Christ in the Christian year and in the life of man : sermons for laymen's reading (Advent to Trinity)

IvIBRARY

OF TIIK

University of California.

Mrs. SARAH P. WAISWORTH.

Received October, 1894.
Accessions No. Sls'^^U'- Class No.

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2008 with funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/christinchristiaOOhuntrich

CHRIST IN THE CHRISTlAxN YEAR

THE LIFE OF MAN

SERMONS FOR LAYMEN'S READING

(ADVENT TO TBINITT)

Rt. Rev. F. D. HUNTINGTON, D.D. ^

BISHOP OF CBNTBAIi NEW TOEK

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>*^ at TSK ■^^ ^% CO

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gjriVBESITY:

NEW YORK

E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY

713 Broadway

1878

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Copyright
E. P. DUTTON & CO.

1877

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I This volume owes its existence to a letter received by the author,
some months ago, from a presbyter in one of our western dioceses
highly esteemed in the Church at large and of wide experience in its
service. He believes that there is still need of printed sermons to be
read in churches, and gives some reasons why the present publica-
tion should be made. Although it would not have been undertaken
but for his advice and request, he is in no manner responsible for
what the book contains.

This suggestion having been- .adopted, it became necessary to
accept whatever limitations it imposed both as to matter and method.
Preferences which otherwise might be reasonably indulged, as re-
spects topics and their treatment, lines of abstract thought and
completeness of discussion, must to some extent be sacrificed. The
frequent appearance of italics, a blemish on the pages to the eye of
taste, is to be accounted for in the same way. It was also thought
that to most readers certain obvious aspects and explanations of the
principal Church-seasons might be supposed to be already suflSciently
lamiliar.

Let it be stated as according to the author's general conception of
preaching that the aim in each individual discourse should be rather
to give a sense of reality, in the particular truth there presented, than
to exhaust subjects; to create in the hearers as vivid and abiding an
impression as may be of some distinct department of Christian doc-
trine or duty, comprehending only such relations of idea and fact as
seem most suitable to that end. Several important topics, pertaining
to the domain of Church-instruction, are reserved for another volume.

The author ought frankly to add that in allowing these sermons,
many of which were written for a parochial ministry, to go to pres*,
he could not bring himself to consider merely their use in lay read-
ing. He would modestly hope that some of them, while help

IV

ing a soul here and there to live heartily for God, may also at
least indicate a belief that the men of this country and this time,
especially if somewhat thoughtful and right-hearted, are to find a
solution of many theological and speculative difficulties by subor-
dinating everything else in Christian teaching to the fact of the
Incarnation of our Lord, Son of Grod and Son of Man, and to the
power of His person as the Giver of life, the only true and eternal
life, through the divine channels of His grace, to mankind. The
best promises of the thinking and working world appear to encour-
age this anticipation. May it not be expected that, as this profound
and inspiring verity takes its due place, many doubts arising in the
spheres of physical science and metaphysical philosophy will dis-
appear, not by a process of dialectics or controversy but by a fair
construction of that Word which is ** the Word of life" just because
it has for its substance Him who is the living and everlasting "Word
made flesh" and "dwelling among us"?

It would seem to follow naturally in the line of this view that the
higher rather than the lower range of motives is to be addressed
by the pulpit, in appeals for faith and obedience, for manliness and
godliness. Had there been in the homiletics and general religious
literature of the last two hundred years a more distinct and rugged
realism, a more visible relation between the supernatural elements of
revelation and the production of character in Christian people, and
had piety been represented rather as spiritual health in the entire
man than as a special and somewhat exceptional not to say abnor-
mal sentiment, the scepticism of the "common- sense" school in
England with the humanitarian and literary rationalism of Germany,
France, and the United States would have had less plausibility and
been less destructive.

F. D. H.

CONTENTS.

11

29

41
Man.

55

FAGB

Advent Stjot)ay, 1

Christ's First Coming.

Second Sunday in Advent,
Christ's Second Coming.

Third Sunday in Advent, . . . .
Christ in Judgment.

FouKTii Sunday after Advent, .

The Highteousness of God, and Uprightness in

Chkistmas-Day, . . .
The Man Christ Jesus.

Sunday after Christmas, ....
Faith Outliving its Special Occasions.

Second Sunday afier Christmas,

E"ew and Old. — Beginning of the Year.

First Sunday after Epiphany, .
The Epiphany Goodness.

Second Sunday after Epiphany,

The Soul Sought by Christ and Seeking Him

Third Sunday after Epiphany, .

The Law of Christian Enlargement.

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany,
The Saviour in the Ship.

66
73
83
94
105
117

VI CONTENTS.

PAGE

Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, .... 128
Two and Two before His Face.

Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, .... 141
Instant Obedience.

Septuagesima Sunday, , 152

The Foremost Desire.

Sexagesima Sunday, 164

Sons and Daughters in the Family of Christ.

QUINQUAGESIMA SuNDAY, 175

One Weak Spot.

Ash- Wednesday, 186

The Yoke and Burden ah-eady Easy and Light.

First Sunday in Lent, 196

The Throng and the Touch.

Second Sunday in Lent, 207

Supplication the Church's Power.

Third Sunday in Lent, 219

Purity and its Safeguards.

Fourth Sunday in Lent, . . . ^ . 232
Strength out of Weakness.

Fifth Sunday in Lent, 243

A Heavenly Mind Here.

Palm Sunday, or Sunday before Easter, . . 255
Spiritual Waste and Wealth.

Good Friday, 265

The Water and the Blood.

Easter-Day, 280

Tlie Power of the Hesurrection.

CONTENTS.

Vll

First Sunday after Easter, .
How the Kisen Christ is Seen.

PAGE

. 293

Second Sunday after Easter, .
What is Heaven ?

. 307

Third Sunday after Easter,

Why there will be no more Sea.

. 320

Fourth Sunday after Easter, .
Alone at Athens.

. 335

Fifth Sunday after Easter,

The Human Society in the City of God.

. 350

Ascension-Day, ......

The Heavens 023ened.

. 362

Sunday after Ascension, ....
Unprofitable Gazing.

. 372

Whcts UN-Day,

Leadings of the Holy Spirit.

. 384:

[Uiri7BIlSIT7l

CHEIST'S FIEST COMING.

Advent Sunday,

" The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld
His glory."— >S^. John i. 14.

By a People numbering nearly four millions of souls
there is a celebration to-day of the coming into this
world of the greatest and best of all the Sons of men.
What is wonderful, if we judge in the way the world
has been apt to judge of men these thousands of years,
is that He is the greatest hecause He is the best. Under
that order of ideas which ruled till He came, still hold-
ing its own in vast dull communities where He is un-
known or unwelcomed, and each trying to maintain
itself within the bounds of His nominal empire, the
greatest men have been soldiers who conquered and
killed their kind ; princes of fortune who bought, hired,
and bribed men ; or, in social states a little higher, stu-
dents and thinkers who led and entertained them by
knowledge or speech. That is, power and command
and hence commemoration belonged to certain men by
virtue of what they had^ not by what they were, Now
came a new order, bringing new estimates of human
welfare, new aims for human life, new foundations for
strong states and grand institutions, a new law and
impulse for civilization ; in a word, a new standard by
which to measure and test what is really noblest and

2 CHRIST S FIKST COMING.

most glorious for man — man the individual, man in the
family, man in the nation; yes, for humanity itself.
Thenceforth the greatness of any man was to be reck-
oned not by what he has, but by what he is. Character
was to be king.

No revolution could be so radical, so wide, so prolific
of real results as this. It goes to the roots of life, and
sooner or later everything on earth must be touched by
it. Why? Because the life of man and the life of
God were to be brought together, and made one.
Hitherto, even by the nation that knew most of Him,
God was thought of, worshipped, obeyed, as living
apart from the world ; over it, to be sure, exalted above
it, but separate from it. Looking through the Old Tes-
tament we do not often find God spoken of as entering
into the heart of His child, dwelling in man's soul, or
as making even the holiest of His saints or the purest
of His prophets a "partaker of the divine nature."
Yet it must be just that, and only that, which could
create in a man the highest conceivable or possible good-
ness; because God is the Good One, and His life the
only perfect life. If humanity could only receive that
divine life into it, be quickened, enlarged, transfigured
by it, share its eternal vigor and beauty, that would be
indeed its "new creation." How could this be? It
would be, if a man, still remaining man, a child " born
of a woman," should be also, by some life-giving mys-
tery not unlike that of the first creation, a partaker of
the life of God, — be divine, one with the Father.
Through Him the vital heavenly goodness enters into
mankind. Through His heart, as its channel, its organ,
its " living way," God's life pours itself into all the sons
of men that will receive it by this Son of Man. We
shall have only to be united with Christ, the human

3

Brother, spiritually, inwardly, to be united also at once
with God ; for God is in Him ; and we are joined to
the whole Christ. That is possible for all men that live.

And now this coming in flesh is what has taken place.
It is the Advent-fact. Is it strange that four hundred
millions of people remember it to-day, and rejoice in it,
with chants and hymns, with Eucharist and spiritual
communion ? It is the regeneration of our race. There
is a new creation. There is a second Adam. " The first
man Adam," says St. Paul, " was made a living soul " ;
but the soul was a natural soul, and the life was nature's
life, limited, with seeds of imperfection and death in it.
The Greeks called it psyche, and St. Paul uses their
word. ** The last Adam was made a quickening spirit."
By Him life, life imperishable, everlasting, is given to
those w^ho want to live, and do not want to die. " As
in Adam all die," or live a dying life, " so in Christ shall
all be made alive," or live directly, spiritually, from
God. This is the Incarnation. Read the first chapter
of St. John. We get only a partial notion of the coming
of Christ when we think of Him as coming, as other
historical persons have come, from without, or even from
above, in the ordinary sense of " above." He " comes
forth" from God, and God comes forth in Him, to
receive willing, believing, obedient men into Himself.
We ourselves are new-born in Him, and live forever, —
live a divine life, sons and daughters of the Lord Al-
mighty. "Whosoever will," may.

JS'o matter what the enterprise, skill, wit, energy,
combinations, or bravery of men may do, there is nothing
to be done, or remembered, like this. All other comings
and goings in history must turn around this, make room
for this, look up to this. The kingship of character is
enthroned. A Christian immortality is constituted.

We are enabled to live the highest life. Heaven begins
on earth. The Word is made flesh and dwells among
us. God and man are at one.

The face of society was changed because its heart was
changed. Instead of wearing any longer a look of hate
and greed and cruelty, there came flashing and glow^ing
into its expression the look of love, purity, mercy. This
was the Advent-light. The world silently began to be
another world. And the Power set working to bring
this change about made it unlike all other revolutions.
It wrought without violence, noise, ambition, or parade,
" not with observation." It went on not by destruction,
but construction ; not tearing down, but building up.
When the sword was drawn it was because human hands
were used, and the obstinacy of the old system would let
a path be made for the new in no other way. Generally
it moved in among the kingdoms of this world according
to the great anthem that announced it when it was born,
peacefully seeking glory for God by good- will to men, —
spreading as morning is spread upon the mountains, as a
harmony spreads through the spaces and arches of a
sanctuary. Hence, inasmuch as it must take an organic
form, after its Living Head, and be a kingdom, it was
called a Kingdom of Life. Life was a great word wuth it.
Its founder was the life-giver. " I am come," He said,
" that they might have life, and might have it more abun-
dantly." The change was first in the seats of life, within,
— coming gradually out into doings or fruit, as the way
of life is, — from a hidden seed to root, germ, blade, and
ear ; into common labor, elevating it ; into homes, puri-
fying them by honoring woman and consecrating child-
hood; into commerce, hallowing it by the spirit of
integrity ; into education, making the training of con-
science and faith, our loftiest capacities, the crown of all

other culture ; into worship, directing it to the One God,
worshipped in spirit and in truth.

We know precisely when this new Age, regenerating
humanity, came visibly in. The Divine Power did not
come as an idea, or a book, or a system, or a code of
laws, or a bundle of maxims. Great and good things
have come in all these shapes. But the Life of life came
in a man, born as a child, growing as a youth, living as
other men live. It was not, then, Christianity that
renewed the race, it was Christ ; not abstract Truth, but
a Personal Force, " made flesh." ISTor did He come to
disappear, but to remain. We Christians are not a
backward-looking people. His Church holds Him fast,
clinging to Him by her faith, and keeping His presence
fresh by commemorative ordinances, and by Christ-like
work. Is it not clear what our Advent-observance ought
to be?

True enough, too true, the new Life was not kept
pure. What river of Truth running through the world
ever was ? The Giver or His Apostles never promised
such a miracle. The old selfish kingdom crept back and
crowded into the Church. The promise was that tlie
Life, however perverted, should never be lost. It never
was. Again and again, when most in peril, it has reas-
serted its original healing power. It is slow work, but
it goes on. So every year, besides the millions who
praise the Lord that has come, millions more who do not
acknowledge Him are glad to live in the Christendom He
has created. There is a believing modern science, and
a believing modern literature. What is to be said of a
science and a literature which undertake to discredit the
Author of the age which makes their existence possible ?

But this is not all. Men have another kind of want.
Without the Life of God in them they become conscious

Q CHKIST S FIRST COMING.

of their poverty and peril. Bad men know that they
are bad. A sense of guilt wakes up and torments them.
At least it haunts their dreams. The kingdom of
Christ's righteousness stands before them, witnessing
against them. The Life of God in the Son of Man judges
them. They feel it around them, though not within
them. They know what its holy fruits are, and that
they ought to be bringing them forth, and are not.
Through frivolous employments and dissipated nights
the irreligious youth, the flighty, prayerless woman, carry
with them a feeling, partly smothered, partly drugged,
but never dead, — a feeling that springs up again, comes
back, wakes in the night, seizes them when they are
alone, making them confess secretly that they are not
right, not safe, not friends with God ; and yet God is
Almighty. What will the end be ? They are afraid to
look at themselves honestly. Perhaps they despise them-
selves and the hollow life they are living. They wish
they were out of it. The sense of sin that pours its con-
fession in the fifty-first Psalm, and cries out in the pub-
lican's prayer, is stirred in them*. Had Christ not come,
that saving discontent might have slumbered still. In
heathendom they might have been content. Jesus said,
"If I had not done among them the works which none
other man did, they had not had sin." The unjust, un-
clean rich man looks round him on his broad estate, and
it does not satisfy. It shrinks, as he looks at some poor
brave neighbor filled with the life of Christ. A shadow
falls across all the comfort and splendor. It falls from
a dark spot within him. His experiment at living with-
out God is failing, and he is aware of it. What is it all
for ? It occurs to him that the cofiin will be as indis-
pensable an article in the furniture of his house as any.
What then ? Will that be really the end ? Christ's

coming sunders the world of men into two sorts, right
and left. So, by thousands, men are revealed to them-
selves as sinful, — if left to themselves lost. How shall
they find peace, how be forgiven, how know that they
have God reconciled for their Friend ? That question,
too, Christ comes to answer. IS"o other ever did, — no nat-
uralist, no moralist, no positive philosopher. Then it
appears that Christ came not only to live, and to give
life by living, but to die, and give life to men dead in
sin, by dying. He suffers. He bears the cross. Mys-
teriously but with a certainty that grasps and holds the
conviction of the believers of every age and land, that
suffering and that cross disclose the worth of a soul's life
so redeemed. The Divine Life is Love, a Love that is
willing to give a mortal life for undeserving, disobedient
brother-men. Law is not loosened ; it stands. The
eternal contradiction between right and wrong is not
confused. But in faith the penitent feels the love, and
lives. This is atonement. Christ comes to put away sins
by the sacrifice of Himself.

"We have infirmities which are not sins. In ways
partly known and partly unknown they may be fruits of
disobedience ; but they are not distributed among persons
in proportion to their deserving. Still, they are a part
of moral discipline. At its very best, this life is " com-
passed" with them. To the last the little ship sails
heavily freighted with sorrows. Of how many kinds
these sorrows are ! And then death separates us. The
good die young. The saints cease from their beneficent
service. The prophets do not live forever. Can we
bear it ? In imagination — thank God not otherwise — we
can put ourselves out into that bleak desert, a Christless
world. We ayk there, and then ask here, will these
graves ever open ? Shall I see the face of my mother,

8 chkist's fiest coming.

my child, my friend, whose spirit was rich in the gifts
and graces of God 1 See it in an eternity of blessed,
unbroken, undivided life ? I know that I shall. Jesus
Christ has come, has died, has risen from the dead.
Because He lives. His follower, one with Him, shall live
also. The resurrection is not only His. It is the res-
urrection of every believer on earth. The life-power is
common to both. It is within the Christian heart.
When the undying Christ liveth in us, we can never
die. Be His, and you are already immortal, mortality
being swallowed up of life. Tlie glorious expectation
enlarges itself. In the day of His appearing you shall
appear, and with Him. " We know not what we shall
be, but we know that we shall be like Him." We know
that none of us need die eternally. Countless house-
holds in every Christian country, knowing what it is to
mourn for the dead, awake this morning to worship a
risen Redeemer, and to realize the strength of the
beatitude, " Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall
be comforted." Let it come close to your bereavement.
" Thy brother shall rise again." You say, " Obscurity
overhangs the future state." Obscurity perhaps, but
not uncertainty. It is of the first Coming that we are
the children now, not of the second. Eye hath not seen
the place, the mode, the scenery, the employments. All
in due time; all in order. "We shall see as we are
seen ; know as we are known." Jesus Christ has come
for this, — a Helper of infirmities, holding us in the hand
of His most sure promise, till the day break and the
shadows flee away. We have seen the three-fold
character and power of Advent. It brings the life
of God into humanity ; forgiveness of sin and peace to
every faithful heart ; boundless and endless comfort to
sorrow, even though it be the sorrow of death.

Christ's first coming. 9

The drawback with all stated and repeated observ-
ances is that we keep them outwardly, not inwardly.
We say over the religious words; we go through the
decent forms ; perhaps we think the appropriate religious
thoughts. "Advent! Oh, yes; it is good to keep
Ad\^ent. It is well that Christ came " : — and we go
away with almost as little love of Him, almost as much
of the old sellishness, pride, passion, which He died to
deliver us from, as before ; almost as much uncharitable-
ness or insincerity dropping from our lips; to renew to-
morrow the poor life of getting, hoarding, competing,
being amused, eating, drinking, dressing, as if these
things were ends, — " without God."

What is it really to Iceejp an Advent-season ? The re-
ligious repetition will not give us the Christ, whether as
the Renewer of the world's life, or the Pardoner of sin,
or the Conqueror of death. The worth of the observ-
ance is only that it helps us to a deeper, inner union
with our Lord, and likeness to Him. Words are not
saviours. Is this social state we live in such as Christ
came to frame? Is its spirit His? Are its fashions
moulded by the principles of His righteousness? Your
daily business, — is it a Christian service ? Your family
manners and conversation, — are they such that if Christ
were to make His advent there. He would find Himself
at home in your house ? Your hidden life, that secret
world within you which no housemate, neighbor, friend,
ever sees, the " inner man," — is it renewed day by day
so as, more and more brightly, to reflect His image?

It is remarkable that, while the Scriptures for Advent-
Sunday are greatly concerned with the august events to
which they point, we find in them searching directions
for our present, e very-day conduct ; rebukes for common
sins; familiar dangers mentioned by name. Examine

10 Christ's first coming.

tlie "Epistle " especially. What does it signify ? This,
without a doubt: that our true preparation for our
Lord's approach is holy living. Mark the ascending
scale. Debts are to be paid. Elementary command-
ments are to be re-studied down to their roots. The new
Christian, year is to be the beginning of a new period of
spiritual life ; the young are to strike into a new line of
Christian action ; all are to set up higher standards of
Christian, honor ; '^ the night is far spent " ; a " day " of
unprecedented splendor, lighting us on to unprecedented
labors, is mounting into the sky. And when all duties,
with their loftiest motives, are to be comprehended in a
single precept, it can be no other than this: "Put ye
on the Lord Jesus Christ."

CHKIST'S SECOND COMI]S"a

Second Sunday in Advent.

" Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, He is in the desert ;
go not forth: behold He is in the secret chambers, believe it not.
For as the lightning com^th out of the east, and shineth even unto
the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be." — Matt,
xxiv. 26, 27.

I SHALL assume that there is some interest on your part,
and at the same time some uncertainty, as to what the
Scripture teaching of the future coming of the Son of
Man really is. Both have always been found to exist
among Christians, though the interest of the question has
been much livelier and more general at some particular
periods of the Church than others, being generally strong-
est in times of great social disturbance and danger, like
the several epochs of persecution under the Roman em-
perors, the first uprising of modern liberty in conflict with
European despotism, the struggles between the people
and the crown in England, involving the integrity of the
national Church, in the middle and latter part of the
seventeenth century, and again in the great social and
political agitations of our own day. Such intensely
wrought states of the public mind naturally direct the
attention forward to the final issue, giving activity and
acuteness to the sense of future change, somewhat as the
jar of the atmosphere by travel on the highway, or the
jostle of machinery, is said to quicken in deaf persons

12 Christ's second coming.

the sense of hearing. But there never was a time when
the true followers of Christ were indifferent to His prom-
ise of meeting them face to face, and receiving them into
a wider fellowship and an everlasting kingdom.

There are some real difficulties, we ought candidly
to acknowledge, in discovering how much the inspired
writings were intended to reveal. Hence we shall lay it
down at the outset, and remember it all along, that there
are two provinces to he kept entirely distinct. One is
the province of what the Scriptures plainly and undoubt-
edly declare, as by all Christians to be believed, and as
being in some way necessary to a complete life and god-
liness. The other province includes much matter less
essential, matter of inference and construction less vitally
related to the edifying of the soul and its salvation,
where room is given for a lawful difference of interpre-
tation, and for variety of opinion. Even here we all
have the duty of investigation, and the responsibility of
it; truth is never a matter of indifference; every topic
that the Bible touches deserves a reverent regard. Yet
the dividing line is one that ought to be respected, and
in relation to few subjects more than this one. Revela-
tion tells us with wonderful clearness what all men ought
to believe and ought to do. The disclosure to us of
necessary doctrine and duty, if not obvious at first sight
in every part, can be understood on a very reasonable
amount of pains, even by unlettered and common minds,
if the attempt is lighted up by that inward illumination
of the Holy Spirit which shines on our darkness in
answer to prayer. But round about this region of posi-
tive teaching, resting on absolute authority, there lies
another region, still scriptural, of intimation and sugges-
tion, of allusion and probability, of things half unveiled,
prospects dimly disclosed and intended so to stand till

13

we are lifted into loftier places and broader light, perhaps
till we have " open vision for the written word." These
shadows and half-lights of Kevelation, these things seen
as through a glass darkly, have their divine uses and even
their peculiar glories in the exercise of our patience, the
feeding of simple faith, and the discipline of humility.
The mischief is that curiosity and audacity are often
tempted to take what belongs to this matter of religious
suggestion and throw it over into the province of dog-
matic assertion, requiring to be received as religious
fact, and perhaps with some defined theory of the fact,
what God meant us to behold only with wonder, trust,
and hope. The mischief is manifold. It intermixes
mortal mistakes with God's unadulterated truth. It
colors the uncolored beam of Heaven. It repels candid
inquiries by a tone of arbitrary presumption. Worse
than all, it draws the soul aside from her direct and
practical work, of doing her Lord's will, into a thousand
very tempting and seductive, but wholly irrelevant, lines
of thought, quite foreign from the building of men up
in righteousness, in love, and in holy obedience.

St. Matthew tells us that a short time before the
Saviour's suffering and departure from the world, as He
went out of the temple at Jerusalem for nearly or quite
the last time. His disciples called his attention to the
grandeur and durability of the structure. He simply
amazed and alarmed them at the moment by informing
them that a destruction was awaiting the building so
violent and complete that not one stone would be left upon
another. The topic was not pursued at the time in so
public a place. But a little later in the day, on their
evening walk to Bethany, as they sat down privately on
the Mount of Olives, and, looking westward, saw those
superb towers of marble and gold standing firm against

14

the twiliglit sky, where the fading sunshine must have
appeared to them like a sad symbol of that declining and
vanishing national enthusiasm which for centuries had
kindled the hearts of their ancestors toward that hal-
lowed spot, they renewed the conversation, begging their
Master to tell them when this startling prediction should
be accomplished, and what signs they might expect
beforehand of the great catastrophe. ITor was this all.
Mark what else they included in their inquiry. They
said : " What shall be the sign of Thy coming^ and of the
end of the world f'^'^ which seems to show that they
associated together the sacking of the Holy City with
the final crash of the whole terrestrial order, either
regarding the local ruin as to be simultaneous with the
general dissolution, or else as somehow leading on or
pointing to it. This opened the whole subject, and
Jesus proceeded with that august prediction which the
Evangelists have recorded, where every word is weighty
with the solemnity of the judgment.

N^ow, without a minute scrutiny here of each phrase
in detail, but embracing in the same view with the
entire passage all the other teachings of Christ and His
several Apostles on the subject, — which are certainly
capable of being reduced into entire harmony with each
other, — we may reach, and put down before us, as it
appears to me, a few satisfactory statements, or doctrines
if you choose, which pretty much exhaust what we have
just referred to as the plainly revealed and therefore
essential truth in the whole matter. And this we get
at, remember, not by an attempt to make out a foregone
conclusion, or to square Scripture to any favorite view,
but simply by bringing all the pertinent passages to-
gether, placing them side by side, observing their several
connections, ascertaining the meaning of the original

15

as well as the translated terms, ""and declaring the
result.

1. First, then, both Christ and His Apostles speak
repeatedly of a second coming of the Son of Man, in
such a sense as forbids us to confound the second with
the first. The two are put entirely apart in time, though
they are internally and morally connected with each
other; the one preparing the way for the other, and each
being in fact fragmentary and unintelligible without the
other. The one coming, however, as a historical fact,
is past, — having given birth to a new age, the Gospel
and the Church ; the other is yet to be. They are re-
spectively the beginning and the end, in time, of one
design, the redemption and training of mankind, from
sin to holiness, from an old life, which was death, into
a life everlasting, in an immortal society. We are all
living, throughout this Christian dispensation, in the
intermediate stage of this glorious proceeding. It is a
kind of transition-period. As compared with eternity,
it is all but a short term, — a narrow strip between two
boundless seas. Could we really conceive of eternity,
or could we so be lifted up as to look down on the im-
mensity stretching on each side of this whole Christian
era, it would no doubt appear like a mere thread across
the field of vision. Yet, it is sufficient for the disci-
pline of a living race, including millions of souls. So
we stand here, each individual life but a speck on that
narrow belt, and here we make our choice. We look
behind and before. The Gospel tells us, over and over,
in every variation of the plainest language, that Christ
has come in our fiesh and nature once, and has removed
every possible hindrance to our living with Him forever.
It tells us just as explicitly that He has gone, like a
travelling prince, to receive for Himself a kingdom, and

16 Christ's second coming.

that He is coming again to reign in that kingdom, with
His own people, and that, in connection with that, the
whole period of trial, of choice, will end. So the
Church has ever believed and taught, and so she prays
in her repeated Advent collect. Her Advent season
reaffirms and illustrates the truth. From Sunday to
Sunday she holds up many Scripture lessons to keep it
ever in mind. Her living Head is to come a second
time.

2. In the next place, that coming is personal and
literal. Look at all the language and all the accompany-
ing descriptions, and you will see that no loose talk of
"figures of speech" will explain away this lucid and
repeated declaration, or the mysterious fact it announces.
Whatever accommodations of the literal language we
may find, they must all grow up around this one un-
mistakable, foretold faoty and grow out of it. We
may call signal social revolutions, reforms in govern-
ment, the emancipation of slaves, or great accessions
of knowledge or charity, new coinings of Christ. The
figure is intelligible ; but they are not comings of Him.
They may be comings of the impersonal power and
principles of His religion, — partial blessings reminding
us of the one great blessing that includes them all ; but
He is to come. " Ye shall see the Son of Man (not
His ideas but Him) coming in power and great glory."
Either by the gathering of His people, or by His own
celestial movement, " Every eye shall see (not His works
but) Him." Besides, certain particular miraculous
events and tokens are mentioned as attending His
appearing.

Nor, again, will it do to tamper with Holy Scripture
by such a theory of interpretation as that His comiiig
means our going. The death or departure of the indi-

17

vidual is one thing; the Bible often mentions that,
meaning just what it says. The Lord's coming is
another ; it will be but once again for all men ; there
will be a time for it ; it will be sudden and bright, like
the light that shineth from east to west. We have no
data, no experience, no critical apparatus, to measure
such a fact by. That is not our business. We are
learners to be taught.

*'Thou hast spoken, T believe,
Though the oracle be sealed."

3. Thirdly, this great coming is to be connected with
a separation of the good from the bad, the believers from
the deniers, the spiritually alive from the spiritually
dead. Hence it is always spoken of as a Judgment;
because each one then goes to his own place, and finds
his portion where he has chosen it. That begins to be
the case, inwardly, wdth every man, now. But it be-
comes tlie outward, literal, terrible fact, not till then. It
is not declared that the whole process of final adjudication
to heaven or hell is finished then ; it is rather made to
appear that after another long period some mysterious
ordeal will try the faithful once more ; but the external
judgment begins: and hence how well it is for us to
entreat, as we do, that by His first coming the hearts of
the disobedient may be so turned, and the works of
darkness be so cast off", that at His second coming in
majesty to judge the world, we may be found an accept-
able people, and rise to the life immortal I

4. The chapter of St. Matthew, however, in the
common-sense interpretation of it, obviously has some
reference to a kind of coming of Christ which was to
take place in the lifetime of the generation that was on
the stage while the Saviour was speaking. It was to be

18

in some way connected with the invasion of the Homan
armies and the downfall of the capital and temple of
the Jews, in that century. This is the first of two main
difficulties. Men have said, If the Messiah meant to
predict a great coming in His kingdom at the en d of the
Christian age, why did He employ terms that distinctly
point to what was to take place so soon, and at Jerusa-
lem, and call that His coming? To answer that, con-
sider that the disciples were questioning Him on that
very point, the overthrow of the Temple. The reply to
them must be a part of His discourse.

But consider, further, that it is one of what we may
call the laws or canons of prophetic writing, that the
language employed may have reference to two different
persons or times, — the one, and the less important,
too near to the speaker ; the other and the greater ful-
filment being found in some remoter and grander per-
sonage or event to come. Thus, for instance, if you
examine those Psalms of David which contain prophecies
of the Messiah, you see that they are so composed as to be
in part and at first applicable to David himself, and his
own personal fortunes ; but you look again, and see that
there is prophetic language there which will not suit any
other personage than the Son of God ; and in fact Christ
and the Evangelists expressly declare that it w^as written
of Him. The human subject is made a groundwork
and a type, to exhibit the Divine King that was to be.
So of some of the predictions of Isaiah. The same prin-
ciple must be heeded in interpreting these predictions
of our Lord. You find a part of the phraseology refer-
ring explicity to Palestinian history, and of that part He
says, " This generation shall not pass away till all these
things are fulfilled." It is said that " this generation "
may refer to the national life of the Jews. It ispossihle.

Christ's second coming. 19

Others liave said those words mean the whole Chris-
tian Dispensation, which appears to ns to be forced
and improbable. Yet at the same time you find, in the
same discourse, expressions that show the speaker to
have been looking forward down the track of ages, to a
much wider and mightier consummation. For He goes
on to say that all nations shall be alarmed and aroused at
this final appearing ; that it shall be preceded by unpre-
cedented disorders and antagonisms ; that the Gospel
must first be preached to all nations; that signs shall
appear before it such as the world has not yet witnessed.
Moreover, studying the passage more carefully, you will
notice that the change of reference is gradual ; and that,
while Christ begins with dwelling almost entirely on
incidents of the fall of the City and Temple, He rises, as
He proceeds, till in the latter part the words befit His
world-wide manifestation, and that alone.* Admit the
rule of a double application, one immediate and the other
remote, which for some cause or other is evidently
according to the supernatural genius and usage of the
prophetic spirit, and difiiculties disappear. Each portion
of God's Word becomes consistent with itself, with other
portions, with the character of the author, and with what
was known of human history outside of it.

5. We come now to what, with many minds, has
been a greater difficulty, viz., that inspired writers.
Apostles, signify their expectation that Christ's second
advent would take place during their own natural life.
Were they mistaken, and mistaken teachers of others?
A vast amount of ingenious efibrt has been made to
break the force of this objection without sacrificing

* The order of sentences seems not intended by the Evanglists to be
exact. See St. Luke.

20 Christ's second coming.

the infallibility of the record. For the most part it has
failed by taking the purely external or philological
method, and without sounding spiritually the depths of
the Evangelic purpose. I need not even specify the var-
ious hypotheses. Let us honestly take the language of
honest men in its ordinary acceptation. What, then, shall
we say ? To me all difficulties are cleared by the fol-
lowing proposition, which I think commends itself as
reasonable, reverential, and in harmony not only with
the drift of the doctrine we have presented, but with
the doctrine of inspiration which the faith of the
Church Catholic has held from the beginning: The
purpose of Revelation^ in this matter, was to create
in Christians, not a helief that Christ would come at
any particular hour in history, hut a helief that He is
always at hand, and that all Christians should at all
times and in all places he ready, as men that stand
with their lamps trimmed and hurning, to meet Him
personally. The date of the event was no part of
the Divine communication. On that point the writers
were left to their human faculties, and if they misap-
prehended, it was only the plainer evidence that they
were but men. In other words, it was of importance
that the mind of the Church should be always regarding
the Lord and Head as nigh, but not to have the chronol-
ogy settled. The Bible makes its usual preference of
moral and religious impression above accuracy in the
letter. There was, in fact, no practical error. For the
writers were as careful to caution the Church against
impatience and over-confidence as against the opposite.
That generation passed; and no future one could be
misguided by their expressions. In regarding it as their
solemn duty to be ever waiting, and watching, and hast-
ing unto the coming of the day, as one of them ardently

Christ's second coming. 21

expresses it, even though thej were individiaally to die
in martyrdom, or in their beds, they were unquestion-
ably and blessedly right.

In proportion as we rise, in thought, toward the im-
mensity of the life of God, and have " the mind of the
Spirit," the whole period of history shrinks, great dis-
tances dwindle, epochs are pressed together, and " a
thousand years are as one day."

Besides, the highest authority in modern physical
science, in astronomy, and geology, and chemistry, har-
monizes singularly enough as to the issue with the
Apostolic language. It concludes that the machinery
of the material universe is wasting, its movements are
slackening, its balance is slowly loosening, and that a
general catastrophe is inevitable. The sneer of the
scientific sceptic of the last century is silenced by the
science of to-day.

We may say that, in the Bible predictions generally,
borrowing a phrase from the fine arts, what we may
call historical perspective is lost sight of. We are not
told at what intervals from each other, or always in just
what order, these majestic events, by which eternity
seems to open down into time, shall follow on. Chro-
nology is not the object. The facts are what we are to
know, and receive, and feed upon in our hearts by faith.
The moment we begin to try our petty arithmetic on
them we miss the mark, and lose our way. We all
know that, even with ourselves, the moments of tremen-
dous peril, when awful events are casting their colossal
shadows about us, are just the time when the ordinary
measure of succession drops out of sight. We look
across the great tract and see other great conjunctions,
as if they were nigh at hand. Christ Jesus is not en-
closed in time, but time is all in Him. The regular

sequence of incidents is broken up ; common occurences
are dwarfed ; and we see nothing else but Him, — His first
mediatorial ministry, His present ineffable life. His fu-
ture glorious appearing and reign ; — we see Him as an
object of supreme affection. So that the intense life of
faith, begotten in the first disciples, at the miraculous
stirring age of the very presence and sacrifice of the,
Saviour, would be the very condition of things where
everything hetween would be forgotten, and the believer
would look on straight to the great consummation and
end of all, and would behold it as if that were the one
transcendent and even near event, — as, to the traveller
straining his eyes to the mountain top before him, the
higher the peak the narrower the intervening plain ap-
pears. This, therefore, would become the appropriate
and forward-looking attitude which the Church and the
Christian would always hold, — an attitude of hopeful,
ardent, believing expectation, — " looking for and hasting
unto the coming or day of the Lord."

The chief elements in the practical, animating power
of that expectation are that it assures us of the unity
and sure completion of the "redeeming work" for
which the Son of God took our nature upon Him; it
promises the end of that long conflict of evil with good
of which this world has been the defiled and weary
theatre, — wet, so many thousand years, with the tears of
the wronged and the blood of the just, and resounding
with groans of remorse; it preannounces the victory and
the eternal peace ; it welcomes to the throne the Leader
and Shepherd in whose dear cause the good soldier has
fought, faithful to his life's end. It anticipates the eter-
nal festival when, not only in the right of possession but
in the actual and loyal submission and praise of saints,
the earth shall be the Lord's and the fulness thereof.

23

[Here, if I understand the record, the realm of what
is essential to Christian doctrine in the passage ends.
There are other points which different schools have in-
sisted on as necessary parts of it, sometimes with unwar-
ranted assurance. As matters of opinion, as construc-
tions of what the Scriptures imply rather than reveal,
they may be correct, or may not be. They cannot be
held or taught as authoritative matter, nor are they
included in the Catholic system of truth. Thus, there
have been ambitious attempts to fix the year, by compu-
tation on many different data or bases, when the present
dispensation will be wound up and the Son of Man come
to close the probationary age. They have all offended
common-sense by the extravagance of their mode of
dealing with numbers, and every one of them has broken
down by the simple passage of time. The very starting-
point of them was a departure from faith to mathematics,
— and the mathematics turned out to be about as weak
as the faith. The marvel is the greater, because the
statement in the Acts is so explicit that the Father hath
hid the times and seasons in His own power; while it
might have been supposed that the Saviour had given
His followers the most impressive and conclusive lesson
of reserve and modesty, when He declared it as a part
of the condescension of His incarnation and humility,
that so long as He was in the flesh the day and hour
were hidden even from the Son himself.

[Similar bold ventures have been made toward deter-
mining precisely who that " Man of Sin " is, that, before
the end comes, is to gather up, as St. Paul says, and
embody in himself somewhere all the malign infidelity
and blasphemy of modern irreverence and conceit,
whether as pope, autocrat, or philosopher, exalting him-
self above all that is called God, and sliowing himself

24

that he is God. But these transgressors over the line
of written truth have only published their own presump-
tion, and contradicted one another.

[A favorite accessory to the revealed doctrine is that of
the regathering of the tribes of Israel in their Judean
home, and the restoration of the Holy City. There is
certainly a great deal of apparent Scripture encourage-
ment for that bright and tenacious hope of the Hebrew.
It seems to me that, on the whole, the preponderance of
prophetic testimony favors it. But I cannot be blind to
the grave questions which arise, both exegetical and
historical, holding many able minds in suspense as to
the part the Jew is yet to l^lay, and arraying others on
the negative side ; and so I cannot help wondering at
the unqualified confidence of men in what strikes me as
a cheerful probability, of which we must humbly wait
the verification, rather than an evangelically affirmed
certainty.

[Much the same may be said of those decided opinions
we sometimes hear advanced respecting the exact order
of events in the final disposition of things in the last
days, and the ultimate fate of this planet. Such specula-
tions are utterly worthless. A little more faith, hope,
and charity would be better than the best of them. All
we know is that such changes in our globe as have been
wrought in the past geologic periods, and as reason
declares to be probable at any time, only universal, are
foretold in the Bible as to happen some time or other, —
" the elements shall melt with fervent heat " ; that the
resources of Omnipotence are infinite ; that the universe
is vast, beyond the utmost stretch of the amplest imagin-
ation ; that the souls of the righteous are in the hands
of God alone, where no torment shall touch them ; and
that though this earthly house of our tabernacle were

25

dissolved, we have a building of God, eternal and in-
destructible, where, though we know not what we shall
bo, we know that we shall be like Christ, and with Him,
seeing Him as He is.

[Biblical criticism is a much profounder thing than
many prompt and confident people have suspected,
requiring both learning and modesty. If the Bible were
a text-book of the observatory or laboratory, or a treatise
of natural history, or a simple narrative of facts, it would
be comparatively easy to pronounce on all its contents
and meanings. But remember, it contains specimens of
almost every kind of composition known in literature,
written at intervals reaching over nearly two thousand
years, abounds in the boldest and most poetic forms of
speech, and yet conveys to us the few simple truths
relating to our relations and duties to God through
Christ, which make up, for every wayfaring man and
child, the way of salvation. Oh, the plainness of the
way ! The longer I live, the more I stand in awe of its
simplicity, and give God thanks for it, and the more I
disesteem the artificial systems that are built upon it,
or used to overlay and crowd it aside. But when we go
beyond that open learning of the heart, we must be
guarded against shallow interpretations and catch-words.
A few Greek and Hebrew clauses are not enough. It
needs the largest appreciation, and most comprehensive
scope, and ripest maturity, of any study in this world.
You may take almost any crude fancy or pet system to
tlie Bible, and find something plausible in those free and
affluent pages to support it. And so books that have the
look and air of scholarship have often abused and deluded
thousands, who thought they were eating the Bread of
Life. Where the Word of God is plain we can walk with
firm steps. Repentance toward God and faith in the

26

Lord Jesus Christ are verj intelligible words. But when
we go over from certainty to conjecture, let it be with
slow, careful, and unpretending steps.]

*'If they shall say unto you. Behold, He is in the
desert ; go not forth : behold, He is in the secret cham-
bers ; believe it not.'^

Here are two opposite yet ever-present dangers. One
is that of fancying that our Saviour and our salvation
are to be found in some extraordinary, out-of-the-way
fashion of religious manifestation : " Behold, He is in the
desert." Anything looks attractive and promising in
religion, to some temperaments, which lies aside from
the commonplace path of familiar well-doing. That
soon tires and grows distasteful. A very prevalent
temptation hides under this innocent-looking passion for
novelty. We imagine, with the sons of Zebedee, that
we should do better in some other and more favorable
condition. We fail to see that there is a deep sense in
which Christ presents Himself to us now under the
forms of common persons and things that we meet in
our households and business. If we saw Him, and knew
Him, and felt Him there, by faith, all this dull routine
would take on a new interest, and rise into new dignity.
The old prophets, with their rough exterior, haggard
aspect, sharp cry, and fierce eloquence, used to make their
appearance by coming out of solitary and desert places.
So excitable people, wanting some stimulus to whet
their dull desire, looked out into the wilderness. Only
blow a trumpet, and point to a new John or Jeremiah,
and the Church will seem to be awaking to new life.
Christ is coming. But no; Go ye not forth. He sol-
emnly says. He comes to you, in His own time and
way. Invite Him where you are. Open to Him your
heart, without changing your place. Most of us have to

27

become acquainted with Him, and learn to sit at His
feet, where our lot is cast, or we never find Him at all.
There is a fringe of desert lying all around us, and there
are novelties enough coming out of it, and voices enough
to cry, " Lo, there is Christ, in some new ritualism, or
new revivalism, or new rationalism." Believe it not.
It is a false Christ. The old creeds, the old duties, the
old ordinances, the old prayers, and praises, and confes-
sions ; the old charities, kindnesses, graces, forbearances,
— the sweeter for being old, — keep to these ; fill them
up with a fervent, thankful, holy heart. And when
Christ has any new disclosure or gift to make to you, it
shall meet you there, shining through all the sky of your
inner life, from east to west, and making for you, in the
stronger light of His love, new heavens and a new earth.
The other danger is that we shall fancy that our Sav-
iour and our salvation are to be found in particular states
of our own interior feeling : ^^ Behold, He is in the secret
chambers." The first was superstition ; this is fanat-
icism. The first fostered a fickle and shallow restless-
ness ; this fosters a self-opinionated, self-confident, and
fiistidious indolence. The one is the religion of social
excitement ; the other of a dreamy sentimentality. The
one makes an idol of an outward scene or symbol ; the
other of a complacent sensibility. One is led by the
multitude ; the other by an idol in th(5 heart. One is
an Athenian agitator; the other an Oriental mystic.
These sentimentalists are always asking, " How do I feel ?
Am I happy ? Is my frame exalted ? Is my inner sense
acute and high?" But, ah! mistaken dreamer, Christ is
not there. Come out of your secret chambers ; you may
go there, and shut your door, only to pray and commune
with Him, for refreshment, after and before your busy
work in the world. Frames of feeling are no tests of

28

your progress. An honest, healthy, robust, out-of-door
faith is what you want. Plain duties, homely piety, cheer-
ful submission, regular worship, — Christ is waiting for
you in all of these. In the morning, take up the morning's
cross. "Walk with Christ all day. "Working under Him
is watching for Him. And then, whether He shall come
at the first watch, or in the second, or at noon-day, or at
evening. Blessed is the servant whom He shall find so
watching I

CHEIST IN JUDGMENT.

Third Sunday in Advent.

'•Fob we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ." —
II. Cor. V. 10.

In the four weeks of Advent we regard Him who wa3
to come, and who has come, and who is to come again,
not only in His other characters, but as our Judge.

There are some parts of the truth that God will have
delivered which make the messenger stand in awe of his
message. It is so with what is revealed of the retribu-
tions of eternity. In whatever degree we realize the
words we speak, we shall wish those words to have very
little that can be called our own in them. We shall be
anxious that they shall only represent, as simply as pos-
sible, the announcements that are made on the authority
from which there is no appeal.

Indeed, there is so much of this judgment-language
in all portions of the Bible that I shall set myself smaller
limits yet, and only attempt to open before you what is
taught us by it from the lips of the Saviour himself. It
is not so much in the hearing of many warnings as it is
in the realizing and remembering of a few ; it is not so
much in having the scenes of final judgment made
familiar as it is in making the outlines clear and strong,
so that we shall see whatever we do see as definite
and undeniable realities, — that we are to expect deep

30 CHRIST IN JUDGMENT.

and practical impressions. This is the way of the Script-
ures. They do not deal much, like many of their weak
interpreters, in elaborate descriptions of that Great Day
of Reckoning, or of the sufferings beyond. What they
are earnest t6 have us all know, and feel, and remember,
is that there is a Reckoning, and that the Justice and
Love of the Son of God and Son of Man will control and
guide it. What they would make certain to us is that
our everlasting life is in actual peril from our daily
temptations ; that the Judge is just ; and that there can
be no change in His judgment. Grounded in these
certainties their one entreaty is, " Be ye ready."

You hear it said that the judgment is going on now ;
that we are judged from hour to hour. That is true,
and a truth of very awful and startling import, which
ought never to be forgotten. In one sense our own char-
acter and conduct judge us. What we really are deter-
mines our condition. Every new message from the Spirit
of God judges us. We are always taking sides, for God
or against Him. In the presence of a pure and noble
Person we are always judged, — sent to the right hand
or the left. By conscience, by the choice between right
and wrong, we are sundered terribly, one from another,
at this moment. By His very coming on earth amongst
men Christ in that sense judges men. But that is not
all. It is not the only judgment. It is not that Judg-
ment to Come, of which our Lord so plainly declares
that it shall he hereafter.

Men are swayed by their best sympathies. I find,
from a generous thinker, an English preacher, who has
had great popularity in oar day, these sentences :
" Christ's preaching differed from that of John the Fore-
runner, in that it was not a ministry of terror. He sel-
dom appealed to fear. Christ taught that God is love.

CHRIST IN JUDGMENT. 31

He instructed in those parables which required thought-
ful attention, and a gently sensitive conscience. He
spoke didactic, calm discourses, very engaging, but with
little excitement in them, — which assuredly, if any one
were to venture so to speak before a modern congrega-
tion, would be stigmatized as a moral essay." Fair
minds will recognize at once a certain amount of truth
in this very one-sided statement. The question is one of
fact : Did Christ appeal to the dread of retribution ?

There can be no question at all that He, the Son of the
God of Love, the highest of all Teachers, places love,
as a motive, far above fear ; that He will rather have
men come to Him as their Friend than as their Judge ;
that He would have them cling to righteousness for the
righteous One's sake, and put faith in God for His
goodness, rather than be scourged into the Kingdom by
tlireats of penalty and the terror of torment. Let this
be granted, for it is precious and momentous truth.
Where it is forgotten, let it be reaffirmed. But having
granted it we shall only be in the better position to see
how defective and superficial these statements quoted
are, taken as a full description of Christ's Gospel.
Wliat man might be and ought to be, in his suscepti-
bility to the higher range of impressions is one thing;
but what he really is, in his spiritual poverty and dul-
ness, is what Christ mercifully considers.

We are not at liberty to take an ideal Christendom,
the conception of which we owe to the loftier elements
of our own religion, and attempt to square to that the
words of Him who came to stir and move the world
that now is by " the powers of the world to come."
That is the true love which moves by the surest path,
not always the shortest or most agreeable, to its end, —
the welfare of the beloved.

32 CHRIST IN JUDGMENT.

We should expect, therefore, that this \oving Lord
and Master, who knows so well what is in man, w^onld
present not a part but all of the grand motives that
constrain men to newness of life, to repentance and
faith, to the conquest of self, and the glory of good-
ness ; and therefore that He would sometimes take away
the veil from the misery and horror that belong to the
second death; that He will bid His servants sometimes
call men to " flee from the wrath to come," and by " the
terrors of the Lord," — of the Lord — to persuade men ;
that he would show that God has not forgotten to be
just, hecause He has not forgotten to be gracious, but
that He governs the world by law, — blessed and right-
eous law, which is " the mother of our peace and joy,"
— just as truly now as before the Gospel pity and
redemption came.

We turn to the actual instructions of the Saviour to
refute the assertion that He spoke only " calm, didactic dis-
courses," addressed to men's hopes and affections, " with
little excitement in them." We open, at the beginning,
that Sermon on the Mount, which it is pretended is so far
from anything that excites the fear of punishment or
judgment. It has proceeded but a little way when we
find the Teacher threatening the people, that unless their
righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the
Scribes and Pharisees, they shall " in no case enter into
the Kingdom of Heaven." A little further, and we
hear Him say, " Whosoever is angry with his brother
without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment ; and
whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of
hell fire." A little further, and he cries, with the repeti-
tion of a fearful emphasis, " If thy right eye, or thy
right hand, cause thee to sin, pluck it out, or cut it off,
and cast it from thee ; for it is profitable for thee that

CHRIST IN JUDGMENT. 33

one of thy members should perish, and not that thy
whole body should be cast into hell." A little further
yet, in the same Divine Sermon, He begins to speak very
solemnly of " the broad way which leadeth to destruc-
tion," and " the narrow way which leadeth unto life,"
and the " few that find it." Then He passes to warn those
that come to the gate, crying, " Lord, Lord," without doing
His will, that at a certain day He will profess unto them,
" I never knew you ; depart from me, ye that work
iniquity." Then comes the parable, — which is only a
picture and prophecy of the last judgment, — of the house
on the rock and the house on the sand, with destruction
as the penalty of folly. Only one chapter further for-
ward He calls up the vision of many coming from the
East and the West, with the unworthy and false children
of the Kingdom "cast out into outer darkness; there
shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." We turn a
leaf or two, and the same faithful voice, loving as ever,
but faithful just because it is loving, is exclaiming, " Fear
Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."
In the next chapter. He is upbraiding, tenderly, the peo-
ple before whom His mighty works have been done, —
just as they are done before so many of us, — " in vain," —
" because they repented not " ; — " it shall be more toler-
able, in the day of judgment, for Tyre and Sidon, than
for you." (" Thou that art exalted to heaven shalt be
brought down to hell.") Just after. He rebukes the
impious blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, with a threat
which almost silences our lips, — "It shall not be forgiven
him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come."
This He follows with the almost equally appalling decla-
ration,— "Every idle word that men shall speak, they
shall give account thereof in the day of judgment."
When He has spoken the parable of the tares of the

34 CHRIST IN JUDGMENT.

field, He finishes and applies it with the words,—" The
tares are the children of the wicked one ; the enemy that
sowed them is the de\ril ; the harvest is the end of the
world, and the reapers are the angels. So shall it be in
the end of this world. The Son of Man shall send forth
His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all
things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall
cast them into a furnace of fire : there shall be wailing
and gnashing of teeth." When He has delivered the
parable of the net cast into the sea, he explains, " So shall
it be at the end of the world : the angels shall come
forth and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall
cast them into the furnace of fire." Out of the sorrow
and burden of His soul. He cries, weeping," Woe unto the
world because of ofiences ! Woe to that man by whom
the offence cometh !" He shows the forgiven servant who
had no compassion on his fellow servant as " delivered
to the tormentors " ; and he says, " So likewise shall my
Heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts
forgive n^t every one his brother their trespasses." In
a different parable yet, wicked men are miserably
destroyed ; the kingdom is taken from them ; and on
whomsoever the stone of retribution falls, " it will grind
him to powder." In still another parable, the guest that
pushes his way in, without the wedding garment of holi-
ness, prepared for him at the door, is bound hand and
foot, and taken away, and cast into utter darkness. Of
one class of sinners before His face He asks, as if the
burden of an unutterable grief pressed upon him in having
exhausted every resource of mercy for them in vain, —
" How can ye escape the damnation of hell ?" The
exhortation to watch and be ready is followed by the
example of the drunken and reckless servant whose por-
tion is cut suddenly asunder, leaving him to weep and

CHRIST IK JUDGMENT. 35

groan in agony. Yon know how the parable of the wise
and foolish virgins ends, — with the solemn and final
shutting of the door ; that of the talents, with the strip-
ping and shame of the faithless servant ; and, above all,
that of the shepherd king, the Son of Man in his glory,
dividing and separating the sheep from the goats, on the
right hand and the left, — the blessed and the cursed, —
these going away into everlasting punishment, but the
righteous into life eternal !

You will see, dear friends, that there must be some
limit set to these proofs and confirmations. I have only
collected these from a portion of the first of the four
Records of Christ's public ministry. So He preached.
So He came testifying of the judgment to come. You
hear His words. Mine are nothing. Ponder His. Ask
yourselves what they mean. Take them in their natural,
obvious, and tremendous import. What shall we say of
a writer who, having the New Testament before his eyes,
tells us Jesus preached gently always, and did not preach
terror ? Are these the " didactic, calm discourses, very
engaging, but with little excitement in them " ? Is it
so unlike the preaching of the Baptist, crying, " The axe
is laid unto the root of the tree : every tree that bringeth
not forth good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire" ;
" Whose fan is in his hand, and He will thoroughly purge
His floor, and gather the wheat into His garner ; but the
chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire " ? Are these
those placid parables which "required only thoughtful
attention, and a gently sensitive conscience," sounding
" to a modern congregation like moral essays " ? — these
with their fire, and sifting, and separating, and shutting
doors, and sundering of soul from soul, and opening of
the house of torment, and punishment everlasting? Let
us at least receive our Master's words as they stand. It

36 CHKIST IN JUDGMENT.

will go ill witli us if we alter them, if we reject them.
Prejudice, the power of a preconceived idea, works
strange results of interpretation. We have not to
rewrite the Gospel of our Lord. He who knew all
our necessities gave it all for our salvation. And since
we must all stand before His judgment seat, He has told
us beforehand, so that repenting and believing we might
stand there with joy, — not with grief, — to pass from it
to the right hand, and not the left, of the Son of Man in
His glory, our Shepherd, and our King.

The question is not about the imagery, but whether
the imagery has a meaning ; not whether the terms are
partly figurative, but whether the figures have a reality
behind them.

It has become a habit to confuse the strong and simple
declarations made here with subordinate and irrelevant
speculations as to the mode, the time, and the place.
The text sweeps these all away, and our poor subterfuges
and evasions with them. " For we must all appear before
the judgment seat of Christ," not here or there, or at
any foretold hour, or in any scenery that is described :
only, " we must appear."

The infirm and worldly heart, clinging to its wrong
indulgencies, half-conscious of its guilt, seizes on a screen
from the blaze of the judgment throne. " This notion
of judgment is harsh, — Jewish ; — Christianity is all ten-
derness ; God is too good to cast even the worst of His
rebellious and sinful subjects from Him."

Argument in its place ; not here. We are out of that
sphere. " We must all appear before the judgment seat
of Christ." We must The first fact we are to think
of respecting the judgment is the certainty of it. The
Scriptures never say, our Lord never says, that it is some-
thing which may take place, but which some possible

CHEIST IN JUDGMENT. 37

contingency in tlie future course of the world may pre-
vent. Whatever else may fail or prosper, — enterprises,
governments, expeditions, colonies, campaigns, intentions,
— their failure or their success will not touch the decree
that has fixed one day beyond them all, — the judgment.
There is scarcely one human interest, institution, under-
taking, of which we can predict the course for twenty-
four hours ; but far above all their chances, independent
of them all, subject to no chance, no reconsideration, no
postponement, is the judgment. The whole frame-work
of order in outward nature may be broken to pieces;
the heavens be wrapped together like a scroll, the ele-
ments melt with fervent heat, the planet be refashioned,
or burnt, or drowned, the stars be loosened from their
circles, and clash together, or fly apart, — these revolutions
would only make more sure the fulfilment of the whole
prophecy, and their inevitable end will be the judgment.
So doubtful and ignorant are we about everything in our
own personal lives and fortunes, from this hour onward,
that we can be said to be perfectly sure of only two
events to come : " It is appointed unto men once to die,
and after this the judgment." And "now," says the
Apostle, " God commandeth all men everywhere to re-
pent; because He hath appointed a day in the which
He will judge the world in righteousness." It must he.
The second fact is the universality of it. We must
all appear. Here the individual sometimes escapes
notice either by retiring from society, or by being lost
in its crowd. There the one kind of concealment will
be just as hopeless as the other. There will be room
enough for all, and yet the personal soul of each, with
its individual character, with the sign of Christ its Lord
or the sign of His adversary upon it, will stand out as
sharply distinguished as if no other soul had ever been

38 CHRIST IN JUDGMENT.

related to it, or shared its experience. They will come
from lonely deserts and from thickly populated cities,
from scattered houses far back in villages, from border-
dwellings on the edges of forests, from solitary cells in
hills and on plains, from homes that resound now with
voices of life, from chambers of dreary sickness where a
charitable visitor entered to break the stillness only once
in the long week, from the field of war where great
armies fought together, and from the same field the
night after the battle when the spirit of the dying sol-
dier went up to meet its God alone ; but they will all
bo there ; we shall all be there ; every one. There will
be no excuse taken, and there will be no absence to
be excused. Merchandise, the farm, marriage, mental
promises, getting a livelihood, calls of business, sceptical
habits of mind, companies and journeys of pleasure,
doubts about being accepted, — these will have no force
to keep one bidden guest away, and all are bidden.
Every name will be called, — those that have been
written in the Book of Life, and the names of those
that have heard the Gospel preached Sunday after
Sunday, and year after year, and yet would not turn to
take the cross and follow Christ. Every member of this
present congregation will be there, and that may be the
next time we shall all be assembled in one another's
presence without one left out. Obscurity, insignificance,
weakness, youth, poverty, ignorance, — those natural
extenuations that we so often plead for not taking up
responsibilities here, will not keep any out there ; many
that were last shall be first, and so, also, many that were
first shall be last. Station and dignities and wealth and
honors will avail nothing to obtain an exemption or a
substitution. The guilty, the careless, the sensualist,
the mocker, the trifler, the old man here that is coming

ClIKIST IN JUDGMENT. 39

to his grave with his heart hard and selfish, the merchant
here who imagines he has no time to be a Cliristian, the
scholar that dreams he can make learning and accom-
plishments pass for repentance toward God and faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ, the profane swearer, the scandal-
monger and uncharitable tale-bearer, the proud, resentful
woman, the wilful boy who is trying to forget his
mother's prayers, the vain gh'l who thinks of every
dress for her body but that one which will be put on her
for her burial, — all of us must appear before the judg-
ment seat of Christ.

The third fact is that we must ajp^ear there ; that is,
we must be not only present, but our true characters
must be made manifest ; what is here kept hidden must
come to light. We pray, every Sunday, to Him "to
whom all hearts are open, and from whom no secrets are
hid." In that day, this Searcher and Reader of our hearts
will take us up, and deal with us. Faith will stand out
boldly. Purity will shine in garments white as the light.
Long-abused innocence will get its due. Misunderstood
charity and wrongly suspected integrity will come forth
out of their cloud, in triumph and joy. "Holy and
humble men of heart " will be seen for what they are.

Deception and concealment will have had their crafty
way long enough. Masks will fall off. Disguises will be
stripped aside. The cunning sagacity that has covered up
the lurking passion, or the cool calculation, will lose its
self-possession. Whatever wicked thing we have been at
most pains to conceal will be written out as with a pen of
fire on our foreheads. There will be only one covering
for our shame, — and that the robe of the mercy prom-
ised to them who believe. There is a fountain for un-
cleanness. Purge me in that, and I shall be clean!
Wash me in that, and I shall be whiter than snow !

4:0 CHRIST IN JUDGMENT.

The only thing furtlier that it much concerns ns to
know of the judgment is that He who then reveals our
hearts and fixes our condition, the Judge, is the Son of
God and the Son of Man. Eepeatedly Christ says that
His work, while on earth, in His first coming, is not
judgment. Here "I judge no man." Here He min-
isters life; will we receive it? Here He ofiers grace;
will we accept it? Here He opens the way into His
kingdom ; will we enter ? Here He suffers and dies, the
one perfect, sufficient, only sacrifice; can we believe,
confess, and live ? There, on His throne, all judgment is
committed unto Him, " because He is the Son of Man."
He knows all man's infirmity, to have compassion ; all
man's sympathy with evil, to punish. It is not then the
time of salvation. The time of salvation is now. Our
opportunity is to-day. In that day, every work will be
brought into judgment, and every secret thing. Every
work I Every secret thing !

THE EIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD, AND
UPEIGHTNESS IN MAN.

Fourth Sunday after Advent,

" Righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne."
— Psalm xcvii. 3.

"Petee answered and said unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the
land for so muoh. And she said, Yea, for so much. Then Peter
said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the
Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of them that have buried thy
husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out.'' — Acts v. 8, 9.

In the first passage we are shown the principles upon
which the universe is carried on through the everlasting
ages. Thej are very simple, though they are very
grand. First, there is a living God, living now, not
passing away with passing periods, or a mere tradition
of the old Bible-days, but alive all days.

Next He has a " Throne" ; not only a life, not only a
dwelling-place, not only boundless fields to work in, and
not only a kind heart, but a throne. The psalm begins,
" The Lord reign eth." This world, with everybody in
it, is not only under a government, but under a personal
Governor. Modern science is right about everything
being done by law ; only revelation uncovers to science
a secret of its own. Beliind the law is a Law-ffiver and
a Judge, — a truth. of quite as much practical value to us,
in the long run, as the other. The history of man on
the globe is not a spontaneous generation. The machine

42 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD,

of nature is not running itself. The seasons and the
harvests, the streams and the stars, house-keeping, schools,
trade, politics, are not the human contrivance of "per-
petual motion." There may be a good deal of meaning
in such popular words as "self-reliance," "independ-
ence," "the power of the will," "man the master of
circumstances," "dignity of human nature"; but then,
after all, there is a Throne, and One sits on it who is not
man. We talk of self-reliance, but the reliance at least
is upon Him. Of Him, it is finally found out, we are
never independent. As to the power of the will, when
it has done its best, it brings up against another Will,
more powerful than itself, immeasurably more. There
turn out to be circumstances of which we are not mas-
ters, by any means. The stopping of pulse and breath
is one of them. Human nature has, to be sure, a kind
of dignity, but there is a greatness infinitely more royal,
and a glory more glorious.

Then we know what the Throne is made of, and
what He who occupies it keeps there forever with
Him. We are not governed by caprice, by impulse, by
policy, by passion, by indiscriminate indulgence. There
are principles of this rule over us, and their names are
given, — " Kighteousness and judgment are the habi-
tation of His throne." They are not there now and
then ; they inhabit or abide there. They inhere in the
character of the living King.

Over all this world, then — this is what the first pas-
sage says — over you and me, personally — reigns the
living, righteous, just Lord.

The second passage discloses a different sight. It
takes us to the opposite extremity of the moral king-
dom,— from the top to the bottom. " Self-reliance,"
separating itself from God as far as it can, has made its

AND UPRIGHTNESS IN MAN. 43

experiment, worked out its ambitious result of "inde-
pendence," and here it is. " Tell me whether ye sold
the land for so much. She said, Yea, for so much."
The doctrine of the dignity of human nature, left to
itself, breaking away from the " Throne," has come to
this; and it does not appear to good advantage. It
appears with a fraud branded on its forehead, a false
invoice in its hand, and a lie upon its lips, the criminal
victim of a capital execution. " Then fell she down
straightway at his feet and yielded up the ghost ; and
the young men came in and found her dead, and carry-
ing her forth buried her by her husband. And great
fear came upon all the Church." 'No matter whether
the miracle happens once or every day. It is simply
the type of a law inevitable and universal. Whether
the outer stroke should ever be repeated or not, it was
only the visible sign of a thing that is always going on
while the world stands, — unrighteousness blasted, lying
exposed, the cheating man and the cheating woman, in
spite of their skill in concealment, sent down at last to
misery.

In the two parts of the text, therefore, we have the
same foundation-truth of our religion, — -personal in-
tegrity the criterion of life or death. In the first it
shines out in the splendor of the great white Throne,
with the rainbow bending its glorious beauty around it.
In the last it is thundered forth along the low line of
an earthly horizon, out of a horror of great darkness, lit
up only by the lightning-flash of God's "consuming
fire."

Among the characteristics of the times we are living
in there is one not much mentioned by the many popu-
lar speakers, who seem to think the men they speak to
are to be benefited chiefly by being assured^^^gwinuch

^V^ Of thb"^

44 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD,

wiser and better and more "progressive" they are than
any of their fathers were, who suppose the age is to be
instructed by being flattered, and that the country needs
to be glorified rather than to be purified ; which was cer-
tainly not the way of the old prophets. The characteris-
tic I mean is dishonesty. 1 am not discrediting any
of the actual modern merits, — intelligence, enterprise,
invention, philanthropy. Grant all these, in large de-
gree. Nevertheless, they do not bring with them hon-
esty in proportion. Falsehood and fraud flourish along
with them, in spite of them, and in some cases by the
help of them. From the vulgar sediment of society up
to its highest summits there spreads a tremendous force
of selfish materialism — call it sharpness or call it crime —
by which men reach after and snatch and call their own,
for use or for show or for hoarding, what is not theirs.
It is stolen property, only stolen ingeniously and indi-
rectly, and in such ways that the old forms of law, which
under took to punish outright robbery, fail to overtake
them. E'ot in a few rare spots, but in every spot where
two or three hundred people live together, a part of these
people consume, or lay up, or waste, what belongs to
other people, and what they have managed to get by
some species of deception. "What natural production of
the earth is there, meant for the sustenance or comfort
of man, that is not adulterated by some degrading mix-
ture, or shortened in the measure ? Do not the devices
of Anglo-Saxon traffic repeat, in faithful exactness, the
devices of the Jew, denounced by the prophet, making
the ephah of the seller small, and the shekel of the buyer
large ; selling the refuse for wheat, and " falsifying the
balance by deceit" ? "What line of mechanical work is
there, where the base material, or the shabby construc-
tion, or the overcharge, does not disgrace the handicraft ?

AND UPRIGHTNESS IN MAN. 45

What branch of commerce without its dehisive labels,
its broken promises, its advertising fictions, its postponed
payments, its calculated bankruptcies, its hollow con-
tracts ? Men who will not suffer their respectability to
be challenged, look one another in the face, and with a
mutual jugglery of knavish tricks conspire to grow rich
by villany. The brilliant audacities of the great com-
mercig-l centres have their lame and creeping copies,
hardly less cruel or calamitous, back in the little rural
villages, in sight of grave-yards where sleep the ashes of
clean-handed ancestors, living and dying, in their day,
in the faith of a God who has righteousness and judg-
ment for the habitation of His Throne. Outside the
Church are financial Ahabs and social Jezebels. Inside
are Ananias and Sapphira, tacitly agreeing together to
lie to the Holy Ghost, pretending to give to God, for
missions or Bible societies, a hush-money fragment of
what they have seized from their fellow-men. Too often
there is no Peter with the courage to search out their
sin, — " Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much."
The grand difficulty with our popular piety is that it is
still trying to find a way, in this nineteenth century of
the Gospel, of serving two gods together.

If our national Christianity is to maintain its respect,
it will have to deal with these abominations somewhat
more directly, more fearlessly, and more personally, than
it is doing now. Greatly to their credit, our cotempor-
ary moralists have undertaken to investigate crime, its
sources, its statistics, and its correction. But the crimi-
nals are of two classes. One class, ill-bred, ill-fed, ill-
clad, with little knowledge, bad examples, and strong
temptations, take what they have no right to take, and
render no equivalent. Another class, better clothed,
better educated, with a better chance of living honestly,

<^ THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD,

perhaps holding offices and entertaining flattering as-
semblies, do precisely the same thing. The first class
perform their lawless work in the dark ; and so do these.
The detected felons sometimes put on masks ; and what
else but a mask are good manners over an unprincipled
heart ? The vagrant robbers occasionally come together
and lay out their schemes and count their booty. The
gentlemanly robbers who haunt the lobbies of Legis-
latures, the municipal chambers, the bribable courts —
tramps of the commercial highways — understand each
other with an instinct just as keen, and a cunning just
as infamous. Now, if this is all true, and if the habita-
tion of the living God is righteousness and judgment,
then what is sure to come by and by, when the King,
patient as He is, uncovers that Throne, and the Judge
finally brings these souls, one by one, to the reckoning ?
Are we any safer than Ananias and Sapphira ? Is this
a safe country ? "With all its advantages, its celebrations
of what it has done, and its loud predictions of what it
is going to do, is America resting, secure and approved,
this Advent, at the foot of God's righteous judgment
seat?

" Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much ; and
she said. Yea ! for so much."

Is there any remedy ? The remedy will be found by
finding through what popular mistakes the mischief has
crept in, and by raising against them the everlasting
principles of the Bible-morality, the old-fashioned safe-
guards of personal uprightness, on the staunch com-
mandments of a God of righteousness.

The unguarded conversation of men is the natural
revelation of them ; of their moral standards, if they
have any, and of their lack of them if they have none.
We hear people continually debating whether some line

AND UPRIGHTNESS IN MAN. 47

action will be lucrative, prudent, or agreeable ; politic,
reputable, or successful ; whether it will serve some in-
terest, or baffle some opponent, or advance some party.
But how often, in all the thoroughfares of society, do
we hear an open question shut and concluded by the
short, swift, clear argument of a Christian tongue?
" This is right, and because it is right, it must be done,
cost what consequences it may ; that other thing is wrong,
and therefore it cannot be touched, let it promise to pay
what it will." In the clamoring of calculation and profit,
how often is the simple voice of Duty audible and deci-
sive?

Looking for causes, we find that, among the virtues
which the people honor, we have been trying a good
deal, of late, to make the softer virtues answer for the
sturdier, and philanthropy for all the rest. It happened
by a natural reaction. In the feudalism and vassalage
of the middle ages, and under the monarchies of the old
world, the tendency ran to physical cruelty. Life was
cheap. Liberty was crushed. The lower classes were
not too good to suffer any sort of deprivation. The
slave was at the mercy of the master ; and where that is
true, mercy always gives place, sooner or later, to wrath.
When the free spirit arose, and more equal forms of
civil society were planted, the milder compassions and
gentler sensibilities of Christian people came uppermost.
So far as the moral feelings were aroused at all, the im-
pulse was to make everybody comfortable in condition
and happy in mind. But there is something higher
than that. Wrongs were righted, not always because
they were wrongs, and because rights are sacred, but
because suffering is disagreeable. If a malefactor was
seized by the arm of justice, and shut up in prison, an
indiscriminate sympathy, thinking nothing of the safety

48

of society, went about to stir up public sympathy in his
behalf, sent flowers and pictures and carpets to his cell,
tried to shorten his term of punishment, and, if possible,
to get him out of the hands of the law altogether.
1^0 w,* it must be a hard heart which does not recognize
in these kindly impulses the working of the spirit of
Christian charity. Such ameliorations were needed, in
a degree, and thej came, and blessed were they by whom
they came. But, after all, God does not govern mankind
by an unqualified pity, but by mercy balanced with jus-
tice; by tenderness harmonized with severity, — the
severity itself sometimes being merciful. In mortal
progress the pendulum swings from one extreme to
another. Probably in the old social order there were
some upright and downright traits, intermixed with
coarser ones, which, as sons of a God of righteousness,
we could not afford to let go, and which w^e shall have
to bring back, and plant side by side with our yielding
charities and fair humanities, before we shall throw off
this disgrace of dishonesty. There must be more
respect for reality, and less for show ; more willingness
to be poor, if God wills it ; less anxiety to hang out the
signals of success; more simplicity and less extrava-
gance. Nor is there any such thing possible as atoning
for a fraudulent getting of money by giving a part of it
away. Ananias laid a part of the proceeds of the land
at the Apostle's feet for the use of the Church. It is
known of one of the foremost of American statesmen
that he was in the habit of bestowing munificent alms
impulsively on mendicant people about him, and letting
his debts go unpaid. What a wretched world this would
be if the Almighty turned His ordinances of truth into
a confusion of unprincipled indulgences like that!
Kindness is always lovely, but kindness will not save us

AND UPRIGHTNESS IN MAN. 49

from the consequences, if we do not pay what we owe,
or if we take more than our due. An age of mingled
philanthropy and dishonesty is not an age of the reign
of Christ, whose name is " the Lord our righteousness."
Another mistake pertains to the realm of religion.
In almost any of our communities you may set ten per-
sons to inquire into the religious state of their neighbors,
and in nine cases of the ten the first question will be
about feelings ; not, What are your convictions of truth,
your principles of conduct, the root and ground of your
faith in God, or in the solid and fixed facts of a revealed
Gospel and historical kingdom of our Lord ? but. What
is your feeling? not, What are you standing on? not
whether a holy Christ has your loyal and unflinching
obedience ; not how far you are practically pledged to a
righteous Master, — which are certainly the chief matters
now, as they were in the days and the preaching of the
Apostles, — but rather whether the sensibilities are lively
and the devout emotions enthusiastic. Eeligious feeling
is one of the fruits of the Spirit — one of them ; it has
much to do in kindling and sustaining religious exertion.
But feeling is certainly the most irregular element in
our composition, and it so far depends on outward con-
ditions that it makes one of the least trustworthy tests
of the actual frame of a Christian soul before God.
Feeling belongs to the passive part of our nature ; prin-
ciple to the active part. Feeling depends on a sensitive
surface ; principle on depths of moral purity. We feel
spontaneously, and often whether we would or not.
There is no principle and no duty without a direct
exertion of the will. Feeling may be sudden ; duty is
deliberate. Feeling may be transient ; duty is constant.
Feeling changes with temperament, with states of health
and nerves, with a thousand fickle external influences.

50

Principle is independent of all physical or alterable
circumstances, moves straight on through all moods and
climates, sails by fixed stars, and is the same secure and
glorious thing through all the shifting seasons, though
the mountains of prosperity were torn up and cast into
the sea.

It deserves to be considered, therefore, whether the
emotional type of piety is, on the whole, the only or the
strongest type, or is calculated to carry a man bravely
and uprightly through all the temptations of the market
and society, of public and private life. Let us hope that
the sturdy common-sense of this people will repudiate
any ministration that addresses itself chiefly to a senti-
mental fancy, whether in the gusty appeals of open-air
conventicles, in sensational pulpits, or in the scenery of
church chancels. Is it not likely that some part of the
loose dealings, and false accounts, and violated covenants,
which have frightened the propriety and shocked the.
better sense of all Christian bodies, are traceable to this
idea, that religion is concerned entirely with emotions,
and not with character ? Ananias and his wife had just
come into the church, been baptized, joined the Christian
community, and their feelings were so far wrought upon
that they wanted to follow where the popular current
was then setting, and to throw their private estate into
the common treasury, though that was no part of the
Christian obligation, as St. Peter taught them. What
was their sentimental ardor worth? It did not save
them from being both, one after the other, wound up in
shrouds and carried out to a dishonored burial. It
appears to me that, even within the recollection of living
men, the Christian Faith has come to be less and less
regarded as a commanding and mighty power from
Heaven, a voice of authority, a law of holy life, but

AND UPRIGHTNESS IN MAN. 51

more and more as an easy-going guide to future enjoy-
ment, to a universal happiness and an indiscriminate
salvation. Who can believe these horrible insults to
morality would go on cursing our cities, and corrupting
our young men, if the offenders looked up above a hire-
ling police, a venal judiciary, and a cowardly public
opinion, and believed those simple words, " Thou, God,
seest me, who wilt by no means clear the guilty " ? The
Gospel is a gift of grace ; but if it does not keep the
disciple out of the schemes of sharpers and liars, the
grace has miscarried. The Gospel is love ; but it has a
law-element in it, too, which the saintliest Christian
never outgrows. The Old Testament goes into the
ISTew. The Saviour says explicitly He came not to
destroy the law, but to fill it full, and that He is coming
again to judge every follower by his deeds. If you cut
the JS'ew Testament apart from the Old, your one Bible
is gone, and rationalism will pick the fragments to pieces
at its leisure. We want that elder and eternal Testa-
ment which gives us the text — "Righteousness and
judgment are the habitation of His throne." See how
that word " righteous " studs all the Scripture-pages, and
how the glorious reality it represents is the steadfast
foundation of the welfare of souls, from the first creation
on to the new heavens and the new earth.

We read public reports of ardent religious agitations.
Not a syllable shall my lips speak in disparagement of
religious revivals. Till there is more thought for things
unseen, in these uncounted dwellings around us, which
have now no veneration, no Lord's Day, no prayer, no
sacrament, no Advent, and no realized God, we can ill
aftbrd to despise any honest attempt to waken the dead
to life. But we are certainly not wrong if, with God's
Bible in our hands, we urge that the religion that

52 THE KIGHTEOrSNESS OF GOD,

is revived shall revive with it honesty, fair dealing,
veracity, chastity, plain living and faithful work ; shall
bring on a new epoch of duty, — courageous, clean-
handed, sweet-hearted duty, irreproachable and incor-
ruptible duty — fearing God and keeping His command-
ments.

How wise it would be, too, if, in the disorganizing
social questions and the depressing commercial reverses
of the time, we could come to look at these problems
more in the daylight of duty, and less under the delu-
sive glamour of speculation ! When markets are over-
loaded and the wheels of industry hang idle; when
merchants go to their counting-rooms in the morning,
not to see how much money they can make, but how
little they can lose ; when the charities of the Church
are shrivelled, and hope dies out of the hearts of the
poor, not for the want of bounty but for the want of
work ; do not imagine you can go to the bottom of the
matter by some disputed theory of currency or political
economy. Take God's law with your account-book.
Admit, frankly, that enterprise and commerce have been
living, these last years, too much on false pretenses.
Own that where business professed that it was done on
solid capital, it has been done on bubbles of air ; that
you have walked in vain shadows, and called those
shadows property ; that you have promoted to places of
honor men who have asked to be trusted when there
was nothing to trust, — men shocked at no duplicity,
sticking at no excess, ashamed of no dishonor! How
can any financial philosophy or turn of political parties
repair ruins wrought by sins like these ?

You return from the out-of-door vexations, for peace,
to your home. But remember that even home, where
virtue generally makes its last retreat, if without this

AND UPRIGHTNESS IN MAN. 53

Christian principle of right, is no safer than the exchange
or the street. Marriage loses its sacredness, and along
with its sanctity its joy. Domestic life is tossed into a
troubled, angry strife. License and self-will, pagan
deities, stalk out of their old Pantheon, and become the
household gods of a degenerate and heathenized Chris-
tendom. Men look at women through a mist of passion,
and women look at men as rival claimants for privilege
and power. Who can marvel that the fountains of young
life are poisoned, and that the foundations of social
honor are loose ? The relations of man and woman will
not grow healthier — they will be worse disordered — till
we hear less about " rights," and more of what is right ;
less of the clashing of their spheres, and more of their
mutual obligations. Were every " incompatible " hus-
band and wife to take at once the simple spirit of duty
for their reconciliation, resolved to do what is nobly and
tenderly right, in the mutual bond that has bound them
divinely and indissolubly together, a new age would
begin in the soiled history of American families, and
cleaner blood would run in the veins of the generations
coming. We need apostolic households, no less than an
apostolic Church ; and it is an Apostle who, when he has
said, " Wives obey your husbands," says with equal
emphasis, " Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter
against them," — and what gentleness in his reason ! — for
" The husband is the head of the wife, as Christ of the
Church."

Begin with your children. Speak cheerfully, but rev-
erently and solemnly, to them of the righteousness of
God. Tell them He is their Father, and tell them He
is their Judge. Show them His face of compassion ;
show them His Throne of retribution. Teach them
that He loves the good ; teach them that He hates lying,

54: THE EIGHTEOUSJSTESS OF GOD.

and lust, and all iniquity, and that, for His goodness's
sake. He will sweep those who do not hate them finally
into tribulation. Take care, yourselves, to touch not
the unclean thing, so that your counsel to your sons and
daughters be not a mockery. Shake off the first dishonest
penny from your fingers, as the Apostle shook the ven-
omous viper into the fire. Stand in awe of your con-
science ; stand in awe of the King of kings. Expect and
welcome, from the ministry of Christ, searching mes-
sages. Pray for prophets who will rebuke you, as their
ancient predecessors did Israel, for robbing man by any
fraud, for robbing God by keeping back the offerings at
His altar which He requires at your hands. Turn to old
Isaiah, and listen to the burden of his advent vision:

"Hear, O Heaven, and give ear, O Earth, for the
Lord hath spoken. I have nourished and brought up
children, and they have rebelled against me. "Wash you ;
make you clean. Cease to do evil ; learn to do well.
Seek judgment ; relieve the oppressed ; right the father-
less ; plead for the widow. Zion shall be redeemed with
judgment, and her converts with righteousness. Say ye
to the righteous. It shall be well with them, for they
shall eat the fruit of their doings. "Woe unto the
wicked ; it shall be ill with him, for the reward of his
hand shall be given him. The mouth of the Lord
hath spoken it."

THE MAN CHEIST JESUS.

Christmas Day,

"And they shall call His name Emmanuel, which being inter-
preted is, God with us.— /S^. Matthew i. 23.

^ The form of the sentence is prophetic. The Evangel-
ist expressly quotes it from the Book of prophecy where
it originally stood. Isaiah, sometimes called the evan-
gelist among the prophets, because his mind was so
deeply acquainted with the spirit of Christ, wrote it as a
promise to his people. Through them it was a promise
to the world. Blind and lost humanity had gone wrong,
groping and stumbling down the slope of four thousand
evil years. Had it been only man that was offended,
then some better man, large of brain and large of heart,
might have been the mediator. But the Prophet saw
deeper than that. With the Psalmist, he knew that the
human heart must cry out, " Against Thee, Thee only,"
O my God^ " have I sinned." Some mightier Saviour
must come. Even the Heaven of heavens is moving it-
self in mercy. " Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God ;
ask it either in the depth or in the height above. The
Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin
shall conceive, and bear a Son." " In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. He was in the world, — that w^orld which was
made by Him, — and the world knew Him not." " In

56 THE MAN CHEIST JESUS.

Him was life " ; original, absolute, eternal, uncreated
life. So, virgin-born, God came in great humility as
man, — Emmanuel, — and we, with undeserving eyes, be-
held His glory, the glory as of one only begotten of the
Father, full of grace and truth. How have we beheld
Him? Has it been with a joy like John's? Has it been
with a faith like Mary's ? Have we knelt, bringing our
offerings to Him with the sages, or worshipped Him in
simplicity of heart, with the shepherds ?

Secondly, the Mediator was to come in the purity and
the power of a sinless human character. Here, again,
notice how simple and natural the prophet's language is.
The child to be born " shall know to refuse the evil and
choose the good." Heavenly knowledge ! " To depart
from evil, that is understanding." This Christ to come
shall be the perfect Man. In Him all virtues, all graces,
shall meet. They shall not only meet but harmonize in
Him, blending together into one matchless manhood. It
shall not be as in all other men, the grandest specimens
of virtue, where some disproportion spoils the sym-
metry; excess or defect, one-sidedness or limitation,
clinging to the highest minds. But everything in Him
shall be tempered faultlessly together : energy with pa-
tience, dignity with tenderness, forbearance toward the
guilty with indignation at wrong, command with obe-
dience, courage with humility, the fortitude of heroes
and martyrs with the sensibility of woman, and the ripe
experience of saints with the artlessness of a child. It
was " that holy thing " of which the angel spoke so mys-
teriously and awfully to Mary, which " should be born
of her," as " the Son of God." He would be the man
with men. He would be humanity's one consummate
immaculate example. He would be the world's one
stainless human soul.

THE MAN CHRIST JESUS. 57

This was the second part of the world's one real
want: First, Divine redemption for the sins that are
past. Secondly, a holy Man. We, my friends, are a
part of the human world ; and you and I, if we have at-
tained at all to a spiritual life, must join in with the cry
of this longing of human hearts for a Christ. Give us,
O Giver of all good gifts, one Leader like ourselves ; one
glorious human Person that we can love immeasurably
and forever, and the more we love Him be the more ex-
alted ; one King that our loyalty can cling to, without
abatement or misgiving, till we die, and then not die
eternally. Let Him be one of us, that we may be one in
Him. Let Him be no strange, distant demigod, belong-
ing neither to heaven nor earth, too unearthly for our
affections, and yet too mortal for our worship. But let
Him be born here, — on this familiar, sinful earth, which
feels human to our human feet ; in some Bethlehem vil-
lage, where men and women work and weep, and chil-
dren play in the streets; and if it be in a stable-manger,
so much the better for the encouragement of our faith
that He really means to minister to us, and to take the
form of a servant, and to put pride altogether away ; —
though He was rich with the wealth of heaven and earth
before, to become poor for our sake. Let Him grow up
in a carpenter's family, that He may make all our com-
mon labor sacred, and have a place in every humble
house on the globe. Though He is to be the conqueror
of all nations and all ages, let us see Him first as a filial
boy at home, subject to the order of the house, obedient
to His mother, growing into His lordship over the
race through these steps of pious subordination. Above
all, let Him, for our poor sinful nature's sake, — let Him
be tempted, like as we are, that He may know how to
succor and pity and love us who are tempted. Com-

58 THE MAN CHRIST JESUS.

plete, and spotless, and triumphant in His holiness, let us
nevertheless find Him facing our adversary, — in actual
struggles, — in the wilderness, hungry for earthly bread ;
on the temple-top, with the pride of personal display
before Him ; at the mount, beholding the kingdoms of
worldly dominion lying helpless within the grasp of His
ambition, yet refusing them. Alone, out among the
hills, when the world of men has misunderstood, wor-
ried, rejected Him, with the night wind on His heated
face, let us catch the words of peaceful prayer from His
lips. Though He is to overcome death, passing through
it, and rising from it, yet, since we all dread it, let us
hear Plim entreat, under its agony, " If it be possible,
let this cup pass from Me." Let us meet Him weep-
ing sometimes at the grave of His friend, and by all this
thorough and utter humanity in Him, let Him be to us
a brother, while He is a Saviour ; Mary's child, while
He reigns over the kingdom of D.ivid, — the Son of
Man, as He is the Son of God, — God himself, in His
wondrous way, with us. Emmanuel !

When this yearning of mankind was taken up into
the guidance and inspiration of God, it became proph-
ecy. The voice became articulate. A "more sure
word," as the Apostle says, " holy men of old spoke as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost." One of the
most expressive titles of our Lord condenses and con-
veys all this that I have been trying to say. He was the
" Desire of all nations," and accordingly the Evangelist,
in the passage of the text, while he records the blessed
nativity at Bethlehem, adds to the narrative, " [N'ow all
this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken
of the Lord by the prophet." Some puzzled students,
looking not much below the literal sense lying on the
surface, have wondered at this language, and disputed

THE MAJ? CHRIST JESUS. 59

about it. " Is it credible," they have asked, " that God
in lieaven should order such grand transactions as make
up the Messiah's ministry, merely for the purpose of
fulfilling certain old predictions, written by men ages
before ? " But there is a profounder view of the unity
between prophets and evangelists than this. And
where do we find it, but in the very significance and
strength of those desires we have just seen in the whole
mind and heart of the nations of men, seeing them
there just because we feel them first in ourselves; —
desires for a Divine propitiation, for a perfect Master,
Leader, Lord, to love, and trust, and follow, — to love
more than life, to follow through all hurt and peril with
joy, to trust for everlasting salvation ? In order that
these longings of the human heart, — fed on prophecy,
divinely instructed, made a preparation for (Christ, gath-
ered up and clothed in miraculous authority in great
illuminated seers like Isaiah and Zechariah, — might be
fulfilled. He was born, and died. Herein was love.
^Nothing here is beneath the dignity of the covenants
and revelations of Heaven. It is the answer of God's
eternal purpose to the cry of His penitent family, in the
gift of the Emmanuel, our Saviour.

And now these things that I have been saying to you,
as our Christmas morning thought, are a declaration, —
only not in the usual formulas of theological discussion,
— of the one fact which lies central and life-giving, at
the heart of all our Christian thoughts and hopes. The
name that the creeds and standards of the Church have
always given it is the Incarnation, — or the doctrine of
God in Christ, made flesh, and dwelling with us. Ready
as Christians have been, however, to give that blessed
truth this place in words, there is too much reason to
fear it does not possess the soul of Christendom as the

60 THE MAN CHEIST JESUS.

joyful conviction it ought to be, lightening all our dark-
ness, scattering all our fear, sanctifying all our life. We
cover it up with strange and gloomy draperies of un-
real phraseology, technical traditions, or sectarian dis-
putes. It is not blessed truth at all then, but is robbed of
its blessedness. Let it stand out in its own simple, fresh,
and glorious splendor, and what loveliness of moral
beauty, what majesty of disinterested sacrifice, what
gladness of relief and consolation, what beam of hope is
there, that does not meet and mingle in its mercy ? In
the whole world of realities there is nothing so real, or
so comforting to us, as this. JSmmanuel !

Further, we come short of the full grandeur of the
Gospel when we take the clause, " God with us," as
signifying only one among us, — a Deity moving among
individuals, outside of them all, and, however friendly
and gracious, still an external Person, saving them only
by a work wrought all above them. Christ's atonement
is no mechanical device in the Divine counsels, brought
in at an unexpected emergency in the world's fortunes,
paying the price of men's sins in a mercantile equiv-
alent adjusted by contract, after which the Redeemer
retires to contemplate His ransomed beneficiaries from
afar off. Oh, friends in Christ, friends in Christ, we
have a dearer, warmer, holier faith. When it is said
that, in Emmanuel^ God is with us, it is meant that His
very nature is wrought into our nature, if in faith and
baptism we receive Him, and ours into His. In the
true Incarnation all humanity is, in a certain sense, taken
up into the embrace of God. Henceforth all the world
is saved, and no soul born of woman,— no man, no child,
— needs to be an alien or outcast from the Father's House.
It only needs that the energetic command be heeded, —
" Repent and be baptized ; come in faith ; accept your

THE MAN CHRIST JESUS. 61

lieritage; be born of water and of the Spirit; awake to
the spiritual privileges and holy living of the family
order and affection around you." Then new beauty will
robe the earth ; new joy will encompass it like an at-
mosphere ! IS'ow we have a meaning for the angels'
song, — " Glad tidings of great joy to all people " ; " Glory
to God in the highest ; on earth peace ; good-will to
men." Old things are -passed away; behold all things
are become new.

It is a remark of the historian Guizot, and it doubt-
less contains a sound philosophy, for all history confirms
it, that " there never can be a great moral revolution
without its being concentrated in some great personage."
Doubtless, loyalty, everywhere, must have a leader.
But the practical assurance which this Feast of the
]N"ativity repeats to us reaches far beyond that, and
comes home to the heart's experience of those that are
themselves sore let and hindered in running the race
that is set before them. Christ not merely takes His
place in history; but all history takes place in Him.
He is large enough, comprehensive enough, compassion-
ate enough, to take in all the experience, the souls, the
lives, the burdens, the sorrows, of all nations and all
ages. See at once what a higher and holier character
this truth puts on the much-abused dogma of the dignity
of human nature. Human nature without the incarna-
tion is the least dignified of all things : it is weak, incon-
stant, vulgar, guilty, lost. As for anything it is in itself,
only conceit and vanity could call it noble, and hence it
is that the doctrine of the dignity of human nature, held
without the Church-truth of Christ's divinity and incar-
nation, has proved but a thin and feeble force to convert
mankind, to raise society, or to send out missions to the
heathen. Its fatal infirmity, in the lack of this funda-

K)j3 the man CHRIST JESUS.

mental and vitalizing fact of the Gospels, has emptied
even its honest and eloquent advocates of spiritual power.
But let it be seen that human nature is uplifted and
ennobled in the Divine humanity of Christ, Son of Man
and Son of God, and forthwith it wears a grandeur as if
the majestic bearing and outlines of the Divine Man
were visibly reflected upon it. Education is a new
thing now : it is a sacred training in a sacred school.
Social reform is a new thing : for it is no visionary
scheme of an indefinite " progress," all whose forces are
secular, and whose civilization is unconsecrated, never
on its knees, and never at sacraments ; but it is a restor-
ation of this divine image in man. Philanthropy is a
new thing : no longer bitter, headstrong, factious ; but
reverential, genial, generous, and orderly. Christ's
human nature is the nature of all classes and conditions
of men, — the slave's nature, the poor man's nature, the
pagan's nature; and when He died, with the cruci-
fixion and anguish of that nature, on the cross, it w^as
that all these might be lifted to the glory of spiritual
liberty and light, and their sins be blotted out. Here
centre and here rest all solid hopes of a bright and
happy future for mankind ; not in economic schemes,
or bills of rights, or civil constitutions, or policies of a
godless self-elevation and self-reliance. They rest in
the reverent spirit of the Church of God, with her hope-
ful and all-animating certainty of an incarnate Lord, a
God with us, who is the Son of Man : Eiamcmuel,

Then, too, it will begin to appear what Christ's own
people may be, acknowledging their membership, con-
firmed and alive in His body. Take the Holy Scriptures
and see how often Christ is there spoken of as an indwell-
ing Christ, present now, formed within, living in the
believer and the believer in Him, the very Life of life.

THE MAN CHKIST JESUS. DO

Take our service of the Holy Communion of His body
and blood ; study its sublime scriptural language ; and
you find how intimate and inward is this membership of
the disciple and communicant with his Lord by faith.
Light even breaks in on that almost inexplicable and
incredible saying of St. Peter, that by the " exceeding
great and precious promises " of the Word made flesh,
men may be " partakers of the Divine nature, escaping
the corruption that is in the world through lust." Kea-
son, blind and anxious, may still have its difiiculties, and
toil and grind in its prison-house, " bound in affliction and
iron " ; but Faith marches right over them as if they
were not ; nay, she takes wings and leaves them out of
her sight. What we want, that our Gospel gives. While
Reason is puzzling herself about the mystery. Faith is
turning it into her daily bread, and feeding on it thank-
fully in her heart of hearts. While Heason is applying
the tests of her earthly chemistry, threatening to dis-
solve the very cross of Calvary in her crucibles. Faith
has quietly set the holy doctrine to the music of her joy,
and is singing it as her hymn of Benedictus^ or Magnifi-
cat, in unquestioning peace. The doctrine may crucify
the proud, but it crowns the meek with salvation.

We cannot separate, then, fellow Christians, the two
main grounds of our Christian rejoicing this day. If
reconciliation is by the Lord's sacrifice, so is daily right-
eousness and sanctification by His life. There could be
no Mediator without both ; and by both we are saved.
If, " being justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ," so in the blessed
remembrance of the Divine humanity of that unseen
Friend we shall find a power to raise us, day by day,
above the weakness, the sufiering, and the sinfulness of
the mortal flesh. Perhaps some of us will find there

64 THE MAN CHKIST JESUS.

what will even comfort us more than the bare thought
of an "escape from the wrath to come," viz., a power to
help us mightily in this mysterious and constant strife of
the flesh with the spirit. We know now that the world
of matter and the body is under no malignant deity or
demon at war with God ; but to the believer even the
outer tabernacle is sanctified by Him who took it upon
Him ; the flesh, too, is redeemed ; the " creature itself
shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into
the glorious liberty of the children of God " ; and, while
" the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain
together," we wait in Christ who hath taken our flesh
" for the redemption and resurrection of our body,"
which is the living image and figure of His Church.

Honor and praise, then, in the Church, with Christ-
mas anthems, with the shepherds, and the sages, and the
virgin-mother, and the heavenly host, to our Emmanuel,
as the Son of Man ! As man He was born. As man
He was a servant, was homeless, was weary, was an hun-
gered, and wept. As man He was tempted, and as man
He was without sin. As man He endured contradiction,
reviling, insult, cruelty, and yet said, " Daughters of
Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves
and for your children." As man He was crucified, dead,
and buried. As man He rose again, ascended, and reigns.
As man He shall come again, to divide, and to judge,
and to reign ; for " therefore is all judgment committed
unto Him, because He is the Son of Man."

So well-grounded is the universal joy of this day's
feast. The blessing belonging to it falls not on one
day, or on a few rare and separated spots. Its light
shines in through all the frost and fruitage of the year.
When the star in the east came and stood over where
the young child was, and looked in on the Bethlehem

THE MAN CHRIST JESUS. 66

stable, it saw the beginDing of a reconciliation which
should bring rest to the world. When the song of the
angels startled the shepherds, keeping watch over their
flocks by night, it was the first strain of a harmony in
which we bear our unworthy part this morning, to sound
on till it is completed, where it was begun, — in heaven.
The manger is a cradle for all the anxieties and sorrows
and fears of our hearts, where they may sleep in child-
like peace. The human nativity of Jesus is the Divine
birthday and new creation of the soul.

FAITH OUTLIYIKG ITS SPECIAL OCCASIONS.
Sunday after Christmas,

"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 come to pass, which the
Lord hath made known unto us." — St. LuTce ii. 15.

The trial of men's faith comes after God's awakening
angels have gone away.

His angels are His messengers. In so sublime a cere-
monial as the visible ushering into the world of the Person
of its Lord they might well come as winged forms in the
sky, heavenly light clothing them, singing a super-
natural hymn : the whole appearance a court befitting
the glory of the King. When God bringeth His only
begotten Son into the world, He " maketh His angels
spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire." We call it
supernatural, and it is ; yet what could be more natural
to Him than that, when the eternal Son, begotten of His
Father before all worlds, becomes a man, — because men
could not be thoroughly and inwardly saved but by the
sacrifice and sympathy of a Saviour entering into the
poverty and suffering of their mortal estate, — those inter-
mediate orders of life which stand between Him and us
should attend His advent, and announce the transcen-
dent blessing to the world ? It was too high a mystery
to be heralded, even in music, from the stained and sin-
ning lips of men.

FAITH OUTLIVING ITS SPECIAL OCCASIONS. 67

To US God's favoring messengers are stripped of their
miraculous raiment. They take the shape of merciful
providences to relieve and comfort us, of Christian
ordinances to strengthen us, festivals to reawaken our
thanksgiving, and human hearts to enrich the poverty
of ours with their affection. The Faith that was born
at Bethlehem is ages old ; its outer benefits as well as
its forms are familiar. "While they are present to the
senses in the vividness of some special impression it is
not very difficult probably for our feelings to move in
grateful answer to their ministrations. On the Mount of
Transfiguration the three favored disciples cried, "Let
us build tabernacles and abide here " ; yet scarcely had
they stepped down from the splendors of Tabor when
they began disputing which follower of the poor stable-
born and homeless Redeemer should be greatest. In the
fresh mercy of some gracious deliverance, from sadness or
pain or accident or threatened sorrow, men cast their
thank-offering into the treasury of the Church, and
wonder that they should ever be forgetful of God's care.
In th8 stillness of a sanctuary, when all the harmonies
of holy times and places seem to shut out temptation,
to set open the windows of heaven, and fill the uplifted
spirit with hearty praise, men say, " Would to God all
days and places were like this ; for then faith, and zeal,
and charity never would grow cold ! " In the warmth
of the feast it is easy to be glad. And even when the
shadow moves into the house, — for that shadow too is
one of God's angels, — the whole family, bending with
prayers and whispers above one fevered, wasting child,
find it easy to turn to the Saviour, and impossible not
to pray. But these hours pass by. The angels are gone
away into heaven. The festive lights are put out; the
temple-doors are shut ; the Winter snow lies white and

b» FAITH OUTLIVING ITS SPECIAL OCCASIONS.

smooth on tlie little grave in the burial-ground. The
world comes crowding, beseeching, flattering, threaten-
ing, almost forcing its way back, with its noise and its
guilt, into the unguarded and yielding heart. Then
comes the test of the reality, the sincerity, the power,
of your Christian principles.

When the song ceased, the first Christmas eve, and
the bright host vanished from the sky, the shepherds
did not fall asleep again, and so have only a dream to
tell the next morning. They verified the vision, like
earnest and constant men. They stayed a while, and
watched, and resolved : " Let us now go even unto Beth-
lehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which
the Lord hath made known to us."

Secondly : Such willingness to watch and seek com-
monly leads, as it does here, to an equal readiness to
heliem when the promise is fulfilled, and they that have
sought Christ find Him. It will be easy to imagine in
them — and all the easier because there are so many peo-
ple close at hand that are examples of it, — a state of mind
exactly opposite to this simple, believing, and confiding
one in the shepherds. They might have said, — and if
they had been modern philosophers, conceited critics, or
ambitious naturalists, they would have been very sure to
say, — to each other, " Beware how you believe : these, to
be sure, are extraordinary phenomena; they look very
much as miracles are said to look, — brilliant figures
plainly seen by many witnesses, nay, by our own eyes,
and articulate melodies from their tongues! — but pos-
sibly electricity, meteorology, optics, or acoustics may
explain them all ; — light or sound." And if the legiti-
mate sciences fail, they can at least fall back on necromancy
and witchcraft, — the retributive " spiritualism " which
often persuades those who would not believe a miracle of

FAITH OUTLIVING ITS SPECIAL OCCASIONS. 69

truth to believe the miracle of a lie. Anything but
simple, straight-forward Christian faith, of Gospel and
Church together ! They say, " We will look into our
books. It is extremely unlikely that nature would inter-
rupt her order, or let in new light by a new channel.
Let us take care not to be ridiculed for believing too
much." And so, while they turn downward from God to
themselves, these Scribes of outward knowledge and
Pharisees of the law of nature, as fast bound against all
the living power of truth and the liberty in Christ as
ever the Scribes and Pharisees of the letter and law
of Judaism were, freeze in unbelief. Glories of heaven
and earth, grander than telescopes ever pierced among
the stars, or hammers ever uncovered in the rocks,
pass by, and there is no vision to behold them. Quick
minds, but dull affections! Full understandings and
empty hearts ! Spiritual things not seen for want of
spiritual senses ! " O fools and slow of heart to believe "
all that God's prophets, God's angels, God's Scriptures
have spoken !

Around the person of Jesus in the flesh, when the
Divine voice was ringing out of Heaven above Him,
some said that it thundered, others that an angel spoke to
Him. These shepherds were wiser than the sages. God
knew whom he was choosing when he opened Heaven
on those clear-hearted keepers of simple flocks. They
discredited neither messenger nor message, — as true and
humble-minded disciples reject neither Christ nor His
Church, the Bridegroom nor the Bride. They said, not
as our own doubters say, " Let us go somewhere and see
whether this thing is come to pass or not " ; but, " Let
us go and see this thing which is come to pass, which the
Lord hath made known to us." Everywhere you see
men ready to hww, ready to reason, ready to speculate,

TO FAITH OUTLIVING ITS SPECIAL OCCASIONS.

ready to stand by their party and their prejudice, ready to
dogmatize and denounce those that differ, ready to receive
this world's gifts. But when that divinest gift of all
comes, — ^pardon and eternal life; purity and peace;
Emmanuel born in a manger ; a kingdom coming not
with observation ; the gift of Christ ; a Life that is within
life and beyond life, which can come only by believing ;
are they ready ? Not till they are will Christmas Day
be really honored, or Jesus really come within us in
power.

Thirdly : When Faith is prompt, honest, and manly,
like this, it comes out as it does in these brave men, to
an open confession. The shepherds said what they said
frankly, " one to another ^^'^ and with one consent. It was
a confession of Faith as much as the Creed we have said
this morning ; and, like that, its substance was not an
opinionof men, but a Divine Fact which had taken place.
So they did not hide their purposes, or play fast and
loose with their convictions. They did not arise and go,
one by one, in byways of concealment, as if they were
ashamed of their errand, or were going only on guesses
instead of certainties ; they looked each other in the
face, as men do who act upon realities, and know what
they believe, and expect the same good faith in their fel-
lows. They spoke out their belief. They set up their
banner. They came forth from among the unbelieving.
They enrolled themselves under their Leader. "Would
all the men who actually believe with them, and mean
not to dishonor their Master, but are kept back by false
teaching, unfounded fears, and scruples that no evangelic
promise justifies, only come with them, — there would be
such a rallying of workmen under the cross to-day as
would make it almost a new nativity, such a feast as the
Church has scarcely kept since Pentecost; enough to

FAITH OUTLIVING ITS SPECIAL OCCASIONS. 71

make tlie whole family in heaven and earth sing " Glory
to God in the highest," with united acclamation.

But after all these, — after the constancy which outlives
the visit of the special privilege, after the willing Faith
that accepts without question the offered Saviour, and
after the frank and fearless confession of His name before
men, comes one sharp criterion more. "Will those men
who have resolved to go to Bethlehem and see, really
arise and go? Many a Christian life falters and fails in
every congregation between these two. "Will resolve
pass on into action, and a good faith confirm and
demonstrate itself in good works ? Yes, " they came with
haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying
in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made
Icnown abroad the saying which was told them concerning
the Child."

So complete are the intimations of Christian doctrine
in this story of the shepherds. It ends where every
Christian life must be lived, in hearty service to Christ
and the preaching of His truth. Visions are transient ;
the festival is but for a day ; the angels go away into
heaven. But the indwelling Christ abides. Everyday^
amidst ignorance, and wrong, and difficulty. His will
is to be done. For us all, the true trial of our faith
is in the constancy which clings to the promise of His
"Word, and the diligence which keeps its vows, and bears
His cross.

We have now celebrated the birthday not only of
Christ, but of Christendom. Men point sincerely
enough to its vast fields, and its centuries of blessing,
and call on their fellow-men to receive a religion which
yields such fruit. But in that way souls are seldom
gained to a living trust, such as either satisfies or sancti-
fies the heart. "We must still return to that old and

72 FAITH OUTLIVING ITS SPECIAL OCCASIONS.

inspired definition: "ISTow faith is the substance of
things hoped for ; the evidence of things not seen." It
is not by looking at what has been in the world of the
past, it is by feeling the wants of the sinful world within,
and by the preparation for the sinless world to come,
that we seek and find our Lord. Blessed are they that
so hunger and thirst, for they shall be filled ! and that so
seek, for they shall find !

NEW AND OLD.

BEGINNING OF THE YEAE.

Second Sunday after Christmas.

" Things new and old." — Matthew xiii. 52.

Into these two kinds our Saviour sorts the materials
of wise instruction. The doctrines, the spiritual forces,
the ways of interesting, influencing, and moulding men
for a true service in the Christian life, are of these
two classes, — partly new and partly old. This fact is at
once an explanation of His own method of teaching,
and a direction to His disciples how they should proceed
to build up the Church, or to convert and to sanctify
any individual heart.

The great Teacher had Himself just spoken to the
multitude gathered within the reach of His voice
seven striking parables. Four of them, — the parables
of the Sower, the Tares growing with the wheat, the
Mustard-seed becoming a tree, and of the Leaven pene-
trating through the woman's measures of wheat, — were
doubtless delivered from a fishing- vessel anchored by the
shore of the Sea of Galilee, to a multitude of people
listening on the banks. The other three, — those of the
Treasure hidden in the field, of the Merchant seeking
goodly pearls, and of the Draw-net which gathers in
its meshes of every kind, — were heard afterward by

74 NEW AND OLD.

a smaller group, collected in a dwelling-house that He
had entered, not far from the sea-side. All the subjects,
you notice, are taken from the agricultural, commercial,
maritime, or domestic pursuits of the people He was
instructing. Yet there was such novelty in the use
made of them, such unexpected arrangement, coloring,
and application of these "old" daily doings, that they
were at once transfigured before the people into a fas-
cinating glory ; they listened under the spell of an in-
describable charm; it all seemed "new," as if the
things spoken of were just created, and had the dew of
the morning on them. So the touch of true genius, in
a painting, is never so plain as where the figures and
objects represented are common, yet the whole effect is
original as a creation. " Things new and old " together
make up the mystery and the beauty of the parable and
the picture. But more than this, — in what the parables
taught, or the hidden meaning that Christ conveyed
through them, there was the same mixture of the two
elements. As they hearkened to the Lord from heaven
these Galilean peasants and fishermen found something
that was new, and something that was old. Duties were
declared, principles were announced, springs of human
feeling and action were touched, which their religious
education and the light of their consciences had made
as familiar to them as the slopes of the hills about the
lake, the curves of the shore, or the trees along the
street, under the common sunshine, where they plied
their daily calling. This was "old," but this was not all.
As the heavenly words came from the lips of this " Son
of Man," knowing not only all that is in man but the
secrets in the bosom of God, they caught glimpses of
something " new," and as grand as it was new. Yery
faint and inadequate these glimpses were, at first. But

NEW AND OLD. 75

the patient Master knew the work He had to do, and
led their dull intellects along through this simple path
of parable, giving them what they were able to bear,
— tempered beams for their weak eyes. What He was
seeking to unfold to them was nothing less than the
nature of that, everlasting and universal kingdom of
God, which embraces all other truth, transcends all mor-
tal understanding, and provides redemption for all the
nations of our race, and yet sets up its true throne in
the unlettered heart of a regenerated child or a penitent
slave. Holding fast all that was good in the "old" re-
ligion of conscience and Law He was bringing forth to
them the " newness " of His Gospel.

"Then said He unto them. Every Scribe which is
instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a
man which is an householder, which bringeth forth out of
his treasure things new and old." Perhaps, while He
was speaking, the table in the house where He was had
been hospitably spread for this welcome and beloved
Friend, like that of the lover in the Song of Solomon who
sings, " At our gates are all manner of fruits, new and
old^ which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved " ; —
and thus Jesus frames another allegory from the ready
meal ; — " so thoroughly," says Stier, " has He got into the
taste for parables, that the festive board becomes a sym-
bol of the nourishment of His Bread of Life." Neander,
on the other hand, supposes the "treasure" to be the
jewels which Eastern hosts sometimes display to their
guests, — " old " heirlooms to recall the past, and "new"
gems to signify present prosperity or friendship, both
alike precious.

We shall find that the principle the Saviour announces
here is too broad to be confined to any one profession,
even the most sacred. It appears in the whole provi-

ib NEW AND OLD.

dential disposition of our lives, and impresses a particular
lesson as we pass, under Christ our Leader, from the
things of the old year to the things of the new.

Take notice, first, with what wonderful beneficence, in
the mere outward scenery of our mortal life, God has
joined these two elements, — the new and the old. A
great deal that we hear, see, and experience every day
is so familiar that it excites no surprise, and so fixed that
we come to rely on its continuance ; but intermixed with
this there is a great deal besides in every day that we
never saw, or heard, or felt before, which keeps up a
perpetual entertainment. The " old " supplies a foothold
to assure us, props to lean upon, a sense of stability to
rest our groping and unsettled faculties, giving to the
world about us something of the feeling of a home.
The "new" stimulates those faculties, wakes up our
dulness, and prevents us from sinking down into a
stupid, careless monotony of mechanical routine. Every
morning opens upon us with the same well-known ele-
ments of earth and water, air and sky. But when some
subtle change in the season, the temperature, or the
light, puts a new expression on the earth's face, shifts the
scenes in the sky, scatters sunshine and shadow with an
original pencilling, we seem to wake into a day that
never had its exact likeness in any day that went before,
and yet it is a day in the same old world. Were every-
thing new, we should be strangers in a homeless dance
of accidents, desultory, frivolous, careless, without concen-
tration of purpose, or continuity of affection, or labor.
Were everything old, we should rust and harden in life-
less repetitions. So God balances our being mercifully
between uniformity and variety, between fixedness and
alteration, between habit and experiment, between
memory and hope, between endearments and friend-

NEW AND OLD. T7

ships which grow ripe and mellow with time on the one
hand, and, on the other, blessings, efforts, enterprises,
and discoveries which, as it is written, are a part of the
Creator's compassions, "]^ew every morning and fresh
every evening." One great part of what makes life
precious and sweet we bear on with us in our arms and
hearts through all the changes ; the other part is like
the unexpected openings in the winding road of a trav-
eller, teaching us that the Maker's world is larger than
we thought, and that there are not only many mansions in
our Father's house, but endless opportunities for gaining
knowledge and being useful in all these earthly fields,
planted and recovered by His Son.

Enter next a sphere which lies closer to the seats of
religious character. All the advances that are made
in human society toward the practical realization of the
great Christian ideas of justice, order, liberty, and love,
are carried forward by the providential balance and in-
terworking of these two principles, — the preservation
of the old, and the introduction of the new. Each gen-
eration is meant to hand down something to its suc-
cessor, in experience, in wisdom, in a funded stock of
valuable traditional opinions and usages. So is each
generation meant to find out something new, by study
and endeavor, and to add the result to that funded cap-
ital, dropping off and pushing aside what it finds to be
false or wrong. It is very rare that there is an institu-
tion, or custom, or doctrine, gaining the consent of a
considerable number of good men, and holding its place
a long time, which is so utterly bad that it requires to
be completely blotted out, — and even when that is the
case, we still hold on upon the past by some better bond
not to be dissolved. Our roots to-day all lie back in
the soil of centuries gone by, and we grow out of

78 NEW AND OLD.

that, — tlie old. But there were errors and evils growing
there that must have the axe laid at their root, to make
room for better and nobler forms of life, — the new
John Baptist comes heralding the Christ. Truth itself,
speaking strictly, is always old, — eternal as God is.
But as we are constantly walking around it, catching
different aspects of it, and perhaps hewing away the
disfigurements that mistaken men before us have plas-
tered upon that majestic and beautiful countenance, its
features seeiYh to be new. And here comes the distinc-
tion between true and false reformers, in their opposite
extremes. Destructionists that are over-bold would cut
the present clean off from the past, for the sake of hav-
ing a future built after their own plan, — like the Spar-
tans that killed their old men because they were in the
way, making their reform a beginning and a beginning
over and over again, never bringing forth out of their
treasure "things old." Conservatives that are over-
timid, on the other hand, would never allow an innova-
tion, lest it should disturb the peace; they render
reform impossible by the fear of change, like Herod,
who slaughtered the Holy Innocents lest there should be
a young king among them to dispute his throne, — never
bringing forth out of their treasure " things new." But
the wise Householder in Heaven overrules both of their
one-sided follies, and, by opposing each with the other,
bears His human family forward in one unbroken order
of gradual and merciful advancement.

Pass to the more sacred ground of God's special
revelations in the three successive dispensations through
which he has guided His Church. First was the Period
of Patriarchs, of which we have the description and
history in the Book of Genesis. It was adapted to the
childhood of the race ; but when the time came for it to

NEW AND OLD. 79

give place to a written Law, and an established Kitual,
not everything in it was abolished. The grand cen-
tral doctrine of one God, the duty of religious obe-
dience, the paternal Providence that leads men out and
in all their days, the prophetic appointment of sacrifices
pointing forward to the Cross of Christ, the promise of
the Messiah at the Garden of Eden, the institution of
the Sabbath when God blessed the seventh day and hal-
lowed it, the justifying faith of Abraham who believed
and trusted God so that it was counted to him for right-
eousness, the covenant by which children are bound up
in the same family-blessing of Faith with their parents,
— all these you find in that Book of Genesis, and in that
first Biblical dispensation. Were they abolished when
Moses came, with the Tables of the Law in his hands at
Mount Sinai ? Not one of them. Yery much in that
Mosaic age was new, — statutes, tabernacles, ordinances,
and one national seat of the national worship. But
much more was old than new, — and of every one of
those " old things " that I just mentioned there remains
some memorial and some hereditary power even now in
our third and Christian age, — Christ promising, even of
its final consummation, that His spiritual followers shall
be privileged to sit down in the new kingdom above
with the old believers and patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. There is a sublime and majestic unity in
these revelations. Moses is, in turn, superseded by
Christ; the Law by grace and truth; Jerusalem by the
Church universal. Yet not one jot or tittle passes from
that old Law till all is fulfilled. The principles that
underlie the Eitual and Liturgy of the temple and the
synagogue have only a freer and more expanded opera-
tion in the worship of Christendom ; prophecy is ful-
filled; types are followed by their substance; and all

80 NEW AND OLD-

the three dispensations of Holy Scripture are one, be-
cause within them all is the everlasting Christ, — '^ the
same yesterday, to-day, and forever," "the Alpha and
Omega, the Beginning and the End."

These are inspiring and enlarging contemplations.
They lift us out of the petty round of our narrow occu-
pations in small cares and selfish calculations, in house
and shop, in the poor gossipings, envyings, and competi-
tions of societ}^ They make us feel that the world we
are living in is not ours but God's world, and that all its
strange, blind ways are, after all, controlled by Him who
seeth the end from the beginning.

Yet even over this exalted line of thought I should
hardly have invited you to follow me at this solemn
time, if I had not been drawing nearer with you,
through such an approach, to the very inmost seat of
what is most practical and momentous in our indi-
vidual relations with God and with the judgment to
come. There is an " old " life to be " put oif," not be-
cause it is old, but because it is bad ; there is a "new"
life to be " put on." Unless every part of the frame-
work and substance of the Gospel is mistaken, every
heart that is not willingly renewed to righteousness
and true holiness in the image of Christ by God's Holy
Spirit is dying the death of sin ; then every one of us
here who has not consciously and penitently renounced
this world as his master for the sake of confessing and
serving Christ his Saviour, is lost from God. " That ye
put off the old man ; that ye put on the new " : — this is
your Saviour's cry to you again to-day, from this place.
Were He to enter here and look in your faces, as He
entered and looked round on the old temple just before
He suffered, this would be His sermon. Human nature
keeps its old weaknesses, and wants, and wickedness

NEW AND OLD. 81

IS'otliing c^n cover them up from Him who died to
deliver us from them, lie would separate you here as
He always did on earth, and as He has surely declared
He will finally at the last day, into two easily marked
and deeply divided classes. The line might not be seen
by any outward profession, for men deceive themselves
and are deceived. Those on the right side of it are not
perfect characters ; but that does not put life or hope
into the dying hearts of you that are on the wrong side.
You all know, or may know by the Word in the New
Testament, whether in an honest and good heart you
have chosen Christ and followed Him in the regenera-
tion or not. " ISTow then, as ambassadors for Christ, we
beseech you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God."

What are the " old things" that, in such a new revolu-
tion, and new confession, and new creation in you, are
to be kept and brought forth ? Not the old life ; that
must be rooted out, for self-love, and pleasure-seeking,
and pride, and money-getting, and frivolity are the
springs and goings forth of it. The old things that are
to be kept, when you become a new soul in Christ Jesus,
are your old capacities and powers, — the power of choos-
ing, of repenting, of loving, of believing, of working for
your Lord, powers which He gave you in an awful trust
when He gave your body breath, and your mind the
image of Himself. This ground- work of humanity, this
capacity for conversion, for holiness, and for immortal
life is the old element that has not to be given you
again. It is there, — a talent buried or used, — and if
buried, your Lord is asking. Why have you not yet used
it for Him ? The Judge standeth at the door.

And for the very reason that He is a merciful Judge,
He does not let our life flow on in one even, uninter-
rupted and continuous stream of time, with no breaks or

b2 NEW AND OLD.

turns in the current to make us stop and think whither
and how fast we are drifting. He breaks it up into
days, into years, into periods of infancy, youth, matu-
rity, manhood or womanhood, old age, — shifting the old
scene by new employments, new relations, new sorrows,
and new blessings. Into every such waymark He puts
a voice of warning, making it a solemn minister of His
salvation. He says, of infants, to their parents, " Suffer
them to come to Me." O child, remember thy Creator
in the days of thy youth; O young man, rejoice and
let thy heart cheer thee; but remember that for all these
things God shall bring thee into judgment. Be strong;
overcome the wicked one, and let the Word of God
abide in thee. O man and woman, filled and eager with
business and pleasure, love not the world, nor the things
that are in the world. For all that is in the world, the
lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride
of life, is not of the Father. " He that doeth the will
of God abideth forever."

Make this a winnowing time, to sift out of the old
things in your habits and your desires whatever you do
not dare to take with you into the day of your reckon-
ing with God. " Set thy house in order." Make this a
" 'New Year," in a sense so deep, so complete and so
blessed, that, like as Christ was raised from the dead, so
ye may walk in newness of life !

Take to you the old Gospel, the old promises of God,
the old creed of truth, and holding them fast as your
imperishable " treasure," move forward with them in the
" new " and Living Way !

THE EPIPHANY GOODNESS.

First Sunday after Epiphany .

"Behold my Servant, whom I have chosen; my Beloved, in
whom my soul is well- pleased: I will put my Spirit upon Him, and
He shall show judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive, nor
cry; neither shall any man hear His voice in the streets. A bruised,
reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench, till
He send forth judgment unto victory. And in His name shall the
Gentiles trust."— /S^ Matthew xii. 18-21.

Wherever, in all the world, in any heart of Jew or
Gentile, bond or free, formalist or prodigal, there is any
movement toward Him, Christ encourages it. Whether
it is an outward movement, of travelling feet, an in-
quiring tongue, the open confession that brings visible
offerings, as with the wise men that came out of hea-
thendom to Bethlehem at the Great Epiphany, or
whether it is only the inward movement of a secret de-
sire after His holiness, it is never the economy of Heaven
to despise it or smother it. It may be very feeble and
dull; very awkward and irregular; very much mixed
with baser elements, which overlay it with their un-
sightly deformities and almost kill it . Let them kill
it, if you will, God never kills it. It may only smoul-
der out of sight, like fire in a ball of flax, where nothing
but smoke struggles out through the mass of matted
fibres, and a little heat warms the hand that feels for it.
This does not provoke the mighty Lord to " quench " it.

84: THE EPIPHANY GOODNESS.

His hand is patient, and does feel for it. He is as
long-suffering as He is mighty. By His very name as a
Saviour, the business of His ministry, the passion of the
" spirit " " put upon Him,- ' is not to destroy the faint
flickerings of spiritual life, but to save them. Even the
fragments of that poor bread which only nourishes the
body He would not waste, but gathered it up in baskets.
Much more the broken and dying embers of penitence
and faith in the soul will He not quench. He will gather
and cherish and watch over and fan them, if He is not
hindered, into flames of vigorous and constant ardor.

As with feeble religious affections in men's hearts, so
with mistaken opinions in their minds. In almost every
false system of belief, whether within or outside the
limits of nominal Christianity, there are some traces of
truth. Like the seeds of ancient grain that were some-
times wrapped up in the winding-sheets of dead bodies
and buried in dusty sepulchres for centuries, which ger-
minate, and send up the green blade, and the full corn,
when air and light and soil are given them ages after,
so some dry germs of God's early but buried gifts lie
lifeless in these dark religions, till Christ, the Light of
the world, quickens them. He came into the world on
that mission. He came not to create a world, but to
seek out, to gather up, to save, something which had
been lost in the world, and, taking hold of that, to give
Himself for it, — to breathe His own life into it, to pour
out the blood of His own veins to revive it, — and thus
to redeem and recreate the world. Notice how almost
every common term that expresses the object of Christ's
mediation includes this little particle, which signifies that
His work was a second work, — a doing over of what had
been done, or a bringing back of what had been thrown
away, or a bringing up of what had been buried under

THE EPIPHANY GOODNESS. 85

iniquity and falsehood, — re-storing, re-generating, re-
newing, re-covering, re-forming. To save, to rescue,
to deliver, to ransom, — all imply that there is a sub-
stance of life remaining to work upon ; and that the
Great Redeemer's ministry is to seek it out and save
it, — in other words, to take these broken, disordered,
depraved elements of our humanity out from under their
corrupt bandages ; to set them free ; to cleanse them ;
to graft them into the Heavenly Vine ; to train them
up into fruit-bearing branches, as members of His
own Life. In doing this His patience and His conde-
scension are wonderful. He despises no virtue because
it is frail. He refuses no prayers because they are timid
or ignorant. He thrusts away from Him no inquirers
because they are yet beclouded with much doubt or su-
perstition. He listens to them. He tells them to come
nearer. He makes the way of admission not harder, but
as easy as He can. He lays hold, first, of everything in
man which is already in sympathy with Him, — the life
not utterly gone, the better feelings not completely dead,
and by these He strives with this seeking soul to in-
crease its faith, and to recover it altogether. Be it false
living, or false doctrine, vice, heresy, heathenism, infidel-
ity, the sin of publicans and harlots, — whatever the
transgression, whatever the unbelief. His Divine heart
so loves the souls they enslave, and so longs to deliver
them, that He comes down into the midst of them; and
then, the point at which He begins to save is that last
spark of unquenched life which gleams out, brightens,
and warms toward Him. Tliis is the central miracle
of the Gospel, and the glory of the Cross. It is that
" love of Christ which passeth knowledge."

Go with it, this morning, to that grand promise of the
gathering in of the nations which now, at Epiphany,

>6 THE EPIPHANY GOODNESS.

tirs the heart and inspires the animating worship of the
3hurch. Look, from under it, at the star in the east,
nd the adoration of the magi.

After dpscribing how silent and- unobtrusive the Sav-
our's method was, in His teaching and His miracles ;
low willing He was to wait for the fulfilment of His
glorious purposes; how He withdrew Himself from
rowds and avoided noisy demonstrations, disappointing
he pompous expectations of the people ; and how all
his Divine patience was only the calm surface of that
leep sea of power which was one day to overflow and
onvert the world, — the Evangelist goes on : " That it
flight be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the
^rophet, saying. Behold my Servant, whom I have
hosen ; my Beloved, in whom my soul is well-pleased :

will put my Spirit upon Him, and He shall show
udgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive, nor cry ;
leither shall any man hear His voice in the streets. A
iruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall
le not quench, till He send forth judgment unto vic-
ory. And in His name shall the Gentiles trust."
?hat is, these tender traits of His person, these char-
table aflections of His Gospel, this catholic economy of
lis kingdom, this patient and comprehensive love of
lis sacrifice, shall accomplish the gathering in of Gen-
ile nations to His feet. He meets them where they are.
lis judgment of them, as of us, is first gentle, con-
escending, and so afterward the more terribly just,
lis victory over them is on the Cross where He sufliers
^r them. Oh, to helieve this is to be "justified by
iith."

Turn to the wise men, following the star to His
irthplace. Think who they were, and why they
ame. They were from far beyond the bounds of that

THE EPIPHANY GOODNESS. 87

chosen and favored Israel whose were the covenants,
the oracles, the fires of Sinai, the glory of Sion, and the
faith of the fathers. They came, doubtless, from Persia,
a heathen country. "With whatever distinction among
their countrymen, they were yet hitherto but princes
among pagans, or a priesthood of superstition. Their
business was a vain attempt to read the fortunes of
empires and of men by watching the changing posi-
tions and mutual attractions of the stars. Ko plainer
revelation of God's loving-kindness and wisdom for
them stood before their eyes than the cold splendors
of the midnight sky. The heavenly commandment and
promise they must spell out in the mystic syllables of
the constellations, or else grope on in darkness. The
sun was the burning eye of an Unknown Deity. With
night-long, solemn vigils, they strained their eyes into
the heavens; but they saw no "Heaven of heavens,"
because they saw no Father of forgiveness, and no heart
of love, there. Astrology was their pursuit, and astrol-
ogy was neither a true faith nor a true science. !N^ot
Abraham, nor Moses, nor Elijah, nor Daniel, nor Isaiah,
nor any of the " glorious company " was their prophet,
but Zoroaster, — a mysterious if not quite mythical per-
sonage, ever vanishing in the shadows of an uncer-
tain antiquity. These were the men that God was
leading to Bethlehem, representatives of that whole
pagan world that He would draw to the Saviour.

On the other hand, we must take care not to fall into
the popular mistake about these magi. They held the
best religion of their time, outside of Judaism, Their
sacred books prove tliem to have been no degraded or
sensual idolaters, probably not idolaters at all. When
they fed their sacred fires with spices and fragrant wood,
it was not the fire they worshipped, but a strange and

88 THE EPIPHANY GOODNESS.

unseen Light, of which the fire was a symbol. Their
Ormuzd was an Infinite Spirit, and the star-spirits were
his bright subordinates. They believed in immortality,
in judgment, in prayer, in the sacredness of marriage, in
obedience, in honesty ; they practised carefully most of
the virtues of the Christian morality, including that foun-
dation one of truthfulness, which is rare enough in both
East and West, and which Christianity has found it so
hard to establish in public or in private life, in all its
eighteen centuries of discipline. And to this day, when
the American traveller or merchant meets among the
miserable native communities of the East-Indian cities
a citizen more intelligent, more upright, of nobler man-
ners and gentler hospitality than the rest, he is almost
sure to find him a Parsee descendant of those Zoroastrian
students of the stars : brethren or children of the wise
men who offered their gold, frankincense, and myrrh to
the infant Messiah in the stable.

Now, from these mixed characteristics of the magi, —
the first worshippers our Lord had on earth, — it is easy
to learn, I think, just what their place on the pages of
Scripture is meant to teach : — practical truth for us all.

First, they teach us this : that^ in the largeness of the
plan of His salvation^ Christ not only hreaJcs over all the
narrow notions of national, family, and social prejudice,
hut He permits every heart to come to Him, in spite of
its imperfections and errors, hy the test light and the
test feeling it has. These astrologers were all wrong
about the stars presiding over the destinies of men, and
foretelling the birth of kings. Yet, condescending to
them, taking them up at that low point of their childish
superstition, this " testimony of Jesus, which is the spirit
of prophecy," made use of their astrological credulity to
guide them to Christian knowledge, shaping the miracle

THE EPIPHANY GOODNESS. 89

even to their mistake, by all means to bring them out
into " the truth as it is in Jesus " ; saving them finally
from their error, in seeming to save them by it.

It is most impressive to see how this patience and con-
descension, beginning there at the cradle, run through
our Lord's personal ministry among men. He always
gains persons, just as He gains the world, by going down
to them. If fishermen are to be converted, lie gets into
a boat, or sits down by them as they are mending their
nets. If ]N"icodemus is too cowardly to come to Him in
the daytime. He lets him come in the night, and willingly
wakes to explain to him the new birth of water and
spirit which is the entrance into life. In order to show
the proud doctors of the law that all their traditional
learning is good for nothing without a simple heart. He
goes in among them at the temple, as a child, listens to
them, and asks them questions, in the fashion of their
Eabbinical schools. "When wicked women are to be puri-
fied. He allows them to come in the wild earnestness of
their impulsive devotion, and lets them wash His feet with
tears. Sometimes He reasons with men ; sometimes He
waits silently for them ; sometimes He sends them away
only till they need Him more ; sometimes He passes
quietly out of their reach, to let their passions cool. If
the cure of disease, or raising the dead, or stilling the
sea, will turn men's hearts to Him, He works the out-
ward wonder for the inward blessing. Indeed, it is
probable that the whole system of miracle-working,
sublime as it is to us, was rather a condescension of our
Lord, and looked to Him as but an inferior ministry,
— since He said, " Blessed are they which have not seen
and yet have believed," and " If ye will not believe Me,
believe the works." When He chose His disciples. He
adapted their calling to their capacity, — some to speak,

90 THE EPIPHANY GOODNESS.

others to work. Because common people are more
readily reached by those in their own condition He
chose poverty, and sat down to meat with publicans and
sinners. So when Ilis Apostle to the Gentiles preached,
He addressed the love of eloquence at Athens, the logi-
cal understanding at Rome, the versatile imaginations
and emotions of the East at Corinth, Ephesus, and
Antioch. Everywhere, without abating a whit the
strict sanctity of its principles, or the awfulness of its
righteous retributions, the Gospel goes forward, becoming
all things to all men, taking men as it finds them, suit-
ing the manner and voice of its appeal to their culture,
tastes, and aptitudes ; feeling after some better quality
or longing in them, to lay hold of, by all means, as St.
Paul puts it, to " save some." For the present, Christ
says He is not come to judge the world, but to save the
world — quenching not the smoking ilax. "When all
these merciful and fostering ministries are ended, — the7i
Cometh the judgment, rendering unto every man accord-
ing as he has accepted or slighted them.

We see the same gracious economy proceeding about
us every day. Every careless, unchristian person is like
these wandering Gentiles. Worse than that, he may
be living in frivolity, or in pride and self-will. But the
Spirit of God is constantly at work, trying and search-
ing him, to see if there is any tender spot in his heart,
any sacred memory, any purer attachment, any look to-
ward the stars, any nobler aspiration, or at least any sus-
ceptibility to suffering, by wliich he can be touched and
renewed. By that door repentance may enter. So all
our personal traits are, one by one, taken in hand by
the Spirit, as instruments to awaken and sanctify us,
that we may not perish. If pain and sorrow and
death are used, it is only because nothing softer would

I

THE EPIPHAJSTY GOODNESS. 91

rouse US. There is not one stroke of superfluous agony.
Every pulse of anguish is felt by God, as the refiner and
purifier of silver watches the furnace, sure to lift the
molten metal out, or to cool the fire, when the needed
change is wrought. The instant faith's deep discipline is
accomplished, Christ stays His hand. The bruised reed
will not be broken, nor the smoking flax quenched, till
He bring forth judgment unto victory.

Another part of what is taught by the leading of the
Gentile wise men to Christ is, that at every step forward
in the Christian life, each disciple's amount of privilege
or blessing is generally in proportion to the growth of his
faith, up to that time. We saw, just now, that these
Eastern magi were the purest-minded and most spiritual
religionists in the heathen world. There can hardly be
a doubt that it was for that superior cleanness of heart
that they were honored with this heavenly illumination,
and promoted to the leadership of the whole Gen-
tile procession in their pilgrimage to the Son of God.
I believe the rule of God's dealing is the same with
ourselves : that our future advances in the knowledge
and obedience of the Gospel are always in the degree of
our past endeavors. We are not to carry the doctrine of
Christ's condescension to such a pitch of extremity as to
hide from view the real dififerences in men's hearts.
Christ seeks for all, invites all, dies for all, that none
might perish.. But He does not kindle a star for every
one, nor make all converts memorable among His saints
wherever the Gospel is preached. There are laws in tlie
economy of grace, as in the growth of the body and
the mind. Blessings are according to faith. Faith is
nothing but the soul's willingness to receive Christ's
blessings, and to receive them in Him by whom alone
they can come. If, like the wise men, you have been

92 THE EPIPHANY GOODNESS.

true to the early Hglit; if, like Timothy, you have
remembered what a Christian mother, — ^your mother
after the flesh, or your mother in the Spirit, the Christian
Church, — has taught you ; if conscience has been kept
tender and true ; if, like Saul of Tarsus, while you were
only under the law you were a faithful and scru-
pulous servant of the law, — then there is a firm and
healthy stock on which your new-born Christian grace
will thrive. Then the pagan abominations of a godless
youth, or the renounced delusions of worldliness, or
of a conceited mind dallying with doubt and proud
of unbelief, will not hinder and darken your way
to Heaven. Spiritual glory will be revealed to spirit-
ual eyes. Character will unfold and strengthen in
its heavenly order. According to your faith it will be
unto you. Every new year will set you nobly forward
toward higher purities of sanctification. Power, pa-
tience, consistency, self-control, peace with God, joy in
believing, victory over the world, — these and every other
grace will grow with your growth. Such a life will be
a perpetual journey of honor, with light all the way,
and immortality at the end.

Once more, the subject completes itself in the still
higher thought that, after all, wherever the starting-
point, whoever the travellers, whatever the gentleness
that forbears to quench our feeble life, and however
merciful the long-suffering that waits for us, there is
an end of the whole way, at the feet of the Lord. All
His patience, His diversities of working, the disci-
pline of life, the dealings of the Spirit ; all the gentle-
ness and infinite charity in Christ, are for this end.
And if, after all, we are not found there, — ^liear the
Scripture of God, — " there remaineth no more sacrifice
for sin, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment."

THE EPIPHANY GOODNESS. 93

Judge, then, of yourselves, my friends, whether this
is not the unvarying doctrine of God's vrhole Word, of
His Providence in Christ, of the daily discipline of His
Spirit. Through these unclean chambers of our hearts,
like the earnest woman who swept her littered house
for the lost piece of silver, moves this our Blessed
Friend, — the same who receives the praises of saints
and the adoration of angels, — searching amidst the poor
rubbish that the world and the senses have scattered
there for some remaining sign of hope, some fire of
love not quite gone out, some broken pledge of union
with Himself that He may bind together again, and
so make us His own, in everlasting comfort. Or, as
in another parable. He walks among the stones and
thorns and thistles, there searching for stray affections,
like the shepherd for the wandering sheep. I have
seen a striking picture, by a great artist, of that Shep-
herd, with the recovered sheep lying weak and fam-
ished on His shoulders. The fierce, dark wilderness is
behind. A rocky precipice falls steep and rough to the
bitter sea below, and up in the wintry sky whirl the
disappointed vultures, that had waited for their perish-
ing prey. How can we help crying in thankful faith,
O faithful and everlasting Shepherd, find us in our
wilderness ; let not the adversary have dominion over
us ; quench not, but rekindle by Thy Spirit, the dying
embers of our repentance; bring us home, where the
angels rejoice over every wanderer that was lost I

THE SOUL SOUGHT BY CHEIST AND
SEEKING HIM.

Second Sunday after Epijphany.

" Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples;
and looking upon Jesus as He walked, he saith. Behold the Lamb of
God I And the two disciples heird him speak, and they followed
Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith
unto them, What seek ye? They said unto Him, Rabbi (which is
to say, being interpreted. Master), where dwellest Thou? He saith
unto them. Come and see. They came a!)d saw where He dwelt, and
abode with Him that day: for it was about the tenth hour. One of
the two which heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew,
Simon Peter's brother. He first findeth his own brother Simon, and
saith unto him. We have found the Messias, which is, being inter-
preted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus." — St. John i. 35-42.

So the loving biographer, who, by that wisdom which
is partly intellectual and partly spiritual, knew so much
more of the Master than we know, goes on, telling in
to-day's Morning Lesson what was said and done in
that group of persons of whom One was the King of
heaven and earth. As to the manner of the Divine
story, it is in the same artless style that a child would
use in telling it to another child. The things told took
place under St. John's own eyes; for when he writes
here of there being two disciples that were saluted
by John the Baptist, and that were so honored as to be
received as guests under the Lord's own roof, though he
mentions the name of only one of them, it is because

THE SOUL SOUGHT BY CHRIST. 95

the other was himself. This is his modest way through-
out his Gospel : he hides himself whenever he can ;
and when he must refer to himself at all, he leaves out
the name. The noblest spirits are the meekest. Those
who have most in them that is worth showing are least
anxious to show it. This best-beloved apostle is always
thinking of his Saviour, not of himself. That is one
reason why he is the best-beloved. And so, although
he is to have all Christendom, in all ages, for his vast
and admiring audience, he is altogether unconscious
and natural in his narrative, as we all are when we are
describing something because of the feeling and impres-
sion in ourselves, and not trying to produce an effect/b/*
ourselves. He tells us what this one said, and that one,
— the very words ; what day it was, and the hour of the
day; who were there, and how they were related to each
other; he explains what "Eabbi" and "Messias"
mean, for fear some reader not brought up in Judea
might be puzzled by a hard word. The strokes are
strong because they are true, and they make a very
graphic picture. Great orators never do better than
this, l^ay, it is not a whit the less likely, on this
account, but the more certain, that the Evangelist wrote
as he was moved by the Holy Spirit.

For the purposes of our instruction this town might
be Bethabara, beyond Jordan ; America might be Syria ;
it might be you and I that were looking for Jesus, and
finding Him, too, and listening to Him, and leading
our friends to Him, instead of Andrew and John and
Simon. This House where we are might be that dwell-
ing where He abode, of which He said, " Come and see,"
and where they " abode with Him."

Among you who are listening it is almost certain there
are some hearts that are thus looking for Him, and

SJ6 THE SOUL SOUGHT BY CHRIST.

wishing they might hear His voice: some whose lips
may still refuse to utter their wants before men, but who
have unsatisfied desires, who are discontented, and some-
times even wretched, to think how they have been so long
living, — whose consciences torment them with shame
for their sins, who really know that there is something in
their lives which separates between them and God. Are
not some of you conscious of having had occasional
glimpses of a better way and a nobler aim, — hours when,
secretly at least, you have said to the watchman on the
upper walls, " Saw ye Him whom my soul loveth ? " or to
Himself, in your prayers, " Tell me where Thou feedest,
where Thou makest Thy flock to rest at noon : for why
should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of Thy
companions ? Draw me ; I will run after Thee." In this
you are like the world waiting for Christ before His
coming. It wanted Him without knowing clearly what
it wanted. Busy as it was with its poor work, eager with
its ambitions, mad with its unholy appetites, it was not
satisfied ; and its finer spirits knew it. Deep down in
the heart of humanity somewhere there was a restless
longing for a better life. And hence one prophet says,
very affectingly, that the "Desire of all nations shall
come," — the Son of Man.

He came. He has been "manifested." I will not
believe it possible that all of you can hear that announce-
ment without real feeling. It means too much, too
much, for that. You cannot, I am sure you cannot all
be unconcerned about the rest of the message which is
thus solemnly begun. For you, then, here in this House,
this text is recorded. If we take it by its several parts
in order, and enter down into its eternal signification,
we shall find it represents the soul of man both sought
after by its Saviour and seeking after Him.

THE SOUL SOUGHT BY CHRIST. 97

1. "John stood, and two of his disciples, looking
upon Jesus as He walked." As in other historic
statements where we have great things to learn, our
minds go behind the plain fact stated and inquire how
it happens to be, or what lies behind it. Was it by
accident, was it a matter of course, was it one of the
ordinary "happenings" of history, that the Eternal
and Only Begotten of the Father, whose name is the
perpetual worship of saints and angels, and who had
dwelt from before all worlds with the Father, should
be walking there, in a little province of this planet, a
world full of trouble and evil at the best? They were
" looking upon Jesus as He walked." He was walking
to find them, who had it now for the infinite joy of
their life that they were found of Him. They had not
gone to bring Him ; like all of us, they were too blind
and weak for that, and would not have known what
kind of a Christ to look for. They had not persuaded
Him to come ; He came of the great " love wherewith
He loved them." They had not arranged the arrival
of the Traveller, " travelling in the greatness of His
strength." That was the miraculous hospitality which
brightened the skies over Bethlehem with the new star,
and set the glory of God in the face of the new-born
Child. No needy and sinning heart ever has to furnish
or obtain its Christ. Before it begins to seek, to in-
quire, to beg. He is already walking near. The very
first word is encouragement for you. Christ is waiting
for you. God in man, Emmanuel, is never far from
where man is. He may be unseen. Our best posses-
sions are always unseen ; those we love best may be long
absent, but friendship has other than the bodily eyes.
All the possibilities of a pure and holy life are within
your reach. Heaven itself is "brought nigh." The

98 THE SOUL SOUGHT BY CHEIST.

blessed Incarnation that takes millions of souls from
death to life is accomplished. Prophecy is fulfilled.
The Epiphany is a fact.

2. How do men treat it? "And the two disciples
heard John speak, and they followed Jesus." Now
begins man's part in the great reconciliation. It is an
act that decides for every man what manner of man
he is, what he lives for, and, when he dies, whether it is
the agony of an eternal death or the transient struggle
that ends in the triumph of a life imperishable. Not
every one, like St. Andrew (whose name means man)^
is to be an apostle ; an apostle is one " sent," commis-
sioned for a special service. All are to be disciples ;
a disciple is one who learns, for a service that is com-
mon. But whether apostle or disciple each must
first " follow " ; and finally each, by following, learn-
ing, and seeing, will be lifted into likeness to the
Master and enter into the priesthood and kingship of
Christian character. With the gifts and powers neces-
sary for that in His hand the Son of God appears,
oftering them to you. The choice is with you. Will
you look on a little lohile, at the sound of a new voice,
from curiosity, from momentary impulse, as long as the
Church service lasts, as long as the sympathies of the
social meeting keep you entertained, as long as the sober
recollection of your sorrow or your sickness lies upon
you, and then turn and go the other way, where Christ
does not lead you ; and so will you lose the sight of
Him? Or will you, cheerfully', thankfully, steadily^
take His Cross up and go after Him whithersoever He
goeth ?

3. It is not certain whether the first impulse to follow
will prove a constant religious principle. " What seek
ye ? " He asks them. Eather a chilling and forbidding

THE SOUL SOUGHT BY CHKI8T. 99

question, as it stands: love does not take that tone,
unless it is such profound and holy love as is willing to
be misconstrued for a moment for the sake of ensuring
to the beloved some unseen good. We cannot know the
manner of Christ's saying it, or how the tone and look
went to interpret and temper the severity. But we
know His object, because we know Him, One spirit
ruled all His speech. He saw that at just that point the
motives of these ardent converts must be lifted into the
light and laid open to themselves. You may say, it is
the Lord you are seeking, and that so long as you can
say that, you are safe. But words that are only words
are no better for being the highest and holiest we can
speak. " Coming to Christ," " following Christ," " ex-
periencing religion," " getting a new hope," these are all
great phrases if they mean religiously just what they
mean literally. But Christ himself comes and searches
them out. " What seek ye ? " What do you really seek,
when you seem to be seeking the Saviour? Is it for
His sake, or only for your own sake, that you seek Him ?
Is it only to make sure of a self-indulgent heaven ? Is
it for the complacent feeling of belonging to a safe set
of people? Is it only to furnish a counter-excitement
to ease the sting of some trouble, following a law of
emotional reaction that has no grace in it, or a senti-
mental fancy for the excitements of religion, or for its
externals ? It is a good test for every Christian to apply
to his own heart, whether he is just awakened to his
duty or further on at any stage of his life. God applies
it by many touchstones. Time is one of them ; at the
mere wearing out of novelty, the repetition of the same
homely duties, the love of many grows cold. The
candid Scripture tells us of them : they " went back."
Worldly examples and associates are another : " Demas

100 THE SOUL SOUGHT BY CHRIST.

hath forsaken me, having loved this present world."
Spiritual disappointment is another: results are not so
striking as their promise; it is small harvesting, and
tame drudging ; the same old conflict and vexation every
day. What, then, are you seeking ? Is it truth ? Is it
goodness? Is it self-denying virtue? Christ wants
uncalculating love, loyal love, disinterested love, and
love that works gladly, by faith, for His poorest and
meanest people, in His name. There is no lack of ten-
derness in this question.

4. Now, then, comes the place for a deeper exercise of
that faith, and the rising by it into a higher life. Will
the disciple 5^ar the proof ? Will he evade the question,
and simply follow along, on the level of the old decency,
— going with the multitude, saying careless prayers,
paying church taxes enough to escape social scandal, and
presuming that where the Bible speaks of mounting up
with wings as eagles, of going from grace to grace, of
being more than conquerors, of the joy of believing, and
of having one's life hid with Christ in God, it only means
worrying on tlirough week-day cares and Sunday cere-
monies, half under the law, and half under the pitiless
stare of public opinion, with Sinai for our Calvary,
with experiments instead of covenants, with preaching
platforms for the Ark of the Fold, with a mere sus-
picion that all will come out well enough in the end,
instead of the assurance of a present salvation : with
a system of interesting doctrinal suggestions suited to
the times, which may be true and may be not, instead of
the promises that are " yea and amen " in the Gospel of
Him who is above all " times," " the same yesterday, to-
day, and forever " ? Notice the spiritual beauty in the
answer of the two disciples. They call Him " Master " ;
but not now in the old sense of the common form of

THE SOUL SOUGHT BY CHRIST. lUl

salutation. They find a new and tenderer meaning in
that lordly title, — the same that the holy George
Herbert found :

"How sweetly doth My Master sound! My Master I
As ambergris leaves a rich scent

Unto the taster,
So do these words a sweet content,
An Oriental fragrancy,— My Master."

Calling Him Master, they said, "Where dwellest
Thou ? " This is the least ostentatious and yet directest
possible confession of a desire for a closer personal
communion. It is precisely the growth of that feeling
in a man which marks an ascent into a purer and more
positive type of spiritual character. It is a confession
of ignorance, a renunciation of intellectual conceit, a
penitential prayer for a hiding-place in a peaceful pa-
vilion. It is the question of one whose brain is weary
of subtle contriving, and whose " locks are filled with
the drops of the night." To get clear of blind leaders
of the blind, to cease confounding speculation with
belief, or morbid sensibility with piety, — to come into
sympathy with the healthy and unexaggerated earnest-
ness of Him who could at once gather up the fragments
of broken bread and lay down His life to save bad
men; — yes, to "abide" with Him, to be under the
Lord's roof, to sit down and rise up with Him, and to
be rooted and grounded in Him, — ^to cease from self in
the holy joy of this celestial fellowship, — that will be
the summit, the mountain vision, of a Christian's ex-
pectation.

5. Would it be granted, only for the asking? "He
saith unto them. Come and see ! " Let that stand for
the dispelling of all your doubt. There is no descrip-
tion of the house beforehand to excite wrong anticipa-

102 THE SOUL SOUaHT BY CHRIST.

tions. Find out what the Christian life is by living it.
Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart conceived,
the things that He hath prepared. The feast in the
Christian's heart, the antepast of Heaven, is not under-
stood by verbal pictures of it, bat only as we ripen
spiritually for the relish of it. When the Bridegroom
leads His spouse to the banqueting-house, there is no
attempted enumeration of the delicacies in store. It is
only said, how finely ! that " the banner over her is
love"; leaving it for a growing faith to learn what He
will give His people, whose own meat and drink it is to
do His Father's will. "Come and see." "Him that
Cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out." "Knock, and
it shall be opened."

6. " They came and abode with Him." If they had
been like some Christians, they would have disbelieved
that any so great blessing and honor could be really in-
tended for persons hitherto so insignificant and undeserv-
ing ; — as if God's favors were ever granted because we
are deserving ! If they had been like some of us, they
would have hesitated between resolving and doing, and,
having professed a religious interest, they would have
stopped short between the word and the deed. With
true saints, however, and with all who ever mean to be
saints, believing action must be not only the uniform but
the immediate follower upon inquiry. Faith takes God
at His word.'

T. And now, see playing outward the holy power
which has been at work in the man's own heart and
character. It begins to take the form of active useful-
ness and to testify for Christ abroad ; the operation of
the missionary spirit. !N"o sooner is the awakened heart
in actual fellowship with Christ, and settled on that
centre, than it begins to cast about and ask what it can

THE SOUL SOUGHT BY CHRIST. 103

do for Him. IS'o matter in what spliere. No time is to
be lost in discussing methods, debating difficulties, or
wondering whether it is worth while to undertake to do
good at all if it can only be done on a small scale or in
one's own pattern-way. As some one says, there are two
sorts of people : those that go and do the thing, and those
that stand and wonder why it was not done after some
other fashion. St. Andrew begins at the nearest point ;
begins in his own household. " He first findeth his own
brother Simon." There is no postponement for a com-
plete plan, for the " times," for the weather, for becom-
ing "good enough," for great occasions. His heart is
full, and he does what he can. How soon this spirit
in all the followers of Christ would bring the world to
His feet, — so fearless, so self-forgetful, so hearty. Out
the mighty conviction comes, — must come: — let him
that hath ears hear, and whosoever will let him come.
"When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren, and
call them that they may be strengthened. And when you
are at the door, the Great Shepherd will listen not only
for your " Here am I," but for the better plea, " Here
are those whom Thou hast given to believe and to come
through my life, or my tongue, — children, relatives,
friends, neighbors : the living gifts of a new Epiphany."

The subject is completed, dear friends, with two
thoughts belonging to it, specially fitted to this day.
What the one brother says to another is a joyful recog-
nition of the fulfilment of ancient promises. " We have
found the Messias," — predicted and expected, — Him of
whom Moses and the prophets did write. Epiphany,
like Advent, is peculiarly sacred to prophecy. The
prophets lifted the veil from before the nations sitting
in darkness. They should see a " great Light."

Finally, what was it that roused and started these two

104 THE SOUL SOUGHT BY CHKIBT.

disciples on their search, and brought them to their full
acceptance before their predicted Lord ? " Behold the
Lamb of God." They beheld, followed, believed, and
lived. This, then, is the message of Christ's witnesses
to the world. All preaching of the Gospel must begin
and end here. Epiphany and Easter, Advent and Pas-
sion, are one. "Behold the Lamb of God!" Not
Christ the Pattern only, not Christ the Teacher only,
not Christ the Bridegroom or the Shepherd or the
King only, but Christ the Sufferer; suffering with us,
and for us; — the "Lamb slain." Stand where we will
in the annual round of faith's blessed commemorations,
never can we forget to say, " Behold the Lamb of God,
which taketh away the sin of the world." For through
all that round sin walks near us; in ourselves. And
there is in us no justification. In the Son of Man we
know that God is faithful and just to forgive, and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

THE LAW OF CHKlSTIAK EISTLAKGEMENT.

Third Sunday after Epiphany,

"In every nation he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness,
is accepted with Him." — Acts x. 35.

It has been made an objection to Christianity that it
involves a system of religious privileges expressly lim-
ited, for some two thousand years, to a single nation.
Admitted, it is said, that the New Testament proposes
a more catholic plan, and offers its advantages impar-
tially to the whole race, irrespective of national boun-
daries : still, the ITew Testament makes itself responsi-
ble for the Old ; the Gospel for the Judaism on which
it was grafted. !N"o intenser national exclusiveness than
the Jewish, it is added with truth, was ever known.
The feeling of every Hebrew for every foreigner was a
mixture of political animosity, religious intolerance, and
social contempt ; a triple combination of hereditary pas-
sions hard to break down. The sacred writings appear
to encourage it. How is this consistent with the benev-
olence of a God whose love is wider than the world ?

In your minds. Christian believers, this precise form
of scepticism may not take a very definite shape. But
it is one branch of a difficulty about the Bible of a
more general kind, never more common than now.
That difficulty is this : an apparent conflict between the
clearer moral sentiments and judgments of men with

106 THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN ENLARGEMENT.

some of the literal records or else with some of the
traditional interpretations of Scripture. Men saj, " We
know something of the character of the Christian's God :
it is not compatible with that character that a few Ori-
ental tribes should be segregated and isolated from the
rest of the race and made the petted child of heaven."
The same conflict may gather about other apparent
points of incongruity, — as the Hebrew criminal code,
the destruction of the Canaanites, or the standard of
moral character in conspicuous Jewish leaders. In other
words, you make use of the sharper moral vision and the
broader ideas for which you are actually indebted to the
Gospel as a revelation, and as an educating power, to
criticise and fault the Gospel.

The Church must not shrink from this criticism. If it
is fair, it must be met. If it is unfair, it can be shown
to be.

I mention three answers.

First stands the recorded fact that long before this
separation and isolation of Israel took place, God de-
clared that it was not the permanent law or normal
method of His Divine purpose with His children : it was
rather a special and provisional economy brought in to
meet a peculiar and temporary emergency occasioned by
the wrong choice of men. At the very moment when the
special selection began to be made, an explicit and re-
iterated prediction was carefully annexed to it that it
was to be used only for a required end, and would then
be expanded into a grand Brotherhood of the world, of
equal advantages, lying four-square and open to all the
quarters of the earth, and which should be no respecter
either of nationalities or of persons. The man in
whom the special calling began was Abraham. And he
was the very man to whom the Lord broke apart the

THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN ENLARGEMENT. 107

august silence of tlie midniglit sky, and spoke from
beyond the stars, to say, that among his descendants
there should be a " seed," a certain wonderful Son, in
whom not one country or people only, but all the nations
of the earth, should be blessed. That mysterious Shep-
herd-king of the whole human flock was to have a hu-
man mother, and that mother a Hebrew : — " born of
a woman and born under the law," so as to connect the
special preparation with the universal blessing: — but
that He might, on the other side, be free of every pos-
sible human restriction. His Father was to be the Father
of all that live, and His Life begotten from eternity.
There is therefore no mistake, no concealment, no re-
consideration or suspense in the plan. The promise in
Genesis is as broad and as catholic as the preaching of
St. Peter in the text from the Acts.

Secondly, is there anything in the method itself, the
selection of the Hebrew tribes and the Jewish Church,
that makes a reasonable justification of it to the high-
est moral instincts, — suppose we must be judges of
God's way ? When a Christian missionary goes into a
population of barbarians, why does he gather in a score
or two of children, out of hundreds, into a school, leav-
ing the rest for the time untaught ? When an intelli-
gent American merchant, doing business in a pagan
seaport, wants to benefit that paganism, why does he
choose out one or two native youths of bright parts and
send them to America or England for an education,
instead of spending the same amount of money in
scattering spelling-books among the heathen houses?
When you want to introduce into a manufacturing inter-
est an original and improved kind of machinery, why
do you send a single student to the best engineering
school in the United States or Europe, instead of issuing

108 THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN ENLARGEMENT.

an exhortation some morning to all the agents and mas-
ters of the mills to improve themselves in that depart-
ment of science ? The principle appears to be pretty
plain in these practical undertakings : — it is the principle
of selection and concentration, for the sake of an ulte-
rior benefit that is to become general, a result that is to
be wide-spread. Such is the nature of the human mind
and of human society that practically this is the better
and shorter way. Do for one mind, thoroughly, first,
what you want the whole to do afterward. ]^ow, in the
world, when Moses was lying all unconscious of it in
the little rush-basket in the !N"ile, the great problem was
how to stop the race from going any further wrong,
into stark savagery and idolatry, and how to turn it about,
and get it ready for the setting up of a Divine order
upon it, and for the reconciling and renovating of it with
the heavenly communion it had lost. This was the
thing to be done. And it was to be done, suppose, not
by the thrusting in of an arbitrary revolution, a stupen-
dous miracle of mechanism which would simply set the
outward works all right, but would leave the springs o f
spiritual life, — love, choice, energy, faith, — all untouched
and unchanged. The very thing wanted was to bring
in and set up these grand interior holy forces in the soul.
"The world by wisdom knew not God." God only
could make it know Him ; and, being what He is. He
could do it only by preserving man's freedom, and re-
specting every law wrought into his nature. He took,
therefore, what we call the practical way ; He used the
principles of selection, concentration, and adaptation.
He did it gradually. He did it by human instruments.
He limited the scene and the numbers. He took this
child out of the rush-basket, bearing in his veins the
finer blood of that Hebrew pastoral people that God

THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN ENLARGEMENT. 109

liad led with His own hand and voice before, over the
hills and pastures of Mesopotamia and Canaan, — the
most reverent and conscientious on the earth. He
trained that child in the best scientific school of the time,
— " in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," and then He
set him at the head of a commonwealth. He selected
a priesthood. He made elders. He organized a State.
He arranged a ritual. He chose a limited territory in
the right spot. And then He put this crude and child-
ish nation down, — not in liberty yet, — they were not
ripe for that, — but under discipline and regulation ; not
in the Gospel yet, — for they would abuse and waste it if
they had it, — but in the Law. This was the school
and the scholar. In a word God did, — only better and
more gloriously, and with some sublime signals of mi-
raculous justice ^and mercy breaking through all along
to turn to it the eyes of mankind and the reverent mem-
ory of the generations forever, — just what wisdom must
do. He chose out one nation, and sent it to school to
learn the prophetic rudiments of Christianity and to
make ready a people prepared for the Lord. The Old
Testament is simply the narrative of that training school
for Christ and for men. Some parts are more obscure
than others ; for the time was a great way back, and the
materials of knowledge were scanty, and, above all, the
Infinite and Inscrutable One, whose ways are often past
our finding out, was the Master. But this is the key to
the scheme. Was not the plan magnificent ? Can the
best critic or the shrewdest objector suggest a wiser way
to save and lift to heavenly places enervated, sensual,
vulgar, wretched humanity ? And when we take a view
of the whole Old Testament history wide and deep and
rational as this, — with all its strange incidents, its erring
heroes, and faulty saints, intermingled with its splendid

110 THE LAW OF CHKISTIAN ENLARGEMENT.

virtues, its sublime loyalty, its eloquence and poetry un-
equalled in all the literature of the world, and its super-
natural prophecies, — all intense and bright with hallowed
fire, because it is the school of God,— is it not a very
poor thing indeed to carp at an unexplained passage
here and there, or to sneer and cavil at some half-
veiled feature in the majestic working out of the design ?

And all this while the original intention, disclosed to
the patriarch far back on the plains, under the stars,
was never forgotten, or dropped, or suffered to fail.
"We were reading, the other morning, a piece of fiery
logic from one of St. Paul's Epistles, to prove that no
temporary narrowing of the system under the law, for
a special object, would disannul or alter the older and
broader and more catholic revelation to Abraham, four
hundred and fifty years before, — a covenant having in it
by promise the largeness of the Gospel and the uni-
versality of Christ. When the Jew should have been
drilled and taught, the Gentiles would be gathered in,
"No siderial motion in astronomy, no regularity in celes-
tial cycles and orbits will be more sure than the rising,
in the due and foretold time, of the Epiphany star.
The Saviour will fulfil both the parts of the great plan : —
" A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of My
people Israel."

There is a third explanation to relieve the alleged
narrowness of the Jewish religion, — and that is its con-
stant progress as it goes on into a larger and larger
breadth and liberty, more and more like the breadth and
liberty of the great world-embracing Church and Gospel
in which it is finally merged, as the winding river is lost
in the sea.

"We have only to study the Hebrew prophets, and to
study them with some system, in the order of their

THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN ENLARGKMENT. Ill

living and writing, with this clew in hand, — the pro-
gressive enlarging of their conceptions of God's good-
ness to the whole Gentile world, — to find ample demon-
strations that the Divine tuition they were under was
doing its work. Instead of over-coloring this evangel-
istic element in Old Testament prophecy, I doubt
whether the Christian pulpit or Christian writers have
ever adequately represented it. With a hostility in their
blood to everything foreign, intenser than any people on
earth, probably, has ever felt ; with an intolerance, arro-
gance, and superciliousness all the more tenacious and
unsparing because bound up with their religious scruples,
there was yet never a national mind at all approaching
theirs in the frequency, earnestness, solemnity, pathos, of
the expectation and hope of the breaking down of all
international walls, and the gathering in of all the fam-
ilies and kingdoms of the continents and islands to an
equal share with themselves in the peace and glory of
the Messiah's dominion. To be sure the gathering w^as to
be unto Zion ; Israel was still to be central and somehow
parental ; yet there was to be equality. And the beauty
and splendor of the fore-visions of that homeward
march of the Gentiles, as we have them in all the Epiph-
any chapters, have no match in any book. Should any
nation on earth instantly drop all that is seliish in its
policy, and all that is exclusive in its patriotism, and
proclaim an economy of the universal and impartial open-
ing of every door of privilege to all lands, the moral
spectacle would really be less striking than the Hebrew
predictions of Gentile conversion under Christ. The
strain grows louder and more confident all along: — till,
in Malachi, we have it resounding in that sentence at the
opening of our service, to which the famous saying of
the great orator, where the morning drum-beat of the

112 THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN ENLARGEMENT.

British Empire circles the earth, is but a feeble figure :
" From the rising of the sun, even unto the going down
of the same. My name shall be great among the Gentiles ;
and in every place incense shall be offered unto My
name, and a pure offering : for My name shall be great
among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts."

Give a few moments now to a use of St. Peter's words
which will bring them down to ourselves. " In every
nation he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is
accepted with Him."

The sense here is not theological, but popular; so
that they are wide of the mark who suppose that the
Apostle means to take back all that he preached, up and
down the world, and wrote in his Epistles, of every
man's need of true repentance, and of the faith in
Christ as a Redeemer, and of our reaching a spiritual
and eternal life only through that faith. That would be
to unsay all the burning confessions, and quench all the
noble enthusiasms, of his Christian life and apostleship.
"Why, then, should he be preaching Christ, and the
Cross, as the " only way," to Cornelius, and to every Jew
and Gentile tliat he can reach? IS^o. He means by
"fearing God and working righteousness" this: — In
every nation, now that Jesus Christ has come, there is
an equal access to the open door for every tongue and
tribe and people. Under this new and heavenly reign
of light and love which has been set up, all are free
citizens. Partition-walls are levelled. Caste, rank, pre-
scription, arbitrary terms of admission, are done with.
The Pentecostal signs mean nothing less. Circumci-
sion, miracles, Jew and Gentile, Barbarian, Scythian,
bond, and free, are without difference at Bethlehem and
Calvary, at baptism, at the Christian communion, every-
where in the Church, and at the resurrection. There

THE LAW OF CHEISTIAN ENLARGEMENT. 113

are no external disqualifications. There are no internal
incapabilities for being saved. You can all be saved if
you will : you will live forever, if you will let tlie life
of the Spirit in Christ enter in. " Fearing God and
working righteousness" is the universal ground of ac-
ceptance, not meritoriously, into heaven, but into the
gracious privileges and helps of the Church and family
of Christ in this world, as the school for heaven. All
this St. Peter had just found out in a peculiar way, —
the vision of the four-cornered sheet three times let down
from heaven, to show him that the ceremonial distinc-
tions of things to be lawfully eaten, — symbols of all other
natural disqualifications, — were abolished. The Gentile
world w^hich God has now liberated from its long neglect,
" call not thou common." But go to it, preach to it,
respect and love human nature in Cesarea just as much
as in Jerusalem or" Bethany : there is no difi'erence. The
Gospel is no respecter of persons. Christ died for all.
The Church is Catholic. The Christian is tolerant and
friendly to all souls, for his Lord's sake. And while St.
Peter spoke after that gracious fashion, " on the Gentiles
also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost."

So the Word and Spirit of Christ go on constantly
filling out our small measures of charity and hope, —
breaking up our petty and jealous judgments, enlarging
our sympathies for all classes and conditions of men.
This is certainly one great and very beautiful teaching of
this season. We have a great many personal and private
limitations ; each has his own. We all live inside sev-
eral concentric circles, self being the centre-point; and
unless we watch and pray, and deny ourselves, and give
away a great deal, these are constantly narrowing in and
cramping us into smaller and meaner souls. First, there
is the circle of our own purely personal interests, — in

114 THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN ENLARGEMENT.

physical ease and comfort, in property, in dress, in eat-
ing, in mawkish sentiments and a self-indulgent giving
way to them, to the inconvenience or injury of others.
Christ, by the Cross of His sacrifice, makes His whole
ministry among men, and His Gospel, a constant re-
monstrance against this; and unless we catch that spirit,
and give up self for service, and for one another, w^e
can be none of His. Next is the circle of the family, of
kindred. This is a little wider, but often only a little.
Because family fastidiousness, family pride, and family
resentments, are all very belittling and unchristian feel-
ings. We may only see ourselves, and love ourselves,
reflected in our children, or other kindred that are spe-
cially necessary to our comfort. Then there is an un-
christian fondness for them while they live, and an un-
christian, unsubmissive sorrow for them when they die.
The Epiphany doctrine requires us to look into these
luxurious gratifications, to see whether our absorption in
our own domestic pleasures restricts our sympathies for
strangers, for neighbors, for the poor, and so stops our
growth in the Lord's likeness. Then there is the circle
of our own social set, — a very dangerous as well as sub-
tle enemy to true spirituality, as well as to true nobleness
and largeness of character. The very selectness of the
associations gives a charm to them. All the mutually
admiring and complacent members just reflect each
others prejudices, study to please each other's whims,
listen to each other, ridicule or satirize the rest of
society, and so, of course, must stop growing in all that
constitutes greatness of heart. Then there is the circle
of business engagements, where the confinement of
attention and the engrossment of concern at last become
a passion, or a habit, that looks like necessity, — and the
slave of mercantile ambition, or routine, sacrifices home

THE LAW OF CHKISTIAN ENLARGEMENT. 115

and clnirch, liis higher life, his spiritual culture, his
communion with his Lord, for the poverty that is thus
starving him in all the generous and lofty desires of his
manhood. Beyond these still lies the circle of patriotic
attachments, or devotion to country. And scarcely yet,
— Christian as we claim to be, — has the idea of the
brotherhood of nations in one family and Church of
God entered into the statesmanship, much less into the
politics and legislation, of even civilized man.

We are not to suppose that Epiphany signifies to us a
mere sending out, in a lifeless and formal sort of way,
of a few missionaries here or there to foreign countries.
Done earnestly and heartily, that is worth doing, and,
in proportion as we really appreciate what Christ is to
the world and to ourselves, we shall probably do it, or
give for it, more and more, the more Christianlike we
become. Men may say they prefer to give their mission-
ary money nearer home, where they see what becomes
of it. But remember that it is by setting up standards
and beacons, getting hold of a few here and there and
Christianizing them, even when results look small, that
a great testimony to Christ is finally given. Make tlie
Gospel " witness to all nations," before the end comes.
The Apostles travelled and sailed, casting their bread
upon the waters, not too anxious to count up visible
results. The great commission was, " Go, preach the
Gospel to all nations." There is no knowing where the
fruit will spring.

But, above all, it is not to be forgotten that there is
a kind of heathendom within ourselves to be yet con-
verted. Surely we are alike in this. Self, in disguised
shapes, behind masks, and with cunning weapons, still
fights bitterly against the large love and the generous
righteousness of the true disciple. We ourselves are

116 THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN ENLABGEMENT.

the Gentiles for whom these glorious prophecies were
written, and the Epiphany light was sent, and the sac-
rifice was made. What a miserable failure it will be, if,
after all, looking, as He surely does, into our hearts, God
sees there no true reflection of the light of His glory in
the face of Jesus Christ I

THE SAYIOUE IN THE SHIP.
Fourth Swnday after Epiphany.

'* The ship was covered with the waves." — Matthew viii. 24.

The quieting or peace-making power of Christ, over-
coming all disorder, is what we feel most in the account
of the stilling of the storm in this morning's Gospel.
There was a short vojage across Gennesaret, after a
fatiguing day spent by Jesus in preaching to multitudes
of people in the open air on the shore of the lake.
Everything as we read is very real. Only suppose the
whole scene transferred to waters that we are acquainted
with, — bring it down to our own day, — let it be known
that one of the cloudy tempests that sweep through our
sky had been stayed instantly and dissolved into calm
sunshine at the command of a living voice, — and you will
feel in a measure how distance and time are apt to dull
our sense even to the grandest realities. When we look
more carefully at the account, there are touching and
beautiful traits of a natural order, making us conscious
that we are in the presence of actual events, and not
reading a fiction. The little fishing-vessel laboring in
the waves that make a clean breach over her deck ; the
human frame of Jesus asleep in the midst of all this
trouble, with bodily weariness and mental peace; the
disciples, who are themselves the ship's company, toiling
and tacking as long as they can, reluctant to disturb

118 THE SAVIOUR IN THE SHIP.

that revered and beloved sleeper, but driven to it at last
bj sheer terror and desperation; when they come to
their " wits' end," the Master's serenity and authority at
waking, and then the most natural transition in their
minds, wlien the deliverance is over, from the escape itself
to the mystery and marvel of the rescue. These are very
impressive introductory aspects of the miracle, predis-
posing us to treat it with the same intellectual honesty
and religious reverence that we find in the story itself,
and leading us along into a deeper opening of its spirit-
ual sense.

Let us try to touch this spiritual sense now only at
three principal points, showing how they are connected
with each other, and how much they suggest of personal
assistance in the practical difficulties of a faithful follow^
ing of Christ.

1. First, then, we do not need to be literally at sea,
or to feel waves literally breaking over our heads, to find
out what absolute helplessness is. Most men will allow
that, — because by far the greater number of us, at some
time in our lives, have known what it was to touch the
last limit of our strength. You have desired something,
supremely perhaps, and having put out all your ingenu-
ity, all your persuasions with other minds, all your en-
ergies, you have been obliged to say, " That is the bound
of my ability ; if the desired thing comes now, it is well,
but if it refuses to come I cannot compel it, for my
power is spent." You have dreaded something, and for
the time that fear excluded every other evil from your
view, just as in the perspective of natural objects a
small shrub close to your eyes will hide from you broad
meadows of sunlight, with shining streams and hills of
defence beyond ; but every possible resistance you could
bring to bear, of mind and body, has been tried, and

THE SAVIOUR EN THE SHIP. 119

you stood dismayed at the thought that after all, in spite
of this struggle, the terrible calamity might come. One
of the commonest forms of this exhaustion of human
strength is in the struggle with disease or death, ap-
proaching yourself or some one you love like a part of
yourself. Regimen, travel, medicine and surgery, the
finest skill, have all been tried ; and lying there, weak
and wasting, or watching over the dear form that you
want to clasp and hold back from the grave, you acknowl-
edge that, come what will, your part in the issue is done.
The most determined characters some time or other
reach this end. Affection, ambition, vanity, accumula-
tion, the mere imitative passion, the longing of worldly
men to live on because they know there is nothing for
them afterward — all are spent. The powers that over-
match us, tire us out, and run us down, are various, —
time, hereditary maladies, sudden sickness, the superior
strength of other people serving their own interests
against us, that formless enemy, never so seen as to be
struck, but often "preventing" us, — that we call "bad
luck " ; everything that hedges about our inclinations,
thwarts our plans, baffles the brain and the will, and
brings us up where we wish not to he. Most plainly it
is a part of God's scheme of mercy to lead us, in our
self-confidence and self-will, every one of us, to just that
pointy so that when we are obliged to stop trusting or
calculating for ourselves we shall come willingly to Him.
Humiliating as the fact is, it is, with the great majority
of us, only when we are pushed on to that sense of
impotence that either reason or faith so wakes up in us
that we begin to cry, as we ought to have cried, in thank-
ful confidence and devout dependence all along, to our
Lord. God's love is too loving to let us alone. We would
not begin right, or come right, in prosperity and health

120 THE SAVIOUR IN THE SHIP.

and youth ; we set our best parts against the Providence
of Life, and are conquered. We would not grow up
Christians in the Fold, under the Shepherd's hands, and
hence the Shepherd lets us run on the sharp stones,
the barren ledges and thorns of the mountains, till we
are quite certain we are lost, before He comes after us ;
but then He is sure to come. Hence, as we see in all the
working of this Divine discipline with our perversity,
whatever the kind of storm it is that makes us confess we
can do nothing more for ourselves, but are empty and
forlorn and lost, — it is just that confession that our Lord
wants of us. We say we are full, satisfied, and sufficient
to ourselves, and that we have some better way than
God's way ; and so long we sail straight to shipwreck.
No matter what the shape or color of the cloud from
which the tempest breaks, — it is the searching and
awful sense of the desolation of sin at last, — it is the
distress of a conscience afraid to think of God except
through the mediation and pardon of the Cross ; it is the
startled and overwhelming conviction of a man's conver-
sion hour ; it is the simple and blessed turning from the
sinking ship of nature, that the storm is sent to create.
David felt it in the burning agony of retribution for his
transgressions when he cried, "All Thy billows have
gone over me; deliver me out of the deep waters."
Every Christian believer that has had a new heart and a
right spirit created in him has come to it and tasted of
it. The ship is covered with the waves; nothing left
underneath for a foothold, — nothing seen overhead to
steer by or to hold by, — only a loose, fickle, slippery,
fatal element all around, and gaining on us. The heart,
with all its external, traditional, or formal knowledge of
the Saviour, may hold Him as if He were asleep in its
own dark chamber. He wakes, to us, whenever we go

THE SAVIOUR IN THE SHIP. 121

to Him and call upon Him. And they are the reckless
mariners on a deeper sea who put the waking off, on
one pretense or another, till the ship is covered with the
waves.

2. Observe that when, at last, the voyager comes sin-
cerely and anxiously to that, and utters the prayer,
Christ does not refuse him because he did not call sooner,
or because when he prayed his prayer was not the purest
and loftiest of prayers. Hardly any heart's prayer is
ihat^ when it is first agitated under the flashing convic-
tion that it is all wrong. While its deep disorder is first
discovered it can think only of being delivered. The
Gospel constantly informs us of waking unbelievers that
they ask, " What shall I do to be saved ? What shall I
do to inherit eternal life % " just like these half-spirit-
ualized sailors of Galilee ; " Lord, save us, we perish."
And the Gospel approves and blesses their asking.
When they have gone deeper into the real motives of
this disinterested religion, and have drunk more deeply
of the Spirit of Christ himself, their petitions will rise
to loftier ranges of spiritual desire; they will pray for
inward purity and power, for more perfect sanctification,
for the increase of faith, hope, and charity, for others'
welfare, and for the speeding and enlarging of Christ's
kingdom. At present this patient Intercessor and
Redeemer accepts the crudest supplication, so only it
comes out of a penitent, contrite heart, and is directed
to Him. This is enough. He wakes. His sleep is not
like other sleep. He implies that during that physical
slumber an Almighty security surrounded Him and
went out from Him, so that no harm befell the ship, even
though she was under the waves, till His " hour " was
come. Why else should He reprove the disciples at all ?
The fault was that there was so much alarm mingled with

122 THE SAVIOUR IN THE SHIP.

tlieir belief in Him, and that they did not rest content-
edly in the trust that wherever He was they would be
safe. He saw this weakness ; He called it a " little
faith." But He does not denounce it as no faith at all ;
nor does He disdain it because it is but little. Take cour-
age from that, you that are conscious of having turned
to your Saviour, and yet are very distrustful whether
you have so turned as to be accepted of Him. He says,
" Why are ye fearful." But He does not say, " Ye shall
sink and perish because ye are fearful." The whole
dealing of Christ with the new young life in believing
hearts goes on this gracious, encouraging principle. He
fosters the faintest glow of faith. He cherishes the
nascent, half-formed purpose of obedience. The life of
•God in the soul of man, He teaches, is always a growing
thing, and so by necessit}^ must be imperfect at the
beginning. Christians full grown at their Christian
birth are as rare as full grown scholars or philosphers or
athletes or soldiers at the natural birth, or corn at the
planting. The germ of the holy life actually lodged
and alive in the soul is the essential requirement and
test of a disciple. Is the prayer earnest ? Does it come,
even though it stammers, out of unfeigned lips ? If it
does, then the Lord is never so in slumber as not to hear
it, or so unyielding and unpitying as to turn it back.
Christ is not a critic on the soul's frail steps, as it comes
tottering home to Him, a prodigal from the far country
or a penitent from the sinful ways of the city. Every
promise of His Gospel is a pledge to accept sinners, not
after they have ceased to he sinners^ — for when would that
be ? — but while yet they are sinners. This is the glory
of the Cross. The dying is for the ungodly. The
Physician is for the sick. The scarred shoulders of the
Shepherd are for the sheep that was lost. That candle

I

THE SAVIOUR IN THE SHIP. 123

of the Lord that is lit in the dark house of the world is
to find the " lost " piece of silver. He saves unto the
uttermost. Every one that asketh receiveth more than
he asketh. None of us know what to pray for as we
ought. To him that crieth only in fear, and because the
weather of this troublesome world is too much for him,
the sea is smoothed. And whosoever so cometh, pro-
vided only it is to the Lord that he directs his supplica-
tion, shall in no wise be cast out.

3. But we should miss the full breadth of Gospel
teaching in this miracle of the quieted tempest if we
saw nothing more in it than a mere figure or likeness of
what goes on in an individual heart. The whole strain
of the 'New Testament teaches us a profounder doctrine
than this of the connection between the visible world of
nature and the invisible world of God's spiritual king-
dom. We needed to know what the Pagan, the Jew
even, and many a student of science born and bred in
Christendom has never really comprehended, that the
Person of Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man, is the
actual bond of a living unity between both these two
great realms of God's creation; that He mediates
between them and reconciles them. Scholars will never
explore nature thoroughly, or right Wisely, till they see
this religious signification of every law, every force, and
every particle of mattter, and explore it by the light of
faith. God is in everything or in nothing, — in lumps of
common clay, as Ruskin says, and in drops of water, as
in the kindling of the day-star, and in the lifting of the
pillars of Heaven. The naturalists of antiquity were quite
as original and acute, in the purely intellectual quality,
as the moderns. But none of them, of any nation, ever
really grasped this doctrine of creation till Christ revealed
it. It is the Christian conception of nature, — even

124 THE SAVIOUR IN THE SHIP. ^

thougli many men who have the knowledge are too blind
or bigoted in their theories of nature to admit it. The
miracles of Jesus in Judea, as attestations that the ele-
ments of nature were plastic in His hands, are really a
new key to the grandest scientific principle in the uni-
verse,— which is that God lives and moves and acts in
all of nature, every instant, and that the whole creation is
formed and guided in the interest of the spiritual man,
i. e., of the kingdom of heaven on the earth. This world
is a place for the training of souls in a Christian immor-
tality. All its laws are yet to serve that end. Its evils,
sufferings, disorders ; its blights and tempests and agonies,
are somehow in it, — we know not how, and shall not
know at present, because it is the residence of a wrong-
choosing, falling, and sinning race. When Jesus of
]S"azareth took our flesh, which is one with the dust of
the earth. He entered on the stupendous and transcen-
dent work of redeeming not men only, but the earth
itself. Man's body is not a temporary accident. Every-
thing material, visible and tangible, answers to something,
expresses something, symbolizes something, in the soul
and its spiritual life, as it is hereafter to be developed.
Hence Christ must be Lord of life and death, of seas and
storms, of diseases and demons, of every mystery and
might and secret of created things. " The winds and
the sea obey Him." The whole creation, now groaning
and travailing in pain together, waits for the redemption,
the manifestation of the sons of God. The estrange-
ments even of dumb creatures, as the prophets say, in
some remote Christian age are to partake in the general
reconciliation, — the wolf lying down with the lamb, and
the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child
leading them in peaceful harmony. This individual
soul of yours, when it is aroused to holy life because the

THE SAVIOUR IN THE SHIP. 125

waters have gone over it, and cries for help, and is for-
given, is not left a solitary thing, struggling alone to swim
against the tide. It is in the ship with the Master. It is
one of an innumerable company. It is surrounded with
the praises of the Church of the First-born. It belongs to
a Christ who has all power in heaven and in earth, and
whom all the angels of God worship.

4. Incomplete still would this enlarging view of the
miracle be, if it did not further disclose to lis the true
practical use both of the Gospel miracles themselves, and
of every other gift and blessing of Heaven, in leading us
up in aifectionate gratitude to Him who stands as the
central figure among all these visible wonders, the imper-
sonation of all spiritual beauty, the heart of all holy love,
and the originator of all the peace-making powers which
tranquillize and reconcile the turbulences of the world.
Whatever other and more abstract or general truths of
the spiritual creation these supernatural works of the
E'ew Testament may express, it is plainest and most
precious of all, that they draw believing and thankful
hearts to the Saviour himself. The disciples, you see,
did not selfishly congratulate themselves on their escape,
or, with the impoverished spirit, the thin blood, and
niggardly honor of modern rationalism, refer their relief
to the laws of nature, or to peculiarities of climate, and
so, proud of their sagacity, make for the port. Their
reverent minds, quickened by faith, travelled fast from
the wonder to the wonder-worker. "The men mar-
velled, saying, What manner of man is this ! " It was
not the mercy to men's imperilled or sick bodies that
Christ had first in view when He loosened the bodily
ordinances and let the streams of Divine energy flow in
on mortal sufferers. " Tliat ye might believe in me," —
this is the continual explanation, — we might almost say

126 THE SAVIOUR IN THE SHIP.

the excuse, He offered for deeds that must necessarily
be exceptional and temporary. I have heard Christians
with the doubting temperament of St. Thomas, slow but
desirous to believe, avow their wish that miracles could
come to confirm and satisfy them now ; and I have heard
others, easier to believe, express 'their expectation that
they would come again, in some new supernatural cycle
of the Church. All that miraculous treasure of Christ
is ours, not only by certified history, as undeniable fact,
but because in having Him we have all the benefit and
blessing of His supernatural life included. The wonders
fulfilled their office when they gained men's ears and
hearts for their Redeemer. He living in our hearts by
faith, we can dispense with the rest as but the transient
vehicle of His grace. Feeding on Him, dying with Him,
at liberty with His freedom, walking daily in His light,
forgiven through His mediation, enriched and sanctified
by His intercession, — what can the brave and true Chris-
tian need more ? The tranquillity will be like that of the
sea when the storm had been subdued, — not a dead or
stagnant " calm," but, as the same original word signifies
in Homer's Epic Greek, the rippling calm that laughs,
because it moves and makes music and catches all the
light of heaven. If the Saviour of us from our sins into
everlasting life "giveth peace, who then can make
trouble?"

Augustine, of the fourth century, who knew as well
as most men what the storms of temptation are, and bet-
ter than most men what the deliverance is, and by "Whom
the victory comes, often in his writings refers to this pas-
sage of the evangelist, and those psalms, like the forty-
sixth and ninety-third and one hundred and seventh,
where we almost seem to hear the roaring of the waters
and the voice of God above them. In one of these he

I

THE SAVIOrE m THE SHIP. 127

sums up the practical application of tlie miracle in lan-
guage that cannot be bettered : " "We are sailing in this life
as through a sea, and the wind rises, and storms of tempta-
tion are not wanting. "Whence is this, save because
Jesus is sleeping in thee ? If He were not sleeping in
thee thou wouldst have calm within. But what means
this, that Jesus is sleeping in thee, save that thy faith,
which is from Jesus, is slumbering in thine heart ? What
shalt thou do to be delivered ? Arouse Him and say,
Master, we perish. He will awaken ; that is, thy faith
will return to thee and abide with thee always. When
Christ is awakened, though the tempest heat into yet it
will not fill thy ship ; thy faith will now command the
winds and the waves, and the danger will be over."

TWO AE"D TWO BEFOKE HIS FACE.

Fifth BundoAf after Ejpij^hany,

"Aptee these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and
sent them two and two before His face into every city and place,
whither He himself would come." — St. Luke x. 1.

It is remarkable how little stress has been laid on this
statement. There have been a few conjectures, among
scholars, that one or another of the historic men whose
early confession of the Faith gave their names a place in
the Christian records was among these " seventy." But
we really are told about any of them only two things, —
their errand, and the fact that they were held worthy,
through their prompt and obedient discipleship to the
Master, to be made forerunners of His own ministry.
From Jerusalem eastward beyond Jordan, and so up to
Bethsaida, — from Nazareth west to the coasts of Tyre
and across through Samaria, — ^might be seen these pairs
of pilgrims, bound on a mysterious march, eager, solemn,
urgent, as if the spell of another world was on their
spirits ; — this is all we know.

Yet questions of high interest immediately arise.
Why should there he any forerunners? What were
they sent to do? How were they received by their
countrymen where they came ? And what were the after
fortunes of their lives? Silent as the narrative is on
points like these, there are indicated in the single sen-

TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE. 129

tence which mentions the incident two or three princi-
ples of the Christian life, in the world and in man, of
great practical power. He "sent them two and two
before His face into every place whither He himself
would come."

In order to the full personal influence and reign of
Christ anywhere, there is a law of necessary preparation.
Yery impressive it is to see that God, when He has any
great gift to communicate, proceeds by prearrange-
ment. He never bursts into His family with thunders
of revelation too sudden or loud for them to bear. Take
the one signal event which stands in the centre of all
history, — the personal coming of the Son of God on the
earth. In one sense, to be sure. His birth was a surprise ;
the dull mind of the lodgers at the. Bethlehem tavern,
and of the peasants at Nazareth, was not looking for Him
in the place and fashion of His actual appearance. But
Simeon and Anna in the Temple were ready for Him.
The prophetic spirit of His nation had been looking out
for Him, as nightly watchers on Mount Moriah looked
out for the dawn toward Hebron, two thousand years.
A group of magi from the far East, without Bible or
Hebrew tradition or Mosaic monuments, were expecting
Him, earnestly enough to travel a long way by a strange
road to find Him. Herod was not surprised, — fore-
knowing Him by that presentiment of alarm with
which unrighteous kings always dread prophets. Every
student who reads below the surface of the letter under-
stands that the whole course of Eastern empire and emi-
gration, from the patriarchs, as much as the literal pre-
dictions of Jacob or Isaiah, was a making ready for just
that spiritual revolution which came embodied in the
Galilean carpenter, the Desire of all nations, the Ever-
lasting King. From the very beginning He was sending

130 TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE.

out, along the highways of ages, voices, two and two,
of herald and psalm, of priesthood and commandments,
6f awakened conscience and struggling faith, of failing
virtue and falling thrones, into the places whither He
himself would come.

There is a wider view of history, and of God's majes-
tic purposes in it, still. To narrow and jealous inter-
preters it used to appear to be somehow a slight upon
the Scriptures to suppose that the Almighty took other
nations besides the Jews into His design, or that He
illuminated Gentile seers and sages to catch any glimpses
of the Gospel. But Scripture itself is bound by no such
exclusive rule. It sees religion beyond the bounds of
Judea. It honors Melchisedec's devotion and Balaam's
vision of the Christian Star rising out of Jacob, and
celebrates the adoration of the wise men, and welcomes
the ships of Tarshish, the dromedaries of Midian and
Ephah, the outstretched hands of Ethiopia. Christian
scholarship in later years, rising to loftier conceptions of
the Christly providence and the Divine philosophy in
history, discovers proofs that, long before Mary took her
way to the feast, or laid Jesus in the manger, there were
great converging lines of thought and life pointing to
that wonderful nativity. On the purer pages of both
Greek and Latin literature there are guesses of an
Evangelic future; there are ideas working out from
men's minds under the breath of the all-inspiring Spirit,
preparing the way for the reconciliation of Calvary, for
the brotherhood of the race, for the Sermon on the
Mount, for the parable of the Good Samaritan, for the
missionary journeys of St. Paul. Over the plains of
Syria, along the sea-coasts of the Mediterranean, in the
northern forests, tribes and their captains were moving,
thrones were put down and set up, armies were gathered

TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE, 131

and dispersed, — the miglity leaders themselves not con-
scious for what King of kings they were opening a path,
but all shaping the face of the earth for His kingdom.
Literally, Caesar's legions were building roads out from
Italy to every quarter of the compass, not more for the
Pretorian eagles to pass than for the apostles and wit-
nesses of the Cross. Alexandria laid the keels and
spread the sails of her galleys for a better freight than
she knew, — for the message of love on earth, good will to
East and West, and glory to God in the highest, out
to the Pillars of Hercules. The Athenians, through
period after period, in the exquisite culture of their per-
fect tongue, were producing a language for the truth as
it is in Jesus to proclaim its glad tidings in, from the
Granges to the Danube. Eoman jurisprudence, by its
skilful statutes and admirable discipline, quite as much
as military conquests, was familiarizing courts and sen-
ates and thinkers with the idea of universal law. In
fact, to eyes that see the divinity in the Saviour's face
at all it is not difficult to discern, all along those earlier
ages, heralds like " the other seventy also," going before
that Face into the places whither He himself was after-
ward to come.

Now, on that great scale of time and space we have a
picture, in colossal proportions, of what goes on in every
one of our own breasts. Conscious of it or not, agencies
are at work in us to make ready, if we only will, for the
entrance of the Lord of the heart into His home and
dwelling-place there. Having created us for Christian
service, as the true end and real glory of our being, our
Father takes pains to fit and to fashion us for that
destiny, with all its honor and all its joy. By secret
influences, untraceable as the wind that bloweth where
it listeth, silently pressing on the springs of feeling and

132 TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE.

principle within us; by strange sorrows and misgivings
there ; bj hours of uneasiness not explained ; by sharp
twinges of conscience ; by open providences, prosperous
or painful, so plain that he who runs, in the busiest
habits, can read their meaning, and even the wayfaring
fool can hardly miss it ; by letting us have what w^e
want, to encourage or to shame us ; by taking away what
we love too well, or love falsely, that we may become
wise and strong and pure in our grief, — this process of
personal preparation is in continual operation. The
heralds are out, sent by Him who is coming after them.
The " other seventy " are proceeding on their errand.
"We ourselves are the cities and places whither He would
come. He wants us, and He would have us want Him.
He has named us, one by one, to the messengers. He
has marked each heart, as He did the chamber in the city
by the man bearing a pitcher of water where He would
have the disciples " make ready the passover." This is
the Divine reality of our human life, and it throws over
its common things one of their tenderest and most
earnest aspects. Nothing is separate from this blessed
plan ; and so nothing is insignificant. Even the com-
monplaces, in God's view, however it may be with ours,
are parts of the formation of character. They are
always teaching what manner of persons we ought to be.
The voice of the wilderness rings through them, — " Pre-
pare ye the Lord's way." He knows of each one whether
the door is open or shut. And by one touch or another
He will open it, unless we would rather die than live.

All our approaches to full religious truth, to spiritual
power, or holiness, or peace, are gradual. The best are not
hest at once^ any more than the very bad are worst at once.
The towns and cottages of Palestine must hear a little
about the Messiah before they saw Him, and get used at

TWO AND TWO BEFOEE HIS FACE. 133

least to His name. " Is not this He that should come ? "
IN'ot Elias, not one of the old prophets, — but everybody's
Friend, the Saviour of publicans and laboring men, of
sinning women, and of the little child. Were our ears
open, we should hear about Him in other voices than
those of sermons. Childish instruction is one of them,
including all the little morsels of Christian knowledge
that are scattered in the houses of the people. Many of
them are but crude and broken bits ; the information is
scanty and one-sided ; it is mixed with false theories and
mistaken impressions ; but there it is, — some precept about
prayer, some fragment of the Kew Testament narrative,
some text committed to memory, some names of saints,
some verses of a hymn. Even in households not very
religious, or in streets, or in secular schools, these crumbs
of the sacred Bread of Life are dropped ; and they help
to prepare the way. The children cry in the market-
place, " Hosanna to the Son of David ! " and they may
be the more glad to greet Him and sit at His feet after-
ward. Sunday-school teaching, imperfect as it is,
goes before the face of Christ, and that is a reason why
it ought to be more carefully and thoroughly done. If
there is too little of Christ himself there, there are at
least His promises. His gifts. His praises from young
lips, and knees bent to Him. All habits of daily devotion
are a preparation for Christ. He may not be faithfully
received, or confessed, or followed ; yet the practice of
saying something often to God, " through Jesus Christ
our Lord," keeps a private by-path where His holy feet
may walk at any time, in some season of penitence, or
agony, or under the shadow of a cross. So it is with
morality. It is not always Christian morality. The
flavor of the passion-flower, the sweetness of humility,
the strength and sanctity of faith, may not be in it.

134 TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE.

There is a morality that is hard, proud, bitter, self-
approving. Men may do right from wrong motives, — be
honest from policy, or amiable for favor, or liberal for
popularity, and even austerely just in a kind of haughty
ambition to do as well without religion as Christians do
with it. But, generally, right living is akin to righteous
living. Zaccheus was the better pupil to Jesus for his
obedience. The stern moralists of antiquity, Marcus
Aurelius, Seneca, Socrates, would doubtless have wel-
comed the Son of Man from Galilee if they had seen
Him. And therefore, along with a right education goes
a correct ordering of conduct, the two casting up a
causeway, through miry grounds, for the spiritual sov-
ereign of the soul.

Again, it appears from the Lord's sending of the
seventy that all personal efforts and public movements
for extending truth and increasing righteousness in the
world are really parts of His work, and are dependent
on His spiritual power. Christendom everywhere is full
of beneficent activities. They are philanthropic, edu-
cational, sanitary, reformatory, missionary. Sometimes
they scarcely recognize, and oftener they fail to praise,
wdth explicit and conscious gratitude, the Great Fountain
from which they spring, and the ever-present Leader
who inspires and sends them. So much the worse for
their vitality and their honor if they do. But none the
less are they the merciful emanations of the one great
central, mighty, and missionary Heart which has brought
the love of heaven into the dwellings of men. 'No
matter where you find them, or what human agents
started them, or what particular form of good they aim
at, they are none the less, in their first origin, products
of the one great healing and loving plan, — just as the
million shapes of organization in the forests and flora of

TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE. 135

vegetable nature spring and bloom and bear fruit from
a single living principle at the heart of the universe.
The grandest result of modern scientific discovery and
scholarly thought is the growing conviction of a uni-
fication of forces : — all the infinite variety of shape and
color and odor, of leaf and blossom and stalk, flowing
from one Head, in one shoreless stream, under one all-
including Law. The spiritual creation is not less
orderly, or less at unity in itself, than the material.
" Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy name,
and he folio weth not us; and we forbad him." But
Jesus said, " Forbid him not, for there is no man which
shall do a miracle in My name that can lightly speak
evil of Me. For he that is not against us is on our
part." " Whosoever receiveth a child in My name, re-
ceiveth Me " : and the ignorant and the heathen and the
poor are children. " Whosoever shall give you a cup to
drink in My name shall not lose his reward " : and
healthy tenements, or temperance, or bathing-houses, or
schools, or hospital care, or flower-missions in cities, are
cups of water. " Wisdom is justified of all her chil-
dren." " He that keepeth My commandments, he it is
that loveth Me." " All souls are Mine." The benefac-
tions of this late age, half-blind though they may be, or
forgetful of their Author, were born at Bethlehem, and
grew in stature at Nazareth, and conquered their
enemies, — selfishness and pride and wrath, — at Calvary,
and went out among the nations with the apostles. If
we had seen one of the seventy walking in some by-way
of Jericho or Bethany, we might have seen no badge of
Christ upon him, and wondered at his eager gait or
absorbed expression. But he was going where the
Master sent him, and the Master's mantle was on him,
and the Master's secret in his soul. Thither, after him,

136 TWO AND TWO BEFOEE HIS FACE.

tlie Master himself would come, — to reaffirm and fulfil
His words, — to deepen, sanction, complete His work.
Large or small, these forerunners run over the earth, —
from Zion to Damascus and to Spain, from London to
Cape Town and Japan, from the New York Bible House
to Mexico and Oregon. One Sender sends them. One
Keaper and Ingatherer and Finisher follows them. He
is the Alpha, beginning them, — the Omega who will
end them. They began in His charity. They will end
in His righteousness His grace conceived them — every
one. His mediation holds them up. His glory will
crown them, in His own good time. The many-handed
Church Missionary Society of Great Britain, with its
million dollars a year, and the little " auxiliary " of a few
quiet women in a rural parish, are branches of one tree,
drawing their life from one root, yielding for that
patient Planter who will come " seeking fruit."

And on Him they all depend. Underneath their
roots, and filling every pore with the sweet stream that
nourishes each fibre. He is over them as well, watching
and tending and watering, and lifting the boughs into
air and light. Without Him they can do nothing, as
without His creation they could not have been. Unless
they cut themselves ofi", — severing the secret channels by
unbelief, by headstrong self-will, by a quarrelsome and
alien temper, by the bitterness of a radical rejection of
Him,— He feeds their springs. That is the wonder and
the beauty of the love. So much does He care for the
whole flock, that He will let shepherds almost as simple
as the sheep go after them, — to lead some, to drive
others. So much does He long to draw souls in, that
He opens gates in all the walls, on the four sides of the
city, which lies four-square to all the points of the com-
pass,— the city of holiness and rest. He never shuts

k

TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE. 137

tliem. If tliey ever seem " strait," and the way to tliem
"narrow," it is only because, without obedience and a
likeness to the self-denying Lord of the place, they that
enter would not be at home there, but uneasy prisoners
at the court of a goodness which judges them. His
heavenly economy is not to bar out but to invite in.
He suffers ten thousand stammering tongues, of scanty
wisdom, to teach and preach Him, if only they will
heartily repeat His name. If there are not ordained and
official hands to baptize new-born children into His
family, they shall not be left outasts and homeless for
want of outward and inward water, and a welcome.
" The Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives,
but to save them."

How plain it is, then, that all our exertions to do good
to our fellow-men, or to ourselves, are strong and effect-
ive exactly in proportion as we keep them in direct con-
nection with Christ. Do you inquire how? By our
inward feeling; by the outward confession, and the
continual thanksgiving, and the sacramental memorial ;
by carrying requests to Him ; by marking the signs of
His guiding will and following them, though they cross
interests or break up projects of our own ; by managing
and deliberating and administering, working alone or
working in societies, in His Spirit; by thinking of
Him in our work, reverently and affectionately. Where-
ever they went, in mountain passes, or river jungles, or
lonely deserts, among robbers, among Pharisees, among
serpents, do you suppose the seventy ever forgot the
voice, the face, or the blessing of Him who said to
them, " Go ye, hefore Me " f Their knees would have
trembled, their hearts would have sunk in them, many
a time, if they had. Whether we try to convert the
heathen, or to Christianize our western barbarians, or to

138 TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE.

build cliiirches, or to reclaim in our Christian communi-
ties " such as neglect so great salvation," or to train the
young, or to nurse the sick, or to employ the idle, or to
house and clothe orphanage and old age, — it is not only
true that " without Him we can do nothing " ; it is just
as true that in the degree of our conscious and willing
and loving memory of Him we prosper and prevail. As
we are in communion with Him, He strengthens us. As
His name and creed are on our lips, His mark on our
foreheads, our knees bent to Him, we prepare His way.
He comes after us, and comes up with us, and we walk
with Him, and the bread is broken, and our eyes are
opened to the vision of Him, and we feast with Him,
and with His Father, who is our Father, and They
with us. His kingdom comes in Him, from Him, and
round about Him, and abides with Him wherever He is.
This leads on to the final truth. When the spiritual
life unfolds into its real freedom and practical energy,
the character it presents is a Christlike character. The
moment we see it, we see not only its beauty and useful-
ness but its source. The stamp of its authorship is upon
it. However rude, imperfect, immature the earlier
forms of religious life may be, as surely as they grow
and ripen there comes out in them the likeness of the.
perfect Pattern of them all. Many failures and rough
outlines at first ; not much else but sincere longings,
penitent resolves, half-discouraged struggles to worry
through the daily fight and break down the old selfish
or sensual habit. Amendment is slow ; the record only
a little better to-day than yesterday; some* back-
slidings, very likely ; timid faith asking " where is the
promise of His coming"; Peter sinking in the waves as
the wind rises ; and half-pagan Christian neighbors look-
ing on with little hope and less cheer. But what then ?

TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE. 189

Always the herald must be less than the king. Prepar-
ation is not perfection, nor is seed-time the harvest, nor
is John calling down fire on Samaritans the John on
the Lord's breast at the Last Supper. First the blade ;
then the ear ; after that the full corn in the ear. Only
make sure that the seed-corn is the genuine grain ; that
the tillage goes on ; that the blade is nurtured, and the
weeds are killed. Then the full corn will be Christ's life
again. Is the true quality here in the germ, — the bap-
tism of the Spirit, — the new creature's breath and
blood, — the love and longing for God, however feeble
or faint? Then take care of it. Your business is to
water and feed it, — and, if need be, to fight for it. The
Church's business is to train it ; she is its nursing-mother ;'
the entire system of her ministrations is a divine ar-
rangement and provision for it ; her christening Christ-
ens it ; her confirmation confirms it ; her adoring prayers
hold it up to the light of the Lord's countenance ; her
teaching gives it body and soundness ; her Church work
makes sinew and nerve and hardness for it; her Eucha-
rist satisfies and renews it; her hymns invigorate its
aspiration, making it rise like the wings of the eagle.
But, in all Christ must be, or there is nothing. To
Him it must all tend and work in the heart, or it works
to vanity. Christ begins and finishes its glorious circle
of seven-fold light and grace in personal lives. When
we speak of the kingdom, it is only the society of Christ's
men, the complete and brotherly body of living souls,
alive in Him. That only is the Church that rfses, and
makes Gentiles see the brightness of its rising, and brings
sons from far, and nurses daughters at its side, and gathers
gold and incense from east and west, and doves of the
air to its windows, — its gates not shut day nor night,
and glorified with the glory of the Holy One.

140 TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE.

Who He is you know. All better things, of desire
and purpose, in the heart point to Him and prophesy
Him. Seventy times seven messengers, in these Chris-
tian ages, go before Him. Our repentance is comforted
by His forgiveness. Every step is made safe and steady
by His hand. The whole course and order look to
Him, — " Path, motive, guide, original, and end."

Men of our time think they see a grander future in
store for the people, and for the world. They are right,
if they look for an age of greater nearness to the Son
of Man. The heralds go out. Commerce, science,
discovery, education, nature interpreted, sea and sky
and land comprehended, humanity awakened, the uni-
verse explored, every law traced, — these are messen-
gers that will not only foresee but help bring in the
millennium they predict, if they labor and move to-
gether in the faith of the great reconciliation, for the
righteousness and peace, for the love and purity of God.
For then these are manifestations of the kingdom of
His Son. Is that kingdom within you ?

INSTAITT OBEDIENCE.

Sixth SundoAj after Epiphcmy,

" His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever He saith until
you, do it."— >S'^. John ii. 5.

The riglit path into the meaning of this saying,
found in one of the Epiphany " Gospels," lies through
the scene where it was spoken, or rather it is found
in an interior view of the three states of mind repre-
sented in the little group at the wedding: — that of
Mary, who speaks; of the servants, to whom she
speaks ; and of the Saviour, for whose decisive word she
and they are waiting.

On the part of Mary, the mother of the Lord, there
was evidently a mixture of perplexity, impatience, rev-
erence, and trust. The impatience, betrayed a moment
before, in her anxiety that her Son should interfere to
relieve the embarrassed host, — who is conjectured to
have been a relative of her own family, — an anxiety
heightened very probably by a little natural pride in the
indications of extraordinary wisdom and authority al-
ready apparent in Jesus, — had been sufficiently reproved
and restrained. His " Woman, what have I to do with
thee ? " (more exactly rendered, What is there in com-
mon between Me and thee ? ) had produced the intended
effect: dispelling her rising complacency, and placing
her on that level of ordinary human dependence where,

142 INSTANT OBEDIENCE.

with all tlie loveliness and beauty of her character and
the sanctity of her maternal relation to the human
nature in Christ, she must ever remain. Nothing but
an utterly baseless superstition would ever presume to
remove her from it into a semi-adorable divinity. As
St. Augustine says on the passage, it is as if Christ had
replied to her, " That in Me which works miracles was
not born of thee." See the deep distinction between
the mere filial feeling, always so tender and strong in the
Redeemer, up to the last moment when He commended
her to St. John's faithful care on the cross, and, on the
other hand, that loftier and more august life of God
within Him by which He must pursue His solemn work
of miracle and sacrifice all alone. Even you, my mother,
— He seems to answer her, — must now keep silence and
wait. Dismiss that natural complacency and vain ambi-
tion of display for Me. Let Me, from this time forth,
release and disengage Myself, not indeed from a son's
afiection, but from all dependence and deference, that I
may go on without hindrance or interruption to this sol-
itary and separate office of mediatorship and propitiation.
Henceforth be the holy woman, the meek follower, the
redeemed though not sinless disciple, — and nothing more
than that, whatever erring men may pretend. But for
Me, the Son of God, whom the Father hath sanctified
and sent into the world, — not an act in My merciful
ministry can be either hurried forward or kept back
for an instant; it must be done only when "Mine
hour" for it "is come."

All this would be a direct appeal to faith, and a call
for increased faith. For thirty years Mary had carried
in the solemn silence of her soul the memory of the
strange events which signalized His birth, childhood,
and youth at Bethlehem and the Temple. Probably the

INSTANT OBEDIENCE. 143

remarkable words He had shortly before uttered to
Nathaniel, written just at the close of the previous
chapter, had been repeated to her, " Hereafter ye shall
see the angels of God ascending and descending upon
the Son of Man." As yet He had given no super-
natural sign; for we are expressly told that this was
the " beginning " of His miracles, manifesting forth His
glory. If He had really come with a celestial commis-
sion,— greater than Moses and Elias, — was it not almost
time, almost the " hour," for some token of it to appear?
Moses fed the hungry people with heavenly bread in
the wilderness, and, when they thirsted, opened springs
of water in the rock ; Elias multiplied the widow's oil
and flour. Why should not this greater Prophet, to
whom all the prophets gave witness, fill the six stone
water-pots before Him with wine, and gladden the fru-
gal wedding with bounty by His hand ? Yet when she
adventured on that so reasonable suggestion, she was
rebuffed.

Just at this point of uncertainty, then, she stood.
The dull servants, knowing nothing of this mystery,
ready to take their order, were at hand. She only
looked at Jesus, and all doubts fled, all impatience gave
way» all fears and marvels sank to rest in one blessed
resolution of simple, trusting obedience. " Whatsoever
He saith unto you, do it." This was the complete con-
fession of her faith. It was the grand triumph in her
of the very spirit of the Lord. And I shall go on to
lay it open before you now as a condensed and blessed
commandment of love for us Christians of to-day. Let
me do this by drawing out three contrasts, implied in
the text.

" Whatsoever He saith unto you." One voice is singled
out, and we are told of it, here and in every part of the

144 ^ INSTANT OBEDIENCE.

Word of Life, — that voice alone has supreme authority.
There are other voices, a whole Babel of them, clamor-
ing to be heard. It has been said, with a great deal of
truth, that the difference between one man and another is
in their choice of their masters. Some master every hu-
man being has, and none are in so complete a bondage as
those who fancy themselves to be absolutely independ-
ent. We never call the service that we like a slavery ;
the neighbor who looks on and sees the toil, but has no
sympathy with the motive, may call it so. To the in-
dolent voluptuary the business man's unremitting appli-
cation is a bondage ; but this busy worker, with far more
reason, gives the same name to the voluptuary's indolence.
A mother's incessant care of her children seems a slavery
to those who have no sense of maternaV affection. Each
of the trades, professions, callings, to observers who have
no feeling of the spring from which it is done, and no
aptitude or relish for it, bears in its routine this servile
aspect. There is always liberty in doing what we love
to do. There are as many masters as there are interests,
appetites, tastes, passions, and pursuits, — of the. body
and the mind. There are people who scorn the idea of
working at all, who yet work harder, put up with more
humiliations, and part with more real liberty, for vanity,
for fashion, for a certain standing in society or a certain
amount of prosperity, or a sensual pleasure, than the
serf that is bought and sold and whipped. So it appears
that men are always choosing their masters. And, how-
ever it may be with the outward employments, when we
come to their moral life, i. e., the region of their motives,
men are at liberty to choose as they will. It is there,
on that ground of their moral freedom, that the Gospel
meets them. The freedom of this choice, and its re-
sponsibility, keep on with them, and follow them up, till

INSTANT OBEDIENCE. 145

they die. Hence the mercy of God keeps the message
of salvation sounding through the world. He has
turned your feet in here to hear it once more to-day ;
and He only knows whether it is the last time you will
hear it before judgment begins. Choose now this day
whom you will serve. Were there any interference
with your choice, any compulsion, the whole state of the
case would be changed ; preaching to you would be an
impertinence; and your hearing would be in vain.
But there is no interference and no compulsion : the
most frivolous and careless sinner knows that. Tempta-
tion, in all its degrees, — opportunity, temperament, ex-
ample, education, perversions of the truth, bad custom,
— these are fearful forces ; but never, anywhere, do they
for a moment annihilate responsibility, or quench the
light lighting every man that cometh into the world.
The liberty to choose your master clings to your soul.
Choose Christ, and live forever ; choose otherwise, any
other master, and forever die. And you do choose.
Not only have we the liberty to choose if we will^ but
we use the liberty. Every heart chooses. Every life is
the result of that choice. We may go on choosing and
choosing again, trying many masters ; falsehood is never
consistent with itself, and sin loves change. Every pas-
sion and appetite and interest may take its turn in play-
ing master. We may fancy we make some progress,
hecause we change, when really the selfish principle, the
root of all the evil, is just as vital, and as bitter and poi-
sonous in its vitality as ever, under all the refinements of
culture and manners. The external habits may become
more orderly and decent; the tastes less gross; the
results of labor more useful to others. But God is not
mocked, and we must not deceive ourselves. Changing
our masters is of no avail till we exchange every other

10

146 INSTANT OBEDIENCE.

for God. Hence it is that the Bible always treats the
false masters of the soul as altogether but one ; — " He
that is not for Christ is against Him," it says. So it
presents but one alternative. " No man can serve two
masters." The order of the mother of Jesus at the
feast expands and reaffirms itself, you see, into a search-
ing, universal, and unrepealable command for every soul
that would live. " Whatsoever Re saith unto you, do
it." We are servants, all. Listen to no other leader.
One voice, only one, is supreme. Till we have found
the perfectly holy, the all- wise, and almighty One, we
shift our masters to no purpose. Christ alone can turn
the water into wine ; the old life into the new.

Advance to the truth that, as there is but one voice
of supreme authority, so there is, on our part, but one
great principle of Christian duty, and that so comprehen-
sive as to include all particular directions and settle all
open questions, viz., instant, active obedience. " What-
ever He saith unto you, do itP

Try to consider, my friends, how many of our failures
and miseries in Christian living creep in between the
clear hearing of God's command, and the doing of it, —
or even the resolute, determined, hearty attemjpting to
do it. I say miseries^ because to earnest people failures
are miseries. I believe a careful analysis, a sifting to
the bottom of the religious unhappiness and dissatisfac-
tion so often complained of, would show that it springs
very commonly from mistaking speculative for practical
truth ; from putting matters of feeling and opinion in
place of matters of obedient action, or doing God's will ;
in other words, from postponing an unquestioning accept-
ance of God's plain word to a questioning which puts
the soul out of the line and attitude of simple obedience
altogether. Some impenetrable problem of God's provi-

INSTANT OBEDIENCE. 147

dence, never meant for man to comprehend, is conjured
lip and brooded over, as if man had a right to fathom it,
or, still worse, had a right to keep his faith and repent-
ance waiting till he can fathom it. Some obscure dogma,
which, in the regular order of Christian progress, should
be left to clear itself up to the mind at some later and
more advanced stage of the process of sanctification, —
under the law that he who doeth the will shall finally know
doctrines, — is torn from its spiritual relations, and set up
as a stumbKng-block to piety, the young disciple imagining
he is justified in serving some other master than Christ
because he is not made a master himself! There are
other kindred impediments to true, straightforward
Christian obedience and the joy of believing : moods of
depression and discontent ; sorrowful misgivings of hav-
ing backslidden and grown cold ; queryings whether the
plan of life is right, whether time is properly divided
between the conflicting claims of friends, neighbors,
family, or between the active and contemplative elements
of religion ; there are discouragements and griefs at the
unbelief and unconcern of those so much beloved, that
the thought of their having no faith darkens the daylight
of all the days ; there are strange, nerveless, inert seasons,
when it seems as if our hands were tied and could not
be loosened, our feet paralyzed as in a nightmare, all
the horizon of usefulness narrowing in, and pinching us
into spiritual dwarfs or cripples. What is to be said of
all these drawbacks on the liberty and growth of a joy-
ous discipleship, and what the Bible does say repeatedly
is this : that they are to be cast off and left behind, not
by more thinking over them, or more spasmodic efforts
to pump up or manufacture mere feeling, but by a more
prompt, unremitting, unambitious doing of Christ's will ;
a willingness to do it with just what strength and wis-

148 INSTANT OBEDIENCE.

dom God has lent you, and no more ; with just that
degree of success, or celebrity, or comfort, or honor, that
God allows, and no more. " Jesus saith unto them, Fill
the water-pots with water ; and they filled them up to
the brim." We are servants under Him, nothing more,
and must drink of all the cup of obedience that He
drinks of in doing His Father's will, and be baptized
with all the baptism that He is baptized with, — in
suffering, weeping, being sorrowful, and living in a
sinful world. Here is the Master's way. Doubts,
fears, depressions, break up and dissolve under it. The
homely opportunities that stand all round us in our every-
day business, in the houses and the familiar workshops of
the world, are our six water-pots of stone. Fill them ;
fill them ungrudgingly and unhesitatingly; fill them
with such water as you have, and up to the hrim. There
is but one thing to be done : " Whatever He saith unto
you, do it." Whether the water shall be made wine is for
Him, the Master, to decide ; not for us. We can settle
t)ut few difficult points, and puzzle out but few knotted
problems. We are like Mary in her perplexity ; very
often confessing silently, "Well, all this is strange,
inexplicable ; we should not have expected it so ; but
one thing is certainly safe and clear; one blessed path
lies open ; that will bring all out well and right at last :
Whatever He saith unto you, do it." There is no
doom or danger in that. Be about the Master's business.
Go to the nearest duty. Take up the first cross. Count
no costs too great. Go forward to confession of Christ
and His ordinances. Feed upon Him in faith. Do all
manner of kindnesses and charities to the least of His
people as unto Him. Esteem a small house large
enough to be an entrance-way to heaven. If the poor
season of this mortal life and this commonplace world

INSTANT OBEDIENCE. 149

is ever to be turned, by the miracle of grace, into a wed-
ding-feast for the eternal Bridegroom and the Church
His Bride, it must be by this working of love in Chris-
tians to fill the water-pots with water, — preparing the
way for the wisdom that transforms our weak and watery
offerings into the wine of the new kingdom.

There is another kind of difficulty that is cured by
the same obedient and prompt doing of the will, — I
mean indecision as to beginning to follow Christ. There,
too, with most persons born and bred in a land of sanctu-
aries and scriptures, the obstacle is in a want of religious
action, a lack of the practical link that joins a sight of
duty with the doing of it, or a longing desire for Christ's
acceptance with the practical eifort to obtain it. There
must be some persons now listening here that have not
so decided and begun. I ask them to go back into their
past lives, and say if they cannot recall some time gone
by when they were almost persuaded, heard the Spirit
pleading, saw the gate open, and then let this world
draw them back. What was it that closed the way to
God's right hand ? It was the not walking at once in
that way. It was no mystical or metaphysical or exter-
nal impediment ; it was the moral chasm between hearing
the command and minding it. It is not till our part, —
the servants' part, — is done, and the firkins are filled,
that the supernatural energy will change the nature of
the heart into the new creature in Christ Jesus. Believe ;
faith is the power ; but the proof and truit of faith is not
separated from it : " Arise, and wash away thy sins ;
bring forth fruit meet for repentance ; bear witness to the
Eedeemer; and have charity for one another. So shall
all men know that ye are My disciples."

One other word completes the scope of this lesson :
the first word of the text, — '^ Whatever." " Whatever

!150 INSTANT OBEDIENCE.

He saith unto you, do it." What it should be that He
would say His mother did not know ; the servants did
not know. It turned out, with them, to be no very
heavy or difficult task ; it might have been to travel to
the Kedron or the Jordan ; but it certainly was a trial
of their faith, and a greater trial than many of those are
that we call so. How was the pouring into the jars of
mere colorless and tasteless water to remedy the want of
wine ? Yery much so it looks to us, in respect to many
of the simple and commanded acts of faith, which are
required of us nevertheless. How are our money offer-
ings to convert souls to Christ ? How are our prayers to
move the everlasting arm, stay sickness or sin, and turn
back the currents of evil ? How shall bread and wine
feed the heart? How shall any of the miracles of
Christ's power and compassion be wrought ? We are
slow to learn the irrelevancy and vanity of those
inquiries ; yet learn it we must, or never be wise enough
to take our blessing and live forever.

And then there are trials, not for all of us, but for
some, which need this broad '' whatever " to cover them.
When you find yourself beginning to calculate the con-
sequences of your obedience, and measuring out your
sacrifices by your prospects of reward ; when your flesh
and blood cry out that the sacrifice hurts, and the wicked
world seems happier than they that suffer affliction with
the people of God ; when you must give up more than
you ever gave before, and more than your neighbors do,
— ^you will want this " whatever,"" — " Whatever He saith
to you, do it." You will want the wide faith it expresses
and requires ; and you can have it. Nay, you will want
Him who is the author and finisher of it, and who said
beforehand, '' In the world ye shall have tribulation ;
but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

INSTANT OBEDIENCE. 151

And what a life of holy power and beauty and benefi-
cence this will yield in our dwellings ! He who began
His wonders at the marriage in Cana will continue to
manifest His glory and diffuse His joy in every place
where this blessed and trusting spirit has consecrated
the family, and ordered its occupation. Draw out now,
and bear unto every guest in the Father's house. As in
every miracle of His the Lord never proceeded without
regard to some natural and ordinary substance to be
acted on, never created things anew out of nothing, but
always changed, healed, transformed, or made letter
something existing in disorder before Him, so it is in
the glorious operation of His Divine power on the char-
acter, heart, and life of men. He takes these old and
common water-pots of our mortal relationships, our
household affairs, our e very-day dispositions and employ-
ments, and then, if only we are ready with our obedi-
ence, fills them with that new wine to which He him-
self so often compares His gift of life. "When the new
man is put on, " old things pass away, and all things
become new," but the identity is not lost. The effect is
new ; the life is new ; but you are yourself still, only
transformed, and the new life is your own.

THE FOEEMOST DESIEE.

Septuagesima Sunday.

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God," and His righteousness." —
St. Matthew vi. 33.

To-day the Church turns its thoughts from the begin-
nings of our Lord's ministry toward its close. We have
been occupied with His coming, birth, and manifesta-
tion : we now move toward His cross.

The spirit of the text is the spirit of the Epistle.
There is one •'' race '' to be run ; one " prize " to be
gained. Everything else is less than the " incorruptible
crown." The cross lies on the way to that. Put all else
aside ; count all else immaterial ; do all, bear all, for that.
Seek it " first."

The command carries the whole weight and compass
of its meaning clearly written on its face. " Seek ye first
the kingdom of God, and His righteousness." The
impression it conveys directly to every soul is the true
one. I doubt whether in this cono^res^ation there is a
person really listening to it that lias not said silently,
" That is a high call ; that must come out of the very
Spirit and throne of God ; it sounds like the voice of
One who speaks with an authority that it would be
vain to question ; the words have the ring of eternal
truth, reason, and right in them." It is an explicit
requirement, — positive, comprehensive, intelligible. It

THE FOREMOST DESIRE. 153

stands there in the midst of that Divine sermon,
which begins with beatitudes and ends with a warning,
like the mount on which it was delivered in the scenery
around it, the summit of an ascending grade of many
heavenward-leading invitations. It sounds out a rallying
cry for the waking minute-men of the army of the Great
King. " Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His
righteousness."

Sometimes when men are called so to rouse and enrol
themselves under Christ's cross they are ready in the
main, they acknowledge the general duty; but they
want to ask particular questions and to receive particular
explanations. Such states^ of mind, if they are honest,
and are fairly met, may end in faithful service on the
Saviour's side. Seeking, they find. But Christ knew
that there are other postures of men's minds, terribly
common, where a life with Him amid the realities of the
spiritual world are not set at all into this foremost place ;
indifference is the first and fatal danger. There is not
concern enough to raise particular inquiries. There are
no questions to be asked about the methods, the condi-
tions, the preparations, the way of the eternal life with
Christ, because the treasure lies too far away. Some-
times, when you, men of business, are invited to embark
in a new enterprise, you see and acknowledge its eminent
importance, and only delay for an intelligent investi-
gation. In other cases, you say at once that it has no
attraction for you ; you are interested in other matters ;
and, before he has opened his portfolio or unrolled his
scheme, you dismiss the applicant from your door. It is
to this last class of dealers with His heavenly benefit that
the Saviour is here spealdng, — the unconcerned. To use
His own language, which is always the best, " the cares
of this world," " the deceitfulness of riches," " the pride

154 THE FOREMOST DESIRE.

of life," " what shall we eat ? " " wherewithal shall we
be clothed ? " " how shall more goods be got and laid up
for many years," or spent, or shown ? — these are the real
interests ; they are supreme. "Why not frankly confess
it, you man or woman of the world ? Why do you go
round about the matter with ingenious circumlocutions,
with your apologetic postponements, your half-way
assent, or your heartless confessions ? If these " be thy
gods," why not acknowledge and stand by them ? Why
add an unmanly pretension to an ungodly preference,
and crown your faithlessness to Christ with an acted lie
to your fellow-men? Why buy your unopened Bible,
and pay the tax on your reluctantly occupied pew, and
repeat compliments to a public Christianity, and send
for the minister to bury your dead, if your life and heart
have another master, another worship, and another
heaven ? Natural honor must admire Elijah's straight-
forward and clear-dividing doctrine : " If the Lord be
God, follow Him ; but if Baal, then follow him." Only
one kingdom can he first.

" The kingdom of God, and His righteousness." Can
there be any ambiguity about the object ? It is plainly
of two parts : one social and outward, — God's " king-
dom " ; the other personal and inward, — " His righteous-
ness " ; and these two are so fitted together, and so par-
take of each other, that each alone is incomplete ; both
are one in the fulfilment of the Christian obligation.
And the Saviour's command is not kept till both are
sought. Yet, in seeking them, there is no dividing of
the attention, no doubling of the purpose, and no diver-
gence in the road. After all it is but one thing^ one
object, one seeking, one choice and act, one eternal bless-
ing. How is it with the prodigal? Up to a certain
time he has no particular destination, no plan, as he has

THE FOREMOST DESIRE. 155

no faith. He only intends to wander on, and get the
most selfish enjoyment out of the world that it can be
made to yield him. The one bad determining act was
done where he set up his own headstrong will, took the
means of self-gratification into his hands, and made the
world's great sensual saloon his only home. But the
prodigal was no extraordinary monster. This Christian
community has thousands of men in it that are doing the
same thing in kind every day, and doing it reputably
enough. The one characteristic fact about him was that
his back was turned to his father and his father's house.
He sought another kingdom first. Precisely how far he
had gone, or into what company, was not the^r^^ con-
sideration ; but which way he was moving. His father
let him have his portion of the property, to try his
unfilial and dismal experiment with ; and so Providence
lets irreligious and unchristian men have money and
prosperity, for the same purpose, here. There is some-
thing unspeakably pathetic, sad, in the sight of a man,
with a heart in his breast which God made, getting
worldly success, nothing else, and working this experi-
ment out. Tlie badges of fortune that He hangs
out about him, and about his family, are only the mock-
eries of his mistake. How he is to discover it is only a
question of time ; and this* is partl}?^ the sadness of it.
You look at him as one after another of his purposes is
accomplished, as one token after another of his rising
and flourishing condition is put forth in his establish-
ment, and you wonder when and how it will be that the
hunger in his heart is to discover itself to him. What
will be the mysterious influence, — whose infidelity,
whose treachery, what disorder, what miscalculation, —
that will turn all these splendors into husks, and these
apples into ashes? On which child's bloom will the

166 THE FOREMOST DESIKE.

blight settle ? In what night will the alarm come, that
is the beginning of the end, saying, " Thy soul is required
of thee " ? Fulness of the intellect, fulness of the
body, fulness of the estate, will not keep the sense of
hunger away, — and the sense of it is the reality of it.

When " he comes to himself," you find one thing pre-
senting itself to this man's empty heart. It is that one
thing that makes all the difference between a bad and a
good son, a self-alienated, wretched child and a filial one,
an obstinate and a repenting sinner. The whole change
is wrought immediately within, him. But what change ?
I*^ot a change of place; he has done nothing yet but
think and feel. Not a change in his outer man. IS" either
time nor miracle has repaired the waste of dissipation in
his body. ITot a complete revolution yet, in all the
courses and tendencies of his thoughts and desires, — for
it takes time to swing all these round, in the new-born
man, so that they shall play spontaneously and harmon-
iously with the motions of the Spirit in the "new
creature." But, a change in his relations to his Father
and his Father'^s house. In that point, which is the
decisive point in every character, the change is entire.
Before, every longing, impulse, passion, from intellectual
curiosity down to fleshly lust, looked for its indulgence
away from home, which means away from God ; and
obeying that choice, every step bore him literally
" away." Place is not essential at first ; but destination
is essential. Distance is not the principal thing ; direc-
tion is. Does the heart turn loyally and yearn faithfully
to God? And now, what is the first sign and proof of
the inward transformation ? It is in the character of the
" first " thought and the " first " desire. Before, it was
to get away from the Father and forget Him ; now, it is
to get home and abide with Him. And here you find

THE FOREMOST DESIRE. 157

just those two parts of the new life which the text
requires; the new ^lace and the new heart ; the seat at
the family board, and the reconciled feeling; the open
and visible return, as well as the secret repentance;
the Father's house, or Church, as well as the Father's
favor and forgiveness; — indeed, where else shall the
favor and forgiveness be found but there, on the ap-
pointed spot, at the threshold of the old house-door,
where childhood and baptism once left him ? Yes, " the
Jcingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof." It
will not do to stay back among the husks of the far
country, no matter whether they are the dissolute husks
of sensual pleasure, or the sordid husks of a thrifty and
elegant worldly-mindedness, or the frost-bitten husks
of intellectual pride ; — not the least matter. It is your
Father's house that claims you. Men will ask, and
they have a right to ask, "Under which king? Whose
art thou ? " Much goods may have been laid up for
many years, or you may have failed to get them, or may
have squandered them. These are not differences in the
sight of Him who says, " Seek first the kingdom of
God, and His righteousness." To Him the only differ-
ence is between those that are seeking and those that
are not. " This night thy soul shall be required of
thee." Whose is that soul ?

" Seek ye." But there are two different kinds of
seeking. One is the seeking of those who do not know,
while , they seek, whether they shall find or not ; the
other of those w^ho know, — because they believe, and
know in whom they believe, — that by seeking they shall
find. This seems to some of you, perhaps, a not very
important difference; or else so very plain a one that
everybody must see it. You would not think so, any
of you, if you saw how many people there are in

158 THE FOEEMOST DESIEE.

every assembly as large as tins who can say sincerely
tliat they wish they were Christ's disciples, and yet are
not, and do not know how to be, or whether in fact they
can be. What is this but seeking without knowing
whether they shall find " the kingdom of God, and His
righteousness " ? They seek, if peradventure they may
find. Some do, — they say, — and some fail; they are
not sure whether there is some antecedent, fatal, fore-
ordained objection in the mind of God ; — they are not
sure whether the message the King has sent them is all
true, and the ofier of His love is as large as it seems ;
they are not sure whether there are not difiiculties in
themselves, of constitution, or habit, a temper or a
tongue so unpromising as to shut out all probability of
their evfer making strong Christians ; they are not sure
whether they shall have any helps after they begin seek-
ing, or enough to carry them through ; they are not
sure but there are some mystical conditions, or incom-
prehensible doctrines, which are laid down at the door
of the kingdom, which they are expected to comprehend,
or be kept away. It is easy to see what irresolute,
ineffectual seeking this will be. It is not that seeking
of faith which the Saviour tries in so many ways to create,
— by showing us Himself, by assuring us of the tenderness
of the Father's compassion, by comparing earthly things
with spiritual, and the temporal with the eternal, telling
us that all our outward wealth is but the grass that to-
morrow is cast into the oven ; by solemn repetitions of
the promise that He will keep those who once, in a good
confession, commit themselves to Him; by declaring
that no one shall pluck them out of His hand ; by mir-
acles that open the kingdom of God to our very eyes ;
by the parable of the great supper for "the lame,
the halt, and the blind " ; and by dying in the depth

THE FOREMOST DESIRE. 159

and boundlessness of His love, that "whosoever
will" may come. Yes: "the kingdom of God" is
there, and is open ; the " righteousness " of God is real
and waiting. It is not a venture, a possibility, a hap-
hazard seeking, — like that before the dreary and unbe-
lieving mind of Rabelais, when he felt himself dying,
and said, in melancholy acquiescence, " I go to seek the
great Perhaps." How unlike St. Paul's " I have fin-
ished my course, henceforth there is laid up for me a
crown of righteousness which the Lord will give me,"
or St. Stephen's " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," with
his face already like the face of an angel ! Yes, there
must be some faith, to begin the seeking ; faith enough
to be sure of God; faith enough to be certain that,
whatever we may do or be, Christ means what He says
when He declares " The kingdom of God has come nigh
unto you," " Ask, and ye shall receive," " Seek, and ye
shall find."

Seek it first : — first in time, now, before anything else
is sought or done ; first in importance, never letting any
other interest crowd this aside, or other engagements
take precedence of the appointed means and ordinances
that lead to this ; first in earnestness, cheerfully sacrific-
ing society, business, income, admiration, just so far as
they hinder or interfere with this ; first in afibction, so
that you can sincerely say, with St. Paul, " I am per-
suaded that neither life nor death, nor things present
nor things to come, nor high things nor low things, nor
any other creature, shall be able to separate me from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus my Lord." Why,
if this were the manner and the spirit of all our seek-
ing,— intense and sober and confident, — if all the world's
business were so done, and its pleasure so moderated
and purified, as to be in all points made secondary and

160 THE FOREMOST DESIRE.

tributary to tliis, — I liardlj know whether the greater
change would pass over the world or over the Church ;
— over those that profess and call themselves Christians,
yet make their religion wait for their traffic and their
entertainment, or over the surrounding multitudes that
do not believe the faith of Christ to be a reality at all
only because they do not see avowed Christians treating
it and presenting it as the "first" thhig. Yet this is
perfectly compatible with a diligent business life, with
doing vigorously the daily work that your hand finds to
do, with public spirit, with learning, with patriotism,
with all the refinements and culture of a high-bred tone
of civilization. IS^ay, everything other than this, — every-
thing that inverts this Divine order, or subordinates
Christ's kingdom and righteousness to the kingdom of
this world, and seeks material or merely intellectual
glory firsts is not a high-bred civilization ; but the seeds
of weakness and vulgarity and extravagance and hollow
scepticism, and a foetid barbarism are in it, till the
curses of God light upon it, and you have the old
spectacle of commonwealths revolting from their
heavenly King, and perishing in dishonor. To make
spiritual interests foremost and supreme is not fanat-
icism or asceticism. Christ takes all truth into His
Gospel, and remembers our whole condition. When
He says, " Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His
righteousness," what follows? "all other things shall
be added unto you." " Godliness is profitable for the
life that now is, as well as for that which is to come " ;
for both lie within the Father's keeping, and over both
His empire extends.

There was living, not long ago, a thoroughly conse-
crated Christian merchant, now among God's saints no
doubt in paradise, who began and finished his whole

THE FOREMOST DESIRE. 161

prosperous career as a steward seeking " first " Christ's
kingdom, — and giving of his income, to the glory of
that kingdom, first a tenth, then a half, and finally the
whole. When this man found himself prostrated by
disease, and not very likely to recover, his conversation
was as cheerful and manly as ever. If the Master
should call him, he was ready. But it would be a severe
disappointment, he said, if he should be long inactive
and unprofitable. There was the balance, in him, of the
helieving and the working faculties. " You can under-
stand this state of feeling," he said to his clergyman,
" because you are interested in your own work for the
Master, and would regard your separation from it as a
calamity. IS'ot," he continued, " that I would compare
money-making in importance with the preaching of
Christ, but I think I can say, as in the sight of God,
that my aim in making money is the same as that of
every true minister of Christ in preaching the Gospel."
That candid and confidential statement, with eternity
in plain sight, disclosed the real secret of the energy of
his business life. It is just as possible for such a man
to seek first God's kingdom and righteousness in the
regulated and sanctified activity which yet never takes
him from his place in the Lord's service, as if he waked
and slept in a cloister.

I recall another eminent merchant, up to the close of
his last day of health working indefatigably, as he had
worked for many years, not to add more to a great for-
tune, but to serve and set forward, with what he already
had, and with every capacity of his capacious nature,
this kingdom, and the glory of its King. The few final
months he gave especially to the relief and evangeliza-
tion of the freedmen at the South. On one of the

bitterest days of the Winter, as if some solemn prein-

11

162 THE FOREMOST DESIEE.

timation told him his hour was at hand, he refused to
leave his counting-house, where he was laboring from
morning till night in this work of mercy. Feeling a
strange pain in his head, he bandaged it with water and
worked on. As the night came on, he rose from that
desk, where he had earned a dignity which gives him a
place, it seems to me, with the missionaries and soldiers
of the cross, with statesmen and scholars, and turning
to his clerk said, as his last words, — sublime in their
simplicity as almost any of the dying expressions of
saints on record, — "Now, — have I left anything un-
done ? " Before he had reached his home, the cloud
fell over his mind; and, after a few half-articulate syl-
lables, showing that his thought was still reaching back
to the poor creatures that leaned upon him, breathing
that charity which " never faileth," about midnight li,e
fell asleep. Why is it, O men of strength, young men,
or men in whom the fire of youth is cooling, — why is it
that we do not see the true glory of our lives, and
round them out, and end them, oftener, in such holy
grandeur as this? — "Have I left anything undone?"
for Christ and His kingdom ? It matters very little how
soon the night shuts in, or the Master calls, if all our
days ended with that. The kingdom would go forward,
though men die ; the race would be emancipated and
regenerated by the living power and witness of the
Holy Spirit, the Comforter.

Would to God, dear friends, that all the air about us
were quick with that spirit ! that the life kindled and
glowed, with healthful fire, along all our sluggish congre-
gations and our worldly highways ! Have no fears that
faith and prayer will open the windows of heaven too
wide, or that our staid Lents and reverential Pentecosts
will be too refreshing ! Spiritual interests are foremost

THE FOREMOST DESIRE. 163

and supreme. Eternity is close at hand. The Judge
does stand at the door. The time is short. Wisdom
does utter her voice in these streets, " Unto you, O men,
I call." Jesus of Nazareth, as the Gospel says, is pass-
ing by. This Church is opening her gate for the yearly
ingathering. E'o man can serve two masters. Seek ye
first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, — first
in time, first in concern, first in earnestness, first in
affection.

" Awake, thou Spirit who of old, in love and truth.
Didst fire the watchmen of the Church's youth,
"Whose voices through the world are ringing still,
And bringing hearts to know and do Thy will.

" Would there were help within our walls !

Oh let the promised Spirit come again
Before whom every barrier falls,

And, ere the night, shine forth as then!
Rend Thou the heavens, and make Thy presence felt;
These chains that bind us at Thy touch would melt.

" Oh that thy fire were kindled soon!

That swift from land to land its flame might leap I
Lord, give us but this priceless boon

Of faithful servants, fit, for Thee, to reap, —
And let them all the earth for Thee reclaim
To U Thy kingdom, and to know Thy name 1"

SOJ^S AND DATJGHTEES IN THE FAMILY
OF CHEIST.

Sexagesima Sunday.

"Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate,
saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive
you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and
daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." — II. Corinthians vi. 17, 18.

Two elements, jou perceive, enter into tlie substance
of this majestic sentence : a precept and a promise. The
strength of the apostle's thought seems to accumulate
from period to period, through the preceding passage, till
the gathered force of his argument, like a great wave
striking the shore, breaks over into a flood of feeling.
Having glanced from the earthly tabernacle to the
" House not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,"
from the " light affliction " befalling the " outward " man
that faints and perishes, to the " eternal weight of glory "
yet invisible, showing how, in every soul that is new-
created in Christ Jesus, " mortality is swallowed up of
life," because that " inward man is renewed day by
day," and then setting forth the mighty motive to that
conversion, viz., that " God was in Christ reconciling the
world unto Himself," He comes at last to that close
point in the process, where he defines the essential con-
tradiction between the spiritual and the earthly man.
By a succession of quick, sharp questions, the sword of

SONS AND DAUGHTERS IN CHRIST. 165

his doctrine cuts asunder the sophistry which would mix
up worldly self-will with Christian consecration, and
shows the world to be made up of two sorts of persons.
" What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteous-
ness ? "What communion hath light with darkness ?
What concord hath Christ with Belial ? What part hath
he that believeth with an infidel? What agreement
hath the temple of God with idols ? " And then, the
crowning conclusion : " Wherefore come out from among
them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean
thing, saith the Lord " ; — for it is this '•'Thus saith the
Lord''^ that seals the promise. " And I will be a Father
unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith
the Lord Almighty."

1. There is a precept. In order to a Christian posi-
tion there must be a special act ; an act so personal, posi-
tive, and comprehensive, that it determines on which
side of one fixed line the rest of our actions shall stand.
You may call it by whatever name bears most signifi-
cance to your own mind ; the Scriptures furnish as great
a variety as you can desire : " renewal of the mind " ;
"conversion"; "believing on the Lord Jesus Christ " ;
"getting a new heart and spirit"; "putting off the
works of darkness and putting on the armor of light " ;
" forsaking idols" ; "coming out and being separate" ;
these are the Biblical terms for a single fact ; and if you
can find a term more descriptive of that fact than either
of these. Scripture nowhere forbids you to use it, pro-
vided you are sure to retain the substance of the thing
meant. What is essential is that conscious choice of the
soul by which it gathers up its powers, and resolves, —
God's grace helping it, as He ever will help, — to be on
Christ's side, in this fronting of armies and this awful
battle of our life.

166 SONS AND DAUGHTERS

Furthermore, this act of choice is the same deep
necessity now that it was when Corinth was corrupting
tlie whole East, and the citizens were wasting their
manhood with Oriental luxuries and sensuality, and this
brave apostle was warning them. The human heart is
the same, as to its depravity, and its immortality. The
same temptations, with only slight variations in their
form, heset men now as then. The same two armies
face each other ; believers standing up for Christ Jesus,
and unconverted men standing up for themselves ; and
there is also the same cowardly company on the margin,
trying to be neutral, and trying in vain ; flattering them-
selves that they can be not exactly for Christ without
being exactly against Him, and with just the same suc-
cess ; fancying that they can carry the credit of being
good men without carrying the cross for it ; that they
can blur over that eternal dividing line which runs down
from the throne of God, where there is a right hand and
a left, through every nation, and every city, and congre-
gation, and company, and sometimes between the two
that walk arm in arm, or sit in the church side by side.
The same two adversaries play their old game for the
soul of man. The stake is the same. The strategy and
snares, the deceptions and disguises, are the same. We
Americans sail swifter ships, and over wider waters, than
were steered from the double-port of that " mistress of
the keys of the Peloponnesus " into the Ionian and
Egean Seas; but the practices that make all trafiic
Christian or unchristian are not far diiferent. Our civil
constitution and relations are not those of a colonial
dependence on a distant throne ; but the inducements
to political fraud, and the robberies perpetrated by
parties on the nation, and by selfishness on the State,
are little altered by time. Social frivolity may here be

IN THE FAMILY OF CHRIST. 167

less stimulated bj climate, and convivial excess may flow
through a less public apparatus ; but this only aggravates
the shame of those women here that prepare and patron-
ize the frivolity, and those men that encourage the excess.
The lires of appetite have not been quenched by our
colder skies, or burnt out through eighteen centuries of
burning. Tell us, men who are sitting at the heads of
these pews, has the love of money, that root of evil,
rotted in our northern soil ? or been weeded out ?
Every age brings its new brood of vices and adds to the
funded stock ; but very few that have once got a foothold
die out. History hardly tells of one extinct species in
the flora of guilt. If civilization multiplies the refine-
ments of culture, so does it the refinements of iniquity.
Pride remains as obstinate ; self-love as subtle ; envy as
adroit ; avarice as grasping ; ambition as unscrupulous ;
self-satisfied indifi'erence as stupid ; and worldly enter-
prise as often " without God in the world." ^ay, and
going behind all the moralities of life into the evangelic
test lying at the heart of the Gospel, men are just as
eager to climb up some other way, instead of entering by
the lowly door of " repentance toward God and faith in
our Lord Jesus Christ." And therefore, what it most
concerns us to remember, the responsibility of choice is
just as pressing. It is as impossible to evade it and slip
into any third way. On one side we must he^ — Christ's
or Belial's. Righteousness refuses fellowship with un-
righteousness. Light offers no hospitality to darkness.
If idols have our hearts' secret worship, the true temple
of God shuts its doors upon us. We must touch and
handle the unclean thing, or let it alone. "We do assort
with the unbelievers, or come out from among them and
be separate ; and the Judge knows which we do.

It need not be forgotten that the Church has some-

168 SONS AND DAUGHTEES

times made a mistaken use of this truth. It has done
so whenever it has sought to exaggerate the distinction
between the world's people and Christ's people, for pur-
poses of self-complacency or self-applause. It has done
so whenever it has drawn itself up in phylacteries, and
stood, a Pharisee, aloof from the throng of humanity,
saying scornfully, " I am holier than thou." It has done
so whenever it has made dress, badge, ritual, feeling,
professions, the line of distinction, rather than a prin-
ciple ruling the life. The right way for the Church to
distinguish itself from the world is, as its Head distin-
guished Himself from His countrymen after the flesh, by
a purer holiness, and a warmer zeal to help and save the
world. Perpetuating its Lord's divine ministry and
spirit, it should be as anxious as His own pitying heart
was to rescue the lost, to call prodigals home, to redeem
publicans and sinners, to undo heavy burdens, to sanctify
children from their childhood, to preach and spread on
earth the kingdom of heaven. Christian men should be
known from men not Christian by every nobler disposi-
tion, every more honorable and lovelier trait, every
holier affection and deed. Their peculiar badge ought
to be a superior righteousness. Their presence in any
company or any market ought to be a presence of calmer
temper, of firmer resistance against wrong, of greater
loyalty to every principle that lends stability to society,
— a presence of kinder forbearance and sweeter com-
passion, of manlier patience under suffering and of
clearer testimony to the suffering that redeemed us on
the cross. That is the way the Church, — which is noth-
ing else than the united and organized fellowship of
Christian souls, — ought to " come out and be separate."
Nevertheless, it will be true, — nay, all the more mani-
festly will it be true for so glorious a contrast, — that

IN THE FAMILY OF CHEIST. 169

there is a distinction, or a " coming out " ; — that man-
kiiad are of two armies, under two leaders ; that out-
ward decency cannot be taken for inward renewal, self-
cultivation for the upward-looking faith which works by
love and through Christ receives the Spirit.

Till each individual soul, in the deliberation of a sol-
emn election, has chosen to clear itself of all entangling
alliances with the one of these two opposing forces, and
pledged itself to the other, — so passing out of the natural
life into the spiritual, — how can it imagine it is safe ?
If God is almighty, His will perfect, and His word
true, it cannot be safe.

Both a beginning, then, and a continuing; both a
revolution and a habit ; both a new principle and a new
life, is this great decisive act of the Christian. A com-
ing out from irreligious associations is one part; it
implies energy of purpose kindled by faith. Being
separate implies the maintenance of the ground thus
taken against all opponents, whether they frown or
laugh, sneer or slight, reason or threaten. " Come out"
from the bonds of vicious compliance and ungodly
habit is a call to the courage and faith of the awakened
heart. "Be separate" from sin i« a command to the
persevering will. " Touch not " the renounced pollu-
tion is an adjuration to the sanctified conscience. And
these are the three daily heroisms in the discipline of
the soldier of Jesus Christ.

2. But we are not left with the severity of the com-
mandment. To the sternness of the law is added after-
wards the tenderness of grace. If man will do his part,
God does His. Already, in the renewing, God has done
more than man. For it is God that worketh within
His work, as much " to will as to do," — prompting the
holy desires, and stirring the stagnant fountain. " No

170 SONS AND DAFQHTERS

man can come to Me," — can begin to come, can so much
as desire or resolve to " come out," — " except the Father
who hath sent Me draw him." But now the soul, hav-
ing turned its face heavenward, has got light enough to
grow conscious of this in- working Spirit. When that
dinner of husks is fairly ended, and the prodigal's pen-
itence has directed his feet towards home, — the first
form his lifted eyes see is his father's — meeting him
" while yet a great way off." For the wanderer that
went out sullen and rebellious, there is a home and for-
giveness there. An infinite benediction falls on the
returning child ; you feel the power of the promise : " I
will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and
ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord
Almighty."

This is that fulness of acceptance which is reserved
for the favored hours of the true believer. Do not be
ignorant, brethren, that it is possible, that it is reason-
able, that it is according to every law of our spiritual
nature and the high expectations of the Gospel : never
to be sought as a provision of mere comfort ; not to cast
any heart into dejection or despair because God's time
for giving it, or yours for knowing how to use it, has
not yet fully come, but a real state when the character
is ripened for it, and the providential conditions are
fulfilled. "Whensoever that solemn choice we have been
contemplating has not only been taken; when the
deliberate consecration has not only lifted the soul out
from under the poor servitude to its improvident pas-
sions ; but when that entire submission has been reached
which bows to the Lord's will, not for the sake of any
rewards, but for His own sake, and because the heart
has enough in having Him, — then does enter this peace
which passes understanding, and which the world other-

m THE FAMILY OF CHRIST. 171

wise knows nothing of. Then the Christian life does
grow cheerful and affectionate, — cheerful, without losing
anything of its earnestness, — affectionate, without losing
anything of its reverence. So actually wrote a conse-
crated child of pain, whom I knew, who had been lying
on a bed, and in one position on it, more than twenty
years, most of that time in keen distress, and there
rising into a victory of faith where she could say, " God
must have loved me very much, or He would not have
brought me to this life of suffering." Then God does
veritably speak, and the voice is, " I will be a Father
unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith
the Lord Almighty."

Sons and daughters ! What a power of personal
endearment is lodged in that particularity of speech !
E^ot " children," merely, losing individual consolation in
the generality of the family ! God uses names that come
nearer to personal affection, and meet a personal want.
He calleth His own by name. Every individual man,
struggling under his own load, combatting his own hard-
ships, can say, " My God, thou art my Father." Every
woman, suffering under her own untold trial, and pray-
ing for rest out of a sensitive heart full of misery, is
suffered to hear God promising, " Thou shalt be My
daughter." And so I have known of such an one,
stricken with the long sorrow of a dreadful bereavement,
and bowed down for years in that darkness which can
behold no pardon and no heaven, from which she could
in no wise lift up herself, at last, on hearing these strong
and tender syllables of the text, suddenly to be called
back again to the light, and to be comforted thenceforth.
" Is it so ? " said the mourner ; " has God, the unchange-
ably True, said it ? and shall I not believe His word ?
Shall it not comfort me ? Shall I not give all to Him,

172 SONS AND DAUGHTEKS

and he His daughter ? " So the doctrine becomes a doc-
trine for the heart. Every affection becomes God's
cheerful servant. The whole soul is the filial instrument
of tliat Father Almighty.

" Almighty." Mark the special pledge, secured, too,
in that word. It is added now, as if so boundless an
offer might be distrusted. And whereas it was the Lord
that said " Come," it is the Lord Almighty^ with His
Omnipotence the guaranty of His promise, that says,
"Ye shall be My sons and my daughters." Of the
spiritual power of a communion so tender and so holy,
consciously established between any soul and God, there
must be distinct, practical results upon character, —
confirming, supporting, quickening.

1. Confirming; — and chiefly by fostering in the heart
a keener abhorrence of sin. Under the witnessing of that
Divine Guest, impurity, selfishness, uncharitableness,
grow insupportably hateful. If the heart is ever recom-
mitted to its old mastery, in any moment of surprise
or weakness, it rebounds with disgust to its duty, saying
with St. Paul, " It is no more I that did it," but " the
former sin " clinging to me and shaming me. Sharper-
sighted sentinels are set to guard the secret avenues
whereby passion used to storm the conscience. Watch-
men are appointed to keep the unclean thing off so far
from the desires that the fingers cannot reach it if they
would. A son, harboring vile companions during the
visits of the Infinite, Parental Purity, which finds stains
on spotless skies ! A daughter, insulting the Father of
Eternal Truth, who has become her Father, by vanities
and deceits ! — the offence feels too monstrous now.
With every fresh backsliding, a bolder resistance is
offered, till victory begins to lift its banners into the
morning sky.

IN THE FAMILY OF CHRIST. 173

"Then every tempting form of sin,
Awed by Thy presence, disappears.
And all the glowing, raptured soul,
The likeness it contemplates wears."

2. Supporting; — by supplying heavenly arms under
tlie agitations of sorrow. If. God, who holds the waters
of all afflictions, like the oceans that swing their waves
from continent to continent, in the hollow of His hand,
who hears every cry wherewith deep calls to deep in that
unsounded sea, the heart of man, — if this God, whose
pity enfolds the suffering universe, and whose Spirit is
the Comforter, calls me His son, what are the terrors
that can harm me ? On the bosom of Everlasting Help
shall not grief itself feel safe ? And even if the present
agonizing discords, or desolating separations, make
patience tremble, will not this indwelling Father show
His sons and daughters what one of them, he who wrote
the " Holy Living and Dying," saw by the vision of faith,
— " glories standing behind the curtain, to which they
cannot come but by passing through the cloud, and being
wet by the dew of heaven and the waters of affliction ; —
days without night, joys without sorrow, society without
envying, possession without fear, charity without stain,
sanctity without sin " ? All consolations for the bereaved
are gathered into this one : " I will receive you, and will
be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and
daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."

3. Quickening; — by fresh spiritual communications
out of His own fulness, giving to your growing holiness
an increasing power of life. Let all pretensions to piety
be brought to that unerring test. Let all hypocrisy be
sifted by that fan in the hands of the Searcher of hearts.
Let all sincerity be vindicated and honored by that
noblest witness to a living faith, — holiness of life. No

174 SONS AND DArGHTERS IN CHRIST.

sacramental professions, no imposition of official hands,
no temple ceremonies, no repetition of a creed, can bring
a vintage from the bramble-bush. It is said that there is
a pagan people in the East who trample on the cross,
in resentment for the unchristian cruelties and robberies
of nominal Christians. Every willing inconsistency in
a disciple wrongs the faith of the Church, and so tram-
ples on the cross. Think not to recommend your
religion by bending it to the low maxims, or accom-
modating it to the doubtful practices, of an unbelieving
world. Kather come out and be separate. Be content
to drink of your Master's cup, and to be baptized with
His baptism. Abide in Him ! And may He abide in
you!

"That mystic word of Thine, 0 Sovereign Lord I
Is all too pure, too high, too deep, for me.
Weary with striviHg, and with longing faint,
We breathe it back again in prayer to Thee I
Abide in us ! O'ershadow, by Thy love,
Each half-formed purpose, each dark thought of sin.
Quench, ere it rise, each selfish, low desire,
And cleanse our souls with Thy refining fire!
Touch Thou, and tune each heart, 0 Hand Divine I
Till every note and string shall answer Thine."

ONE WEAK SPOT.

Quinquagesima Sunday,

"Yet lackest thou one thing." — St. Luke xviii. 22.

The power of Christian truth is proved by the thor-
oughness of its action rather than by the extent of
surface over which its action spreads. It regards com-
pleteness, in its spiritual conquests, rather than width of
territory. Christian influence is essentially concentra-
tive, as well as essentially diffusive. It acts downward,
into society, as well as abroad, over it.

First of all, it demands absolute control where it
enters ; and when it moves, it moves always with the
full weight of its command ; condensing the whole
strength of its blessing on every point of occupation,
and accepting none but unconditional submission. One
parable it is true compares it to leaven, — a symbol of
diffusiveness ; but then leaven operates by changing or
converting the whole mass, through a new element
reaching every particle in the lump. Another parable
likens it to a tree, or mustard, — the symbol of growth ;
but then vegetable growth implies the presence of one
characteristic vital principle, one vivifying sap, which
penetrates every fibre, streams from root to leaf, and
regulates, by its own special law, each step of the pro-
cess, from germination to maturity.

Connect this general truth with the particular train

176 ONE WEAK SPOT.

of suggestions opened by those words of Jesus, — " Yet
lackest thou one thing." He says to the complacent
man who has come to Him with such a handsome cata-
logue of his virtues, " All these are very well ; excellent
traits; you cannot spare one of them. You have kept,
you say, these important commandments from your
youth. But it so happens, in the complicated state of
your character, that neither one of these good qualities,
nor even their sum total, decides that you are a right-
hearted man, or fit to be My disciple. That qu,estion
will be settled by another requirement which will try
you in a more decisive point. These other good qual-
ities you have claimed fail to furnish such a test ; they
happen to be easy to you. So, now, I shall reach down
deeper into the secrets of your soul, into your motives,
your hidden life. I shall select just that one thing
which will put your obedience to God and your selfish-
ness into a balance. Sell what you have and give the
proceeds to the poor. This will tell where your heart
is. If your devotion to Me will stand that strain, you
are worthy to take up My self-denying cause, — to bear
My cross, to be called by My name, to be a mem-
ber of My Church." l^eed it be argued before you,
my friends, that precisely what Christ says to this He-
brew youth. He says to you and to me, and to each sev-
eral soul of us all % He wants no divided empire. He
desires no friendship that would shut Him out from that
portioil of our life which most concerns our affections.
He would bless us with a universal joy, giving vigor to
every faculty, help, light, freedom, and victory^ to every
step of the way, and every effort to overcome the world.
" God is love." And therefore it is that He requires
the surrender of every unyielding passion.

When Jesus tells us that we cannot be His disciples

ONE WEAK SPOT. 177

SO long as we lack one thing, — does He mean that we
must have supplied every moral defect, must have
attained every grace, must have vanquished every spirit-
ual enemy, and, in fact, have ceased to sin, — before we
can be His disciples ? That would be simply saying that
none of us can hope to be a Christian unless he is
morally perfect ; and that, of course, involves the con-
verse, that every true Christian is thus morally perfect.
The shock this statement gives to our common-sense,
and its manifest contradiction of the whole drift of the
New Testament, at once drives us from any such inter-
pretation. We find a consistent meaning, I suppose, if
we understand Him as declaring that no heart is really
Christianized, or converted, so long as there is any one
consoiouSj deliberate^ or intentional reservation from,
entire obedience to the Divine will. So that if I say,
Here is one particular sin which I must continue to
practise; all the rest of my conduct I freely conform
to God's law, but this known wrong I must continue
to do; — then I am no Christian. If you single out
some one chosen indulgence, however secret, — a dubious
custom in business, a fault of the tongue or temper,
— and placing your hand over that reply to the all-
searching commandment of the Most High, — " This
I cannot let go ; this is too sweet to me, or too profit-
able to me, or too tightly interwoven with my constitu-
tional predilections, or too hard to be put off," — then
the quality of a disciple is not in you. There is a por-
tion of your being which you do not mean, or try, to
consecrate to Heaven. And that single persistent of-
fence vitiates the whole character. It keeps you, as a
man, as a whole man, on the ^^Z/'-side or world-^\&Q^ and
away from Christ's side. For it not only shuts off right-
eousness from one district of your nature, and so abridges

19

178 ONE WEAK SPOT.

the quantity of your life, but it inflicts the much more
radical damage of denying the supremacy of the law
of righteousness, and thus corrupts the quality. It
practically rejects the heavenly rule, when that rule
crosses the private inclination. And that is the
essence of rebellion. The test-case is decided the
wrong way. Any common intelligence can see the
distinction between a moral state like this, and one
where the intention, the aim, the endeavor, are all
towards a perfect obedience, because the heart is right,
where the inmost love aspires Christward, — though the
performance still comes mournfully short, through the
infirmities of a mortal nature and the lingering mis-
chiefs of a repented and disowned habit. That is the
state of which St. Paul speaks so graphically, — " The
evil that I would not, that I do." " It is no more I that
do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." In the one case,
the shortcoming is deplored and disowned the instant it
is seen. In the other, it is designed and provided for
beforehand. One is the falling helow the marh of a
heart that has turned in faith to the Master and taken
its standard from Him ; the other is determinate trans-
gression. One is a loyal follower's error; the other is
disloyalty itself. One comes of weakness, the other of
wilfulness. One is the mistake of a right minded sub-
ject; the other is the defiance of a rebel.

We shall have the distinction illustrated, — if it needs
illustration, — by imagining a kingdom under a good king,
whose subjects really love him at heart, and mean to
obey his laws, but fail sometimes through enticements ;
and then the same kingdom with a tribe lodged in the
fastnesses of its mountains owning no allegiance in criti-
cal emergencies, obeying only when it suits the fancy,
disputing orders at will, and formidable enough to

ONE WEAK SPOT. 179

nullify all organized national defence when the coiintiy
is assailed from abroad. In one case you will say there
is a strong and consolidated government, safe because
sound. In the other there is anarchy, — the form of sub-
ordination without the power thereof.

Be careful to remember that this fatal retention of the
single nullifying sin is not necessarily brought to a pub-
lic proclamation. It is much more likely to nestle and
hide itself as far from the house-top as possible. Open
avowals of it are extremely rare, for they belong only to
hardened and desperate offenders. All that is essential
to the state supposed is that it should be evident to con-
sciousness. Its expression is commonly in that inarticu-
late but most practical profession, the life.

The principle of the distinction I have been aiming
to make plain will help us greatly in understanding
several other passages in the Bible, which, for want of an
understanding, have sounded either insupportably awful
or else unreasonable, and so have driven some to despair
and others to unbelief. It will be sufficient to instance
the most unqualified and most appalling of them all.
St. James says in his epistle : " For whosoever shall keep
the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty
of all." That is, whosoever shall conform his conduct to
God's express commandment in every other particular,
and yet willingly reserve some one district of his life for
sin, — some one habit, appetite, indulgence, which he
knows that Divine command condemns as much as the
rest, saying secretly to himself, " I will keep all hut
tliis^'^ — he, because of that one wicked reservation, affronts
the Law-giver, who is the author of one command just as
much as another ; shows himself to have a heart radically
wrong, — unreconciled at the test-point, — and therefore
is in a radically wrong state, or is " guilty of," amenable,

180 ONE WEAK SPOT.

answerable for, all. The heart being impious at the cen-
tre-point, the whole state, the whole man, is disordered,
out of harmony with Heaven, — irreligious. This is cer-
tainly a very different thing from the desolating doctrine
that a single moral failure, in a consecrated soul, con-
demns it to perdition.

Light is thrown on this day's collect. Its subject is
charity, or love. Because love is the universal Christian
principle, pervading all righteousness, " the fulfilling of
the law," " the very bond of all virtues," therefore to be
without it damages and diseases everything : " All our
doings are nothing worth " ; and even he who liveth is
"counted dead."

When Jesus spoke thus of one thing fatally lacking to
the Jewish ruler, He spoke to us all. But with this dif-
ference : that one subtle passion which spoils the whole
character for us may not be his passion. With him it
seems to have been avarice ; he could not bear to turn
his private property into public charity. His religion
broke down just there ; in other respects he had done
admirably ; he had kept other commandments to the
letter, — aye, to the letter ; not perhaps in the spirit, for
all true obedience has one spirit. But so far his literal,
formal obedience came, and there gave out. Now, with
us, this "one thing lacking" rnay he just that, — the
inordinate love of money, or if you please, the lack of a
willingness to sacrifice it for higher interests, for the
heathen's conversion, for the Church of God, for human-
ity, for spiritual advancement. In commercial commun-
ities probably this is likely to be, in the greater number
of cases, the one fixed impiety ; nor are rural districts
clear of it. Wherever it is, remember nothing w^ill
attest the complete sway of the Gospel short of a spirit
willing to meet that sweeping requisition, " Go, sell all

ONE WEAK SPOT. 181

that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thon shalt have
treasure in heaven." Better enter into immortal life in
penniless poverty than, having houses or bank-stock, to
be cast down, a shrivelled and shamed soul, into hell.
But then you may happen to be so constituted that such
an abandonment of wealth would be a very small sacri-
fice,— one of the least that could be required of you ;
you are not naturally sordid ; you are more inclined to
be prodigal ; and so this would not be a test-point with
you. But there is a test-point about you somewhere.
Perhaps it is pride ; you cannot bear an affront ; you
will not confess a fault. Perhaps it is personal vanity,
ready to sacrifice everything to display. Perhaps it is a
sharp tongue. Perhaps it is some sensual appetite, bent
on its unclean gratification. Then you are to gather up
your moral forces just here, and till that darling sin is
brought under the practical law of Christ, you are shut
out from Christ's kingdom. I have no right to love
anything so well that I cannot give it up for God.
Christ does not literally require every one of us to give
his possessions to the poor. If there are some with
whom doing that would be a glorious and acceptable
submission to the heavenly rule, there are others with
whom it would be a much sharper trial, and therefore
the needed trial, to abandon a chosen course of action or
study at the command of Providence, or to lay a beloved
friend in a grave. God knows where the trial must be
applied. And we are to know that wherever it is
applied, there is the one thing lacking unless we can say
" Thy will be done," and bear it. It may happen that
nothing in the whole range of Christian character is so
difficult for me as to manage an irritable temper, to keep
down petulant and hasty impulses. That, then, is the
test-point of my Christianity. I suppose that the entire

182 ONE WEAK SPOT.

character of a man may depend on liis giving up the
selfishness which makes him regard his home as a place
meant only for his own accommodation, so that he expects
everything to be done for his own comfort, frets if the
whole household does not wait on his convenience, and
yields nothing, plans nothing, for the simple and cheerful
entertainment of the rest; putting them off with a treat-
ment which, if God were to transfer it to him, would
grind his groaning heart with agonies. So exceeding
broad is the Divine commandment that even such an
unconsidered shortcoming ' as this may be the one thing
lacking that separates us from Christ.

It is a curious illustration of human infirmity, how
we try to wink out of our own view, and crowd out
of other people's, this one dangerous and characteristic
offence that stands between us and salvation, instead of
frankly confessing it, and, with God's help, resolutely
fighting it down. Sometimes we attempt to conceal it,
by multiplying our activity and concern in other direc-
tions, as if to draw off attention by bustling works of
supererogation in that quarter, in order to cover the
chasm in this. But there is no such law of moral equi-
librium in the Divine statics as that. We cannot hire
the liberty to persevere in a favorite transgression by
paying a honus of easy virtues. Sometimes persons
conscious of this one weak spot, and sensitive when it is
touched, parry the salutary censure by plunging into a
general and not very sincere self-upbraiding. " Oh yesj
they are always wrong ; they never do anything well ;
they are horribly depraved ; and they will never be able
to do better." They submerge their actual fault in a
flood of unmeaning and angry deprecations, — all of which
signify simply that you have touched an actual disease,
— and that they would like to push the surgery aside by

ONE WEAK SPOT. 183

a flutter of extravagant confessions. But none the less
does the cahn searching eye of the Judge, undeceived,
look in on your real shortcoming, and say to you, " Yet
lackest thou one thing."

We are told of the young man that came to Jesus
and found his single sin so uncompromisingly exposed
and rebuked, that he went away sorrowful. An eminent
preacher has proposed a different explanation of this
sorrow from that which our doctrine requires. His
notion is, that while the young man had really fulfilled
the perfect scheme of duty, and longed for some loftier
satisfaction to his affections, he was merely referred
back to the stale and customary round of moral habits.
He had exhausted the demands of conscience, and Christ
offered him nothing beyond. But besides that this
forced hypothesis is not hinted at in the record,
while the opposite is affirmed, it treats the Saviour with
irreverence, as if there were some heights of expei'ience,
or some junctures of spiritual perplexity, which He has
not resources to satisfy. The truth is, there was, in this
young man's character, though generally so unexception-
able,— fair and lovely in all besides, — one unyielding pas-
sion clinging yet, which preferred mammon to God, —
" much goods," or a successful business, to Christ's self-
denying service and everlasting glory. There was one
reserved territory of disobedience where he had not the
courage to apply the holy principles of faith — one enemy
that he did not love Jesus well enough to conquer.
Are any of us partakers in his cowardice ?

It is a trutli which cannot be too thoroughly preached,
that a mere outward conformity with the moral law
cannot satisfy the soul; first because the faith of the
heart is the indispensable fountain of all spiritual life,
or true righteousness, and secondly because a perfect

184 ONE WEAK SPOT.

keeping of a perfect law is impossible, so that the law
condemns us all alike, and there is no hope for any of
us except in a Gospel of grace, or the forgiveness in
Christ. Bat nobody has a right to expect "favor" till
he has tried with all his might to honor the law — till he
has at least confessed its authority, owned that he ought
never to cease trying to keep it, and holds nothing
knowingly back. When a man in good faith has ac-
knowledged himself a subject of the law, and done his
best unreservedly to obey it, then he is ready to come
under Gospel grace. He has failed ; but that does not
ruin him if he repents of his failure. " There is forgive-
ness with Thee, — that Thou mayest be feared." But for
a man who has persistently allowed himself in one known
iniquity, — one unrighteous practice, — refusing to give it
u]) because it brings him gain or pleasure, — to say " I
expect grace; I look for pardon; I want to be under
Gospel, not law " ; this would be the sophistry of a Phar-
i«ee. It obliterates Christ's holy commandments; it
blasphemes the Holy Ghost. Christ has no encourage-
ment for a faithless temper like this The Gospel does
not propose itself as an easy system, — easy in the sense
of excusing from duty. It blessedly redeems the earn-
est souls who have tried to do their duty, and, failing,
have cried for pity, for pardon, and for peace.

Were we not right then, in the ground taken at the
outset, that the power of Christianity over the character
is proved by the thoroughness of its action rather than by
the extent of surface over which its action spreads ? It
displays its heavenly energy in dislodging the one cher-
ished sin, in breaking down the one entrenched fortress
that disputes its sway. At the battle of Borodino
Napoleon saw that there was no such thing as victory
till he had carried the great central redoubt on the

ONE WEAK SPOT. . 185

Kussian line. Two hundred guns and the choicest of
his battalions were poured against that single point, —
and when the plumes of his veterans gleamed through
the smoke on the highest embrasures of that volcano of
shot, he knew the field was won. It matters very little
that we do a great many things morally irreproacliable,
so long as there is one ugly disposition that hangs ob-
stinately back. It is only when we come to a point of
real resistance that we know the victory of faith over-
coming the world.

Finally, our renewing and redeeming Keligion de-
lights to reach down to the roots of the sin that curses
us, and spread its healing efficacy there. It yearns to
yield us the fulness of its blessing ; and this it knows it
cannot do till it brings the heart under the completeness
of its gentle captivity to Christ. Submission first ; then
peace, and joy, and love. " Jesus beholding him, loved
him " ; yet sent him away sorrowing. How tender, and
yet how true ! tender in the sad affection, — true to the
stern, unbending sacrifice of the Cross ! It is because
He would have us completely happy that He requires a
complete submission. "One thing" must not be left
lacking. "Whosoever would enter into the full strength
and joy of a disciple must throw his whole heart upon
the altar.

THE TOKE AISTD BUEDEK ALKEADY EASY
ANB LIGHT.

Ash - Wednesday,

"Come unto Me, ... for My yoke is easy, and My burden is
light."— >S'^. Matthew xi. 38, 30.

It is in the actual life of most of those who do
*' come " just as it is in this startling figure of our Lord's
invitation : — there is a conflict of opposite forces. Con-
tending elements of hardship and ease, of endurance and
relief, are strangely intermingled. There is a " yoke."
And yet there is such a thing as a certain inward
posture, the Saviour says, and some of you no doubt have
found it true, — a Divine adjustment or fashioning of the
neck to that yoke, which makes it " easy." There is a
" burden " : every suiferer, that is every soul whose life
has been crippled by its conditions, every soul whose
love has lost its object or found no answer, every soul
whose day's poor performance has shamed its morning
vow, or in which the law of the members has warred
triumphantly against the law of the mind, — knows some-
thing of the meaning of that word " burden " ; and yet
He who knows tells us this weight can be somehow so
carried that the very quality of burdensomeness is cast off
from it. Things do not remain what they were when
One Hand comes and touches them. Their very nature
is changed by a wonder-working energy of grace. So

THE YOKE AND BURDEN. 187

that tliese words not only convey to ns a promise, but
tliey become, in themselves, a kind of type or picture
of a believer's conflict and victory, day by day.

There are, therefore, two things to be regarded : — an
apparent contradiction, and a secret reconciliation.

Look a moment at the apparent contradiction. Look
into yourselves. The very beginning of a Christian
consciousness, or life in the soul, is the beginning of a
contest of desires. One combatant is already on the
field, entrenched there by a hereditary but yet usurping
pretension. " The heathen are gone up, O Lord, into
Thine inheritance," — the sacred land in the heart of
childhood ; and when the Israel of your new life comes
up by Sinai, thundered at by the commandment, through
a penitential desert, and enters in, it does not take pos-
session of the promise without a siege and many battles.
Like the recovery of a man almost dead, the recall of
the living pulse and breath is more distressful than the
passive process of dying was. Freezing and drowning
men find it harder to come back to life than to die.
N^either in the second birth nor in the first can the boon
of life be had but by anguish. It is a blessing to be
born ; but the blessing is costly. It comes in under a
" burden." For a time the waking will halts, very likely,
in a misgiving whether the cost is not too great for the
blessing, and the burden intolerable. Hence occur many
relapses. You hear the despairing cry : " Let us alone ;
leave us among the devils ; why come to torment us
before the time ? " Every nearer approach to the like-
ness of Christ is attended witli a deeper sense of un-
worthiness, — which is its "burden." Every quickening
of sensibility renders the hurt of sin more painful. As
the spiritual eye grows keen, the spots on ourselves grow
plainer. The cross requires more and more sacrifice,

188 THE YOKE AND BURDEN

— more of the world's dislike, its privations, its crucial
nails and thorns. The yoke must be put on again and
again. The blessing justifies it, it is true : glory, honor,
immortality, — an incorruptible crown ; but it does not
take away the torture. As you know and feel Christ's
truth and love more profoundly, they will ask larger
oiferings, of time, of property, of ease. How, then, is
the "yoke" "easy"?

Some men say, — and they even say it in Christian pul-
pits,— " It is easy only as it is to be taken off; it can be
borne because death will break it ; we are to expect ease
hereafter as the offset for this endurance ; heaven will
be received in reversion ; our wages will be paid at
last." In this place, however, Christ does not say that,
or mean that. He always means exactly according to
His words, in every promise He makes. And here what
he tells the whole sorrowing and sinning and seeking
world is not that His yoke is to be taken off', or broken,
or that the burden is to be made up for by a future
compensation. His doctrine is more immediate, and
goes deeper. The yoke is to lie there ; it must be there
in order to be an " easy " yoke. The burden is not to
be taken away, but is to be felt as a " light " burden.
We have here the doctrine of a present blessing in
Christ ; — what He does for His disciple in this life. A
relief, a strength, a peace is possible here, in the very
midst of the sufferings. Peace enters the heart while
the hurt is on. '^ Now are we the sons of God."
Doubtless there is a " Eest {aa^^aTtafjL6(:) which re^
mains — tarries — for the people of God." But remem-
ber also, " He that hath the Son hath life," already, and
if we dwell in Him and He in us we have passed from
the real death into that real life, sin having no more
dominion over us. See the connections of the Lord's

ALREADY EASY AND LIGHT. 189

language. It is not, " Stand and look for a salvation
afar off; expect your immortality hereafter; live and
work as you can gloomily on earth, and only hope for a
postponed union with your living Head by and by."
But it is, " Come unto Me noio^ just because you have to
labor and are ,heavy laden now. Here I am, at your
side ; I have left the glory I had, and taken up your
aching flesh upon me for another glory, ^nd to this very
end, that I might be where you are, and offer you a
present salvation. I do not say there is no added yoke
in coming ; for most men there is ; take the yoke up
nevertheless ; I do not say there is no burden to bear ;
plausible adventurers hunting proselytes might tell you
that. I am "lowly," — lowly enough to confess the
yoke, and lowly enough to bear the burden with you,
for you ; and therefore your " rest " shall be found
in coming^ — " rest unto your souls." As soon as you
begin to turn your feet you will feel the cross, but as
soon as you feel the cross you will feel that it is eased
for you. Pain will not vanish, but become a privilege.
Self-denial will not be annihilated, but will be welcome.
A new power will come. The giving up oi property for
your Redeemer's kingdom will demand an effort at
first ; even the tenth that belongs to Him will seem a
great deal ; but you will take joyfully, with the saints,
that "spoiling of your goods." Cold manners and
changed countenances or stinging satires in worldly peo-
ple will not be pleasant; but you will feel somehow
safer and stronger for them on the spot. Come to Me,
then, from wherever you are, Matthews from the market-
place, sons of Zebedee from the sea, Sauls from the
schools, impetuous Peters, and cool, moral Jameses, and
contemplative Johns ; come, Marys of meditation and
Marthas of busy action, come, not for the sake of being

190 THE YOKE AND BUEDEN

exempt from discipline or care; but come expressly to
learn of Me how to bear and use them, and how they
shall be transformed into holy helpers, as you walk at
their side."

" It is difficult," said an old thinker in the things of
faith, " and yet not difficult, to be a Christian ; only be
in earnest, and take not up the Gospel as a trivial thing,
but upon hoth thy shoulders. Make not light of thy load
for Christ, and Christ wdll make it light for thee."

Just before, our Lord shows us how this wonderful
comfort is apprehended ; — by simple faith, — never by
the dogmatic understanding, — only childlike hearts being
clear-sighted enough to read the glorious assurance
through the elaborate superscriptions of human learning
and ambition : " I thank Thee, O Father, because Thou
hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and
hast revealed them unto babes." The knowing men,
who may be only fools, the clever calculators that never
learned to count beyond ninety years, are outwitted by
the youngest scholars in this school of Christ. " In
quietness and confidence shall be your strength. In
returning and rest," O new-born and illuminated hearts,
" shall ye be saved."

In other words, — to generalize the great Gospel-
thought, — our faith is for the life that now is, or else it
is no faith to fit us for the life to come ; and it works out
its hallowed alleviations for all the disquietude of these
laboring and heavy laden hearts, not by transforming the
conditions of their lot, but, while leaving these just as
they are, by bringing the inner man into such oneness
of life with the Master, that He, the great burden -bearer
of all our humanity, shall be their perpetual Passover
and their Peace.

In this view, the signification of the text becomes both

ALEE AD Y EASY AND LIGHT. 191

more comprehensive and more striking when we enter
in and observe that the terms " yoke " and " burden " do
not follow one another by any careless accident, but each
relates and answers to the two forgoing terms "labor"
and " heavy laden." " Come unto Me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden." " Yoke " means labor. " Bur-
den " means suffering. A " yoke " is a symbol of active,
tiresome toil. A "burden" is that which hinders
strength and drags it down. Take these two thoughts
to the two great Biblical dispensations of Law and Love.
Each personal history among us reflects that solemn
order of Sinai and Gethsemane. Sum up the evils of
your old life which formed the " yoke " which hurt you,
and their name is self-will, — the active principle of anti-
Christ. This was the matter of our Lord's first temp-
tation. Sum up the materials of that dull " burden "
which sinks the soul the more the more it accumulates,
and its name is hopeless sorrow. This was the darkness
about the garden and the cross. See now what a spirit-
ual Saviour does for those, — the wide world over and in
every house, — who are weary of the yoke and heavy
laden under the burden. Christ's " yoke " is submission
to His will, ceasing from our own ; Christ's burden is
simply forgetting all else in Him, or rather holding all
else as cheap and transient compared with Him. The
whole strain of the truth falls, therefore, on that word
" My." Whose yoke, whose burden, is the only question.
It is because it is Christ's that it is easy or light.
What is borne for Him is not like other pains or losses.
The sons and daughters of His afflicting, who come
bending unto Him, are the privileged spirits who take
their sufferings as love-tokens that He remembers
them still, has not left them to their folly, but means
by all means to number them with His saints in glory

192 THE YOKE AND BURDEN

everlasting. The child you lost; the life plan that
failed ; the fortune that dissolved ; the invalid years in a
sick chamber ; the hidden thorn that stung your side
while -^ovlX face smiled from pride or shame, — was a
sign that Christ would not leave you to yourself, but
knew better than you did how to bring you to the
deeper blessedness and nobler freedom of the souls that
suffering makes perfect. You will seek no further, but
unto Him alone. The legal bondage did hurt ; the angel
of the Lord took you from your flesh-pots and your fetters
together ; and Achor, the valley of your trouble, became
your avenue to liberty and your " Door of Hope." So
exclaims great St. Bernard, " What can be lighter than
a burden which takes our burdens away ; and a yoke
which bears up the bearer himself? "

There is a fine passage, in the uninspired Hebrew
writings called the Sohar, which, like a kind of side-light,
sets this metaphor of the yoke into singular spiritual
beauty. There too the " yoke " of the heavenly king-
dom is referred to, and, as if in a prophetic figure
of the evangelic truth, the " Thephillim," which are
" the fringes of the garments of prayer," are represented
as the yoke by which God binds Israel to Himself.
" How beautiful," says this Kabbinical Scripture, ^' is
their neck who bear the yoke-robe of Jehovah's pre-
cepts ! " " Garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness."

No Scripture teaches us that this easing and lightening
of the Christian life shall be completed at once. The
learners in that often sad but blessed school, even though
sitting solitary, with pale faces, nerveless limbs, and
tears in their eyes, will find " rest " flowing in, not in
violent floods, but as the dawn trembles into the sky, by
gradual and almost imperceptible increments and risings
of the light. Gradually, but steadily, a tranquil faith

ALREADY EASY AOT) LIGHT. 193

sets up its unseen pillars of power beneath and within
those hanging heads and feeble knees, till the whole
body of character is built up, by this edifying submission,
a spiritual house. Gradually, but steadily, the blood
streams back into the veins ; and it is not nature's
blood, but is redder and richer and sweeter blood than
that, as if the very sweetness and life of the " precious
blood " were in it, out of the heart of Jesus, King at
once and Lamb, who is the Life of every Christian that
lives.

Another Ash-Wednesday has come. It speaks of
yoke and burden, of ashes and shadows, of the cross. To
some of those who will keep Lent outwardly it will, no
doubt, be yoke and burden both, and nothing more, —
unwelcome, unrelieved. I need not tell you who they
are. Others will find the added service and the unusual
restraint easy and light, because through them they will
gain the help they need, the deliverance, the purifying,
the closer likeness to their Lord, the spiritual liberty
they long for. Even these cost something. Self-exam-
ination and penitence and crucifixion of the flesh are not
joyous exercises, are not meant to be. All our noblest
enlargements of power and of peace are sacrificial : there
is something hard to do, or hard to bear, — human nature
being what it is. "We need voluntary acts of self-denial,
whether to bring down and humble pride, to chasten
fleshly propensities, to clear the soul for prayer, to pro-
vide larger charities for Christ's missions and His poor,
or to honor God by a simple act of obedience to His word.
The particular shape, the needed yoke, may not be the
same for us all, and it is not defined. One form of it,
the Bible certainly declares, is fasting, and that is to be
used. How many need to lay a cross on their lips, — to
" fast from strife and debate," from slander, idle words,

18

194 THE YOKE AND BUEDEN

backbiting ! Here are the ashes we are to sprinkle, and
the sackcloth we are to wear. The world about yon
calls this a weariness, and a disagreeable burden ; it will
even despise and ridicule your scruples if it can. Christ,
your Saviour, with the cross on His own shoulders, meets
you just here, and faces the world with you. He says,
encouragingly and comfortingly, " Yes ; here is a yoke,
and here is a burden. At first, they will look and feel
to you somewhat as they do to the world's people, but
not always. As soon as you feel them to be My yoke
and My burden, they will grow lighter and easier every
day."

In the Greek word of the evangelist for " easy " there
is a concealed sense of " useful." The yoke is eased if by
it you help other men. Lent is for human kindnesses,
neighborly sympathy, family tenderness. Learn in it to
love the brotherhood, to visit the poor, though they are
filthy and ungrateful, as your Master did. Hate nothing
so much as hatred,^dropping every grudge and every
revenge, every bitter or cruel vestige of the old satanic
life, out of your heart, forgiving even them that will not
forgive. Live fairly and generously with men. Sub-
mission, or piety, to God is never perfect without
integrity to your neighbor. The Eastern water-carriers
bear the burden of the bucket most easily and safely,
they say, when they walk uprightly. God makes the
path of obedience to Himself to be the path of
honesty and sweet temper and loving-kindness to His
children. Let thine eyes look right on, and thine eye-
lids straight before thee. Then it will prove that you
are blessed children of the Father. You walk at large,
like sons of God. The road of duty will still be narrow,
but, travelling in it, you will breathe the immortal air,
and every deepening breath will be an inspiration of the

ALREADY EASY Atn> LIGHT. 196

Life eternal. Your daily landscape will be the scenery
of both worlds, — all things yours, because ye are Christ's,
and Christ is God's.

" Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wil-
derness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will
give her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor
for a door of hope ; and she shall sing there, as in the
days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up
out of the land of Egypt."

THE THROKG AND THE TOUCH.

First Bundmj in Lent,

" Staito in the gate of the Lord's house, and proclaim there this
word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all ye of Judah, that
enter in at these gates to worship the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of
hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I
will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust ye not in lying words,
saying, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple
of the Lord, are these. For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and
your doings; if ye thoroughly execute judgment between a man and
his neighbor; if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the
widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after
other gods to your hurt: then will 1 cause you to dwell in this place,
in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever." — Jere-
miah vii. 2-7.

"And Jesus said. Who touched Me? When all denied, Peter and
they that were with Him said. Master, the multitude throng thee and
press Thee, and sayest Thou, Who touched Me? And Jesus said.
Somebody hath touched Me : for I perceive that virtue is gone out of
Me."— >S^. l^U viii. 45, 46.

There is a common truth belonging to both these two
passages which are so different in the language, and are
taken from parts of Scripture so far apart. I believe
that the placing of them together will help give that
great doctrine more distinctness, put emphasis upon it,
and make it easier to remember.

In the first passage, occuring in this morning's first
lesson, under a vivid picture of a scene at the door of
the old temple, the prophet searches out a moral danger

THE THEONG AND THE TOUCH. 197

that is apt to accompany all public religious observances.
The Spirit of God, acquainted with these perils, and de-
termined to break them up, puts him there, and inspires
him with the clear-sightedness and courage to strike
straight home at the popular delusion. Standing at the
gate he sees a multitude of men crowding in to go
through the forms of worship. He knows that they have
just come from the selfish practice, in their markets,
fields, streets and houses, of injustice, cruelty to the
weak, overreaching " the stranger, the fa^erless and the
widow," of every kind of social, commercial, political,
and ecclesiastical falsehood, — for he goes on to specify
all these, — and what is a great deal worse, that they are
privately intending to go back to the same kinds of
meanness and outrage after the prayers and sacrifices
are over. He also sees that the moment their want of
integrity is pointed out, they will, after the Pharisaic
fashion, undertake to throw over it the screen of a
religious profession. They will answer, at every rebuke
of their immorality, " The temple of the Lord, The
temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord," as if they
would make up, by the threefold repetition and noise of
their zeal, for their hollow-heartedness. And so, having
it for his business as a prophet of God to denounce
such corruption everywhere, without apology for his
Divine commission, without arguing the matter, without
any round-about or imbecile phraseology, he goes to the
point at once, and begins, " Trust ye not in lying words :
amend your ways and your doings."

The great instructive fact on which attention is to be
fij^ed is this : that out of the multitude of persons who
enter the sanctuary, many have only a formal, external,
and ostensible, not a substantial, sympathy, or actual con-
cern, with the holy Realfty which is there embodied

198 THE THBONG AND THE TOUCH.

and presented. They imagine that, in some strange
way, the temple-roof is to shield or excuse their allowed
neglect of practical obedience to God's commandment.
They throng the visible courts, press the material build-
ing, but without touching, in living faith, the sacred
Presence, the life-giving hand of the Holy One who
inhabits it.

Turn now to the other passage. It is a distant scene ;
— distant in place, for it is up in one of the open high-
ways of Galilee, instead of at the temple in the old
Zion ; — " a greater than the temple is here," the living
and incarnate Christ of whom the tabernacle of the
desert and the former and latter house at Jerusalem, in
their bravest glory, and all the prophets themselves,
were but dim prefigurations. It is distant in time six
hundred years. A different tone and color run through
the narrative. There is more tenderness, more personal
feeling, a plainer working of the power of faith, as befits
the healing and gracious spirit of the new dispensation
of love. And yet the same old human elements, the
same two sorts of persons, with the same sharp line
between them, are all there ; for neither human nature
nor its temptations are among the things that are much
altered by time. Here too a multitude throng and press
a sacred spot. It is the spot where Jesus of E"azareth
stands, and it is made sacred by His blessed feet. So
many are the people that when Jesus, perceiving by His
quick, mysterious inward sense that one among them has
come with an entirely different heart from the rest,
inquired, " Who touched Me ? " Peter and others won-
dered at Him, saying, "Master, the multitude throng
Thee and press Thee, and say est Thou, Who touched
Me?" The answer of Christ draws again the deep
and sharp discrimination between those that are only out-

THE THRONG AND THE TOrCH. 199

wardlj and formally with Him, and those that in a wholly
different sense are of Him. " Somebody hath touched
Me." That answer divides one person there from all the
indifferent crowd following on, as an idle crowd always
will, after any new wonder, from curiosity or self-inter-
est ; and it sets her all apart by herself, — half trembling
at her detection, half rejoicing that she is not wholly
overlooked. Here was a living creature whose life was
wasting in her veins. My friends, there is a deeper sig-
nification in our Lord's miracles on human bodies than a
mere remedy for physical disorder. They mean much
more than the quieting of a little aching flesh, or the
lengthening out of a few mortal years. The maladies
the Saviour healed on earth were images and symbols.
His wonders of restoration were only types of the
diviner cures He wrought on paralytic consciences, on
leprous sensibilities, on the halting purpose, the blind
faith, the lame will, the consumptive charity. It will go
to the very heart of the matter, then, if we can see just
what it was in the woman that made the religious differ-
ence between her and the multitude around her. That
difference is of vital moment to every soul. Peter said,
" The multitude throng Thee and press Thee " ; " Jesus
said, Somebody hath touched Me." What is it merely
to come near, and what is it to " touch " the Giver of
eternal life ? Among us, men and women of this day,
what is the act on our part that will carry us over the
separating space between the outward presence and the
real fellowship or participation with Him ?

The woman reached out her hand and touched the
Saviour's garment. What was it that moved her hand?
She believed. But in what did she believe ? Not in
herself, not in the motion of her arm, not that she was
doing anything that was an equivalent for the cure, or

200 THE THEONG AND THE TOUCH.

would purchase it ; nor yet did she believe that by stand-
ing aloof and waiting awhile till she was partly restored,
made stronger or more presentable, by some skill of her
own, she should be more likely to get the benefit desired;
nor had she any theory whatever about the method in
which the curative power was to take effect. You do not
find in her clear and urgent sense of need that strange in-
verting of all reason that we so often see in men when they
hesitate about coming to seek heavenly grace in Christ's
Church, pleading that they are " not good enough," not
strong enough, healthful enough, to be blessed by it.
The soldier after the battle, wounded and sick, blood-
stained and feverish, creeps along the hot and dusty road,
longing only to die under the old home-tree, and under
the breath of a mother's lips. He comes to a hospital,
and sees it written over the door, " "Whosoever will,
let him come." Does He creep back, pleading that He
is not well enough to go in and be healed ? What then
did the woman believe ? She believed that she was to
receive something, a real blessing, from Christ. This
was what distinguished her, in her humility and obscur-
ity, from the sentimental crowd around her. This was
that in her wjiich was not in them. They all travelled
on in the highway together, talked about Christ, were
interested in Him in various ways, discussed His origin
and nature, hoped that some good would come of Him
to the nation. They thought it prudent to be in the
company of a miraculous power, able to feed or heal
them, in case there should be occasion for His help ; and
so they took some pains to keep Him in sight. Word
for word, brethren, these phrases describe what uncounted
multitudes now are ready to do, when the Gospel and
Church of Christ call to them. But the woman Relieved
that she should personally receive new life from Him.

THE .THRONG AND THE TOUCH. 201

She knew slie needed it ; she knew she had nothing to buy-
it with, — for she had spent all her living on physicians,
and could not be healed of any, but rather grew worse.
Most graphic history of how many hearts ! She believed
that she could have that new life by a touch. The
reaching out of her hand was an expression of that faith.
Another signal might probably have done just as well.
In other cases a prayer was as effectual. But there must
have been two things : the faith that she should receive
the benefit, and some act to embody that faith and bring
the benefit home. With faith, action.

It is an almost equally significant part of the inter-
view that her faith, instead of being perfect yet, had
some intellectual mistakes clinging to it. Thus she
evidently supposed she could obtain the cure without
Christ's knowing of her application, or putting forth
any conscious exercise of His will. She meant to keep
herself hid, probably from so respectable a motive as
natural difiidence. It was no intention of hers, — as it
never can be of any true confessing Christian, — to dis-
tinguish herself from the rest. She was not forward to
make " a profession of religion." "Would that our Church
language might exchange that ostentatious phrase for
the better one, — the confession of Christ ! Probably her
idea was, — like what has often been held as one of the
elements of superstition, especially in the East, — that a
kind of magical charm charged with some sanative eflS-
cacy encircled this miraculous person ; that the border
of His garment was the channel of the healing energy,
and hence that she had only to put her finger on it to be
made whole. She was wrong as to the mode. But did
this intellectual misconception, as to the mere vehicle
by which the blessed power was transmitted, spoil
her faith, or forfeit the cure ? On the contrary, the

THE THRONG AND THE TOUCH.

Saviour patiently and gently separates the substa/nce
of the faith from the erroneous fancies impressed upon
it by a weak brain or a false education ; He takes pains
to disabuse her and all about her of the superstitious
imagination, by showing them that the cure was not
wrought, and could not be, without His conscious and
consenting will answering her application, — " I perceive
that virtue is gone out of Me," — and grants her desire.
As He always read the thoughts of both Pharisees
and penitents alike, as He marked the concealed
discipleship in the guileless heart of E'athaniel under
the fig-tree, so here He depends on no outward expres-
sion to tell Him the soul's prayer, and yet He requires it
for the disciple's sake. And in the same goodness now
He is ever gathering and drawing saved souls to Him-
self,— thanks to His great power, — wherever His name
is heard, even though there hang about their honest
and true trust in Him many a poor shred of misbelief,
many a badge of mistaken systems, many a paltry rem-
nant of traditional illusion. It is a comfortable, Catholic
encouragement that He gives us, — in the prevalence of
so many erratic devices of the theological mind, and
so many crude additions to the energetic simplicity
of the Truth, — that mistakes of opinion about methods
of grace do not choke the channels of grace itself, or bar
the gate of heaven.

But now there comes forward another aspect of churchly
doctrine, bringing with it a new obligation. Why does
Christ draw forward this believing follower from her
bashful retirement, and insist on her declaring herself
in the presence of the multitude? The cure was
wrought ; the faith had gained its object, and its mistake
had been corrected; the receiver of the blessing was
creeping away through the crowd, not ungrateful, but

THE THRONG AND THE TOUCH. 203

unrecognized and unobserved. Why should she not be
suffered to retain her humble seclusion ? For the reason,
doubtless, that her anxiety for herself took just so much
from loyalty to her Lord. It is a principle of God's
kingdom, and a part of God's command, that a confes-
sion before men shall accompany the believing of the
heart. If anybody could be excused, it would seem
that she might be. But there is no exception, none ;
none for the proudest man, none for the weakest woman.
Hitherto her offering is incomplete ; she has brought her
secret faith, but not herself; and true faith must keep
nothing back that the Lord requires. Men cannot say,
" My religion is my own affair ; it is only a thing between
myself and my Maker ; it is entirely an inward and invisi-
ble relation to Him, and so I am satisfied in my private
feeling that it is there, no more can be demanded of
me." They cannot hold that ground ; because the duty
of open confession is as clearly enjoined in Scripture
as it is illustrated in every sound scriptural example.
The fact that there is a faithless multitude, making a
merit of formal professions, glossing their worldliness
by a pious cant of " The temple of the Lord," and screen-
ing their unrighteousness under observances, does not
affect a whit the call of sincere believers to acknowledge
whose they are and by whom they are healed. " And
when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came
trembling, and falling down before Him, she declared
unto Him, hefore all the people for what cause she had
touched Him, and how she was healed immediately."
Then the Lord uses for her encouragement a term of
endearment he had not spoken before : " Daughter, thy
faith hath made thee whole." Her faith had made the
occasion, — doing it mediately ; His Divine power had
made the cure, — doing it directly. Faith is the con-

204 THE THRONG AND THE TOUCH.

ditional cause ; Christ himself is the efficient, energetic
cause. And the acknowledgment of Him is the
signal of the final blessing which then falls in a ben-
ediction from His lips : " Go in peace."

What you are to make this morning's lesson stamp
ineffaceably on your hearts, — shaping it into clear out-
lines,— is the deep distinction between mere pressing
about Christ, and touching Him ; between resting in the
apparatus of salvation, and laying hold of it with your
hands; between trusting in the material temple, and
clinging with a closeness of heart that neither life nor
death can separate to the living Rock. You honor the
place of your worship ; that is well. But how unreal and
shallow it all would be, — how false and foolish we should
be with one another, — if this should prove to be all or
the chief part of our religion ! Why, it would double
your condemnation, and mine. Would that the life of
every member of the body of Christ were so lifted
above the world, so triumphant over it, so visibly given
to the Church and so inwardly to Christ, so self-renounc-
ing and so holy, that your completed faithfulness would
take the message out of our weak lips and proclaim it in
living characters to your neighbor. It oppresses one to
remember that here is a reality of infinite majesty and
beauty transcending all our conceptions of what is glo-
rious, enough to inspire with enthusiasm every breast
that breathes, so grand and lovely in its attraction that
it would seem only to need to be held up as it' really is
to win every heart to the Cross forever, — and yet that so
many of us still go on chasing bubbles, fretting with
care, scraping together accumulations which if they are
not all used for Christ are worth not a particle more
than ant-hills on the sand. The very crimes and license
of the age, daily published, ought to arouse us, sending

THE THRONG AND THE TOUCH. 205

IIS witli heartier prayers and more solemn circumspection,
in this sacred season, to the altars of God ; — nay more, to
the hand, to the heart, of Christ. It might appear to
you, at times, as if the preacher's chief aim were to
persuade you to an outward confession, or a pressing
into the gates. But no, that urgency is only because,
without that, the higher duties are never done, and the
consecration is never complete You may, if you please,
do with the text now as Augustine did in his sermon
at Carthage, substitute Ecdesia — "the Church,"— -for
Jesus, and write " the body of Christ" for Christ ; still it
would be true, as he said, " The faith of a few touches
it, — the crowd of many {turba multorum) only presses
against it." The Christian ground is never truly taken
till Christ is confessed ; but then He may be loudly
claimed in the cry, " The temple of the Lord," when
no fruits prove the heart to be thoroughly surrendered.
Now that many of you are turning your steps more fre-
quently to the solemn assemblies and public ordinances of
the Faith, forget not your Lord's imperative command, —
let it follow you out into your week-day work : " Amend
your ways and your doings." "Who is the true Christian ?
You may suppose the case of a person who from a state of
indifference and neglect about religion has been converted
to a sense of its real interest and power, and that this per-
son is so placed that the men he meets in his business
and in society are not informed of his change. "Will
they find it out, then, by any manifest change passing
over the spirit and manners of his business and social
life ? Will they find him purer, gentler, better, nobler,
holier? Or take the case of two men, one with and the
other without the Christian profession. Hold the two
aloof awhile from any place or occasion where the profes-
sion would be formally shown, — at a churchless trading-

206 THE THRONG AND THE TOUCH.

port, or in the week-day life of a gay city. Would the
world be able to tell which is which? These are the
tests. There was an artist in the old times who
carved a metal shield, into the bosses of which he so
ingeniously and inseparably wrought his own name that
it could not be obliterated except by the destruction of
the shield itself. Good Christians, you ought to bear the
armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,
and on it that one name, seen of all men, one image never
invisible there, till you take the armor off to go within
the veil. That manifestation of the truth in a practical
holiness commends the Christian, commends the Church,
commends Christ, to every man's conscience in the sight
of God. With that inwrought secret of life and im-
mortality in your soul, — a living faith, — though the
outward man perish, the inward man is renewed day by
day. " Somebody hath touched Me." Are you then
touching the temple for your salvation, or Christ for
your Saviour ? Are you touching Him by your personal
faith, or only pressing upon Him with the multitude?
Do you only join the popular procession of a nominal
Christianity which shouts its heartless hosannas along
the highway to Jerusalem, or will you march all the
hard road of a holy obedience, with your crucified Master,
till he tells you to lay the cross down, when the resur-
rection morning breaks ?

SUPPLICATION THE CHUECH'S POWEK.

Second Sundm/ m Lent,

** And the whole multitude of the people were praying without at
the time of incense." — St, liuTce i. 10.

Both the parents of John, Zacharias and Elizabeth,
were of the family of the Hebrew priesthood. For a
long time the ministrations of this great sacerdotal order,
in the temple service at Jerusalem, had been distributed
among twenty-four courses of priests, each course taking
its turn for a week, and each having its own leader. At
the time when the evangelist's narrative opens, Abia
stood at the head of the eighth of these twenty-four
courses, and Zacharias, the father of the Baptist, was
officiating in his turn in that course. " It came to pass,"
says St. Luke, " that while he executed the priest's office
in the order of his course, his lot was to burn incense
when he went into the temple of the Lord. And the
whole multitude of the people were praying without at
the time of incense. And there appeared unto him an
angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar
of incense."

It moves our veneration, — the majestic continuity of
this holy office, the order of its courses reaching from the
reign of King David, unbroken save by the short inter-
ruptions of captivity, and scarcely even then, for four of
the courses returned to Jerusalem to take their places

208 SUPPLICATION THE

when the exile was over ; — the priesthood itself, dating
back to the wilderness, reaching over a tract of centuries
that saw the rising and falling of many einpires, — its
ranks very commonly embracing thousands of men. Tlie
sublimity of it is only heightened when we recall the
nature of that ministry committed to them by God
himself. Constant as the morning and evening that
daily open and shut their gates on the eyes of men, they
waited around that altar which steadfastly prefigured
and prophesied the Redeemer ; they kept a sleepless
watch over the fire on the altar of burnt-offerings, which
typified Christ's eternal sacrifice, never letting it go out,
day or night ; they " fed the golden lamps outside the
veil with sacred oil"; they offered the daily sacrifices,
morning and evening, at the door of the tabernacle;
they were always ready at hand to do the cleansing and
comforting offices commanded in the law. And here, in
the text, we have a glimpse of them in their lofty work,
just as the Gospel fulfilments and spiritual glories broke
in on their typical routine in the person of the Son of
Man.

From the ministry going on there turn to the place,
with its arrangements. Near the entrancJe of the temple,
— the heart of the nation's life, — outside what was prop-
erly the sanctuary, advanced as if in token of a freely
offered mercy to meet the approaching worshipper,
was the large altar of the daily sacrifice. Farther in
toward the most holy place, very near to the veil of the
covenant, to signify that closer access which the accepted
believer has to the Intercessor who is ascended into
the true Holy of holies, stood another altar, with its
crown of pure gold and its golden rings, on which one
of the priests, chosen by lot, — all of them so many that
it was a Jewish tradition that the same priest never did

209

it more than once, — oifered twice every day the sweet
incense, which with its ascending smoke, in the beautiful
language of St. John, is as " the prayers of saints."
Notice that the fire which lighted this altar was always
to be taken fresh from the outer altar, of the sacrifice for
sin, — another type of Christian truth, — because the
acceptance of Christian prayers depends on their being
ofi'ered only through a Saviour suftering and crucified.

Another remarkable feature remains. At the moment
when the effectual work of propitiation and intercession
goes forward within the temple, — what is seen without ?
The whole multitude of the people, bending in silent
awe, seconding the priestly office and making it in some
sense their own, joining their faith to the sacrifice, and
lifting their hearts with the rising incense-cloud, are in
supplication before God. This can represent nothing
else than the power of the united prayers of the Chris-
tian congregation, aiding and supporting the official
work of the threefold ministry and the holy offices of the
Church, in declaring Christ to the world.

The question before us, then, thrown open in its
broadest form, will be this : Are we using the devotional
power of the Church in due proportion to its other
powers ? In laying our plans, whether for our private
religious regulation and personal growth in holiness, or
for the public advancement of Christ's kingdom, are we
looking directly enough and constantly enough to God ?
In shaping and starting new measures, even for the
Church's honor and for the saving of men, do we go
first, and go most confidently, and go continually, to Him
whose presence is our only life, and whose favoring will,
in every Christian movement, is the only moving force?
In our individual self-discipline, when we are depressed
with a sense that it is not going well with us, when

14

210

some flash of light in these Lenten self-examinations
exposes a new weak spot, or when a providence suddenly
reveals the wrong direction in which our habits have
been gradually and almost imperceptibly deflecting, when
the heart seems frozen, the senses leprous, faith sleeping,
and we wonder what is the matter, do we take that
question straight to the Holy Spirit, as readily as we ask
it of ourselves ? If in any of our undertakings we fail,
there is very little doubt that we fail because we did not
expect enough and ask enough of God ; — for that expecta-
tion is only another name for faith ; and that asking is
prayer.

Men say, " Religion is a thing between a man and his
Maker " ; and though it is often said to palliate some
inexcusable neglect of an open religious confession
before men, yet it is profoundly true. We take you, O
men of the world, at your word. Religion is a thing
between man and his Maker ; not between man and
himself, not between man and society, not between man
and the State. All our relations and duties to these, and
theirs to us, come under the law of morality ; and though
morality, with its practical relations and duties receives
inspiration and guidance from the doctrines and ordin-
ances of religion, yet when we rise to religion itself,
entering her invisible and heavenly tabernacle, we pass
out of all merely moral connections, and are in the
presence of God. There are two parties, and only two.
The business of religion, therefore, is to bring offerings
to Him, and, in answer to our prayers, to take blessings
from Him. This, with the sacred sentiments, affections,
and actions which belong to that holy intercourse, is the
first business of the Church. It sets open the channel
of communion, where there is tliis incessant spiritual
passing and repassing between the Infinite Heart of Love

211

which is open there, and these hearts of ours, weak and
struggling, uneasy and hungry and sinning, here. By
this spiritual interchange, our whole life opens a path
into heaven, and the blessed life of heaven opens down
upon us. So, Christians, we stand, in this sacred and
redeemed creation, always at a temple-door. No doubt
there are mysteries. What temple was ever without its
suggestions of mystery ? Even a very deep and strong
human love has its mysteries. But nevertheless, the Light
falls down from the Throne. God is there. The door
is swung open. We are near to Him ; He is near to us.
The Mediator and Intercessor is praying there for us.
Our prayers are joined with His. The reconciliation is
accomplished. It is as if the scene at Jerusalem were
reproduced in its Christian and everlasting reality. It
is the time of incense. The chief-priest is at the golden
altar, with the fire kindled. The whole multitude of
the Church below is on its knees, the faithful people
supplicating for pardon and peace, entreating that they
may perceive and know what things they ought to
do, and may have power and grace to fulfil the same, —
asking and receiving that their joy may be full.

The next step follows irresistibly. Every movement
of religious life among us must get its power and direc-
tion from the Spirit of God. Every contrivance of
ecclesiastical or parochial wisdom, of energy, even of
piety, is nothing but a making ready for this Spirit.
We may try other things, as we certainly do, and may try
them with the best intentions. We call people together,
form societies, write constitutions for them with rules
and by-laws, devise and discuss measures, publish statis-
tics, secure an incorporation perhaps, send for the ablest
speakers, collect money, and when the institution is
thoroughly organized and built, we look at.it and watch

fi

.^^ot ruT

mriVBRSii ill

212

its working. It is all done in the interest and for
the sake of some Christian truth or charity. But the
amount of spiritual product is exactly in proportion to the
coming into all this apparatus of that living Spirit of
God, — the love of the Father, the grace of Christ, the
fellowship of the Holy Ghost. And the degree of that
coming and power, again, will be exactly in proportion
to the fervency and the frequency of prayers that are
offered by believers around it. If you would find the
true secret of spiritual success, you need not seek for it
in the admirableness of the plan, the shrewdness of the
management, the numbers that subscribe, or the elo-
quence of the advocates. You might better seek it in
some very obscure chambers, some out-of-the-way corners,
some closets with the doors shut, where men or women
or children in whose breasts God has a Temple of His
own, — never heard of at the public meetings, poor and
simple-hearted and of stammering lips, — ^kneel with
their great-hearted and prevailing petitions, not dis-
couraged by the slowness of the answer, trusting not
in themselves but only in the Lord Almighty. These
are the " multitude praying without." It is they, — be
they few or many, known or unknown, — who are the secu-
rity of your constitutions, the builders of your churches,
the senders of your missionaries, the really efficient
patrons of your orphan-houses, hospitals, and Christian
education societies. The finest and firmest machinery
in the world is so much dead material without these
prayers. I suppose most of you have seen some elabo-
rate and costly specimen of mechanism, standing still :
every little screw and bolt of the complicated system in
its place ; every post and bar, flange and transom secure ;
every bright lever and arm, wheel and tooth, tempered and
tested ; — the whole a splendid embodiment and trophy

213

of intellectual ingenuity and determination, — yet silent
and inert as icicles, till some lifted gate or opened valve lets
in the mysterious motive-power which makes it a sure and
mighty servant of a purpose beyond it. So are all our
best religious measures, till the breath of the Church's
prayers joins them to the Spirit from on High. Through-
out all its portions, the Scripture has no other doctrine.
" Be strong, all ye people of the Lord, for I am with
you, saith the Lord." " ]^ot by might, not by power,
but by My Spirit." " Pray ye the Lord of the harvest
that He will send forth laborers." " Prove Me if I will
not open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a
blessing." " O God, we know not what to do, but our
eyes are upon Thee." How was it with our blessed
Lord himself? It was when He was prajdng, by the
river Jordan, after His baptism, that the heaven was
opened and a dove descended ; it was when He was
praying again, " Father, glorify Thy name," that heaven
was opened a second time, and an audible voice spoke.
It was when He was praying in the garden of Gethse-
mane, that it was opened a third time, and an angel
was seen strengthening Him. "And ye, beloved, pray-
ing in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of
God." " The prayer of a righteous man availeth "
for his character, more than his labor ; and to those
that do not pray there are no promises.

We look into the Bible records of the beginnings and
growth of God's kingdom on the earth. On every spot
where that kingdom struck root we see a group of men
bending in prayer. When the Eastern magi were
brought by the star to Bethlehem, all their intellectual
strength bowed itself down to a little child ; they taught
nothing, proposed nothing ; — they did not even speak ;
it was simply an offering; the signification of it was

214

the submission of knowledge to faith. It was worship.
From page to page, in the Acts of the Apostles, they
are shown to us together looking upward. When
an order in the ministry, an apostle, or a missionary,
was to be set apart, or sent out, special prayer sig-"
nalized the ceremony. At the meeting and parting
of Christian friends, on their sacred errands, they
knelt and prayed. If one of their number was
imprisoned, prayer was made for him day and night.
When an epistle was written, whatever other words of
affectionate salutation there might be, the chief and
ever-recurring message ran like this, — " Always, in every
prayer of mine, making mention of you all." If an-
other of them touches, in his writing, on such a familiar
duty as the harmony of husband and wife, the lofty
reason of it he gives is, — "that your prayers be not
hindered." If a special ministry of deacons is appointed
for the outer cares of charity, it is that the higher office
may be more especially reserved for prayer. When the
Holy sacrament of the Communion is celebrated, or
alms are given, eucharistic prayer accompanies the break-
ing of bread, and oblation-prayer comes up as a me-
morial of faith, with the alms, before Christ. What an
epoch of prayer was that ! So elevated are these ardent
and consecrated souls towards heaven, so open towards
God's spirit, so conscious that they have only to ask to
receive, that devotion seems to have become an instinct,
and they pray as they breathe. The whole fiery heart
of the Church of Christ was in instant communication
with its ascended Head. And what followed ? Why,
this was the period when the Church grew before men's
eyes with such swiftness that a thousand converts were
gathered in the time that it takes us to gather ten : in
the short lifetime of a single generation the worship

215

of Christ raised itself to power in the chief cities of
three continents ; the swords of all the Herods and
Caesars and their legions could not strike fast enough to
cut down one Christian where twenty sprang up ; hun-
dreds were baptized in a day ; the times of refreshing
had come ; — the prediction was literally accomplished ; —
the windows of heaven were opened, and the blessing
was so poured out that there was not room enough to
receive it. If hard questions were encountered, as to
discipline, or ritual, or personal preference in the apos-
tleship, they were melted down in these holy fires
of common prayer ; men could not long strive bitterly
with each other who entreated the Lord of unity to pity
and bless them together and make them like Himself,
every time they looked into each other's faces. These
were the fruits. How can we fail to connect together
the fruit with the seed, — the glorious movement and the
motive-power, — the Church pure in doctrine and victori-
ous in converting the world with the multitude of her
members not only standing full-clad in all the panoply
of the Christian warfare, but praying always, with all
prayer and supplication in the Spirit ?

All along since the last of the twelve laid down his
life, this rule has never had an exception ; — the Church
has been both strong and pure, victorious abroad and
peaceful with itself, just according to its spirit of sup-
plication ; according to its devotional nearness to Christ
its Head, because that means and carries with it its
separation from worldly-mindedness and its indiflfer-
ence to the worldly standards of success. Whenever
there has been a great uprising of new missionary
power, or a reformation, or a rousing from sleep, as if
some immense light had broken on the eyes of the
watchers east and west, the one invariable mark of such

216

an age has been a general earnestness and faithfulness in
supplication. Men have not been seen running about,
till they first went into their sanctuaries and their
closets with stronger and heartier cries for the Spirit.
They were not looking to each other for help, but to
God. They did not undertake first to construct new
systems, but they betook themselves first to the mercy-
seat by the Church's old and well-worn road. They
prayed as they worked, in God's order and appointment.
The multitude at Jerusalem had not broken away to
worship in their own unbidden and promiscuous fash-
ions, according to their individual fancies, as if new ways
would bring new hearts or new blessings. 'No, they
were at the one, right place ; at the courts of the Lord's
house : bending towards the covenant sign ; and it was
" at the time of incense." And so the periods of prayer
have always been the periods of life. As soon as men
imagined they could put schemes, societies, treasuries
and buildings in the place of prayer, weakness crept back
upon them. The period of power went out as the
period of self-reliance or worldly compromise came in.
Only by My Spirit can ye be strong, saith the Lord of
hosts.

A lingering doubt casts up its faithless suggestion at
these words : " Is not the Church constantly praying ?
Yet where is the fulfilment of the promise?" The
answer is found under another word, " the prayers of
faithP We may be sure that the measure of the faith
is the measure of the power of the prayer, and that the
measure of such prayer is, sooner or later, the measure
of the blessing we receive. We very often mistake the
strength of our desire for the strength of our faith.
Besides, faith is a general quality of the whole soul in
all its acts and aspects towards the Saviour, and pertains

217

to its habitual attitude ; it is not a mere sudden, special
expectation of having some greatly- wanted boon granted.
It is, for the most part, a grace of slow, patient, and silent
growth. Most of us, in our common moods, scarcely
touch the rim of its great depth of meaning, or taste of
its incalculable peace. It is true just as it stands, —
" According to your faith, in asking, be it unto you."
It is true of our private conflicts with the tempter, our
struggles with ourselves, our resistance of the sins that
most easily beset us, our fight with temper and pride and
indolence and luxury, with Satan in his most angelic
garment. Spiritual victory and progress will be gained
on our knees, by looking up and saying, " Lord, if
Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean. Save me, or I
perish." Zacharias saw the vision of the angel, beside
the altar of incense, before the veil. To us Christians
the veil is rent assunder. The Holy of holies is thrown
open. The Saviour whom the types foretold is come.
And now, if any man sin, we have an advocate with
the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, who ever liveth
to make intercession for us, the High-priest tempted
here as we are, yet sinless, needing not to make sacrifice
for His own sins, yet touched with the feeling of our
every infirmity, and Himself our sacrifice.

Can we look on any side of us this day and not con-
fess that the great need of Christ's body is this need of
Him, of the power which we have seen can come only
from Him, and which comes only as we pray for it?
The dear Church seems to me to stand, with her holy
mysteries, very much as the temple stood that day, — the
ark of promise and the altar of incense and of the one
eternal sacrifice all safe and sure within. But is the
multitude praying as that multitude prayed ? Is it that
prayer of yearning and earnest and living faith, for new

218

spiritual gifts, wliich will not be denied ? Look every
way, — into markets, streets, newspapers, courts, down
into the sins of tlie low places, out into the sins of the
high places, — the insubordination of the poor and the
extravagance of the rich, the impatience of the weak
and the arrogance of the strong, the wrongs of com-
merce and the impurities of legislation, the selfishness
and sensuality tainting the whole structure of the State,
and the divisions in the house of the Lord. Seeing
that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves, is
it not time to go to Him who alone can show us what
things we ought to do, and give us power and grace to
fulfil the same ? This is not such a world that we can
afford to live in it without great nearness to Him who,
having died once, liveth evermore. This is not such a
life as we should dare to try to live any further without
offering the whole of it, — its gold, its incense, and its
myrrh, — possessions, prayers, and praises, at the feet of
its spiritual King. Light the lamps of faith, then, and
watch. Kindle the fire of incense and wait : — not sleep-
ing, but watching unto prayer.

PUKITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS.

Third Sunday in Lent,

"Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see Q-od." —
St. Matthew v. 8.

The warnings of this Sunday are against sins of
sensual passion. They are represented as coming by
" evil thoughts which assault and hurt the soul." Good
men will not be satisfied with escaping the disgrace of
public crime. If our minds are set with any reverence
towards the right, we shall be asking nothing less than
positive purity, or an inward life growing up from a
Divine principle, clean from all moral disease, strong
with Christian health. Any kind of disease has two
effects ; it defiles the body it belongs to, and delilitates
it. It pollutes the substance and weakens the energies.
Sin is the soul's disease. If the disease is there, then,
" from within," out of the foul heart will proceed all the
foul things which the Saviour named as defiling the
whole man. The question, therefore, is the practical one,
how to keep the heart healthy, or clean.

The pure in heart are blessed : — not the pure by
profession; not those who are pure according to that
standard of purity demanded by the prevalent social
morality. Christ says of these, knowing just liow much
and how little they have, — Doubtless they have their
reward. But it is not the glorious privilege of the pure

220 PURITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS.

in heart They and they alone have what the saints of
old used to call the " beatific vision." They alone will
see that sight which makes any soul completely blessed,
— God's full glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

Throughout the appointed Scriptures for Lent, it is
very noticeable how prominent and plain-spoken are the
Divine rebukes of this one particular kind of transgression,
— the sins of the bodily senses. And this is not surprising,
for when we look underneath the mere ceremonial sur-
face we see that there must be some deep connection
between such a set time of physical self-denial and those
special temptations which have their origin in the animal
appetites. These appetites, however, remember, are not
a separate section of us, lying by itself, cut oif from the
rest of our nature. They are mysteriously and perilously
intertangled with some higher and nobler passions, —
like artistic enthusiasm, generous affections, intellectual
ambition, and even religious excitement. Apart from
the principles of Christian morality, neither what is
beautiful in any of the fine arts, nor what is true in
science or eloquent in letters, has any effectual restrain-
ing power over the sensual propensities, — as is seen by
awful demonstration in the ages of Pericles, of the Greek
Olympics, of Leo X., and of Louis XIY. This alliance
with mental curiosity and aesthetic delight is really the
most insidious feature of that species of vice. To the
better-born and better-bred classes, such vice, in its
coarser shapes, is not tempting, because it is disgusting.
Many a young man of natural or cultured refinement is
protected from some of the worst forms of immorality
simply by their vulgarity. But the fearful flimsiness of
that shield is shown the moment the tempter exchanges
rags and filth for elegance, accomplishments, and literary
luxury. In fact, it is the belief of many thoughtful

PURITY AND ITS SAFEGIJAED8. 221

minds in Christendom that the final manifestation of
the power of evil on the earth, — the " man of sin " fore-
told in the ITew Testament as to come in "the last
time," — surpassing in his powers of mischief every other
embodiment of depravity, terrible in fascination, will
be an actual historic character, combining together in
this all-surpassing badness the most splendid intellectual
abilities with unregenerated, ferocious, fleshly passions, —
Milton's ideal Satan, realized in a man.

However this may be, for all of us practically the
problem of moral purity is very intimately and subtly
connected with this curiosity and eagerness of the mind.
An unhallowed knowledge, or the thirst for it, betrays
the conscience and seduces the heart. And this is what
made St. Paul write to his friend, " I would have you
wise unto that which is good and simjple concerning
evilP An innocent knowledge and a glorious igno-
rance !

The idea has crept in among our popular theories of
social morals, that a knowledge of vice is a safeguard to
virtue. We are told that hardy plants are not grown in
a conservatory ; that our sons and daughters may as well
be acquainted with the wickedness of the world's ways
first as last ; that dissolute fictions and a French stage
are a capital discipline for robust principles; in short,
that morality is altogether too fragile and insecure a
creature to run out-of-doors alone, without a little
previous initiation into depravity. Worldly fathers and
despairing mothers take what comfort they can from the
easy maxim that young people had better have a free
range through scenes of temptation, in order that its
attractions may not take them by surprise further on,
and that they must " see life," to know how to live. If
we could lead out in our time the hopeless profligates of

222 PURITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS.

a single generation which that plausible philosophy has
betrayed, the joyous households, once pure, that it has
wrecked and distracted, the sweet, clean hearts it has
defiled, the noble natures it has degraded, the men
whose honor it has ruined, and the women whose peace
it has crushed, — a very long, a very mournful, and a very
admonitory procession it would be. At the head of it
move the first human pair, marching in miserable
humiliation out of Eden. The tree of the knowledge
of "good" was not enough. There hung, in ruddy
beauty, the more luscious fruit of the knowledge of
" evil " as well. "Why not eat of that ? Knowledge
can do no harm. Seeing things as they are! Nature
is a safe study. " Thou shalt not surely die." Six
thousand years the story has been told over and over.
You need not go for it to the beginning of Genesis.
It was acted last night close to where you live, —
happy for you if not by some soul that you love.
Indiscriminate knowledge, unhallowed curiosity, the lust
of the mind looking through eager eyes, is the unceasing
temptation of man. So he falls first into sin, then into
shame. " Seeing life " turns' out to be tasting of death.

Make one or two all-important discriminations.

There is a difi'erence between kinds of sin. Some
sins, far more than others, are sins first of the imagina-
tion. They are such that to think of them is to be
tempted by them. To harbor their images, to gaze on
their portraits, is to open wide the way for the guilty
realities themselves. With other offences it is not so,
or is so only in slighter degrees. The most vivid and
picturesque stories of theft, for instance, most of us here
could probably read, to any extent, without much danger
of becoming kleptomaniacs or robbers. Such crimes as
come of cool calculation, not stimulated by feeling,

PIJKITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS. 223

invested by no halo of voluptuous fancy, we are not much
more drawn to by becoming familiar with their history.
Yet it is observed even of these, like suicide and mur-
der, that they have their run at periods, like diseases,
showing that the constant contemplation of any evil thing,
by some secret fascination or sympathy, weakens the
securities that save us from its power. Especially true is
this of those which are secret in their very nature, loving
darkness rather than light, born and nursed in hidden
chambers where no eye of man can reach, till they gain
the Satanic strength, finally, to break openly over the
bounds of law ; but at any rate corroding, corrupting, and
spoiling the chaste heart, till it is pure no longer. So
certainly teaches Christ, lie who knows this human heart
so well in all its weakness, — when He insists that sin is
in the glance of the eye and the desire of the mind.
Hence the supreme importance He assigns in His teach-
ing to the government of the thoughts, the imagination,
the " hidden man." Hence His terrific calling of the
unuUered and unacted desire by the name of the most
unfaithful of all committed crimes. There are sins
that you can no more paint on the airy walls of
your contemplation, and keep there, without being
made sinful by them, than you can stamp inky types
on paper and leave no mark, or handle pitch without
its cleaving to your fingers. You may say, " Unto the
pure all things are pure," and so you will go and look, and
listen, as you please ; you will let meretricious art and
ambiguous literature and bold company tempt you to
the full bent of their unbridled will. Yes — " Unto the
pure all things are pure"; that declares a principle.
But who are the " pure " ? Will any one of us here in
God's house, right-minded as he may be, looking up
honestly toward the great white Throne, dare say, " I am

224 PURITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS.

pure " ? and if you are, how does it happen that you
willingly suffer impurity to be the tolerated guest of
your hearths hospitality ?

Granted that some insight into evil is necessary, how
is that knowledge to be gained ?

A good deal of it is given to every mind by divinely
planted instincts, — about as much, if they are kept alive,
as is needful for the practical management of life. In
some sense we know evil by knowing good. If a soul
loves God, then it finds intuitively that there is a some-
thing opposite and hateful to God, which it must hate.
Right suggests its eternal enemy, wrong. Charity con-
veys some quick intimation of its dark shadow, malice.
The dove trembles at the sound of the wings of the
hawk it never saw before. Cynics sneer at the weak-
ness of innocence. But there are saints who are also
heroes, known and read of all men, who never went to
school to license, but have grown up clean-hearted and
clean-handed from their cradles, " unspotted from the
world " ; and yet they are shrewd, strong, keen-sighted
men, and masters of men, — hard to beguile, and hard to
circumvent. St. Anthony in the picture shuts his eyes;
but the rock in his desert is not more unyielding, or
the moonlight on his forehead while he prays more chaste.
You have read the melodious sermon on purity in Mil"
ton's " Comus," — and what stronger woman do you
expect to meet anywhere than the guileless heroine
there ? Sin is pollution : the very name is like the wild
and warning cry heard by travellers in the East at night
from the camp of the lepers — "Unclean, unclean ! " Solo-
mon understood it. " Go not near it, pass not by it,
turn from it " : — touch it not, taste it not, handle it not.
These are the counsels of Almighty Virtue, tempted
as men are tempted, yet without sin. You may be

PURITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS. 225

" simple concerning evil," and yet, by being " wise nnto
that which is good," armed against evil, and triumphing
over it.

A brilliant biography was published not long ago,
presenting the career of one of the most conspicuous
men of letters of the generation just past, in which the
theory is advocated that genius is an apology for vice,
and that he who would portray society and life skilfully
must mix in their muddiest currents and try the whole
circle of indulgence : as if those who are to enlighten or
entertain mankind must first taste of filthy cups, and
descend to vulgarity on their way to refinement : as if
any lawless nature had only to set up a claim to origi-
nality, in order to take a license for sensuality : as if the
Almighty now and then suspended the everlasting laws
of righteousness in favor of anybody's mental gifts ! It
is a denial of fact, and an impiety to God. Put the
case respecting any heart near your own. Would you
not recoil from the practical application of any such
romantic paganism there ? Of any friend we have,
would we not rather be assured he has borne always an
untainted breast, than that he has dragged it through a
slough ? Or do we ever imagine him less " wise unto
that which is good," for his being " simple concerning
evil"?

So thought some of the old Germans, in their whole-
some forest life, who, according to their Roman his-
torian, buried the details of private vices in oblivion,
^ farbade their publication, and were blest with the
chaster manners.

A pure character is a growth, and follows the analogy
of growing things. Make the tree good, and the fruit
will be good — the Saviour says. Out of the pure heart
the pure life will come. But how do you make the tree

16

226 PURITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS.

good ? Yon provide the natural conditions of a strong,
healtliy vegetation. You take care for a good soil, a
genial climate, a free play of the sunshine, moisture in
its season, a shelter from frost. And if there are any
influences destructive of the tree's health, or unfavor-
able to its fruitage, you keep them out of the way.
You do not bring the noxious things into your orchard,
or your nursery, to try how near you can place them to
the tree without their taking effect on it, or how much
injury it will bear, and live through after all. ]^one
but a fool does that. You do not import canker-worms
and caterpillars and scatter them in the next field, to see
whether they will make their way into your horticulture ;
or whether, if they do, the trial will not strengthen
the tree's constitution; or whether the tree may pos-
sibly have robustness enough to put out a second supply
of leaves, after the first have been riddled and blasted.
You know that if you plant your tree where the gases
and smoke of a smelting establishment pour a corroding
breath upon it, it will perish. " The end of these
things is death." You know that if you place a peach-
tree near others already tainted with the yellows, the
contagion will spread, the blossoms will curl and drop,
and no fruit will grow on the blighted branches. " What
fruit had you then in those things whereof now you
are ashamed ? " God, my friends, has not entrusted these
sensitive souls to us to be experimented upon by a vain
curiosity or a headstrong self-confidence. They are to be
guarded at every point from all that blights, and all that
defiles. They are to be surrounded with blameless
associations, — with companions that act and speak no
guile. Every hour while contamination is postponed,
and corruption kept away, is so much saved for virtue.
The powers of right in the soul are strengthening. Good

PUEITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS. 227

habits are getting formed and confirmed. The currents
of desire, of thought, and of emotion, are learning to
run in fixed and lawful channels. The man is growing
daily wiser and wiser into that which is good, in a
blessed ignorance of evil.

It is said, on the other hand, that Providence, in the
actual operation of human life, exposes us to a great deal
of evil, and therefore that we are at liberty to expose
ourselves to it. So, in some sense. Providence exposes
us to physical disease. We do not, therefore, approxi-
mate as much as we can to the resorts of miasma and
fever. We do not seek to inhale the air breathed
through consumptive lungs. We never cultivate the
acquaintance of tlie plague. The maxim, " The greater
the sinner the greater the saint," was never true, except
to a shallow judgment which takes intensity of zeal for
the balanced and solid power of Christian character, to
say nothing of the small chances that out of a hundred
" great sinners " you will get a single " saint."

'No ! we pray, if we pray at all, " Lead us not into
temptation." There is meaning in that prayer. Our
Lord knew us better than we know ourselves, when He
included it in the seven brief petitions of that universal
liturgy He gave to mankind. The man must have
learnt little of the infirmities of his own conscience and
will who fancies himself strong enough to dispense with
it. " Lead us not into temptation." Who can repeat it,
without insult and hypocrisy, if, having said it to the
Most High, he goes to seek temptation, or lets his chil-
dren seek it in unprincipled books, in dissolute com-
panionships, or among any of the residences of guilt ?

For one, I can never hear parents speak of sending
their offspring purposely into perilous company, in order
that they may see the world's worst side early, without

228 PURITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS.

painful memories of horrors unutterable which that
shallow maxim has sown, hopes it has broken to
pieces, spiritual beauty it has disfigured, and the gray
hairs it has brought down with sorrow to the grave.
Let virtue have the vantage-ground of youth ; let holy
shapes of purity and love and truth preoccupy the soul,
before the rabble of hateful tormentors rush in. The
longer these blameless guests pitch their white tents
on the unsullied field of the child's heart, the more will
we rejoice and thank the protecting God. Give the first
delicate years to goodness ; let right principles grow by
exercise ; let the habits of life learn to run in the even
channels of piety and obedience, and it shall be harder
by and by to break the blessed barriers down.

But we want, it is said, a robust, an exposed, tried
virtue, not a virtue feebly grown in solitude, and too
sickly to bear the sun. Beyond all question we do.
But they who think to find here an apology for com-
merce with sin, forget that there is just as much discipline
and a far greater blessing in resisting the inclination to
look at sin, as in resisting the increase of it after
looking and listening have rooted it in the soul. The
point where the first offenders were to learn how to
strengthen their principles was in refusing to taste the
forbidden fruit, not in seeing how they could escape it
when its virus was once in their blood It was enough
that it was forbidden. The trial of obedience and of
faith was there.

There is another light, still, under which we may look
at this whole matter. We throw ourselves forward a few
years, when, by the silent laws of God working out
surely and silently their deep and awful issues, the con-
sequences of our indulgence will become plain to our
experience. If reason, Scripture, the Spirit's testimony,

PURITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS. 229

companions, history, the holy dead, did not teach us, time
shall. For then, as habit grows obstinate, as the abused
spirit begins to turn and prey upon itself, as a perverted
imagination wreaks its revengeful retribution, as age or
an opening eternity shall displace fleeting fancies with
everlasting realities, — then will not all these illusions
pass away, and the sternest self-denial appear our
happiest wisdom ? Then we shall look back on every
familiar tampering with vice with infinite disgust and
unavailing remorse. Then, to have turned away our eyes
and our ears from every dubious or tempting thing will
be an unspeakable joy, and to have been " simple con-
cerning evil," will have proved the noblest way of being
" wise unto " all that is " good."

If we look back even over the little way we have gone
in our life, our memories will instruct us. Whether
we fancy we have conquered or fallen, there are few of
us, I suspect, that cannot recall some foolish toleration
of ourselves in an unhallowed curiosity which we would
now gladly blot out with tears or drops of blood, — some
evil companionship in childhood which threw a shadow
across our lives, or fixed a stain on our hearts, that has
hindered, or saddened, or somehow cursed us ever since.
Let us be frank and confess. Whenever we have lin-
gered in the presence of low conceits, or have let some
lower inclination prevail, has not a secret feeling of
having been degraded come, as sure and self-evidenc-
ing testimony to our guilt ? " What fruit had ye then
of those things ? "

The best protection against inward impurity is to pre-
occupy the inward world with better guests, and hold it
for them with ceaseless vigilance. As with the body so
with the spirit ; if we would have health we must
honor the laws of health. Fill your life with spiritual

230 PUEITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS.

service and there will be no room for the thoughts,
imaginations or desires which assault and hurt the soul.
Instead of fighting them after they enter, keep them
out; tell them at the gate yon have better company.
Tell them so in the name of Him who, when He had
peremptorily put the seducing spirit behind Him,
because He had His Father's will to do, found angels
ministering to Him. " Overcome evil with good."
There is many a secret sin that is best contended against
not by first thinking about it and then resisting it, — for,
while you think about it, it takes the form of a tempta-
tion,— but by crowding our days so full of 'duty that the
tempter will find no treacherous door open. "Work is
chaste. Work hallowed by prayer is chaster still. Have
no fears that God will not help. " Every branch that
beareth fruit. He purgeth it." From this, as from every
other danger, Christ formed within is safety, is salvation.
We must end, as we began, on the mount of the Beati-
tudes. " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God." It is only another announcement of that won-
derful and glorious principle which runs all through the
inspiring Gospel. The motive power lies far beyond all
selfish hopes or fears. At every step the disciple takes
his rewards as he goes on ; and they are rewards in the
kind of his toil. For the charity that sufiereth long and
thinketh no evil there will be given a mightier power of
love, till tongues shall cease and that which is perfect is
come. For the struggles of uncomplaining patience
there will be the grand endurance which smiles on pain.
For faith, the sunlit country where no doubt ever casts
a shadow. And for that Christlike purity of heart
which is the transparent air in which all spiritual graces
live and move, the vision Beatific and Divine, which
eye hath not yet seen, which no heart hath yet con-

PURITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS. 231

ceived. [Nfevertheless, it is a vision not to be wholly
postponed and waited for till death changes us. Death
to sin is always changing lis ; victory over evil is always
transfiguring us. The knowledge of the Son of God
will begin where the purity begins. It will be an imme-
diate and ever-growing " blessedness " even here. The
vision will be ever-brightening, till we see not in the
least " as through a glass darkly," but " face to face."

STEENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS.
Fourth Swnday in Lent,

"My strength is made perfect in weakness." — II. Corinthians xii. 9.

Along with other new forces brought in bj the Gospel,
spiritualizing society and regenerating humanity, there
came an original doctrine of what makes weakness and
strength. Up to that time, man was accounted strong
in proportion as he was able to overmaster the persons
and things about him. Matching his own resources
against the elements, or against the capacities of other
men, his power was measured by his ability to maintain
his superiority in these quarrels or rivalries. Till the
death of Christ, the strong man was the man strong
with his sinews and his hands, or, at best, with the
cunning and calculation of his brain. He was first who
could strike down most enemies, gather most wealth,
march longest at the head of his army, pile the most
perfect pyramid, or most fascinate an Athenian assembly
by the subtle charm of eloquent speech.

Corresponding to this heathenish estimate of what
makes up " strength " was the view taken of bodily
" weakness." It was either to be simply deplored as a
calamity, or despised as a shame. ITo spiritual illumin-
ation, shining through, transfigured the sick face ; no
submission of faith dignified the poor frame prostrate
with pain. The men, and even the women, looked on

STRENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS. 233

disease with a kind of dry disgust. Some of tlie best of
them proposed to kill off the old people as unserviceable
to the State. Yirtue consisted in keeping up the animal
vigor as long as possible, and when it failed, all that the
most faithful friendship could do was to draw back in help-
less embarrassment, just where Christian sympathy is most
eager to press forward and reach out its merciful hands.
It was imbecility gazing at infirmity in despair. Instead
of hospitals for disorder and retreats for the disabled,
you have only the Greek tragedies chanting in superb
poetry their melancholly wail at human suffering, or
Latin comedies laughing at it. We see the apostle of
Christ standing in the presence of such a proud civiliza>
tion as that, and quietly saying to it, " When I am weak,
then am I strong." And we cannot wonder that to the
mere children of nature then, as to men and women
of the mere natural reason still, such a saying was a
riddle, with hardly a clue to its meaning.

The meaning is that in order to get very near to God,
or to let the glorious attractions of almighty love and
light lay hold of us, and lift us up, — we must be somehow
impoverished first, belittled, disappointed, baffled, weak-
ened. Whereas we had imagined we were strong in
proportion as we could make our own way, it turns out,
quite to the contrary, that we are really strong in pro-
portion as we are conscious of needing and receiving
help from above us, as we feel dependent on the Divine
Man, and keep our hearts open to His inward-working
power. Whereas we thought, with those old pagans, that
we should be strong by pride, it proves that pride is just
the feeblest thing in us, and that we must be emptied
clean of it before we can be sure of any real lionor, —
because pride separates us effectually from the fountain
of inward life. Whereas a growing fortune, or a lucra-

234 STRENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS.

tive business, seemed to be a means of safety, it turns
out that this depends altogether on tlie man who holds
it, and the spirit in which he uses it ; and that unless he
can do without it, or give it away, when God calls him,
he is as weak as that very promising young man, —
promising, but only promising, — who came to Jesus
complacent, but went away mortified ; — a moral failure.
Whereas a robust body and sharp senses looked like
strength, the true powers of a glorious manhood are quite
as apt to be manifest in men of broken health or slender
constitutions. At any rate, by the Christian plan of life,
we must begiu with penitence, or sorrow for the past ;
and what is that but a confession of weakness ? We
must become as little children, in feeling, the Saviour
says ; and what is childhood but dependence ? We must
take up a cross ; and that is a taking dowij of the selfish
part. We must believe ; and faith is an acknowledg-
ment that we are not sufficient to ourselves. So this
new kingdom begins in this wonderful way. " When I am
weak, then am I strong." Obstacles, sicknesses, losses,
defeats of our plans, the breakings up of our securities,
are God's opportunities; and He knows how to use
them. We watch the course of our lives, and we see
that what is best has generally come by self-subjection.
And at last our experience answers to this mystical
account given of the heroes of the Bible, — " Out of
weakness they were made strong."

St. Paul finds it necessary for once to vindicate his
apostleship, and in order to that, a rare thing with him,
to vindicate himself. After alluding to certain extra-
ordinary revelations which had lifted him into the third
heaven, and would naturally tempt him to religious
vanity, he emphatically discards any such presumption,
and goes on to say that he counts it a signal blessing

STRENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS. 235

that he has always been kept down and saved from self-
confidence by bodily disadvantages. "What this " thorn
in the flesh " was he does not mention ; the Corinthians
he was writing to knew : — a weak voice, possibly, — weak
eyes, more likely, — for he several times alludes to his eyes
pathetically; and if they were permanently hurt by
the intense light at Damascus, he might very well say
of them, "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord
Jesus : — let no man trouble me." (Jewish traditions refer
it to convulsions.) At any rate it prevented his presence
being admired, limited his powers as an orator, and
quenched the hopes of public ambition. He felt it the
more because by temperament he evidently relished
great natural vigor. He knew, too, with his "like
passions," that the men he preached to had a habit of
sneering at physical disfigurements. Of course they
would take occasion from his infirmity to disparage his
ministry and discredit his message. And so he reached
this trium^i of self-humiliation, — our special Lenten
grace, — only by a tremendous struggle. He carried it,
as his devout spirit took everything, into his prayers.
Probably he put his petition on the ground that his
deformity abridged his usefulness as a preacher. So we
all pray when we are not quite clear whether we are
thinking more of God's glory or of our own comfort :
in other words, whether it is simple faith or a disgusted
self-will that prompts the supplication. As with Peter,
and with Christ, the tempter came three times. Three
times Paul besought the Lord that the vexation might
depart from him. For some mysterious purpose it was
God's plan that it should remain. But then there rang
in his ears an answer to that supplication which thrilled
his soul more profoundly, and awoke in him a far more
comforting assurance that he was answered, than if a

236 STRENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS.

miracle had instantly healed every disordered fibre in his
frame. The Lord said, " My grace is sufficient for thee."
This trial must continue and try thee still ; to take it away
would be to imperil the purity of that human vessel which
I am refining to carry the treasure of eternal life to the
gentile world, but My imparted grace shall continue too,
and never fail. Be that sufficient for thee. Let the
thorn still sting the flesh. It will not weaken, nay, it
will stimulate and redouble the real power.

Now if this had been a sentence spoken for efiect,
it would be a paradox in rhetoric, and nothing more.
Coming from the lips of our Lord, it declares a principle
of all Christian life and growth. On the one side we
see feebleness, trembling, ignorance, perplexity, a dying
body, earthen vessels : — on the other side, strength, cour-
age, the demonstration of the Spirit, the excellency of the
power, the immortal life of Christ. In that contrast,
made a personal experience in our Christian discipline,
lie the trial of character, the ministry of ^temptation,
the shame and splendor of the cross, and the victory of
faith which overcometh the world.

Something like this we are continually seeing, as the
common working of God's Spirit, in the characters of
men. Not one in fifty of those who have their hearts
made alive and earnest for Christian service are led that
way by increased prosperity ; by high health ; by having
their own way ; by any personal advantages whatever.
Most of us must have seen man after man, yes, score of
men after score of men, and it is a sad sight enough, who
have once taken up a Christian's work, and vowed them-
selves to Christ at His altar, grow negligent of religious
duty, and gradually relax all the exercises of a good
soldier of the Cross, just in proportion as they flourished
in business, rose in office, took what might be called an

STRENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS. 237

easy place in the world, or became "strong" in the
world's sense. Accordingly we are just in the best way
of being made secure when we are cast on rough con-
ditions. Poor boys from the country, with their whole
wordly estate swinging in a small satchel at their side,
are the strong-handed builders of institutions, roads,
cities, ships, and become masters of all the grand enter-
prises of the world. David was a great deal stronger
when he was a stripling with a ruddy face, coming up
from the brook with a few stones for his sling, or when he
was a hunted exile, flying from one rocky hiding-place to
another, or when he was on his knees pouring out of a
broken heart the fifty-first psalm, than when he sat in
purple on his throne, and in the fulness of his table for-
got his Maker, and had to tremble before the prophet.
How many there are who first take firmly hold of the
everlasting Hand, when they have felt all around them
in the dark and could find no other hand ! A man of
business on the full current of success, a fortune at his
command, and a multitude dependent on him, looks
strong no doubt to himself, and to other men. But some
day he goes home from his office with a strange weakness
in his frame ; he creeps up to his chamber with it ; he
lies on his bed and is faint under it ; his business goes
on well enough without him ; and weeks after, when his
flesh and his will and his pride are all worn down, he tells
you, with an accent that has such a sound of reality in it
as you have heard in nothing he ever said before, that all
his past career has been a superficial and miserable mis-
take, because obedience to Christ, and self-surrender to
His holy will, were not in him. In his weakness he is
for the first time strong. A woman moves in brilliant
circles, admired, accomplished, obeyed : for there is a
certain sway that seems like power. But changes of

238 STRENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS.

fortune shut her up in a narrow estate ; they unclasp her
jewels ; set her to tending fretful invalids, teaching
dull children, or dragging a feeble frame through the
drudgeries of some hard lot; all the radiant visions
vanished. But there has risen, meantime, another
vision : the open way of life, and the light that is on the
Face of the crucified. A voice has been heard saying,
" Thou art mine ; forgiven ; redeemed ; My daughter ; I
am with thee in thy poverty, made poor Myself for thy
sake; My grace is sufiicient for thee; no man shall
pluck thee out of My hand." And now her day of
power has come, and with power, perfect peace.

Familiar instances, — you say. Yes, very familiar.
Look where we will, the proofs will multiply upon us that
here is a great law of the Divine discipline with men, —
not wholly confined indeed to spiritual things, but most
brightly manifest there and yielding its most blessed
fruits there. By some means or other passion, pride,
self-will, — the "strong men armed" that keep this
world's house, — must be turned out before the King of
Glory can come in. We might, no doubt, if we would,
let God's goodness lead us to repentance ; we might, if
we would, grow straight up and go straight on in the
path of the justified. But, humiliating as it is, most
of us have to be scourged into our rest. The sunshine
of the Lord's love is not let in on many eyes till the
walls of the house we trusted are shaken apart. As an
old English poet wrote,

"The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through ciiinks that time has made."

You see St. Paul before his conversion, with his com-
manding intellect and iron will swinging his sword from
city to city to strike down Christian disciples, every-

STRENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS. 239

thing else in him powerful but charity : and yet it is
only when he is sitting in darkness, or led about by
another's hand, sightless, helpless, that his passions grow
cool, his heart's flesh comes like the flesh of a little
child, and the power of Christ rises in his soul. Blind-
ness, solitude, humility, these stern hands fashion him
into that" brave and irresistible leader of the Church
whom all the swords and dungeons between Syria and
Spain cannot terrify or silence. Elijah must hunger;
John the Baptist must eat locusts and wild honey in the
desert; the twelve must leave their homes and their
property; St. Peter must weep bitterly — before they
can be mighty witnesses, standing before kings.
Nay more : the King himself, in the beautiful language
of the Yisitation Office, " went not up to joy, but first
He suffered pain." Our infirmities are the springs of
our victories, — and hence, that we might be made con-
querors through Him, He took our infirmities upon Him.

Perhaps something in us prompts us to answer, " This
is a very strange order of things. Why should it be so ?
"Why should not the full health and vigor of all parts of
our nature go on and ripen harmoniously together?
Health is certainly the normal state of man. Property
is useful. Why should we have to be spoilt in one part
of us to strengthen another part ? Something must be
the matter."

Exactly so ; something is the matter, and that some-
thing is the bitter cause of all the misery, the pain, the
disappointment, the emptiness and aching of heart in the
children of men. It is the sin that doth so easily beset
us. God's loving order was disturbed because a hateful
human disorder came in, and has never gone out.
Therefore the way to life must be just what it is: —
through suffering to peace ; through a wilderness to the

240 STRENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS.

land of olive gardens ; through fort^^Lenten days to a
resurrection jubilee day ; through loneliness, self-disgust,
and emptiness into the city of the living God, and ful-
ness of joy.

Remember, strength will be poured into our breasts
from God, provided only the bar that keeps it out is
taken down. God is always love. If ye, human parents,
know how to give good gifts unto your children, how
much more the Heavenly Father ! Only one thing is
wanting, that the two bolts, — self-will and self-indulgence,
— be weakened till they give way. Weaken them, my
friends ; weaken them in every way, — by self-reproach,
by discipline, by taking up a cross, by fasting, by doing
duties that you dislike to do, by disinterested work for
other men, and the blessed energy of the Spirit will flow
in. In your weakness God's strength will be made per-
fect. And then you will know, with St. Paul, what it is
to glory in tribulations. Then you will learn to entertain
sickness and sorrow in your houses as the royal ambassa-
dors of the King of Peace. At first Paul called his thorn
a messenger of Satan buffeting him. After he found out
why it came, he called it a gift, a love token, a sign of
heavenly favor from his Master. If Satan's angels are
sometimes clothed as angels of light, why not God's angels
in shadows ? If it keeps you humble, the thorn is finally
woven into the crown of rejoicing. O blessed infirmities,
blemishes, ugliness, pain, poor success, mortified ambition,
ye are prophets and heralds of salvation ; ye are our se-
curities from deeper and more lasting shame ! "We ought
to learn some anthems to sing your honors as pledges of
our heavenly deliverance. To accept bodily pain, or an
insignificant reputation, or a ruined plan, even after hav-
ing prayed against it, as the veiled minister of mercy, and
heartily to give thanks for the scourge, — this is to have

STRENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS. 241

Christ formed hy faith within. It opens the interpreta-
tion of that wonderful saying : — " Always bearing about
in tlie body tlie dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life
of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh."

In a prayer repeated since last Sunday, all through
this week, the Church makes us bold enough to ask for
"abstinence," that "the flesh may be subdued to the
spirit." The ground we have gone over brings us to
the basis of all this penitence and self-denial. It lies in
our nature and constitution as well as in the Scriptures.

Finally, you may turn to society at large. Look at a
whole city, in the full tide of commercial prosperity and
social indulgence. Abundance shall run down all the
streets like rivers of water. Every scene of entertain-
ment, from the glittering play-house to the lowest haunt
of dissipation, shall be nightly thronged and illuminated.
The men shall build palaces as playthings, and the
women string diamonds as beads. The talk of the town
shall be of the last night's brilliancy and jewelry, raiment
and banquet. Night itself shall be turned into day,
not for vigils of prayer or praises of the Great Bene-
factor,— if that were done the whole .population would
lauirh aloud at the fanaticism, — but it shall be done
night after night for frivolity, for dancing and eating
and drinking, for this world's god, and no lip shall sneer
at it. There shall be wealth enough for all this ; and
every new form of ostentation, and every new avenue
of traffic, and every addition to the trappings of a material
estate that wealth could provide, shall heighten the
pomp. Now, would this be the strong city ? What are
the attributes of strength? Self-command, courage,
filth, endurance, moderation : these are the signs of
A?;m^?i strength. Has it these? God alone, the Ahnighty,
is the source of strength ; and that city alone is strong

16

242 STRENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS.

of which it can be said that " God is in the midst of
her." Can it be said of that city ? Character is strength,
and there is no character there. It is weakness at the
foundation, weakness in the superstructure, weakness at
tlie gates ; weakness in the cliambers ; weakness at the
heart. You have read history ; and you know whether
Tyre and Babylon and Rome just before they fell were
strong.

Turn from that spectacle to another. By some Provi-
dence, the city is humbled. Its face is sober and
thoughtful. Manners are simple ; dress is plain ; indus-
try is more plentiful than entertainment; luxuries are
not seen, but charities are abundant ; its sanctuaries are
thronged ; its nights are still ; its people are walking with
God ; its children's indulgence is restrained. Wisdom
is the ornament of grace about its neck. There are
household prayers in all the houses. Righteousness is
its law ; and God is its king. Here is strength : " Clean
hands and a pure heart." Strong as well as happy is that
people whose God is the Lord.

Man is not strongest when his head is full of dreams
and calculations of gain, his heart full of promotion and
admiration, his hand full of this world's gifts, and his
month full of meat and wine. He is strong when he
rules his spirit; strong when he works, and consecrates
his work to God ; strong when he is on his knees ; strong
wlien he forgets himself, and lives in the spirit of the
apostle's declaration: "It is no more I that live, but
Christ liveth in me."

A HEAVENLY MIND HEEE.

Fifth Sunday in Lent.

**FoR our conversation is in heaven." — Philippians iii. 20.

Whatever apparent incompatibility there may be
between having a residence in one world and a conver-
sation in another, the religion of Christ boldly meets
that difficulty and puts it out of the way. A life which
reconciles these contradictory things is not only possible
but is the practical object and the triumph of every
Christian man. Not only apostles but the whole con-
gregation, not only mhiisters but men of business and
young people, can have their conversation in heaven
every day and be none the weaker for it, but greatly
stronger, for all the work of this world.

A case easily supposed will illustrate St. Paul's mean-
ing ; and it is suggested by the word translated in the
text " conversation." The actual sense of that word, as
he wrote it, is citizenship. In the old English of the
Bible and Prayer Book, a man's " conversation " meant
not the mere act of his tongue, but the entire expression
of his life in conduct, and so it revealed to what king-
dom his heart belonged. An American agent or ambas-
sador has a temporary dwelling in Athens. Living on
that foreign soil, occupied daily, for the time, with its
local aifairs, respectful to its institutions, a good neighbor,
he never forgets his allegiance to a distant republic.

244 A HEAVENLY MIND HERE.

Tlie landscape about him may show a beauty that wins
his admiration ; the Greek faces and manners and hos-
pitalities may gain his good-will ; yet they are not those
of his native land. He remembers that his stay is short ;
sometimes he is homesick ; he expects to be called back,
not long hence, where his treasure is laid up and his
untravelled heart abides ; he is a stranger and sojourner,
away from home.

This simple comparison answers the better, because it
shows that when our faith commands us to have our
conversation in heaven it does not require us to be
bad citizens of the world where we now are. We are
not bidden to be absent minded ; if we were we should
do poor w^ork here, and lead ineffectual lives. The
man may form hearty attachments where he tarries ; he
may pay willing tribute to the city that temporarily
befriends him ; he may live cheerfully and helpfully,
neither a complaining guest nor a fastidious and sullen
recluse. And yet, none the less, as the Epistle to the
Hebrews so grandly says of the patriarch who is the
type of the Christian believer, he desires always a better
country, which he knows, — a " city " first in his honor,
dearer to his love, and always in his hopes. So Christ,
by His doctrine and spirit, reconciles a regular and
happy labor among the fields and streets and markets
of this world with a constant recollection that we have
an eternal citizenship above it. He teaches here, as He
taught at Nazareth and Jerusalem, in the fishing-boats
and on the mount, and as it had never been taught
before, that we can be religiously faithful to every
present -relationship, and yet never forget that celestial
patriotism which keeps us obedient to " the powers of
the world to come." "We can be busy, neighborly,
charitable, enterprising, getting our livelihood, making

A HEAVENLY MIND HERE. 245

some eartlily spot more beautiful as well as more right-
eous, and all the time " looking for and hastening unto "
an immortality infinitely better, — wearing on our whole
manhood or womanhood the stamp of a consecrated pur-
pose and an unworldly secret in the soul. No man liv-
ing to himself, no man dying to himself, life and death
are both transfigured by an indestructible communion
with an invisible Friend and Lord. We can^ by the
Spirit's help, be in the world without "minding"
earthly things selfishly, greedily, ambitiously, or irre-
ligiously. This is the original glory of our Christian
estate, and nothing less than this is our personal calling,
as learners in Christ's school and worshippers in His
Church.

I say, the glory is original. Till Christ came, this
majestic fact in our condition, that our little human tent
here is overarched by an infinite heaven of light and
love which really opens and pours down a living in-
fluence upon us, scarcely anywhere broke through the
pagan shadows. It neither lightened the dull monotony
of mortal labor nor consoled the bitterness and blindness
of mortal sorrow. Here and there, in some half-awakened
soul, there was a religious dream or guess, — some glim-
mer of the light that was to rise on rich and poor alike, —
some Athenian thinker, such as Paul found " feeling after
God, if haply he might find Him," — some solitary flash
like the stoic maxim, " Deny thyself and aspire," almost
worthy of the Son of Man, — some morning-star like the
reason of Plato. But these harbingers of the day only
cast slender streaks on a few hill-tops, showing how broad
and deep the darkness lay on all the lands below. Men
looked downward at matter, or else across the surface of
the earth on their own level, and their " conversation " was
of its wars and lusts. It was a civilization boru of appetite

246 A HEAVENLY MIND HERE.

and self-will, suckled by a wolf, bred in battles, glori-
fied in statues and epics splendid in form but barbarian
in subject and spirit. In all the Asiatic pomp there was
not one house of charity for sickness, insanity, orphan-
age, or old age; in the Alexandrian science not one
school of virtue or lesson of pure self-renunciation ; in
the Greek beautj^ no beauty of holiness ; in the disci-
pline of Roman armies not one crucifixion of the flesh to
the heavenly law of righteousness. " The law of the
members," as the Epistle to those very Romans so graph-
ically calls it, ruled the race : — the " law of the spirit of
life in Christ Jesus " had not come. The city they called
" eternal " was rotting into ruins, and the " citizenship,"
or " conversation," was far this side of heaven. How the
errors of the mind, when let loose from the obedience of
Faith, run round in circles and return! One of the
audacities of modern sceptical speculation, reported from
France, is a proposition that science may so dispense
with the Almighty as, among the achievements of the
future, to take command of the forces of nature, stop
the process of decay, and insure the globe itself against
the waste of time and the judgment for its sins. You
call it the babbling blasphemy of fools. But it is the
logical termination of human thought, cut off by itself
from God, living an utterly earthly life. In the midst
of such a society as that we see Christ's great convert
to the cross standing and saying, " Our conversation is
in heaven."

The earthly and the heavenly mind^ then. The choice
between these two is what our Gospel, with its anxious
earnestness, is pressing on our conscience.

"What hinders? First it is said, with an accent of
complacent cleverness, " We must take the world as it is :
there is no use of flying in the face of an immense major-

A HEAVENLY MIND HERE. 247

ity : no scattered picket-guard of saints, however pure,
can make head against this tremendous mass of world-
liness, especially in crowded and eager centres of popu-
lation. Your ideal is lovely : it is well enough to hold
it up in church, a seventh-day picture of impossible
sanctity. But while we live in an earthly commonwealth,
if we expect to get 07i with it^ we must keep on pleasant
terms with it, sit at its feasts, drink its health, and not
be over-critical as to its principles."

If this answer were valid, it would settle the whole
question at once, on the anti-Christian side. The Church
would be an organized failure. Instead of a fearless
witnessing for Christ, and fighting against wrong, we
should have a supple and cowardly system of mutual
compromises and flatteries. Men and women would go
into society to learn how to live down to each other's
weaknesses and prejudices. Christian salvation would
be an amiable dream, and moral courage a romantic
Action. But then, even the common, careless mind has
a deeper-toned conviction than this. There rise up
before us all images of heavenly-minded persons whom
we have known. Most people know enough of the
story of the past to know that its principal grandeurs
and glories have gathered about the heads of a few brave
and suffering and rather solitary men, who have earned
their immortal names by standing out against the fash-
ionable corruptions and falsehoods of their times.
Inward voices respond in almost every breast to the
righteousness of this order of souls, whether many or
few. Before they give away their manhood for the sake
of getting on with the world, some citizens will inquire
to what end the world is getting on. And then, what-
ever we do or say, the Word of God refuses to be altered,
and that from first to last tells us not only that

248 A HEAVENLY MIND HERE.

we can, but that we must, unless Af e mean to die eter-
nally, live above the world while we live in it.

Besides, falsehood and sensuality were never yet prev-
alent enough or popular enough, anywhere, in Babylon,
or Corinth, or Vienna, or Paris, or here, to incapacitate
any soul for a clean and godly life, if that soul chose
and willed, religiously, to live it. However low the
reigning tone of morals about you, in club, or brokers'
board, or ball-room, or political cabal, yet in your clearer
moments you feel that your freedom is not crippled, your
independence not crushed, your power to strike out and
keep up a line of consistent Christian action not abro-
gated or subdued. Though nineteen out of twenty fall
disgraced, you are able to be the twentieth and stand
upright. If offences must come, you can refuse to be the
offender, and refuse successfully to the end, because the
Almighty is on that side, giving both secret inspirations
and a shield that no temptation can pierce through and
no bankruptcy can break. " Faithful found among the
faithless" is the record of many a noble and modest
citizen here, true to his secular trusts, as well as of the
steadfast seraph Abdiel wearing his crown in heaven.
All the crimes and scandals which debase high places,
till it seems as if no places would be high very long, ought
not to tempt us to forget the ten righteous in a city
that save it in spite of the ten thousand that are willing
it should be lost, and to be lost with it.

And further, nothing in society or custom takes off
the wrong-doer's sin, or its retribution; numbers, situa-
tion, opportunity, example, rulers and chief-priests,
being utterly incompetent to alter an iota the eternal
contradiction between wrong and right. They may color
or drape or baptize wrong-doing, but they never change
its essence. The citizen in a bad community who does

A HEAVENLY MIND HEEE. 249

nothing, says nothing, gives nothing, to purify its iniqui-
ties, cannot say, " This is a very wicked place, but tliat is
nothing to me ; it allows horrible abuses and facilities
for profligacy, but that is not my concern ; / have no son
or daughter to lose temperance or modesty; extrava-
gance and dissipation are shockingly conspicuous, but
that is no reason why I should not indulge myself
privately if I please." He cannot say that, because in
that heaven where his heart ought to turn every day,
there lives a God with whom multitudes of people, and
established usages, and municipal officers, and polite
concealments, are not of the least account ; to whom
there is no privacy, and from wdiom no secrets, of chamber
or alley or intrigue or fraud, are hid. No more can
a dishonest merchant excuse himself by quoting unscru-
pulous or accommodating maxims of trade, and say-
ing, " My business is adjusted to the moral scale of my
class ; as long as I am up to the average mark I am safe ;
if I do bring up my sons or my clerks to take advan-
tages which will not bear daylight, — that is the fault of
commerce, and not mine." He cannot say that, because
neither buyer nor seller, or the board of trade, makes the
moral law or modifies it; and God has set you down
there, an individual soul, on purpose to bear testimony,
by straight accounts and fair bargains, against the vast
and evil thing, and not to hide behind it. The partisan,
in Church or State, cannot say, " Heckon with my
party, not with me." He has, if not a citizenship, a
judge in a country where he must reckon, without his
party, for what he helped make his party to be. "We
who take our shameful part so easily in petty apologies
and artifices and winkings at social laxity, cannot say,
at the Divine tribunal, "Blame society; — I only went
with the rest, and was no worse than they." For God's

250 A HEAVENLY MIND HERE.

practical Truth will answer us, How then is Christ's
kingdom ever to come ? How is the load of the w^orld's
iniquity ever to be thrown off? You may presume
that these sins will continue, do what you will, — and
that may be true. Offences will come, but " woe to that
man by whom they come."

Before it has done, Christianity means undoubtedly to
reach society, on the broad scale ; but it must reach it
through persons, gathered one by one into its own heav-
enly '' citizenship." It has to do wdth conviction, affec-
tion, faith ; and these are always properties of persons
before they can be of nations or communities. The
Saviour did not publish a plan of political reform, or a
schedule of social science. Meeting His countrymen in
little groups, or one by one, as they came. He sliowed
them what was in His heart, and showed them the
ineffable' beauty of a holy and blessed " conversation "
with His Father, while they were yet fishermen and pub-
licans, and reapers and water-carriers, about their houses
and fields. So began the everlasting empire and the
everlasting age of righteousness through love, which
was in time to lift itself over the palaces at Constanti-
nople and Home. Before men knew it. He had planted
a kingdom to fill and possess the earth, — ^planted it just
where alone it could be planted, in the living heart and
will of certain individuals who had ceased minding
earthly things, or minded heavenly things far more.
And so, precisely. He meets us to-day. With all His
spirit of sacrifice and mighty power of redemption,
with the cross on His shoulders and the scar in His side,
He comes to each one of us, and speaks. We all desire
to have America a Christian country. Then we must
be Christian men in America. We would all, I am
sure, have ours a Church practically Christian, in the

A HEAVENLY MIND HERE. 251

power of the Spirit and in all holy and charitable action,
arising and shining on tlie tops of the mountains, like an
army with peaceable banners. Then we must be Chris-
tian members of it, in conviction, in principle, in what
we do and what we refuse to do, in the company we
keep and the company we let alone, sustaining as
consistently as we can, and without ostentation, a heav-
enly conversation. Precisely the strength of our practi-
cal endeavor to do this will be the measure of our
Christian sincerity and progress.

My friends, there is a particular reason for these
thoughts. There are, doubtless, persons in this House
who have not consciously made up their minds to keep
God's commandments out and out, through and through,
asking God for help, — and yet they would be shocked at
the idea of our social life returning to barbarism. There
are others farther on, nominally Christian, publicly com-
plimenting general religion and applauding Christian
institutions, without pretending to conform their person-
al practice to Christ's law of spiritual life. This notion
that we are any safer or any better for living in a land
of a professed Christianity, whose principles we daily
ignore and whose most sacred duties we shuffle aside, is
one of those delusions that show their absurdity the
moment they are noted in language. What our most
intelligent Christians need to realize fxr more clearly than
they do is that every scheme attempting to cure the bad
morals of the people comes short and must tail, unless it
goes down to the root and heart of the matter by begin-
ning with faith in God, and putting the soul into a direct
and earnest conversation with Him.

In these times the Faith is put back and kept down
not so much by persecution as by corruption. AVe live
in days of indulgence, and days of education, and so

252 A HEAVENLY MIND HERE.

temptation comes in under physical and literary luxury.
Ever since Eve's parley with Satan in Eden it has been
the strategy of evil to gain admission v^ithout having its
character suspected. If the moral sense is obstinate and
will not yield, teach it to call evil goo.d. If conscience
defies a sword, drug it with narcotics. This is the gen-
eralship that captures a besieged city by poisoning the
fountains at which the people drink, when the walls are
too thick to be battered down by assault. Once radically
unsettle a man's mind as to the obligations of duty, and
you work a far more comprehensive depravity in him
than by only enticing him now and then into single bad
actions, against which his conscience continues to cry
out. You make him the servant of all unclean work in
the household of the senses. If, by listening to the
sophistry of the appetites, I can really come to believe
that things are tolerable which God has declared sinful,
I see no breakwater after that to keep the whole muddy
sea of sensuality from pouring its foul flood over me.
For as the whole quality of a Christian liqs in the choice
of the hearty so the lowest and last perdition is wdiere the
very faculty of choice is perverted. As this deteriora-
tion goes on, so gradual is it that we have to look over a
long interval to mark the steps of the decline. It is
vain to deny, for instance, that respectable families allow
their sons and daughters the forms of social liberty which
fifty years ago their wiser fathers w^ould have been
ashamed of, and which now yield no particle of addi-
tion to their joy or honor. There are encroaching irrev-
erences that take down, little by little, the strict and
holy standard wdiich keeps the soul near to Christ, and
which, like the flying fiery cross among the faithful
Highlanders, should recall brave hearts to the front-
places in the Christian fight. These are the perils to be

A HEAVENLY MIND HEKE. 253

watched if our Christian stability, our civil order, our
public virtue, our Church of Clirist are to stand fast, or
our own souls are to live.

And so the true confessors of this age are the men and
women who exercise their consciences day by day to dis-
cern between evil and good ; men and women who
replenish their spiritual strength by prayers in their
families, and prayers in their closets ; souls that keep so
far back within the entrenchments of a heavenly citizen-
ship as to be out of all risk of slipping over into dishonor;
men of business that will not take a second look at the
tempter for an additional thousand in their year's income ;
young men who will sooner resign profitable places
and turn to less tasteful work than let an initiation into
meanness and lying be a part of their training to
" success " ; women who choose that good part with
Mary's Friend, rather than wade through anbiguities
neck-deep to conquests of social ambition ; children that
would rather be laughed at than disobey, and rather mas-
ter their passions than each other : — all souls that have
made the glorious choice between Christ and this world,
while in this world, these are they that live heavenly
lives, and make this world heavenlike.

There are certainly two worlds within us, as well as
earth and heaven without us ; and one of them is apt to
get the mastery and press the other down. Take as the
divine image of the one of these, the Saviour's sacramental
prayers in the seventeenth chapter of St. John, or St.
Paul's description, at the close of the eighth to the
Romans, of the love of God, from which neither life nor
death will separate him. For the other take any un-
believing sensualist's frank testimony: — take Lord Ches-
terfield's, who was a type of his class. " I have run," he
says, " the rounds of business and pleasure, and have

254: A HEAVENLY MIND HEEE.

done with them all. Shall I tell jou that I bear this
melancholy situation with resignation ? ]^o ; I bear it
because I must. I think of nothing but killing time,
now it has become my enemy, and my resolution is to
sleep in the carriage to the end of the journey." ^ow to
say nothing of what happens when the journey ends, and
of the waking out of sleep, and of the new question that
will rise before a man who has so poorly succeeded in
killing time, that time killed him, — viz., how to kill
eternity, — leaving all that, we see the contradiction
between the two worlds complete. The warfare between
the principles that lie at the roots of them is a deadly
warfare, and still it goes on.

It has gone on another season. All around you the
lower life has had more than its share. This is not a
professional judgment. It comes from those who live in
the midst of it. The tide runs over-fast, and over-full.
This world has had enough, too much, for a nation need-
ing regeneration as much as ours ; too much for a Church
which is yet a Church in the wilderness ; too much for
earnest followers of a Master who hungered and
sorrowed for them, owing all they have to Him. Look
up, above it. Set your hurried waj's and self-delighting
houses into a holier order. Keep under the body, and
bring it into subjection. Standing in these Lenten days
under the shadow of the cross, gather clear-sightedness,
iind inward power, and by dying to sin live unto God.

SPIEITUAL WASTE AND WEALTH.
Palm Sunday^ or Sunday hefore Easter,

" He that gathereth not with Me scattereth."— /S'^. Luke xi. 23.

In the material economy no such rule is laid down ;
no such necessity exists. We can fold our hands and
stand still, neither scattering nor gathering. We can
direct our energies or withhold them. In all that sphere
of life which man holds in common with the inferior
animal orders he can expend his force here or there
without being said to rob merely because he does not
give.

But when we rise into the range of relations that
are spiritual we pass under a new and peculiar law.
Freedom remains. It is enlarged. But irrespective of
our own arrangement, we find we are subject to this
condition, in respect to one Supreme Spirit, — that if we
are not serving Him we are wronging Him ; if we are
not working in the line of His loving and bountiful
plans, we are striving against Him ; if we are not gath-
ering with Him, — gathering wisdom and strength and
purity and greater capacity for good and other " fruit
unto everlasting life," — then we are wasting what belongs
to Him. We are in a necessary stewardship, and this is
one of its laws. The law may look exacting in the
statement, but it is glorious in its operation. Neutrality,

256 SPEBITUAL WASTE AND WEALTH.

not only in the posture of our affections, but in the use
of our active powers, is impossible.

Not far from each of the great scenes of our Saviour's
ministry tliere was a third party, taking no apparent
share in the transaction. Those that sided openly with
Him and publicly confessed their loyalty, on the one
hand, and those that expressly opposed Him, on the
other, became of course conspicuous in the conflicts that
sprang up about Him. By their direct opposition to
each other. Apostles and Pharisees, the family at
Bethany and the Council at Jerusalem, John and Judas,
Zaccheus and Herod, Joseph of Arimathea and Pilate,
immediately suggest to us two distinct classes of people,
— the friends and the enemies of the Son of God.
Decided convictions always throw men into definite
positions.

ISTear by, however, you might always find another
class, more numerous, probably, than either of them.
They are not brought forward into notice, because no
real interest or choice brought them visibly into the
struggle that was going on. Other things absorbed their
attention. This Divine, disinterested Redeemer, who
had come from heaven to speak to what was deepest and
best in their hearts, to take all their burdens and sick-
nesses upon Himself that He might call them more
effectually to honor and immortality, was walking their
streets and waiting at their doors. It was told along the
highways, in villages and cities, " Jesus of Nazareth
is passing by." They neither hindered nor followed
Him. The routine of the day's business, family festivi-
ties, social pleasure, bargains to be begun or closed in
tbe market, each one's little busy world of care or dis-
play or profit, was enough. What if the Lord of all
life, the Healer of all miseries, and final Judge of all

SPIRITUAL WASTE AND WEALTH. 257

souls, is passing by ? Let Him pass. Give us a little
more of this world ; give us the meat that perislieth ;
give us popular envy and ascendency ; give us to-day's
abundance. What is Nazareth or its Prophet to us ?
Answer Him as He stands at the door and knocks, and
tell Him there is no room for Him in our houses ; we
are engaged and cannot see Him ; in this great tavern of
a world, as in the inn at Bethlehem, there is no room for
Him. The world ignores its King.

It was so on that strange, excited morning, at the be-
ginning of Passion-week, which this Palm Sunday com-
memorates. For some unexplained reason, there must be
the outward spectacle of a royal reception of the Messiah
into His own city. He comes unto His own nation, and
His own received Him not, because He came as a sacrifice
and a servant. Yet they must appear to receive him.
Hosannas, branches of the palm, the olive and the cedar,
torn from the trees, garments spread in the road, must
make up the wild and melancholy demonstration of a
hollow or at best a half-instinctive enthusiasm. Christ's
journey towards the cross begins with this sacrificial
anguish at the acclamations of a populace who knew not
what they did : — hosannas on their lips to-day, but mal-
edictions and " Crucify Him," five days hence ! Palm-
branches waving on the heights of Olivet one day,
slumbers of heavy eyes or careless vigils in the garden of
agony four days after ! In the midst of this jubilant
concourse. He wept. Here were the two parties then : —
a frenzied and mistaken multitude in the streets ; a plot-
ting and hating cabal of jealous rulers and scribes at the
court-room in the city. But, remember, between these,
and all around them both, was a greater company, that
we hear nothing about: indifferent, undecided; not
planning murder for the Nazarene, with the Pharisees ;

17

258 SPIRITUAL WASTE AND WEALTH.

not following in admiration with his friends ; but caring
for none of these things. Thes^ were travellers making
their way, that day, engrossed with their own affairs,
from Jerusalem out to Bethany, or on to Jericho, or
over to the Jordan, who only uttered an exclamation of
impatience or contempt that their way was blocked up,
and their business delayed, by this intruding stranger, —
just as men complain now when the Church interrupts
their traffic with her worship, or when Providence shuts
them into a sick-chamber that they may repent and lay
hold of life. Yery likely there were men and even
women there that He had healed once, or whose chil-
dren He had healed, who had gone back to their houses
to enjoy an ungrateful comfort, and to make a selfish
waste of the lives His mercy had lengthened out ; blind
men whose eyes He had opened, that looked upon every-
thing else than His blessed countenance ; withered hands
that He had made whole, which gathered not for His
garner, nor even reached out for a palm-branch to honor
Him ; tongues there, whose strings He had loosened,
that would not speak His name or join in the hosannas.
They probably imagined they took no part against Him.
They certainly took no part for Him, or against His
enemies.

It was so with the still more august and solemn events
that followed. It was so on the night of the Supper,
when the little band went out in silence, under the
Paschal moon, from the upper chamber to Gethsemane,
and when the soldiers, led by the traitor, crept into the
shaded garden with their torches, and fell to the ground
before the face of the Son of Man. It w^as so the day
after, when a few persons collected aBout the Judgment
Hall. It was so, later, from the sixth to the ninth hour,
when the sudden darkness and the earthquake startled

SPIRITUAL WASTE AND WEALTH. 259

the people witli the exclamation that the Lamb of God,
" slain from the foundation of the world," was dying.
It was so in the wonderful reports that filled the air,
Easter morning. It has been so ever since, in all the
Palm Sundays, all the Good Fridays and Easter Sun-
days, all the fasts and feasts, all the days of death and
burial, all the years, all the ages. It will be so this
coming week. The greater number are those that take
no open part for the Master or against Him. Doing
nothing, — by honest confession, by a brave enrolment,
by the obedience of faith, — to gather treasure for Christ,
they imagine they are doing nothing to scatter and
waste it.

He speaks to that large third class among you to-day.
If there is any question about that position, — as to its
rightfulness, or its safety, or where those that are trying
to hold it really belong, — does He not settle that ques-
tion by the text ? " He that gathereth not with Me
scattereth."

Just before, the evangelist says, Christ had been
speaking, with fearful emphasis, of the two hostile king-
doms, which forever confront each other in this world.
The strong one armed keepeth his own palace. He
will never surrender it, or one particle of it, in any
human soul, till a stronger than he, — and there is only
one stronger, — binds him. He will seem to surrender
it ; he will call it by some innocent name ; he will cover
it with a Christian title ; he will deceive, flatter, prom-
ise, and manage ; he will transform himself into an angel
of light ; but he will do it all to keep his own. Equally
exclusive, over against that dark kingdom, is the king-
dom of light : open, candid, without concealment or
evasion, rejoicing in the truth, all its deeds done in the
day, but admitting no admixture, no compromise, no

260 SPIRITUAL WASTE AND WEALTH.

neutrality. Everywhere, wliat fellowship hath light
with darkness? Anywhere, what part hath the true
subject with the traitor ? In every soul, these two king-
doms and their laws are contrary the one to the other.
It is remarkable, in all the Gospel, how invariable and
how clear Christ makes this doctrine of absolute and
necessary separation. There is no third party after all.
There is no place for one. Non-profession does not
make non-allegiance, or neutrality. It makes allegiance
to the enemy. It makes disloyalty. "He that is not
with Me is against Me."

The universality of this twofold law, therefore, and
the impossibility that any human being in Christendom
should so escape from it as to stand neither with God
nor with His enemies, is the iirst great truth of the sub-
ject. Into that sharp conflict that is going on between
the two kingdoms everything is drawn. Nobody lives ;
nothing by any moral agent, any man, is done ; nothing
is thought, written, spoken, built, bought or sold, begun
or finished, outside the field of that warfare and the
necessity of that choice.

The next truth to be remembered is our dangerous
liability to be deceived just at that point, i. e.^ to reckon
as harmless or safe courses of life that are really anti-
Christian. Between the Church and the dens of gam-
blers, drunkards, thieves, and profligates, between the
communion-table and the jail, there runs a broad strip of
moral territory, wearing a respectable look ; it seems to
belong neither to the one nor to the other. Why not
set up over that territory, including so much of business,
society, study, and so many people, the name of Chris-
tianity ? Why not let it pass as Christian ground, with
all its mixed companies, selfish passions, and worldly
practices ? " Heathenism " has a bad sound.

SPmmiAL WASTE AND WEALTH. 261

All this might very well be if Christ had not come
and revealed another law and another judgment. The
moment He appears, — and wherever the Gospel is
preached He does appear, — then separation begins.
Reveal to any commnnity a new trutli or propose a
new reform, and it acts at once as a touchstone of
their quality. According as they receive or reject it
they are driven apart. But when Christ comes, He
comes as the Lord of every soul that lives; the truth
He reveals is universal truth. He is not concerned
for a majority; He wants purity: "first pure, then
peaceable." The more He can gain, the more will
the infinite compassion of His loving heart rejoice;
but be the penitents and the believers many or few, the
repentance must be true, the faith hearty, the allegiance
above suspicion. So He says, " He that gathereth not
with Me scattereth." If there are any, here or else-
where, who think they do enough because they are not
positive opponents, mockers or infidels ; who think that,
because they never persecute, or revile, or take a traitor's
silver, or meet to plot with Scribes and Pharisees for
Herod, therefore they are not secretly fighting against
their eternal King, Christ here assigns them tlieir place
with terrible distinctness. Unlike the politic leaders of
earthly kingdoms, He fearlessly casts this middle-party
from Him, — that it may thereby become truly His. All
are scatterers that are not gatherers with Him. There is
a striking record, in the Book of Numbers, of a prophet
who tried, in perilous days, tc be on neither side, and pal-
tered with a double tongue between the true God and His
enemies ; but at last the issue between the two armies
could be no longer evaded, and, after the battle, the body
of this compromising neutral, Balaam, was found on the
enemy's side, where it fell fighting against the Lord.

262 spiEiTUAL waste" and wealth.

It is in this sense that Christ comes to put men and
families of men " at variance " with one another, — a
strange thing to be written of Him. It is not for divis-
ion's sake, but onlj that truth may not be confounded
with a lie, darkness be called light, and the very founda-
tions of all honor guilt. There can be no lasting harmony,
no healthy peace, but in Him in whom all things in
their unity consist.

" First pure, then peaceable." Man cannot be really
reconciled to man, save as he is first reconciled to his
God ; and there is only one Reconciler. In Him alone is
humanity restored, and man made one with his brother.
Not to gather with Him and for Him, is to divide and
scatter. It is He that "maketh men to be of one mind
in a house," in a nation, in a Church, in heaven.

This eternal doctrine needed never to be more plainly
repeated than now, when the contest is not with Baal
and Ashtaroth, Jupiter or Minerva, or any god of the old
mythologies, or with avowed infidelity, so much as with
a habit of dropping out, one by one, all the divine and
glorious elements of Christ's own peculiar kingdom, and
thinking to gather for human comfort or wealth, for
social or sanitary or literary " progress," without gather-
ing for Him. A few years ago a charitable sisterhood
for the benefit of the poor was established in London.
A writer in one of the public periodicals described a visit
he had made to their establishment, and after giving a
most interesting account of the self-denying labors of these
refined and delicately bred women, he says, "he was
curious to learn the motives that prompted them to take
up sacrifices so irksome and repulsive. lie supposed it
was human pity, or a natural benevolence toward the
beneficiaries; on inquiry he was surprised to find this
was not the case at all, but the strong principle which

SPIRITUAL WASTE AND WEALTH. 263

actuated tliem was a religions self-rennnciation for
Christ's sake." They loved the wretched and the poor
because they saw in them the objects of the Saviour's
tenderness, souls for wliich He died, immortal spirits
tliey were to meet hereafter in His kingdom wear-
ing His image. They gathered for Him. That is the
deepest, strongest, and only lasting power of good works.
"We may fancy we can substitute other things : amiability,
philanthropy, political economy, a material civilization :
— they are all excellent as jparts of Chrisfs kingdom,
but all weak, illusory, a mere scattering under the ap-
pearance of gathering, if they are taken apart from Him
and set up for a religion. The Gospel never admits for
a moment the possibility of such a thing as a Christianity
without Christ. It is not enough to keep the old name ;
we must cling to the Eternal Person, if we would live His
everlasting life.

O Divine Teacher and Prophet, persuade us of this !
Good Shepherd, who wouldst gather us all together
when we were scattered abroad ; Blessed Friend, who
wast for us when all else were against us, suffer us not to
be found indifferent, undecided ; for so we shall be found
against Thee !

All is wasted then that is not done with a heart of love?
and that toward God ; all time that is not spent foi
Him, — these days of busy labor, in trades and profes-
sions; these unsatisfying contortions of effort to be a
little richer, or a little more noticed, or to climb one
round more on the ladder that you will slip from the
instant death touches your fingers ; these plans, schemes,
travels, bargains, buildings ; — they look like gathering,
but they are only scattering, unless in the midst of them
all your character is daily built up, a spiritual house,
Jesus Christ himself being: the chief corner-stone.

264 SPERITUAL WASTE AND WEALTH.

Gather with Him and all the parts of jour life which are
yet alien or iniirm He will steadily draw into the unity
of His own Body, making it strong and pure and im-
mortal, knit together and making increase by the
edifj'ing of His love.

This morning, not with palms but with praises, we
welcome Christ as our King. He is our King ; we are
His subjects ; — but what kind of subjects ? decided or
wavering ? hiding the badge and colors of His calling, or
bravely confessing Him before the world ? Behold, thy
King Cometh ! Open to him the heart, the true Zion
where he loves to dwell ; otherwise He will look upon it
only to weep over it. Bring Him into the city of your
souls with the acclamations of a full faith, and follow
Him to His Passion with a sincere repentance, that you
may rise with Him, at his Kesurrection, into newness of
life.

THE WATEE AND THE BLOOD.

Good Friday,

" This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not
by water only, but by water and blood. — /. St. John v. 6.

By the form of tlie expression, " not by water only," —
it is implied that there are two beliefs as to the object
of Jesus Christ's coming into the world, — one of them
going beyond the other, and taking in something that
the other leaves out. St. John lived and wrote close to
the very heart of his Master. He rarely touches any-
thing that is not essential to the substance of the Gospel,
and he dwells most on what most distinguishes it from
other systems of religion.

In a few simple sentences this marvellously illumin-
ated mind has just thrown out some most profound
and comprehensive statements. " Whosoever believeth
that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God." " Wliosoever
is born of God overcometh the world." " By this we
know that we are the children of God, when we love God
and keep His commandments." " This is the victory
that overcometh the world, even our faith." Then he
goes on from this general doctrine to a more particular
definition of it. It is evidently in his mind that some
readers of what he is writing will say : — " But what is
this ^ faith ' ? Faith in what ? If it is a force so mighty
that it overcomes the world, it must have in it the divine

266 THE WATER AND THE BLOOD.

energy of Him who gives it. Who is He, and what is
the mysterious power of His coming which makes Him
the Giver of eternal life to those that believe, in all lands
and ages of the world ? "

He answers thus : — " It is He that came by water and
blood; not by water only, but by water and blood."
There were probably those then, there are certainly those
now, who would have no difficulty in accepting the main
facts of Christ's birth and biography, would admit Him
to be a memorable teacher, a reformer of society, a leader
among moralists and philanthropists ; but tliey would
allow nothing further in His claims, as the Head of the
Church or the Saviour of mankind. They would prob-
ably declare that nothing further was needed to make
men all that they ought to be.

So, even among those who are disposed to call them-
selves Christians, we meet these two classes ; and what
they differ about is just that august event at Calvary
which on this day millions of men are remembering.

As to the transaction itself, so much as this is almost
universally allowed, — that at a certain date in history,
Tiberias being emperor at Bome, a man called Jesus, of
Kazareth, of pure life, having the appearance of a
prophet, arraigning and rebuking fervently the prevail-
ing life of society around Him, and claiming a mysterious
connection with the One God, after a public career was
crucified in the obscure province of Judea, near the city
of Jerusalem, by the combined action of the imperial
and ecclesiastical authorities, assisted by a traitor among
His own followers. Along with this fact, so far away
from us in time and place, is commonly admitted
another, which rises at once into solitary majesty, and
becomes a matter of unspeakable personal concern. It
is that, in some way, following upon the crucifixion, and

THE WATER AND THE BLOOD. 267

springing from that spot, a steadily advancing wave of
spiritual, moral, and intellectual light went out, and has
been ever since spreading over the globe. The feelings*
and convictions, the institutions, the principles of per-
sonal action and the spirit of society, — what we call the
character of mankind, — have been changed and formed
anew from that hour. Mark this, too, especially, — this
change has been brought in the name of that Person. It
has not been a revolution of abstruse opinions or imper-
sonal ideas, like the progress of philosophy among the
Greeks, or the breaking up of mediaeval stagnation at the
crusades, or the transformation of European religion
in the sixteenth century, or the political theories of the
eighteenth and nineteenth; — it has always and every-
where gone on by a personal appeal, a personal loyalty,
a personal enthusiasm, — there is a better word yet, — a
personal faith towards that crucified Man, Christ Jesus.
There is no such name among men. It has made the
nations that have rceived it strong. The governing forces
of the world have not been superior to it ; almost the
whole line of commanding men, since the Caesars, have
acknowledged Him to be grqater than themselves, — hav-
ing a Lordship different in kind, and loftier in rank.

So much is almost universally granted. But, around
the cross where this Personage died, there stood four
groups or classes of men, representing very various
opinions of His actual title to honor. There were first
the people whom the Prayer Book, in the service of
this Good Friday, teaches us so tenderly to pray for ;
as the Saviour himself while on the cross, murdered by
their malignity, taught His whole Church Catholic to
pray for them, — the Jews. They treated His suffering
as a proper penalty for a disturber of the peace who
had promised to emancipate them from foreign masters,

268 THE WATER AND THE BLOOD.

but had provoked the aristocracy, and failed. A
second class, Romans and other strangers, looked on
with indifference, sneering, with Pilate's sarcasm, at a
fickle rabble so excitable as to pour out in a 2:)rocession
with palms and hosannas after a fiinatic, who five days
after takes His turn as a victim of their caprice. Thirdly,
friends in perplexity, amazed women, their hearts torn
with many kinds of pain, watched from a distance the
dear form where their gratitude and affection were
sacredly enshrined.

But, scattered among all these, few in number, and
yet the vanguard of a mighty army, unrecognized build-
ers of a kingdom that was to rise from that spot and
conquer and outlive every empire under the sun, there
were certain men on whose souls the truth had taken
hold. They knew very soon why their Master died,
and what it is to believe in the cross. Afterwards,
instructed by a risen Redeemer for forty days, they laid
the foundations, they drew the outlines, they set in order
the worship, and they spoke the creed of the Church, —
the Eternal House which should gather and shelter the
family of Christ. "When they are inquired of, what this
dying on the cross signifies, they answer, " This death was
not only the last crowning act of that most merciful and
life-giving life which began at Bethlehem ; it was more
than that; it was the opening of the door into life eternal
for men who had broken from their Father and were
spiritually dead ; it was a perfect offering of Love, obe-
dient to Law, for the sins of all mankind ; it was a sacri-
fice of atonement, of such ineffable and Divine power
that it melts away the wall of separation which the
transgressions of the race had built up, and opens the
kingdom of heaven to all believers. There was disobe-
dience everywhere. Four thousand years of Jewish and

THE WATER AND THE BLOOD. 269

Gentile self-rigliteousness had proved that there is no
self-recovering power in . humanity alone. That power
must be lodged in a Person who has in Him both of the
estranged natures that are to be reconciled to each
other ; — it must be a mediation between an everlasting
law of purity and right, which every man is concerned
in having kept honorable and inviolate, and the weak but
repenting soul, which has violated its commandment; —
it must be a suffering so free and so glorious in its charity
that it shall be a bond of union between believers,
mightier than the wall of partition which it broke down.
Be3^ond all the blessings of the Saviour's life among
men was the mediatorial mercy and reconciliation of
His death. So runs the teaching and testimony of the
Gospel, from first to last.

Each of the New Testament writers clothes this
truth in his own characteristic dress. St. John presents
it, with peculiar beauty, under the original image of the
text. Taking two of the most familiar substances of
the material world, — water and blood, — he turns them
into a figure of the great central doctrine of the Gospel
and the Church.

First the " water." Water is the emblem of spiritual
purification, because it is the common instrument of out-
ward washing. Our Lord himself, who was able to set
all symbols and all forms aside if He chose, went down
into the water, at the beginning of His life's work, in
order, we are told, that He might fulfil all righteousness.
He " came by water." There must have been weighty
reasons for this water-ceremony, so solemnly observed,
or He never could have made place for it among His
crowded days of teaching, healing, and comforting His
countrymen. He takes peculiar pains to say that every
Christian life must begin in the same way. " Except a

270 THE WATER AND THE BLOOD.

man be born of water and of the Spirit," — an outward
and an inward washing, — " he cannot enter into the king-
dom of God." Nothing plainer is written. " Go teach
the nations of the earth and baptize them," with water,
was His last commission, when His work was done.
" Repent, believe, and be baptized," with water, " every-
one of you," was the preaching that converted the world
and planted the Church. So it is that each individual
Christian life, as well as the whole body of Christ, after
Him, came " bv water."

Why is this ? Because one great part of our Saviour's
work is to purify men's lives. Do they not need puri-
fying ? The stains are everywhere. In this congrega-
tion there is not one clean conscience. We can all see
the stains when we look sharply into ourselves, or into
society. Manners are not clean ; business is not clean ;
politics are not clean ; our literature and our tongues are
not clean. In their business dealings few men dare to
say that they are perfectly clean-handed ; and in their
solitude, fewer still will claim that there is nothing un-
clean in their imaginations. The Church herself has not
yet been presented to the Bridegroom a Bride without
spot. And therefore, in taking upon Him all the
plagues and sorrows of His human brethren, Christ came
into such close and vital sympathy with them that He
desired to go through all the outer as well as inner
forms of their experience. Human nature was in Him,
too ; it was tempted in Him ; evil came all round it and
beset it ; — and therefore He treated Himself as all these
human transgressors are treated. He Avas baptized with
their baptism, and they with His. The world was to
smite and sneer at Him, and spit upon Him, in spite of
His purity: in being holy for them He will also be
washed with them. He " came by water."

THE WATER AND THE BLOOD. 271

Accordingly, one great part of the power of Christ
among men, through the Gospel and the Church, is the
cleansing away of moral corruptions. Whenever a pro-
fessed Christianity, or nominal Church, has not gone
steadily and effectually to reforming men's conduct and
institutions, by righteous education and a higher spirit,
there has been some falsehood at the heart, some
hypocrisy under the ecclesiastical cloak. " He that hath
this hope in him purifieth himself." Stains on the lips,
the hands, the habits ; stains on social courtesies, domes-
tic dispositions, every room of the house, and even on
Church observances ; woi-st of all, stains on the sacred
temple walls of the soul itself; — these all have to be
washed away, first by one true repentance and regen-
eration, havijig water for their sacramental sign, and
then, afterwards, by the repeated washings of Christ's
truth and spirit, applied faithfully to all the departments
of our action. Christ came to cleanse Ilis followers from
all unrighteousness. He " came by water."

But now shall we not only say, " This is true," but
shall we go on to say, " This is all that our Saviour gives
us, and this is the whole of His Gospel : — Christianity is
a system of moral education and religious improvement;
nothing more " ?

Is obedience to a perfect Law, and such obedience
as we at best can give, the only salvation ? If it is, I,
for one, must wonder how it is going with me ; and I
shall have to doubt whether your message to me can be
called a gospel of glad tidings at all. I confess to you,
preacher of this Law, that while I honor it as a law,
" holy, just," beneficent, and know that it comes from
God, I fail in keeping it: it is not only exceeding
broad, as David found it, but exceeding deep and exceed-
ing difficult. I fail in keeping it, have failed all along

272 THE WATER AND THE BLOOD.

from the first, and shall fail to the end ; for the more I
keep it the more I see its breadth and depth, the farther
up its splendid standard flies, and the more shamelul
seem mj sins. You answer, " Yes, you fail, no doubt,
very often ; but you must keep trying : try again, and
then try again. You are defiled, but wash yourself.
Here are Christian truths and Christian precepts and the
Christian spirit : take them and cleanse yourself with
them. What you want is more of the water. Christ
came by water. It is all He brings. More water, —
more water to make you clean ! "

Systems of religion have made that answer. But, my
friends, there comes a time in the experience of earnest
people's minds when they feel that this is no answer for
them. They know, by a secret conviction, and no ration-
alizing and no philosophizing can drive it out of them,
that they need more than this ; that lor them to be saved
into the everlasting life, and into the presence and com-
munion of God, by a perfect mortal righteousness and a
blameless obedience is a fantasy so utterly out of all
fact and reason both, that to offer it to them as a ground
of salvation is a mockery. They believe that somewhere
there must be another half to match this fragmentary
piece of a mutilated revelation, and they are not mistaken.
" This is He that came by water and blood ; not hy water
onlyy but by water and blood." The daily sacrifice of
four thousand preparatory years had presignified it to a
waiting world. As the passion-flower sprang out of the
common earth, and held up its bright blossom and nat-
ural imago of the tree at Calvary, ages before the real
cross was planted in its soil, so the passion-promise of
prophecy bloomed in the expectant faith of the race at
the very gates of Eden. The serpent had polluted
Paradise ; but after all, the woman's seed should bruise the

THE WATER AND THE BLOOD. 273

serpent's head. Man knew from the beginning that he
must have a Saviour to look to, or he was gone ; liu-
manity itself would die. He knows it now just as well.
Something tells jou that though you had an ever spring-
ing font at your side, a well of water, a river, a Jordan,
an ocean, in which you should be baptized every day of
your life, it would not wash out one of these deep-struck
spots in your conscience and your heart. Somew^here
among the sons of men there must be One Perfect
Obedience, One Sufficient Sacrifice, needing not, like
those shadowy sacrifices which prepared the way, to be
often offered, but " once oifered."

Then a living and loving faith in Him will work out
the true and healing life in every believing lieart.
" There is a fountain opened for sin, and for unclean-
ness "; but it is not a water fountain. This day we ap-
proach it. The more earnest our soul's life grows within
us, the more the conscience, while struggling bravely
with all its might for the keeping of the commandments,
cries out for this peace. The past, the bad, mean, selfish,
sinful, guilty life of days gone by, with all its accu-
mulated corruption, we cannot remember it without
remorse ; we cannot look back into it without anguish.
Only he who doeth the deeds of the Law — so it reads —
will live by them. Who of us has done them ? Where
are we then, my brethren, if there is "water only,"
example and precept only, commandments only, sorrow
upon sorrow when they are broken, and the breaking
repeated still ? It certainly looks very much like sorrow
without end.

From our Lord's first coming in the flesh He knew
that He came not by water only, but by water and
blood. Among the most remarkable of Overbeck's
striking series of pictures illustrating the life of Jesus,

18

274: THE WATER AND THE BLOOD.

there is one tliat represents Him as a Child in the car-
penter's shop. Like other children, He has been playing
with the tools, and has taken np the saw. A look of
solemnity passes over His radiant face ; and by the
shadow that falls on the floor underneath yon see that
the block of wood He is sawing out is taking the shape
of a cross. Joseph looks on in a kind of perplexed
reverence, and the Yirgin-mother by his side with a sad
admiration, as if Simeon's prediction were already begin-
ning to have its acccomplishment, and the sword were
piercing her own soul also. This is not imagination ; it
is rather interpretation. The* artist is only an expositor
of the evangelist. '' This is He that came by water and
blood." From the outset of His personal ministry, — as it
had been from the foundation of the world, — the Saviour
was pointing to the sacrifice, — journeying always towards
Calvary. Other prophets and reformers had come "by
water," preaching purification for the future. He alone
came "by blood," giving, in Himself, atonement for
past and future both. The august sorrowfulness of the
end rested evidently on His spirit. As fast as they were
able to bear it He unfolded to His disciples this real
object of His being born. He spoke to them of His flesh
and blood, to be given for the life of the world. He
explained, very early, to a Jewish rabbi, the symbol in
Jewish history, the serpent lifted up in the wilderness,
an emblem of the cross to which men have to look in
faith to be healed. He accepted, at His baptism in the
Jordan, the Baptist's ascription to Him as the sacrificial
Lamb of God, taking away the sins of the world. On
the mount of Transfiguration He announced more openly
"the decease that He should accomplish at Jerusalem."
To quote the testimony of each of the apostles would
be to copy a principal part of their several sermons and

THE WATER AND THE BLOOD. 275

epistles. A very few concise phrases will call up more
pages to your memory, and sliow liow the whole strain
of their doctrine proceeds : " Having made peace by the
blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things to
Himself" ; " Ye were redeemed by the precious blood
of Christ " ; " While we were yet sinners, Christ died for
ns"; "We which were far off, are made nigh by the
blood of Christ " ; " Justified freely by His grace, through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath
set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in His blood
for the remission of sins that are past." We read what
is written to the Hebrews: "Without the shedding of
blood there is no remission of sins. Having therefore
boldness to enter by the blood of Jesus, — let us draw
near, — with full assurance of faith." We hear the voices
of the Apocalypse : " Unto Him that loved us and
washed us from our sins in His own blood, — to Him be
glory and dominion." We hear the mighty song of
heaven, like the sound of many waters, but singing of a
purification that no oceans of water could ever accom-
plish : " Thou art worthy, for Thou wast slain, and hast
redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred
and tongue." Even if all other tongues were still, in
heaven or in earth, we have the truth from Him who
speaks alone as men never speak : " This cup is the
New Testament in My blood, which is shed for you.
He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood,
dwelleth in Me, and I in him ; and I give unto him
everlasting life."

Can anybody think it strange, after we have repeated
afiirmations of Holy Scripture like these, that we repeat,
also, every year, with reverent adoration, the commemo-
ration of this day ? The day of the sacrifice on the cross ?
I can imagine, I think, the total disbelief, of pride or

276 THE WATER AND THE BLOOD.

delusion, that sliuts the Bible up, with a sweeping denial,
or drops it in despair. It is more difficult to conceive
how any clear mind can hold on upon it, to call it a mes-
sage of moral education, with no atonement : — the water
without the blood.

We stand once more to-day at the foot of the cross.
I am half-ashamed to be handling cavils and objections,
before this mystic miracle of love, which fills a universe
with comfort and light. You can read, if you please,
the long line of argument, from Justin Martyr and
Augustine to the last modern speculation, on this vast
wonder of time, into which, we are told, angels look
with humility. But how plain the whole truth that we
need is found to be ! We are but children. Your soul,
mine, every soul in the world, under its temptation, its
infirmity, its bad desires , was sinking into death. We
had our unsuccessful projects of relief, failing one by
one. Infinite love reaches out the cross to save us.
God says to us in His Son, " Take hold of this : believe
on this, and live forever, — in thankful service to your
Lord." O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou
doubt ?" " The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from
all sin": — not "water only, but the water and the
blood."

The whole Gospel of our salvation gathers itself into
a personal blessing.

Whatever my personal fortunes, for the present, may
happen to be, I know that I am in the midst of a world
full of suffering and failure ; — things most valued are
passing away, and the best-beloved friends are dying
and carried out to be buried. Here is the body ; — not a
fibre of the flesh but is liable and sensitive to pain. One
little nerve pierced by a needle fills days and years with
distress. A careless shot alters the whole course of a

THE WATER AND THE BLOOD. 277

young man just furnished for a successful career, blinds
him, cripples him ; or a crash on a railway crushes out
fifty lives at once, and leaves five hundred precious
interests, or attachments hanging upon them, broken up
and mourning. There is not a faculty of the mind but
lias its frightful capacity of torture. Disorder, short-
coming, wrong-doing, desertion, .hatred, loneliness, or-
phanage, shame, despair : what names these are ! And
what realities are under them ! The great w^orld's his-
tory is tragical, — a history of war and crime. Now, in
the midst of this sorrow-struck humanity, stands a soul,
seeing it all and feeling it. Perhaps it is yours. It is
told that above it all there is a God, and partly believes
it. But is He only above, looking down upon it ? Does
that God feel for this wretchedness ? Is there a heart
in heaven ? Does the Everlasting King love %is^ and
come close to us ? You read the epistle for this day.
You look on the face of Him despised and rejected. His
countenance marred more than any of the sons of men.
Behold the Man! You know that He is more than
man, — God's only Son. He prays, " Father, forgive
them." He dies. You know, now, whether there is a
heart in heaven ; whether your God has entered into
your humanity. "Herein is love!" We have a suf-
fering and a sympathizing Lord.

Sorrow is always venerable ; but the degree of it is
proportioned to the sensibility. Only a nature infinitely
refined, infinitely delicate, and infinitely pure, with an
infinite cajpacity for sorrow, could sufier as the Saviour
siifiered. No other atonement could be complete. And
herein was the love.

But there is a power and a glory of love beyond even
this. Taking one m'ore look around this great world's
chamber of sickness and groaning, you discover faint

278 THE WATER AND THE BLOOD.

occasional gleams of a brighter law breaking in. There is
not only fellow-suffering, and not only suffering freely
borne for others' lieljp^ but. here and there some nobler
spirits, the noblest of all, are gloriously taking up and
bearing crosses in one another's stead, that the guilty
may be spared, that the lost may not perish, that the
worst may be saved. There is such a thing as voluntary
suffering to save the hateful and the hating, the spiteful,
the evil, the foul. Whence^ in all the universe, from
what one spot of singular and central glory, do these
beams of heavenly charity arise? From that hill of
sacrifice, — and only there, — where we gather our
remembrances and assemble our affections and offer
our praises this day. The revilers spoke a deeper
truth than they knew : " He saved others : Himself
He could not save." He whom the faithful Abra-
ham, of the morning lesson, dimly prefigured, sadly
building his altar and saying, " God will provide
Himself a lamb," spared not His Son. Herein is the
love that is Divine, — the love of the Son of God, on
the cross!

We come, then, finally, to the great confession, — be-
ginning in humiliation and ending in triumph, — the
confession of the sinful, redeemed soul. I am sure it is
mine. May it not be made, must it not be, — by every
soul here ? I am weak ; I am unclean ; I am broken in
my will ; I am evil, proud, selfish, passionate at my heart ;
I am stained all over with sin ; — and I am fighting
against adversaries mightier than I, where all that trust
themselves go down. Give me the water to cleanse..
But, O Son of God, keep not from me the precious blood,
to sprinkle, to pardon, to redeem. I was far off; make
me nigh by that! I was dying; let me live by
that!

THE WATER A^D THE BLOOD. 279

" I saw again. Behold heaven's open door.

Behold a throne! The seraphim stood o'er it.
The white-robed elders fell upon the floor,
And flung their crowns before it.

** I saw a wondrous book. An angel strong

To heaven and earth proclaimed his loud appeals.
But a hush passd across the seraph's song,
For none might loose the seals.

" And straightway up above,

Stood in the midst a wondrous Lamb, snow-white,
As it were slain with the deep wounds of love,
Eternal, infinite.

" Then rose the song no ear had heard before;

Then from the white-robed host an anthem woke;
And fast as spring- tide on the sounding shore
The hallelujahs broke T'

THE POWER OF THE RESUERECTIOK

Easter Day.

" To this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived (or lived
again), that He might be Lord both of the dead and hving." —
Romans xiv. 9.

In the facts of our Lord's personal history there is a
special satisfaction provided by each great event for
some special want that is common to men. From the
need of reconciliation with a broken law of right and
with Him whose perfect will that law is, met by the
Sacrifice, we pass this morning to our need of reconcili-
ation with our own future. Even the firmest believer^
as he looks along the uncertain years before him, and
beyond them all, sees that much must be lost. Is he to
receive anything in its place? Three kinds of separa-
tion look particularly forbidding : — the separation from
human companionship, ftimily and friends ; the separation
from the present outward scene, as a familiar sphere of
activity ; and the separation of the soul from the body.
It is around- these three portentous mysteries that the
sorrow and anxiety gather, which Christ's rising from
the dead scatters. He meets them, as on this day, by the
demonstration of His living and eternal Headship over
the spiritual creation. All souls alive in Him not only
live forever, but they are in Him forever one. " To this
end He both died, and rose, that He might be Lord both

THE POWEK OF THE EESUEKECTION. 281

cf the dead and living." By virtue of His inextinguish-
able Divinity we shall know our Christian friends again. K
Dying, the decays of disease, the dust of dissolution, will
not permanently overmaster the vitality which has its
springs in Ilim. The earth swings, half in light and
half in shadow, around the central sun. But to the
Household of Faith, such alternations are transient : —
the part now shaded and the part shining in joy will be
contrasted hemispheres no more, but will move into a
boundless noon, one bright and perfect globe, with no
need of sun or stars. This is the assurance, the conso-
lation, of Easter Day.

There are, however, two senses in which man is said
to be immortal. Natural immortality is simply the
lengthening out of bare existence, irrespective of those
loftier and nobler qualities which belong to what the
Christian calls life. If we take the idea of the best
of the old Greek thinkers, making humanity threefold,
— body, soul, and spirit, — we should say that beyond
the body, which alone dies, there is a second element, an
" animal soul," which escapes destruction and survives.
What kind of existence that w^ould be, with nothing
added to it, animal immortality, we have not the faintest;
conception. Nature casts not a beam of illumination';
there; and Bevelation itself is dumb.

It is striking, — a fact in which it is impossible for men
who follow at all the courses of modern thought, and
who watch the bearing of science on the great problems
of the soul and the dogmas of the Faith, not to be in-
terested,— that the most prominent scientiiic assailant
of the Bible distinctly declares his belief in a future
life. While holding that the human race has been grad-
ually/c>rm^fZ upward^ or developed fi-oni the lowest ani-
mal type, instead of having been originally set by the

282 THE POWER OF THE KESUEEECTION.

Maker at the head of creation, he yet admits that some-
where on that line of transmutations, this marvellous
and majestic attribute of immortality, or imperishable-
ness, has been acquired. How far this sort of " life to
come " differs from the ancient heathen idea, has not yet
been made to appear.

What we have to notice is that, — being sublimely in-
different to all the speculative or naturalistic theories, —
the New Testament starts from an entirely different
point, leaves the conjectures of philosophy wholly aside,
but offers to our faith what harmonizes indeed with all
true philosophy, and what no measure of knowledge can
ever possibly deny or ever touch, — the doctrine of eternal
life in Jesus Christ our Lord.

The matter stands there in a sublime simplicity.
They that live the spiritual life have it from the Son of
God, and by believing in Plim : — He rises from the dead
and lives forever ; — therefore they also live immortally.
These are tho short, clear steps in that evangelic argu-
ment. But no line of reasoning establishes the conclu-
sion. 1^0 dialectical demonstration ever attempted, —
not even the famous one of Bishop Butler, — is without
its weak spot. We are dealing not with the parts or
conditions of a problem, but with a living fact and a
personal reality. " / am the Ilesurrection and the Life :
— whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die " :
— this carries us beyond the region of premise and infer-
ence. We believe, or not ; and are blessed, or wretched,
accordingly ; but we are not argued into the conviction, or
out of it. The faith, however, in its certainty, amounts
to sight or knowledge ; and hence it is no exaggeration
when all Christendom, moving ever towards the grave in
the procession of its generations, declares in the burial
sentence, " / know that my Eedeemer liveth."

THE POWER OF THE RESUREECTION. 283

It is remarkable, too, that in the New Testainent the
common term for this Christian immortality is the eter-
nal or everlasting "Z^/d," — or sometimes simply the
Life : — as if it meant to say that there is really no other
life worth living bnt this one of purity and honor, love
and prayer, beginning in a Christian here, becoming af-
terwards the life of heaven : so surpassing, whether in
this world or the next, is its richness, its joy, its satisfac-
tion, its glory. When we examine and weigh them care-
fully. Scripture statements that we had not perhaps
before looked at in the same light come to confirm
this view. Christ himself . says, in His last prayer be-
fore the Supper, that it is noiv, not merely that it will
he in the future, — it is now eternal life to know the
Father and the Son with this affectionate knowledge.
When He speaks of going to prepare a place for His
followers, it is that this personal intercourse may con-
tinue,— " that ye may be with Me, where I am." He
says, " He that eatetli My flesh and drinketh My blood,"
— which is the mystical description of a deep and inward
union, — "hath eternal life." Everywhere He teaches
that immortality is not a gift conferred upon us from
without, as from hand to hand, but that it grows up in
the soul, as the sure consequence or fruitage of obedience
and trust toward God. St. John is full of this idea, —
that you may know whether you will live forever by
knowing whether you are following that Master, from
the love of Him. St. Paul speaks of being " absent
from the body and present with the Lord," and of his
desire to depart and be with Christ, — evidently regarding
a Christian death as a merely physical incident, an
emancipation from the flesh, — leaving the spirit more at
liberty to be in direct and active communion with its
unseen Friend. This is his magnificent message to the

284 THE POWER OF THE EESUEEECTION.

Corintliians : — " I^ot for that we would be unclothed, but
clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of
life."

So we come to the text. It is the culminating of a
rapid and rising stream of devout thought, where the
one object that stands supreme is the risen Redeemer.
The real import of the Easter event is that Jesus, risen
from the dead, becomes thereby the personal centre and
giver of all spiritual life to His Church, and is a Lord
of the living and the dead. Observe some inferences.

In the lirst place, this Lordship of the risen Christ
over the living and the dead provides the only solid and
satisfactory assurance of the future reunion and recog-
nition of Ilis followers. The question that rises oftener
than any other to the lips of the bereaved touches this
point of reunion. " Shall I see him again, — my brother,
my child, my friend? Will the hand that lies there
white upon the breast be reached out to me when we
meet? Will the eyes of my mother, whose light opened
on me with my life, welcome my coming? Each dear
and trusted face, — by some celestial sense will its mys-
terious meanings and attractions be felt as they were
here,

** * Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same ' "?

There is no need to put these intense longings into words.
AVithout saying that they are universal, it can certainly be
said that they are common ; and they are generally
eager in proportion to the afFectionateness of the sur-
vivor's nature. You may try to construct a heaven cut
clean oiF in all its sympathies and attachments and recog-
nitions from this world we are in now. But you will
almost certainly then have before the mind a heaven
practically destitute of any sympathies and attachments

THE POWER OF THE EESTJBRECTION. 285

wliatever ; too vagnc to awaken expectation, too unreal
to inspire enthusiasm; bleak, cheerless, and quite too
feeble in its attraction to meet the meaning of that
grand apostolic expression, — " the jpowei's of the world
to come."

He who rose and lives again is the Lord of the liv-
ing and the dead. They are not two families, but one,
because they are all in Him, in spite of the transient
curtain that hangs between the departed and ourselves, —
a curtain that probably has its only substance in the eyes
of our flesh. Tlie resurrection of the body of Jesus, as
the Church has always taught by the stress she has laid
upon it in the Creed, signifies the literal reality of all
that is promised the Christian in his future home, — the
actual identity of the person here and the person there, —
the actual renewal of affections and their interchange, —
for what is the identity, or the blessing of it, if the heart
has got to begin its whole history afresh ? It signifies the
actual restoration, too, of the society, the acquaintance-
ships, in other words, the common life and common
worship, only in purer and more exalted forms, of those
who have believed together, and worshipped the same
Saviour, here.

There will be no confusion of persons, no obliteration
of the lines that mark off one soul from another. The
individuality of the disciple is not absorbed even in that
of his Lord, — which would make a Pantheist's heaven, —
or in an undistinguished mass of strange life, — which
would make a heaven of pagan " shades." "We shall be
just as distinct persons, with all personal faculties, affec-
tions, sympathies, substances, yes, and appearances, as we
are now. In those celestial congregations there will, no
doubt, be something to be recognized b}-, in feature or
form, inbred on earth, and indestructible by dissolution.

286 THE POWER OF THE KESUKRECTION.

Hence tlie need of a glorified, resurrection body, to be
set free, at the last change, — following the a7ialogy still
of His body who died and rose the same. Character is
getting fashioned under an inward sculpture of moral
experience, so that the second life will be the orderly
outbirth and continuation of the first, — only the gross^
material elements giving place to those that are refined
and ethereal, wearing a dignity and beauty of their own,
and with every trace of earthliness and defilement
purged away forever.

As the preparatory process of the natural life goes on
in secret awhile, — as the seed must lie some time hidden
and decaying, till suddenly the end of that patient
waiting is found in the budding beauty of the leaf and
flower, — so a Christian man's entire mortal education is
but an obscure making ready for that moment when this
mortal shall put on immortality.

So, precisely, teaches St. Paul. " There is a natural
body, and there is a spiritual body. HoAvbeit, that is
not first which is spiritual ; but that which is natural,
and afterward that which is spiritual." " To every seed
his own body." That is the identity. This is all we
know about it ; but it is enough. Everything beyond
is speculation, and not revealed on authority. In due
time the resurrection-body will be made complete in all
its substantial parts, and will become the perfect organ of
the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. " Them also that sleep
in Jesus, God will bring unto Him." Tlie power of
their rising, — the secret spring of their new-born life, in
the regeneration that brings new heavens and the new
earth, will be the eternal Life-Giver himself, the Head of
the whole Family of Faith, the Lord of the dead and the
living, — having been first received here by faith, and in-
dwelling in the believer's heart.

THE POWER OF THE EESURRECTIOK. 287

Again, — through Christ our resurrection-life will be
social, as well as individual. As everything in . the
khigdomof heaven has its type and model in the Person
of our Lord, so in the rising of His form, and the sub-
sequent interviews with His disciples, we see a promise
that, literally and forever, those to whom He imparts
His spirit will move together, in a family order and
freedom about Him, — whatever their employments and
spheres of action may be. [N'othing less than this can be
taught us by the parable of Lazarus with the patriarch,
by the inspired images of St. John in the Apocalypse,
by the company of saints made perfect, by the hymns
and amens of the redeemed, by the assembled spirits of
just men made perfect, by the whole fomily in heaven
and earth, — but, more than all these, by the reappearing,
in the body, of tlie Lord of the dead and the living.
Reason, to be sure, might conjecture or dream out an
individual immortality, — as four or ^voi of the ancients
did. But the universe is very large. Whither would the
forth-going soul take its strange journey, if there were
no centre of spiritual attraction, no living Head around
whom the society must circle, making a heaven by His
light and love, no Christ receiving the believer to Him-
self, where He is?

Another assurance, given by the fact of the Saviour's
bodily resurrection, is that of the independence of the
spiritual life on the material conditions and their changes,
which accompany dissolution. One of the sources of
materialism is the disturbance or utter eclipse of the'
mental faculties by physical disease, or by old age. You
stand by a bed and watch this distressing process, per-
haps the utter wreck and dislocation of a superbly
balanced intellect by a fever, or you observe the break-
ing up of memory and all coherent thought, between

288 THE POWER OF THE RESUKEECTION.

eighty and ninety years of age. You see sometimes the
finest judgment inverted, the sweetest temper irritated,
the holiest piety become petulant, the strength of man-
hood sunk to a melancholy childishness. If you were
observing this dismal spectacle for the first time, you
might sa}^, as many a medical student has said in the haste
of his half-way science ; " It looks here as if man were
nothing after all but a piece of anatomical or automatic
mechanism. A few drops of blood too many on his brain,
a jar of the delicate machinery by friction, will unsettle
the soul from her seat, and, before the lamp finally goes
out, the flame burns so low in the socket that it seems that
body and spirit will be buried in one grave. The soul
must be but an accidental a2:)pendage to the corporeal
organization, and must perish with it." Such thoughts
pass through minds that take no pleasure in them ; and
faith reaches out her hand, trembling, for some support.
You pass then to the death scene at Calvary, between
the sixth to the ninth hour. There is no mental eclipse
in the august Sufierer ; but there is one sign set there to
show us how completely the experience of the Redeemer
includes the infirmities and agonies of our humanity, in
its inward as well as its outward trial, — the cry, '^ My
God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" We
know that the death was real^ till the gi^^ing up of the
ghost. Yet through all this sinking and final going out
of life, we see the indestructible soul asserting her
immortality ; unhurt she takes back all the energy and
capacity of which destruction appeared to deprive her.
It is a visible triumph. The bonds of death are loosed,
because it is not possible He should be holden of them.
Tlie third morning brings every slumbering faculty and
every lifeless fibre up, living, to its place. The Jesus
that speaks to Mary at the tomb, and to the disciples

THE POWER OF THE RESUERECTION. 289

for forty days, is the same Jesus that prays, " Let this
cup pass from Me." And because He is ours, and we
are His, in the exact language of our prayer at the
eucharist, in the bonds of an inward and spiritual pos-
session, therefore all signs of decay and weakness pass
away with their transient causes. Beyond the tottering
frame, the faltering reason, the failing memory, beyond
delirium and dotage, beyond lethargy and all the lapses
of the mind, the soul resumes its power, its health, its
vigor of immortal love, because its risen life is in the
risen Mediator, hid with Christ in God.

Once more, we want this bond of unity between the
dead and the living to throw a purifying and ennobling
influence into our present daily life, to save it from sinking,
as our life is so terribly tempted to, into a besotted mam-
monism, an insane frivolity, or a miserable selfishness ;
— to make it a noble and ever more perfect preparation
for what is to come. How is it with us here ? We want
this constant " power " of a practical connection between
the two worlds, to keep the present from being a
mere scramble and carnival of the senses, a place to eat
and dress and sleep in — as well as to keep the future
from being a sentimental fantasy, or a dead blank. The
apostles join the most inspiring prospects of the glory to
be revealed with their sharpest protests against common
sins. We are immersed in falsehoods and wrongs, in
lusts and ambitions. There is no resurrection for them.
We are tempted hourly, — nobody denies it, — to unclean
transactions, to covetousness and bad temper, to envy-
ing and evil-speaking, to indolence, impatience, and un-
belief Now, one of the great powers by which we are to
struggle against these successfully, and finally overcome,
is the certainty of a day when Christ, — who is life to
those that love Him, and whose eyes are like a flame

10

290 THE POWER OF THE RESUREECTION.

of fire to those that are untrue to Him and unrighteous
to each other, — shall appear. The new man in Him is
to be put on immediately. Even in these self-seeking
earthly streets the Christian is to walk unselfishly and un-
blamably, his pride humbled, his temper controlled, his
motives godly. Whatever is done in word or deed is to
be done in the name and spirit of the Lord Jesus, risen
from the dead, by those that are on the way to meet
Him. The true Christian's way through the world is
somewhat like the walk of the disciples with Christ
through the corn-field on the Sabbath. He does not
object to their rubbing the ears of corn for food, — i. e., to
their hands doing the ordinary and necessary business, —
because they are bound on His service, and need strength
to do it with for His kingdom's sake. But they must
work with Him. Try to make a little heaven where
you are, — in the house where you live, in the scene
of your daily toil, — and there will be little doubt of the
heaven hereafter. Do your daily work and do it cheer-
fully : — this is God's world, good enough for you and
me, — bad as some things in it are. Christ thought it
not too bad for His holy feet to press for three and thirty
sad, hard-working years. We are the workmen of a
Master who is as much here as there ; — the Lord of the
living as of the dead, and of the dead as of the living.

When we are asked, therefore, how we know that we
shall live forever, we reply, J^ot because some book of
arguments, or pledge in paper and ink, or some pretty
parable of spring-blossoms and butterflies tells us we
may ; but because every Christian can say for himself,
" I know in whom I have believed. My Redeemer
livetli, and no piember abiding in Him can perish. He
that believeth hath the witness in himself."

We lift up our hearts to the True Tabernacle in the

THE POWER OF THE RESUEEECTION. 291

heavens, which the Lord hath pitched and not man, —
which will abide when all these houses of our earthly
tabernacle are dissolved, and with gates ever open to all
the separated dwelling-places of the one catholic and
pilgrim flock, — gates through which " they go no more
out." Blessed be He who died for us and rose again,
that the entrance is not shut at all, day or night, and that
those angels which keep it are not partial or prejudiced
angels, not mercenary or fastidious angels. The poorest
Lazarus will not have to wait for room to be made for
him by prouder people. The woman whose sins are
many and the man whose demons are legion, penitent
and healed, — the Publican if he believes and the Phari-
see if he is humbled, the Samaritan if he is " good "
and the Priest and Levite if they are converted, the
Prodigal if he has gone home and the rich Zaccheus if
he has made himself poor for Christ's sake, — they all
not only enter in, but they are willing to be equal there.
They count themselves to be all unworthy, and therefore
are made kings and priests together, in a spiritual royalty
and a priesthood of likeness to the High Priest who is
touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He suffers
little children to come in, remembering that He was
once a little child in Bethlehem for them ; — He welcomes
aged saints, like Simeon in whose arms He was laid.

Last night some veteran believer turned his face away
from the world and went to look for the place prepared
for him, — a good soldier and servant to his life's end.
Close by his side will be found the spirit of an infant,
lying down to sleep amidst his playthings, never con-
scious what the sign of the baptismal cross on his fore-
head meant. The flesh of the old man's heart will
have become as the flesh of a little child. The soul in
the baby's breast will spring forward into a seraph's

292 THE POWER OF THE KESUERECTION.

strength, keeping its childish innocence. And both will
bear a part with the same thanksgiving in the Hymn
like the voice of many waters, saying, " Amen ; bles-
sing and thanksgiving be unto God and to the Lamb
that was slain." To this end Christ died and rose. And
still, to each one of us, as these seasons of the resur-
rection come and go, the Spirit and the Bride say
" Come " p and " Whosoever will, let him come."

HOW THE RISEN CHRIST IS SEEN.
First Sunday after Easter,

"And as they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them,
saying, AH hail! And they came and held Him by the feet, and
worshipped Him." — St. Matthew xxviii. 9.

A FEW souls that had been most intimate with Jesus
up to the terrible night at Gethsemane, to whom He had
become more than all of life or love besides, pass in one
moment of surprise from the dismay of His crucifixion to
the complete comfort of having Him with them again
alive, His form invested with the mystery of this
new miracle of His resurrection. On the part of the
women it seems to have been an act of silent adoration,
not a syllable being spoken ; and we can well understand
why it should have been so. The Lord himself at first,
and for some time, says but a single word. That word
which would be as literally rendered " Rejoice," our text
translates into the statelier salutation, " All hail." The
verse before tells us that the disciples had received the
angel's announcement of His rising from the dead with
a mixture of contradictory emotions : — " They departed
from the sepulchre with fear and great joy " ; — and this,
too, we can all comprehend, if we know much of what the
heart contains, and how it fluctuates when it scarcely
dares to believe that it has actually grasped the one
blessedness it has most longed for. But what is of fear
is not of faith. The Saviour joins Himself, therefore, to

294 HOW THE RISEN CHRIST IS SEEN.

the believing side of their hearts, sends away the last
remaining traces of their doubts, and makes their joy
full.

There are six separate occasions, at least, recorded by
the four Evangelists, when our Lord, after His resurrec-
tion, appeared to human eyes. That every particular of
these is brought into the narrative is more than we are
at liberty to affirm. St. Luke's statement, at the open-
ing of the Book of the Acts, that during the forty days,
until the ascension, Christ was occupied in giving
instructions to the apostles respecting the constitution
and administration of His Church, now perfectly estab-
lished and set up in the world, only waiting for the
descent of the Spirit from the ascended Head, at Pente-
cost, to set its wheels of life into their wonderful opera-
tion for all time, would rather seem to imply that much
is left unrelated, to be brought out, from time to time,
into practical shape, in the planting and training of the
Church, after the heavenly pattern, l^or do we get an
entire description of even these successive appearances
in their order from either one of the four biographies,
but only by placing them all side by side, examining care-
fully to see where each incident falls in, and so obtain-
ing a consistent and perfect record. What gives a new
meaning, however, to the whole account, when it is thus
arranged, and what has been singularly left almost entirely
out of view in the ordinary expositions of it, is that there
is evidently from first to last, running through all these
manifestations, an order of another sort ; that is, an inten-
tional and remarkable progress in the kind and manner
of Christ's showing Himself, according to the spiritual
condition of the persons to whom He appeared. Each
individual sees just so much of Christ as his state of
mind and heart, his religious quality and habits, prepare

HOW THE EISEN CHRIST IS SEEN. 295

him and enable him. to see. In all religious matters we
receive and are blessed according to our own willingness,
that is, our faith. With this clew in hand you will find
there is something here of much greater signification and
beauty and power than will be gathered from a frag-
mentary reading of the several passages, or from treating
the manifestations as so many disconnected occurrences
without any secret law of internal connection relating
them to each other, or to the religious frame and capacity
of those who beheld them.

Of the several believing women that had agreed, the
night before, to meet each other at the sepulchre in the
morning, after their Jewish Sabbath was over, Mary
Magdalene was found to be first in keeping the appoint-
ment. That eager promptness was a remarkable and
very beautiful illustration of the saying of Christ, when
He had melted this woman's perverted heart and changed
her bad life, that they to whom most is forgiven love
most. She came very early, before the daylight had
fairly divided the shadows of the olive-garden; she
came alone ; her love casting out the fear of the solitude,
of the darkness, and of the soldiers keeping 'guard. As
she comes close to the mouth of the tomb, a single glance
shows that it has been opened. It seems to be the popu-
lar notion, — and many hymns as well as sermons have
perpetuated the mistake, — that the stone was rolled
away from the door by the angel hefore the resurrection,
as if to open the way for the Lord's arising. But if you
look accurately you see that the Lord's resurrection was
self-accomplished and independent ; and herein was the
special proof of Ilis divinity. In all other returns of
life to the dead some visible outward agency wrought
the miracle ; but, unlike Lazarus and Jairus's daughter,
Christ v^i^Q^ Himself : the omnipotence that first volun-

296 HOW THE EISEN CHRIST IS SEEN.

tarilj yields, lets death have its way, and sleeps under that
face of death, puts forth now its own mysterious energy,
and the sepulchre is broken, not from without but from
within. It is afterwards that the angel moves the stone,
revealing the emptiness of the place, and \hQ,fact of the
resurrection accomplished, — first seating himself upon
it, as if to say, " You, hostile Roman sentinels, are now
dismissed from your post; a celestial watch relieves you;
the earthquake bids you be gone " ; — then passing in
to sit where the vanished body had lain. Mary does not
look into the chamber itself; but full of one thought
only, — that the rulers in their spite have robbed the
grave, — she turns back in her alarm and grief into the
city to tell the disciples. Two of them, — Peter and John,
run to the spot, — John outrunning Peter, Peter leaping
down into the sepulclire to make the search more sure,
and Mary Magdalene, having followed them out, coming
up less rapidly, but arriving while they are there. What
is especially to be observed, thus far, is this, — that
although Christ had actually arisen and was there, these
two men, Peter and John, did not see Him. They went
back into the city not knowing what had taken place.
And it is only then, when they have gone, that to
other eyes than theirs, to another kind of nature, of finer
mould and quicker sight, a woman, — a penitent, a soul in
which the mighty wonder of another resurrection had
been first achieved, weeping because they seemed to
have taken away her Lord, and she knows not where
they have laid Him, — it is to her tliat the- Lord first
appears. He speaks only her name, in that toae
which, after she had heard it once say, " Thy faith
hath saved thee, go in peace," she never could mis-
take ; she knows Him ; she cries " Master," with rev-
erent gladness; and she throws her arms about those

HOW THE RISEN CHRIST IS SEEN. 297

feet which she had once washed with her tears and
wiped with her hair.

The second manifestation, — that mentioned in the
text, — follows immediately after. Other women come
up, with their spices and ointments. At the sepulchre
itself they see only angels, — some of them one, others
two, — giving rise to the differing statements of the dif-
ferent evangelists, — each one seeing according to her
spiritual vision, her measure of faith, or her suscepti-
bility to the message to be communicated. That mes-
sage was that they should go and inform the apostles
that Christ was alive from the dead. On their way the
Divine Form meets them, speaks to them, gives them
joy, and they, letting their clogging fears fly, fall on
their knees before Him, cling to Him, and worship Him.
Is it possible that a part of the motive for this holding
Him by the feet, in a kind of convulsive clinging, was
an apprehension that He was somehow to be again torn
from them, — caused perhaps by Mary's repeating to
them His strange language, " I am not yet ascended to
My Father " ?

It is not to be supposed that the impartial Christ, or
the Christianity of His Gospel, literally prefers the one
sex to the other. But He respects the nature of each,
and does not abrogate the laws of that nature. Had
this great principle never been forgotten, how much
miserable babble the modern world would have been
spared, and with what dignity woman might rise to her
real superiority, in spite of the wrongs of men ! To
that one, therefore, which has the cleaner and clearer
spiritual eyesight, Christ will disclose the first radiancy
of His glory, — the lustre of His resurrection-face. In
that sex which loves most, and therefore suffers most,
and is perhaps capable of sinning most, He finds the

298 HOW THE RISEN CHRIST IS SEEN.

fciith-faculty most ready to recognize Him, and on that
therefore, — as if in a kind of compensation for the first
sin, the greater weakness, and the tenderer sensitiveness
to all injury, — He bestows the blessing of the earliest
benediction of His resmTection-voice. He makes women
the private messengers, not the public preachers, of His
Eternal Life; they are to tell it to His disciples, the
disciples are to set it into a system and to proclaim it
openly to the world. It is not till after many hours of
thinking and wondering, of anxiety, scepticism, incre-
dulity, weighing of evidence, and conquest of the
reluctances of pride, that the slow masculine under-
standing comes up to faith at all, and finally concludes
that it must believe. Even these apostolic men treated
the testimony of the women, that day, as idle tales and
believed them not.

But this is not all. The general spiritual distinction
thus drawn between the sexes reappears, in its measure,
between individuals of each of the two. And thus
there is a similar advance of clearness in the other suc-
ceeding manifestations. The circle continually enlarges,
from the solitary Mary to a great company of men, as
they are gradually prepared to see and believe. Toward
the evening of that same first day, Jesus joined Himself
to two of the disciples, — evidently the more spiritually-
minded of them, — on their walk to Emmaus; — but
though He converses long and wonderfully with them
and makes their hearts burn as He opens the Scriptures,
yet their eyes are holden ; and it is not till they are
brought under the solemnity of the supper at the end
of the day, as He blesses the bread, that they know
Him at all. In the course of the same day, St. Peter,
creeping slowly out of his doubts, is suffered to catch
somewhere a momentary glimpse of the blessed counte-

HOW THE EISEN CHRIST IS SEEN. 299

nance that had always such a mysterious power over
him ; — notice that he also is a forgiven penitent, and has
a heart of such tenderness as is rare among men. That
evening, at a small assembled company of them in Jeru-
salem, the doors being shut for fear, Jesus is suddenly
seen in the midst. But they are still slow of heart, fail
to recognize Him, take Ilim for a phantom, and are only
convinced by the condescending demonstration to their
very senses : " Handle Me and see ; a spectre has not
flesh and bones. Behold My hands and feet, touch them
and know that it is I Myself "; and then, to make their
faltering belief more sure. He eats with them. A week
later, the same scene is repeated, only that Thomas's
doubts are still more obstinate and are subdued only by
the same patient proofs presented to His fingers and
hands. Later still, there is a promised meeting on the
shores of the Lake of Galilee ; but there is something
of the same slowness of recognition on the part of the
fishermen, the same mingling of apprehension with
belief. Still the circle of witnesses widens. On the
Galilean mount, probably the same mount where He
had been transfigured, he is seen of " above five hundred
at once." Keturned to Jerusalem, He gathers the
twelve about Him to give them their great commission,
and makes the appointment of the perpetual ministry
with its inward grace and outward seal. The ascension
is drawing near, to be followed by Pentecost. So He
assures them, " Ye shall receive power after that the
Holy Ghost is come upon you." With each new meet-
ing, as you see, these interviews grow more and more
natural. The disciples are less troubled and more at
ease. At last, when all is accomplished, when they
have become so familiar with His risen form as to be
certain and trustworthy witnesses, and when from the

300 HOW THE RISEN CHEIST IS SEEN.

outward evidence of tlie bodily senses they have been
patiently lilted up to receive the finer credentials of the
Spirit, the communion having become very close and
very like that which they look for, through all their
sulferings and testimonies for Him till His coming
again, then He leads them out toward Bethany ; the
final words spoken. His form rises into the heavens;
they cannot hold Him longer, with all their love, to
the earth; henceforth they can only worship Him in
that heaven of glorious life to which He is ascended,
and from which they look for Him to appear once more.

Let us return now to that point in this series of
marvels where the words of the text come in, and take
out of them three or four great truths to carry with us
into our life.

First is the certification afforded by our Saviour's
resurrection to the fact of His divinity. " They came,
and held Him by the feet, and worshipped Him."
They worshipj)ed Him; and He neither forbade nor
checked that worship. Was not He the one true Teacher
of what true worship is ? Who so quick and sure as He
to detect the slightest traces of sacrilege? Who was
ever so prompt and so thorough in putting away every-
thing that was not His own ? He had said, at the temp-
tation, " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and
Him only shalt thou serve." He had repeated to a
scribe the fundamental dogma of the monotheism of the
Old Testament. " Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is
one Lord." Yet He permits Himself to be worshipped.
Either the very root and essence of His transcendent
nature is so included within the essence and unity
of God that He is God in man, or else He is a created
being. If He is the latter, then worship paid to Him is
profanation. If He is the former, then this accepted ador-

HOW THE RISEN CHRIST IS SEEN. 301

ation of His followers is only a consistent offering of the
faith He had Himself warranted when he said, " I and
My Father are one," — " that all men should honor the
Son even as they honor the Father."

It is noticeable that two of the most unqualified dec-
larations of Christ's essential deity were made to Him,
and sanctioned by Him, after His resurrection : — this
one of the actual paying of divine honors to Him, which
was repeated by the disciples just before the ascension,
and St. Thomas's hearty confession, " My Lord and my
God! " "We see in this just that steady development of
Gospel truth which is most natural. Tip to the time of
His death on the cross, marvellous as the tokens of the
Lord's superhuman character were, both in His words
and in His acts, it was the human side of His nature
that was kept constantly in view. A being having all
the visible attributes of a man, subject in the body to
mortal limitations, — to weakness, pain, fatigue, sleep,
hunger, tears, — moving and feeling as other men move
and feel, must leave on all about him the impression of a
human nature ; nor would it be very strange if the daily
sight of these external qualities should partly obscure,
for the time, the marks of a loftier origin and make
a belief in His divinity difficult. But the sepulchre had
now put a different aspect on all these mortal signs ; the
resurrection had transfigured them and, as it were, divin-
ized them. It had never been heard before that a man
lifted himself, by his own will, out of the grave and
asserted his superiority to all the forces of destruction.
Surely here must be nothing less than the Creator's
majesty. The divinity broke through the mortal in-
vestiture. In the glorified form the " Son of God " stood
revealed not less than the "Son of Man." They
worshipped Him, and He received their worship.

302 HOW THE KISEN CHRIST IS SEEN.

Unless it belonged to Him, He must fall instantly in our
esteem to a lower place than any modest, clear-lieaded
reformer, or teacher, of tolerable self-knowledge, in all
history; for no such human creature could endure for an
instant to accept these honors. Henceforth to all the
Church and to eternity Christ should be owned in the
Christian creed and adored in the Christian heart, as
" very God of very God." The resurrection sealed that
doctrine. And so when we find it everywhere said in
the New Testament afterward that the apostles preached
" Jesus and the Resurrection," the meaning clearly is,
they preached Christ in both His humanity and His di-
vinity, and thus a perfect, almighty, all-suffering Saviour,
— Jesus, the man, our brother, Mary's child, and the
Risen One^ — our eternal Lord and Judge. Begotten of
the Father before all worlds ! Begotten, not made, who
for our sake became man !

Place beside this truth another. These faithful believ-
ers were not believers in a one-sided or ultra spiritual-
ism. They ^^ held Him hy the feet, and worshipped
Him." It is contained in the original sense of the latter
clause, that they knelt down to Him. Here were two
outward signs of a living faith, and the faith was evi-
dently the more living for them both : — the touch and
clasping of the hands, and bended knees. Both were
welcome to Him who knows every secret spring of the
soul's strength, and who replaces the dead formalism of
the Jew with the vital forms of a spiritual kingdom.
So two principles pervade the whole system of redemp-
tion, from end to end. The Redeemer conforms to botli
when, from being unseen in the heavens. He puts on our
material flesh and blood, to reach us men. He conforms
to them again, when, in that glorified body, after His
resurrection, — which He has the power to render visible

HOW THE RISEN CHRIST IS SEEN. 303

or invisible at Ilis pleasure, — He yet lets the women fold
their arms about His feet, bids the incredulous apostles
touch and handle Him, and convinces Thomas by putting
his hand into His side. He conforms to them both
when He solemnly establishes the two sacraments and
the visible ordinances of worship in His Church ; — He
gives grace, and its sign.

Again, a supreme value is set here, for the Christian
life, on the Saviour's personal presence. To us, and to
the Church for eighteen hundred years, that presence
has not been corporeal ; yet it has been literal and real.
What would life immediately become, to any Christian
who has really learned or even tasted wliat it is to live
in Christ and to have Christ live in him, if that reality
of Jesus Christ present with him were stricken out of
his soul ! What would his days of loneliness be, his
times of depression and discouragement, when all that
he has done seems vain and all that he tries to do unat-
tainable, his hours of extreme suffering, his bereave-
ments, his seasons of repentance or remorse? How
could they be borne at all if we could not do as the
women did, go to Him, hold Him by the feet, look into
His face, be sure of His sympathy and His abiding
love ?

Men of action, men of thought, if any of you do not
answer to this, or feel any reality in it, I do not know
how to reason with you about it. We can only tell what we
have seen or felt, — and that always very inadequately and
feebly to those that have seen nothing and felt nothing
of the kind. This much some of us cannot help seeing.
Those institutions and movements in the world, how-
ever moral or religious their object, and however brisk
their activity, seem to have no deep or strong or perma-
nent life in them which are without this livinor and con-

304 HOW THE RISEN CHRIST IS SEEN.

scious connection with the presence and person of Christ,
so as to draw their constant supplies of power from
Him. Those, on the other hand, however few their
numbers, or scanty their treasuries, or apparently insig-
nificant their results, which are rooted and grounded in
Him, animated by the daily breath of prayers to Him,
in their members and leaders consecrated to Him per-
sonally, holding Him by the feet and worshipping Him,
— these seem to have in them a certain tranquil and im-
mortal power for good, and to be the salt of the earth.
So too with the souls of men. With whatever good
intentions, honorable aims, charitable feelings, and
abundant energy, they that are without this conscious
connection with the living and personal Head seem like
streams, however full, which run from a cistern and not
from the fountain in the hills. They have all that
human goodness and zeal can have without that one
secret and inefiable element of Christian love, eternal
and inexhaustible ; and therefore, while they are never
to be judged uncharitably, they are not to be trusted as
we trust what Christ holds in His almighty hand and
stamps with His cross. He does not say to them, " All
hail," and they do not hold Him by the feet and worship
Him. More than that, some of us, I am sure, have seen
this. A pure and aspiring heart, praying and struggling
for a deeper peace than it has ever found, generous, dis-
interested, devout, yet always restless and always dissat-
isfied because not conscious of an embraced and wor-
shipped Christ, at last begins, perhaps without argument
or theological process, to open its spiritual e^^es on the
form of the Son of God, — to say, timidly and yet confi-
dently, " I know not yet how to frame this trust in me
into phrases and formularies, and yet I know that Jesus
Christ is with me, is my Saviour, and has for me all the

HOW THE RISEN CHRIST IS SEEN. 305

power and love I need ; I am sure He lives greatly in
me and for me, and that I live a little in Him ; I know
that my God comes to me in Him ; I know that all I
am capable of receiving of God I find in Christ ; I meet
Him in the furnace of fire ; I have found Him at Geth-
semane ; I have felt Him when I was tempted in some
wilderness ; I have rejoiced to behold Him risen when I
have walked among the graves of those whose lives have
sunk away as water sinks into the sand ; — yes, Him whom
having not seen I love, and in whom though now I see
Him not, yet believing I rejoice. I have known Him in
the breaking of bread, I have heard His voice forgiving
me when I confessed to Him, and His ' Be of good
cheer, I have overcome the world,' when the world
seemed to be overcoming me. All this is real to me."
Whenever this has so been said, we must have felt,
I am sure, that there was a new birth into an alto-
gether difierent and higher life; and that this life in
a man is precisely what the Gospel means for him,
comes to give him, and what nothing else is. Blessed,
oh blessed are they who whereas they have been blind,
now so see I Define or explain their faith as they will,
they have found out what it is to hold Jesus by the feet
and to worship Him.

Finally, what we saw to be true of the several disci-
ples in their witnessings of Christ's manifestations after
He arose is equally true, only in a slightly difierent
way, of His followers here. They that were spiritually
best prepared, by aftection, by earnestness, by sympathy
with the spirit of His life and cross, and by love for Him,
had the clearest and earliest disclosures of His glorified
presence. It is just so now. Tliey that are least occu-
pied with themselves, least engrossed with a business
that is all of this world, or witli a social life and its

306 HOW THE BISEN CHKIST IS SEEN.

fashions that are all afar off from the simplicity of His
beatitudes, they that are trying to do and bear His will
in their houses, they that are busy looking after His lost
sheep, they that are ready to believe more because they
use the faith they have, they that repent most sorrow-
fully and put not their boast in anything that they do,—
these are the souls to which He will unveil the glory of
His face, whose eyes He will touch and open that they
may see more and more of His truth, and in whose
hearts He will dwell as He dwells in no temple that is
made with hands.

WHAT IS HEAYEK?

Second Sunday after Easter,

" Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be
with Me where I am." — St. John xvii. 24.

From the accounts we have of the teaching of both
Christ and His apostles, they seem to have given less
space than we might have expected to the particulars of
the souPs condition after death. A few great, simple,
commanding, comprehensive assurances are made to
stand out before us, with outlines that are very sharp
and foundations that are very broad and firm, like the
mountain peaks of a country towards which we sail.
The region around them lies indistinct, till we come to
it; it is enough that the summits, with their heads
lifted to the sun, tell us that the continent is there, with
only some general intimations of its extent, and the mark
of the shore. The fact of the Christian's immortality,
the fact of the judgment at the entrance, the fact of the
separation of the righteous from the wicked, the fact
that this judgment proceeds on one principle, and tliat
this separation is determined by one affection or the ab-
sence of it, the fiict that afterward there are two parted
families, each of them a social state, the perfect blessed-
ness of the one consisting supremely in the fully recog-
nized presence and love of the Lord, and the complete
wretchedness of the other in absence from Him, — these

308 WHAT IS HEAVEN?

are all. However much besides a Christian intelligence
may reasonably infer or Christian hope habitually
expect, gathering it up from scriptural allusions or nat-
ural analogies, these only are the established verities.
They are taken out of the realm of doubt, or conjecture,
and are settled, as the hills are settled. On these the
Scriptures lay all the stress. Around and under them
they spread out all that immortal land. To the faithful
who seek by patient well-doing there shall be glory,
honor, and immortality ; — but tribulation and anguish
to every soul that loveth and doeth evil. And yet to
every Christian mind there must always be an intense
interest in the questions that arise about that future life.
It is not the intellect only, but the heart, that asks them.
"What kind of a life will it be ? What is heaven ? In
what part of the universe will it be found ? What will
be its appearance or scenery ? What can those occupa-
tions be that, — when this world and all its business and
all its resources, its lights and shadows, its cares and
comforts, have swept away into the common darkness, —
will come in to fill up and satisfy the desires of the soul,
forever and ever ? Who will our companions be ? How
much of what we know and feel, and call " ours," in this
present life, will in any form be restored or renewed to
us there ? Other kindred inquiries will occur to many
of you as having visited and revisited your minds, dwell-
ing there perhaps unanswered, till the silence became
oppressive. Meantime, modern science pushes forward
nearly all its investigations on the plane of physical
phenomena and terrestrial life. Enterprise, labor, dis-
covery, commerce, art, civilization, — these passionate and
vigorous interests tell us nothing of the spiritual world,
— which nevertheless girds and besets us all about, and
hangs close above us ; — they sometimes rather blind us

WHAT IS HEAVEN? 309

to it, though they need not. And so, unless Faith lifts
her hand and opens the veil, our life, whether intellectual
or industrial, is all only a one-sided movement, and our
souls are bereft of their grandest strength and peace.

Now, the ]^ew Testament has its own way of meeting
all these questions. Instead of taking them up one by
one, and attempting to give us particular information,
— which we should, of necessity, from the difference be-
tween that other world and this, be unable to under-
stand, and which would do little for us but excite an
unhealthy curiosity and disqualify us for what we have
to do here, — it takes us by the hand and draws us
directly to Jesus Christ. It puts us into immediate
communication with Him. It points us to His person.
It persuades us that all the good we can hope for or
receive will come from Him. It assures us, by the cross
He bears, that all our sins, under which we were dying
an endless death, have remission and cleansing through
His sacrifice. It shows us in Him a Love that is
infinite in its tenderness and patience, — but at the same
time a Power to take care of us, a Wisdom to en-
lighten and guide us, and a Holiness to sanctify us,
in equal measure with that Love. Then^ when it has
drawn and fastened to Him our supreme faith, so that
we feel there is no really good thing that we can have
or desire but it will come to us through Him, it begins
to speak to us of the other world to come. It lets us
hear Him say, " Father, I will that they also, whom Thou
•hast given Me, be with Me where I am." Heaven
will be to he with Ilim^ forever, — with Him in a deeper
and larger and more perfect sense than we ever can be
here ; having a deeper knowledge of Him than is pos-
sible here, a clearer sight, a closer and more actual com-
munion, larger receptions of His spirit. Heaven will be

310 WHAT IS HEAVEN?

to see more, and more constantly, the wonderful richness
of His character, its tenderness and grandeur, its purity
and holiness, its glory and beauty. Heaven will be to
comprehend more entirely what it was that He did for
us when He so loved ns as to give Himself for us, and
what the suffering and the sin were from which His
sinless suffering saved us. Heaven will be to be made
like Him, fashioned into that mysterious and most
excellent living image. " We know not what we shall
be, but we know that we shall be like Him, for we shall
see Him as He is."

Mark how the doctrine opens by this method. Heaven
is not, then, as it is often represented, a mere appendage
or supplement to this life, affixed to its end. ]^or is it a
foreign territory with which we become acquainted by an
outside description, and then enter by a second existence.
It is rather the perfecting and widening out of that life
of Christ within the discijple^ or of the disciple's life with
Him, — whichever way we express it, for it is really both,
— only in conditions of greater freedom and power.
This life was '' new " whenever we chose to take up our
Christian privileges, and to treat them as realities.
But whenever it began, once begun it is everlasting.
Heaven is the great part of it yet to come, and we know
it is by far the best part, because it will be more Christ-
like. His spirit and His will must act with unhindered
and unlimited power, through all hearts. The obstacles
and drawbacks of sin and sorrow, remorse and suffering,
of bad passions and misunderstandings, of weakness and
guilt, of parsimony, pride and conceit, of disease and
death, will have come to an end. You have held
between your fingers in April a little black powder
rubbed from the pods of a lily ; and you have seen, at
midsummer, the superb blossom that seems as if it might

-WHAT IS HEAVEN? 311

have been transplanted from Eden. That heavenly life
80 grows out of this Christian life here, as the perfect,
splendid flower grows out of the small, plain seed in the
dirt, — yet not by any law of material nature, but by the
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Heaven is not
a place to which Christ goes as a foreigner, tin ding it
heaven already. He makes it heaven. It will be heaven
to any one of us only as we have Him^r^^ in our hearts.
Heaven to us is included in Christ, as the less is included
in the greater. It is the unfolding or flowering out of
the energy of His Light and Love. We are not to speak
of " going to heaven," as if that were the first thing ; but
of becoming one with Christ, — and then going to heaven
will come in, in its time, as a part, the perfect part of
that. Once united in living sympathies and aftections
with Him, so that we live for the same holy and blessed
things for which He lives, heaven comes of course.

Christ himself says in His prayer that it is now, — not
merely that it will be, — eternal life to know the Father
and the Son. He tells His followers that He goes to
prepare a place for them, that they may be with Him
where He is. He says, " He that eateth My flesh and
drinketh My blood hath eternal life." Everywhere He
teaches that immortality is not a gift conferred from
without, as when we are transported from one country
to another, but that it grows up in the soul as the neces-
sary fruit of faith and holiness. St. John says you may
know whether you have eternal life by knowing whether
you believe in the Son of God. None of the apostles
has any conception of heaven and its happiness, except
in direct connection with the presence of the Eedeemer.
The glimpses we have in the Apocalypse of heavenly
employments always disclose Him to us as the Life of
the place.

fTJiriVBRSITri

312 WHAT IS HEAVEN?

It may be inquired, whether this would not somehow
confine or narrow down the range of the heavenly
enjoyments. Would there not be a wearisome monotony
in the unvaried celebration, through eternity, of any^
the most glorious King, the most enthusiastically loved
and admired Leader, or even of a Divine Deliverer ?
But it needs to read Scripture with only a moderate
intelligence to correct any such impression. The sacred
writers never meant to say that the total and uninter-
rupted occupation of the future state will be a literal
ofi*ering of vocal praise, in song, to the Saviour. They
freely picture that life under strong imagery. Worship
will be there, as here, the highest and most satisfying
act of the spirit. Think of the immortal sublimity of
those celestial liturgies; of the great harmonies that
will lift up the multitude of souls that no man can num-
ber, and of the real " marriage supper" ! It will be the
highest sense of satisfaction and rapture that we ever have
in these services and sanctuaries on earth, multiplied and
intensified ten thousand fold ; and then it would not be
strange if it were more frequent or longer continued.
But we must remember that we shall remain social
beings there, and carry all our individuality along with
us, and have all the powers and faculties there that we
have here. Of course they must be used. There is not
the least reason to doubt that our actual employments in
heaven will not only be loftier but far more diversified
and wide-spread than they are here or than we can even
conceive of their being made here. When any soul
becomes inspired and enlarged with a personal devotion
to the Saviour in this world, that certainly does not
restrict its energies, or make its movements monotonous.
On the contrary, every capacity is quickened by this
grand affection. And so in heaven. Christian love

WHAT IS HEAVEN? 313

being the motive of every act, the acts themselves may
be infinitely various; and, thankful service to the
Saviour being the delight of that Eternal Day, the
service may show itself in such differing ministries as
the busiest and most useful Christians here are not able
to imagine ; and there shall be among them things that
God hath prepared for those that love Ilim which eye
hath not seen, or ear heard, or heart conceived.

And yet, my friends, if we take any one of those
great changes in our condition which we should all alike
agree in considering the most desirable as we pass from
the earthly to the heavenly state, and dwell upon it, we
shall see how it must proceed directly from the influence
and the power of the presence of Christ, judging only
by what He revealed Himself as being and doing in
this world. We should all desire, for example, an
increase of the powers of life and love and motion. See,
then, how when He was on earth He wrought just that
invigorating and quickening effect on every soul that
gave itself to Him, illuminating ordinary intellects in
such a way that they became the teachers of all ages,
turning mechanics into masters of the minds of scholars
and- thinkers, making a few fishermen the famous men
of the world, and establishing among jealous nations
and races a brotherhood that outlasts all their revolu-
tions. We should desire exemption from what hurts
and afflicts us here, especially from disease and death.
Consider how much of the Saviour's time on earth was
given to the removal of these evils, and especially that
there is no trace of any such thing on earth as the restor-
ation of life to the dead, since the world began, except
through His interposition. We should long for a society
where mutual charity would take the place of selfish-
ness, strife, and over-reaching, as the principle of social

314 WHAT IS HEAVEN?

commerce and advancement. And how plain it is, from
Christ's teachings and sacrifices here, that just that
blessed change must come in a society where His spirit
would be the unresisted law. We should hope to be
freed from sin. And who could doubt that He who
left heaven and came into the world on purpose to
cleanse and deliver it from sin would banish it forever
from that heaven which is fashioned after His own like-
ness, and is the fruit of His own spirit ? No night, no
tears, no suffering, no sin, — what better marks than
these could there be of a world where the compassion
of the Son of God reigns without limit and without
restraint ?

Observe, in the next place, how this doctrine harmo-
nizes with the fact that the Scripture representations of
the heavenly world differ so much from each other. They
differ because they are not literal but figurative; they
are figurative because their object is not to inform the
understanding but to animate the affections and inspire
a glorious hope ; and, for the same reason, these images
are not made to be consistent with one another. God
designs that we shall expect and desire the heaven He
has prepared, not because we know in detail what is
there, but because we trust Him, and believe that it is
a world where the law of Christ has unobstructed and
perfect sway. To kindle and sustain in us that faith,
His Word represents heaven under images which, in
their natural sense, are quite incompatible with each
other. It is a city of gems and gold, it is an open
country with trees and running water, it is a world with
no more sea and it is a sea of glass, it is a house and it
is an innumerable multitude of worshippers on a moun-
tain top, before the throne. These are the helps applied
to our feeble spiritual sense, through the imagination.

WHAT 18 HEAVEN ? 315

which is the faculty most easily reached and moved, ac-
cording to the whole practice of Revelation, from end
to end. But we are not left to these uncertainties of
the imagination. Underneath these there is a fixed and
solid substance of revealed truth. To this truth every
separate image points, exhibiting some one or another of
its attractive faces. The truth itself is, that of that
society of redeemed souls, glad in their infinite joy,
Jesus Christ is the centre, the light, and the life. There
is no discord or division there, because He is love, — and
there, — as it is not here, — every spirit and the whole
place take their law and temper from Him. E'othing
that is defiled or that maketh a lie enters there, because
He is pure and true. If the memory of the miseries of
this life remains at all, such recollections will not be
painful ; the knotted problems will all be loosened and
dissolved in the celestial chemistry of some strange, new
light ; for He has pledged Himself that there shall be
no pain there. No sick-beds ; no watching all night for
the last breath of your child ; no anxious question what
that secret symptom means which looks like the begin-
ning of the end ; no broken friendships ; no lost love ; no
aching heart ; no bitterness of a rebellious and profligate
child ; they shall hunger no more. There will be no
wretchedness of unfulfilled desire, of failure to do right,
of unanswered afiection, of baffled aspiration and poor
performance, — because, having chosen Him before all,
and got clear of all the earthly competitions and short-
comings, we shall have enough in having Him, and shall
be satisfied with His likeness.

It is another and very practical blessing of the same
doctrine that it makes large room for the differing
notions and difiering degrees of sensibility that Christian
men may have, according to their constitutions and cir-

316 WHAT IS HEAVEN?

cumstances, about that next world. If you find your
mind less disposed to dwell upon the pleasures there
than the duties here, that need not trouble the conscience,
provided only your devotion to your Lord is undivided,
and your life is consecrated to the doing of His will.
That, rest assured, is the main thing. Some of the most
godly, self-sacrificing, and Christlike Christians I have
ever known have never said very much about what is
to come after death. Heart and hands and mind were
all too busy doing the Master's work here, where it
needs to be done so much, day by day. Other Chris-
tians dwell largely on that future, and gather a needed
refreshment from the labor or the endurance of the pres-
ent by anticipating the glory that is to be revealed. Of
these, again, some fasten on one and some on another of
the scriptural aspects of that coming world, for their
consolation and encouragement, just as the Spirit of
inspiration, suiting the supply to every necessity, intended
they should. You meet these diversities constantly in
the biographies of saintly men. Robert Hall said once
to Wilberforce, "My chief conception of heaven is rest."
" Mine," replied Wilberforce, " is love, — love to God, and
love to every bright and holy inhabitant of that glorious
place." J^ow Robert Hall spent a great part of his time
under acute bodily anguish, and no wonder he longed
for rest. Wilberforce, a man whose whole energies, in
parliament and private life, were given to efforts for
the realization of the law of love in legislation and
society, naturally thought of the better country as a
social state founded on the same principle. Intellectual
Christians may long for the wider knowledge, when they
shall see no more as through a glass, but face to face.
Gentle natures, reading all secrets and learning all truth
through their hearts, long and thirst for such measures of

WHAT IS HEAVEN ? 31 7

affection as they have waited for and never found among
men. The evening before he died, the devout and pro-
found German student, Spener, a reformer of his time,
court preacher of Dresden, and one of the founders of the
University at Halle, asked for the reading of the seven-
teenth chapter of St. Jolm, saying that it never could be
comprehended in this world, but that he was now glad
to be going where all would be explained. Poor people
may very well think of the abundance so often promised
them in the resurrection, — like a woman in consumption
I knew of, lying under a few rags on a heap of straw,
who answered to the visitor's question, " Is this all you
have ? " '' It is all, except Christ. It will do well
enough ; I shall exchange it very soon for His unspeak-
able riches." Strong-handed and enterprising people
may wonder whether there will be enough to do there,
and turn right eagerly only to the prospect of running
on the active errands of their King. The parents of
dead children cannot help looking day and night, to see
the sweet faces and kiss the bright foreheads that are
missing.

In all these varieties of expectation we find only the
permitted, harmless workings of a law of our nature.
They remind us of one of the serious sayings of Charles
Lamb, that "the shapings of our heavens are the modi-
fications of our constitution." They run into danger, and
encourage irreligion, and undermine faith, only when
they tempt us to put anything else in heaven before
Him who alone opens it to us, or makes it what it is;
when they dispose us to insist on anything whatever as
essential to our future peace save what He may see fit
to give us, or when they hide the one real and certain
glory there behind mortal forms. It is a false and not a
true Christianity which tells us first to be sure and get to

318 WHAT IS HEAVEN ?

heaven, sending us to Christ only as a means to get there
and be happy. True Christianity calls us first to Christ,
for what He is, and then tells us in its gracious promises
that if we follow Him faithfully we shall be with Him
where He is forever, satisfied to awake in His likeness.

'No doubt, sad thoughts may pass through some of your
minds about some of the dead, and anxious thoughts
about some of the living, as to where this truth of the
Gospel may leave them, — and with what a gulf of separa-
tion between. For the first, we had better dismiss them,
committing all the departed, — and the more so, the more
we loved them, — in faith, in hope, in charity, to Him
who mercifully has all judgment assigned to Him,
because He is Son of man, and has borne our infirmities.
For the others, our anxioiis thoughts of the living that
we love best, lest there should be some dreary separation
hereafter from them, — only let these beget in us more
faithful intercessions for them, more consistent and
blameless lives to convince them, more of Christ re-
flected in our daily dispositions and conduct to draw
them after Him. There is -something excellent in the
quaint saying of one of the most heavenly-minded of
men : — " If I ever come to heaven, I may very likely see
three wonders there : the first, that I shall miss many
persons whom I expected to meet ; the second, that I
shall meet tliere many I never expected to see ; the
third, and the greatest wonder of all, that I shall be
there myself" But, after all, this doctrine is not one
that we can use to the best advantage for other men. It
searches, it warns, it ought to purify and quicken our-
selves. For, construct whatever other theory of immor-
tality we may, so far as we look to revelation for our
guide, and to Him who alone brings life and immortality
to light, we have no glimpse or ray of light on any other

WHAT IS HEAVEN ? 319

heaven than that which is created for us by the Living
and Risen Redeemer of our souls, opened by His cross,
and entered through repentance and faith toward Him.

A few more holy Easter-times at most ; a few more
offerings of this struggling and broken worship, miugled
with mourning, — " missing some one at a sacrament " ;
a few more strains of that

** sad mysterious music,

Wailing through the woods and on the shore,
Burdened with a grand majestic secret
That keeps sweeping from us evermore " ;

a few more bright or clouded sunsets fading along the
western walls of our earthly sanctuary, and then the
curtains will be lifted up. Then no longer as through a
glass darkly, but face to face; then the vision of the
Countenance which no eye hiath seen, — and the new song
before the throne, that no ear hath heard ! We know
not what we shall be, but we shall be with Him, and we
shall see Him as He is !

** Oh the rest forever, and the rapture I
Oh the hand that wipes the tears away I
Oh the golden homes beyond the sunset,
And the hope that watches o'er the clay I"

WHY THERE WILL BE NO MOEE SEA.

Third Sunday after Easter.

** And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; . . . and there was
no more sea." — Revelation xxi. 1.

There is this remarkable respecting the N^ew Testa-
ment disclosures of the future life : — for everything that
approaches definite details of description, we have to
depend on the language not of our Lord himself but of
His apostles. In the commdnications of both there is a
conspicuous reserve ; but it is most striking in Him who
is Himself the resurrection and the life. There is no ful-
ness of explanation. The picture of the Revelation is
drawn large ; there is no filling up of the severe, sparing
outline. However much there is for faith, there is
nothing for curiosity ; and a great part of the message
to faith is that we must wait.

This silence is the more significant when we connect it
with two facts : First, the whole historj^ of human thought
shows that there is an almost irresistible fascination in
that invisible country, lying as it does directly on the patli
before us, and closely related to the life we are living
now; and this interest has always been found to be
lively, in proportion as men's minds were active ; second,
we are urged up to these inquiries not only by the in-
tellectual problems that meet us but by the homely
troubles of the common heart ; we have to deal all the

WHY THERE WILL BE NO MOKE SEA. 321

while with a world where the graves of the dead occupy
a large space in our scenery ; where the alarm-bells of
disease are ringing in some of our chambers every night ;
where memorials of the departed, who are felt to be
only departed, not annihilated, color the atmosphere and
change the look of almost every house, and where,
around the death of more than half of those who die,
there hangs a sad sense of incompleteness, capacities not
yet developed, powers not yet used, aspirations not
realized, and a work not done. Nevertheless, Revela-
tion does, lay a solemn stress on the fact itself of im-
mortality. It creates a conviction in every Christian
that he ought to pass through his whole course here with
the eyes of his faith and hope turned forward, — a puri-
fying influence from his future home perpetually breath-
ing upon him : — what St. Paul calls " the powers of
the world to come."

The farther we go on, however, in the examination
of the matter, as it lies in the Scriptures, the better sat-
isfied we shall be that the reserve spoken of has good
reasons. The scantiness of information is itself a kind
of instruction. "We find that whatever is essential to
the heginnings of a heavenly state is suificiently dis-
closed : and as we have nothing to do here with any-
thing else hut the beginnings, it becomes plainer and
plainer that we are under the safe leading of a strong
Hand, — which is a master of all the mystery, and will be
able to lift the veil as soon as we can bear the light that
springs and flames behind it. In other words, in the
New Testament, from Matthew to Revelation, just as in
the steps of our own growing experience, the increase
of information is gradual.

Look, for example, at the distinction, just alluded to,
between the teachings of the Saviour himself on this

322 WHY THERE WILL BE NO MORE SEA.

subject and the comparatively enlarged expressions of
His apostles. Observe that there is an order, a very
striking and beautiful order, in the opening of the Truth.
In the words of Christ, as they are written down by the
four evangelists, only the fewest features of the great
resurrection doctrine are unfolded. They can be men-
tioned in a moment. One of these is that the faithful
will form groups of a single family, and yet be distrib-
uted into companies ; because, Christ says, it is all our
" Father's house," and yet 4:here are many " mansions "
in it ; this introduces the animating idea of variety in
unitj^, with personal characteristics, yet a single socie-
ty ; — that same grand result of diversity of operation
within one all-including bond of law which science has
been groping after so long, and which the ablest scien-
tific men now begin to think they can catch glimpses of,
as a single Force, in the kingdoms of nature. That
recognitions will take place among those who have been
spiritually and truly united here follows from every
scriptural principle and intimation. But the one great
fact on which all these others are made to depend, — that
around which they are all ranged, and out of which they
all grow, is that of our Easter-tide doctrine, that every
Christian has his eternal and blessed life directly from
his having been spiritually united with Christ before.
This is the intense personality of His power, as the Head
and Fountain of the whole spiritual creation. It will
not be a pantheistic absorption of finite spirits in the
Infinite: — the personality of every soul will be as
sacredly kept and guarded as that of the Eedeemer
himself; for every one is precious in Ilis sight. If I,
the Good Shepherd, He says, "know my sheep," "I
am known of Mine." It is a reciprocal intercouse, a
seeing and being seen, a giving and receiving, a rejoicing

WHY THERE WILL BE NO MORE SEA. 323

of each with each. And yet such is the fulness and per-
fection of that divine life in Him, that all the immeasur-
able sphere, and all the countless differences of heavenly
occupation, will take their quality of blessedness, and
their peculiar light, from the glorious presence of Him
by whose love each soul has been counted worthy to be
saved, and is permitted to be there.

To draw out the more particular consequences com-
prehended in that truth, and to unfold its subordinate
aspects, must be left to the twelve apostles, after the
actual rising of Christ should have secured the doctrine
in their minds.

We pass on to their testimony, and we see the same
gradual order, only opening a little further. First these
apostolic witnesses, as in the Acts, content themselves
with preaching, wherever they can get a hearing, three
GREAT realities that are to convert the world and
regenerate the race, i. e., Christ the Living Man ; Christ
the One Sacrifice for sin, and Christ the Divine Head of
a spiritual and everlasting kingdom, in which all live from
Him. In their busy life of incessant activity and travel,
proclaiming this Gospel and planting the Church from
Jerusalem to Spain, there was room only for this, with
practical exhortations to repentance and faith, — illus-
trated as it all was with those tranquil martyrdoms where
they went cheerfully to death, not careful themselves
about the lesser features of the glory beyond, but count-
ing it enough to look up and see their Master, as He had
foretold, waiting to receive them to Himself.

The next stage we reach in their epistles. As they sat
in prison cells and thought out the sublime system of
this " Faith" which they were delivering once for all to
the saints, or as they saw the need of applying its funda-
mental principles to the agitated minds and practical

324 WHY THERE WILL BE NO MORE SEA.

necessities of the clinrclies thej gathered, they were
able, through the Spirit's illuminatioiij to offer some addi-
tional light on the questions that were sure to arise re-
specting the Christian immortality. So we find St. Paul
writing to the Corinthians — who had thinkers among
them — as in last Sunday's evening lesson, more especially
of the nature of the spiritual body, and its analogies to
the terrestrial or fleshly body, telling them how we are to
be not unclothed biit clothed upon, indicating somewhat
the succession of events in the second coming and the
general resurrection, and giving also to the Church, to
kindle its hojpe through all ages, some magnificent
glimpses of the heavenly worship^ where there will be
" no temple," only because the whole new heaven and
new earth are one open temple, where the liturgies of
the unnumbered multitude are as the voice of many
waters, and the praise is unceasing.

Later still, however, just as the high strain of inspira-
tion is about concluding, St. John, standing last of the
twelve in this life, is sufiered to raise the curtain of that
which is to come a little further. "What he reports,
to be sure, is not all perfectly plain, at least to any eyes
that have searched it hitherto ; how could we, short-
sighted scliolars, and reading at best through a hazy and
clouded air, be foolish enough to expect it would be ? It
is enough that mysteries are set partly open there which
have stimulated the adoring wonder, and have fed the
faith, too, of all the generations since the beloved disciple
fell asleep. In this last Book of the Bible, the sketches
of the celestial country are made more clear ; we see a
likeness there to what is brightest and best in our familiar
landscapes here, which makes it seem more like a home
that we should be glad to move into and take comfort
in ; the ranks of the innumerable congregation become

WHY THERE WILL BE NO MOEE SEA. 325

more distinct ; the anthems seem to grow louder as we
listen at the door set open ; and the very words of the
*' Thrice holy" of the great Supper are sent down to us,
so that we might begin to use them around our earthly
altars, in anticipation. It is a great deal, for example, —
considering how often our bodies ache, and how often
we have to watch over disease, and are tired out with our
work and with seeing how little our work comes to, —
to be assured expressly, and again and again, that there
shall be there none of the torments that distress us in this
flesh ; that we shall hunger no more, thirst no more,
burn with no fever-heats, never be weary, ache with no
more pain ; and that all these immortal liberties and
enjoyments shall be given us, in Him, freely, as fruits of
faith.

Now, it is among these most exhilarating and consol-
ing prospects that we come to the singular expression
of the text. St. John is faithfully reporting his vision ;
he tells, in the historic tense, what he had seen and
heard ; there could be no illusion about it. " 7, John^
sawP Eyco Icoavvq^ eldou raora. The first heaven
and the first earth had passed away. A new heaven
and a new earth, — not a new "heaven" merely, but a
new earth as well, — have taken their place ; — this must
])e to prove to us how close and real the connection is
between this life we are living now with that which is
to come after. But there is one unexplained change.
One of the features of these earthly landscapes, — one of
the most majestic and mysterious of them, — has van-
ished. " There was no more sea."

Where all the declarations of the Bible are so brief and
yet so significant, we cannot afford to let one of them
slip by, as if it were a mere superfluous metaphor.
There must have been, to this inspired and eagle-eyed

326 WHY THERE WILL BE NO MORE SEA.

evangelist, some special and some religions meaning in
this absence of the sea.

I recall, as one clew to that meaning, the situation
where St. John saw the vision and wrote this Apoca-
lypse. As he grew old in his episcopate at Ephesus,
surviving all his fellow-witnesses and companions, — now
sixty years after the resurrection, — the fury of perse-
cution under the Emperor Domitian banished him
from his ministry, along with many noble men and one
consul of the empire, and drove him into exile. The
prison-hoitse that was found for him was a sterile, rocky,
island in the Aegean, or Greek Archipelago, and his
prison-wall was the '^ sea." There is an old Latin hymn
th:it says :

"Through Rome, infuriate city,
From Caesar's judgment chair,
They drag Christ's loved disciple,

The saint with silver hair.
To desert islands banished,

With God the exile dwells,
And sees the future glory
His mystic writing tells."

Travellers point out a wild cave or grotto, on the south-
ern side, midway up the desolate promontory, looking
out over the waters of the Mediterranean, near enough
to catch the roar and beat of tlieir waves against the
cliffs at the foot. It is not strange that tradition after-
wards associated John's figure with the eagles. Here
he received the " Revelation." He saw and heard such
things as were never given to man, before or since, to
see, or to hear, or to utter. He was in the Spirit on the
Lord's-day. The Master whom he had seen standing
by the Lake of Galilee in the day-dawn after the resur-
rection. His countenance now as the sun shining in His
strength, with the same voice that had comfortingly said,

WHY THEKE WILL BE NO MORE SEA. 327

" Fear not," stands once more before Him. He is in the
midst of tlie seven golden lamps, and in His hand, an
emblem of the Churches, the cluster of those seven stars
of the "Pleiades," to which the Almighty pointed the
patriarch as the symbol of His everlasting strength,
among which astronomy has since found the one central
star around which the same Hand swings all the stars and
suns in the universe. "I, John, who also am your
brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the king-
dom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is
called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testi-
mony of Jesus Christ. And I heard behind me a great
voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega,
the First and the Last, and what thou seest, write in
a book."

]^ow in that mingling of divine and human together
which runs through the Bible, nearly every separate writ-
ing in it is stamped with the geography where it was
produced. And so the imagery of St. John, which
portrays the realities of the unseen world, is not less
true to those realities because its features are taken
from around that mountain of stone, sea-girt and solitary.

St. John writes of the blessed life of the new creation,
where holy souls are at rest, that there is " no more sea."
What was the sea, then, to him, — what is it everywhere,
— that he should choose it to symbolize something that is
1^71-heavenly ; — something that is to be done away with
when that which is perfect is come ? The sea is that which
sunders man from man. To St. John himself, as I said, it
was a prison-wall. He looked out across it, homesick, to-
wards the eastern line of coast where the friends he loved,
the dwellings of Ephesus, the Churches he had planted,
waited and mourned for him. Tliere is no such wall of sep-
aration on earth as the sea. It divides nation from nation,

328 WHY THERE WILL BE NO MOEE SEA.

as well as land from laud. Whatever the original unity
of the race, it breaks that unity apart. That is the very
epithet that a Latin poet (Horace), who lived just before
St. John's time, applied to it, — the " dissociable " ocean.
It rolls in its immense barrier between kindred, between
friends, and no longing of love can bridge it. Every
voyager across it is practically an exile. The two for-
bidding, repellent shores cannot be drawn together by
any clamps. If you stand on a bluff and let your eyes
rest on any water where you can see no coast-line,
one of the first things in your mind will be of something
beyond ; something you cannot reach. So long as the
seas intervene, this is a divided world. The family of
souls cannot be literally one ; — the universal neighbor-
hood and brotherhood at which the Gospel aims cannot
be actually represented, till the first earth is passed away,
and there is no more sea.

But if there is one thought that lies nearer the heart of
the Gospel than any other, it is that of the perfect oneness,
or flowing together, and living together, of the nations
and souls of men. Prophets and evangelists promise, in
the new Christian age, a reconcili-ation of what was
estranged, — the absolute extinguishment of all the causes
of division. The blessed bond of that harmony began,
in fact, to be woven when Christ was born, and the
angels predicted peace at His coming, at Bethlehem.

The old political constitutions were framed on the
idea of exclusive rights. In Babylon and Persia and
the heathen empires of the West, no matter whether
Nimrod, or Tamerlane, or Xerxes, or Alexander, or
Caesar was on the throne, selfish power was always king,
and hate always prime minister. This very Domitian
hunted the Christians through his empire, from jealousy
of their rising commonwealth. He charged the two sons

WHY THERE WILL BE NO MORE SEA. 329

of St. Jude with plotting to restore tlie old line of
David. They told him they were poor, hard-working
men, and held up their hands, rough and black with the
spade and soil. " What, then, is this kingdom ? " asked
the emperor. They answered, according to the annals,
in the words of our text : — " It is a kingdom far away.
We look not for it till the world is at an end, and our
King Cometh to make a new heaven and a new earth."
With Christ every human government was to come
under a new law, — disinterested charity. Instead of
military aggressions there were to be missions of the
Cross ; for hostilities, hands of help reached out ; for
battles, sacraments. One was a civilization of conquest ;
the other of sacrifice.

We know well enough how slowly the consummation
has advanced against wars, crusades, caste, slavery, the
complicated injustices and wrongs of a selfish society !
Hereafter it will not be so. Hatreds, suspicions, op-
pressions, cruelties, quarrels, are all to be swept away.
Men will not crowd each other back from the places of
privilege. Women will not envy each other beauty or
love. Scholars will not rob each other's reputations.
The tongue will stop its poisonous, garrulous business of
detraction. There will be no " classes " in the celestial
society, except such as move on agreeing and merciful
errands about a common centre, obeying one impulse
of love. The spirit of Christ's mediation shall be the
reigning force. There shall be one fold under one Shep-
herd. All shall be like Christ,' for they shall behold
Ilim as He is; and sympathy Avill beget resemblance.
There shall be no more separating sea. Another heaven ;
another earth ; but " no more sea " !

So much for the society at large. Think, too, of the
heavenly comfort it must bring to private hearts to have

330 WHY THERE WILL BE NO MOEE SEA.

all the sorrows of personal separations ended. We know
liow mncli of the pain of affection, whose first instinct
is to bring hearts that are alike together, proceeds from
parting. In the perfect life to come, the pure and good,
being always with Christ, will always be consciously
and truly together. They "go no more out." To
those of us that travel a great deal, or take leave very
often of those we love, there is a special meaning in
that phrase. We know nothing, to be sure, of the
modes of movement or the means of intercourse there ;
but we know there can be none of those partings that
have sorrow in them, no sad farewells, no constrained,
untimely, and unwilling absence. A sick mother will
not wait in agony on one side of an ocean for news from
the bed of her dying child on the other. There will be
no empty rooms that feel empty, or deserted hearts.
There will be no melancholy embarkations, no looking
out after receding sails, no watching for the last breath.
Communion, fellowship, love, the presence of the loved,
will be perpetual. There will be no more dividing sea.
There is a second character of the sea which probably
likewise suggested it to St. John, for Christian comfort,
as an image of what is of the earth earthy, and must
therefore pass away before the coming in of an ever-
lasting satisfaction. The ocean is all a field of nothing
but barrenness. Those wide spaces of water, inter-
posed between the lands, two thirds of the earth's acres,
are bitter and fruitless. I^othing green or sweet or
nourishing grows on them. They are literally what
poetry calls them, — a " waste." IS^obody makes a home
on that restless, fluctuating floor. The sailor is a cease-
less fugitive. I^othing settles or abides on that restless
breast. All the life it ever sees or supports is a transi-
tional, passing life, — moving from one tarrying-place or

WHY THERE WILL BE NO MORE SEA. 331

coast to another. What an image it is of the fickle
and transient elements of this world that now is, com-
pared with tlie fixedness and stability and blooming life
of that which Christ has opened !

More than this ; there is a key to this second part of
the meaning of the text in the closing passage of the
chapter that goes just before. St. John has there been
representing the last judgment : " I saw the dead," he
writes, " small and great, stand before God ; and the
books were opened, and another book was opened, which
is the book of life, and the dead were judged out of
those things which were written in the books, according
to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which
were in it." The sea is a great graveyard. It is the
home of the drowned and buried that it has swallowed
up by thousands. One of its bravest vessels grinds against
a rock in the night, and instantly it becomes a cofiin, sink-
ing six hundred bodies, — and two nations are full of fright
and mourning. And it never allows affection to set up a
sign where the dead go down. There is no harvest from
it, except the harvest of the resurrection. But then, fol-
lowing this scene of the judgment is the new creation,
and when the evangelist comes just after to speak
of that, his mind goes back to the sepulchral sea. And
lo ! it is gone forever. There is no place in that uni-
verse of trustful joy for the hungry, insatiable, treacher-
ous waters. " Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste"
will not be found around the " continent of living
green." In other words, dropping the figure, that new
world — the Christian home — is all a dwelling-place of life
—life everywhere ; life without sleep ; life forever. Deso-
lations and destructions are come to a perpetual end. If
there is any appearance of the sea at all in that Apoca-
lyptic imagery, it is the " sea of glass," on which the

332 WHY THERE WILL BE NO MOKE SEA.

redeemed stand with their harps. Everything there must
be as useful as it is beautiful, and as fruitful as it is fair.
You may say there is a wild and wondrous beauty about
the ocean ; and no doubt in this material world it has
its uses ; but neither the Gospel in this world nor the
evangelic descriptions of the next recognize any beauty
that is not the source of peace, or life, or benefaction.
Heathen beauty, Greek beauty, cold, restless, faithless
intellectual beauty, must be baptized into the warm
" spirit of life " in Christ Jesus, or there is no room for
it in the heaven Christ opens.

** Here below, imaginations quivering

Through our human spirits like the wind,
Thoughts that toss like waves about the woodland,

Hopes like sea-birds flashed across the mind.
Up above, the host no man can number

In white robes, a palm in every hand.
Each some work sublime forever working

In the spacious traits of that great land.
Down below, the Church, to whose poor window

Glory by autumnal leaves is lent.
And a knot of worshippers, in mourning.

Missing some one at the sacrament.
Up above, the shout of hallelujah.

And without the sacramental mist,
Wrapt all round us like a sunlit halo

The great vision of the face of Christ."

Brethren, we must endeavor not to let the poetic
dress of the doctrine blind us to its practical solemnity
and spiritual power. But we do discover, under the
image which the Spirit of God suggested to the seer at
Patmos, two of the principal characteristics of that
spiritual world where all of us, who are joined by faith
to Christ, will very soon be going. It will be a world
of undivided spiritual fellowship, and it will be a world
of living and fruitful action. In still simpler and more

WHY THEKE WILL BE NO MORE SEA. 333

comprehensive words, it will be a world of love, and a
world of life. Botli are intimated in tlie prophecy that
there will be no more sea, — no cruel sea or barren sea,
no sea to divide or sea to destroy.

I spoke of this prediction as having a practical effect.
The best thoughts we can have about the future life are
thoughts that make us better men now, — more fit to live
under the eye of God, and in daily intercourse with our
neighbors, just where we are, — kinder and purer at
home, more just and honorable in business, more rever-
ent and humble in prayer, njore charitable in our judg-
ments of each other. The metaphors and poetry even
of an evangelist will amount to nothing, if we do not
come to this. Unless we are very thoughtless indeed,
there cannot fail to be a strong and salutary influence
breathing on us continually by remembering this : — that
we are so near, one day's march nearer every night, to a
world that is all love and all life, — without selfishness and
without death ; — and that world eternal. The prospect
itself, if we realized it, would shed some new sanctity,
it seems to me, over the life we are living. It would be
more quickening and more sanctifying than any sermon.

But something more than this is also true. Every-
thing that will belong to our Christian state hereafter
has its root and its beginning in our convictions and our
conscience, our affections and our habits, here. Your
individual interest in this subject, and in all that can be
said about it, depends on how much of the germ and
sentiment of the heavenly service is in you already.
Heaven will be only the outgrowth and completing of a
heavenly character formed on earth. No one of us can
plant the tree of life after he dies.

Property, business, houses, dress, and furniture, — the
banks, and the warehouses, and the dividends, — they all

334 WHY THERE WILL BE NO MORE SEA.

seem strong enough, and half satisfying, — so long as there
is nothing to take our minds below the surface. But there
comes to us, one by one, a breaking up. God sends it,
because He loves us. A sickness, a death, a failure, a
broken heart or broken hope, shakes them all to pieces ;
and all at once the world feels hollow. Have you any
hold, then, on another inheritance ? What is that hold ?
Is there One stronger than the sea ? The Son of God has
walked in victory upon it. By Him we can conquer the
bitterness : — for love is of God, and he that loveth is
born of God, and knoweth God, and overcometh the
world. By Him we can get the better of the unfruitful-
ness: — "Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear
much fruit." " The branch cannot bear fruit of itself,
except it abide in the vine ; no more can ye, except ye
abide in Me." " And even now, being made free from
sin, ye have your frait unto holiness, and the end ever-
lasting life."

ALONE AT ATHEl^S.

Fourth Sunday after Easter,

** Wherefore ... we thought it good to be left at Athens alone."
— I Theasalonicma iii. 1.

St. Paul is speaking of himself personally. What he
says here, in the evening lesson for this day, is that he
puts upon himself the sacrilice of solitude in a strange
city, simply because it comes in the line of his duty to
do so, as a preacher and a missionary of Christ to men.
To his tastes other appointments would be more agree-
able. Some familiar place would suit better his passion-
ate longing for sympathy. He is a scholar, and would
prefer retirement. He is the scarred and worn hero of
many hard battles, and would like to rest in the fellow-
ship of some peaceful household of Faith. That he
cannot do and be faithful ; and this, with any honest soul,
settles the question. Having formerly planted a Church
at Thessalonica, a post of importance as lying on the
great Koman road to the East, and a Macedonian sea-
port, he had afterwards journeyed westward, plunging,
with the cross in his hand, into pagan Europe. Arriving
at Athens, busy as he is, he remembers the affectionate
little band he had left behind. So cordial is his feeling
for them, that he determines to part with his only com-
panion, Timothy, who is like a son to him, and send him
back to " establish " them ; and with him goes this

336 ALONE AT ATHENS.

to aching despatcli : " l^ow we live if ye stand fast in the
Lord." To that warm fireside-circle of spiritual life
this strong man's heart looks back across the separating
sea, homesick, no doubt, but not a whit the weaker or
less brave in God's work for that.

Turn a moment from that bright picture of primitive
Church-fellowship in Asia to St. Paul's loneliness at Ath-
ens. Launching on his missionary expedition from the
East, and sailing up among the islands of the Thessalian
Archipelago, he had brought the new truth, to proclaim
it in this capital of men's intellectual life. Li his per-
son, on his landing at the Piraeus, the morning light of the
new age rose on a second continent. Yet everything about
him was appallingly bleak, every face was unfriendly.
Any courage less valiant than that of the Son of God
in his heart must have quailed before the overpowering
splendor and despotism of the old heathenism, in the
very stronghold of its dominion. Athens was the brain
of the world. The apostle had come to it, as fearless of
its sophistries and arrogance as he had been of the
swords and dungeons of Syria. He had come to say :
"You classic Greeks, artists, poets, philosophers, are
seeking after wisdom ; but the foolishness of God is
wiser than the wisest of you. One God made you ; one
Saviour died for you. Your Olympus is a fiction. I
preach unto you Christ, and Him crucified, the wisdom
of God and the power of God ; your Saviour, if you will
be saved."

Without some common interests, cities are wilder-
nesses, and society is the saddest of solitudes. From the
moment St. Paul's feet touched the pier at the lower end
of the town, the monuments of the dominant mythology
began to lift themselves forbiddingly before him, to
make him feel himself " alone." His own heart burning

ALONE AT ATHENS. 337

with loyal love for tlie Shepherd of Galilee and Lamb of
Calvary, the first objects that greet him, as he passes, a
stranger, up the principal street, are the statue of Nep-
tune with his trident, a sensual temple of the god of
wine, and sculptured images of Mercury and Minerva,
Apollo and Jupiter, with all the flaunting signals of an
idolatry rooted in the prejudices and habits of centu-
ries. Reaching the market-place, his sense of separation
only deepens at every step. The buildings are memo-
rials of a foreign history. Their walls are covered with
paintings that celebrate barbarous exploits, and illustrate
alien manners. Processions of disgusting ceremonies
meet him on the way. If he looks up, figures of reli-
gious falsehood are hung out along the carved ledges
and balconies. From the water-side, all the way up to
the Acropolis, the city is one vast museum of unhallowed
art, of an unclean civilization, of a Christless worship.
If he turns from the world of sight to the world of
thought, he finds the schools of unbelieving speculation.
Porch and Academy, Stoa and Gardens, strong in great
names to be sure, but distracted with debate between
doubt and delusion, and full of eloquent error. Tlie
most that he could hope from any of them was that,
after the glorious testimony to his Master at Mars Hill,
they would set him down as a fanatical adventurer, ad-
vertising an unheard of sect, — a " setter-forth of strange
gods." What was all this to the sorrowful, earnest, strait-
ened spirit which was there in the form of a worn and sun-
burnt traveller from Tarsus, secretly so absorbed in the
power of a holy affection for a Personage executed long
ago as a disturber of the public peace in the distant prov-
ince of Judaea, that he could say, " It is no more I
that live ; I have no life of my own ; Christ liveth in
me " ? The round of festal novelties, the decorations of

98

338 ALONE AT ATHENS.

Attic taste, the splendid learning, the subtle wit, the
riches and refinements of a proud prosperity, — what
would they all be to one whose heart was in the unseen
court of the King of Kings, and who was willing to give
his body to be burnt, or his blood to bubble for the One
True God ? Deeper and darker his solitude grew.
And yet even there he could send away from his side
the single sympathizing friend that had followed him ;
he could banish himself into a completer exile, and be
utterly " alone at Athens," for the confirmation and
comforting's sake of the little band of Christians far off
at Thessalonica.

There opens out of this casual circumstance a matter
of general concern in personal religion.

In God's appointments for us there are two kinds of
loneliness : — one outward and physical, the other a lone-
liness of feeling, conviction, and character. Both of
them have important connections with our Christian
education and moral strength; and both have their
dangers.

1. First, the providential conditions of life are so
settled for very many persons that they have much less
than the average share of social communication. Some-
times by a shrinking turn of the constitution, or by shy-
ness or natural reserve, or by the lack of that magnetic
quality which draws up sympathy and confidence from
others, or by a fatal propensity to say the wrong thing
and repel instead of conciliating, or else by necessities
of residence or occupation, they are cut oif from society.
There is also a solitude of temperament, the inmost
heart all the while yearning and crying for companion-
ship, and yet strangely fettered, held back, and sealed
up in a dumb secrecy, which the will cannot find
out how to break through. There is a solitude of pride,

ALONE AT ATHENS. 330

where social pleasures and advantages are voluntarily but
bitterly given up, to escape making an appearance in-
ferior to that of one's class, in the style of hospitality,
dress, or equipage, or of literary culture and accomplish-
ment. There is a solitude of obligation, created by the
sheer necessity of unceasing toil, by filial or conjugal or
sisterly devotion, — by poverty or pity imprisoning both
body and mind alike. And there is a solitude of bodily
infirmity or sickness

Among the perils of such a situation to Christian
character we must set down a tendency to too much self-
consideration. A continual confinement of attention to
ourselves, or to those who by belonging to us become
only a slight extension of self, belittles us. The soul
takes petty proportions, sees with a narrow vision, and
is warped to one-sided judgments. Finding nothing
beyond self to fasten upon, affection settles back and
stagnates or sours in the breast, till mere self-preser-
vation becomes the end of living. Religion, though her
hand is on the invisible world, will have hard work to
save such a life from contempt. It has been the snare
of all anchorites and monks and nuns. It is a spirit
directly opposite to the charity and cross of Christ.

In other cases, from the same cause, we see censorious-
ness. Rigid standards are applied to other people's
motives and conduct. Allowances are not madQ for un-
avoidable differences, and so, again, the first command-
ment, of love, is broken.

Along with these bigoted and intolerant ways of
thinking comes envy, a morbid estimate of your neigh-
bor's fortunes, and a cynical discouragement. You
have never had, you think, your fair chance in the world.
Companions that started with you at school have gained
brilliant successes. Past the invalid's still chamber, out

340 ALONE AT ATHENS.

in the street, the children of health and wealth are
rolling away to luxurious gajety. It needs a singularly
steady faith in God's impartiality to keep down your
discontent. So Martha felt her solitude when she com-
plained to Christ, — " Carest Thou not that my sister hath
left me to serve alone ? " And so felt Peter when he
asked, " Lord, and what shall this man do ? " — contrast-
ing John's brighter lot with his own predicted desolate
martyrdom.

Add to these temptations that of a certain unwhole-
some daintiness or fastidiousness, which is apt to arise
from constant preoccupation with private tastes, and
is quite unlike the rugged readiness for Christian ser-
vice to all the ugliest forms of humanity, in the good
soldier of Jesus Christ. Grievances, in the long and
gloomy hours of retirement, are nursed and exagger-
ated. Suspicions grow rank and poisonous. The hand
is withheld from many a useful office, and the tongue
from many a cordial utterance. Opportunities for Chris-
tian benefaction are despairingly thrown away, and life
is miserably bereft of its true spiritual glory.

2. If now we look at the involuntary and moral
loneliness, we shall see that while this too has its dan-
gers, it may be made the occasion, as it was with St.
Paul, of great spiritual gains and victories. It is indeed
almost indispensable that, at some period of their lives,
souls which follow Christ should be stripped of the
support and separated from the countenance of com-
pany, and stand morally apart, without leaning on
human arms or opinions about them; without popular
honor ; without much encouragement or sympathy, this
side of heaven. It is one of the crosses which brave
men, determined to be true at any cost, sooner or later
have to take up. It is a school where strong principles

ALONE AT ATHENS. 341

are planted, strong convictions are nourished, and strong
energies are trained. Kules of action taken up merely
out of deference to prevailing notions fluctuate with
change of place and time. Those wrought into the con-
science in solitude are more apt to come at first hand
from God. Here is the test of courage, and of all real
characters. Can you live, work, suffer, stand out, move
forward, alone ? Can you go where everybody refuses
to go with you, and only the clear command of the
Holy Spirit calls? Can you stay at your post, and hold
your own, when the whole multitude, the class whose
favor you prize most, the set that claims you, some of
them perhaps as conscientious as yourself, decline, or
retreat ? This settles it whether you are merely a piece
of movable furniture in the halls of a worldly society,
a manufacture moulded by the hands of fashion, or a
living and independent soul, satisfied to walk with that
Man of men who had not where to lay His head while
He was showing the world the truth and love of God ;
satisfied to live with the apostle who thought it good to
be left alone at Athens, for duty's sake, and who tarried
another time at Ephesus because, around the door that
was opened to him to testify for Christ, there were " many
adversaries."

In all the biographies of human greatness we find this
proved by examples. I try in vain to think of one vic-
torious and memorable saint who has not had, some time
or other, the discipline of the desert, some seasons of
awful retirement to a mountain, in a night, — away from
where men are coming and going. It was there that
these leaders of the world's life have gathered gifts from
on high, have broken the bondage of ambition and
vanity, and have come so close to Christ that His own
sacrificial power entered into them. Men that have

342 ALONE AT ATHENS.

been mucli in solitude have generally been tlie heroic
figures of history, — men coming out of the wilderness,
back from deserts, down from the mount, — Abraham
and Moses, Samuel and Elijah, David and John the
Baptist. Out of the Bible no less than in it, it is remark-
able how the master-men have been at some period
lonely men. They had to break friendship with the
average social morality, too honest for compromise, too
loyal for the buying and selling of conscience, too pure
for popularity, and therefore, after they had walked apart
in the world with the Man of sorrows and solitude, we
see tliem walking out of it at last with the triumphant
step of believers who had kept the faith, — conquerors
who finished their course with joy.

Hence, too, the defect you are sure to find in people
that have never accepted or created for themselves these
intervals of seclusion. They may be stirring characters
but thin, loud but shallow, wanting in reverence and
steady power, over-anxious about results and appearances,
over-deferential to the popular cry, leaning upon social
judgments, appealing to social maxims, never quite easy
" alone,'' — at home only in the " multitude " but afraid
of the " mount," shrill men, easy to find, and serviceable
in some ways, but with no deep, subtonic notes in their
manhood, and no heavenly signification in their faces.
Dr. Johnson, in his imaginary world of Oriental luxury,
describes a merry feast, inaccessible to care or pain, " at
which, nevertheless," he says, " there was not one guest
who did not dread the moment when solitude should
deliver him to the tyranny of reflection." A " tyranny "
perhaps to the cowards who dare not face their own
consciences ; but, if society makes them afraid of self-
knowledge and uneasy before God, society itself is the
tyrant. Most gay companies have more or less of this

ALONE AT ATHENS. 343

covered foreboding and unrest in them: no music
drowns it, and no smiles can make it beautiful. It is the
earnest, hearty workmen, with God and for God, who
know how to use society and how to welcome solitude, —
how to take with equal joy active service for Christ in
the world, or retirement with Him when He says,
" Come ye apart" ; how to be refreshed with fellowships
at Thessalonica, and to be left at Athens alone.

If it is true, as seems to be generally agreed, that the
evangelist's expression, " Many were coming and going,
and there was no leisure," pictures in one vivid phrase
the manners of our own times, — if it is an outward-
living and fast-living and self-indulgent generation, — a
noisy and showy age, then the Church never needed
more than now to repeat her Lord's great doctrine of
religious retirement and private prayer. The more
engrossing our tendencies to secular arrogance and a
mere surface morality, varnishing vice instead of uproot-
ing it, the more watchfully you who are Christians
ought to guard the sacred retreats of meditation and
worship. This nation could hardly have been what it is,
or done what it has, if our ancestors had brought up their
sons and daughters in the glaring public parlors and
refectories of a vast hotel. Strong character is a separate
thing; and it requires a separate, individual nurture.
Promiscuous intermixtures never produce it. It might
very well be defined as the power of standing alone ^ sin-
gle-hearted principle ; independent abiding by the right-
eousness of God. And how we see the want of it
everywhere, wherever men or women meet together;
wherever majorities browbeat an unpopular foith ;
wherever the sound of many feet tempts you to join a
crowd in doing evil ; wherever you are likely to be a
loser in money, or to be laughed at, or voted down, for

344 ALONE AT ATHENS.

not doing as those about you do, — staying away in your
little Athens of hostility and desertion; — wherever
Christ is on one side saying, " Come after Me, live with
Me, suifer for Me," and the world is on the other side
saying, "Here are mirth and ease, and here are wine
and meat, and favors and good offers and fine establish-
ments, and flattering notices of the public press."
Righteousness never counts her companions. This is
the heroic loneliness of all God's great ones from the
beginning, — of Jacob left alone through the long night
of his agony, wrestling with the angel, till he had power
with God and prevailed ; of Moses receiving his com-
mission to emancipate and organize a nation, alone in the
mountains ; of Elijah, when he cried, " Lord, they have
killed Thy prophets, and digged down Thine altars, and
I am left alone, and they seek my life " ; of Daniel in
his exile, watched by an idolatrous monarch, kneeling
three times a day with his face towards Jerusalem ; of
St. Peter when he answered the rulers, " Whether it be
right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more
than unto God, judge ye " ; and higher yet, of Him who
trod the winepress of His redemption so divinely and
awfully alone as to exclaim to the most faithful of His
followers, " All ye shall be scattered, every man to his
own, and shall leave me alone ; and yet I am not," —
never am, and never can be, utterly " alone, because the
Father is with Me."

So St. Paul's striking expression opens its meaning.
In three particulars, in order, we shall have the breadth
and the point of the instruction.

First, the God of our lives puts into all of them some
solitude, for a purpose of His own. l^othing else would do
as well. He arranges it for us that we cannot be always
in anybody's company. He keeps curtains about us, and

ALONE AT ATHENS. 345

drops tliem very often. Friend after friend departs.
Something happens that tells you there is a space of
mutual misunderstanding or want of understanding
between you and the nearest and dearest heart on earth.
There is a night between every two days. He ordains
Bickness, and shuts us in chambers, and sends us on
journeys, and beckons away from us all our companions.
Is it not plain that this is because the deepest and holiest
exercises of the Spirit are where no human presence is
by ? Look back along your years past. If repentance
ever took hold of you with its solemn hands, and held
you still, and bade you look up for mercy ; if the great
choice between God and self was ever made, was it not
when you were alone with your Saviour? The spot
where the old selfish nature is cast down, and the soul
passes from spiritual death to spiritual life, — the prodigal
rising out of his hunger and husks, — is a solitary spot.
Before the Spirit has done His deepest and best work in
you He will have you all to Himself. The question of
everlasting love is a private question : Wilt thou be
Mine forever? Tbe Bridegroom must stand at your
heart's door when no human form, or face, or voice, can
come in between you and Him. Each succeeding strug-
gle, when we get the better of a besetting sin, when we
wrestle with a fierce tempter and finally cast him behind
us, when we make the terrible sacrifice which carries us
clear of some entangling alliance or corrupting but fas-
cinating acquaintance and sets our feet on a rock, or
when God himself puts out His hand and cleanses us by
some unsought sufiering, — is solitary work. Conversions
are solitary. Great griefs are solitary. The heart breaks
" alone." When each one of us will hear a voice saying,
" Come, walk with Me in the valley of the shadow of
death," or a voice saying, " Come, walk with Me on the

346 ALONE AT ATHENS.

liigli places of purity and sacrifice, — arise and depart, for
this is not your rest. Turn ye, for why will ye die
eternally ? " — it will be as if all mortal shapes had van-
ished from our sight. Salvation is an individual matter,
and the starting towards it is in a desert place, — peni-
tence, humiliation, self-surrender. Perhaps it is because
in such separation from society there is an unwonted
openness and honesty of mind which any human listener
or looker-on would disturb. In this regard our com-
munion with Christ only obeys the law of all lofty and
delicate friendships. Intervention is interruption ; and
even the best society on earth is not good enough to
divide your intercourse with your Master.

Secondly, loneliness sometimes becomes lonesome-
ness ; — the excessively secluded life is embittered by a
craving for sympathy. That would have been St. Paul's
feeling at Athens, and he would have thought it not
" good " but bad to be left there, but for the one Divine
Friend who stayed with him. It is in His felt presence
and affection, and nowhere besides, that those hearts are
to find their consolation which are imprisoned in an
unwilling separation from their kind. However throng-
ed the streets, or however brilliant the season, these
uncheered souls are all around us. Say what we will,
and bear it nobly as they may, it is a daily crucifixion ;
and if we are not touched by it we are not Christlike.
It is small comfort that you are not " interrupted " in
your monotonous isolation, if all the while you have an
aching imagination of a possible interruption which
would call out every energy and aspiration within you
into generous action. By far the greater number of us
have hours when we long for nothing so much as to hear
some fellow-soul say, — " I know how you suffer ; I see
your struggle ; bear up ; struggle on ; one heart at least

ALONE AT ATHENS. 34:7

answers to yours." There are constitutions finely tem-
pered which need continual protection, but have it only
under coarse, sordid hands, — lacerating wherever they
touch. There are self-distrustful, timid creatures, tor-
tured with a despairing sense of failure and fatigue, who
get never an encouraging look or reassuring accent.
Oh, this is a loneliness that makes every other meaning
of the word weak, — colder than Polar winds, and
bleaker than Siberian deserts. "What is the comfort?
Only one. For all these the Man of Sorrows is the only
companion, and His hidden love the only consolation.
What would Athens have been to Paul but for his
Saviour ? Draw nigh, O every solitary soul, to Mary's
Son ! Let Him draw nigh to you ; He understands the
most reserved. He knows your unutterable secret with-
out the telling, infinite in tenderness. He has watched
your silent war, and waited with your waiting, and
carried griefs just like yours. " If any heart will open
the door to Me, I will come in, and My Father will
come."

Take it finally for your encouragement in your more
secluded and least noticed services for Christ, that His
blessing rests upon you as graciously in your obscurity
as upon the most conspicuous of His workmen. Paul
the despised missionary at Athens is as sure of his Sav-
iour's presence and benediction as when the priests and
populace of Lystra are crowning him with garlands and
ready to worship Him with their sacrifices. We are
slow to learn that the spirit of the Gospel is no more
in the assembly of ten thousand than where one tired
laborer watches by the sick orphan child in his neigh-
borhood all night, or one daughter of fortune and cul-
ture cheerfully crucifies every taste, every Sunday, to
teach a group of unclean vagabonds how to pray to

348 ALONE AT ATHENS.

their Father, and how to live purely for Christ. We
hurry into publicity, as if that were heaven, and are
impatient to count converts and see results, as if that
were salvation. Not among the thunders and blare of
popular acclaim, but away from crowds, in nooks and
corners of the earth, close down to the roots and foun-
tains of the world's welfare, are offered day by day the
worthiest sacrifices of Christian love. The most glorious
chronicles and monuments of Athens, — called " the gar-
den of great intellects," — are not in her letters, her tem-
ples, or her arms, but are in that little record of the
bent and friendless traveller who thought it good to be
left there alone, to lift the cross, to herald a kingdom
not of this world, and to preach, — " to the Greeks fool-
ishness,"— Christ the wisdom and the power of God.

We reach then the one great principle which is the
same for both parts of our Christian life, — the hours of
retirement and the hours of action, — the soul in secret
and in society. There is such a thing, attainable to us
all, as a living heart of loving faith and faithful love
which beats steadily for God and man, whether in the
unsympathizing streets of a foreign city, or in the warm
circle and communion of kindred souls at home, — out
in the world, or around the altar. When Christ said to
the weary disciples, " Come ye apart and rest," did He
say, " Stay apart ? Scorn society ? Escape, like a senti-
mental hermit, from mankind, because mankind are
bad"? ISTever that. "Eest awhileP But when the
noisy comers and goers, fainting, sinning, dying, needed
His gracious ministries again, he broke up His rest and
went back to feed their hunger, to heal their sick, to
wash their feet. When the people pressed upon Him
out of their cities, and cried to Him, He had compassion
on them, and came down from the mount, because tlipy

ALONE AT ATHENS. 349

were as sheep having no shepherd ; and then Master and
disciples went on their way of work together. Our
religion is one half the loving adoration of God; the
other half is the loving service of the brother whom we
have seen ; our fellow-man. Get down on your knees,
alone, or you will begin no work aright ; and then up,
and be doing !

Our Lord gave it for the Creed of His Church that
faith justifies. He gave it for the life of His followers
that faith without works is dead.

THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD.

I^ifth Sunday after Easter.

"Thus saith the Lord of hosts: There shall yet old men and
old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his
staff in his hand for very age. And the streets of the city shall be
full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof." — Zech. viii. 4, 5.

I FIND this remarkable prediction in one of to-daj's
lessons, in the midst of a passage where a great Plebrew
prophet is encouraging his countrymen in one of their
dark days with promises of a bright time to come, when
the desolations of war and famine shall be repaired, and
a prosperous population will flow back into the empty
liighways. The dear old capital, -the centre of their
reverential affections and seat of their worship, beauti-
ful for situation and holy for its history, will put on its
thriving look again, and be the same blessed home to
them that it was before. The words used are so vivid
that the writer seems to become an inspired artist ; —
with a few clear strokes and strong colors he paints a
fascinating picture of that coming glorj^ of his nation,
so that we, standing here so many hundred years
afterwards, find it as fresh as if the artist's hand were
just moved aside from the canvas. How thoroughly
human the figures and impressions of that Bible-picture
are ; and how lifelike they represent our religion to be !
For observe, first of all, this was the city of God, — a

THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD. 351

city that He has fashioned and filled after His own de-
sign, just as He wished it to be. This future Jerusalem
was no mere mortal metropolis, built by human ambition,
or populated by some sordid colony that had said, " Go
to, now ; let us go to such a city, and buy and sell, and
get gain." It was to be modelled after a heavenly pat-
tern. It was to embody the Divine ideal of a perfect,
pure, and happy state. In the verse before, the prophet
had told us this in the plainest language : " Thus saith
the Lord : I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the
midst of Jerusalem ; and Jerusalem shall be called a city
of truth; and the mountain of the Lord of hosts the
holy mountain." There is no mistake, then, in the city's
composition, and no accident in its arrangements. If
the Lord does not mean to have old men and old
w^omen in it, they will not be seen there ; if boys and
girls are found playing in the streets of it, we may be
sure they did not stray in as vagrants, or get dropped
there as foundlings ; they are there by the express
appointment of the Father of all the families of the
earth.

We may take these sentences, therefore, as a graphic
outline of what God would have a Christian state of
society to be, not in heaven, but in this world. In
the scriptural imagery, or symbolism, Jerusalem is a type
of the Christian Church. Where the Gospel of Christ
has done its perfect work, where Christianity has realized
itself in social institutions, and has penetrated all our
private and public life with its practical regulation, there
the whole of our being will come under its control ; all
its periods, from childhood to old age, will take the stamp
and bear the fruit of this holy and gracious power in the
heart; every capacity in us will be invigorated to its
best exercise by Christian faith ; our common work, — the

352 THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD.

handiwork of the husbandman and mechanic, the in-
tellectual work of the scholar, the housework of woman,
the shop work of the trader, — will be better and safer and
happier work for being done in the name of Christ, for
the sake of Christ, out of that living union of the heart
with Him which makes Him the real life and power of
all our daily service, — done by a Christian will, with a
Christian purpose, in a Christian spirit, with Christian
hands and brain and feet.

And thus you have the subject before you. It seems
to me to be greatly needed. There is, here in the midst
of us, and everywhere about us, a painful and almost
unaccountable separation between the vague notions
about religion that float loosely through men's minds
and those great interests and employments which occupy
them from morning to night, six days of every week. It
is as if a farmer should dig a deep trench, or build a
high wall, between his granary and his table — spending
the bulk of his time in gathering in his harvests, but
then locking them up in barn and cellar, forgetting
that they grew for the daily nourishment of the body.
Our faith is really the bread of our life. This Word of
God, what is said of it ? " Men shall not live by bread
alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of God." Moses wrote that on the threshold of
one great religious dispensation in the world's history,
and Jesus Christ repeated it, at His temptation, at the
opening of another, and He added, " I am the Word and
I am the Bread." The substance of the creed you confess
is not like a pew in church, or a Sunday suit that is put
on and oiF, to be seen or occupied only when the labor
and struggle and trial of life are interrupted ; it is just
as much meant for our soul's food as the corn which
God's sunshine, soil, and air have ripened all Summer

THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD. 353

is meant to sustain the bodily forces that till and gather
it. This Church is meant to open straight into your
homes. The ideas you receive from tlie pulpit are not
merely for the attention of the moment, for criticism, or
entertainment, or a topic of conversation as you walk
home from the sanctuary when the service is over. They
are the seed-grain that is scattered on the ground, not to
die there, or be caught away by birds, but to sink in, to
act on the heart and be acted on by it, in the sj)iritual
chemistry of assimilation and reproduction, to take root
and get fastened there, to bear the blade and the ear.
These prayers and sermons that he has heard ought
to be found in every worshipper, a part of himself,
absorbed into the constitution of His character. If not,
how are they much better than the Chinaman's praying-
mill, or the counted beads on the Romanist's rosary ? I
know of nothing in the whole religious condition of the
people more wanted than some sliarp sword of the Spirit
to cut this curtain asunder that hangs between our
abstract and speculative religious belief and our ordinary
intercourse with men, hiding the one from the other, —
some storm of holy light that shall smite through this
artificial, half-atheistic wall of partition between a pas-
sive faith and an active operation of that faith, in
secret dispositions and out-of-door doings. The men
and the children in the street, as the text says, should be
the constant signs and witnesses of the kingdom of God
within them, — men about their business, children at
their play, so toiling and trafficking, or so playing, if you
please, as to make it plain that the stamp of the regener-
ation is upon them, the image of Christ within them, all
citizens together of the great unseen city and common-
wealth of new-born souls, baptized into Christ, and
bound to His resurrection, having their conversation in

33

354 THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD.

heaven and here at the same time. There is nothing in
our domestic habits, that I know of, too small to bear
this stamp and seal of the law of Christ, nothing too
commonplace to be a test of sanctitication. If every
disciple's love and loyalty to Christ went into the least
of his transactions, making his speech gentle and pure,
his bargains immaculate, his temper as even as that of
Him who when lie was reviled reviled not again but
suffered patiently, his whole treatment of the world a testi-
mony to the cross, why then yon could judge a man's faith
as you judge the growth in your orchard. Give the com-
parative anatomist the smallest bone of a bird, a fish, or
a quadruped, that has been buried a thousand years, and
out of that fragment between his fingers lie is able to
describe the entire creature, to name and classify it, and
draw a likeness of the living body. If we Christians
were as much alive with Christ as the apostles were, — as
we certainly ought to be alive with Him who died for
us, and who if He becomes our indwelling Saviour
changes us from glory to glory, — we should hardly need
our written covenants and formal professions ; for every
hour's life would be an embodied article of our creed.
Then there would not be, as now, three classes of men,
— unrenewed men on the one hand, true Christians on
the other, and between these, a set of professing Chris-
tians whose whole Christianity stands in their profession ;
there would be only two armies, each under its own
leader and banner — for Christ or against Him. In fact,
every hour of our life is an embodied article of our
creed; though it may not be the same creed that the
tongue repeats. The tongue may say : " I believe in
God the Father Almighty." But what if your life only
says to your neighbors, I believe in myself and this
world, in good bargains and paying investments, in

THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD. 355

getting the most I can and making it more, or in enter-
tainments and dress and admiration ? Is it likely that
either your neigbors or God will be deceived ?

They are not deceived. And this reminds us that the
case is really worse than we have yet put it. We have
spoken of inconstant and inconsistent religionists.
There is another class which is largely created by them.
In all these villages and cities there are a great many
men who treat the whole system of positive Christianity,
both doctrine and ordinance, with indifference. They
live by the side of Christian institutions very much as
they would live by neighbors speaking another language
and following different pursuits. They pass the church
door, but never go in. A Bible lies on their table or
shelf somewhere, but it is let alone as if it had no mes-
sage in it for • them. They hear the ringing of the
Sunday bell, but it stirs no Christian gratitude and sig-
nifies no Christian hope ; the notes ring out and die
away, freighted with no hallowed associations, kin-
dling no premonition of " the rest that remaineth for the
people of God," — as unmeaning to these souls for which
the Eternal Shepherd came as they are to the ears
of the dumb cattle that eat and sleep on the Summer
sod, and are buried under it. They never acknowledge
any acquaintance with Revelation, in the street, nor
invite it to their houses, till that one guest pushes in
which they hold at bay as long as medicine and fear can
do it ; and then, inconsistently enough, they ask in, to
meet that dark stranger on the way to the graveyard,
the minister of the risen Christ, whom they had dis-
owned all their lives. Now, no believer in the reality
of his Faith, whether he be minister or layman, can look
this strange problem in the face without painfully ask-
ing the question, again and again. What does it mean ?

356 THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD.

How does it come about? What can break up this
strange and heathenish unconcern ? The faith in Christ,
the trust in God, the expectation of immortality, the
love of the Church, for which we care more than for all
the rest of life together, is nothing to those brothers and
sisters, who, nevertheless, are made just as we are made.
Solve us this mystery, O science or philosophy, and we
will crown you as the pwphets and interpreters of the
secret things of the mind of man !

I do not pretend to suggest here the whole explanation.
If we believe the Scripture, which knows a great deal
more of us than we know of ourselves, the sad reason
for much of it is the natural disrelish, in a selfish and
self-indulgent character, for an unselfish, disinterested
service; the natural man discerneth not the things of
the Spirit of God; a life of appetite and accumulation,
i. e., has nothing in common with the glorious inspiration
of the spirit of the Cross. Grant this, yet it does not
cover, by any means, all the cases. Kow and then one
of that sort of men breaks the silence, and gives you,
frankly, a difierent account. You find there has grown
into his mind, — perhaps from mistaken and one-sided
instruction, a settled impression that this whole matter
of religion lies aside from his life, and apart from its
vital interests. With those that have it, he tells you, —
and he sincerely thinks so sometimes, — religion is a
class-concern, or a periodical and occasional concern, at
any rate a partial and narrow concern. It lays hold
only on a peculiar and exceptional faculty in the mind.
It takes a man, if at all, by unusual ways, ways over
which his will has no control. It comes to some, and
not to others, and those others must be excused. It is
like the arbitrary gifts that make a man a mechanician
or a poet, — that fix the complexion of his face or the

THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD. 357

color of his eyes. It lies off from the great body of
his manhood or his business, — and is therefore not to be
gone about, bred in, and made a part of every man's
substance and best life, by any intelligible, practicable
means. There is much of this sentiment abroad, and
it kills, in not a few, all effort to be Christians.

Let us meet it as directly as we can. Nothing will
be more convincing, in exploding the error, than a daily
demonstration, in our own persons and conduct, of the
opposite truth. "We turn and look into the face of
Christ as He walks the world in the majesty and beauty
of His holiness. Is there anything there that looks like
a class-piety, an occasional or intermitted sanctity, a faith
for some exceptional souls, a limited salvation ? 'No.
All our humanity, every faculty, power, capacity, affec-
tion of it, is taken up into Him. His blessed incarna-
tion. His coming in our flesh, includes everything that
is in you and me. Until every element and fibre, every
faculty and power, in us, is reached by His redemption,
touched with the beauty of His righteousness, and made
new by His transforming grace, we are not entirely His,
— not complete Christians. He speaks, on the mount
and along the hill-sides and highways and lake-shores of
Judaea. Do you gather from anything He says that His
followers are to have two divided lives, serving mammon
a part of the time and God a part, the world with their
business energies, and God only with some sentimental
states brought out at special seasons? Does He say,
Come unto Me, a part of you who labor and are heavy
laden, — or. Let here and there one come? Does He
say that He died for a portion of His Father's family?
Which one of our faculties, of intellect, heart, or will,
does He set apart, and say, My coming and My Gospel
and My righteousness have nothing to do with that ?

358 THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD.

Analyze the very essence and marrow of the Chris-
tian , life. What are the parts of it? Faith, Hope,
Charity. Is any one of them a class-possession ? Chris-
tianity is too divine and bountiful a blessing to be so
hedged in and misapprehended. It intends that every
man and woman and boy and girl shall be the better for
it, and every corner and instant in the character and life
of each shall be the better. It comes to make better
workmen as well as better believers, better men for the
life that now is and for that which is to come, — better
citizens and neighbors, better husbands and fathers,
better parents and children, better boys and girls. It
would make strong men more manly, pure women more
pure, light-hearted children lighter-hearted, because the
love of Christ casts all fear out. The unseen city it is
silently building is a city of truth, the mountain of the
Lord of hosts, the holy mountain. Old men and old
women shall dwell in it, and it shall be full of boys and
girls playing in the streets thereof. It comes down^ to
be sure, like a bride, out of heaven, from God. But
although it descends from above, it is human in its
adaptations ; it is a dwelling-place for just such people
as we all are ; human feet walk in it ; human voices are
heard along its avenues; human comfort lights its
windows. The Gospel is sent into the world just as the
world is. It is not some other race, but ours, in its own
flesh and blood, in its habitations and occupations, that
the Saviour comes to teach, to purify, to redeem, and to
train up for His future service, — that heavenly labor
which is perfect rest.

Accordingly, we must expand our ideas and give them
life, by corresponding convictions of the way. of coming
to Christ and being made one with Him in this world.
The pathways that run up to that Jerusalem are not all of

THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD. 359

one pattern, or graded after one scheme. It is enough that
each one starts just where each one of us who is to travel
it is found, and that they all end at the same Master's
feet. It is a very simple road. Theology becomes only
a blind guide when it complicates and mystifies it, and
puzzles the unsophisticated mind with metaphysical cross-
examinations. Do you want to be a Christian ? Then you
have already begun to be one, — but you have only
begun. Do you wish that Christ were even now dwell-
ing in yoUj with His glorious, animating, and satisfying
presence, giving peace and power to your heart ? Then
have no misgivings or doubts that the motions of His
Spirit are already stirring your soul, and that all you
have to do is to renounce the sin that prevents His per-
fect entering and abiding, and believe that He is waiting
to bless you with life everlasting; — repentance and faith.
Do you say, in your timidity, that you wish you hated
sin more ? Be encouraged ; what is that wish but the
hatred and the repentance, in their first, feeble, incip-
ient stage ? What those feelings need is religious nur-
ture, to grow, to strengthen, to have food and air and
light and exercise. That religious life is yet but a little
child, like one of the children in the streets of the new
Jerusalem, — and it needs to be treated as little children,
with their little life, are treated. Where shall this be
done? Outside the Saviour's fold, or within His fold?
Put the question in another form : are the flock and the
lambs fed out in the wilderness among the briars and the
rocks, where, — as I remember seeing it once in a very
striking picture, — the poor creature lies caught and
tangled, torn and bleeding, in the thorns, with the vul-
ture wheeling slowly in circles up in the air, waiting for
him to die, and the strong sea beating the rocky preci-
pice below, and the shepherd is seen slowly climbing up,

360 THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD.

and looking everywhere, his own hands bleeding with the
briars, his own feet torn with the edges of the rocks, —
is that the place for the saved wanderer to be fed, to be
healed, and grow strong ? 'No. The Shepherd lajeth
it on His shoulders rejoicing, and carries it home. That
is the place. Where is the Christian's home, but the
Church ? But you say you are afraid you have not faith
enough to enter there. Listen to an old singing saint
who knew the human heart through and through :

" He that lacks faith, and apprehends a grief
Because he lacks it, has a true belief;
And he that grieves because his grief 's so small,
Has a true grief and the best faith of all."

The greatest part of salvation on our part is in the being
willing to be saved. The great road to heaven is the
taking up of the work, just as we take up any practical
and earnest work, into which our whole heart goes. I
fear we cover the matter up, and spoil the simplicity of
Christ, with over-much will-work and system-building,
and over-many requirements that Christ never laid
down. I fear it more and more, the longer I live. The
great ideas that the modern mind of Christendom needs
to grasp and realize are the simplicity of the conditions of
Christ's salvation, the practical character of faith, the fit-
ness of Christianity to all the relations and positions of
human life, the need and value of the Christian training
of the young, and the using of the visible system of
Christ's Church for that end. I join the Master at the
beginning of His ministry. I see how natural and
plain it all was. He showed Himself to men, and they
loved Him. He spoke to them, and called them by
their names, — Philip, E"athaniel, Andrew, Peter, James,
and John. One by one they turned and hearkened.
He said, Follow Me. They followed Him, attracted to

THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD. 361

Him, and seeing something in Him that drew them on.
He began to teach them, and as soon as He began, what
He told them of was the kingdom, — the home, the family
circle of Faith, where they were to learn to live and love
and grow in Him, and become one in Him ; the city of
old and young. Oh if those unbelieving and indif-
ferent men and women could only see how plain the way
is, and how full of human joy and blessedness that
divine city is, and how suited its ordinances of prayer
and scripture and sacrament are to call out all that is best
in them, and build them up into free and strong and
noble souls, they could not stay away, or wait outside.
They would say this day, "As for me and my house,
we will serve the Lord."

Yes, as for me and my house ! The children were
seen by the prophet in the streets of the new Jerusalem.
Christ has work for all of them to do, — gladness for all of
them to feel. The city is wide and wide open. The old
men and old women are there, — every man with his staff'
in his hand for very age. It is a healthy place then, a
place to live long in. Between these two extremes, — the
old man leaning on his staff and the boys and girls playing
in the streets, — all the periods of human life are com-
passed, and so our blessed Faith is suited to them all.
It is a comprehensive Faith. It comforts, guides, en-
riches, sanctifies them alL The city is a place by itself;
a holy place ; yet it gathers into it all souls that will
come in by the door. You know who it was that said,
" I am the Door of the sheep ; by Me if any man enter
in, he shall go in and out and find pasture."

Blessed are they that do His commandments that they
may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in
through the gate into the city. The Spirit and the Bride
say, Come, and whosoever will, let him come!

THE HEAYENS OPENED. .

Ascension Day,

"And behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it
reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and
descending on it." — Genesis xxviii. 13.

** Verily, verily, I say unto you, hereafter ye shall see heaven open,
and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of
Man."— >S^. John i. 51.

*'No man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down
from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven." — St, John
iii. 13.

You are struck, first of all, in these transactions, with
the fact that they all lie entirely apart from everything
known to ns in common history, or ever experienced on
the level of this world. The heavens, generally shut up
in close reserve and inexorable silence, are set open
to the eyes of men; beings called angels are visibly
passing and repassing ; supernatural creatures are coming
on errands to Christ and going from Him, He being at
home in the midst of them, at once their object and
Master ; and finally this Lord himself is shown coming
from heaven, and going up into it. Highways such as
run between two of our earthly cities we see travelled
both ways between this planet and the new Jerusalem.
Outside of Kevelation, we shall all say at once, there
is nothing like this.

Materialism is our first danger. Church building and

THE HEAVENS OPENED. 363

the Lords's Day, prayer itself, ministry, creed, ordinances
and sacraments rest on a belief in a supernatural world
fall of supernatural life, or else tliey are a slowly perish-
ing pretence. If that faith in unseen beings and an
unseen country dies, however silently or gradually, the
whole ftibric of what we call religion becomes a solemn
unreality.

Before joining the several passages just repeated
together, and drawing from them the comforting instruc-
tion of their joint doctrine, we will look at them a
moment separately. Each of them pertains to a human
person and place, and while what is written in them all
alike is surpassingly sublime, the record of each one has
a beauty peculiar to itself.

In the first, one of the principal characters in the
earliest period of the world, a patriarch, being on a
journey undertaken in obedience to God's special
command, sleeps, after the Oriental fashion, in the
open air, either under a light awning, or with no other
tent than the sky, the stars in sight. The contact of
this man with the sights and sounds of material nature
is as direct and free, therefore, as that intercourse of his
bpirit with God which this out-of-door condition of things
about him symbolizes. On one of these nights of Jacob's
rest, the time comes when a promise is prepared for liim.
In an age of the future so far away that his thought can
grasp no clear conception of it, — when the sinful and
sorrowing race of men shall have learnt, by long trying
and by many tears, how little it can do of itself, when
the bad choice of the first pair has borne bad fruit enough,
and when the time appointed of the Father is fully
come, — then a descendant of this Jacob shall be born,
of such a new and universal power of life to save men,
that in Him all the nations of the earth shall be ever-

364 THE HEAVEN6 OPENED.

lastingly blessed. This was the magnificent truth sent
down through that Eastern midnight sky into the shep-
herd's mind. No doubt his idea of that wonderful sal-
vation would be narrow with the narrow range of his
shepherd-life and the scanty populations then scattered
between the Caspian, Mediterranean, and Arabian Seas.
Still it must have been to him even there a prospect
inexpressibly glorious and inspiring. See, then, with
what brilliant and yet simple heralding, — such as be-
fitted the religious economy of that early time, this
communication was made. There are no books, no sanc-
tuaries, no pulpits, no anointed prophets yet ; but there
is that eternal and all-illuminating mind of the Jehovah-
angel, out of which all true prophets are afterwards
to be inspired, all true sanctuaries to be built, and all
sacred Scriptures to be written, — the " Word that was in
the beginning with God, and was God." He brings the
message, in his own way ; and it is a way answering to
those childlike times on the earth when God's great
men led their flocks over the plains. Jacob " went out
from Beersheba, toward Haran. And he lighted upon a
certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun
was set ; and he took of the stones of that place, and put
them for his pillow, and lay down to sleep. And be-
hold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it
reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God
ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood
above it, and said. The land whereon thou liest, to thee
will I give it and to thy seed. And in thee and in thy
seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed."
l^ow see. It is just as if, out of that thick darkness of
the night, when mortal voices are still and the public
daylight is veiled, the Creator carved out a temple for
Himself, and opened a hidden window of Jacob's soul,

THE HEAVENS OPENED. 365

and conveyed to him His assurance of His love. The
" angels " that run to and fro on the ladder-steps are
only the carriers of the message. He does so always to
belie\dng and obedient hearts, only without sight or
sound. In the very earliest of all writings, the Life of
Job, supposed to date back before the age of Moses and
his books, and quite independent of them, it is written,
" In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep
sleep falleth on men, then a spirit passed before my
f:ice ; it stood still, but I could not discern the form
thereof; an image was before mine eyes, and I heard a
voice." Gradually these open visions became infrequent ;
they hovered awhile on the border-land of life, and so
disappeared. Whether because man grew artificial, and
his senses more gross and confused, or because it was
necessary that other perceptions should be brought into
play, at any rate the ladder was drawm up, and the
angels were concealed. It is very certain that in the
glare of intellectual light their forms generally become
less shining. But the faith in their reality never lost its
place in the old Church. Every devout Hebrew sang
with David, " Praise the Lord, ye angels of His, ye that
excel in strength." Chosen and ordained prophets, like
Ezekiel, could say, ^''By the river of Chebar the
heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God." The
unseen pathway between heaven and earth was still
trodden by angels. They kept their heavenly watch and
their human charge, — ascending and descending, till the
Son of Man came, who commands their legions, and
makes them His ministers.

So we reach the second passage. This Son of Man has
come. At the very beginning of His course, standing on
the threshold of His kingdom, when Haas yet discovers
His real divinity to only a few open-minded and clean-

366 THE HEAVENS OPENED.

hearted men like Nathaniel, — an Israelite in whom there
is no gJ-iile, — He is careful to say, " Hereafter ye shall see
heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and de-
scending upon the Son of Man." That deeper sense,
which the deeper readers like Origen and Augustine,
and Luther and Tholuck, have never failed to recognize,
is this. Our Lord's coming into the world flings for-
ever apart the folded gates of the invisible. It throws
the two worlds open into each other. It is the very
reality which the ladder Jacob saw long before in
Syria, with the condescending and climbing angels on
it, typifies and prefigures. From the moment of Christ's
baptism, the outset of His sacrificial and saving min-
istry, all the bars and partition-walls, and to the eye of
faith even the veils of the holy place, are taken out of
the way. A train of spiritual glories is from that hour
set in motion, which will go on breaking and brighten-
ing over the earth, in gifts of the Spirit, in the awaking
of love and trust in human hearts, in righteous conduct,
and in the gathering of nations about His cross, which
will have their consummation and crown only when He
comes again with His saints. This, then, is your Chris-
tian privilege, you who believe and follow the Lord.
And as there was a promise then, so there comes
another promise : " Hereafter ye shall seeP It is a con-
stantly increasing clearness, and culminating splendor,
as the great plan of revelation proceeds. While the
kingdom goes from strength to strength, its children
move on from glory into more complete glory, — which
is only their better knowledge of Christ and nearer
likeness to Him. As they grow in that. Christian peo-
ple will see that the whole heavenly world is actually in
Christ's service,.even when He is on earth. You notice
that in the text " ascending " is put before " descend-

THE HEAVENS OPENED. 367

ing," as if these holy ones started from here, and
went up first, — which only signifies that the person of
Clirist, wherever that is, is the real centre and starting-
point of all spiritual life and spiritual fellowship. The
stream of life flows outward and upward and onward
from Him. He is the bond between things terrestrial
and things celestial. Time and space are lost in that love
and life. The going up and going down are but images
of the eternal unity, where the true tabernacle of God
is with men, and the separating and disordering power
of sin is forever broken down and cast out. Hereafter
ye shall see it, if not now, — ye who believe and live
righteously. The flow and reflow of that blessed love
and beatific light shall be unceasing, — without hindrance
or cloud, — because He fills the universe who is all in all,
the very fulness of God. And, as far as we are inwardly
with Him, we are with His angels, — whether we see them
or not, — moving with their motion, climbing when they
climb,hearkening with them to the voice of His Word, min-
istering to Him with them in the satisfying communion.
Pass on and observe the progress of the doctrine. Jesus
has entered on His public teaching, and is persuading a
politician to accept the mysteries of the new kingdom, in
the only way they can be received ; viz., on the simple
faith of Divine authority, coming in by the new birth of
water and the Holy Ghost. They are talking of regen-
eration. Our translation, by the way, conceals the
special signification. " Except a man be born again,"
we read. But Christ says, "Except a man be horn
from above {avcodzv), by a power coming down into him
from the world of life above him." Nicodemus repre-
sents the educated and fashionable class : — he is one of
the prudent sceptics of a half-secularized and comfortable
Church ; and like the Nicodemuses of the trade and

368 THE HEAVENS OPENED.

politics and learning of our days, he is so well satisfied
and so much, occupied with the life that now is, that he
understands neither why anybody should want any other,
or be born into any better. Christ says to him : O poor
rich man, your intellectual acuteness and logical practice
have never let you in at the open door, where this
spiritual perceptions play at their pleasure, and God's
truth is known. "Art Thou a Master in Israel, and
knowest not these things ? We speak that we do know,
and testify that we have seen. ISTo man hath ascended
up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven,
even the Son of Man which is in heaven." The heaven.
Christ gives to His followers, or into which He immedi-
ately receives those that join themselves to Him by
faith, is a present heaven, always present where He is
present. See how the walls of time and space spring back
and vanish away before this One Lord of our souls. How
the curtains of our little tent where we tarry for a night
are lifted up, and these outward heavens roll together as a
scroll ! It would be something to stand at Jacob's side
in the pasture, and see the ladder and the angels. But
here we have a grander privilege. Heaven comes down
amongst us, and we are its citizens already. Are we
living so ? Everywhere the Living Head carries the
living members with Him. He comes down to us, that
we may rise by Him. The ascension is immediately
followed in the actual ISTew Testament order, as in the
Church's year, by a sending down from the place
whither Christ has gone before of heavenly gifts upon
His people ; and most of all the one great Whit-Sunday
gift of the Comforter. These gifts are impartial and
universal, making Christians strong, safe, and joyful.
They are the angels' footsteps on the ladder, coming
down among men. "Unto every one of us is given

THE HEAVENS OPENED.

grace according to the measure of tlie gift of Christ."
Every one. There is but one Family, and one Com-
munion. Our common dwellings and daily work are
encompassed with the infinite glory of that heavenly
presence, which once condescended to the smallest
duties, and washed poor men's feet. This is what the
{Son of Man has done. This is the transfiguration of the
Christian's life, wrought by the coming of Christ in our
humanity. To believe it is life eternal.

There are three great conclusions that leave their
blessed burden of religious consolation on our hearts.

First, to the believer heaven is actually ojpened / not
opened merely in the sense of having a passage set into
its wall through which, by and by, our souls may creep
in to get their first acquaintance with its life, but open
for immediate intercourse and a personal communication^
if we will, — spiritual gifts coming down to us out of its
silent streets, as actual as if we saw on shining stairs
those radiant bearers of them that brightened Jacob's
dream. The full truth shines out. We are not shut in
from the influences of our Lord's Spirit, here^ where we
need tliem so much, — fighting temptation, or bearing
hardship and pain and sorrow. The heavens over us
are not brass, even if the earth under us seems some-
times to be iron. The fainting and weary soul of the
disciple has her refreshment. All her fresh springs are
near at hand. AVorking on, as w^e may often think,
to little purpose, sufiering with no clew to the mystery
of our pain, finding the ordinary path parched as Baca,
and our own spirits almost as dry, nevertheless heaven
lies around us. Now and then its dew moistens our
thirst. We are able to hold on our way by its invigora-
tion. Life is not the horrible mockery it would be if
this world were all. The land we are travelling through

24

370 THE HEAVENS OPENED.

is not comfortless or forgotten of its Father ; it is a part
of Emmanuel's country. "I will not leave you comfort-
less, I will come to you." And so, with all its sicknesses
and graveyards and the crimes that are worse than either,
— this world where we are, to a Christian resident in it,
is an outer room at least, and one of the many mansions,
of God's house.

Secondly, this opening of heaven to us, both here in
these leginnings of the better life and hereafter, is made
for us only by one Lord, who is at the same moment and
forever the Lord of angels and the Friend and Master
of men, — who fills the universe with His holy life
because He has in. Himself the fulness of God. Blessed
and glorious as the fact is that in these days of the Son
of Man, and to the members of His body, the heavens
stand open, He is certainly most blessed and more
glorious who has opened thetn. And hence how plain
it is that whether we are moved by thankfulness for
Avhat He has done for us, or by a hope of peace here-
after, our first business is to come to Him,, in the only
way that we can come, the way He has Himself marked
out. If we are in any doubt— He being out of sight —
whether the service is genuine. He has shown us marks
that we can test it by. He has left His representatives
among us, and said distinctly, " These My poor people,
— ignorant and forlorn, sinning and sorrowful, lost, and
most lost in not knowing that they are lost at all, — I
leave with you; ye shall have them always with you;
by this shall ye know that ye have been discipled by
Me, if ye love them, and love each other. Inasmuch as
ye serve and visit them, for My sake, because I have
loved you, ye do it unto Me." Do that service, and then
you are yourselves angels ; for angels are but messengers
and ministers. You, too, wait on the Son of Man, who

THE HEAVENS OPENED. 371

has put from Him the kingdoms of the world, and the
temptation of bread, and the flattery of ambition. Do
that, and jour own feet climb the ladder. You ascend
with Christ in heart and mind, whither He goes before.
Because He lives, ye live also. No matter if, like the
patriarch, you have to take the stones of that place where
you are, — hard and cold, — and lay them for your pillow,
— behold, the pathway of light opens up none the less.
The angels travel it both ways : they come down bring-
ing God's help as well as go up with the burden of your
prayers. You have been given by His Church to be
His, and where He is there you shall be, and that is
your heaven and your home.

And whatever helps you in Christian living, helps
you also to realize spiritual things more clearly. In-
creased watchfulness helps, a larger and freer faith
gained through the habitual exercise of the faith we
have helps ; so do a pure and upright practice. Church
worship, and cordial communions by the Body and
Blood. Prayer helps, and helps the more, the more
unaffectedly and naturally and trustingly we use it ; for
nothing, more than these petitions and praises sent up-
ward, with the certain answers sent down, can be like
the ascending and descending messengers between us
and our Lord. Make great ventures in that heavenly
interchange ; let your supplications and your alms come
up together before God, and prove Him whether, in the
old image of the prophet, the windows of heaven are not
open, pouring ^''ou out blessings^ Live like Christ your
Brother, and Christ your risen King will give you service
and honor in His kingdom. He is Master and Lord.

" Of the angels He saith, He maketh His angels spirits
and His ministers a flame of fire. But unto the Son He
saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever."

imPEOFITABLE GAZTOG-.

Sunday after Ascension,

'^ Am) while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went
up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also
said, Ye men of Gralilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?"
—Acts i. 10, 11.

The question put is not a question of curiosity but of
correction. It comes not from an inferior knowledge
needing to be enlightened, but from a liiglier knowledge
having light to give. The " two men in white apparel,"
according to the habit of Scripture language, are divine
messengers. They make a part of the grand super-
natural array which the common scenery of the earth
put on as the Lord was leaving it. The supernatural
is most natural ; just as, when God makes His deepest
revelations to us, the mystery of faith becomes the
plainest reason, and there is nothing so irrational as not
to believe. The best philosophy is the largest. The
material world without the spiritual is but half a uni-
verse. When we get to the bottom of the matter, — as
perhaps not all line modern theologies do, — we shall see
that there is a spiritual world without us because there
is a spiritual world within us ; that among the laws of
the system we live in is the law of the spirit of life in
Christ Jesus, — as natural and orderly in its divine
operation as the law of the life of the wheat and the

UNPROFITABLE GAZING. 373

eagle, and that we want the Church as much as we
want a house for the body, and a table for our food.
From the entrance of the Saviour into the garden, the
night before His crucifixion, on through the following
forty-three days, the spiritual world and the material
world seemed to have the doors between them swung
open, and to become one. So at Gethsemane, so around
and within the sepulchre on the morning of the third
day, and so on the mount at the ascension. If we be-
lieve the history, or credit the great fact of the incarna-
tion, at all, is not this just as we should expect ? He
in whom the realities of both heaven and earth were
united and embodied ; He who could say, — even while
He was here amongst us, handling this world and
handled by it, hungering and sleeping, aching and weep-
ing, and working and loving, as we do, — " The Son of
Man is now in lieaven," i. e.^ has His interior and secret
life abiding there, — He is passing back personally into
the unseen communion, where all His friends, down to
us gathered here this morning, are to follow Him. You
ask me why I believe in any New Testament miracles.
Eecause I see the greater miracle before me, — Christ of
Nazareth, — alive, grander tlian all this world's men, and
yet lowlier, saying out that He comes forth from God,
and goes to God, and is one with God, and that no man
Cometh unto the Father but by Him, — saying it as sim-
ply as my child shows me the flower found in the gar-
den,— ^yet so saying it that all the scribes and proconsuls
and philosophers and critics of eighteen hundred years
have not been able to break the authority, or explain the
secret : — this more than all else, tlfe best " evidence,"
is why I believe, and cannot help believing. Surely it
will be nothing strange if the common order is dis-
turbed to let a higher one in ; if this striking together

374 TJNPKOriTABLE GAZING.

of the two spheres sets free the life that lives in the one
as well as in the other. For the time, either the film by
which human eyes are ordinarily holden is thinned, or
else the veil that hangs before the mysteries of the holy
place is lifted up ; — and who knows but these are really
only two different expressions of one and the same
fact ? — so that the home of the Christian family below
and the home of the Christian family above appear, — as
they actually are, — opening into one another.

We go to the mount of the ascension, my friends, thus
to bring back help for our life, in the lower levels where
we are living it, this week, and henceforth.

Hemember that this question, " Why stand ye gazing
up?" is the first thing in the order of events, and in the
Bible narrative, after the closing of Christ's earthly
ministry. Only a little breathing space was to be given
them first to gather up their energies; and even that
was not to be an interval of idleness. They were to go
at once to Jerusalem, as the chosen head-quarters of the
great warfare for the world's conversion, and their waiting
there was to be like the waiting of the still midsummer
elements, before the mountain winds sweep down and
the tongues of fire leap out, — a busy waiting, — a prepara-
tion for this long campaign of many ages. They were
to occupy the ten days from Ascension to Pentecost,
with its mighty wind and flame, in making ready inces-
santly for the coming of the Holy Spirit to inaugurate
their work. They were to be earnest and constant
in prayer and praise. They were to read and settle in
their minds the definite doctrines and precise directions
their Master had committed to them during the forty
days, pertaining to the constitution and discipline of the
new kingdom they were to set up among men. They
were to fasten and cement the bonds of a visible unity

UNPROFITABLE GAZING. 375

and worsliip between the members of the body, because,
it is written, they continued " with one accord^^ in their
" prayer and supplication." Especially they were to fill
up the vacant place in the apostolate, made by the
defection of the traitor, with the formality of a solemn
election. I^othing could be done till the organization
was complete, after the pattern shown in the mount.

Thus their business had been marked out clearly
before them, as every Christian's business is clearly
marked out before him from the time that his baptismal
and confirmation vows are laid upon him and the Spirit
is given him, onward. But how is it ? The apostles are
not turning to that business ; they are still resting in a
kind of sentimental trance between their commission
and their ministry. The eleven had not yet com-
prehended the new duty of the hour, because they
had not turned forward from the past to the future.
They were living as some Christians do nowadays, — in
their feelings more than in their convictions and their
will, in fruitless memories not in daring hopes, — eyes
turned towards the sky where a past glory had vanished,
not with their hands turned faithfully towards the men
for whom that Master had hecome a man and had died.
Indulged any longer, this would become a mere life of
religious sentiment, not a life of religious service, — and
so not a healthy life at all. How long they had been
gazing up into heaven w^e are not told ; it may have
been minutes, it may have been hours. At any rate, it
required a voice from God to rouse them and send them
to their work. That proved to be with them, as it always
has since and always will with useful Christians, a life
of intense, incessant, laborious activity :- the daily work
that witnesses for Christ, — Christ that died ; Christ that
is risen ; Christ that ascended and ever liveth to make

376 UNPROFITABLE GAZING.

intercession ; Christ in His eternal humanity ; Christ in
the heart of His Chnrch.

If those eleven men that had companied so long with
Christ needed to be startled out of a false indulgence in
the mere idle luxury of feeling, most of us certainly need
it much more. It makes the whole matter real to our
sympathies to watch the gradual unfolding and ripening
of the full measure and stature of manhood, — which is
likeness to Christ, — in men that had just our tempera-
ments, our weaknesses, and the same inward and outward
difficulties to contend wdth that we have. I have no
doubt that if these disciples that we now rightly call
saints, — James and John, Peter and Thomas, Philip and
Matthew, — were to appear in our cotemporary society,
as they were at any point in their biography previous
to the Day of Pentecost, we should be surprised at their
resemblance to the men we met in these streets yesterday ;
and after that time the visible difference would lie chiefly
in their having a more single-hearted and enthusiastic
devotion to Christ than the men that we are accustomed
to see. It must have been meant to be so, or they
would not have been chosen from the average social
condition and ordinary associations as they were. Their
very faults and doubts are encouraging,- when we see
how steadily they struggled against them and rose over
them; how, instead of fostering doubt, and growing
ridiculously vain over their scepticism, as some frivolous
deniers do, — as if to put self-will before God's authority
were some mark of intellectual vigor, instead of a wrong
to intellect and heart alike, — they rather longed for faith,
crying, " Lord I believe, help Thou mine unbelief ; and
when we see how patient their Lord was with them, so
long as He saw sincerity and the germs of a genuine truth
in them. So in this particular case : a mother is not more

UNPEOFITABLE GAZING. 377

gentle with the lingering or straying steps of the child
she attends along the street than the heavenly Master was
with these apostles, who were letting their personal feel-
ings detain them from their appointed task. Probably
our personal religious preferences and pleasures, our
tastes for some emotional stimulus or intellectual enter,
tainment in religion, are, in kind, to us, very much what
the absorption in Christ's merely external presence was
to them. It is something that must be put aside as soon
as it interferes with the more substantial business of
carrying Christ's truth ont in self-denying habits into
the living world. I hear a man say it makes him " feel
better " to say his prayers ; so far so good ; but how far
does the good feeling go, and the power of the prayer
keep him company, as a law of regulation to his lips and
a purifier of his conduct and conversation, among the
people that he meets who tempt him and try him ?
I was reading lately in the life of one of the most spot-
less and brilliant of modern religious devotees and ora-
tors,— from whose eminent honor in breaking up the tame
monotony of the prevalent continental piety nothing
ought to be detracted, — Lacordaire, — this remark, and
it is mentioned by the biographer as a sign of high per-
fection : " I desire to be remembered only as one who
believed, who loved, and who prayed." Well, it is true
the Son of Man has not yet on the earth so much believ-
ing, loving, and praying that these graces can be over-
valued; but why say only these? Taking the world
around us as it is, ought there not to be an equal desire
to honor the Lord in an active following of His steps and
proclaiming Him in life? Taking Christianity as it is,
must not a religious system which truly represents it be
as conspicuous for its action as the mediaeval Church was
for its contemplation, or the Wesleyan for its emotion, or

378 UNPROFITABLE GAZING.

the Puritan for its introspection ? We need never be
afraid that in that hearty and holy fidelity to Christ we
shall lack His real presence. Invisible to sight He will,
in the constant freshening of the disciple's living heart
through the doing of His will, be only the more present
to His faith.

And this is the other requirement contained in the
angel's question. The eleven, we may say, are dropped
suddenly from their high privilege to the same position
with ourselves. They must walk, henceforth, as you
and I here must, not by the light of an outward leader,
but, what is a great deal better, by a secret and steadfast
trust in Him who is forever with us by an inward pos-
session, by His gifts and ordinances in His Church, by
His intercession within the veil. There is for all of us
also a " Jerusalem," a " Judaea," a " Samaria," if not an
" uttermost part of the earth," — some well-dressed city
with its ragged fringe of want and wickedness, some
country district with its neglected and untrained fami-
lies, some sophisticated brain that has gone astray from
the old standards and home of the Faith and set up its
Gerizim rivalry, — some that you can minister to by
your charity and win back by your witnessing, if that
witnessing is only as zealous as Peter's, and as patient
as Paul's, and as loving as John's. They, no more than
you, " by their own power " or holiness, made any lame
creature leap and walk ; it was by a JN^ame that is as
ready to be taken on your tongue as theirs, as mighty
for you as for them, and through a faith in that Name
w'hich you can have without measure, though now you
see Him not.

If, then, the question of the heavenly men be put into
some paraphrase for ourselves here, this would be its im-
port. Reduce your privileges to Christian practice, and

UNPROFITABLE GAZING. 379

your faith to action. Life is not given us for specula-
tion, or gazing, or mere deliglit, even though the rehsh
be rehgious, — not for reverie and dreaming, even though
it were the reverie of devotion, or a dream of Paradise.
This world, our own little corner of it, wants sacrifice
and labor, running feet and open hands, busy thoughts
and gentle tongues, — all for Christ and the honor of
His Church. The world's ways are not clean ; there is
too much oppression of the weak by the strong, of the
fatherless and widow by cunning and power, of the
nobler spirit in man by the meaner senses of him.
There is too much cruelty in its habitations ; too much
darkness on its face ; too much filth on its breast.
Come and work for it. Its surface is rough, and wants
much levelling down and casting up to make it smooth
for the Messiah's feet. Believe in Him, and for this
end. Confess Him before men, to follow Him in these
pathways among the multitude; worship Him in sin-
cerity, that you may gain inward power and love and
light and grace for this faithful witnessing from on
high. Wait for Him by watching at the gate, by work-
ing in the field. Why stand ye gazing up into heaven ?
Without departing in the least from the direct force
of the text we find in it, thirdly, a demand, on divine
authority, that our Christian life, as to its inward supplies
and the steady operation of its energies, should be
independent of any particular external support, so that
it may be only the more completely and religiously
dependent on God himself. Not that we are to cast
away any outward prop so long as God's providence
holds it in its place and comforts us by letting us lean
upon it; but that we should not be perplexed or dis-
heartened when any such help that has been familiar to
us is taken away by Him, or enfeeble ourselves by letting

380 UNPROFITABLE GAZING.

our integrity, or onr purity, or our prayers depend on it
instead of depending directly on Ilim. It would be great-
ly useful to us to take it up as a matter of careful and
honest inquiry, how far our Christian character would
be undiminished and unhindered by the striking away
from it of all human safeguards. Try it to-day upon
yourself. Take out all the considerations of social
respectability and the good opinion of others, especially
of those to whom you have a seltish motive for appearing
well ; take out all reference to the effect of a moral or
a religious standing, or your business success, or the
accomplishment of your' professional ends ; take out the
check imposed on your worse propensities by the dread
of domestic misery, of public disgrace, or of a loss of
confidence; let go prudence, self-preservation, fear, in-
terest; part with all those manifold and half-conscious
restraints that are piled up about your religious perform-
ances,— the current proprieties that bolster up your
invalid virtue ; in short, let the simple allegiance of your
soul to God stand out alone, unshielded, undraped,
unbraced by any mortal device or accessory ; how much
of it would there be left ? how staunch and steadfast
would it stand ? how long would it hold out ? how con-
stant would be your worship here ? how spotless and un-
bending your warfare with " the unspiritual god of this
world " ? Oh for the rooted life, the grounded principle,
the settled faith ! So we are told of an old Christian
hero, — and it is true of them all, — that the secret of his
spiritual greatness was that he inwardly united himself
to the cross, made it through life " his refuge, his remedy,
his passion " ; and that the cross which he upheld, of it he
was upholden^ until it became part of his very frame and
structure, even as the old fighter of the northern myth-
ology " felt his arm and sword grow together in the

UNPROFITABLE GAZING. 381

combat, welded into one by the blood that oozed from
his wounds, and then knew that every blow he dealt
told sure." IS'o character is perfectly sure till it has this
mystical interlocking and inrooting in the living sac-
rifice.

There is no danger, my friends, that our eyes or our
hearts will be turned too much upwards, heavenwards, —
provided we look there, in faith and prayer, for the light
and the strength to do our Christian service here. At
present this is our place ; and the judgment before us is
a judgment for deeds done in the body. Let us waste
no time in vain regrets for what we have lost, or in
equally vain longings for what we cannot have, or what
would only dwarf and enfeeble us if we could. These
eleven men, when they were bidden to stop gazing into
heaven and go to their work were not turned away from
heavenly things to earthly things, — very far from that.
It was exactly the opposite. They were to stop looking
into the air, that by a truer and God-appointed road
they might travel, in God's time, higher up into the
Christian heaven. They were to rouse themselves from
a dream, that they might work out their salvation and
the salvation of the world. They were to cease wasting
their time on the empty cloud through which the
Saviour's form had gone, that they rather might find
and follow and possess forever the living Saviour him-
self, in doing by faith the substantial service of His love,
for His sake.

To that end, the present line of living, however
agreeable and prosperous, the present residence or occu-
pation, however delightful, or the present apparent
helps, however prized, as soon as they become tempters
to sluggishness, must be given up, — a sacrifice to Him
whose sacrifice for us is the only assurance of life. All

382 UNPKOFrrABLE GAZING.

true religious power and progress are attained by
frequent breakings up of familiar and dangerous securi-
ties, bj moving forth away from them into less agreeable
surroundings, less easy roads, less sweet-tasting • diet.
" Why stand ye gazing np into heaven ? " Hence God's
personal providence with us is continually pushing us oh,
loosening our feet, changing the scene, displacing one
or another scheme, or vision, or staff, or companion.
He does it for what he would make of us, — better men,
— and for the farsighted love wherewith He loves us.
He does it because He will not let our feet cleave to the
dust, our hearts grow thin and weak, our faith dwindle
and die out ; — the dropping of every such dear delusion
liberates our real life, increases our durable riches, re-
plenishes our strength, sets us forward, lifts us up. How
many of you here are satisfied as you are ? How many
have not some secret suffering and sorrow, either for
what you have had and lost, or else for something that
you have not and are longing to reach ? Answer that,
and I shall not need to argue with you about this way of
pain and parting being God's common way. That we
do not see it oftener is only because we are blind to the.
deeper working of His hands, bent upon our little plans,
and too eager for ourselves.

The summing up of the whole lesson, this morning,
then, is this : Inquire whether the attitude of your soul
is visionary or practical; your great aim in life self-
indulgent or self-sacrificing; your daily desire and en-
deavor the mere enjoyment of the hours, however re-
fined, or the ready going upon Christ's errand, the faith-
ful witnessing to Him, everywhere, always, be it near or
far, be it easy or hard, be it with human sympathies
sustaining you or in the solitude of that obedience which
treads the winepress all alone. On this it depends

UNPROFITABLE GAZING. 383

whether you waste your life's best faculty and vision
upon a cloud, and then sink, a lost thing, into the dark,
or whether you shall be endowed with immortal power
from on high, and be taken up also yourself, into the
Eternal Light, there continually to dwell.

LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIEIT.

Whitsun-Day,

*'I WILL lead them in paths that they have not known; I will
make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight."
— Isaiah xlii. 16.

"As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of
God." — Romans viii. 14.

Both Isaiah and St. Paul are speaking of good men, —
men that believe, and pray, and work, from the only right
motive. Both affirm the reality of a very intimate and
tender connection between such men and God, existing
constantly, even here in this world. There is a pervad-
ing, loving care on the one side, and a trusting depend-
ence on the other side. There is a leading and a heing
led, — with a privilege mysteriously grand and gracious
growing out of that relation on the part of those who
are led. So far the two writers agree. Bat every
thoughtful reader is still aware of a certain difference
in the impression coming to him as he reads. The
prophet says, speaking in Jehovah's name, " I will lead
them in paths that they have not known ; I will make
darkness light before them, and crooked things straight."
The Apostle says, " As many as are led by the Spirit
of God, they are the sons of God." Each declares a
divine promise. What is it, then, that distinguishes the
second from the first?

LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIEIT. 385

Isaiali represents tliat more advanced and ripened
stage of religious culture, in the elder Church, where
the original meaning of the revelation at Mount Sinai
had begun to come out into a clearness approaching that
of the Gr03pel-daj. The dawn was mounting into the skj,
though the day-star had not yet quite risen. The con-
ception of God's character had become, at least among
the purest minds, more simple and satisfying. There
was more of the graciousness of His fatherhood min-
gling with and balancing the fearfulness of His sov-
ereignty. The idea of a free forgiveness to the believ-
ing and penitent heart, which is the central comfort of
Christianity, was modifying the old regimen of inex-
orable statutes and animal sacrifices. Men were getting
underneath the letter to the spirit of the command-
ments, and the nation that had bowed its head so long
over the stone tables of the Law began to feel the fresh-
ening fore-tokens of the pentecostal wind which swept
through the chamber at Jerusalem amid the tongues of
fire. It heard something from the lips of those later
prophets that sounded like the anthem of peace and
good-will at Bethlehem. You have only to read the
first chapter of Isaiah's Book to see this, with its con-
trast of the fat and blood of beasts with the inward
washings, the new heart, the justice and liberty, the
snow-white cleansing of the scarlet sins which were
to come. Worship had become more spiritual. More
confiding impressions of the unseen Father were cer-
tainly stealing into the worshipper's soul. Hence comes
that promise of divine guidance, personal and gentle,
wliich breathes itself into words so beautiful in the text.
" I will lead them in paths that they have not known ;
I will make darkness light before them, and crooked
things straight." There cannot be a human heart

25

386 LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

among us that is not moved by these assurances, because
there is no one among us all that has not found out by
rough experience that there are crooked things in his
life which 7ieed to be made straight, and dark places
which need to be made light ; that there are spots where
the ways part, with no guide-post, leaving the judg-
ment and conscience perplexed, and where one is al-
most certain there must be paths better than that one
he is walking in, safer if not smoother, and running to
a better end. This common need of heavenly leading
puts us into one company with those wandering He-
brews, and makes us prize the promise that was so
comforting to them.

In fact, if we inquire of our own nature, we shall prob-
ably learn that this instinct which desires and follows
leadership, even apart from religion, is nearly universal
with men, and that religion takes advantage of it and
employs it to train our best attachments and confidences
Tip to heaven. With all his self-reliance and self-will
man likes to trust and follow a leader, — identifying him-
self with his strength and skill, and making him, as it
were, a part of his own foresight and individual energy.
It appears among bands of youth, in those literary and
athletic games which anticipate the serious competitions
and conflicts of maturer years. It appears in tribes of
travellers, in exploring parties and discovering voyages,
in political combinations and social reforms, and especially
in the military spirit which makes the general to be.
half the army, gathers up the temper of a hundred
thousand soldiers into the breast of one captain of cap-
tains, sways them all with the courage of his command,
and in some manner spreads out the personalitiy of his
own will till it reaches to the remotest private in the
ranks. This natural deference to a master-spirit, like

LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 387

the natural filial sentiment, or the natural feeling of
hope and veneration and loyalty, is one of the prepared
elements in us on which revealed religion lays hold, to ele-
vate and sanctify it, and then to bind us by it more firmly
and blessedly, in the bands of a spiritual piety, to God.
The next step in the doctrine, however, rises far up
above all our natural and human ties ; for it shows us
this guiding love of the heavenly Father as entirely
independent of anything that we think, or do, or feel.
It leads us in paths that we had not known. The
love is undeserved and condescending. It comes out
to us before we go after it. It is like a hand of
compassion reached down to us out of an inpenetrable
cloud, — a seat of mercy where our sight cannot pene-
trate or any claim of ours be held. " I will lead them
in paths that they have not known." It deals with us
as a mother handles a child just beginning to know
only her face or her voice. A little farther on the
same prophet clothes the thought in other phrases of
equal beauty. " There is no God besides Me ; I have
called thee by thy name, I have surnamed thee ; I
girded thee though thou hast not known Me.'^ We
were too infantile, in the childhood of our spiritual life,
to know God when He took us up, put His arms around
us, quieted the fierce cry of our passions, and carried us
to Christian rest. There must have been a great deal in
the national memories and the daily temple thanksgiv-
ings of those people to lend a vivid significancy to these
words. They were always thinking of the time when
they were all together but a weak bondman in Egypt, and
the eternal kindness came down to unfasten their fetters,
and bore them, as their great earthly leader says, " on
eagles' wings "across the wilderness. Every man has
been treated like that Israel. Who of us cannot recall

388 LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

some trying time when the utter dismay came over him
of not knowing what way to take, — the sun gone down,
human helpers away or feeble, human advisers indif-
ferent or undecided? But God was there before us, and
•when w^e waited on Him we found He was waiting for
us. It is when we are least capable that His love is
most busy in our behalf, and when we are farthest from
being sufficient to ourselves that His preventing good-
ness comes in ; and then, very often, the one path which,
of all those that opened, was the least inviting, was the
one into which He led our unwilling feet.

I just used the words His preventing goodness. It is
an Old Testament expression which has been preserved
in the old English of the Prayer Book, — as we pray in
the Easter collect for God's special grace " preventing "
us. It is a curious example of the degradation of the
meaning of words that whereas to our forefathers the
term " preventing," i. e., literally going he/ore^ bore with
it the idea of God's going before His children only te
do them good, to open their way and help them on, to
guide them and attract them forward, in the modern
usage an exactly opposite, a harsh and hindering sense,
has been put upon the same term, — to " prevent " mean-
ing now to keep back, to distract, to fail and baffle one
in his purpose. We return now on Whitsun-day to the
old and gracious acceptation : " Let thy tender mercies
prevent us." God goes invisibly before His child, like
the good shepherd of the Eastern pastures before the
feeblest and timidest of his flock, to reassure the alarmed
and doubting, to take the briars and stones and to scare
the beasts out of the way, to straighten what is crooked,
to hold a lamp over the dark passages among the rocks,
to lead those that have faith enough to be willing to be
led in paths that they have not known.

LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 389

From this promise we pass over to that given iis by
St. Paul. " For as many as are led by the Spirit of God
they are the sons of God." We see at once that there
is an advance into another plane of religious thought.
Instead of Jehovah we are told of "the Spirit,"
"the Holy Ghost," and that the leading is by Him.
Then, instead of being taught of a mere outward change
wrought by this leading, as in the material world around
lis, — paths opened, the dark made light, and the crooked
straight, lo ! there is a transformation of our whole
interior nature and condition. They who were before
merely creatures and servants, or children only as by
creation, become children in a new and profounder way,
as coming into a spiritual union and a certain filial,
birthright likeness to God. IS'othing is denied or taken
away that Isaiah had said, only much is added, — as
Christ said of the entire Gospel-system when compared
with the old Law ; — not a particle is destroyed, but all is
fulfilled, — i. e., filled fall, rounded out, or made com-
plete. To be led of the Spirit, as a Christian disciple
is, is something far richer and higher than to be guided
on, in hope, and in the day-dawn, as the best Israelite
was.

If we ask what especially is signified by being "led
by the Spirit," the first part of the answer depends on
the use of words, as used by a man, St. Paul, who uses
them with unsurpassed precision and power. In his
exact Greek there are two terms for " leading," which
correspond respectively, in a striking way, to these two
views I have presented, as conveyed in the two parts of
the text. The one signifies a violent and rather irreg-
ular act of propelling a body, — a driving or pushing on,
as by winds, or waves. This St. Peter uses when he
speaks of the moving of the minds of the Old Testament

390 LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIKIT.

saints by the mind of God. The other, employed in the
text, refers to an even, constant, unbroken force, acting
not less powerfully on the mind because it acts gently
and steadily : — the leading of a Spirit who abides always
at His gracious work on the heart, in His chamber with-
in it, and does not come and go. You can illustrate this
for yourselves by any mother walking with a little child,
or shepherd with sheep. The hireling, who only follows
after, and, when the charge wanders or falls into danger,
hurries up and catches hold irregularly, pushing the body
here or there over a hollow or through a thicket, does not
lead^ — as that blessed Comforter leads whom the Saviour
promised to send, choosing the tenderest possible images
to describe the gift, and especially insisting, "He shall
abide with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth."
This is that Spirit whose coming into the Church and
into the believer's heart we commemorate and celebrate
to-day.

What then is the peculiar privilege of those who are
80 led, and are willing, in the yielding up and surren-
der of their hearts, to be so led, by this faithful Spirit
of God ? They are called by the noblest of all titles, and
it declares the most exalted of all honors. " They are
the sons of God." Is this possible ? How can it be ?

There is One only-begotten Son of God, brought
once into the world, for the one mediation and redemp-
tion, becoming also the Son of Man, born of Mary, our
humanity being forever taken up into His divinity and
glorified by it. It is only our spiritual imion with Him,
in a personal ingrafting and adoption by repentance and
faith, water and the Spirit, that we, in an accommodated
and secondary sense, yet a most vital and precious one,
are made also "sons of God." Our sonship to God
comes only through Him who is the Son, only-begotten

LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 391

and dearlj-beloved ; just as through Him, our great
Kino" and Priest, all true Christians are said in a sense
to become '^dngs and priests unto God." Hence the
expressions " Spirit of God " and " Spirit of Christ "
and " Holy Spirit " are often used as equivalent. Christ
gives the Comforter. When He is received into the
heart, ingrafted there by faith, a new blood pours itself
along the veins ; a new nature is born ; a new man is
created, — a man of God, a son of God, in the image of
Christ. Hence too, on the name " Spirit of God,"
wherever introduced, there is a kind of Gospel accent,
— something that suggests, and is suggested by, the
mediation of Jesus, — an evangelic power, a sweetness, a
richness and unction, altogether peculiar to the religion
of the Cross.

Thus, my friends, between the two members of the
text, Isaiah's and St. Paul's, both inspired from the
Word of God, there is just that difference, and just
that advance, that there is between the two systems or
dispensations, — between him who might be greatest
born of woman under the Law, like John the Baptist,
and him, as Jesus says, who is least in the true kingdom
of heaven ; — the same that there is between the old
Jewish Pentecost, or Feast of Weeks, falling seven
weeks after the Passover, and our glorious Whitsun-day,
or Christian Pentecost, following at the same interval
after our Lord's resurrection. The one is all that faith-
ful men could have, in the leading of God's hand, in
finding darkness made light, and crooked things straight,
without the supreme glory of Christ's manifestation in
the flcsli. His sacrifice, and all tlie Gospel powers and
splendors of His reconciliation. The other, dear brethren
in Christ, is what we are permitted, in the wondrous
mystery of God's grace, in His Gospel and His Church,

392 LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

to have by our membership, our incorporation and son.
ship in Him.

Here " the Spirit" is not a mere influence exerted on
character, as by a foreign benefactor ; it is an inwrought
and essential principle of the believer's life. He is a
new creature, a son (and the apostle in one place makes
it still more personal by saying that the believing woman
is a daughter) of the Lord Almighty. And as there are
two New Testament terms, in the original, to signify
two kinds of leading, so there are two terms to signify
children. One has reference to mere natural descent or
begetting, irrespective of any tender, filial feeling. The
other, used when sons of God in Christ are intended,
inchides an affectionate and sacred dependence, or loving-
ness of the child's and the parent's hearts. So, you are
more or less influenced^ doubtless, by the life of any emi-
nently great and unselfish man whose biography you read,
or whose career you watch. The force of such an example
enters in among the other forces that mould a character.
But here, in sonship, there is something deeper and
more interior than that. The tree may take an influence
from the sun, and that foreign influence tends to make
the tree tall, vigorous, green, and fruitful. But the tree
is not the child of the sun. The tree gets the nature of
its life, what makes up its whole characteristic quality,
by secret channels from a seed. If it is altered at all,
afterward, it must be by a graft, taking away the old
and brino:ino^ in a new vital element. The law of the
Spirit of life in Christ is not merely an external impulse
giving us a movement in a particular direction; it is
rather a silent, inward, secret element, transforming,
regulating, and sanctifying everything; it is j)Oured
into the Church by the Holy Spirit, to quicken and
revive it, and by secret visitation, by word and prayer

LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 393

and sacrament, it is granted to every heart that seeks
it.
V/With this comes a special characteristic of our service
to Christ. It is not a service of compulsion or restraint,
rendered "grudgingly or ot necessity." That would be
no Whitsun-day religion. It is labor in a free and joyous
spirit, such as befits the thankful receivers of an unspeak-
able gift in its true character. It is not done for wages,
in view of a futm^e settlement or emolument, still less to
avert a future scourge. It is done in liberty, from a
choice of the heart, and therefore, as all such service is
done, with double energy and ejQaciency. Wise em-
ployers always select workmen that love their work.
This distinction between sonship and servantship runs
through all that pertains to a Christian's obedience.
God gives Himself to those that are led by His Spirit.
It is His highest gift : no other is perfect, and no other
could satisfy this perfect love.

And so we are brought finally to understand why it is
that the apostle, just after he has written these sublime
words of the text, — "As many as are led by the Spirit of
God, they are the sons of God," — and before he goes on
to write, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our
spirit, that we are the children of God, and if children,
then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ,
that we may be also glorified together," puts in this sen-
tence: " For ye have not received the spirit of bondage
again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption,
whereby we cry, Abba, Father." Did the question
ever arise, in reading this chapter, why that unusual
Chaldaic word, "Abba," is left there untranslated?
Probably because, like the familiar words in our English
that are most easily pronounced by the very youngest
lips, it expresses the childlike feeling in the childlike

394 LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

form, and is therefore untranslatable. St. Paul, the
robust and intellectual man, would say to us, " When
the Holy Spirit that Christ gave, as on this day, — the
great promise of the Father, — has been really welcomed
in its living and loving energy into your hearts, you will
speak in your prayers to your Father as little children
supplicate their parents from whom they took their life,
and expect the warmest love" ; and it is to answer that
earnest human need that the Spirit was sent.

These sublime truths, of the higher offices of the Holy
Spirit on Christian men, furnish a key to the interpre-
tation of a very difficult passage in the second of St.
Peter's General Epistles. His words are these : " Grace
and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge
of God, and of Jesus our Lord, according as His divine
power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto
life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that
hath called us to glory and virtue ; whereby are given
unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by
these ye 7night he partakers of the divine nature^
Human thouglit can be lifted no higher than that. It
carries us up to the mysterious boundary between the
finite and the infinite mind. True Christians do become
*' partakers of the divine nature," if not in its essence
yet in its spiritual qualities, in such relation and measure
as the difference of capacity admits, not in the infinity
of the attributes of deity, but in the holy character and
pure afi*ection that pervade their action. This is the
actual sonship in which the covenanted and genuine
disciple stands toward God. It is not that literal and
eternal sonship in which He is who is " Begotten of the
Father before all worlds," and the " Only-begotten.''
But it is obtained through Him ; we reach it by the faith
which is a spiritual union with Him ; it is real, conscious,

LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIKFr. 396

practical, and transcends all other possible honors of onr
estate in its glory. It is a life going on now in every
new-born and obedient heart. It brings iis into the
circle and the sympathy of the privileged Family. In
other language, repeatedly employed in the New Testa-
ment, it is our '' adoption," — the ^* adoption of sons," by
*' the spirit of adoption " ; and so great is the inward
change wrought with the outward incorporation that it
is called a second " being born," — born not of corrupti-
ble seed, but of incorruptible. You were of the family
of the flesh and its sellish impulses ; you are now of the
family of the Spirit and its holy constancy. " That^
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born
of the Spirit is Spirit," — and it is the Spirit that accom-
plishes the regeneration, — that Holy Spirit which we
therefore praise and celebrate and magnify this day.
He came and led us in paths that we had not known.
He made darkness light before us, and crooked things
straight. As many as are led by the Spirit of God,
yield themselves to that attraction, and are willing to
be so re-born and re-fashioned, — these find it out. To
them the blessed, peaceable secret is opened. It opens
more and more as they are led on, till they know as
they are known.

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