul of man will respond when con- 
fronted by the word of the Lord, and that the word of 
the divine message will win its own way. 

And in exactly the same way did Paul the apostle 
speak. See how he puts the matter in his second 
letter to the Corinthians : 

"Therefore seeing we have this ministry, even as 
we have obtained mercy, we faint not : but we have 
renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking 
in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceit- 
fully, but by the manifestation of the truth, com- 
mending ourselves to every man's conscience in the 
sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is 
veiled in them that are perishing; in whom the god 
of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbeliev- 
ing, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, 
who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them. 
For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as 
Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. 
Seeing it is God that said, Light shall shine out of 
darkness, who shined in our hearts, to give the light 
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of 
Jesus Christ." 

Linger for a moment at that phrase, "commending 
ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of 
God" just throwing out the light into the darkness 
and letting it shine there, just appealing to the human 
conscience and resting the appeal there. It was none 
of the apostle's business to back up his message with 
authorities ; his business was to proclaim his gospel. 



9 o PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

His object was not to "form an irrefragable argu- 
ment, but to produce an irresistible impression." 

To conclude, here in the Bible is the recorded his- 
tory of a people called and chosen, through whom 
the highest type of religion has come into the world, 
as Art came through the Greeks and Law through 
the Romans. Here is the wisdom of wise men sifted 
through the centuries. Here is the message of the 
prophet telling of God who is holy, just, and good. 
Here are messages of social righteousness preserved 
sacredly by the very people whose sins were therein 
rebuked. Here are books like Job and Ecclesiastes 
going down to the bottom of the problem of sorrow 
and the seeming vanity of all life and waiting for 
some sure word of God yet to come. Here are the 
psalms of the Hebrew singers, breaking with sorrow 
or welling up out of hearts made glad by a sense of 
the Divine presence and through the peace of sins 
forgiven. And here in the Bible is the story of Jesus, 
the saddest and most tragic, the gladdest and most 
triumphant story ever told. Here also is the outlook 
upon a better world, the certain confidence in a better 
time coming when God shall make all things new. And 
here, too, is the promise and hope of immortality. To 
these men of the Bible, imperfectly in the Old Testa- 
ment and then with overwhelming clarity and power 
in the New, the meaning and value of human per- 
sonality became so sure and the joy of fellowship 
with the living God so intensely real, that at last, 
in the very face of Death they were able to say, "0 



AUTHORITY AND THE BIBLE 91 

death, where is thy victory? death, where is thy 
sting? . . . Thanks be to God, who giveth us the 
victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 
To use the language of Edmond Sherer : 

"The Bible will ever be the book of power, the 
marvelous book, the book above all others. It will 
ever be the light of the mind, the bread of the soul. 
Neither the superstition of some nor the irreligious 
negations of others have been able to dp it harm. If 
there is anything certain in the world, it is that the 
destinies of the Bible are linked with the destiny of 
holiness on earth." 10 



10 Quoted in Religions of Authority, p. 249. 



IV 
THE BASIS OF AUTHORITY IN HISTORY 

"For other foundation can no man lay than that which is 
laid, which is Jesus Christ." I CORINTHIANS 3:11. 



IV 
THE BASIS OF AUTHORITY IN HISTORY 

THE religion of the Bible rests upon a twofold basis, 
a basis in history and a basis in experience. The Chris- 
tian religion is concerned supremely about Jesus 
Christ. He is a fact of history. He is also a fact of 
experience. Here, in him, we find the ultimate basis 
of authority for our faith. 

I recognize at once that this ties up Christianity 
with human history. Not only do I recognize this: 
I rejoice in it. It has often been urged that the surest 
way to lift Christianity out of the danger of assault 
from historical criticism is to find our one ground 
for certainty in experience and only in experience. 
But it is strangely overlooked that if historical Chris- 
tianity does lie open to the attacks of historical 
criticism, a Christianity founded only on the inner 
experience of individual Christians is equally open to 
the attacks of the psychologists. Nothing could be 
more dangerous, and, in the end, more destructive to 
Christianity than to make it rest solely on such sub- 
jective experiences. A Christianity disentangled from 
the gospel facts has gotten its feet off the ground and 
leaped into the air and may become anything or noth- 

95 



96 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

mg. Such Christianity has already ceased to be Chris- 
tianity in any true sense of the term. To borrow an 
illustration : The boy playing with his kite in the windy 
month of March may become so sure that his kite is 
up for all time that he decides to cut the cord, only to 
find that after darting upward with unimpeded flight, 
it pitches headlong to the earth and lands in the mud. 
Says Professor A. S. Peake: "If we chafe against 
history as the cord which ties our soaring spirits to 
the earth, we are likely to find that if we snap our 
cord we also may plunge downward from the height it 
enabled us to attain." 

As a matter of fact, our historical position is per- 
fectly secure. Concerning the historical trustworthi- 
ness of our New Testament documents the following 
quotation from Harnack will suffice: 

"There was a time indeed, there still is for the 
public generally in which the oldest Christian litera- 
ture, including the New Testament, was looked upon 
as a tissue of forgeries and deceptions. That time is 
gone by. For science it was an episode in which much 
was learnt and after which much must be forgotten. 
. . . The oldest literature of the Church, whether we 
look at the general position or at particular details, 
from the historical and literary point of view, must be 
looked upon as trustworthy. In the whole New Testa- 
ment there is probably only one book which would be 
classed as pseudonymous in the strictest sense of the 
word, and apart from gnostic forgeries, the number 
of pseudonymous ecclesiastical writings up to the 
time of Irenaeus was small. . . . Also the traditions 



AUTHORITY IN HISTORY 97 

of the pre-Catholic times of literary history are in 
main outline trustworthy." 1 

Jesus Christ, then, stands solid in the history of our 
race and can no more be rooted out than the Rocky 
Mountains and the mighty Andes can be pulled out of 
the Western continent. Ernest Renan was right : You 
cannot any more pluck Jesus out of history than you 
can pluck the sun out of the heavens. And let it be 
understood at once that we are not now concerned 
with the details of historical study. For us the matter 
of concern is only the broad outline of New Testa- 
ment facts. We are interested in the portrait of 
Christ. The make of the frame, the mixing of the 
paints, and the quality of the canvas are all quite in- 
teresting in their place. But their place is not here. At 
any rate, I wish to say plainly that no preacher will 
speak with authority who gets confused like the 
proverbial man who was not able to see the wood 
for the trees. Concerning one of our most scholarly 
ministers one who knew him quite well made the re- 
mark that he had devoted so much time and such 
meticulous care to the little things of life that he had 
lost the power to see the big things. And many of 
our technical scholars rest under this same condemna- 
tion. 

I am quite sure that someone is ready now to ask: 
What are you going to do with the miraculous element 
in the gospel story? I do not overlook the importance 



1 Quoted in Jesus Christ In History and Faith, by Headlam. 



98 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

of giving an answer to that question. But I turn upon 
you with a far more important question than that, the 
most important question that one man can ask an- 
other : What are you going to do with Jesus who is 
called Christ ? I shall not permit myself to be side- 
tracked, neither shall I permit you to miss the main 
issue. The main issue is Jesus Christ. When once we 
have settled the question of our relation to him, then 
we shall be in better position to take up other and 
subsidiary questions. 

However, with reference to the miraculous, I will 
say one or two things just now. I think that much of 
our difficulty arises out of a misunderstanding as to 
what we mean by "the miraculous." Unfortunately, 
the scientists and the theologians have been like the 
men working on the Tower of Babel, all laboring at 
the same task, but confused in speech, so that they no 
longer are able to understand each the other. By "the 
miraculous" I do not mean .that God ever violates 
law. If he were to violate law, that would be to wreck 
his universe. But God is not the prisoner of the laws 
that he works with any more than man is a prisoner 
while working under law. The other remark I wish 
to make is this : There are no philosophical objections 
to the miraculous element in the gospel. Indeed, the 
theistic conception of the universe with its personal- 
istic view of God, the conception upon which Chris- 
tianity is based, leaves the way open for the free 
action of God in nature, just as certainly as the way 
is open for the free action of man in the world 



AUTHORITY IN HISTORY 99 

around him. Free men in the world originate things 
which without them would never be. They fell forests 
and build cities; they erect cathedrals and write 
poems ; they paint pictures and fly in airplanes. Free 
men bring into being these original things. And just 
so, we do believe, God is free in his universe. Now 
the most original, and most beautiful, the most crea- 
tive thing that ever came into the world was Jesus 
who is called the Christ. In Christ we are dealing not 
with a metaphysical theory; we are dealing with a 
mighty historic fact. It is not to be wondered at, there- 
fore, that we read in the Gospel of certain "miracles" 
connected with Christ and wrought by him. This does 
not surprise us ; the absence of such "miracles" would 
have been the great surprise. 

But let it not be overlooked that our study in this 
lecture deals with Christ himself rather than any- 
thing he said or any marvelous work he is reported to 
have done. And in looking at Jesus we are going to 
strive to see him as he is. We are not going to ap- 
proach the study with a priori notions of what he 
must be according to our philosophy. Rather our 
philosophy must be big enough to admit all the facts. 
The true scientist is ever ready to sit down before 
facts like a little child. And the scientific historian 
must not disregard facts in order to gain support for 
a preconceived view of things. By way of illustration : 
In his Outline of History H. G. Wells writes as fol- 
lows : "About Jesus we have to write not theology but 
history, and our concern is not with the spiritual and 



ioo PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

theological significance of his life, but with its effect 
upon the political and everyday life of men." In criti- 
cism of Mr. Wells, let it be said that deliberately to 
close one's mind to the spiritual and theological sig- 
nificance of Jesus is not to write history at all. It is 
deliberately to miss the way and to fail to see the 
significance of Jesus. For it is the spiritual significance 
of his life that has affected history, and when that is 
left out of consideration one fails to account for his- 
story as one also fails to account for Jesus. 

In this and in the following lecture I am to speak of 
the Christ of History and of Experience. In the pres- 
ent lecture I am trying to discuss the Christ of History 
as distinguished from the Christ of Experience. But 
I find that we cannot separate the one from the 
other, the Christ of History from the Christ of Ex- 
perience, and deal with one without thinking of the 
other. Indeed, the two are one. It is only as Christ has 
value in experience that he has meaning in history. It 
is solely because of what Christ meant to the men of 
the New Testament period, that they were at pains 
to write down their brief memoirs of his life and to 
testify in their letters to churches and individuals to 
his significance as Saviour and Lord. And if Jesus did 
not still have spiritual significance for men we should 
be at a total loss to understand what the men of the 
New Testament were writing about. For spiritual 
things can be understood only by spiritual men. 

Consider then the historical revelation of God in 
Christ. Now the fact of Christ is one fact, not many. 



AUTHORITY IN HISTORY 101 

No aspect of his self-manifestation is to be separated 
from another and read as a thing apart. Let this be 
kept in the background of our thinking as we proceed. 

However, there are certain features of the self- 
revelation of the Son of God that do stand out so 
distinctly as representing certain aspects of his min- 
istry that it will be best for a time to endeavor to 
isolate them in our thinking and to hold them some- 
what apart in our discussion. The first is the Fact of 
the Incarnation of God in Christ; the second is the 
Fact of the Crucifixion as the vivid, focal point in 
his atoning work, the work of bringing God and man 
together ; the third is the Fact of the Resurrection of 
Christ from the Dead. 

If to us men of to-day these facts have their full 
meaning in experience, then Christianity will have 
to us its full and glorious significance. But if we are 
not held in the grip of these facts, that is to say, if 
we in our own experience have not come under the 
power of this supreme emergence in history of the 
Reality at the heart of the universe, then, to say the 
least, we have missed some of the very best and 
greatest things that Christianity has to offer. 

But be sure that you understand what I mean when 
I say these things. 

I 

The Incarnation of God in Christ is a fact of his- 
tory. Now, as everybody knows, the word "incarna- 



io2 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

tion" is just a Latin word which means if we had 
any such word "enfleshment." It signifies that in 
the flesh of Jesus Christ God dwelt. We must im- 
mediately get away from a doctrine that has wrought 
great mischief in theology the doctrine that God and 
man are infinitely distant the one from the other. Let 
us at once discard the mischievous Gnostic notion that 
a long series of intermediary beings is necessary to 
bridge the chasm between man and the high God. 
And let us rid ourselves, if we can, of the deistic 
teaching that God stands on the outside of the world 
and has left it to run according to self-operating laws. 
Rather let us believe that "in God we live and move 
and have our being." Let us hold with Jesus that "My 
Father worketh even until now." 

What the doctrine of the Incarnation really means 
is not that God has invaded a world that is alien to 
him and taken on a nature different from the divine, 
but rather that man and God are akin, that they be- 
long to the same family. The doctrine of the Incarna- 
tion means that this is God's world and that history 
is the sphere of his activity. God and man are not 
unlike and totally distinct with reference to ultimate 
nature ; they do not differ in kind. And the Incarna- 
tion of God in Christ is not altogether something 
new and strange, something totally different from 
what we see going on in the world around us all the 
time. Indeed, if I may so speak, God is evermore 
incarnating himself. He incarnates something of his 



AUTHORITY IN HISTORY 103 

beauty in a flower, something of his majesty in a 
storm, something of his vastness in the wide-extend- 
ing sea, something of his eternity in the steadfast 
mountains "God's eternities in stone." He puts 
something of his holiness in every saintly soul. He 
incarnated himself perfectly in Jesus Christ. As a 
matter of historical fact, "God was in Christ." Said 
Jesus, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." 
And Paul was telling what Christ had come to mean 
in his own experience when he wrote, "In him dwelt 
all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." 

I have doubtless said enough already to make it 
plain that my own attitude toward the ancient creeds 
3S entirely free. Let me make it clear that my attitude 
is not unfriendly. Before one criticizes the ancient 
theology and sits in judgment upon the early creeds 
of the Church, one would better try to understand 
what it was that these Church fathers were trying 
to say and why they were saying these things in lan- 
guage which now seems so strange and far away. Take 
the words of the great creed of Nicea which speaks 
of "One Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son 
of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, 
Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, 
not made, being of one substance with the Father." I 
say it is important that we should understand what 
these great theologians were trying to say before we 
sit down to criticize them. In the long and fierce 
battles of the Arian controversy they saw quite plainly 



io 4 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

that the fact of the Incarnation was at stake. 
"Whether God was present or absent, whether the 
Incarnation had revealed the innermost nature of 
God, as written in the nature of man, or the revela- 
tion made by Christ was an official code of duty 
promulgated by some high celestial official" such 
were the issues the fathers felt bound to settle and 
to settle right. "Our all is at stake," said Athanasius 
in justification of his lifelong conflict. 

Something tremendously great and mighty had 
happened in history now nearly two thousand years 
ago. If I were to go back again to the little city by the 
sea where I served as pastor something like thirty 
years ago, and were to see cottages lifted off their 
foundations and moved far off from the beach, and 
the water line plainly on the walls of great buildings, 
and seaweed and shell up on the roofs of the houses, 
I should not need anyone to tell me that a great tidal 
wave had come in out of the ocean. And one has only 
to read history to see that about two thousand years 
ago a mighty tide out of the Infinite came flooding in 
upon our world. Everything was lifted when Jesus 
came. Our views of man, our thoughts about the 
future of human society, our outlook upon the life 
beyond the grave, our thoughts of God all were 
lifted with the coming of Jesus. The men who saw him 
and had fellowship with him, saw God in him. As a 
calm recital of historic fact, God appeared in Christ 
as never before had he been seen. Out of that fact 
came the radiant and triumphant lives of the New 



AUTHORITY IN HISTORY 105 

Testament Christians. Out of that experience came 
the New Testament itself. In Jesus God had looked 
upon men. These disciples had seen God in the fact 
of Jesus Christ. And that gave a new view of God. 
God and man were so close akin that God became 
man without man ceasing to be man and without God 
ceasing to be God. Out of this fact came the great 
creeds of the Church and notably the Creed of Nicea. 
Such creeds are to be understood and properly evalu- 
ated only when we appreciate the fact that strong 
men were in these ancient symbols trying to set forth 
and enable others to see and feel what they them- 
selves had felt and seen. "These men, in a hard and 
brutal world of blood and steel and gold, are putting 
Love on the throne. They are making an affirmation 
not only about Christ but about the Universe. They 
are telling us what they believe about the very nature 
of things, that, in spite of all appearances, this is a 
Christ world." 2 These men, I say, were trying to show 
to others the revelation of the heart of the Father 
which they had seen in Jesus Christ. 

This I affirm to be a fact, that God was in Christ. 
And this is the supreme and superlative fact of his- 
tory. If one does not see God in Christ, then one 
will not see God anywhere. If one does truly see God 
in Christ, then light breaks everywhere and one 
has the key to the final solution of all problems in 
the world and out of it. 



2 D. S. Cairns, The Reasonableness of the Christian Faith, p. 175. 



106 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

II 

Concerning Jesus Christ the second fact is the 
fact of the Crucifixion as the focal point in his atoning 
work, his work of bringing men into fellowship with 
God. 

I shall perhaps be told at this point that I am now 
mixing theory with fact, that the death of Jesus on 
the cross is a fact of history, but that as soon as I 
make use of the word "atoning" I am bringing in all 
sorts of theological notions. No ! I am not thinking 
in terms of theology at all. I am making no remotest 
reference to any of the historic theories of the atone- 
ment. But I am saying that in a most marvelous way, 
as electricity diffused through the atmosphere sud- 
denly flashes in one vivid instant across the rain cloud, 
so all that Christ was in his person and in his message, 
all that he signifies as Atoner and Redeemer, comes 
to a burning point in the cross. 

His crucifixion, looked at from the standpoint of 
the casual passer-by, had to do with a cross of wood 
and a man nailed to it as a condemned malefactor 
and by the Jews considered to be accursed of God. 
But from the standpoint of the early Christians it was 
directly related to experience and came to be a mighty 
dynamic in their lives. And even now it can be under- 
stood, not when looked at as the passers-by looked at 
it, but only when seen with reference to experience. 
For that matter, you cannot look at the sun in the 
heavens as a thing merely objective and apart from 



AUTHORITY IN HISTORY 107 

all relation to experience; you can know the sun 
only as you know it as giving light and bathing the 
world in warmth. This is what I mean when I insist 
that the fact of having experienced the at-one-ing 
influences of the cross in their lives is itself a fact of 
history. 

It is, then, a fact of history that Christ died on the 
cross, and that from that death on the cross in super- 
lative manner went influences ,that brought and 
still do bring God and man together. When, there- 
fore, the fathers said: "Crucifixus est pro nobis sub 
Pontio Pilato," they were affirming what the cruci- 
fixion meant to them. "Crucifixus est pro nobis." It 
was for us that he was crucified. That crucifixion 
brought God near to them and effected a change in 
their thoughts of God and of their spiritual attitude 
toward him. And when we read certain passages in 
the New Testament, passages which in the very nature 
of the case speak the language of Jewish ritual, let us 
not overlook the fact that these passages came out 
of vital experience and had deep meaning for the 
men who used these ancient modes of speech. Dismiss 
from your minds all the long history of theological 
interpretation; get rid of all preconceived notions, 
if you can ; and then take up the New Testament and 
read the language of experience: "The Son of man 
came to give his life a ransom for many," "He is the 
propitiation for our sins," "God was in Christ recon- 
ciling the world unto himself." This is not the Ian- 



io8 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

guage of theology, but the language of experienced 
fact. 

And these great words of the New Testament 
vocabulary, ransom, propitiation, reconciliation, do 
have a meaning, an abiding meaning a meaning not 
alone with reference to the Old Testament and Rab- 
binical doctrines, but also, and especially, with ref- 
erence to New Testament experience. They strike 
the deepest note that sounds in the soul of man. They 
correspond to the mightiest realities with which re- 
ligion has to do. And it will be the part of wisdom for 
us modern men not to cast out the ancient words as 
belonging to a dead language and conveying to us no 
present meaning, but rather to see if we cannot find 
out for ourselves what these ancient words actually 
do mean. And this we shall best do, not by consulting 
Greek lexicons and poring over learned commentar- 
ies, but by bringing to God the sacrifice of a broken, 
and a contrite heart, and casting ourselves upon the in- 
finite mercy of God as seen in the cross of Christ. 
The lexicons we shall of course study, and the com- 
mentaries we shall not neglect, but the deeper mean- 
ings of the cross reveal themselves only to the 
evangelical experience. And the best place to find them 
out is in our closet on our knees, or out in the world 
of want and sin where men toil and suffer and die. 

And it is a noteworthy fact that within a few years 
after the death of Christ the temple in Jerusalem was 
finally destroyed and the sacrificial offerings of Jewish 
worshippers came to an end. "Those who looked upon 



AUTHORITY IN HISTORY 109 

Christ's death as a sacrifice soon ceased to offer to 
God any bloody sacrifices at all" ; and as Harnack 
has pointed out "wherever the Christian message 
subsequently penetrated the sacrificial altars were de- 
serted and dealers in sacrificial beasts found no pur- 
chasers. If there is one thing that is certain m the 
history of religion it is that the death of Christ put 
an end to all blood sacrifice." The significance of this 
fact seems to lie just here : what the human heart had 
longed to bring about through bloody sacrifices, 
namely a realization of the divine presence; and what 
the sacrificial system of the Hebrews had in some 
measure accomplished, that is to say, the bringing of 
peace to the guilty conscience this had been fully 
experienced through the supreme sacrifice in the soul 
of Jesus as seen in his death on the cross. 

If the above presentation of the meaning of the 
vicarious sacrifice seems satisfactory in a very limited 
degree, you will permit me to remind you that the 
same subject will come up for further reference in 
the lecture immediately to follow and yet more fully 
in the fifth lecture, entitled, "Authority from the 
s Cross." 

Ill 

The third and crowning fact in connection with the 
Incarnation is the fact of the resurrection of Christ 
from the dead. 

It is not going too far to say that without the fact 
of the resurrection there would have been no New 



no PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

Testament, no Christian Church, and nothing like 
what we now know as Christianity. The sad memory 
of a holy and beautiful young Galilean would doubt- 
'less long have been treasured up in hearts that loved 
him. Some recollections of his teachings concerning 
God the Father and man the child of God might 
have become permanently enshrined in literature. 
But there would have been no Christian religion in 
the world. Without the resurrection, the history of 
Christianity is simply unintelligible. Somewhere be- 
tween the crucifixion and the first preaching of the 
disciples something happened that entirely changed 
their whole outlook on life and completely trans- 
formed the character of these men. Not only so, some- 
thing happened that changed the history of the 
world. As Professor Glover says : 

"The evidence for the resurrection is not so much 
what we read in the Gospels as what we find in the 
rest of the New Testament the new life of the dis- 
ciples. They are a new group. When it came to the 
cross, his cross, they ran away. A few weeks later we 
find them rejoicing to be beaten, imprisoned, and put 
to death. . . . We have to explain how the disciples 
came to conceive of another Galilean a carpenter 
whom they might have seen sawing and sweating in 
his shop, with whom they tramped the roads of Pal- 
estine, whom they saw done to death in ignominy and 
derision sitting at the right hand of God." 

The story of Christ does not end with the cross. 
After the cross comes victory over the grave. 



AUTHORITY IN HISTORY ill 

"But Easter-Day breaks! But 
Christ rises ! Mercy every way 
Is infinite and who can say?" 

Here, indeed, on this foundation, does Christianity 
stand or fall. 

Let me set down in this connection the most im- 
portant historical statement to be found in the entire 
New Testament. Here is language written by Paul, as 
all critics are agreed, and written within less than 
thirty years after the resurrection. For the student of 
history nothing is of equal importance with the fol- 
lowing : 

"Now I make known unto you, brethren, the gos- 
pel which I preached unto you, which also ye received, 
wherein also ye stand, by which also ye are saved, if 
ye hold fast the word which I preached unto you, ex- 
cept ye believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first 
of all that which also I received: that Christ died 
for our sins according to the scriptures : and that he 
was buried : and that he hath been raised on the third 
day according to the scriptures ; and that he appeared 
to Cephas ; then to the twelve ; then he appeared to 
above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the 
greater part remain until now, but some are fallen 
asleep; then he appeared to James; then to all the 
apostles ; and last of all, as to the child untimely born, 
he appeared to me also. 

"Whether it be I or they, so we preach and so ye 
believed." 5 



3 I Corinthians 15; 1-8, u. 



in PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

Now concerning this passage let a few things be 
specially noted : 

(1) Paul declared that he delivered unto the 
Corinthian Christians "that which also I received." 
That is to say, it did not originate with him ; he re- 
ceived it from those who had been Christians before 
his own conversion. 

(2) His affirmation that "Christ hath been raised 
on the third day" harmonizes with the account of the 
resurrection given in the Synoptics and the Fourth 
Gospel. The four Evangelists all date the resurrec- 
tion as having taken place on the morning of the third 
day. The resurrection that Paul writes about, there- 
fore, is the resurrection that took place on the morn- 
ing of the third day. 

(3 ) Quite significant is the statement that "he ap- 
peared to above five hundred brethren at once, of 
whom the greater part remain until now, but some 
are fallen asleep." Note two things : (a) Most of the . 
five hundred witnesses referred to were living when 
Paul wrote and could testify to the truthfulness of 
what he said. Paul's testimony, therefore, is con- 
firmed by the most of the five hundred still living when 
he wrote, (b) Separate individuals, nervously dis- 
ordered, do frequently see visions, but not "five 
hundred brethren at once." There is a proverb to the 
effect that "one horse may stumble at a time. But a 
whole stable-full at once? Impossible!" 

(4) Attention should be drawn also to the con- 
cluding statement in the above-quoted passage from 



AUTHORITY IN HISTORY 113 

Paul: "Whether then it be I or they" the Apostle 
Paul or the earliest disciples of Jesus "so we preach 
and so ye believed." There had seen sharp differences 
and disagreements between Paul and the other apos- 
tles, both personal and theological. But at no time 
was there any difference of opinion concerning the 
fact of the resurrection. 

It will be seen that I am not constructing in extenso 
an argument in defense of the resurrection of Christ. 
I am only indicating the lines along which the fact of 
the resurrection must be approached. I have said 
nothing about the story of the Risen Christ as given 
in the Synoptics and John. I am aware of the fact that 
it is not possible to construct from these different ac- 
counts an exact and scientific narrative of the sequence 
of events and all their details. But I am not concerned 
over that. It was to be anticipated that the wonderful 
and unexpected appearance to his disciples of Jesus 
after his crucifixion would have blurred somewhat the 
details. This always happens in great emotional dis- 
turbances. The knowledge of the fact remains; the 
details are lost in the consciousness of an overwhelm- 
ing reality. Besides this the evangelists were not scien- 
tific historians, they were witnesses of a mighty fact 
and a glorious experience. Concerning that fact in 
its main outlines there is no disagreement, and touch- 
ing the significance and reality of the Living Christ 
there is uniform and convincing testimony. 

I am not now going to ask the question which Paul 
says it is unwise to ask, namely, "How are the dead 



ii 4 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

raised up? and with what body do they come?" I am 
satisfied with the apostle's statement, "It is sown a 
natural body; it is raised a spiritual body." And in 
our present state of philosophical and scientific knowl- 
edge I mean our advanced state of knowledge we 
may with confidence rest the question of the nature 
of the resurrection body just here. For with the per- 
sonalists we have come to believe that the world- 
ground is not an inert stuff called matter, and with 
the physicists we have come to talk about the ulti- 
mate basis of the physical world in terms of centers 
of energy. This would lead us to surmise that the 
scientists and philosophers approaching from differ- 
ent sides the same problem of the ultimate nature of 
reality are already like workmen tunneling from op- 
posite sides through a mountain, if they are not ready 
just yet to break down the thin wall still standing 
between them, they have at least arrived at a point 
where they can hear the sound of one another's pick- 
axes and shovels. What I mean to say is, that the 
question of the nature of the resurrection body is 
bound up with the larger question of the ultimate 
nature of objective reality, and at the present time 
philosophers and scientists are not far apart. 

And I go on at once to say that all spiritually 
minded Christians understand that the language of 
the Apostles' Creed is to be taken as symbolic when 
we confess that Christ "ascended into heaven, and 
sitteth at the right hand of God the Father 
Almighty." For u the right hand of God the Father" 



AUTHORITY IN HISTORY 115 

is no more to be locat&d off somewhere in space 
than is God himself. And God is the ever-present God. 
Everywhere in the Bible "the right hand" of the 
Lord is the symbol of his power. "His right hand, and 
his holy arm, hath wrought salvation for him." To 
be seated at the right hand of God the Father Al- 
mighty is to be in the very midst of the redemptive 
work which the immanent God is carrying on in the 
world. This is to say, wherever prison bars are being 
broken and the oppressed set free there is the Living 
Christ; wherever burdens of sorrow are being lifted 
from men's shoulders and freedom and gladness 
given to those long bowed down under the weight 
of woe there is the Living Christ; wherever men 
are being cleansed from sin and set in the liberty of 
the sons of God there is the Living Christ; wher- 
ever the enemies of righteousness are being con- 
tended with and overthrown there is the Living 
Christ. Our faith in the resurrection of Christ may, 
therefore, find expression in the language of the 
Psalmist: "Jehovah saith unto my Lord, Sit thou 
at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy foot- 
stool." And as the apostle says triumphantly: "He 
must reign till he hath put all his enemies under his 
feet. The last enemy that shall be abolished is 
death." 

And this that is to say, the faith in the Living 
Christ is a fact of experience, and as we have sought 
to make plain, the facts of Christianity are vital only 
as they are or may be facts of living experience. What 



n6 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

I have just set forth is the uniform testimony of the 
saintliest souls in the Christian Church, the Church 
which lives through the centuries and bears testi- 
mony in the Twentieth Century as really as it did in 
the First Century. The life of the Church, past, pres- 
ent, and future, is in Christ. It continues to live be- 
cause he lives. With final authority this living faith 
can be declared to all men everywhere. It is the faith 
that is being brought home to the hearts of thousands 
to-day with radiant certainty. 

We affirm, therefore, that the only satisfactory 
explanation of the recovered and victorious faith of 
the disciples is to be found in the fact that Jesus did 
objectively show himself alive to his followers after 
his passion. And if I were compelled finally to say 
with Arthur Hugh Clough : 

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust: 
As of the unjust, so of the just 
Yea of that Just One too! 
This is the one sad gospel that is true" 

then I should feel profoundly that something had 
gone tremendously wrong in our universe. I therefore 
make the language of the New Testament my own : 
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, who begat us again unto a living hope by the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." 

In speaking of the authoritative basis of Chris- 
tianity in history, it will be seen that we have made 
everything to rest upon the fact of Christ. For the 



AUTHORITY IN HISTORY 117 

sake of clearness and emphasis we have spoken of the 
Fact of the Incarnation, the Fact of the Crucifixion, 
and the Fact of the Resurrection from the Dead. But 
these are not separate facts; they are only three 
aspects of the one supreme fact in human history the 
Fact of Christ. For the Incarnation includes the 
Cross ; the principle of the Cross lies at the heart of 
the Incarnation ; while without the triumph of the 
Resurrection, all would have ended in ignominy and 
shame. The Fact of Christ stands solid in the his- 
tory of the world. 

If now again it be objected that we have tied up 
Christianity with human history, and thus laid it open 
to all the assaults of historical criticism just like 
any other history, we reply: Even so, what of it? 
Christianity claims no special privileges. It does not 
ask to be exempt from the discoveries of the 
archaeologists, the research of scholars, or the find- 
ings of historical critics. Christianity hates darkness ; 
it loves the light. It is not afraid of investigation; it 
rejoices in the full blaze of the day. 

It needs, moreover, to be kept in mind that Chris- 
tianity is not first of all a religion of ideas ; it is rather 
a religion of facts. It is not first of all a religion of 
ethical teachings ; it is rather a religion of deeds the 
acts of God on the plane of history. Christianity, 
therefore, stands or falls with its facts. As a matter of 
course, the Christian religion is profoundly interested 
in what Jesus said. To us he is for all time the supreme 
and final teacher. Never man spake like this man. 



n8 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

Never will we suffer his teachings to die. But our 
religion is concerned supremely with what Jesus was 
and what he did. For in Christ we see God, and the 
acts of Jesus are the deeds of God. This is the very 
heart of our gospel, that in Christ God works re- 
deemingly in the history of the world. 

Furthermore, Christ does not stand in history iso- 
lated and alone. Back behind him is the long history 
of the Hebrew people, and after him are the New 
Testament, the Christian Church, and all Christian 
history. He can no more be detached from the history 
that led up to him than he can be separated from the 
events that follow his coming to the world. The fact 
of Christ must be viewed both in the light of its 
antecedents and of its mighty consequences. The story 
of Jesus fits perfectly into all the known facts. "He'is 
not indeed the Christ that either the people or the 
prophets expected ; but he is infinitely greater. He is 
a Prophet whose Divine commission has been 
acknowledged by great nations for many centuries ; a 
Prince who has commanded in many lands, and for 
more than sixty generations, an absolute obedience 
and a passionate loyalty such as were never given 
during this brief earthly life, and within the boun- 
daries of a single state, to the greatest of earthly 

* J J,4 

sovereigns. * 

In concluding this part of the discussion let me say 
that I hope it has been made plain that the major 
facts of history are not dependent upon the accuracy 

4 Dale, The Living Christ and the Four Gospels, p. 99. 



AUTHORITY IN HISTORY 119 

of all minor details. Any such theory would doom us 
to universal historical agnosticism. We only ask that 
the Old Testament history be handled without preju- 
dice and that the New Testament records be treated 
with scientific candor. And we rest in the confident 
assurance that when this is done the foundation of 
God will stand sure, and the Fact of Christ will be 
seen standing out clearly as the Light of the World. 
"Other foundation can no man lay than that which is 
laid, which is Jesus Christ." 

But if these facts fail, then Christianity falls to the 
ground and it is all over with our religion. But in such 
a case we live in a crazy world where dreams are 
more influential than waking thoughts and fables 
mightier than fact, and where nothing certain can be 
affirmed of anything. 

I hold strongly that this is a place where compro- 
mise is impossible. 



y 

THE BASIS OF AUTHORITY IN EXPERI- 
ENCE 

"And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit 
is the truth." I JOHN 5 : 7. 



THE BASIS OF AUTHORITY IN EXPERI- 
ENCE 

A CONTINUALLY emerging fallacy in philosophy and 
theology is the interpretation of the universe in 
terms of the intellect alone. 

Now mere intellectualism would shut us up in a 
very narrow world. The intellect is entirely sufficient 
for mathematics and chemistry and physics. But as 
soon as we pass into the realm of things alive the in- 
tellect halts and is blind and dumb. The True is 
indeed one aspect of Reality, but only one aspect. The 
Beautiful and the Good as well as the True must be 
taken into consideration if we would seek to know 
and properly to evaluate the meaning of the world. If, 
therefore, we seek to apprehend Reality in its totality, 
we must bring to it our total personality intellect 
and sensibility and will. 

There are marly things the intellect alone can never 
understand. Art is of no value to the intellect. The 
intellect can give a chemical analysis of the paints 
and tell about the mechanical structure of the canvas 
and the frame, but the picture itself breaks away and 
escapes from the intellect. The intellect can tell us 

123 



i2 4 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

nothing worth while about the tear on the cheek of a 
child. It can indeed give the chemical analysis, it can 
explain the laws of physics and tell of the physi- 
ological antecedents. But the meaning of the tear on 
the cheek of a child ! What does the intellect know 
about that ? Arid what does the intellect know about 
music? The mechanics of the organ and the mathe- 
matics of harmony, and a few other inconsequential 
things, the intellect can explain perfectly. But the 
music! The intellect knows nothing that is of esthetic 
'value about the music. It is said that once when Jenny 
Lind was singing Dean Stanley got up and left the 
room. He was a man of intellect but he knew nothing 
about music. It was an unmeaning noise that would 
give a man the headache. 



My position is that for the knowledge of God we 
must have not only facts of history and diagrams of 
doctrine presented to the mind; we must have first 
of all and above all the experience of God. 

For that matter, without experience, the actual ex- 
perience that comes from living contact with the 
world of men, all history whatsoever is mere annals, 
a narration of disconnected events in no vital relation 
the one to the other. Only as we are thoroughly alive 
in the world can we understand the world we live in. 

And it must be understood, let me reiterate, that 
by experience we mean something more than feeling 
alone. Feeling is of course fundamental and the sense 



AUTHORITY IN EXPERIENCE 125 

of value necessary to any real joy in life. But by ex- 
perience of God we mean the entire self in contact 
with Reality. And we do not mean that in religious 
experience, or even in definitely evangelical experi- 
ence, the emotions are always actively quickened and 
stirred. A constant experience of emotionalism would 
upset the balance and symmetry of life. The possi- 
bility of emotion is of course always present. The 
religious sentiment is always there, but not so much as 
"a content of consciousness" as "a feature of mental 
structure, a disposition to experience certain emotions 
on the presentation of certain ideas. These emotions 
are not a permanent experience of the religious man. 
They come and go according as the religious objects 
are in our mind or not. Yet the religious sentiment 
forms a permanent disposition toward these emo- 
tions." 1 

A recent author who discounts the value of experi- 
ence and insists strongly on the scientific accuracy 
and finality of the Catholic creeds writes as follows : 
"Reason is supreme in man. To deny that Reason is 
the supreme arbiter in all religious questions, even in 
those pertaining directly to faith, is to betray the 
cause of religion and of philosophy, and to capitulate 
to the forces of superstition, fanaticism, and obscur- 
antism." 

Let me hasten to say tliat I fully agree that it is 
the worst of follies to seek to found religion upon 

Edward, Religious Experience: Its Nature and Truth, pp. 108, 
109. 



ia6 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

philosophical skepticism and to establish faith upon 
a denial of the power of the human mind to find and 
Know the truth. But it is clear that by "reason" the 
author just quoted means the intellect and the intel- 
lect alone, and it is equally certain that all such sys- 
tems are purely rationalistic. With the authoritarians 
in religion, the Creed is a correct intellectual state- 
ment of the things that must be believed, and faith is 
yielding intellectual assent to a system of doctrine. 
Hence the earnest effort to discount the value of 
Christian experience. And hence the following state- 
ment : "The plain man who has very little experience," 
but accepts everything on authority and lives a life 
of obedience, is "a far better Christian than his more 
favored brother who has a multitude of 'experi- 
ences,' on account of which he is sometimes unduly 
elated, and even arrogant." 2 On the contrary, we 
strongly insist that religion is something more than 
belief in certain facts of history and acceptance of 
certain philosophical statements written in venerable 
creeds, no matter how true. All this is only something 
external, an authority that can be imposed from with- 
out. Now such authoritarianism is most useful for 
building up an ecclesiasticism and holding men in 
subjugation, but not for the building of the kingdom 
of God and setting men free as the sons of God. It 
fails entirely to grip the heart of things. Neither 
facts of history nor written creeds have any power to 
move us fundamentally and authoritatively till inter- 

2 Creeds Or No Creeds?, pp. 135, 137- 



AUTHORITY IN EXPERIENCE 127 

preted and made alive in our own experience. Says the 
Fourth Evangelist: "This is life eternal, to know 
thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou 
hast sent." Experience is necessary if we are to have 
vital touch with Reality. Religion springs out of 
knowledge of the Living God. 

I find the view which has long been mine thus ex- 
pressed by Kenneth Edward : 

"I am inclined to the view that in the case of re- 
ligious knowledge of this order the central and 
inclusive intuition by which we apprehend the divine 
personality which is over against us is not a psycho- 
logical simple, but the most highly complex and all- 
inclusive mental energy of which our souls are capable. 
It is an exercise of apprehension which occupies the 
whole self. It is an act which knits the entire person- 
ality together into a single apperceptive organ. The 
simplicity which belongs to it is not the simplicity of 
an isolated mental faculty, but that of a united per- 
sonality gathered up into a comprehensive act of rap- 
port." 3 

As we all know, the inductive method, the method 
of experiment, has created our modern science. As 
Bacon put it: "The question whether or no anything 
can be known is to be settled not by arguing, but by 
trying." How, by way of illustration, can we find 
out whether this water here on the desk before me 
is hot or cold? It would be a sheer waste of time to 
argue about it. There is only one way to find out : I 

^Religious Experience, p. 208. 



128 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

put my finger in it. The water is cold and not hot. 
I find out by trying. And how could a man living in 
the tropics and having no experience with freezing 
temperatures find out whether water will expand or 
contract when it freezes? If he should chance to 
know a little about physics, he would certainly sup- 
pose that water when solid would behave as do all 
other substances that he happens to be acquainted 
with, and that it will occupy smaller space when solid 
than when liquid. But if by some chance he were to 
happen upon zero weather, bursting pipes would ap- 
prise him of the fact that water expands when it 
solidifies. In physical science, a priori reasoning is 
long out of date, and it could be wished that in 
philosophy and religion also it might become a thing 
of the past. 

Now religion deals primarily with matters of ex- 
perience. Christianity is preeminently the religion of 
experience. And the way to find out the truth about 
religion is not by arguing, but by trying. To the ques- 
tion, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" 
the answer is, "Come and see." The principle asserted 
by Jesus comes to the heart of the matter: "If any 
man willeth to do God's will, he shall know of the 
teaching," whether it be human and fallible, or 
whether it comes from God and speaks with authority 
to the soul of man. It is only by experiment and in 
experience, I say, that we can know the truth of 
Christianity and come into personal touch with the 
Living Christ. For Christian truth differs from scien- 



AUTHORITY IN EXPERIENCE 129 

ttfic truth in this, that it is given not primarily to the 
intellect, not chiefly to be known intellectually, but to 
be lived, and to be apprehended by the total person- 
ality. And in the apprehension of it, the conatwe is of 
greater importance than the cognitive. Moral effort in 
the direction of Reality carries us much further in the 
apprehension of truth than intellectualism can ever 
take us. 

Dr. Charles Harris, in his argument for the 
authoritarian view of Christianity as an intellectual 
system to be interpreted in terms of the Aristotelian 
philosophy, affirms that "from experience it cannot 
even be known that Jesus ever existed." He writes: 

"If we reflect how we know that a person called 
Jesus of Nazareth once lived and died upon the cross, 
we perceive at once that we know it, not from experi- 
ence, but from the two sources of ( I ) oral tradition, 
and (2) certain ancient books, especially the books 
of the New Testament. By a process of logical infer- 
ence from these two sources of information, we reach 
the conclusion that Jesus once lived a human life 
upon earth." 4 

And he goes on to say : 

"Even if it is conceded that his existence was once 
a matter of direct experience to his contemporaries 
living in Palestine, yet certainly it is not a matter of 
direct experience to anyone now." 

Somehow, these words do not satisfy us. They 
leave something out. They do not present a Christ 

^Creeds Or No Creeds?, p. 133. 



130 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

who is alive ; they give us only a written description 
of him. They do not offer us the music not a note of 
music is sounding ; they give us only the printed sheet 
on which are written certain curious-looking char- 
acters. Indeed, such a Christianity is not the Chris- 
tianity of the New Testament. It is not life, but law; 
not fellowship with a Living Person, but obedience 
to an ecclesiasticism ; not experience of the Divine, but 
assent to an intellectual formula. 
We agree, therefore, with Dr. Garvie : 

"Surely if the historical Jesus has the significance 
and value for the race which is generally accorded 
Him, it is a justifiable conclusion that His relation 
to it should become universal and permanent, not in 
a less immediate and influential form than in the days 
of His flesh. If He be the Word of God become flesh, 
the Son revealing the Father, if He be the Saviour who 
died for us, and whose death atones for sin, it is 
reasonable to believe that He always and everywhere 
Himself reveals God and redeems man. The denial 
of the fellowship of the Christian with the Living 
Christ is reasonable only if He is not at all what 
Christian faith claims Him to be." 5 

Our contention is that History and Experience 
cannot be separated the one from the other and that 
the Christ of History is also the Christ of Experi- 
ence. The basis of authority in Christianity is not 
where it has usually been sought in an infallible 
Church, or in an infallible creed, or in an infallible 



^Christian Certainty, pp, 219, 220. 



AUTHORITY IN EXPERIENCE 131 

Bible. The final authority is to be found in the Christ 
of History who is the Christ of Experience not in 
the Christ of Experience alone, nor alone in the 
Christ of History, but in the Christ of History who 
is the Christ of Experience. Here do we find ultimate 
certitude. 

And it is seen at once that the sort of authority we 
are talking about is of a different order from that 
which has been insisted upon by those who are more 
interested in ecclesiastical institutions and intellectual 
systems, than they seem to be in a Christlike life and in 
a satisfying experience, 

II 

And now in the paragraphs that immediately fol- 
low one is compelled to speak modestly. I would not 
dare to lay claim to experiences about which I know 
nothing. But one would be false to a trust if one did 
not speak out the things whereby one lives. 

Now none of the great things of the spirit flaunt 
themselves in the faces of men. They do not strive 
nor cry, neither do they lift up the voice in the street. 
Sometimes they are but as a whisper out of the In- 
finite and often as a still small voice which is even less 
than a whisper. The present lecturer does not dare to 
count himself among the saints nor claim anything 
more than a distant kinship with the High Order of 
Mystics, And yet their language is not wholly a for- 
eign and unknown tongue, and when he listens to the 
great saints holding high converse one with another, 



132 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

he catches a sentence here and there that is under- 
stood, and what is understood shakes the soul with 
a strange emotion and compels him to feel that he 
has touched at last the essence of Reality. 

In the things I am now about to say I am not writ- 
ing as an individual. I am speaking in a representative 
capacity. What I am saying about the meaning and 
value of Christ in experience is said out of the experi- 
ence of Christian men in all ages and in all lands. But 
I do affirm that I also know the meaning of the words 
that follow: 

(i) It is affirmed then that the Christian does 
have personal knowledge of Christ as Lord. 

In the beginning this came to men as a truth of ex- 
perience. Said Paul : "No man can say that Jesus is 
Lord but by the Holy Spirit." Here is both theology 
and religion. The affirmation, "Jesus is Lord" that 
is theology. The experience through the Holy Spirit 
which enables one to say, "Jesus is Lord" that is 
religion. The doctrine simply gives intellectual ex- 
pression to what Christ is felt to be. Jesus had 
revealed God in the experience of the early Christians 
and had become Lord of their lives before they set 
down any doctrine of the divinity of Christ. And with 
us at the present time it is only as one has had experi- 
ence of Christ as Lord and Saviour that to him the 
doctrine of the divinity of Christ has any meaning. 

And furthermore, in the very nature of the case, 
the doctrine of the divinity of Christ is a truth that 



AUTHORITY IN EXPERIENCE 133 

can be proved only to the soul that has had experience 
of Christ. It is only as one finds God in Christ that 
one bows before him as Lord. I think that much valu- 
able time is often wasted trying to convince men 
by the wrong method. For instance, I do not think 
any progress is made by bringing forward evidence 
to prove that Christ was born of a virgin, and that 
therefore he was the Son of God. For it is conceivable 
that one might have been born of a virgin and yet be 
less than the Son of God. He might be an angel or a 
superman, and nothing more. Do not misunderstand 
me ; I myself raise no question touching the historical 
trustworthiness of the accounts of the Virgin Birth of 
our Lord. I have always felt that no more beautiful 
and appropriate way could be imagined for the 
realization of the Wonder of the Incarnation. And 
I think it will be agreed that the story of the Virgin 
Birth has through history served as a kind of protect- 
ing envelope for the doctrine of the Incarnation of 
the Son of God. But you cannot prove the divinity of 
Christ by the Virgin Birth. It is the divinity of Christ 
that has made it easy for devout souls through the 
centuries to accept the stories given in Matthew and 
Luke as indicating truly the wonderful manner in 
which the Incarnation was realized. 

Nor do I think that by any other entirely intel- 
lectual process you will be able to convince the mind 
with reference to the divinity of our Lord. You can 
easily prove that he was the greatest of all the 



134 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

prophets. You will have no difficulty in getting people 
to agree that spiritually he was the tallest of all the 
sons of men. I think these methods are useful. They 
carry us pretty far in the right direction. But they 
all stop short of the goal. They miss the great objec- 
tive. 

My point is that something more than the intellect 
is needed if one is to rest in the assurance that God 
was incarnate in Christ. What I am saying is that 
only in Christian experience can Christ he fully known. 
If therefore the proverbial man in the street or the 
philosopher in his chair in the university raises ques- 
tions touching the divinity of Christ, there is but one 
answer to be given: Open your heart to him. Sur- 
render to him as the highest and best this world has 
ever seen. Expose your soul to him and let him have 
his way with you, and then his authority will assert 
itself. His authority is the final authority of the 
spiritual. It is an authority that vindicates itself. In 
the realm of the moral he is ultimate. To quote Dr. 
Dale: 

"If you have found in Christ the supreme and 
ultimate authority over your moral and spiritual life, 
you have found God in him. If you have found in 
Christ the infinite mercy of God, you have found God 
in him. If you have found in Christ the Giver and 
Source of perpetual support and defense of that 
divine life which renders righteousness and saintliness 
possible in this world, you have found God in him." 

"It is not because we first believe that he is divine 
that we acknowledge his authority over our moral and 



AUTHORITY IN EXPERIENCE 135 

religious life; it would be truer to say that in "dis- 
covering his authority, we discover that he is divine." 6 

According to the view here presented, Christ is 
brought into the same relation to believing men 
to-day as he bore to his disciples in the days of his 
flesh. His life and his works brought home to their 
experience the reality of the divine power that dwelt 
in him. And still to-day as of old, the facts of his life 
and death and resurrection and the presence of his 
Spirit abiding in the world convince men that he is 
the Son of God. Our faith in him is in response to his 
presence and is the result of his power. Thus it ap- 
pears that the Christ of History is the Christ of 
Experience. 

(2) And what shall we say about the cross of 
Christ in Christian experience ? I call attention to the 
fact that in the experience of Christian men the for- 
giveness of sins is directly related to the death of 
Christ. His crucifixion is the ultimate manifestation 
of the suffering love of God. And this manifestation 
is validated in Christian experience. 

No one sentence in the New Testament more 
certainly sets forth the meaning of Christ in the 
experience of men than those words in the Fourth 
Gospel : "Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away 
the sin of the world !" Bunyan's immortal story of the 
Christian pilgrim is far more than a transcript of his 
own Puritan experience. It tells the story of every 



^Christian Doctrine, pp. no, 120. 



136 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

distinctly evangelical experience, and never with pro- 
founder discernment than in his account of what 
took place at the sight of the cross : 

"He ran thus till he came at a place somewhat 
ascending, and upon that place stood a cross, and a 
little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre. So I saw in my 
dream, that just as Christian came up with the cross, 
his burden loosed from his shoulders, and fell from 
off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued 
to do, till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where 
it fell in, and I saw it no more. . . . Then Christian 
gave three leaps for joy and went on singing." 

Let that be specially noted: "Then Christian gave 
three leaps for joy and went on singing." The songs 
of the Christian Church have come ringing down 
the centuries from the first days until now. We turn 
to one of the earliest books in the New Testament 
and we hear the song: "Unto him that loveth us, 
and loosed us from our sins in his own blood; and he 
made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his God 
and Father; to him be the glory and the dominion 
forever and ever." And we turn also to one of the 
hymns of the Church of to-day, and still we hear the 
same glad strain : 

"When I survey the wondrous cross 

On which the Prince of glory died, 
My richest gain I count but loss. 
And pour contempt on all my pride. 



AUTHORITY IN EXPERIENCE 137 

*r 

"Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, 

Save in the death of Christ, my God; 
All the vain things that charm me most, 
I sacrifice them to his blood. 

"See from his head, his hands, his feet, 

Sorrow and love flow mingled down ! 
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet, 
Or thorns compose so rich a crown? 

"Were the whole realm of nature mine, 
That were a present far too small ; 
Love so amazing, so divine, 

Demands my soul, my life, my all." 

Nothing is deeper in the experience of Christian 
men than is the cross of Christ. But about this we 
shall speak more at length in the succeeding lecture. 

(3) And I affirm also that the Christ of our faith 
is not dead, but alive forever. 

When we speak here of the Living Christ we 
intend that our words should be understood as mean- 
ing what they say. We mean that the Christ who 
lived and died is alive forevermore. And the best of 
Christians through all the centuries have borne wit- 
ness to fellowship with Him. As we have seen, the 
Resurrection of Christ from the dead does stand 
as one of the great objective facts of history not 
as an hallucination, but as a fundamental datum of 
historic Christianity. The fact of the resurrection has 
indeed been established by "many infallible proofs." 
But suppose that the evidence for the resurrection had 
been more cogent still, that Christ had been seen in 



138 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

bodily form not by his followers alone, but by his 
enemies also. Suppose that the evidence for his coming 
alive out of the grave had been such that all historians 
without exception had accepted the fact of the resur- 
rection just as all accept the fact of Caesar or Napol- 
eon or Washington. I mean to say, suppose that the 
rising from the dead of the crucified Jesus had been 
a mere fact of ancient history, having no direct rela- 
tion to living Christian experience. What then? Then 
I submit that the whole story of the world would have 
been other than it is. I submit that the New Testament 
would not have been written and that the Christian 
Church would have been nonexistent. For it was the 
experience of the Living Christ that gave birth to 
the Church. 

Read the story as we have it in the New Testament. 
One can see perfectly what was going on in those 
beginning days of the Church. First there ran the , 
amazing story that Jesus had risen from the dead. 
Then two disciples reported that they had seen him 
on the road to Emmaus and that he had been made 
known to them as the bread was broken. Then others 
reported that they had seen him alive. But he came 
and went. He appeared for a little while and then 
was gone again. They were as yet bewildered and 
frightened. Then something tremendously great hap- 
pened. The Day of Pentecost came. What was the 
significance of Pentecost? How was it that after the 
experience of that day, all fear departed and perfect 
confidence reigned? What happened on Pentecost? 



AUTHORITY IN EXPERIENCE 139 

Leave out of consideration ail the strange occurrences 
connected with the account of that day and come to 
the heart of the matter. On that mighty day the 
disciples came to the full confidence that Jesus was 
alive forever. On that day he came and he never 
went away again. During the wonderful forty days 
he had come and gone; he had been with them and 
then he departed from them. But henceforth, follow- 
ing the Day of Pentecost, Christ was with them all 
the time. 

I submit, then, that it is because of the experience 
of the Living Christ in the lives of men that the 
Church will not let die the wonderful story of Easter 
morning. 

"And not for signs in heaven above 

Or earth below they look; 
Who know with John His smile of love, 
With Peter His rebuke. 

"In joy of inward peace, or sense 

Of sorrow over sin, 
He is his own best evidence, 
His witness is within. 

"No fable old, nor mythic lore, 

Nor dream of bards and seers, 
No dead fact stranded on the shore 
Of the oblivious years. 

"But warm, sweet, tender, even yet 

A present help is he ; 
And faith has still its Olivet, 
And love its Galilee. 



140 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

III 

We are well aware that objections to the argument 
from experience will come flocking in at once. We are 
prepared to meet them. 

( i ) And first let it be kept in mind that we have 
found our basis of ultimate authority, not in the 
Christ of Experience alone, but in the Christ of 
Experience and of History. 

Christianity is securely anchored in history. It was 
the peculiar merit of Ritschl that he related Chris- 
tian experience directly to Christian history. Ritschl 
was obsessed with an aversion to mysticism and he 
was handicapped with the supposed distinction be- 
tween the noumenal and the phenomenal. We cannot 
follow him at either of these points. But the real 
merit of his system is here where he insists that faith 
and fact must go hand in hand. Ritschl's doctrine of 
value judgments has been most fruitful ; we appreciate 
its importance and have been greatly aided by it in 
our thinking. But value judgments are not to be dis- 
sociated from historical fact. As Harnack states it: 
"The whole substance and meaning of religion, life 
in God, the forgiveness of sins, consolation in suffer- 
ing the Church couples with Christ's person; and 
in so doing she associates everything that gives life 
its meaning and its permanence, nay, the Eternal 
itself, with an historical fact, maintaining the indis- 
soluble unity of both." 7 Christian faith, thus keep- 

7 Quoted in Garvie's The Ritschllan Theology, p. 219. 



AUTHORITY IN EXPERIENCE 141 

ing her feet firmly planted on facts of history, is not 
in danger of drifting off into the air. 

(2) It may be objected that the experience of 
Christians herein discussed is wholly subjective and 
of no value for objective knowledge. 

(a) This objection comes first from those who 
insist that Christianity rests securely only on author- 
ity to be enforced from without, that it is a creed to 
be accepted and a law to be obeyed. 

An Anglo-Catholic critic puts his objection to the 
argument from experience in the following words : 
"They contend that they are aware of the existence of 
Jesus, because of the grace they receive when they 
pray to him, or to God through him, which grace 
is to them a matter of experience. But experience of 
grace received only yields knowledge that grace is 
received, not knowledge of the source from which 
it is derived." One is surprised that the objector does 
not press his criticism just a little further and go on 
to deny that in experience one knows "that grace is 
received." For if one cannot trust his experience of 
Christ, how can one trust his experience of "grace" ? 
What is this thing called "grace," anyhow? We see 
coming to the front just here the curious notion of 
"grace" as a sort of Fourth Person in the Holy 
Trinity. "Grace" is here objectified and made an 
entity, just as the deist objectifies "law" and turns 
over to law the deeds of the ever-present God. We 
insist that in experiencing "grace" one comes into 
personal touch with God. 



PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

(b) This same objection comes also from our,hew 
school of psychologists. We feel confident that the 
deductions from the findings of the psychologists have 
gone entirely too far. Many psychologists seem to 
have reached the conclusion that a description of 
behavior is equivalent to a theory of causation. And 
some of the rest of us have been all too quick in fol- 
lowing their lead. Take, for instance, the following 
quotation from a delightful volume of religious 'essays 
only recently from the press : "The heart of man per- 
sistently turns to the desire for immediate communion 
with God. A critical philosophy assures him that 
what he conceives as an immediate knowledge of 
God is only an immediate knowledge of his own 
experience which he interprets by reference to a sup- 
posed objective reality. This criticism of mysticism," 
the writer quoted goes on to say, "is to my mind 
quite valid." 8 

To the mind of the present lecturer, this criticism 
is not valid at all. The trouble with it is that it goes 
too far. For when once you are logical and thorough 
in the application of it, you sweep away the founda- 
tions of all knowledge, and land us in nothing but 
"an immediate knowledge of our own experience" 
with reference to everything. With reference to 
knowledge of any supposed objective reality, of what, 
as a matter of fact, are we really conscious, say, with 



8 Garrison, Affirmative Religion, p. 232. 



AUTHORITY IN EXPERIENCE 143 

reference to the chapel in which we are assembled, 
or the audience here present, or the sheet of paper 
from which I am now reading? Might we not with 
equal truth say, "What he conceives as knowledge 
of the chapel, and the audience, and the manuscript 
is only knowledge of his own experience which he 
interprets by reference to a supposed objective 
reality?" It must be evident at once that any such 
critical philosophy lands us immediately in solipsism. 
The only thing such a philosopher could be perfectly 
sure of would be himself, and upon closer analysis 
there would presently be seen cogent reasons for 
questioning even that. It seems rather strange, there- 
fore, that this "fallacy of psychologism" should not 
be immediately recognized. If this argument holds 
against our experience of Christ as discussed above, it 
ought to hold equally against our experience of our 
fellow men : and it seems that there is no gt>od reason 
why it should not hold against all knowledge of the 
objective world. 

We therefore reiterate our position that the 
ultimate source of all knowledge is in experience. 
Take the knowledge of God, by way of illustration. 
How did men come to believe in God? They did not 
sit down to prove that God is. Our historic arguments 
oncological, cosmologkal, teleological all came 
in after faith had arrived and were attempts to justify 
that faith. Faith was originally the response of the 
soul to the ever-present God, or let me say the answer 



144 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

of the child to the call of the Father. As Tennyson 
puts it: 

"Here sits he shaping wings to fly: 
His heart f orbodes a mystery : 
He names the name Eternity. 

"The type of Perfect in his mind 
In Nature he can nowhere find, 
He sows himself on every wind. 

"He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend, 
And through thick veils to apprehend 
A labour working to an end." 

We hold, then, that if we are ready to trust the 
report of the objective world that comes to us at 
second hand through the channel of the five senses, 
there can be no reason why we should doubt the 
testimony of the personality in its totality when the 
soul stands face to face with God. 

(3) And it must not be forgotten that the Chris- 
tian experience we have been discussing is not merely 
the experience of one man, nor of a few, but the 
experience of a multitude of men and women from 
the earliest days of the Christian Church even down 
to the present hour. 

Certain individuals such as Mahomet, Joan of 
Arc, and Joseph Smith have seen visions and heard 
voices. But we know how to classify all such auditions 
and visions. They were wholly subjective; they did 
not correspond to any objective reality. They were 



AUTHORITY IN EXPERIENCE 145 

their own; they were not shared by others. "A man's 
private illusions are his own. If other men see what 
he sees, hear what he hears, feel what he feels, taste 
what he tastes, he may dismiss the fear that his organs 
are unsound." 

What we have, then, in the experience of Chris- 
tians is the collective consciousness of an innumerable 
company of witnesses. If, by way of illustration, we 
were to go out to-night and stand under the star-lit 
heavens and I were to insist that in the southern sky 
there was shining a great red star, my friends would 
take me by the arm and send me to the hospital. But 
if to-night we go out and look up at the northern 
heavens and I ask if you see the North Star, at once 
comes the answer that you do. Hundreds of us see 
the North Star at one and the same time. Throughout 
the centuries men have been looking up at the North 
Star. Paul, David, Abraham all saw that star. And 
when first men stood out under the stars and wondered 
and adored and worshipped, that star was shining 
there. There can be no doubt about it that North 
Star is more than a subjective experience; it is an 
objective reality. And just so with the testimony 
touching the validity of our experience concerning 
the spiritual universe. The Epistle to the Hebrews 
thus speaks of it: Abel "had witness borne to him"; 
Enoch "had witness borne to him" ; and Noah and 
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and Moses 
and a long line of heroes and martyrs "these all had 
witness borne to them" of the everlasting reality of 



146 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

our holy religion. The New Testament Christian, 
looking back over Old Testament history, sees that 
he is "compassed about with a great cloud of wit- 
nesses" to the reality of the spiritual world. Exactly 
so, we Christians of the Twentieth Century, looking 
back over our Christian history, see a cloud of wit- 
nesses Phillips Brooks and Jonathan Edwards 
and John Wesley and John Knox and John Calvin 
and Martin Luther and Augustine, and the Apostle 
Paul all testifying to what they had felt and seen. 
Moreover, we are now living in fellowship with 
multitudes of Christian people who bear witness to 
the same thing. 

(4) Nevertheless, to refer to our illustration 
about the "red star," that red star might as a matter 
of fact be there shining in the southern heavens. The 
man who insists that it is there might turn out to be 
right and all the others wrong. For he might have 
better eyes than they or he might have some gift of 
sight peculiar to himself. And pioneers, whether in 
the field of science or in the sphere of religion, have 
always been solitary and lonely men. For there is 
deep kinship between the method of religion and 
the method of science. Men of science and men of 
religion both move forward by making the venture of 
faith. The True is only one aspect of Reality, but it 
is one aspect, and he who ventures out to discover 
Truth is on his way in search of God. Moreover, the 
fidelity of men of science to Truth at any cost may 
well stand as an example to the men whose chief 



AUTHORITY IN EXPERIENCE 147 

interest is in religion. And many a scientist has had 
to wait a long time for others with less power of 
insight to catch up with him. 

And it is precisely so with religion. There would 
have been no Christian faith in the world to-day had 
it not been for lonely men who ran ahead of the rest 
of the race and saw what only the eye of faith can 
see. Abraham was "the friend of God" while all 
around him wondered at his folly. Moses saw a bush 
ablaze with the divine presence and heard a voice 
calling him to rescue Israel from bondage, while those 
around him saw only the stunted growth of the wilder- 
ness and heard nothing more than the familiar sounds 
of the desert. Elijah heard a "still small voice," while 
nobody else heard anything more than the wind and 
the earthquake. Saul of Tarsus on the road to 
Damascus, while those who journeyed with'him stood 
still and could make nothing of the strange confusion, 
saw the Living Christ and received the command that 
changed the direction of his life and influenced pro- 
foundly the entire history of our western world. The 
Epistle to the Hebrews, after calling over the names 
of men of old who dared to follow the vision that 
lured them on, calls upon all Christians to be en- 
couraged by their example and to press forward, 
looking unto "Jesus the pioneer and the perfection 
of faith." 9 Jesus is indeed the perfect example 
of the daring of faith, and in a peculiar sense he is 

9 Moffatt's translation. 



i 4 8 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

faith's "pioneer." He passed over into new realms of 
experience. He explored vast regions hitherto un- 
known. And he leads the way to the realization of 
the full meaning of the ultimate Reality. Following 
him we shall find God. Let us dare, therefore, to 
listen to the voice that sounds in our own souls and 
never be disobedient to "the heavenly vision." 

(5) There is yet one other thing to be said: 
Christian experience bears fruit in Christlike living. 
"By their fruits ye shall know them." 

Christian experience is thus far more than mere 
emotionalism. To think of it chiefly as emotionalism 
is to misunderstand the whole matter. Christian ex- 
perience has in it a noetic quality; it brings the soul 
into touch with a spiritual world which is everlast- 
ingly real. Also Christian experience has in it a moral 
quality. It comes as a consequence of a striving in the 
direction of the ethical ideal ; it is crowned by a new 
birth within the soul of qualities that are forever 
beautiful and good. Although William James, in his 
Varieties of Religious Experience, is dealing almost 
exclusively with the eccentric and neurotic, neverthe- 
less, as a result of his studies, he has this to say: "The 
best fruits of religious experience are the best things 
that history has to show. They have always been 
esteemed so; here if anywhere is the genuinely 
strenuous life ; and to call to mind a succession of such 
examples as I have lately had to wander through, 
though it has been only in reading of them, is to feel 



AUTHORITY IN EXPERIENCE 149 

encouraged and uplifted and washed in better moral 



air." 10 



Religious experience, and especially the more 
definitely Christian experience unquestionably does 
have a life value and validates itself in ethical action. 
It ministers to life ; it constructs personality; it makes 
an enormous contribution to the moral power of the 
race. In Christian experience energy to live by does 
actually come into the lives of men. "The universe 
backs the experience." 11 

The Christ of History does truly become the Christ 
of Experience, and thus the "first born among many 
brethren." Thus testified the apostle : "It is no longer 
I that live, but Christ liveth in me : and the life which 
I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which 
is in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself 
up for me." 

Thus it has come about that Christian experience 
bearing fruit in Christlike lives is the crowning evi- 
dence of the truth of the Christian religion ; "for the 
gospels are not four, but 'ten thousand times ten 
thousand, and thousands of thousands,' and the last 
word in every one of them is, 'Lo, I am with you 
alway, even unto the end of the world.' " 12 

If, then, we inquire where the ultimate basis of 
authority in religion is to be found, we make answer : 



10 James, Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 259. 
1:l See Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion, p. xxx. 

12 Glover, The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire, 
p. 140. 



1 50 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

Not where ecclesiastics and theologians have been 
looking for it, but just here in History and in Experi- 
ence in Experience verifying History and in His- 
tory informing Experience. Not in History alone 
nor in Experience alone do we find the basis of 
authority in religion, but in History and in Experi- 
ence. 



VI 
AUTHORITY FROM THE CROSS 

"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men 
unto myself." JOHN 12: 32. 



VI 
AUTHORITY FROM THE CROSS 

THE Catholic Church exercises its vast power and 
influence over the lives of its devout communicants 
chiefly through their faith in "the miracle of the 
Eucharist" and in "the power of the keys." 

The Eucharist is the central and supreme act of 
worship in sacrementarian churches. The dogma is 
that when the officiating priest lifts up the bread and 
chalice repeating the words, "This is my body . . . 
This is my blood," the bread and the wine are actually 
changed into the very body and blood of Christ. 
When the communicant, therefore, eats the wafer he 
takes Christ's very body into his mouth. The adora- 
tion of the Host naturally follows. The "miracle" 
having taken place, a bell is rung and before the 
elevated Host the priest and congregation bend the 
knee and worship. The influence of this ceremony 
over devout Catholics who believe that Christ's body 
broken on the cross is thus visibly before them can 
hardly be overestimated. 

Second to this in importance is the priest's power 
of absolution, his power to pronounce the forgiveness 
of sins. Some months ago the daily press carried a 
story of a Catholic priest who had invited a family 

153 



154 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

of friends to be his guests on an excursion boat on 
one of the Great Lakes. A sudden accident having 
happened, they were about to sink to their death in 
the water when, calling them to him, the priest held 
before them his crucifix and in the language of the 
ritual of his church pronounced the forgiveness of 
sins. One gladly confesses to a thrill of admiration 
at his heroism, and one does not doubt that their 
faith, his and theirs, met with its eternal reward. 

What I wish to emphasize is the fact that in spite 
of what we believe to be superstition and error, the 
Catholic Church secures and keeps its strong hold 
over millions of devout souls through its belief and 
practice with reference to the perpetual meaning of 
the broken body of Christ and the forgiveness of 
sins. Thus the Catholic Church does bring satisfac- 
tion to the deepest human needs. 

And if human needs are to be satisfied these two 
things must forever be kept before the minds of sin- 
ful men the cross of Christ and the gospel, of the 
divine forgiveness. For here in the cross is found 
what is central and distinctive in our religion. The 
atoning death of Christ and the forgiveness of sins 
is the final authoritative gospel that the Christian 
preacher has to announce to men. 

Professor A. V. G. Allen, in The Continuity of 
Christian Thought, writes as follows : 

"The absence of preaching is one of the striking 
features of the mediaeval Church. . . . The sacra- 
mental theology dispenses with the necessity of 



AUTHORITY FROM THE CROSS 155 

preaching, for it professes to accomplish the end of 
preaching in another way. . . . Wycliffe showed his 
sense of its value by organizing his band of preachers 
to go throughout the kingdom proclaiming the gospel 
as it was then read in all its freshness and novelty in 
the newly translated Bible. ... All the pomp and 
splendor of the Church and its ritual were as nothing 
compared with the fascination which the people felt 
under the spell of the preacher. . . . When the Ref- 
ormation was accomplished, it took its rightful place 
in the newly constituted churches, becoming, as it 
were, the sacrament of the larger faith." 1 

In our Protestant churches, then, let it be said at 
once, the preaching of the gospel of the cross is the 
sacrament of the larger faith. 

In churches where the sacramental theory prevails 
it is not the sermon that is of first importance but the 
sacrament, and therefore the place of first impor- 
tance is given to the altar. But the pulpit is the altar 
of our Protestant churches. Here, by the preacher in 
the sermon, Christ is lifted up and all men are drawn 
unto him. What the miracle of the Eucharist is sup- 
posed to do, that the presentation of Christ in 
preaching by men who truly know him in the forgive- 
ness of sins actually does in churches of the evan- 
gelical faith. And let it be emphasized that the pulpit 
is not a lecture platform where just any and every 
thing may be discussed. And certainly the pulpit is 
.not an open forum where anything or nothing may 
be affirmed. The lecture platform is useful and the 

1 AIlen, The Continuity of Christian Though^ pp. 251, 253. 



156 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

open forum serves a valuable purpose. But the pulpit 
is not the place for either. The business, the privilege, 
the high calling of the preacher is to present Christ 
and him crucified, and with Paul the modern preacher 
might well exclaim, "Woe is me if I preach not the 
gospel I" 

In one of Tennyson's letters there is a delightful 
story. The poet had arrived at an inn kept by "two 
perfectly honest Methodists." Upon greeting them 
he asked for the news of the day. "Why, Mr. Tenny- 
son," said his hostess, "there's only one piece of news 
that I know, that Christ died for sinners." "Well," 
answered Tennyson, "that is old news and good news 
and new news." This is indeed the good news, the glad 
tidings to sinful men that Christ died for sinners. 
This is the "word" that Paul exhorted Timothy to 
preach: "Preach the Word." This is the "word" to 
which the apostles said they must give themselves : "It 
is not fit that we should forsake the word of God and 
serve tables." This is the sum and substance of 
Christian preaching: "the word of life," "the word 
of the cross," "the word of reconciliation," "the word 
of salvation." 

And it cannot be questioned that according to the 
writers of the New Testament this is the very heart 
of the gospel. Take, for instance, Christ's farewell 
instructions as given in the Gospel according to Luke : 
"Then opened he their mind, that they might under- . 
stand the scriptures ; and he said unto them, Thus it 
is written, that the Christ should suffer, and rise again 



AUTHORITY FROM THE CROSS 157 

from the dead on the third day ; and their repentance 
and remission of sins should be preached in his name 
unto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Ye 
are witnesses of these things." That is to say, the 
offer of repentance and remission of sins was based on 
the fact of the sufferings and resurrection of Christ. 

One great word from Paul will be in place here 
and will suffice: "But all things are of God, who 
reconciled us to himself through Christ, and gave 
unto us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that 
God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, 
and having committed to us the world of reconcilia- 
tion." And so say all the men of the New Testament. 
The most characteristic thing about Christianity is 
the cross. Christianity might conceivably give up 
something yes, many things and still be essen- 
tially Christian. But if we ever give up the cross, what- 
ever else may remain, it will not be the religion of 
the New Testament and the only hope of the world 
will be gone. 

Professor T. R. Glover, in his delightful little 
book The Jesus of History, writing of the Christian 
Church in the Roman Empire, raises the question 
how it came about that in so short a time the early 
Christian Church was able to overcome the pagan 
religion, the official religion of the Roman Empire, 
with all its antiquity, splendor, and power. He an- 
swers : "The Christian out-lived the pagan, out-died 
him, and out-thought him." To this illuminating an- 
alysis one would find it necessary to add a fourth 



158 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

reason and the supreme reason: The Christian 
preached the forgiveness of sins through faith in 
Jesus' blood. "Christianity conquered through its 
message that in Jesus there is personally present a 
God who receives sinners. It triumphed not because it 
was the religion most hospitable to fresh ideas, not 
merely because its moral and social doctrine was of 
a higher character than its rivals, or because it was 
the faith best fitted to win educated minds. It is the 
new element in a faith that tells, and Christianity 
overcame by means of its message of forgiveness, in 
which it had no rival." 2 As the Seer of Patmos put 
it: "And they overcame by the blood of the Lamb, 
and by the word of their testimony, and they loved 
not their lives unto the death." 8 



Let us ask then: How is the death of Christ re- 
lated to salvation from sin? 

We shall seek to answer this question in language 
that has meaning in experience. We recognize that 
all language is symbolic, and supremely so when it 
deals with spiritual things. If only this had been 
generally understood it would have fared better with 
theology. And if now we are ready to recognize it, we 
shall make larger use of New Testament terms in 
sincerer appreciation of the fact that they are fluid 
and poetic and not fixed and scientific. 

2 Mackintosh, The Christian Experience of Forgiveness, p. 21. 
3 Rev. 12:11, 



AUTHORITY FROM THE CROSS 159 

A story told of Horace Bushnell is in point. One 
day when a friend asked him why it was that he 
complained that his critics had misunderstood him, 
and why he did not express himself more clearly so 
that others would not misapprehend his position, he 
gave this answer : 

"It is because of the different views which they 
and I take of the human soul and of the relation of 
language to spiritual truth. They succeed easily in so 
expressing their ideas as to be understood by their 
readers; but it is because they deal with subjects 
mechanically, and not according to nature. There, 

for instance, is Dr. , my customary assailant. 

He writes about the human spirit as if it were a 
machine under the laws of mechanics ; and of course 
what he says is perfectly intelligible, like any other 
treatise on matter ; only what he says is not true ! But 
I conceive of the soul in its living nature as free, and 
intelligent, and sensitive; as under vital and not 
mechanical laws. Language, too, for that reason, is 
not so much descriptive as suggestive, being figura- 
tive throughout, even where it deals with spiritual 
truth. Therefore an experience is needed to interpret 
words." 4 

We preachers of the Twentieth Century have fal- 
len heir to theories of the atonement, methods of ex- 
pression, forms of words, that were useful enough 
in their day, and in their time did speak to men in 
language they could understand. But these forms of 
expression do not appeal to us any longer. The notion 

*T. T. Mungcr's Horace Bus/inell, pp. 107, 108. 



160 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

of a ransom to the devil, the theory of a penal sub- 
stitution, the moral influence theory, were all efforts 
to explain the mightiest deed in the moral history of 
the race. But they do not satisfy us now. And in the 
general break-up in modern theological thinking no 
great doctrine suffered quite so much as did the doc- 
trine of the cross. As a result there has been a let- 
down in the "preaching of the cross." Preachers be- 
came uncertain and confused just where they needed 
most to be clear-eyed and authoritative. But I think 
this was only a passing phase and that it is not true 
any longer. We have come now to interpret all things 
in terms of life. I think that now, as not in many years, 
the doctrine of the cross is sounding forth from our 
pulpits in language that reaches and stirs the hearts 
of people. 

We cannot speak of the death of Jesus as we 
would speak of the death of any ordinary man. For 
Jesus was no ordinary man. Christ is the manifesta- 
tion of the moral quality of Reality. We cannot 
avoid the conviction that he is the Moral Absolute, 
that God did come to perfect moral self-expression 
in Jesus. The death of Jesus, therefore, is the revela- 
tion of the heart of God. God is nowhere so fully 
disclosed as in the death of Christ. All that Jesus 
came to teach and to do comes to a focus, to a burn- 
ing point, in the cross. Thus the cross becomes the 
supreme symbol of our religion. There is of course 
mystery in the cross, but it is not mystery that is dark- 
ness at the core, but mystery that is full of light. 



AUTHORITY FROM THE CROSS 161 

"All the light of sacred story 
Gathers round its head sublime." 



Briefly, then, let me make several suggestions 
touching the meaning of the cross. 

( i ) The death of Jesus shows what it cost God 
to save men from sin. 

Sin is the central evil of the world. Sorrow and 
death are companion evils. Sin, sorrow, and death 
these are the age-old enemies of man. These seem, 
in hours of solemn thought, to negative all things we 
have to say about the goodness and mercy of God. 
Death shuts down like an icy slab upon all that we 
love. Sorrow soon or late comes to every man and 
breaks his heart. Now "the sting of death is sin," 
and the sting of sorrow also is sin. Sin lies at the root 
of the tragedies of life and of death. Christianity 
is the only religion in the world that fully acknowl- 
edges the presence and power of sin in the world, and 
undertakes to enter into conflict with it, promising 
men to deliver them from it. Other religions take dif- 
ferent attitudes. They accept evil as a fact and hold 
that the struggle between Light and Darkness must 
go on forever ; or they take the position that evil is 
illusion or error of mortal mind and deny and ignore 
it; or they fail to see that the fundamental human 
problem is the moral problem and occupy themselves 
with other things. But Christianity sees into the heart 
of things and recognizes that the root evil of all 
evils is sin. And then Christianity goes forward to 



162 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

offer a way of escape, a method of deliverance. Chris- 
tianity does not coldly say with Emerson, "The dice 
of God are always loaded. Every secret is told, every 
crime is punished, every virtue rewarded, every wrong 
redressed in silence and certainty. What we call retri- 
bution is the universal necessity by which the whole 
appears wherever a part appears." No, we are not 
bound up in a world of fixed fate. Christianity does 
not silently submit to things as they are, hypnotizing 
itself with the theory that everything is exactly as it 
ought to be. The terrible facts of life are here 
sin and sorrow and death and Christianity sees 
them and enters into battle with them. 

Here is the sublime significance of the cross of 
Christ. In the work and teaching of Jesus we see God 
drawing near to men and speaking in their language. 
In the cross of Christ we see the battle at its climax. 
For God does not sit apart from men and from re- 
mote spaces look down on human sin and sorrow. He 
comes all the way to our actual situation and deals 
with us as we actually are. He enters into companion- 
ship with us. He takes our sins and sorrows home to 
himself and makes them a part of the divine experi- 
ence, and by so doing he redeems us. 

"It is by no breath, 

Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue 
with death." 

It is rather by personal, hand-to-hand struggle that 
God in Christ wins the victory over evil, so that be- 



AUTHORITY FROM THE CROSS 163 

fore he ascends to the Father he is able to call to his 
disciples, "In the world ye shall have tribulation ; but 
be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." 

(2) The cross of Christ is the revelation of the 
way God has, from the beginning of time, been carry- 
ing the burden of the world's sorrow. 

With marvelous power of insight does the Apoca- 
lypse speak of Christ as "the Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world." The principle of vicarious 
suffering, the fact of perpetual sin-bearing, is eternal 
in the innermost life of God. To quote Principal Fair- 
bairn : 

"Sin was, as it were, the sorrow in the heart of His 
happiness. Theology has no falser idea than that of 
the impassibility of God. If He is capable of sorrow, 
He is capable of suffering; and were He without the 
capacity of either, He would be without any feeling 
of the evil of sin or the misery of man. But to be pas- 
sible is to be capable of sacrifice ; and in the presence 
of sin the capacity could not but become the reality. 
The being of evil in the universe was to God's moral 
nature an offense and a pain, and through His pity 
the misery of man became His sorrow. We may, then, 
construe the sufferings and death of Christ as if they 
were the sacraments, or symbols and seals, of the 
invisible passion and sacrifice of the Godhead." 5 

Now my position is not that God has from the be- 
ginning been passively bearing the sorrow of the 
world on his heart, and standing aside as a silent 

5 The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, pp. 483-485. 



164 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

sufferer. The cross of Christ is the revelation of the 
way God has been dealing with sin all the time. The 
suffering love of God is not an isolated event. It is 
not an eddy in the main current of history. It is far 
more than an episode in the evolution of the eternal 
ages. What Christ did on the cross, God is always 
doing, God himself enters upon the field of battle. 
Nay, he has always been in the midst of the fight. He 
undertakes the battle on our behalf. To borrow a 
phrase, "God captains in the fight." 

I am raising no question here as to why the universe 
is as it is. I take it as I find it. And in it I find this, that 
God is not content to let things go as they are, but he 
is forever at war with the evil that is in the world. 
Nothing heartens a man as does this faith. The final 
outcome is certain : Right some day must win. We are 
not following a forlorn hope : Christ shall put all his 
enemies under his feet. And in the battle we ourselves 
are workers together with God. 

"Say not the struggle naught availeth, 

The labor and the wounds are vain, 
The enemy faints not, nor f aileth, 
And as things have been they remain. 

"If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars ; 

It may be, in yon smoke concealed, 

Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, 

And, but for you, possess the field." 

(3) And this leads me to say a third thing : The 
method of the cross is the method we must follow if 



AUTHORITY FROM THE CROSS 165 

we would do our part in delivering men from sin and 
all its evil train. 

As Christ dealt with sin, so must we deal with it. 
The cross of Christ in history is the revelation before 
our eyes of the method of the immanent God through 
the eternal ages. And God's method must be our 
method also. When at Caesarea Philippi Peter con- 
fessed Jesus to be the Christ, and Jesus had begun to 
teach his disciples that the law of the cross would cer- 
tainly lead to his crucifixion, Peter made bold to take 
hold of him and to rebuke him. But Jesus very sternly 
rebuked Peter, saying, "Get thee behind me, Satan; 
for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things 
of men." Or as Glover translates it, "You think like 
men, and not like God." Or to give Moffatt's trans- 
lation, "Your outlook is not God's, but man's." God 
thinks in terms of sacrifice. God's outlook is in the 
direction of service through suffering. "Without the 
shedding of blood there is no remission of sins." 
Therefore does Jesus lay down the supreme law of 
discipleship : "If any man would come after me, let 
him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow 



me." 



And only as we identify ourselves with men who 
sin and suffer, only as we share their sorrows, only 
as we bear their sins and sorrows in our own souls, 
shall we be able to bear them away. Under this sign 
we conquer. An impressive instance of the very thing 
that I have in mind took place recently in a little 
Southern city. A pastor's wife was in the hospital at 



166 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

the point of death. A critical operation was necessary 
to save her life. A blood transfusion was required if 
she was to have strength to go through the operation. 
The doctors could not make use of her husband's 
blood. It was Sunday morning at the hour of wor- 
ship. The minister was just about to administer the 
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and the congrega- 
tion to receive the tokens of the broken body and shed 
blood of our Lord, when a note was read asking for 
someone to volunteer to give his blood to save the life 
of the pastor's wife. In an instant twenty-five strong 
young men rose ready to go to the hospital. For them 
Christ's blood had not been shed in vain ! The sig- 
nificance of the atoning sacrifice was never more beau- 
tifully illustrated. And just so with reference to sin 
and sorrow: We must bear them ourselves if we 
would bear them away. 

n 

We have been speaking of the cross of Christ in 
its relation to the forgiveness of sins. Let us make 
sure that we understand what the words really mean, 
those familiar words, "the forgiveness of sins." 

When we stand with the congregation and repeat 
the words of the ancient creed, "I believe in the for- 
giveness of sins," exactly what are we saying? What 
is the meaning of the forgiveness of sins? The 
Apostle Paul and other New Testament writers hav- 
ing been brought up under a system in which religion 
was looked upon as a matter of obedience to law, 



AUTHORITY FROM THE CROSS 167 

even after they had broken away from that system, 
were under the necessity of using the language that 
was best understood among the people to whom they 
wrote. With us the theory of the atonement that has 
most shaped our thinking has been that presented 
in Anselm's great work, Cur Dens Homo? Now 
Anselm's theory was formulated when the most exact 
thinking was done in the terminology of Roman juris- 
prudence. And I have been apprehensive all along 
that when I have spoken of "the forgiveness of sins" 
it might be taken for granted that I was speaking in 
terms of the law courts or that others might be mis- 
interpreting me by themselves thinking in law terms. 
Let me say then at once that I am not thinking in terms 
of law but in terms of life. "Forgiveness" is an in- 
tensely personal word; it has to do with persons, not 
with courts and law. Just as the suffering of Christ 
must be thought of personally, as God's personal way 
of dealing with sinners, so must the forgiveness of 
sins be understood. And to be understood it must be 
experienced. Without the experience of the divine 
forgiveness the theologian need no more undertake 
to talk about it than a blind man to describe the rain- 
bow or a deaf man to speak of a sonata. 

( i ) By the forgiveness of sins we mean the res- 
toration of personal relations between God and man. 

Sin separates man from God drives him out of 
Eden, sends him into the far country. Now man was 
made for fellowship with God. Apart from God and 



168 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

away from him, no man ever fully conies to himself. 
For sin creates immeasurable distances between man 
and God. Man's deepest need is fellowship with God. 
Without God man is lonely and forsaken. Now what 
the forgiveness of sins does for a man is this : it wel- 
comes the prodigal back home again ; it unlocks the 
gates of paradise and lets in the fallen Adam once 
more. It is as when a friend takes back to love and 
confidence a friend who has offended ; it is as when a 
mother wipes the tears from the eyes of her disobedi- 
ent and now repentant child ; it is as when the father 
puts the kiss of forgiveness upon the cheek of his 
son, lost but now found again, dead, but now alive 
to a father's love. This is the experience that the 
Apostle Paul was giving expression to when he said : 
"Because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his 
Son into our hearts, crying Abba, Father." And 
"Abba," it will be remembered, is just that dear home- 
word for "father" that Paul had used when a child. 
The closeness of his filial relation to God the Father 
required him to make use of that close and intimate 
word of childhood and home. 

And we see now at once how the death of Christ 
is related to such an experience as this. Nothing that 
we can possibly imagine could more certainly lead 
to restoration of personal relations than God in 
Christ coming all the way to the cross to save men. 
And God, let it be emphasized, takes the initiative. 
It is not man who first turns toward God ; it is rather 



AUTHORITY FROM THE CROSS L 169 

the divine Father who turns first toward man. It is 
the seeking, suffering God that reaches the heart of 
man. 

If we look back upon our lives there are sins we 
have been guilty of which, when we brood over them, 
take all the joy and confidence out of life. But the 
testimony of the saints in all centuries is that the for- 
giveness of sins lifts from the conscience the load of 
guilt and enables one to go forth and face the whole 
world with confidence and joy. It is the language of 
personal experience that shouts in Paul's words : "Be- 
ing justified by faith, we have peace with God through 
our Lord Jesus Christ ; through whom also we have 
had our access by faith into this grace wherein we 
stand; and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God." 
Pause a moment and look at the great new Christian 
words in the passage just quoted. Here they are: 
"peace," "faith," "grace," "joy," "hope" ! Here are 
the characteristic Christian ideas. And, as Dean Inge 
says, "when these words threaten to drop out of our 
vocabulary, or are used with an unpleasant suspicion 
of unreality, cant, or affectation, we may be sure that 
we are losing the essence of the Christian spirit, and 
are falling back into paganism." 

It is the realization of the fact that the suffering 
and seeking Father has in Christ gone to the cross for 
our salvation that calms our fears and enables us to 
stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. In the 
presence of that amazing fact what have we to fear? 



iyo PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

(2) Let this also be said : The forgiveness of sins 
brings about the integration and reconstruction of the 
moral personality. 

The astonishing thing about the New Testament 
I had almost said, the most astonishing thing is 
that Christianity knows no hopeless cases ! Take, for 
instance, the story which the Early Church would not 
let die and has preserved for us in the eighth chapter 
of the Fourth Gospel, the story of the woman taken 
in the very act of adultery. To her Jesus said, 
"Neither do I condemn thee ; go thy way ; from hence- 
forth sin no more." Read the account of Zacchaeus 
the publican, the man who had sold his self-respect for 
money. Jesus went home with him, called him a son of 
Abraham, and laid down his principle of dealing with 
erring men "The Son of Man came to seek and 
to save that which was lost." Read again the Acts of 
the Apostles and the letters written by Paul. In these 
we find the story of the triumph of Christ over sin and 
sorrow the most wonderful story ever told. No 
wonder Paul exclaims, "Thanks be to God who al- 
ways leadeth us in triumph in Christ." The Early 
Church was without doubt made up largely of "a ludi- 
crous collection of trivial people, very ignorant 
and very common; fishermen and publicans, as the 
Gospels show us, 'the baker and the fuller,' as Celsus 
said with a sneer." Yes, but Christ conquered them, 
and they "washed their robes and made them white 
in the blood of the Lamb." And from those first days 
of the triumph of the gospel down to the present 



AUTHORITY FROM THE CROSS 171 

hour the history of the real progress of Christianity 
has been the spiritual biography of men and women, 

". . . who have mightily won 
God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain, 
And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain." 

But if the time ever comes when the Church is 
little more than an association of highly respectable 
people, no matter how worthy may be the end that 
brings them together, then the Church will take its 
place along with scores of other institutions having 
a very decent place in society but no redeeming mis- 
sion among men. The main business of the Church is 
to proclaim the good news of salvation to those who 
are without hope or say rather whose only hope is 
in the love of God as manifested in the cross of Christ. 

We have been speaking about sin and the divine 
forgiveness. But we may be told that nobody is worry- 
ing about sin any more, and, therefore, nobody is 
concerned about the divine forgiveness. Walt Whit- 
man's paganism seems to be characteristic of our 
times : 

"I think I could turn and live with animals, they are 
so placid and self-contained. 

I stand and look at them sometimes an hour at a 
stretch. 

They do not sweat and whine about their condi- 
tion, 



172 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their 

sins, 
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to 

God." 

But I am not so sure about this. Indeed, I do not 
believe that it truly represents the spirit of the times 
we live in. It may be that old theological terms have 
fallen into disuse. It may be that we have learned 
how to keep our sorrows to ourselves. We do not 
talk so much nowadays about sin as an abstraction, 
but we do know sins as concrete realities. There are, 
it is true, many things that call us away from thoughts 
about ourselves. The world was never more alluring 
than it is now. There are so many bright things to 
interest and occupy us. The lust of the flesh, the lust 
of the eyes, and the pride of life were never quite so 
attractive. And the materialistic psychology which 
has been popularized through books and magazines 
is all on the side of the senses. But the human heart 
is incurably human; the soul still perishes without 
God. Man remains orphaned and alone without the 
Heavenly Father. The tragedy of many an empty life 
finds expression in the lines of Fanny Heaslip Lea : 

"She made a little shadow-hidden grave 

The day Faith died ; 
Therein she laid it, heard the clod's sick fall, 

And smiled aside 

'If less I ask,' tear-blind, she mocked, 'I may 
Be less denied.' 



AUTHORITY FROM THE CROSS 173 

"She set a rose to blossom in her hair, 

The day Faith died 
'Now glad,' she said, 'and free, at last, I go 

And life is wide.' 
But through long nights she stared into the dark 

And knew she lied." 6 

The language of Augustine is forever true. "0 
God, thou hast made us for thyself and the human 
heart is restless till it rests in thee." We lie when we 
pretend to be satisfied without God. We lie when we 
seem to be content with our sins. And never more than 
now have souls been desolate, and lives empty, and 
hearts sad. The tragedies that every morning's paper 
calls to our notice bear witness to this fact. We do 
not need to go beyond the circle of our own acquaint- 
ance to see the ruin sin is working in individual lives 
and in human society. The ancient judgment stands 
confirmed: "There is no distinction; for all have 
sinned and fall short of the glory of God." 

Now nothing answers the cry of the soul as does 
the cross of Christ. Here deep calleth to deep the 
deep of God's mercy to the deep of man's need. In 
the presence of the cross we exclaim, "When thou 
saidst, Seek ye my face ; my heart said unto thee, Thy 
face, Lord, will I seek." Here we find the self-authen- 
ticating Christian gospel. To the sins and sorrows of 
men the cross speaks with final and divine authority. 
"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw 
all men unto myself" is both prophecy and history. 

6 Quoted with the author's permission. 



i 7 4 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

For wherever Christ on the cross is lifted up before 
men their hearts have with unfailing certainty turned 
toward him. Nothing attracts as does the magnet 
of the cross. And this is not a theory to be defended; 
it is a fact to be proclaimed. It is not a proposition 
that needs argumentation; it is an experience that 
calls for affirmation. There can be no question that 
too many of our Modernists have been too much 
concerned over "the work of explanation" and not 
enough concerned about "the work of salvation." Do 
not misunderstand me : the work of explanation must 
be done ; no man should hesitate to follow the truth 
out to the utmost edge of reality. But with the 
preacher, the love of men comes before the love of 
truth, and it may turn out that the pragmatic prin- 
ciple is worth considering; if a thing works it must 
be true. It is always the truth in a doctrine that saves 
never the error that is in it. And the gospel of 
Christ and his cross remains through all the genera- 
tions "the power of God unto salvation to everyone 
that believeth." 

in 

No story ever told has had such power to touch the 
hearts of all sorts and conditions of men. It authen- 
ticates itself. 

James Denney bears witness to the authority of 
the cross in the following words : 

"The doctrine of an atonement for sins, made in 
Christ's death, has never been accepted in the Church 



AUTHORITY FROM THE CROSS 175 

simply as the speculation of three accidentally priv- 
ileged men Peter, Paul, and John. The authority it 
enjoys and has enjoyed from the beginning of time is 
due to this, that the Holy Spirit has borne witness by 
and with that doctrine in men's hearts, making them 
sure that in accepting Christ's death thus interpreted, 
they are accepting the very soul of God's redeeming 
love. If there is one truth in the whole Bible which 
is covered by the Testimonium Internum Spiritus 
sancti, and by the consenting witness of Christians in 
all ages, it is this. It has an authority in it or along 
with it by which it vindicates itself to faith as divinely 
and infallibly true; it asserts itself irresistibly, and 
beyond a doubt, as the supreme revelation of God's 
judgment and mercy to penitent souls. There can be 
no authority higher than that." 7 

One of the older missionaries from India tells 
how one day a pundit from the hills said to him, "Get 
out of this country and quit telling that story of the 
cross. We have many religions and many stories of 
the gods, but no such story as the story of the cross. 
And if you do not stop telling that story, the people 
will forsake their religion and go to following Jesus." 
So mightily does the message of the cross appeal to 
men who are morally in earnest. 

Sometime ago The Christian Century carried an 
interesting and illuminating story. I omit the names. 
In a city of one of the Central States the pastor of 
the First Unitarian Church had been giving a series 
of sermons on the life of Christ. As the Lenten season 



"Studies in Theology, pp. 222-223. 



176 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

drew toward its close there came the place for a ser- 
mon on the crucifixion, and the pastor had announced 
that on the next Sunday he would preach on: "The 
Man on Trial for His Life : His Crucifixion." But 
when the congregation gathered for the service the 
bulletin of the church announced an entirely different 
subject. And with this change in subject appeared this 
note written by the minister : "As I read and reread 
the accounts given in the Gospels, I found myself too 
profoundly stirred to attempt the translation of 
thought and feeling into speech. The denial by Peter; 
the trial before the High Priest, Herod and Pilate ; 
the mocking and the cruel scourging; and finally the 
terrible anguish and death of the Man upon the cross ; 
all are so greatly moving in their tragedy that I felt 
if I trusted myself to speech, I should be completely 
overcome." The Christian Century adds this com- 
ment: "What would happen if even church people 
should learn to read the story of Jesus with their 
emotions as well as with their ordinary mental ap- 
paratus?" And may I add this further comment: 
What would happen if preachers in the evangelical 
churches should pause for a time from preaching 
about the events of the day and bring from Sunday 
to Sunday some message about the Eternal Christ? 
What would happen if with hearts suffused with grati- 
tude divine they should again and again undertake 
to show how here in the story of the anguish and 
death of the Man upon the cross is an exhibition be- 
fore men and angels of the suffering love that is 



AUTHORITY FROM THE CROSS 177 

eternal in the heart of God? Bishop Eugene Russell 
Hendrix used to tell of a young minister who found 
one morning on his pulpit a note reading as follows : 
"Sir, we would see Jesus." He accepted the rebuke 
and began to preach the gospel of Christ and him 
crucified. Then again he found another note on his 
pulpit which was in the following language, "Then 
were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord." 
Nothing speaks to the human heart as does the 
preaching of the cross. 

Distant and cold are our best logical forms and 
theological statements when they attempt to set forth 
the meaning of the cross. They are all open to criti- 
cism, and they all fail to satisfy the preacher that 
writes them down. But the cross on Calvary does 
speak home to the guilty conscience and the contrite 
heart in a language all its own. It is the very "word of 
God," the language God uses, to carry his message 
home. We may be puzzled over it when working in 
the study or sitting in the lecture room. But it all 
seems so plain when we are in our closet on our knees, 
or when kneeling at the Lord's table we hear the 
words spoken, "The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
which was given for thee. . . . The blood of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee." 

It speaks to us as does great music or great art or 
great poetry. It is more significant than all the sym- 
bols and more sacramental than all the sacraments. In 
it the Spirit of God whispers forgiveness and peace 
and life eternal. 



178 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

It has been said that no rallying cry ever appealed 
to men as does the call, "Come and suffer with us." 
This is the call of God to men from the cross. Come 
and see where is to be found the sin and sorrow of 
the world. Come and sit down by the suffering and 
take their burdens on your heart. Come and get under 
the weight of the world's sin until you feel the shame 
and guilt of it to be your own. Come and seek out 
the causes of the evils in human society and dedicate 
your life to the building of a better world. Come 
share in the work of the world's Redeemer. Take up 
your cross and follow Christ. In your own flesh and 
soul, fill up on your own part "that which is lacking 
of the afflictions of Christ" for the sake of saving men 
and women and little children from sin and sorrow, 
and you will enter into "the fellowship of his suffer- 
ings" and experience the highest joy that comes to 
man, the joy that seeketh us through pain. 

"0 Cross that liftest up my head, 

I dare not ask to fly from thee ; 
I lay in dust life's glory dead, 
And from the ground there blossoms red 

Life that shall endless be." 



VII 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH 

"O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only 
Saviour, the Prince of Peace ; give us grace seriously to lay to 
heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions. 
Take away all hatred and prejudice, and whatsoever else 
may hinder us from godly union and concord ; that as there is 
but one body and one Spirit, and one hope. of our calling, one 
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, so 
we may be all of one heart and one soul, united in one holy 
bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity, and may with 
one mind and one mouth glorify Thee, through Jesus Christ 
our Lord. Amen." THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 



VII 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH 

ACCORDING to the Catholic view of Christianity the ' 
Church has authority to require an explicit and im- 
plicit obedience which includes within its range the 
intellect as well as the conscience, things to be be- 
lieved as well as things to be done. The Plenary Cate- 
chism puts it thus: "The Church cannot err when it 
teaches a doctrine of faith or morals. A doctrine of 
faith or morals refers to whatever we must believe 
and do in order to be saved." 

Also, the Church has authority to forgive sin. The 
Church is looked upon as a saving personality com- 
plete in itself, possessing a corporate mind and con- 
science, and able to function organically in independ- 
ence of the moral life of its officials. As the famous 
Bishop of Carthage wrote : "No man can have God 
for his father who does not have the Church for his 
mother. From her womb we are born, by her milk 
we are nourished, by her spirit we are made alive." 

It is quite easy for us who look upon this view of 
the Church as mythical and unspiritual and highly 
harmful to intellectual and religious life, to swing far 
to the other extreme and fail to see how central a 
place the Church does hold in the thought and life of 

181 



182 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

the New Testament. And it is quite important that 
we should realize that evangelical Christianity is in 
grave danger at the present time through a failure to 
understand and appreciate the true place and func- 
tion of the Church in human society. There is an 
authority that inheres in the Church, and this 
authority is not less significant, but rather more mean- 
ingful, that it is found to be not external but inward, 
not mechanical but spiritual, not ecclesiastical but per- 
sonal. 

Few things would go farther just at the present 
time in the direction of the building up of the King- 
dom of God and the drawing together in closer 
spiritual unity of all the branches of the Church than 
would the recovery of the apostolic doctrine of the 
Church of Jesus Christ. It is indeed utterly vain to 
attempt to trace back to Jesus any one of the churches 
we now find in the world claiming divine authority 
and origin. But Jesus did gather about him the twelve 
apostles and other followers ; they did baptize in his 
name ; he did institute the Supper of the Lord ; and 
after his ascension his disciples did straightway begin 
to organize churches. The New Testament writers 
do attach great value to the Church as central in the 
divine plan for the evangelization of the world. As a 
distinguished lecturer on the Lyman Beecher Foun- 
dation said some years ago: "History proves that 
the continuance of Christianity is dependent upon 
the Church. . . . Whenever the Church prospers, 
society improves. Whenever the Church languishes, 



AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH 183 

society degenerates. When the Church is vigorous, the 
social atmosphere becomes bracing and clear ; when 
the Church becomes worldly and corrupt, the sun is 
turned into darkness and the moon into blood. . . . 
There is no hope for the triumph of the Christian re- 
ligion outside the Church." 1 

In answering the question, Where lies the authority 
of the Church of Jesus Christ? We reply in three im- 
portant statements : 

First, the authority of the Church is in "the power 
of the keys," that is to say, the right and privilege of 
men and women who have themselves been forgiven 
and brought into personal relation to Christ, to for- 
give the sins of the erring and to open the door to 
the Kingdom of God to all who truly believe. 

Secondly, the authority of the Church lies in its 
God-given prerogative of applying the truths of 
Christianity to the society we live in, and thus to 
bring in the establishment of the Kingdom of God 
on earth, that is to say, the reign of God in the 
institutions of our civilization. 

Thirdly, the authority of the Church is found in 
its consistent and united testimony through the cen- 
turies to the essential things of the Christian faith, 
the commums consensus fidelium. This authority con- 
tinues in the Church of the Twentieth Century as a 
living witness to an abiding reality. 

The present lecture will be given to the discussion 
of these three propositions. 

1 Charles E. Jefferson in The Building of the Church. 



184 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

And, in order that there may be no possibility of 
misunderstanding the position here taken, let it be 
once and for all understood that we are not speaking 
of tHe Church as an ecclesiasticism functioning or- 
ganically) but of the whole body of Christ's followers 
acting as individuals but in fellowship one with an- 
other. 



The Church is to carry on her work and to exercise 
her authority by following the method of Jesus, the 
method of the cross. The cross of Christ is God's 
message of forgiveness and his method of salvation. 

The authority of the Church, then, is in the right 
and privilege of men and women themselves forgiven 
and in fellowship with Christ, to forgive the sins of 
men and lead them to a forgiving Saviour. 

When we repeat the words of the ancient creed, "I 
believe in the forgiveness of sins," do we mean there- 
by only to say that we believe that God has provided 
a way whereby sins may be forgiven? and do we stop 
there ? We must go farther than that. When we repeat 
that confession of faith we should also mean that we 
believe we Christians are to forgive those who have 
sinned. I find that Bishop Temple holds this same 
view. I quote : 

"When one says that he believes in the forgiveness 
of sins, he ought not to mean that he holds the opinion 
that God forgives sins, but that he believes in for- 
giving sins as a principle of practical life God's life 



AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH 

and man's. He puts trust in God's forgiving love; 
but trusting that as good, he must needs imitate it; 
and therefore he trusts also the excellence and power 
of forgiveness in human affairs." 2 

With reference to those who have sinned against 
God and whose conscience cries out in alarm, the 
Church as an institution has no authority to announce 
the divine forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness is per- 
sonal ; it is the bringing back of lost friendship. It is 
restoration of fellowship with the Father. God does 
not delegate that prerogative to another. A second- 
hand and official forgiveness is not what the human 
soul needs. The soul needs God. In forgiveness God 
gives himself. No man, therefore, nor any delegated 
authority, can stand between the penitent sinner and 
his God. But it is the duty and sublime privilege of 
the Church to preach Jesus Christ and him crucified, 
and to announce to all broken and contrite hearts that 
God stands ready to pardon and deliver from all our 
sins. 

"I believe in the forgiveness of sins." There is no 
article in the creed more precious to sinners than this 
announcement of the glad tidings of the divine for- 
giveness. 

It is almost impossible to overstate the impor- 
tance and place of forgiveness in the Christian com- 
munity. And yet somehow its place in the New Testa- 
meat has been to a large degree overlooked. Turn 
then to the Gospels and read. 

s Christ the Truth, p. 318. 



186 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

We begin with the Lord's Prayer, the Disciple's 
Prayer for the Coming of the Kingdom : "Forgive us 
our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." The 
forgiveness of those who have trespassed against us 
is already an accomplished fact with the disciple when 
he prays, "Forgive us our debts." Read the Beati- 
tudes : "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain 
mercy." Now mercy should be defined as compassion 
and forgiveness displayed toward a sinner. And now 
for the sake of its impressiveness permit me to give a 
passage from Dr. Moffatt's Everyman's Life of 
Jesus: 

"If you forgive men their trespasses, 

then your heavenly Father will forgive you ; 
but if you do not forgive men, 
your heavenly Father will not forgive your tres- 
passes either." 

"If your brother sins, check him, and if he re- 
pents, forgive him." Then Peter came up and said to 
him, "Lord, how often is my brother to sin against 
me and be forgiven ? Up to seven times ?" Jesus said to 
him, "Seven times? I say, seventy times seven! That 
is why the Realm of heaven may be compared to a 
king who resolved to settle accounts with his servants. 
When he began the settlement, a debtor was brought 
in who owed him three million pounds; as he was 
unable to pay, his master ordered him to be sold, along 
with his wife and children and all he had, in pay- 
ment of the sum. So the servant fell down and prayed 
him 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you it all.' 
And out of pity for that servant his master released 



AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH 187 

him and discharged his debt. But as that servant went 
away, he met one of his fellow-servants who owed 
him twenty pounds ; and seizing him by the throat he 
said, 'Pay your debt.' So his fellow-servant fell down 
and implored him, saying, 'Have patience with me, 
and I will pay you.' But he refused; he went and had 
him thrown into prison, till he should pay the debt. 
Now when his fellow-servants saw what had hap- 
pened they were greatly distressed, and they went 
and explained to their master all that had happened. 
Then the master summoned him and said, 'You 
scoundrel of a servant 1 1 discharged all that debt for 
you, because you implored me. Ought you not to have 
had mercy on your fellow-servant, as I had on you?' 
And in hot anger his master handed him over to the 
torturers, till he should pay him all the debt. My 
heavenly Father will do the same to you unless you 
each forgive your brother from the heart." 

The New Testament Church understood this 
teaching. We find it all through the writings of the 
apostles. Paul writes to the Romans : "If thine enemy 
hunger, feed him: if he thirst, give him drink; for 
in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his 
head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with 
good." And John writes: "My little children, these 
write I unto you that ye may not sin. And if any man 
sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus 
Christ the righteous." Mark well those words, "If 
any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father." 
Not the man alone who had sinned has an Advo- 
cate. Of course that but much more. Rather, "We" 
the members of the Christian fellowship "We 



188 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

have an Advocate with the Father." His sin is our 
shame. The sinner hurts the entire group of Chris- 
tians. When one member suffers all suffer. Therefore, 
the whole Christian fellowship makes his case their 
jcase before the Advocate with the Father. This is New 
Testament Christianity. This is the Christianity that 
we need to practice in this Twentieth Century. There 
is no swifter way to bring in the coming of the king- 
dom than to practice the gospel of forgiveness. 

And in this connection it cannot be forgotten that 
when Christ was being crucified, when the nails were 
piercing his hands and feet, he prayed, "Father, for- 
give them; for they know not what they do." Nor 
does any man know the full consequences of his sins. 
If he did he would not commit them ; and certainly if 
we knew the full fruitage of his wrongdoing in dam- 
age to himself alone, we should stand ready to forgive 
and by forgiving to bring salvation to him. This 
indeed is the message of the cross: "Father, forgive 
them, for they know not what they do." 

Now these are several reasons why, as Christians, 
we must practice the gospel of forgiveness. 

I. We cannot have fellowship with the forgiving 
God if we do not from the heart forgive our offending 
brothers. 

We have seen that the divine forgiveness of sins is 
not a legal transaction. Rather it is personal. It is the 
restoration of personal relations between the erring 
child and his Father. But God is love self-forgetful, 
self-sacrificing, and forgiving love. The unforgiving 



AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH 189 

soul can have no fellowship with the forgiving God. 
The Christian, therefore, always stands in the spirit 
and attitude of "forgivingness" 

Let me submit the following as a definition of the 
Christian Church: The Christian Church is the so- 
ciety of the forgiven and forgiving. Through Christ 
Christians have been forgiven, and like Christ they 
stand always ready to forgive. "The forgiven and 
forgiving," so may we ever be ! 

2. And we must practice the gospel of forgive- 
ness because there is redeeming power in forgive- 
ness, in human forgiveness as well as in divine 
forgiveness. I say the power of redemption is in the 
act and attitude of forgiveness on the part of Christ- 
like men toward sinners. 

See how much is implied in human forgiveness and 
how it operates to save men from their sins : 

( i) It shows them that we still believe in them. 

Forgiveness reveals to others that we have faith 
in their power to rise and be themselves again. 
George Adam Smith, in his beautiful sermon on "The 
Forgiveness of Sins," has pointed out that the divine 
forgiveness of sins is just God's new trust in the 
soul he has forgiven. So God trusted Abraham. So 
Jesus trusted the sinful women and said, "Go, and 
sin no more." So the Risen Christ trusted Simon 
Peter and committed to him the interests of his king- 
dom. 

Now, it is good to be trusted. Nothing so lifts a 
man out of himself as to feel and know that he is 



igo PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

trusted by good men. Character withers in an atmos- 
phere of suspicion. The finest graces of the soul come 
to full bloom in the warm atmosphere of trust and 
confidence. 

(2) When we exercise the grace of forgiveness, 
we declare to others that we actually believe in the 
forgiving and saving power of God. 

We trust little because we believe little. We lose 
faith in men because we have lost faith in God. 
When we actually proceed to shape our conduct upon 
the faith that all men are redeemable and that Christ 
knows no hopeless cases, then we inspire others to 
believe our gospel. Faith in God is contagious. It 
passes from ourselves to others. 

As everyone knows, the great evangelist of the 
Eighteenth Century was John Wesley. His conduct 
inspired faith in those who had no faith. Men be- 
lieved in themselves because Wesley believed in God. 
Nothing is more characteristic of that great evan- 
gelist than his belief in men, his trust that by the 
power of God men could rise into newness of life. 
Some men deceived him, some disappointed him. His 
critics think him sometimes trustful far beyond the 
bounds of wisdom. But his faith in men was justified. 
I give here a letter written by Wesley. This will 
show better than anything I can say the quality of 
his faith. 

William Shent, a Leeds barber, had become a 
Methodist itinerant. But after several years of use- 
ful service he had fallen into grievous sin, and had 



AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH 191 

been summarily expelled from the society of Method- 
ists. When John Wesley, heard of it he wrote this 
letter to the Methodist Society in Keighley : 

"I have a few questions, which I desire may be 
proposed to the society at Keighley. 

"Who was the occasion of the Methodist preach- 
er's first setting foot in Leeds? William Shent. 

"Who received John Nelson in his house at his 
first coming thither? William Shent. 

"Who was it that invited me, and received me 
when I came ? William Shent. 

"Who was it that stood by me when I preached in 
the street, with stones flying on every side ? William 
Shent. 

"Who was it that bore the storm of persecution 
for the whole town, and stemmed it at the peril of 
his own life ? William Shent. 

"Whose word did God bless for many years in an 
eminent manner ? William Shent's. 

"By whom were many children now in Paradise 
begotten in the Lord, and many now alive? William 
Shent. 

"Who is he that is ready now to be broken up and 
turned into the street? William Shent. 

"And does nobody care for this? William Shent 
fell into sin, and was publicly expelled from the so- 
ciety; but must he be also starved? Must he with his 
gray hairs and all his children be without a place to 
lay his head? Can you suffer this? O, tell it not in 
Gath! Where is gratitude? Where is compassion? 
Where is Christianity? Where is humanity? Where 
is concern for the cause of God? Who is a wise man 
among you ? Who is concerned for the Gospel ? Who 
has put on bowels of mercy? Let him arise and exert 



I 9 2 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

himself in this matter. You here all arise as one man, 
and roll away the reproach. Let us set him on his feet 
once more. It may save both him and his family. But 
what we do, let it be done quickly. 

"I am, dear brethren, your affectionate brother." 

i 

And who can doubt the saving power of such for- 
giveness. It makes the fallen brother feel that he is 
once more fully trusted ; it restores him again to the 
society of the Christian brotherhood; it reveals to 
him the compassionate heart of the divine Father 
waiting to forgive and to save. It speaks the restoring 
word, Return and sin no more. 

3. But there is something more to be said: For- 
giveness is not an easy thing in man any more than 
it is in God. The cross is the measure of the cost of 
forgiveness. If we are truly to forgive we must surely 
endure the cross. 

To forgive is not to smile and shake hands and 
say we will forget. To forgive is to associate oneself 
with the sinner and to sacrifice something with a view 
to bringing him back to righteousness, and in order 
to sweeten our own souls with reference to the of- 
fender. 

Horace Bushnell was, with the older generation 
of preachers, a pathfinder in the realm of spiritual 
reality. His epoch-making work would have been 
easier if he had had in his hand the critical apparatus 
of the present-day theologian. But he followed his 
own heart and the leadings of God's Spirit, and there 
came to him the illuminated mind. He was always 



AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH 193 

brooding over the doctrine of the Vicarious Sacrifice. 
He had already written the first volume of his great 
work on that highest of all themes, when the second 
and complementary volume was born. He describes 
the genesis of the new book as follows : 

"I was writing a discourse on the inquiry, How 
shall a man be able to entirely and perfectly forgive 
his enemy, so as to forever sweeten the bitterness of 
his wounded feeling and leave no sense of personal 
revulsion? I was brought squarely down upon the dis- 
covery that nothing will ever accomplish the proposed 
real and true forgiveness, but to make cost in the 
endeavor, such cost as new-tempers and liquefies the 
reluctant nature. Why not say this of all moral 
natures, why not of the Great Propitiation itself?" 

Yes, it did cost, it does cost God to forgive. The 
cross is his eternal heartache made manifest in time. 
And this is the method of redemption God's method 
and ours also. Only as we make sacrifice of ourselves 
shall we save others. Nothing wins its way and saves 
as does suffering love. The method of the cross is 
the way of salvation. For us, it is not easy. Nor was 
it easy for him who fainted under the weight of the 
cross and died on it of a broken heart. At the heart 
of all true and redeeming forgiveness is a cross red 
with sacrificial blood. 

Here, then, we find the true "power of the keys." 
To his disciples Jesus had said : "Whatsoever ye shall 
bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatso- 
ever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." 



i 9 4 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

And in a very profound and spiritual sense this power 
of binding and loosing does inhere in the Christlike 
followers of Jesus. No man and no ecclesiasticism 
has any right to presume to take the place of God. But 
in the name of Christ we are privileged to say: "Al- 
mighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
who desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather 
that he may turn from his wickedness and live, hath 
given power and commandment unto his ministers to 
declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, 
the absolution and remission of their sins. He par- 
doneth and absolveth all those who truly repent and 
believe his holy Gospel." 3 

And we are privileged to go farther than that. 
When we laymen and ministers, believing fully in 
our gospel, trusting in the ability of sinful men to 
respond to the sacrificial approaches of love, and not 
doubting the willingness of the Father to go out and 
meet the returning prodigal, ourselves take the in- 
itiative and forgive men ; that is to say, when we show 
that we stand in the attitude of forgiveness, then are 
we exercising the power of the keys, then are we mak- 
ing use of our authority to bind and loose, then are 
we opening the gates of new life to men. It was of 
this that the Apostle Paul was thinking when he 
wrote, "Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any 
trespass, ye who are spiritual, restore such a one 
in the spirit of gentleness; looking to thyself, lest 
thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens, 

3 Book of Common Prayer. 



AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH 195 

and so fulfil the law of Christ." Such must be the atti- 
tude of the Church toward sinful individuals. 

II 

We raise now another question: What authority 
tias the Church with reference to the world we live in 
with all its human institutions? We answer: The 
authority of the Church lies in its God-given prero- 
gative of leading the way in the building of the King- 
dom of God among men. 

In general there are three attitudes that have been 
taken toward the world with its social and political 
institutions. 

i. There is the attitude of aloofness, the position 
that the Church has nothing to do with these earthly 
things, that the gospel is designed to save individuals 
only. 

We see something of this in the Church of the 
New Testament. The first Christians had, as a mat- 
ter of course, fallen heir to Jewish apocalyptic, and it 
was extremely difficult for them to shake themselves 
free from that religion of despair. Jesus, it is clear, 
did transcend Jewish apocalyptic. But it was too much 
to expect that the disciples would soon do the same. 
Some of Paul's early utterances show that he him- 
self had not yet outgrown the apocalyptic outlook. 
But all his work was planned on a different basis, all 
his campaigns for the evangelization of the world 
were planned as a wise general would plan for the 
conquest of the entire empire. 



196 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

There is at the present time a school of critics 
who insist that in this particular Jesus was in perfect 
agreement with the Jewish apocalyptic outlook, that 
he was in fact looking toward the establishment of a 
kingdom with Jerusalem as its center, and that in the 
bringing in of this kingdom he looked for the forces 
of the other world visibly to cooperate. His ethics, 
therefore, are only interim ethics. He was, of course, 
disappointed in his hopes, and his teachings turn out 
to be entirely impracticable in this matter-of-fact 
world. 

Well, we may say one thing about the position 
taken by these extreme critics they have at least 
made it plain that the Jesus of the Gospels was no 
"pale Galilean." We are thankful for that much, 
while we decline to agree with these newer critics that 
Christianity, the sanest of all religions, traces back 
to a visionary and a fanatic. 

Also, we have to-day a large group of earnest and 
sincere Christians, frightened by the trend of mod- 
ern thought and in despair for the future of the world 
unless other than spiritual forces be brought into play, 
and they insist that the one concern of the Church 
should be to save as many individuals as possible so 
as to make up the number of the elect and be ready 
to meet the Lord in the air when he comes to claim 
his own. But this, I must insist, is a reversion to a 
lower type of religion and an abandonment of the 
program of Jesus. 

There are others, by no means fanatical, whose 



AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH 197 

scholarship and piety cannot be doubted, who never- 
theless take the position that the Church should re- 
main detached and aloof from merely mundane 
affairs. They view as impossible the scheme to "Chris- 
tianize the social order." The finest of them all, that 
grand old Christian scholar, Francis L. Patton, 
writes as follows : "Men speak of Christian work in 
terms of the community and not of the individual. 
They talk 'of Christianizing the social organism, in- 
stead of saving souls, when as a matter of fact it 
would be as easy to vaccinate the social organism as 
to Christianize it." 4 Well, as a matter of fact, we 
have just about succeeded in "vaccinating the social 
organism." Vaccination is no longer meeting with op- 
position; it is now pretty generally accepted as the 
scientific way of dealing with smallpox. And we do 
hope by and by to get the public at large to yield assent 
to the teachings of Jesus as the one way to save the 
social organism from the disease of sin. 

2. There is another attitude toward the institu- 
tions of the social and political world that we must 
mention. In this view the political methods and 
agencies of this world are to be used in the interest of 
the Church. 

The advocates of this view begin by identifying the 
"Church" with the "Kingdom of God," and this is as 
bad from the viewpoint of exegesis as it is in its 
practical consequences. For when the Church is un- 
derstood to be one and the same with the Kingdom 

^Fundamental Christianity, pp. 174, 175. 



ig8 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

of God, then the Church soon begins to behave as do 
the kingdoms of this world. 

3. But the Church does have a solemn duty to dis- 
charge with reference to society. The gospel does have 
power to save, not individuals alone, but the civiliza- 
tion in which they live. We do believe that Christ 
shall reign till he has put all his enemies under his feet 
enemies in the social organism and enemies in the 
human heart. 

Moreover, in our view the social aspects of the 
gospel and the individual application of the Chris- 
tian message cannot be separated the one from the 
other. Men are not detached integers living apart 
from others and wholly in themselves. We are bound 
up together in one bundle of life. The individual ex- 
ists in society and society exists in the individuals that 
compose it. The Kingdom of God is indeed a new 
order of society in which men serve God as Father 
and love their fellow men as brothers. The teachings 
of Jesus are to apply to all human institutions the 
home, the shop, the mine, the mill, the bank. The prin- 
ciples of Jesus must control in all our affairs na- 
tional, interracial, and international. But mere re- 
forms are not enough. Laws and international agree- 
ments are good as far as they go, but they do not go 
far enough. "Except a man be born again he cannot 
see the Kingdom of God." The Church of Jesus Christ 
is in the world to bring in the reign of Christ in human 
hearts as well as in human institutions. And it should 
never be overlooked that human institutions are of 



AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH 199 

time; man belongs to eternity. Nothing is of any 
value except only as it relates to the soul. Personality 
alone has absolute and eternal significance. The 
Church is concerned in building a better world, be- 
cause of the fact that for the time being this earth 
is the abiding place of men and women dowered with 
the awful gift of immortality. 

And I have no doubt that if we shall come fully to 
understand the meaning of the cross, if we are truly 
ready to practice the principle of the forgiveness of 
sins, and if we now believe enough in the teachings of 
the Master actually to live them, we shall see the 
Kingdom of God come and his will done on earth, as 
it is in heaven. I fully believe that here and here 
alone lies the settlement of our interracial, our indus- 
trial, and our international misunderstandings. For 
somehow the teachings of Jesus go directly to the 
heart. They have an infallible way of vindicating 
themselves at the bar of the human conscience. When 
the Church speaks the language of Jesus it speaks with 
the voice of supreme authority. 

We give a few illustrations : 

Some years ago in a fine little city in the Southwest 
a tragic thing happened. There took place one of those 
unnecessary clashes between colored people and white 
people. Many were killed and the torch was used to 
destroy the humble dwellings of the colored people 
of the city. The following Sunday one of the resident 
ministers stood in the pulpit and spoke on "The Race 
Riot and the Teachings of Jesus." When he had taken 



200 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

his seat someone suggested an offering to replace a 
church that had been burned. They wanted to begin 
somewhere to do something. The collection was in 
progress when a gentleman in the gallery arose and 
began to speak. The minister's heart was in his mouth. 
Almost anything might happen. But this is what the 
gentleman said: "As you people know, my son was 
killed in the riot, but the good colored people of this 
city were in no way responsible for what was done, 
and I have no ill will in my heart against any of them. 
Their church ought to be rebuilt, and I wish now to 
announce my subscription toward that purpose." The 
effect can better be imagined than described. Every- 
body recognized at once that here was a beautiful 
manifestation of the spirit of Christ, and that spirit 
spoke with convincing authority. 

Now my point is that when once we professed fol- 
lowers of Christ are ready in all our dealings with 
colored people in America and all over the world to 
have the spirit of Christ and to show it, then we shall 
be at the beginning of the solution of a problem which 
already is severely testing our Christianity and which 
will imperatively demand solution within the next 
few years. And nothing but the spirit of Christ will 
solve it. 

Our next illustration is most impressive. I give the 
story as it was given by a friend, the pastor of one 
of our churches in the South. My friend's story is as 
follows: "At the close of a Sunday night service a 



AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH 201 

man waited to see me, evidently desiring to be the 
last to speak to me. He was clean, but dressed in 
plain clothes with heavy shoes and khaki shirt. I had 
preached on sin and had made reference to the recent 
crime wave as evidence of the actuality of sin in mod- 
ern society. The stranger came forward and presented 
his discharge papers from the Federal prison and 
said, 'You are all wrong about the crime wave being 
due to sin, whatever you may mean by sin. The crime 
wave is due to economic causes. Hunger and resent- 
ment against the social order cause crime. I am a 
Bolshevist!' " My friend then invited the man to his 
study, where they talked till midnight. The stranger 
was well read on the social problem. Hobbs, Kant, 
Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, were names frequently on his 
lips. He was a German, born near the home of Kant. 
Evidently he had been crushed both in body and in 
spirit by the pre-war German military machine. He 
knew nothing about the work of the Church in 
America and expressed surprise and doubt when told 
of what the Church is actually doing. Being a pro- 
fessed atheist he had no appreciation of what we call 
the spiritual life. I quote again from my friend's 
letter to me : "I asked him many questions, some of 
which were as follows : 

"Question: What would you do with the govern- 
ments of the modern world if you had the power and 
their fate should be left in your hands ? 

"Answer: I would pull them all down and build all 



202 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

over again with the possible exception of Russia, and 
I would destroy a good part of that government, 
also. 

"Question: If you had the power to destroy the 
modern Church together with its influence on human 
life, would you speak the word and destroy it? 

"Answer: With the greatest of pleasure. 

"Before I told him good-bye on the street I said 
to him : 'I shall probably never see you again. I am 
glad to have had this conversation with you. Before 
you go answer me one more question with the perfect 
frankness that has characterized our conversation 
this evening. You are familiar with the picture of 
Christ in the New Testament. Now on the basis 
of the record as it is, without raising any question 
touching the correctness of that picture, if you had 
the choice on the one hand of being like Christ and 
of having society organized and motivated accord- 
ing to the spirit of Christ, and on the other hand 
of being like Karl Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin 
and of having society controlled by their spirit, which 
type of life would you choose for yourself and for 
the world? Then he gave this answer: 'If men 
would live it, I would give my life to see the Christian 
spirit control this world.' " 5 

There you have it from the mouth of a Bolshevist 
and an atheist ! "// men would live it, I would give 
my life to have the Christian spirit control this 
world." 



5 This story was given me by the Rev. H. B. Trimble, D.D. 



AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH 203 

What enormous moral power the Christian Church 
has in its hands, if only we would make bold to use it, 
if only we would dare to be Christians. Men of our 
time are in intellectual confusion. The problems of 
personal life and social readjustment are too great 
for them. But their moral sympathies are squarely 
on the side of Jesus. And the Church, I say, does 
speak with compelling authority when it speaks the 
message of Jesus. In the name of Jesus let us rise 
up and say to all that the social order shall be made 
Christian. Our failure to do so grows out of moral 
indifference, or actual unbelief, or religious cow- 
ardice. 

And now I will give our third illustration. It is a 
story of the late Melville E. Stone and how he sought 
a basis to terminate the great World War. It comes 
as an Associated Press dispatch. I quote from the 
daily press : 

"Paying tribute to the memory of Melville E. 
Stone, Dr. Alexander Fuehr, former press attache 
at the German Embassy in Washington, said: 'His 
bigness of heart is best illustrated by the fact that on 
May 5, 1916, on the anniversary of the sinking of the 
Lusitama, which entailed the loss of his only son, he 
invited me, a German, to the Lotus Club. Bowed 
though he was with grief, there was no rancor in 
his heart, no bias against Germany, but on the con- 
trary he said to me : "I want to do something to honor 
my son's memory. In the course of my work I have 
established contact with leaders all over the world. I 
want to approach these in an endeavor to find a basis 



204 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

for ending this ghastly war. Prince Henry of Prussia 
is one of my friends. Him, too, I would like to see in 
this matter." . . . What still seems so marvelous to 
me,' said Dr. Fuehr, 'is that on the day which 
in some circles was planned as a day of revenge for 
the Lusitania, Melville Stone was so big-hearted and 
noble-minded as to plan for world peace.' " 

There were good and sufficient reasons why Mr. 
Stone's plans could not be carried through. I have 
repeated the story only for one reason, and that is 
because it illustrates the forgiving spirit of Christ. 
The loss of his only son had not embittered him, but 
had made his heart more tender and fixed within him 
the purpose to do everything possible to end the war. 
And nothing but the sacrificial spirit of Jesus will 
ever develop sentiment and create intelligent opinion 
enough to prevent the recurrence of such an interna- 
tional disaster. But the spirit of Jesus will. 

There are numbers of us who with shame confess 
that it required the World War to stab our spirits 
broad awake. We see plainly now that if the spirit of 
Jesus had had its way the most disastrous calamity 
and most appalling crime in human history would 
not have occurred. And we are resolved by voice and 
pen and personal act to do our part toward the pre- 
vention of war in the future. And is not the Church 
to be concerned in such matters ? If the Church of the 
Prince of Peace is not interested in world. peace, then 
she has resigned her God-appointed place as the 
publisher of glad tidings among all nations. The 



AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH 205 

authority to speak in such matters is a God-given 
authority. 
As yet there are voices continuing to cry : 

"Force rules the world still, 
Has/ ruled it, shall rule it ; 
. Meekness is weakness, 
Strength is triumphant, 
Over the whole earth, 
Still it is Thor's-Day." 

But to the raucous voice of the war god we shall 
continue to make reply : 

"Stronger than steel 
Is the sword of the Spirit ; 
Swifter than arrows 
The light of the truth is, 
Greater than anger 
Is love and subdueth. 

"The dawn is not distant, 
Nor is the night starless ; 
Love is eternal. 
God is still God, and 
His faith shall not fail us; 
Christ is eternal." 

in 

In speaking of the authority of the Church there 
is yet a most important aspect of the matter that 
must have our attention. 

In the course of these lectures we have had much 
to say about the meaning of Christian experience. 



206 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

Our approach to Christianity as the religion of 
spiritual authority rather than the religion of external 
authorities has determined our entire interpretation 
of religion and of the place and function of the 
Church in human society. We have taken the position 
that the final seat of authority lies within, that the 
only place to find Christian certitude is where the 
Christ of History becomes the Christ of Experience. 
Already we have seen that the Christian experience 
of which we have spoken is not the experience of a 
single individual or of individuals taken singly, but the 
experience of the Christian community and of Chris- 
tians in association one with another. It remains that 
we should emphasize the fact that just here lies the 
authority of the Church as interpreter and guide in 
spiritual things. I put it in a single sentence as follows : 
The authority of the Church is to be found in its 
consistent and united testimony throughout the 
centuries and at the present time to the essential 
things of the Christian faith. 

( i ) We have called attention to the fact that at 
Pentecost the disciples became sure for all time that 
the Christ who died was now alive forevermore. 
But lying back behind that experience and making it 
humanly possible was a new experience of oneness in 
Christian fellowship. This was epochal and creative. 

From this time forward the word koinonia takes 
its important place in the Greek New Testament. 
Sometimes it is translated "fellowship" and some- 
times "communion." It is a fellowship which is 



AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH 207 

a communion with each other and with God. If we 
speak of it as "something approximating a corporate 
personality that had come into being," we should 
have a care lest we permit a figure of speech to lead 
us astray and go on to attribute material objectivity 
to what is purely spiritual and inward. 

Modern students of psychology have a term which 
will help; we speak often of "group consciousness." 
It is a fact of common experience that in the com- 
panionship of like-minded men we come to a fuller 
realization of our spiritual powers. Now just this 
happened at Pentecost, they were all together with 
one accord in one place and there came a heightening 
of personality and a new experience of the meaning 
of Jesus Christ. It was an experience in community, 
in communion the one with the other and with God. 
Paul has an interesting phrase. He prays for the 
Ephesians "that ye, being rooted and grounded in 
love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints 
what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 
and to know the love of Christ which passeth 
knowledge." It is "with all the saints" that they 
shall be strong to apprehend. For full spiritual 
knowledge two things are necessary: first, that we 
should be saints, and secondly, that the saints should 
be in fellowship one with another. And I will add a 
third thing: For the fullest spiritual knowledge it 
requires all the saints. It takes all the saints to see 
all the truth. 

When, therefore, we speak of the Church as the 



208 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

pillar and ground of the truth we are not thinking 
of any ecclesiasticism as such, but of the holy men 
and women in whom is the mind of Christ, and who 
make up the whole body of the Church Universal. 
The Christian message is not something discovered 
now for the first time. It was verified in Christian 
experience in New Testament times, the classic period 
of our holy religion. It has been borne witness to by 
the saints through all the centuries. And to-day when 
we seek the better to understand it we shall not 
venture to think apart from others or as separate 
individuals only, but we shall do our best thinking 
when we "continue steadfastly in the apostles' teach- 
ing, and in the fellowship, and in the breaking of 
bread and the prayers," as did the disciples following 
their wonderful Pentecostal experience. 

(2) And in the wide fellowship of the Church 
Universal we shall always speak with respect con- 
cerning the great creeds of the Church. They came 
out of experience and they will be serviceable to us in 
keeping us free from idiosyncrasies and eccentricities 
and in line with the vital progress of Christianity 
through the centuries. 

It may help to remember that the difference be- 
tween religion and theology is the difference between 
experience and an intellectual account of it. It is 
something like knowing a friend personally and then 
trying to tell another of your friend of his outward 
appearance, of his mental attitude, of the warmth 



AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH 209 

of his affections, of his devotion to duty, of his spirit 
of cooperation. Or it is the difference between a man 
himself and the picture of the same man. All pictures 
are partial and imperfect. All descriptions, even the 
most intimate and those glowing with the warmth of 
personal friendship, are defective in important par- 
ticulars. And just so it is with all theology and with 
all the creeds. 

What, then, shall we do with the creeds? Shall we 
throw them all away? Shall we no longer attempt to 
tell others of the friends we love? Shall we throw 
into the waste-basket the pictures we have long kept 
of father and mother and the brother God took 
from us in his early prime? Emphatically I say we 
shall do nothing of the kind ! They are pictures and 
we recognize them to be such. But we prize them, 
nevertheless. And so with the great creeds of the 
Church. They speak the language of the past ; they 
cannot be final. But they were shaped in the days when 
men thought the faith to be something worth contend- 
ing for. They gave expression to what men had 
experienced in their own souls. They were meant to 
set forth and protect the everlasting realities of the 
Christian religion. Take the Apostles' Creed and the 
Creed of Nicea. Also take the Thirty-nine Articles 
of the Church of England. We would by no means 
throw them into the discard. We would preserve them 
as precious historical documents bearing witness to a 
great faith. We would, of course, not hold them to be 
binding on modern Christians in all their phraseology. 



aw PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

We would consider them to be serviceable as indicat- 
ing the quality of experience one should have and the 
kind of faith one should hold. For this purpose the 
great creeds of the Church are of inestimable value. 
The Apostles' Creed puts us in touch with the facts 
of the apostolic traditions and interpretations; the 
Creed of Nicea shows us what the Church counted 
as of supreme significance after the victory had been 
won over Arianism ; the Thirty-nine Articles tell us 
of the vital historic connection all English-speaking 
Christians have with the Reformation in England, 
which, let it never be forgotten, was definitely 
Protestant. 

No single photograph of a friend may do him 
justice, but several photographs will give a fair 
knowledge of the man. If, then, we have portraits 
of his boyhood, youth, and manhood we shall have a 
very satisfactory idea of what he looked like and how 
he grew. This is all on the supposition that theology 
is never fixed and finished but always a living and 
growing thing. However, let us look to it that we do 
not get our pictures mixed that they are all pictures 
of one and the same man. Which is to say, a theology 
entirely out of vital continuity with the experience 
of the early church is a theology which is erroneous 
and misleading. Here is seen the real value of creeds, 
only as they bear testimony to experience. 

( 3 ) In the authentic witness of the Church through 
the centuries one thing, and only one, is seen to be 
central and supreme, namely, testimony to Jesus 



AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH an 

Christ. Other things are important, but this is vital. 
For this purpose the Church exists, to bear living 
witness to Christ. In Christianity one thing matters 
and matters eternally, namely, Jesus Christ. 

And as giving interpretation to the faith of the 
centuries in Christ the Son of God, nothing is more 
significant than the hymns of the Church. Every great 
hymn comes out of a great experience. And hymns do 
not walk in the leaden shoes of theology ; they soar 
on the wings of poetry. Now poetry is a more ade- 
quate vehicle for the expression of faith than is 
philosophy. Philosophy is for the few ; poetry speaks 
the language' of the heart. And all the great hymns of 
the Church are saying the same thing about Jesus. 
In them the saints of all centuries join in one great 
chorus. The greatest of all the hymns of the Christian 
Church is the Te Deum. Down through the centuries 
this hymn has come bearing testimony to the meaning 
of Christ in the lives of men and asserting that this 
testimony is in harmony with the witness of the ages : 



'The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee. 
The goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee. 
The noble army of Martyrs praise thee. 
The holy Church throughout all the world doth 

acknowledge thee; 
The. Father of an infinite Majesty; 
Thine adorable, true and only Son; 
Also the Holy Ghost, the Comforter. 
Thou art the King of Glory, Christ. 
Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father." 



212 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

The sum of what we have been saying is this : The 
authority of the testimony of Christians to Christ is 
not found in the experience of separated and isolated 
individuals. Our witness to Christ is more than per- 
sonal testimony. It is the testimony horn out of the 
experience of communion with God and with one 
another. It is made valid in the faith of holy men and 
women who make up the fellowship of the saints. 

This is what we mean when we say, "/ believe in 
the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints." 
The Church is holy and catholic only as it is the com- 
munion of saints. As such it witnesses to a faith that is 
universal and that springs out of holy lives. The vari- 
ous creedal statements that the Church has valued 
show us how devout Christians have sought to de- 
scribe the things of the spirit, while the great hymns 
of the Church which speak a universal language tell to 
every believing soul the meaning of the Christ who 
is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. Thus is 
the faith of Christians of the Twentieth Century 
confirmed and validated. And so does the Church 
continue to speak with authority to men who without 
her living testimony would most surely lose their way. 
(4) One feels almost like apologizing for pausing 
now to sound a minor key. 

Unfortunately, the Church does not speak with a 
united voice. Unfortunately, there is confusion in 
her speech. There are too many varieties of Chris- 
tians speaking too many dialects and stressing too 
many different aspects of doctrine. 



AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH 213 

Nevertheless, it is believed that the vast majority 
of Christians in our churches to-day belong with 
those who trace their religious descent from spiritual 
origins. And already among us there has grown up 
a mighty fellowship. At no time when we come to- 
gether in groups to discuss the things of the Kingdom 
do we feel conscious of any difference in religious 
ancestry. In recent years there has come into being 
a great army of Christians all having the same grand 
objective and all holding the same faith in things 
vital. In this brotherhood we rejoice. 

And just here is our shame, that agreeing as we do 
concerning the central place of Christ in History and 
Experience, and holding as we do that in Christ alone 
is there hope for the individual and for the world, we 
are at the same time failing with one mind and one 
voice to give this witness to the world. Meantime, in 
our nervous efforts each to see that his own denomina- 
tion loses no tactical advantage, we fail unitedly to 
speak out and solidly to stand for those vital truths 
without which the very foundations of human society 
shall certainly give way. 

This larger fellowship will come into being exactly 
as the fellowship of Pentecost was created. When we 
have one great end in view, when we consecrate our- 
selves to one great task, when we are drawn together 
in one great love for Jesus; then will come a new 
experience of the Holy Spirit and with that new 
experience an indifference to things that do not matter 
and a supreme loyalty to our Risen Lord. As the 



2i 4 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

Living Christ enters more and more fully into the 
life of his Church, so shall the Church with increas- 
ing unity manifest the Living Christ to the world. 

"Come then, complete incompletion, Comer, 
Pant through the blueness, perfect the summer 1 
Breathe but one breath 
Rose-beauty above, 
And all that was death 
Grows life, grows love. 
Grows love." 



VIII 
PREACHERS HAVING AUTHORITY 

"And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, all 
authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go 
ye therefore." MATTHEW 28: 18-19. 



yin 

PREACHERS HAVING AUTHORITY 

THE sermon is the distinguishing characteristic of 
worship in Protestant churches. It is also its most 
outstanding feature. 

Recently, however, a popular writer has ventured 
to tell us that "the sermon has been the great blight 
upon the Protestant church." 1 On the contrary, we 
affirm that the sermon has been the source of our 
deepest and widest influence. 

We do not overlook the fact that the plainness 
and severity of our church services has in recent years 
been very properly giving way to some larger place 
for warmth and beauty, and that there is a very 
definite tendency toward the Gothic in our church 
architecture. For this we are grateful. But a real 
danger lies this way. No form and ceremony; no 
choir, singing either the ancient hymns of the Church 
or the songs of the present day; no imitation of the 
sacramentarian ritual which our fathers left behind, 
will serve to take the place of power made vacant by 
preachers who have lost their gospel. 

And whatever the preacher may be, let him first of 

1 Gamaliel Bradford in his D. L. Moody: A Worker of Souls. 

217 



2i8 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

all bear in mind that he is a preacher of the Word of 
God. He is a pastor and must carefully shepherd his 
sheep. He is a minister and, like his Master, he has 
come to serve rather than be served. But he is first 
and last a preacher of the gospel of the Son of God. 
He should look to it, therefore, that the sermon be 
not made secondary, that nothing crowd it off into 
a mere corner of the hour. Music cannot take the place 
of the sermon; silence cannot take the place of the 
spoken word ; nor can ritual, no matter how symbolic, 
bring men face to face with God as does the audible 
presentation of the facts and truths of the gospel. 
And one must have ample time for the presentation 
of the great themes of the gospel. We concur in Dr. 
Forsyth's judgment that "a Christianity of short 
sermons is a Christianity of short fibre." 2 

Furthermore, every great advance in the progress 
of Christianity has been ushered in by preaching. Call 
the roll of great preachers and see. Take this limited 
list : Paul, Ambrose, Bernard of Clairvaux, Savona- 
rola, William Tyndale, Martin Luther, John Knox, 
John Wesley, John Henry Newman, Henry Ward 
Beecher, Phillips Brooks, William Booth what 
great times and what mighty events do these names 
call to memory ! When these men preached a deed was 
accomplished and many mighty works followed. And 



2 It has been twenty years since I read Positive Preaching and the 
Modern Mind; but upon turning again the pages of the book, the 
opinion then formed is confirmed. No more dynamic series of lectures 
has been delivered on the Lyman Beecher Foundation than those by 
P. T. Forsyth. 



PREACHERS HAVING AUTHORITY 119 

the place of simple and often unlettered preachers is 
not overlooked. Think of Wycliffe's "poor priests" 
as barefoot and clad in long robes they wandered two 
by two over England, all "morning stars of the 
Reformation." Think of Wesley's lay preachers sent 
to the miners and to the poverty-stricken of the grow- 
ing cities and even across the sea. Think of the humble 
ministers of the gospel, who at great cost to them- 
selves and with unmeasured heroism have preached 
all over America the unsearchable riches of the gospel 
of the Son of God. Nothing whatsoever, I do affirm, 
has done so much to lay the mudsills of our civilization 
and to bring to its proper place in the life of the people 
at large an appreciation of the supreme value of 
moral and spiritual things. 

"They climbed the steep ascent of heaven 

Through peril, toil, and pain; 
O God, to us may grace be given 
To follow in their train." 

Now if we in this Twentieth Century are to be 
preachers having authority, several things are neces- 
sary. 

I 

Speaking first in a general way, we must have a 
gospel to preach. How shall we preach except we be 
sent? And who will send us if we have no tidings ? 

There is a curious notion abroad that just anybody 
has a right to talk about religion. By way of illustra- 
tion, the mail brought me the other day a little volume 



220 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

published under the title, They Believe. Here are 
articles written by various individuals, beginning 
with one by a well-known actor and ending with one 
by a distinguished scientist. Now religion is of such 
universal interest, and indeed, in some form, seems 
to be found in almost every man's life, that it is not 
to be wondered at that these excellent people write 
about it, and what they write we are glad to read. 
However, what they have to say is of very little 
value. They have not yet earned the right to speak 
with any authority. At best, they are only amateurs. 
The situation is very much the same as if we had 
undertaken to instruct the actor in his profession 
and to tell the scientist what our opinion is touching 
his special field. About such things we at least know 
enough to keep silent. We gladly accept the authority 
of the chemist in the field of chemistry, or the physicist 
in the field of physics, or the biologist in the field of 
biology. But as Montague says: "The criterion of 
prestige is strictly limited in its validity to the par- 
ticular subject in which the prestige has been empiri- 
cally established." And fortunately, as Borden P. 
Bowne said in his own way, it is pretty generally 
agreed these days that except in matters of religion 
and philosophy no man has any right to speak unless 
he knows something about the subject. 

What I am driving at is this: If preachers are to 
speak with authority they must speak out of knowl- 
edge experimentally established. In a word, there can 
be no such thing as a creedless Christianity. To be- 



PREACHERS HAVING AUTHORITY 221 

lieve is to have a creed. But here comes a professor of 
philosophy writing about the Religion of the Coming 
Age, and he would have us consent that we may have 
a religion without God, or Christ, or Freedom, or 
Immortality. And here is a theological professor tell- 
ing students that "the difference between the ordinary 
man and the prophet is not that between truth and 
error, but between energy and inaction." 3 

And when we sit in the pew and listen sometimes 
to certain preachers and hear what they have to say, 
we feel as if we should like to shout back : "Now that 
you have told us so much about what you do not 
believe, in Heaven's name tell us what you do be- 
lieve." The man without a definite gospel has no 
place in the Christian pulpit. 

And the Christian gospel is the gospel of God's 
redeeming grace as seen in the Christ of History and 
made real m the Christ of Experience. We are not 
asking that one have a long creed ; we do insist that 
one must have a strong creed. About many things that 
men are contentious over we care nothing at all. What 
we want is the answer the preacher gives to the 
question, "What think ye of Christ?" That is our 
one concern. The older preachers will call to mind 
the stir R. J. Campbell made, some years ago with his 
New Theology. Certain honest souls were greatly 
perturbed and more solid theologians were quite 
uneasy about this new voice in the theological world. 
But one day fears touching the essential soundness of 

8 Kirsopp Lake, quoted in Beliefs That Matter, by W. A. Brown. 



222 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

the preacher were set at rest. For R. J. Campbell 
gave his personal testimony. And here follows what 
he said : 

"I cling to the Jesus of history as being one with 
the Christ of faith. ... I feel that I know Jesus as 
Jesus. . . . Jesus Christ is central for my spiritual 
life : I worship him, and trust my soul to him. I admit 
that this is a purely subjective argument, but it is 
one that is justified by results, and there is abundance 
of testimony in favor of it. Millions have lived and 
died before and since Bernard of Clairvaux wrote 
his famous lines 

" 'Jesus, the very thought of Thee 

With sweetness fills the breast; 
But sweeter far Thy face to see, 
And in Thy presence rest' 

millions who could say the same thing. He is very 
real to spiritual experience, this Jesus, so real that 
not all the theorizing in the world is going to displace 
him. . . . Take away from your faith in Christ the 
belief that that Christ has once been manifested in 
one supreme, transcendent personality, and you have 
immeasurably weakened its force. The human heart 
does cry out for a high priest who has been 'touched 
with the feeling of our infirmities' 

" 'Whose feet have toiled along our pathways rough, 
Whose lips drawn human breath.' 

I thoroughly agree with the wise saying that if we had 
never had such a Christ, a Christ after the flesh, we 
should be craving for one now as the one great need 
of our earthly life." 4 



Spiritual Pilgrimage, pp. 216-217. 



PREACHERS HAVING AUTHORITY 223 

I say frankly : If a man has this faith I care little 
as to what else he may believe or may not believe. 
The one essential is Christ; the one Saviour is Christ. 
This is the gospel we are to preach. With this gospel 
we shall be preachers having authority. 

'II 

We preachers should not overlook the fact that 
when we stand in the pulpit before the congregation 
we speak with the authority of the Church and a? 
representatives of the Christian brotherhood. 

The preacher is not a voice crying in the wilder, 
ness. Behind him and with him are numberless voices, 
a great crowd of witnesses. The preacher, therefore, 
has no right to consider himself a free lance. 

What seems greatly in need of consideration to-day 
is the preacher's responsibility to the Church in 
which he ministers. As a member of a Christian com- 
munion he is under obligation as far as possible to 
keep in the main current of its faith and to preserve 
its spiritual identity. Once when the Psalmist had been 
in doubt and in his heart was asking all sorts of ques- 
tions touching the goodness of God and the equity 
of divine providence, it seems that he was on the point 
of speaking out his doubts in the ears of others. But 
wisely he checked himself. Said he : "If I had said I 
will speak thus, Behold I had dealt treacherously 
with the generation of thy children." And it behooves 
the preacher to think of the generation of God's 
children as well as of the abstract truth. "While the 



224 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

questions of the young must be answered and their 
doubts met, the experience of the aged must not be 
disregarded nor their hearts wounded by wanton 
denials of what they hold most dear. The theologian 
is an intellectual mediator between God and man, 
and, as he is responsible to God not to misinterpret 
his truth, he is responsible to men to give regard to 
the needs of their souls." 5 

And let the preacher bear in mind the fact that 
the Church gives him his opportunity. It furnishes 
his pulpit with a sounding board. It increases vastly 
the volume of his voice. If for a time he begins to think 
that the Church can be disregarded and its influence 
dispenseH with, let him try the experiment of an inde- 
pendent pulpit without a great Christian communion 
behind it, and without the intellectual and spiritual 
support of the organized congregation, and he will 
soon find that his voice begins to dwindle and that 
presently it will fail. Let the preacher remember, 
then, that in a large measure his authority is the 
authority of the Church. 

But I hasten to add something else. Let the Church 
beware how she tries to muzzle her prophets, for to 
muzzle the prophets is to silence the voice of God. 
Large liberty of utterance should always be given 
to the men who stand for God before the people. No 
self-respecting preacher will consent to go about 
tied up in a strait-jacket. The preacher's call comes 
from God, not from man. And in the last analysis 

5 Garvie, The Christian Certainty, p. 1005. 



PREACHERS HAVING AUTHORITY 225 

no ecclesiasticism no matter how venerable nor 
any group of men no matter how sincere and learned 
has any right to say to the preacher of the gospel 
just what he shall preach and what he shall not preach. 
To his own master he stands or falls and that 
Master is Christ. The surest way to bring hollowness 
and insincerity into religion is by insistence that all 
Christian ministers hold to the same form of words 
in confessing their faith. Creeds, as we have sug- 
gested, have their uses ; but, as James Denney says, 
the best use to put them to is to sing them, rather than 
to sign them. A man may sign a creed, and that may 
mark a spiritual calamity. But if he is able to sing the 
creed, then he bears witness to an experience. And 
when institutions and ecclesiasticism pursue inquisi- 
torial methods they pronounce judgment upon them- 
selves. And the true preacher of the gospel will gladly 
go forth without staff or purse in the exercise of his 
God-given liberty rather than sell himself as a slave 
that he may get a crust of bread and a place to sleep. 

Hi 

The authority of the preacher is an authority find- 
ing inspiration in the Holy Bible. 

It will help much to remember that we are teachers 
of the Christian religion as well as prophets of God. 
The prophetic inspiration comes only occasionally; 
the facts and principles of the Christian religion lie 
here in the Bible for instruction and inspiration all 
the time. The most instructive and inspiring preacher 



226 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

is the one who knows his Bible best. And it always 
turns out that the man with a prophetic message is 
the man who has kept company with the prophets 
and apostles of the Sacred Scriptures. It was, let us 
hope, a sign of the times, that when Henry Sloan 
Coffin gave the Warrack Lectures for 1926 in New 
College, Edinburgh, he chose for his theme, "What 
to Preach," and sent the ministers that heard him 
back to the Bible as the preacher's sourcebook. And 
it was most heartening a year ago to find Charles E. 
Jefferson in his anniversary sermon speaking in these 
words : 

"Through all these years the Bible has been steadily 
held aloft in the Tabernacle, and you have been 
systematically trained to search the Scriptures and 
find out the things that have been written for your 
comfort. ... I find satisfaction that in all the years 
it has not been necessary for me to go outside the 
Bible to find material with which to stimulate your 
minds or feed your hearts. It has been a thrilling 
experience to demonstrate to all the world, that even 
on the great white way, in what is supposed to be 
America's most worldly-minded city, it is possible to 
interest people in the Scriptures, and to keep the torch 
of Bible truth brightly burning." 

As a source from which to draw sermon material 
the Bible is exhaustless. The newspapers, the maga- 
zines, current fiction, the classic novels, the poets 
everything plays out, but not so the Bible. And this 
is not theory but fact. The people who sit in the pews 



PREACHERS HAVING AUTHORITY 227 

want to know about the Bible. The Bible continues to 
be the best seller. Books on the Bible were never more 
widely read. The Bible takes the front page in our 
newspapers. The preacher who does not take advan- 
tage of this abiding interest in the Bible is totally 
lacking in appreciation of opportunity knocking at 
his door. And what can be more pitiable than the 
sad sight of a preacher leaving the fertile field of the 
Holy Scripture and going off prospecting through 
the wilderness of the morning paper and popular 
magazines for something to speak about Sunday, 
when men and women will sit before him hungry for 
the bread of life. No! The Bible never plays out. 
There is a timeless element in this book. "Preaching 
for the times" may draw a crowd for a time, but the 
people will soon tire of that sort of thing. What they 
want is "preaching for eternity." There is an Eternal 
Voice sounding in the Bible. The men and women 
who come to church are weary of trivial things, they 
are tired of current events, they are sick of the 
commonplace. They want relief and escape. They 
need an outlook into the life that is life indeed. They 
long for some promise of help to carry life's loads; 
they are looking for some glimpse into the City of 
God. 

It will require work, hard work, long-continued 
work. It will require not only work, but meditation 
and prayer and quiet brooding to come to the heart 
of the Bible. But when once the preacher has dis- 



PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

covered the wealth buried here, he will sell all that he 
has to buy this field. 

When the preacher opens his Bible, holding it in 
his hand, the eyes of the congregation are drawn 
not to him alone, but to the Holy Scriptures also. 
He reads. The voice is his, but the words are the 
words of the prophet calling for social justice, or of 
the penitent weeping over his sins, or the invitation 
of the Master, "Come unto me and I will give you 
rest," or of the Apostle telling Row the gospel is the 
"power of God unto salvation to everyone that be- 
lieveth," or of the rapt Seer on Patmos telling about 
"the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of 
heaven." It is the preacher's voice, I say; but it is 
the Word of God sounding down through the cen- 
turies. Here is the authority of the preacher. 

Let us permit John Bunyan to be our guide and 
go with Mm into the House of the Interpreter and 
see what the Interpreter showed him there: 

"Then said the Interpreter, Come in; I will show 
thee that which will be profitable unto thee. So he 
commanded the man to light a candle, and bid Chris- 
tian follow him ; so he led him into a private room, 
and bid his man open a door ; the which when he had 
done, Christian saw the picture of a very grave 
person hang up against the wall; and this was the 
fashion of it. It had eyes lifted up to heaven, the 
best of books in his hand, the law of truth was written 
upon his lips, the world was behind his back. It stood, 
as if it pleaded with men, and a crown of gold did 
hang over his head." 



PREACHERS HAVING AUTHORITY 229 

Bunyan's picture of the Puritan preacher is well 
worth studying in detail. I call your attention only to 
these features of it: "The best of Books" the Holy 
Bible "was in his hand, the law of truth was written 
upon his lips, the world was behind his back. It stood 
as if it pleaded with men, and a crown of gold did 
hang over his head." 

The Bible is the preacher's book. He should know 
more about it than any other book. He should be a 
specialist in the Bible. With the best of books in his 
hand, the law of truth on his lips, and standing there 
in his pulpit pleading with men, then indeed shall a 
crown of pure gold hang over his head. 

IV 

We 'must say now with added emphasis what we 
have repeatedly said already. The preacher's author- 
ity comes from God. Of the preacher it may be said 
preeminently that "no man taketh the honor unto 
himself, but when he is called of God." 

In our evangelical churches the faith continues that 
men are called of God to the ministry of the word. 
One does not first decide upon a professional life and 
then go on to determine what it shall be, whether the 
law, or medicine, or teaching, or the ministry. We 
enter the ministry because we believe it is the will 
and purpose of God that we do so. The unshakable 
conviction grips us that here and here alone lies the 
pathway of duty, and we follow because we must. 

And we do not believe that the ministry comes' in 



2 3 o PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

any sort of succession to be passed on down through 
the physical touch of any man, no matter what may 
be his equipment or credentials. Paul distinctly and 
definitely rejected the theory of apostolic succession. 
Thus he described himself and traced the source of 
his authority, "Paul, an apostle, not from man, neither 
through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the 
Father who raised him from the dead." Then he goes 
on to show what the marks of an apostle are : He was 
preaching apostolic truth, insight into which had 
come to him directly from God; he was having 
apostolic success, the gospel he preached was proving 
itself to be from God by the actual work it was doing 
in the world ; and besides these things he was suffering 
apostolic afflictions. "I bear branded on my body the 
marks of the Lord Jesus," so he wrote. We agree with 
Phillips Brooks that the only genuine apostolic suc- 
cession in the world is that of one heart touching 
another heart with fire. One heart does fire another; 
life passes through personality to others; great men 
do send their influence down through those who come 
after them. In this kind of succession we do believe. 
But our call to the ministry comes from God. 

Turn to the Old Testament and see. No man there 
can lay any claim to be a true prophet of God except 
as God thrusts him out into that office. The young 
Isaiah, sad because of the passing of the great king 
on whom he had set his hopes, and oppressed with 
the wickedness of his country, went into the temple 
to worship. There it was that there came to him the 



PREACHERS HAVING AUTHORITY 231 

vision of the Holy God, high and lifted up higher 
than all kings and holiest of all the holy. Said he : "In 
the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord" 
the king was dead but God is alive forevermore. 
And in contrast with the sinfulness of society and his 
own conscious uncleanness, he heard proclaimed the 
highest attribute of God, "Holy, holy, holy is the 
Lord of Hosts." Then having confessed his own sins 
and the sins of his people, and having been cleansed, 
he hears the voice calling, "Whom shall I send and 
who will go for us?" and at once makes answer, 
"Here am I; send me." The prophet's call comes 
from God alone. Read the story of Amos and Hosea 
and Jeremiah and of all the prophets. 

It is illuminating to read that the work of Christ 
himself was done only in the power of the Spirit. 
Toward the opening of his ministry he came to 
Nazareth where he had been brought up, and when 
there had been delivered to him the book of the 
prophet Isaiah, he opened it and read these words : 
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he 
anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor: he 
hath sent me to proclaim release for the captives, and 
recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them 
that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of 
the Lord." And when he had closed the book and 
had given it back to the attendant, he began to say to 
them: "To-day hath this scripture been fulfilled in 
your ears." And only as the Spirit is upon him will 
any follower of the Master have it said of him, "They 



232 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

wondered at the words of grace that proceeded out 
of his mouth." 

The form in which the call to the ministry comes 
does not matter, nor the channel through whom or 
through which it comes. Often the ablest are the 
most timid and the most sincere the humblest. 
Sometimes it requires a friendly push to get one 
started. Occasionally a strong man has almost to' be 
impressed into the service. But ask the men in whose 
voices sound the note of positive conviction, whose 
messages breathe the divine compassion, and whose 
appeals sound sometimes like a trumpet call to battle 
ask these men, I say, and each and all will tell you 
that they speak because they must. It was so that 
J. H. Jowett looked upon his ministry: "I hold that 
before a man selects the Christian ministry as his 
vocation he must have the assurance that the selection 
has been imperatively constrained by the eternal God. 
The call of the Eternal must ring through the rooms 
of his soul as clearly as the sound of the morning-bell 
rings through the valleys of Switzerland, calling the 
peasants to early prayer and praise." 6 And so say 
they all . 

v 

The preacher having authority has always a mes- 
sage that is positive in its content. For he is a preacher 
of the gospel, and the gospel is not negative, but 
gloriously positive. 



6 The Preacher: His Life and Work, p, 12. 



PREACHERS HAVING AUTHORITY 233 

Moffatt's translation of the words of Jesus very 
fittingly applies to the preacher : "Let what you say be 
simply 'y es ' or ' no '-" The "Yes-No-Sometimes" 
attitude toward matters of faith and vital experience 
forever discounts the man in the pulpit. If you have 
your doubts, have them to yourself before God. 
Leave your doubtful disputations in your study. Burn 
your own smoke. Do not fill the eyes of your people 
with it. The secret of apostolic power lies here. 
Happy is the man who can say with Paul: "But as 
God is faithful, our word toward you is not yea and 
nay. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was 
preached among you by us, was not yea and nay, but 
in him is yea. For how many soever be the promises 
of God, in him is the yea; wherefore also through 
him is the Amen, unto the glory of God through us." T 
The preacher having authority is one who has 
earned the right to judge and speak in such matters. 
He does not speak at second hand. He tells what he 
himself has discovered. Religious questions are never 
to be settled by popular vote. Questions of Art and 
Music are not carried by acclamation. Here we need 
always the artist to interpret for us and the musician 
to guide in musical appreciation. In scientific matters 
we must submit ourselves to the wisdom of the 
scientists. They made the venture of faith, they made 
the great discoveries, and we benefit by their faith 
and spirit of adventure. And even so in religion the 
pioneers of faith have gone out into a land which 

7 II Corinthians i: 18-20. 



234 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

afterward they did receive for an inheritance. They 
explored the undiscovered countries. They have told 
us of the things there to be seen and experienced. And 
they have earned the right to judge. The outcome has 
justified their venture. The facts have vindicated 
their faith. They are the experts in religion who have 
won the place of leadership. When they speak they 
speak with authority. 

And I go further and say that it should be the 
purpose and passion of our lives never to rest satisfied 
till we too are able to speak with authority, the 
authority of those who have personal knowledge, the 
power of those ^ho have gained spiritual insight. 
It is this note of authority gained through personal 
experience that has been the outstanding character- 
istic of all preachers of the first rank. 

And now I ask permission to illustrate this fact by 
reference to certain preachers who helped shape my 
own life and ministry. My apology for the use of the 
personal pronoun is in the principle that has underlain 
all that has been said in these lectures ; namely, that 
'the preacher should be a witness as well as an attorney. 

My first reference is to a man who had never been 
licensed to preach. No hands of ordination had been 
laicton his head. He was a layman. He was president 
of a small college in a Southern state when the South 
was poor. He held the chair of mathematics. He 
taught morals and religion. His very presence in- 
carnated the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on 
the Mount. An announcement that he was to speak 



PREACHERS HAVING AUTHORITY 235 

filled any church in the town. An address by him at 
any conference or convention was an event. He was 
too modest ever willingly to go into the pulpit. Under 
him I was a student during my college days. And this 
in brief is what I saw in him : In him the ethical and 
the spiritual were supreme. Here were realities of 
priceless value. Meanness crumpled up in his presence ; 
in his presence the dimly burning wick of righteous- 
ness was fanned into a flame. Toward all Christians 
there was the broadest catholicity; they were all 
children of one common Father. Toward all men 
there was human sympathy and appreciation. When 
once it was observed that he had tipped his hat to a 
colored man on the streets of that Southern village, 
his reply was, "He had tipped his hat to me and I was 
not willing that he should be a better gentleman than 
I." The dark passions of the War between the States 
had not yet died down, but his patriotism was as 
broad as the nation. He was an American citizen. 
With reference to these several aspects of life he 
spoke often and always with authority, the authority 
of personal conviction, the authority of righteousness. 
I speak of the long-time President of Wofford Col- 
lege, James H. Carlisle. 

"Therefore, to thee it was given 
Many to save with thyself ; 
And, at the end of thy day, 
O, faithful shepherd, to come 
Bringing thy sheep in thy hand." 



236 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

At the beginning of my ministry, while I was in 
the process of making over my inherited faith into 
my personal possession, there came into my hands 
the sermons of Frederick W. Robertson. Everything 
that Robertson had written I read, and much of it I 
read again and again. With what power did the man 
stir me ! The imperial majesty of his intellect, his 
mastery of the New Testament, his genius for Scrip- 
tural interpretation, the beauty of his English, his 
perfect logical order all this appealed to me. For a 
time, no matter what the subject was on which I was 
about to prepare a sermon, I would take down Rob- 
ertson of Brighton and read one of his sermons to 
feel the spell and catch the mood. 

But there was something deeper than all this. The 
compelling power of the preacher was the unmistak- 
able note of sincerity. Here was a preacher who could 
say, "I believed, therefore have I spoken." Robert- 
son was in touch with reality. This was the secret of 
his power. I can never forget when, tossed myself on 
a sea of uncertainty, I read those memorable words 
written by that young preacher after he had passed 
through a time of stress and storm : 

"It is an awful moment when the soul begins to 
find that the props on which it has blindly rested so 
long are many of them rotten, and begins to suspect 
them all; when it begins to feel the nothingness of 
many of the traditionary opinions which have been 
received with implicit confidence, and in that horrible 
insecurity, begins also to doubt whether there is any- 



PREACHERS HAVING AUTHORITY 237 

thing to believe at all. ... In that fearful loneliness 
of spirit, when those who should have been his friends 
and counselors only frown upon his misgivings, and 
profanely bid him stifle doubts, which for aught he 
knows may arise from the fountain of truth itself, to 
extinguish as a glare from hell that which for aught 
he knows may be light from heaven, and everything 
seems wrapped in hideous uncertainty, I know but 
one way in which a man may come forth from his 
agony scathless ; it is by holding to those things which 
are certain still the grand, simple landmarks of 
morality. In the darkest hour through which a human 
soul can pass, whatever else is doubtful, this at least 
is certain : If there be no God and no future state, yet, 
even then, it is better to be generous than selfish, 
better to be chaste than licentious, better to be true 
than false, better to be brave than to be a coward. 
Blessed beyond all earthly blessedness is the man 
who, in the tempestuous darkness of the soul, has 
dared to hold fast to these venerable landmarks. . . . 
Thrice blessed, because his night shall pass into clear, 
bright day." 

In this passage Robertson gives the story of his 
own struggle. But the last cloud drifted from his sky, 
and there came to him a faith and hope and love, no 
longer traditional, but his own, a confidence which 
neither earth nor hell could shake forever. This is 
the reason Robertson appealed to me in the first days 
of my ministry. And this is how it came about that 
Frederick W. Robertson took his place as a preacher 
having authority. 

Phillips Brooks was elected Bishop in 1891. 1 had 



238 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

just come into the ministry. Brooks was elected on 
the thirtieth of April. Then the controversy broke 
out around him. The months dragged on and it 
began to look as if the bishops would not confirm his 
election. Not until July the tenth was the matter 
finally settled. The entire Church in America was 
interested in the discussion precipitated by the call 
to the bishopric of this broad-minded and large- 
hearted preacher. But it was said that he had not 
been properly baptized ; it was well known that he 
did not believe in the doctrine of apostolic succession, 
and that he was not bound by ancient traditions. And 
worst of all, there came the inevitable accusation 
that he was not sound in the faith. 

The attention of a young man just beginning to 
look around him in the world and see how the main 
currents were running was irresistibly drawn to this 
man, Phillips Brooks, big enough to be the Bishop 
of all the churches in the country. Then I read his 
Lectures on Preaching. I almost date time from read- 
ing those lectures. He had put himself into them. 
Always modest and seldom saying anything about 
the sacred privacies of the soul in its dealings with 
God, he had opened up his heart and had revealed 
himself to me in those notable lectures. "The lectures 
constitute the confessions of a great preacher." There 
was never a more satisfactory description of preach- 
ing than that given by Phillips Brooks. Said he: 
"Preaching is the communication of truth by man to 
men. It has in it two elements, truth and personality. 



PREACHERS HAVING AUTHORITY 239 

Neither of these can it spare and still be preach- 
ing. . . . Truth through Personality is our descrip- 
tion of real preaching. The truth must come really 
through the person, not merely over his lips, not 
merely into his understanding and out through his 
pen. It must come through his character, his affec- 
tions, his whole intellectual and moral being. It must 
come genuinely through him." 

There was the secret of Phillips Brooks. His 
sermons came through him. He spoke out of a great 
experience. This made him a preacher having au- 
thority. This gave him such influence with all men, 
and in particular with one young man who was listen- 
ing for the sound of an authentic voice and who 
recognized here a preacher with soul wide open to 
all the winds that blow from heaven. 

I mention finally the name of one other preacher 
having authority. John Wesley belongs to no single 
Christian denomination. He died a clergyman in the 
Church of England. He now belongs to all the world. 
He came to himself very slowly. He had been for 
years in orders before he began the work which was 
to give him his place in history. He had been, and he 
continued till the end of his days, in full accord with 
the theology of his own Church. In that he did not 
waver and from that he never departed. But after 
thirteen years of blundering, he came into a definite 
and decisive mystical experience. He "felt his heart 
strangely warmed"; he was sure that he had met 
Christ in his own personal experience. That changed 



240 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

all life for him. Before this he had been self-centered ; 
now his life moved steadily about the two great 
centers, Christ and Humanity. From the time of his 
"conversion" he lived objectively, not subjectively. 
Now for all time he had a heart at leisure from itself 
to sympathize and serve. 

The secret of his power was in the experience of 
divine forgiveness and peace that set him free. From 
that day forward he made Christian experience and 
righteous living central in all his preaching and labors. 
He was the first man in Christian history to go to the 
pains of gathering together extensive data from all 
sorts of people touching religious experience, making 
a careful study of what had been submitted to him, 
comparing one man's experience with another's and 
comparing his own with theirs. He organized his 
followers in bands, classes, societies, and conferences. 
He required experience to be tested by the corporate 
mind. He stood for the verdict of the community of 
the faithful. Thus he was able, when he preached, to 
speak with divine authority. I do not know that we 
shall find anywhere a more impressive description 
of preaching that carries authority along with it than 
John Nelson's account of the effect produced on him- 
self when he heard Wesley preach : 

"Mr. Whitfield," so writes Nelson, "was to me a 
man who could play well on an instrument, for his 
preaching was pleasant to me, and I loved the man, 
so that if anyone offered to disturb him I was ready to 
fight for him. But I did not understand him. I was like 



PREACHERS HAVING AUTHORITY 241 

a wandering bird cast out of its nest until Mr. Wesley 
came to preach his first sermon at Moorfields. As 
soon as he got upon the stand, he stroked back his 
hair and turned his face toward me where I stood, 
and, I thought, fixed such an awful dread upon me, 
before I heard him speak, that it made my heart beat 
like the pendulum of a clock; and when he did speak, 
I thought his whole discourse was aimed at me. When 
he had done, I said, 'This man can tell the secrets 
of my heart ; he hath not left me there ; for he hath 
showed me the remedy, even the blood of Jesus.' I 
thought he spoke to no one but me, and I durst not 
look up, for I imagined all the people were looking 
at me." 8 

Now it is important to know that this positively 
orthodox man, this definitely evangelical preacher, 
was, with reference to the opinions of others, one of 
the broadest and most charitable of men. By way of 
illustration, he abridged an account of the life of 
Thomas Firmin, a Unitarian, and published it in his 
magazine for the edification of the Methodists. In 
doing so he wrote : "I cannot argue against matter of 
fact. I dare not deny that Mr. Firmin was a pious 
man, although his notions of the Trinity were quite 
erroneous." And when Charles Wesley's son, Samuel, 
had entered the Church of Rome, much to the sorrow 
of his aged father, who had exclaimed that he had 
done so only for "the loaves and fishes." John Wesley 



*Lives of Early Methodist Preachers, edited by Thomas Jackson, 
Vol. I, pp. 13, 14. 



a 4 2 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

wrote his nephew a broadly Christian letter. He 
pleaded with him not to return to the Church of 
England, but that he should seek to "experience that 
inward change of the earthly, sensual mind, for the 
mind that was in Christ." "Whether of this Church 
or that," wrote he, "I care not; you may be saved in 
either, or damned in either." 

With Wesley faith was far more than intellectual 
belief. It was personal and vital. Said he : "A string 
of opinions is no more Christian faith than a string 
of beads is Christian holiness." And again, "I believe 
the merciful God regards the lives and 'tempers of 
men far more than their ideas." And I think it will 
always be found true that the preacher who has come 
into a personal experience of the Living Christ, while 
he will always speak with conviction and with com- 
pelling authority touching the things that lie central 
in faith, will without exception display a broad toler- 
ance toward opinions that do not touch the everlast- 
ing foundations. 

There is the widest possible distance between the 
authoritative preacher and the dictatorial and dog- 
matic pulpiteer. Wesley spoke with power to reach 
thousands of people in all walks of life, because 
he presented always the central message of our 
religion, the Christ of History and of Experience, 
and did not clutter up his preaching with nonessential 
things. A man's indifference to minor matters is the 
measure of his real faith in Jesus Christ the Saviour 
of men. 



PREACHERS HAVING AUTHORITY 243 

We have been speaking about preachers having 
authority and the source of that authority. If now 
someone should ask, How may we preachers of the 
present time come, all of us, to be preachers with 
authority? then I do not know that I have discovered 
a formula capable of general application. God has 
his own way of appointing his prophets and his own 
method of calling his preachers. "The wind bloweth 
where it will, and thou hearest the voice thereof, but 
knowest not whence it cometh and whither it goeth : 
so is everyone that is born of the Spirit." Of this we 
are certain: authority comes only from vision, and 
vision comes only through experience. The essence 
of experience is the same ; forms of experience differ 
as times differ and as human nature differs. 

There are a few choice souls who seem always to 
have known God. Like young Samuel they have heard 
the voice of God from childhood. They are God's 
chosen ones whom he "whispers in the ear." We can- 
not tell how it is, but when they speak we hear God's 
voice. There are others who came through an experi- 
ence of crisis, as did Paul passing from Pharisaism 
to faith in Christ or Augustine passing suddenly from 
the bondage of sensuality to the freedom of the chil- 
dren of God. Such as these always speak with au- 
thority. There are others who have seen sorrow and 
sin in human society and it has pierced like a sheaf 
of spears in their own breast. Often they have not 
been able to sleep at night because of it, and their 
chief regret in having to die was that they must leave 



244 PREACHING WITH AUTHORITY 

all this evil behind them in the world. These are God's 
prophets speaking in the Twentieth Century. There 
are yet others, with keenness of intellect as well as 
depth of experience, whose own faith has been won 
at great price ; they fought their doubts and laid the 
spectres of the mind ; and now they stand before the 
men of thought and learning as the pioneers of a 
larger faith. These are able to speak with full assur- 
ance of knowledge. And there are others still, men 
who have drunk deep of the cup of sorrow, who have 
been broken in pieces like a potter's vessel, men who 
were cast into the furnace of affliction and found there 
One like unto the Son of God. To them God has said, 
"Comfort ye, comfort ye my people." And when they 
do speak, the sorrow-laden wipe away their tears 
and go forward into life with brave heart and vie*. 
torious faith. 

Yes, there are various ways in which it is given to 
the preacher to speak with authority. Of these dif- 
ferent ways we say nothing more. But there are a few 
things that do apply to all. In harmony with these 
principles we must certainly all live if through us the 
message of God is to come to men. I mention them 
briefly: 

First, there must be sincerity. The preacher is a 
communicator. His convictions pass in some strange 
way over into the minds of his hearers. If he doubts 
his own message, others will find it through moral 
sympathy and understanding. If he is a man of strong 
faith, his faith will flow down into others. The first 



PREACHERS HAVING AUTHORITY > 345 

requisite, then, is absolute honesty on the part of the 
preacher. 

Secondly, there must be moral purity. Only the holy 
can know the Holy. Moral affinity is necessary to 
the knowledge of personality. Only the pure in heart 
shall see God. "If thine eye be evil, thy whole body 
shall be full of darkness." The cleansing fires of the 
Holy Spirit must go through our own souls before we 
are prepared to be channels through whom God shall 
come to others. 

Thirdly, there must be complete surrender to 
Jesus. Him alone must we call Master* A certain man 
said to Jesus, "I will follow thee, Lord; but first 
suffer me to bid farewell to them that are at my 
house." He was not quite ready to make the final 
break. And Jesus said unto him, "No man having put 
his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the 
Kingdom of God." For the Kingdom of God is never 
for backward-looking men ; it is only and always for 
those whose faces are turned toward the future. 
Christ calls for full committal to the interest of his 
Kingdom. 

Thus would we stand in sincerity, in moral purity, 
in surrender I 

"With parted lips and outstretched hands 
And listening ears Thy servant stands, 
Call Thou early, call Thou late, 
To Thy great service dedicate." 

THE END 





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