fcibrarp of Che Cheoiocjicai $$mimxy
PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY
PRESENTED BY
Rev. James^M. Moffett
BV 85 .H86 1881
Huntington, F. D. 1819-1904
Helps to a holy Lent
HELPS
TO
A HOLY LENT.
BISHOP OF CENTRAL NEW YORK,
4
NEW YORK:
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY,
CHURCH PUBLISHERS,
713 BROADWAY,
1881.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
E. P. DUTTON & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE,
It has been thought by several friends that a
little work like that which follows would be ac-
ceptable, and of some use. The plan is very
simple, and will be recognized at a glance. For
each of the days, from Ash-Wednesday to Easter
Even, a few thoughts are offered, such as might
not otherwise come to mind, to assist the spirit-
ual exercises of this sacred season, both by giving
a special theme and perhaps increased freshness
to private devotion, and by connecting the closet
with ordinary life.
To those who are familiar with the principles
and history of Church-worship it will hardly be
necessary to say that each daily portion, includ-
ing something of Holy Scripture, meditation,
hymn, and prayer, bears an analogy to our litur-
gical appointments, and is a kind of faint reflection
in miniature of the order of Divine Service.
iv INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
In order to meet as many personal tastes and
shades of sentiment as possible, variety lias been
consulted as respects style and subjects, due
regard being had to truth of doctrine. A con-
siderable part of the pages is original. Most
of the Collects are taken from English sources,
though many of them are traceable to a more
Eastern origin. Among the names of foreign
authors from whose writings extracts have been
made are those of Yaughan and Newman, Liddon
and Robertson, Pusey and Isaac Williams, Avrillon
and Schaufner, Krummacher and Stopford Brooke,
Goulburn and Eaber, Ken and Keble, Bonar and
Dora Green well.
The book has been prepared with interest. It
is sent out without pretension, and with the hope
that, being received into friendly hands, it may
make some hearts stronger and some lives more
like the life of our Lord.
F. D. H.
Syracuse,
Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul.
HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
^0l)~fcDebnes&a».
Set your affection on things above, not on things on the
earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in
God.
That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy
Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in
secret, shall reward thee openly.
To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto
them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the gar-
ment of praise for the spirit of heaviness ; that they might be
called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He
might be glorified.
We are not to look on this appointment of a
penitential season as an arrangement of our own.
It is rather a sacred part of that divinely ordained
system of spiritual ministries by which the Lord
quickens the consciences and trains the holy life of
His children. Traces of such a solemnity of forty
days5 continuance are found all along through the
6 HELPS TO A HOLT LENT.
earlier and later ages of Eevelation. We know
that it was the discipline of prophets, the reveren-
tial school of saints who lived wonderfully near to
God. Entering once more upon it we have not
to contrive a scheme of self-improvement without
the guidance of the Spirit and the Bride. He
who hallowed Lent by the Great Fast on the thresh-
old of His mediatorial work for sinful souls
passes into this still retirement with us. All these
coming days and nights He will be our witness and
our companion. The sincerity or formality of our
special observances wTill be known to Him. Our
self-denials He will share. The vows we make
will be recorded in His book of remembrance. As
the Gospel for last Sunday told us, " Jesus of Naz-
areth passeth by." The cry of our blindness and
our weakness will not need to travel far to reach
His ear, nor will He ever rebuke it, either for its
ignorance or its importunity. It is with Him we
are to wralk all the way going up to Jerusalem.
There is one kind of suffering which we are not
simply to accept and bear ; we are to ordain the
pain for ourselves, to go after it, to pray that it
may be made keener than it is. This is penitence.
If we do not know what that sorrow is, we are so
ASH-WEDNESDAY. 7
much farther from true peace. It is because we
have been living only on the surface of life, un-
mindful of its deeper realities, not seeing its grander
glories. Both Christ and His forerunner, when
they began to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom
to the world, uttered one sharp, piercing call:
" Kepent ! " They did not always go into minute
specifications of every shade of siu, for they knew
that they had for a witness a conscience in every
breast, each heart knowing its own plague. They
knew that there is always one comprehensive
iniquity lodged farther in and spreading wider
than any particular offence, — the sin of separation
from God. In order to hate that the more heartily
we must see it as it is, think about it, study its
nature and workings, disentangle its sophistries
and delusions, and appreciate the wretched comfort
it gives to the adversary. Ashes must be sprinkled
first before the ugliness in us can be changed to
spiritual beauty. How significant the image is !
Ashes are what is left when the fire is burnt out.
They are bitter ; worse than tasteless. They are
pale. They are the sign of humiliation. ~No gar-
ment of praise can be put on till this spirit of
heaviness has first wrapped its sackcloth about us.
8 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
Coming once more to the beginning of this gra-
cious period we ought, firct of all, to put away all
superficial thoughts and all flippant conventional
language about it. Do not trust to vague general
intentions; — in the observance they will come to
nothing, leaving only ashes in your mouth. Have
a plan which you are not ashamed to own, and
which you will probably be able to carry steadily
through. So far as all arrangements of time and
place and household are at your command, without
wronging or disobliging others, make them yield
to that plan. It is of less importance just what
form your self-denial takes, than that it take some
distinct form which you can define and present to
your own mind. See that the Cross is really laid
on somewhere. Nothing that you cut off from
self-gratification for your Saviour's sake will you
ever regret or wish to take back. Choose out, if
you can, the weakest point. There is appetite in
its several importunities ; there is the passion for
dress ; there is idleness ; there is the sin of evil
speaking, in fact, all the foul brood of the trans-
gressions of the tongue ; there is bad temper ;
there is the lack of courage in manifesting your
Christian convictions and bearing open witness;
ASH-WEDNESDAY. tf
there is the hurrying or forgetfulness of prayers ;
there is too little intercession ; there is idolatry of
the objects of human love ; there is pride ; there is
the self-seeking or self-pleading that creeps even
into your works of charity. Sprinkle the ashes
where the moral deformity or disorder is most
cunningly concealed, that the flesh of the inner
man may come again like the flesh of a little child.
Dismiss at once from the mind, and keep out of it,
any notion that your sacrifices or repentances are
to be reckoned to you as merits, or can furnish any
ground for your justification. They are meant to
bring your soul into that repentant, lowly, and
teachable frame, where He who alone justifieth can
set His healing and redeeming power more faith-
fully at work. They cleanse the vision ; they open
the door ; they drive the tempter away, inviting
in that heavenly Guest who stands now and knocks
with patient solicitation, and who, once bidden
by a sorrowing and self-renouncing faith to come
in, abideth ever.
Once more the solemn season calls
A holy fast to keep ;
And now within the sacred walls
Let priest and people weep.
10 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
But not in tears and fast alone
Let penitence appear ;
By holier life and love be shown
That penitence sincere.
POUR into our hearts, O Lord, we beseech Thee, the grace
of penitence, prayer, and lowliness, that, mortifying the
flesh and living by the Spirit, and always meditating on
heavenly things, we may think meanly of ourselves, and ever
find our rest and glory in Thee alone, who livest and reignest
with the Father and the Holy Ghost one God, world without
end. Amen.
SxxQt <Hf)ttr0&ag.
Wlioso dwelletli under the defence of the Most High, shall
abide under the shadow of the Almighty. He shall defend
thee under His wings, and thou shall be safe under His
feathers. His faithfulness and truth shall be thy shield and
buckler.
We are entering upon that solemn season of the
year when for a time we separate from each other
as far as may be, and from the other blessings
which God has given us. Like Moses, we have
gone up into the mount to remain there forty days
and forty nights in abstinence and prayer. "We
are called, as it were, out of sight ; for though our
worldly duties remain and must be done, and our
bodily presence is in the world as it was, yet for
a time we must be more or less cut off from the
intercourse, the fellowship, the enjoyment, of each
other, and be thrown upon the thought of our-
selves and of our God. Earth must fade away
from our eyes, and we must anticipate that great
and solemn truth which we shall not fully under-
12 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
stand until we stand before God in judgment ;
that to us there are but two beings in the whole
world, — God and ourselves. The sympathy of
others, the pleasant voice, the glad eye, the smiling
countenance, the thrilling heart, which at present
are our very life, — all will be away from us when
Christ comes in judgment. Every one will have to
think of himself. Every eye shall see Him ; every
heart will be full of Him. He will speak to every
one ; and every one will be rendering to Him his
own account. By self-restraint, by abstinence, by
prayer, by meditation, by recollection, we now an-
ticipate in our measure that dreadful season. Let
us not shrink from this necessary work ; let us not
suffer indolence or casual habits to get the better
of us. Let us not yield to disgust or impatience ;
let us not fear as we enter the cloud. Let us recol-
lect that it is His cloud which overshadows us. It
is no earthly sorrow or pain, such as worketh death ;
but it is a bright cloud of godly sorrow, " working
repentance to salvation not to be repented of."
Forty days and forty nights
Thou wast fasting in the wild ;
Forty days and forty nights
Tempted, and yet undefiled.
FIRST THURSDAY. 13
Sunbeams scorching all the day ;
Chilly drew-drops nightly shed ;
Prowling beasts about Thy way ;
Stones Thy pillow ; earth Thy bed.
Shall not we Thy sorrows share,
And from earthly joys abstain,
Fasting still with instant prayer,
Glad with Thee to suffer pain ?
OKINGr of heaven and earth, rich in mercy ! behold we are
poor and needy. Thou knowest how greatly we are in
need, and thou alone art able to help and enrich us. 0 Lord,
look graciously upon us, and from the treasures of Thy good-
ness succor the poverty of our souls, through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Amen.
iftret ifrtoctg.
Ouglit not Christ to have suffered these things, and to
enter into His glory ?
We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom
of God.
I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter.
Jeremiah speaks literally, in his own person as
an individual, of the persecutions he endured ;
but, as a prophet, he speaks of Jesus Christ, who is
that Lamb sacrificed in types, from the beginning
of the world, in innocent Abel, and afterward in
the Paschal Lamb, and in all the sacrifices of
lambs which were commanded by the Law ; but
the real Lamb is the Lamb pointed out by John
Baptist to his disciples, when he said : " Behold
the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of
the world."
Behold, then, this mild and patient Lamb about
to be led to death because He so loved us as to
take our sins on Himself that He might bear the
FIKST FRIDAY. 15
punishment of them. That Lamb, who is God, is
going to make on the Cross a wonderful union
of two qualities, hitherto separate ; that is to say,
He will be both the priest and the victim. As a
victim, He will pay our debts; as a priest, He will
offer the one great and only sacrifice of our religion.
The Cross will be the altar and the bloody cradle
in which all the faithful will be born, and the firm
foundation which will support the whole edifice of
Christianity. Thence it comes that this Christian-
ity has only been established in the world by suffer-
ings, and it can only be established and supported
in our souls by them ; and it is for us, says St. Paul,
to see how we shall build on this foundation by
following the bleeding steps of the suffering Jesus.
If you have ever seriously reflected on God's con-
duct toward you, you will see that, when you have
strayed from the right path, it was by suffering
that God brought you back again to the religion
which prosperity had made you forget. In short,
we then feel constrained to raise our eyes to
heaven, we call upon the Lord ; grace acts on our
souls ; we begin to feel that these sufferings were
necessary to retrace in our hearts the almost effaced
characters of the divine image. We see the ex^
16 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
treme weakness of the creature, to whom we had
recourse in the beginning of our troubles, and, con-
vinced of the weakness of this resource, which at
the most has only given us some fruitless consola-
tion which did not free us from suffering, we turn
to God, and, invoking Him with all our heart, we
find in Him all that we desired, and we feel con-
strained to say, with the prophet : " Before I was
afflicted, I went astray, but now have I kept Thy
Word. It is good for me that I have been afflicted ;
that I might learn Thy statutes."
Our faith would lay its hand
On that dear head of Thine.
O Lamb of God, we stand
And there confess our sin.
Oft look we back to see
The burdens Thou didst bear
When hanging on the cruel Tree,
And trust our guilt was there.
0 ALMIGHTY Lord, hear our prayers, grant our petitions
in this time of grace and penitence ; enable us to per-
form our religious duties with all the exactitude and rever-
ence of which we are capable, and grant that the fasts conse-
crated by the example and precepts of Thy adorable Son may
be pleasing in Thy sight, and may we finally obtain glory ever-
lasting. And this we beg through the merits and mediation
of Jesus Christ Thy Son our Lord. Amen.
JFirst Satur&aB.
fr*
Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy-
nation, a peculiar people ; that ye should show forth the
praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His
marvellous light.
Of the whole Christian year, let me say that to
live in it, and by it, is the best way of serving the
Lord. Keep these days. If you cannot leave off
your work on all of them, never mind, so you hal-
low them at least in your heart. O children of the
Church ! live in the Church, love her holy ways,
walk in her paths of peace, look not beyond. You
have naught to do with those who are without, but
to treat them kindly, do good to them, and pray
for them. In the Holy Catholic Church you have
your portion ; be content ; give God thanks ; be
at rest. Live by the Bible and the Prayer Book.
Begin each day with prayer; go forth to your
work and to your labor until the evening; lie
2
18 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
down with the eye of Jesus looking upon you, and
the holy angels watching around. Do good in your
time. Be sober, industrious, true, honest, kind.
Fulfil your course. Lay hold on all the helps
which the Lord puts within your reach to bring
you to heaven. So shall your walk be close with
God ; so shall you at length rest in Him with the
blessing of the Holy Church upon your grave ;
so shall you wake in the last great morning, to rise
and go to your Father's House; to be brought
close to that Lord of whose body you are a mem-
ber, and from whose side you will never be parted ;
to inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the
beginning of the world.
Thus everywhere we find our suffering God,
And where He trod
May set our steps : the Cross on Calvary
Uplifted high
Beams on the martyr host, a beacon light
In open fight.
To the still wrestlings of the lonely heart
He doth impart
The virtue of His midnight agony
When none was nigh,
Save God and one good angel, to assuage
The tempter's rage.
FIRST SATURDAY. 19
JESUS, our Master, do Thou meet us while we walk in the
way, and long to reach the Heavenly Country, so that,
following Thy light, we may keep the way of righteousness,
and never wander away into the horrible darkness of this
world's night, while Thou, who art the Way, the Truth, and
the Life, art shining within us. Amen.
JFtrst Stmtrag.
The Lord send thee help from the Sanctuary and strengthen
thee out of Sion.
And He said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a
desert place and rest awhile, for there were many coming
and going.
It brings our Lord in His humanity very near to
us to find Him disturbed by the confusion of a
crowd, and, while the weight of the whole spiritual
creation rests perpetually on His heart, seeking
rest from the world by an hour's retirement. There
is at the same time a very beautiful disclosure of
the tender thoughtfulness of His sympathy with
His followers. His disciples have been busily toil-
ing on His errands. He bids them come and learn
something of His moments of rest. Come, He
says, into this healing air of solitude. By a more
intimate communion with Me alone gain a clearer
comprehension of the great work of your life and
FIRST SUNDAY. 21
of the peace which is its only reward, of the Cross
you must daily bear, and the secret consciousness
of Divine love which makes that Cross light. The
Saviour appears to have been especially apt to go
away alone at periods of peculiar difficulty, as if
the girding up of His mind for the holiest acts of
sacrifice could best be done apart from all mortal
society. Having not where to lay His head He
made the border of the desert His closet, or the
mountain-top His sanctuary, watching unto prayer
all night, wrestling for the world's salvation while
the world slept, unmindful even of its need to be
saved. In the spiritual history of men it is re-
markable how often the commanding spirits that
have done most to bless their fellows, and reform
their age, have drawn their inward strength from
above in such seasons of seclusion. Solitude is the
Divinely appointed refuge of penitence, of self-
examination, of holy resolutions yet new and
feeble, of prayer. It is a means of grace ; Chris-
tian character rarely obtains its heavenly flavor
without it. When the Twelve withdrew from
where many were coming and going, and did so at
His invitation, they went deeper down than before
into the realities of the Divine life, because, to
22 HELPS TO A HOLT LENT.
speak as we do of our human intercourse, they had
the Master all to themselves.
The expression, " Many were coming and going
and there was no leisure," is strikingly descriptive
of our times. We are hurrying on with a fast-
living and outward-living generation, in a self-
indulgent, showy, noisy age. The Church never
needed the doctrine of religious stillness and retire-
ment more than now. But the Church is made up
of individuals, and I am among them. My loyalty
to its honor, my independence of the tyranny of
fashion, my cleanness from all the doubtful usages
and social defilements by which I am tempted
every day, my personal faithfulness to Christ, will
be in proportion to the use I make of the seasons
when I am apart with Him.
Many a dreary sunset, many a dreary dawn,
We had watched upon those desert hills as we pressed slowly
on.
Yet sweet had been the silent dews which from God's presence
fell,
And the still hours of resting, by palm-tree and by well,
Till we pitched our tent at last — the desert done —
Where we saw the hills of the Holy Land gleam in the sink-
ing sun.
FIRST SUNDAY. 23
OLORD, may our souls perceive the sweetness of Thy pres-
ence. May they taste and see how gracious Thou art,
that, filled with Thy love, they may seek nothing out of Thee
wherein to rejoice ; for Thou, 0 Lord, art the joy of our heart,
and our portion forever. Amen.
.first iHon&tm
&>
And Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty
nights. And it came to pass when he came down from Mount
Sinai with the two tables of testimony in his hand, that
Moses wist not that his face shone.
And as they came down from the mountain, he charged
them that they should tell no man what things they had seen
till the Son of Man were risen from the dead. And when He
came to His disciples, He saw a great multitude about them,
and the Scribes questioning with them ; and straightway all
the people when they beheld Him were greatly amazed, and
running to Him, saluted Him.
Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
If the way of faith and prayer runs from society
to solitude, we mnst remember that the way of
charitable work runs back from seclusion to society.
In the perfect life of the Son of God this alterna-
tion is constant between seclusion and service, still-
ness and activity. We learn from it the law of our
own religious growth. Precious as the periods of
refreshment are, they are after all but temporary.
FIRST MONDAY. 25
They are intervals of useful labor, not substitutes
for it. Separation from men may possibly be
sought for, owing to morbid moods, and it may
create them. Like other means of grace, religious
retirement has its peculiar temptations, — pride, un-
healthy introspection, indolence, disparagement of
other men. Accordingly, the real value of going
apart into solitary places must be tested by the
spirit with which we return from them into the
ordinary engagements of our households and the
world.
Lents, holy days, communions, special hours of
unwonted elevation, must all be tried by that
practical criterion. They are scattered along the
Christian's road, Elims in his desert, banqueting-
houses upon his march, to make the common time
more sacred, the required work better done. The
Church herself has to take her turn in lonely spots,
sometimes in humiliation, persecution, and pov-
erty; and it is in order that the Bride may be
brought back to the Bridegroom more faithful in
her love, more abundant in her sacrifice. " There-
fore, behold, I will allure her and bring her into
the wilderness and speak comfortably unto her.
And I will give her her vineyards from thence,
26 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
the Yalley of Achor for a door of hope, and she
shall sing there as in the days of her youth." Most
of our time must be spent in the vineyards where
we dig and prune. All rest is for the sake of that
toil. The Sabbath is for man ; the forty days are
ordained to touch all days with a new sanctity.
Our closets open from the places where men come
and go. Something in our very prayers will be
wrong unless we pass from them into the daily
ministrations and drudgeries with more patience,
more self-surrender, a kindlier forbearance with
the infirmities of those around us, and a heartier
effort to yield our interests to theirs for the Re-
deemer's sake. Our very rests will be unrefresh-
ing without Him, and He only makes the retire-
ment sacred, and society safe.
Come, labor on :
Who dares stand idle on the harvest plain,
While all around him waves the golden grain,
And every servant hears the Master say :
" Go work to-day ? "
Come, labor on :
No time for rest, till glows the western sky
While the long shadows o'er our pathway lie,
And a glad sound comes with the setting sun :
" Servants, well done ! "
FIEST MONDAY. 27
OLORD Jesus Christ, who hast declared that when we have
done all that is commanded us, we are still unprofitable
servants ; give us grace so to fix our eyes on Thy most pure
and holy life, that we may know our own impurity and sin,
and seek in all humility to be conformed unto Thy will, Who
livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost one
God, world without end. Amen.
#
n
fix&t ©ucs&ctg,
Be careful for nothing ; but in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made
known unto God.
There is many a Christian who reaches nothing
more than this (nay, who aims at nothing more), that
devotion shall have its little hour in the day, and
business its long hours ; and great is his complacency
if the business hours are not allowed to trench upon
the hour of devotion. I am not saying anything
against stated periods of devotion ; they are abso-
lutely essential, and it is only too certain that, in
the absence of stated periods, the spirit of devotion
would evaporate altogether. But I am saying that
the soul will never taste a full satisfaction until it
has learned more or less to mix devotion with work.
The soul must not leave God for an instant if it is
to be perfectly joyous and contented. Let it take
but a step away from Him, and it is at once in a
FIRST TUESDAY. 29
region of excitement and unrest, and so far forth,
of danger. Remember that the New Testament
teaching makes unbroken communion with God
obligatory upon us. It names no seasons for
prayer, or rather it names every season. "Pray
without ceasing." My friend, I do not ask whether
you have completely acquired the habit of inter-
penetrating your daily employments with the spirit
of devotion (that is the case with none of us, least
of all, probably, with the present writer) ; but
are you placing this before you as your standard,
and sincerely trying to reach it % Ejaculatory
prayer is the great means of reaching it. Do you
ever use ejaculatory prayer ? Do you ever lift up
your heart to God in the midst of your work, pray-
ing Him to shield you from temptation, to bless you
in what you are doing, and, at all events, not to let
you wander very far from His side ? Do not say it
is impossible ; for to this and no lower standard you
are called, both by the constitution of your nature
and by the precept, " Pray without ceasing ; " and,
oy the grace of God, all things which He com-
mands are possible. You will say, perhaps, " I try
to keep my mind continually in the right track ;
but, alas ! it is thrown off its balance a thousand
30 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
times a day by having to do things in a hurry and
against time ; by a warm conversation ; by a piece
of interesting news ; by domestic worries and cares ;
by little rubs of the temper." So it is most truly.
The mind wants steadying and setting right many
times a day. It resembles a compass placed on a
rickety table ; the least stir of the table makes the
needle swing around and point untrue. Let it settle,
then, till it points aright. Be perfectly silent for a
few moments, thinking of Jesus ; there is an almost
Divine force in silence. Drop the thing that wor-
ries, that excites, that interests, that thwarts you ;
let it fall like a sediment to the bottom, until the
soul is no longer turbid ; and say secretly : " Grant,
I beseech Thee, merciful Lord, to Thy faithful ser-
vant pardon and peace ; that I may be cleansed
from all my sins, and serve Thee with a quiet mind"
The crowd of cares, the weightiest cross,
Seem trifles less than light ;
Earth looks so little and so low,
When faith shines full and bright.
OLORD of pity, who wiliest naught but good, leave me not
to walk in mine own will ; but overrule me to act at all
times according to Thy will, which is always good. And have
mercy on Thy creatures, and on me a great sinner ; through
Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.
8ttonb fcDe&nes&ctB.
(oH-'
Let us humble ourselves therefore under the mighty hand
of God, that He may exalt us in due time.
Without humility religious progress is impossible.
Pride is the destruction of the principle of progress ;
it whispers to us continually that we are all that
could be desired, or it points our attention to high
positions and ambitious efforts beyond the scope of
other men. Yet the true growth of the soul is not
to be measured by our attempting many extraor-
dinary duties, but by our power of doing simple
duties well; and humility, when it reigns in the
soul, carries this principle into practice. It bids us
hallow our work, especially whatever may be to us
hard or distasteful work, by doing it as a matter of
principle. It bids us, when on our knees, use sim-
ple prayers. We do well to retain the very prayers
which we used as children, however we may add to
32 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
them ; and to throw our whole soul into each sepa-
rate clause and word. It enriches common acts of
neighborly and social kindness with that intensity
of moral effort which is due to every act of which
the deepest moving power is the love of God.
Without humility, no soul that has turned to God
and is learning to serve Him is for a moment safe.
The whole life of the living soul is the work of
Divine grace ; and while pride claims merit for
self, and therefore goes before a fall, humility con-
fesses, day by day, " By the grace of God I am what
I am." The higher you climb the mountain side,
the more fatal must be your fall, if you do fall : if
you would look over the giddy precipice without
risk, you must first stoop to lay firm hold on the rock
of humility. For humility is the condition and
guarantee of grace; and, as St. Augustine says,
there is no reason, apart from the grace of God,
why the highest saint should not be the worst of
criminals.
Thy breast to beat, thy clothes to rend,
God asketh not of Thee ;
Thy stubborn soul He bids thee bend
In true humility.
SECOND WEDNESDAY. 33
0 let us then, with heartfelt grief,
Draw nearer unto God,
And pray that He will grant relief,
Will stay the lifted rod.
GRANT, we beseech Thee, 0 Lord, the true fruit of repent-
ance to those who have wandered out of the way through
sin, that they may obtain pardon for their offences, and be
restored cleansed to Thy Holy Church ; through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Amen
8
0££Otti> Ctjttrs&ag.
Jesus answered and said unto her, 0 Woman, great is thy
faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt.
And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we
ask anything according to His will, He heareth us.
Pray modestly as to the things of this life ; ear-
nestly for what may be helps to your salvation ;
intensely for salvation itself, that you may forever
behold God, love God.
Cleanse your heart now : for " the pure in heart
shall see God."
Be alone with God, that your soul may be free to
speak to Him, and to hear Him. But be alone in
your inmost hearts, shutting out busy, anxious
thoughts, that they throng not in with the prayers,
and cloud not the sight and thought of God.
Practise in life whatever thou prayest for, and
God will give it thee more abundantly.
SECOND THURSDAY. 35
Bear patiently and humbly all daily crosses, con-
tradictions, rebukes, and whatsoever is against thine
own will. They will conform thee to the mind of
God, be channels of grace which will cleanse thy
soul for vet further grace.
Deny thyself things earthly, if thou wouldest
taste the sweetness of things heavenly.
Above all things, persevere in prayer. Many
begin well ; many hold on for a time well ; many
pray well from time to time ; some, alas ! can even
work themselves up from time to time to think they
pray well, and to feel what they pray ; many begin
again and again well. Few persevere ; for few
they be who find the straight gate and narrow way
which leadeth unto life.
If thou hast begun, pray that thou mayest pray
better. If thou hast failed, pray to begin again, and
to persevere. All who pray to persevere gain
what they pray for. None who so prayed has
perished.
Wo need as much the Cross we bear,
As air we breathe, as light we see, —
It draws us to Thy side in prayer,
It binds us to our strength in Thee.
36 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
0 ALMIGHTY God, help Thou our weakness, and because we
can neither perform nor even pray for what is right of our
selves as oi ourselves, arouse by Thy Holy Spirit in our hearts
groanings of prayer which cannot be uttered, that by Thy
loving kindness there may be given unto us both the will to
ask and the power to accomplish what is well pleasing unto
Thee ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Second iri&ag.
After that He pouretli water into a bason, and began to wash
the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith
He was girded. Then cometh He to Simon Peter : and Peter
saith unto Him, Lord, dost Thou wash my feet ? Jesus an-
swered and said unto Him, What I do thou knowest not now ;
but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto Him, Thou
shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash
thee not, thou hast no part with Me. Simon Peter saith unto
Him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.
Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needethnot save to wash
his feet, but is clean every whit.
" Thou shalt never wash my feet," said the mis-
taken disciple. But listen to the Saviour's reply :
" If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me."
What an important declaration is this ! You per-
ceive how the more profound and mystic meaning
of our Lord's act shines forth in these words, —
namely, as having reference to the blood of atone-
ment, to forgiveness, justification, and purification
from sin. How much lies concealed in this passage,
38 HELPS TO A HOLT LENT.
and how every syllable has its profound signifi-
cation ! "If 1 wash thee not." Yes, Thon, Lord
Jesus, must do it ; for who ever purified himself
from sin? "If I do not wash thee.1" Yes, Thou
must wash us ; for teaching, instructing, and setting
us an example is not 'sufficient. " If I wash thee
not." Certainly, what does it avail me if Peter or
Paul is cleansed, and I remain defiled ? I must be
forgiven, and feel that I am absolved; and it re-
mains eternally true, that he who is not washed in
the blood of Christ has no part with Him, nor in the
blessings of His kingdom.
What is wont to happen in the progress of the
life of faith ? Unguarded moments occur, in which
the man again sins in one way or other. He in-
cautiously thinks, speaks, or does that which is
improper, and is again guilty of unfaithfulness,
although against his will ; for only the devil and his
seed sin wilfully : while he that is born of God,
saith the Apostle, cannot sin. The man's walk is
polluted ; his feet, with which he comes in contact
with the earth, are defiled. "What is now to be
done ? First, beware of despondency, by which
we only prepare a feast for Satan. Next, withdraw
not from the presence of the Lord, as if his heart
SECOND FRIDAY. 30
were closed against us. Thirdly, think not that it
is necessary to make a fresh beginning of a religious
life. The seed of the new birth remains within us ;
and the child of the family of God is not suddenly
turned out of doors, like a servant or a stranger.
"He that is washed," says our Lord, "is clean
every whit : and ye are clean, but not all." Who
does not now understand this speech I Its meaning
is. He that is become a partaker of the blood of
sprinkling, and of the baptism of the Spirit — that is,
of the twofold grace of absolution from the guilt of
sin and of regeneration to newness of life — is, as
regards the inmost germ of his being, a thoroughly
now man, who has eternally renounced sin, and
whose inmost love, desire, and intention are direct-
ed to God and things Divine. Where such a one,
from weakness, is overtaken by a fault, he has no
need of an entirely new transformation, but only of
a cleansing. He must let his feet be washed. Let
this be duly considered by those who are in a state of
grace, and let them resist the infernal accuser, lest
he gain an advantage over them by his boundless
accusations. Hold up the blood of the Lamb as a
shield against him, and do not sutler your courage
and confidence to be shaken.
4:0 HELPS TO A HOLT LENT.
When penitence has wept in vain
Over some foul dark spot,
One only stream, a stream of blood,
Can wash away the blot.
'Tis Jesus' blood that washes white,
His Hand that brings relief,
His heart that's touched with all our joys,
And feeleth for our grief.
A THOU who seest everything! I have sinned against
Thee in thought, word, and deed. Blot out the hand-
writing of my trespasses, and write my name in the Book of
Life. And have mercy on Thy creatures, and on me a great
sinner ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Seconb Sahtrbag.
Ye see your calling.
Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and
Christ shall give thee light.
See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools but as
wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
Added time and added light make men worse
unless they make them better. Old sinners are
wickeder than young, and the world grows older.
It is in the power of these last times, if they will,
to sin more guiltily, and to scoff more blasphemous-
ly, than any earlier and less instructed century
could. Each period, till the Lord comes again, de-
mands a more circumspect obedience, and only
sinks to a deeper disgrace if it is hollow in its pro-
fessions or worldly in its life.
You say you have no responsibility for these
vast streams of sin. Is that true? The weakest
and youngest among us is answerable for a single
life, to see that it is outwardly circumspect, and
42 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
inwardly grafted into the life of the Son of God.
These currents of evil are made up, every drop,
of single lives. Let yours be right before God, —
then your family, your acquaintances, all that you
will have to answer for at the Judgment, will feel
it, and be the better for it. That is what St. Paul
means. That holy life of yours will go so far to
redeem the time, and He who died to redeem both
you and the world will accept you as one of His own.
We come, then, to the question, what ought the
degree of a Christian's consecration to be in the
world nowadays, and in a community like this
where we live % How distinct ought the stamp of
our Christian calling to be ? How far ought the
Christian man and the Christian woman and the
Christian youth to be set apart, and stand alone ?
There is but one answer, provided we seek the
answer in the Word of God, where only we can
find one in which we can safely rest. The form
of the ordinary occupations of the holy man and
the worldly man will not generally be very unlike,
because the necessities of an outward livelihood are
much the same, and it is not meant that, in this
life, God's people and the world's should be out-
wardly separated ; that separation is to come here-
SECOND SATURDAY. 43
after. But at this point their common life and
their resemblance end. In the secret affections
that prompt his spirit and govern his plans,
his business, his amusements, his use of property
and his tongue, the disciple of Christ is to show
himself called by a distinct and peculiar calling.
He is to stand so apart, in all these respects, that
every observer of him is to take knowledge that he
not only has bee?i with Jesus, but that, there being
two armies always, he belongs now to the one and
not to the other. Every year, as the confirmation
season comes round, one and another of those
that are invited to make their confession of Christ
before men excuse themselves. Iso excuse is so com-
mon as this : " I wish I were a true Christian ; I
hope some time or other to be one, and a consistent
one ; but I do not want to be another of those that I
see too often, who say that they renounce this world
for Christ, but alter nothing in their frivolity,
or their passion for pleasure, dress, and gain, and
with whom the only movement that distinguishes
them from the most thoughtless is when they go,
once a month, to take the Communion." Too great
a work is on our hands, too solemn responsibilities
are pressing, too great and glorious a Leader is look-
44 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
ing at us and calling us, for this wretched trifling,
which makes the Church look like the market and
the ball-room, only ten times worse, for the incon-
sistency of its professions and the hollowness of
its prayers. I say to you, as an English layman
says : " If your life were but a fever-fit, the mad-
ness of a night, whose follies were all to be forgot-
ten in the dawn, it might matter little how you
fretted away the sickly hours ; what toys you
snatched at, or let fall ; what visions you followed
with the deceived eyes of your frenzy. Dance if
you will on the floor of hospital wards ; knit the
straw into what crowns please you ; gather the dust
of it for treasure, clutching at the black motes in the
air with your dying hands." But the delirium of
thousands that live and die along these streets is a
thousand times sadder than that, because the brain
still keeps its accountability, and judgment is to
come. Oh, you who bear the name of Christians,
baptized and " chosen " to represent your Lord
before men, gird up the loins of your mind. It
will cost self-denial. It will bring on you the
wonder, the criticism, the sarcasm, perhaps, of your
social set. What then ? For fifteen centuries
Christendom has handed down with admiration
SECOND SATURDAY. 45
the brave word of one of the Church's true priests,
— " Athanasius against the world ! " Why should
we have to go back so far to find our saints, when
there is the same opportunity, the same duty, for
every disciple to stand against the social threat
and flattery that are all the world to him? The
girded loins, the sober mind, the unworldly walk —
and the solitude of spirit if need be — shall we not
cheerfully meet them, and resolutely take them up,
for that glory that is to be revealed ?
'Tis not for man to trifle : life is brief,
And sin is here :
Our age is but the falling of a leaf,
A dropping tear.
We have no time to sport the hours away :
We must be working while 'tis called to-day.
O day of time, how dark ! 0 sky and earth,
How dull your hue !
O day of Christ, how bright ! O sky and earth
Made fair and new !
Come, better Eden, with thy fresher green ;
Come, brighter Salem, gladden all the scene.
A GOD, who art of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, mer-
cifully grant unto us such a sense of sin that we may
receive cleansing, and such cleansing that we may be made
pure in heart, and may see Thee for evermore ; through our
Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
0£con5 0un5og.
Make me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit
within me.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
In contending against sensual sins, the main
stress must be laid on the principle of exclusion,
— the absolute keeping away of bad suggestions
and imagery from the mind. Once in, the stain
has struck on a substance so sensitive that, if not
quite indelible, it is still terribly tenacious and
terribly prolific of sorrow. It is here, with begin-
nings, that we all have chiefly to do, in ourselves
and our children. Here, peculiarly, the battle is
secret and invisible. ITot much can be said, and
so the more must be done by prayer and instan-
taneous self-command, expelling the first contami-
nation, and crying : c; Cleanse Thou me from secret
faults." In respect to many sins, self-examinatioo
SECOND SUNDAY. 47
may be safe and even necessary ; but there are
others where it is scarcely wholesome or profitable.
Simple prevention, avoidance, the shutting of the
eyes and ears, and pressing on to known duty, are
the best security. It does not help much to go
back and trace the ways of temptation. The wise
man was right : " Avoid it ; pass not by it ; turn
from it and pass away." "Lead us not into
temptation." One wrong companionship in child-
hood, one unprincipled servant or schoolmate, one
Mephistophiles using the advantages of superior
station or intellect, may spread a curse through the
whole hidden history of fourscore years. Xext to
bad companionship is a bad literature. The degen-
eracy of the public modesty, in the reading allowed
without stint to the young, is a direct contradiction
to both the profession and the fact of a progressive
civilization. Books that are the products of a
thoroughly unchristian social life, in both Europe
and America, not only furnish the continual reading
matter of the reckless and abandoned, but they stock
the circulating libraries, and lie on the tables of the
best-bred families, within reach of young persons
from whose 'bodies and physical health every breath
of outward malaria is warded off with incessant
48 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
vigilance and at every cost. The harm falls just
where the liability to harm is greatest, — on the
springs of thought, imagination, emotion, where no
direct effort can meet it or detect its inroads.
Best of all the protections against these impuri-
ties, however, after the prayer that entreats, in all
the varying utterances of an intense devotion —
" Create in me a clean heart, O God " — is inces-
sant Christian occupation, with abstinence from
those personal luxuries, idlenesses, and pamperings
of the body, which are the preparations and provo-
catives of temptation. To turn swiftly and vigor-
ously to some generous and righteous errand for
the Master with a temperate and well-governed
body, under a healthful regimen, and sometimes,
perhaps, to make the body bear voluntary penal-
ties for its errors, so as thereby to remind and regu-
late the soul, but at any rate to keep the thoughts
and energies preoccupied, is the true mode of
preserving Christian purity, and even of restoring
it after it has been lost.
We must not fail to lift up our eyes toward the
Seat of Mercy. "What are these which are ar-
rayed in white robes ? These are they which
have washed their robes and made them white in
SECOND SUNDAY. 49
the Blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before
the throne of God," serving Him face to face and
heart to heart with the glorious angels that never
sinned, seeing God. There is Love, Redemption,
Forgiveness, and at last, the Beatific Vision, even
for sinful hearts like ours.
A poet of few poems has written these verses,
embodying the encouraging thought that, though
the unfallen spirits excel in power and might,
there is yet a singular blessedness belonging to
those children of the Redemption who have known,
after the wretchedness of impurity, the relief of
repentance, and the rest of reconciliation :
Earth has one joy unknown in heaven, —
The new-born peace of sin forgiven.
Tears of such pure and deep delight,
Ye angels ! never dimmed your sight !
Ye saw, of old, on Chaos rise
The beauteous pillars of the skies :
Ye know where morn exulting springs
And evening folds her drooping wings.
Bright heralds of the Eternal Will,
Abroad His errands ye fulfil,
Or, throned in floods of beaming day
Symphonious in His presence play ;
§0 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
While I amid your choirs shall shine,
And all your knowledge will be mine,
Ye on your harps must lean to hear
One secret chord that mine will bear.
CLEANSE us, 0 Lord, from our secret faults, and mercifully
absolve "us from our presumptuous sins, that we may re-
ceive Thy holy things with a pure mind ; through Christ our
Lord. Amen.
Setonb iHon&ctg.
h
1 meditate on all Thy works ; I muse on the work of Thy
hands.
O how love I Thy law ! it is my meditation all the day.
Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her
heart.
Meditation is partly passive, partly an active
state. Whoever lias pondered long over a plan
which he is anxions to accomplish, without at first
distinctly seeing the way, knows what meditation
is. The subject presents itself in leisure moments
spontaneously; but then all this sets the mind at
work, — contriving, imagining, rejecting, modify-
ing. He knows what it is who has ever earnestly
and sincerely loved one living human being. The
image of his friend rises unbidden by day and
night ; stands before his soul in the street and in
the field ; comes athwart his every thought, and
mixes its presence with his every plan. So far all
52 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
is passive. But besides this he plans and contrives
for that other's happiness; tries to devise what
would give pleasure; examines his own conduct
and conversation, to avoid that which can by any
possibility give pain. This is meditation.
So, too, is meditation on religious truth carried
on. If it first be loved, it will recur spontaneously
to the heart. Meditation is done in silence. By
it we renounce our narrow individuality, and ex-
patiate into that which is infinite. Only in the
sacredness of inward silence does the soul truly
meet the secret, hiding God. The strength of re-
solve, which afterward shapes life and mixes itself
with action, is the fruit of those sacred, solitary
moments. There is a Divine depth in silence.
We meet God alone. Have we never felt how
a human presence, if frivolous, in such moments
frivolizes the soul, and how impossible it is to
come in contact with any thoughts that are sub-
lime, or drink in one inspiration from heaven,
without degrading it, even though surrounded by
all that would naturally suggest tender and awful
feelings, when such are by ? It is not the number
of books you read; nor the variety of sermons
which you hear ; nor the amount of religious con-
SECOND MONDAY. 53
versation in which you mix : but it is the frequency
and the earnestness with which you meditate on
these things, till the truth which may be in them
becomes your own, and part of your own being,
that ensures your spiritual growth.
The thought of God, the thought of Thee,
Who liest in my heart,
And yet beyond imagined space
Outstretched and present art, —
The thought of Thee, above, below,
Around me and within,
Is more to me than health and wealth,
Or love of kith and kin.
BE favorable to us, 0 Lord ! and increase in our hearts the
feelings of piety, and devotion with which Thou hast
inspired us ; and for fear that the inconstancy and cowardice
so natural to us may chill our fervor, mercifully grant us the
aid we need to conquer all that is in opposition to our love for
Thee, and to serve Thee with all the fidelity we owe Thee,
never relaxing in our duty to Thee. We beg this through
the merits and mediations of Jesus Christ Thy Son our Lord,
Amen.
y(p _ —
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man
his thoughts : and let him return unto the Lord, and He will
have mercy upon him ; and to our God, for He will abundantly
pardon.
Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
Very seriously, very severely, does our Lord
Jesus Christ deal with the sins of His people. He
suffers no man to make light of sin. If His Word,
if conscience, if the Spirit's striving, suffices not, then
a sterner discipline begins to chasten, — pain and
loss and shame and punishment ; perhaps at last a
blighted name, ruined prospects, deposition from
service, deprivation of usefulness, — anything rather
than that the soul should be lost ; anything rather
than that the man should sleep the sleep of death.
These things are the reproofs of Christ : As many
as I love, He says, I rebuke and chasten. Gospel
regrets are reparations too.
But language is sometimes used as to the conse-
SECOND TUESDAY. 55
quences of sin, which seems calculated rather to
depress than to stimulate the energies of true re-
pentance. A young man is told, for example, that
the consequences of one evil thought are essentially
interminable ; that each particular word carries an
influence with it never to be checked and nowhere
to be bounded ; that the smallest omission of duty,
much more the smallest act of transgression, not
only has in it a condemning sentence, but also exer-
cises (whatever he may be afterward) an absolutely
illimitable and everlasting force. And there is a
truth in such representations. The consequences of
sin are incalculable. The transgressor himself has
no power to say to his own evil : Thus far shalt
thou go, and no further. The thing done or the
thing left undone — the word spoken or the thought
cherished — is out of his hand : he cannot revoke
and he cannot regulate it. This is true. But such
representations, left alone, can but make man reck-
less. I have more faith in the opposite truth. The
long suffering of Jesus Christ not only reproves
but will in part repair also : as with every tempta-
tion God will also make a way to escape, so (in
some sense) beside every sin He sets a repentance
and a reDaration.
56 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
I know not, on this side the grave, the spot from
which repentance, naj, from which reparation, is
excluded. Repentance is reparation. The man
who, far on in life's journey, has sinned and fallen,
makes reparation toward man if he repents toward
God. The servant of God, who has been ensnared
of evil, — who has even brought shame upon his
name, and reproach upon his Church, — yet even
he, if he returns and repents ; even he, if he walks
humbly and mournfully for his remaining days be-
fore God ; even he, if he accepts with unmurmur-
ing submission that sentence of comparative use-
lessness which is the worst part of sin, and is willing
to stoop to humble work, and to be but a hewer of
wood and drawer of water for that tabernacle in
which perhaps once he stood a priest ministering ;
even he, if he comes back — it is no imaginary pict-
ure— just to die amongst his people, making no
secret of his grief and of his repentance, and read-
ily offering up the remnant of a shortened life upon
the sacrifice and service of a penitent restitution ;
even that man has upon him the mark of forgive-
ness, is clad again with the white garments of a
second absolution, and when he goes hence, to be
no more seen of the sinful, shall enter, washed and
SECOND TUESDAY. 57
justified, within the innermost veil, to be forever
a king and a priest in that sanctuary where sin is
not. That in me first Jesus Christ might show
forth all longsuffering !
lSJ
A broken heart, 0 God, iny King,
Is all the sacrifice we bring :
Thou, God of grace, wilt not despise
A broken heart in sacrifice.
OGOD of compassion, God of pity, God who, according to the
multitude of Thy great mercies, washest away the sins
of the penitent, and by the grace of remission doest away the
guilt of past offences ; look graciously upon Thy servants, and
hearken unto them entreating for the forgiveness of all their
sins ; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
n
q — {jlflf
Then saitli He unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrow-
ful, even unto death : tarry ye here, and watch with Me. And
He went a little farther, and fell on His face, and prayed, say-
ing, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me :
nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt. And He went away
again the second time, and prayed, saying, 0 my Father, if
this cup may not pass away from Me, except I drink it, Thy
will be done. And He left them, and went away again, and
prayed the third time, saying the same words.
There is very often some one special darling
evil thing aronnd which the will is found to wind
and fasten itself with passionate clinging. It does
not say aloud, but it would if it were frank, " This
I cannot give up ; this I must have." Of course
the object is different with each of us ; but the sin
is the same. It caunot be safe to live with such a
reservation as that. That soul offends in the one
point, but breaks the unity of the whole law, and this
THIRD WEDNESDAY. 59
makes it " guilty ©f all." It is setting up an idol in
our hearts ; and then we may be sure God sets Him-
self, not in any arbitrary way, not in jealousy of our
joy, but in the very love wherewith He loves us,
and that He may give us all heaven at last, to take
the idol out. "We yield, unwillingly perhaps, at
first, though in that case the pain will only be so
much the greater. But by all means, at any rate,
by ways that we had not known, by dealings
that perplex and confound us, He begins to loosen
the fatal fascination and take it away.
The Infinite, who sees us thus
Mould His transcendent form in clay,
Shatters the idol into dust,
And we, alas ! must weep and pray.
But first, in His tenderness, He always calls to us
by voices of prophets, by mercies, sermons, prophe-
cies, providences, — " Give Me thine heart." It is
not to be concealed that, in this final surrender, as
in all the others, from the first glowing hour of a
new-born affection for the Lord, the heart led the
way toward the foot of the Cross. But the will,
too, bears a part, consenting and helping, as it were,
by solemn purposes and exertions, to bend itself to
60 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
the will of God, with renunciation and submission.
Only, it must be remembered, here comes in that
new and really supernatural gift of the Spirit of
God, which makes this act of the will different from
every other. ~No man can tell exactly where the
line runs that divides man's part from God's in
spiritual renewing and growth. But this we know,
for God and our hearts both tell it to us, that " God
worketh in us both to will and to do," and yet it is
not till we both " will " and " do," that the blessed
work is done. Perhaps the truth is best expressed
by saying that we will to lean ourselves on God, and
be thus upheld. A traveller of no great strength
undertakes to climb Mount Washington. He comes
presently to the end of his power and his breath,
and sinks down exhausted ; but he does not de-
spair. A stronger friend comes to his side, but
instead of stirring him up and compelling him to a
fruitless struggle, or urging him on, offers to let
him lean on his arm. Here is a new opportunity
for the exercise of the traveller's will. He is not
passive; he wills to lean and be helped, and at
the same time he wills to use all the power he
has. And so he comes to the top, with nothing
above him but the heavens.
THIRD WEDNESDAY. 61
The submission that makes no merit of its cross ;
that does not venture to choose one lighter than
the Lord lays on us ; that does not seek the ability
to bear it in the delirium of pleasure, or the drugs
of the world, or the deadening influence of time
and change ; that does not compare your cross with
those borne by others, or ask an explanation of it
till the day break and the shadows nee away, but
bears it all with a child's love for His sake who did
not impose it till He had borne all the might and
sharpness of all the world's crosses together, — this is
the victory. The earth has no fatal fear and no
insupportable sorrow in it after you have come to
this ; you are free in a boundless liberty, strong in
immortal strength, and at peace in a peace too deep
for the understanding to explain, or any sufferings
to disturb.
Full many a throb of grief and pain
Thy frail and erring child must know ;
But not one prayer is breathed in vain,
Nor does one tear unheeded flow.
Thy various messengers employ ;
Thy purposes of love fulfil ;
And 'mid the wreck of human joy,
Let kneeling faith adore Thy will.
62 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
OMOST merciful Lord, who healest the inward man by out-
ward afflictions, and by troubles in this world dost pre-
pare us for eternal joys in the world to come ; by that cup of
sorrow which Thou drankest for us, and by that weary path
which Thou troddest, grant that we may willingly drink of
Thy cup, and cheerfully follow Thee along the road where
Thou hast gone before ; who with the Father and the Holy
Ghost reignest one God, world without end. Amen.
a*
Mary liatli chosen that good part, which shall not be taken
away from her.
O tarry thou the Lord's leisure ; be strong, and He shall com-
fort thine heart ; and put thou thy trust in the Lord.
Let us excite each other to seek that good part
which shall not be taken away from us. Let us
labor to be really in earnest, and to view things in
the way in which God views them. Then it will be
but a little thing to give up the world ; but an easy
thing to reconcile the mind to what at first it shrinks
from. Let us turn our mind heavenward; let us
set our thoughts on things above, and in His own
time God will set our affections there also. All will
in time become natural to us, which at present we
do but own to be good and true. We shall covet
what at present we do but admire. Let the time
past suffice us to have followed our own will ; let
us desire to form part of that glorious company of
Apostles and Prophets, of whom we read in Script-
64 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
lire. Let us cast in our lot with them, and desire to
be gathered about their feet. Let us beg of God to
employ us ; let us try to obtain a spirit of perfect
self-surrender to Him, and an indifference to one
thing above another in this world, so that we may
be ready to follow His call whenever it comes to us.
Thus shall we best employ ourselves till His voice
is heard, patiently preparing for it by meditation,
and by looking for Him to perfect what, we trust,
His own grace has begun in us.
There are many persons who proceed a little way
in religion, and then stop short. God keep us from
choking the good seed, which else would come to
perfection ! Let us exercise ourselves in those good
works which both reverse the evil that is past, and
lay up a good foundation for us in the world to
come.
He liveth long who liveth well !
All other life is short and vain ;
He liveth longest who can tell
Of living most for heavenly gain.
He liveth long who liveth well 1
All else is being flung away ;
He liveth longest who can tell
Of true things truly done each day.
THIRD THURSDAY. 65
OLORD Jesus Christ, who hast said, My Father worketh
hitherto, and I work ; grant us, we beseech Thee, such
zeal in Thy service, that we may never be weary in well
doing, but may labor steadfastly unto the end through Thy
mercy. Amen.
5
<EI)ir& Jrifcctg.
Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in His Blood.
I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for
Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.
God is Love ; the assertion, to our exceeding
comfort, is twice solemnly made in Holy Scripture.
Nothing can exceed the tenderness of the tie which
binds Him to every one of His rational creatures,
who are His spiritual offspring ; no affection or
sympathy, of which human life gives us experience,
can at all adequately express to us the yearning,
self-sacrificing devotion which the Father of spirits
entertains toward all the souls He has created,
however far they may have wandered from Him
into the mazes of sin and error. The Atonement
was effected by a Person in the Godhead, and has
all the incalculable value which such an agency
can give it. He took human nature into conjunc-
tion with His divine nature, and thus atoned (or
reconciled) God and man, as the first step in His
THIRD FRIDAY. 67
gigantic enterprise. In the creature-nature which
it pleased Him to assume, He offered to the Father
a perfectly holy and devoted human life, a life of
perfect and intense love and purity, and therefore
infinitely acceptable to Him, who is Love and
Purity. But in doing so, He entangled Himself in
the rancorous hostility and persecution of those
He came to save ; and thus furnished an evidence,
not only of God's willingness to save them, but of
their utter alienation from God. And, as He
thoroughly identified Himself with our nature, He
entangled Himself also in all the distressing conse-
quences of our sin, — hardship, pain, bereavement,
death ; and — what was to Him more distressing;
than all— the clouding over of the soul, by the
withdrawal from it of that sense of Divine favor
which is its sunlight. But the crush and pressure
of these awful trials only brought out the perfume
of His graces. He was full of love still, even when
stretched in agony upon the Cross, of forgiving
love, restoring love, sympathizing love, to man ; of
acquiescing, resigned, confiding love toward God.
"Father, forgive them;" "Father, remove this
cup from me ; nevertheless not as I will, but as
Thou wilt ; " " Father, into Thy hands I commend
68 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
my spirit," — these were the dominant chords of
His state of mind, in the course of a trial the sever-
ity of which none but Himself and God could ap-
preciate. Now, surely it is not hard to understand
that such a life and such a death must have been
supremely acceptable to God, and, being rendered
by One who took our common nature upon Him,
and appeared as our Representative, must have
entirely met and discharged what I may call the
demands of God's perfect holiness in the accept-
ance of sinners.
Though long the weary way we tread,
And sorrows crown each lingering year,
No path we shun, no darkness dread,
Our hearts still whispering, Thou art near !
On Thee we fling our burdened woe,
. O Love Divine ! for ever dear ;
Content to suffer while we know,
Living and dying, Thou art near !
OGOD, who of Thy great love to this world didst reconcile
earth to heaven through Thine only-begotten Son, grant
that we who, by the darkness of our sins, are turned aside
from brotherly love, may by Thy light shed forth in our souls
be filled with Thine own sweetness, and embrace our friends
in Thee, and our enemies for Thy sake, in a bond of mutual
affection ; through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.
<El)tr& 0aturbag.
It is a good tiling to show forth thy faithfulness every
night. Where is God my Maker, who giveth songs in the
night ?
By His light I walked through darkness.
St. Athanasius observes that, from the creation
of the world until Christ, the day preceded the
night, as we read in Scripture ; but from the com-
ing of Christ, the night precedes the day ; and
thus we begin to celebrate the day solemnly from
the evening of the preceding day. This was typi-
cal to show how from light men were to decline to
darkness, from God to errors and idolatry ; but
from the time that the Sun of Justice — Christ — rose
upon us, we are brought out of darkness into the
light of Divine faith. Anna, the widow, departed
not from the temple day and night ; the holy
shepherds, too, were keeping watch when they
beheld the vision of angels in the sky ; and the
Saviour himself repeatedly reminds us of the need
70 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
of watching by night, and taught its by His exam-
ple, and admonished Peter in the time of the
Passion: " Couldst thou not watch one hour?"
Know, therefore, that vigils are agreeable to God.
Nothing is constant with men. Everything
revolves and perishes. Alas ! we proposed to per-
form great things when the sun was mounted to
the meridian, and lo ! in a short time, it descends
to evening. The day is become old, the night is
approaching ; such is the frailty of this mortal life.
How soon the day declines, the heat cools, the light
sinks and is buried in the shade of evening ; but
we must run our course until we shall behold the
Lord of lords in Sion.
It is the vesper hour. What a symbol is here !
Let us say, therefore, with the disciples, whose
hearts burned within them by the way : " Abide
with us, for it is toward evening." Now evening,
the mother of night, will bring forth darkness ;
now sadness oppresses us, and despair sinks. The
waters have come even unto our soul ; the cold of
iniquity freezes us, and a wounded conscience
dreads the terrible sentence of the Judge. Abide
with us, O most clement Lord, since without Thee
we can do nothing; we are nothing! Thou art
THIRD SATURDAY. 71
our consolation, Thou art our refuge and strength ;
Thou art a tower of might against the face of our
enemies. The night of wickedness covers all
things ; the light of truth faileth ; depravity
abounds ; charity grows cold ; our eyes are turned
to Thee, that we may not perish. Abide with us,
that the darkness may not come upon us, and that
the shining light which shineth to us in that dark
place may not be extinguished in the night. The
end of life is near ; the evening of our day ; deliver
us from the power of darkness, and turn not in
anger from Thy servants ; because if Thou art with
us, we shall fear no evil in the midst of the shadow
of death, but with the brightness of Thy grace we
shall be enlightened in that region of the dead.
It is good to be with Thee, O Jesus. Abide with
us, and turn not away from us. The darkest night
draws on, in which no man can work. Abide with
us, and close the door upon us, until the darkness
shall pass over, and light again rise to visit us.
Lead kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on ;
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on ;
Keep Thou my feet, I do not ask to see
The distant scene ; one step enough for me.
72 HELPS TO A HOLT LENT.
LIGHTEN our darkness, we beseech Thee O Lord ; and by
Thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers
of .this night for the love of Thy only Son our Saviour Jesus
Christ. Amen.
3U)ir5 0un5og.
Above all things have fervent charity among yourselves.
The love of Christ constraineth us.
Ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.
This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I
have loved you.
Christ does not say that all persons are to be
loved by us alike, — with equal degrees of personal
interest and attachment; for He never asks what
cannot be. But that kind of love which springs
from our being all one in Him whose boundless
love embraces all for the sake of redeeming them
unto eternal blessedness and gladness, unworthy as
they are, — this is possible for us toward every child
of God; the unsightliest, the most disagreeable,
the least lovely, the worst. We cannot reverse the
inwrought laws of taste, attraction, preference, com-
mon culture and common life, which group and dis-
tribute men. But we can merge them all in that
one common charity which, in the Redeemer him-
74 HELPS TO A HOLT LENT.
self, was large enough to reach and gather up
the vilest, and which in His true followers can see
in every human creature this trace of nobleness and
beauty — the capacity of being by repentance and
faith raised to heavenly places — of wearing the like-
ness and the righteousness of the Lord forever and
forever. In other words, all can be loved in Him,
and will be by those that have their life in Him.
And we must not be too fastidious about people
forsaking their ugliness and correcting their faults,
before our charity goes out to them. Suppose a
moment the grace of God had been measured to
us by that thrifty rule.
Look long at Jesus ; His sweet blood,
How was it dealt to thee !
A child asked : " When God blots out the sins
on our souls, are the blots left ? " So no material
image suffices to display the marvellous condescen-
sion and grace of God's charity in His Son. But
this we know, — He does not look at the blots.
The figure is but of robes, and they are washed
and made white in the blood of our justification and
pardon. How true it is, then, that the grace of
charity, like all other graces, has its roots in the one
THIRD SUNDAY. 75
common ground of Christ's own spiritual life ; that
all the branches through one living trunk unite
there.
I in your care my brethren left,
Not willing ye should be bereft
Of waiting on your Lord.
The meanest offering ye can make —
A drop of water — for love's sake,
In heaven, be sure, is stored.
0 CHRIST Thou living fire, kindle within me the fire of
Thy love, which Thou didst shed abroad in the earth ;
that it may remove all vice from my soul ; that it may purify
my conscience from remorse ; that it may cleanse my body
from all sin ; and that it may kindle the light of the knowl-
edge of Thee in my heart, for thine own dear sake. A men.
<tl)ir& Jtton&cta.
-A%
Not as though I had already attained, either were already
perfect.
This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are be-
hind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of
God in Christ Jesus.
There is an oblivion of the irreparable which is
at once true and salutary. The past is. No re-
grets, no tears, no repentances, can make it undone.
Then accept it, recognize it, start from it. Do not
expect to be that which your individual history
forbids that you should be. God sees you as you
are ; see yourself so. God knows by what gradual
steps of sin you have fallen to this estate ; God
knows by what gradual steps of repentance you
have risen to this. Such as you are, be such, — such
when you kneel before your God, — such when
you go abroad among men ! Forget the things
behind. That which you cannot be, by reason of
your sin, dismiss it. That which you cannot be,
THIRD MONDAY. 77
by reason of jour sin, forget it. If there is some-
thing which you cannot be, there is something also
which you can be. If you cannot be a saint, you
may be a penitent ; if you cannot sit on the right
hand or sit on the left, at least you may yet be a
hired servant; at least you may be yet a door-
keeper in the House of your God. Eest there, and
be thankful. Merely to dwell among the thoughts
of what might have been is unreal, and therefore
unprofitable. Learn, secondly, and on the other
hand, the oblivion of the attained. That is it of
which St. Paul speaks. He counts not himself to
have apprehended ; in that sense chiefly he forgets
the things behind. The experience of life makes
us almost weary of the records of Christian expe-
rience as now received. If I had my choice — a
man is tempted to say — I would dwell rather with
the irreligious. There at least I shall find reality ;
I shall find naturalness; I shall find humility.
There we hear nothing about " humble instru-
ments," nor about being privileged to do a work for
God. There are no publications of the triumphs of
self-sacrifice, nor of the wonderful achievements
wrought by the first appearance, in the home of
the ungodly, of the saintly man or the gifted
78 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
woman. All! how different was it in the first
days! Where in St. Paul's Epistles do we find
anything which offends thus the palate of taste, or
thus grates upon the ear of modesty % There, on
the contrary, we find an utter self-forgetfulness, a
remembrance honestly made of sins, and a hearty
sense that Christ is all, and that whatever is, is of
Him. We have got the words, and too much of
them ; but we have lost the feeling and the thing
signified. The minister of Christ must tell his
triumphs on the platform ; and the woman who
may not preach Christ in churches must preach
herself through the medium of the narrative, the
memoir, or the autobiography.
Forget, St. Paul says, the things behind. If
God has enabled you to win back your own soul
from evil, — or to save a brother's soul from death,
— thank Him for it, and then forget it. If you,
who were once the slave of sin, hav^ become
through Divine grace able to see and to follow the
light of life and of immortality, stay not to reflect
upon it ; press on, linger not, that yon may not
only enjoy the foretaste, but also win the crown.
When St. Paul forgot the things behind, think
what there was in it. He had seen Jesus Christ,
THIRD MONDAY. 79
and received from His own lips the Apostolic mis-
sion. He had left all, and followed Him. He had
demolished by a stroke the whole fabric of an al-
most completed self-righteousness, and set out
quite afresh in a race of self-denial, self-sacrifice,
and self-crucifixion. And yet he forgot all this.
"What have we to forget ? Where, in our case, is
the edifice of the natural virtue ? "Where, in our
case, is the achievement of the spiritual grace ? If
it be there, it is to be forgotten ; if it be not there,
who shall measure the depth of the just, the Chris-
tian self-abasement ?
No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope and fear ;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.
Enough that blessings undeserved
Have marked my erring track —
That wheresoe'er my feet have swerved,
His chastening turned me back.
OGOD, who bestowest this upon us by Thy grace, that we
should be made righteous instead of ungodly, blessed in-
stead of miserable ; be present to Thine own works, be present
to Thine own gifts ; that they in whom dwells a justifying
faith may not lack a strong perseverance, through Jesu?
Christ our Lord. Amen.
®l)irb Staesbag.
b%b
In that He suffered being tempted, He is able to succor
them that are tempted.
For we have not an high-priest which cannot be touched
with the feeling of our infirmities ; but was in all points
tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore
come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy,
and find grace to help in time of need.
I suppose no truth can be dearer to a human
heart than these two, — the sympathy of the Son of
Man in temptation, the victory of humanity in the
Son of Man over evil. For we are so tried and
tossed, so compassed around with pain, so much ap-
parently the sport of fanciful passion, so curiously
framed as it were for temptation, with high aspira-
tions living in us along with base desires ; so
hovering ever on the verge of good and ill, and so
weak to choose the good ; so troubled by the neces-
sity of battle when our heart is weary with the
passionate longing for rest; so sick of ourselves
and of the vile cravings which at times possess us,
- — that God knows we do want some sympathy
THIRD TUESDAY. 81
higher than any one on earth can give us, — some
sympathy which will not weaken but strengthen ;
some certainty that the Eternal Love and Right-
eousness can feel with us and assist us. Therefore
it is the deepest blessedness to know that One who
shared in our nature — the proper Divine Man —
was in the days of His flesh a partaker of " our
strong crying and tears," and " learned obedience
by the things which Pie suffered," for then we
know that He can, in His triumphant nature, be
still " touched with the feeling of our infirmities."
Brethren, who are struggling with evil within you
and without, you have with you the exalting
power-bestowing sympathy of the Son of God and
Son of Man. Another consoling truth is that
humanity has conquered evil. Take that great
fact as the foundation of all action. There has
been human temptation without human fall. There
has been one Man at least who has met sin on its
own ground and has baffled the tempter. He is
your own Brother and your God. Sin is at His
feet, and death and hell. Brethren, if we love
Him, they shall be at ours. We look forward,
then, not to defeat, but to victory, — to individual
victory, to universal victory. The conquest in the
82 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
wilderness is the earnest of a greater conquest yet
to be. All ! why should we faint and falter and
despair, when that is so divinely true? "We are
fellow-workers with the Almighty Goodness to
that majestic end. Therefore, conquer evil in your-
selves in the strength of Christ. Personally, that
is the only thing worth living for. And once you
have begun to conquer evil in your own heart, you
will be able to contend to the death against evil
without you in the world. Let us pray with added
fervor that He who fought and won the battle in
the wilderness may give us power to do our duty
against all wrong and all sin, with our whole heart
and soul and mind and strength.
Confirm us in each good resolve ;
The tempter's envious rage subdue ;
Turn each misfortune to our good ;
Direct us right in all we do.
OLORD God of infinite mercy, who hast sent Thy Holy Son
into the world to redeem us from intolerable misery ; let
my faith, I beseech Thee, be the parent of a good life, a strong
shield to repel the fiery darts of the devil ; and grant that I
may be supported by its strength in all temptations, and re-
freshed by its comforts in all my sorrows, till from the imper-
fections of this life it may arrive at the consummation of an
eternal and never-ceasing love ; through Jesus Christ. Amen.
JTourtl) toe&ttea&ag.
By patient continuance in well doing seek for glory
and honor and immortality, eternal life.
Rejoicing in hope ; patient in tribulation.
They bring forth fruit with patience.
Patience is of two kinds. There is an active and
there is a passive endurance. The former is a mas-
culine, the latter for the most part a feminine grace.
Female patience is exhibited chiefly in fortitude ;
in bearing pain and sorrow meekly without com-
plaining. For the type of man's endurance you
may look to the early Christians under persecution.
This is the patience for us to cultivate, — to bear
and to persevere. However dark and profitless,
however painful and weary existence may have
become ; however any man, like Elijah, may be
tempted to cast himself beneath the juniper-tree
and say : " It is enough : now, O Lord ! " — life is not
done, and our Christian character is not won, so
long as God has anything left for us to suffer, or
anything left for us to do.
84 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
Patience, however, has another meaning. It is
the opposite of that impatience which cannot wait.
This is one of the difficulties of spiritual life. We
are disappointed if the harvest do not come at
once. It is the work of a long life to become
a Christian. Many, oh ! many a time, are we
tempted to say : " I make no progress at all. It is
only failure after failure, Nothing grows." Now,
look at the sea when the flood is coming in. Go
and stand by the sea-beach, and you will think that
the ceaseless flux and reflux is but retrogression
equal to the advance. But look again in an hour's
time, and the whole ocean has advanced. Every
advance has been beyond the last, and every retro-
grade movement has been an imperceptible trifle
less than the last. This is progress, to be esti-
mated at the end of hours, not minutes. And this
is Christian progress. Many a fluctuation, many
a backward motion, with a rush at times so vehe-
ment that all seems lost, — but if the Eternal work
be real, every failure has been a real gain, and. the
next does not carry us so far back as we were be-
fore. Every advance is a real gain, and part of it
is never lost. Both when we advance and when
we fail, we gain. "We are nearer to God than we
FOURTH WEDNESDAY. 85
were. The flood of spirit-life has carried us up
higher on the everlasting shores, where the waves
of life beat no more, and its fluctuations end, and
all is safe at last. " This is the faith and patience
of the saints."
Since thy Father's arm sustains thee,
Peaceful be ;
When a chastening hand restrains thee..
It is He.
Know His love in full completeness
Fills the measure of thy weakness.
If He wound thy spirit sore,
Trust Him more.
OGOD, who by the passion and death of Thine only-begotten
Son didst crush the pride of our enemy the devil ; grant
to Thy faithful servants, when they are in trouble, to bear in
mind His sufferings, and cheerfully to endure all adversities ;
through the same Lord Jesus Christ who livest and reignest
with the Father and the Holy Ghost one God, world without
end. Amen.
iburtl) (ityttra&ag.
^
We know that all things work together for good to them
that love God.
Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh
patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may
be perf eet and entire, wanting nothing.
As the Christian advances npon his way, a sweet
and solemn sense of the nnity of life grows upon
his spirit. " We are complete in Him." Much of
our life, if viewed in itself only, would appear pur-
poseless and broken, yet Christ has said : " Gather
up these fragments that remain, so that nothing be
lost." We learn to look at life as a whole thing;
not to be discouraged by this or that adverse cir-
cumstance, remembering how much there is and
will be in that life which is " like frost and snow,
kindly to the root, though hurtful to the flower ; "
fatal to the bloom and fragrance, the lovely and
enjoyable part of our nature, but friendly to its
true, imperishable life. Looking at ourselves, we
FOURTH THURSDAY. 87
may see that, under a slight — sometimes a very
slight — modification of inward bent, or outward
circumstance, we should have been far more happy,
more beloved, apparently more useful, than now ;
yet we may also see as plainly, as we confess it
humbly, that we have attained, through all these
losses, to that to which every gain is an ever present,
appreciable loss. Gradually, almost impercepti-
bly, the believer will find the current of his exist-
ence sweeping into a broader channel; will find
" doors opening upon him"— doors of happiness,
doors of usefulness — which will be to him a Gate
of Heaven ; " windows opening," letting in the
breath of summer upon his soul, filling it with sun-
shine and sweet air; suddenly, too, in the deep
emergencies of life, some new interest, some friend,
will appear like the Great Twin Brethren, or Saint
of old, in the thick of the battle, vanishing perhaps
when the fight is over, yet blessing him even in
vanishing from his sight.
Light is good, and it is a pleasant thing to be-
hold the sun. Yet far dearer than outward peace,
far sweeter than inward consolation, is that, the
ever-during stay, the solace of the Christian's heart,
the imperishable Eoot of which all else that glad-
88 HELPS TO A HOLT LENT.
dens it is but the bloom and odor ; the dry tree
that shall nourish when every green tree of delight
and of desire fails. It is to the Cross that the
heart must turn for that which will reconcile it to
all conflicts, all privations ; which will even enable
it, foreseeing them, to exclaim : " Yet more."
When Christ is lifted up within the believing soul,
nothing is too hard for. it to venture upon or en-
dure ; it rests upon a power beyond itself, and can
bring its whole strength to bear upon generous,
exalted enterprise. Show thy servant thy work,
and his own will be indeed easy ! Let this power-
ful attraction be once .felt, the heart's, the world's
great and final Overcoming, and all other bonds
will weaken, ail other spells decay. "Midnight
is past " sings the sailor on the Southern ocean, —
"Midnight is past ; the Cross begins to bendP
I do not ask my cross to understand,
My way to see —
Better in darkness just to feel Thy hand,
And follow Thee.
Joy is like restless day, but Peace divine
Like quiet night ;
Lead me, O Lord, till Perfect Day shall shine
Through Peace to Light.
FOURTH THURSDAY. 89
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who heal est us by chast-
ening, and preservest us by pardoning, grant unto Thy
suppliants, that we may both rejoice in the comfort of the
tranquillity which we desired, and also use the gift of Thy
peace for the effectual amendment of our lives ; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen,
JTourtl) irtbag.
&
And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on
Him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the
other answering, rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear
God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation ? And we
indeed justly ; for we receive the due reward for our deeds:
but this Man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto
Jesus, Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy king-
dom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To
day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.
" Repent and believe ! " is the message of God
to fallen man. Some mean to believe without
repentance ; bnt they will find themselves mis-
taken. Faith without previous repentance is a dead
thought, a mere notion, a doctrine admitted either
with or without evidence, — a weak, second-handed
conviction. Reasoning, at the best, built it up ;
reasoning may pluck it down again. It leaves the
mind unenlightened, the heart untouched, unpuri-
FOURTH FEIDAY. 91
tied, the life unaltered, the soul under condemna-
tion of death. Faith after true repentance is a
conviction resting on experience and intuitive
evidence ; a truth of the first order ; it is the sub-
stance of things hoped for and the unshaken evi-
dence of things unseen by carnal eyes. It carries
reason and logic headlong ; it quickens and renews
the heart, enlightens the mind, influences the life,
overcomes the world, and lays hold on things
heavenly and eternal. So was the faith of the
penitent sinner : " Lord, remember me when Thou
comest into Thy kingdom." How does he come
by this faith in circumstances so unspeakably
unfavorable, so decidedly opposed to it ? The
condemned, expiring man, on yonder cross, the
Lord of heaven ! A stumbling-block of mountain
size to the Jews, and the very height of foolishness
to the Greeks ! His was a giant stretch of faith, I
confess. In respect to external support, it out-
strips the faith of all the Apostles, the centurion,
the distressed fathers and mothers, the blind, the
deaf, the lepers, the paralytics ; the faith of all
martyrs on the stake, in the flames, in persecution,
in caves and dens of the earth. It was pure faith,
clear and free from every support from without, a
92 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
work of the Holy Spirit unalloyed by any earthly
ingredient. St. Peter walked on the sea. — but he saw
Christ pacing with firm steps over the rolling wave.
The Apostles remained faithful to their conviction,
— but they had witnessed ten thousand exhibitions
of Christ's divine power, and had seen Him and
conversed with Him for three years. The sick
and the distressed came to Him from afar, — but
the land was full of His fame. . The saints in after
times sacrificed their lives for Him, — but they had
accumulating proofs of His all-overruling sceptre,
daily adding strength (if this be possible) to the
testimony of the sacred records. And what is it
for us now to believe on Him when the cloud of
witnesses and the mass of evidence in His favor
have already become so boundless that it requires
almost a life to pass over and duly estimate the
whole of it % It is all comparatively nothing. Our
faith is sight; and woe unto that man who can
at this present day live and die without being a
Christian from his heart ! Sodom and Gomorrah,
Bethsaida, Chorazin, and Capernaum, the scoffing
Jews, the dying impenitent rebel of the text, will
condemn him in the judgment day.
FOURTH FRIDAY. 93
Father, perfect my trust !
Strengthen my feeble faith !
Let me feel as I would when I stand
On the shores of the River of Death —
Feel as I would were my feet
Even now slipping over the brink ;
For it may be I'm nearer home,
Nearer now than I think.
OTHOIT, who showest mercy and pity, grant me that
through true faith, through good works, and through
the Communion of Thy Holy Body and Blood, I may come to
Thee at last ; and have mercy on Thy creatures, and on me a
great sinner; who reignest with the Father and the Holy
Ghost one God world without end. Amen.
fourtf) 0atttrftag.
Let not jour heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
In every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiv-
ing let your requests be made known unto God. And the
peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep
your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
The right method of dealing with anxieties,
and maintaining peace of heart under them, is
clearly and succinctly laid down by St. Paul in this
precept. Whatever may be your wishes on the
subject which makes you anxious, refer them to
God in prayer (using the simplest and most direct
language), not asking Him absolutely to bring them
about, which might be productive of anything but
a happy result, but simply letting him know them,
and begging Him to deal in the matter, not accord-
ing to your short-sighted views, but as seems best
to His wisdom and love. If prudence and caution
dictate that anything should be done to avert the
FOURTH SATURDAY. 95
evil you anticipate, do it, and then think no more
of the subject. Thinking of it is utterly fruitless :
" Which of you by taking thought can add one
cubit unto his stature ? " And fruitless thinking is
just so much waste of that mental and spiritual
energy, every atom of which you need for your
spiritual progress. Deal witli a fruitless anxiety
as you would deal with an impure or a resentful
motion of the heart. Shut the door on it at once,
and with one or two short ejaculatory prayers,
rouse the will and turn the thoughts in a differ-
ent direction. The holy women on their road to
Christ's sepulchre anticipated a difficulty which
threatened to baffle entirely their pious design.
"Who shall roll us away the stone," they said
among themselves, " from the door of the sepul-
chre ? " It turned out that they were troubled
about nothing. When they marched up close to
it, the difficulty had vanished. "When they
looked," says the Evangelist, "they saw that the
stone was rolled away." Take encouragement
from their example. Go forward in your spiritual
course with all the energy of your soul. Place the
foreseen difficulties in the hand of God, and He
shall remove them.
96 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
Those who indulge fretful feelings, either of.
anxiety or irritation, know not what an opening
they thereby give to the devil in their hearts.
" Fret not thyself," says the Psalmist ; " else shall
thou he moved to do evU" And in entire harmony
with this warning of the elder Scriptures is the
precept of St. Paul against undue indulgence of
anger: "Let not the sun go down upon your
wrath, neither give place to the devil" Peace is
the sentinel of the soul, which keeps the heart and
mind of the Christian through Christ Jesus. So
long as this sentinel is on guard and doing his
duty, the castle of the soul is kept secure. But let
the sentinel be removed, and the way is opened
immediately for an attack upon the fortress. And
our spiritual foes are vigilant, however much we
may sleep. They are quick to observe an oppor-
tunity, and prompt to avail themselves of it. They
rush upon the city at once in the absence of the
sentinel, and do great mischief in a short time.
In conclusion, be careful to maintain peace in
the heart, if thou wouldst not only resist the devil,
but also receive the guidance of God's Spirit. That
Spirit cannot make communications to a soul in a
turbulent state, stormy with passion, rocked by
FOURTH SATURDAY. 97
anxiety, or fevered with indignation. The Lord
is neither in the great and strong wind, nor in the
earthquake, nor in the fire ; and not until these
have subsided and passed away, can His still small
voice be heard communing with man in the depths
of his soul.
If our love were but more simple
We should take Him at His word ;
And our lives would be all sunshine
In the sweetness of our Lord.
OLORD, we beseech Thee to grant unto Thy people such a
measure of Thy heavenly benediction and grace, that by
the continuance of Thy clemency they may be delivered in
every hour of need from the weakness of the flesh and the
malice of the devil ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
1
jFourtl) Sunbag.
Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and
he that hath no money ; come ye, buy, and eat ; yea, come, buy
wine and milk without money and without price.
Let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst
come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life
freely.
Eat, O friends ; drink, yea, drink abundantly, 0 beloved.
Thou art invited, O my soul, to a royal banquet ;
put on thy best apparel then, for the King that
bids thee will take great notice of thy dress. It is
the marriage supper of the great King ; let me,
then, get on the wedding garment, that I may go
out to meet the Bridegroom of my soul. Take
care that thou appear like a guest, lest the Lord
of the feast should look upon thee as an intruder.
But come, all things are ready. Surely thou dost
not stand doubtful whether thou shalt go or not,
nor make excuses to put it off till another time ?
Art thou sure if thou hast rejected this solemn
FOrKTH SUNDAY. 99
invitation, and refused thy company to the great
Master of the feast, who does now so passionately
desire it, — art thou sure to be accepted another
time ? May not these delays provoke the slighted
King to cry out in His anger that thou which wert
in vain bidden, shalt not taste of His supper ?
Raise up thy faculties, therefore, O my soul, and
consider the many obligations that thou art under
of hastening to the banquet of thy Lord. Think
but upon the condescension of the Almighty. He
stoops to solicit my presence, and even entreats rne
to be there; shall I, then, insolently reject these
submissions of the Deity, and despise the goodness
of my Creator % But as the condescensions of thy
Saviour, O my soul, in calling thee to the feast, so
the benefits of it to thyself do oblige thee to accept
this call, and hasten to the entertainment with an
excess of joy. Here is that which conveys grace to
the soul, and nourishes my faith and all other vir-
tues to that degree as to make me a new creature,
and fit me for the real presence of the Lord in His
eternal kingdom. Here is that which ratifies the
promises of God, applies- the merits of my Re-
deemer's death to my soul, and, in a word, seals
the pardon of my sins. Here is that which will
100 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
make me, in a manner, the receptacle of my God,
for He will come unto me, and make His abode
with me ; so that I shall enjoy Him here below,
and in some measure anticipate His glorious pres-
ence, which is in heaven the delight of angels.
Reflect again upon the honor, O my soul, that
is conferred upon thee. Why this great honor,
O my Lord, to me, the most wretched of all that
are called to Thy heavenly table ? "Was it not
enough for Thee to come down from Thy glorious
seat above, and die upon the Cross for me, but
must Thou also provide this heavenly banquet for
Thy servant, and oblige him to sit down in Thy
presence, and feed upon the bread of life ? O my
soul, how I am obliged, in gratitude to my Saviour's
love upon the cross, to be frequent in the com-
memoration of it ! He there trod the wine-press
of the wicked world's misery, and, in the bitter an-
guish of His departing soul, cried out that God had
forsaken Him; The disgrace as well as the torments
of His cruel death, together with His willingness
to endure all this for my redemption, are such in-
stances of love, even in this invitation, too, as call
for the highest expression of gratitude and a
thankful acceptance of the proffer.
FOURTH SUNDAY. 101
Thine was the bitter price,
Ours is the free gift given ;
Thine was the blood of sacrifice,
Ours is the wine of heaven !
For Thee the burning thirst,
The shame, the mortal strife,
The broken heart, the side transpierced ;
To us, the Bread of Life !
GRANT me, blessed Lord, not only to receive that Sacra-
ment in the outward elements, but in the virtue and
power thereof ; not bread and wine alone, but the Body and
Blood of my Jesus, to the remission of all my sins and to all
the other benefits of His death and passion for me ; through
the same Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.
Jburtl) Jttcmbag.
God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath
shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the
glory of Grod in the face of Jesus Christ.
We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like
Him ; for we shall see Him as He is.
And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself,
even as He is pure.
" The angels," says one of the Fathers of the
Church, " always carry their heaven about with
them wheresover they are sent, because they never
depart from God or cease to behold Him, ever
dwelling in the bosom of His immensity, living and
moving in Him, and exercising their ministry in the
sanctuary of His divinity." Christ gave warrant
beforehand to this thought of Gregory the Great,
when, speaking of little children, He uttered that
unexpected and beautiful description of the privi-
leges of their estate, so unlike all our materialistic
ways of reckoning advantages, and says that their
FOURTH MONDAY. 10S
angels do always " behold the face of His Father in
heaven." The preeminent joy of these spirits that
are without the stains of conscious sin is their unin-
terrupted vision of the beauty of the Lord. The
qualification for that honor is purity of heart. Light
is thrown from this passage on another, not without
its difficulties, where the Saviour seems to make
infants models for grown people. The disciples
were inquiring who should be greatest in the new
kingdom. Such a question must be prompted
not merely by a vain curiosity, but by an ambitious
emulation. To mortify their calculating selfishness,
Jesus placed an infant before them and said, " Who-
soever shall humble himself as this little child, the
same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." His
other teachings forbid us to understand Him as
meaning that children bring into life with them no
stains of ancestral evil, and no natural proclivities to
falsehood and self-indulgence. Nor can He mean
that full grown men and women, fighting in the
fierce warfare and suffering in the terrible tragedy
of a world of experience, with intellect and will
and passion developed, can return to the untried and
comparatively passive state of an infantile nature.
He rather bids us enter into the spiritual elements
10± HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
of the child's soul, and to find there three or four
traits which form essential features of any mature
character that wears the holy likeness of His own.
One is simplicity. It is the opposite of what we
see in so many adult persons in modern society, — a
kind of inward conspiracy between intense selfish-
ness and an unscrupulous intellect ; a strong head
combined with a bad heart. This is something that
in a child would be pronounced morally monstrous.
Another trait is docility, — a readiness to receive
wisdom, whether taught by authority or shining by
its own light. This is the quality that gives its sig-
nification to the word disciple, — the chosen name
of the learners in Christ's school. Another trait
is trustfulness. This is the willingness to be led on
and held up by a stronger hand. It is the childish
germ of that great power in the Christian which
afterward, under the nurture of the Gospel at the
foot of the Cross, accepts the Divine mysteries,
believes what passes the understanding, renounces
self-sufficiency, and inherits the victories that are
promised to faith. Another yet is purity. This is
a cleanness from those actual defilements that come
by the personal indulgence of the lusts of the flesh.
It belongs to hearts . that are either unpolluted by
FOURTH MONDAY. 105
the touch of external corruption, .or else, by the puri-
fying power of the Holy Spirit, after having been
once disordered through the inordinate activity
of the senses, are restored to chastity. These, then,
are the spiritual graces that we are to cultivate, or
to restore in our souls if we would share in the
benediction pronounced by the Saviour on a child-
like character. If we inquire which is chief among
them, some light is thrown on that question when
we turn to the Beatitudes. What is the grace that
is there specially singled out as the qualification for
the Beatific Vision ? " Blessed are the pure in
heart, for they shall see God." The meek shall in-
herit the earth. Hunger and thirst after righteous-
ness shall have their longing filled. The merciful
shall obtain more mercy than they bestow. The
peace-makers shall be called God's children. But
there is one measure of the fulness of joy higher
and richer than any other. It is not only to be re-
warded and comforted by being in heaven, but it is,
with the angels that watch over little children, to
see Him whose presence makes it heaven. Among
all the raptures of beatitude the Beatific Yision is
supreme ; and that, so far as Revelation has lifted
the veil, is only for the pure in heart.
106 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
Since to Thy little ones is given such grace,
That they who nearest stand
Alway to God, in heaven, and see His face,
Go forth at His command,
Grant, Lord, that when around the expiring world
Our seraph guardians wait,
While on her death-bed, e'en to ruin hurled,
She owns Thee all too late ;
They to their charge may turn and thankful see
Thy mark upon us still ;
Then all together rise and reign with Thee
And all their holy joy o'er contrite hearts fulfil !
GIVE me, 0 Lord, purity of lips, a clean and innocent heart,
and rectitude of action. Make me ever to seek Thy face
with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind ; grant me to have a
contrite and humbled heart in Thy presence, — to prefer nothing
to Thy love. Most high, eternal, and ineffable Wisdom, drive
away from me the darkness of blindness and ignorance ; most
high and eternal Strength, deliver me ; most high and eternal
Fortitude, assist me ; most high and infinite Mercy, have mercy
on me ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
iimrtl) Sttes&ctg.
u$
Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.
Jesus Christ the righteous : the propitiation for our sins.
God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in Hirn should not perish, but
have everlasting life.
It is the business of each one of us to apprehend
the Gospel of a free, of a personal absolution. " If
Jesus Christ took upon Himself the sins of all
men, then He took upon Himself my sins — even
mine" is an argument not more logically true than
individually binding. There must be a personal
transaction between God and the soul on this basis.
There must be a solemn giving of the individual
soul — exactly as it is seen to be and felt to be in
history and in circumstance — into the hands of
God himself, on the ground of a revelation made
by Him in the Gospel as to a free and total forgive-
ness of all sin through the alone merits of our Lord
108 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
Jesus Christ. For lack of this, many men are all
their lifetime subject still to bondage, even though
they say with their lips, and hold tenaciously as a
doctrine, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins."
Yes, but of whose sins, — the sins of others, or your
own?
Again, it is the business of each one of us to
apprehend for himself the Gospel promise of a
Holy and Divine Spirit to dwell personally in him
as" the life of his life and the soul of his soul. God
will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him /
then if that be true — if that be true — I have only
to ask and I shall receive. This, too, is a transac-
tion between God and the man, which must by its
very nature be individual and even secret. God is
a lover of acts; and there are acts of the soul as
well as acts of the life. It is the business of each
one of us, having thus stamped upon himself, by
an individual act, the seal of his consecration — the
double seal of a Divine absolution and a Divine
indwelling — then to go forth as a forgiven man,
and as a spiritual man, not indeed to presume upon
what he has done, — not indeed to contradict by
daily inconsistency, or to sin away by daily trifling,
the relation toward God into which he has thus
FOURTH TUESDAY. 109
solemnly entered, — but still, I will say it without
fear of misconstruction, as much as possible to for-
get himself; to forget himself in his Saviour's ser-
vice, and to forget himself in giving his very life
for his brethren. Let the individual life, thus far,
and in this holy sense, be merged and lost in the
relative. Let no cowardly misgiving haunt him,
lest perhaps he be going amongst those who share
not to the full — or perhaps share not at all — his
convictions and his aspirations. Let him go, not
asking where he is safest, but who most want him.
Let him go, calling in beforehand, and calling in
throughout, the forgiving grace and the inhabiting
Spirit. Let him go, not to display himself, but to
glorify God; leading others, who mark his kind
words, his wise counsels, his gracious spirit, his
peaceful countenance, to think of his God with
more reverence, and of his Saviour with more love.
And God will keep the feet of His saints ; He
will not suffer one who thus mixes amongst men
to be suddenly surprised or greatly moved. Thus,
through him not least, shall the Almighty Lord
make good His divine saying : 7, lifted up from
the earth, will draw all men unto Me.
110 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
For lo ! in hidden deep accord,
The servant may be like his Lord.
And Thy love our love shining through.
May tell the world that Thou art true,
Till those who see us, see Thee too.
f\ RANT us, O Lord, not to mind earthly things, but to love
VJT things heavenly ; and even now, while we are placed
among things that are passing away, to cleave to those that
shall abide ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
jftftl) toebnesbaa.
D
If ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from
before you ; those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks
in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in
the land wherein ye dwell.
Fight the good fight of faith.
I see another law in my members, warring against the law
of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin
which is in my members.
We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.
Never can it be well with us till we are heartily
and boldly at work warring against all the enemies
of the King. It may be that one requires our first
collected strength and almost undivided attention,
but the others must not therefore have peace. We
may leave them till they attack us, while we go
forward to storm the fenced city of another, but
we must make no friendship with them, nor even
let them come peaceably to us. They are against
112 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
our God, and we must be against them, or we can-
not be wholly for Him.
We Christians are His soldiers, and must not
shrink from carrying out His orders. If we make
terms with sin, we are traitors to Him who requires
that we should be ready even to resist unto blood,
and proclaims, " He that findeth his life shall lose
it ; but he that loseth his life for My sake shall find
it." We cannot be as those who have not known
Him and His will, nor even as those who rejected
Him when they had only seen Him outwardly as
the Son of Man, though of them He says that they
hated the light, and came not to the light, lest their
deeds should be reproved. If we hold off from
opening ourselves to His searching, we are like them
in not coming to the light ; but we are worse, because
we say we see, even in a sense in which they did
not. They said, " We see," thinking the light of
the Law enough. .We say we see the light of the
Gospel. Worse, then, will it be with us than with
them, if we will not come to that light ; for any
affection we have toward the things it will reprove.
Oh, let it shine full upon all your ways ! Hold back
nothing ! Bring every thought, word, look, mo-
tion, under its pure and searching light ; and wink
FIFTH WEDNESDAY. 113
not when your most favorite fancies and pursuits
are before it. Look them through and through, if
by any means you may detect in them the least
spot of the canker of sin, and when you have found
it, magnify it in your own eyes by a concentrated
attention as though with a microscope, till you can
see its horrid and monstrous shape, and its incal-
culable growths and multiplications, and till you
are not only emboldened to cast it from you, but
loathe it, and loathe your very self for having
borne it about you.
All that you can see is but a faint image of the
malignity that inspires sin, of the spiritual wicked-
ness against which you have to wrestle, and which
sets itself utterly and wholly against God, and
against all that is good and holy, and would turn
the whole creation into loathsomeness and cor-
ruption. With this you take part, so far as you
allow sin. For your soul's sake, and for the love
of your Creator, your Redeemer, your Sanctifier,
beware of such fellowship !
Thou treadst upon enchanted ground ;
Perils and snares beset thee round ;
Beware of all ; guard every part,
But most, the traitor in thy heart.
8
114 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
Come, then, my soul ! now learn to wield
The weight of thine immortal shield ;
Put on the armor from above
Of heavenly truth and heavenly love.
OLORD, the great Physician of our mortal hurts and
wounds, send, we beseech Thee, Thy salvation upon our
weakness, that with Thee on our side and fighting for us we
may overcome the assaults of the enemy, and, pouring forth
all our tears and sorrows before Thee, may prevail against the
motions of our sins ; through Thy mercy who livest and
reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost one God, world
without end. Amen.
JTiftl) fltyttraboa.
«*»
It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and
the servant as his lord.
Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto,
but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.
He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth
live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and
rose again.
Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of
Christ.
" Neither the saints here know their own good-
ness, nor the rejected their own crimes." When
Christ the Judge tells them, " Ye treated me so
and so," it seems strange to them, and they both
answer, " Lord, when saw we Thee, to be kind or
unkind to Thee ? " And He will tell them, " In-
asmuch as ye did it, or did it not, to one of the
least of these My brethren, ye did it, or did it not,
to Me." Consider well, Christian friend, what
our Lord here teaches us all. He teaches us that He
is Himself present with us, in the persons of our
116 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
brethren, to be well or ill treated. You are
out on the road, perhaps, or you are sitting
quietly at home, and you meet with some
one, or some one comes to you, who needs
your help, and you have the power to help him.
You refuse, perhaps, to help him, for some selfish
reason ; perhaps you treat him with rudeness and
scorn. He goes away, and you think no more of
it. But see what our Lord here teaches concerning
you and that person. Your meeting with him will
be remembered at the last day, and you will find
then, what you little thought of at the time, that it
was Christ himself whom you were scorning and
rejecting ; Christ who laid down His life for you, and
who at that and every other moment was giving you
all that you had. He asked you for a very little out
of His gifts back again : a little money or time or
trouble, or may be only a kind word or look, and
you refused it.
On the other hand, if you from a sense of duty
put yourself out of the way to do another person
good in body or soul, though you might not dis-
tinctly consider it at the time, you will find at the
last that Christ was really there, that He reckons
it as if you were doing good to Him : it is written in
FIFTH THURSDAY. 117
His book, and will in nowise lose its reward. Our
Lord spake it about bodily charity only ; but it
holds true also with regard to works of purity,
and of that charity which regards people's souls ; it
seems a trifle, to all but earnest believers, to give
way to bad thoughts, to take sinful liberties with the
eye or hand ; but what says the Scripture ? Your
eyes and your hands are members of Christ ; shall I
then take Christ's Eye and Hand, and make an
unclean use of them ? Indeed, we shall never un-
derstand how grievous are our sins against purity,
until we have learned to believe indeed that we are
members of Christ ourselves ; nor against charity,
until we believe that our brethren are so. The last
clay will show us what a depth of good or evil lay
in all that we did willingly. It will show us that
nothing could be a trifle to us, where there was a
right and a wrong.
If I have turned away,
From griei or suffering which I might relieve,
Careless the cup of water e'en to give,
Forgive me, Lord, I pray,
* And teach me how to feel
My sinful wanderings with a deeper smart ;
And more of mercy and of grace impart,
My sinfulness to heal.
118 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
OGOD, who art Love, grant to Thy children who eat of Thy
bread, to bear one another's burdens in perfect good-will ;
may they with one mind provoke one another to love and to
good works, that by their holy conversation the sweet labor of
Christ may be shed abroad; through the same Jesus Christ
our Lord who reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost one
God, world without end. Amen.
ififll) iviiias.
%ft
But God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of
our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto
me, and I unto the world.
And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after Me,
cannot be My disciple.
Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith ;
who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross,
despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the
Throne of God.
On whomsoever and howsoever the Cross has
come, be it as the evident chastisement of sins, the
very consequence of them, or signal punishment for
them ; yet, if it be borne meekly by virtue of the
saving Cross, such — though the poorest or most
ignorant, with no other gifts of nature, no speech
nor utterance beyond the simple confession of
Christ's mercies through the Cross — becomes, by
his very being, a preacher of Christ crucified.
120 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
Such is the wonderful and mysterious efficacy of
the Cross. It has a power and virtue, wherever it
descends, infused by Him who said : " When I am
lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all men unto
Me." "Words of comfort have other power, they
speak another language, they speak to the heart,
when uttered by one who has felt the blessed pene-
trating, because piercing, touch of the Cross.
Words have a power not their own, when given
through the inward knowledge of the Cross. They
who utter them have a mysterious being and priv-
ilege they know not of ; of themselves they know
this only, that Christ has, as they deeply feel, for
their sins, given them His cup to drink. But He
who regards not their unworthiness, but has vouch-
safed to them His Cross to heal them, giveth to it,
in them, its own efficacy. As they on whom His
gifts of healing were shown — the lame, or paralytic,
or blind, or leprous — became, by their very being,
living witnesses of his mighty love, so now, who-
soever, having been once blind to himself, to the
nature of sin, or the holiness of God, now, through
the touch of the Cross, sees ; whosoever, once
bowed down by a spirit of infirmity to earthly
things, has now been lifted up to the Cross, and
FIFTH FRIDAY. 121
from it beholds Lis Lord, is, by that very change,
a witness that unto Christ crucified and risen and
ascended, " all power is given in heaven and in
earth." It needs not words. The lowlier, the
more real and powerful his witness ; for lowliness
is the depth of the grace of Christ. As, before,
through sin, there hung around him a nameless
something, bearing a token of inward decay, so,
when turned to God through the Cross, there is a
hidden power within him, giving force to words,
looks, acts, his very self-abasement and deep sense
of unworthiness, not his own nor known to him,
but the presence of the Holy Comforter, who ever
rests upon the Cross and hallows it.
Blessed, then, thrice blessed, are ye to whom
}Tour Lord has fitted your cross, as He, in His right-
eous but tender love saw best for you. Blessed are
ye, if ye but learn your blessedness, whatever cross,
by nature or by the order of His government, He
has placed upon you. Ye will not seek high
things on whom the lowly Cross has been be-
stowed. But treasure it up for yourselves in your
secret hearts ; there is no form of it which is not
healing ; bury it deep there : it will heal you first,
through His gracious Spirit, and when it hap
122 HELPS TO A HOLT LENT.
healed you, will, through you, heal others. Only
yield yourselves to His fatherly hand who gave it
you, to do to you, in you, through you, His loving
and gracious will. So may the very punishment
of sin raise you to the very life of the blessed ; the
chastisement of self will conform you, by His
grace, to His ever-blessed will, which is the joy of
angels, the perfection of saints, the bond of all
things, the end of the human life.
Every bird that upward springs
Bears the Cross upon his wings ;
We without it cannot rise
Upward to our native skies.
Every ship that meets the waves
By the Cross their fury braves ;
We, on life's wide ocean tost,
If we have it not are lost.
Hope it gives us when distressed,
When we faint it gives us rest ;
Satan's craft and Satan's might
By the Cross are put to flight.
0 ADORABLE Jesus, of humility and compassion that
passeth knowledge, who didst carry Thine own cross to
Mount Calvary, and didst bid the mourners who followed
Thee not to weep for Thee, but for themselves ! grant me to
FIFTH FEIDAY. 123
be a partaker of Thy spirit, that I may bear with a patient mind
whatever cross Thou shalt lay upon me, and bewail with true
repentance my transgressions, so that, crucified to the world,
I may be quickened by Thy cross to life everlasting. Grant
this, Lord Jesus, for Thine own mercy's sake. Amen.
JTtftf) Sunn-bap.
0
The kingdom of God cometli not with observation.
Ye therefore, beloved grow in grace, and in the knowl-
edge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth
unto an holy temple in the Lord.
As new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word,
that ye may grow thereby.
Men grow in stature, they know not how ; they
eat, they drink, they sleep, are nourished, they
know not how ; and so, day by day, and year by
year, pass through the stages of life, through child-
hood, youth, to manhood and mature years. So
should it be in our recreation. In Holy Baptism,
He recreates us in His own image ; passes His
hand upon us, puts the first germ of spiritual life
within us, to grow, be nourished, expand, flower,
bear fruit, until it take into itself all our old nature,
and we become wholly new. It is a spark from
FIFTH SATURDAY. 125
heaven, which should be fanned into a flame by
the breath of charity, and burn within us, until it
has consumed all low desires, all selfish thoughts,
everything which oifendeth, and yield us pure, a
holy acceptable sacrifice unto God. Such should
our Christian course be ; such is the blessed course ;
a gradual daily growth, from the first hour when
we awake to the thought of God and of our own
deathless being, to our final passage through death
to endless life.
By the grace of God alone can we grow ; and
that flows into us more largely or more scantily
according to what we have ourselves become. If
we have allowed our hearts to grow cold or
worldly, much more if defiled, we cannot at once
love or serve God, or repent, or have that alacrity
and energy of faith which is the blessing of His
more faithful servants. We are not masters of our
own faith or love. We cannot expand ourselves to
receive God. One step only is in our power, — the
next. We cannot at once have great love, or deep
humility, or intense penitence, or an active soul, or
a reverent spirit, or a devout mind. We can
neither at once unlearn evil habits wholly, nor
learn great virtues. We can rarely bound in our
126 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
Christian course. Step by step is the toilsome
ascent to be won. Single acts of virtue, wrought
by the grace of God, are the steps to heaven. If
in these we correspond to the grace of God, He
will give larger increase. It may be He will bring
us into some new trial, in which, if by His grace
we conquer, He will make us other men. One
decisive deed well done, solely for His glory
and His love ; one trial well surmounted by His
grace, will often, through His mercy, lift men up
at once far beyond their measure. On one heroic
act He has wrought the whole living habit into
the soul. A whole life may lie wrapped up in one
single deed, which He hath given and crowneth.
One fervent act of self-devotion to our Lord, giving
ourselves for life or death, weal or woe, to His
blessed and almighty will, surrendering ourselves
and all which is ours wholly as He wills, and it
may be we shall find His gracious hand on ours,
leading us to follow His steps, although it be to
Calvary. But as this deed or purpose of itself, so
all is of grace. The morrow of grace is no more in
our power than of time. The first act for which
He gives us grace is ours; all beyond is God's.
But as we use the present, He will give the future.
FIFTH SATURDAY. 127
Despair we not, then, when we see any grace of
reverence or deep love or lowly humility or in-
stant, fervent thankfulness, which we have not;
nor yet must we attempt to transplant it at once,
full-grown, into ourselves. Pray we for the grace
of God to do each single act, as He shall will, to
His glory ; and He will lead us whither as yet we
know not.
All unseen the Master walketh
By the toiling servant's side ;
Comfortable words He speaketh,
While His hands uphold and guide.
Holy strivings nerve and strengthen,
Long endurance wins the crown ;
When the evening shadows lengthen,
Thou shalt lay thy burden down.
0 ETERNAL God who seest my weakness and knowest the
number and strength of the temptations against which
I have to struggle, leave me not to myself, but cover Thou
my head in the day of battle, and in all spiritual combats
make me more than conqueror through Him that loved me.
Grant that I may continue steadfast, immovable, always
abounding in the work of the Lord, and, by patient continu-
ance in well-doing, seek, and at last obtain, glory and honor
and immortality and eternal life ; through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.
jftftl) 0mt&a».
While we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly,
The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin.
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the
holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which
He hath consecrated for us, and having an High Priest over
the House of God ; let us draw near with a true heart in full
assurance of faith.
Few disciples have ever been brought either to
understand the Atonement as a doctrine for the
mind, or to feel it as a power in the heart, by any
argument. It is not reasoning that brings men to
the foot of the Cross. When I know, in my weak
will and stricken conscience, that I am worthless,
and with no strength in me to make myself rich
toward God, I shall want an atonement. When
the dreary conviction takes possession of me that I
have lost my hold on the mercy-seat in heaven by
the thorough selfishness of my life, I shall betake
myself to that Mediator who places one of His
mighty and merciful hands there, and the other in
FIFTH SUNDAY. 129
my own. When I see that, through these wayward
or headstrong years, I have so sinned that there is
no true life in me, and yet that these years are
hurrying away, and that the end is not very far off,
I shall be ready to believe in that Sacrifice which
takes all sin away, — in that Death which to every
believer is endless Life. Then I must say in my
closet — and if there, why not openly before the
world ? — " I am lost if I am left alone. Justify me,
O Saviour, through Thy redemption ; lay Thy Cross
where Thou wilt on this my selfish and sinning
nature. Touch me with Thy cleansing blood. Be
thou my righteousness, and let me hide myself in
Thee."
You believe in God. You know that He is ab-
solutely holy. Before that holiness you know that
even angels that are without sin veil their faces.
From a contemplation of that splendor of spiritual
purity you turn and look upon yourself. Your
whole character seems simply one dark spot against
the brightness. Reckon it as you will. Look at
things done that ought not to have been ; look at
things left undone that ought to have been done ;
examine motives and the mixtures of motives ; see
how much self has had to do with the best things in
130 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
you ; confess that pride and passion have not let
yon alone, even when you were at your prayers ;
think of the disguises that your sin has put on, ag-
gravating every other iniquity with that of insincer-
ity ; consider what envy and vanity and ambition
and lust and anger are, not only in their uncovered
deformity, but in the hidden roots of their crafty
and unclean life ; then reflect what a life would he
that should render unto God, in blameless obedience
and in the unblemished beauty of a holy love, all
that is God's, and compare that life with your own.
Is not something wanting to bring that soul of yours
and God together? Do you not desire a " days-
man that can lay his hand upon both % " Is there
not needed an atonement ? Suppose it is suggested,
then, that perhaps, although you are at present so
far estranged, you can gradually work your way
back and stand by your own endeavor, unatoned or
unreconciled, in harmony with your God. Do
you believe that ? Does your course hitherto, from
year to year, look like reaching that consummation ?
If it did, what security have you of a year or a day
to accomplish that great restoration ? Besides, what
you want is not peace by and by, in an indefinite
future ; you want it now, if you want it ever. Oh,
FIFTH SUNDAY. 131
if every soul that lives forever lives through the
Redeemer's dying, then surely this sacrificial re-
demption is not some abstruse or speculative dogma
that we should dispute about it ; it is a Divinely
human fact, and we are to give thanks for it and
glory in it. It is no dream of a troubled sleep, no
device of theological ingenuity, — it is the one first
and most vital of all living realities to men. It is
to be preached as men carry the news of life to
their brothers that have been left to die. It is to
be believed, without a doubt, by men who, without
it, would find life itself darker and drearier than
death.
Holy, blessed lives are the fruit of that atonement.
So that on this Passion Sunday we can well take up
the hymn of the saintly singer of more than two
hundred years ago :
Thou who didst suffer for my good.
And die my guilty debts to pay ;
Thou Lamb of God, whose precious blood
Can take a world's misdeeds away, —
O let this weary pain, the smart
Of life's long tale of grief and loss,
Be gently stirred within my heart
At thought of Thee and of Thy Cross !
132 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
I give Thee thanks that Thou didst die,
To win eternal life for me,
To "bring salvation from on high :
Oh, draw me up, through love, to Thee 1
0 BLESSED and adorable Saviour, who didst complete the
work of our redemption with many sufferings and woes
unutterable ! give me grace, I beseech Thee, to follow Thee
in the course of Thy bitter passion, that I may consider what
Thou didst endure for us sinners ; and be constrained to live
henceforth not unto myself, hut unto Thee, who didst give
Thyself for me, and die, the just for the unjust, to bring me
unto God. Grant this for Thy mercy's sake. Amen.
Jiftl) itlonbajj.
5^,
If I liad not come and spoken unto them, they had not had
sin : but now they have no cloke for their sin.
For this cause came I into the world, that I should bear
witness unto the truth.
The words of our Lord Jesus Christ contain
many things ; but they contain not one compliment ;
not one word spoken in mere complaisance, in un-
meaning acquiescence, in worldly flattery. Whoso-
ever came to Him, friend or foe ; whoever invited
Him to his house; whoever appealed to Him for
His counsel, must make up his mind to being dealt
with according to truth. A sinner is a sinner, a
hypocrite is a hypocrite, a traitor is a traitor, and
as such he is accosted. "We scarcely feel, as we
read with eighteen centuries between, what a phe-
nomenon this must have been in a world just as
nattering then and just as false as now. There
was one Person moving upon the earth who evi-
134 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
dently took the measure of every life and sounded
the depth of every heart ; One who could character-
ize, and made it His business to characterize, each
human being who came to Him, exactly as he was,
— moral or immoral, sincere or insincere, earnest or
indifferent, false or true. E"o one else could do
this justly ; no one else could do this with pro-
priety; but there was that in Christ which made
men endure it from Him, and though the words
might rankle, they must be borne. And the words
are there still. The imperishable Book records
them. They are written for our admonition.
Jesus Christ sees us as we are, and He can only
deal with us on a footing of reality.
Some of us have felt the blessing of this. In
moments of deep self-conviction, we have found
the unspeakable comfort of entering just one only
presence in which we are known precisely as we
are, and yet are borne with. There is peace, if
there be pain also, in the consciousness of that
intuition. We have nothing to explain to Jesus
Christ. Lie there at His footstool : He knows you
through and through, and yet He listens ! There
is ever peace in truth. If we seek not rest in con-
fession to man, it is partly because it is impossible,
FIFTH MONDAY. 135
— we cannot, if we would, show ourselves as we
are; and partly because we cannot trust man, —
could lie but see us as we are, lie would spurn, lie
would abhor. But Christ can see, — and yet He
loves too.
And the soul feels this. In hours of mirth and
gladness, in days of pride and self-ignorance, we
may not value Christ either for His truth or for His
tenderness. But let the evil day come — it may be
of disappointed ambition, it may be of sharp bereave-
ment, it may be (worse yet to bear) of remorse and
shame and tarnished honor — then there is some-
thing, account for it as we may, which makes the
soul trust and turn to the truthful and compassionate
Lord ; knowing before He speaks that He knows
all ; knowing before He speaks that He can yet
abundantly pardon.
He is alone my help and hope,
That I shall not be moved ;
His watchful eye is ever ope,
And guardeth His beloved.
Whether abroad amidst the crowd,
Or else within my door,
He is my pillar and my cloud,
Now and for evermore.
136 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
BE Thou, O Lord, onr protection, who art our redemption ;
direct oar minds by Thy gracious presence, and watch over
our path with guiding love ; that among the snares which lie
hidden in this path wherein we walk, we may so pass onward
with hearts fixed on Thee, that by the track of faith we may
come to be where Thou wouldest have us ; through our Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen.
I\(t\) ©uesbag.
<o\\
Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of
faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.
Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is
renewed day by day.
All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as
keep His covenant and His testimonies.
They took knowledge of them that they had been with
Jesus.
The work of our sanctification consists simply in
receiving, from one moment to another, all the
troubles and duties of our state in life as veils
under which God hides Himself and gives Him-
self to us. Every moment brings some duty to be
faithfully performed, and this is enough for our
perfection. The moment which brings a duty to
be performed, or a trouble to be borne, brings also
a message declaring to us the will of God. The
138 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
soul has only to follow Jesus, the Divine Model, by
the way of those crosses and sacrifices which every
day brings. Are you longing to find out the secret
of belonging wholly to God ? It is simply this, —
to serve Him in all that comes to you ; in all that
you have to do. All leads to this union ; all
tends to perfect it, excepting sin, and that which is
not our duty. Let us carefully keep hold of the
thread of the Divine will ; it will guide us through
the labyrinth of this life, and bring us safely to the
centre, which is God himself.
In the life of faith the soul continually pursues
God through all that hides Him, and, if faithful,
never stops in this pursuit. All roads bring it
nearer to God ; all things are means of leading it to
Him. Whether God afflicts or comforts the soul,
it will equally adore Him to be indeed its Lord and
its God. If we had faith, we should be at peace
with all creatures, thanking them in our heart for
all the sufferings they cause us, because they greatly
help to perfect us. The more nature rebels, the
more firmly will faith say : " All comes from God,
or is allowed by Him, and therefore all is good."
There is nothing which faith does not overcome ;
nothing which it will not accept. Faith passes be-
FIFTH TUESDAY. 139
yond all earthly things, pierces all shadows, to
attain the truth ; keeps it ever in a firm embrace,
and will never let herself be separated from it. The
simplicity and elevation which faith gives to the
soul make it satisfied with everything. Nothing
is wanting to it ; nothing is too much for it ; and
at all times it blesses the Divine hand which causes
the waters of grace to flow so gently upon it. It
has the same tenderness for friends and enemies,
being taught by Jesus Christ to regard all men as
God's instruments. Live as one who is going from
the figure to the truth, — from death to immortality,
— from time to eternity.
That love is purest and most true
Which, leans upon its Saviour's breast,
And thinks with pleasure ever new
How in all things to please Him best ;
Which in all things, not great alone,
On serving Him is fully bent,
And knowingly will not to one,
No ! not the smallest sin consent.
0 BLESSED Lord, whom without faith it is impossible to
please, let Thy spirit, I beseech Thee, work in me such
a faith as may be acceptable in Thy sight, even such as may
140 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
show itself by my works, that it may enable me to overcome
the world, and conform me to the image of that Christ on
whom I believe ; that so at the last I may receive the end of
my faith, even the salvation of my soul, by the same Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.
0i*tl) tDe&nes&ag.
i+l 0
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord ? and who shall
rise up in His holy place ? He that hath clean hands, and a
pure heart.
Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no
man shall see the Lord.
St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, Bengel, and
Tholuck — men that have gone deep down into the
sacred significance of the Scriptures — have sup-
posed that by the original word used for holiness is
meant that special form of holiness or sanctification
which consists in the purging away of unchastity.
At the root of all the various uses of the term
purity in the Bible, there lies the idea of a spiritual
love unmixed with any baser element. What de-
ranges and poisons the pure relations of human
society is an adulterated heart, — the intermixture
of sensual with spiritual and orderly affections.
"When St. Paul exhibits the union of the Church
cr
142 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
with Christ under the image* of the Bride and
the Bridegroom, declaring it to be the Divine pur-
pose to present the Bride to her Lord " holy and
without blemish," he really offers the strongest
conceivable appeal to the Christian disciple for an
unspotted life. The holiness to which we are
called is not mere moral correctness, such as may
result from a cool temperament, or a self-control-
ling prudence, or a fear of social disgrace, or even
a scrupulous conscience. That searching Physician
of the heart, who knows all that is in man, aims
rather at the inner cleanliness, which is a far more
comprehensive and more profound grace, and is
obtained only by the creation of his own image in
the soul, or rather by a secret union with himself.
So St. John, whose own love for his Master was
like the colorless light, tells us that the real Chris-
tian purity has both its motive and its perfection
through an inward reception of Christ by faith and
the hope of hereafter being drawn even into a
closer communion with Him and likeness to Him.
" He that hath this hope in him purifieth himself,
even as he is pure." To whatever degree the
presence of that immaculate purity is realized,
denied imaginations, thoughts, and actions, become
SIXTH WEDNESDAY. 143
intolerable, and the voluntary indulgence of them
becomes impossible. As this refining process goes
on — the soul being gradually more and more
" changed into the same image, from glory to glory
as by the Spirit of the Lord " — it is even conceiv-
able that the whole scene of life where we dwell,
with all its moral relationships, should come to be
regarded as a kind of sanctuary, and that we should
shrink from the pollution of it at any point as
instinctively and reverentially as we should from
the profanation of a sacrament. This is holiness.
At first, and possibly for a long time, it will need
incessant vigil and solemn conflict. The forbidden
curiosity of the first sinners in Eden tempts us, before
we are aware, along the line of their degradation
and shame. But as sure as we are faithful, the
struggle will become less sharp. Yirtue will find
help in the wholesome occupations of a Christian
life. The truth will open itself, that a pure relig-
ion before God is the busy and charitable religion
that visits the fatherless and widow, leaving no
time for corrupting trains of thought, reading, or
conversation. A spirit so guarded keeps itself un-
spotted from the world by keeping out of the way
of the world's ambiguous allurements. For most
144 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
of ns it is a necessary discipline and a long battle.
But even if the faithful soldier and servant should
find it a fight unto the life's end, he is not to lose
sight of the promised liberty and victory. Ad-
vancing well up the hill, he will find that unto the
pure all things are pure. Natural objects will be
divested of their sensual associations. The entire
life will be as unperturbed by passion as the heart
is swift in answering to the attractions of Christ's
holy will, and perfect in His joy.
Think that He thy ways beholdeth ;
He unfoldeth
Every fault that lurks within ;
Every stain of shame glossed over
Can discover,
And discern each deed of sin.
OHOLY and immaculate Jesus, who wast conceived in a vir-
gin's womb, and who dost still love to dwell in pure and
virgin hearts, give me, I beseech Thee, the grace to keep my
heart with all diligence, and to withstand all temptations of
the flesh, and with pure and clean heart, to follow Thee the
only God, even for Thine own merits and mercy's sake.
—
He went out and found others standing idle, and saitli unto
them, Why stand ye here all the day idle ? They say unto
Him, Because no man hath hired us.
Then said they unto Him, What shall we do, that we might
work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them,
This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom He
hath sent.
We complain of the slow, dull life we are forced
to lead, of our humble sphere of action, of our low
position in the scale of society, of our having no
room to make ourselves known, of our wasted ener-
gies, of our years of patience. So do we say that
we have no Father who is directing our life, so do
we say that God has forgotten us, so do we boldly
judge what life is best for us, and so by our
complaining do we lose the use and profit of
the quiet years. We cannot be still, cannot be at
rest. It is the most natural and yet the most ruin-
ous fault which belongs to men in an age which
10
lttG HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
lives too fast and has almost a morbid passion for
incessant labor. Oh, men of little faith ! because
you are not sent out jet into your labor, do you
think God has ceased to remember you ? because
you are forced to be outwardly inactive, do you
think you also may not be, in your years of quiet,
" about your Father's business ? " Receive the
lesson of Christ's life — the lesson Milton learnt
from God's spirit in his heart —
" They also serve who only stand and wait."
To Christ himself, His Father's business, then,
was the development of all His inner self, the
maturing for His work. The idea of His mission
and the powers for it grew together, and when the
time for action came He was ready.
Such times of waiting mark, not uncommonly,
our life. Our youth is kept back from the press
of labor, or our manhood is forced to pause. It is
a period given to us in which to mature ourselves
for the work which God will give us to do.
Oh, use it well ! Grow in it ; do not retrograde.
The way we spend it oftentimes in youth is in
light indifference or daring bravado ; and when the
time comes in which the work which God has
8IXTH THURSDAY. 147
chosen for us is ready for our energy, we have no
instruments to work with, no ideas to expend and
express in fruitful labor. The way we spend it
oftentimes in manhood is in whining at God's un-
fairness, as we call it ; in complaining regret for
past inactivity ; and then, when work is again laid
before us, we have lost the time during which we
ought to have matured ourselves ; enfeebled the will
by fruitless wailing ; chilled the aspirations which
kindle, and the faith and hope which sustain, the
toiling spirit of a noble workman for the race ; we
have missed our opportunity, and now we cannot
enter on our ministry. ^Nothing is sadder than the
way in which we wilfully spoil our life.
Christian, no time of seeming inactivity is laid
upon you by God without a just reason. It is God
calling upon you to do His business by ripening in
quiet all your powers for some higher sphere of
activity which is about to be opened to you. The
time is coming when you shall be called again to
the front of the battle. Let that solemn thought
of dread yet kindling expectancy fill the cup of
your life with the inner work of self-development
which will make you ready and prepared when
your name is called. The eighteen years at Naza-
148 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
reth, what was their result ? A few years of ac-
tion, but of action concentrated, intense, infinite ;
not one word, not one deed, which did not tell,
and which will not tell upon the universe forever.
Eighteen years of silence, and then, — the regen-
eration of the world accomplished, His Father's
business done.
Oh, forgive our faithless mind,
Raise us from our low estate,
Breathe in us the will to find
Higher life in small and great.
Give us watchful eyes and clear,
Purged from the scales of sense,
Seeing still the Master near,
And the city far from hence.
TEACH us, 0 Lord, to submit ourselves both now and ever
to Thy will and providence, and to cast all our care on
Thee, who never lea vest those that love Thee ; and grant that
we may so seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness,
that all good things may be added unto us ; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.
nf
0t*tl) Iri&ctg.
Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows :
He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for
our iniquities : the chastisement of our peace was upon Him ;
and with His stripes we are healed.
The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Then delivered he Him therefore unto them to be crucified.
And they took Jesus and led Him away. And He, bearing His
cross, went forth.
" Then delivered He Him." Now close the
temple, ye sons of Aaron ; the types and shadows
with which ye had to do have done their duty, now
that the Substance has appeared. Lay aside the
hand from your foreheads, and the breastplate,
ye ministers of the sanctuary ; for know that an-
other now justly adorns Himself with both, and
that your priesthood has reached its termination.
The soldiers have made their preparations, the
awful sign has appeared, which has since become
150 HELPS TO A HOLT LENT. .
the standard of the kingdom of Christ and the
token of our salvation. During the space of three
thousand years it was constantly symbolized to the
view of the believing Israelites. It is even re-
flected in the peculiar manner in which the dying
patriarch Jacob, with crossed hands, blessed his
grandsons Ephraim and Manassah. It glimmered
no less in the wave offerings of the tabernacle and
temple, which, as is well known, were wont to be
waved so as to make the form of a cross appear.
In the wilderness, the sign was elevated to support
the brazen serpent, and the spirit of prophecy in-
terwove it in the figurative language of David's
Psalms when placing in the mouth of the future
Messiah the words, " They pierced My hands and
My feet."
Yonder they conduct the Man of Sorrows !
One cannot reflect who it is that is thus laden with
the accursed tree without feeling one's heart petri-
fied with surprise and astonishment. But it is well
for us that He traversed this path. Only observe
how the form of the Lamb which taketh away the
sins of the world is so clearly expressed in Him.
Behold Him, and say if you do not feel as if you
heard the ancient words proceed from His silent
SIXTH FRIDAY. 151
lips : " Sacrifice and offering Thou clidst not desire,
a body hast Thou prepared for Me. Lo ! I come,
I delight to do Thy will, O my God, yea, Thy law
is within My heart." Had He shrunk back from
this fatal path, His road to suffering would have
represented to us that on which, when dying, we
should have quitted the world. Instead of soldiers,
the emissaries of Satan would have escorted ; in-
stead of the accursed tree, the curse of the law
itself; instead of fetters, the bands of eternal wrath
would have encircled us, and despair have lashed
us with its fiery scourge. Now, on the contrary,
angels of peace, sent by Eternal Love, will at
length bear us on a path of light, illumined by
heavenly promises, to Abraham's bosom.
Certainly, it may still be the case that, during
our earthly pilgrimage, we are led on similar paths
to that on which we see Jesus, our head, proceed-
ing. For the world hates His members, like Him-
self; and Satan ceases not to desire to have His
redeemed, that he may sift them as wheat. But
heaven is no longer closed over onr path of suffer-
ing and disgrace, nor does the black cloud of
rejection and the curse obscure it. The sword of
God has returned to its scabbard, and peace and
152 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
hope are the gracious companions who walk by our
side. Christ has deprived our fearful path of its
horrors, our burdens of their overpowering weight,
our disgrace and need of their deadly stings, and
placed us in a situation to say, with the royal Psalm-
ist : " Yea, though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil : for Thou art
with me ; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me."
Blessed, therefore, be the faith of our Prince of
Peace on the cross ! Let us not cease to accompany
Him daily thereon in the spirit. It will unspeak-
ably sweeten our own painful path ; for why does
He take this horrible road, but to enable us to
traverse ours with heads erect, because we are freed
from curse and care ? Upon His path He not only
carries our sins to the grave, and breaks a passage
through all the obstacles which blocked up our
access to the Father, but He makes, at the same
time, all the bitter waters of the desert sweet, and
neither leaves nor forsakes us till He brings us safe
to our heavenly home.
The Cross is heavy in thy human measure,
The way too narrow for thy inward pride ;
Thou canst not lay thine intellectual treasure
At the low footstool of the Crucified.
SIXTH FRIDAY. 153
Oh, tliat my faithless soul one hour only
Would comprehend the Christian's perfect life ;
Despised with Jesus — sorrowful and lonely —
Yet calmly looking upward in the strife.
0 CHRIST, 0 Son of God, whom Thy Father delivered up
for us all when He accepted Thee as the true Oblation
for us, hearken to the prayers of Thy people, save those whom
Thou hast purchased, quicken those whom Thou hast freed,
suffer not to go into everlasting mourning those whom Thou
didst come to redeem, lest they should perish eternally. Thou
who didst endure the Cross for us, pierce our hearts with the
nails of Thy fear, that here we may obtain remission of our
sins, and in the world to come, eternal joy ; through Thee
whom we believe to have been crucified for all, and who
livest with the Father and the Holy Ghost one God, world
without end. Amen.
0t*tl) Saturbajj.
$h
Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of
God.
Abide in Him ; that, when He shall appear, we may have
confidence.
Watch ye therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the
hour when the Son of Man cometh.
At the time appointed the end shall be.
We are not yet in our home ; not as yet do we
reign ; things around us still dazzle us ; self-pleased
thoughts may yet mislead us ; we have still, while
yet we are in the flesh, to strike closer and closer
into the narrow way, closer and closer to cleave to
God, more and more to part with all which would
keep us from God. And so God often brings
things around us to a sudden end, or brings us in
our own sight near the end, that so we may see
things more as we shall see them in the end. Sea-
SIXTH SATURDAY. 155
sons of sorrow or sickness, or approaching death,
have shown persons a whole life in different colors
from what it wore before ; how what before seemed
" grace " was but " nature ; " how seeming zeal for
God was but natural activity ; how love of human
praise had robbed men of the praise of God ; how
what they thought pleasing to God was only pleas-
ing self; how one subtle, self-pleasing sin has
cankered a whole life of seeming grace. Wherever,
then, we may be, in the course heavenward, morn-
ing by morning let us place before ourselves that
morning which has no evening ; and purpose we
to do that, and that only, which we shall wish we
had done, when we shall see it in the light of that
morning when in the brightness of His presence
every plea of self-love which now clouds our eyes
shall melt away. Evening by evening set we be-
fore us that night "wherein no man can work,"
and resolve we, by God's grace, to work on the
morrow, if we see it, more steadfastly the works
of God. "Place daily," says St. Anselm, "place
daily before your eyes your end. Think most in-
tently whose those things shall be, what they shall
profit you, which shall remain after you. Think
whither ye shall go ; what ye shall carry with you ;
156 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
what, sent before by you, ye shall find there. Of
a truth, ye shall not carry thither nor find there
aught but your own deeds, good or bad. This
think ye ; these things meditate, by night and by
day, in public or in private ; this be your converse
together, What do we ? Why linger we ? Near
is our last day. How spend we our life ? How
make we amends to God for our sins? Prepare
we, as seeing close to us the day of our calling
hence, and so fashion ourselves that we may, with-
out fear, go to judgment, since there we shall re-
ceive what we have done in the body, good or
bad."
Shrink we not, although, as we bring our works
near to the light of that Day, much seeming good
be shown to us to be real evil, or full of imperfec-
tion. Shrink we not, although our seeming treas-
ure melt away, and wherein we thought ourselves
rich we find ourselves poor ; shrink we not, al-
though the fire of that Hay, while it burns away
our dross, scorch us ; draw we not back, although
by that light we see that we must part with this
self-indulgence, or sloth, or quickness of temper,
or that cherished way of acting, which has wound
close around us self-esteem, or ldve of the praise
SIXTH SATURDAY. 157
of man, or even longing for human sympathy.
Rather offer we ourselves, in union with the All-
atoning Sacrifice, to love nothing, to prize nothing,
to wish for nothing, to fear nothing, to hold noth-
ing, to regret nothing, but what we shall love,
prize, wish for, or be glad we had feared, held, re-
gretted, when our Saviour and Judge's voice shall
utter those dread words, " It is done." So, baring
ourselves more and more of all unpleasing unto
Him, shall we, with less sluggish steps, follow
Him who emptied Himself of all which was His
that He might give us all. Nor, having chosen or
wishing to choose the better part, think we that it
will be long and wearisome to do without this or
that ; let not Satan turn or hold us back by telling
us we can never hold on so long without this or
that ; think we it not a weary, dreary future to
wait so long for the coming of the Lord. His
coming draweth nigh ; with each decaying year
the tokens thicken of the world's decay, the closing
strife, the coming of our God.
Whilst the careless world is sleeping",
Blest the servants who are keeping
Watch, according to His word,
For the coming of their Lord.
158 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
Heard ye not your Master's warning ?
He will come before the morning,
Unexpected, undescried ;
Watch ye for Him open-eyed.
Teach us so to watch, Lord Jesus
From the sleep of sin release us ;
Swift to hear Thee let us be ;
Meet to enter in with Thee.
LORD Jesus Christ, who hast promised to come again in
like manner as Thou didst go into heaven ; we pray Thee
to hasten the time of Thine advent, that sin and death may
be overcome, and that we, with all Thy faithful departed,
may be perfected in blessedness in that day when Thou
makest up Thy jewels; through Thy mercy who art blessed
and livest with the Father and the Holy Ghost one God, world
without end. Amen.
Jpalm 0tmtog
And they that went before, and they that followed, cried,
saying, Hosanna ; Blessed is He that conieth in the name of
the Lord.
And He cometh, and findeth them sleeping, and saith
unto Peter, Simon, sleepest thou ? Couldest not thou watch
one hour ?
It was less than five days after the immense
popular excitement which drew the multitudes of
city and country into a jubilant procession of wel-
come and honor, with palms and garments strewn
in the road, to greet the Prophet of Nazareth, con-
ducting Him to the gates of Jerusalem, that He
knelt down on the bare ground in the garden, a
lonely sufferer, struggling with a secret agony, in
which a sense of utter desertion and desolation was
one of the bitterest elements ; no sound breaking
the silence but His groans.
The spot must have been almost the same ; for
160 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
the rocky path by which the swelling multitude
wound over the mount from Bethany to the tem-
ple, and this shady orchard of Gethsemane, were
both just east of the city gates. Was there ever,
then, in the Bible or in history, a more pathetic
illustration of the difference between a piety of
mere fashion and feeling on the one hand, and a
faith of solid principle, rooted in real convictions,
equal to all shocks, surviving all trials and changes,
on the other? Here, at the garden, the artificial
stimulants have ceased to act ; the pageant has
passed ; the crowd is scattered ; the fascination of
popularity has waned ; and so the very friends
and Apostles of the holy Sufferer lose their inter-
est ; they sleep with the sleeping world when they
ought to watch and pray. How fearful is that
power of outside show and custom which can outdo
the heart's own affection and faith ! How fearful
is the vieakness of inward principle which yields up
its vigilance and trust when the moment of social
excitement has gone by !
The palm-branches, and the slumberers; the
shouted hosannas, and the heavy eyes, — we see in
them, by contrast, the religion of impulse and the
religion of principle.
PALM SUNDAY. 161
Sometimes there is an apparent beginning of
Christian zeal and Christian action in the exhilarat-
ing contagion of social example. It is a time per-
haps of unusual manifestations of religious fervor.
The air seems to be charged with a kind of spirit-
ual electricity, — an excellent tonic if rightly mixed
with the more stable and nutritious elements that
sustain vitality. All the frame glows and kindles
under it. Many are coming to Confirmation and
Communion, — why not I ? It looks now as if it
would be no very difficult matter to breathe ecstatic
breath as daily air ; easy enough, while that novel
excitement, roused by agitating preaching or ex-
traordinary measures, continues to pull off the gar-
ments of reserve or hesitation and strew them in
the Lord's way ; easy enough to practise jubilee
discipline while all the ardent family do it; easy
enough to rank with the anxious, and to relate an
experience, when a sacred fanaticism stirs a multi-
tude. Why not move with the moving procession %
Yes ; it is well to move, and to be moved. Only
the test is coming, — the trial- night of Gethsemane,
— solitude, temptation, watchfulness, unnoticed
and unapplauded sacrifices. Be sure here is some-
thing more than surface-feeling, set awake by cus
11
162 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
torn or animal stimulus ; something more tlian
impulse ; it is good, honest, sober, considerate,
patient principle, stayed up by prayer, that alone
can remain awake and outwatch the stars, and wait
through the darkness, and conquer temptation, and
do it all for the honor of the suffering and bleeding
Master. It is only this that proves that we are
really Christians, or that Christ is ours.
The palm-strewing and shouting multitude were
not deliberate hypocrites ; the pharisees stayed at
home and washed their platters. But none the less
was the homage vain ; and it is no wonder if the
Saviour, who saw its emptiness — and how deep
was that emptiness ! — wept in the midst of it. He
foresaw Gethsemane on the eve of the Passover,
the slumberers there, the closed eyes, the weak
flesh, the denial, the judgment-hall, the cross.
And now, would we not find the same sorrow on
His face if we beheld Him looking on many of our
thin and frivolous usages of popular confession and
discipleship, — " the form of godliness without the
power thereof ? "
Yes, there is a dull insensibility to a Benefactor's
anguish, there is a sleepy indifference to a Saviour's
work, which is nothing less than cruelty. Many
PALM SUNDAY. 1G3
of us would rather our enemies should sharpen
the spear, or drive thorns into our foreheads, than
that our friends should shut their eyes and deny
their sympathy 'to our pain. "We give Christ noth-
ing unless we give Him our hearts.
Take away from our prevailing religious obser-
vances, even in our more solemn seasons, all that is
wholly a deference to decent social standards and
conventional Christianity, all that is formal repeti-
tion and going with the multitude; empty the
sanctuaries of all worshippers who come, not for
Christ's sake, but because others come ; take down,
stone by stone, and timber by timber, all the tem-
ples that were built up by vanity, or competition,
or a dead compliance with a kind of external law ;
arrest and extinguish all professedly Christian
charities that are carried on by pride, emulation,
ostentation, and self-will, wTith only a feeble mixture
of nobler and purer motives ; take out of the char-
ity to Christ's poor all that is put there by a sort
of holiday benevolence; sift our customs by this
fan in the hands of some searching John Baptist
or the mightier Judge that comes after him, and
we shall see why the Palm-Sunday story is put into
the Gospels, and why it stands here with a warning
164 HELPS TO A HOLT LENT.
note of examination on the threshold of Holy
"Week. "We there see, perhaps, how unfit we our-
selves are to go down into the deep life, sorrow,
loneliness, and agony of Gethsemane, to watch and
pray there with the awful tortures of the Man of
Sorrows, to see the angel from heaven strengthen-
ing Him, and to pass thence, faithfully at His side,
to the trial, the buffeting, and the mournful Mount
of Calvary.
The rocky path still climbs the glowing steep
Of Olivet:
Though rains of two millenniums wear it deep,
Men tread it yet.
These ways were strewed with garments once and palm,
Which we tread thus :
Here, through Thy triumph, on thou passedst calm, —
On to Thy Cross.
Man has not changed them in that slumbering land,
Nor time effaced :
Where Thy feet trod to bless, we still may stand, —
All can be traced.
Yet we have traces of Thy footsteps far
Truer than these ;
Where'er the poor, and tried, and suffering are,
Thy steps faith sees.
PALM SUNDAY. 165
And now whenever meets Thy lowliest band,
In praise and prayer,
There is Thy presence, there Thy Holy Hand,
Thou, Lord, art there !
OGOD of wonderful goodness and power, who by Thy
words and works dost command us, though unworthy
servants, to hope for true and everlasting blessings in Thee,
and from Thee; grant unto us Thy servants such fervent
hope in Thee as may rouse us to make our calling and election
sure. In Thee, O Lord, have we trusted, let us never be con-
founded ; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Amen,
Jftott&ctB in J§o1b fcOeek.
in
And seeing a fig-tree afar off having leaves, He came, if
haply He might find anything thereon : and when He came
to it, He found nothing but leaves ; for the time of figs was
not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat
fruit of thee for ever. And Jesus went into the temple, and
began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple,
and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the seats
of them that sold doves. And he taught, saying unto them,
My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer,
but ye have made it a den of thieves.
It is not anywhere expressly announced in the
New Testament, but it is a fact strikingly em-
bodied in the very structure of its contents, that
while the four Evangelists are so guided by the
Spirit which inspires them, that the narrative or
assertion of one or two of them is deemed sufficient
in authority and fulness for giving us most of the
events and discourses in our Saviour's ministry,
yet they must all alike pause and dwell in minute
MONDAY IN HOLY WEEK. 167
detail, and with, reverential particularity, on the
august incidents which immediately precede, ac-
company, and follow His last suffering, clustering
around the Cross. How impressive is this silent
tribute to the transcendent majesty and the su-
preme efficacy of His Passion above all His words
and other acts in the redemption of the world !
Because every man's first want is reconciliation,
atonement, and forgiveness for sin, every possible
mark of historical certainty, and every seal of
authenticity, must be set on the recital of that
Divine miracle. The story bears the stamp of a
fourfold verification. ~No repetition can be weari-
some or superfluous in descriptions so fraught as
these are with the intense and personal interest
of our own deliverance from death into life. It
is therefore wisely appointed by the Church that,
from the first day of Holy Week on, we shall read
over' and over the several records of these four
Evangelists, holding before us all the manifold
touches and colorings given to the solemn por-
traiture by the individual witnesses and historians,
till every essential feature is engraven on the be-
lieving heart, and our souls are steeped in the
spirit and power of the scene. And now, as to-
168 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
day we stand looking toward Calvary, where the
one great consummation is reached and finished,
in which, whether as Messiah or God-man or Re-
deemer or the loving and obedient Son, He suffers
to give us peace, and bleeds to make us clean, and
dies once that we may live forever, so we see the
four evangelic witnesses each bringing his own
separate evidence and contribution to assure the
believer and to glorify the Cross, as in turn they
all take their glory from it. " The fulfilment of
type and shadow, of the hopes of patriarchs, of the
expectations of prophets, yes, and of the dim long-
ings of a whole lost and wicked world, must be
declared by the whole evangelistic company ; the
four streams that go forth to water the earth must
here meet in a common channel ; the four winds
of the Spirit of Life must here be united in one."
We will turn now a moment to the chief occur-
rences which give a special and individual charac-
ter to this second day of the great Week.
The evening before — the excitement of the palm
procession and the triumphal reception being over
— as He was starting on His return to Bethany
after this wearisome pageant, " Jesus entered the
temple and looked round about upon all things."
MONDAY IN HOLY WEEK. 169
The words are few and simple ; but the hush of a
very deep and awful veneration falls on our minds
as we even partially conceive what the thoughts
were that must have accompanied that look, what
events were impending, and what shadows were
gathering. The morning explained this silent in-
spection of the courts of His Father's house. As
once near the beginning, so here at the close of
His great work of life, the Son of God cleanses
His Father's house, with holy and indignant zeal,
of its secular profanations. What does the purify-
ing mean ? It means that every true, right work
in this world must begin and end with the rever-
ent acknowledgment of God our Father ; it means
that in every Christian life, of man or woman,
youth or child, large and clean and unobstructed
place must be made for prayer ; it means that busi-
ness must be marked off from worship with a fully
drawn and definite line, not suffered under any
pretext or apology to take more than its share of
time or thought, or to intrude into the sanctuary,
or to do what is just as bad, — hold men out of the
sanctuary. And this line is not one that shall
prevent the influences of the sanctuary and the
power of the Gospel from passing out to hallow
170 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
all the world and sanctify all work, but one that
shall save God's public name and ordinances from
being swallowed up and defiled in the extortions
of Mammon. It means that neither outwardly, in
sordid acts, nor inwardly, in selfish, exclusive, un-
charitable dispositions, are we to make our Father's
house a house of merchandise. And let us not for-
get that there is a spiritual and real sense in which
the whole world of our life is our Father's house.
And then, as in the whole spirit of our Christian
faith, the labors of a practical and merciful right-
eousness follow close and certainly after the prayers
and praises of church or chapel or closet, so here
in the example of our Lord's humility : no sooner
had He asserted the necessity and sacredness of the
ordinances of worship and sacrifice, than " the blind
and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He
healed them." How long will it be, after our feet
bear us out of the temple doors, before some sick
relative or neighbor, some blind heart, some lame
soul, will require our patient and cheerful minis-
tration, and so put to the proof the worth of these
sacrifices of the lips ?
It was the same day that, as He was walking
toward the city, the demands of that hunger which
MONDAY IN HOLY WEEK. 171
again makes us see how thoroughly mortal His
mortal nature was, directed the attention of His dis-
ciples to the fig-tree — which, although the time of
figs v:as not yet, held out, by its unusual flourish
of premature and leafy pretension, a promise of
refreshment — the mortifying symbol of how many
human figures all about us, whose only sign of life
is the parade and rattle of their barren profession !
Most reasonably is it asked, " Why marvel we that
like the watered earth that bringeth not forth
herbs meet lor the use of man, but beareth only
thorns and briers, that emblematic tree was now
nigh unto cursing, and that its end was to be
burned ? The dews of heaven had fallen upon it,
the sunlight had fostered it, the sheltering hill-
side had protected it, all seasonable influences had
ministered to it, and all had been utterly in vain ;
the issue was a barrenness that told not only of frus-
trated but of perverted influences ; gifts from the
God of nature received only to issue forth in un-
profitable and deceptive produce ; not in the fruit
of His appointment, but in nothing but unseason-
able leaves." Before the day ended, there was to
be another tribute, — welcome always to the Shep-
herd and Saviour of the yqung, in the music of
172 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
their spontaneous singing. There were children
crying in the temple for Him that purified both its
rooms and their breasts, — " Hosanna to the Son of
David." It must have been an inspiration from
above that touched their lips and their eyes. Jesus
called it the perfecting of praise, as David himself
prophetically had called it. Their chant must
have rested Him, amidst the scowls and gibings of
the scribes and pharisees.
This night our Blessed Master comes not to
Bethany, but to us. Know ye not that ye are the
temple of the Holy Ghost? ' Is it with sadness
that He looks round about upon that hidden sanc-
tuary ? What does He see in its open courts — in
its hidden chambers ? Is it the house of prayer ?
and of what further sacrilege does it need yet to
be purged % and what will the scourge of knotted
cords be that must purge it ?
The trees, too, are here. The Lord comes to-
day to these, — hungering still for our love and our
service and our holiness. "What more can He do, as
the prophet asks, to make them fruit-bearing, that
He hath not done ? Are there leaves only ? and
if there is some fruit, is it pinched, bitter, boasted
of ? Or is it fruit that He will gather and keep ?
MONDAY IN HOLT WEEK. 173
Nothing but leaves ; the Spirit grieves
Over a wasted life ;
Sin committed while conscience slept,
Promises made but never kept,
Hatred, battle, and strife ;
Nothing but leaves !
Nothing but leaves ; no garnered sheaves
Of life's fair, ripened grain ;
Words, idle words, for earnest deeds ;
We sow our seeds, — lo ! tares and weeds ;
We reap with toil and pain
Nothing but leaves 1
OHOLY and merciful Saviour, Thou most worthy Judge
Eternal, who as on this day didst curse the fig-tree bear-
ing leaves and not fruit, take away from me all hollow, vain,
and false show, and make me plenteously to bring forth the
fruit of good works, and of Thee to be plenteously rewarded,
through Thy merits, who with the Father and the Holy Ghost
livest and reignest ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Staes&ati in §olg lOeek.
\6
And in the daytime He was teaching in the temple ; and
at night He went out, and abode in the mount that is called
the Mount of Olives. And all the people came early in the
morning to Him in the temple, for to hear Him.
Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light
with you. Walk while ye have the light, Test darkness come
upon you : for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not
whither he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light,
that ye may be the children of light. These things spake
Jesus, and departed, and did hide Himself from them.
Drawing nearer to the Mount of Sacrifice, we
find it was on the third day of the great Week that
Christ said so much in His solemn conversations
and parables of the assaults of our spiritual ene-
mies. These powers of darkness, represented in
the selfishness, pride, and malice of the influential
class at Jerusalem, seeing that their time was short,
arrayed this morning all their craft and mustered
TUESDAY IX nOLY WEEK. 175
all their forces. " Is it lawful to give tribute unto
Caesar or not ? " Caesar stood then for all the
power of this world, — for the Empire and Rome.
"Render unto God the things that are God's."
Have you ever taken pains to think how much
ground of your heart and your life that covers?
What are these " things that are God's ? " What
share has He ; what rights of ownership, creation,
preservation ; what title, what claims, in your bodily
strength, in your time, in your real or personal
estate, in your mind and its education, in your
tongue and its speech, in your business and its
profits, in your social influence and its motives, in
your home-happiness and the fruits of it? In your
habitual way of estimating these things, and talk-
ing about them, do you treat them as His, in any
sense, — His so as to be used for Him, — His to be
left with you or taken away from you as may be
His perfect will, — His to be accounted for to Him ?
oris it the habit of your mind to regard them all as
your own, in some exclusive and self-gratifying
way, as if your rights in them would never be
invaded, — as if no hand but yours could be laid
upon them ? Take any one of your most precious
possessions ; set it before you in the solemnity of
176 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
your hour of solemn communion with your Maker
and Judge ; put this question : What are the
things of God . in relation to this my child and his
training for eternal life % What are the things of
God in my e very-day employment ; in my conduct
toward my family ; in my amusements ; in my
very dress and manners and food and drink?
What are God's claims here ? What change would
come over my practices and my actions here if I
could say, truly, Such is my hunger and thirst
after holiness, it is my meat and drink to do the
will of God ?
In the same day, as He walked the courts of the
temple which He had cleansed of its profanations,
Jesus saw the rich casting their ostentatious gifts
into the treasury, and a poor widow laying all that
she had at the feet of Him who gives us all that
we have. She had found out how to render unto
God the things that are God's, not stinting herself
to those offerings which cost her nothing. As she
drew back her empty hand, and went away to toil
for more, what countless riches Christ poured into
her everlasting keeping, — " She hath cast in more
than they all." New measurements, new stand-
ards of value, new reckonings of much and little,
TUESDAY IN HOLY WEEK. 177
high and low, humble and exalted, strong and
weak, the Gospel brings. The first shall be last,
and the last first. It was so not then only, but it
is so in all temples, it is so in all lands, it is so in
every branch of the Church.
The censer swung by the proud hand of merit
Fumes with a fire abhorred ;
While faith's two mites, dropped covertly, inherit
A blessing from the Lord.
Even on earth the eyes of man are not so wholly
discolored as not to see this superior spiritual
beauty. As with the Mary that we read of in the
Gospel yesterday, whose unpretending offering of
ointment at Christ's feet was only a waste in the
cold calculation of the thrifty bystanders, so a
woman's profounder economy of simple affection
and trust, making self poor for Jesus' sake, goes out
as a perfume through the earth ; and wheresoever
the Gospel of the Cross is preached, her deed is a
part of its story of self-renunciation. As the Holy
Weeks come round, do they find us any nearer to
the measure of devotion that the Saviour accepted
and blessed ?
As the same day wears on, some Greeks — pros-
12
178 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
elytes to Judaism — that had come np to Jesus,
with the characteristic curiosity of the Greek intel-
lect, hearing the rumors of this new Nazarene Phi-
losopher— as they doubtless esteemed Him — speak
words that beautifully utter our deepest need, in
spite of all the intellectual culture and refine-
ment and strength in the world, — the cry of sin:
" Sir ! we would see Jesus ! " Beholding in this
confession the sign and prophecy of the final vic-
tory of His cause, Christ exclaims that the hour is
come when the Son of Man should be glorified.
But instantly the remembrance of the Cross, which
tinges every moment, rises in His mind. Faithful
as ever, though it may discourage and repel the
questioners, He fearlessly announces that only
through the unsightliness of death can His true
kingdom unfold itself, and the Tree, whose leaves
are for the healing of the nations, fill the earth.
" Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and
die, it abideth alone : but if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit. He that loveth His life shall lose it ;
if any man serve Me, him will My Father honor."
Other momentous acts and words were crowded
into this full day ; the reply that disarmed the
doubts of the Sadducees ; the announcement to the
TUESDAY IN HOLY WEEK. 179
shallow scribe of the one great commandment ; the
rebukes of the pharisees for inconsistent and self-
seeking dogmas ; and those most penetrating para-
bles, like that of the Ten Virgin s, which show us
the shortness of the time, the greatness of the
work, the blessed bridal welcome of those that
enter with burning lamps, and the shutting of the
door.
But, before the night falls, there is one august
scene more. Many generations before, the prophet
Zechariah, foretelling the final coming and judg-
ment, for which the world is still looking, saw the
curtain lifted, and wrote thus : " His feet shall stand
in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is
before Jerusalem on the east." Now, in most un-
foreseen coincidence, as the evening shadows gather,
the Messiah moves out of the city eastward, and,
His feet standing on that very spot of Olivet, He
declares to the ages that one solemn prediction
which should always keep them in expectation of
His reappearing, ending, " Then shall they see the
Son of Man coming with power and great glory ;
and He shall send His angels, and they shall gather
together His elect from the four winds, from one
end of heaven to the other."
180 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
How it comforts our hearts, and brings our Lord
very near to our poor human feeling and weak-
ness once more, after these awe-inspiring wonders,
to read that at the end of the day, with the same
earthly air breathing on His forehead that refreshes
our weariness, He walks out with His disciples to
the family circle and home, to rest with those that
His human affection loves at Bethany.
Virgins ten, with joyous feet,
Forth the Bridegroom went to meet ;
Wise with heavenly wisdom, five
Kept with oil their lamps alive ;
Five, with earth-born folly dim,
Scorned with oil their lamps to trim.
While the Bridegroom yet delayed,
Slumber bowed each virgin head ;
Sudden rose the midnight cry,
" Lo ! the Bridegroom draweth nigh ! "
Rose the startled virgin train,
Trimmed their dying lamps again.
Vainly now for oil ye cry ;
Foolish virgins, hence, and buy.
Haste the five, but now the door
Closes on them evermore ;
And a voice, that stuns each heart,
Crie'V I know you not, depart.
TUESDAY IN HOLT WEEK. 181
FIX, 0 Lord, my thoughts and my desires upon heaven
and heavenly things ; teach me to despise the world, to
repent me deeply for my sins ; give me holy purposes of
amendment and Divine strength and assistance to perforin
faithfully whatsoever I shall intend piously. Enrich my un-
derstanding with an eternal treasure of Divine truths, that I
may know Thy will, and that Thou workest in us both to
will and to do of Thy good pleasure. Teach me to obey all
Thy commandments, to believe all Thy revelations, and make
me a partaker of all Thy gracious promises, for Jesus Christ's
sake. Amen.
toe&nesbctg in Ijolg toeek.
6'
And the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the
passover, His disciples said unto Him, Where wilt thou that we
go and prepare that Thou mayest eat the passover ?
And He sendeth forth two of His disciples, and saith unto
them, Go ye into the city, and there shall meet you a man
bearing a pitcher of water : follow him, and wheresover he
shall go in, say ye to the good man of the house, The Master
saith, Where is the guest-chamber, where I shall eat the
passover with My disciples ? And he will show you a large
upper room furnished and prepared : there make ready for us.
In the narrative of the Evangelists, there is one
sentence that falls on the ear with the startling im-
pression of a double sense. In the preparation for
the Passover, Jesus sent forward St. Peter and St.
John, in the streets of Jerusalem, to an unknown
resident there, with this question, " The Master saith
unto thee, Where is the guest-chamber where I shall
eat the passover with My disciples ? " The walls of
that city widen out, as we read, to the width of the
WEDNESDAY IN HOLY WEEK. 183
world. Peter and John are only the messengers of
that Word which has gone out into all the earth.
The Passover is the spiritual feast of the Lord's
presence and fellowship, — His truth and faith,
His hope and charity. And who is the man bearing
the pitcher of water, going on some poor common-
place errand, busy with some narrow business,
plodding along a routine of daily work which
seems to be altogether of the earth, earthy, — little
mindful who is at hand, and what a glory waiting
at his door ? Who is he but you, and you, one and
another of these ordinary half-awakened people?
Unto thee the Master saith, " Where is the guest-
chamber where I shall eat the passover with my
disciples ? " It is a personal question. It is a
proposal to the inner life of us all. It is an offer
of the one Infinite Divine blessing, for, in receiv-
ing the Master, Christ, the Son of Mary and the
Son of God, we receive all the real good there is
in earth and heaven. And is it not just after this
manner that the one great revelation and disclosure
is almost always made to us that we can be privi-
leged to welcome and entertain Him, by that keen,
real, living sense of which the best name is faith ?
Is it not apt to be while we are on the way of some
184 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
familiar duty, in some path that we did not strike
out for any great purpose, that the messenger of God
meets us, — a sharp Providence abrupt as Peter,
or a breath of God's loving spirit gentle as John ?
So, if now, in the midst of our Christian heritage,
some of us find our feeling too dull, our prayers too
lifeless, and our sense of things divine too cold, we
may be sure we are not to gain the livelier feeling
or the awakened zeal by waiting till some rare
occasion or great opportunity shall overtake us. It-
will come when we are in the common lot and
about common labors. AVe are to expect it then,
look for it then, make ready for it th'ere. It will
come not so much by our going to a new place,
a new set of circumstances, or looking out for a
propitious season — for these are very apt to prove
perverse, and disappoint us after all — as by our
opening the eyes and the ears of our hearts, and,
when the voice speaks to us, stopping to listen, and,
as the prophet says, standing still to see the salva-
tion of God.
" Where is the guest-chamber where I shall eat
the passover ? " the Master saith. There seems to
be in this question just that twofold sound of invi-
tation and authority, offer and command, which is
WEDNESDAY IN HOLY WEEK. 185
always to be found in the word of the Saviour
when He proposes to take up His abode in any of
our hearts. He offers to come in if we will suffer
Him ; for the act must be free. He commands us
to suffer Him, because he has a right there ; the
upper chamber is His ; and though faith holds the
key to it, we cannot keep Him out without diso-
bedience to Him, and guilt and misery following.
This is what our Christian life — part a task and part
a delight, part duty and part privilege, part drudg-
ing and part festival, part of law and part of grace
— must always include, the proportions of the ser-
vice of obligation and the service of joy constantly
varying, according as we have more or less of the
Master's own spirit, and live nearer to Him. The
man bearing the pitcher of water might have taken
this most delicately and condescendingly worded
message to him only as a compulsory requirement,
and have gone about the labor of opening his house
to these strangers as an irksome necessity, or he
might hail the notice sent him as only a coveted
permission, and so have sprung to seize the honor
and the pleasure, as love always answers to the call
of love. There is this radical, deep difference be-
tween our two kinds of compliance with our Lord's
18G HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
word. It is plain enough with the householder
which would be the true hospitality, so with all of
us which would he the accepted and loyal service,
carrying the affections, the hands, the feet, the lips,
the offerings of time and money cheerfully with it,
and making the Divine Guest truly at home in the
guest-chamber of the heart. " Thou shalt do
well," says a very devotional and saintly writer on
the Holy Communion, evidently with this same
image in his thoughts, " to imitate the example of
a poor countryman, who, understanding that the
king would visit his house, removed all things that
he thought might offend his eyes, did very dili-
gently sweep all his house, and although he could
not beautify it according to the worthiness of such a
guest, yet did as much as ever he was able to receive
him worthily. What, then, wilt thou do to the King
of kings, who loveth but to impart His good gifts
unto thee? Labor, therefore, in cleansing and
decking thyself; hanging the chamber or upper room
of thy best devotions with the tapestry of holiness,
and welcome Him with love, who out of very love
hath said, My delight is to be with the sons of
men."
And what it is in you that needs to be put out
WEDNESDAY IN HOLT WEEK. 1ST
of the chamber, before Christ can be worthily re-
ceived there, it is not for any mortal tongue to tell,
but it is not beyond your reach, with the Bible,
with secret prayer, with the holy and helpful ordi-
nances of the Church, to know full well.
He cometh, as He came of old,
Suddenly to His Father's shrine ;
Into the hearts He died to make
Meet temples for His grace Divine.
He cometh, as the Bridegroom comes,
Unto the feast Himself has spread ;
His flesh and blood the heavenly food
Wherewith the wedding guests are fed.
He cometh, — let not one withdraw,
Nor fear to bring repented sin ;
There's blood to wash, there's bread to feed,
And Christ himself to enter in.
LORD, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst come under my
roof, yet remember that Thou, being Lord of all, didst
take upon Thee the form of a servant, and wast the friend of
publicans and sinners. Let that humiliation of Thine, I pray
Thee, move Thee not to despise me, but do Thou mercifully
come unto me, or graciously receive me coming unto Thee. O
Blessed Lord, kindle such a holy flame in my heart that it
may consume all my sins, that I may never again defile the
188 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
place wliicli Thou liast chosen for Thy temple. Give me time
and space to repent, and give me grace that, as by Thy holy
inspiration I do sincerely and steadfastly resolve on an entire
reformation, so by Thy merciful guidance I may perform the
same. Amen.
Jtlaimdg-Sbnrsbas.
tf
Then cometb Jesus with them unto a place called Geth-
semane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go
and pray yonder. And He took with Him Peter and the two
sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.
And He said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto
Thee ; take away this cup from Me : nevertheless not what I
will, but what Thou wilt.
And there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven,
strengthening Him. And being in an agony He prayed more
earnestly, and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood
falling down to the ground.
Christ no sooner comes to the garden than He
takes His three more confidential disciples, sep-
arates Himself from the rest, and begins to be sor-
rowful and very heavy. The two words in the
original text, of which the latter is more emphatic
than the former, so as to make a climax, are joined,
for the sake of emphasis, to express one thought,
together, for the expression of which either word
alone would have been too weak. This condition
190 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
of our Lord the disciples first inferred from His
appearance, but soon out of the abundance of His
depressed heart His mouth spake. Unable to bear
it any longer alone, He said unto them : " My
soul" — my very soul, as we should say — "is ex-
ceeding sorrowful " — surrounded with sorrow —
" even unto death." Stronger expressions than
these do not exist in language, and exaggeration is
out of the question here. Then, seeing them weary
and sleepy, He adds : " Tarry here," — do not re-
turn to the others to sleep ; watch with Me ! His
strength was spent, and for the first time He felt
the need of human sympathy. But soon finding
even their company burdensome, He tears himself
away from them, about a stone's cast, to pray alone.
Then He assumes the attitude of deepest distress ;
He falls " on His face " and pours out His soul.
Submission He finds in His heart while praying,
but relief He finds none. Distressed, He returns
to His disciples, and " findeth them asleep." And
He saith unto Peter: "What!" — you have made
such professions of attachment to Me, you wanted
to die for Me — " could you not watch with Me one
hour ? " Alas ! He pleads for one hour's sympathy
and assistance from His weak and drowsy follow-
MAUNDY-THURSDAY. 191
ers. Oh, how destitute must He have felt him-
self! He goes the second time to pray alone, and
finds no relief ; He returns the second time to His
disciples, and finds no sympathy. Human relief
fails ; God remains His last hope. Moving away
once more, He prostrates himself again, — and now
the most awful struggle for life begins. And being
in an agony, He prayed more earnestly ; and in the
cool night season, while prostrated on the damp
ground, the sweat of anguish breaks out over His
whole body and is as it were great drops of blood
falling down to the ground. " And there appeared
an angel unto Him from heaven, strengthening
Him."
Such, then, was His frame of mind that no ordi-
nary means did suffice to relieve Him ; an angel,
with an express message and peculiar assurances,
must be sent. High and distinguished honor, in-
deed, to be the bearer of this errand, — an errand
before unheard of in heaven ! But can you think
of anything more fit to impress us with ideas of
the most awful — I had almost said unnatural — dis-
tress than the need of a messenger from heaven to
comfort and strengthen Jesus the Son of God, lest
His distress should crush Him ?
192 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
No doubt it was intended by a holy Providence,
and was one of the burdens which Christ had to
bear for us, that He suffered destitute of all human
consolation. It does seem as though the disciples
had been providentially given up to the most stupe-
fying influence of this body of clay to disable them
to afford relief to their Master when the un mingled
cup of suffering was to be drunk to the bottom.
Jesus our Saviour, in this destitute and needy
condition, is an object of the deepest interest and
of liveliest gratitude to those who know the secret
ways of God with His children. They know every
particular sacrifice and deprivation of Christ is like
a sown seed, from which rich and waving harvests
of spiritual consolation are continually springing
up to the dear little flock of His pasture. Not a
prayer, not a sigh, not a tear of His, but it procures
for them some heavenly treat ; and His fastings
and deprivations, His watchfulness, weariness, and
exposures, are richly decking their spiritual table,
and draw the curtain of heavenly peace around the
defenceless pillows of their rest. And when, in
the depth of anguish, they feel the soothing influ-
ences of Christian tenderness and sympathy, and
are upheld by the wrestling intercessions of their
MAUNDY-THURSDAY. 193
beloved in Christ Jesus, — when they are carried
safely through the trying hour of darkness and dis-
tress by the faithful prayers of their watchful
friends, poured forth in their hearing at the
throne of Grace, — ah ! then they remember with
sweet and humble gratitude the forsaken Jesus in
the garden, and a connection between their spirit-
ual riches and comforts and His destitution be-
comes clear all at once to their souls, of which they
had no conception, perhaps, while in health of
boclv and in the cheerful vigor of heart and mind.
They rejoice then exceedingly, with a joy full of
glory, that ever He did procure such sweet com-
forts for their distressed souls ; and they are pre-
pared to give Him everlasting thanks for every
tear He dropped upon the accursed ground of this
world. Yet they are careful, too, to learn the im-
portant lesson of Him, when lawful earthly con-
solations and sympathies fail, to go a little farther,
and, where no man can see them, or overhear their
prayer, to fall on their faces, and, with naked and
unalloyed faith and trust in God, to lean upon His
almighty arm alone, and to throw themselves with
their burden down at His feet, there to live, or
there to die.
13
194 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
Gloom v garden, on thy beds,
Wash'd by Kedron's water-pool,
Grow most rank and bitter weeds, —
Think on these my soul, my soul !
Wouldst thou sin's dominion see ?
Call to mind Gethsemane.
Sins against a holy God ;
Sins against His righteous laws ;
Sins against His love, His blood ;
Sins against His name and cause ;
Sins immense as is the sea :
Hide me, O Gethsemane !
OLORD Jesus Christ, who in the sorrow of Thy soul didst
fall down upon Thy face in prayer, give us grace that
we likewise in all our sorrows may betake ourselves with
humble and earnest prayer to our heavenly Father for aid and
comfort and relief. Hear us, O Saviour Jesus Christ, for Thy
name's sake, who livest with the Father and the Holy Ghost
one God, world without end. Amen.
(&ooh~£i\hcm.
And when they were come to the place, which is called
Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the malefactors, one
on the right hand, and the other on the left.
And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, He said,
Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit: and having
said thus, He gave up the ghost.
Now when the centurion, and they that were with him
watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that
were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the
Son of God.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down
his life for his friends.
We draw near to the Mount of Sacrifice. We
stand, nay, we kneel, at the foot of the Cross. We
come there now, not because it is the custom of a
fast, but because we are driven thither by the bur-
den of our human hearts, — our need of reconcilia-
tion by suffering.
Look closely at this want, for it is that vital spot
196 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
in all humanity where sorrow is most keen, and
where relief is most joyful. The sure result of evil
is pain ; of persistent sin is death. Hence the vol-
untary surrender to pain, pain even unto the body's
death, is felt, and has been ever felt, to be the
natural expression of a penitent soul. It is propi-
tiation : not because God takes pleasure in His
children's suffering, but because that is the soul's
fitting tribute to the just majesty of goodness and
the holy authority of Right. Government with-
out penalty is gone, and all its blessed protections
are dissolved. Hence the honest heart cries out in
its shame and fear : " Let me suffer for my sin."
Suffering for it there must be somewhere ; trans-
gression is a costly business ; so it must always be
and always look ; right must stand at any rate ; law
must be sacred, or all is gone ; and since nothing
is so dear as life, and blood is the element of life,
life itself must be surrendered, and " without the
shedding of blood is no remission."
Take the next step. Just because this life is so
dear, He who loves us infinitely, and to whom it
is dearer than to us, will be willing to lay down
for us His own.. He will not even wait for our
consent; but in the abundance of that unspeakable
GOOD-FRIDAY. 197
compassion, in the irresistible freedom of that good-
ness, He will do it beforehand, — only asking of us
that we will believe He has done it, and, accepting
our pardon, be drawn by that faith into the same
self-sacrificing spirit. Herein is love indeed. Suf-
fering for our peace ! Sacrifice, not that our ser-
vice may profit and pay Him, but that our trans-
gression of a Perfect Law may be pardoned, and
the noble life of disinterested goodness may be
begotten in ourselves. Before, we had seen God as
Creator, Providence, Ruler, and all the motives to
obedience furnished by those characters had been
offered, and had failed. His servants, the proph-
ets, had come, and come often in vain. But now
we see Him in the new, more wondrous, and more
gracious character of Sacrifice. The last proof of
tenderness is given. " Is not the mystic yearning
of love expressed in words most purely thus : ' Let
Me suffer for him ? ' " We want to feel that our
God of infinite love feels that. Calvary is the full
answer to that want. In the person of the Son
He so comes down among us, and into us, as to
suffer for us. We have a High Priest that can be
touched with the feeling of our infirmities, — nay,
takes those infirmities upon Him, bears our sick-
198 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
nesses, is bruised for our iniquities, is delivered for
our offences, dies that we may live. All the
priestly offices are fulfilled. " Herein is love ; not
that we loved God, but that God loved us, and sent
His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." The
atonement by Christ becomes the inmost and
grandest power of the world. It is the one pecu-
liar, characteristic, crowning, glorious truth of the
Gospel.
And then if you turn from what it does/br us,
as a redemption, to what it does within us, as an
inspiration, the fruit of it is not less Divine. For
it appeals directly to what is noblest, most gener-
ous, most disinterested, in all the brave affections
and aspirations of humanity. It rises up in har-
mony with, and surmounts with its grandeur, all
the heroic and martyr sacrifices of mankind.
Mechanical and mercantile conceptions of salvation
vanish before it. Right becomes more venerable ;
love, more lovely ; charity, more beautiful. It was
of charity that the Saviour suffered. His Cross
teaches us, not that each one is to be looking out
for a selfish salvation, but that self is to be forgot-
ten in hearty consecration to Him, and in free ser-
vice to our brethren. It carries us clear of the be-
GOOD-FKIDAY. 19D
Iittling notions of escaping hell as a punishment or
earning heaven as a reward. It makes the lofty
sentiment of gratitude the mainspring of piety ;
faith, the pure inspiration of righteousness ; love,
the sacred secret of beneficence. We learn from
the Redeemer, who gave Himself for us, to give
ourselves for one another. We take up that Cross
which signifies an atoning sacrifice, a voluntary,
vicarious humiliation, a making of no reputation
and becoming poor, a taking of the form of a ser-
vant, and being made an offering for sin for others'
sake. Henceforth we abhor sin for itself, for our
brethren's sake, for Christ's sake, and not merely
for its penal consequences. We love goodness,
and are loyal to it for itself; not merely for its
wages. We not only "admire philanthropy,"
but we " love men," as those for whom Christ has
been willing to die. We cease longing for rest,
and begin to have joy in God, in the " spirit of
liberty," and in the eternal life begun.
This is what is meant by Christ our Priest. This
is that profound, penitential, sorrowing, unutter-
able want in human souls which the Redeemer
meets, and which, because He meets it, makes the
heart that is thus consciously set at liberty leap
200 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
with gratitude and gladness to join the praises
which give blessing and honor and glory to Christ.
It will not be for any of us to say there is no need
of a blessing so deep and a joy so great. You may
say you have not yet felt the need of it ; and that
— O pity of God ! — may be mournfully true. But
close by you is some heart which feels that beside
this want and its bitterness -all the common griefs
of mortality are trifles of the air : the want of rec-
onciliation with the Father in heaven ; the want
of an assured forgiveness ; the want of Christ and
Him crucified. Where that is once stirred and
alive — and the first object of the JSTew Testament
is to stir it and make it alive, because that is the
only way to peace and power — there you find a
heart that only one word of earth or heaven can
reach. You may tell it that its sorrow is all need-
less and irrational, that all we have to do in this
world is " to do right," or as near it as we can ;
but it will only look back upon you with speech-
less wonder. Do right ? What if, with the strong-
est of apostles, I do not " find how " to do right ?
What if the riojht seems to me too high and holv a
thing, and too far off, that I should do it of myself?
What if, all my life long, by doing or leaving un-
GOOD-FRIDAY. 201
done, I have come all too terribly short even of the
right I knew ? Then let me have, what the blessed,
merciful Gospel gives me, a Redeemer ! Let me
rest my heart upon the Cross ! Take not away
my Lord !
I thirst, Thou wounded Lamb of God,
To wash me in Thy cleansing blood,
To dwell within Thy wounds ; then pain
Is sweet, and life or death is gain.
How blest are they who still abide
Close shelter'd in Thy bleeding side !
Who life and strength from Thee derive,
And by Thee move, and in Thee live !
What are our works but sin and death,
Till Thou Thy quick'ning spirit breathe !
Thou giv'st the power Thy grace to move —
0 wondrous grace ! O boundless love 1
Ah, Lord ! enlarge our scanty thought,
To know the wonders Thou hast wrought 1
Unloose our stammering tongues, to tell
Thy love, immense, unsearchable !
0 FATHER of mercies, whose blessed Son was on this day
crucified for us, the just for the unjust, to bring us to
Thee, give us grace we beseech Thee to look in faith upon
uhat Cross, and to crucify ourselves upon it to every sinful
202 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
desire and unchristian temper. May we learn, in humble
devotion to our Master's service, to take up our cross and deny
ourselves, that we may follow Him. And grant that looking
to His Passion we may be changed to His image as by the
Spirit of the Lord, that all carnal affections may die in us, and
that all things belonging to the Spirit may live and grow in
us, so that we, being buried with Christ in His death, may
crucify the old man and utterly abolish the whole body of sin ;
through the same our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
Omster-afrjm.
So they went, and made the setmlchre sure, sealing the
stone, and setting a watch.
And the women also, which came with Him from Galilee,
followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body
was laid.
And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments ; and
rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment.
Through the silence that falls, the night after
the crucifixion, on the city of Jerusalem, and through
the shadows that gather about the slopes of the
Mount of Olives eastward and in the valley of
Kedron between, we can see two groups of watchers
before the sepulchre of Jesus. The contrast in
their characters, purposes, and feelings, as toward
the blessed and royal Figure that sleeps within,
furnishes a practical theme for our contemplation
this Easter-Even.
The chief priests and pharisees had obtained an
order from the Roman procurator, Pilate, for a
guard of Roman soldiers ; and " they went and
204 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone and set-
ting a watch." The object was not to protect the
place where the lifeless body of the Best Friend
of all men, the greatest of all hearts that ever beat
on earth, was lying, but to secure and vindicate
their murder. Oh, what a stupendous fiction and
phantom of their own deluded brain it was that
they were setting these armed soldiers to keep!
They feared that the disciples would come to steal
the blessed body away ! The scheme was just what
the ingenuity of the intellect is apt to devise where
faith is shut out. The arm of the mightiest military
empire on earth was in full play, but it was weaker
than a straw. The real keepers of the tomb were
angels from the right-hand of another throne. But
the stone was sealed, and the guards paced to and
fro in the Paschal moonlight, and did their best.
Another part of the narrative shows us a different
group, — " And there was Mary Magdalene and the
other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre."
Here were vigils of another kind. For what were
these waiting and watching % Only for some further
opportunity of service ; only to testify with further
offices of tenderness and love their devotion to Iiim
who had healed, comforted, and saved them. They
EASTER-EVEN. 205
could lean no longer upon the living- arm of the
Beloved One. But they could anoint Him, and
once more let their tears fall on His feet. They
waited till the Sabbath should he past for this ;
waited obediently ; there was no restless running
to and fro in the weakness of unbelief; no agita-
tion ; no loud grief. They sat still ; they watched
the eastern sky to catch the first pencil of the dawn
toward Hebron ; their look turned to and fro, silent-
ly, between the tomb and the heavens. "Weep-
ing may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the
morning." How clear and full their expectation
was that this Third Day would bring back life to
the dead, by some miracle greater than any they had
seen done by Him, we are not told and cannot know.
This we know, that the motive of their watching
was a trusting, clinging, reverential, holy love.
The two groups bring strikingly to mind the two
clauses of a sentence at the conclusion of the Canti-
cles,— " Love is strong as death ; jealousy is cruel
as the grave ; " the one outlasts and out watches
death, the other is cruel even over the grave.
We can hardly help finding an application here
for the adjoining words of the same Bible-song :
" Thou that dwellest in the gardens, set me as a
20G HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm.
Make haste, my beloved, be thou like to a young
hart upon the mountains of spices. Many waters
cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown
it." May we not say, then, there are two kinds of
watching set before us, with very different motives
and feelings lying under them and prompting
them ? One will be the watching of self-will, pride,
or formality — Roman self-will, pharisaic pride, the
scribe's formality — all of one selfish, faithless
spirit. So we watch and so we work when, under
the show of protecting the right, we are secretly
contriving for and indulging ourselves. So we
watch when we let the world become our tyrant,
and we are its mercenaries doing its bidding, pacing
to and fro on an unhallowed round of heartless
frivolities, or surrendering to it the time, strength,
zeal, which we know belong to Him who died for
us and rose again. So we watch when we are in
our hearts wishing the vigil were over, or are glad
to escape from the hour and place of prayer, when
we tire of the Church's service, or of the Lenten re-
striction, or of the Sabbatic commandment, or of
the homely work that must be done for the least of
the Lord's children if it is to be done for Him.
EASTER EVJBN. 207
But we would rather on this Easter Even join our-
selves to the other company of watchers, sitting over
against the sepulchre, looking for the first occasion to
do some service more for their Master, " as they that
watch for the morning ; " counting it a part of our
faith in Christ to try to be like Christ. There are
sacrifices of luxury, appearance, or comfort, which are
to our Saviour's honor what the ointments of spices
were to his body in the sepulchre. We have seen
in these past weeks how His body is laid ; to how
sad an extent His Church lies dead, and how much
it needs the inbreathing of a new spirit, or rather
the restoration of the original life, that it may go
more swiftly and steadily on, conquering the sin
and sorrow, cruelty and misery that are in the world
This is the way for us, who would honor Christ
among men, to watch for Him. Here is a resurrec-
tion for which we can make ready. The least of
us can bring something every day. Like Joseph of
Arimathea, the rich man may do much. Like the
widow in the temple, the poor may cast in what they
have, and take the wealth of His love who loveth a
cheerful giver. Like the women of the Resurrec-
tion morning we can, in supplications and interces-
sions and communions, hold Jesus by the feet and
208 HELPS TO A HOLY LENT.
worship Him. And we who mourn continually for
some that have departed hence in God's faith and
fear, because this was not their Rest, can remember
and praise Him, that those who sleep in Jesus
God will bring through Paradise into glory, with
Him who is the first-fruits of them that sleep. They
will be Christ's at His coming.
Not first the glad and then the sorrowful, —
But first the sorrowful, and then the glad ;
Tears for a day, — for earth of tears is full,
Then we forget that we were ever sad.
Not first the bright, and after that the dark, —
But first the dark, and after that the bright ;
First the thick cloud, and then the rainbow's arc,
First the dark grave, then Resurrection light.
'Tis first the night — stern night of storm and war —
Long nights of heavy clouds and veiled skies ;
Then the far sparkle of the Morning-Star,
That bids the saints awake, and dawn arise.
0LORD Jesus Christ, who by Thy death didst take away
the sting of death ; grant unto us Thy servants so to fol-
low in faith where Thou hast led the way , that we may at length
fall asleep peacefully in Thee, and awaking up after Thy like-
ness, may be satisfied with it ; through Thy mercy who livest
with the Father and the Holy Ghost one God, world without
end. Amen.
THE END.