The ideal life : and other unpublished addresses

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Scs

^ia«"

7t^*~ h /^^^

ScS^U^S

The Ideal Life and other
Unpublished Addresses by

Henry Drummond f.r.s.e with
Memorial Sketches by W. Robertson
Nicoll and Ian Maclaren o$ c2* a*

Second Edition • .
Completing Twenty
Third Thousand •

LONDON: HODDER
STOUGHTON ~* ~A 27
PATERNOSTER ROW 1898

Butlet &' Tanner, The Sekvood Printing Works, Frome, and London.

*\

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The addresses which make up this volume
were written by Professor Drummond be-
tween the years 1876 and 1881, and are now
published to meet the wishes of those who
heard some of them delivered, and in the
hope that they may continue his work.

They were never prepared for publication,
and have been printed from his manuscripts
with a few obvious verbal corrections. A
few paragraphs used in later publications have
been retained.

Of the memorial sketches the first was
originally published in the Contemporary
Review, the second in the North American
Review*

December \ 1S97

CONTENTS

MEMORIAL SKETCHES

PAGE

I. BY W. ROBERTSON NICOLL i

II. BY IAN MACLAREN 23

ADDRESSES

ILLTEMPER . ' 43

*' lie was angry, and would not go in."—Lule xv. 28.

1881.

WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART

•It is expedient for you that I go aw.iy."-— A.*.'/ xvi. 7.

i3Sa

COING TO Till-: FATHER

"I goto my F.ilher." — Jckn xiv. 12.

188a

viii CONTENTS

PAGB

THE ECCENTRICITY OF RELIGION 91

"And when his friends heard of it, they went out to
lay hold on him : for they said, He is beside himself.''—
Mark iii. 21.

1880.

•TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST" 107

"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."—
Philippians i. 21.

1879.

CLAIRVOYANCE 127

" We look not at the things which are seen, but at the
things which are not seen : for the things which are seen
are temporal ; but the things which are not seen are
eternal." — 2 Corinthians iv. 18.

iSCi.

THE THREE FACTS OF SIN 145

' Who forgiveth all thine iniquities ; Who healeth all

thy diseases ; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction."

— Psalm ciii. 3, 4.

1877.

THE THREE FACTS OF SALVATION 165

"Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; Who healeth all

thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction."

—Psalm ciii. 3, 4.

1877.

CONTEXTS ix

FAGB

MARVEL NOT 185

" Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born
again." — John iii. 7.

PENITENCE . 201

" And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter . . .
and Peter went out and wept bitterly." — Luke xxii. 61, 62.

1877.

THE MAN AFTER GOD'S OWN HEART— A BIBLE STUDY

ON THE IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE . . .217

"A man after mine own heart, who shall fulfil all my
will." — ^<t/j xiii. 22.

'WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?"

" Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow.
For what is your life ? It is even a vapour, thatappeareth
for a little time, and then vanisheth away."— James iv. 14.

Dec. 31, iC;6.

WHAT IS GODS WILL?

" The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou

shouldest know His will"— Ath xxii. 14.

1877.

x CONTENTS

PACB

THE RELATION OF THE WILL OF GOD TO SANCTI-

FICATION .279

" This is the will of God, even your sanctification." —
1 Thessalonians iv. 3.

" As He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in
all manner of conversation ; because it is written, Be ye
holy, for I am holy." — 1 Peter i. 15, 16.

" Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. ... By the
which will we are sanctified through the offering of the
body of Jesus Christ ones for all. "— Hebrews x. 9, 10.

HOW TO KNOW THE WILL OF GOD . . . .297

"If any man will do His will, he shall know of the
doctrine, whether it be of God."— John vii. 17.

MEMORIAL SKETCHES

A MEMORIAL SKETCH

BY W. ROBERTSON NICOLL

Henry Drummond

PROFESSOR DRUMMOND'S influence on his
contemporaries is not to be measured by the
sale of his books, great as that has been. It may be
doubted whether any living novelist has had so many
readers, and perhaps no living writer has been so
eagerly followed and so keenly discussed on the
Continent and in America. For some reason, which
it is difficult to assign, many who exercise great influ-
ence at home are not appreciated elsewhere. It has
been said, for example, that no book of Ruskin's has
ever been translated into a Continental language, and
though such a negative is obviously dangerous, it is
true that Ruskin has not been to Europe what he has
been to England. But Professor Drummond had the
Widest vogue from Norway to Germany. There was
a time when scarcely a week passed in Germany
without the publication of a book or pamphlet in
which his views were canvassed. In Scandinavia,
perhaps, no other living Englishman was BO widely
known. In every part of America hia books had an
extraordinary circulation. This influence reached all
[1 among scientific men, what"

D.E, i

2 HENRY DRUMMOND

ever may be said to the contrary. Among such men
as Von Moltke, Mr. Arthur Balfour, and others be-
longing to the governing class, it was stronger still.
It penetrated to every section of the Christian
Church, and far beyond these limits. Still, when
this is said, it remains true that his deepest influence
was personal and hidden. In the long series of ad-
dresses he delivered all over the world he brought
about what may at least be called a crisis in the lives
of innumerable hearers. He received, I venture to
say, more of the confidences of people untouched by
the ordinary work of the Church than any other man
of his time. Men and women came to him in their
deepest and bitterest perplexities. To such he was
accessible, and both by personal interviews and by
correspondence, gave such help as he could. He was
an ideal confessor. No story of failure daunted or
surprised him. For every one he had a message of
hope ; and, while the warm friend of a chosen circle
and acutely responsive to their kindness, he did not
seem to lean upon his friends. He himself did not
ask for sympathy, and did not seem to need it. The
innermost secrets of his life were between himself and
his Saviour. While frank and at times even commu-
nicative, he had nothing to say about himself or about
those who had trusted him. There are multitudes
who owed to Henry Drummond all that one man can
owe to another, and who felt such a thrill pass through
them at the news of his death as they can never ex-
perience again.

A MEMORIAL SKETCH 3

Henry Drummond was born at Stirling in 1S51.
He was surrounded from the first by powerful re-
ligious influences of the evangelistic kind. I lis uncle
Mr. Peter Drummond, was the founder of what is
known as the Stirling Tract enterprise, through
which many millions of small religious publications
have been circulated through the world. As a child
he was remarkable for his sunny disposition and his
sweet temper, while the religiousness of his nature
made itself manifest at an early period. I do not
gather, however, that there were many auguries of
his future distinction. lie was thought to be some-
what desultory and independent in his work. In due
course he proceeded to the University of Edinburgh,
where he distinguished himself in science, but in
nothing else. He gained, I believe, the medal in the
geology class. But, like many students who do not
go in for honours, he was anything but idle. lie tells
US himself that he began to form a library, his first
purchase being a volume 01 extracts from Ruskin's
works. Ruskin taught him to see the world as it is,
and it soon became a new world to him, full of
charm and loveliness. lie learned to linger beside
the ploughed field, and revel in the affluent
colour and shade which were to be B en in the
newly-turned furrows, and to gaze in wonder at the
liquid amber of the two feet of air above the brown
earth. Next to Ruskfa he put EmCTSOn, who all his

life powerfully affected both hi, teaching and his
style Differing as they did in many 11

4 HENRY DRUMMOND

were alike in being optimists with a high and noble
conception of good, but with no correspondingly
definite conception of evil. Mr. Henry James says
that Emerson's genius had a singular thinness, an
almost touching lightness, sparseness, and trans-
parency about it. And the same was true, in a
measure, of Drummond's. The religious writers who
attracted him were Channing and F. W. Robertson.
Channing taught him to believe in God, the good
and gracious Sovereign of all things. From Robert-
son he learned that God is human, and that we may
have fellowship with Him because He sympathises
with us. It is well known that Robertson himself
was a warm admirer of Channing. The parallels
between Robertson and Channing in thought, and
even in words, have never been properly drawn out.
It would be a gross exaggeration to say that the
contact with Robertson and Channing was the be-
ginning of Drummond's religious life. But it was
through them, and it was at that period of his
studentship that he began to take possession for him-
self of Christian truth. And it was a great secret
of his power that he preached nothing except what
had personally come home to him and had entered
into his heart of hearts. His attitude to much of the
theology in which he was taught was that not of
denial, but of respectful distance. He might have
come later on to appropriate it and preach it, but
the appropriation would have been the condition of
the preaching. His mind was always receptive.

A MEMORIAL SKETCH 5

Like Emerson, he was an excellent listener. He
stood always in a position of hopeful expectancy,
and regarded each delivery of a personal view as a
new fact to be estimated on its merits. I may add
that he was a warm admirer of Mr. R. H. Hutton,
and thought his essay on Goethe the best critical
piece of the century. He used to say that, like
Mr. Hutton, he could sympathise with every Church
but the Hard Church.

After completing his University course he went to
the New College, Edinburgh, to be trained fur the
ministry of the Free Church. The time was critical.
The Free Church had been founded in a time of
intense Evangelical faith and passion. It was a
visible sign of the reaction against Moderatism. The
Moderates had done great service to literature, but
their sermons were favourably represented by the
solemn fudge of Blair. James Macdonell, the bril-
liant Times leader-writer, who carefully observed
from the position of an outsider the ecclesiastica]
life of his countrymen, said that the Moderate
leaders deliberately set themselves to the ta
stripping Scotch Presbytcrianism free from provin-
cialism, and so triumphant were they that 111
their sermons might have been preached in a heathen

temple as fitly as in St. Giles. They taught the

moral law with politeness; they made phi!"- >phy the
handmaid of Christianity with well-bred m< deration,
and they so handled the grimmer I
as to hurt no su ceptibilities. The storm of the

6 HENRY DRUMMOND

ruption blew away the old Moderates from their place
of power, and men like Chalmers, Cunningham, Cand-
lish, Welsh, Guthrie, Begg, and the other leaders of
the Evangelicals, more than filled their place. The
obvious danger was that the Free Church should be-
come the home of bigotry and obscurantism. This
danger was not so great at first. There was a lull in
critical and theological discussion, and men were sure
of their ground. The large and generous spirit of
Chalmers impressed itself on the Church of which he
was the main founder, and the desire to assert the
influence of religion in science and literature in all
the field of knowledge was shown from the beginning.
For example, the North British Reviezv was the organ
of the Free Church, and did not stand much behind
the Edinburgh and the Quarterly, either in the ability
of its articles or in the distinction of many of its con-
tributors. But especially the Free Church showed its
wisdom by founding theological seminaries, and filling
their chairs with its best men. A Professorship of
Divinity was held to be a higher position than the
pastorate of any pulpit. As time went on, however,
and as the tenets of the Westminster Evangelicanism
were more and more formidably assailed, the Free
Church came in danger of surrendering its intellectual
life. The whisper of heresy would have damaged a
minister as effectually as a grave moral charge. In-
dependent thought was impatiently and angrily sup-
pressed. Macdonell said, writing in the Spectator in
1874, that the Free Church was being intellectually

A MEMORIAL SKETCH 7

starved, and he pointed out that the Established
Church was gaining ground under the leadership of
such men as Principal Tulloch and Dr. Wallace, who
in a sense represented the old Moderates, though they
were as different from them as this age is from the
last. The Free Church was apparently refusing to
shape the dogmas of traditional Christianity in such
a way as to meet the subtle intellectual and moral
demands of an essentially scientific age. There was
an apparent unanimity in the Free Church, but it was
much more apparent than real. For one thing, the
teaching of some of the professors had been produc-
ing its influence. Dr. A. 13. Davidson, the recognised
master of Old Testament learning in this country, a
man who joins to his knowledge imagination, sub-
tlety, fervour, and a rare power of style, had been
quietly teaching the best men amongst his students
that the old views of revelation would have to be
seriously altered. Me did not do this so much
directly as indirectly, and I think there was a period
when any Free Church minister wk 1 the

existence of errors in the Bible would have I
summarily deposed. The abler students had
taking IS at German}', and had thus escaped

from the narrowness of the provincial coterie.
wne interested, some of them in literatim
science, some in philosophy. At the New I
they - i in their t!.

daring and freedom the problems of the time. A

was mh'- 1 ".d it might x

8 HENRY DRUMMOND

have been a crisis which would have broken the
Church in pieces. That it did not was due largely
to the influence of one man — the American Evan-
gelist, Mr. Moody.

In 1873 Mr- Moody commenced his campaign in
the Barclay Free Church, Edinburgh. A few days
before, Drummond had read a paper to the Theo-
logical Society of his college on Spiritual Diagnosis,
in which he maintained that preaching was not the
most important thing, but that personal dealing
with those in anxiety would yield better results. In
other words, he thought that practical religion might
be treated as an exact science. He had given him-
self to scientific study with a view of standing for
the degree of Doctor of Science. Moody at once
made a deep impression on Edinburgh, and attracted
the ablest students. He missed in this country a
sufficient religious provision for young men, and he
thought that young men could best be moulded by
young men. With his keen American eye he
perceived that Drummond was his best instrument,
and he immediately associated him in the work. It
had almost magical results. From the very first
Drummond attracted and deeply moved crowds, and
the issue was that for two years he gave himself
to this work of evangelism in England, in Scotland,
and in Ireland. During this period he came to
know the life histories of young men in all classes.
He made himself a great speaker ; he knew how
to seize the critical moment, and his modesty, his

A MEMORIAL SKETCH 9

refinement, his gentle and generous nature, his man-
liness, and, above all, his profound conviction, won
for him disciples in every place he visited. His
companions were equally busy in their own lines,
and in this way the Free Church was saved. A
development on the lines of Tulloch and Wallace
was impossible for the Free Church. Any change
that might take place must conserve the vigorous
evangelical life of which it had been the home. The
change did take place. Robertson Smith, who was
by far the first man of the circle, won, at the sacri-
fice of his own position, toleration fur Biblical criti-
cism, and proved that an advanced critic might be
a convinced and fervent evangelical. Others did
something, each in his own sphere, and it is not too
much to say that the effects have been world-wide.
The recent writers of Scottish fiction — Barrie,
Crockett, and Ian Maclarcn, were all children of the
Free Church, two of them being ministers. In
almost every department of theological science, with
perhaps the exception of Church history, Free
Churchmen have made contributions which rank
with the most important of the day. It is but bare
justice to say that the younger generation oi Free
Churchmen have done their share in claiming that
1 '.sanity should rule in all the fields of culture, that

the Incarnation hallow! ; artment of human

thought and activity. No doubt the claim ha
cited some hostility ; at the same time the general

public has rallied in overwhelming mini1

io HENRY DRUMMOND

support, and any book of real power written in a
Christian spirit has now an audience compared with
which that of most secular writers is small.

Even at that time Drummond's evangelism was
not of the ordinary type. When he had completed
his studies, after brief intervals of work elsewhere,
he found his professional sphere as lecturer on
Natural Science in the Free Church College at Glas-
gow. There he came under the spell of Dr. Marcus
Dods, to whom, as he always testified, he owed
more than to any other man. He worked in a
mission connected with Dr. Dods' congregation, and
there preached the remarkable series of addresses
which were afterwards published as " Natural Law
in the Spiritual World." The book appeared in 1883,
and the author would have been quite satisfied with
a circulation of 1,000 copies. In England alone it
has sold about 120,000 copies, while the American
and foreign editions are beyond count. There is a
natural prejudice against premature reconciliations
between science and religion. Many would say with
Schiller : " Feindschaft sei zwischen euch, noch
kommt ein Biindniss zu frtihe : Forschet beide ge-
trennt, so wird die Wahrheit erkannt." In order to
reconcile science and religion finally you must be
prepared to say what is science and what is religion.
Till that is done any synthesis must be premature,
and any book containing it must in due time be
superseded. Drummond was not blind to this, and
yet he - saw. that .sometiiingjiad to be clone. Evo-

A MEMORIAL SKETCH n

lution was becoming more than a theory — it was
an atmosphere. Through the teaching of evolu-
tionists a subtle change was passing over morals,
politics, and religion. Compromises had been tried
and failed. The division of territory desired by
some was found to be impossible. Drummond did
not begin with doctrine and work downwards to
nature. He ran up natural law as far as it would
go, and then the doctrine burst into view. It was
contended by the lamented Aubrey Moore that the
proper thing is to begin with doctrine. While
Moore would have admitted that science cannot be
defined, that even the problem of evolution is one
of which as yet we hardly know the outlines, he
maintained that the first step was to begin with the
theology of the Catholic Church, and that it was
impossible to defend Christianity on the basis of
anything less than the whole of the Church's creed.
Drummond did not attempt this. He declined, for
example, to consider the relation of evolution to
the Fall and to the Pauline doctrine of redemption.
What he maintained was that, if you begin at the
natural laws, you end in the spiritual laws ; and in
a scries of impressive illustrations he brought out
his facts of science, some of the characteristic doc-
trines of Calvinism — brought them out sternly and
undisguisedly. By man)' of the orthodox he was

welcomed as a champion, but others could not ac-
quiesce in his aa umption of evolution, and regarded
him as more dangerous than an (pen foe. The

12 HENRY DRUMMOND

book was riddled with criticisms from every side
Drummond himself never replied to these, but he
gave his approval to an anonymous defence which
appeared in the Expositor} and it is worth while
recalling briefly the main points, (i) His critics
rejected his main position, which was not that the
spiritual laws are analogous to the natural laws, but
that they are the same laws. To this he replied that
if he had not shown identity, he had done nothing ;
but he admitted that the application of natural law
to the spiritual world had decided and necessary
limits, the principle not applying to those provinces
of the spiritual world most remote from human
experience. He adhered to the distinction between
nature and grace, but he thought of grace also as
forming part of the divine whole of nature, which
is an emanation from the recesses of the divine
wisdom, power and love. (2) His use of the law of
biogenesis was severely attacked alike from the scien-
tific and the religious side. Even Christian men of
science thought he had laid dangerous stress on
the principle omne vivum ex vivo, and declined to
say that biogenesis was as certain as gravitation.
They further affirmed, and surely with reason, that
the principle is not essential to faith. From the
religious side it was urged that he had grossly exag-
gerated the distinction between the spiritual man
and the natural man, and that he ignored the sus-
ceptibilities or affinities of the natural man for
1 Third Series, Vol. 1.

A MEMORIAL SKETCH 13

spiritual influence. The reply was that he had
asserted the capacity for God very strongly. " The
chamber is not only ready to receive the new life,
but the Guest is expected, and till He comes is
missed. Till then the soul longs and yearns, wastes
and pines, waving its tentacles pitcously in the
empty air, or feeling after God if so be that it may
find Him." (3) As for the charge that he could
not reconcile his own statements as to divine effi-
ciency and human responsibility, it was pointed out
that this was only a phase of the larger difficulty
of reconciling the exercise of the divine will with
the freedom of the human will. What he main-
tained, in common with Augustinian and Puritan
theology, was that in ever}' case of regeneration there
is an original intervention of God. (4) The absence
of reference to the Atonement was due to the fact
that the doctrine belonged to a region inaccessible
to the new method, lying in the depths of the Divine
Mind, and only to be made known by revelation.
(5) The charge that he taught the annihilation of
the unregenerate was repudiated. The unregene-
rate had not fulfilled the conditions of eternal life;
but that does not shew that they may not exist
through eternity, for they exist at present, altl.
in Mr. Drummond's sense they do not live. There
is no doubt that many of the objections tli:

against his b ok applied equally to every fi 1
what may be called evangelical Calvinism. But I

think that the main impression produce' 1

i4 HENRY DRUMMOND

petent judges was that the volume, though written
with brilliant clearness of thought and imagination,
and full of the Christian spirit, did not give their
true place to personality, freedom, and conscience,
terms against which physical science may even be
said to direct its whole artillery, so far as it tries to
depersonalise man, but terms in which the very life of
morality and religion is bound up. Perhaps Drum-
mond himself came ultimately to take this view. In
I any case, Matthew Arnold's verdict will stand : "What
is certain is that the author of the book has a genuine
love of religion and a genuine religious experience."
His lectureship in Glasgow was constituted into
a professor's chair, and he occupied it for the rest
of his life. His work gave him considerable freedom.
During a few months of the year he lectured on
geology and botany, giving also scattered discourses
on biological problems and the study of evolution.
He had two examinations in the year, the first,
which he called the " stupidity " examination, to test
the men's knowledge of common things, asking such
questions as, " Why is grass green ? " " Why is the
sea salt ? " " Why is the heaven blue ? " " What is
a leaf? " etc., etc. After this Socratic inquiry he
began his teaching, and examined his students at the
end. He taught in a class-room that was also a
museum, always had specimens before him while
lecturing, and introduced his students to the use of
scientific instruments, besides taking them for geo-
logical excursions. In his time of leisure he travelled

A MEMORIAL SKETCH 15

very widely. He paid three visits to America, and
one to Australia. He also took the journey to Africa
commemorated in his brilliant little book, " Tropical
Africa," a work in which his insight, his power of
selection, his keen observation, his fresh style, and his
charming personality appear to the utmost advantage.
It was praised on every side, though Mr. Stanley
made a criticism to which Drummond gave an effec-
tive and good-humoured retort. During these jour-
neys and on other occasions at home he continued
his work of evangelism. He addressed himself
mainly to students, on whom he had a great influ-
ence, and for years went every week to Edinburgh
Gat the purpose of delivering Sunday evening reli-
gious addresses to University men. lie was invari-
ably followed by crowds, the majority of whom were
medical students. He also, on several occasions,
delivered addresses in London to social and political
leaders, the audience including many of the most
eminent men of the time. The substance of these
addresses appeared in his famous booklets, beginning
with the "Greatest Thing in the World," and it may
. >rth while to say something of their teaching.
Mr. Drummond did not begin in the convent

lie seemed to do without all that, to common
indispensable. He approached the
subject 80 disinterestedly, with such an entire

l of its one presupposition, sin, that many could

never get on common ground with him. I!
omitted that theology of the Cross which had

16 HENRY DRUMMOND

the substance hitherto of evangelistic addresses. No-
body could say that his gospel was " arterial " or
"ensanguined." In the first place, he had, like
Emerson, a profound belief in the powers of the
human will. That word of Spinoza which has been
called a text in the scriptures of humanity might
have been his motto. " He who desires to assist
other people ... in common conversations will
avoid referring to the vices of men, and will take care
only sparingly to speak of human impotence, while
he will talk largely of human virtue or power, and
of the way by which it may be made perfect, so that
men being moved, not by fear or aversion, but by the
effect of joy, may endeavour, as much as they can, to
live under the rule of reason." With this sentence
may be coupled its echo in the " Confessions of a
Beautiful Soul " : " It is so much the more our duty,
not, like the advocate of the evil spirit, always to keep
our eyes fixed upon the nakedness and weakness
of our nature, but rather to seek out all those perfec-
tions through which we can make good our claims
to a likeness to God." But alon^ with this went
a passionate devotion to Jesus Christ. Emerson said,
" The man has never lived who can feed us ever."
Drummond maintained with absolute conviction that
Christ could for ever and ever meet all the needs
of the soul. In his criticism of " Ecce Homo," Mr.
Gladstone answered the question whether the Chris-
tian preacher is ever justified in delivering less than
a full Gospel. He argued that to go back to the very

A MEMORIAL SKETCH 17

beginning of Christianity might be a method emi-
nently suited to the needs of the present generation.
The ship of Christianity was overloaded, not perhaps
for fair weather, but when a gale came the mass
strained over to the leeward. Drummond asked his
hearers to go straight into the presence of Christ, not
as He now presents Himself to us, bearing in His
hand the long roll of His conquests, but as He offered
Himself to the Jew by the Sea of Galilee, or in the
synagogue of Capernaum, or in the temple of Jeru-
salem. He declined to take every detail of the
Christianity in possession as part of the whole. He
denied that the rejection of the non-essential involved
parting with the essential, and he strove to go straight
to the fountain-head itself. Whatever criticisms may
be passed, it will be allowed that few men in the
century have done so much to bring their hearers and
readers to the feet of Jesus Christ. It has been said
of Carlyle that the one living ember of the old
Puritanism that still burned vividly in his mind was
the belief that honest and true men might find power
in God to alter things for the better. Drummond
believed with his whole heart that men might find
power in Christ to change their lives.

He had sewn or eight months of the year at his
disposal, and Spent very little of them in his beautiful

home at Glasgow, lie wandered all over the world,

and in genial human intercourse made hi 9 way to the
hearts of rich and poor. He was as nun h at home

in addressing a meeting of working nun as in ■;
EXE.

iS HENRY DRUMMOND

ing at Grosvenor House. He had fastidious tastes,
was always faultlessly dressed, and could appreciate
the surroundings of civilization. But he could at
a moment's notice throw them all off and be perfectly
happy. As a traveller in Africa he cheerfully en-
dured much privation. He excelled in many sports
and was a good shot. In some ways he was like
Lavengro, and I will say that some parts of " Laven-
gro " would be unintelligible to me unless I had
known Drummond. Although he refused to quarrel,
and had a thoroughly loyal and deeply affectionate
nature, he was yet independent of others. He never
married. He never undertook any work to which he
did not feel himself called. Although he had the
most tempting offers from editors, nothing would
induce him to write unless the subject attracted him,
and even then he was unwilling. Although he had
great facility he never presumed upon it. He wrote
brightly and swiftly, and would have made an excel-
lent journalist. But everything he published was
elaborated with the most scrupulous care. I have
never seen manuscripts so carefully revised as his.
All he did was apparently done with ease, but there
was immense labour behind it. Although in orders
he neither used the title nor the dress that go with
them, but preferred to regard himself as a layman.
He had a deep sense of the value of the Church and
its work, but I think was not himself connected with
any Church, and never attended public worship unless
he thought the preacher had some message for him.

A MEMORIAL SKETCH 19

He seemed to be invariably in good spirits, and in-
variably disengaged. He was always ready for any
and every office of friendship. It should be said that,
though few men were more criticised or misconceived,
he himself never wrote an unkind word about any
one, never retaliated, never bore malice, and could do
full justice to the abilities and character of his op-
ponents. I have just heard that he exerted himself
privately to secure an important appointment for one
of his most trenchant critics, and was successful.

For years he had been working quietly at his last
and greatest book, " The Ascent of Man." The chap-
ters were first delivered as the Lowell Lectures in
:i, where they attracted great crowds. The
volume was published in 1894, and though its sale
was large, exceeding 20,000 copies, it did not com-
mand his old public. This was clue very much to the
obstinacy with which he persisted in selling it at a
net price, a proceeding which offended the book-
sellers, who had hoped to profit much from its sale.
The work is much the most important he has left us.
It was an endeavour, as has been said, to engraft an
tionary sociology and ethic up >n a biol<

The fundamental doctrine of the struggle of
life leads to an individualistic system in which the
moral side of nature has no place. Pr I )rum-

mood contended that the currently accepted th

1 on an exclusive study of the com!/
of nutrition, took account of only half the truth.
With nutrition lie associated, as a second factor, the

20 HENRY DRUMMOND

function of reproduction, the struggle for the life of
others, and maintained that this was of co-ordinate
rank as a force in cosmic evolution. Though others
had recognised altruism as modifying the operation
of egoism, Mr. Drummond did more. He tried to
indicate the place of altruism as the outcome ot those
processes whereby the species is multiplied, and its
bearing on the evolution of ethics. He desired, in
other words, a unification of concept, the filling up of
great gulfs that had seemed to be fixed. "If nature
be the garment of God, it is woven without seam
throughout ; if a revelation of God, it is the same
yesterday, to-day, and for ever ; if the expression of
His will, there is in it no variableness nor shadow
of turning." After sketching the stages of the pro-
cess of evolution, physical and ethical, he develops
his central idea in the chapter on the struggle for the
life of others, and then deals with the higher stages
of the development of altruism as a modifying factor.
The book was mercilessly criticised, but I believe
that no one has attempted to deny the accuracy and
the beauty of his scientific descriptions. Further,
not a few eminent scientific men, like Professor
Gairdner and Professor Macalister, have seen in it
at least the germ out of which much may come.
One of its severest critics, Dr. Dallinger, considers
that nature is non-moral, and that religion begins
with Christ. No man hath seen God at any time —
this is what nature certifies. The only begotten Son
of the Father, He hath declared Him — this is the

A MEMORIAL SKETCH 21

message of Christianity. But there are many re-
ligious minds, and some scientific minds, convinced,
in spite of all the difficulties, that natural law must be
moral, and very loth to admit a hopeless dualism
between the physical and the moral order of the
world. They say that the whole force of evolu-
tion directs our glance forward, and that its motto is
%p7) re\os 6pav.

With the publication of this book Drummond's
career as a public teacher virtually ended. He who
had never known an illness, who apparently had been
exempted from care and sorrow, was prostrated by a
painful and mysterious malady. One of his kind
physicians, Dr. Freeland Barbour, informs me that
Mr. Drummond suffered from a chronic affection of
the bones. It maimed him greatly. He was laid on
his back for more than a year, and had both arms
crippled, so that reading was not a pleasure and
writing almost impossible. For a long time he
suffered acute pain. It was then that some who had
greatly misconceived him came to a truer judgment
of the man. Those who had often found the road
rough had looked askance at Drummond as a spoiled
child of fortune, ignorant of life's real meaning. But

when he was struck down in his prime, at the very

height of his happiness, when there was appointed fi r

him, to use his own words, "a wa tc of St 1 m and

tumult before lie reached It seemed 1

his sufferings liberated and revealed ti

22 HENRY DRUMMOND

! soul. The spectacle of his long struggle with a
mortal disease was something more than impressive.

\ Those who saw him in his illness saw that, as the
physical life flickered low, the spiritual energy grew.
Always gentle and considerate, he became even more
careful, more tender, more thoughtful, more unselfish.
He never in any way complained. His doctors
found it very difficult to get him to talk of his illness.
It was strange and painful, but inspiring, to see his
keenness, his mental elasticity, his universal interest.
Dr. Barbour says : " I have never seen pain or weari-
ness, or the being obliged to do nothing more entirely
overcome, treated, in fact, as if they were not. The
end came suddenly from failure of the heart. Those
with him received only a few hours' warning of his
critical condition." It was not like death. He lay
on his couch in the drawing-room, and passed away
in__his sleep, with the sun shining in and the birds
singing at the open window. There was no sadness
nor farewell. It recalled what he himself said of a
friend's death — " putting by the well-worn tools
without a sigh, and expecting elsewhere better work
to do."

A MEMORIAL SKETCH
BY JOHN WATSON
(IAN MACLAREN)

Henry Drummond

HE had been in many places over the world and
seen strange sights, and taken his share in
various works, and, being the man he was, it came to
pass of necessity that he had many friends. Some
of them were street arabs, some were negroes, some
were medicals, some were evangelists, some were
scientists, some were theologians, some were noble ;.
Between each one and Drummond there was some
affinity, and each could tell his own story about his
friend. It will be interesting to hear what Professor
Greenfield or Mr. Moody may have to say; but one
man, with profound respect for such eminent persons,
would prefer to have a study of Drummond by
Moolll, his African retainer. Drummond believed in
Moohl, not because he was "pious" — which he was
not — but because " he did his duty and never t
lie." From the chiefs point of view, Moolu had the
final virtue of a clansman — he was loyal and faithful :

his chief, for that expedition, had beyond most men

the necessary endowment <»f a leader—- a magnetic

nality. It is understood that Drummond's life

is to be written at large by a friend, in whose capable

24 HENRY DRUMMOND

and wise hands it will receive full justice ; but in the
meantime it may not be unbecoming that one should
pay his tribute who has his own qualification for this
work of love. It is not that he is able to appreciate
to the full the man's wonderful genius, or accurately
to estimate his contributions to scientific and religious
thought — this will be done by more distinguished
friends — but that he knew Drummond constantly and
intimately from boyhood to his death. If one has
known any friend at school and college, and in the
greater affairs of life has lived with him, argued with
him, prayed with him, had his sympathy in the
supreme moments of joy and sorrow, has had every
experience of friendship except one — it was not
possible to quarrel with Drummond, although you
might be the hottest-tempered Celt on the face of the
earth — then he may not understand the value of his
friend's work, but at any rate he understands his
friend. As one who knew Henry Drummond at first
hand, my desire is to tell what manner of man he
was, in all honesty and without eulogy. If any one
be offended then, let him believe that I wrote what I
have seen, and if any one be incredulous, then I can
only say that he did not know Drummond.

His body was laid to rest a few weeks ago, on a
wet and windy March day, in the most romantic of
Scottish cemeteries, and the funeral, on its way from
the home of his boyhood to the Castle Rock of Stir-
ling, passed the King's Park. It was in that park
more than thirty years ago that I first saw Drum-

A MEMORIAL SKETCH 25

mond, and on our first meeting he produced the same
effect as he did all his after-life. The sun was going
down behind Ben Lomond, in the happy summer
time, touching with gold the gray old castle, deepen-
ing the green upon the belt of trees which fringed the
eastern side of the park, and filling the park itself
with soft, mellow light. A cricket match between
two schools had been going on all day and was
coming to an end, and I had gone out to see the
result — being a new arrival in Stirling, and full of
curiosity. The two lads at the wickets were in strik-
ing contrast — one heavy, stockish, and determined,,
who slogged powerfully and had scored well fur his-
side ; the other nimble, alert, graceful, who had a
pretty but uncertain play. The slogger was forcing
the running in order to make up a heavy leeway, and'
compelled his partner to run once too often. " It's-
all right, and you fellows are not to cry shame " —
this was what he said as he joined his friends —
Buchanan is playing Ai, and that hit ought to have
been a four ; I messed the running." It was good
form, of course, and what any decent lad would want
, but there was an accent of gaiety and a cer-
tain air which was very taking. Against that group
of clumsy, unformed, awkward Scots lads this bright,
Straight, living figure stood in relief, and as he moved
about the field my eyes followed him, and in my
h and dull mind I had a sense that he was a
type by himself, a visitor of finer breed than I
among whom he moved. By-aiu!-by he mount

26 HENRY DRUMMOND

friend's pony and galloped along the racecourse in the
park till one only saw a speck of white in the sun-
light, and still I watched in wonder and fascination —
only a boy of thirteen or so, and dull — till he came
back, in time to cheer the slogger who had pulled off
the match— with three runs to spare — and carried his
bat.

" Well played, old chap ! " the pure, clear, joyous
note rang out on the evening air ; " finest thing you've
ever done," while the strong-armed, heavy-faced
slogger stood still and looked at him in admiration,
and made amends. " I say, Drummond, it was my
blame you were run out . . ." Drummond was
his name, and some one said " Henry." So I first saw
my friend.

What impressed me that pleasant evening in the
days of long ago I can now identify. It was the lad's
distinction, an inherent quality of appearance and
manner of character and soul which marked him and
made him solitary. What happened with one strange
lad that evening befell all kinds of people who met
Drummond in later years. They were at once
arrested, interested, fascinated by the very sight of
the man, and could not take their eyes off him. Like
a picture of the first order among ordinary portraits
he unconsciously put his neighbours at a disadvan-
tage. One did not realize how commonplace and
colourless other men were till they stood side by side
with Drummond. Upon a platform of evangelists, or
sitting among divinity students in a dingy classroom,

A MEMORIAL SKETCH 27

or cabined in the wooden respectability of an ecclesi-
astical court, or standing in a crowd of passengers at
a railway station, he suggested golden embroidery
upon hodden gray. It was as if the prince of one's
imagination had dropped in among common folk.
He reduced us all to the peasantry.

Drummond was a handsome man, such as you
could not match in ten days' journey, with delicately
cut features, rich auburn hair, and a certain carriage
of nobility, but the distinctive and commanding fea-
ture of his face was his eye. No photograph could
do it justice, and very often photographs have done
it injustice, by giving the idea of staringness. His
eye was not bold or fierce ; it was tender and merci-
ful. But it had a power and hold which were little
else than irresistible and almost supernatural. When
you talked with Drummond, he did not look at you
and out of the window alternately, as is the usual
manner ; he never moved his eyes, and gradually their
penetrating gaze seemed to reach and encompass
your soul. It was as Plato imagined it would be in
the judgment ; one soul was in contact with another
— nothing between. No man could be doubl
base, or mean, or impure before that eve. His in-
fluence, mure than that of any man I have ever met,
was mesmeric— which means that while other men
affect their fellows by speech and example, he -
one directly by his living personality. As a matter
of fact, he had given much attention to the occult

arts, and was at one time a very Successful I

23 HENRY DRUMMOND

It will still be remembered by some college com-
panions how he had one student so entirely under
his power that the man would obey him on the street,
and surrender his watch without hesitation ; and it
was told how Drummond laid a useful injunction on
a boy in a house where he was staying, and the boy
obeyed it so persistently afterwards that Drummond
had to write and set him free. Quite sensible and
unromantic people grew uneasy in his presence, and
roused themselves to resistance — as one might do
who recognised a magician and feared his spell.

One sometimes imagines life as a kind of gas of
which our bodies are the vessels, and it is evident that
a few are much more richly charged than their fellows.
Most people simply exist completing their tale of
work — not a grain over ; doing their measured mile —
not an inch beyond ; thinking along the beaten track
— never tempted to excursions. Here and there in
the world you come across a person in whom life is
exuberant and overflowing, a force which cannot be
tamed or quenched. Drummond was such an one,
the most vital man I ever saw, who never loitered,
never wearied, never was conventional, pedantic, for-
mal, who simply revelled in the fulness of life. He
was so radiant with life that ordinary people showed
pallid beside him, and shrank from him or were
attracted and received virtue out of him. Like one
coming in from the light and open air into a stuffy
room where a company had been sitting with closed
windows, Drummond burst into bloodless and un-

A MEMORIAL SKETCH 29

healthy coteries, bringing with him the very breath
of heaven. ^^

lie was the evangelist to thoughtful men — over
women he had far less power — and his strength lay
in his personality. Without anecdotes or jokes or
sensationalism of doctrine, without eloquence or pas-
sion, he moved young men at his uill because his
message was life, and he was its illustration. His
words fell one by one with an indescribable awe and
solemnity, in the style of the Gospels, and reached
the secret place of the soul. Nothing more unlike
the ordinary evangelistic address could be imagined :
it was so sane, so persuasive, so mystical, so final. It
almost followed, therefore, that he was not the ideal
of a popular evangelist who has to address the
multitude, and produce his effect on those who do
not think. For his work, it is necessary — besides
earnestness, which is taken for granted — to h
loud voice, a broad humour, a stout body, a flow of
racy anecdote, an easy negligence of connection, a
spice of contempt for culture, and pledges of identi-
fication with the street if] dress and accent. \\\^
hearers feel that such a man is homely and is one of
themselves, and, amid laughter and tears of simple
human emotion, they are moved by his speech to
higher things. This kind of audience might n

Dnimmond with respectful admiration, but he was

too fine a gentleman, they would con ider, for their

homespun. Place him, as he used to stand and
speak, most perfectly drc 1 both as to body and

y

30 HENRY DRUMMOND

soul, before five hundred men of good taste and fine
sensibilities, or the same number of young men not
yet cultured but full of intellectual ambitions and
fresh enthusiasm, and no man could state the case
for Christ and the soul after a more spiritual and
winsome fashion. Religion is without doubt the
better for the popular evangelist, although there be
times when quiet folk think that he needs chasten-
ing ; religion also requires in every generation one
representative at least of the higher evangelism, and
if any one should ask what manner of man he
ought to be, the answer is to his hand — Henry
Drummond.

When one admits, without reserve, that his friend
was not made by nature to be a successful officer of
the Salvation Army, it must not be understood that
Drummond was in any sense a superior person, or
that he sniffed in his daintiness at ordinary humanity
— a spiritual Matthew Arnold. It would strain my
conscience to bear witness that working people, say,
however much they loved him, were perfectly at
home with him, and it is my conviction, from obser-
vation of life, that this is an inevitable disability of
distinction. One may be so well dressed, so good
looking, so well mannered, so spiritually refined, that
men with soiled clothes and women cleaning the
house may realize their low estate, and miss that
freemasonry which at once by a hundred signs unites
them in five minutes with a plainer man. While this
may have been true, the blame was not his, and no

A MEMORIAL SKETCH 31

man lived who had a more unaffected interest and
keener joy in human life in the home or on the
street. No power could drag him past a Punch-and-
Judy show — the ancient, perennial, ever-delightful
theatre of the people — in which, each time of attend-
ance, he detected new points of interest. He would,
in early days, if you please, gaze steadfastly into a
window, in the High Street of Edinburgh, till a little
crowd of men, women, children, and workmen, loafers,
soldiers, had collected, and join with much zest in
the excited speculations regarding the man — unani-
mously and suddenly imagined to have been carried
in helpless — how he met with his accident, where he
was hurt, and whether he would recover, listening
eagerly to the explanation of the gathering given by
some officious person to the policeman, and joining
heartily in the reproaches levelled at some unknown
deceiver ! One of his chosen subjects of investiga-
tion, which he pursued with the zeal and patience of
a naturalist, was that ever-interesting species — the
Boy, whom he studied in his various forms and
haunts : at home for the holidays, on the cricket field,
playing marbles on the street with a chance acquain-
tance while two families wait for their food, or living

with inan\- resources and high enjoyment in a barrel.

There was nothing in a boy he did not know, could
:■: plain, did not sympathize With, and SO loi

it lasts his name will be associated with the Boys'
Brigade, While any other would only have seen two
revellers in a man and woman singing their dc\

32 HENRY DRUMMOND

way along the street at night, Drummond detected
that a wife, who had not been drinking, was luring
her husband home by falling in with his mood and
that before it was reached she might need a friendly
hand. His sense of humour was unerring, swift and
masterful. If he came upon a good thing in his
reading he would walk a mile to share it with a
friend, and afterwards depart in the strength thereof,
and he has been found in his room exhausted with
delight with nothing before him but one of those
Parisian plaster caricatures of a vagabond. Lying
on his back in the pitiable helplessness and constant
pain of those last two years, he was still the same
man.

" Don't touch me, please ; I can't shake hands, but
I've saved up a first-rate story for you," and his
palate was too delicate to pass anything second-rate.
Partly this was his human joyousness, to whom the
absurdities of life were ever dear ; partly it was his
bravery, who knew that the sight of him brought so
low might be too much for a friend. His patience
and sweetness continued to the end, and he died as
one who had tasted the joy of living and was satis-
fied.

His nature had, at the same time, a curious aloof-
ness and separateness from human life, which one
felt, but can hardly describe. He could be severe in
speaking about a mean act or one who had done
wickedly, but in my recollection he was never angry,
and it was impossible to imagine him in a towering

A MEMORIAL SKETCH 33

passion. He was profoundly interested in several
causes, but there was not in him the making of a
fanatical or headlong supporter. None could be
more loyal in the private offices of friendship, but he
would not have flung himself into his friend's public
quarrel. In no circumstances would he be carried oft
his feet by emotion or be consumed by a white heat
of enthusiasm. He was ever calm, cool, self-pos-
sessed, master of himself, passionless in thought, in
speech, in action, in soul. Were you in trouble, he
had helped you to his last resource, and concealed, if
possible, his service ; but of you, in his sore straits, he
would have neither asked nor wished for aid. Many
confidences he must have received ; he gave none ;
many people must have been succoured by him ;
none succoured him till his last illness.

This is at least perfectly certain, that from his
youth he refused to have his life arranged for him,
but jealously and fearlessly directed it by his own
instincts, refusing the brown, beaten paths wherein
each man, according to his profession, was content to
walk, and starting across the moor on his own way.
Nothing can be more conventional than the career of
the » Presbyterian minister who comes from

pectajklfi religious family, and has the pulpit
held up before him as the ambit;

lad; who is held in the way thereto by various

traditional and prudential consid

still — as is the case with most honest lads — by his
mother's wishes; who works his Laborious, enduring
D.E. |

34 HENRY DRUMMOND

way through the Divinity Hall, and is yearly
examined by the local Presbytery ; who at last
emerges into the butterfly life of a Probationer, and
is freely mentioned, to his mother's anxious delight,
in connection with " vacancies " ; who is at last
chosen by a majority to a pastorate — his mother
being amazed at the blindness of the minority — and
settles down to the routine of the ministry in some
Scotch parish with the hope of Glasgow before him
as a land of promise. His only variations in the
harmless years might be an outburst on the historical
reality of the Book of Jonah — ah me ! Did that
stout, middle-aged gentleman ever hint that Jonah was
a drama ? — which would be much talked of in the
common room, and, it was whispered, reached the
Professor's ears ; and afterwards he might propose
a revolutionary motion on the distribution of the
Sustentation Fund. Add a handbook for Bible-
classes on the Prophecy of Malachi, and you have
summed up the adventures of his life. This was the
life before Drummond when he entered the University
of Edinburgh in 1866, and it ought to be recorded
that he died an ordained minister and Professor of
the Kirk, so that he did not disappoint his home,
nor become an ecclesiastical prodigal, but with what
amazing variations did he invest the years between
What order he took his classes in no one knew, but
he found his feet in natural philosophy and made a
name in geology. His course at the New College he
completed in three years and one year, with two

A MEMORIAL SKETCH 35

years' evangelistic touring between ; and he once
electrified the students by a paper — it seems yester-
day, and I know where he stood — which owed much
to Holmes and Emerson, but revealed his characteristic
spiritual genius. His vacations he spent sometimes
in tutorships, which yielded wonderful adventures,
or at Tubingen, where his name was long remembered.
As_50on..a_s Moody came to Edinburgh, Drummond
allied himself with the most capable, honest, and
unselfish evangelist of our day, and saw strange
chapters in religious life through the United King- J
dom. This was the infirmary in which he learned
spiritual diagnosis. For one summer he was chaplain
at Malta ; in another he explored the Rockies ; he
lived five months among the Tanganyika forests,
whence he sent me a letter dated Central Africa,
and mentioning, among other details, that he had
nothing on but a helmet and three mosquitoes. He
was for a time assistant in an Edinburgh church
and readers of the illustrated papers used to recog-
nise him in the viceregal group at Dublin G
His people at home — one could trace some of his
genius and much of his goodness to his father and
mother — grew anxious and perplexed ; for this was
a meteoric course for a Free Kirk minister, and stolid
acquaintances — the delicious absurdity of it — remon-
strated with him as one who was allowing the chances
of life to pass him, and urged him to settle. His
friends had already concluded that lie must be left
free to fulfil himself, but knew not what t<

36 HENRY DRUMMOND

when he suddenly appeared as a lecturer on Natural
Science in the Free Church College of Glasgow, and
promptly annexed a working-men's church After-
wards his lectureship became a chair, and he held
it to the end, although threatened with charges of
heresy and such like absurdities. You might as well
have beaten a spirit with a stick as prosecuted
Drummond for heresy. The chair itself was a
standing absurdity, being founded in popular idea
to beat back evolution and to reconcile religion and
science ; but it gave Drummond an opportunity of
widening the horizon of the future ministry and
infusing sweetness into the students' minds. He
may have worn a white tie on Sunday duty at his
church, but memory fails to recall this spectacle, and
he consistently refused to be called Reverend — de-
claring (this was his fun) that he had no recollection
ot being ordained, and that he would never dare to
baptize a child. The last time he preached was
about 1882, in my own church, and the outside world
did not know that he was a clergyman. From first
to last he was guided by an inner light which never
led him astray, and in the afterglow his whole life is a
simple and perfect harmony.

Were one asked to select Drummond's finest
achievement, he might safely mention the cleansing
ot student life at Edinburgh University. When he
was an Arts student, life in all the faculties, but
especially the medical, was reckless, coarse, boisterous,
and no one was doing anything to raise its tone.

A MEMORIAL SKETCH 37

The only visible sign of religion in my remembrance
was a prayer meeting attended by a dozen men — one
of whom was a canting rascal — and countenance
from a professor would have given a shock to the
university. Twenty years afterwards six hundred
men, largely medicals, met every Sunday evening for
worship and conference under Drummond's presi-
dency, and every evening the meeting was addressed
by tutors and fellows and other dignitaries. There
was a new breath in academic life — men were now
reverent, earnest, clean living and clean thinking, and
the reformer who wrought this change was Drum-
mond. This land, and for that matter the United
States, has hardly a town where men are not doing
good work for God and man to-day who have owed
their lives to the Evangel and influence of Henry
Drummond.

When one saw the unique and priceless work which
he did, it was inexplicable and very provoking that
the religious world should have cast this man, of all
others, out, and have lifted up its voice against him.
Had religion so many men of beautiful and winning
life, so many thinkers of wide range and genuine
culture, so many speakers able to move young men
by hundreds towards the Kingdom of God, that s\\c
could afford or have the heart to withdraw her
Science from Drummond? Was there ever such

madness and irony before Heaven ..

lifting up their testimony and writing articles against

this most gracious d: ciple of the M

38

HENRY DRUMMOND

they did not agree with him about certain things he
said, or some theory he did not teach, while the
world lay round them in unbelief and selfishness, and
sorrow and pain ? " What can be done," an eminent
evangelist once did me the honour to ask, " to heal
the breach between the religious world and Drum-
mond ? " And I dared to reply that in my poor
judgment the first step ought to be for the religious
world to repent of its sins, and make amends to
Drummond for its bitterness.

One, of course, remembers that Drummond's critics
had their reasons, and those reasons cast interesting
light on his theological standpoint. For one thing,
unlike most evangelists, it was perfectly alien to this
man to insist on repentance, simply because he had
not the painful and overmastering sense of sin which
afflicts most religious minds, and gives a strenuous
turn to all their thinking. Each thinker conceives
religion according to his cast of mind and trend of
experience, and Christianity to Drummond was not
so much a way of escape from the grip of sin, with its
burden of guilt and loathsome contact, as a way
of ethical and spiritual attainment. The question he
was ever answering in his writing and speaking was
not how can a man save his soul, but how can a man
save his life. His idea of salvation was rising to the
stature of Christ and sharing His simple, lowly, peace-
ful life. This was the text of his brochures on
religion, which ch*LrjTi^edjtjig.Ax:Qrld4 from " The Great-
est Thing in the World " to " The City Without

A MEMORIAL SKETCH 39

a Church." It is said even they gave offence to some
ultra-theological minds — although one would fain
have believed that such persuasive pleas had won all
hearts — and I have some faint remembrance, perhaps
a nightmare, that people published replies to the
eulogy of Love. It was quite beside the mark to find
fault with the theology in the little books, because
there was none and could be none, since there was
none in the author. Just as there are periods in the
development of Christianity, there are men in every
age corresponding to each of the periods — modern,
Reformation, and Mediaeval minds — and what
charmed many in Drummond was this, that he be-
longed by nature to the pre-thcological age. lie
was in his habit and thought a Christian of the
Gospels, rather than of the Epistles, and preferred to
walk with Jesus in Galilee rather than argue with
Judaizers and Gnostics. It would be a gross in-
justice to say that he was anti-theological : it would
be correct to say that he was non-theological. Jesus
was not to him an official Redeemer dischai
certain obligations: He was his unseen Friend with
Whom he walked in life, by Whose fellowship he was
changed, to Whom he prayed The effort of life
should be to do the Will of God, the strength of life
was Peace, the reward of life was to be like JestlS.
Perfect Christianity was to be as St. John was with

the Idyll <»f Religion,

I i\v in
Spiritual World," and "The A Man,"

40

HENRY DRUMMOND

ru

-y

ought to be judged as larger Idylls. A writer often
fails when he has counted himself strong, and suc-
ceeds in that which he has himself belittled. It was
at one time Drummond's opinion that he had made a
discovery in that fascinating debatable land between
nature and religion, and that he was able to prove
that the laws which govern the growth of a plant are
the same in essence as those which regulate the
culture of a soul. It appeared to some of us that the
same laws could not and did not run through both
provinces, but that on the frontier of the spiritual
world other laws came into operation, and that
" Natural Law " set forth with much grace and
ingenuity a number of instructive analogies, and
sometimes only suggestive illustrations. Had Drum-
mond believed this was its furthest scope, he would
never have published the book, and it was an open
secret that in later years he lost all interest in
" Natural I^uv." My own idea is that he had aban-
doned its main contention and much of its teaching,
and would have been quite willing to see it with-
drawn from the public. While that book was an
attempt to identify the laws of two worlds which,
under one suzerain, are really each autonomous, the
" Ascent of Man " was a most successful effort to
prove that the spirit of Religion, which is Altruism,
pervades the processes of nature. It is the Poem
of Evolution, and is from beginning to end a fascinat-
ing combination of scientific detail and spiritual im-
agination. Both books, but especially the "Ascent,"

A MEMORIAL SKETCH 41

were severely criticised from opposite quarters — by
theologians because the theology was not sound, by
men of science because the science was loose, and
Drummond had the misfortune of being a heretic
in two provinces. But he had his reward in the
gratitude of thousands neither dogmatic nor partisan,
to whom he has given a new vision of the beauty
of life and the graciousness of law.

His books will do good for years, as they have
clone in the past, and his tract on " Charity" will long
be read, but the man was greater than all his
writings. While he was competent in science, in
religion he was a master, and if in this sphere he
failed anywhere in his thinking, it was in his treat-
ment of sin. This was the defect of his qualities, for
of him, more than of any man known to me, it could
be affirmed he did not know sin. As Fra Angelico
could paint the Holy Angels because he had seen
them, but made poor work of the devils because to
him they were strange creatures, so this man could
make holiness so lovely that all men wished to be
Christians ; but his hand lost its cunning at the
mention of sin, for he had never played the fool.
From his youth up he had kept the commandments,

and was such a man as the Master would have loved
One takes for granted that each man has his 1

ting sin, and we COUld name that <>f our friends,

but Drummond was an except] m t<» this rule. After
a lifetime's intimacy I <!" not rememl
failing. Without [Tide, with

42 HENRY DRUMMOND

ness, without vanity, moved only by goodwill and
spiritual ambitions, responsive ever to the touch of
God and every noble impulse, faithful, fearless,
magnanimous, Henry Drummond was the most per-
fect Christian I have known or expect to see this side
the grave.

" He was angry, and would
not go in."— Luke xv. 28.

Ill-Temper

THE ELDER
BROTHER

THOSE who have studied the paintings of Sir
Noel Paton must have observed that part of
their peculiar beauty lies, by a trick of art, in their
partial ugliness. There are flowers and birds, knights
and ladies, gossamer-winged fairies and children of
seraphic beauty ; but in the corner of the canvas, or
just at their feet, some uncouth and loathsome form
— a toad, a lizard, a slimy snail — to lend, by contrast
with its repulsiveness, a lovelier beauty to the
So in ancient sculpture the griffin and the dragon
grin among the angel faces on the cathedra] front,
heightening the surrounding beauty by their de-
formity.

Man\- <-f the literary situations of the New
erfillly exhibit this specie- of cont
twelve disciples — one of them is a devil. Jesus
upon the Cross, pure and regal — on either side a
thief. And 1: ly, in this fifteenth

chapter <>f Luke, the most exquisite painting in the
Bible touched off at the foot with the black tin:

44 ILL-TEMPER

cloud of the elder brother — perfect, as a mere drama-
tic situation.

But this conjunction, of course, is more than artis-
tic. Apart from its reference to the Pharisees, the
association of these two characters — the prodigal and
his brother — side by side has a deep moral signifi-
cance.

When we look into Sin, not in its theological
aspects, but in its everyday clothes, we find that it
divides itself into two kinds. We find that there are
sins of the body and sins of the disposition. Or
more narrowly, sins of the passions, including all forms
of lust and selfishness, and sins of the temper. The
prodigal is the instance in the New Testament of
sins of passion ; the elder brother, of sins of temper.

One would say, at a first glance, that it was the
younger brother in this picture who was the thunder-
cloud. It was he who had dimmed all the virtues,
and covered himself and his home with shame. And
men have always pointed to the runaway son in
contrast with his domestic brother, as the type of all
that is worst in human character. Possibly the esti-
mate is wrong. Possibly the elder brother is the
worse. We judge of sins, as we judge of most things,
by their outward form. We arrange the vices of our
neighbours according to a scale which society has
tacitly adopted, placing the more gross and public at
the foot, the slightly less gross higher up, and then by
some strange process the scale becomes obliterated.
Finally it vanishes into space, leaving lengths of it-

ILL-TEMPER 45

self unexplored, its sins unnamed, unheeded, and
unshunned. But we have no balance to weigh sins.
Coarser and finer are but words of our own. The
chances are, if anything, that the finer are the lower.
The very fact that the world sees the coarser sins so
well is against the belief that they are the worst.
The subtle and unseen sin, that sin in the part of the
nature most near to the spiritual, ought to be more
degrading than any other. Yet fur many of the
finer forms of sin society has yet no brand. This sin
of the elder brother is a mere trifle, only a little bit
of temper, and scarcely worthy the recording.

.• what was this little bit of temper ? For
Christ saw fit to record it. The elder brother, hard-
working, patient, dutiful — let him get full credit for
his virtues — comes in from his long day's work in
the fields. Every night for years he has plodded
home like this, heavy-limbed but light-hearted, for
he has done his duty and honest sweat is on his
brow. But a man's sense of repunsibility for his cha-
racter ends too often with the day's work. And we

always meet the temptation which is to

when we least expect it. To-night, as he nears the
old homestead, he hears the noise of mirth and music.
lie makes Ollt the .strain of a dancing measure — a
novel sound, Mircly, for the dull farm. ■ Thy brother
:::e," the servant -ays, "and the}' have killed the
1 calf." His broth< py hour ! DOW I

they mourned fur him ! i 1
would be! 1 1 -v. the family prayer 1 I him

46 ILL-TEMPER

out at last and brought the erring boy to his parents'
roof ! But no — there is no joy on that face ; it is the
thundercloud. " Brother, indeed," he mutters ; " the
scapegrace ! Killed the fatted calf, have they ?
More than they ever did for me. I can teach them
what / think of their merry-making. And talk of the
reward of virtue ! Here have I been all these years
unhonoured and ignored, and this young roue from
the swine-troughs assembles the whole country-side
to do him homage." " And he was angry, and would
not go in."

" Oh, the baby ! " one inclines to say at first ; but
it is more than this. It is the thundercloud, a
thundercloud which has been brewing under all his
virtues all his life. It is the thundercloud. The
subtle fluids from a dozen sins have come together
for once, and now they are scorching his soul. Jea-
lousy, anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteous-
ness, sulkiness, touchiness, doggedness, all mixed up
together into one — Ill-Temper. This is a fair ana-
lysis. Jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty,
self-righteousness, sulkiness, touchiness, doggedness,
— these are the staple ingredients of Ill-Temper.
And yet, men laugh over it. " Only temper,"
they call it : a little hot-headedness, a momentary
ruffling of the surface, a mere passing cloud. But
the passing cloud is composed of drops, and the
drops here betoken an ocean, foul and rancorous,
seething somewhere within the life — an ocean made
up of jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty,

ILL-TEMPER 47

self-righteousness, sulkiness, touchiness, doggedness,
lashed into a raging storm.

This is why temper is significant. It is not in
what it is that its significance lies, but in what it
reveals. But for this it were not worth notice. It
is the intermittent fever which tells of unintermittent
disease ; the occasional bubble escaping to the sur-
face, betraying the rottenness underneath ; a hastily
prepared specimen of the hidden products of the
soul, dropped involuntarily when you are off your
guard. In one word, it is the lightning-form of
a dozen hideous and unchristian sins.

One of the first things to startle us — leaving
now mere definition — about sins of temper, is their
strange compatibility with JiigJi moral character.
The elder brother, without doubt, was a man
of high principle. Years ago, when his father
divided unto them his living, he had the chance
to sow his wild oats if he liked. As the elder
brother, there fell to him the la: n. Now

was his time to see the world, to enjoy life, and
break with the monotony of home. Like a dutiful
son he chose his career. The old home should be
his world, the old people 1. .. lie would

be his father's right hand, and cheer and comfort
his declini . So to the servants he became

a pattern of industry ; to the neighboui imple

of thrift and faithiuliK lei young DO

all the country, and th with

In' , va .ib- >nd 1'!' th< r. F01

4S ILL-TEMPER

character is a painful circumstance of this deformity.
And it suggests strange doubts as to the real virtue of
much that is reckoned virtue and gets credit for the
name. In reality we have no criterion for estimating
at their true worth men who figure as models of all
the virtues. Everything depends on motive. The
virtues may be real or only apparent, even as the
vices may be real though not apparent. Some men,
for instance, are kept from going astray by mere
cowardice. They have not character enough to lose
their character. For it often requires a strong char-
acter to go wrong. It demands a certain originality
and courage, a pocketing of pride of which all are
not capable, before a man can make up his mind
to fall out of step with Society and scatter his repu-
tation to the winds. So it comes to pass that many
very mean men retain their outward virtue. Con-
versely among the prodigal sons of the world are
often found characters of singular beauty. The
prodigal, no doubt, was a better man to meet and
spend an hour with than his immaculate brother.
A wealth of tenderness and generosity, truly sweet
and noble dispositions, constantly surprise us in
characters hopelessly under the ban of men. But
it is an instance of misconception as to the
nature of sin that with most men this counts for
nothing ; although in those whose defalcation is in
the lower region it counts, and counts almost for
everything. Many of those who sow to the flesh
regard their form of sin as trifling compared with

ILL-TEMPER 49

the inconsistent and unchristian graces of those who
profess to sow to the spirit. Many a man, for ex-
ample, who thinks nothing of getting drunk would
scorn to do an ungenerous deed or speak a withering
word. And, as already said, it is really a question
whether he is not right. One man sins high up
in his nature, the other low down ; and the vinous
spendthrift, on the whole, may be a better man
than the acid Christian. " Verily, I say unto
you," said Jesus to the priests, " the publicans and
the harlots go into the kingdom of God before
you."

The fact, then, that there arc these two distinct
sets of sins, and that few of us indulge both, but
most of us indulge the one or the other, explains the
compatibility of virtuous conduct with much unlovc-
liness of disposition. Now it is this very associa-
tion which makes sins of temper appear so harmless.
There cannot be much wrong, we fancy, where there
is so much general good. How often it is urged as
an apology for garrulous people, that they are the
soul of kindness if we only knew them better. And
how often it is maintained, as a set-off against
crossness and pitiable explosions of small distem-
pers, that those who exhibit them are, in their

normal mood, above the average in demonstrative

tenderness. And it is this which makes the
so hard. We excuse the partial failure of our
characters on the ground of their general SU<
m afford to be a little bad who are BO

I

50 ILL-TEMPER

A true logic would say we can only afford to be
a little better. If the fly in the ointment is a very
small fly, why have a very small fly ? Temper is
the vice of the virtuous. Christ's sermon on the
" Elder brother " is evidently a sermon pointedly
to the virtuous — not to make bad people good
but to make good people perfect.

Passing now from the nature and relations of
sins of this peculiar class, we come briefly to look
at their effects. And these are of two kinds —
the influence of temper on the intellect, and on
the moral and religious nature.

With reference to the first, it has sometimes
been taken for granted that a bad temper is a
positive acquisition to the intellect. Its fieriness
is supposed to communicate combustion to sur-
rounding faculties, and to kindle the system into
intense and vigorous life. " A man, when exces-
sively jaded," says Darwin, " will sometimes invent
imaginary offences, and put himself into a passion
unconsciously, for the sake of re-invigorating him-
self." Now, of course, passion has its legitimate
place in human nature, and when really controlled,
instead of controlling, becomes the most powerful
stimulus to the intellectual faculties. Thus it is
this to which Luther refers when he says, " I
never work better than when I am inspired by
anger. When I am angry, I can write, pray, and
preach well ; for then my whole temperament is

ILL-TEMPER 51

quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all
mundane vexations and temptations depart."

The point, however, at which temper interferes
with the intellect is in all matters of judgment.
A quick temper really incapacitates for sound judg-
ment. Decisions are struck off at a white heat, with-
out time to collect grounds or hear explanations.
Then it takes a humbler spirit than most of us
possess to reverse them when once they arc made.
We ourselves are prejudiced in their favour simply
because we have made them, and subsequent courses
must generally do homage to our first precipitancy.
No doubt the elder brother secretly confessed him-
self a fool the moment after his back was turned
on the door. But he had taken his stand ; he
had said " I will not go in," and neither his father's
entreaties nor his own sense of the growing absurd-
ity of the situation — think of the man standing
outside his own door — were able to shake him.
Temptation betraying a man into an immature judg-
ment, that quickly followed by an irrelevant action,
the whole having to be defended by subse-
quent conduct, after making such a fuss about it —
such is the natural history on the side of in1
of a sin of temper.

Amongst the scum left behind by such
action, apart from the con i to the i

vidual, are re alts always disastrous to Others, Fot

this is another peculiarity of sins of temper, that

their worst influence is U]

52 ILL-TEMPER

too, the weak who are the sufferers ; for temper is
the prerogative of superiors and inferiors, down to
the bottom of the scale, have not only to bear the
brunt of the storm, but to sink their own judg-
ment and spend their lives in ministering to what
they know to be caprice. So their whole training
is systematically false, and their own mental
habits become disorganised and ruined. When the
young, again, are disciplined by the iron instead
of by the golden rule, the consequences are still
more fatal. They feel that they do not get a fair
hearing. Their case is summarily dismissed
untried ; and that sort of nursery lynch law to
which they are constantly subjected carries with
it no explanation of moral principles, muzzles legi-
timate feelings, and really inflicts a punishment
infinitely more serious than is intended, in crushing
out all sense of justice.

But it is in their moral and social effects that the
chief evil lies. It is astonishing how large a part
of Christ's precepts is devoted solely to the incul-
cation of happiness. How much of His life, too, was
spent simply in making people happy ! There was
no word more often on His lips than " blessed," and
it is recognised by Him as a distinct end in life, the
end for this life, to secure the happiness of others.
This simple grace, too, needs little equipment. Christ
had little. One need scarcely even be happy one's
self. Holiness, of course, is a greater word, but we
cannot produce that in others. That is reserved for

ILL-TEMPER 53

God Himself, but what is put in our power is happi-
ness, and for that each man is his brother's keeper.
Now society is an arrangement for producing and
sustaining human happiness, and temper is an agent
for thwarting and destroying it. Look at the par-
able for a moment, and see how the elder brother's
wretched pettishness, explosion of temper, churlish-
ness, spoiled the happiness of a whole circle. First,
it certainly spoiled his own. How ashamed of him-
self he must have been when the fit was over, one
can well guess. Yet these things are never so quickly
over as they seem. Self-disgust and humiliation
may come at once, but a good deal else within has
to wait till the spirit is tuned again. For instance,
prayer must wait. A man cannot pray till the sour-
ness is out of his soul. He must first forgive his
brother who trespassed against him before he can
go to God to have his own trespasses forgiven.

Then look at the effect on the father, or on the
guests, or even on the servants — that scene outside
had cast its miserable gloom on the entire company.
But there was one other who felt it with a tenfold
keenness — the prodigal son. We can imagine the
effect on him. This was home, was it? Well, i;
a pity he ever came. If this was to be t:

thing, he had better go. Happier a thousand times

amOfl ine than to endure the boorishlM

ntained,

drive men ■ time D)

entertainment. The Church

54 ILL-TEMPER

enough yet to entertain the world. We have no
spiritual courtesies. We cultivate our faith and pro-
claim our hope, but forget that a greater than these
is charity. Till men can say of us, " They suffer long
and are kind, they are not easily provoked, do not
behave themselves unseemly, bear all things, think
no evil," we have no chance against the world.
One repulsive Christian will drive away a score of
prodigals. God's love for poor sinners is very won-
derful, but God's patience with ill-natured saints is
a deeper mystery.

The worst of the misery caused by ill-temper is
that it does no good. Some misery is beneficial,
but this is gratuitous woe. Nothing in the world
causes such rankling, abiding, unnecessary and un-
blessed pain. And Christ's words, therefore, when
He refers to the breach of the law of love, are most
severe ; " If any man offend one of these little ones,"
He says, " it were better for him that a millstone
were hanged about his neck, and that he were cast
into the depths of the sea." That is to say, it is
Christ's deliberate verdict that it is better not to
live than not to love.

In its ultimate nature Distemper is a sin against
love. And however impossible it may be to realize
that now, however we may condone it as a pardon-
able weakness or small infirmity, there is no greater
sin. A sin against love is a sin against God, for
God is love. He that sinneth against love, sinneth
against God.

ILL-TEMPER 55

This tracing of the sin to its root now suggests this
further topic — its aire. Christianity professes to cure
anything. The process may be slow, the discipline
may be severe, but it can be done. But is not temper
a constitutional thing I Is it not hereditary, a family
failing, a matter of temperament, and can that be
cured ? Yes, if there is anything in Christianity.
If there is no provision for that, then Christianity
stands convicted of being unequal to human need.
What course then did the father take, in the case
before us, to pacify the angry passions of his ill-
natured son ? Mark that he made no attempt in
the first instance to reason with him. To do so is a
common mistake, and utterly useless both with our-
selves and others. We are perfectly convinced of the
puerility of it all, but that does not help us in the
least to mend it. The malady has its seat in the
affections, and therefore the father went there at once.
Reason came in its place, and the son was supplied
with valid arguments — stated in the last verse of the
chapter — against his conduct, but he was first ;
with love.

•n," said the father, "thou art ever with me, and
all that I have is thine." Analyse these words, and
underneath them you will find the rallying cr:
all great communities. There lie Libert)-, Equ

Fraternity— the happy symbols with which men
have sought to maintain governments and

loms. "Son" — there i. Lil i U art

ever with me"— there i ! Unity, "All

56 ILL-TEMPER

that I have is thine" — there is Equality. If any
appeal could rouse a man to give up himself, to
abandon selfish ends, under the strong throb of a
common sympathy, it is this formula of the Chris-
tian Republic. Take the last, Equality, alone — " All
that I have is thine." It is absurd to talk of your
rights here and your rights there. You have all
rights. " All that I have is thine." There is no
room for selfishness if there is nothing more that
one can possess. And God has made the Equality.
God has given us all, and if the memory of His
great kindness, His particular kindness to us, be
once moved within, the heart must melt to Him,
and flow out to all mankind as brothers.

It is quite idle, by force of will, to seek to empty
the angry passions out of our life. Who has not
made a thousand resolutions in this direction, only
and with unutterable mortification to behold them
dashed to pieces with the first temptation ? The soul
is to be made sweet not by taking the acidulous
fluids out, but by putting something in — a great love,
God's great love. This is to work a chemical change
upon them, to renovate and regenerate them, to dis-
solve them in its own rich fragrant substance. If a
man let this into his life, his cure is complete ; if not,
it is hopeless.

The character most hard to comprehend in the
New Testament is the unmerciful servant. For his
base extravagance his wife and children were to be
sold, and himself imprisoned. He cries for mercy on

ILL-TEMPER 57

his knees, and the 10,000 talents, hopeless and enor-
mous debt, is freely cancelled. He goes straight
from the kind presence of his lord, and, meeting
some poor wretch who owes him a hundred pence,
seizes him by the throat and hales him to the prison-
cell, from which he himself had just escaped. How
a man can rise from his knees, where, forgiven much
ahead}-, he has just been forgiven more, and go
straight from the audience chamber of his God to
speak hard words and do hard things, is all but
incredible. This servant truly in wasting his master's
money must have wasted away his own soul. But
grant a man any soul at all, love must follow forgive-
ness.

Being forgiven much, he must love much, not as
a duty, but as a necessary consequence ; he must
become a humbler, tenderer man, generous and
brotherly. Rooted and grounded in love, his love
will grow till it embraces the earth. Then only he
dimly begins to understand his father's gift — "All
that I have is thine." The world is his : he cannot
injure his own. The ground of benevolence is pro-
irship. And all who love God are the pro-
is of the world. The meek inherit the earth —
all that lie has is theirs. All that God has — what
is that? Mountain and field, tree and sky, cast!
cottage, white man, black man, genius and dullard,
ner and pauper, sick and aged — all these

mine. If noble and happy, I mi them; it'

• and beautiful, I must delight in them; if ;

5S ILL-TEMPER

and hungry, I must clothe them ; if sick and in
prison, I must visit them. For they are all mine,
all these, and all that God has beside, and I must
love all and give myself for all.

Here the theme widens. From Plato to Herbert
Spencer reformers have toiled to frame new schemes
of Sociology. There is none so grand as the
Sociology of Jesus. But we have not found out the
New Testament Sociology yet ; we have spent the
centuries over its theology. Surely man's relation to
God may be held as settled now. It is time to take
up the other problem, man's relation to man. With
a former theology, man as man, as a human being,
was of no account. He was a mere theological unit,
the x of doctrine, an unknown quantity. He was
taught to believe, therefore, not to love. Now we
are learning slowly that to believe is to love ; that
the first commandment is to love God, and the second
like unto it — another version of it — is to love man.
Not only the happiness but the efficiency of the
passive virtues, love as a power, as a practical success
in the world, is coming to be recognised. The fact
that Christ led no army, that He wrote no book, built
no church, spent no money, but that He loved, and
so conquered, this is beginning to strike men. And
Paul's argument is gaining adherents, that when all
prophecies are fulfilled, and all our knowledge be-
comes obsolete, and all tongues grow unintelligible,
this thing, Love, will abide and see them all out one
by one into the oblivious past. This is the hope for

ILL-TEMPER 59

the world, that we shall learn to love, and in learning
that, unlearn all anger and wrath and evil-speaking
and malice and bitterness.

And this will indeed be the world's future. This is
heaven. The curtain drops on the story of the
prodigal, leaving him in, but the elder brother out.
And why is obvious. It is impossible for such a man
to be in heaven. lie would spoil heaven for all who
were there. Except such a man be born again he
cannot enter the kingdom of God. To get to heaven
we must take it in with us.

There are many heavens in the world even now
from which we all shut ourselves out by our own
exclusiveness — heavens of friendship, of family life, of
Christian work, of benevolent ministrations to the
poor and ignorant and distressed. Because of some
personal pique, some disapproval of methods, because
the lines of work or some of the workers are not
exactly to our taste, we play the elder brother, we are
angry and will not go in. This is the naked truth
of it, we are simply angry and will not go in. And
this bears, if we could see it, its own worst penalty ;
for there is no severer punishment than just to be left
outside, perhaps, to grow old alone, unripe, [< \
and unloved. We are angry and will not go in. All
sins mar God's image, but sins of temper mar God's
■ and God's work and man's happil

"It is expedient for you that
I go away." — John xvi. 7.

Why Christ must
Depart

A SERMON BEFORE
COMMUNION

TT was on a communion night like this that the
■*■ words were spoken. The)' fell upon the disciples
like a thunderbolt startling a summer sky. Three
and thirty years He had lived among them. They
had lately learned to love Him. Day after day they
had shared together the sunshine and the storm, and
their hearts clung to Him with a strange tenderness.
And just when everything was at its height, when
their friendship was now pledged indissolubly in the
first most solemn sacrament, the unexpected words
come, " I must say goodbye ; it is expedient for you
that I go away." It was a crushing blow to the little
band. They had staked their all upon that love.
They had given up home, business, friends, and
promised to follow Him. And now lie says, "I
must go ! "

Let US see what lie means by it The W
may help us to understand more fully our own re-
. with I Inn now tl.

CI

62 WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART

I. The first thing to strike one is the way Jesus
took to break the news. It was characteristic. His
sayings and doings always came about in the most
natural way. Even His profoundest statements of
doctrine were invariably apropos of some often
trivial circumstance happening in the day's round.
So now He did not suddenly deliver Himself of
the doctrine of the Ascension. It leaked out as it
were in the ordinary course of things.

The supper was over ; but the friends had much
to say to one another that night, and they lingered
long around the table. They did not know it was
the last supper, never dreamed of it ; but there
had been an unusual sweetness in their inter-
course, and they talked on and on. The hour grew
late, but John still leaned on his Master's breast, and
the others, grouped round in the twilight, drank in
the solemn gladness of the communion evening.
Suddenly a shadow falls over this scene. A sinister
figure rises stealthily, takes the bag, and makes for
the door unobserved. Jesus calls him : hands him
the sop. The spell is broken. A terrible revulsion
of feeling comes over Him — as if a stab in the dark
had struck into His heart. He cannot go on now.
It is useless to try. He cannot keep up the perhaps
forced spirits.

" Little children," He says very solemnly, His voice
choking, "yet a little while I am with you." And
" Whither I go ye cannot come."

The hour is late. They think He is getting tired.

WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART 63

He means to retire to rest. But Peter asks straight
out, " Lord, whither goest Thou ? * Into the garden ?
Back to Galilee? It never occurred to one of them
that He meant the Unknown Land.

" Whither I go," He replies a second time, "Ye
cannot follow Me now but ye shall follow Mc
afterward!1 Aftcrzvard ! The blow slowly falls
In a dim, bewildering way it begins to dawn upon
them. It is separation.

We can judge of the effect from the next
sentence. " Let not your heart be troubled," He
says. He sees their panic and consternation, and
doctrine has to stand aside till experimental re-
1 has ministered. And then, it is only at
intervals that He gets back to it ; every sentence
almost is interrupted. Questionings and misgiv-
; arc started, explanations are insisted on, but

the terrible truth will not hide. He always comes
back to that — He will not temper its meaning, He
still insists that it is absolute, literal ; and finally
II- states it in its most bare and naked form,
" It is expedient fur you that I go away.

II. Notice His reasons f<>r going away. Why

did Jesus go away? We all remember a
when we could not answer that question. We

wi tied 1 [e 1. I, and had lv,

The children's hymn ex] 1 human

feeling, and OUT hearts burn still as we read it : —

64 WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART

"I think, when I read that sweet story of old,
How Jesus was here among men,
How He called little children as lambs to His fold,
I should like to have been with them then.

I wish that His hands had been placed on my head,
That His arms had been thrown around me,

And that I might have seen His kind look as He said,
1 Let the little ones come unto Me.5 "

Jesus must have had reasons for disappointing a
human feeling so deep, so universal, and so sacred.
We may be sure, too, that these reasons intimately
concern us. He did not go away because He was
tired. It was quite true that He was despised
and rejected of men ; it was quite true that the
pitiless world hated and spurned and trod on
Him. But that did not drive Him away. It was
quite true that He longed for His Father's house
and pined and yearned for His love. But that
did not draw Him away. No. He never thought
of Himself. It is expedient for you> He says, not
for Me, that I go.

I. The first reason is one of His own stating. " I
go away to prepare a place for you." And the very
naming of this is a proof of Christ's considerateness.
The burning question with every man who thought
about his life in those days was Whither is this life
leading ? The present, alas ! was dim and inscrutable
enough, but the future was a fearful and unsolved
mystery. So Christ put that right before He went
away. He gave this unknown future form and colour.

WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART 65

He told us — and it is only because we are so accus-
tomed to it that we do not wonder more at the
magnificence of the conception — that when our place
in this world should know us no more there would be
another place ready for us. We do not know much
about that place, but the best thing we do know, that
He prepares it. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
nor hath it entered into the heart of man what the
Lord went away to prepare for them that love Him.
It is better to think of this, to let our thoughts rest on
this, that He prepares it, than to fancy details of our
own.

But that dues not exhaust the matter. Consider
the alternative. If Christ had not gone away, what
then ? We should not either. The circumstances of
our future life depended upon Christ's going away to
prepare them ; but the fact of our going away at all
depended on His going away. We could not follow
Him hereafter, as He said we should, unless He led
first. He had to be the Resurrection and the Life.

And this was part of the preparing a place for us —
the preparing a way for us. He prepared a pla
us by the way He took to prepare a place. It was a
very wonderful way.

In a lonely valley in Switzerland a small bai
patriots < 'lice marc). t an invading

times their strength. They found tl

day at the head of anai nfronted I

solid wall 1 They ma ault

but that bristling line remained unbroken. Time
U.K. 5

66 WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART

after time they were driven back decimated with
hopeless slaughter. The forlorn hope rallied for the
last time. As they charged, their leader suddenly
advanced before them with outstretched arms, and
every spear for three or four yards of the line was
buried in his body. He fell dead. But he prepared
a place for his followers. Through the open breach,
over his dead body, they rushed to victory and won
the freedom of their country.

So the Lord Jesus went before His people, the
Captain of our salvation, sheathing the weapons of
death and judgment in Himself, and preparing a place
for us with His dead body. Well for us not only
that He went away, but that He went by way of
the Cross.

2. Another reason why He went away was to be
very near. It seems a paradox, but He went away
really in order to be near. Suppose, again, He had
not gone away ; suppose He were here now. Sur>
pose He were still in the Holy Land, at Jerusalem.
Every ship that started for the East would be
crowded with Christian pilgrims. Every train flying
through Europe would be thronged with people going
to see Jesus. Every mail-bag would be full of
letters from those in difficulty and trial, and gifts of
homage to manifest men's gratitude and love. You
yourself, let us say, are in one of those ships. The
port, when you arrive after the long voyage, is
blocked with vessels of every flag. With much diffi-
culty you land, and join one of the long trains starting

WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART 67

for Jerusalem. Far as the eye can reach, the caravans
move over the desert in an endless stream. You do
not mind the scorching sun, the choking dust, the
elbowing crowds, the burning sands. You are in
the Holy Land, and you will see Jesus ! Yonder, at
last, in the far distance, are the glittering spires of
the Holy Hill, above all the burnished temple
dome beneath which He sits. But what is that dark
seething mass stretching for leagues and leagues
between you and the Holy City ? They have come
from the north and from the south, and from the east
and from the west, as you have, to look upon their
Lord. They wish

"That His hands might be placed on their head;
That His arms might be thrown around them."

But it cannot be. You have come to see Jesus, but
you will not see Him. They have been there weeks,
months, years, and have not seen Him. They are a
yard or two nearer, and that is all. The thing is
impossible. It is an anti-climax, an absurdity. It
would be a social outrage ; it would be a physical
impossibility.

Now Christ foresaw all this when He said it
expedient that He should go away. Observe, He
did not Bay it was necessary — it was txptditnt The
objection to the opposite plan was limply that it
would not have worked. So He Bays to you, " It is
?ery kind and earnest of you to come so far, but

1 the walls of the

68 WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART

City, over the sea, and you will find Me in your own
home. You will find Me where the shepherds found
Me, doing their ordinary work ; where the woman of
Samaria found Me, drawing the water for the fore-
noon meal ; where the disciples found Me, mending
nets in their working clothes ; where Mary found
Me, among the commonplace household duties of a
country village." What would religion be, indeed,
if the soul-sick had to take their turn like the out-
patients waiting at the poor-hour outside the in-
firmary ? How would it be with the old who were
too frail to travel to Him, or the poor who could not
afford it ? How would it be with the blind, who
could not see Him ; or the deaf, who could not hear
Him ? It would be physically impossible for millions
to obey the Lord's command, " Come unto Me, and I
will give you rest."

For their sakes it was expedient that He should
go away. It was a great blessing for the world that
He went. Access to Him is universally complete
from every corner of every home in every part of
the world. For the poor can have Him always with
them. The soul-sick cannot be out of reach of the
Physician. The blind can see His beauty now that
He has gone away. The deaf hear His voice when
all others are silent, and the dumb can pray when
they cannot speak.

Yes, the visible Incarnation must of necessity be
brief. Only a small circle could enjoy His actual pre-
sence, but a kingdom like Christianity needed a risen

WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART 69

Lord. It was expedient for the whole body of its
subjects that He went away. He would be nearer
man by being apparently further. The limitations ot
sense subjected Him while He stayed. He was sub-
ject to geography, locality, space and time. But by
going away He was in a spaceless land, in a time-
less eternity, able to be with all men always even
unto the end of the world.

3. Another reason why He went away — although
this is also a paradox — was that we migJit sec Him
better. When a friend is with us we do not really
see him so well as when he is away. We only see
points, details. It is like looking at a great moun-
tain : you see it best a little way off. Clamber up
the flanks of Mont Blanc, you see very little — a few
rocks, a pine or two, a blinding waste of snow ; but
come down into the Valley of Chamounix and there
the monarch dawns upon you in all his majesty.

Christ is the most gigantic figure of history. To
take in His full proportions one must be both near
and away. The same is true of all greatness. Of all
great poets, philosophers, politicians, men of science, it
is said that their generation never knew them. They
dawn Upon us as time rolls past. Then their life
comes out in its true perspective, and the symmetry
of their work is revealed. We never know our
friends, likewi e, till we lose them* We often never
know the beauty of a life which is lived Very near
our own till the hand of death has taken it away. It

lient for u , therefore, that He should go —

yo WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART

that we might see the colossal greatness of His
stature, appreciate the loftiness and massiveness of
His whole character, and feel the perfect beauty and
oneness of His life and work.

4. Still another reason. He went away that we
might walk by faith. After all, if He had stayed, with
all its inconveniences, we should have been walk-
ing by sight. And this is the very thing religion is
continually trying to undo. The strongest tempta-
tion to every man is to guide himself by what he
can see, and feel, and handle. This is the core of
Ritualism, the foundation of Roman Catholicism, the
essence of idolatry. Men want to see God, therefore
they make images of Him. We do not laugh at
Ritualism ; it is intensely human. It is not so much
a sin of presumption ; it is a sin of mistake. It is a
trying to undo the going away of Christ. It is a
trying to make believe that He is still here. And
the fatal fallacy of it is that it defeats its own end.
He who seeks God in tangible form misses the very
thing he is seeking, for God is a Spirit. The desire
burns within him to see God ; the desire is given him
to make him spiritual, by giving him a spiritual
exercise to do ; and he cheats himself by exercising
the flesh instead of the spirit. Hunger and thirst
after God are an endowment to raise us out of the
seen and temporal. But instead of letting the
spiritual appetite elevate us into the spirit, we are apt
to degrade the very instrument of our spiritualisa-
tion and make it minister to the flesh.

WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART 71

It was expedient in order that the disciples should
be spiritualized that Jesus should become a Spirit.
Life in the body to all men is short. The mortal
dies and puts on immortality. So Christ's great
aim is to strengthen the after-life. Therefore He
gave exercises in faith to be the education for im-
mortality. Therefore Jesus went away to strengthen
the spirit for eternity.

It is not because there is any deep myste-
rious value in faith itself that it plays so great a
part in religion. It is not because God arbitrarily
chooses that we should walk by faith rather than by
sight It is because it is essential to our future; it
is because this is the faculty which of all others is
absolutely necessary to life in the spirit.

For our true life will be lived in the spirit. In
the hereafter there will be nothing carnal. Christ is
therefore solicitous to educate our faith, for sight
will be useless. There will be no eye, no pupil, no
retina, no optic nerve in the hereafter, so faith is the
spiritual substitute for them which Christ would de-
velop in us by going away.

5. But the great reason has yet to be mentioned.
He went away tliat the Comforter miglit a

We have seen how His going away was a provi-
sion for the future life. The absent Lord \n\
a place there ; the absent Object of faith educates
the souls of the faithful to and en;

But He provides for the life that now I His

going away has to do with the | much as

72 WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART

with the life to come. One day when Jesus was in
Percea, a message came to Him that a very dear
friend was sick. He lived in a distant village with
his two sisters. They were greatly concerned about
their brother's illness, and had sent in haste for
Jesus. Now Jesus loved Mary and Martha and
Lazarus their brother ; but He was so situated at
the time that He could not go. Perhaps He was too
busy, perhaps He had other similar cases on hand ;
at all events He could not go. When He went
ultimately, it was too late. Hour after hour the sis-
ters waited for Him. They could not believe He
would not come ; but the slow hours dragged them-
selves along by the dying man's couch, and he was
dead and laid in the grave before Jesus arrived.
You can imagine one of His thoughts, at least, as
He stands and weeps by that grave with the incon-
solable sisters, — " It is expedient that I go away. I
should have been present at his death-bed scene if I
had been away. I will depart and send the Com-
forter. There will be no summons of sorrow which
He will not be able to answer. He will abide with
men for ever. Everywhere He will come and go.
He will be like the noiseless invisible wind, blowing
all over the world wheresoever He listeth."

The doctrine of the Holy Ghost is very simple.
Men stumble over it because they imagine it to be
something very mysterious and unintelligible. But
the whole matter lies here. Our text is the key to it
The Holy Spirit is just what Christ would have

WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART 73

been had He been here. He ministers comfort just
as Christ would have done — only without the incon-
veniences of circumstance, without the restriction of
space, without the limitations of time. More : we
need a personal Christ, but we cannot get Him, at least
we cannot each get Him. So the only alternative is a
spiritual Christ, — a Holy Spirit, and then we can
all get Him. He reproves the world of sin, of
righteousness, and of judgment. Christ had to go
away to make room for a Person of the Trinity who
could deal with the world, lie Himself could only
reprove the individual of sin, of righteousness, and
of judgment. But work on a larger scale is done
now that He is gone. This is what He refers to when
He said, " Greater works than these shall ye do."

And yet Christ did not go away that the Spirit
might take His place. Christ is with us Himself. lie
is with us and yet He is not with us, that is, He is
with us by His Spirit. The Spirit does not reveal the
Spirit. He speaks not of Himself, He reveals Christ.
He is the nexus, the connection between the absent
Christ and the world — a spiritual presence which can
penetrate where the present Christ could not go.
It was expedient for the present Christ to go away
that the universal Christ might come to all.

Finally! if all this was expedient for us, this strange
relation of Jesus to His people OUght to haw a
startling influence upon our life. Expediency Ifl a
practical thin;.;. It w.is a terrib!' ;

the expedient which Christ adopted been worth

74 WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART

while to you and me ? These three great practical
effects at least are obvious.

(i) Christ ought to be as near to us as if He were
still here. Nothing so simplifies the whole religious
life as this thought. A present, personal Christ solves
every difficulty, and meets every requirement of
Christian experience. There is a historical Christ,
a national Christ, a theological Christ — we each want
Christ. So we have Him. For purposes of ex-
pediency, for a little while, He has become invisible.
It is our part to have Him.

" More present to Faith's vision keen
Than any other vision seen ;
More near, more intimately nigh
Than any other earthly tie."

(2) Then consider what an incentive to honest
faithfulness this is. The kingdom of Heaven is
like a man travelling into a far country. And be-
fore he went he called his servants and gave to
every man his work.

Are we doing it faithfully ? Are we doing it at
all ? The visible eye of the Master is off us. No
one inspects our work. Wood, hay, stubble, no man
knows. It is the test of the absent Christ. He is
training us to a kind of faithfulness whose high
quality is unattained by any other earthly means.
It was after the Lord was gone that the disciples
worked. They grew fast after this — in vigour, in
usefulness, in reliance, in strength of character.
Hitherto they had rested in His love. Did you

WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART 75

ever think what a risk it was for Him to go away ?
It was a terrible risk — to leave us here all by our-
selves. And yet this was one of His ways of elevat-
ing us. There is nothing exalts a man like confi-
dence put in him. So He went away and let us
try ourselves.

We cannot always sit at the communion table.
We partake of the feast not so much as a luxury,
though it is that, but to give us strength to work.
We think our Sabbath services, our prayers, our
Bible reading are our religion. It is not so. We
do these things to help us to be religious in other
things. These are the mere meals, and a workman
gets no wages for his meals. It is for the work he
does. The value of this communion is not estimated
yet It will take the coming week to put the value
upon it. In itself it counts little; we shall sec what
it is, by what we shall be.

Every communicant is left by Christ with a
solemn responsibility. Christ's confidence in us is
unspeakably touching. Christ was sure of us: He
felt the world was safe in our hands. He was away,
but we would be Christs to it; the Light of the
World was gone, but He would light a thousand
lights, and leave each of us as one to illuminate one
corner of its gloom.

(3) Lastly, He has only gone for a little while.
" Behold, I come quickly/1 The probation will soon
be pa :. "Be 1 children till I come back/1 He

iid, like a mother leaving her little ones " and

76 WHY CHRIST MUST DEPART

I will come again, and receive you unto Myself, that
where I am, ye may be also." So we wait till He
come again — we wait till it is expedient for Him to
come back.

" So I am watching quietly

Every day.
Whenever the sun shines brightly,

I rise and say ;
1 Surely it is the shining of His face ! '
And when a shadow falls across the window

Of my room,
Where I am working my appointed task,
I lift my head to watch the door, and ask

If He is come."

" I go to my Father."
— JOHN xiv. 12.

Going to the
Father

WRITTEN AFTER THE
DEATH OF A FRIEND

YOU can unlock a man's whole life if you watch
what words he uses most. We have each a
small set of words, which, though we are scarce
aware of it, we always work with, and which really
express all that we mean by life, or have found out
of it. For such words embalm the past for us.
They have become ours by a natural selection
throughout our career of all that is richest and
deepest in our experience. So our vocabulary is our
history, and our favourite words are ourselves.

Did you ever notice Christ's favourite words? If
you have, you must have been struck by two things
— their simplicity and their fewness. Some half-
dozen words embalm all his theology, and these are,

without exception, humble, elementary, simple mono-
syllables. They are such won: e: world,
life, trust, I

Hut nuii'- of these was the >rd < >f ( ".

word was new t<> religion. There v...
word there, when 1 le came, ! . the

new truth 1 le wa . 1 . men. So 1 [c US]

77

73 GOING TO THE FATHER

into religion one of the grandest words of human
language, and transfigured it, and gave it back to
the world illuminated and transformed, as the watch-
word of the new religion. That word was Father.

The world's obligation to the Lord Jesus is that
He gave us that word. We should never have
thought of it; if we had, we should never have
dared to say it. It is a pure revelation. Surely it
is the most touching sight of the world's past to see
God's only begotten Son coming down from heaven
to try to teach the stammering dumb inhabitants
of this poor planet to say, " Our Father."

It is that word which has gathered the great family
of God together ; and when we come face to face
with the real, the solid, and the moving in our
religion, it is to find all its complexity resolvable into
this simplicity, that God, whom others call King
Eternal, Infinite Jehovah, is, after all, our Father,
and we are His children.

This, after all, is religion. And to live daily in
this simplicity, is to live like Christ.

It takes a great deal to succeed as a Christian —
such a great deal, that not many do succeed. And
the great reason for want of success is the want of a
central word. Men will copy anything rather than
a principle. A relationship is always harder to
follow than a fact. We study the details of Christ's
actions, the point of this miracle and of that, the
circumferential truth of this parable and of that, but
to copy details is not to copy Christ. To live greatly

GOING TO THE FATHER 79

like Christ is not to agonize daily over details, to
make anxious comparisons with what we do and
what He did, but a much more simple thing. It is
to re-echo Christ's word. It is to have that calm,
patient, assured spirit, which reduces life simply to
this — a going to the Father.

Not one man in a hundred, probably, has a central
word in his Christian life ; and the consequence is
this, that there is probably nothing in the world so
disorderly and slipshod as personal spiritual experi-
ence. With most of us it is a thing without stability
or permanence, it is changed by every trifle we meet,
by each new mood or thought. It is a series
of disconnected approaches to God, a disorderly
succession of religious impulses, an irregulation of
conduct, now on this principle, now on that, one day
because we read something in a book, the next
because it was contradicted in another. And when
circumstances lead us really to examine ourselves,
everything is indefinite, hazy, unsatisfactory, and all
that we have for the Christian life are the shreds
perhaps of the last few Sabbaths' sermons and a feu-
borrowed patches from other people's expen\
we live in perpetual spiritual oscillation and conn.
and we are almost glad to let any friend or any I
upset the most cherished thought Wt haw.

Now the thing which steadied Christ's life was the
thought that He wb I 'His Father,

thing gave it unity, and harmony, and mo

During His whole life He never t d f<>r

80 GOING TO THE FATHER

a moment. There is no sermon of His where it does
not occur ; there is no prayer, however brief, where it
is missed. In that first memorable sentence of His,
which breaks the solemn spell of history and makes
one word resound through thirty silent years, the one
word is this ; and all through the after years of toil
and travail " the Great Name " was always hovering
on His lips, or bursting out of His heart. In its be-
ginning and in its end, from the early time when He
spoke of His Father's business till He finished the
work that was given Him to do, His life, disrobed
of all circumstance, was simply this, " I go to My
Father."

If we take this principle into our own lives, we
shall find its influence tell upon us in three ways :

I. It explains Life.

II. It sustains Life.

III. It completes Life.

I. It explains Life. Few men, I suppose, do not
feel that life needs explaining. We think we see
through some things in it — partially ; but most of it,
even to the wisest mind, is enigmatic. Those who
know it best are the most bewildered by it, and
they who stand upon the mere rim of the vortex
confess that even for them it is overspread with
cloud and shadow. What is my life? whither do I
go ? whence do I come ? these are the questions
which are not worn down yet, although the whole
world has handled them.

To these questions there are but three answers—

GOING TO THE FATHER 81

one by the poet, the other by the atheist, the third
by the Christian.

(a) The poet tells us, and philosophy says the
same, only less intelligibly, that life is a sleep, a
dream, a shadow. It is a vapour that appeareth for
a little and vanisheth away ; a meteor hovering for a
moment between two unknown eternities ; bubbles,
which form and burst upon the river of time. This
philosophy explains nothing. It is a taking refuge
in mystery. Whither am I going ? Virtually the
poet answers, " I am going to the Unknown."

(b) The atheist's answer is just the opposite. He
knows no unknown. He understands all, for there
is nothing more than we can see or feel. Life is
what matter is ; the soul is phosphorus. Whither
am I going ? " I go to dust," he says ; " death ends
all." And this explains nothing. It is worse than
mystery. It is contradiction. It is utter darkness.

(c) But the Christian's answer explains something.
Where is he going ? " I go to my Father." This is
not a definition of his death — there is no death in
Christianity ; it is a definition of the Christian life.
All the time it is a going to the Father. Some
travel swiftly, some are long upon the road, some
meet many pleasant adventures by the way, others

through fire and peril; but though the path be
short or winding, and though the pace be quick or

slow, it i her,

Now this explains life. It explain, the two things
in Life re most inexplicable. 1 r one ti.

D.B. 6

82 GOING TO THE FATHER

explains why there is more pain in the world than
pleasure. God knows, although we scarce do, there is
something better than pleasure — progress. Pleasure,
mere pleasure, is animal. He gives that to the butter-
fly. But progress is the law of life to the immortal.
So God has arranged our life as progress, and its
working principle is evolution. Not that there is no
pleasure in it. The Father is too good to His chil-
dren for that. But the shadows are all shot through
it, for He fears lest we should forget there is any-
thing more. Yes, God is too good to leave His
children without indulgences, without far more than
we deserve ; but He is too good to let them spoil us.
Our pleasures therefore are mere entertainments.
We are entertained like passing guests at the inns on
the roadside. Yet after even the choicest meals we
dare not linger. We must take the pilgrim's staff
again and go on our way to the Father.

Sooner or later we find out that life is not a
holiday, but a discipline. Earlier or later we all
discover that the world is not a playground. It is
quite clear God means it for a school. The moment
we forget that, the puzzle of life begins. We try to
play in school ; the Master does not mind that so
much for its own sake, for He likes to see His children
happy, but in our playing we neglect our lessons.
We do not see how much there is to learn, and we
do not care. But our Master cares. He has a
perfectly overpowering and inexplicable solicitude
for our education ; and because He loves us, He

GOING TO THE FATHER 83

comes into the school sometimes and speaks to us.
He may speak very softly and gently, or very
loudly. Sometimes a look is enough, and we
understand it, like Peter, and go out at once and
weep bitterly. Sometimes the voice is like a thunder-
clap startling a summer night. But one thing we may
be sure of: the task He sets us to is never measured
by our delinquency. The discipline may seem far less
than our desert, or even to our eye ten times more.
But it is not measured by these — it is measured by
God's solicitude for our progress; measured solely by
God's love ; measured solely that the scholar may be
better educated when he arrives at his Father. The
discipline of life is a preparation for meeting the
Father. When we arrive there to behold His beauty,
we must have the educated eye ; and that must be
trained here. We must become so pure in heart —
and it needs much practice — that we shall see God.
That explains life — why God puts man in the cru-
cible and makes him pure by fire.

When we see Him, we must speak to Him.
We have that language to learn. And that is
perhaps why God makes us pray so much. Then we
are to walk with Him in white. Our sanctirk
is a putting CMl this white. But there has to be

much disrobing first ; muchputtin]

This is why God makes man's beaut;.

away like the moth, He takes away the moth's

md man goes the

quicker and the lovelier to the Father.

84 GOING TO THE FATHER

It is quite true, indeed, besides all this, that
sometimes shadow falls more directly from definite
sin. But even then its explanation is the same.
We lose our way, perhaps, on the way to the
Father. The road is rough, and we choose the
way with the flowers beside it, instead of the path
of thorns. Often and often thus, purposely or
carelessly, we lose the way. So the Lord Jesus
has to come and look for us. And He may have
to lead us through desert and danger, before we
regain the road — before we are as we were — and
the voice says to us sadly once more, " This is
the way to the Father."

The other thing which this truth explains is,
why there is so much that is unexplained. After
we have explained all, there is much left. All
our knowledge, it is said, is but different degrees
of darkness. But we know why we do not know
why. It is because we are going to our Father.
We are only going : we are not there yet. There-
fore patience. "What I do thou knowest not
now, but thou shalt know. Hereafter, thou shalt
know." Hereafter, because the chief joy of life is
to have something to look forward to. But, here-
after, for a deeper reason. Knowledge is only
given for action. Knowing only exists for doing :
and already nearly all men know to do more than
they do do. So, till we do all that we know, God
retains the balance till we can use it. In the
larger life of the hereafter, more shall be given, pro-

GOING TO THE FATHER 85

portionate to the vaster sphere and the more ardent
energies.

Necessarily, therefore, much of life is still twilight.
But our perfect refuge is to anticipate a little
and go in thought to our Father, and, like children
tired out with efforts to put together the dis-
turbed pieces of a puzzle, wait to take the frag-
ments to our Father.

And yet, even that fails sometimes. He seems
to hide from us and the way is lost indeed. The
footsteps which went before us up till then cease,
and we are left in the chill, dark night alone. If
we could only see the road, we should know it
went to the Father. But we cannot say we are
going to the Father ; we can only say ive would
like to go. " Lord," we cry, u we know not whither
thou goest, and how can we know the way ? "
" Whither I go," is the inexplicable answer, " ye
know not now." Well is it for those who at such
times arc near enough to catch the rest : " But
ye shall know hereafter."

II. Secondly, and in a few words, this sustains Life.

A year or two ago some of the greatest and
choicest minds of this country laboured, in the pages
of one of our magazines, to answer the question,
"Is Life worth living?" It was a triumph for re-
ligion, some thought, that the keenest intellect

the nineteenth century should be stirred with tl.

like this. It was \\>>i 10 ; it was the si::

of the utter heathenism of our age. Is Life worth

86 GOING TO THE FATHER

living ? As well ask, Is air worth breathing ? The
real question is this — taking the definition of life here
suggested — Is it worth while going to the Father ?

Yet we can understand the question. On any
other definition we can understand it. On any other
definition life is very far from being worth living.
Without that, life is worse than an enigma ; it is an
inquisition. Life is either a discipline, or a most
horrid cruelty. Man's best aims here are persist-
ently thwarted, his purest aspirations degraded, his
intellect systematically insulted, his spirit of inquiry
is crushed, his love mocked, and his hope stultified.
There is no solution whatever to life without this ;
there is nothing to sustain either mind or soul amid
its terrible mystery but this ; there is nothing even
to account for mind and soul. And it will always
be a standing miracle that men of powerful intellect
who survey life, who feel its pathos and bitterness,
and are shut up all the time by their beliefs to im-
penetrable darkness — I say it will always be a stand-
ing miracle how such men, with the terrible unsolved
problems all around them, can keep reason from
reeling and tottering from its throne. If life is not
a going to the Father, it is not only not worth living,
it is an insult to the living ; and it is one of the
strangest mysteries how men who are large enough
in one direction to ask that question, and too
limited in another to answer it, should voluntarily
continue to live at all.

There is nothing to sustain life but this thought.

GOING TO THE FATHER 87

And it does sustain life. Take even an extreme case,
and you will see how. Take the darkest, saddest,
most pathetic life of the world's history. That was
Jesus Christ's. See what this truth practically was
to Him. It gave Him a life of absolute composure
in a career of most tragic trials.

You have noticed often, and it is inexpressibly
touching, how as His life narrows, and troubles
thicken around Him, He leans more and more upon
this. And when the last days draw near — as the
memorable chapters in John reveal them to us — with
what clinging tenderness He alludes in almost every
second sentence to " My Father." There is a wistful
eagerness in these closing words which is strangely
melting — like one ending a letter at sea when land is
coming into sight.

This is the Christian's only stay in life. It pro-
vides rest for his soul, work for his character, an ob-
ject, an inconceivably sublime object, for his ambition.
It does not stagger him to be a stranger here, to feel
the world passing away. The Christian is like the
pearl-diver, who is (Ait of the sunshine for a little,
spending his short day amid rocks and weeds and
dangers at the bottom of the ocean. Does he desire
to spend lu's life there? No, but his Master 1
Is his life there? No, his life is up above. A com-
munication is ('pen to the surface, and the fresh pure
life comes down to him from God Is he not wasting
time there ? lie is gathering pearls for hi. M I
Crown. Will he always stay there? \\ I . :: tl

88 GOING TO THE FATHER

pearl is gathered, the " Come up higher " will beckon
him away, and the weights which kept him down
will become an exceeding weight of glory, and he will
go, he and those he brings with him, to his Father.

He feels, to change the metaphor, like a man in
training for a race. It is months off still, but it is
nearer him than to-morrow, nearer than anything
else. Great things are always near things. So he
lives in his future. Ask him why this deliberate
abstinence from luxury in eating and drinking. " He
is keeping his life," he says. Why this self-denial,
this separation from worldliness, this change to a
quiet life from revelries far into the night ? " He is
keeping his life." He cannot have both the future and
the present ; and he knows that every regulated hour,
and every temptation scorned and set aside, is adding
a nobler tissue to his frame and keeping his life for
the prize that is to come.

Trial to the Christian is training for eternity, and
he is perfectly contented ; for he knows that " he who
loveth his life in this world shall lose it ; but he that
hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life
eternal." He is keeping his life till he gets to
the Father.

III. Lastly, in a word, this completes life.

Life has been defined as a going to the Father.
It is quite clear that there must come a time in the
history of all those who live this life when they
reach the Father. This is the most glorious moment
of life. Angels attend at it. Those on the other

GOING TO THE FATHER 89

side must hail the completing of another soul with
ineffable rapture. When they are yet a great way
off, the Father runs and falls on their neck and kisses
them.

On this side we call that Death. It means reach-
ing the Father. It is not departure, it is arrival ; not
sleep, but waking. For life to those who live like
Christ is not a funeral procession. It is a triumphal
march to the Father. And the entry at the last in
God's own chariot is the best hour of all. No, as
we watch a life which is going to the Father, we
cannot think of night, of gloom, of dusk and sunset.
It is life which is the night, and Death is sunrise.

" Pray moderately," says an old saint, " for the lives
of Christ's people." Pray moderately. We may want
them on our side, he means, but Christ may need
them on His. He has seen them a great way off,
and set His heart upon them, and asked the Father
to make them come quickly. ■ I will," He says,
" that such an one should be with Me where I
am." So it is better that they should go to the
Father.

These words have a different emphasis to different
persons. There are three classes to whom the)' come
home with a peculiar emphasis : —

1. They speak to those who are staying away

from God "1 do not wonder at what men suffer,"

tin, "I wonder often at what tl
My fellow pilgrim, you do not know

', by not going to the Father. Vou live in an

90 GOING TO THE FATHER

appalling mystery. You have nothing to explain
your life, nor to sustain it ; no boundary line on the
dim horizon to complete it. When life is done you
are going to leap into the dark. You will cross the
dark river and land on the further shore alone. No
one will greet you. You and the Inhabitant of
Eternity will be strangers. Will you not to-day arise
and go to your Father ?

2. They speak, next, to all God's people. Let us
remember that we are going to the Father. Even
now are we the sons of God. Oh, let us live like it —
more simple, uncomplaining, useful, separate — joyful
as those who march with music, yet sober as those
who are to company with Christ. The road is heavy,
high road and low road, but we shall soon be home.
God grant us a sure arrival in our Father's house.

3. And this voice whispers yet one more message
to the mourning. Did Death end all ? Is it well
with the child ? It is well. The last inn by the
roadside has been passed — that is all, and a voice
called to us, " Good-bye ! I go to my Father."

" They said, He is beside
Himself."— Mark iii. 21

The Eccentricity
of Religion

'T^IIK most pathetic life in the history of the
* world is the life of the Lord Jesus. Those
who study it find out, every day, a fresh sorrow.
Before lie came it was already foretold that He
would be acquainted with grief, but no imagination
has ever conceived the darkness of the reality.

It began with one of the bitterest kinds of sor-
row— the sorrow of an enforced silence. For thirty
years He saw, but dared not act. The wrongs lie
came to redress were there. The hollowest religion
ever known — a mere piece of acting — was being
palmed off around Him on every side as the religion
of the living God. He saw the poor trodden upon,
the- sick untended, the widow unavenged, His Father's

people scattered, His truth misrepresented, and the
whole earth filled with hypocrisy and violence. He
saw this, grew up amongst it, knew how to cure it.

Yet He was dumb, He opened not His mouth. How

He held in His breaking spirit, till the slow

•Ives done, it is impossible to compre-
hend.

Then came tin- public life, the necessity to breathe

9»

92 THE ECCENTRICITY

its atmosphere : the temptation, the contradiction
of sinners, the insults of the Pharisees, the attempts
on His life, the dulness of His disciples, the Jews'
rejection of Him, the apparent failure of His cause,
Gethsemane, Calvary. Yet these were but the more
marked shades in the darkness which blackened the
whole path of the Man of Sorrows.

But we are confronted here with an episode in
His life which is not included in any of these ; an
episode which had a bitterness all its own, and such
as has fallen to the lot of few to know. It was not
the way the world treated Him ; it was not the Phari-
sees ; it was not something which came from His
enemies ; it was something His friends did. When
He left the carpenter's shop and went out into the
wider life, His friends were watching Him. For
some time back they had remarked a certain strange-
ness in His manner. He had always been strange
among His brothers, but now this was growing upon
Him. He had said much stranger things of late,
made many strange plans, gone away on curious
errands to strange places. What did it mean?
Where was it to end ? Were the family to be re-
sponsible for all this eccentricity? One sad day
it culminated. It was quite clear to them now. He
was not responsible for what He was doing. It was
His mind, alas ! that had become affected. He was
beside Himself. In plain English, He was mad !

An awful thing to say when it is true, a more
awful thing when it is not ; a more awful thing still

OF RELIGION 93

when the accusation comes from those we love, from
those who know us best It was the voice of no
enemy, it came from His own home. It was His
own mother, perhaps, and His brethren, who pointed
this terrible finger at Him ; apologising for Him,
entreating the people never to mind Him, He was
beside Himself — He was mad.

There should have been one spot surely upon
God's earth for the Son of Man to lay His head —
one roof, at least, in Nazareth, with mother's minis-
tering hand and sister's love for the weary Worker.
But His very home is closed to Him. He has
to endure the furtive glances of eves which once
loved Him, the household watching Him and whis-
pering one to another, the cruel suspicion, the laying
hands upon Him, hands which were once kind to
Him, and finally, the overwhelming announcement
of the verdict of His family, " He is beside Himself."
Truly He came to His own, and His own received
Him not.

What makes it seemly to dig up this harrowing
memory to-day, and emphasize a thought which we
cannot but feel lies on the borderland of blasphemy?
Because the Significance of that scene is still intense.
It has a peculiar lesson for us who are to profess
ourselves followers of Christ — a lesson in the count-
ing of the C :. ( hrist's life, from first to
a dramatized parable — too short and too significant
to allow even a scene which well might re>t in solemn
shadow to pass by unimproved.

94 THE ECCENTRICITY

I. Observe, from the world's standpoint, the charge
is true. It is useless to denounce this as a libel, a
bitter, blasphemous calumny. It is not so — it is true.
There was no alternative. Either He was the Christ,
the Son of the living God, or He was beside Him-
self. A holy life is always a phenomenon. The
world knoweth it not. It is either supernatural or
morbid.

For what is being beside oneself? What is
madness ? It is eccentricity — ec-centr-icity — having
a different centre from other people. Here is a man,
for instance, who devotes his life to collecting objects
of antiquarian interest, old coins perhaps, or old
editions of books. His centre is odd, his life re-
volves in an orbit of his own. Therefore, his friends
say, he is eccentric.

Or here is an engine with many moving wheels,
large and small, cogged and plain, but each revolving
upon a central axis, and describing a perfect circle.
But at one side there is one small wheel which does
not turn in a circle. Its motion is different from
all the rest, and the changing curve it describes is
unlike any ordinary line of the mathematician. The
engineer tells you that this is the eccentric, because it
has a peculiar centre.

Now when Jesus Christ came among men He
found them nearly all revolving in one circle. There
was but one centre to human life — self. Man's chief
end was to glorify himself and enjoy himself for
ever. Then, as now, by the all but unanimous con*

OF RELIGION

95

census of the people, this present world was sanc-
tioned as the legitimate object of all human interest
and enterprise. By the whole gravitation of society,
Jesus — as a man — must have been drawn to the very
verge of this vast vortex of self-indulgence, personal
ease and pleasure, which had sucked in the popula-
tions of the world since time began. But He stepped
back. He refused absolutely to be attracted. He
put everything out of His life that had even a
temptation in it to the world's centre. He humbled
Himself— there is no place in the world's vortex for
humbleness ; He became of no reputation — nor for
namelessness. He emptied Himself — gravitation
cannot act on emptiness. So the prince of this
world came, but found nothing in Him. He found
nothing, because the true centre of that life was not
to be seen. It was with God. The unseen and the
eternal moved Him. He did not seek His own
happiness, but that, of others. He went about doing
His object in going about was not gain,
but to do good.

. all this was very eccentric. It was living
on new lines altogether. He did God's will. Ik-
pleased not Himself. His centre was to one side
Of self. He was beside Himself. From the world's
View-point it was Bimply mad:.

Think of this idea of His, for instance, of
•.it into life with so quixotic an idea as
that of doing good; the simplicity of th

i that the world ever would |

96 THE ECCENTRICITY

this irrational talk about meat to eat that they
knew not of, about living water ; these extraor-
dinary beatitudes, predicating sources of happiness
which had never been heard of; these paradoxical
utterances of which He was so fond, such as that
the way to find life was to lose it, and to lose
life in this world was to keep it to life eternal.
What could these be but mere hallucination and
dreaming! It was inevitable that men should
laugh and sneer at Him. He was unusual. He
would not go with the multitude. And men were
expected to go with the multitude. What the multi-
tude thought, said, and did, were the right things
to have thought, said, and done. And if any one
thought, said, or did differently, his folly be on
his own head, he was beside himself, he was mad.

II. Every man who lives like Christ produces
the same reaction upon the world. This is an in-
evitable consequence. What men said of Him,
if we are true to Him, they will say of you and
me. The servant is not above his master. If
they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute*"
you. A Christian must be different from other
people. Time has not changed the essential
difference between the spirit of the world and the
spirit of Christ. They are radically and eternally
different. And from the world's standpoint still
Christianity is eccentricity. For what, again, is
Christianity? It is the projection into the world
of these lines along which Christ lived. It is a

OF RELIGION 97

duplicating in modern life of the spirit, the
method, and the aims of Jesus, a following through
the world the very footprints He left behind.
And if these footprints were at right angles to
the broad beaten track the world went along in
His day, they will be so still. It is useless to
say the distinction has broken down. These two
roads are still at right angles. The day may
be, when the path of righteousness shall be the
glorious highway for all the earth. But it is
not now. Christ did not expect it would be so.
He made provision for the very opposite. He
prepared His Church beforehand for the reception
it would get in the world. He gave no hope
that it would be an agreeable one. Light must
conflict with darkness, truth with error. There is
no sanctioned place in the world as yet fur a
life with God as its goal, and self-denial as its
principle. Meekness must be victimized ; spiritu-
ality must be misunderstood ; true religion must
be burlesqued. Holiness must make a strong fer-
ment and reaction, in family or community, office
or workshop, wherever it is introduced. "Think-
not that I am come to send peace on earth, 1
came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am
come to set a man at variance against his father,

and the daughter against her mother, and the

daughter-in-law against her mutlu-r-in-law, and a
man's foes (He might well say it) shall be tlv
his own household."1

7

98 THE ECCENTRICITY

True religion is no milk-and-water experience. It
is a fire. It is a sword. It is a burning, consuming
heat, which must radiate upon everything around.
The change to the Christlike Life is so remarkable
that when one really undergoes it, he cannot find
words in common use by which he can describe its
revolutionary character. He has to recall the very
striking phrases of the New Testament, which once
seemed such exaggerations : — " A new man, a new
creature ; a new heart ; a new birth" His very life
has been taken down and re-crystallised round the
new centre. He has been born again.

The impression his friends receive from him now is
the impression of eccentricity. The change is bound
to strike them, for it is radical, central. They will
call in unworthy motives to account for the differ-
ence. They will say it is a mere temporary fit, and
will pass away. They will say he has shown a
weakness which they did not expect from him, and try
to banter him out of h is novel views and stricter life
This, in its mildest form, is the modern equivalent
of " He is beside himself." And it cannot be helped.
It is the legitimate reproach of the Cross, The
words are hard, but not new. Has it not come
down that long line of whom the world was not
worthy ? Its history, alas ! is well known. It fell on
the first Christians in a painful and even vulgar
form.

The little Church had just begun to live. The
disciples stood after the great day of Pentecost

OF RELIGION 99

contemplating that first triumph of Christ's cause
with unbounded joy. At last an impression had
been made upon the world. The enterprise was
going to succeed, and the whole earth would
fill with God's glory. They little calculated that the
impression they made on the world was the im-
pression of their own ridiculousness. " What meaneth
this?" the people asked. " It means," the disciples
would have said, " that the Holy Ghost, who was
to come in His name, is here, that God's grace is
stirring the hearts of men and moving them to
repent." The people had a different answer. "These
men," was the coarse reply, " are full of new wine."
Nut mad this time — they are intoxicated !

Time passed, and Paul tells us the charge was laid
at his door, lie had made that great speech in the
hall of the Cesarean palace before Agrippa and
Festus. He told them of the grace of God in his
conversion, and closed with an eloquent confession of
his Lord. What impression had he made upon his
audience? The impression of a madman. "As he
thus spake for him- said with a loud \

' Paul, thou art beside thyself ; much learning hath
made thee mad.'" Poor Paul I How you feel for

him when the cruel blow was struck. But there

no answer to it. From their view-point it

tly true. And BO it has been with all saints to
the present hour. It matters not if they Speak like-
Paul the word mess. It mat: I they

are men of burning zeal like Xavier and Whitfield.

ioo THE ECCENTRICITY

men of calm spirit like Tersteegen and a Kempis,
men of learning like Augustine, or of ordinary gifts
like Wesley — the effect of all saintly lives upon the
world is the same. They are to the Jews a stumbling-
block and to the Greeks foolishness.

It is not simply working Christianity that is an
offence. The whole spiritual life, to the natural man,
is an eccentric thing. Take such a manifestation, for
instance, as Prayer. The scientific men of the day
have examined it and pronounced it hallucination.
Or take Public Prayer. A congregation of people
with bowed heads, shut eyes, hushed voices, invoking,
confessing, pleading, entreating One who, though not
seen, is said to see, who, speaking not, is said to
answer. There is no other name for this incanta-
| tion from the world's standpoint than eccentricity,
delusion, madness. We are not ashamed of the
terms. They are the guarantee of quality. And all
high quality in the world is subject to the same
reproach. For we are discussing a universal prin-
ciple. It applies to inventors, to discoverers, to
philosophers, to poets, to all men who have been
better or higher than their time. These men are
never understood by their contemporaries. And if
there are martyrs of science, the centres of science
being in this world, seen, demonstrated, known, how
much more must there be martyrs for religion whose
centre is beyond the reach of earthly eye ?

III. It follows from this, that the more active
religion is, the more unpopular it must be.

OF RELIGION 101

Christ's religion did not trouble His friends at first.
For thirty years, at all events, they were content to put
up with it. But as it grew in intensity they lost
patience. When He called the twelve disciples, they
gave Him up. His work went on, the world said
nothing for some time. But as His career became
aberrant more and more, the family feeling spread,
gained universal ground. Even the most beautiful
and tender words He uttered were quoted in evi-
dence of PI is state. For John tells us that after
that exquisite discourse in the tenth chapter about
the Good Shepherd, there was a division among the
Jews for these sayings : " And many of them said, He
hath a devil and is mad. Why hear ye Him?" It
seemed utter raving.

Have you ever noticed — and there is nothing more
touching in history — how Christ's path narrowed ?

The first great active period is called in books
The year of public favour. On the whole it was
a year of triumph. The world received Him for a
time. Vast crowds followed Him. The Baptist's
audience left him and gathered round the new voice.
Palestine rang with the name of Jesus. Noble-
men, ruler vied with one another in en-
tertaining Ilim. But the excitement died down
suddenly and soon.

The next year is called The year < i"
The .. was over. The crowds thinned. On

every hand He was obstructed. The Sadducees left
Him. The Pharisees left Him. The political party

102 THE ECCENTRICITY

were roused into opposition. The Jews, the great
mass of the people, gave Him up. His path was
narrowing.

With the third period came the end. The path was
very narrow now. There were but twelve left to Him
when the last act of the drama opens. They are
gathered on the stage together for the last time. But
it must narrow still. One of the disciples, after receiv-
ing the sop, goes out. Eleven are left Him. Peter
soon follows. There are but ten. One by one they
leave the stage, till all forsook Him and fled, and He
is left to die alone. Well might He cry, as He hung
there in this awful solitude — as if even God had for-
gotten Him, " My God, my God, why hast Thou
forsaken Me ? "

But this is not peculiar to Jesus. It is typical of
the life of every Christian. His path, too, must narrow.
As he grows in grace, he grows in isolation. He feels
that God is detaching his life from all around it and
drawing him to Himself for a more intimate fellow-
ship. But as the communion is nearer, the chasm
which separates him from his fellow man must widen.
The degree of a man's religion, indeed, is to be gauged
by the degree of his rejection by the world. With
the early Christians was not this the commonest
axiom, " We told you before," did not Paul warn
them, " that we should suffer ? " " Unto some it was
given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on
Him, but also to suffer for His sake." It was the
position of honour, as it were, in the family of God

OF RELIGION 103

to be counted worthy of being persecuted for the sake
of Christ.

It is a sad reflection that, as in the case of Christ,
the keenest suffering may come sometimes still from
one's own family circle. Among our friends there
may be one on whom we all look askance — one
who is growing up in the beauty of holiness, and we
not knowing what it is that makes him strange. It
often needs Death to teach us the beauty of a life
which has been lived beside our own ; and we only
know the worth of it when God proves it by taking it
to Himself.

Finally, it may be objected to all this that if eccen-
tricity is a virtue, it is easily purchased. Any one
can set up for an eccentric character. And if that is
the desideratum of religion we shall have candidates
enough for the office. But it remains to define the
terms on which a Christian should be eccentric —
Christ's own terms. And let them be guides to us
in our eccentricity, for without them we shall be not
Christians, but fanatics.

The qualities which distinguish the eccentricity of
godliness from all other eccentricities are three ; and
we gather them all from the life of Christ.

1. Notice, His eccentricity vcas not destrn
Christ took the world as He found it, He left it as
it was. He had no quarrel with existing institutions.
He did not overthrow the church — He went to church,
lie said nothing against politics — He supported the
government of the country. He (lid not denounce

104 THE ECCENTRICITY

society — His first public action was to go to a mar-
riage. His great aim, in fact, outwardly, and all
along, was to be as normal, as little eccentric as pos-
sible. The true fanatic always tries the opposite. The
spirit alone was singular in Jesus ; a fanatic always
spoils his cause by extending it to the letter. Christ
came not to destroy, but to fulfil. A fanatic comes
not to fulfil, but to destroy. If we would follow
the eccentricity of our Master, let it not be in
asceticism, in denunciation, in punctiliousness, and
scruples about trifles, but in largeness of heart,
singleness of eye, true breadth of character, true
love to men, and heroism for Christ.

2. It was perfectly composed. We think of eccen-
tricity as associated with frenzy, nervousness, excit-
ableness, ungovernable enthusiasm. But the life of
Jesus was a calm. It was a life of marvellous
composure. The storms were all about it, tumult
and tempest, tempest and tumult, waves breaking
over Him all the time till the worn body was laid
in the grave. But the inner life was as a sea of
glass. It was a life of perfect composure. To come
near it even now is to be calmed and soothed. Go
to it at any moment, the great calm is there. The
request to " come " at any moment was a standing

I invitation all through His life. Come unto Me at
My darkest hour, in My heaviest trial, on My busiest
day, and I will give you Rest. And when the very
bloodhounds were gathering in the streets of Jeru-
salem to hunt Him down, did He not turn to the

OF RELIGION 105

quaking group around Him and bequeath to them —
a last legacy — " My Peace " ?

There was no frenzy about His life, no ex-
citement. In quietness and confidence the most
terrible days sped past. In patience and composure
the most thrilling miracles were wrought. Men
came unto Him, and they found not restlessness, but
Rest Composure is to be had for faith. We shall
be worse than fanatics if we attempt to go along the
lonely path with Christ without this spirit. We shall
do harm, not good. We shall leave half-done work.
We shall wear out before our time. Do not say,
"Life is short." Christ's life was short; yet He
finished the work that was given Him to do. He
was never in a hurry. And if God has given us any-
thing to do for Him, He will give time enough to
finish it with a repose like Christ's.

3. This life was consistent.

From the Christian standpoint a consistent life is
the only sane life. It is not worth while being re-
ligious without being thorough. An inconsistent
Christian is the true eccentric. lie is the true phe-
nomenon in the religious world ; to his brother
Christian the only madman. For madness, in a sense,
is inconsistency ; madness is incoherency, irrelevancy,
mectedness ; and surely there is nothing more
disconnected than a belief in God and Eternity and

no corresponding life. And that man is rarely be-
side himself who assumes the name of Christ

perhaps in sacramental wine to be faithful to His

io6 ECCENTRICITY OF RELIGION

name and cause, and who from one year to another
never lifts a finger to help it. The man who is
really under a delusion, is he who bears Christ's
name, who has no uneasiness about the quality of
his life, nor any fear for the future, and whose true
creed is that

He lives for himself, he thinks for himself,

For himself, and none beside;
Just as if Jesus had never lived,

As if He had never died.

Yes, a consistent eccentricity is the only sane life.
"An enthusiastic religion is the perfection of com-
mon sense." And to be beside oneself for Christ's
sake is to be beside Christ, which is man's chief end
for time and eternity.

Fhilippians i. 21. In
connection with Acts ix.
i-i3.

" To Mc to Live
is Christ "

THERE is no more significant sign of the days
in which we live than the interest society
seems to be taking in the biographies of great
men. Almost all the more popular recent books,
for instance — the books which every one is reading
and has to read — come under the category of
biography ; and, to meet the demand, two or three
times in each season the market has to be supplied
with the lives, in minute detail, of men who but for
this would perhaps have lain in unnoticed graves.

This thirst for memoirs and lives and letters is not
all to be put down to the hero worship which is
natural to every heart. It means, perhaps, a higher
thing than that. It means, in the first place, that
great living i^ being appreciated for its own sake ;
and, in the second, that great livii;

If it is true that any of us are beginning to appre-
ciate ;
say, in the sense of great anil true living — it is one

108 "TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST"

of the most hopeful symptoms of our history. And,
further, if we are going on from the mere admiration
of great men to try and live like them, we are obey-
ing one of the happiest impulses of our being. There
is indeed no finer influence abroad than the influence
of great men in great bocks, and all that literature
can do in supplying the deformed world with worthy
and shapely models is entitled to gratitude and re-
spect.

But a shadow sometimes comes over this thought
of the magnetic attraction which greatness is having
upon our age — the further thought how hard it is to
get our greatness pure. The well is deep, may be,
and the fountain sparkles to the eye ; but we ask
perhaps in vain for a guarantee of quality. Each new
ideal we adjust our life to copy turns out to have its
adulteration of selfishness or pride, like the one we
studied last, till the pattern we sought to follow sur-
prises us by becoming a beacon for us to shun.

There are a few biographies, however, where men
may find their greatness pure ; and amongst them is
one familiar writing which, though seldom looked at
as biographical in this sense, really contains the life
and letters of the greatest man probably of human
history. That man was Paul. The life of Paul the
man, apart from the theology of Paul the Apostle,
is a legitimate and fruitful study from the mere stand-
point of the biography of a great and successful life.
Judged by his influence on human history, no single
life is entitled to more admiration for what it has

"TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST" 109

done, or is indeed more worthy of imitation for what
it was. And in our quest after a true life, a worthy
and satisfying life, there may be some light for us in
this old biography which we have missed perhaps in
the lives of later men.

If we were to begin by seeking an appropriate
motto for Paul's life, we should not need to go
further than the quotation which forms our text.
This fragment from one of his own letters lets us in
at once to his whole secret The true discovery of a
character is the discovery of its ideals. Paul spares
us any speculation in his case. " To me to live," he
says, " is Christ." This is the motto of his life, the
ruling passion of it, which at once explains the
nature of his success and accounts for it He lives
for Christ "To me to live is Christ."

Now here at the outset is a valuable practical point
settled in this biography. When we turn to the
biographies of most great men, we find either no key
or a very complex one ; and we rise from the perusal
with nothing more than a vague desire to do better,
but with no discovery hozv. We gain stimulus, in-
deed, but no knowledge, and this is simply injurious.
We arc braced up enthusiastically for a little, and
then du nothing. At the end of it all we are not
better, we are only exhausted. This is the r
why biography-hunters often, after long dogging the
footsteps of greatness, find that the)' are perha;
further on the road to it themselves, but rather mOTQ
inclined than before to lie down where they were.

no ''TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST"

But Paul explicitly announces to us the working
principle of his life. If the lines are great lines, there
is nothing mysterious about them. If we want to
live like Paul, we have simply to live for Christ ;
Christ our life on one side, our life for Christ on
the other, and both summed up together in Paul's
epitome : " To me to live is Christ."

This being the clue to Paul's life, the instructive
question next arises, What exactly did Paul mean by
this principle, and how did he come to find it out ?
But the question, " What is this object of life ? " is so
closely bound up with how Paul came to have this
object of life, that the answer to the last question will
form at once an explanation and an illustration of the
first.

Therefore let us go at once for the answer to the
life itself. Great principles are always best and
freshest when studied from the life, and it so happens
that a circumstance in Paul's life makes it peculiarly
easy to act on this rule here.

That circumstance was that Paul had two lives.
Many men besides Paul have had two lives, but the
line is cleaner cut in Paul's case than in almost any
other biography. Both lives were somewhere about
the same length, so far as we know, but so distinct
in their general features and details that Paul had
not only two lives, but, as if to mark the distinction
more strikingly, two names. Let us look for a
moment at the first of these lives — the reason will
appear presently.

"TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST" III

Paul's first life, as we all know, was spent under the
most auspicious circumstances, and it will be worth
while running over it. Born of a family which be-
longed to the most select theological school of
that day, the son was early looked upon as at
once the promise of his parents and the hope of
their religion. They sent him when a mere lad to
Jerusalem, and enrolled him as a student in the most
distinguished college of the time. After running a
brilliant college career, and sitting for many years at
the feet of the greatest learning the Jewish capital
could boast, we find him bursting upon the world
with his splendid talents, and taking a place at once
in the troubled political movements of the day. It
was impossible for such a character with his youth's
enthusiasm and his Pharisee's pride to submit to the
tame life of a temple Rabbi, and he sees his oppor-
tunity in the rise of the Christian sect. Here, at last,
he would match his abilities in a contest which would
gain him at once a field of exercise and a name. So
far, doubtless, bethought his first life great

Into his work of persecution he seems now to have
entered with all an inquisitor's zest. His conspicuous

place among the murderers of the first martyr

stamped him forthwith as a leader, and gave him the

■f a popularity which, but f<>r the interrup-
tion of the hand of God, might have ended dis-
astrously t'> tl ;ling Christian Church, lli^

B an inquisitor | \\ led in the hi

quarters Of the land ; and the young man's fur-

112 "TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST"

tune is made. Perhaps no Rabbi of that time had
such prospects now as Saul. " He is a man raised
up for the emergency," said all Jerusalem, and hence-
forth the Jewish world was at his feet. Courted as
the rising man of his day and flushed with success,
he left no stone unturned to find fresh oppor-
tunities of adding to his influence and power. And
as he climbed each rung of the ladder of fame, we can
imagine, as a great student of Paul has said, how his
heart swelled within him when he read these words at
night from the Book of Wisdom : " I shall have esti-
mation among the multitude, and honour with the
elders, though I be young. I shall be found of a
quick conceit in judgment, and shall be admired in
the sight of great men. When I hold my tongue
they shall abide my leisure, and when I speak they
shall give good ear unto me." Such was the man
who afterwards said, " To me to live is Christ."

Upon the little Church at Jerusalem he has already
wreaked his vengeance to the full. The town and
neighbourhood at last are well nigh ridded of the
pest ; and — unlooked-for calamity — in the height of
his triumph Saul finds his occupation gone. Dis-
persed in all directions, members of the little band
have made their way in secret through Judaea and
Samaria, through Syria and Phoenicia, even into
strange cities. And Saul finds round about Jerusalem
no fuel to feed the martyrs' fire, and thus to add
more lustre to his own name.

But there is no pause in the pursuit of human

"TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST" 113

fame. The young lawyer's reputation can never end
in an anti-climax like this. And with the ambition
which knows not how to rest, and in the pride of his
Pharisee's heart, he strikes out the idea to reverse
the maxim of the crucified Leader of the hated sect
and to go into all the world and suppress the gospel
in every creature. He applies to the high-priest for
commission and authority, and, breathing out threat-
enings and slaughter, the man who is going to live
for Christ starts out on his Christless mission to
make havoc of the Church.

This is the last act of Paul's first life. Let us
note it carefully. We are on the bridge which sepa-
rates Paul's two lives. What marks the transition is
this: hitherto his life has been spent in public. It
has been one prolonged whirl of excitement and
applause. But no sooner have the gates of Jeru-
salem closed upon him than Saul begins to think.
The echoes of the people's praises have died away
one by one. He has gone out into the great desert
It is strangely silent and soothing, and the lull has
come at last upon his soul. It is a lung while, per-
haps, since he has had time to think ; but Saul was
far too great a man to live long an unthinking life.
His time for reflection has come. And as he wanders
with his small escort along the banks of the Jordan
or aero , the solitary hills of Samaria, his thoughts
air busy with tin- past And if Saul was far too
I a man to live an unthinking life, hi

' a man to think well of his life when he

8

ii4 "TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST"

did think. Each new day as he journeyed away
from the scene of his triumph, and looked back upon
it all from that distance — which always gives the true
perspective to man's life — his mind must have filled
with many a sad reproach. And as he lay down at
night in the quiet wilderness his thoughts must often
have turned on the true quality of the life to which
he was sacrificing his talents and his youth. With
his quick perception, with his keen trained intellect,
with his penetration, he must have seen that after all
this life was a mistake. Minds of lesser calibre in
the applauding world which he had left had told him
he was great. Now, in his calmer moments, he knew
he was not great. The eternal heavens stretching
above him pointed to an infinity which lay behind
them all ; and the stars and the silence spoke to him
of God. He felt that his life was miserably small.
Saul's thoughts were greater than Saul's life. How
he had been living beneath himself — how he had
wasted the precious years of his youth — how he had
sold his life for honour and reputation, and bartered
the talents God had given him for a name, he must
have seen. He had been dazzled, and that was all.
He had nothing really to show for his life, nothing
that would stand the test of solid thought. It was
all done for himself. He, Saul of Tarsus, the rising
man of his time, was the sole centre of it. " After
all," perhaps he cried in agony, "To me to live is
Saul," " To me to live is Saul."

Paul's first great discovery, as we have seen — and

"TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST" 115

it is the discovery which precedes every true reforma- /
tion of life — was the discovery of himself. When »
Paul said, " To me to live is myself" his conversion
was begun. There was no retreat then for a man
like him. He was too great to have such a little
centre to his life ; or rather, he felt life too great to be
absorbed with even such a personality as his.

But the next element in the case was not so easily
discovered, and it is of much more importance than
the first. His first achievement was only to discover
himself. His second was to discover some one better
than himself. He wanted a new centre to his life —
where was he to find it ? The unseen hand which
painted his own portrait in its true colours on the
dark background of his mind had painted every
other life the same. The high priests at Jerusalem,
the members of the Sanhedrim, his own father at
Tarsus — all the men he knew were living lives like
himself. They were no better — most of them worse.
Must the old centre of Paul's life remain there still?
Is there nothing better in all the world than him-
self?

It may be conjecture, or it may be nearer truth,
that while such questionings passed through the
mind of Paul, there came into his thoughts as he
journeyed some influences from another life— a life
like that for which his thoughts had longed. Paul's

I we

him in our I with the

count; I this

n6 "TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST"

: time his way leads through the Holy Land. He has
entered the country of Christ. He is crossing the

ivery footsteps of Jesus. The villages along his route
are fragrant still with what Jesus said and did —
not the bitter things that Saul had heard before.
Kind words are repeated to him, and tender acts
which Jesus did are told. The peasants by the way-
side and the shepherds on the hills are full of stories
of a self-denying life which used to pass that way
a year or two ago, but now will come no more.
And the mothers at the cottage doors remember the
Stranger who suffered their little children to come
unto Him, and get them to repeat to Saul, perhaps,
the children's blessing which He left behind. Per-
haps, in passing through Samaria, the traveller meets
a woman at a well, who tells her strange tale for the
thousandth time, of a weary Man who had sat there
once and said He was the Christ. And Galilee and
Capernaum, and Bethsaida, and the lake shore at
Gennesaret, are full of memories of the one true life
which surely even then had begun to cast a sacred
influence over Saul. At all events, there seems a
strange preparedness in his mind for the meeting on
the Damascus road, as if the interview with Jesus
then were not so much the first of his friendship as
the natural outcome of something that had gone
before. And no doubt the Spirit's silent working
had been telling on his mind during all these quiet
days, leading up his thoughts to the revelation that
was to come, and preparing a pathos for the memor-

"TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST" 117

able question, with its otherwise unaccountable em-
phasis, " Why persecutest thou Me ? "

What went on between Paul's heart and God we
do not know. We do not know how deep repent-
ance ran, nor where nor how the justifying grace
came down from heaven to his soul. Whether just
then he went through our formula of conversion — the
process which we like to watch and describe in
technical words — we do not know. But we know
this — there came a difference into his life. His life
was changed. It was changed at its most radical
part. He had changed centres. During the process,
whatever it was, this great transfer was effected.
Paul deliberately removed the old centre from his
life, and put a new one in its place. Instead of
" to me to live is Saul," it was now, " to me to live is
Christ."

Of course, when the centre of Paul's life was
changed, he had to take his whole life to pieces and
build it up again on a totally different plan. This
change, then f-Me, is not a mere incident in a man's
life. It is «'i revolution, a revolution of the most
>\\v£ sort. There never was a life BO filled up

with anti-Christian thoughts and impulses, brought so

completely to a halt. There never was such a total

eclipse of the must brilliant worldly prospects, nor

such an abrupt transition from a ding

greatness to humble and obscure ignominy.

I .- I f. . v. ho define CCflvef I tain

colourless experience supposed to go on in the I

u8 "TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST"

ings, blind themselves to the real transition in this
life if they will. Let them ask themselves if there
ever was a more sweeping revolution in any life, for
any cause, than in Paul's, when he abandoned him-
self, literally abandoned himself, and subordinated
everything, evermore, to this one supreme passion —
" to live for Christ."

The stages by which this transcendent standpoint
is to be reached are now plainly before us. They
are, the discovery of self and the discovery of Christ.

These two discoveries between them exhaust the
whole of life. No man truly lives till both these
discoveries are made — for many discover themselves
who have not yet discovered Christ. But he that
hath not the Son hath not life. Whatever he has,
existence, continuity, he has not life. The con-
dition of living at all is to live for Christ. " He
that hath the Son," and he alone, and no one else,
"hath life."

I. Paul takes special care indeed that we should
fully understand the altogether different quality of the
two lives which a man may live. In his view, the first
life, the ordinary life of men, was altogether a mis-
take. " What things were gain to me " he tells us,
" I counted loss for Christ." That brilliant career
of his was loss ; that mission, noble and absorbing
once, was mere waste energy and mis-spent time
And he goes further still. His life was death. It
was selfishness pure and simple ; it was the carnal
mind pure and simple ; and to be carnally minded is

''TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST" 119

death. We shall understand the theology of these
letters better if we think of the writer as a man
escaping death. And with this horrible background
to his life we can see the fuller significance of his
words, that for him to live was Christ.

Another thing is also made plain to us.

The ceaseless demand of the New Testament fur
regeneration is plain to us when we study the
doctrine in such a life as this. It was not Saul who
wrote the letters ; it was a different man altogether
— Paul. It was one who was in a totally different
world from the other. If it were Saul, he must have
been born again before he could have done it. N -
thing less could account for it. His interests were
new, his standpoint, his resources, his friendships.
All old things, in fact, had passed away. All things
had become new. In a word, he was a new creature.
The pool, polluted and stagnant, has found its way
at last into the wide, pure sea ; the spirit, tired of its
narrow prison, disgusted with ambition which ended
with itself, reaches out to the eternal freedom, and
finds a worthy field of exercise in the great enterprise

of Christ.

There is one class to whom this biography
Paul has a special message. The people who need
Paul's chai I are not those, always, who

most thought to need it. The really difficult 1
— to others, hut especially to themselves— are the

really that their life 1
be much better. There are thousands who

120 "TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST"

not see exactly what conversion could do to them.
And their great difficulty in changing their life has
just been this : " What, after all, should we really
have to change? Our lives at present can scarcely
be distinguished from the real Christians around us.
Had we been irreligious, or profane, or undutiful, or
immoral, conversion might do something for us ; but
we belong to the class who feel how well we have
been brought up, how much our interests are gathered
round religion, and, generally, how circumspect and
proper our entire outward life has been. We do
not really see, indeed, what change conversion could
make." Now this is a class who seldom get any
sympathy, and none deserve it more. Religious
people and religious books are always saying hard
things of the " religiously brought up " — bitterly hard
and undeserved things — until they almost come to
feel as if their goodness were a crime. But there are
secret rendings of the heart within these ranks —
longings after God perhaps purer than anywhere else
outside God's true family. And there are those who
feel the difficulty of changing amid surroundings so
Christian-like as theirs ; who feel it so keenly that
despair sometimes leads them to the dark thought of
almost envying the prodigal and the open sinner, who
seem to have more chance of finding the kingdom
than they.

Now the change in Paul's life is exactly the case
in point for them. Paul himself was one of these
characters who wonder what use conversion could

"TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST" 121

ever be to them. He was one of the " religiously
brought up." Touching the law he was blameless.
There was no man stricter with his religion in all
Jerusalem than Saul ; no man took his place more
regularly in the temple, or kept the Sabbath with
more scrupulous care. Touching the law he was
blameless — just the man you would have said who
never would be changed, who was far too good to
be susceptible of a change. But this is the man
— not far from the kingdom of God, as every one
thought him to be — who found room in his most re-
ligious heart for the most sweeping reform that ever
occurred in a life.

Let those who really do not know very well what
religion could do for them take a little quiet thought
like Paul. Let them look once more, not at the
circumference, but at the centre of their life. Let
them ask one question about it : " Is it Christ ? "
There is no middle way in religion — self or Christ
The quality of the selfishness — intellectual, literary,
artistic — the fact that our self's centre may be of a
superior order of self, does nothing to destroy this
grave distinction. It lies between all self and Christ.
For the matter of that no centre could have been
more disciplined or cultured than Paul's. In its
place it was truly great and worthy, but its place was
anywhere else than where Paul had it for the full half
Of his life. This question, then, Of centres is the vital
question. MT live is" — what? "To me

to h. -If!" Suppose that it is so. What

122 "TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST"

kind of an aim for a life is this ? How much nobler
a centre our life is worthy of — our one life, which is
to live for evermore ; which is to live with a great
centre or a mean one — meanly or greatly for ever-
more ! Think of living with oneself for ever and
for ever. Think of having lived, living now, and
evermore living only for this. Consider Him who
endured such contradiction of sinners for our sake,
who made Himself of no reputation, who gave up
form and comeliness ; who humbled Himself and
emptied Himself for us. Then look, if we can, with
complacency on such a life —

" I lived for myself, I thought for myself,
For myself, and none beside,
Just as if Jesus had never lived,
As if He had never died."

2. This leads naturally to the other point —
the discovery of Christ. And here once more we
draw abundant encouragement from our biography
of Paul. And it brings us not only to a hopeful
thought, but to a very solemn thought. We have
all in some way made the discovery of Christ ; we
know more about Christ than Paul did when he
became a Christian. When he made Him the centre
of his life, he knew less of Him perhaps than most
of us. It is a startling truth, at all events, that we
are as near the centre of life — the centre of the
universe — as Paul. We have heard of Him from our
infancy ; the features of His life are as familiar as

"TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST" 123

our own ; we have no hatred to Him as Paul had
once. And if the few days' quietness in the Holy
Land, which Paul had on the threshold of his change,
were in any way a preparation for the crisis of his
life, how much more has our past life been a pre-
paration for a change in ours ! We call Paul's change
a sudden conversion — we do not know how sudden
it was. But if our life were changed to-day, it would
be no sudden conversion. Our whole past has been
leading up to these two discoveries of life. Our
preparation, so far as knowledge of the new centre
^oes, is complete. The change, so far as that is
concerned, might happen nozv. We have the respon-
sibility of being so near eternal life as that.

The question comes to be then, finally, a simple
question of transfer. To me to live is myself, or to
me to live is Christ. To live for Christ is not simply
the sublime doctrine which it includes of Christ our
life. It is not so much Christ our life, but rather
on r life f> r Clit 'ist.

Shall it be, then, our life for Christ ? " To me to live
is Christ." Contrast it with all the other objects of
life ; take all the centres out of all the great lives, and
compare them one by one. Can you match the life-
creed of Paul — " to me to live is Christ " ?

"To me to live is — business"; " to me to live is —
pleasure," " to me to live is — myself." We can all
tell in a moment what our | - really worth.

"To me to live is" — what? What are we In

for? What rises naturally in our heart when we ;

124 "TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST"

it with a test like this : " to me to live is " — what ?
First thoughts, it is said, are best in matters of con-
science. What was the first thought that came into
our heart just then ? What word trembled first on
our lips just now — " to me to live is " — was it business,
was it money, was it myself, was it Christ ?

The time will come when we shall ask ourselves
why we ever crushed this infinite substance of our
life within these narrow bounds, and centred that
which lasts for ever on what must pass away. In
the perspective of Eternity all lives will seem poor,
and small, and lost, and self-condemned beside a life
for Christ. There will be plenty then to gather
round the Cross. But who will do it now ? Who
will do it now ? There are plenty of men to die for
Him, there are plenty to spend Eternity with Christ ;
but where is the man who will live for Christ ?
Death and Eternity come in their place. Christ wants
lives. There is no fear about death being gain if we
have lived for Christ. So, let it be : " To me to live
is Christ."

There is but one alternative — Paul's alternative, the
discovery of Christ. We have all in some sense, in-
deed, already made that discovery. We may be as
near it now as Paul when he left Jerusalem. There
was no notice given that he was to change masters.
The new Master simply crossed his path one day,
and the great change was come. How often has He
crossed our path ? We know what to do the next
time : we know how our life can be made worthy and

"TO ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST" 125

great — how only ; we know how death can become
gain — how only. Many, indeed, tell us death must
be gain. Many long for life to be done that they
may rest, as they say, in the quiet grave. Let no
cheap sentimentalism deceive us. Death can only be
gain when to have lived was Christ.

' ' We look not at the things
which are seen, but at the
things which are not seen : for
the things which are seen are
temporal ; but the things which
are not seen are eternal" — 2 Cor.
iv. 18.

Clairvoyance

" Everything that is, is double.*"
— Hermes Trisme^istus.

■ T OOK not at the things which are seen." How
-L/ can we look not at the things which are
seen ? If they are seen, how can we help looking at
them ? " Look at the things which are not seen."
How can we look at things which are not seen ?
ion some magic wishing-cap, making the
solid world invisible, or does it supply some strange
clairvoyance power to see that which is unseen ?

This is one of those alluring paradoxes which all
great books delight in, which baffle thought while
courting it, but which disclose to whoever picks
the lock the rarest and profoundest truth. The sur-
face meaning of a paradox is either nonsense, or
it is false. In this case it is false, One would
gather, at first Sight, that we had here another of
attacks upon the world, of which the hible
; 1 to be SO fond It iv

between the things <»f tii

of eternity — as an unqualified einent of

this present world The things which are seen arc

128 CLAIRVOYANCE

temporal — not worth a moment's thought, not even
to be looked at.

In reality, this is neither the judgment of the Bible
nor of reason.

There are four reasons why we should look at the
things which are seen : —

1. First, because God made them. Anything that
God makes is worth looking at. We live in no
chance world. It has been all thought out. Every-
where work has been spent on it lavishly — thought
and work — loving thought and exquisite work. All
its parts together, and every part separately, are
stamped with skill, beauty, and purpose. As the
mere work of a Great Master we are driven to look
— deliberately and long — at the things which are
seen.

2. But, second, God made us to look at them. He
who made light made the eye. It is a gift of the
Creator on purpose that we may look at the things
which are seen. The whole mechanism of man is
made with reference to the temporal world — the eye
for seeing it, the ear for hearing it, the nerve for
feeling it, the muscle for moving about on it and
getting more of it. He acts contrary to his own
nature who harbours even a suspicion of the things
that are seen.

3. But again, thirdly, God has not merely made
the world, but He lias made it conspicuous. So far
from lying in the shade, so far from being constituted
to escape observation, the whole temporal world

CLAIRVOYANCE 129

clamours for it. Nature is never and nowhere silent.
If you are apathetic, if you will not look at the
things which are seen, they will summon you. The
bird will call to you from the tree-top, the sea will
change her mood for you, the flower looks- up appeal-
ingly from the wayside, and the sun, before he sets
with irresistible colouring, will startle you into atten-
tion. The Creator has determined that, whether He
be seen or no, no living soul shall tread His earth
without being spoken to by these works of His hands.
God has secured that. And even those things which
have no speech nor language, whose voice is not
heard, have their appeal going out to all the world,
and their word to the end of the earth. Had God
feared that the visible world had been a mere tempta-
tion to us, 1 Ie would have made it less conspicuous.
Certainly He has warned us not to love it, but no-
where nut to look at it.

4. The last reason, fourthly, is the greatest of all.
Hitherto we have been simply dealing with facts.
we come to a principle. Look at the things
that are seen, because it is only by looking at the
things that arc seen that W4 can June any iJca of the
things that are unseen. Our whole conception of the
eternal is derived from the temporal.

:e any unseen truth, or fact, or law. The

position i; that it can be apprehended by us (»:.'

Take the |
What do we know of Ktcrnity ?
Nothing that We have not learned . tein-

I'.!. 9

130 CLAIRVOYANCE

poral. When we try to realize that word there rises
up before us the spaceless sea. We glide swiftly
over it day after day, but the illimitable waste re-
cedes before us, knowing no end. On and on, week
and month, and there stretches the same horizon
vague and infinite, the far-off circle we can never
reach. We stop. We are far enough. This is
Eternity !

In reality, this is not Eternity ; it is mere water, the
temporal, liquid and tangible. But by looking at
this thing which is seen we have beheld the unseen.
Here is a river. It is also water. But its different
shape mirrors a different truth. As we look, the
opposite of Eternity rises up before us. There is
Time, swift and silent ; or Life, fleeting and irrevoc-
able. So one might run over all the material of his
thoughts, all the groundwork of his ideas, and trace
them back to things that are temporal. They arc
really material, made up of matter, and in order to
think at all, one must first of all see.

Nothing could illustrate this better, perhaps, than
the literary form of our English Bible. Leaving out
for the present the language of symbol and illustra-
tion which Christ spoke, there is no great eternal
truth that is not borne to us upon some material
image. Look, for instance, at its teaching about
human life. To describe that, it does not even use
the words derived from the temporal world. It
brings us face to face with the temporal world, and
lets us abstract them for ourselves. It never uses the

CLAIRVOYANCE 131

word "fleeting" or "transitory." It says life is a

vapour that appeareth for a little and vanisheth away.
It likens it to a swift post, a swift ship, a tale that is
told.

It never uses the word " irrevocable." It speaks of
water spilt on the ground that cannot be gathered up
again — a thread cut by the weaver. Nor dues it tell
119 that life is u evanescent." It suggests evanescent
things — a dream, a sleep, a shadow, a shepherd's tent
removed. And even to convey the simpler truth that
life is short, we find only references to short t'
that are seen — a handbreadth, a pilgrimage, a flower,
a weaver's shuttle. The Bible in these instanc
not trying to be poetical : it is simply trying to be
true. And it distinctly, unconsciously, reco;.^
the fact that truth can be borne into the soul only
through the medium of things. We must refuse to
believe, therefore, that we are not to look at the
things which are seen. It is a necessity ; for the
temporal is the husk and framework of the eternal.
And the things which are not seen are made of
the things which do appear. " All visible thi
s.iid Carlyle, "are emblems. What thou sc\
not there on its own account ; strictly speakii
nut there at all. Matter 1 ly spiritually,

and to represent some idea and body it forth."

And so John Ruskin: — "The more I think of it, 1

find this conclusion more impressed upon me— that

t thing a human 1 this

WOrl 1 in a

132 CLAIRVOYANCE

plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who
can think ; but thousands can think for one who can
see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion
— all in one."

From this point we can now go on from the
negative of the paradox to the second and positive
term — " Look at the things which are not seen." We
now understand how to do this. Where is the eter-
nal ? Where are the unseen things, that we may look
at them ? And the answer is — in the temporal. Look
then at the temporal, but do not pause there. You
must penetrate it. Go through it, and see its shadow,
its spiritual shadow, on the further side. Look upon
this shadow long and earnestly, till that which you
look through becomes the shadow, and the shadow
merges into the reality. Look through till the thing
you look through becomes dim, then transparent, and
then invisible, and the unseen beyond grows into form
and strength. For, truly, the first thing seen is the
shadow, the thing on the other side the reality. The
thing you see is only a solid, and men mistake solidity
for reality. But that alone is the reality — the eternal
which lies behind. Look, then, not at the things
which are seen, but look through them to the things
that are unseen.

The great lesson which emerges from all this is as
to the religious use of the temporal world. Heaven
lies behind earth. This earth is not merely a place
to live in, but to see in. We are to pass through it
as clairvoyants, holding the whole temporal world

CLAIRVOYANCE 133

as a vast transparency, through which the eternal
shines.

Let us now apply this principle briefly to daily life.
To most of us, the most practical division of life is
threefold : the Working life, the Home life, and the
Religious life. What do these yield us of the eternal,
and how?

1. The Working Life. To most men, work is just
work — manual work, professional work, office work,
household work, public work, intellectual work. A
yellow primrose is just a yellow primrose ; a spade
is a spade ; a ledger is a ledger ; a lexicon is a
lexicon. To a worker with this mind, so far as
spiritual uses are concerned, therefore, work is
vanity — an unaccountable squandering of precious
time. He must earn his success by the sweat of his
brow; that is all he knows about it. It is a curse,
lying from the beginning upon man as man. So, six
each week, he bends his neck to it doggedly ;
the seventh God allows him to think about the un-
. and eternal

1 would never unspilitualise three-fourths
of man's active life by work, if work were work, and
not!::

little further. I [is
t a curse exactly; it is his appointed life

y. It is G< ':' • v. ill for him, and he in;.

through with it. No doubt

him; at a:: him this sphere,

and lie mu it with Chri itian re

134 CLAIRVOYANCE

It is a poor compliment to the Divine arrange-
ments if they are simply to be acquiesced in. The
all-wise God surely intends some higher outcome
from three-fourths of life than bread and butter and
resignation.

To the spiritual man, next, there lies behind this
temporal a something which explains all. He sees
more to come out of it than the year's income, or the
employment of his allotted time, or the benefiting of
his species. If violins were to be the only product,
there is no reason why Stradivarius should spend
his life in making them. But work is an incarnation
of the unseen. In this loom man's soul is made.
There is a subtle machinery behind it all, working
while he is working, making or unmaking the unseen
in him. Integrity, thoroughness, honesty, accuracy,
conscientiousness, faithfulness, patience — these un-
seen things which complete a soul are woven into it
in work. Apart from work, these things are not.
As the conductor leads into our nerves the invisible
electric force, so work conducts into our spirit all
high forces of character, all essential qualities of life,
truth in the inward parts. Ledgers and lexicons,
business letters, domestic duties, striking of bargains,
writing of examinations, handling of tools — these
are the conductors of the eternal. So much
the conductors of the eternal, that without them
there is no eternal. No man dreams integrity, ac-
curacy, and so on. He cannot learn them by reading
about them. These things require their wire as

CLAIRVOYx\NCE 13-,

much as electricity. The spiritual fluids and the
electric fluids are under the same law; and messages
of grace come along the lines of honest work to the
soul like the invisible message along the telegraph
wires. Patience, spiritually, will travel along a con-
ductor as really as electricity.

A workshop, therefore, or an office, or a school of
learning, is a gigantic conductor. An office is not a
place fur making money — it is a place fur making
character. A workshop is not a place fur making
machinery — it is a place fur making men : nut fur
turning wood, for fitting engines, fur founding
cylinders — to God's eye, it is a place fur founding
character; it is a place fur fitting in the virtues to
one's life, for turning out honest, modest-tempered
God-fearing men. A school of learning is nut so
much a place for making scholars, as a place
for making souls. And he who would ripen and
perfect the eternal element in his being- will do this
by attending to the religious uses of his daily task,

:ii ing the unseen in its seen, and SO turning

three-fourths of each day's life into an ever-acting
means of grace.

We me kinds of work are immoral A

man who is turning out c .

i> turning out a 1 r for

him elf lb- i. touching deceit every moment; and
this unseen thing rises up from his work like a subtle

and p >: OTIS his I Out W

work is imin .1 m.m only a ;

136 CLAIRVOYANCE

of a man, shuts him out from variety, and originality,
and adaptation, narrowing and belittling his soul.
But we forget the counter-truth, that honest and
good work makes honesty and goodness, integrity
and thoroughness — nay that it alone makes them.
And the man who would ripen and perfect his soul
must attend to the religious uses of his daily work —
seeing the unseen in its seen — heeding it, not with
a dry punctiliousness, but lovingly, recognising its
dignity, not as a mere making of money, but as
an elaborate means of grace, occupying three-fourths
of life.

2. The Family Lije. Next, life is so ordered that
another large part of it is spent in the family. This
also, therefore, has its part to play in the completing
of the soul. The working life could never teach a
man all the lessons of the unseen. A whole set of
additional messages from the eternal have to be
conducted into his soul at home. This is why it is
not good for a man to be alone. A lonely man
is insulated from the eternal — inaccessible to the
subtle currents which ought to be flowing hourly into
his soul.

Here, too, is a higher source of spirituality than
work. It is here that life dawns, and the first mould
is given to the plastic substance. Home is the cradle
of Eternity. It has been secured, therefore, that the
first laws stamped here, the first lines laid down, the
permanent way for the future soul, should be at once
the lines of the eternal. Why do all men say that the

CLAIRVOYANCE 137

family is a divine institution ? Because God insti-
tuted it? But what guided Him in constituting it as
it is ? Eternity. Home is a preliminary Heaven.
Its arrangements are purely the arrangements of
Heaven. Heaven is a Father with His children. The
parts we shall play in that great home are just the
parts we have learned in the family here. We shall
go through the same life there — only without the
matter. This matter is a mere temporary quality to
practise the eternal on — as wooden balls are hung up
in a schoolroom to teach the children numbers till
they can think them forthemselv

When a parent wishes to teach his child form and
harmony, the properties of matter, beauty, and
symmetry — all these unseen things — what docs he do
but give his child things that are seen, through which
he can see them? He gives him a box of matter,
bricks of wood, as playthings, and the child, in form-
ing and transforming these, in building with them
lines and squares, arches and pillars, has borne into

his soul regularity and stability, form and symmetry,

. :als with us. The material universe
mere box of bricks. We exercise our growing minds

upon it for a space, till in the hereafter we become

men, and childish things are put away. The temporal

I the scaffolding of the eternal; and when t!.
Immaterial souls have climbed through this material
I 1 I . iffolding .shall be taken down, and the

earth 1 with fervent heat — not because it is

evil, but b I 'lie.

138 CLAIRVOYANCE

The mind of Christ is to be learned in the family.
Strength of character may be acquired at work, but
beauty of character is learned at home. There the
affections are trained — that love especially which is
to abide when tongues have ceased and knowledge
fails. There the gentle life reaches us, the true
heaven-life. In one word, the family circle is the
supreme conductor of Christianity. Tenderness,
humbleness, courtesy, self-forgetfulness, faith, sym-
pathy ; these ornaments of a meek and quiet spirit
are learned at the fireside, round the table, in
common-place houses, in city streets. We are each
of us daily embodying these principles in our soul,
or trampling them out of it, in the ordinary inter-
course of life. As actors in a charade, each member
of the house each day, consciously or unconsciously,
acts a word. The character is the seen, the word
the unseen, and whether he thinks of the word at
night or not, the souls of all around have guessed it
silently; and when the material mask and costume
are put away, and their circumstances long years
forgotten, that word ot eternity lives on to make
or mar the player, and all the players with him, in
that day's game of life.

To waken a man to all that is involved in each
day's life, in even its insignificant circumstance and
casual word and look, surely you have but to tell
him all this — that in these temporals lie eternals ;
that in life, not in church, lies religion ; that all that
is done or undone, said or unsaid, of right or wrong,

CLAIRVOYANXE 139

has its part, by an unalterable law, in the eternal
life of all.

3. We now come to Religion. And we shall see
further how God has put even that for us into the
temporal. Reflect fur a moment upon the teaching
of Christ. All that lie had to say of the eternal
lie put up in images of the temporal world. What
are all His parables, His allusions to nature, His
illustrations from real life, His metaphors and
similes, but disclosures to our blind eyes of the
unseen in the seen? In reality, the eternal is never
nearer us than in a material image. Reason cannot
brin;.' religion near us, only things can. So Christ
never demonstrate. 1 anything. He did not appeal to
the reasoning power in man, but to the seeing
;• — that power of imagination which deals with
images of things.

That is the key to all Christ's teaching — that II
! not to the reason but to the imagination*
Incessantly He held up thi ir eyes —

things which in a few days or years would moulder

into dust I us to look there at the eternal

He held up bread. "I am bread," He said. And
1 think over that fur u lifetime, you will never
arer to the truth than through th.it thing,
bread. That temporal is so perfect an imageof the
.!. that no .mi- thinking, or arguii

■ an get us t loser to 1 !hi
l Ien< • the triumphant way in win. h 1 [e ran .u ked
the temp

140 CLAIRVOYANCE

views of spirituality, had never dared — marked off
for us all its common and familiar things as mirrors
of the eternal. So light, life, vine, wine, bread, water,
physician, shepherd, and a hundred others, have all
become transformed with a light from the other
world. Observe, Christ does not say He is like
these things, He is these things. Look through
these things, right through, and you will see Him.
We disappoint our souls continually in trying, by
some other way than through these homely temporals,
to learn the spiritual life.

It is the danger of those who pursue the intel-
lectual life as a specialty to miss this tender and
gracious influence. The student of the family, by a
generous though perilous homage paid to learning,
is allowed to be an exception in the family life. He
dwells apart, goes his own way, lives his own life ;
and unconsciously, and to his pain, he finds himself,
perhaps, gradually looking down on its homelier
tasks and less transcendent interests. In society, it
is for the scholar we make allowances ; but the
eccentricities which we condone on account of their
high compensations often mark an arrested develop-
ment of what is really higher. And there is nothing
so much to fear in oneself, and to check with more
resolute will, than the unconscious tendency in all
who pursue culture to get out of step with humanity,
and be not at home at home.

A very remarkable instance of Christ's use of
this principle is the Sacraments. His design there

CLAIRVOYANCE 141

was to perpetuate, in the most luminous and
arresting way, the two grandest facts of the spirit-
ual world. How did He proceed ? He made
them visible. He associated these facts with the
two commonest things in the world, water and
bread and wine — the e very-day diet at ever)' pea-
sant's board. By these Sacraments, the souls of
men are tied down at the most sacred moments
of life to the homeliest temporal things ; so that
the highest spirituality, by Christ's own showing,
comes to God's children through lowly forms of
the material world. Transcendentalism in religion
is a real mistake; True spirituality is to see the
divinity in common things.

But, yet again, there is a more wonderful exhi-
bition of this law than the Sacraments. God fur-
nished the world with a temporal thing for i
eternal thing save one. Every eternal truth had
material image in the world, every eternal
law had its working-model among the laws ol
nature. But there was one thing wanting. There-
was no temporal for the Eternal God Himself.
And man missed it. lie wished to see even this
unseen in something seen. In the sea, he saw
lity; in space, infinity; in the hills, sublimity;

in the family, love; in the state, law. But there

f God One B] what fol-
lows wiili bated breath. I tually
! made a Men image of Himself—

not a vi i<>n, not a metaphor— an 1 ; I

142 CLAIRVOYANCE

His person. He laid aside His invisibility, He
clothed Himself with the temporal, He took flesh
and dwelt among us. The Incarnation was the
eternal become temporal for a little time, that
we might look at it.

It was our only way of beholding it, for we can
only see the unseen in the seen. The word
" God " conveyed no meaning ; there was no seen
thing to correspond to that word, and no word is
intelligible till there is an image for it. So God
gave religion its new word in the intelligible form —
a Word in flesh — that, henceforth, all men might
behold God's glory, not in itself, for that is impos-
sible, but in the face of Jesus. This is the crown-
ing proof of the religious use of the temporal world.

Three classes of men, finally, have taken up their
position in recent years with reference to this prin-
ciple of the eternal uses of the temporal world.

One will not look at the unseen at all — the
materialist. He is utterly blind to the eternal.
The second is utterly blind to the temporal — the
mystic. He does not look for the unseen in the
seen, but apart from the seen. He works, or tries
to work, by direct vision. The third is neither
blind to the unseen nor to the seen, but short-sighted
to both. The ritualist selects some half-dozen
things from the temporal world, and tries to see
the unseen in them. As if there were only some
half-dozen things — crosses and vestments, music
and stained crlass — through which the eternal

CLAIRVOYANCE 14

shone ! The whole world is a ritual — that is the
answer. If a man means to evade Gud, let him
look for Him in some half- : irms; he will

evade Him, he will not see Him anywhere else.
But let him who wishes to get near God, and be
with God always, move in a religious atmosphere
always; let him take up hi, position beside this
truth. Worldliness has been defined as a looking
at the things that are seen, but only closely enough
I their market value. Spirituality IS that fur-
ther look which sees their eternal value, which
realizes that

M Earth's (rammed with Heaven,
And every common bush afire with ( -

" Who forgiveth all thine iniquities ;
Who healeth all thy diseases ;
Who redeemeth thy life from
destruction."— Ps. ciii. 3, 4.

The Three
Facts of Sin

' I '•HERE is one theological word which has found
-** its way lately into near!)' all the newer and
finer literature of our country. It is not only one
of the words of the literary world at present, it is
perhaps the word. Its reality, its certain influence,

its universality, have at last been recognised, and in

spite of its theological name have forced it into a
place which nothing but its felt relation to the wider
theology of human life could ever have earned for a
religious word. That word, it need scarcely be said,
is Shi.

Even in the lighter literature of our country, and

this is altogether remarkable, the ruling word just

now is Sin, V l it was the gay term Chivalry

which held the foreground in poem and ballad and

till, the word which held court, in novel

and romance, t, Jhit now a deeper word

heads the chapters and begins the cantos, A more

exciting thin;; than thivalry is descried in the arena,

and love itself fade; in interest before this small
word, which has wandered out i f tl

D.E, »4J

146 THE THREE FACTS

changed the face of literature, and made many a
new book preach.

It is not for religion to complain that her vocabu-
lary is being borrowed by the world. There may be
pulpits where there are not churches ; and it is a
valuable discovery for religion that the world has not
only a mind to be amused but a conscience to be
satisfied. But religion has one duty in the matter —
when her words are borrowed, to see that they are
borrowed whole. Truth which is to pass into such
common circulation must not be mutilated truth ;
it must be strong, ringing, decided, whole; it must
be standard truth ; in a word, it must be Bible truth.

Now the Bible truth about this word is in itself
interesting and very striking. In David especially,
where the delineations are most perfect and masterly,
the reiteration and classification of the great facts
and varieties of sin form one of the most in-
structive and impressive features of the sacred writ-
ings. The Psalms will ever be the standard work on
Sin — the most ample analysis of its nature, its effects,
its shades of difference, and its cure.

And yet, though it is such a common thing, I
daresay many of us, perhaps, do not know anything
about it. Somehow, it is just the common things
we are apt not to think about. Take the com-
monest of all things — air. What do we know
about it? What do we know about water? — that
great mysterious sea, on which some of you spend
your lives, which moans all the long winter at

OF SIN 147

your very doors. Sin is a commoner thing than
them all ; deeper than the sea, more subtle than
the air ; mysterious indeed, moaning in all our
lives, through all the winter and summer of our past —
that shall last, in the undying soul of man, when
there shall be no more sea. To say the least of it,
it is unreasonable that a man should live in sin all
his life without knowing in some measure what he
is about.

And as regards the higher bearings of the case, it
is clear that without the fullest information about sin
no man can ever have the fullest information about
himself, which he ought to have; and what is of more
importance, without understanding sin no man can
ever understand God. Even the Christian who has
only the ordinary notions of sin in the general, can
neither be making very much of himself nor of his
fur as a rule, a man's experience of religion
and of grace is in pretty exact proportion to his
irience of

> doubt, the intimate knowledge of themselves
which the Old Testament writers j \ hat!

thing to do with their intimate knowledj
David, fur instance, who had the deepest knuw-

1 rod, had also the deepest knowledge of his

heart ; and if there is one thing 1:. pictl-

t in the writings he has left lis, it is

Sin— the can r, the efl- difference,

and the cine of Sin.

148 THE THREE FACTS

In the clause which forms our text to-day, David
has given us in a nutshell the whole of the main
facts of Sin. And for any one who wishes to become
acquainted with the great pivots on which human
life turns, and on which his own life turns; for any
one who wishes to understand the working of God's
grace; for any one who wishes to examine himself
on the great facts of human Sin ; there is no more
admirable summary than these words :

" Who forgiveth all thine iniquities ; Who healeth
all thy diseases ; Who redeemeth thy life from de-
struction."

These facts of Sin, when we pass it through the
prism of the text, may be said to be three in number :
the Guilt of Sin, the Stain of Sin, the Power of Sin.

And these three correspond roughly with the
natural divisions of the text :

Who forgiveth all thine iniquities = the Guilt of
Sin.

Who healeth all thy diseases = the Stain of Sin.

Who redeemeth thy life from destruction = the
Power of Sin.

The best fact to start with will perhaps be the
last of these ; and for this reason the word Life is
in it. " Who redeemeth thy Life from destruction."
We have all a personal interest in anything that
concerns life. We can understand things — even
things in theology — if they will only bear upon our
life. And to anything which in any way comes home
to life, in influencing it, or bettering it, or telling

OF SIN 149

upon it in any way whatever, we are always read}',
for our life's sake, to give a patient hearing.
We feel prepared to take kindly to almost any
doctrine if it will only bear upon our life. And
surely in the whole range of truth none has more
points of contact with the heart of man than the
doctrine of the Power of Sin.

1. In the first place, then, let us notice that Sin is
a Power% and a power which concern s Life.

There is an old poem which bears the curious
title of "Strife in Heaven," the idea of which is
something like this. The poet supposes himself to
be walking in the streets of the New Jerusalem,
when he comes to a crowd of saints engaged in a
very earnest discussion. Me draws near, and listens.
The question they arc discussing is, Which of them
is the greatest monument of God's saving grace.
After a long debate, in which each states his
separately, and each claims to have been by far the
most wonderful trophy of God's love in all the
multitude of the redeemed, it is finally .
settle the matter by a vote. Vote after vote is
taken, and the list of competiti

1 until only two remain. The. e are all

•ate their lin, and the company stand

ready to join in the final vote. The first t<>

very old man. lie begins 1 that it i>

a mei of time t«> go any further; it i-- a

lute!)- imj t ( uld have done

• for any man in heaven than fur him. II

150 THE THREE FACTS

again how he had led a most wicked and vicious
life — a life filled up with every conceivable in-
dulgence, and marred with every crime. He has
been a thief, a liar, a blasphemer, a drunkard, and
a murderer. On his deathbed, at the eleventh hour,
Christ came to him and he was forgiven. The other
is also an old man who says, in a few words, that
he was brought to Christ when he was a boy. He
had led a quiet and uneventful life, and had looked
forward to heaven as long as he could remember.

The vote is taken ; and, of course, you would say
it results in favour of the first. But no, the votes
are all given to the last. We might have thought,
perhaps, that the one who led the reckless, godless
life — he who had lied, thieved, blasphemed, murdered ;
he who was saved by the skin of his teeth, just a
moment before it might have been too late — had the
most to thank God for. But the old poet knew the
deeper truth. It required great grace verily to pluck
that withered brand from the burning. It required
depths, absolutely fathomless depths, of mercy to
forgive that veteran in sin at the close of all those
guilty years. But it required more grace to keep that
other life from guilt through all those tempted years.
It required more grace to save him from the sins of
his youth, and keep his Christian boyhood pure, to
steer him scathless through the tempted years of
riper manhood, to crown his days with usefulness,
and his old age with patience and hope. Both
started in life together ; to one grace came at the

OF SIN 151

end, to the other at the beginning. The first was
saved from the guilt of sin, the second from the
power of sin as well. The first was saved from
dying in sin. But he who became a Christian in
his boyhood was saved from living in sin. The one
required just one great act of love at the close of
life ; the other had a life full of love, — it was a
greater salvation by far. His soul was forgiven like
the other, but his life was redeemed from destruction.
The lesson to be gathered from the old poet's
parable is that sin is a question of power as much
as a question of guilt, — that salvation is a question
of Life perhaps far more than a question of Death.
There is something in every man's life which he needs
saving from, something which would spoil his life and
run off with it into destruction if let alone. This
principle of destruction is the first great fact of Sin —
its /

ft any man who watches his life from day to
day, and especially if he is trying to steer it tov.
a certain moral mark which he has made in his
mind, has abundant and humiliating evidence that
this Power is busily working in his life. He finds

that this Power is working against him in his life,
ting him at every turn, and persistently

opp 1 ing all tl I he tries to da 1 [e finds that

bis natural bias ..iy from God and

that there is an .
lient in his s nil which not only neutralizes the

inclination to foil >w the path which he kn

152 THE THREE FACTS

straightest and best, but works continually and
consistently against his better self, and urges his life
onwards towards a broader path which leads to
destruction.

Now it was this road which David had in his mind
when he thanked God that his life had been
redeemed, or kept back, from destruction. It was
a beaten track we may be sure in those times, as it is
to-day, and David knew perfectly well when he
penned these words that God's hand had veritably
saved him from ending his life along that road. It
was not enough in summing up his life in his old age,
and calling upon his soul to bless the Lord for all
His benefits, to thank Him simply for the forgiveness
of his sins. God has done far more for him than
forgive him his sins. He has redeemed his life from
destruction. He has saved him from the all but
omnipotent power of Sin. What that power was,
what that power might have become, how it might
have broken loose and wrecked his life a thousand
times, let those who remember the times when it did
break loose in David's life, recall. How little might
we have guessed that there was anything in the
psalmist's life to make him thank God at its close
for keeping it back from destruction. Brought up in
the secluded plains of Bethlehem, and reared in the
pure atmosphere of country innocence, where could
the shepherd lad get any taint of sin which could
develop in after years to a great destroying power ?
And yet he got it — somehow, he got it. And even in

OF SIN 153

his innocent boyhood, the fatal power lurked there,
able enough, willing enough, vicious enough, to burst
through the boundaries of his life and wreck it
ere it reached its prime. All the time he was
walking with God ; all the time he was planning
God's temple ; all the time he was writing his holy
Psalms — which make all men wonder at the
psalmist's grace ; while he was playing their grave
sweet melody upon his harp in the ear of God, the
power of sin was seething and raging in his breast,
ready to quench the very inspiration God was giving
him, and ruin his religion and his soul for evermore.
God kept His hand, we may be sure, through David's
life, on the springs of David's sin ; and there was
nothing so much to thank God for, in taking the
pect of his eventful course, than that his life had
been redeemed from this first great fact of Sin.

David's salvation, to round off the point with an
analogy from the old poet, was a much more won-
derful thing than, say, the dying thief's salvation,
ice far more than the dying thief. The
\ thief only needed dying grace. David m
living grace. The thief only needed forgiving gi

e and restraining ;

He 1 ;> in his life, t<> keep it from

running away. But the thief needed no re-training

The time for that was past His life had run
away. I lis wild oats were sown, and the 1

. him
already in a hundred forma. He had I

154 THE THREE FACTS

to the power of sin, which runs so fiercely in every
vein of every man, and he had destroyed himself.
His character was ruined, his soul was honey-combed
through and through with sin. He could not have
joined in David's psalm that his life was saved from
destruction. His death was, and the wreck of his
soul was, but his life was lost to God, to the world,
and to himself. His life had never been redeemed
as David's was ; so David was the greater debtor to
God's grace, and few men have had greater reason
than he to praise God in old age for redeeming their
life from destruction.

Yes, there is more in salvation than forgiveness.
And why ? Because there is more in sin than guilt.
" If I were to be forgiven to-day," men who do not
know this say, " I should be as bad as ever to-
morrow." No, that is based on the fallacy, it is
based on the heresy, that there is no more for a man
in religion than forgiveness of sins. If there were
not, I say it with all solemnity, it would be very
little use to me. It would have been little use to a
man like David. And David's life would have been
incomplete, and David's psalm would have been im-
possible, had he not been able to add to the record of
God's pardon the record of God's power in redeeming
his life from destruction. We have all thanked God
for the dying thief — have we ever thanked God for
redeeming our life from destruction ? Destruction is
the natural destination of every human soul. It is as
natural for our soul to £0 downward as for a stone

OF SIN 155

to fall to the ground. Do we ever thank God for
redeeming our soul from that ? And when we thank
God we are saved, do we mean we are saved from hell,
or do we think sometimes how He has rescued our
life from the destroying power of sin ?

2. Tlie Stain of Sin.

The power of sin could never run through a man's
life without leaving its mark behind. Nothing in the
world ever works without friction. A mountain
torrent digs a glen in the mountain side ; the sea
cuts a beach along the shore ; tlie hurricane leaves a
thousand fallen witnesses behind to mark its track.
And the great river of sin, as it rolls through a
human life, leaves a pile of ruins here and there as
melancholy monuments to show where it has been.
Nature, with all its strength, is a wonderfully delicate
machine, and everything has its re-action somewhere
and some time. Nothing is allowed to pass, and
nothing has so appalling a reaction upon every one
and everything as sin.

tory is an undying monument of human sin.

:aost prominent thing on its pages are the stains

—tlie stains of sin which time has not rubbed out

The history of tin: world, for the most part, has been

written in the world's blood ; and all \\ < <( all

Its emperors and kings will one d t in one

rd of on- tlie one

•1 with hi ' I is in

the world t< ,-<! : y. The BUrl white

with I

156 THE THREE FACTS

the stain of sin remains. Whatever the world may
suffer from want of conviction of the guilt of sin, it
will never be without conviction of its stain. We see
it in one another's lives. We see it in one another's
faces. It is the stain of the world's sin that troubles
the world's conscience. It is the stain of the world's
sin that troubles philanthropy ; that troubles the
Parliament of the country ; that troubles the Press
of the country. It is the stain of the world's sin
especially that is making a place in literature for this
word sin. It is this side of sin that is absorbing the
finest writing of the day ; that is filling our modern
poetry ; that is making a thousand modern books
preach the doctrine of Retribution, which simply
means the doctrine of the stain of sin. Society is
not wise enough to see the power of sin, or religious
enough to see the guilt of sin ; but it cannot fail to
see the stain of sin. It does not care for the power
or the guilt of sin ; it cares for the stain of sin,
because it must. That troubles society. That lies
down at its doors, and is an eyesore to it. It is a
loathsome thing to be lying there, and society must
do something. So this is what it does with it : in
one corner it builds a prison — this will rid the world
of its annoyance. In another corner it plants a mad-
house— the sore may fester there unseen. In another
it raises an hospital ; in a fourth it lays out a grave-
yard. Prisons, mad-houses, hospitals — these are just
so much roofing which society has put on to hide the
stain of sin. It is a good thing in some ways that

OF SIN 157

sin has always its stain. Just as pain is a good thing
to tell that something is wrong, so the stain of sin
may be a good thing to tell that the power has
broken loose. Society might never trouble itself if it
were not for the stain. And in dealing with the stain
of sin it sometimes may do a very little to maim its
power. But it is a poor, poor remedy. If it could
only see the power and try to deal with that—:
get God's grace to act on that, the world might be
redeemed from destruction after all. But it only
sees the stain when it is too late — the stain which has
dropped frum the wound after the throat of virtue
has been cut. Surely, when the deed is done, it is the
La t it can do to remove the traces of the crime.

But one need not go to society or historj
the stains of sin. We see it in one another's lives
and in our own lives. Our conscience, for instance,
is not so quick as it might have been — the stains of
BUI are there, between US and the light. We have
d conscience man}- a time when it spoke, and
its voice has grown husky and indistinct. Our in-
tellectual life is not SO true as it might have been —
our intellectual sins have Stained it and spoilt our
memory, and taken the ed'^e off our sympathy, and
filled US with suspicion and one-sided truths, and

troyed the delicate power of faith.

re touching sight ■ than I
man in mature life trying t<> recover him

1 he pi '

j but it remains in dark accumukit

158 THE THREE FACTS

upon his life, and he tries to take them off in vain.
There was a time once, when his robe was white
and clean. " Keep your garment unspotted from the
world," they said to him, the kind home-voices, as he
went out into life. He remembers well the first spot
on that robe. Even the laden years that lie between
have no day so dark — no spot now lies so lurid red
upon his soul as that first sin. Then the companion
stain came, for sins are mostly twins. Then another,
and another, and many more, till count was lost, and
the whole robe was patterned over with sin-stains.
The power of God has come to make a new man of
him, but the stains are sunk so deeply in his soul
that they are living parts of him still. It is hard for
him to give up the world. It is hard for him to be
pure. It is hard for him to forget the pictures which
have been hanging in the galleries of his imagination
all his life — to forget them when he comes to think
of God ; to forget them when he kneels down to pray ;
to forget them even when he comes to sit in church.
The past of his life has been all against him ; and
even if his future is religious, it can never be alto-
gether unaffected by the stain of what has been. It
is the stain of sin which makes repentance so hard in
adult life, which yields the most impressive argument
to the young to remember their Creator in their
youth. For even " the angels," says Ruskin, " who
rejoice over repentance, cannot but feel an un-
comprehended pain as they try and try again in
vain whether they may not warm hard hearts with
the brooding of their kind wings."

OF SIN

159

Dut if the stain of sin is invisible in moral and
intellectual life, no one can possibly be blind to it in
bodily life We see it in one another's lives, but more
than that, we see it in one another's faces. Vice writes
in plain characters, and all the world is its copybook.
We can read it ever) where and on everything around,
from pole to pole. The drunkard, to take the con-
spicuous example, so stains his bodily life with his
sin that the seeds of disease are sown which, long
after he has reformed, will germinate in his death.
If all the drunkards in the world were to be changed
to-morrow, the stains of sin in their bodies even
would doubtless bring a large majority — in a few
years, less or more — to what was after all really a
drunkard's grave.

There is a physical demonstration of sin as well
as a religious ; and no sin can come in among
the delicate faculties of the mind, or among the
r fibres of the body, without leaving a stain,
cither as a positive injury to the life, or, what is
equally fatal, as a predisposition to commit the same
sin again. This predisposition is always one of the
real and appalling accompaniments of the stain
of sin. There is scarcely such a thing 1 lated

sin in a man's life. Most sins can be accounted for
I))- what ha. gone Every sin, I peak,

the result of the accu-
mulated face, which me. ms the accumulate I
man}' a preparatory 1 in.
Thus when Peter began I in the H

160 THE THREE FACTS

Priest's palace it was probably not the first time
Peter swore. A man does not suddenly acquire
the habit of uttering oaths ; and when it is said of
Peter, " Then began he to curse and to swear," it
does not at all mean by " then " and " began " that
he had not begun it long ago. The legitimate in-
ference is, that in the rough days of his fisherman's
life, when the nets got entangled perhaps, or the right
wind would not blow, Peter had come out many a
time with an oath to keep his passion cool. And
now, after years of devoted fellowship with Christ,
the stain is still so black upon his soul that he
curses in the very presence of his Lord. An out-
break which meets the public eye is generally the
climax of a series of sins, which discretion has been
able, till then, to keep out of sight. The doctrine of
the stain of sin has no exceptions ; and few men, we
may be sure, can do a suddenly notorious wrong
without knowing something in private of the series
to which it belongs.

But the most solemn fact about this stain of sin is
that so little can be done for it. It is almost indel-
ible. There is a very solemn fact about this stain
of sin — it can never be altogether blotted out. The
guilt of sin may be forgiven, the power of sin may
be broken, but the stains of sin abide. When it is
said, " He healeth our diseases," it means indeed that
we may be healed ; but the ravages which sin has
left must still remain. Small-pox may be healed, but
it leaves its mark behind. A cut limb may be cured,

OF SIX 1G1

but the scar remains for ever. An earthquake is over
in three minutes, but centuries after the ground is
still rent into gulfs and chasms which ages will
never close. So the scars of sin on body and mind
and soul live with us in silent retribution upon our
past, and go with us to our graves.

And the stain does not stop with our lives. Even-
action of every man has an ancestry and a posterity
in other lives. The stains of life have power to
spread. The stains of other lives have crossed over
into our lives, stains from our lives into theirs. " I
am a part," says Tennyson, u of all that I have
met." A hundred years hence we all must live
again — in thoughts, in tendencies, in influences, per-
haps in sins and stains in other lives. The sins of
the father shall be visited on the children. The
blight on the vicious parent shall be visited on the
insane offspring. The stain on the intemperate
mother shall reappear in the blasted lives of her
drunken family. Finer forms of sin reappear in the
same way — of companion on companion, of brother
on sister, of teacher on puj.il. For God Him- elf ha
made the law, that the curse must follow the breach ;
and even lie who healeth our diseases may never
interfere with th iy stain of a -infill life.

" Take my inlliien [nful man, wh< ■

dying; "take my influence, and bury it with
lie vraa going to be with Christ, his influence had
[im ; he n behind.

■

D.E. II

162 THE THREE FACTS

sovereign's table remembers with unspeakable re-
morse the assassin whom he left in ambuscade at
his king's palace gate, so he recalls the traitorous
years and the influences which will plot against his
Lord when he is in eternity. Oh, it were worth being
washed from sin, were it only to escape the possibility
of a treachery like that. It were worth living a holy
and self-denying life, were it only to " join the choir
invisible of those immortal dead who live again in
lives made better by their presence."

3. But now, lastly, we come to the third great fact
of Sin, its Guilt. And we find ourselves face to face
with the greatest question of all, " What has God to
say to all this mass of Sin ? "

Probably every one will acknowledge that his life
bears witness to the two first facts of Sin. Starting
with this admission, a moment's thought lands us in a
greater admission. We all acknowledge sin. There-
fore we must all acknowledge ourselves to be guilty.
Whether we feel it or no, Guilt is inseparable from
Sin. Physical evil may make a man sorry, but moral
evil makes him guilty. It may not make him feel
guilty — we are speaking of facts — he is guilty. So
we are guilty for our past lives. We may be sorry
for the past. But it is not enough that we are sorry,
we are guilty for the past. We are more than
sinners, we are criminals. This is where the literary
conception of Sin is altogether defective and must be
supplemented. It knows nothing, and can teach
nothing, of the guilt of a sinner's soul. It is when

OF SIN 163

we come to God that we learn this. God is our
Father, but God is our Judge. And when we know
that, our sin takes on a darker colouring. It grows
larger than our life, and suddenly seems to be infinite.
The whole world, the whole universe, is concerned in
it. Sin only made us recoil from ourselves before ;
now it makes God recoil from us. We are out of
harmony with God. Our iniquities have separated
us from God, and in some mysterious way we have
come to be answerable to Him. We feel that the
Lord has turned and looked upon us as He looked at
Peter, and we can only go out and weep bitterly.

If these experiences are foreign to our souls, we
must feel our sense of guilt when we come to look at
Christ. Christ could not move through the world
without the mere spectacle of His life stirring to their
very depths the hearts of every one whose path He
crossed. And Christ cannot move through the
chambers of our thoughts without the dazzling con-
trast to ourselves startling into motion the sense of
burning shame and sin. But, above all, Christ could
not die upon the cross without witnessing to all
eternity of the appalling greatness of human guilt.
And it is the true climax of conviction which the
prophet Speaka of: "They shall look on Me whom
they have pierced, and they shall mourn."

This conviction of Sin, in this the deepest ten

not a thing to talk about, but to fed And when it
i I felt, it cannot be talked ftDOUt It i ; t..,, deep for

It come, as an unutterable woe upon the

164 THE THREE FACTS OF SIN

life, and rests there, in dark sorrow and heaviness, till
Christ speaks Peace.

Such, in outline, are the three facts of Sin. They
are useful in two ways : they teach us ourselves, and
they teach us God. It is along these three lines that
you will find salvation. Run your eye along the first
— the power of Sin — and you will understand Jesus,
" Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save
His people from their sins." Look at the second — the
stain of Sin — and you will understand the righteous-
ness of Christ. You will see the need of the One pure
life. You will be glad that there has been One who
has kept His garment unspotted from the world.

Look at the third, and you will see the Lamb of
God taking away the Sin of the world. You will
understand the Atonement. You will pray :—

" Let the water and the blood,
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power."

** Who forgiveth all thine iniquities ;
Who healeth all thy diseases ;
Who redeemeth thy life from
destruction. "— Ps. ciii. 3, 4.

The Three Facts
of Salvation

SUPPLEMENT TO "THE
THREE FACTS OE SIN"

LAST Sabbath we were engaged with the three
facts of Sin. To-day we come to the three
facts of Salvation.

The three facts of Sin were : —

1. The Guilt of Sin — " Who forgiveth all thine
iniquities."

2. The Stain of Sin — * Who healeth all thy
disea

3. The Power of Sin — " Who redeemeth thy life
from destruction."

And now we come to the three facta of Salvation —

the emphasis on the first words of each clause in

of the last.

1. He forgiveth. 2. He healeth. 3. He re-
deemeth.

Every one who comes into the world experiences
I or more of the three facts of Sin ; and every one-
is allowed t<> live on in the world mainly th.it he may
experience the three great tacts of Salvation.
keeps the mo.^t of us alive from day to day with

i66 THE THREE FACTS

this one object. Sin has got hold of us, and He is
giving us time — time for grace to get the upper hand
of it, time to work out the three facts of Salvation in
our lives with fear and trembling against the three
facts of sin. Our being, therefore, lies between these
two great sets of facts, the dark set and the bright :
and life is just the battlefield on which they fight it
out. If the bright side win, it is a bright life — saved.
If the dark side, it is a dark life — lost.

We have seen how the three dark facts have al-
ready begun to work upon our life ; and that they
are not only working at our life, but sapping it, and
preying upon it every hour of the day. And now we
stand face to face with the question which is wrung
out from our life by the very sin which is destroying
it, " What must I do to be saved ? "

The first fact about which we ask this question —
to begin once more with the fact which most con-
spicuously concerns life — is the fact of the Power of
Sin. What must I do to be saved from the Power
of Sin ? What most of us feel we really want re-
ligion to do for us, though it is not the deepest ex-
perience, is to save us from something which we feel
in our life — a very terrible something which is slowly
dragging our life downward to destruction. This
something has gained an unaccountable hold upon
us ; it seems to make us go wrong whether we will
or no, and instead of exhausting itself with all the
attempts it has made upon our life in the past, it
seems to get stronger and stronger every day. Even

OF SALVATION 167

the Christian knows that this strange wild force is
just at his very door, and if he does not pray to-
morrow morning, for instance, before the day is out
it will have wrought some mischief in his life. If he
does not pray, in the most natural way in the world,
without any effort of his own, without even thinking
about it, this will necessarily come to the front and
make his life go wrong. Now, wherever this comes
from, or whatever it is, it is a great fact, and the first
practical question in religion that rises to many a
mind is this, " What must I do to be saved from this
inevitable, and universal, and terrible fact of Sin ? "

We have probably all made certain experiments
upon this fact already, and we could all give some
explanation, at least, of what we are doing to be
saved.

If some of us were asked, for instance, what was

our favourite fact of Salvation for resisting the Power

of Sin, we might say the fact that we were doing our

Well, it is a great thing for any man to be

doing his best. But two questions will test the value

of this method of resisting the power of sin. In the

first place, I low is your best doing? In the second

, Do you think you could not do better? As

to how your best is doing, you would probably admit

that, on the whole, it was not doing very well. Yotlf

in fact, If yOU were to be candid, has not been

much to boast of after all. And as regards your

not doing bitter you might also admit that in some
you could. The fact of Salvation then

•i 68 THE THREE FACTS

is evidently a poor one, as far as results are con-
cerned, and may be judiciously laid aside.

Then another experiment people try to break the
power of sin is to get thoroughly absorbed in some-
thing else — business, or literature, or some favourite
pursuit. It is in our spare hours sin comes to us,
and we try to have no sin by having no spare hours.
But our very preoccupation may then be one con-
tinuous sin. And besides, if a man have no spare
hours, he will have spare minutes, and sin comes
generally in a minute. Most sins, indeed, are done
in minutes. They take hours to execute, it may be ;
but in a moment the plot is hatched, the will con-
sents, and the deed is done. Preoccupation then
is clearly no saviour.

Then there are others who withdraw from the
world altogether, to break with sin, and live the
solitary life of the recluse. But they forget that sin
is not in the sinful world without, but in the sinful
heart within, and that it enters the hermit's solitary
cell as persistently as the wicked world around. So
solitude comes to be no saviour.

And there are still others who take refuge in re-
ligiousness— in going to church, for instance, and in
religious society and books. But there is not neces-
sarily any more power to resist sin within the four
walls of a church or the pages of a religious book,
than between the walls of a theatre or the covers of
a novel. There may be less temptation there, not
necessarily more power. For there is no strength in

OF SALVATION 169

mere religious ceremonies to cancel the power of sin,
and many a man proves this, after years and years of
church, by wakening to find the power of sin in his
breast unchanged, and breaking out, perhaps, in
every form of vice. Neither is religiousness, there-
fore, any escape from the dominion of Sin.

And Lastly, some of us have resort to doctrines.
We have got the leading points of certain doctrines
worn into our minds, and because these have a
religious name we are apt to think they have also a
religious power. In reality, while dealing with the
theory of Sin, we may leave the power to resist it
untouched. And many a pen has been busy with a
book on the doctrine of Sin while the life which
employed it was going to destruction for want of
salvation from its power.

There is one doctrine especially with which the
word salvation is most often connected and to which
many look for their deliverance from the power of
indwelling Sin. And it may seem a startling state-
ment to make, but it will emphasize a distinction
which cannot be too clearly drawn, that even the
Atonement itself is not the answer to the question,

"What must I do to be saved from the DOWt
Sin?" The answer entirely depends OH the Atone-
ment, but it is not the Atonement. The Atonement
.'.ion which- saves the sinner

from the power of Sin. If you believed in tiu- Atone-
ment to-day, if you were- absolutely assured th.it

your past sins were all forgiven, that would 1

i;o THE THREE FACTS

criterion that you would not be as bad as ever again
to-morrow. The Atonement, therefore, is not the fact
which deals with the power of sin. The Atonement
deals with a point We are coming to that Just
now we are talking of a life. We are looking out for
something which will deal with something in our life
— something which will redeem our life from destruc-
tion. And a man may believe the Atonement whose
life is not redeemed from destruction.

You have gone out into the country on a summer
morning, and as you passed some little rustic
you saw the miller come out to set his simple
machinery agoing for the day. He turned on the
sluice, but the water-wheel would not move. Then,
with his strong arm, he turned it once or twice, then
left it to itself to turn busily all the day. It is a
sorry illustration in detail, but its principle means
this, that the Atonement is the first great turn as it
were which God gives in the morning of conversion
to the wheel of the Q life. Without it

nothing more would be possible : alone it would not
be enough. The water of life must flow in a living
stream all through the working day and keep pour-
ing its power into it ceaselessly till the life and the
work are done.

Now; practically everything in salvation depends
upon the clearness with which this great truth is
recognized. Sin is a power in our life : let us fairly
understand that it can only be met by another
power. The fact of Sin works all through our life :

OF SALVATION 171

the fact of Salvation which is to counteract it, must
act all through life, The death of Christ, which is
the Atonement, reconciles us to God, makes our re-
ligion possible, puts us in the way of the power which
is to come against our Sin and deliver our life from
destruction. But the Water of Life, which flows from
the life of Christ, is the power itself. He redeemeth
my life, by His life, from destruction. This is the
power, Paul says, which redeemed his life from de-
struction. Christ's life, not His death, living in his
life, absorbing it, impregnating it, transforming it :

■ Christ," as he confessed, " in me." And this,
therefore, is the meaning of a profound sentence in
which Paul states the true answer to the question,
What must I do to be saved ? records this first

fact of salvation and pointedly distinguishes it from
the other. "If when we were enemies we wl:
conciled to God by the death of His Son. much more,
being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life " (Rom.
v. 10).

■ We shall be save i by His lifc^" says Paul. Paul
meant no disrespect to the Atonement when he said,

■ We shall be saved by His life." He was br::

out in relief one of the great facts of Salvation. If
God gives atoning power with one hand, and power
to save the life from destruction with the other. I
is no jealousy between. B til .ire from God. [f
you call the one justification and the other sane:
tion, God is the author of them both. If
seems to take something from the one doctrii.

172 THE THREE FACTS

add it to the other, he takes nothing from God.
Atonement is from God. Power to resist Sin is from
God. When we say we shall be saved by the death
of Christ, it is true. When Paul says, " We shall be
saved by His life," it is true. Christ is all and in all,
the beginning and the end. Only when we are
speaking of one fact of Sin, let us speak of the corre-
sponding fact of grace. When the thing we want is
power to redeem our life from destruction, let us
apply the gift which God has given us for our life,
and for guilt the gift for guilt. When an Israelite
was bitten in the wilderness, he never thought of
applying manna to the wound. The manna was for
his life. But he did think of applying the brazen
serpent. The manna would never have cured his
sin ; nor would the brazen serpent have kept him
from starving. Suppose he had said, " Now I am
healed by this serpent, I feel cured, and I need not
eat this manna any more. The serpent has done it
all, and I am well." The result would have been, of
course, that he would have died. The man to be
sure was cured, but he has to live, and if he eats no
manna his life must languish, go to destruction, die.
Without taking any trouble about it, simply by the
inevitable processes of nature, he would have died.
The manna was God's provision to redeem his life
from destruction, after the serpent had redeemed it
from death. And if he did nothing to stop the natural
progress of destruction, in the natural course of
things, he must die. Now there is no jealousy be-

OF SALVATION 173

tween these two things — the manna is from God
and the serpent is from God. Rut they are different
gifts for different things. The serpent gave life, but
could not keep life; the manna kept life, but could not
give life. Therefore, the Israelites were saved by the
serpent, but they did not try to eat the serpent.

To apply this to the case in hand. The Atone-
ment of Christ is the brazen serpent. Christ's life is
the manna — the bread of life. Our sins are not for-
given by bread, nor arc our lives supported by death.
Our life is not redeemed from destruction by the
Atonement, nor kept from day to day from the power
of Sin by the Atonement Our life is not redeemed
from destruction by the death of Christ, nor kept
from day to day by the death of Christ. But we are
saved, as Paul says, by His life. We cannot live
upon death. Mors janua vita — death is the gate of
life. And after we have entered the gateway by the
death of Christ, we shall be saved by His life.

It is one thing, therefore, to be saved by the death
of Christ, and another to be saved by His life ; and
while both expressions are correct, to talk of being
Saved by the death of Christ is not SO scriptural as
to talk of being saved by the life of Christ ; and Paul,
with his invariable conciseness on important points,
has brought out the facts of salvation with profound

ht in tin- pregnant antithesis already quoted,

"When we were enemies we were reconciled bv the

death of Christ, now we shall be saved by His life."

first fact of Salvation, therefore, which i^ t-. be

174 THE THREE FACTS

brought to bear upon the first great fact of Sin, is
not our own efforts, our own religiousness, our own
doctrine, the Atonement, or the death of Christ,
but the power of the life of Christ. He redeemeth
my life from destruction. How ? By His life. This
is the fact of Salvation. It takes life to redeem life —
power to resist power. Sin is a ceaseless, undying
power in our life. A ceaseless, undying power must
come against it. And there is only one such power
in the universe — only one, which has a chance against
Sin : the power of the living Christ. God knew the
power of Sin in a human soul when He made so
great provision. He knew how great it was ; He cal-
culated it. Then He sent the living Christ against
it. It is the careful and awful estimate of the power
of Sin. God saw that nothing else would do. It
would not do to start our religion, and then leave us
to ourselves. It would not do with hearts like ours,
yearning to sin, to leave us with religiousness or
moral philosophy or doctrine. Christ must come
Himself, and live with us. He must come and make
His abode with us. So that when we live it shall
be not we that live, but Christ living in us, and the
life which we are now living in the flesh must be
lived by the power of the Son of God.

What, then, must I do to be saved ? Receive the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Slave
of a thousand sins, receive the Lord Jesus Christ
into thy life, and thy life, thy far-spent life, shall
yet be redeemed from destruction. Receive the Lord

OF SALVATION 175

Jesus Christ, and thou who hast lived in the far
famine land shalt return and live once more by thy
Father's side. Thou seekest not a welcome to thy
Father's house — of thy welcome thou hast never been
afraid. But thou seekest a livelihood ; thou seekest
power. Thou seekest power to be pure, to be true,
to be free from the power of Sin. " What must I
do to be saved from that ? What power will free
me from that ? " The power of the living Christ.
" As many as received Him, to them gave He power
to become the sons of God." " Power to become the
sons of God " — the great fact of salvation. Receive
the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.

Christ, therefore, is the Power of God unto salva-
tion— the counter-fact to the Power of Sin unto
destruction. Christ is the Way — He is also the Truth
and the Life. This power, this life, is within our
reach each moment of our life ; as near, as fin
abundant as the air we breathe. A breath of prayer
in the morning, and the morning life is sure. A
breath of prayer in the evening, and the evening
blessing comes. So our life is redeemed from des-
truction. Breath by breath our life comes into us.
Inch by inch it is redeemed. So much prayer to-
day—SO man)' inches redeemed to-day. So much
water of life to-day — so many turns of the

wheel of life to-day. Therefore, if we want to be

vrr will, let him take of the water of

life freely. If you want to be saved, breathe the

breath of life. And if you cannot breathe, let the

176 THE THREE FACTS

groans which cannot be uttered go up to God, and
the power will come. To all of us alike, if we but
ask we shall receive. For God makes surpassing
allowances, and He will do unto the least of us ex-
ceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.

Seco7idly> and more briefly, the second fact of Sin
is the Stain of Sin, the second fact of Salvation,
" He healeth all thy diseases." The stain of Sin is
a very much more complicated thing even than the
power of Sin ; and that for this reason — that most of
it lies outside our own life. If it only lay in dark
blotches upon our own life, we might set to work
to rub it out. But it has crossed over into other
lives all through the years that have gone, and left
its awful mark — our mark, on every soul we touched
since the most distant past.

A young man once lay upon his deathbed. He
was a Christian, but for many days a black cloud
had gathered upon his brow. Just before his last
breath, he beckoned to the friends around his bed.
" Take my influence," he said, "and bury it with me."
He stood on the very threshold of glory. But the
stain of sin was burning hot upon his past. Bury
his influence with him ! No, his influence will
remain. His life has gone to be with God, who
gave it ; but his influence — he has left no influence
for Christ. His future will be for ever with the Lord.
The unburied past remains behind, perhaps, for ever
to be against him. The black cloud which hangs

OF SALVATION 17;

over many a dying brow means the stain of an
influence lost for Christ — means with many a man
who dies a Christian, that though his guilt has been
removed and his life redeemed from destruction, the
infection of his past lurks in the world still, and his
diseases fester in open sores among all the com-
panions of his life.

What must I do to be saved from the stain of
Sin ? Gather up your influence, and see how much
has been for Christ. Then undo all that has been
against Him. It will never be healed till then.
This is the darkest stain upon your life. The stain
of Sin concerns your own soul, but that IS a smaller
matter. That can be undone — in part. There are
open sores enough in our past life to make even
heaven terrible. But God is healing them. He is
blotting them from His own memory and from ours.
If the stains that were there had lingered, life would
have been a long sigh of agony. But salvation has
come to your soul. God is helping you to use the
means for repairing a broken life. He restoreth thy
BOlll, He healeth all thy diseases But thy brother's
soul, and thy brother's diseases? The worst of thy
Stains have spread far and wide without th .
and God will only heal them, ; iving

you grace to deal with them. You must pel

your steps over that unburied pa 1. and undo what

you have done. You must go to the other lives

which are stained with your blood-red Stains and

rub them out. P< | I into

EXE. IS

178 THE THREE FACTS

their sin ; but you did not lead them out of it. You
did not show them you were a Christian. You left
a worse memory with them than your real one. You
pretended you were just like them — that your
sources of happiness were just the same. You did
not tell them you had a power which kept your life
from Sin. You did not take them to the closet you
had at home, and let them see you on your knees,
nor tell them of your Bible which was open twice
a day. And all these negatives were stains and
sins. It is a great injustice to do to any one we
know — the worst turn we could do a friend, to keep
the best secret back, and let him go as calmly to
hell as we are going to heaven.

If we cannot bury our influence, thank God if
here and there we can undo it still. The other
servant in the kitchen, the clerk on the next stool,
the lady who once lived in the next house, we must
go to them, by the grace of God, and take the stain
away. And let the thought that much that we have
done can never be undone, that many whose lives
have suffered from our sins have gone away into
eternity with the stains still unremoved, that when
we all stand round the throne together, even from the
right hand of the judgment seat of Christ, we may
behold on the left among the lost the stains of our
own sin, still livid on some soul — let this quicken
our steps as we go to obliterate the influence of our
past, and turn our fear into a safeguard as we try
to keep our future life for Christ.

OF SALVATION 179

The second fact of salvation, therefore, is to be
effected by God in part and by ourselves in part.
By God as regards ourselves ; by God and ourselves
as regards others. He is to heal our diseases, and
we are to spread the balm He gives us wherever
we have spread our Sin.

Lastly, the third great fact of Sin is Guilt — the
third fact of Salvation is Forgiveness. " He forgiveth
all thine iniquities." The first question we asked came
out of our life ; the second mostly from our memory ;
but the third rises up out of conscience.

Our first cry, as we looked at our future, was, "Where
can I get power?" Now we are looking at our past,
and the question is, " Where can I get pardon ? "
The questions which conscience sends up to us are
always the deepest questions. And the man who
has never sent up the question, " Where can I get
pardon?" has never been into his conscience to find
out the deepest want he has. It is not enough
for him to look lifeward ; he must also look God-
ward. And it is not enough to discover the stain of
his past, and cry out, " I have sinned." But he must

see the guilt of his life and cry, u I have sinned against
The fact of salvation which God has provided
to meet the fact of guilt, although it is the most
stupendous fact of all, only comes home to man when
!s a criminal and stands, like a guilty dinner,
lor pardon at God's bar.

It is not enough for him then to inw

i8o THE THREE FACTS

strength against the power of Sin. Just as the fact
which meets the guilt of Sin, as we have seen, can
never meet the power of Sin, so the fact which meets
the power of Sin can never meet the fact of guilt :
manna was what was required for a man's life ; but it
was no use against his guilt. It is nothing that he
makes a good resolution not to do wrong any more,
that he asks Christ to come and live with him and
break the power of Sin, and redeem his life from
destruction. God has something to say to him before
that. Something must happen to him before that.
He must come and give an account of himself before
that. The good resolution is all very laudable for the
days to come, but what about the past ? God wants
to know about the past. It may be convenient for
us to forget the past, but God cannot forget it. We
have done wrong, and wrong-doing must be punished.
Wrong-doing must be punished — must ; this is in-
volved in one of the facts of Sin. Therefore the
punishment of wrong-doing must be involved in one
of the facts of salvation. It is not in the first two.
It must be somewhere in this.

Now the punishment of Sin is death. " In the day
that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." There-
fore death is the punishment which must be in one of
the facts of salvation. It was not in the other two.
It must be somewhere in this. It will not meet the
case if the sinner professes his penitence and promises
humbly never to do the like again. It will not meet
the case if he comes on his knees to apologise to God,

OF SALVATION 1S1

and ask Him simply to forget that he has sinned, or
beg Him to have pity on the misfortunes of his past.
God did not say, " In the day thou eatest thereof
I will pity thy misfortunes. In the day thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely apologise, or thou shalt surely
repent!' But " in the day thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die." So death, and nothing less than
death, must be in the fact of salvation from the guilt
of sin, if such salvation is to be.

This fact, this most solemn necessity understood
and felt, the rest is plain. We all know who de-
served to die. We all know Who did die. We
know we were not wounded for our transgressions,
we were not bruised for our iniquities. But we know
Who was. The Lord hath not dealt with us accord-
ing to our iniquities; but we know with Whom He
has. We know Who bare our sins in His own body
on the tree — One who had no sins of \\\<, own. We
know Who was lifted up like the serpent in the
wilderness — He who died, the just for the unjust. If
we know this, we know the great fact of Salvation,
fur it is here.

It (nil)- remains to answer one question more.
How is a poor sinner to make this great fact his?
And the answer is, by trusting Christ Hi- has

n >thing else wherewith to make it his. The Atone-
ment is a fact Forgiveness is a fact Let him

believe it. lie does not understand it. He is nut

l to under tand it. The proper way t<> accept

to believe it; anil whusucver believeth in

182 THE THREE FACTS

Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. It
is well to understand it, and you may try to under-
stand it, if you can, but till then you must believe
it. For it is a fact, and your understanding it will
not make it less or more a fact. The death of
Christ will always be a fact. Forgiveness of sins
will always be a fact. You accept the facts of sin :
accept the facts of grace. The Atonement, you say,
confuses you. You do not understand its bear-
ings; the more you think and hear and read, the
more mysterious it becomes. And well it may
well it may !

A student went to a professor of theology not long
ago, and asked him how long it took him to under-
stand the Atonement. He answered, all his life.
Thinking perhaps there might be some mistake, the
young man went to another professor, who taught
the very doctrine in his class. " How long did it
take you, sir," he asked, " to understand the Atone-
ment ? " The professor thought a moment, and
looked him in the face. " Eternity" he said, " Eternity ;
and I shall not understand it then."

We have been dealing to-day with facts ; we
need not be distressed if we do not understand
them. God's love — how could we ? God's for-
giveness— how could we ? " He forgiveth all mine
iniquities." It is a fact. What proof could com-
mend itself if God's fact will not do ? Verify
the fact as you may, find out as much about it as
you may ; only accept it — accept it first. You are

OF SALVATION 183

keeping your life waiting while you are finding out
about it. You are keeping your salvation waiting.
And it is better to spend a year in ignorance than
live a day unpardoned. You are staining other lives
while you are waiting : your influence is against
Christ while you are waiting, and it is better to spend
your life in ignorance than let your influence be
against Christ. Most things in religion are matters
of simple faith. But when we come to the Atonement,
somehow we all become rationalists. We want to see
through it and understand it — as if it were finite like
ourselves, as if it could ever be compassed by our
narrow minds — as if God did not know that we never
could fathom it when He said, " Believe it," instead of
" Understand it." We are not rationalists when we
come to the love of God, or to faith, or to prayer.
We do not ask for a theory of love before we begin to
love, or a theory of prayer before we begin to pray.
We just begin. Well, just begin to believe in forgive-
ness. When they brought the sick man once to
Jesus, He just said," Man, thy sins are forgiven thee,"
and the man just believed it. He did not ask, "But
why should you forgive me, and how do you mean
forgive me? and I don't see any connection between
your forgiveness and my sin." No ; he took the
fact. u Immediately he rose up, and departed to his

own 1. I d." The fact is, if we would

I just now, we should never ask any

; -us. Our minds would be full of Him. We

should be in the region of eternal (acts, and we should

1 84 THREE FACTS OF SALVATION

just believe them. At least, we should believe Him ;
and He is the Saviour, the sum of all the facts of
Salvation — the one Saviour from all the facts of Sin.
If you will not receive Salvation as a fact, receive the
Lord Jesus Christ as a gift — we ask no questions about
a gift. Receive the Lord Jesus Christ as a gift, and
thou shalt be saved from the power and the stain and
the guilt of Sin, for His is the power and the glory.
Amen.

" Marvel not that I said
unto thee, Ye must be
born again." — John iii. 7.

Marvel Not

EVERY man comes into the world wrapped
in an atmosphere of wonder — an atmosphere
from which his whole after-life is a prolonged effort
to escape. The moment he opens his eyes this sense
of wonder is upon him, and it never leaves him till
he closes them on the greatest wonder — Death.
Between these wonders, the first awaking and the
last sleep, his life is spent — a long-drawn breath of
mystery.

This sense of wonder is not an evil thing, although
it is a thing to escape from. It is one of God's
earliest gifts, and one of God's best gifts ; but its
usefulness to childhood or to manhood depends on
the mind escaping from wonder into something else
— on its passing out from wonder into know'
Hence God has made the desire to escape as natural
ire to wonder.
Every one has been struck with the wonderment
Of a little child ; but its desire to escape out of won-
derment IS B nHOCe marvellous thing. Its wonder
mefl to it a constant craving for an ent:

into the re t of information and bet fa i
questionings, its impatience- of Its own ignorancci
185

186 MARVEL NOT

its insatiable requests for knowledge, these are alike
the symptoms of its wonder and the evidences of
its efforts to escape. And although, in adult life,
the developed man is too cautious or too proud to
display his wonder like the child, it is there in its
thin disguise as inquiry, or investigation, or doubt.
And there is no more exuberant moment in a man's
life than when this wonder works until it passes into
truth, when reason flashes a sudden light into a
groping mind, and knowledge whispers, "Marvel
not ! "

There are three possible ways in which different
minds attempt to escape from this sense of wonder.
They take refuge in knowledge, or in mystery, or in
ignorance. The first of these, knowledge, satisfies the
sense of wonder. The second, mystery, deepens it.
The third, ignorance, crushes it. Marvel not at all,
says ignorance, because you cannot know at all.
Marvel more, says mystery, because you cannot know
more. Marvel not, says knowledge, because you
know enough. Christ in our text says, " Marvel not!'

It is the custom with most people, on every subject
except one, to let their wonder escape in the last and
only reasonable way — knowledge. The exception is
Religion. Men will not trouble themselves with
thorough knowledge about it. They protest it is too
marvellous. When a man wonders at anything
secular, he proceeds to inquire about it, and takes
refuge in information. But when he wonders at any-
thing sacred, he is wont to take refuge in mystery

MARVEL NOT 187

which is just his wonder deepened, or in ignorance,
which is just his wonder neglected. Religion has
been always treated by the world as if it contained
no human, commonsense principles ; and however
right it may be to rank it on a platform by itself,
it has probably suffered as much from having been
regarded as too exclusively supernatural, as too
exclusively natural. Men who would be very much
ashamed to confess ignorance in secular things, have
no scruples in saying, " I do not know " in religious
things. Men who would consider it intellectual
treason to permit their minds to be put off with
inexactness or evasion in an intellectual question, feel
it no disloyalty, on encountering a religious difficult}',
to pass it by on the other side. The inscrutableness
of God is made a veil for the neglect of God, the
divine infinity becomes a plea for human ignorance,
and the spirituality of the laws of heaven an excuse
for failure and irresponsibility on earth. So there-
are times when Christ has to put His finger on this
wonder, and tell us to wonder not.

Of all the subjects which men have found it con-
venient to banish into these regions of the unknow-
able, none suffer so frequently as this question of the
being born again. The elements of mystery which are
supposed to cluster about it are reckoned an ample
excuse for even the most intelligent minds not b
to understand it, and more than a ju.stificati
any one who makes the attempt and fails.

The famous Rabbi, indeed, who was honoured with

188 MARVEL NOT

all this immortal discourse on Regeneration is a case
in point. He was just on the verge of losing himself
in this most treasonable despair. Never was man
more puzzled than Nicodemus at the initial statement
of this truth. Never was man's sense of wonder
more profoundly excited, never more in danger of
losing itself in the mazes of mystery, never nearer
taking the easy escape of drowning itself in ignor-
ance, than when Jesus rallied the escaping faculties
of the Jewish ruler by the message, " Marvel not?
The background working of that mind during its
strange night-interview with Christ is full of suggestion
and meaning. Twice already during the conversation
had the great Teacher said in substance, " Ye must
be born again." And one of the strongest intellects
of its time stood literally petrified before the words.
Nicodemus first tries to summon courage and frame
a wondering question in reply : " How can a man
be born when he is old ? " — less a question, per-
haps, than a soliloquy of his own. He has heard the
great Teacher's statement, and he thinks upon it
aloud, turning it over in his calm Hebrew mind till
his very question returns upon himself and plunges
him in deeper wonderment than before : " How can
a man be born again when he is old ? "

Next time he will venture no remark, and the
Teacher's words fall uninterrupted on the puzzled
scholar's ear : " Except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God." He has given him
the key to it. But Nicodemus sees it not. He seems

MARVEL NOT 189

to have plunged into a dream. His reverie has
deepened till he stands absorbed in thought, with
down-turned eyes, before his Master. Jesus stands
by in silence, and reads the wonder and perplexity
in the gathering blackness of his brow. Nicodemus
is despairing, perhaps. He is going to give it up.
He is utterly baffled with the strange turn the con-
versation has taken. There is no satisfaction to be
got from this clandestine meeting after all, and
puzzled, and beaten, and crestfallen, he prepares to
take his leave. But Jesus will not let the divine
sense of wonder be aroused to end like this. It must
end in knowledge, not in ignominy. It must escape
into spiritual truth, not into intellectual mystery.
So He says, "Wonder not; Marvel nut. Here is
nothing so very mysterious that I cannot make you
know. You will understand it all if you come and
think of it. You need not marcel that I said, ' Ye
must be born again.' "

Thus Jesus saved Nicodemus from relapsing into
ignorance of the greatest truth the world had known
till then, or lulling his wonder to sleep for ever in

myst pair.

.' for the sake of those of OS who have ;
tempted to pause — where Nicodemus .so nearly lost
himself — on the threshold of this truth : for the sake
of those of us who have almost felt drawn into the
intellectual sin of drowning our wonder at this truth
in despair of it, let US ask 0U1 h wtly why

Christ said, " Marvel not." And it may be cun-

190 MARVEL NOT

venient in following up the subject from this side
in a few words, to divide the answer into three short
heads.

I. " Marvel not " — as if it were unintelligible.
II. " Marvel not " — as if it were impossible.
III. " Marvel not " — as if it were unnecessary.

To begin with the first of these : —

I. Marvel not — as if it were unintelligible.
There is nothing more unintelligible in the world
than how a soul is born again. There is nothing
more intelligible than that it is. We can understand
the fact, however, without necessarily understanding
the act. The act of being born again is as mys-
terious as God. All the complaints which have been
showered upon this doctrine have referred to the act
— the act with which we have really nothing to do,
which is a process of God, the agency of the unseen
wind of the Spirit, and which Jesus Himself has
expressly warned us not to expect to understand.
" Thou canst not tell," He said, " whence it cometh
or whither it goeth."

But there is nothing to frighten search in this.
For precisely the same kind of mystery hangs over
every process of nature and life. We do not under-
stand the influence of sunshine on the leaves of a
flower at this spring-time, any more than we do the
mysterious budding of spiritual life within the soul ;
but botany is a science for all that.

We do not give up the study of chemistry as

MARVEL NOT 191

hopeless because we fail to comprehend the unseen
laws which guide the delicate actions and reactions
of matter. Nor do we disbelieve in the influence of
food on the vital frame because no man has found
the point exactly at which it passes from dead
nourishment into life. We do not avoid the subject
of electricity because electricity is a mystery, or heat
because we cannot see heat, or meteorology because
we cannot see the wind. Marvel not then, from the
analogy of physical nature, if, concerning this Spirit
of Regeneration, we cannot tell whence it cometh and
whither it goeth. It is not on that account unin-
telligible that a man should be born again.

If we care again to take the analogy from the
moral and intellectual nature, the same may be said
with even greater emphasis. The essence of Re-
generation is a change from one state to another —
from an old life to a new one. Spiritually, its mani-
festation is in hating things once loved, or loving
things once hated. God is no longer avoided, but
worshipped ; Christ no longer despised, but trusted.

Now, intellectually, changes at least in some way
similar are happening every day. You rose up

rday, bitterly opposed, let us say, to such and

such a scheme. You were so strong in your opinion
that nothing would ever shake you. You would
never change, you said— you never could. Bttt yOU
met a friend, who began to talk about it.
listened, then wavered, then capitulated. YOU allowed

talked round, as you expressed iu

192 MARVEL NOT

You were converted to the other side. And in the
evening your change of mind was so complete that

I you were literally born again — you were literally
another man ; you were in a new world of ideas, of
interests, of hopes, with all the old dislikes in that
special connection reversed, and the old loves turned
into hates.

Something like this goes on, only with a higher
agency, in the Regeneration of the soul. Hence it is
called by similar names — a change of heart, or a
turning round or a conversion to the other side.
And just as talking round will change a man's
opinion or convert him intellectually, so turning round
by the Spirit of God will change his heart or convert
him spiritually. When you are told, therefore, that
your heart may be changed by the Spirit, even as
your mind was changed by your friend, marvel not,
as if it were unintelligible. What a few hours' con-
versation could do in making you love the side you
hated, and hate the side you loved, marvel not at
what more the power of God could do in turning
round your being from the old life to the new. And
one might even press the analogy a little further, and
add, if a few minutes' conversation with a fellow-
man overturned the stubborn mountain of your mind,
how much more should a few minutes' conversation
with Christ — such as Nicodemus had, and which
overthrew his strongest Messianic views, and changed
the current of his life for ever from that hour — change
your life the moment it touched you ?

\

MARVEL NOT 193

To Nicodemus, indeed, even the conception itself
of being born again should have seemed no mystery.
It was already a familiar thought in another sense
to every Jewish heart — nothing more or less, indeed,
than one of the common political phrases of the
day. The custom in these times was to regard as
unclean the foreigner who came to reside in a Jewish
town. He was held at arm's length ; he was a man
of different caste, the Jew had no dealings with the
Samaritan. But if he wished to leave his gods and
share the religious hopes and civil privileges of the
Jews, there was one way out of the old state into the
new — just one way — he must be born again. He
was baptized with water, and passed through certain
other rites, till finally reckoned clean, when he became
as truly one of the chosen people as if he had been
the lineal son of Abraham. And the process of initia-
tion from the Gentile world into the kingdom of the
Jew was called a Regeneration, or a being born again.
There was nothing, therefore, in the thoughtful con-
sideration of the New Birth for the Jew to marvel
at. u Art thou a Master in Israel,'' Jesus might well

"and understandest not these things?" A
r in I rael stumbling at an every-day illustra-
tion, marvelling as if it were unintelligible ! u Marvel
not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again."
What the Jews did to a stranger in admit!
him to their kingdom corresponds exactly with
what we do in our | | : naturalization. Natura-

:i — spiritualization if we would be exactly

J.,

194 MARVEL NOT

accurate — is the idea, then, expressed in the "born
again " of Christ : and when we trace the expres-
sion back to its setting in Jewish politics, it yields
the beautiful conception that God calls man — the
foreigner, the stranger, the wanderer — to forsake the
far country, and having been purified by initiatory
rites from all uncleanness, to be translated into the
kingdom of His dear Son. And though there may
be, indeed, reasons why we should be so slow to
understand it, and regions of rightful wonder in the
deeper workings of the thought which we have not
yet explored, there is at least this much clear, that we
need not marvel as if it were unintelligible.

II. Marvel not — as if it were impossible. There
is a name for God which men, in these days, have
many temptations to forget — God the Creator of
heaven and earth. It was the name, perhaps, by
which we first knew God — God had made our earth,
our house ; God had made us. He was our Creator
— God. We thought God could make anything then,
or do anything, or do everything. But we lost our
happy childhood's faith ; and now we wonder what
things God can do, as if there were many things He
could not.

But there is one thing we have little difficulty in
always referring to the creating hand of God — life.
No one has ever made life but God. We call Him
the Author of life, and the Author of life is a won-
drously fertile author. He makes much life — life
in vast abundance. There is nothing so striking

MARVEL NOT 195

in nature as the prodigality — the almost reckless
prodigality — of life. It seems as if God delighted
Himself in life. So the world is filled with it. In
the woods, in the air, in the ocean-bed, everywhere
teeming life, superabundance of life, which God has
made.

Well, if God can give life, He can surely acid life.
Regeneration is nothing in principle but the adding
of more life. It is God adding life to life — more life
to a man who has some life. The man ha's life \\ hich
Gb3 gaveliim once ; But part of him — the best part
of him — is dead. His soul is dead in trespasses and
Bin ;. God touches this, and it lives. Even as the
body was dead and God breathed upon it till it lived,

d will breathe upon the soul, and more life
better life will come.

So there is nothing impossible in being born again,

any more than there is the impossible in being

born at all. What did Christ come into the world

To give life, He said, even more abundant

life. And Christ giving life — that IS Regeneration.

It was not more knowledge Nicodemus wanted,

though he th< bttt more life; and the

proof that life was possible was that lil inted

So the best pra f of Christianity is a Christian ; the
be.st proof 1 f Rq general

.rated. Can a man b .in when he is

old? Certainly. For it has be© Think of

BlUiyan the .sinner and Bunyan the saint ; think of
int and \

1 96 MARVEL NOT

think of Paul the persecutor and Paul the apostle ;

' and marvel not, as if it were impossible that a man

I should be born again.

III. Marvel not — as if it were unnecessary. Re-
generation is more than intelligible and possible — it
is necessary, to enter the kingdom of God. " Except
a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of
God." Jesus says it is necessary. A man cannot see
the kingdom of God except he be born again. He
not only cannot enter it ; Jesus says he cannot see
it. It is actually invisible to him. This is why the
world says of religion, " We do not understand it ;
we do not make it out ; we do not see it." No, of
course they do not see it ; they cannot see it ; first,
it is necessary to be born again.

When men come into the world, they are born
outside of the kingdom of God, and they cannot see
into it. They may go round and round it, and
examine it from the outside, and pass an opinion
on it. But they are no judges. They are not see-
ing what they are speaking about. For that which
is born of spirit is spirit, that which is born of flesh
is flesh ; and they can only give a criticism which
is material on a thing which is spiritual. Therefore
the critical value of a worldly man's opinion on
religious matters is nothing. He is open to an
objection which makes his opinion simply ludi-
crous— he is talking about a thing which he has
never seen. So far as one's experience of religion
goes, Regeneration makes all the difference. It is as-

MARVEL NOT 197

if some one had been standing outside some great
cathedral. He has heard that its windows arc of
stained glass and exceeding beautiful. He walks
all round it and sees nothing but dull, unmeaning
spaces — an iron grating over each, to intensify the
gloom that seems to reign within. There is nothing
worth seeing there, but everything to repel. But
let him go in. Let him see things from the inside.
And his eye is "cTazzled with the gorgeous play of
colours ; and the miracles and the parables are
glowing upon the glass ; and the figure of Jesus is
there, and the story of His love is told on every
pane — and there are choirs of angels, and cherubim
and seraphim, and an altar where, in light which is
inaccessible, is God.

So let a man enter into the kingdom of heaven —
let a man be born again and enter — and he will
see the kingdom of God. He will see the miracles
and the parables which were meaningless, colour-
less once; he will see the story of the Cross, which
was a weariness and an offence; he will see the

:i of Christ and the King in His beauty, and

beholding as in a glass the glory of the Only be-
gotten, he shall be changed into the same i.<:
glory to glory. Marvel not if it is necessary, t

all this, that he in .in.

Within this great world there are a numb
little worlds, t<> which enl; nly attainable

by birth, l here i^ the intellectual world, for in-
stance, which requires the birth ■•! i>: lins; and the

198 MARVEL NOT

artistic world, which requires the birth of taste ; and
the dramatic world, which requires the birth of
talent ; and the musical world, which requires the
gift of harmony and ear. A man cannot enter the
intellectual world except he have brains, or the
artistic world except he have taste. And he can-
not make or find brains or taste. They must be
born in him. A man cannot make a poetical mind
for himself. It must be created in him. Hence " the
poet is born — not made," we say. So the Christian
is born, not made.

There remains one other and imperative protest
against Regeneration being unnecessary. Human
nature demands Regeneration as if it were necessary.
No man who knows the human heart or human
history will marvel as if it were unnecessary that
the world must be born again. Every other con-
ceivable measure has been tried to reform it.
Government has tried it, Philosophy has tried it,
Philanthropy has tried it, and failed. The heart —
the national heart or the individual heart — remains
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
Reformation has been of little use to it ; for every
reformation is but a fresh and unguaranteed attempt
to do what never has been done. Reconstruction
has been of little use to it ; for reconstruction is an
ill-advised endeavour to rebuild a house, which has
fallen a thousand times already, with the same old
bricks and beams. Man has had every chance from
the creation to the present moment to prove that

MARVEL NOT 199

Regeneration was not the one necessity of the world
— and, again, has utterly failed.

We are still told, indeed, that all the world needs
is just to get a start. Once set a man on his feet,
or a universe, with a few good guiding principles.
Give human nature fair play, and it must win in
the end. But no. The experiment has been tried.
God tried it Himself. It was fairly done, and it
failed. The wickedness of man had waxed great
throughout the land. So God said lie would de-
stroy all living flesh, and select a picked few of the
best inhabitants to start the world afresh. A fair
experiment. So all the world was drowned except
a little nucleus in an ark — the picked few who were
to found Utopia, who were to reconstruct the uni-
verse, who were to begin human life again, and
make even-thing so much better than it was before.
But the experiment failed. The picked few failed.
Their children failed. Their children's children
failed. Things got no better; only worse, perhaps,
and worse ; and no man ever really knew the cause
till J c fcfae world that it must — absolutely and

y must — be burn a

If human nature makes it ry, much more

! mine nature. \\ '!. .

- God, it must be as a spot!
In that

r the Kii
number. They mu

1 are t<>

200 MARVEL NOT

be there — as if it were unnecessary that we must
be born again. " Lord, who shall abide in Thy
tabernacle — who shall dwell in Thy holy hill ? He
that hath clean hands and a pure heart." "There
shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth."
Marvel not as if it were unnecessary that our robes
should be washed white.

Marvel not, as if it were unintelligible.

Marvel not, as if it were impossible.

Marvel not, as if it were unnecessary that ye must
be born again.

But marvel if you are. Marvel if you are not.
Marvel that you may be to-day.

' ' And the Lord turned, and
looked upon Peter
and Peter went out, and wept
bitterly."— Ll'KE xxii. 61, 62.

Penitence

EVERY man at some time in his life has fallen.
Many have fallen many times ; few, few times.
And the more a man knows his life and watches
its critical flow from day to day, the larger seems
to grow the number of these falls, and the oftener
reaches out to God his penitential prayer, u Turn yet
again, O Lord ! "

We have all shuddered before this as we read the
tale of Peter's guilt Many a time we have watched
the plot as it thickens round him, and felt the almost
unconscious sympathy which betrayed of itself
how like the Ntory was to one that had sometimes
happened with ourselves. And we knew, as we
followed the dreary stages of his fall, that the same
well-worn step, had been traced since then by every
human foot How Peter could have slept in the
garden, when he should have watched and prayed, all

men who have an inner history can understand The

faithlessness that made him follow Christ far oft,

pingat his Master's side, not the best
of us will chall l : we too know what it i

:i Chri- 1. We shall

202 PENITENCE

be the last to stop and ask his business in that
worldly company who warmed themselves by the fire.
And none who know that the heart is deceitful above
all things, will wonder that this man who had lived so
long in the inner circle of fellowship with Christ,
whose eyes were familiar with miracles, who was one
of that most select audience who witnessed the glory
of the transfiguration — that this man, when his ears
were yet full of the most solemn words the world had
ever heard, when his heart was warm still with Com-
munion-table thoughts, should have turned his back
upon his Lord, and, almost ere the sacramental wine
was dry upon his lips, have cursed Him to His face.
Such things, alas ! are not strange to those who
know the parts in the appalling tragedy of sin.

But there is a greater fact in Peter's life than
Peter's sin — a much less known fact — Peter's peni-
tence. All the world are at one with Peter in his sin ;
but not all the world are with him in his penitence. Sin-
ful Peter is one man, and repentant Peter is another ;
and many who have kept his company along these
worn steps to sin have left him to trace the tear-
washed path of penitence alone. But the real lesson
in Peter's life is the lesson in repentance. His fall is
a lesson in sin which requires no teacher, but his
repentance is a great lesson in salvation. And
Peter's penitence is full of the deepest spiritual mean-
ing to all who have ever made Peter's discovery — that
they have sinned.

The few words which form the pathetic sequel to

PENITENCE 203

the tale of Peter's sin may be defined as the " ideal
progress of Christian penitence." They contain
materials for the analysis of the most rare and
difficult grace in spiritual experience. And lying
underneath these two simple sentences are the secrets
of some of the most valuable spiritual laws. We find
here four outstanding characteristics of the state of
penitence :

(1) It is a divine thing. It began with God P
did not turn. But u the Lord turned and looked
upon Peter.'1

(2) It is a very sensitive thing. A look did it.
The Lord looked upon Peter."

(3) It is a very intense thing. " Peter went out
and wept bitterly."

(4) It U :e!y tiling. "Peter went out" —
out into the quiet night, to be alone with his sin and

These are characteristic not only of the penitential
state, but of all God's operations on the souL

(i) To take the first of these, we find that the
beginning of this strange experience came
God. It was n >t Peter who turned. The Lord
turned and look id upon Peter, When the 1

LVC recalled him to himself. Put
as just in the very act of Sin. And when a man

\ to throw

down his arms and repent So Peter never thought

Of turning, but the- Lord turned; and when I

would rather ;

204 PENITENCE

the Lord, the Lord looked at Peter. And this scarce-
noticed fact is a great sermon to every one who
sins — that the Lord turns first.

Now the result of this distinction is this : that there
are two kinds of sorrow for sin. And these are
different in their origin, in their religious value, and
in their influence on our life. The commoner kind is
when a man does wrong, and, in the ordinary sense of
the word, is sorry that he has done it. We are always
easier in such a case when this sorrow comes. It
seems to provide a sort of guarantee that we are not
disposed to do the same again, and that our better
self is still alive enough to enter its protest against the
sin the lower self has done. And we count this feel-
ing of reproach which treads so closely on the act as
a sort of compensation or atonement for the wrong.
This is a kind of sorrow which is well known to all
who examine themselves, and in any way struggle with
sin. It is a kind of sorrow which is coveted by all
who examine themselves ; which gives relief to what
is called a penitential heart, and lends a fervour to
many a penitential prayer. But it is a startling truth
that there is no religion in such a state. There is no
real penitence there. It may not contain even one
ingredient of true repentance. It is all many know
of repentance, and all many have for repentance.
But it is no true sorrow for sin. It is wounded
self-love. It is sorrow that we were weak enough to
sin. We thought we had been stronger men and
women, and when we were put to the test we found

PENITENCE 205

to our chagrin that we had failed. And this chagrin
is what we are apt to mistake for penitence. But it
is no Divine gift or grace, this penitence — it is merely
wounded pride — sorrow that we did not do better,
that we were not so good as ourselves and our neigh-
bours thought. It is just as if Peter turned and
looked upon Peter. And when Peter turns and looks
upon Peter, he sees what a poor, weak creature Peter
\nd if God had not looked upon Peter he might
have wept well-nigh as bitterly, not because he had
sinned against his God, but because he, the great
apostle, had done a weak thing — he was weak as
other men.

The fit of low spirits which comes to us when we
find ourselves overtaken in a fault, though we flatter
ourselves to reckon it a certain sign of penitence, and
a set-off to the sin itself which God will surely take
into account, is often nothing more than vexation
and annoyance with ourselves, that, after all our good
resolutions and attempts at reformation, we have
broken clown again.

Contrast for a moment with such a penitence the

publican's prayer of penitence in the temple. It was

Igrin nor wounded pride with him. And we

feel as we read tin- story th.it the Lord must have

turned and looked upon the publican, when he cried

"God" — as if G looking right down into the

man : .e, a dinner ! "

Stricken before his God, this publican had little

[ht of tli. 1 t he had 1" t, and felt

206 PENITENCE

indignity to take the culprit's place and be taught the
true divinity of a culprit's penitence.

Now it will be seen at once that the difference
between the publican's penitence and the first-named
sorrow is just the difference between the divine and
the human. The one is God turning and looking
upon man, the other is man turning and looking
upon himself. There is no wrong in a man turning
and looking upon himself — only there is danger.
There is the danger of misinterpreting what he sees
and what he feels. What he feels is the mortifica-
tion, the self-reproach of the sculptor who has made
an unlucky stroke of the chisel ; the chagrin of the
artist who has spoilt the work of weeks by a clumsy
touch. Apart altogether from religion we must feel
mortified when we do wrong. Life, surely, is a work
of art ; character-building, soul-culture are the highest
kind of art ; and it would be strange indeed if failure
passed unresented by the mind.

But what is complained of is not that it passes
unresented by the mind, but that it passes unresented
by the soul. Penitence of some sort there must be,
but in the one case it is spiritual, in the other purely
artistic. And the danger is the more subtle because
the higher the character is the more there must neces-
sarily be of the purely artistic penitence.

The effect is, that self gets in to what ought to be
the most genuine experience of life, makes the most
perfect imitation of it, and transforms the greatest
opportunities for recovery into the basest ministry to

PENITENXE 307

pride. The true experience, on the other hand, is a
touching lesson in human helplessness ; teaching how
God has to come to man's relief at every turn of his
life, and how the same Hand which provides his par-
don has actually to draw him to the place of peni-
tence.

It is God looking into the sinner's face that has
introduced a Christian element into human sorrow.
And Paul, in making the Christian vocabulary, had to
coin a word which was strange to all the philosophies
of the world then, and is so still, when he joined the
conceptions of God and sorrow into one, and told us
of the G< >dly sorrow which has the marvellous virtue
of working repentance not to be repented of. And
it is this new and sacred sorrow which comes to sinful
men as often as the Lord turns and looks upon their
life ; it is this which adds the penitential incc;.
the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart. That
teat distinction which Luke brings out, in
the prodigal's Life, between coming to himself and
comi: father. "lie came to himself," and

then "he came to his father." So we are always

coming to ourselves. We are always finding out,

like the prodigal, the miserable we have

But it is only when we come to our Father
that we can get them undone and the real debt dis-
charged.

(2) Butt ome to the sensitive

of penitence, Or rather, perhaps, we should talk of

ensitiveness of the penitent human soul. The

208 PENITENCE

Lord turned and looked upon Peter. There is
nothing more sensitive in all the world than a human
soul which has once been quickened into its delicate
life by the touch of the divine. Men seldom estimate
aright the exquisite beauty and tenderness of a sin-
ner's heart. We apply coarse words to move it, and
coarse, harsh stimulants to rouse it into life. And if
no answer comes we make the bludgeon heavier and
the language coarser still, as if the soul were not too
fine to respond to weapons so blunt as these. There
is coarseness in the fibres of the body, and these may
be moved by blows ; and there is coarseness in
human nature, and that may be roused with threats ;
but the soul is fine as a breath, and will preserve,
through misery and cruelty and sin, the marvellous
delicacy which tells how near it lies to the spirit of
God who gave it birth. Peter was naturally, perhaps,
the coarsest of all the disciples. Our picture of him
is of a strong-built, sun-tanned fisherman, robust and
fearless in disposition, quick-tempered and rash, a
man who would bluster and swear — as we know he
did — a wild man who had the making of a memorable
sinner had not God made him a memorable saint.
But inside this wild breast there lay a most lovely
and delicate plant — the most tender plant, perhaps,
but one which God had growing on the earth. With
His own hand He had placed it there. With His
own breath He nourished it from day to day ; and
already the storms in the wild breast were calmed and
tempered for the holy flower which had begun to

PENITENCE 209

send a perfume through even coarse Peter's life. It
always purifies a man to have a soul, and there is no
such beauty of character as that which comes out in
unconscious ways from a life made fine by Christ.

So God did not thunder and lighten to make
Peter hear His voice. God knew that though Peter
was blustering and swearing with his lips, there was
dead silence in his soul. A whisper at that moment
— that moment of high-strung feeling — a whisper
even was not fine enough in its touch fur this ex-
quisitely sensitive spirit ; so the Lord turned and
looked. A look, and that was all. But it rent his
heart as lightning could not, and melted into his
soul.

There is a text in the Psalms which uses
the strange expression, the gentleness of God.
We wonder sometimes when God is so great, so
terrible in majesty, that He lies so little violence
with us, who are so small. But it is not His way.
His way is to be gentle. He seldom drives; but
draws. He seldom compels ; but leads, lie remem-
bers we are dust. We think it might be quicker
work if God threatened and compelled us to do
right But G not want quick work, but

. work. God does nut want slave work, but

free work. So God is gentle with us all — moulding

US and winning us many a time with no mure than
a silent I treatment never wins

So God did nut drive the chariot of Hi; omnip I

up to Peter and 0 >mmand him to rep *nt

210 PENITENCE

did not threaten him with thunderbolts of punish-
ment. God did not even speak to him. That one
look laid a spell upon his soul which was more than
voice or language through all his after life.

Here, then, are two great lessons — the gentleness
of God, and the gentleness of the soul — the one as
divine a marvel as the other. God may be dealing
with us in some quiet way just now, and we not
knowing it. So mysteriously has all our life been
shaped, and so unobtrusive the fingers which mould
our will, that we scarce believe it has been the hand
of God at all. But it is God's gentleness. And
the reason why God made Peter's heart sensitive,
and yours and mine, was to meet this gentleness of
His.

Yes ; we misunderstand God altogether, and reli-
gion, if we think God deals coarsely with our souls.
If we ask ourselves what things have mainly in-
fluenced our life, we find the answer in a few silent
voices which have preached to us, and winds which
passed across our soul so gently that we scarce
could tell when they were come or gone. The great
physical forces of the world are all silent and un-
seen. The most ponderous of all — gravitation —
came down the ages with step so noiseless that
centuries of wise men had passed away before an
ear was quick enough to detect its footfall. And
the great spiritual forces which startle men into
thoughts of God and right, which make men remem-
ber, in the rush of the world's life, that they have

PENITENCE 211

souls, which bring eternity near to us, when time
is yet sweet and young, are not so much the warn-
ings from the dead who drop at our side, nor the
threats of judgment to come, nor the retributions
of the life that is ; but still small voices, which
penetrate like Peter's look from Christ, and turn
man's sensitive heart to God. The likeness of a
long-dead mother's face ; the echo of a children's
hymn laden with pure memories, coming over the
guilty years which lie between ; the fragments of
an old, forgotten text — these are the messengers
which Heaven sends to call the world to God.

Let those who are waiting for Christ to thunder at
their door before they will let Him in, remember
that the quiet service of the Sabbath Day, and the
soft whisper of text and Psalm, and the plaint of
conscience, and the deep, deep heart-wish to be
whole, are Christ's ways of looking for them. Let
workers for Christ remember this. Let those who
try to keep their influence for Christ, ponder Christ's
methods of influence. Let those who live in the
shade, whose lives arc naturally bounded by timidity
and reserve, be glad that, in the genius of Chris-
tianity, there is a place for even the Gospel of the
Face. And let thost who live in the battle, when
coarser weapons fail, discern the lesson of Elijah :
'A great and strong wind rent the mountains, and
I the rocks before the Lord; but the

Lord was not in the- wind : and after the wind, an
earthquake; bat the Lord was not in the earth-

212 PENITENCE

quake : and after the earthquake a fire ; but the
Lord was not in the fire : and after the fire a still
small voice" (i Kings xix. n).

(3) Thirdly and briefly, for the truth is obvious,
we learn from Peter's recovery that spiritual experi-
ence is intense. Peter wept bitterly. And this short
sentence for ever settles the question of emotion in
religion. When the Lord turned and looked upon
Peter, and memory crushed into one vivid moment
the guilt of those never-to-be-forgotten hours, what
else could Peter do than weep bitterly ? Let
memory so work on any of our lives to-day, and
let the eye of the Eternal bring the naked truth
from out our past, and let us ask if " bitterly " is
a word too strong to express the agony of God's
discovery of our sin. Much need, indeed, had
Peter to weep bitterly ; and if there are no bitter
tears betimes in our religious life, it is not because
we have less of Peter's sin, but little of Peter's
grace.

It is vain to console ourselves by measuring, as
we try to do, the small size of the slips we make
as compared with his. There is such a thing in
the world as a great sin, but there is no such thing
as a small sin. The smallest sin is a fall, and a
fall is a fall from God, and to fall from God is to
fall the greatest height in the universe. The publi-
city of a sin has nothing to do with its size. Our
fall last week, or yesterday, or to-day, was just as
great, perhaps, as Peter's fall, or David's, or Noah's,

PENITENCE 213

or Jacob's, or the many private sins which history
has made public examples, or the Bible placed as
beacons to all the race.

Every sin that was ever done demands a bitter
penitence. And if there is little emotion in a
man's religion, it is because there is little intro-
spection. Religion without emotion is religion with-
out reflection. Let a man sit calmly down to think
about his life. Let him think how God has dealt
with him since ever he lisped God's name. Let
him add to that how he has dealt with God since
ever he could sin. And as he turns over the
secrets of his past, and forgotten sins come crowd-
ing one by one into his thoughts, can he help a
strong emotion rising in his heart, and .shedding
itself in tears? Yes; religion without emotion is
religion without reflection. And, conversely, the
man who gives himself to earnest thought upon his
will always have enough emotion to generate
>us fervour in his soul.

Only let religious emotion run in the right chan-
nel, let it work itself out in action and not in c

feeling, let it be something more than nervous •
tion or a : .;-, and there is no experience

more purifying to the SOUL No doubt it v. |

thing for Peter that he wept bitterly, and no doubt
from the bitterness of that night of peniu

much of the Sweetness that hallowed his after life.

(4) Fourthly, and lastly, penitent

When I I turned, 1 [e I<

214 PENITENCE

upon Peter. No one else noticed the quiet glance
that was exchanged. But it did its work. It singled
out one man in a moment, and cut him off from all
the rest of the world. " And Peter went out!' And
there was no man beneath the firmament of God that
night so much alone as Peter with his sin.

Men know two kinds of loneliness, it has been said,
— a loneliness of space and a loneliness of spirit.
The fisherman in his boat on the wide sea knows
loneliness of space. But it is no true loneliness. For
his thoughts have peopled his boat with forms of
those he loves. But Peter's was loneliness of spirit.
A distance wider than the wide sea cut off the denier
from all fellowship of man, and left him to mourn
alone.

When God speaks He likes no other voice to break
the stillness but His own. And hence the place that
has always been given to solitude in all true religious
life. It can be overdone, but it can be grossly under-
done. And there is no lesson more worth insisting
on in days like ours than this, that when God wants
to speak with a man He wants that man to be alone.
And God develops the germ of the recluse enough
in all true Christian hearts to see that it is done.
" Talent forms itself in solitude," says the German
poet ; " character amidst the storms of life." And if
religious character is developed and strengthened in
the battle of the world, it is no less true that religious
talents are cultivated in quiet contemplation and
communion alone with God. Than the worshippers

PENITENCE 215

who do all their religion in public there are none
more profoundly to be pitied ; and he who knows not
what it is to go out from the crowd sometimes and
be alone with God is a stranger to the most divine
experience that comes to sanctify a Christian's heart.
But what gave the beauty to Peter's loneliness was
this — that he took God's time to be alone. Peter's
penitence was not only an intense thing and a lonely
thing, it was an immediate thing. Peter need not
have gone out that time. He might have stood where
he was, and braved it out. God has looked at us
when we were sinning ; and we did not do as Peter
did. I le lost no time between his penitence and his
sin. But we spoil the grace of our penitence many a
time by waiting till the sin grows old. We do it on
purpose. Time seems to smooth the roughness off
our sin and take its bitterness away. And we post-
pone our penitence till we think the edge is off the
sharpness of the wrong. As if time, as if eternity
could ever make a sinner's sin less black. Sin is
always at its maximum. And no man ever gets off
with penitence at its minimum. The time for peni-
tence is just the time when we have sinned. And
that perhaps is now. Peter's penitence came sharp
Upon his sin. It was not on his death-bed nor in his
after life. But just when he had sinned. Mai
man who ; his penitence till he cannot help

it, postpones his penitence till it cannot help him.
will not see the Lord turning till He turns and I
upon him in judgment Then, indeed, ' at to

2i6 PENITENCE

weep. But it is out into that night which knows no
dawn.

Such are the lessons from Peter's penitence. Just
one word more.

When God speaks He speaks so loud that all the
voices of the world seem dumb. And yet when God
speaks He speaks so softly that no one hears the
whisper but yourself. To-day, perhaps, as the ser-
vice has gone on, the Lord has turned and looked
on some one here. And the soul of some one has
gone out to weep. No one noticed where the Lord's
glance fell, and no one knows in the church that it
was — -you. You sit there in your wonted place. But
your spirit is far away just now, dealing with some
old sin, and God is giving you a lesson Himself —
the bitterest, yet the sweetest lesson of your life, in
heartfelt penitence. Come not back into the crowd
till the Lord has turned and looked on you again,
as He looked at the thief upon the cross, and you
have beheld the "glory of the love of God in the
face of Jesus."

*' A man after mine own
heart, who shall fulfil all
my w ill." — Acts xiii. 22.

The Man after God's
Own Heart

A BIBLE STUDY OX THE
IDEAL OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE

NO man can be making much of his life who
has not a very definite conception of what he
IS living for. And if you ask, at random, a dozen
men what is the end of their life, you will be sur-

1 to find how few have formed to them-
more than the most dim idea. The question of the
SUmttlUtn bonum has ever been the most difficult
for the human mind to grasp. What shall a man
do with his life? What is life for? Why is it
have been the one great puzzle for
human b I human brains ; and a:

philosophy and mediaeval learning an n cul-

ture alike have tailed to tell us what these mean.

No man, no I 'die world

what it wants : lias had t<> lice the pfl

in his own uncertain light, and can;. h for

the life that he thin]

Here i i one who

■•7

218 THE MAN AFTER

— he will be a literary man. He lays down for
himself his ideal of a literary life. He surrounds
himself with the best ideals of style ; and with his
great ambition working towards great ends, after
great models, he cuts out for himself what he thinks
is his great life work. Another says the world is the
great thing — he will be a man of the world. A
third will be a business man ; a fourth, a man of
science. And each follows out his aim.

And the Christian must have a definite aim and
model for his life. These aims are great aims, but
not great enough for him. His one book has taught
him a nobler life than all the libraries of the rich
and immortal past. He may wish to be a man of
business, or a man of science, and indeed he may
be both. But he covets a nobler name than these.
He will be the man after God's own heart. He has
found out the secret philosophy never knew, that
the ideal life is this — " A man after Mine own heart,
who shall fulfil all My will." And just as the man
of the world, or the literary man, lays down a pro-
gramme for the brief span of his working life, which
he feels must vanish shortly in the Unknown of the
grave, so much more will the Christian for the
great span of his life before it arches over into
eternity.

He is a great man who has a great plan for his
life — the greatest who has the greatest plan and keeps
it. And the Christian should have the greatest plan,
as his life is the greatest, as his work is the greatest,

GOD'S OWN HEART 219

as his life and his work will follow him when all this
world's is done.

Now we are going to ask to-day, What is the true
plan of the Christian life ? We shall need a de-
finition that we may know it, a description that we
may follow it. And if you look, you will see that
both, in a sense, lie on the surface of our text. " A
man after Mine own heart," — here is the definition of
what we are to be. " Who shall fulfil all My will," —
here is the description of how we are to be it. These
words are the definition and the description of the
model human life. They describe the man after
God's own heart. They give us the key to the Ideal
Life.

The general truth of these words is simply this :
that the end of life is to do God's will. Now that
great and surprising revelation. No man ever
(bund that out. It has been before the world these
eighteen hundred years, yet few have even found it
out to-day. One man will tell you the end of life
Is to be true. Another will tell you it is to deny
self. Another will say it is to keep the Ten Com-
mandments. A fourth will point you to the Beati-
tudes. One- will tell you it is to do good, another
that it is togtt good, another that it is to bo

Hut the end of life is in none of these things. It

PC than all, and it includes them all. The end
of life is not to deny self, nor to be true n . I

mandments — it is simpl;

will. It i

220 THE MAN AFTER

^ to do good— it is just what God wills, whether that
| be working or waiting, or winning or losing, or suffer-
ing or recovering, or living or dying.

But this conception is too great for us. It is not
practical enough. It is the greatest conception of
man that has ever been given to the world. The
great philosophers, from Socrates and Plato to
Immanuel Kant and Mill, have given us their con-
ception of an ideal human life. But none of them
I is at all so great as this. Each of them has con-
■ structed an ideal human life, a universal life they
call it, a life for all other lives, a life for all men
and all time to copy. None of them is half so deep,
so wonderful, so far-reaching, as this : " A man after
Mine own heart, who shall fulfil all My will."

But exactly for this very reason it is at first sight
impracticable. We feel helpless beside a truth so
great and eternal. God must teach us these things.
Like little children, we must sit at His feet and learn.
And as we come to Him with our difficulty, we find
He has prepared two practical helps for us, that
He may humanize the lesson and bring it near to
us, so that by studying these helps, and following
them with willing and humble hearts, we shall learn
to copy into our lives the great ideal of God.

The two helps which God has given us are these :

!I. The Model Life realized in Christ, the living
Word.

II. The Model Life analysed in the Bible, the
written Word.

GOD'S OWN HEART 221

The usual method is to deal almost exclusively
with the first of these. To-day, for certain reasons,
we mean to consider the second. As regards the
first, o( course, if a man could follow Christ he would
lead the model life. But what is meant by telling
a man to follow Christ? How is it to be done?
It is like putting a young artist before a Murillo
or a Raphael, and telling him to copy it. But even
as the artist in following his ideal has colours put
into his hand, and brush and canvas, and a hint here
from this master, and a touch there from anoth
with the pupil in the school of Christ. The great
Master Himself is there to help him. The Holy
Spirit is there to help him. But the model life is
not to be mystically attained. There is spirituality
about it, but no unreality. So God has provided
another great help, our second help : The Model Life
analysed in the Word of God. Without the one, the
ideal life would be incredible ; without the other, it
would be unintelligible. Hence God has given us
ide.^ of this model life : realized in the Living
I ; analysed in the written Word.

Let us search our Bibles then to find this ideal
life, so that copying it in our lives, reproducing it
day by day and point by point, we may lea:
make the OUT life, and have it said 1

as it was of David, "A man after mine own heart,
who shall fulfil all My will."

(i) The first thing our ideal man wa:
for hi dive at all. He 1;. int fur his

222 THE MAN AFTER

existence. What is he here for ? And the Bible
answer is this : " I come to do Thy will, O God."
(Heb. x. 7.)

That is what we are here for — to do God's will.
" I come to do Thy will, O God." That is the
object of your life and mine — to do God's will.
I It is not to be happy or to be successful, or famous,
or to do the best we can, and get on honestly in
the world. It is something far higher than this —
to do God's will. There, at the very outset, is the
great key to life. Any one of us can tell in a
moment whether our lives are right or not. Are
we doing God's will? We do not mean, Are we
doing God's work ? — preaching or teaching, or col-
lecting money — but God's will. A man may think
he is doing God's work, when he is not even doing
God's will. And a man may be doing God's
work and God's will quite as much by hewing
stones or sweeping streets, as by preaching or
praying. So the question just means this — Are
we working out our common every-day life on
the great lines of God's will ? This is different
from the world's model life. " I come to push my
way." This is the world's idea of it. " Not my
way, not my will, but Thine be done " — this is
the Christian's. This is what the man after God's
own heart says : " I seek not mine own will, but
the will of Him that sent me."

(2) The second thing the ideal man needs is
Sustenance. After he has got life, you must give

GOD'S OWN HEART 223

him food. Now, what food shall you give him ?
Shall you feed him with knowledge, or with riches,
or with honour, or with beauty, or with power, or
truth ? No ; there is a rarer luxury than these — so
rare, that few have ever more than tasted it ; so
rich, that they who have will never live on other
fare again. It is this : u My meat is to do the
will of Him that sent Me" (John iv. 34).

Again, to do God's will. That is what a man
lives for : it is also what he lives on. Meat. Meat
is strength, support, nourishment. The strength of
the model life is drawn from the Divine will. Man
lias a strung will. But God's will is everlasting
strength — Almighty strength. Such strength the
ideal man gets. He grows by it, he assimilates
it — it is his life. " Man shall not live by bread
alone, but by every word that cometh out of God."
Nothing can satisfy his appetite but this. He hun-
gers to do God's will. Nothing else will fill him.
Every one knows that the world is hungry. But
the hungry world is starving. It has many meats
and man}- drinks, but there is no nourishment in
them. It has pleasures, and gaiety, and excitement;
but there is no food there fur the immortal craving
of the soul. It has the theatre and worldly society,
and worldly books, and worldly lusts. But ti
things merely intoxicate. There is no .sustenance in
them. So our ideal life turn; its cyv from them all
with unutterable loathing. " My meat I
God's will." To do God's will! No possibttit

224 THE MAN AFTER

starving on such wonderful fare as this. God's will
is eternal. It is eternal food the Christian lives upon.
In spring-time it is not sown, and in summer
drought it cannot fail. In harvest it is not reaped,
yet the storehouse is ever full. Oh, what possi-
bilities of life it opens up ! What possibilities of
growth ! What possibilities of work ! How a soul
develops on God's will !

(3) The next thing the ideal man needs is
Society. Man is not made to be alone. He needs
friendships. Without society, the ideal man would
be a monster, a contradiction. You must give him
friendship. Now, whom will you give him ? Will
you compliment him by calling upon the great
men of the earth to come and minister to him?
No. The ideal man does not want compliments.
He has better food. Will you invite the ministers
and the elders of the Church to meet him ? Will
you offer him the companionship of saint or angel,
or seraphim or cherubim, as he treads his path
through the wilderness of life ? No ; for none of
these will satisfy him. He has a better friendship
than saint or angel or seraphim or cherubim. The
answer trembles on the lip of every one who is
trying to follow the ideal life : " Whosoever shall
do the will of My Father which is i7i Heaven, the
same is My brother, and sister, and mother" (Matt,
xii. 50 ; Mark hi. 35).

Yes. My brother, and My sister, and My mother.
Mother ! The path of life is dark and cheerless to

GOD'S OWN HEART 223

you. There is a smoother path just by the side
of it — a forbidden path. You have been tempted
many a time to take it But you knew it was
wrong, and you paused. Then, with a sigh, you
struck along the old weary path again. It was
the will of God, you said. Brave mother ! Oh,
if you knew it, there was a voice at your ear just
then, as Jesus saw the brave thing you had done,
" My mother ! " " He that doeth the will of My
Father, the same is My mother." Yes ; this is the
consolation of Christ — " My mother." What society
to be in ! What about the darkness of the path,
if we have the brightness of His smile? Oh! it is
better, as the hymnist says,

"It is better to walk in the dark with God,
Than walk alone in the light ;
It is better to walk with Him by faith,
Than walk alone by light"

Some young man here is suffering fierce tempta-
tion. To-day he feels strong ; but to-morrow his
Sabbath resolutions will desert him. What will
his companions say, if he does not join them?

He cannot face them if he is to play the Christian.

Companions] What are all the companions in the
world to this? What are all the friendships, the
I and the best, to this dear and sacred brother-
hood of Christ? "He that doeth the will of My
Father, the My brother."

My mother, my brother, and my .-i-ter. He has

a sister- • r here. Sister 1 Your life i. a

D.E.

226 THE MAN AFTER

quiet and even round of common and homely
things. You dream, perhaps, of a wider sphere,
and sigh for a great and useful life, like some
women whose names you know. You question
whether it is right that life should be such a little
bundle of very little things. But nothing is little
that is done for God, and it must be right if it
be His will. And if this common life, with its
homely things, is God's discipline for you, be
assured that in your small corner, your unobserved,
unambitious, simple woman's lot is very near and
very dear to Him Who said, " Whosoever doeth the
will of My Father, the same is My sister."

(4) Now we have found the ideal man a Friend.
But he wants something more. He wants Language.
He must speak to his Friend. He cannot be silent
in such company. And speaking to such a Friend
is not mere conversation. It has a higher name. It
is communion. It is prayer. Well, we listen to hear
the ideal man's prayer. Something about God's will
it must be ; for that is what he is sure to talk about.
That is the object of his life. That is his meat. In
that he finds his society. So he will be sure to talk
about it. Every one knows what his prayer will be.
Every one remembers the words of the ideal prayer :
" Thy will be done " (Matt. vi. 10).

Now mark the emphasis on done. He prays that
God's will may be done. It is not that God's will may
be borne, endured, put up with. There is activity in
his prayer. It is not mere resignation. How often

GOD'S OWN HEART 227

is this prayer toned off into mere endurance, suf-
ferance, passivity. " Thy will be done," people say
resignedly. " There is no help for it. We may just
as well submit. God evidently means to have His
way. Better to give in at once and make the best of
it." Well, this is far from the ideal prayer. It may
be nobler to suffer God's will than to do it ; perhaps
it is. But there is nothing noble in resignation of this
sort — this resignation under protest as it were. And
it disguises the meaning of the prayer, " Thy will be
done." It is intensely active. It is not an acquies-
cence simply in God's dealing. It is a cry for more
of God's dealing — God's dealing with me, with every-
thing, with everybody, with the whole world. It is an
appeal to the mightiest energy in heaven or earth to
work, to make more room for itself, to energise. It is a
prayer that the Almighty energies of the Divine will
may be universally known, and felt, and worshipped.
Now the ideal man has no deeper prayer than
that. He wants to get Into the great current of Will,
which flows silently out of Eternity, and swiftly back
to Eternity again. \\i* only chance of happiiu
usefulness, of work, IS to join the living rill of his
will to that. Other Christians miss it, or settle on
the banks of the great stream ; but he will be among
the forces and energies and powers, that he may link
his weakness with (i , and his simplicity

with God's majesty, that he may I

v, ;i power i'<>r Duty and God Perhap
may do something with him. Certainly God will do

228 THE MAN AFTER

something in him — for it is God who worketh in him

both to will and to do of His good pleasure. So his

one concern is to be kept in the will of God.

The ideal man has no deeper prayer than that. It

is the truest language of his heart. He does not

want a bed of roses, or his pathway strewn with

flowers. He wants to do God's will. He does not want

health or wealth, nor does he covet sickness or poverty,

— just what God sends. He does not want success —

even success in winning souls — or want of success.

What God wills for him, that is all. He does not want

to prosper in business, or to keep barely struggling on.

God knows what is best. He does not want his

friends to live, himself to live or die. God's will be

done. The currents of his life flow far below the

circumstances of things. There is a deeper principle

in it than to live to gratify himself. And so he

simply asks, that in the ordinary round of his daily

life there may be no desire of his heart more deep,

more vivid, more absorbingly present than this, " Thy

will be done." He who makes this the prayer of his

life will know that of all prayer it is the most truly

blessed, the most nearly in the spirit of Him who

sought not His own will, but the will of Him that

sent Him.

" Lord Jesus, as Thou wilt ! if among thorns I go
Still sometimes here and there let a few roses blow.
No ! Thou on earth along the thorny path hast gone,
Then lead me after Thee, my Lord ; Thy will be done."

Schmolk

(5) But the ideal man does not always pray.

GOD'S OWN HEART 229

There is such perfect blessedness in praying the
ideal prayer that language fails him sometimes.
The peace of God passes all understanding, much
more all expression. It comes down upon the soul,
and makes it ring with unutterable joy. And
language stops. The ideal man can no longer pray
to his Friend. So his prayer changes into Praise.
He is too full to speak, so his heart bursts into song.
Therefore we must find in the Bible the praise of his
lips. And who does not remember in the Psalms the
song of the ideal man ? The huntsmen would gather
at night to sing of their prowess in the chase, the
shepherd would chant the story of the lion or the
bear which he killed as he watched his flocks. But
David takes down his harp and sings a sweeter psalm
than all : " Thy Statutes have been my Songs in the
House of my pilgrimage" (Ps. cxix. 54). He knows
no sweeter strain. How different from those who
think God's law is a stern, cold thing ! God's law
is 1 1 is written will. It has no terrors to the ideal
man. He is not afraid to think of its sternness and
majesty. " I will meditate on Thy laws day and
night," he says. lie tells us the subject of his
thoughts. Ask him what he is thinking about at any
time. "Thy laws," he says. How he can pi
his Master, what more he can bear for Him, what
next he can do for Him — he has no Other pleasure

in life than this. Vuu need not Bpeak to him of the

delights of life. " I will delight myself in Thy

statutes," he says. You see what amusements the

230 THE MAN AFTER

ideal man has. You see where the sources of his
enjoyment are. Praise is the overflow of a full heart.
When it is full of enjoyment it overflows ; and you
can tell the kind of enjoyment from the kind of praise
that runs over. The ideal man's praise is of the will
of God. He has no other sources of enjoyment.
The cup of the world's pleasure has no attraction for
him. The delights of life are bitter. Here is his
only joy, his only delight : " I delight to do Thy
will, O my God " (Ps. xl. 8).

(6) The next thing the ideal man wants is Edu-
catioji. He needs teaching. He must take his place
with the other disciples at his Master's feet. What
does he want from the great Teacher ? Teach me
Wisdom ? No. Wisdom is not enough. Teach
me what is Truth ? No, not even that. Teach me
how to do good, how to love, how to trust? No,
there is a deeper want than all. " Teach me to do
Thy will" (Ps. cxliii. io). This is the true educa-
tion. Teach me to do Thy Will. This was the
education of Christ. Wisdom is a great study, and
truth, and good works, and love, and trust, but there
is an earlier lesson — obedience. So the ideal pupil
prays, " Teach me to do Thy will."

And now we have almost gone far enough. These
are really all the things the ideal man can need.
But in case he should want anything else, God has
given the man after his own heart a promise. God
never leaves anything unprovided for. An emer-
gency might arise in the ideal man's life ; or he

COD'S OWN HEART 231

might make a mistake or lose heart, or be afraid to
ask his Friend for some very great thing he needed,
thinking it was too much, or for some very little
thing, thinking it unworthy of notice. So God has
given

(7) The ideal Promise. "If we ask anything ac-
cording to His will, He heareth us . . . and
we know that we have the petitions that we desired
from Him " (1 John v. 14). If he ask anything — no
exception — no limit to God's confidence in him.
He trusts him to ask right things. He is guiding
him, even in what he asks, \i he is the man after
God's own heart ; so God sets no limit to his power.
If any one is doing God's will let him ask anything.
It is God's will that he ask anything. Let him put
His promise to the test.

Notice here what the true basis of prayer is. The
prayer that is answered is the prayer after God's
will. And the reason for this is plain. What is
God's will is God's wish. And when a man docs
what God wills, he dues what God wishes done*
Therefore God will have that done at any
at any sacrifice. Thousands of prayers are never
answered, simply because God does not wish them.
If we pray for any one thing, or any number of things

we are sure God wishes, we may be sure our wi

will be gratified. For OUT wishes

tion of God's. And the wish in us is almost equi-
valent to the answer. It is the

shadow backwards. Already the thil

232 THE MAN AFTER

the mind of God. It casts two shadows — one back-
ward, one forward. The backward shadow — that is
the wish before the thing is done, which sheds itself
in prayer. The forward shadow — that is the joy after
the thing is done, which sheds itself in praise. Oh,
what a rich and wonderful life this ideal life must be !
Asking anything, getting everything, willing with
God, praying with God, praising with God. Surely
it is too much, this last promise. How can God
trust us with a power so deep and terrible ? Ah,
He can trust the ideal life with anything. " If he
ask anything." Well, if he do, he will ask nothing
amiss. It will be God's will if it is asked. It will
be God's will if it is not asked. For he is come,
this man, " to do God's will"

(8) There is- only one thing more which the model
man may ever wish to have. We can imagine him
wondering, as he thinks of the unspeakable beauty of
this life — of its angelic purity, of its divine glory, of its
Christ-like unselfishness, of its heavenly peace — how
long this life can last. It may seem too bright and
beautiful, for all things fair have soon to come to an
end. And if any cloud could cross the true Chris-
tian's sky, it would be when he thought that this
ideal life might cease. But God, in the riches of His
forethought, has rounded off this corner of his life
with a great far-reaching text, which looks above the
circumstance of time, and projects his life into the
vast eternity beyond. " He that doeth the will of
God abideth for ever" (i John ii. 17).

GOD'S OWN HEART 233

May God grant that you and I may learn to live
this great and holy life, remembering the solemn
words of Him who lived it first, who only lived it all :
■ Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall
enter into the Kingdom of Heaven ; but he that
doeth the will of My Father which is in Heaven."

" Whereas ye know not what shall
be on the morrow. For what is
your life ? It is even as a vapour,
that appeareth for a little time, and
then vanishethaway."— Jas. iv. 14.

" What
Life ? "

is your

AN OLD YEAR SERMON

npO-MORROW, the first day of a new year,
■*■ is a day of wishes. To-day, the Last day

of an old year, is a day of questions. To-morrow
is a time of anticipation ; to-day a time of re-
flection. To-morrow our thoughts will go away
out to the coming opportunities, and the larger
vistas which the future is opening up to even
the most commonplace of us. To-day our minds
wander among buried memories, and our hearts
are full of .self-questioning thoughts of what our
past has been.

But if tO*moiTOW is to be a day of hope
day must be a day of thought If tO-mOTTOW is
to be a time of resolution, tO-day must be a

day of investigation. And if we were t<> search
the Bible through for a basis for this inv<

tion, we should nowhere find a better than this
question, " \VJuit is your /r
•35

236 WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?

We must notice, however, that life is used here
in a peculiar sense — a narrow sense, some would
say. The question does not mean, What quality is
your life? What are you making of life? How
are you getting on with it? How much higher is
the tone ot it this year than last? It has a more
limited reference than this. It does not refer so much
to quality of life as to quantity of life. It means,
How much life have you got? What value do you
set upon your life? How long do you think your
life will last ? How does it compare with eternity ?

And there are reasons which make this form
of the question particularly appropriate, not only
to this last day of the year, but, apart altogether
from that, to the state of much religious thought
upon the subject at the present moment. These
reasons are mainly two. There is a large school
just now who utterly ignore this question. There
is a large school who utterly spoil it. There may
be said to be two ways of looking at life, each of
which finds favour just now with a wide circle of
people.

1. The theory that life is everything.

2. The theory that life is nothing.
Or, adding the converse to these :

1. The theory that life is everything and eter-
nity nothing.

2. The theory that life is nothing and eternity
everything.

Now, those who hold the first of these, object

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? 237

to the time-view of life altogether. And there
can be no doubt that this is the favourite of the
two. For one thing, it is decidedly the fashion-
able view. It is the view culture takes, and
many thinking men, and many thoughtful and
modern books. Life, these say, life is the great
thing. We know something about life. We are in
it — it is pulsating all around us. We feel its
greatness and reality. But the other does not
press upon us in the same way. It is far off
and mystical. It takes a kind of effort even to
believe it. Therefore let us keep to what we know,
what we are in, what we are sure of.

The strength of this school is in their great view
of life ; their weakness and error, in their little
view of time. Their enthusiasm for the quality of
life makes them rush to the opposite extreme and
ignore its quantity. The thought that life is short
has little influence with them. They simply refuse
to let it weigh with them, and when pressed with
thoughts of immortality, or time-views of life, they
affirm, with a kind of superiority, that they have
too much to do with the present to trouble them-
selves with sentimentalisms about the future.

The second view is the more antiquated, per-
haps the more illiterate. Life, with it, is nothing

at all. It is a bubble, a vapour, a shadow.

Eternity i; the great thing. Eternity is the

• l ■ rnity is the only thin-, l

a kind <»f unfortunate preliminary— a sort of

238 WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?

mal antechamber, where man must wait, and be
content for a little with the view of eternity from
the windows. His turn to go is coming ; mean-
time let him fret through the unpleasant interval
as resignedly as he can, and pray God to speed
its close.

The strength of this school is that it recognises
eternity; its weakness, and its great error, that it
refuses to think of life and spoils the thought of
eternity for those who do. The first school re-
quires to be told that life is short ; this, so far from
having to be told that it is short, has to be told
that life is long — for life to it is nothing.

It is clear, of course, that each of these views
is the natural recoil from the other. The mistake
is that each has recoiled too far. The life-some-
thing theory cannot help recoiling from the life-
nothing theory ; but it need not recoil into
life-everything. So the eternity-something theory
cannot help recoiling from the eternity-nothing
theory ; but it need not recoil into eternity-every-
thing.

It is plain, then, that both these theories are
wrong, and yet not altogether wrong. There is a
great deal of truth in each — so much, indeed, that
if the parts of truth which each contains were
joined into one, they would form a whole — the truth.
And if the sides were nearly equal, — as many who
think life nothing as think life everything, — there
could be no attempt more useful than to find a har-

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? 239

mony between. But the sides are not equal, and
hence the better exercise will be to deal with the
side which has the truth the furthest in arrear.

This, undoubtedly, is the life-school — the life-
everything school. The other is, comparatively, a
minority. At least, those who hold the extreme
form of it are a minority. It is a more obvious
and striking truth that life is something ; and it
is not difficult to convince the man who makes
eternity everything to allow something to life.
But to get the man who makes life everything to
grant a little to eternity is harder ; for the power of
the world to come may be yet Ullfelt and unproved,
and the race of life be so swift that the rival flight
of time remains unseen.

There are mainly two great classes who swell the
ranks of the majority, who refuse to think of the
flight of time.

1. The great busy working and thinking class,
who are too careful of time ever to think of eter-
nity as its successor. These have too little time to
think of time.

2. The great lazy worldly class, who are too
careless of time ever to think that it will (
These have tOO much time to think of time— so
much of it that they think there will be always

much of it.

. it i . tO these tWO classes that this Old Year's
quest! home with special power, "What is

your life?" And it Is no reason why the majority

240 WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?

should decline to face the question, that a fanatical
minority have made the subject nauseous by the ex-
aggeration of eternity. For if these men suffer in
their lives by treating life as a thing of no import-
ance, the others certainly suffer more by exagger-
ating life at the tremendous expense of eternity.

The great objection to thinking about eternity, or,
to take the other side, about the brevity of life, is
that it is not practical. The life-school professes to
be eminently utilitarian. It will have nothing to
do with abstractions, nothing that does not directly
concern life. Anything that is outside the sphere of
action is of little consequence to practical men. The
members of this school feel themselves in the rush
of the world's work, and it is something to think
of that. It is something to live in the thick of it, to
yield to the necessities of it, to share its hopes, and
calmly endure its discipline of care. But when you
leave life, they protest, you are away from the present
and the real. You are off into poetry and sentiment,
and the meditations you produce may be interesting
for philosophers and dreamers, but they are not for
men who take their stand on the greatness of life
and crave to be allowed to leave the mystical alone.

Now the answer to that, — and it may be thoroughly
answered, — may be given in a word. First of all, who
told you eternity was nothing ? Who told you it was
an unpractical, unprofitable dream ? Who told you
to go on with your work and let time and other
abstractions alone? It was certainly not God. God

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? 241

takes exactly the opposite view. He is never done
insisting on the importance of the question. " O that
they were wise . . . that they would consider
their latter end " — that is what God says. " Make
me to know mine end, and the measure of my days
what it is " — that is what David, the man after God's
own heart, says. " Teach me to number my days " —
that is what Moses, the friend of God, says.

And you will notice the reason God gives for
thinking about these things. It was enough, indeed,
for Him to say it, without any reason ; but He has
chosen to give US one. Why are we to number our
days ? " That we may apply our hearts unto wis-
dom." That is the reason for thinking about time.
It is to make us wise. Perhaps you have thought this
is merely a piece of sentiment, a flower of rhetoric
for the poet, a harmless, popular imagination for
ignorant people who cannot discourse upon life, a
dramatic truth to impress the weak to prepare their
narrow minds for death ? But no; it is not that. God
never uses sentiment. And if you think a moment,
you will see that it is not the narrow mind which
needs this truth, but his who discourses on life. The
man who discourses most on life should discourse
the moat on time. When you discourse on life,
you plead that it is in the interests of life. You
despise the time view as unpractical in the

inter* the new life school who can

much for I nd their Strength up >n the senti-

ment of time. Ah! but if you really cared for life,
D.E. 10

242 WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?

this sentiment would only make you love it the more.
For time is the measurement of life. And all in
life must be profoundly affected by its poor, scant
quantity. Your life on earth is a great thing, a rich
and precious possession. It is true that it is full of
meaning and issues which no man can reckon. But it
is ten thousand times greater for the thought that it
must cease. One of the chief reasons why life is so
great is just that life is so short. If we had a thou-
sand years of it, it would not be so great as if we had
only a thousand hours. It is great because it is little.
A man is to be executed, and the judge has given
him a month to prepare for death — one short
month. How rich every hour of it becomes, how
precious the very moments are ! But suppose he has
only five minutes. Then how unspeakably solemn !
How much greater is the five minutes life than the
month life ! Make eternity a month and life five
minutes — if such a tremendous exaggeration of life
could be conceived. How much greater does it
become for being so very small !

How precious time is to a short-lived man ! I am
to die at thirty, you at sixty ; a minute is twice as
dear to me, for each minute is twice as short. So
a day to me is more than a day to Methuselah, for he
had many days, and I have but few. Oh ! if we really
felt the dignity of life, we should wonder no less at
its brevity than at its dignity. If we felt the great-
ness of life at this moment, how much keenness
would this further thought add to it — that we might

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? 243

be dead before this sermon was done ! How many
things we permit ourselves on the theory that life
is great, would be most emphatically wrong on the
theory that time was also great ! How many frivo-
lous things, — yes, how many great things even, —
should we have to turn out this moment from our lives
for just this thought, if we believed it, that time is
short ! For there is no room among the crowded
moments of our life for things which will not live
when life and time are past. So no one who does
not feel the keen sense of time flying away at every
moment with the work he has done and the oppor-
tunities he has lost, can know the true greatness
of life and the inexpressible value of the self-selected
things with which he fills its brief and narrow span.
The thought of death must change at every point
the values of the significant things of earth not less
than the thought of life, and we must ever feel the
solemn relations given to our life and work from the
overwhelming thought that the working-life is brief.

A modern poet has described, in strangely SUg
tive words, the time when first the idea of time and
death began to dawn upon this earth. The scene is
laid in some Eastern land, where a great colony had
risen from the offspring of Cain, the murderer of his
brother. Cain knew what death was— he had

it. lint he alone, of all his scattered family, for he

kept his burning Secret to himself. Cain's family
grew and Spread throughout the land, but no thought
of death came in to check the joyOUS exuberance

244 WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?

of life ; till one day, in boyish pastime, a hurled
stone strikes Lamech's son, and the lad falls to the
earth. Friends gather round him as he lies, and
bring him toys and playthings to wake him from
his sleep. But no sleep like this had ever come to
Lamech's son before, and soft entreating words bring
no responsive sound to the cold lips, or light to the
closed eyes. Then Cain comes forward, whisper-
ing, " The boy is dead," and tells the awe-struck
family of this mystery of death. And then the poet
describes the magic of this word, how " a new spirit,
from that hour, came o'er the house of Cain." How
time, once vague as air, began to stir strange terrors
in the soul, and lend to life a moment which it had
not known before. How even the sunshine had a
different look. How " work grew eager, and device
was born." How

It seemed the light was never loved before,

Now each man said, " 'Twill go, and come no more."

No budding branch, no pebble from the brook,

No form, no shadow, but new dearness took

From the one thought that Life must have an end.

So the thought that life will be no more, that each
day lived is hastening on the day when life itself
must stop, makes every hour of ours a million times
more great, and tinges every thought, and word, and
act, with the shadow of what must be.

From all this, it will now be clear that the man
who is really concerned to live well must possess

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? 245

himself continually of the thought that he is not to
live long. And that it is in the highest interests of
great living, to stimulate life, not to paralyze it, that
God asks us all to-day, "What is your life?"

But the Bible has done more than ask this ques-
tion. It has answered it. And when the Bible
answers a question, it gives always the best answer.
We could do no better, therefore, than consult it
a little further now, for it so happens that there are
few subjects which the Bible goes into so thoroughly
as this one — few thoughts which rise more often or
more urgently to the surface of the great Bible lives
than " What is your life ? "

And, besides, there is a peculiarity in the Bible
answers which makes them particularly valuable, and
which has tended, more than anything else, to im-
press them profoundly upon the deeper spirit of
every age. And that peculiarity is this, that the
answer is never given in hard, bare words, but is
presented, wrapped up in some figure of such ex-
quisite beaut\', that no mind could refuse to give
it a place, were it only for the fineness of its meta-
phor. Take, as an example, the answer which
follows the question in the text, "What is your
life?" "it is even a vapour, that appeareth for a
little time, and then vanishcth away." Who OOllld
afford to forget a thought like that, when once its
beaut)' had struck root within the mind? And if
( iOd did not rather cha
of truth to perpetuate an a: :ie of the l&OSt

246 WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?

solid thoughts of life, is it not just because He
wanted it to be remembered evermore — because He
wanted the thought of the shortness and uncertainty
of life to live in every living soul, and haunt the
heart in times when other thoughts were passionless
and dull ? In childhood, before deeper thoughts had
come, He would paint this truth, in delicate tints, on
every opening soul ; and in riper years, when trouble
and sickness came and weaned the broken mind
from sterner thoughts, He would have the man still
furnished with these ever-preaching pictures of the
frailty of his life.

Why is it that there is such strange attractiveness
to many hearts in the Bible thoughts of time, and
why the peculiar charm with which the least religious
minds will linger over the texts which speak of
human life ? It is because God has thrown an
intensely living interest around these truths, by carry-
ing His images of the thoughts He most wanted
remembered into the great galleries of the imagina-
tion, where the soul can never tire. Had such
thoughts been left to reason, it would have stifled
them with its cold touch ; had they been sunk in the
heart, it would have consumed itself and them in hot
and burning passion ; but in the broad region of the
imagination there is expansiveness enough for even
such vast truths to wander at their will, and power
and mystery enough to draw both heart and reason
after them in wondering, trembling homage. And
if no day almost passes over our heads without some

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? 247

silent visitation to remind us what we are, it is
because the Bible has utilised all the most common
things of life to bring home these lessons to the soul,
so that no shadow on the wall, nor blade of withered
grass, is not full of meanings which every open heart
can read.

Now, it is a remarkable fact, in this connection,
that the Bible has used up almost every physical
image that is in any way appropriate to the case.
And if we were to go over the conceptions of life
which have been held by great men in succeeding
ages of the world, we should find scarce anything new,
scarce anything which the Bible had not used before.

There lie scattered throughout this Book no fewer
than eighteen of these answers, and all in metaphor,
to the question, " What is your life?" And any one
who has not before gathered them together, cannot
but be surprised at the singular beauty and appro-
priateness of the collection. To begin with, let us
run over their names. " What is your life ? " It is

A tale that is told. A sleep.

A pilgrim A vapour.

A shadow.

A wift ship. A flower.

A handbreadth. A weaver's shuttle.

A shepherd's tent Water spilt on the

moved. ground

A thread cut by the IM,

iver. Wind.

A dream. Nothing,

248 WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?

Generally speaking, the first thing to strike one
about these images is that they are all quick things —
there is a suggestion of brevity and evanescence
about them, and this feeling is so strong that we
might fancy there was only one answer to the ques-
tion, What is your life? namely, Your life is short.
But if we look closer at them for a moment, shades
of difference will begin to appear, and we shall find
the hints of other meanings as great and striking,
and quite as necessary to complete the conception
of "your life."

First of all, then, and most in detail, three of these
metaphors give this answer : —

I. Your life is a very little thing. We have ad-
mitted that life is a very great thing. It is also a
very little thing. Measure it by its bearing on
eternity ; there is no image in God's universe to
compare with it for majesty and dignity. It is a
sublime thing — Life. But measure it by its bearings
upon time, by its results on the world, on other
lives ; there is no image too small to speak of its
meanness and narrowness, for it is a little thing,
"Your life." It is "a shadow," it is "a shepherd's
tent removed," it is " a tale that is told."

A Shadow. It is unreal ; it is illusory. It falls
across the world without affecting it ; perhaps it only
darkens it. Then it rises suddenly, and is gone. It
leaves few impressions ; and if it could, shadow
cannot act much on other shadows. So life at the
best is a poor, resultless, shadowy thing.

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? 249

A Shepherd's Tent Removed. Just before sunset
the slopes of the Eastern hills would be dotted with
Arab tents. And when night fell, the traveller in
these lands, as he lay down to rest, would see the
glimmering of their fires and hear the noisy bleating
of their flocks. But in the morning, when he looked
out, both herds and herdsmen would be gone. Hours
ago, perhaps, the tents had been struck, and the hills
would be silent and lonely as if no foot had ever
stirred the dew on their slopes before. So man, the
Bible says, traces out his trackless path through life.
He is here to-day, in the noise of the world's
labour; to-morrow, when you look for him, he is
gone. Through the night sometime his frail tent
has been struck, and his place is empty and still. His
life has left no track to tell that it was there — except
a burnt-out fire to show that there a shepherd's tent
had been removed.

Hut the best of these images is the third — A Tale
that is told. Some think this means a thought or
meditation. "Your life is a meditation," as the margin
has it. But as the psalm in which the words occur
was written by Moses, it is probable that the obvious
meaning of the words is the correct one. In their
journeyinga the children of Israel would have many

wear)', unoccupied hours. There would be no 1
lieve the monotony, and no doubt the p
would attempt to beguile the tedious inarches and
the l<>ng hours by the camp lues at night, with the
familiar Oriental CUStom of narrating persona] adven-

250 WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?

tures in the form of stories or tales. Night after
night, as this went on, the different tales of the story-
tellers would begin to get mixed, then to confuse
their audience, then even to weary them. The first
tale, which made a great impression once, would lose
its power, and the second, which was thought more
wonderful still, would be distanced by the third.
Then the third would be forgotten, and the fourth and
the fifth ; till all would be forgotten, and last night's
tale would be the vivid picture in every mind to-day.
But the story-teller would know that to-night another
would have his turn, and sit in the place of honour,
and tell a more vivid tale than he told the night
before, and his would be forgotten and ignored.

So we do spend our years as a tale that is told.
The dead have told their tales ; they have said their
say. They thought we would remember what they
did and said. But, no ; they are forgotten. They
have become old stories now. And our turn will
come — our turn to stop ; our turn for the Angel of
Death to close the chapter of our life, whether it be a
novel or a psalm, and write the universal " Finis " at
the end. What though a sentence here and there
may linger for a few brief years to find a place —
without quotation marks — in some tale better told,
the tale itself must close and be forgotten, like the
rest, an ill-told, ill-heard, and ill-remembered tale.

II. There is, next, and briefly, another set of meta-
phors which bring out the more common answer
(which, therefore, it will only be necessary to name),

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? 251

that Life is a short thing. Shortness, of course, is
different from littleness. A lightning flash is short,
but not little. But life is both short and little.
And there are two ways in which life is short: (1)
Measured by growth. (2) Measured by minutes.
Those who are growing most feel time shortest.
They have started with the wrecks of being to fashion
themselves into men, and life is all too short to do
it in. Therefore they work out their salvation with
fear and trembling — fearful lest death should come,
trembling lest life should stop before it is worked
out. But they who measure life by its minutes have
nothing to say of its brevity ; for their purpose it is
long enough. It is not more time they want, but
" the more capacious soul," as some one says, " to flow
through every pore of the little that they have." But
there is no distinction in the Bible treatment of the
two. Time is the same to all. It is a kandbrtadth;
a ice aver s shuttle ; nothing ; an eagle hasting to the
prey ; a swift post ; a sicift ship. David used to pray
to God to give him a measure for his days. Well, he
got it. It was the breadth of his hand. W'c cany

about with us continually the measure of our days.

4 My (1 ivs arc as an handbrcadth."

The others are familiar symbols enough. The
weaver's shuttle —is it the monotony, the same

instant repetition of life? Rather the quickness,
the rapid flight through the thin web of time; the
shuttle bdng then, perhaps the quick ! men

had.

252 WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?

Then those in the country in early times could
know nothing more rapid or sudden than the swoop
of an eagle on its prey ; then, by the seaside, nothing
more fleet than the swift sailing away of a ship driven
by the unseen wind, or the hasty arrival of the "swift
post " or messenger with tidings from afar. And it
was not for want of opportunity if they did not learn
their lessons well in those simple days, when the few
changes life had were each thus stamped with the
thought of the great change into eternity.

III. The next thought is so closely allied to this
that one can scarcely separate it but for convenience
It suggests the idea of transitoriness. Your life is a
transitory thing. It is a thing of change. There is
no endurance in it, no settling down in it, no real
home to it here. Therefore God calls it a pilgrimage —
a passing on to a something that is to be. Still
closely allied to this, too, is the simile of the text —
that life is a vapour. It means there is no real sub-
stance in it. It is a going and coming for a
moment, then a passing away for ever. And then
there are two or three metaphors which advance this
idea still further. In their hands life passes from
transitoriness into mystery. This life of ours, they
show us, is a mysterious thing. And, it is true, life is
a mysterious thing. We do not understand life — why
it should begin, why it should end. There is some
meaning in it somewhere that has baffled every
search ; some meaning beyond, some more real state
than itself. So the Bible calls it a sleep, a dream,

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? 253

the wind. No book but the Bible could have called
our life a sleep. The great book of the Greeks has
called death a sleep : —

" Death's twin-brother, Sleep."

But the Bible has the profounder thought. Life is
the sleep. Death is but the waking. And the great
poets and philosophers of the world since have found
no deeper thought of life than this ; and the greatest
of them all has used the very word — our little life
is rounded with a sleep. It seems to have been a
soothing thought to them, and it may be a sanctifying
thought to us, that this life is not the end ; and there-
fore it is a wise thing to turn round sometimes in
our sleep, and think how there is more beyond than
dreams.

There are but two thoughts more to bring our
questions to a close, and they will add a practical
interest to what has gone before.

IV. What is your life? Life is an irrevocable tiling.
We have just finished an irrevocable year. As we
look back upon it, every thought and word and act
of it is there in its place, just as we left it. There
are all the Sabbaths in their places, and all the
Well-Spent days or ill-spent days between. There is

every sin ami every wish and every look still in

its own exact surroundings, each under its own
day of the in.. nth, at the | I the

day it happened Wo are leaving it all at twelve

(/clock to-night ; but; remember, we leave it exactly
a. it stands. No single hour of it can I

254 WHAT IS YOUR LIFE?

now, no smallest wish can be recalled, no angry
word taken back. It is fixed, steadfast, irrevocable
— stereotyped for ever on the past plates of eternity.
Our book has a wonderful metaphor for this — " ivater
spilt upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up
again." No ; we cannot gather up these days and
put them back into Time's breaking urn, and live
them over again. They are spilt upon the ground,
and the great stream of Time has sucked them up,
and cast them already on the eternal shores among
all bygone years, and there they bide till God's
time comes, and they come back, one by one, in
order as they went, to meet us again and Him
before the Judgment Bar. To-morrow is to be a
time of resolution, is it ? Well, let this resolution
take the foremost place of all, that, when this day
of next year comes, and we look once more at the
irrevocable past, there shall be fewer things to wish
undone, or words to wish unsaid, and more spots
where memory shall love to linger still, more steps
which, when retraced in thought, will fill the heart
with praise.

V. Lastly : life is more than an irrevocable thing
it is an uncertain thing — so certainly uncertain,
that it is certain we shall not all be here to
see this next year close. What means the
grim image in the Bible of the weaver's thread
suspended in the air, and the blade of the
lifted knife just touching it with its edge ? It
means that you must die. The thread of your

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE? 255

life is to be cut. The knife may be lifted now,
the keen blade just touching it ; one pressure of the
hand, and it is done. One half, left unfinished,
still hanging to the past — the other, dropped noise-
lessly into eternity. Oh, life is an abruptly clos-
ing thing! Is it not as grass? In the morning,
it groweth up and flourisheth ; in the evening, it
is cut down and withereth. Is your life ready for
the swiftly falling knife, for the Reaper who stands
at your door ? Have you heard that there is
another life — a life which cannot die, a life which,
linked to your life, will make the past still bright
with pardon and the future rich with hope? This
life is in His Son.

"The God of our d
hath chosen the'*,
thou shouldest know H.s
will." — Acts .wii. 14.

What is God's Will ?

WE resume to-day a subject, the thread of
which has been broken by the interval of a
few Sabbaths— the .subject of the Will of God.
Already we have tried to learn two lessons : —

1. That the end of our life is to do the will of
God.

2. That this was the end of Christ's life.

It will help to recall what has gone before if we
compare this with another definition of the end of
life with which we are all familiar.

Of course this is not the most complete statement
of the end of our life; but it is the must practical,
and it will recall the previous conclusions if we refer
to this for a moment.

Our Shorter Catechism, for in stance, puts the end
of life quite in different words. " .Man's chief end,"

ify God and enjoy Him for r
But this a:: v.cv is just 1 I >l 11^. There 1

much in it. It is really the same answer, but turned

towar- at to understand

as 1 1 ; .dl)' true. It i-; wonderfully

•her, but i* .1:

1 7

253 WHAT IS GOD'S WILL?

expresses the end of life God-ward — determines the
quality of all the things we do by the extent to
which they make way in the world for the everywhere
coming glory of God. But this is too wonderful for
us. We want a principle life-ward as well as God-
ward. We want something to tell us what to do
with the things beneath us and around us and within
us, as well as the things above us. Therefore there
is a human side to the Shorter Catechism's answer.

What is the chief end of man ?

Man's chief end is to do the will of God.

In one sense this is not such a divine answer. But
we are not divine. We understand God's will : God's
glory, only faintly — we are only human yet, and
"glory" is a word for heaven.

Ask a schoolboy, learning the first question in the
Catechism, to do a certain thing for the glory of
God. The opportunity of doing the thing may be
gone before the idea can be driven into the boy's
head of what the glory of God means. But tell
him to do the thing because it is God's will that
he should do it — he understands that. He knows
that God's will is just what God likes, and what he
himself probably does not like. And the conception
of it from this side is so clear that no schoolboy even
need miss the end of life — for that is simply doing
what God likes. If our souls are not great enough,
then, to think of God's glory as the practical rule of
life, let them not be too small to think of God's will.
And if we look after the end of life from this side,

WHAT IS GOD'S WILL? 250

God will from the other. Do we the will of God,
God will see that it glorifies God.

Let us suppose, then, that after casting about for
an object in life, we have at last stopped at this —
the end of my life is to do the will of God. Let
us suppose also that we have got over the disappoint-
ment of finding that there is nothing higher fur us
to do in the world. Or, perhaps, taking the other
side, suppose we are beginning to feel the splendid
conviction that, after all, our obscure life is not to be
wasted : that having this ideal principle within it,
it may yet be as great in its homely surroundings
as the greatest human life, — seeing that no man can
do more with his life than the will of God, — that
though we may never be famous or powerful, or
called to heroic suffering or acts of self-denial which
will vibrate through history : that though we are
neither intended to be apostles nor missionaries nor]
martyrs, but to be common people living in common J
houses, spending the day in common offices or com-"
mon kitchen^, yet doing the will of God there, we

shall do as much as apostle or missionary or martyr

— teeing that they can do no more than do God's
will where they are, even as we can do as much
where we are— and answer the end of our life as

trul\-, faithfully, and triumphantly as the)-.

Suppose we feel all this, and desire, as we stand on
the threshold of the truly ideal life, that, God helping
us, we shall live it if we may, v.
with tin- question, How are we I ROW what

260 WHAT IS GOD'S WILL?

the will of God can be ? The chief end of life is to
do the will of God. Question : How am I to know
the will of God — to know it clearly and definitely ?
Is it possible? and if so, how?

Now, to begin with, we have probably an opinion

on the matter already. And if you were to express

it, it would be this : that it is not possible. You have

thought about the will of God, and read and thought,

J and thought and read, and you have come to this

I conclusion, that the will of God is a very mysterious

j thing — a very mysterious thing, which some people

fmay have revealed to them, but does not seem in any
way possible to you.

Your nature is different from other people's ; and
though you have strained your eyes in prayer and
thought, you have never seen the will of God yet.
And if you ever have been in the same line with it,
it has only been by chance, for you can see no prin-
ciple in it, nor any certainty of ever being in the
same line again. One or two special occasions, in-
deed, you can recall when you thought you were near
the will of God, but they must have been special
interpositions on God's part. He does not show His
will every day like that : once or twice only in a life-
time, that is as much of this high experience as one
ever dare expect.

Now, of course, it is no use going on to find out
what God's will is if the thing is impossible. If this
experience is correct — and we cannot know God's
will for the mystery of it — we may as well give up

WHAT IS GOD'S WILL? 261

the ideal life at once. But if you examined this
experience, even cursorily, you would find at once
how far away from the point it is.

1. In the first place, it is merely an experience;
it is exclusively based on your own experience, not
on God's thoughts regarding it, but on your own
thoughts. The true name for this is presumption.

2. It assumes that, the end of life being to do
God's will, and you not being able to know God's
will, are therefore not responsible for fulfilling the
end of life. This is self-deception.

3. It suggests the idea that God could teach you
His will if He liked, seeing that He had do:.
once or twice by your own admission. And yet,
though He wants you to do His will, and you want
it too, He deliberately refuses to tell you what it is.
This is an accusation against God.

It is something worse than unreasonable, therefore,
to say that we think it hopeless fur us ever to know
God's will. On the contrary, indeed, there is a strong
imption that we should find it out For if it

important a thing that the very end of life is involved

in it, it would be absurd to imagine that God should

keep us the least in the dark as to what His
will may mean.

And this presumption is changed into a certainty

when we balance <>ur minds for a moment on the
terms of this text "The God Of our fathers hath

n thee, that thou shouldest know His wilL" It
is not simply a matter of presumption, it i.; a matter

262 WHAT IS GOD'S WILL?

of election. Have you ever thought of this strange,
deep calling of God ? We are called to salvation, we
have thought of that ; we are called to holiness, we
have thought of that ; but as great as either is this,
we are called to know God's will. We are answer-
ing our call in other ways ; are we answering it in
this ? What is God's will ? Are we knowing God's
will ? How much have we learned of that to which
we have been called ? And is it our prayer continu-
ally, as it was his to whom these words were said,
that we may be " filled with the knowledge of His
will " ?

It is a reasonable object of search, then, to find
out what God's will for us may be. And it is a
reasonable expectation that we may find it out so
fully as to know at any moment whether we be in
the line of it or no ; and when difficulty arises about
the next step of our life, we may have absolute cer-
tainty which way God's will inclines. There are
many kinds of assurance in religion ; and it is as im-
portant to have assurance of God's will as to have
assurance of God's salvation. For just as the loss of
assurance of salvation means absence of peace and
faith, and usefulness, so absence of assurance of
God's will means miserable Christian life, imperfect
Christian character, and impaired Christian use-
; fulness.

We start our investigation, therefore, in the belief
that God must have light for all of us on the subject
of His will, and with the desire to have assurance in

WHAT IS GOD'S WILL? _ j

the guidance of our life by God as clear and strong
as of its redemption and salvation by Christ.

In one sense, of course, no man can know the will
of God, even as in one sense no man can know God
Himself. God's will is a great and infinite mystery
— a thing of mighty mass and volume, which can no
more be measured out to hungry souls in human sen-
tences than the eternal knowledge of God or the
boundless love of Christ. But even as there is a
sense in which one poor human soul can hold enough
of the eternal knowledge of God and the boundless
love of Christ, so is there a sense in which God can
put as much of His will into human words as human
hearts can bear — as much as human wills can will or
human lives perform.

When we come to put this will into words, we find
that it divides itself into two great parts.

I. There is a part of God's will which every one
may know — a universal part.

II. A part of God's will which no one knows but
you — a particular part.

A universal part — for every one. A particular part
— for the individual.

I. To begin with the first. There is a part of

God'fl will which every one ma)' know. It is written

in Divine characters in two ia ks, which

every man may read. The one i i; the

. the other is Nature. The Bib! I I will

in words, in forma] thoughts, i;i N '

God's will in matter and ti-oue and fol

2b4 AVHAt IS GOD'S WILL?

not often considered a part of God's will. But it is
a part, and a great part, and the first part. And
perhaps one reason why some never know the
second is because they yield no full obedience to
the first. God's law of progress is from the lower
to the higher ; and scant obedience at the beginning
of His will means disobedience with the rest. The
laws of nature are the will of God for our bodies.
As there is a will of God for our higher nature — the
moral laws — as emphatically is there a will of God
for the lower — the natural laws. If you would know
God's will in the higher, therefore, you must begin
with God's will in the lower : which simply means
this — that if you want to live the ideal life, you must
begin with the ideal body. The law of moderation,
the law of sleep, the law of regularity, the law of
exercise, the law of cleanliness — this is the law or will
of God for you. This is the first law, the beginning of
His will for you. And if we are ambitious to get on
to do God's will in the higher reaches, let us respect
it as much in the lower ; for there may be as much
of God's will in minor things, as much of God's will
in taking good bread and pure water, as in keeping
a good conscience or living a pure life. Whoever
heard of gluttony doing God's will, or laziness, or
uncleanness, or the man who was careless and wanton
of natural life? Let a man disobey God in these,
and you have no certainty that he has any true
principle for obeying God in anything else : for
God's will does not only run into the church and

WHAT IS GODS WILL? 265

the prayer-meeting and the higher chambers of the
soul, but into the common rooms at home down to
wardrobe and larder and cellar, and into the bodily
frame down to blood and muscle and brain.

This, then, is the first contribution to the contents
of the will of God. And, for distinction, they may
be called the physical contents.

Next in order we come to the moral contents, both
of these coming under the same head as parts of
God's will which every one may know.

These moral contents, as we have seen, are con-
tained in the Word of God ; and the Bible has a
variety of names for them, such as testimonies, laws,
precepts, statutes, commandments.

Now this is a much more formidable array than
the physical contents. It is one thing to be in physi-
cal condition — a prize-fighter may be that — but it is
quite another to be in moral condition. And it is a
difficult matter to explain exactly what God's will I
in this great sense is ; for, on the one hand, there
[s the danger of elevating it BO high as to frighten
the timid soul from ever attempting to reach it, and,
on the other, the insensible tendency to lower it to

human standards and aims.

It must be understood, however, to tin* full that,

its formidableness is concerned, that is
absolutely unchangeable. God's moral law cannot
be toned down into anything
lutely moral, less Infinitely significant Whatever it

I , i I meant fur ever)- man in i: rigid trutl

266 WHAT IS GOD'S WILL?

the definite and formal expression of God's will for
him.

From the moral side there are three different de-
partments of God's will. Foremost, and apparently
most rigid of all, are the Ten Commandments. Now
the Ten Commandments contain, in a few sentences,
lone of the largest-known portions of God's will.
They form the most strict code of morality in the
world : the basis of all others, the most venerable
and universal expression of the will of God for man.
Following upon this there come the Beatitudes of
Christ. This is another large portion of God's will.

I This forms the most unique code of morality in the
world, the most complete and lovely additional ex-
pression of the will of God for Christians. Passing
through the human heart of Christ, the older com-
mandment of the Creator becomes the soft and
mellow beatitude of the Saviour — passes from the
colder domain of law with a penalty on failure, to
the warm region of love with a benediction on suc-
cess. These are the two chief elements in the moral
part of the will of God for man. But there is a
third set of laws and rules, which are not to be found
exactly expressed in either of these. The Ten Com-
mandments and the Beatitudes take up most of the
room in God's will, but there are shades of precept
still unexpressed which also have their place. Hence
we must add to all this mass of law and beatitude
many more laws and many more beatitudes which
lie enclosed in other texts, and other words of Christ,

WHAT IS GOD'S WILL? 207

which have their place like the rest as portions of
God's will.

Here, then, we already know a great part of what
God's will is ; although, perhaps, we have not often
called it by this name. And it may be worth while,
before going on to find out any more, to pause for
a moment and find out how to practise this.

For, perhaps, when we see how great a thing it is,
this will of God, our impulse for the moment is to
wish we had not known. We were building our-
selves up with the idea that we were going to try
this life, and that it was easy and smooth compared
with the life we left. There was a better future
owning to us, with visions of happiness and holi-
ness and even of usefulness to God But our hopes
are dashed now. How can we do God's will? — this
complicated mass of rules and statutes, each bristling
with the certainty of a thousand brca How

can we keep these ten grave laws, with their un-
flinching scorn of compromise and exacting obliga-
tion, to the uttermost jot and tittle? How can our
m its breathe the exquisite air of these

beatitudes, or fit our wayward wills to the narrow
mould of all these binding texts? Can God know
how weak we are, and blind and biassed towards
the 1- f we thought of Him? Can

lie think how impossible it is to keep these laws,
(<<v one ., ached, experimental hour?

Did Christ ivally mean it — not thing

than this— when He taught in the ideal |

268 WHAT IS GOD'S WILL?

God's will was to be done on earth even as it is done
in heaven ?

There can be but one answer, " God hath chosen
thee, that thou shouldest know His will." And God
expects from each of us neither less nor more than
this. He knows the frailty of our frame ; He re-
members we are dust. And yet such dust that
He has given each of us the divinest call to the
vastest thing in heaven. There, by the side of our
frailty, He lays down His holy will — lays it down
confidingly, as if a child could take it in its grasp}
and, as if He means the child to fondle it and bear
it in its breast, He says, " If a man love Me, he will
keep My words."

There must be something, therefore, to ease the
apparent hopelessness of doing this will of God —
something to give us heart to go on with it, to give
strength to obey God's call. We were not pre-
pared to find it running in to the roots of things like
this ; but there must be something brighter some-
where than the dark side we have seen. Well, then,
let us think for a moment on these points.

1. In the first place, there must be such laws.
God is a King — His kingdom the kingdom of
heaven. His people are His subjects. Subjects
must have laws. Therefore we start with a necessity.
Laws must be.

2. But who are afraid of laws ? Good subjects ?
Never. Criminals are afraid of laws. Who dread
the laws of this country, cry out against them,

WHAT IS GOD'S WILL? 269

and would abolish them if they could ? Drunkards,
thieves, murderers. Who love the laws of this
country ? The honest, the wise and good. Then
who are afraid of God's laws — would abolish them
if they could ? The wicked, the profligate, the
licentious. But you would not. The just and holy,
the pure in heart and life love them, respect
them. More still, they demand them. It would
be no kingdom without them — no kingdom worth
belonging to. If it were not for its laws of truth and
purity, and its promise of protection from un-
righteousness and sin, it would have no charm for
them. It is the inaccessible might and pun-
will in the kingdom of God that draw all other wills
as subjects to its sway. It is not only not hard,
therefore, that there should be such elements in <
will as law ; it is a privilege. And it is more than a
privilege to have them.

3. It is a privilege to do them. And it is a
liar privilege, this. It consists partly in i

ting that they are laws — in changing their names,
commandment, precept, testimony, statute, into this
— the will of (i kL No sternness then can enter with
the thought, for God's name! is in the name, and the

help of God, and the power of God, and the con-
straining love of Christ This tal the hope-

G "l's will. It tnaki
mal thing, a relation to a living will, 1
didactic I
And there i \ furtl nderful pi

270 WHAT IS GOD'S WILL?

When God puts down His great will beside me
telling me to do it, He puts down just beside it as
great a thing, His Love. And as my soul trembles
at the fearfulness of will, Love comes with its calm
omnipotence, and draws it to Himself; then takes my
timid will and twines it around His, till mine is fierce
with passion to serve, and strong to do His will.
Just as if some mighty task were laid to an infant's
hand, and the engine-grasp of a giant strengthened it
with his own. Where God's law is, is God's love.
Look at Law — it withers your very soul with its stern,
inexorable face. But look at Love, or look at God's
will, which means look at Love's will, and you are
re-assured, and your heart grows strong. No martyr
dies for abstract truth. For a person, for God, he
will die a triple death. So no man will die for God's
law. But for God he will do it. Where God's will,
then, seems strong to command, God's love is strong
to obey. Hence the profound texts, " Love is the
fulfilling of the law." " And this is the love of God
that we keep His commandments, and His com-
mandments are not grievous."

God's will, then, is as great as God, as high as
heaven, yet as easy as love. For love knows no
hardness, and feels no yoke. It desires no yielding
to its poverty in anything it loves. Let God be
greater, and His will sterner, love will be stronger
and obedience but more true. Let not God come
down to me, slacken truth for me, make His will
weaker for me : my interests, as subject, are safer

WHAT IS GOD'S WILL? 271

with my King, are greater with the greatness of my
King — only give me love, pure, burning love and
loyalty to Him, and I shall climb from law to law
through grace and glory, to the place beside the
throne where the angels do His will. There are
two ways, therefore, of looking at God's will — one
looking at the love side of it, the other at the law ;
the one ending in triumph, the other in despair ;
the one a liberty, the other a slaver)-. And you
might illustrate this in a simple way, to make it
finally clear, — fur this is the hardest point to hold,
— in some such way as this.

Suppose you go into a workshop occasionally, and
watch the workmen at their task. The majority do
their work in an uninterested, mechanical sort of way.
Everything is dune with the most proper exa
and precision — almost with slavish precision, a
narrower watch would say. They come exactly at
the hour in the morning, and throw down their work
to a second exactly when the closing bell has rung.
There is a certain punctiliousness about them, and a
scrupulosity about their work ; and as part cause of it,
perhaps, you ob rve an uncomfortable turning of the
head occasionally as if some eye were upon them,
then ;. | <'ii of their work again, as if it

ne under tome restraint

But among the workmen you will 1; I who

IS to work on different principles. '1.

and cheerfulness about him at DC
about hi \v>rk, which is fwre:_ \ .

272 WHAT IS GOD'S WILL?

will see him at his place sometimes even before the
bell has rung, and if unfinished work be in his hands
when closing time has come, he does not mind an
extra five minutes when all the others are gone. What
strikes you about him is the absence of that punctili-
ousness which marked the others' work. It does not
seem at all a tyranny to him, but even a freedom and
a pleasure ; and though he is apparently not so
mechanical in his movements as his mates, his work
seems better done and greater, despite the ease and
light-heartedness which mark him through its course.
Now the difference between them is this. The first
set of men are hired workmen. The man by himself
is the master's son. Not that he is outwardly differ-
ent; he is a common workman in a fustian jacket like
the rest. But he is the master's son. The first set
work for wages, come in at regulation hours lest
aught be kept off their wages, keep the workshop
laws in terror of losing their place. But the son
keeps them, and keeps them better, not for wages,
but for love.

So the Christian keeps the will or the laws of God
because of the love of God. Not because they are
workshop regulations framed and hung up before
him at every moment of his life ; but because they
are his Master's will. They are as natural to him as
air. He would never think of not keeping them.
His meat is to do the will of his Father which is in
heaven. There is no room for punctiliousness in this
the true way of doing God's will. A scrupulous

WHAT IS GOD'S WILL? 27-

Christian is a hired servant and not the Master's son
II. But now, very briefly, in the second and last
place, there is an unknown part of God's will — at
least, a part which is only known to you. There is
God's will for the world, and God's will for the indi- i
vidual. There is God's will written on tables of stone <
for'all the world to read. There is God's will carved
in sacred hieroglyphic which no one reads but you.
There is God's will rolling in thunder over the life of
universal man. There is God's will dropped softly
on the believer's ear in angel whispers or spoken by
the still small voice within. This, the final element
in God's will, to distinguish it from the moral and
physical contents which go before, one might call the
more strictly spiritual content.

This is a distinct addition to the other parts — an
addition, too, which many men ignore, and other
men deny. But there is such a region in God's will
— a region unmapped in human charts, unknov.
human books, a region for the pure in heart, for the
upright, for the true. It is a land of mystery to
those who know it not, a land of foolishness, and
weaknesses, and delusive .sights and sounds. But
there is a land where the Spirit moves, a luminous
land, a walking in God's light. There is a i.
where I I wn people have their breathing from

above, where each saint's steps are ordered of the

Lord

Now tin', region may be distingui bed from

other rc;;i<mr> by its Becrecy. It is a private t!.

l'.i:. lo

274 WHAT IS GOD'S WILL?

between God and you. You want to know what
to do next — your calling in life, for instance. You
want to know what action to take in a certain
matter. You want to know what to do with
your money. You want to know whether to go
into a certain scheme or not. Then you enter into
this private chamber of God's will, and ask the
private question, " Lord, what wouldest Thou have
me to do ? "

Then it is distinguished by its action. It concerns
a different department of our life. The first part
of God's will, all that has gone before, affects our
character. But this affects something more. It
affects our career. And this is an important dis-
tinction. A man's career in life is almost as impor-
tant as his character in life ; that is to say, it is
almost as important to God, which is the real
question. If character is the end of life, then the
ideal career is just where character can best be
established and developed. A man is to live for his
character. But if God's will is the end of life, God
may have a will for my career as well as for my
character, which does not mean that a man is to
live for his career, but for God's will in his charac-
ter through his career.

I may want to put all my work upon my character.
But God may want my work for something else.
He may want to use me, for instance ; I may not
know why, or when, or how, or for whom. But it is
possible He may need me, for something or other at

WHAT IS GODS WILL? 270

some time or other. It may be all through my life,
or at some particular part of my life which may be
past now, or may be still to come. At all events, I
must hold myself in readiness and let Him trace my
path ; for though it does not look now as if He had
anything for me to do, the next turn of the road may
bring it ; so I must watch the turnings of the road for
God. Even for the chance of God needing me it is
worth while doing this — the chance of Him needing
me even once. There is a man in Scripture whom
God perhaps used but once. He may have done
many other things for God; still, there was one
thing God gave him to do so far overshadowing
all other things that he seems to have done but
this. He seems, indeed, to have been born, to have
lived and died for this. It is the only one thing ,
we know about him. But it is a great thing. I
His name was Ananias. He was the instrument in I
the conversion of Paul. What was he doing in'
Damascus that day, when Paul arrived under con-
viction of sin ? Why was he living in Damascus at
all ? Because he was born there, and his father
before him, perhaps you will say. Let it be BO, A
few will be glad to cherish a higher thought He

d man, and his steps were ordered — by

ordinary means, if you like — by the Lord. Could
Ananias not have been as good a man in Jericho or

Antioch, or Ephesus? Quite as good Hi- chai
might almost have been the same. But his career

would have been different. And, possibly, his char-

276 WHAT IS GOD'S WILL?

acter might have been different from the touch of
God upon his career. For when God comes into a
man's career, it sometimes makes a mighty difference
on his character — teaches him to live less for char-
acter and for himself, and more for his career and for
God, rather more for both — more for his character by
living more for his career. Gold is gold wherever it
is ; but it is some difference to the world whether it
make a communion cup or gild the proscenium of a
theatre.

There is a difference, then, between God in char-
acter and God in career. You may have God in
your character .vithout having God in your career.
Perhaps you should have been in London to-day,
perhaps in China. Perhaps you should have been a
missionary ; perhaps you should be one yet. Per-
haps you should have been in poorer circumstances,
or in a different business altogether. Perhaps you
have chosen a broader path than God would have
willed for you. Your character may not seem to have
suffered ; but your career has. You may be doing
God's will with one hand consecrated to Christ, and
making your own autobiography with the other
consecrated to self.

Would you know the will of God, then ? Consult
God about your career. It does not follow because
He has done nothing with you last week or last year,
He may have nothing for you now. God's will in
career is mostly an unexpected thing — it comes as
a surprise. God's servants work on short notices.

WHAT IS GOD'S WILL? 277

Paul used to have to go off to what was the end of
the world in those days, on a few hours' warning.
And so may you and I. It is not a thing to startle
us, to alarm us, to make us say, "If this might be
the upshot we would let God's will alone." It would
be a wonderful privilege to come to you or me ;
yes, a wonderful privilege that He should count us
worthy to suffer this or anything more for Him.

]5iit you are old, you say. Ananias was old. Or
steeped in a profession. Paul was steeped in a pro-
m. Or you are inexperienced and young. A
lad came to Jesus once with five loaves and two J
small fishes; but they fed five thousand men. So
bring your lad's experience, your young offer of
service, and God may use you to twice five thousand
souls. That does not mean that you are to do it.
But be in God's counsels, and He will teach you
whether or no.

How are you to know this secret will of God? It
reat question. We cannot touch it now.
this suffice. It can be known. It can be km-.
you. The steps of a good man are ordered by the
Lord. " I will guide thee with 'Mine eye"
the upright in heart Me shall cause light to
in darkness. This is no mysticism, no visionary's

1. It is not to drown the reason with enthusi-

a in', airy hope or supersede the word "t" God with
fanati Mo, it is not tl

v. hat ( l.i i | • aid, " 1 ! 1 [e

calleth 1 i ' >y name, and lead* th th<

" I his is the will of God, even your
sanctification." — i Thess. iv. 3.
"As He which hath called you is
holy, so be ye holy in all manner
of conversation; because it is \sr.t-
ten, 'Be ye holy, for I am holy.'"

— 1 Pet. i. 15, 16.

" Lo, I come to do Thy will. O God.
. . . By the which will we are
sanctified through the offering of the
body of Jrsus Christ ence for all."
— HBB. ::. 9, 10.

The Relation of the Will
of God to Sanctification

OUR discussion of the will of God landed us —
perhaps in rather an unforeseen way — in the
great subject of sanctification. You may remember
that we made this discovery, that the end of
sanctification, in the sense of consecration, i s I
the will of God, and that the proof was

words : u Present your bodies a living I
fice, holy, acceptable unto God, and be not con-
this world." Why ? " That ye may |

what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of
God." We are to present ourselves to I

I ant and luxurious thing to live

in tl: ation, but to do the w

God, ( )r, to sum this up in a
might read : " I
the will of God.'1

280 THE RELATION OF THE WILL

But our text to-day is apparently the very opposite
of this. " This is the will of God, even your sancti-
fication." Then it looked as if sanctification was in
order to the will of God ; now it looks as if the will
of God was in order to sanctification.

It is evident, therefore, that there is still something
in this part of the subject which demands a clearance.
And in order to gain this it will be necessary to pre-
sent the other side of the same question, and com-
plete the view of the subject of holiness itself.

There are in the Bible two great meanings to the
word sanctification. The first may be roughly called
the Old Testament word. The second is identified,
but not exclusively, with the New. The Old Testa-
ment meaning had this peculiarity, that it did not
necessarily imply any inward change in the heart
sanctified. In fact, it was not even necessarily ap-
plied to hearts at all, but to things. A field could
be sanctified, a house could be sanctified, an altar,
a tabernacle, gold and silver vessels, the garments of
the priest, the cities of refuge. Anything, in short,
that was set apart for sacred use was said to be
sanctified. But. the New Testament word had a
deeper meaning. It meant not only outward conse-
cration, but inward holiness. It meant an internal
purification of the heart from all uncleanness, and
an enduing it with the mind of Christ. It was
not a mere separation like the first, but a visitation —
a separation from the lower world, and a visitation
from the higher, the coming in of God's Spirit from

OF GOD TO SANCTIFICATIOX 28]

above with a principle of holiness that was to work
an inward likeness to the character of God.

The practical object of the first process is mainly
to put the thing in position where God can use it.
A golden candlestick was sanctified, so that it might
be of some use to God. A house was sanctified, t 1
that it might be exclusively I lis — to do what He
liked with. In like manner a man is consecrated —
that God may use him. It is the process by which
he is got into position for God. And all that sancti-
ffcation does fur him, in the first sense of the word,
is so to put him in position that he shall always be
within reach of God — that he shall do what
likes, do, that is to say, what God wills.

But there is something more in sanctification than
man's merely being a tool in the hands of God. If
there were not, automatons could do the work far
better than men. They would never oppose God's
will, and they would always be in position. J I
will has a reaction upon the instruments whom
He employs, God's will does not stop with His will,
as it were. It recoils back upon the person using it,
and benefits him. If the instrument is a sanctified
cup, or a sanctified house, it does not recoil buck, and
make an internal change in them ; but if it is a j
Who does God's will, God's will is not only done, but

the person or doer is aflected. God never 1 any-

thing all to Himself. He who SO loved the \
that He gave His only begotten Son, He not

with 1 lim also fir us all thini ? Hi

232 THE RELATION OF THE WILL

is for us, His love is for us, His will is for us. How
do we know that it is for us ? Because this is the
will of God, even your sanctification. Whatever else
may be involved in it, this is in it ; whatever else He
may get from it, this is something which you get,
your sanctification. " By the which will," as Hebrews
says, " we are sanctified." " This is My will, not
My gain, but yours ; not My eternal advantage, but
yours ; not My holiness, but ' your sanctification.' "
Do you think God wants your body when He asks
you to present it to Him ? Do you think it is for
His sake that He asks it, that He might be enriched
by it ? God could make a thousand better with a
breath. It is for your sake He asks it. He wants
your gift to give you His gift — your gift which was
just in the way of His gift. He wants your will out
of the way, to make room for His will. You give
everything to God. God gives it all back again, and
more. You present your body a living sacrifice that
you may prove God's will. You shall prove it by
getting back your body — a glorified body. You lose
the world that you may prove God's will. God's
will is that you shall gain heaven. This is the will
of God, therefore, that you should gain heaven. Or
this is the will of God that you should gain holiness,
for holiness is heaven. Or this is the will of God,
even your sanctification.

To sum up these facts, then, we find that they shape
themselves into these two propositions : —

I. That our sanctification, or, more strictly, our

OF GOD TO SANCTIFICATION 2S3

consecration, is in order to the will of God, "to prove
what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of
God."

2. That this reacts upon ourselves — a conspicuous
part of God's will being that we should be personally
holy. " This is the will of God, even your sanctifi-
cation."

The first of these has already been discussed, and
now the question comes to be how we can best fulfil
this conspicuous part of the will of God and become
holy ourselves. It is God's will for all of us that we
should become holy. How are we to become holy ?

We have probably asked this question mail)' tiir.es
already in our life. We have thought, and read, and
prayed about it, and perhaps have never yet reached
the conclusion how indeed we are to become holy.
Perhaps the question has loi timed an

and evasive form with us, ''When are we
become holy ? " or perhaps a hopeless form, ■ .
ire we to become holy ? "
Now the real way OUt Of the difficulty Is t 1
a deeper question still: " Why do I want t
boly?M All the great difficulties of religion are
centred round OUT motives. Impurities in a spiritual

stream generally mean impurities at the spiritual

source. And all fertility or barreniu 1 de-

pends upon which source supplies the stream

the (! Our difficulties about becoming I

therefore, most likely lie m our 1 inting

to be >me hoi}-. For if you grant the true ra

234 THE RELATION OF THE WILL

to holiness, you need no definition of holiness.
True holiness lies in touching the true motive. We
shall get nearer the true roots of holiness, there-
fore, if we spend a little time over the root-ques-
tion : " Why do I want to be holy ? "

I. The first thing which started some of us to
search for a better life, perhaps, was Infection. We
caught an infection for a better life from some one
we knew. We were idling our own way through
life, when some one crossed our path — some one
with high aims and great enthusiasms. We were
taken with the principles on which that life was
lived. Its noble purpose charmed us : its disregard
of the petty troubles and cares of life astonished
us. We felt unaccountably interested in it. There
was a romance in its earnestness and self-denial
that captivated us, and we thought we should like
to take down our own life, and put it together
again on this new plan. So we got our first
motive to holiness.

Now this was not a wrong motive — it was only
an imperfect one. It answered its purpose — so far.
For God takes strange ways to start a man's reli-
gion. There is nothing more remarkable in the
history of conversion, for instance, than the infinite
diversity of answers to this question : " What made
you first think about your soul?" God does take
strange ways to start a man for heaven. The way
home is sometimes shown him by an unexpected
finger-post ; and from a motive so unworthy that

OF GOD TO SANCTIFICATION 28s

he dare not tell it in after-life, there comes to
many a man his first impulse toward God. And
long after he has begun to run the Christian race,
God may try to hasten his lagging steps by the
spur of a motive as far beneath an heir of heaven
as his spiritual life is beneath what it ought to be.
But the principle to be noted through it all i.^
this, that the motives which God allows us to start
on are not the ones we are to live on. It may be
adversity in business that gives us a fre.->h start. It
may be affliction, or ambition, or church-pride, or
a thousand things. But such an impulse cannot last,
and it cannot carry us far. And there must
a time to exchange it for a higher one if we would
grow in grace, or move onward into a holier life.
A man's motive must grow, if grace would grow.
And man\- a man has to live on old grace, bf
he lives on an old motive. God let us begin with
a lower one, and then when lie gave us more
grace, it was that we might get a higher die; but
we spent the grace on something else, and our

moth higher than before. So, although we

B start in religion, we were little the beth
it, and our whole life has stood still for want of a
Btronj motive to go on.

But it was that we should

I in our infection from a friend Th

another great source of infection, a:

are breat1 ttmosphl day — i

We may 1 our motives to b.

286 THE RELATION OF THE WILL

book. We found in works on ethics, and in all great
poets, and even perhaps in some novels, that the
highest aim of life was to be true and pure and good.
We found modern literature ringing with the praises
of virtue. By-and-by we began to respect it, then
to admire it, then to wish for it. Thus we caught
the enthusiasm for purity which has changed our
whole lives, in a way, and given us a chief motive
to religion.

Well, we must thank God for having given us a
start, anyhow. It is something to have begun. It
is a great thing to have an enthusiasm to be true
and pure and good. Nor will the Bible ever be
jealous of any lesser book which God may use to
stir men up to a better life. But all lesser books
sin and come short. And the greatest motives of
the greatest of the lesser books fall as far short of
the glory of God as those who live only by the
enthusiasms which are kindled on the altar of
modern literature fall short of the life and mind
of Christ. God may give these motives to a man
to start with. If he will not look into God's Book
for them, God may see fit to put something remotely
like them into men's books. Jesus Christ used to
come to men just where they were. There is no
place on earth so dark that the light of heaven
will not come to it ; and there is no spot of earth
where God may not choose to raise a monument
of His love. There is always room anywhere in the
world for a holy thought. It may come to a man

OF GOD TO SANCTIFICATIOX 2S7

on the roadside, as to Paul ; or in the fork
of a sycamore tree, as to Zacchaeus. It may
come to him at his boats, as to Peter ; or at
his Bible, as to the Eunuch. But, whether it
come at the boats, or whether it come at the Bible,
whatever is good is God's ; and men may be thank-
ful that the Giver of all good has peopled the
whole earth and air and sky with thoughts of Mis
glory, and filled the world with voices which call
men near to Him. At the same time, it must be
understood again that the initial motives are never
meant to continue us far on the road to God. As
a matter of fact, they never can continue us ; and if
a man does not get higher ones, his religion must,
and his morality may, come to a bitter end. The
melancholy proof occurs to every one in a moment,
that those who inspire us with these almost Divine
enthusiasms are, and have been, many of them,
degraded men and women themselves For if a
man's motives to goodness are not higher than the
enthusiasms of his own higher nature, the chai
are that the appeals of his lower nature, in I
will either curb or degrade them.

Tl ' to holiness, then, is not t

caught from \>

3. In the next place, some of
induced to aim at a better life from prudential

matwist or from /
We had read in the Bible a very startling
— " Without holin

288 THE RELATION OF THE WILL

Lord." Now we wished to see God. And we
found the Bible full of commands to keep God's
law. So, with fear and trembling, we began to try.
Its strictness was a continual stimulus to us. We
were kept watching and praying. We lived in an
atmosphere of fear, lest we should break it. No
doubt this has done good — great good. Like the
others, it was not a bad motive — only an imperfect
one. But, like the others, it will have to be ex-
changed for a higher one, if true progress in holy
living is to be made.

4. Then some of us found another motive in
gratitude. The great love of God in Christ had
come home to us with a peculiar power. We felt
the greatness of His sacrifice for us, of His forgive-
ness of us. And we would try to return His love.
So we set our hearts with a gracious purpose
towards God. Our life and conversation should be
becoming the Gospel of Christ. We would do for
His sake what we would never do for our own
sake. But even a noble impulse like this has
failed to fulfil our heart's desire, and even our
generosity has left us little nearer God.

5. And, lastly, there is this other thought which
has sometimes helped us onward for a time — a
feeling which comes over us at Communion times,
at revival times, which Christian workers feel at
all times : " Here are we surrounded by great pri-
vileges— singled out from the world for God's
peculiar care. God comes very close to us ; the

OF GOD TO SANCTIFICATION 289

very ground is holy oftentimes. What manner of
persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and
godliness? How different we ought to be from all
the people around ! How much more separate from
every appearance of evil ! How softly we should
walk, who bear the vessels of the Lord !

Now some of these motives are very beautiful.
They are the gifts of God. Doubtless many have
attained to a cer tain measure of holiness by em-
ploying them. And they have at least awakened
in us some longings after God. But they are all
deficient, and hopelessly inadequate to carry on
what sometimes they so hopefully begin.

And they are deficient in these three ways : —

1. They are unscriptural — rather, they do not con-
vey the full scriptural truth.

2. They arc inadequate to produce more than a
small degree of holiness.

3. They never produce the true quality of
holiness.

If we have not yet had higher motives than t:
then it follows that our spiritual life is being laid
down upon principles which can never in the nature
of things yield the results we had hoped and waited

for.
We I 1 wondering why our growth

all — so small, indeed, that SOfnetfa
:ncd to cease. And as v.e look into
D.E.

290 THE RELATION OF THE WILL

our hearts, we find this one reason, at least — perhaps
the great one — that our motive is incomplete.

Now, the weakness of the old motive, apart from
the error of it, consisted in this : in the first place it
wanted authority ; in the second, it proposed no
standard. As regards the first, there was no reason
why one should strive to be better. It was left to
one's own discretion. Our friend said it, or our
favourite author, and the obligation rose or fell with
the nearness or remoteness of their influence. And
as regards the standard, our friend or our favourite
author's favourite hero was but a poor model at the
best, for only a most imperfect spiritual beauty can
ever be copied from anything made of clay.

Well, then, what is the right motive to holiness ot
life ? We have been dealing with ordinary motives
hitherto ; now we must come to extraordinary ones.
Holiness is one of the most extraordinary things in
life, and it demands the noblest motives, the noblest
impulses, or none. Now we shall see how God has
satisfied this demand of our nature for an extra-
ordinary motive to this extraordinary thing, holiness
— satisfied it so completely, that the soul, when it
finds it out, need never feel unsatisfied again. God's
motive to holiness is, " Be ye holy , for I am holy"

It is a startling thing when the voice of God comes
close to us and whispers, " Be ye holy " ; but when
the question returns from our lips, " Why should we
be holy " ? it is a more solemn thing to get this
answer, " For I am holy." This is God's motive to

OF GOD TO SANCTIFICATIOX 291

holiness — " For I am holy." Be ye holy : here is its
authority — its Divine obligation. For I am holy —
here is its Divine motive.

Be ye holy. Think of the greatness of the obliga-
tion. Long ago, when we began the Christian life,
we heard a voice, " Be ye holy." Perhaps, as we have
seen, it was an infectious voice, the voice of a friend.
Perhaps it was an inspiring voice, the voice of poetry
and literature. Perhaps it was a warning voice, the
voice of the law. But it was not a commanding
voice — the voice of God. And the reason was,
perhaps, that we were not thinking of the voice :
we were thinking of the " holy." We had caught
sight of a new and beautiful object — something
which seemed full of promise, which was to con-
secrate even the common hours of our life. The
religious world seemed bright to us then, and the
books and the men were dear that would help us to
reach out our hands to this. It was something new
that had come into our life — this fascination of
holiness. Had we been asked about the voice which
said, " Be ye holy," we should indeed have said ;;
God's. But, in truth, it was only our own voice, which
had caught some far-off echoes from our reading, or
our thinking, or our friends. There was no authority
in the voice, therefore, and it rested with our own
poor wills whether we should grow in holir.
Sometimes our will was strong, and we v.
men and women then than ever in our li\ ;

but there were intervals when

292 THE RELATION OF THE WILL

voice, "Be ye prosperous," or "Be ye happy," and
then we lost all we had gained.

But with the Divine obligation before us, it is no
longer optional that we should be holy. We must
be holy. And then see how the motive to holi-
ness is attached to the obligation to holiness — the
motive for holiness : " For I am kofy," The motive
accounts for the obligation. God's one desire for the
whole earth is that it should be holy — just because
He is holy. And the best He can do with men is to
make them like Himself. The whole earth is His, and
He would have it all in harmony with Him. God has
a right to demand that we should be holy — that
every one should be holy, and everything, just be-
cause He is holy Himself. To take even the lowest
ground, we allow no ornaments in our house that
are not lovely and pleasant to the eye. We have no
business to cumber God's earth with ourselves if we
are not holy — no business to live in the same world
with Him. We are an offence to God — discordant
notes in the music of the universe.

But God lays this high obligation upon us for our
own sake. For this we were made. For this we were
born in a Christian land. For this, strange things
have happened in our lives — strange pieces of disci-
pline have disturbed their quiet flow, strange troubles,
strange providences, strange chastenings. There is
no other explanation of the mystery of our life than
this, that God would have us holy. At any cost God
will have us holy. Whatever else we may be, this

OF GOD TO SANCTIFICATION 293

one thing we must be. This is the will of God, even
our sanctification. It is not necessary that we
should be prosperous or famous, or happy. But it is
necessary that we should be holy ; and the deepest
moments of our lives give us glimpses sometimes of a
more tender reason still why God says, " Be ye
holy " — it is for our own sakes : because it would
be hell to be unholy.

There is now only one thing wanting in our new
motive to holiness. We have discovered the sources
of its obligation far up in the counsels of God, and
deep down in the weakness of our own nature. We
have found holiness to be an absolutely necessary
virtue — to live without which is to contradict our
Maker. But we have not yet looked at its quality.
The thing we are to pursue so ardently — what is
it? How are we to shape it to ourselves when we
think of it? Is there any plain definition of it — any
form which could be easily stated and easily followed.
It may be very easily stated. It is fur those who
have tried it to say whether it be easily followed
Be ye hoi}-, as He is holy. As He is holy, as He who
who hath called you is hoi)', so be ye holy. This is
the form of holiness we are asked to aim at. This
is the standard, God's commentary on the n.

lie ... so ye." Ponder for a moment the
difference between these pronouns. He — Yc. lie
Who hath called you — Jesu s Christ Hi who did no
sin, neither was guile found in his mouth, lie who
when He was reviled, reviled QOt a<;am, when He

294 THE RELATION OF THE WILL

suffered, He threatened not. He who was without
spot or blemish, in whom even His enemies found no
fault.

Ye the fallen children of a fallen race. Ye with
hearts deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked. Ye are to become as He. The two pro-
nouns are to approach one another. The crucifiers
are to work their way up to the crucified. Ye are to
become as He. Here is a motive as high as the
holiness of God. It makes us feel as if we had our
life-work before us still. We have scarcely even
begun to be like God — for we began perhaps with
no higher motive than to be like some one else —
not like God at all. But the little betterness that
we get from books, the chance impulses that come
from other lives, have never fulfilled in us the will of
God — could never sanctify such hearts as ours and
make ye become as He.

No doubt a great deal of human good is possible
to man before he touches the character of Christ.
High human motives and human aims may make
a noble human life. But they never make a holy
life. A holy life is a life like Christ's. And what-
ever may be got from the lower motives to a better
life, one thing must necessarily be absent from them
all — the life like Christ's, or rather, the spirit like
Christ's. For the life like Christ's can only come
from Christ ; and the spirit of Christ can only be
caught from Christ.

Hence, therefore, we come at last to the profound

OF GOD TO SANCTIFICATION 295

meaning of another text which stands alone in the
Word of God and forms the only true climax to
such a subject as this.

" Lo I come to do Thy will, O God," the author of
the Hebrews quotes from David, and goes on to add,
" By the which will we are sanctified? Christ came
to do God's will, by the which will we are sanctified.
This is the will of God, even your sanctification.
But the writer of the Hebrews adds another lesson :
" By the which will we are sanctified." How? " Through
the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."
Our sanctification is not in books, or in noble enthu-
siasm, or in personal struggles after a better life. It
is in the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for
all. Justification is through the blood of Jesus Christ
once for all. Sanctification is through the body of
Jesus Christ once for all. It is not a thing to be
generated, but to be received. It is not to be gener-
ated in fragments of experience at one time and
another — it is already complete in Christ. We have
only to put on Christ. And though it may take a
lifetime of experience to make it ours, the sanctifica-
tion, whenever it come, can only Lome from Christ,
and if we ever are sanctified it will only be bee
and inasmuch as we have Christ Our sanctifu
is not what morality gives, not even what the Bible
, not even what Christ gives, it is what Christ
lives. It is Christ Himself.

The reason why we resort so much to lower fan-
life is imperfect union with Christ

296 THE WILL OF GOD

We take our doctrines from the Bible and our assur-
ance from Christ. But for want of the living bright
reality of His presence in our hearts we search the
world all round for impulses. We search religious
books for impulses, and tracts and sermons, but in
vain. They are not there. " I am Alpha and
Omega, the beginning and the end." " Christ is
all and in all." The beginning of all things is in
the will of God. The end of all things is in sanc-
tification through faith in Jesus Christ. " By the
which will ye are sanctified." Between these two
poles all spiritual life and Christian experience run.
And no motive outside Christ can lead a man to
Christ. If your motive to holiness is not as high as
Christ it cannot make you rise to Christ. For water
cannot rise above its level. " Beware, therefore, lest
any man spoil you through philosophy and vain
deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments
of the world, and not after Christ. For in Him
dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
And ye are complete in Him which is the head of all
principality and power " (2 Col. viii. 10). " Who of
God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, and
sanctification, and redemption" (1 Cor. i. 30). "As
ye have therefore received the Lord Jesus, so walk ye
in Him"

"If any man will do His
will, he shall know of the
doctrine, whether it be
of God." — John vii. 17.

How to Know the
Will of God

THERE is an experience which becomes mere
and more familiar to every one who is trying to
follow Christ — a feeling of the growing loneliness of
his Christian life. It comes from a sense of the
peculiarly personal interest which Christ takes in him,
which sometimes seems so strong as almost to make
him feel that his life is being detached from all the
other lives around him, that it is being drawn out of
the crowd of humanity, as if an unseen arm linked in
his were taking him aside for a nearer intimacy and
a deeper and more private fellowship. It is not, in-
deed, that the great family of God are to be left in
the shade for him, or that he is in any way the
favourite of heaven ; but it is the sanctifying and, in
the truest Sense, humbling realization that God makes

Himself as real to each poor unit as if he were the

whole ; so that even as in coming to Christ at fi|

felt him. elf the only lost, so now in with

Christ he feels himself the only found And .
perhaps, true that without any loss in the feelii

298 HOW TO KNOW

saintly communion with all those throughout the
world who say " Our Father " with him in their
prayers, the more he feels that Christ has all of him
to Himself, the more he feels that he has Christ all to
himself. Christ has died for other men, but in a
peculiar sense for him. God has a love for all the
world, but a peculiar love for him. God has an
interest in all the world, but a peculiar interest in
him. This is always the instinct of a near fellowship,
and it is true of the universal fellowship of God with
His own people.

But if there is one thing more than another which
is more personal to the Christian — more singularly
his than God's love or God's interest — one thing
which is a finer symbol of God's love and interest, it
is the knowledge of God's will — the private know-
ledge of God's will. And this is more personal, just
inasmuch as it is more private. My private portion of
God's love is only a private share in God's love — only
a part — the same in quality and kind as all the rest
of God's love, which all the others get from God. But
God's will is a thing for myself. There is a will oi
God for me which is willed for no one else besides.
It is not a share in the universal will, in the same
sense as I have a share in the universal love. It is a
particular will for me, different from the will He has
for any one else — a private will — a will which no one
else knows about, which no one can know about, but
me.

To be sure, as we have seen before, God had like-

THE WILL OF GOD 299

wise a universal will for me and every man. In the
Ten Commandments, in conscience, in the beati-
tudes of Christ, God tells all the world His will
There is no secret about this part, it is as universal
as His love. It is the will on which the character
of every man is to be formed and conformed to
God's

But there is a will foi career as well as for cha-
racter. There is a will for zvhere — in what place, viz.,
in this town or another town — I am to become like
God as well as that I am to become like God. There
is a will for where I am to be, and what I am to be,
and what I am to do to-morrow. There is a will fur
what scheme I am to take up, and what work I am
to do for Christ, and what business arrangements to
make, and what money to give away. This is God's
private will for me, for every step I take, for the path
of life along which He points my way \ God's will
for my career.

If I have God's will in my character, my life may
become great and good. It may be useful and hon-
ourable, and even a monument of the sanctifying
r of God. But it will only be a life. However
• and pure it be, it can be no more than a life.
And it ought to be a mission. There should be no
such thing as a Christian life, each life should be a

Ion.

I has a life-plan for every human life. In the
eternal counsels of His will, when He Arranged the

destiny of ever)- tar, and e\v:

300 HOW TO KNOW

blade, and each of those tiny insects which live but
for an hour, the Creator had a thought for you and me.
Our life was to be the slow unfolding of this thought,
as the corn-stalk from the grain of corn, or the flower
from the gradually opening bud. It was a thought
of what we were to be, of what we might become, of
what He would have us do with our days and years,
our influence and our lives. But we all had the
terrible power to evade this thought, and shape our
lives from another thought, from another will, if we
chose. The bud could only become a flower, and
the star revolve in the orbit God had fixed. But
it was man's prerogative to choose his path, his duty
to choose it in God. But the Divine right to choose
at all has always seemed more to him than his
duty to choose in God, so, for the most part, he
has taken his life from God, and cut his career for
himself.

It comes to pass, therefore, that there are two great
classes of people in the world of Christians to-day.
(i) Those who have God's will in their character;
(2) Those who have God's will likewise in their career.
The first are in the world to live. They have a life.
The second are in the world to minister. They have
a mission.

Now those who belong to the first class, those who
are simply living in the world and growing character,
however finely they may be developing their char-
acter, cannot understand too plainly that they are not
fulfilling God's will. They are really outside a great

THE WILL OF GOD 301

part of God's will altogether. They understand the
universal part, they are moulded by it, and their lives
as lives are in some sense noble and true. But they
miss the private part, the secret whispering of God in
the ear, the constant message from earth to heaven.
" Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do ? " They
never have the secret joy of asking a question like
this, the wonderful sense in asking it, of being in the
counsels of God, the overpowering thought that God
has taken notice of you, and your question — that lie
will let you do something, something peculiar, per-
sonal, private, which no one else has been given to
do — this thought which gives life for God its true
sublimity, and makes a perpetual sacrament of all
its common things. Life to them is at the best a
bare and selfish thing, for the truest springs of action
are never moved at all ; and the strangest thing in
human history, the bounding of the career from step
to step, from circumstance to circumstance, from
tragedy to tragedy, is unexplained and unrelated,
and hangs, a perpetual mystery, over life.

The great reason possibly why so few have thought
of taking God into their career is that so few have
really taken God into their life. No one ever thinks
of having God in his career, or need think, until his
life is fully moulded into God's. And no one will
succeed in knowing even what God in his career can
mean till he know what it is to have God in the
secret chambers of nil heart It requires a well-
kept life to know the will of God, and none but the

302 HOW TO KNOW

Christlike in character can know the Christ like in
career.

It has happened, therefore, that the very fact of
God's guidance in the individual life has been denied.
It is said to give life an importance quite foreign to
the Divine intention in making man. One life, it is
argued, is of no more importance than any other life,
and to talk of special providences happening every
hour of every day is to detract from the majesty and
dignity of God ; in fact, it reduces a religious life
to a mere religious caprice, and the thought that
God's will is being done to a hallucination of the
mind.

And there is another side to the objection, which
though less pronounced and definite, is subtly danger-
ous still — that there does indeed seem to be some
warrant in Scripture for getting to know the will of
God ; but that, in the first place, that probably means
only on great occasions which come once or twice in
a lifetime ; and, in the second, that the whole subject
is so obscure that, all things considered, a man had
better walk by his own common sense, and leave such
mysteries alone.

But the Christian cannot allow the question to be
put off with poor evasions like these. Every day,
indeed, and many times a day, the question rises in a
hundred practical forms. " What is the will of God
for me ? " What is the will of God for me to-day,
just now, for the next step, for this arrangement and
for that, and this amusement, and this projected work

THE WILL OF GOD 303

for Christ ? For all these he feels he must consult
the will of God ; and that God has a will for him in
all such things, and that it must be possible some-
how to know what that will is, is not only a
matter of hope, but a point in his doctrine and
creed.

Now without stopping to vindicate the reasonable-
ness of such expectations as these, it may simply be
affirmed as a matter of fact that there are a number
of instruments for finding out the will of God. One
of them is a very great instrument, so far surpassing
all the rest in accuracy that there may be said to be
but one which has never been known to fail. The
others are smaller and clumsier, much less delicate,
indeed, and often fail. They often fail to come
within sight of the will of God at all, and are so far
astray at other times as to mistake some other thing
for it. Still they are instruments, and notwithstand-
ing their defects, have a value by themselves, and
when the greater instrument employs their humbler
powers to second its attempts, they immediately be-
come as keen and as unerring as itself.

The most important of these minor instrument
Reason, and although it is a minor instrument, it is
great enough in many a case to reveal the secret will
of God. God is taking your life and chai
through a certain j run-

ning your career along a certain chain
And sometimes the light which IK- I

have tO pick your way for a few

304 HOW TO KNOW

by the dimmer light of thought. But it is God's will
for you then to use this thought, and to elevate it
through regions of consecration, into faith, and to
walk by this light till the clearer beam from His will
comes back again.

Another of these instru ments is Experience. There
are many paths in life which we all tread more than
once. God's light was by us when we walked them
first, and lit a beacon here and there along the way.
But the next time He sent our feet along that path
He knew the side-lights should be burning still, and
let us walk alone.

And then there is Circumstance. God closes
things in around us till our alternatives are all reduced
to one. That one, if we must act, is probably the
will of God just then.

And then there are the Advice of others — an im-
portant element at least — and the Welfare of others,
and the Example to others, and the many other facts
and principles which make up the moral man, which,
if not strong enough always to discover what God's
will is, are not too feeble oftentimes to determine
what it is not

Even the best of these instruments, however, has
but little power in its own hands. The ultimate
appeal is always to the one great Instrument, which
uses them in turn as it requires, and which supple-
ments their discoveries, or even supplants them if
it choose by its own superior light, and might, and
right. It is like some great glass that can sweep

THE WILL OF GOD 305

the skies in the darkest night and trace the motions
of the furthest stars, while all the rest can but see
a faint uncertain light piercing for a moment here
and there the clouds which lie between.

And this great instrument for finding out God's
will, this instrument which can penetrate where reason
cannot go, where observation has not been before,
and memory is helpless, and the guiding hand of
circumstance has failed, has a name which is seldom
associated with any end so great, a name which every
child may understand, even as the stupendous instru-
ment itself with all its mighty powers is sometimes
moved by infant hands when others have tried in
vain.

The name of the instrument is Obedience. Obe-
dience, as it is sometimes expressed, is the organ
of spiritual knowledge. As the eye is the organ of
physical sight; the mind, of intellectual sight; so
the organ of spiritual vision is this strange power,
Obedience.

This fa one of the great discoveries the Bible has
made to the world. It is purely a Bible thought.
Philosophy never conceived a truth so simple and
0 sublime And, although it was known in
Old Testament times, and expressed in Old Testa-
ment books, it 'was reserved for Jesus Christ to
make the full discovery to the WOfld, and add
to His teaching another of the profoimdest truths
which have ounc from heaven to earth — that the

D.B,

306 HOW TO KNOW

mysteries of the Father's will are hid in this word
" obey."

The circumstances in which Christ made the
great discovery to the world are known to every
one.

The Feast of Tabernacles was in progress in Jeru-
salem when Jesus entered the temple to teach. A
circle of Jews were gathered round Him who seem
to have been spell-bound with the extraordinary
wisdom of His words. He made no pretension to be
a scholar. He was no graduate of the Rabbinical
schools. He had no access to the sacred literature
of the people. Yet here was this stranger from
Nazareth confounding the wisest heads in Jerusalem,
and unfolding with calm and effortless skill such
truths as even these temple walls had never heard
before. Then " the Jews marvelled, saying, ' How
knoweth this man letters, never having learned ? ' "
What organ of spiritual knowledge can He have,
never having learned ? Never having learned — they
did not know that Christ had learned. They did not
know the school at Nazareth whose Teacher was in
heaven — whose schoolroom was a carpenter's shop —
the lesson, the Father's will. They knew not that
hidden truths could come from God, or wisdom from
above.

What came to them was gathered from human
books, or caught from human lips. They knew no
organ save the mind ; no instrument of knowing
the things of heaven but that by which they learned

THE WILL OF GOD 307

in the schools. But Jesus points to a spiritual world
which lay still far beyond, and tells them of the
spiritual eye which reads its profounder secrets and
reveals the mysteries of God. " My doctrine is not
Mine," He says, ■ but His that sent Me " ; and " My
judgment is just," as He taught before, " because I
seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father
which hath sent Me." And then, lest men should
think this great experience was never meant for
them, He applies His principles to every human
mind which seeks to know God's will. "If any man
will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine,
whether it be of God."

The word doctrine here is not to be taken in our
sense of the word doctrine. It is not the doctrine
of theology. " Any man " is to know if he will do
His will. But it is God's teaching — God's mind.
If any man will do His will, he shall know God's
mind ; he shall know God's teaching and God's
will.

In this sense, or indeed in the literal sense, from
the first look at these words it appears almost as if a
contradiction were involved. To know God's will,
it is as much as to say, do God's will. But how are

will until we know it ? T*
that is the very dilemma we are in. And it
no way out of it to say, Do it and you shall kn
We want to know it, in order to do it ; and ik ...
are told to do it, in order to know it! If any man
dox he shall kn

308 HOW TO KNOW

But that is not the meaning of the words. That
is not even the words themselves. It is not, If any
man do, he shall know ; but if any man will do. And
the whole sense of the passage turns upon that word
will. It means, "If any man is willing to do, he
shall know." He does not need to do His will in
order to know, he only need be willing to do it. For
" will " is not at all the sign of the future tense as it
looks. It is not connected with the word do at all,
but a separate verb altogether, meaning " is willing,"
or "wills." If any man wills, or if any man is willing,
to do, he shall know.

Now notice the difference this makes in the
problem. Before, it looked as if the doing were to
come first and then the knowing His will ; but now
another element is thrown in at the very beginning.
The being willing comes first and then the knowing ;
and thereafter the doing may follow — the doing, that
is to say, if the will has been sufficiently clear to
proceed.

The whole stress of the passage therefore turns
on this word " will." And Christ's answer to the
question, How to know the will of God ? may be
simply stated thus : " If any man is willing to do
God's will he shall know," or, in plainer language
still, "If any man is sincerely trying to do God's
will, he shall know."

The connection of all this with obedience is just
that being willing is the highest form of obedience.
It is the spirit and essence of obedience. There

THE WILL OF GOD 309

is an obedience in the world which is no obediencej
because the act of obedience is there, but the spirit
of submission is not.

" A certain man," we read in the Bible, " had two
sons ; and he came to the first, and said, ' Son, go
work to-day in my vineyard.' He answered, ' I will
not' : but afterward he repented and went And he
came to the second, and said likewise. And he
answered, ( I go, sir ' : and went not. Whether of
them twain did the will of his father?" Obedience
here comes out in its true colours as a thing in
the will. And if any man have an obeying will,
a truly single and submissive will, he shall know
of the teaching, or of the leading, whether it be of
God.

If we were to carry out this principle into a
practical case, it might be found to work in some
such way as this. To-morrow, let us say, there
is some difficulty before us in our path. It lies
across the very threshold of our life, and we can-
not begin the working week without, at least,
some notice that it is there. It may be some
trifling item of business life, over which unaccount-
able suspicions have begun to gather of Lite, and to
force themselves in spite of even-thing into th
and conscience, and even into prayer. Or, it
be, some change of circumstance is opening up, and

alternatives are appearing, and demanding ( '

of one. Perhapfl it is some pract <<ur life,

which the clearing of the spiritual atmosphere

310 HOW TO KNOW

and increasing light from God are hinting to be
wrong, while reason cannot coincide exactly and
condemn. At all events there is something on the
mind — something to do, to suffer, to renounce —
and there are alternatives on the mind to distin-
guish, to choose from, to reject. Suppose, indeed,
we made this case a personal as well as an illus-
trative thing, the question rises, How are we to
separate God's light on the point from our own,
disentangle our thoughts on the point from His, and
be sure we are following His will, not the reflected
image of ours ?

The first process towards this discovery naturally
would be one of outlook. Naturally we would
set to work by collecting all the possible mate-
rials for decision from every point of the compass,
balancing the one consequence against the other,
then summing up the points in favour of each by
itself, until we chose the one which emerged at
last with most of reason on its side. But this
would only be the natural man's way out of the
dilemma. The spiritual man would go about it
in another way. This way, he would argue, has
no religion in it at all, except perhaps the ac-
knowledgment that reason is divine ; and though
it might be quite possible and even probable
that the light should come to him through the
medium of reason, yet he would reach his con-
clusion, and likely enough a different conclusion,
quite from another side.

THE WILL OF GOD 311

And his conclusion would likewise be a better
and sounder conclusion. For the insight of the
non-religious method may be impaired, and the real
organ of knowing God's will so out of order from
disuse, that even reason would be biassed in its
choice. A heart not quite subdued to God is an
imperfect element, in which His will can never
live ; and the intellect which belongs to such a
heart is an imperfect instrument and cannot find
God's will unerringly — for God's will is found in
regions which obedience only can explore.

Accordingly, he would go to work from the
opposite side from the first. He would begin not
in out-look, but in in-look. He would not give
his mind to observation. He would devote his
soul to self-examination, to self-examination of the
most solemn and searching kind. For this prin-
ciple of Christ is no concession to an easy life,
or a careless method of rounding a difficult point.
It is a summons rather to learn the highest and
most sacred thing in Heaven, by Liacing the I
to the loftiest and severest sacrifice on earth —
the bending of an unwilling human will till it
blends in the will of God. It means that the
heart must be watched with a jealous care, and
most solemnly kept for God. It means that the
hidden desires must be taken < at < ne by one

and regenerated by Christ — that the faintest in-
clination of the soul, when touched by the B]

must be prepared to assume V. th of

312 HOW TO KNOW

will and act at any cost. It means that nothing
in life should be dreaded so much as that the
soul should ever lose its sensitiveness to God ;
that God should ever speak and find the ear just
dull enough to miss what He has said ; that God
should have some active will for some human
will to perform, and our heart be not the first in
the world to be ready to obey.

When we have attained to this by meditation,
by self-examination, by consecration, and by the
Holy Spirit's power, we may be ready to make
it our daily prayer, that we may know God's
will ; and when the heart is prepared like this,
and the wayward will is drilled in sacrifice and
patience to surrender all to God, God's will may
come out in our career at every turning of our
life, and be ours not only in sacramental aspira-
tion but in act.

To search for God's will with such an instru-
ment is scarce to search at all. God's will lies
transparently in view at every winding of the
path ; and if perplexity sometimes comes, in such
way as has been supposed, the mind will gather
the phenomena into the field of vision, as care-
fully, as fully, as laboriously, as if no light would
come at all, and then stand still and wait till
the wonderful discerning faculty of the soul, that
eye which beams in the undivided heart and looks
right out to God from every willing mind, fixes
its gaze on one far distant spot, one spot perhaps

THE WILL OF GOD 313

which is dark to all the world besides, where all
the lights are focussed in God's will.

How this finite and this infinite are brought to
touch, how this invisible will of God is brought
to the temporal heart must ever remain unknown.
The mysterious meeting-place in the prepared and
willing heart between the human and divine —
where, precisely, the will is finally moved into
line with God's — of these things knoweth no man
save only the Spirit of God.

The wind bloweth where it listeth. ■ We hear
the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh
or whither it goeth." When every passion is
annihilated, and no thought moves in the mind,
and all the faculties are still and waiting fur God,
the spiritual eye may trace perhaps some delicate
motion in the soul, some thought which stirs like
a leaf in the unseen air and tells that God is
there. It is not the stillness, nor the unseen breath,
nor the thought that only stirred, but these three
mysteries in one which reveal God's will to me.
Gods light, it is true, does not supersede, but illu-
minates our thoughts. Only when God sends an
angel to trouble the pool let us have faith for the

.'; hand, and believe that some
Heaven has stirred the waters in OUT soul.

Let us bat get OUT hearts in p gitlQfl for know-

the will of God— only let us be willi;
know G ill in <air hearts that we may do

will in our live, and we shall rai.-e no

314 HOW TO KNOW

questions as to how this will may come, and feel
no fears in case the heavenly light should go.

But let it be remembered, as already said, that it
requires a well-kept life to will to do this will. It
requires a well-kept life to do the will of God, and
even a better kept life to will to do His will. To
be willing is a rarer grace than to be doing the will
of God. For he who is willing may sometimes
have nothing to do, and must only be willing to
wait : and it is easier far to be doing God's will
than to be willing to have nothing to do — it is
easier far to be working for Christ than it is to be
willing to cease. No, there is nothing rarer in the
world to-day than the truly willing soul, and there
is nothing more worth coveting than the will to
will God's will. There is no grander possession for
any Christian life than the transparently simple
mechanism of a sincerely obeying heart. And if we
could keep the machinery clear, there would be
lives in thousands doing God's will on earth even
as it is done in Heaven. There would be God in
many a man's career whose soul is allowed to
drift — a useless thing to God and the world — with
every changing wind of life, and many a noble
Christian character rescued from wasting all its
virtues on itself and saved for work for Christ.

And when the time of trial comes, and all in
earth and heaven is dark and even God's love
seems dim : what is there ever left to cling to but
this will of the willing heart, a God-given, God-

THE WILL OF GOD 315

ward bending will, which says amidst the most
solemn and perplexing vicissitudes of life :

" Father, I know that all my life

Is portioned out for me ;
The changes that are sure to come

I do not fear to see ;
I ask Thee for a present mind,

Intent on pleasing Thee."

ButUr > Tanner, 7 /it SttW—4 ti .

JZZ S-