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That was the begin
I weak humanity fro
I poet
:ek The Duct r tried him wilh ^ WaS
rvot iintil VievisoIDtath and The
ind he i,ave no s gns nf A^Likening under Feed My LahiHs
The Best kind of Reh^ion Why Dn Wc SutT<_r and Ail
Men arc Self Made It might well be iupp s(.d th it the Doctor
iimseU would be be-^et by same prcmonitons of a hopeless feel-
tried
Heroes and
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One might well
extreme^ foolisl
Herald. Perhaps the protestations do not conn: trom sutiscntief;
at all, but are the utterances of the Doctor's fellow editotib!
writers, who have given way to the promptings of a natural
Personal Intelligence man or by the girl who tries to indicate the
state of the weather. I hope the Doctor will break up the devi!
eventually.
THE NEW YORT-
PUBLIC LIBRAR-.
ASTOn, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIGNb,
HERALD SERMONS
>
BY
GEORGE H. HEPWORTH
AUTHOR OF " HIRAM GOLF's RELIGION," " THEY MET IN HEAVEN,'
**THE LIFE BEYOND," ETC.
■^
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
3 I WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET
1894
THENEV/ YORK
PUBLIC LIBrJARY
G54847
ASTOR. L - ^OX AND
TILD r. S.
R L
Copyright, 1894.
E. P. DlTTON & Co.
INTRODUCTION.
It will naturally be supposed, since I am a
clergyman, that the idea of printing sermons in
the Sunday edition of the Herald, instead of a
leading editorial on some news topic, originated
with myself. That, however^'i^iiiot ihe c*ase,''atijd':
I hasten to place the credit' fbi;,'thL^'j'purnali,stic
innovation where it belongs. \' -^ / ^^ H . ^. '' . --
Just before his return to Europ'^.bri'one 'ryztd-
sion, Mr. Bennett entered my room in the down-
town office, and after a few casual remarks about
the conduct of the paper asked this question :
" If the Herald is helpful on secular subjects
during the week, why should it not be helpful on
Sunday in matters pertaining to religion? "
Not quite understanding the drift of his ques-
tion, I asked him to state it once more. He an-
swered :
2 INTRODUCIION.
" My idea of a great journal is that it should
satisfy the spiritual as well as the intellectual
needs of its readers. If we publish a paper on
Sunday, why should we not have a leader in
which some religious topic is discussed? Reli-
gion is worth as much as the tariff or any other
political issue. Why, then, should it be ignored
as it is by all the newspapers of the country? "
" It would be an invasion of a field occupied by
papers specially devoted to that purpose," I re-
plied, cautiously.
" But there are tens of thousands who never see
a'f6ligr(7iis*'pe,per;;'jH^ replied, "and tens of thou-
sands .•m(}re^ylKi.H ever go to church. Why should
not-tKe-/^;^^?*/ siipply them with w^holesome sug-
gt?s^ir§\cC>oceJ-jiing the present and the future?"
" It would be a bold experiment," I said, with
some hesitation.
For a moment he sat in silence, and then, as
though he had suddenly reached a conclusion, he
said :
" It is an experiment worth trying."
And so the matter was decided.
*' I wish you," he added, with an unusual im-
pressiveness of manner, " to avoid everything in
INTRODUCTION. 3
the shape of controversy. Take a broad and lib-
eral view of all denominations. You must not be
sectarian. Treat the unbeliever as generously as
you do the believer. Dig- down below the foun-
dations of mere dogma, and simply tell the people
what is necessary to an honest life. There must
be a good many things which everybody either
accepts or would like to accept as true, and they
will furnish you with topics enough."
These large instructions I have tried to obey.
They are quite within the line of my work while
in the ministry. I know very little about the-
ology and care less for it. The Sermon on the
Mount is about all I need, and I have found dur-
ing a prolonged career that to heed its admoni-
tions keeps me very busy and leaves slender
leisure for theological speculation.
There are men and women in the world who
are entangled by strange perplexities and over-
burdened by struggles and sorrows. They are
tempted and tried in many ways. If they had a
larger faith they would be happier. If they could
be assured that the pains of the present are not
without a providential significance; that a future
awaits them in which they will have a larger op-
4 INTRODUCTION.
portunity ; that God is not neglectful of their in-
terests ; that Christ is ready to extend a helping
hand ; that the angels of heaven are within call,
and will render whatever assistance they may — if
they can be persuaded of these truths, they will
have all they want, and theological dogmas would
only be useless lumber.
These sermons have been written with the hope
of smoothing the pathway of the troubled and
furnishing them with stepping-stones to higher
things. If in any degree they achieve that end, I
shall be more than satisfied with the task I have
undertaken.
Mr. Bennett, I am sure, will permit me to dedi-
cate this little volume to him in token of a friend-
ship which has lasted many years.
George H. Hepwortii.
HERALD SERMONS.
WHERE IS HEAVEN ?
" And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes,
that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young
nian ; and he saw : and, behold, the mountain was full of horses
a:id chariots of fire round about Elisha." — 2 Kings vi. 17.
Nobody knows where heaven is, but everybody
hopes there is a heaven somewhere. To say that
it is a condition of mind is a misleading use of lan-
guage, an intangible abstraction of no practical use.
It is either a place or it is an hallucination.
If a heavenly frame of mind is all there is of
heaven, then the possession is nothing to boast of
and may end with the last gasp of life ; but if it'
is a place whose boundary-line we cross at the
moment of death, in which our intellectual and
spiritual activity will have unbounded scope,
where souls can grow unhampered by the cruel
5
6 HERALD SERMONS.
and repressing limitations of the body, then we
have a series of motives which irradiate the pres-
ent and fill the future with the glow and promise
of a sunrise after the sunset.
We cannot see heaven, and for that reason a
doubt hangs in the sky. But there are so many
things which we cannot see that such an argument
becomes enfeebled. On an ordinary night we can
see perhaps two or three thousand separate stars ;
with a good field-glass the number may easily
be increased tenfold ; with the Lick telescope on
Mount Hamilton at least a million are visible.
Our imperfect vision can discover but a small part
of the wonders of creation. There are invisible
worlds all round us, revealed by optical instru-
ments ; and still other worlds which no instru-
ments yet invented can discover. What we can
see, therefore, is by no means the limit of what is.
It is interesting to ask whether any one, under
any circumstances, has seen what is to most of us
invisible. The text we have chosen contains a
marvelous statement. The prophet and the youth
were side by side. There was no defect in the
vision of the latter, for he could see the hills and
the clouds as clearly as the former. lUit the
WHERE IS HEAVEN? /
prophet's eyes were gifted with a facuhy unknown
to the stripHng who attended him. He saw what
was in the air as well as what was on the ground,
and the sight gave him courage. The young
man was dismayed, for a host of Syrians with
spears had come to make them prisoners ; but
the prophet was calm and serene and sure of the
victory.
Then something happened to the young man's
eyes, and for a brief moment he saw what he had
never before looked upon, and what he probably
never looked upon thereafter. They were the same
eyes that he had always used, but an additional
faculty had been given them, and they caught a
glimpse of the horses and chariots, the army of
spiritual creatures who, as Milton asserts, walk the
earth unseen both when we wake and when we
sleep.
If it is possible to believe, first, that heaven is
just as truly a locality as any one of the United
States, and, second, that though we may not be
able to see the citizens of this celestial common-
wealth they can see us, we are traveling along
the highway to some very important truths. If
heaven is correctlv described in these statements,
8 HKRALI) St:RMOXS.
it becomes vivid and thrilling. We have " a heart
for any fate"; can pass through any experience
unscathed ; can even open the door of the tomb
and lay the tired sleeper on one of the shelves of
its recesses; can go back to our duties and strug-
gles with an aching but a hopeful heart ; can ban-
ish the word " farewell " from our vocabulary, with
the conviction that the departing member of the
family has simply gone on a journey, at the end
of which he will await our coming. The sun has
risen for us, and its fructifying light penetrates
every nook and corner of our sorrows.
Whether we are privileged to see what Elisha's
attendant saw or not, if we feel sure that he really
saw what is recorded we may be content to re-
main blind. We do not care so much to see
heaven for ourselves as to be certain that some-
body has seen it, either prophet or servant. If
heaven is there, we ask no more.
There is a wild and almost reckless interest in
this topic nowadays. Above the din and confu-
sion of our material life we hear voices which tell
us that heaven is not far off and that the two
worlds can talk to each other. Bands of earnest
men and women Lfathcr when the dav's work is
WHERE IS HEAVEN? 9
over in the belief that these voices come across
the wild waste and bear messages of affection and
advice.
Human nature has an intense longing, a burning
thirst, an unappeased hunger for facts of this kind.
Even reason is sometimes held in abeyance, or
chained up for the time being, that the emotions
may have full and free play. Discrimination is
paralyzed, and the doors of the heart are thrown
wide open for folly as well as wisdom to enter.
There are men and women who tell us of in-
credible experiences ; but these experiences are
not to be judged as false merely because they are
incredible. On the contrary, we are inclined to
ask if anything is incredible, and, if so, who shall
fix the limit of belief. There are men of science
of large reputations, whose word has weight the
globe over, w4io look us straight in the face and
tell us wonderful stories. There are psychical so-
cieties whose members are cold investigators, and,
while they throw aside much that is floating about,
call our attention to a residue that needs explana-
tion. Society is ablaze w^ith this sort of thing, and
assuredly there are a thousand extravagances in
the air.
lO IIKRALD SKKMONS.
But the real question is behind all this. Is it
true that in this latter quarter of the nineteenth
century there is a spiritual as well as a material
revelation? While some have stumbled on in-
ventions which have altered the whole complexion
of our social life, have others discovered truths
which render the spiritual life more brilliant and
hopeful ?
Here, then, we find ourselves groping through
the darkness. Heaven is a place or it is nothing.
Heaven is peopled with beings who may not be
seen because our e}'es are not fitted for that kind
of vision. But some have seen them in the past,
and others, in the present, declare that they have
been equally privileged. If we take the first step
we must finish the journey. There is no halting
spot where we can say, Thus far and no farther.
Either heaven is round about us, and the possi-
bility of communication is a fact, or we have been
led strangely astray.
The affirmation ennobles all things ; the denial
leaves us wringing our hands in mute despair.
MORE ABOUT HEAVEN.
" But is passed from death unto life." — John v. 24.
The editorial of last Sunday on heaven has
caused so much suggestive comment on the part
of our readers that we are inclined to look at an-
other phase of the subject.
The careful student discovers that a belief in
immortality is inherent in the human race ; that it
is equally the peculiarity of the most cultured na-
tions, as the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans,
and the most barbarous tribes, as the American
Indians, the Zulus, and the New Zealanders.
This belief takes fantastic shapes at times, but
that is matter of little consequence. We may even
smile at the childlike credulity with which the sav-
age places on the grave of his chief the food to
which he has been accustomed, and murders a
stalwart comrade that he may carry the news of a
recently fought battle to the dead warrior, who is
II
12 liEkAlJ) SKkMO-NS.
Still interested in earthly affairs ; but the important
fact is that he believes in the future quite as fnmly
as he believes in the present, and has no doubt
whatever that the departed have a local habitation,
between which and their old homes there is possi-
bility of communication.
If we may not say positi\'ely that there is neither
a race nor a tribe which is an exception to this
rule, we may safely assert that no race and no
tribe has yet been found, even in the profoundest
depths of barbarism, where some crude notions of
a future life do not prevail.
The general conception may be illustrated by a
legend from the Tonga Islands. It runs that long
ago a canoe on its way home from Fiji was caught
in a gale and driven to Bolotu, where it was sup-
posed the gods dwelt. The explorers found the
island covered with beautiful flowers and the
juiciest fruits, the air filled with indescribable
fragrance, birds of exquisite plumage, wild ani-
mals which were immortal except when killed for
the gods to eat. When they landed, they found
it impossible to pluck the fruit because it was only
shadowy fruit; they walked tlnough shadowy
houses and trees as through the air, but were so
MORE ABOUT HEAVEN. I 3
affected by what they had seen that soon after
they reached home they died.
This is all fabulous and all whimsical, but some
such realistic story, with a thousand modifications,
according to climate and tribal peculiarities, is to
be found in all quarters of the globe.
In Madagascar a table covered with delicacies
was regularly set in the dead king's mausoleum,
under the notion that the spirit of the monarch
would occasionally return and partake of the food
he was fond of during his lifetime.
If these odd customs were found only in certain
localities we might brush them aside as of little im-
portance. But when you learn that crude concep-
tions of heaven are coeval with the exercise of
human intelligence — that man no sooner thought
of this life than he began to think of another life,
as though it was impossible to believe in the one
without believing in the other — you cannot resist
the feeling that immortality is something more
than a mere longing in dogmatic shape, and that
it is just as natural to look forward as to look back-
ward.
We may have little interest in the Persian idea
of heaven, or in the conception of the peasant of
14 HERALD SERMONS.
Babylon or Nineveh, or in that of the scholar
of Egypt or the warrior crowd that filled the
streets of Athens or Rome, but the fact that every
one of these people had some idea, and that civili-
zation, so far from crushing it out, simply gave it
a nobler form, is a matter of very great conse-
quence.
The Norwegian's Valhalla is nothing to us. The
doings of the gods on Olympus may not meet our
approval. The custom of the Chinese to light a
lantern when they make a feast in honor of the
dead, that the beggars and lepers of the other
world may find their way to the banquet; the
habit of the Hottentot, who shuts the door when
his parent dies, makes a hole through the side of
the house, and removes the body in that way be-
cause he is afraid of ghosts and does not want the
dead to come back — these peculiarities have no
weight with us, except as they show the univer-
sality of belief in another life and the irresistible
conviction that death does not destroy and can
only remove.
The Christian religion is lacking in a detailed
description of heaven. The rough realism of other
systems is not found there. This is one of its pe-
MORE ABOUT HEAVEN. 1 5
culiaritles. Christ was reticent on the subject.
He simply said he came from Heaven, and then
added that after the crucifixion He should return.
He told His friends on one occasion that He should
prepare a place for them, that they and He might
dwell together; and on another occasion He prom-
ised the thief who was suflfering death at His side
that that very day he should be with Him in Para-
dise. He also rebuked Peter by reminding him
that if He needed help after the shadows of Geth-
semane He had the power to call upon legions of
angels who would come to His assistance. Beyond
these hints we have almost nothing. We are not
satisfied, indeed, for we should be glad to know
more ; but If we are sure of the fact that there is a
heaven, w^hy need we trouble ourselves as to where
it is situated — whether close to the earth, or In the
interstellar spaces, or in some region unknown to
astronomy ?
The world has always believed that we shall not
die, but simply lift the veil and enter a new terri-
tory. That belief has been a potent factor in the
conduct of all races ; has made men resigned un-
der burdens, courageous on the battle-field, equal
to any sacrifice. It has created and encouraged
l6 HERALD SERMONS.
the heroic clement of human nature, and made the
last day of earth the best day of life, because the
soul opens a door on the other side of the tomb
and enters a world where there are no more tears.
Is not that enough ?
OUR HOMES.
" And he left them, and went out of the city into Bethany; and
he lodged there." — Matt. xxi. 17.
After a day of continuous harassment in Jeru-
salem Jesus needed the repose which only confid-
ing friendship could furnish. By the light of the
stars he found his way to the little village of Beth-
any, two miles distant, and enjoyed the hospitality
of a household consisting of Martha, Mary, and
Lazarus.
It is left to the imagination to picture that group
of four, for history has given us only broad out-
lines and is neglectful of details. What comfort
came to that tired heart, what subjects were dis-
cussed, what hopes or fears were indulged in
during the evening's conversation, we shall never
know. But we may venture to say that this Son
of God found rest and strength within the walls of
that happy Hebrew home. It was like a strain of
17
1 8 HERALD SERMONS.
soft music to the tra\eler who has soui^lit his couch,
and he sank into dreamless sleep under its soothing
influence.
The home is our asylum, and the love of dear
ones is our defense. In the plan of Divine Provi-
dence the home occupies a position of conspicuous
importance. A happy home is the prophecy of a
useful life for every child reared under its benig-
nant watchfulness ; a home in which discord pre-
vails sends its boys and girls into the world with
handicapped aspirations.
The child who carries sweet memories with him
carries also a shield for protection ; but he who
bears embittered memories falls easier prey to the
evils which will attack. A happy home in the
background throws a radiance on each succeeding
day, even though the day be stormy and tem-
pestuous.
The good father lives in the life of the boy long
after that father has crossed the threshold of a
cemetery, and the good mother still speaks to the
daughter when that daughter has children of her
own.
No mortal can have a better starting-point than
a ])ious and soul-satisfying home. It is a thou-
OUR HOMES. 19
sand times better to have an honest father and a
true-hearted mother than to inherit riches or social
position. An empty wallet and a father's blessing,
a gingham gown and a mother's love, are a safer
equipment for the attainment of happiness than
millions of money without the blessing and the
love.
We are making some serious mistakes on this
subject, and they will cost us many a heartache
by and by. We are too ambitious for our chil-
dren in the direction of social prominence and too
neglectful of them in the direction of character.
Daughters are brought up to believe that the
chief end of life is to marry a bank-account and an
equipage rather than a man. When the surplus
becomes a deficit, however, as it sometimes does,
and the equipage is sold under the hammer, the
poor girl wakes up to the discovery that she has
had an establishment for a few years, but not a
home. The logic of events is relentless, and mu-
tual affection, which is the only thing worth living
for, since it sweetens and deepens with adversity,
is found to be wanting. A love that depends for
its continuance on good fortune has very small
value, and yet marriage vows are taken every day
20 HERALD SKRMOXS.
which have their origin in avarice, and will cer-
tainly be broken unless the a\'arice continues to be
satisfied.
There is no other foundation for a true home
than the union of two souls by the bonds of holy
affection. Other experiments have been tried, but
no substitute for that affection has yet been found,
nor is it likely that it will be.
The end to be sought is happiness, and if you
fail in that you fail in everything. A wounded
heart is not healed by costly medicament, and
riches never yet suppressed a sigh. Grief over
withered hopes cannot be assuaged by diamonds
and splendor, and many a woman has been driven
to desperation and wrong-doing because, in spite
of her credit at the bankers', she found it impossi-
ble to live on indifference and neglect.
We must throw our financial theories to the
winds and be brave enough to obey natural law.
A man is a man, and a woman is a woman. What-
ever else he needs, the man needs love most of all,
for this is a hard life and love alone keeps him in
trim for the contest. If he cannot have it he takes
excitement instead, and then the end is not far off.
Whatever else the woman craves, it is all subor-
OUR HOMES. 21
dinate, whether she knows it or not, to the confid-
ing affection of a manly man ; and if that is denied
her her nature becomes volcanic and irrepressible.
Without the restraining influence of love we all
become more or less demoniac. But if we have it
we can part with everything besides and still be
content. That is the verdict of the generations,
and it cannot be reversed.
In your home, therefore, and regarding your
children, you should so teach the boys and girls
that they will develop independence of character
and moral principle. What the world may say
should influence them very little, but what they
themselves think is right should influence them a
great deal. Plain and solid common sense is worth
more than anything else. Of two lovers a good
poor man is better than a bad rich man. Pictures
and furniture and rugs and footmen are desirable
in their way, but you cannot afford to give a hu-
man heart for them. It may be unpleasant to live
in a side-street, but a side-street with peace is better
than the avenue with misery. Your acquaintances
may shrug their shoulders — it is their privilege to
do so if they choose — but if the home is bright and
cheerful what care you ?
22 HERALD SERMONS.
If fathers and mothers would see to it that their
homes are made happy, and have no other desire
than that their children should make happy homes
for themselves, this barter and sale which enters so
largely into our views of marriage would cease, and
the millennium would come this way.
What this old world needs is sterling and un-
wavering moral principle, and the independence
to stand by it. These grand qualities of character
must be taught in the home by parents who be-
lieve in them and exemplify them in their own
lives, or they will never be acquired at all.
After that you can trust both sons and daugh-
ters to reach a safe conclusion when they are called
upon to leave the hearthstone of their childhood
and make a new home for themselves.
They will have already learned that though
riches and happiness sometimes go together, it is
better to depend on happiness rather than riches
for a safe journey through life.
RESIGNATION.
" O my Father, tliy will be done." — Matt. xxvi. 42.
The man of faith lives with more satisfaction to
himself and with greater benefit to his kind than
the man of doubt.
We do not refer to the man whose brain con-
tains a mere muddle of beliefs, who has prejudices
and superstitions instead of* convictions, but to him
who feels sure that there is an eternal right and an
eternal wrong, that the right is worthy of his sup-
port at all hazards, and the wrong will bring him
to physical and spiritual bankruptcy in the long
run.
We do not need a long creed, but we do need a
few verities as a basis for action. The Thirty-nine
Articles may seem very prolix, and the Institutes
of Calvin may not commend themselves to our
best judgment, but our rejection of them does not
constitute us heretics in the sight of God, although
men may excommunicate us.
24 HERALD SERMONS.
If we believe that the universe is ruled by love
as well as power; that the outcome of virtue is
happiness and the result of evil is misery ; if we
see a Providence in the events of life and feel that
we can communicate with that Providence by
means of what is called prayer ; if we have faith
in another life where the freed soul will have
larger opportunities than its environment has per-
mitted here ; if we absorb the spirit of brotherly
love and helpfulness which was incarnated in the
Christ — we need have no fears as to our fate in
the future.
Man's creed is apt to be a long one ; God's creed
is very short. Short as it is, however, you will have
no time to spare if you shape your years according
to its requirements.
Your life, everybody's life, has its pathetic side,
and you will need the sympathy of God if you
are to do good work.
There are times when you are appalled by the
situation in which you find yourself. There is no
light anywhere, but darkness everywhere. A score
of friends stand by you and give you what comfort
can be contained in words, but they have lives of
their own to live, and they cannot help you as you
RESIGNATION. 25
must be helped if you are to recover from the
disaster.
Human friendship is precious, but much more is
wanted. Human love mingles its sighs and tears
with yours, but still there is an empty place in your
heart which neither friendship nor love can fill.
We have all had that experience — a heaviness
which no arm can lighten, a dread which no words
can dissipate, a weariness which no one within
reach can brighten with hope.
Is there no comfort anywhere, no consolation,
no unseen influence that will steal into the soul
with transfiguring power ?
The agnostic shakes his head in an emergency
like that, and does not speak, because he has noth-
ing to say. He can furnish you with additional
despair, but with no thought which will afford you
resignation.
" What kind of a world is this," you ask your-
self, " in which what one craves most is beyond
one's reach?" Is there no remedy anywhere
for your disease of mind? Are you left alone to
struggle as you can, to find your way out of the
grief by the slow process of forgetfulness?
We think not. Else it were a misfortune to be
26 HERALD SERMONS.
born, and the chief blessing is to get rid of it all
in childhood, before you learn that life is nothing
better than a tragedy.
Your father has fallen asleep, perchance, and
when you call him he will not answer. The eyes
will never open again, the lips are like lips of
marble. There is a frightful stillness in the house,
broken only by the muffled beating of your own
heart and your unrepressed moans. Is that the
end? Has the story been all told? Is the vol-
ume of filial affection closed, and clasped with an
iron clasp? Have you said farewell forever, and
has the dear one taken a sudden departure into the
region of black nothingness ?
Then what is life worth? What is the use of
loving if the most sacred ties are snapped when
Death taps at the door? He is better off than
you who never loved at all, for he will suffer less,
and the less love we bestow on any one the larger
are our chances of happiness. Let us henceforth
care for self alone and pa)- no heed to others.
Or it may be that a child, the light of }-()ur
home, your joy and jjride, lies in yt)ur arms with
raging, consuming, relentless fever. Its little eyes
look into yours imploringly ; its little arms are
RESIGNATION. 2^
tightly clasped about your neck. Hope dies out
of your heart, and the inevitable, like the shadow
of a setting sun, throws its gloom over the scene.
The babe is slipping away from you, and carrying
with it the best part of your own life ; for in all
the earth there is nothing so beautiful, so sublime,
or so impressive as a mother's love.
What say you ? What has any one to say ?
The man of doubt is at your side, a tender-hearted
man, full of human sympathy, and willing to do
what he can to assuage your grief; but what can
he honestly say to give you comfort ? Has he any
balm for your wounds, any solace for your dis-
tress? Then he were better absent than present.
But Christ comes, or some kind friend who
bears His message, and tells you of the house not
built with hands, of the grave as the bronze gate
through which we enter heaven, of a time of meet-
ing beyond this time of parting, of that Being who
does what is best even when He causes the tears
to flow, only asking you to wait patiently in faith
that some day you will see that He was right.
What a change comes over your soul ! God's
magic has hidden a smile under your tears, a hope
under your despair. In reposeful faith you say,
28 HERALD SERMONS.
" Thy will be done," and, standing at the grave
of father or of child, you lift your eyes to the blue
sky and cry, ** For a time, good-by ; we shall meet
again yonder."
The sad side of life has a rainbow, and hope
makes sorrow easier to bear.
THE IMMORTAL SOUL.
"If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men
most miserable." — i Cor. xv. 19,
If a man lives in the conviction that there is
nothing for him in the future he has very httle
to complain of when the time comes to be anni-
hilated, because he has had all he expected to
get. If, however, a man is promised another life
on what he deems good authority, and makes great
sacrifices in order to fit himself for it, but is told
when nearing the end that the promise cannot be
kept, he is '' of all men most miserable." St. Paul
was quite right in declaring that such a disappoint-
ment overtops all other kinds.
How brief is the span of human life ! It is at
best only an isthm.us 'twixt two boundless seas,
the past, the future — two eternities. Our days
and months and years go by so noiselessly that
we scarcely note the footfalls of their coming or
their going. Childhood passes into youth in the
29
30 HERALD SERMONS.
twinkling of an eye. A little laughter, an hour's
play with a few toys, and the time arrives when
childish things must be put away. Youth, exuber-
ant youth, shortly sobers into manhood. A dream
or two, a few castles in the air, a fleeting vision of
divine possibilities, then the shoulders broaden to
bear heavier burdens, and the heart recognizes the
graver responsibilities of life. IManhood changes
to old age like a flash of lightning in a summer
cloud. Some hard work, some short years of ear-
nest toil, some days of bitter disappointment, some
nights of weary weeping, and then the nerves grow
dull, the sight becomes dim, the snows of winter
are scattered over the head, the hopes of earlier
days have either ripened or withered. The sun
sets, we linger in the twilight for a few moments,
and then the night comes down, in which we can
neither walk nor work.
You cannot hold on to your years, how^ever
strong your grasp may be. They will slip away
from you in spite of entreaty or menace. When
you have stood on the sea-shore you have perhaps
tried to hold a handful of sand. What a useless
task it is! It falls between your fingers in spite
of your utmost endeavor, and after a while, when
THE IMMORTAL SOUL. 3 1
you open your hand, only a few silvery or golden
grains are left. So life escapes, and every present
day becomes a yesterday. The clock ticks the
time away whether you are hungry or well fed,
and the pendulum swings relentlessly whether you
are rich or poor. *' And the same thing," says
Solomon, " happeneth to us all."
Now here is a curious fact. The elm by the
roadside outlives us. The rusty sword that hangs
on your library wall, telling you of the heroic
deeds of a former generation, will be received by
your children's children after you have been laid
in your resting-place. The pebble which you
kick off the sidewalk, if it had a tongue, would
tell you the story of this earth when it was in its
very infancy, more years ago than your imagina-
tion can conceive.
The elm, the rusty sword, the worthless pebble
have a kind of eternal life, but you must die.
What a marvelous statement ! How incredible it
seems!
Is it not stranger than words can express that
any thoughtful man should assert that the soul is
fenced in by death, and that the road it has trav-
eled ends at the grave ? The body ma}' be satis-
32 HERALD SERMONS.
fied with seventy years, but not the mind. The
soul's keen appetite is just whetted when it is
told that there is nothing more to eat. Bodies
are easily sated, but by the time they are ready
to drop the soul within them has just begun to
learn how to live. Why, then, should both die at
the same moment?
Why was the soul made so large, if this life is
all ? If you were told that Niagara was made to
drive the farmer's grist-mill for a single day and
nothing more, you could not believe it. If you
were told that a Corliss engine was invented to
move the machinery which makes a single pin,
and after that is of no further use, what would
you say? Can it, then, be true that the soul of
man will live just long enough to find out that it
can do something, and then be told that it shall
never have an opportunity to do this something?
So odd an anomaly is beyond our credence.
There is a pitiless irony in the statement that we
no sooner gather our aspirations together and set
ourselves sternly to some noble task than our day's
work is over, and we must lay aside the tools and
the materials with which we know we can build.
Let us give an illustration. Yonder is a vessel
THE IMMORTAL SOUL. 33
about to be launched. The plan has been care-
fully drawn by the architect, and the contractor
has chosen his timber from a dozen forests. Now
she stands complete, and the workmen with their
sledges loosen the wedges, and she slips down the
ways and for the first time embraces the mighty
deep which is to be her home. How gracefully
she floats — a thing of life and beauty! How
promising is her future ! She Is able to bear a
thousand tons' burden across a wintry ocean, in
spite of mountainous waves and northern gale.
She will laugh at the tempest, for she is brave
and strong.
We board her for a trial-trip. Her white sails
waft us by the forts and through the Narrows and
around the light-ship. Then she comes back and
is anchored in some convenient place. Suppose
we tell you that her whole mission is accomplished
and there is nothing more for her to do. You
ask in wonder, "Why build her, then? Is it not
folly to take so much pains for a trial-trip, and
then leave her at her anchorage to rot and sink? "
The same may be said of the soul. This brief
life is only the trial-trip. We pass by a few buoys
in the harbor of eternal life, we stem the ebb or
34 HERALD SERMONS.
flood tide for a few hours, we just get a glimpse
of the ocean that spreads beyond our vision, and
then what we call death intervenes. With the
great Atlantic of immortality ahead of us shall we
come to anchor in the grave ?
It cannot be true. We were made for eternity,
and the great ambitions which throb in our souls
cannot be stilled by death. The funeral proces-
sion leaves us at the mouth of the harbor, and
when our friends return to their homes we spread
invisible canvas and sail on and on toward the
throne of God.
THE MYSTERY OF CHRISTMAS.
" We have seen His star in the east, and are come to worship
Ilim." — Matt. ii. 2.
A SCIENTIFIC man will listen respectfully to a
new theory, because there are many unsolved
problems in the univ^erse. But he holds the the-
ory in abeyance until he sees how it works. If
it settles a few vexed questions he will say it is
likely to be a true theory ; if it settles a large pro-
portion of these questions he will be inclined to
adopt it ; if it satisfactorily disposes of all the per-
plexities which he has heretofore encountered he
will whistle his old theory down the wind and ac-
cept the new one without hesitation.
His rule is that what produces the best results
must needs be true, and when a new theory has
been successfully put to that practical test he has
no prejudice against an acknowledgment of its
claims.
Let us give an illustration which is furnished
35
36 HERALD SERMONS.
by astronomy. Up to the beginning of the seven-
teenth century the planetary orbits were supposed
to be circles — that is to say, the path around the
sun in which all the members of our solar system
moved, from Mercury to Neptune, was thought to
be circular. There were some difficulties, how-
ever, which the circle failed to solve, and these
increased until astronomers were in despair.
When Kepler came he declared that the orbits
were not circles but ellipses. Perhaps no propo-
sition ever created more astonishment. It was
daring to the edge of rashness, and for some time
was held at arm's-length. Later on, though, it
was discovered that Kepler's theory disposed of
all the difficulties which had attended the notion
of circular orbits. Experiments were made with
it by the score, but it never failed to vindicate
itself. It worked, it produced results, and from
that hour to this it has never been blurred by a
doubt.
The rule is a good one to apply to society, to
civilization, and to religion, as well as to astrono-
my. When we hear of Christianity as a new
moral and spiritual theory its beauty and comeli-
ness attract the intellect and move the heart.
THE MYSTERY OF CHRISTMAS. 37
But we cannot fairly judge either of its worth or its
truth until we find out what kind of a community,
what kind of men and women, it can make.
Mere arguments are seldom conclusive, for in a
debate the brighter or more strategic mind takes
the lead ; but when instead of arguments you have
facts, and can say to the world, '' Christianity has
done this or that ; it has caused the people to cre-
ate these or those institutions, political or charita-
ble," then you demonstrate its worth or its worth-
lessness. If it can do the best work then it proves
itself true ; but if it fails to do this we are like the
astronomers in the time of Copernicus, who were
not satisfied with the planetary circle and waited
patiently for some new teacher, Kepler and his
ellipse.
If we contrast Christianity with Mohammedan-
ism or Brahmanism, regarding them all as theories
of life, the weight of argument would be in favor
of Christianity, for taken as a whole Christ's teach-
ings are peculiarly unworldly and upHfting. But
when we place modern Europe . by the side of
Arabia or India, regarding them as elements of
human progress, as exponents of the best that can
be done by three conspicuous forms of religion,
38 HERALD SERMONS.
argument becomes dumb and the matter is de-
cided by results.
In such a competition Christianity has nothing
to fear. Whether it be considered as human or
divine is just now a matter of secondary impor-
tance. We look simply at the prerogatives which
men enjoy under it ; at the kind of ambition which
spurs men to action ; at the moral tone of society
at large ; at the institutions whicli are the logical
consequence of belief in Christ ; at the literature
in which the people delight ; and at the sym-
pathy for those who are unfortunate which pre-
vails.
Brush your theological creeds aside and look at
Christianity as a dynamic force; measure its in-
fluence in the career of any one who has been
consecrated by its spirit ; note its encouragement
of public and private virtue, its insistence on a
high standard of honor, its injunction to provide
for the helpless and care for the needy, its promise
or pledge that when we leave the body we shall
take up our residence in '* a house not made with
hands." Then compare these peculiarities with
the general teaching of any other religious system
on the planet, and you will be compelled to admit
THE MYSTERY OF CHRISTMAS. 39
that in the production of a noble Hfe Christianity
leads all the rest.
It is not strange, therefore, that this higher
thought was ushered in by an overture in which
angels predicted peace on earth and good-will to
men. Nor need we wonder if He who bore the
sacred message from heaven healed the sick or
raised the dead by a word of command. The
Person who could project Himself into the life of
eighteen centuries and give shape to more than
fifty generations would find it an easy task to
master the mysteries of disease and death.
We do well, therefore, to set apart one day in
the year, that we may celebrate with songs of
praise and family reunions the advent of One who
brought such glad tidings of great joy.
EASTER MORNING.
" And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day."
— I Cor. XV. 4.
There is no single incident in the history of
the human race which sends the blood in such
rushing torrents through our veins as this one
does. If it had not occurred Christianity would
long ago have been numbered among the many
reforms which have lived their little day and then
died. The Master would have taken His place in
the group of great souls who, like flashes of light-
ning, have illuminated our human life for an in-
stant and then left us to grope in the old uncertain
way.
That incident has changed our entire outlook;
taught us that the horizon line is not the limit of
our journey, and that there are other horizons
when this one has been reached. It has given
such buoyancy to our thoughts that they are no
40
EASTER MORNING. 4I
longer satisfied with earth, but take an eagle's
flight toward heaven. It has furnished us with a
series of impelling motives which make it almost
easy to bear the ills which lie in ambush, since we
are making ready, not to say '' Good-night," and
then fall into sleep, but to say " Good-morning,"
when another dawn shall gild the hilltops beyond
the cemetery.
If the Roman soldiers had leaned against the
door of that tomb so heavily that the angels could
not have opened it the words of Christ might have
been gathered by admiring scholarship and pub-
lished as a new philosophy, but they would never
have taken the shape of a new religion. The
Preacher in homespun who was followed by mul-
titudes about the shores of Galilee and hated by
the self-seekers of Jerusalem might have left the
impress of His personality on His generation, but
He would not have become the founder of a king-
dom which has outlived the embattled turmoil of
twenty centuries.
Others have been bravely defiant of circum-
stance and wrung a hard-earned victory from fate,
but to " the last enemy " they have surrendered
without conditions, deeming death too strong a
42 HERALD SERMONS.
foe for successful attack. lUit Christ disdained
the lesser conflict, and assured His disciples that
he who conquers death will by that act conquer
life also. While these words were still ringing in
the ears of the haughty officials of the temple and
of the wondering and astounded peasantry, He dis-
appeared in the darkness, and on the third day
came forth, bringing both life and immortalit}' into
the light.
This is why we gather flowers to-day and dec-
orate our homes and our churches. This is why
the organ sends forth its peals upon the vibrating
air, and why the people in countless throngs crowd
their several places of worship. The cry heard
everywhere is, "The Lord is risen!" and the re-
sponse comes back from all quarters of the globe,
** He is risen indeed!"
Have you watched by the bedside of a father
whose increasing feebleness gave you a sharper
pang day by day ? With slippered feet have you
ministered to his comfort, dreading the hour when
** the silver cord shall be loosed " and " the golden
bowl be broken " ? Have you felt that when this
flickering flame shall be extinguished a part of
EASTER MORNING. 43
your own life will go out with it and that your lips
will sing no more songs? Would you make any
sacrifice if you could bring back the old light into
those eyes, roll the years away, and fill the cheeks
with ruddy health once more? And do you trem-
ble when you think of the parting which is so near
at hand?
Listen, then, for through the ages comes a voice
saying, " I am the resurrection." It does not fal-
ter or waver, but is clear and strong. If that voice
is true you may even rejoice at separation, for the
doors of another home are swinging wide, and dear
ones, long since departed, stand at the threshold
to welcome the new-comer. He who goes on this
journey will add one more to the number who in
good time will await your coming with the same
warm welcome.
Or perhaps a child has left your fireside — a
youth with bright hopes and fair prospects, upon
whose strong arm you hoped to lean when the
twilight of your day shall predict approaching
night. No affliction is harder to bear than that,
for the young seem to have a right to many years.
When they are suddenly summoned we are half
44 HERALD SERMONS.
convinced that a kind of wrong has been com-
mitted. The heart rebels, and it is next to impos-
sible to submit with resignation.
But if truth be told no one has any claim. God's
providence takes no note of years. The rose may
demand to live as long as the oak ; but it is neither
for oak nor rose to protest, for what is best is best,
and if we differ in judgment from the Almighty
and plead to have our way the answered prayer
might work us greater harm than the affliction we
deplore. God's will is the only will, and behind
that will is a beneficent purpose. We may not
understand the purpose, but faith commands us to
accept the will in place of our own. We are not
God, and do not know as He knows, but we are
His children and can accept the decrees of His
wisdom.
So stands the case. Troubles are many and
sorrows are burdensome. Life is a prolonged
struggle, and he who would find content must seek
for it in a firm faith that God makes no mistakes.
Above these troubles, sorrows, bereavements
which fill the world with murmurings and regrets
is the still small voice of Him who said, " I go to
prepare a place for you."
EASTER MORNING. 45
To-day may be tempestuous, but to-morrow
will be calm and bright. To-day we visit our
graves, but to-morrow we shall go to heaven and
there discover our dear ones. We can be quiet,
for though life is hard the reunion will give us back
all whom we have lost.
A HAPPY NEW-YEAR.
" But this 1 say, brethren, the time is short." — l Cor. vii. 29.
All years are not alike in value to the race or
the indi\idual ; neither are all days. There are
black days and white days ; weeks that are bur-
densome and weeks that are like a merry chime of
bells ; months that rumble with the thunder of de-
feat and months that resound with the shouts of
victory.
There is no monotony in time. It varies as
does the landscape. In one period it is as level as
a Western prairie, w'ith no special experiences to
mark its passage ; in another changes come and
events occur which make the weeks resemble the
Alleghanies — mountain-heights gathered together
like a great company of giants whose shining hel-
mets are visible though you have traveled far away
and stand on your horizon line ; in still another
some day or week with its wondrous happenings
rises from the plain of memory like a veritable
46
A HArPY ]NE\V-YEAR. 47
Mont Blanc, and though seventy years be counted
in your calendar you still see its summit and say,
"That was the hour when my new life began."
It may mark a great catastrophe or an unspeakable
happiness, but there it stands, in gloom or gran-
deur, and when you are about to close your eyes
in the last sleep they will rest on that event which
made you other than you were.
In our boyhood time walks, in middle life it am-
bles, and in old age it pants in breathless haste to
reach the goal and have done with us. A day is
a week to the child, and a week is but a day to
the aged. In our halcyon youth, when we live on
dreams, we wish the time away, and, like an im-
petuous rider, spur the days to greater speed. We
have such treasure of them that we are spendthrift
and long to reach the future, which beckons us to
high achievement. But at the other end of life,
when the number of weeks in our coffers runs low,
and to replenish is impossible, we use them with
increasing economy, if not with parsimony. We
begrudge the expenditure of time, for there is
much to be done and only a few enfeebled years
left in which to do it.
And yet what matters it after all ? We go, but
48 HERALD SERMONS.
the world remains. We are not necessary, for no
one is indispensable to progress. If we are missed
for a while we are greatly privileged. Though we
have stood at the helm and guided the ship of state
through many a storm, another and perhaps a stur-
dier hand will take the wheel when death bids us
retire. Great men are never wanting, and however
proud the position we hold there is some one wait-
ing— it may be without being conscious that he is
the coming hero, for the opportunity has not yet
come to him — there is always some one waiting to
fill it with a larger plan or wiser counsel.
Nature disdains the assertion that her resources
are exhausted. She can make a giant at a mo-
ment's notice whenever the emergency requires.
There are Bismarcks and Gladstones and Lincolns
and Grants in every nook and corner of the uni-
verse. When the convulsion comes the leader
comes with it. And no matter how great the con-
vulsion, some leader is found who can master it.
What shall we say, then, of lesser folk? They
are pawns on the chess-board, who serve a pur-
pose at the beginning of the game, but after a little
are removed, piled together in a huddled heap, and
are never thought of again until a new game is to
A HAPPY NEW-YEAR. 49
be played. The pawns are nothing, but the game
goes on to victory or defeat. Most of us are
pawns. There are rooks and bishops and knights
and queens, the loss of which, in that particular
game, is to be deplored ; but we are pawns, and
whether we are on the board, a part of the oppos-
ing forces, or on the table, our mission ended, is
matter of little consequence. We are thrust aside,
and the players play on without heeding our fate.
'* Until a new game is to be played." But is
there a new game, or are we the rank and file of
one game only and then laid aside forever?
Analogies may be logically dangerous, and yet
we may venture the assertion that when these
present players grow weary, close the board for
the night, throw the pieces into the box, and re-
tire for rest and refreshment, the mission of pawns
and bishops has not ceased. The game has not
been abolished because the two contestants slum-
ber. There shall come others who like chess as
well as they, and who play as skilfully ; and when
some future evening shadows fall the board will
be reopened, the knights and rooks and pawns
shall take their places again, and the same old
contest will still go on. There is an infinite differ-
50 HERALD SERMONS.
ence between chess and any particular game of
chess. The latter ends when the clock strikes
twelve, but the former will be played for a thou-
sand years to come, and even the pawns may
proudly say, " We are no longer needed for this
evening's enjoyment, but there will come other
evenings, and we shall be needed then as much as
now."
If that be so we may take heart in the midst of
our New-year greetings. The months may speed
as they will ; the days may come and go like light-
ning-flashes; age may creep on apace, and youth
hasten to middle life ; November blasts may chill
and December snows cover the sod like a shroud
— it matters little. There will be other years in
other climes, and the work we leave unfinished
will be brought to completion after the grass h<is
grown on our graves.
So bright a hope must give us good cheer, and
it throws a heartiness, if, indeed, it throws also a
pathos, into the wish with which friend meets
friend: " A happy New-year to you, here or else-
where ! "
SHALL WE KNOW EACH OTHER
THERE?
" But then shall I know even as also I am known." — i Cor.
xiii. 12.
There is not as much skepticism in the world
nowadays as there was twenty years ago.
A careful survey of the times will convince you
that the old lines of doubt have been abandoned
and that men are thinking affirmatively about the
future life.
Not that men are going back to church dogmas.
On the contrary, they are getting farther from
them, if possible.
But they are silently formulating a religion of
their own — a peculiar kind of religion, which the
clergy are inclined to look at askance, but which
contains the essential principles on which an hon-
est life here and the hope of a life hereafter are
securely based.
The people were never more averse to creeds
51
52 HERALD SERMONS.
than now. That is a rather startHng characteristic
of the age. Thoughful men have feared that the
muhitude, after sHpping the moorings of Calvin-
ism, would drift out to sea or on a lee shore, be-
cause it frequently happens that when one gives
up his old faith he lives the rest of his life without
any faith at all.
This danger, however, has been safely passed.
The tendency is toward a wider and deeper faith
than we have ever had. If the church would rec-
ognize this fact and fit itself to the new condition
of affairs it could easily become the leader of the
people in their explorations. But if the church
persists in emphasizing the formulas of other days,
and continues to ignore all sources of information
except those to which it has been accustomed, the
people will go on without it and find leaders among
themselves.
In illustration of this general statement, and also
in proof of it, we may safely assert that at no hour
in the world's history has there been so much in-
terest in the subject of man's immortality as now.
Nor has there ever before been so much legiti-
mate curiosity as to the conditions which will pre-
vail in that other life to which we are hastening.
SHALL WE KNOW EACH OTHER THERE? 53
Whether this is the result of that odd movement
called spiritualism — which started in the forties
and spread like a prairie fire — which loudly de-
clares that communion between the two worlds is
a privilege to be enjoyed by every shadowed home,
or whether it came from a combination of other
causes, is a matter of inferior consequence. When
the thirsty man has water to drink he simply
drinks it and is thankful, not stopping to inquire
from what mountain- range the river flows on whose
green banks he reposes in peace.
But besides the bare fact of continued life we de-
sire to know what our relations to each other will
be after we cross the golden threshold. Is our love
a merely temporary contrivance, a volatile element
which will evaporate at death, a bond of union,
based on the necessity of perpetuating the race,
which will be broken at the grave? or is it the
mutual attraction of souls which have luckily found
each other in this life, and which will continue in
force in all other lives which may lie ahead of us?
Much depends on the answer to that question.
If love is an earthly convenience, and only that,
then practically the end comes when the curtain
drops on our little drama — comedy or tragedy, as
54 HERALD SERMONS.
the case may be. But if the mother's love or the
lover's love, being a love of souls and not of
bodies, is a part of the soul itself, then both we
who remain a little longer and they who go amid
our sighs and tears can wait patiently, as one waits
in Europe for the coming of the dear one or waits
in America for the return home.
The problem is not difficult to sol\-e if we face
facts bravely. That we shall recognize each other
in the life beyond needs no argument. Common
sense simply says, " Of course we shall," and that
ends all controversy. That we shall know each
other better than we do now goes without saying.
That we shall see through all disguises, even as we
shall be seen, seems to be very certain. There
will be no deceptions, for soul will look at soul and
motives cannot be concealed.
That this clearer sight will alter a great many
of our relationships becomes perfectly evident, just
as it is evident that if t)ur hearts were laid bare in
this life our relations to each other would be
changed.
If love, therefore — our present love — is con-
nected in any way with our physical passions, or
i.s-at all dependent on them, then death, which de-
SHALL WE KNOW EACH OTHER THERE? 55
prives us of our bodies, will bring that love to an
end. We may know each other there, but the
peculiar attraction which now binds us will cease
to exist. There will be no fuel for its flame, and
the flame must needs die out. Clearly that kind
of love is a merely earthly expedient or incident
or even accident, and will have fulfilled its mission
when the breath leaves the body. It cannot go
hence when w^e go, but must be left behind because
there is no element of immortality in it.
But the other kind of love, which rests on unity
of purpose, on divine sympathy, on admiration for
qualities of character — the love which has its origin
in what the loved one is, not in what he has — that
is as much a part of the soul as ambition is, or
courage, and can no more die than the soul itself
can die. Those who love each other in an earthly
way may soon become strangers over yonder; but
they who love in this higher way will come closer
together when they reach the shore beyond the
shadow.
This, then, is the truth — that we shall know each
other without a doubt ; that we shall love each
other throughout eternity, provided our love is
that of souls rather than of bodies.
A WASTED LIFE.
" And there wasted his substance with riotous living," — Luke
XV. 13.
It is appalling to think of the vast amount of
unused and misused energy there is in the world.
If all men could be persuaded to do their best,
and do it with might and main, we should soon
have a race of gods on the earth.
There is no more painful contrast in human life
than that between what we are capable of doing
and what we really accomplish.
Perhaps there is not a single instance in history
of a man who worked up to his utmost mental or
spiritual capacity.
The noblest man that lives can do no more than
furnish a suggestion of the soul's aspiring possibil-
ities before he is called hence by the tolling of
funeral bells. He leaves his task only half done,
his song only half sung, when the reverend clergy
pronounce the solemn words, " Dust to dust, ashes
to ashes."
A WASTED LIFE. 57
In this we are notably different from other
created things. The beasts of the field, the birds
of the air, the trees of the forest, accomplish their
perfect work, and could do no more if they had
added centuries in which to develop. The thrush
would still sing his plaintive notes, the eagle would
soar to no higher altitude, the maple and birch
would have no brighter colors after the autumnal
frost.
Man alone is endowed with the tremendous
prerogatives of imperfection. He alone can say
at death, '' My horizon line is as far away as ever."
And beneath this consciousness of neglected
duties which brings the red blood to his cheeks is
the curious conviction that even if he had worked
with entire faithfulness, and lost neither time nor
opportunity, his years are still too few and his lim-
itations too many to allow him to achieve the best
of which he is capable.
He can do more if another life and a better en-
vironment are furnished. He has a right to think
it strange, therefore, that the Being who made him
to become great should call him away from his
task before he can possibly achieve greatness ; that
He who filled him with magnificent abilities should
58 HERALD SERMONS.
close his eyes in an eternal sleep just as he begins
to appreciate them. Immortality is an absolute
necessity, unless we are willing to admit that the
creation of man is an unaccountable blunder. As
soon make a violin and then destroy it when only
a few of the simplest airs have been played.
But apart from all this is the fact that there are
men who run riot with themselves, and at death
have nothing to carry to heaven except an armful
of regrets. Their lives are like a prairie fire, which
consumes everything as it goes and leaves nothing
behind but blackened ashes. In the resurrection
they will stand before the bar of judgment as spir-
itual ruins, and must needs unlearn nearly all they
ever learned in this life before they can make any
progress. They have found their happiness in
physical indulgence, and will feel curiously out of
place when they step out of their bodies and can
have no more pleasures of the grosser sort.
The disadvantage with which they will begin
the other life is too great for even the imagination
to contemplate. Happiness will certainly be out
of the question until by slow degrees and painful
experience they effect a radical change in them-
selves. The hell of theology has no pangs which
A WASTED LIFE. 59
will compare with the remorse they must suffer
when they see things in their right light and come
to a full consciousness that they have deliberately
unfitted themselves for their environment. The
fiery lake would be almost a relief, for God has
decreed no punishment so great as that which en-
compasses a soul that has lived for the body only
and does not know how to live without it.
For instance, what will happen to the poor
creature who has lived a besotted life, or the man
whose years have been a continuous fraud on him-
self ? What profounder depths of personal wretch-
edness can one conceive of than he is driven into
when he looks back on what he has been, and then
gets a glimpse of what he might have been ? Put
such a man into a position in which all his faculties
will be thoroughly aw^akened, in which he will see
himself as he is, and be forced to view the falling
tears of a heart-broken wife, the fateful and ruin-
ous tendencies he transmitted to his children, which
have forced them into lives equally shameful as his
own. What must be his condition of mind? The
flaming tempests of the bottomless pit seem, by
way of contrast, like an asylum built by pity. He
must undo the wrongs he has committed, and
6o HERALD SERMONS.
endure agony until those wrongs have been
righted.
It is a serious thing to carry a wasted life with
all its consequences into the other world.
What precious emphasis is given by these facts
to the divine mission and the encouraging doctrines
of the New Testament! How gently and with
what solemn persuasiveness Jesus dealt with the
fallen ! He saw in the outcast a brother or a sis-
ter, and though He scornfully bade those who were
without sin to cast the first stone, there must have
been a melting sorrow in His tone when He whis-
pered to the offender, " Go, and sin no more."
He never condoned crime, but was always sorry
for the criminal. The poor creature had already
lost so much in the way of character and happiness
that it was unnecessary to add to his burden the
so-called anger of God. No one knows better
than the remorseful sinner himself that God's grief
is far more painful to contemplate than His aveng-
ing wrath, and if the church would tell us less about
the unsheathed sword and more about the relent-
less regrets which every disembodied soul must
needs endure in consequence of its earthly short-
comings and misdeeds, it would have a larger, a
A WASTED LIFE. 6 1
more potential, and a more wholesome influence
on the world.
If any one truth taught by the Master has con-
spicuous prominence, it is the truth of God's love
for us all, and His sympathetic pity for the sinner
who has gone astray. The text is from a parable
w^hich represents the joy of the angels when the
misguided boy sees the folly of wasting his sub-
stance with riotous living, and returns to the
father's house in the sad consciousness that he is
no longer worthy to be called a son ; and there is
a deeper w^arning in that pathetic story, more that
appeals to the nobler elements of human nature,
than can be found in all the imprecatory theology
that was ever formulated.
THE MINISTRY OF ANGELS.
" For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in
all thy ways." — Ps. xci. ii.
" And, behold, angels came and ministered unto Him." — Matt,
iv. II.
" Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He
shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels ? " —
Matt. xxvi. 53.
The ministry of unseen beings is one of the
most important doctrines of the Christian church ;
it is also one of the most neglected.
A great many, even among the thoughtful, will
be surprised at the statement that the intervention
of angels in human affairs is a very conspicuous
element in the Sacred Books and that hardly a great
event is recorded there in which they have not
been prominent actors.
There is even a widely prevalent prejudice
against the doctrine, especially among Protestants,
which is perhaps the result of a reaction from those
medieval days when the providence of God was
almost lost sight of in the activities of His agents.
62
THE MINISTRY OF ANGELS. 63
It is not difficult for us to believe that the Father
is within reach of our prayers, and that Christ can
keep His promise to come and take up His abode
with us in seasons of stress and dismay ; but for
some reason we falter in our faith that round about
us are multitudes of angels, who are not only able
but ready to do us a great service ; are watchful
of our interests and eager to impress our minds
with what it is right and best to do.
And yet that is a natural if not a necessary in-
ference from the general tenor of the Bible. If it
is logical to assert that God has not withdrawn into
the eternal solitudes, but is as close to-day as in
the olden time when His voice of warning or com-
mand rang through the history of the Jews, it is
equally logical and not more daring to declare that
His angels are our guardians as they were the
guardians of our ancestors. No change has taken
place either in our human needs or in His methods.
What infinite wisdom and goodness decreed for
our fathers holds good for us. If messengers from
on high could visit Abraham and make their pres-
ence known to Elisha there is no reason to sup-
pose that they are unwilling to come to our assis-
tance ; and if they offered their ministrations to our
64 HERALD SERMONS.
Lord, why may they not be expected to do us a
like service, since we have been made heirs of the
Lord's privileges?
A whole sect of curious folk has arisen within
the last fifty years whose only ground for exis-
tence is the possibility of some kind of communica-
tion between the earth and the upper air. They
call themselves by the unique name of spiritualists,
for the simple reason that they believe in the
continued love and helpfulness of the departed.
They have revived the ancient faith, and boldly
assert what every personage of the New and every
prophet of the Old Testament would assert, that
heaven is within speaking-distance and that the
conscious companionship of angels is one of the
inalienable rights of aspiring souls. If Christians
had thoroughly believed the Bible and accepted
its revelations in this regard spiritualism would
never have been born. There would have been
no more demand for it than for a class of scien-
tists who should announce their faith in the law
of gravitation.
This sect has spread with wonderful rapidity.
Its organized membership makes a remarkable
showing so far as numbers and literature and influ-
THE MINISTRY OF ANGELS. 65
ence are concerned, and its unorganized mem-
bership is to be found in every church of every
denomination, and in every village and hamlet
throughout the earth.
We may not agree with some of the wild ex-
travagances of this body of men and women, and
may close our ears to many of the incredible ex-
periences which they relate ; but the fact remains
that they are a necessary element of our present
religious life, because they satisfy a spiritual long-
ing which the church has either ignored or refused
to foster. If they were not wanted they would
not remain; if their doctrines were unwelcome or
unreasonable they would diminish in numbers and
after a little fall to pieces.
But the truth is that they have appropriated one
of the most excellent and needful truths, which,
for some reason or other, our pulpits have thrown
aside, and on that one truth have built an enormous
structure under whose roof thousands and tens of
thousands find shelter from the storms of life. The
great mass of people in this hard workaday world
need all the comfort and encouragement which
religion can afford. Their burdens are heavy, and
too often their eyes are red with weeping. There
66 IlKKALD SERMONS.
are cares and anxieties which gall the shoulders,
and berea\ements which break the heart. Tell it
how you will, the story has a line of tragedy run-
ning through it, and one goes but a little way be-
fore he stumbles on a disappointment or a grave.
In other words, men and women must have help.
If their only company is stern doubts, if they
walk alone, laden with main' negations, they sing
few songs, and not even these with a merry voice.
There is not much difference between a doubt and
a viper if you must carry either in your bosom.
On the other hand, to know that above you are
multitudes of spirits, some, perhaps, the spirits of
your dear ones of long ago ; that it is a part of
God's providence that they should accompany you
in order " to keep thee in all thy ways " ; that their
mission is to lovingly influence you, though by
subtle means beyond your ken ; that they now and
again creep so close to your consciousness that you
are almost aware of their presence ; and that at all
times and in every strait they will serve you —
what other eff"ect can such a truth have than to
check your mad impulse, give you serenity of mind
amid disturbing experiences, enable you to bear
inevitable sorrow with resignation, and render the
THE iMlNISTRV OF ANGELS. 6/
Other life so real that you will sometime say your
farewell without regret?
That is the doctrine of the Bible, and if you fail
to heed it you blindly neglect one of the most im-
portant revelations of God.
.VIEWS OF DEATH.
" If therefore tliou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a
thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee."
— Rev. iii. 3.
The death of President Carnot furnishes us
with a very serious topic for consideration this
morning.
For our present purpose we may ignore the fact
that he was the loved and honored chief of the
French RepubHc, and that he was the worthy rep-
resentative of an ancient family whose record of
probity and courage is unbroken. These serve to
lend an added emphasis to the incident, but the
impressive truth is that Death steals upon us una-
wares, with slippered feet, and that neither wealth
nor ancestry will stay his hand for a single instant.
He comes to all alike, and it makes no difference
to him whether the person for whom he holds a
summons lives in a palace, amid the elegant sur-
roundings which sometimes make life the more
68
VIEWS OF DEATH. 69
desirable, or in a hovel, where the only guests
are want and hunger.
Death never yet took a bribe. He always
achieves his purpose without hesitation. It mat-
ters nothing to him whether the body from which
he has wrenched a soul lies in state, in the midst
of a mourning populace, or is cheaply coffined and
carried to an obscure corner of some country
churchyard. He is an inexorable creature, and
when he says "Come!" you instantly lay aside
your work, however important it may seem to be,
whisper a few hasty farewells, and then your tear-
ful friends remark, with bated breath, " He has
gone!"
The strange part of it all is that you cannot
reckon on a year or a month or even a day with
anything like certainty. You must be ready for
this invisible messenger at all times. If, therefore,
there is anything in philosophy or religion which
will give you quietude and serenity of mind you
must possess yourself of it at once and hold it for
an emergency. It is worth more to you than
riches, for riches have a way of deserting you in
the pinch of fate. The fact that you are worth
millions does not give you comfort when you are
/O HERALD SERMONS.
/;/ extremis; neither do )'ou find consolation in the
honors you have won or in tlie high position which
you must vacate.
The Stoic of olden time ground his teeth when
Death knocked at his door. He met the conqueror
with grim defiance, and surrendered with a shrug
of the shoulders. He summoned whatever indif-
ference he could command, and died with a scowl
on his face. It was better so than to cringe in
cowardly fashion, and we cannot refrain from a
certain degree of admiration for the man who be-
lieved in nothing and yet took whatever came
without a groan. That brutal bravery is worthy
of imitation, if we can get no nobler view of the
subject.
The agnostics of to-day are the lineal descen-
dants of these ancient Stoics. They must needs
cling to life, for it is all they will ever ha\e. To
give it up is the gra\'est misfortune, but still a mis-
fortune which must be met in a manly way. The
future is eternal darkness, for body and soul dis-
integrate and resolve themselves into natural forces,
as a tree does when it is riven by lightning, or as
a house does when it is consumed by fire. There
is nothing to look forward to, and when Death
VIEWS OF DEATH. 7 1
comes he simply takes the record of your years
and throws it into the waste-basket of the universe.
The agnostic does right to Hve with all his might,
and if he lives recklessly we can scarcely blame
him, for in the last analysis we must admit that if
this life is all it is foolish to examine too closely
into the character of our pleasures. The fact that
they are pleasures ought to satisfy us, and a short
life that is merry is better than a long life that is
embittered. A few years more or less count for
nothing, and if we can enjoy ourselves who cares
what it may cost others ? It is logical and consis-
tent to get what we want without regarding the
manner of getting it.
There is another way of looking at the matter,
however. You may tell us, if you please, that
Christianity is a tissue of fables and legends ; but
the reply is that a fable which makes a man more
manly is better than a truth which makes a man
cowardly. If the world is so constituted that a
legend or a falsehood, accepted in good faith, will
enable us to endure the ills of life with serenity of
temper and die with a smile on our lips, while the
truth makes us cold and hard and selfish, then by
all means let us abandon the truth and adopt the
72 HERALD SERMONS.
falsehood. We may possibh' wonder how the
universe got into such crooked shape, but if that is
its shape we must make the best of things as we
find them ; and if the " Arabian Nights' Tales " are
practically worth more than the propositions of
Euclid, we do well to throw Euclid out of the win-
dow and read the " Arabian Nights' Tales " as our
daily food.
But we may venture to declare that the universe
is not crooked. The crook is in us. We dare to
assert, also, that Christianity, with its warning to
live honestly because there is another life in which
we must give an account of ourselves, contains the
highest spiritual truth that the mind of man ever
contemplated. The kernel of corn which produces
an ear of corn is true corn. The apple-seed which
produces an apple-tree is a true seed. The idea
which develops all the noblest qualities of manhood
is a true idea. We judge from results, and it is
safe to do so.
W^ith the spirit of Christ in your heart and the
principles He announced in your life you are ready
for any fate. Your days come and go, bearing in
their arms whatever experience God sees fit to
send, and when the last one has been counted you
VIEWS OF DEATH. 73
lie down, saying, " It is not the end, but the be-
ginning." Death rings your bell and you bid him
welcome, for he is only the doorkeeper who ushers
you across the threshold of the present into the
palace of eternity.
MAN'S LITTLENESS AND GREATNESS.
" What is man, . . . that Thou shouklest set Thine heart
upon him?" — Job vii. 17.
The most thrilling, discouraging, and appalling
thought that ever walks with crushing heels
through the mind of a studious man is the thought
of his own insignificance in the universe.
He comes, he goes. To-day he is a part of the
world, his pulse beating with healthy life; to-mor-
row he will not be here, and neither eye nor tele-
scope can penetrate the shadows into which he
will disappear. The time allotted to him is so
short that he no sooner becomes conscious of the
opportunities by which he is surrounded and of
his own ability to use them, than the trumpet-
blast summons him and he bids the world fare-
well.
The earth swings in its orbit without him as
well as with him, and is quite unconcerned whether
he is here or elsewhere or nowhere. The sun blazes
74
MAN S LITTLENESS AND GREATNESS. 75
for him if he is present, and blazes for some one
else if he is absent. The sky is blue, the clouds
float overhead, the rivers run, the ocean roars, the
dawn comes, the twilight gathers, without any refer-
ence to him whatever. He may stay or depart —
it is matter of small consequence to the changing
seasons, which as willingly revolve over his grave
as over his cradle.
If we compare the life of a man to the life of
our solar system, with an estimated duration of
twenty million years since it broke its fiery mass
into planets, and a prophesied duration of ten mil-
lion years more before it will be shattered in some
celestial catastrophe, we are amazed at the pin's
point of space which we occupy and the compara-
tively few minutes we are allowed to occupy it.
A human life, we are told, is a thread in the great
fabric, but a thousand such threads may be wafted
from the loom of God without injury to the fabric
itself. If ours is one of those threads we must
needs walk in the valley of humiliation, for appar-
ently we count for nothing or something less than
nothing.
And yet there is another side to the picture.
This mysterious atom called man, so microscopic
76 HERALD SERMONS.
in proportions, is the greatest marvel and puzzle
of the age. Science tells us that he is the last and
best product of natural law. Religion adds that
since he cannot accomplish his mission here, but
always leaves his task unfinished, the law which
produced him must provide a place where his mis-
sion can be completed. Else the universe has a
seam of lead in its bulk of gold ; else the plan which
prevails everywhere has been invaded by unwis-
dom ; else a cruel injustice is done in tliat we are
created to perform a given work and then robbed
of the opportunity to finish it.
Every arrangement has been made for our
continuous development, and every experience, if
rightly used, will contribute to our education.
Nothing can happen, from the most volatile joy to
the profoundest grief, which a man may not appro-
priate to his advantage. His seventy years are
God's University, in which toil and pain, laughter
and tears, success and defeat, poverty and wealth,
are the text-books which he cannot diligently study
without exceeding profit.
Life is given that we may learn how to live.
Adversities accost us as knights of old rode against
each other in the tournament, and we are either
MAN S LITTLENESS AND GREATNESS. ']^
unhorsed because we have not steeled our muscles
to meet the foe, or are \ictors because we can trust
our swords and our good right arms. We can grow
so strong and bold, if we have been rightly trained,
that no calamity can bear us down ; and he alone
has reached the highest type of manhood who can
force the loss of fortune or a great bereavement to
add to the beauty, the serenity, and the symmetry
of his character.
Do we graduate from this God's University to
make no use of what we ha\'e learned ? Do wx
go through a long course of preparation for some-
thing only to be told that there is nothing to do?
Do we painfully and wearily and with great la-
bor and sacrifice get ready only to discover that
there is nothing to get ready for? Then is our
period of sufTering a delusion, a hallucination, and
w^e have developed all the finer qualities of our
characters for no purpose whatever. We have not
been permitted to enjoy this life, because we have
been sternly at work in the struggle to make
everything that has happened fit us for a life w^hich
our own interior natures have led us to expect and
anticipate. What a strange disappointment, then,
what a useless and stunning disappointment, to be
/
78 HERALD SERMONS.
informed that all our discipline and labor have been
for naught !
On the other hand, what a zest, what martyr-
like enthusiasm we get from the promise that every
hour of wTetchedness and misery, every embattled
year, every victorious contest with passion, every
period of quiet endurance and calm resignation is
a stepping-stone in that spiral staircase that leads
to the realms of the invisible, that upper world
into which we are ushered when we graduate with
honor from this University, where griefs are the
professors and sorrows the tutors !
If religion were only a dream it would still be a
dream worth dreaming, for of such a dream comes
true nobility, while those who dream no dreams,
but have what they call the truth, live in license
and die in weariness.
But if it is not a dream, if it is a truth, backed
by the plan and the laws of the universe, if there
is a God and a cross behind it, then are we cheered
in our toil because the setting of the sun on to-day
is the rising of the sun on the morrow, and the
twilight of this life is the rosy dawn of the life that
is to be.
GOD'S LOVE AND MAN'S.
" And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three ; but the great-
est of these is love." — i Cor. xiii. 13.
A MAN cannot live long in such a world as this
without having his curiosity excited. He sees the
clouds floating above his head, and the stars in the
illimitable ether beyond. At one period the earth
springs into new life, and the fields and orchards
break into blossoms ; later on the sun pours out his
torrid heat, and blossoms are magically changed
into fruit ; with the passing of the months the chill-
ing frosts stay the flow of sap in the forest, and
Nature acts as though she had done her day's work
and was preparing for rest ; then the snows fall,
like a warm coverlet, and hills and valleys sink
into a profound slumber.
It is all a mystery, and man cannot rest satisfied
until he has partially explored it. He gathers a
countless multitude of facts, arranges them in logi-
cal order, draws from them a host of inferences,
79
8o HERALD SERMONS.
the most conspicuous among them being that the
arrangement of the universe indicates a plan. Ac-
cident and chance are at once aboHshed, and in
their stead is established universal law. Chance,
cries the student, is to be found nowhere ; law is
to be found everywhere.
At the moment when accident retired and law
stepped to the front the key to creation was found,
and thenceforth science began to unlock door after
door and to guess the puzzles which were hidden
behind.
But the thoughtful took another step and de-
clared that where there is a plan there must also
be a Planner. If you look at the intricate mecha-
nism of a watch it is impossible to believe that it
made itself. The watch presumes a maker; the
universe presumes a God. If there is a Being be-
hind matter, they said boldly, if an obvious ar-
rangement leads us back to One who must have
made the arrangement, then it becomes important
to know what relations may possibly exist between
us and Him, what His plans are respecting us,
what our manifest destiny is, and on what condi-
tions that destiny can be achieved.
At that moment religion was born, and its mis-
god's love and man's. 8i
sion is to go hand in hand with science on a tour
of constant discovery. Shoulder to shoulder the
two can solve the great problem. Working apart,
with distrust of each other, they are comparatively
powerless and can achieve but slender results.
One step more and the divinest impulse that
ever thrilled human nature entered the soul with
its transfiguring power. When religion stood be-
fore the assembled hosts and announced that the
relation of this Planner to us was one of encour-
aging, pitying, forgiving, and consoling love ; that
as gravitation is the omnipotent energy in the
physical, so love is the all-conquering force in the
spiritual, world, we were at once equipped for the
battle with varying circumstance and changing
fortune.
Religion, when reduced to its last analysis, there-
fore, puts just these facts before you, and appeals
to your common sense for strict obedience — name-
ly, that there is a plan, and you are a conspicuous
part of it ; that the Planner's sole desire regarding
you is that you shall be all you can be, and the
best you can be ; that in the Nazarene, God has fur-
nished you with a standard of moral measurement ;
that in the Bible He has given you certain rules
82 HERALD SERMONS.
which will make your task easier; and that in His
unbounded love He has prepared a place for you
when life's fitful fever is over. Religion is thus
simplified and put within reach of the humblest
man to whom the creed of the church ma\' be a
puzzle and a disappointment. God's way of sav-
ing the soul is one thing; man's theological amend-
ments and addenda to that way are a very differ-
ent thing.
Take love away and life would not be worth
living. Blot out the sun and our system would
fall back into chaos. In all its various forms our
human love is the dynamic force of progress and
civilization. The martyr dies at the stake for
love of truth ; the patriot dies on the field for love
of country. Men become heroes when they love
and fiends when they hate.
The young man is in the swirl of passion, care-
less of moral rectitude and indifferent to the de-
mands of personal honor. Love comes, a pure
emotion, and takes possession of his soul. It re-
strains him, gives him only the noblest aspirations,
makes the former life distasteful, because the music
of the new life is better than any song the sirens
god's love and man's. 83
have sung. He has a purpose, an ambition. The
fairies have visited him, and Hke Cinderella he is
clothed in new garments.
No man can be his best self until this entranc-
ing mystery has overshadowed him. Not all the
world can give him the equivalent of one true and
loyal woman's love. Neither fame nor fortune
can take its place, for they only serve to empha-
size the fact that the one thing needful is not his.
With that sublime possession, however, he builds
a home, becomes the custodian of grave responsi-
bilities, broadens into a higher conception of citi-
zenship, listens to the claims of charity, and is am-
bitious for that integrity which will be the chief
inheritance of his children.
God's love is our religion; human love is all
there is of happiness, while it is also the prophecy
of a hereafter. The grandest picture which the
imagination can conceive is that of the cross, with
the legend above it, *' God so loved the world, that
He gave His only begotten Son; " and the next
grandest is that of an earthly home in which the
same kind of love draws father, mother, and chil-
dren around the hearthstone to live their little lives
84 HERALD SERMONS.
in mutual helpfulness and look forward to another
Home, where there are no tears, by whose door no
hearse ever rumbles, in whose vicinity is no church-
yard, but where the departed wait for the coming
of those who have not yet been summoned.
PRAYER.
" Pray without ceasing," — i Thess. v. 17.
We are frequently told that prayer is a duty,
but it is vastly more than that — it is a privilege.
We might go still further and say that it is a
necessity. All men pray either consciously or un-
consciously— even the atheist, who recognizes a
blind Force in the universe which may either fall
with crushing weight or bear him to good fortune,
and to that Force he utters an ejaculation in the
emergency, as though it could hear and save.
Prayer is either an offering of gratitude or a
petition for help. If the Christian's faith is genu-
ine he keeps the way always open between him-
self and heaven ; feels quite a liberty, under all
circumstances, to state his case in his own terms ;
is sure that the Lord has not retired beyond hear-
ing distance, and that what he asks for will be
granted if on the whole it is best that it should be.
85
86 HERALD SERMONS.
This relation between us and the upper world
incites to noble action and mightily repels from
vicious practices. To use a homely illustration :
When a man is possessed by the grand passion of
his life, the purity of the woman whom he loves is
in some subtle way transferred to his own soul.
That love both restrains and urges, not in her
presence only, but also in her absence. She may
be invisible for a time, but she still controls him.
The deed which he would do without compunc-
tion if he had no such love becomes impossible
because in imagination her eyes are always look-
ing into his. A good woman's love, therefore, is
the strongest moral force in any man's life, for in
some mysterious way she has thrown his standard
down and set up her own in its stead.
In like manner the knowledge that God is so-
licitous for your welfare ; that the .spirits of the
departed, like " a cloud of witnesses," are round
about you ; that all heaven is nigh at hand, can
scarcely fail to give that kind of dignity which
makes ba.seness repulsive and virtue attractive.
The artist pupil draws a straight line when the
master stands at his side, though he may be care-
less when he is alone. If the master has a per-
PRAYER. 87
sonal interest in his pupil and says, " You will do
grand work some day ; I am always in the studio,
consult me at your pleasure," the student is en-
kindled, and all the talent which nature endowed
him with is brought to the surface.
To be able to call on the Father whenever our
urgency requires His presence, and to feel that a
whispered cry will bring to our aid a goodly com-
pany of those invisible beings who " walk the earth
both when we wake and when we sleep," is to
have our lives so changed by what seems to be
magic and what is really mystery that our outlook
is brighter, our ambition is higher, and even our
afflictions are radiant with unwonted hopeful-
ness.
There are some practical details in connection
with this subject which are quite worth consider-
ing.
The value of a prayer does not depend in any
degree upon its form or upon the attitude you
assume, but solely on your fihal confidence and
your earnestness. You may kneel or stand or
prostrate yourself, according to the demands of
temperament or habit; you may use the words
which have been formulated by others, and which
88 HERALD SERMONS.
have been sanctified by the usage of generations,
or you may express yourself in such language as
you can summon at the moment — these matters
are of no consequence whatever.
If your child feels grateful for the love you
have bestowed, or wishes to ask a favor which
you may or may not grant, according to your
best judgment, it makes but little difference how
he tells the story, provided his words come warm
from his heart. But if he thanks you in a perfunc-
tory way, and gives you the impression that he is
performing a rather irksome duty, he may speak
in choice language, but his voice has no music for
your ear. Everything depends on his conscious-
ness that you are his friend, and on his eager and
complete appreciation of that fact.
A great many prayers are not prayers at all. A
great many winged words fly as high as the roof
and then drop to the ground again. One can
commit as grave an offense by praying insincerely
as by not praying at all. A soul is neither saved
nor helped by words without feeling, for such
prayers are very close to mockery.
The true prayer is a quiet talk with the Al-
mighty behind closed doors. Or one can sit in
PRAYER. 89
solitude and commune with Him without uttering,
a word. An eager but unuttered thought will
reach heaven more readily than the most golden
form of speech that lacks either faith or confi-
dence. Many of the prayers that have called a
multitude of ministering spirits from the skies have
had no other shape than that of a deep longing or
a simple ejaculation.
If one is profoundly sure that the Infinite Pres-
ence envelops him, that an Infinite Providence
guards and leads him, and accepts that Presence
and Providence as the controlling power of his life,
he prays " without ceasing," for the spirit of prayer
pervades his life. His lips may never utter a
word, and yet he communes with the Lord.
A great artist has painted a picture in which
Christ, who is " the Light of the world," is repre-
sented standing at the door in the night-time with
a lantern in His hand.
You mistake, therefore, when you think of
prayer as a ladder up which the soul laboriously
climbs to heaven. The Man with the Lantern is
always near when the shadows fall, and if you
pray you simply unbolt the door and bid Him
enter. He hangs the lantern in your room, say-
90 HERALD SERMONS.
ing, " While the night lasts you will need it ; when
the morning dawns I will return and take it to
other homes which sorrow has darkened."
As St. Augustine said, " When we read the
Word, God speaks to us ; when we pray we speak
to Him."
JUDGING KINDLY.
"Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." — John
viii. II.
This is one of the most dramatic and pathetic
incidents in the career of Christ.
There was no doubt that this woman had com-
mitted an offense for which, according to the He-
brew code, she merited death. The law was ex-
pHcit and the punishment was relentlessly inflicted.
It had been the habit of the people and the custom
of the nation for twenty generations to hurl an im-
moral woman into eternity as one throws a stone
from a sling.
The sneering scribes and haughty Pharisees
thought to embarrass Christ in the presence of
the multitude. They dragged the poor, trembling
creature before Him, declared that she had been
taken " in the very act," and then with curled lips
waited for His verdict. It was a test case. Would
He acknowledge the authority of precedent, or
91
92 HERALD SERMONS.
would He have the audacity to repudiate the law
which had received the sanction of Jehovah? In
other words, would He surrender in the pinch, or
proclaim Himself superior to the Voice that thun-
dered from Sinai ?
Jesus stepped across the boundary line which
divided the old from the new dispensation when
He answered that question. The Jews had been
taught to fear God ; He would teach men to love
God. To them God was the implacable Lawgiver,
who, as Anne of Austria once said to Richelieu,
" is a sure paymaster. He may not pay at the
end of every week or month or year, but He pays
in the end." Christ would have men believe that
God is also a Father, and that we, as His children,
are to judge each other generously, because under
like circumstances we might yield to the same
temptation.
To paraphrase, Christ said : " Let your law be
obeyed if you will have it so. l^ut this wretched
criminal must not be put to death by men who
have committed the same offense. If there are
any among you who are wholly innocent let them
execute judgment."
Then followed that remarkable sentence which
JUDGING KINDLY. 93
startled the moral sense of the world: ''Neither
do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." Per-
haps the crowd were surprised; possibly many of
them shook their heads with indignation. The
more conservative among them may have felt that
the dignity of the law had been outraged ; that
this Nazarene had blundered in abrogating the
custom established by Moses and approved by the
prophets.
But we can see that a new principle was an-
nounced. Nobody will assert that Jesus could do
otherwise than condemn a criminal act. His whole
career is a denial of such a statement. Neither
will any one declare that He weakly yielded to the
pathos of the occasion, or that He refused to con-
demn in order to defy the Pharisees and scribes.
No such motive, but a far nobler one, actuated
Him. By the religion which He represented we
are enjoined to judge the fallen with the conscious-
ness that we too may fall some day ; to hate the
sin, but love the sinner, and offer a helping hand.
We are to judge as one brother would judge an-
other— not with indifference to guilt, but with pity
for the offender.
This is a most thrilling doctrine, and it opens
94 HERALD SERMONS.
up a series of duties which we may find it difficult
to perform. It is an easy thing to condemn a sin-
ner, send him to prison, and so forget all about
him. It is a \ery different thing to look on a sin-
ner with pitying eye, and, while condemning what
he has done, make him feel that you are his friend
and will help him to recover himself.
The habit of harsh judgment is ungracious, un-
gentle, and unchristian, but altogether too com-
mon among us. We are prone to attribute a bad
motive even where it would be possible to see a
good motive. It is not too much to say that we
rather relish a rumor which tells against a neigh-
bor, and find a morbid comfort in the thought that
people are not so good as they pretend to be or
seem to be.
If a man gives largely to a charity our first im-
pulse is to declare that there is a purpose in it
which is not quite as excellent as appearances
would indicate. If a woman commits an indiscre-
tion, either wilfully or through ignorance, we make
it by our harsh criticism just as hard for her to
heal the wound as possible. In a word, we are
not helpful to each other, and are much more in-
clined to shove an offender downhill than to pull
JUDGING KINDLY. 95
him uphill. We are more apt to look on the
darkest side of other people's lives and to think
the worst of them than to look on the bright side
and think the best of them. At the same time
we woul^ be glad to have them look at us leniently
and find a good rather than a bad motive. Doing
unto others, however, as you would have them do
to you neither suits our convenience nor our
appetite.
A painter of ancient times was commanded to
make a portrait of his monarch. It so happened
that his Majesty had a very ugly scar on his face
which greatly disfigured him. The artist, with
kindly diplomacy, asked his sitter to lean his head
on his hand, saying it would give a finer pose. He
then deftly arranged matters in such a way that
the fingers of the monarch entirely covered the
scar, and so the portrait was painted with no scar
visible.
If we were to follow the example of the artist
and charitably cover up the scars on the lives of
our friends, or if, conscious that we need mercy
ourselves, we should exercise that virtue toward
others, or if, as commanded by Christ, we should
make, not a weak, but a loving judgment of acts
96 HERALD SERMONS.
which come within our notice, we should soon hear
the rustle of angel wings in this hard world, and
the sweet perfume of the millennium would be
wafted earthward.
A kindly judgment is one of the rarest things
on the earth, and it is also one of the most excel-
lent.
THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY.
" For ye have the poor always with you." — Matt. xxvL 1 1.
Does this mean that there will be poor people
to the end of time ? Is there no ideal society to-
ward which the race is moving, a society in which
want will be unknown? Is it impossible to so
arrange matters that there shall be plenty for all,
or is civilization, even at its best, a broken harp,
some of whose strings will forever jangle out of
tune?
The question presses itself upon us just now,
for hardly ever in the history of our industries has
there been so much suffering as there promises to
be during the coming winter. Men out of em-
ployment are not to be counted by the thousands,
but by the hundreds of thousands, and they are
to endure pangs from no fault of their own, but in
consequence of an unfortunate condition through
which the country is slowly working its way
toward a larger prosperity.
97
98 HERALD SERMONS.
That being the case we naturally ask what can
be done in the way of relief; but the still larger
problem to be solved is, Can society be so reor-
ganized that these periods of misery, in which
men and women have little or nothing to eat, may
be avoided ?
It is useless to say, as some do, that we are
suffering from the blunders of a former adminis-
tration, because that does not alter the fact. Our
only concern is with poverty, however or by
whomsoever caused. To throw the blame on Mr.
Harrison or Mr. Cleveland may satisfy our parti-
zanship, but it does not furnish a single loaf of
bread for a starving family.
What we want to know and what we must know
before we can set about righting our wrongs is
whether wretchedness and misery are inherent
elements of human progress ; whether there is
such a thing as progress w^hose ultimate end is
universal peace and contentment? If we may
sometime hope for better things, then we ought
to begin now to shape our customs and laws for
their fulfilment. If there is no hope, then we
must needs make the best of our conditions and
alleviate poverty in any way that may occur to us.
THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY. 99
It is undoubtedly true that the race will always
be divided into classes. The better off and the
worse off will remain side by side until the millen-
nial bell rings. The man of talent will forever
accumulate, and the man with no talent will be his
servant. Men were created neither free nor equal.
That is a figment of the imagination which serves
the purpose of the orator, but has no basis in fact.
Inequalities of brain, of ambition, of shrewdness,
of executive ability, are the first things one sees in
the morning and the last things he sees at night.
There is no reason to suppose that it will ever be
otherwise. There will always be owners of mills
and wage- earners who do their bidding.
The solution is not to be found, therefore, in
any Utopian dream of making everybody's brain
of the same weight or endowing him with the
same moral or intellectual faculties. There are
workers and overseers of workers — men who sit
in their comfortable offices and plan a building,
and men who carry the mortar and brick up the
ladder.
It might not be well to have it otherwise.
Drudgery will always have to be done and there
must always be some one to do it.
65484
lOO HERALD SERMONS.
But, since this is so, the state neglects its chief
function when it ceases to be the providence of
the poor. It is not our business to regard Hfe as
a scramble for whatever is within reach, no matter
at what cost to others. That poHcy is barbaric
and as far from the scriptural injunction as heaven
is from the earth. The state should recognize the
wage-earners, who are in the majority, as its
special care, and exercise over them a kind of
providential supervision. Laws should not dis-
criminate against the unable and in favor of the
able. Government should be paternal in its widest
sense and offer every possible opportunity to its
citizens to better their condition. The trend of
state enactments ought not to help the strong to
get more than their share, but to help the poor to
get what they are entitled to.
Our charities are well enough in their way.
They extend a helping hand to the miserable and
so enable them to bridge over an emergency ; but
the better way would be to abolish the emergency,
and then the poor would need no helping hand.
Our public-school system illustrates this state-
ment. A hod-carrier is not more contented for
being ignorant. Knowledge is power, because it
THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY. 10 I
enables a man to keep his eyes open and make
the highest use of his opportunities. We insist
that every child shall learn something, and we
drive him to school against his wishes because the
time will come when what he knows will assist
him to earn his bread.
Why should not the state establish schools for
the mechanic arts and graduate every year a large
number of skilled workmen ? This has been done
in some sections with grand results. A man who
knows how is better equipped than one who does
not know how. Education is the corner-stone of
happiness, and if we could lift the under-classes by
teaching them to do better work we should relieve
half of the distress which excites our sympathy.
If brotherliness prevailed, if our religion were a
matter of living instead of believing, there are a
thousand evils which could be removed. We may
always have the poor with us, but it is not neces-
sary that they should starve, and when we become
more Christian we shall see to it that they do not
starve.
ONLY A STEP TO HEAVEN.
"Ami he said, Who art Thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I
am Jesus whom tliou pcrsecutest." — Acts ix. 5.
The incident referred to opens a very wide
door, and introduces us to a series of thoughts
which are not more startHng than they are helpful.
St. Paid was apparently a man of strong preju-
dices as well as strong convictions. He had a
courage which extended to rashness. A conser-
vative of fierce temper, he could tolerate no inva-
sion of the (^Id-time Hebraism which had been
.sanctified by the sufferings as well as the \ictories
of many generations.
When this new religion of the Nazarene began
to stir the people, it had a tendency to lessen their
allegiance to the synagogue, its doctrines and its
forms of worship. Paul, therefore, perhaps with-
out inquiring into its merits, hated it with a deadly
hatred. '* Breathing out threatenings and slaugh-
ter," armed with letters from the high priest giv-
102
ONLY A STEP TO HEAVEN. IO3
ing him authority over both men and women, he
was on the road to Damascus with a boundless
fury in his heart and a determination to crush the
spiritual rebellion by the most heroic measures.
Just before he reached the city a light shone
round him which seemed to be supernatural, and
the stillness of the air was broken by a Voice
which came from the lips of some invisible person-
age. A communication w^as made to him which
he evidently regarded as coming from the other
world, for from that instant the whole plan of his
life was changed. His desire to persecute the
followers of the Master was transformed into a vow
to defend them even at the hazard of his own life.
It is safe to say that this incident is as reliable
as most others which have come to us from remote
times. There is no good reason why we may not
accept it as veritable history.
Moreover it is corroborated by similar experi-
ences which have occurred from time to time since
the days of Paul. There is hardly a household
which cannot relate an incident of a like nature,
and we are forced to the conclusion that there are
more beings who are invisible than there are be-
ings visible, and that the visible and the invisible
I04 HERALD SERMONS.
are supplied with means of communicating with
each other.
It is useless for the Christian to declare that
such miracles, if they are miracles, were confined
to the limits of a given period. He must accept
what happens to-day as well as what happened
centuries ago. God has not changed His relations
to men, and the necessities of hunian nature are
just as urgent as ever. If angels talked with mor-
tals from the time of Adam to the days succeed-
ing the crucifixion, it is folly to suppose that the
curtain dropped and we have ever since been left
without the companionship of " a cloud of wit-
nesses." We must either throw the Bible over-
board as a tissue of imaginary events, or believe,
as every generation has believed, that the great
falsehood of history is that there is " a bourn from
whence no traveler returns."
If God is really a presence in the world, then
He must be a continuously revealing presence.
There is a kind of absurdity in the statement that
He has spoken, but refuses to do so any more.
If He ever spoke it is certainly true that He still
speaks. He has neither become indifferent nor
has He retired to some distant corner of the uni-
ONLY A STEP TO HEAVEN. 105
verse whence His voice cannot be heard except as
a dull and uncertain echo.
The upper air is peopled by the departed.
Death does not destroy the whole of us ; it simply
separates by mysterious alchemy the mortal from
the immortal, and it is only a short journey from
this world to the other. While we are saying our
good-night to the dying they are listening to a
good-morning from those who have joined the
majority.
We suffer from a sense of separation, but they
enjoy the pleasures of reunion. To die is gain
in a very broad sense, for it is an exchange of
hampering conditions for a life without limitation.
Death is merely the transportation of a peasant to
a palace, the environment of which gives him op-
portunities he never dreamed of. We shed bitter
tears at a grave, but there is more or less selfish-
ness in our grief. If we had full faith in the future
the muffled sound of sighs would be followed by
a solemn conviction that, while we are somewhat
the worse off by what we call bereavement, the
departed loved one is much the better off.
That is the ideal religion, and because we have
not yet attained to it we robe ourselves in mourn-
o6 HERALD SERMONS.
ing, as though some great disaster had befallen
tliose who go as well as those who remain. If we
had no thought of self we should dress in white
rather than black, for the dead have won their
\ictory and become immortal.
Still further, it is an inexpressible loss to the
religious life that we do not realize the radiant
fact that solicitous and helpful influences are round
about us in our struggle with circumstances,
livery loved one who has gone is as conscious of
our doubts and fears as when he was at our side.
Neither his affection nor his power to aid has been
abated. In a thousand ways unknown to us he
gives us strength for the conflict and peace of mind
in our perplexity. By unspoken words he talks with
us, and our souls and his hold intimate communion.
Were that not true, then our lives would be
heavily and darkly overshadowed. But it is true
and we are compelled by many an unexplained
experience to believe it. It is a doctrine of Holy
Writ ; it is verified by the history of every home ;
it is a component part of practical religion; it is a
statement of fact which redeems us from despair
and gives us good cheer because heaven and we
are not far from each other.
"FEED MY LAMBS."
" Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My
brethren, ye have done it unto Me." — Matt. xxv. 40.
It is a strange statement that one can do his
Prince a personal service by giving a loaf of bread
to one of the hungry peasants of His kingdom.
It obliterates the traditional idea of caste, and
holds the rich responsible for the condition of the
poor.
The powerful are guardians of the weak under
the sovereignty of God.
If you have enough and to spare — that is the
teaching of Christian philosophy — your surplus is
not your own; it belongs to those whose larders
are empty.
The injunction to " feed My lambs " never rum-
bled more resonantly than now, and never seemed
more like the commanding thunder of Sinai.
And be it also said in very truth, and to the
credit of our city, no opportunity to extend a
107
I08 IIKKALI) SERMONS.
generous and helping hand was ever more eagerly
embraced by the citizens of New York.
A tidal wave of sympathy and pity is sweeping
over the community, and the recognition of dis-
tress is being followed by a universal desire to
alleviate its pangs.
One hundred thousand laborers are out of em-
ployment through no fault of their own. They
are sturdy fellows, most of them, and many of
them are fathers of families, with a stormy winter
ahead and no coal for the stove and no work, ex-
cept what chance may bring. Three quarters of
them are steady-going men, who are always ready
to exchange honest labor for honest wages, and
have no other ambition than to demand of circum-
stances the means to purchase clothing and food
for themselves, their wives, and their children.
The world, they truly say, ought to give them
enough for their toil to fill their mouths and fur-
nish them with shelter.
And so it does in ordinary times. When no
catastrophe befalls our industries there are no
people on the round globe more contented than
these.
And be it said, further, that the laboring classes,
''FEED MY LAMBS. IO9
this seventeen million of wage- earners scattered
throughout the country, the producers of every-
thing that goes to market, are exceptionally clean
morally, and intellectually equal to the burden of
political responsibility. They lead pure lives, and
in many instances heroic lives. Their struggles
are often knightly and their sacrifices are worthy
of the poet's song. There is as much true man-
hood, as much honor, as great a bulk of common
sense among them as can be found elsewhere in
the community.
But once in a while an emergency arises which
closes our mills, blocks manufacture, and changes
industry from a rapid current to a stagnant eddy.
The laborer is not to be blamed, but he is the chief
sufferer. When the avalanche comes rushing
down, the far-sighted are forewarned. They get
out of its way and their homes are untouched.
The ragged edge of the monster may sweep away
part of their fortunes, but the wolf never comes
near their doors. The poor, however, are always
in the direct road of the avalanche, and there is
no escape. When the mill-stream runs dry they
have nothing to eat. When the looms are still
the last penny takes flight.
I lO IIEKAIJ) SERMONS.
And yet they must live. The question is, How?
The terrors of poverty are upon them, and what
can tliey do? That problem has stimulated the
imagination of the political economist, but he has
not yet solved it. Is there any higher law, are
there any legislative enactments, by which these
disasters may be averted ? Is society badly organ-
ized or is the difficulty interwoven into the fibers
of human nature? There is always plenty for
the few : why should there be starvation for the
many ?
Something, some demon of exigency, has its
iron fingers on our throat, and we gasp. Is there
no way to kill the devil of disaster?
We have nothing to do with that matter just
now; we simply deal with facts as we find them,
and try to meet the case as it stands.
The Herald is working along the lines of public
duty, which should also be regarded as public
privilege. There is spare clothing enough in ten
thousand closets to cover the nakedness of the
city. Take it down and give it to the distressed.
You will not miss it, but they may die for want of
it. It is one of your luxuries; it is their necessity.
While it hangs on the closet-peg it does no one
" FEED MV LAMI5S." Ill
any good ; in the hands of a discreet committee it
may save some poor man the sorrow of a funeral.
And there is money enough in generous pockets
to help this hundred thousand idlers to bridge the
frosty winter. We are not encouraging a discon-
tented mob — we are offering our sympathy to a
struggling crowd who would not seek assistance
but that their children are crying. These hungry
folk, so Christ said, are of the same royal lineage
with ourselves — unfortunate members of the same
great family. We are alike in birth, in death, and
in destiny. So large is His pity that He begs us
to fly to their relief, saying that if we do a service
to one of the least of these we do it to Him.
But we need not use the language of urgency.
The people of New York are quite alive to the
gravity of the situation. They have already given
grandl}^, and thus far no abatement of their gen-
erosity can be detected.
The poor must be saved from sufifering until
better days dawn, and the people will see to it
that nothing is wanting, either in funds or organ-
ization, to accomplish their noble and charitable
purpose.
THE BEST KIND OF RELIGION.
"Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not." —
Matt. xxi. 21.
It is customary with preachers to tell their
people that faith in certain re\ealed truths is
a condition of acceptance with God in the here-
after.
If, however, one believes for the sake of going
to heaven, he is a mercenary creature and does
not deserve to go there.
In like manner, if one obeys the commandments
in order to avoid the torments of another world,
he is as far removed from any true idea of religion
as the north pole is from the south.
In the one case a man yields to a subtle kind of
bribery which promises to give what he most de-
sires, and in the other he surrenders to a threat
which he has been taught to dread and w^ould like
to avoid.
It must be true that in the plan of a just God
112
THE BEST KIND OF RELIGION. II 3
there is no such thing as bribery, either in the
shape of a threat or a promise.
It is not the pecuHarity of faith that it is the
coin with which you purchase heaven, but that it
so forms your character that you cannot be kept
out of heaven because you have a right to go
there.
And the peculiarity of habitual doubt is that
the life which is produced by it demoralizes the
character and renders it spiritually impossible for
you to cross the threshold of heaven because you
would not be in the company of your peers.
Every man here and hereafter finds his own
place by a law of gravitation which is inexorable.
It is the same kind of law which in physical con-
cerns makes the apple fall to the ground and the
balloon rise to the clouds.
We are so constituted — at least the large major-
ity of mankind are — that certain affirmative ideas
produce a largeness of soul, while opposite ideas
produce opposite results. To secure the results,
therefore, it is necessary to possess one's self of
the ideas which correspond to them.
There is nothing arbitrary about this ; it is sim-
ply a matter of logic and law. Religion does not
114 HERALD SERMONS.
represent the caprice of a Creator who, " for his
own pleasure," holds a damning thunderbolt in
one hand and the promise of bliss in the other.
On the contrary, it represents an omnipotent jus-
tice which has so arranged the tendencies of hu-
man living and thinking that every man drifts to
the place he is best fitted to fill, and can by no
chance occupy any other.
The value of faith lies wholly in the fact that it
just as inevitably develops the noblest qualities as
the apple-seed contains within itself the possibility
of a tree, a blossom, and the rich, ripe fruit.
The horror of doubt lies in the fact that it re-
duces the .soul or the character or the man — which-
ever you please — to a minimum, checks growth,
and induces a spiritual frost which nips the bud
and renders fruitage unattainable.
It is evident, then, that a man must believe in
something in order to become something. Ideas
make or unmake ; they are both creative and de-
structive. To believe firmly in virtue is an incen-
tive to become virtuous. Your pride in your
honor will keep you honorable.
That law acknowledged, we have a foundation
for religion — that is, a religion of common sense.
THE BEST KIND OF RELIGION. II 5
An unwavering faith in God, who places you here
amid all sorts of obstacles that you may prepare
yourself for the higher existence to which He will
summon you by and by ; a fixed belief that a pure
life is worth all it may cost, however great that
cost shall be ; a calm and quiet trust in a Provi-
dence which never deserts you, and in the possi-
bility of communicating by prayer with the Being
who holds all things in the hollow of His hand ; a
joyful resignation to the Higher Will in the dire
straits of affliction and bereavement, the result of
your conviction that He would not send such things
unless they were needed, and that He is helping
you to bear up under the necessary burden — such
a state of mind and heart is just as sure to soften
and mellow and enrich and ennoble your nature
as a seed is sure to grow when properly planted.
The logical consequence of such faith is to widen
and deepen your character, and that logic is irre-
sistible.
On the other hand, to have no God, no Provi-
dence, no future life to look forward to; to have
no belief that the right always pays and the wrong
always hurts ; to depend on chance for what you
may get out of life, and on your own pluck and
Il6 HERALD SERMOxNS.
will to bear its sorrows ; to love, and yet feel that
love does not survive, but that the dead child or
wife is simply dead eternally — such a state of
mind is not merely depressing, it is a powerful
cause which will produce an unhappy effect. No
hand can stay the results which must logically
follow.
As a practical question for practical men to con-
sider we assert that the difference between low and
high ideas of duty is the difference between a clod
and a god. Men may have metamorphosed the
Christian religion into something forbidding and
repulsive, but such men have done us great mis-
chief and should not be heeded. The Christ of
the New Testament is not the Christ of theology.
The true Christ fills the heart with lofty ideals,
conscious that from them nothing but lofty im-
pulses can result, and that is true religion.
WHY DO WE SUFFER?
"Now is My soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father,
save Me from this hour : but for this cause came I unto this hour.
Father, glorify Thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven,
saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." — John
xii. 27, 28.
There is a wonderful bit of philosophy in these
words. They open up to our astonished vision a
long series of ideas which we seldom recognize.
We are lifted to the mountain's summit and get a
glimpse of the world from an entirely new stand-
point. We are amazed and startled, for Christ
practically commands us to sacrifice ourselves in
order to attain perfection.
You are a block of rough marble. You may
some time come to be a statue of splendid propor-
tions, but you must be chiseled and hammered
before that consummation can be reached. Grief,
struggle, disappointment, the whole range of sad
experiences which fill life so full, are the tools with
which the Great Artist will change your shape by
117
Il8 HERALD SERMONS.
slow degrees and convert you from a mere block
to a thing of beauty.
You may not enjoy the process by which you
are made to assume a new form, and the hammer
of God seems at times merciless in its blows; but
every stroke of the Artist's arm has a distinct pur-
pose, and in the Artist's heart is an ideal which
He is compelling you to represent — an ideal which
you will most certainly represent when He has
fully accomplished His task.
You stand face to face with a most grievous sor-
row. Your head is bowed, your very soul suffers
a wrench. But you recognize facts ; you are broad
enough and thoughtful enough to see that there
is a meaning in it all. Or if your eyes are so
blinded with tears that you may not see, you still
have a devout faith that His way is better than
your way, and that submission, quiet, serene,
trustful, is the noblest attitude your soul can
assume. You believe that the Artist has no other
purpose than to convert the rough block of
marble into a beautiful statue ; that He takes no
pleasure in using the hammer, and is not gov-
erned by caprice, but is working with a plan in
1 lis mind.
WHY DO WE SUFFER? II9
Now, what will you say ? Your first utterance
is found in the text, " My soul is troubled." That
is inevitable. You are human and cannot help
shrinking from pain. He does not wish you to do
otherwise, but He does wish you to submit, even
though it be with a groan or a cry of agony. Will
you, dare you say, ''Save me from this hour"?
What would become of the marble block if it
should pray the Artist not to use the chisel or the
hammer? Suppose the Artist should heed the
prayer and lay His tools aside : what then ? If you
have in your body some malignant growth, will
you beseech the surgeon to save you from the hor-
rors of the knife ? And would he be your friend
if he replaced that knife in its case and left you to
your fate?
One must have attained a certain spiritual alti-
tude to be able to say to the Artist, '' Do what you
will, only see to it that when your task is finished
I leave the workshop a statue of noble propor-
tions;" or to the surgeon, "I tremble at thought
of what you are about to do, but you must not
heed my cry, and your hand must do its work
with inexorable steadiness and relentless accu-
racy." But that must be the attitude of every
I20 HERALD SERMONS.
great soul which desires perfection and health in-
stead of comfort and ease.
The hardest but the best thing to say is " Fa-
ther!" in the time of trouble and bereavement.
With the conviction that He is in very reality
your Father well fixed in your mind, and the re-
poseful consciousness in your heart that your suf-
fering is your opportunity ; that souls which have
never experienced agony are not equal to souls
that have passed hours in Gethsemane ; that climb-
ing with weariness is better than living on the level
plain of monotonous good-fortune, you are enabled
to say as the Master did, " I pray you not to con-
sider my wishes, but to do what is best, though it
cost me dear. Make me all I can be, even though
I protest."
Then you see things as God sees them. Then
the pathetic side of life, the side that is clouded,
has a rich significance. You are forced to look up
for help, and looking up brings you that mysteri-
ous peace that passeth understanding.
It cannot be that we are grieved and wounded
and bruised for nothing.
If the stars in their courses are obedient to a
physical law, then behind the stars is Some One
WHY DO WE SUFFER? 121
who made the law. If our days and years are
marked by sighs and tears, by death that follows
on the heels of birth, by graves which are within
arm's-reach of cradles, by disappointments which
cannot by any foresight be avoided, then these
things must all be governed by a spiritual law, and
behind the law must be Some One who ordained
them for our good. Either this is true or the
universe is a cruel and inexplicable despotism.
But it is true. Men ne^ver see the heaven above
them except when their eyes are wet. Sufferings
are the hammer and the chisel ; God is the Artist
who recognizes the possibilities that are hidden
within us ; we are the blocks of marble, and if we
are conscious of what we may become we cannot
cry, " Father, save me from this hour!" but must
needs pray, *' Father, glorify Thy name," and then
angels will come from the upper air and minister
to us.
ALL MEN ARE SELF-MADE.
He that soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly." — 2 Cor.
IX
. 6.
Every man is the creator of a world, and there-
in he is supreme until death comes and orders him
to abdicate.
There are as many worlds as there are men and
women. Each one of them has been created out
of the chaos of circumstance, and each one does
credit or discredit to the miniature monarch who is
its ruler.
When God endowed man with free agency it at
once became possible for the recipient of this dan-
gerous gift to make his little world a heaven or a
hell.
Not even the Almighty could say him nay, for
he was as absolute as the czar of Russia. God
gave him two injunctions: "Do the right" and
" Do no wrong," then retired, leaving the little
monarch to obey or not, as he chose, and to reap
the consequences of his choosing.
122
ALL MEN ARE SELF-MADE. 1 23
So far as the Omnipotent is concerned He has
distributed the really good things of life with an
even hand. Let us be careful about this matter ;
we say the really good things.
Not money, nor yet fame, does He include in
this category, and it is safe to presume that He
had good reason therefor.
The opportunity to increase the size of the soul
is universal, like the sunshine, and there is no nig-
gardliness in any corner of the globe. Never yet
lived a man, whether he slept under a thatched
roof or in a palace, who lacked the chance to ham-
mer his soul into some divine shape.
Neither poverty nor riches are necessary to
character. One need not go to Congress, or paint
a picture for the Salon, or write a poem which
shall sing to posterity, or cross the threshold of
the White House by invitation of the people, in
order to be fitted for heaven.
God can make great men when He needs them
as easily as we throw a handful of sand in the air,
but not even He can make a soul that is worth
looking at twice. That high prerogative rests
with the man alone who is the owner of the
soul.
124 HERALD SERMONS.
In the eyes of the Ahiiiglity the hod-carrier
who is honest is nobler than the statesman whose
eloquence makes history but who sells his influ-
ence for cash or preferment.
It is not environment but purpose that makes a
man large or small.
Many of us will find when we overstep the
boundary of the beyond that we are not received
with the envious acclamations which have greeted
us here, and others will be surprised that they are
cordially welcomed there, though here no one
doffed his hat when they passed.
Our theory of life is not God's theory, and the
things we work hardest for must be left behind
when the time comes to put on our shroud.
But if the really good things are evenly dis-
tributed, so also are the sorrows of life. They
are the fire and anvil in the smithy by which crude
metal is changed to a Toledo blade.
Disease never asks concerning a man's bank-
account when he rings the door-bell. He is equally
indifferent to all, and is never swayed by favori-
tism. He is past all bribery, and has no compunc-
tion, but goes where he is sent.
The millionaire may give his child a gilded
ALL MEN ARE SELF-MADE. 125
crutch, but it is just as truly a crutch as that of
the poor man's boy. A crutch is always a crutch,
and neither poverty nor wealth can make it less.
The rich may place a costly monument on a
grave and the poor no monument at all, but the
sleepers sleep the same sleep, and the monument
counts for nothing.
Bismarck for three years endured the pangs
of royal neglect. No more unhappy man than he
in all Europe. Like a caged lion he chafed. The
man whose frown meant war, whose smile meant
peace, was like the poorest peasant of Germany in
this — he suffered.
The peasant boy was torn from his home to be-
come a soldier; the statesman has been banished.
The cup of the one and the bowl of the other were
brimming full. They were both alike in their ill
fortune. The first was a clumsy youth whom no
one will ever hear of ; the other was a prince who
will never be forgotten. The difference between
the two in the matter of happiness or misery is
not perceptible.
Your surroundings count for very little ; your
character counts for a good deal. A man is not
noble because he has a title and is permitted to
126 HERALD SERMUNS.
talk with kings. There are great souls dressed in
tatters and small souls robed in purple.
By and by we shall see what our eyes are now
too dull to perceive — that, whatever our station in
life, we make our own misery and happiness, and
neither wealth nor poverty has anything to do
with them. The creative power is in the heart,
the purpose, the aim.
Pity it is that we remain so long blinded to this
fact.
HEROES AND HEROINES.
" And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our like-
ness."— Gen. i. 26.
There is something exceedingly encouraging
in this statement with which the Bible opens, bo-
cause it places man on a high level.
The work of creation was well-nigh finished;
the myriads of stars had wheeled into line, ready
for their march through the ages ; the earth teemed
with fruitfulness, every manner of creature rejoiced
in life, and the whole machinery of the universe
had been set in motion.
And yet a sense of incompleteness prevailed.
Something was wanting which would give signifi-
cance to the whole. Without that something all
that had been done would fall short of perfection.
Then came the imperative suggestion, " Let us
make man.*' But what kind of a being should he
be? The innumerable host of angels and arch-
angels must have been filled with curiosity as they
127
128 HERALD SERMONS.
looked on the wondrous spectacle of revolving
worlds, conscious that the purpose of creation was
yet to be revealed. The house had been built,
but it was without an occupant. " What shall be
the shape and what the characteristics of this new
being?" they asked, and the answer came back,
" Let us make man in our image, after our like-
ness."
Then he must be a creature with aspirations,
with a thousand possibilities, with a royal nature,
with the capacity for exercising sovereignty over
physical forces and over himself — a very god in
miniature, whose manifest destiny is the compan-
ionship which heaven provides.
It may be true that we are prone to evil, that
we succumb to temptation, that we have accumu-
lated an appalling amount of depravity, but the
likeness to God is still in the soul and has not
been effaced. Theologians may tell us that this
depravity is total ; but no man can sit in impartial
judgment on himself without seeing that the ele-
ments of true greatness remain and can be so de-
veloped that he shall become wholly good instead
of partly bad. The dignity of human nature is
a persistent fact which no amount of theological
HEROES AND HEROINES. 1 29
controversy can eliminate, and no man in all the
multitude but feels at times the pulsing of higher
hopes and the consciousness that he may yet fulfil
his mission.
Men and women are nobler than we think. In
the great fabric of the community are golden
threads of personal heroism, of self-sacrifice, of
calm and quiet endurance, never told by orator,
never sung by poet. The heroes and heroines of
ordinary life are too numerous for counting. Men
and women are daily facing emergencies which
require a loftier courage than was ever displayed
on the field of battle. That physical daring which
under excitement and the impulse of a love of
glory stands amid shot and shell and bears the
flag aloft through a shower of bullets may be alto-
gether admirable, and is certainly worthy of the
rewards of honor which it receives ; but there is a
nobler daring, and it deserves a far higher meed of
praise, as when the young man catches a glimpse,
by a flash of lightning through the darkness, of the
inevitable results of his evil life, and with a mighty
effort breaks from the entanglement of vicious
habits, and in spite of cajoleries and gibes and
jeers claims possession of himself and maintains
I30 HERALD SERMONS.
the claim with a will that no circumstances can
break.
Who can tell how many experiences of this
kind occur every year in a city like this? Few
hear of them, for they are wrought in silence or
solitude. Such a Hercules does not become
famous by his achievement, but he is nobler than
any Olympic god that ever found a place in history
or mythology.
There are wives who bear the brunt of ill for-
tune without a murmur, husbands who struggle
with poverty, or impending poverty, with a calm
fortitude which excites the pity of the " cloud of
witnesses " in the upper air; both men and women
who have secret sufferings so great that their
hearts are beating a dead- march to the grave, but
from whose lips no word of complaint escapes ; and
girls by the score who keep themselves unspotted
in spite of fate, preferring the loneliness of a dingy
room with honesty for company to the gaudy
surroundings which are bought with impurity of
life.
These are not rare instances by any means. If
you could peer into the souls of passers-by you
would find them at every corner. These are the
HEROES AND HEROINES. I3I
silent gods and goddesses of our modern day,
whose statues are not to be found in any Pan-
theon, but will certainly be found in the temple of
eternity. They belong to the unrecognized nobil-
ity— to that peerage of God who are doomed to
suffering to-day, but will rejoice with great glad-
ness to-morrow.
One illustration will suffice. It is a pathetic
story, but it is also a true one. The aged father
needed constant care, and the daughter, thinking
her first duty was to him, bade her suitors good-
night. While watching at his side she developed
a frightful and perhaps fatal malady. Though she
might be saved by an operation she refused to
submit lest anxiety should hasten the parent's
death. "I am nothing," she said; ** he is every-
thing," and so the malady reinforced itself week
by week. She deliberately and knowingly spent
herself for him, and he fell into his last sleep un-
conscious of the sacrifice which that noble soul
was making.
Total depravity? It is blasphemy to utter the
words in such a connection. Better far the lan-
guage of Genesis, ** Let us make man in our im-
age, after our likeness."
132 HERALD SERMONS.
Human nature is like an armful of hickory in
the fireplace, with an armful of pine underneath.
The hickory needs only to be kindled and it will
fill the room with genial heat. Men and women
can do anything under the proper influence. The
capacity is there ; supply the motive, and there is
no degree of heroism which may not be attained.
BEARING GOOD FRUIT.
" The truth of the gospel , . , bringeth forth fruit." — Col. i.
5,6.
Every tree that was designed to be fruit-bear-
ing will accomplish its mission, but in its wild state
it will produce very poor fruit. It may be a
beautiful, symmetrical, and vigorous tree, but the
apples or pears which load its branches are quite
useless for domestic purposes.
The intelligent farmer recognizes the fact that
he can change the character of his wild trees and
force them to produce something of marketable
value. In the course of a few years he can so
alter the complexion of affairs that he will have a
profitable orchard. He may possibly throw a few
bushels of compost about the roots in order to give
them a better opportunity, or, in the language of
modern psychology, furnish them with a new en-
vironment, but something more is necessary. The
133
134 in: KALI) sermuxs.
roots are perfectly willing to do their proper work,
and the sap runs through the ordained channels
with freedom and avidity, but the apples are still
poor and small and bitter.
Then he purchases at some nursery a number
of slips from a famous kind of fruit-bearer, whose
apples are rosy and large and luscious. With his
knife he lops ofT the branches of his wild apple-
tree near the trunk and grafts thereon these pur-
chased slips. The roots of the wild tree do not
object to the change, for they send the sap to
heal the wound and seem to be proud that the
substitution has been made. In good time the
useless wild apple-tree becomes the king of the
orchard, and its fruit repays the farmer for all his
trouble.
Human nature is also wild. Left to itself, un-
checked by restraints, unimpelled by lofty aspira-
tions, it is vigorous, and in many respects admi-
rable, but it does not produce the best results of
which it is capable.
Man has an unmeasured, if not an immeasurable,
capacity for self-development, and it may be true,
for aught we know, that with time enough he
might graduall}' evolve into a philosopher and a
BEARING GOOD FRLIT. 1 35
saint ; but it is also true that by furnishing him
with certain ideas and hopes and motives you can
give him at once what it would require ages to
acquire. In like manner it may be possible for the
wild apple-tree to change its character and by slow
improvement produce the kind of fruit which the
farmer forces it to bear in three or four years by
the process of grafting.
Now religion supplies us with the incentives
which are necessary to the best quality of man-
hood. It takes our caprices and passions and
recklessness and crude ambitions in hand, appeals
first to the brain and then to the heart, places
before us an ideal, tells us we are quite able to
accomplish great things and to make our lives
valuable to ourselves and to the community, and
then commands us to fight the good fight like a
chevalier without fear and without reproach.
The man who is not conscious of an obligation
to leave something better in the world at his death
than was to be found there at his birth does not
understand the highest purpose of life. Every
one's years and example and character ought to
count for something. It may be more or it may
be less, but it should be something. A purely
136 HERALD SERiMONS.
selfish life, even when it is crowned with a kind of
success, such as wealth or literary achievement or
fame in any of its shapes, is worth less in the way
of general happiness than the life of the humblest
artisan who has made the most of his environment
and the best of himself.
The object of religion, then, is to draw^ out your
finer qualities, and that is most eff'ectively done by
giving you ideas, moral principles, and such con-
victions as will represent a noble present and a
hopeful future ; for you must have a future in
order to have a present. Say what you will, a
belief in immortality is necessary to a thoroughly
developed and symmetrical soul.
Well, which of the many systems of religion
which prevail in different quarters of the globe
will serve you best? Will you go to Buddhism
for this divine impulse, or to Confucius, or to
Zoroaster, or to Mohammed, or to Christianity?
Remember, we have no prejudices either for or
against any of these movements. We stand out-
side of them all, determined to judge with abso-
lute impartiality. We look with a critical eye,
because very important interests are involved in
our decision. We have only one rule to judge by,
BEARING GOOD FRUIT. 1 37
and that must be applied relentlessly. The rule
is this : Whatever system of religious thought
produces the best results is the one for us to
adopt.
We shall not wait long before reaching a con-
clusion. A Christian civilization, with all its faults,
is the highest yet known ; a Christian public opin-
ion is the fairest and most just; a Christian man-
hood is closest to the ideal. These facts are in-
disputable.
Throw your mere creeds to the winds, for they
are a snare and they produce confusion. They
have done more harm than good. You have no
use for them, and they are only an impediment.
But take the words of the Teacher, and incorpor-
ate them into your life. Begin with that love for
your kind which makes every sufferer your neigh-
bor; convince yourself that there is a meaning in
all the events of life and that a kindly Providence
would overrule them for your good ; look forward
to a Hfe beyond, in which loved ones will meet.
These truths are all you need. They will make
you a good father, citizen, patriot, friend, and
man. A life based on them will be the best life
that the human mind can conceive.
138 HERALD SERMONS.
Christianity rests solely on tlie fact that it can
do more for us and make more of us than any
other religion known to man. There is no mys-
tery in it. It helps us to live honestly and to die
bravely, therefore we defend and support it.
THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE.
" Before I was afflicted I went astray : but now have I kept Thy
word." — Ps. cxix. 67.
Why we are so constituted that nobility of char-
acter can only be attained through the discipline
of sorrow is as yet an unsolved problem.
That we must needs travel o\'er the corduroy
road of difficulty, successive obstacles, harsh cir-
cumstance, and continuous effort if we would reach
the gate of Paradise or fit oursehes to cross its
threshold is the moral puzzle of the univ^erse.
In our unwisdom we think the macadamized
and level highway a better means of progress, and
are astounded when told that smooth roads make
small men.
He who would get a ghmpse of the widest
landscape must climb the hill from which alone it
can be seen That is the first law in the statute-
book of Providence.
The night is gruesome and lonely, but half the
139
I40 IIHRALD SERMONS.
universe is veiled from him who has not seen the
stars as well as the sun, and darkness alone can
render them visible.
This, too, is the law, namely, that you must
sit amid the shadows of night if you would see the
heavens at their best.
You cannot get music from the cello with loose
strings. They must be stretched ; and if they could
they would cry out with pain, but the stretching
until concert-pitch is reached is what gives the
musician an instrument worthy of his skill.
A large fortune is the worst accident that can
befall a youth, for his temptations are stronger
than his ambitions. The boy with money inher-
ited from his father, and, therefore, with nothing
to work for, is already half conquered by evil pas-
sions. The youth with a high heart and whole-
some poverty receives his inheritance from God,
and God's gifts are better than man's.
God'-s denials are the best part of His provi-
dence. He gives nothing without its price, and
that price is toil. We find fault at first, but later
on discover that what is worth having is worth
working for; that work gives dignity to the soul
and is the equivalent of education.
THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. I4I
That is the secret of omniscience which we find
it hardest to learn.
The men who Hve in marble and bronze because
they have done us such service that we cannot
forget them, and would fain express our gratitude
by means of the sculptor's art, are they who have
borne the brunt of circumstance.
It is also true that personal sorrows, as the loss
of dear ones, have an uplifting tendency. Be-
reavement forces the soul to recognize its destiny.
Tears are sometimes telescopes with which other
worlds are viewed. Aching hearts feel their help-
lessness and then call on God for the comfort that
is not within reach. They see visions, have reve-
lations, and doors are opened the key to which is
forged out of some grief.
The ties of earth are loosened that we may be
bound by stronger cords to heaven. The cruelty
of death imbues us with a longing for immortality.
The surgeon cuts in order to save the body, and
when it is all over we bless the knife. God wounds
because a wounded soul needs sympathy and con-
solation, and can only find them in thoughts of
another life.
An artist had just finished a splendid fresco on
142 IIKRAl.I) SERMONS.
the ceiling of a calhedral. Pleased with his work,
he stepped back to note the general effect. For-
getful of the dizzy height, he was about to take
one step more — the fatal step — when his quick-
witted assistant dashed a mass of color on the pic-
ture and ruined it. The painter sprang forward —
his life was saved.
In like manner, God's severest discipline is al-
ways merciful. The only purpose is to compel us
to see what He wishes us to see, and to see it as
He sees it. If He ruins our hopes or gives our
love a wrench or sends the dread Messenger to
our household, the sad song we sing brings the
angels nearer, and from the ashes of consumed
desires springs a faith which draws the curtain
aside and shows us a better life.
That God chastens because He loves is a hard
saying, but they who have been chastened can
ofttimes fmd in their agony a treasure which hap-
piness is too blind to discover.
The end to be sought is largeness of soul, and
this — so strangely are we made — is to be attained,
not by having our own way, but by giving up our
way and adopting God's way.
LITTLE PEOPLE WHO LIVE LITTLE
LIVES.
" When thou wast little in thine own sight." — I Sam. xv. 17.
If you happen to be strolling through the fields
in the springtime of the year you are more than
likely to run upon a bed of wild violets at th(
foot of a maple-tree in some obscure corner. No
other eyes than yours have ever seen them, and
no other eyes, perhaps, will ever see them again,
for in a few days their little lives will be ended
and they will have withered.
They have their mission, nevertheless, and who
shall say that it is unimportant? They are fash-
ioned in beaut}^ ; their slender stems bend with
grace to the passing breeze ; the conical leaves
are of an exquisite shade of green, and the purple
petals are painted with a skill which no artist can
borrow. He who was at the pains to create them
was not without a purpose in that act. He had
a plan for this wild violet, on which He bestowed
143
144 HERALD SERMONS.
iio perfume, as well as for the h(Mie\-suckle, which
fills the air with fragrance. And if it blossoms
with fidelity and dies with resignation, as much
credit may be accorded to it as will be given to
the imperious oak or the stately elm, which attracts
the attention of every traveler.
If you were learned in the language of flowers
you might kneel on the sod and hear the com-
plaint of some discontented violet. " I am of no
consequence," it might say in despair, " and won-
der why I was made. No one knows or cares that
I am here. I live, I die ; that is all the story I
have to relate. No one is better for my coming
and no one will miss me when I go."
An4 yet it is possible that that bed of violets,
blossoming and withering under the maple, and
upon which you have chanced in your aimless
stroll, has set you upon serious thoughts. It is an
epitome of the universe, as far beyond the reach
of your power to make as blazing Arcturus in the
evening sky. It is a clue to a thousand mysteries,
and all unconsciously to itself it may lead you up
the spiral staircase of logic until you lie reverent
and prostrate in the awful presence of Deity.
The violet is a type of humanity. We, too.
LITTLE PEOPLE WHO LIVE LITTLE LIVES. 1 45
wonder why we are here. We are so small, so
insignificant ; we can do so little ; we are so slen-
derly gifted ; we live such narrow lives and have
such meager influence that we are overwhelmed
with disappointment. What does it mean and
what does it all amount to ? A thousand times we
ask the question, and get no answer. If we had
conspicuous ability — could sing some song that
would be remembered, or paint some picture that
would be hung in the galleries of the future, or
do some deed that would leave our name as a
heritage — our lot would be plainly desirable. Or
if, with lower ambition, we could affect the lives of
those within the circle of our acquaintance — make
them think and see more clearly, temper their
souls for nobler tasks, contribute to their comfort
and happiness in some essential way — we should
feel that there was a purpose in our birth and an
object in our lives. But to be simply common-
place— an odorless violet under a maple in an
obscure corner — it gives us a sinking at the heart,
and we grow weary and despondent.
How many of us have passed through this ex-
perience and reached the conclusion that we are
of no value ! How many of us have thoughtfully
146 iii:kali) sermons.
summed up our lixcs and painfully declared to
ourselves that we count for nothing!
But such sighs are based on a mistake. We
misinterpret God, and are therefore led astray.
We have a plan of our own, and wonder why the
Almighty does not make His world to conform to
it, instead of seeking His plan and persuading our
wills to conform to that.
In the universe as constituted by Him the hum-
ble positions are vastly in the majority. We are
neither expected nor asked to do much, but to do
a little and do it well. It is not demanded of us
that we shall stamp our characters on a generation,
since the ability to do so has not been given ; but
if we keep our narrow house in order, greet the
small duties of each coming day with cheerful-
ness, throw a kindly word to the passer-by, drop
a penny into the beggar's hat, and maintain the
calm serenity of a contented heart, the evening
shadows will not fail to bring us our reward.
There is but one Niagara, but on every hillside
is a rippling rill. As much credit is due to the
rivulet that sings as to the cataract that roars —
neither more nor less. Each was made for a .spe-
cific purpose, and each must accomplish that pur-
LITTLE PEOPLE WHO LIVE LITTLE LIVES. 1 47
pose. The rivulet has no right to complain, the
cataract no right to be proud. Not ability, but
excellence, determines the measure of merit.
Only Richard could wield a sword six feet long,
but victory in the battle did not depend so much
on Richard's sword as on the arrows of his brave
army. He could work miracles of valor in single
combat, and loud huzzas greeted his deeds of
prowess, but after all it was the rank and file of
stalwart yeomen twanging the bowstring who
drove the enemy from the field and planted the
banner of England there.
It is always so. The obscure make history
when each man does his duty, and human prog-
ress is more the result of what takes place in pri-
vate life than of what our giants do. The world
consists of little people, each of whom is doing his
little work; but the aggregate influence is an irre-
sistible dynamic force for good. The best men
and women are unknown. There is a long list of
saints whose names will not be heard until the
Day of Judgment — men who have made a hard
fight with fate amid surroundings too lowly for
recognition, and women who have sacrificed more
than any one knows except One.
148 HERALD SERMONS.
It is not the smallness of your life, but the qual-
ity of it, that is important. You cannot be an oak
or an elm, but if you are a violet under a maple,
drinking in the sunshine and the dew, you should
be content, for in the providence of God humble
lives cheerfully lived have infinite value.
VITAL RELIGION— WHAT IS IT?
" Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father." —
James i. 27.
No more succinct statement of what is essential
in the formation of a religious character was ever
made.
We are told in simple language, which the hum-
blest can understand, that God's requirements are
few ; that this life can be made worth living, and
the other life anticipated with pleasure, by obey-
ing two injunctions, namely, being helpful to
those who are struggling with adversity, and keep-
ing our souls clean and wholesome.
If "pure religion and undefiled," embodied in
our daily actions, will insure the approval of God,
and if it consists in doing all the good that lies in
our power and in making for ourselves a record of
impregnable honesty, then we must agree that re-
ligion is indispensable, and we can no more afford
149
I50 HERALD SERMONS.
to live without it than we can H\c without a roof
over our heads or food for our table.
If the church will pardon us for the criticism,
we should like to say that it has taught men to
look at life from the wrong standpoint. It tells
us that we must believe certain doctrines before
we can lead a certain kind of life. These doctrines
are of a complex character, and sharp controversy
arises. If we must believe before we can live,
then unless we believe we cannot live, and many
a noble soul has lost its grip on the higher life
because it could not make the doctrine intelligible
or even reasonable. That is a misfortune of the
gravest kind and one to be greatly deplored.
When the church says to a man, " You must accept
this and that dogma, and accept it witli the shade
of meaning which I ascribe to it," it makes religion
too much of an intellectual process, while the spir-
itual process is lost. If a man rejects the dogma
he is apt to think that dogma is an essential ele-
ment of religion, whereas in very truth it is noth-
ing of the kind. That mistake may prove to be
fatal, and his whole life may be blighted.
On the other hand, when a man is told that
since this is God's world, and he is God's child,
VITAL RELIG1(3N — WHAT IS IT? 151
he must therefore seek the approval of God by
being of service to his fehows — encouraging the
weak, Hfting up the downtrodden, defending the
oppressed, setting an example of honorable deal-
ing which will be attractive to others — there is no
room for controversy, and the only debate possible
is as to the best way of accomplishing these re-
sults. He may begin this work without any dog-
mas whatever, may not know that there is such a
document as a creed in existence, but you cannot
deny that he is a loyal follower of the Christ. He
need not hesitate to carry his pure motives, his
uprightness, his self-sacrifice to the foot of the
Throne, and need have no fear that he will not be
welcomed by angelic hosts.
Moreover he cannot long pursue such a course
without becoming, in its best sense, a firm believer.
He may not accept all of the Thirty-nine Articles,
but that is of no consequence. He will accept
the general principles on which the earthly career
of Jesus was based, and the moral law which He
proclaimed in such startling phrases that we can
hardly resist calling it a revelation.
He will not only believe in a God who rules
the world wisely and justly, and in a Providence
152 IlKRALD SERMONS.
which overlooks the experiences which come to
each one of us, but will perforce reach the con-
clusion that this God has arranged affairs in a
fatherly way.
When he is seeking for an ideal life — the best
conceivable life, the life after which it would be
perfectly safe to model his own — he will find it in
the Christ, and the record of it in the New Testa-
ment. That great example will impress itself on
his mind, and his respect for the Nazarene will
grow to admiration, and his admiration will in-
crease until it becomes worship.
Further than this, he will see at a glance that
there is a right and a wrong in the universe. He
does not know how evil originated, neither does
he care. It is sufficient that it exists and that he
must avoid it if possible. It is plain to him that
the right enlarges the soul and makes it strong,
healthy, and happy, while the wrong hampers his
action and makes him cowardly. It does not take
long, then, to discover that it is always better, even
though it be at great cost, to maintain the right
than to surrender to the wrong.
Once more, he sees that no man completes his
work in this life, and as incompleteness is an anom-
VITAL RELIGION — WHAT IS IT? I 53
aly in a wisely governed world, he reaches the
conclusion that beyond the confines of the present
there must be a future ; that death is only another
name for change, and that he has nothing to dread
when that change comes.
He began by living a good life, but while living
it he has gradually acquired a series of beliefs
which constitute his creed. It is not the creed of
the church, but it is quite sufficient for all his pur-
poses. No church can afford to reject him, for he
stands where St. James stood when he wrote the
words of our text, and where Christ stood when
He preached the Sermon on the Mount.
He has in his soul all the essentials of a vital
religion, is equipped to live, and prepared for im-
mortality.
DO WHAT YOU THINK IS RIGHT.
" I know . . . that tliere is nothing unclean of itself: but to
him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean."
— Rom. xiv. 14.
We have here a very broad and important prin-
ciple of action. St. Paul applies the principle to
only a few thint^s, but there is no reason why we
may not apply it to many things.
The Apostle says that some men esteem one
day above another, while others regard all days
alike. He further says that many regard certain
articles of food as unclean, while others entertain
a different opinion. Neither of these classes, he
declares, is justified in condemning the other for
following their convictions. No one man can be
the judge for all the rest. Each must be " fully
persuaded in his own mind." and then do what he
thinks is right. Paul carries his principle so far
as to assert thai if a gi\en course is entirely inno-
154
DO WHAT VOU THINK IS RIGHT. 1 55
cent in itself, still if you think it is wrong that
settles the matter for you, and you commit a sin
in following it.
You are to do what you yourself think is right
— not what other people tell you is right.
You are to exercise your own best judgment
when deciding what is harmful or innocent, and
God will reckon with you on that basis.
If you have been endowed with reasoning facul-
ties and with a moral nature you are by their ex-
ercise to erect a standard for yourself and to create
an ideal which it shall be your purpose to attain.
When you have made the standard you are to act
in accordance with it, and when you have made
your ideal you are to keep it in view with eyes
that are loyal and steadfast.
In a single word, St. Paul would have you be
yourself, even though you become unlike every-
body else.
You are not to be as a drop of water in a bucket
of water — undistinguishable from the general
mass; but rather as one grain of sand on a sea-
shore of sand, or as one leaden shot in a bagful
of shot — in close relations with every other grain
of sand or every other shot, but still maintaining
156 HERALD SERMONS.
an indixiduality <>f your own which cannot be
lost and witli which you refuse to part.
This is only another way of saying that in the
providence of God there is no such thing as a
crowd to be treated as a whole, but that He wishes
you to retain your peculiar personality under all
circumstances, and will attend to your special needs
in a special way.
You are to begin by being your simple self;
you are to continue by thinking for yourself and
hammering out convictions which arc your per-
sonal property ; you are to end by acting for your-
self. Then when you get to heaven there will be
only two questions for you to answer: Did you
have a clear and distinct idea of what you ought
to do? and, Did you do what you thought you
ought to do?
Suppose we apply this rule to some of the ordi-
nary matters of daily life. There is in the com-
munity an almost violent difference of opinion on
the subject of theaters and of dancing and of rid-
ing for pleasure on a Sunday afternoon.
Now it is generally admitted that none of these
things is wrong in itself, and yet a majority of the
clergy frown with almost equal disfavor on them
DO WHAT VOU THINK IS RIGHT. 1 57
all. And .since the clergy are thoughtful folk, and
make it their business to examine our pleasures
from a moral standpoint, and are not to be sus-
pected of personal motives, their opinions should
have due weight. Not conclusive weight ; because
they cannot stand in our stead at the bar and
shield us from the consequences of not following
our own convictions. If they could the afTair
would assume an entirely different aspect. If we
could feel that they are authorized to tell us what
to do and what not to do ; if they could simply
say to the Lord, " We advised him and he followed
our advice," and so settle the matter for us, we
should then receive their warnings without hesita-
tion. But that is not the case. We stand for our-
selves, and there are no proxies in the other world.
We therefore give their opinion the highest con-
sideration when they denounce the theater, but
remember that we ourselves are the court of last
appeal.
Our decision, therefore, as to all these pastimes
must come from the fact that we are fully per-
suaded in our own minds, not by somebody else's
mind. There is not a human being who has been
endowed with ordinary intelligence who does not
15^ II KRAI. D SERMONS.
know to an absolute certainty whether an evening
at the theater is demorahzing or not. If he thinks
it a wront,^ to go, then it is undoubtedly a crime
to go. If in his opinion eating flesh is sinful, then
he will surely be held for a misdemeanor if he
eats flesh. If he feels that he must apologize for
going to the theater or for taking a ride on Sun-
day or for engaging in the dance, he is morally a
coward and is guilty of an offense. No matter
how innocent any pleasure may be in itself, if you
are ashamed of indulging in it, but still indulge,
you are accountable for the commission of a sin.
What dignity it adds to human nature to be
thus made the judge of your own actions and to
be weighted down with personal responsibility for
them! How much healthier and stronger and
freer and more progressive and more wholesome
society would be if every man had an opinion of
his own and the independence which conviction
generates !
As it is, half the world does not know why it
does this or why it refrains from doing that, and
can give no good reason either for its beliefs or its
doubts. It follows fashion as a flock of sheep fol-
low the bell-wether; not only fashion in dress, even
DO WHAT VOU THINK IS RIGHT. 1 59
when it is uncomely and disfiguring, but fashion in
creeds and in pohtics and in all the other concerns
of life.
But St. Paul tells you to use your brains, to use
your moral nature honestly and fearlessly, and then
to do what you think is honorable and right. If
we followed his advice the world would be all the
better for it.
YOU SHALL HAVE STRENGTH.
" And as thy days, so shall thy strength be." — Dcut. xxxiii. 25.
Human nature is made of very strange mate-
rial. We are constantly surprised at our ability
to bear what seems to be unendurable. Under
the pressure of a great incentive we can accom-
plish miracles, and when necessity compels we can
endure anything. "
No man is thoroughly acquainted with himself.
There are depths and heights in his soul which he
has never explored. In one environment he is a
commonplace creature; in another he develops
into a hero. The possibility of greatness is hid-
den somewhere in every man's nature. He is an
unconscious giant, but will never do a giant's work
until the emergency forces him to. Give him an
ordinary road to travel, and he shambles along like
a peasant; give him a hill to climb, then thunder
160
YOU SHALL HAVE STRENGTH. l6l
in his ear, "You must!" and he becomes trans-
formed from a clod to a god.
It is the sternness of fate which makes man
great. His incHnation is to be small, to be com-
fortable rather than noble, to live easily rather
than grandly. It is only when a compelling force
on the outside drives him, or when he finds him-
self in a tangle of circumstances from which extri-
cation seems impossible, that he rises to his full
height and accomplishes the task which he has
looked upon with trembling timidity. In a word,
he is almost omnipotent, but does not know it,
and never can know it until God proves it to him
by giving him the impossible to do.
-During the war the farmer's boy was thrilled by
a spark of electric patriotism, but great deeds were
beyond his thought. He had never seen the he-
roic element in his nature. He enlisted as a duty,
and for months was only an ordinary soldier in the
ranks. By and by, however, he faced a grave
danger. There was death in the air. The bullets
were flying fast, and he gave up all hope of seeing
home again. But with danger came opportunity.
That opportunity acted on him like magic. A
farmer's boy no longer, he suddenly became a
l62 HERALD SERMONS.
hero, as though some fain- had swung her wand
over his head. He was larger in soul than he
ever dreamed of becoming, went into the thick of
the fight, and unflinchingly did deeds of prowess.
When the shadows of evening fell and the bloody
work was over he had a captain's straps on his
shoulders, and was by no means the same man
who left the plow in the furrow to follow the tap
of the drum. Opportunity is another name for
metempsychosis, for there are times when we -shed
the commonplace and become Knights of the
Round Table.
But we can endure as well as do when we must.
No one knows how much he can bear until he is
tried. Providence has made life hard because
every man needs the test of fire. Why this is so
it might be difficult to say, but that it is so no one
can doubt. We are drowsy until some earthquake
shock shakes us, and then we become men. Ill
fortune is spiritually worth more than what we
call good fortune. The rich man's son is apt to
slide downhill, while the poor man's boy climbs
to the top. If you have all you want 3'our life is
without value. If you have nothing that you
want the desire to get the best there is is a trans-
YOU SHAI.L HAVE STRENCrTH. 1 63
figuring influence, though it involves sacrifice and
tragedy.
You are content, and your home is a happy
one. Wife and child sit at your winter fireside,
and you contemplate your surroundings with
grateful satisfaction. The sky is blue for you,
and the sun always sets in beauty. But you
recognize the fact that there are storms to be met,
and though you have had immunity thus far you
know that it cannot last forever. There are bur-
dens to be borne, and you must fit your shoulders
to some of them.
When you think of w^hat may possibly happen
the tears come to your eyes. Your income may
take to itself wings and speed away, leaving you
to sit in the ashes of bankruptcy. That seems
hard enough, yet you have a feeling that you can
bear it if it is inevitable. But when a white hearse
rumbles by your door you know^ that some father's
heart is breaking, and it comes to you that a like
disaster may visit you. Life is so uncertain and
Death is apparently so capricious. If he should
look into the eyes of your little one he might
want him. Death plucks beautiful flowers for the
garden of God, and if he should pluck j^our flow-
l64 HERALD SERMONS.
er — the only one you have, mayhap — wliat would
you do, what could you do? Vou shudder and
grow pale. You fall upon prciver that no white
hearse may ever stop at your door. Your life
would go out like an extinguished candle. There
would be nothing left. That misfortune you can-
not bear. Anything else, but not that, you say
— so have said many, and then they ha\e wept
because the prayer was not answered.
Then Death steals into your house unawares
and your flower is gone. Are your shoulders
broad enough for that heavy weight? You will
sink under it and lie down by the side of the child
in the same grave. No, not that ; because " as
thy days, so shall thy strength be." When the
time comes you find larger endurance of soul than
you have credited yourself with, and though the
future days may be gray days, and the sun never
shines in quite the old way, you can bear the sor-
row ; you do bear it with a fortitude borrowed
from the angels.
Much depends on your faith. No soul that
looks at heaven can be crushed by anything that
happens on the earth. Once get a glimpse of the
future, once see the boy in the garments of the
YOU SHALL HAVE STRENGTH. 1 65
immortals, and though your heart breaks you
would not call him back. It is faith that lightens
our load, while doubt doubles its weight. One
glance at God, and fate can do you no further
harm.
THE BEST THING TO DO.
" And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to
good works." — Heb. x. 24.
The man who thinks only of himself and is
forgetful of his obligations to others does not count
for much either in this world or the next.
A purely selfish man, who wants everything
and gives nothing, lives in the suburbs of purga-
tory and will not have far to go when he dies.
To recognize your rights and ignore your duties
is to pursue a policy wdiich angels deplore and
devils rejoice at.
God can use a man to the best advantage when
the soul which is prone to selfishness evicts its
tenant and makes room for the occupancy of hea-
venly visitants.
The man who seeks for this world's got)ds ex-
clusively, whose chief possession is a bank-account,
will find himself out of place in heaven — a stranger
in a strange land.
166
THE BEST THING TO DU. 1 67
Money is a good thing to work for, but it is not
the only thing, nor the best thing.
It is not well to despise money, but you should
remember that while it will purchase much that is
desirable it will buy neither character nor happi-
ness. Unless you generously share it with those
who are unfortunate it will make you narrow and
mean.
The most pitiful spectacle that eye ever looked
upon is the man who has more than he knows
what to do with, but refuses to give his surplus to
keep the wolf away from the door across the
street.
The noblest men are those who give, not those
who keep, and there is more satisfaction in seeing
a poor man's children eat the bread which you
have furnished than in sitting at your own table
when plenty abounds, if you ignore the poor man's
children and let them go hungry.
True religion is a very simple matter. You can
get along without a creed, but you cannot get
along without doing good to your fellow-creatures
who need your help.
The world is full of sorrows and struggles.
Tears fall like showers and sighs fill the air as
1 68 HERALD SERMONS.
when the wind sweeps through a forest of pines.
Those who suffer are part of the family to which
you belong. You have no right to be indifferent.
To be neglectful is a crime. If you can lend a
helping hand, but refuse to do it on the ground
that you wish to use both hands for yourself, you
lose an opportunity which Providence has pre-
sented, and you will have difficulty in explaining
your conduct when the hour of reckoning comes.
Doing good to others is the best way to get a
blessing for yourself.
You will find the strongest proofs that the reli-
gion you believe in is from God if you will cease
studying the theology which is in books and de-
vote an equal time to God's poor in your neigh-
borhood.
When a man gives cheer to another's heart the
angels mysteriously put cheer into his own.
It is right and proper to pray, " Gi\e' us this
day our daily bread," but God asks a price for His
answer, and that price is that you shall give some
one else a share of the bread He gives to you.
If you are suffering from an affliction what will
you do? How shall you seek relief? By asking
God to lighten your burden? No; by doing what
THE BEST THING TO DO. 1 69
you can to lighten the burden of some equally
troubled soul. If you bring a smile to the trem-
bling lips of another, you will soon discover that a
smile is alighting on your own lips, like a butterfly
on a flower.
Would you increase your faith ? Would you
dissipate your doubts? Would you convince your-
self that life is very well worth living, even when
the shadows throw their gloom on your path?
Then visit those who are wearily plodding along,
hopeless and friendless.
You will find yourself stronger by forgetting
yourself and saying a kindly word to some poor
creature who would think he was in heavenly sur-
roundings if he lived under your roof and enjoyed
your advantages.
When you are in the presence of the Lord, who
was Himself poor and oppressed, and so lonely
that He knelt in Gethsemane to ask for help, you
will be poorly off if you have nothing better to
say than that you accepted all the creeds of the
church and kept yourself unspotted from the
world. But you will be well off if you can assure
Him that you kept some one else unspotted from
the world at great pains and sacrifice.
I/O HERALD SERMONS.
Love God, love your neiL^hbor, obey tlie com-
mand, " Feed My lambs," and y(3u will get a warm
welcome at the end of the journey after death.
It is not what \'()u believe, but what you do,
that will entitle you to a re.sidence in the New
Jerusalem.
You may be worth a million, but if you have
done nothini^ to make the world better you will
die a beggar.
You may be counted among the poor, but if you
have been a brother to your fellow-men a group of
angels will gather about your bed and usher you
with songs into the presence of Him who said,
"The first shall be last, and the last first."
No one ever yet loved God acceptably who did
not love His children.
There is no room in the House not built with
hands for a soul that has not made some sacrifice
for others.
If you love your kind and manifest that love
by generous deeds it will be but a step from your
grave to heaven.
SEARCHING AFTER GOD.
" In the beginning, God." — Gen. i. i.
It is a very great convenience, from an intel-
lectual point of view, to believe in God. It is so
much easier to account for what is going on in the
universe by assuming His existence than it is by
having only chance and accident to deal with.
It is also very comforting, from a spiritual point
of view, to feel sure that behind the tangle of life
is One who sees it all as our blind eyes cannot,
and who has so arranged matters that even tangles
subserve a noble purpose.
Tears and struggles that are the result of acci-
dent are bitter tears and terrible struggles, but the
struggles which are a preliminary to high achieve-
ment and the tears which enable the sun to paint
a rainbow on our sky are ennobling.
A man may weep and still be glad if God's
providence is guiding his destiny, and a man may
171
1/2 HERALD SERMONS.
laugh and still be wretched if his only religion is
a defiance of fate.
If it is a convenience and a comfort to believe,
may we also declare that our faith is based on in-
vincible reasoning? Can we logicall)- find our
way from the plan which is e\erywhere manifest
to the throne on which sits the Planner?
Let us ask science to come to our aid. Some
years ago De Perthes, while exploring the excava-
tions made by his workmen, came across a few
pieces of flint that had assumed the shape of
arrow-heads. After careful search he found
more flint of the same kind. His method of
reasoning was \ery simple. He said: "These
are true arrow-heads. It is impossible to be
mistaken. They did not come to this particular
spot by accident, nor did they take that special
shape by chance. It is perfectly safe to assert
that they were at some time in the past ham-
mered into arrow-heads by a man who went to
work with that purpose in view." De Perthes
would have risked his reputation on the truth of
that statement, and the whole scientific world would
have declared that he was justified in doing so.
The process of reasoning was entirely sound.
SEARCHING AFTER GOD. 1 73
The explorer was no more certain that the sun
rose that morning than that flint cannot repeat-
edly take the exact shape of an arrow-head unless
there is a man behind the flint with a hammer in
his hand and a distinct purpose in his mind.
May we not be permitted to use the same kind
of logic in theology, and need we be timid in de-
claring that this vast machinery and enginery of
earth and heaven must be the product of infinite
power in which infinite wisdom lies hidden?
Shall we hesitate to use the word "must" in its
most imperative sense ?
It is true that we cannot know all about God,
but is it not also true that we can know some-
thing about Him ? We are told of the Phrygian
Tantalus that he stood waist-deep in water, al-
ways trying to reach the fruit that was beyond
his grasp ; and every failure added to his remorse,
his mortification, and his unhappiness. Reverse
the picture, and you see what the Christian is do-
ing. He is forever reaching up for the secret of
God, but never quite grasps it ; and yet the
constant effort enlarges his soul and gives a sub-
lime dignity to his faith in both the present and
the future.
174 HERALD SERMONS.
The bird that wings its way over New York,
seekini^, by a divine instinct, the sunny south
when the coming frosts dri\'e him from the north-
ern zone, may have a very poor conception of
what is meant by tliis aggregated population, and
may be capable of knowing \ery little concerning
the intricacies of our government; but if that bird
were endowed with self-consciousness and imagi-
nation a single glimpse would suffice to convince
it that the city exists and that something beyond
its ken is being done by the people who live in it.
We cannot measure God, neither can we under-
stand Him. He is hidden from us by the blind-
ing mists of time and the equally blinding light of
eternity. And yet there have been moments in
your life when through the mists the finger-tips
of an outstretched hand ha\-e pressed your fore-
head, and you have been forced to believe that
behind the finger-tips was an Arm, and behind the
arm a Form, and within the Form a heart of love.
The man who has never had that experience and
never reasoned in this way must be a strange sort
of creature. We have repeated to ourselves the
words, " Mine heart suspects more than mine eye
can sec," and felt secure in our faith.
SEARCHINC AFTER GOD. 1 75
Your search for God is like the ascent of Mont
Blanc. Your weary feet plod along the narrow
path, and you vainly hope to greet the rising
sun from the ice-field that is above the clouds.
The shadows of evening fall, darkness settles on
the earth, and with your utmost effort you have
only reached the little inn half-way to the sum-
mit. As you stand in the doorway and see the
last violet rays reflected on the mirror of ice up
yonder, are you disappointed because you have
not accomplished all you hoped for ? Can you
say you know nothing of Mont Blanc? The
struggle has given you an additional self-respect
and filled you with a larger admiration of that
royal peak.
In like manner the mysteries of God stretch far
away to the stars. You would know much, and
find that you can know but little. You climb,
the unseen Hand in the mists guiding your falter-
ing footsteps, and when the shadows deepen and
your life has come to its close you humbly de-
clare that the secret is beyond your reach. But
you believe, for you have felt the finger-tips of
His hand, and the effort to know Him has made
you know yourself.
176 HERALD SERMONS.
There is time enough in which to continue the
search, for beyond the grave your opportunities
will be greater and your faith will change to sight.
After the night cometh the morning, and then we
shall know more.
WHEN WE COME AND WHEN
WE GO.
" For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we
can carry nothing out." — I Tim. vi. 7.
If this statement concerning the two '* noth-
ings," one at the cradle and the other at the
gra\-e, were isolated from the context we should
boldly assert that St. Paul was mistaken. It is
entirely clear that we bring a great deal into this
world and that we carry a great deal out of it.
Unless we bring something w^e have no tools with
which to accomplish the task that the Almighty
has set us ; unless we take something with us it
would be manifestly unfair either to reward or
condemn, for the condemnation and the reward
must depend on what we have in our possession
when we stand at the bar of judgment.
St. Paul, however, explains himself when he re-
fers with great severity of rhetoric to a class of
people who are under the delusion that '' gain is
177
178 HERALD SERMONS.
godliness," and his injunction, *' From such with-
draw thyself," is a warning not to spend too much
time in gathering what you must leave behind,
and too little in acquiring what you may take
with you when you depart.
In other words, the object of revelation is to
teach a man the difference between the riches
which he must leave to his heirs and assigns and
the wealth of character which is his inalienable
possession, an integral part of himself both here
and hereafter.
Death makes every man financially bankrupt.
The moment he dies he becomes poor. There is
nothing in the Beyond which he can purchase
with cash. No shroud, therefore, has a pocket.
The gold from no mine, the money from no mint,
passes current in heaven. The angels carry no
purses, and the jingle of coin is never heard.
You will not get what you want by paying for it,
neither will you lack what you need because you
have no money. What you have and what you
lack will depend wholly on your deserving.
It is very interesting, then, to discuss the two
questions, What did we bring into this world?
and. What can we carry out of it? for the answer
WHEN WE COME AND WHEN WE GO. 1 79
enables us to formulate that policy of action which
will produce the best results.
The wise man will spend his greatest efforts in
acquiring what he can keep, and it is folly to ex-
haust yourself in working for what Death will dis-
dainfully tell you cannot be transported.
The purpose of religion is to inspire you with
sound and broad ideas on this subject, to restrain
you from wasting your efforts on matters of little
moment. Religion and common sense, therefore,
or, to put it still more forcibly, religion and the
highest philosophy, are one and the same thing.
First, we brought our bodies into this world.
This is of no special consequence, because we
need them only while we are here and shall leave
them in the grave when we go hence. The church
has an odd theory that we shall take them with
us, but it is to be hoped that this is an error. It
is certainly a very undesirable thing to look for-
ward to. By the time we get through with them
they will be pretty well worn out. The body is
only the soul's raiment, and when we reach heaven
we shall need a change.
Second, we came into this world a bundle of
undeveloped faculties. A child is a fagot of pos-
l80 HERALD SERMONS.
sibilities. Not what he is, but what he may be-
come, gives him interest and value. We do not
care so much for his environment as for what he
will make out of it. His natural qualities are sim-
ply an unopened chest of tools, and the experi-
ences through which he will pass are the material
out of which he is to make something.
He may be born in a palace or he may be born
in a hovel ; these are mere accidents or incidents.
With our false notions of good and ill fortune we
exaggerate the importance of surroundings, but
the eternal truth is that surroundings are of very
little consequence.
A daily laborer can make as much out of his
soul as his employer can make out of his. Neither
riches nor poverty impede spiritual progress. One
can be as noble in two humble rooms as in the
costly mansion, for whether you are in the one
or the other the same events happen to you, and
they must be controlled by the same qualities of
character.
Sorrow is sorrow wherever you find it, and no
bank-account can purchase immunit}'. A grave
is a gra\e, whether there is a costh' mf)nunient
above it or onlv a headstone of marble. When
WHEN WE COME AND W^HEN WE GO. l8l
you reckon with actual experiences you discover
they are independent of wealth or poverty and
come to all alike ; and when you look at the hearts
of men you find the same measure of human na-
ture in them all.
Now, when we take our departure, what shall
we carry with us ?
Death is a terrible democrat. When he comes
he takes no note of where or how you have lived.
He ignores all class distinctions with a kind of
contempt. He does not care whether your body
is clothed in fine linen or in rags. He has been
sent for your soul, your naked soul, pure or im-
pure, and that alone will he take with him. He
strips your environment from you as you would
throw aside a tattered garment. The only thing
he will allow you to carry — absolutely the only
thing — is your character.
When you reach heaven you are what you are
— neither more nor less — and your surroundings
in this life are of no account whatever. If you
have done well then you will have reason to be
satisfied ; if you have done ill you will see that
you have made a mistake. That is the stern and
relentless truth of the case.
l82 HERALD SERMONS.
When we came into the world we brought a
great possibiHty. When we leave it we shall carry
the record of what we have done, and whether
that is to be little or much depends entirely upon
ourselves.
HOW TO BEAR BURDENS.
And He bearing His cross went forth." — John xix. 17.
The heart knoweth his own bitterness." — Prov. xiv. 10.
A CROSS is part of the household furniture of
every family. It is the decree of Providence that
it shall be so. It would be very strange if you
could find an exception to the rule.
There are many sweets in life, but there was
never yet a heart that had no bitterness. There
are pages in every book which are never read ex-
cept by ourselves and One other. The rest of
the volume is open to our friends and to the
world. God and we have many secrets which are
not confided to a third party. He understands
us ; no one else can. That is a peculiarity of our
human Hfe.
And fortunate it is that the veil which covers
our hearts cannot be lifted. If we could see all
that our neighbors suffer, and they could see what
we suffer, the revelation would be very painful,
183
1 84 HERALD SERMONS.
and life would have an added agony. We are
graciously permitted, therefore, to have a place of
concealment where we keep our special disappoint-
ments and our private griefs, the key to which is
never lost or mislaid.
The true and noble make the best of life, and
refuse to increase another's sorrow by the recital
of their own. Small souls, like babbling brooks,
tell everything as they go ; but souls that see the
plan of God tell all to Him alone and find a cer-
tain comfort in their reticence toward others.
The degree of happiness we enjoy, therefore,
depends largely on ourselves. Our environment
has less to do with happiness than we think. The
important question is whether we have the neces-
sary elements within the heart, and if that is de-
cided in the affirmative it makes but little differ-
ence what our surroundings are.
It is hard to believe this, for we are living in an
age of show and sham and display. In the deca-
logue of modern .society the first law reads, Thou
shalt worship no other god but gold. We spend
our lives in a scramble for cash, and prove that we
have succeeded by an exhibition which is little
less than a personal advertisement, and the ob-
HOW TO BEAR BURDENS. 1 85
ject of which is to excite envy and stimulate
avarice.
But we are making a colossal blunder. Happi-
ness comes not from the pocket but from the heart.
It cannot be created by wealth nor destroyed by
poverty. Where love is there is contentment, and
when love is perfect mere surroundings are re-
garded with something like disdain. It is when
the heart is not satisfied that the nature of the
environment assumes undue importance. Two
rooms will do, if nothing better can be had, when
love would build a home ; but a palace is too small
when the heart is aching. A rag-carpet on the floor
and a single flower in blossom on the window-sill,
if contentment sits at your fireside, are better than
splendor, with distrust or suspicion as your guest.
Here, then, you have two facts which you must
meet :
First, there is no life that is not burdened with
a grief. It is a hopeless task to search for one,
for it will never be found. This grief may come
in any one of a thousand shapes, but in some shape
it comes to all of us. Its mission is to teach us
that there is One who is wiser than we, and to
search until we find Him.
1 86 HERALD SERMONS.
There is nothing in all the world that draws us
to heaven so gently and yet so irresistibly as the
sense of helplessness. Make life a round of plea-
sure, and the Lord's Prayer would never be uttered.
But the smitten soul seeks shelter, as the frightened
child rushes into its mother's arms. We may not
understand why this is so, but true it is that the
best elements of human character have been de-
veloped by sorrow rather than success.
Second, the happiness of life must greatly come
from the way you look at life. If you jot down
the things you want but cannot have it is easy to
make yourself miserable. You can be envious
until you become morbid and melancholy. If you
believe that in being poor or afflicted you have
been robbed of your rights no ray of sunshine will
fall on your pathway.
A man may look at nature through smoked
glass, and he can use smoked glass when looking
at himself and his surroundings. Do but reckon
your blessings instead of your miseries, and you
halve the weight you carry. Form the habit of
looking for a silver lining to every cloud, and the
cloud itself will seem less dark. Some can be
HOW TO BEAR BURDENS. 1 87
happy with a farthing candle, while others mourn
under the glare of an electric light.
And religion comforts and consoles because it
furnishes a cheerful view of every change that
comes. There is no hard-fisted and relentless
Fate, but a Father in the upper air. It is not
chance that robs us of the loved one, but Pro\'i-
dence, which does what is best whether we will or
no. Slender means are not the synonym of mis-
ery, for this world's goods are not to be compared
with the other world's goods. You may have the
earth and yet have nothing; but if you have
heaven you have everything, and no man can take
it away.
Therefore recognize the fact that you are to
have disappointments and sorrows, but make the
best of them, and speak of them only to your best
Friend.
Believe that there is light even in darkness, and
look for it until you find it. Make your life great
and noble by making your soul noble and great.
Then you will be glad that you have lived, and
many will be sorry when you go.
X.
ONE FOLD AND ONE SHEPHERD.
" And other sheep I have, which are not of tliis fold." — Jolin
1 6.
Denominational pride is another name for
religious weakness, and is proof of a small nature.
A broad and generous man is in sympathy with
all the sects of Christendom, and would not im-
pose the form of worship which he personally pre-
fers on any one, but insists that each man shall
believe what he pleases, provided it results in an
honest life.
God will never ask what special religious body
you belonged to, but whether your faith made
you a good citizen, a good father, a good friend,
and a good man. There are no sectarians in
heaven ; they are all lovers of the noble and the
true in every clime and in every system of religion
known to struggling humanity. A Methodist or
an Episcopalian or a Baptist angel cannot be found
in the New Jerusalem.
i88
ONE FOLD AND ONE SHEPHERD. 1 89
The various sects which are scattered over the
earth are simply so many ladders by which the
people climb to the upper regions. The foot of
each ladder is on the ground, while the other end
rests firmly against the Throne. When we die we
shall leave the ladders behind, because they will
have achieved their purpose and we can have no
further use for them.
The path by which you reach the top of a
mountain is of no consequence whatever, and if
your neighbor chooses to get there in some other
way you are very ungracious if you denounce him
for exercising his own judgment instead of follow-
ing yours. His brains belong to him and your
brains belong to you. You may do as you please
and he may do as he pleases. If his eyes are
fixed on the summit, and he is doing what he can
to attain it, God will certainly regard him with
favor, and you should do no less. The bigot can
see only one way, and that is his own way. He
lacks a very important element of character be-
cause he is not large enough to understand that
different temperaments require different incentives,
and that what is good for one may possibly be
bad for another.
I90 IIKKALD SERMONS.
There is altogether too httlc charity in the world
for those who do not find it easy to see things just
as we see them. There are a thousand ways to
do pretty nearly everything that is worth doing,
and one way is as good as another. To call this
man a heretic because he has his individual method
of solving the puzzle of life, and that man ortho-
dox because he happens to think as you do, is
both unwise and unchristian.
If you have a well-developed soul you can wor-
ship in any church that was ever built, or you can
worship without any church at all. He is a poor
kind of creature who is so prejudiced that he cannot
find words with w^hich to tell the Lord how grate-
ful he is, whether he sits in a Quaker meeting-
house or a Catholic cathedral.
It is not the building, but the idea which it rep-
resents, that is important. It is of no consequence
whatever that the clergyman wears a surplice or
does not wear one ; that the service is character-
ized by pomp and ceremony or conducted without
these auxiliaries ; that the edifice is the exponent
of ecclesiastical architecture or only a barn in the
backwoods. If you get the idea you get all )'ou
need and all vou can ask for. If vou are smitten
OXE FOLD AND ONE SHEPHERD. I9I
with remorse because your record has blots and
smutches on it the mere robes of the priest who
thus smites you will count for nothing; and if you
resolve to lead a life of integrity the preacher has
accomplished the task which the Lord Almighty
gave him, whether he is a Methodist or a Baptist.
The object of the church is not to make a man
a sectarian, but to make him loyal to the truth.
At least that should be its object, and if it achieves
that object, the fact that it belongs to this or that
or the other denomination is not worth a second
thought.
You should believe in something, and that some-
thing should furnish you with noble impulses, with
charity for your fellow-men, with pity for the un-
fortunate, and with a desire to do all that lies in
your power to make this old world better because
you have lived in it. That much of a creed is
absolutely necessary, and when you have that
much you want no more. It will give you work
enough to keep you busy until Death knocks at
the door and sends you word that you are wanted
somewhere.
A few convictions hammered out of your own
sense of dependence, and the consciousness of your
192 HERALD SERMONS.
daily need to be watched over and guided by the
invisible beings who ** walk the earth both when
we wake and when we sleep," will serve you bet-
ter than all the theology that was ever printed in
books.
If you think that one sect serves your purpose
better than any other, join it by all means ; but be
careful that you do not worship the ladder up which
you climb instead of the heaven against which the
upper end of tJie ladder rests. And, above all,
don't criticize your neighbor because he is made
of different stuff and chooses to get to heaven in
some other way. If that neighbor is an honorable
man and is doing the best his circumstances allow,
give him your good wishes even if he goes to some
other church than your own. And if he prefers
to say his prayers at home or in the woods or in
any of the other temples of God, still give him a
helping hand and do not insult him because he
cannot think as you do, or insult the Almighty
because He made that man to do just as he is
doing.
You cannot prescribe a diet that shall be equally
beneficial to all. W^hen you spread your banquet
allow each guest to take what suits him. That is
the only true hospitality. If a man has any reli-
gion at all do not ask him what kind it is and sneer
at him because it is not your kind, but be grateful
because he and you are trying to get to the same
place, though he takes one road and you another.
FALSE IDEAS OF SALVATION.
" He tliat findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his
life for My sake shall find it." — Matt. x. 39.
It is very tiresome to be constantly told that
the chief purpose in life is to save your soul.
There is a kind of subtle and poisonous selfish-
ness in having reference to your own salvation in
everything you do.
There can be as much selfishness in spiritual
concerns as in worldly matters, and it is equally
bad in both.
The religion which teaches you to save others
is a great deal better than the religion which
prompts you to save yourself.
If you do your duty you can trust your salva-
tion to God and not give a thought to it.
The largest and broadest question for you to
consider is not whether you will be all right in the
future, but whether other people will be all right.
If you concern yourself with lending a helping
194
FALSE IDEAS OF SALVATION. 1 95
hand to all who are in trouble, you need not waste
any time in wondering what will become of you
after the judgment- day.
The man who on that occasion can honestly
say, " Lord, I was too busy in saving others to
think much about my own soul," will find himself
in the best possible frame of mind to enjoy the
peculiar pleasures of Paradise.
A person may be just as mean in the use he
makes of religion as another person is in his use
of the opportunities of financial success, and mean-
ness is simply meanness, and therefore contemp-
tible, in whatever department of life it makes itself
manifest.
Here, for example, is an avaricious creature who
is planning and plotting to get all the dollars that
are within reach into his own pocket. He is not
particular about the means he employs, if only his
bank-account grows bigger and he is able to sur-
round himself with all the comforts and luxuries
which money can buy.
He contemplates the result of his labors with
serene satisfaction and never gives either eye or
ear to the misery which fills the world so full.
He has enough to eat, and it matters little whether
196 HERALD SERMOxXS.
Others starve or not. He has a surplus which he
does not need, but he never dreams of parting
with it to charity or education. He lives in the
attitude of grasping, and his sleep is not disturbed
by the moans of wretchedness, the sighs of despair,
or the sobbing of bereavement. He has saved
himself, so far as this world is concerned, and as
for the rest of mankind they may sink or swim for
aught he cares.
We see these statements illustrated on every
hand. The money of trade flows in some direc-
tions in wide and deep channels, and does not flow
in other directions at all. The rich are reservoirs
holding more than they can use, but it seldom
happens that they lay a conduit from their reser-
voir to some college or charitable institution, to
supply it with whatever will make it efi"ective.
The tendency of human nature is to keep what it
has, even when it has more than it needs, and to
become indiff"erent to any moral obligation to as-
sist the poor and unfortunate.
The pulpit denounces that kind of selfishness as
beneath the dignity of manliness and honor, and
is quite right in its criticisms. But we are inclined
to think that religion may be as much a perversion
FALSE IDEAS OF SALVATION. 1 97
as avarice. If it teaches you to pray for yourself
instead of working for others ; if you are indiffer-
ent to the wrongs from which mankind suffer; if
you have never spent your time and energy to
reclaim some one who has strayed in forbidden
paths, you may possibly have a religion that is
better than nothing, but you have not the kind
of religion which Christ came to reveal.
No soul will be saved in the future world which
has not tried to save some other soul besides itself
in this world.
If the rich man who spends his money on him-
self is deserving of censure, so also is the religious
man who hopes to get to heaven whether other
people get there or not.
Do not fret about your personal salvation. Put
the matter out of your mind as of no particular
consequence. You will go where you belong.
Nothing can interfere with that law of spiritual
gravitation. It will be utterly impossible for you
to get into the wrong place, for your deserts will
either lift you up by their buoyancy or sink you
down by their weight. If you have heavenly qual-
ities of character you will assuredly go to heaven,
and if 3/ou have not you will never get there.
198 HERALD SERMONS.
What you are to seek, therefore, is the qualities
of character and not your salvation. Do what is
right by yourself; do what is right for others; live
honorably and help your neighbors to live in the
same way ; smite evil and encourage truth ; be the
chivalrous friend of the defenseless and oppressed;
give according to your means to those who have
been overtaken by ill fortune ; leave behind you
a record of integrity and uprightness, and when
you begin your flight into the future you will take
as straight a path to the throne of God as the
homing pigeon does to its distant cote.
When you pray, pray for the ability and the
opportunity to be of service to your fellow-man,
for in that way alone can you become truly great.
The man on a wreck who swims ashore on the
sly and leaves his comrades in the lurch is a very
cowardly sort of fellow, and the man who embraces
religion because it will help him to get away from
eternal fire, and who does not care whether others
burn or not, has a very slender chance of winning
the approval of Him who is Father to all His chil-
dren alike. But if you can say, " I loved others,"
He will surely say in reply, " Therefore I love
you."
AN AGE OF RELIGIOUS INQUIRY.
" But the greatest of these is charily." — i Cor. xiii. 13.
The future historian, now in his swaddling-
clothes, will find himself very much interested in
this last half of the nineteenth century and pro-
nounce it unique in many important particulars.
In the matter of material development it is a
marvel, and in the matter of spiritual research it
holds a position of unrivaled excellence.
The laws of nature have been lassoed, tamed,
and broken to harness. Th'e resources of steam,
which our grandfathers explored, which made them
feel that they had stumbled on a series of miracles,
and which changed the complexion of the world's
commerce, forcing our white-winged fleet of sail-
ing-vessels to come to anchor and give way to the
magician who hid himself in the bunker of anthra-
cite coal — these resources are well-nigh exhausted.
The winds as a propelling power have become ob-
199
200 HERALD SERMONS.
solete, have taken their place among the genii, the
myths, the superstitions of the past. Steam is
striking its tents and will soon fall into innocuous
desuetude. Our needs have grown so pressing
that it can no longer supply them. During the
next fifty years it will become a reminiscence.
The electric spark is to be the working energy of
the twentieth century. It has just crossed our
threshold with letters of introduction from stu-
dents of scientific prestidigitation, and we have
only had time to look at its face and its stature
and to note its aggressive bearing ; but it would
not be strange if it were to achieve wonders which
our children's children will regard with awe and
admiration.
The world is not loitering ; it is taking long
strides. One wishes to live while these strange
things are happening, for to die just now is like
leaving the theater when the play is half finished.
But no less marvelous are the spiritual signs of
the times. It might be safely asserted that there
never was an age of such religious fervor as this.
We are not optimists, but impartial critics, when
we say that the average man is more interested in
finding out whether or no he has a soul, and, if so,
AN AGE OF RELIGIOUS INQUIRY. 20I
what is to become of it, than ever before. The
largest hall in New York can be readily filled if
the subject discussed is the certainty of two worlds
and the possibility of communication between them.
The observer of current opinion is amazed at the
attractive quality of these and similar topics, and is
forced to the conclusion that the general appetite
for information concerning the future has become
almost abnormally whetted. In some respects it
is the most devout and the most reverently inquisi-
tive age of which history bears record. Skepticism
veils its face because it is impotent; ridicule sneers
in private, but seldom openly ; sarcasm has discov-
ered that the edge of its sword is dulled. Right
or wrong, pleased with fables or not, this teased
and fretted world is looking anxiously for some
liglit which the pulpits of Christendom do not as
yet furnish. The greed for facts concerning to-
morrow, and the solicitude with which men and
women watch for them, are so pathetic that they
are almost tragic.
Accompanying this new phase of life is an in-
difference to theology and to conventional wor-
ship. Preachers are not apparently aware of the
changes that are taking place in the public mind.
202 HERALD SERMONS.
They wonder why their pews are not filled, and
attribute it to the indifference of the people to
spiritual things. But when two tables are spread,
one with food that satisfies, the other with food
that fails to do so, it is not surprising that the
hungry go where they can get what they want;
and it is mere blindness for the preacher to declare
that no one is hungry because no one asks for the
food he provides. There is no love of theology,
no reverence for creeds, in this generation, but
there is a longing for information on the subjects
indicated. And if the clergyman insists on theo-
logical discussion he simply imperils his usefulness.
The* new thought is not always wise, and fre-
quently it is marked by recklessness and a want of
common sense. What is called spiritualism and
theosophy and Christian science and a score of
other names is simply a cry for help. We may
not accept any one of the theories which are advo-
cated, we may find fault with them all as being
partly alluring and partly hideous — that is a matter
of small consequence. Watch the patient crowds
that attend meetings where such subjects are
treated and you will soon discover that a great
religious revolution is in silent progress. That
fact is one to which a thoughtful man must give
AN AGE OF RELIGIONS INQUIRY. 203
His attention, for it constitutes a sign of the times
which no critic can afford to ignore.
It is not prudent to be overhasty in judgment.
The wise man has no prejudices. What he thinks
is wrong may turn out to be right, and charity
will save him many a pang. This is a large world,
and its mysteries are as yet unsolved. You have
no right to say, " Believe as I do." That is tyr-
anny and folly. There are other brains besides
yours, and probably as good as yours.
If men are searching for truth in any direction
encourage them. To have a desire to know the
truth is itself elevating and ennobling, and if they
have taken the wrong road they will find it out
and return. If crowds like to hear a discourse on
the destiny of the soul let them gather in what-
ever numbers they please. Ring the bells for
them, even though you do not go yourself. Call
it theosophy or what not — who cares if men are
helped by it? Don't drink unless you are thirsty;
but it is not necessary to grumble at others who
are thirsty and therefore drink. Go your way
with your own thoughts, but do not forget that
your neighbor has the same right to go his way
with his thoughts.
But the greatest of these is charity.
SCIENXE AND THE SOUL.
" Our Saviour Jesus Clirist, who hath abolished death, and hath
brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." —
2 Tim. i. lo.
This is an intense statement. Death has been
abolished, or rather all fear of death, by assuring
men that their narrow existence on the earth is
the beginning rather than the end of the soul's
career. When the fact of immortality is brought
into radiant prominence all the motives which
govern us in this life are changed by being en-
nobled. We are not to work with the grave in
view, but with the knowledge that heaven is just
below the horizon. There is a kind of spiritual
legerdemain in such a conviction. We suddenly
become disrobed of our peasant's garb and are
clothed in the raiment of princes.
When an old and grim Norse chieftain lay dying
the priest asked him, among other things, if he
could forgive his enemies. He feebly replied, " I
204
SCIENCE AND THE SOUL. 205
have no enemies; I have killed them all." The
holy father was astounded, and sought an expla-
nation. The sufferer whispered, " I have killed my
enemies by changing them into friends."
In like manner Death has been abolished, for he
is no longer the grave-digger of the race, but the
sentinel who stands with his hand on the door of
another hfe, ready to open it when the summons
comes to each of us in turn.
But if we close the Bible and seek for cheering
arguments elsewhere, they are not difficult to find.
Science very reverently corroborates the assertions
of the text, and does it without hesitation or men-
tal reservation. It ought to be so, and therefore
it is so, for if there is a God's world and a God's
Word, the two may not contradict each other if
rightly interpreted. When science speaks, then
revelation must needs cry Amen ! And when rev-
elation speaks, science must nod its head in ap-
proval.
In the matter of immortality the W^ord and the
world teach the same lesson. For example. Pro-
fessor Young, of Princeton, tells us some startling
and suggestive truths about the solar system, its
duration and its probable destiny. There seems
2o6 HERALD SERMONS.
to be no doubt among astronomers that the sun is
gradually cooling and that its shrinkage is about
two hundred and fifty feet each year. Since the
diameter of that body is more than eight hundred
and fifty thousand miles this slight shrinkage seems
of no consequence. It is not the rate of shrink-
age, though, but the fact of shrinkage, which we
are to consider ; for however slow the process of
decay may be, it still remains certain that at some
time in the future the fire in the sun will go out,
and when that event occurs the whole dependent
system of worlds, from Mercury to Neptune, will
go out with it.
Professor Young is very conservative in his esti-
mate of duration, but he says that if we can as-
sume the truth of certain statements, which it
would be difficult to deny, it is safe to conclude
" that the sun's past histor\- must cover some fif-
teen or twenty million years." Then, turning to
the future, he adds that at the present rate of ra-
diation " the sun must within fi\'e or ten million
years " become so changed that " life on the earth
as we now know life would probably be impos-
sible."
Now we approach the argument in which we
SCIENCE AND THE SOUL. 20/
are all interested. It is clear " that the present
system of stars and worlds is not an eternal one.
If we carry our imagination backward we reach at
last a beginning of things which has no intelligible
antecedent ; if forward, an end of things in stag-
nation. That by some process or other this end
of things will result in ' a new heavens and a new
earth ' we can hardly doubt, but science has as
yet no word of explanation."'
That is to say, matter, energy, cannot be annihi-
lated. The fashion of them may be altered, but
destruction is impossible. The solar system may
go to pieces, and certainly will do so, but its con-
stituent elements will continue, and at some time
or other will be gathered together again in the for-
mation of " a new heavens and a new earth."
Can it be true, then, that the physical world
may have a death and a resurrection, but for the
spiritual energies of the human race there is to be
neither a new heavens nor a new earth ? Matter
cannot be destroyed, but mind will be? The clod
of earth by the roadside is guarded by eternal law
' — so jealously guarded that not an inhering ele-
ment, however disguised, can suffer extinction. It
may cease to be visible and hide itself from detec-
208 HERALD SERMONS.
tion, but it exists in its entirety and will in the
future find its place and continue.
Is it scientifically logical that all these subtle
powers, aspirations, emotions, which constitute what
we call the soul, are so nearly worthless that they
count for nothing and may be dispensed with? Is
the spirit of man the anomaly of the universe and
will it die when all the rest of creation rushes on
to a higher level of existence ? Has a cobblestone
or a cloud or a stroke of lightning so great an ad-
vantage over a man? Shall we go into darkness,
while everything else goes into light? Can it be
that the house in which we are living is eternal,
but the resident who occupies the house is mortal?
That would hardly seem consistent with the
divine order of things. The logic of the situation
allows of no discrimination against that nobler
form of energy which consciously hopes for im-
mortality while other forms which are unconscious
shall blindly live forever.
Science and revelation are at one on this point.
They both declare that the soul continues after
these few short years are told, and they announce
" a new heavens and a new earth " for man as well
as matter.
WHICH CHURCH IS CHRIST'S?
" But I fear, lest ... by any means your minds should be
corrupted from the smiplicity that is in Christ." — 2 Cor. xi. 3.
St. Paul was a careful student of human na-
ture. He was scholar, critic, man of the world,
and knightly defender of what he believed to be
the truth.
When forecasting the future of the church at
Corinth, he dreaded the tendency, everywhere
prevalent, to depart from the simplicity of the
gospel and change the new religion into a kind
of philosophic theory which would open the door
to all sorts of disputations. Against that ten-
dency he warns his followers in this remarkable
epistle.
If we had preserved this simplicity which St.
Paul speaks of the Christian church would be the
strongest force in the world to-day. But we
have sadly departed from it, and the moral influ-
ence of the church has correspondingly decreased.
209
2IO HERALD SERMONS.
Churches are not for tlie people, but for the
classes — an expensive edifice in which the wealthy
may pray to their Father, and cheap churches in
which the poor may pray to theirs.
The line is drawn as tightly between the rich
and the poor in religion as in society. It is al-
most impossible to say of any church that it was
built for the people — that is, for whomsoever may
see fit to worship in it. The clergy will tell you
that this is not true, but the experience of e\-ery
poor man who would kneel by the side of his rich
neighbor in a costly edifice proves that it is true,
for his welcome is lukewarm, if not forbidding.
Religion is apt to keep one eye on the gospel and
the other on the wealthy members of the congre-
gation. That which St. Paul feared has come to
pass, and men have been " corrupted from the
simplicity that is in Christ."
The Lord preached to all alike. Wealth was
as kindly treated as poverty, or, to state the fact
in other terms, Christ cared for neither wealth
nor poverty, but for souls. He had a word to
utter, a law to announce, a message to deliver,
and it was needed by the members of the sanhe-
drim as much as by the poor Magdalen who
^VHICIi CHURCH is christs? 211
crouched at His feet. Nothing could be more
simple, more beautiful, or more godlike than the
way in which He ignored social environment, both
that of the hut and that of the palace, and ap-
pealed to men as men. The open air was His
temple, the sands of the sea-shore were His pul-
pit, the multitude was His congregation. He
needed no choir to attract the people, no sur-
pliced assistants, no announcement of a popular
topic, none of the accessories which mark our
modern worship.
Besides, His only creed consisted of a belief in
the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of
man. These two statements, which are within
the comprehension of every creature on the globe,
are like the sources of the Mississippi and the
Amazon, whose floods irrigate whole continents
and so fertilize the soil that it cheerfully brings
forth crops for the sustenance of millions. Christ
demanded honest lives and honest aspirations,
pure hearts and truthful lips. If He rejected or
received any one, it was on the broad basis of the
saying, " He that is not with Me is against ]\Ie."
You could have been counted as His follower in
old Judea if you had simply believed that there is
212 HERALD SERMOXS.
a heaven above you, and a place for you there if
you will earn the right to it by loving your neigh-
bor as yourself. Nothing is more amazing than
the simplicity of Christ's teachings, unless it be
the manner in which they have been formulated
by ecclesiastical councils, with the apparent pur-
pose of excluding the large majority of mankind.
The question arises, therefore, and it is a very
serious question: If the Lord, accompanied by
His apostles, should revisit the earth, which of all
the churches in the land would they approve as
fairly representing His doctrine and divine pur-
pose? Would the exceeding pomp and ceremo-
nial which prevail be regarded as a corruption of
the simplicity of the gospel as delivered by Him
nineteen centuries ago? Is there any church of
which He would say, "This is wholly mine"? or
would He be so pained at the fashion and selfish-
ness and worldliness which are evident everywhere
that He would choose to preach at the street-
corner or on the open square ?
And if the apostles desired to become members
of a church, could they tolerate the long creeds
which would meet them at the threshold, or would
WHICH CHURCH IS CHRIST'S? 213
they rather say, " We love the Lord Jesus — that
is all He requires of us, and if it is not enough we
will go hence " ?
We do not impeach the motives of any one.
The pulpit is a great moral force and our churches
are the bulwark of society. We are unstinted in
our praise of what has been done, but we believe
that if Christians more fully represented the sim-
plicity of Christ, were more tolerant of each other,
gave a more generous welcome to the poor in-
stead of holding themselves aloof, broke down the
barriers of sectarianism, and vied with each other
in the noble rivalry of good works, the church
would be infinitely more efficient than it is, and
men would feel that it is '' guide, philosopher, and
friend." We make slender complaint, for we honor
the clergy, but there is no reason why the church
should not be as inclusive as Christ was, bidding
all alike to come to the feast, and taking no ac-
count of a man's wealth or poverty.
Such a church, with no other creed than can be
found in the Sermon on the Mount, would be built
on eternal foundations and become the leader of
the world in all good deeds. The indifference of
214 H?:RALr) SERMONS.
the community would change to enthusiasm, and
even the agnostic would doff his hat as he passed
the door and admit that its best vindication is
found in the fact that " by their fruits ye shall
know them."
THE BIBLE.
" But My Word shall not pass away." — Matt. xxiv. 35.
Ip^ for no other reason, we must needs give re-
spectful attention to the teachings of the Bible be-
cause they have stood the test of time and sur-
vived the adverse criticism of the ages.
If the law of the survival of the fittest holds
good in the domain of literature, then the ideas
which are still young and vigorous after eighteen
centuries would seem to be founded on eternal
truth.
It is safe to predict that the Bible will continue
to control the lives of men until we reach the
hither boundary of the millennium.
It has been an encouragement to the oppressed,
a warning to the wrong-doer, and a consolation to
the bereaved, and as long as oppression is to be
borne, as long as warnings are needed, as long as
human nature needs to be consoled in its sorrows,
so long will the Bible occupy its place in the house-
hold as an indispensable volume.
2l6 HERALD SERMONS.
It may contain chronological errors for aught
we know ; the authorship of its various parts may
be disputed ; we may shake our heads in doubt at
the record of miracles which it contains ; we may
stoutly deny its verbal inspiration, and refuse to
accept it as the direct and final Word of God to
the race — these matters are of minor consequence
and affect the value of the Book very little.
Agnostic and believer, thoughtful heathen and
devout Christian, however, must needs acknow-
ledge with one accord that it has occupied a promi-
nent place in the history of civilization, and that
not all the libraries of the planet can so entirely
fill its place that we can afford to throw that one
magnificent volume aside.
Take it as a whole, conform your life to its spir-
it, follow its injunctions, absorb its essential ele-
ments, accept its declaration that the unfettered
soul shall rise from the enthralment of bodily lim-
itations and join the company of the departed in
the land whose flowers never fade and whose joys
are never overshadowed by sorrow, and your years
will be a satisfaction to yourself and a benefit to
your fellows.
All that is beyond a peradventure. The state-
THE BIBLE. 21 7
ment has been proved true by a thousand times a
thousand experiments. It is too late to deny the
fact. Make the trial in your personal experience
and you will become an enthusiast in its defense.
The old Book holds its own just as a granite
headland does against which the waves of countless
storms have broken and only dashed themselves
into starry spray.
If you visit the Patent Office in Washington you
will observe three important facts : First, there
are models of machinery which has far outlived
the inventor, and if you ask why, the answer is
that it is still useful. Second, there are models
of contrivances which were useful for a time and
then became relics and curiosities. Third, there
are inventions which promised to be useful, but
utterly failed in their purpose. They were thought
by the inventor to be valuable, but when subjected
to a practical test were found to be useless and
were therefore discarded at once, and we have
never given them a second thought.
Here, then, is the inexorable and relentless law
— namely, that what is useful lives as long as it
remains useful, and not a moment longer, while
the useless raises its head above the water for an
2l8 HERALD SERMON'S.
instant only, and then sinks under the drowning
wave, never to reappear.
That law is applied with despotic energy. The
good remains ; the bad is lost sight of. Nothing
under heaven can keep an idea on the surface un-
less it rightfully belongs there, and it will hold its
position only so long as it is valuable to the com-
munity. Some books are like snowflakes on a
lake: they just touch the surface and then disap-
pear. If, however, a book, any book, keeps at the
front for twenty generations you may be perfectly
sure that there is a good reason for it.
We do not treat the Bible with respect because
the church tells us we must believe it to be the
Word of God, but because it helps us to be noble
men and women ; because it is a purifying and
elevating influence, and must therefore be, in some
sense, God's re\-elation to the world.
Treat the Bible in a broad and generous and
hospitable way. When you make a meal of fish
a few bigots may tell you that you should eat
bones and all. You exercise your common sense,
however, and neither eat the bones nor throw the
whole dish out of the window because some one
has a stupid theory about it. You know well
THE BIBLE. 219
enough that parts of the fish are palatable and
nutritious, and the narrowness of the bigot will not
make you choke yourself with the bones, nor will
the adverse criticism of the doubter persuade you
to go hungry.
Use the Bible as you do the fish. It is nour-
ishing, strengthening, and health- giving. Make it
your daily food, and if perchance you come across
a bone don't try to swallow it, but lay it aside and
go on with your meal.
Life is too short for argument, and sorrows are
so sharp that we cannot get on without consolation
if it can be found. Go where you will for com-
fort in your struggles, and God speed you in your
search ; but we doubt if you will find as much else-
where as in the blessed Book on which so many
sad heads have been pillowed, and in the promise
it contains that after life's fitful fever you shall
wake from sleep and be welcomed by greeting
dear ones who have waited for you and for whom
you have grieved these many long years.
CHRISTMAS DAY.
Little wonder that the Hebrews were disap-
pointed in the person and mission of Jesus, or
that they Hstened to Him with something of bit-
terness.
His crucifixion was the inevitable result of their
passionate patriotism. They longed for a master-
ful leader who would break the triumph of the
hated Roman, and were ready to spend life and
fortune to humble the Roman eagles; but they
found in the Nazarene nothing more than a sad-
eyed man who quenched their ardor by bidding
them love their enemies.
The stories that clustered about His birth were
well suited to excite high anticipations, for they
were a prophecy of great achievements. It was
a tradition that His coming would be unexpected,
that He was to be born of a virgin, that miracles
would attend His advent, and that Bethlehem
would be conspicuous as the royal birthplace.
CHRISTiMAS DAY. 221
The humility of that insignificant village was to
be encircled by a diadem.
When, therefore, the Preacher organized no
crusade, disdained all plans of conquest, found His
companionship among the peasantry, declared that
He was indeed the Messiah, but that His kingdom
was not of this world, a thrill of horror made the
proud nation's blood run cold and forced them to
proclaim Him an impostor. The shadow of Cal-
vary fell athwart His path at the beginning of His
ministry, when He uttered the words of the Ser-
mon on the Mount, and from that moment until
the cry went forth, ''It is finished! " He walked
along the rugged road of relentless martyrdom.
If we had been citizen merchants of Jerusalem,
or priests of the Temple, or among the seventy-
two senators who constituted the sanhedrim in
that age of military achievement, and had been
reared in the hope of deliverance from an ignomin-
ious yoke of tributary servitude, should we have
borne patiently the repulse of our aspirations, the
defeat of our lifelong hopes, or should we have
joined the turbulent crowd in the Via Dolorosa?
Should we have been far-sighted enough to see
that His divine ideas would in time prove to be
222 HERALD SERMONS.
Stronger than Roman swords, and that the triumph
of righteousness is grander than the triumph of
arms, or should we have witnessed the crucifixion
with the conviction that substantial justice had
been done to a pretender?
There is, by the way, a beautiful astronomical
fact — some would call it a fable — connected with
the star of Bethlehem. Near the little star Kappa,
in the constellation of Cassiopeia, was seen by
Tycho Brahe in 1572 a temporary brilliant which
for a while outshone every other star in the hea-
vens, not excepting Sirius itself. In a few months
it burned dimlv, and in a year and a half it disap-
peared and has never been .seen since. It is pos-
sible that the brilliant seen by Tycho may have a
periodicity somewhat exceeding three hundred
years. If we carry this periodical appearance
backward it is easily supposed that its apparition
may have occurred at the birth of Christ. It does
not require much imagination to connect it with
the Magi, who must have been astonished at its
appearance, and with the event that took place
when the angels sang their overture of peace and
good-will.
But however critics may differ about historic
CHRISTMAS DAY. 223
statements, there is a grateful agreement as to the
value of Christian philosophy. It illuminates this
life as the lantern in a lighthouse sends its rays
into surrounding darkness, and with the same be-
neficent purpose. Christianity is the radiance of
modern civilization. As the sun furnishes the
light of the physical world, so the cross illuminates
the present and dispels the mists of futurity. It
is possible to the believer to feel that death is a
friendly arm that lifts him to a higher level, and
that churchyards are the resting-places of souls on
their way to heaven.
If all this were a dream it would still be uplift-
ing. If it had no basis in the logical faculty, and
w^e were forced to repudiate it when we looked stern
facts in the face, it would still appeal to the nobler
elements of our nature, and urge us to wish that
it might be true. But when it is founded on the
best scholarship of all ages ; when it collects about
itself the profoundest thinkers of nineteen centu-
ries, who have made it the theme of eloquence
and song ; when, by its adaptability to the wants
of the race, it becomes the central impulse of a
public opinion more charitable, more kindly, and
more moral than has ever yet been known, we can
224 HERALD SERMONS.
hardly fail to usher in the day that marked its
advent with the ringing of bells and pa;ans of
praise.
Christmas Day is encircled by solemn injunc-
tions which fill life with hardy ambitions, and by
unspeakable promises which temper the sorrow of
bereavement and force the lips into a smile while
the eyes are dim wdth tears. We do well to set it
apart from the rest of the year and crown it with
evergreen.
A MAN AND A WOMAN.
" Male and female created He them." — Gen. i. 27.
There is no reason to suppose that in the
economy of nature the Almighty has given to
woman a place of inferior* importance to that oc-
cupied by man.
She was not miade to be his slave, but his equal ;
not merely to soothe him in his sorrows, but to
share them ; not to be the recipient of his bounty,
but the divinely ordained partner of his ambitions.
In the history of the world it is as easy to dis-
cover the degree of civilization which has been
reached in a given epoch by noting the position
of woman as it is to tell the temperature of the air
by looking at a thermometer.
In every age in which women are more or less
subordinate, men are more or less brutal ; and it
is safe to predict that the highest type of manhood
will never be attained except by association with
the highest type of womanhood.
225
226 HERALD SERMONS.
The legislation and public opinion which can
break down all barriers of prejudice and give
women an opportunity to develop whatever tal-
ents or faculties or genius they possess, will also
have an ennobling influence on men, for the moral
nature of a man is always even with the moral
nature of the women with whom he keeps com-
pany. If you would make men better you must
begin by making women better.
From the beginning •of time until the close of
this nineteenth century, the world has been almost
exclusively a man's world. Circumstances have
thrown him to the front, and he has maintained
his dictatorship. He has decreed in his own inter-
est that he may do as he pleases, and that woman
shall do as she is told to. That has been the law,
but it will probably be repealed before the twen-
tieth century sinks in the west. I\Ien have de-
clared that there shall be a discrimination in the
matter of vice, and that the discrimination shall
be in their favor. If they fall under temptation
it is a merely venial offense, not by any means to
be counted against them, but rather to be taken
as a matter of course. If a woman yields under a
provocation a thousandfold greater the good Christ
A MAN AND A WOMAN. 22 7
must come to earth again, for He alone will give
her pity. The law which men have made for pur-
poses of self-protection is so elastic that it will
stretch indefinitely, but they have made an en-
tirely diflferent law for women, and hammered it
from unbending steel.
That is the anomaly of all time. It is right for
a man to be vicious. More than that, it is rather
praiseworthy. But viciousness in a woman is a
crime which the worst man in the community will
not condone. " For myself," he says, '* all things
are justifiable, but for you there is only contempt
when you overstep the limit which I have chosen
to draw."
The reason for this is perfectly plain, and in
stating the reason we show its inherent injustice.
The world has been a warring world. History is
simply the story of successive battle-fields. Brawn,
not brain, has been the chief factor of progress.
For ages, therefore, the world was what men made
it. The bow and arrow at first and later on the
flash of gunpowder have settled all controversies.
Women had small part In the conflict, because they
were not fitted for the task. The man was thor-
oughly dominant, and being dominant he was des-
228 HERALD >KK.M()XS.
potic. He fashioned ever)'thing to suit himself,
even pubUc opinion. He was master of the situa-
tion, and solely because a woman could not stand
by his side in war she was not allowed to stand
by his side in peace.
But the complexion of aft'airs has changed after
this long- lapse of time. This is not at all the
world in which our ancestors lived. It is as differ-
ent in many essential respects as though we had
been transported to Mars. As to the matters in
which we are now interested, women and men are
equals, and they stand side by side. The moment
when warriors ceased to be heroes woman began
to take her rightful place. The instant brains
began to be the motive power of society woman
proved her right to engage in the competition.
But e\'en now, under the new regime, the old
ideas prevail. They are giving way by degrees,
but they are still persistent. Man claims rights
which he denies to his wife, but he stammers an
apology. It is no longer a man's world, but a
man's and woman's world, at least in part. When
it becomes wholly so it will be better than it is
now.
We have about settled the question whether
A MAN AND A WOMAN. 229
there is any sex in vice, and once settled it will
never vex us again. The preposterous statement
that a woman is more guilty than a man for the
same act is slowly shnking away from the criti-
cisms of the age. It is a contemptible statement,
which can be maintained by brute force, but not
by fair argument.
Now the conclusion to be drawn from all this is
that women are not to sink to the level of men,
but that men must rise to the level of women.
We seek for the ideal life, and men do not furnish
it, but women do. Humiliating as the confession
is, it is true that the average woman is purer than
the average man. The change that is needed,
therefore, is a change of standard. We must
abolish the standard which men have set for them-
selves and substitute the standard which men have
set for women. Not less purity for women should
be the rule, but more purity for men.
If we understand the spirit of the New Testa-
ment, that is the requisition. There is nothing in
this world as admirable as a woman whose heart and
life are white, and there is no reason why she should
not demand of the man who leads her to the altar
a heart and life that are just as white as her own.
THE valup: of money.
" For wisdom is a defense, and money is a defense: but the
excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that
have it." — Eccl. vii. 12.
There is a word to be said to young men ; not
a harsh word, but a word of friendly and kindly
counsel.
And here is the reason for it, namely, because
a good start goes a long way toward a good end-
ing. If the bullet leaves the rifle-barrel with only
a slight divergence from the right direction, it may
never hit the target at all, for the farther it goes
the more wide of the mark it is ; but if it leaves
the barrel perfectly aimed for the center of the
target, it is safe to predict a good shot.
If a young man is equipped with the right ideas,
the chances are in fa\'or of his being of some value
to the world ; but if wlien he stands on the thresh-
old of life he has no controlling moral principle,
he is like a chip on the surface of a freshet — that
230
THE VALUE OF MONEY. 23 1
is, he may, if he has rare good fortune, reach the
sea, or he may be thrown on the bank at any turn
of the current.
It is impossible, therefore, to exaggerate the
necessity of a fine equipment, because the fate of
the soul, long after this life has ended, may de-
pend on it. While it is possible for a boy with a
mind full of mistaken ideas to throw them aside
one after the other as he proceeds on his journey,
it is also true that he runs great risks and will
probably end his career with an armful of regrets
and a handful of real happiness.
Now there is no subject on which there are
more false notions than on the subject of money.
It is a good thing to have money and a good thing
to work for it, but you must be careful not to pay
too large a price for it. As the servant of a noble
man money is exceedingly valuable, for it furnishes
opportunities to enlarge the scope of charity and
benevolence. As the master of a niggardly man
it develops the meaner qualities of human nature
and makes its possessor a mere caricature.
The world is all wrong in this matter, and you
will require a deal of independence to put yourself
right. There is in the community an overesti-
232 HERALD SERMONS.
mate of wealth which is very demoralizing. The
Preacher makes a catalogue in which wisdom
stands at the head and money follows as of sec-
ondary importance ; but modern society reverses
the order and puts money first, with wisdom far
below it. We doff our hats to one who has wealth
but no character, and hardl}^ recognize one who
has an honest character but no money. The re-
sult is that we work too hard for money and have
too light an opinion of character.
If truth be told, it is, after all, the men of char-
acter and not the men of money who have made
the world what it is. That fact stands in the fore-
ground of all thoughtful observation, like a tower-
ing monument against the sky. If we were com-
pelled to do without the one or the other it would
be sheer insanity to dispense with men of character
and retain the men of money.
Let us be clear on this point. The clergy are
apt to talk about " filthy lucre." But do not be
led astray. Money is never filthy unless it makes
the soul that seeks it filthy. It is your right to
labor for it and your right to get it if you can.
You are justified in laying plans for its acquisi-
tion, because there is a glorious satisfaction in the
THE VALUE UF iMUXEV. 2^^
thought that you will want for nothing in your
old age and your dear ones will be amply pro-
vided for. But have a care that you do not come
to think that your happiness depends on it, be-
cause after all is said there are more happy poor
men than happy rich men. For that matter, it is
a grave error to suppose that money can itself
make you happy without the possession of other
qualities which will enable you to enjoy it and do
good with it.
The business of the world is closely related to
the progress of the world. It is a noble calling,
that of the business man, and one which God looks
upon with tender regard. Money and philan-
thropy are twins, born of the same good mother,
two children of beauty and grace. The merchant's
work is just as providential as that of the clergy-
man, and his mission, if he rightly understands it,
is just as important. If the consecrating hands
of the Holy Spirit are laid on the head of the
preacher, and he is thus devoted to a special task,
so are the same hands laid in equal consecration
on the head of the young man who starts on a
business career, and he is laid under solemn obli-
gations to be useful to his fellows. That is a truth
234 HERALD SERMONS.
which cannot be too keenly appreciated. We can-
not get along without money- making, and the one
thing we insist on, therefore, is that the money-
makers shall be honest in their dealings and keep
their consciences in good trim.
More than that, the business man preaches the
gospel of rectitude more effectively than the clergy
can do it. A noble deed is better than a noble
word. The word may incite to the deed, but when
we get to heaven the merchant who has led a
pure life will occupy as high a place as the minis-
ter who told him how to do it. George Peabody's
life outweighs the sermons of a century. Such a
man talks to the whole race, and his voice is not
hushed when he dies. As the light of a distant
star floods the earth long after the star itself has
been extinguished, so the uprightness and integ-
rity of the merchant exert untold influence long
after a sorrowing people have laid him in his rest-
ing-place.
This, then, is the ad\ice we olTcr: Let your
ambition run higli, and seek its realization by hard
work, but remember that it is a man's soul and
not his pocket-book which goes to heaven. You
can get on without riches if need be, but you can-
THE VALUE OF MONEY. 235
not get on without a clean conscience. Make
money, but do not worship it. Pay a good price
for it, but not more than it is worth. Honest dol-
lars hurt no one, but dishonest gains are a con-
suming fire.
THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH.
" Tlie unity of the Spirit." — Eph. iv. 3.
We are all agreed that the Christian church is
an indispensable factor of our civilization. How-
ever critical we may be of its defects, we must
needs admit that it is the most conspicuous and
important element of human progress.
It has encouraged our aspirations, defended a
high standard of public and private virtue, de-
nounced the vices and vicious tendencies of so-
ciety, organized a thousand charities for the relief
of the unfortunate, given comfort to the sorrow-
ing, strength to the tempted, resignation to the
bereaved. It represents our noblest impulses, our
loftiest ambitions, and those hopes which in their
upward flight are so daring that they search for
another life when the resources of the present
shall be exhausted.
But tlie church has of late years lost a part of
its old prestige. The world has learned the lesson
236
THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 237
which it aforetime taught, and is looking either
for new truths or a new appHcation of ancient
truths. Neither hfe nor religion is quite the same
thing that it was to our fathers, for both life and
religion are more valuable, more significant than
they have ever been. They should therefore pro-
duce larger results and furnish us with grander in-
centives. The church must recognize these facts
and fit itself to the crucial emergency, or it will
fall into innocuous desuetude.
What is needed above everything else is the
unity of the Spirit. There are too many theolog-
ical standards for an age which takes no pleasure
in theology, and there is too much sectarianism at
a time when men believe more firmly in brotherly
love than they have done in any previous historic
epoch. The tendency is toward a minimum of
creed and a maximum of charity. We have more
faith in an honest life than In an acceptance of the
Five Institutes of Calvin, and would feel safer at
the judgment-bar of God with an honorable busi-
ness record behind us than with all the theological
decisions of the Nicene Council. There is extant
no repudiation of Christianity, but on the other
hand a wide and deep loyalty to the moral law as
238 HERALD SERMONS.
announced by Christ. It is not an ai^e of doubt,
but it is a thoughtful age. No men since the sun
shone on Eden have ever had a more biting hunger
or so unquenchable a thirst for God's truth, both
respecting this hfe and the other, than now.
There is a universal wish, therefore, that the
church, which has been so brave in times past,
may take the leadership of the people, as Moses
did, show them the way through this desert of
hard work, and give them the promise of green
fields beyond the Jordan of death.
Why should the church allow itself to be split
into factions by theological differences when every
faction has the same general purpose in view and
all are working for the same object? The world
asks for the bread of Christ, and receives the stone
of sectarianism in its stead. It longs to hear of
hea\'en, and will listen with patient ears to the
proofs of immortality, but it has no interest in the
competition and rivalry of sects, or in the dog-
matic and doctrinal side of religion.
If we could relegate all creeds to the back-
ground, imprison them within the limits of the
student's library, cause them to be regarded as
simply fruitful subjects for investigation, but not
THE DUTY OF THE CHURCH. 239
necessary to the moral progress of the commu-
nity ; if we could bring into the foreground, as the
only important matter for consideration, the best
way to embody the Sermon on the Mount in our
laws and the love of God and love of brother man
in our public opinion, the church would really rep-
resent the Christ, and the revelations of the New
Testament would become startlingly new and fresh
to us. The clergy would find thrilling topics in
our daily life — topics which would force from their
lips the eloquence of warning or praise. Corrup-
tion would find in the pulpit its unrelenting ene-
my and official honor its mightiest defense. Re-
ligion would no longer be in the clouds, but would
walk the earth armed cap-a-pic to do battle in the
name of God and man.
In an orchestra there may be forty or fifty in-
struments, and they are all necessary to the pro-
duction of effective music.
Suppose the first and second violins, instead of
following the baton of the leader, should enter
into rivalry with each other and play the score
according to their personal preference, not accord-
ing to instructions ; suppose the cello and the bass
viol should exercise the same privilege ; suppose
240 HERALD SERMONS.
the drums and the cornets and the flutes should
demand an equal right — what would result ? Not
music, but intolerable discord. The capacity to
render a symphony of Beethoven or Wagner is in
that orchestra, and if its members are subject to
the leader they will charm and inspire the audi-
ence. But if each one plays as he pleases the
auditorium will soon be emptied.
The simile is not too strong when applied to
the church. The different sects are playing the
same melody, and the world is anxious to listen.
But each plays as he thinks best — the Presbyte-
rian in one key, the Methodist in another, and the
Baptist in another. Men hope for harmony and
find only discord. Little wonder that complaints
of indifference are heard and churches are empty.
If the clergy will forget everything else and re-
member only this one thing — that men are hard
pushed and need help and comfort and good cheer
— then creeds will be whistled down the wind,
sectarianism will be banished, and the world be all
the better for it.
THEATERS AND THEIR INFLUENCE.
" To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose
under the laeaven." — Eccles. iii. I.
The place which the theater occupies in our
modern society, whether we are to stoutly defend
its claims or humbly apologize for it as a neces-
sary evil — this is a question which is always in the
air. It has excited almost as much controversy as
religion, but while both parties have been equally
honest they have not made much progress toward
an agreement.
The peculiarity of the debate is one that obtains
with no other subject under dispute, for while the
advocates of the stage speak from a large personal
experience, those who denounce it have generally
had no personal experience whatever. If the
clergy, whose motives are by no means to be im-
pugned, should see Mr. Jefferson's Rip Va7i Winkle
or Mr. Irving's Becket, and then declare that the
spectacle lowers the moral tone of the audience,
241
242 HERALD SERMONS.
we might differ with them in opinion, but their
judgment would deservedly have exceeding weight.
It is not necessary for a man to visit a gambling-
dive in order to discover that it is harmful, be-
cause it is universally conceded that games of
chance are an unmitigated e\il and cannot be de-
fended by any show of argument. Dramatic rep-
resentation has been wrongly classed in the same
category, but assuredly it does not belong there.
The drama is not essentially evil, and must there-
fore be criticized by the effects it produces on so-
ciety and the indi\iduaL
What are some of these effects and to what ex-
tent are they to be deplored ? There is no reason
why we should not lay aside all prejudice and pre-
conceptions and judge the case simply on its mer-
its. We can always afford to be fair, and there is
no good ground for being unjust.
First, then, it is charged that actors and ac-
tresses have a code of morals of their own, and
that there is a degree of looseness in it which is
not to be tolerated. This is at least partly true,
and it is unfortunate that it is true. It is \'ery
desirable that both actors and actresses should be
above reproach, but it is desirable that the men
THEATERS AND THEIR INFLUENCE. 243
and women who appkuid them should be above
reproach also. If every actor were a Bayard the
stage would undoubtedly be different from what
it is ; but we are bound to add that if every man
in the audience were a Bayard society would take
on a different complexion. The rule which is ap-
plied to the stage should be used elsewhere, and
it is not quite generous to spurn an actor for a
course of life which is — such is the laxity of pub-
lic morals — easily condoned in other people.
There is no excuse for immorality anywhere,
neither on the stage nor in business life nor in the
fashionable world. If, however, a genuine crusade
were to be undertaken and the attempt made to
reconstruct human nature, it might be well to
begin with the stage, but it would never do to end
with it; and we venture to say that we can name
a score of actors and actresses w4io would hail such
a movement with enthusiasm, for good men and
women in a profession ought not to suffer for
the shortcomings of the unworthy. This is true
both behind and in front of the footlights.
We might refer to the late Mr. Booth's career
in illustration of this fact. He was a noble, self-
sacrificing, charitable, and patriotic citizen as w^ell
244 HERALD SERMONS.
as a great actor. Take hi.s life as a whole and
there are few men in any profession who have ex-
erted a more manly and uplifting influence. He
had a great soul, and richly deserved not only the
fame he won, but also the respect of the world,
which was so cheerfully and abundantly given.
Actors and actresses are public property. What-
ever they do is known. If they have faults or if
they commit a crime against existing customs it
is at once spread broadcast. A business man, a
lawyer, a doctor may be equally guilty, but his
obliquity is hidden. The world sees the worst
side of the actor's character aKva}\s, and forms its
judgment from that side ; it sees the best side of
every one else, and frequently overestimates his
worth. The actor can hide nothing; other men
in the community can hide a great deal.
We are defending no one by these statements,
but simply trying to tell the plain, unvarnished
truth. The stage is nothing more to us than one
of the factors of our scjcial life, which we would
criticize with candor and a regard for the general
welfare. But we must needs be careful not to
overblame one class whose faults are made glar-
ine by circumstances and iLrnore the faults of other
THEATERS AND THEIR INFLUENCE. 245
classes who have the opportunity to conceal their
misdoings.
Second, it is charged that the theater is an un-
wholesome stimulant which cannot fail to do in-
jury. If this be true it is a very serious matter.
But is it true ? It is a question which each one
must answer for himself, and his answer should
govern his conduct. If a thing is not wrong in
itself, then it must be judged solely by the effects
it produces.
It is not merely the love of amusement, but the
actual necessity of it, which sends most people to
the theater. A few hours' respite from business
cares, and, so far as women are concerned, from
the harassments of domestic life, is very desirable,
and in most theaters it can be had without injury.
A hearty laugh at a farce, an evening's nonsense
which drags one out of the ruts of daily routine
and forces one to forget for the time being that
the morrow has heavy burdens, is not only inno-
cent, but helpful.
We venture to declare that in this regard the
stage is accomplishing great good, and fills a place
for which there is no substitute. Instead of abol-
ishing it, if society were itself pure enough to
246 HERALD SERMONS.
demand only the best kind of drama, the theater
would respond at once, for the manager is a busi-
ness man, who must please the public in order to
reap success. The theater never leads, but always
follows its patrons. They find there just what
pleases them, and are themselves responsible if the
stage falls below par.
A clean play can harm no one; but an unclean
play, and, for that matter, an unclean anything
else, whether it is found in politics, in law, or in
society, is not to be tolerated. That is the only
rule by which our judgment should be controlled.
A PROVIDENTIAL MAN.
" And the Lord shall guide thee continually." — Isa. Iviii. ii.
February 12th brings us once more to the
anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. The day
will be crowded with associations of grave import
to the citizens of this Republic, for under his lead-
ership the country passed into an epoch of tragedy
and through it to the grandest victory ever achieved
by man for man.
Not opposing armies merely, but opposing ideas
stood face to face on the battle-field, and when
the struggle ended we were presented with this
curious historic anomaly, namely, that the van-
quished had been blessed by defeat and the victors
by their triumph.
With a Southern oligarchy based on slavery,
and a Northern republic based on freedom, oc-
cupying contiguous territory, the experiment of
popular sovereignty would have been brought to
speedy peril. The defeat of our enemies, there-
247
24^ IIKRALD SERMONS.
fore, was necessary not only to the perpetuity of
the Union, but to their own moral and political
salvation.
The thrones of Europe would have acquired a
new lease of life had our cause suffered disaster.
The victory of that cause has dimmed the jewels
in every crown, doomed kings to exile, and vindi-
cated the right of the people everywhere to gov-
ern themselves. If Lee had not surrendered his
sword to Grant the French Republic might not
have been born, and the people of the Continent
might not ha\'e demanded an extended suffrage
for a full century to come.
Lincoln's election was much less the act of our
voters than it was the act of Providence. He was
a man unknown and untried at a time when the
rumblings of revolution made the nation trem-
ble. That the emergency was threatening every
one knew; that Lincoln would be great enough
to meet it nobody knew. In the popular mind
there was a disparity between the man and the
occasion, and the lips of prophecy were sealed
through timidity. We hoped for the best, but
feared the worst.
If Lincoln had been possessed of antecedents
A PROVIDENTIAL MAN. 249
we might have been more hopeful, but he had
none. He came from the gloaming of an unknown
past, and, as he himself declared with a degree of
sadness, had no ancestry at all, much less an an-
cestry to boast of. His youth had been spent in
menial employment, his reputation was that of a
country lawyer, and his election was apparently
an accident of party politics.
But Abraham Lincoln was chosen to be Presi-
dent of the United States by the Almighty through
the ballots of the American people. We did not
know that at first, and indeed did not find it out
until the fatal bullet transformed him into a mar-
tyr. When we looked at his stern face as he lay
in state, however, and then recalled the past, the
light fell on our eyes and we saw what God and
our brave sons had done for us.
Lincoln was endowed with the wisdom of the
situation. He was not the leader of the people,
did not attempt to create public opinion by a pol-
icy of daring and assurance, but obscured himself
in the shadow of the popular will. A smaller m.an
would have issued the Proclamation of Emancipa-
tion months before it saw the light, but he waited.
" I am your servant," he said to the North ; " it is
250 HERALD SERMONS.
for you, not me, to say when that aggressive step
shall be taken." It was not Lincoln, therefore,
who devised that marvelously strategic movement ;
it was the people themselves, and it was not adopted
a single instant before they were ready for it. The
radicals were restless, the conservatives groaned,
but he simply said : " This is your war, not mine.
Tell me when to do it and it shall be done."
It is our privilege to believe that God is inter-
ested in human affairs and that He is a factor in
every great national exigency. Religion consists
of worthless phraseology unless we can feel His
presence in the concerns of life. Great men do
not come of their own accord, nor are they the
product of circumstances by a kind of spontaneous
generation ; they are created for a purpose and
sent to achieve it. This is not man's world, but
God's world, and events are guided to their ulti-
mate issue as the pilot at the helm steers a stately
ship into harbor.
It is impossible not to see God's providence in
the life of Lincoln, and sacrilege to deny its po-
tency. No other man in the country would have
been suited to the hour. A larger man — that is,
one more ambitious personally — or a smaller one
A PROVIDENTIAL MAN. 25 I
— that is, one less courageous — might have lost
all for which we took up arms. He had the exact
mental and moral stature required by the duty
which fell to his lot.
Could such a happy union of man and occasion
be an accident or even a coincidence ? Was Wash-
ington a coincidence or an accident? When the
right man comes at the right moment it is hard
to believe that behind him is nothing but blind
chance. On the contrary, it is easy to feel that
an unseen Being is above us all, and that when
something greatly needed is to be done He selects
the man to do it.
Lincoln was God's choice as well as the choice
of the American people. We elected him Presi-
dent, but God foresaw the struggle and prepared
him to bring it to a successful issue. He was so
exceptional a man that we cannot account for him
in any other way.
Lincoln has gone, but the Being who gave him
to us in our dire strait is still with us and will send
other men to do their special work when the hour
calls for them.
A VALUABLE SERIES OF SERMONS.
PREACHERS OF THE AGE.
The volumes are uniform in size, appearance and price,
and each contains some twelve or fourteen Sermons or
Addresses specially chosen or written for the series.
They are issued in i2mo size, cloth extra, at $1.25 each,
and contain fine Photogravure Portraits reproduced,
in most instances, from unpublished photographs.
"An excellent series." — N, Y. Evangelist.
1 Living Theology.
By Edward White Benson, D.D., Archbishop of
Canterbury. 13 Sermons, 236 pages. Portrait. $1.25.
.*' Dr. Benson displays three traits at once — elegant and critical
scholarship, philosophic thought, and deep spirituality."
— Christian Union.
2 The Conquering Christ,
And Other Sermons. By Alexander Maclaren,
D.D. 14 vSermons, 212 pages. Portrait. $1.25.
^Dr. Maclaren has no superior, perhaps no equal, in the British
pulpit in the analysis of Scripture in his deep searching for the hidden
riches on which he is to build." — hidependent.
3 Verbum Crucis.
Being Ten Sermons on the Mystery and the Words
of the Cross. To which are added some other ser-
mons preached on public occasions. By William
Alexander, D.D., Bishop of Derry and Kaphoe.
14 Sermons, 206 pages. Portrait. $1.25.
" These addresses on the seven sayings will be found very useful for
those clergy who wish to give their iieople on Good Friday a service
of devotion, and yet are too crowded with work to prepare their own
material." — Chtirckvan.
E. P. DuTTOx &: Co., Publishkrs, New York.
4 Ethical Christianity.
A Series of Sermons by Hugh Price Hughes, M.A.,
of the West End Wesleyan Mission. 14 Sermons,
190 pages. Portrait. $1.25.
•'We are convinced that there is no Americnn minister who will
not be wonderfully stimulated by reading these f(jurteen discourses.
. . . . He has got a message from his heart, and he tells it in
simple, tender, straight, heart language." — Zions Herald.
5 The Knowledge of God,
And Other Sermons. By William Walsham How,
D.D., Bishop of Wakefield. 17 Sermons, 220 pages.
Portrait. $1.25.
" Marked not only by the Bishop's well-known power of putting
difficult truths into ' plain words,' t)ut by that loving and persuasive
spirit which gives him his great charm as a preacher."
— London Guardian.
6 Light and Peace.
Sermons and Addresses. By Henry Robert Rey-
nolds, D.D. 13 Sermons, 224 pages. Portrait. $1.25.
" Dr. Reynolds belongs by long possessed rights in this series.
He is an English Congiegationalist, since i860 Principal of Lady
Huntingdon's College, Cheshunt, Herts. He has been prolific with
his pen in many directions. The sermons in this collection are
elevated in theme and treatment. They touch the noblest themes in
a noble manner, and with much imaginative power and eloquent
force. " — Independent.
7 The Journey of Life.
By W. J. Knox Little, M.A. ii Sermons, 226
pages. Portrait. $1-25.
" The friends and admirers of the Rev. W. J. Knox Little, Ca^n
of Worcester, will welcome this collection of clever sermons from
him. The sermons all bear on some phase of the solemn thought
suggested in the title, and bring up practical points which Canon
Little knows well how to handle m a direct, wise and helpful
manner. " — Independent.
8 Messages to the Multitude.
By C. H. Spurgeon. 12 Sermons, 318 pages.
Portrait. $1.25.
" This volume shows the great preacher at his best in the treatment
of the Divine Word, and it will be, with the lifelike portrait of the
preacher, a valuable memorial to the multitudes of his admirers."
—N. Y. Observer.
3
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