■Hw.vU"ivv.; V
^ THE CAUSES OF THE SOUL
BOOK OF SERMONS
/
BY
Dr. WILLIAM REED HTJlJ^TmGTOJSr
KECTOPw OF GRACE CHURCH, NEW YORK
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
31 West 23d Steeet
1891
pt^t
l^"^
u^^^
.JS^uiM^ c^-^^^^^;^-^
/
^ THE CAUSES OF THE SOUL
BOOK OF SERMONS
/
BY
Dr. WILLIAM REED mjXTmGTON"
EECTOU OF GKACE CHURCH, NEW ^'ORK
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
31 West 23d Steeet
1891
THENEWYORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.
1899.
Copyright, 1890, bt
E. P. DUTTON & CO.
Press of J. J. Little & Co.,
Astor Place, New York.
TO THE PEOPLE OF
ALL SAINTS' CHURCH,
Worcester, Massachusetts;
AND OF
GRACE CHURCH,
New York;
IN WHOSE SERVICE
THE YEARS OF MY MINISTRY HAVE BEEN PASSED,
THIS BOOK OF SERMONS
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
CONTENTS,
SERMON I.
THE CAUSES OF THE SOUL.
PAGE
Lam. III. 58. — " Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my
soul.'''' 9
SERMON II.
RENEWAL.
Rev. XXI. 5. — " And he that sat upon the throne said. Behold, I
make all things new. ''^ 23
SERMON III.
WHY DO I LIVE?
II Cor. v. 15. — '■^ And that he died for all, that they which live
should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him
which died for them, and rose again.'''' 37
SERMON IV.
the unpardonable sin.
St. Matt. xii. 31, 32. — ^'■Wherefore I say unto you, all manner
of sin and blasphe77iy shall be forgiven unto ?nen: but the blas-
phemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto f?ien.
And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of Man, it
shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the
Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world,
neither in the world to come. ^'' 5 2
SERMON V.
"THE SCORN OF SCORN."
Prov. III. 34. — '■'■ Surely he scorneth the scorners.'''' 66
SERMON VI.
god's SILENCE.
PsALM xxxix. 12. — " . . hold not thy peace at my tears.''"' . 81
vi Contents.
SERMON VII.
FATALISM.
PAGE
Psalm xcv. 5. — '■^ The seals his ^ and he made it y .... 95
SERMON VIII.
THE REASONABLENESS OF PRAYER.
Psalm XCIV. 9.—" He that planted the ear, shall he not hear ? " 108
SERMON IX.
THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF CHRISTLIKENESS.
II Cor. X. I, — '■'' Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness
and gentleness of Christ.^' I2I
SERMON X.
THE MANY VOICES IN THE WORLD.
I Cor. XIV. 10. — " There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices
in the world, and none of them is without signification." . 134
SERMON XI.
THE ONE THING NEEDFUL.
St.'Lxske-x.. /^2.—'' But one thing is needful.'' 148
SERMON XII.
LATENT FAITH.
Acts XXVI. ^J.—^'King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets?
I know that thou behevest.'" 161
SERMON XIII.
THE RELIGION OF THE PROMISE.
Numbers x. 29.—" We are journeying unto the place of which
the Lord said, I will give it you.'' 1 76
SERMON XIV.
THE heart's IGNORANCE OF ITSELF.
Psalm XIX. 12. — '■'■Who can understand his errors? Cleanse
thou me from secret faults." 192
Contents. vii
SERMON XV.
herod's blunder.
PAGE
St. Matthew II. 20. — " They are dead which sought the young
child's life.'''' 208
SERMON XVI.
EARNINGS.
II Thessalonians III. 10. — " For even when we were with you^
this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither
should he eat.'''' 219
SERMON XVII.
SINNING IN PARTNERSHIP.
St. Matt. VIII. 34.— ''^w^/ behold, the whole city came out to
meet yesus : and when they saw him, they besought him that
he tvould depart out of their coasts.''^ 233
SERMON XVIII.
steadfast in faith.
COLOSSIANS II. 5. — " . . . the steadfastness of your faith
in Christ.''^ 247
SERMON XIX.
JOYFUL THROUGH HOPE.
Romans XII. 12.—^^ Rejoicing in hope.^^ 261
SERMON XX.
ROOTED IN CHARITY,
Ephesians III. 17, 18.—" That Christ may dwell in your hearts
by faith ; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be
able to comprehend ivith all saints what is the breadth, and
length, and depth, and height.'''' 275
SERMON XXI.
BETHLEHEM.
St. Luke II. 15. — '■^ And it came to pass, as the angels were gone
away frojn them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another.
Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is
come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto tts." . . 289
viii Contents.
SERMON XXII.
WALKING IN THE LIGHT.
PAGE
Isaiah ii. 5. — " . . Come ye, and let us walk in the light of
the Lord:' 301
SERMON XXIII.
ELIJAH ON CARMEL.
I Kings XVIII. 42. — " So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And
Elijah went up to the top of Carmei:'' 316
SERMON XXIV.
THE LOVE OF CHRIST FOR ME.
Galatians II. 20. — " The Son of God, who loved me^ and gave
himself for w<?." 332
SERMON XXV.
HOW ARE THE DEAD RAISED UP?
I Corinthians xv. 35, 36. — " But some man will say, How are
the dead raised up ? and with what body do they come ? . .
** Thou fool, that which thou sow est is not quickened, except it
die.-" 348
SERMON XXVI.
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE.
St. John iv. 24.—" God is a spirit:^ Job. x .xii. 8. — " There
is a spirit in man:'' 359
SERMON XXVII.
DEVOTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY.
Rev. IV. 8. — " Holy, holy, holy. Lord God Almighty^ which was,
and is, and is to come :^ 373
SERMON I.
THE CAUSES OF THE SOUL.
«' O Lord^ thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul.^^ — Lam. iii. 58.
The Book of Lamentations is the outcry of one who
felt, deep down in his heart, the need of help. I say
^^who felt," rather than ^^who had felt," because al-
though the language of this verse, taken by itself, would
seem to breathe wholly of triumph and thanksgiving,
it is evident, both from what goes before and from what
follows after in the passage, that the writer accounted
himself to be still under pressure. The Lord has
pleaded the causes of his soul. The Lord has actually
and as a matter of fact redeemed his life ; but run-
ning through the very gratitude itself there is a
strain of plaintiveness, a pathetic undertone, that
makes us say, " This man is not quite free even
yet." He speaks as some defendant on trial for his
life might do, who has just listened to a plea made in
his own behalf, so powerful, so eloquent, so convincing
that he cannot help believing the case to be virtually
10 The Causes of the Soul.
decided, cannot help thinking of himself as really
safe, even though his judges have not yet formally,
and in set phrase, pronounced his acquittal.
I take it that until the end of the age comes, and
with it the manifestation of the sons of God, such
must necessarily be the attitude of all believing men,
all who by whatever leading have been drawn to
put confidence in the divine Helper.
But postponing such thoughts a little while, let us
look into this striking form of expression, " the causes
of the soul," and see what we can make of it. It is
significant that the plural number is employed. The
soul has more than one cause to plead.
Roughly classified, the causes that are tried in or-
dinary courts of law are of two sorts, those in which
the person accused is guilty and those in which he is
innocent. The effort of judicature, the end and aim
of courts, judges and juries, is to distinguish, aright
between these two classes of cases, to determine
whether, in any given instance, the man on trial is
to be held blameworthy or without blame.
Under which of these two heads are we to count
what our prophet calls the '^ causes of the soul ^'f It
may surprise you to have me reply, Under both of
them. And yet I am persuaded that a little reflection
will satisfy us all that the answer is justified by the
fact. The causes of the soul, I repeat, are of bcth
The Causes of the Soul. 11
sorts, those in which the soul in its own communings
with itself confesses guilt, and those in which the
feeling is, — No, I am not guilty ; a web of perplexity
and misunderstanding is woven close about me, every-
thing looks to be against my innocence; but really,
guilty I am not. What I need is some one to extri-
cate, not some one to forgive me.
Upon this distinctior between the causes of the soul
I wish to rest all that I may have to say. We shall
soon discover that of what might be said, what can
be said is a very small fraction indeed.
Take then, to begin with, those causes of the soul
in which she acknowledges herself guilty. There
are a great many ways of trying to explain away the
sense of guiltiness in the human heart. The same
instinct that prompts us in any differences that arise
between others, our fellow-men, and ourselves, al-
ways, in the first instance, to stand on the defensive,
to resent any suggestion that we may possibly be in
the wrong, in a word to justify self, this same instinct
asserts itself in our relations to our Maker ; and there
is a rooted reluctance in every soul to take upon
the lips frankly, and in the spirit of genuine contri-
tion, the words, "Father, I have sinned." And yet
deeper down even than this reluctance lies the con-
viction that such confession ought to be made.
This is the acknowledgment of the men and women
12 The Causes of the Soul,
of fullest, strongest, ripest nature. You say, — Oh,
no ! I am acquainted with scores of people, who have
no such consciousness, make no such acknowledg-
ment. The sense of sin troubles them not at all.
'^ Guiltiness " is a word they have no occasion to use
as regards themselves. They think too well of God
to believe that He will ever punish, if indeed it must
be conceded that He exists, which they doubt.
Yes, it must be admitted that there are a great many
such people, and they are often very agreeable peo-
ple, accomplished, versatile, cultivated it may be; at
any rate, people who are, as we say, exceedingly
pleasant to meet. The question is, do such people
adequately represent human nature in its heights and
depths ? Are we safe in taking their word for it as
to the possibilities of the soul's experience ? Are we
quite sure that they have thoroughly explored the
whole vast region covered by the words " hope " and
<^ fear," "love" and "hate," "joy" and " sorrow,*'
so that they can be trusted, depended upon, when
they giv it as the result of their investigations, that
as for this matter of a man's being a sinner and need-
ing forgiveness, there really is nothing in it ? We
are, perhaps, a little too reaay to accept as our
authority upon all subjects, those whom we know to
be good authorities upon some subjects. A man may
be an expert in one department, and a very poor
The Causes of the Soul. 13
adviser indeed in another. Testimony is of weight
in proportion to the familiarity of the witness with
the facts about which he testifies. If I want accurate
information as to the climate and products of a dis-
tant territory, I go to some one who has been there ;
and no matter how rough or uncultivated he may be,
I would rather have his evidence than that of the
most accomplished writer or critic, whose whole
knowledge of the place had been drawn from the
map.
To put the case strongly, picture to yourself an
aged man, who has seen much of the trials and trou-
bles of this mortal life, whose face is seamed with
marks that tell of mental struggle, of conflict with
doubt, with difficulty, with pain, whose eye has lost
the flash that once belonged to it, but keeps still
the glow and penetrative power that tell of active
life within, call him a-Kempis, if you will, or St.
Augustine, or Keble, or Muhlenberg. Now set op-
posite him some fresh-cheeked, light-hearted, cheery-
voiced young fellow, who knows not very much of
life, to be sure, but is quick-witted and intelligent,
thoroughly well-read, informed as to the very latest
phase of contemporary thought, literary, social, politi-
cal, able to instruct you on a thousand points of
scholarship in almost any department you may choose.
To which of the two, let me ask, should you the
14 The Causes of the Soul.
more naturally, or with the more confidence turn,
were the question to be discussed, not one about
rocks or shells, or pictures, or pottery, or artistes
proofs, or first editions, but a question of the powers
and possibilities of the human heart ? Which of
them would be the best authority, say you, on such a
point as this one before us now, namely, the soul's
attitude toward God its Maker as respects innocence
and guilt ?
Now the fact is that the light, flippant, careless,
unthinking dwellers on the surface of this earth of
ours are all of them on the side of dissent from the
serious view of life, present and future ; they are all
of them to a man ready to chime in with the cry that
it makes no difference, ^Hhe Lord shall not see,
neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.'' I do not
say that men of weight and power are not found
ranged on that side, too. There are many such.
But, as a rule, it remains true that what we call
moral earnestness, strength of character, is found
with those who do believe that there is a God, and
that it makes a real difference, both to Him and to
us, whether we are walking in the way of his com-
mandments or not.
Just as voices have a ^^ range," and those are
reckoned richest that assert for themselves the largest
compass, so it is with the spirits and souls of men.
The Causes of the Soul. 15
In looking back over the past, and round about us in
the present, we do well to choose for our authorities, in
the matter of religious truths, those whose words seem
to strike deepest into the heart. To satisfy ourselves
therefore about this question, whether the soul's
sense of guilt be a real thing or not, we turn to the
more serious and thoughtful natures, and take their
word for it rather than the word of those who sup-
pose they can settle the whole matter by a sneer or
a jest.
But now the question comes up, and it is certainly
worth looking at. Why should one whose cause is a
guilty cause care to have it pleaded ? Why not con-
fess judgment, and take the consequences ? "0
Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul." Is
this a thing to be desired, that the Lord should take
up or help forward the cause of the offender ? High-
minded advocates sometimes refuse to defend a crimi-
nal when it is perfectly evident that the offence charged
was reaUy committed. Let the law take its course,
they say. And ought it not to be so in men's relations
to their Maker ? If they have really broken his law,
ought they not to be willing to meet the penalty, instead
of expecting or desiring any one to plead their cause !
This seems to have a reasonable sound. Apparently
it falls in and harmonizes with what we see of God's
m.ethods in the natural world. Whoever breaks
16 The Causes of the Soul,
law, in that sphere, does have to meet the conse-
quence and bear the penalty, that is plain. The
man who throws himself before a moving train is
crushed. There is no pleading of his cause that
can save him. He has offended against a law that
executes itself. He dies. Must it not be so, it is
argued, must it not be so in the realm spiritual ? Is
it not eternally true ; in all worlds, here and here-
after, must it not be] true, that for him who trans-
gresses there is nothing in store but punishment, and
a punishment proportioned by exactest measure to
the degree of the offence ?
To all which I merely answer that if it be indeed
so, then is the word Gospel emptied of meaning, and
the title '^ our Saviour " robbed of all its power to
charm. For what element of good tidings is there in
the message. Do wrong, and you shall be pun-
ished % And what need have we of a Saviour, if
there be nothing evil from which it is possible for us
to be saved ? Ah, but He saves us from evil, it
may be replied, by warning us that if we do wrong
evil must come. He is a cautionary Saviour. He
helps us by showing what the law is more clearly
than any one else shows us. My friends that is but
a meagre picture of the Christ who has won the pas-
sionate love of a half a hundred generations of men.
Can it be that that is the whole of it ? Is it imagin-
The Causes of the Soul, 17
able that the picture of a moral teacher with his fin-
ger sternly pointed to the maxim, "This do, and thou
shalt live," is it imaginable, I say, that this is all that
the preaching of the cross has meant, that this has
converted the nations ? No, depend upon it, there is
something more in that word "Gospel" than merely
the warning Take care ; something more in that
name Saviour than Instructor.
That ancient sufferer whose words make the sub-
stance of our text was reaching after, and had partly
grasped, a truth which Jesus Christ came into the
world to make so clear that every one might grasp it,
namely this, that with God there is forgiveness, not,
indeed, the weak-minded, easy-tempered condoning
of sin which it is an insult to forgiveness to call by
that name, but a costly forgiveness involving intensest
suffering. " Lord, thou has pleaded the causes of
my soul." If sympathy and that intimate identifying
of one's self with another, which advocates know
something of, when seeking with all their might to
save the life of a defendant in a capital case, if these
can, as they sometimes do, involve keen suffering,
can we wonder at men's putting a similar interpreta-
tion on the agony and bloody sweat, the cross and
passion ? The truth is, there is a feeling deep down
in the human heart that if we are to be helped at all,
the help must come from some source higher than
18 TJie Causes of the Soul.
our own level. It is all very well to say complacently
that men ought to be willing, and not only willing
but glad, to bear the punishment of their sins, and so
to expiate them. But is it quite certain that when
we allow ourselves to use language of this sort we at
all appreciate what the punishment our sins deserve
would be, or what it would mean to bear it 1
That Christ came down into human life, dwelt with
us, shared our sorrows, toiled, suffered, and all in
order that he might be the more closely identified
with us, and so the better be our advocate, the better
plead the causes of the human soul, — this is the Gos-
pel, this is the glad news, and how different it all
sounds from the bare, Be good and thou shalt be
rewarded, be bad and thou shalt be punished.
No doubt there are petty quibbles innumerable
that can be brought against the doctrine of Christ our
Advocate, and beside the petty quibbles there are
also certain grave and really serious difficulties to a
reflective mind, but, on the other hand, a certain
massiveness and grandeur attach to the doctrine that
of themselves go far toward satisfying us of its sub-
stantial truth. The gloom and mist that hang upon
the sides of mighty mountains, here and there, hiding
now a piece of forest, and again covering a ravine,
these may make it impossible for us to see the
whole mountain in one look. But then we are to
The Causes of the SouL 19
consider that if we could see the whole mountain
in one look, it would not be the mountain that it
is. The gloom and the mystery are themselves
to be coimted as among the credentials of the
mountain's greatness. When God leads us up, as
now and then He does, into the hill country of the
soul, we are to be careful how we apply the little
units of the valley to the measuring of the new and
unaccustomed distances. Too often, in laboring to
make their doctrine clear, religious teachers succeed
only in making it thin. Knowing only in part that
God is gracious and merciful, long-suffering and
plenteous in goodness and truth, let us rejoice to be-
lieve it in full.
It is one of the most precious characteristics of
human love, as well as one of the most wonderful,
that it has power to clothe its object with perfection.
Shall we be less generous in our relations to our
God ? Shall we declare that we will not love Him at
all, until we can understand Him perfectly ? This is
as much as to say that we will never love Him, for if
He be the Infinite One the Bible tells us that He is,
we never can know fully all there is to be known,
never can find Him out unto perfection. If there be in
God that which pleads for us, intercedes, supplicates
forgiveness, let us lift up grateful eyes to heaven, and
even if we cannot fully comprehend the manner of the
20 The Causes of the Soul,
blessing, none the less fervently give thanks that
blessed we are.
I have left myself but little time in which to speak
of the other aspect of our prophet's most suggestive
saying. We saw, you remember, when we began,
how there were two kinds of causes in which the
pleader might find scope for his persuasiveness, the
cause of the guilty man, where the thing sought as
the end of the pleading is a stay of sentence, reprieve,
even if not forgiveness, and again the cause where
the man accused has been the victim of suspicious
circumstances and really is not the guilty person he
seems to be. This last also is one of the causes of
the soul, and calls loudly for an advocate. We are
all liable to stand in need of vindication of this sort.
No men escape wholly misunderstanding and misin-
terpretation. Perhaps it would not be putting the
matter too strongly to say that there is probably no
time when a man is not in a false position as regards
some of those about him ; no time when, on all sides,
and by every observer, he is seen precisely as he
really is. The atmosphere through which men look
at the actions and the lives of the other men about
them is never so absolutely clear that there is no
distortion, no undue foreshortening or misplacement
in the picture received into the eye. Ordinarily this
is tolerable enough; we expect a certain measure of
The Causes of the Soul, 21
misunderstanding, are prepared for it, and do not
mind encountering it. But there are times in tlie
lives of some men when misapprehension and unjust
judgment seem to hem them in on every side. Inno-
cent at heart, and sure that they are innocent, they
yet bend and waver under the crushing load of suspi-
cion which adverse circumstances has laid upon their
shoulders. Then it is that the soul, helpless to free
itself from its calamitous entanglement, calls out to
God for aid. And how is it that the Lord does plead
the cause of such a soul as this environed one we
have in mind? He does it by his providence, by
his ordering of events. How full are the Psalms,
and how full the Book of Job, of ejaculations ex-
pressive of this belief. David was many a time
sore beset by adverse circumstances, but he never
faltered in his faith that somehow and at some-
time the Lord, in whom he trusted, would bring
his soul out of trouble. He had no doubi: what-
ever that, in the end, God would make his right-
eousness as clear as the light, and his just deal-
ing as the noon-day. And recall the striking
words in which another one of the Old Testament
worthies gives voice to the same courageous faith,
" Rejoice not against me, mine enemy ; when I
fall I shall arise ; when I sit in darkness the Lord
shall be a light unto me." My dear friends, the end
22 The Causes of the SouL
and aim of what I have had to say this morning has
been to emphasize this one thought, that our help
cometh from the Lord. It is not by cultivating an
introspective, self-analyzing habit of mind that we
are likely to find the way to peace. We are living out
these lives of ours too much apart from God. We
toil on dismally, as if the making or the marring of
our destinies rested wholly with ourselves. It is not
so. We are not the lonely, orphaned creatures we let
ourselves suppose ourselves to be. The earth, rolling
on its way through space, does not go unattended.
The Maker and Controller of it is with it, and around
it, and upon it. He is with us here and now. In
this church where we have met to worship Him, He
is present, and when we go back to our homes He
will be present there. We cannot escape Him. Why
should we desire to do so ? He knows us infinitely
more thoroughly than we know ourselves. He loves
us better than we have ever dared to believe could
be possible. Conscience-stricken, guilty, perplexed,
spoken against, misjudged, there is no one we can
turn to with such confidence as to Him j no advocate
so trustworthy. He pleads the causes of the soul.
SERMON II.
RENEWAL.
^^ And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things
new.-'' — Rev. xxi. 5.
So then, it seems, there is one foundation which
the shock of change can never overturn. I call jour
attention to the source from which this Voice that is
in our text proceeds — it is the throne.
The seer is witnessing, remember, what looks to
be a universal break-up of all created things. He
uses strong language; it is ^^a new heaven and a new
earth," he says.
The first heaven, that is, the old one with which he
was familiar, the first heaven and the first earth have
passed away. And yet it is plain that in the midst
of the catastrophe one thing abides. There is One
who sits upon a throne, who speaks, who savs "Be-
hold, I make all things new."
Before we take up and consider what the Voice
says, let us give some further thought to this matter
of the throne for I feel sure we shall find blessing
33
24 Benewal,
and help in doing so. The symbolism of the throne
is the symbolism of stability. It is the planted seat
of powero It is the settled place whence authority
springs. According to the paternal theory of gov-
ernmenty the throne is the Father's chair, from which
the household's law goes forth. Its very structure is
suggestive. The throne lies upon the ground^ broad
and square and firm. Perpetuity is of the very es-
sence of its nature. The waves of popular wrath
rage and swell around it, the tides of public opinion ebb
and flow ; it, the centre of unity, the seat of authority,
stands fast. This is the idea of the throne ; and who
shall deny that it is a most majestic one ? Take the
idea illustrated as we may see it in the life of any one
of the great nationalities that have preserved their
identity through long periods of time, — take the story
of England, with which we are familiar, and than
which there could be no better for our purpose.
Start with the throne on the day William the Norman
set it up in the open place his sword had cleared, and
follow its history, century by century, down to the
present day. Mark how it stands unshaken as storm
after storm of change sweeps over the face of the na-
tiono Nobles conspire against it, ecclesiastics try to
undermine it, popidar risings threaten it, usurpers
claim it, once democracy put it aside for a season,
again peaceful revolution transfers it to a collateral
Benewal. 25
line^ but still the throne survives^ the same that the
Conqueror founded, the centre of authority, the cen-
tre of national unity, the centre of the whole people's
associations, loyalties and loves. Citizens of a Re-
public as we are, believing in the " government of the
people by the people " as we do, we cannot refuse to
see the dramatic interest, to give it no higher name,
that attaches to such a history as this. Yes, citizens
of a Republic as we are, we still believe in a coming
Kingdom of God, and can never afford to dispense
with the truth that lies behind this symbolism of
the throne.
What is that truth ? Briefly this, that in the uni-
verse of which we make a part there are two great
principles always at work ; the principle of stability
and the principle of change, and, furthermore, that the
sovereignty, and this is the important point, the sov-
ereignty belongs to the former, to the stability. I find
this in the text; It is an annomicement of universal
change, but the voice that utters the announcement
issues from the seat of permanence. It is not deep
answering deep. It is not chaos uttering itself to
chaos. It is not the inarticulate crash of doom. It
is a word spoken. He that sitteth upon the throne
says. Behold, I, beyond the reach or touch of
change myself, Behold, I make all things new.
"We shall perceive clearly the value of this founda-
26 BenewaL
tion thought as we proceed next to study the contents
of the kingly decree, and its bearings upon ourselves.
Consider, first, the sense in which the words of the
text are always and every day true. We are in the
habit, and very properly so, of associating most of
the sayings of the Book of Revelation with the future,
and this verse, of all verses, we should be disposed, at
first sight, to interpret of some far-off event hidden
among the eternal years. Without denying that the
words, in their most important sense, do have refer-
ence to the future, I yet shall easily persuade you
that they may fairly be interpreted of the present
also. When the Almighty says, ^'Behold, I make
all things new," He is giving expression, not to a
suddenly formed purpose, not to an altered intention,
but simply to a principle of action, a law of conduct
by which we daily see that He does guide Him-
self now, and by which, so far as we know anything
to the contrary, He has guided Himself through the
eternity of the past. When, therefore. He says,
" Behold, I make all things new," we may, if we will,
understand Him as meaning. That is my way, my
use, my law, my habit ; I am forever, and everywhere,
the Renewer. We do not at all disparage the appli-
cation of the words to the great future crisis which
St. John has in view ; we do not at all lessen their
solemnity as a prediction of " the day of the Lord,"
Benewal, 27
when we thus discern in them a meaning which helps
us to understand why that crisis is likely, why that
judgment impends.
In order to bring out the thought let me lay down
this general principle, that whatever thing is capable
of life and growth, must, if it is to live and grow, be
made the subject of continual renewal. Consider a
plant growing in your window-garden. In one sense
it is the same plant you put there a week or a month
or a year ago; in another sense it is not the same. It
has been continually taking in from the soil and from
the atmosphere, through its roots and through its
leaves, new material, and as continually it has been
giving forth and putting away from itself the super-
fluous and dead products of the vital processes.
When any plant, from any cause — the deprivation of
sunlight and moisture, the burning of the drought or
the touch of the frost — ceases to be capable of this con-
stant process of renewal it dies, as we say, that is the
end of it.
Moreover, what we see to be true of the plant, is true
generally, as I just said, of everything that lives and
grows. As it is true of vegetable life, so is it true of
animal life. It is true of man in both of his natures ;
true of him in his body, true of him in his soul. Nay,
the principle is of still wider application. We may
discern its workings in the history of institutions. So-
28 BenewaL
cieties, churches, governments all come under the law.
Whenever they are alive, whenever they are grow-
ing, you may discern in them this constant change ;
something in them is for ever dying, something in
them is for ever coming to the birth. Why is the line
of the history of the Christian Church dotted with
Councils from Apostolic days to our 'own ? Why do
Congresses and Parliaments meet year after year and
still always find enough to do in unmaking old laws and
making new ones ? It is because, in both Church
and State, society is alive and growing, constantly
assimilating new foods, constantly forming new fibre,
constantly taking on, in one feature or another, an
altered look. It is God's law. " Behold, I make —
yes, am continually making — all things new." He is
for ever the Renewer.
Now there is something unspeakably sad and de-
pressing, as all will confess, in this view of the world
and the life^that is lived on it as subject to perpetual
change, unless to our conviction of the stability of
God's throne, which must be the root and ground of
all our believing, we add two more convictions
scarcely less important, namely, first this, that God
has made the world a dying world in order that it
may become a living world, and has not made it a
living world in order that it may become a dying
world ; in other words, that life, not death, is his pur-
Renewal. 29
pose : and secondly this^ that in God's processes of
continual renewal, whether in the natural or the spirit-
ual world, there are no violent breaks, no shocks of
dislocation that wholly and in an instant sever the
new from the old^ but, on the contrary, that these
two are always linked together; the new being not a
reversal but a continuation of the old.
Dwell with me a few moments on these limiting
truths, for they are well worth thinking about.
Life, I said, is God's purpose, not deaths and this
is the meaning of his renewals. We read the para-
bles of Nature very much according to our moods.
God has so made the visible world^ and has so made
us who dwell in it, that as an instrument of music
responds to the feeling of the skilled soid of the com-
poser using it, so sky and field, ocean and stream and
forest answer to the states of mind in which they find
us. To the glad heart, all Nature is full of gladness,
to the oppressed heart it is all full of gloom. The
child in his joy sees everywhere the bursting Jife ;
the gro^\Ta man in his sorrow is very apt to see only
the everywhere on-coming death. But the truth is
that the bright side of Nature is the parable of
righteousness, and the dark side the parable of sin.
The cheerful view belongs to the believer, because to
him only runs the promise of eternal life. Clearly as
the Christian sees that this is a dying world, still
30 Benewal,
more clearly is he bound to see that it is a world con-
tinually coming into possession of new heritages of
life. To those, on the other hand, who have no hope
in Christ and no life in Him, the darkest aspect is the
real and the only one. So long as they keep away
from the Lord of life and refuse to have any part or
lot with Plim, they belong to the dying side of the
world's existence; they are the truly ^'perishing class/'
not the poor, not the uneducated, but they, the god-
less. Oh, for some awakening vision to make them
see, before it is too late, the bitter loss that awaits
them ; to make them hear, before it is too late, the
entreaty, ^' Why will ye die ? "
Thus we have his own word for it that He is not
willingly the death sender, but always gladly the life
bringer. The blithesome child is right, the despond-
ent man is wrong.
And this leads me naturally to speak of the second
of our two limiting and reassuring truths, namely,
God's law of continuity, — how it is a part of his way
in making the new thing never to forget, or neglect,
or treat as if it h"d not been, the old. His making-
all things new in the regeneration will not be his
making them out of nothing, but rather his re-making
of them. Look about you and see if this view of the
matter, full of comfort as we shall find it, be not sub-
stantiated by all that we are able to observe of God's
Benewal, 31
methods now. Do you anywhere find a new thing
that is not in some way a product and result of an
older thing ?
We are tempted into taking the despairing view
of God's law of renewal because we think that the
past is not only gone, but lost. This is a blunder.
Nothing is lost of which we preserve the precious
results.
Your childhood, for example, is gone, but it is not
lostc You coidd not be the man or the woman you
are save for that childhood^s having been.. How then
can you say that your childhood is lost ? It lives on
in your mature character No other childhood could
have produced precisely the man or the woman you
are to-day.
This continuity, this keeping up of the chain of
connection, is what is really meant by that much used
and much abused word, ^^ e volution. '^
This is God's way. He draAvs the new out of the
old, not violently but slowly, gradually, continuously.
The old that is fading away and ready to perish does
not actually perish until the new has been grafted upon
it. What has made the word ^^ evolution" distasteful
to devout minds, is not this thought of continuity, for
who can fail to see that this is one of the leading
thoughts that runs through Holy Scripture itself from
first to last, but it is the fact that so many who speak
32 Benewal,
and write about evolution seem to forget utterly Him
who sitteth upon the throne. They make the evolu-
tion a blind evolution, unfolding from itself, purpose-
less, inscrutable, merciless and loveless. They dis-
cern the great principle of perpetual change in all its
far-reaching manifestations, but they fail to recognize
that greater principle of stability and governance of
which the symbol is the throne. That is why we
hear about ^' godless theories of evolution.'^ But
evolution itself is not godless, for it is manifestly
God's way. It is only the godless way of looking at
evolution that troubles us and frightens us as we look
on astonished to see how He makes all things new.
Take that very best of all living products the
world can show, a Christian character ; how did it
become what it is ? Suddenly ? Abruptly ? No; but
by the quiet, gradual, patient shaping and moulding
of the hand of the Spirit. Saint John is he who was
once John; Saint Paul is he who was once Saul; new
men, both of them, in Christ Jesus, but still new men
made out of existing material, the old clay vivified
by the breath of a better life, even a spiritual. And
yet this process has not made the two men who have
been the subjects of it utterly alike. The saintliness
of Saint Paul is diiferent from the saintliness of Saint
John. Why ? Because John differed from Saul at
the start ; and even in recreating them God would
Benewal. 33
not neglect his own law of continuity. Sainted, they
are just as much unlike each other as they were un-
sainted. In making all things new for both of them.
He that sitteth iipon the throne has respected and
preserved the identity of each. We see the same
law holding, do we not, in the larger life of the whole
Church ? The Christian Church of this nineteenth
century is certainly different, in very many ways,
from the Church of the Crusades, for instance, as
that in its turn differed widely from the Church of
the catacombs and the martyrs, and yet it was one
holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church through all the
generations, the same body from first to last. Nay,
we may push the principle further still in the same
direction, and affirm that from the dawn of history
there has always been a Church on earth, always an
elect people of God, and that the Church of the Gos-
pel is joined to the Church of the law and the
prophets by ties and ligaments that bleed if you at-
tempt to sever them.
But let us lift these thoughts of ours on and
up into their grandest and best fulfilment. How
will it be with the new heavens and the new
earth? Will they be cut off by an impassable
gulf of oblivion from all the memories, all the as-
sociations, all the home feeling of the old life? No,
we do not so read the mind of God either in his
34 Renewal,
works or liis word. His way of making all things
new is not by the utter destruction and annihilation
of the oldj but rather by the remoulding and readjust-
ment of it. The resurrection body in which Christ
showed Himself to the disciples was a body changed
indeed, but still one that they could recognize and
know J and the identity, remember, extended to more
than the body. For the risen Saviour all things had
become new, but the renewal was in no sense incon-
sistent with keeping the affections that had belonged
to the old life. ^^ Simon Peter, lovest thou me ? '^
What wealth of comfort in that thrice repeated ques-
tion from the lips of the Christ who lived again ! Or
when he saith unto Thomas, '^ Reach hither thy fin-
ger and behold my hands, and reach hither thy hand
and thrust it into my side.'' Is there no reassurance
here for those who dread the new heavens and the
new earth just for the reason that they are called
" new % " Nothing could be more new than was that
resurrection life of Christ, and yet we see we cannot
fail to see, how intricately, how indissolubly it was
wrapped up with the old life out of which it had come
forth. Jesus standing by the Sea of Galilee after
his resurrection evidently sustained to each of the
Eleven a personal relation just as real, just as tender
as that which had knit them to one another in
the former days when on these same sands they
Eenetval. 35
had taken sweet counsel together and walked as
friends.
And so I like to thmk of that General Assembly
and Church of the First-born which, with its glorified
Head, is destined to survive the dissolution of things
seen and temporal ; I like to think of that, not as a
new thing newly contrived and newly started, but as
the old family of the people of God cleansed, beauti-
fied, transfigured, renewed, but still the same.
As with the resurrection body of the Christ, so
with his body mystical, his Church, there will be
change, adaptation to new conditions, fitness for larger
and fuller life, and yet at the same time a continuity,
a remembrance of the battles and the victories — yes,
and of the defeats — of the far back militant days, when
on the old earth and under the old heavens and be-
fore the former things had passed, it lived and strug-
gled and endured. This is what makes the blessed-
ness of our faith in the communion of saints. To the
Christian believer, the heavenly life means the con-
tinuance of the earthly life in just so far as that
earthly life was sanctified and made ready to have
the other grafted upon it. Oh, let us welcome re-
newal here and now, my friends, let us seek it, let us
pray more fervently than we do, not with our lips
merely, but away down in our hearts let us pray for
God's renewal of the soul, for the inspiration of that
36 Renewal,
holy breath which makes the spirit fresh — then there
will be nothing to frighten or distress lis, in the pros-
pect of anything that may come, nothing that will
seem forbidding or unwelcome in the thought of
God's making all things new, for we shall feel per-
suaded that whatsoever was good in the old is cer-
tain to endure, and that in the economy of the All
Wise nothing that is worth keeping can be lost.
So then, where we began, there let us end, at the
throne. In moments of despondency and hopeless-
ness, such moments as come to all of us, or cer-
tainly to most of us, in times of public anxiety and
unrest, let us lean with all our might on that support.
There is a throne. There is One whose throne it is.
Behind change is stability. Beyond the shifting
forms and shows of things, there stands the figure of
the Father God, and on the throne beside Him our
Elder Brother, Christ.
SERMON III.
WHY DO I LIVE?
" And that he died for all, that they zuhich live should not henceforth,
live unto themselves, but tinto Him . which died for them, ana. rose
again.'''' — II Cor. v. 15.
We have here two things^ the statement of a fact
and the declaration of a purpose lying behind the
fact. The fact stated is that Christ died for all, or^
in theological phrase, the universality of the Atone-
ment ; the 23urpose assigned is that of giving to us
men something better to live for than our own poor
selfish interests. He died for all^ that is the bold
affirmation ; — and why % It was in order that they
which live should not^ henceforth^ live unto them-
selves, but unto Him which died for them and rose
again. We see the subject in its outline. Be it our
effort now to try to discover something of what that
outline really includes.
It cannot but fill a heart sensitive to the
gentler influence of religion with sadness to re-
member how often the very most tender and
37
38 TF7^^/ Bo I Live f
touching of the sentences of God have been
made the battle-ground of persistent controversjo It
would almost seem sometimes as if the more sacred
the truth involved, so much the more coarse and vio-
lent the wrangle over the interpretation must be. No
article of the faith would appear^ for instance, to call
for a more reverential and delicate handling than
that which sets forth the two-fold nature of the Word
made flesh, the mystery of the birth at Bethlehem,
Him who was Son of God and Son of Man, and yet
it is one over which the wrath of disputants has
waxed at times so hot and fierce as almost to threaten
permanent disaster to the Church.
The very sacrament of love, the Holy Commun-
ion of the body and blood of Christ, has been turned
into an occasion for strife; and men have made them
ready for battle either for or against some highly
metaphysical theory of the real presence with as
much alacrity and eagerness as if thoy were start-
ing upon a campaign for the conquest of a kingdom,
or the recovery of a lost province.
I do not mean to say that such controversies have
been wholly without value, or without justificat'on,
Christ came not to bring j)eace but a sword. We are
bidden to contend earnestly for the faith; and, doubt-
less, it is God's will that from the strife of tongues
there should emerge, in due time, the clear-voiced
Why Do 1 Live ? 39
truth. Babel comes before Pentecostj the manj dia-
lects antedate the perfect language. Still the process
is a painful one to watch. There can be no rough
handling of the holy things without a brushing away
of more or less of the bloom that makes the beauty of
the fruit. Reverence once lost is not easy to be
regained; and holy ground trodden by the too frequent
step of intrusion does not readily recover the soft,
elastic freshness of unspoilt turf.
I have been led into this line of remark by remem=
bering that this very text of ours is one that has
suffered grievously from the violence of debate. To
look at it, a simple-hearted Christian might say there
would seem to be no jutting point on which contro-
versy could win a foothold if it tried, and yet it is a
fact that one of the most memorable struggles in the
history of religious thought has had, indeed may be
said still to have, this plain statement, '^ He died for
all," for its ground and centre. Who were the ^' all''
for whom Christ died ? and in what sense did He die
for them? Was it as their deliverer, only, or as their
vicarious substitute; their ransom also ? These are
questions which men who hold a common faith in the
divinity of Christ, and in the supernatural import of
his death, have not ceased to argue among themselves,
and will not cease to argue.
But I do not propose that we should argue them
40 WIi^j Bo I Live f
tMs morning ; interesting as it might bo to some of us
to tliread the intricacies of old controversy and fight
over again the combats of heroes dead and gone.
Still less do I purpose keeping silence as to the just
and right interpretation of the words. But what I
would like to do is to take for granted, in the same
manner in which a mathematical reason er takes his
axioms and postulates for granted ) — ^to take for
granted for our present purpose the largest and
most comprehensive interpretation which these first
words can bear and then to go on to consider
those other and following words which make the
real burden of the text. The meaning, then, which
we will agree to attach to the words '^ He died for all/'
is this, that there is no man who has lived, no man
who is living, no man who shall live, whom the bene-
fit of Christ's death did not, does not or will not in
some measure and in some manner affect. This is
far from saying that all souls will finally be saved. It
is simply saying that seeing that He died for all, no
line can be drawn of which it can be afiirmeds on
this side stand those in whose behalf Christ suffered )
on that side those for whom He did not die. Or, to
bring my meaning home to every one, let me put it
in this way. There is nobody present in this Church
at this moment, who can truthfully say, '' For me the
Saviour did not die." Substitute for the words ^' in
Wht/ Bo I Live f 41
this Church " the wider phrase " in this world " and we
shall have the belief which^ as I have said, we are to
take for granted in our further study of the text.
Then, as to the sense in which He died for us,
whether in our behalf, as the leader in the charge
who falls at the head of the column dies, or, in our
stead, as the hostage who lets himself be killed rather
than that his whole tribe or nation should be subjected
to dishonorable terms of peace ; here also we will take
the most comprehensive interpretation possible for
granted, and, assuming that the whole truth with re-
spect to the sacrificial death of Christ does in fact
cover both of these forms of statement to the exclu-
sion of neither, we will again press on to grasp the
practical thought and motive which the text enshrines.
For, really, this saying of St. Paul's is one that was
intended to take an immediate and firm grasp upon our
daily lives. It was not meant to be a speculative ut-
terance at all, but a direct appeal to the conscience
and the will. We are not to look at it in the light of
its being a complete answer to the problem. Why did
Christ die ? but rather as a reply to the pressing
question which the soul is quick to ask, whether
it has ever heard of Christ or net, Why do I
live ? It is not a full explanation of the interior
rationale of the Atonement. It is, instead, a powerful
and persuasive statement of one of the main pur-
42 WJuj Do I Live
poses of the Atonement. And there is great com-
fort, I venture to think, for plain people who lay
no claim to intellectual subtlety or unusual gifts o^
insight into things profound, there is great com-
fort for such people in being assured that while
the inner essence and nature of the Atonement
of Christ is evidently a question that taxes the rea-
soning faculty to the utmost, the purpose of the
Atonement as respects ourselves is something we can
all of us understand. Why it was needful that
Christ should suffer, it may not be easy for any man
fully to set forth ; but the end and object of his suf-
fering are level to the apprehension of any one who
cares to know. He died, the apostle says, in order
^' that they which live should not henceforth live unto
themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose
again." To attach us personally to Himself, to grasp
our affections so powerfully as to succeed in drawing
us wholly away from selfishness, to make us Chris-
tians by making us Christ's men, grappling us to
Himself as his faithful lieges, his loyal and loving
friends, this was his purpose, this his ai^n, in dying
for us upon the altar of the cross.
In discussing the question of causes we must be
careful to distinguish between causes past and causes
future, between causes, that is to say, which immedi-
ately precede the results that follow them, and causes
Whj Do I Live f 43
whicli come under the head of motives, plans, pur-
poses, designs. These last are technically called
final causes, in other words, causes which are identical
with the end in view. Thus it may be said of a man
who has built a house, a dwelling for himself and
his family, that the cause of his building it was his
having made a fortune, but the " final cause " of his
building it, the end looked forward to, was the having
a settled home.
In common life we avail ourselves of a thousand
things the causes of which we cannot understand,
but the " final cause '^ of which is plain. Take the
labor-saving machinery which is transforming the
face of modern life. Everybody is brought more or
less into contact with it, and every one shares to a
greater or less extent the benefits which it has
bestowed upon society, but not one man in twenty
thousand is capable of explaining the interior mechan-
ism whereby the results of which he is availing him-
self have been brought to pass. A few men make
the study of steam or electricity the business of
their lives^. and thus attain to a partial acquaintance
with the properties and powers of these agents j but
the great bulk of those who ride in the train and
send their messages over the wires know absolutely
nothing of the structure of the engine or of the philos-
ophy of the galvanic battery. We are content with
44 Whtj Do I Live f
our knowledge of the '^ final cause/' which in the one
case is the transportation of persons and things, and,
in the other, the transmission of intelligencCo Into
the inner and hidden causes which make the trans-
portation and the transmission possible we lack the
power to enter. Now it is the final cause of the
Atonement which most concerns us as children of
men, and this it is which Paul in the text so strik-
ingly and persuasively sets forth. Why the Atone-
ment is efficacious, why it pleased God so to order
his work of saving men from sin and death, just how,
in the innermost workings of that sacrifice, mercy
stands related to justice, and law to love— these are, I
do Dot say, unimportant questions, God forbid, but
they are questions the wholeness of which we cannot
possibly grasp : they are questions which it is not
needful that every believcx* should be able to an-
swer either to the satisfaction of others or to his
own.
We may as safely leave these questions to the theolo-
gians, as we leave the other questions about causes of
which we were just speaking to the men of science.
But it is otherwise with the question of the bearing
of what Christ did and suftered on our own lives and
conduct. That is a matter which does come within
the reach of our understandings. That is something
we are bound to know, and not only to know, but to
WTiy Do I Live f 45
act upon^ for that brings up the whole question, and a
most urgent one it is, Why do I live ?
Every day it is becoming more and more evident
that imless the Christian answer to this question be
the true one, then there is no answer to be had. The
condemnation of the other answers with which people
try to content themselves lies in the simple fact that
they do not wear ; they break down. For a few
years, when life is at its very best, they seem to serve
their pur^^ose well enough, but, in the end, they prove
insufficient, futile, disappointing. This is tolerably
evident in the case of such lives as are plainly and
beyond all question lived for self, and for self only.
Those who cannot see the blunder they are making in
their own lives easily recognize it as a blunder, in the
lives of other people. Probably there are few sensu-
alists or misers who frankly acknowledge to their
own consciences that they are sensualists and misers.
The men who practically, and so far as their ex-
amples go, give to the question, Why do I live ? such
answers as these '^ I live to accumulate money," ^^ I
live to take my pleasure whenever or however I may
find it," ^^ I live to gain power and to acquire place,"
*^ I live to get the better of my neighbor," — I say the
men who give these answers are not only condemned
by the lookers on, but they are judged out of their
own lips, as having failed to meet satisfactorily the
46 Why Do I Live f
question they undertook to meet. And this self-con-
demnation not only betrays itself in the criticisms
which such persons pass on others who are doing the
same things as themselves, but it also, in some in-
stances, seeks definite and articulate expression in the
verdict which they themselves are found pronouncing,
at the end of life, upon all that has gone before.
The Book of Ecclesiastes is by no means the only
autobiography that culminates in the confession ^' van-
ity of vanities, all is vanity.'' From millions of tongues
those pitiful words have fallen as their final summing
up of the case. Yes, some one says deprecating-
ly, as if he would fain not be pushed to an unwel-
come conclusion in the Gospel's favor, Yes, this is
no doubt, in a measure, true as respects those who
look for an answer to the question Why do I live ? in
the region of the lower desires, the baser passions of
our nature ; but what of the better choice which those
make who seek their reward in the exercise of the
intellect and the pleasures of the imagination : what
of those who give themselves to the pursuit of art, of
letters, of science, have not they something to say for
themselves ? Have not they a reason for living which
is thoroughly adequate; and which makes it unneces-
sary for them to trouble themselves about Christ and
his cross ? Have not they something to say for
themselves ? Yes, they have, and it will do us good
Whj Do I Live ? 47
to hear it. Listen then while I read the sentences, in
which one of the controlling intellects of our daj, one
of the master minds, indeed, of all human history, a
man not many years dead, gave his concllisions at
the end of his career. " I despise humanity," he
says *^ in all its strata. I foresee that our posterity
will be far more unhappy than we are. The whole of
life is the greatest insanity, and if for eighty years
one strives and seeks, still one is obliged finally to
confess that he has striven for nothing, and has found
out nothing. Did we at least only know why we are
in this world! But to the thinker everything is and
remains a riddle, and the greatest good luck is that of
having been bom a semi-idiotic savage."
My friends, is it not like passing from the thick,
unwholesome atmosphere of an over-heated, over-
crowded room out into the fresh, bracing, sunshiny air
of open day, when we turn our ears away from this
exceeding bitter cry and listen to the clear voice of
Paul, the servant of Jesus Christ, giving to us his
answer to the question. Why do I live ?
'^ He died for all, that they which live should not
henceforth live unto themselves, but mito Him which
died for them and rose again. "
Peace through unselfishness, joy through love for
a Deliverer in whom we can put supreme confidence j
this is the Christian philosophy of living, and the
48 Whj Bo I Live f
witness is yet to be found who after having given to
it a fair and faithful trial pronounces it a deceit. In-
stances abound of men who after having all their lives
long put 'a bold face on it, and proclaimed themselves
stout-hearted, though far from righteousness, thor-
oughly contented and at ease, though not at peace with
God, have, at the end, given the lie to their whole past
by frankly revealing the deep and sullen discontent that
had underlain it all. . But show us the man who after
having humbly striven through many a patient year
to follow the footprints of Jesus Christ and, so far as
might be, to return his love, show us such a man
acknowledging upon his death-bed that it has been all
a mistake, and that if he had his life to live over
again he would proceed upon a wholly different plan.
I do not mean to overstate the case, or to assert that all
imgodly men, or even the greater number of them,
acknowledge before they die that their selfishness was
a mistake and their plan of life ill-chosen. Religion
gains nothing by exaggerated statement. Thousands
of unbelievers go to their graves with their self-satis-.
faction apparently undisturbed by a ripple of misgiv-
ing. I only say that some of the many who make
selfishness the rule of life are bitterly sorry, when the
end comes, for having done so, and are willing to
confess it : while it is not on record, so far as I am
aware, that any man at the end of an unselfish life^ a
Wli^ Do I Live f 49
life, I mean, as nearly unselfish as it is given to mortals
to live, ever declared that if he could live his life
over again he would live it upon the opposite princi-
ple, and look out more sharply for himself and for
his own than he had done.
The Christian believer then has this grand advan-
tage. He can give a reason for living his life, tedi-
ous, wearisome, dull as it may look to the outward seem-
ing, he can give a reason for living his life which
not only carries dignity and beauty upon the face of
it, but which will stand the wear and tear of experi-
ence and come out brightest at the last. I say it car-
ries dignity and beauty upon its front, this answer
which Christ's man is able and ready to make when
challenged to show the value of life.
I am living, he says, or trying by God's help to
live, not unto myself, but unto Him who died for me ;
and what that means is that I am a helper and a fel-
low-worker in the magnificent enterprise of bringing
heaven down to earth, the headship, the leadership of
which is in the hands of Jesus Christ.
Looking back through the history of the past and
around among the living millions of the present,
I find no person anywhere who so commands my con-
fidence as He does, none who so irresistibly compels
my homage. Therefore, I cast in my lot with Him.
I see, I cannot help seeing, how much that is plausi-
50 WMj Do I Live f
ble can be urged against such a cause. I know^ I can-
not help knowing, the sore difficulties to be encoun-
tered by any one who so decides. But the fact that
He gives me a purpose in life, an object, an aim, a
goal, this outweighs everything else, and I follow
on obedient to the magic of his call. For re-
member, we Christians are invited to live for Him,
not only because He died for us, but because He rose
again. We are not serving a dead Saviour. We
are not living upon an ancient and almost outworn
memory. Our leader lives ; our teacher teaches
still ; our master builder, not content with having laid
the foundation of the temple, stands beside us an in-
visible presence, w^atching us at the work while on
every side the walls of the city of Grod arise. We
too readily forget this best of all the articles of the
faith, the belief in the living Christ. Our lives take
hold of his life, and because He lives, these little
lives of ours, which, cut off by themselves, would
be worthless and insignificant enough, gain dignity
and preciousness.
Let us have done then with whining complaints
about the emptiness of life. If life is empty, it is
empty because we let it be so. Christ is waiting,
patiently waiting, as the sunshine waits on the outside
of a closed shutter. Throw back the barrier, and He
can flood your empty life with light until He has
WJuj Do I Live f 51
filled it as full as full can be. For after all,
what we want in our life is God's sunshine more
than any thing or combination of things. Glad-
ness is better than gold. One might as well talk
of weighing a color, or a thought, or a note of
music in a pair of balances, as dream of filling up a
life with an abundance of things. It cannot be done.
The soul is so capacious that all the furniture on
earth will not suffice to deck out the merest corner of
the vast interior. Light, light is w^hat we want,
something that fills all the space at once, however
measureless, without an effort; something to see bv,
something to walk by, something to breathe cheer-
fulness into us, and life, and genial hope, this is
what we need, and this is what to those who ask
Him for it, the Father of lights will not refusco
SERMON IV.
THE UNPARDONABLE SIN.
" Wherefore 1 say unto you, all ftianner of sin and blasphemy shall
he forgiven unto men ; but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost
shall not be forgiven unto f?ien.
^^ And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of Man, it shall
be forgiven hivi, but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it
shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world
to come.''—M.hn:T. xii. 31, 32.
A STRIKING testimony to the power which these
solemn words have had over the minds of men is
afforded by the absence of this one sacred name,
" the Holy Ghost/' from all the vocabularies of pro-
faneness. Among the many blasphemies that may
have fallen upon your ear during a life-time, you
probably have never once listened to a blasphemy
against the Holy Ghost. I call this remarkable, —
more than that, I call it encouraging, and for the rea-
son that it shows how men whom we are accustomed
to call bad men have often, after all, more rev-
erence for what is holy than we give them credit for
having — nay, more than they credit themselves with
52
The Unparclonahle Sin. 53
having. Men who have lost their self-respect often
pretend to have lost with it their respect for every-
thing else. They glory in their shame. They try to
persuade themselves and others that their reckless-
ness has reached the point where they care for noth-
ing that has the nature of restraint in heaven or
earth. And yet even in such souls, hopeless as their
case would seem to be, there is, oftener than we think
it, a little spark of conscience left. Outlaws from
human society, they yet hesitate to do that which
might hopelessly and for ever outlaw them from the
society of heaven. They may have committed crimes
innumerable, and may have boasted of them ; still,
notwithstanding this, they shrink from the commis-
sion of what is worse than any crime, the unpardona-
ble sin. The shrinking is to their credit.
But this absence of one particular name from the
customary formulas of profane language may be
understood in another way. It may be held to prove
the proneness of men to set the letter above the spirit.
We sometimes find a great carefulness about words
associated with a great carelessness about the things
for wliich the words stand ; and so this anxious
avoidance of a sacred name means very little, unless
there be a corresponding anxiety to avoid blasphemy
against the sacred person whom the name represents.
I remember the case of a young man in college, who,
54 The UnpardoiicibJe Sin,
having fallen into a morbid state of mind under the
pressure of religious excitement, went out upon a
lonely bridge at midnight, and shouted out into the
darkness words which he supposed to be the blas-
phemy against the Holy Ghost. It is not easy to
believe that for doing this he fell under the fearful
condemnation of which our Saviour speaks. On the
other hand, it is not difficult to believe that the sin
against the Holy Ghost may have been committed by
persons who have never in any spoken utterance
blasphemously used that awful name.
It becomes then a question of very deep moment,
Wherein lies the essence of the sin of which it has
been said that neither in this world nor in the next
can it find forgiveness 1 What is it that makes this
one blasphemy differ from all other blasphemies I
This is the point where the interest of the text
centres.
Notice first, then, that the reason why the sin can-
not be forgiven, is not to be sought in any unwilling-
ness of God to pardon sin in general. Our Lord is
careful to preface what He has to say with the strong-
est possible statement of God's willingness to forgive.
" All manner of sin and blasphemy '^ shall be forgiven
unto men, He tells us 5 and only after He has told us
this does He go on to name the single exception to his
statement. From this it would appear that there
The Unpardonable Sin, 55
must be something in the nature of this sin that dis-
tinguishes it from every other form of transgression
and makes it of necessity unpardonable*. It is a sin
that will not be, simply because it cannot be forgiven.
In order to understand this, we must consider what
forgiveness is. Was the prodigal son forgiven when
he was in the far country wasting his substance in
riotous living 1 In one sense he Avas. In another
and very important sense he was not. He was for-
given so far as this, that his father stood ready to
pardon him, bore no malice against him, loved him
still. He was forgiven in intention. But he was not
forgiven in act, could not be forgiven in very deed
and truth until penitence took possession of his soul
and he turned and sought with tears the Father he
had forsaken. So we see that to a complete forgive-
ness two things are essential the willingness to show
mercy and the willingness xo seek mercy. Without
penitence on the part of the one forgiven, the for-
giveness is an imagined and not a real thing. It
exists as a purpose in the heart of him who has been
wronged ; it is not an accomplished fact.
Thus we begin to get light upon the question, How
is it possible for any sin to be of a sort that cannot be
forgiven ? We see that in a certain sense all sin is
unforgivable unless there be a willingness on the
part of the sinner to be forgiven. God pardons only
56 The Unpardonable SiUo
penitents. But that which confers on the sin against
the Holy Ghost so fearful an eminence among other
sins, is this declaration that it not only is, but is for
ever to remain unpardonable.
"Neither in the world to come," — those are the
words that give the text its sting. Without those
words, there would be nothing more to inspire terror
in these verses than in a hundred others, for the Bible
everywhere teaches that without repentance there is
no pardon and cannot be. But even people living in
their sins always think of repentance as a future pos-
sibility o A man says, I know that I shall not be for-
given unless I repent, but then, I mean some day or
other to repent. Now, the awfulness of the words we
are pondering lies just here. They cut off from him
who has blasphemed the Holy Ghost, the power to
look forward to any repenting time. Neither in this
world, neither in the world to come is such a one to
look to be forgiven. What does it mean? Must it
not mean this, that there is such a thing as a man's
making repentance impossible for himself, and so of ne-
cessity making forgiveness impossible. If there be
such a thing as a man's doing this, why then it is plain
that it is himself and not God who has made the sin un-
pardonable.
But what is that state of mind in which re-
pentance is an impossibility ? This brings us to
The Unpardonable Sin, 57
the very heart of the matter, for in the text our direct
question meets a direct answer; and it is this, — blas-
phemy against the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is
the name under which we recognize God in his most
intimate and sacred relation to the soul. His work
and office are symbolized in Scripture under the most
various forms. He appears at the Baptism of Christ
in a bodily shape like a dove, the carrier bird between
God's world and ours, the emblem of holiness and
peace. After the resurrection He is given forth under
the form of breath. Christ breathed on them, and
said, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost," an emblem this
of the Spirit's life-giving and reviving power. At
Pentecost, He comes in wind and flame, betokening
his energizLQg and enlightening mission. He is sent
that He may bring motion into sluggish souls, and
divine knowledge into darkened minds, and burn out
the dross of sin, and make all things new. Thus we
see that around this sacred name cluster all those
ideas that, taken together, constitute our highest
conception of the adorable One. Strength, Purity,
Light, Life, and Love, — are not these the foundation
pillars of the throne of God ? and these are the words
under which the nature and work of the Holy Ghost
are revealed to us. Now, suppose a man by an act
of deliberate and conscious choice renounces this God
of Holiness, this Spirit of Light, and Life, and Love, —
58 The Unpardonable Sin,
deliberately and consciously renounces Him, and says,
'' These are things that I hate. I love darkness
rather than light. Death and corruption are better
than the life of God. His love I trample on and
despise." Imagine a man, if you can imagine it,
speaking to himself after this fashion, and proceed-
ing to shape his life accordingly. Would not that be
a kind of blasphemy which might well incapacitate
the soul for repentance, and so, as a matter of neces-
sary consequence, incapacitate it for forgiveness? It
is told of some of the Hindoo ascetics that they will
at times, in compliance with a vow, keep a limb in a
constrained position until the natural use of it is
wholly lost and gone. May not the habitual putting
of evil for good and good for evil, bring on a similar
paralysis of the soul I May not the devotees of the
god of this world so keep the vows they make to
him, as to rob themselves of the power to take the
postures of a holier devotion 1
We have seen that the reason why the sin against
the Holy Ghost is an unpardonable one, does not lie
in any unwillingness on God's part to forgive. Let
us now try to understand the distinction drawn in the
text between that blasphemy which dishonors the Son
and that which dishonors the Spirit. ^^ Whosoever
speaketh a word against the Son of Man, it shall be
forgiven him; but whosoever speaketh against me
The Unpardonable Sin. 59
Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him." Why
should the sin against the Spirit be more awful than
the sin against the Son, seeing that in the unity of
the Godhead Son and Spirit are equal ?
We shall find light upon this point, I think, by re-
calling the circumstances under which the words be.
fore us were first spoken. Jesus had been healing a
demoniac. The Scribes and Pharisees, angered and
perplexed because they knew not how to controvert
so evident a proof of his supernatural power, took up
the accusation that it was a power derived from below
and not from above. Notwithstanding their professed
belief that every good gift must come from God, they
were bold to declare that this good gift had come from
Satan. "He hath Beelzebub," they said, " and by
the prince of the devils casteth he out devils."
It was this purely malignant act of theirs that
moved our Lord to utter the words of the text.
Rather than receive Him as good, they were willing
to turn traitors to goodness itself, and to say with
Milton's Satan, " Evil, be thou my good."
But why was not this act of theirs pre-eminently a
sin against the Son of Man. It was to Jesus that the
insult was addressed, and yet, instead of saying, as He
said when the Roman soldiers mocked Him upon the
cross, *^ Father, forgive them," He uttered these terri-
ble words about the sin that cannot be forgiven.
60 The Unpardonable Sin,
Wherein lay the wide difference between the two
cases ? Why was it that when the Scribes and Phar-
isees insulted Jesus, they blasphemed the Holy Ghost,
while when the soldiers insulted Him they blasphemed
the Son of Man ? In answering these questions we
shall find the thread of interpretation of which we are
in search.
The sin against the Son of Man differs from the sin
against the Holy Ghost in this, that it may be, and
often is, a sin of ignorance. You remember the plea
upon which Christ rested his intercession for his mur-
derers, '^ They know not what they do."
The sin of the Pharisees was of a wholly different
sort. They did know what they did. An act of un-
doubted beneficence had been openly exhibited before
their eyes. No one could deny that in the healing of
the demoniac a good deed had been done 5 and yet
these men, rather than yield a point where their own
pride was concerned, were willing to trace the good-
ness to a bad source.
Again, look at the difference between the two sets of
men in respect to the advantages they had enjoyed in
the way of knowing the truth. The soldiers at the cross
were hirelings detailed by their superior ofiicer to do
a certain task. They were obeying orders, cruel
orders, no doubt, but still orders not unlike what they
had many times before received and executed. Had
The Unpardonable Sin. 61
any one protested, they would have replied, in their
rough way, that they were doing their duty. They
blasphemed against the Son of Man, and the Son of
Man prayed for them, that the blasphemy of which in
their partial ignorance they had been guilty might be
forgiven them. But the Scribes and Pharisees, who
said of Christ that He had an unclean spirit, were men
who sat in Moses' seat. They were charged with the
religious teaching of the people of God. If there were
any persons then living in the world who might have
been expected to recognize the hand of God when it
was manifested, they were the men. They sinned
against the best light that yet had shined. Their sin
was therefore something other and worse than an in-
sult paid to Jesus of Nazareth; it was a revolt against
Him whose honor the Son of Man held dearer than his
own, even the Spirit of truth.
But, after all, we need not go back so far in order
to find illustrations of the difference between the two
kinds of blasphemy. Perhaps it will be better for us
to look and see whether in our own times there be not
sins against the Son of Man and sins against the Holy
Ghost.
The present century has witnessed a very singular
alliance between unbelief and Christian morality.
Men have renounced the Creed, and yet have tried to
hold fast to the Beatitudes. It would lead us out of
62 The Unpardonable Sin,
oui' path were we to euter into a discussion of the
causes that have brought about this state of things,
but without anj discussion, I think we shall agree that
the state of things exists.
Very likely some of us could name among our own
aquaintances persons whose lives exhibit many of the
Christian graces, who are gentle, truth-loving, gener-
ous, but who nevertheless disown all obligation to the
Lord Jesus Christ, and who would even say of Him
words that might strike us as blasphemous. Will any
one deny that there is a difference, define it as we
may, between such persons and those who to their
unbelief in the Saviour Himself, add unbelief in all He
taught about man's duty towards his fellow-man ? Of
course there is a difference. These persons have, it is
true, spoken against the Son of Man; they have not
spoken against the Holy Ghost. The two sins are
not to be classed together. Many a one has blas-
phemed the Son of Man who, had he known what
he was doing, would have died rather than have
spoken the word; like Saul he did it ignorantly,
in unbelief. But it is the very characteristic of the
sin against the Holy Ghost that it cannot be committed
ignorantly, for what is it but the deliberate and con-
scious trampling under foot of goodness itself as such ?
Take, for instance, the doings past and present of
that more violent section of the communistic party,
Tlie Unpardonable Sin. 63
which from time to time threatens the peace of Eu-
rope, and, more rarely, our own peace here at home.
In spite of the crudities and follies that disfigure the
action of these men, we cannot refuse to acknowl-
edge that in the case of many of them, at least of
some of them, there is an honest desire to better
society, and carry out those principles of brotherhood
and fellowship that actuated the disciples of the first
age, of whom we read that they were so completely of
one heart and of one mind that none of them called the
things which he had '' his own." These men rail at
religion, scoff at all we account holy, and blaspheme
Christ. But must we on that account unreservedly
condemn them ? Is it not just possible that they
grossly misunderstand religion, and misconceive
Christ 1 Let us be fair even to the men of the barri-
cades. Such an exhortation may sound strange coming
from a pulpit ; and yet in the midst of the violence
that every now and then manifests itself against
churches and creeds, only God can tell how much is
blasphemy against the Son of Man, a sin that can be
forgiven, and how much blasphemy against the Holy
Ghost, a sin which hath never forgiveness. The sol-
emn question for us of the Church to ask ourselves,
is whether we do not by our own inconsistencies, and
our own tardiness in carrying out our alleged gospel
of peace on earth and good-will to men, drive those
64 The UnpardonaUe Sin,
who are without into that very attitude of alienation
from and hostility towards Christ, from which it is so
hard to recover them.
And now, no matter how widely I may seem to de-
part from the consecutive line of thought we have
been following, I cannot leave this subject without
one word of reassurance to those who in times past
may have been oppressed with the terrible misgiving
that possibly the language of the text applies to them.
I say I want to speak a word of reassurance, because
those whe are troubled at the thought of having gone
too far to hope for forgiveness are the very ones whom
it is least likely that our Lord's saying was meant to
touch. There is little trouble of this sort — would that
there were ! — with those who have actually blasphemed
the Holy Ghost. They do not care for pardon, that
is the worst feature of their condition. The very in-
tensity of the grief that tender consciences sometimes
feel at the thought of having committed the unpar-
donable sin, is the best proof that they cannot have
committed it. Wherever there is genuine sorrow for
sin, be the sin what it may, wherever there is genuine
sorrow for it, there in that heart is the Holy Ghost ;
by no possibility can He have taken flight.
Pray we on this day that the heavenly Dove may
hover over all of us. We need the grace that is shed
down from his pure wings to bless and help us.
The Unpardonable Sin, 65
Without Him our lives cannot be anything but sad
and dark. With Him they will be beautiful and full
of peace. He has been sent that He may abide with
us a friend for ever. To you who have long known
his presence, and to you who are just becoming con-
scious of his approach, I have one and the same words
Grieve Him not away.
SERMON V.
"THE SCORN OF SCORN."
'■'■Surely he scorneth the scornersy — Prov. iii. 34.
But how can one feel a scorn of scorn without him-
self coming into the same condemnation % And when
we venture to say of God, as this proverbialist does,
that he '' scorneth the scorners," do we not seem to
charge upon the Judge the identical fault for which
He Himself is passing sentence upon the offender ?
In a word, if the Almighty does indeed scorn the
scorner, must He not, from the very necessity of the
case, incur self-scorn % The answer to these ques-
tions lies here. Feelings, like actions, derive their
moral character to a great extent from circumstances.
Before we pronounce confidently upon the rightness
or the wrongness of what a man has done, we are
bound to take, and we always do take, either con-
sciously or unconsciously, many things into the ac-
count. '•'' Thou shalt not kill," for example, is a part
of the law of God, but ^^ Whoso sheddeth man's blood,
66
'' The Scorn of Scorn P 67
by man shall his blood be shed/' is also a part of the
law of God. What is sin, therefore, under ordinary
circumstances, is, in the special case of the executioner,
innocence.
It seems to be a necessary feature of the law of
retribution that like should be punished by like j so
that this scorning of the scorner comes under the same
head as the slaying of the slayer. And yet it is not
every one who may slay the slayer, it is only the ap-
pointed one ; neither is it every one who may scorn
the scorner, but He blamelessly may who is the Judge
of all the earth. And v>^hat more appropriate punish-
ment can we conceive for the man who, in one way
or another, has lorded it over his fellow-creatures for
a life-time, than that he should be made to appreci-
ate at last his own infinite littleness and meanness in
the eye of Almighty God ? " Surely He scorneth the
scorners," and in perfect holiness He does it.
But my wish is to give the subject a treatment
wholly practical, and not at all speculative. Out of
what sort of soil springs up this weed of scorn ? And
through what negligence of ours is it suffered to get
its growth, choking the good seed, and spoiling the
whole fruitage of the soul? The temptation to be
scornful is a universal one ; the best of hearts
feel it at times, and the worst hearts feel it
all the time. Let us look at it critically for a few
68 " The Scorn of Scorn:'
mintites, as if it were a disease, and try to find out,
by a study of. the symptoms, something at least of the
causes from which the symptoms spring. One of the
most frequent, certainly the most vulgar, of all the
varieties of scorn, is that which associates itself with
the possession of money. Men are tempted by the
multitude of the things which they possess to look
disdainfully on those who possess nothing, or only a
little. It is true that this feeling is often, very often,
imagined to exist in hearts where it has really no
place. Over and over again, men and women are
assumed by their neighbors to be full of scornful
thoughts simply on the ground of their being well to
do in a worldly way, when really nothing could be
further from the truth. A too quick sensitiveness to
the estimate in which other people are supposed to
hold us, may easily breed a suspicion of scorn on their
part, where no scorn is. But making all due allow°
ance for this liability, we must still acknowledge that
the danger wealth incurs of growing scornful through
excess of confidence in things is an actual, not an
imaginary peril. ^^ Our soul," exclaims one of the
psalmists sadly, as if speaking out of the depths
of a bitter experience, " is filled with the scornful
reproof of the wealthy." Those words date from
afar past. It is some three thousand years since
they were spoken, but probably they had as little of
" The Scorn of ScornJ^ 69
the air of novelty about them then as they have now.
It is an old truth.
But there is a sort of power antecedent even
to the money power, and perhaps for that reason
I ought to have spoken of it first. I mean bodily
superiority. The possession of physical strength has
from the beginning been everywhere an incentive
to scorn. How much of the unhappiness of human
life in the past has been chargeable upon disdain,
bred of a superiority purely and merely muscular
and corporal, we shall never know. Among savage
races, where the struggle for survival is plainly seen
to be everything, this tyranny of the stronger arm is,
of course, more noticeable than in the midst of people
called civilized. But the pride of life^ yes, of down-
right animal life, is by no means a stranger even to
enlightened society; as a hundred indications from
the popular worship of the prize-fighter upwards, even
as far as the comicils of nations, amply testify.
Pity can sting like a barbed arrow sometimes, and
the weaklings know it. The man who falls out of the
ranks faint or footsore must comfort himself as best
he can. It is cold cheer ^he gathers from the good-
by of rank and file as the column marches on. He
was too feeble to keep up, that is all there is to be
said about it, and yet he was, and is, a man, and has
a man's sensitiveness.
70 ^^ The Scorn of Scorn J^
Along with strength of limb we reckon the advan-
tage which those who are engaged in competition gain
from a firm foothold^ good standing-ground. Hence
it happens that official station, high place, the hold-
ing of civil or military authority, has been known to
engender scornfulness. Under a system of govern-
ment like our own, where the people make and un-
make their rulers almost at pleasure, this evil is per-
haps reduced to a minimum ; "but, if we take the
whole world into accoimt, as in such a survey of
causes as this upon which we are engaged it is our
duty to do, it will be found that the possession of
authority too often begets in ungenerous natures a
petty love of tyranny.
In his catalogue of the ills and crosses in the hu-
man lot that make men ready to lay down a discour-
aged life, the great dramatist does not forget
" The oppressor's wrong, the proud mt.ii's contumely,
The insolence of office."
And as with strength and power, so with beauty.
Unsanctified beauty is proverbially scornful. In
ancient times, the ill-made dwarf seems to have been
given his place in kings' palaces for the very sake of
heightening, by force of contrast, the shapeliness of
those among whom he crept and jested. The fact
that graciousness of manner is always thought to add
" The Scorn of ScornJ^ 71
so great a charm to personal beauty, testifies of itself
to our not naturally expecting to find the two things
combined, Imperiousness is commonly submitted to
as one of the supposed prerogatives, or inherent
rights of beauty. Even while reckoning it a draw-
back, we consent to it as a natural thing, and some-
times, it is even foolishly accounted no drawback, is
actually commended as "hauteur." Nevertheless, it
is written in a certain place, that " the Lord hateth
a proud look."
A consciousness of superior knowledge, or knowl-
edge supposed to be superior, often carries with
it the assumption of scorn. There are always be-
fore our eyes conspicuous instances of great learn-
ing combined with profound humility. Thank God,
the succession of lowly-minded scholars has never
wholly failed since knowledge began to be. And
yet the affectation of omniscience on the part of
speakers and writers is far more frequent than
could be wished. Learning patronizes sanctity.
We are reminded with offensive condescension
that it is the business of the wise to correct the
mistakes of the good ; and sometimes it would
seem as if religion itself were only allowed to
exist through the easy acquiescence of those who
themselves have groT\Ti too well-informed to need any
religion. It was one of the trials of the most patient
72 " The Scorn of ScorUo^^
of men that lie was allowed to become the object of
this intellectual scorn. But he answered his perse-
cutors in kind. ^' No doubt," he said, '' but ye are
the people, and wisdom will die with you."
Yet again, there is such a thing, though the
phrase has a strange sound, as spiritual scorn.
Contempt for those held to be theologically or ec-
clesiastically below the mark, a certain pitiless dis-
dain for the class whom St. Paul so tenderly speaks
of, ^'the weak in the faith," has too often found
utterance and illustration in the history of the people
of God. This temper was never more strikingly
exemplified than in a well-remembered question re-
corded in one of the gospels, " Have any of the rulers
or of the Pharisees believed on Him ?'' and the ac-
companying comment, — " This people who knoweth
not the law are cursed."
So then, these are the motive springs, the sources
and the suggestions of scorn 5 wealth, power of place,
bodily strength, personal beauty, vigor of intellect,
spiritual pride 5 were we to add a seventh, it might
be wit, though this properly enough comes under
the head of mental quickness, of which it is but
one variety, for we reckon it among the children of
the brain.
With thus much of knowledge attained as to the
origin of the complaint, suppose we go on now to con-
" The Scorn of Scorn.^^ 73
sider some of the best accredited remedies for scorn.
And by remedies for scorn do not understand me
to intend means and methods of warding off from our-
selves the scorn of others, for that is not at all what I
would suggest. The thing we really need to be told
is how to seal up the fountain of scorn in our own
hearts, how to escape calling down upon our own
heads the curse denounced against the scorner.
One of these remedies is to consider often and seri-
ously the littleness, the real, the intrinsic smallness
of the possession, gift, privilege, whichever it may be,
upon which Ve are pluming ourselves, and from
which we draw the justification of our scornful
thoughts. Your wealth is tempting you to entertain
a certain disdain for those less rich than yourself, is
it ? Consider, I pray you, what your riches really
arco A great landed estate, perhaps, an inherited
homestead, or something of that sort. Very well, it
does look large, this possession of yours, as compared
with what your neighbor owns. But how small, how
tiny it appears, when you contrast it with the un-
claimed, unsurveyed territory that belongs to Almighty
God. It is the merest speck upon the surface of the
earth, this valuable farm, this highly taxed square,
this precious piece of property, — the merest speck,
and this earth, in its turn, is but a speck among the
never counted worlds that strew the pathways of the
74 " The Scorn of Scorns
universe like dust. And yet, on account of it, on
account of this mote^ this microscopic bit of earth, this
atom, you are consenting to let an unwholesome ele-
ment enter into, tinge and taint the whole atmosphere
of your soul ] you are willing to be scornful. I have
used landed possessions as a means of illustrating my
point, but any other form of material riches would
havG answered the purpose just as well. What is
true of acres, is also true of houses and furniture,
equipages, dress, ornament and all the rest. One of
the English mystics speaks of his having found it an
effectual mode of disabusing himself of the illusions of
wealth, to imagine all his property turned into some
one form of merchandise, and then asking himself,
How am I the better or the happier for being the
legal owner of a hundred thousand pieces of such or
such a mineral, or half a million boxes or two million
bales of such or such a fabric ? The device is per-
haps a clumsy one, for in real life wealth seldom or
never does lock itself up in the monotonous and un-
attractive way supposed ; at least, that is not the form
in which we see it. Still the suggestion has some-
thing of value in it, for it does fasten the attention
upon the coarse, material side of all accumulated
riches, and does remind us how insignificant the thing
called a fortune really is as compared with the earth
and the fulness thereof That mighty One who
" The Scorn of ScornJ^ 75
made and owns the world, scorneth the scorners, and
assuredly on this score of great possessions, He has a
right to do so, for it is He that sitteth upon the circle
of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grass-
hoppers.
So much for the littleness of wealth at its greatest,
but when we go on to. take into account the trans-
iency of it as well as the littleness, we see at once
what an utterly groundless justification riches furnish
for the exercise of scorn. Wealth may be lost at any
time, and must be parted with some time. "We
brought nothing into this world,'^ so runs the burial
sentence, " and it is certain we can carry nothing
out." Once separated from your property, and find-
ing yourself all alone with your scorn, how very,
very poorly off you will be ! how very, very lonely !
But if the case be thus with riches, (and I have
used riches merely as one illustration of a point that
might have been variously illustrated), is it any the
better with those other things of which we were
speaking — bodily strength and personal beauty, the
pride of power and the pride of intellect, and the
pride of Churchly privilege 1 No, they are transient
all. If riches have wings, so have they. There is
but one thing of which it is said that the world can-
not take it away from those who have it, and that is
the peace of God.
76 '' The Scorn of Scorn,^^
But there is a nobler, loftier thought than this, and
one even more efficacious as a protection against the
growth in us of the scornful mood, and that is th
thought that all of these various possessions are given
us in trust. I call this a nobler thought than the
other, because there seems to be in it so much more
that is fitted to stimulate high purpose and generous
efi'ort. The mere blank contemplation of the transi-
toriness and perishableness of all things earthly and
human, is, perhaps, more likely to have a bad effect
upon us than it is to do us good. It may, on the one
hand, tempt us to frivolity, by whispering the godless
suggestion, ^^ Life is a breath j it will be over soon ;
let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die \ " or again,
it may drive us into that cynical and bitter mood
which can see no good in any thing, and of which the
logical, even if not the most frequent outcome is self-
destruction by the easiest and quickest way.
But if we can only rise to that conception of our life
which acknowledges it to be, with all its powers and
talents and privileges and opportunities, nothing less
than a weighty trust committed to us by Almighty
God, the Maker of our bodies and the Father of out
spirits, if we can but do this, we shall be guarded
alike from frivolity, from despondency and from scorn
We cannot be frivolous, for no matter how swift the
trust, we see the solemnity of it ; we cannot be de-
" The Scorn of Scorn.^^ 77
spondent, for the responsibility laid on us is^ by its
very natui'e^ prophetic of more than heart can wish
or tongue utter ; we cannot be scornful, for there is
nothing in a lent possession that tends to foster the
vanity of ownership.
But the best of all the antidotes to scorn is the con-
templation, honest, earnest, and sustained, of the ex-
ample of our Saviour Christ. If superiority of any
kind whatsoever could confer the right to be contemp-
tuous, surely that right was his. Among the sons of
men. He holds a primacy which is beyond dispute.
Even those who are offended at the assertion of the
Godhead, allow as much as this. By common con-
sent, his name stands first on the roll of history, his
appearance here counts as the greatest of all the
births of time.
If, therefore, any conqueror in virtue of his prowess,
or any thinker in virtue of his thought, or any mon-
arch in virtue of his royalty, has ever earned the
prerogative of disdain, ever reached that point of
eminence where scorn of others is justifiable and fit,
He is the one. But what saith He of Himself, this
King of kings, this Lord of lords, this Bishop of all
pastors, and High Priest of the great family of man,
what saith He of Himself? ^' I am meek," He says,
^^ and lowly in heart." Yes, friends, that is it j there
lies the hiding of his power. There is no dash or
78 " The Scorn of ScornP
touch or tinge of scorn to mar the perfect sweetness
of his nature. Gracious He is, and clement, reassur-
ing our timidity by the loving kindness of his smile,
and through the pitifulness of his great mercy loos-
ing those who are tied and bound by sin.
Dear friends, if our religion means anything at all,
means it not this, that a Christian's duty is the imitat-
ing of Christ ? And are we imitators of Him, if
knowingly we go on letting the scornful temper rule
our hearts in place of pity ? There is a hard, unlov-
ing mood of mind into which people sometimes allow
themselves to fall as a sort of revenge upon their own
ill success. Embittered by losses or failure, thwarted,
disappointed, hurt, they seem to find a certain bleak
and ghastly consolation in noticing the like drawbacks
in lives other than their own. But this is not to imi-
tate Christ. He lost everything. " Then they all
forsook Him and fled." And yet some of the gen*
tlest, tenderest, most pitiful of his sayings are to be
found among the words spoken from the cross. We
have not far to go in search of opportunities to culti-
vate and put in use this Christlike temper j every
day we live brings occasions to our door. The rela-
tion of parent to child, teacher to scholar, employer to
employed is continually furnishing a field for the play
of this form of charity. In the family prayers of the
late Dean Alford of Canterbury, himself an eminent
^^ The Scorn of ScornJ^ 79
exemplar of kindliness and forbearance, there is a
beautiful petition, which, if granted, would bring glad-
ness into many a home to which now it is a stranger :
" From forgetting or not caring for one another's in-
firmities," so the supplication rims, " Good Lord, de-
liver us." The forgetting is the evil that comes from
want of thought ; the not caring, the evil that comes of
want of heart, and how sore is our need of deliverance
from both of them ! Compassed about as we all of us
are with infirmity of one sort or another, iiafirmity of
body, it may be, the very existence of which is unsus-
pected, perhaps, by those about us ; or infirmity of
spirit 5 or infirmity of body and of spirit ; how ill we
can afierd to be contemptuous ! how poorly scorn
becomes us! This is the true lesson of the parable
of the unmerciful servant. He was hard upon his
fellow-servant, and loud with his ^* Pay me that thou
owest," and then he wondered that his master re-
pented having forgiven him his own so much greater
debt. " thou wicked servant !" was the comment
when all the truth came to be known.
We have our choice between ridiculing the weak
points of those around us, and being sorry for them j
between doing what we can to make the faults and
the misfortunes of others conspicuous, and doing what
we can to hide them out of sight } in a word, between
mercilessness and mercy, between contempt and pity.
80 ^^ The Scorn of ScornP
It will be prudent of us, putting it on the lowest
ground ; wise of us, putting it upon the highest, so to
decide the aUernative, that when at last the end
comes, as come it must, we shall have no cause to
dread the searching glance of Him who " scorneth the
SERMON VI.
GOD'S SILENCE.
** , . . hold not thy peace at my tears. ^^ — PSALM xxxix. 12.
What a natural prayer ! It is the protest of man's
heart against Grod's silence. Does He pity me? the
sufferer asks, Does He really pity me ? If yes, why
then can He not tell me so ? why this apparent in-
difference, this refusal to respond ? ^^ Hear my prayer,
0, Lord. Give ear unto my cry. Hold not thy
peace at my tears." Nothing, I say again, could be
more natural.
The demand for response is a thing instinctive in
us, native to our feelings. We are so made that when
any emotion is stirred in the heart, and breaks out into
expression, there must be answer or we suffero The
very mechanism of Nature seems to have been planned
with reference to this spiritual fact, and, as it were,
in illustration of it. Motion has its rebound, light
its reflection, sound its echo. In each case, there
comes in, you observe, this principle of the answer,
81
82 GocPs Silence,
The smooth lake, appealed to by the over-arching sky,
gives back the image, cloud for cloud, and blue for
blue. The mountain heights return the voice that
seeks them, doubled and redoubled. Deep calleth
unto deep, and deep unto deep replies. Nature may
be, and, as we have too good reason to know, is, upon
the highest topics, dumb to man, but to herself she
is vocal. Action and reaction, play and counter-
play, are the very groundwork of her being.
When now we pass over the invisible line that
marks off the confines of external Nature from those
of human nature, and open our eyes upon the field of
our own inner experience, what do we see ? We see
everywhere the same need of, the same demand for
the response^ but we do not everywhere see the need
satisfied, or the demand met. On the contrary, ap-
peal upon appeal, cry after cry, go out upon the air and
there comes nothing back. And yet the call for re-
sponse is as real a thing as anything in us. Not to
speak, just now, of the more personal relations of life,
and the place which this principle holds towards them,
consider in how many public ways the demand for
response asserts itself. What can the orator do with
the unresponsive audience ? He may be able to strug-
gle through the sentences he has prepared himself to
utter, but if it is plain to him as he goes along that
what he says is nowhere calling forth assent on
GocPs Silence, 83
the part of the listeners, he is half-paralyzed. The
sense of duty to his cause may carry him through to
the end of his argument or plea, but he moves for-
ward with a heavy heart, fettered, clogged. How is
it that we use one and the same word, " cheer," for
an audible cry of encouragement and an inward sense
of being encouraged ? It is because the two things
are so intimately connected that it is hard to sever
them even in thought. The man you cheer is cheered
not only through the ear but in the heart.
Liturgical worship, as an institution, may be said to
rest upon this same principle. The power of that
method of divine service resides in the prominence
which it gives to the answer as a supplement to the
appeal. A recognition of the mutual interest that lies
between minister and people in the act of worship is
what makes The Book of Common Prayer the thing it
is. " Lift up your hearts," that is well, but how
much better to have the reply come back, full and
strong, " We lift them up unto the Lord." ^- Let us
give thanks unto our Lord God j " a gracious invi-
tation of itself, but the graciousness is confirmed by
the reply, " It is meet and right so to do." '^ The
Lord be with you," says the priest to the people.
He can kneel down to pray with a better heart when
they have answered cheeringly^ ^^And with thy
spirit.''
84 God'^s Silence,
These are but detached illustrations of the general
principle that there is rooted in human nature a crav-
ing for response. Other instances might be cited in
abundance, but there is no need of them. It is plain
enough already that in our relations to one another as
fellow-creatures, what the author of the Proverbs
says about it is perfectly true, *^As in water face
answereth to face, so the heart of man to man."
The question arises has man a right to demand, or
to expect, /rom his Maker the responsiveness which
he instinctively looks for from his brother man ?
May hc; without impiety or presumption, exclaim
with our Psalmist in the text, ^ Hold not thy peace at
my tears." To this question, and to certain others
which we shall find easily springing out of it, I in-
vite your further thought.
First, then, is it a reasonable expectation on our
part that God should take notice of our sorrows and
our griefs, and in some way speak to us about them ?
The Bible warrants me in answering, Yes, the ex-
pectation is a reasonable one. It is the teaching of
the Christian religion that whatever there is in man
that is good is also in God, and more besides. This
is a general inference from the declaration that man
was made in the image of God, The iniagej we must
remember, is never precisely the same thing as the
object imaged. The original has many characterise
God^s Silence, 85
tics which the image has not. But still the image has
resemblance, even though it have not identity. If it
had not resemblance, it would not be the image. Hence
when we find in the works of Nature certain laws of
number and proportion accurately followed; when
we discover by chemical process that the same sub-
stances always combine according to the same fixed
weights; when Botany has shown us that the stalks
and leaves of a plant are arranged in a carefully ad-
justed numerical order, we infer that a mind not un-
like our own minds in its general characteristics must
have planned and calculated such results. I am
aware that this form of argument has been impugned ;
it has not been, and cannot be invalidated. It is evi-
dent that the creative mind, whose methods we thus
search out, must be in possession of powers to an in-
definite extent superior to our own, but it is equally
evident that they are powers similar in kind to those
that enable us, in our small way, to compute and
reckon, to divide and to compare. An Indian, fresh
from the wilderness, though he may never have seen
in all his life a dwelling any more elaborate than his
own tent of skins or hut of bark, is not for a moment
perplexed by the great buildings which line the city
streets. They fill him with astonishment, no doubt,
but he instantly infers from a mere glance that the
skill which brought them into existence was similar in
86 God's Silence,
kind to that which made the humbler structures of
his own rude village. He knows that every house
is builded by some man. We do but reason as
he reasons when we insist, that because the uni-
verse, when studied, discloses thoughts like our
thoughts, it must have proceeded from an intel-
ligence akin to ours, even though immeasurably
above ours.
Apply this same reasoning to the facts of the spir-
itual universe, and what have we as a result 1 Take
the sentiment of pity, that compassionate feeling
which strength may entertain towards weakness. It
may not be possible to define it satisfactorily in
words, but we all know what it is, and we know also
that it is found most fully developed as a characteris-
tic in the noblest natures. As we ascend the scale of
humanity we find compassion more and more brought
into prominence, until, when we have reached your
very best man of all, we finri that he is also the most
compassionate of all. But why stop at this point ?
Why make the noblest man you can imagine the
supreme illustration of this grace ? God is above
man, for Grod made man, and must of necessity, there-
fore, be man's superior. And shall we suppose that
compassion ceases to be possible after we have soared
up above the level of man's being ? Nay, ought we
not to expect to find in man's Maker a larger, deeper,
God^s Silence. 87
broader, compassion than we found in our very-
noblest man ?
There is an immense wealth of argument hidden in
that question of the psalmist: " He that formed the
eye J shall He not see ? " With equal emphasis we
have a right to ask, He that formed man's heart so
that it could be pitiful, shall not He pity? This seems
to be reasonable enough, so reasonable, indeed, that
we wonder why anything more should be needed to
convince us of the goodness of Grod. With such a
satisfactory argument in hand as this, why should we
desire any special revelation. What call is there for
a Christ ? If the evidences of the working of an intel-
ligent mind are sufficiently abundant in nature to
persuade you that the God of Nature must be Himself
intelligent and conscious, why is not the presence in
man of the trait we call compassion, a proof equally
persuasive that the Grod who made man and fashioned
his heart is Himself compassionate f And yet it is the
fact, as we well know, that many who never question
the power of Grod are sometimes tempted to question
the goodness of Grod. What is it that causes this
difference ? If the study of a bird's wing or an in-
sect's eye suffices to satisfy me that intelkct is en-
throned at the centre of things, why does not the sight
of some signal instance of compassion in the case of a
fellow-man, convince me that loving-kindness is en-
88 God's Silence,
throned there too ? The Creator of bird and insect,
is also the Creator of man. If we learn the lesson of
his skill from the one, ought we not to learn the lesson
of his love from the other %
And yet, whether we ought or not, as a matter of
fact, we do not so learn the lesson of his love. The
fact that we have it in our power to pity others, does
not of itself suffice to convince us that God pities us.
Why not ? Because, and the reason carries us
straight back to the text, because when we are sorry
for one another, we are apt in some way to show it.
Our pity may find most inadequate expression, but
expression of some sort it does find, must find, insists
on finding, — in a word, there is response. We have
no occasion to say to one another, what this sufferer
out of the depths of his anguish says almost bitterly
to God, ^'Hold not thy peace at my tears.'' Just
here, therefore, is where the stress of the difficulty
comes. We find it easy to believe in the wisdom and
the strength of the Almighty ]\Iaker of heaven and
earth, because nowhere in the whole wide range of
his works visible do we discover anything that seri-
ously militates against such a belief. And we find it
hard to believe in the love of God, because human life
is so full of things that do seem seriously to militate
against such a belief, that do seem to make it improb-
able that God cares for us at all.
God's Silence. 89
We do not hold our peace at the tears of others^
when we honestly and sorely grieve for thenic, Why
then should He hold his peace at our tears^ if pity us
He really does i Who that has felt the cold unre-
sponsiveness of outward Natui-e at seasons of deep in-
ward grief will refuse to see the force of this difficulty ?
Superficial reasons for believing in the compassion-
ateness of God suffice us in the time of our prosper-
ity, but in the day of trouble we go down in search
of some rock foundation on w^hich t rest the structure
of our hopes ] the common-places of consolation fail
to comfort ) the anodynes that once sufficed to put
the soul into a pleasant slumber upon occasion, seem
to have lost virtue; the questioning spirit within us
will not be hushed, save at the bidding of a voice
which it has reason to believe is the clear, solemn
voice of truth. We refuse to be comforted unless it
be a real, a solid comfort that is brought for our ac-
ceptance. And in this we are right.
Is there then any way of satisfactorily accounting for
the apparent dumbness of God's pity. Does He real-
ly, as it might seem that He does, hold his peace at our
tears ? Instead of directly answering these questions,
I purpose to meet them indirectly by suggesting a few
thoughts to be taken home and pondered by all whom
this inquiry in any degree interests.
Here is one such suggestion. A voice In order to
90 GocVs Silence,
be real, need not necessarily be an articulate voice,
fleed not necessarily employ audible sounds. Of our
various teachers there are few indeed that speak to
us more effectively than the artists and the composers.
They do it through the instrumentality of forms of
speech peculiar to themselveSo The picture or the
statue may tell us much which we should find it hard
to put into sentences if we were required to do so, and
there are songs without words, that find their way to
the heart as readily as if the words went with them,
for, in fact, they are words of themselves.
So, then, let us not look to God for a sort of utter-
ance He has never vouchsafed, unless by miracle, and
let us bo reconciled to the thought that if He is to
speak to us, it will be in what must seem to all except
ourselves the deepest silencCo And, after all, why
ought we to find it so very hard to look at the thing
in this light ? Even among ourselves it is not the
most noisy demonstrations of sympathy that help us
the most. As we distrust the genuineness and the
depth of a garrulous sorrow, so do we discount the
value of a wordy consolation. God's comforts are
absolutely noiseless, that is clear^ but that they are
any the less sufiicient for their purpose, on that ac-
count, is not clear. Unquestionably tiiere does some-
times come to persons in affliction, when they take
their sorrows patiently, a certain quietness of soul, a
God's Silence. 91
calm tranquillity of which all about them ta,ke notice.
Why is it not a reasonable inference, at least for a
religious mind disposed to think the best rather than
the worst things of God, why is it not a reasonable
inference that this very stilling of the waves is the
direct result of God^s having spoken. We charge Hira
impatiently sometimes with holding his peace, when
really the fact is that He has been bestowing his peace,
and in doing so has spoken in the very truest and most
satisfactory sense of all. Under the shadow of some
weighty sorrow a group of friends sit silent in one
another's presence. Shall we say of them that be-
cause their grief is speechless, therefore they are of
no help to one another ? Most assuredly, No. They are
aware, in the midst of the stillness, of a comfort born
of fellowship. They are together, that they know, and
the knowing it is a support, a strength, a stay. Only
let us be firmly persuaded that God is a reality, not a
fancy or a dream, and that He is ever near at hand,
so near that none could possibly be nearer, and the
seeming silence of his voice Avill not distress us.
Simply to know that He is with us and we with Him,
will of itself be the guarantee of a quiet content.
Satisfied that we are in his presence, we shall be as
willing that He should speak to us in his way, as He
is that we should speak to Him in ours. Do you tell
me that the parallel fails, because in the case of the
92 GocPs Silence*
friends their silent sitting in one another's presence
is comforting and helpful wholly because at other
times, and in other places, they have spoken often and
much ? And so, I answer, has God in the past spoken
often and much, spoken more than once, and more than
twice. Through the lips of holy prophets, since the
world began. He has from time to time communicated
to the human family messages of reassurance. How
grandly they stand out from the pages of the Old
Testament, those words of God which in dark and
troublous times availed to keep alive in men's hearts
the spark of hope ! To be sure, they were not spoken
to you or me individually, but we nevertheless have
our lot and portion in them. They tell of a new
heavens and a new earth, they foretell the day when
God shall wipe away aU tears from off all faces, they
predict a triumph over the grave, and the swallowing
up of death in victory. No one can rob us of our
heritage in words like these ; they have been spokenj
they have never been taken back ; they are the
common property of all of us; and while they stand
we have no valid reason for complaining that God
holds his peace at om' tears.
But I have kept the richest and most helpful sug-
gestion till the last. Christ is really God's word
of answer to those who turn to Him in trouble, all
eagerness for his response. Baffled, disheartened,
GocVs Silence. 93
afflicted, distressed, we look at Him, and faith is bora
afresh. The picture of the Christ, what an all-powerful
word of God it is to those who will only look at
it with earnest and patient gaze. The heavenly
Father hold his peace at our tears ? No, never say
that, so long as there survives the record of a Sonship
so perfect that it has made the Fatherhood a credible
thing. Yes, the word that God cannot utter through
the medium of nature's forms, he gives us in Jesus,
Through Him He answers us. He must no longer be
reckoned silent, unresponsive, dumb, now that He has
spoken to us in a word like that, a word made flesh
and sent among us for interpretation. Yes, Christ is
the Father's message to us, clothed in the vesture of
our own humanity. With what tenderness and gra-
ciousness, and at the same time with what a master-
ful touch does he sketch for us the true likeness of
the divine majesty. Look at him as the Good Shep-
herd leading his flock in green pastures, and beside
still waters ! Look at him as the Man of Sorrows,
a homeless pilgrim, a seeker of mountain solitudes,
misunderstood, plotted against, spitefully entreated,
cursed, mocked, and scourged ! See how full of pity
he is for all who sorrow and all who suffer ! Watch
his progress as he walks through the cities and
towns of the land F's footprints stamped with the
name Holy ! See mothers bring their children for his
94 God^s Silence.
touch of blessing, and friends their sick that He
may heal them with his word ! Watch Him when
confronted with the dark reality of evil in the per-
sons of those who sought his absolution ! Mark the
pitifulness of his great mercy in dealing w^ith the
penitent and contrite ! See how He feels for sorrow^
and at the grave of Lazarus groans in spirit over the
wasting, desolating power of death ! These three are
the great ills of life : sin, disease and sorrow. We
note his attitude towards e^(h of them, and it is
plainly that of pardoner, ph; ian, consoler. If any
word can be imagined more full of meaning than this
Word made flesh, speak it out, and let us know what
it is. Failing to do that, no longer think of God as
one who will not answer, who holds his peace at tears,
but trust Him, trust Him as your everlasting Friend.
SERMON VII.
FATALISM.
** The sea is his, and he made ity —Psalm xcv. 5.
If we study these words attentively we shall find
in them, I think, something more than a bare his-
torical statement — -even a message of comfort and
strength to the failing heart of man.
Israel was practically an inland people. Even in
the days when the occupation of the Palestinian ter-
ritory was most complete, the coast line of the Medi-
terranean remained, with trifling, if indeed with any,
exceptions, in the hands of the original possessors.
Jacobus dying promise that Zebulon should dwell at
the haven of the sea never found a satisfactory fulfil-
ment. Solomon's conquests did indeed put the nation
in possession of certain harbors on the Ked Sea, but
even he was obliged to depend on his Phenician
neighbors to teach his own people seamanship in their
joint expeditions to the East. Up to the time of Da-
vid not one of the twelve tribes can be proved to have
95
96 Fatalism,
possessed a single seaport town, and whatever knowl-
edge the people acquired of maritime affairs must
have come either as the result of occasional visits to
the coast, or else from intercourse with such mer-
chants as came inland from Tyre and Sidon for pur-
poses of trade. As a natural consequence, the sea
presented itself to the Hebrew mind chiefly under its
attributes of terror. We always fear most that with
which we are least familiar. So it was with the
Israelites : they dreaded the sea as the very embodi-
ment of fierceness, treachery and violence j and it
has been noticed as an incidental illustration of this
that when Moses was threatening the people with the
terrible consequences that would ensue upon their
neglect of his law, he ended by declaring that in the
event of their disobedience the Lord would bring
them into Egypt again with ships.
We look in vain to find in Hebrew poetry any-
thing that answers to the ^passionate love of the sea,
which is so conspicuous in the literature of our own
tongue — the literature, be it remembered, of a sea-
faring race. Psalmist and prophet think of the ocean
only with shrinking and horror. Job's strange ques-
tion, "Am I a sea? " appears to mean, Am I so un-
governable, so rebellious, so wayward that I must
needs be tamed and kept down by such tremendous
discipline ? Isaiah declares of the wicked that they
Fatalism. 97
'^ are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest^ whose
waters cast up mire and dirt." In David's ears the
waves of the sea " rage horribly/' he is afflicted with
them ; all God's billows^ he avers, have gone over
him, and his cry is '■^ out of the depths." Even our
Lord Himself, although as the Son of Man not subject
to the limitations of any national modes of thought,
does nevertheless frame his language in harmony
with the popular feeling of the race to which, as the
son of Mary, He belonged. When He is portraying
the calamities of the last days, not the least vivid
stroke in the awful picture is that sentence in which
He speaks of ^' the distress of nations with perplexityj
the sea and the waves roaring, men's hearts failing
them for fear." And better, He warns them, as if
choosing out the very illustration that would tell most
powerfully on the fears of his listeners, better for him
who offends one of his little ones that a millstone
were hanged about his neck, and that he were
"drowned in the depths of the sea."
If, in order to obtain a complete estimate of what
we may call the feeling of the Scriptures upon this
point, we carry on our enquiry from the Gospels to
the other books of the New Testament, we shall find
that the same tone is consistently held throughout.
When the sea is named, it is as an object of either fear
or hate. St. James can find nothing to which to liken
98 Fatalism,
the fickle and unstable man so appropriate as tke wave
that is driven with the wind, and tossed j and for
the enemies of the faith St. Jude has no worse censure
than to name them ^^ raging waves of the sea foaming
out their own shame."
Can we wonder, after this, to find the seer of the
Apocalypse, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, declaring it
as one of the crowning glories of the new heavens and
the new earth, that then '' there shall be no more
sea " ?
We come back to the text with minds prepared to
appreciate at least a portion of the force of it. It
was no trifling exercise of faith by dint of which
David was able to say, '' The sea is his, and He made
it." The words were a protest, needed now quite as
much as it was needed then, against materialism.
You think, perhaps, that it was an easy thing to wor-
ship Jehovah in those old days of miracle, and pro-
phecy and direct vision. Those were simple times,
you say ; men were childlike, and found it easy to be-
lieve. People so long ago as that knew nothing
about the rigidity of the laws of Nature, and nothing
stood in the way of supposing that God could answer
prayer. Thought had not hardened into system, and
observation had not begotten science, and altogether
the veils were thinner that separated the seen from
the unseen, the worshipper from the throne.
Fatalism,
Not so. The great God has not been thus partial
in his treatment of the generations of his children.
There never has been a time since the gates of Para-
dise were shut, when it has been easy to be devout,
easy to find and to walk with Him, easy to behold the
Lord Jehovah, high and lifted up, enthroned a King
for ever over all his works. Nature -worship has
always been, will always be, to the end of time, the
most dangerous snare of the human mind. The He-
brew people, taught by their prophets and their
Scriptures, worshipped a God who was above Nature^
We say this was their glory. Yes, but how little we
appreciate the struggle it cost them to cling to this
unearthly faith ! All about them were nations, in
some respects more highly civilized than themselves,
who laughed at their narrow prejudice in favor of one
only God. Southwards were the Egyptians, deeply
versed, as they themselves were not, in astronomy,
in metallurgy, in architecture, in philosophy ; and
these Egyptians worshipped Nature impersonated in
beast, and bird, and insect. Westward were the
Phenicians, the great commercial people of the ancient
world, men of enterprise and large experience in
affairs, wealthy and magnificent, envied of all their
neighbors, and these Phenicians worshipped Nature,
symbolized to their minds by the sun, the moon and
the five planets. Think you it was anything but ter-
1 irr^rv
100 Fatalism,
ribly hard to resist such influences as these I Think
you no one was laughed at in those days for believing
in the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, even
as some are laughed at for believing in Ilim now ?
Again and again, kings fell before the temptation, con-
spicuously Solomon, the greatest of them all, and
more than once the bulk of the people became apos-
tate, too. Depend upon it, courage was needed for a
psalmist to sing in the very hearing, perhaps, of men
who sacrificed to the net, and burned incense to the
drag, ^^ The sea is his, and He made it."
But not courage only ; the doctrine demanded, alike
in him who taught and in him who received it, faith.
To realize that there was sitting above the floods a
King able to lay the beams of his chambers on
their unstable floor, and yet hold the structure firm,
this called for a heart strong to believe. There were
thousands willing to make of the sea a god ; even the
Nile and the Ganges had their worshippers ; but the
conception of a deity who could measure all these
waters in the hollow of his hand, one of whom it might
be affirmed that the sea was his, because his work-
manship, — this was a thought quite beyond the power
of the unenlightened human mind to entertain. The
machinery of Nature is terribly strong. Whatever
ventures too near, is drawn in among the wheels, and
perishes.
Fatalism, 101
The words of the text meant all this to him who
first uttered them ; to us they may mean even more.
The unfamiliar sea frightened the Israelites, by sug-
gesting thoughts of personal danger, of bodily injury.
The fearful perils to be encountered by those whose
business is in the great waters, the tempests, the sunk-
en rocks, the violence of enemies, all these possibili-
ties started up in the Hebrew mind at the mention of
the sea with a vividness at which our better protected
civilization can afford to smile. But there are other
influences of terror exercised by the sea, even over
those who are most familiar with its moods — influences
which no improvements in the art of navigation, no
enlarged knowledge of soundings and harbors, tides
and currents, will ever alter or weaken. The ocean
is, and always will be, so long as man keeps the
faculty of imagination, a mournfully suggestive para-
ble of huinan life. The restlessness of the sea, its
constant alternations of storm and calm, its treachery,
for ever deceiving us by false appearances, the atmos-
phere of mystery that broods over it, all these contrib-
ute to make it the natural symbol of man's condition
here in this world. This seems a sombre, nay, a
gloomy reflection; but be patient with it a few
moments, and possibly light may dawn on our dark-
ness.
Take only one of those characteristics which I
102 Fatalism,
just now mentioned as belonging alike to the ocean
and to our present life, mysteriousness. David had
been visited by this thought also. ^^ Thy judgments/'
he says, while pondering the strange confusion of good
and evil in the world, ^' are like the great deep.''
The sea does suggest, with wonderful power, the
mysteriousness of God's providence in the affairs
of men. ^' Thy way is in the sea, and thy path
in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not
known." Man is haunted, it is useless to deny it,
man is for ever haunted by the spectre of destiny. I
do not mean, of course, that every man is so troubled
— God forbid. I use the word '^ man " in its broad
and general sense. Change the expression, if you
please, and say that the human mind is by nature
prone to the misgiving that fate rather than provi-
dence orders the procession of our life. Events, so
the temptation whispers, fall out according to an iron
law ot necessity. There is no loving Father who
notes the sparrow's fall, and gives his children their
daily bread ; neither is there any blessed consumma-
tion, any final victory of the good over the evil
towards which history may be supposed to move.
These hopes are delusive ; they rest on no founda-
tion. The only thing of which we are certain is that
effect follows upon cause in uniform succession, any
given human life being as powerless to quicken, or
Fatalism, 103
retard, or alter the movement of this endless chain,
as if it were only a tiny bubble molten in the fibre of
the iron of one single link.
This is what we understand by such words as
" destiny/' '^ fate/' " necessity/' and this is the idea
which the sea, looked at as a parable, m«st easily
suggests.
You sit upon some rocky promontory and watch
the incoming tide. You note how wave after wave
dashes itself against the hard face of the cliff, and
perishes in the act. You observe that every now
and then a larger wave comes in, and seems to make
a braver effort ; but that also, like its predecessor,
falls back and is gone. Meanwhile the general
level of the water rises and rises, until a pre-
determined point is reached, and then, as gradually,
the tide recedes, sure to return again as soon as a
few hours have past, and to make its mark a little
higher, or a little lower, according to rules which the
astronomers w^rote out long ago, which you might
have found all calculated for you in their books before
you started on the walk. Surely, if there be any-
where in Nature a vivid emblem of the idea of des-
tiny, it is here. And, if anything were needed to
heighten the impression which the eye has already
carried to the mind, the ear might find it in the
monotonous, melancholy music of the breaking
104 Fatalism,
waves, a sound which possibly suggested to the
mourner among the prophets his pathetic cry, " There
is sorrow on the sea."
What is the relief for a mind oppressed, weighted
down with thoughts like this ? The text points us in
the right direction. ^' The sea is his, and He made
it." ^^ Have faith in God," said our Lord Jesus Christ
to his disciples, when they found themselves in per-
plexity. Have faith in God. He who made the
sea is greater than the sea= He who ordained the
strangely tangled scheme of Providence, is greater
than his scheme. He who is responsible for the
mystery of human life, holds the key of that mystery
in his hands. That which frightens us under the
name of destiny is only a mask ; faith tears it off and
finds the loving features of a personal God, a true
Father in heaven behind. Have faith in God.
His judgments are a great deep ; but He is in the
depth as well as in the height. '' The sea is his, and
He made it."
*' Praise to the Holiest in tlie height,
Aiid iu the depth bo praise ;
In all his words most wonderful,
Most sure in all his ways."
Do you ask for proof of this ? There is no proof.
If there were proof, Christ need not have said,
" Have faith in God." Where knowledge leaves off,
Fatalism, 105
there faith begins. At the outer boundary of demon-
stration, belief lifts up her voice and sings. Do you
say, convince me that the idea of destiny is false, and
that the idea of providence is true ? No, I cannot
convince, I can only, by God's help, persuade
you ; and yet, when once persuaded, you will be as
certain as if you had been convinced j for what a man
believes with all his heart, he holds as firmly as he
does that which he knows with all his mind. ^^ We
know," says St. Paul, grandly asserting his faith in a
doctrine the opposite of destiny, '^ that all things
work together for good to them that love God.'*
How did he know this ? Had it been proved to him
by strict processes of reasoning in which his keen in-
tellect had been able to detect no flaw ? Was that
the ground of the confidence with which he spoke ?
Far from it. The foundation of his certainty was
what he elsewhere calls the " assurance of faith."
And who is the teacher of this glad faith ? To
whom shall we go that we may learn to believe that
God is love ? I know not, if not to Him who, stand-
ing once upon the deck of a tempest-tossed ship,
rebuked the wind, and said unto this same sea,
" Peace be still." He spoke as one having authority.
The sea was his, for He had made it, and it was his
right to govern the work of his own hands. Do you
remember the first question He asked his frightened
106 Fatalism,
disciples after the storm was stilled ? ^^ He said imto
them, Where is your faith f " My fellow believers,
can we not imagine his saying it to us also, at mo-
ments when we find ourselves thinking more about
the sea than about Him who made the sea ?
Did not He, the Redeemer, come into this world,
and take our nature upon Him, and suffer death
upon the cross, for the very purpose of freeing men
from the bondage of their fears, for the very purpose
of breaking up this evil dream of destiny and enfran-
chising us with the liberty of the sons of God ? Has
He not made for us, as for Israel of old, a pathway
through tlie dreaded sea, and having overcome the
sharpness of death, has He not opened the king-
dom of heaven to all believers ? Well may He ask.
Where is your faith f One who has done so much
for us has at least the right to expect that Ave shall
trust Him ; having at so great a cost purchased us
this freedom, He has at least the right to expect that
we shall be thankful for it, and use it a9 his gift.
And yet how few are thankful for his gift, how
few take the trouble to accept it ! Men will turn to
almost any helper sooner than to Jesus, and, for the
most part, not until all the other helpers have failed
do they bethink themselves of Him. But He is very
patient. He is willing to wait. He knows what the
false Christ s and the false prophets have to tell, and
Fatalism, 107
about how long they will be in the telling it. And
when, at last, the soul, baffled and discouraged in its
search for peace, does come and beg it at his hands.
He stands ready, with his arms stretched out, and
with the blessing on his lips.
Do I seem to have wandered from my text ? We
are not very far away from it. Forget this Jesus of
whom I have been speaking, forget his words, his
acts, above all, his rising from the dead, and pres-
ently you will hear again the sa d music of the waves,
while the depth saith, '^ It is not in me, and the sea
saith, It is not with me. But the secret of the Lord
is with them that fear Him, and He will show them
his covenant.''
SERMON VIII.
THE REASONABLENESS OF PRAYER.
^' He that planted the ear, shall He not hear ? "— PsALM xciv. 9.
Our subject, I need scarcely say, is to be Prayer ;
or, to speak more definitely, prayer looked at in the
light of its naturalness and reasonableness. The
general topic of prayer admits of a large variety of
treatments. We might consider, if we chose, the
methods of prayer, whether it ought to be offered in
set forms or without them ; the places of prayer,
whether there be virtue in consecrated buildings or
not ; the times and seasons of prayer ; or, again, the
varieties of prayer, classified according to its character
as penitential, eucharistic, intercessory and the like.
All this might make for edification in the case of peo-
ple already thoroughly convinced of the possibility of
prayer, and needing only to have the nature and func-
tion of it unfolded to them. But suppose the mis-
giving has crept into the soul, one scarcely knows
how or whence, Is there any use in praying ? Clear-
108
The BeasonaUeness of Frayer, 109
\jy from that moment, the solitary question of real in-
terest is not, How shall I pray ? nor Where shall I
pray ? nor When shall I pray ? but this, Can I pray ?
It is to this one question, lying back of all the rest,
that I shall try to fasten your thought. This an-
swered, the others, instead of losing interest, will
gain it immensely ; but this unanswered, the others
are of no moment, futile and purposeless. It need
not disturb us to be reminded that the author of our
text was thinking, when he wrote, of a matter quite
distinct from prayer. His immediate concern, in this
Ninety-foui'th Psalm, is the general question of God's
moral government of the world. His heart is full of
burning indignation against the evil-doers; the specta-
cle of the cruelties and injustices that make up so
much of human life has kindled his righteous anger,
and his cry is, *' O Lord God, to whom vengeance be-
longeth; O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, show
thyself. Lift up thyself, thou Judge of the earth, ren-
der a reward to the proud." Then there starts up
in his mind the thought that there are people who
say that all this is impossible, who deny that any
account is taken in heaven of what happens on the
earth, who slay the widow and the stranger, and mur-
der the fatherless, quieting their consciences all the
while by repeating, " The Lord shall not see, neither
shall the God of Jacob reg'ard it." Now, how am I to
110 The ReasonaMeness of Prayer^
meet this brutish and brutal argument ? the Psalm-
ist says to himself; and in a moment to himself replies,
I will meet it in this way, by a simple appeal to
common sense : these men have eyes and ears of their
own ; surely they must admit that they cannot have
come by them without the intervention of an artificer.
Whatever shows the marks of contrivance indicates
a contriver, and wherever we find mechanism, we
must of necessity allow the mechanician. Such mar-
vellous creations as eye and ear tell of a Creator.
You fancy that you are doing these iniquities un-
seen, you please yourselves with the notion that you
are telling these lies unheard ; but stop a moment,
pause and think ; your own eyes and ears rebuke
you. ''' He that planted the ear, shall He not hear ?
and He that formed the eye, shall He not see ? " Now
if this be, as it is, a good argument in favor of the ex-
istence of a discerning and controlling Providence,
doubly is it an argument in favor of the possibility of
prayer ; for the conclusion God can and does hear, is
one step nearer to the Psalmist's question than the
conclusion which he is persuading us to draw, namely,
that God can and will punish the wrong-doer.
So then, without further delay, let us grapple this
question of the reasonableness of prayer.
Can God listen to and answer prayer ? Will God
listen to and answer prayer ? Ought God to listen
The Reasonableness of Prayer. ill
to and answer prayer ? Three points, jou notice,
are involved — ability, disposition, right. Take the
first of these, the ability. Do our petitions, as a
matter of fact, reach the throne, or is it more likely
that they die away upon the air, never get beyond
wall or roof ; or, if spoken out of doors, go no further
heavenward than the carrying power of the speaker's
voice avails to press them ? Doubts of this sort
might perplex us, fairly enough, were we tied to the
child's notion of a God only to be really found by
going up and up and up in sj)ace. But this is not the
true Christian conception of the mode of the divine
presence. The King of heaven is indeed what one
of the prophets has called Him — a God that hideth
Himself — but his hiding-place is close at hand, not far
away. The spoken prayer has not to traverse a dis-
tance that can be measured by rod or chain before
reaching its destination. Even the heathen, for all
their dimness of spiritual vision, seem to have had
some perception of this truth. Smoke was their
chosen symbol of prayer. Sometimes it went up
from the burning sacrifice upon the altar, sometimes
from the swinging censer ; but whether the savor
that it carried was that of the flesh of beasts or of
sweet incense, they had the satisfaction of watching
it melt away into nothingness. It has gone out of the
world visible, they said, this offering of ours, it has
112 The Reasonableness of Frayer,
gone out of the world visible into the world in visible,
and has reached the waiting God for whom we meant
it. My friends, we shall pay dearly for our more
accurate knowledge of the destination of the fading
smoke and the vanishing vapor, if we let ourselves
be robbed of faith in an everywhere-present God.
Better to have clung to the Deity who could be
pleased with the smell of incense and pacified with
the burning fat of sheep and oxen, than to elect to live
in a world from which the Adorable One has been
banished altogether, or at any rate put so far away
that the thought of reaching Him with our words is
but a vain imagination. The truth is that modern
discovery, instead of dulling our belief that prayer
may find a hearing, ought singularly to warm and
quicken it. Only consider the wonderful enlarge-
ment that has taken place of late in our notions of
what is possible in the way of transmitting intelli-
gence from one mind to another mind ! It is within
the memory of living men that instruments have
been invented to do for speech what long ago the tel-
escope and the microscope did for sight, namelv, to
extend its range. There is little reason to doubt that
a time will come, and that before very long, when
our present means of communicating sound — marvel-
lous, nay, almost miraculous as they seem — will be
superseded by adjustments and contrivances even
The Measondbleness of "Prayer, 113
more wonderful in their effects. And shall we say of
Him who has thus empowered us indefinitely to extend
the reach of tlie faculty of hearing, supplementing his
original gift of the sense itself with so generous an
endowment, shall we say of Him that of necessity
eternal deafness is his portion? He that planted the
ear, shall He not hear % The question was a cogent
one on the day it was first asked, but surely never
was it one half so faith-compelling as now. We may
get closer to the truth even than this. Consider what
speech is. A word is an embodied thought. When
this word has been articulated and made audible, we
call it spoken. So then speech is thought going forth
upon its travels. But midway between the thought
just born and the audible utterance of the lips, comes
the as yet unspoken word. It has left the mind, we
will suppose. It has not yet reached the lips. Now
who can tell upon what other undulations besides
those of the material atmosphere that thought just
now clothed upon with a word may not be going
forth % For man's benefit and that it may accompHsh
its earthly errand, it is committed to the waves of the
air ; but how know we that there is no more subtle
medium still on which simultaneously it is borne to
the auditorium of Almighty God % Human hearing
is dependent, at least under the conditions of this life
present is dependent ; on the bodily organ of hearing,
1 14 The Beasonableness of Prayer.
the ear j but divine hearing may be just as real as
ours without any such dependence. There is good
and sober reason to believe that some of the brute
creatures hear sounds that are wholly inaudible to us,
the instrument of hearing having in their case beer^
differently adjusted. But is there no intelligence,
think you, anywhere in the universe to which all
sound is audible ? Do the sweet tones and pleasant
harmonies of which Nature is so full have none to
listen to them unless flesh and blood happen to be
near at hand ? Are the bird-notes in tropical forests,
far away from any dwelling-place of man, audible
only to the dragon-fly humming in the undergrowth,
or the reptile on the river bank below ? Have the
falling avalanche and the swollen mountain-stream
none to listen to their august music because winter
has driven brutes to their caves and dens, and man
to his fireside ? I cannot easily believe it ; but, were
I forced to do so, I should still hold fast my faith
that to the spoken word of man divine audience would
be lent, and should still keep on praying my prayers
to Him unto whom all hearts are open, all desires
known, and from whom no secrets are hid. He that
planted the ear, shaU He not hear ?
But supposing it conceded that God is able to listen
to our prayers, can we think of Him as having also
the ability to answer them ?
The Reasonableness of Prayer, 115
As a matter of fact, we see and know that hun-
dreds, thousands, millions of requests that are made
to God by the children of men, and made fervently,
go ungranted.
A mother prays, with all the earnestness of which
a mother^s heart is capable, for the recovery of a sick
child, — the child dies. A father prays, with every
fatherly instinct in him all aglow, that a careless son
may be led away from temptation and delivered out of
evil. The next mail brings the intelligence that while
the prayer was fresh on the father's lips, the son was
killed in a drunken brawl. Even while a whole con-
gregation is praying ^^ From lightning and tempest,
good Lord deliver us," a thunderbolt falls out of the
sky and shatters the cross upon the spire. People
see these things, and they draw from them, or at least
are strongly tempted to draw from them, the infer-
ence that prayer is idle, a waste of time and a waste
of breath. We cannot wonder at it. But the pa-
thetic thing, let me add, the convincing thing, is that
in the face of it all, and in spite of it all, great num-
bers of men, and they by no means the least intelli-
gent of their kind, keep on praying, keep on making
known their requests unto God. What is it that in-
spires this unquenchable determination to continue
hoping against hope, this dogged resolve to be-
lieve in God's ability not merely to hear, but also.
116 Tlie Beasonahleness of Prayer.
if He will, to accede to the petitions his children
bring ?
It is, I think, the conviction lying deep down in
the mind, and fast rooted there, that God is a person,
not a mere force, like magnetism or heat or attrac-
tion, but a being possessed of what we know among
ourselves as reason, and will, and loving-kindness.
One capable of forming a purpose and working out a
plan.
Having in the mind this notion of what God
is like, a thoughtful and considerate man finds him-
self reasoning thus :
It is evident that this King of all peoples and Fa-
ther of the whole family has in his plan many features
that baffle me altogether j the mystery of his ways I
cannot understand; much which, as it looks to me. He
ought to do He does not, and much of what I think
He ought to leave undone. He does. But if, in order
to find a way of escape from these mental perplexi-
ties of mind, I let myself declare of God that He does
not do as I would have Him do because He cannot,
why then I make Him not merely such a one as my-
self, but I allow Him an even less dignity than mine,
for in my own small sphere I am conscious of a cer-
tain measure of freedom to do the thing I will, for the
better or for the worse; whereas, if I deny to God
the ability to grant me my request, I take away from
The Beasonalileness of Frayer, 117
Him that very freedom which I account my own high-
est privilege as his child.
We are often told that it argues a downright
puerility to suppose that God either can or will
answer our requests, because Nature is clearly and
beyond all question an intricately contrived ma-
chine, no more able to alter its motions and change
its bearings in compliance with a spoken word
of request, than a steam-engine or a clock or a loom.
This would be an unanswerable argument in favor
of fatalism, and against the potency of prayer, were
Nature a machine of which we could see the whole,
but it is not. There is a background of mystery, a
region none of our senses can penetrate, and there,
wholly out of sight, lie the beginnings of power. It
may be that behind the veil which sunders the seen
from the unseen, the hand which keeps the wheel-
work all in motion, is turned this way rather than
that, or that way rather than this, because two or
three believing souls have agreed on earth touching
some blessing they desire to have, some work they
would see done. It may be so, may it not ?
I have touched upon the reasons for believing
that the Almighty is able to hear, and both able
and willing to answer prayer. There remains the
question, Ought He always and invariably to an-
swer it, in the sense of never refusing to any
118 The Reasonableness of Prayero
petitioner any earnest request 1 To this a sober-
minded faith will assuredly answer, No. Father-
hood involves governance, and governance in-
volves the exercise of judgment, discrimination.
The life of a well-ordered family is full of what we
may call earthly prayer. The children ask the parents
questions of many sorts, and bring to them requests
of widely variant character ; is it any argument
against the efficacy of this which I have called earth-
ly prayer, that some of the questions go unanswered,
and not a few of the requests ungranted ? No, the
father remembers what his responsibility with respect
to the whole family is, and certain of the favors the
children ask he grants not, because he ought not.
And yet, who will deny that in the life of that house-
hold the right of petition is a real thing, or that the
exercise of it produces real results ? So with our
Father in heaven and his family on earth. All of
our prayers He hears, not one escapes Him. Our
adoration He receives, our thanksgivings He graciously
accepts, to our confessions He lends an ear of pity, and
as for our requests, some He grants, and some He dis-
allows. Is He the less our Father then for that 1 No,
not the less, the more. Possibly in the clearer light
of the heavenly life, should it be granted us to enter
there, we shall find ourselves thanking Him with
greater fervency for withholding our heart's desire,
Tlie Beasondbleness of Prayer. 119
than we could possibly have thanked Him for conced-
ing it.
Moreover, God forbid that we should confine our
definition of prayer to the men begging for favors.
Prayer is more than petition, it is communion, inter-
course, exchange of confidences.
It is written of Moses, the man of God, that the
Lord spake unto him face to face, ^^ as a man speaketh
to his friend." What more beautiful picture of heaven
brought down to earth, could be imagined ? The
confiding to God the whole story of our troubles, of
our disappointments, of our failures, of our well-meant
endeavors, and last, not least, of our sins, — is there
nothing of value in all this that we should leave it
wholly out of view in estimating the efiicacy of
prayer ?
Or again, think of how much a grateful heart has
to tell. Is it nothing that the soul should have the
opportunity given her to pour out before her Maker
a glad offering of thanks ? Is it nothing that the joy
which Nature, in her more genial moods, sometimes in-
spires in us should be able to find expression in acts
of heartfelt adoration to Him whom even Nature her-
self blindly worships ! Is it nothing that all the
kindly affections and associations of our homes can be
lifted up and carried on the lips of household prayer
until they come into the presence of the Father of
120 The JReasonahleness of Prayer,
all the families of the earth and taste the preciousness
of his blessing?
Are all these phases of prayer, all these modes of
speaking with God, to be carelessly set aside as of
no particular value, while the whole question is made
one of mendicancy, and we are asked to measure the
advantages oflf according to the arithmetic by which a
street beggar reckons up his gains at sunset.
Intercourse with a character richer and better than
our own is commonly held to be a great privilege.
We can all of us recall friends to whom we have, as
we say, owed a great deal on the score of helpful in-
fluence. But is it supposable that God has permitted
personal intercourse between man and man to be
such a potent instrument in the building up of char-
acter, and yet has made all intercourse with Himself
impossible ? If the spirit of man can, through the
power of influence and sympathy, bless and uplift the
spirit of his fellow-man, much more, a thousand-fold
more, shall God, who, be it remembered, is a Spirit
also, aid by intercourse and influence the creature
spirit whom He permits to call himself his child.
Wherefore, my brethren, let us pray.
SERMON IX.
THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF CHRISTLIKENESS.
" Now /, Paul^ myself, beseech you by the meekness and gentleness
of Christ:'— II Cor. x. i.
St. Paul was naturally proud. A born reasoner,
he felt within himself that sense of mental independ-
ence which intellectual gifts confer on their possessor.
Pride has its spring and origin in the consciousness
of not being beholden to others for help. The man is,
or fancies himself to be, sufficient unto himself, and
whether it be riches, or high birth, or charm of look,
or grace of manner, or strength of mind, or wealth of
utterance, or force of will, — whichever one of these it
be that underlies this conviction of self-sufficiency,
out of the conviction, as easily as the plant from the
Boil, springs pride. The man knows himself to be
strong in one of the recognized forms of strength, and
being strong, he is proud. I say this, because we
cannot begin to appreciate the exquisite beauty of
the text until this, or something like this, has been
121
122 TJie Evidential Value of ChristliJceness,
said. In order to gauge rightly the full value of an
utterance, it is often necessary to take into account
what it cost the man to make it. A coui'ageous
speech from lips naturally timid has even more
power in it than it could have had as spoken by one
always a stranger to fear, and for the same reason the
manifestation by a proud man of a humility, the gen-
uineness of which we cannot question, moves us all
the more because we remember that the man is
proud. We appreciate the effort he makes. Do you
fancy it cost that free-born citizen of Tarsus, proud
alike with the Hebrew pride of spiritual superiority
and with the Eoman pride of civic enfranchisement,
do you imagine, I say, that it cost him nothing to
take upon his lips the words, " I beseech you by the
meekness and gentleness of Christ '' ?
He, himself, seems to have been moved to astonish-
ment by finding that he could so speak. Notice the
broken form of the sentence, the evident hesitation,
as of a man who almost questions his own identity,
so startled is he to find that it is possible for him to
say what he is saying, — '^Now I — Paul — myself —
beseech you. Yes, I, myself; I, who never thought
that to beseech anybody would ever be task of mine;
I, who used once to count on compelling people to
assent, too proud even to dream of ever asking them
to do so ; I, who believed with all my heart in force,
The Evidential Value of Christliheness. 123
and made but slight account of gentleness ; I^ who
scorned to be thought meek^ and rejoiced greatly be-
cause I knew that I was thought haughty 5 I — Paul
— myself — beseech you by the meekness and gentle-
ness of Christ."
What was the revolution that had passed upon
Paul's nature, making it possible for him to beseech
those of whom once he would have waited to be be-
sought ? It was the fruit of that opening of the inner
eyesight which came to him by the touch of Jesus
Christ. Blinded for the moment to all outward
things, he had been given that glimpse of the heav-
enly vision which was to change, and change perma-
nently, his whole outlook upon life, the world, things
present, things to come. From that time forth he
had not been ashamed to '^ persuade " men.
I do not mean to assert that St. Paul, when he had
become a disciple of Jesus Christ, and because he
had become such, thought it necessary to abandon
the appeal to reason in his efforts to make other men
religious.
Were I to venture so inaccurate a statement as
that, his own writings, every page of them, would
withstand me to the face. Born a reasoner, a rea-
soner he continued to the day of his death. Argu-
ment was joy to him, debate a very delight. But
what iie had learned and laid to heart was this, that
124 The Evidential Value of Christlikeness.
not alone by mental discipline^ the careful schooling
of the thinking faculty, is man brought back to God.
He had learned that religion centres in the will, and
he had discovered further that to influence and mould
the will, he must bring into play other forces than
those known as the purely intellectual ones. Apart
from scenes of actual sorrow and anguish, there are
few more pitiful spectacles than the sight of a man,
or worse still, of a woman, trying to think out heart
problems by brain power. There are certain great
practical questions of life that have to be met and
answered in the warm light of the affections, just as
there are other some that ask to be dealt with in the
dry light of the understanding. We cannot settle
points of duty, adjust the relations of home inter-
course, apportion worship, and measure the bounds
of all righteousness, by the very same faculties we
employ in reckoning accounts and surveying land.
Spiritual things are spiritually discerned, and these
things of which I have been speaking come under the
head " spiritual." We are spirits, you and I, and the
relations between us are spiritual relations. To say
that we can reason about these relations in the same
way in which we reason about the relations of num-
ber and quantity, is to confuse the two notions of in-
visibility and spirituality, which are ideas really as
far apart as the poles. There are a great many
The Evidential Valu3 of Christlikeness, 125
things invisible about which we can reason and argue
with no help from the heart ; time, space, number
and the like 5 but it is the greatest mistake in the
world to suppose that a su-btle discernment in matterc
of this sort is spirituality, or that to be able to chat-
ter fluently about the infinite God in connection with
these abstractions is to be spiritually minded. No,
spirituality is not to be separated from the will and
the affections. The fruits of the Spirit are the only
unmistakable evidence of spirituality and we know
what they are, for the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance. These are the signs and
tokens by which we tell which way the Spirit has
passed, and, failing these, v/e must not allow anything
that seeks to palm itself off in their stead under the
name of religion, either in others or in ourselves, to de-
ceive us. A religion that has not the power of grasp
which can enable it to lay firm hold upon the con-
science hae little right to be called a religion. God
is a person, a holy, heavenly Father, to whom we men
owe duty, fealty, obedience. To busy ourselves with
reasonings about his nature, arguing about what He
can do or can not do, wlule all the time we are
trampling upon his commands and setting at nought
his counsels is merely to insult Him. To worship
Him, to give Him thanks, to make confession to Him,
126 The Evidential Value of ChristMeness,
to ask his guidance and to put our trust in Him, this
indeed is religious^ but do not dignify with that
sacred title the mere volubility that can spend a
lifetime in discussing the reasons for and against be-
lieving in Him, and then leave the question as much
an open one at the end as it was at the beginning, —
eloquent over the infinities, but dumb to the infinite
One Himself. It was Paul's coming to see religion in
this light of a service, a life of loyal obedience ren-
dered to a spiritual head, it was this that changed his
whole manner of dealing with his fellow-creatures ; it
was this that transformed him from the persecutor
into the man eager to win by persuasion those whom
he no longer dreamed of turning by force. He has
sank the disputant in the evangelist, and although
logic still has charms for him, he confesses that
greater than logic is charity, more potent than argu-
ment the gentleness of Christ. The world is not
waiting to be converted to the Christian religion by a
new statement of the case. Doubtless for every gen-
eration, as it comes mentally of age, the case does
have to be freshly stated, but it is not the doing this
that saves religion. Religion is kept from taking
wing and quitting this stold earth altogether by the
witness borne to its truth and power by Christlike
persons. There are those whom simply to have
known and loved is to have had one's faith in God
The Evidential Value of Christlikeness. 127
and life eternal re-enforced, invigorated, saved. It
is not the publications of the Christian Evidence
Societies j it is not the endowed lectureships for the
defence of the faith and the like ; it is not these, val-
uable though these are, that really keep men from
apostacy and despair ; it is the living epistles, the
men and women in whose hearts Christ has been
formed, and out of whose eyes He looks ; it is these
that persuade us to hope on, to wait for the morning,
to pray and not to faint. One warm-hearted, thor-
oughly devout, honestly sympathetic Christian woman
has more power to bless tho life of the community in
which she dwells, by showing forth the meekness and
the gentleness of Christ than twenty masters of all
the arts or doctors of all the sciences.
And never was this more true than now, never was
there a time when the world more sorely needed illus-
trations^ of what is Christlike, to save it from making
shipwreck of what faith it has. The hard thing to
believe in to-day is the love of God. Evidences of
the power of the Almighty never were more over-
whelming than at present, evidences of his tender
mercy never more difficidt to produce. We find it
easy to cry with the Psalmist, '^ The chariots of God
are twenty thousand,^' for we seem to hear the clatter
of their wheels on everj breeze of fresh discovery 5
but when it comes to adding, ^^ even thousands of
.128 The Evidential Value of ChristUJceness.
angels," we falter; we are not so sure of that, we say,
for witli ^^ angels " it is natural to associate thoughts of
joy and peace^ of loving ministries of mercy and mes-
sages of good. Somehow amid the din of the chariot
wheels the voices of the angels seem to have been
lost. Tlie conception of God as the Grod of the thun-
derbolt has been so intensified^ that the thought of
Him as the God of the still small voice seems to be
fading out. It may be that the sum total of misfor-
tune and tragedy in the life lived upon the earth is
no greater than it has always been^ — indeed^ there are
strong reasons for believing that it may be much less,
and that it is continually decreasing, — nevertheless, it
cannot be denied that our acquaintance with the
world's sorrows and troubles is much more full, much
more intimate than ever it was before. The disas-
ters of four continents are brought to our knowledge
more quickly than in other days wo should have
received tidings from the next village. As a conse-
quence, we are becoming more and more accustomed
to picture to ourselves calamity as brooding cloudlike
over mankind all the time, and instead of thinking of
God's mercies as new every morning, we think of
his terrors as being that which we may the more rea-
sonably expect. Indeed, we begin to realize some-
thing of the fearfulness of that picture sketched for
us in the Gospel of the terrors of the last time. For
The Evidential Value of CJiristlilceness, 12i)
nation does rise against nation and kingdom against
kingdom, and there are earthquakes in divers places,
and there are famines and troubles, and of these
things there is not one that fails to reach our ears ;
we hear and know of all of them, and if we have
hearts in any degree sensitive to prevailing currents
of feeling, if a sorrow that is abroad upon the air has
any power to touch us personally, we cannot but con-
fess the difficulty of maintaining upon any natural
grounds a cheerful faith.
It is plain, to be sure, that in a large and
general way man is the recipient of bounty, of
blessing rather than of cursing. The Power above
us gives us air to breathe, sunshine by which to
see, and, for the most part, fruitful harvests; but
this is the very point that distresses us, the fact
that unless we do look at things in the largest possi-
ble way, we cannot see the goodness. Among our-
selves only that affection is really prized which shows
itself as a personal thing. We must be cared for one
by one, not merely in the mass, if the caring is to
mean much. And so the soul rebels when it is told
to feel gratitude towards a God who loves the human
race only in the sense in which some great adminis-
trator of a nation's temporal interests may be said to
love the people for whose wants he provides and to
whose aggregate well-being he ministers. Does He
130 The Evidential Value of ChristliJceness,
love me 1 the soul cries out ; am / anything to Him
apart from the circumstance of ray being a fractional
portion of the millions upon millions that inhabit the
globe ? To these questions Nature is dumb ; or, if she
gives any answer, it would seem to be rather a dis-
couraging than an encouraging one. Nor does there
seem to be good ground for hoping that Nature will
show herself any more communicative in the future
than she has done in the past. We are growing
more and more familiar with the tones of her voice,
but we are no nearer to understanding her message
than we were before ; the tongue is as foreign as ever,
even when closer approach to the person speaking it
has made the articulation of the various syllables
clearer to the ear than before. What is needed is the
interpreter, and that, precisely that, is Jesus Christ,
God's only Son, the Word eternal. He takes up this
unintelligible speech of Nature, and He says to us,
" Let not your heart be troubled. This is the native
tongue of the bright land from which I came. To
you it is a jargon, but to me it is all clear, and now
what Nature is trying helplessly to say to you, let
me, your brother in the flesh, declare, God is Love.''
Do you wonder now, dear friends, that the Church
plants her dogma of the Incarnation deep down at the
very base of the whole structure of the faith ? Do
you wonder that as the guarantee of the truthfulness
The Evidential Valm of ChristUJceness. 131
of so momentous a message as this, " God is love,"
she should account nothing less than divinity suffi-
cient 1 No fellow-man could tell us this with empha-
sis persuasive enough to make us believe it. We
should say, ^^ He means well. Doubtless he thinks
that what he says is true, but he is a groper, like the
rest of us, a fellow- student grappling with the same
problem we ourselves are busy upon, and with no
better real reason for thinking that he has solved it
than we have." That is what we should say to a
brother mortal trying to convince us, at this late day
of the world's history, that God is love.
But is that what we say to Jesus Christ ? Not if
we are wise ; not if we have eyes to see the unspeak-
able advantage that would flow from taking Him at
his word and believing that He did in very deed and
truth come down from heaven to tell us things which,
but for his coming, we never should have known.
Moreover, we are not to forget, nay, we are to be
very careful to remember, how much weight is added
to the testimony Christ bears to the goodness of God,
by the fact of his having been the Man of Sorrows.
It is easy for the light-hearted in the day of their joy
to take cheerful views of life, and to explain away by
make-shift arguments the sadnesses and troubles of
which they know only by the hearing of the ear.
While the young man is rejoicing in his youth, and
132 The Evidential Value of ChristliJceness.
glorying in his strength, while he has yet the power
to remove sorrow from his heart and to put away evil
from his flesh, the construction of a gay and cheerful
philosophy of life is no very difficult task. But from
no such source as that comes the testimony of which
I have been speaking. It is the typical Sufferer who
is the witness ; it is the thorn-crowned One ; it is the
Man who hath seen affliction by the rod of God^s
wrath, who hath trodden the winepress alone, — it is
He who opens his lips and says to us those gracious
words w^hich persuade us to believe that the Father
Himself loveth us, and that in spite of all that looks
the other way, and seems to take the very heart out
of us, we yet have a right to trust Him. Gethsemane
was no flower-garden. In the deep shadow of its
olive-trees the Saviour of men tasted a cup more bit-
ter than ever was put to mortal lips, and therefore
when from Him the witness comes, in all gentleness
and meekness, that the divine pity is real and that
God does care for us, it means something.
Do you complain that this is an old story 1 Do
you charge it with being an obsolete method of meet-
ing an age-long and insuperable difficulty 1 Think
twice before you say that in earnest. Ponder well
what it really means to accept the alternative of
despair before you too hastily decide to reject the
alternative of hope.
Tlie Evidential Value of ChrisUiheness. 133
There is a voice that has come sounding down the
line of many generations^ and its cry is, — '' I am the
Resurrection and the Life.^' In that voice there is
hope for man. Dear friends, I beseech you by the
meekness and the gentleness of Christ, whose voice it
is, give heed to it, and be not faithless but believing.
SERMON X.
THE MANY VOICES IN THE WORLD.
'' There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and
none of them is without signification.'''' — I COR. xiv. 10.
The chapter in which these words occur is mainly-
taken up with a discussion of the comparative value
of the gift of prophecy and the gift of tongues. In
the paragraphs that immediately precede the text, St.
Paul has been arguing that sounds of all sorts, whether
they be the utterance of human lips or of things with-
out life, such as instruments of music, in order to be
helpful, must be, first, in some sense intelligible.
How, he asks, shall it be known what is piped or
harped, unless there be some gradation of sound, some
arrangement, some harmony of the notes ? So like-
wise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to
be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken!
For ye shall speak unto the air. lie then adds the
very striking and suggestive words of our text: —
'^ There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the
world, and none of them is without signification."
134
The Many Voices in the World, 135
It is with this parenthetical remark, rather than
with any general discussion of the nature of the spir-
itual gifts of the apostolic Church, that I wish to en-
gage your attention this morning. I am the more in
earnest to do this because there is a very easy per-
version of St. Paul's meaning which makes him teach
a doctrine which he of all men would most vehemently
have abhorred. In order that we may the better
understand both the false interpretation and the true,
let us set ourselves lirst to inquiring what these
" many voices " which are said to be in the world
are.
A voice, in the simplest sense the word can bear, is
the utterance of a sound. Thus we speak of the
voice of the forest, the voice of running brooks, the
voice of ocean, the voice of the thunder. These are
all of them sounds that contribute to our education,
our training as men. Of these voices of Nature, some
terrify, some delight, some soothe us ; and none of
them is without signification. Again, many things
which literally are voiceless, may yet be said to have
voices because they suggest thought and feeling in
such a vivid way that it seems as if they spoke to us.
Thus in the Book of Genesis God is represented as
saying to the murderer Cain, " The voice of thy
brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground." In
this sense, also, are there many voices in the world,
136 The Many Voices in the World.
none of which is without signification. Thus we
speak of the voice of art, the voice of poetry, the
voice of public opinion, the voice of scholarship, the
voice of criticism — meaning, of course, the appeals to
our attention and interest, the bid for our allegiance
or the demand upon our obedience which these vari-
ous powers, in their various ways, and for their vari-
ous purposes, put forth.
Now the false interpretation which I said it was
possible to place upon the text is this, namely, that
because the apostle says that no one of these countless
voices in the world is meaningless, therefore, all of
them are entitled to a hearing. St. Paul declares that
the voices have all of them signification, but he does
not say that all of them are significant of good. It
may be that some of them are voices upon which we
should do Avell to shut our ears. Because a voice has a
meaning, it by no means follows that the meaning of it
is a salutary one. The voice of a fog-bell on a reef is a
voice not without signification, and what it signifies to
the sailor is danger. lie knows the moment he hears
that voice that the sooner he can get beyond its range,
the better for him and for his ship. I mark this dis-
tinction with the more emphasis for the reason that
there is a certain way of looking at life and life's pos-
sibilities which is becoming very prevalent, but
which is as dangerous as it is popidar. I refer to the
The 3Iany Voices in the World. 137
notion that character is a thing for which a man is not
personally responsible. Character^ so this easy-going
view of life would have us believe, is simply the re-
sult of the native instincts, desires, inclinations, habi-
tudes which a man brings with him into the world, as
these may happen to be modified by the circumstances
of the individual's lot. According to men's inborn
peculiarities of temper and disposition, so this danger-
ous reasoning tries to prove, will be their readiness to
listen to one or another of the many voices of which
the air is full, and they have as good a right to fol-
low one as to follow another. For instance, if a man
happen to have a heritage of strong animal instincts,
if he have been born with a great deal of the brute ia
him, why then it is only what might be expected that
he will listen to and obey those voices which allure
him to sensuality and crime. On the other hand, if
he be the inheritor of refined tastes, if he come of a
race of artists or scholars, then it is equally fair to
predict that he will in due time be brought imder the
influence of those clearer voices which address the
intellect and the imagination. The great point, ac-
cording to this view of human nature, is to find out
one's bent, and then to follow it, fearless of conse-
quences, whether it leads towards the upland or the
slough.
It is not necessary to a successfid uprooting of this
138 The Many Voices in the World.
poisonous doctrine that we should deny the existence
of hereditary traits, transmitted aptitudes and charac-
teristics, for to do so would be to fly in the face of
facts, and facts are sacred as well as stubborn. The
Bible everywhere recognizes, indeed the Bible used,
not long ago, to be much found fault with for recog-
nizing, the vevy distinct relation of cause and effect
that links the sins and virtues of the children to the
sins and virtues of the fathers, even to the third and
fourth generation.
Of late, the Bible has not been so much criticised
upon this score, because, with the progress of research,
the truth has been found to be, as in the long run it
will always be found to be, on the Bible's side. The
danger now is in the opposite direction. The present
tendency of anti-Christian thought is towards the
opinion that a man is what he is solely because of his
surroundings. His line of action is the resultant of
the forces brought to bear upon him from various
points. In calculating his horoscope, the element of
free-wiH must be set down as zero.
This is a very comforting doctrine to a man who is
conscioTAS that he has allowed himself to be the sport
of every wiHd of influence breathed upon him from
whatever point ef the compass. When one has
yielded without resistance to a thousand strong temp-
tations simply because they were strong, the assur-
The Many Voices in the World. 139
ance that there was no help for it, coming to him in
the name of philosophy, or possibly of religion, is a
very soothing message. It is an anodyne to the soul.
It lulls to sleep, or at least hushes into silence, the
murmurs of that troublesome companion,^ conscience.
But to one whose eyes are open to the truth that the
soul's perfection can be compassed only by her attain-
ment of freedom, that a man is only then truly a man
when, enabled by the Holy Spirit of God, he has
risen above the level where he yields to temptation,
as the dry stubble yields to flame under the stress of
a resistless law — to one who plainly sees this, I say,
the doctrine that a man is not to blame for following
any voice that happens to attract him, seems and
rightly seems, a doctrine of devils.
It has a plausible look upon the surface, this plea
that, as there are many sorts of people in the world,
so are there many kinds of voices, none of them with-
out signification, but one of them significant to one
man, another to another ; the argument is a taking one,
but it is one of those arguments that must be tried by
its results. The result of it is that it lands men in
a present hell, and this is the condemnation of the
premises. Logicians have a definite name for that
method of testing the validity of an argument. Our
Lord calls it judging a tree by his fruits. This is
easily understood.
140 The Mamj Voices in the World,
For example, you may have heard the argument
applied to music ia some such way as this, — God is
the author of harmony; He made the ear, with all its
marvellous capabilities; He created the atmosphere,
with its vibratory powers ; He ordained the laws of
sound ; and He so correlated these three by mutual
adaptations and adjustments that we have as a result
that mysterious effect called music; we have the
strange fact of a human soul swayed this way and that,
elevated, subdued, fired, softened, exhilarated or
made sad — all in obedience to a succession of air-
waves, originated by a string, a wire, or a piece of
wood. Well then, if this be so, if to the eye of the
devout mind the finger of God is discernible at every
step of the process, if He endowed the instrument of
music with its powers, if He gave to the atmosphere
iti undulations, if He conferred upon the ear and brain
of man their quick susceptibilities, what right has any
body to say that any one kind of music is more "sacred"
than another ? Why is not the dance music at a revel
as truly divine as the anthems of the cathedral ser-
vice ? God made both. All voices have their signi-
fication. Let the man who is of a religious turn of
mind enjoy his psalm tunes; we who are of another
way of thinking will have music of a different sort,
we will have music that excites and stimulates. Who
shall blame us ? Did not God make the imiverse ? And
The Many Voices in the World, 141
are not the sounds we happen to prefer as much a
part of the universe as the sounds you happen to pre-
fer? A curse upon the narrowness and austerity
that woidd shut us out of any possibilities of enjoy-
ment.
It may be that some of us have heard argu-
ments of this sort brought forward, have felt in our
soul that they were dangerous and false, dangerous
because false, and yet have not been able to command
the right answer to them. One answer, and I hope
it will appear to those of you who may have been per-
plexed by the false reasoning, a sound answer, is this:
Music is but another form of language. In other
w^ords, it is an instrument for the conveyance of
thought and feeling from one mind to another mind.
The composer corresponds to the orator. He utters
himself in notes, as the man of eloquence utters him-
self in words. The performer corresponds to the
reader. He reproduces for the enjoyment of the lis-
teners what another mind has originated. Now the
moment we grasp this thought, that music is an instru-
ment put into our hands for use, the absurdity of
holding the Creator responsible for our bad uses cf it
becomes apparent. As well might we hold the maker
of an edged tool responsible for murder, because, iu a
moment of frenzy, a workman has snatched it up and
killed his companion with a blow. The tool w^as
142 The Many Voices in the World.
made for beneficent purposes. The man who made
it knew well enough that it could be turned into an
instrument of violence. But when the violence is
committed, no one dreams of blaming the tool-maker.
Whatever can be said of music can be said of lan-
guage. If all sorts of music are equally sacred, then
are all sorts of language, all blasphemies, all impurities
equally of God. The more you think upon this par-
allel, the more you will be convinced that it is a per-
fectly just one. God made music and God made lan-
guage*, and He gave man these precious gifts, saying
to him, ^^ Take them, and use them, only remember,
that according to your use of them will you be judged.
There are, indeed, many voices in the world, but take
heed how ye hear."
I have brought forward this matter of music simply
as one illustration of a general truth that might be
variously illustrated, if there were time. The point
I wish to enforce is this. Paths that look inviting
are not for that reason safe. Fruits attractive to
the eye prove sometimes bitter to the taste. All
voices are not to be followed that happen to have
something enticing in their melody. We must
have a criterion, a test, a means of discriminating
between the good voices and the bad. Where
shall we find it ? Dwellers in a very Babel of dis-
cordant voices, called now this way and now that.
The Many Voices in the World. 143
bidden to-day to believe one thing, and to-morrow to
believe its opposite, perplexed, harassed, dismayed,
how are we to exercise aright the solemn responsi-
bility of choice ? Is there any one voice which more
than any other one can command allegiance, and de-
serve it? Listen, "I am the Good Shepherd . . .
my sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they
follow me." Here is the object of our search; here is
our criterion, our test ; the voice of God speaking to
us through the lips of Christ. Only insist that all
voices making a claim on your obedience shall be in
harmony with that leading voice, and you are safe.
'^ Beloved,^' says St. John, " believe not every spirit,
but try the spirits whether they are of God, because
many false prophets are gone out into the world."
This is but a paraphrase of our text. The spirits of
St. John are the voices of St. Paul. None of them is
without signification, but the question is, of what are
they significant, of good or^evil ? We can afford to be-
lieve only such spirits and such voices as are in accord
with the spirit and with the voice of the Most
High.
Who are the called of God ? Are they not they
to whom this voice of God has come ! Do not tell
me that you have never heard the voice. It has
been in the world from the beginning, and it is in
the world to-day. In the opening chapters of the
144 The Many Voices in the World.
Old Testament, and in the closing chapters of the
New, we hear it. It is a voice of many tones, but of
a quality that is always to be recognized. Other
sounds have no power to extinguish it, even though
it be low and they be loud. The man may hide
himself from the presence of the Lord God amongst
the trees of the garden, frightened by the voice, but
the voice finds him out. The song of birds can
not droTvai, nor the thick wall of foliage deaden the
penetrating words, Where art thou ? On through
the Bible, beginning with the Paradise of the past,
and ending with the vision of the Paradise to come,
we catch continually the echoes of that voice, now
calling Abram from his country, his kindred, and his
father's house ; now bidding ]\[oses forsake the treas-
ures and honors of the Egyptian court ; now reassur-
ing in still, quiet tones the soul of the disconsolate
Elijah ] now uttering itself at the baptism of
Christ ] now bearing testimony on the IMount of
Transfiguration ; now filling with the sound, as of
a mighty rushing wind, the house where the as-
sembled church awaits the promised gift, and now
saying to the Seer of the Apocalypse, ^' Come up
hither, and I Avill show thee things which must be
hereafter."
Oh yes, you say, it is plain enough that God sj)oke
to men in Bible times. It was easy in those old days
The Many Voices in the WorlcL 145
to hear his voice. But, somehow, now, either be-
cause He has ceased to speak, or because of those
other voices of which the world is full, we moderns
cannot hear Him. Do not believe it. My dear
friends, God is just as much in the world to-day as
He ever was. Nay, there is a sense in which Ho
may be said to be more intimately present now than
ever before. His revelation of Himself in Jesus
Christ has brought Him closer to the conscience and
the heart of man than ever. God's spoken word
never wrought those wonders upon earth that have
been wrought by his Word made flesh. It is a de-
lusion and a snare this notion that God has drawn
Himself away from his creatures and left them to
grope their perilous way alone. Just as really as He
was walking in the Garden is He walking in our
streets, entering at the doors of our houses, noting
what we think, what we say, what we do. Are you
still persuaded that you have never heard his voice ?
Think again. Have there been no times in your life
when it has been made plain to you that to live for
God is a nobler thing than to live for self ! I do not
ask whether the thought has ever staid by you for
any length of time, but I ask, Has it never visited
you even for an hour ? I feel very confident that
sometime and somewhere, every one here present
who has passed the boundaries of childhood, has ex-
146 The Many Voices in the World.
perienced the feeling of which I speak. Possibly it
was at some moment of disappointment, when a cher-
ished plan was broken up^ a purpose long pursued
brought suddenly to nought ; perhaps it was in an
hour of unaccustomed sorrow, when your eyes were
opened for a little while to the shortness and uncer-
tainty of human life ; perhaps, though this is less
likely, it was at a time of abounding joy, when your
heart was so full of gladness, so running over with
delight, that gratitude to the good Giver of it all
seemed verily forced upon you ; perhaps it was in the
house of God, listening to his word, or witnessing the
administration of his Sacraments ; perhaps it was in
the quiet companionship of some trusted friend, by
some fireside or on some familiar walk ; — I do not
undertake to define the when and the where ; I only
repeat my conviction that there is not one of us to
whom at least some whisperings of the voice of God
have not come. Well then you know the quality of
the voice. It is different from all others, is it not ?
You can, if you care to try, distinguish it among a
thousand. I have only to add. Follow it. Obey it.
Move away from those voices that are plainly out of
harmony with it ; move towards those voices that
blend with it easily and make no discordo Out of the
many kinds of voices that are in the world, choose
The Many Voices in the World, 147
only those which are plainly significant of righteous-
ness, and your reward shall be in this world great,
but still greater when you come to where
'' Beyond these voices there is peace."
SERMON XL
THE ONE THING NEEDFUL.
" But one thing is needful.^'' — St. Luke x. 42.
A BRIEF statement this, Dut within its narrow com=
pass is shut up the secret of the perfect life. In the
face of the war of Avords continually waged over re-
ligion, the value of a single clear note of this sort is
priceless. The sound of it brings us to our bearings 5
tells us where we stand. "Wearied in the multitude
of our counsels, we turn for relief to Him who is
Counsellor by eminence^ the Teacher of the teachers 5
perhaps He can simplify matters. We are not dis-
appointed. To the infinite relief of our perplexity,
this Christ stands forth and assures us that of the
many things they are talking about, but one is need-
ful. We thank Him for it. No doubt, if we will
only listen, we shall hear Him also tell us what this
^^ one thing " is.
But delaying our demand for this supreme answer
a little while, let us weigh the statement as it stands,
148
The One Thing Needful, 149
Let us try to find out in what particular sense it is
true, for evidently in all senses true it cannot be, that
only one thing is needful.
A quibbler with words could easily tell us of a
dozen ways in which the saying ought to be modified
and qualified before we allowed ourselves to accept it
in its length and breadth. But Christ was not a
master who dealt in exceptions. It was not his habit
to take the strength out of his utterances by append-
ing to each of them a list of the cases to which it did
not apply. He used for his building material large,
lucid blocks of afiirmation. He put things strongly J
gave his laws in the large 5 dictated without parenthe-
sis, or foot-note, or gloss ; and left it to the sanctified
common sense of his people to interpret the thing said
with discretion. The point He seeks to make, for
example, in this rebuke of Martha, if rebuke it must
be called, is nothing else than this, — namely, the
value in human life of the principle of proportion.
Here are these two sisters, one of them very much
taken up with household affairs, the other of them
continually athirst for the living God. Christ docs
not mean to tell the housekeeper, IMartha, that all her
assiduous, painstaking attention to the domestic inter-
ests, all her careful provision for the comfort of others,
are of no account ; that her much serving is to her
discredit, and that her efficiency is her shame. He
150 The One Thing Needful
simply wishes to remind her that ther^ is a faculty of
the soul higher than the one whicli^ just at this mo-
ment, she happens to have put into active use ; and
He cautions her against supposing that the playing
well of this lower part, which belongs to time, can
excuse her from attention to that better part, which
eternally endures. '^ The one thing needful," He
would have her know, is such a thing as shall show
itself to be of value after all things else shall have
passed away. Proportion your life with wisdom.
To that which is essential, necessary, lasting, give the
primacy. But one thing is needful. Enthrone it in
your thoughts, and let the other things, the things
not needful, group themselves about it as they will.
It is a pity that this important saying of our Lord's
should have become so exclusively associated as it is
with the household life of women. To tie words
close up to the particular occasion that originally
called them forth is sometimes to do a great injustice
to whole classes of interests to which they really
apply.
Forgetting then, for the moment, these women of
Bethany, look and see how true it is that the failure
to distinguish carefully between what is essential and
what is non-essential, between the thing that must
be and the thing that need not necessarily be, makes
trouble wherever it occurs. It is the sin against
Tlie One Thing Needful. 151
proportion, and, as such, it is in art, fatal to beauty ;
in science, fatal to progress ; in theology, fatal to
catholicity ; and in the conduct of life, fatal to the
soul's health.
In figure painting, for example, the essential thing
is a correct anatomy. What is thoroughness of ex-
ternal finish, what is brilliancy of coloring, what is
felicity of touch, ingenuity of treatment, if all the
while the drawing be bad, if the eye see at a glance
that underneath the flesh there are no bones, no defi-
nite skeleton to give contour, symmetry and vigor to
the pictured form ? The '^ one thing needful " is
lacking, and consequently all the other merits of the
picture, praiseworthy as they would be if associated
with that, go for nothing. The artist pinned his
hope of success to secondary excellencies, and their
failure is his failure.
Science, again, like art, has its one thing needful,
and in the case of science this one thing is insight.
Discovery is but another name for the power of flying
straight to the essential point, the heart of the matter.
The eye of the second-rate observer wanders about
here, there, and everywhere, successful in nothing
but in mistaking cause for effect, symptom for dis-
ease, aberration for orbit. Meanwhile the quick in-
sight of the master-mind has grasped the truth for
which the other only groped, and with this one thing
152 The One Thing Needful
needful for a key is opening at will all the closed
doors of the problem.
In still another way, theology, through its history,
enforces the same point. How often have the teach-
ers of the Church, mistaking private opinion for the
revealed truth of God, fallen into the very error
against which our Lord gave warning at the outset,
when He spoke of '^ teaching for doctrines the com-
mandments of men." The essence of the gospel, so
far as doctrine is concerned, the one thing needful
for the survival of the Christian faith may be com-
pressed into a few sentences. We have it in the
simple Creed we say together when we worship, the
common heritage of the whole Church. But curious,
active minds, deeply interested in the questions of
the soul, are seldom content to let the matter rest thus.
They insist upon setting the powerful machinery of
the intellect to work upon these simple sentences.
There are inferences to be drawn ; conclusion wrapped
within conclusion, tempting on the thinker to closer
and still closer analysis. All this is natural, very j
praiseworthy, nay, inevitable. The mischief begins
when the thinker has become so enamored of the
product of his thinking that he mixes up his personal
conclusions with the great verities of the faith itself,
and tells men that unless they can believe his private
inferences from the Creed, they are not believing the
The One Thing Needful 153
Creed. Even supposing the inference to be a true
one, it does not follow that the man who draws it has
a right to exact ascent to it from all men, for what
he says, though true, may be far from having that
character of essential truth which would justify the
Church in making it part and parcel of the universal
Creed. To break the unity of the body of Christ for
the sake of enjoying a chance to emphasize an article
of belief which the whole body never did accept and
is never likely to accept, is to sin against the rights
of all the people of God. And yet hov/ common it
is to hear opinions, which are nothing in the world
but opinions, quoted, appealed to, depended upon, as
if they were that very bread of life for lack of which
the soul must starve to death. Opinions about the
sacraments, the way in which they ought to be ad-
ministered, the nature of the grace associated with
them, the modus operandi of the conveyance of the
blessing ; opinions about the state of departed souls,
the character and duration of pmiishment hereafter ;
opinions about the interpretation of prophecy and the
precise time of the promised return of Christ to judge
the earth ; opinions even about such purely historical
and antiquarian points as the identity of the lost
tribes of Israel with the modern English race, or the
original purpose of the builders of the great pyramid
— we all know how hotly it is possible to contest them.
154 The One Thing Needful,
Some of them have been made the ground of organ-
ized separation from the historical Churchy others of
them only furnish material for dispute between
parties within the Church. Of course I do not mean
to put them all upon a footing, or to conceal the very
marked importance of some of them as contrasted
with the comparative triviality of others of them 5 I
simply use them as illustrating the matter in hand,
namely, the evil that comes of confusing the essential
with the non-essential, the thing that must be with
the thing that need not be. There are articles of be-
lief to renounce which is equivalent to giving up, I
do not say religion, but certainly the Christian relig-
ion. It is of the utmost importance that only so much
as is believed by the whole Church should be exacted
of any one member of it, and we ought to reckon it a
grievous sin against catholicity whenever a mere
opinion is declared, whether by Pope or sect, a neces-
sary doctrine, and so put upon a level with the faith
once delivered.
But enough of the general principle. Our rapid
glance at one after another of the fields in which the
human mind is active has brought out with sufficient
clearness the value of proportion as a characteristic
of good work. Whatever seeks the praise that comes
to either beauty or utility must make sure before-
hand of this quality. Without the " one thing need-
The One Thing Needful 155
ful '' to give it stiffening and backbone, your struct-
ure, be it this or be it tliat, is a failure. In art, in
discovery, in theologizing, we have seen how this is
true. And yet, so far, I seem to have been holding
the subject off at a distance, looking at it through a
glass darkly. Come with me and let us try to put
ourselves face to face with the thought our Saviour
had in mind when He said to that over-tasked and
over-anxious friend of his, ^^But one thing is need-
ful." If we can make the endeavor successful, our
law of proportion, which up to this moment may have
seemed to many of us a mere curiosity of thought, a
pretty conceit of the mind, will straightway be seen
to be the very most real thing in all the world.
I recall a striking expression of St. Paul's which
may be of use to us, and the more so because any in-
dependent attempt to affirm with positiveness just
what Jesus meant by the one thing needful might
have a look of presumption. With an apostle for in-
terpreter, we shall feel more safe. Let me remind
you then of a sentence in which Paul expresses the
wish that a certain something which he names may
'' rule " in the hearts of those to whom he writes.
We speak familiarly of the ruling motive, the ruling
desire, the ruling ambition, meaning always to desig-
nate by our phrase that one supreme principle which
as a matter of fact does sway the whole being of the
156 The One Thing Needful,
man we happen to have in mind. Certainly^ then,
we can scarcely go astray if we identify that which
the apostle hopes may " rule " in the hearts of his
converts, with that which this apostle's Master had
affirmed to be "" the one thing needful," And what is
it of which Paul so speaks ? It is the peace of God.
'^ Let the peace of God rule in your hearts." Jesus
discerned, it is not for us to say how or by what pro-
cess^ in the still, patient woman, who, as He said, had
chosen the better part. He discerned in her the pres-
ence of this peace. He saw how it lay at the very
innermost core of her soul's life. He saw how all
else in her character depended upon this central hold-
fasty finding, as the branch does in the trunk, both
origin and support there ; and it could not seem to
Him otherwise than accurate and truthful to speak of
a so evidently essential possession as " the one thing
needful."
For only think how much is covered by and in-
cluded in " the peace of God." We are not to sup-
pose that because it is spoken of as the *' one thing "
there is about it any narrowness or littleness. Far
from it. A very comprehensive unity indeed has
this one thing. It is called the peace of God because
it comes from Him ; He is the source and fountain
of it. By the "of" we are to understand origin ;
the peace belongs to Him and we have it as a gift,
The One Thing Needful. 157
have it for the asking. Were He not ''the God of
peace," there coiild be no " peace of God." And if,
for you and me, the promise ever is fulfilled that our
peace shall be as a river, our search for the head-
waters of the stream must be in that far mountain-
land where stands the throne.
Again, consider what it is opposed to, and what it
differs from, this peace of God, which we are to let
be the one ruling influence in our hearts. It is the
opposite of restlessness and of that fretful, queridous
discontent which spoils the melody of life. The soul
that owns the peace of God is not greatly distressed
by failure nor very greatly elated by success ; cer-
tainly not so much distressed or so much elated as
wholly to forget how these things are likely to look in
the retrospect of the eternal years.
To say that the peace of God makes men wholly
indifferent to what goes on around them, dead to
emotion, unconcerned as to whether gladness or sor-
row be in the air, would not be to commend it. But
to have that in us which emotion cannot overmaster,
and which all-prevailing change cannot undermine, is
certainly a good thhig, considering what the world is,
and the surprises for the better or the worse to wliich
we are so constantly liable. It was a great thing for
David, for instance, to have ventured to say of any
man, " he shall not be afraid of evil tidings, his heart
158 The One Thing Needful
is fixed." Probably his eye had falleii upon some
Nathaniel or Mary of that earlier day plainly pos-
sessed of the one needfid thing, and he had marvelled
to see what the peace of God could do.
Perhaps it is a sign that we have something of the
peace of God about us^ at least it may be an encour-
agement to us to believe that we are seekers after it,
if we are conscious of a genuine desire to know more
than we do know about things divine, if we feel sure
that we are not standing in antagonism to God, keep-
ing thoughts of Him purposely and persistently out of
our minds, but so far from being of this temper are
really anxious to feel after Him and find Him, to
know Him better and to love Him more. Perhaps
the peace of God is a thing of degrees, and perhaps
we ought not to be wholly discourtiged and set back
by finding that sometimes God seems nearer to us
than He does at other times, and the better part
which shall not be taken away a more real possession
one day than another day. It cannot possibly be that
an unbroken joyousness of spirit, a ceaseless gladness
of heart is the one thing needful, for then would Jesus
Himself seem to have lacked that which He enjoined
on others. There were times when even his soul was
exceeding sorrowful, times when He groaned in
spirit and was troubled. And yet it was most fre-
quently in close connection with just such hours as
The One Thing Needful 159
these that tlie benediction of peace was wont to fall
from his lips upon those who stood around. Under
the very shadow of the cross we hear Him say to us,
^^ Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto
you.''
It is their loyal assent to words like these that
prompts Christians to point those who are in search
of the one thing needful to Him we call the Saviour.
Christians do not go out of their way to quarrel with
those who declare that they can find the peace of
God elsewhere than in the near neighborhood of the
cross. If any man affirms that without aid from
written Scripture or sacramental Church, he can
secure that needful thing which is to stand by him
myriads of ages hence, when the world shall have
burnt to coal, if he insist that he can do this as a
Buddhist, or as a Confucian, or as a mere philosophi-
cal student and thinker. Christian believers need not
think it incumbent on them to set the battle in array
against him. Let him alone. For ourselves, we are
convinced that we have in Him whose marred face
looking out upon us from the Gospels chains our
gaze, and whose gentle voice laden with pity goes
straight to the heart ; we are convinced that we have
in Him the true and living way that leads to God,
and if we can persuade others to be of the same mind,
we are glad j but to condemn, to sentence, this is the
160 The One Thing Needful.
prerogative of the final Judge, not your duty nor
mine. Indeed, there can be few better evidences
that the peace of God does rule in our hearts than
when we find ourselves perfectly ready to leave Him
to settle, in his own way and time, controversies and
strifes which it would be the delight of our self-will
to dispose of arbitrarily, now, this moment, at a
stroke. '^ They shall not be ashamed that wait for
me,^' saith the EternaL
SERMON XII.
LATENT FAITH.
" King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets ? I know that thou
believes t.''^ — ACTS xxvi. 27,
This was a blunt way of dealing with the man,
and jet a wise way, too. Many a criminal has been
shamed into confession by having his guilt confidently
charged upon him. And as with bad secrets, so with
good ones, convince another that what he has been
trying to hide is really known, and he gives up at
once. The instincts of our nature of their own selves
all incline to openness and acknowledgment ; conceal-
ment is an acquired art.
Paul had reason to think that Agrippa, away down
in his heart, in spite of an affectation of indifference,
did believe in the God of the prophets, did tacitly
accept the premises of his great argument, and so
no sooner had he asked him whether he believed
than he followed up his question with assertion and
positive statement. ^' King Agrippa, believest thou
the prophets ? I know that thou believest.'^
161
162 Latent Faith.
Why did Paul speak in this way to Agrippa, who
was merely present at the interview as a guest, and
not take the same attitude towards Festus^ the Roman
governor before whom he was arraigned f A glance
at the circumstances of the case will tell us why.
For more than two years, Paul had now been lying
imprisoned at Csesarea. Saved from the violence of
a mob at Jerusalem by the intervention of the mili-
itary officer in command there, he had been sent
down for safe keeping to this city on the seacoast,
then the headquarters of the Roman power in Pales-
tine. At the time he was sent down, Felix was
governor of the province, but shortly before this in-
terview in which we are interested took place, Felix
had been recalled, and Festus had come to succeed
him. The political condition of the country just then
was not unlike the present state of things in British
India ; that is to say, there were several nominal gov-
ernments all existing at the same time, and yet all
but one of them holding power merely by permission
and on sufferance. The Herod family, of which this
Agrippa was the last, and, in some respects, the least
worthy representative, were really the vassals of
Rome. Such power as they held, they held on condi-
tion, understood if [not expressed, of fidelity to the
Empire. Their thrones, like those of the mediatized
princes of Germany at the present day, rested on a
Latent Faith, 163
larger and stronger throne, and underneath the robes
of sovereignty they carried about with them the con-
sciousness of servitude.
No sooner, therefore, was Festus fairly settled in
his new office as Roman governor at Csesarea, than
we find Agrippa and his sister Bernice thinking it
incumbent on them to go and pay him a visit of cere-
mony. In the dearth of amusements with which to
occupy the time of his royal guest, Festas bethought
himself of the prisoner Paul. He knew Agrippa to
be well acquainted, as he himself was not, with the
controversial questions which agitated the Jewish
mind, and he probably thought the opportunity a
good one for learning something about the prejudices
and peculiarities of the turbulent people he had been
sent to govern. Every line of the narrative in which
the writer of the Acts describes the interview is full
of interest and suggestion. What a touch of natural-
ness there is, for instance, in the statement that
Agrippa and Bernice came into the audience-room
with "great pomp." Power held by an insecure
tenure always makes an affectation of display. And
so here it is Agrippa, not Festus, who comes with
great pomp, eager to bolster up his unreal royalty
with the paraphernalia of power. But there was one
point where Paul, always quick to discriminate, and
equal to the emergency, saw his chance. Agrippa
164 Latent Faith,
was not a heathen. Worldly man that he was, self-
ish, luxurious, vain ; still, at one point he was open to
appeal — he had been brought up to pay an outward
respect, at least, to the true religion. The Herods,
although originally by race and descent Idumeans,
children of Esau, had been, long before this time,
brought over as a family to the Jewish faith. Bad
men as they were, they were not spiritually on the
same level with Felix and Festus, Gentiles. Like
Paul himself, Agrippa had been taught in childhood
to believe that the true God spoke through the He-
brew Scriptures.
Very likely Festus, Eoman that he was, had never
even so much as heard of Abraham, or Moses, or
David, or Elijah before he came to live among the
people in whose mouths these names were as house-
hold words. But with Agrippa it was otherwise.
Utterly as he might have disregarded, all his life, the
commandments of the two tables, completely as he
might have set at naught the warnings of the prophets,
still there was the persuasion printed on his con-
science in childhood, and never totally effaced, that
God had given his Law by Moses, had uttered his
will through the goodly fellowship of the prophets.
Hence the cogency of the appeal with which Paul
closed his eloquent defence of himself: ^^ King
Agrippa, believest thou the prophets ? I know that
Latent Faith, I65
tliou believest/^ And hence also the restless, though
probably scornful, character of the king's reply, which
amounted to, '^ Presently, unless I am on my guard,
you will make a Christian of me."
King Agrippa was a man about thirty-three years
old when this memorable conversation was had be-
tween him and Paul. He was in the prime of life,
his natural powers probably at their best, everything
that was good, and praiseworthy, and high-minded
possible for him, had he chosen to seek it. But he
let his opportunity slip. God's messenger, so far as
we know, never crossed his path again ; and the
smouldering faith, the dull embers of belief which
Paul, by his quick question, had sought to kindle
into flame, went out upon the hearth.
I hope better things of some to whom I speak to-
day. We hear much in these days about latent
skepticism, concealed unbelief, but, for my part, I am
convinced that there is a vast deal of latent faith
among us, an immense amount of unacknowledged
belief This is not a heathen community in which
we are living, ours is not a pagan civilization. The
laws, the usages, the traditions that moidded the
thoughts of our childhood and youth, were laws,
usages and traditions intimately allied to the Gospel
of Christ. Faith in the religion of the Bible is in
the blood of Americans, and if it is ever to be gotten
166 Latent Faith,
rid of, many generations will be needed for the pro-
cess.
And yet, notwithstanding all this, we cannot shut
our eyes to the fact that many among us, at the pres-
ent time, have assumed and maintain an attitude
of indifference in the matter of personal religion.
They do not see their way to an open confession of
Christ crucified, to a frank avowal of discipleship.
Why not f Well, they are not sure that they be-
lieve what members of the Christian Church are ex-
pected to believe, and so they think it better to re-
main in a non-committal attitude, unbiassed, un-
pledged. To such a man, superior to prejudice,
proud of his fair, well-balanced mind, I address with
confidence the words of Paul, ^^ Believest thou the
prophets ? I know that thou believest."
Who are the prophets f They are the men who
have truly spoken for God since life began upon the
earth. God has never left Himself without witness.
There have always been those who have honestly
testified for Him in the face of idolatry and falsehood,
cruelty and wrong; and these, whether they were
many or few, were the prophets of their time, the
messengers of the King, the spokesmen of the Most
High.
There have been many prophets besides those
whose names are known to us. The Scriptures refer
Latent Faith. IQ7
to them, but do not tell us who they were a Paul in
what he said to Agrippa had reference to those
prophets whose words the king had heard read out of
the only Bible that existed then, the writings we
now call the Old Testament. But when I ask you,
this morning, whether you believe the prophets, I
would have you take the question as covering a much
wider sweep. This very Paid who appealed to the
prophets has become, for us, and for our pm-poses,
himself one of the prophets. His voice, that is to
say, is one of those Avhich, by the common consent
of the best part of men, have been recognized
as truly speaking for God. Take now the utter-
ances of these prophets, by whom the' Holy Ghost
has been teaching men since the world began, and
what is the substance of them ? Foremost of all
stands that primal and majestic article of faith, — GoD
IS. That there exists a conscious One who is all-
powerful, all-wise, and present everywhere, is a first
point on which all the voices of all the j^rophets are
agreed. All sorts 01 notions about the methods of crea-
tion have existed, do exist and will exist. Each genera-
tion unmakes and remakes its theories of genesis, its
philosophy of beginnings. But that this universe, with
its manifest order and method, overcame to be what it is
by mere chance, ever grew into its present form with-
out the action upon it and within it of a conscious, in-
168 Latent Faith.
telligentj purposeful Beings is a view of the matter so
whimsical and forced that but few are found willing to
avow it in plain terms under any circumstances. And
yet men did not find ou! even this simplest and most
primary of all the truths of religion unaided; they did
not guess it by their own wit; God taught it them by
the word of prophecy. He sent messengers to tell
them that thus it was. Left to themselves, men
imagined all sorts of gods, — gods for the rivers, gods for
the mountains, gods for the forests, gods for war. for
peace, for commerce, and for every imaginable inter-
est. But Jehovah said to Abraham, I am the al-
mighty God, walk before me and be thou perfect.
He said throtigh Moses, Hear, Israel, the Lord our
God is one Lord. He said by the lips of David, The
Lord sitteth upon the water-flood, the Lord remaineth
a king forever. He said by Paul, there is none
other God but one. My unprejudiced, unbiassed, fair-
minded, non-committal friend, believest thou the.se
prophets ? I know that thou believest.
Let us go forward. That this one God of whom
the prophets have told men, is a God who discrim-
inates between what is right and wrong, that He ap-
proves goodness and condemns badness, — in one word,
that He is a God of judgment, condemning the wicked
to bring his way upon his head, and justifying the
righteous to give him according to his righteousness.
Latent Faith, 169
This is the second great article of religious faith. To
become persuaded of this also the world required the
voice of prophecy. The knowledge that God is a God
of holiness does not come by nature. Man has to be
taught it. We have all of us been told it from infancy,
and so we take it as a matter of course that, if men
are to believe in any God at all, it must of necessity
be a righteous God in whom they will believe.
But this looking at it as a matter of course is a
great mistake. The holiness of God is no more a
self-evident truth which people cannot help seeing
than is the unity of God. Both truths had to be
taught to men, and have been taught by the prophets,
and one chief evidence that they are truths and not
falsehoods is just this, that after they have been once
told with authority it becomes easy and natural to be-
lieve them.
Nothing is easier than to see the picture the mo-
ment the curtain that covered it has been drawn
aside, but for the drawing aside of the curtain the in-
tervention of a hand was needed. In revelation, as
we call it, God is moving the hand that is unveiling
the picture, and straightway we seCo Now, how is it
about this second article of the faith, God's righteous-
ness ? The prophets all agree that He is not only
strong but holy, not only creator but discerner, not
only king but judge. In this point they are absolutely
170 Latent Faith.
at one. There is no hint of discord or variance in all
their teaching. Well then^ answer me, Believest
thou the prophets 1 I know that thou believest.
Once more, the creed of Christendom declares that
for us men and for our salvation this one holy God
sent down from Heaven his only-begotten Son f that
this only Son, who, on his own affirmation, had been
in the bosom of the Father before the world was,
took our nature upon Him that He might cleanse and
bless and lift it up for ever ; that He loved the race
He came to save well enough to die for it ; and that
having died for it, He rose again triumphant over
death, and ascended to the right hand of the Majesty
on high. What is our authority for all this ? Still
I must reply, the prophets. '^ Apostles '^ they have
been commonly called in history, and apostles un-
doubtedly they were in virtue of their having been
sent forth ; but prophets they were also in virtue of
the blessed and joyful news they carried with them.
The essence of the prophetic office lies in the tell-
ing of the truth God is seeking to reveal to man.
These twelve, John, Cephas, Andrew and Philip and
the rest had seen a great light, none less than the
glory of the risen Son of God. They went out north,
south, east and west to shed abroad the light they
had received ; they bore on their tongues the gospel
of the resurrection, the ^^glad tidings " that death is not
Latent FaitK 171
the end ; the assurance, " Jesus lives." Other men
believed them. They themselves had believed because
of what they had seen with their own eyes, but
others were found willing to believe because these
apostle-prophets were so evidently sound in mind, and
so terribly in earnest. And ever since that day
multitudes have been found willing to believe, not on
the score of having seen the Christ, but simply be-
cause they have been told what and who He was by
those who in their turn received the story from the
past.
Yes, they were words of power those prophets
spoke. Only think how much they have survived 1
Kingdoms and empires have had time to be born, to
live and to die since that first publishing of the gos-
pel of forgiveness and eternal life, but it is a gospel
as new as it is old ; civilizations have come and gone,
but this message of the Christian prophets is still
here among us an active force to-day, the very lan-
guages themselves in which the tidings were first an-
nounced to the world have ceased to be spoken ;
they are " dead," as we say, but the word itself is
not dead, it is a living word still, and a life-giving
word. Among the influences that are swaying en-
lightened society to-day, point, if you can, to one
more ' vigorous or efficient, more penetrating or subtle
than that which we track up through the distance of
172 Latent Faith,
time until we are broTiglit into the presence of those
messengers of Jesus Christ who with the same eyes
had seen Him hanging on the cross and radiant with
resurrection light. The results that have ensued
upon the world's believing those prophets' word are
in themselves^ perhaps, the best possible evidence
that the word was true. No lie could have brought
such wealth of blessing in its train. Man of the clear
head, and steady judgment, belie vest thou these
prophets ? I know that thou belie vest.
Follow me yet once more. The apostles of Jesus
Christ not only published a message ; they also estab-
lished a society. There is no escaping this fact. It
stares us in the face from out the page of history. I
said " established," but perhaps it would have been
more accurate to say spread or extended. Christ
Himself established the Church when He said, ^' Go
teach and baptize," and all that the apostles did was
to obey this initial command. They did go, teach-
ing and baptizing, and the result was, that in due
time, there rose up in the eyes of a wondering world
that new and marvellous structure called the Holy
Catholic Church. This house of God set up in the
world, and still standing here, though new no longer,
but weather-beaten and gray with age, this house of
God has been .the home and birth-place of proph-
ecy ever since the days when it was first built. In-
Latent Faith. 173
deed, the Church is derelict to her duty if she fsiil to
prophesy. She is planted here for the very purpose.
Teaching is her first duty. Her mission and her
office are to tell men the truth of God as it is revealed
in Jesus Christ ; and in so far as she does this her
work is prophetic, since she speaks for the Most
High. The Church says to a man, — You are op-
pressed with a feeling of guilt, weighed down with
the burden of unforgiven sin, Come to Christ. He
is the friend of sinners, and their Saviour ♦, come, and
coming, be at rest. The Church says to a man, —
You are disappointed with your life. Time is slip-
ping by ; you are growing older every day, and yet
how little has been accomplished. Come into my
fellowship and learn the secret of real happiness by
being useful to others, helpful, sympathetic, self-for-
getting. This is the Christlike life. Let me aid
you in finding this. The Church says to a man, —
You are hungry and thirsty. Your heart is starved
and your spirit parched and dry. Come and seek
Him who is the Bread of Life. Come and drink at
that spring whose waters fail not. Come and be
Christ^s man. He gives peace.
It is thus that the Church prophesies when she is
faithful to her mission, and she holds forth her sacra-
ments as the signs and pledges of the truth she
teaches. She brings to her Baptism those who are
174 Latent Faith,
seeking forgiveness through the Christ ; she brings
to her Holj Communion those who are seeking fel-
lowship and oneness with Him.
Yes, the Church's ministry is, and always has been,
a prophetic one. She pleads for God. Her Script-
ures, her pulpit, her sacraments, all bear witness to
the Christ and tell of Him. Calm looker-on, unim-
passioned critic, not easily nor soon to be persuaded
to be a Christian, believest thou this prophet? I
know that in thy heart thou dost. I know that thou
believest.
Is all this presuming too much upon the existence
and the prevalence of what I have called latent faith,
unacknowledged belief? I cannot think that it is.
But even if I have, by God's blessing, met the case of
only one, that is enough. Few sermons accomplish
more than that, perhaps few as much as that. But
if there be one now present who feels that in his
inmost heart there is far more faith in the truth of
Christ's Gospel than from his outward walk and con-
versation anybody would suppose, let him ask him-
self whether this is as it should be. The outward
and the inward in religion ought to correspond. The
man who is outwardly religious while inwardly eaten
up with selfishness or pride is in a bad way, but so,
remember, is the man who having a conviction in
his heart that Jesus is the Son of God, and his
Latent Faith. 175
Church the true home of souls, yet hesitates to avow
the belief and lets himself be counted with those who
disbelieve, so also is he in a bad way.
It is well to be afraid of religious hypocrisy, but
there is such a thing as the hypocrisy of irreligion ;
shun that too.
How happy would it have been for King Agrippa
could he have had the frankness and the courage to
forestall Paul's assertion by promptly answering his
question, " Yes, I do believe ; and henceforth, God
helping me, my life shall square with my belief.^'
SERMON XIII.
THE RELIGION OF THE PROMISE.
" We are journeying unto the place of which the Lord said ^ I will
give it you. . ." — Numbers x 29.
The words have about them a certain repose of
spirit, a quiet confidence of tone, full of beauty.
These men are on the march. The dust of pilgrim-
age is upon them. They know not, this morning,
where they shall sleep to-night, and yet they are
without anxiety. No nervous fears distress them.
Faint they may be, but they are not disheartened :
for tbey are journeying unto the place of whicb the
Lord has said, " I will give it you." They know
whither they are bound, and that is the secret of
their peace. Hopeless wandering is, of all things we
can imagine, the most dismal ; but men in motion
cease to be wanderers, when you credit them with a
purpose. Give an aim to their movement, and you
dignify it at once. They are travellers now ; they
are not wanderers any longer ; they can answer
those they meet *, they own a destination.
176
The Beligion of the Promise. 177
It was this consciousness of an end in view that
made Israel brave for the Exodus, and patient
through the forty years that followed.
There is no need of my dwelling on the local in-
cidents with which the words of the text stand con-
nected, further than to remind you who the speaker
was, and who the person addressed. The two were
Moses and that kinsman of his by marriage, who
lived in the near neighborhood of Mt. Sinai, and
whose services as pioneer and guide the leader of
the emigrant host was anxious to secure. And this
is what Israelite says to Midianite by way of induce-
ment to join fortunes : " We are journeying unto
the place of which the Lord said, I will give it you :
come thou with us and we will do thee good : for
the Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel.'^
Obeying a true instinct, the Church of Christ has
from the beginning understood the whole story of the
transfer of the chosen people from the land of bond=
age to the land of promise as possessing, over and
above its historical value, the preciousness of a
divinely-planned allegory. Without casting any slur
upon the narrative as a recital of accurate occur-
rences, the religious mind is rejoiced to read between
the lines a parable of spiritual experience. In tlie
light thrown back upon the Old Testament from the
disclosures of the New, all the great events of that
178 The Beligion of the Promise,
earlier page in the history of God's Church become
luminous with suggestion. Egypt, the Passover, the
crossing of the Red Sea, Sinai, the wanderings, the
fightings with Amalek, the Jordan, and at last the
land of which the Lord had said, ^' I will give it you"
— these, each and all, stand to the eye of faith as lucid
images, way-marks for the soul, heaven-lent figures
of the true.
Bunyan's famous allegory has, they tell us, a cir-
culation among English-speaking peoples second
only to that of the Bible. But Bunyan draws his in-
spiration from Moses. The true Pilgrim's Progress
owns an earlier origin than the book which had its
beginnings in Bedford jail. Indeed, we may, for
that matter, go back far beyond Moses, and find the
germ of the now familiar comparison of life to a jour-
ney in those touching words of the aged patriarch,
Jacob, when he stood before the Egyptian king :
^^ The days of the years of my pilgrimage are a
hundred and thirty years." He too, it would seem,
in that early morning of the life-time of our race, was
thinking of the city that hath foundations, and ^' the
land beyond the sea."
Of course, this principle of allegorical interpreta-
tion may easily be carried too far. Most of us can
recall instances where this has been done to an unwise,
sometimes even to a ludicrous extent. It is never
Tlie Beligion of the Promise, 179
wise to lose entirely our hold upon the literal mean-
ing of Holy Scripture ; never wise to particularize
too much in our renderings of the figurative sense ;
and, above all, never wise to insist that other people
shall allegorize precisely as we do. But after due
allowance has been made for all these liabilities to
error, there still remain in our horizon certain great
headlands and promontories which all, who are in the
least measure interested to look, agree in seeing. It
is upon one of these generally accepted, undisputed
resemblances that I seek to concentrate your thought
this morning.
•^We are journeying unto the place of which the
Lord said, I will give it you." If we are honest and
genuine in our Christian believing, these words are
as true for you and me as they were for Moses and
his Israelites. We, too, are on a journey. For us, to-
day, just as really as for them in days of old, the
stimulus continues to be simply this — a promise.
Heaven cannot be demonstrated. We merely take
God's word for it. Suppose we give ourselves up, a
little while, to the undisturbed influence of so helpful
a thought.
Not enough, in our times, is said — soberly and in-
telligently said, I mean — about heaven. Religion
lacks the impulse which hope communicates. The
pulpit is npt as persuasive as it might be, if it preached
180 Tlie BeUgion of the Fromise,
more believinglj the promises of God. The tone of
the common talk of Christian people is too perceptibly
pessimistic^ too deeply tinged with despondency. The
quiet cheerfulness of temper which a settled faith in
the truth of the heavenly promises would engender is
rarer than it ought to be. Our motives and our aims
grow to be of the earthy earthy, because our imagi-
nation is creeping, when it might be soaring. That
strong metaphor of the Apostle, '^ tasting the
powers of the world to come," takes no hold upon a
generation whose sensitiveness to the very flavor of
the supernatural has grown dull.
If asked to account for this slackened interest in
heaven, some would be likely to give one answer and
some another. Very many people have the feeling
that the old-fashioned heaven of their childhood's
thoughts and hopes has been explained away by the
progress of discovery. It seems to them as if heaven
were pushed further and further off, just in propor-
tion as the telescope penetrates further and further
into space. The gates of pearl recede with the en-
largement of the object-glass, and the search for the
Paradise of God, like that for the earthly Eden, seems
to become more hopeless, the more accurate our
knowledge of the map. The primitive Christians
found it comparatively easy to think of heaven as a
place just above the stars. To us, who have learned
Tlie Religion of the Fromise, 181
to think of the sun itself as but a star seen near at
hand, and of the stars as suns, such localization of
the dwelling-place of the Most Highest is far from
easy.
This, then, is a reason that many give for not let-
ting thoughts about heaven have a very prominent
place in their religion. The endeavor to imagine
heaven baffles us, they would say ; we cannot begin
to picture it to ourselves in any intelligible shape ;
we can form no rational conception of what the life of
heaven is like ; and we see not how any good is to
come from trying to think out the unthinkable.
Another, and a very different reason for keeping
heaven, as it were, in the background, holding the
mention of it in reserve, comes from those who believe
that there is such a danger as that of cheapening and
vulgarizing sacred things by too much fluency in
talking about them. We do not like to hear the con-
demned criminal on the scaffold speak so confidently
of going straight to heaven. It cannot be denied
that there is a certain amount of reason for this fas-
tidiousness, some strength in this protest. Doubtless
there is such a thing as making heaven too easy of
access by keeping wholly out of sight what Script-
ure says about certain things that sliall by no means
enter into it. An indulgent rhetoric may throw open
the gates with a freedom so careless as to make us
182 The Religion of the Promise.
wonder why there should be any gates at all ; and
lips to which the common prose speech of the real
heaven would perhaps come hard, were they com-
pelled to try it, can sing of " Jerusalem the Golden,^'
and of the Paradise for which ^^ 'tis weary waiting
here " with a glibness at which possibly the angels
stand aghast. This is a second reason, a very
different reason from the first, but still a reason, for
observing reticence about heaven.
We should not, of course, look to see both reasons
coming from one and the same class of minds. The
one indicates a critical disposition that prefers silence
to trying to talk about things of which no certain
knowledge is possible *, the other, a reverential spirit,
that would have the pearls of divine truth kept
shut close in the casket, where nobody can see them,
rather than run any risk of letting them be trampled
under foot of the swine.
And yet, in the face of both of these reasons, com-
ing, as in many instances they do, from the lips of
serious, sober-minded, discreet, well-informed thinkers
about religion, I am disposed to cling to the ground
first taken, namely, that it is a sad pity, our hearing so
little as we do about the hope of heaven as a motive
power in human life. For, after all that has been
said, or can be said, these two facts remain indisput-
able ; they stare us in the face : first that this life of
The Religion of the Promise. 183
ours^ however we may account for it, does bear a cer-
tain resemblance to a journey, in that the one is a
movement through time, as the other is a movement
through space 5 secondly, that any journey which
lacks a destination is, and must of necessity be a dis-
mal thing. Human nature being what it is, we need
the attractive power of something to look forward to,
as we say, to keep our strength and courage up to the
living standard. When hope takes final leave of the
soul, man is ready to lie down and die. We are en-
couraged to persevere by the light ahead, be it the
merest glimmer.
Now the Christian religion is emphatically the re-
ligion of the promise. In heathen religion, the threat
predominates over the promise ; but in the glad faith
that boasts the name of Gospel, the promise predom-
inates over the threat. Christians are men with a
hope, men who have been called to inherit a blessing.
Nor is the Old Testament lacking in this element
of promise. It runs through the whole Bible. What
book anywhere can you point to so forward-looking
as that book ? As we watch the worthies of many
generations pass in long procession onwards, from
the day when the promise was first given of the One
who should come and bruise the serpent's head, down
to the day when the aged Simeon in the Temple took
the Child Jesus into his arms and blessed Him, we
184 The Beligion of the Promise,
seem to see upon every forehead a glow of light.
These men, we say, front the sunrising. They have
a hope. Purpose is in their eyes. They are looking
for something, and they look as those look who expect
in due time to find.
If this be true of the general tone of the Old Tes-
tament Scriptures, doubly, trebly is it true of the
New Testament. The coming of Christ has only
quickened and made more intense in us that instinct
of hope which the old prophecies of his coming first
inspired. For when He came, he brought in larger
hopes, and opened to us far-reaching vistas of promise,
such as had never been dreamed of before. Only
think how full of eager, joyous anticipation the New
Testament is from first to last! I do not mean to slur
the tragic features of God's revelation of Himself and
of his purposes. There is shadow, heavy shadow, in
the picture. Certainly '^ gaiety" is not the word
that truly expresses the temper of the book. But
neither, on the other hand, is " sombre " an epithet
we can justly apply to it. A solemn joy pervades
the atmosphere in which Apostle and Evargelist move
before our eyes. They are as men wh j, in the face
of the wreck of earthly hopes, have yet no inclination
to tears, because there has been op.ened to them a
vision of things unseen, and granted to them a fore-
taste of the peace eternal. Y js, of Master and of
The Religion of the Promise. 185
disciple alike is it written that this great power of
hope was what sustained them. We almost wonder
to find it said of Christ, but it is said. It was He
who, for the ^' pj set before Him/' endured the
cross. And certainly there is no need of my quot-
ing texts to show how largely those who took up the
cross after Him drew on this same treasury of hope
for their support. '^ The glory that shall be re-
vealed j" " The things eye hath not seen/' prepared
for those who love God 5 " The house not made with
hands," waiting for occupancy 5 ^^ The crovv^n of
righteousness, laid up " — you remember how promi-
nent a place these hold in the persuasive oratory of
St. Paul. Quite as naturally from his lips, as from
the lips of Moses, might have fallen the words: ^^We
are journeying unto the land of which the Lord said,
I will give it you.''
The complaint that the progress of human knowl-
edge has made it difficult to think and speak of
heaven as believing men used to think and speak of
it, is a complaint to which we ought to return for a
few moments ; for, from our leaving it as we did, the
impression may have been conveyed to some minds
that the difficulty is insuperable.
Let me observe, then, that while there is a certain
grain of reasonableness in this argument for silence
with respect to heaven and the things of heaven,
186 The Religion of the Promise.
there is by no means so much weight to be attached
to it as many people seem to supposco For after all,
when we come to think of it, this changed conception
of what heaven may be like is not traceable so much
to any marvellous revolution that has come over the
whole character of human thought since you and I
were children, as it is to the changes which have
taken place in our own several minds, and which
necessarily take place in every mind in its progress
from infancy to maturity. What I mean is that no
momentous discovery has been made in the last
twenty, thirty or forty years, as the case may be, to
render heaven any more unthinkable than it already
was to educated minds at that earlier date. The really
serious blow at old-time notions upon the subject was
dealt long before any of us were born, when the truth
was established beyond serious doubts that this planet
is not the centre about which all else in the universe
revolves. But the explanation of our personal sense
of grievance at being robbed of the heaven we were
used to believe in is to be sought in the familiar say-
ing, " When I was a child, I spake as a child, I
understood as a child, I thought as a child." We
instinctively, and without knowing it, project this
childish way of looking at things upon the whole
thinking world that was contemporary with our child-
hood, and infer from the change that has come over
The Beligion of the Promise, 187
our own mind that a corresponding change has been
going on in the mind of the world at large. We re-
call the thoughts we used to think about heaven in
oui' childhood, and we say, naturally enough, " That
is the way people used to think on that subject when
I was a boy." This fallacy is the more easily fallen
into, because it is a fact that, if we go back far
enough in the history of thought, we do find even
the mature minds seeing things much as we ourselves
saw them in our early childhood.
But let me try to strike closer home and meet the diffi-
culty in a more direct and helpful way. I do it by
asking whether we ought not to feel ashamed of our-
selves, thus to talk about having been robbed of the
promise simply because the Father of heaven has
been showing us, just as fast as our poor minds could
bear the strain, to how inmeasurable an area the
Fatherhood extends. The reality and trustworthi-
ness of the promise are not one whit affected by this
revelation of the vastness of the resources which lie
at his command who makes the promise. Instead of
repining because we cannot dwarf God^s universe so
as to make it fit perfectly the smallness of our notions,
let us turn all our energies to seeking to enlarge the
capacity of our faith so that it shall be able to hold
more.
What all this means is, that we are to believe bet-
188 The Religion of the Promise,
ter things of God, not worse things. It looks at first
sight like an odd contradiction in terms, that saying
of St. Paul's about the world by wisdom not knowing
Godo But how true we see it to be ! Multitudes of
minds to-day, the world over, are drawing from our
enlarged acquaintance with the works of God the
ungrateful — ^we can characterize it by no more appro-
priate word — the ungrateful inference that the works
are everything and the Worker nothing. We rejoice
to believe that it is not the best minds that reason
thus. But we ourselves betray a tinge of the same
way of thinking whenever we let ourselves be fright-
ened out of the hope of heaven by confident assertions
that the whole range of space has been thoroughly
searched and that forsooth no heaven is anywhere to
be fomid. It may turn out, — who can tell ? — that
heaven lies nearer to us than even in our childhood
we ever ventured to suppose ; that it is not only
nearer than the sky, but nearer than the clouds.
The reality of heaven, happily, is not dependent on
the ability of our five senses to discover its where-
abouts. Doubtless a sixth or seventh sense might
speedily reveal much, very much of which the five
we now have take no notice. Be this as it may, the
reasonableness of our believing in Christ's promise,
that in the Avorld whither He went He would pre-
pare a place for us, is in nowise impugned by any-
The Religion of the Promise, 189
thing that the busy wit of man has yet found out, or
is likely to find out. That belief rests on grounds of
its own, and, far from forbidding, it encourages us to
let our ideas of the fulness, the extent of the blessing
promised, expand more and more. The Bible lan-
guage about heaven was made symbolic, figurative, for
the very purpose of allowing more and more meaning
to be poured into it, as occasion should demand. A
figurative saying differs from a hard, exact statement
of literal fact in just this point, that it admits of ex-
pansion. The sign increases with the increase of
our knowledge of the thing signified. And we need
have no fear that, so long as we are in the flesh and
on the earth, our acquaintance with the realities of
heaven will ever outrun the capacity of the Bible
language about heaven to express what we may have
discovered. On the contary^ let us make more and
more of these great and precious promises of God.
Let us resolve to think oftener of the place of which
the Lord has said that He would give it us. There
is no period of life from which we can afibrd to spare
the presence of this heavenly hope. We need it in
youth, to give point and purpose and direction to the
newly launched life. It would be a strange answer
to receive from a ship just out of the harbor's
mouth, in reply to the question, '' Whither bound ? '^
— ^^ Nowhere.'' My young friends, whose hearts
190 The Beligion of the Promise,
just now are bent on getting this and getting
that, suffer me one word of counsel. With all
your getting, get a purpose. Nothing on earth,
believe me, will ever atone for the failure to get
that.
But not in youth only is belief in this ancient
promise of God a blessing to us. We need it in mid-
dle life. We need it to help us cover patiently that long
stretch which parts youth from old age — the time of
the fading out of illusions in the di-y light of experi-
ence ; the time when we discover the extent of our
personal range, and the narrow limit of our possible
achievement. We need it then, that we may be en-
abled to replace failing hopes with fresher ones, and
neither falter nor sink under the burden and heat of
the day.
Above all shall we find such a hope the staff of old
age, should the pilgrimage last so long. But let us
not imagine that we can postpone believing until
then. Faith is a habit of the soul, and old men would
be the first to warn us against the notion that it is a
habit that may be acquired in a day. Those of us
wha are wise will take up the matter now, at whatever
point of age the word may happen to have found us.
What forbids our resolving now that from this time
forth we will try to think more of heaven, more
of the path that leads thither, and more of Him
The Beligion of the Promise* 191
whose heaven it is ? For, after all, it is more
important that we should learn to love and fear
Him than that we should know precisely where in
his universe He means to place us if we do : is it
not?
SERMON XIV.
THE HEART'S IGNORANCE OF ITSELF.
" Who can understand his errors ? Cleanse thou me from secret
faults.''^— VSMM-Tdx. 12.
Not secret from others, but secret from himself, he
means. The thought is one that continually recurs
in the Bible, and more especially in the Book of
Psalms. The frequent appeal for judgment on the
part of these men of God, the earnest desire to have
their innermost motives brought out into clear day-
light that it may be seen of what sort they are, how
striking it is ! "• Try me, O God," exclaims one of
them, "and seek the ground of my heart." He is
impatient at the thought of his own superficiality.
The misgiving haunts him that the character with
which he has been crediting himself is not his true
character, after all; and so, with a praiseworthy
restlessness of spirit, he longs to have whatever there
may be that conceals and disguises his true self, at
any cost of personal mortification, torn clean away.
Let me see myself as I am, my God ; show me the
192
The Hearths Ignorance of Itself. 193
ground, the very soil itself out of which this tangled
thicket of desires, ambitions, loves and hatreds, mo-
tives and feelings has its growth.
It is plain enough what our subject is to be, — the
heart's ignorance of its own self, and the remedy.
Notice that the text is made up of a question and a
prayer — ^the question, " Who can understand his
errors f " the prayer, " Cleanse thou me from secret
faults." We shall find it a help to observe this sim-
ple line of division in the ordering of our thoughts,
and we will therefore, if you please, take the ques-
tion first, and when we have determined whether it
can be answered or not, we will go on to the prayer.
^^ Error '' is one of the mildest and most indulgent of
all the words we use to describe wrong-doing. Sin,
guilt, wickedness, iniquity, seem to be the terms
that carry the heavy weight of blame along with
them ; but when we say of a man merely that he is
" in error," we consider that we are speaking le-
niently. And yet " error" really conveys, perhaps, a
clearer idea of what sin in its essence is than any of
the other words I just used. For what is error but
the straying out of a path, the wandering from a
way ? There is no better definition of sin. *^ We
have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost
sheep," the General Confession- phrases it. The soul
has a way, a path, designed for it, just as a planet
194 The Hearfs Ignorance oj Itself,
has an orbit. The difference between the star and
the soul is that the one keeps to its appointed course
while the other wanders, but when we ask for the
reason why this is so, when we try to find out the
cause of such unlikeness of behavior, it is then that
we touch one of the deepest senses, perhaps the very
deepest sense, in which it is possible to ask the ques-
tion. Who can understand his errors 1
For, when we think of it, who can understand any
error ? Who can understand error as such ? Why
should that be true of the human soul which is true
of nothing else that is or lives, so far as we know,
namely, that it is able to break the law 1 All things
else keep within bounds, cling to the path ; man alone
is the transgressor; man — God's last work, 'and hence
presumably his best — he only steps across the line.
An easy way of getting aroimd the difficulty is to
assume boldly that the exception is imaginary, and
that there is really no such thing as sin. All we
have to do is to persuade oui'selves that animals are
automataj mere machines of flesh and blood, and then
to add to this the further belief that man is only a
highly developed animal, the most perfect automaton
of all, and the whole thing is done *, the Psalmist's
question is answered j and we understand our errors
by understanding that error cannot be. Whatever
is, is so because other than it is it could not be, and
The Hearts Ignorance of Itself. 195
hence it follows that whatever is, is right. We have
been made of late sufficiently familiar with this line
of reasoning. The answer to it, and the all= sufficient
answer, is the voice of universal conscience crying in
accents that cannot be mistaken, ^^I have sinned.'^
Yes, in the face of all the subtle and persuasive
argumentation by which ingenious minds seek to
convince us that what we call transgression is itself
only . another manifestation of all-pervasive law, the
heart stands up, and, ^' like a man in wrath, ^' answers
that it knows better. The Saviour the world craves
is not a Saviour who shall explain away, but one who
shall take away the sin of the world.
But waiving this general question, which is readily
recognized as the ancient and impenetrable enigma of
the origin of evil, let us look at some other ways in
which we seek, and seek in vain, to understand our
errors. Who can understand his errors, for instance, in
the sense of understanding the way in which the prin-
ciple of sin works in the heart, and manifests itself in
the life ? Sin has so many surprises for us, catches
us so often at a disadvantage, lies in wait for us so
ingeniously, that to be always on our guard and
always safe seems impossible. Moreover, the will-
power, by means of which temptation is resisted, is,
or seems to be, so variable. We sometimes speak of
the will as if it were a force constant and steady in
196 Tlie Hearth Ignorance of Itself,
its operation, but this is far from being the case. The
will is exceedingly uncertain ; if it seem strong to-
day, it may be feeble to-morrow. The fluctuations of
the atmosphere are trifling, as compared with the
variations of pressure which the hmnan will betrays.
How often men, in the bitterness of their souls,
cry, What can have possessed me that I should have
said or done thus or so % They cannot imagine their
true selves having said or done the thing, and so
they fall back upon the fancy that some other being
came in and took unrightful possession of the con-
science, usurped it, thus making possible that which
would have been impossible had the lawful sovereign
continued on the throne. But this only shows how
little we know ourselves, how hard it is for us to un-
derstand our errors.
Then, again, when we take into account hereditary
tendencies and dispositions, when we consider, for
instance, how much easier it is for one person to
resist the temptation to intemperance, or violence of
speech, than for another, the problem becomes still
more complicated. It is possible, of course, to
push our reasoning from these transmitted qualities
to a false extreme, it is possible so far to exaggerate
this feature of the souFs constitution as practically tO
nullify all moral responsibility ; to make it out, that is
to say, that a man is not to be blamed for the wrong
The Hearfs Ignorance of Itself, 197
he lias done, because if his parents had been better
than they were, or his grand-parents better than
they were, he himself would not be to-day the bad
man he is. I say it is a nristake to press considera-
tions of this sort too far, but then, on the other hand,
it is also a mistake not to take any account of them
at all. They have their weight, whether it be possi-
ble precisely, and with entire accuracy, to estimate
that weight or not. It is not only that lookers-on
observe hereditary traits coming out and hereditary
faults betraying themselves, but people are often
conscious, in their own experience, of moods and
states of feeling, in which they seem to reproduce in
the present that which had an earlier existence in
some parent life. It is all very strange, darkly mys-
terious, and it only adds to the difficulty of the ques-
tion which so perplexed our Psalmist, " Who can
understand his errors ? "
Again, letting go the past altogether, when we try
to distinguish between the various sources from
which, and channels through which our tempta-
tions approach us, how embarrassed we find ourselves.
It is usual to classify the ways by which we are led
into w^rong-doing mider three heads. We note this
feature of triplicity in the story of the fall, with which
the Bible account of man begins. The tree was (1)
good for food, (2) pleasant to the eyes, and (3) to be
198 The HearVs Ignorance of Itself.
desired as giving wisdom. When we come to the
scene in the wilderness, the temptation of the second
Adam, there is a similar threeness, (1) the solicitation
of the senses through hunger, (2) the moving of the
lust of possession by the spectacle seen from the ex-
ceeding high mountain, and, (3), the appeal to spirit-
ual pride on the pinnacle of the temple, ^^ Cast thy-
self down." More briefly, the same distribution of
the sources of temptation is put before us in the
familiar formula, ^^ the world, the flesh, and the
devil." Now it is not diflicult to discern the general
accuracy of this threefold classification. We are
conscious that some of our temptations come directly
through the channels of sense ; we see that others,
such as the allurements of ambition and the attrac-
tions of praise, touch us from the side of ^^ the world,"
so-called, or society ; while of still others we can only
say that they either originate in our own spirits or
else are communicated by contact with other spirits,
of whose nearness at this time or that we are igno-
rant.
And yet, when we have conceded the justice of
this analysis, and have agreed to the triple scheme
of assortment, it remains exceedingly diflicult to
decide, in any given instance, from which one of
the three possible sources the temptation which hap-
pens for the moment to be pressing us with its vehe-
The Hearths Ignorance of Itself. 199
ment appeals has come. It is a point in favor of a
beleaguered army, if the general in command only
knows on which side to anticipate the next attack,
but where there is imcertainty about this, or, what is
worse, where there is the fear that the assault may
come from all quarters at once, there must be corre-
sponding loss of heart. So then, whether we consider
sin in its essential character as sin, whether w^e track
it through the blood of successive generations, thus
seeking to follow it to its historical beginnings, or
whether we undertake to analyze and sort out the
various approaches through which temptation makes
its way to the soul, in any case we find ourselves
repeating somew^hat despairfully the question of the
text, ^' Who can understand his errors ? '' We are
bound to acknowledge that, so far, we have found no
answer.
Suppose now we pass from the enquiry to the re°
quest, from the problem to the prayer. Possibly light
may dawn on us as we cross the line that parts the
two. Though the mind has found no relief in saying
over the words of the question, the heart, it may be,
shall discover comfort in what follows, — " Cleanse
thou me from secret faults."
Some may wish to be certified how there can be
any such thing as secret faults, seeing that one^s
unconsciousness of any bad intention is so often
200 Tlie Hearth Ignorance of Itself,
pleaded as a bar to censure. When an insane man
commito an act which if done by a sane man would
be accounted a crime^ we do not blame^ we only pity
him. We say he is irresponsible^ not accountable.
We may imprison him, as a guarantee for the safety
of society, or as a means of ensuring his own safety,
but we may not imprison him for guilt, since guilty
it is not possible for him to be. Now, why does not
this apply by way of rebuke to the Psalmist ? What
right has he to add to the burden of our known sins
this unknown quantity which he labels ^^ secret
faults, ^^ faults hidden from our own selves ? If they
be so hidden, are they faults at all ? and can anybody
be in any sense to blame for possessing them ?
But have you never heard it said of a man much
addicted to profane swearing, that he "means nothing^'
by his blasphemous taik ? that he is unconscious of
using it ? It is the commonest thing in the world.
Hundreds and thousands of the people who sprinkle
their conversation with oaths, do so without for a mo-
ment considering that with every sentence they are
committing a sin against Ilim who gave them the gift
of speech. And do we hold them blameless on this ac-
count ? Their habit has indeed become a second nature,
but for the formation of the habit are they not responsi-
ble ^ Whatever doubt may hang over our responsi-
bility for what comes to us by the way of the first
The Hearfs Ignorance of Itself, 201
nature, it would seem to be clear enough that we
make this second nature, as we call it, for our-
selves, and that if we are responsible for anything
whatsoever, we are responsible for it. To say other-
wise is practically to affirm, that if one wishes to be
rid of the guilt attaching to any particular form of
sin, all he has to do is to commit the sin with fre-
quency enough to make his conscience callous, and
the thing is done ; he has absolved himself. No, we
must not give in for a moment to this notion that the
contriving to get our sin put out of sight is the same
thing as the being rid of our sin. Besides, it often
happens that the very faults which we have most
effectually succeeded in hiding from our own eyes are
the ones most obvious to those who are looking on and
judging us from without. This makes the burden of
more than one proverb and is a favorite theme with
satirists, and justly so, for cel'tainly nothing is more
open to bitter comment than the sight we so often see
of men blaming in others the very same things which
meanwhile others are blaming in them.
A true picture of the heart as it really is would
probably startle a man in much the same way that the
reflection of his own face startles him when he happens
to come upon it unexpectedly at some sudden turn.
How strangely like it is, he says to himself, and yet
how strangely unlike something I have seen before !
202 The Hearth Ignorance of Itself.
Undoubtedly one reason why so many of our faults
are secret to us is because we are so easily content to
live upon the surface of our ovm. natures. We are
not willing to take the pains to dig down and find out
what there really is in the soil of the heart. It may
be doubted whether there is very much in our day
of what used to be called probing the conscience.
Self-examination is in rather ill-repute. Religious
people may not have been any more numerous in old
times than they are now, but it does seem (at least if
we may judge from their books) as if when they un^
dertook to be religious they were more thorough-go-
ing in their religiousness than we are wont to be.
Perhaps it was because they had more hours for pur-
poses of devotion at their disposal. In these days of
hurry and drive, religion is expected to minimize her
claims upon people's time, just as other interests are
obliged to do. The fast that religion is supposed to
be the supreme interest makes apparently no differ-
ence. There is no leisure for so tedious and time-
consuming a task as the deliberate and careful in-
spection of conscience. Thus it comes about that those
of our sins which are least habitual to us most easily
attract our notice, whilst those which are most truly
characteristic of us retire, so far as we ourselves are
concerned, into a dim obscurity, becoming (while they
glare in the eyes of other people), '^secret'' faults to us.
The Hearfs Ignorance of Itself. 203
But there is another class of secret faults besides
these which, through our own carelessness have be-
come too common to be noticed by us. I refer to
what may be called the weak points in a man^s spir-
itual constitution. Why should not each living soul
have its distinctive constitution just as each living
body has ? It is a very hard word to define, and yet
it stands for a thing which we all recognize as truly
existent. The physicians say of a constitution that
it is strong in this direction, or weak in that. They
say of it, perhaps, that it has the seeds of disease
planted in it which in due time will ripen. It is very
possibly so with your spiritual constitution and mine.
Each has its own flaws, its own weak points, its own
liabilities and perils, and it is very hard indeed — yes,
impossible — for the man himself to find out all about
the matter unaided. Some better judge must be
called in ; these secret faults are beyond our reach 5
they do not, like the others of which I was speaking
a few moments ago, escape our observation because
we do not attentively look for them ; but they bafile
the eyesight notwithstanding, and in spite of all our
looking. They are secret faults because recondite,
deep, constitutional.
What now, in view of all that has been said, is our
refuge ? The case, as thus far stated, would seem
to be a gloomy one, unless some remedy can be pro-
204 Tlic Hearfs Ignorance of Itself.
posed. Is there such a remedy ? Has any one ever
found out what to do about this malady of the soul ?
Yes^ there is a remedy. And the praying portion of
our text points us to a source of relief about which
the questioning clause was wholly silent. '' Who can
understand his errors ? ^^ No one, so far as we have
been able to see. But what follows ? Then follows
this — '^ Cleanse thou me from secret faults." Here
is the help, just here. Invite the Saviour of the soul
to enter in through the gateway of the soul, and to
take up his dwelling there. There is no one who
comprehends a piece of mechanism so well as the
inventor and the maker of it. You may call this a
rough figure of speech^ and yet, up to a certain point,
it is a just one. The soul is, indeed, something much
better than a watch ; but still the watch and the soul
have this much at least in common ; each has had a
maker, and it is only reasonable to say that no one
can possibly understand the thing made so thoroughly
as the one who made it. But note carefully the pre-
cise point where the soul has the advantage of the
watch. It is here *, the watch-maker touches the
wheels and springs from without. He handles them
with most marvellous dexterity, to be sure, but still,
after all, it is only handling. The Maker of the soul
can do more than handle his workmanship. He has
the added power of entering in and dwelling within
The HearVs Ignorance of Itself. 205
\ij jesj actually within it, as intimately as the life
power dwells within the very juices of the plant,
making it lily or carnation, anemone or violet, each
after its kind. The trouble is we shut the Life-giver
out, and then we wonder that the living goes all
wrong. All wrong the living will continue to go un-
til we learn to welcome God, to be glad at his ap-
proach, to desire most of all his continual presence.
It is well to say, ^^ Lord I am not worthy that thou
shouldst come under my roof," for this betokens a
right humility, but it is still better to let faith and
love outstrip humility, and to venture upon the
prayer, ^^ Abide with us."
Do not take all this, my friends, as figurative
language. I speak, or desire to speak, of a se-
verely practical truth, a truth which nobody who
is listening, man, woman or child, can afford to
disregard. It is possible (one might well hesitate
to speak the words but for the warrant of Scrip-
ture behind him), it is possible to be " without God
in the world," or, which is the same thing, to be
in the world, and yet, all the time we are in it, to be
separated from God. Again, it is possible to be with
God in the world, and with Him in so intimate a
sense, that He is actually a tenant of the soul. Now
if we woidd be really rid of secret faults, we have
something more to do than rely on our own strength
206 The Hearth Ignorance of Itself.
of will (for the Avill is, as we have seen, blind in this
direction), w^e must call in the presence and the
power of God. Confessedly unable to help ourselves,
because of ignorance, we must avail ourselves of his
aid who is greater than our hearts and knoweth all
things. He can understand our errors, and He is the
only one who can. Those cures are the most effect-
ual that heal the man from within. Surface reme-
dies are proverbially disappointing. Defects of con-
stitution, deeply concealed flaws of nature, yield only
to healing forces that, like an atmosphere breathed in,
penetrate to the very inmost sources of life. It is so
with the secret faults, the hidden flecks, the unno-
ticed weaknesses which mar the wholeness and sap
the strength of the spiritual man. We need to
breathe in more of God if we would breathe out more
of goodness. We need to have within our veins
and bounding in our pulses more of the blood of
Christ, if we would have the blood of Christ save
us indeed, for it is not by an outward washing
that God is making ready a people for Himself,
but by that inward cleansing which begins at the
heart.
And now, I trust, we can all see a little further
than we did at first into the reason why David fol-
lowed up his question so closely with his prayer. It
was an honest turning to God that saved him.
The Hearfs Ignorance of Itself. 207
Though the mind confessed itself baffled, the spirit
that was in him saw daylight. He could pray even
when he could not prove, and for the errors he was
unable to understand, he sought an absolution sure to
be complete.
SERMON XV.
HEROD'S BLUNDER.
" They are dead which sought the young chiUVs lifey — St. Mat-
thew ii. 20.
This is a text full of encouragement for religious
beginnings of every sort. It is the message that
came to Joseph while he was acting the part of pro-
tector to the mother and the holy child in the
strange land of Egypt. The three had gone thither
in obedience to a warning. Herod, the message had
run, will seek the young child to destroy Him. Flee
into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word.
But now that Herod is dead, and the whole sky
changed, God's message is of another sort. Arise,
and take the young child and his mother, and go into
the land of Israel, for they are dead which sought the
young child's life."
It strikes us, at first sight, as a very strange thing
that God should permit the infancy of man to be the
defenceless thing it is. No other creature comes into
the world so ill-equipped for conflict with the natural
208
Herod^s Blunder. 209
forces that make war against our life as does tlie
child. There is none so utterly destitute of what we
call ^' self-help " as he, none so dependent on the pro-
tecting care of others, none so easily destructible.
The slightest gust suffices to blow out that little flame
of life, unless some hand or hands serve as temporary
shield against the wind. Yet, here is man well-
established on the planet, notwithstanding, and, so far
as the competition of the other tenants is concerned,
the master of it. The beasts of the field seem to
make a better start in life ; but man has the upper
hand of them, and they know it. There was a time
when they contested the supremacy on something
like equal terms. It looked as if they might make
an end of us altogethero But where are dragon and
leviathan to-day ? '^ They are dead which sought
the young child's life." Man, the mature possessor
of the earth, no longer dreads his rivals. The
brutish claimant of the throne, " red in tooth and
claw with ravine," has been set aside •, the true king
reigns. The primal edict spoken of man, " They
shall have dominion," is fidfilled. We have dominion.
It ought not to surprise us to find something
that answers to all this in the experience of the
Christ. If He be what we believe Him to be, the
Son of Man, it is not strange that his few years in
the flesh should be found a sort of reprint, in
210 HerocPs Blunder,
miniature, if I may so say, of whole chapters in
the biography of the race. As it is with man, so
is it with " the Man/' '' the Son of Man." This
genus to which you and I belong is born into the
world, has its narrow escape, survives, toils, knows
scarcely where to lay its head, suffers and dies.
Shall not the Christ, shall not that strong One who
has come to carry us one step further on the upward
incline, shall not He, before his rising from the dead,
also be born in weakness, struggle up through peril;
labor, suffer, die I For verily He took not on Him
the nature of angels but that He might become the
first-born into life eternal. He humbled Himself to be
even as we are in this world.
I chose the text, my friends, that it might serve as
a message of reassurance and encouragement : and this
both as respects the life of the great world at large and
our own little individual lives, your life and mine.
There arc vast numbers of people, perhaps more in
our day than for many generations past, who suffer
from a perpetual apprehension _that the enemies of
the faith Avill presently prevail and make an end of
religion on the earth. The blast of the trumpets of
the besiegers of the city of God frightens them. The
confident cry of the assailants, as they come hurrying
on with ladder and torch, takes their breath away.
^'Surely the end is near," they say to themselves.
Herod^s Blunder, 211
^' It will be impossible to hold out much longer, the
enemy cometh on so fast." To people in this mood^
scared half to death by threats they know not how to
meet, and arguments they have no means of answer-
ing, it ought to be very comforting to look back over
the history of the past. It is easier to believe in
God's ability to save us in the years to come, when
we recall and force ourselves to dwell upon the great
things He has done for us in the years that are gone.
Faith^s guarantee is found in old promises fulfilled
quite as much as in new ones made. Those who ac-
custom themselves to think of God as having been
our dwelling-place in all generations, are not likely
to be disturbed by present-day misgivings that in
this generation the foundations of that ancient abode
may collapse and its roof tumble in. So, then, it is
both instructive and reassuring to look back, from
time to time, on critical periods in the past history of
the true religion, and to observe the outcome of
them. It is characteristic of the kingdom of Christ,
or what in a less satisfactory way we call Christianity,
that it is for ever susceptible of new birth. Of course
it had its beginning, in a unique sense, at Bethlehem.
I do not mean that any subsequent nativity is to be
confounded in our thoughts with that one. Christ has
never since been born into the world as He was born
on Christmas-day. And yet it is true, as I just now
212 Herod's Blunder,
said, that history abounds in new births of Chris-
tianity. For the very reason that it is a living, and
not a dead, religion, it is continually susceptible of
renascence.
It is with religion as with languages. No new
classics are ever written in a dead language ; but
every now and then in the history of a living
language there comes along some great master
of speech, and his use of the language marks a
new era. How many new births of English there
have been since English as a tongue began to be.
But were English to become, what Latin is, dead,
the great masters of style would labor at it in vain.
They might easily succeed in reproducing old effects,
they could not produce new ones. But what I was
about to say was this, and it is worth thinking of,
that at every such new birth of the true religion,
while still the child is weak and comparatively help-
less, a vigorous attempt is made to put it to the
sword. The world-power loves not the Christ.
Thrones based on selfishness cannot brook the
thought of a rival throne built upon unselfishness.
Courtly Jerusalem is troubled when it learns of what
is going on in little Bethlehem.
Where is He that is born king? asks significantly
he who was not born king, but has usurped the
throne. And so the edict goes forth that all the chil-
Herod'' s Blunder, 213
dren in and about Bethlehem shall be killed, and
there is much weeping and moaning, and many
mothers suffer what only mothers can in the hopeless-
ness of a bereavement not to be understood, and yet
the one child against whom all this storm of wrath
is directed escapes. Doubtless Herod himself fancies
that a clean sweep has been made, feels well assured,
in fact, that his policy of " Thorough " has effected
the end desired ] but no, he is mistaken ; his infant
rival is living, and not dead ; in spite of all, the
Christ survives. Egypt, the land of the over-
shadowing wings, is to protect Him for a little while,
but only for a little while ; only until the tidings
shall have come that those are dead which sought the
young child's life.
We have not the leisure to work out this thought
as I should like to see it worked out. We can only,
instead, glance at two or three instances illustrative
of what I have been saying.
Look, for example, at the tremendous effort pagan
Rome, the Rome of the Empire, put forth to kill the
faith while it was still, as we may say, a little child,
an infant. Herod's attempt was nothing to it. Rome
by a true instinct scented in the Gospel a rival aspi-
rant to the throne of the whole world. She was con-
tented to allow Jesus a niche in her Pantheon ;
his statue, so far as she cared, might have its place
214 Herod^s Blunder,
alongside of the idols of all nations ; but it was evi-
dent that no such compromise as this would satisfy
the boundless ambition of the people called Christians.
It was too painfully evident that they regarded their
faith not as a religion, but as the religion ; not as one
domesticated among the many, but as one destined
to expel the many from the house. Hence the per-
secutions, as we name them. They were bitter, per-
sistent, relentless ; but it was his Church that won ;
it was the Empire that succumbed. At last, to
souls weary of the Egypt of their banishment, there
came the news, " They are dead which sought the
young child's life."
Again, at the subversion of the partially christian-
ized Empire; when the barbarian tribes came pouring
down from the north to divide the spoil, how dark
the outlook must have seemed to those who had the
progress of God's kingdom close at heart !
How like a cruel reversal and ruin of the results
of centuries of patient toil it looked ! Here was the
Empire at last sufficiently won over to be reckoned as
nominally on God's side in the world, and now the
whole fair fabric was to be pulled down and trampled
upon. And yet all the while, through this very pro-
cess, God was ushering in a larger and better concep-
tion of what his kingdom really is.
The bringing of northern Europe within the limits
HerocVs Blunder 215
of Christendom was a process full of peril ; but it
turned out in the end to have been a new birth for
the Church. It was another narrow escape for the
young child. The pounding blows of mace and
battle-axe in that rough middle age crushed every-
thing they fell upon. But somehow the Christ sur-
vived. Him they could not kill. God hid Him
from their violence behind cloister walls^ until again
there came the message^ '^ They are dead which
sought the young child's life.''
Even so, dear friends, is it sure to fare in the con-
flict that is going on before our eyes to-day. Even
now a new birth is at hand for the Christian faith.
Larger horizons than were ever dreamed of in old
times are opening before our eyes. Meanings deeper
and richer than were ever guessed begin to unfold
themselves in the word of God. The sentences of the
Creed, read in the light of recent discovery, instead
of losing value, gain it wonderfully. "\Ye discern, as
never before, the grandeur of God's plan, the splendid
sweep of his design. We see how much larger the
truth is than we had taken it to be. The conquest
of the world, the unifying of the human race, the
achievement of real catholicity for man is losing
its old aspect of impossibility and is coming to be
seen in its new aspect of probability. The outlook
for missionary work never was so bright as now.
216 HerocTs Blunder,
But in the face of all this, nay let us rather say, just
because of all this, the world-power thinks the oppor-
tunity a good one for slaying the child-Christ in his
cradle. ^^ We are tired of religion/' they say. ^^It is
not equal to the demands of modern man. We
repudiate its claim to be a message from heaven.
Let us have done with leading-strings. The race is
old enough to walk alone. Talk to us no longer
about God, and the soul, and immortality. Man is
here to be made comfortable. Talk to us about the
world and how it may be improved, about science
and what it has achieved, about progress and what
we are to expect of it ; but do not harp upon such
worn-out themes as sin and holiness, repentance and
forgiveness ; of these we have heard more than
enough."
And so the decree has gone forth that all the
progeny of faith shall be slain, in the hope that
along with the other innocents Christ may perish,
too. But it cannot be, because God will not let it
be. Believers of a hundred years hence will look
back and wonder that we of these times allowed our-
selves to be alarmed for the result. The Herod of
that day may appear formidable to his contempora-
ries, but he will be a diiferent Herod from the Herod
of our time. No dead things look one-half so dead
as the dead infidelities of the past 5 and in that day,
HerocPs Blunder, 217
depend upon it, there will be none so poor as to do
our Herod honor. " He made a mistake/' they will
say. ^^ How foolish of him to suppose that he could
kill the Christ ! "
There is but one other application of the teaching
of the text upon which we have any need to dwell,
but that is one which we ought by no means to over-
look. I have been speaking all along of the great
world without us, and of the age-long drama of
which it furnishes the stage. But let us look inward
now, for a moment or two, and survey the lesser
world of each one's own separate and personal life.
Here also there is room for Herod and his wicked
enterprise.
It may be that in this congregation there is here
and there a soul conscious of having within it the
beginnings of a new life. Aspirations never enter-
tained until recently, purposes for good formed only
of late, are making such a heart a veritable Bethle-
hem. Christ is born afresh, and angels are singing
with glad voices their carols of good-will and peace.
But your experience is very unlike that of other
Christian believers, if you da not hear mingling with
that melody, and badly breaking it, the murmur of
voices pitched in a very different key. Herod's men
at arms have been let loose, and are storming up and
down the highways and by-ways of the soul, trying
218 Herod^s Blunder,
to make away with this new life, to kill the Christ
within you. My message to you is a simple one.
Be not afraid. That is the whole of it. God is on
on your side ; He cares as much as you care for that
little flame of life ; He will not let this gusty tempest
quench it, though it threatens it. Be not afraid. It
may be that much distress and many sufferings await
you. Passion, pride, envy, hatred, malice, false ambi-
tion, discontent, jealousy, scorn, vanity, can you
possibly expect that when all these have joined hands
in one bad determination to kill the Christ within
you, can you possibly expect, I say, that there wil
be in this Bethlehem of yours no bloodshed and no
tears ? Yes, there will be much of both. But cour-
age ; victory comes at last, and with it peace. By
and by some voice will speak to you, as in a happy
dream, and say, " Arise, and get you to the land of
Israel, the souPs true home. For they are dead
which sought the young child's life."
SERMON XVI.
EARNINGS.
" For even -when we were with y on, this we comjnanded you, that if
any would not work, neither should he eat.'''' — II Thessalonians iii.
lo.
The words have a harsh sound, have they not %
We do not on the moment perceive that a great
principle lies hidden in thera. They seem to embody
only a rule or regulation ; they suggest the discipline
of the workhouse, and would not look out of place as
a motto on the cover of some manual of charity or-
ganization, or hand-book of directions for visitors of
the poor.
But there is much more in the words than this,
although this, very likely, was to a certain extent
the complexion they bore in the first instance.
The primitive Christian communities were not
made up of rich people to any great extent ; they
were chiefly composed of men and women who had
to earn their own living, if they did earn it, by hard
219
220 Earnings.
St. Paul had learned that in one of these comrauni-
tieSj the Church at a place called ThessaJonica, there
were a number of persons who took advantage of the
gospel doctrine of brotherly kindness, by making it a
cover for idleness. We hear^ he says^ that there are
some who walk among you disorderly^ working not
at all, but are busy-bodies. Now them that are such
we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ,
that with quietness they work and eat their own
bread.
A touch of satire here j for the intimation clearly
was that the bread these people were eating was not
their own, since their own efforts had not earned it.
So then it is plain enough that in their earliest appli-
cation the words of the text did have the character
of a disciplinary rule. But this does not make any
the less true what I said about the value of the pre-
cept as covering and enfolding a general principle.
If any of you upon hearing the text announced in-
ferred that the remarks to follow would be addressed
only to the wage-earning class, so called, the infer-
ence was a hasty one. The face of society has
altered amazingly since the day when Paul wrote
this letter to the Thessalonian Christians. The
constituency of the Church is a very different
thing from what it was then. As was predicted it
would do, the Gospel-net has '^gathered of every
Earnings, 221
kind," and to-day not the laboring class only, but lit-
erally all sorts and conditions of men are found
professing and calling themselves Christians, But
has the maxim " if any will not work, neither should
he eat/' lost nothing of its value on this account ?
Or are we at liberty to set it aside as a command-
ment obsolete, a law virtually repealed by the change
that has come over all things since those early days ?
In one sense, Yes. Nobody would assert for the
Church authorities of our time the right literally to
enforce, in indi\adual cases, such an ordinance as
thiso Indeed, St. Paul himself had no intention
of urging a general application of his rule to all
the citizens of Thessalonica. Probably the eating
he had reference to meant support out of the com-
mon sustenation fund of the Church. As to how
that ought to be used, he had a perfect right
to speak with authority. Part of his apostolic
duty was to keep the drones from living upon
the accumulated treasures of the hive. And it
was with this end in view, no doubt, that he laid
down his rule. He was not undertaking to prescribe
a police-regulation for Thessalonica as a town ;
only ail ordinance for the special community over
which he exercised a lawful supervision, namely, the
Church.
Again I ask, therefore, what was the principle on
222 Earnings,
which this rule " If any will not work, neither should
he eat," was founded ? What great and changeless
truth, binding through all time and upon all classes,
lay beneath and behind the apostle^s edict ? A truth,
a principle, I answer — that may be stated thus : It
is God^s will that every one of his creatures, in some
way or other, should earn his own living ; or, in other
words, render by usefulness an equivalent for sup-
port.
With the possible and conceivable exceptions to
this principle we will not now concern ourselves.
Were we to do so, we might find out that what seem
to be exceptions are not really such. But we will
waive that for the present ; what we have before us
now is the principle itself, the broad, general princi-
ple that a support ought somehow to be earned.
All that contributes to man's sustenance, except
the air he breathes, comes out of the soil, and the
process of getting it out involves labor.
Man banished from Paradise had set before him
the task of subduing the earth, a task with which he
is still busily occupied. To allege that in a perfectly
equitable state of things all persons would be directly
engaged with their hands in the general effort to make
the earth yield her increase is absurd. But to say
that every person not thus at work ought in some
way to be the helper of those who are, is far from
Earnings, 223
being absurd, for it is tbe truth of God. The man
who feeds upon the common stock of the world's pro-
duce without in any way exerting himself to lighten
the burden of the world's toil breaks an everlasting
commandment. No penalty may overtake him here
and now; nevertheless, the fact remains, — a thing
that ought to have been done has been left undone,
a sanction of universal obligation has been set at
naught, an idle life has been led.
In the end these things go not unpunished. They
right themselveSe Lapses have their penalty as well
as acts. Do not misapprehend my meaning. I have
specified no particular kind of service and affirmed
of it, unless you render that, unless you plough or
plant or reap, you are eating unearned bread.
That is the folly of a few enthusiasts. There are
ten thousand forms of helpfulness, wholly aside from
manual labor. Possibly you are living a life that
may fairly be called a life of enforced idleness. It
is not your choice but your necessity. Perhaps a
smile or a cheerful word is the utmost you have to
contribute to the lightening of the general burden;
nevertheless, by all means contribute that ; and if your
heart be set on equity, if your conscience be one that
is awake to duty, you will eat your bread with the
better grace and with the more peace of mind for
having done so. For if any will not work — that is to
224 Earnings.
say, has not the disposition to be helpful — neither
ought he, in pure equity, to eat. Service is the con-
dition of sustenance. " She hath done what she
could."
People of small means are compelled to recognize
this truth. The acknowledgment of it is forced upon
them. They earn their bread by the sweat of their
brow, and the very act of doing so is a continual re-
minder of the reasonableness of*what our text teaches.
But it is evidence of unusual nobility of character
when one whose wealth exempts him from labor is
seen voluntarily taking up some line of active service
purely for the sake of being usefid. One of the rea-
sons why it is so hard for a rich man to enter into
the kingdom of heaven is just this, his riches deceive
him into a forgetfulness of the fact that in God^s
sight he is just as really bound to make himself help-
ful, to put his shoulder to the common burden, as any
other man. The kingdom of heaven is based on the
principle of co-operation ; that is one of the unre-
pealable articles of its constitution. The citizens of
that kingdom are members one of another, none of
them liveth to himself alone, whatever is done is done
with an eye to the general good, if one suffers all
suffer, if one rejoices all rejoice. How can anybody
enter into a kingdom of this sort carrying with him
the notion that he belongs to an exempted clasSj that
Earnings. 225
however necessary it may be for the poverty-stricken
to slave and toil, his better fortune makes any special
exertion needless for him ! How, I ask, can such a
one pass through the gate, how enter into the city ?
He cannot, at least not until he has unlearned his
trust in riches, until he has mastered the alphabet
of fellowship and brotherhood, until he has confessed
that because he is a man he owes it to all men to be
helpful. Failing to do that, he sees the needle's eye
confront him still.
Let us glance at some of the practical applications
of this principle in every-day life. Playing for
money is said to be becoming common in good society.
Well, why not ? Christian moralists are often chal-
lenged, and with not a little confidence on the part
of the challenger, to show reason why the practice of
gaming shoulr' be denounced as wickedness. May a
man not do what he will with his own ? it is trium-
phantly asked. And if he has a right to destroy or
throw away his property when the whim takes him,
may he not innocently enough risk the loss of that
same property at the gaming table ! To which this
answer may be made, that it is not the losing of
money so much as it is the winning of money at
games of chance that makes the practice of them
blameworthy. That is worth thinking of.
The fact that a man finds himself winning wealth
226 Earnings,
without effort has of itself a tendency to demoralize
him, and it has this tendency for the simple reason
that the man's eyes are didled to the truth that the
means of living ought to be earned. What is more
healthy or creditable than the feeling which asserts
itself in every right-minded young man as he comes
of age, '^ Now 1 ought to be earning something. I
have been dependent long enough. It is time to
think of becoming self-supporting.'^ What is this but
the waking up of the young man's mind and heart to
the reality of the truth set forth in our text ? And it
is an all-sufficient argument against gaming that it in-
evitably breaks down, in those who addict themselves
to it, this high manly estimate of what God expects
of all of us in the matter of bearing our several por-
tions of the world's great burden of toil. If it be
urged that the same reasoning would apply to the ac-
cumulation of wealth by what is known in business
life as speculation, my reply would be that it is for
men of business themselves to determine how far such
application of the argument would be just, and for
them to say what inferences ought to follow. Preach-
ers are in duty bound not to go astray in the enun-
ciation of principles. They may very easily go astray
in the attempt to apply principles, unless they are
careful to confine themselves to matters with respect
to which they are either conscious of being thoroughly
Earnings. 227
informed,#or else are well assured that among all good
people competent to have an opinion a reasonable ap-
proach to unanimity exists. There is such a unanim-
ity with respect to games of chance. And if the
principle of the text applies to them, it must apply to
such forms of commercial venture as are close akin
to them; but precisely which these forms of commer-
cial venture are I do not undertake to say, lest I
should be seeming to instruct those who might more
properly instruct me. Let every man be fully per-
suaded in his own mind ; but if any be determined
that others shall support him without his rendering
them, either directly or indirectly, any return of service,
let him be assured that such is not the will of God, and
that the bread he eats, though it may be his in law, in
equity is forfeit ; for there is no such thing rightly as
the bread of idleness; idleness owns no bread. The
husbandman that laboreth must be first-partaker of
the fruits.
But the principle of our text has wider applications
still. One of the commonest of temptations, especial-
ly with young people, is the temptation to trust for
success in life to natural quickness or agility of mind,
rather than to steady, industrious, patiently-sustained
effort. That vague, indeterminate word ^* genius"
has much to answer for in the record of spoilt
characters and shipwrecked lives. Deceiving himself
228 Earnings,
with the notion that owing to his exceptional endow-
ments he has no need to talie the trouble that ordi-
nary people have to take in order to accomplish what
they attempt, many a young man has found out to his
cost, and too late, that had he been content to work
as others worked he might h&ve eaten with them at
the tables of their success.
The parable of the talents is sadly misinterpreted
when taken to mean that because a man has been
amply equipped at the outset he may spare himself
exertion, and do only such things as it costs him no
effort to do. From all that is said, it would seem that
the man with the ten talents worked as hard as the
man with the five. Each doubled what had been
given him. The turning the ten to twenty was as great
an achievement and involved as much effort as the
turning of the five to ten. The two men worked on
different levels but with equal conscientiousness. The
*^ Well done, good and faithful servant/^ was not the re-
ward of genius, it w^as the reward of toil, in both
cases. The man with the one talent was blamed, not
for having only one talent, but for making no effort to
increase and impix)ve upon what he had received.
He had refused to be one of the earners, and in the
Judgment that was his condemnation.
Whatever you undertake, young men, put your yerj
best work into it. I do not affirm that it will be im-
Earnings. . 229
possible to win praise for poor work, but such praise
will inevitably come under one of two heads; either
it will be insincere praise rendered hypocritically, and
therefore not worth the having, or it will be ignorant
praise, given under a misapprehension, praise of
which the true account must be that it never was
fairly earned.
Praise is one of the foods of the soul. To desire it
is as natural to us as to desire bread. But let us be
content to earn it by genuine service. If any will
not work, neither ought he to eat. It is a small mat-
ter whether a work be done conspicuously or incon-
spicuously, whether the field of our endeavors be a
broad or narrow one, whether there be many or
few to applaud, — what really makes the difference is
the character of the work. Is it good work through
and through I Will it stand examination ? Is it the
best of its kind, or as near an approach to being the
best of its kind as we have it in our power to make
it? These are the questions of real moment. Inter-
rogation of this sort is the fire that is to try every
man's work at the last. Even while I speak, there
seem to rise up before my eyes two distinct visions
of the coming age, the years that lie immediately be-
fore us. They are in sharp contrast. The atmos-
phere of one of them is luminous with gladness.
Over the other broods a cloud heavy and threatening.
230 Earnings,
The first is the picture of the Republic as it might be,
were everj dweller in it held and swayed by the su-
preme purpose to seek the common good of all.
Cruelties, wrongs, oppressions have no place, because
hatred, malice and envy are not there to prompt
them. Social heart-burnings and class jealousies
have been banished, or rather have quietly ceased to
exist, because when all honest occupations have been
discovered to be equally essential to the general wel-
fare no one class can be persuaded to say to another, I
have no need of thee. There is no limit to the vari-
ety of the ways in which wealth is added to the com-
mon stock, but there are no dry channels anywhere.
From all directions come the streams that make glad
this city of God, and all are full. No life is idle, no
man, woman, or child useless. All share the work
and therefore each is enabled to have lot and portion in
the bread that feeds and in the rest that freshens
those who have fairly earned both bread and rest.
In the other vision there is no lack of splendor,
but it is a splendor sadly diversified by gloom. Lux-
urious dwellings tower one above another. The
power of accumulated wealth asserts itself at every
turn. The great avenues are full of magnificence,
and yet in the dim background we discern the out-
line of wretched houses and homes that are no homes,
and around the corners of the great buildLags gaunt
Earnings, 231
faces marked with the lines of famine peer out at us,
with a furtive, restless look, half-mournful, half-defiant.
Over the whole broods continually the heavy thun-
der-cloud, with now and then an ominous flash break-
ing from its folds. Do you tell me that these are ly-
ing visions, — grossly exaggerated pictures, the one
of them altogether too bright, the other altogether too
dark, and that the real truth, the actual fact lies some-
where between the two ?
But remember that I did not pretend to be speak-
ing of the present, I was looking into the future, con-
sidering the time to come, following out in imagina-
tion two lines of movement, to see whither they might
lead us. That the national life will ever reach either
of the two extremes may be in the highest degree
improbable but cannot be said to be inconceivable.
And not only so, — far as we may be from either the
noble Republic of the one vision or the base Republic
of the other, it is not to be denied, and ought not to
be forgotten,that all the while our general drift, trend,
tendency, call it which you will, is towards the one or
towards the other. We cannot, as a people, be mov-
ing in both directions at once, any more than the
mercury in the barometer can be rising and falling
at the same instant. The people as a people is at
any given moment, is at this moment, approaching the
better or approaching the worse of the two conditions ;
232 Earnings.
we are making in the direction of the good or of the
bad. We cannot escape this solemn fact bj saying
that part of the people are moving towards the light
and part of them towards the dark. The good and
bad elements in the life of a great nation cannot thus
part asunder. The bubble of air in the spirit-level
never divides, as a whole it goes in one direction or
as a whole in the other. A nation^s life has this
same globular character, this same completeness in
itself.
We look out over the immense reaches of this
broad continent. We see the streams of life pouring
into it here at the entrance gate. We watch the pop-
ulations spreading with a rapidity wholly unexam-
pled in history over regions which only, yesterday,
were a wilderness, and we ask ourselves, almost in
alarm, what is to come of all this ! What is to save
this eager, impetuous tide of human life from setting
in the wrong direction ? What guarantee have we
of the good Republic, what safeguard against the base
Republic ? The firm, steady voice of experience replies.
There is but one guarantee, one safeguard, the Spirit of
Christ. Helpfulness, co-operation, the respect of class
for class, these are the outcome of the religion of the
CrosSo Neither Communism nor Nihilism can give
them to us. The Spirit of Christ can and wilL
SERMON XVIL
SINNING IN PARTNERSHIP.
^'And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus: and when they
saw Him, they besought Him that He would depart out of their coasts.''''
— Matthew viii. 34.
It is a terrible thing when the people of a whole
city unite in an impious prayer. That was what
these people did; they came out in a body and be-
so aght Jesus that He would depart out of their
neighborhood; or ^'"' coasts," as the old English phrase
has it. What were the facts ? In the outskirts of
the city, a district that seems to have been used as a
place of burial, Christ had just been manifesting his
miraculous power in a very startling way. He had
relieved, as by royal word of command, two demo-
niacs of the fearful companionship into which their
sins had brought them, and by transferring the bad
spirit from a human to a brutish lodgement had been
the means of driving a whole herd of swine violently
into the sea. The keepers of the swine naturally
enough had gone at once into the city and told their
233
234 Sinning in Partnership,
grievance. And now the question with the Ger-
gesenes is, What are we to think of this new-comer ?
He is a strange sort of guest. He seems to bless
with one hand and curse with the other. He has
healed those two old neighbors of ours, to be sure,
whose case we had supposed hopeless; but at the
same time he has shown small respect for the rights
of property. It was a shame and mortification to
have the poor demoniacs wandering about in wretched
despair among the tombs. But then, they cost us
nothing and the swine did. The healing of the men
has brought us no particular advantage, the destruc-
tion of the herd has entailed on us a very real and
serious loss. On the whole, then, we conclude that
this stranger had better be looked on as an intruder
and warned away. His curse is more disadvantageous
than his blessing is likely to prove helpful. We can
get along without spiritual relief, but what will be-
come of us if we lose our property?
It was in some such way as this, we may be very
sure, that the dwellers in this city of Gadara, on the
further side of the Sea of Galilee, talked to one
another about the question of municipal policy which
had been so suddenly and unexpectedly thrust upon
them for settlement. The advocates of self-interest
got the best of the debate, as is too often the case,
although it is not often that we see so complete a tri-
Sinning in Partnershijpo 235
umph of the worse over the better reason as this ap-
pears to have been. It was not the greater number
of the citizens, it was the " whole city/' so we read,
that came out to meet Jesus. ^^And when they saw
Him,'' the text adds, " they besought Him that He
would depart out of their coasts."
They drove away the Christ in order that they
might save the swine. They set aside the prayer of
faith that heals the sick, and breathed instead of it the
prayer of unbelief that consigned them to the same
doom which had befallen their miserable herd. Prac-
tically they took up and echoed the cry of the evil
spirits that had just been expelled, for the burden
of their entreaty was, ^' What have we to do with
thee, Jesus, thou Son of Grod ? art thou come hither to
torment us ? Depart, we pray thee, depart out of
our coasts." The prayer was answered. Jesus did
depart, and they were left to their devils and to their
swine.
My friends, what is the counterpart of all this in
modern life? Plave we anything among ourselves
that answers to the line of policy taken by the worldly-
wise people of that city by the sea ? Are prayers
like that one of the Grergesenes made now-a-days ?
and are they answered ? These are just the ques-
tions which the text opens to us with the utmost di-
rectness this morning. The first thought suggested
236 Sinning in Partnership.
by the story is the solemn one that it is possible for
communities as communities to sin, to transgress the
law of righteousness, to incur guilt. And when I say
'' community/^ I am anxious to have you understand
the word in a very large sense, as comprehending all
forms of association under which men are bound to-
gether. We are familiar with the thought that govern^
ments may do wrong; '^ national sin " is a common
enough expression, but do we remember that what ia
true of nations is equally true of all the groups, be they
smaller or larger, into which human society is broken
up ? States, cities, to^vns, villages, manufacturing
companies, parishes, corporations, boards of directors,
committees, these are all of them the names of bodies
or associations which have it in their power to do
wrong, to transgress God's will, to sin. And these
community-sins, if I may so call them, stand apart by
themselves as a special form of wrong doing, and are
apt to bring upon those concerned in them a double
weight of retribution, for not only is the whole body
made to suffer, but each member of the body suffers
with it.
When a town as a town, or a parish as a parish,
by its own vote and determination does what is wrong,
the bad consequences of the evil act are very likely
to involve those who disapproved of the unrighteous-
ness along with those who favored it. This is a con-
Sinning in Partnership, 237
sequence of the divine law which makes us all mem-
bers one of another. We cannot escape the workings
of that lawj it is acting upon us all the time, either
for good or evil. When the tone of society is low-
ered as a result of some deliberate choice to which
society has committed itself, every one who belongs
to society suffers his own penalty, has to endure his
own special share of the deterioration. And even
when there has been no deliberate act of choice, but
only a gradual and unnoticed sliding into the wrong
grooves, it still holds true that all suffer from the
lapse, some more severely than others, no doubt, but
still all, in a degree, be it more or less.
For the last fifteen or twenty years people's thoughts
in this country have been very much engrossed with
the subject of crime. Instead of having our interest
enlisted in great and beneficent enterprises, or our
attention called to good deeds, we are invited every
day to study the details of some fresh act of fraud, or
malice, or violence. The thieves and the murderers
are fast becoming our national heroes, in the sense
that the men who absorb most of a nation's attention
may be called its heroes. There was a time, within
the memory of most of us, when newspapers that had
allowed themselves to become purveyors to a bad sort
of curiosity were regarded as disreputable, and enjoyed
a circulation confined to the criminal class, or to those
238 Sinning in Fartnership,
in sympathy with the criminal class. To-day our best
jomTials are, to a large extent, chronicles of the details
of abominable crime, and in so far as repetition has the
power to dull sensitiveness, just so far the conscious-
ness of a shock received is diminished with every
latest blow. To consider all the causes that have led
to this state of things is beyond my purpose. I
merely wish to emphasize now a single one of them,
or what I believe to be one of them, namely, our
failure to recognize as we ought the solemnity of
those decisions, by which people, acting together,
commit themselves to one side or the other of a moral
question. It is so easy for a man who is on a com-
mittee, or a board, or a council of any sort, to say to
himself, when passively consenting to some action
which in his own heart he feels to be wrong, it is so
easy for him to say, " Oh, this is not my fault. I am
not to blame; this is the joint act of the whole body.
I have no rsponsibility." Who has responsibility ?
I should like to ask. Is responsibility attached only
to those whose consciences are so dull that they can-
not see a nice moral distinction, and who therefore
ride over it rough-shod without scruple 1 Nay, is it
not rather more really on the shoulders of those who
can see, who do know the difference betiveen what is
right and wrong, what is honorable and what is base ?
There may be some of you who think that plain
Sinning in Partnership, 239
speech of this sort is out of place in the pulpit.
Leave matters of business to men of business, you
say, who understand them. But I confess I know
not what is the function of the ministers of Him who
came to establish righteousness on earth, if it be not
to utter God's word against unrighteousness when
occasion calls.
Not very long ago, in reading an account of a most
audacious bank-robbery, an account in which admira-
tion for the adroitness and skill of the thieves seemed
quite to overtop any sense of indignation at their
crime, I observed a parenthetical remark, to the
effect that probably, in a little while, after the noise
of the affair had blown over, some treaty would be
made with the burglars, by which the greater part
of the money lost could be recovered. What does
this mean, if not that there exists among us, by tacit
consent, a habit of committing in association a crime
which, when committed by an individual, is indict-
able at common law. In old times, when guilt meant
guilt, this willingness to compromise with the perpe-
trators of crime by money payments used to be
called compounding felony.
In what respect does a crime become less a crime
when the persons committing it are of the highest
respectability and the money interests involved hap-
pen to be larger than usual ?
240 Sinning in Partnership,
Let the prosecuting officer of government see to it
that the president and directors of the first bank
that is known to engage in any such illegal transac-
tion be presented for trial by the proper court, and
we shall begin to see where we stand. Individuals
may be the immediate sufferers by such a course, but
in the long run, the interests of property as well as
of honesty would be better served.
The Gergesenes were frightened by the prospect
of })resent loss, so they voted, without a dissenting
voice, to drive away the prophet of righteousness
from the gates. Public opinion would not tolerate
his presence. What has become of their city ? Well,
there is something left of it. Here is the account of
its present condition given by one who has been
there : ^^ The most interesting remains of Gadara
are its tombs, which dot the cliffs for a considerable
distance round the city. They are excavated in the
limestone rock, and consist of chambers of various
dimensions, some more than twenty feet square, with
recesses in the sides for bodies. The doors are
slabs of stone, a few being ornamented with panels,
some of which still remain in their places. The
present inhabitants of the place are all troglodytes,
dwelling in tombs like the poor maniacs of old, and
occasionally they are almost as dangerous to the
unprotected traveller." This is an eye-witness's
Sinning i:i Partnership. 241
account of the present state of the city, all the in-
habitants of which came forth to beseech Jesus that
He would depart out of their coasts. What an appro-
priate retribution I How eloquent those silent ruins
of what were once crowded and busy streets ! How
suggestive those still occupied tombs ! What dirge
could better suit the desolatenessof the place than this
from the fifty- second Psalm : " Thou hast loved un-
righteousness more than goodness, and to talk of lies
more than righteousness. Therefore shall God destroy
thee forever ; He shall take thee and pluck thee out
of thy dwelling, and root thee out of the land of the
living."
I have been speaking of the power which communi-
ties have to sin collectively. Will you dwell with
me now a little while on the duty which attaches to
all right-minded people of trying to prevent this
thing. That tremendous engine, ^^ public opinion/'
is a machine as intricate as it is powerful, but how is
it constructed 1 It is built up of an almost infinite
number of parts, some large, some small, some con-
spicuous and some out of sight, some rapid in their
movements and some slow, all of which working to-
gether and conjointly produce a given result. Do
you tell me you are perfectly sure that you have no
share in forming public opinion ? I venture to doubt
ito Whoever thinks, and speaks out his thought,
242 Sinning in Partnership,
or even looks his thought, he is one wheel, be it ever
so little, in that vast enginery which is continually
in motion, weaving the varied pattern of our many
colored social life.
It was the singular unity of public opinion in the
city of the Gergesenes that drove Jesus from their
coastSo To that public opinion every one of the
city^s inhabitants had contributed something, though
it may have been ever so little. And so with us j
every person now listening does every day cast in
either of his abundance or of his penury something to
the common treasury of influence. By the words we
speak, the opinions we express, the preferences we
hint, the disapprovals we venture, the judgments we
utter, the votes we cast, we do all of us and every
one heljj to give character to the aggregate of public
opinion. How are we to exercise this power of in-
fluence as we ought ? By always seeking, I reply,
as God gives us grace to do so, by always seeking to
take the worthiest and highest view of every ques'
tion that comes before us.
The trouble is we betray one another in this thing.
We assume that people in general mean to take a
lower view than the highest, and then we silently
adapt ourselves to that lower view, for fear of ap-
pearing odd or singular, and speak accordingly. In-
stead of gauging our judgments by the very highest
Sinning in Partnership, 243
standard conscience can give us, we are tempted to
gauge them by the standard of what we believe to be
the average sentiment of people at large, and the
result is the formation of a public opinion less lofty
than it ought to be, less lofty than it might have been
had every one of us spoken out his best instead of
his second best thought. But chiefly let us guard
against the fatal mistake of those Gergesenes, in
estimating everything by money values. " How can
He possibly be meaning to do us any good," they
argued, '^ if his very first act is one that involves us
in loss ? '^ But gain and loss are relative terms and
variable ones. The truth is there are many mis-
fortunes that may happen to a community, be it city
or be it church, far more serious than the mere fall-
ing off of revenues. For a city to forfeit a hardly
earned reputation for industry, honesty and sobriety,
is a much more grievous calamity than fire or pesti-
lence. Indeed, temporal reverses often nerve the
spirit and strengthen the moral pulse which too much
prosj)erity may have enfeebled.
But the saddest thing about our text is the tre-
mendous contrast between the beginning and the
close of it. How beautifidly it opens, a whole city
going out to meet Jesus, and then to have this fair
picture spoilt by the revelation of a low, bad motive,
a resolve to repel rather than to welcome the heav-
244 Sinning in Partnership.
enly guest, certainly it is very disappointing. But
our Saviour's life was full of disappointments of this
sort. It was his destiny to be the rejected of men.
On his approach to another and a greater city, it
seemed at first as if the whole populace were dis-
posed to do Him honor, but presently as large a
multitude was shouting, ^' Crucify Plim, crucify Him.''
Let us bcAvare, how we join in this cruel cry.
We do join in it whenever we lend our influence to
any movement, or sanction by our consent any
course of action that makes against the cause of
Christ rather than for ito It is an entreating of
Christ to depart out of our coasts whenever we
allow ourselves in ever so little a matter to put profit
before principle, to prefer gain to godliness. The
]3ermanence and the stability of all that we value
most in our social life, the maintenance of mutual confi-
dence, the preservation of the purity of home, all
these, and many other precious possessions akin to
these, depend upon our being able to keep Christ
within our borders. When He departs out of our
coasts these inestimable blessings are certain to go
with Him. Let unbelievers rail at the Christian
Church as bitterly as they will, let them scoiF at its
sins of omission and commission, and I will not deny
that there is ground for much of their complaint; but
do they seriously believe that the world would be the
Sinning in Partnership, 245
better, that life would be safer, morals cleaner, and
manners more gentle, if that witness to the justice
and the holiness of God, his Church, were to be
stricken from the face of the earth, annihilated, for-
gotten, and some combination of trades-unionism and
scientific ethics accepted in place of it ! It cannot
be that any one in his sober senses really thinks so.
That will be indeed a fatal day for modern society
if ever the voices of those who would have Christ
depart should so far prevail as to secure the accom-
plishment of the wish; if ever the prayer which was
granted of old should be granted now. What if we
should, some day, agree to ask Him to depart, and He
should comply with the request ! Can you imagine
a desolation more complete ! Think of it. Picture
the Christless world rolling on its dismal course
through space, no homes of prayer anywhere upon
its surface, no gathered congregations lifting the voice
of worship, no kneeling suppliants interceding for the
sick and the sorrowing, no bread of life, no cup of
blessing, no tender ministries of loving care and
sympathy, no children taught to say ^' Our Father,"
no holy benediction for man and wife, no word of
trustful hope for the dying, no utterance of faith in a
joyful resurrection over the dead, nothing of all this,
but, instead, only one long, hard, sellisli struggle to
see who shall be richest and who shall be strongest
246 Sinning in Fartnership.
in a life of which the grave is the acknowledged
end. This, nothing better than this, is what it would
mean to have Christ take the citizens of this world
at their word and depart out of their coasts.
But there is another prayer, the very opposite of
this inhospitable one " Depart/' and yet like this
in that it is capable of expression in a single word,
the prayer " Abide." Let us be thankful that while
there are so many who are all ready with their
^^ Depart from us,'' there are still some to whom no
petition is more precious than the ^^ Abide with us."
Christ will not leave his little flock. His word to
them is ^^Fear not." His promise to them is, ^^Lo,
I am with you alway."
The crowd of people, on that day, went back to
their city satisfied with having carried their point.
Gadara was safe ; they had gotten rid of Christ.
The disciples also went their way satisfied, too, for
they were still with Him, and He with them.
Which of the two sorts of satisfaction do you covet ?
Which of the two prayers expresses your sincerest
wish, ^^ Depart," or '- Abide " ?
SERMON XVIII.
STEADFAST IN FAITH.
" ... the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.''^ — CoLOS-
SIANS ii. 5,
The words are but the fragment of a sentence. I
single them out with the express purpose of marking
off this one thought from the other thoughts with
which it stands associated, — a steadfast faith.
Steadfastness is a quality that everybody respects.
As an epithet the word " steadfast" used formerly to
be assigned to inanimate objects as well as to per-
sonsj — a steadfast foundation, the steadfast earth ; but
there seems to have sprung up a feeling that the
word is too noble a one to be wasted upon things, and
that it ought to be reserved for beings who have the
consciousness of a purpose and enjoy the exercise of a
will. One chief reason why steadfastness commands
our admiration is to be sought in the fact that a vari-
ety of attractive qualities go to make it what it is.
We may call it a composite virtue, an ornament of
the soul wrought out of grouped and clustered graces.
247
248 Steadfast in Faith,
Strength, courage, patience, all three of these enter
into the composition of steadfastness. The weak can-
not be steadfast, they are like the chaff which the
wind scattereth, thej have no weight, they keep no
foothold. The cowardly cannot be steadfast, when the
battle turns against them they turn with it, they
pluck up the standard, desert the guns, fly the field.
The hasty cannot be steadfast, for though both
strength and courage be theirs, if they have no pa-
tience to wait, no endurance, no staying power, these
deficiencies are as fatal to their steadfastness as if
they themselves were weaklings or poltroons. We
cannot wonder, then, at the admiration which a vir-
tue so comprehensive as steadfastness commands^
strength, courage, patience make a braid of excellen-
cies to which each single strand contributes a special
value, ^' A threefold cord," says the proverb, ^' is not
quickly broken."
This morning, our special interest lies in the con-
nection between steadfastness and faith. As a help
towards getting the matter well in hand let us remind
ourselves of another New Testament saying so close
akin to this one of our text as to seem at first sight
almost its precise equivalent, but which, when looked
at closely, will show a difference highly suggestive.
I refer to an exhortation in the first of St. Peter's
epistles^ in which Christian disciples engaged in con-
Steadfast in Faith, 249
flict with temptation are urged to be steadfast in the
faith. ^^The steadfastness of faith/' ^^steadfastness in
the faith/' — can there be any difference between these
two ? It would seem not ; they sound very much
alike. And yet the one is by no means a repetition
of the other, as we shall see.
To be steadfast in our faith in Christ means to be
firm and unshaken in the confidence we feel in Him
as a person worthy of trust.
The Christian religion is built upon a belief that
Jesus Christ told the truth in all the matters upon
which He uttered Himself. His discourse, as we know,
touched upon a great many subjects. He spoke of
God, of the soul, of Himself, of us, of the future which
shall be when all is over with the world.
The fascination of his teaching from the very first
lay in the fact that it covered ground quite beyond
the reach of unassisted discovery. Pie matched with
answers, questions men had been asking themselves
and one another ever since the dawn of history. In
these high regions of instruction. He did not attempt
to prove. He quietly asserted the truth. He gave
his message, He spoke his tidings from the other
world, and was content. It was open to men, as it
has been ever since, to believe or to disbelieve. If
they chose to contradict Him, they could do so.
There was nothing to forbid. He made no attempt to
250 Steadfast in Faith.
argcie them over to his side by dint of superior logi-
cal ability. Tie did not say — Listen and let me demon-
strate to you the soundness of my premises, the cer-
tainty of my conclusions. Nothing of this sort ^ He
simply said, — Thus it is; so it shall be; — and there He
left it. No thunderbolt struck dead the man who ven^
tured to dissent. Wonderful to tell, people not a few
were found willing to believe Him, to take Him at his
word ; and what is more wonderful still, the thing has
been going on from those days to these, and probably
at no one time in the past were there ever on the
earth so many people as there are at this moment
ready to affirm of Jesus Christ, ^^ What he says is true.
We trust Him.'^ And yet it is all, when we come to
look at it and examine it, nothing but personal con-
fidence, nothing in the world but that. What an all°
conquering persuasiveness there must have been
about the Son of Mary thus in the first instance to
have drawn belief towards Himself as He did ! What
a masterful grasp He laid upon those inner and hidden
forces that sway the heart ! He had no need to prop
his affirmation upon authorities. Reference and cita-
tion entered but rarely into his speech. What He
said carried with it a sanction of its own. Infallibil-
ity had not to be decreed to him by vote of Council.
Authority sufficient for the purpose breathed from the
lip that shaped the words, and has orbed itself about
Steadfast in Faith, 251
those words and clung to them all through the Chris-
tian centuries, as the atmosphere cleaA^es to the earth
in her long circuit through the em^^ty fields of space.
They still compel attention, those sayings so unlike
all sayings else, still win assent without effort. To
this day we trust Him, take Him at his word.
So much for faith in what He said, — but that is not
all. Christ presented Himself to the people of that day
as something more than a teacher, He showed Himself
a helper also. Those about Him felt that He was to
be looked to not merely for what He could tell, but for
what He could and would do. He came to reveal
the power of God as well as the truth of God. Those
who were in trouble, distress, peril sought at his
hand relief, as at his lips they had sought counsel, and
it was not withheld. They obtained what they asked
for. The eyes of the blind were opened, the lepers
cleansed, the dead raised. You tell me these things
do not happen now-a-days. True, they do not, but un-
less it were believed that things far better do happen,
that spiritual blessings are received from the hand of
the Saviour of men, and that gifts of healing still are
his, manifested now for the cure of the soul as then
for the comfort of the body — unless, I say, this were
believed; Christ^s religion would not stay long among
us. It has not been a respect for Christ as a
teacher of religious truth that has kept the nations
252 Steadfast in Faith.
steadfastly faithful to Him, but confidence in Him as
one to whom power belongs, a Saviour equal to the
saving task, a minister of help.
So much for faith in its aspect of belief in one
who speaks with authority, trustful confidence in the
person himself, his willingness and ability to lift, to
shield, to lead, to strengthen.
Turn now to St. Peter's phrase, so like St. Paul's
in sound, Avhile yet in reality pointing to another
thought. ^^The faith," that is St^Peter's word, "stead-
fast in the faith," Observe how this difi*ers from,
while, at the same time, it is perfectly consistent with
what the text says about the steadfastness of faith.
By "the faith" is undoubtedly intended some com*
pact, easily recognized and well-remembered state
ment summing up the chief things Avhich a Christian,
in virtue of his being a Christian, ought to receive as
true and stand by with a loyal courage. It is not
likely that "the faith" was, in the early Church, tied
to one particidar form of words ; indeed, we know
that the contrary was the fact, and that among the
primitive Christians the wording of the Creed varied
more or less according to locality. But it was not a
variation that affected the substance of the faith
The Creed we have said together in our morning
worship is one of a number of similar formularies
which we know to have been in use throughout
steadfast in Faith, 253
western Christendom in early times. It is very easy,
even for an unpracticed eye, to trace the connection
between it and the still simpler form of words into
which our Saviour bade his disciples baptize the
nations. It sums up within brief compass what we
most need to know of Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
More really, perhaps, than any other creed in exist-
ence it has a claim to be recognized as being pre-
eminently '' the faith." It is one of the most hope-
ful signs of the times, and promises well for the
coming day of re-union among Christians, that so
many leading minds among the religious denomina-
tions of the land are looking towards this ancient
symbol, with freshened interest and kindled rever-
ence. It is seen to have singular advantages, which
the longer and more intricate confessions of faith
lack, and which from the nature of the case they can
never hope to acquire. Of no other formulary of be-
lief can such antiquity be predicated, and that of itself
is a signal point in its favor. The creed that has
worn best in the past may fairly be said to have the
best prospect for vigorous life in the future. We are
the more likely to prove steadfast in a faith of which
it can be said that itself has steadfastly endured.
Moreover, consider how much of embarrassment
and difficulty is escaped simply by returning to this
ancient form of sound words. Only think how large
254 Steadfast in Faith,
a proportion of the angrj controversies of the daj
are simply left on one side, as matters about which
people can afford to differ and may safely be allowed
to have their own opinions, when once we make up
our mind to build religion on these few but momen-
tous verities that make the substance of the Apostles'
Creed. Moreover, it is a creed that is full of Christ.
The modern creeds have been too full of philosophy,
burdened with a load of particulars with respect to
which it could never have been expected by the
Lord Jesus that his little ones, as He so gracious-
ly called the poor and ignorant among his dis-
ciples, would be informed. I do not mean to in-
timate that deep reasoning upon such themes as
the divine counsels and the eternal decrees of elec-
tion and predestination are wholly out of place
in religiouo Flippant critics by the thousand are to-
day sneering at Calvin and Augustine, yes, even at
St. Paul himself, who have never mastered even the
rudiments of the knowledge which these moulders of
the thoughts of generations had at their fingers' ends;
but while it is right and well that such high topics
of discourse should exercise the mind, and keep alive
the intellectual vigor of the Christian Church, it is nei-
ther right nor well that far-fetched conclusions with re-
spect to them should be put forward for the acceptance
of disciples, as if they were part and parcel of the faith.
steadfast in Faith. 255
I have been trying to make clear, with, perhaps,
only an imperfect measure of success, the two-fold
character of Christian faith, trying to show how
according as we look at it from one or another
point of sight, faith is either assent to an un-
proved statement made to us by some one believed
to be of competent authority or else confiding trust
in a living person who promises some sort of
help.
I desire now to go on and show, briefly, the bear-
ing of these thoughts upon certain noticeable facts in
the religious life of our times. I have in mind more
especially the religious life of the English-speaking
peoples of the world, and, more especially still, that of
our venerable Mother Church of England, and our
own Protestant Episcopal Church in America. In
this religious life there have been noticeable, for the
last fifty years, two distinct tendencies, seemingly in-
dependent of each other, identified with different
leaders, represented by difi'erent publications, and
often thought to be mutually inimical, even if not
mutually destruciive. One of these tendencies has
been to emphasize the sacramental side of religion,
to lay great stress on Holy Baptism as the initial
point of the spiritual life •, and to exalt the Holy Com-
munion as being at Dnce the highest act of Christian
worship and the most precious of all the channels or
256 Steadfast in Faith.
media through which the grace or help of God is
carried to the soul.
Contemporaneous with this quickened zeal for
sacraments, and with the effort to restore the Lord^s
Supper to the foremost place among the observances
of religion, has been a movement of another sort, a
movement to sift accredited beliefs of all sorts in the
sieve of a most thorough criticism, with a view to
finding out what is really of the essence of Christian
truth, what is that core and heart of all the creeds
which must be clung to at all hazards if we would
show ourselves, in our day and generation, able to
hold fast that which from former days and former
generations has been handed down to us in trust; if,
in a word, we would be '' steadfast in the faith. '^ These
two movements have often been regarded, I repeat,
as antagonistic to one another. It has been taken
for granted that they could not both of them be serv-
ing the same end. The adherents of the sacramental
advance have questioned the motives of those who
were seeking so eagerly to mark off the essentials of
the Christian faith from the non-essentials, and have
felt disposed to charge then) with a drift towards
liberalism and free thought ; while to very many of
the other company or school the sacramcntalists have
seemed to be moving rapidly m the direction of the
worship and the theology of the Church of Rome.
Steadfast in Faith. 257
But may it be that all the while both drifts or
movements have been in the main efficacious to the
furthering of the Gos^^el. I set aside extremes on
both sides, and speak of the main current in both
cases. Very likely there may have been much Ko-
manizing in the one direction, and much rational-
izing in the other. But, waiving that question,
only look and see how perfectly the two movements,
each being taken and judged at a friendly, not an
unfriendly estimation, supplement each other.
The sacramentalist's course is a protest against the
notion that faith is wholly and only an assent of the
mind to certain dogmas or authoritative statements of
truth. "No," he cries, "Christ is not a form of words.
You do not bring Him to the soid by saying over the
Creed, no matter how correctly. Christ is a person,
a living, loving, active, and, v/hat is more, present
Being. To assure us of this He appointed these in-
stitutes called sacraments. His purpose was that his
followers should have an opportunity of me'eting Hira,
holding direct intercourse with Him, that they should
be fed, nourished, strengthened by life communicated."
To men looking at the matter in this light, the stead-
fastness of their faith in Christ has seemed wonder-
fully aided and guaranteed by this provision of Holy
Communion. The sacrament has been to them their
assurance that religion was something more than a
258 Steadfast in Faith
theology, that it meant personal conversance with
the actual Saviour, the veritable Jesus Christ who
was boi-n of the Virgin Mary, and suffered under
Pontius Pilate, the friend and helper of his disciples
to- this day, even though now exalted to the right
hand of the Majesty on high. Thus have the two
movements unconsciously conspired to help forward
the common cause of Christian truth, the one by de-
fining the faith and separating from it all that was
not of it at the beginning; the other by insisting that
to hold the Creed is blessing of small moment, of
itself considered, unless we can go on to hold com-
munion with Him of whom the Creed is but the verbal
shrine, a house of words rather than house of God.
Dear friends, we have need in these times both
of steadfast faith, that is to say, unwavering confi-
dence in Christ, and of steadfastness in the faith, that
is to say, a settled loyalty to the old Creed that has
made Christendom what it is. The one steadfastness
will grow out of and follow tipon the other. If the
love of Christ is in our hearts, if the spell of his
divine enchantment has fallen upon and taken pos-
session of our souls, nothing will be more natural than
that we should stand firmly by and guard with
jealous care the venerable form of words in which
our belief in Him, as being what He is, finds utter-
ance.
Steadfast in Faith, 259
But we have need of sleepless watclifulness. The
temper of the times^ admirable in many respects^ is
yet a little too friendly to fickleness, too easily dis-
posed to condone that variableness of mind which
Holy Scripture censures. We are in danger, every
one of US; of falling from our steadfastness. We
need the grace of God to keep us firm and true.
When St. Paul wrote the words of our text, he
was living among soldiers, a prisoner of state, lodged
in the camp of the pretorian guard at Rome. Some-
thing of the soldierly spirit manifests itself in his
style, and his metaphor is military This steadfast-
ness which he commends is that very quality which
the skilled general most values in his troops. It
was a certain impervious solidity, a firm-set, not-to-be-
broken frontage, that made the Roman legion the
conqueror of the world. It is this, also, that in
times past has made the Church of Christ on earth
invincible. Her members have had a faith, and
have clung to it. In the midst of a world full of
shifting sights and changeful sounds, with many a
wind of doctrine whistling by, the Church has stood,
not undisturbed, indeed, but undismayed and stead-
fast, strong in her Founder's assurance of perpetuity.
It behooves us, the Christians of these days, to see
to it, that, now our time is come and we are at the
front, there be no wavering along the line, no panic,
260 Steadfast in Faith,
no base retreat. If in anything we have demanded
more of men than He, our Master, bade ns do, so
much let us yield, but no more. The King's banner
floats from the rising ground around which we stand
massed. Woe be to us, if in our day hostile hands
are suffered to drag His honor in the dust.
SERMON XIX.
JOYFUL THROUGH HOPE.
" Rejoicing in hopey — Romans xii. 12.
Bt general consent, St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans
is acknowledged to be the most intensely doctrinal of
all the books of the Bible. I say '^ doctrinal '^
using the word in its modern sense of ^^ theological,"
in distinction from ''' practical." In point of fact,
doctrine, as we aU know, means neither more nor
less than instruction, and whatever teaches us any-
thing is so far forth doctrinal. But from signify-
ing instruction of any sort the word has come to
mean instruction of an exclusively religious charac-
ter, and not only so, but the definition has been
still further narrowed down until now we common-
ly understand by doctrine only such instruction
in religion as has to do with general principles, ab-
stract truths and the like, as contrasted with the
duties, responsibilities and obligations that enter into
and make up the actual conduct of life. And yet,
singularly enough as it might seem, here we find in
261
262 Joyful Through Hope,
the very heart of this theological treatise, the Epistle
to the Romans, blooming out like the famous flower-
bed framed in ice that turns itself to the sun in a far
recess of one of the Swiss glaciers, here we find a
passage of unmistakable moral counsel as beautiful
after its sort as anything in the New Testament.
What does it suggest to us ? That the writer was
better than his creed ? That, like an athlete pausing
to take breath, the tired reasoner broke away momen-
tarily from his logic to gain refreshment by a long,
deep inhalation of fresh air ?
Not so much either of these, I am disposed to think,
as the fact that there is a closer connection between
creed and conduct than many are willing to concede,
that the old proverb, "As a man thinketh, so is he,'' is
a sound one; that the ice and snow of a severely pure
doctrine have their place in the spiritual economy
alongside of the flowers and fruitage of a beautiful
life; and that to St. Paul's apprehension no great gulf
lay fixed between lofty and reverent conceptions of the
divine majesty and simple and wholesome teachings
with respect to the duties we owe to one another o
Against the modern disposition wholly to dissociate
high thinking from right living, this twelfth chapter to
the Romans stands as a perpetual protest.
Thus much by way of general preface; let us turn
to particulars. Of the many things enjoined or com-
Joyful Through Hope. 263
mended in this truly noble lesson, such as brotherly
affection, patience, hospitality, generosity, the unre-
Yengeful spirit, compassion, simple-heartedness and
the like, we find the three words I have taken for a
iQ^t—^^ Rejoicing in hope."
Joy born of hope is here set before us as one of
the privileges of the Christian life, I say advisedly
privileges rather than obligations, for it is not possi-
ble to oblige people to be joyful. Joy is a feeling
that if it come at all must bubble up in the heart like
a spring, and fountains cannot be extemporized at
will. Their sources are underground; their channels
of supply hidden. In the case of which it is written
that he smote the rock and the waters gushed forth,
we have what was exceptional and miraculous; it was
the hand of a prophet of God that held the rod. Man
cannot deal thus with the coldness and the hardness
of his own heart. He can supplicate the touch of
God, he can pray that the blessing of joyousness may
be suffered to come into and refresh his life, but to
compel himself to be joyful, that is not in his power.
It is allowed him to make merry, if he care to do so,
for merriment is something that falls within the range
of effort, at least to a degree; but joy he can neither
make nor buy.
Nevertheless, there is a pathway to joy with which
it is well that we should be acquainted, seeing that
264 Joyful Through Hope,
for those who have outlived the natural joyousness of
childhood it is the only available line of approach^ —
I mean Christian hope. You may say that it is as
impossible to compel ourselves to be hopeful as it is
to compel ourselves to be joyous, but is that quite so ?
May not hope be stimulated and cultivated in ways
in which it is impossible to force joy ? There is, we
know, such a thing as a reasonable hope, and out of
a hope that has good reasons to give, it may be that
joy will easily spring up. Hope is the soil in which
the seed of joy is sown. We help the growth .of the
plant by feeding it through the medium of the soil,
and in no other way can we possibly help it. A child
might fancy that he could give the seed a start by
breaking it open and so allowing the germ within an
easier escape from its prison, but a man knows better.
He knows that the seed must grow according to its
appointed law, and that only indirectly can he, be he
ever so eager to do so, either aid or hasten the unfold-
ing process. Be it our effort, then, to find good reasons
for being hopeful; having done this, we shall have
done all in our power to ensure the upspringing in
our hearts of joy, for joy is the daughter of hope.
The very fact that hoping is such a natural thing
is of itself a reason why in the true religion we should
look to see much account taken of hope. We live
from day to day by dint of looking forward to a
Joyful Through Hope. 265
future which promises to be in some one point or
other better than our present. From the child at
school looking forward to vacation, on to the man who,
weary with the burdens of active life, looks forward
to the day when he shall be able to retire from busi-
ness and enjoy his hardly-earned competency, all
through the long stretch of years, hope is the sustain-
ing power. The sick man waiting for the fever to
turn, the prisoner and the captive looking forward to
the far day of release, the innocent sufferer from
slander or misrepresentation abiding patiently that
triumphant moment when his righteousness shall be
made clear as the noon-day, these all of them are
kept alive by hope. Rob them of this secret of en-
durance, and it will be all over with them. '^Man,"
it has been said, '^ can exist on wonderfully little
hope, but not entirely without it."
Hope as an instinct being thus a universal posses-
sion, the common heritage of the whole family of
man, we should naturally expect to find it playing an
important part in religion. More than that, we should
anticipate as a feature of true religion that it would
set before the eye of the soul some object of attain-
ment plainly worthy of the most intense and eager
hope. This is precisely what the religion of the Bi-
ble does. That religion is from first to last a for-
ward-looking, anticipating one. There is always set
266 Joyful Through Hope.
before these men of God something to be hoped for.
There is one continual pressing toward the mark.
Promise is the golden word all aloi g through the
generations. It dates back to the very beginning,
this gospel of encouragement. No sooner has Para-
dise been lost than Paradise regained begins to loom.
The burden of prophecy is a better time coming.
Men are bidden to be of good cheer, to look up and
to lift up their heads, seeing that some redemption,
some exodus from bondage, some marvellous passage
of Red Sea or Jordan River is forever drawing nigh.
Two principal objects of hope seem to have furnished
those who lived in Old Testament days with their
motive for endurance, one of these was a place, the
other a person. The promised land, the promised
Messiah or King, these were the unattained but not
unattainable ends that made it seem to the elder peo-
ple of God worth their while to live, to strive,to suffer,
to press on. Watch carefully the stream of prophecy
as it runs through the Old Testament and you will see
that these are the two main currents, one sets towards
the thought of a promised land in which it is to be their
joy to dwell, a land broad and quiet and peaceable ;
the other towards a promised person, a hero, a leader,
a king by the side of whom all who before have
wielded sword or sceptre, whether as captains, judges,
monarchs, will dwindle into insignificance ; some son
Joyful Through Hope. 267
of David whom DavicVs self shall willingly call
Lord.
Take the first of these two objects of hope that stand
out so prominently from the pages of old prophecy,
the land. Consider how far back the thought is car-
ried. We find it at the very roots of Hebrew his-
tory. The origin of the Jews as a people dates from
the call of Abraham ; and what was the call of Abra-
ham f It was a summons addressed to one individual
man to quit his friends and kindred and to start out
upon a lonely pilgrimage in search of a promised
country or land. Get thee out of thy country, the
message ran, and from thy kindred and from thy fa-
ther's house into a land that I will show thee. Such
was the call of Abraham ; — a strange, mysterious
event pregnant with the destinies of whole civiliza-
tions yet to come. And what a marvellous instance
it proved to be of the pertinacity of a hope once au-
thorized by a competent voice. Never from that day
onward was the dream of the promised country lost
out of sight. Doubtless for long periods the vision
was dimmed, the hope lay in abeyance, but ever under
the white ashes smoiddered the quick and glowing
embers of an expectation thut had never wholly died.
Whether in the house of bondage they languished or
in the wilderness wandered, it was impossible for
them wholly co forget that home, real home, lay in the
268 Joyful Through Hojoe.
future. For a people to feel a passionate attach-
ment to their country, to the very soil itself, is noth°
ing wonderful or strange. In ancient times the
Greeks, in modern days the Swiss, have been the rec-
ognized, though by no means the solitary, exemplars
among peoples of this instinctive love of fatherland.
But the noticeable, the wholly unique feature of the
Jewish history is that the love of that particular people,
the Hebrew, was through long periods of time lavished
on a country the soil of which their feet had never
trodden, a land which was wholly one of promise, and
which their eyes had not even distantly beheld. It
was a happy thought on the part of a missionary who
not long ago published his observations on the geog-
raphy and antiquities of Palestine, to entitle his work
^^ The Land and the Book," for surely never since na-
tional life began on earth were Land and Book so in-
timately knit together as the Land and the Book to
which we are accustomed to prefix the epithet Holy.
But, as I have already remarked, there was
another and still more sacred object of hope kept in
view by the prophets and seers of that elder day.
They gazed with absorbed interest into the cloudy
future to catch the outline of that far country prom-
ised to them, but it was with a look even more eager
that they sought to descry the features of Him who
was to come to be their true and perfect sovereign,
Joyful Through Hope, 269
the King of all the earth. Passionate as was their
love for their country, it was not comparable in
warmth to their hope of the Messiah. The thought
of seeing the land that was very far off was gladness
to them, but to behold the King in his beauty would
be, they felt sure, a vision of glory more entrancing
still. They lived in ceaseless expectation of the
Messiah who should make Jerusalem not merely the
joy but the throne of the whole earth ; they waited
for the King. Thus were they in their day children
of hope, men who were in search of and in waiting for
the place and the person that had been promised them.
Now what did Christ do and say in the face of all
this traditional expectation? Did He reverse the
hope, annul the promise, rudely and violently si-
lence the note of prophecy ? Far from it. He simply
took the whole thing, hope, promise, prophecy, and
all, up onto a higher level. Not to quench, but to
elevate and enlarge both forms of the inherited hope
had He come into the world. "" Not to destroy but to
fulfil" was his leading thought. Men were still to seek
a land hidden in the future, still to live in the glad,
proud hope of the coming of one who should be of
kings the King. Only here the difference lay, for
Palestine henceforth Avas to be substituted the better
country to be known as heaven, and for the conquering
King of Jews, the peace-making King of men.
270 Joyful Through Hope,
I do not know how it strikes you, for I cannot tell
how far I am succeeding in bringing out the thought
as it lies in my own mind, but I feel confident that if
this idea of the Christian hope as being the ennobled
and transfigured form of an ancient promise which was
already existent among men when our Lord came,
which indeed may fairly be said to have been, with
more or less distinctness, cherished from the very dawn
of history, I feel confident, I say, that if this idea of
the continuity of the Christian hope with the still
earlier hope of Abraham and of Moses and of David
and of Isaiah can once get a firm lodgement in the
mind, it will prove a wonderful strengthener of re-
ligious confidence, a firm buttress of the faith imder
which we were brought up, by which we seek to live,
in which we desire to die. There is a grandeur about
this aspect of the matter which carries with it its own
proof. Satisfied of the existence of a world-long
hope such as has been described, we lean less heavily
upon the artificial props sometimes offered us under
the name of evidences of Christianity. Brought into
the near presence of so august a fact of history as this,
we experience much the same sense of freshly ac-
quired certitude that comes to a traveller who, having
doubted whether the heavy mass he saw on the hori-
zon was cloud or mountain, by-and-by finds himself
close enough to the reality to see and know that it is
Joyful Through Hope. 271
mountain and not cloud. It cannot be, we say to our-
selves, that so magnificent a tradition, so marvellously
guarded, and from generation to generation faithfully
preserved, is a deceit. God has not fed his children
on the food of falsehood, nor has ^^ the kindly light ''
which all these years has guided the Church of God
on its long pilgrimage been a delusion, an ignis fatuus
luring its followers on to their destruction. The
promise must be a credible promise, the hope
a reasonable hope. Over this good ground thus
well prepared, scatter broadcast the seed-grain
of joy, there is every reason to believe that in
due time it will spring up and bear abundant har-
vest.
This then is one strong argument in favor of the
reasonableness of the Christian's hope, namely, its
early origin and long continuance on earth. A
strange shrub or vine seen for the first time in a
neighbor's garden of a pleasant day in June, when all
the surrounding conditions are favorable to plant life,
may well leave us in some doubt as to whether or not
it be an exotic, a stranger and foreigner which the
first touch of our northern winter will chill to death.
But no such misgivings trouble us with respect to
the hardy, much-enduring woodbine or climbing rose
which through all weathers, year in and year out, has
clung to its trellis before our eyes ever since we can
272 Joyful Through Hope,
remember. We are confident that that is a native of
om- rugged soil, and may be counted upon to survive
both frost and thaw. The Christian's hope has this
same evidence of vitality, this same guarantee of per-
manence. The roots run deep down into humanity
itself. It is as old as we are.
Dear friends, would it not, in view of all this, be
to the credit of our religion, or perhaps I ought to
say to the credit of our sincerity as men professing
to believe the Gospel, if there w^ere to be manifest in
our daily lives a little larger measure than is found
there of Christian joy ? Our hope being reasonable, our
joy ought to be abundant. Perhaps the reason why
the joy is stinted, why the waters of gladness run so
languidly may be this : we do not realize what an
abyss of utter blackness and darkness we escape by
having a Christian hope at all. If we did realize it,
we could not help being joyous if we tried. Instead
of seeing, what is undoubtedly the fact, that our choice
lies between two alternatives, one of them hope, the
other of them despair, we take up Avith a sort of half-
way middle ground, plainly untenable when critically
examined, and we say to ourselves. Things are not so
good as to Avarrant us in beinge specially cheerful, nor
are they so utterly bad as to countenance us in turn-
ing our back on life. We have no call to joy, that is
plain; but neither have Ave any call to suicide, and so
Joyful Through Hope. 273
we will let life wear along, and make up our minds
to live it out to the end.
This is a wide-spread philosophy of life, and one
which for the time being is perhaps gaining adher-
ents. And yet it is only one step removed from that
familiar school of thought whose motto runs, as in St.
Paulas day it ran, " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow
we die." Either there is a God supremely good. One
whom his children may love and trust to the very
uttermost point without the slightest fear of the real-
ity falling short of the heart's desire, or else there is
no God, no love, no pity, no forgiveness, no redress.
It is no wonder that sometimes in our bewilderment
we try to find a middle ground, some average estimate,
some platform of compromise. There is so much in
life as we see it pictured in our daily reading of what
is going on in the world and our own personal con-
tact with certain hard, ugly facts, there is so much in
all this to blur our vision of the goodness of God,
that we hesitate about accepting the wholly cheer-
ful view, while yet we recoil with horror, unutter-
able horror, from the wholly tragic one.
And yet there can be really no middle ground in
this matter. God is wholly good, if good at all, and
those who hope in Him Avill be wiser if they hope
with all their hearts than if they hope with only half
their hearts. It is the old story; two masters we
274 Joyful Through Hope,
cannot have. Elijah, clear-sighted prophet that he
was, saw through the fallacy even in the dim light of
those times while yet the day spring of our better
morning was wanting. The fickle people stood be-
fore him, questioning in their minds whether some
mixture of Jehovah^s religion and of BaaPs religion
might not be both feasible and profitable. There
seemed to them just at that moment a good deal to be
said on both sides of the question. How like a sharp
sword must the edge of his rebuke have cut into the
very fibre of their souls as he cried, How long halt
ye between two opinions ? If the Lord be God, follow
Him ; but if Baal, then follow Him.
On you and me to-day this same stern alternative
is forced. We may try to escape it by half shutting
the eyes, but things are what they are, whether we
look at them or refuse to look at them. As a matter
of fact, the plain choice is ofi'ered us between casting
in our lot with that hope of which the fruit is joy, and
that despair of which the end is death. But hope
maketh not ashamed. Choose it, doubtful heart,
choose it, and be glad.
SERMON XX.
. ROOTED IN CHARITY.
" That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith ; that ye, being
rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all
saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height.^* —
Ephesians iii. 17, 18.
The figure is a mixed one. The being rooted in
charity suggests the tree, the being grounded in
charity the building. What have the two similes in
common ? Simply this, the idea of fixity or per-
manence in connection with the starting point of
growth. The tree springs from its root, and the
house from its foundation. Unlike in very many re-
spects, tree and house resemble each other in this, —
each is fastened to a definite spot on the earth^s sur-
face, of each it can always be said that we know
where to find it. St. Paul believes that character
ought to have this same attribute of fixity, stability.
He would like to be able to say of the disciple as
well as of the oak or of the tower, I know where to
find him. Nothing would have been more repug-
nant to his feelings than to hear the Christian likened
275
276 Booted in Charity,
to any thing that could be tossed about'or blown away.
Character, to be worth the name, must be something
against which winds beat and tempests rage in vain.
No doubt of tree and of building it may be said that
each has its own distinctiv^e \vay of meeting the
onset. The wall quivers but does not bend, the tree
bends but does not quiver, and yet they are alike in
this, both of them hold their place. When the storm
has spent its force, there they are, the one rooted, the
other grounded, as before. The party of the defence
has proved itself stouter than the party of the attack.
Foundatioij and root have conquered.
But we must go down further still. Important as
are the root and the foundation, there is a certain some-
thing without which they both of them are useless.
This essential something is the soil. Unless the root
has struck itself into the earth, the tree is as power-
less to resist movement as if it were without root al-
together. Unless into the earth the foundation has
been sunk, we scarcely think of it as a foundation.
The text tells us that charity, or holy love, is the
element in which Christian character must fix itself
if we look to see it last. So to be rooted and grounded
is the secret of stability. But it must be remembered
that the " charity " of the New Testament is a won-
derfully far-reaching word. To tie it down to alms^
giving is the greatest possible mistake. Horizontally
Rooted in Charity. 277
it stretches out in all directions as far as man's fellow-
man is found; vertically it strikes upward to the very
heaven of heavens, and stays not till it has touched
the throne itself. Such is the love or charity of which
St. Paul says marvellous things. The essence of it is
unselfishness, and this, whether the love be manifested
in the direction of God or in the direction of man.
The phrase unselfishness towards God may have a
strange sound, but it stands for a real thing. Unself-
ishness towards God empties us of pride, makes us
humble, submissive, willing to confess to Him, to
worship Him, to give Him thanks; unselfishness
towards man makes us helpful, eager to be of service,
ready to share burdens, and of whatever has been
freely given us freely to give. Such, hinted at in
few words, is charity or holy love. If we would have
it faithfully and fully pictured to us, so far as lan-
guage possibly can picture it, we must go to that un-
matched and matchless portraiture given in the first
of the Corinthian letters, where with an eloquence in
which the tongues of men and the tongues of angels
seem to blend their powers, this same Paul tells us what
the greatest and the most abiding of the Christian graces
is.
But the text comes to us freighted with a definite
purpose. This prophet and teacher has a well under-
stood end in view in seeking to have us rooted and
278 Booted in Charity,
grounded in love. This purpose, this end he states
explicitly, and in very striking terms. He wishes
this wish, prays this prayer, he says, in order that
being thus rooted and grounded we may be able to
comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and
length and depth and height.
A loving disposition, the necessary condition of
gaining insight into spiritual truth, — that is our sub-
ject, and to those who care for truth, and live to find
it, no field of thought could possibly be more attract-
ive than the one thus opened to us.
Commentators have puzzled themselves over this
'' breadth and length and depth and height," as if
the saying were purposeless and unfruitful miless we
could name the definite thing the apostle had in mind
as being broad and long and deep and high. Certain
interpreters of early days fancied that they found in
the words a mystical allusion to the cross, the actual
instrument of punishment on which the Saviour was
put to death. A strange conceit, but scarcely more
strange than some which other students of the passage
have entertained. All such enigmatical interpretation
is beside the mark. We need not concern ourselves to
discover some one single object to which the words
apply. What St. Paul has in mind is the perfect
symmetry of the truth of God, its absolute freedom
from false proportion, and what he means is that the
Booted in Charity. 279
mind which is rooted in love, which has the soil of
charity from which to draw the juices of its life, will
be a mind well-balanced, rightly-adjusted, sound and
sane. Length, breadth and thickness are reckoned
the dimensions of space. Taken together they indi-
cate completeness. To apprehend a matter in its
length and breadth and depth and height is to appre-
hend it thoroughly.
This point is brought out in a negative way in com-
mon conversation. We speak of a man of short-
sighted views, which is another way of saying that
he does not see far enough into the meaning of
things, what he misses is the length of the truth.
We speak of another as a man of narrow vision,
indicating by the phrase our belief that the one we
criticise is blind to the relations which the various
parts of truth bear to one another. He looks at things
as through a long, straight avenue hedged on either
side with trees, and forgets all about the broad mead-
ows and grassy plains which perhaps stretch out for
miles and miles on either hand. This one does injus-
tice to the breadth of truth.
We speak of a third as shallow in his thinking. He
has an eye, we say, only for what is on the surface.
Gilding and plating, bark and rind deceive him.
He fancies that things are through and through what
they appear to be on the outside. He is so dazed by
280 Booted in Charity,
the glitter of the reflected sunlight on the surface
of the stream that he cannot see the sand and
pebbles only a fcAv inches below^ and therefore
recognizes no difference between the shallows and
pools. Thus the man fails to apprehend the depth
of God's truth. We classify him at once as super-
ficial.
And yet again there is the dwarfing truth to a low
stature, the mistaking the foot-hills for the mountain,
the failure to appreciate grandeur and loftiness, the
bondage to what is petty and small and insufficient,
a base contentment with a meagre estimate of a mag-
nificent reality. The man who fails in this direction
fails by missing the height of truth.
In all these ways we manifest and illustrate our de-
ficiency as mortal men. What could be more to the
purpose, then, in the way of stimidus and encourage-
ment than the being told, as we are told in this text of
ours, how we may learn to apprehend not the height
alone or depth alone, but " the breadth and length
and depth and height ? "
Two conditions are named as essential to our doing
this, the first of these is the one which has already
been considered, namely, our being rooted and
grounded in love, and the second is this, that we
should be content to let others help us in the discovery
of the truth of God, and not imagine that each one
Booted in Charity, 281
of us is, alone and unaided, equal to the task of learn-
ing all there is to know.
This second condition is not so directly or plainly
set forth as the first, but if we look at St. Paul's words
attentively we shall see that it is there. For notice
that what he prays for is not that being rooted and
grounded in love, they may be able to comprehend the
breadth and length and depth and height, but that
they may be able to do this ''■ with all saints." A
most significant limitation that, if we will only look at
it. By ^' all saints" the apostle means the whole
Church of Christ, the flock, the army, the family in
its entirety, and what he wishes to suggest is that
the complete truth is too large to be grasped by the
single mind or loved by the single heart. We must
help each other in this thing, and what we cannot
clearly see ourselves must trust our fellow believers
to help us in seeing. That is the wiser punctuation o'f
the Creed which puts only a comma between " the
Holy Catholic Church" and '' the Communion of
Saints." The two ought to be synonymous in mean-
ing, conterminous in area. The Holy Catholic Church
is the Communion of Saints, the fellowship and com-
pany of those who are making the pursuit of holi-
ness the foremost object in life.
St. Paul assumes that only those who are engaged
in seeking after holiness can possibly be competent
282 Booted in Charity,
authorities in the matter of spiritual truth, and he
further assumes that even of these no single one is by
himself a sufficient judge, — there must be the wisdom
of the full bench, and if we are to comprehend the
breadth and length and depth and height, it must be
with, and not apart from, "" all saints " that we do it.
We easily see the absolute necessity of acknowl-
edgment of incompleteness, insufficiency on the part
of the individual in all secular concerns, why are we
so slow to see it in the realm of things divine ? That
would be a singular university in which every teach-
er undertook to teach every thing. The very idea
of an university presupposes the gathering together
in one place for convenience of access a large number
of teachers, each of whom is better acquainted than
any other one with some particular branch of knowl-
edge, and all of whom taken together hold in posses-
sion the sum total of human learning.
The Church is the university of souls; each mem-
ber of it a teacher or a pupil as the exigency of the
moment may demand, a teacher towards those who
are weak where he is strong, a pupil towards those
who are strong where he is weak. Thus the whole
body of believers gets at truth in its completeness,
and takes in the many-sidedness of it by encircling it.
There is no kind of arrogance more stupid or more
offensive than the arrogance which contemptuously
Booted in Charity, 283
shuts its eyes on the excellencies of others, because
thej are the excellencies of others, and not its own.
It is in rebuke of this disposition that the apostle is
speaking when He says, look not every man on his
own things but every man also on the things of
others. Take the forms of art, — music, poetry, paint-
ing. The man Avho measures the real worth of these
by his own inability to understand or appreciate
them makes a melancholy mistake. Instead of as-
suming that because he can find nothing admirable
or enjoyable in these things ^vhich he sees so many
others admiring and enjoying, therefore they are
worthless, he ought to infer that the fault, the defi-
ciency is in himself. Here is a faculty, a capability,
he ought to confess to himself, which it has pleased
God to give to others and to withhold from me. I will
try to be patient under the deprivation, but I will not
be so foolish as to pretend that what I have not can-
not be worth having merely because I have it not.
Appreciation of one another's strong and good points,
how much happier all life would be if there were
more of it, if we could only oftener have the grace to
see and to say, — I own my deficiency. I recognize
and am thankful for your abundance. Enrich me
out of your treasure, and if there be anything of mine
which can help you, take it in return.
How it would sweeten and brighten family life (to
284 Booted in Charity,
look no further) if there were to enter into it more of
this spirit of mutual appreciation than we are wont
to see there 5 if husbands and wives^ brothers and sis-
ters, instead of seeing only one another's deficiencies,
were to notice, and now and then to speak of, the good
traits, the strong points, the pronounced excellencies.
This is the true way, depend upon it, to enlarge our
own range and scope ; nay, 1 will put it more strongly
still, and say that thus and thus only can we keep heart
and mind from actual shrinkage, for there is a sort of
withering process that goes on in the soul incapable
of outlook and indisposed to admiration. Turned in
upon itself such a soul shrivels and hardens. Its
power of growth is gone. Yes, this law of catholicity,
this principle of the interdependence of souls, runs
through all associated life, no matter what the form
that life takes on. I have instanced the case of the
family, but I might just as well have taken the city,
the state, the nation, the church. Wherever men
are thrown together in numbers, be the numbers
large or small, there is need of the prompt recogni-
tion of this sacred principle, if you would have a
wholesome social life.
Pride and vanity are the great obstacles to the free
working of the principle. We cannot bear to hum-
ble ourselves to the point of acknowledging that there
are respects in which others surpass us, points where
Rooted in Charity. 285
they have the advantage. We incline to take up
with the most unnatural and forced supposition as a
means of explaining the fact of our neighbor's superior-
ity rather than the exceedingly simple one that he is
superior. And all the while in doing this we rob our-
selves ; we shut the door against the possibility of
improvement^ we choose darkness when we might
have light.
Now then we are in position to see and to appreciate
the beautiful connection of thought that runs through
our text ; for the antidote, and there is no other,
the antidote to the pride and vanity that hold us back
from appreciating one another's excellencies and from
being willing to be helped by them is this very char-
ity or holy love in which the apostle prays that we
may, to start with, be rooted and grounded. Given
the charity that inclines our hearts to love our neigh-
bor as ourselves, and there is sure to be found wrap-
ped up with it the humility which is willing to con-
fess deficiency and to receive replenishment. Rooted
and grounded in love, we shall be willing, which is a
necessary pre-requisite to being able, to comprehend
with all saints what is the breadth, and length and
depth and height.
But suppose, what is perfectly supposable, that
some one raises the question. Is it worth while ? Is
the end proposed one that justifies the sacrifice
286 Rooted in Charity.
necessary to the attainment of it. Pride is easier
than humility, vanity more natural than lowliness, to
assert superiority pleasanter than to confess defi-
ciency. What is there about this promise of our
being brought to know the breadth and length
and depth and height, that can make it sufficient-
ly attractive to us to compensate for such draw-
backs as these. Substantially the question is the
same that men ask one another at the foot of the
mountain before making up their minds to begin
to climb it. Will the prospect from the summit re-
pay the toil of the ascent % The question goes unan-
swered unless there be some one in the party who
can speak with the authority begotten of experience,
who can say that he has been on the mountain-top
and has actually soen the view.
To know the truth, to know it in its length and
breadth, to know it ia its depth and height, will that
be worth the effort which clearly and beyond all
doubt, the climb will cost us ? There is one and only
one entitled to speak; one, only one, who from having
been on the height can tell, and He says that it is worth
our while, and that, at whatever cost, we shall do well
to make the knowledge of the truth of God the goal
of all our effort here on earth.
I know how vague and visionary the whole thing
looks to many eyes. I know how faint and unreal
Booted in Charity, 287
tlie entreaty sounds in many ears. And yet am I
asking too miicli, if I beg of you, before you set aside
the search for truth as a thing not worth the trouble
that it costs, the disappointments it involves^ if I beg
of you to compare with this motive for living which
you are inclined to disregard, any one of the other
motives with which you are disposed to take up.
You do not think serious effort "to know the truth of
God worth your while, — but what aim in life are you
proposing to substitute ? Something doubtless you
set before you as a mark — you are not wholly without
aim — what is the mark ? Whither looks the aim ?
I will suppose that you are in the days of your
youth. Here is your life before you, here is this
vista of years that seems, as you look through it, to
stretch out far away into the future. It may be only
seeming j instead of years there may be but the frac-
tion of one year, instead of days only the fraction of
one day ; this night thy soul may be required of thee.
But waive that supposition ; take it for granted that
the days and months and years are to be yours, —
how do you purpose filling them ? to what are they to
be devoted that looks to you better than that patient,
resolute, seeking for the truth to which the Christ in-
vites you ? You tell me that you must have some-
thing more solid, more substantial to live for than
this shadowy prize, the truth. Ah, my dear friend.
288 Booted in Charity,
be cautious how you interpret solidity and substance.
What you really desire is lasting satisfaction. Do
you fancy that wealthy pleasure, fame, can give you
that ? No, these are among the things that pass away,
Truth is eternal. There is nothing that outlasts
eternity. Moreover, as to those things I just now
named, you and I know perfectly well that sometimes
they overmaster men and make slaves of them. Of
the truth and of the truth only is it written that it
shall make us free. So then^ if we would have free-
dom, and lasting freedom, we must seek it through a
knowledge of the truth; and if we would know the
truth, we must seek it in the fellowship of those whose
purposes are pure, whose aims are saintly; and if we
would be ready for such fellowship as this, we must
first of all be rooted and grounded in that charity
which faileth never. Can anything be better worth
our while than the endeavor after such a life as that
would be ?
SERMON XXI.
BETHLEHEM.
" And it came to pass as the angels were gone away from them into
heaven^ the shepherds said one to another^ Let us now go even unto
Bethlehem^ and see this thing which is co?ne to pass, which the Lord
hath 7nade known to us.'' — Luke ii. 15.
The lights and shadows of this second chapter of
St. Luke make it one of the most beautiful of pict-
iwes. It opens with Caesar Augustus, head of the
world, as everybody imagines, and his taxing or cen-
sus. Here is a contrast at the very outset. Caesar ex-
acting tribute of the world, God setting the world free.
The same year witnesses both decrees, that which
lays a fresh burden on the shoulders of a subjugated
race, and that which turns again the captivity not of
Sion only, but of all the world. Caesar from his
throne and Caesar's Maker from his throne utter
themselves to men. Both words fly very swiftly ; the
one along the Roman roads by messenger and cour-
ier, from town to town, till every furthest out-post
289
290 Bethlehem.
has been reached and informed ; the other from the
Heaven of heavens down to a little group of humble
people, shepherds, keeping watch over their flocks
bj night. The heralds of the one monarch carry
sad tidings of great grief, the heralds of the other
glad tidings of great joy. Enslavement is the real
burden of Caesar's message, redemption, or the buying
of men out of slavery, is what God's message means.
And both, according to the intent of their authors, both
messages are for ^^ all people." Csesar would reach
all people in order that he may make them feel his
rod the more effectually ; God would reach them
in order that He may make them the better know
his love.
These two lines of conflicting purpose meet
in the little town of Bethlehem, whither Joseph
and Mary go up to be taxed, because it is David's
town and they are of David's lineage, and whither,
also, the angels send the shepherds that their own
eyes may verify the tidings that the Prince of Peace
is born. And here we have another picturesque ef-
fect. The busy innkeeper has no room for these poor
people. They have come from a long distance, from
Galilee, they tell him, they are travel-worn, and there
is nothing about their appearance to indicate that they
can pay him well. They may be of the family of
David, as they allege, but it seems doubtful, at best,
Bethlehem, 291
and there are other guests brought here by this same
business of the taxing who will much better reward
his attention. Let these Galileans occupy the out-
buildings, if they will, but really there is " no room
for them in the inn." And thus He who has left for
us men and for our salvation the glory which He had
with the Father before the world was, finds his first
earthly resting-place in a manger.
Then come those other contrasts out in the fields j
the darkness of the Syrian night flooded with the
sudden glory of the Lord 5 the angel talking with
the startled shepherds : heaven^s best and highest
holding intercourse with earth's lowliest. How
wonderful it all is ! How beautifid ! How infin-
itely more vivid than any touch of merely human
art could make it, more rhythmical than any
song ! And yet, in what I conceive to be the
true spirit of the text, I invite you to-day to come
down to plain prose. The angels had left the
shepherds when they started out to go to Bethlehem,
the mystic light had faded from the hillside, they
made their way to the village as best they could
through the darkness, but there they found, yes,
there they found the Christ and light again. Even
so is it with us moderns. The angels have gone
away from us into heaven. They do not visit our
American hillsides. We neither see the bright-
292 Bethlehem,
ness of their presence nor catcli the music of their
song. They have left us. None the less is it our
duty to say to one another at Christmas, as those
simple-hearted shepherds did, '^ Let us now go even
unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to
pass, which the Lord hath made known to us." We
shall find, I think, in doing so, that while the shep-
herds doubtless have the advantage of us in somethings
which they saw and we do not, we have the advantage
of them in some things which we see and they did
not. A miracle that addressed itself to the senses
was their privilege, ours is the greater privilege of a
miracle which addresses itself to the mind and heart.
They saw the thing which had come to pass at Beth-
lehem in its beginnings; we see it in its late results,
and surely our vision is a grander and a more satisfy-
ing one than theirs was.
For what are the things which have come to
pass in the world as the results of that birth at
Bethlehem ? Consider some of them. And yet I
hardly know where to begin, and it will be
harder still, having begun, to know where to end,
so much has the child of Mary done for men. Per-
haps it is enough to say, as comprehending all the
rest, that He has taught us to believe better things
of God than ever were believed before. Men left to
themselves and their own impulses are apt to think
Bethlehem, 293
ill of God. If they do not hate Him, they fear Him.
How to propitiate the favor, how to escape His
vengeance, these are the great ends of religion, as
the savage looks at it. Civilization leads the more
favored races to cast away much of this fear, but of
itself gives them no law to put in place of it. Christ
comes and brings with Him the announcement of the
Fatherhood of God. He melts the hard hearts of men
by revealing to them a love on God's part of which
they had never dared to dream. The Father Him-
self loveth you, He says to his disciples, and the
proof of this love is his willingness to sacrifice his
Son. No other religion has anything to show like
this. They all are religions of exaction; they seek,
like Caesar, to tax the world and draw a revenue from
it. They lay burdens on men's consciences and
heavier ones on their hearts. The Gospel alone gives
instead of takes. It is the story of the one made
poor that the many through his poverty might be
rich. Yes, this is why it is worth our while to go
with the shepherds to Bethlehem, we find there a gift.
But let me speak more directly of the thing that
has been brought to pass. Out of the many points
that might be spoken of, let me select one — Christian
character. We speak of types of character, they are
as marked and as distinctive as types of countenance,
indeed the type of countenance is sometimes the index
294 Bethlehem,
to the type of character. But there are many varieties
of type. There are national types of character. We
speak of the English character, of the German charac-
ter, of the Scotch character, and every one of there
epithets conveys a special and particular idea to our
minds. But over and above them all we speak of Chris-
tian character. The point I wish to emphasize is
that this Christian character, as we name it, is a dis-
tinctive thing, with a definite origin. We trace it
back to a certain point in the world's history, and
there it disappears, or rather there it begins, and that
certain point is the event we commemorate to-day.
Christ brought into the world Christian character.
It had not been here before. It was a new crea-
tion, — yes, part and parcel of the thing which came
to pass when the shepherds said to one another on
their hillside, Let us go and see what it is. High types
of character there had been before Christ, no doubt.
The Hebrew type of the upright man, just and devout,
like Joseph, and Simeon and Nathanael, that was a
high type. The stoic type, too, was a noble one in its
way. Those who cast off the Gospel now find noth-
ing better than that to take up with instead of it.
The man of iron will, who stands up against the
storms and shocks of chance as the headland stands
against the sea, and says, " Do thy worst, I can bear
it," — there is much to admire in that. But the
Bethlehem. 295
Christian character differs from both of these. Hu-
mility enters into it, for one thing, as it never did or
could enter into either the Hebrew or the stoic heart.
The Christian is one who knows himself to be by
nature weak and prone to go astray. He cannot say,
with the Psalmist, " Preserve me, for I am holy,'^
nor with the philosophic emperor, " I do my duty,
other things trouble me not." The Christian would
rather believe that there is One holier and stronger
than himself. One to whom he looks up. One on whom
he may lean. One who is his rock, his shelter, his
refuge, his fortress and his shield. This is the work-
ing in him of that Spirit of Christ which rejoices not
in loneliness and isolation and proud self-confidence,
but is always glad to say, "Not my will, but thine
be done." The same temper makes men humble
towards one another, as well as towards God. The
doctrine of the Gospel, that a man can receive nothing
except it be given him from heaven, reconciles us te
inequalites which otherwise would gall our patience
and destroy our peace. " In lowliness of mind let
each esteem other better than themselves." This is a
strong way of putting it, but who ever put it so before
Christ came ? Now we recognize the diversity of
gifts, the gradation of abilities, as a thing of God's
ordering, and we are willing to have it so. We are
content to learn this lesson of reverence, and to ac-
296 Bethlehem.
quire the habit of looking up to others, in place of
that disposition to look down on them which more
naturally belongs to us. Out of humility and rever-
ence, which make the ground-w^ork of Christian
character, springs gentleness, that indefinable char-
acteristic which has come to be synonymous with high
breeding. It there were nothing else in history to il-
lustrate the influence which has streamed from the
Bethlehem manger, this alone would suffice, this ex-
altation of the title ^^ gentle " from the rank of the
lowliest and most despised of words up to the very
throne of chiefest honor. Your stoic would have
been insulted had you called him " gentle," but now
the insult lies in the other direction, and to refuse to
man or woman this epithet is to give the supreme
offence.
To be ^^ gentle unto all men," that is an apostle's
exaction of one to whom he writes; and only think
what that would mean ! Imagine one always gentle
to ail, never fretful or fault-finding among equals,
never imperious or arrogant or vindictive towards
inferiors, never cringing or subservient in the pres-
ence of richer people, or abler ones, or wiser ones, —
gentle unto all men. There would be indeed the
evidence of high birth, yes, of that birth from on high
of which Christ said to Nicodemus that until a man
knew it he could not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Bethlehem. 297
To humility and gentleness we must add the
liberal heart. A stingy, miserly Christian, one who
grudges what he gives to God, is no Christian ;
let us remember that. Spendthrifts we need not be,
improvident we are especially warned we must not
be, but large-hearted and generous, and pitiful and
bountiful we must be at heart, or we are none of his.
He came to give Himself to us. He was born of
Mary to become one of us and then He gave Himself.
While He was here He went about doing good,
and in a thousand ways gave Himself to those
among whom He livedj to the unfortunate He gave
his time, to the sick and maimed, the blind and deaf,
the palsied and demoniac, to all these He gave that
virtue which went out of Him when great draughts
were made upon his pity. He gave Himself upon
the cross, a willing victim, dying, the just for the un-
just, that He might bring us unto Godj and last of all?
when after his resurrection He ascended into the
heaven of heavens. He did it, so the Scripture tells
us, that He might bestow gifts upon men. Can we be
like Him, can we breathe his Spirit, and remain self-
ish, mean, sordid, ungenerous, churlish ? No ; these
are not Christlike traits.
Again, patience is an ingredient of Christian
character, the two-fold patience, which shows itself
sometimes as willingness to suffer and sometimes
298 Bethlehem.
as willingness to wait. The patience with which
some of the early Christians bore pain was a
constant marvel to those who looked at them from
the selfish stand-point of heathenism. Why should
they suffer so uncomplainingly ? their persecutors
asked. What have they to gain by it ? So they
went on with their ineffectual tortures, and the Chris-
tians kept on with their uncomplaining fortitude, and
in the end the patience carried the day. They were
victors through endurance. So also their willingness
to wait. There was no dogged insistence on their
part upon their rights. They obeyed mth literalness
the saying, ^^ Resist not evil.'' They were content
quietly to build the Christian Church, little by little,
stone by stone, knowing that in due time the heathen
temple would topple over of its own weight. And
patience in both of these senses, the enduring pa-
tience and the waiting patience, befits us still.
Once more, faith is an ingredient of the Christian
character as such. Perhaps I ought to have named
that first, as the framework of all the rest. St,
Peter places it so, you remember, in that glowing
catalogue of graces with which his second Epistle
opens. Add to your faith, he says, virtue, and then
he goes on with the rest as being all of them
supplementary. But still I may not have been
wrong, after all, in putting humility first, for it
Bethlehem, 299
is only the humble who will admit the approach
of faith.
Pride asks for demonstration, the unchastened
mind declares itself willing to believe if it can have
all things made as plain as the day, as if seeing and
believing were indeed what the proverb tries to make
us think them, the same thing. But faith is that
disposition in us which is willing to trust God even
in the dimness of uncertainty, and in the face of all
countervailing influences to say, I do believe, though
it may not have been proven, that God is, and that
He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek
Him.
So then, these are the traits that make up Christian
character, — humility, gentleness, large-hearted gener-
osity, patience and faith. I do not say that these
have not been illustrated singly and severally under
other influences than those of the Gospel 5 I do not
say that there has been no humility, no gentleness,
no faith, no patience anywhere except in regions
where Christ has been known and honored ; to say
that would be to be guilty of gross misrepresentation ;
what I say is that under Christian influences these
graces have been blended in a way and according to
a proportion in which they never were blended be-
fore, and that, as a result, we have the type of char-
acter called Christian, a new and different thing from
300 Bethlehem,
anything that had been seen on earth before the
Bethlehem angels sang their song.
So then, in what the modern world demands of
those who would secure its respect and confidence, I
find a backward-looking evidence to the truth of the
Bethlehem tradition. The acknowledged change for
the better argues in favor of the belief which led to
the change. The distinctively Christian virtues have
won their high place in men's regard because it has
been believed that they had their sanction in the
example of One who came down from heaven to show
us what God is like. It is neither pleasant nor
seemly to have it said that the world has been helped
forward to better and still better attainment in the
way of right living by believing in a lie, hence we
conclude that it was not a lie, but the truth, and,
with full voices, give God thanks to-day for his un-
speakable gift.
SERMON XXII.
WALKING IN THE LIGHT.
" . . Come ye and let us walk in the light of the Lord.''' —
Isaiah ii. 5.
There is a frankness about this invitation such
as ought to make it for all honest minds singularly
attractive. Nobody is really fond of darkness as
such. Children fear the dark by a natural instinct,
and grown-up people do not love it. We put up with
the darkness that separates one day from another,
because, without it, we cannot have the repose which
our bodily senses demand, but all our associations of
cheerfulness are with the light. It puts a check
upon the joy of summer to notice that the days are
growing shorter; and winter loses something of its
chill when the lengthening afternoons begin to assure
us that we have not a great while to wait for spring.
^^ Come ye and let us walk in the light," — is, so far,
at least, and with nothing further added, a genial,
winning invitation.
301
302 Walking in the Light.
The language of religion is based upon these
natural feelings of ours. God uses the outward
tokens to teach us the inward truths. " That is not
first which is spiritual, but that which is natural,
and afterward that which is spiritual.'^ The seen
world provides the letters, the characters, the hiero-
glyphics, or sacred writing, by dint of which our
great Instructor helps us to read the mysteries of
the world unseenj and the memories of our childhood
put both pathos and meaning into the language of
the prayer, *^ Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee,
O Lord."
There are a few words which seem to be to religion
what the notes of the scale are to music. ^^ Law,"
'^ life," ^^ love," "• light " are words of this sort. The
harmonies of the Bible, and its melodies, result from
varying combinations of these simple monosyllables
with the name of God and with the name of man. It
is interesting to be told, as we are told by those who
have made the history of religious thought their
study, that different races of men manifest varying
degrees of susceptibility as respects these several
keynotes of Scripture. It is said, for example, that
Eastern Christendom has always inclined to make
much of the idea of light in its religious teachings,
while Western Christendom has similarly emphasized
the thought of law. Even those who have never
Walking in the Light, 303
made a profound study of the subject may see for
themselves that there must be a ground for this con-
trast. Of late years many hymns of the Oriental
Church have come, through the medium of transla-
tions, into general use among ourselves, and no one
who is familiar with them can have failed to notice
how prominent among the requests to which they
give voice is the prayer for light. Now just as there
are differences among Churches with respect to the
religious ideas which they love to accentuate and
dwell upon, so there are corresponding differences
among individuals in the same Church. Some men
see the truth more vividly from this point of view,
others from that. The Christian year, with its or-
dered sequence of commemorative days and seasons,
both illustrates this thought and also enforces it prac-
tically. Christmas and Good Friday are days of love;
they are days with which, notwithstanding the fact
that one of them is a festival and the other a fast, we
associate identically the same central thought, name-
ly, that of the infinite love of the heavenly Father,
who, alike at the manger and on the cross, gave his
Son to be the Saviour of the world. Lent, with its
barriers of restrictions and its summons to method
and system in religion, is suggestive rather of law
than of love. Easter, Ascension and Whitsunday
again are eloquent of life, the life which Christ came
304 Walhing in the Light
that He might give the more abundantly, the life
eternal, — while with Epiphany, the season through
which we happen to be passing just at present, the con-
trolling influence is light. Christ as the Light of the
World is the figure now put before us for contempla-
tion. To Ilim, as to the manifested God, the image of
the Father, the Dayspring from on high, the Master-
light, to pass from the language of ancient prophets
to that of a modern and a Christian poet, ^^the Master
light of all our seeing," it is to Him we turn.
But what are we to understand by '^ the light of
the Lord ? " Such light, I answer, as by the very
clearness of its shining gives evidence of its having
come direct from the central source of light, of its
being, in fact, the Lord^s light. There is no such
thing as counterfeiting sunshine. There have been
and are many imitations of it, but we know them
when we see them; we never are really deceived^
they are good in their way and in their measure, but
the best of them is adjudged to be a ghastly pretence
when it presumes to set itself up as a rival of the
daylight.
How this clear light of the Lord is attainable for
those who for any reason feel themselves shut out from
it is a point to which we will turn presently, but for the
moment dwell with me upon a distinction of some im-
portance. Speaking broadly, we may say that men
Walking in the Light 305
feel the need of more light than they seem to have,
in two waysj they need it for the illumination of the
mind, and again they need it for the guidance of the
conscience. The one want expresses itself in the
words, ^' I do not know what to think," the other in the
words, ^^I cannot tell how to act." Do not under-
stand me as meaning to assert that these two needs
of the man stand wholly disconnected. It is a mis-
take, and a flagrant one, to suppose that the two fields,
that of thought and that of action, can be sharply
sundered. A thousand subtile ties link the intellect
to the conscience, and the Council of the Vatican was
perfectly logical when, after declaring the Roman Pon-
tiff infallible as a teacher of doctrine, it went on to
affirm his consequent infallibility in the field of
morals. Still, in a general way, and for purposes of
convenience in discussion, we may distinguish be-
tween the need of the mind and the need of the con-
science as respects this matter of walking in the light.
Take doctrinal perplexity, the inability to see
clearly what ought to be believed. It is a very
wide-spread source of uneasiness. Moreover, mental
distress with respect to the articles of the faith, the
better deserves our sympathy because we often find
it allied with much gentleness of spirit and with the
sensitive temperament. I am not now speaking of
the arrogant and boastful forms of denial which are
306 Walking in the Light,
never happy unless asserting themselves in places
where their presence is unwelcome, the ruffians and
highwaymen that dog the pilgrimage of believing
souls. I am not speaking of them, but I have refer-
ence to those who honestly desire to receive the faith
in its wholeness and its purity, but who are consci-
entiously hindered from doing so by mental difficul-
ties which they cannot overcome, ghosts of old doubts
and misgivings which they find themselves powerless
to lay.
These are they who are looking for light, they
long for nothing so much as for that. They are as
those who watch for the morning. The Gospel to
such persons may be put into three words, " Morning
is come." The morning is come, not the full day-
light ; we do not claim so much as that *, but the be-
ginning of the daylight. Christ is the dayspring,
that beautiful old English name for the dawn, — how
little we appreciate it ! — Christ is the dayspring, the
beginning of the morning, and when once He is risen
on the hearths horizon much that was dim before
grows clear.
What I mean to say, (for I realize how easy it is
for one to be misunderstood in using this figura-
tive language) in plain prose is that the best way
to work ourselves clear of doctrinal perplexities
is to move towards Christ Himself, and to get
Walking in the Light. 307
as near to Him as we possibly can. Instead of
thinking first of religion as a set of doctrines to be
believed, think first of Christ as a person to be loved
and trusted. Love Him for his ot\ti sake, and be-
cause He is manifestly lovable ; trust Him for his
own sake, and because He is manifestly trustworthy.
Give Him your confidence, just as you would give
anybody your confidence who had showm himself
deserving of it ; and presently you will find that you
have ceased, without quite knowing how or why, to
be very much troubled about the doctrines. In one
of the most famous of the many pictures of the
Nativity, the space about the manger is lighted up, not
by any ray of moon or star, but by the glory stream-
ing from the Child Himself. The parable is a happy
one, and encourages us to believe that the painter
himself was something more than merely a Christian
in name. He had caught the grand idea of a self-
evidencing Christ, and instead of importing light
into his canvas he resolved to make light pour out
from it.
If you ask me, '^ Why turn to Christ rather than
to other springs of light, for there are many ? " I
reply, Try another, if anywhere you can find one that
seems to promise better things. Try another, if you
choose, and see what comes of it. My point is that
help we must have from some one. We need a guide.
308 WalJcing in the Light
Instinctively we reach out our hands for aid. The ques-
tion is, In which quarter is the outlook most encour-
aging? Men imprisoned in the gallery of a mine,
after the first shock of the explosion is over, bethink
themselves how they shall set to work to find their
way out, in which direction move. They listen ; by
and by, through the thick mass of earth and stone
that walls them aroimd, they catch the muffled notes
of a human voice shouting to them. That is a clew,
an encouragement 5 they work towards that. Pres-
ently, as a reward of effort on both sides, a strug-
gling ray of light from the lantern of the relieving
party works its way through among the crevices and
becomes a token for good. What madness now for
any one of the prisoners to advocate giving up this
line of effort and trying another ! The little ray of
light is an all-sufficient answer to his arguments.
Let him show anything in any other direction so
promising as that. And, even so, we Christians
challenge an answer to our question, ^^ To whom shall
we go ? " before we will consent to quit Him whom
the consenting voice of so many generations has
called Saviour. But we have also something better
than a challenge to give to those who differ with us,
we have an invitation, an entreaty, and it runs thus,
" Come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.''
There is no compulsion here, except such as is always
Wdlhing in the Light 309
exercised by that which is innately beautiful ; there
is no compulsion it is simply the persuasive ^^ Come,
ye."
I have spoken of the value of a little, a very little
light, as giving an impulse to effort in the direction
of more light. Are you weak in faith ? Cherish what
faith you have with all diligence. The flame flickers j
— very well, be careful that it does not go wholly out.
The man with the one talent was blamed not for his
having had only one talent, that was no fault of his,
but he was blamed for not having made more of what
he had. Husband your resources. Hesitate before
you throw away the mustard-seed of faith ; within its
tiny walls are shut up the possibilities of more than
you suspect.
You say that there are not more than two or three
sentences of the Creed that you can say honestly out
of a full heart. That is something to be sorry for,
you would be the better and the richer if you could
grasp every sentence and call it your own, but by no
means loose your hold on what you do believe. To
hold a single article of the faith so firmly that the
whole life is penetrated, and shaped and illumined by
it, is better than to believe all the articles, and
to believe them languidly. That is the secret of the
vitality we often observe in some religious sect that
has based itself on only one single fragment of truth.
310 Walking in the Light,
We wonder that so one-sided a growth should
flourish. But the reason is that what the sect does
hold^ it holds enthusiastically.
Again, I say, — Try to plant yourself as near as pos-
sible to the centre and fount of light. Try to have
all the lines of your religious thinking move out from
the Mount where Christ sits teaching his disciples,
and when, on any one of these divergent roads, you
find yourself perplexed, and at a loss, instead of try-
ing cross-paths, go straight back to Him, and start
afresh. Just as, in daily life, when disappointed and
cast down, we turn to a trusty friend, saying, *' I can
depend on you. I can believe in you, whoever else
fails me," so the mind, a thousand times misled and
cheated in its discussions about truth, turns with in-
finite relief to Him who says with quiet confidence,
^a am the Truth.'^
But it is time to say something of that other region
of our life where light is needed, — the field traversed
by the conscience and the will. How to live and act
is a question quite as pressing as how to think and
believe. Our life is fall of choices, decisions, re-
?3olveSo We live through no day without passing
judgments innumerable, some expressed and some
unexpressed, but all of them contributing a tinge of
color, be it ever so slight, to the general complexion
of our life. What then does walking in the light of
Walldng in the Light, 311
the Lord mean when looked at from this point of
sight, from what most people call the practical side of
oui' existence ? If it mean nothing more, it must at
least meaa this much, — a high standard of character.
Artists say that they cannot model well unless they
model from the life. A copy of a copy is always a
poor thing. We see it in poetry too. You can dis-
tinguish, in a moment, the genuine poet of Nature, the
man who sings about the wild flowers and the forest
trees and the meadow brooks because he has been
among them and knows them and loves them, from the
one who has borrowed or stolen all his ideas about
those things from other poets. And so, in the en-
deavor after the right and true life, what we need is
the opportunity to copy at first-hand and not at sec-
ond-hand. There is wide room for choice in discrim-
inating between different types of character. We
want to know which is the best, we want to find the
standard measure of the true stature of a man. We
walk in the light of the Lord when we accept the Bi-
ble standard of character as the true one for child, for
man, for woman, and when we determine that we will
cling to that. You know what that standard is. You
know how it covers and includes all that you most
revere in others. You know that it gathers up into it-
self, gentleness, reverence, purity, fortitude, patience,
loving kindness, and whatever else deserves the name
312 WalJcing in the Light
'^ unselfisli.^^ You know all these traits in others^ you
confess ; you own, moreover, frankly, that these are
the constituents of the Christian type of character.
What remains then for you but to acknowledge, to say
openly that these are the attainments at which you
aim, however lamentably you may be falling short of
them ? Even those who get no further than to avow
faith in these virtues themselves are to be congratu-
lated, in comparison with those who have no standard
at all. To make the cardinal virtues the guide of
life is like steering by the stars. There is a better
way, and yet to be steering by the stars is infinitely
preferable to being all adrift. Hold fast through
thick and thin your love of goodness, even though
jcr do not rise to the worship of the good One. It is
in some sense and to a certain degree walking in the
light of the Lord, if you do no more than that. To
cling resolutely to a high ideal of character, even
though every moment we are self-condemned by
the very fact that we do see so clearly what we ought
to be and are not, is immeasurably better than to fall
into that slough where it becomes easy to call evil
good and good evil.
But why not rise to the highest and completest
conception of what it means, in the practical activities
of daily life, to walk in the light of the Lord? Cer-
tainly that loftiest view ought to include the idea of
Walking in the Light 313
a guiding spirit always and everywhere present to
the trustful child of God, leading Him not only into
truth, but also into righteousness. What is it that
lends such a singular charm to those words which al-
most sing themselves into an anthem, without help
from the musician, '' send out thy light and thy
truth ; let them lead me," — what is it, I say, that makes
the words look so fair and sound so sweetly to us, un-
less it be that they touch or suggest a need native
to all our hearts, the need of guidance? To walk
in the light of the Lord is to walk as those do
who are sure of their ground, and sure of it
because they have a leader and are not all
alone.
Good Christians distress themselves often and
needlessly on account of their unanswered prayers.
Having asked the heavenly Father again and again
for some particular blessing, and not having received
it, they have grown hopeless in prayer and account
it idle to try again. Sometimes the result of such an
experience is a virtual abandonment of the habit of
prayer altogether, a practical siding with those who in
the cid days took up with the cry, " What is the
Almighty, that we should serve Him, and what profit
should we have if we pray unto Him ? " Others
again, not quite willing to surrender a usage hal-
lowed by the memories of childhood, fall back up-
314 Walking in the Light
on the ground that, although prayer be useless as
a means of influencing the will of the Almighty, it
may still be valuable in the training of the spirit, in
developing the powers of the soul, just as beating the
air may make the arm stronger, even though no out-
ward result be accomplished. And so they gradually
let the element of petition fall wholly out of their
prayers, and care not to get beyond the single sen-
tence of acquiescence, ^^ Thy will be done. " And
yet there is a loftier view of prayer than either that
which emphasizes request to the forgetfulness of the
other phases of devotional feeling, or that which dis-
allows request altogethero The words of our text
open to us this better way of looking at the subject.
^^ Come ye and let us walk in the light of the Lord.'
Let us, that is to say, seek to come into such fellowship
with the Father of our spirits, that nothing will be
more natural than to speak out to Him whatever
wishes and desires there may be hidden in our hearts,
and nothing more easy than to be resigned, if, in His
better wisdom. He sees fit to withhold the particular
blessings we may have asked Him to bestow. Only
by some such way of living, as it were, in the confi-
dence of God, walking contentedly in the light of his
continual presence, can it be meant, I think, that
we should carry out the Apostle's apparently impossi-
ble command to '^ pi'ay without ceasing," for by thus
Walking in the Light 315
living and thus walking we should in very truth
never cease to pray.
I have spoken of our need of an enlightener, both
for the illumination of our darkened minds, and for
the clearing of our clouded way. I have spoken
also of Jesus Christ, the true light, and I have tried
to show in what manner He stands ready to meet this
universally acknowledged need. Have my words
found lodgment anywhere ? In so far as they have
truly reported the mind of God, and this is the
preacher's function, nothing less than this, in so far
as they have been true words, answering to realities
and not to fancies, I cannot doubt that good will
come of them. For truth, God's truth, has a pene-
trative power of its own, and where it enters ^' dark-
ness cannot be."
SERMON XXIII.
ELIJAH ON CAR MEL.
'* So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to
the top of CarjnelJ''-—\ Kings xviii. 42.
This was just after Elijah's signal victory over the
prophets of Baal on the slope of Mount Carmel.
Ahab, the bad king is, for the moment at least, a
convert to the truth. The discomfiture of the false
religion, as represented by his own and Jezebel's
priests, has been so utter and complete that he is
stunned into an unwonted docility, and obeys without
a question Elijah's command to go and join in the
sacrificial feast with which the priests of Jehovah are
about to celebrate their triumph. But for Elijah
himself there is no call to feast. On him the burden
of a far weightier duty rests. His share in this refor-
mation work is as yet only half fulfilled. He has
ventured upon a word of prophecy. He has prom-
ised in Jehovah's name that the sore famine with
which the land has been punished for its ruler's sins
316
Elijah on Carmel. 317
shall be removed, and that the heavens shall rain down
a blessing. He cannot rest, far less feast, until he
know for certain whether the Lord has heard his peti-
tion and means to make good his word. So while Ahab,
nothing loth, goes up to eat and to drink, Elijah,
in his far different mood, goes up to the top of Car-
mel to pray.
I find here a striking illustration of the differ-
ence between the way in which a weak character
is likely to bear itself under the pressure of a great
emergency and the way in which a strong one simi-
larly placed behaves. It will repay us if we give to
the study of this contrast something more than a
passing thought. Look first, then, at the two men
themselves. Ahab was that king of whom it is said
that "he did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel
to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before
him." The son of a military adventurer who had
himself in his own day been unexpectedly raised to
royalty by the overthrow of a usurper, Ahab seems
to have inherited a strong love of arbitrary power,
tempered by none of that graciousness which mon-
archs who have no reason to doubt the stability of
their thrones find it easy to show.
He was a weak man by nature, and labored to hide
his weakness by an ostentation of violence which he
hoped people would mistake for strength. He did
318 Elijah on Carmel,
not wholly lack refinement. Art had attractions for
him, and one of the basest deeds that blackened his
reign, the lawless seizure of an honest man^s patri-
mony, was directly traceable to his taste for fine ef-
fects. He wanted Naboth's vineyard, because that
particular piece of land was needed to complete the
symmetrical arrangement of the pleasure grounds of
his new palace; and so he compassed, or rather his
wife compassed for him, the judicial murder of the
man who stood in the way ; an admirable illustration
of the truth that a culture which does not rest upon
true religion for its basis cannot be trusted to save
people from the dominion of base instincts, from lust
and cruelty and violence.
But the most palpable evidence of Ahab's weakness
is to be found in his subserviency to the stronger will
of the far more wicked queen. Ahab thought that
he ruled Israel, but Jezebel knew that she ruled Ahab,
and the people at large knew well enough that she
was the tyrant and he the tool. Ahab, as we have
seen, bowed before the majesty of Elijah on that ter-
rible day at Carmel. He did not even dare to inter-
pose a word of remonstrance against the slaughter of
his own priesthood at the brook Kishon, and he
cheerfully went up to eat and to drink at the table of
the Lord who had proved himself to be the God. Not
so Jezebel. No sooner had she heard of the righteous
Elijah on CarmeL 319
vengeance visited on the four hundred prophets of the
groves, her pensioners, and the four hundred and fifty
priests of Baal, than she sent a messenger to Elijah
with these words, " So let the gods do to me, and
more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of
them by to-morrow about this time."
The threat never found a fulfilment, but the failure
was not owing to any change of mind on the part of
the dauntless woman who made it. Flushed as he
was with his triumph, Elijah well knew what such a
message portended, and he arose and went for his
life to the very remotest town within the limits of the
Holy Land, — Beersheba of Judah.
Ahab's perversion of the national faith, which Eli-
jah's boldness checked but did not cure, was really
Jezebel's work. It was she who brought in the de-
basing worship of Baal from her own native Phenicia,
and made it supplant the appointed ritual of the true
faith. She was a king's daughter, and she would
not brook the notion that there was any God better
than her father's god. ^^ Let those wretched Israel-
ites set aside their narrow prejudices about an only
God, Let them unlearn their cant about holiness.
There are gods many and lords many, and I will
show them that mine is as good as theirs." This was
the process of her reasoning, and so thoroughly did
the pliable king, her husband, carry out her line of
320 Elijah on Carmel,
policy^ that, even in the hour of his triumph, Elijah
was ready to cry, out of the bitterness of his
soul, ^' The children of Israel have forsaken thy
covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy
prophets with the sword, and I, even I only am left.''
Elijah was mistaken in his estimate of the complete-
ness of the national ruin, for there were yet seven
thousand left who had not bowed the knee to Baalj
but the anguish of his exclamation proves how suc-
cessful the infamous queen had been in her plan for
revolutionizing the national religion.
This, then, was Ahab, — a weak man, with luxu-
rious tastes, easily attracted by the glittering outsides
of things, whether palaces or religions, ready at any
time tt) go up to eat and to drink, at heathen tables
when heathenism prospered, with Jehovah's priests
when they happened to be uppermost, but always a
despicable object at either feast because men knew
that the robe of his kingship covered the heart of a
slave. How could he seem to them Israel's master,
when clearly he was not and never had been " lord
of himself."
Now look at Elijah. In the whole succession of
the prophets and kings who pass across the page of
Old Testament history you shall not find a figure bet-
ter worth looking at than he. At his very first ap-
pearance in the narrative he starts out upon us ab-
Elijah on CarmeC, 321
ruptly, unannounced, like a lion from his lair. The
other prophets are formally introduced to us, as
it were. Something, even though it be only a lit-
tle, is told us about their parentage or education.
Not a word of this sort about Elijah. He leaps into
the scene unheralded, simply Elijah the Tishbite, of
the inhabitants of Gilead, — that is all. We do not
even know for certain the meaning of his title ^^ Tish-
bite" ; there may have been a town named Thisbe ;
but the statement that there was, is a pure supposi-
tion, no ruins of any such town exist, nor any well-
authenticated traditions fixing the site. As he ap-
peared, time and again, to Ahab, so he appears to us
meeting him in the roadways and in the wildernesses
of history, suddenly. He darts out upon us as we jour-
ney, his own messenger. And what a magnificent
character it is which he presents us for study. It
seems to lift itself above the general level, like the
height of his own Carmel, jutting out into the Medi-
terranean and looking calmly down upon the crawl-
ings of 'Hhe wrinkled sea "; for to a nature like his the
petty passions and strifes of men are but ripples,
though they seem billows to those who are among
them. The one thought that filled Elijah's mind to
the full was the idea of the righteousness of God.
Like his New Testament counterpart, John the Bap-
tist, he had dwelt much in solitude. Alone in the
322 Elijah on Carmel,
desert places of northern Palestine, as John in the
wilderness of the south, he pondered the awful prob-
lem of our life. He thought of all God had meant
his people and his land to be. He recalled the glo-
rious traditions of a purer past. He went over in his
mind the wonders Jehovah had wrought in Egypt, in
the land of Zoan, at the Ked Sea, in the wilderness j
his memory travelled back to the golden days when
Judali and Israel were one kingdom, when David
sang his sweet songs and Solomon uttered his wise
sayings. He kept company in spirit with the heroes
and deliverers of those old days, with Moses and
Joshua and Gideon, the men who had judged with
equity and ruled in the majesty of righteousness, and
then he looked at life as he saw it there at Ahab's
court ; he watched the bad priests insolently breaking
down the altars of Jehovah, and the false prophets
greedily eating of Jezebel's bread, and his spirit was
stirred within him thus to see his people wholly given
to idolatry. His heart was hot ; while he was musing
the fire burned ; then spake he with his tongue, and
when he spake men listened. That was a voice
whose vibrations could shake a throne. Ahab, when
he heard it, trembled with fear *, Jezebel, when she
heard it, trembled with rage. There was nothing ten-
der or gentle or winning about Elijah. Sternness
was of the very essence of his nature, the fibre of his
Elijah oil Carmelo 323
soul. His words were for the most part words of
indignation and reproof ; his miracles for the most
part miracles of divine vengeance. He called down
fire from heaven^ but it was to consume and to destroy,
not to enlighten or warm. In these respects he was
a marked contrast to his pupil and successor, Elisha,
whose career as a prophet was distinguished for be-
neficence and loving kindness.
But there are times that call for sternness ; pe-
riods when the capacity for vehement indignation
against wickedness is in place and valuable. Elijah
was called to be God's prophet in an hour of that
sort. Misrule like Aliab's, iniquity like Jezebel's,
called for rebuke, for stern, unrelenting chastisement,
and Elijah was the man of all men, the propheL of
all prophets, to inflict it.
Beyond the reach of flattery himself, not open to
any of the temptations which so easily transform
courtiers into villains, his spirit was wholly free to
wander hither and thither, visiting the wrath of God
upon the children of disobedience in words they could
neither refuse to hear nor fail to remember. " Art
thou that my lord Elijah ? '^ was the wondering in-
quiry of a chief officer of Ahab's, when he happened
one day to meet him of a sudden in the path. It was
a striking testimony to the innate majesty of this
child of the desert. ^^My Lord " is a title that be-
324 Elijah on Carmel,
longs in kings' houses^ but this servant of a king felt
that he had never anywhere met with one so kingly,
so full-charged with the spirit of command, and his
homage went forth to him at once, ^^ Art thou that
my lord Elijah I " ^^I am," was the prompt response.
" Go tell thy lord. Behold Elijah ! "
This is the man who, while Ahab goes up to eat
and to drink, goes up himself with his one at-
tendant, to the top of Carmel to pray. We have
both of them before us now, the king at his feast,
the prophet at his watch. The most obvious prac-
tical lesson to be drawn from the contrast is that
which I said, when we began, I should ask you
to draw from it — the value of a fixed purpose and
of a character strengthened by the grace of God, in
the great emergencies of life. Most persons finding
themselves situated as Elijah was at the close of that
great day's struggle would argue, " This is enough.
I have carried my point, Baal is vanquished, the
false prophets are dead Ahab is ready to obey me.
Now I will rest. Here is the sacrificial feast pre-
pared. I will simply give over exertion now and take
my ease ; surely I have earned it.'' But no, the mo-
ment of a man's seeming triumph is the moment of
his greatest need. None so much require the pres-
ent grace of God as those who for the instant seem to
be at the top of the wave, for from the top of the
Elijah on Carmel, 325
wave to the trough of the sea is but the passage of a
moment, and the heart which to-day is singing its
Jubilate may to- morrow be chanting De xwofundis,
Daniel, prime minister of an empire, praying in
his chamber towards Jerusalem at morning, noon and
night, and Elijah, flushed with victory, toiling up to
the top of Carmel, that he may be alone there with
his God, are pictures upon which the greatest, and
the busiest, and the most famous of men may gaze to
their supreme advantage. But not the great and the
famous only, all of us may gather help, and learn
wisdom from this same sight. Are we ever tempted,
at times, to think that all is going so prosperously
with us, our plans succeeding so admirably, our
resources holding out so well, our health so firm, our
spirits so good, our friends so influential, our pros-
pects so favorable, that there is no particular call to
us to be devout, no especial need of our turning ta
God ? If we ever do find ourselves feeling in this
way, let us remember Elijah and his behavior in the
proudest hour of his whole grand career, ^o meas-
ure of success could possibly seem in his eyes so
great that he could afi'ord to slight the duties of
watchfulness and prayer. Nothing is finished in this
world J we never reach a point where we can sit
down and say, ^^ Now it is just as I would have it ;
now I will enjoy the fruit of my toil, will enter on the
326 Elijah on Carmel,
harvest of my success." Our best achievements are
only on the slope of Carmel ; there is always a still,
quiet height above us^ to which we may climb and
hold communion with our God — nay, to which we
must climb if any permanent blessing is to be won
and kept.
Count no success, either in the line of secular or
of religious endeavor so complete that there is no
need of seking further blessing from Almighty God.
We never, by any chance, can possibly get beyond
the need of prayer, never are we so securely estab-
lished that we can spare God's help.
Thus far we have been dealing with the text in a
purely historical way, but many of the pictures which
history unveils to us are parables of spiritual truth,
and we do them no violence when we treat them as
such, and as such interpret them. To explain the
Old Testament narratives as allegories and nothing
more, amounts to explaining them away. To receive
them as genuine history, and then to find in them
illustrations of miiversal truths besides, is to do them
double honor. It was thus apostles used the ancient
Scriptures, and thus we may use them. If we are
careful to do so according to the proportion of faith^
in harmony, that is to say, with the general line of
Bible teaching, we cannot go astray. Elijah rebuk-
ing Ahab is the Church rebuking the world. Elijah
Elijah on CarmeL 327
going up to the top of Carmel, while Ahab is content
to eat and to drink, is the Church seeking in retire-
ment and solitude to hold communion with her King
and Head. No conception of the nature and func-
tions of the Christian Church is an adequate concep-
tion which leaves out of the account the Church's
duty as a prophet, a witness for God. The Church
is set in the world that she may bear testimony in
God's name for righteousness and against iniquity.
The Church's voice ought to be God's voice. So,
then, when the Church is most popular with the
world at large, she has most reason to fear that she
is not discharging her trust faithfully. ^^ The world
cannot hate you," said a greater than Elijah to the
time-servers of his day. ^^ The world cannot hate you,
but me it hateth, because I testify of it that the
works thereof are evil." This was the reason why
Ahab and Jezebel hated the prophet who told them
the truth. When the voice of the Church allows it-
self to be hushed in the presence of flagrant wicked-
ness, when prophecy ceases because of timidity, and
there is no plain speaking anywhere in the face of
the workers of unrighteousness, then it does not
much matter how firmly established religion may
seem to be, how grand the buildings dedicated to
worship, how costly and brilliant the whole equip-
ment of what calls itself divine service. Baal has
328 Elijah on Carmel.
won the temporary victory, Jehovah's presence has
departed.
Is the Church of Christ, my friends, as we see it
embodied among us, doing fearlessly the needed
work of criticism and rebuke ? How is the gift of
prophecy, the charge to speak for God, most com-
monly exercised among us ? Is it in the direction of
prophesying smooth and pleasant things, or is it, as it
ought to be, in the blunt utterance of honest truth,
whether it be welcome or unwelcome, whether men
will hear, or whether they will forbear. It is to
little purpose that we declaim against the sins and
iniquities of dead generations, if somehow we care-
fully forget to point at the shapes which those very
same wickednesses are taking on to-day. " Pride,
fulness of bread and abundance of idleness " made the
iniquity of Sodom. Do not these same things make
the iniquity of the luxurious classes in our own
America ? And shall there be no voice of prophecy
lifted up against them ? Shall the Church stand silent
by while the very sins which roused the wrath of the
impetuous Tishbite are thinning the blood and killing
the vigor of a whole people 1 Then is the Church no
true prophet, then has she forgotten her high calling
to be the voice of the holy God, then is there double
need why she should go up to the top of Carmel and
refresh her fainting resolution with the food of prayer.
Elijah on Carmel. 329
In many ways, it cannot be denied, the prospect
looks dark for the Church of Christ. Torn by in-
ternal feuds, betrayed by the treachery of false
brethren, assailed from without by the allied forces
of unbelief, and scorn and hate, who can wonder if
now and then the courage of the garrison falters, if
here and there a despondent voice is heard coun-
selling surrender. But courage ! Let God be true
and every man a liar. Christ's word is pledged to
the perpetuity of his Church, and his promise stands
that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Let the Church prophesy as she ought. Let her
bear witness in the spirit and power of Elias, and the
same triumph that rewarded him shall reward her.
Ahab may fret, and Jezebel fume, but let God's pro-
phet speak the truth and dare the consequences.
This is the true safety of the Church. Not by com-
pounding with the world for a good share of creature
comforts, but by plainly telling the world what God
says about the world's ways, and the end to which
they lead, must the Church seek to subdue the world
and to tame its wrath.
In order to recruit the strength demanded for this
sort of duty, the Church needs, from time to time, the
help that comes from quiet retirement. The prophet
knew that from the top of Carmel he should best be
able to study the face of the sky and read its signs.
330 Elijah on Carmel.
and so, weary as he was, he made the toilsome as-
cent, and chose the still spot where he could watch
and pray. The penitential season upon w^hich we
have just entered gives us an opportunity to do the
same. What a mistaken sagacity is that which flat-
ters itself that it is too well informed to honor Lent,
too well conditioned spiritually to need Lent. It
may be that individual Christians here and there are
so strong in the faith, so earnest in devotion, so un-
tiring in good works that a time of special religious
effort is not even a help to them, far less a necessity j
but surely, when we look at the question in a large
way, and consider how many more there are among
God^s people who are w^eak in the faith, easily tempted
and easily beguiled, than there are of sturdy make,
we cannot help seeing that for the Church, taken as
a whole, such an observance as this time-honored
one of Lent is healthful and helpful and to the
point.
We have seen how much there is to learn from a
single incident in the life of a great man who w^as also
a good man and a true. Far from exhausting the
wealth of our subject, we have but turned the earthly
crust of it, and picked up a flake of gold here and
there. Dig deeper for your ownselves, my friends.
Turn to the best account whatever hint may have
struck you as suggestive, and you wdll find that ^^ that
Elijah on Carmel, 331
mj lord Elijah/^ for whose return his own coun-
trymen so long and so confidently looked, has act-
ually come again for you, and is speaking to you
afresh out of his own great heart and in his own frank
way the truth of Godc
SERMON XXIV.
THE LOVE OF CHRIST FOR ME.
" Thou Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me."—
Galatians ii. 20.
^^ Who loved me/' — the whole power of the Chris-
tian rv^iigion is shut up in these three words. No,—
I ought not to say ^^shut up in these three words," — the
whole power of the Christian religion flows out from
these three words. To realize that God made the
world fills one with wonder for his skill as architect
and builder ; to be told that God governs the world,
that He lays down the law, that from his lips come
the ^^ Thou shalt " and " Thou shalt not," this strikes
sharply home to the conscience, but the entrancing,
the heart-compelling thought is that God loves the
world, that He feels for those whom He has made
and whom He rules, that He has compassion and
tenderness and pity, as well as strength and intellect
and will. The heavens declare the glory of God and
the firmament showeth his handiwork, but it is for
3^2
TJie Love of Christ for Me. 333
man to say, " I will mention the loving kindness of
the Lord j his mercy endureth forever."
The great end and aim of what we call the Gospel
is to persuade us that God does love us, and to-day,
Good Friday, we are invited to believe this, sitting
at the foot of the cross. But there is more than this
to be said. The text is not a general statement that
in a large, comprehensive way the heavenly Father
loves the human race. Deists, Theists and Mohamme-
dans may grant you as much as that. No, the text is
the affirmation, on the part of one single person, that
Jesus Christ loved him. Who was this one single
person ? A great deal hinges upon that point. Who
was it ? Was it one of the twelve disciples, those
daily companions of our Lord in his journeyings up
and down the Holy Land ? Was it one of ^^the multi-
tude,'^ so called, that large body of uncertain follow-
ers, who sometimes were about Christ in his minis-
try, and again were not ? Was it any one of those
who had cherished a secret interest in the words and
works of Jesus, like Nicodemus; or of those who had
given Him social recognition and the welcome of hos-
pitality, while yet withholding actual discipleship, like
Simon the Pharisee % Or, was it one who had owed
Christ gratitude for some signal act of blessing, like
Lazarus ? Or especially was it He whom some iden-
tify, with Lazarus, the young man who had great pos-
334 The Love of Christ for Me.
sessions, and of whom it is distinctly said that when
Jesus saw him He loved him I If it were any one
of these we shoidd he able to see at once a certain
natural reasonableness, so to speak, in such a man^s
saying that Christ had loved him. Jesus did, as we
know, love the disciple John with a peculiar tender-
ness. Was it John, then, who said this thing? Jesus
loved Martha and her sister Mary. Was it either
Martha or Mary who said it ? No, it was no one of any
of these. Who then was it ? It was a man who had
never seen Jesus Christ at all in the body, and whose
knowledge of Him had come long after the Ascension
day which closed the visible ministry of the Son of
Mary on the earth. It was St. Paul. Never, except
in sudden rapture on the road to Damascus, has Paul
seen Jesus, yet this is the way in w^hich he speaks :
" I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet
not I, but Christ liveth in one, and the life which I
now life in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of
God who loved me and gave Himself for me."
Clearly, on this man's lips, the words ''■ who loved
me " must have had another and a profounder mean-
ing than that which they might have carried with
them had they been spoken by any one who had
known Jesus and been loved by Him while He was
still living out
"the sinless years
That breathed beneath the Syrian blie."
The Love of Christ for Me, 335
Let it be our aim to find out, if we may, what that
other and deeper meaning was.
First, try the words upon the supposition that Jesus
Christ was simply a preacher of righteousness, like
many who had gone before and many who since
have followed Him, driven to martyrdom by the re-
vengeful hatred of the men whose iniquities he had
exposed. This is to-day a somewhat widely accepted
interpretation of Christ's life and work. He was a
pure and holy man of God, they tell us, and because
He was pure and holy, and sought to make others so,
his reward was naturally and inevitably the cross.
He sufi'ered because he was true to principle, and all
who will be true to principle must, in some sense and
in some measure, suffer too. Thus they lay the stress
wholly on the compidsion of circumstances, and the
malice of the persecutors : seeming to forget entirely
that other side of the subject brought out by such
sayings of our Lord as this, for instance, when He is
speaking of his life : " No man taketh it from me. I
have power to lay it down, and I have power to take
it again, '' and still more completely to ignore the
thought emphasized by Simon Peter, in his famous
sermon at Pentecost : ^^ Him being delivered by the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God ye
have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and
slain."
336 The Love of Christ for Me.
But it does not enter into mj purpose to fol-
low out this controversial line of thought. It would
lead us into paths, which there is no special call to
visit on Good Friday. All I desire to have you do is
to note in passing how utterly any such supposition
as the one I have mentioned, empties the words of
the text of meaning. If Christ was a martyred pro-
phet, and no more, how could it possibly be said of Him
that He had loved Paul, a man unknown to Him by
face 5 nay, so loved him as to be willing to give up his
very life for his sake, — ^^Who loved me, and gave Him-
self for me f those are the words. Select any other
famous sufferer for the truth's sake you will and put
him in Christ's place. Take Stephen, first and
greatest of the Christian martyrs, and imagine St.
Paul saying of him, — '^ who loved me and gave him-
self for me." The reasoning is all the stronger be-
cause in this particular instance there was a personal
relation between the two men named. Stephen had
prayed for his murderers, of whom Paul was one, and
we may therefore conjure up a far-fetched sense in
which it might be said by Paul of Stephen, '^ He loved
me and gave himself for me" ; that is to say, he prayed
for me as I stood by, and by his own willingness to
forgive showed that he loved me. But, if even with
the name of Stephen substituted for that of Christ,
the saying becomes obscure, and wears an undeniable
TJie Love of Christ for Me. 337
look of artificiality, much more would it do so
were we to insert that of any one of the long
list of martyrs who died before St. Paul's day,
from righteous Abel down to Zach arias, son of
Barachias, whom they slew between the temple
and the altar.
But let us try the words upon another supposition
wholly different from that of merely human martyr-
dom. Let us try them upon the supposition that
Jesus Christ was not simply a son of God, but was
that Son of God ^^ who for us men and for our salvation
came down from heaven " — yes. One who knowingly,
consciously, voluntarily and of set purpose and re-
solve, left the light and joy and gladness of that glory
which He had with the Father, in order that He might
enter into and share the dim and struggling life men
are living here upon the earth. His own words cer-
tainly invite us to such a supposition. He does not
speak of Himself as one who began life here, as others
begin it, from the beginning. The consciousness of
a memorable past seems to be always lying in the
background of his mind. He is the one w^ho alone
of all is to be recognized as having come down from
heaven. The line of lineage through Mary runs back
along the earth's surface, as we may say, to the first
man *, but there is another line, a vertical line, a line
that does not touch earth at all, or touches it but for
338 The Love of Christ for Me.
the moment in which it starts upon its journey to the
land beyond the stars.
'^ I am fromabove," '' for this cause came I into the
world/' ^^I know whence I came." The only way to
wholly humanize sayings like these, to make out that
He who said them was mortal like ourselves, and bent
simply on illustrating powers and traits common to
us all as men, is to assume pre-existence in some
former life as having been the condition of the
entire human race. So understood, Christ would
be teaching from his own experience what is
true of all of us. There are times when the mind
is tempted to turn that way under pressure of the
difficulties that beset it. To an eye that looks with
habitual despondency at the world as a world lying in
wickedness, it sometimes does seem as if the earth
might be a sort of penal colony among the moving
spheres of which the un. 7crse is full — a spot, ordina-
rily the abode of outcasts, but one to which, now and
then, there comes, out of pity for our wretchedness
and mean estate, some sweet, gentle, holy spirit,
willing to take flesh and dwell among us, that we may
be lifted up and blessed. We have known such, all
of ud. Short lives full of power and beauty while
they lasted, they have seemed indeed as if they were
but episodes in an experience begun elsewhere and
long ago. Angel children, they light up earthly
The Love of Christ for Me, 339
homes for a little, and then take their flight. But
this is Platonism, not Christianity^ and I mention it as
a dream not as a truth. The very fact that Christ
draws so sharp a line of distinction as He habitually
does between Himself and those to whom He speaks
is evidence that we are not to receive what He says
of his own origin as being in any sense a finger-post
to point us to our own. He never addresses any one
else, no, not even those nearest and most precious to
Him, as having been with the Father before the world
was. What is there in common between me and
thee. He says to the ^' highly favored among women."
He never gives the slightest hint to lead us to suppose
that we were conscious spirits elsewhere before enter-
ing into the earth life. The whole drift of his discourse
is in the other direction. We must be born again.
He teaches, before we can so much as see that beatific
state out of which He with plan and purpose and in-
tention came.
Now we are in a position to try to apprehend,
though we never may hope to reach, a point where we
can wholly comprehend what is meant when Paul
speaks of Jesus Christ the Saviour as one who loved
him and gave Himself for him. The intense bril-
liancy of the thought is such tbat the eye is almost
blinded in the very effort to look straight at it, for it
is nothing less than this, that in the infinite heart of
340 The Love of Christ for Me,
Christ the personality of Paul had a distinct, deter-
mined place, and that the love was such that, had
there had been no other child of man existing, Christ
would have died for Paul. Waive for a moment the
point whether such a thing is conceivable or not,
waive that point and believe the statement to be true.
Do you wonder at PauPs marvellous life ? Are his
willingness to suffer and his willingness to toil any
longer a matter of surprise ? Do the watchings and
the journeyings, the stripes and imprisonments,
the perils by robbers and the perils by the heathen,
the thorn in the flesh, the shipwreck, nay, the final
martyrdom, do any of these things seem in the least
degree mysterious or strange ? Ought he not to
have been willing to bear all this, yes, and ten thou-
sand times more than this, if he believed that saying
to be true which we, for the moment, have agreed to
consider true ? Now, as a matter of fact, Paul did be-
lieve that saying to be true. Hence the power his
single life has had to sway the fortunes of the world.
Supposing you or I could sing with a perfect heart,
and out of an absolute conviction of its entire truth,
that line of Anne Steele's hymn which is a paraphrase
of our text, '^ The Saviour died for me," think you
there would not be other and better results from our
lives also than, as it is, are likely to come forth from
them?
Tlie Love of Christ for Me, 341
Two difficulties, supposed to be insurmountable,
are alleged to stand in the way of our accepting such
teaching as this. Both of the difficulties are difficul-
ties of faith. One is the incredibility of Christ^s
having such a foreknowledge as would enable Him to
single out one or another soul among the millions
upon millions destined to come into existence ; the
other is the incapacity of any human heart to appre-
ciate, and far more its incapacity to deserve, a love
so great. Christ could not have first loved Paul as
Paul supposed. Paul was not worthy of such hve.
These are the objections more briefly put. Let us
look at them..
As to the difficulty of believing that He, the
only-begotten of his Father before all worlds, could
know in advance and love in advance every one
of the myriad conscious souls which were to make
up the complete number of the human race, this
is to be said, that as a difficulty it is scarcely
greater than that of believing in God's power and
willingness to hold intercourse with the souls now
living, among whom we count ourselves. And yet this
last is a point of faith generally accepted. The
whole theory of prayer rests upon it, yes, and belief
in a judgment. He is Judge because Searcher of
hearts. He must be a rash man who will undertake
to lay down with accuracy the things that are impos-
342 The Love of Christ for Me,
sible with God. Equally rash is the attempt, without
the aid of revelation, to lay down the things that are
possible with God. And but for Christ's own words
about knowing his sheep severally and individually,
and but for such words as these of the text, we might
well hesitate to suppose that such a marvellous inter-
pretation of the saying " who loved me " could possi-
bly be true. And yet there are analogies and
resemblances in the natural world that ought to soften
at least the hard surface of our incredulity. The
discoveries of the last forty years in the realm of
light, and sound, and motion have startled even the
most sedate minds. Undreamed-of possibilities of
communication between mind and mind have been
translated into plain everyday fact, and things are
going on all around us, in the common intercourse of
life, which would have seemed to the men of a cen-
tury ago nothing short of supernatural. Now may
it not be that in the spiritual sphere, in that atmos-
phere where love and piety, penitence, and joy, and
gratitude move, there are similar marvels which have
not yet begmi to be understood ? May there not be
possibilities, that is to say, in the realm of feeling
and of pure thought answering to these delicate ad-
justments and far-reaching combinations of physical
forces, which have lately been opened to our sight ?
We say it is inconceivable that Christ in lev-
TJie Love of Christ for Me, 343
ing the whole family of men well enough to come
here and die for them, could possibly have singled
out Paul and loved him. Certainly it is beyond the
power of our minds and hearts to understand how it
could have been, but there is nothing to forbid faith's
rejoicing in the belief that even so it' was.
A microscopic photograph shows us upon a surface
no larger than a pin's head the faces of all the most
famous men that have overlived. Now the number of
the human race — all who have lived, all who are living,
all who are to live till the end comes — is limited. It
is a number the very thought of which baffles the
imagination, but still it is a finite number.
Push back the beginning of human life upon the
earth as far as the most exacting of the maintainors
of the antiquity of man would have you do, and push
forward the date of the expiration of our lease of this
planet as far into the future as the astronomers will
allow, and still the number of our race is limited.
In all probability that number could be written out,
if it were known to us, in the notation we ordinarily
employ. We have figures large enough to express
it. Shall we then lay it down as an impossibility
that every separate personality among these millions
upon millions can be imaged on the heart of Christ ?
Again I say he must needs be a rash man who would
venture so to do.
344 The Love of Christ for Me,
But I pointed out that there were two objections to
this doctrine of the text. The first is this one of the
supposed inconceivability of the thing.
In addition to this^ it is urged that even if the
thought were for an instant admissible^ it would still
be too much to ask us to believe that any one soul
among so many can be worth so costly a love.
^* Who loved me and gave Himself for me ^^ are the
words. Now, is it not the grossest vanity, so the objec-
tion runs, for one to suppose that his poor petty per-
sonality can be worth so much to the eternal Son of
God? There may be natures so lofty, minds so
magnificently endowed, hearts so rich in the ability
to return love, and so capacious for receiving it, that
for such elect and royal ones an incarnate Christ
might even dare to die 5 but can we, without an
audaciousness that amounts to spiritual efirontery,
imagine such a thing in the case of our own poor,
weak, starveling souls f Is it to be supposed for a
moment that one of us, still more that every one of
us, could, under any circumstances, dare to say, " The
Saviour died for me ? " And yet, dear friends, this,
even this, marvellous and incredible as it may seem,
is the doctrine of redemption through Jesus Christ.
This is the great thought for which Good Friday
stands. This is the secret meaning of the cross.
And why, after all, why should we not believe,
The Love of Christ for Me, 345
and believe easily ^ that the soul has this inestimable
value ? We look up at the starry skies at night,
and, if we are in a meditative mood, the thought of
the power which holds the heavenly bodies in their
places, and of the far-reaching intelligence that can
call them all by their names, is almost sure to suggest
itself for a moment, if no more. Moreover, it does
not strike us as a thing at all strange (granting the
fact of a Creator) that He should care for objects so
magnificent as those great golden spheres. These,
we say to ourselves, these rolling worlds are worthy in
their grandeur of the supporting hand that guides them
continually through space, — but man, what is man ?
Ah, there is where we make our blunder, in ask-
ing that question so contemptuously. What is man ?
He is a creature of God more worthy of our wonder
and better deserving of survival than all those lights,
whether the lesser or the greater, that hang in the
firmament of the heavens. Yes, it is deeply true that
He who builded the house is greater than the house,
and if it be, as Christians hold, that in the soul of
man the image of Him who built the house, though
blurred and darkened, still survives, then must it be
that such sold also is greater than the house. Chris-
tian believers are sometimes charged with not ap-
preciating the grandeur of the natural world, not
taking sufficiently into accoimt the illimitable times
346 Tlie Love of Christ for Me,
and spaces of the universe, too much absorbed the
while in their care for what they call spirikial inter-
ests. Oh no, it is not that, — Christian believers have
no wish to dwarf or disparage the great creative
triumphs of the right hand of the Most High ; but
what they are aiming at is to vindicate for the heav-
enly Father a higher honor than that of the me-
chanic and the designer. They are jealous for his
great name of '•' Holy.'^ What a fine scorn of any
such unworthy and partial conception of the Almighty
as that which sees in Him merely the artificer, runs
through the writings of the Hebrew prophets, and
how well the spirit of their proud utterances breathes
in the Christian poet^s boast,
" The stars are but the shining dust
Of my divine abode."
So then, let us not fear to take to ourselves the
full comfort of the text, marvellous as it is, incredible
as it seems to be. And let us take it to ourselves
not collectively and in the mass, but severally and
individually. This thought is the very thing we
need, to give courage to the flagging will, comfort to
the faint and failing heart. I am to think of Him
who loved me, who loved me unto death. Yes,
that is the core and essence of the Gospeh That
is the inscription written on the cross for you and
The Love of Christ for Me. 347
me. That is the message of Good Friday. If this
day were merely the commemoration of the darkest
crime that stains the page of history, ^' Good" would
be the very last epithet we should dream of coup-
ling with it. But it is not the crime that we com-
memorate, or rather it is not that which we chiefly
have in mind. We do indeed recall, and recall with
shame, the wickedness that brought the Saviour to
the cross, and we confess our own complicity with the
wickedness in just so far as we have in us the temper
and disposition which prevailed on that guilty day.
But this is not the main thought. The main thought
centres in the sacrifice 5 and that was not made by
those who plied the scourge and platted the thorns,
and drove the nails, not by them in any sense, but
by Him who said, '' Lo I come to do thy will, O God,''
by Him who having power either to save His life
or lose it, deliberately chose, out of love for us, to lose
it, rather than to save it. And so we say Good
Friday.
SERMON XXV.
HOW ARE THE DEAD RAISED UP ?
*' But some man will say^ How are the dead raised up ? and with
what body do they come ?
" Thou fool ^ that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die.'^
— I Corinthians xv. 35-36,
This text invites to an inquiry as difficult as it is
fascinating 5 as fascinating as it is difficult. St. Paul
would have us join him in a meditation upon the
Christian doctrine of resurrection. He foresees that
to touch the question at all means controversy. He
knows perfectly well that he cannot advance a step
without encountering criticism. The moment he
opens his lips to teach, '^ some man " will say, How
are the dead raised up !
Of course '^ some man ^' will say it. It is impossi-
ble to make such affirmations as that the dead shall
rise, and not start in people's minds the inevitable
How? and When? and Why? and Where?
Our minds are so fashioned that these interroga^
tives insist upon making themselves heard, St=
348
Hoiv are the Bead Raised Up f 349
Paul puts it mildly with his "some man." Had
he said, " Every man who thinks must sooner or later
confront these questions," he would not have been
overstating his point. The matter is one of univer-
sal interest, for we must all die, and who is there who
can afford to be indifferent to the question, What is
coming next ?
Disembodied the soul departs out of this world, —
that is clear. Is it destined to be again embodied,
and if yes, then with what body will it come ? Do
not be discouraged by the apparent rebuke with
which St. Paid, at the very outset, meets his supposed
questioner. He does not say to you and me, " Thou
fool," in any such tone or sense as brings him under
the condemnation Christ visits upon the careless users
of that phrase. We need not be at all afraid that he
has forgotten the Sermon on the ]\Iount. He is sim-
ply expostulating with us, that is all; gently chiding
our slowness of heart, and doing it, moreover, in the
very same phrase Christ had Himself employed on
Easter afternoon, on the way to Emmaus, while the
two whose eyes were holden that they should not
know Him walked with Him and were sad. There
Was affection in the very voice that called them
" Foolso" So here, it is pity rather than rebuke that
lurks under the word. Foolish body, foolish crea-
ture, silly child, not to discern what even Nature
350 How are the Dead Baised Up f
might suggest, let alone prophecy, if you would only
consider attentively her ways. How is it with the
seed thou sowest ? Must not that also die if out of it
is to come forth the rose, the violet or the stalk of
wheat ? In fact, so far from reproaching us with our
wish to look intelligently into the subject, St. Paul
seems bent on urging us to this very course, for he
at once launches out upon a reasoning process which
fills one of the longest chapters of the New Testament.
Upon a few of the more salient points of his expo-
sition I desire to fix your thoughts to-day. If we
cannot arrive at perfectly lucid conclusions, we may,
by God^s blessing, find that our minds have become,
at least, measurably the clearer for making the at-
tempt. There are subjects upon which absolutely
white light cannot, from the nature of the case, be
thrown, but with respect to which, nevertheless, one
feels that twilight is better than no light. To be able
to know only in part is a disappointment to the stu-
dent; to be able to prophesy only in part is a morti-
fication to the seer ; but neither student nor seer will,
if he be wise, let himself be piqued into throwing
away what little he may happen to have.
I observe then, as a point of foremost importance,
that the doctrine of resurrection illustrated in act by
Jesus Christ, and taught in words by Paul, is an en-
tirely different thing from the philosophical tenet of
How are the Bead Baised Up f 351
the immortality of the soul. Put alongside of this
lesson to the Corinthians, that utterance said to have
been addressed by the Emperor Hadrian to his own
departing soul, and paraphrased by Pope in the lines,
now happily banished from our hymn book, begin-
ning
*' Vital spark of heavenly flame,"
put the two, I say, in parallel columns and the contrast
between the notions they respectively represent will
become evident in a moment. As Paul looks at it,
mere disembodiment is of itself no blessing to the
soul. The metaphors of the prison-house and the cage,
out of which bird or captive, as the case may be, is to
be let loose, do not at all commend themselves to
him. He looks at man in his completeness. He sees
him to be a creature made up of body, soul and spirit,
and he says to himself, Surely it would be loss rather
gain, were man, in any other life, to find himself less
plentifully endowed than he is here. Why disinherit
him of a body in that world to come, seeing how
wonderfully, in the world that now is, the body has
been made tributary to the soul. A better organism,
to be sure, the soid may wisely covet, so often does
she find herself, as Lord Bacon beautifully puts it,
^' like a musician unable to utter himself upon an im-
perfect instrument," — a better organism she may well
desire; but why no organism at all 1
352 How are the Bead Baised Up f
Have any good influenceB, any helpful thoughts
reached and taken possession of your inmost self here
in this church this morning ? They have done so
by the aid of the body. These holy visitants have
reached you, if reached you they have, by the path-
way of the senses. By eye or ear they have entered
in and taken possession. The body in no sense
caused the influences, but the influences could not
have accomplished their errand had these bodily
gateways of the mind been barred. To be embodied
means for man equipment not imprisonment ; the
senses are the servants, not the jailers, of the soul.
Men in whose case the right relations of things
have been reversed, men, that is to say, who have
suffered themselves to become slaves to their senses,
these may not unnaturally hope that the severance oi
soul and body will mean for the real self a long un-
exercised liberty, but to the spiritually free there can
be no attractiveness in the thought of being unclothed
of flesh and blood, imless, indeed, there can be
coupled with it the further thought of being clothed
upon with an organism better than the one relin-
quished.
*' The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,"
is better than no house at all. There is nothing
cheerful in the expectation of our becoming ghostSo
How are the Dead Raised Up f 353
All this ought to be more easily credible to us
of the nineteenth than it could be to the men of the
first century. Modern research moving along lines
suggested by Jesus Christ has brought in far more just
conceptions of the value of the body than were enter-
tained under the old philosophies. A modern biolo-
gist is in a far better position to appreciate St.
Paid's reasoning upon this subject than was either
Stoic or Epicurean, on that memorable day when on
Mars^ Hill both schools united in laughing the Chris-
tian doctrine of resurrection to scorn. Juster views
about the relation between things material and things
immaterial prevail now than prevailed then.
Many there are, no doubt, who, in our day, have
cast away their faith in any life to come, holding it
to have been nothing better than an empty dream ;
but of those who still keep a firm grasp upon " the
blessed hope " there are comparatively few who like
to think about it as the old heathen poets thought
about it. To their eye the heavenly country was a
place of shadows ; to our Christian thinking it is the
place where the shadows are to flee away, in order
that the eternal realities may appear.
But if these things be so, why is it, you ask, that
so many who can say the earlier sentences of the
Creed with a good conscience and a firm lip, stumble
when they come to the words " I believe in the res-
354 How are the Bead Baised Up f
urrection of the bodj " ? Why is it I It is because
they have never faithfully studied this chapter in
Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, from which our
text comes 5 or, if they have studied it, have done so
under pre-possessions that have veiled for them the
plain meaning of the words. Is there no one here
whose thought rose up in flat contradiction, when I
said, just now, that modern research had made St.
PauFs teaching more easy of acceptance than it was
when first set forth ? Is there no one here who has
scrupled at this article of the Creed for the very
reason that he has supposed it to have been made un-
tenable by facts which the new physics, and the
new chemistry have unearthed and put beyond all
reach of contradiction ? I am quite sure that there
are many such. But precisely what is it, let me ask
them, that these sciences I just now named have
made incredible ? Is it the doctrine that in a future
life man will find himself an embodied creature ?
No, it cannot be that, for neither physics nor chem-
istry knows, or pretends to know, anything what-
ever about a state of existence other than that in
which we find ourselves to-day. Physics and chem-
istry, so far as they attempt to be prophetic of the
future, base all their predictions on the past. The
thing that has been is the thing that shall be, so far
as their calculations are concerned. As to what may
Hoiv are the Dead Raised Up f 355
come to pass under the conditions of a new heaven
and a new earth, they neither have, nor pretend to
have, anything to telL Their instruments of analysis
and measurement are all of them adjusted to the ex-
isting framework of things. '^ Ah, yes,'^ you answer,
^' very true, but the question what becomes of the
natural body when man dies ? is a question that be-
longs to the present order of things, and, with respect
to such a point as that, physics and chemistry do
have something to say, and something to which we,
in common honesty and fairness, are bound to listen ! '^
Well then, what have they to say ? What they have
to say is this, that our present knowledge of the
laws that govern ma,tter make the notion of a rehabili-
tation of the dead in the bodies relinquished at
the hour of death simply incredible. Well, sup-
pose we grant it, what then ? Has St. Paul been
silenced ? No, not silenced, I answer, only justified.
Name, if you can, the modern teacher who insists
more strenuously than St. Paul insists, that the body
laid in the ground is ^^not that body that shall be.'^
Name, if you can, the modern teacher who declares
in plainer terms than he that " flesh and blood," as
we know them, cannot inherit the kingdom of God.
Name, if you can, the modern teacher who seems
more thoroughly convinced than Paul that a natural
body is one thing, and a spiritual body another thing.
356 How are the Bead Baised Up f
It is St. Paul's illustration of the seed sown that
misleads the superficial student of his thought.
Rightly apprehended, that parable is full of help ;
carelessly interpreted it lands us in endless difficulty
and confusion. St. Paul, in this famous illustration,
is not comparing the burial of a dead man to the
planting of a seed. Those two processes are to the
natural eye so much alike that we can scarcely won-
der at the prevalence of the misconception. But
that it is a misconception is evident the moment we
stop to consider that we put a seed into the ground
for the very reason that it is alive, whereas we put a
dead body into the ground because it is no longer
alive. Nothing comes or can come of planting dead
seeds. St. Paul does his best to guard us against
the blundering interpretation of his parable, by mak-
ing the pronoun " thou " emphatic, as the revisers of
our English New Testament have been careful to
note. ^^ That which thou thyself sowest/' he says,
^^is not quickened except it die." What could be
plainer than the inference that in the case of human
death it is God who is the sower, not we ? God
plants a personality even as we plant a seed. Our
planting is done in the visible earth, his in the
land wholly out of sight. We plant a seed in
order that the germ hidden within its walls may
grow up into a better embodiment than it has now.
How are the Bead Raised Upl 357
Grod plants a soul, in soil hidden from our eyes, in
order that it also may find embodiment adequate and
fit.
Dear friends, lift up your eyes from graves. It
was not in the tomb, it was away from it, that the
risen Saviour showed Himself to Mary Magdalen.
Why seek ye the living among the dead ? The
Easter angel has been asking us that question for
well-nigh two thousand years, and we seem not to
have learned the full purport of it even yet.
The grave the place of resurrection ? God forbid
that such a thought should for a moment find lodg-
ment in any Christian mind. Why, some of earth^s
best and bravest have no graves, and never had.
Of others besides Moses, the servant of God, might
it be written that no man knoweth their sepulchre
unto this day. Where will Wiclif, morning-star of
the Keformation, rise from the dead ? They took
his poor body, or what was left of it, from the
grave ; they burned it to ashes, and threw the
ashes into the Avon ; the Avon bore them to the
Severn, and the Severn carried them to the sea.
Think you it happens thus with what God plants in
the seed-plot of eternal life? No; He has better
care for his elect than that. The soul is the essen-
tial thing. It is there that the true secret of personal
identity resides. We may safely trust God to give
358 Hoiv are the Dead Raised Up f
it a body as it shall please Him, and to every soul a
body rightly expressive of itself.
Does it follow that kindly care of the places where
the bodies of our dead are laid is superfluous or
blameworthy? Not at all. Even the cast-off gar-
ment of the soul has sanctity beyond all common
clay. There is little enough of poetry in life, and we
can ill afford to scoff at anything that may remain to
us of sentiment.
" ^Tis little, but it looks, in truth,
As if the quiet bones were blest
Amonjij familiar names to rest,
And in the places of his youth."
Therefore let us respect old usages and common
customs, and the former ways, but let us not make
Golgotha our temple, nor think of any local grave as
a place out of which life shall come. It was the
"image of the earthy " that there was laid. Look
elsewhere if you would catch a vision of the " image
of the heavenly. ^^
SERMON XXVI.
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE.
*' God is a spirit. . . .'' — ^JoHN iv. 24,
*' There is a spirit in man.'''' — ^JOB xxxii. 8.
Religion rests in the right adjustment of these two
primal truths. Practically we acknowledge this every
time we say the Creed. The opening sentence of that
august confession links together by the word ^' believe"
the spirit in man and the God who is a spirit. I^ a spir-
it, believe in God, a spirit, — this is the affirmation
which makes the starting point of Christian faith.
Without it worship would be meaningless and service
impossible. The spiritual life about which the Bible lias
so much to say is a life in which these two spirits,
the created and the increate, have part ; the one as
giver, the other as receiver. With regard to this
same spiritual life, its reality, its characteristics, its
possibilities, I want to talk with you this morning,
and I know not that we could have any better foun-
359
360 The Spiritual Life,
dation for our thoughts than is laid in these two say-
ings : ^^ God is a spirit/' and ^^ There is a spirit in
man."
The first great advantage of putting together
two such plain emphatic statements is that we are
taught to think of the spiritual life as a matter of fact,
not a matter of fancy. I apprehend that with a
good many people the words '^ spiritual" and ^' spir-
ituality " are pretty nearly equivalent to unreal and
unreality. Not that they would say so. Respect for
the feelings and prejudices of others might keep them
from doing that. But were they to speak out their
whole minds, they would confess to a rooted distrust
of all arguments that make appeal to a world unseen.
The point of first importance, therefore, is to bring
about a recognition by the spirit man of the spirit
God. Of course, there can be no spiritual life that
does not start from this as its initial point and spring.
To believe that God is, must ahvays be an indispen-
sable condition of finding and knowing Him. Ac-
cordingly we find in the Bible great stress laid on
the need of waking men out of that perilous sleep in
which they find themselves by nature, and rousing
them to a consciousness of the reality of God's exist-
ence and presence. It is not enough to assent in a
dull, uninterested way to the formal proposition :
There is a God. You may clear yourself from the
The Spiritual Life. 361
charge of atheism by saying that ; but something more
is needed before you can be said to be truly awake to
the reality taught in the words, " God is a spirit.''
The feelings must somehow be reached, the heart
must be touched, before you can fairly be said to have
your eyes open to the fact that God is. The atmos-
phere is just as much a reality in a calm as in a storm.
But it is doubtful whether men would ever have
even surmised the existence of the air if nothing had
ever occurred to stir it from the beginning of the
world till now. It is commonly the touch of God's
hand, that first changes sleepy acquiescence in the fact
of his existence into a vivid appreciation of his
nearness. Sometimes only a gentle touch is needed,
sometimes a heavy blow. But whether it be the one
or the other, let a man when he feels it give thanks.
He has been roused out of a deadly slumber, a sort of
life has been made possible for him which before was
not possible.
The next step, or stage, of the spiritual life is rec-
onciliation. The spirit which is in man, made alive
to the reality of the God who is a spirit, has not of
necessity any love for the newly discovered compan-
ion. I had thought myself alone. I am startled to
find that I am not alone. But this being who
has broken in upon my solitude may be friend
or foe, — how can I tell? You see the point of
362 The Spiritual Life.
the remark with which we set out, that religion
rests in the right adjustment between the two
truths set forth in the two texts, or rather be-
tween the two spirits there described. Two men
meet in a narrow path. Which shall yield ! Whose is
the right of way f And so repeatedly, in the simple
language of the earlier books of Scripture, God is rep-
resented as meeting men. He met Abraham, He met
Jacob. He stopped them ; He compelled negotiation ;
He insisted upon an understanding. Even so He
meets men now. He stands directly in their way.
He blocks the path. How vividly Job phrases it —
*^ He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass.''
Thus God forces us to terms, He compels us to face
the question whether we will live at variance with
Him or in peace. The histoiy of heathendom is the
history of men's attempts to make their own terms
with God, according to the mistaken dictates of the
untaught heart. The glory and the blessing of the
Christian faith are that it begins at the other end,
and gives us God's own terms of reconciliation. The
Gospel has been beautifully called the story of our
Father's love, and its power lies in this, that it offers
man a reconciliation, instead of demanding that he
find one for himself. When God and man meet,
they are going in opposite directions. The Father says,
*^ Child, turn and go with me." If the answer be a
The Spiritual Life. 363
sullen ^' No^ go thou thj way, and I will keep to
mine/' that is what the Bible calls impenitence. If,
on the other hand, the answer be, even after more or
less of hesitation, '^ Even so. Father, I turn and go
with thee,'' that is what the Bible calls conversion, for
conversion means neither more nor less than being
turned about. So long as the spirit which is in man
insists upon keeping a line of its own, without regard
to whether that line runs counter to the motions of the
Holy Ghost, just so long there will be discontent and
unhappiness. The ways of self-will all incline to death,
but the path of the just is as the shining light that
shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
And here is where one of the most important func-
tions of the Christian ministry comes in. The true
view of the ministry is that which makes the priest the
helper of his fellow-men in their times of spiritual
need. He is not their substitute, not an official ap-
pointed to take the duty of being religious off thier
hands for them ; he is their helper, their guide, their
friend; to him is committed the ministry of reconcilia-
tion ; he is the ambassador of Christ, charged with the
good tidings of God's forgiving love. It is in the fulfil-
ment of this function that I am talking with you now
about the meaning of conversion. What other oppor-
tunity have I to do it ? It is one of the essentials of
the spiritual life that it should rest upon this fact of
364 The Spiritual Life,
reconciliation to God. There can be no spiritual life
on any other basis. Men may diiFer^ and differ
widely about the ways and means of reconciliation^
but all who believe that the Spirit of God and the
spirit of man are distinct personalities will agree
that, between these two spirits there must be an
understanding before there can be peace, and all will
agree further that if there be a diiFerence of purpose,
God's purpose looking one way and man's purpose
looking another, it is the created not the Creator
Spirit that must yield. Can two walk together ex-
cept they be agreed ?
Passing now what we may call the threshold of the
spiritual life, we come to the life itself. We have
seen what arc the conditions precedent of the spirit-
ual life, we have seen how there must be first a rec-
ognition of God, and then a reconciliation with Him,
before there can be any entrance upon even the
beginnings of godliness ; let us next ask what are the
characteristics of that life when once begun ? Upon
this point I purpose dwelling more fully than upon
either of the others. What is spirituality of charac-
ter ? How are we to knew it by sight ? How may
it be nourished ? In answering these questions we
are not left without guidance, and guidance we
greatly need, for spirituality is a tiling that has its
counterfeits. The true criteria of the spiritual life
The Spiritual Life, 365
are to be looked for in those passages of Holy Scrip-
ture in which the fruits of the Spirit are enumerated.
I shall refer to these again presently, but meanwhile
let us consider for a few moments what spirituality
of character is not. There are, as I just now re-
minded you, phases of character which sometimes
pass for spirituality, but which do not really deserve
that name, nay, more which serve to bring that name
into disrespect. Professing no interest whatever in
the affairs of this world, utter indifference to the
great movements that are going on among men, the
strifes of nations, the conflicts of churches, the
migrations of races, the growths of new modes of
thought, the progress of learning, I say indifference
to all these things is sometimes thought to be a sign
of spirituality of character, I have known of religious
persons who made it a point of conscience not to keep
themselves informed upon the current affairs of the
day, for fear of losing spirituality. But surely this
is a misconception of the nature of the spiritual life.
It is hard to think of St. Paul, for instance, as know-
ing nothing and caring nothing for what was going
on in the Roman Empire in his day. His letters are
full of indications that he was awake to the active
interests of those times. There is nothing of the tone
of the hermit in his words. His eye seems to have
been always on the watch for illustrations of his doc-
366 TJir Spiritual Life.
trine, and he drew them from the familiar objects of
every-daj life. He is, indeed, very earnest to mark
a sharp line between the Christian and the heathen
ways of living, but that his " Come out from among
them, and be ye separate," does not mean what it has
sometimes been thought to mean, is plain from his
arguing in one place against a certain course, on the
ground that if those to whom he is writing were to
take it, then they must needs " go out of the world."
Nay, let us listen to St. Paul's Master. " I pray
not," He says, interceding for the little flock He is
so soon to leave, " I pray not that Thou wouldst take
them out of the world." You remember, too, how
He makes it a ground of accusation against some of
the more religious of that day that they did not dis-
cern the signs of the times. Now the signs of the
times cannot be discerned unless they are studietl,
and they cannot be studied by those who shut their
eyes to them. Hence we are not to suppose that in-
difference to things present and visible is essential
to spirituality in a man. Fervency of spirit may
consist with diligence in business, and if we do not
see the two things frequently combined, that is not
because they cannot be combined ; there is no neces-
sary want of harmony between them. The depth of
our interest in things unseen is not to be accurately
gauged by our indifference to things seen.
The Spiritual Life, 367
Again, spirituality of character does not consist in
the habitual use of a stated religious vocabulary.
We are not to suppose that only those are truly spir-
itually minded who are accustomed to express them-
selves in a phraseology peculiar to this or that school
of devotional thought. Spirituality is not a thing
that can be tied to any one form of words or set of
expressions. One is struck with this, I think, in
reading the best books of devotion. Take such
widely contrasted authors as Thomas a Kempis,
Jonathan Edwards, and Frederick Robertson. Who
will deny that each one of these three men was sin-
gularly conspicuous for this very characteristic, spirit-
uality, and yet in what diverse phraseology they
express themselves. No, spirituality is to a largo
extent independent of the moulds into which a man's
thought has been cast. We must resist the tempta-
tion to associate that high trait solely with the way
of speaking about religious truth in which we were
brought up and to which we have been accustomed. As
members of a reformed church, for instance, we hold
Rome to be in error, but it would be a violence done
to reason as well as to charity, were we to argue that
therefore among Romanists it would be vain to look
for spirituality. As churchmen, we judge the Puritan
theory of ecclesiastical polity to be founded upon a
mistake, but he must have read the history of Eng-
368 The Spiritual Life.
land and of New England with sadly blinded eyes,
who has failed to discern the lofty spirituality by
which many of the Puritan leaders were distin-
guished. No, we cannot, by shutting any doors of
prejudice, confine within a single room the fragrance
which will, in spite of us, fill the whole house.
Spirituality may be more fostered and better nour-
ished by one administration of Christianity than by
another, but in itself spirituality is a possession that
attaches to persons, not to systems ; it is not to be ade-
quately tested by phrases and catch-words, whether
they be those of the sacramental or the evangelical
theology. Let us learn to judge men by what they
are at heart, instead of pre-judging them by signs
that are wholly superficial. It is true that by our
words we are to be justified and by our words con-
demned, but then that Judge is to be one who has
the power, which we have not, of going behind the
words, and seeing precisely what it is in the speaker's
mind for which they stand. The Lord weigheth the
spirits.
Once more, spirituality is not to be accurately
measui^ed by severity of disposition. Sternness is
not a necessary accompaniment of sanctity. It is,
indeed, hard to associate boisterousness and joviality
with the spiritual mind, but cheerfulness, surely, and
a sunny temper are perfectly compatible with it.
The Sjnritual Life. 369
The distinctions of popular speech are seldom mean-
ingless, and the fact that we have the two words,
sanctity and sanctimony, would seem to be evidence
that there is a difference between the two things.
Sanctimony is that aping of sanctity which counts
upon a show of austereness to serve as the cloak of
its disguise. Severity of disposition may be allied
with profound spirituality, but we are not to suppose
that it is essential to the being of it.
What then are the characteristics of the truly
spiritual mind ? We have dwelt long enough on the
negative side ; it is time to turn to the positive. If
indifference to things outward and visible be no test,
if the use of a special phraseology be no test, if
severity of manner, the stern, unyielding temper be
no test, where are we to look for criteria, how are we to
distinguish between the true coin and the counterfeit ?
Suppose we make genuine spirituality to lie
in heartfelt reverence towards God, and consistent
unselfishness in our dealings with our fellow-men.
By reverence towards God I mean that habitual
sense of the near presence of the Father of spirits,
which seems so to accompany some men as to throw
a sort of atmosphere about them, the influence of
which we feel the moment we enter it. There are
precious stones, the amethyst is one, in which the
coloring matter is so delicate that the most careful
370 The Spiritual Life.
chemical analysis fails to ascertain either the quality
or the quantity of it. And yet this subtle, impalpa-
ble something, by its presence there in the crystal,
makes all the difference between worthlessness and
worth. So it is with this characteristic we are talk-
ing about. We may not be able to say what it is
about a reverential man that makes him seem to us
to carry about with him the presence and some-
thing of the power of God 5 it is not wholly in his
words, it is not wholly in his expression of counte-
nance, it is not wdiolly in any one thing that he does;
but somehow it is there, and we feel it. What is the
secret of acquiring this unearthly power ? It lies, so
those who have the best right to say tell us, it lies
in being much with God, in holding frequent com-
munion with Him. We cannot be a great deal in
the presence of a fellow creature without catching un-
consciously more or less of his ^^ tone." Even so, to
be often holding intercourse with Him who is a
Spirit must impart to the spirit which is in man a
something not its own.
We need in our religion more of this element of
reverence. It cannot be that we should talk so flip-
pantly as we are wont to do of the Most High God,
it cannot be that we should use so lightly his name,
his word, his worship, if we were, as we ought to
be, alive to his presence, conscious of his continual
The Spiritual Life. 371
judgment. We shall find, I think, if we study the
characters of the holy men I just now named and
of other men like them, that whatever their differ-
ences of theological belief, they all possessed in
common this intense consciousness of God's nearness,
this habitual reverence for Him as a present Sover-
eign. If we would acquire spirituality it behooves
us to remember to look up.
But not up, only, we must look around as well.
God has knit us together in the fellowship of a com-
mon humanity, and to forget one another in our en-
deavors after spiritual achievement is hopelessly to
defeat our own object. Hence I made unselfishness
the second characteristic of the genuine spirituality.
It is easy to make a luxury of religion, to pursue it
as a fine art, but to carry it into our homes, to make
it serve us in the thousand and one vexations and
temptations that spring out of our daily intercourse
with the world is not so easy. But if we look care-
fully at that bright catalogue of graces in which St.
Paul enumerates the fruits of the Spirit, we shall find
that they are all of them reducible under the one
common head of unselfishness.
It is by dint of the homely virtues, and through
their patient exercise among inconspicuous scenes,
that saintly lives are fashioned. When the end
comes, we shall be surprised to find how small a frac-
372 The Spiritual Life,
tion of the thousands of thousands are persons of
whom we ever heard here in the earthly life. God
grant that before the end comes we may have ac-
quired the spiritual mind. God grant that, having
gathered here the first-fruits of the Spirit, we may
enter there upon " the happy autumn fields," and
rejoice according to the joy in harvest.
SERMON XXVII.
DEVOTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE
TRINITY.
«* Holy^ holy, holy. Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, ana is
to come.'" — Rev. iv, 8.
These are the words under which the doctrine of
the Trinity lends itself to the uses of worship. We
distinguish, or ought to distinguish, between the de-
votional and the theological way of putting things in
religion. The one method appeals to the mind, the
other to the feelings, or to the mind through the feel-
ings. The relation between the two is much the same
as that which lies between anatomy as a science and
figure-painting as an art. If the picture of an athlete
is to impress us with a sense of power there must be
a good firm skeleton underneath the flesh-tints, but
for art purposes the skeleton must be concealed. So
with the great doctrinal truths of religion. It is im-
portant that they be distinctly apprehended and
firmly held, but as worshippers we like to see them
373
374 Devotional Aspects of the Trinity Doctrine.
clothed upon with language that appeals to the affec-
tions.
I shall endeavor, this morning, after brushing
away a few of the popular misconceptions connected
with the subject, to fix your attention on such
aspects of the doctrine as pre-eminently commend it
to the heart.
That the doctrine easily admits of misrepresenta-
tion we all know. The whiter the marble, the more
easily can you deface it with a smirch ; and it is so
with the holiest mysteries of religion ; just because
they are the holiest, they are also the ones most open
to the surface damage which rough hands have it in
their power to inflict. But the ancient statues which
now and then are lifted from the bed of the Tiber,
dripping with mud and ooze, have lost nothing of
their faultlessness of form by their long burial, and
the eternal truths of Grod, covered as they may be for
a season with the temporary blemishes for which
controversy is responsible, fail not, in the end, of the
fair judgment which is their due. The harm done to
the outside is of little consequence, so long as the
proportions and general symmetry remain unhurt.
Avoiding as far as possible the technical phrases
of theology, we may define the Churches object in
laying so much stress as she does upon the doctrine
of Trinity in Unity to be the preservation of the
Devotional Aspects of the Trinity Doctrine. 375
Christian name of God. To every proper name a
certain measure of sanctity attaches. A proper
name is the vocal image, the uttered picture of a
person, and in so far as the person is respectable, the
name is to be respected. We notice this in the
common intercourse of life ; the names of those we
honor and love must not be slightingly used. When
we hear a friend spoken of with contempt, we resent
it only less vehemently than if we saw some insult
put upon his person. He has not been himself in-
jured in the flesh, but this shadowy image, this in-
visible but most real presence, his name, has suffered
hurt, is injured. Everybody now present has names
in his memory which it would be impossible for him
to hear coupled with words of accusation or dispar-
agement without its rousing in him feelings either of
intense sadness, if he knew the epithets to be justly
applied, or else of a proper indignation, if he knew
them to be slanderous. Of so much moment may be
a name, and that the name only of a fellow mortal.
But while there is for every man a little group of names
for which he feels himself, as we may say, personally
responsible, the names of his near kindred, the names
of his more intimate friends, the names of the heroes,
whether of history or fiction, after whose lives he seeks
in some measure to pattern his own, it is noticeable
that no two of these brief catalogues are precisely
376 Devotional Aspects of the Trinity Doctrine.
alike. To many of tlie names on your list your
neighbor is utterly indifferent ; and many of the
names on his are, and can be, nothing to you. In-
stinctively men reach after some one name, that by
common consent, shall be allowed to stand at the
head of everybody's list, some name potent to
hold the allegiance of all alike. In a measure
and to a degree, this want is met by certain names
of human origin. In primitive forms of society the
strongest man, he who can shoot his arrow farthest,
or deal the heaviest blow with his axe, is the one in
whose name the magnetism centres ; under other
circumstances it is the hereditary monarch ; under
still others the successful statesman, the discoverer,
the poet, the orator — anybody, in short, who happens
te be the foremost representative man. But names
of this sort can, at best, only cover a limited area
with their influence. They sway the tribe, the clan,
the city or the nation, as the case may be, but not
the race, not all human kind. It remains for relig-
ion to supply the missing Name which is to weld us
all together in one common interest, by melting every
little irregularity of personal preference with the fer-
vent heat of adoration. And this, nothing less than
this, religion seeks to do when she names the name
of God. The charms and fascinations, the honors,
the loves and the reverences that attach to all
Devotional Aspects of the Trinity Doctrine. 377
the other names that anywhere are named, belong
supremely to this Name. We seem to see the thous-
ands and thousands of thousands who, in times past,
have made names for themselves, drawing near, in long
procession, to the throne, that they may kneel before
it with this simple word of worship on their lips,
" Hallowed be thy Name."
Now, if the case be as I have put it, if the hallowing
of one name be an act of such supreme importance, it
follows as necessary inference that we are in duty
bound to use our best endeavors to find out what this
name is. Who art thou. Lord? becomes at once the
pressing question.
To the eleven apostles the Name into which on
the Mount of the Ascension, they were bidden to go
and baptize the nations, must have come as a sur-
prise. Indeed it is difficult to imagine an utterance
that could more powerfully have stirred their curi-
osity. These apostles were men who had been
brought up in the religion of Moses. The one pri-
mary truth that had been impressed upon their minds
from infancy ^yas the unity of God. The very core
of the Creed lay for them in the words, '' Hear, O
Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." Not only so,
but they had heard Jesus, their Master, with His
own lips reiterate this very sentence. They had
actually seen Him put the stamp of his approval
378 Devotional Aspects of the Trinity Doctrine,
upon it as the first article of the faith. What then
could He mean f It could not be that He who had
himself insisted with so much emphasis upon the
unity of the Divine nature should now be meaning at
this suj)reme moment to turn upon his own teaching,
and pull down what He had built. The mind of the
Church started, therefore, with this conviction^deeply
rooted in it, that whatever Christ might have meant
by those farewell words of his, He could not possibly
have intended to contradict Himself. The end to be
sought was some method of reconciliation whereby,
without doing violence to reason, it should be seen to
be possible to say, ^' I believe in one God," and to
say also, " I believe that God is Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost."
As the final residt of patient brooding upon the
whole subject, there came forth, in due time, the
doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, the true account
of which is not that which represents it as a
puzzle contrived to baffle and perplex simple-
minded people ; but rather that which puts it before
us as an intellectual help, a stepping-stone, a clew\ '
But what is gained, some one yqyj naturally asks,
by this two-fold presentation of God^s nature, first in
its unity, and then again in its threeness % In what
sense is this new conception of Deity brought in by
Christ a gain upon the old ? How is it in any practi-
Devotional Aspects of the Trinity Doctrine, 379
cal manner what it has just been called, a help, a
stepping-stone, a clew? To which questions the
general answer is this, that whatever leads us up to
a fuller and larger and more correct idea of the
nature of the being of God must necessarily, and be-
cause it does this, be a good thing for us. Made in
the image of Grod, it behooves us to appreciate as
fully as may be all that so high an original implies.
Now, experience seems to show that the Christian
way of looking at the Godhead as comprehending in
its unity. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is, as a mat-
ter of fact, more fertile, more suggestive, more pro-
motive of both intellectual and spiritual progress than
any other.
Consider one of the evidences of this. The dogma
of the unity of God, so far as the mere phrase goes,
is held in common by Christians, Mohammedans,
and Jews. But unity, as the Christian mind looks at
it, carries with it something more than the bare idea
of singleness which seems to be the main thought
with Hebrew and Moslem. A man is a miit, but we
rise to higher ground when we call to mind the unity
of the human race, and say that man is one. Only
think how much diversity enters into this larger
unity ! Think of the personal differences, the shades
of bodily and mental complexion, the countless vari-
ations of age, health, temper, aptitude, worldly con-
380 Devotional Aspects of the Trinity Doctrine.
dition, refinement, character, nationality, race, all of
which are covered and embraced by that large word,
which yet is so distinctively suggestive of oneness, of
unity, the word Man. In the earlier stages of God's
education of us, in the lower classes of the age-long
school, the one great point to be guarded against was
the worship of many gods. The human mind is so
easily over-awed by the huge, threatening forms of
outward Nature, by wind, and fire and flood, that the
first step taken towards the freedom of the truth had
to be that of being brought to believe in the one God,
the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth,
and of all things visible and invisible. It could
never become necessary to unlearn this eternal truth,
which is as much the foundation of the universal
creed to-day as ever it was ; but the time did come,
the fullness of time, which prophets had foretold, the
time came at last when the Father, by sending forth
the Son, and the Son, by sending forth the Spirit,
could, without risk to the integrity of men's faith in
the divine oneness, marvellously enlarge the horizon
of the soul, and enrich our knowledge of what the
oneness holds in its embrace. That there are or
can be three Gods is a tenet quite as repulsive to the
Christian as to the Hebrew or the Mohammedan con-
science, but that the divine oneness is of such a sort
as to consist harmoniously with the divine threeness,
Devotional Aspects of the Trinity Doctrine, 381
and that the threeness is of such a sort as in no wise
to contradict or to impair the oneness, the Christian
thinker not only rejoices to believe^ but counts him-
self the richer for believing.
One of the leading thoughts in modern scientific
discovery, one of the controlling principles of what
is known as the logic of research is that of there being
a constant interplay and correlation of forces, all of
which are various, while yet all conform with the
strictest obedience to one comprehensive scheme, the
many forces going forth from a*id returning to the one
everywhere pervasive force. It would be most inter-
esting were a competent person to seek to ascertain in
what measure this modern mode of studying the uni-
verse is indebted for its original impulse to the Chris-
tian conception of Deity as three in one and one in
Three. The cavils at this article of the Church's
faith which find expression in arithmetical protests
and blackboard demonstrations of the absurdity of a
doctrine thankfully embraced by some of the most
powerful intellects of the past, look very small in-
deed, when seen in the light of these far-reaching
similitudes. The measureless debt of gratitude which
modern science owes to the New Testament will one
of these days be frankly, even if tardily, acknowl-
edged, and prominent among the items of obligation
will then stand this idea of a diversity pervading the
382 Devotional Aspects of the Trinity Doctrine.
unity of God's nature, which Jesus Christ unveiled
when He gave that final command of his : — Go and
baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the
Sdu, and of the Holy Ghost.
I trust I have brought out distinctly my thought
that the doctrine of the Trinity is propounded to us
by the Church, not as an enigma, but as a help
towards the solution of an enigma which is on our
hands whether we will or no. Nobody is foolish
enough to maintain that the doctrine clears up every-
thing and floods all tlie inner chambers of the mind
with daylight. Indeed, there are few things from
which we may more properly pray to be delivered
than a religious teaching which can brook no mys-
tery, and to which all growths, from the cedar to the
hyssop, are equally intelligible. Whitewash the tem-
ple, tear down the veil, let a fresh breeze drive out
the cloud, and you may have made what j'ou are
pleased to consider a more tidy place of worship, but
the glory has departed ] it is the house of the heav-
enly presence no longer. Assuredly the Christian
doctrine of God as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost fails
to enable us to understand all mysteries and all
knowledge ; but as one standing in the gateway of
a mountain country, with the gorges and river courses
opening out before him in this direction and in that,
slope merging in slope, and height towering above
Devotional Aspects of the Trinity Doctrine. 383
height, may be said to have a better knowledge
of the region than he had when he looked off at it in
the distance from the plain below, notwithstanding
the fact that at the same moment his appreciation of
the intricacies of the place is wonderfully heightened
by the nearer view ; so the believer, rising to the
Christian conception of the divine nature, is at once
enlightened and awe-stricken by what he sees j more
than he knew he knows, but of how much more than
he suspected is he ignorant !
People lift up hands of protest against the notion
that the acceptance of abstract propositions can have
anything whatsoever to do with the saving of the
sold. But are such protests reasonable? The affir-
mation ^' God is love,'^ is an ^^ abstract proposition,"
and it might be argued that because it is such we
ought not to suppose that the believing it or the dis-
believing it can make much difference to a man.
And yet we know that it does make all the difference
in the world, indeed may make all the difference be-
tween one's being saved or lost, whether he accepts
the statement " God is love,'' or rejects it. And so
the knowledge that in God he has a Father who has
made him, a Saviour who has died for him, and a
Holy Ghost who is for ever seeking to bless and
cleanse his life, this may have a real softening and
restraining influence upon a man's heart, this may
384 Devotional Aspects of the Trinity Doctrine.
aid in bringing him to that state of peace with God^
which we call salvation, or the safety of the soul.
Of course it is absurd and wicked to say of any
article of the faith that the mere repetition of it with
the lips can act like a talisman upon the gates of
heaven, to make them fly open at the believer^s
approach. It is the receiving of truth into the very
heart's blood that renovates the man, and nourishes
the whole fibre and tissue of his life. Doctrines are
nothing to us until they take hold of us in such a
way as to mould our characters and make new creat-
ures of us, and only in so far as the truth which the
doctrine of the Trinity in Unity enshrines does this
for us can it be properly said to contribute anything
to our salvation.
But in what conceivable way, some one asks,
can a doctrine, apparently so abstruse and meta-
physical as this one is, possibly have any in-
fluence upon spiritual growth and well-being ? How
can it be even so much as imagined to feed the soul ?
Before trying to show how, I might very properly
dwell upon the historical fact of the survival of the
doctrine through so many ages as an evidence that
there must be something very precious and worthy in
it. Were it the dry and barren form of words it is
sometimes represented as being, it is scarcely likely
that generation after generation of believers would
Devoimial Aspects of the Trinity Doctrine. 385
have thought it worth while to hand it on. But
I do not dwell upon this point ; instead of doing
so, I shall try to show briefly, as I promised to do,
some of the reasons for the tenacious grasp which this
faith has held upon the affections of Christendom.
Observe, then, that this doctrine of the divine
Trinity in Unity has proved itself the conservator
and upholder of other beliefs which appeal more evi-
dently to the affections than it does itself, but which,
experience has proved, will in the long run stand or
fall with it. This is the reason why Trinity Sunday
is made the crown and climax of that part of the
Christian year which commemorates the life of Christ.
All the momentous truths that lie scattered along our
path, from the first Sunday in Advent to Whit-Sun-
day, are gathered up into a single sheaf to-day,
and this strong formula serves as a three-fold cord
to bind them into unity. Take, for example, the
belief of which Christmas Day is the commemoration,
namely, the union of the divine and the human in the
person of Jesus Christ. It is the doctrine of the
eternal Fatherhood and the eternal Sonship wliich
alone can keep, so experience would seem to teach,
that precious faith of the Saviour's divinity bright and
clear. But the doctrine of the eternal Fatherhood
and the eternal Sonship is part of the mystery of the
Holy Trinity. Disown the threeness of the Godhead,
386 Devotional Aspects of the Trinity Doctrine.
and presently your teaching about Christ's divinity
will become thin^ shadowy, vague.
Again, take the doctrine of the Atonement, the be-
lief in the sacrificial character of the death of Christ,
certainly all must acknowledge the tremendous hold
which that has had upon the affections of men. Only
think of the power lodged in the simple sentence,
'' The Saviour died for me." How many sorrow-
ful hearts it has comforted ! What millions of
wounded consciences it has healed ! What countless
lives it has animated and inspired, and lifted out of
listlessness into activity ! Whether you believe the
statement which the sentence conveys, or disbelieve
it, you cannot, as a fair observer of the past, deny
the fact that influence immeasurable has flowed from
it. Well then, consider what help and support this
article of the faith, ^' Christ died for us," has re-
ceived, and, from the nature of the case, always
must receive from the doctrine of the Trinity in
Unity. Deny the essential deity of Christ, declare
Him to be a creature and a creature only, and Avhat
doctrine could be more monstrous than such a one as
the Atonement ? A single sinless creature chosen out
from among his fellow-creatures to bear the penalty
which the others, and the others only, have deserved
— could anything possibly be suggested more repug-
nant to our natural sense of what is right, and fair,
Devotional Aspects of the Trinity Doctrine. 387
and just than that ? But only once recognize in the
lamb of sacrifice, only discern in the person of the
sufferer a God-man, see in Him one who has con-
sciously, out of tlie depths of an infinite compassion,
taken our nature upon Him and endured the humilia-
tion of the cross, that we might be lifted up — once
view the matter in this light, and while there may
still remain much in the doctrine of the Atonement
mysterious and difficult to grasp, it will yet stand
free from that opprobrium which must inevitably
attach to it so long as we hold Christ to have been a
holy man, a saint, a prophet, a martyr, and nothing
more.
By way of rejoinder to all this, it may of course
be urged that every one of these phases of religious
emotion with respect to God is just as possible when
we think of Him only in his oneness as when we con-
template Him both in Unity and in Trinity. There
is no time to argue that point now, even if controversy
were the line we had agreed to take to-day ; but I
would simply suggest that neither the Hebrew nor
the Mohammedan religion, each of which rejects with
vehemence the Trinity of the Godhead, while ear-
nestly maintaining its Unity, has shown itself es-
pecially prolific of the emotions in question. If
it be asked why wo should look to Islam and
to Judaism for our illustrations, rather than to
388 Devotional Aspects of the Trinity Doctrine.
such forms of dissent from the traditional faith as
have sprung up within the limits of Christendom^ the
answer is, that before judging of the merits or de-
merits of a doctrine, v/e are bound to study the work-
ings of it upon the very largest ascertainable scale,
and through the very longest ascertainable periods of
time. Organized repudiation of the Church's ancient
belief in Father, Son and Holy Ghost inside the
Christian community has been usually, perhaps al-
ways, provincial as respects area, and transitory as
respects endurance. Jew and Moslem, on the other
hand, have histories of which they may well be proud.
Many lands and many ages know them by sight. We,
therefore, avoid at once both invidious comparisons
and unsafe conclusions, when we transfer our critical
study of this question from the mixed field of modern
denominationalism into the wider and less encumbered
territory occupied by religions confessedly wholly
distinct from the Christian, religions which have put
monotheism pure and simple to the test of practical
trial upon an enormous scale. As religions they
stand unquestionably far in the van of heathenism j
but as religions they imquestionably lag, let it be
owned with equal frankness, far in the rear of Chris-
tianity. At the head of the armies of the living God
which go forth conquering and to conquer on this
earth of ours, rides One who hath ^^on liis vesture and
Devotional Aspects of the Trinity Doctrine. 389
on his thigh a name written, King of kings and
Lord ot lords."
In conclusion, suffer me a few words with respect
to the spirit and temper in which it befits us as be-
lievers to held the faith. We have no occasion for
nervous anxiety lest somehow God's truth should fail,
unless we show a competency to defend it. Such
anxiety, if we entertain it, will be apt to betray itself
in petulance, which is one of the weakest of all weap-
ons that can possibly be put in use for the defence of
the truth. Calmness and patience make the frame of
mind in which those who enjoy the happiness of a
settled faith are in duty bound to keep themselves.
Especially in connection with the high and holy topic
we have had before us to-day is anything like loud-
voiced wrangling and hot dispute most grievously out ^
of place. What the world calls blasphemy is not the
only form of taking the name of the Lord our God in
vain, and there is no moment when we more fervently
need to pray " Hallowed be thy Name," than when
we are entering upon controversies which have osten-
sibly the defence of God's honor for their object, but
which too often develope into poor attempts to exhibit
our own skill.
Grant unto us all, O thou Holy One of Israel, more
of the spirit of worship and of awe. Make us feel as
Moses felt when at the hearing of thy voice he put
390 Devotional Aspects of the Trinity Doctrine,
the shoes from off his feet^ knowing that he trod on
holy ground; give us the mind that was in Isaiah,
when J humbled at the sight of thy majesty, while the
seraphim sang their trisagion in the temple, lie
cried, '^ Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a
man of unclean lips " ; nay, better still, bring us into
the school of Christ, lead us to his feet as He sits
teaching upon the mount; that gathering wisdom from
those lips which spake as never man spake, we also
may be enabled to uplift the cry. Holy, Holy, Holy,
Lord God of hosts, Heaven and earth are full of thy
glory. Glory be to Thee, Lord Most High.
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
REFERENCE DEPARTMENT
This book is under no circumstances to be
taken from the Building
'' *
• ZSiSlS
■• ■"' ■'
M«i { z ^v*
^
-
•
..aib-=e*«
?
3
•
a ' ^ ^*^
t-V,
[■ ■^'
atJk\ \ I Av?i
Prn 1 A iQ
>A
'k^\/^
^i^
*-^* i^V
