How to become like Christ, and other papers

NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES

3 3433 07954944 4

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Small Books on Great Subjects. — VI.

W - G icjwston

HOW TO BECOME LIKE CHRIST.
By Marcus Dods, D.D.

HOW TO BECOME
LIKE CHRIST,

And Other Papers.
By Marcus Dods, d.d.

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> >5 > >

NEW YORK: Thos. whittaker,
2 & 3, Bible House. 1897.

THE

PUBLIC LIBRARY

744:

ASTOn, LEN«X AND
TILDtN FOUNDATIONS

JftVs* Edition, July, 1897.

/

Contents.

PAGE
1

How to Become Like Christ

The Transfiguration 37

Indiscreet Importunity 67

Shame on Account of God's Dis-
pleasure 83

Naaman Cured 101

The Lame Man at the Temple
Gate 119

How to Become Like
Christ.

HOW TO BECOME LIKE
CHRIST.

" But we all, with unveiled face reflecting- as
a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed
into the same image from glory to glory, even
as by the Spirit of the Lord." — 2 Cor. iii. 18
(Revised Version).

I suppose there is almost no one
who would deny, if it were put to
hnn, that the greatest possible
attainment a man can make in this
world is likeness to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Certainly no one would
deny that there is nothing but
character that we can carry out of
life with us, and that our prospect
of good in any future life will cer-
tainly vary with the resemblance
of our character to that of Jesus
Christ, which is to rule the whole
future. We all admit that; but

HOW TO BECOME

almost every one of us offers to
himself some apology for not being-
like Christ, and has scarcely any
clear reality of aim of becoming
like Him. Why, we say to our-
selves, or we say in our practice, it
is really impossible in a world such
as ours is to become perfectly holy.
One or two men in a century may
become great saints ; given a cer-
tain natural disposition and given
exceptionally favouring circum-
stances, men may become saintly ;
but surely the ordinary run of men,
men such as we know ourselves to
be, with secular disposition and
with many strong, vigorous pas-
sions— surely we can really not be
expected to become like Christ, or,
if it is expected of us, we know
that it is impossible. On the con-
trary, Paul says, "We all," " We
all." Every Christian has that
for a destiny : to be changed into

LIKE CHRIST.

the image of his Lord. And he
not only says so, but in this one
verse he reveals to us the mode of
becoming like Christ, and a mode,
as we shall find, so simple and so
infallible in its working that a man
cannot understand it without
renewing his hope that even he
may one day become like Christ.

In order to understand this
simplest mode of sanctification we
must look back at the incident that
we read in the Book of Exodus
(xxxiv. 29-35.). Paul had been
reading how when Moses came
down from the mount where he
had been speaking with God his
face shone, so as to dazzle and
alarm those who were near him.
They at once recognised that that
was the glory of God reflected
from him ; and just as it is almost
as difficult for us to look at the
sun reflected from a mirror as to

6 HOW TO BECOME

look directly at the sun, so these
men felt it almost as difficult to
look straight at the face of Moses
as to look straight at the face of
God. But Moses was a wise man,
and he showed his wisdom in this
instance as well as elsewhere. He
knew that that glory was only on the
skin of his face, and that of course
it would pass away. It was a super-
ficial shining. And accordingly
he put a veil over his face, that the
children of Israel might not see it
dying out from minute to minute
and from hour to hour, because he
knew these Israelites thoroughly,
and he knew that when they saw
the glory dying out they would say.
"God has forsaken Moses. We
need not attend to him any more.
His authority is gone, and the glory
of God's presence has passed from
him." So Moses wore the veil that
they might not see the glory dyin^

LIKE CHEIST.

out. But whenever he was called
back to the 'presence of God he
took off the veil and received a new
access of glory on his face, and
thus went " from glory to glory."
" That/' says Paul, " is precisely
the process through which we
Christian men become like Christ."
We go back to the presence of
Christ with unveiled face ; and as
often as we stand in His presence,
as often as we deal in our spirit
with the living Christ, so often do
we take on a little of His glory.
The glory of Christ is His cha-
racter ; and as often as we stand
before Christ, and think of Him,
and realise what He was, our heart
goes out and reflects some of His
character. And that reflection,
that glory, is not any longer
merely on the skin of the face ; as
Paul wishes us to recognise, it is a
spiritual glory, it is wrought by the

8 HOW TO BECOME

Spirit of Christ upon our spirit,
and it is we ourselves that are
changed from glory to glory into
the very image of the Lord.

Now obviously this mode of
sanctification has extraordinary
recommendations. In the first
place, it is absolutely simple. If
you go to some priest or spiritual
director, or minister of the Gospel,
or friend, and ask what you are to
do if you wish to become a holy
man, why, even the best of them
will almost certainly tell you to
read certain books, to spend so
much time in prayer and reading
your Bible, to go regularly to
church, to engage in this and that
good work. If you had applied to
a spiritual director of the middle
ages of this world's history and
of the history of Christianity, he
would have told you that you must
retire from the world altogether in

LIKE CHRIST. 9

order to become holy. Paul says,
" Away with all that nonsense ! "
We are living in a real world ; Christ
lived in a real world : Christ did not
retire from men. And He says all
that you have to do in order to be
like Christ is to carry His image
with you in your heart. That is
all. To be with Him, to let Him
stand before you and command
your love, that will infallibly
change you into His image. I do
not know that we sufficiently recog-
nise the simplicity of Christian
methods. We do not understand
what Paul meant by proclaiming it
as the religion of the spirit, as a
religion superior to everything
mechanical and external. Think
of the deliverance it was for him
who had grown up under a religion
which commanded him to go a long
journey three times a year, to take
the best of his goods and offer

10 HOW TO BECOME

them in the Temple, to comply
with a multitude of oppressive
observances and ordinances. Think
of the emancipation when he found
a spiritual religion. Why, in those
times a man must have despaired
of becoming a holy man ; but now
Paul says you will infallibly
become holy if you learn this easy
lesson of carrying the Lord Jesus
with you in your heart.

Another recommendation of this
method is that it is so obviously
grounded on our own nature. No
sooner are we told by Paid that we
must act as mirrors of Christ than
we recognise that nature has made
us to be mirrors, that we cannot
but reflect what is passing before
us. You are walking along the
street, and a little child runs before
a carriage ; you shrink back as if
you were in danger. You see a
man fall from a scaffolding,

LIKE CHRIST. 11

crushed; your face takes on an
expression of pain, reflecting wliat
is passing in him. You go and
spend an evening with a man much
stronger, much purer, much saner,
than yourself, and you come away
knowing yourself a stronger and a
better man. Why ? Because you
are a mirror, because in your inmost
nature you have responded to and
reflected the good that was in him.
Look into any family, and what do
you see? You see the boy, not
imitating consciously, but taking
on, his father's looks and attitudes
and ways ; and as the boy grows
up these become his own looks
and attitudes and ways. He ha&
reflected his father from one
degree of proficiency unto another,
from one intimacy, from one day's
observation of his father to
another, until he is the image of
the old man over again.

12 HOW TO BECOME

" Similarly," says Paul, " live
with Christ; learn to carry His
image with you, learn to adore
Him, learn to love Him, and infal-
libly, whether you will or not, by
this simple method you will become
Christ over again ; you will become
•conformed, as God means you to
become conformed, to the image of
His Son."

This has been tested by the
•experience of thousands ; and it
has been found to be a true method.
Every one who spends but two
minutes in the morning in the
observation of Christ, every one
who will be at the pains to let the
image of Christ rise before him
and to remember the purity, the
unworldliness, the heavenliness,
ihe godliness of Jesus Christ, that
man is the better for this exercise.
And how utterly useless is it to
•offer any other method of sanctifi-

LIKE CHRIST. 13-

cation to thousands of our fellow-
citizens. How can many of our
fellow-citizens secrete themselves-
for prayer ? If you ask them to
go and pray as you pray in your
comfortable home, if you ask
them to read the Bible before they
go out at five or six o'clock in the
morning, do you expect that your
word will be followed ? Why, the*
thing is impossible. But ask a
man to carry Christ with him in
his mind, that is a thing he can
do ; and if he does it once, if only
once the man sees Christ before
him, realises that this living
Person is with him, and remembers
the character of Christ as it is
written for us in the Gospels, that
man knows that he has made a
step in advance, knows that he is
the better for it, knows that he
does reflect for a little, even
though it be but for a little, the

14 HOW TO BECOME

very image of the Lord Jesus
Christ ; and other people know it
also.

Now, if that is so, there are
obviously three things that we
must do. We must, in the first
place, learn to associate with
Christ. I say that even one reflec-
tion does something, but we need
to reflect Christ constantly, con-
tinually, if we are to become like
Him. When you pass away from
before a mirror the reflection also
goes. In the case of Moses the
reflection stayed for a little, and
that is perhaps a truer figure of
what happens to the Christian who
sets Christ before him and reflects
Him. But very often as soon as
Christ is not consciously remem-
bered you fall back to other
remembrances and reflect other
things. You go out in the morn-
ing with your associates, and they

LIKE CHRIST. 15

carry you away ; you have not as
yet sufficiently impressed upon
yourself the image of Christ.
Therefore we must learn to carry
Christ with us always, as a con-
stant Companion. Some one may
say that is impossible. No one
will say it is impossible who is
livdng in absence from any one he
loves. What happens when we
are living separated from some one
we love ? This happens : that his
image is continually in our minds.
At the most unexpected times that
image rises, and especially if we
are proposing to ourselves to do
what that person would not
approve. At once his image rises
to rebuke us and to hold us back.
So that it is not only possible to
carry with us the image of Christ:
it is absolutely certain that we
shall carry that image with us if
only we give Him that love and

16 HOW TO BECOME

reverence which is due from every
human being. Who has done for
us what Christ has done ? Who
commands our reverence as He
does? If once He gets hold of
our affection, it is impossible that
He should not live constantly in
our hearts. And if we say that
persons deeply immersed in busi-
ness cannot carry Christ with them
thus, remember what He Himself
says : " If any man love Me, he
will keep My word ; and My Father
will love him, and we will come
unto him." So that He is most
present with the busiest and with
those who strive as best they can
to keep His commandments.

But we must not only associate
with Christ and make Him our
constant company : we must, in
the second place, set ourselves
square with Christ. You know
that if you look into a mirror

LIKE CHRIST. 17

obliquely, if a mirror is not set
square with you, you do not see
yourself, but what is at the op-
posite angle, something that is
pleasant or something that is dis-
agreeable to you ; it matters not —
you cannot see yourself. And
unless we as mirrors set ourselves
perfectly square with Christ, we
do not reflect Him, but perhaps
things that are in His sight mon-
strous. And, in point of fact, that
is what happens with most of us,
because it is here that we are
chiefly tried. All persons brought
up within the Christian Church
pay some attention to Christ. We
too well understand His excellence
and we too well understand the
advantages of being Christian men
not to pay some attention to Christ.
But that will not make us conform
to His image. In order to be con-
formed to the image of Christ we

2

18 HOW TO BECOME

must be wholly His. Suppose you
enter a studio where a sculptor is
working, will he hand you his
hammer and chisel to finish the
most difficult piece of his work or
to do any part of it ? Assuredly
not. It is his own idea that he is
working out, and none but his own
hand can work it out. So with us
who are to be moulded by Christ.
Christ cannot mould us into His
image unless we are wholly His.
Every stroke that is made upon us
by the chisel and mallet of the
world is lost to His ideal. As often
as we reflect what is not purely
Christian, so often do we mar the
image of Christ.

Now how is it with us ? Need
we ask ? When we go along the
street, what is it that we reflect P
Do we not reflect a thousand
things that Christ disapproves?
AVI) at is it that our heart responds

LIKE CHEIST. 19

to when we are engaged in busi-
ness ? Is it to appeals that this
world makes to us ? Is it the
appeal that a prospect of gain
makes to us that we respond to
eagerly ? That is what is making
us ; that is what is moulding and
making us the men that we are
destined to be. We are moulded
into the character that we are
destined to live with for ever and
ever, by our likings and dislikings,
by the actual response that we are
now giving day by day to the things
that we have to do with in this
world. We may loathe the cha-
racter of the sensualist; no lan-
guage is too strong for us when we
speak of him : but if we, in point
of fact, respond to appeals made
to the flesh rather than appeals
made to the spirit, we are becoming*
sensual. We may loathe and de-
spise the character of the avaricious

\

20 HOW TO BECOME

worldly man ; we may see its little-
ness, and pettiness, and greed, and
selfishness : but do our own hearts
go out in response to any offer of
gain more eagerly than they go out
to Christian work or to the in-
terests of Christ's kingdom? Then
we are becoming worldly and avari-
cious; we are becoming the very
kind of men that we despise.

Of course we know this. We
know that we are being made by
what we respond to, and the older
we grow we know it the more
clearly ; we see it written on our
own character that we have become
the kind of men that we little
thought one day we should be-
come, and we know that we have
become such men by responding to
certain things which are not the
-things of the Spirit. Never was a
truer word said than that he that
soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh

LIKE CHRIST. 21

reap corruption, and he only that
soweth to the Spirit shall
reap life. That is what in other
terms Paul here says. He says,
" If you set yourselves square with
Christ, you will become like Him ;
that is to say, if you find your all
in Him, if you can be absolutely
frank and honest with Him, if you
can say, ' Mould and fashion me
according to Thy will; lead me
according to Thy will ; make me
in this world what Thou wilt ; do
with me what Thou wilt : I put
myself wholly at Thy disposal ; I
do not wish to crane to see past
Christ's figure to some better thing
beyond ; I give myself wholly and
freely to Him ' — the man that says
this, the man that does this, he
will certainly become like to Him.
But the man who even when he
prays knows that he has desires
in his heart that Christ cannot

22 HOW TO BECOME

gratify, the man that never goes
out from his own home or never
goes into his own home without
knowing that he has responded to
things that Christ disapproves —
how can that man hope to be like
Him ? "

We must then associate with
Christ, and we must set ourselves
squarely; we must be absolutely
true in our entire and absolute
devotion. Surely no man thinks
that this is a hardship ; that his
nature and life will be restricted
by giving himself wholly to
Christ? It is only, as every
Christian will tell you — it is only
when you give yourself entirely
to Christ that you know what
freedom means ; that you know
what it is to live in this world
afraid of nothing. Superior to
things that before you were afraid
of and anxious about, you at length

LIKE CHRIST. 23

learn what it is to be a child of
God. Let no man think that he
lames his nature and makes his
life poorer by becoming entirely
the possession of Christ.

But, thirdly, we must set Christ
before us and live before Him
with unveiled face. "We all
with unveiled face reflecting" as a
mirror." Throw a napkin over a
mirror, and it reflects nothing.
Perfect beauty may stand before
it, but the mirror gives no sign.
And this is why in a dispensation
like ours, the Christian dispensa-
tion, with everything contrived to
reflect Christ, to exhibit Christ,
the whole thing set a-going for
this purpose of exhibiting Christ,
we so little see Him. How is it
that two men can sit at a Com-
munion table together, and the
one be lifted to the seventh
heaven and see the King in His

24 HOW TO BECOME

beauty, while the other only envies
his neighbour his vision ? Why is
it that in the same household two
persons will pass through identi-
cally the same domestic circum-
stances, the same events, from year
to year, and the one see Christ
everywhere, while the other grows
sullen, sour, indifferent? Why is
it ? Because the one wears a veil
that prevents him from seeing
Christ; the other lives with unveiled
face. How was it that the Psalmist,
in the changes of the seasons even,
in the mountain, in the sea, in
everything that he had to do,
found God ? How was it that he
knew that even though he made his
bed in hell he would find God ? Be-
cause he had an unveiled face ; he
was prepared to find God. How is
it that many of us can come into
church and be much more taken
up with the presence of some

LIKE CHEIST.

friend than with the presence of
Christ ? The same reason still :
we wear a veil ; we do not come
with unveiled face prepared to see
Him.

And when we ask ourselves,,
"What, in point of fact, is the
veil that I wear ? What is it that
has kept me from responding to
the perfect beauty of Christ's
character? I know that that-
character is perfect ; I know that
I ought to respond to it ; I know
that I ought to go out eagerly
towards Christ and strive to
become like Him; why do I not
do it 9" we find that the veil that
keeps us from responding thus to
Christ and reflecting Him is not
like the mere dimness on a mirror
which the bright and warm pre-
sence of Christ Himself would dry
off ; it is like an incrustation that
has been growing out from our

26 HOW TO BECOME

hearts all our life long, and that
now is impervious, so far as we
can see, to the image of Christ.
How can hearts steeped in world-
liness reflect this absolutely un-
worldly, this heavenly Person ?
When we look into our hearts,
what do we find in point of fact ?
We find a thousand things that
we know have no right there ;
that we know to be wrong. How
can such hearts reflect this perfect
purity of Christ ? Well, we must
see to it that these hearts be
cleansed; we must hold ourselves
before Christ until from very
shame these passions of ours are
subdued, until His purity works
its way into our hearts through
all obstructions; and we must
keep our hearts, we must keep
the mirror free from dust, free
from incrustations, once we have
cleansed it.

LIKE CHRIST. 27

In some circumstances you
might be tempted to say that
really it is not so much that there
is a veil on the mirror as that there
is no quicksilver at all behind.
You meet in life characters so
thin, so shallow, that every good
thought seems to go through and
out of them at the other side ; they
hear with one ear, and it goes out
at the other. You can make no
impression upon them. There is
nothing to impress, no character
there to work upon. They are
utterly indifferent to spiritual
things, and never give a thought
to their own character. What is
to be done with such persons?
God is the great Teacher of us all ;
God, in His providence, has made
many a man- who has begun life
as shallow and superficial as man
can be, deep enough before He has

•

done with him.

28 HOW TO BECOME

Two particulars in which the
perfectness of this method appears
may be pointed out. First of allr
it is perfect in this : that any one
who begins it is bound to go on to*
the end. The very nature of the
case leads him to go on and on
from glory to glory, back and back
to Christ, until the process is actu-
ally completed, and he is like,
Christ. The reason is this : that
the Christian conscience is never
much taken up with attainment
made, but always with attainment
that is yet to be made. It is the
difference not the likeness that
touches the conscience. A friend
has been away in Australia for
ten years, and he sends you his
likeness, and you take it out
eagerly, and you say, " Yes, the
eyes are the very eyes ; the brow,
the hair are exactly like," but
there is something about the

LIKE CHRIST. 29

mouth that you do not like, and
you thrust it away in a drawer
and never look at it again. Why ?
Because the one point of unlike-
ness destroys the whole to you.
Just so when any Christian pre-
sents himself before Christ it is
not the points of likeness, suppos-
ing there are any, which strike his
conscience — it is the remaining
points of difference that inevitably
strike him, and so he is urged on
and on from one degree of pro-
ficiency to another until the process
is completed, because there is no
point at which a man has made a
sufficient attainment in the like-
ness of Christ. There is no point
at which Christ draws a line and
says, "You will do well if you
reach this height, and you need
not strive further." Why, we
should be dissatisfied, we should
throw up our allegiance to Christ,

30 HOW TO BECOME

if He treated us so. He is our
ideal, and it is resemblance to
Him that draws us and makes
us strive forward; and so a man
is bound to go on, and on, and
on, still drawn on to his ideal,
still rebuked by his shortcomings,
until he perfectly resembles
Christ.

And this character of Christ
that is our ideal is not assumed by
Him for the nonce. He did not
change His nature when He came
to this earth ; He did not put on
this character to set us an example.
The things that He did, He did
because it was His nature to do
them. He came to this world
because His love would not let
Him stay away from us. It was
His nature that brought Him here,
and it is His nature to be what
He is, and so His character is to
become our nature ; it is to be so

LIKE CHRIST. 31

wrought in us that we cannot give
it up. It is our eternal character,
and therefore any amount of pains
is worth spending on the achieve-
ment of it.

The second point of perfectness
lies here. You know that in
painting a likeness or cutting out
a bust one feature often may be
almost finished while the rest are
scarcely touched, but in standing
before a mirror the whole comes
out at once. Now we often in the
Christian life deal with ourselves
as if we were painters and sculp-
tors, not as if we were mirrors : we
hammer and chisel away at our-
selves to bring out some resem-
blance to Christ in some particulars,
thinking that we can do it piece-
meal. We might as well try to
feed up our body piecemeal; we
might as well try to make our
eye bright without giving our

32 HOW TO BECOME

cheek colour and our hands
strength. The body is a whole,
and we must feed the whole and
nourish the whole if any one part
of it is to be vigorous.

So it is with character. The
character is a whole, and you can
only deal with your character as a
whole. What has resulted when we
have tried the other process ? Some-
times we set ourselves to subdue a
sin or cultivate a grace. Well,
candidly say what has come of
this. Judging from my own
experience, I would say that this
comes of it : that in three or four
days you forget what sin it was
that you were trying to subdue.
The temptation is away, and the
sin is not there, and you forget all
about it. That is the very snare of
sin. Or you become a little better
in a point that you were trying to
cultivate. In that grace you are a

LIKE CHRIST. 33

shade improved. But that only
brings out more astoundingly your
frightful shortcoming in other
particulars. Now, adopting Paul's
method, this happens : Christ acts
on our character just as a person
acts upon a mirror. The whole
image is reflected at once. How
is it that society moulds a man?
How can you tell in what class in
society a man has been brought
up ? Not by one thing, not by
his accent, not by his bearing,
not by his conduct, but by the
whole man. And why ? Because
a man does not consciously imi-
tate this or that feature of the
society in which he is brought up,
does not do it consciously at all ;
he is merely reflecting it as a
mirror, and society acts on him as
a whole, and makes him the man
he is. "Just so," says Paul.
"Live with Christ, and He will

3

34 HOW TO BECOME

make you the man that you are
destined to be."

One word in conclusion. I sup-
pose there is no one who at one
time or other has not earnestly
desired to be of some use in the
world. Perhaps there are few who
have not even definitely desired to
be of some use in the kingdom of
Christ. As soon as we recognise
the uniqueness of Christ's purpose
and the uniqueness of His power in
the worlds as soon as we recognise
that all good influence and all
superlatively dominant influence
proceeds from Him, and that really
the hope of our race lies in Jesus
Christ — as soon as we realise that,
as soon as we see that with our
reason, and not as a thing that we
have been taught to believe, as
soon as we lay hold on it for our-
selves, ve cannot but wish to do
something to forward His purposes

LIKE CHRIST. 35

in the world. But as soon as we
form the wish we say, " What can
we do ? We have not been born
with great gifts ; we have not been
born in superior positions ; we have
not wealth ; we are shut off from
the common ways of doing good ;
we cannot teach in the Sabbath-
school ; we cannot go and preach ;
we cannot go and speak to the
sick ; we cannot speak even to our
fellow at the desk. What can we
do ? " We can do the best thing
of all, as of course all the best
things are open to every man.
Love, faith, joy, hope, all these
things, all the best things, are
open to all men; and so here it
is open to all of us to forward
the cause of Christ in the most
influential way possible, if not in
the most prominent way. What
happens when a person is looking
into a shop window where there

36 HOW TO BECOME LIKE CHRIST.

is a mirror, and some one comes
up behind — some one he knows?
He does not look any longer at the
image ; he turns to look at the
person whose image is reflected.
Or if he sees reflected on the
mirror something very striking :
he does not content himself with
looking at the image ; he turns
and looks at the thing itself. So
it is always with the persons that
you have to do with. If you
become a mirror to Christ your
friends will detect it in a very few
days ; they will see appearing in
you, the mirror, an image which
they know has not been originated
in you, and they will turn to look
straight at the Person that you are
reflecting. It is in that way that
Christianity passes from man to
man.

The Transfiguration.

THE TRANSFIGURATION.

" • And it came to pass about eight days after
these sayings, He took Peter and John and
James and went np into the mountain to
pray."— Luke ix. 28—36.

The public life of our Lord falls
into two parts ; and the incident
here recorded is the turning point
between them. In order that He
might leave behind Him when He
died a sure foundation for His
Church, it was necessary that His
intimate companions should at all
events know that He was the
Christ, and that the Christ must
enter into glory by suffering death.
Only then, when they understood
this, could He die and leave them
on earth behind. Now it is just at
this point in His life that it has
become quite clear that the first

40 THE TRANSFIGURATION.

article of the Christian creed —
that Jesus is the Christ — had been
at last definitely accepted by the
disciples. Very solemnly our Lord
has put it to them : " Who say
ye that I am ? " No doubt it was
a trying moment for Him as for
them. What was He to do if it
had not now become plain at least
to a few steadfast souls that He
was the Christ — the Messenger of
God to men ? Happily the impul-
siveness of Peter gives Him little
space for anxiety; for he, with that
generous outburst of affectionate
trust which should ring through
every creed, said, " Thou art the
Christ, the Son of the living God."
You see the intensified relief which
this brought to our Lord, the
keen satisfaction He felt as He
heard it distinctly and solemnly
uttered as the creed of the Twelve ;
as He heard what hitherto He

THE TRANSFIGURATION. 41

could only have gathered from
casual expressions, from wistful,,
awe-struck looks, from overheard
questionings and debatings with
one another. You see how at once
He steps on to a new footing with
them, as He cordially, and with
intense gratitude, says to Peter,
"Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-
jona/' In this Divinely- wrought
confession of Peter's, He finds at
last the foundation stone of the
earthly building, the beginning of
that intelligent and hearty recep-
tion of Himself which was to make-
earth the recipient of all heaven's
fulness. But as yet only half the
work is done. Men believe that
He is the King, but as yet they
have very little idea of what the
kingdom is to consist. They think
Him worthy of all glory, but the
kind of glory, and the way to it,,
they are ignorant of. From that

42 THE TRANSFIGURATION.

time forth, therefore, began Jesus
to show unto them how He must
go unto Jerusalem and suffer many
things, even of the men who ought
chiefly to have recognised Him,
and to be raised again the third
day.

Once before our Lord had been
tempted in another way to the
throne of the universal dominion
of men ; again this temptation is
pressed upon Him by the very men
who should have helped Him to
resist it; His closest, His warmest,
His most enlightened friends,
those who stand on quite a differ-
ent plane from the world at large,
are His tempters. Satan found in
them an adequate mouthpiece.
They, who should have cheered
and heartened Him to face the
terrible prospect, were hindrances,
were an additional burden and
anxiety to Him.

THE TRANSFIGURATION. 43

Now, it is to this conversation
that the incident known as the
transfiguration is linked by all the
evangelists who relate it — the first
three. It was six days after (or,
as Luke says, eight days after) this
conversation that Jesus went up
Mount Hermon for the sake of re-
tirement and prayer. Plainly He
was aware that the great crisis of
His life had come. The time had
come when He must cease teach-
ing, and face His destiny. He had
made upon His disciples an impres-
sion which would be indelible.
With deliberation they had ac-
cepted Him as the Messiah; the
Church was founded ; His work,
so far as His teaching went, was
accomplished. It remained that
He should die. To consecrate
Himself to this hard necessity, He
retired to the solitude of Mount
Hermon. We start, then, from

41 THE TRANSFIGURATION.

the wrong point of view, if we
suppose that Jesus climbed Hermon
in order to enjoy spiritual ecstasy,,
or exhibit His glory to those three
men. Ecstasy of this kind must
come unsought, and the way to it
lies through conflict, humiliation,
self-mastery. It was not simply
to pray that Jesus retired ; it was
to engage in the great conflict of
His life. And because He felt
Himself so much in need of kind-
ness and support, He took with
Him the three companions He
could most depend upon. They
were loyal friends ; and their very
presence was a strength to Him.
So human was Jesus, and now so
heavily burdened, that the devoted-
ness of these three plain men — the
sound of their voices, the touch of
their hands as they clambered the
hill together, gave Him strength
and courage. Let no one be-

THE TRANSFIGURATION. 45

ashamed to lean upon the affection
of his fellow-men. Let us^ also,
reverently, and with sympathy,
^accompany our Lord and witness,
and endeavour to understand, the
conflict in which He now engaged.
It has been suggested that the
transfiguration may best be under-
stood as a temptation. Un-
doubtedly there must have been
temptation in the experience of
Jesus at this crisis. It was for the
purpose of finally consecrating
Himself to death, with all its pain-
ful accompaniments, that He now
retired. But the very difficulty of
this act of consecration consisted
just in this : that He might, if He
pleased, avoid death. It was be-
cause Peter's words, " This be far
from Thee," touched a deep chord
in His own spirit, and strength-
ened that within Himself which
made Him tremble and wish that

46 THE TRANSFIGURATION.

God's will could in any other wise
be accomplished — it was this which
caused Him so sharply and sud-
denly to rebuke Peter. Peter's
words penetrated to what was
lurking near at hand as His
normal temptation. We may very
readily underrate the trial and
temptation of Christ, and thus
have only a formal, not a real,
esteem for His manhood. We
always underrate it when we do
not fully apprehend His human
nature, and believe that He was
tempted in all points as we are.
But, on the other hand, we under-
rate it if we forget that His posi-
tion was wholly different from
ours. That Jesus had abundant
nerve and courage no reader of the
Gospels can, of course, doubt. He
was calm in the midst of a storm
which terrified experienced boat-
men ; in riots that threatened

THE TRANSFIGURATION.

His life, in the hands of soldiers
striving to torment Him and break
Him down, in the presence of
judges and enemies, He maintained
a dignity which only the highest
courage could maintain. That
such a Person should have quailed
at the prospect of physical suffer-
ing, which thousands of men and
women have voluntarily and calmly
faced, is simply impossible to be-
lieve. Neither was it entirely His
perception of the spiritual signifi-
cance of death which made it to
Him a far more painful prospect
than to any other. Certainly this
clear perception of the meaning of
death did add immensely to its
terrors; but if we are even to
begin to understand His trial —
and begin is all we can do — we
must bear in mind what Peter had
just confessed, and what Jesus
Himself knew — that He was the

48 THE TRANSFIGURATION.

Ohrist. It was this which made
the difference. Socrates could
toss off the poison as unmoved as
if it had been a sleeping-draught,
because he was dying for himself
alone. Jesus could only with
trembling take into His hand the
fatal cup, because He knew that
He was standing for all men. If
He failed, all failed. Everything
hung upon Him. The general who
spends the whole night pacing his
tent, debating the chances of
battle on the morrow, is not tor-
mented with the thought of his
own private fate, but with the
possibilities of disaster to his men
and to his country, if his design
or his skill should at any moment
of the battle fail. Jesus was
human ; and we deny His
humanity, and fail to give Him
the honour due to it, if we do not
recognise the difficulty which He

THE TKANSFIGURATION. 49

must always have felt in believing-
that His single act could save the
world, and the burden of respon-
sibility which must have weighed
upon Him when He realised that
it was by the Spirit He maintained
in life and in death, that God
meant to bless all men. It was
because He knew Himself to be
the Christ, and because every man
depended upon Him as the Christ,
and because, therefore, the whole
blessing God meant for the world
depended upon His maintaining
faith in God through the most
trying circumstances — it was be-
cause of this that He trembled lest
all should end in failure. It was
this which drove Him again, and
again, and again to the hills to
spend all night in prayer, in laying"
His burden upon the only Strength
that could bear it.

But in retiring in order, with

4

50 THE TRANSFIGURATION.

deliberation, finally to dedicate
Himself to death, this temptation
must of necessity appear in all its
strength. It is only in presence
of all that can induce Him to
another course that He can resolve
upon the God-appointed way. As
He prays two figures necessarily
rise before Him, and intensify
the temptation. Moses and Elias
were God's greatest servants in
the past, and neither of them had
passed to glory through so severe
an ordeal. Moses, with eye un-
diinmed and strength unabated,
was taken from earth by a depar-
ture so easy that it was said to be
"by the kiss of God." Elijah,
instead of removal by death,
ascended to his rest in a chariot of
fire. Was it not possible that as
easy an exodus might befit Him ?
Might not this ignominious death
He looked forward to make it ini-

THE TRANSFIGURATION. 51

possible for the people to believe
in Him? How could they rank
Him with those old prophets whom
God had dealt with so differently
and so plainly honoured ? Would
people not almost necessarily
accept the death of the cross as
proof that He was abandoned?
Nay, did not their sacred books
justify them in considering Him
accursed of God ? Was He correct
in His interpretation of the Scrip-
tures— an interpretation which led
Him to believe that the Messiah
must suffer and die, but which
none of His friends admitted, and
none of the authorities and skilled
interpreters in His country admit-
ted ? Was it not, after all, possible
that His kingdom might be estab-
lished by other means? We can
see but a small part of the force of
these temptations, but if the pre-
sence of those august figures inten-

K9

THE TRANSFIGURATION.

sified the normal temptation of
this period, their presence was also
a very effectual aid against this
temptation. In their presence His
anticipated end could no longer be
called death ; rather the departure,
or, as the narrative says, the
Exodus. The eternal will and
mighty hand which had guided
and upheld Moses when he bore
the responsibility and toil of
emancipating a host of slaves
from the most powerful of rulers
would uphold Jesus in the infinite-
ly weightier responsibilities which
now lay upon Him. Elijah, also, at
a crisis of his people's history, had
stood alone against all the might
and malignity of Jezebel and the
priests of Baal ; alone, and with
death staring him in the face, he
confessed God, and, by his single-
handed victory, wrought de-
liverance for the whole people.

THE TRANSFIGURATION. 53

Their combined voice, therefore,
says to Jesus, "Banish all fear;
look forward to your decease at
Jerusalem as about to effect an
immeasurably grander deliverance
than that which gave freedom to
your people. Do not shrink from
trusting that the sacrifice of One
can open up a source of blessing
to all. Steadfast submission to
God's will is ever the path to
glory."

But not only must our Lord have
been encouraged and heartened by
recalling the individual experiences
of these men, but their presence
reminds Him of His relation to
them in God's purposes; for Moses
and Elijah represent the whole
Old Testament Church. By the
Law and the Prophets had God up
to this time dealt with men ;
through these He had revealed
Himself. But Jesus had long since

54 THE TRANSFIGURATION.

recognised that neither Moses nor
Elias, neither Law nor Prophets,
were sufficient. The Christ must
come to effect a real mediation
between God and man ; and Jesus
knew that He Himself was the
Christ. On Him lay the task of
making the salvation of the Jews
the salvation of the whole world ;
of bringing all men to Jehovah.
It was under pressure of this re-
sponsibility that He had searched
the Scriptures, and found in the
Scriptures what those had not
found — that it was necessary that
Christ should suffer and so enter
into glory.

Probably it was not so much any
one passage of Scrij:>ture which
had carried home to the mind of
Jesus that the Christ must die.
We may seek for that in vain ; it
was His perception of the real
needs of men, and of what the

THE TRANSFIGURATION. 55

Law and the Prophets had done to
satisfy these needs, that showed
Him what remained for the final
Revealer and Mediator to accom-
plish, The Law and the Prophets
had told men that God is holy, and
that men's blessedness, even as
God's blessedness, lies in holiness.
But this very teaching seemed to
widen the breach between men and
God, and to make union between
them truly hopeless. By the law
came not union with God, but the
knowledge of sin. To put it shortly,
fellowship or union with God,
which is the beginning and end of
all religion, is but another name
for holiness. Holiness is union
with God, and holiness can better
be secured by revealing the holy
God as a God of love than by law
or by prophets. It is this holy
love and loving holiness that the
cross of Christ brings home to

56 THE TRANSFIGURATION.

every heart. This revelation of
the Father, no document and no
officials could possibly make ; only
the Beloved Son, only one who
stood in a personal relation to the
Father, and was of the same
nature, as truly divine as human.
Therefore the voice goes forth
annulling all previous utterances,
and turning all eyes to Jesus —
" Hear Him ! " Therefore, as often
as the mind of Christ was employed
on this subject, so often did He
see the necessity of death. It was
only by dying that men's sins
could be expiated, and only by
dvin£ the fulness of God's love
could be exhibited. The Law and
the Prophets spoke to Him always,
and now once more of the decease
He must accomplish at Jerusalem.
They spoke of His death, because
it was His death that was presup-
posed by every sacrifice of the Law;

THE TRANSFIGURATION. 57

by every prophecy that foretold
good to man. The Law found its
highest fulfilment in the most law-
less of transgressions; prophecy
found its richest in that which
seemed to crush out hope itself.

Nothing, then, could have been
more opportune than this for the
■encouragement of our Lord. On
earth He had found incredulity
among His best friends ; incapac-
ity to see why He should die;
indifference to His object here.
He now meets with those who,
with breathless interest, await His
death as if it were the one only
future event. In their persons
He sees, at one view, all who had
put their trust in God from the
foundation of the world; all who
had put faith in a sacrifice for sin,
knowing it was God's appointment,
and that He would vindicate His
own wisdom and truth by finding

58 THE TRANSFIGURATION.

a real propitiation ; all who,
through dark and troublous times,
had strained to see the consolation
of Israel ; all who, in the misery
of their own thought, had still
believed that there was a true
glory for men somewhere to be
attained; all who through the
darkness and storm and fear of
earth had trusted in God, scarcely
daring to think what would be-
come of their trust, but assured
that God had spoken, nay, had
covenanted with His peojxle, and
finding true rest in Him. When
all these now stand before our
Lord in the persons of Moses and
Elias, the hitherto mediators
between God and man, must not
their waiting eyes, their longing,
trustful expectation, have con-
firmed His resolve that their hope
should not be put to shame ? The
whole anxiety of guilty con-

THE TEANSFIGT7KATI0N. 59'

sciences, the whole hope of men
awakened, the whole longing sigh
for a God revealed, that had
breathed from the ancient Church,,
at once became audible to His ear.
At once He felt the dependence of
all who had died in faith in the
promise. He meets the eager,
questioning gaze of all who had
hoped for salvation concentrated
on Himself. Is this He who can
save the lost, He who can bear the
weight of a world's dependence?
What an appeal there is here to
His compassion ! How steadfastly
now does He set His face towards
Jerusalem, feeling straitened till
the world's salvation is secured,
and all possibility of failure for
ever at an end.

This, then, was for Jesus an
appeal that was irresistible. As the
full meaning of all that God had
done for His people through Law

'CO THE TRANSFIGURATION.

and Prophets was borne in upon
Him, He saw that He must die.
Now, for the last time, He put
aside all His hesitations, and as
He prays, He yields Himself to
the will of the Father. Those are
the supreme moments in human
life when man, through sore con-
flict and at great cost, gives him-
self up to the will of God. Never
was there so sore a conflict, and
never so much joy as here. His
face was transfigured ; it beamed
with the light and peace of heaven
that shone from within. The eyes
of the disciples closed on a face,
every line of which they knew and
loved — a face full of wisdom and
resolve and deep-founded peace,
showing marks of trouble, of trial,
of endurance, of premature age ;
their e}res opened upon a face
that shines with a preternatural
radiance — a face expressing, more

THE TRANSFIGURATION. 61

than ever face had done, the
dignity and glory and joy of per-
fect harmony with God. He was
God - possessed, and the Divine
glory shone from His face. It was
at the moment of His yielding all
to God that Jesus attained His
highest glory. Man's life is trans-
formed when he allows God's will
to fill it and shine through it ; his
person is transformed when he
divests himself of self-will, and
allows God wholly to possess it.

How easy was it for the disciples
at that hour to hear Him ; to listen
now when He spoke of the cross,
which, for Him and for all His
disciples, is the path leading from
earth to heaven, from what is
selfishly human to true human
glory ! It is on the cross that
Jesus is truly enthroned. It is
because He became the Servant of
all that He is greatest of all. If

62 THE TRANSFIGURATION.

any one could rival Him in the
service he would rival Him in the
glory. It is because He gave Him-
self for us, willing to do all to save
us in our direst need, that He
takes a place in our confidence and
in our heart that belongs to no
other. He becomes the one abso-
lute need of every man, because He
is that which brings us to God,
and gives God to us.

Hear Him, therefore, when,
through His Providence, He
preaches to you this difficult
lesson. If your difficulties and
distresses are real ; if you cannot
labour without thinking of them ;
if you cannot rest from labour
through fear of their possessing
you ; if your troubles have assumed
so hard a form, so real a place in
your life, that all else has come to
seem unreal and empty, then
remember that He whose end

THE TRANSFIGURATION. 63

was to be eternal glory chose
sorrow, that He might break a way
to glory through human suffering.
If there is nothing in your lot in
life which crosses and humbles you ;
if there is nothing in your circum-
stances which compels you to see
that this life is not for self-indul-
gence and self-gratification, then
still you must win participation in
your Lord's glory by accepting
His lowliness and heavenliness of
mind . It is not to outward success
that you are called in His kingdom,
it is to inward victory. You are
called to meekness, and lowliness,
and mercy ; to the losing of your
life in this world, that you may
have life everlasting.

Notice, in conclusion, the
impression made on the disciples,
as disclosed in Peter's words, " It
is good to be here." Peter knew
when he was in good company. He

64 THE TRANSFIGURATION.

was not very wise himself, but he
had sense enough to recognise
wisdom in others. He was not
himself a finished saint, but he
had a hearty appreciation of those
who had attained saintliness. He
had reverence, power to recognise,
and ungrudingly to worship, what
was good. He had an honest
delight in seeing his Master
honoured, a delight which, per-
haps, some of us envy. It was
not a forced expression, it was
not a feigned delight. He was
a man who always felt that
something should be said, and so
here what was uppermost came
out. Why did Peter feel it was
good for him to be there ? Possi-
bly it was in part because here was
glory without shame ; recognition
and homage without suffering ;
but no doubt partly because he felt
that in such company he was a

THE TRANSFIGURATION. 65

better man than elsewhere. Christ
kept him right ; seemed to under-
stand him better than others ; to
consider him more. There was no
resentment on Peter's part on
account of the severe answers he
received from Christ. He knew
these were just, and he had
learned to trust his Lord ; and it
suddenly flashes upon him that,
if only he could live quietly with
Jesus in such retirement as they
then enjoyed, he would be a better
man. We have the same con-
sciousness as Peter, that if ever we
are right-minded and disposed for
good, and able to make sacrifices
and become a little heavenly; if
ever we hate sin cordially — it is
when we are in the presence of
Christ. If we find it as impossible
as Peter did to live retired from all
conflict and intercourse with all
kinds of men; if, like Peter, we

5

66 THE TRANSFIGTTKATION.

have to descend into a valley ring-
ing with demoniacs' cries; if we
are called upon to deal with the
world as it actually is — deformed,
dehumanised by sin ; is it nothing
that we can assure ourselves of the
society and friendship of One who
means to remove all suffering and
all sin, and who does so, not by a
violent act of authority, but by
sympathy and patient love, so that
we can be His proper instruments,
and in healing and helping others,
help and heal ourselves !

Indiscreet Importunity.

INDISCREET IMPORTUNITY.

" I gave thee a king in mine anger."

Hosba xiii. 11.
" Ye know not what ye ask."

Matthew xx. 22.
Psalm lxxviii. 27-31.

That God sometimes suffers men
to destroy themselves, giving them
their own way, although He knows
it is ruinous, and even putting
into their hands the scorpion they
have mistaken for a fish, is an
indubitable and alarming fact.
Perhaps no form of ruin covers a
man with such shame or sinks him
to such hopelessness as when he
finds that what he has persistently
clamoured for and refused to be
content without, has proved the
bitterest and most disastrous

70 INDISCREET IMPORTUNITY.

element in his life. This particular
form of ruin is nowhere described
with more careful and significant
detail than in the narrative of
Israel's determination to have a
king over them like other nations.
Samuel, f orseeing the evils which
would result from their choice,
remonstrated with them and
reminded them of their past
success, and pointed out the
advantageous elements in their
present condition. But there is a
point at which desire becomes deaf
and blind, and the evil of it can be
recognised only after it is gratified.
God therefore " gave them a king
in His anger."

The truth, then, which is em-
bodied in this incident, and which
is liable to reappear in the experi-
ence of any individual, is this,
that sometimes God yields to im-
portunity, and grants to men what

INDISCREET IMPORTUNITY. 71

He knows will be no blessing to
them. (i It is a thing," says South,
" partly worth our wonder, partly
our compassion, that what the
greatest part of men most passion-
ately desire, that they are gener-
ally most unfit for ; so that at a
distance they court that as an
enjoyment, which upon experience
they find a plague and a great
calamity." It is astonishing how
many things we desire for the
same reason as the Israelites
sought a king, merely that we may
have what other people have. We
may not definitely covet our neigh-
bour's house or his wife or his
position or anything that is his ;
but deep within us remains the
scarcely-conscious conviction that
we have not all we might and
ought to have until our condition
more resembles his. We take our
ideas of happiness from what we

72 INDISCREET IMPORTUNITY.

see in other people, and have little
originality to devise any special
and more appropriate enjoyment
or success. Fashion or tradition
or the necessity of one class in
society has promoted certain pos-
sessions and conditions to the rank
of extremely desirable or even
necessary elements of happiness,
and forthwith we desire them,
without duly considering our own
individuality and what it is that
must always constitute happiness
for us, or what it is that fits us for
present usefulness. Health, posi-
tion, fame, a certain settlement in
life, income, marriage ; such things
are eagerly sought by thousands,
and they are sought without suffi-
cient discrimination, or at any rate
without a well-informed weighing
of consequences. We refuse, too,
to see that already without those
things our condition has much

INDISCREET IMPORTUNITY. 7o

advantage, and that we are actu-
ally happy. We may be dimly
conscious that our tastes are not
precisely those of other men, and
that if the ordinary ways of so-
ciety are the best men can devise
for spending* life satisfactorily,
these are scarcely the ways that
will suit us. Yet, like petted chil-
dren, we continue persistently to
cry for the thing we have not.
Sometimes it is a mere question
of waiting. The thing we sigh
for will come in time, but not yet.
To wait is the test of many per-
sons ; and if they are impatient,
they fail in the one point that
determines the whole. Many youngv
persons seem to think life will all
be gone before they taste any of
its sweets. They must have every-
thing at once, and cannot post-
pone any of its enjoyments or
advantages. No quality is more

74 INDISCREET IMPORTUNITY.

fatal to success and lasting happi-
ness than impatience.

This being a common attitude
of mind towards fancied blessings,
how does God deal with it ? For
a long time He may in compassion
withhold the fatal gift. He may
in pity disregard our petulant
clamour. And He may in many
ways bring home to our minds
that the thing we crave is in
several respects unsuitable. We
may become conscious under His
discipline that without it we are
less entangled with the world and
with temptation ; that we can live
more holily and more freely as we
are, and that to quench the desire
we have would be to choose the
better part. God may make it
plain to us that it is childish to
look upon this one thing as the
supreme and only good. Provi-
dential obstacles are thrown in our

INDISCREET IMPORTUNITY. 75

way, difficulties amounting almost
to impossibilities absolutely pre-
vent us for a while from attaining
our object^ and give us time to
collect ourselves and take thought.
And not only are we prevented
from attaining this one object,
but in other respects our life is
enriched and gladdened, so that
we might be expected to be con-
tent. If we cannot have a king
like other nations, we have the
best of Judges in abundance. And
experience of this kind will con-
vince the subject of it that a Pro-
vidence shapes our ends, even
although the lesson it teaches
may remain unlearnt.

For man's will is never forced :
and therefore if we continue to pin
our happiness to this one object,
and refuse to find satisfaction and
fruit in life without it, God " gives
in anger " what we have resolved

76 INDISCREET IMPORTUNITY.

to obtain. He gives it in its bare
earthly form, so that as soon as we
receive it our soul sinks in shame.
Instead of expanding our nature
and bringing us into a finished and
satisfactory condition, and setting
our life in right relations with
other men, we find the new gift to
be a curse to us, hampering us,
cutting us off in unexpected ways
from our usefulness, thwarting and
blighting our life round its whole
circumference.

For a man is never very long in
discovering the mischief he has
done by setting his own wisdom
above God's, by underrating God's
goodness and overriding God's
will. When Samuel remonstrated
with Israel and warned them that
their king would tyrannise over
them, all the answer he got was :
" Nay, but we will have a king to
rule over us." But, not many days

INDISCREET IMPORTUNITY. 77

niter, they caiae to Samuel with a
very different petition : " Pray for
thy servants unto the Lord thy
God, that we die not ; for we have
added unto all our sins this evil, to
ask us a king." So it is always ;
we speedily recognise the differ-
ence between God's wisdom and
our own. What seemed neglect
on His part is now seen to be care,
and what we murmured at as nig-
gardliness and needless harshness
we now admire as tenderness.
Those at least are our second and
wiser thoughts, even although at
first we may be tempted with
Manoah when he saw his son blind
and fettered in the Philistine dun-
geon, to exclaim,

What thing good
Pray'd for, but often proves our woe,

our bane?
I prayed for children and thought bar-
renness

78 INDISCREET IMPORTUNITY.

In wedlock a reproach ; I gain'd a son
And such a son as all men hail'd me-

happy.
"Who would be now a father in my stead ?
Oh, wherefore did God grant me my

request,
And as a blessing with such pomp

adorn'd ?
Why are His gifts desirable, to tempt
Our earnest prayers, then giv'n with

solemn hand
As graces, draw a scorpions tail behind r

Such, I say, may be our first
thoughts ; but when the first bit-
terness and bewilderment of dis-
appointment are over, when reason
and right feeling begin to domin-
ate, we own that the whole history
of our prayer and its answer has
been most humiliating to us,
indeed, but most honouring to
God. We see as never before how
accurately our character has been
understood, how patiently our evil
propensities have been resisted.

INDISCEEET IMPORTUNITY. 79'

how truly our life has been guided
towards the highest ends.
The obvious lessons are : —
1. Be discreet in your impor-
tunity. Two parables are devoted
to the inculcation of importunity.
And it is a duty to which our own
intolerable cravings drive us. But
there is an importunity which
offends God. There is a spiritual
instinct which warns us when we
are transgressing the bounds of
propriety; a perception whereby
Paul discerned, when he had
prayed thrice for the removal of
the thorn in his flesh, that it would
not be removed. There are things
about which a heavenly-minded
person feels it to be unbecoming to
be over-solicitous; and there are
things regarding which it is some-
how borne in upon us that we are
not to attain them. There are
natural disabilities, physical or

80 INDISCREET IMPORTUNITY.

mental or social weaknesses and
embarrassments, regarding which
we sometimes cannot but cry out
to God for relief, and yet as we
cry we feel that they will not be
removed, and that we must learn
to bear the burden cheerfully.

2. On the other hand, we must
not be false in prayer. We must
utter to God our real desires in
their actual intensity; while at
the same time we must learn to
moderate desires which we see to
be unpleasing to God. We must
learn to say with truth :

Not what we wish but what we want
Thy favouring grace supply ;

The good unasked, in mercy grant,
The ill, though asked, deny.

Learn why God does not make the
coveted blessing accessible to you,
and you will learn to pray freely
;md wisely. Try to discover

INDISCREET IMPORTUNITY. 81

whether there is not some pecu-
liar advantage attaching to your
present state — some more whole-
some example you can furnish,
some more helpful attitude towards
others ; some healthier exercise of
the manlier graces of Christianity,
which could not be maintained
were your request granted.

3. If your life is marred by the
gift you have wrung by your im-
portunity from a reluctant God,
be wise and humble in your deal-
ing with that gift. If you have
suddenly and painfully learned that
in the ordinary-looking circum-
stances of your life God is touching
you at every point, and if you
clearly see that in giving you the
fruit of your desires He is punish-
ing you, there is one only way by
which you can advance to a favour-
able settlement, and that is by a
real submission to God. Perhaps

G

82 INDISCREET IMPORTUNITY.

in no circumstances is a man more
tempted to break with God. At
first he cannot reconcile himself
to the idea that rain should be the
result of prayer, and he is inclined
to say, If this be the result of
waiting on God, the better course
is to refuse His guidance. In his
heart he knows he is wrong, but
there is an appearance of justice in
what he says, and it is so painful
to have the heart broken, to admit
we have been foolish and wrong,
and humbly to beseech God to
repair the disasters our own self-
will has wrought.

Shame on Account of
God's Displeasure.

SHAME ON ACCOUNT OF
GOD'S DISPLEASURE.

"And the Lord said unto Moses, If her
father had but spit in her face, should she not
be ashamed seven days ? Let her be shut out
from the camp seven days, and after that let
her be received in again." — Numbers xii. 14.

The incident recorded in this
chapter is of a painful character.
Petty jealousies discovered them-
selves in the most distinguished
family of Israel. Through the
robes of the anointed and sacred
High Priest the throbbings of a
heart stirred with evil passion
were discernible. Aaron and
Miriam could not bear that even
their own brother should occupy
a position of exceptional dignity,
and with ignorant pretentiousness
aspired to equality with him. It

86 SHAME ON ACCOUNT OF

is to the punishment of this sin that
our attention is here called. This
punishment fell directly on Miriam,
possibly because the person of the
High Priest was sacred, and had
he been incapacitated all Israel
would have suffered in their repre-
sentative ; possibly because the
sin, as it shows traces of a
peculiarly feminine jealousy, was
primarily the sin of Miriam ; and
partly because, in her punishment,
Aaron suffered a sympathetic
shame, as is apparent from his
impassioned appeal to Moses in
her behalf.

The noteworthy feature of the
incident and its most impressive
lesson are found in the fact that,
although the healing and forgive-
ness sought for Miriam were not
refused, God is represented as
resenting the speedy oblivion of
the offence on account of which

god's displeasure. 87

the leprosy had been sent and of the
Divine displeasure incurred. There
was cause to apprehend that the
whole matter might be too quickly
wiped out and forgotten, and that
the sinners, reinstated in their old
positions, should think too lightly
of their offence. This detrimental
suddenness God takes measures to
prevent. Had an earthly father
manifested his displeasure as
emphatically as God had now
shown His, Miriam could not for a
time have held up her head. God
desires that the shame which results
from a sense of His displeasure
should last at least as long. He
therefore enjoins something like a
penance; He removes His stroke,
but provides for the moral effects
of it being sufficiently impressed
on the spirit to be permanent.

Three points are involved in the
words :

80 SHAME ON ACCOUNT OF

1. Our keener sense of man's
displeasure than of God's.

2. The consequent possibility of
accepting pardon -with too light a
heart.

3. The means of preventing such
acceptance of pardon.

1. We are much more sensitive
to the displeasure of man than to
that of God. Men have several
methods of expressing their opinion
of us and their feeling toward us ;
and these methods are quite effec-
tual for their purpose. There is
an instinctive and exact corres-
pondence between our feelings and
every slightest hint of disapproba-
tion on the part of our acquaint-
ances ; and so readily and com-
pletely does the mere carriage of
any person convey to us his esti-
mate of our conduct that explicit
denunciation is seldom required.
The mode of expressing opinion

god's displeasure. 89

which is cited in the text is the
most forcible Eastern mode of ex-
pressing contempt. When one
man spits in the face of another,
no one, and least of all the suffer-
ing party, can have the slightest
doubt of the esteem in which the
one holds the other. If an insolent
enemy were to spit in the face of
a slain foe, the dead man might
almost be expected to blush or to
rise and avenge the insult. But
comparing His methods with such
a method as this, God awards the
palm to His own for explicitness
and emphasis. He speaks of the
most emphatic and unambiguous
of human methods with a " but,"
as if it could scarcely be compared
with His expressions of displeasure.
" If her father had but spit in her
face " — if that were all — but some-
thing immensely more expressive
than that has happened to her.

90 SHAME ON ACCOUNT OF

God, therefore, would have us
ponder the punishments of sin,
and find in them the emphatic
expressions of His judgment of
our conduct and of ourselves. He
resents our shamelessness, and
desires that we consider His judg-
ments till our callousness is
removed. The case stands thus :
God is long-suffering, slow to
anger, not of a fault-finding, ever-
chicling nature, but most loving
and most just ; and this God has
recorded against us the strongest
possible condemnation. This God,
who cannot do what is not most
just, and who cannot make mis-
takes, this unfurious and holy God,
whose opinion of us represents the
very truth, has pronounced us to be
wicked and worthless; and we
seem scarcely at all impressed by
the declaration. God's judgment
of us is not only absolutely true,

but it must also take effect ; so that
what He has pronounced against
us will be seen written in the facts
bearing upon and entering into
our life. But, although we know
this, we are for the most part as
unmoved as if in hearing God's
judgment pronounced against us
we had heard but the sighing of
the wind or any other inarticulate,
unintelligible sound. There is a
climax of ignominy in having
excited in the Divine mind feelings
of displeasure against us. One
might suppose a man would die of
shame, and could not bear to live
conscious of having merited the
condemnation and punishment of
such a Being ; one might suppose
that the breath of God's dis-
approval would blast every blessing
to us, and that so long as we know
ourselves displeasing to Him His
sweetest gifts must be bitter to

52 SHAME ON ACCOUNT OF

us; but the coldness of a friend
gives us more thought, and the
•contempt of men as contemptible
as ourselves affects us with a more
■genuine confusion.

God's demand, then, is reason-
able. He would have us feel
before Him as much shame as we
feel before men, the same kind
of shame — shame with the same
blush and burning in it, not shame
of any sublimated, fictitious kind.
He desires us individually to take
thought, and to say to ourselves :
" Suppose a man had proved
against me even a small part of
what is proved against me by God :
•suppose some wise, just, and
honourable man had said of me
and believed such things as God
has said: suppose he had said,
and said truly, that I had robbed
him, betrayed trust, and was un-
worthy of his friendship, would

god's displeasure. 9$

the shame be no more poignant
than that which I feel when God
denounces me?" How trifling
are the causes which make us
blush before our fellows : a little
awkwardness, the slightest acci-
dent which makes us appear
blundering, some scarcely per-
ceptible incongruity of dress, an
infinitesimal error in manner or
in accent — anything is enough to
make us uneasy in the company
of those we esteem. It is God's
reasonable demand that for those
gross iniquities and bold trans-
gressions of which we are con-
scious we should manifest some
heartfelt shame — a shame that
does not wholly lack the poig-
nancy and agitation of the con-
fusion we feel in presence of
human judgment.

2. The consequent possibility of
accepting the pardon of sin with too-

94 SHAME ON ACCOUNT OP

light a heart. To ask for pardon
without real shame is to treat siii
lightly ; and to treat sin lightly is
to treat God lightly. Nothing
more effectually deadens the moral
sense than the habit of asking
pardon without a due sense of the
evil of sin. We ask God to
forgive us our debts, and we do
so in so inconsiderate a spirit that
we go straightway and contract
heavier debts. The friend who
repays the ten pounds we had
lent him and asks for a new loan
of twenty, does not commend him-
self to our approval. He is no
better who accepts pardon as if
it cost God nothing.

3. The means of preventing a too
light-hearted acceptance of pardon.
Under the ceremonial prescriptions
enjoined on Miriam lay some moral
efficacy. A person left for a full
week without the camp must, in

god's displeasure. 95

separation from accustomed com-
panionship, intercourse, and occu-
pations, have been thrown upon
his or her own thoughts. No
doubt it is often while engaged in
our ordinary occupations that the
strongest light is flashed upon our
true spiritual condition. It is
while in the company of other
people that we catch hints which
seem to interpret to us our past
and reveal to us our present state.
But these glimpses and hints often
pass without result, because we
do not find leisure to follow them
up. There must be some kind of
separation from the camp if we
are to know ourselves, some leisure
gained for quiet reflection. It is
due to God that we be at some
pains to ascertain with precision
our actual relation to His will.

The very feeling of being out-
cast, unworthy to mingle with

96 SHAME ON ACCOUNT OF

former associates and friends, must
have been humbling and instruc-
tive. Miriam had been the fore-
most woman in Israel ; now she
would gladly have changed places
with the least known and be lost
among the throng from the eye of
wonder, pity, contempt or cruel
triumph. All sin makes us un-
worthy of fellowship with the
people of God. And the feeling
that we are thus unworthy, instead
of being lightly and callously dis-
missed, should be allowed to pene-
trate and stir the conscience.

If the leprosy departed from
Miriam as soon as Moses prayed,
yet the shock to her physical
system, and the revulsion of feeling
consequent on being afflicted with
so loathsome a disease, would tell
upon her throughout the week.
All consequences of sin, which are
prolonged after pardon, have their

god's displeasuke. 97

proper effect and use in begetting
shame. We are not to evade what
conscience tells us of the connec-
tion between our sin and many of
the difficulties of our life. We are
not to turn away from this as a
morbid view of providence ; still
less are we to turn away because in
this light sin seems so real and
so hideous. Miriam must have
thought, " If this disgusting con-
dition of my body, this lassitude
and nervous trembling, this fear
and shame to face my fellows, be
the just consequence of my envy
and pride, how abominable must
these sins be." And we are sum-
moned to similar thoughts. If this
pursuing evil, this heavy clog that
drags me down, this insuperable
difficulty, this disease, or this
spiritual and moral weakness be
the fair natural consequence of my
sin, if these things are in the

7

98 SHAME ON ACCOUNT OF

natural world what my sin is in the
spiritual, then rny sin must be a
much greater evil than I was
taking it to be.

But especially are we rebuked
for all light-heartedness in our
estimate of sin by remembering
Him who went without the camp
bearing our reproach. It is when
we see Christ rejected of men, and
outcast for us and for our sin, that
we feel true shame. To find one
who so loves me and enters into
my position that He feels more
keenly than myself the shame I
have incurred ; to find one who so
understands God's holiness and is
Himself so pure that my sin affects
Him with the profoundest shame
— this is what pierces my heart
with an altogether new compunc-
tion, with an arrow that cannot be
shaken out. And this connection
of Christ with our sin is actual.

99

If Paul felt himself so bound up
with his fellow-Christians that he
blushed for them when they erred,
and could say with truth, "Who
is weak and I am not weak, who
is offended and I turn not?"
much more truly may Christ say,
Who sins and I am not ashamed ?
And if He thus enters into a living-
sympathy with us, shall not we
enter into sympathy with Him,
and go without the camp bear-
ing His reproach, which, indeed,
is ours ; striving, though it cost
us much shame and self-denial,
to enter heartily into His
feelings at our sins, and not
letting our union to Him be a
mere name or an inoperative tie
which effects no real assimilation
in spirit between us and Him.

7449-7.1

Naaman Cured,

NAAMAN CURED.

There is no Scripture story better
known than that of Naanian, the
Syrian. It is memorable not only
because artistically told, but
because it is so full of human
feeling and rapid incident, and so
fertile in significant ideas. The
little maid, whose touch set in
motion this drama, is an instance
of the adaptability of the Jew.
Nothing seemed less likely than
that this captive girl should carry
with her into Syria anything of
much value to any one. Posses-
sions she had none. Friends she
might have, only if she could make
them. As a captive in a foreign
land she might reasonably have
put aside all hope of obtaining

104 NAAMAN CURED.

any influence, and might naturally
have sought only to benefit her-
self. But she was a girl with a
heart. She at once took an inter-
est in her new home, and saw
with sorrowful surprise that
wealth could not purchase im-
munity from participation in the
ordinary human distresses, nor
guarded gates forbid disease to
pass in. Brooding from day to
day over the stories she had heard
of Elisha's power, and listening to
her mistress's account of the
failure of still another attempted
cure, she exclaims with child-
like confidence and earnestness,
" Would God my lord were with
the prophet that is in Samaria !
then would he recover him of his
leprosy." And thus her natural
interest in the troubles of other
people, her cheerful and spirited
acceptance of her position, and the

NAAMAN CURED. 105

sense that taught her to make the
most of it, brought her this great
opportunity of doing an important
service. No one can lay the blame
of his uselessness and lack of good
influence on his lack of oppor-
tunity, if he is in contact with men
at all, for wherever there are
human beings there are sorrows
to be sympathised with, wants-
to be relieved, characters to be
fashioned.

And while this Jewish maid was-
utilising her captivity, her parents,
if alive, would be eating their
hearts out with anxiety and
ang-uish, imagining for their
daughter the worst of destinies.
Instead of the horrors which
usually follow such a captivity,
she is cared for in a comfortable
home. Little did the parents
think that there was any work to
be done in Syria, which none

106 NAAMAN CURED.

could so well do as their little girl.
The Lord had need of her, and
knew that when the parents heard
all they would not resent that
their daughter had been thus
employed. None of us see much
further into the ways of Provid-
ence than those parents saw. Now,
as then, those who are bound up
in one another are separated, in
order that ends even more import-
ant than the growth and gratifica-
tion of natural affections may
be attained.

Significant, also, is the dismay
of Joram, King of Israel, when he
received the letter bidding him
find healing for Naaman. So
little did he believe in Elisha's
power that he concluded the King
of Syria sought to pick a quarrel
with him by asking him for a
favour he knew he could not grant.
But while the king is helplessly

NAAMAN CURED. 107

"tearing his clothes in a passion of
despair, Elisha sends him a mes-
sage which, at least for the
present, gives him some calmness :
" Why hast thou rent thy clothes?
Let him come now to me, and he
shall know that there is a prophet
in Israel." Elisha is ashamed that
the King of Israel should have ex-
hibited such weakness before a
foreign potentate. He feels that
the honour of Israel's God is
implicated, and boldly takes upon
himself the responsibility of the
cure. Bold it certainly was, and
tells of a confident faith that Grod
will be faithful to His servants.
The king had no such faith.
There was a power resident in
Israel of which he took no account.
Like many other governments,
this Israelitish monarchy was
unaware of its own resources,
because it did not condescend to

108 NAAMAN CURED.

reckon what was spiritual. Fre-
quently in civil history you find
governments brought face to face
with matters for which they are,,
with all their resources, incom-
petent. In modern Europe, and
as much in our own country as in
others, everything gives place to
politics. Nothing stirs so much
excitement. Differences in reli-
gion do not sever men as differ-
ences in politics do. We should,
therefore, recognise what is here
suggested, and should counter-
balance an undue regard for
political movements and political
power by the remembrance that
the hardest tasks of all are accom-
plished by quite another power,
and by a power which the poli-
tician often overlooks. What
have we seen time after time in
our own Parliament, but the civil
power rending its garments o\er

XAAMAN CURED. 109

evils which it cannot cure ? Are
not the remedies which have been
proposed for prevalent vices
absurdly incompetent ? And it is
the Church's shame if she cannot
step forward and confidently say,
You cannot deal with such things ;
hand them over to me. There
must always be "distempers of
society " which rot the very life
out of a nation, and for which
legislation and criminal law are
wholly inadequate. Honest-
minded men who will not trifle
with alarming abuses, who will
not pretend they have found a
remedy, must simply rend their
garments in their presence. And
it is well that in our day, as in
others, there are men who, trusting
in personal effort and Divine aid,
practically say to Government,
u Leave these things to us."
Christian charity and practical

110 NAAMAN CURED.

wisdom have, in our day, effected
a good deal more than the healing*
of one leprous grandee, even if as
yet the spiritual force that resides
in the community is only spas-
modically and partially applied to
existing evil.

Elisha's treatment of Naaman
was intended to bring him into
direct and conscious dependence
on God ; or, in other words, to
produce humility and faith. Some
persons are crushed and mastered
by pain and sickness, and some gain
in spiritual worth what they lose in
physical strength. But Naaman's
disease had as yet done little to
instruct him. He came as a great
man, with his servants, and chari-
ots, and piles of money, to pur-
chase a cure from a skilled man.
He did not see what Elisha plainly
saw, that if this blessing came at
all, it must come from Israel's

NAAMAN CURED. Ill

God, and that with Jehovah no
man could barter or be on bargain-
ing terms, but must accept freely
what was freely given. Therefore
Elisha refuses even to see him,
that Naaman might understand it
was with God he had to do ; and
by refusing a single penny of pay-
ment he compelled the Syrian to
humble himself and accept his cure
as a gift.

And probably the incident finds
a place in the sacred history
because it marked an important
step in the knowledge of God. It
was an early instance of the con-
quests which the God of Israel was
to make among the heathen, a dis-
tinct and legible proof that who-
ever from among the outlying
nations appealed to Him for help
would receive the blessing he
sought. But it was more than this,
it emphasized the freeness of all

112 NAAMAN CURED.

God's gifts . Nothing could be pur-
chased from Jehovah ; everything
must be received as a gift. This
was a new idea to the heathen,
and probably to many of the Israel-
ites also. Certainly it is an idea
that is only dimly apprehended
by ourselves. Our dealing with
one another is to so large an ex-
tent governed by the idea that
nothing can be had for nothing,
that we carry this idea into our
dealings with God, and expect
only what we can earn and claim.
It is a wholesome pride that
prompts us to work at anything
rather than be dependent on other
men, but it is a most unwhole-
some and ignorant pride that for-
bids us to acknowledge our depend-
ence on God, and to accept freely
what He freely gives. Until we
learn to live in God, to own Him
as alone having life in Himself,

NAAMAN CURED. 113

and to accept from Him life and all
that sustains it, both physical and
spiritual, we are not recognising
the truth and living* in it. Our
good deeds and good feelings, our
repentances and righteous inten-
tions and endeavours, are as much
out of place as a means of procur-
ing God's favour and help as
Naaman's talents of silver and
pieces of gold. We have God's
favour irrespective of our merit,
and we must humble ourselves to
accept it as His free gift, which
we could not earn and have not
earned.

Naaman no sooner saw that
Jehovah was a living and true God
than he perceived that certain
practical difficulties would result
from this belief. Sometimes men
do not connect their belief with
their practice ; they do not let
their left hand know what their

114 NAAMAN CURED.

right hand is doing. But Naainan
foresaw that, as hitherto, he would
still be expected to enter the temple
of the god Rimmonwhen his master
went to worship. And he wished
Elisha's authority for this measure
of conformity.

In our own country men have
been severely tested by acts of
conformity. And nothing gives
the conscience of the whole people
so decided a lift as when men
prefer disgrace or death to a
conformity which they believe to
be wrong.

Had Naaman been as uncom-
promising as Daniel, who would
not conform even so far as to pray
in a different comer of his room,,
or as the Christian soldiers who
suffered death rather than throw
a pinch of incense on the altar
before the Emperor's image, pos-
sibly Elisha would have given him

NAAMAN CURED. 115

greater commendation than the
mere acquiescence pronounced in
the words, " Go in peace."

But in exculpation of Naaman
it is to be said that he did not hide
his new conviction, but built an
altar to Jehovah in Damascus.
And especially it is to be remarked
that in his case these acts of con-
formity were not proposed as a
test of his adherence to the reli-
gion of the country; and this
makes all the difference. Had
Naaman's master commanded him
to bow in the house of Rimmon as
a test of his acknowledgment of
the Syrian god, Naaman would
have refused ; but so long as it
was a mere act or courtesy to his
master, the formal act of a cour-
tier, from which no inferences
could be drawn, he might reason-
ably continue it. To receive the
communion kneeling is customary

116 NAAMAX CURED.

in some churches, and so long as
one is allowed to put his own in-
terpretation on the attitude, no
harm can come of it. But at one
time this attitude was the test by
which two great and antagonistic
parties in England were distin-
guished from one another ; a
meaning was put upon the act
which made it impossible to every
man who could not accept that
meaning. Conformity then was
sin, unless conviction went with
the outward act. In many points
of conduct this is a distinction
of importance. There are many
things which we may do so far as
the thing itself is concerned, but
which we may not do when the
public mind is agitated upon that
point and will draw certain infer-
ences from our conduct. There
are many things which to us have
no moral significance at all, any

XAAMAN CURED. 117

more than sitting at one side or
other of our table ; but if a moral
significance is attached to such
things by other people, and if they
invite us to do them or to leave them
undone as a test of our attitude
towards God or Christianity or of
our moral bent, then we must be-
ware of misleading other people
and defiling our own conscience.
Bowing in the house of Rimmon
meant nothing new to Naaman ; it
was not worship ; it was no more
than turning round a street corner
when the king had hold of his
arm. To him the idol was now,
as to Paul, "nothing in the world."
But if the king had said, " You
must bow to show the people that
you worship Syria's god," then
plainly the bowing would have
been unjustifiable. And similarly,
if a matter which to us is of no
moral significance becomes a test

118 NAAMAN CTTEED.

of our disposition or attitude
towards truth, we must be guided
in our conduct not solely by our
own view of the indifference of the
matter, but also by the significance
attached to it by other people.
There are other points of conduct
regarding which we have no need
to consult any prophet ; points in
which we are asked to conform to
a custom we know to be bad, or to
follow and countenance other men
in what we know to be unwhole-
some for us. To conform in such
cases is to train ourselves in hypo-
crisy; it is to say Lord, Lord,
while we allow the world actually
to rule our life.

The Lame Man at the
Temple Gate.

THE LAME MAN AT THE
TEMPLE GATE.

Acts hi. 1-8.

Although this miracle was fol-
lowed by consequences so serious
as to make it a landmark in the
history of those early days of the
Church, it was not itself the re-
sult of deliberation or contrivance.
Peter and John were, as usual, on
their way to evening prayer in the
Temple. These two men had much
to gain from one another, and they
kept much together. In study, in
business, in Christian work, in life
generally every one is the better of
the friend who supplements his
own character. Happy he whose
closest friend of all provokes only
to love and good works, and calls

122 THE LAME MAX AT THE

out only what is best in him. It
is, if not essential to the growth
and health of the spiritual life,
most desirable to have a friend
with whom intercourse is abso-
lutely free and frank ; one to whom
it is the natural thing to explain
the actual state of the spirit, and
utter our most sceptical or our
most devout thoughts, and who
can be trusted to respond charit-
ably, confidentially, and wisely to
all communications. The Church
owes much to the friendship of
Peter and John, as well as to each
individually.

On how small a contingency did
this miracle hinge. Had Peter
happened to have had a penny he
would have dropped it in the
beggar's palm and passed on,
leaving him content with the alms
and unconscious of all he had
missed. And it is sometimes well

TEMPLE GATE. 128"

for us, as for Peter, that we are
baulked in our first intentions
towards our friends and our first
attempts at being of use. It is
well, for example, that we cannot
at once rescue every one out of
sickness and poverty, for thereby
our love is compelled to a deeper
consideration and to a thousand
kindnesses which find their way
to the heart and leave for ever a
treasure of happy memory. Our
inability to gratify the obvious and
clamant want of our friend keeps
our thought hovering around him
untile at last, we discern how we
can confer a better and more
enduring, because a more difficult
and thoughtful, gift.

Probably Peter had often passed
this lame man before. To-day
the two Apostles have not together
as much as the poor widow with
her two mites, and they are passing

124 THE LAME MAN AT THE

and thinking as little as we some-
times think of leaving the needy
to the charity of others, when sud-
denly it occurs to Peter that, after
rail, he has what may be of more
service to the beggar than silver
or gold. " What I have, that give
I thee." The best help we can
give is not that which we can give
with the hand, and which is cur-
rent coin, which any one else may
give, and which is of the same
value, whoever gives it ; but rather
that which we communicate
from our own heart and soul, and
which is our own peculiar treasure
- — the accumulation of a life's expe-
rience. To add a little to any one's
outward comfort is always worth
doing; but to impart to another
what becomes life and strength
and encouragement perennially
within himself is surely better.
Frequently the help we chiefly

TEMPLE GATE. 125

need is nothing outward and mate-
rial, but that which one bare
human spirit can render to
another. But, alas ! when thrown
back upon our inward resources,
we are so conscious of our poverty
that we think sixpence or a shil-
ling is probably of greater value
than anything which can come
straight from our spirit.

Of the lame man little is told
us which may give us a clue to his
state of mind. He was one of
those who had been left unhealed
by Christ. Often must Christ have
passed him, and yet He had never
spoken nor laid healing hand upon
him. Perhaps during the long-
hours the lame man sometimes
thought of this, and bewailed his
own negligence in not using oppor-
tunities now for ever gone. He
could only look with envy and self-
reproach on those who had once-

126 THE LAME MAN AT THE

been blind, or, like himself, lame,
and whom he now saw in perfect
health. His feelings were akin to
the remorse of those who imagine
that their day of grace is gone, and
exclaim :

Thy saints are comforted, I know,
And love Thy house of prayer ;

I therefore go where others go,
But find no comfort there.

There is no despair worth calling
despair but despair of salvation.
But what Christ has not done, an
Apostle may do. The lesser instru-
ment may effect what the more
powerful has not effected. A
feebler ministry may in some cases
produce results which the abler
ministry has not produced.

Another feature of the beggar's
state of mind appears in the list-
less, mechanical way in which he
asks an alms. He had not even

TEMPLE GATE. 127

troubled to look up. Too com-
monly human prayer is the mono-
tonous whine of the beggar that

DO

scarcely troubles to consider to
whom the petition is addressed.
Had this man taken the trouble
to scan the appearance of those
fishermen he would have seen that
silver or gold could not be expected.
But he had fallen into one chant,
uttered as soon as the shadow of
the passer-by fell upon him. It is
a picture of the unreal and indif-
ferent spirit in which much prayer
is offered. There is no harm in
asking for certain benefits every
day of our life, and no harm in
using the same words, if we have
chosen these words as the fittest.
But there is harm, in allowing a
form of words to engender mono-
tony and lifelessness in the spirit,
so that we never consider carefully
the object of our worship and

128 THE LAME MAN AT THE

what it is fit that He should give.
This cripple had come to be con-
tent with the few coppers which
would furnish his supper and bed ;
all the great world with its plea-
sures, its enterprise, its high places,
lay quite beyond his hope; and
thus does one find his own soul
dying to all that lies beyond daily
needs, and forgetful of the great
and glorious things that are
written of the heirs of God. It is
surely a great art to know " who
it is that speaks to us, and what is
the gift of God."

Peter's first care was to arouse
the man. " Look on us ! " The
man's attention was commanded.
All his life he had been training
to know faces, to know who would
give and who would not give, who
would not give if others were
looking, and who would give at
the gate of the Temple, dropping

TEMPLE GATE. 129

the coin as into an alms box,
without any regard to the want of
the beggar. One glance at the
frank face of Peter tells him he is
about to receive something. That
is a man to be trusted. This is a
good beginning. Trust in Peter
may be the first step to trust in
Christ. But many rest at the
earliest stage, believing the mes-
senger, but not coming into per-
sonal relations with Christ. Many
persons wish to be better than they
are, and are prepared to do much
and sacrifice much in order to
attain to a satisfactory spiritual
state. What is lacking is per-
sonal appeal to Christ. They
must recognise, with a conviction
wrought in their own mind, that
Jesus Christ is the source of
spiritual power, and they must,
for themselves, appeal directly to
Him.

130 THE LAME MAN AT THE

The boldness with which Peter
forms or, it might almost be said,
forces this personal relation to
Christ in the case of this man is
surprising. Without a moment's
hesitation or inquiry as to whether
the man's faith is quickened,
Peter cries, " In the name of Jesus
Christ of Nazareth^ rise up and
walk," taking him by the right
hand and lifting him up. Peter
could not confer health upon the
man in spite of his state of mind.
If the man had so chosen he might
have continued to lie where he
was, a cripple. But simultaneously
with Peter's faith and authorita-
tive command, the man's own faith
was quickened. He believed that
in this name, that is, at the com-
mand and in the strength of
Christ, he could get up; and he
arose. It was the contagious con-
fidence of Peter which begat faith

TEMPLE GATE. 131

in the lame beggar's spirit. And
there could not be a more instruc-
tive instance of the suddenness
with which a human being can be
brought into saving relation to
Christ. When Peter began his
sentence the lame man had no
faith, yet he boldly said to hiin,
"In the name of Jesus Christ
arise and walk." Men may always
thus be summoned to believe on
the spot and to act out the com-
mands of Christ.

But in order that such a sum-
mons be effectual, two qualities in
the apostle are needful. He must
not fear failure or rebuff. He
must have that humility which
seeks the good of others regardless
of its own reputation. So long as
we fear to expose our own feelings,
and to show that we are deeply
concerned about the welfare of
another person, we shall do little

132 THE LAME MAN AT THE

in the way of inspiring faith. Our
mouth is kept shut by the fear of
fruitlessly exposing* our feelings.
We are not sure how our advances
will "be received. We have not
the loving humility which braves
risks to self.

We must also ourselves have
lively faith if we are to communi-
cate faith to others. It was
Peter's own faith which carried
this man's unbelief by storm. In
presence of Peter's confidence he
could not but believe. Most men
are far more moved by the con-
tagion of others' strong feeling and
example than by arguments or
verbal appeals. Por the diffusion
of faith it is a man like Peter that
is wanted, who overleaps the obsta-
cles which other men would stop
to examine ; a man like Luther,
erring perhaps in fine points of
doctrine, but giving impetus and

TEMPLE GATE. 133

force to the whole movement in
Christ's kingdom, and sweeping
along with him a host of weaker
and dependent spirits. If we are
not propagating faith in Christ, it
is mainly because our own faith is
meagre and timorous. If we are
not producing Christians it is
because we are not ourselves in
the present experience of His
mighty power. And while this is
so, our conduct betrays the weak-
ness of our faith, and we chill the
kindling warmth in other souls
instead of fanning it into flame,
and all that proceeds from us is as
the frosty wind of an untoward
spring-time, that unseasonably
marks every springing thing with
death.

Possessed of those qualities, any
one may communicate that best
of all gifts, faith in Christ. The
joy of Peter, in discovering that

134 THE LA3IE MAN.

he could impart health and bright-
ness to those who were oppressed
by various human ills, is a joy
which may be repeated, and was
meant to be repeated, in the ex-
perience of every Christian. We
are not to look hopelessly on the
world at large or on our own friends.
We are not to think that the
pleasure we have in being of sub-
stantial service to a friend, we
cannot have in the case of that
which is most substantial. We
are to believe that Christ now has
all power in heaven and on earth,
and that those who have experi-
enced this power are expected to
be the channel of its communica-
tion to others. The faith which
strengthens and elevates our own
spirit may be communicated, upon
our effort and prayer, to the heart
of others.

LONDON :
r. SPEAIGHT AND SONS PRINTERS,
yETTSR LANE.