Plymouth pulpit: sermons preached in Plymouth church, Brooklyn

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PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY

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PRESENTED BY

The Estate of
Rev. Robert 0, Kirk wood

BX 723 3 .B4P6

Beecher, Henry Ward l«n
1887. ""iia, 1813

Plymouth pulpit

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Plymouth Pu/pitL^

SERMONS

PREACHED IN

Plymouth Church, Brooklyn^

BY

HENRY WARD BEECHER.

FROM KLLINWOOD'S STENOGRAPHIC REPORTS.

Volume III.
September, 1874 — March, 1875,

BOSTON:

tTbc pilgrim prese

CHICAGO.

Copyright in 1875, by
J. 6. Ford & Compamy.

CONTENTS.

3AaK

I. Law and Liberty (Gal. v : 13-18) ... 7

Lesson . Luke x : 23-42. * Hymns ; 31, 116G, Doxologg!

IL Faint-Heaktedness (Num. xiii and xiv) . .31

Lesson : Psalm cvii : 1-22. Hymns : 346, 353, 854.

III. As A Little Child (Matt, xviii : 1-4) ... 49

Hymns : 776, 733, Doxology.

IV. God's Will (Matt, vi: 10) . . . „ 81

Lesson : Matt, v : 1-16. Hymns : 199, 531, 725.

V. Present Use of Immortality (Heb. iv: 9) . . 103

Lesson : 2 Cor. v : 1 -9 . vi ; l-)3. Hymns : 40, 1262, " Shlninff Chore."

VL The Test of Church Worth (Eph. iv : 20-24) 125

Lesson : Eph. iii. Hymns : 217, 847, 908.

VII. Peace in Christ (Rom. vii : 25; Rom. viii: 1) .151

Lesson : Rom. viii. Hymns : 1234, 607, 551.

VIII. The Indwelling of Christ (Matt, xxviii : 18-20 ;

Johii xiv : 16, 17) . . . . 175

IX. The End and The Means (Matt, x : 34-38) . 201

Lesson : Matt, x : C-28. Hymns : 40, 648, " Shining Shore."

X. Saved by Grace (Eph. ii : 8) . . . . 225

Lesson : Eph. ii. Hymns : 286, 180, 915.

XI. Soul-Rest (Matt, xi : 28) 249

Lesson : Matt. xi. Hymns : 1272, 878, 868.

XII. The World's Growth (1 Cor. iv : 20) . . 271

Lesson : Psalm cxiv. Hymn : 162.

* Plymouth Collection. Ui

w. CONTENTS.

Pagb

XIII. Foundation Work (Kom. xv : 20). . . . 299

Lesson : Gal. L Hymns : 293, 365, " Homeward Bound."

XIV. The Bible (2 Tim. iii: 14-17). . . . 323

Lesson : Psalm cxix, 9-16 : xcvli, 105. * Hymns : 1321, 436, 74.

XV. The Work of Patience (James i : 3, 4 ) . . 345

Lesson : Heb. xi : 32-40 ; xii : 1-9. Hymns : 218, 212, 423.

XVI. The Divine Love (John xiii : 1) . . . 365

Lesson : Matt xx: 17-34. Hymns : 672, 666, 660.

XVII. Unworthy Pursuits (Matt, xxvi : 8) . . . 387

Lesson : Matt, xxvi : 1-13. Hymns : 503, 531, 1163.

XVIII. True Righteousness (Phil, iii: 9) . . . 411

Lesson : Gal. v. Hymns : 112, 296, 346.

XIX. Things of the Spirit (2 Pet. i : 2-11) . . . 437

Lesson : 1 Pet. i. Hymns : 104, 1272, 1270.

XX. Christian Contentment (Phil, iv : 11-13) . 461

Lesson . Phil, ii : 1-18. Hymns : 255, 247, 909.

XXI. Moral Standards (Rom. xiii : 8-10 : Gal. v : 14) . 483

Lesson : Lev. xix. HvMrs : 187, 296, 660.

XXII. Trials of Faith (1 Pet. i: 7) . . . . 507

Lesson : 1 Pet. i. Hymns : 509, 537.

XXIII. The Old Paths (Jer. vi : 16; Jer. xviii: 15) . 531

Lesson : Psalm Ixxiii. Hymns : 199, 725, 865.

XXIV. Meekness, a Power (Matt, v : 5) . . . 559

Lesson : Psalm xxxvil. Hymns : 2647, 660.

XXV. Extent of the Divine Law (Rom. viii : 10) , 583

Lesson : Rom. viii. Hymns : 1200, 1185, 1235.

XXVL Soul-Growth (Isa. xl : 31) .... 609

Lesson : Isa. xl. Hymns : 147, 447.

LAW AND LIBERTY.

"For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not
liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take
heed that ye be not consumed one of another. This I say then, Walk
in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the
flesh lusleth against the Spirit, and the Spirit agairst the flesh; and
these are contrary the one to the other; so that ye cannot do the
things that ye would. But if ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not un-
der the law."— Gal. v., 13-18.

Of all the writers whose words are recorded in the Bible,
there was no one whose spirit so perfectly accorded, on
the whole, with the modern spirit, and the spirit which pre-
vails in America, as Paul's. Tliere was no one who had such
a profound sense of individualism, of the right of the indi-
vidual, or of the object of religion — namely, to build up in
each particular person a manhood that should be large,
strong, rich, and perfectly free. There was no one of them
that spoke so much about liberty — a sound peculiarly pleas-
ant to our ears — as the Apostle Paul ; and he declares that
we are called to it ; that it is the very thing in religion to
which we are called. Now, there is an apprehension, very
wide-spread — and we can see how reasonably it has sprung
up — that religion, so far from making men free, hampers
them, restricts them, ties them up, burdens them ; and there
is among men a universal impression, when life is strong in
young veins, and the impulse to do just as they wish to is power-

Preached at the Twin Motjntain House, White Mountains, N. H., Sunday morn-
ing, Sept. 13th, 1874. Lesson: Luke ix., 28^2. Hymns (Plymouth CoUtction) : Nob. 81,
1186, " Doxology."

8 LAW AND LIBERTY.

fnl, that they do not want to be religions. Tlie fact is that
they want to enjoy themselves a little while.

They have a superabundance of hilarity, and a strong im-
pulse toward enjoyment; and they think it will be time to be
still and careful when the world is not so stimulating ;
they say, " When we are old enough to have the rheumatism,
why, then we won't race and dance ; when we don't want to
laugh, why, then we'll be sober ; and when we can't do
anything else, then we'll get ready to die ; but as long as
we have vigor and vitality and sunlight and all sorts of
pleasures, why, we're going to have a good time. We'll take
the bad time when we can't help it." On the other hand,
there are many persons — persons that are anxious about their
children, and trying to bring them up well ; people that take
on the duty of instructing the community, and feel them-
selves responsible for what their fellow-men believe and what
they ao ; folks that are trying to form and employ public
sentiment — there are many such persons who are astonished
when we say that religion is the freest of all things, that men
who have once become converted and are truly Christians are
no longer under the law, and that a typical Christian, one
who is a type of what religion really should be, is a person
that does just what he has a mind to. " A person that does
what he has a mind to, a Christian?" say they: " why, it is con-
trary to the wiiole face of Scripture, which says that you
must deny yourself ; that you must take up your cross ; that
there must be a yoke and a burden. To preach that when a
man becomes a true Christian he may do just what he has a
mind to is flagitious, and will lead to licentiousness and all
manner of self-indulgence." Historical developments are
pointed to by men, of what are called " Antinomians," whom
Christians have regarded as claiming to be raised to such a
state that there was no more law for them, so that whenever
they wanted to do a thing their doing it made the act right
in their own estimation — the grace of God being given them
to make them worse rather than better. Conservators of
purity and religion are very much afraid of this doctiine of
liberty, because they think it will break the bands of re-
sponsibility, and destroy the power of conscience upon men.

LAW AND LIBERTY. 9

Now, Paul insists upon it that we are born to liberty, that

we are called to liberty, and that the true typical Christian

experience is one that takes away the power of the law over

us, and gives us freedom to do what we want to do. Other

inspired writers, and James among them, enjoin upon us the

law of hberty, and exhort us to continue faithful therein,

declaring that they are not unfruitful who do this. James

says :

" Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and contiuueth
thei'ein, he beius not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this
mau shall be blessed in his deed."

Men who are under the divine inspiration exhort us to
liberty. How could this be if it were as flagitious in its
results as men claim that it is ? Let us look into this matter
a little.

What is liberty ? In the first place, the way in which
men have learned to consider liberty has come from their
experience in being oppressed by each other, and in emanci-
pating themselves from the domination of a neighbor or a
ruler. Breaking away from him has seemed to them to be
liberty. In other words, the notion of being at liberty to do
what you want to is intimately associated with the act of
throwing off law and throwing off government. Men do not
discriminate between the process by which one comes to a
state of liberty and the essential element of that state.

In regard to civil liberty, we are very proud of having had
the war of Independence. We broke away from Great Brit-
ain, and became masters of ourselves, and made our own
laws, and elected our own officers ; and as a nation we could
do what we pleased without asking anybody's conser t ; and
from these various historical developments of the power of
liberty, men have come to hold the idea that liberty means
ignoring authority and setting aside controlling laws.

Now, by your leave, I will say that no man is free until
he is absolutely in bondage. No man is free until he is so in
bondage that he does not know that he is in bondage. No
man has true liberty until he has been so subdued that he
accepts the control that is over him, and makes it his own,
and ceases to be able to discriminate between his individual

10 LAW AND LIBEBTY.

will and the law which is exterior to liim. I think there will
be no doubt about this matter if you will trace it step by
step, and see how men are developed.

Consider, first, how men become, in tlieir material and
physical relations, large, strong, facile, and successful. When
the child is born, and begins to learn the qualities of matter
and the use of itself — of its feet, of its hands, of its eyes,
and of its ears — what is the process by which we undertake
to develop him out of weakness into strength ? We teach
him the knowledge of matter ; we teach him what are the
laws, as we say, of matter ; and we teach him strictly to
observe those laws. At first the child does not know the
difference between cutting edges and blunt edges ; but he
learns it ; and he learns how to accommodate himself to those
qualities or natures. He does not know the difference be-
tween fire and ice, nor does he know the difference between
water to be plunged into and the air to be breathed. He
learns the peculiarities of these substances and their laws.
No child has learned to go alone, to use his hands, and to
have the comfort of his eye, of his ear, or of his mouth,
until he has learned Avhat are the laws to Avhich these various
organs must conform themselves ; and learning on the part of
the child is obeying ; and obeying is coming to more of him-
self. Having his way by refusing law would be never to walk,
never to use his hands, never to look, never to hear, never to
taste, never to do anything except to have his own way, which
would be to be an everlasting cipher or zero. Every step by
which every child comes to be less and less a child and more
and more of a man, every stej? by which he finds out more
laws, on every side of him, in the air above, on the earth
beneath, among men, in the infinite variety of the affairs of
human life, is a step of obedience to law. He learns what
laws are, and how to yield to them, and how to apply them ;
and he grows by compliance with them and obedience to
them.

Follow it up a little. We educate ourselves either for
pleasure or for accomplishment. How is it that one learns
to become a pianist? By sitting down, and saying, "I am
going to have my own way about this matter" — or, by

LAW AND LIBERTY. H

finding out exactly what is required by the law of sound
and by the law of instrumentation, and saying to the hand,
"You have got to come to it: you don't like it, but you
must come to it"; and twisting and turning, and twist-
ing and turning it, and training and drilling, training and
drilling it, through months and years ? It will take a
long time to subdue that hand to the nature of the instru-
ment. It is going to control the instrument by-and-by ; but
it will control the instrument by-acd-by because it has been
a bond-slave to it. He who, having accepted the bondage oJ
the instrument, drills his hand till it has become perfectly
obedient to it, transfers to his hand all the virtue of that
instrument.

The man who undertakes to play billiards must submit
to iaw, and be led by it, until he has learned bow to handle
the cue, and how to strike the balls and make them rebound
and affect each other. He cannot say, "I will do as I please
here," until he is able to do just what the billiard table
requires. When he has submitted himseK to the nature of
the game, and mastered its requirements, then he can say,
" I will do as I have a mind to," because he is inclined to do
what the laws of billiard playing demand.

So it is in regard to every single act of this sort — riding,
fencing, dancing, rolling ten-pins, plowing, or cutting wood.
In each of these instances the first step is the subjugation of
yourself by obedience to the law ; and the second, when you
have obeyed it perfectly, is unconscious, automatic action.
When you have reached this point you have perfect liberty —
the power to go or lo stop ; to do or not to do ; to accomplish
in one way or in another. A man becomes large, facile, inge-
nious, accomplishing, in the proportion in which he has sub-
jugated, by apprenticeship, every muscle, every nerve, every
230wer, every element of his being, to the laws under which
it acts. This denying of himself, this taking up his cross, in
regard to all the specialties of life ; this dying to liimself and
living in the laws that are around about him, gives him back
to himself strong, wise, facile ; and he becomes free in the
proportion in which he has submitted himself to perfect
training and drill.

12 LAW AND LIBERTY.

That which is true in respect to the body is as true in
respect to the social conditions of life. A man says, "I am
born free and equal with all the world " ; and in one sense all
men are born free and equal. Men are said to be equal in
our political bible ; and politically men have equal rights —
that is, they alike have the right to obey the laws, and to
reap the fruits of obedience ; and they have an equal right if
they disobey the laws to be punished for it. The highest has
an equal right to be punished with the lowest. In the eyes
of the Government men are equal as citizens ; they are equal
before the law ; but they are equal in no other sense. They
are not equal in noses, nor in eyes, nor m ears, nor in any
sense other than simply that of their fundamental political
rights, which are, comparatively speaking, artificial and
remote.

A man says, "'I am born free, and am as good as any-
body." It depends entirely upon who that anylody is. He
says, ''I do not believe in the laws of society, and I am
going to do as I please." In that coarse sense he goes out
into the community, and every single person is his enemy. A
rude, vulgar man who goes into civilized society will find that
all those among whom he moves are of necessity his antago-
nists ; and he will be expelled from that society. A man
who would move and thrive in the midst of refined and culti-
vated people must become acquainted with social laws, and
must comply with them. When he begins to comply with
them it is awkward for him. It is awkward for a man to
come into a room gracefully when he has not learned the
postures of polite society. He does not know what to do
with his arms, nor how to stand or sit. What is an awkward
man but a man who has ncu learned the laws of civility in
the social relations of men to each other ? There are such
laws, although they are not written in a book. They are not
penal laws, but they are laws which are just as real as though
there was a penalty attached to them. The laws which gov-
ern one man in his intercourse with another in life are as real
as those laws which govern the stellar universe. Every man
who becomes -facile and easy and natural in his relations to
society becomes so because he has learned and complied

LAW AND LIBERTY. 13

with the conditions which are imposed upon him by society
laws. It is by obedience that he comes to be free to do what
he pleases. He is free to do what he pleases simply because
he has learned how to please to do the things that are right,
but on no other conditions.

That which is true in respect to social relations is as true
in respect to civil relations. Who is the free man in society ?
Is it the counterfeiter, who watches with suspicion every man
that knows him, and who is conscious that the whole armed
force of society has been put, by his act, in battle array
against him ? The murderer, the thief, the gambler, has
set at defiance the laws of society ; and is he free ? The
man who is hunted, who is circumscribed, who is always in
danger, and who has to create a circle for himself in order to
exist at all, because society is his natural adversary — is he
free ? No. The man who is the most intelligent, and has
the most perfect knowledge of the laws of the community,
and believes them to be right, and so thoroughly obeys them
that he does not know that he obeys them ; the man who
obeys laws and does not know it except when he begins — he
is free.

When I am driving it does not occur to me that I am obey-
ing any law. I turn to the right on the turnpike to avoid a
stage that is likely to be run into by me, not because I think
of the law that requires me to do so. I do it unconsciously.
I do not go through the process of thinking, "I will turn
out because I am required to by law." And after I have done
it I do not think of it. When I bow to a man, I do it with-
out thinking of it, and I do not treasure up the fact and
tell my wife about it when I go home. Having done it, I do
not know that I did it. I speak kindly to a child, and give
it sympathy, not because there is any law that says I must,
(although there is such a law), but because when the law
first said so to me I obeyed it so implicitly that T have for-
gotten it now. I perform the deed, not because public senti-
ment or law says, " Do it," but because I have been so drilled
into it that I do it without law. The law says, " Thou
shalt not steal ; " but that is not why I refrain from steal-
ing. The law does not permit me to do it; but if it did

14 LAW AND LIBERTY.

I would n't. And now I do of myself that wliicli tlie law
once obliged me to do because I was so low and base and un-
developed that I needed something to show me what the best
things were. I followed the law, I obeyed it, and finally I
came to see, by my higher intelligence, what it was to be
a true man ; and this is the way to come to power and free-
dom.

That which is true in regard to social relations and civil
matters is true in respect to political affairs. A man may be
free under a despotism. That is to say, let the Czar of Rus-
sia issue his decrees so that every man knows just what he
wants him to do, and let his sul)jects obey because they really
believe theirs is the best government, and under it they
become free. If they were always resisting it they would
always be hedged in, hindered, restricted, bound ; but by
accejiting it, though it be an im2:)erfect administration, they
become free in proportion as they conform to it, or in propor-
tion as they run with those who are in sovereign power over
them. In every government the man who accepts the law is
the freest. The man who knows how to conform to the laws
of commerce is freer than the man who does not know how
to conform to them — for there are laws of commerce as much
as there are laws of taste, laws of good manners, or any
other laws that apply to the individual.

When a man first goes into business, he does not under-
stand the laws which govern it, and we do not trust him with
much liberty or scope. Why ? Because he has not been
trained to obedience to the inevitable and compulsory laws
of commerce. When he has learned ihem, and is expert in
them, and yields to them, and obeys them, we say of him,
" He can go alone now." He has tied himself to those laws,
and he has gone with them until they are incorporated into
him and he into them ; and he is free so far as he follows
them ; but if he resists them they restrict his liberty, and
punish him.

So, liberty does not mean throwing off law: it means
taking it on. Liberty does not mean opposing government :
it means the most absolute subm.ission to government, pro-
vided it is a right government, conformable to our bodily

LAW AND LIBERTY. 15

structure, our social make-up, our intellectual qualities, and
our moral nature. He is freest who submits to the most
laws, and submits to them the most implicity. . No man gets
possession of himself until he has gone through this process.
The trouble and curse of daily life in every direction is the
want of that uuconscious or automatic action which is the
result of training in laws and principles and obedience to
them. Great mischief has come from men's imperfect know-
ledge of laws, and the imperfect manner in which they have
submitted to them.

That which is true in respect to all our external relations
you will find to be true in respect to our higher relations, or
in respect to what is called, in distinction from our education
in business, the education of our thoughts, our intellectual
development, our philosophical elevation, our cultivation and
refinement. In other words, when men are set to develop
their mental faculties, they learn in just the same way that
they do when they undertake to educate their muscles or
their organs.

No man can learn to read except in one way. He cannot
walk into a spelling-book and say, '"I want r to have the
force of f, and it shall." He must call r, r, and must give
it the sound which custom gives it. M must be m to him,
and b must be b to him. He must give to every letter in
the alphabet the name and sound which belong to it. When
a man begins to read he cannot say, " I will spell phthisic,
t-i-s-i-c." Custom is law, and he is obliged to spell the word
the other way — though I should not dare venture to toll you
how! No man learns so simple a matter as reading or writ-
ing except by submitting himself to foregoing rules and reg-
ulations. Well, when a man begins to learn to read, he is
exactly like folks who are just converted. " N^o, no ;
m-a-n, man ; m-a-y, may ; b-u-t, but ; o-ff, off ; t^h-e,
the." Has the man who spells out his words thus learned
to read ? No. Why ? Because he has to think of each
letter in a word before he puts the letters together and pro-
nounces the word. Do I do it ? Do you do it ? We do
not. Why do we not ? Because we have become so used to
reading that our eye ney^r sees a single letter in a word^, nor

16 LAW AND LIBERTY.

a single word in a sentence. Indeed, we are not conscious of
sentences even : we are only conscious of the ideas which
are expressed^ by the sentences. Our minds are so drilled
that we take in only the event or thing described by these
symbols on paper. We see the history itseK, the person him-
self, the occurrence itself ; and the drama goes on before us
as though we were looking through a glass at an actual
picture.

Now, how do we come to that facility of reading ? By
familiarizing ourselves with instruments or letters until they
become our servants, as we first become theirs. We bow
ourselves down to these crooked symbols ; and then we be-
come so absolutely absorbed by them, in obedience to them,
that they vanish and leave their power and effect in us as a
part of our own personality.

The result is what we call "habit." Habit in the popu-
lar mind consists merely in doing things easily because we
have become used to doing them ; but it is more : it is really
the augmentation of faculty. It is a new power which a
man has gained by the repetition of acts until he has per-
fected himself in a given direction. It exalts him. It brings
him upon a higher plane of cerebral power or capacity.

It may be said that no man knows a thing perfectly until
it has become so much a part of himself that his knowledge
of it and his use of it cease to be matters of conscious-
ness. We cease to be conscious of the force of letters in
a sentence, and yet we read ; and just in proportion as we
lose the consciousness of the letter-form we become perfect
in the art of reading. No man knows how to walk well who
thinks just how he is going to take every step. What is the
trouble with awkward people when they go into company ?
Nobody is so graceful in things that belong to the farm as
the farmer. If you bring him to Boston and ask him to go
into conditions that he is not accustomed to, he is awkward ;
and the well-dressed, kid-gloved young man Ipughs to see
how the poor old fellow acts ; but now, take our young man
and put him behind the plow, and see how he will act ! He
is as awkward there as the old man was in the city. But put
the farmer behind the plow, and see the elasticity with which

Law and liberty

n

he adapts himself to its movements. He observes what is
coming, and prepares for it, and goes along with the utmost
ease and composure. Where a man has had education and
drill in the. thing to which he is appointed, and does it un-
consciously and automatically, according to its kind, it is
noble and beautiful.

When buildings are being constructed I sometimes am
tempted to go up and see what they are, how they are made ;
and I observe that the first story I get up the ladder well
enough ; that the second story I hold a little tighter to the
rounds ; that the third story I lie flat against the ladder ;
that the fourth and fifth stories I tremble, and crawl like a
worm ; and that when I get to the top I very carefully place
my foot on the gutter, or step on the platform, and scarcely
dare look around; but I see the workmen — men that are not
a bit smarter than I am — run up the ladder, step all over the
roof, go everywhere, without stopping to look where they
tread, climb a rafter, put two sticks together, and spring to
the top of them, light as a bird, nimble as a squirrel, and
sure-footed as a spider; and as I look at them I envv them.
But I go up to-morrow, and find that I have a little more
confidence, and am not quite so dizzy- headed. I go up the
next day, and the next, and the next. The result is that by
and by I can go up just as well as they can, and just as
quick, and can do it without thinking what I am doino-.

I remember that in Indianapohs I had a house built. I
wanted to economize in every way I could, and meant to
paint it myself ; and I did. T got along well enough until I
came to the gable end, which was two and a half stories
high. When I began to paint there I was so afraid that I
should fall off from the platform that I nearly rubbed out
with my vest what I put on with the brush ; but in the course
of a week I got so used to climbing that I was as nimble as
any painter in town.

No man has learned a lesson who thinks of it at all as a
lesson. No man has learned a trade who has to stop and say,
" How ought I to guide my hand ?"

A man begins to set type in a printing oflBce. Here is a
composing stick, and here is a case of letters. He is told to

18 LAW AND LIBERTY.

set up, " All men are born free and equal," and he says to
himself, "A. Where is A ?" He looks for A, and finds it,
feels of it and turns it over to get it in the right position.
Then he says, " Doubb 1," and he hunts for 1 ; by and by he
gets it, and puts it in the stick. At length he gets the first
word set up ; and finally the other words. But that man is
not a printer, although he manages to set up "All men are
free and equal." Go into the office of one of our dailies, and
see a compositor set type there. He handles the letters so
quick that your eye cannot follow them. His hand knows
all about the case ; it knows just where to find every letter ;
and no sooner does it touch the type than the type tells him
which side up it is to go, without his thinking.

No person has learned anything so as to be perfect in it
till he can do it without knowing it. When a man can do a
thing without thinking of it, he has come to a state of lib-
erty so far as that thing is concerned. He is in bondage to
his notes who is obliged to think of his notes ; he is in bond-
age to the piano who is obliged to think of the piano ; but
he is free who does not think of note or piano, and yet swells
the strain and rolls off the symphony. He has subdued the
music and the instrument ; and now he may do what he
pleases with them. He could only have done it, however, by
going through what their laws required him to do, which
lifted him to the capacity of doing.

All government in the family, all methods of civil govern-
ment, all institutions of education and religion, ought to set
this ideal before themselves. There is a great deal of gov-
ernment in the family that is mistaken. I have sometimes
heard people say, '' How poorly those boys have turned out 1
It is strange, too, because there never were boys more strictly
brought up. To my certain knowledge, they used to be
whipped once a week !" Yes, they were watched ; they were
kept out of evil ; they were carefully instructed ; and when
they were of age, and went out of the family, they plunged
into every liberty and every license, and proved themselves
fallible and imperfect in every way. They learned a great
many things in the family, but they never learned how to
govern themselves. There are a great many fathers and

LAW AND LIBERTY. 19

motliers whose nature is to govern. Tlie spirit of autocracy
and monarchy is in them. They do not govern their children
to teach those children to govern themselves, but they govern
them for the sake of governing them ; and they keep it up ;
and the children never learn self-government. Now, the
object of governing a child is to get rid of the necessity of
ffovernmof him. It is to teach him the use of his own facul-
ties with regard to the great laws which are fundamental to
you and him in common. If you bring up your children
with a liberty which has restriction enough to make them
obey the law, and with an amount of government which
makes them independent and self-reliant, you will do that
which is best for them. They will make blunders ; but they
will learn. They will fall into mistakes ; but those mistakes
will be a part of their training. You can bring up a child so
that he is all comphance toward externahty ; but he will have
no power in himself ; and what will he be good for ? He will
be like dough, and will never amount to anything. These
round, smooth folks, that come up so carefully, and that will
roll in all ways with equal facility, and are of no particular
account, serving as mere punctuation points to keep other
folks apart, have not been well developed, or taught, or bred.

Power of knowledge, obedience, training until it becomes
unconscious and automatic, is the end that is sought by the
whole drift of divine government, as indicated by nature and
revealed by the Gospel. It is not meant that we should go
through this life acting as if the world were a life-boat, to be
used merely for snatching as many folks from destruction as
possible, and for taking them safely to heaven. This world
is God's university or school, where men begin at zero, and
are to unfold and come to manhood as the object of God's
decrees and providence and grace, and of the common sense
which God has given to us.

The whole drift of civil governments, of churches, of
schools, and of families, should be to make men larger,
bolder, more symmetrical, freer, and to do it by the way of
discipline, drill, the knowledge of laws, and obedience to
them.

I have conducted this subject thus far without considering

20 LAW ANI) LIBERTY.

it specially in its application to morality and religion ; but,
after all, tlie end and drift of my discourse this morning is,
Wliat does religion nieaii in a man? The derivatiA'e meanino'
of the word religion is, To be bound ; to be tied up as by
allegiance ; and the fulfillment of it, in a large part of the
globe, has, unfortunately, been literal, and men have been
tied up. The idea has been, very largely, that when a man
became a Christian, he agreed with himself to give up danc-
ing, and give up swearing, and give up gambling, and give
up lying, and give up Sabbath-breaking, and give up dissipa-
tion, and give up bad company ; and his creed, if he were to
let it out, would be, "I will not do this, I will not do that, I
will not do that, I will not do that," till by and by it will be
as knotty as a pine plank sawn out of a small tree. Nega-
tives are not to be derided nor despised ; but a man who has
nothing but negatives is a fool, and has no temperament, no
vitality, no positiveness. The true religious man is a man
who is positive and affirmative. A man who has nothing
more than nots is nothing. To be anything he must have
actual virtues.

A farmer goes to the agricultural fairs, next week or the
week after ; and he says, " I have a farm that I want to put
in competition. It has not a weed on it — not one ; it has not
a Canada thistle ; it has no purslain ; it has not a dock ; it has
no plantain ; it has not any mullein. There is not a weed on
it, absolutely." ''Well," it is asked him, "what are your
crops ? " "Oh, I— I—. " "Have you any wheat ? " " No. "
"Any corn?" "No." "Any grafts in the orchard?"
"No ; I have nothing of that kind — but I've got no weeds."
And that is all!

There are a great many people who seem to think that
religion means not doing ivrong. As if a knitting machine
would be considered good that never knit any stockings, be-
cause it never misknit ! What is a man good for who simply
does not do some things ?

There are thousands of men that are bad who come nearer
to the royal idea of manhood than many professed Christians,
because they are positive, and do something — because they
are not bladders filled with air — and because they are not

LAW AND LIBERTY. 21

dandelion blossoms, beautiful globes, worth nothing. A true
man is a force-bearer and a force-producer. I understand
that when a man becomes a Christian he has higher ideals,
larger conceijtions of life here and of the life to come.
The motives which are addressed to him from the bosom of
God are an inspiration by which he becomes more, does more,
longs for more, strives for more, gains more. Before, he
lived a circumscribed life ; but now he moves out the walls
on every side because he needs more room. *' Lengthen thy
cords, and strengthen thy stakes," is the right text for a
true man. He that is a Christian ought to be a hundred
times larger in every way than he was before he became a
Christian. Larger in every way ? Yes, larger in every way.
What ! larger in his passions ? Yes, larger in his passions.
His passions ought to be not only larger, but better and
healthier. Pride ought to be stronger, only it ought to be
in subjection to the law of love. It ought to be, under the
influence of love, auxiliary to higher things, and not an auto-
crat in its own right. Every part of a man's nature is to be
built up, and is to be made subordinate to love. Anything
that God thought it worth while to put in a man, from his
toe to his eyebrow, from the crown of his head to the sole of
bis foot, is worthy of our consideration. He has not em-
ployed anything in the making of you that will not be needed
for fuel.

Take a great good-natured, jolly fellow, who sits on veran-
dahs, and tells pleasant stories, and plays all sorts of games
well, and is good at a pic-nic or a card party, and driuks a little
too much wine. People say of him, " What a pity it is that
he is not a Christian ! He is in a dangerous way ; and yet
he is a capital man in many respects." He becomes a
Christian, after having gone through certain proper exer-
cises. He does not sit on verandahs any more. His
thoughts no longer dwell on frivolous things. He does not
laugh. He is not seen at card parties and pic-nics any more.
He supposes these are wrong. What does he do ? He goes
to church, and to prayer-meetings, and is a devout worshiper ;
but he grows stupider and stupider all the time. Before he
became a Christian he was a genial, good companion, but

22 LAW AND LIBERTY.

now he has cut that all off, and he does not take anything
else on ; so tliat he really is weakened. To be sure, he may
have withdrawn from certain faults ; but he has lost nearly as
mucli in another direction as he has gained in this. I should
say to such a man, It was not sociality, or gayety, or facility
in amusement, that was your sin, but making such things tlie
end and aim of your life. What you want to do is to make
a complete manhood in Christ Jesus the end of your life, and
take those lower things as instruments. Let every jiart of
your nature, enlarged and made better, enter into that com-
plete manhood. Taking Love as their supreme governor, lei
all the elements of your being, sweetened and made more
powerful, aid in accomplishing this great work in the soul.
A man ought to be better when he knows that he is living
for that godliness which "is profitable unto all things, hav-
ing promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to
come." And yet, many persons come into the church trom
the world where they had strength and momentum in imper-
fect ways, and they lose that momentum and that strength
because they do not understand that religion is not simply
tying a man up, but tying liim up to let him into a larger
liberty. It drills him into obedience to law that he mav be
master of himself. No man is so free as that man who has
accepted the law of God, which is expressed in the vvords,
"Thou shalt love God supremely, and thy neighbor as thy-
self." There is no sound in the universe that cannot be
chorded to that. Love is the only true concert-pitch. Let
pride be the concert-pitch, and you cannot bring the orches-
tra of human nature into agreement with it. Let taste be
the concert-pitch, and you cannot make all the other facul-
ties of a man harmonize with it. There is many a part of
our being with which all the other parts cannot be made con-
cordant. But sound the word love — love to God and man —
and there is no passion or appetite, there is no taste, there is
no social feeling, there is no intellectual element, there is
no moral sentiment, that cannot be brought into perfect
accord with it — yea, and be made nobler and better by it.

He who understands that rehgion is the drilling of every
part of his nature into accord with this great law of love by

LAW AND LIBERTY. 33

which God himself is bound, by which he governs, through
which the world is ripening, and which is to fill the eternal
heavens with blessedness— he that understands this, and ac-
cepts that law in earnest, and obeys it, day and night, in the
field, in the shop, on the sea, everywhere, and making pride
and vanity and selfishness subservient to love, trains him-
self in obedience to it till it is easier for him to be gracious
and beneficent than anything else — he has become a man that
has Icfoked into the perfect law of liberty, and that is con-
tinuing therein. He has become a citizen of the common-
wealth of the universe, and is absolutely free.

My Christian brethren, this is just what you need. I ob-
serve that many persons never settle anything. They never
carry a battle to its final results. You are now fighting with
pride, as you were twenty years ago, and you are fighting
with your temper as you were twenty years ago ; or, if there
is any difference, it is because the fire of youth and early
manhood has burned out in you. Grace has done nothing
for you, and you have done little for yourselves. Many per-
sons are just as avaricious, just as stingy, just as close-handed
as they were when they began their Christian lives. They
recognize it, and arc sorry for it, and once in a while they
shed impotent tears over it, and once in a while they offer a
little resistance to it ; but they do not say to the intractable
faculty, "You shall come to this law of love, and you shall
be trained and drilled till you obey it without flinching."

Here is a man who stands behind his counter. He is bil-
ious and dyspeptic, and at home he is cross to his wife, and
snappish to his children, and brutal to his inferiors; but
when he goes into his store, where it is his interest to be
complaisant, he is very agreeable. If a person comes in to
buy something, he puts on, for the occasion, a commercial
smile ; but that is not benevolence — yes, it is benevolence just
the same as moonshine is sunshine, cold, remote, reflected.
Yet we are doing, in this, that and the other place, the
same thing. We laugh at exaggerated instances of it, but
we are not free from it ourselves.

We do not trust God. We are anxious with care. We
fret and worry about to-day and to-morrow. We do not love

24 LAW AND LIBERTY.

our neighbor as ourselves. We are envious and jealous. We
do not honor and prefer each other as we are commanded to.
The welfare of man is not precious to us. Nothing pleases
us so quick as a bad story told about somebody. There are
persons who are ready to catch at criticisms, or anything sus-
picious about folks, and are never specially gratified at hear-
ing anything good about them. ■ Such persons have not
fulfilled the law of love in these things. On the other hand
there are persons who are always actuated by love, and are
always glad to learn anything good, and sorry to learn any-
thing evil, concerning their fellow-men. Love is their
habitual disposition, morning, noon and night. They are
always radiant and beaming, because their manifestation of
love is automatic and unconscious. Where by education, by
training and drill, the whole man is subdued by this power
of divine and human love, one is a Christian.

You professed tlie Creed when you joined the church ;
but oh, that you would profess something higher than that
which the Creed means ! When you professed religion and
joined the church you should have joined as a boy goes to
school. Some seem to think that when a man joins the
church he is like a celebrated portrait in a picture gal-
lery, at which people point and say, " Governor So and So,"
or " Governor So and So." It is often thought that those
inside the church are saints, and that those outside are sin-
ners. It is no such thing. Tliere are sinners inside as well
as outside. Those that are inside are sinners under medica-
tion, and the others are sinners without medication. Those
that are inside are sinners in a hospital, and the others are
sinners in their own houses. As the term sinner is generally
used in the community, it is a A^ery misleading and misinter-
preting notion that men have. A man is a sinner whether he
is in the church or out of it. A Christian is a man who is
attempting to subdue every part of his nature to the law of
God. That law is Love to God and to men ; and he who
binds himself in slavery to it till he is joerfectly subdued by
it, till in its full strength it resides in him, and reigns there,
and he rejoices, heaven rejoicing with him, in tliat victory
by which he comes to a perfect liberty, is a Christian.

LAW AND LIBERTY. 35

Oh, how narrow our views are of the power of God on
the soul of man ! Do you tell me that religion is failing be-
cause you see how bad a war is waged in the street where the
desperate odds of business drive men hither and thither ? Do
you tell me that religion is failing because men in public and
political life gain their positions through cunning and craft,
and that only here and there one endures ? Go with me to
those places where the shadows that work grief and sorrow
beat down on the household ; go with me to the all-patient
mother's side ; go with me to her who is stripped of every-
thing in life but her hope in God, and who is servant of all
the neighborhood; go with me among the humble, and
among the meek who shall inherit the earth, and you will
find that there is a school where God, by the Holy Ghost,
compels such obedience to the great law of love that persons
rise up in simplicity and meekness, princes, kings, priests unto
God,^ having the liberty of the realm, and do what they have
a mind to because their whole soul has a mind to do the
things which the law requires, and which God loves.

Such is the liberty that makes men free. He that is out
of concord with those motions and throbs of the divine
Heart that send currents of light through the universe is
narrowing and dwarfing himself. He only is a full man who
is a man in Christ Jesus.

26 LAW AND LIBERTY.

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

Draw near to us by thy Spirit, Alraishty God and Heavenly
Father, and make thyself known to our thoughts, not by display, as
once thou didst upon the burning mountain, not by force, but by the
inspiration of gentle thoughts and sweet affections, by relieving us
from darkness, and sorrow, and fear, and remorse, and by breathing
upon us peace, and gladness, and good will and hope. Draw us far
away from animal life— from those that are arouud about us; from
the bird, and from the insect, and from the beast; from all things
that have but begun their lives; for we are thine, we are God's sons,
and our true life is nearer to thee and to the invisible than to things
seen and visible. Tlierefore may we know thy presence in the eleva-
tion of our souls; in the springing forth of joys to meet thee; and as
the homeliest and lowliest things bear upon themselves tributes of
joy in the morning wherein the sun beholds itself, and they are beau-
tiful in his light, so may all our thoughts, joining in the light of thy
rising glory, seem beautiful to thee; and may we reflect that thou
art blessing us with thyself as nothing else in all the realm of the
imiverse can bless us. May we realize that we are blest in thy love,
in a conscious strength derived from thee, and in holy hopes born
not of ourselves, though in us, but of thee.

Grant, we pray thee, that we may feel how much more we are
than we seem to be, and how much less we are than we think our-
selves to be. Grant that the things of which we boast, but which
are poor, and perishing, may be revealed to us in their poverty,
and the things which we neglect, wherein our true strength and
our true greatness lie, mi/ be revealed to us in their majesty and
beauty; and that we may go out of our ordinary life, its servility,
its bondage and its painfulness, into our higher life, where we shall
be hid with Christ in God, in whom every one hath a covert and
a refuge. We pray that this day God may become a name not of
fear nor of autiioiity alone, but of love and of joy. Wilt thou help
every one to-day to roll away the stone, if he sit in darkness, and
beholc the risen Saviour. May Christ come forth this morning to
every soul as the messenger and the symbol of hope in immortality.
We pray that thou wilt help every soul to appropriate something
from thee, O blessed Saviour, that it needs. Help every one who is
conscious of deficiency, of ignorance, of short-comings, of perpetual
transgressions, of wrongs done or permitted. Help each soul to lean
upon thee, and to borrow of thee medicine, and food, and raiment, a
staff for its weary feet, light for its eyes, hearing for its ears, and life
for itself.

Be with all of us. Become to us the first and the last, the begin-
ning and the end, the Alpha and Omega. Grant that we may have
in thee that inheritance which we lack in ourselves.

We pray that thou wilt renew the joy that they have had whose
joys have faded ; that thou wilt redeem from sorrow those who are
bent and ready to break; that thou wilt give strength to those that
are weak; that thou wilt establish the feet of those that slide; that
thou wilt deliver from their fears those that stand looking forth

LAW AND LIBERTY. 27

upon impending dangers; that thou wilt hush the anxieties of those
that fret away the very fabric of life; that thou wilt still the tumult
of passion in them that are bestead by passion; that thou wilt give
control to those who are driven about by every wind of doctrine,
and success to those who strive earnestly for that which is good, and
are perpetually rolled bacli from it.

Grant to every one, this morning, according to his necessity. May
those that hunger and thirst after righteousness be filled, and behold
the Saviour who hath in him that which they need— who hath some-
thing that stands over against every want of the soul— who supplieth
indeed the bread of life.

We pray that thou wilt grant to those who have known thee, and
rejoice in thee, and dwell in peace from day to day, more manifesta-
tions of thyself, that they may every day come down from com-
munion with God, as thy servant of old came down from the moun-
tain, with a face shining with things spiritual, that men may behold
and rejoice in the reflected light thereof; and that they may become
ministers of peace, of salvation, and of hope to all that are around
about tliem.

Grant, we pray thee, that we may have great joy of one another,
to-day, as we dwell together for the hour. May we lay aside all the
ugliness, and wealiuess, and pride, and envy, and jealousy, that so
beset us in the world, and that separate us and malie us so hurtful
one to another. Grant that we may dwell in that peace which brings
us nearer together. Grant that all the wrinliles which (^ire has made
may be smoothed out, that all troultle may be taken away, and that
we may rejoice in each other as heirs of a common salvation, as chil-
dren of a common parentage, and as pilgrims bound for a common
blessedness in the land of immortality.

We pray that thy blessing may rest upon all that we love. Go to
those that we have left behind ; and visit those that have gone away
from us and are upon the sea, or upon the land, in the city or in
the wilderness, wherever they may be throughout the wide world.

O Lord, grant that thy blessing may be distilled as dew upon
every heart in this presence. We pray that this may be an hour in
which secret petitions shall go up and receive the pledges of answer
and fulfillment from thee.

We pray that thou wilt bless this dwelling, and all that here con-
tiol and manage. May the cause of God, the purity of the Holy
Spirit, and the power of divine love, abide under this roof forever
more. May all that have come up hither receive a blessing of God.
M:iy this be to them a day indeed of rest from evil, and of aspiration
toward good.

Bless our whole land. Bring us more and more together in a true
unity of reciprocal interests. May we be knit together in confidence,
and in a desire for things that shall ennoble this whole nation.

We pray that intelligence may prevail everywhere. We pray
that strength may be imparted to the weak. We pray that this
great and prosperous nation, builded up by a thousand i)recious
influences, may grow strong for justice, for goodness, for the rights
of mankind, for peace and for prosperity throughout the whole

28 LAW AND LIBERTY.

woild. And may the day speedily come when men shall love one
another, and aid one another, and study the things which make
for peace, and learn war no more; when there shall be no oppression
known, nor any desire to oppress; when men shall be so strong that
none can bind them; when the kingdom of God shall descend; and
when the new heavens and the new earth in which dwelleth right-
eousness shall appear.

And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son, and Spirit, ever-
mora A men.

PEAYEE AFTEE THE SEEMON.

Grant, we pray thee, dear Lord and Master, an incoming of
light and knowledge that we may see more perfectly the truth; that
we may know more perfectly that the way of Christ is the way of
liberty ; that we may understand that suffering means learning, and
that tears betoken smiles, as from thorns come roses. Grant that we
may comprehend how by submission we rule; how by obedience we
come to a state in which we no longer need commands; how by con-
forming to law in our innermost man we rise higher than the law.
Grant to eveiy one in thy presence some portion o2 this truth, that
he may order his life in accordance with it. May self-will die out,
and may conformity to the will of God take the place of it, in the
heart of every one here. May we try to be better in our families.
May we seek to treat each other, in all the affairs of life, with more
justice and more kindness. May we endeavor to apply the Gospel to
our conduct. May it drive away doubt, and envy, and jealousy, and
all the imps that Satan sends upon us. We pray that we may become
children of the light, and that we may be children of the day, and
walk in the full communion of freedom here, in the hope of a yet
greater emancipation, and more perfect development in the world
that is to come. O Lord, chide us for our narrowness. We are not
hungry enough. We do not aspire enough. Our longings are too
few and too easily satisfied. Give us more discontent. Grant that
we may have more aspiration. Create in us a true hungering of the
soul for that which is infinite and enduring. We ask it not for our-
selves nor in our own wisdom, but in the adorable name of our
Beloved, to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, shall be
praises everlasting. Amen.

FAINT-HEAIITEDNESS.

I purpose, this evening, to make some remarks on the nar-
rative that is contained in the 13th and 14th chapters of the
book of Numbers. It is the account of the spies entering
the land of promise, and bringing back their report. The
story of this emigration of the IsraeUtes from Egypt is one
of the most remarkable of histories in this : that aside from
the interest of its relation to that great and wonderful race,
the Jew-stock — the most wonderful race-stock in the world —
it has become twined with the thoughts and the feehngs of
every nation in Christendom^ We may despise the Jews, but
our Saviour was a Jew. We may despise their ways and
their teachings, but without their Scriptures we would our-
selves be, as it were, in the wilderness. Their history has
been so thoroughly incorporated wdth our early instruction
and our early associations that it may be said that we are
more Jews, to-day, than the Jews themselves are.

It seems very strange to a modern, with his habits and
notions under civiHzation, that there should be such a his-
tory— that there should be an impulse which should lead
an entire people, numbering probably over two milhons, to
rise up in the night and move out of the land they were
dwelhng in. Such a thing is unheard of in very recent
times, but we have the most authentic history of such emi-
grations in the olden time, and reaching down pretty well
toward modern times. We have the history of the irruptions

SUNDAY EVENING, April 4. 18T4. Lesson : Psa. evil., 1-22. Htmns (Plymoutb
Collection) : Nos. 346. .'553, 864-

32 FA INT-HE ARTEDNESS.

of the Goths and Vandals, and the movements of the Asiatic
people, where nations broke from their moorings, and drifted
down from land to land. In antiquity such things were not
uncommon — at any rate, they were not so infrequent as to
make it a matter of surprise that this nation should separate
itself from its connections in Egypt and enter upon a sub-
sequent history of its own.

Now, the Israelites were evidently upon the eastern side
of the river Nile. As there is no mention of their crossing
that river, it is quite certain that they were on the eastern
side. It is also quite certain that they were low down upon
it. They were, therefore, but a comparatively short distance
from the promised land ; and the question is often asked.
Why they did not go into it at once. The reason given in
the Word of God is, that their leader doubted their capacity
to meet the adversaries that would stand upon the threshold
of that land ; namely, the Philistines — an active, bold, cour-
ageous people, bred to war, and knowing how to wield both
the spear and the bow, as we find in their subsequent history.
When the Israelites first came out of Egypt they were a vast
undisciplined herd — a great nation that had just escaped
from slavery, that did not know self-government, and that,
though organized into families and tribes, were not organized
as a civil commonwealth. They had never been trained to
arms, nor to much else. So it was needful that they should
go to school ; and to school they went. Crossing the head
of the Red Sea, they journeyed, with vai-ious fate, south-
ward ; and it was more than a year, probably, that they spent
in the environs of Mount Sinai, and the valleys and plains
adjacent. Then they turned to their left and went north-
ward until they came to Kadesh-Barnea in the neighborhood
of the Amalekites. Here it was that they were commanded
to select a jaortion from every tribe and send them forward
to look after the land into which they were apparently about
to enter.

" Send thou men, that they may search the land of Canaan, which
I give unto the children of Israel: of every tribe of their fathers
shall ye send a man, every one a ruler among them."

They were to be picked men ; but after all they were

FAINT-HEARTEDNESS. 33

good for nothing, with the exception of Joshua and Caleb :
and they were good only because they were men; the rest
were cravens.

*' Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan."

Here is their commission:

" Get you up this way southward, and go up into the mountain."
That is, they were to go into the mountainous region —
the " hill country," as it is called in other places.

"See the land, what it is; and the people that dwelleth therein,
whether they be strong or weak, few or many ; and what the land is
that they dwell in, whether it be good or bad ; and what cities they
be that they dwell in, whether in tents, or in strongholds. And what
the land is, whether it be fat or lean, whether there be wood therein
or not."

It was a military reconnoisance and an agricultural ex-
amination. It was a commission to go up and look after
the people, and see how they lived, and what they did, and
all about it.

It seems strange to us that men should be sent on such an

errand as that into a land occupied by another people ; but

we cannot now consider that question.

"Now the time was the time of the first ripe grapes. So they
went up, and searched the land from the wilderness of Zin [which
was a great desert in which they had been wandering] unto Rehob,
as men come to Hamath."

That was the route ; and it is quite interesting to follow
that route a little. As they would go forward, the very first
territory that they would strike, singularly enough, was the
territory of their old father Abraham, and where Jacob
dwelt ; for they would go into the land of the Hittites, in
which were the old pasture grounds that the patriarchs
held, where their flocks were. And they would go through
Hebron. And, leaving on the right Jebus or Jerusalem, they
would skirt the summit of the hills between the Jordan val-
ley and the great plain of the Philistines on the right and
left ; and going down into the valley of Eschol, they would
pass Bethel and Shiloh and Mount Gerizim and Mount
Ebal, and still further north they would see Gilboa on the
south, and Mount Tabor on the right, and Carmel on the
left. Thus they would enter that great fruitful plain of

31 FAINT-HEAETEDNESS.

Esdraelon. And still further they would go north, leaving
J^azareth on the left, and seeing Lake Gennesaret on the
east. They would keejD going north till they came to the
source of the Jordan ; and looking far up the north country
they would see the snowy top of Mount Hermon. Forty
days were these men gone ; and not a word is said about how
they fared. Little is told of where they stopped or what they
said. No doubt they lied all the way, from the beginning to
the end of their journey. They were sent as spies j they
would not tell what they were going for, and they must needs
have had some sort of account to give of themselves. They
could not heli3 striking a village or a city here and there ;
and it was their business to look into things wherever they
went ; but what account they gave of themselves nobody
knows. At any rate, they made the journey clear through to
the north and returned again south ; and when they came
into the hill country of Judaea (the southern part of Palestine
which became Judaea was especially a land of the vine, the
climate and soil being adapted to the production of grapes) —
to the valley of Eschol (or, literally, to the land of clusters),
they cut a huge cluster, such that two men bore it on a pole,
upon their shoulders, and carried it to the camp. It would
not take two to carry one bunch of grapes such as we have ;
Yet there are even now clusters that it would task a man to
carry. There are grapes from the Orient that answer some-
what to the descrii^tion of these grapes of Eschol.

"They returned from searching of the land after forty days.
And they went and came to Moses, and to Aaron, and to all the con-
gregation of the children of Is;^el, unto the wilderness of Paran, to
Kadesh ; and brought back word unto them, and unto all the congre-
gation, and shewed them the fruit of the land. And they told him
[Joshua and Caleb evidently were the speakers], and said, We came
unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with
milk and honey ; and this [pointing to the cluster] is the fruit of it.
Nevertheless, the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the
cities are walled, and very great ; and moreover we saw the children
of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south ; and
the Hittites, and the Jebusites. and the Amorites, dwell in the mount-
ains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jor-
dan. And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said. Let us go
up at once, and possess it ; for we are well able to overcome it."

There was the brave man's report. '' It is a grand land,"

FAINT-HEARTEDNESS. 35

he says; ''it is a lund, however, held by people that know
how to defend their own. It will cost something to get it^
but it is worth the jorice. Let us go !"

" But the men that went up with him sairl, We be not able to go
up agahist the people; for they are strougei- thau we. And they
brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto
the children of Israel, saying, The land through which we have gone
to search it, is a laud that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all
the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. And there we
saw the giants, the sons of Anals, which come of the giants, and we
were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.
And all the congregation lifted up their voice, aud cried; autl the
people wept that night."

This was a nice people to spend forty years with ; but,
then, they had been four hundred years slaves. They were
born and kept slaves in Egypt ; and what could you expect
of a great rabble crowd such as they were ? Men do not
learn manliness in slavery.

"And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and
against Aaron; and the whole congregation said unto them, Would
God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had
died in this wilderness! And wherefore hath the Lord brought us
unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives aud our children
should be a prey? were it not better for us to return Into Egypt?
Aud they said, one to another. Let us make a captaiu, aud let us
return into Egypt. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before
all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel. And
Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunueh, which were
of them that searched the land, rent their clothes: and they spake
unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying. The land
which we passed through to search it, is au exceeding good laud. If
the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give
it us; a laud which floweth with milk aud houey."

They had to address a motive to their months. Men who
cried and groaned for the melons, and cucumbers, aud leeks,
and onions which they had in Egypt, and said, "Who are we
that we should be brought to perish in this wilderness?"
would be likely to think a good deal of milk and honey, and
such things.

" Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of
the land; for they are bread for us [we can eat them up]: their
defence is departed from them, and the Lord is with us: fear them
not. But aU the congregation bade stone them with stones [that,
you know, is the last form of an argument]. And the glory of the

36 FAINT-HEARTEDNESS.

Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the
children of Israel. And the Lord said unto Moses, How long will
this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me
for all the signs which I have shewed among them? I will smite
them with the pestilence, and disinherit them."

Upon that, Moses, beiug promised tliat God should raise
up from him another people, declines the honor ; and for the
glory of God's name among the neighboring nations of the
Gentiles, he pleads that he may not seem to have undertaken
an enterprise and to have brought it short of accomplishment
on the very border of the promised land. Then the sentence
was commuted ; all but Caleb and Joshua of the spies were
cut off ; and the great people were turned back ; and it was
declared that not one man of those that were of age should
ever enter into the promised land — that they should wander
for forty years, until the whole j^opulation that had mani-
fested such pusillanimity and disobedience and rank treach-
erous rebellion should be cut off ; and that they who should
go in should be those who were under age at that time.
Then comes another rebellion.

No sooner did the people hear this sentence, and see the
condign fate that was visited upon the unfaithful spies — the
cowardly ones among them — than their minds rushed to the
other extreme. They said, " We will go in — we tvill go in."
But Moses said, "'No, no." Still they determined to attack
the Amalekites ; and they went forth and attacked them ;
and they were soundly thrashed, and came back into the
camp crestfallen, humiliated, and discouraged. Then they
were obedient ; they wheeled about and plunged into the
mysterious recesses of that desert land, and wandered to
and fro till forty years had elapsed ; and then, ascending
again, passed by on the left of Kadesh-Baruea, along the
east side of the Dead Sea, and by brave and persistent bat-
tling took possession of the promised land.

This is the history, in brief. There are some points in it
which will bear spiritualizing. There is much in it that is
pictorial.

The first remark which I make is, that God, in leading
men by his providence, never overtasks them, but adapts his
dispensations to their condition. He did not take this un-

FAINT-HEARTEDNESS. 37

fledged and undeveloped people straightway from their tasks
and their toils in Egypt into the promised land through the
gateway of Philistia, where they would have been over-
matched— where, unprepared, they would have had to cope
with more than equal adversaries. With great compassion
God waited until such time as organization and instruction
^nd drill in civil and military affairs should fit them for
entering that land with some promise of success. It was not
a precipitate entrance that was intended. It was delayed
long enough to accommodate che necessities of human life.
And that which was true in the management of this people
is true of all divine economies. They are adapted to men's
weaknesses as well as to their wants, and the requisitions of
God upon men. All the divine commands to attain unto
virtue, to overcome evil, to rise into the possession of noble
elements, are graded and adapted to men's experiences; and
men are not subject to everything in childhood that they are
in ripe manhood. Men are dealt with leniently; and God
waits for them to reach those things which are commanded
them. He is patient and long-suffering, and gives them time
to unfold the more perfect manifestation of Christian life
and Christian character.

The effect of slavery, as we have seen, is to make men
cowards. We are informed in the New Testament that sin
is slavery ; and certainly it is the effect of sin in men to make
them cowards, not that they are afraid of the punishment
of their sins, but that the temper of their spiritual courage
is taken away from them. The spirit of fraud, of deceit, and
of theft is a blight to the motives of reformation. Men who
have been accustomed to live by guile come to doubt their
own power, and they are faint-hearted in respect to their
ability to re-establish themselves on foundations of integrity.
Men who have indulged at length and at large in appetites,
and in the dispositions which spring from lust, when they are
plied with motives to virtue, and asked to rise out of the
desert upon the higher table lands of true morality, find that
they have been made cowards. They have not moral enter-
prise. They have not confidence in themselves. They do
not believe that they can overcome their habits and tempta-

38 FAINT-HEARTEDNESS.

tions, and break their thrall. There is an impression in them
or before them that if they attempt it they will meet such
mighty influences as certainly will defeat them and cast them
down, and that it is all in vain for them to try to reform.
Thousands and thousands of men stand outside of the prom-
ised land of virtue because ' they do not dare to go into it.
They arc afraid to undertake to enter it. They are broken
in morality and courage. They are hampered in spiritual
directions.

The same thing takes place continually in the realm of
industry which took jjlace in the history which we have
briefly traced. There are thousands and thousands of indo-
lent men who draw near to the realm of industry, and step
on the border of it, and look into it, and see its thriving
multitudes, and feel that it would be better for them if they
were there, and wish that they might become like those whom
they behold ; but, after all, when they come to seriously
meditate going in, they draw back, and lapse into their spend-
thrift habits, which all their life thereafter prevail against
them. They do not dare to venture.

Those men who have been living unvirtuous lives go and
look into the sphere where those men reside who are living
virtuously, and they think they will stej) over the border, and
now and then one goes over ; now and then God calls one
who responds ; but how many there are who stand like the
slavish people on the southern border of the promised land,
and although glorious accounts are given them of the wealth
that awaits them on the other side are too timid to go for-
ward.

How differently the same scene appears to men according
to whether they have manliness or whether they have the re-
verse ! Among the spies that went up to the promised land
there was no doubt as to the character of that land. They
all said it was a glorious land — they agreed in that ; they all
said it was very populous, being full of villages and cities —
they all agreed in tliat ; they all said that a brave and hardy
set of men lived there. And Joshua and Caleb said, "They
are not so strong as we are ; we are more than a match for
them ; we can overcome them. It is the land of our fathers.

FAINT-HEARTEDNESS. 39

that God gave to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and their
seed forever : and let us go up and possess it," If the others
had had the spirit of patriotism in their hearts ; if they had
had the inspiration which they should have had, they would
have felt that they could go into that land ; but while Joshua
had faith and Caleb had it, they had it not, and they were
neither manly nor courageous. The impression made upon
them was, when the spies came back, that it was impracti-
cable to attempt to go into it. The great mass, the multitude,
when they were told what a splendid land it was, were
pleased. Their eyes sparkled when the waving grain— the
barley and the wheat — was described to them. The wine,
the delicious clusters, the fruitful land flowing with milk and
honey, the lowing of the herds on every side, the flocks cov-
ering every hill, and the very wilderness being the pasture-
ground for innumerable bees — these all appealed to them in
the most forcihle manner. It was a beautiful land, filled
with abundance, and they all of them doubtless felt, " That
is our land j" but when it was told them, " There are great
giants there;" when the spies said, "The land is full of
grain and grapes, and milk, and honey ; but there are giants
there;" they said, "Oh, no, we don't want to go up ; we
don't care about honey ; we don't Hke milk — let us go back
to Egypt. We don't care about this promised land."

Are there not men who are doing just the same thing to-
day ? Are there not men who come on Sunday and hear me
preach, " The ways of righteousness are the ways of pleas-
antness, and all her paths are peace " ; and while I am describ-
ing these ways do not their judgment and their moral sense
approve ; while I touch the springs of aspiration, and paint
the glories that lie in the land beyond, do they not say to
themselves, "Yes, this renewed spiritual manhood, this land
of promise of the soul — let it be ours ;" but when to-morrow
comes, and they face the world and the temptations of the
world, and learn how giant-like are their adversaries, and dis-
cover that the price of virtue is strife and struggle, and that
they must deny themselves, put on their armor, draw their
sword, and fight for the land which they are to inherit, do
they not, many of them say, " I may as well go back to

40 FAINT-HEABTEDNESS.

Egypt " ? They want virtue on Sunday, and they like it all
the rest of the week. They desire it, but they are not will-
ing to pay the price with which alone it can be purchased.

There was not a man shivering in that camp who would
not have been glad if God had sent destroying angels before
him, and conquered that land, and then let him walk up
into it, and enjoy its advantages without effort or struggle ;
but no ; God does not let his people go into the promised
land either physically or morally. He has joined together as
immutable, in every man's life, the two elements of cause
and effect ; and he has established it as a law that the thiugs
which are best cost the most. That he who would have the
most must work the most ; that he who would attain the
noblest things must be the most heroic.

That which was true in regard to those people of old in
the lower forms of life is even more significantly true in
regard to the higher forms of attainment. No man goes
into the land of promise without endeavor. There are the
Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amalekites, and all the
other ites, which threaten a man in his social surroundings ;
and no man can take the pleasant places of lifC;, and sit in
the valleys of flowing water, and in the midst of the abun-
dance which the soul is to possess, unless the spirit of enter-
prise and courage is in him.

Mark, once more, the penalty that was inflicted by God,
not only on the unfaithful spies, but on the great mass of
the people, because they were pusillanimous, and doubting,
and faithless. Was their crime great ? Is it a crime for a
man to doubt ? Is it a crime for a man uO lack faith ?
Under certain circumstances, yes, it is. Not that every man
in the modern acceptation of that term faith is to be consid-
ered as fatally guilty who does not accept this or that intel-
lectual proposition ; but in practical life there are lew things
more disastrous to a man than want of faith in the full
attainment of the things which belong to manhood. A
man who does not believe that he can tell the truth, or that
he can maintain himself in honor and purity, that he can
attain spirituality of life, and abide in it if he attains it, is a
traitor to God and to his own soul. There are places in

FAINT-HEARTEDNESS. 41

which men stand where to be faint-hearted is to be guilty of
crimes as great as man can commit. Those men who went
with Joshua and Caleb and brought that report which set
the whole camp in a turmoil of cowards, and produced a
panic of fear — those men, for want of courage, were doomed
to death, and justly. It is the impetus of conviction and
purpose and faith that gives men success in life.

When Farragut — that noble man, who succeeded because
he believed that he should succeed — was talking with the
commander of the fleet off Charleston, who delayed, and
delayed, and delayed making an attack witli his whole force
of monitors, and finally gave it up, and never brought on a
battle, this commander complained that the government did
not give him such and such' arrangements and combinations,
that he had not this advantage, and that he lacked that
advantage, and when he got through his story, the old hero
Farragut said to him, "You have not told one reason."
" What is that ?" said the man. " You did not believe you
could do it." That was the story in a few words.

When Farragut meant to run the forts on the Mississippi
he believed that he could do it, and he did it ; and when he
wanted to run the fire in Mobile bay, desperate as it was, he
said he could do it, and he did it; and it was the power of
his faith that carried him through.

Now, when men look at enterprises as if their face was
made of jelly, they certainly cannot carry much through ;
but if their faces be of fire or of flint, they can. There are
thousands and thousands of rescues, there are thousands and
thousands of victories, in this life, which are the result of
the force of conviction and of courage. Every man can be
better than he is. You can leave off any habit if you have
a mind to. You can stop swearing, you can break off from
drink, you can abandon bad company, you can correct lasciv-
ious thoughts and imaginations ; you can give up all degrad-
ing pleasures, you can maintain honesty, you can attain it if
you have lost it, you can purify the understanding of all
obscurity so that you shall see the truth and speak truly, you
can come into the spirit of prayer, you can enjoy the com-
munion of God, you can overcome easily besetting sins, you

43 FATNT-HEARTEDKESS.

can live a Christian life, by the power of faith. What you
need, standing trembling on the border of the accomplish-
ment of these things, is simply conviction, and the courage
to venture. Without faith you can do nothing ; with it you
can do everything.

There are many men who are pictured in this scene.
Many of you, doubtless, are pictured in it. How many men
have been brought, as the Israelites were, to the very border
of the promised land, and have never gone into it ?

My thoughts drift back to my early ministry, and to the
labors of some of my former fields. I remember that one
Sabbath morning, after a very long and blessed revival of
religion, I sat in my pulpit and counted ; and there were but
twenty men in the congregation who were not hopefully con-
verted. It did not take me so long to count my congregation
then as it does now ; for in all my early ministry I do not
suppose I averaged three hundred hearers until I came to
Brooklyn. People sometimes say, " Oh, you havesnch great
throngs, of course you can preach of this, that and the other
thing." But I worked my way up. I labored for fifteen
years where I had but a handful of men. I formed my
habits in the ministry, not on the top of prosperity, but at
the bottom of it, where men work and endure, and learn to
work by enduring. It is only the flowers of early endeavor
that I have in later life. Well, I remember looking through
my congregation and seeing that lawyer, and that business
man and that broker, and that half-reformed gambler, and
that speculator; and I recollect making an estimate of them.
Many of them I had seen on their knees. Many of them
had come to see me with tears in their eyes. I had seen one,
I now remember, when he thought himself to be converted,
and he began family prayer in his household. I know what
the history of these men has been since. They are nearly
all gone. Only one or two of them are yet left. The light
of hope was not kindled in any single instance that I know
of. I brought them to the border of the promised land, I
pointed it out to them, I urged and urged them to venture ;
some of them, with hesitating step, went over the border,
but ran back speedily ; while others held back and looked

FAINT-HEARTEDNESS. • 43

and wished and feared, and died in their sins. Tliere are
such men now. There are many in this congregation who
liave for yeau been Hving in the knowledge of the truth.
Their understanding goes with me in everything that I say.
In calmer moments all their moral nature responds to the
appeals that I make. Nay, there are soft hours in which
thoir hearts melt. They mean better things. They come
up to the border line of resolution, and on one side are coarse
passions, worldly indulgences, overweening and sordid cares,
various ambitions and selfish strife, and on the other side are
ftiitli, and a pure and undefiled lo"e, and a vision of God,
and tlie liope of immortality ; but although they go up to
the very border, they never pass over ; and many of them
have turned away— or they have gone back into the desert;
and many are turning away ; and some there are here to-
night. Oh, that my word might be efficacious with them !
Oh, that they who have wandered so long and restlessly
might, at last, looking over, and seeing the blessedness be-
yond, pass on into the presence of God, to be his forever !
Oh, that they might now and at once cast in their lot with
God's people, break away from all seductions, escape from
every besetting sin, cast aside tiieir evil habits, and begin to
live a Christian and spiritual life !

I fear that there are many who hear these words for the
last time, and in whose experience will be spiritually verified
the old history; and that not until more than forty years
liave passed shall they see the promised land— nor then to
enter. They perislied in the wilderness who would not go
when God called them ; and greater yet is the wilderness that
awaits those, and more dismal is the destruction which shall
overcome them, who do not know the time of their calling
and the day of God's visitation, who resist the strivings of
the divine Spirit with their reason, with their moral sense,
and with their affections.

If, then, peradventure, there be any who know the way
of life, and have purposed some time to begin a Christian
course, why not begin it now ? Since God's burdens are
light, and his yoke is easy, wliy not to-night, at this hour,
with full purpose of heart, begin to live the true and ever-

44 FAINT-HEABTEDNESS.

enduring life ? The flesh perisheth ; the passions all decay ;
the joys that spring from them are transitory ; nor are they
of the best kind when they endure ; but that which God
gives to those who put their trust in him is a well of waters
springing up into everlasting life ; it is bread that takes away
hunger ; it is water that takes away thirst ; it is rest that
abides for ever ; it is peace that is as the very life of God.

Oh, men, to you I call. For your own sake, for the sake
of your immortality, and for the sake of Christ, enter the
spirit land, the promised land j and be obedient to your
Leader, God.

FAINT-HEARTEDNESS. 45

PEAYER BEFOEE THE SERMON".

We bless thy name, our Father, for the mercy of the clay; for its
light, for its inspiration ; for all the associations that are connected
with it ; for all the thoughts which we have had ; for all the feelings
that lift us above our sorrow and our trouble, and into thy presence.
We thank thee that we have felt this day the influence of the world
to come; that we have been lifted uj) ; that we have beheld thee as in
a vision. And we pray, now, that we may not forget the blessedness
of the truths of inspiration which thou hast been pleased to vouchsafe
to us. May we bear into all the days of this week the Spirit of faith
and the power of hope, and rejoice in the Lord with daily thanksgiv-
ing and trust unalterable and immovable. We are not worthy to
draw near unto thee. We do not come because we are like unto
thee, nor because we have fulfilled that measure of duty which is
plain to us; we draw near to thee because thou art gracious, and thy
goodness is our hope and our trust. We bless thee that, though
nature be rugged, and though fate doth rule with cruel strokes,
there is permitted us forgiveness under the law. We bless thee that
thou art full of compassion and of tender mercy, and that thou dost
never forget thy children. We thank thee that thou art thinking
evermore of men who transgress thy commands, and wander from
thy ways; and lapse from happiness, and fall into distress and
trouble, and cry out unto thee for help. We thank thee that thou
dost succor them and bring them out of the pit where they are, and
from the evils by which they are held, and dost redeem their souls,
because thou art beneficent, and because it pleaseth thee to do such
things.

And now, O thou Sovereign of mercy and of goodness, we desire
to trust in thee — not in our own wisdom; not in the might of thy
right hand ; not in our experience ; and not in that which, little by
little, we may have obtained of virtue and piety. Our trust, our
hope, is the infinite mercy and goodness of our God. Abundant thou
art in mercy, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin ; and we
desire to stand pensioners of thy bounty ; for we are not disgraced
that we are thy pensioners, such is thy grandeur. Wonderful are
thy mercies with which thou hast crowned us. That which from the
hands of men we might disdain, from thy hand comes as an honor.
We pray that thou wilt make us to feel that the things which
we reap, we gain from thee and achieve from thee. May we rejoice
that everything is perfumed with the thought of God. We pray that
we may be strengthened by thee and become more powerful by
faith to forgive our adversaries, and at last overcome the final
enemy, and stand triumphant beyond the reach of death itself.

We pray that thou wilt grant thy blessing to rest upon all who
are assembled here this evening. Look thou upon every one accord-
ing to his need. Grant mercy and peace to every one. Grant the
salvation which they need to those who are in affliction; and grant
the guidance which they need to those who are in perplexity ; and
give the strength which they need to those who are ready to faint

46 FAINT-HEABTEDNESS.

and to perish by the way. Thou that didst lead thy people of oM
like a flock, we pray that every one in thy presence may be al)Ie to
look up to thee as the Shepherd that leads them in green pastures and
by the side of still waters.

And now, we pray that thou wilt send abroad that light of triith
which hath made us happj', to all the known world. May the tidings
of salvation through Jesus Cbrist be preached in every land. May a
high and lioly faith be more and more felt in the experience of the
race. Lift men up from their barbarism, from their superstitions
and from their cruelties. We pray that the day of prediction may
speedily come, when, from the rising of the sun to the going down of
the same, all men shall know thee, and shall love thee. May our
laud be an instrument in thy hand for the accomplishment of these
great ends. We pray that thou wilt raise up men that shall preach
with more fullness and power than any who have gone before. We
pray that there may be men whose hearts shall be more ijerfectly
ripened by the grace of God, and that love may assume a strength
and perform wonders such as have never been seen. Oh, hasten the
day when a purified church, knit together by faith and love, shall
shine forth upon the world, and the daylight come for which the
world so long has waited.

And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son, and Spirit.
Amen.

PRAYEE AFTER THE SERMON.

Our Father, we thank thee for the recorded history of thy people
of old. We pray that the application of their example to our lives
may be such as shall profit us. May we avoid their errors. May we
steer wide of their mistakes.

We pray that thou wilt grant thy blessing to rest upon all that
are present to-night. May there be wheat sown which shall spring
up. We pray that thou wilt revive thy work in the hearts of thy
people. We pray that thou wilt ripen all good impressions and right
tendencies in the heart of every one. More and more may we hear
men saying, I am the Lord's. More and more may we see the beauty
of holiness developed in them. May thy kingdom come, and may
thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.

We ask it for Christ Jesus' sake. Amen.

"AS A LITTLE OHILD."

During the few weeks that I have been here, and have
had the services of the Sabbath mornings under my charge,
I have felt that both courtesy and good feeling required
that, as far as possible, I should avoid all discussion and
exposition that would raise questions of difference. Divided
as the great Christian world is in various ways, internally
and externally, into separate bands, it seems to me that
the same courtesy should be employed when one stands in
a promiscuous multitude in the community that is em-
ployed in the intercourse between families. In every neigh-
borhood there are certain elements that are different in
one family and another; and politeness requires that they
should not interfere with each other's living. Every one is
entitled to his own liberty ; and there is a propriety in every
other one respecting that liberty. I have undertaken, there-
fore, on the Sabbath mornings when I have spoken to you,
to discuss those elements which were spiritually fundamental,
and which belonged to all Christian sects in common — and I
shall this morning do the same thing : for when you touch
the question of true Christian experience ; when you deal
with the great subject of Christian character, all differences
vanish. It will be found as you recede from the spiritual
conception of manhood to the instruments by which men
are educated that differences multiply and disputes increase ;
but as you go from the visible toward the invisible, and dis-
cuss the interior life of Chi'istians, all differences gradually
cease, and men come into perfect unity. If you could
bring the whole great diverse brotherhood of Christians,

Preached at the Twin Mouktain House, Sept. 20, 1874. Htslns: (Plymouth
Collection) Noa. 776, 733, '• Doxology."

50 "^S A LITTLE CHILD."

under various names, together into a scene where all were

lifted up to a holy enthusiasm in admiration for some great

and noble deed, or in aspiration, you would find that they

would take hold of hands together, and that there would be

no separation. The essential element of Christianity unites

men. Its instruments and external institutions divide them.

Therefore he who speaks from the interior, and to the interior

of Christian experience, speaks in accordance with the best

judgments and the best aspirations of Christians of every

sect.

In the 18th chapter of Matthew, and the opening verse,

are the following words :

" At the same time came the disciples uuto Jesus, saying, Wlio is
ttie greatest iu the kingdom of heaven ?

That is very much, if you should put it in modern phrase,
as if one should say, "What do you consider the most
eminent state of Christian experience ? What is your con-
ception of the most perfect manhood ?"

" And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the
midst of them, and said, Verily t say unto you, except ye be converted,
and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of
heaven,"

Let alone who is the greatest there ; — you shall not even

get in unless you become as little children.

" Whosoever, therefore, shall humble himself as this little child,
the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

We are to recollect that our Master stood at a time of the
world when in various nations the ambition of manhood had
been, or was, very strong. The Chaldean and the Assyrian
had their conception of what was the most becoming in a
man — they had their ideal heroes, in other words ; the Greek
had his ideal man and manhood ; the Eoman had very dis-
tinctly before his mind that which to him was the highest
spectacle of manhood ; the Jews, who were not one whit
behind them, had clear conceptions of what was necessary to
a perfect noble manhood ; and our Master fell in with the
universal disposition of men in their better moods, or of the
best men in their better moods, to seek ideal perfection ;
and when they came io ask him, "Who is the greatest in the
kingdom of heaven?" — that is, "What is the highest man-

''AS A LITTLE CHILD." 51

hood ?" — he took a little child and set him in their midst.
And what was the signification of that ?

The Master was surrounded by conceited men, whose ideal
was so easily reached that there were tens of thousands in Jeru-
salem who had reached it, and who had gone, as they thought,
as far as human nature could go ; and perchance they were of
those who said, " What lack I yet ? " That was the spirit of
the great mass of the best Jews. Their standard being so low,
there were many elements that puffed them up ; they felt
that they knew a great deal ; they had read the Old Testa-
ment— that is, the law of Moses, the prophets and the
Psalms ; their teachers had inspired them with the feeling
that knowledge consisted in a minute rendering and an exact
understanding of the distinctions of the exterior Mosaic law ;
they were very familiar with that ; they therefore felt that
there was scarcely anybody that could instruct them ; and
they were very proud and excessively conceited. Our
Master stood in the midst of scribes, doctors, teachers, and
eminenb Jewish saints; and their feeling was, "We are
ready to patronize you ; we recognize that you are an able
man, that you are a prophet, that you are one of us ; and
we will take you into our company if you will only dis-
close an esprit de corps. If you will go with us we will
accept you." In their conceit they felt that they were ortho-
dox, that they were saints ; and Christ says to them, ''If you
wish to be eminent in the kingdom of heaven you must be
converted — that is, you must be turned to just what you are
not ; you must empty yourselves all out of yourselves, and
start over again ; and you must be like little children."

Now, what is it in childhood that makes the model or con-
ception of manhood ? It is not that the child loves ; it is
not that the child is weak ; it is not that the child is igno-
rant : it is that in childhood universally there is the impetus
and aptitude to learii. It is not a sense of ignorance so much
as an appetite for knowledge ; and the whole force of the
nature of the child, the whole impulse of the child's mind,
is, "What is that? What is that? What is that?" and
the child sits artlessly and receives what every one tells it.
It is hungry for knowledge, and knowledge pours into it in

52 "^S A LITTLE CHILD."

ceaseless streams. But the Pharisees felt themselves to be
like a bay into which the whole Atlantic ocean pours its
tides, and fills it full, so that no more can be put into it with-
out its running over ; and the Saviour said to them, " There
is no man among you that knows anything about the king-
dom of God. Such is your self-satisfied state that unless
you be converted and become as children, unless you are con-
scious that you are profoundly ignorant, unless you have a
different conception of what manhood means, and of the
ways of obtaining it, and unless you become my scholars, and
let me teach you the first elements of noble living, you shall
not see the kingdom of heaven."

What, then, is '' the kingdom of heaven" ? It is an ori-
ental figure ; and it is a figure which is better understood in
a monarchy, and under a despotism, than in our democratic
republican government. We have to form very artificial
notions of it. But we are familiar with what is meant by a
ca7cse — the cause of temperance, the cause of virtue, the
cause of truth ; we are familiar with what is meant by purity
and justice, and so on ; and our knowledge of these things
will help us somewhat to understand what our Master meant
by ''the kingdom of heaven."

The exact definition is given by the Apostle Paul, where
he says, " The kingdom of God is not meat and drink [re-
ferring to the sacrificial rites and feasts of the Jews], but
righteousness, [right-living, rectitude of life, in intent and
endeavor], and peace [not blindness nor stupidity] ." Peace
does not mean the absence of disturbance. Peace is a posi-
tive quality. It is the highest condition in which correlated
faculties can exist. It is intense tranquility. When the
strongest feelings are in accord and all right, the highest ex-
citement is the most peaceful state. All excitements that are
painful or injurious are so because men are not perfect
enough ; because they are not high enough ; because they do
not average enough.

When you hear one of the noblest strains of Beethoven's
symphonies, in ten or twelve different parts, it seems like one
sound. Take those parts from each other, separate them,
throw them against each other, and they agitate one another ;

''AS A LITTLE CHILD." 53

but when they are perfectly concordant all the irustruments
swell together with their different natures. They are so
related that their varying sounds become as one sound, and
are completely harmonious.

When one feeling alone is excited, its excitement is dis-
turbing, and the other feelings are in conflict ; but when the
whole mind is excited together, and concordantly, there is no
disturbance, but all is peace. And that peace which is here
meant is a peace of vitality : it is not a peace of stupidity or
indifference. It is one of the noblest, highest, best and most
comprehensive of feelings.

Then there is another element which the apostle mentions
as belonging to the kingdom of heaven — namely, "joy in the
Holy Ghost " — that is, inspired joy ; that rapture which
comes not from a sordid love of things which we can see or
handle, but from the experience of those nobler hours, those
supreme moments which are given to men ; that ecstacy
which comes from conscious communion, or from the uncon-
scious possession of the highest feelings of our nature.

When, therefore, you put these elements together, and
bring them into order, and weigh them, and interpret them
in our familiar manner, the kingdom of God is simply the
Realization of Manhood in the highest form. It begins on
earth and terminates in heaven. He only is in the kingdom
of God who has begun to develop in himself, with earnest
purpose, all those qualities, that whole line of conduct, which
is leading him toward the full idea of perfect manhood which
God meant when he set up man.

Take a clock like that one in the office here, that never
keeps time. What was it made for ? To keep time. That
was the design with which it was put together and set
a-going. It may wander from the original purpose of its
maker, and go too fast or too slow ; nevertheless, that for
which it was made was to register the lapse of time. That
was the end which was contemplated in its construction. All
clocks are made for that. It is what the man set out for
who made it. He may have thought of selling it, and get-
ting the money for it ; but the constructive idea back of the
commercial one was that it should register time. That is

54 "^S A LITTLE child:'

the root of the matter in every clock ; and the clock is val-
uable in proportion aa it does this, and worthless in jiropor-
tion as it wanders from its maker's design.

Now, in the matter of manhood, the plenitude of reason,
the fullness, richness, depth and power of the moral senti-
ments ; the illumination that comes through the imagination ;
all those illusive graces that flash over the mind through
fancy and mirth and humor ; all those domestic affections
which go where the mother-nature may not go in society rela-
tions ; all those basilar forces which are indispensable to man
in his warfare in the material world — all these elements (and
how many there are of them I How easily they are put out
of adjustment ! How poorly they are constructed ! How
much they lack that training which shall lead them to work
upward and in the right direction !) — all these elements con-
stitute the conception of man, in full disclosure, with all his
powers of mind and soul and spirit developed so that the
whole being is one that obeys the laws of matter, social laws,
intellectual laws, moral laws and spiritual laws.

Next, what is it to "enter into the kingdom of God"?
In the first place, you want to throw away the idea of a city,
of a gate, or of any material entering-in. Whoever under-
takes to be a man according to the instruction of the word
)f God, though his ideal may not be complete, and under-
takes to use himself so as to make himself better, and so as
to grow more and more manly, has entered the kingdom of
God.

Entering the kingdom of God, then, is entering a Chris-
tian, a higher and nobler, life. Entering the kingdom of God
is being better. Meaning to be better systematically, as the
end of one's life, is to enter the kingdom of God.

And what is being "converted"? It is beginning to do
these things. What is it to be a farmer ? Well, it is to ob-
tain one's livelihood, or rather occupying one's time, in the
cultivation of the soil. What is it to become converted from
a minister to a farmer ? It is to stojD preaching much, and
to go to work on a farm. It does not necessarily mean that
I shall be a good farmer, or that I shall earn anything, or
that I shall do my work in the best way, but that I shall de-

''AS A LITTLE CHILD:' 55

vote my time to the business of farming. The moment I
begin to devote myself to that business I begin to be a
farmer.

What is it for a man who has been a liar all his life long
to become a man of veracity ? It is to set out with the pur-
pose of fulfilling, as far as possible, the law of truth. It is
hard for a man who has been living in an illusory world to
get back into a world of realities ; and it is hard for a man
who has equivocated from his childhood up to speak the truth.
No man speaks the truth easily who has not been trying to
all his hfe, and still less one who has all his life indulged
in falsehood. But when a man says, " I have been a liar ; I
see that lying is dislionorable and base ; and I am going to
try to be a man of truth," and makes a business of it for days
and weeks and months, and means to keep on, he has begun
to be a truthful man. He may yet falsify every day ; but if,
after all, he has his face set toward veracity, and toward
overcoming the tendency to falsehood, and is growing in the
belief of his neighbors, then he has begun to enter the king-
dom of truth ; he is a part of it ; he is a disciple in it.

A man is taken sick. The physician says that morbific
influences have a course that they must run ; that when they
have once started there is a tendency to keep on ; and he will
also tell you that by and by there comes a point where, under
medication, or by the forces of nature, this tendency is ex-
hausted, where it consummates itself, and where there begins
to be a recuperative tendency. This man has been three
weeks confined to his bed, and his physician says " The crisis
is past ; now there is a tendency to recovery." The man is
'''getting well" ; he is "convalescent." But he is not well ;
his eyes are heavy ; his bones ache ; his organs do not perform
their functions perfectly ; he is on the "' sick list " yet ; it will
be a long time before he will be on his feet : and when he is
on his feet it will be a long time before he can make much
use of himself; and after he commences to use himself it
will be perhaps six months before he will be restored to full
vigor and usefulness ; and yet when the physician says,
"' The crisis is past," the man has begun to get well,

Now, to be converted means to set your face toward a

56 "^S A LITTLE CHILD."

higher and nobler way of living — not to set yourself to do
better according to the pattern of this neighborhood or ac-
cording to the average public sentiment of the community;
but to set yourself to do better according to the pattern of
the highest manhood. The moment a man takes in a con-
ception of his relations to God, of his eternal existence, of
the change spiritual by which, by and by, he is to drop this
mortal body and be associated with the general assembly and
church of the first-born, and with the spirits of just men
made perfect, in the other life ; the moment a man compre-
hends the scope of his whole being here and hereafter, and
says, '' I am determined to live as a man should who has
such a destiny in the life to come" — that moment lie has
entered into the kingdom of God.

We are stopped at this point by misconceptions wide-
spread. In the first place, men say, " I understand by
conversion a great change wrought in a man by which he
passes from death to life, so that whereas yesterday he was a
great sinner, to-day he is a child of grace ; so that a man
who is in the darkness of ignorance is immediately lifted into
the light of truth, wherein everything becomes new to him."
This impression is the more mischievous because it has a root
of truth in it, a figurative expression being treated as though
it were literal truth.

A man gets up in a conference meeting, a love-feast, or
some church assembly, and says, ''I was conscious that there
was a great struggle in me against God and righteousness ;
and I was conscious of being suddenly led by the power of
God so that everything seemed new to me. I never heard
the birds sing so before. The world never seemed so beauti-
ful to me before. I never before seemed to love everybody
so. Everything appeared different. I was a new man. I
was changed— completely changed." He really does feel as
though he was completely changed. Well, is he ? Let us
see. He has been a stingy man. Is his stinginess quite
dead ? He has been a very proud man. The first effect of
this spiritual shock that he has received was such that his
head is not held so high, and his neck is a great deal more
limber ; but is his pride dead ? You shall soon after hear

"AS A LITTLE CHILD." 57

him say, " We have our trials and troubles in the Christian
life as elsewhere. I have had much light and comfort since
I became a Christian; but I have had my ups and downs."
What does he mean by "ups and downs" ? He means that
he was not completely changed by the Spirit of God. He
began to be a Christian — that was the only change which he
underwent. He simply started in the Christian course. His
old habits were not burned up. There was a change ; and
pride, love of money, vanity, the affections, all the faculties
of the mind, received an impulse in the right direction ; but
that impulse had not consolidated itself into fixed habits ;
and every man that is born into the kingdom of God, or con-
verted, is merely started in the Christian life.

A man says, "I am going to emigrate. This is a poor
country about the White Mountains ; a man must be a stone
to be contented to earn his living on these farms ; I am going
to Oregon, where the land is worth having ;" but he cannot
sell his farm ; and he must look after his old mother, who
cannot go ; and he is hindered in various ways from carrying
out his intention. He thinks about it much as many people
think about becoming Christians. They want to be Chris-
tians ; they never see any exhibition of Christian life, or
"witness any religious ceremony, that it does not stir them up
and make them wish they were Christians ; they feel that
they must be Christians some time or other. By and
by the mother dies, and the man says, "One string is
broken that kept me here : now, if I can get rid of my
farm, I will go." But there are vacillations in his mind.
He says, " Can I get enough money to go with ?" By and
by he begins to read and think and inform himself. At
length he sells his farm, and he has, perhaps, a thousand
dollars ; and he says, " What can I do with it ?" He says at
last, turning it over seriously in his mind, " I will go — I will
go next Monday." Next Monday comes, and he starts.
After traveling a day, he gets to Boston. An acquaintance
meets him there, and says, "Hallo ! I understood you were
going to Oregon." "I am going there," says the man, "but
I have not gone." Yes, he is going; but he is in New
England yet ; and when he has traveled another day he will

58 ''AS A LITTLE CHILD."

be there still. He may stop in New York a week ; but he is
on his way to Oregon. When he is out of New York State
and in the Western States he may wish to stop and see things
there and make inquiries, but he is on his way to Oregon.
He has begun his journey, although the comprehensive ob-
ject for which he set out is not attained but is yet in a far
distant land.

A man says, "I have beeu living a wicked life, without
regard to the future, and now I am going to take a larger
conception of manhood, to live for my Saviour, for eter-
nity, for my own welfare here and hereafter, and for the
honor and elevation of my fellow men." He surveys the
matter and forms his purpose, and says, " I will, by the gi-ace
of God, undertake to live from this time forth by a higher
rule and in a better way." 77/ at man is converted. How
much is he converted ? Well, he has started in the right
way. But every subsequent day of his life he will find out
that it is one thing to resolve, that it is another thing to
execute, and that on entering upon a Christian life a man
enters, not upon a course which by the omnipotent power of
God has been shaved smooth and clean so that he rolls like a
ball downhill easily all the time, but upon an education the
most comprehensive and the most difficult that a man can
conceive of.

When you have entered upon a Christian life you have
undertaken, under all manner of circumstances and with
every influence operating upon you, to take the forces of
nature which are working incorrectly in you, and to take
your understanding and moral sentiments and spiritual dis-
positions, and overrule them and control them so that you
shall fulfill the great law of love to God and man.

Now, when a man begins such a work as that, he is like a
boy that has gone to school. We are not further along, most
of us, than such a one. The exceptions I shall have occa-
sion to mention in a moment. The j^ojiular idea of a Chris-
tian is, that before he was a Christian he was a sinner — in
other words, that he was a bag full nf all sorts of weed-seeds,
and that the Spirit of God came along and shook them uj)
and emptied them out, and put the bag under a hopper, and

"AS A LITTLE CHILD." 59

filled it full of wheat, and tied it up, and set it in the church,
where people point at it and say, "He is a Christian. He
used to be a sinner full of vile seeds from bottom to top, but
now he is all wheat." Men speak of persons in the church
according to that false theory. They think that God has
burned up all the chaff and straw, all that is inferior in them,
and that they are filled with the Divine Spirit. Instead of
that, Christ says to a man, '' Would you be saved ? Well,
come after me, and let me teach you." That is the import of
''Follow me" and "Become my disciple." Disfiipk simply
means scholar. Christ is a school-master to us. We
must learn in his kingdom divine ideas, and then we must
practice them. We must be not only taught, but trained
and driUed, in Christ's teaching, until it has become a part
of our nature.

No man who is beginning to be a Christian is more than
a beginner, or can be, in the very nature of the human
mind ; and when a man is converted — that is to say, when he
has had a clear revelation of the enormity of sin, and he
revolts from it, and turns away from it, and has a more or
less vivid conception of the higher Christian life, and sets
his face toward it, saying, "T believe that I am converted,
and that I have entered into the kingdom of Christ" — he is
like a little child, and has everthing to learn.

I make these explanations for a variety of reasons. First,
many persons think, when they are converted, that they are
perfect Christians. When a man has gone through convic-
tion, and had an awful time, and wrestled with the Prince of
Darkness, and he gets up in meeting, and says, " I remember
that I could not eat my meals, that I tossed in bed two whole
nights without sleep, and that when I knelt in prayer all
seemed dark, till by and by I heard a voice, and peace came
into my soul, and I shouted, ' Glory, glory, glory,' " people
feel as though that experience showed that he had lieen
rinsed and cleansed and scoured out, and that all in him
that was bad was clean gone ; but it is not so.

These dramatic experiences I do not in any way ridicule ;
but I smite them when they are misinterpreted so as to be
mischievous, and I say to persons who, though thej have

60 "^S A LITTLE CHILD."

them, are yet living a low life, ''Do you not know that your
conduct is inconsistent with your profession ? Do you not
know that you are constantly breaking your Christian vows ?
Do you not know that you are considered by those who are
acquainted with you as no better than an infidel man, and
that many who do not pretend to be Christians are regarded
as more reliable than you ?" They say : " Oh ! well, you
know that Christians sometimes backslide ; but I have been
converted, and I have the promises, and I am going to get
into heaven." They think that from that dramatic expe-
rience which they went through when they were first con-
verted, as they supposed, they are sure of being eaved.

A man enters college and passes his examination, which is
a pretty tough one, and is matriculated. But during term-
time he does not study, but has his sprees and frolics, and
does not make any preparation for the examination tliat is
coming round ; and when he is warned by his teachers and
classmates, who say to him, " Look here, ray friend, you are
getting into trouble by not studying and preparing for the
examination," he says, " I'd like to know if I'm not a mem-
ber of the Freshman class. Haven't I been examined, and
haven't I got in ? Don't I belong to this college ? I may be
worse or better in the coming examination, but here I am
in it." Yes, and he may be out of it when the examination
comes !

" Many shall say unto hira, Have we not prophesied in thy name,
and in thy name done many wonderful works; and he shall profess
unto them, I never knew you."

Men say, " Don't you know what a time I had when I was
convicted and converted ?" What does God care for that ?
The secret purpose of God is to make you moi. and redeem
you from animalism, and from the thrall and narrowness of
pride and selfishness, and augment and enrich your nature,
and eclifp you, — as the Scripture phrase is, build you up, —
into resplendent, heroic manhood ; and what boots it, under
such circumstances, that you simply began to be a Christian ?
The question is, have you been built up ?

I have seen in New York City, ten or twelve foundations
for buildings where the cellar walls were started, and I

''AS A LITTLE CHILD:' 61

have seen those cellar walls stand for six years, to my certain
knowledge, without any superstructure built upon them. So
I have seen many Christians converted who never got above
the cellar walls. Nothing was ever built upon them. They
never became perfect men in Christ Jesus.

We are converted, and have entered the kingdom of God,
when we have become as little children, and have undertaken
to be better men, according to our light and knowledge in
every direction ; when we have undertaken to educate our-
selves in a better way of thinking, and feeling, and living ;
when we have undertaken to build up abetter manhood : and
it does not make any difference whether we come into the
kingdom of God with uproar and a dramatic experience or
not. If you are in the school of Christ and are faithful
scholars, that is the main thing ; and if you come in with
bands playing and flags flying, and you are poor scholars, it
will not do you any good that you have been converted and
are in the church. You are to become as little children, in
order that you may grow in grace. It is the attainment
which you have made toward Christian manhood that is to
measure your growth and determine the finality of your life
and disposition.

But while on the one side I would expose these mistakes
that men commit to their detriment, on the other side I
make this exposition for the encouragement of thousands
and thousands of persons who were instructed by Christian
parents all through their childhood, and who have a substan-
tial knowledge of the truth as it is laid down in Christian
schemes, and who have strong yearnings and desires to live
better, but who feel self-rebuked, and struggle in their
minds. There are before me persons who have said, thou-
sands of times, ''I do feel as though, if I were only con-
verted, I should like to live a Christian life." There are
thousands who have wistfully looked on when father and
mother or brothers and sisters have gone to partake of the
Lord's Supper and said, " I wish I were worthy and could
go ; but I have never been converted. I do not belong to
the church, and, therefore, the Lord's Supper is not
for me."

62 "^S A LITTIE CHILD."

Well, if you are standing and waiting for the Spirit of
God instantly to catch yon up, and strike light and heat
through you, so as to transform you at once, then you are
waiting upon an error ; but it is possible for any one of you,
at any moment, to be a Christian, now, here, before you
leave your seat, while you are listening to me.

Sujjpose tliere were war again, and I were calling for
soldiers, would you not become a soldier the moment you
gave your name to me to be enrolled ? Would you not con-
sider yourself a soldier when you had separated from your
friends and companions, and gone into the army, and signed
your name, or given me leave to sign it for you? You would
not be a soldier in one sense, but in another sense you would
be. You would not have received any drill, but nevertheless
you would have enlisted.

Now, it is not necessary that a man should be a whole
Christian, it is not necessary that he should be educated in
all the lore of Christ, in order to be a Christian. The mo-
ment he enters upon a Christian life he is like a child that
has just entered a school. How does a child become a schol-
ar ? He enters the school as an abecedarian. He is not far
along, to be sure ; but he is beginning ; and he is as really
a scholar as he would be if he were further advanced in his
education.

Supijose a child six years old on returning from school
where he had just been received as a pupil should say,
"Father, I am a scholar." And the father says, "If you
are a scholar I will examine you ;" and he takes down New-
ton's Princiiria and questions the child upon it. The father
would show himself to be a fool in his idea of what consti-
tutes a scholar. It is not to be supposed that a child in
school would have that familiarity with an encyclopedia which
belongs to the higher stages of development.

How much knowledge is it necessary that a man should
have in order to begin to be a Christian ? How much knowl-
edge must a man have in order to begin to pray ? He need
not liave any. The desire to pray is sufficient. That makes
you like a little child. That was what you needed, and you
have found it out ; and the way to practice a Christian vir-

**AS A LITTLE CHILD,'* 63

iiie is the way to show how very little you know. Let a maiv
begin at any point in the Christian life with this thought :
'* I honestly mean to live according to the Christian pattern,
the rule and law of Christ." What shall he do first ? I do
not care what he does first. Christ says, "It you give a
oup of water in my name to a disciple, you shall not lose
your reward." He says, *' The kingdom of God is like a
seed." What is a seed ? It is an oak-tree in embryo. How
much of an oak-tree is it ? It is an acorn. This is planted ;
it is hidden. The first year it sprouts ; and the second year it
rises a little above the ground ; but you will have to wait ten
or fifteen or twenty years before it will give much shade ;
and it will be a hundred years before it becomes an acre-
spreading tree.

Now, the kingdom of God in the soul of a man, accord-
ing to the declaration of Christ, being like a seed, begins at
the seminal form. It is a germ which grows. When one
wishes to become a Christian man, and begins to act upon
that wish, he is at most a seed, a germ, which must grow.
You cannot, therefore, accept any doctrine of grace which
says that by the Divine Spirit you shall be endowed with
Christian excellences miraculously. You must begin at the
bottom, and learn thing by thing, thing by thing, all the
way through.

I am asked, '* Suppose now, Mr. Beecher, one should come
to you, in Brooklyn, on communion day, early in October,
and say, ' I have been thinking of my past life, and I am not
satisfied with it : my mind runs in too low a channel ; my
ideals are ignoble, base, worldly, and I have but an imperfect
knowledge of the law of God, though so far as I can see it
requires right living, and I am determined to attain it — may
I partake of the Lord's Supper ?' " I would say to him,
** Yes, you may. Not that it is going to do you any miracu-
lous good, but that it will produce an impression on your
intellect and imagination." "May I join your church?"
**Yes, if I have evidence that you are intelligent enough to
know what you are doing, and if I perceive that you are de-
termined, according to the best of your ability, to live a
Christian life, and that you have begun it. Under such cir-

64 "AS A LITTLE CHILD."

cumstances I will take you into my church as a child is taken
into an academy." Is it asked, whether I require an exami-
nation ? Yes, I do. I say to one applying for admission to
a school, " If you do not know enough to enter the academy,
you had better go into the primary school ;" and I take him
in, not because he is a perfect scholar, but because he wants
to learn. And to a person applying for admission to the
church, I open the door, and say, "Do you want to live a
more manly life ? Are you willing and determined to pattern
your life on the ideal manhood as set forth by Christ Jesus ?"
If he gives aflBrmative answers to these questions, I say, " You
had better come into the church, because the church is a
place where we take men who are desirous of doing these
things, and where they do them in little before they can do
them in large."

If there is a person here who is discontented with his way
of living, and wishes he could live a higher life, and can say,
"I accept the ideal which is laid down in the Gospel, and
will try to do better, taking Christ as my pattern," I regard
him as a Christian — a Christian child. He is converted, and
has become as a little child, and is ready to be further in-
structed.

Well, but, is not that a very loose and careless state-
ment ? Will not many unworthy persons say, " I have some
virtues ; I have enough stock to get into the church with."
Will not people take advantage, and get into the church, and
be satisfied with a superficial life, and undervalue the neces-
sity of a deep moral subsoiling ? I have no doubt that there
may be such cases ; but, on the other hand, in trying to keep
them out, the view of the kingdom of God by which it is
attempted to keep them out will also keep out many timid,
sincere, sensitive persons. By such a course twenty will be
hurt or hindered who ought to be in the church, where one
is kept out who ought not to be there. I say, therefore, to
the many young men and maidens here. You have a knowl-
edge of what is expected of you ; and if, having that knowl-
edge, you have an impulse in the right direction, that is
sufficient. Sufficient for what ? Sufficient for a leaven, to
begin with : not enough to end with (that comes by educa-

"AS A LITTLE CHILD." 66

tion), but enough to begin with. It is not only your duty,
standing with tlie light of truth shining down upon you, to
accept it and live in accordance with it ; but it is your privi-
lege to take your ground on that, and say, "I am willing to
become a scholar, in order that I may become a full-grown
man." And the mystery being all gone, why do not you be-
gin to educate yourself ?

Let me say, further, that many persons, as soon as they
have gone into the church, are apt to feel as a person does
who has insured his house. It may be burnt up, but it is
insured, and he has a sense of security.

A man, going to Europe, may be sea-sick, and may not
enjoy his voyage ; but he says, "What matters it that I am
miserable on the way ? I shall soon be landed there, and
then I shall feel all right." So, many persons regard the
church as a life-boat designed to get men safely off from this
world into heaven ; and when they are in the church they
feel safe. They say, " I may be a little poorer, I may be a
little worse off than others in a worldly point of view ; but
being in the church I am secure, and shall go to heaven.
My passage is all paid, my insurance is taken out, and noth-
ing can interfere with my safety."

It is no such thing. The church is nothing in the world
but simply an educating institution. A man may go to col-
lege and be a blockhead still. A man may enter upon a
trade and be a bungler all his life. A man may go into the
church and be coarse, and hard, and selfish, and proud, and
vain, and not have at all the education that is adapted to a
Christian life, or that it was intended to give him in the
church.

Therefore, when a man goes into the church he goes there
as a scholar goes into a school, or as an apprentice goes into
a shop. He goes in for practice ; he goes in to be taught ;
he goes in to learn a higher mode of life ; and if we could
get out of men's minds the idea that a sanctity comes from
adhesion to the church, as if it were an equivalent for per-
sonal endeavor, for study, for labor, for conscientious respon-
sibility, for yearning aspiration, for pressing forward, it
would save them from much misconception;, and from many

66 "-^S ^ LITTLE CHILD."

mistakes. It is equivalent to nothing of the sort. It is a
help toward these things. You may be better for being in
the church, and you may be worse : if it helps you you are
better, and if it hinders you you are worse.

A man is converted. He goes into the church, and joins
himself to those who believe they are converted, and who are
making a common endeavor to live aright. He says, after a
week or ten days, "Look here. Parson, I guess you had
better take my name ofi from that roll." "What is the
matter ?" says the parson. "Well, on such a night Jim and
I quarreled, and I knocked him down, and I could not con-
trol my temper. There is no grace in my heart, or I never
would have done that, although I do mean to live better.
You had better take my name oif." He is the very man that
needs to be in the church.

Suppose, for instance, a man should say to a hotel keeper,
in a terrific storm, at night, when the snow was blinding
everybody, and when the wind was whirling everything
about, 'Look here! See how I am hurled about by the
wind and storm. I'm not going into the hotel because I am
not fit." That he is knocked and beat about is the very rea-
son why he should go in.

And the fundamental condition on which you went into
the church was that while you were under obligation to re-
strain your temper and conduct, and put hindrances in the
way of your wrong-doing, nevertheless, you did not profess
that your temjDer was completely under control. You went
there to have it controlled. It got the better of you once,
but that is no reason why you should not stay in the church.
You knocked a man down ; but the experience connected
with that event may have been a good lesson to him, or to
you, or to both. You should learn from your mistakes.
A man who does not know how to learn from his mistakes
turns the best schoolmaster out of his life. We ought to
profit from our follies and weaknesses and blunders.

You went into the church and got drunk. Well, you
have been sober for six months — a thing which you could not
have said during ten years before. The fact that you have
improved should be an encouragement to vou : and the fact

"AS A LITTLE CHILD." 67

that yon are not wholly reformed is a reason why you should
remain among those who can aid yon.

" We that are strong ought to bear the inflrmitres of the weak."

We are subject to the same temptations as our fellow men,
and we are exhorted by the apostle to shield them and sympa-
thize with them.

A man goes into the church to learn how to live Chris-
tian ly. He does not say that he is perfect in any point. He
is under instruction. He swears. It is not less than wrong.
He ought to be ashamed of his swearing. His conscience
ought to smite him. He ought to blush at the thought of it.
But he ought not to consider all as lost because he has sworn.
He should profit from that wickedness. If he deals with it
wisely it may be wholesome to him, like tonic bitters to a man
who is in a feeble state of health. It is a thing to be con-
demned, but it is no reason why he should say that he is not
a Christian, or why he should not be one.

A man goes into the church. He is in business, and every
man about him is actuated by selfishness, and resorts to
adroitness, and is seeking his own interest ; he is obliged
to watch and guard against their avarice ; and he says, "I
have been sordid, hard, untruthful. There I did not exactly
tell the truth. I am afraid I did make a slight misrepresen-
tation there. A pretty fellow I am, pretending to be a
Christian, and playing the hypocrite ! I have not been sin-
cere nor honest. I have lied ; and how can a man who lies
and equivocates call himself a Christian?" Well, do not you
think there is need of his being one ? and do not you think
he has a conviction of sin of the right sort ? — not that great
generic conviction which men have when they measure them-
selves against God's law in a general way, but that specific
conviction which a man has, when he says, "1 am temptable
in this faculty and in that ; and my vanity and pride are
leading me into temptation."

If, when you are beginning to find out the reality of your
sickness, the doctor is called in, and he asks what your diffi-
culty is, " Oh," you say, " I am a little unwell ; I have a slight
fever." He gives you a little cream of tartar, has your feet
soaked, and directs that you shall be put to bed ; but he does

68 *'-<iS ^ LITTLE CHILD."

not know much about your case. The true way, when a mac
goes to his doctor, and represents himself as being sick, is foi
the doctor to take him one side, and inquire into his symp-
toms, and trace the disease to the vital organs, to the nerves,
or to the muscles, and put his finger on the trouble, that hp
may know just what to do.

mow, in regard to a man who is attempting to be a Chris-
tian, it is a great deal better for him to know specifically
where it is that he sins, and what power or passion or weak
point it is that stands in his way. The incidental failures of
men who are trying to be good are the very points where
their convictions are practical, and where they have some val-
idity. Aside from these their convictions are apt to be gen-
eric and imaginative, and of little practical force. You
cannot, however, if you are proud, learn how to be humble
in a day. You must not excuse yourself for the sins that you
commit through pride, and say, '* 1 am proud, and could not
help it ;" but if you find that you are proud, if you find that
pride is organic in your nature, you are, in admitting its
faults, to condemn yourself for them so far as it is in your
power to prevent them ; yet you are to recognize that it will
require time to entirely correct them. It will take ten years
to educate pride so that it shall work with benevolence ; and
to so educate it is a part of the business of being a Christian.

The mistake of many professed Christians is that of re-
lying upon what they call their " hope." Many persons say
that they are going to heaven because they have a hope.
What is a hope ? Suppose a snake should take its last year's
skin, which it has cast off, and think it was bigger for that
old dry skin ? It would be very much like a Christian who
takes what he calls his hope, that was never worth much, and
that becomes less and less valuable the older it grows, and
rests upon that. Many people talk in meetings about their
hope, their hope, their hope, — but their hope is of no conse-
quence if it is merely a thing of the past.

Now, the fact i^, you are a scholar ; and the question is,
What have you learned? Are you stronger anywhere than
you were ? Aic you better awy where ? Are you gaining, on
the whole ? Do you feel as though being a Christian was a

"AS A LITTLE CHILD.'' 69

business all over, outside and inside, touching life every-
where, so that you must needs, day by day, be lifted up and
empowered by the help of God ? If so, you are leading a
true Christian life. If you can get help from the church,
do so — the church was made to give help to such as you ; but
if you cannot get help from the church you are not obliged
to go into the churcho The church is not obligatory any
more than Fulton Ferry is. I can refuse to cross the river on
the ferry-boat, and say, " I won't pay the cent, or two cents :
I am going to swim." I should have a right to swim if I
preferred ; but I should be a fool if I did. And if you say,
" I do not want to join the church," you are under no obliga-
tion to join it. It was meant for your convenience and as-
sistance ; but if you think you can get along without it you
are at perfect liberty to dispense with it. There is no obli-
gation on any man to accept it. It is an overture of mercy,
and not an overture of obligation, and is he wise who re-
fuses it ?

So, then, the kingdom of God consists in the actual
existence of a superior manhood in men. Entering the
kingdom of God is the beginning of education toward that
superior manhood. No man can have the results of this
education given to him at once. No man can overcome the
tendencies that are in him immediately. It is not the office
of the Divine Spirit to change a man from an imperfect to a
perfect being by a direct command; it is the office of the
Divine Spirit to tvork in a man to will and to do of the good
pleasure of God, from day to day, leading him more and
more into a perfect, completed manhood.

To be a Cln-istian moans to live right ; to act according to
the highest ideal of rectitude ; to learn how, more and more,
to carry one's self in obedience to the divine law ; and he
wiio does that may have great joy (that is a matter of tem-
perament), or great sorrow (that also is a matter of tempera-
ment). He may have great struggles, partly because he does
not understand himself, and partly because he does not
understand those by whom he is surrounded ; but he may be
a Christian notwithstanding. Ana the evidence of this is
not whether he is in the church or out cf the church. The

70 "^S A LITTLE CHILD."

true evidence is a growth toward a nobler way of living, in
thought and feeling — that is to be a man in Christ Jesus ;
and he that is trying to grow in that direction has a right to
say, " If I persevere I shall by the grace of God be saved.
I am not to be saved because I am so good, nor because I
have attained so much. God's love saves me ; but I must be
salvable ; I must be in a condition in which I can be saved ;
and I am passing more and more into that condition from
day to day, and I hope at last to attain the blessedness of the
heavenly rest."

Under these circumstances I wish to say to parents who
are bringing up their children, that much of this work
which is usually deferred until adult life may be accomplish-
ed in childhood. I think that children may often be brought
up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord at an earlier
age than it is commonly supposed that they can. But all
children do not require the same training, and the results of
training are not the same in all children. It is said, "If
you bring up your children right when they are young, they
will not depart from their ,right bringing uj? when they are
old." That is true as a general rule, but suppose you take a
child that has a bad father and a bad mother, whose fathers
and mothers were also bad ; suppose you take a child that has
inherited through several generations accumulating tendencies
toward the flesh and to evil ? It is a very different thing to
bring up that child right, from what it is to bring up a child
right, whose parents were good jieoijle, and who has always
been under the best moral influences.

You have the greatest difficulty in bringing your children
up right, and the man over the way has no trouble with his.
On the one hand he says, "I never used a whip on any of
my children, and I never had more than once or twice to re-
buke this girl. None of them are vicious, and all of them
have respect for and are obedient to the law." On the other
hand you say, "I try to bring up my children as his are
brought up ; but they are selfish, and jealous, and quarrel-
some, and troublesome in every way, and I cannot do any-
thing with them. I do not see why his grow up so well-
behaved and mine do not." It is because your children are

"AS A LITTLE CHILD." i^

not his. Suppose a man that had wolves' cubs to bring up,
shoul(i compare himself with another man that had lambs to
bring up ? It is one thing to bring up lambs, and another
thing to bring up wolves' cubs.

Our children are of all sorts. If, however, they are taught
from their earliest childhood their relation to God, to the
other life, and to the nobilities of this life, and if they are
trained as they are taught, it will be comparatively easy to
bring them up right. But it will always be harder to bring
up some children than others, because some are by their or-
ganic structure further away from God than others. You
can bring all up so tiiat the world will be better than if they
had not been trained ; buc some can bring up their children
with more ease than others.

Why should there be that difference ? Ask God. I do
not know. That is the way it works, and no man can tell
why. The question for every man to ask is, " What is my
duty? What ism// privilege? What is mj^ opportunity ? "
If God has given you children that are hard to bring up, it is
your life business to bring them up, and }ou must accept it.

If your children are easy to bring up, you need not fret
lest they will be mere moralists. Many people are concerned
because their children are sweet, loving, and compliant, so
that they cannot get an awful experience out of them. It
is as if the bass viol should mourn because it cannot do
what the flute does. It is as if the bass should complain
because it is not like the tenor ; the tenor because it is not
like the alto ; and the alto because it is not like the sojDrano.
Tliere is a difference between wind and stringed instruments,
and there is a difference between the various parts of music ;
and there is just as much difference in human life between
Individuals.

Your children are susceptible of different degrees of edu-
cation. They begin at different points in relation to moral
perfection — some far away, and some much nearer ; and that
according to the great principle of heredity, as shown in the
Old Testament. Every one must take his children where he
finds them, and bring them up as best he can.

The point that I wish to make is this : that a child that

72 "AS A LITTLE CHILD."

is brought up to seek truth and honesty and obedience, and
that as he grows up to man's estate has these things presented
to him, will find it easier to pass into the next higher stage of
positive choice — of voluutary obedience, not to parents, but
to God — than if he had not been rightly instructed. He will
find it a world easier to enter upon a self -chosen life of higher
consecration than if he had not been well brought up. If
you say of a child that has been brought uj) well that he
must be converted, I say that the transition in his case will
be almost insensible and invisible, and that his instruction
is ]-ight in analogy and runs parallel with adult life. It is a
process by which he learns how to avoid evil and how to do
good.

There are some who have always taught us that conver-
sion is the work of the Holy Spirit, that without the Holy
Spirit it is all an illusion, and that any other view tends to
produce a sense of self-righteousness. I believe that as much
as ever ; but this also I believe : that when the Spirit of God
acts, it acts according to the divine injunction,

" Work out your own salvation with fear and trembliag, for it is
God that worketh in you to will and to do of his good pleasure."

0 Sun ! bring me out violets and daisies from yonder

sand-bank. For hundreds of years the sun has been shining

on the desert sands of Sahara, and never has it produced a

flower there ; but in the meadow over against the house where

my father brought me up, every year there were in the early

spring an abundance of wild flowers. What is the difference

between the shining of the sun on a sand heap and on loam ?

The loam is full of organic forms — fall of seeds ; and when

the sun shines upon it, these seeds sprout and grow, and

flowers, grass, etc., are the result ; whereas, the sand is desti*

tute of such organic forms, so that when the sun shines upon

it no vegetation is the result. Where the soil is favorable,

the sun's shining causes the plupt to put forth a stem and

throw down roots. Does it create those roots and that stem ?

^o, it merely gives the stimulus which is necessary to their

development. The preexisting conditions are such that the

stimulus which the sun gives is all that is needed to secure

growth.

''AS A LITTLE CHILD." 73

Now, in order to use the brain, — all the faculties, the
reason, the affections, and the moral sentiments, — what we
need is the stimulus of the divine Spirit. Then we use them
according to great natural laws. God does not use them for
us. He shines on us, and we use them. We are loorkeis
together ivt'th God, he giving the great generic stimulus by
which our faculties develop, according to natural laws, the
results which are required of us.

It takes nothing from the glory of God to have the world
act as he made it to act, or to have mankind develop as he
meant they should develop ; and it is a hindrance to teach
men to loait for that elapse of divine stimulus which is every
day given to each one, and which needs only to be accepted
to be enjoyed. If it is accepted in small things, it develops
itself more and more, shining brighter and brighter unto the
perfect day.

So then, my mission to you this morning is ended. My
discourse is delivered, the drift of which is, that every man
must needs be born at zero, and go up the scale ; that every
man must needs begin at the lowest point and develop up-
ward and come to himself at the farther end of life. Nature
does not lie at the point where men begin : it lies at the
point where, with the best education, they end. It lies in
that which we are capable of coming to — not in that primi-
tive condition from which we came. My nature is not be-
hind me : it is before me. It is what I can unfold into.
That is my true self. Every living creature is competent to
become better, wiser, stronger, nobler than he has been. It
is for every one of you to enter that higher life, the king-
dom of God ; and yovi are to enter it not self-sufficient. If
you enter the church, you are to enter it as little children,
saying, "I need help, succor, inspiration." You are to enter
it, if at all, that you may live better here and hereafter.

May God give you grace, every one of you, not to throw
away even occasional good thoughts. They may not be suf-
ficient to make up a perfect character ; but they are sufiicient
to help you, and to enable you to help others. Do not de-
spise the least things that tend or jwint in the right direction.
If you but feel an impulse to live better in your neighbor-

74 "^S A LITTLE CHILD."

hood and to do something for those around about you, by
improving the road, by repairing the sidewalk, by being pub-
lic-spirited generally, cherish that impulse ; strive to benefit
your fellow-men. Be generous. Do not retail current slan-
ders in the community. Study the things which make for
peace. Have more pity for those who suffer. If the impulse
of prayer comes to you ; if your darlings are carried to the
grave, or your wealth or honor is fading from you, and
your whole soul is lifted up toward something you know not
what, do not throw away this experience. There is nothing
that lifts you from animalism and above this wicked world
that you can afford to put your foot upon. If you wisely
heed such things and augment them, they will lead you to
those higher experiences out of which you shall see God.

Dearly beloved, we shall not meet again in the flesh. We
go our several ways. May the dear love of Christ go with
you all. You are beloved of Christ. My Father is your
Father. My hope for heaven is your hope for heaven. In
sickness, in discouragements, in disappointments, in sins, or
in guilt, never give up hope in God. There is no other
friend like him. Nobody loves you as he does. You do not
know how to love and nourish your children with the ten-
derness and kindness with which God loves and nourishes
you. You are rich as long as you have God. Y^ou are poor
without him. And wherever you may go, my last words to
you, who may never meet me again, are, Hope in God. Your
hope, your salvation, is in him. i/o/;c in God !

"AS A LITTLE CHILD." 75

PEAYER BEFOEE THE SERMON.

Drive away from before us, our Father, all clouds and darkness.
Remember our ignorance and our weakness, and belp us to lift up
our thoughts in their better nature, and our feelings in their best
estate, that we may bring to thee that with which thou art well
pleased — our love and our gratitude. We rejoice that thou art made
known to us through the household; antl that those names which are
dearest to us and most full of meaning, and that have never died out
in all our memory, are the names of God. Thou art, blessed One,
Father of every soul, whether he knows it or not. There is none that
may not look up and say. Our Father. "We rejoice that thou dost
deal with us in affection, whether thou dost smile or dost frown; for
whom thou lovest thou chastenest, and scourgest every son whom
thou receivest. Thy chastisement is for our good, that we may be
partakers of thy nature.

We pray that we may have faith to believe in the inheritance of
the future. May we have confidence that our life is moving toward
a land which is transcendent in all excellence, in plenitude of power,
where, when we drop these mortal bodies we shall come forth into
glorious realities which but faintly appear in this life. Grant that
we may feel that we are living toward summer. As they that are in
the far north, and wait in the darkness of winter, and rejoice to see
its coming, when the sun shall again rise upon their horizon with
light; so may we, wintered in time, look perpetually to death as sun-
rise ; and may our departure hence be our emergence in the land of
light. For what are we here, poorly instructed, full of prejudice,
with mistake upon mistake, and sin upon s4n, buffeted and tossed
about hither and thither, by circumstances which are stronger than
our will, ofteu bent and biased? Behold, in our earthly estate, how
imperfect we are, and how much of that which is at all good we owe,
not to ourselves, not to the power of goodness in us, but to the influ-
ences which surround us in thy providence, and in the whole frame-
work of life in society.

We beseech of thee, O Lord our God, since we are weak in all that
is good, since we are so strong earthward, and so feeble heavenward,
that thou wilt adjust thine administration over us according to our
weakness and necessity through time. In the family the babes are
most to us because they need most; and we should be most to thee if
thou art our Father, because we are poor, and weak, and needy, and
afar off. And this is the relation of God in Christ Jesus, blessed be
thy name, that thou art a God of grace, capable of suffering for those
that need some one to suffer for them ; that thou art one that knows
how to bear our burdens, and to carry our sorrows, and to make us
better by receiving upon thine own self, in thy care and sympathy,
and in thy nature, our troubles. Thou dost think, and wait, and
labor, and mould, working in us to will and to do of thy good pleas-
ure. We rejoice in this interpretation of a God adapted to the wants
of men in this nascent state, just coming to intelligence, or just
reaching forth out of intelligence into grace and moral beauty. We
need longsuffering ; we need infinite instruction; we need forgive-

% ''AS A LITTLE CHTLD.''

ness and great eompassiou ; and this thou art. Like as a father piti-
eth his children the Lord pitieth them that fear him. He knoweili
our frame and remembereth that we aie dust.

We bless thee, O God of all light, that thou art also the God of all
comfort. Thou art infinitely perfect. We cannot ascend to the con-
ception of such royalty as is in thee. We are afar off, seeing dimly,
and feeling but intimations of what thou art, and of what thy
glory is.

O Lord our God, we rejoice that thou wilt overflow and fill up
every imperfect conception, and that thou wilt be infinitely better
than any goodness that we ever thought of ; infinitely more tender
than any tenderness that we have ever known ; infinitely more faith-
ful than any fidelity that we have ever seen; infinitely more royal
than any royalty that the earth has ever witnessed. How great is
thy power and how great is thy wisdom must needs appear from
the world that is without; but that which is thy power and thy
wisdom, that which is thy glory, thy disposition, thy real life, thy
pitying care, thy wonderful power of making happy those that are in
thy household — who shall tell us of these things ? When we come to see
thee as thou art, and not as thou hast been framed to us as one that
dwells in the external world; when we have dropped earth-born
terms, and we behold thee in thine innermost being, all heaven will not
contain thy glory. Then, all that are present, and we among them,
must needs break: forth into transports of gladness, and sing that
new song which ascribes honor, and power, and glory unto thee.
And still, and forever more, thou wilt lead us on, loving and beloved.
More and more thou wilt develop the soul that is with thee, and pre-
pare it for higher duties, for more glorious labors. We are sons
of God, but it doth not yet appear what we shall be. We know not
the meaning of it. When our coronation comes, what the robe shall
he, or the sceptre, or the harp, fir the joy, or the employment, or the
ways of life, we know not; but we know that thou wilt be exceeding
abundantly more than we can conceive of here. It hath not entered
into the heart of man to conceive of the glories that thou hast laid up
far those who love thee.

We pray that we may have faith in these things even as those in
winter have faith that the summer will come ; or as those in the midst
of storms know that sunshine will return. May we believe that the
future is full of refinement, and intelligence, and purity, and fidelity,
and all imaginable experiences of gladness and peace which are not
permitted to earth, and which men cannot receive here. In faith
and in hope of the blessedness which is beyond may we be willing to
bear the cross, and take upon ourselves burdens, and cares, and sor-
rows which scour our pride. May we be willing to be disciplined
noir, that by and by we may be lifted up into thine ethereal
presence.

May we rejoice in that providence of God which knows all our
wants and administers to all our necessities. Be ])leased, we beseech
of thee, to bless all who are in thy presence according to their cir-
cumstances. Grant thy blessing to those who are advanced in life,
and drawing near to the overlooking mountain, and beholding afar

"AS A LITTLE CHILD." 77

off the promised land. May they, unlike thy servant of old, feel
tliat their footsteps are Koing down to the Jordan, and that they
shall i)ass over and behold the beauteous light of promise; and may
the sliining of the coming glorj' irradiate their faces before they pass
out of our sight.

Look with compassion, we pray thee, upon those who are bearing
the burdens of life. May they strive to serve thee in their daily
duties, and endeavor in all things to be more and more conformed to
the pattern of Jesus Christ. We pray that they may be diligent in
business, and fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. May they resist
temi)tations to sordidness, and selfishness, and pride, and all things
tiiat are uulovely. May they fight the good flgiit in the midst
of their daily avocations, and so become more like God.

We pray that those who are advancing into the midst of the fierce
experiences of mature life may find themselves confirmed in virtue,
growing more and more steadfast, holding fast to their ideals of
purity, and integrity, and truth, and justice. Let them never be
ashamed of the heartswells and exultations which come from faith
and hope, and the prospect of nobler living. And we pray that as
they meet the storms and trials of life they may be as good soldiers
who go forth amidst rejoicings and bannered display to the field of
acturfl warfare, where with hardship and ten thousand forms of
aggravated suffering they still maintain patriotism and manhood.

And may the young that go forth into the battle of life remember
that thus they are to be made wariiors and heroes. Wilt thou give
them integrity and faith. May they believe in truth, in fidelity, in
heroism, in the spirit land, in the presence of God, in the loving
angels that surround them, in all things that are full of brightness,
and hope, and promise. May they never become selfish. May they
never cast themselves into the slough of worldliness. May they
never be content with the husks that the swine eat. May the divine
Spirit guide them in all their ways. May they have longings for
things high and noble. May their lives not be disfigured by things
low and gross. May they rise above temptations, and pursue the
right ways. We pray that all their joys and hopes, all their sorrows
and sadnesses, may be sauctifiert by the Spirit of God to prepare
them for better living here and nobler triumphs hereaftei\

Acce])t the thanksgiving of those who, this morning, desire to
draw nea" with thank-offerings. How many instances come up
before the minds of thy servants of thy sparing mercies, and of deliv-
erances from impending dangers ! How many parents think of their
children dead, and are grateful to thee for thy kindness to them
in the most trying exigences of their life! And we pray, if any
come looking back upon children gone from them, or scattered
throughout the world, that thou wilt sanctify to them their memory
and their affection for them. If there are those whose children are
Bbout them, whom they are teaching, and on whose account tney
are often in great sorrow, and disappointment, and surprise, wilt
thou grant that they may yet be steadfast, full of faith, and hold
fast to the promises of God, and never despair. We pray, if there be
those who are but beginning to present their children to the Lord,

78 "AS A LITTLE CHILD."

and who enter upon life with them, that they may feel this day the
blessing of God resting upon them ; and may their children become
dearer to them because they are dear to God ; and may they see upon
their faces, not alone the light of earthly sweetness, but also the
light of coming glory; and may they put more and more holy
thoughts into the rearing of their offspring, and set them against the
backgi'ound of the eternal world so that they may shine upon them
as stars shine from the other side ; and may their children be brought
up in all love, and with a nobler sense of rectitude than that with
which they themselves were brought up.

We pray that thou wilt sanctify al! our affections. May all our
ways be directed in the light of that great undiscovered realm of the
soul for which there is no language, where so much of our life passes,
but where we have no communion and no fellowship. Sanctify the
experiences of our life. Sanctify our silent sufferings. Sanctify all
our aspirations, and hopes, and longings, and sorrows that come
rolling, we know not how nor from whence, by celestial influences.
Prepare us thus by joy and by sorrow, and measure thou both
of them to us. Send us such schoolmasters as thou dost please,
to make us better and better through our weakness and through our
strength, until we are ripe; and then may the sickle flash and the
reaper come, and may we go home with harvest songs sounding in
our ears, garnered into the eternal heritage of our God.

And to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit shall be praises ever-
more. Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMOK

Thott best and most beloved in heaven, thou Father of all good-
ness and God of all grace and consolation, breathe upon the souls in
this presence to make them discontented with themselves, discon-
tented with their shortcomings, witli their imperfections, with all
that is wrong. Breathe hope into their hearts, that they may every
one feel, in spite of all the past and its besetments, that there is for
them a better life and a noble^r manhood; breathe a spirit of tender-
ness into all that they may live together affianced in nobler friend-
ship. We pray for the blessing of Almighty God upon every soul,
upon all those that are dear to each one of us, upon all our house-
holds and all the consecrated hopes therein. We pray for our
beloved land, and for all the nations of the earth. O Lord, bow long?
Behold the roaring misery of the world that groans and travails in
pain; behold the fightings, the bloodshed, the terrible disasters and
the speechless sufferings; behold around the globe how few know
thee and how many are besotted. How long, O Lord, how long?
Bring in the bright day when no man shall need to say to his neigh-
bor. Know thou the Lord, but when every man shall know him from
the greatest to the least. Cut short the time, make haste, thou that
dwellest in the infinitude of strength, and bring to pass the latter-
day glory when the new heaven and the new earth shall come
in wliich dwelleth righteousness. And to thy name shall be the
\?raise, forever and forever. Amen.

GOD'S WILL

" Thy will be done in earth as it, is in heaven." — Matt, vi., 10.

The divine will is universal law. It is the ground, tliere-
fore, of the universal hope and confidence, that the divine
will or law seeks lor the highest good of the creatures of
God — and that, too, according to the circumstances of their
creation and the conditions into which they have been put
by the divine providence. ^Ye have been taught from our
childhood that we were sinful, and so we are ; that we were
corrupt, and surely in some degree all men have corrupt-
ed themselves ; nevertheless, the general conception which
has been formed in respect to the nature and the character
of man has,, by reason of peculiar technical terms and
modes of statement, gone wide of the truth. If it be said
that every man needs to be transformed, to be educated, to
be carried up from the point at which he starts, and in every
part of his nature ; if it be said that this is the universal
necessity, it is true ; but if it be said that all thoughts, that
all actions, that everything which belongs to human experi-
ence, is in and of itself bad, it is not trac. If it be said
that men are all of them corrupted by reason of their own
original nature, — who made that nature ? It is the work, of
God. I was not born where I was by any choice of mine,
and, therefore, not by any fault of mine. I was not born
with the proportions which go to the making up of body and
mind by any allotment of my own. That which is in me

BUNDAY Morning, Oct. 4, 1874. IiESSON: Matt, v., 1-16. HyilNS (Plymouth
CoHection) : Nos. 199, 531, 725.

83 GUDU rviLL.

was given to me. It is not the fault of the hawk that it is a
hawk. It is no virtue in a dove that it is a dove. It is no
degradation to a worm that it is a worm. These things hut
express facts which indicate a foregoing divine purpose. It
is as God meant it should be.

Now, that the condition of the human race is one that
needs infinite sympath v, infinite patience and forbearance,
infinite and continuing influences ; that men need to be born
again, not once nor twice, but continuously ; that they need
the divine forgiveness, and renovation, and stimulation, and
strength to uj^bear them ; this great fact, universal, both as
it respects time and extent, is true : but it does not follow
that it is true from the grounds and reasons that have always
been alleged. It does not follow that there are not important
discriminations by which men may avail themselves of the
blessedness of that truth which inheres in our text :

"Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven."

If by the will of God you take the highest conception of
all perfectness which is possible to rational and accountable
beings ; if you pray that God's Vv'ill may become instantly
and at once, not merely the general ideal, and so the point
of aspiration, but an inexorable rule of judgment, and that
all men may be judged here in their varying conditions just
as they are in heaven ; if the poor African, born with his
peculiar temperament, and in the circumstances where life
found him, may be judged by the same rule as the archangel ;
if the Asiatics in their long state of degradation are to have
instantly applied to them the highest conception of manhood
and they are at once to be judged by it ; if men all through our
own civilized land — born, some of thieves, some of robbers,
some of intemjjerate parents, some of stupid parents (whose
genius they inherit), some where no culture comes, and some
where there is much culture — are to be judged by that con-
ception ; if you bring down the divine ideal of perfect man-
hood— God's thought of a perfect being — and apply it at
once and continuously to all men in their infancy, in their
boyhood, in their youth, in their manhood, and in their old
age, under all conceivable circumstances, you might as well

aOD'S WILL. 83

■with one wide sweeping flash of lightning cut off the whole
race ; for no man can be measured by such a standard. If
the will of God were to become peremptory immediately, if
the ulterior and final excellence were instantly a2:)plied as the
universal daily rule of judgment, it would slaughter the race
and whelm them in ruin.

Shall we, therefore, let down this conception ? Shall we
lower the standard of life ? Shall we make A'irtue to be less
than it is, shall we make morals to be less than they are,
shall we make manhood to be less than it is, in scope ?
Shall we take away from men all responsibilities ? Shall we
remove penalties, which are God's goads and spurs ? Shall
we take away from the world the motives that already exist
to drive men up from animalism and ignorance and degrada-
tion to a higher position ? Nay, verily, not that. The
standard must be kept up. It would destroy the race in one
way if the standard were to become peremptory in its daily
applications : it would destroy the race in another way if you
were to lower the standard to the present conditions of the
human family.

What need we, then ? We need a divine Being, an ad-
ministration that shall stand between the final form of
human perfection and the state into which men are born in
this life, with benign influences, with moral attributes, with
patience, with gentleness and nourishingness, by which men
shall be led, step by step, onward and upward until they
reach this higher and final form of perfection.

So when we pray that the will of God may be done, into
that will enters the conception of time, of gradualism, of
evolution, and of successive developments. Into the con-
ception of that divine will, also, since it is the creative idea
of the world, enters a forbearance, a gentleness and a
patience on the part of God, inherent in his nature, and
organic as well as inherent in his moral government, which
looks upon imperfections and unrighteousness with such
allowance as is necessary in order to bring it up to the final
form.

It is impossible for any man to frame a full conception of
the divine nature. It would indicate that we ourselves were

84 GOD'S WILL.

like God in kind, and also that to a certain degree we were
in scope equal to God. But only so mucli of the divine
nature as we have specimens of in ourselves can we under-
stand. If to the five senses there were added another,
could any man be made to understand what the sixth sense
was, not having it, but merely being informed that there
was one, and that in another sphere some beings had it ? It
is not like the eye, you are told, and it is not like the ear,
and it is not like touch, and it is not like taste, and it is not
like smell. Well, what is it like ? Oh, it is something else.
But if you have never had any example of it in yourself
you never could dream or form the slightest approximation
to a thought of what the sixth sense might be. Although
you might believe that there were persons who had six or ten
senses, you could not have any conception of them. Nor
can any man form a conception of a mental quality except as
the rudiment or some germ of it is in himself. Only so much
of God do we understand as we have in ourselves some sjieci-
men or some indication of.

Consider how very imperfect is our nnderstanding of our
own selves. Consider how little men know of what they are,
of what the nature of their mind is, and of wliat are the
causes which influence them. Consider how still less men
understand each other — for altliough we have a certain
amount of practical knowledge derived from familiarity with
life, and more or less traditionary knowledge, so that men
move with men, and act npon each other, and cohere to-
gether, and co-operate ; yet, after all, the knowledge of the
human mind is very small. And how much less must be
our knowledge of that great Over-Mind which governs the
universe ! How much less can we understand of God (who
understands all of iis) that understand so little of ourselves
and of our fellow-men !

That which is true in respect to the nature and structuie
if I may so say, of the divine Being, is equally true with
regard to the divine government. It is impossible for the
mass of men to understand all the elements of human gov-
ernment. Even statesmen understand comparatively little
of it , and the more they understand the more obscure

GOD'S WILL. 85

they see the great national questions of life and adminis-
tration to be. None know how far beyond any present at-
tainment in human life is the science of right government,
with all its infinite elements ; and if we cannot understand
human governrnent, which is a visible thing, and which deals
with visible qualities, how much beyond our conception is
the divine government, which includes all sorts and variations
of existence, and infinities in every direction !

Men speak of the divine will as though it were so clear
and plain that it could be put into the catechism, or into
books with chapters and verses. Men can almost count the
shingles on the roof and the nails which hold the diiierent
parts together, with a perfect familiarity ! And yet, after
all, we are but children. We understand a little here and
there of the divine government because we transfer our small
knowledge of ordinary government to the divine ; acting
upon it by our imagination we transform it and give it mag-
nitude in our conception ; but, after all, the knowledge is
very little.

There are, however, some things in the divine nature
which we understand, because they are brought to us by a
process which is familiar to our childhood and our thought.
I refer to the adaptation which love finds in itself to all the
conditions of an existence that begins at zero, and gradually
unfolds through every stage of imperfection and fault and
mistake to final manhood. That is the most familiar knowl-
edge that we have. Every child born into a household, born
under the government of a father and mother, born a babe,
with eyes that see not, and ears that hear not, and hands that
handle not, and feet that walk not, born with its prime func-
tion in the mouth — every such child beginning almost at
nothing expands a little ; but what is the babe of four
months, or of six months, or of twelve months, or of two
years, or of three years, but a beloved little bundle of igno-
rances ? And how continuously is the hand of the nurse
stretched out to guard it against water, against fire, against
stairs, against sharp cutting instruments, against all manner
of food that it seeks to its own damage ! Something must
take gare of this unknowing child. Something is to bear

86 GOD'S WILL.

patiently with it, and teach it, and wait while it is being
taught, until it learns enough to imjjerfectly take care of
itself ; and then, when it has begun to take care of itself a
little, wait until it goes on through mistakes that lie on every
side of it like pitfalls to catch its inexperience, until it passes
through boyhood up to manhood, and is launched upon life,
and is twenty-one years of age. He knows everything now,
and has no need of any further watching ! but all the way
up to the perfect man of twenty-one he needs the school-
master, he needs magistrates, he needs monitors, he needs
punitive as well as directive influences. In the iirime idea of
the parental relation under the administration of father and
mother the child is nothing, and they are required to rear
it from zero to maximum, a process which is forwarded in
the spirit of love. In the household there is no liberty to do
what you please simply because the father and mother love,
and because they are seeking the good of the child. The
true father and mother know what are the virtues of pain,
of self restraint, of disappointment, of self-denial. They
know that tears are cleansing. Every child that has been
well brought up, unless it is a child of extraordinarily happy
endowment, has known the ministration of denial and pen-
alty and tears and trial and suffering as a part of its educa-
tion ; and the more faithful the father and mother are, the
more they reign, and the child is made to submit for its own
good ; and the more we, as children, are made to submit by
our parents for our good, the more in later life do we revere
and love them.

" They [fathers of our flesh] verily for a few days chastened us for
their pleasure ; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of
his holiness."

God identifies himself in moral government with the pa-
rental relation of the household.

So then, though we may not understand Cod in his whole
character and divine nature, though we may h?.\e but a very
remote idea of the moral government of God, when we
pray ''Thy will bo done on earth as it is in heaven," we
may have a clear understanding of this fact : that what-
ever God is in the stature and breadth of infinite iutelleo

GOIVS WILL. 87

tioii, whatever he is i:i the nature of affection overflowing
for universal want, whatever he is in the wisdom of the
adaptation of means to ends in the universal government,
and however far short we may come of any perfect knowledge
in these respects, we know that all things work together for
good, and were designed to work together for good to them
that love God — good to universal man, the condition being
that we open our eyes to it, and behold it, and love God, and
take it.

At this point we come to a much closer aj)prehension of
the divine nature, and to a stage where we are better able to
say, " Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Since
God's will is not a cogent will, acting suddenly with cutting
pains or penalties; since it is the will of God to bear with
men, to be patient w!th them, to be gentle toward them, to
be forbearing with them — and yet never to give them rest
because they are to grow to the stature of kings and priests,
and be with him forever ; we see that it is his will to meet
them in the exigencies of their being as parents on earth
meet their children at birth, and bring them up through all
the necessities of their childhood life.

The government of God, then, seeks our final perfection,
and never lets that down ; but it assumes that men are imper-
fect, and that perfection is the result of growth, and not of
instantaneity in any form. It adapts itself to the constitu-
tion and circumstances of men. So the divine nature is not
one that sits in its own perfection, demanding instant perfec-
tion. The divine nature broods the world. As the hen
gathers her chickens under her wings, so Christ said he would
have gathered his favorite people under his wings ; and we
may say, without irreverence, tliat God gathers the world
under his wings, and waits, warming them by his own body,
feeding them by his own search, and attending and defending
them by his infinite power and patience and long suffering.
God is one that sits in the center of universal being to adapt
himself to the infinite wants of imperfect" creatures, made
imperfect. He adapts himself and his moral government to
the conditions of a world which he himself fixed, and which
in every direction he reproduces.

88 GOD'S WILL.

Now, althougli we can imagine that a fallen race might
be blameworthy, there is no principle and no moral govern-
ment that can be addressed to the intelligence of mankind
which can justify a being who perceives a race to be utterly
degraded and destroyed, and reproduces them through years,
through ages, not only, but through myriads and myriads of
ages, that they may suffer, and is careless of their suffer-
ing. This is heathenism enshrined ! This is demonism
enthroned ! This is an Infinite insult to the reason, the
honor and the conscience ! That a race made perfect, and
falling by their own fault, may be damnable, any man may
say ; but that there should be a system of government by
which that race should swarm again, and then again, and
not once, nor twice, nor thrice, but myriads of times, on the
globe, pouritig out populations mor^ numerous than the
drops of dew at night, or of the rain-storms in the tropics
by day, every creature being a soul that is a kingdom, and
every one infinite, like God, in duration — that such a race
phould be propagated and continued where the prime condi-
tion of birth is imperfection and liability through ten thou-
sand reasons to sinfulness, with God sitting unmoved, cold
as marble, perfectly finished himself ; and that then he
should lay the law of infinite perfection on that race which
he has permitted to come into being in these inchoate and
unformed and unlovely conditions — this is a tyranny com-
pared to which Neroism and demonism were humanity !
There can be no realization of God that can draw the uni-
versal heart to him until you have a God that is adapted to
the conditions to which he himseK brings men.

If, then, men are brought into life with the certainty of
sinfulness, there must be an administration that adapts itseK
mercifully to the condition of sinfulness. If men are, by
the very nature of their being, unable to perfect themselves,
or round themselves out, except by a score or two scores of
years, and then but imperfectly, there must be an adminis-'
tration that shall have in it an adaptation to the imperfect
condition of the ■ human race ; and it is this that is in
God.

As the mother knows how to love her child steadily

GOD'S WILL. 89

through growing years, his faults aside, his imperfections
notwithstanding, to teach him, to build him up, and still by
love to minister to him, whether it be pain or joy, whatever
it be that is necessary to his perfect development ; so God
sits, in the infinite resources of his disposition, central in the
universe, to give to them all the things which they lack, and
to bear with them until these gifts, appropriated, build them
up — until they are unfolded and educated by his long-suffer-
ing and gentleness and kindness, for the sake of exercising
which men are permitted to come into this world as they are,
imperfect, their imperfections being permitted to break out
into mistakes, these mistakes being permitted to go on to
faults, these faults being permitted to go forward to sins,
and these sins being permitted to go on to crimes. All these
necessities or possibilities inhere in a free moral government ;
but there must be taught a Governor over all that adapts
himself to these positive universal conditions so tliat men
may gradually go higlier, or else the system of religion is a
system of abhorrent tyranny.

It is on account of the gentleness and patience which are
in God, which are the food of imperfection, and which are
the exact equivalents of adaptation to the want of the hu-
man race, that we say, " Thy will be done" — not the will of
God as representing final perfection, instantly employed for
the destruction of the universe, but that will of God which,
with the distinct knowledge that men are brought into the
world raw, unripe, untamed, untaught, undisciplined, un-
grown, and while bringing them in through countless condi-
tions, yet holds itself adequate by long-suffering patience, by
kindness and by loving kindness, by mercies and by tender
mercies, by joy and by sorrow, by universal and infinite in-
strumentalities, to develop men from their low and animal
states into high, angelic conditions.

When we conceive of all time as the theater of this vast
evolution, not of organic matter crystalline, nor of the lower
forms of existence in the vegetable kingdom, nor of the lower
modes of animal existence, but of the human race after intel-
ligence has been developed in it ; and when we conceive of a
God who makes it the business of his life to be the universal

90 GOD'S WILL.

Schoolmaster, the universul J^urso, the universal Burden-
bearer and Cross-bearer, the universal Sufferer, in the sense
of care and personal adaptation, the One supremest in
activity and humblest in the sense of bowing himself down
everlastingly to the want of the weak and the poor— when
such conceptions fill the heaven, what heart can forbear to
say, " Thy will [which carries gentleness, and sweetness, and
forgiveness, and patience ; which also carries pain and jjen-
alty and discijilinary education of every sort ; which creates
us at nothing, and fills us and develops us by experience
until we are prepared for a higher stage of existence] be
done on earth as it is in heaven " — done to-day, so far as it
adapts itself to to-day ; done in cycles ; done according to
the philosophy which God has of the way in which the uni-
verse is to rise out of inchoate matter up through various
steps to find finish and spiritual existence in the life that is
to come ?

If this, then, be a legitimate general review of the na-
ture of God and his relation to government and to the vast
human family, there are many points in it which will bring
comfort, consolation, instruction, and w^arning.

I remark, in the first place, that any system of dealing
with men which proceeds on any other ground than that of
the universal weakness and sinfulness of man is philosophic-
ally inconsistent with a true charity. There is no operation
so unjust as that which takes a high standard and applies it
peremptorily to low development. If one were to go into an
infant school with the same rigor of instruction with which
Oxford or Cambridge treats its scholars; if one were to de-
mand of childhood that which is rightly demanded of man-
hood, such holding of a lower state of development to the
responsibihties of a higher state would be the most crushing
oppression.

We hold that men are naturally sinful ; yet when we judge
them in society we continually hold up standards that are not
applicable to them all. We do not say of one and another,
"He committed a fault." We do not stop to reason as to
what is their disposition, what is their intelligence, or what
are the conditions and circumstances under which motives

GOD'S WILL. 91

press upon tlicm in the diroctioD of wrong-doing. We sim-
ply hold them to an abstract rule of duty. If they fail in
that we chastise them with our thought, with our tongue,
peradventure, also, with our hand. How many are there
who perpetually take into j^ractical consideration the doc-
trine which they so strenuously insist on iii theology, that
men by nature, by birth, and by necessity are imperfect and
prone to fail ?

If a man tread on you, you regard him as guilty of heed-
lessness, until you turn and see that he is blind ; and then
he that trod on you because he was blind has your compassion
rather than your anger. So we should adapt ourselves and
our judgments to what we know mankind to be.

In regard to the mass of men it is a great deal better to
consider their imperfections ; and using the old nomenclature
with a kind of latitude, I should say, If you do not believe
the doctrine of human sinfulness, you are not on a founda-
tion on which you can be charitable. It used to be the case
that to charge all mankind with being sinful and corrupt was
not only a violation of truth, but an insult to humanity. I
aver, however, that that truth which was originally meant
and sought after and felt for when men were declared to be
depraved is indispensable to any right, charitable conduct to-
ward them. If men are regarded as honorable, truthful,
noble by nature, armed against evil and full of all impulses
toward right, you have a right to require of them the highest
conduct ; but if men are not by nature truthful, if they are
subject to various impulsion, if they are germinant creatures
seeking honor, gaining occasional glimpses and attaining im-
perfect developments of it, but pursuing it under endless
complications and with continuous mistakes, then you have
no right to require of them perfect conduct. The eye does
not see what it looks at ; the ear does not hear what it listens
to ; the senses are liable to fall into error ; and every scientific
man knows that behind the first impression is something
more accurate than that impression. The truth is not
always what it appears to be. We are imperfect perpetually.
Yet things in this lower state are what they were in the cre-
ative design — what they were meant to be, — and it is this

92 GOD'S WILL.

lower state which is to be the foundation of charity, which
is to unite man to man, and which is to lead men to jiity
each »ther and bear one another's burdens.

It ought not to be considered so much a matter of
degradation that men are sinful. Things that hitherto,
according to the old theological notions, were called sinful
are not to be looked upon as matters of degradation. We
must bring moral judgment on to the same ground with
material Judgment. We never say that a child is born sinful
because it cannot walk ; we never say : " See that little
guilty heathen, that cannot walk although it has flesh, and
bones, and articulations all right." We accept the fact that
the child was made not to walk ; that it was created without
the capacity to walk until it has first learned to use its feet ;
and we do not attach any blame-worthiness or dishonor to
such incapacity of the body. Nor do we attach blame to
incapacity of the lower forms of the understanding. If a
child only eight years old has an arithmetic put into his
hands, and is told to study and learn the first six pages,
when he comes to the recitation and does not know a letter
or a figure, do you spank him ? You should be spanked,
then ! He cannot learn the lesson assigned him. The
capacity for it is not in him. He must come to it. The un-
folding is just as natural as that of the bud in spring. Can
you go forth in March and say to all nature, " Behold, the
sun shines ! Out with your buds and blossoms" ? There is
an order m the growth of men ; it is imperative ; and you can
not say to children in respect to the body or the lower forms
of mind, "It is your duty to do so and so." You cannot
say to them, "You are clothed with full responsibility be-
cause you have ample capacity." They have not ample
capacity. It comes by usage ; it comes by development, at
first a little, and by and by something more ; and the divine
government adapts itself to exactly those facts. It is nat-
ural, it is in accordance with nature, it is a part of God's
design, that mankind should gradually unfold from the lower
to the higher states of their being.

When, therefore, it is said, " We are all sinful," that is,
sinful to the extent that we need regeneration, men say,

OOD'S WILL. 93

'' That is throwing a pall over creation ; it is the proclama-
tion of a degrading state of facts." No, not in the sense of
voluntary transgression. If, for instance, I know what kind-
ness is, and deliberately refuse it, if I know what wrong is,
and deliberately perpetrate it, that is sin in the active
form, and to that attaches the highest degree of ignominy in
the divine mind ; but those mistakes which come from un-
developed conditions and from limited capacities, those errors
which certainly do materially interfere with moral perfec-
tion, and with full allegiance to God's idea of rectitude,
are of the nature of infirmities ; and it is declared that
our great High-priest is touched witii the feeling of our
infirmities; or in the older Scripture it is declared, "As a
father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that
fear him ; for he knoweth our frame, and remembereth that
we are dust." It is our nothingness, our emptiness, our
want of experience, and skill, and knowledge, that God
looks upon and pities. It is true that we are imperfect, but
because we are so is no reason why you should hesitate to
look at your estate with open eye ; and you need not be re-
pelled by that great gulf which theologians have opened, and
called in olden times "total depravity," nor shrink back
from it. We have noble faculties ; we have reason ; we look
beneath and above ; we stretch our thoughts, soaring as no
eagle's wing is able to soar ; with our understanding and
imagination we fly and compass the globe ; we search the
secret thoughts of the Most High as they have been in-
carnated ; we look at things to be with a power that almost
parallels that of the divine nature ; and to tell us that
we are degraded, and sinful, and totally depraved — I am
not myself fond of using such phrases. But that which I be-
lieve the better thinkers of the world have been feeling after,
the everlasting, essential imperfection, and inchoate condition
of the race, this we may admit without fear or sense of
degradation, though not without a sense of the necessity of
being better ; not without a sense of the need of spiritual
inspiration ; not without the admission that God needs to
infuse something of himself mto us before we can come up
to ourselves. We believe that ; we teach it ; but there is a

94 aOD'S WILL.

great distinction that ought to be made between the degi'ada-
tion of voluntary sin, and of the mistakes and ignorances
which come from the conditions of infirmity and hmitation
in which men are placed in this world.

Thus, then, as the sense of imperfection is necessary to
charity in the judgment of men, so the sense of infirmity is
the road by which men may be led to a sense and realization
of their sinfulness. If you confound all sins, men still know
of things that are not their fault ; but if you discriminate
those shortcomings and ignorances which flow from the ne-
cessity of condition and being, men will be more disposed to
acknowledge the faults which are their own, and the sins
which are blameworthy and penal.

Divine rigor in maintaining law is entirely consistent,
then, with divine leniency towards men under law. Because
we teach the universal beneficence of God we do not necessa-
rily abolish the fact of the justice of God, nor tlie pains nor
the penalties which justice bears in its hand. We sejiarate
divine attributes and qualities because we are too weak to
understand them altogether in their unity, and are obliged
therefore to speak of God's truth, and purity, and justice,
and love, and integrity, ap if they were so many sejjarate
things in the divine nature ; whereas God is a unit, and all
these qualities in him constitute a unitary being ; but as we
find that we can be lenient with wrong-doing in our children,
as we know that a loving administration carries in it jmin
and penalty, so we may believe that the divine administra-
tion, while it holds men up by ten thousand influences to the
ideal law, is yet kind and lenient and gentle in dealing with
them under that law.

The divine sympathy, therefore, comes to every creature
that is conscious of imperfection and of sinfulness in him.
What is it that brings the lamb to the bleating mother but
hunger ? What is it that brings the colt to its dam but
hunger ? What is it that brings home the chicken flying to
the mother when the hawk screams but a sense of danger
and weakness ? What is it that brings the tear-overflowing
child back into the house from its sports but pain from hav-
ing hurt itself ? What is it that brings the patient to his

GOD'S WILL. 95

physiciau but the sense of the disorder of the system ? What
is it that brings the weak to the strong but the consciousness
of the help tliat is in the strong ? And what is it that
brings the soul to God but the consciousness of its need and
the feeling that there is in God the strength, the sympathy,
the power, the love that it needs ?

On this very ground of man's universal necessity, from his
nature and from the conditions of his being, I hold up that
great High Priest, Jesus Christ, who represents to the world
under human conditions the nature and the attributes of
God ; who discloses the divine government to man ; who
shall stand in judgment by and by ; who stands in judgment
every day ; who judges your right, but gives you more credit
than you give yourself for the little you do right ; who judges
your wrong, and is even more lenient with your wrong than
you are ; who judges your sin, and, although in the light of
his ideal he sees it to be a thousand times darker and more
mischievous than you are wont to, yet has for you compas-
sion and sparing mercy.

I hold up the character of the reigning God as one that
is precisely adapted to your w\ant — to your physical want ; to
your social want; to your economical want; to your soul
want ; to the highest necessities of the understanding ; to
the deepest needs of the heart ; and to all that goes to make
man higher than the beast of the field. Such is your God,
infinite in government ; more perfect than men can teach or
comprehend : and he has destined you and me to rise to a
higher state than it hath entered into the neart of man to
conceive ; and he yet stands at the beginnings of things,
where we all must stand, and with pity and patience, with
pain and pleasure, with joy and sorrow, with anger and a
conciliated heart, he is ready to do just that which we need
to have done for us — what a mother does for the child, what
a father does for the son, what friend does for friend.

Ah I the loves of this world are but sparks that have
fallen from that great Sun which stands to warm and inspire
and save the universe. No narrow God, governing a prov-
ince in Avhich he elects myriads to be damned, do I preach to
you. No God do I set forth in your presence who is less than

96 GOD'S WILL.

your mother or your father is. I preach that God who
carries in himself all inspirations to virtue ; all incitements
to purity ; all that has in it the sense of nobility. I preach
to you a God in whom is infinite exaltation and excellence,
harmonious and universal, streaming forth, inspiring law,
inspiring government, inspiring the household, and inspiring
the individual. I preach to you a God of supreme law,
which law is final and perfect. I pi-each to you a God
that is stimulating the universe for its development and
growth ; and yet I preach a God coming down on the other
side in humiliation and self-sacrifice epitomized, and by the
life and death of the Lord Jesus Christ suffering for the sins
of the world as the mother suffers for the sins and faults of
the cradle. I preach a God who, by his sublime, stimulat-
ing, helpful influence, is endeavoring to bring men up to
their true manhood, and waits patiently through the long
interval between the germ and the blossom ; who is the Be-
ginning and the End ; who is All and in all ; who is the
First and- the Last ; who is the Author, and, blessed be his
name, the Finisher ; who moulds the first elements of human
life, and who shall give the last touches to perfected life,
when we are translated from these earthly shores, and stand
in Zion and before God.

0 ye that walk in darkness ! there is a light for you. 0
ye that walk in weakness ! there is strength for you. 0 ye
that starve of hunger! there is food — just that which you
need. Ye sick, there is remedy. Ye friendless, there is
outpouring and tropical love for you. Ye that find in the
conditions of this world so little that makes life desirable,
and that look even into the mouth of the sepulcher and say,
**Be thou my refuge," there is light, and joy, a home, a
Father, and a Helper for you, that is adequate to supply all
your need of body, of soul, of social hfe, of public life, and
of business life. God is sufficient for man, and adapts him-
self to man. It is not you that placate him : it is he that
persuades you. It is not you that make a bargain by your
promises with God ; it is God that does exceeding abundantly
more than you ask or think, for every one of you. And it is
him that I preach.

GfOD'S WILL. 97

If, then, you go lonely it is your fault ; and even that
fault is condoned. If you go needy and weak, there is no
need of it. There is not a soul in this house that has not a
right to say, this morning, "My Father." You have no
friend in this world like the One that you can summon.

And so, my friends, out of darkness, out of sickness, out
of sorrow and out of trouble, look u]). This is human ; hut
just above your head the divine begins. In that is lumin-
ousness, in that is joy, and in that is infinite peace. Dwell
in God, and let his Spirit dwell in you, and you will not sit
down in despair, but you will be inspired with all holy aspi-
rations to bear up under the consciousness of imperfection.
The indwelling of God, while it brings peace, does not bring
contentment in the sense of being content with ignoble con-
ditions. Generous divine love lets the objects of love stand
where it found them, grafts them with higher excellences,
inspires them through love, and lifts them uj). Divine love
is like summer in the world, which brings out from the very
clod bud and blossom, and out of wood itself the luscious
fruit.

This God is your God ; tliis life is full of God ; and it is
for you, in all your infinite exigences and necessities, to say,
"Our Father, let thy will be done in me as in heaven and in
heavenly hearts"; and God hears, and will, little by little,
fulfill, until by and by he will draw aside the vail from his
face — and that is death ; for when we look upon God the
world fades, and we have escaped ; and as birds escape from
their eggs, and from their nests, and from the near twigs
on which they learn to fly, and at last emerge from the
thicket and the forest, and fly under all the heaven, so from
the egg and from the nest and from the darkling forest, b^
and by we shall emerge ; and they that listen shall hear us,
as heavenward we fly to dwell forever in the Tree of Life.

98 GOD'S WILL.

PRAYEE BEFOEE THE SERMON.

We rejoice, our Father, that the only streagth is not our strength ;
that we are not left helpless in our own weakness; that we may rise
up, if not in obedience to all the laws that control the body, yet in
spirit, in soul, into thy presence where are all the secrets and sources
of power. Though the outward man perish, the inward man is
renewed day by day. By thy power thou dost dwell in us, and dost
give us something of thyself. Thou dost enlarge our understanding
by purifying it. Thou dost give us strength through our affections;
and by drawing them toward thee, and cleansing them and iuspiiing
them with the purity of thine own nature, thou dost give us a wider
and stronger life to resist evil and take hold upon good. Thus thou
art renewing us from day to day so that our life is not of ourselves.
It is not the bread that we eat for the body alone, but that Ijread
which Cometh down from heaven that feeds us; for we are not what
we are outwardly, but what we are inwardly and before God. There
is the sonship hidden. There are all the aspirations and hopes that
shall yet lift us into thy very presence, and make vis sons of God in
the full disclosure of the other life.

And now we pray, to-day, that we may have all that sensitiveness,
all that affection, all that uprising of our innermost nature, by which
thou art discerned ; by which thy power is received ; by which we
are blessed in over-measure — for thou beholdest in this great multi-
tude what are the diversities of want as no human eye can, and thy
heart has compassion as no man's heart knows how to be compassion-
ate. Thou dost perceive the troubles of weakness, and the troubles
that come from ignorance, and the tioubles that come from other
men. Thou kuowest all prejudices, and all biases, and all influences
malign, and all over-actions and all nnder-actions. Thou knowest
all combinations of circumstances, and how they beat upon men
who are weak and oppressed outwardly, who are strong inwardly
for evil, who have fallen into mistakes, who are seeking to
unravel the tangle into wliich they have come, who are stum-
bling by reason of pride, and Avho are continually brought under trial
through their selfishness. Thou knowest the suiferings of parents for
their children; thou knowest what companions suffer one for
another; thou knowest the sufferings of heart which men experience;
thou understandest all the obliquities of disposition, and all the evils
which spring from the imagination ; thou dost understand all mis-
reasonings, and all truths discerned but partially, and mistakenly
practiced; thou readest the hearts of men — their thoughts and
intents. Naked and open are we before Him with whom we have to
do; and if thou wert stern, if thine eye made iniiuisition for judg-
ment, who could stand? If thou shouldst let fall thy hand rudely
among us, how many hearts would utterly perish in their insensibil-
ity and suffering! But thou art an High jiriest who can be touched
with a feeling of our infirmities. Thou knowest us, having thyself
been upon earth, tempted in every faculty, in all points, as we are,
yet without sin, but enough tempted to know the pressure and the
power of temptation, and to know how easily men yield. Where

I

GOD'S WILL. 99

thou, sustained ny God, wert able to stand, we are cast down and
overthrowu. Yea, thine own hps did pray that the cup might be
taken from tliee; thou didst by angelic ministration endure and
drink to the very bottom the dregs of soirow ; and now thou art on
high not indifferent, but in an everlasting memory of love clothed
with sympathy, and filled with power that thou mayest help those
who need thee and perish without thee. May all who are bestead
drawn near to thee to-day. May every heart bring its burdens and
its sorrows to thee. May those who desire to confess to thee open
consciously before thee their own innermost life though thou dost not
need to have it opened before thee, since thou beholdest in light and in
darkness alike. Draw near, we beseech of thee, to all who are in want,
and teach them how consciously to recognize thee, and to feel their
interest in thee, and to realize what power they have with God hy rea-
son of their imperfection and of their great sinfulness ; for as we have
power one with another, not alone by the things which are excel-
lent, but by the things which we need ; and as all our necessities cry
out to love, and are voices of power; as our sicknesses call to those
that heal, and they are drawn to us by those sicknesses; so much
more is our weakness strong before thee to plead and to touch thy
compassion, thou unslumberiug Lover; much more are our necessi-
ties so many hands of supplication lifted up to thee; and we pray for
every one — for the aged ; for those who are in the midst of the battle
of life; for those who are just entering upon the contest; and for the
little ones. Look upon them ; suit thy mercies to their condition. O
thou gracious God, infinite, full of blessing; thou who art inexhausti-
ble in the variety of thy resources, how thou canst adapt thyself to the
varying wants of every one! And grant that each may hear himself
called by name, and may he know that God thinks of him, and isgiv
ing strength to those who are under burdens, and hope to those that
are desponding, and forgiveness to those who are out of the way. So
may all find something in thee— yea, all in thee. Be thou the JBread
of life; be thou the Light by which men shall see; be thou the Staff by
which they shall walk ; be thou the Door through which they shall
enter into the tower of refuge; be thou the great Rock in aweary
land under whose shadow refreshment shall be found.

We pray that thou wilt not follow alone the sins of men as thou
seest them, but that thou wilt let thy servants think, and be compas-
sionate to their thought of their own want.

Accompany the thoughts of those who to-day go wistfully out to
those that are separated from them ; the thoughts of parents for their
children; the thoughts of children for their parents; the thoughts of
companions and friends for each other. Under circumstances of
peril be thou with men. Shield those whom our hearts desire to
have shielded. Be with all who are upon the great deep to-day.
Bring such of them home to us as are coming down hither again to
lead in our midst the songs of Zion.

We pray, O Lord, that thou wilt bless all those that we have
labored with, wherever they may be, in the wilderness or elsewhere
laying foundations on which men shall build noble structures. Bless
our whole laud. Be pleased to bless the President of these United

100 GOD'S WILL.

States, and all that are associated with him in authority. Bless, we
pray thee, all governors. Bless .judges in all courts. Bless magis-
trates everywhere. Bless the whole great body of citizens. May
they learn obedience to the law. May they stand in morality, and
in industry, and in piety. We pray that this nation may be great,
not alone in its harvests, and in its lands, and in its ships, and in its
wealth of any kind: may it be great in intelligence, and in love
to God and man. Grant that it may become the shield of the weak
and despoiled nations of the earth, building them up. And we pray
that the time may come when nations shall learn war no more; when
all malign influences shall be restrained; when intelligence, and
purity, and wisdom, and love shall lift men above the power of the
oppressor; and when weakness shall go and strength shall come,
bringing liberty and justice with it. Let thy kingdom come, and
may thy will be done upon earth as it is in heaven.

We ask it in the name of Jesus, the Redeemer. Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Grant unto us, our heavenly Father, a longing for thee. Grant
unto us such a sense of the manner of thy government, of the order
of life, that we may feel that in all our circumstances and surround-
ings we are of the household of God, under his care, under his appomt-
ment and equipment, inspired, and guided, and led; and grant that
those who have not known thee, those who lie down to die outside of
their Father's house, may be aroused and brought in. We beseech
of thee that thou wilt grant to men, to cast-aways, to the unhappy,
to the friendless, to the struggling, to those to whom life brings little
pleasure and much toil, the joy of seeing thee and finding in thee and
in thy smiles and love that which the world does not give them. How
poor are we, what paupers are we, whom nature only blesses! and
how rich are even the poorest and most miserable whom God
blesses ! Grant, then, thus thyself — the insphering of thy life in ours.
Grant, we pray thee, the plenitude and power of joy in our souls as
they have it with whom thou art. Enter in to sup with us, and dwell
with us. Be our constant guest and our benefactor. And to thy
name shall be the praise, Father, Son, and Spirit. Amen.

PRESENT USE OF IMMORTALITY.

*' There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God." — Heb. iv. d.

The doctrine of a future conscious existence with the con-
tinuance of personal identity was a truth of individual hope
and aspiration, among the ancient Jews, rather than an an-
nounced doctrine. It is nowhere expressly taught in the Old
Testament Scripture. It formed no part of the Mosaic econ-
omy. Ail the threats and promises that were made of old
were secular. And yet we see unmistakably in the nobler
moral natures whose work or life or teachings are contained
in the Hebrew Scriptures that they did expect a continued
life hereafter. The annunciation of this truth belongs to a
later and an advanced stage of the Jewish life. This expec-
tation of another life has grown into what may be called a
universal certainty. With the unfolding of the race it has
not vanished as a shadow ; it has grown. The foundations
of hope are developed, and the uses thereof are multiplied
in the proportion in which men are more men than when they
were in a savage state.

This fact does not, to be sure, prove the existence of a
continued state of being — of immortality, I do not think
that desire is evidence or presumption of the existence of the
thing desired ; and the mere wish for continued existence is
not jjresumptive proof of it. But where such desire exists
in widening circles, and grows stronger and stronger with

SUNDAY Morning, Oct. n, 1874. Lesson: 2d Cor. v., 1-e ; vl., 1-13. Hymns (Ply«
mouth Collection) : Nob. 40, 1262, " Shining Shore,"

104 PRESENT USE OF IMMORTALITY.

the developmcDt of races, and becomes a deep-rooted belief
in the hearts and minds of mankind, it does give fair pre-
sumption in favor of the thing desired. That is to say,
where it attaches itself to reason, and the imagination, and
all the noblest affections, and grows stronger as men grow
larger and nobler, the universality of this desire is proof
positive of the universal' human sense of incompleteness
without another and advanced stage of existence. It is a
testimony to the inconipeteucy of this world to fulfill that
which man consciously needs. It is a testimony that the
stage through which we are passing is partial and incomplete,
and that judged by that sense of ideal completeness which
belongs to reason — in its higher states certainly — it would
seem to foreshadow a future existence. This is a kind of
chrysanthemum world. In our latitudes the chrysanthemum
grows all summer, begins to show its buds in October, and
is cut off with frost before it is half or a quarter blossomed.
The best kinds will not blossom out of doors, and need to be
brought into the house, or green-house, or to be kept over in
some way. And so the testimony of observation and reason
in respect to this world is that men come about to the state
of blossoming, or come into bud, but that their summer is
not long enough here, and they do not fully come to them-
selves.

The great mass of the world do not, even in civilized
society, really develop to the outlines that are marked in
them, and that are discerned among them ; and human na-
ture, as a general thing, does not perfect itself here — cer-
tainly it does not perfect itself in any generation or in
any cycle. Everything seems moving on with indications
of something better than that which we attain in this life, —
for the race, as a race, certainly improves. But by as much
as it improves it indicates lines of yet higher development ;
and do they vanish ? Is death that sponge which wipes
life clean like a slate, or do all these indications prophesy
something? I do not ask whether they demonstrate any-
thing : I do nut ask if they prove something as we prove
mathematical propositions ; but do they afford such a ground
of expectation as comforts and satisfies the rational faculties

PRESENT USE OF IMMORTALITY. 105

— the imagination, the moral sentiments, all the aspirations
and all the affections ? If they do, they are a kind of evi-
dence — for evidence means a production of conviction.
You can produce conviction in some minds by reasoning,
and in some none at all. In some minds you can produce
conviction by changing the state of feeling, by playing upon
the imagination, by working through the symj^athies so that
the mind is convinced. I do not say that it is a rational
demonstration ; but by it many are led toward a better under-
standing of their condition in looking at the other sphere,
for man needs the comfort and consolation of a future state
of being. If all that is best in him with increasing intensity
lifts up its hands imjiloringly for it, then there is in this
fact, I would not sav proof, but a foundation or reason for
expecting it, because of its perpetual benefit ; and, even if
dying were going out, I would rather all my life long live
strengthened and purified and inspired and comforted by
more than a hope, by the belief, that I was yet again to live,
and to live more gloriously ; for if death is annihilation I
shall not know what I have lost, while all the way down to
it I reap treasures that the world is too cold to ripen — joys
that can be plucked from no blossoming bough. The faith
and hope of continued existence in higher conditions here-
after is of transcendent importance to the comforting of life ;
and I do not thank any man, even if the tapers that I have
lit along my horizon are imaginary, who comes around and
blows them out, and calls himself Scientist. I want the
hope.

Yoii tell me that I ought not to exercise my imagination
in daily air-castle building. Do not I know perfectly well
that the house that I am building every year at Peekskill is
not built ? I draw the plans — and that does not cost any-
thing ; I change them — and that does not cost anything ; I
make the rooms as large as I i)lease — and that does not
cost anything ; I fill them with pictures and books and
with such furniture as I want — and that does not cost any-
thing ; I imagine how the breezes will blow through the
broad hall, and how the light will shine tli rough the varied
windows — and that does not cost anything ; 1 weave fancies

106 PRESENT USE OF IMMORTALITY.

as to how I shall live in that house, and what a comfort it
will be to me ; and shall a man come to me and say, '' It is
all air " ? I know that, because I do not pay any bills ; but is
not the house a comfort to me notwithstanding ? It is not
nothing ; it is something : it is relaxation ; it is refreshment ;
it is joy — and I think that is what we need much of in this
world.

Now if the use of the imagination is allowable i,n limited
spheres and in familiar things, nay, if it is desirable, how
much more allowable and desirable is that prophetic, that
spiritual use of the imagination by which manhood is lifted
out of its littleness and pigmy proportions, so that we feel
ourselves to be sons of God, though it doth not yet appear
what we shall be ! There is grandeur in such a use of the
imagination ; and it is not to be extinguished, nor is it to
be rebuked merely because I cannot prove it as a chemist or
naturalist can prove certain physical facts.

It may be demonstrated that man, as an animal, has very
little conscious need. I watch my cows and my oxen, and
one of the most striking things that I observe in them is how
perfectly contented they are. I have heard men refer to the
animal creation as contented, and as being an example to
men ; but I would not be an ox for the sake of being con-
tented. Such content as the ox has is tho content of nega-
tion. There is nothing in him that is not satisfied with grass
and water ; and how small an animal must be whose whole
nature is fed with grass and water I Are we to take our
measures from stones and sticks and the lower animals, and
only crave for ourselves that which nature furnishes to them ?
Nature gives them. all that they want ; but we want more, or
ought to want more, being more highly organized and en-
dowed. Men who are low want but little of the future.
They want but little of to-morrow or next week. In savage
life there is a want of foresight. In that life men live not in
cycles ot the future, but simply in days, and even hours, and
scarcely enough conception have they of the extension of
time and being to think to make provision in summer for the
winter ; but, with every step of real worthy human develop-
ment approaches the consciousness of the unfitness of this

PRESENT USE OF IMMORTALITY. 107

world for our whole and completed manhood. In other words,
culture, evolution, development, hope, desire for after-life or
of continued existence, leads not to contentment here, but
to the conscious need of something more and higher.

Men who use the trained reason are conscious that there
is such a thing as what scholars call critical jiidgm&nt,
and what moral philosophers call intuitmis and states of
exaltation, in which the ordinary processes of reasoning
seem to be suppressed, and the mind flashes light for-
ward upon the themes which it is considering. In other
words, there are intimations of a higher range of reason
than that which obtains among men ; and all of these seem
like so many elements of a higher state of existence. So
that men's comfort and satisfaction are not in the ratio
of the development of their reason, for the more they
are developed in that direction the more consciously have
they need to be yet more. The sense of incompleteness is
nowhere more strongly developed in desires than in the de-
sires of reason.

That which is true of the reason, I need not say, is true
of the imagination. We are not content in the propor-
tion in which we are endowed with that — the all-creat-
ing faculty. On the contrary, that is perpetually set-
ting before us such ideals of character, such ideals of har-
mony between mind and matter, or between men and their
circumstances, that nothing is more disturbing. If it be re-
freshing in some of its moods, yet in its higher moods, and
in its association with the moral sentiments, nothing is more
disturbing than the imagination. Nothing produces more
yearning and craving and longing ; and these are so many
symptoms of the soul's homesickness for its real existence and
its true abode.

Nor do we find the affections of this life to be ade-
quate. There is always in love a brief satisfaction ; but
love begets a nobler idea of love, if it be true. A false
love degrades, and a true love always opens a conception
of loving which rebukes the actual affection. It aspires
to something nobler, something higher, something richer,
something that carries in it more of bounty than the ordinary

108 PRESENT VSE OF iMMORTALtTY.

afEections. There are no parents that do not feel, in jjroportion
as they love their children, that they fain would make their
love something larger and grander than it is. They feel the
weakcess of love as limiting them ; as taking away from their
power ; as introducing into affection many sharp or acrid ele-
ments. They recognize the limitations of selfishness and
pride as being bound around about a true affection. There
is in every parent's heart a sense, an ideal, of love which he
never reaches. There is something in it of joy ; there is a
great deal in it that is satisfactory ; there is very much in it,
also, of yearning, of longing for a state of which it con-
ceives ; but it does not reach to it. The inharmoniousness
of man's nature with himself is perpetually developed to
those who are cultured. It may not occnr to a man of low
growth as a philosophical fact ; but as manhood increases in
bulk and rises in quality, this develops toward the future,
following the line of the better manhood in man. In pro-
portion as you recede from animalism and reach to higher
and higher truths — those which we all agree constitute the
truest manhood — in that jjroportion men feel that the world
does not satisfy them, that it does not come up to their idea,
but that there is need of a larger atmosphere and chance
for a more perfect unfolding.

The seed develops itself by growth, and man develops
himself by education, and perceives that his manhood can-
not be perfected in time. We find in this world that happi-
ness is a sign of health and of moral rectitude in a lower
sphere ; it is true that the normal use of a faculty is usually
accompanied with pleasure, and it is true that a state of
health moral and physical is generally presumptive of happi-
ness ; one would naturally say, therefore, that happiness
is the proper state of man. Happiness is the proper state of
man ; but it does not follow that it i' his proper state in this
world, by a great deal.

If you take an exquisite surgical instrument made of
steel, sharp, and polished like silver, and say, " We find the
perfection of steel when it is thus polished and brought into
uses," that may be true ; but suppose you should go into the
shop where the steel was forged and made, and should say.

PBESENT USE OF IMMORTALITY. 109

'^Therej the sign of psrfect liaiidliug is perfect polish^ and
there is no polish here" ? The final form is polish ; but are
all the preliminary forms likewise ? When the ingot is
taken, when it is thrown into the furnace, when it is brought
to the anvil, when it is in its rudest forms, are not these all
legitimate states ? It is going on toward that state in which
polish is the final form and the true indication of perfection ;
but all the way up to that is rude, it is coarse, it is any-
thing but radiant.

Happiness, truly enough, in the lower spheres of human
experience, is the test of health and satisfaction, and these
are intimations of what are the ideal states to which men
can go ; but taking the race collectively and universally it is
a fact that happiness is not the best thing for a man. It is
a fact that those men who are born under circumstances in
which they are content, who are pleased all the time, who
enjoy themselves continually, are usually a very i)oor sort of
men. Joy is to be our portion when we are able to bear it ;
but in the nascent state of existence, in all the earlier stages
of development, it is found that men are made by hardship,
by suffering, by hard knocks and disappointments.

I can imagine a state of existence in which men's selfish-
ness will be trained in drill-schools in such a way that they
will not need the great outer secular life ; I can imagine that
pride may by and by be brought under such physical and
moral influences that it will run straight through from
childhood to manhood in normal ways ; but as man is
situated now, in his low condition, such a thing is not pos-
sible. In the present state of the world men are thrown
out to take their chance in life, to hope, to aspire, to en-
deavor, and are thrown back and thrown down. The poor
and weak are thrown down so hard as to be destroyed ; but if
a man has the root of the matter in him he rises once more ;
and as he rises courage comes ; and with courage comes per-
severance ; and with perseverance comes patience ; and as he
still perseveres under difficulties there comes nerve-fiber;
and as the result of all these comes victory. It does not
come while he is enjoying himself smelling flowers : it comes
because when he sat down there was a thorn, and he jumped

XIO PBESENT USE OF IMMORTALITY.

up quick and went to work. It comes, not beca,ase the per-
fumed breeze blows upon him, but because the north wind
Bends icicles, winter locks up everything, and summer has
to be engineer of the year. He is made to suffer because
he is so narrow ; because he is so little developed ; because
he so needs to be unfolded in every direction ; because he
needs to contest nature and extract from her that which
shall nourish him by supplying food for his growth on every
side of his being. Such are the trials which make bone and
muscle and nerve in men.

We bring up our children softly — too softly, often ; because
not unfrequently when we turn them on the world they have
not skin enough to endure that which they meet. The chil-
dren of the poor have a better chance than the children of
the rich, simply because they are nerved to hardship and
endurance. Men who have achieved success through suffer-
ing and adversity often say, " My children shall not walk
such a hard way as I walked." No, they walk a soft way,
and are soft all through ! Men do not understand that
though for the present chastening seems to be not joyous but
grievous, nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit
of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
Rasping, hammering, being subjected to hot and cold, all
manner of things — belong to the education which we experi-
ence in this rough world. All seems to go at hap-hazards.
Men are born as nails are thrown into a keg, where they lie
every which way, with heads and points against each other.

At Salisbury there was a foundry ; and I remember that
there for the first time I saw the way in which iron was
polished. Hearing creakings and groanings, I went in
and found a vast hollow wheel into which castings were
thrown, a ton at a time. This wheel was revolved, and in-
side of it these castings were revolved ; and there they
crashed, and crashed, and crashed on each other ; and the
results of their tumblings one upon another, with nothing
but the law of gravity to bring them together, was that they
finally ground each other smooth, rubbed off all the rough
edges, so that when they were taken out and washed a little
they were bright.

PRESENT USE OF IMMORTALITY. HJ

The whole world is turned much in that manner, and
men are tumbled together in mutual attrition. Some are
ruined by it, and some are made by it. This is the order
of providence, this the method of education, by which the
race has been developed up to its present condition. It has
been by rude raspings and conflicts that manhood has been
made.

Now, pain, and sorrow, and disappointments, and dis-
couragements seem essential to the production of higher
forms of manhood in this life. Hitherto it has been so ; and
there is no reason why we should expect a different experi-
ence— at any rate, for vast numbers of years yet. Under
such circumstances every man must feel that in this life,
where he is taking the earlier forms of existence, or is being
developed through them into some elements of nobler and
higher manhood ; where in the nature of things imperfection
and rudeness reign ; where violence takes the place of reason ;
where sorrow is the path along which men walk toward joy ;
where, for the hope and the joy that are set before them,
men, like their Master, endure the cross, despising the shame
— under such circumstances you can understand how all
men may, should, look out to another life, to another stage
of existence, where these things will have passed away be-
cause the necessity for them will have passed away.

In the other world we shall have learned much. We shall
have become substantially different from what we are here.
We shall start in our life there with a capital — with some ex-
perience. I know it is said that men have had an exist-
ence before ; and when I consider the slenderness of most
men, I cannot but think that if they existed before, and
they accumulated anything, it must have been in a world
where infinitesimals were common ; still I do not know of
any reason in philosophy why we may not suppose that there
was a previous state of existence where human beings went
from one cycle or state to another. I do not know why
there may not be spheres behind us, as well as before us,
though I do not see as much reason to suppose it.

Now, if the considerations which we have presented are
substantially true, it is not meant, when we are exhorted to

112 PRESENT USE OF IMMORTALITY.

look forward and crave that rest which remains for the peo-
ple of God, to express a mere spirit of discontent. It is not
a spirit of grumbling, it is not a sjiirit of fault-finding, it is
not a spirit of charging the world with all manner of ill-luck,
by any means, that is indicated in the passage which we have
selected for our text. Nor is it a spirit of undervaluing the
present life, present duties or present enjoyments. This is
admirably expressed by that ajDostle of profound experience,
Paul, where he says, in the passage which we read as the
opening service :

" We know that if our house of this earthly tabernacle were dis-
solved, we have a buildiug of G(»d, a house not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens. For in this we ^roan, earnestly desiring
[what? Not to be unclothed but,] to be clothed upon."

He did not desire tj get rid of, to be dispossessed of, the
cares, and burdens, and trials, and wearinesses, and sorrows,
of this life ; these he was willing to bear if there was good
in them ; it was not that he was tired of the hardships of the
present state ; it was not that he was unwilling to go into the
conflict, girded, and armed with the sword ; it was not that
he would be unclothed — but that he would be clothed npon.

There was no man that ever lived who had a higher
consciousness of what manhood meant than Paul. There
was never a man in every part of whose being there was
such manhood, as there was in him. There will be ten
ShakesiDcares before there will be another Paul. He was
peculiar in this : that aspiration belonged to every single
part of his nature. He had an exquisite sensibility to the
effect of the natural world, of the civil world, and of
the great spiritual world ; but his whole being sighed and
longed for release, for redemption, for a higher life. He
had a sense of the kingdom of God in its invisible form,
and it acted upon his interior nature in such a way that every
throb, every pulsation, which expressed itself in his writings,
was that of a man who longed for a more complete selfhood.
In speaking of himself, he says : " It is not because I am dis-
contented." Surely he had reason to be discontented if any
man had. He was in fastings, in weariness, in sickness, in
betrayals among false brethren, in perils of every kind, by

PRESENT USE OF IMMORTALITY. II5

sea and by land, in all manner of troubles, so that he de-
clared himself to be as an offscouring of the earth ; and yet
he says, " I do not want to be delivered from all these things •
I do not say that my life is done, and that I have nothing
further to do ; I am perfectly content to live on as long as it
pleases God that I should ; I would not be unclothed, but
would be clothed upon ; I long for myself. I am too selfish ;
I am too proud ; I am carnal ; I am narrow ; I am full of
prejudices ; I am filled with sins ; this is not myself ; I have
not yet got the shell off ; I am moulting, and I cannot sing ;
my wings are not grown, and I cannot fly ; but I discern in
myself the intimations of a higher existence. Not that 1
Avould be unclothed and lose what I have, changing my cir-
cumstances merely, but that I would be clothed upon and
gain the new joys and duties of the better life." It is
a longing for perfection, for happiness, but only that hap-
piness which is the concord of a man's whole being in him-
self and with his circumstances. Certainly it is not panting
for indolence, though there are many who speak of entering
the rest that remains for the people of God as if it were sim-
ply a cessation of enterprise and activity.

Now, there are many things which we may be permitted
to long to be rid of. I can conceive that a man may be con-
tent with crippled limbs who hobbles upon crutches all his
life, and sees uses and yet is conscious of being useless ; and
yet I could imagine that it would enter his thought of dying
and of glory that he should be as others are. Nor could I
blame any man for having such a thought. I can imagine
one lying bedridden, or one. though not bedridden, yet mov-
ing in such feebleness and with such a shadowy life that he
could doveryhttle for others ; and I could imagine that such
an one might long to depart for the sake of strength and
vigor. Neither would I rebuke him. I can imagine persons
undergoing such drudgery that labor itself might cry out for
rest. I can imagine slaves' lives and the lives of boors and
peasants, as being oftentimes afflicted in such a way with ex-
cessive taxation and tasking that it might be legitimate to
desire to die. T can imagine parents who long to be released
from the excruciating sorrows that belong to them in the

114 PRESENT USE OF IMMORTALITY.

faithful discharge of their duties in the household. I can
imagine a disappointed man, such a one as Kossuth, exiled,
who loves his land, and longs for the best things in its be-
half, and waits, but sees no prospect in his own life of any-
thing better ; and having no other mission in this world than
that of serving his own beloved country, I can imagine that
he might have longings for that rest which remains for the
peoj^le of God.

These things are permitted ; but they are the lowest
forms, they are the bottom forms, if I may so say, of
desire. In our best moments we long for the rest which
remaineth for the people of God because that will be our
true birth. We long to know what we are ; we long to
know what this feeble manhood means ; we see in ourselves
hints and indications of it, but we are perpetually coming
short. We conceiA'^e of grand things which we are incom-
petent to reach unto. We are full of intimations ; and
we get tired, at last, of this aspiration and of these thousand
calls which we cannot understand, and which we cannot put
away from our ears. The inhabitants of the other life
stand thronging on the walls of the New Jerusalem, saying,
*' Come, come ;" but where is the way ? How shall we go ?
*'Are ye not of us ? " say that great army that is there.
Who are they ? The children that we carried in our arms,
the companions that took sweet counsel with us day and
night, fellow-laborers and warriors with us, who have gone
before, and who are realizing the blessedness of emancipa-
tion— men without the animal ; men with whom are no more
wearinesses, no more appetites, no more passions, first for
defense and afterwards for vexation, no more sordidness,
no more selfishness, no more arrogance of pride, no more
hindering influences that come np like mists to obscure
the observations which we would make of heavenly bodies.
We long for our manhood ; and they are calling out to
us in our highest and best hours and moods. The ear is
open even if not the eye, and we almost hear the motion of
sweet wings around about us of those that call us thither.
It is not unmanly nor unmanning for us to yearn for that
rest into which they have entered, where they have found

PRESENT USE OF IMMORTALITY. Hg

themselves, and where they know as they are known. They
have reached the blessedness, not of perfected existence, but
of that which, as compared with tliis earthly condition, is rel-
atively perfect.

We long for that rest wliich shall set us free from inhar-
mony — from clashing within and from clashing without.
We long for release from all those experiences which, though
they are needful and beneficial here, we at last hope that we
have had enough of. We long to be advanced to a higher
stage.

In this world we are in bondage to a thousand laws and
customs which bind the good and the bad alike ; which be-
long to society because society is made up of all sorts of
people. Laws must be universal, and the same to all ; and
yet the very things which help men when they are low down
often hinder them when they are high up. The sepal holds
the rosebud while it is trying to be a bud, and protects it in
winter and in the early spring ; and yet, when the time comes
for the rose to blossom, if that sepal is glued together, and
sticks, the rose cannot blossom — the sepal will not let it out.
" Chaff," we say. What is chaff ? Why, it is mother's milk.
It is the bosom at which wheat sucks. It is that which is
wrapped around the grain, and which, while it is nascent, in
milk, as we say, nourishes and supplies it with the juice
by which it becomes wheat ; but after it has become wheat,
shall the chaff yet stick ? The blossom has to perish before
the apple swells, or before there can be an apjDle.

So, in life, we are surrounded with thousands of things
which are necessary to the raising up of our generation and
to the unfolding of those that have not been developed, but
which have become chaff, shucks, husks, to many that are
developed, so that they can lay them aside. There comes a
state of existence in which they can be dispensed with safely ;
and men long for liberation and exaltation.

Men may long properly also for release from sorrow — not
from those sufferings which are purifying, but from tliat
greatest of all sorrows, the sight of and sympathy with uni-
versal sorrow. The whole creation groans and travails in
pain until now. And how can one be like unto God, and

116 PRESENT USE OF IMMORTALITY.

become sensitive and manly, and not take into consideration
the condition of things that are around him ?

This is qualified by hope and by faith in God. The evo-
lution of his providence is narrowed and tempered very
much ; but in this world no man can be a man who does not
bear a great deal of sorrow on account of his fellows, on ac-
count of the race ; and he may well long for a state in which
he shall be lifted above that necessity. The cry of the
nursery cat last becomes wearisome to the nurse's ears ; and
she has the liighest longing — that which may not be ex-
pressed, and which may not even be shaped in any definite
form in ourselves — the longing to be witli God.

I do not think this longing ever comes in any snch shape
as often the catechism, theological systems, and church
methods attempt to produce it. When I think of God, and
try to put his attributes together in my mind, I never long
to be with him. The intellectual state is one which, so long
as it exists, prevents the emotive state. But there are states
ot emotion. There are states of imagination, of ideality, of
affection. There is a large, sympathetic condition of the
soul in its higher moods, in which longing for God is as when
the hart pants for the water-brooks. It does not sit down
and say, God is omnipotent and omniscieut and omnipresent,
and holy and just and good ; and therefore (everlasting im-
jiertinence of logic !) — therefore I long for him. Not at all.
Do you suppose a mother, when she has befn gone a week
from her babe that she has left behind, and wants to go
home, sits down and says, " My babe is so beautiful, and has
such blue eyes, and such flaxen hair, and such a sweet little
mouth, that I long to see it" ? There is something back of
all enumeration. There is something back of thoughts even.
There is emotion that is itself the womb out of which
thoughts come — which is the source and fountain of them
all.

Now, in the soul of those who have been taught of God,
and have attempted to live in Christian dispositions, there
springs up a yearning and longing for God ; but it is not
preceded by thought, nor is it the product of thought.

It seems very strange to go back to the Psalms of Davu

PRESENT USE OF IMMORTALITY. II7

to find the noblest expressions of this. We find them, of
course, echoed and re-echoed in the New Testament ; but
surely, human language never was framed before nor since
to express such nnutterable desires of the soul toward God,
in love and reverence and holy fear, as was expressed in far
off ages by the warrior king.

I hear men ridicule the king and ''sweet singer" of
Israel, and talk about how much he was under the influence
of cruel, revengeful, jDassionate feelings. I do not see that
the men who are such critics have the capacity to understand
David when he rose from lower moods and stood in the
grandeur and regality of higher moods. There has never
been a human soul that has given record to such a depth of
experience of the very highest character, and such spiritual
longing as David himself. He reached the very topmost
limits of experience ; and he is not to be weighed in the
balance of those who are competent only to estimate his feet,
but cannot rise to his heart nor to his head.

I will say, then, in closing, that the uses of the future
life are those of comfort, inspiration, courage, hope. The
true use of the future is to inspire patience in the present ;
to give men courage under difficulties ; to give them inspira-
tion and support in all the labors to which they are called.

This is the result to which the apostle himself calls us,
where, in the fifteenth of first Corinthians, he closes that im-
mortal chapter, after having argued that resurrection and im-
mortality were established by Jesus Christ, and having gone
through a long and eloquent illustration of this glorious doc-
trine of the future, when this corruptible shall have put on
incorruption, when this mortal shall have put on immortality,
when death shall be swallowed up in victory, and when there
shall be thanks to God, and shoutings throughout the uni-
verse, saying :

" My beloved brethren, be [on account of these things] steadfast,
unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch
as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."

0 ye on whom the harness girds ! 0 ye that are tired !
O ye that are heart-sick ! 0 ye whose cup has been broken
at the fountain ! 0 ye for whom life" has little left, weak,

X18 PRESUNT USE OF IMMORTALITY.

infirm, sick, hopeless, disappointed, heart-aching folks, here
is your consolation. It is but your night. The morning
comes. Days hasten into weeks, and weeks into months,
and months into years, and years fly swifter than the shuttle,
and you are not what you seem to be. This is not all of you.
Your experiences here are disciplines, the full meaning of
which you cannot understand. The future lies before you
unexplored by your eye, but proved and rejoiced in by thou-
sands whom you have. known. Do not be discouraged. Cast
not away your confidence and hope for the future ; but from
that high and blessed estate (do not call it a vision), from
that kingdom, from that resplendent city, from God's home
and household toward which we are journeying, bring down
that strength and that comfort which hope shall give you,
and be cheerful ; be patient ; do not count yourselves un-
worthy of suffering. Shall the Master wear the crown of
thorns, and you never know one single nettle ? Shall he be
cut off with ignominy, and you have no touches of sharp
spears ? Is the disciple better tlian the Master ? By his suf-
ferings what benefits have you reaped ! Be content to reap
more benefits from your own sufferings. Be manly and
courageous and hopeful. Do not look at the grave as being
a i^rison's mouth, and shudder and shrink from it. Do not
look at sicknesses, and limitations, and weaknesses, as so
Tnany evils to be dreaded. They are all God's messengers.
And the gate of death — black, is it ? If you could but take
the blackness from your eyes, the gate of death you would
see to be the gate of pearl of which the i-ecord speaks, the
most glorious of all gates. We come into life crying, poor,
puhng, miserable creatures ; and yet all men rejoice around
about us ; but when, after having gathered the experience,
and education, and discipline of life, we are graduated, and
go out of this life, do not you suppose that they rejoice ten
thousand times more, when we are born into the other life ?
Go toward the gate, then, and do not call it dark. It is
the way the apostles went; it is the way their Master and
your Master went ; it is the way of all the earth ; and beyond
it lies your true life, your real manhood, your best self. With
the grave shall be the dust, the body which is a good servant

PRESENT USE OF IMMORTALITY. 119

in poor things, but which becomes a hamper and a hindrance
in the highest things ; and then, having dropped that, you
will soar into unknown realms in an unknown state of glory,
with joy and perfectness forevermore.

There remaineth a rest for the people of God. Hungry
men rush to the dinner for fear that others will eat it all up ;
ambitious men strive for the high offices of life for fear that
others will supplant them ; but there is a rest which no man
can take away from you. There is a special place for each
one in heaven. There is a glory for you that can hang about
no other. There is a joy for you that no other can feel.
Your rest remaineth, and none shall take it away from you.

So be patient ; be glad ; sing in sorrow ; have songs in the
night. When God wants you he will send for you ; and
when he sends for you it will be because he wants you.
Then go home and be forever with the Lord.

120 PBESENT USE OF IMMORTALITY.

PRAYEE BEFORE THE SERMON.

We draw near to thee encouraged by the memory of the past, and
comforted by all those words which thou hast strewn along the way
of life. Thou hast made it easy for us to draw near to thee. Thou
hast clothed thyself with all the associations of the household. Thou
hast made thyself known to us by names that have in them our dear-
est experience. Though we cannot comprehend thee and must not
think that thou art only as the best of all that we have known ;
though thou art transcendently more than we can imagine; though
we cannot out of this limited state reach forth imagination or reason
to compass thee, to take in the full conception of thy ])eing, yet we
rejoice to know in what direction thou art great, and that it is in thy
disposition and not in the right hand of thine omnii)otence, not in
thy universal and penetrating understanding and knowledge, not in
that thou hast had iufinite experience in government, but in that all
the resources of thy power and knowledge are in the nature of good-
ness, and that thou art beneficent, and art creating joy, or the con-
ditions thereof, and preparing men even by sorrow for that higher
state in which sorrow itself shall loose all its acrid elements, and
ripen into sweetness and blessedness.

Now we thank thee, O Lord, that we may draw near toward thte,
and that we may feel the light and warmth of thy light though we
cannot take the measurement of thy being, and that we may trust
ourselves implicitly in thy hand. We desire to kuow thy command-
ments; we desire with all our heart to obey thee as fully as we
can. We feel our incompetency to understand, and to perfect in
obedience even that which we do understand ; but we strive toward
a more perfect life, and from day to day seek to gain strength where
we are weak, or, where strength is undue or wrong, to weaken it. We
seek the things which i:)lease thee; and though we are conscious
every day that we are ignorant, that we are full of infirmity, and
that our infirmities constantly lead us into transgressions and sins,
yet we rejoice in believing that thou art such a one as forgives ini-
quity, transgression and sin. Thy nature is a loving nature. Thou
art not hard and stern. Thou dost not deal with hearts as thou dost
with matter. Thou art lenient; and it is in thee that we have
an everlasting atonement. Inherent in thy very nature is that which
forever pours itself forth for us. It was made manifest in Jesus
Christ ; but it dwells in thee forever and forever, and is felt in the
heavens and on the earth. Yea, in the infinite depths of the past
eternity thou wert full of compassion for the erring. For wherefore
are men weak but that so thou didst send them into life? Wherefore
are men full of infirmities but that they are to progress through
them to final strength and perfectness. Thou art adapted to the
wants of thy creatures everywhere. Thou art full of goodness and
patience. Thou dost wait to be gracious. More than we know, far
more than we can comprehend, thou art gracious. As they that live
in dungeons know not what the sun is doing that from geeds brings
forth harvests, so we in darkness and doubt do not know what boun-
ties of God evermore roil over our heads. We dwell in the midst of

PBESENT tlSE OP IMMORTALITY. l-^l

benign influences which we do not discern. We are moving along
lines of providence which we cannot understand. We are unable to
perceive what is done in us by sorrow and trouble. In but a small
measure do we know thy work. The ends thereof are far beyond our
kcTi. O Lord our God, thou art wonder-working; thou art moving
in a sphere which is infinitely higher than that in which we live or iu
which our thoughts do move; but we rejoice in that apprehension
which we have of thee. We rejoice to think that all things work
together for good to them that love thee — yea, that they work
together for good to all, though that goodness is known only to them
that love thee. We pray that we may with confidence repose our
trust in thee for life, in death, and for the life that is to come.

And now we pray that thou wilt give us more and more the daily
use of this knowledge. Grant to all those who are cumbered in life
the strengtli and consolation which comes from the knowledge of
God. Manifest thyself. Make thyself known to those who are in
sorrow. Comfort those who are cast down, thou that art the Giver
of all consolation and the Comforter. How many need thy ofiices!
Pour out, we pray thee, thy bounty and thy healing si)irit to hearts
that are bruised. Bind up hearts that are wounded. May the suffer-
ing hear thee and feel thee. Lift up those that are overthrown.
Inspire hope in those that are discouraged. If there be any to whom
the way of life seems utterly empty, and whose life seems spent and
run out, and who have nothing more to inspire them, open before
them the life that is to come, that they may discern how great
is their position there.

There is a rest which remaineth with infinite leisure above, where
ages are as days are here, and which abides for all according as their
souls do need. Something of it may every poor, and wretched, and
racked soul be able to take unto itself now, as a foretaste and as a
comfort in the troubles and trials of this life.

We ]>ray that thou wilt enter into every household, and pour balm
and consolation into every bereaved heart. We pray tliat thou wilt
search out the hidden troubles of all, and heal them, or help them to
bear them. May all who carry burdens feel the divine strength
uplifting them. May those who are whelmed in disappointments be
content to be disappointed if it be the will of God. Grant that hopes
that, instead of blossoming, are subverted may be as the sod turned
under liy the plowman only that better harvests may come by and
by. May men who are in trouble understand that if they wait
on the Lord, ere long he ^vill be gracious.

We pray that thou wilt teach all those who are seeking to know
the truth, what it is. Teach them by the heart. Draw them imto
thyself. Fill them with the s])i7it of divine love that they may
understand thee. Teach tis all to l)e humble, to be meek, to be long-
suifering, to be patient, to be gentle, to be kind toward those that
are not kind toward us. Teach us to love our enemies, and to
forgive them. Teach us to bear this life not proudly and arrogantly,
but humbly. Teach us not to complain as if we were worthy of bet-
ter treatment than we receive. May we have such a sense of our
inferiority, and humility, and worthlessness before God, that we shall

122 PRESENT USE OF IMMORTALITY.

rejoice day by day that we have so mauy mercies, instead of com-
plaining that we have so few. May we have better conceptions
of manhood than we have had. May the ideal of truth, and honesty,
and purity grow brighter and clearer to us.

Lift up the whole human race, we beseech of thee; and may
justice, and peace, and love, and concord prevail among men. Save
the nations from dashing insanely one against another. May wars
cease, and the love of war. And we beseech of thee that thy kingdom
in which dwelleth righteousness, which hath been so longed for,
which hath charmed our hope so long, and which hath so long
tarried, may come. Let it advance speedily. Arise, O Sun of Right-
eousness, with healing in thy beams; for the whole earth doth wait
for thee, and is sick, is hungry, and needs thy touch of compassion,
and thy wonder-working power.

And to thy name shall be the praise, both now and evermore.
Amen

PRAYEE AFTEE THE SEEMON.

Thotj blessed Saviour, we cannot understand all thy words nor all
thy life; and still less all that thou art; but we know that having
loved thine own thou dost love them unto the end. We know that
thou art gone before to prepare for us what thou didst declare upon
earth to be in thy father's house — many rooms and apartments.
There is one for us, and thou didst go to prepare it, and we rejoice
in it.

We rejoice that thou hast entered into thy rest. No more art
thou a man of sorrows, though thou art still acquainted with grief.
Thou art lifted above the scoff and the scowl of those that persecuted
thee, and thou art in resplendent glory, not for thine own self, not for
thine own indulgence, but that thou mayest with might, and power,
and everlasting activity and love, mould and bring up to perfection
thy creatures that are here upon earth. We thank thee for thy care
of us. We thank thee for all our gladness that has been good. We
thank thee for all our sorrows. Then hast not put the flail upon us
once too much. The grain was in the straw, and it would have
remained there if thou hadst not beaten it out. Thou hast made us
suffer for our good, that we might be partakers of thy holiness. May
we not be unwilling to be chastised. May we wish to be chastised if
it is chastisement that we need to carry us up. We beseech of thee
that thou wilt love us still, and do the things which love inspires.
Take away anything from us which is hindering us, and send any-
thing upon us that is necessary to our development, however heavy
it may be to be borne. Thy yoke thou canst make easy, and thy bur-
den thou canst make light.

Thus we pray that thou wilt be our School-master here, and by
and by our exceeding great Reward in heaven. And in thy presence
we will give the praise of our salvation to Thee, with the Father an(3
the Holy Spirit, evermore. Amen.

THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH.

" But ye have not so learned Christ; if so be that ye have heard
him, and liave been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: that ye
put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is
corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit
of your mind ; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is
created in righteousness and true holiness." — Eph. iv., 20-34.

It is a doctrine of the New Testament that the knowledge
of God is made known through the products of the divine
Spirit in the human soul. It is that part of the divine nature
which is insphered in us, and which shines out from us,
that constitutes the essential and most precious part of our
knowledge of the divine nature. The knowledge of God
may be regarded as external and rational, or as internal and
experimental. There are two causes which have turned, and
which are still turning, our thoughts more to the investiga-
tion of the divine nature in its external aspects : the one in
the past has been the embodying of the divine nature in
philosophical systems, and teaching them in dogmatic forms,
so that we approached the mind of man first on the rational
side, or on the side of reason and intellectual apprehension.
In our time the same tendency is carried on and intensified,
though by an entirely different method — namely, the progress
with which material, physical science is opening the secrets
of creation, and so bringing the apprehension of God to men
from the side of his working — from his creative side.

Now, both of these methods are, within certain limits,
indispensable ; but both of them are absolutely incompetent
to represent the divine nature. That process by which God

StTNi>AY Morning, Oct. 18, 1874. IjESSOn : Eph. iii. Hymns (Plymoutb Collec-
tion): Nos. 217, 847, 908.

1^0 THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH.

may be known to men is one that differs profoundly from
these ; and without it no substantial progress can be made in
the internal and experimental knowledge of God.

One approaches a magnificent ground and, discerning
through the opening trees a mansion, inquires who dwells
there. , He is told the man's name ; he is told his age ; he is
told his occupation. He is a great artist. All this ground,
this landscape-picture, is his. He created it. The very
building in which he lives is also the product of his thought.
Going past the premises from day to day, one comes to feel,
" I know who lives there ; I know his name ; I know the
man." He has never seen him, he knows him simply by
what he has done ; and there is some knowledge which one
can acquire in this way. But it chances, some day, that he
meets the owner ; he sees his form and figure, and is enabled
from his physiognomy to make up his mind somewhat in re-
gard to the man's disposition. Now he may say, "I know
the man; I have seen him, I have spoken with him, and I
have a general acquaintance with" him." So be has, as much
as the neighborhood have. But all this knowledge is as noth-
ing to the knowledge which the man's children, the inmates
of his family, those that live in the same dwelling with him,
have. The laboring men and the servants all have more
knowledge of him than this stranger has, who merely discerns
the outer conditions of his life, and the products of his
thought and hand-skill. There is not a hostler in his stable,
nor a gardener on his ground, that would not say to an out-
sider, "You may think you know him because you have gone
by and seen him, and seen what he has done ; but you ought
to live in the same house with him for five or ten years, as I
have done, and then you might say that you knew something
about him." It is true that the gardener has the advantage
over a stranger ; but let the boys from a window overhear
this gardener talk with the man, and they laugh and say, to
each other, "Hear him talk ; he thinks he knows our father;
but he must live with him as we do, and see him morning,
noon and night, and see his disposition, and "see the whole
play of his inward soul, and then he will know him." The
wife and mother, hearing them talk, smiles, and says, "I

THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH. 1^7

love to hear my boys praise their father ; but even they do
not fully understand him : I am the only one that under-
stands him."

So it is that as you go in and learn the play of men's dis-
positions you consciously understand them. You can under-
stand a tree, or you can understand an animal, much more
nearly than you can a man. As being grows complex and
subtle, it requires that men should become conscious of its
interior life before they can be said to be acquainted with it.

No man can understand anything which he has not some
specimen of in himself. No man can understand courage
if he has no courage. No man can understand reasoning wlio
is incompetent to reason. No man can understand beauty
who has not some sense of beauty in himself. No man un-
derstands self-denial who has never denied himself for some
generous end. And our knowledge of God dejiends on how
much we have in ourselves of that which goes to constitute
the interior and essential nature of God.

It is upon this principle that the manifestation of the
^divine nature is to be made through the church. That is to
say, the cJiurch does not signify what that term was meant to
signify in the New Testament, as I understand it — namely,
not an organized body of men, but generically all men who
are living for God and in j^ersonal communion with liim.
The assembly of illuminated souls, under organization, or
with no organization, whose special purpose it is to serve God
and their fellows, constitute the church. All men who know
God by the interior, whether gathered together in assembhes
with definite organizations or not, are God's church. All
men interiorly connected with God ; all men who know him
by having created in them something like him through which
he has interpreted himself to them, and by which they inter-
pret him to other men, are the church of God, are God's people.

It is, then, by the experience of those qualities which exist
in Christ that we learn him. The pagan idea of God was
creative, demonstrative po/rer ; the Christian idea of God is
qualifij. It does not exclude power, but it does not give it
prominence ; it makes it the mere inclosure of something
that is more precious — of the soul.

128 THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH.

The true conception of divinity is, that it is quality of
disposition. The power to create, to sustain, to adininister,
to govern, is within that which constitutes the divine nature,
which is the supremacy of disposition, and the exquisiteness
of it. It is the joy and the beauty that go with the interior
dispositions of God and that direct the active manifestations
of his power.

Now, the Ivind of knowledge which springs from a partici-
pation of the divine nature, or from the life of Christ made
manifest in our life, or reproduced by it, is the supreme end
of all instruments. This is the end of all culture. This is
the end of ordinances in churches, which are instruments to
develop in men such a sense of the comprehension of God as
shall make them like him, or as shall bring them into a state
in which they can understand him, and in a degree represent
him to others, both consciously and unconsciously. We shall
find in the thirteenth verse of the same chapter a recognition
of this:

"Till we come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of
the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature
of the fullness of Christ."

He has been saying here that there were different gifts to
men—apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.
He has been saying that all these were ordained, not for the
sake of their own sanctity, but for the sake of producing in
men a certain moral result ; and this moral result was to be
carried up to such a degree that we should come into the full-
ness of the stature of Christ — should be made Christlike.

This, then, is the supreme end of all church existence, of
all theological teaching and of all moral institutions. The
object is to work in the individual, and thus ultimately in the
multitude and in the race, conditions which shall ally them
dispositionally to God ; and everything which relates to that,
everything which tends toward it, is a divine instrument,
because it serves the divine ultimate end which is sought in
creation.

There is supposed to be a peculiar sanctity in the special
moral institutions of the world — and there is, just as there is
a sanctity in the household. It is unquestionably true that

THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH. 129

children having a father and a mother, and brothers and
sisteis, aud growing up in a well-organized and well-con-
dueted household, are in those conditions which are most
likely to develop in them amiable dispositions, industrious
habits, and moral tendencies ; but is the family the only
thing that will do this, because it is one thing, and because
it is a legitimate thing ? Do my boys learn nothing but what
I tell them ? Do they learn nothing from what my neigh-
bors tell them ? Do they learn nothing by their life in the
street and by their associations at school ? Do they learn
nothing by the playing in upon them of the great world ?
Some things are bad, and it would be better if these were
not ; but some things are good, and it is better that these
are. Not I alone, but God, speaking in providence,— God,
speaking through my neighborhood, — God, speaking in sum-
mer and winter, — God, speaking in sickness and in health, —
God, speaking by a thousand other persons than myself,
that come and go, — God, speaking, in other words, by life in
its entirety, is the schoolmaster of my children ; but that
does not destroy the sanctity of the family. Nor should one
turn and say, " There is no need, then, of the family, if
children learn in these ways."

It is by special institutions, and by God's providence, and
by the influences that surround men, that they are instructed ;
but we are far from saying that because God teaches men in
the sphere of human experience, in national existence, in
climatic life, in the great round of daily providence, in their
business, in sickness and by personal experience, that there-
fore churches are of no use. They are of very great use ; but
to suppose that the only thing which God works through is the
organized church is a mistake, again, on the other extreme.
Churches are needed for their special work in moulding men,
in instructing them, in keeping before them the great ends
of existence, and in illustrating the dispositions of a true
Christian life ; but churches themselves are but single chan-
nels. All grace does not come through them. All influence
does not. Is there no voice in the storm ? There was in
David's time, and there was in Isaiah's time. God spoke in
the heavens by the stars, by the sun, by the moon ; he spoke

130 THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH.

by morning and by evening ; he spoke by mountains, by the
ocean, by trees and by birds ; and does he not yet speak by
these things? In the olden times revolutions taught, indus-
try taught ; and all manner of influences which bear upon
men, and which directly and indirectly affect them, are
teaching influences ; and are they atheistic and outside of
what God intended because tliey are not in the church ?
Did not God frame the whole world ? and is not the whole
framework of society built up by the indirect power of indus-
tries and of social influences ? They are bi-ought to bear
upon the human soul as well as upon the church.

It is not that churches are not necessary, but that they
are not the only things needful. They are good often, they
are necessary always ; but certainly they are not, as they are
organized by human instruments, large enough to convey
to the world or to a community a rounded conception of
God, or of the work of God on the race. The end, there-
fore, which is sought — namely, that development of the
interior nature of man by which his dispositions and affec-
tions shall represent the corresponding but purer and nobler
dispositions of God — the creation of men in Christ Jesus —
this gives value to all the means that are employed ; and
every church is good that makes Christian men. On the
other hand, every church is invalid that does not make
Christian men. The end of God in creation is that men
shall rise into his likeness and become like him ; and what-
ever tends to bring them into that likeness is valuable in
proportion as it does it, and is valueless in proportion as it
fails to do it.

Any organization or institution, therefore, which diverts
men's attention from the prime end of existence; any theo-
logical teaching which leads men away from the external
and does not develop in them the true internal disposition of
Christ ; anything which develops the more rational under-
standing, and leaves the spiritual life dead, undeveloped,
ungrowing, is relatively false. Although the tenets which
are taught may be true, the method and the general influence
are false. Any church organization that draws men away
from true dispositions, whether negatively or ])ositive]y, i.

THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH. I31

false. Any institution which is administered in such a spirit
that men become jiartisan and critical, and which thus diverts
them from personal holiness, and from living in the same
feelings which God dwells in, are relatively unsacred. No
ascription of sacredness, no tracery, no lineage, nothing can
make that sacred which has not in practical operation the
power of developing the love of Grod in the souls of men.

This, too, I qualify by saying that it is not to be under-
stood as in any degree a fling at churches, or an undervaluing
of them, but that it is simply a critical rule by which church-
es may prove themselves to be true workers, or to be inferior
workers, or to be no workers together with God.

There are some methods of instruction and of organiza-
tion which long experience has shown to be more likely to
develop a true disposition in men than others ; and it is that
likelihood, it is that presumption, it is the fruit which some
institutions bear and which others do not, that gives to them
their sanctity. A tree that will not bear is no better for
having a good name. You may plant the Northern Spy —
one of the best of apples — in your orchard, and if it stands,
as some of my trees do, ten or twelve years without bearing
an apple, I do not care for the name ; you cannot eat the
name ; and it is no better than if you had an elder bush in
your orchard. Its lineage is perfect ; it had the right origin ;
but there is not a Northern Spy apple on it, and it will not bear.

You may plant grape vines, as I have by the acre, that
mil not ripen their fruit — the lona, the Delaware, and other
varieties. They are all admirable grapes when you can get
them ; but on my farm many of them mildew in the leaf,
and many of them spot in the bunches. I do not revile the
grape abstractly, nor call it nought : nevei'theless, I declare
that every one of my vines that does not bear grapes every
year is a failure, and that the mere name of the vines does
not save it ; and the possibility that other vines do bear
delicious clusters does not help those.

Now, no church is sacred in and of itself, nor is any
church made sacred by its name, by the line through which
it has come down, by its relations, by its ordinances, nor by
any appurtenances that belong to it. That is a good vine

132 THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH.

which brings good clusters and ripens the fruit, and that is
not a good vine which does not do these things, I do not care
what the name is.

But do not think that this undervalues churches — it
does not : it brings them to a higher glory ; but it is a criti-
cism that strikes through formality and externality.

More than that, I declare the right of every man to be
developed without church, without minister, without any
external appointments ; but I do not attack external appoint-
ments, or minister, or church, in saying this, any more than
I attack the great common school system when I declare the
right of every man to get an education without the common
school system. If a man comes to me for examination, and
I find that he knows arithmetic, and writing, and geography,
and that he has learned them lying on his belly, before a
torch-light, with no master, am I to kick him out because he
did not go through the common school ? If he has what the
common school was built to give him it is all I ought to ask.
But if you ask whether I object to the common school as a
place where people should get their knowledge, I say, No.
The common school was designed to extend general knowl-
edge, and it ought to be established and maintained every-
where ; but it ought not to be arrogant, and refuse to
recognize a man that has knowledge if he did not get it in
a particular way. And I say that if a man has obtained
knowledge of the Lord God, as manifested in Jesus Christ,
it is valid, no matter where he obtained it. If a man has in
himself patience, sweetness, the feeling of love, the bounty
of benevolence, and a consciousness of the everlasting brood-
ing and waiting nature of God, I do not care whether he
comes to them through the Eoman Church, or through any
other hierarchical church, or through the denomination to
which I belong, or whether he gets them from the Shakers,
from the Quakers, or from anything or anybody else. If he
has these things, that is enough. Whetlier their way of
getting them is the easiest and best way for others to get
them is another question, to be answered in another way ;
but the fact that the mind and will of Christ is in a man is
sufficient.

THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH. 133

The County Commissioners often lay out great roads ; and
when they have bridged the streams, and filled up the val-
leys, and marked off the dangerous places by railings, I
travel between point and point with great comfort ; but by-
and-by a man says to me, " I have a bridle-jiath, that is more
agreeable than that great road, and that cuts off the dis-
tance," and he invites me to use it. I say, ''Did the County
Commissioners lay out this bridle-path ?" ''Oh no," he says.
"they did not lay it out." "Is it generally traveled?"
"No ; there are but few of us that go ba-ckward and forward
on it." "Well, if the County Commissioners did not lay it
out, and if it is not generally traveled, I think I won't go on
it, though it is easier and shorter." If a man wants to go
on the great road let him ; but he must not object to others
going on the bridle-path. It matters not that some take one
and some the other, so that they all reach the common point
which they are seeking. The main thing is their getting
there, and not the particular road through which they do it.
And yet, the road is not unimjDortant, so far as convenience
is concerned.

The revelation of God, then, by the lives of men, and by
their personal experiences, is represented as the distinctive
Christian method of making God known to the world and to
the universe. I need not quote passages to show that Paul
was full of it ; but I make this point in order to show
the indispensable necessity that there should be liberty of
individual development, and also to explain that which I
think is the most remarkable illustration of it that history
affords. No man can read the letters and other writings of
Paul without being struck, when his attention is once called
to it, with the enormous egotism of the apostle. The word
"I" occurs in some chapters from fifteen to twenty-five or
thirty times ; and there is not one of his epistles that does
not iaristle with "I," "my," "me," "mine." Such in-
tense personality in any literary production of modern times
would be esteemed unpardonable. I do not know of another
author that ever existed who hud such an overjjowering sense
of his own personality as Paul. There is but one way in
which this can be reconciled to our sense of manliness, and

134 THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH.

this is by considei'iiig that Paul, perhaps to a degree that
almost no one before or since ever attained, reflected in every
faculty, in every mood, in every phase of his life, the divine
disposition. It was God manifest to him that he was sjaeak-
ing of. He was swallowed up in the divine nature. "The
life I live," he said, "I live by the faith of the Son of God.*'
He characterized the one that spoke as "not I, but Christ
that is in me." He had so identified himself with the nature
of God that in the glow of his enthusiasm it was not himself
that he was thinking of, but that particular light of God
which was shining out of himself ; and in all his sufferings,
and enterprises, and teachings, and personal experiences,
whether in Synagogues, or before Eoman governors, or in jail
with soldiers chained to his wrist, or wherever he was, it was
Paul manifesting Christ.

If the facets of a diamond could only speak, they would
cry out, "I see the light ; I see the light ; I see the light; I
see it ;" and Paul, as he stood over against the divine nature,
was exalted to the intensest sense of egotism and personal
experience ; and he gave it forth with a simplicity, a child-
like frankness and earnestness, that not many of us can
understand, and that certainly should not ally him to lower
and gross forms of egotism.

Now, the liberty of rej>roducing in his disposition the
nature of God, and of letting it be known, belongs to every
man. Where the work of grace is going on in the hearts of
men, there is a sanctity in that divine work which ought not
to be unduly and rashly meddled with in our attempt to re-
strain men's liberty, to put them upon such and such spirit-
ual allowances, or to develop them by such and such ordi-
nances. The result of such mistaken meddling is to go far
toward defeating the very work which it is sought to accom-
plish.

God does not work all things in one man. To some is
given one grace, and to some another. There is no perfect
man. There is no man large enough to represent manhood
in all its developments. And much less can any man repre-
sent all that is in God. It takes all manner of men to do
that. All the elements of a perfect Christian character even

THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH. 135

are not found in the best specimens of human nature. Some
sides are brought out in one, and other sides are brought out
in another ; and is it for him who lias zeal and courage and
power to make himself the critic of him who has sweetness
and gentleness and humility ? Is he who is in the glow of
Christian fervor, and who has a speculative intellect, to criti-
cise the practical man, who acts, but does not do much
thinking? The human mind is limited; but the divine
nature is so vast, its stores are so ample, that no museum in
the world can give specimens of them all. It takes whole
communities of Christian people — the zealous and the calm ;
the thoughtful and the unthoughtful ; the emotive and the
dry ; the imaginative and the practical — to reflect the various
elements of the divine nature, which is made up of the sum
of the graces which belong to God's people, high and low,
in all churches, and under all circumstances.

The economies of different church schools (I call a church
a school) tend to bring out different sides ; and we need them
all. If yon look at the practical work that is done, where
is there a denomination that brings out all those qualities
which we see produced by the sum of all denominations ? In
one church there is subordination to government, and in an-
other church there is personal liberty. In one church there is
taste and a sense of the beautiful, and in another church there
is plainness and simplicity. In one church there is silence,
and in another there is tumult. It would be very hard to
reconcile the stillness of the Quaker with the boisterous ex-
perience of the Methodist. You are obliged to put them
into different rooms in order that each may develop his
grace ; and yet both work toward the development of the one
great ideal man. So the divine nature, the fullness of it,
and the variety of it, cannot be represented by one individual
nor by one sect. It can only be done by all men and all
sects.

We are so made that there is a negative to every positive.
Every truth has an opposite truth coming toward it, as
every spoke in a wheel has another spoke coming toward it.
And as in a wheel sti-ength comes from these opposite spokes
over against each other, so in the development of human life

136 THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH.

strengtli comes from opposite elements. But you cannot
make all these elements coalesce or co-exist in tlie same
church. Paul attempted to do it, and see what a time he
had of it. Some were prophesying; some were speaking
unknown tongues ; some were singing ; some were praying ;
some were doing one thing, and some another, and some had
nothing to do ; and all these wild, divided, incongruous
exercises made a vast clangor of confusion.

We are not, then, to attempt to defeat these special per-
sonal developments of man by any church regulations. The
very diversity, provided it stands steadfastly and undeniably
to the production in human experience of those divine ele-
ments which are made known in Christ Jesus, is eminently
desirable. So that men reproduce these elements, there is no
authority under heaven that has a right to say, " Why do ye
so?" in respect to the external instruments and means. You
have no right to say that everybody shall be sober, or that
everybody shall be silent. You have no right to say that
everybody shall have a reasoning religion, or that everybody
shall have an emotive religion. You have no right to say
that beauty and imagination shall be thrown down, or that
there shall be no painted windows and no carving in the
house of God. Nor has anyone a right to find fault with the
plainness of our house. I like plainness and I like orna-
ment ; and as I cannot have them both together I take one
sometimes and the other sometimes. Both of them are
proper. There are all kinds of Christians ; and oh, that
they would admit each other to be Christians ! Oh, that
they would take the larger conception that God is served by
all his children in all sects and denominations ! Then how
much greater would be the advance of holiness among men
than it is now, where each church says, " The pei'fect Chris-
tian, if anywhere, is to be found among us !"

In this view of the method of divine disclosure, men must
be suffered to enjoy personal liberty, or else it will not be
possible to avail ourselves of all the means of unfolding the
nature of God which belong to human life and human dispo-
sition. The spirit of Christ demands not only that there
shall be liberty of the individual, but that there shall be

THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH, 137

liberty of instruments ; and the genius of Christianity is not
to tie up but to untie.

luterj^ret in this point of view a portion of the 2d of
Colossians commencing with the 8th verse :

" Beware 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."

There is a disposition to limit Christ, to narrow him ; but
no true system of religion narrows him or limits him. There
is a Christ who counted not his own life dear to him. There
is a Christ who saith, " Greater love hath no man than this,
that a man lay down his life for his friends ; and I lay mine
down for my enemies." There are many things developed by
church history that are not unimportant ; but the chief ques-
tion with every man is, " What is the revelation of Christ to
me ? and what is that in him which is set over against me
for my vindication ?"

"In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye
are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power;
in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without
hands, in putting off the body of the sins o£ the flesh [the carnal
body] by the circumcision of Christ."

The apostle' was reasoning with the Jews, who were as ig-
norant about circumcision as we are about baptism. Paul hit
them in the phtce of their prejudice when he said '' circum-
cision ;" and when he told them there was a '' circumcision
made without hands," he jjlaced the thing signified in lieu
of the image or ordinance, and when he spoke of "^putting"
off the body of the sins of the flesh," that was what he meant
by circumcision.

"Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him
through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from
the dead."

If a man is buried and baptized with Christ, he is risen
spiritually, as much as a man is circumcised spiritually who
is circumcised in him, though the priest's hand does not touch
him, the meaning signified by '' baptism" having taken the
place of the thing by which it was signified.

" And you, being dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of
your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven all
trespasses, blotting out the haudwi-itiug of ordinances that was

138 THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH.

against us [that is to say, that was cumbrous, aad too heavy to bear],
which was contiary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to
the cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a
show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. Let no man,
therefore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holyday,
or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of
things to come; but that the body is of Christ."

Now, I say that while I recognize all ordinances and
methods as being useful, yet no man has a right to take ordi-
nances, or methods, or institutions, or creeds, or doctrines,
or books, and with them oppress the individual conscience ;
for lie who is of Christ, and who represents Christ in his dis-
positions, has the body, the substance, the spiritual element,
by which all these other things were created. They are school-
masters ; but when I have learned my lesson, and do not
need a schoolmaster, I have a right to get along without one ;
and if I do not need the church and its instruments I have a
right to dispense with them.

The great conflicts of church organizations and of system-
atic theologies have been such as to give them undue impor-
tance, and make them an improper dynamical centre. In
other words, men feel that a man must be a good man ; but
that being one, if he does not join a church, and the right
church, and learn the right catechism, the mere being good
is a secondary quality. The church has passed through such
dynastic training, and has been so much associated with
actual human governments, and has assumed such authorirr
over the consciences of men, and its ofiicers have claimed i>«
be in such a sense endued by grace from on high, that tliere
has sprung up in the public sentiment of the Christian world
the idea that there is a heaven-derived authority in these
associations of men. There is no such authority in them.
The only value that the combinations of good men have
is a quality that shall enable all those to whom they come
to develop in themselves the true Christian life ; but if they
find men developing their true Christian life under other
circumstances, they ought to bless God ; and, instead of
giving them the cold shoulder and the buffet, they ought to
rejoice that God works by larger means than those which are
contained in any special organization.

THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH.

139

I plant flowers becaiise I cannot get tliem generally in any
other way ; but having planted them, and they being in
bloom, if I go across the hills and find ttiat some chance
seeds have blown there, or have come there I know not how,
and that under some hedge or in some jDrotected nook there
are flowers even finer than mine, do I run in on them and
say, ''You are not in the right place, and you are not
flowers"? Do I say to them, "Your business is instantly
to get up and go into my garden " ? No ; I thank God
for all the flowers that T can raise in my garden, and then
I thank God for every one that grows out of it ; and if I
find flowers in unlooked-for places, I have the greater joy.
I should be glad to see the very wilderness blossom as the
rose.

So goodness among bad people, goodness in unexpected
places, goodness in spite of hindrances and obstacles, good-
ness anywhere and under any circumstances, is a reason for
thanksgiving. Anything that brings out in the hearts of
men the divine dispositions we ought to be thankful for. It
is that which the world longs to see, and it certainly is that
which ought to be brought more stringently home on church-
es— as I will proceed to show.

The attempt to secure moral ends by multiplying instru-
ments, or by increasing the rigor of administration, is con-
trary to reason, to experience, and to the analogy of divine
providence.

While every sect feels itself at liberty to be free from every
other sect in the world, every church feels itself at liberty to
inveigh against all other churches — which is wrong. I keep
house in my way ; my friends keep house in their way ; and
I should consider it bad manners for me to criticise their
method of keeping house. They have eno gh to eat ; they
are as well dressed as I am ; they are active and useful ; and
while I should resent instantly their intrusion over my thresh-
old, they have a right to resent my intrusion over their
threshold. All I ask to know is whether they are respect-
able persons, worthy citizens, pleasant neighbors, good folks.
If they are, that is enougli, I have no right to go farther
back than that. But while each church feels jealous of its

140 THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH.

own rights, it feels at liberty to tlirow bombs at neighbor
churches. Congregationalism feels at liberty to bombard
Presbyterianism in its distinctive qualities ; Presbyterianism
feels at liberty to bombard Episcopalianism, and Episcoi^al-
ianism feels at liberty to bombard everything.

This may be done tastefully, it may be done sweetly ; but
that makes no diiference. It is not right on that account.
If my pocket-book lies on my table, and a man comes in and
snatches it, and says, " Mine !" I won't let him have.it, of
course, after he has taken it in that rude way. If a man
comes with the utmost reasoning propriety, and sa3\s, '* I think
that is mine," and takes it, I won 't let him have it any more.
If a man comes and says, '^ Ah, my charming friend, what a
beautiful life we are all living !" and slij)s off with it, I won't
lei him have it either.

When men, with violent arrogance and controversy, say,
'^ You are ours, or nobody's," I resent that. When they un-
dertake to restrict my liberty by elaborate and Baconian
logic, I resent that also. They may do it as gracefully and
sweetly as silk and- satin can make it to be, and I resent it
then. I resent the thing. I ask for myself personal lib-
erty, and I ask for everybody personal liberty ; and I
say. While it is right for them to be jealous for their own
faith, it is not right for them to claim that God has given
them the only true faith, or that he has given them the mo-
nopoly of the true faith. That claim is simply — I will not
say what.

At this time we are in much danger on account of the de-
velopments that are being made in many quarters. The fact
is, the whole earth is hatching. Spring is on the world.
There is a development of thought ; there is a development
of commerce ; t' ere is a development in every form of me-
chanical industry. The nations are coming into new life.
In other words, Grod is breathing life into the whole race,
and men are making progress in every direction. There
are more church organizations, there is more versatility, and
there are more methods. Old things are passing away, and
all things are becoming new.

In the woods, next June, when the trees are impleted

THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH. 141

with sap, and are beginning to grow, suppose there should
be a conference of oak trees, speaking by the voice of the
bark? Suppose the bark should say, "I was good enough
for these trees last year, and why am I not good enough for
them now ? There is a restless spirit of innovation that is
swelling me off, and I have got to do something to hold on."
Meantime the process of growth is going forward in the tree,
and the old bark is beginning to be crowded off ; and it rubs
itself up, and tries to stick to the old tree, saying, " I was
here before this impudent, underlying bark undertook to
come out." All these counselings and complainings and de-
terminations have no effect, and the growth continues, and
the old bark has to give place to something larger and better.

Now, what are men doing but running back to their
creeds, and undertaking to rub them up and fix them so that
they shall fit the new state of things that has been ushered
in?

My boy, sixteen years old, goes away from home to
school, and his old clothes are put in the closet. After a
year or so he comes home, and I want him to work on my
farm, and I undertake to put those clothes on him. I ob-
serve that his ankles are shown more than I used to think they
were, and that the jacket does not fit him as well as it did ;
but I say, *' These are your clothes, and you have got to put
them on. They were made for you, and you must wear
them." I insist on his putting on those clothes and wearing
them. You will readilv see how absurd that is. But is
there no advance of human thought ? Is there no growth in
the expression of spiritual truth ? Are there no old doctrines
newly stated ? Was all the light shed upon the world ia the
past that it is to have ? Is there no conformation of divine
thought to human thought in order that it may meet the in-
creasing exigencies of the time ?

I insist that men have a right to state what they believe
to be true in the language tliat is familiar to them.

There are many historic facts that will continue to be
stated to the end of the world ; but all facts of moral goveni-
ment ; the philosophy of divine administration ; theological
systems ; theories of mental power applied to the affairs of

142 THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH.

mankind — there is not one of these things in regard to which
every hundred years does not put the world in a different
position ; and there must be a readaptation of fitnesses.
There are continually new facts to be generalized, new
deductions to be drawn, and new emphasis to be put upon
points of imjDortance.

Now, while the Westminster Confession, which I was
brought up under (as you might judge), in respect to many
external facts and. historical statements is perhai)s as good a
condensation as ever will be made, and may not be changed,
yet those things which respect its vital elements need to be
changed. They do not answer the spirit of the time. I do
not mean the wild, fractious uneasiness of our day : I mean
the- higher feeling, the larger sense of j)ersoaal liberty, of
personal obligation, of divine benignity and of spirituality.
God is bringing into the world, by monarchies, and reirab-
lican institutions, and civilization in all its forms, these
great results which have been swelling in human experience ;
and more and more they take exj^ression in theology and
moral government. Old systems and frameworks which were
wise and good a hundred years ago do not fit us now.

You may bring together all the scattered facts and doc-
trines of the Calvinistic system, and you cannot adapt that
system to the state of human nature in the present day. It
must be let out somewhere. It must be enlarged in some
places, and changed in some places. It was admirable in
respect to much that is in it for the age that created it, and
for the work that it did ; but you might as well go to war in
our day with the chariots and horsemen of the old Assyrian
empire as to take the systems of an old age and with it go
into the conflicts of this later day.

At this time, when the world seems to be outgrowing its
organizations, I feel that something must be done. I am at
home now, you know, and I speak freely, and I confess that
1 have the fullest sympathy with every single one of the
great struggling sects of Christendom ; I see that they are
doing good, and I would not obliterate one of them. I
honor them all, and there is not one of them that I would
not cast my lot with if I were shut up to it. They are not

THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH. 143

to me heretics or aliens. I look upon them all as brethren.
Yet I retain my liberty to speak of them and to criticise
them : not, however, as antagonistic to them, but as in fra-
ternal relations with them.

There is an attempt to rc-invigorate old instrumentalities,
old governments and ordinances, as if that would meet the
exigency which is caused by the great providential move-
ments on the globe ; but God is making the divine manhood
in man more and more to shine forth through the experience
of the individual. Hero is inspiration : not authoritative
inspiration, but the inspiration of experience.

Holiness is the property of every man that will aspire to
it ; and as it comes and works it requires change in men and
in instruments.

There are different works going on in different directions,
and in different fields. As God did not develop the fine arts
in Judea, but did in Greece ; as he did not develop moral
sense or philosophy among the Romans, but did ideas of
practical government ; so he is developing the different ele-
ments of the divine nature among different peoples. As in
a foundry the different parts of a vast machine are cast in
different departments and brought together and made to
work harmoniously, so the great elements in the world's
growth are developed by different nations, and in different
spheres of life. The mechanic is doing some work which
will redound to moral ends ; the speculative man, the meta-
physician, is doing other work that will redound to good
results ; the scientific man is doing still other work that will
redound to the welfare of the race ; and in this age of the
world you cannot meet the actions and reactions, and liabili-
ties, and oscillations, which come from these various sources
by making theology stronger or church ordinances more
rigid. That which brings to the souls of men a sense of
God in his benignity, and power, and holiness, and truth,
and government ; that which brings God nearer home to the
human soul in its liberty and in its largeness; that which
brings men under the control of the divine mind as children
under parental control— that will meet the exigencies of the
age. In other words, the development of Christ Jesus in the

144 THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH.

souls of men will leave the church safe and the community
safe. Liberty in holiness is a hundred times safer than
liberty in politics — and liberty in politics is safe. Liberty of
conscience, liberty of affection, and stimulation of the higher
and nobler traits in man, will save the world. Government
will not, ordinances will not — certainly they will not when
men quarrel over creeds. The manifestation of selfishness
and narrowness in the defense of truth is apostasy. Any
man who makes the truth ugly, any man who presents the
truth so that it leads to alienation and bitterness, any man
who makes the truth unattractive to his fellow-men, is
denying his Lord. He does not mean it, but it is so.
When the truth is stated so as to go against the best in-
stincts of men, it is the fault of tliose who propound it.
They betray the iruth. If you can point me to a church in
which, when I go through it, I see that, in ranks and com-
panies of matrons and maidens, and of old men and young,
on the Sabbath and on week days, in all their outgoings and
incomings, there is one radiant life, one j^erpetual summer,
full of all sweet fruits that have ripened, and if they shall
rise up and say, " The truth of God is with us," I will
acknowledge tlu'ir claim on the ground that the power of the
divine nature developed in any church is the highest evi-
dence of the divinity of that churcli. But if any sect comes
to me and says, "We claim authority for these views, these
ordinances, and these vestments," and I see that pride and
envy and jealousy and all malign passions are working in
them, I say to them, " The evidence that Christ is with you
does not reach me. Christ does not come in such forms.
He does not commit himself to the ministration of persons
who represent him through their malign passions."

Where the truth is, and where it produces patience, and
where patience develops meekness, and gentleness, and help-
fulness, and lovableness, and lovingness, there is orthodoxy.
Orthodoxy is not in the head but in the heart. If a man
loves God, and is like him, and loves his fellow-men. and is
willing to suffer for them, he is orthodox ; and if not, he is
heterodox, no matter what church he is in. The church
that gives to the world au example of narrowness, of com-

THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH. I45

bativeness, of hardness, of uncharitableness, and of censori-
ousness, can never be made authoritative by putting the
name of Christ on it. Neither can a man be made a true
Christian simply by putting on him the name of Christ. Let
him depart from iniquity, let him represent what Christ is
by the development of Christian elements, let him manifest
the spirit of Christ toward his fellow-men, and then he will
vindicate his claim as being a worthy disciple of the Lord
and Master. And let the test as to whether Christ has ap-
pointed one church above another be, that that church turns
out more Christians of the right stamp than any other. How
long shall we make the test to consist in doctrine and exter-
nal organization ? When shall men understand at last that
the true church is the most Christlike, and produces the
most Christlike members ? When that is the test how shall
we all have occasion to hide our faces ! How few churches
are there that would dare to stand before God and say,
" Judge us according to our fruit ! " We are all poor. There
are none of us that can afford to revile and rail at our
fellows.

What a scene that would be if the superintending phy-
sician of a hospital should come in and find all the patients
quarreling with one another, one man insisting that the next
man shall take the medicine that the doctor has given him ;
men with dropsies reviling men with fevers ; men with fevers
reviling men with cerebral troubles ; pallet railing at pallet,
and department at department ; nurses and patients all mixed
up and quarreling !

The church is too much like a quarreling hospital. It is
filled with carnal men, men of narrow minds, men of intense
selfishness and arrogant pride. There are in it almost none
that bring down the dove. The eagle — how seldom the dove '
The lion — how seldom the lamb ! The armed warrior, with
garments rolled in blood — how seldom the meek and the
lowly, that imitate Him who yielded himself to the armed
band, and laid down his life for the world ! What we need
above everything else is goodness, goodness, goodness.

U6 THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH.

PKAYEE BEFORE THE SERMON.

We rejoice, O Father, that thou hast made thyself known to us
by all the names that fill us with joy and coufldeuee. We rejoice
that thou art stable in government, and that all the powers of evil
shall not have liberty to destroy, and to vex us ; that thou wilt main-
tain steadfastly the great acts of kindness and beueflceuce; and that
though vice and wickedness dash against thee, they shall be rolled
back again, and scattered as the waves of the sea are when they dash
against the shore. We rejoice that thou art strong in goodness, and
that thou dost protect all goodness. We cannot rise to thy methods;
we cannot take the measure of thy being; we can only comprehend
some of the things which belong to thy nature ; but we rejoice that
the brightness of the light that lies in the direclion of the revelation
of thyself grows stronger and stronger, and that though we come
into thy presence with conscious feebleness, and with conscious im-
perfection, nevertheless we come with the sense that the being of
God is one of perfect ijurity, perfect truth, and illimitable power,
using that purity, and truth, and power, for the growth, the uprising,
and the development of the universe. Do we not behold men before
thine hands spring up as sti'uctures fair and useful? Do we not
behold men who draw forth from blind materials glowing pictures
of beauty? and art not thou the supreme Architect and Artist? Art
thou not working in human souls, and bringing forth things beauti-
ful, things symmetric, and things enduring? Through the ages
*vhat other thing thou dost accomplish we know not; Avhat other
spheres thou art peopling we know not; what diversities of being
thou art creating we know not ; but we rejoice to believe that this
world is a specimen of thy work, and that it is one single orb of many
wherein thou hast manifested thyself. We rejoice to believe that
what we see here is but a sample of what is going on elsewhere. We re-
joice to believe that wherever we go in eternal existence we shall find
divine unity— the same God, the same methods of thought, the same
great ends of living. By searching we cannot find thee out; neither
by searching can we And out the sun itself, and yet we rejoice in the
light, in the warmth, in the life that springs under its touch; and
thou, O Sun of Righteouness, art risen upon a darkened world ; and
under thy shining how all things come forth into beauty, and fruit,
and usefulness ! We rejoice in thee. Thine is the government and
thine is the power, and we are glad. The glory shall be thine, and is
thine where thou art beheld. We rejoice that when we shall see thee
we shall ascribe honor, and majesty, and power, and glory and
dominion to Him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb
forever.

We pray that we may be caught up in life, and in our daily
duties, into these great truths— into that blessed experience which
shall lift us above passions, above prejudices, above all things carnal,
of the flesh, and low born. Grant that we may live more in the
spirit of sonship; that we may feel our nobility; that we may dwell
in the regality of those experiences which are breathed from the

THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH. 147

soul of God; and grant that from day lo day we may walk among
men serving them, blessing them, enlightening them, comforting
them, and cheering them ; and that we may so learn what thy life is,
and what thou art doing perpetually in the joy of endless exist-
ence.

We pray that thou wilt draw near this morning to all thy ser-
vants who are gathered together, and look upon them with thine eye
of beneficence, and that spirit of goodness which pervades the uni-
verse. Look, we beseech thee, upon every one in his limitation, and
transgressions, and sin, with divine compassion and mercy. Help
every one to be conscious of his weakness, and infirmity, and sin-
fulness. May no one seek to hide from God the real state of his
mind and thought. May all stand willingly open before him with
whom they have to do, knowing that his eye searches and knows to
the uttermost act, and thought, and motive, and feeling. We pray,
since we are naked and open before him with whom we have to do,
that we may, so far as we can, ourselves discern ourselves; and may
we ask for the light and for tlie searching of thine eye. Search us,
O God! and try us, and see if there be any evil in us; and help us to
cast out the sin of selfishness, and pride, and vanity, and untoward-
ness that offends thee. Help us day by day to cleanse our hearts and
our lives. May thy spirit evermore be cleansing to us.

And so we beseech of thee that thou wilt draw near to all those
in thy presence who need thy sustaining power; who need the sym-
pathy and conscious presence of God ; who need the over-ruling pro-
vidence of God ; and we beseech of thee that as thou seest their need
thou wilt teach them how to pray, so that in their prayer they may
feel that God is listening in his own time and way, and will work out
answers of mercy. We beseech of thee, that we may be able to pray
evermore, saying, Thy will be done. We bless thee for thine own
example when, overborae and well-nigh crushed to the eai-th, thou
didst pray for relief. We thank thee that when relief did not come
thou didst say, "Not my will but thine be done;" and we pray that
we may not count ourselves better than the Master. If he suffered,
and drank the (^u[) to the very dregs, so may we be willing, if it be
the pleasure of God, to suffer to the end. May we be made courage-
ous, and may we have faith that as thine angels came to strengthen
thee, so God's messengers will come and camp around about those
who are bestead. May we have faith to discern the chariots and
horsemen in the heavens filled with God's messengers, as did thy
servants of old.

Bless, we beseech of thee, those that are bereaved, with all ten-
derness and ministration of hope. May they be comforted. Grant
that they may not feel that they arc set apart for judgment, and
that God deals unkindly with them, or that they have not deserved
the chastisement of thine hand. May we remember that it is not in
wrath that thou dost chastise, but that it is for our profit, that we
may become partakers of the holiness of God ; and so may every one
who is iu deep affliction know how to possess himself patiently; how
to wait for God ; how to be courageous; how to be more and more
manly iu suffering. And so we beseech of thee that thou wilt bless

148 THE TEST OF CHURCH WORTH.

to them present trouble, that by and by it may work out in them the
visible fruits of righteousness.

May those who are standing in the midst of disappointment and
overthrow not lose faith of God nor of man. Grant that we may
repel the desolations of this present life by drawing upon the future
life. We have no continuing city here; we seek one to come.
The tabernacles which we build here on earth go down before time
and the storm; but there is a house not made with hands, eternal in
the heavens. There may our thoughts dwell, and there may we be
sure that we have a place, and that there is rest where no storm
shall ever reach us, and where it remaineth, waiting for our coming.
We beseech of thee that thou wilt grant thy blessing to rest upon
all the families that are represented here. Strengthen thy servants
that they may come in and go out before their households in the fear
of the Lord, and in the love of Jesus Christ ; and may their children
grow up in honor and usefulness.

Bless the labors of thy servants in this church. May all our
schools be remembered of thee. May those who teach in them be
themselves cleansed. Grant that they may not be puffed up with
pride as if their service was so meritorious. May they rejoice rather
that they are worthy to do anything for the cause of God. Revive
thy work in all our classes, and schools, and households. We pray
that thou wilt bless to-day thy dealings with this church. And make
it more and more spiritual, more and more fruitful, more and more
confident in the strength of God, and less and less confident in its own
strength.

We pray that thou wilt revive thy work in all the churches of
this neighborhood. May they be built up in holiness. In numbers
may they increase by drawing men from darkness to light. May thy
servants be strengthened to understand better the truth of God, and
to preach more and more from the illustration of their own heart's
experience.

May thy kingdom everywhere prevail. May knowledge spread.
May teachers go forth to those who are desolate and in need.

We pray that our laws may be more and more just, and that
their administration may be more and more equal and right.

May thy kingdom come among all the nations of the ear.h. Let
slavery, and ignorance, and superstition, and everything that is
wrong cease. May sorrows, and sighing, and tears at length flee
away; and may the new heaven and the new earth in which dwell-
eth righteousness appear.

And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son, and Spirit,
Amen.

PEACE m CHRIST.

*'I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then with the
mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of
sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to them wnich are in
Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."
Rom. vii., 25, aad viii., 1.

In this memorable passage of experience, there is the rec-
ognition that men are both sinful and imperfect.

They are constitutionally imperfect. Imperfection is the
universal necessity. It is the divinely created conditioD
under which humanity comes into this life.

Sinfulness springs in a degree from it, differing simply in
this : that when men fail in the best things, or fail to live
according to the laws prescribed for them, through ignorance,
or through immature power, that is imperfdion ; but when
they have the power to conform to any rule of conduct, and
deliberately violate that rule, it is sinfulness. The difference
between imperfection and sinfulness is not that one is a viola-
tion of law and the other is not, but that one is a violation
of law from weakness and the other is a violation of law in-
tentionally or with purpose — at any rate, with one's own per-
mission.

It is taught in these memorable chapters of Eomans that
in those who seek to live right there is a prolonged and pain-
ful struggle. Especially was this true under the twilight dis-
pensation of the Jews. The struggle was mainly between
men and matter — between the spirit and the flesh. If we
were to drop Paul's nomenclature and adopt the most mod-
em, we should at once say that the struggle was between the

StJNDAT Morning, Oct. 25, 1874. Lesson: Rom.vlil. Hymns (Plymouth Colleo
t.on) : Nos. 1,234, 607, 551.

152 PEACE IN CHRIST.

bodily appetites and inclinations and the higher sentiments —
the reasoning faculties, the moral sense, the perception of
that which is fit and beautiful. It was taught that knowledge
and conscience only made matters worse. Paul gives an ac-
count doubtless of his own internal experience ; and, without
makmg it exclusively personal, he does not on the other hand
avowedly make it general. In the seventh of Romans he de-
scribes the condition of a noble nature, a man of high char-
acter, seeking to reach nobility, baffled and brought into a
state of painful self-condemnation by the fact that he reached
a point short of his own ideal. He was held up by a ritual
law whose drift, whose tendency was meant to be spiritual,
and to cultivate the higher instincts and sentiments of his
nature, but the actual operation of which was not such. It
rather tended to cultivate in him a sense of right just acute
enough to bring him into a perpetual state of self-condemna-
tion— for it is true that the more we rise into a sense of in-
tegrity the more rigorous our idea of integrity becomes. The
more men love truth the more sharp is the requisition which
they lay upon themselves in the matter of veracity. Honor
begets a higher sentiment of honor. Goodness raises its own
standard. So, in the particular experience which I read to
you in the seventh of Eomans, Paul says that the coming in
of moral measurement, the introduction of the law, instead
of making him better made him worse ; that is, it revealed
to him how bad he was, how weak, how imperfect, and how
sinful. Before the commandment came he felt that he was
all right enough ; but when the commandment came he felt
that he was all wrong.

A dozen rough miners go into a camp out in California,
and they grow regularly coarser and coarser. They are at
home as if they were in a pig-stye. Now, the introduction
of a woman produces a revolution among them. The sister
or the wife of one of them goes out, bearing her refinement ;
and in one single day every man is convicted of his coai-se-
ness and vulgarity, and wants to "wash and fix up"; and
is to-day uneasy in that in which yesterday he was at perfect
ease ; he is convicted of his essential lowness. Where there
is no ideal standard and no exemplar, men gradually deteri-

PEACE IN CHRIST. 153

orate, and become contented with their low condition ; but
if you bring in a higher standard it incites thought and
motive to higher character ; and recognizing this standard
they become discontented, and seek to rise to a liigher level.
Finally, Paul declares that relief came to him from Jesus
Christ. He gives a most affecting description of the moral
struggles which lie went through, and which more or less
epitoiiiizo what cA^ery right-minded man has felt in himself —
the general wish to do right, and the continual failure in tliat
particular. The general wish and will was present with him,
but how to perform he knew not. Let any man rise in the
morning and say, " Now, to-day I wish to be considerate to
others ;" he is doing well to wish and to say it, but how to
perform he does not know ; for when the sun goes down
he is satisfied that he has acted harshly and hardly, here
and there, and everywhere. Set any standard higher than
that which prevails in the average of society for yourself,
and you will perhaps, in your better moments, with your
conscience and your higher nature, conform to it ; but when
you go into the practical jarring of life you will in conduct
perpetually fall below it.

Now, at that point you have the consciousness and the tes-
timony of reason and the moral sense that you mean the best
things ; but you have the testimony of experience that you do
not do the best things ; and it is just where these two things
come together like saw-teeth that men are gashed with pain
and suffering — and that in the proportion in which they are
morally sensitive. It was just at that point that Paul was
when he said,

" I find a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with
me. [1 meant to be benevolent all day to-day, but I have been proud
and selfish. I meant to be kind and gentle. I meant that my temper
should not get dominion over me; but it has flashed out here and
there all the time. This law is imperative in me; it aots every day.]
1 delight in the law of God, after the inward man [in my thoughts,
in my calm moments, in my reflective hours. I rejoice in everything
that is manly, and pure, and generous, and just; I have inward testi-
mony of tliat; it is a fact as clear as any other; and it is no less clear
that when I go out into the battle of life I come short perpetually
in my conduct]; but then I see another law [I am under two laws],
in my members, warring against this law of my mind, and bringing
jue into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. Oh,

154 PEACE IN CHRIST.

wretched mau that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this
death?"

" God, through Jesus Christ," is the answer. Then comes
the refrain :

" There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in
Christ Jesus, who walk not after the ilesh, but after the Sijirit."

What is it, then, that happens ? How does the soul's re-
lation to Christ bring peace to men ? That is the question
which I wish to discuss this morning. Does it take away the
law of conduct ? Does it abolish the great distinctions of
right and wrong ? Does it give permission, as to Oriental
favorites at court, to do things which in the common people
would be wicked, and which are only not wicked by favor or
prerogative ? Without pain or penalty may one who is a
favorite, or who is the elect of Christ, do things which if he
were not elected, or before he became a favorite, it would have
been wicked for him to do ? Does grace — that is, does the
law of the soul in Jesus Christ — change the great law of
moral obligation under which men live ? No, it does not. To
take away the moral law would be to take away the ribs and
the backbone of all moral government. No greater calam-
ity could befall the world than the taking away of the
obligation to a higher life, step by step. The inspiration
of law which holds up a high standard of moral conduct
and enjoins it upon every man is the grand influence
which is redeeming men from animalism ; and to take that
away and put in its place a permission of wrong-doing — a
permission of selfishness, of pride, of sordidness, of secular
life — would be to give men permission to go back to the herds
and the flocks. It w,ould be to break dovn manhood. It
would be to take away the whole inspiration which now exists
in the stimulating knowledge of an ideal, or a law, by which
men are to measure themselves, and by which they are to live.
It would destroy, therefore, the everlasting vision of some-
thing better by which society is perpetually raised, and by
which, through a vital elevation, men are growing better and
better. Anything that displaces the law, anything that takes
away obligation, or the sense of it, is just so far destructive,
not only to happiness, but to humanity itself ; and any con-

PEACE IN CHRIST. 155

ception of the life of Christ which redeems men from obliga-
tion to the moral law — that is, from the obligation of making
good better, and better best ; anything that lowers the
standard, and makes it seem a great deal less to be good than
men ha\^e always supposed it was, is mischievous to the last
degree.

When, in that magnificent passage of the Old Testament,
God recounts his leniency and long-suffering, and declares
himself to be " abundant in goodness and truth, keeping
mercy for thousands, and forgiving iniquity, transgression
and sin," men sometimes bump against the last part of the
passage where he says that he ''will by no means clear the
guilty," as if that were turning in another channel and wip-
ing out as with a sponge the other part ; but it is not so.
That latter part of the declaration is one of the best parts ;
for it shows that God believes in the noblest forms of recti-
tude in his household everywhere, and that he will neither
slumber nor sleep, nor let the inspiration die out, but that he
will forever and forever, by pain and by penalty, as well as
by joy and by hope, press mankind upward ; that he will by
no means let men down through transgression, but will bring
and keep them up to the concert pitch of the universe —
blessed be his name !

It is on this resiliency of moral feeling, it is on this aspi-
ration which is wrought in us by tlie consciousness of a per-
petual higher standard of thought and feeling and conduct,
that we are forever rising to become sons of God.

When we are brought into relation to the Lord Jesus
Christ, it is not such a relation as abolishes duty, or the idea
of duty. It does not take away, it magnifies, it enlarges, it
intensifies the conception of personal honor, personal truth,
personal purity, j^ersonal love — the conception of holiness, in
short.

Does this relation, which the soul in Christ comes into, if
it maintains the standard of conduct and of character en-
larged and unlowered, lift men by the divine power above all
their former conditions and influences ? Does it perfect
men immediately ? Does it stop the struggles of life, the
outreachings of desire, the yearnings for honor, the strife for

156 PEACE IN CHRIST.

complete attainment ? Is that the result of the character
which has entered into relationship with Jesus Clirist ? Does
it, in other words, harmonize the spirit and the flesh ?
When a man 'becomes a Christian and loves Christ, does his
body fall into line instantly, recognizing the superiority of
his reason, of his moral sense and of his spiritual tenden-
cies, and submit ? Or, when a man has become a Christ's
man, does this struggle still go on ? // goes on. It goes on
manifestly in the great mass of men, because they have had
very little advantage of birth and of moral education. Here
and there you shall find a person who has superior endow-
ment, through the accumulated victories of his father and
mother, and their fathers and mothers, and theirs. For
many generations it rolls over ; and when he is born, it is
with a kind of already-harmonized relation of all the bodily
and social and moral faculties in himself. It is not a perfect
harmonization, but it is relatively perfect — far more so than
that which exists in those who are not well born, or who
do not receive from their ancestors any such endowment.

If, with this more fortunate and comi^ensated organ-
ization, one is brought up from childhood in the knowledge
of God, and is obedient in his will and feelings to the
Lord Jesus Christ, then he has advanced still further. And
when he comes to adult age, and by the act of his own
mind aflBliates himself to Christ, and gives himself to him,
the change is not very great, because all that which ordinarily
attends such a change has been gradually worked out in him
through a process of Christian nurture ; and the validity
and perfection of it is simply the result of the action of his
own will at last.

While these facts do exist in society, they are not typical
of it. On the contrary, the great mass of men are born
unbalanced. Some men are born with gigantic physical
power and very slender cerebral power of any kind. Some
men are born with enormous passions ; and if they are not
engineers or pile-drivers, if they have no opportunity of let-
ting out the immense forces that are in them, on rock, in
tunnel or canal, on timber, or on some other thing that is to
be beaten, or hewn, or constructed, and if their mighty energy

PkACE IN cnujsT. 157

is directed against their fellows, tlioy become desolators.
There are men born who are very feeble in intellectual con-
ception, but who are tremendously strong in propulsive force.
If you look at men (not in books, because books know so
little about men) ; if you look through society as it is, you
will see that these things are so. Do not listen to the theory
of fallen Adam, of original sin, of this, that or the other
thing: go down and ask what men are — not alone your sort of
men, who go out with you and come back with you, and
are chosen by you because they are like you ; go out into
the world where men of all sorts are, among the poor and
uneducated, good and bad. What is the condition of the
vast mass of mankind but one in which, with a certain sort
of importunity, with a kind of infantine outcry for some-
thing better, the higher nature is perpetually swamped and
carried away by the amount of force which is generated in
the lower nature, so that the law of sin and death is pre-
dominant. Paul speaks of it as the law of his members,
referring to lusts, to combativeness and destructiveness, to
eating and drinking, to all manner of self-indulgence breed-
ing all manner of sin in men as miasma is bred in dismal
swamps. If you look at human nature as it is you will
find that the great bulk of mankind are under the control
of the appetites and passions ; that they were born so, hav-
ing, perhaps, just restraint enough to escape the halter or
the prison.

Suppose, under such circumstances, you preach a gospel of
hope and salvation to these men ; suppose you set on foot a
revival of religion among them — not one which is oiled and
polished, and which has velvet strips on the doors ; but a
revival which moves with enormous force, with harshness,
with roughness, with imperfection, but that all the more on
that very account catches these great rude natures and whirls
them into a torrent of excitement, and at last brings them to
a point of submission to the Lord Jesus Christ, where they
begin to shout, '* Glory ! Glory ! Glory !" Do you not sup-
pose that a man of hitherto unchecked appetites when he
goes home after such an experience wants to gorge himself
with meat just as he used to, and wants to drink as he us«d

158 PEACE IN CHRIST.

to ? Do yon suppose that he anything more than ju^t escapes
swearing, if he does escape it ? Do you not suppose that he
wants to avenge the old wrong ? And yet he thinks he is in
Christ. Well, he is in Christ — or may be, even with this
old leaven left in him. He has a flaming ideal of the One
that he would serve, and that he has sworn to serve. That
ideal is quite indistinct and imperfect ; nevertheless, there is
a real vital force at work drawing him toward a spiritual life.
Here is the old man in him, red, bloody, lustful, vindictive,
money-loving : and do you suppose that is all wiped away the
moment he says, " I give my life to Christ" ? We know it is
not. It might be a good thing if it were, but it is not.

When a man is converted he is much like a railroad that
is just laid out. Now come the choppers : their business is
to cut away the timber. Then come the tunnelers : tbey
must remove a great deal of rock. Then come the men who
fill up the hollows. Then come the bridge men. All the
work is going on in sections. In some spots it is only begun,
and in others it is finished. All along the line are influences
that are tending toward the final result.

It is about so with the great mass of mankind. The
ideal law of Cod is revealed to them, they behold the divine
nature as helpful to them, and they begin the Christian life ;
but the struggle does not eud when they have begun. The
distress may ; the self-condemnation and despair should cease ;
many intermittent joys will spring up ; and there is much
that makes them feel like shouting, '^ Glory to God."

Conversion does not harmonize men with their fellows,
either. I have said that the first impact, as it were, of the
divine life does not, of necessity, sweep away all imperfec-
tions, and harmonize one faculty with another, or the mind
with the flesh.

Of how to carry themselves in all the complex and subtle
relations of social life, civil life, and business life, men are
ignorant. They do not know what is best, in the first place.
In the second place, even with knowledge, power is inter-
mittent. Men are not in their best moods all the time. To
learn how to keep one's self in an elevated condition requires
no small education. For a man who is full of sensibility and

PEACE IN CHRIST. I59

strong vitality, who is apprehensive, and who has a thousand
motives and impulses in him — for such a man to move up
and down among men in the various conditions in which
human society exists, is a difficult matter. It requires gene-
ralship. It is a consummate piece of work, requiring so
much tact, so much wisdom, so much sagacity, that a man
cannot reconcile himself to it in a day nor in an hour. It is
a whole life's task for a man to become harmonized with the
civil and social relations that are around about him.

It is not a thing, then, that takes place when a man first
becomes a Christian. The purpose of it, the impulse toward
it, is infused into him, but not the completion of it.

After Paul had wrought more than forty years, and when
he had come to the position in which he was to be delivered
only by the executioner, in tlie very last letter, I think, that
he ever wrote, in a Roman prison and waiting for his release
and his crown, he said :

"Not as though I had already attahied, either were already per-
fect; but I follow after [I keep at it], if that I may apprehend that
for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, J count
not myself to have apprehended ; but this one thing I do, forgetting
those things which are behind, and reaching foith unto those things
which are before, I press forward toward the mark for the prize of
the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

Oh, poor Paul ! If he had lived in our day, we could
have sent to him folks who would have shown him how he
might be perfect. But as it was, he was conscious of the in-
harmony which existed between the mind and the flesh —
between himself and the world. His ideal of what it was to
be a perfect man in Christ Jesus had grown so much faster
than the realization of any such attainment, that when, at
the very end of his career, he looked upon himself he was
further from having realized manhood than at the beginning
— and that, I take it, is the experience of ever.y large-minded
and intelligent Christian.

What, then, was it that took place ? What was it that
led him, in the eighth of Eomans, to thank God that he had
a victory through Jesus Christ ? Jesus Christ, when made
known to a man, as he is described in the New Testament
and as he was upon earth, represents God. There has been

160 PEACE IN CHRIST.

a world of discussion as to wliether lie was diviue ; and per-
haps that question has not been unimportant ; but in our
day it seems to me we need not renew that discussion as to
the possibihty of the representation of the divine by a human
being in the flesh. Clirist did represent that, I believe, inte-
riorly ; and in that respect, I think, he was equal with God.
But the historical Jesus Clirist did not represent the whole of
God, and could not. It was a thing impossible to the flesh.
Infinity cannot be bounded ; and he that is born of woman
and in the flesh is bounded and limited. He, therefore,
suffered obscuration and eclipse. He humbled himself.
He went into prison to the body ; and standing thus he no
more represented the whole of the Godhead than summer in
the forest is represented by winter, when all the buds
are hidden and all the leaves are rolled up and guarded.
Winter can not represent the opening of those buds and
leaves wlien they shall show themselves in the light and
warmth of summer. He laid aside the glory that he had with
the Father befoi'e the world was. He emptied himself of
dignity and power, and was circumscribed. In his historical
condition he manifested what he was interiorly ; but the
historical Christ presents to us — what ? Everything of God ?
No : it presents to us mainly tlie disposition and the govern-
ment of God. What, then, was the presentation that was
made of God in Christ Jesus ? It was a presentation of
him as a Being in tender sympathy with mankind, and
that too while they are in their sinfulness, and in their wick-
edness.

Now, very naturally I can see how it should spring up —
and how it does — the tendency to represent God as one that
is perfect, and loves perfection. It has been a part of the
message of the Bible itself, it certainly has been the his-
torical tendency, to attempt to j) resent in the reigning Di-
vinity of the universe the highest human conception of
excellence. Even among pagans their gods, in the main,
were originally attempts of men to present the highest no-
tions of being. And if tliey made poor and vulgai' ones, it
was because they were not competent to make any others ;
for the universal tendency is to embalm in the ideal of the

PEACE IN CHBIST. JQJ

reigning God the highest conception of wisdom, and personal
excellence, and character.

It is very natural that such a Being should be represented
as intensely in love with goodness — and he is ; with perfect-
ness — and he is. But the Greek conception of God was one
which lifted him above all care and all change. Sickness
never came near to him, according to that conception. The
Greeks loved youth and beauty, and hated old age and decay.
They gave to God eternal youth, because they wanted to
remove him as far as possible from that which made suffer-
ing on earth. The early theologians represented God as
intensely in love with righteousness «.nd purity and holiness,
because law and moral government is inexpressibly dear to
him on account of his love of these qualities. Some strains
of their theology have come down to our day, and there are
men of peculiar organization and temperament who are per-
petually telling how God loves the pure and holy ; and many
feel, "Now, if I could become pure and holy, he would love
me." The distinctive difference between the view of God in
the New Testament and the Greek view of him is this : that
the Greek idea is that of a God who loves holiness and holy
beings, while the New Testament idea is that of a God who
loves imperfect and sinful men. Why, when I suit myself
as a father — no, when I suit myself as a man — I ask those
into my presence who are either like me, or who harmonize
with me by oppositeness. But in my family is every grade,
from infancy all the way to manhood ; and do I adapt
myself to the babes and the little children in the same way
that I do to the older ones, according to my own personal
convenience ? As a father or a mother in the household, it
is inevitable that one should not apply to the babe or the
child the same rules of character or the same requisitions that
are applied by men to those who are intimately associated
with them.

Now, the regnant idea of God in theology, in many
quarters, is that he is One w]]o, being holy, so loves holiness
that he cannot look upon sin with allowance. Men extrava-
gantly strain the real meaning of the passage which repre-
sents God as abhorring wickedness, so as to make it appear

162 PEACE m CHBIST.

that he abhors the wicked. Tliey teach tliat God lives to
take care of the holy and good. They also teach that he
■will take care of those who are not good and holy if they will
wash themselves and come into a state of goodness and holi-
ness. But the absolute Christian conception is this : that
God, in his own nature, from eternity to etenaity, is perfect,
and loves those that are imperfect, and sinful, and guilty,
and deserving penalty. It is sympathy of love that is the
regnant element of the divine nature. When men say that
God sits in the windows of heaven watching for his law, I ask.
What is he doing for his people ? What would you think of
a father and a mother who, having written rules for their
family, should be so intent upon seeing that those rules
were obeyed as to forget the welfare of their children ? What
is a rule or regulation good for in a family but to benefit
the children ? The cliild is worth more than the law ; and
if the parents thought it would be better for the cJiild to
break up and throw away the law, they would do it ; but
many preachers are perpetually ringing on this anvil — how
God is taking care of his la^, his law, his law. Not once
in a hu:ndred times do they sound out the other thing — that
God's law is of no use exce^it so far as it takes care ot his
creatures.

How are men in this world born ? What is a babe ?
Nothing ? What are the race of men ? What have they
been in time ? What myriads of wretches have there been !
What hordes of bifurcated animals ! How low have they
been ! How slender in intelligence ! How wanting in moral
sensibility ! How little have they had of percipience of
moral beauty and of moral worth ! How undeveloped have
communities and generations of them been ! There are
twelve hundred millions of men to-day, and not a hundred
million of them are enlightened to the average of a Christian
community. And we are taught that in heaven there is a
God that thinks of nothing but crystalline, cold purity, with
angels like so many white candles ranged about his throne,
and singing sweet melodies. What to him is the great thun-
dering world below, which he is making by his power prolific
of misery, bringing in myriads every hour, bringing them in

PEACE IN CHRIST. 163

at zero, and giving them no nurture, no privilege, no gospel,
no light, while he thinks of eternal blessedness and purity ?
What is this but consummate selfishness ? It is the most
infinitely hateful and demon iac of conceptions. It is hea-
thenism run mad through Greek philosophy !

What is the conception of God as we find it set forth in
the Old Testament and in the New ? In the Old we read :

" As a father pitietb his ohildren, so the Lord pitieth tbem that
fear him. For he kuoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are
dust."

That is right ; that is good. If God makes men of dust,
he must remember it. If they are made low by divine cre-
ative providence, they must be governed by One that knows
their lowness. What the world needs is a God that shall
adapt himself and his government to the actual exigencies
and facts of the souls which he is governing. If God would
have me perfect now, I ought to have been born very differ-
ent from what I was. If he would have the myriads of
my fellow-men perfect immediately, they should have been
created differently. Beings cannot become perfect at once
who are brought into life at zero. And how are the Africans
to be lifted up ? How are the Asiatic hordes to be exalted ?
How are the savages of our woods to be developed — if there
is any such thing as developing them ? How the nations have
gone on spawning ! How myriads upon myriads have been
born into ignorance and vice and misery ! And are you to lift
over all these tremendous scenes a God who does not care ?
What is such a God doing ? He is looking at pictures of holi-
ness. He is viewing exquisite moral statues. He is behold-
ing things like himself. He is happy, and is making others
happy that are in sympathy with him. But he has no care
for sorrow ; he is too perfect to be sorrowful ; and the great
seething world pours in, and pours in, its multitudes ; and
over the brink it pours them out again into damnation and
eternal woe ! That is some men's theology ; and that is the
God which it portrays. The whole universe lies in wicked-
ness, and is mourning and crying, and there is no God that
feels for men ; there is no God that can help the poor ; there
is no God that can pity the distressed ; there is no God that

164 PEACE IN CHRIST.

can take care of mankind, imperfect as lie has made tbem.
Such is the view that theologians have presented to us.

Now, what is the presentation of Jesus Christ whicli we
have in the New Testament ? It is that he so loved the world,
and so loved it while it was lying in wickedness, that he gave
his own Son — that is, himself — to die for it. It is easier for
a man to give himself than to give his son ; and he gave his
Son for mankind when they were yet his enemies; yet no
greater love can one show than that which he manifests by
giving his life for a friend. And how is it that this light of
the nature of God has been kept back, and has been made an
alternative thing ? It is that which constitutes the distinc-
tion between the heathen god and the Christian God. Some
heathenism has got into the world, and shows itself in men's
conception of God.

It is impossible to reconcile the view of God's disposition
as selfish, self-admiring, and loving that which is good and
perfect, with the facts of life as they exist before our eyes,
unless we turn our God into a demon. The facts of human
life, I think, are a thousand times more terrible than any-
thing which Dante ever thought of ; for in the Inferno you
are relieved by the hideous extravagance of Dante's imagina-
tion ; but when you go into creation, and see how it ''groans
and travails in pain until now," how poor, how pitiable, the
circumstances of men are, and how they need to be loved by
those that are good, if we lift over all this vast charnel-house
a God that does not care for sinful men, and that does not
hear their cries unless they have got out of their sinfulness,
how are they to get out of it ? If I am on the sea in a storm,
and the vessel is beaten about and wrecked, will you say to
me, ''Get ashore"? How am I to get ashore unaided
through the roaring, surging waves ? What I want is a life-
boat. A man that is willing to in\t out for me at the peril of
his own life may take me ashore, but nothing else can.

Now, if God undertakes to save the world, — as he does, —
he must administer his government according to the exigen-
cies of men. He must recognize the fact that the race needs
sympathy. It needs jDcnalty, and gets it; it needs sugges-
tion, and gets tliat ; but it also needs sympathy and patience

PEACE IN CHRIST. 165

— and thank God^ througli Jesus Christ our Lord it gets that
too, most abundantly. It needs One who knows how to
wait for men while they unfold by natural processes.

Suppose I went to the common school, and was put into
arithmetic, and my master came around the first day and un-
dertook to examine me from the beginning through to the end ;
and suppose when I could not pass the examination he should
whip me ! I say, Is it in the power of the human understand-
ing to learn in that way ? Can you teach so ? Can you do
it in arithmetic ? Can you do it iu writing ? Can a person
take one lesson in jienmanship and then write ? If such a
thing is impossible in the physical realm, how much less is it
possible in the spiritual realm ? If a man cannot be instantly
perfect in a lower sjohere, how much less can he be perfect
in a higher sphere ? Development has to be gradual and
continuous, and there must be a government that will wait
for a man while he unfolds. God must be, by his own nature
and providence, gentle and sympathetic, and must adapt
himself to the condition of the beings that he has made, or
he is not fit to govern the universe, which is of his own
creation.

Clothed, then, with this patience and sympathy, Jesus
Chnst presents himself to us. He went about doing good.
He looked in the face of the most hideous wickedness. He
wept. He sorrowed. He walked with the poor and the
needy. There was but one thing that ever led the Saviour to
speak without measure or bound of severity, and that was
religious selfishness. When anybody had, by education in
religion, got up so high that he was a good deal better and
bigger than anybody else, and separated himself from
his fellow-men and did not care for them, Christ uttered
against him. Woe, Woe, Woe ! The disposition of selfishness
in the higher moral reahn is hideous in the sight of God.

And as for the Saviour, who was ever so considerate ?
Who ever so loved perfection, and yet was patient with all
imperfection ? Who ever so loved purity, and took such
pains with the impure ? Who ever was such a master of his
appetites, and yet was such a friend of the glutton ? Who
ever was so self-denying, and yet was so lenient toward the

166 PEACE IN CHBIST.

self-indulgent ? He went about iDreaching, and men crowded
to hear him. Under his teaching some glimmer of a better
life dawned on them ; and when he went in to dine with the
rulers they flocked after him ; and gibbering priests looking
and pointing in, said, ''He eateth with publicans and sin-
ners"— that is, with extortioners under the Roman govern-
ment and harlots. He sat down by them, and owned rela-
tionship with them; they touched him, and he touched
them ; and how he could be on such familiar terms with them
was what the Pharisees did not understand. But this was
what he came to teach — namely, ihat of all the places in the
universe, the central j^lace of power was not in the thunder,
nor in the earthquake, nor in the devouring elements, but in
divine love, that sufEereth long, and is kind, patient, full of
all resources. Love divine is of all things the most trans-
cendent in power, and jet the most lenient.

It was the disclosure of this peculiar quality of the divine
nature that made Jesus Christ the Son of God to an admir-
ing world.

It is said that such a presentation of God as this — such a
presentation of him as I have been accustomed to make to
you — tends to relaxation ; that what men want is not so much
leniency as cogency ; and that there must be positiveness, de-
cision, firmness in government. Well , there is. Men do not
doubt that sin is sin ; neither do they doubt that penalty is
penalty. Men are suffering all the time and everywhere, in
stomach, in liver, in heart, in head, in hand, because they
violate laws. When I take a hammer and hit my finger with
it, do I need any one to tell me that violated law inflicts pen-
alty ? I guess I know that the penalty is inflicted before any-
body else does. If I get drunk do I need some ane to come
the next morning and tell me that intemperance is accom-
panied by suffering ? Do not I know that without being told ?
It is needed at times to enforce these practical lessons, but
generally they tell their own story. We do not want a
revelation to prove to us that there is sin. We know that.
We do not, either, need a revelation to prove to us that sin
brings penalty. We know that also. Nor do we need a
revelation to prove to us that sin persevered in carries men to

PEACE IN CHRIST. 167

desperate straits. What we want to know is wliere there is
any cure lor it.

The city is smitten with a terrible plague. One and
another are dying on every hand. This street is invaded
and that street is invaded. There is scarcely a house into
which the scourge has not entered. The wail of distress goes
up till it ceases with despair. Sickness, sickness, sickness is
abroad everywhere, and death follows it. All the inhabit-
ants know that. What they want to know is, Is there a doc-
tor ? Is there any medicine ? Is there a physician that can
heal ? The whole world, groaning in its degradation, has
known about condemnation. What we need to know is,
whether there is anywhere any medicine, whether there is
any balm in Gilead.

Jesus Christ came to tell the world what had been told by
propliets but dimly, that tlie essential interior nature of God
is recuperative love ; that he is sorry for men ; that he pities
them ; that he will help them.

I have been sick and have lain throwing myself back and
forth on my bed in pain and anguish, and have become dis-
couraged and given up all hope of getting well. " It is of no
use," I say ; ''I have got to die !" But in comes the physi-
cian, and looks upon me, and takes me by the pulse, and I
turn my eyes upon him, and say, ''Do not trouble yourself
about me, doctor, there is no help for me." He says, ''My
friend, be of good heart. You are not so bad off as you
think. You are not going to die. I have the remedy for
your disease. You are going to get well. I will bring you
out of this in less than twenty-four hours." The moment
I hear these words my hope is renewed. I have confidence
in the doctor, and am sure that he will do as he says he will.
Everything is changed in a moment. I am not well — not a
bit of it ; but I am going to be well. I put to, and he puts
to ; he and I and nature work together, and I recover.

A man does noc so much need new conviction of sin ;
that is, it is not sinfulness altogether that he needs to
have shown him. Generically mankind know how sinful
and miserable they are. What they want is to be shown
that there is a Heart that is omnipotent, that is infinite

168 PEACE IN CHRIST.

in resources, and that is brooding over time and the world,
not for condemnation, but for salvation. They want to
know that God is a God of redemption, the God of all
comfort and consolation and inspiration and gentleness and
long-suffering ; and that while they are trying to do some-
thing, and are doing it poorly, cares for them, loves them,
and encourages them ; a God that knows better than they
do how imperfect and how wicked they are, but whose nature
it is to wake the soul and lift it up.

What was your mother's nature, that cried when you cried,
or laughed away your tears, and watched you by night and
through the day, and died taking care of you ? You know
what that is in a mother. Oh ! is there a God like that ?
Yes. One as much better than that as infinity is better than
finiteness ; as much better than that as divinity is better
than humanity. No latitude or longitude can measure the
orb of the glory of that heart which is in God, and which
is manifested by Jesus Christ.

Now when I come into the faith of this God, see how it is
with me. I am not, as I said in the early part of this dis-
course, a perfect man ; but I am in school where I am sure I
am going to be perfected. I have come into communion with
One who says, " I am waiting for you while you are becoming
perfect ;" who loves me and will have patience with me ; and
One whom I can trust. It is not that I have peace or am
conscious of perfection — I never was so conscious of imperfec-
tion. It is not that I have a bargain made. I have a God
in my faith, I have the conception of a God, that adapts him-
self j^ersonally to pouring out his influence on me, that will
stimulate me, that will keep my conscience awake, and that
will not give me up because I come short, but will carry me
over periods of decline and transgression ; a God that will be
more than swaddling clothes, more than cradle, more than
mother ; a God whose cathedral is as the household, and who
fashions the race toward perfectiou by nature and providence
and grace.

It is the hope that I have such a God, that he is forming
my disposition, and that he is helping me — it is this hope
that gives me rest in Jesus Christ.

PEACE IN CHRIST. t69

When therefore the apostle Paul utters these words to
those that have gone throngh this experience, they under-
stand them, and are full of comfort :

" For the good that I would 1 do not. [' Amen,' says every one of
you.] But the evil which I would not, that I do. [' Yes, yes.'] Now,
if I do that I would not, it is no more I [that is, the better I, the
upper I], that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me [that lower nature
on which manhood is grafted]. 1 find then a law that, when I would
do good, evil is present with me. [I am all the time making mis-
takes, slipping up under temptation.] For I delight in the law of
God [I recognize that the law is holy, that it is just, that it is good ; I
am enthusiastic for that which is good]; but I see another law in my
members [O yes! I see that the clearest conceptions are worn out by
weariness: I see that my noblest moral impulses are extinguished,
I see heaven, I see angelic purity ; but I am gluttonous, and 1 lose it
all] warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into cap-
tivity to the law of sin which is in my members. [I am passionate,
revengeful, avaricious, proud, vain, selfish, lustful; I am excessive in
this or that direction ; and so though I condemn sin, and mean to
turn from it, there it is; and every single month or week of my life
is more or less marked by these obliquities that come in spite of my
resolutions and fightings ; and this has been so for years.] O wretched
man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? "

And what is the answer ? "God, through Jesus Christ !"
That inspiration, that conviction of a helpful, loving,
waiting, patient God, encourages and sustains me. To him
I fly. My physician, cure me. Schoolmaster, bear with my
stupidity, and teach me. Give me thy help. Lead me up
and on until at last I see thee as thou art. Then, with all
my soul, I shall say, " Not unto me, but unto thy goodness
and thy love and thy wisdom, be the praise of my salvation,
forever and ever." Amen.

170 PEACE IK CHRIST.

PEAYEE BEFOEE THE SEEMON.

OiTB Father, if we thought thee other than thou art as manifest in
Jesus Christ, we could not draw near to thee; from the blackness and
the tempest we should cower; before the strong wind, before the
earthquake and before the fire none of us could stand ; but by the
voice of love, small though it be, and still, we are drawn where we
could not be driven. We rejoice in thee when we have no compla-
cency in ourselves, and are at last glad that all our good is wrought
in us by thee, that in thee we stand and are completed in righteous-
ness, that thou art by thy supernal power endowing us with a will to
do and to be, that thou art gradually moulding us in thine own image,
and that ere long the moulding season will pass away, and we shall
come forth from the shop and from the furnace burnished and
brightened, and shall appear in Zion and before God. We rejoice in
whatever is beautiful in ouBselves as thy creation. We rejoice in
whatever is strong, and excellent, and noble in us, as the gift of God.
We rejoice in every element of thy nature which is in us, as children
rejoice in those things in them which ai^e like that which is good and
great in their fathers. So we take blessings from thee as little chil-
dren take them from their parents, and we rejoice in our endow-
ments because they are of God, and point to him, and ally us to him.

And now we pray that we may be able to lift ourselves so into the
confidence of love that we shall ride over all the tribulations of the
world, and outsail the storm itself, so that doubt, and fear, and mis-
take, and sorrow, and sin, and guilt may not whelm us — so that
neither things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor
any other creature shall be able to separate us from that love of God
which is in Christ Jesus.

May those that cannot run but only can walk know that there
is also good news for those that walk ; and may those chat cannot
walk but only can creep know that there is good news and kind-
ness for those that creep. May they know that babes are thine,
and may they become little children, and be willing to be as little
children if so they may feel the cradling arms of God lifting them up
in wisdom and power.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt sanctify the sorrows that rest
upon any. Teach them how to illumine those sorrows by faith.
May they know how to praise thy name in suffering as did those of
old. May those who are called to suffer be very near to God as
his disciples; and may they feel that they are imder the adminis-
tration of one who is acquainted with grief, and that they have
joined themselves to him in such a way that their service shall
be made to redound to the honor and glory of the name of Jesus.

We beseech of thee, be near to all those who are prosperous and
joyful. Take not away their joy and their prosperity. May they
know how to break forth into songs of thanksgiving. And by their
happiness may they know how to illumine others and make them
happy. May they be so imbued with the love of God and the divine
Spirit that whether they are in joy or in sorrow they shall still testify
of Him who called them and whose name they bear.

PEACE IN CHRIST. 171

"We pray for all those who are bestead with poverty, with disap-
poiutmeut, with overthrow, with all the ills that belong to the strug-
•Tle of life. Wilt thou be with them to coustantly open the horizon
beyond that they may not looli down and drudge; ; that they may not
feel themselves to be like l)easts of burdeu, weary on the road, and
longing for the night to eome. Grant that they may evermore see
before them that horizon shining on which the sun never goes down,
and that realm where dwells eternal summer, whither they are speed-
ing, from out of which the spirits of just men made perfect are call-
ing them perpetually, into which, every hour, some are entering,
toward which wc are all going, and where all of us ere long shall lift
up ransomed souls and spread wings of faith, and for ever live above
care, and sorrow, and trouble. So shed upon us the light of the other
life that this life shall be bearable to the sons of misfortune. We
pray that thou wilt grant that they may feeJ that things visible and
secular, and that time experiences are of little account. May they
discern the invisible, its permanence, its perfectness, its beauty, its
gladness.

We pray that thou wilt teach us to be kind and gentle toward
others as thou art kind and gentle toward us. We pray that thou
wilt teach us to bear the yoke and the burden— to so bear them that
the yoke shall become easy, and that the burden shall become light.
Teach us to walk as seeing thee who art invisible. O Face of light!
O Face of love! O Face of joy! shine upon us by day and by night,
that, looking upon thee, we may be able to hide in the blessed light
all things we do not wish to look upon, and that we may live above
the world while living in it, and live in sympathy with its men, and
its duties, and its wants.

We pray that thou wilt sanctify the individual experiences of thy
servants before thee. Thou knowest every one's secret thought and
secret life; thou art acquainted with every one's motive, and wish,
and history ; and we pray that thou wilt speak to every one, this
morning, so that he shall feel that God is thinking of him.

Grant, we pray thee, that all the churches of this city may be
purified and strengthened, and may go forward more and more with
the tokens of the divine complacency in them. We pray that the
various conflicts of opinion, that divisions, may not tend to inhar- /
mony and discord. Grant that at last the love of thy people shall be
mightier thau the remains of sin that are in them.

We pray for thy churches of every name. May those who are -'
appointed as officers therein be inspired with divine insight; and we
pray that their couuselings together may be for the prosperity of all
the church of Jesus Christ; and from that church may there stream
a light w^hich shall shine in the dark places of our land.

And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Sou, and Spirit
Amen.

372 PEACE IN CHRIST.

PRAYEE AFTER THE SERMON.

Vouchsafe to us the Spirit of light, our Father. Grant, we pray
thee, that we may hold what riches and strength we have in God.
and realizi! how poor we are in ourselves; how we are driven hither
and thither as the thistledown before the wind! But in thee how
strong we are! for we have all thy strength. We are enshrined in
thy wisdom, shining brighter than the sun. We are comforted, and
inspired, and held, and loved. O thou beneticent God, grant that we
may have a noble conception of what is the power of thy love made
manifest in Jesus Christ. May we learn more and more of thee,
growing in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ. O what a knowledge! It passeth understanding.
May we have this coniadence and this everlasting surety, that noth-
ing shall separate us from this love of God which is in Christ Jesus.
Lord, may we be anchored so that no storm can drive us from our
ground. Here may we stand rooted so that no wind can overturn us.
Here may we find our refuge, not in our goodness, not in our attain-
ment, not in our purposes, not in the imperfect building of a noble
manhood in which we labor, but in the goodness of God who began
and who will end; who was the Author and will be the Finisher
of our faith.

Hear us, O Lord our God, hear us in these our petitions, and
accept us, not according to our worth, but according to the greatness
of thine own generosity.

And to the Father, the Sou and the Spirit, shall be the praise ever-
more. Amen.

THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST.

"Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given
unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all na-
tions, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you : and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the
end of the world." — Matt, xxviii. 18-20.

" And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Com-
forter, that he may abide with you forever ; even the Spirit of truth ;
whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither
knoweth him : but ye know him ; for he dwelleth with you, and shall
be in you." — John xiv. 16, 17.

The first passage that I read is the commission that was
given to the disciples. While it covers the general ground
of exterior work — of going forth and preaching to all lands
— it contains the declaration that the source of their hope
and their courage and their comfort was the fact that Christ
was himself with them. Departing, he was to be a living
power, and that, too, in a sphere where higher forces of life
can be administered as they cannot be upon earth. There
is a latent assumption or exj)ressed declaration running
through the teaching of Christ, and more particularly as it is
manifested by John, that the forces, the instruments, of the
physical and moral life were inadequate for the expression of
the highest life and the noblest things ; and the constant in-
terchange of language on the ])art of our Saviour, rising out
of obvious truths into seeming mysticism, and going again
from these mystic and obscure utterances back to common
life — this play backward and forward — is just what we might
have expected ; for to the consciousness the higher spiritual
life was not represented. To him there was a life where

SUNDAY Morning, Nov. 1, 1874. Lesson : John i. 1-18. Hymns (Ptymouth Col«
lection) : Nos. 112, 404.

176 THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST.

truth and faculty worked together differently from what they
do here, and for the representation of which but the most
l^artial analogies could be found in this mortal life. If there
be any one truth that runs through the New Testament, it is
the truth of the absolute superiority of the life which goes
on in the bosom of God and of spiritual beings, to which we
aspire, and into which we aie to come ; and when Jesus died,
and was buried, and rose again, without any considerable
manifestation of power — that is, such power as he manifest-
ed before — the discijjles, about to lose him again, might be
in great discouragement. Therefore he declared to them
that it was expedient that he should go forth from them ;
that it was impossible that he could be so much to them by
mere juxtaposition as he could by spiritual unity ; that while
he was in the flesh and they were in the flesh, however near
they might be to each other, however endearing their rela-
tions might be, there was substantially a bar to that union
which was possible in a higher mode of existence ; and that
when he was gone from them it would not be extinguish-
ment, it would not be forgetfulness : he still would live, and
his power would be enhanced — he would have all power ;
and his promise to them was, "Lo, I am with you alway,
even unto the end of the world." The separation, then, was
to result in a higher unity, ineffable, transcending all that
is known upon earth.

Was this declaration of union official ? Did it belong
simply to the band of the apostles, or did it belong to all
Christians ? Is it that which they who are specially conse-
crated to the work of preaching and administration may
hope for, or is it universal, and may it be appropriated by
every soul that can rise up into the conditions of it ?

The apostles were designed to be witnesses, in the first
place, of great truths which had passed under their eyes.
Such was the fundamental ground of apostleship : for then
there were no newspapers ; there were no printing presses ;
there was no means of recording the knowledge which they
had gained, and which was to be the foundation, afterwards,
of writing the history or gospel. It was necessary in the
beginning that the facts which had occun-ed in Galilee and

THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST. 177

Judea should be witnessed to by competent men ; and to
them was given competent power of instruction, and of con-
struction so far as it came witliin the work of preaching the
Gospel. To be witnesses, to be instructors, and to be con-
structors— this was apostolic. Beyond this the apostles had
no special prerogatives. They had nothing beyond this that
lifted them above the ordinary Christian believer. Indeed,
according to the moral measurements of the new dispensa-
tion, exaltation comes by excessive labor, by humiliation, by
suffering, by going down oat of conspicuity into obscurity, if
need be ; and if the apostles were prominent above other be-
lievers, it was by prisons, by stripes, by persecutions, by
trials ; and genuine apostolicity has not been so much coveted
as the honors of apostolicity.

Any man, then, has a right to appropriate by self-instruc-
tion or otherwise the fundamental elements of life — courage,
hope, character. Every one has a right to that which Christ
promised to tlie apostles.

That this view need not stand merely upon general state-
ment, I will read a passage from the words of Christ which
were among his last utterances.

'• Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall
believe on me through their word ; that they all may be one ; as thou,
Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us ;
that the world may believe tliat thou hast sent me. And the glory
which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one,
even as we are one, I in them, and thou in me, that they may be
made perfect in one."

So, then, by the most express declaration, whatever there
was promised to the apostles of the indwelling of the power
of divine life in their work, that Christ also prayed for in
behalf of all that believe by reason of the apostles' preaching
and teaching. This certainly is a truth of the most tran-
scendent importance.

Is there, then, really such a thing as the intersphering of
human souls and the divine soul ? Are we, by this meta-
phorical language, if it be metaphorical, by these pictorial
terms and analogies, taught that there is such a thing as the
life of God in the life of man, or that man's life is inter-
sphered by or caught up into the soul of God ?

178 THE INDWELLING OF CBBIST.

Now. in the very begiimiiig, let me say that as there is
nothing in the whole round of human knowledge that is so
obscure as the operation of the mind of man in its higher
elements, so this is the very point of our knowledge where we
may be most ignorant of divine things, since it is to be laid
down as an invariable maxim that we can only know so much
of the divine as we have some specimen or likeness of in
ourselves. We can only conceive of attributes the germs
and elements of which are in us. We can think of no justice
in God that is not a glorified form of the Justice of which
we have had some experience. We can imagine no pity
which we have not felt something of. We cannot understand
what self-sacrifice means except by having experienced it in
ourselves or having witnessed it in others. .

In attempting to apprehend the higher forms of divine
life we are attempting to apprehend those things of which
the types, or prototypes, or germs in us are the feeblest and
the least likely to be apprehended. It is certain that there
are very many parts of the experience of men which they
reckon as transcendent, but which absolutely elude analysis.
There is no person of any considerable magnitude of head or
l)rain, or of any considerable sensibility of mind, who does
not know that he has been brought under pressures and
under excitements that exalted thought, and with that vision,
and with that will, and with that the emotions, of which he
could give no exj^lanation, and concerning which he could
lay down no journal and no cliart. There are moods which
men are exalted into, but which they know vaguely, and of
which they are obliged to speak as Paul did of the things
which he saw in the seventh heaven, when he said that they
were not lawful [that is, possible] to utter or report. Have you
had no feelings for which you never had ideas ? Then you are
shallow. Have you had no moods, the power of which you
remember, and the experience of which was glorious, but
which you were absolutely powerless to exjilain in any wise ?
Have there not been hours in your friendships, have there
not been conjunctions of circumstances, when everything
that was best in you was stimulated, so that it burst out
towards objects of affection, which language was utterly inad-

THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST. 179

equate to describe ? Have you not had conceptions of hero-
ism which immensely transcended any ordinary day-by-day
conceptions ? Are there, in your experience, no glorified
hours, no hours of transfiguration in which you stand to
rebuke the vulgarity and lowness of your ordinary daily
experience ? In the higher moods of your mind, are there
no enthusiasms, no divine raptures, which you cannot ex-
press in words ?

Now, consider with what royalty, with what power, with
what amjilitude, the soul of man moves in those occasional
hours, and in those higher moods. Consider how different
he is then from what he is in his common uninspired hours
and moods.

Well, the comparison of those higher moods with our
lower moods forms a kind of remote and dim analogy of the
possibilities of the higher life. Not that it reveals the union
of God with man, but it leads one to feel that it cannot be
quibbled or reasoned away merely because, when you apply
the strict rules of investigation, of thought-power and of an-
alysis, you cannot define it.

Let science pursue her own round. We recognize the
utility and beauty of it. All I have to say is this : Science
shall not undertake to say, "You can," or, '' Yoa cannot,"
in regard to tlie higher experiences of the soul. It shall
not undertake to define the possibilities of the human mind,
or the soundness of the experiences which belong to that part
of the mind which stands next to spiritual elements — nearest
to the invisible. Science may undertake to show that in
my description of a physical thing I have erred by omission
or by exaggeration ; science may undertake to determine
that in my analysis of certain substances I have erred either
by too much or too little ; science may undertake to say that
when I claim for myself a certain mode of activity there are
positive evidences that it cannot be so or can be so, as the
case may be ; but when science goes further than that, when
it goes beyond the material realm, the basis being granted,
and the quality being acknowledged, and undertakes to apply
the tests of the lower reason and understanding to the soul-
quality, then I stand and protest.

ISO THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST.

Yon may tell me that a certain soil is absolutely nnfit for
vegetation ; that it is nothing but dead, dead, dead sand ;
or you may say that another soil is a great deal better ; you
may go on and make your analyses of soils in all their various
gradations, and tell what their probabilities or certainties
are — that is, what their effects will be upon seeds : but when
the seed is planted, and the soil has begun to nourish it, I
say that there is in the future development, and growth,
and life of the plant itself that which no man can foresee,
and that you are bound to follow facts, and not foregoing
analyses. And so far as the human mind is concerned, I
care not whether you call it material or immaterial ; but
being a veritable entity, and having power in the exercise of
ibs own nature to develop, I protest against applying to
its higher forms those analyses which belong to its fonnda-
tion and physical connections. It has a life of its own
which can only be known by those who have had it, and
which cannot he brought down to that kind of description
and delineation which belongs to its lower forms.

I can say that my hand smarts, and you know what it
means ; or I can say that it tickles, and you know what that
means ; but who can take the soul in its most ecstatic mood
of imagination and tell what its experiences are ? The seer
that beholds transcendent visions and things to come ; the
poet whose mind moves to music, and effloresces in the no-
bility of the higher region — how can he subject his experi-
ences to an analysis that is only conformable to a lower
standard- ?

What I say is, that these higher moods of men make
their own rules; that they are subject to a law which is
developed in them and which is peculiar to themselves. A
knave cannot be the law-giver for an lionest man. A coward
can never lay down rules for a thorough hero. A cold-
hearted wretch cannot be a legislator for an enthusiastic
lover. Every man has his own criterion of judgment which
is founded on his knowledge of truth as it is revealed to him
by active and positive experience.

If there is one thing that we know, it is that in propor-
tion as men live in the body, — that is, in proportion as they

THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST. 181

live to eat, to drink, to work, to rest, and to sleep, — in that
proportion their average sensations are united only by juxta-
position, as it were, and so are not united at all, except as a
corporation, a company, or an army, is united.

The moment men rise from their lower physical condi-
tions, and begin to work together for a common interest — for
seM- protection, it may be, or for the acquisition of money
that will accrue to their selfishness in common — the moment
they work for an invisible quality, which is common to them
all, you are conscious that they are united by a bond which
is stronger than exterior cohesion. As the thing sought is
higher and higher, the enthusiasm in seeking it becomes not
only more absolute, but more apparent. Unite men together
with the enthusiasm of a real patriotic zeal, and mingle with
that the enthusiasm of domestic love ; let those things which
make men better than the brutes unite them in the common
object of defense and jjrotection, and how much stronger is
the union which is produced under such circumstances than
where the enthusiasm and the objects are low and physical !
How, when thus united, do men blend with each other ! How
is there a well-defined and not unconscious sense of one
man's belonging to another, and being in another ! How
does it increase in proportion as you go up ! And where men
are banded together for unworldly things, how conscious are
they of the supremacy of that union which makes them as one !

It is but a step beyond that to suppose that which prob-
ability would lead us to suppose — namely, that when we rise
to higher moods, to divine moods, to absolutely spiritual
moods, to a higher state and to higher experiences, there will
be found to be methods of unity and intersphering of which
we have no analogies here, and that there is a real, I will not
say physical, but substantial unity possible between soul and
soul.

I know not whether T have succeeded in making you
understand what I mean, for I do not suppose any one has
power to define that unity which Christ prayed for. When
you have said that it exists in this, that, or the other form,
you have not compassed it. All that I have attempted to do
has been to lead your mind to the feeling or presumption that

183 THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST.

according to tlie line of analogies there is in the higher ex-
perience a coalescing of souls for which there is no formula,
whioli is not definable, which is not separable by analysis into
its elements, and which so far transcends the ordinary experi-
ences of man with, man tbat it must stand alone, solitary.

That there is such an action of mind with mind, in the
commerce of the individual human soul with the divine, and
of the divine with the individual human soul, I think no
man can doubt who reads through the New Testament. I
think no person can doubt that John was teaching witli
authority such a truth as that, where he declared, as from the
lips of the Master, "I am the vine, ye are the branches ; and
as the branches can not abide without the vine, so neither can
ye abide without me ; if ye are broken off ye wither, and are
fit only to be burned." This is a physical image ; but consider
how intimate the union is. Every branch draws life from
the common source of vitality. If we grow into God in such
a sense that we derive from him the motive-power of life as the
branch derives motive-power from the root and stalk of the
parent vine, how intimate is our union with him. Again he
says, "If any man believe, I will come in to him." The
figure is that a man is a house. " Knov/ y3 not that ye are
temples of the living God ?" says Paul. The idea is that
men are dwellings with rooms ; and Christ, r suming it, says,
''If ye are of the right mood or state, I will come in, and I
will live in you as one lives in a friend's bouse ; I will dwell
in you ; I will abide in you." Thus is expressed still more
intimately the sense of a higher unity between the soul of
God and the souls of believers. And in language which
transcends even that, in the passage which I read in the
opening service, it is said, " To those who believed on
him gave he power to become the sons of God." And
then, by express limitations, he throws off the idea that
it is in any physical sense, in any earth-born sense, and as-
serts that it is in a divine sense : not a thing perfectly reveal-
ed or revealable, but a growing fact. He unequivocally
teaches that there is an interior unity possible between the
soul of man and the soul of God.

With this general statement of fact, I pass to that which

THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST. 183

practically may perhaps be even more important — a con-
sideration of the signs and effects of such union. We may
not aim at it and seek to attain it so much from a distinct
knowledge of its psychological state and condition, but we
may bring ourselves into that state in which this unity is prom-
ised by the efficient power of the divine Spirit — the great Com-
forter and Enlightener. Then, too, it is a matter of more im-
portance to us to know that it is actually in us, than to know
how it is in us. If we find that we have the evidence of
adoption in ourselves ; if we find that we have that which
breathes to us the consciousness that we are in God and that
God is in us ; if we resort to the proper tests and investiga-
tions as to the grounds and reasons of such a belief, this be-
comes of great practical importance.

One of the first tokens, then, of the indwelling of the
divine nature in us is to be seen in the profound sense of
humility which it invariably works — a humility that does not
mean self-degradation or a feeling of personal meanness. A
man may be profoundly humble, and yet not table charges
against himself. The sense of elevation, the sense of per-
sonal dignity, is immeasurably enhanced by the touch of the
divine Spirit in the souls of men. Yet no man can have
this ideal produced in him without feeling conscious of how
infinitely poor he is in the lower relations of his ordinary
life, partly by the necessity of nature, partly by infirmities,
and partly by positive sinfulness ; but whether from one or
all of these causes, his relative rank in the universe, the
value that he puts upon himself, is very small. It is that
which he hopes to be, that which dwells in him, that is
great and glorious — namely, the Spirit of the Father. His
own personality is insignificant. The sense of power, of
skill, of beauty, of delicacy, of penetration, of thought —
power relative to that which belongs to the truly great and to
God — this with him is rather an argument of lowliness of
mind and of humility.

" Take my yoke upon you and learn of me," says the
Master, "for I am meek and lowly of heart." In his earth-
born condition, in his circumscription and limitation while
in the flesh, that was the experience of the Saviour; and

184 THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST.

when the divine light comes into men's souls, though they
may feel that they are but little lower than the angels, though
they may feel that by administration and attainment by and
by they may be kings and priests ; though they feel that
there is no end to the circuits and outlines of their coming
glory ; yet their present condition, even when they may feel
that it is the most favorable, is lowly ; and the sense of our
own poorness and infinite need is greatly enhanced by the
indwelling of that li=.,-.h which reveals all darkness, and that
beauty which makes manifest all homeliness, and of that
grace which makes inferior all the goodness which is in us.
The presence of Christ in our souls is a perpetual argument
of our humility and lowliness. When there is no light in
rooms one is as beautiful as another ; but the moment you
bring light into a room, that moment, if things are in disor-
der, in vulgar contiguities, the light reveals them. And the
indwelling light of God reveals to a man the essential poor-
ness and roughness of his own life.

With this sense of personal inefficiency comes also inspira-
tion and courage, for it is the eifect of the divine nature
to lift, and to fire with a tendency of growth and life, all that
it influences ; and courage and aspiration are infallible tokens
of God's presence.

There may be moods of perfect quietude, of tranquillity —
there are ; there is a peace which passeth all understanding
that comes to men ; but we mistake if we suppose that a cer-
tain sort of non-exertion is inherent in the notion of peace
or tranquillity. The highest peace is the highest excitement.
Excitements are disturbing in proportion as they are partial
and impure ; but when the excitements of a man's mind are
in subordination one to another, when they perfectly har-
monize with each other, the highest excitement is the highest
tranquillity. There is no such perfect rest or peace as that
which comes to men when all parts of their nature, in
proper relations to each other, are lifted to the highest pos-
sible tension. The indwelling of God does not produce the
quietude of insensibility or of indifference, but it produces
that peace which comes from courage and hope and aspira-
tion, calm and intense.

TSE INDWELLING OF CHRIST. 185

I do not say that all will have this in equal jiower ; but I
do say that when men find that their better feelings live in
harmony under the highest tension, and do not distract nor
exhaust but feed and fill the soul, it is one of the tests of the
indwelling Saviour.

The quality of one's soul-life is another test. Sweetness
and richness in all the affections, compassion, gentleness,
tenderness, pitifulness — these essential qualities of the life of
man afford another token or evidence, and a most striking
one, of the presence of the divine nature.

The divine Spirit sometimes comes as the mother may
come among her children, with the rod, or with the reproof of
her tongue, short and decisive ; but the characteristic coming
of the Spirit, like the mother's wonted coming, is a coming
with gentleness, with tenderness, with kindness, with loving-
ness. When the nature of God is infused into the human
soul, it brings the divine sweetness, the divine affection, the
divine compassion, and that beauty which adorns what we
know among men. God's nature infinitely transcends the
poor and unfruitful natures which have been committed to
us for our culture here. All that we know of soul-sweetness
and affection and compassion is earthborn. These qualities
to us are as the flavors of the undeveloped fruits of the wil-
derness.

Suppose he who first found the Siberian crab-apple had
boasted of the richness of that apple, and then had compared
it with the later products which were developed in the or-
chard ? But what apple is there, carried to its highest perfec-
tion, that differs as much from the germ fi'om which it sprang
as the soul of a man just "pawing to get free" from earth,
scarcely unswaddled, absolutely untrained and unfledged,
differs from the everlasting glory and beauty of the heart of
God itself ? And the difference will vary in different men,
just as the flower varies which grows in different places.

The sun comes down in some hard-scrabble neighborhood,
and shines on the rocks, and there is little or no fruit pro-
duced. In another place the sun comes, and there is more
fruit, because there is more soil for the sun to shine upon.
In another place the sun comes, and there all the earth

186 THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST,

teems, and things choke each other in rampant growings and
unbounded tropical luxuriance.

Now, in the poorest soul something comes from the infu-
sion of the divine Spirit. In other souls a great deal more
comes from that infusion. In still others there comes an
angelic sweetness which no hymn has ever sung, which no
prayer has ever uttered, which no words have ever framed an
adequate description of. The best parts of a man's nature
are parts which he neither can speak of nor detain long
enough to analvse. We are throwing off perpetually so many
experiences, the^" pass so rapidly, that we cannot register
them. They defy investigation ; and all we can say of them
is, " I know."

In the tenderness of twilight, when there steals from the
old cathedral gloom wonderful music, strange, weird, mass-
ive, and full of soul-touching properties, does any man stand
and say, " It is impossible ; there is no instrument there com-
petent to any such result" ? But the air is full of the music,
which is its own evidence. If the instrument is played upon,
and the music rolls forth, it cannot but be a fact.

Tell me, if you will, that the soul of man 'is a thing of
body, and that body is a thing of limitation ; that when men
have imagined certain experiences they are enthusiasts ; that
when they have carried these imagined experiences forward
to a greater height and a greater power they are fanatics ;
and that these things are all illusions and deceptions. Tell
me that a man professes to have a magnificent experience in
the higher realms, while I know his life to be a burrowing in
the lower realm, and I will believe that there is illusion ; but
show me a man whose life is conformable to right rules, from
the lowest to the highest ; show me a man all of Avhose aims
are upward and divine, and who is kindled to a transcendent
joy — -a joy that never is distempered, that rolls no waves to
the shore, and lies smooth as the lake of Galilee — and he is
my magistrate, and must teach me what are the facts. I am
not his analyst to pull him down and deny those things which
are palpable to him. Enthusiasms and fanaticisms are far
nobler than ignoble beliefs that lie darkling at the bottom of
human life. I say that the human soul is competent to

THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST. 187

sensations and experiences which altogether transcend the
average experiences from which we derive our philosophy. I
say that there is an atmosphere from which may come the
opalescent lights of heaven itself. I say that there are states
possible which shall ally us to the experiences of the other
life, and which shall give token that God is, in most impor-
tant respects, dwelling in us. If men say they are not possi-
ble, I point to the fact, and say that beauty is beauty even if
worms deny that it is beautiful.

When the most elevated traits of soul, when the dignity
of men's thoughts, and when those spiritual forces which are
so unlike the lower forms of life, are gathered in one direc-
tion, and into one grand office, so that the conduct, the
life, the character, and the work of the Saviour upon earth
are again set forth or are grouped together to constitute a
magnificent disposition of self-denial — then we shall have
the highest token that can be given us of the reality of the
indwelling of Christ in the human soul ; for Christ came to
teach the world by his example under the ordinary circum-
stances under wliich men are tempted, and was tempted in
all points, in all his faculties, in all respects, as we are, and
yet without sin. He was our Exemplar and our Guide in
regard to moral truths.

But to me, if you go no further than this, you have left
out the best thing — the sacrificial element. If you tell me
that Christ came to make atonement for the sins of men ; if
you tell me that the atonement satisfied the law, that it satis-
fied God, that it was something interposed between the man
and the original infinite and everlasting mercy and love of
God, to unlock these qualities and make them available ; if
you tell me that in the bosom of the Almighty Father, who
made me, and made me weak, and put me into a world where
I should be environed by temptations that inevitably would
produce sin, there was a sacrifice necessary to let out the di-
vine healing quality, then I simply say, ''That is coarse;
that is Roman; that is of the flesh, fleshly." But if
you tell me that Jesus Clirist came to lay down his life
for men because he so loved the world that he was moved
to make a manifestation of the utmost jwwer and en-

188 THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST.

deavor for its salvation, saying, " Greater love hath no
man than this : I love you ; and I give my life for you
now, not only, but forever and forever I shall be giving
my life for you ; I shall come to you ; I shall dwell with
you ; I shall live with you ; I shall feed you ; I shall give
you of myself ; and when I have gone up to the heights
of power I shall still be one in God, and one in all that
believe, and tliat will let me enter into their souls, and so be
their eternal food and eternal support;" if you tell me that
Jesus Christ came to die for men, that he might take away
the fleshly covering, and that they might see the divine way
in distinction from the poor corrupt methods of earth ; if you
tell me that God governs in that higher realm of ineffable
love which is legislative and creative, and which impletes
everything in the heavens and in the universe, and that it
was to disclose him that Jesus Christ came, that he suffered,
the just for the unjust, as every man must suiier vv^ho would
lift up another, as every man must suffer who would take ig-
norance, and carry it up, and wait for its development from
its low condition to the higher one ; if you tell me that Jesus
came not only to teach us that such was the essential nature
of God the Father, the eternal Godhead, but to take upon
himself penalty for the sake of the salvation of those who
would otherwise perish ; to be the great Burden-carrier and
universal Friend of mankind — if you tell me that all this was
the work of atoning grace, then I can join, too, in hallelu-
jahs. If you can rejoice on a lower ground, far be it from
me to take away your rejoicings. If you need blood in any
any other way than as a symbol, if you need the actual or
coarser form of legislative and judicial atonement, I would not
take it away from you ; but you must not put that over my
head as indispensable to my faith ; you must not wreathe
around the precious names of God these lower and coarser
exhibitions, and call them ' ' orthodox," and with them rule as
with a rod of iron. They are essentially not orthodox ; they
are dropping, and will continue to drop ; and in proportion as
the hidden peculiarities of the Gospel in the human soul lift
a man up to a higher conception of justice, and truth, and
purity, and duty, and fellowship, and tenderness, and love ;

THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST. Igg

in proportion as the average experience of Christian men
rises higher and grows purer, the thought of development
and attainment will be a thousand times more attractive.
The higher disclosure of infinite strength, and purity, and
goodness, atid of the necessary suffering required in bearing
with impurity and imperfection, elevates the thoughts and
expands the minds of men.

It is this one point of self-sacrifice as connected with the
indwelling of God that is the test. A man may counterfeit
many other things, but he can scarcely counterfeit this.
There are two qualities that it is diflBcult to counterfeit — love
in its higher form, and self-sacrifice in its most ineffable
form. Men may make themselves martyrs by special acts ;
but T refer to the even, uniform moving of one's life in sub-
ordination to another's welfare. Bearing each other's bur-
dens ; seeking not to please ourselves, as Christ sought not
to please himself ; living day by day so as to be succor and
food to others, and not to build up our strength upon
them — that seldom is counterfeited. A man may bear stripes
and imprisonment in a zealous cause ; but a man who is not
persecuted, and who develops himself continuously for the
welfare of those who are round about him, pouring out his
bounty on the large and the small, on the good and the bad
alike, and causing his influence as an effluence to shine as a
candle upon those who are in darkness — if such is his notion
of life and being and power ; if he thus lives in a perpet-
ual self-sacrifice which does not run to enthusiasm or fanat-
icism, and so is not carried to the ascetic stage — under
such circumstances he gives evidence of having in him the
genuine article.

If a man says, "I was in darkness; I read my Bible; I
compared text with text ; and by-and-by, after pi-aying and
praying and praying, the light broke on me, and I saw that
I was redeemed, and that I was united to God, and that
Christ dwelt in me ; and now ten years have gone, and I
have never known anything but the blessed light of that ex-
perience ; I am perfect ; I am as happy as I can be ; 0,
how little do folks know the privileges to be had ! Would
that every one could be caught up into that glorious mood !"

190 THE INDWELLING OF CHBIST.

— may oe he has it. You cannot tell by the plumage of a
bird how it will leap. You cannot always tell by the way a
man talks what he is. I would not say that he has it not ;
but it does not consist in the pi-oduction of a powerful im-
pression on the imagination. It does not consist in intensity
of feeling. It does not consist in the fact that a man has an
inspiration which leads him in this exalted way to bear wit-
ness. I want to know something more of the quality of his
disposition. If I jBnd that where other men are proud he is
sweetly humble ; that where other men are sharj) and acerb
he is easy to be entreated ; that where others are stingy he is
liberal and full of good works ; and that where they are
dim-eyed he is endowed with intuition which comes from
real faith and love in Grod ; if I find, in looking into the
jewel-box of his soul, that one after another of these jewels
flashes brighter in him than in otiiers, then I say, "Very
likely it is there." He may not make the best proclamation
of it ; but if I find that there are these signs and tokens of
it, I give him credit for possessing it. If, on the other
hand, I see a man who goes about trumpeting his own vir-
tues, and seeking praise and admiration for them from every-
body he meets ; if I find that he is arranging everything
for his own benefit, and is living to enjoy himself, and that
he is magisterial and imperial, then I come to the conclusion
that he is emi)ty ; for he that has the indwelling of God, with
all gentleness, and meekness, and humility, and tenderness,
and pitifulness, and self-subjugation and submission to
others, — he needs to bear no testimony.

You may go out, in these autumnal days, and bring in
half a dozen sprigs of the golden-rod, and ten or twelve of
asters from some sheltered place, and a few chrysanthemums,
and put them in a room — all perhaps except the last — and
insist that they fill the room with fragrance ; but do they ?
See whether anybody perceives it. They are made into an
immense bouquet, and put in a conspicuous place, and one
comes in, and another, and another, but nobody speaks of it,
or thinks anything about it ; and I declare, when you say it
is filling the room with fragrance, that it is not.

Now, I pluck one tea-rose, one blossom of tube-rose, and

THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST. 191

one sprig of some other odorous flower, and put them in a
little wine-glass, and set them in some corner out of the way,
and say nothing ; and one opens the door, and snuffs, and
snuffs, and says, " What have you here ? Haven't you some-
thing here?" They know there is something there. It is
hidden, but there is no mistaking its fragrance.

Nobody has a right to say that he has the indwelling of
the divine Spirit who is not, when he moves among men,
beautiful. I tell you that you are counterfeit if you are
homely in holiness. Whoever makes men that look upon
him feel, " Well, I would be a Christian rather than be
damned, but I should hate to be such a man"; whoever
makes holiness homely, is travestying it. I tell you, the
essential element of moral feeling, that which God produces
by indwelling, is fragrant, sweet, beautiful. Even virtue is
beautiful to vice in its deliberative moods ; rectitude is beau-
tiful to the criminal ; the qualities that we lack are those that
we most desire, often ; and where there is a soul that has the
heavenly moods brooding it, and that is filled with all the
fullness of the Godhead, the sign is that everybody feels that
summer is near him, though nobody may be able to tell why.
Whenever anybody says of another, "His coming is joy,
and his going is night," I care not whether he belongs to
the Catholic Church, or the Episcopal Church, or the Pres-
byterian Church, or the Congregational Church, he is one of
God's people, and carries the evidence of divine indwelling
in the fact that he is so sweet, so genial, and so benign to-
ward others. There is a sort of low helpfulness that makes
men agreeable and sweet ; but I am speaking of higher moral
moods and spiritual instincts. Where they are acerb ; where
they are self-glorifying and self-boastful, and inclined to be
imperious, and to legislate as with a rod of iron, they are
not genuine — they are counterfeits. Where they are genuine
there is softness, there is humility, there is patience, there
is truth, there is pity, there is love ; and where these quali-
ties are combined in a man they are as a cluster of flowers
from the heavenly garden, and their fragrance is everywhere
apparent.

Is such a life as this possible ? Yes. Is it attainable by

192 THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST.

all ? Yes ; but it is not a lecture-room attainment. You
want this spiritual elevation ; you would be glad to have it ; I
think every one of you would hold up hands for it ; but oh,
what a way you would have to go through to reach it ! Some
of you are built coarsely. You are by nature full of the
flesh ; and by sickness, by waste, by disappointments, by
overthrows, God could, as it were, hew you so thin that there
might light stream through you ; but you are opaque now,
and that is the problem of your life. You need this in-
dwelling divine Spirit ; but it will come as discipline, and
will be like the baptism of blood that Christ spoke of.
You want it, being proud and vain : are you willing to take
it at the end of those mortifications and Sailings which God
would give you before you were brought out of yourself into
the sweetest humiliation to the will of God ? You want it,
being so idolatrous that you run riot like luxuriant vines that
have to be cut back in their growth : and are you willing to
be cut back, and have your household desolate, and lose here
and there a loved one till the insufficiency of this world is
demonstrated in your experience, and, at last, you say,
" My. darlings are gone ; my friends are gone ; I am alone :
come thou, 0 God, and dwell with me " ? Are you willing
to gain it at that price ? Many of you are suffering ; you are
going through calamities ; you are wondering at God's provi-
dence. He is clearing away the snow, and chiseling off the
rocks, and jou are looking on and waiting to get back to this,
that, and the other worldly thing, while God is thinking of
that which is above all price, above all value, measured by
any earthly estimation — the sonship that is in you ; and he is
trying one in one way, another in another way, and another
in another way. Oh ! understand what God is doing to you.
Is it not this indwelling of the Holy Spirit that we need
more than everything else ? Is it not this that we need for
the cure of wrangling in the household, and quarreling in
the neighborhood, and all those evils which torment society ?
Is it not this, above everything else, that the minister needs
— the indwelling of Christ ? Is it not this that the individ-
ual member of his charge needs — the indwelling of Christ ?
Is ^t not this that the church needs— the indwelling of Christ ?

THE INDWELLING OF CUBIST. 193

0, poor, evcr-stumbliug cliurcli ! if it were not for the in-
dividual graces and beauties of its membership it would be a
stench in the nostrils of humanity. It is so human that all
its organizations are oppressive. With all its machinery, so
cumbrous, with all its pomp and display, so vast, it has gone
reeling through the ages, and the world has gone groaning
and travailing in pain until now. Like every other human in-
stitution, it is a clumsy affair ; and if it were not for its saints
that could be pointed to here and there, it would be considered
an intolerable nuisance. There has not, by the tramp of all the
armies on the globe, been so much blood trod out as there
has been by the feet of ecclesiastics. There has not, through-
out the earth, been so much oppression and persecution, in
any other direction, or in all other directions, as in matters
of truth and religion. And what the church needs, is not
apostolicity, it is not canon, it is not precedent, it is not wise
laws and customs, so much — these will all flow of them-
selves , what the church needs is the indwelling of the Lord
Jesus Christ. 0 for a convention, 0 for an association,
that, when it rose and left, should leave the impression on
the minds of the common people, " There is truth ; there is
religion !" 0 for convocations of preaching men, that,
when they adjourned and went away, should leave a revival
of religion, bright, burning, behind them ! It is the want
of the divine influence, it is the want of heaven in us, it is
the want of Christ in our dispositions and in our lives, that
makes men infidels. I will answer every attack from every
source of scientific investigation if you will gather in every
village a disciple band that shall manifest from day to day
and from generation to generation the Master's Spirit. If
Christ dwells in you, and you dwell in him, as he dwells in
God, there is no danger to society, none to the individual, and
none to the church.

To-day, Christian friends, we close these services by the
sweet and jo^^ul service of Communion. We have the body
of Christ represented by the loaf broken, as his body was
pierced and broken ; we have also the wine, that represents
the shedding of the blood ; and both the breaking of the body
and the shedding of the blood represent the sacrifice of

194 THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST.

Christ for the welfare of those who need him. Is there
no one here who needs the Lord Jesus Clirist to-day ? These
symbols are for you, and mayhap will help you to draw
near by faith to Him that is above the symbols. Are there
none here that are broken-hearted from losses that are
greater than they can bear ? If you, with a holy sorrow in
your soul, were to say, ''Jesus, come and help me," perhaps
he would come. I invite you to try it. Are there not
those who have stumbled in their worldly affairs, who have
no comfort, and who look only to further confusion and
confiscation ? Why not sit down before the symboliza-
tion of your Master to-day, and say, " God, Father of provi-
dence, Author of all good, now to thee I come — give me
thyself"? AVhy should you not try it? To any of you who
are bestead by worldly perplexities and difficulties, is there
not here a remedy and a release in Christ ? Suppose you do
not enter fully into that life ? We grow into it. Suppose
they are but the beginnings and first steps that you take
to-day ? Even so.

But I hear men of great grace and conscience saying, " Is
not this a most perilous laxity ? Do you mean to say that
you will spread the table of the Lord's Supper with profound
mystery, and then give invitation to partake of it, in your
congregation, to every man, whether he is a member of the
church or not, whether he has been examined or not, and
whether he has professed faith in Christ or not ?" Yes, I
will. Till you tear out that scene where Christ preached to
the multitude, and they thronged about him, and he went in
to take dinner in a ruler's house, and when he was at the
table the publicans and harlots sat by his side, and touched
him, and took bread with him, and ate salt and meat with
him, while the keepers of the machinery of the Jewish church
stood outside, and said, " Hem ! see ! he consorteth with
publicans and sinners, and eateth with them " — until you
tear that out, I shall feel it to be right and proper to oflfer
the Lord's Supper to all who love Christ and feel drawn to
him.

Now. every man of you whom Christ would not have re-
jected, if you had lived in his time, and had been with him,

THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST. I95

and be liad gone into a house, and sat down at the table,
and you bad sat down by him and said, "Lord Jesus, my
babe is dead ; help me," — every one to whom he would,
under such circumstances, have turned in compassion, I
invite to sit down at his table now ; for he is as ready to
have compassion now as he was then. Tf you had gone in
and sat down with him, and said, "Lord, I am separated
from communication with my light and guide, and I am
trembling and ready to fall — what shall I do?" and if he
would not have turned you away, he will not turn you away
now. He is very accessible. He is very sacred, it is true ;
but he is very familiar. Your Jesus, if he come to you at
all, is coming through your infirmities, through your wants,
through your needs.

Now, do not make the Lord's Supper more august than
the Lord Jesus himself. Do not raise up the emblem and
make it more important than that of which it is emblematic.
Are you afraid to go to God in prayer, by your thoughts,
and ask for mercy and compassion ? If you can go to him,
how much more can you go to some picture or suggestion
of him !

I ward off from this table every such person as comes by
rote, and comes for nothing. If my children kissed me per-
functorily, they would not kiss me at all : I would not let
them! If a man says, "It is Communion morning," and
goes to the Lord's table, and takes the bread and wine be-
cause, being a member of the church, he thinks he must, I
ward him off. But if there are any here who are weak, and
know it, and want strength ; who are sinful, and know it,
and want grace ; who are in darkness, and know it, and want
light ; who are conscious of the humanness of their life, and
want divine purity, and are willing to make a beginning, and
will come in all sincerity, and take these symbols in hope of
that which they symbolize, you, brother, and you, sister, I
invite ; for the kingdom of God is yours. And I give this
general invitation to all suppliants ; to all who are poor and
sinful and needy. All who desire to make this Lord's Sup-
per really a means of grace to tiieir souls are invited to par-
take of it.

196 THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST.

PRAYEE BEFORE THE SERMON.

Vouchsafe, our heavenly Father, thy blessing to rest upon thy
dear servants. Fill them with all hope, and joj% and grace. Sinee
thou hast been pleased to bring them into our midst, grant that we
may have toward them such holy affection and such brotherly wel-
come that they themselves shall no lougei' be strangers, but of the
household. Grant, we pray thee, that we may ourselves be enriched
in their coming amongst us. We pray that thou wilt bring into the
midst and fellowship of this church more and more who have been
wandering, who have been outcast, and who have known God by the
outward ear, but not by the conscience and the heart.

We pray that thou wilt strengthen thy servants in this church so
to love and so to make known the Word of the Gospel that men shall
understand the teachings of God, and the privileges of the household
of faith, and that they may be known by the exhibition of Christian
living.

We pray that thou wilt grant that the weak may be strengthened ;
that those who are ready to perish under the cimning wiles of the
adversary may be succored and drawn away from peril; that those
who are whelmed in darkness and filled with doubts may be estab-
lished in the simple faith and child-like love of the Gospel of Christ;
and that thy love may be mighty in the hearts of this great congre-
gation, and of the community that lies roimd about us. We pray
for a more perfect disclosure of truth. We prav that we may unrler-
stand more of the nature of God, more of the divine disposition.
May we not wander forth to seek the measure of the universe alone.
May we not question the stars, and the earth, and the ages, except to
know more of the testimony of God who made them. And grant
that in thee it may not be the power nor the wisdom that we shall
admire, but the glorious holiness which belonged to thine administra-
tion of love, and wisdom, and power. Grant that we may enter into
that nature which hath in it infinite sacrifice and which was made
manifest by Jesus Christ — that nature which, out of itself, feeds cre-
ation, nourishes, restores, builds, establishes, saves and glorifies.
The height, the depth, the length, the breadth of thy nature we can-
not understand; but grant that we may grow toward it with finer
apprehension, springing from nobler feelings in us. May our daily
life, and all the habits of our thoughts and emotions, so bring us near
to thee in kind that we shall understand thy quality; and yet when
most understood by us, it is only the fringe or the hem that we
behold of thy garment. What art thou? How transcendent, infi-
nitely beyond the reach of all our thought ! Thou art to us as to the
child's eye the stars are, but a point of brightness; and yet in itself,
if we might draw near, how would the orb swell out, transcending
all measurement! Thou art to us but luminousness; thou art to us
but the sun of glory. What thou art in thy lines and lineaments,
what thou art in thy separate qualities and attributes, what thou art
in the might of thy power and in the glory of thine empire, who of

♦Immediately following' the admission of members into the church.

THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST. 197

us is large euough to uiiderstaud ? What purity on earth which gives
to us our only conception of thy purity is adequate to its measure-
ment? Who that has oqly felt the iuiiuence of love iu this world
can interpret the love of the divine nature? Since we canuot by
searching find thee out, grant that little by little, day by day, we
may learn the Spirit of God by becoming like him. Look upon us and
love us; and by thy image, and power, and iud welling prepare
us better to understand thee until the glorious day shall come when
the silver cord shall be loosed and the golden bowl already broken
shall be liroken entirely, and we shall go home to see thee as thou
art, and to be like thee.

We pray that thou wilt grant thy blessing to rest upon all thy
servants who are present to day. How great is the number of those
who have come up with their secret needs ! Grant us thy blessmgs,
not according to our wisdom iu asking, and not accordmg to our
judgment of proportions, but according to thine own goodness.
Measure thy gifts by thine own abundance and generosity, and
bestow them according to thine own kind and wise direction, so that
we may feel not only that we are blessed of God, but that he has
thought of us in particular, and meted out his graces and providences
with reference to our trials, our burdens, our joys and our aspirations.
We pray that thou wilt bless all the households that are here rep-
resented. Grant that thy servants may live in such love and fellow-
ship that they shall walk before their children imaging the divine
life; and grant that children may be brought up under the influences
of their parents more and more just, and true, and honorable, from
generation to generation. We pray that thou wilt make our homes
to a greater and greater extent altars from which shall go forth to
thee liaht, and heat, and sacred incense.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt grant thy blessing to rest upon
all those who are in trouble; upon all those who are snared and
know not how to escape; upon all those who are manacled and m
prison houses, and are unable to obtain release. Wilt thou who art
the Deliverer come forth and fulfill thy mission-work, and open the
prison doors, and bring out those that are bound, and set them free.
We prav that thou wilt comfort those upon whom sudden and
strange afflictions have fallen, and whose souls are bewildered.
Grant that they may stay themselves upon God, and find relief from
their fears. If any seem tempest-tossed, and know not where to go
for comfort, may" they take refuge in God, and find iu him that
rest which tliey cannot find in this sin-shaken world.

We prav that thou wilt grant thy blessing to all our schools; to all
the teachers in them ; to all the officers thereof; and may thy work
prevail in their midst. Grant, we pray thee, that the poor and igno-
rant may be sought out, and that to them in the spirit of true broth-
erhood and in the condescension of love men may be found to
go down and bear their burdens, and bear with their need of
restraint, and with their uncomely passions, and seek to exert by
their souls, divinely consecrated, an influence by which others shall
be brought into the right way.

We pray that thou wilt bless all thy churches iu this city. We ask

198 THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST.

not that they may be without divisions, and contentions, and pollis-
ions, such as thou dost permit, but that all divisions, and contentions
and collisions may be for the furtherance of thy cause amonji thy
people. May the truth go forth. Grant that purity may prevail.
We beseech of thee that all which is malign, and hating, and hateful,
may be suppressed and done away.

Bless thy churches of every name throughout this land. May they
rejoice in all the things wherein they may stand together. May
they be united in faith, in hope, in love toward God, and in benefi-
cence toward men. If they are divided in anything, may they in
their separateness hold fast to thee, and imitate thy spirit, that they
may be sanctified in the foundations of their lives.

Grant that the light of truth may go forth throughout this land.
Raise up the depressed, give light to the ignorant and carr}- stability
to those that are enfeebled.

May the glory of the Lord shine not only upon this nation, but
upon all the nations of the earth. Everywhere may the spring-time
of God come. We beseech of thee that all wars and i)rovocations to
war may cease. May all ignorance and superstition pass away. May
all evils by which man hurts his fellow-man come to an end. May
that bright and blessed day come wheu the new heavens and the new
earth in which dwelleth righteousness shall be established.

And to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, shall be eternal
praises. Amen.

THE END, AND THE MEANS.

" Think not that I am come to send peace on earth : I came not
to send peace, but a sword. For I am cora&to set a man at variance
against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the
daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall
be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more
than me is not worthy of me : and he that loveth son or daughter
more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross,
and followeth after me, is not worthy of me." — Matt. x. 34-38.

If you consider that this is a part of the commission of
Christ when he was sending his disciples forth, and that it is
in some sense, therefore, a prockmation made to the world of
the new dispensation that was coming upon the earth, it must
be regarded as one of the most extraordinary things that
ever was uttered. Men are accustomed, when they introduce
new affairs, to suppress every possible disadvantage that is
conpected with them ; to smooth down all difficulties ; to
put the fairest aspect forward ; to give every explanation witli
the most solicitous particularity, so that men may not be re-
pelled. But here the Messenger of the new covenant, bring-
ing good news from heaven to earth, from God to men, and
establishing a dispensation which proposes to itself nothing
less than the work of a God on the whole earth, and through
all time, makes proclamation, not of ease, not of victory, not
of a straight and smooth road : he heaps up before men
almost everything that they hate and dread, and seems to
strike at the things which men do most enjoy, and love, and
guard.

Is there anything that all the world over is more conse-
crated tlian one's own household ? and yet, in a jmrallel pas-
sage, men are told to hate it.

SUNDAY Morning, Nov. 8, 1874. Lesson : Matt. x. 6-28. Hymns {Plymouth Col-
lection) : Nos. 40, 648, " Shining Shore."

302 TH^ END, AND THE MEANS.

" If any man come to me and hate not his father, and mother,
and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own
life also, he cannot be my disciple."

Here it is declared,

" He that loveth father and mother more than me is not worthy
of me."

Standing in this connection, and in connection with other
things, it seems exactly as if it were a stroke at the family.
It is something to be sacrificed for the sake of following
this new Leader. When men enter npon a revolution or a
campaign, thei'e is always some prospect of victory, some
hope of booty, some release, or some attainment that lies be-
yond and is to be the consequence or culmination of their
endeavors, so that they are nerved by the expectation of good
to come ; but what says he ? " I do not come to bring })eace.
I come to bring a sword. I come to bring not union, but
division, in the family. A man's foes shall be distinctively
there." Ordinarily the house is a refuge. A man expects to
find rivals, enemies, in the world ; but when he goes back
home, there he expects to find confidence and friendship.
Here, however, we are told that, "A man's foes shall be they
of his own household."

" 1 am come to set a man, at variance against his father, and the
daughter against her mother, and the davighter-in-law against her
mother-in-law [which might not require much !]. A man's foes shall
be they of his own household."

This is the commission. It is the instruction with which
they were sent out into the community. You recollect, too,
that this is the dispensation which was ushered in by the
angel-song, ''Peace on earth, good will to men."

Did Christ think what he was saying ? Did he mean to
say that ? It is a mistake. It is no such thing. It is as if
he had said, "You are not to expect peace on earth; you
are not to expect good will among men : I come for an en-
tirely different purpose." And if he came for this purpose,
what sort of good news was it that he brought ? He came
to make divisions — of which there were enough already. He
came to set men against each other in ten thousand forms of
oppressive modes of treatment or wars. He came to bring a
sword, when a milHon swords were flashing already. It seems

THE END, AND THE MEANS. 203

very strange ; and it must seem especially strange to all those
persons who have been accustomed to talk about the teaching
of our Lord as being so simple and plain.

But there never was on earth a teacher whose instruction
was couched in such figurative language as that of Jesus.
There is nowhere else to be found— not even in the poets-
such a continual necessity of translation in order to come at
the root of truth as there is in his teaching. If you take
these words literally they will land you just where the Ser-
mon on the Mount would if you took that literally ; and if
you were to take some parts of the Sermon on the Mount, aa
men are made and must be for generations to come, and
follow it literally, it would bankrupt and revolutionize and
destroy the world, unquestionably.

What is, then, our escape from the apparent difficulty
that there is in this instruction ? When we look at a system
with complex development we have a right to look at it in
either of two ways : we may look at it as the final result, as
the thing that is to be accomplished ; or we may look at the
. method by which that final result or thing is to be brought
about. You can look at the end, or you can look at the
iastrument. You can look at the history, or the consumma-
tion of that history. You can look at the tree in the summer
during the period of budding, and leaving, and blossoming,
and immaturity, or in autumn, when every bough is bent
with purfled fruit.

Now, our Master in this passage looked simply at the
process ; for he was speaking to men, and he consulted their
ordinary interests— men whose vice was shortsightedness;
men who refused to take a large, long look at their own
existence; men who rejected the spiritual idea; men who
asked for some immediate benefit from his new ministration.
Before he was half through that ministration there came to
him the mother of Zebedee's children, who said, ** Grant,
Lord [there is nothing more affecting than the solicitude
of a mother for her children] that these my two sons may
git, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left,
in thy kingdom." They had come out and become hia
disciples ; and they felt that it was about time (for they had

204 THE END, AND THE MEANS.

been with him a few months) that they should begin to reap
some material benefit ; so, hearing something in regard to his
breaking forth into a kingdom, they wanted to take time by
the forelock and secure places in this kingdom. If John,
for instance, had been made Secretary of State, and James
Secretary of the Treasury, why, the family would have found
it very much to their interest to be pious !

All through there was precisely the same thing. The
disciples wanted loaves and fishes ; they wanted palaces ; they
wanted raiment for the "body ; and the Master was obliged to
check them, saying, ''The foxes have holes, and the birds of
the air have nests, but the Son of man [I, that am your
Lord, the Son of God] hath not where to lay his head."
He put it to them, whether it ought not to satisfy the disci-
ples that they were as their Lord. He taught them not to
seek the bread that perisheth. In multiplied instances he
dissuaded them from fixing their hearts on outward things.
He said to them on one occasion, " Take no thought, saying,
Wha„ shall we eat? or. What shall we drink? or. Where-
withal shall we be clothed ? for after all these things do the
Gentiles seek." He gave them to understand that they were
entering upon a dispensation whose genius was interior,
spiritual — not exterior, physical. All along he was obliged
to rebuke the desires of the discijjles for that which was pres-
ent, and present to the lower life and sense. And he said to
them, finally, ''Go and preach." As tliey were carnal, dim-
eyed, low-minded, it w^as necessary, in some way or other, as
it were to stamp or burn into their minds the impression that
they were not going out to establish a kingdom that was to
have its rewards right at hand, or within reach of the arms.
They were going to establish a different kind of kingdom.

" Think not that I am come to send peace on earth : I came not
to send peace, but a sword."

In other words, " Do not think that human nature every-
where is going to smootn itself down, and that everybody
will receive you with open arms. You are going into the
battle-field. You are going where there is to be trouble.
You will find that your preaching of sweet affections will
breed quarrels ; you will find that your preaching of tb«

THE END, AND THE MEANS. "105

domination of tiie noble feelings over the ignoble will bring
revolt ; you will find that your preaching to men that they
are more than animals will make them worse than animals ;
and you will find that if you teach men that they are to be
good one to another, they will fall on each other, and gnash
their teeth at each other."

He was saying, " Go, preach this kingdom without the
expectation that you will reap immediately what ultimately
will be derived from it." There is peace — the angels were
right; there are fruits — the expectation of them is justified;
but they are to be the final results to which men shall come
through struggle, through pain, through long endeavor.
Leisure after strife ; victory after battle ; fruit after long
culture and growing — not at the beginning.

Regarded in this large way, the passage is not only con-
sonant with all the representations in the New Testament of
the fruit of the Spirit, and with the annunciations made, but
it is also consonant with the scientific views of the present
day. It is an indistinct and obscure way of declaring the
unfolding of things — the gradual development, progress and
final consummation of the moral and spiritual life on earth.

There is a distinction between the nature of a quality or
condition, and the road or process by which we come to it.
A quahty in and of itself may be joyful, but the earning of it
may be very painful.

So, then, it is proper to say, figuratively, that a religious
life is a joyful life — that is, that its final fruit is joy ; and
at the same time that men who enter upon a religious life
enter upon a painful life.

It may be true that intelligence will be a source of un-
bounded satisfaction ; but I take it that no boy when he goes
to school thinks that the first taste of intelligence gives much
satisfaction. It would be a matter of very great pleasure th
every one to know how to read ; but when a person — espe-
cially if he has let childhood go by — first attempts to read,
reading is not so pleasant. The early educate )ry steps toward
intellectual or moral states frequently are painful steps.
They require patience, they require faith, tliey require self-
denial, they sometimes require positive suffering ; but the

206 THE END, AND THE MEANS.

ends which we are seeking by these steps are "ways of pleas-
antness and paths of peace."

According, then, as yon look at things as ripe or green,
you may use language at one time that is very opposite from
that which is used at another time, and both will be true.
For instance, it would be proper to speak of grapes as you
see them in the summer as being sour and small, and not fit
for the mouth ; and it would be equally proper for you to
speak of those grapes as you see them in September and
October as being luscious, inviting, and rewarding. The
autumnal grapes are one thing ; the summer grapes are
another thing. And that which is true of grapes is true of
moral qualities.

Let us look at this necessity of conflict and trouble as
we see it actually in life, and as it is intimated in the word
of our Master. In building up the house of the soul in each
individual, it may be said that the work of soul-building is a
work of painfulness, of mortification, of annoyance, of fear,
of doubt. If you single out all the pain-bearing elements
that go to constitute soul-building, yon can make the picture
like midnight, and it will be justified by fact; and yet, will
it represent fairly a process of soul-building ? Look at the
building of a house. What a choice place is a completed
house, fitted to the wants of a household — a house of suitable
size, erected with thoroughness, furnished in good taste, cool
for the summer, warm for the winter, surrounded by ob-
jects of beauty ! What a delight it is, for social reasons and
for scenic reasons ! How poets love to descant upon it !
We employ the experience of home to picture the state of
heavenly rest. From our life in the household we describe
the ideal future life. In saying this I do not exaggerate.

Suppose a son wants a house ? I describe to him a com-
modious and comfortable mansion, and he says, "I will
build it." He goes out with the idea which he has derived
from my statement, and he says, *' Now for a house"; and
the first step toward a house is to clear off the ground ; but
he grumbles, and says that does not exactly comport with the
idea which he has formed of the beauty of a house. I should
say to him, " Think not that I have come to instantly create

THE END, AND THE MEANS. 207

for you a house of down and plush and velvet." There must
be a good deal of grubbing and digging ; and it is laborious
business to grub and dig. The foundation is to be laid ; and
to lay the foundation of a house in moist, cold, frigid weather
is not pleasant. There is to be a great deal of filth and dirt ;
and that is very unpleasant to one vrho has set out to build
with an ideal of neatness in his mind. The grounds are
strewed with lumber and shapings and bricks. And when
the house goes up above the foundations the wind whistles
through it, and it is Just the reverse of our conception of a
delightful, comfortable home. When, by and by, the win-
dows are in, and the external wind no more has free course
to run and be glorified there, the house is damp, and the
floor is stained with mortar, and you go stumbling over planks
and boards, and everything is inconvenient and disagreeable.
All manner of confusion reigns throughout the structure.
And when, after a little everlasting, you turn out the masons
and carpenters and painters, then come the scourers, and all
things have to be cleaned ; and though cleanliness is good,
cleaning is not. Then come the decorators, and the walls and
ceilmgs liave to be gone over. Then comes the upholsterer ;
and we say to ourselves, " Shall we ever get these pests out of
the house ! " Every builder knows that there is a great dif-
ference between building a house, and. living in a house after
it is built.

You can describe a house that is building as it is to be
when it is built, and say that it is comely and beautiful, and
people will not misinterpret your meaning. If a person
should read a description of a completed house as Tennyson
would give it in his melodious numbers ; if he should take
the hint of a house as a sentimentalist would portray it, and
were to start out to build a house with his eye fixed on that
conception, yet knowing that the beautiful end must be
reached by difficult means, every day as the work progressed
he would see some mark of beauty that would answer exactly
to the description.

Now, the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ is to be
transcendently beautiful ; but it will be at the last. While
the soul-house is building it is anything but beautiful.

208 THE END, AND THE MEANS.

It is full of annoyances. That is one reason why we are
obhged to live by faith and hope. That whicli is to be our
solace and our reward is far more than that which we have
actually gained. For example, we attempt while living in
the body to control it for great spiritual reasons. We under-
take the double duty of employing the senses for material
life, and also of gradually transfiguring the material element,
and converting it into sentiment, into spirituality, learning
to live by the invisible rather than the visible ; and that, too
while we are necessitated to maintain vigor and power in
the lower life and nature. It is a glorious conception that
one shall so live, born of matter, and unfolding in physical
respects, that the spiritual germ shall assert sovereignty in
spite of all the distinctively evil elements in the flesh, all the
time gaining ground in the work of building up a noble in-
terior house — a house indeed not made with hands, adorned
with noble thoughts, with magnificent passages of experience,
with all heroism of feeling, with friendships, with tastes, with
refinements, with benevolences, with hopes, with faiths, with
Joys, inspiring the life so that at last it moves by the interior
while it is yet moving by the exterior. A man in the world,
dealing with it, being dealt with by it, and yet building
within himself a household of pure thought, noble aspira-
tion, holy endeavor, and divine commerce — can any one fail to
admire such a person ? Can any one help revering a perfected
nature, a glorious soul ? And yet can it be expected that such
a nature or such a soul can be realized at the beginning ? It
can be attained ; but not without patience, and cross-bearing,
and yoke-bearing, and pain, and trouble. Both things are
true in everybody's experience. Nobody is born into the
kingdom of God from the flesh instantly. No one rises at
once from the lower life to the higher as on eagles' wings. I
do not say that one may not come instantly to a perception of
truth, and to a consciousness of its reality. I believe there
is such a thing as moral suffusion and inspiration which ma-
terially changes things ; but who ever was born into the king-
dom of God instantly, though he had the best temperament,
though he liad a harmonious mind, though he was surrounded
by the most propitious circumstances, and though he was

THE END, AND THE MEANS. 209

under the most immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost ?
Was there ever a man converted so that afterwards he had no
patience to exercise, no virtue to cultivate, no drill to go
through, no sorrow to undergo, no bereavements to bear, no
losses to endure, no thwartings of his pride to put up with,
no temptations of selfishness to withstand, no proffers to his
vanity to resist, nothing that should tend to make him like
the world's men ? Whoever is born into the new kingdom
has to work for it. A man may rejoice ; he may sing many
songs : he may strive and sing at the same time ; but never-
theless no man ever builds up a regenerated character except
through struggles and annoyances and patient endurance.
He has Joys on the way if he is faithful in his endeavors ;
yet, after all, he meets with trials which justify the declara-
tion of the Master when he said, " Think not that I am come
to send peace : I came to send disturbance, excitement."

If this be so in the individual, how much more of neces-
sity must it be so where men are collective — where men,
instead of being as the individual is, one that in some sense
controls his own self, collectivel}' attempt to build up that
which is to be the result of concurrent wills, as, for instance,
in the household. You might trace the progress of civiliza-
tion, and of Christianity I had almost said, by the way in
which the table is regarded in the family. If there is anything
in the world that is animal, it is eating. Every day, and three
times a day, to convoke a whole household around a table to
eat, is one of the most physical of things. If there is any-
thing that pulls a man right down and back to the level of
the beast again, it is eating and drinking. Where you see it
in a savage, in a barbarous, or in a semi-civilized state, it is
essentially, in all its accompaniments, an animal operation.
Conceive how the old warrion;, the old barons, in German
forests held victorious feasts and gorged themselves with
meat and drink, and became drunk with wine, and filled
the night with revelry. This was their highest ideal of life.
Vast leonine natures were they, who enjoyed only the utmost
physical excitement on the field, and then indulged in the
lowest conceivable form of animal enjoyment in the house.

Now, trace that all the way down to our day, in which,

210 THE END, AND THE MEANS.

whea the morniug summons comes, the mother descends,
with a face like the rising sun in the east, full 'of sweetness
and full of balm ; and then the children come down, hand
in hand, the little ones carried or led by the larger ones, all
frolicking ; and the father sits at the head of the table, and
discourses, first with God in thanksgiving, and then with his
loved ones, and, in a sj^irit of kindness, wit and repartee are
mingled with the conversation, and all the family are envel-
oped in an atmosphere of affection and joyfulness. At length
it has come to pass that all our best thoughts and feelings
cluster about the table, and we have almost forgotten that
there is any animalism connected with the act of eating.
You used to have enough that was good to eat — particularly on
Thanksgiving day, when especial bounties covered the board ;
and yet when you think of father and mother at the house-
hold table you think not of eating, but of love. Eating in
the family has been so spiritualized, it has been so trans-
formed, that it has become poetic ; it has become a sen-
timent. The very lowest point in household economy has
been so exalted by the development around about it of loves,
and tastes, and inspirations, and refinements, that it has
ceased to bring the slightest animal conception ; and if I am
invited to tea, it is my friends that I am going to eat — not
the food. If a friend invites me to dine with him at his
house, it is a banquet of friendship that I go to. It is con-
versation that I go for — not bread, nor meat, nor wine, nor
viands of any kind. These are not to be despised alto-
gether, but they are certainly subordinate ; and they are so
covered with blessed memories that they are well nigh for-
gotten. Woe be to that man who thinks oftener and more
about his soup, and fish, and meats, and confections, and
fruits, and wines and coffee, than about the social delights of
his friend's house, or his own. He scarcely would be long a
guest in any refined family. How have men learned to sub-
due the animal appetites, which are the most urgent and
indispensable, and to clothe them, and train them to higher
and nobler uses, so that they have ceased to be animal, so
that when you speak of them they mean something higher —
so that when you mention them 7neat means soul-meat, bread

THE END, AND THE MEANS. 211

means tliouglit-breud, and all agreeable beverages mean In-
pirations of friendship !

In the building of the household, whether you look at it
historically in the race-form or individually in the way in
which things actually happen, the conception, the final idea,
is entrancing, and one longs for such a consummation ; but
is it a thing so easy to be done ? Is it so easy to bring up all
tlie children so that they shall know how to harmonize with
each other ? Is it easy to bring them up so that those who
are superior and those who are subordinate shall work har-
moniously together ? Is it easy to do it in larger families or
small communities ? Is it easy there to exalt the individuals
so that ten or twenty children shall live harmoniously ? Is it
easy in a larger sphere to organize society itself so that men
shall act on a plane of liigher motives ? The lower forms
of society we know are animal, bestial ; but as society is de-
veloped, and grows complex, and men seek more comprehen-
sive ends, multiplying their emotions and aspirations, it
becomes more and more difficult for them to live together.
It is a slow and not easy work to teach men collectively to
make good neighborhoods, and then out of good neighbor-
hoods to make good communities or states ; and then out of
good communities or states to make good nations ; and
finally, to make the races, round and round the globe, cohere
and interact upon each other by the higher Gospel princi-
ples. It is coming ; but the road has been a rough one.
Men have been polished by the hardest.

I often pick up from the soil in plowing (other men
plow, and I pick up) a rounded stone, perfectly smooth. As
I look at it an unclasped volume suggests itself. How carne
that stone so round ? On the beach it has rolled and rolled
for ages. Thrice ten thousand times torrents have turned it
over and over and over again. It has been polished by rude
violences. At last it rests in the soil, and I find it. It was
not made round all at once. It has been rounded by the
attrition of centuries. Ages have been employed in smooth-
ing it.

As we go into life we find beneficent customs, ' and wise
laws and policies. Where did they come from ? Did they

212 THE END, AND THE MEANS.

drop down out of lieaven ? No ; they came out of the woods,
from savage men, through wars and insurrections. Prisons
have taught men the value of liberty. Blood has cried out
for humanity ; tears have flowed in streams by which
the iniquities of men have been gradually washed away ;
and we have come to even the imperfect betterment of
modern civilization tlirough toil, and wretchedness, and
bondage, and the clanking of chains, and despotism, and
the hardness of men. These things have taught men and
developed them through long ages. Why God has dealt
with the race as he has he never told me. I do not think he
has told anybody else, thougli some think he has. These,
however, are facts. Such is the way the race has gone and
is going along the Via Dolorosa of tears and suffering. The
whole v/orld groans and travails in pain until now, and jaeople
say, ''What is the matter?" I simply say. It is in accord-
ance with the declaration of our Master, who said, "I did
not come to give you instant peace ; I did not come to give
the full blessing of the gospel of deliverance at once : I came
to bring the sword, to bring division, to bring trouble."

Whenever you bring out of a lower range of thought or
faculty a higher ideal, there is a birth-j^rocess. Nothing is
born into a higher state without birth-cries and birth-throes.
Every time you go to animalism with something nobler than
itself, that moment it begins to suffer, and must suffer.

I stood on the top of Amherst tower, and looked over all
the great Connecticut valley. How tranquil it was ! How
beautiful it seemed ! It was night, — the night of early
morning, — and the mist like silver lay in the most perfect
tranquillity. If night had always brooded over it, perhaps
it never would have been disturbed ; and it was not until
the sun came up, and light and warmth began to strike in,
that slowly there were seen mighty undulations, and little
by little the mass broke up into cloud-forms ; and these, as
the light and warmth grew stronger, gradually rose in
wreaths and disappeared. If the sun had kept down, I
know not but that the fog would have remained forever ;
but the moment the morning light struck its rays through
it, as if in torment it writhed and passed away.

THE END, AND THE MEANS. 213

So it is with ignorance, and all the lower forms of human
experience. So long as they lie in darkness they are content
and do not sulfer ; but the moment you let the light of civ-
ilization and Christianity into them, instantly there is suffer-
ing, and they lift themselves little by little, and sway hither
and thither, and give place to something brighter and better.

The view which 1 have thus briefly illustrated ought to
give us a new conception, in the first place, of the methods of
divine providence in relation to human society and the ends
to be gained. We are too apt to suppose that national life,
as it is founded in the necessities of the individual and of
men collectively, is of God in such a sense tliat God gave
laws directly, instead of giving a nature that would itself
evolve laws. We are apt to wonder why God has permitted
oppressive and despotic governments ; but if it be true that
God gives the seed, and stimulates its growth, and it is
obliged to develop itself through various stages, it is just as
true that all national life has developed itself through various
stages.

The conflict that has taken place has not been economi-
cal ; there has been more suffering than was necessary for the
results that have been gained ; men have been ignorant of
the reasons of distress and suffering ; the world have been
left to find out the best way they could, and it has been a
stumbling way at best ; mankind have learned by blunders
and tentative processes ; the world has lived empirically, and
it has stumbled like a blind man ; and communities and
nations have gone through wide circuits when tliey might
with a few steps have traveled the same distance. They
have turned again and again upon their own paths, Avorking
up by spirals almost endlessly extended ; and if you were to
look simply upon the outer forms of human society, and
were to believe that there is an immediate Providence, and
that God is working for quick ends, it would minister to
skepticism ; but if you believe, on the other hand, in the
genius that lies hidden in our text — namely, that the final
end is divine, and that the intermediate steps are to evolve
themselves — there will be reason for hoi)e and confidence.
There is a Power that watches over races and nations ; and

214 THE END, AND THE MEANS.

the end will be glorious ; but the intermediate stages may be
tempestuous. All we have a right to ask is, that the con-
summation of things shall be satisfying.

If the other extreme is stormy, if there is to be a final
result that is to be forever darker than midnight,* and fiercer
than whirlwinds in the tropics, then we have no philosophy
that can account for the condition of things here ; but if the
world is working its way, slowly it may be, with needless
suffering perhajjs, but nevertheless to a grand consumma-
tion in the future that wall be satisfying, then we can account
in a measure for the intermediate steps, and can be patient
with them. All that we want is to know that the building
shall go up, and that what is rude now shall be symmetrical
and perfect then.

Even the church has been subject to precisely the same
law that has fallen upon the individual, upon the family,
upon communities, and upon nations. The truth itself Avas
not born all at once. All truth was not born with x\dam, or
with Abraham, or with Isaac, or with Jacob. Some truths
have come from them that might as well haA'e been still-born.
All truth was not born with our Saviour. He did not tell us
everything. What he did tell us we do not take in fully ;
and why should he tell us more ? It would not have fallen
upon minds that could have comprehended it. " He came
unto his own, and his own received him not." There is, and
there can be, no reason for having a revelation that transcends
the capacity of men to understand.

We have our senses of sight, of smell, of taste, of hear-
ing and of touch ; and supj)ose there were two other senses
that we had not ; suppose there were other doors through
which knowledge came into the mind ; and suppose there
should be a revelation, a knowledge of which could come into
our minds only through those undeveloped doors, what use
would that revelation be to us ? What use would be a revela-
tion of something that should be difliercnt from anything that
appeals to our sense of hearing, or smelling, or tasting, or
feeling or seeing ? Such a revelation would be thrown away
upon us. And an inspired revelation is limited to the capa-
city to receiye of the person to whom it 18 gent.

THE END, AND THE MEANS. 315

All truth was not, therefore, revealed in the first seed-
forms. The good of heaven, we are told by the Master him-
self, is like the smallest of all seeds, that of the oriental mus-
tard ; but when it is grown it becomes a tree large enough
for the birds to lodge in its brandies.

The truths of an early period, in thei^" animal form, have
gone on developing and developing and developing ; and it is
the misunderstanding of them at the present day that leads
to such charges and recriminations as are indulged in between
man and man. I preach to you certain truths which I find
involved in experience, in society, in history ; I preach to you
the explanation of things that go far beyond the words of the
Book ; and people say, " You ought to stand by the word and
testimony ; you ought to stick to the Bible ; you have no
right to go out of it and teach of moral things."

But I say that the Bible is full of seed — divine truths that
are merely in the seed-form. In order to understand them
we must look and see how they grow, and not depend for our
knowledge of them upon any philosophizing about them.
The thing itself is what we want to see. The Bible cannot
tell me what regeneration is. It can tell me that there is re-
generation, that it is a great change, and that it leads a man
from a lower to a higher plane ; but if I would know what
the actual thing is I must experience it in myself. A man
who undertakes to learn moral truths by reading the Bible
and nothing else is like a man who undertakes to go as cap-
tain or navigator to Asia in a steamship, and never goes out
of the cabin to look at the stars, or winds, or currents, but
only looks at the chart. Now, the chart is not meant to be
the ocean itself : it is meant to be simply an index of what
there is on the ocean : and if the chart says, "' There is a
rock," a man is a fool to be satisfied with seeing the picture
when he can look over the bow and see the rock and avoid it.

The light of God spoken of in the Bible shines from the
divine soul to sustain the child, the aged, all people, in their
different vicissitudes ; it is working in its own way, is bring-
ing out in vital forms faith, and hope, and courage, and ele-
ments of civilization of every kind ; but these qualities are
not in the Bible. The Bible says " Babies" ; but there are

216 THE END, AND THE MEANS.

not any babies in the Bible. The Bible says "Men " ; where
are the armies, and where are the citizens ? They are outside
of it and must be sought thei'e.

Look at the church, and the truths that have been
preached by the church. What have been the facts ? I
know that many persons think the church in primitive times
was perfect. That is as absurd as to suppose that Adam was
a perfect man in the garden of Eden, Tliere never was a
boy yet that knew anything without learning it. There
never was a man that was informed at the start, having had
no training nor experience. Adam a perfect man ? A perfect
Adam, without instruction or experience, or anything wliat-
ever ? He must have been a different sort of man from any that
we know anything about or ever dreamed of. When we attempt
to make our children perfect we bring them up very differ-
ent by from the way in which he was brought up ; and yet we
think it possible for a man to have been perfect whose facul-
ties had no education, who was constantly without experience,
and who came to full vitality and maturity without saying or
doing anything worth recording, except to mind his wife and
be kicked out of Paradise. The life of a perfect man consist
in doing wrong ? Why, it is a dream. It is a vision of the
fancy. There is no such perfection as that.

Well, in a subsequent age, was that perfection unfolded
in the patriarchs ? Were Isaac and Jacob perfect ? They
were venerable ; they were magnificent figure-heads of the
past ; by ancient nations they were regarded as heroes, and
they were heroes as compared with the men around about
them ; but Jacob's conduct certainly will not bear investiga-
tion. His dealings with his brother and his father-in-law
cannot be justified. Neither can his treatment of neighbor-
ing nations about him. Bismarck is not a circumstance
to him.

If you come further down, and look at the history of the
Jewish church, was there any perfect development of rehg-
ious life, or any perfect unfolding of spiritual truth, by that
church ?

If you come still further down, to the time of our Saviour,
the one man above all men, the divine man, and look at the

THE END, AND THE MEANS. 217

church that he is supposed to liiive framed, was there any
.perfection brought forth ? But he had no church in his own
hfe-time. He was a Jew. He worshiped in the temple and in
the synagogue hke any other Jew. And the disciples did the
same thing. For forty years those Christians who were in Pales-
tine continued to be a part of the Jewish church. And it is
that early period that men look back to as perfect. It was
as rude as it could be. It was subject to precisely the same
law of development through exj)erience that this age is. The
knowledge of men at that time was very small, and their
moral sense was very small. Look at the epistle to the Cor-
inthians, where the apostle had to instruct men that incest
was not a virtue, that getting drunk at the Lord's Supper was
wrong, and ten thousand other things that we should be
ashamed to mention in a Bible class ; and are they to be held
up as models of perfection ? For three huudred years those
questions on which a man's orthodoxy depends to-day were
not agitated, and had no existence.

The church has been developrng in spite of itself ; but its
greatest efforts have been to take and keeji a fixed form. Such
a policy pursued with a tree would make it impossible for it to
grow. The moment you fix things and make them perma-
nent, you reduce them to the level of a stone. Stones do
not grow, but living things do ; and a church, in its teach-
ings and economies, should unfold a new light by growing.
It is a shame if, after generations, experience does not bring
us into life at a higher point.

People say, "Do you suppose you are wiser than your
father was ?" I ought to be. God meant that I should be, or
else I should not have had a father whose advantages were
transmitted to me.

Do I despise the lower steps because they are at the bot-
tom and not at the top ? No. I value them as a means of
getting higher ; but some men would sit down on the lower
steps, and say, "These stairs are so sacred that I am not
going to leave them."

If man, by this false view, this erroneous philosophy of
life and growth and of tlie incipient conditions of develop-
ment as compared with the ideal and final conditions, is

318 THE END, AND THE MEANS.

thrown into skepticism and doubt, it seems to me that every
noble soul ought to find a way back again ; and I think
that in these declarations of our Master we are not simply
to say, "These are metaphorical; tliey are extravagant; we
cannot understand them" : we are rather to apply to tliem the
light of history and exiDcrience, and make them personally
useful to ourselves.

Now, the whole human race, human nature, religion,
Christian character — these are all subject to the same law of
growth, of trouble and of suffering. When I ask you to
come into the kingdom of God I do not ask you to come
into sorrow, but I know you will have to go through more
or less sorrow. We are to remember, however, that the fidel-
ity of the ancestors is transmitted to the posterity. As God
has visited the sins of the fathers upon the children to the
third and fourth generations, so also the virtues of our an-
cestors have been accumulating, and coming down to us, and
giving us a better starting ground, a better chance, more
facility ; and it is for us to be grateful for the blessings we
enjoy, and avail ourselves of them as helps by which to rise
to a higher plane than our fathers, with their more limited
light and knowledge, could reach.

The struggles of all men are not alike. But somewhere
you will have to struggle. Every man finds trials of his own
at the point at which he is brought into life. The accumu-
lations of his ancestors, good or bad, are represented in him,
and he has to take them, and go on and up as best he can.
And the way is everlasting. The unfolding is infinite. His
suffering may make him nobler and better, but he is going
to suffer. He will have strife, and burden-bearing, and
cross-bearing. The disciple is not better than the Master,
who also suffered, and who was tempted in all points,
yet without sin, that he might be a perfect Leader among
the brethren, taking their nature, bearing as they bore,
and unfolding as they unfolded. I do not, therefore,
call you to immediate blessedness : I call you to attainment.
I invite you to the commencement of Christian unfolding.
I invite you to the beginning of that large manhood
which includes conscience, honor, truth, love, sympathy and

THE END, AND THE MEANS. 219-

aspiration, in all things — in family life, in friendship, in
business, in Christian fellowsliip. Kefuse to adopt low
standards of duty. Exalt your conceptions of virtue. 1
have in my study the engraving of an altar-piece from one
of the old German churches. The altar is of carved wood.
On the front, as the central figui'e, is the exquisite form of
the Virgin Mary looking sweet in her simplicity and celestial
beauty. Above her is the tyj^ical form of a dove, repre-
senting the Holy Ghost. On the riglit and on the left are
the Father and the Son. There are venerable, grand human
figures looking with intent interest on the Virgin. Beneath
are carved angels, and at the ends of the altar are the angels
of the Annunciation and the Salutation. All around these
is a vine. The whole is cut in oak ; and the workmanship
is most exquisite.

Now, I can imagine that, as the workmen, having com-
pleted this altar, were conveying it lo the church, an old oak
tree, looking at it, might have said, "Why, that is just what
I have been desiring to be like. How beautiful it is!"
" Thou mayest be like it," say the architect and artist.
''Will you make me like that?" "Certainly." So some
morning out goes the axman, and commences chopping at
the root. Down looks the oak, and cries, "Stop !" "Why
should T stop ?" says the axman. " I am reserved." " Yes,
you are reserved." " I am to be made into a magnificent altar-
piece." "Yes, I know it." The axman still swings his ax,
and down comes the two-hundred-years-old oak ; and it
moans, and groans, and says, " What a fool I was to want to
be an altar-piece ! I have always been told that aspiration
would lead me into trouble, and here I am." Then comes
the sawyer, and puts the rude ripping teeth of his saw on the
tree, and says, " This is the way to glory ;" and the old oak
sighs, and says, "Fool that I am, I have got to take it."
At last it is sawed into planks, and then it is put into a kiln
and dried under fierce heats, till the oak does not know itself.
And then, as if its torment would never end, when it is
thoroughly dried, it is taken and, as if no respect were paid
to its feelings, marked, and scratched, and scraped, and
pierced, and gouged, and scooped, and scolloped ; and at

220 THE END, AND THE MEANS.

leugtli you bogin to see the rude outlines of the figures ; and
as the work goes on there are seen the faces, and there is the
divine face, and here is the exquisite dove, and at last the
oak says, "Lord, I perceive, I perceive; not my will, but
thine, be done." And ere long the altar is completed, and
stands in the cathedral, and prayers are said before it, and
God's people stand about it. Oh ! it is beautiful, but ah,
what a road it had to go over ! Oh, the divinity that is in
it ! but ah, tbe birth which led to that divinity !

You want to be noble, eminent Christians, do you ?
Well, then, do not complain of the ax, o£ the saw, of the
gouge, no2 of the cutting knife. You are badgered here
and there in life : what is the result ? I do not care so
much thai you go through suffering : what is it doing for
you ? IP it making you better, or worse ? Is it making
you h*M-d and unyielding, or is it making you easy to be
entieated and kind ? You are going through experiences
which are like thorns piercing you : are they teaching you
love and aspiration, and giving you a large sympathy for
men ? Are they making you more pitiful and tender and
helpful toward people who are below you, and are undevel-
oped ? Are they fitting you for the rest that remaineth for
the people of God ? or, have you a dull content in munching
your daily victuals ? Is suffering making you a man in
Christ Jesus ? Have you a presage of the angelic state ?
Have you a sense of things unseen and untaught ? Have
you a willingness to live or die ? Is your life something
more than the round horizon that you see here ? Are men
your masters, or is God your Master ? Do you fear the devil,
or so love yourself that the devil has no domination over
you ? Are you a victor while you are conquered ? Are you
a monarch while you are trodden down ?

By faith we reign. By hope we have eternal fruition.
The fruits hang over the battlements. I know ; and the leaves
for the healing of the nations are trouble, and bitterness, and
disappointment. Are they making you better ? God knows,
and you ought to know. If you are becoming better, thank
God for trouble. "Take my yoke upon you and learn of me,"
said Jesus, " for ray yoke is easy, and my burden is hght."

THE END, AND THE MEANS. . 221

PRAYEE BEFORE THE SERMON.

Almighty God, be gracious to these dear little children. Thou
hast sent them forth as birds unfledged into the field and into the
forest. Deliver them from their enemies. Let them not be overtaken
and torn by cruel talons. We beseech of thee that their lives may be
spared ; that they may grow up in health, in strength of body, in
strength of mind, and in strength of moral principles; that they may
be good children, and a comfort to their parents in their age; that
they may be virtuous citizens, and Christians that shall adorn the
doctrine of their Loi'd and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Give wisdom to
these parents that they may be exercised in all patience, in all fidelity
of instruction, and in all wisdom in their mode of teaching. Grant
that their children and they may be united in a common hope; and
growing in the nurture and admonition of the Lord may they twine
about each other, and be as one vine. May all the households that
are represented in this congregation be households of faith. Therein
may the spirit of the Lord abide; and abiding, may there be peace,
and light, and joy. If there come great trouble may it be borne in
such a victorious way that in the end they shall be comforted and
made glad.

We pray that thou wilt grant to all those who sit in darkness in
their households the light of thy presence. Have compassion upon
mourning fathers and mothei's who are in deep affliction ; upon those
who are joined together in the sacred services of trouble, in the
school of sorrow, where thou dost deal most faithfully with thy
beloved. Grant that parents who thus walk before thee in the pro-
bation of eternal life may have comfort and consolation, and believe
that thou wilt not consume them though the furnace be hot, nor suf-
fer them to be swept away though the flood be strong.

Draw near to all those who are contesting their way in this world,
burdened with care, overtaken by unexpected disasters and disap-
pointments, l>earing heavy burdens, and carrying yokes that are not
easy. May they have manhood ministered to them. May it be a
comfort to them to know that their heavenly Father thinketh of
them, and that day by day the sources of their strength are supplied
fiom on high. May they learn to be weaned from an inordinate love
of things present. May they learn that here they have no abiding
city. May they seek one that hath foundations far above the reach
of tides. May they desire to sit beneath those trees of life which no
storm shall shake.

Bless all churches, and schools, and seminaries of learning of every
kind; and may all those who diffuse knowledge be themselves
blessed of God. We pray for those who are distributing the word
of life through books and newspapers. Sauetifj', we pray thee,
these great instruments of power in our land, and may they carry
intelligence to the nobler part of man, and disown the things which
minister to malice, to evil and to corruption. And we beseech
of thee, if it must needs be that there shall be flre and burning, and

* Immediately following the baptism of children.

^22 THE EKD, AND TBE MEANS.

that excitement shall wax warm, that the comely things of truth
may gain thereby. May poison weeds not grow. May the nature of
Christian industry prune the vines and cause them to bear abun-
dantly gracious clusters of divine truth. May all the overturnings,
and coUisious, and contentions, and disasters tbat afflict men be
as the smith's hammer, and beat out those forms and uses which
shall be for the benefit of men, and to the glory of God.

We pray that thou wilt spread abroad light and knowledge in all
the earth. Lift up those nations that are cast down. Let the dark-
ness flee away from the coming of the Sun of Righteousness. May the
long night at last find its dawning, and the morning come, and thy
predicted glory begin to move through the earth.

We pray that nations may learn war no more, and torment each
other no more; and that the jealousy of the strong may no more
tread under foot the weak. Grant that all nations may learn the
royt-l law of divine love. Let thy kingdom come and let thy will be
done upon earth as it is in heaven.

We ask it for Christ's sake. Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Otjr Father, open thy Word in ou>' hearts. Write there the mys-
tery of truth. Communicate thyself to us personally — to each as he
needs. Be as gracious to us as the mother is to her little children, O
our Father which art in heaven ; and grant that we may so trust thee
as that there shall not be a robber that can take away heaven or thee
from us. If God be for us, who can be against us? Illumine the
dark ways of life. Have pity on the ignorant and on the poor.
Teach us to have pity. May we learn how to sacrifice ourselves
as thou didst sacrifice thyself, and how to live for others as thou
didst live for others. And when thou shalt have perfected thy work
by the different processes by which thou art developing us, wilt thou
be pleased to give us a glorious translation to that rest which remain-
eth for the people of God. And to thy name, O Father! O Lord
Jesus I O Divine Spirit of comfort ! we will give the praise for ever
and ever. Amen.

SAVED BY GRACE.

" For by grace are ye saved ; through faith and that not of your
selves : it is the gift of God."— Eph. ii. 8.

Of necessity all divine revelation or teaching has a limita-
tion which goes far to determine the method of instruction
in every age. There can be no other teaching except such
as is commensurate with the faculty, the intelligence, and
the moral condition of those to whom the teaching is sent.
Experience also avouches that in teaching men, their ideas,
their institutions, their customs, the reigning philosophies of
the time, will have much to do in determining the manner
and the form of instruction. We see this to be so, viewed
not only philosophically but historically. Such is the mode
in which moral truth has been developed. It has con-
formed itself as to methods, as to magnitudes, if I may
so say, to the want or the receptive power of the age in
which it came to men. In the most ancient time we dis-
cern a mode of teaching very different from that which
obtained during the period of the prophets ; and the in-
struction derived from them is very different in its adapta-
tions and methods from that which was given by Jesus
Christ. So, when the apostle to the Gentiles went forth
preaching the great substantial truths of Christ, you will
discern very clearly that when he preached to the Jews he
adapted himself to them, through figures, through language,
through illustrations, tlirough manners and customs which
they understood ; but when he went to Athens he conformed
his mode of address to the intellectual habits and perceptions
of the Greeks. At Corinth, in his letters to the varioua

Sunday Morning, Nov, 15, i8T4. LBSSQN ! »ph,M, HyM^8 (Plymouth ColleoWon)'

fjyg, 286, }80, 9^,

326 SAVED BY GRACE.

Grecian colonial churches, and everywhere among the Jews
in their synagogues, he adapted his instruction to the reign-
ing ideas of those to whom he spake.

Now, the consequence is this : that in every age, among
free and intelligent people who are raised above lethargy and
general death, there are certain modes of conception, certain
degrees of knowledge, derived from science, from philosophy,
and from history, from the social conditions in which men
live, from the nature of their government, or from those
habitudes which have been established by climate or occupa-
tion, so that insensibly, and almost without recognition,
different nations in different periods have their own styles of
thought ; and springing from those is the necessity of adapt-
ing to each age, according to its mode of thought, the great
substantial truths which have been held in the Christian
church. At a time when royalty expressed the highest con-
ception of dignity and beauty, there were derived from
royalty certain ideas that would be more intelligible to those
who were bred under royal institutions than to any others.
The glory of sovereignty was a thing in which the subjects
of Solomon had a very near and close sympathy ; but what
is there in the glory of sovereignty that is sweet to a man
who has been brought up in democratic New England or
democratic America — save through the association of his-
tory or poetry ? We have been ti'ained by our institutions,
not so much to center the glory of the state in its rep-
resentative head, making him nuignificent for the sake of the
reflection of his glory upon the people : we have a new
political idea ; we are attempting to unfold and develop a
pure state at the bottom, rather than at the top, and to make
mankind more worthy, more powerful, not declaring, as the
ancients did, that God gives power to the king, and that the
king gives privilege to the people under him, but declaring
the king to be gone, and aristocracy to be gone — declaring
that God gives power to the mass of men, that education
springs up from them, that government springs from them,
and that all honors and dignities spring from them. So
there has been a perfect revolution of ideas ; and if you at-
tempt to taJk to us in the language of the original condition

SAVED BY GRACE. 227

of men, you have to construe it so tliat sovereignty shall
mean according to our democratic ideas what it used to mean
to the ancients according to their royal conditions and no-
tions.

It is this subtle process of translation, both linguistic and
philosophical, that makes preaching necessary ; and it is this
that should lead every preacher to adapt himself and the
Gospel to the jiarticular characteristics of the age in which
he lives. We are living in a transitional period. Everybody
is saying that old institutions are relaxing, that customs are
changing, that ideas are developing differently, that new
philosophies are coming in, and that science occupies a posi-
^tion in relation to education which it never did before. The
study of man is conducted on entirely different principles ;
and to go on, under such circumstances, and teach in simply
the old language and phrases, is not to teach at all, or is to
teach falsely.

On the other hand, to adapt certain great truths, that will
be true until time shall end, to the particular forms or modes
of thought in any particular age is not to destroy those
truths, nor to take them away : it is to bring them under
new phases and into new points of view, so that they
shall convey the same sense of truth to men that they for-
merly did when they were taught according to the phrase-
ology, the customs and the figures which belonged to the
earlier age.

Now, it has been taught that all men are sinful, and upon
tliat has been raised I know not how many theories of how
they came to be sinful, and of what was the origin of evil.
The tomes written on that simple subject would fill this
house full. Where did evil come from ? Was sin of God or
of the devil ? AVhy did God permit it to enter the world ?
Was he not free ? Was he limited ? Was there a division of
power between him and his old antagonist of evil ? Or, if
he permitted sin, why did he permit it ? Was it the neces-
sary means of the greatest good ? So says one school ; and
thereupon a long controversy ensues. ''Is there such a
thing as sin anyhow ? " says another ; and thereupon great
latitudes and great mischiefs follow.

228 SAVED BY OB ACE.

Now, in our age, however much men may seek to cover
up these questions, such is the intelligence among the great
mass of the common people, such is the hahit of discussion
in magazines and newspapers of great subjects like these,
such especially, is the diffusion of scientific knowledge, such
is the investigation into the nature of man, his physical na-
ture, his social nature, his moral nature, — such is the study
into the conditions which surround him in life, and the in-
fluences which are brought to bear upon liim, that they can-
not be covered up. In other words, the thorough, scientific
study of human nature is going on, and it will not stop. It
is going to be pressed clear through. It is diffused among
the common people. They are reading and thinking ; and if
the church is afraid that heretical and heterodox notions will'
prevail, and insists upon the old terminology, and shuts out
the light of modern knowledge on this subject, what will
the result be ? It will be that men will not go to church ; or
that, if they go, they will go for something else besides in-
struction. Either they will stay away, as more and more
they are doing (at any rate that is the complaint), or they
will go and make fatal divisions. They will go to church as
a certain sort of charm, and will yield a kind of compliance
which they think perhaps has some mysterious virtue in it,
and inures to respectability, while they will underneath car-
ry on their own thoughts and feelings ; and there will be a
division between men's belief and their conduct. It is much
better, therefore, that the great truths of the Gospel should
receive interpretation according to the generation in which
they are taught.

But is not a truth a truth forever, and the same ? No. it
is not. Why, suppose I were to say of Agriculture that it
changes from age to age ? What ! does nature change ?
Was not Agriculture in the earliest periods in Greece, and in
Rome, and in mediaeval Europe down to our time, substan-
tially the same ? No : certain great laws of nature were
always conformed to, but development under these laws was
different ; so that the description of Agriculture in one age is
not the description of it in another.

The question of man's sinfulness has been largely dis-

SAVED BY GRACE. 229

cussed. It has been taken for granted that men were sinful.
Are they ? It has been said that they were universally sin-
ful. Are they ? It has been said that they were depraved
totally. Are they ? These are fair questions, and they are
questions that are very largely debated. Some men (and
they are esteemed the most orthodox) hold that men are pol-
luted, thoroughly undone, sinful in every part and particu-
lar of their nature. Others speak of the dignity of human
nature, and of the beauty of the hearts of men before God.
They surround the intelligence and moral sense of man with
all majestic phrases. I belong to the first class ; I believe
that all mankind are sinful ; and yet, I cannot accept the
old terminology, and say that men are " totally depraved." I
cannot say, speaking philosophically, that men are polluted.
In the mood of profound contrition and grief, using the
language of feeling, which is always a language of extrava-
gance and of poetry, I can say that I am vile ; but I cannot
follow that out in the language of philosojihy, and say "I am
vile." In the language of emotion, I can say, " We are pollu-
ted " ; but when I come to the exact philosophical statement
of facts I cannot say that I think all men are polluted, I
cannot use that terminology. The language of emotion is
not the language of fact, nor the language of philosophy.
It is something larger and different. In its place it is useful,
and when first used and fresh used, like all symbolism, it is
good ; but the moment it becomes common by repetition it is
false.

If, when I am overwhelmed by an ideal sense of the
grandeur of God and nature, I call myself a worm of the
dust, it is true, and I do not half express what I feel ; bat if
I come in here and say to you, literally, "You are worms of
the dust," is that justified by fact ? is it justified by wisdom ?
The incongruity is such that men, though they do not want
to give up the old canons and doctrines of the church, hold
on to their orthodoxy as it were with their left hand, but go
on preaching as things seem to them, almost never using
what they have professed to believe, unless it be in Presbytery
or Convention where some man's character is involved, and
where all their orthodoxy comes out. Ordinarily, and for the

230 SAVED BY GRACE.

most part, they teach according to the facts of life, and ac-
cording to the practical developments of truth as they see
them. And that is what they ought to do.

Now, is no liberty to be permitted to a man by which his
orthodoxy and common preaching shall run together, one
helpmg the other ? One school has held that mankind were
brought into this world through a federal head, Adam, and
that all men fell in Adam ; and if that is propounded as a
literal historical fact, then the inferences to be deduced from
it are many : First, that we inherit a corrupt nature — a
nature that from birth and from inherent necessity goes
wrong. If that be so, then we are obliged to hold that
the supreme Governor of the universe created a pair, and
put them in the Garden of Eden, where, without any ex-
perience whatever as to right and wrong, they sinned by
taking what their senses wanted — fruit — against the Com-
mandment ; that for thus sinning, without knowledge, and
in obedience to their impetuous desire, their whole posterity
was cursed ; and that this God of love and wisdom has been
pouring out that posterity, myriads upon myriads, the stream
forever and ever spreading, and widening, and deepening ;
and that not only have these been inheriting penalty on ac-
count of the sin of their first parents, with which they had
nothing whatever to do, but that after this life they are to
inherit a nature which they could not rectify, and with which
they had nothing to do ; and that, suffering by reason of
a corruption which they did not bring upon themselves, and
which they had no power to correct, they were to be eter-
nally lost in the world to come.

This scheme of the sinfulness of man, to have been held
in ages before light dawned ; to have been held because some-
thing had to be framed as a philosophical explanation ; to
have been held before men's rights were known, and before
society was organized on any thing like a high and noble ba-
sis ; to have been held when men were cramped and confined,
and when manners and customs were such that men did not
feel the acerbity and awfulness of such ascriptions, is not a
matter of surprise. I do not wonder that it was held in the
early ages ; and those ages are not to be derided ; that

SAVED BY GRACE. 231

scheme is not to be covered with obloquy, for it was a scheme
of men in the childhood of reason ; but in our day to preach
such a scheme is to blaspheme the name of the Highest.
To tell me that I am to love a being who damns myriads of
men beyond all computation because they inherit a corrupt
nature, which they had nothing to do with corrupting, from
their first parents in the famous Garden of Eden — to tell me
that, is an infinite violation of every conception which we
have of rectitude of character, and rectitude of government.

But we have been educated in the spirit of the Gospel.
Our ideas have been enlarged as to what a man should be,
as to what a magistrate should be, and as to what a father
should be. We have not gone toward barbarism : we have
gone toward Christianity ; and we are going toward Chris-
tianity. Every virtue becomes more radiant as the world
advances, every trait of manliness and nobility becomes
more resplendent ; and we demand more of the individual,
of the magistrate, and of the parent.

Now, taking the dignity and spirit of Christianity, we
have a right to demand that the supremacy of the universe
should center in a being who is not inferior to what we see
developed in the household or in the state — in a being that
is transcendently superior to any that earth has produced ;
and that that superiority shall consist, not in brute power,
not in arbitrary will, not in the feeling, "I can, and there-
fore I may ; " but in this : " I am the Lord God, slow to an-
ger, gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness, forgiving
iniquity and transgression and sin ; and" [best of all, as
showing that this is done, not from moral laxity, but as a
part of that great scheme by which men are brought up
from animalism,] I will by no means clear the guilty." In
other words, "Pain and penalty for the violated law under
all providences shall pursue men in the grand scheme that
I am supervising, by which all men shall lire, and grow,
and expand."

I can worship a God who has excellences that make my
father and mother dear, and that make me love moral heroes
or moral heroism ; but to clothe a God with those traits
which in human histories have been the attributes of Neros

232 SAVED BY GRACE.

and Caligulas, and which we detest in human righteous gov-
ernments, is the broad road to infidelity. It is tempting
every man, by the best part of his own nature, to revolt from
what is called truth, if he does not know that it is not true.
So he is often thrown away by his best instincts from
the church ; and he thinks he is infidel, whereas he is a
better Christian in the thought of God than many that are
Christian teachers.

"■ But, on the other hand, if you set aside any historical
origin of this kind of man's sinfulness, what have you to
propose in its stead ?" I do not propose anything except
simply what I see. " And what do you see ?" What has the
world seen ? I think, whatever may be men's theories or
philosophies, the facts of history will state with louder and
clearer emphasis from this time on, that the human race
came upon the globe at an extremely low point. Men were
created, I will say (not following the mere imaginations or
theories of scientific men) at the very minimum point of
humanity — as near to zero as it is possible for human beings to
live. Historically, the unfolding of men has been very grad-
ual ; and, beginning with very little knowledge, and with still
less function, they have come up in the knowledge, for in-
stance, of agriculture, of the mechanic arts, of legislation, of
manufacturing industries, of commerce, of civil polity, of the
organization of men into states, and of war. There has been
a steady growth from a low seminal point up to the present
condition of humanity, the world over ; and instead of men
giving evidence of having fallen from a very high state of
perfection, they give evidence, of the most unquestionable
character, that they came from the slenderest point. So that
when we look at tiie facts, they are these : that man appears
to have been created at the bottom ; that the divine scheme
has been to take men at their germinant point, at the alphabet
of their faculties, and, little by little, spell out civilization
by gradual instruction, till the present day ; this brings them
into the analogy of the development of the whole universe, as
science is revealing it to us now.

But look at the actual condition of the race to-day.
How are men brought into life ? There will be, before the

SAVED BY GRACE. 233

sun goes down, a thousand children born in Africa, that were
not born when you came here this morning. How are they
born? With "original righteousness," as the theologians
call it ? Those black bushmen's children, those wild African
children, those children of northern Africans under Moham-
medan influences ; those thousand children born into life
to-day — were they stopped and asked how they would like to
be born ? Was a choice given them ? No ; they were pushed
into life without consciousness, without faculty, with notliing
but germs. They are what buds are to-day on trees that
look forward to next summer, wrapped up tight. And how
endowed ? Bringing in with them the accumulated tendencies
and traits of their parents. Are they to blame ? When they
first begin to grow they are as animals. Their first function
is eating, drinking, sleeping — nothing more. As they grow a
little, combativeness, self-defense, and such lower tendencies
come in. They are born into the depths of darkness, never
hearing the sound of the church bell or the organ's tone,
never having the advantage of orthodox teaching, never lis-
tening to the preacher's voice, living in the bush or wilder-
ness, or wherever they are, being like the lion's cubs —
whelped ! Such is their condition.

Now, did these children fall from original righteousness ?
How were they created ? They were created, as I suppose
their ancestors were, simply a bundle of capacities, depending
for their development upon the institutions which they
should come under, upon the men they should meet, and upon
the knowledge which they should obtain. That is the real
fact, I may say, in respect to nine out of every ten, yes,
ninety-nine out of every hundred, of the people on the globe
to-day ; and when you come, not to look at what theologians
say, not to look at the ingenious construction of texts, but
to open your eyes and look on the world as God made it, and
as it lies right before you, how do men enter upon this life ?
Do they come in nobles, heroes, saints ? Are they sprung
from the divine mint shining like silver dollars from the die,
aud bearing the image and superscription of God, re?idy for
universal circulation ? Do not individual men come into
life, in the vast majority of cases, at an extremely low point ?

234 SAVED BY GRACE.

and when you look back to the beginning, do joii not see
that the races have risen up by development from that low
point ? The whole creation beholds men born into life at a
low stage, and subject to growth, development, education,
unfolding.

It is on this ground that I say men are sinful — that is to
say, as I use the term ''sinful." It is a term often used in a
sense so vague and general that it will not bear to be meas-
ured with any literalness ; but I hold that men are born into
life without what is called "original righteousness." This is
defined in the Catechism as one of the signs and tokens of
depravity. If you say that it is one of the signs and con-
comitants of inferiority, I agree with you. That is so ; men
are born not only without original righteousness, but without
anything. When born they cannot sing ; they cannot talk ;
they cannot walk ; they cannot work ; they cannot think ;
they cannot feel. They are at zero when they are born.
They can cry ; they can suck ; they can sleep, and that is the
sum total of their functions. When, therefore, the Cate-
chism says that men were born without righteousness, it
makes that a specific which should be' a generic. They were
born^ by the divine decree, at the bottom ; and it was the
divine purpose that they should unfold and come up. Early
writers on this subject were after the truth; in part they
apprehended it, but they did not know how to state it. It is
true that in the divine wisdom it was thought better that the
race should start at the bottom and come up by unfolding.
We know that was the decree, because that has been
the universal fact. When, therefore, men are said to be im-
perfect, all creation rises and says, ''Yes." Call for the
Yote of high and low, bond and free, black and white, the
world around, and there would not be an unlifted hand, if
tlie question be. Are not men born with infirmity ? — that is,
without strength, weak, at the bottom ?

Come with me. I will dismiss for the moment that mass
of outlying humanity, with no literature, no institutions, the
denizens of the wilderness ; I will leave them out, as perhaps
overcharging the picture ; I will take men as they exist in
civilized or semi-civilized society. Are those men who exist

SAVED BY GRACE. 335

on the higher planes of life living, in fact, according to the
physical laws of their condition ? It may be said t)iat men
do not know their own structure, that they are ignorant of
the organs of their body, and of the functions of these or-
gans ; and that is true ; but however you may limit or define
it, the question is this : Are not men, as they come up, even
regarding them from a physical standpoint, continually vio-
lating tlie conditions implied in their creation ? In their best
development, in their highest conduct, do they not fall short of
even the physical law represented in them and in their sur-
roundings? There can be no doubt about that. By ignor-
ance children would stumble on every hand if it were not for
the righteousness of the parents — that is, if it were not for
their forethought and caution. It is by reason of the parent's
intervention that the child escapes sickness and death, and
grows to manhood. And in manhood, taking men as they
live in society, w^hen you look at their food, and sleep, and
various dissipations and exertions, how few there are that live
according to the j)hysical law of obedience ?

Try them by the social standard. How many men can
say, '^ I am perfect," even according to the requirements of
social life, which are comparatively low ? How many men
feel that they give all that is demanded of them by society ?
How many feel that they refrain from all that society has a
right to expect that they will refrain from ? In exalted
hours, when they can measure manhood by a higher standard
than that of the animal, how many men feel that they have
been as good fathers and husbands and brothers and neigh-
bors as they say they have been, when ministers talk to them ?
— for what men say when they are arguing is one thing, and
what men think in their better moments is another thing.

Take the standard of citizenship, measuring by what the
state requires, and there is no man who feels that he comes
up to it. The more a man he is, the more he feels that that
standard is so high that he cannot reach it with all his striv-
ing and unfolding. Even as a citizen he is conscious that he
is filled with mistakes, with ignorances, with inaptitudes, and
with all manner of non-observances.

Now, if you introduce a higher standard, and measure a

236 SAVED BY GRACE.

man, not by his physical structure, nor by his social relations,
nor by his relations as a citizen to government and law, but
by the divine ideal of perfect rectitude as represented in God,
let any man ask himself, in a moment of rationality, " Do I
live according to this standard ?" and he will perceive that
he fails utterly to reach it. It is when men measure them-
selves in this way, looking upward, that they feel inclined
to lay their hand on their mouth, and their mouth in the
dust, and say, " Unclean ! unclean !"

How much of this depends upon their condition for which
they are not responsible, is one question ; but I shall not dis-
cuss it, because, although every man feels that a great deal
depends upon knowledge, custom, circumstances and various
influences about him, in consideration of which a large de-
duction should be made, yet, after all, every man knows that
"where his personality comes in he has fallen short of his
knowledge, and moral sense, and purpose, and jjossibility.

I look at the oak that has been growing in old Virginia in
the balmy temperate zone — the best zone on the globe — and
see what a magnificent creature that tree is, which sj^reads
itself abroad as if it would touch the east and the west, which
stands triumphant over winter, which has withstood a hun-
dred thousand storms, which has been the benefactor of un-
counted herds that found shelter beneath it, and which has
been the home and temple of myriads of birds that have sat
in its branches and sung there ; looking at it, I wonder
not that the old Druids thought God lived in such places.
But I go north till I come to the borders of the frigid zone,
and there I find another tree of precisely the same species. I
could take my cloak and cover it up. It is a hundred years
old ; but it is dwarfed, and scraggy, and undeveloped. Yet,
small pigmy oak as it is, it is own brother to that vast tree of
the temperate zone. Now, hear it tell its story : " I, too,
would have grown ; but the winter has pinched my roots ;
storms have abused my branches ; I have seen every year but
about four or six weeks of sunshine, pale and poor ; and it is
not my fault that I have grown so little." No, poor thing !
it is not jour fault ; but it is your fact. There you are, and
you are not any bigger than you are. You may say that there

SAVED BY GRACE. 237

is this, that or the other reason for your not being larger,
but there you are!

Now, I say in respect to men : They may give a thousand
reasons for their dwarfed condition, for their low moral state,
for their lack of civilization, for their lack of refinement ;
nevertheless, there they are ; and though the punitive sen-
tence of violated law may not be issued against them, the
fact remains that they are not any bigger than they are, and
that they are small and undeveloped. Is not that fact in its
own inlierent nature enough ?

\Yhen, therefore (for now I pass to the next point), sal-
vation is ofEercd to the human race, what is Salvation, that it
can be offered to such creatures as these ? We dispose of
that very summarily in our pojoular theology. Salvation ?
That is plain enough : You do not go to hell, and you do go
to heaven — as if there were two places. Such four-square
physical notions as these have very largely prevailed with
regard to salvation.

As respects a sentient being, a thinking being, a being
endowed with infinite expansibility, a being such as man is,
what must salvation be ? Does it consist simply in the fact
that he is not hereafter to be a creature of exquisite pain,
and is to be a creature of exquisite joy ? That may be true,
but does it at all adequately describe or hint at the essence of
salvation ?

I set out as a missionary, and go north, among the Kam-
schatkans, and win to ray confidence a young fellow, bright
and apprehensive ; and I talk to him, and draw a contrast,
as near as I can, between what he has been used to and what
I have been used to. As his intelligence lies largely in his
sensuous nature, I try to contrast his underground, filthy
hole which he calls a house, with that which we call a
house. I talk to him about room upon room all above
ground ; and he shivers at the idea of having a house above
ground, judging from his Kamschatkan experience that we
must be very cold ; but I tell him of the artificial summer
that we create down cellar, by which we warm the rooms. I
tell him, likewise, of sofas, and chairs, and tables, and jiict-
ures, and carpets; but what conception can he form of these

238 SAVED BY GRACE.

things who has seen nothing but that filthy, fish-stinking
hole in which he lives ? How can I frame m his mind a
conception of that which is so sujDerior to anything that ever
came within his observation ?

At last, when he has some glimmering conception of that,
I say, "But this is the mere exterior: I am going to take
you to civilization and refinement." So I try to describe to
him commerce and manufacturing industry ; I try to describe
to him civil polity ; but how little does he know about these
things ! What can he measure them by except the limited
experience of a Kamschatkan ? I say to him, in sliort,
"Well, now, what are the worst things that you can think
of?" " Oh !" he says, " the worst things that I can think
of are being almost frozen and almost starved." " Well," I
say, ''when you come with me, you will never know cold
again, and you will never know hunger again." His face
brightens, and he says, '' Oh ! I should like to go to that
place." But what idea does he form of the beauty of
civilization from his thought that he is not going to be hun-
gry nor cold any more ? — for that is about all that he can
understand. Beginning at that standpoint, how can I make
intelligible to him an inventory of things which go to make
up vigor of body, accomplishment of hand and foot, manly
exercise, deftness and skill — all the things that make one a
man among men ; the amenities of social life ; taste and
affection ; taking and giving ; all that which kindles the
imagination in the great invisible realm ; all that which links
a man to the ambitions and attainments of life ; all that
which pertains to the great historical relations of the race ;
all that which dignifies society and life ; all the sweetness of
motherhood ; all the grandeur of patriotism ; all those illus-
trious elements which make literature rich and glowing, and
which no man can enumerate or paint ? All these belong to
civilized life ; and what can the Kamschatkan know of them
when I say to him, "You are going to be saved from your
present condition, and are going to inherit all these things" ?
He is going to be saved from himself ; he is going to be saved
from stupidity, from inertness, from blank, arid ignorance ;
he is going to be saved from vulgarity ; he is going to be

SAVED BT GRACE. 039

saved from all that allies him to the brute beast ; he is a
bone-gnawing animal now, and he is going to be a man ; bat
you cannot measure to him the distance between himself and
the average man of civilization ; nor can you interpret to him
by any possibility what it is to be translated from his low
state to this other and higher state, which is to be fulfilled in
him by ennobling him.

Now, when men ask me, "What is salvation?" I say,
emancipation from everything that holds men down ; from
the bondage of matter ; from the rigor of undeveloped ten-
dencies ; from all the infelicities of the lower nature which
are accompanied with inaptitudes, with dullness of head,
with unskillfulness of hand, with shallowness of heart ; from
low and degraded forms of affection ; from the vast realm cf
inferiority into which men are born.

We are born at the bottom. We come into life as noth-
ing. We have grown a little ; but what do we know of the
possible development and grandeur and glory of life ? In
every one of the faculties of our being there is the possibility
of a growth of which we can have no conception in our pres-
ent condition. For how can a man interpret that of which
he has had no experience ? I am told that I am going to
sing in heaven ; but I have about as adequate an idea of what
that will be as the Esquimaux has of the comforts and advan-
tages of civilization. I shall cry no more. That means that
all those things which make me cry shall cease. This world
is the workshop, and we are rough-hewn ; but there is to be an
enfranchisement which shall lift us out of this rude condition.
There is to be transplantation and glorious liberation. We
are to become, not companions of the animal, but sons of
God. What that means, John says, does not yet appear.
There is to be glorious development, wonderful uplifting,
transcendent glorification, all centering around that which
we do understand — the need of the heart.

God has organized our life so that all our wants center in
love, revolving about it ; and more and more through life
every noble nature is conscious that he is being attached to
that one center. God himself is infinite love, and all human
life is drawn toward him ; and all growth, all refinement, all

240 SAVED BY GRACE.

competency, all joy, are more and more centered in that
magnificent conception of an all -wise, all-j)owerful, all-
redeeming lore.

What is to be the plenitude of summer in equatorial
climes where no storms envelop the earth, where the globe
swings around in its ecliptic without jar or hindrance, where
the husk has fallen from the golden grain, where the rind
has been taken off from the pulpy fruit, and where we stand
transcendently higher than it hath entered into the heart
of man to conceive ? What is salvation ? It consists in
grandeur of mind and majesty of soul in the presence of
God.

Now, have you ever done anything to buy that or to earn
it ? I tickle my ground with the hoe and the spade, but I
never was so vain as to suppose that I made anything grow.
Thou, 0 Husbandman of the heavens, silent, unboasting but
unwasting, thou effulgent Sun, hast brought summer through
the influence under which all things have grown. I, too,
have done a little for myself ; but if I am to rise to behold
the majesty of God I shall see that I have but touched the
earth with hoe or spade. 0 Sun of Eighteousness, it is
the healing of thy beams that must cure us.
Let us, now, go back and interpret the text:
" God, who is rich in mercy, hath raised us up together."
Oh, what depths there are in some of these simjjle phrases!
I asked, among the White Mountains, " What do you call
riches up here ?" The reply was, " A farmer who is not in
debt, and has five thousand dollars at interest, is called rich."
At Concord I asked, "^What is being rich, in this commu-
nity ?" "Well, if a man is not in debt, and has fifty to
seventy-five thousand dollars, he is considered jDassing well
off." I came down to New York and asked, " W"hat is it to
be rich here?" "Ah, it would be very difficult to tell."
"Does having ten thousand dollars make a man rich?"
"No." " Twenty thousand ? " "No." " Fifty thousand ?"
"No." "A hundred thousand ?" "No." " Two or three
hundred thousand?" "Hardly." "A million?" "Yes,
a man begins to be considered rich when he gets up to the
millions." In New York being rich is measured on the scale

SAVED BY GRACE. 241

of Astor and Stewart. There are different degrees of being
rich. And when you rise up from all inferiorities, and God
talks about being rich — God, that out of the seed-bag of the
universe threw out worlds for shining seeds, that dwells in
eternity, that is Father of all things that are, far beyond the
sweep of the mind-glass — when he says he is rich, how rich
he must be ! and when he says he is rich in mercy, oh, what
an affluence, oh, what a power, oh what a grandeur is there
in that !

" God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he
loved us, even when we were dead, hath quickened us together with
Christ, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in
heavenly places in Christ Jesus ; that in the ages to come he might
shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us,
through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved, through faith;
and that not of yourselves : It is the gift of God.''

When my mother, with prayers and up-looking of soul to
God, who loved her, looked on me, a little tottering three-
year-old, and laid her hand upon my head, and wished me
the blessing of life, what had I done to deserve it ? Not of
myself, but of her great love wherewith she loved me, she,
soon to go from life, ordained me. With a mother's touch,
more sacred than that of priest or bishop, she ordained me
to the Christian ministry. Do you suppose I had earned it ?
Do you suppose I had anything to do with it ? It came out
of the abundance of the great soul which she had. And
when God, manifest in Jesus Christ, sends forth his decree of
exaltation and elevation, to all that have faith to believe, and
sight to behold, and discernment to j^erceive the other life,
and to long for it, — to all these he gives this translation, this
grandeur of the other sphere and of coming development.
To them gave he power to become the sons of God, though
he did not give them power to know how much was involved
in the blessedness of that gift.

Friends, do not stand weighing out your own motives ; do
not stand estimating your own labors; do not say, " God will
be pleased with me to-day, I have been so obedient." Yes,
he will be pleased with you if you are obedient ; he is glad
of any appreciation of his loving nature ; but when the
melody of life is given to you — namely, death and transla-

242 SAVED BY GRACE.

tion — 3'Our own efforts will bear, oh how small a relation to
that ! The transcendency, the beauty, and the grandeur of
the rausomed soul in its flight are such that no man will
stand in heaveu, or even on the threshold of it, and see the
beginnings of the eternal inheritance, and not feel, " Oh,
such a gift as this I have done nothing to earn ; I am not
fitted for it ; it is of God ; it is because he is good, and not
because I deserve it ; it is because he gave it ; it is from his
abounding generosity."

May none of you fail to receive that gift of eternal life.
When the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to
Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads, may
you walk with them, and inherit all that heaven means, but
that is quenched in interpretation by the ignorance and self-
ishness of this world.

SAVED nV GRACE. 243

PKAYEE BEFOKE THE SERMON.

What need have we, our Father, to brins before thee our wants?
Or ever we had opened our eyes, or had conscious thought again this
morning, all was open before thee; for thou dost not slumber
nor sleep. Watchman of Israel, thiiu^ eye is ujion all thy cieatures.
Thou knowest their ui^rising and tlieir downsitting, their going out
and their coming in. Thou knowest the secret thought, the inward
impulse, all the outward circumstances. Thou only canst weigh
in just judgment, and balances of equity, all that pertains to man
here; and we do not seek to instruct thee. We draw near to thee
that we may have the inspiration of thy presence. We draw near to
thee to make known our wants, because in making them known, thy
compassion and thy goodness rise up before us, and give us a sense of
trust and faith. Thou that art supereminent above all possible weak-
ness; thou that art infinitely gracious, nourishing thine own life, and
the infinitude of life aT-ound about thee, we desire to liave our concep-
tion of thy grandeur, and of the richness of thy being, augmented
from time to time; for it is not in ourselves that we are strong,
or wise, or firm: it is in thee; and we desire to rise into such a
thought of God as shall moie than fill every capacity of our being.
So may we walk by faith. So may all thy gifts, which are of grace,
come to us as gifts of God. May we be made rich in our thought of
thy favor, and of thy love — that great love wherewith thou hast
loved us from the beginning — which thou hast manifested toward us
through Jesus Christ, in whom aie all signs and tokens which meas-
ure the utmost limit of human conception, feeling, love, and sacred-
ness.

Deliver us, we pray thee, from all ignoble views, and from all
thoughts that bring trafficking and selfish commerce into the courts
of the Lord. Give us such sentiments that we may faintly conceive
of the motives by which thou art acting, and may redeem ourselves
in the nature of our ascriptions to thee from those coarser ways by
which vulgar men act with vulgar men. Grant that we may have
such a thought of God as shall reconcile in him our highest senti-
ments and our most glowing enthusiasm of purity, and love, and self-
denial, and self-sacrifice, and generosity, and grandeur of kindness.
We beseech of thee that thou wilt humble us so that our self-conceit
may be attuTied into harmony with the truth as it is in Jesus. Wilt
thou humble us so that we may not be impetuous nor rash in zeal, so
that we may walk self-restrained and with humility before thee, and
so that we may have reverence, and the inspiration of that high and
true love which ministers all to all.

We beseech of thee, this day, O thou all-merciful God, for thy
goodness and graciousness. Draw consciously near, we pray thee,
to every one in thy presence. May thine influence pervade the
souls of thy people, and may they feel that God is within them.
May their thoughts follow thee. May their sorrows bring them
nearer to thee. May the many souls in whom night reigns feel that
indeed the star has risen. O thou that art full of gentleness, if there
be any that cannot open their eyes nor lift themselves up, nor come

244 SAVED BY GRACE.

forth from out of their prisou-house, be thou to them that Deliverer
who came to break the shackle, to open prison doors, and to bring
forth those that are bound ; and to-day, may there be many that are
bound in spirit, that are bound tight by the cords of sorrow, that are
bound up by pride, by selfishness, or by the tangled threads of life,
and that cannot extricate themselves — may there be many such that
to-day shall have deliverance from thee; for when thou dost sing thy
song, when the spring shines upon the mountains, the snows go away,
and no man can tell whither they have gone; and their places
are known only by the flowers and fruits which spi-ing up behind
them; and so, O Lord, when thou dost shine down upon the soul,
behold it is a garden, and men wonder where are those fierce winds,
and where are those biting frosts, and where are those sorrows that
beat them down, and where is their heaviness and deadness of heart;
and in the place of great grief there are shouts of laughter, as when
the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, and then our lives are
filled with joy. In many a soul thou hast made paradise where
before was purgatory.

Draw near, to-day, we beseech of thee, to all who are in peril; to
all who are in sorrow; to all who are in despondency; to ail who are
perplexed in their affairs, and are trying to trust, and do not know
how, and are as birds upon the ground cast out untimely from their
nests, looking up and wishing that they could rise, but being unable
to fly, help thou them. We beseech of thee that thou wilt deliver
them from their enemies, and from all that seek their harm.

And we pray that thou wilt grant to us all, in the affluence of thy
love, whatever we need — for what more do we want, if immortality
is ours, and if God is ours? If we have heaven before us, what can
harm us upon the earth ?

We beseech of thee, if there are those in thy present* who are dis-
couraged by their unworthiness, by their insincerity, by their
accumulated evidence of sinfulness, and who are weary of striving to
restrain unrestrainable passions, and of wandering along a way
in which they are perpetually falling below their own ideal, lift upon
them, we pray thee, such a gracious sense of Christ as that, though
they are yet in a body of death, they shall be able to thank God
through Christ for emancipation, for joy unspeakable, and for that
peace which passeth all understanding.

We pray that thou wilt grant, especially, thy blessing to those who
have come up hither to see if peradventure thou wouldst give them
answer to their prayers. How many pray for their sick! Will the
Lord be gracious to them. How many pray for their little children !
Will the Lord remember them. How many pray for loved ones that
are just starting forth upon life ! Wilt thou be merciful in answering
their prayers. Some are thinking of those who are upon the great
deep. Some are striving to follow their kindred in their wanderings
far away. Some are wondering what hath become of those that are
precious to them. O thou God of all love, thou God of all consolation,
listen to the prayers that silently go up before thee to-day. We pray
that thou wilt grant that all perplexities may be removed, and that
great luminouaness of soul may come to those who have come into

SAVED BY GRACE. 245

thy presence clouded and dark. Thou that art Light, shine forth.
Thou that art Power, give strength to those that are weak and ready
to fall. Thou that art Love, give grace aud forgiveness to all that
stand, trembling before thee. Reach forth those arms of infinite
power, and wisdom, and love, and encircle us all, that we may feel
lifted up by the nearness and might of God — that we may not feel
that we are of the clod. May we feel that we are separated from our
lower life in which we began, and that now we are created anew in
Christ Jesus to higher aspirations, to better endeavors, to truer
ambitions, to a nobler life; and may the Holy Spirit confirm us in all
the upliftiugs and flyings of our soul.

Grant thy blessing to rest upou all the efforts of this church. May
it be more useful in the days that are to come than it has been in the
days that are passed. We beseech of thee, O Lord, that thou wilt
bless all the schools that are under its care ; all its labors for the poor
and the outcast ; all its endeavors to spread abroad knowledge and
truth in the world. And we beseech of thee that thy servants who
give so much of their time, and zeal, and thought to the welfare of
their fellow-men may have fulfilled to them the blessings which they
seek to bestow upon others. May they themselves be built up while
they are laboring for the upbuilding of those around about them. So
may thy cause be blessed in our midst, and be glorified.

Spread abroad the truth, we pray thee, in all our land. Remem-
ber thy churches of every name among men. Grant that they may
live aud be filled with the Si)irit of God. May they not envy each
other nor seek to beat each other down. May they walk together in
the fellowship of love, leaving God to discern between the one and
the other. We pray that the base passions, and envies, and augers
whicli have reigned within thy churches, that the evil spirit which
hath sought to launch out upon them furious troubles and afflictions,
may be exorcised. O, thou that didst cast out the evil demon, though
in doing it the child was rent and lay wallowing on the ground and
foaming, liehold how the child again, the infant church, possessed of
evil, lies in frantic convulsion of passions, and hatreds, and rivalries;
and speak thou the word ; and grant that peace may come for
discord, and that confidence may come for suspicion and for jealousy,
and that love may come instead of repulsion and hatred. Deliver
thine own people, and bring forth a people zealous of good works,
whose power shall be in the power of manifestiug God.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt let the promises speedily ripen
to their fulfillment which respect all the world. Let the darkness
flee away ; let night be no more; and giant that at last that sun may
rise which will stand without setting a thousand years.

And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son, and Spirit.
Amen,

246 SAVED BY GRACE.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Grant unto us, our Father, the divine blessing. Enlarge our con-
ceptions of thee, of life, of ourselves, and of thy plan in life. Hum-
ble us in our sense of our own want "of attainment, of our want
oi excellence, and of our want of being. More and more may we
humble ourselves because we see ourselves as we ought to see
ourselves. And grant, we pray thee, that by faith we may rest upon
the Beloved, knowing that all that in which we are deficient shall be
made up to us by and by through the gift of God, so that his right-
eousness shall become our righteousness, so that his wisdonj shall
become our wisdom, and so that we shall be justified by him, and
sanctified by the blessedness of the eternal world. And to thy name
shall be the praise of our salvation, Father, Son, and Spirit, evermore.
Amen.

I

SOL'L-REST.

" Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest."— Matt. xi. 28.

At the time these words were spoken it is probable that
there was in the world as much confusion, revolution, over-
throw of various kinds, and suffering of every kind, as at
any one single ]ioint in history ; and nowhere could our
Saviour have planted his foot in the midst of so much
uncertainty and distress as existed in Palestine. All his
early ministry was in Galilee — Galilee of the Gentiles, it
is sometimes called, because there was such an infusion of
foreign elements in the northern part of Palestine. Through
the valley of Esdraelon was the way of commerce from Tyre
and Sidon, across to Moab and the interior lands beyond. It
was desolated incessantly by incursions, because it was the
richest portion of the land. It was the battle-ground of
nations. Hardly any otlier point in the East has seen so
much of fighting as the northern part of Palestine. It
happened to be geographically so placed, it stood in such
a way amidst the nations around about it, that there
never was an invasion that Palestine did not take a portion
of it. So the detritus of the Assyrian army in the early
day, of the Roman army, of the Grecian army, of armed
hosts from every direction, left something there ; and the
population was cosmopolitan, in the worst sense of the term.

Here, too, was felt the power of the oppression of gov-
ernment. The Jewish people were taxed to the uttermost,
and the extremest cruelty in the execution and collection of
the taxes was practised. All arts were blighted, all indus-

8tmj>AT Morning, Nor. 22, 1874. Lksson : Matt. xl. Htuns iPlrmoath OoU«a<
«U>ii) • Nob. 1273. 878, 868.

S60 souL'RjuaT.

tries were scotched, and the common people suffered exceed-
ingly— so much so that the bread for to-morrow was a matter
of uncertainty to the vast majority, probably, of those who
Bwarmed the great thoroughfares of the north. We may
infer that from the fact of the petition being put into the
Lord's prayer, ** Give us this day our daily bread." The
nation must have been reduced very low when, in such a
frugal prayer as the Lord's, the almost universal cry should
be " Bread!" as it was.

So, then, as he stood and looked around upon the multi-
tudes that followed him, and that would follow him by the
week for the sake of getting the miracle of the loaves and
fishes, or in the hope of gaining something, liealing or what
not, he never saw a more distressed crowd ; and it was not
strange that they thronged about him on account of these
temporal benefits. It is not strange, either, that he was
obliged to say incessantly to them, while healing the sick,
while curing the blind, while raising the dead, while in a
thousand ways exercising charity toward the feeble and the
sick — it is not strange that under such circumstances he was
incessantly obliged to say to them, ' * A man's life does not
consist of lower things ; it is not the bread that you eat with
the mouth : it is the bread that cometh down from above —
this is that which you need. It is not enough for you to be
happy in your common social relations. You are more than
the beasts that perish : you are the sons of God. You have
something ^at cannot be fed with these lower elements.
There is that in you which cannot be satisfied by secular
things. There is a manhood-hunger whose wants can only
be supplied by the divine Spirit itself."

" He came unto his owb, and his own received him not. But as
many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sous of
God."

He developed in them a consciousness of a new aaid higher
life ; and that higher life was fed by direct communion
with God, and by the indwelling of the divine Spirit. So
when our Master stands in the midst of this troubled throng,
and says, '*Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest," he goes on to show that

SOUL-BEST. 851

that rest is not to be the taking off of any actual physical
burden, not multiplying the resources of daily life alone;
but he says,

" Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and
lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke
is easy, and my burden is light."

Now, it is a truth that our enjoyments are multiplied by
the successive developments of our nature — by education and
refinement. Many think that it is a question whether or
not, on the whole, we are happier for being educated. There
can be no question that the education, that the development,
that the opening of the whole metropolis of the soul, does in-
crease the number of enjoyable avenues ; there can be no
question that the culture of any particular faculty does ren-
der it more susceptible to happiness than it was before ; but
the question is, considering the world as it is, considering aU
its vicissitudes, considering the ill-conditioned relations of
men in society, is it on the whole better for a man to have
this higher development and culture, rendering him more
susceptible to happiness, and also, just as certainly, more
susceptible to unhappiness, than he was before.

Consider what it is that makes men suffer. If you take
an uncultivated man, and place him with a roof over his
head, no matter how homely, with straw in a corner on which
he may lie down and sleep, with the coarsest bread, and a
little food of other kinds, but with none of the amenities
and refinements of life, he is perfectly contented, his food
is wholesome, and his sleep is sound. We pity him because
he is not opened up more, and because his is just the life
that pigs lead. They are housed, they have enough to eat,
they sleep soundly, but they have no aspiration, and no na-
ture that is capable of aspiring ; and we pity them. A man
has just that nature in the lower forms of human life ; and
we say pityingly, **He is content ; he is satisfied with it."

But suppose one has been a child of fortune, cultured
from the cradle, developed in all the finest tastes and re-
lationships of life ; and suppose that by and by, through
Bome mischance, he has been thrown out of the sphere to
which he had been accustomed, and going down has come

252 SOUL-REST,

to that condition in which he has only a crust, a bundle
of straw, and a mere shelter over his head ? He brings
down with him all those acute sensibilities which have been
developed in him, the memory of better days, and the capa-
city to enjoy much or to suffer acutely, and his bread is not
sweet to him, his food is not wholesome to him. Why ?
The bread is good, the food is good ; but the man has been
accustomed to derive his enjoyment from his higher faculties.
Much of his enjoyment hitherto has come through taste ; but
there is nothing in his present circumstances to feed the
taste. Much of it has come from reasoning ; but he is thrown
out of the sphere of intelligent companionship, and so out of
the capacity of reasoning. He has depended for his enjoy-
ment largely upon the refinement and amenities of society —
upon the multifarious givings and takings which go on be-
tween persons on the higher planes of life in this world ; but
now he is solitary and alone. He has enough to eat, to drink
and to keep him warm ; but he has had a development which
makes it impossible for him to be content with only these
things. He wants higher food, and not having it ho brings
to his lower condition, through the educ;;!8d susceptibilities
of his higher nature, an amount of suffe:i:;g and unhappi-
ness which would not be felt by a man I'vs less cultured
than he.

So, if you put happiness as the law of the aim of life, it is
a question whether, as the world is made, a man is happier by
being cultured ; but I hold that thougli happiness may be the
result of culture, it is not the end sought in life. Manhood,
intrinsic excellence, the soul's appreciation of absolute moral
development and spiritual growth — this is transcendently
highei' than the mere thought of happiness ; so that a man
should desire to be a larger and a nobler nature, even if that
brought more unhappiness with it, rather than to be a small,
diminutive nature. I would rather be a suffering man than
a happy flea. It is not the law of happiness by which we
are to judge of men's estate in this world. There is dig-
nity, there is a sense of honor, of nobility and of moral excel-
lence, that is far more important. There is an inspiration,
if it but comes to us, and lifts us up with a consciousnesi

SOUL-REST. 263

that we are sons of God and heirs of immortaUtj, which
gives to the soul a thrill that no mere pleasure-bearing influ-
ence can give it.

Now, in all our relations, it seems to me, we are being
made to feel the inconveniences and hindrances of life, from
a variety of reasons, which it will not be necessary for me
now to state, or discuss. It is not on the line of the reasons
of unhappiness, exactly, that I propose to develop my dis-
course, bat on this : That, begining at the lowest estate, un-
folding largely as the animal unfolds, and carrying on the
process of education, we must consider the question, How
shall men meet the embarrassments, the limitations, the acci-
dents, the calamities, the wearinesses, the unsatisfied long-
ings, the bereavements, the sharp sorrows, the sweeping
adversities of life ? Is there any way in which men can
find consolation in these things ? Can they be turned to
any profitable uses ?

As I understand it, it is precisely to this point that our
Master spoke when he said, *' Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." I do not un-
derstand, in the first place, that he means that he will take
away from men their actual burdens. If one be sick it is
profitable to say that God may heal him ; but I do not con-
sider the prayer of faith as a means promised by Christ to give
relief to men. I do not suppose that sickness will necessarily
be removed. A man may carry pain, and yet have rest. A
man may have sorrow, and yet rejoice. A man may be filled
with infirmities and yet triumph. It is this super-imposition
of noble faculties or elements upon men that gives explana-
tion to all the paradoxes of the apostle. "Rejoice when you
fall into diyers trials and temptations;" '* Rejoice in weak-
ness;" "Rejoice in infirmities;" "Cast down, but not de-
stroyed " — all those expressions, which are apparently contra-
dictory, are perfectly explained if men consider that we are, as
it were, created in strata, and that it is possible for us to be
thrown into such relations that the lower part of our nature
may be suffering, and yet that out of that suffering may rise
such stimulus and consolation in the faculties that lie above
them as shall make one, on the whole, happier by the higher

J54 SOUL-REST.

Bide of his nature, than he is unhappy by the lower side ol
his nature.

When Eoman Emperors, glutted with bestial pleasures,
and in roaring triumphs, were putting to death early Chris-
tians, or seeing them tormented by wild beasts, do you not
suppose that the dying Christian under the lion's paw, or
scorching by the torch, was happier than the Nero that stood
and gloated over his suffering ? Is it not recorded in hun-
dreds and thousands of instances that men in the most abject
circumstances of distress in this world have really reigned by
the royalty of their thought and feeling ? There is such a
thing as a man's suffering to the very quick, and yet being
conscious that he never was so happy as under his suffering.
This could not be if a man was a unit — if the whole
mind went into every experience. A man is not a unit in
that sense. In one sense, man is a unit, as a church organ
is a unit ; but it is possible for the lower part of an organ
to be out of tune, and for the upper part at the same
time to be in tune. Some parts will not speak, or will only
"speak wrongly, while other parts will speak mellifluously and
harmoniously. A man may be tormented by fear, or hunger,
or poverty ; a thousand mischances may come to his lower
nature ; and yet he may have such a conscious life in the
higher relations that he shall rejoice. Suffering is not suf-
fering any more, under such circumstances.

Much of the suffering which men have in this life is cre-
ated by them. It is artificial in this sense. For example, a
man is an enthusiastic poet or scholar. He lives in dreams
and in visions. Having inherited an estate, he is so indiffer-
ent to it that one part wastes, and another part wastes, with-
out his knowledge or care. He does not watch the progress
of decay, and part after part goes, until he finds himself shut
up in the narrowest dwelling, and with the fewest resources.
Still he goes on rejoicing and living in his higher life. At
last he comes almost to poverty, scarcely having noticed it.
You cannot torment him by calling his attention to these
facts. You may throw poverty at him, you may take wealth
away from him ; but it is not in the realm of these things
that he lives.

SOUL-REST. 266

You know that sometimes skirmishers, when they are on
dangerous ground, put up the cap of a soldier upon a pole,
to draw the enemy's fire, while they conceal themselves ; and
as the cap is riddled by bullets they lie in their safe hiding
place and laugh. They are not there, and so they escape.

So, too, when relief is promised there are various ways in
which it may come. A man may be relieved of distress by
having it taken away, or by being lifted up in spirit to a
higher level where he shall no longer be subject to the lower
range of troubles. Both things we may expect from divine
providence ; but in our personal relations to the Lord Jesus
Christ, relief comes in the main by such an elevation of
one's life that the things which tormented him, though they
are not divested of pain-bearing elements, cease to be so
painful as if he had nothing but them. If you live higher
than troubles you can rejoice when they come.

We may, therefore, look at troubles as leading us to a
higher life, and as developing in us those dispositions which
make communion with God possible — which bring the soul
into such a state that it may commune with God.

This, it seems to me, is the secret of the universe — the
problem of the ages. We are not what we seem. We are
not simply unfolded beasts ; we are animal in our nature,
but we are unfolding to that point in which we take hold
upon the possibility of communion with the everlasting God.
Personal intercourse with God ; the intersphering of our
souls by the divine soul ; the interchange of thought and
feeling and sympathy with the indwelling Holy Ghost — this
is not a figure ; it is not a metaphor : it is an absolute reality;
and it is the final end toward which all education and all
culture in men is developing ; and just in proportion as in
the variety of the experiences of life, either voluntary
or involuntary, men are by troubles lifted higher and highei
so that they come into the actual possibility of communion
with God, in that proportion is fulfilled tbe declaration of the
Master, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy la-
den, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and
learn of me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart ; and ye shall
find rest unto your souls. " It is the rest of the spirit, it ia

256 SOUL-REST.

the rest of the nobler, divine man, that we are seeking to de-
velop in ourselves, and that is promised to us.

First, these words are addressed to all those who are, or
have been, or are likely to be, continually afflicted by sickness
and suffering. To those who have a good constitution, who
have good digestion, who sleep well, and who have vigor and
power, there is apt to be very slender sympathy for those who
all their life-long are sick with bodily sickness. It is some-
times hard to bear the lack of courage, the constant mur-
murings, tlie daily complaints of those who are sick ; it is
hard to bear the helplessness, the multiplying wants, and the
unreasonableness of sickness ; but do you know that one per-
son out of every five on the globe is always sick ? Do you
know that for every three or four golden threads there is one
iron thread that runs through the whole fabric of life ? Do
you know that we move together, a great company, and that
the light which shines upon us is shaded by portentous dark-
ness? And in looking upon men who are sick our hearts
should go out toward them in love and in sympathy. It is
not.enougli for us to say, " 0 well, somebody will take care
of them." Some great heart must brood over the sick, and
sympathize with them. No one can catalogue all the various
forms in which the imagination torments them by a sense of
their uselessness. No one can enumerate the ways in which
they are tormented by the wounding of iheir pride, by the
blighting of their aspirations, and by the restraining of their
ambitions. The great realm of sickness is so populous in our
midst that if you do not gauge it, and take statistics, you
have no conception of the amount of suffering that is under-
gone by those that are sick, or by those that are feeble, and
so are obliged to act as though they were sick, most of their
time. 0, that there could be such a thing as a light from
Christ dawning upon them ! There is. He himself took
our sicknesses. He declared that he carried them. It is one
of the precious declarations of Scripture that the nature of
God is such that he has thought, and sympathy, and provi-
dential care, and spiritual inspection and mercy for those
who are heavy laden by reason of sickness. So, every person
who is invalided, every person who is pushed out of the ranka

SOUL-REST. 257

of able-bodied men, every person who is carried along the
way of sickness, has a right to feel that Jesus Christ waa
manifested in this world as one who had compassion upon the
sick. Did he not have compassion upon them ? Where was
there more tenderness, where was there more exquisite mercy,
than our Saviour showed to the sick ? And how enthusiastic
they were where he came ! The whole community was con-
vulsed. Those that had sick brought them out, a whole
village or town at once, and broke into earnest importunity ;
so that he became an all-healing Saviour.

And to-day, what house is there without its shadow ?
The little child is no more ; the old matron is trembling in
her last days; the son afar off has been cast down and
crushed ; the ship sank, and the mother's hope is destroyed ;
and if its sad voices could be drawn out, the whole world
would chant a requiem ; for there is not an hour or a
moment in which sickness, and suffering, and death, and
anguish are not abroad.

I bring to those who are sick, those who fear sickness,
those who behold the sick around about them, and who min-
ister to them — I bring to all these Jesus Christ, who says to
the sick, " Come unto me and I will give you rest. I am the
Saviour of those that are sick. Lift up your thought.
Abandon the light that is of the body. Learn to look to me.
Direct your thoughts forward to that future, to that realm of
everlasting glory, where there is no sickness, no contagion,
no miasma, no pain, no suffering, forever more."

There are those who are oppressed by reason of poverty.
The curse of their poverty is sordidness and selfishness. It
is certainly hard to be without the comforts of life ; but men
can get along without them, provided they have moral nature
enough. Our boys who were brought up tenderly and in
luxury at the North went into the war, and were inspired
with the esprit de corps of the army, and with the highest
feeling of enthusiastic patriotism ; and they found it no great
task to lie on the ground, and to eat hard tack and whatever
else they could get hold of. It would have been considered a
most unmanly thing to have complained. It would have
driven a man out of the ranks. A man may be reduced verj

258 SOUL-REST.

low; he may see his comforts diminish until they become
very scanty, and not be made unhappy, if he only has man-
hood in a high degree. But it is not so easy to see those
whom you love suffer in poverty. The children of the rich
can be sent to Florida, if their health requires it ; but if you
have not the wherewith even to warm your room in the
short winter days and the long winter nights, if, with the
slender means which you have you can scarcely give the
coarsest viands to the child that is the joy of your life,
though her face is pale, and she is wasting away, and you
know that if she could spend one winter in a warmer climate
she could be saved, you cannot send her. Death is coming,
step by step, and in the accumulated suffering of love, the
parent says, "It is poverty that is killing me by killing her."
It is not where the shoes wear out, it is not where the coat is
threadbare, that poverty is unbearable : it is where it gashes
pride ; it is where it pinches love ; it is where it staiTes the
soul ; it is where we look out and see other children coming
up to honor and power by education, while we cannot send
our children to school, while we cannot clothe them for
school ; where for want of means we cannot do for our
children that which we would — that is the place where the
hardship of poverty comes in. Nor do I know of any way in
which men can sustain themselves under the ten thousand
trials which come upon them in life through poverty except
by living in the higher realm of reliance upon divine sympa-
thy and strength. If in the midst of poverty one can trust
in God, saying, **I am his child ; he knows my want; this
trouble of mine is not a mere accident ; it was sent of God ;
and I will stand here as a sentinel because he wants some one
to bear poverty and at the same time exhibit the royalty of
the divine nature ; because he wants me to show what Chris-
tianity ought to be" — if one can do that, his example is the
best education that the child can have. If the children see
that the mother is trusting, and silent, and hopeful of the
light that is to come ; and if she says, " 0 my children, few
flowers we have here ; yet take heart, for in the garden of
the Lord sweet flowers will bloom forever;" and if they see
the father true, manly, noble in suffering from poverty, not

SOUL-REST. 259

envioas, not jealous, not complaining, but trusting God, and
singing in the night, then they have in the vision of moral
power which is presented to them an education that no acad-
emy and no university can give.

Now, if poverty tends to make you more animal, you are
of all men most miserable ; but if you will hear your Master,
he will stand on the verge of your distress, and say, ** Come
unto me. Lift up your head. Carry your thoughts to God.
Live in him, and he will draw your spirit up into such rela-
tions with him and into such an atmosphere that, while your
roots may be covered with dirt, your topmost branches shall
be bright with blossoms, reaching toward heaven."

There is a great deal of nameless suffering in the world ;
there is in the world a great deal of heart-hunger which is
hard to explain ; but certain it is that in the allotments
among men there are souls that are endowed royally, but
that have no legitimate objects on which to expend them-
selves. This is one of the strangest things in life. I see,
everywhere I go, women that have received the highest de-
velopment that education can give them, standing in the
family, not called to be teachers, not called to be wives ;
in the providence of God having no especial function'. They
have treasures of learning and literature ; they have re-
finements that fit them for great-souledness ; but in life
they have nothing to do. They are very often environed by
such social influences as to prevent their devoting their
talents to objects of usefulness. The proud father and the
urgent mother compel them to refuse such and such openings
because they think them demeaning and unworthy. So,
hindered by parental influence or social circumstances, there
are persons who go with great sealed fountain hearts through
life capable of immense development — hearts that are as the
very heavens above, full of dews, full of rains, full of sun-
shine— and yet a desert underneath like Sahara.

But to me the saddest thing in this world is not to see a
man beaten out of his fortune and cast through various de-
grees of suffering down, down, down. Why, I know those
who have gone from the utmost affluence to the very bottom
of want almost, but who are nobler and more lovable to-day

260 SOUL-REST.

than they were ia their amplitude. I will tell you the sad-
dest thing I have seen (I am speaking from life : though
none of you know whom I mean). I knew one who was made
to be a royal woman ; who married herself to a man that de-
veloped as the pig develops, and that became obese, gross,
gluttonous, hoggish. She, aflBanced to him, naturally deli-
cate, refined, clinging insensibly to him, though virtuous,
and in many respects admirable, yet, as I could see, under-
went the process of deterioration. The taste was lowered ;
the thoughts were brought down ; things were no longer
vulgar which once were absolutely repulsive to her. She
leaned against him till at last the odor of the sty was
on her.

Now, to see a great-hearted nature go down in that way
is the saddest thing in this world — not vice, not crime, but
simple deterioration, lowering, lowering, lowering. Oh for a
divine inspiration, oh for an angelic touch, oh for some
misery that could wake persons out of such a dream of peace
and contentment and make them unhappy, so as that unhap-
piness might make them lift themselves up higher !

How many men, how many women, there are who are
conscious that they have never expended the best part of
their nature because circumstances have not permitted it !

I recollect a man, most chivalric, noble, generous, like a
prince, who married a selfish, petted woman ; and he was one
whose wife was to him very much what a wasp is in a man's
hat. She buzzed and stung him. Hers was pretty much all
the companionship he had. He shut himself up from the
outside world. To develop largeness and susceptibility under
such circumstances is to lay one's self open to a perpetual
irruption of torments ; and so he circumscribed himself till
he was as dry as a hickory post cut twenty years ago, with no
dormant buds, no blossoming flowers, perpetually shielding
and holding in retrenchment the better powers of the soul,
until at last in their place vas absolute hardness and dryness.
Oh what waste ! Oh what distress ! But now he is dead.
I mean that he is buried now : he was dead a great while
ago. I thank God that he is dead. We are shocked to hear
that some persons are dead ; but I wish that all such persons

SOUL-REST. 261

as these would die. The greatest mercj that you can wish
such persons is that they were dead.

These strange phases of life are described a gi'eat deal
more often in novels than in preaching ; because you know
preaching must be dignified, and orthodox, and there are
nice things about it which stand in the way of such dis-
closures. But what is preaching but medical practice ? What
is preaching but bringing the doctor to men, as they are ?
The church is a hospital. Ministers are practicing physicians;
and if there be an ulcer, an ulcer I must call it, and I must
treat it accordingly. How seldom are men's ^^earnings and
hungers and heart- longings brought out in the light of divine
truth in the pulpit ; and yet how they exist in life ! How
many persons are suffering perpetual famine I How many
have bread enough who from heart-hunger are dying I How
many persons there are in the lowest walks of life who have
all the aspirations and tasteful elements that fit them for the
higher sphere, but who cannot go up. How many are ill-
matched or ill-assorted, who are hampered in life and are
unable to rise, though they are conscious of possessing su-
perior qualities I How many persons, by reason of their
peculiar circumstances, have to suppress some of the strongest
and noblest tendencies of their being !

Do you suppose a mother could see her daughter badly
married, and could hear of her suffering from week to week,
and not experience pain in her behalf ? And is the mothei
any better than God ? Does not he care for people that
suffer ? He does. He cares for everything that torments
your life. There is nothing that concerns your welfare which
is not a matter of interest to him.

Then, 0 ye heart-sick ones ; 0 ye that are afficted with
famine of soul, ye have a God, ye have a Jesus, that has
suffered as you suffer, that has been tried in all points as you
are, without sin, that he might be a merciful High Priest
to you.

Who shall speak of all the suffering that goes on in life
under the forms of bereavement? Who shall speak of do-
mestic sufferings that can neither be thrown off nor borne ?
*The best things in this life, of course, are the unwiitable

262 SOUL-REST.

things. The coarser things are the most easily expressed^
We can go on and describe battles, and kingdoms, and com-
merce, and science ; but that subtle life, that wonderful play
of experience, which springs from the finest sides of human
nature in their very finest relations — who can tell what that
is ? Who can describe it ? Nobody can ; but it goes on.

Persons are suffering in a way that only God can under-
stand, from the loss of friends, or from domestic troubles
that are worse than death. I go to them as a minister, and
sit down, and say, " I hope you are sustained under your
afi&iction." Well, that is a very good thing to say; but what
does it amount to ? I say to them, '' You ought to be
patient." That, too, is a good thing to say; but how far
does it go ? You cannot get near the real center trouble.
The things which most torment many persons are things
which they themselves cannot express in language. They
are not such things as can be framed into ideas. There ia
soul-suffering which lies back of any analysis or any con-
sciousness. Oftentimes persons cannot tell what ails them.
They do not know what the heart-swells in them mean.
Only God knows, and he does know. Do you suppose God is
thinking about theology all the time ? He is thinking about
you. Do you suppose he is thinking about laws and govern-
ments ? Not a sparrow falls to the ground that he does not
notice it, he says. Blessed be God for such statements as
'that I The hairs of our head are all numbered. So there is
not a trouble in any soul that the eye of the Lord, sweeter
than any mother's, does not behold ; and it is not without its
meaning. If you could hear Christ speaking to you, he
would say, ** Oh, my child, I am with you in darkness, and I
am leading you. Come unto me. Learn of me. I am
meek and lowly. You shall find rest to your souls. Let
this trouble guide you into a higher life, where, the moment
your soul touches the light, you will find comfort and joy."

There is great suffering, also, of a more obvious and com-
mon kind, in the overthrow of men's ambitions. The am-
bitions of men may have in them much that is wrong and
much that is selfish ; but it is a noble th'ng for a man to be
ambitious. The impulse to develop and go higher is a very

SOUL-REST. 263

manly impulse. That contentment which leaves a man with-
out any swell or root-power or springiness is the conten-tment
of the brute and not of the Christian man. We suffer a
great deal more from the want of ambition than from the
excess of it. And the sufferings of overthrown ambition —
who can tell them ? There is no registration of these.

The cheapest things in this world are men. Here is a
man who has filled the whole community with excitement.
Everybody is talking about him. Everything is radiant. He
is OA the topmost wave of popularity. Something occurs to
dampen the public ardor concerning him. New combinations
are formed which are unfavorable to him. He gets one buffet
here and another there. He begins to go down ; and by and
by there comes a swell of political revolution, and he is thrust
out, and the newspapers ridicule him, and say that he has
had his day ; that he can go home now and stay there ; that
he will not be wanted any more. Men speak of him as hav-
ing gone to the dogs. But he is a man full of sentience and
sensibility. He had his various faults, one of which was that
he was conspicuous, and that everybody saw everything about
him ; but when he is swept out of prosperity, and thrust
aside, is he then to be an object of our ribaldry and con-
tempt ? Do you not suppose that God thinks of such a
man ?

One of the sweetest and most touching things, to me, in
the whole life of Christ was that of which I spoke last Sun-
day night — namely, the circumstance that Jesus, when the
man whose eyes were opened was kicked out of the synagogue,
went hunting him up. There w^ere all over Jerusalem thou-
sands of rich and prominent people whom the Saviour might
have consorted with ; but instead of seeking them, hearing
that this poor creature had been thrown out of the synagogue,
that he had gone away, and that noDody knew where he was,
he went in search of him. He cared more for him than for
all the prosperous men in Jerusalem. Methinks that many a
man who has been hurled out of power, and thrust into ob-
scurity, and had men gnash their teeth upon him, and explode
their jests at him, has had the heart of God nearer to him in
his disfigurement and disgrace than when he was at the height

264 SOUL-REST

of his prosperity. Some men fall far down from worldlj
honors and land close by the gate of heaven. There are
many men who were never so near themselves, and never so
manly, as when, after having been chastised and cleansed and
purified, they stand in obscurity. No poems are chanted to
them, no orations are pronounced upon them, no receptions
are given them, no honors are bestowed upon them ; but
there is a way opened between their inward life and the life
of Jesus ; and the power of the world to come overshadows
them, and they are beginning to feel their pulse thrill to
those touches that before long shall break out into the choral
rapture of the heavenly land.

A word in regard to the embarrassments and worldly
troubles which are falling thick in our time. Blessed are
they who, when chastised by the Lord, follow the hand that
has smitten them till they trace it back to the heart that
moved the stroke. To lose one's property, to be distressed in
one's business, sometimes is the best schooling that men ever
have. Many a man has learned manliness by disaster who
never learned it so well in any other way. And there ia
courage in trouble, there is patience in trouble, there is a way
to one's self in trouble, thei-e is a consideration of who are
and who are not one's friends in trouble, there is an estimate
of the world in its failures and successes in trouble, different
from what men experience in prosperity.

I have before me those that have seen both extremes.
Tell me, brethren, have you not gathered more wisdom out
of darkness than out of light ? Tell me whether the winter
did not give you more health and strength than the summer
did. Tell me whether that nide, acerb fruit which was put
to your lips in the time of your distress, after all had not in
it more medicament than the luscious fruit eaten in the time
of your great prosperity. It is a good thing to be afflicted,
provided affliction opens the higher life to a man, and draws
him away from visible things, so that he learns that his life
consists not in the things which he possesses. He walks in a
palace — not in a palace made of marble, but in the palace of
his soul. He that dwells in the midst of serene thoughts
and heavenly aspirations ; he that has contentment in hope

SOUL-REST, 265

and faith ; he that, being hated, loves ; he that, beiug smit-
ten, is like wheat that gives forth grain to him that threshes
it — he is of God, and by every wind is driven toward God.
Things chat seem the worst are often the best things in life.
Blessed bankruptcy that brings riches 1 Blessed treading
down that is as the ox that treads seed into the soil that it
may spring up and bring forth fruit a hundred-fold !

But this subject is interminable. I am circumnavigating
the whole orb of human experience. There is no end to it.
Yet there is this clue. When our Master says to men who
are weary and heavy laden, " Come to me and I will give you
rest," he strikes that one single note, that blessed chord,
which has vibrated through the ages. For, by faith in this
promise, how did the apostles themselves live, men of mighty
suffering and mighty joy I There is not so great a marvel
in human literature as the New Testament, which is a recital
of persecution, and disaster, and death, and suffering ; and
yet there is not a morbid word in it. There is not a minor
note in it. It is the most triumphant book in the world.
You may push out John from having written a Gospel ; you
may say that Matthew was not Matthew, that Luke was not
Luke, and that none of them were inspired ; but I say there
is not on the earth, and there never has been in the world, a
book so in sympathy with men's weaknesses and sufferings
and sorrows, or a book that threw such light and hope on
them all, and poured such balm and precious ointment on
every wound of human life, as the New Testament. There
is the book ; and it will live as long as the world has a groan
in it ; as long as there is a sorrow to be assuaged ; as long as
there is a weakness to be strengthened ; as long as there is an
aspiration to be developed ; as long as there is a manhood to
be unfolded. Just as long as men need to know the way to
higher attainments, just so long, not because of this or that
doctrine or theory of instruction, but on account of its essen-
tial tendencies, the New Testament will be the bread of life
and the water of life to men.

To all you that are walking in the way of the old saints,
I say, Be not surprised at the fiery trial that has come upon
you. Do not count it strange. Do you shed tears in secret

266 SOUL-REST.

places ? Millions have done so before you who now laugh in
heaven. Do you mourn in desolated households ? Blushing
are the flowers of those who planted seeds in darkness and
night. Does it seem to you that your burdens are heavier
than you. can bear? Down through the ages the voice of
Jesus and of God himself sounds out to men in dungeons,
in the wilderness, in places of torment and torture, ''Come
unto me;" and down to us, through the clear air of this
Sabbath morning, not as thunder, but as a sweet small
voice full of love and sympathy, comes the message, *' All ye
that are heavy laden, come unto me."

The heart of Christ is a haven large enough to give
anchorage to every craft that sails on the stormy sea of life.
The soul of Jesus is rich enough, and full enough of gen-
tleness and sympathy, to supply the want of the whole
created universe. Come, taste and see that he is gracious ;
and by the power of faith and love lift yourselves higher
into that nobler manhood out of which comes immort&lity.

aOUL-BEST. 367

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

Blessed be thy name, O Lord, our God, for the glowing discloa-
ures which thou hast made to us of thyself, and of the dwelling
where thou art. Blessed be thy name for all the testimonies which
have been gathering through the ages of thy servants' victories
in life over life, and of their victories over death. Around about
thee now are innumerable hosts — the spirits of just men made per-
fect; and in their midst are ours. Our children are thcte; our
parents are there; brothers and sisters, gone forth from the battle,
are crowned, and are in the joy of victory, there. There are those
who were poor upon earth, but who are rich now. There are those
that on earth were wasted by sickness and long-suflfering, but that
shall never be sick any more. There are children of grief whose
tears day and night were as the dews; but there shall never be any
more crying or pain where they are, and thou shalt wipe the tears
from every eye. There are those who were infirm in hope; and yet
now they are strengthened with everlasting strength. Those that
aould not see thee now behold thee. Those who with much doubt
and with many fears all their life long wrestled, seeking thee, are
found of thee, and are swallowed up with sweet delight in thy pres-
ence.

Grant, we pray thee, to all who are weary, to-day, such an insight
of the coming rest that their souls shall be refreshed. This is thy
place of meeting; this is thine house; this is thy day; and these are
thine own people. We beseech of thee that thou wilt look upon
those who are discouraged by the greatness of the way, and by the
infirmities, by the burdens, by the trials and by the troubles that
afflict them. Grant that they may have a sense of thy nearness, and
of the preciousness of thy thoughts toward them. How dear to us
are our own children! What a joy to us is their prosperity! How
do we sorrow over their trouble! But what are we compared to
thee? We are as sticks compared with the birds that sing upon
them. We are as stones compared with the men that walk upon
them. Thou that art perfect in the fullness of holiness and love—
with what ineffable sympathy dost thou look down upon thy chil-
dren! The bruised reed thou wilt not break. The smoking flax
thou wilt not quench. In thee we are glowing with Christian life
and brightness. Thou dost look with compassion upon all— upon
every soul that is in trouble, and upon every one that is wistful and
yearning. Thou dost look upon those that are conscious of their
want rather than of their supply; upon those that desire defense
more than they desire thee; upon those that long for thy power
more than for thy love; upon those who are yet under the impulse of
fear, and not of trust. Thou dost behold all the varying experiences
of the human soul, that is tried in a thousand ways; that is buffeted
and driven hither and thither; that is tempted by selfishness and by
avarice. Thou dost behold all conditions of men ; and as by thy sun
thou dost in the summer overbrood the whole continent, and bring
forth all things of their kind, so dost thou brood over us, and bring
forth In us fruit that is pleasing to thee.

268 SOUL-REST.

Vouchsafe, we pray thee, this morning, to listen to all those who
oome murmuring thoughts of gladness and of gratitude. We rejoice
that there are so many that are hoping. We rejoice that there are so
many who have reason to bo grateful, and are grateful. Look upon
all those whose experience is that of hope and of courage. Grant
that their fear may never take the place of their courage and their
hope. Over the sea and through the storm, by day and by night,
may they still be victorious, and be saved by faith.

We pray that thou wilt bless all the churches in this city. Wilt
thou bless the pastors of them. Wilt thou give them strength of
body and strength of mind. Enable them to preach the truth; and
grant that they may do it under the divine inspiration, so that
the truth shall be carried as a living power homo to their people.

Grant that all the churches in the great city near us may be
refreshed by thy presence; and may the living power of the truth be
felt over all this nation. We look to thee, O Lord our God, to revive
thy work everywhere.

Grant, we beseech of thee, that knowledge may prevail, and that
the spirit of intelligence and holiness may shine abroad, bearing
unnumbered blessings on every side.

We pray for the nations of the earth, that they may be bound
together. May all mankind be united more by sympathy. We pray
for the ignorant and the oppressed. Grant that the growth of men
may be such that tyrants shall be utiable to oppress them any more.
May the nations of the earth at last learn war no more. May they no
longer cultivate selfishness and organize it into law. Grant that the
fellowship of the divine Spirit may bind together all people. Make
the whole human race as one household in the Lord, their Deliverer
and their Father.

And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son and Spirit.
Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Gbant thy blessing to rest, we pray thee, our Father, on the word
spoken. Comfort the comfortless. Succor those that are imperiled.
Deliver the tempted. Encourage the desponding. Give rest to the
weary. Grant thyself, that thou mayest be all in all. Accept our
endeavor to make thee known. Pardon the imperfection of ourserv-
ices. Complete thy work of grace in us, in life, and in death; and
then bring us to thyself in the heavenly land, where we shall see thee
as thou art, and love as we are loved. And to thy name shall be tho
prmise, Father, Son and Spirit, evermore. Amen.

THE WORLD'S CxliOWTII.

" For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power."—
1 Cor. iv. 30.

This is not an accidental statement. It is a thought

which dwelt very much in the mind of the Apostle. You

will find in the second chapter and fourth Ycrse of this

Epistle the same thought :

" My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of
man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of jwwer."

In the first letter that he wrote to the churches — namely,

the 1st Thessalonians, the very first chapter, and the 5th

verse, you hear him saying,

" Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in poiver,
and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance ; as ye know what
manner of men we were among you for your sake."

It is very evident that Ly irord the Apostle meant the
whole system of teaching or of truth that was presented.
The Grecian and Thessalonian churches were founded, in the
main, in Grecian civilization ; and Grecian civilization was
then remarkable for its intellectual development to a larger
extent than it ever had been before, and in some directions
than it ever has been since. The Greeks had set forth the
great outlines of truth as respects civility, the material world
or science, and the aesthetic system of tlie globe. They were
deficient in the ethic, though not in the aesthetic ; and the
Apostle makes a marked distinction between the kingdom of
God and the kingdoms of intellectual statement, if I may
so say.

AVe are to understand, not that ho undervalued these,

THLTRsnAY (Thanksgiving Dat) Morning, Nov. 26, 1874. Lesson: Psalm.
c:xxiv. HYMN (Plymouth Collection) : No. 160.

273 THE WORLD'S GROWTH.

but that he regarded them as secondary and instrumental.
That which he regarded as of value was that which he desig-
nated as jjotver ; and as it is introduced into English, we
may as well use the very term which lie himself employs in
the Greek. It is the dynamic condition of the world in
which the kingdom of God consists ; or, if we were to state
it in a little different form, and in conformity with the
modern habits of thought, we should say that the kingdom
of God consisted not in its churches, in its books, in its the-
ology, in its instruments of any kind, but in the potential
condition of the human mind which had been brought up in
it, and influenced by it. We should say that the kiugdom
of God was to be found in 3Ian, and not in those things
which are set up to influence him. We should say that it
was the power of the human soul in certain directions that
would measure the power of God's kingdom, or ths power of
the truth, in this world.

We are not to understand, certainly, that the Apostle re-
garded teaching, or the statement of truth, as a matter of
indifference, but, rather, that he regarded the results to be
sought, and the actual gain of such results, as more im-
portant. These, in his estimation, were the test and gauge
of the growth or condition of the kingdom of God.

We have heard, but recently, in this place,* that primary
education is not mere learning : that it is the 2^010 er of learn-
ing. It is not how much a child knows, but how much
capacity he has to find out, that constitutes his education.
In other words, it is the actual measure and strength of the
thinking part of hira : not how much has been put into him^
but how much he has power in himself to excogitate.

Now, religion is not simply the flux of feeling : it is the
inward condition of moral j)ower — of moral dynamics ; and
to-day we mean to look at the world Avith reference to the
question of whether or not the present conditions and tenden-
cies and proper rational expectations are such as to be a mat-
ter auspicious and hopeful, and a reason for thanksgi-vdng.

In measuring the world I shall use the Apostle's mcas-

* Address of Hon. CjUL Schukz, in Plymouth Church, ou "Education."

THE WORLD'S GROWTH. 273

ure. I shall not look at its condition lu regard to the
statistics of its instruments, but in regard to what those in-
struments have done. I shall ask what has been stored up
in the human mind, or in its actual condition. It certainly
is useful to know how many churches have been built, how
many ministers have been settled, how many missionaries
have gone forth, how many converts have been added to the
church, how many Bibles have been printed and distributed,
how many tracts have been sent out as winged messengers ;
all these elements are seeds, or instruments, one or the
other ; but could any man tell the condition of the agricult-
ure of America by going into an agricultural warehouse, and
getting an estimate of how many plows and harrows were
made during a year, and sent out ? Could a man go to
Thorburn or Bliss and get an idea of horticulture by ascer-
taining how many seeds and bulbs and roots are distributed
through the land annually ? You would gain some knowl-
edge of agriculture and horticulture in those ways ; but you
must actually estimate by an inspection of farms and gar-
dens, and you must go to the seed-store and the market and
ascertain how much has been produced per acre, and what
its quality is, as well, before you can understand much about
it. And that is not all : the self-producing power of the
soil, and the intelligence and skill of its cultivators must go
into the estimate. You must take an actual survey of the
things themselves which seeds and tools are meant to produce.

So, in looking out upon the condition of the world, I re-
gard churches as instruments, and schools as instruments,
and books as instruments ; but the question is not altogether,
How many instruments have been created ? or, What are
their tendencies ? but this : On the whole, what has been the
product of these instruments, acting through so many years
and centuries ?

What 1? the power, to-day, among the civilized nations of
the world ? — for I shall exclude from our survey all that part
of the world which may be considered as the ungrowing part,
and take only the civilized portion of the globe — Christen-
dom simply. The question is, What is its actual condition ?

The two factors are intelligence and moral sense, or the

274 THE WORLD'S GROWTH.

moral feeling of the world. "What is the dynamic condition of
the intellect and of moral sense in Christendom ? Are they
stronger than of old? Is their action in a wider sphere? Are
they growing more comjjlcx ? Is there actually stored up in
the intelligence and in the moral sense of Christendom, to-
day, an amount of power which was never before known ?
Is it the tendency of intelligence to increase ? I scarcely
need say, that above all other periods in the history of the
world this is an age of growing intelligence. It may be said
to be an age of scientific fervor. All nations are aroused to
scientific zeal. There is a vast increase, not simj^ly of facts
known, or theories deduced, but of the power to know.
The educated tendency in America to-day to investigate and
to determine is wonderful, over that which has prevailed in
any nation, and certainly over that which has prevailed in
general Christendom, in days gone by.

Not only has this particular form of intelligence, the
power of knowing, been developed, but there is a recogni-
tion of the power of intelligence such as never belonged to
any period as it belongs to this modern period.

Among governments, it is not a great while ago that
force, and then cunning, and then both, were considered as
the main factors of government. It is only within a com-
paratively recent period that it has been recognized that there
was such a thing as a public sentiment among the people
which also must be taken into consideration by governments ;
but to-day the matter has advanced until all governments
feel that for the sake of the dynasty, for the sake of national
strength, for every sake, the people must be made intelligent.
Education has always been in repute for the governing class ;
but not until within a comparatively recent period has it
been esteemed by the governors that education was a neces-
sary qualification among the governed. It makes stronger
men for the State, stronger men for the army, stronger pro-
ducers for the treasury, and, more than all, easier men to
govern, if they are governed rightly ; and therefore dynas-
ties themselves are becoming educators. Nursing fathers
and nursing mothers, it is said kings and queens shall be-
come ; and they are becoming such.

THE WORLD'S GROWTH. 275

Among the ignorant, common people, the desire foi
knowledge is increasing as it never was before ; for it has
been one of the misfortunes of ignorance hitherto that it
has not felt its need. Even the great uneducated mass ol
men have lived long enough to see that the reason why the
few could govern the many, why a thousand men could gov-
ern five millions, was that the former were more intelligent
than the latter ; and so, this once having been brought into
the consciousness of the common jieople as a method of their
self-defense, and as a method by which they shall rise to the
full participation of their manhood, they are demanding to
be educated.

It is one of the most striking of the phenomena of to-
day, that among the rudest, and crudest, and wildest theories
for the reconstruction of civil societies, and of government,
education is a universal constituent. The ignorant masses
are saying : " We must die ignorant ; but our children shall
knoio."

Philanthropists are beginning to understand that there is
a larger function in intelligence than merely that it civilizes
or refines. They are beginning to understand that neither
fervor of spiritual emotions nor any amount of morality is
sufficient to ward off tyranny, and exalt men to happiness.
In other words, it is not possible to make men free so long
as they are weak. Just as long as you keep the masses of
men in a state of weakness, so long, in one way or another,
the machinery of religion will oppress them, money will
oppress them, political power will oppress them ; and the
only way in which men can be saved from the various forms
of intestine or external oppression is to make them of such
stature that they cannot be oppressed. Intelligence, there-
fore, in the eye of the philanthropist, is becoming emanci-
pation ; and we are learning that statutes and enactments
do not make men free. We are coming, after two thousand
years, to understand that the friifh shall make us free ; that
freedom is of the individual ; and that the only effectual
bar, or counter-agent, to the cunning forms of aristocracy
and despotism in the world, is to make men so strong that
they cannot be driven ; to make their wrists so large that

276 THE WORLD'S GROWTH.

the iron cannot be afforded to make manacles for them ;
and to make the muscles so large that no manacles can hold
them.

The actual power of the human brain has increased in
the direction of intelligence in consequence of these find-
ings out, and of this drift of the age in which we live ; and
the power of public intelligence now, upon goveruments,
upon industries, upon professions, and upon religion itself,
can scarcely be calculated. Hitherto all associated and select
forms of what we call "^ the professions " have had their life
and their functions, as it were, under their own control ; but
it is not so any longer. There is no profession whatever —
not even the most rigorous association of science — that is not
obliged to recognize the power of that great popular intelli-
gence of the community in which it dwells and acts. I may
not be able to tell you how it is ; but this I do say, that until
science so far courts popular feeling that the whole mass of
the community are willing to support it, scientific men will
be unable to get a livelihood. Science is now obliged to live
upon the bounty of the great body of common people, and
it must be supported by their good will. When kings and
nobles had the sole charge of the state, artists and art could
flourish on royal patronage ; but no school of art to-day can
flourish on mere royal patronage. The good will of the
common people is the atmosphere in which art flourishes,
and upon which art must grow.

There was a time when men had no right, being sick, to
know anything about themselves ; it was the doctor's prerog-
ative to know about them ; but to-day, father and mother are
doctors. They have trenched far along on the province that
the professional physician has beld.

The time was, when, to learn a trade, a man must belong
to a guild, and outside of that guild no man had a right to
inform himseK ; and they are attempting to bring back, in
Trades Unions the same mediaeval device, which was good as
against tyranny, but which is bad as against their own mu-
tual industries. Nowadays, it is the distinctive peculiarity
of the Yankee brain that it is able to know everything, and
to do everything. In ether words, the function of creative

THE WORLD'S GROWTH. 277

power is universally diffused by reason of the general intelli-
gence of the community.

Law is no longer in the hands of lawyers, alone. Every
business man in good standing is "his own lawyer, to a large
extent. What is peculiar is this : that while these profes-
sions have distributed their functions at the bottom they
have been gaining at the other extreme.

There never was a time when art schools or professions
were so honorable. Lawyers and doctors are more respect-
able to-day than they ever were before. They have gone up,
and are going up.

The profession of the ministry is a signal instance of the
change which has taken place. Once, a minister had the
knowledge of theology : to-day it is distributed through the
whole community. It is not what the pulpit says, altogether,
that determines any longer the conscience or the beliefs of
the community. In other words, popular intelligence has
so increased that the pulpit itself is tried at the bar of the
moral sense of the community ; wild and extravagant state-
ments are not able to live ; they die of inanition ; and every
system of theology feels itself obliged to appeal to those great
fundamental moral instincts which belong to the human race,
and not to the select profession of theology.

So we see not only that the intellectual power of the hu-
man brain in Christendom has been increased and varied, but
that it constitutes an atmosphere in which all the great or-
ganisms and interests of society are themselves standing as
before a tribunal.

Nor is the tendency in any other direction ; the tendency
is to increase in this same direction ; and the first supreme
factor in the moral elevation of the human race in its relig-
ious development — namely, intelligence working with moral
sense — unquestionably never was so strong as it is to-day.
The power, therefore, of the brain in that direction never
was so great and never was so fertile, and with such a tenden-
cy to increase in these particulars — and this is more than
everything else.

It is a good thing for me to know that I have in my bam
forty tons of hay ; but it is a great deal better thing for me

278 1"^^ WORLD'S GROWTH.

to know that I have a farm which can cut eighty tons next
year, and a hundred tons the year following. It may be a
good thing for a man to know that he is worth a hundred
thousand dollars ; but it is a far better thing for him to know
that he has an incalculable property-producing power in him-
self. That power is more than any amount that he earns.
The power to get is better than any getting ; and the power
to know is better than any special knowing ; and if it is so
in regard to the individual, how much more so must it be in
regard to an age, or in regard to Christendom ! When we
learn this condition, we can say, looking upon the population
of the globe, " The power to know has been exalted immeas-
urably."

Look, now, at the other factor of which we spoke, name-
ly, the moral sense, the dynamic condition of the moral
sense, or the moral element in the human brain. We are
liable to mistake here by looking only on the tvord, as Paul
says, and not on thejJOtoer. There are two great theological
mutations going on.

You may say as much as you please about truth having
been revealed in exact statements and proportions by a divine
revelation ; but God never said anything to show that he ever
thought so, and nobody ever should have thought so ; for
revelation is only the unfolding of human life with an au-
thoritative record of its results. From the beginning to the
end of Scripture, there are but few passages in which any
man in his senses would pretend that there was a statement
from above of things which have not been found out by living
— by the unfolding of human experience. Nine hundred and
ninety-nine truths in a thousand in the revelation of God
were revealed to man by the process of unfolding, through
human experience, and the Bible is the authoritative record
of what God has thus revealed. God can make revelation
through language ; and he can do it as much through feel-
ing. He is not restricted in what he reveals through this or
that channel. If he choose to reveal truths by the progress
and unfolding of the race, they are as much revelations as
any others.

Now, truth being revealed through human experience-^

THE WORLD'S GROWTH. 279

national truth through national unfolding, social truth
through social unfolding, and indi\ddutil truth through in-
dividual unfolding— the revelation will be in proportion to
the actual amount of development and experience, and
therefore there will be a continual unfolding of our under-
standing of revelation itself. Things may be studied in set
forms in one age, taken in their narrovvest sense, and in a
later age they may be stated in vastly more complex forms,
taken in a much broader sense. For example : Anciently,
"the knowledge of God" was a matter of prescribed forms
which few even pretended to try to understand ; but in our
day " the knowledge of God " is only another phrase for
speaking of the knowledge of the mind, and all theology is
mental philosophy ; for we cannot understand God except
as a great, an infinite, mind ; nor can we understand him as
a mind except as we understand what thought is in ourselves
and in others.

The progress of investigation as to the nature, and condi-
tions, and action of the human mind, will go far to deter-
mine our conception of the divine nature and of the divine
mind. Men sometimes say, "We understand God, and then
we take our knowledge of him and interpret it, and apply it
k> men." It is just the other way. We understand in men the
qualities of justice, and kindness, and mercy, and forgive-
ness, and patience, and long-sufEering, and then we take
these things as we have them unfolded in our experience, and
attribute them to God, and give them infinite proportions.
The process of knowledge is different from what it has been
supposed to be in this respect. So every advance which is
made in the human mind will be a disturbing force to the
old theologies. The human mind is being studied ; the
transmission of qualities from our ancestors is coming to be
better understood ; a fuller knowledge of the organs of the
physical body and their functions is being arrived at ; the
different sides of the human mind in the progress of ages are
being explored ; great developments of truth, truths of tran-
scendent power in this direction, are being disseminated • and
their tendency is to disturb.

The newspapers will be filled from end to end with the

280 THE WORLD'S GROWTH.

Austrian campaign as against Prussia, or with the Germanic
campaign as against France — and not unworthily, j^erhaps ;
they will be filled with that which addresses itself to g^ur
senses, and excites wonder and curiosity ; whereas, man in
the laboratory studies out the actual facts of human knowl-
edge. The source of intelligence in regard to the human
soul has developed truths a thousand times more important to
the world than the rise and fall of empires; and every ad-
vance in the true knowledge of man, in the knowledge of
the structure of his mind, and in the knowledge of the
emotions which it experiences, is a force that is disturbing to
old statements, and must be.

Then the revelation that is going on, the notions of gov-
ernment, must act back upon all our original statements of
moral government. As men learn what they did not earlier
know, that the individual is God's unit, that man in his
simple sole self is a creation which is a unit of measurement
through all God's domain, and that he has some values be-
sides those which he has when he is merely put into society ;
that he is something in and of himself; that governQieut is
obliged to use him to make itself strong, and to use itself to
make him strong ; and that all governments are to serve the
common people — as men come to this conception of the indi-
vidual man, of his rights, and of his relation to govern-
ment, they can not go back to the old Calviuistic notion of a
God who governs the world simply because he has the power
and the will, and who, if anybody asks, "Why do you so ?"
says, ''Hold your tongue; I can, and therefore I do." Is
power the source of right? Could there be a heresy worse
than that ! Would it not be flagitious for one man to govern
another just because he could ? Could there be anything
more erroneous than to say that the fundamental qualities of
right and wrong which exist in men are reversed when they
are attributed to God, and that what is reprehensible in man
when he governs is permissible in God when he governs, simply
because he is all-powerful ? Could there be a statement more
mischievous than that while a man only has a right to do
things that are proper according to some common moral
standard, God has a right to do anything he chooses because

THE WORLD'S GROWTH. 281

he is omnipotent ? Could there be anything more damaging
than to teach that it is right for God, because be is great and
powerful, to do that which is a sin and a crime for man to
do ? You destroy moral sense in its very cradle by any such
attribution to God as tliat.

Men say, "How is it that the fathers got along so well,
that the churches used to be so at peace, that everything
was taught in the simplest way ; and that now there is such
confusion, that nobody believes as anybody else does, that
matters are so complicated ? It seems as though relig-
ion was all wasting away. The Sabbath used to be kept
faithfully ; but it is not now. The church used to be
grounded in this that and the other doctrine ; but now
there is doubt about this and about that. Once such a
thing was taught by such a text; but now men say, ^In
the original it does not mean so, and it does not mean
so.'" Everybody is alarmed because truth seems to be shat-
tered ; but you should recollect that precisely this thing takes
place every single year in the vegetable kingdom ; for, going
out in the month of June, I listen to the almost universal
lamentation in the forest, and I hear the trees saying, " Last
year we had the juiciest bark, and it hugged close to our
bodies ; but now, somehow or other, it is cracked, there is no
juice in it, tlie young bark inside is crowding it off, it is
dropping to pieces, and is worthless, and we do not know
what will become of us." Well, when the tree grows, the
ftutside has to crack, and drop off, and get out of the way.

So when men are learning higher truths, the lower, in-
choate and primitive forms of statement must crack and get
out of the way, or else churches will be bark-bound. Now
trees that are bark-bound are full of lice and all kinds of ver-
min ; but no insects trouble the bark of a tree that is full of
power and real growth. Vitality is the best medicine, as well
as the best nurse. So, if the moral sense of men be quick,
and we see that rectitude has not been straight enough, that
refinement has not been pure enough, that justice and equity
have not been stated clearly enough, and that the laws which
govern men and nations are susceptible of a far higher ex-
position and development ; and if they begin to bring aug-

}82 THE WORLD'S GROWTH.

meiited power of moral sense into the realms of life, then
theology must conform itself thereto or perish. You must
^ve a larger statement to truth, to love, to humanity and
to goYernment ; and you must do it from the very topmost
iown to the very bottommost.

Then, there may seem to be a great waste and destruction
m the religious realm, which is the result of growth — of life.
The jjower is there — not the word ; for the Gospel is not in
word, but in power. Oftentimes the disturbance in the
world is a sign of power, is a token of life, is an omen of
good.

These conflicts are going on in ecclesiastical organiza-
tions, and I am glad of it. They, however, are domiciliary
troubles. They are the result of narrowness and want of
adaptation to the needs of men, or of false notions of author-
ity or function.

There can be no question whatever that a hundred men,
or a hundred families, may get together and ordain for
themselves any method of worship Avhich they please. No
man has a right to disturb them. You may administer
truth by preaching, or you may administer it by lights and
shadows. There is no law against drav/ing pictures on a
blackboard with crayon, and calling that preaching. There
is no reason why people should not, if they choose, have
symbols in churches. Some talk about symbols and liturgies
and rituals as though they were in themselves wicked. No ;
I say, if anybody has been taught by these things, and he
prefers that metliod of being taught, he has a right to it ;
but when a man steps out from the sphere of his own per-
sonal election, and says, "This is what God meant for the
whole race, and you shall be damned if you do not take it,"
that is an entirely different matter. I aver the liberty of
men to believe in popes, and in cardinals, in archbishops, in
bishops, in deacons, in whole systems of specific forms, if
they wish to ; I declare their right to take anything that
they want from the ecclesiastical-wagons that have come down
loaded with plunder from the early days — here something
from the Roman temple, there something from the Grecian,
and perhaps some A^estments from old Jerusalem. If they want

THE WORLD'S GROWTH. 283

thenn, why should they not have them ? Why should they
not build their houses with them if they choose ? I defend
their right to them ; but when they tell me that /shall wor-
ship according to certain forms, and that without them I
have no right to live or die with any hope of the future —
when all these things are packed upon me hy a '^ Thus saith
the Lord," it concerns me !

When, therefore, men say that there are these divisions
going on in churches, I am glad of it. It is auspicious of a
better day. The day is certainly coming in which, while
churches will not go down, they will be ''differentiated," as
Mr. Spencer would say. There will he more and not fewer
churches, the elements of religion coming together by
elective affinity ; and the idea of one universal church wdll
be realized when there is one language spoken by all the
nations on the globe ; when there is one civil government
established throughout the world — and when will that he ?
Never. Unity is not hy the exterior : it is by the interior.
Let all the stars be melted into one great orb ; let the vast
outlying universe become a sohd cube, and then, but not till
then, will all the diverse instruments and all the liberties
which belong to those instruments coalesce into anything
like objective, external, physical unity.

Because there is such strife and such conflict, the im-
pression has gone abroad that religion is losing ground ; that
the church is growing weaker ; that there is an incursion of
errors into the church ; that to an unwonted degree religion
is falling from the right ; but remember that "the kingdom
of God is not in word, but in power."

Is the moral power of Christendom to-day greater or less
than it has been hitherto ? That is the question ; and in
order to settle it we must consider the distributions of moral
power. If you had a book that gave an exact description of
saw-mills, of grist-mills, of carding-machines, of looms, of
sewing-machines, of all manner of machinery, and explained
the method of making them, and if you sent that hook out,
so that every family on the globe had one — not a machine,
but a book — how much work would it do ? It might inspire
people to build machines and do good work, hut you would

284 THE WORLD'S GROWTH.

have to examine the macliines and the woi'k. to know any-
thing abont it.

Now the Bible is a book of machines, as it were — of moral
forces ; and to ascertain anything about the power which it
has exerted you must go, not to the Book, but to that of
which it speaks, which it has created outside of itself, and
which is in operation in the cliurch and elsewhere. How
much truth is embodied in the ideal of personal manhood in
the world ; in the social condition of the family ; in the con-
cejations of industry and commerce ; in the relations of
society ; in the primary impulses and in the products of
men ? I hold that the power of the Gospel in any age is to
be found, not in the letter, not in tlie word, but in the power
which these things are exerting upon the world.

Let us measure tlie outside. Is the world gaining or
losing in this respect ? Is the personal standard of manhood
adyancing or losing ground in Christendom ? Advancing
beyond all question. There never was a time when the
l)hjsical necessities of men were so much studied — and that
without at all animalizing men. Do you take notice that to
teach a man how to cook his food better, and how to eat it
more relishfully, and how to clothe himself better, and how
to furnish the exterior conditions of life with more things
that appeal to his fancy and taste — do you take notice that
this is not to augment him as a physical being ? Do you
observe that the effect of it is to take away from him mere
animalism, and to wrap about him higher attributes, which
exalt him ?

The ideal of manhood never was higher than it is to-day
in Christendom. I do not mean that there have not been
times when some Philip Sidneys had higher ideas of nobil-
ity, and when poets exalted to a greater degree the function
and the destiny of man ; but I say that while we have as
many philosophers and jioets who exalt the ideal of manhood
as they had in the past, we have what they never had — a
conception of the dignity of the individual man reaching
down to the bottom of society. There never was a time
when, in the whole mass of mankind througliout Christen-
dom, there was so high an ideal of what it ia to bo a man.

THE WORLD'S GROWTH. 285

Care of the bottom does not simply have relation to re-
finements, or to happiness. There is a fundamental necessity
for a regenerative process which shall give to the physical
structure more vitality and more power than it has ever
had. You never are going to carry men to that state for
which they were designed, until all the channels of the brain
are suffused with stimulus. Where there is a great strain,
and a lack of vitality of power and brain, you break a
man down. You might as well build a corn-stalk carriage
and put upon it a thirty-six pound cannon as to attempt
to support a brain unfolded to the extent of its possibil-
ities on man's physique in the present state of its weak-
ness. It would break him down. When the whole mind is
suffused, there is not power in the system, in its present con-
dition, to generate steam enough to resist the action of it.

You cannot misunderstand me unless you want to ; and
if you Avant I will give you every chance. I say that man is
dependent on higher agencies, and yet I say that our fondest
dreams of the progress of humanity must be laid in a newly
created body. While regeneration does much, generation
also has to do much. The sins of the father must stop act-
ing upon the sons. They must not sin ; and the accumu-
lated virtues of ancestors must roll over into strong bodies
until by a blessed economy the race shall be exalted, and
shall become competent to discharge its higher functions
which belong to the days that are to come. There is no
reason why, from the very beginning, we should not com-
mence to build that new heaven and new earth in which
dwelleth righteousness, by building men that can stand the
wear and tear and exigencies of mental strife.

Is the standard of manhood receding in the higher
classes ? No man pretends that. Is man individually less
among the civilized nations of the globe than he was in days
gone by ? He never was more. As I have said, there never
was a time when he was so high. He is not worked up into
states on the same principles that he once was. He is no
longer regarded even in armies as a mere machine, as he
once was. He lives better. His needs are more, and his
supplies are greater.

^86 'I'HE WORLD'S GROWTH.

I saw an ailanthus tree planted, not far from here, some
years ago. In the pavement a little collar was cut for its
trunk. One of the roots, lying along a nutritious Lit of
ground, took upon itself to grow. I observed after the sec-
ond year that the flag-stone, which weighed many hundred
pounds, began to tilt ; in the course of the summer one side
of it had been raised a good deal ; and the next year that
soft and spongy root had, by growing, thrown this great stone
so out of plumb that it had to be taken up and readjusted to
the want of that root. Society is full of disturbances.
There are Trades Union associations, strikes and quarrels ;
and it is said that industry is disorganized. What is the mat-
ter ? I will tell you. Eeason, intelligence, capacity for de-
veloping the great mass of the common people till they are
larger than they used to be — this is at work, growing ; and
you may put as many slabs, as many side-walks, as many
paving-stones, as many regulations upon them, as you please ;
but the silent growth of the root will lift every one of them ;
and all society will be a-tilt until men have been brought to
be what God gave them the power to be. There will, there-
fore, be various divisions and conflicts and struggles ; in these
there will be much that is unwise, useless, wrong and cruel,
on both sides ; but I am in a peculiar position in which I am
on the side of the workingman generically, while, specifically,
I am against him. I am for his growth and development ;
but I think many of his acts are not wise for himself, or for
the community, and I do not know but that it is through his
blunders that he must come to wisdom ; for blundering has
been the Minerva of the ages. Men learn what is right by
learning what is wrong. Truth has been a great inclosure,
as it were, having but one gate ; and society has been like a
blind man who goes butting on the right and on the left, and
does not find the right place until he has butted liis head
against every picket, and finally gets around and stumbles in
by accident. In various matters of right and wrong men
have gone on butting their heads against this, that and the
other error until at last they have stumbled upon the truth.

It is one thing for men to be born with ])read enough, and
clothes enough, and honor enough, and social life enough,

THE WORLD'S GROWTH. 287

and it is another thing foi' a man to be born with none of
these tilings. 1 do not know that from my standpoint I can
judge correctly. I am inclined to bring my class feelings to
the judgment of those who belong to another class ; I must
Judge the best way I can under the circumstances ; but I
know that all these turmoils are full of meaning, and that
their meaning is outswelling manhood. Men are more, and
their wants are more, than formerly they were. Do you say,
" Let them be contented to bo as their fathers were" ? I say
that contentment under such circumstances is base — unspeak-
ably base. All growth means complexity. Every single fac-
ulty developed is an appetite and want. Every man that
grows must have more wants and must have them supplied ;
and if society has clamped itself down upon them by the old
methods it must split and give way ; for the plant shall come
up and develop.

Look at that single declaration of our Master, when John
says to him, " Art thou he that should come, or look we for
another ?" He did not put his hand in his pocket and hand
out the Articles of the Faith of his church. Ho did not say,
" Go with me up to the temple, and I will tell you whether
I am a Jew or not." What did he say? ''The deaf hear;
the dead are raised ; and, [what was the significant climax ?]
the poor luire the goKpel p readied to them." If there is in our
state of civilization a sweet and balmy breath of April and of
May coming to the long winter of discontent ; if the roots
of the common people are swelling ; if the mass of mankind
are regarded as more important than the elect of mankind ;
if this great million-hearted race are swelling and rising, it
is a sign that the gospel is preached among the poor — it is
one of the signs of the times which show that the latter-day
glory is advancing.

I mark with emphasis the swelling of discontent at j)res-
ent in the industrial classes as one of the best signs and
tokens of the times. That which other men look upon with
shaded eyes of terror I look upon with open-faced rejoicing,
and give God thanks. Out of it shall come a better future.

Are the social conditions of unity, judging from the same
general standard, such as should give us hope, or alarm ? — •

288 THE WORLD'S GROWTH.

[But I am afraid I am not going to get half through my ser-
mon ! Sermon against turkey is not a fair fight ! I will go
on, however, for a time.] Is the family — that great primitive
institution which will go on down through universal life and
history, and. will stand more admirable and confirmed at the
very end, in the millennial and hoped-for day — weakened or
strengthened ? The idea of uniting those who are sprung
from father and mother into a little commonwealth, where
by reason of their smallness of number they come within
the scope and power of jiarental government — is this idea
lost out, or losing ? No. I think the revelation above all
other revelations is not of four-winged angels, not of the
bright seraphim, not of the resounding chant, not of the
shouting chorus of the Apocalyptic vision : though these
touch one's senses more, and are more dramatic, yet, after
all, they are not to be compared with one thing — namely,
that God reveals himself in his own nature and govern-
ment in this world by the experience of the father and the
mother toward the child, and by the experience of the
child toward the father and the mother. You might destroy
the whole Bible, and if this was left you would have a
germ from which you could reconstruct it again. You
might destroy that, in the experience of life, and the Bi-
ble would not save mankind. It is the one thing in this
world by which we know what it is to govern by love. It is
in the family alone that wisdom, that justice, that truth, and
that pain-administrations spring from love ; it is there that
love is sovereign ; it is there that out of love all things
grow ; it is there that we have the primary, fundamental,
typical institution of the race ; it is there that we have the
most precious thing that was ever given to mankind. We
have constructed the universe from the throne, from the-
ologies, from civil governments, and courts, and laws ; we
have constructed it from the mart, from the scales, from the
yard-stick, and from the equities of commerce ; but you
will never have a universe in its full grandeur till you have
constructed it on the central foundation of the family.
Children are born out of their parents ; they dwell in the
atmosphere of love; love is comi^etent to every necessary

THE WOTiLD'S GROWTH. 289

function ; and human governments would be as much better
administered on the family pattern than they are now, as the
administration of the family is better than civil administra-
tion. The reason why civil governments are not administered
on the family pattern is that men are not big enough and
strong enough to administer according to that pattern so
well on a large scale as they can on a small scale ; but God is
big enough and strong enough. From the family the whole
lore of true government springs, as literature springs from
the alphabet.

Now, is th6 family substantially gaining, or losing ? Gain-
ing, gaining! There have been some wild howls around
about it ; there have been some missionaries of nastiness that
have attempted to introduce their economies into it ; there
have been hideous philosophies — Satan's, varnished and
guised like angels of light — wandering up and down and at-
tempting to destroy it. But no sooner was the cloven foot
seen than that was the end of it ; and never was the moral
sense of the race so strong as it is to-day for the inviolability
of the monogamic household. The family never before was
so virtuous and refined, taking it comprehensively, as it is
to-day.

Oh ! that we could have our eyes opened to see what was
the condition of the family in Athens during her better days.
Athens had her Phidias who adorned her with statues, and
on every side in that renowned city were wonders of art ; there
was a time when it was a proverb that no man should die
without seeing Phidian Jove. But at that same time the
streets of Athens were gutters without pavements ; they were
common sewers of all manner of filth. One walking the
streets of Athens sunk ankle deep in mud if it was wet weather,
and ankle deep in dust if it was dry. There was not a
' ouse in all Athens that you would put your dog into and
call it a decent kennel. The Athenians lived in houses that
protected them from the sun and rain, and that was all.
They had no carpets, no costly furniture, no pictures, no em-
bellishments. Art was consecrated to the State and to reli-
gion. In Athens there were no newspapers, no magazines,
no libraries. There was no home circle. The wife was a

290 THE WORLD'S GROWTH.

drudge whose only duty was to take care of slaves. She
could not unveil her face in the presence of men, nor could
she even come to the door to greet her husband or her sons
when they came back from battle. Though the lofty mount
of the Acropolis gleamed with marble temples, the sun each
day finciing and leaving it the most resplendent point on the
globe, yet at the bottom it was villainously stenchful ; and the
condition of its inliabitants was mean in comparison with
that of the poorest laborer in our time. I will go to Xew
York, and follow home ninety per cent, of all the men who
gain their livelihood by daily toil, and will find them living
in houses that are palaces compared with those in which
men lived in times gone by. There are multitudes of
mechanics who to-day have more comforts than were in
palaces in the time of Queen Elizabeth. If you call to mind
the way in which barons used to spread their tables and spend
their lives, you will find that the day laborer of our time is
better off than they were. The household has augmented
itself since then. It requires more to make a good father
and a good husband now than it did then. Men are so much
larger now, in this country, that an American household to-
day id an institution to compare with which, a hundred or
two hundred, a thousand or two thousand, years ago, there
was nothing ; and the foundations of it are not shaken.
Some folks think when the night cart rolls by and shakes the
house, that there is an earthquake. No ; and mud carts may
run by the family, and shake it a little, but there is no
earthquake. The social power in the family ministered by
the affections, by refined taste, by ardent loves, by joys which
have their ])attern and equal nowhere else — it is this that
marks the civilizing and Christianizing influence of the Gos-
pel in our day.

The power of society, also, in right directions, was never
so great as it is now — first to resist evil tendencies, and sec-
ondly to expel them when they are introduced at unawares. I
meant to have made a more elaborate head of this ; but I shall
not : I will barely state the outline. We count that man to
be healthy who, dwelling among morbific influences, has
.DOwer to throw them off; but if through the over-taxatinos

THE WORLD'S GROWTH. 29]

of night and day a man's system is not quite strong enough,
or he is not quite watchful enough, to resist the incursion ol
disease, we say that he lacks stamina and resiliency.

Now, in such vast inchoate masses as the whole of a na-
tion or the whole of a State, it is scarcely to be expected that
there will be the watchfulness or the power to resist, or
to throw off, those influences which are distilled in society
like malign dews in the night ; and the practical question is,
What is the power of a nation, when diseased, co cure itself ?
Wliat has been the history of this nation as to its power to
throw off evils ? When it had just gone through that terrific
storm of the great war — Do you believe there ever was a time
when this church was a kind of recruiting ground ? Do you
believe there was ever a day when your streets were filled with
regimented men ? Do you believe there was ever a Thanks-
giving Day when the pastor of this church thundered on the
subject of human rights and the liberties of men, and urged
men to go out and figlit ? Do you believe there were occasions
when telegrams were received in this building on the reading
of which the roof was rent by the acclamations of a vast
audience whose hearts were all on fire ? It is gone ; it has
died like fireworks ; it has passed by as a dream, thank God !
But remember, we went through four years of terrific fire.
What a strain it was ! Eemember that this great people.
East, North and West, were united by a common desire to
maintain this nation, and submitted themselves to that of
which men are the most impatient. They voted taxation.
They rolled up debt like a mountain. And you remember
how, when the war was past, and the country was safe,
and the question was propounded to this nation, "Will you
not repudiate that debt ?" they refused to do it. . Eepudia-
tion is the cunningest devil that ever tempted mankind ; and
never was a nation more open to temptation than this nation
was. Look at the millions of foreigners that had i.ot taken
root, and that could not be expected to have imbibed Ameri-
can ideas. How many laboring men there were who felt that
they were being taxed heavily ! And yet. North and South,
Bast and West, and among no part of our ])e()])le more
nobly than among the foreign emigrants, it was said, " Let

293 THE WORLD' » GROWTH.

every dollar voted to save the country be paid according to
promise." Was there ever a more threatening symptom than
that of repudiation ? and was there ever a more sjjeedy re-
bound to moral health ?

See what a universal disturbance tliere was of money re-
lations. See what a spirit of wild speculation was intro-
duced. That is settled, I take it. We have got over that.

See what dishonesties crept into every part of the public
service ; but see how the community has little by little been
purging itself of these dishoUesties, and of the men that
committed them. See how rings formed in great cities have
been broken up. See how our cities have had power to clear
themselves of corrupt officials, and to set courts right, so
that they are no^v resplendent, lustrous, as compared with
what they were ten years ago. The power of the community
to redress its wrongs without revolution, by the force of pub-
lic sentiment, and to heal itself by not allowing pimples to
become ulcers — this is a sign of health which is unimpeach-
able to-day. And this belongs not to u>; alone, but to the
nations of the earth.

Consider, too, the resurrection power that is brought on
the globe. It used to be thought (I tliought when I was a
boy) that when nations were once run down they were like a
tree that had grown very old — like one of those old apple-
trees that are shrunk at the root, whose bark is drop-
ping off, and that are dead on tlie north side, the east side,
and the west side, with only a clump of mistletoe here and
there, and a few leaves on the south side and in the center.
The idea of curing such a tree is preposterous. The ax is
the only medicine for it. So I remeriiber saying of Italy,
" The stock and substance is gone ; the ax must be laid at
the root of the tree : it must be cut up ; that is the only
cure for it." But Italy — poor old decrepit Italy — is becoming
the Italy of Count Cavour, that noble man of the Island.
Italy is resurrected, and is regenerate.

Look at England, going through a regeneration whioJi
is not to end till her laboring men have their rights ; till her
■whole economy is revolutionized ; till her lands are market-
able ; till a man can bay land without paying more for the

THE WOBLD'S GROWTH. 203

legal stejjs of the pnrcliase than the original price of the
land. There is no more reason why a man should hold un-
limited wealth than why he should hold unlimited political
influence. The aristocracy of Mammon is not always going
to rule in England.

Look at Germany, twenty years ago cut up like a checker-
board ; to-day the noblest empire in Europe.

Even Eussia — especially in its hitherward portion — is
growing in civilization and in the commercial elements of
prosperity. It is yet a vast barbaric empire ; but it is devel-
oping nobly, and is bound to have a magnificent future.

Austria was like a piece of cloth in a fulling-mill, for
years together ; but she has come out, and is turning her at-
tention to the education of her common people — and no na-
tion is decrepit, no nation can go down, that educates her
common people, and makes them strong.

Look, to-day, at France — a wonderful kingdom of weak-
ness and of strength, but significant in her wealth-producing
power. At last she is manifesting a disposition to educate
her common people. Of the whole revenue of the French
empire ninety per cent, were employed for the Army and
Navy, six per cent, for the civil government, and four per
cent, for education ; but that is to be revolutionized. -France
is coming up.

Even Spain is living again. She has heard the voice of
Him who said to Lazarus, "■ Come forth !" and though she yet
has the napkin about her head, and the garments of the
grave about her person, the Master says, " Loose her, and let
her go ;" and they are loosing her feet, and loosing her
hands ; and they are uncovering her eyes; and the day will
come when her superstition will flee away, and her indolence
will cease, and her miscreant rule will come to an end, and
she will touch again something of the grandeur and power
and beauty of her early history.

Is this drift of nations nothing? Is this current which is
carrying them into the realm of knowledge and wisdom of
no account ?

Whence comes all this power which is regenerating man-
kind ? Science says, "I am doing it all." Nay, Science, it

294 THE WORLD'S GROWTH.

is not in thee. Church, it is not in thee. Government, it is
not in thee. School-house and college, it is not in you.
" Behold," saith the Lord that dwelleth in eternity, " I cre-
ate !" It is the breath of the Lord, breathing upon the great
sentient human soul of every nation and tongue ; humanity,
touched of God, is lifting itself up ; and all things are tak-
ing form or giving way, so that man at last may rise, the
son of God, recognized of his Father.

There is reason for thanksgiving, for hoj)e and for grow=
ing expectation.

THE, W01iLD*S GROWTH. 295

PRAYEK BEFORE THE SERMON.

We draw near to thee, our Father, to-day, with thanksgiving and
with praise, for all the unnumbered mercies of thy grace and thy provi-
dence, it is by thy power that the earth doth stand, and that the
seasons do move, and that their f ruitf uluess blesses all living creat-
ures. It is by thy power that we are preserved in reason and intelli-
gence, to appreciate the bounties of our God— yea, to lift ourselves
above the flocks and the herds that know not how to recognize thee,
who art like unto ourselves, except in weal^ness and impurity, being
transcendent in wisdom and goodness; and to feel the sweet attrac-
tion and blessedness of those truths universal which thou hast made
known to us through Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Redeemer.

And now, O Lord, we thank thee that thou hast put it into the
hearts of the rulers of this great people to recommend this day,
in which, separating themselves from secular avocations, they shall
draw near, in their several places of worship, to recognize thy good-
ness and thy power, to review the year, and to select from all its
varied experiences reasons of thanksgiving.

We thank thee that the seasons have been so propitious, and that
to so large an extent, in this whole land, prosperity hath been
granted; that the earth hath yielded so abundantly its increase; and
that there has been over so much of it such continuous health.

We thank thee that thou hast granted unto us more and more a
knowledge of thyself, reviving thy work in the churches of the land,
and enlarging the hearts of thy people. Grant unto them the spirit
of generosity, and a desire to build up the institutions on which the
times stand. We thank thee that thou hast set us among the nations
of the earth, one prosperous among many that are prospering. We
thank thee for all the signs of the times which we discern in respect
to the races to which we belong.

We desire, O God, to thank thee that there is so much of hope.
And while yet there is so much of darkness, and so much in ourselves
unillumined that tends towards despondency, we rejoice that there
is so much, also, that gives intelligent confidence that the future is to
grow brighter and brighter, and that the promised days are not
illusory, but shall come, bringing with them universal holiness, inii-
versal knowledge, universal strength, universal prosperity, and uni-
versal happiness.

We beseech of thee, O God, that tliou wilt grant unto all this
great people, more and more, a sense of dependence upon God,
a desire to know his laws, and a spirit of obedience thereto. Look
upon the hindrances, throughout the world, to the final perfection
thereof. Bring superstition speedily to an end. Curb selfish i)ower.
Restrain the cruelties of unmannered despotisms.

Be pleased, we beseech of thee, to breathe humanity into the laws
of men. Grant wisdom and bountifulness unto the hearts of all
those who administer in behalf of their fellow-men. We pray thee
that all those struggles which must needs be, that all those strifes
which are seeking better things, may be so restrained and governed
that they shall work out the greatest good and the least evil.

296 • THE WORLD'S GROWTH.

Look, we pray thee, with compassion upon all those in our own
land who yet sit in darkness and in the region and shadow of death.
We pray that those who have been reached by knowledge may
speedily find the light rising upon their knowledge. Grant, we pray
thee, that tliat healing of heart and spirit which is begun may
be completed. May the divine influence restore again the old fri«iid-
ships more heartily than ever in this laud. We thank thee, O Lord,
for all that thou hast done, and for all that thou hast promised in the
future.

And now, we thank thee in our own behalf, that thou hast been so
gracious to this church. We thank thee that the afflictions which thou
hast brought upon it have been blest to its spiiitual good. We thank
thee for the health which has prevailed in our families; and that
where sickness and death have come, there has come also the Spirit
of the divine Comforter, so that men have been strengthened in their
weakness, and built up by their sorrows, and augmented by thei-r
wastes. We thank thee for all the happiness that we have had, indi-
vidually and collectively; and we beseech of thee that thou wilt
accept the dedication which we make of ourselves to thee, and our
ardent desire that every power and every faculty that is in us may be
consecrated to the work of God among men.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt hasten the day when we shall
have no occasion to pray for the heathen, for the ignorant, for
the weak, and for the oppressed ; when no man shall need to say to
his neighbor, Know thou the Lord; when all sliall know thee from
the greatest unto the least; and when thy kingdom shall come and
thy will shall be done upon earth as it is in heaven.

These mercies we ask, and this thankfulness we offer, in the name
of Jesus, to whom, with the Father and the Spirit, shall be ascribed
everlasting praises. Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Grant, our Father, thy blessing to rest upon the word spoken.
Grant that we may rejoice in the on-goings of thy providence; in the
disclosures of thy grace; in all the fruits which we see in the midst
of blood, and tears, and groans, and sufferings, and sorrows. Grant
that we may also see that the crucifixion and the tomb are bringing
salvation and life, and that the race is following its Master, and,
through suffering, coming to glory. Grant that our hearts may
be able to interpret the signs of the times, and that we may be filled
with great joy and rejoicing, knowing that the God of all the earth
cannot but do right. Hear us in our thanksgiving, and accept us, for
Christ Jesus' sake. Amen.

FOUNDATION WORK.

" Yea, so have I strived to preach the Gospel, not where Christ
was named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation." —
RoM. XV. 20.

The converse is this :

" According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a
wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another build-
eth thereon."

You will recollect that when Paul was conYerfced he stood
Very high among his own people as a man emineut both
in knowledge and in executive talent. He evidently took
the lead in putting down a pestilent heresy that his country-
men thought had sprung up among them ; and he pursued
the methods which have been very widely pursued since the
world began in putting down heresies — that is, differences of
belief. Instead of using argument, he tried the sword,
prisons, stones, anything that would make an impression ;
and it was when he was on one of his errands of convincing
the world that Christianity was not true, that he was himself
Btricken down midway, and brought to a saving knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. His whole career before and his
whole life development afterward show us that one very
strong element— the axis, as we might almost call it, of
Paul's character — was his pride. He was a man of great
firmness, with a temperament of the utmost fervor, and with
fervent affections which had been held in check up to this
time.

One would suppose that a man of such a nature, being
converted, would have turned upon his heel, and gone to
Jerusalem, and put himself at the head of the Christian
movement. He was a bold man, fearing nothing, and ap-

Suxn AY Morning, Dec. 6. 1874. Lesson: Gal.i. Hymns (Plymouth Collection):
No. 293, 365. " Homeward Bound."

300 I'OTTNDATION WORK.

parently all the opportunities for a man of liis executive en-
ergy would open in the neighborhood of the mother church,
or the mother assemblies, in Jerusalem. But instead of
going there, after spending some days in Damascus, and
preaching in that place until the Jews of Damascus, enraged
at his apostasy, as they would call it, attempted his life, he
secretly went to Arabia, returning thence to Damascus.
How soon he returned we do not know ; but he spent the
first three years of his ministry somewhere in Syria and Ara-
bia. Of these first three years we have absolutely no account.
He gives a simple statement of the time in the first of Gala-
tians. Then he went to Jerusalem ; but he stayed there only
a fortnight, and saw none of the apostles except James, who
seems to have been the chief. After that he departed and
went into Asia Minor. For fourteen years he labored with-
out going back to Jerusalem at all. Afterward, when he
went back, it was for a very brief stay ; and he declares that
he preached the Gospel in places where nobody had been be-
fore him, seeking them out of preference. He was not after
a settlement. He was not in search of a parish or a good
salary. He was not trying to find rich synagogues of Jews
who were ready to be converted. He went nowhere in the
footprints of men who had gone first and taken the brunt of
opposition and persecution. He went to the Gentile world.
He was proud to go where foundations had not been laid,
and to lay foundations that other men might build on them
— as they did. Tliis was the Apostle Paul's feeling in regard
to his labor : " I will take foundation-work. Let other men
have the building ujjon that."

Now, foundation work is always the hardest, as you will
see if you go back to the figure from which this language
was borrowed — namely, the rearing of a structure. Have
you stood and looked at the great buildings that aj-e being
put up .in New York and Broooklyn ? Did you go down, as
I did, into one of the caissons on which one of the great
bridge towers stands, and see what foundations are ? Not
exactly following the apostle's example, but tcm])tcd by a
natural curiosity to see anything that was being wi-ought by
my fellow-men, I went down into one of the caissons while

FOUNDATION WORK. 301

it was ho.'mg sunk. A vast, cavernous, tripartite room it was.
It was sunk by taking away tlic dirt from under it, and send-
ing it up through appropriate channels. The place was
'gloomy, oppressive, and nasty. Thousands and thousands of
men will stand on the bridge and admire it, and admire the
architectural skill displayed there, and praise the engineers,
who will not think of tlie poor dirty fellows down on their
hands and knees, clawing out the mud and stones in order
to let the caisson go down. I shall always be thankful that
I went down and saw these poor fellows ; f(»r though I shall
never go over that bridge without thinking of the engineers
and the men that early put their hands to that magnificent
feat of enginery which was so much needed, I never shall go
over it without also thinking of those that will not generally
be thought of — the men that worked down at the bottom. I
shall thank them, too. Men that do foundation work get
few thanks from anybody.

Look at all those immense stores that are going up in these
cities — for since tlie invention of hoistways men own a great
deal more space than they thought they did, and they are
going up heavenward ; a thing that in New York I am always
glad to see men do. But in proportion as you go up, you
must preliminarily go down ; and the consequence is that the
laying of foundations is no small business. But it is the
most awkward, the most difficult, the most unrequiting ; and
the beauty of it all is, that when you have worked your best,
and worked most skillfully, your work is all hidden out of
your sight, and nobody thanks you for it. The very thing
on which the huge structure stands, and the well-doing of
which determines the whole future of the superstructure —
that which is of the first account and the least renumerative
in the doing — is the most hidden, and has no praise — nothing
except darkness.

Now, that a man should like to do that work is scarcely
])ossible. A man may do it for bread — a man will do any-
thing for his bread ; but to do it for pleasure is not according
to nature.

Offer a man a job. and ask him which part he w^oukl pre-
fer to do. Say to him, '" Will you work as a mason down at

302 FOUNDATION WORK.

the bottom, on the foundation, or will yon work as a plasterer
up above, or will you work as a carpenter laying the floor, or
will you work as a carpenter trimming and finishing the
doors and windows, or will you work as an upholsterer, bring-'
ing in polished furniture, and carpets, and all things that
decorate ? where would you prefer to work ?" "I would pre-
fer," says the man, " to do the frescoing. I would like to put
on those dainty touches which are to make this thing shine,
so that people, when they come in and look up and around,
shall say, ' Why, he is a genius, ain't he ?' They say that
the colors put on in the Egyptian temples and pyramids are
as brilliant to-day as they were the day they were put on ; and
I would like to have this building stand a thousand years, and
have people come in and say, ' Who did that ?' And I am go-
ing to have my name somewhere up there to show who did
it." But if a man of refinement, a man of capacity, a
genius, should come and say, "Why, let me do the lowest
work ; I will dig, and clear away, and lay the foundations,
and take charge of the cellars ; other men may build the
superstructure, but I prefer to do the under work," people
would say, "He is crazy."" Everybody would protest, and de-
clare that it was a shame. They would say, '* Other men can
do that work ; but this man has genius, skill, capacity, and
we need him higher up. There are a thousand men who can
do what he proposes to do, but there is not one in a thousand
who is able to do what he can do." And that is true. Men
should be suited to the work which they perform. A genius
ought not, as a general rule, to devote himself to things
which thousands of men can do. Nevertheless, there is an
element besides all that. There is a question of heroism.
In all the world the bulk of mankind must do low, coarse,
and disagreeable things. The great body of men must do
things that are not remunerative in and of themselves. They
must do work that takes the bone and the muscle ; that
wearies out the strength ; that is done without observation ;
that is done at low wages ; that is done with great pain and

suffering ; that is done without any praise ; that is done to
be forgotten ; that is done for the most ephemeral remunera-

luon. This is the fact in regard to the whole world.

FOUNDATION WORK. 303

Now, is there no way iu which the great mass of men,
sons of toil and sorrow, can labor at this foundation work so
as that they can enjoy themselves and be happy ? That has
been the problem of ages. It is pre-eminently the problem
of to-day, whether we can bring to bear on low planes any
light that shall redeem men who work there. I see streaming
from Paul's example light for the ages, that has never dis-
closed itself yet, and that is yet to be a gospel to the working-
poor.

What, then, did Paul say that he did ?

" Yea, so have I strived to preach the Gospel, not where Christ
was named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation."

He does not boast. It is simply an implication. "I
went into Arabia," he says; "I labored three years where
there was no apostle. I merely looked in at Jerusalem. I
took my way northward into Asia Minor. I worked along
the Euxine Sea, all through that mountainous and un-
searched region where there had been no predecessor. There
I was the first to preach, and there 1 took the brunt of
opposition, or of indifference, which is worse than o])position.
I not only took it, but I chose it. I strove for it." Yea,
clear around to Illyricum — that is, the western part of Aus-
tria— he preached. He preached in Achaia, in Greece, in
Macedonia, in all those colonies on the north, clear up to
Austria, as it is now, and down to Italy and Rome. In all
that country he says that he was the pioneer, taking the first
and hardest work. Says he, "I strove to do it. I would
not let anybody get ahead of me. It was my ambition, and
I did it that T might not build where anybody else had built,
but that I might lay foundations on which others should
build."

What were the motives that actuated him ? That is a
very important question. In the first place, here is what
you may call Christian pride. Paul never for a moment
forgot that he had been a persecutor ; but he declared that
he was not one whit behind the chiefest of the apostles.
When men undertook to invalidate bis teachings, and said
to him, "You are only a bastard apostle, you did not be-
long to the original twelve," he rose up and asserted bis

304 FOUNDATION WORK.

apostolicity, and said, "The gospel I did not receive of
men. It was not James that told me of this gospel, nor
Peter. Of God I received it," — alluding to his conversion
on the road to Damascus. He vindicated his equality with
the apostolic band — not for the sake of praise and glory, but
because he would not have his message discredited. Not for
his own sake but for the sake of the message, he declared
that he was fully the equal of any of the apostles. His tem-
perament was such as would make him feel himself quite as
much as he was. So he says, "I am not behind any man.
I am a match for anybody. I am a full-grown man. I am
a Jew." When a man wants to praise himself excessively,
he tells what country he came from. An Englishman says, I
am an Evglishman." "Thank God," says his neighbor over
the channel, "I am a real full-blooded Frenchman." We
say, wagging our heads at cathedrals and palaces and towers,
"Thank God, I am an American." And we say, or shall
on the approaching 22d, "Thank God, we are Yanhees.''
So every man mentions his nationality as though that con-
veyed the highest conception of manhood. And so Paul
said, "I am a Jew." He felt the dignity of being a Jew —
and he had a right to ; for there is no nobler stock, and
there never was a grander mission, than that which God gave
to the Jew. We that revile the Jews are dividing among
ourselves the ideas and legacies which were wrought out by
their prophets and teachers ; and Paul had a right to say,
standing as he did amidst ancient civilization, "I am a Jew,
and I am not a whit beneath any of the apostles."

What, then, is it becoming in a man to do ? He ought
to do work that nobody else can do as well as he. A man
ought to say, "It is my place to do the things that are the
hardest, and that men take to the least naturally, and are
the most inclined to shirk. My business is to work where
nobody else will work." Such should be the spirit of him
who feels himself to be a man. It is quite in keeping with
the spirit which our Master urged when he said, "He that
would be chief, let him be a servant ; he that would be
greatest must be content to be among the least."

Thousands and thousands of men are looking about for

FOUNDATION WORK. 305

places. Tliousaiids and tliousands of men want something
to do. Oh ! tliat the si^irit of Paul was among young schol-
ars, young preachers, young operatives. Then they would
say, not, " Who will show me a good parish ?" not, "Who
will show me a remunerative place ?" not. " Who will show
me where honor is to be obtained ?" not, '' Who will put me,
the Lord's candle^ in a golden candlestick ?" but, " Where is
there a place that needs some one to fill it, and that other
men do not want to go to ? That is the place for me, because
I am a man, and a CJwistian man."

Such is the ideal of pride. It is not sajdng, " Bring
honor to me ; bring to me praise ; briog to me the fat of the
land ; bring to me all delicacies ; I am the great man whom
all things are to serve." That is infidel pride. That is dev-
ilish pride. But if pride says, "I am wise, and I ought to
go to the ignorant, because the darkest place needs the great-
est light ; I am strong, and ought to do the hardest things,
because the weakest folks can do the least ; I am refined,
and ought to go where there is a lack of refinement, because
rudeness needs the most refining," then it is true pride. If
a man says, " By as much as I am better than other people I
ought to serve them," then he is proud in the right direction.
People preach against pride. They do not see that they
should put pride to such service as this. It is very easy for
me to denounce pride in this pulpit ; it is very easy for me to
stand here and talk about the dangers of pride ; but I tell
you, the way to deal with pride is to set it to work. Thou-
sands of men have been destroyed for want of pride, where
one has been destroyed by excessive pride. Pride is a glori-
ous thing, provided it is disciplined, and employed according
to the canon of Christ, and not according to the tendency of
wild nature.

Then Paul had a feeling that he never got over, thank
God, to the end of his life, proud as he was with Christian
pride. He always carried with him one wound which would
not heal. "I persecuted the church," he said. He never
could get it out of his mind that he, " the least of the apos-
tles," "persecuted the Church of God." You will say that it
was a sentimental thing. It was sentimental. He did not look

306 FOUNDATION WORK^

at it according to the way of the world. Most persons wonld
have said, " Paul, don't feel so bad about this matter ; you
went according to the ideas of your age ; you followed your
natural instincts : you made a mistake, to be sure ; but all
you had to do was to turn on your heel, when you saw your
mistake, and quit it." That, however, did not satisfy him.
Oh, to have persecuted Jesus ! The more he thought of it,
the worse he felt. The more he knew of Christ, the more he
understood his relations to the world and his love to the
dying creatures of his kind, the more awful it seemed to
him that he ever lifted his hand against the Saviour, and
that he ever put to death one that believed on him. It was
a perpetual sorrow to him. He knew that it did not stand
against him ; but he was a man of such a generous nature
that he never could forget it ; and he, as it were, put upon
himself tasks which no other man would take by way of
making amends for that wrong which he had committed.
He said, "It is fit that I, who smote the infant church,
should go among those who never knew Christ, and bear the
brunt of advancing his kingdom all over the world." That
is the kind of penance which one may well glory in. The
humility of his fall was as magnificent as his pride.

Then there was his feeling of love to Christ — for wher-
ever he was the main conception of Paul's life was heroic,
enthusiastic, and, if you please, fanatical love of the Lord
Jesus Christ. It filled his whole soul. It was the fountain
which could not be restrained, but which gushed out in every
direct and indirect way. And he felt, ''There is nothing
that love cannot do." Is there anything that love cannot
do ? Oh, how many times, when their boys were suffering
of fever in the hospital, or of wounds on the battle-field, did
mothers, feeble, and with scanty means, go on foot, threading
their way through state after state, through the wilderness,
through cold, through heat, through hunger and through
thirst, to find out those boys ! And all the way they counted
not their own suffering anything. By day and by night,
wherever they were, and under all circumstances, they were
supported by the thought, " All this I do for the love that I
bear for that boy." And love would do an hundred times

FOTTNDATION WOBK. 307

more if it were necessary. It has no language, and there-
fore it seeks by service to heap up some outward sign or token
of what it is, and what it would do. The deeper the love,
the more it glories in some form of expression that implies
sacrifice, endurance, suffering.

" God commeudeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us."

These are magnificent, ultimate presentations of that
which we see all about us. How love is crippled by language !
How small it feels itself to appear in comparison with its in-
tent ! How poor it is for this world's use ! How it seeks,
therefore, some mode of making itself known! And to Paul
it was not enough to sing, or pray, or praise. " O," he said,
" tbat I might do something to signify how I love him that
loved me ! What am I that Jesus did not make me ? What
is there noble in me that is not of him ? Every worthy
thought or feeling that I have is inspired by him ! It is not
to man's praise that I am what I am, but to the glory of
Him that, loving me, redeemed me with his precious love."'
And so he said, *' Give me the hardest work; for the hardest
work will show the greatest love." When he had wrought
everywhere, through all wildernesses, and all foreign cities —
in the midst of perils of false brethren and riotous heathen
mobs, on the sea and on the land, clear down to the end, and
lay in the prison at Rome, chained to a soldier, he said,
'*Let no man henceforth disturb me." When he was a pris-
oner, waiting his summons, he had this one feeling :

" I have fought the good fight, I have flnislied my course, I have
liept the f aitli ; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of right-
eousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me."

It was Christ that occupied his mind to the last.

Besides that, there was one other thing. As out of the
love of Christ comes the love of men, so Paul felt that in
doing foundation work he was making a contribution to the
happiness of his kind. This he intimates in the first of Cor-
inthians, the third chapter, and the tenth verse :

" According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise
mastci -bolder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth
thereon."

Elsewhere he repeatedly speaks of sowing and not reap-

308 FOUNDATION WORK.

iiig, that others may reap what ho has sown. He changes
the figure from the agricultural to the architectural one.

This conception, that he was making the way easier for
somebody else ; that he was bearing im'm that others might
not have pain to bear ; that he was going through personal
suffering — hunger and thirst and sickness — that others might
come, and in peace and comfort occupy fields which had been
laid open to them — this it was that marked the truest ele-
ment in the character of this true man.

I see that Renan and others undervalue Paul, I hear
him scoffed at, or spoken disparagingly of in one way or
another; but to my mind there never lived upon the earth
more than two or three men. One was Moses, and one was
Paul. Perhaps there have been one or two more ; but two
at least, of the four or five great natures of the world, have
been Jews. Men of such magnificent zeal, of such glorious
self-sacrifice, and of such long-continued service (thirty one
years there were of his ministry) — such men do not come in
every age ; and when they do come in any age there are very
few that know how to appreciate them. Paul stood head
and shoulders above every other man. There never has been
a greater than he. He lived and died for the love of Christ,
and for the love of mankind.

Now, as I have intimated, this example of Paul's oughl
to throw liglit upon the great necessities of our age. The
whole world is moving. There is a sort of fermentation go-
ing on among all nations. Aspiration has dawned upon
those that sit in darkness and in the region and shadow of
death, and they are seeking to work their way upward. Men
low down are desirous now of equaling those who are more
favored than themselves. The question of the rights of
men is a question that is not half developed to its fullness ;
and we are having discontent, discraction, complaints, argu-
ments, sympatliies, or assaults, as the case may be. The
great race is astir. There is a wind in the forest, and the
leaves are murmuring, each one its own song.

One side says, ''This is the result of going out of the
true church. It is owing to the want of proper subordina-
tion. It comes from lack of faith, of obedience, and of

FOUNDATION WORK. 309

conformity to the prescriptions of the true cliurcb." Others
say, "It is a process of escape out of the torpidity and deatli
of the 'true church,' as it is called. It is a sign of life in
universal humanity, and of its motion upward."

Whatever it may be, we know that manhood is tormen-
ted by these thousand questions. Nor do I propose to say
that there is a cure for this fermentation. It must go on, if
the race is to be developed, and is to come forth from its
degradation. We must receive men at tlio bottom of life ;
we must take them low down, undeveloped, unrefined,
coarse ; and there must be tribulation in society until, in
some way or other, they shall have largeness in manhood. It
is of no use to measure the top to ascertain what mankind
are. I do not look at the gold with which a rich man tips
his lighting-rod, to find out Avliat is tlie condition of his
family : I go down into the house where the servants and
children and people live, to see what their condition is. And
you may say as much as you please about tlie higlier classes,
it is the base of society that determines civilization and re-
finement. If in a community there are a million cattle at the
bottom under the name of men, and there are a thousand
magnificent gentlemen at tlie top, it is not a prosperous com-
munity. The measure of civilization and of Christianity in
the community must be taken where the mass of iis popula-
tion reside.

Now, the question of the times is, ''What is the condi-
tion of tlie great laboring mass, the thousand to one, that earn
their daily bread, and that eat their bread by the sweat of
their brow ? Is their condition ample, large ?" No, it is
not. And we know that everything goes up by birth-tliroes,
by contentions. We know that it is necessary that tliere
should be struggle, conflict, fighting, in life, in order that
the fruit of the Spirit may be wrouglit out in men.

One of the lessons of the exam])lo of Paul is, that there
is to be a consecration of men's pride in work. It is not in-
consistent with elevation that a man should feel pride in his
work. I mean not manual labor alone, but the labor of all
men who are serving in the lower offices of life, inhere is a
reason of pride why tliey should be faithful aud contented.

310 FOUNDATION WORK.

They ought to carry pride into their business. Every true
man should feel, ''I bring to my work the worth that is
in it, no matter how low it is. / am doing this work."
And as it was said, ''Where I sit, there is the head of the
table," so a man should say, " Wliere I labor, there is honor-
able work." That is legitimate pride. That is pride using
itself to a purpose.

False pride says to a man, '' Why are you bothering your-
self with these trifles ? What makes you work down here ?
this is not becoming to you. You are a man that ought to
come up higher." That is the world's pride ; but that is true
pride where one, being placed, in the providence of God,
under inferior circumstances where he has to do disagreeable
work, makes things honorable which he touches.

If in the time of Christ you had gone to Jerusalem, with
all its priests, with all its temples, with all its officers, with
all its Herods and Pilates, tell me who would have been the
man the least to be envied there. It would have seemed to be
He who was about to be led out to crucifixion. Go to Jerusa-
lem to-day, an 1 find a place where he put his foot, and a mill-
ion men crowd thither, pilgrims fi'om every nation, willing to
bow down and kiss that place. Why, what did he give to it ?
Himself. It was the manliness of the man, it was the divin-
ity of the man, it was the soul-element which he bi'ought to
it, that consecrated the place, and made it a shrine for the
eternities. And men who work with a sense of their man-
hood bring their pride, their fidelity, their industry, and
their integrity to their work, and impart something of them-
selves to what they do. When men consecrate themselves to
their labor, that labor itself means something different from
what it otherwise would. It is no more ignominious, and it
is no more a bondage. The trouble with men who labor at
disagreeable work is, that while the work is mean, tlie work-
man is meaner. There is no remuneration in it because they
bring to it none of that large, glorious self which dignifies
small things, lending them the color of the soul.

There may be a spirit of benevolence as well as selfness,
dignity, and pride connected with one's woik. In that view
men who are doing low work are working for their fellow-

FOUNDATION WORK. 311

men. If you need to have a clamorous recognition of your
contributions to life (which is contrary to the example, intent
and precept of our Master), then there may be some reason
for discontent on your part in doing obscure, inconspicuous
work. But do you suppose the engineer who built Eddystone
lighthouse, working through winter and summer to lay the
foundations of that magnificent structure, never thought, in
the intervals of his labor, " How many ships coming home
from foreign lands and bringing the husband, the son, the
lover, will run safely into harbor by reason of this work that
I am now doing, putting stone upon stone, clamping block of
granite upon block of granite"? Toiling liard in winter,
and harder in the storms of summer, he was rearing that
lighthouse ; and though most of his work was invisible, he
knew that it would be the salvation of myriads of men who
never would know whose work saved them until they were in
heaven. Do not you suppose that he had such visions ? If
he did not have them, he was not the man that I take him
to have been.

Let men who are working in life think, for their encour-
agement, how many will probably be blessed by their work.
Do not be selfish in what you do.

When the cook raises the bread and bakes it, and it comes
out of the oven sweet and delicious, should she think, " Oh,
those dear little mouths ! oh, those hungry children ! how
happy it will make them all !" or should she think, "Well,
now, my mistress cannot say but that I am the smartest cook
in the kitchen " ? One is selfish and the other is generous.
Which is the most becoming ? Which is the noblest ?

" What is it that you are working at — you that work in
feebleness and pain?" "I am making a cradle." "Oh!
making a mahogany cradle. Whose is it?" "Well, it be-
longs to Mr. Applecorn. He has a family coming on, you
know." " But it is hard work for you." "Yes, yes ; but I
think, as I work and suffer here, how many sweet little
babies will be lying in that cradle, and how they will coo and
sing. Then I think how, when they get out, others will get
in — a whole flock of them. I follow them in my mind as
they grow up. I seem to see tliem running in and out of the

312 FOUNDATION WORK.

door. I think how some of them, when tliey arc grown up,
will take that cradle for thew children, and how many times
mothers will sing by it — for mothers do sing, you know.
They keep singing with their babies. I think how the chil-
dren become young folks, and how the young folks get
married, till it seems to me as though everybody was court-
ing and marrying and having children. I have a real good
time thinking these things over." And he goes to work
again. Now, is not that a good thing to do ?

Su2:)pose another man, under the same circumstancer,
should sa}', ''Here I am, a poor cabinet maker. I ain't half
paid for my work. That old fellow is going to get thic
cradle. He ought to give me twice as much as I am going
to get for it. I do not know what God made me for. I have
no luck in this world!" Oh, you mean man! The most
unlucky thing to such a man was his being born. If he
had the inspirations of a noble life, how easy it would be
for him to take the lowly tasks which are brought to his
hand, and make them beautiful ! It is not hard to make
things beautiful provided you have a beautiful soul ; pro-
vided yoTi have sympathy with your kind ; provided you slay
the snake of selfishness ; provided you have that benevo-
lence which the gospel breathes in every single aspiration.

How many men, when they are performing their manual
tasks, contrive to perform them from the meanest motives 1
How they go about, curmudgeons, groaning, and doing
their work poorly, meanly, stingily, with a bad temper and
with miserable remunerations ! On the other hand, suppose a
man should bring to the lower duties of life a manly, noble
feeling. Suppose every time you met a man who was going
about at night watching the dwellings of the neighborhood,
you should stoj? and talk with him, and find that he looked
with 13 ride on his vocation, and rejoiced in his work. Sup-
pose he said, ''There are some hardships connected with it,
and I do not receive very much for doing it ; but I take a
great deal of comfort in it. As I walk along Brooklyn
Heights here, I think of the tired creatures that are fast
asleeji ; I think of the children ; I think of all the people in
these houses. When I see a light burning late at night, I

FOUNDATION HORK. -13

know thab somebody is sick, and I am sorjy, and hope
they will get well. So I have company in my thoughts,
looking after one and another and another of those under
my care. My monthly pay is not very much ; I have rather
a hard time; but I have enjoyment as well." Suppose,
instead of that, another man, rendering the same service,
should, every time you met him, say, "1 have an awful hard
time, and I have only small wages ; couldn't you give me a
little more?" The difference between two such men is as
great as the difference between white and black, or between
heaven and hell. A man who lives in his lower nature, and
only in his lower nature, lives in hell.

So then, thus far, work may be largely redeemed by the
spirit which you bring to it ; but if you add to this a higher
motive, even ; if men, as Christians, recognize that there is
a providence that supervises all human affairs ; if they listen
to and reflect upon what Christ said — " Not a sparrow falls
to the ground without your Father's notice " — they will de-
rive a comfort from that source which they can obtain from
no other.

I sat yesterday by my back window up stairs, looking out
into the yard, and saw twenty or thirty sparrows enjoying
themselves down on my border. , I never knew before why I
left so many weeds there, but now I see that it was that the
sparrows might play with them, and get green leaves from
them in the winter. The significance of that i^assage came
to me as it never had before. There I sat, and not one of
these sparrows could move that I did not see him. I had an
empty ink bottle and one or two soda bottles at hand, and if
a cat had come near I would have sent her flying ! I was
watching over them. To be sure there was all New York,
there was the great harbor, there were the steamers and sliips,
and I saw them, and did not undervalue them ; I saw the
whole panorama of industry ; I saw the dim dust and smoke,
and heard the thunder of that dragon on the other side, that
crouches down with its thousand eyes at night, and that roars
all day long ; and yet the sparrows were as plain to me as
that great city ; and it gave new meaning to my Master's
words, when he said, "Not a sparrow falls to the ground

314 FOUNDATION WORK.

without your Father's notice, and ye are of more value than
many sparrows."

How sweet and balmy is this kind of faith ! Does He that
gave himself for me take care of me every day ? Does not a
hair fall from my head that he does not know it ?

Suppose you take that faith into your disagreeable work,
and say, "I am serving my Lord and Christ; I came into
life under his eye ; all my ways are appointed by him ; natu-
ral law and human agency are part and parcel of something
greater than they, like the letters of the alphabet in a word,
or like words in a sentence ; men's joys and acts are elements
that help to make the providence of God ; and that provi-
dence is ordaining my work" — is it not a great comfort to
you ? Happy are you if you can say, " The Lord God hath
put me here ; and, standing here, whether I work, or whether
I rest, whether I eat, or drink, or whatever I do, I am to do
it to the glory of God." And if you say, '' Lord, wilt thou
receive this mixed labor of mine ?" He says, " Yes, it is for
me. Inasmuch as you do the least and the lowest of these
duties, I accept them."

Then it becomes a question of allegiance' — of love.
Where there is love, it can transmute everything, and make
it radiant. There is nothing so black that love does not
change it to a bright white. There is nothing so low that
love does not exalt it and crown it. There is nothing so
impure that love does not cleanse it and make it divine.

Oh, that men could carry the love of Christ into their
work ! Oh, that they might feel that they serve Christ in
whatever worthy thing they do ! Oh, that their love for him
and trust in him might bring to them light and joy and
peace !

And then suppose, in the case of men in these lower
places of toil unremunerated, there is this reflection : '' I am
working but for a little time here. Ere long I shall be trans-
lated ; and then the last shall be first and the first shall be
last. Dives was seen far down, and the beggar was seen in
Abraham's bosom. There will be a redistribution." If men
live vulgarly because they are very low in life, they will not
rise much, they will start there where they leave off here ;

FOUNDATION WORK. 315

but if men are iu low circumstances, and if on that very
account they develop a Christian heroism, purifying them-
selves, and converting into noble effects all the great forces
of their being, do not you suppose that will make a difference
with them in the other life ?

You see it and you appreciate it everywhere. Why is it
that in circumstances of peril a poor ignorant woman, giving
her life for others, doing what others would not do, becomes
immortal ?

Grace Darling, who has saved so many lives at the risk
of her own — what was it that gave her a name ? It was
that she heroically performed an unrequited service which
was not demanded of her. Lowly in life, in rude conditions,
she put forth a disinterestedness, a courage, a self-sacrifice
wiiich has made her illustrious already.

Now, in this great world of unrewarded service, of tears,
of sorrows, of troubles innumerable, do you suppose God
forgets, as men do ? We do not see what is going on in the
houses of the poor ; we do not know what sufferings and
sacriSces are playing up and down the ranks of men in low
conditions of life, but God never fails to see. And, oh !
what a revelation there will be when, not the men who live
in ceiled houses, not the men who carry crowns and scepters,
not the men whose names resound through the newspapers —
not they, but men standing in poverty, men who occupy
dangerous places, men in mountain fastnesses, uncombed,
unfed, degraded — what a revolution there will be when
these men are raised to the stations where they belong in
the sight of God ! There have been men in whom man-
hood grew in spite of their degradation. How glorious is
such a manhood ! and when God shall reveal it, and all men
shall see it in the other life, it will shine as ii star in the
firmament.

0 ye great army of unrequited laborers everywhere, be
me)i. Weep if you will — every tear shall turn to pearl, and
every pearl shall be a part of your coronation. Be faithful,
be manly, be proud of what you are, and wherever you are
fill up the measure of love and peace with all that is best, for
Christ's sake, for man's sake, for your own sake, and for the

316 FOUNDATION WORK.

sake of heaven, that by and by shall give you ten thousand
thousand thrilling joys, rolling forever, for every sorrow and
every sigh that you have in this mortal sphere.

• FOUNDATION WORK. 317

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

Thou, O God, art our Shield against ten thousand dangers of
which we are ignorant, and against tliousands which we perceive.
Thou art our defense. We have neither wisdom nor strength to lift
ourselves against those influences which malign and would destioy
us. Tliou art our Sun, giving us light ; for if we had no light but that
which is of nature, if we had only the natural sun, and the things
upon wliich we tread, and which we use, to give us knowledge, how
poor would that knowledge be, growing poorer! For as we lift our-
selves high above the earth on which we tread, and are conversant
with the ineffable, with things spiritual, our souls bear witness that
tliey cannot live by bread alone. We cannot live by that which
is within the horizon of time and earth. We need thee in the strug-
gle of life where we battle manfully. We need the sustaining grace
of God. We need the thought not merely of thine existence and
power, but of thy piesenee, and of all those relations which 1)ring us
into intimate association with thee; and we rejoice, O God, that thou
hast made thyself so manifest in the presence of Jesus Christ our
Lord and Saviour, as that every one of us can apprehend thee, and
bring thee near, and appropriate thee. And the life which we live
in the flesh we live by faith of the Son of God— of Him who loved us
while yet we were afar off, alien, enemies of Him who brought
us near by his own blood, by suffering, by sorrow, making known to
VIS thy life.

We rejoice, O thou blessed Saviour, that thou hast addressed thy-
self to all that is deepest and dearest in us; that our hearts cling to
thee more than a vine to its support; that our souls come forth to
thee in all their wants; that thou art associated in our minds with
whatever is comely, whatever is needful, whatever is l)lessed.

We rejoice that thou art all in all, so that our sorrows, our fears,
our hopes, our joys, our lives, our duties, our daily experiences, are
in thee. In thee we live, and move and have our being. We pr#y
that this may be realized by every one of us. May it be a source of
joy and strength to us every day. May Christ be in us the hope of
glory continually. May he be our support in life and in death. And
whether we eat. or drink, or whatsover we do, may we do it all to the
honor of God. So may we associate ourselves with thee by thoughts
of thy glory that we can no longer feel our own littleness. Sinful
and poor as we are in ourselves, we are not poor nor small when
associated with God. Onc'e beloved of thee, we have an eternal her-
itage of glory. When thou hast once adopted us and called us thine
own, we are King's sons that stand in no mean place, wherever
we stand. We pray that thou wilt grant that every soul may be so
led to take Christ as to inherit with him all thmgs. How great is he!
How great is his glory! And yet, he is not ordained to anything of
which we shall not partake with liim. If he is beloved, so shall we
be. If there are songs, and rejoicing, and gratulation for him, so
there are for us: for we are in him, and his glory is in us.

We pray that we may have the preciousness of all these truths,
and that we may be upheld by them now in the time of our darkness

318 FOUNDATION WORK.

and conflict in this mortal sphere. Grant that all those who are bur-
dened with a continual sense of their own selves, and who are seeking
to be good by lookin/; upon the disfigurements and imperfections of
their life, may at laf t look up ; for as they who live in caves can never
see the rising sun if they look only into the cave, so they who only
look within themselves cannot see the light of hope. Grant, there-
fore, that thy servants may no longer look in upon their imperfect
hearts and dispositions; but may they look out and see what glory
there is in Jesus, in the Father, and in the eternal inheritance. May
they live less and less revolving around themselves, and seek more
and more to be good by drawing hope of salvation from things which
are outside of themselves, and in the realm of the divine nature.

"We pray that if there are any who cannot bring thee near to
themselves, thou wilt draw near to them. Thou who didst go forth
to seek him who was cast out of the Synagogue, and who was lying
alone, and dying, among his own countrymen — wilt thou draw near
to all who are in feebleness, and enable them to lift themselves up to
thee. If thou art a Physician, — and thou art,— then search out the
sick and the weak. If thou art beneficent, — and thou art. — then
look after the poor and needy. Yea, thou dost go about doing good.
Thou didst come to seek and to save to the uttermost. We do not
ask that thou wouldst open thine heart; we ask, rather, that we may
have faith imparted by thy Holy Spirit to conceive of the greatness
of the glory of thine heart which hangs like a summer over the earth,
and out of which comes all life and all blessing.

Grant, we beseech of thee, that the eyes of the blind may be
opened, and that their ears may be unstopped. Grant that those
whose hands hang down, and whose knees are feeble, may lift
up holy hands of joy and praise in the presence of Jesus, the glory of
heaven, the hope of earth, our Lord and our Salvation.

We thank thee, blessed Saviour, for all the past. We thank thee
for the ministration of thy Spirit to us; and though our knowledge
of thee is so little, as compared with what we should know, yet how
gf eat is it as compared with the ignorance with which we began !
We pray that thou wilt continue thy presence and companionship
with us, keeping us from despondency, and unfaith, and doubt, and
giving us, from day to day, if not the glorious light of the Sun
of Righteousness, at least some star that shall lead us, and overhang
the place where Jesus lies. Grant that thus we may follow thee as
little children, if we cannot fight for thee as soldiers full-grown.
And may we be willing to be here or there, high or low, so that we
may have a consciousness that we are serving our Lord Jesus Christ.
We pray that we may not be unwilling to do the homeliest and
the least things. May we not seek for the trumpet-call of praise.
May we do the things which we do for Christ, and not for ourselves,
nor for the praises of men.

We pray that thou wilt help all whose struggle is with pride; all
whose struggle is with avarice; all who seek to overcome irritable
passions — an ungoverned temper and an unruly tongue ; all who strive
against doubt and fear; all who are whelmed in uncertainties; all
who are unable to fulfill their resolutions; all who do not know how

FOUNDATION WORK. 319

to minister in their perplexities; all of every class and condition
whose trouble is known to them, and is far better known to thee.

Grant grace, mercy, and peace to every one to-day. If there be
those who sit in the darkness of recent sorrow, let the light arise upon
them— even the hope that shines from thy life. If there be those
who are in the midst of remembered sorrows which will not let them
go, and which still grow with their growth, we pray that thou wilt
grant to them that divine succor which man cannot give, and whic-h
is of God. We pray for them, that they may have abundant tokens
that thou art walking with them in the valley of the shadow of.
death. May thy rod and thy staff comfort them. May they lean
upon thee. If thou dost use thy rod upon them may they rejoice to
know that it is for their saving and not for their destruction.

We pray that thou wilt bless all who are working in thy vineyard.
May they do it with more alacrity, with nobler motives, with more
earnestness.

We pray that thou wilt grant, everywhere, that thy kingdom may
come, that thy will may be done among men, that thy Gospel may be
preached more purely and faithfully, and that out of it may come
knowledge, and obedience to laws, and wisdom in the establishment
of institutions, and equity and temperance. May whatever is benefi-
cent spring up m our times, and may this nation be known as a
Christian nation, and show forth the glory of God in its midst.

We pray that thou wilt hasten the day when knowledge and
righteousness shall visit all nations, and when there shall be no more
oppression, no more ignorance and superstition, no more war, no
more sighing or crying, but when the whole earth shall be filled with
thy glory, and when the new heaven and the new earth shall come in
which dwelleth righteousness.

And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son and Spirit, ever,
more. Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMO?^.

Our Father, we pray that thou wilt give comfort and encourage-
ment to those who are despondent. Send light into the dark places
of the earth. Thou that didst come to open prison doors, open them
and illuminate the souls of such as are in despaii". Thou that didst
come to break shackles, bring men out of thrall to their own passions.
Thou that didst come to lift men up out of their low condition, raise
those who are sunk in want and ignominy. Fulfill thy purposes in
respect to those who are in any trouble.

We pray for the poor. We pray for the overworked. We pray
for those who have no work. We pray for all the suflfering families
who are deprived of the means of support to-day. We pray that
thou wilt overrule the folly and the wisdom of men, and cause both
to praise thee. Hear, we beseech of thee, the groanings of the great
human family who are striving to become divine, but who are

320 FOUNDATION WORK.

tempted of the devil. Maiikind wroufrht upon, or iinwi'oupht upon,
by fancies, by fears, by turmoils, by eonseiousness of sin and guilt, or
of weakness— O thou Deliverer, we think of tbem all ; and so dost
thou. It is not enough that we are safe, that our households are safe,
that our church is safe, that the brotherhood of churches is safe, or
that our nation is safe : what wilt thou do for the world ? Thou hast
told us that the field is tbe world ; and we think of it, and dream
about it, and night and day our wonder is, what God does with
the great family of mankind; but thou dwellestin eteruity, all things
are plain to thee; and when we rise out of this life, its mysteries dis-
solve before thy face, like the mists of the morning before the light
of the sun. O Sun of Righteousness, all things shall be made plain
when we come into thy presence. Therefore, while we see not,
we trust thee; and we pray. Let thy kingdom come, and let thy will
be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And to thy name, Father, Son and Spirit, shall be eternal praises.
Amen.

THE BIBLE.

" But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and
hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast lenrued Ihem; and
th»t from a child thou hast linown the Holy Scriptures, which are
able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith winch is in
Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instioiction in
righteousness : that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly fur-
nished unto all good works."— 2 Tim. iii. 14-17,

When this was written neither of the Gospels was in ex-
istence. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John had not been set
forth. When this was written very much that now enters
into the New Testament Scriptures was unknown. If it was
known in several churches it was not generally known; and
all are agreed that Paul did not include in the Scriptures the
New Testament, but that this declaration had reference solely
to the sacred writings of the Hebrews — the Old Testament
Scriptures. And yet, this is by far the nearest approach to a
philosopical definition of inspiration that exists in the Bible.
It is one of the remarkable facts that while the Christian
world has been for generations discussing the nature and
validity and authority of Scripture, and especially while it
has dogmatized on the subject of inspiration, the Scriptures
themselves have been almost silent on the subject; tho
nearest approach to any precise statement is that which I
have read ; and tkat refers exclusively to the Old Testament
Scriptures.

You will take notice that the declaration is very general.
It is simply a declaration that in some sense, whatever it may
be, the Scriptures of the Old Testament are inspired. What
inspiration precisely meant in the writer's mind is not stated.

Sunday Bvenimg. Dec. 13, 1874. Lesson ; Ps.ozlx.9-16: 97-105. Stmnb IPIymoutb
i.'ollectton; : Nob. 13il. 436. 74.

334 THE BIBLE.

Because the words which are figurative, etjmologically con-
sidered, signify a breathing into one, it is very easily and
naturally supposed that the declaration of Paul is that the
Old Testament was all breathed peremptorily into man from
God, proceeding from him just as Milton's sonnets proceeded
from Milton's brain, or as Cowper's poems proceeded from
Cowper's brain ; and yet when we come to look at the Script-
ures themselves, we find that the Old Testament Scriptures
were not inspirations in that sense. In Genesis we have
given to us a certain amount of history ; that book is a
record of histories ; in Exodus again we have a regulai* flow
of history ; and to suppose that facts which might be known
by the ordinary use of the understanding, and parts oi
which were the experience of the writer himself, were poured
into his mind by a direct breathing of the divine mind, is
to set aside the usual methods of thinking and reasoning.
"When you come to the substance of the matter, it does not
seem to me that you can derive from the Bible any philo-
sophical idea of what inspiration is. We know that there is
a distinction between inspiration and revelation. We know
that strictly considered revelation is the making known to
men of things that were before unknown — the revealing to
them of things (.'it were hidden. Inspiration has generally
been defined to be either a divine afflatus which aroused in
men certain sentiments or emotions, guiding their utterances,
or, what is more rational and reasonable, such a divine guid-
ance that they should unerringly state the truth, whether
of history, of ethics, or of spiritual life ; but from the Bible
itself there is no authoritative definition or explanation of
inspiration.

What, then, does it do ? It simply declares that in some
sense the sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament, which
were in ancient times the choice food of God's people, were
insjiired of God, — and this declaration refers exclusively to
the Old Testament Scriptures, and is made not at all with
nnr idea of the philosophical origin of the word "inspira-
tion" in the mind of the writer. We are seeking to run
back on the word to the method and mode of divme govem-
mej t in bringing into existence in historic concurrence the

THE BIBLE. 325

rarious books of religion which are bound together and
called "The .Old Testament;" but that is not what the
apostle was thinking of at all. He was thinking of this advice
to his young friend Timothy : "Continue thou in the things
which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of
whom thou hast learned them [that is, his parents] ; and that
from a child thou hast known the holy [or sacred] Scriptures,
which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith
which is in Christ Jesus." Having struck that note, Paul-
like, he goes on to enlarge it, and says, "All Scripture is
given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly famished
unto all good works." It is in that direction that he was
thinking of the inspiration of the sacred Scriptures, namely,
not their origin but their practical uses ; and it is as true of
the New Testament as of the Old, although primarily ap-
plied to the Old, that they were of God in such a sense
that they furnish food for rectitude, for character-building,
for right conduct in this life, and for the attainment of
blessedness hereafter. In other words, instead of having a
])hilosophical and retrospective thought of inspiration, he
had a practical and constructive thought of it. He asked,
"For what end are the Scriptures inspired?" not, "In
what ivay were they inspired ?" He inquired, not as to their
structure and origin, but rather as to their results. They are
for training, for correction, for reproof, for the education and
instruction of men in righteousness. They are to make a
noble manhood. That is what they are for. In this sense he
took them ; and in this sense it is perfectly legitimate for ug
to say that whatever theory may obtain in regard to the in-
spiration of Scripture, this is a point on which we can all
stand — that the word of God, as contained in the Old and
New Testaments, in its representations of divine character, of
divine procedure in government, of the divine method of
conducting human affairs, is to direct man, to control hia
thoughts and feelings, to point out to him the distinctions
between right and wrong, between piety and impiety, and be-
tween reverence and irr-verence. In regard to all these great

B26 THE BIBLE.

fundamental elements it stands, fiom the beginning to the
end, a book that is safe to put into the hands of men for
their correction^ their inspiration, and their building up in
righteousness.

In that large way, then, the Bible is a book of practical
life ; and as such it is as valuable to-day as it ever was. It
becomes, therefore, a matter of great importance, just now,
when so much is being said against the Bible, and when the
foundations of faith are so much shaken, to consider the
right ways and the wrong ways of using this inspired book.

First, some of the wrong ways. It is a wrong way of
using the Word of God to suppose that it is in a literal and
philosophical sense without flaw or error. This would be a
natural deduction from a generally abandoned theory of in-
spiration— namely, that every word and letter in the Bible
was derived directly from the mind of God. That theory,
if it were legitimately carried out, would bring a man to
skepticism in an hour. No man can hold that theory and
believe in the Bible unless he is inconsistent with himself —
as fortunately, many a man is.

For example, if there be a single instance in which differ-
ent writers, looking at the same facts, made conflicting state-
ments in regard to those facts, it proves either that they did
not receive them directly from God, or that God stated them
in different ways, and sometimes erroneously.

Take, for instance, the inscription written over the cross
of our Saviour. Matthew states it in one way, Mark in an-
other way, Luke in yet another way, and John in still anoth-
er way. It is not alike as stated by any two of them ; and
although the variation does not affect the subject matter, it
does undoubtedly settle this question : that as the divine
mind could not have been mistaken about so small a thing as
the inscription written over the cross, the divine mind did
not inspire or put into the minds of these men this element.

We are not to suppose that the value of the Scriptures is to
be destroyed because you may find an error in a date. The
Bible does not undertake and does not profess to be a book
perfect in such a sense as a logarithmic table or a philosophic
statement is perfect. If it is true in substance ; if it is true

THE BIBLE. 327

in regard to the great elements on which governments should
stand, and households should be founded, and manhood
should be built ; if it is true in regard to those staple truths
which pertain to the very structure of this life and the life
that is to come — then it is sound. In the earliest day, in
the intermediate day, in the apostolic day, from first to last,
from beginning to end, it has been a safe reliance for per-
sonal character, for collective interests, for the develop-
ment of the race, and for their perfection for eternity. To
undertake, therefore, to stand upon incidental mistakes, — as,
for instance, to say that because an event was said to have
occurred in the spring, when afterwards it was proved to have
occurred in the fall, vitiates the authenticity of the Script-
ures,— is to set aside, not the Scriptures, but confidence in
universal human testimony. We believe a man to be a truth-
ful man though he makes mistakes and misstatements. We
believe his word to be trustworthy although we find on sifting
it that he sees differently ai different times. The question is
not whether a stick of timber has not a single check or knot
in it, but whether taking it in its length and breadth it is
usable, and fit for sill or bridge or roof. Now, in respect to
the word of God, consider this : that it is a series of books
which were written in different nations, by different men, in
different ages, for different purposes, and that their colloca-
tion or juxtaposition may be called an accident. Genesis
was not written with an idea that there was to be an Exodus ;
Exodus was not written with an idea that there was to be a
Leviticus ; Leviticus was not written with an idea that there
was to be a Numbers or a Deuteronomy ; and if you suppose
that the five books of Moses were written with reference
to any relation that they might have to subsequent books —
to Ezra, or Nehemiah, or the Psalms, or the book of
Proverbs, or Ecclesiastes, or Isaiah, or Jeremiah — you are
mistaken. These books were not any of them written with
the idea that they were going to make a unit, named "The
Bible." They come down bringing the results of the lives of
mankind, and they state the experience of the best men —
men who lived under the divine inspiration ; men whose light
was from above ; men who were representative of the moral

328 THE BIBLE.

sense of their age ; men who, in the providence of God, were
called to deal with questions of personal instruction, or to
stand as Ahab stood between the prophet and the Israelites,
or as David stood giving utterance to sorrows in trouble, or
as "wise men stood giving expression to philosophy in the
Proverbs. These various elements were gathered up and put
together ; and the marvel is, not that in putting them to-
gether there are here and there minor discrepancies, differ-
ences of dates, and the like. Though these are trifling
errors, they are errors such that one could hardly put in an
extravagant claim for the accuracy of tbe Scriptures; but
when you take the larger view, that the Bible is a book of
truths which respect fundamental life and fundamental dis-
tinctions ; when you consider that it is a book which never
goes wrong about pride, about lust, about vanity, about sub-
mission, about obedience, about reverence and about love ;
when you bear in mind that its teachings shine brighter and
brighter on these subjects from beginning to end, what a
contemptible criticism it is to say that the vehicle of such
truths is faulty here and there and elsewhere !

If I had sent to me from out of Italy a precious statue,
representing, in exquisite form and proportion, some eminent
and worthy theme, do you suppose I would throw it away
because, on examining the box in which it came, I found that
there was poor stuff in it, or that the packing did not suit
my ideas ; or if 1 found that the feet were mouldy ; or even if
it was proved to me that one thumb was a little bigger than
the other, or that one toe was out of proportion ? We should
say that he was the veriest fool who did a thing like that —
if we were not too polite to utter such a word.

So we should look at the Word of God, considering its
scope ; considering its oiigin ; considering through how long
a period its elements were collected ; considering that its
oflfice was to gather together the best thoughts and the richest
experiences of God's people in different ages and nations, and
to present them in such a form that men might, looking back,
ase them on the principle of common sense — for every jart
of the Bible implies that men have common sense, — an im-
plication which, in our day, we should hardly dare to make.

I

THE BIBLE. 329

It was written on that theory, and must be interpreted accord-
ing to that theory. When we consider its minute structural
and vehicular elements, mistakes amount to nothing; and
for a man to stick on them is to damage his own credit for
good sense, and not the Word of God.

If I. take logarithmic tables and make calculations with
Babbage's machine (it is a shame that a machine should do
more accurate work than the brain which made it ; the brain
makes mistakes, and the machine does not ; but still the
brain is better than the machine) — if I take these tables,
being a navigator, and calculate from them, it is a misfor-
tune if I find an error in one of them ; but would a single
error vitiate them ? If there were so many errors as to lead
to men's running their ships wrong, they would be vitiated ;
but if average experience shows that in nine hundred and
ninety-nine instances out of a thousand they are perfectly
safe to be trusted, though there is here and there a trivial
miscalculation, they are not vitiated.

Now suppose it shall be shown that a prophecy is in the
New Testament applied, according to ordinary methods, to
one event while in the Old Testament it is applied to another
and very different event, what then ? Does it vitiate the
great substantial elements of truth in the Bible, its moral dis-
criminations, its structural uses, and its relations to time and
eternity ? It does not touch them. Oh that men would
bring as much common sense to the Bible as they find there !

Then it is a wrong way of using the Bible to suppose that
all parts of it are alike useful, and that men are to read it
all, and a great many times, with a kind of superstitious no-
tion that it must be all taken in, as being a sacred book, and
as necessary to be taken wholly by every man.

If I took a chart, with sailing directions, and were run-
ning a ship between Liverpool and New York, I should study
that part of the chart which referred to the North Atlantic
Ocean, and should endeavor to make myself familiar with all
the soundings of the coast in that part. I might cursorily
look at other parts ; but I should do it only for purposes of
general information : my business would lead me over a given
track, and I should bestow my attention upon that track.

330 THE BIBLE.

Now, this book is a chart ; it is a guide to men ; and each
man is to take out of it that portion which suits his particu-
lar need. It is to adapt itself to the wants of each indi-
vidual.

** Well," it is asked, ** do you say that a man should not
begin with Genesis and read it all through ?" I say, that oc-
casionally a regular reading of the whole of Scripture is use-
ful; but the moment a man says, "Imust read it. I feel
conscience-stricken because I have never read the books of
Jonah, of Daniel and of Ezekiel : I somehow always fall upon
the Psalms or the Gospels when I read, and I feel guilty" —
why should you ? I do not suppose that there is anything
sold in Fulton Market which is not good for some people at
some time ; but I never feel that it is my duty to begin at one
end and eat right straight through everything that is there.
r have no doubt that almost every one of the remedies which
are found in a proper apothecary shop are useful for some ail-
ments and under some circumstances ; but does any man sup-
pose that he must take medicine by the shelf ? It is not
expected that a man will take the catalogue in order when
reading the books in a library of a thousand or ten thousand
volumes. In such a library there are many books which per-
haps are not used more than once in a lifetime ; but I do not
denounce a library because half the books- in it I have never
read, and never expect to read.

A young man at Harvard University in selecting a book
from the library took the first volume on the lowest shelf ;
and the registrar said to him, '*My friend, perhaps I am bet-
ter acquainted with what will suit you than you are." *' Oh,"
said the young man, *' I intend to read the whole library
through, and am going to begin at the bottom" !

Some men feel a good deal so about reading the Bible.
There are those who boast, *' I have read the Bible through
once a year for ten years." Yes : well, I have known men
that read it through annually for ten years who knew less
about it than other people who never looked at it. Probably
they have read superstitiously, or without the first idea of
what it means. It has not occurred to them that it is a book
of food, that it is a book of medicine, or that it is a book of

THE BIBLE. 331

education, and that it is not meant to be read consecutively
of necessity, but adaptively, nutritiously, remedially. If it
is so read ]ieople must pick out portions which supply their
own particular want. For instance, I very seldom read Rev-
elation except for purely imaginative purposes ; but an Afri-
can girl, who was full of sensuous imagination, and rejoiced
in just such a picturesque, glowing, vague mode of represen-
tation, said, " The only part of the Bible that I like to read
is Revelation. I like to read that because I can understand
it." That which is a stumbling block of critics to her was
food. Wings, horns, beasts, trumpets, thunders, lightnings,
sheets unrolled, visions — the realm of such things was where
she got her nourishment, such as it was.

Some men find but one or two books which are helpful
to them. Some men almost make their nest in the gospels.
Some men read the Pauline writings more than any others in
the Bible. Some men prefer the Epistle to the Hebrews,
which is not Pauline. Some men choose the historical parts
of Scripture. Children like the stories. Blessed be God for
the stories of the Bible. How many Sundays have been saved
to me by them !

The Bible is a book so large that you can walk in it as one
walks in a Park, going through it a hundred times without
crossing his own track. It is adapted to youth, to middle
age, to old age, to men in prosperity, and to men in adversity.
When a man is all alert with vigor and strength and thrift,
does he want those Psalms which are requiems ? But let
woes fall thick and fast upon him, so that he feels that he is
a mark for the shafts of sorrow and affliction, and then see
if he does not flee to those Psalms. In the joys of prosperity
they had no voice of comfort for him ; but now they are his
refuge for consolation. There is no mood of mind and there
is no contingency of life in which men, if they go to the
Word of God having knowledge of it, shall not find some-
thing to lift them up and console them. You may cut the
New Testament to pieces by jangling criticism, and destroy
faith in the gospels, but if you bring the Bible to men as a
book that supplies the soul's need, then the sadnesses of life,
the sorrows of life and the hopes of life will bring them to the

332 THE BIBLE.

light that is in it ; for of all books it is the most raarveloDs

in its sense of manhood, in its sense of the actual unfoldings
of life, in its sense of the divinity that is in universal affaiis,
in its sense of the relation of this life to the other, and in its
sense of spiritual purity and sweetness in human character.
It is a source of trust and of Joy to those who are sinful, and
even to those who are cast down. The recuperative power
of the Bible wonderfully transcends that of any other book
which was ever written even by those who have drawn their
elevation aud inspiration from it.

It is a great and grievous wroug in reading the Word of
God to read it as a controversial book. That there may
come times when as the least of evils it must be used in a
controversial spirit I do not deny ; and yet it is a calamity
then. Just as in times of war houses are fortified to keep off
the enemy, and ramparts are run through orchards and gar-
dens, wasting those things which are most beautiful in times
of peace, because in the emergency everything must give
way to the law of force for offense and defense ; so there may
come times when even the sweet and pleasant places of the
Word of God will resound with the din of battle ; but it is
the greatest calamitj in the world to have the associations of
God's word in your mind associations of warfare. To have
been brought up as I was with this continually dinging in
one's ear — " Contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to
the saints'* — is a misfortune. It so happened that contend-
ing was a grace that was very strong in my nature, and it
grew stronger during my early life, and it suited me. Many
have the grace of contention. If the Word of God is for the
purpose of contention, I am a disciple, and so are thousands
and thousands of men. But consider how sweet is the tone
of the Word of God itself. Consider the life of Jesus ; his
childhood ; his relations to his mother ; the beauty of his af-
fections ; his simplicity and humility. He never entered upon
the ministry in our sense of the term. He refused to take
orders. The church to-day in making a man a deacon sets
him apart, as it were, from his fellow men. When a man is
made a preacher some badge of distinction and separation ia
put upon him. He is lifted up into a place above and differ«

THE BIBLE. 333

ent from that in which other people stand. But Jesus, while
all such official distinctions and separations existed in his na-
tion, absolutely refused to take one of them. He Joined him-
self to the common people, and made himself one of them,
and obliterated all lines that divided between him and them,
— so much so that the Pharisees made it a bitter gibe that he
ate with publicans and sinners, descending to the lowest forma
of association. Consider how beautiful were his sympathy,
his gentle Judgment, and his revulsion from hypocrisy and
cruelty and selfishness and oppression. Consider how, clear
down through the whole course of his life, he was led by the
Spirit of God, blossoming more and more, and growing more
and more lovely, to the end. And then consider the unwrita-
ble tragedy of his death. Who ever shall fitly describe the
forty days that closed the earthly residence or the earthly labor
of Christ ? No man's mind can compass it. The depth of it
was such as no plummet ever will sound. Its elevations are
such that only a seraph's wing can reach them.

Now, to take this benign life, this exquisite history, this
affiliation of the Divine with universal human want, this
nature that formed heart-loves, and loved in the name of the
Father of all, and brought the Spirit of heaven to earth,
shedding gracious influences among men as clouds shed rain
upon the fields, every drop being a bounty — to take this and
tear it into texts, and ram it into your guns, and fire them
into Calvinists, high or low, or into Unitarians and Univer-
salists ; or to make every text a sword or spear or arrow with
which to attack those who chance to differ from you — how it
is to discredit the Bible, and to set aside every proper use for
which it was created ! And yet there be multitudes who think
they know a great deal about the Bible because they have
chewed it into pellets, and made heaps of them, so as to be
ready at any time to get at their opponents on any doctrine,
any experience, or any ethical question. The Bible has been
cut up into weapons of war ; and men think they are using
the Bible properly when they are using these. So it has
come to pass that under the dominion of theologues for whole
ages the only use of the Bible has been to find missiles ;
whole ages have passed away without nutrition from thia

334 THE BIBLE.

source. The church would have swamped and gone down
if it had not been for the poor widows ; if it had not been for
Bible readers who read from the heart ; if it hud not been
for the suffering and needy who cried, *' 0 God ! comfort
me in mine affliction and in my poverty." It has been sin-
ners that have saved the church. Souls that have felt weighed
down toward perdition, and have stretched out imploring
hands to God, using the Bible, have kept that book in prac-
tical power, while theologues were weaving systems out of it,
and pulling it asunder, and making it pugnacious. It has
been preserved in being used by the great heart of humanity
that needed it for food, and for medicine, balm, cordial, to
assuage sorrow and grief. When you tell me that the church
has preserved the Bible, I tell you that the Bible has preserved
the church ten thousand times over. When you say that the
church has saved the world, I say that the sin of the world
has saved the church. The wickedness and want of men,
the crying of their souls to God, and his answering through
his Word — this has been the salvation, and this will be the
salvation, of the church.

When, therefore, science is brioging up various questions
affecting tiie Old Testament, and condemning it as not being
the best book of astronomy, nor the best book of geology,
nor the best book of geography, nor the best book of ethnog-
raphy, and all the other graphics, what if they prove that ?
Is any science likely to come up that will give us a benigner
view of God than the Bible presents ?

Here is a book that has guided the world. At its breast
men have sucked as the child sucks at the breast of its
mother ; here is a book that men have read in caves, and
forgot the caves ; here is a book that men have read in pris-
ons, and forgot but that they were in palaces ; here is a book
that childhood has loved to read, and that old age has sup-
ported itself on ; here is a book that every conceivable sorrow
has stayed itself upon ; and shall we set it aside because on
questions of fact it may be convicted here and there of less
than perfect knowledge ? It never set out to be infallible in
that respect. It never professed to be without flaw. It
never pretended that it did not contain a mistaken phrase-

THE BIBLE, 335

But, ah I it is profitable for instruction in righteousness.
Both the Old Testament and tlie New Testament are effica-
cious for the salvation of the soul. The Bible is that which
men in their emergencies need. Go through that book with
me and I will find you a great many cases where in the his-
tory of men there has been craft, cunning, falsehood ; and I
will show you that the Word of God states the thing simply
and plainly, just as it was, neither exaggerating nor palliat-
ing ; but point out to me if you can, in the Bible, any
casuistry, any blinding of conscience, any dimming of the
understanding, or any attempt to tarnish the honor and take
away moral sensibility. Search the Word of God through
from beginning to end, and you will find it to be a book that
intones manhood ; that gives the noblest views and concep-
tions of life ; that makes men patient under burdens, and
hopeful under difficulties, and hfts upon them the light of
the eternal world, and inspires them with the feeling that
they are sons of God.

Those nations that have the Bible the freest, and whose
common people have read it most, are the nations that in
modern days have taken hold of all things that improve life,
strengthen society, adorn character and prepare men to go
out of this life in the fervent hope of another and better life.

Of course I must leave a vast amount of ground untrod-
den. I will this evening pursue the thought no further ; but
I do not stop quite yet. I think there is for very obvious
reasons a much less use of the Bible than there once was.
In the days of poverty and in the days of the unfruitfulness
of the printing press, libraries were not common ; but to-day
the poorest man may own books. To-day papers and pamph-
lets, as well as books, fall thick as snow-flakes everywhere ;
and there is so much to read that everybody is overwhelmed
with reading. Nobody catches up the whole. However much
you may read, you leave ninety-nine per cent, drifting away
from you to one per cent, that you avail yourself of. Then
there is a great fruitfulness of books derived from Scripture,
and expository of it. The supply of reading matter in that
direction is enormous. Our Sunday-schools swarm with
books. In my boyhood I had three or four. Now every

336 THE BIBLE.

child has his pick from eight, nine or ten hundred — which
are not a tithe of all that are published.

These are some of the reasons why there has been a grow-
ing discontinuance of the reading of the Word of God ; but
there is no substitute for God's word. It is the best book in
the whole world ; and after ages and ages and ages, when ten
thousand times more books are written than have been writ-
ten, you will not be able to get along without the thing itself.
There is a peculiar flavor to it. It contains the best things
in the best li\es, the history of the best hours of the best
men, and the best experiences of those best hours, through
four thousand years. These experiences and histories are en-
shrined in the Bible. From it you get a knowledge of uni-
versal humanity which you can get from no narrow interpre-
tations. I perpetually turn back from the scholastics to the
Bible itself. It is more than commentaries ; they muddle
it. It is thought that they are useful, and they are ; but
they are useful in our day on the same principle that Layard
was when he exhumed buried cities. They were overwhelmed,
and he dug them out again. The passages of the Bible are
buried six feet deep in old commentaries, and the business
of modern commentators is to uncover them once more.

Consider in the Word of God its earliest histories. Con-
sider those exquisite poems in prose — Ruth and Esther.
Consider those matchless lyrics of the sweet singer of Israel,
of Asaph and other psalmists. Consider the Proverbs, which
one might take for a cud and chew on all his life, and not be
done with them. Consider the grand statesmanship of the
old prophets. Why, I am disgusted when a man thinks, as
he reads Isaiah and Jeremiah, that his business is to set-
whether what they said came to pass. These were moral
statesmen. Geniuses of rectitude were they, that rose iv
times of distemperature, and bore witness for truth and right.
Magnificent men they were. Their heads were lifted high
above the age in which they lived. Then consider the Gos-
pels. I should as soon think of walking by proxy in a gar-
den, I should as soon think of sending another man to cour<
a maiden for my wife, I should as soon think of wishing »
maa to show hig friendship by eating my dinner for me, as I

THE BIBLE. 387

ghould think of taking in the place of the New Testament
the commentary of any critic, or anything else. It is the
thing itself in its matchless beauty and simplicity and adap-
tation to every want and feeling of the human soul that I
need.

So, then, if there be any of you who have been disturbed
by the criticisms which are being made ; if any of you are
concerned because the idea of inspiration in which you were
educated is exploded, take this conception of the Bible :
that it is a book for universal humanity. Select from it what
you need. Feed yourself with it. Take it as nourishment for
the reason and tlie imagination. Take it as that which the
spiritual nature needs for its strengthening. Take it under-
standing that inspiration was given for doctrine, for reproof,
and for instruction in righteousness. Use it as you would
bread, or remedial agents ; and using it thus, bear witness if
it does not approve itself as from God. Though it is not
blustering and arrogant as an authority, your life will feel it,
and your moral sense will recognize it.

Are there not here many young men who are ashamed of
the Bible ? Are there not many of you who have brought it
hither because your mother wrapped it up and laid it away
in your trunk among your things ? And now that you have
come into different circumstances and into a different atmos-
phere, are you not ashamed to be thought reading your Bi-
ble ? 0 young man ! never be ashamed of that which has
been the stay and the comfort of your father and mother.
He is dishonorable who ever points scorn or ridicule at your
most precious affections — at those sacrednesses of the house-
hold in which you have been reared.

Pluck out that book. Let it be the man of your counsel
and your guide. I do not tell you to have a superstitious
fear that you have sinned because you did not read a
chapter in the Bible on Monday, or Tuesday, or any other
day : but this I say : Let a man who would cleanse his life do
it by taking heed to the Word of God, making himself famil-
iar with its moral discriminations, and saturating himself in
!*/■ truth.

A.re there not many of you who have revered it, and

338 THE BIBLE.

attempted to live according to its precepts,, but who, alasl
have been overwhelmed by business, or have been surrounded
by other associations and influences, so that for a long time
this voice has been silent ? Your Saviour is buried in this
book, and for years there has been no resurrection to you.
Here walks to-day, in a four-fold vision, the benign and
blessed Jesus. Here to-day Paul, that noblest of gentlemen
that ever lived, who touched the heights and depths and
lengths and breadths of every conceivable delicacy of feeling
and courtesy of affection that was inspired by the love of
Christ, walks and speaks. Here is a retiring place for sorrow
that would weep unseen. Here are the tonics for weakness.
Here are the glasses tlirough which faith may look and dis-
cern invisible things.

Ye mourners, ye desolate, ye orphans, ye oppressed, ye
men broken in hope, ye bankrupts, too old to begin again, ye
misrepresented and persecuted and afflicted, ye great army
of suffering humanity, if ye have forgotten the word of God,
and turned aside into the desert and arid ways of this woild,
come back to your father's God. Come back to the Book in
which you were instructed when you were children. And
forget not from whom you received those things. Your fath-
ers— where are they ? Is your life leading you to join them
in the company of the just made perfect ?

I present this Book to you, not because I am a minister,
but because I am a man. 1 present it to you not by the force
of any ingenious plea, but because I have known human life.
When the waves have been huge, and the night has been
dark, there has been a Jesus revealed here to me, walking in
the night on the sea, and giving calm amid the thunder of
the waves and the roar of the tempest.

Are there those who have suffered the exquisite pangs of
mortification ? There is balm for them. Are there those
who with unutterable anguish have overhung their children
dying ? There is comfort for such. Are there those whose
heaven has been black, and whose hope has departed, and
who have thought themselves doomed to destruction ? I tell
you, there is a daylight even for such.

I bring to you this Book that has been my counsellor, m^

THE BIBLE. 339

comfort, and my food. It is unspeakably dear to me, from
all the associations of my life. I rejoice in it because my
father walked through it, as his father walked through it,
and men walked through it to remote generations. It is a
precious Book, not because poems say so, but because my soul
says so ; and I could present you no better gift for the holi-
days than this Book, with a spirit to live, in the innermost
recesses of your heart, not in bondage to the letter, not in
fear of the text, but in sympathy with the teaching, and to
make it the man of your counsel, your guide, a lamp shed-
ding light upon your path. Thus let it become a most
precious blessing to the head and heart of every one of you.

Will you not go home to-night and look up your old
Bible ? Oh, is there a novel that comes out which has such
novelty as the Bible would have to some of you if you were
to read it ? Will you not go home and open it ? You may
find inscribed in it your own name, or your father's, or your
mother's. Perhaps you will find that it has been read more
in some places than in others. Will you not look along the
edge and see where it has been thumbed and turned, and
where it was that those who gave you this precious legacy
dwelt most frequently ? Their feet beat paths, as it were,
along the recesses of the Word of God. Will you not look
at the marks made by your own hand, and remember when
you made them ? Will you not revive something of your
own life by restoring to its place and to its honored functions
this long-neglected Word of God ? For your own sake, and,
if you are parents, for the sake of your children, and for
Christ's sake, be ye rich in the Word of God.

340 THE BIBLE.

PRAYEE BEFORE THE SERMON.

Thou hast heard our prayer, our Father, and thy Spirit hath been
with us through all the hours of the day, thou hast granted ua
strength aud health, and thou hast breathed peace and consolation
upon our hearts. We thank thee for this day of rest that stands as
an island amidst beating storms of the sea. This one day of all the
busy seven is a harbor of peace; and we thanli thee that thou hast
from age to age saved it, and made it sacred to things pure and spir-
itual—to things pertaining to our everlasting life. We rejoice that
thus there is a standing-ground, a place of assembly, — one day filled
with most hallowed associations. We thank thee for all our culture,
for ail our childhood associations, for all our knowledge derived
upon this day. We thank thee for thy word; we thank thee for all
thy proclamations of truth made from it; grant that as we grow
older we may not abandon the faith of our fathers, nor their hope,
nor their Saviour, noi their instruction.

May we work in the light of thy truth, and rejoice in thine ordi-
nances. Yet may we be delivered from idolatry; from worshiping
the instrument; from seeking to develop the outward instead of
the inward life. We pray that thou wilt grant us the privileges
which were enjoyed in the past, and which are ripening the world
and preparing it for a more glorious future. We beseech of theo
that thou wilt save ail those who are beginning life from doubt, from
unbelief, from apostasy. Deliver them, we pray thee, from all the
snares, and doubts, and difiBculties that are around about them.
Give them a true sense of this life, and a true sense of the life that is
to come. Give them faith in thee. Grant unto them that divine
influence by which they shall unerringly be led in all the ways
of life.

We pray, O Lord, that thou wilt grant thy blessing to rest upon
all who are present here to-night — upon each severally as thou seest
that he needs. Not what we wish, but what we need, grant unto us.
Teach us to pray wisely : and grant that our prayers may not be sup-
plications alone. May there be communion, and thanksgiving, and
rejoicing in them. May we be brought near to thee as children are
brought near to their parents.

If there be those in thy presence who have never learned to pray,
grant that their hearts may pray before their lips know how to utter
words of prayer. May their thoughts go silently up to God. May
they open their inward life, their innermost thought, to thee and
before thee, that thou mayest give them light, and healing, and new
life.

Grant to those who are burdened and under afflictions the conso-
lations of thy grace. Grant to those who are in doubt and darkness
the guidance of the spirit of truth. Give honesty and considerate-
ness to everyone, s.-> that he may ponder the things which belong to
his highest interest.

May we be delivered from levity and from want of earnestness.
May everyone feel what is the responsibility of a true manhood.

THE BIBLE. 341

May everyone, whether he be in darkness or in light, in joy or in sor-
row, in peace or in perplexity, still feel how supremely important
above all transient experiences are the truths of the life which is to
come— for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things
which are unseen are eternal. May we remember the counsels and
declarations of God, and may we not count our present afflictions to
be worthy of consideration as compared with the eternal weight of
glory which awaits those who are faithful to the end.

We pray that thou wilt grant, especially, that the young who are
now beginning life with a fair prospect, with an open field before
them, may remember their God and their fathers' God, and that they
may walli securely by walliing according to thy precepts. Deliver
them from selfishness and from that conceit which is leading them
away from thee.

May there be more who shall be led to take the sickle and go into
the harvest field. Multiply, we beseech of thee, thine inspiration to
everyone. Grant that the truth may everywhere be known and
believed, and wrought into human laws, into institutions, into the
hearts of men universally. At last may thy Spirit rule in all the
world. So may the glory of the Lord fill the earth.

We that speak to-night commend ourselves to thy will; and we
commend to thee those that listen. We ask thee to go with us to our
households. Bear peace and safety to every dwelling. Wilt thon
prepare us for the duties of this week. May the Spirit of God, and
the inspiration of the hope and faith of eternal life, go with us, and
lighten our tasks, and direct our way, and comfort our troubles,
so that we may live through all the week upon the food which comes
to us this day. And finally bring us where there are no days of bur-
den, where there are no hours of darkness, where there is no load
hard to be borne, and where there are no trials, unto the land of rest
and everlasting peace.

And to thy name, Father, Son and Spi^i^ shall be praises ever-
more. A tnen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON

Deab Father, we thank thee that thou art speaking every day, and
to those that have an ear to hear. The rising of the sun and the
jfoing down of the same; the coming of the wind and the hush that
follows its going— these are thy voice. It speaks of thy truth and of
thy bounty. Day unto day uttereth speech, night unto night show-
eth knowledge. We rejoice in all this teaching; but we are glad that
thou hast gathered together from the elect of every age joys, inspira-
tions and experiences; that they are now as our histories; and that
we do not walk in a strange path. There is no man that can know
anything new. All things that can be in mortal experience have

342 T'SE BIBLE

been. We rejoice that thou hast p^iven us thy word for wisdom, for
instruction, for confirmation, for edification.

And now we pray that thy blessing may rest upon all those who
have been gathered here to-night, and that they may go forth with
their faith renewed, and fortified for trouble ; and that they may find
sweet flowers, fresh fruits, harbors of shade, the shadow of a great
rock in a weary land, places for rest and rejoicing. Grant that
they may find thy banqueting hall, where thy banner over them
shall be love.

Dismiss us with thy blessing ; go home with us ; and when Sundays
and days and hours for us are ended, bring us where there is no
time, where there are no revolving years, and where in eternal
youth we shall behold thee and rejoice with thee.

And to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit shall be praiaea
eTennore. Amer%.

THE WORK OF PATIENCE.

"Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience;
but let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and
entire, wanting nothing."— James i., 3, 4.

Language evidently took its rise at an early period of the
development of the race ; and of necessity words were derived
from material things long before they were from the imma-
terial and innsible, and in greater abundance. As a mere
matter of fact we know that the terms which characterize
what now are regarded as the nobler experiences of man-
kind almost all of them had a physical signification, but
have been made to accommodate themselves to a higher
order of things. They have now a secondary meaning.
Anyone who is familiar with the lexicon will see hoAV wide the
process of derivation is. He will see what a variety of mean-
ings single words have, indicating how long a distance they
have traveled from their primitive state and use. They have
traveled long because their traveling is in some sense the un-
folding of human nature itself. In consequence, one of the
difficulties of interpreting Scripture has arisen— namely, that
words are applied in various ways which have, or may be sup-
posed to have, any of several meanings— sometimes even
scores of meanings, or shades of meaning ; and it is not al-
ways easy to select the precise meaning or shade of meaning
that was intended in any particular place. At any rate, it gives
opportunity for ignorance to be ingenious or blundering.

We have almost no terms, now, that philosophically and
accurately designate mental states. We are obliged to use
figures, pictures, metaphors, illustrations of various kinds;
and these appeal to men's consciousness. That is, as they go

ScrNPAY Morning, Dec. 20, 1874. Lesson : Heb. il. 32-40 ; aril. 1-9. Hymns (Ply-
nuouth Collection) : Nos. US, 212, 423.

346 TSE WORK OF PATIENCE.

back to some sort of feeling men understand them ; but we
have, and can have, I suppose, very few words which are
capable of expressing accurately the various shades of thought
and feeling which belong to the development of man.

Patience, for example, is derived from a word which
means literally svfferi)ig, and would in the lowest stage of
existence be simply power of physical endurance ; but as
men enlarge and develop the word grows to mean the power
of waiting and enduring — power of waiting as against time,
and power of enduring as against trouble. And as you still
rise and develop, as civilization takes the place of barbarism,
and becomes, under Christian influence, finer and nobler, the
realm of patience still further enlarges its meaning — grows ;
and we do not at all understand its scope when we speak of
it simply as the power to wait, or the power to endure.

Thus you will find in the passage which I have selected
from James, — " Let patience have her perfect work " — the in-
timation of a building power. " That ye may be perfect and
entire." It is an education, then. It is not simply the prim-
itive act of waiting. What is meant by it in this passage is
something that educates, symmetrizes the soul of man, and
brings his whole nature into conformity with some ideal
standard. ''Let patience have her perfect work." There
may be a superficial patience. There may be a patience that
is not fruitful of very much good. In order to attain the
highest benefits which are to be derived from this quality it
must have perfect work, how long time soever may be re-
quired for it. " That ye may be perfect and entire, wanting
nothing." One would suppose, by reading many of the pas-
sages of Scripture, that patience was only another word for
faith. Here, however, faith and patience are separated. A
true faith inspires patience. In other words, it reveals the
future in some sense, and by the hope and conception of it
furnishes motives to a man by which he is able to be patient
and enduring.

What, then, is the work of patience ? and what is the
scope of that work ? Or, what is the " perfect work " which is
here spoken of ? It is very plain to every one who has been
reared in a family, and who lias occasion to teach little chil-

THE WORK OF PATIENCE. 347

dren physical acts, how inapt, at first, the child is for those
things which afterward seem to be spontaneous to him. It
is very plain to every such one how much continuous drill
and discipline are necessary to make the child walk, to teach
it to use its hands with any deftness, or to bring it to any
considerable perfection in the use of its eye. Every such one
knows how much there is in disciplining a child to music, or to
grace of action, or to good manners. Every such one knows
how much there is of resistance in that which is to be over-
come, and how many impulses there are in the child which
are seeking to break away from restraint. Children do not
love to be retained an hour in the house for instruction. I^o
child loves, for any sake, to sit for an hour in a chair. A
child that is accustomed to free motion does not like to stand
in a school and take postures, and drill himself in them.
One part of his nature is more impulsive than another ; and
while you are attempting the education of any organ, muscle
or sense, there is all around about it more or less of uproar,
or indisposition to be still. For we are made as common-
wealths, and are populous within ; and everything cannot be
active at the same time. While one part of our nature is
going to school, the other parts are obliged to keejD silence.
While one part of our nature is being exercised, the other
parts cannot have sway. There must be bred in men the
principle of self-control ; and self-control means carrying one
part of our nature so as to govern another part ; and that
part which is governed is obliged to hold still ; and the hold-
ing still is patience, if it is anything. Thus, if one prefers
poetry to everything else, and it is best that he should study
mathematics, there will be poetic yearnings. The scholar
would prefer other books than those which his tasks require
him to use ; but he must overrule that tendency. There is
no single faculty that you can select and undertake to guide
in a scholar, through patient perseverance, in any direction,
that there will not be thirty-five or more faculties impatient
to rise and have their play-spell, or have their functions de-
veloped ; and self-government or self-control seeks the hold-
ing of one part of our nature in abeyance for the sake of
developing another part.

348 THE WORK OF PATIENCE.

Now, the whole man develops gradually — first the physi-
cal ; then the social ; then, co-ordinately, the intellectual
and the moral ; and, last of all, the spiritual.

For a thousand reasons the lower order of faculties tends
to be strongest, the most ungoverned and the most ungov-
ernable ; but as the affections and social instincts come into
strength, and begin to exert their influence, we are obliged
to overcome those tendencies which we have assiduously edu-
cated. How carefully do we teach a child to walk ? And
then, in church-time, how do we make it a fault if he does
walk ? We teach him that there are times and seasons
for the use of his feet. We are glad to see little children
reach out their hands after things ; but just as quick as they
have learned to reach out their hands, and to use them, we
begin to teach them that they must not use them indiscrim-
inately— that they must be used rightly. Then comes the
regulative process by which they are to restrain the hand and
the foot.

How we teach our children to use their tongue ! and what
a nuisance that tongue becomes to the family ! We have to
teach them not to use it, or to use it discriminatingly — that is,
at proper times and seasons, under the ten thousand influ-
ences which come up in the process of education !

The primary tendency is to give power to a function, and
the secondary tendency is to make it drill itself into conform-
ity with co-ordinate functions. The whole process of educa-
tion is such an alternate liberty of particular parts, with such
an alternate restraint, that, little by little, every part has
its chance, every part gets its culture and strength, and all
the parts are co-ordinated.

^ow, patience means, in its largest sense, that self-control
in any faculty by which it awaits its turn, and accepts its
limitation, in order that others may have justice, equity, cult-
ure, development.

Looked at in this large way, patience is the fundamental
necessity of a complex being, since we cannot bring up all
the parts of a man at once. No man can sound every faculty
at the same time. There is not wind enough in the bellows
to give tone to every pipe in a man. There is not power

THE WORK OF PATIENCE. 349

enough in the body to bear the reaction wliich would
occur if there were a plenary inspiration of nerve-force, by
which every part of the whole man should be developed in
strength. Therefore, as a matter of fact, all development is
in continually clianging relations. Now one thought and now
another thought, now one feehng and now another feeling,
comes into the ascendency. There is a perpetual play, a per-
petual rise and subsidence, all through a man's nature, in the
process of every-day hfe, and still more in that form of life
which is expressly educatory.

Therefore, when we look at the nature of patience, we see
this to be a command of transcendent importance. We see
that it arises, not from an arbitrary, nor from any vague and
mysterious providence. We see that it is an indispensable
condition of the thorough education and development of a
being so complex that one part must be developed at a
time, and that all the parts must be made to harmonize with
each other.

In the outside commonwealth every man has his own
rights ; but they are limited by the rights of others. No man
has a right to power, to function, or to anything else in life,
when it goes beyond his own si3here and trenches upon the
corresponding right of another man. And that which is true
externally of a citizen is also true internally of a faculty. No
part of the mind has a right to have any such activity and
development that it dwarfs, or overshadows or suppresses
any other equally necessary part ; and the inner meaning of
patience is the holding still of some parts of a man's soul for
the good of other parts. The scope of this is very obWous.
We huild, as the apostle in this passage indicates :

" Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and
entire, wanting nothing," "knowing this, that the trying of your
faith worketh patience."

Here, then, is the real philosophy of patience — the quality,
and the reason for it.

The means that exist naturally, by which patience is
taught in the divine providence, are many ; and considering
what the nature and function of patience is, the means that
are employed to secure it and the occasions on which it

350 THE WOTtK OF PA^TI^N^I;.

is required throw light upon ra-^ny mysterious pasisages of
life.

The necessity of industry is: one of the great or universal
conditions of human existence. Men are not, by nature,
anything except a bundlo of tendencies or capacities. They
are to open and develop themselves by exercise. The neces-
sity of the human race is the protection of the body ; the
supply of food ; the maintenance of warmth ; the security of
all requisite physical conditions. It is the necessity of taking
care of man in his very lowest primary condition that impels
the universal family to exertion. As industries are complex,
as they are co-operative, as they relate to different parts of
the mind at different times, as they run through long
periods of time, and as men working together have their
rivalries and common interests, and are obliged to consider
and consult each other; so in the conduct of the lowest
functions of life, the physical industries of men are obliged
to hold themselves in check. Men are obliged to live by
faith. The husbandman plants his seed, and then he must
be patient. It is the child who digs up to-morrow the seed
that he planted yesterday, to see whether it is growing or not.
The experienced husbandman waits patiently through months
for the harvest. In mechanical pursuits, since there cannot
be instantaneity in complex oj)erations, every single step
im]3lies waiting, and therefore patience. And since men
work together co-operatively, one must wait upon another.

The element of disposition comes in here ; and the wider
the scope of industry, the more apjoarent is it that the occa-
sions and necessities for patience multiply themselves.

Now, out of this grows self-government. We talk about
means of grace as if they were all in the Bible, or in the
hymn-book, or in the church ; but before there was a Bible,
and as one of the steps toward the making of it ; before
there was a lyric, and as one of the points of education by
which lyrics might become possible, there were physical
industries which drilled men in the use of themselves ; which
educated the different parts of their nature ; whicli taught
them frugality, foresight, patience — and patience is self-
control, under such circumstances. Here is a great primary

THE WORK OF PATIENCE. 351

education which lays the foundations of morahty ; and on
the foundations of morality piety is built — for reverence
without ethics is void and vain.

So the work which men are obliged to do for their liveli-
hood is a comprehensive means of grace, and an education to
such an extent that we cannot conceive of a race being
developed except through primary industries. If there be
anywhere, amoug uncivilized tribes and nations, a preaching
of the Gospel which leads only to prayer, and to various
emotional experiences, you may be sure that it is not a
perfect preaching — that it is a very imperfect one ; for a true
waking up of men, a true inspiration of the Spirit of God
in them, always and everywhere develops industries, frugali-
ties, sagacities, or elements which, althougli when compared
to final results they may be inferior, yet as compared to the
work which needs to be done among men, are indispensably
necessary, and are sacred.

Tlie avocations, therefore, by wliich we obtain a liveli-
hood are real means of gi'ace, as well as methods of instruc-
tion— and none the less so because they are comprehensive,
because they do not break out into sects, and because they
have not arrogated to themselves so much as the higher forms
of religion have.

Then, in this great, and in many respects strange, econ-
omy of life, men are not free from suifering. I mean
especially pJij/sical suifering. We often inherit bodies that
entail a necessity of suffering. We deal in the world with
elements which oftentimes Inflict suffering upon us. Sick-
ness, bruises, wounds, the various assaults that are made
upon human life — these bring men to pain ; and pliijsical
pain, in all its ten thousand forms, becomes an element of
patience. It is the soul teacliing itself to endure under
conditions of suffering. It is a new manhood rising up, and
it is generally the earliest manhood, which involves in it the
primary condition of heroism. Ordinarily, men do not first
learn to die for a principle or for their country. The
primary element of heroism is gigantic strength. It is the
ability to suifer with unwrinkled face, without emotion and
without tears. It is the p.ower to endure pain. This starts

352 THE WORK OF PATIENCE.

the idea of the upward development of the race toward
heroism. Afterwards it unfolds, and takes on larger forms
and jjroportions, and becomes something nobler and more
comprehensive.

As pain is universal, and will continue long, it is a matter
of no inconsiderable importance to us to learn that there is a
moral or spiritual result of enduring pain. There is a very
great difference in the capacity of bearing. A little pain
positively breaks down some men. Other men are competent
to bear pain through long periods. A strange thing it is,
that moderate pain may be almost a luxury. 1 have known
persons who, for forty years, have suffered more or less in-
convenience or pain from headache, in various forms, and
who felt lost without it. It became a sort of stimulus to
them. As the inhabitants of Boston drank their water out
of brackish wells, when they went into the country and tasted
pure spring water it seemed vapid to them, and they put a
pinch of salt in the tumbler to give it a flavor ; and pain, not
excessive, but enough to keep the nervous system on edge,
becomes almost a necessity to many persons.

Pain is a discipline of patience to those who are exercised
thereby — or ought to be ; and one who is brought, in the
economy of God, into a situation in which he suffers, should
ask himself, ''What does this hirsute, rugged schoolmaster
mean to teach me ?" not, "What accident has brought this
about?" A vulgar nature says merely, '"What law have I
broken? How shall I get rid of this pain?" A manly
nature, not disdaining the question of how to get rid of it,
says, "While it abides what can I make it do? It must
grind for me ; polish for me ; build for me. This suffer-
ing is sent upon me ; and the question is not alone. How
I shall dodge it or get rid of it ; the question is. What use
can I put it to ? "

In this way patience builds men under suffering. Some
men are disintegrated by it. It triturates them. By it they
become pulverulent. Some men on the other hand are by
it not reduced to powder, but made into cement ; and the
cement becomes as hard as stone.

But still more we are obliged tq go through the discipline

THE WOBK OF PATIENCE. 353

of i)atience by reason of our social liabilities. It is supposed
that a man is in such a sense dependent upon himself for hia
enjoyment in life, that if he watches his own body and keeps
it in a perfect state of health, and watches his own dispo-
sition and keeps that in perfect drill and play, he is all right.
We hear from physiologists and teachers that human happi-
ness is within a man's own reach if he will observe the law?
which surround him. To a certain extent a man's happiness
does depend upon the observance of those physical laws
which surround him; but how is a man going to conduct
himself in regard to social laws ? You are to be happy ; but
you are to be happy as a sentient emotive being. You have
a heart. It throws out its tendrils here and there. Can you
guaranteee that the investment which you thus make shall
not be invaded by bankruptcy ? Can you guarantee that the
love which you bestow shall bring you no pain ? Can you
guarantee that the imagination which you develop, and
which depends for its food upon a thousand others beside
yourself, shall always bo a source of happiness to you ? Can
you guarantee that the various faculties of your mind, exer-
cised in aflSliation with your fellow men, they acting on you
and you acting on them, shall never bring you into trouble
and sorrow ? Who can say, " I rise at the right hour, and
eat the right food, and take the right sleep, and am temper-
ate in all things, and have my happiness under my own con-
trol"? What if your cradle is turned bottom-side up?
What if your companion, that is everything to you to-day, is
gone to-morrow ? What if the plague or bankruptcy comes,
and all the elements of your social enjoyment, of your high-
est instincts, are swept away or changed ? Men are depend-
ent for their happiness upon physical things ; and it is wise
for them to obey physical laws and to carry their dispositions
aright, so far as they themselves are concerned ; their happi-
ness largely depends upon their own self-control ; hut there
are conditions around about every man which he cannot gov-
ern. There is a stream of tendencies from your forefathers
which through you are exerted on your offspring, that
are beyond your control. Men are surrounded on every
side^ in the family, in their industrial avocations^ in their

354 THE WORK OF PATIENCE.

ambitions, in their pursuits of every kind, by influences
which affect tlieir happiness. Men's lives are so inter-
woven with each other that one's happiness depends as
much upon those that he is associated with as upon him-
self, or upon his physical conditions and obediences. You
must take strokes. You must love and not be loved. You
must be disappointed in your affections. You must be
joined to households in which there is a variety of disposi-
tions. Your faculties must come in contact with faculties
of others which are not in accord with yours. Men in society
are like an unchorded band of musicians. Each knows his
own part ; but it is not in harmony with the other parts.
They may learn to play together ; but while they are learn-
ing there are discords and clashings.

So each man depends for his enjoyment and development
upon society about him. Nor can he ever get out of it.
Here then, is another iield in which patience or self-govern-
ment is inspired and necessitated by the original and funda-
mental goYcrnment of God.

In the proportion in which men under such circumstances
are rendered patient, they have aspiration. It is impossible
that this work should go on under such circumstances and
have no larger horizon than that with which it began. Faith
illumines wider and wider spaces ; it leads to broader concep-
tions ; and with broader conceptions there come up nobler
ideals ; and in following these nobler ideals men at once
bring themselves into collision with another class of influ-
ences— namely, the manners and customs of their time ; the
limited institutions that have come down to them ; the
courses of pleasure and business that are open all around
about them, and that are not conformable to the higher ethics
toward which their mind aspires. As a man becomes more
than a physically sound and virtuously social man, as he rises
to higher manhood through the lower and intermediate
states, he finds himself in conflict with his age, with the
selfishness of business, with pride, with avarice and with the
love of power, which are at once the creators of institutions
and the managers of them. So that it is necessary for a
man living under such conditions to have a superior, a

THE WOJRK OF PATIENCE. 355

supreme, patience, or j)ower of self-control and endurance.
The necessity of self-suppression and self-control which be-
gins with the very first breath of life never leaves us. It
rises to a higher and higher sphere ; and no man ever per-
fects himself in the lower sphere of patience until the door
opens and ho goes into another higher school and begins
there. Patience is a universal and continuous concomitant
of human existence in this mortal state. It is on this ac-
count that it is so much insisted upon in Scripture.

" Thou, O man of God, follow af tei- rijj;hteousness, godliness, faith,
love, patience, meekness."

These qualities are the aristocracy of virtue ; and patience
stands as high as any of them — between meekness and love ;
and so we find it in every part of the Bible — especially in the
New Testament. The attempt to live aright, which devel-
oped itself under the preaching of the Gosi)el, brought out
the necessity for these things, and therefore they are much
emphasized in Scripture.

" Not only so, but we glory in tribulations also ; knowing that
tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experi-
ence, hope; and hope maketh not ashamed."

It is not a disappointing hope. We find, again, that in
writing to the Colossians the apostle says :

"Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power,
unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness."

Here the idea is unfolded and made radiant. Through-
out the New Testament, and more and more as you come
toward the end, in the grand drama of the Apocalypse, the
patience of the saints ; long continued endurance ; standing
to be pillars in God's temple — the importance of these things
is emphasized in the divine thought.

If this general view be con'ect, — and I suppose none of you
will differ from me so far, — there is a lesson in it for all men
wiio act as if this world was created for nothing else except to
make them happy. Some men seem to think that providence
and nature ought to put them in a secure place, as it were,
where they shall have water for their roots, and light and
warmth to nourish them, and ought to remove them when'
ever there is danger : that their business is to stand and

356 THE WORK OF PATIENCE.

bud and blossom and be handsome ; and when things happen
contrary to their wishes in these respects they are filled with
amazement. They do not know what they have done that
they should suffer. Do you know what you have dpne that
you should not suffer ?

When the axman has felled the oak, and with his broad-
ax has hewn it, and fitted it for the mansion, sujopose it
should murmur, and say, " I do not know what I have done
that I should be cut up in this way"? Yes, tree, if you are
to be builded into a house, you must needs be patient and
submit to be shaped. Brethren, if God is building you
into his temple, you are to be squared and fitted ; and in
what way shall it be done ? Not by your abstract volitions,
but by the manipulation of the great conditions and laws of
society, which unfold from within it perpetually.

Instead, then, of cares and burdens and troubles being so
much waste mattei", instead of their being so many misfor-
tunes, they are the influences by which God means to develop
every element of our being, and polish it, and make it meet
for his kingdom.

There are men who, having failed right and left, go
through life complaining of their misfortunes. There are
men who even pursue sinister courses, and justify themselves
on the general ground tliat the world owes them a living.
The world owes nobody a living in any such sense. The
world gives every man an opportunity for manliness ; but if
he has not the stamina or will by which to evolve that quality,
the world owes him nothing. Rub him out ! He is a cipher
— a zero ! What a waste-heap there would be if all the
ciphers were thrown together without one figure of value to
put before them !

This necessity of patience, as a universal and primary ne-
cessity of the human race, cannot be too strongly impressed
upon the young, nor upon those that are rearing the young.
We attempt to give our children a good education : do we
give them an education in essential manliness ? We lament
that persons are in less favorable conditions. Who are these
people that are in less favorable conditions ? Take, for in-
stance, those who rear their children in remote districts of

THE WORK OF PATIENCE. 357

our own land. Take boys that work on the hard hills of New
England. What becomes of them ? They come into the city
and take the places of the eifete and effeminate boys that
have had '' opportanities." For, blinded by what would seem
to be an almost unaccountable blindness, we di'ead to put
our boys through the same path which we trod. We were
tanned ; but we do not like tanning for our boys. We were
hammered out on an anvil ; but we do not like to have our
boys hammered out on an anvil. We say, " I have made a
road through the wilderness that my children may walk
easily." Their walking easily will make them weak ; for
strength comes by endurance. So by giving them excessive
opportunity without much motive ; by supj^lying everything
that they need, and not obliging them to find anything for
themselves ; by sheltering them, and thus taking away their
power of endurance, we bring them up as hothouse plants.
And by and by when reverses overtake them, and the pressure
of want comes upon them, and they are obliged to work for
a living, they cannot endure it. The most pitiable persons
on the earth are those who, being educated to all necessities,
are turned out on the world to get a living at a middle or a
late period of life.

This is nothing against wealth, or the opportunities of
wealth ; but the indisjjensable condition on which it is possi-
ble to make our children better by giving them, through
affluence, opportunity for culture, is that they shall be taught
patience, endurance, hardihood to bear. If they have not
that, they. lack the very marrow and backbone of character.

Parents have occasion, also, to practise for themselves this
patience. Strange economy by which children are born as
they are ! Strange that they should be put into the hands
that they are put into ! Strange that they should be born of
the young, immature, unknowing, in families where father
and mother are learning their trade on their children, caring
for them and educating them under circumstances in which
so much depends on their care and education ! That chil-
dren should be brought into life through such conditions is a
perpetual mystery. When parents attempt to mold their
children and shape them, how much ignorance they display I

358 THE WORK OF PATIENCE.

How many things they think to be great dangers which are
not dangers at all ! and how many dangers there are that they
do not at all susj)ect ! How children differ from each other !
How hard it is to reconcile them in the family ! How un-
like, oftentimes, they are to their parents ! How many chil-
dren having silent-tongned parents are garrulous, getting the
tendency from some ancestor ! and how many children having
garrulous parents are perfectly silent ! How many impatient
parents have patient children ! and how many mild parents
have obstinate children ! On the other hand, how many
times a parent has himself over again in his child — the hard-
est of all things to manage ! He cannot manage himself, and
ho cannot manage his double. How many things of this
kind there are in every household, which perplex, annoy, and
cover the horizon with clouds of care and fear ! In every
household parents need to have a larger conception of the
mission and the meaning of patience as a soul-building
quality.

To all those who are in trouble ; to all those who suffer
from fear ; to all those who find themselves hindered by their
surroundings ; to all those who are tempted to go wrong — to
all such let me say. Ye have need of patience. You may
be pushed, but it is not necessary that you should go over the
precijiice. It is not for those who are in the midst of diffi-
culties to ask, " How shall I get out of them ?" or, "How
shall I change them?" This may not be a disallowablo
question; but the first thing to be asked is, " How shall I
maintain selfness, firmness and patience, and refuse to be
made worse by these exigencies, so that I may be made
better?" There are thousands of men who think that the
perplexities which come upon them in business are strange.
They are near-sighted men. They look at proximate causes,
not at remote tendencies. All business men carry a necessity
of suffering. Therefore all business is a kind of overture to
patience. No man who assumes the cares and uncertainties
and risks of business should fail to gird himself with this
Christian virtue.

There are men who are laboring in discouraging circum-
stances and places. There are many ministers who are

THE WORK OF PATIENCE. 359

preaching where they have but little sympathy and almost no
help, using seed abundantly and seeing no harvest spring up,
not appreciated, often casting pearls before swine. What
then ? Even here is G-od's angel, though he is cloaked so that
you do not see the radiance. Be patient. Work at founda-
tions, so that by and by somebody else, if you do not, will
cai'ry up the superstructure.

There are those who are thrown out of life, and who are
too old to begin again. There are those who are compassed
about with infirmities which they have not the nerve nor the
strength to endure ; and they are breaking down. There are
those whose life in old age seems to be wandering further and
further from the garden of happiness, and nearer and nearer
to the wilderness of sori'ow. Nevertheless, go forward ; be-
cause beyond the wilderness is the j)romised land. Nothing
can befall a man in this world which he cannot bear if he is
ready to die. In measuring your troubles always look at the
worst that is possible, and ask yourself, " Can I endure that ?"
and make up your mind to it. If you can endure the worst,
then everything that is better than that in your experience is
80 much clear gain. Gird your loins, and by every consideration
of what is becoming to you, tested by the example of noble
and heroic men of old ; by every consideration of what is
becoming to you as a child of God ; by all inspirations of
immortality, as well nigh within the sound of those who
chanttheir victory in the heavenly land, — stand patiently ; for
the time cannot be far distant. " How long, 0 Lord, how
long !" may be sounded out from the temple and from under
the altar ; but in that land where there is no temple and no
altar there are none who cry, ''How long!" All who are
there have washed their robes and made them white in the
blood of the Lamb ; and now they sing forever, and rejoice
without pain or sickness or tears. Take heed to their exam-
ple ; for in multitudes they stand on the battlements of
heaven crying to you in your distress : " Come ! The Spirit
and the Bride say, Come ! There is rest here. Let him that
hearetli say. Come ! Whosoever is athirst, let him come and
drink of the water of life freely."

360 THE WORK OF PATIENCE.

PRAYEE BEFOEE THE SERMON.

We rejoice that thou hast made thyself known to us, our Father,
not as one dwelling in supremacy of power and joy for thine own
sake. We rejoice tliat thy royalty is that which thou dost send forth
— thy wisdom, thy goodness, thy mercy — for all the creatures which
thou bast reared up, and dost govern. Something more thou art
than we can understand until we rise out of the flesh and into the
spirit. Our perplexities are iu ourselves. We rejoice to believe that
the tliiugs whicli here seem to us most obscure shall yet be clearer
than the day. We rejoice tiiat our doubts and our fears siiall be
swept away in the day of vision when thou shalt manifest thyself as
thou art, and when we shall be like thee, so that we can come into
sympathy and understanding with thee. Then we shall discern thee,
thy ways shall be interpreted, thy government shall seem transcend-
ently glorious, and we shall join with all thy universe in ascribing
praise, and honor, and glory, and power, and dominion unto Him
that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever.

Grant that the hope of heaven may supply sight. Grant that by
faith we may have that consolation which does come from knowing.
May we wait patiently for the disclosure of God. May we wait, dis-
closing iu ourselves that which is divine.

We pray that we may have more and more restfulness and trust
in God, not by what we understand of his way and method, but by
our confidence in him, in his truth, in his fidelity, in his wisdom, and
in his bountiful goodness. Thy loviug kindness is over all the works
of thine hands ; and since goodness rules we are content. All things
shall work together for good to them that love thee. Grant that we
may more and more rise to this love of God which is wisdom and
happiness. Take away from us all pride and selfishness. Help us to
overrule those tendencies which strive for independence against the
welfare of the commonwealth of the soul. Giant that we maybe
more and more docile to thine influence, and intelligent of thy meth-
ods, and that we may fulfill our duties here as the best way of attain-
ing to knowledge of thee and of the great heieaf ter.

We thank thee for all the mercies which thou hast vouchsafed to
us individually; for all the kindnessesand all the ministrations of the
household; for all knowledge which has been poured in upon us by
thy Holy Spirit. We pray that all our privileges may be sanctified
to us, so that they may redound to our benefit, and to thine honor
and glory.

Draw near, we beseech of thee, this morning, to every one that is
in thy presence. Minister to each according to his necessity. Do
thou interpret what is best, so that we may have that willingness, and
that perfect trust in thee, by which we shall be able to say, in all exi-
gencies, and under every circumstance. The will of the Lord be done.
May thy Divine will seem sweeter to us than anything else. May w-e
have no diflfieulty, under the discipline of thy providence, in yielding
ourselves to it, and waiting patiently for the Lord.

We pray that thou wilt comfort any who sit in the midst of
bereavements; any from whom thou hast taken dearly beloved ones;

THE WORK OF PATIENCE. 361

and if they are untaught in sorrow, and learn with difficulty the first
lesson thereof, grant that they still may have thy teaching; that
they may come by the patience of affliction into all its benefits and
virtues. If there be those troubles and sorrows which will not
depart, then grant that thy grace may be sufflcient for their bearing.

If there be those, this morning, who yearn for friends far away ; if
there be hearts that remember dearly beloved ones who are in perils
upon the sea, or in the wilderness, who are wanderers in distant
lands, or who live they know not where, nor even if they live at all —
O thou loving Saviour, that wert upon the earth, and didst know its
necessities, grant unto alf such the communications of thy grace, and
rest of heart. •

Do any feel that life is too hard for them to bear? May they un-
derstand that the servant is not greater than the master. May they
look unto their crowned Saviour, whose crowns were thorns, who
deserved all good and had all ill; and may they be patient, waiting
for the fulfillment of his providence and the interpretation of his
dealings with them.

May the light of thy truth shine on any who are in darkness or
in doubt. May men mortjand more seek to learn the truth of virtu-
ous dispositions, of holy emotions, of the worship of God, of the
services of their fellow-men ; and so may they learn out of their own
experience things that pertain to thy divine government.

Make thy blessing to rest ui)on all the assemblies that to-day
gather in thy midst to worship. Let the light of thy countenance
be as the rising sun to them. Unite thy people more and more to-
gether. May those divisions wUich have come upon thy church be
healed. May there be trust and co-operation; may there be mutual
loving; and may there be an avoidance of all those things which stir
up jealousies and separations.

We pray that thy kingdom may come everywhere throughout all
the world. May wars and their occasions cease; may injustice, and
oppression, and superstition, and ignorance pass away; let virtue
and true piety thrive everywhere; and at last may the whole earth
be redeemed to the knowledge of God, and to the service of Jesus
Christ.

And to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit shall be praises ever
more. Amen.

362 THE WORK OF PATIENCE.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERM0:N^.

Grant unto us, our Father, a sense of our uufolding, and of our
coming immurtaiity, that we may feel that all cares, aud all frets,
and all pains aud all sufferings are but so many cogent influences
pressing us forward toward our own selves, aud toward our highest
being. May we never be weary in well doing. May we never con-
sider that we are called to suffer too much. May the multitude of
our sufferings seem to us as the wagons and provisions which were
sent to Jacob to bring him in royal state to Egypt aud to the king;
and may we learn to count it all joy when we fall into divers trials
and afflictions. May we rejoice in infirmities. May we bear abou-
the crown of thorns in our thought. May we carry with us evermore
the cross. May we bear about the suffering Saviour, now the
Succorer. May we remember that thy thought is with us. That thy
sympathies are poured down upon us, and that the experiences
which we are going through iu this world are not vague and vain,
but are ordered on a higher pattern than we can understand.
So may we be patient aud enduring to the end, and finally be saved.

And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son and Spirit,
Amen.

THE DIVINE LOVE.

"Now befoie the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that hia
hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the
Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them
unto the end."— John xiii. 1.

If this person Jesus were a man only, still on all hands,
as much by those who disbelieve as by those who have the
most faith, is he regarded as the greatest moral genius which
the world ever saw. There be many who will not worship
him as divine, but who revere him as the consummate image
of a true manhood.

Even if you should rank yourself in this genus, I should
desire, in tlie views which I shall open in this passage, to
carry you along with me, inasmuch as the inferences and
deductions which are to spring from it all have a certain
degree of force even with those who take no higher estimate
of Jesus than that he was the greatest of human beings ; but
to us who believe that he is divine, that he is the express im-
age of the Father, and that God so loved the world that he
sent his Son to die for it, the inferences which are to be
deduced from it will come with greater emphasis and power ;
for now all the elements of mind which were evolved by
him are interpreted into so many divine elements ; and it
is not simply what Jesus said or did, but that his saying
and doing interpret to us what the Father says and does,
that is important ; and we come through faith in Jesus to a
knowledge of that greater moral government which obtains
in heaven and upon earth, and throughout the whole domain
of God.

SUNnAY Morning, Dec. 27, 1874. Lesson : Matt. xi. 17-34. Hymns (Plymouth
Collection) : Nos. 672, 666, 660.

366 THE DIVINE LOVE.

It was a moment of full divine consciousness of which
John sjieaks. There can be no question that the conscious-
ness of divinity was intermittent in our Saviour ; thut a part
of his humiliation consisted in the relative obscuration of his
mind ; that though divine, he was in eclipse ; and that, up to
the latest period of his life, there were moments and occa-
sional hours, when he rose into the fullest consciousness of
divinity.

This was certainly one of those hours. He had come to
the last days. Just before him was the scene of his passion,
and beyond that the scene of his crucifixion. He was about
to return to his Father. Knowing that he should depart out
of this world unto the Father, having loved his own, "■ he
loved them unto the end."

There lies latent in this declaration a world of meaning
and comfort and encouragement. It is not strange that one
leaving should find in the hour of his departure all his affec-
tions touched and quickened. When the child leaves his fa-
ther's house to go out into the world, the father and mother
seem more dear and venerable to him than ever before. A
thousand things which had lain dormant hiiherto spring up
and gush forth ; it is an hour of intense quickened affection
when the child leaves home to go among strangers ; and it
would not be strange, if this world were the Saviour's home,
and if those around about him were to him as our brothers
and sisters and parents are to us, that in this last moment,
when he was about to separate from them, he should have
felt a deeper and stronger impulse than at any previous
time.

On the other hand, when, for purposes of healtli or
pleasure or business, one has long been an exile, dwelling in
a torrid clime, or in European capitals, and at last the day
comes in which he is to set his face homeward, although he
has made pleasant acquaintances, and though it may be that
here and there he has given out iieart-love, yet when once
he thinks of his fatherland, of his childhood home, of his
father and mother, and of his brothers and sisters who are
there, the impulse, the outgo of affection, is such as to make
everything seem ghadowy where he has been an exile, Leav-

THE DIVINE LOVE. 367

ing scenes that are strange to go back to old familiar scenes,
his heart overleaps land and sea, and he rejoices with ex-
ceeding great joy to break all the ties which have been
formed during his residence abroad.

Applying this, if Jesus had known no other life, and no
other friends than these, we should not have been surprised
that the latest feelings of affection toward his earthly friends
should have been the strongest ; but if, as it is declared, he
was about to go out of this world into which he had come,
and return to his Father, and his heavenly home, it is dif-
ferent. Who can imagine the vision that arose before him
in that hour ? Who can conceive of divine life at any rate ?
Who can bring before the mind, by the utmost stretch of the
imagination, with any degree of richness or vividness, what
that life must be whose outplay afar off we see in the choicest
and best things upon the earth ? If this is the footstool,
what is the throne ? Of the companionship, the nobility, the
liberty, the ineffable power that exist in the spiritual sphere,
we in the flesh have no knowledge. No man can define them.
No man can paint them for himself. The grandeur of the
conception of the other life which doubtless arose before the
Saviour, was the immortality of his nature. The infinitude
of his power was to be restored. There was the eternal
Father. There were all the companionships which he had
known from eternity. He was to go back to these glories ;
and it was in the hour of the consciousness of his divinity
returning to immortality, that it is declared that, '' having
loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto
the end."

Now, this is wonderful ; for consider the real nature and
substance of these disciples. If Christ was divine, if he had
dwelt in all the accomplishments of the heavenly land, if he
had known being as it is developed there in infinite variety
and in various perfection, what must the disciples have
seemed to him ? Consider that of the twelve there was not
a single one that we should mark as a person of any extraor-
dinary endowment, unless it was John. Consider that with
th-e exception of three — Peter, James, and John — there were
none that left any memorial or any record besides their

368 THE DIVINE LOVE.

names. Consider that these men were not only without
genius but without culture, and without the experience of
the human race at large. They were mostly laboring men —
not only men from the humble walks of life, but men who
matched the conditions in which they were reared. They
were no greater than their surrounding circumstances. Men
they were who had not in them one single quality that should
make them heroes, aside from the qualities that should make
anybody a hero.

If the Saviour had made selection of men like Martin
Luther, like Philip Melancthon, like Hampden, like Philip
Sidney, like Washington ; or, if he had selected men of
genius, represented in the literary spheres by the highest
eminence, like Dante, or Shakespeare, or Goethe, we can
imagine how, surrounded by such a band of the greatest
natures that the earth had ever produced, there might have
been an effect produced upon his affection and upon his
feeling that should have made him sorry to part from them ;
but these were the plainest of men, with no royalty of endow-
ment such as we speak of under the name of genius. Nay,
there was very little which his residence among them had
done for them, up to this time. He had not rooted out from
them their pride. He had not extracted their selfishness.
He had not melted the hardness of their hearts. He had
not quenched the fire of a cruel zeal which was in them.
One is surprised to see how little they had loved, and how
little they were changed during his long tarrying with them.
They were selfish. They were full of prejudices. They had
ambition. They had also its cut-throat meanness. In the
passage which I read to you in the opening service it is shown
how they were attempting to circumvent each other. Slyly
stealing to his ear, through the mediation of their mother,
the two brothers undertook to outstrip all the other disciples,
who, when they heard of it, were enraged at these two men
for undertaking to get the highest places in the coming king-
dom. As Christ was journeying with some of his disciples,
when they came to a Samaritan village, John asked permis-
sion to burn up the inhabitants. A sweet-minded gospel
that! And it was rebuked by the Saviour, who said, "Ye

THE DIVINE LOVE, 369

know not what spirit ye are of." And just before him
lay the fatal defection and cowardice and treachery of
Peter.

Such were the men who were round about Christ. He
knew what they were. He understood their caliber. He
was not ignorant of their mental and moral size. And it is
of these men that it is said, " Having loved them [and having
lived with them till he found them out, and knew them
altogether] he loved them unto the end." He was conscious
of a distinct, strong affection toward them ; and he took
them with all their limitations and imperfections and mis-
erable passions, and lifted tliem up against tlie background
of the eternal world, and of his Father in the kingdom of
glory. Holding these poor, common, vulgar men up against
the noblest conceptions of being, he still loved them.

Now, if he was but a man, this is royal ; but if he was
divine, it is sometliing more than royal. There is an inter-
pretation in it which goes far into the depths of moral gov-
ernment.

It is very plain, then, that divine love includes in it ele-
ments other than those which are usually imagined. It is not
strange that Grod loves loveliness. We do that. He must be
stolid indeed who, seeing figured before him all that he con-
ceives to be admirable, feels no response ; but so unapt, so
selfish are we, that having fellow-beings brought before us in
order that we may love them, there is in us a lethargy, or moral
inertness, such that nature must be stimulated and roused
up by exceeding loveliness. There are eyes which are so
sensitive to color that you may take the lowest tone in cre-
ation, and they rejoice in it ; but there are other eyes which
are so leathery and so insensitive that it takes the most vivid
yellows and the most violent scarlets to v>'ake up in them
a sense of color. And as it is in regard to color, so it is
in regard to excellence of character. If you take an efful-
gent nature, transcendently accomplished, fascinating, win-
ning; and if you add personal beauty, that the eye may feast
while the mind admires, it would be strange if you did not
love ; you admire and love that which is admirable and
lovely. But suppose a thing is neither admirable nor lovely ?

370 THE DIVINE LOVE.

Who of you loves that which is not lovely ? Who of you
loves a creature that is divested of that which appeals to the
reason, to the moral sense and to the esthetic faculties ? Can
any one love under sucli circumstances ? Can I love that
which is hateful ? Can I, who believe in humility, love that
which is proud ? Can I, who believe in generosity, love that
which is selfish ? Can I, who believe in amiableness, love
that which is ugly ? Is it in the power of a being to love a
thing that is not lovable ? Ah ! that is the question. There
is in a divine nature that which can love beings that are
not lovely. God brings out of his own nature to us a capac-
ity to love that does not in any wise whatever stand upon our
moral character.

This is not effacing the distinction between approbation,
complacency, and displacency ; it does not follow that this
love is not more gratified with growing excellence in man
than without it ; but whatever augmentations it may re-
ceive, there is in the divine nature power to love where the
object itself is not lovable. It is not ajjprobation ; it is a
sense of parentalness. It is tliat kind of love which every
parent knows how to feel toward children who, although they
are not ugly, are not in and of themselves attractive.

Take the only unfolding of this mystery that is given to
love ; take the universal experience of this world — the love
which all creatures (insects, reptiles, birds, beasts, and the
human kind in their savage state) have for their offspring.
In these there is this rudimentary element. There is in
them the dawn of this element in its lowest and mosi;
limited capacity. Our love for our children, however much
it may grow and widen, and however much the imagina-
tion may play around about it, is a love which we feel for
them by reason of that which is in us, and not by reason of
that which is in them. The babe that lies new-born upon
the mother's arm has in it neither thought, nor love, nor
imagination, nor any power of expression ; it is nearer to
absolute zero than anything else that can be conceived of ;
it is almost like the pulpy sunfish that floats upon the sea,
gelatinous ; it is almost like the downiest down that flies in
the air, void and empty of all power; and yet, there is in

THE DIVINE LOVE. 371

the mother that which loves it with an intensity which is
like life itself.

The father's pride and love are not the equal of the moth-
er's, and yet they have a strong place in him. Things that
are not lovely, if they be our children, find in us a capacity,
limited and transient, but real, to love with an intensity
which upon occasion will lead us to risk life itself for them.

So we have in ourselves the germ and analogy of this di-
vine power to love things that are not lovely. We have a
preparation for it — or, as it may be said, a faculty which
leads to it. We are conscious that as our children grow up
there is a transition, and that something is conjoined to this.
We do not let go of them ; by the instinct of parental affec-
tion we hold on to them ; and as various excellences are de-
veloped in them, and they become more companions for us,
there are more fibers of our heart that twine around them.

Now, in the great Father of the universe there is a nature
that loves universal being, not on account of its perfection,
but on account of the feeling that is in God.

Why see, to-day, how all the trees laugh in the sunshine
because they are so beautiful ! They are not waving one ban-
ner. It is the fast-day of the year, and all the trees are
clothed in sack-cloth and ashes, as it were ; and yet, over
them all the sun pours light, and every one of them glistens
by reason of the glory which the sun bears to it. Over all
the fields of the North, where there is no verdure, but
where the surface is brown or snowy white, the sun pours its
radiance. And it is not because they are beautiful that he
shines upon them : he shines upon them and they become
beautiful. The light of the sun illumines those things on
which it falls, because the sun has light and warmth in it
beforehand. It is on account of this warmth and light that
there is beauty and glory in all the earth.

The divine nature is one that does not come feeling and
finding its way among men because here and there it per-
ceives eternal excellences : it pours itself out that there may
be such excellences. It stimulates and develops them. It
goes before all amiableness, all beauty, all attractiveness,
and is the cause of their existence and their activity.

372 THE DIVINE LOVE.

In the earlier stages of our lower life we love that which
is nothing. We love our children that are at zero. We love
them at every step as they unfold and go up, with their mis-
takes, with their weaknesses, with their wickednesses, with
their rudenesses, with their animalism, with their ten thou-
sand little quarrels, with all the things which make them a
source of disturbance and distress. Notwithstanding the
various cares and pains which they cause us, we still love
them, and our love ferments and develops and stimulates
and works them up more and more.

That which is true in the family is true in the round
world which God has been pleased to create. On the earth
he has brought forth, and is bringing forth in constant suc-
cession, creatures of the lowsst form ; and he is guiding and
developing them, and raising them up higher and higher.
There is no God that is in sympathy with his creatures, if
there is not in the divine nature a power of sympathizing
with things at the lowest, at the poorest, at the bottom. Ht
is full ; he is complete in himself ; and he has the capacity
of loving, and of pouring love from his own nature upon
things high and things low, things good and things bad ; and
when we are commanded to be perfect, we are commanded to
be perfect in the same way that he is. " Be ye therefore per-
fect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."
How is he perfect ? " He maketh his sun to rise on the evil
and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the
unjust." That is, he is a nature that sympathizes with simple
being, always and everywhere ; and we are commanded to
have universal sympathy and charity in the same way that
he does.

In this simple thought that it is the nature of God to love,
to sympathize, to pity, to have compassion — in other words,
to send out the affluence of his being personally toward every
human creature — we find the world's hope and the world's
comfort. You may dismiss from your minds, if you can, all
that part of the human race who are not your cousins and
brothers and sisters ; in your hearts you may roll South
America to the devil, and say, " Poor miserable half-breeds !
Who cares for them ? I don't ; they are outside of the true

THE DIVINE LOVE. 373

religion ;" but I cannot dismiss them so. You may take
Africa, and say, ''It is one vast herd of animals ; and the
world would not miss a single thought or sensibility if you
were to rub out its inhabitants as so many ajDhides." I cannot
do that. I cannot get rid of the thought of the millions that
swarm throughout the world. I cannot forget that there are
ten that know not- God consciously where there is one that
does; and as I drink in the spirit of Christ, and come into
sympathy with liis declaration that " the field is the world,"
my thought goes out after some God who thinks Tor the Jew
as well as for the Gentile. I cannot agree with the Pharisee
who stood opposing the preaching of God to the Gentiles,
and said, " He is our God, the God of our church, the God
of the Jews;" and who stoned those who threatened to go
to the Gentiles and preacli. I cannot imitate the old Phari-
see. It is a burden on my soul, what becomes of the vast
multitudes of Africa. Where go the swarming products of
human life in Asia ? Where do all the poor go that are at
the bottom of our cities, crawling like vermin and worms in
and out of the crevices of palaces, and in dens and dungeons
in abject poverty ? What becomes of them ? Where do they
come from, and where do they go to ? What becomes of
those whose education is neglected ? What becomes of the
great under-mass of mankind everywhere ? I love the
noble and the cultured ; I have the most fastidious sense of
the ethical and the aesthetic qualities in society ; I rejoice
in all that is resilient and beautiful ; there is in my heart a
leaping sensibility to all these things; but, after all, it is
those who are low and degraded that are heaviest on my
mind.

Now, if there is any light that is to come, it is that there
is a God who has adapted himself to tlie wants of men, or
that the world is adapted to the nature of God, in this : that
there is a ruling Spirit in the center of power and wisdom
that knows how to love things that are not lovable — that
knows how to feel a parental sensibility toward objects that
do not address themselves to the moral sense, nor to the sense
of beautifulness in the divine character. If there is such an
element as this in the divine nature, if this Is the rudder of

374 'T^^ DIVINE LOVE.

liistory, if the ages are steered by a Pilot whose nature is
fashioned on this principle, then I can tolerate and I can
bear ; but if I stand and asK. not what becomes of Presby-
terian children, not what becomes of Congregational chil-
dren, not what becomes of the higher New England villagers
that have been trained in the school and in the church, but
what becomes of the great myriad, myriad mass of mankind,
that have no light, no schools, no priests, no teaching except
of theft and violence, and that suck blood from their infan-
cy— if I look out upon my kind and ask this question, my
heart yearns for them. Is there nothing for them ? Is there
only stern Justice for them ? It brings me back to daylight
and hope and faith again to know that the divine nature. is
one that is so transcendentally lifted up that it can do for the
universe of creatures which God has created what the parent-
al nature is able .to do for the little babes in our families ;
and the thought becomes a kind of sacred ark of the covenant
to me. In this mystery of the mother and the child I can
discern the elements of that great moral government which
shall efEulge more and more gloriously through the ages of
time, and through the periods of eternity.

This universality of the divine sympathy interprets the
declaration of the Bible, " God so loved the world that he
gave his Son to die for it." ISTot to go into word criticisms,
not to spoil the breadth of the fact by minute analysis, the
declaration has flamed in the New Testament for ages that
the divine feeling of sympathy and yearning toward a world
lying in brutality and wickedness was such that he gave that
which was most precious to him — his Son — to die for it ; and
that feeling is a testimony of what is the inspiration of the
Center of the universe.

Men may think that this declaration of universal sympa-
thy and affection obliterates the motives to right ; but not so.
Is there any other feeling stronger in the parent's heart than
this : that the child that is loved shall grow out of nothing-
ness and littleness into largeness and beauty ? Is there any
greater reward to a parent than to see the child do well ?
And God, blessed be his name, aims at universal righteous-
ness. He aims to exalt human nature ; to develop it ; to

THE DIVINE LOVE. 375

enlarge it; to enrich it; to purify and cleanse it. Whom
he loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he re-
ceives.

Take away, now, the narrowness of figures which hinder
the bringing out of the thought, and consider that this is the
universal tendency: God loves the whole world in their
nothingness, and meanness, and poorness ; but for the sake
of making them stronger and larger and better, he is admin-
istering the scheme of ages on that one great line— namely,
that of a loving schoolmaster, instructing men in righteous-
ness, love employing the resources of infinite wisdom and
power for the glorification of human nature. God loves men
without reason in them, but with infinite reason in himself ;
and he aims by his love to benefit men. His love is not
simply good-nature. He is not like a very indulgent school-
master, fast asleep, and lea^ang the school to racket and play.
God's love is intensely earnest. It stings. It pierces. It
has in it the cramp and power of justice. It has stern-
ness in it. Suffering flows from it. All these things are
so many elements by which love is seeking to make the
object loved worthy, though in the beginning it is worth-
less. By the divine nature we are taken up at the begin-
ning and at the bottom. There is nothing that is loveable
in us at first ; but under the fruitful and fructifying in-
fluence of the Divine soul working upon our souls, one
germ, and another germ, and another, begin to develop in us
something loveable ; and the Divine complacency takes hold
upon us as we are perfected, and become priests and kings,
and rise to higher love and perfection.

I love my babes ; but do you think I love them as I do
my grown-up children ? Who can ever unroll that net which
is woven in the silence of loving thoughts in a soul that every
day weaves new patterns of love which disappear in the
memory ? Who can ever, in this life, unroll all a father's
and mother's thought of their beloved ones, so that you may
see the whole of it ? There are no words which can describe
that kingdom of love in the human heart whose height and
depth and length and breadth can never be descried, through
which no poet's wing can fly, which cannot be revealed, and

376 "TBE DIVINE LOVE.

which belongs essentially to the invisible and nnknowable
things of this life.

And so God, with a compassion that takes hold at the
bottom, at the lowest, at the least, at the poorest, of those
that are the most needy, works us np by grace, by adminis-
trative justice, by a thousand tendencies, and develops in
us a thousand likenesses that correspond to himself ; and we
shall become more and more distinctly and complacently
loved as we develop these qualities. I rejoice that the love
of God increases and rises in the scale as we become like
him ; but I rejoice more that antecedent to all that, before
the reason or the moral sense is developed, there is a Divine
stimulus that goes through the universe, and teaches the
race how from animals to become men, and how from men
to become angels. I rejoice that there is an infinite power
that works everywhere, and that shall never cease to work
till the sun goes empty of light, and the stars forget to shine,
and the universe itself is lost — God over all, blessed forever,
and forever blessing, and blessing because it is more blessed
to give than to receive.

What a great consolation this representation of God pre-
sents to those who are weak and imperfect, and who battle
with weaknesses and imperfections in themselves ! I think
there is no sadder sight than the soul-humiliation of men
whose ideal is high, but whose performance is low, and
who frequently are broken down with a sense of their short-
coming at the judgment-seat of their own moral sense. The
obscuration that comes to them because they are so un-
worthy is sad in the extreme. How many feel so unworthy
that they do not dare to pray ! How many feel that if they
had some accomplishment, some state of mind that they
could present as sincere and heaven-reaching, God would
love them ! But they are sinful and hateful, and they do
so much wrong, that they never once think that they have
an open vision of acceptance before God ; for they have
an impression that God loves men on account of holiness.
So he does ; but only on the ground of holiness ? Ah ! no,
no. There is a better love, there is a sweeter grace, of the
divine nature. A man loves you more and more as you rise

THE DIVINE LOVE. 377

higher and higher on the scale, and that you might expect ;
but there is a Divine mature that antecedes all condition, and
into that men may go as into a summer atmosphere, botli to
germinate and to grow. It is not probable that any one
loves you on earth as God does, or that there is any one on
earth whose love is so strong, so rich or so various, as the
weakest inflection of the Divine sympathy toward every indi-
vidual of the human race.

So then, God is our model and ideal of all that is true and
just and pure and holy and good. He is the Center of all
that is high and noble. He is all-helpful, all-healing, toler-
ant, forgiving and gracious. No matter how weak men are,
God loves the weak. No matter how sinful men are, there
is an element in the divine nature that knows how to love
them. Not, however, to foster sin, but to heal it ; not to
indulge weakness or to tolerate it, but to bring it out of
weakness into true strength. The bosom of God is the food
of the universe. Ye that need, there is no other one to whom
you can go as unto God ; such is his nature.

How many are waiting ! How many there are striving to
build themselves up ! How many there are who hope that
yet all tears, and all prayers, and all mortifications, and all
watchings, and all conflicts, and all pmctical resistance to
evil, will at last bring the generations into that state in which
they shall be able to come before God and claim the final
reward of victory. Never, never, never, never ! Tlie holiest
man that ever lived on earth, looked at in the light of God's
countenance, is distorted, and disfigured, and as filthy rags.
Not a being in this sphere ever reaches to such a state that
God can tolerate him on the ground of moral excellence.
The ground on which God tolerates men is the nature of
God. Not in your own nature, but in the divine nature, the
hope of God's redeeming power lies. It is because he is what
he is, that we have a ground of hope.

Take a cambric needle. Is there anything finer ? There
is no rouglmess to it. How perfect is its eye ! What an
exquisite point it has ! Take a solar microscope. Let me
hold the needle so that its image will be thrown by the
instrument on a screen, and it looks like one of the ruggedest

378 THE DIVINE LOVE.

of New England fence posts. The point is all jagged and
rough. The whole of it, from top to bottom, is full of ob-
liquities. It will never bear being magnified, and having its
real nature brought out.

Take the purest and best man, and let liim stand and
have his shadow cast upon a screen under the light of God's
eye. The holiest prophet, the noblest apostle, the most he-
roic martyr, the purest teacher, the most self-sacrificing and
best man — if God loves him, he must love him iliough lie be
full of imperfection. It is the nature of God that saves
men, and not the excellence that is in them.

So then, let me say to those who are in trouble, and are
waiting for the disclosure of God's grace. It is there. It
needs no disclosure for you but to believe in it. You have
One that has infinite sympathy for you, and infinite relish —
strange as it may seem. You have One that is willing, for
the sake of his sympathy and love, to bear with you. He has
given a token of it by sacrificing his Son. He has made it
manifest to human experience in all its various phases. His
Word overflows with wondrous expressions of fondness, ten-
derness, grace, kindness and goodness ; and they are ad-
dressed, not to men who are perfect, but to men dripping with
transgression; to men full of faults and weaknesses. He
Bays to" every man, '^Come." There is not a man so good
that he does not need to come to God as a sinner ; and there
is not a man so bad that he may not come to God as a sinner.
There is room in the heart of God for every human soul ; and
the hope and inspiration of a better life lies not in your wis-
dom, not in your power, but in the nature of the divine gov-
ernment, and in the nature of the divine soul. There is a
remedy, and there is hope.

Are there those among you who have been traveling in a
Christian experience for many years, and who are yet looking
back upon your life conscious of how poor it is, and how un-
fruitful it has been ? Do you have at times strange doubts
as to whether or not you will be accepted of God ?

I think one of the most characteristic and one of the
most pathetic experiences of my venerable and dear father
took place in his last years. He was brought up under the

\

THE DIVINE LOVE. 379

most rigorous school of New England Calvinism, and he was
always in doubt of his acceptance with God. When he was
living here with me in Brooklyn, after several days of retire-
ment and great thoughtfulness, he said : *' I have been
making a careful examination of my evidences ; I have tried
to deal with myself just as I would deal with any other per-
son ; I have looked it all through, and I have reason to believe
that I have a right to trust that my sins have been forgiven,
and that I shall be saved." That old hero, who had fought
evil and built up good for more than fifty years — more than
half a hundred years — in the last years of his life sat down
in a grave calculation of himself, to know whether the states
of his mind were such that he had reason, in view of his
evidences, to believe that he was salvable ! The only mistake
lay in this : that he came to the conclusion that he was ! If
he had looked a little deeper, if he had applied a little
closer measure, he would have seen that no man living, under
the divine law, could say, "My evidences are such that I
have a right to hope that I am going to be saved." Every-
body, judging himself by that standard, would be obliged to
say, " My evidences are as filthy rags. There is nothing in
me that is good. I am as grass, in more senses than one. I
am as the dust of the field. When I compare myself on any
advanced scale with magnitudes, I am nothing ; and if there
is nothing in God that can save me, there is nothing in
me by which I can be saved, and I shall go out as a
candle."

If we are to be saved, it will not be because we are good,
though we try to be good. It will not be because we are
built up so far that God cannot afford to lose us. He might
blow us as dust out of the balance, and we should not be
missed. But there is in heaven, carrying perpetual summer
through the spheres, a divine nature that knows how to love
natures that are poor, and how to inspire them by his love
witli a desire for goodness, as the mother or the father does
the child. It is because God loves me that I have hope that I
shall live ; and I hear sounding from the Word of God and
from the heavenly land, this divine and blessed declaration .
" Because I live, ye shall live also." My life is hid with

380 THE DIVINE LOVE.

Christ in God. When he who is my life shall appear, then 1
shall appear also with him.

Trust not in your own goodness, though you seek it. Eest
not on your own growth, though you are inspiring it with
every attainment and every mistake. Eemember that there
is summer above your head. As long as God loves there is
hope for you. There is hope for you because you are poor
and needy. The poorer you are, the more you need God.
God is the food of the universe, the bread of life, the water
of life, the hope of life, and the reward in the life that is to
come.

THE DIVINE LOVE. 38^

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

Our Father, thou hast taught us to be bold before thee. Thou
hast made thy name dear to us; aud we do not know how to tremble
before thee as If thou wert a hard master. Thou hast overlaid the
tokens of thy power with great gentleness aud with great love; and
thou hast above all taught us that greatness doth not lie in eminence,
nor in the sounding power that moves external things, but in gra-
ciousness, and kindness, and self-sacrifice, and the service of univer-
sal love. Thou hast so taught us to interpret greatness that we are
drawn to it. Yea, we are stronger by the sense of thy strength, and
are better by the sense of thy perfect holiness. Even with a knowl-
edge of our weakness aud of our wickedness we still draw near to
thee, and rejoice that we ai'e filled.

Aud now we pray, this morning, that thou wilt accept the thanks-
giving which we draw near to thee to bring. Not the lowest uor the
least sound from the human heart but is sweet in thine ear. The
mute endeavor of uninstructed yearning comes up as grateful incense
to thee; and how much more dost thou accept intelligent worship!
We do worship thee— not thine amazing power; not the fact that
thou dost outrun our thought of things universal to the bounds
of the infinite, but all that which comes into the soul, and interprets
God to our nature aud to our want. We rejoice in that; we crown
it; we ascribe everlasting praise to it. What thou art we do not
know ; what the form or figure of the spirit is we know not; what are
the conditions of infinite existence in thee — thou that art the source of
innumerable forms of life in others — we do not know; but it is
enough that the center of thy power and of thy being is infinite wis-
dom, infinite goodness, infinite beauty, and that those things which
are scattered as gold in the rivers around about the stream of crea-
tion ai-e but specimens of that which in thee is as the mountain from
which these have come.

We rejoice that thou wilt answer every longing for knowledge.
Everything that is in mastership of genius; the things that we love
in the flow of speech; all that springs from the overflowing heart full
of affection and from the irridescence of the imagination; all that
which plays in infinite variety in the soul; all that we look
upon and call genius among men — these are but forthputtings of
thine. They are but sparks from thee that reveal thy nature. They
reflect thee even as drops of dew reflect the sun that kindles its light
in them.

O Lord, we rejoice that we shall not be disappointed when we see
thee as thou art. Now w'e do not see thee as thou art. We figure to
ourselves variously our God, vast, formless, uncertain by reason of
our uncertainty of mood and disposition; but when we stand before
thee what experience have we, from which we can gather the glad-
ness of that hour in which, when we shall know as we are known, we
shall be perfectly satii^fied ?

We rejoice in the anticipation of the future. We kindle again the
extinguished torch. In the disappointments of life we have seen

382 THE DIVINE LOVE.

hope after hope go out. Weariness comes upon endeavor, as satiety
comes with enjoyment; and as we rebound from all knowledges with
a sense of limitation, and weakness, and unknowingness, we rejoice,
looking forward, to believe that it shall not always be so. These are
but the beginnings of our life. Now we are being formed and fash-
ioned. The full disclosure of ourselves awaits the other state of
existence. There we shall see thee face to face — no longer through a
glass, darkly. To that hour we refer all our doubts and all our fears.
The majesty of that hour shall indeed dissipate all our doubts and
fears, and we shall be satisfied. We shall rejoice with joy unspeaka-
ble and full of glory. In that hour when we shall see and know and
be more than it hath entered into the heart of man in this world to
conceive, we shall find again those who have gone from us. We have
carried them forth, and they have passed into darkness; but we shall
find them in the light. They have left us with much sorrow, with
soreness of heart, and with memories that shall still weep ; but they
are where tears can never fall. We shall greet and shall be greeted
by our friends in a state better than that in which we gave them to
thee. Our children shall come again to us, better than they were
when we parted from them. Our companions shall be united to us
once more, better than they were in the sweetest counsel of the sele<^t-
est hour of love. We shall find that the branch that was stripped oflE
hath roots of its own, and is bearing blossom and fruit which the
clime of earth could not ripen.

How wonderful shall be the added wealth of our being! When we
look at the grave with its processions, it seems as though it were sand
of the desert on which life poured water that hid Hself and brought
forth nothing; but beyond this world we shall find how all the things
which we planted in death have sprung up in immortality and glory.
To this we constantly look forward, and bear our burden, and carry
our cross of sorrow and despondency, remeasuring perpetually with
the other life measure, and not with the estimate of this life-
seeking to be men according to the pattern of the future.

Vouchsafe to us more and more the interpreting light of thy spirit
from which spring all these imaginings, thoughts and hopes of
immortality. Grant, we pray thee, to all who are in thy presence
this morning, the selectest memories of blessings in the past; and
grant that there may be opened in us in the future memories of other
and richer blessings. Grant that there may come peace to hearts
that are disturbed. Give relief to those who are tempest-tossed and
not comforted. May they have a sense of reconciliation who have
been in offense with thee, who have violated thy laws, and who are
reaping the bitter fruit of transgression. Grant that there may
come a sense of our impurity on the one side, and a sense of the mag-
nitude of our being on the other. Grant that we may be made small
with a sense of time-greatness, and large with a sense of the greatness
which belongs to us because we are sons of Gorl.

We pray that this day thou wilt temper the souls of thy people to
communion with thee, and so to fellowship with each other. May
evervthing that is selfish and proud, and everything that is impure,
be taken away from us; and may we have the clear shining light of

I

THE DIVINE LOVE. 383

the heavenly life in us to-day, and rejoice in each other, and rejoice
ill Jesus, our common Head. May we forgive one another, as we
hoi)e to be forgiven. Help us to bear their infirmities, as God bears
our infirmities. Help us to study the things which make for peace
one with another. Grant that we may have more and more that
self-denying love by which we shall carry others' sufferings rather
than inflict suffering upon them.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt give us the blessing of the year.
Gather together all the influences of the year that is speeding itself,
that they may rest upon us. Give us presage and foi-etoken of the
blessings of the year that is to come, and that is hastening to dawn.
We pray that there may be more and more in this people, among all
that are here gathered together to worship God, and to express their
gladness in him by their good will, and kindness toward their fellow-
men.

We pray that thou wilt bless this church, and that thou wilt grant
that all its experiences may work out the peaceable fruits of righteous-
ness. Bless, we pray thee, all the churches of this city, and all thy
servants that are appointed to prophesy and teach therein. May they
be inspired of God, and so set free from earthly faults and earthly
hindrances as that they may more perfectly make "known to men,
both by their lives and their doctrines, what is the nature and pur-
pose of the truths of Jesus Christ.

We pray that thou wilt bless our whole land. Bless the President
of these United States. Bless the Congress assembled, and all that
administer justice. Bless the legislatures of the several States.*
Bless all judges and magistrates, and the great body of citizens.
May they be God-fearing and law-abiding. May knowledge prevail
throughout this great laud, driviug away prejudice, and superstition,
and darkness. May intelligence be joined to virtue, and virtue
tt) piety, so that men may live together with ampler rights here, and
with the hope of a nobler life beyond this world.

We pray that thou wilt bless, not our land alone, but all the
nations upon the globe. We rejoice that thou art overturning and
overturning, inasmuch as behind the plow goes the sower, and sows
seed where the turf hath been laid over. There hath been destruction
of old things, but better ones shall come. Thou that goest forth to
sow among the nations, plow and harrow the land, that the good
seed sown may spring up and bring forth fruit of truth and justice,
and kindness and charity.

Grant that intelligence may prevail everywhere. Pity all those
nations that yet sit in darkness. Bring upon them spring and sum-
mer, that they may grow. Lift upon this world the light of thy
countenance. Stretch forth thine all-inspiring nature, thou God of
omnii)otence, and roll the ages fast, that have walked so slow. O
bring to pass the promised prediction! Bring to pass those things
which now are to be dimly described, mo'ving toward accomplish-
ment. Grant that from the East to the West, and from the North to
the South, all the blessedness of a regenerated manhood may begin to
be perceived. Let the day hasten when the glory of the Lord shall
ripen the whole earth aud all men shall see thy salvation.

384 ^ffE DIVINE LOVE.

And to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit shall be praises
everlasting. Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Geant unto us, our Father, an enlarged conception of thy nature
and of thy power. Grant that we may lift ourselves up into a con-
sciousness of the sympathy of God for us, that we may take comfort
in it. Now we are as those that shiver in dungeons though the sun
pours summer all over the land. Bring us out of our caves and hiding
places of fear and remorse. Bring us out of all those shivering
regions where we have been driven. Bring us into a consciousness
of that nature in us that fits thy sympathetic nature. May we real-
ize thy love toward us, and may we rejoice in it.

Grant, we pray thee, that all who are in thy presence may have a
sense of what treasure there is for them, how much they are thought
of, how much they are beloved, how wonderfully they are lifted up,
and how continually and unconsciously they are ministered to by all
good things about them. O grant that the touches of thy hand may
bring forth music from our souls ; and may the harmony in us be
increased until thou canst briug from us the royalties of the heavenly
chorus. And when at last, through darkness and trouble, and wear-
iness and suffering, and the infinite inflections of weakness and wick-
edness, we have come to the end of our term of probation, open
thou, O God, the door that we who have thought we lived may live
indeed, and rise into thy presence, to be guided no more by types or
shadows, but by thine own personal self.

And we will give the praise of our salvation to the Father, to the
Son, and to the Spirit. Amen.

UNWORTHY PURSUITS.

"To what purpose is this waste?" — Matt. xxvi. 8.

I

The scene of which this is a part occurred within a few
days of our Master's decease, at Bethany, not far from Jeru-
salem. It was in the house of one Simon. At the table
where they were sitting (for it was a kind of feast or enter-
tainment) sat Lazarus, who had been raised from the dead.
Curiosity brought throngs of people to see him, as well as to
see the Saviour. While they were thus sitting (or reclining,
if they adopted the Oriental mode), a woman came behind
Jesus and broke upon him an alabaster flask containing very
precious spikenard ointment. This ointment was made in
the far East, and was brought as an article of commerce to
all their Western cities. It is called a " box" in one place,
giving the idea of a casket ; but it was a flask ; and when it
is said that it was broken, we are not to understand that it
was broken to pieces, but that for some reason or other
probably the neck was broken open or off, and that then it
was poured upon the head of Jesus, and upon his feet. We
are not familiar with any such custom as was universal in
the East ; for ointment was an article, not only of very great
value, but of universal employment in ways which are alto-
gether dead to us. We employ it still, but only as an occa-
sional luxury. Such, however, was the prevailing custom
in the East ; and it had a reason in that rapid evaporation
which took place from the skin in that torrid clime. Nor
were the personal habits of the people in that day, as they
are now at this time in many parts of Southern Europe, so

SCTNnAr Evening, Jan. 3, 1875. Lesson : Matt. xxvi. 1-13. Hymns (Plymouth
Collection) : Nos. 603. 631. 1,163.

388 UNWORTHY PUBSUITS.

cleanly and pure that they could bear to stand in their own
individual perfume. There might be, therefore, good reason
for hiding any disagreeable scent of the body whicli might
exist. So ointment was served to guests, and to persons of
distinction especially. It was generally put upon the head.
To anoint the feet, which usually were washed, as a matter
not of honor but of convenience, was to perform the washing
not only, but to perform it with signal honors attached.

Ointments were employed also as memorials. For a time
they were employed likewise in ritual service. You will per-
haps recollect that an almost exact apothecary's receipt was
given by Moses for the manufacture of the ointment which
was to be put upon the tabernacle, upon the vessels, upon
the candlesticks, and upon the priests. It was made a penal
offense for any man to compound that ointment. The mak-
ing of some kinds of ointment then stood in the same rela-
tion that the uttering of coin does now. The government
makes the coin, and it is a penal offense for any man to make
it. The government reserved to itself the privilege of making
certain kinds of consecrating oil. They were not allowed to
be made or used by anyone who might choose to mak3 oi use
them; they belonged to the sanctuary and the priesthood.

The same was true of art in the Orient. It was dedicated
to religion. It was against the law for individuals to have
pictures or statues in their houses. These things belonged in
the temples and to the gods — not to men.

Now, in the scene of which we are speaking, Mary (for it
was Mary), to testify her affection for Jesus, among the last
acts that she had the privilege of performing toward him
brought this precious flask of ointment, and poured it in part
upon his hair, and in part upon his feet.

We are not to suppose that it was anything like such
a flask as we associate with the oils which we serve upon our
tables. It was more like those very small flasks which yet
are sent out by the perfumers. So the quantity was not
excessive ; and the greatness of its price arose from its
fineness.

The effect of this act was striking. We have three
accounts of it — one in Matthew, one (brief) in Mark, and one

UNWORTHY PURSUITS. 389

in John. It is said in Mark that certain among them mur-
mured ; in Matthew it is said that the disciples murmured ;
but in John it is said that Judas, who betrayed him, spoke.
Collecting the facts from all these sources, it would seem as
though Judas had an eye to commerce in this matter. The
thought which he had was, " This is very precious stuff to be
used in that way." He did not think of it in the hght
of love at all. It is not probable that Judas was a man
of very fine sentiments ; and when he beheld this act of affec-
tion and fidelity, he weighed it in the scales of the store, and
not in the scales of the sanctuary ; and he said, " To what
purpose is this waste?" He was shocked; and to this day
there are multitudes who are shocked when hundreds and
thousands of dollars are sent out of the country to the
heathen, and that so much money is spent in churches and
in various acts of religious worship. Judas was shocked that
so precious an article of commerce as this ointment should be
wasted by being poured upon the head and feet of the
Saviour ; and it would seem that the other disciples were mis-
led in the matter, and that they sided with him. The beauty
of the act struck no one of them ; and our Master rebuked
them all.

There was but once in her lifetime that Mary could be-
stow upon Jesus any such token of affection. If that
moment had gone by, never would there have been another
like it. And Jesus said, " Me ye have not always with you :
the poor ye have with you always" — for the pretense upon
which Judas had condemned this proceeding was that this
ointment might have been sold for three hundred pence, and
given to the poor. John rather briefly and curtly says of Judas,
" He said this because he was a thief, and carried the bag."
It was to have gone into the treasury ; and if, as he thought
it seemed likely, there was to be a dispersion of this little
band, in the scattering he would convey away what was in
the bag ; and he naturally had an eye to business.

This last emphatic title would seem to do away with the
fine-spun theories which would alleviate the guilt of Judas.
He was an extremely avaricious man ; avarice was his
leading trait ; he found fault with tokens of affection for

390 UNWORTHY PURSUITS.

avaricious reasons, and he sold his Master for thirty pieces
of silver. Three hundred pence he thought ought to have
been saved ; he regarded it as having been squandered on
Jesus ; but he sold him afterwards for about sixty pence.
This character of Judas, and this delineation of his interior
motives, seem to set aside the idea which has been suggested
by some, that he expected to sell Christ and then get him
back again, so that he would have the money, and nobody
would receive any damage. It was altogether an avaricious
transaction.

Not only did our Master think this act was worthy ; not
only, in other words, did he think the expression of senti-
ment had the highest value ; but he honored the act by de-
claring that wherever, in the whole world, his Gospel should
be preached, it should be made known what this woman
had done. Monarchs, and wise men, and soothsayers, and
statesmen and generals — the whole crowd and mob of men
who were seeking to make themselves conspicuous — have,
with a few exceptions, died, passed from the stage of the
universe, gone down and been forgotten ; but this woman's
name is fresh, and is as fragrant as was the spikenard which
she poured upon the head of Jesus.

Of all the ambitions which men may choose, those ser-
vices which associate them most intimately with God in this
world are the things which will give them the longest re-
membrance and the greatest honor.

This is the brief account. I have selected it, not so much
for the purpose of following out the history, as for the pur-
pose of discussing, in another relation, the question which is
here put — namely, " For what purpose is this waste?" If
this ointment had been placed upon the head of Pilate, or of
hideous Herod ; if it had been placed upon the heads of the
men who conducted the affairs of the Jewish government at
that time ; if it had been employed in empty forms and cere-
monies, there would have been a waste, and the question of
the disciple,, now ignominious, would have been honorable
and pertinent.

To expend the costliest things in worthiness is no waste.
There is nothing too good for friendship ; there is nothing

UNWORTHY PURSUITS. 391

too good for love ; but to spend valuable things on objects of
no consequence or worth is a waste which no man can
afford.

The question then arises to-night (and it is the question
which I wish to impress upon you as appropriate at the open-
ing of the new year), What have you been expending yourself
on ? What are you spending the most precious part of your-
self upon ? Are you making waste of the things that are
best ? or are you breaking them on the head of Jesus, so that
you shall have his approbation ? Such questions follow very
closely the analogy which might be drawn from this scene.

I propose, to-night, in a series of particulars, to bring be-
fore you, and especially before the younger members of this
congregation, those hindrances to a full, manly life which
beset them ; the liabilities that they will break their alabaster
box on unworthy objects ; and the danger that they will pass
by and miss those great ends which ought to take the affec-
tions of their heart and the consecrated treasures of their
soul.

You will perhaps expect me to speak of those who pour
out the most precious elements of their lives upon the most
unworthy ends, and who live for the pleasures of the flesh.
It is possible for men to live with the supreme object of
physical enjoyment who yet live within the bounds of pro-
priety which society requires. A man may be to a certain
extent a glutton, or an intemperate drinker, and yet not
forfeit respectability. The household that shields a thousand
things, and should, also shields a thousand faults and mis-
takes, as it should. Men may live in their neighborhood
and in general citizenship without reproach, and with a
reputation even of being kind and good, and yet there may
not be one single noble ambition in their life. Men may live
so as to be respected by their fellows, and yet not do a single
self-denying act, and be utterly devoid of magnanimity.
Men may live with a constant reference to what shall please
tliem at the table ; yea, they may go further, and may live
under the shelter and secrecy of the household, in such
indulgences as shall sap and draw out their very vitality.

There are multitudes of men who die early, and ought

392 UNWORTHY PURSUITS.

to. They live in such a continuous self-indulgence in things
excessive or illicit that the mark of death is npon them
almost from the heginning of their lives.

I am not speaking of those outrageous vices and uproar-
ious crimes which the conscience condemns : I am speaking
of the conduct of men who slide along not parting com-
pany with good society, and who yet indulge themselves
physically in every way, from week to week throughout the
year, drawing upon the capital of health, weakening their
nerves, effeminating their muscles, or rotting their bones ;
who are bound to a premature death ; whose sun shall go
down at mid-day.

Now, it does not follow that every man who does things
whidi are wrong according to the rigorous schedule of virtue
and propriety will hold on therein. I take no extravagant
ground or theory as against the undoubted fact that men may
do wrong and recover themselves ; but I do say that multi-
tudes of men are so made and are so surrounded that to
begin such courses as these, or to continue them with any
considerable degree of intensity, is a sure presage of their
destruction ; and I do say that if men fall into those self-
indulgences which sap the body it may require years and years
before they can regain that strength which they should have
had during all their life. Often when men have long since
repented of their secret sins and forsaken them, the effect of
those sins remains. The penalty is frequently felt months and
and years after the wrong deed is performed. It shows itself
in emasculation of the body ; in injury to the nerves ; in a
want of contractile energy and productiveness of thought.
These are results of evil-doing which not unfrequently go
with men to the end of their life. This is the reason why so
many hundreds of men, with apparently good constitutions,
first begin to grow feeble, then fail of success, and then die
prematurely. The secret life of multitudes of men is one
that destroys them without destroying their reputation or
their respectability.

I therefore say to every young man in this congregation
who thinks himself to be in danger, who knows that he is
implicatedj who feels that he comes within the circle of these

UNWORTHY PURSUITS. 393

remarks (that circle is large, and I need to go into no f iirthef
particularization to give to every one of you the knowledge
of whether you are included in it or not) — to every such one
I say, You are breaking the alabaster box on the head of a
beast. You are taking the most precious ointment of your
nature, your soul's richest gift, the highest credentials of
manhood, those elements which belong to you by virtue of
your spirit, and squandering them upon an animaJ.

There have been critics who would scarcely allow even
the great dramatist to depict so exquisite and ludicrous a
thing as the conversion of a clown into an ass. An ass's
head is placed on the body of a man, and the queen of the
fairies, enamored with love, is fondling him, and putting
wreaths over his huge ears. The transformation is so unnat-
ural that only the genius of a Shakespeare could carry it out
successfully ; but he drew from life. There are thousands and
thousands of persons who are putting flowers on asses' ears ;
who are putting the most precious things on the most hideous
beasts ; who are living for the flesh.

Let me pass to that which in criminal aspects is less fatal,
but which in its results is scarcely less fatal — namely, the
spirit of self-indulgence. I am not going to speak to-night
at all in ferrorum ; I am not going to exaggerate : I should
like to speak of the topics under consideration so that I shall
have the consent of every young man and maiden that I
speak with moderation and common sense. I am not going
to speak of self-indulgence in its wasteful and gross and
damnable forms : I am going to speak of a far more subtle,
and in some respects a far more dangerous, element. There
are thousands of young men who have good health, who are
well equipped, well endowed, who have an average of good
sense, who have sufficient to make them reasonably successful
in life, but who rarely succeed. They may achieve a tempo-
rary success in the earlier period of their career, when the
generous appreciation of youth gives a man a larger opportu-
nity than he has in middle life or old age ; but when once
they are full grown, and are put upon their own mettle, and
are judged by what they are and according to the effects
which they can produce, then is seqn the waste of their man-

394 UNWORTHY PURSUITS.

hood ; and by the time that they reach the meridian line of
life they are faint, feeble, and disappointed, and are swept
out, so to speak, and they become the detritus of society —
hangers-on, camp-followers, unsuccessful men. Though they
start with high hoj)e in their own breast and in the bosoms
of their friends, yet they never answer their own expectation
nor the expectation of their friends. Thousands there are,
far from jails, and far from ignominy, who are weak men,
unsucceeding men, whom nobody wants. They roam in
crowds throughout the community.

What is the matter with these men ? Aside from the
reasons which I have stated, there is a reason in the subtle
element of self-indulgence. No man should hope to succeed
in this world who is not willing to bear as much pain as is
necessary to buy the most precious things. Gold that is
picked up in the rivers, or that is discovered near the surface
of the ground, is very soon exhausted ; and the miners in
California are now obliged to blast out the solid rock, and put
it under the hammer, and grind it to powder, and gather out,
by chemical processes, the precious metal. So men work out
their successes in life. He who thinks he can accomplish any
great end in this world without suffering makes a mistake.
He does not understand the fundamental law of existence.
We come into existence animals ; to be born is a painful
thing ; and we are to be born again every time that a higher
faculty in us gains ascendency over a lower one ; and all the
way up from mere animalism to social life is a way of self-
denial — that is, of the suppression of the lower to give growth
to the higher ; and so it is in rising from one plane to anoth-
er, from the lowest to the highest.

Society is so organized that the same thing takes place in
the large sphere that takes place in the individual sphere ;
and the reason why Christ says to men, " Take up your cross
and follow me," is not that there is anything intrinsically
good in pain, but that the way to work oi^t higher qualities
is to put the lower ones under such restraints that they will
suffer — is to put the bridle on the lower faculties, and hold
them in, and when they are impatient still hold them in.

Now, let a young man begin life with this feeling

UNWORTHY PURSUITS. 395

" I desire no unlawful pleasures ; I want no wassail ; 1
am not desirous of any riotous indulgences; I am not
tempted in overmeasure in the direction of passions and
lusts ; and yet, it is pleasant to rise late in the morning, and
it is gratifying to find everything just as one wishes it at the
breakfast table, and it is pleasant to read the newspaper witli-
out a sense of urgent necessity pushing one out of doors.
There is no great harm in that." No, there is no great harm
in it. To go about your business at ten, or eleven, or twelve
o'clock, and have an occupation which shall not in overmeas-
ure exhaust you, and attend to such duties as are rather
agreeable on the whole, and shirk all those that are disa-
greeable, or that carry with them any pain — this is natural ;
it is no vice, no crime ; it is simply seeking present pleasure ;
it is a mode of being happy at each moment by dodging se-
vere duties, and hard things, and difficult tasks : but it is self-
indulgence ; it is indulging self ; and it violates the great
economic laws of God by which men who mean to be men
must train, drill themselves to disagreeable things.

Let all begin life with this ideal: "Above all let me
have aspiration ; I am a child of God ; I have in me an im-
pulse of ambition." [Blessed be the man who has ambition !
Woe be to the man who has no ambition ! He who has no am-
bition is as dough that has no life and is dumpy.] He that
feels, " I am of God ; I came from him and am to go to him
again; life is before me, and I am willing to pay tlie price, what-
ever it may be, of succeeding in a noble way; and I am will-
ing to rise early, and toil late, and take hardness and fatigue
and long exertion of every kind ; I will not spare myself ; I
will do the thing that I ought to do, irrespective of my enjoy-
ment"— that man has a charter of success in him. But a
man who says, '' I have the testimony of my conscience that
I am a good man ; I mean to do right ; I never intend to do
anything wrong ; but I like to sit down in sunshiny spots, I
like to go where flowers are, I like to be in pleasing company,
I do not like to go where people are who look down on me,
so I do not go where my superiors are ; I like to be with peo-
ple that flatter me, so I go where my inferiors are ; I am will-
ing to work for a living, but not in things that are not

396 UNWORTHY PURSUITS.

respectable " — a nrnu that is all bis life thinking of pleasant
things, and delightful places, and easy ways, and that which
will lift him up and give him prematurely what no man
ought to seek except as the result of continued and honest
exertion, the fruit of equity, of fundamental justice — such a
man is breaking his alabaster box unworthily. No man
should want anything for which he has not given an equiva-
lent, a quid pro quo ; and every man who undertakes to live
an- easy life by seeking pleasant things in pleasant ways is a
self-indulgent man ; and his self-indulgence is such as causes
him to pour his precious ointment on objects that are un-
worthy.

Parents, think of these things. It is not necessary to
make your children rude. It is not necessary that your chil-
dren should have artificial self-denials ; bat in rearing your
children courage, hardihood, and manhood are indispensable.
That is one of the reasons why it is so blessed to be born
poor, and in New England. We were born to nothing. We
were swaddled and laid on a rock. We had winters that
meant business, and summers that were penurious except in
glory, and soil that would give nothing back^except what was
first given to it. All nature was organized on the rigorous
pattern of justice. So men, pushed into life poor, but
bound to live comfortably, took the right road to it ; they
took it out of themselves. They rose early. I think since
the world began there never were so many hours put into life
in each day as were put into it by every man, woman and
child in New England, until after forty or fifty years, when,
worn thin by toil, men and women looked like tools — like
chisels. And the result is that New England has become a
fountain of influences exerted on all this great common-
wealth, giving to it largely its institutions and fundamental
economies, social, political and religious. It is a source of
commercial impulse. It is an organizing power. Not that
there are no brains out of New England ; but, taking the
community comprehensively, New England has influenced
the nation and the world. The undertone may not be heard,
but it is felt. As here the thirty-two foot pipe of the organ
does not sound so obviously as the sharp and screaming flute,

UNWORTHY PURSUITS. 397

and yet is felt under all the rest of the notes ; so the grand
undertones of growth and expansion through America came
from New England ; and they came from New England be-
cause there were men there who did not count personal com-
forts the best things in life, but who counted the rearing of
great households of children in virtue and industry as worth
suffering for. They had a high ambition, and they were
willing to bear the pain and penalty necessary to work out
that ambition.

To every young person, therefore, I would say. While I
warn you against vices and seductions which are injurious to
life, there is a more insinuating and subtle and dangerous
self-indulgence which will lead you to seek present, pleasure
at the expense of manhood and prosperity. Beware of it.

Another danger of waste is that by which men live, not
in the light of everlasting principles and truths, but in the
light of influences that are transient among their fellow-men.
How widely these influences are spread you will not perhaps
at first consider.

You are accustomed to say, some of you, *'I do not care
what people think of me, I am going to do what is right."
The disposition to do what is right is very well ; but to say
that you do not care what people think of you is not very
well. When a man says he does not care for the opinion of
the wise, the experienced and the good, he is in a bad way.
He is either degraded, unmanly, or reckless ; and in either case
the place where he is is bad to be in. We ought to care for
men's opinions. But all opinions are not alike. Every man
should sort them. Because I go into a shop containing ten
thousand little tinsels and gewgaws, all manner of childish
things, and despise them, it does not follow that I despise
traffic or merchandise. Because I do not believe in gilt, it
does not follow that I do not believe in gold. And in the
matter of the opinions of men, every man should have some
standard by which to judge of them, and sort out those that
are worthy of consideration ; but no man can afford to ignore
the opinions of those who are around about him. The ten-
dency to regard men's opinions is one of the most civilizing
of all the tendencies in society. It might not be to the loft-

398 UNWORTHY PURSUITS.

iest spirits ; but we are not the loftiest spirits, and therefore
we are medicated by other agencies and influences.

On the other hand, bending to the influence of men in-
discriminately leads to ten thousand mischiefs. AVhen youth
go out into life, if they have an excessive addiction to jolease
men, they seek to adopt those things which pass current in
society. Hundreds of young men endeavor to please those
with whom they associate by conforming their opinions to
the opinions of those that they think are popular. They are
not industrious enough to investigate, they are not independ-
ent enough to come to an opinion of their own, or they are
not honest enough to avow opinions that are unpopular ; and
in either case the adoption of opinions for the purpose of
meeting the supposed wants of society is unworthy of true
manhood.

Conformity of belief, infidelity when it is fashionable to
be infidel, liberality when it is fashionable to be liberal, and
rigor when it is fashionable to be rigorous — this is an un-
manly and dangerous use of one's self ; and yet more un-
manly and dangerous are the ways in which men attempt at
.the beginning of life to stand high by reason of false show —
by which they seek to be estimated by appearances instead of
realities.

A young man's parents are rich. He has exhibitions of
wealth upon his person. It is not a crime. It may not even
be a weakness. He may be a participator of his father's
wealth, and may be beholden to the household, and may be
carrying out the ideas of his parents in the display which he
makes of his possessions. I hold that it is right for a man
to amass wealth, and to use it upon himself and upon his
children. I hold that it is right for a man, having amassed
wealth, to employ it in making liis household beautiful in
the eyes of the community. This, witliin due l^ounds, is as
proper a use of his means as the establishing of a hospital or
any other benevolent institution. But hundreds and thou-
sands of men who come from parents that are not rich try
to make people believe that they ai-e rich, or seek to live as
though they were rich.

Young men come from the country to the city. They

UNWORTHY PURSUITS. 399

know perfectly well that their whole future depends upon
their industry. They have so small a recompense that they
can scarcely maintain what is called *' respectability." They
are unwilling to seem to be humble workers. They are un-
willing to wear clothes such that, people looking at tiaem,
say, "He is poor." They are unwilling to practice frugality,
though they know that frugality is the iudispensable virtue
in their condition. They are unwilHng to say, " I cannot go
on that pleasure expedition ; I will not go without the
money, I have it not, and will not borrow it, I can not beg
it, and I certainly will not steal it." They are ashamed to
say that. They are afraid of their companions. They are
unwilling, if it has pleased God to affiliate them in matri-
mony with as big a fool as themselves, to live according to
their means. They are going to housekeeping, and they
must live as their sort live ; and being without the means,
or the prospect of the means, they cast themselves upon
that current which fools call "luck." They adventure
upon this heinous dishonesty because they want to be among
"respectable people."

I honor the man who has been brought up with the com-
forts of life, whose father's house has been sufficiently en-
dowed for all comforts, yet who is not rich, when he goes
down to the anvil, if need be, or the loom, or the spade, or
any lower occupation, and has a personal pride which leads
him to say, "I will found my own fortune. I am willing to
take all the responsibility. I am determined that I will hold
in till I can afford these things."

I think there is not, this side of the stars, a more beauti-
ful sight than that of a maiden whose father has brought her
up with lavish indulgence yielding to a great and noble love,
and giving her hand to a child of poverty ; they begin at
the bottom and toil, together, she as sweet as the flowers,
and as fragrant, and willing to wait and bear till he and she
can work their way up to competence. God's angels, in large
bands, and from their own pleasure, wait on such ; but sor-
rowful is the mission of the angel that waits on the other sort.

Especially in great cities the temptations are innumera-
ble ; and when I see in a man the ability to stand on just

400 UNWORTHY PURSUITS.

what he is ; when I see honorable shame in a man — not
shame to be thought poor, but shame to be thought insin-
cere, the shame of dishonesty in every form ; when I see a
love of truth and uprightness by whicli a man takes his joy
in expectancy of what will come by and by as a reward of
well-doing — when I see this, 1 need no prophet's endowment
to enable me to predict that the results of his life will be
gratifying and praiseworthy ; but when I see men putting on
airs, boasting of what they can afford, indulging in all man-
ner of luxuries, entertaining their country friends in the most
expensive ways, taking them to Delmonico's because it would
not be the thing and would not do to take them to a cheap
place, and doing it while they are not able to pay their wash-
erwoman, their tailor and their landlord ; when I see them
smoking the most costly cigars, and attending the most fash-
ionable parties — I am ashamed of the whole rabble rout of
vulgar men of this stamp ! They are dishonest scullions !
There are men in Sing Sing that are more honest than
they are. They will not break open their neighbor's house
and rob him of his goods, but they will appropriate in
the most despicable ways what belongs to others. I think
sneak thieves are bad enough, and Sing Sing is the right
place for them ; but there ought somewhere to be a place
worse than Sing Sing for such men as I have just been de-
scribing.

J make these remarks, not in wantonness or extravagance ;
but I would that I could say something that would shame
thousands of young men who have nobody out of the church
whom they respect to tell them these things. You do respect
me ; you know that I will not lie to you ; and I would that
I might in telling the truth strike the key-note which should
put you upon an investigation to see whether the ambition of
your life is worthy of yourselves — whether you are not build-
ing on seemings and not on realities.

Be true, honest and fair, and have nothing that you are
not willing to pay the price of. If you want pleasure of re-
spectability or repute, wait till you earn it. It is not a
shameful thing to be poor ; but it is a shameful thing to be
poor and make believe that you are rich.

UNWORTHY PURSUITS. 401

This takes close hold of another subject, namely: In pur-
suing the great ends of life you may be redeemed from a
thousand petty vices and weaknesses if you put before your-
self an ambition of wealth or an ambition of power ; 1
would not dissuade you from that : yet there is a liability to
danger in that direction. Men may know that they are right
in saying, "I am willing to give my time, my strength and
my thought to the acquisition of honest property, and to the
acquiring of an honorable place among men ; I am perfectly
willing to take all the expense and suffering which is required
in doing it." Now, provided this includes, as its central idea,
the thought that the only real success is that which carries
with it true manhood, I have not a word to offer, except to
give you Godspeed, and encourage you on your way. You
will make mistakes, and you will fall here and there : but be
of good cheer ; no man is perfect ; every man stumbles; but
when a man has stumbled, it is his duty to get up again, and
move on, and not go back, nor sit down to cry where he fell.
You must expect that you will commit many blunders, and
do many foolish things ; but beware, while you are seeking
these very worthy ends, of the organized prosperity of your
life, lest you forget that manhood is the condition of enjoy-
ing that prosperity.

I can recall in my mind's eye several wretches. '*Do you
mean criminals ?" No, sir — oh no. " Do you mean vicious
men?" Oh, no, sir. "Do you mean paupers and out-
casts?" No, no. I mean merchants and others, who had
made all the money they wanted, and got all the honor they
wished for, but in whose face there was not a line of joy.
They were unhappy. They did not rest well at night, and
they did not rest well in the daytime. They went about all
the time like one who says, " Who shall show me any good?"
I have seen men whose life had been exteriorly a perfect suc-
cess, but who had not manhood ; who never lived in their
reason except as a kind of workshop ; who never lived in their
moral nature ; who stultified their higher faculties and dis-
dained them, so that when they had achieved exterior success
they were not successful at all.

What is the use of a man's building his house of marble.

402 UNWORTHY PURSUITS.

and frescoing every wall, and making the most extravagant
outlay in order that everything may be beautiful to the eyes,
and then going in blind? What is the use of a man's
spreading his table with the most opulent abundance of the
choicest viands, and then sitting and groaning with his foot
on a chair with the gout so that he cannot touch a thing ?
The only true condition of earning these things is that you
shall be in a state to enjoy them when yon have earned them.
Men forget that manhood is the fiber from which enjoyment
comes. A mean man cannot be happy. A selfish man can-
not be happy. You shall see prosperous men who have lived
selfishly all their lives, and who are not happy, fumbling
about to do benevolent things here and there, hoping that
there will be a rebound of happiness ; but they are not
happy. They do not know how to be happy.

Why, when a man has spent his whole life putting out
taste because taste did not pay, putting out sympathy because
sympathy made his pocket spring a leak, putting out con-
science because conscience restrained him and prevented his
working simply for his own selfish interest, putting out man-
hood because manhood was a spendthrift quality ; when a
man has spent forty years making the anvil and the loom
serve him, making the plow scour itself bright for him, mak-
ing every ship come in for him, and he is bloated like a
spider — he is nothing but a huge spider swinging backward
and forward, and watching for its prey. You might play
Beethoven's symphonies to a spider till doomsday, and it
would not care for them. It would rather have a fly anj;
time !

There are hundreds and thousands of men who are mag-
nificent outwardly, but who are penurious inwardly ; and
they are unhappy ; they wisli and try to do something that
shall correct the mistake of their past lives; but it is too late,
and whatever they do, happiness does not come to them.
Outwardly they are great successes, but inwardly there is
nothing of them.

Now beware, young men. Do not burn up those very
feelings out of which you are to extract your happiness. If
a harper on his way to the king's palace to sing his epic and

UNWORTHY PURSUITS. 403

get his coronation should busy liimself on the road in cutting
his harp-strings, one after another, and using them to lead
his dog with, or to play with his child, or to fix his
harness with, so that when he reached the king's palace he
would have no strings to his harp, he would be like thousands
of men who are building up their outward lives at the expense
of the sentiments of love, of fidelity, of friendship, of con-
science, of aspiration, of magnanimity, of hope, of faith, of
devotion, of reverence, and of belief in immortality.

Hence I bid you beware not to spend your whole life in
building up external prosperity, forgetting that you must
build up on the inside just as fast as you build up on the
outside.

Let me say one word more than this, and in this immedi-
ate connection — that is, In making yourself j^rosperous, and
looking forward to enjoyment, beware of seeking that enjoy-
ment in single directions only. It is bad for one man to
have only religious enjoyments. It is bad for another man
to have only literary enjoyments. It is bad for another
man to have only musical enjoyments, and for another man
to have only political enjoyments, and for another man to
have only mechanical enjoyments. God made man on a
very large pattern. He did not put his enjoyment in only
one spot ; he distributed it through many faculties ; and it
is a part of every man's just education that he should accus-
tom himself, from his youth upward, to enjoy himself on as
broad a scale as possible ; so that if sickness should stop up
one source of enjoyment, and bankruptcy another, and other
misfortunes others, there would always be enough left.
Oftentimes persons who have but one source of enjoyment
come to such a pass that, this being lost, they have no other
resource.

The spider might instruct us about that. If you take a
microscope and examine his web-spinning apparatus, you will
find that there are some twenty holes through which the web
comes out to make one cord ; so that if one hole is stopped
up, there are nineteen left. If another is stopped up, there
are eighteen left ; and it is not likely that they would all be
stopped up at once.

404 UNWORTHY PURSUITS.

Now, when you are building your web of joy, spin it out
of as many holes as possible. See to it that you have enjoy-
ment in meditation and in recreation. Enjoy wisdom, and
also enjoy folly. I pity the man who cannot get down and
talk fairy stories, and roll on the floor with children, and
listen to their chatter. Men are afraid that they will forget
their dignity ; but it will do them good to bend themselves
once in a while. It is not necessary that you should be
starched up all the time. You ought to keep yourselves
limber, and in sympathy with common life. It is right to
live for taste and beauty, among other things. Indulge even
in laziness, sometimes, if you will only call it leisure. Live
for things high and low. Broaden yourself. Multiply the
sources of your enjoyment. Then, by and by, when trouble
drives you from one resource to another, and from that to
another, you will be like men in old-fashioned cities with
citadels on the highest points, so that when the city was
sacked the garrison could retreat thither and be safe. Have
faith in God and in immortality, which stand highest, so that
when trouble drives you from one fortification to another and
another and another, there will still be this fastness that can-
not be stormed and cannot be blown down.

If I were to follow out all the heads that I have marked ;
if I were to circumnavigate the sphere of humanity, and
point out all the shoals and rocks that I think of, the night
would not suffice. I must perforce pause here, not complet-
ing my ])lan, but leaving it unsym metrical.

We are just beginning, my dear friends, to tread on the
soft, virgin days of the new year. Not the snow that falls upon
the ground is freer from stain than is the year upon wliich
we are now entering. What that year is to receive which is now
opening like the white pa^Der to the type, I do not know; I do
not want to know; but it is for you, it seems to me, to-night,
to look back just encugh to ascertain wliat the lines of
your adventure have been hitherto. It is fur you to form
some estimate of what your character is. It is for you to de-
termine whether you have lived wortliily ; whether you have
rightly improved the precious gifts which God gave you in
your reason, your affection and your moral sense ; whether

UNWORTHY PURSUITS. 40g

you are not in danger of squandering them unworthily ;
whether you are likely to shed the precious contents of your
alabaster box on the head of the Redeemer. And it is for
you, looking forward upon the threshold of this new year, to
form some Avise purposes. Let me ask you. Have there not
been forming about you, for a great while, secret personal
habits wliich are destroying your life, and which you have
meant to break away from ? And will you not, to-night, take
the beginning of the year to carry your resolution into effect ?
When you do it, it must be an act most decisive. Is it not
the time to-night to act ? Is there nothing in your life that
you mean to cut off ? How many of you say, '' Let the new
year stand between me and my wrong doing"? What shall
the things be that you will cut off ? Are there not many
social habits that you would do well to rid yourself of ? Is
there not peevishness, moroseness, obstinacy, that refuses to
be entreated? Is there not quarrelsomeness ? Are there not
troubles in the family ? If those who have sat with clenched
hands could open them and touch palm to palm in love, and
form resolutions of forbearance in the new year, what a good
thing it would be !

I appreciate the courtesy by which friends visited friends on
New Year's Day ; it was a good thisg, and I was richly blessed
by the abundance of your remembrance in this matter ; but
is it not a better thing that one should open his heart and
make good resolutions — resolutions that slay evils ; resolu-
tions that cultivate virtue and piety ? Is there anything
more acceptable to God, more worthy of entrance upon the
new year, more manly or more rational, than that "you should
take the earliest days of that new year, not carelessly, but
with some just judgment of your whole self, of what you are,
of your mistakes and your liabilities to weakness, and form a
plan of procedure ? Include your business if you will. Con-
sider the rectification that it reciuires. Look at industry, at
enterprise, at social relations, at personal moralities, at relig-
ious elements. Survey your manhood through and through.

How are you going to bestow yourself for the year that is
to come ? God has given you most noble affections and im-
pulses and powers. No alabaster box ever carried such

406 UNWORTHY PURSUITS.

precious ointment as you carry in your soul. Your enthusi-
asms, your friendships, your esteems, are nobler than any-
thing that was ever compounded of myrrh, and more fragrant
than any incense of the orient. You are the incense-bearing
plant of creation. God has given you great treasure in your-
self. On what are you going to put it this year ? How will
you spend it ? Let that thought go with you. Interpret it
to yourself. What will you do, during the coming year, with
the most precious thing that a man can possess ? Are you as
much as you oug,ht to be, witli the power committed to you ?
It is a shame for a man to set up business with five hundred
thousand dollars capital, and do a hundred-dollar business.
You are set up with an immense capital, and many of you
are doing a very small business. It is time for you to enlarge
your manhood. It is time for you to think more worthily of
God, and better of yourself. It is time for you to make a
new start. It is time for you to fire and cleanse your ambi-
tion. It is time for you to confirm your resolutions by defi-
nite steps. When the year comes round (and I expect to
stand here next year, and preach the Gospel again to you),
when we come again to this place, next year, and I speak of
these things, or things nearly related to them, I pray that
there may be one and another who shall be able to say, with
rejoicings, to me, " That appeal which you made lifted me
out and up, and I am a different person, by the grace of God,
through the truth which you spake to me that night " — for I
speak to your reason ; I speak to your conscience ; I speak to
your self-respect.

Oh, sons of God, children of immortality, redeemed by
the precious blood of Christ, live so that you shall see God,
and rejoice with him, forever and forever.

UNWORTHY PURSUITS. 407

PRAYEE BEFORE THE SERMON.

We thank thee, our Father, that we are permitted again to come
to this pklace, long endeared to us— a place of knowledge, a place of
inspiration, and a place of rest. We have brought many burdens
here, and thou hast rolled them away, we knew not whither. We
have brought here multiform sorrows and troubles, and when we
looked upon them in the light of thy countenance they were drunk
up as clouds before the sun. How often have we drooped, looking
downward; and how, by thy touch, looking upward, have we risen
up and gone on our way rejoicing! We confess the great mercies
with whicli thou hast blessed us inwardly to be better than all out-
ward good. And yet how many of us have occasion to give thanks
for thy providential kindnesses— for the household with its remu-
nerations; for social delights; for friendships; for all the occupations
and ambitions of a just and worthy life. But these outward things
are only the raiment with which thou dost clothe thine exceeding
great blessings which interpret thee, and which fill our souls with a
sense of thine ineffable goodness, and gentleness, and sweetness, and
mercy. For if we, being evil, know how to give good gifts to our
children, how much more shall our Father which is iu heaven know
how to give us good gifts! If we know what things are beautiful,
how much more wonderful is the sense of beauty in our God ! If we
know what is the beauty of gentleness and of kindness, what won-
derful proportions must gentleness and kindness take on iu the heart
of the Infinite. If we know that it is more blessed to give than to
receive, what must be the wonder of tliy generosity! If we appre-
ciate and rejoice in the sight of magnanimity as it exists among men,
we have seen but the far away signs and tokens of it. It dwells in
its gi andeur only with God. We admire all fortitude and all fidelity ;
but what are these qualities as we see them, compared with what
they are as thou seest them ? How we love loveliness ! But what is
our love of loveliness compared with that in thee by which thou
lovest loveliness, aud yet thou canst take up into the scope of
thy being those that are full of imperfections and transgressions?
We pray, O Lord, that we may have evermore before us a worthier
conception of what thou art. Ceasing to strain the imagination,
and to expand thee, aud to feel that thou art great by mere exten-
sion, by power, or by knowing, may we learn to think that thou art
great, as thou thyself dost, because thou art good, and merciful, and
long-suffering, and slow to anger, and abundant in the forgiveness
of transgression. We pray that we may live more and more in the
emancipating faith of God's goodness to us for his own sake, for
reasons that are in his own nature, so that we may not forever meas-
ure our desert, and apportion to ourselves hope by reason of what
we find Ourselves to be. discouraged on the one side and conceited on
the other. We pray that we may feel that we live in thee, so great
is the scope of thy being, aud so inclusive of all things needful for
the highest life. We pray that we may realize that we d well in thee ;
aad may we rejoice in thee. And we pray that our realization of

408 UNWORTHY PURSUITS.

thee may give us confirmation of faith. May we from day to day
think that we staod, not in our own strength or wisdom or goodness,
but in the loving kindness and mercy and wisdom and power of our
Father who art in heaven.

We thank thee that thou hast convoyed us through another year.
We thank thee that thou hast planted our feet on the threshold of a
new one. Grant us to-night those inspirations, those providential
surroundings, by which we may go forward severally according to
thy will in the year that is before us. We pray that thou wilt inspire
to-night seriousness in every heart. May every one review his life,
and know whether he has turned it to the most profit. We pray that
thou wilt inspire ambition in the young, and grant that men may
not throw themselves vilely away, nor undervalue the preciousness
of that which has been committed to their charge.

We beseech of thee, O God! that thou wilt grant a blessing to
rest upon all the families that are represented here to-night, and
upon all the individuals that are gathered together, according to
their several necessities. Wilt thou stay up those who aie weak.
Wilt thou comfort those who ai-e in any manner of alHiction. Wilt
thou give clear knowledge or understanding to any who are in doul)t,
or who cannot perceive the truth, or the way of duty. Wilt thou
give impulse to those that lie becalmed, and are making no voyage.
Grant to all according to their several circnmstances that Divine gift,
that Divine influence, that Divine leaning, which shall bring them
on their way this year more and more richly than in any year of
their past lives.

Bless, we pray thee, all the churches of this city, and of the great
city near us. Unite them in a common zeal, and in a common con-
secration to Christ.

We pray for our nation, and for all the nations of the habit-
able globe— for those that are in darkness, and for those upon 'i^hich
the full light of Christianity shines. We pray that the time may
speedily come when all the promises and prophecies shall be fulfilled,
and when the glory of the Lord shall fill the whole earth.

And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son, and Spirit.
Amen.

TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS.

" And be found in Him [Christ], not having mine own righteous-
nees, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of
Christ, the righteousness wliich is of God by faith !" — Phtl. iii., 9.

Here are two expressions, the interpretation of whose
meaning has filled the world with infinite pamphlets, and
lumbers of books, and has given some comfort, I hope, at
any rate, as a compensation for the confusion and stumbling
of mind which have awaited the explications of faith and
tvorks, or faith and righteousness.

It is now the current doctrine, not alone of the Protest-
ant church, but of the Roman Catholic church as well, that
faith is of God, that faith is an indispensable quality, and
that there is no such thing as salvation without faith. I sup-
pose that multitudes of persons have a very vague impression
that faith is a kind of celestial salt that God sprinkles into
men, which keeps them, and stimulates them, and makes
them relishful ; that it is a quality bred, moulded, fixed in
heaven, and that it is injected by a divine act ; and that when
God has breathed it into men, then they have it, exactly as, in
a dark room, a coal of fire was put to a candle in the old-
fashioned way, and you blew, and a little flame came, and
that was a light. Men have an impression that there is a
spiritual quality which grows up in God, or around him ;
that that quality is indispensable to salvation ; thajfc when
men pray for it, it comes down in some mysterious way ; and
that when they once have it in their hearts, it is faith, and

Sunday Mobnihu. Jan. 10, Xmh, Lesson : CktI. ▼. Htunb (PlymoilCb Collection)
Nc«. U2. 296. 346.

412 TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS.

they are aalvable ; but that until they have that faith they are
Qon-salvable.

On the other hand, it is supposed that all attempts on the
part of men to get to heaven by virtue of right-living, on the
ground that their conduct is good, are not only abortive, but
to the last degree presumptive. This feeling that conduct
and character are not sufficient for hope of salvation has
sometimes gone to such an extreme as that nothing is more
suspicious than for a minister to preach morality. You have
heard it said, and I have heard it said, times without num-
ber, " Oh, he is not a sound preacher — he preaches nothing
but morality." If he preached high doctrine, deep doctrine,
and above all, *' justification by faith ;" if he preached that
though a man lived badly, wickedly, notwithstanding what
he had been, with whatever there was in him, he could get
this illapse of faith froQi God and be all right, — then men
would not complain of his preaching.

The apostle Paul is here giving an account of his own ex-
perience ; and he says that if any man has reason to be con-
fident in regard to his own experience it is he :

" If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust
in the flesh [that is, trust in his own personal conduct], I more [than
he]. Circumcised the eighth day [he had undergone what was equiv-
alent to our infant baptism], of the stock of Israel [he had the right
nation], of the tribe of Benjamin [a very choice tribe out of that
nation], a Hebrew of the Hebrews [thoroughbred] ; as touching the
law [the ceremonial law], a Pharisee [there is only one beyond this,
and that is the Essene]; concerning zeal, persecuting the church;
touching the righteousness which is in the law [the great ceremonial
law of the Jews], blameless, but [and he knew what he was talking
about] what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of
the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered
the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win
Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness,
which is of the law [he is not speaking about morality, or conduct,
or character; he is speaking of ritual, routine observances], but that
which is thro igh the faith of Christ."

You wir. take notice that he makes faith an instrument
of righteousness. He speaks of faith as a quality which,
existing in a man, sanctifies him. Faith is a means to be
employed for producing righteousness.

Suppose a man should speak of the eye in the same way ?

TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS. 413

Suppose it should be said. ** If a man has an eye, then he can
be a philosopher" ? Well I suppose no man can be a philos-
opher without an eye. The eye is an instrument by which
he makes observations. But is the eye the end sought, or is
it the means by which you seek that end ? And is faith a
divine quality or disposition of a man, or is it that attitude
of his mind by which he comes to a knowledge of God, of
Christ, and of spiritual things ?

You will observe that Paul does not in any way abandon
the doctrine of righteousness as the great end of life. You
will take notice that when speaking to Timothy of his depar-
ture, the language which he uses is very striking, though it
is not emphasized. He says :

" I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is
at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I
have kept the faith [that is, the system of faith] : henceforth there
is laid up for me a crown of righteousness [not a crown of faith, but
a crown of riglUeousness'] which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall
give me at that day."

It is as if he had said, " I am to have a crown of perfec-
tion— a crown which shall include in it that character which
I have been seeking, inspired by the example and spirit of
Christ, that excellence which I have studied, that conception
of manhood after which I have followed, which I have longed
for and striven after, but which I have not attained. I shall
have the crowning of that ideal as soon as I shall reach my
heavenly home."

His righteousness is not that he is going to have a crown,
but that there is to be a crowning and completing of hia
character and disposition and manhood. That was what he
was yearning for all his life, and that was what he looked for-
ward to, and that was going to be the event that he should
realize, having sought it.

The Hebrew moral nature is celebrated the world over.
Some of the best thoughts on this subject are in Matthew
Arnold's recent writings on the peculiar contrasts between the
Hellenic mmd and the Hebrew mind. He has, I think,
joined in the affirmation that no more wonderful moral de-
velopment ever took place than that which took place in the
old Hebrew nation. The moral ideas of the world had their

414 TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS.

leaven, and largely their model, there. It shows us the force
of things invisible and intangible that the laws, the institu-
tions and the civil procedure of associated nations to-day
sprang from moral conceptions which dawned in that little
pocket of the Orient on the eastern end of the Mediteranean
Sea thousands of years ago. The Hebrews struck so deep,
and they struck so utterly the great moral laws of God in
their relation to human life, and in their associated action,
that in its development the world has more and more built
itself upon that which was disclosed by them.

Now, the Hebrew moral nature sought perfectness in
man. That was its aspiration, its ambition, its ideal. It is
true that there was an attempt made among the Hebrews to
build up a state, a commonwealth, and afterwards a mon-
archy and a church. So far as the oflBcial personages of the
Jewish history were concerned they seem to have been ab-
sorbed largely, not in attempts to construct interior manhood
in the individual, but in attempts to construct a state and a
church, using men for the material ; but the teachers of
Israel were never their priests, and the most powerful in-
fluences of Israel were never their religious services. In the
later periods the synagogue had a function, and did a great
deal of work ; but, after all, the foundation of moral power
lay in the prophets ; and, with perhaps a single exception,
these prophets were never ordained men, or priests. They
sprang from the common people. They were automatic.
Jeremiah, one of them, is declared to have been called to be
a prophet from his mother's womb. He was born to that
office and function. Such was the peculiar liberty of this
people that whoever among them had a talent could exercise
it. If a man was a poet, a poet he might be; and if a woman
was a poet, a poet she might be. Or, she might sing, she
might prophesy, she might do anything that she could do
better than a man ; and that was right. There was that won-
derful freedom of action permitted among the Hebrews of
old.

Now, persons rose up to judge the people, as Samuel and
others, in those times, who were not called or appointed by a
vote, nor by a convention, nor by a caucus, but who had the

TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS. 415

inspiration to do it. The feeling was in them, and they did
it ; and they were permitted to do it because they did it well.
So, in long procession, came these men that inspired a nobler
patriotism and a nobler morality, and that spoke of justice,
of truth, of humanity, and of obedience to equitable laws.
While the priests were making sacrifices, and teaching men
various ritual performances, it was the prophet that was
striking bold strokes right at the moral sense of the people,
and lifting them higher and higher ; and if you attentively
read the prophets, you will find that what they were laboring
for was a perfect manhood. They were striving to shape
men into proportions of strength, and symmetry, and purity
and beauty, so as to make them perfect. Manhood was the
one thing that they were seeking, and the perfect man in
their estimation was a man who acted right in every part of
his nature — that is, as we should say, in conformity to law.

Now, to act right, or in conformity to law, is righteous-
ness; he who carries himself in accordance with known
standards of rectitude, continually, is a righteous man ; and
through ages righteousness has been the aim which has been
set up. He is a true man who is a righteous man. Or,
dropping that phraseology, which is encrusted by other theo-
logical associations, and giving it a modern form, we should
say that that man who fulfils his duty in every direction, who
develops all his inward nature, and who carries every part of
himself in fullness and in the most manly way, or accoi'ding
to the highest standard or ideal of manhood, is a righteous
man, one that works manhood out on the largest and best
pattern.

Consider the struggle that has been taking place in the
world. It is a sad thing to see, not only how the world has
groaned and travailed in pain until now, but how it has
groped and travailed in pain until now ; for every nation has
seen in its best men some attempts to work out the develop-
ment of a higher idea of manhood.

If you take the Greeks, they were attempting to develop
an ideal man. Some of them were attempting to do it on
the pattern of physical excellence. They bred him right ;
they drilled him right. They sought to make him a hand-

416 TRUE RiaHTEOUSNESS.

some man, a strong man, a man that was perfecfciy healthy,
an adept in every feat of arms, an athlete. A perfect man
according to the conception of the Spartans was one who was
competent to all the functions of a citizen ; who was vigor-
ous in every part of his body. It was a low standard, but it
was their conception of manhood.

You will find the standard, among other Greeks to have
been a certain ripeness of mind. One school required knowl-
edge, as being the test of a true and large manliood. An-
other school required what might be called intellectual
athleticism. As one class required bodily health and physi-
cal power, so another class required, mental strength, agility,
and adroitness. The sophists sprang from the latter class.
Others believed that the sense of beauty and symmetry was
among the constituent elements of the highest manhood.

Thus you will find that the nations around about were
severally striving to develop the ideal of a perfect man ; and
their best natures were growing toward it, or trying to.

The Hebrews said, "Fear God, deal justly, love mercy;
this is the whole duty of man." In other words, they had a
deep moral conception which included not alone man, but a
God of transcendent excellence, invisible and united, not
split up and frittered away in godlings as among other
nations — one majestic God, as opposed to a polytheistic God ;
and they derived from him a nobler conception of holiness
and purity and duty. The Hebrews were all the time striv-
ing, by their prophets and noblest natures, to fashion men
into this grander manhood of righteousness.

A systematic form by which virtue and social conduct
were degenerating from this seeking of manhood came into
vogue at a later period. While the prophets were alive they
rebuked, with the utmost vehemence, the degeneracy of men
from their ideals or standards — their tendency to worship
religious forms, and to forget that manhood for which alone
all forms are of any value. There is a constant tendency to
neglect this, and to look after religion — that is to say, the
mstruments of religion ; and I have never said anything
about dogmas or churches or ordinances that begins to com-
pare in sweep and intensity of scorn with the words which

TBUE RIGHTEOUSNESS. 41 7

the old prophets uttered in respect to tlie most sacred things
that belonged to the Jews. The Jews' noblest conception of
righteousness was the ideal of perfected manhood. It in-
cluded all justices and all excellences. The Jews regarded
manhood as the object of life ; in fact, it was that on which
life was to expend itself ; and among the things which were
sought for were those very qualities in morality and in daily
practical life that would be the evidence of the existence of
these great primary forces in men.

But in the old time, as in the time of our Saviour, the
external got the upper hand of the internal, and men wor-
shipped in the temple, and at the altar, and sacrifices were
made. The priests were splendid, their robes were magnifi-
cent, incense was abundant, and so many were the sacrifices
that blood poured by streams and rivers from the temple gut-
ters, and they felt that they were doing right. They went
through all the ritualistic observances of their religion ; but,
meanwhile, they were in point of disposition and morality
lapsing, here and there and everywhere.

Now, hear how the prophets came down on them. Amos,

reproaching them, says :

"They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him
that speaketh uprightly. Forasmuch, therefore, as your treading ia
upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have
built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them ; ye have
planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.
For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins:
they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor
in the gate from their right [the gate was the place of giving judg-
ment.] Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time ; for
it is an evil time. Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live ; and
BO the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you as you have spoken.
Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the
gate."

In other words, " Be pure, be good, and let all your social

administrations inure to uprightness and integrity."

Now, then, see how he comes down on their religion :

" I hate, I despise your feast days [yet they were appointed of
God], and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies [thit is, when
the incense is offered up]. Though you offer me burnt-offerings and
your meat-offerings, I will not accept them ; neither will I regard the
peaoe-offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the
noise of thy songs, for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But

418 TRUE RIOHTE0USNE&-i.

let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a might}
stream."

Here was a divine protest against ritualistic and external
observances of religion, in condemnation of the fact that
there was in men no manliness, no morality, no character, no
conduct, that conformed to high moral standards.

But this is comparatively polite phraseology as compared
with that in Isaiah :

"Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto
me; the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies [going to
church, that is], I cannot away with ; it is iniquity, even the solemn
meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul
^ateth : they are a trouble to me ; I am weary to bear them. And
when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you ;
yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear; your hands are
full of blood. Wash ye, make you clean ; put away the evil of your
doings from before mine eyes ; cease to do evil ; learn to do well ;
seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for
the widow."

That is what they were to do. Is that religion ? No,
not if a good deal of that which is popularly called religion
is religion ; but is it not the concurrent testimony of the Old
Testament that the grand spiritualities which connected men
with God gave light and ideal inspiration, and that the great
justices and humanities which made men renowned and sweet
benefactors to their fellow-men, were the great ends of life
to be sought ? It was for the sake of making men better in
these things that temples were built, that services were held,
and that sacrifices were made ; and the whole drift of the Old
Testament, and of the instruction of these prophetic teach-
ers, was to make a nobler and higher style of manhood,
which was called, comprehensively, rigliteousness.

When our Saviour came was there a change ? Then did
manhood cease to be the end which was sought by the church,
by priests, by ministers, by Christian people who sought
righteousness ? Was there something else sought — namely,
** justification by faith " ? Was this put in the place of right-
eousness ? I suspect that it is the impression of multitudes
of persons that when the new dispensation came in, the old
one went out, and that then righteousness was no longei the
great end and aim of life, and that justification by faith was

TE[TE RIGHTEOUSNESS. 419

the thing to be sought. And it is on this point that men
stumble ; for I aver that there was no change in this respect
— that the New Testament was simply to teacb a better way
of seeking the same thing. It was still to develop this per-
fect manhood that God sent his Son into the world to die for
it. And the Apostle Paul, in the passage of our text, does
not say that now he was aiming after faith, as if that was a
new gospel, righteousness having been the old one — not at
all : he was as much after righteousness as Isaiah was, as
Amos was, as any Old Testament saint was.

" And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which
is the law [not having that liind of perfection which comes from
fulfilling every point and particular of the law], but that which
is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by
faith."

The New Testament is after the same thing that the Old
Testament was — to build up men, and to build them up in
thought, in moral disposition, in affections, in conduct and
character. The Old Testament dispensation attempted to
accomplish this by one sort of education, and that failed by
reason of the weakness of men : but the New Testament in-
troduced another sort of education, by which the same end
was to be pursued — namely, the direct inspiration of the soul
of God manifested by Jesus Christ ; and faith is merely a
perception of Christ, the eyes of men being opened to this
new source of influence. According to the Old Testament
dispensation men tried to be good by keeping feast days and
fast days, by visiting the temple, by paying tithes, by all
manner of observances; and they failed. These things did
not make a large man : they made a narrow and pragmatical
man, a conceited man, a jealous, cruel, and persecuting man.
The conceit of the Pharisee was beyond all measure.

When the New Testament came in, therefore, it said,
''Seek the same great end — righteousness; but take your
conception from the living nature of God made manifest in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Here is the epitome, here is the in-
struction on which you are to pattern yourselves." It gave
a higher sense of man, a larger scope to duty, and a new in-
spiration to motive. It brought near to men, not the temple,
not the altar, not the sacrifice, not days, not the ritual, not

420 TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS.

the church, but the living God ; and so it was called the new
and living ivay, in distinction from the old and mechanical
way ; but both the one and the other were brought together.

I do not know of anything that is nobler than this strife
of the old and the new dispensations for the supremacy of
manhood. I go back and read with the profoundest sympa-
thy of the genius, the fidelity and the skill of Phidias, who
etudied to represent a nobler heroism indicated by the ex-
terior forms of men, and who carved in stone, and more
often in ivory and gold, the images of the gods, that were
only idealized and ennobled men ; and it was a very grand
thing that he was seeking all the time.

I am not one of those who, taking up one of Phidias's
statues, would ask, " How much would this sell for if I were
to turn it into lime ?" It is the mind that he put upon it
that gives it its value. It is the result of his strife to em-
body a noble conception of manhood.

I see the various attempts of the old legislators to build
up nobler states, and I have a profound sympathy for all
their endeavors.

I sympathize deeply, also, with the architects of ancient
and mediaeval times. They were seeking by temples, by the
most magnificent structures that ever issued from the mind
and hand of man — those monumental cathedrals which are
wonderful past all analysis and past all expression — to develop
higher and nobler ideals, and they were worthy of admiration
and reverence ; I do admire and revere those old monk archi-
tects who sat, and thought, and dreamed, and expressed
themselves in these magnificent ways.

Tiiree architects sleep under the roof of the Winchester
Cathedral — that cathedral which, for grandeur of thought
and for translucent and transcendent beauty, stands easily
first of all the cathedrals that I ever saw in England or on
the Continent. I walked by the tombs of poets, of sages, of
priests and of bishops, not irreverent or careless ; but I con-
fess that when I stood by the tombs of the architects, my
enthusiasm was greater than when I stood by any of the
others; and I thought it to be a wonderful instanc-e of the
kind providence of God, that he should give to these great

TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS. 421

geniuses of construction power to rear such a buidding, and
that then they should have the privilege of sleeping under it,
and having it for their monument. But when you have taken
the measure of the genius of men who make statues that are
well nigh immortal, of legislators who found States that
stand for generations, and of architects who build mighty
cathedrals, much as we admire and reverence them, how
much grander is the conception of one who builds the statue
of the soul, the temple of the heart, who is moulding, not
inert matter, but living vital fire ; who is shaping the interior
consciousness of men. and giving them largeness by which
they shall possess two worlds, standing here ; by which they
shall control elements of time and eternity, being, as they
are, at once children of man and of God. A nation or a pe-
riod that is busy with an ideal of the righteousness of the
individual by giving larger scope, and force, and symmetry,
and beauty and purity to human nature, stands easily far
above all other nations and periods.

The Old Testament sought the grandest ideal, but stum-
bled by reason of the imperfection of its instruments. The
New Testament sought the same ideal, and its instruments
were abundantly adequate, though men have again largely
thrown them away, and attempted to follow the Old Testa-
ment plan, adopting altars, and robes, and various Ritualistic
ceremonies ; so that which in the hands of Moses and his fol-
lowers proved to be incompetent, is still, throughout all the
world, striving for a nobler ideal, with most incompetent and
oftentimes hindering instraments.

Now, faith in Christ Jesus is not designed in the New
Testament, and in the teaching of Paul, to intermit the en-
trance into the soul of a prepared quality, nor of a condition,
nor of a disposition. It is that which is to help men in seek-
ing the great ends of righteousness. We perceive righteousness
by a perception of God ; by the opening of our minds so that
the divine Spirit quickens and stimulates us ; and in seeking
it, the act by which we recognize the Invisible is the act oi
faith. If I were to use my senses, that would be precisely
the antithesis of using faith. You look at things, you see
them, you handle them, you weigh them, you measure them,

422 TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS.

yon test them in various ways ; that is the sensuous way of
apprehending them. But men study, they reflect, they pass
from seeing things that are visible to thinking of things that
are invisible ; and that is generically faith. Sight or sense,
and faith, are two antithetical terms, one representing lower
forms of existence, and the other higher forms. Reflection
and inspiration are in the nature of faith. Whoever uses
the mind in relation to things that are not seen, as it is said
in Hebrews, performs the generic act of faith. The particular
act of faith in Christ Jesus is a use of the higher and re-
flective faculties which brings the Saviour, a representation
of God, up before man's mind as a reality, so that he perceives
it, as by opening your eyes you perceive a physical object.
All that superior action which belongs to the upper range of
human faculties exercised in discerning and bringing nearer
to the mind times and things that are remote and are not vis-
ible is of the nature of faith.

The righteousness that the apostle Paul gloried in and
sought is a righteousness of truth, of justice; of benevolence,
of personal purity, of infinite kindness, of lenity, of meek-
ness, of humility, of superior manhood — which he had, for he
was one of the noblest men that ever trod the i^ath of heroes,
which is a path of thorns. How came Paul by that right-
eousness which he had ? He says, *' I came by it through
the sight of Jesus — that is, the inward sight, which was re-
vealed by the Spirit to me. My own righteousness was as
filthy rags — that which before I thought of and prided my-
self on." Hear how he speaks of it: *'I bad everything to
be proud of. I came from the best nation." The best nation
on earth to you is the one in which you were born. So Paul
boasts of being of the stock of Israel. He also boasts of being
of the tribe of Benjamin. Every man thinks that the tow^a
where he was born is the best town ; and so Paul thought the
tribe to which he belonged was the best tribe. He boasts of
being a Hebrew of the Hebrews. He was circumcised the
eighth day. He was of the stock of Israel and of *-\.o tribe
of Benjamia, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. Axid Paul says,
** As touching the law, I was a Pharisee." But he was not
a tame sort of Pharisee — no, no, he was a man intensely

TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS. 423

in earnest. He says, " Concerning zeal, persecuting the
church." I believed that I was doing right, I believed
that other people ought to do the same thing that I did,
and I was not only willing to be what I was, but I was
willing to compel other people to be it too." He goes on
to say, ** Touching the righteousness which is in the law,
I was blameless." As regards the changing of garments
I was correct. I knew how to cleanse myself after having
touched a dead body. As to the wearing of phylacteries
and dresses I was without fault. Respecting all these ex-
ternal peculiarities I was perfect. " But," he says, "after I
had seen Christ, after I had come to a sense of what a noble
character was, after there had come down to me out of
heaven this picture of a true manhood, when I once saw
that, oh! what things were gain to me, those I counted loss
for Christ."

The transition may be very sudden between intense admi-
ration and utter contempt. A man out West opens a ledge,
and finds what he thinks to be gold ore. Oh, how pleased
he is ! He digs out two or three bags full of it, and then
covers it all up. He will not tell one of his neighbors. He
immediately starts with these specimens for New York, all
the while keeping his secret to himself. When he gets to
the city he puts up at a hotel, and takes a handful of the
ore and goes to the assayer. He thinks himself as rich as
Croesus ; but the assayer, as soon as he sees it, laughs at him,
and says, " It is iron pyrites ; there isn't a speck of gold in
it." The man goes back to the hotel chopf alien and pro-
voked, saying, " I have paid my fare, and the freight on this
miserable stuff, all the way from the West for nothing!" In
the morning there is no value that could be put upon that
supposed treasure, and at night it is mere dirt !

Now, here is Paul. He had been seeking for the ideal of
manhood. He had sought it in mean ways, thinking that
because he kept time with the clock, because he observed the
ritual services here and tliere and everywhere, he was grow-
ing in manhood. But suddenly there came to him a benign
representation of manhood as embracing love and self-sacri-
fice and hoKness ; he saw the Greatest making himself tho

424 TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS.

least ; he beheld the glory of God in Christ Jesus ; he felt
the breath of God, which is the breath of ages, working and
mouldiag and raising all things ; he saw God represented as
one who was a universal Nurse, giving himself for others ;
and seeing this exemplification of truth and purity and hero-
ism set forth as a pattern of manhood, he says, ''What
things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
Yea, doubtless, I count all things but loss for the excellency
of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have
suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung
that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine
own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is
through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of
God by faith." In other words, the consciousness that he
was being changed into these noble moods and dispositions
which are in God lifted him above and carried him beyond
those things which he had been in the habit of regarding as
all-important.

Faith is the instrument by which we come to a perception
of those higher qualities that constitute righteousness. It is
the eye by which we see invisible things. Therefore faith is
not to be regarded as not good ; it is to be regarded as that
through which divine dispositions are discerned — dispositions
which are to be our impulse, and which are brought before
us so that they shall influence our whole life and character.

If this be a proper rendering of this passage in Paul's
experience, and if these views of righteousness as the grand
end of human endeavor and education are correct, and if
faith is simply that method of mind by which we attempt to
educate ourselves into higher thoughts and feelings through
a new and better way of divine contact, then you will see, in
the first place, that praying for faith, except in the very gen-
eral way in which you pray for everything, is love's labor
lost.

"Wlien I undertook to study mathematics first, I had the
blindest of heads for anything of that sort, and I cried and
cried many times, and got mad a great many times more ;
but I never thought of kneeling down and praying, " 0 Lord,
give me a solution of this problem of the couriers." I knew

TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS. 425

that if I was going to solve tliat problem of *'the couriers"
I must go at it with my own hand and head.

Yet men pray for faith as if it were something such that
if God would give it to them there would be an illumination
in their souls, and afterwards everything would go of itself ;
but faith is simply seeing by the super-senses. Faith is the
instrument of the faculties. Faith is the working of the
mind on invisible things. It is sometimes a faith that works
by love, sometimes it is a faith that works by fear, and some-
times it is a faith that works by avarice or interest. We have
in the 11th of Hebrews any number of instances of faith ;
and you will see, if you analyze them, that it v/orks one way
or another, according to circumstances, but that it is a per-
ception of invisible things by reason of the moral nature.
So, to pray for faith is like praying for intelligence. It is
like praying for eyesight. That may be well if you are blind ;
but if a man is going to study anything does he sit down and
say, ''Lord, be pleased to give me eyes?" The answer is^
*' Eyes have you, yet you will not see. You have eyes ; use
them." We pray for faith as if that were an end. It is not
an end ; it is a means. It is percipience. It is power of
mind to dart into things which are higher than the ordinary
things of life. The divine influence resting on men brings
the center of manhood into a higher range of faculties, and
makes it easier to use them ; in that sense it is proper to pray
for faith. It is proper to pray that we may exercise our
higher faculties, in order that we may be better men, and in
order that therefore we may find it easier to discern things
not seen. It is proper to pray for the fruits of faith — trust,
love, hope, courage, purity, fidelity, humanity, reverence,
obedience, gentleness, humility. These are what we want.

Faith is worth nothing of itself, as the eye is worth noth-
ing of itself. The eye is worth what it sees. A man
might have a bushel of eyes, and if they were in a basket
they would be good for nothing. Faith is spiritual eyesight ;
and it is what the spiritual eyes see that is valuable, and
not faith itself.

This leads to the question, " Is righteousness, then, the
ground on which men are justified?" No, oh no, that ia

436 TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS.

not the ground on which they are justified. I am a writing-
master, and I call up my class. I say to them, ** Bring your
copy-books." Here is the copy — a fine, beautifnJ hand, with
great flourishing letters, so ornate that you cannot tell what
is written. One boy shows me what he has done. I know
that stubbed-handed little rogue ; I see how he has tried ; I
perceive that on the whole he has made improve ment ; he
has succeeded so far that really I can make out some of the
letters; and I pat him on the head, and say, ''Well done,
my boy, well done ; you will make a writer yet ; take your
seat and go on, and do not be discouraged." Does he go to
his seat justified on account of the fine writing ? No. I
approve of the effort he has made, I praise him, he has my
good-will. The ground of his justification is simply this :
that I discern in him the tendency to learn to write. I dis-
cern also that this tendency, if it continues and increases,
will bring him to the end which he is seeking, and which I
am seeking for him. He is justified, not on account of his
attainment, but on account of my considerateness and my
nourishing and brooding disposition toward him. It is my
faith and trust in him, and not any actual quality that he
possesses, that leads to his justification.

Now, when I have sought for righteousness, even by the
inspiration of the divine Spirit, and have wrought by patience
and fortitude and self-denial, and have done a thousand
things, I am yet so far from the real fullness of that which
is required to make a man in Christ Jesus that, when God
looks upon the character which I have attained, it is rude
and imperfect. It is as far from the ideal toward which I am
aiming as the boy's writing is from the copy ; and if God
justifies me it is on account of the something in him, and
not on account of what is in me. That is to say, he has good
nature ; he is generous ; ho is motherly ; he is fatherly. He
is father, and mother, and brother, and friend, and lover,
and saviour ; and he administers out of the qualities which
these names imply, and not out of the legist's book ; asid
when I bring to my God the results of my strivings and
attainments he accepts me and them, not because they are
perfect, nor because I am perfect — not at all ; but because

TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS. 437

he has such a nature that he can accept an imperfect thing
on accv:)unt of its relation to future development.

" Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them
that fear him." " For he knoweth our frame, he remembereth thait
we are dust."

Therefore, he does not, in judging us, lay upon us those
laws which he would lay upon angek in judging them.

One other point. While we depend for our justification
not on our righteousness, but on the goodness of God, the
end which we seek is not invalidated thereby. Do you sup-
pose that everything that a man does in this world is com-
mercial ? I -do not think that half the bargain-making in
New York proceeds from selfishness. It may come more or
less from these elements, but after all there is many a man
who pursues methods that are very exceptionable, who does
not do these things because he loves falsehood and guile.
You will find that the motive which inspires him is perhaps
enterprise, perhaps emulation of success, perhaps the great
pressure of circumstances, perhaps even the wife and child
that are living at home. Away back there is the fountain.

But suppose a man frames himself on the pattern of
Christ Jesus, and suppose he does not believe in Christ, what
becomes of him ? In other words, is there such a necessity
for technical adhesion to the Lord Jesus Christ that— if a man
seeks the influence that Christ inspires all his people to seek,
and if he exerts himself honestly in those directions, and if
he stands before God, saying, *' I acted according to the best
light I had, and my endeavors were measured according to
my ability" — God will reject him because he has not the brand
of Christ upon him ? That is the question which Peter had
to solve. There was a Roman centurion, that was a just
man, to whom Peter was sent ; and he went to him trem-
bling, because he thought it was not right for a Hebrew to
go to a heathen ; but when Peter heard the centurion's
prayers, and received the revelations that were made to
him, he said, *'Now I perceive that in every nation where
men fear God and work righteousness, they are accepted of
God."

It is not necessary that you should have this thing or that

438 TRUE RianTEOUSNES^.

thing put on you. The thing to be had is manhood, noble,
full, including every element that goes to constitute the
human mind developed with power and with fruit; and
every man is responsible only to the degree in which the light
is brought to him in the age in which he lives, or through
the institutions under whose influence lie is ; and if he is
conscious that according to his circumstances he is endeavor-
ing. Tiot without imperfection, and not without sin, but so
.^ci" as is compatible with human infirmity, to do that which
is right, God will accept him.

** Well," it is said, " how can he accept him but in Jesus
Christ?" Oh, fools! Why, I should think you had been
brought up in a mechanic's shop where Collins's axes were
made, and that you liad the idea that no axes would sell
which did not have " Collins" stamped on them. Do you
suppose that God is working on so small and mean a scale as
that ? Do you suppose he looks for this name or that name,
this sect or that sect ? The question is not whether a man
calls himself a disciple of Christ, but whether he is Christ-
like. The question is. Has he those qualities which lead to
Christ ? When a man is released from the body, and soars
into aerial space, if his nature is such that it loves truth and
purity and holiness ; if it is so pervaded with these higher
qualities that, following the divine attraction, it shoots up
toward God, then it will be found of God, and no janitor,
nothing, can shut it out from heaven. "I will have mercy
on whom I will have mercy," says God. He is arguing
against the idea that he has no right to save anybody but
Jews — anybody but orthodox folks. Quality, the essential
nature of the mind — it is this on which we must stand ; and
he who lives toward God, in sympathy with God, and like
God, need not be afraid. It is not your doctrinal system,
it is what your doctrinal system has done in you and
upon you, that determines your destiny ; and if, when yor
have done your best, you come far short of the final state
which you are seeking, you will be saved by the bounty, by
the grace, by the generosity, by the love-elemenb in God,
which ministers to you an^ takes care of you all the way up
to the day of your death. You will be saved, not because

TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS. 429

you have this or that stamp on you, but because you have the
Bpirit of Christ in you — and that whether you knew him or
not. Of course, in a civilized land, where that knowledge is
possible, you are without excuse if you turn aside from it ;
but I believe there were men in antiquity who strove accord-
mg to their best light to live as God would have them live ;
and I shall see them all in heaven. I do not doubt that ]
shall go there. You cannot put me in hell. I shall see these
men. They were willing to give up ease, and self, and honor
for the sake of living for others. In their sphere, and ac-
cording to their limited instruction, they were like Jesus,
who came into the world to show that God eternally is a
being who does not ingurgitate the universe to feed himself,
but who pours himself out with love and power upon the
universe to feed them.

So, then, seek righteousness; but not for self-justifying
and conceited reasons. Seek a nobler life and nobler disposi-
tions. Be in sympathy with God. Look up to him. Bnng
him near to you day by day. Have that discernment, that
faith, that inward sight, by which you shall realize the sym-
pathy of God, the presence of God, the love of God, and the
genial, the sweet, the soul-inspiring influence of God. If
you have the power of the inspiration of God present with
you, you will find it easy to get over faults, easy to do things
that otherwise would be unattainable, easy to ripen.

Oh, how well things ripen if the sun will only shine ; but
when the sun is laggard ; when, in June, the Eastern winds
prevail, and there are dribbling, grumbling showers, the
strawberries will not hasten ; they swell, and are vapid or
sour ; but so soon as the sun wakes up, and drives away the
clouds, and comes forth, pouring the effulgence of its beams
on all below, out of its light and heat come sugar, color and
fragrant odors. Then the strawberries ripen, and all the re-
gion round about matures.

Without the sun, a few things could be ripened in the
greenhouse ; but you cannot have a greenhouse for all the
world. A few men could be ripened in the synagogue, or in
the church ; but now the Sun of Righteousness has arisen
npon all the earth ; and whosoever in any nation will fear

430 TRUE BIOHTEOUSNESS.

God, and do justly, and love mercy, is Hving by faith of
God, which is faith of Jesus Christ.

Blessed be God for the truth. This inspiration never
fails. The more we employ it, the more sensitive we become
to it ; and the nearer we rise toward God, the stronger the
attraction, till, with the apostle, in the end we shall say, " I
have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith, the time of
my departure is at hand, and the crown of righteousness that
God hath laid up for me I shall soon have." The crown of
righteousDess is the coronation of the soul in its perfection.

TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS. 431

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.*

AiiMiGHTT God, we commend to thy fatherly care these dear
children. Thou hast lent them, and sent them forth from thy pres-
ence ; and they are precious in the sight of their parents, and beloved
of us; but they are dearer to thee. We rejoice that it is in the
nature of greatness not to despise littleness; that it is in the nature
of holiness to be deeply drawn towards impurity and imperfection ;
that it is the divine nature to inspire in all things rectitude, and en-
largement, and perfection. And so we come bringing our children
to thee, though we are conscious of their weakness and insufficiency
and faults, and all the liabilities that are in them, knowing that no
nurse nor mother hath for them the tenderness which thou hast.
Thou art the God of little children; and thou, blessed Saviour, didst
repeat thy Father's disposition when thou wert upon earth. Thou
didst rebuke those who would separate little children from thee, and
didst take them up in thine arms, and didst lay thine hands upon
them and bless them ; and we rejoice that we may believe that still
in thought thou dost caress our children ; that still thou dost guard
them by the effluence of thine own heart; and that toward them
in especial thy providence is love.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt grant that these parents, who
have openly avowed their determination to bring up their children
in the fear of God and in the love of the Saviour, may be strength-
ened to tbe full performance of the obligations which they have
assumed. We pray that their own lives may be a gospel to these
children, and that their dispositions may teach them what are Chris-
tian dispositions. May they, while they thus sow the seed of good
instruction, reap abundantly of comfort and joy in themselves.

We pray for all the children that are in this great congregation.
We pray for parents in their care of their children. We pray for
parents whose children are sick. We pray for parents who have
been bereaved, and are mourning the loss of their little ones. Open
to them the heavens that they may beliold them, not lost, but glori-
fied. Bring them nearer the other life, the invisible kingdom, and
the joys which this world seeks vainly to imitate. Grant that through
our sorrow and through the ministration of thy comforting Spirit,
we may learn the height, the depth, the length, the breadth, and the
glory of the joys that prevail above us. For while we sigh here, the
chorus swells just beyond; and all our groanings, all our sorrows, are
lost and swept upward by the grandeur of those chants of immortal
love which are evermore heard in thy presence.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt grant that all who are bearing
burdens in life may be enabled, touched by the divine nature, to
bear them more manfully. May those who are in trouble or
despondency learn how to acquit themselves like soldiers in a cam-
paign, and how to harden themselves against trouble, and loss, and
fear, and danger, and death itself.

We pray that thou wilt grant that more and more thy servant*

* Tmmedlatelv following the baptism of children.

432 TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS.

may be strengthened in all goodness, and may feel called to build iii
themselves the noblest manhood, knowing that thus they shall in-
terpret the best views of God.

We pray that thou wilt grant thy blessing to rest, not alone upon
this church as a church, nor alone upon this congregation as a con-
gregation. We pray thou wilt grant thy blessing upon all that are
with us from Sabbath to Sabbath, strangers in a strange land, and
upon all that are in thy providence casually brought together here.
And we beseech of thee that thou wilt bless them, not alone in the
reading of thy word, and in the singing of sweet songs of Zion, but
in the thoughts which they send back to those whom they have left
behind, scattered every whither.

We pray for all who are in discouragement, and whose affairs are
broken or are breaking. We pray for all who face tribulation. We
pray for all who are of an unstable mind. We pray for all who have
for auy reason lost the light of the world and of life. We pray for
those who are in any trouble. O thou that causest the sun to rise,
thou Master of the night and of the day, thou that dost chase the
darkness around and around the globe, and that yet shalt destroy it,
when thy sun shall shine a thousand years, grant to those that sit in
darkness a great light. Beam down upon them and toward them,
we pray thee, thy thought and thy love.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt grant thy blessing to rest upon
the labors of this church, upon its schools, upon its missious, upon
those instrumentalities which have been ordained for the relief of
men in various directions, and which are pursued under the ministra-
tion of thy dear Spirit. Grant that those who water may be abun-
dantly watered. But may none feel that they ^re doing a meritorious
service. May every one feel that it is an honor to be permitted to
labor for the welfare of men in the kingdom of Christ Jesus.

We pray that thou wilt more and more unite churches that stand
in a common Christian circle. May they learn to look charitably
and peacefully and sympathetically upon each other. May they co-
operate in all useful labors.

We beseech of thee that thou w^lt civilize the consciences of men.
We pray that thou wilt teach them love, and faith, and hope; and
that thou wilt teach them that true justice is of love, and so of
God.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt pour out thy Spirit upon the
land in which we live. Especially we pray that thou wilt grant unto
all parts of this laud where there are troubles, or where there is dis-
temperatiire, that guiding wisdom and overruling providence by
which every difficulty shall be amicably settled.

We pray for the President of these United States, and all who are
joined to him in authority. We pray for the Congress assembled.
We pray for all courts of justice, for all judges, for all magistrates.
We pray for the whole people.

We pray, not alone that thou wilt look upon our own nation, but
that thou wilt look upon all the nations of the earth. Grant that
their laws may be improved, that their institutions may be made
mure benign, and that intelligence may still work toward refine^

TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS. 433

ment, and purity, and strength. We pray that the day may speedily
eorae when all nations shall be converted to thee, and when thy king-
dom shall be established from the rising of the sun to the going down
of the same.

And to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit shall be the praise,
eyermore. Amen.

PRAYEE AFTER THE SERMON.

Gbant thy blessing, our Father, to rest upon the word that has
been spoken. May the light of truth shine into the heart, and may
the darkness flee, and clear away all prejudice, all misconception, and
all ignorance. Imbue us with a holy courage. Inspire us with more
and more of thy nature. Give us a faith that shall be to our inward
life what our eyes are to our outward life. Give us those iufluencea
of thy Spirit by which we shall be able to live nearer to thee.
We rejoice in thee. We rejoice in thy providence. We rejoice in
the belief that thou art bringing home so many sons and daughters
to glory. And when the ransomed of the Lord shall return and
DOme to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their head, may
we be with them, and help to swell the chorus of thy praise.

And to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, shall be all the glory
Amen.

I

THINGS OF THE SPIRIT.

" Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge
of God, and of Jesus our Lord, accordiug as his divine power hath
given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through
the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises ;
that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having
escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And besides
this, giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue,
knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance,
patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly
kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity. For if these things be
in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren
nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he
that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath
forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather,
brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for
if ye do these things ye shall never fall : for so an entrance shall be
ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." — 2 Peter i., 2-11.

Here, then, is a theological school, and these are the
topics of the lectures to be delivered to those who sit in this
school ; and it is a matter of more than curiosity to know
what it is that the apostle in this passage sums up as the
cycle of knowledge. We know very well what is the curric-
ulum in our theological schools to-day. We know that men
are taught of the existence and the attributes of God; of a
revelation from him of the Old and New Testaments ; of the
character of God as disclosed in the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost ; of the divinity of Christ ; of the depravity of
men ; of the possibility and the need of regeneration ; of the
passion and death of Christ as an atonement by which men
are forgiven and saved ; of a life of sanctification ; of a

SUNDAY MoRxi.VG, Jan. 17, 1875. Lesson : 1 Peter i. Hymns (Plymouth Collec-
tion) : No8. 104, 1272, 1270.

438 THINGS OF THE SPIRIT.

tiiumphaiit and glorious immortality to the righteous ; and
of a dark death and future punishment to the wicked.

Now, in this round of discussion which goes on in our
theological seminaries, and which has been embodied in vast
tomes of divinity, we have what may be called the Gieek
idea of Christianity ; that is to say, it is religion turned into
an intellectual form — presented in its intellectual develop-
ments and connections. It is presented, in every element of
it, either as a fact or as an idea ; and these are connected so
that their relations one to another are shown. But the whole
system as it is laid down in bodies of divinity, and as it is
taught in schools of theology, is Graecized Christianity.

The question then returns, Was this the method in which
the Saviour taught ? Did he undertake to unfold to the
intellectual and philosophical sense the whole nature of man
and of moral government, and the whole theory of duty and
of life? Was this the method of the New Testament? Is
it the method of a philosophy founded upon a truer notion
of men than that which has prevailed during the past cen-
turies ?

There are two great schools of knowledge — what may be
called the outward and the inward. We are all well aware,
so far as the globe is concerned, and so far as the qualities
and quantities of its matter are understood, that we are
dependent primarily upon observation, or that part of our
reason or intellect which discerns external existence, or exter-
nal objects and their relationships. When these facts have
been collected, we reason upon them, and deduce, as it is
said, certain great principles, which principles are themselves
the creatures of our intellect. They are simply the state-
ment of the condition of facts, or of the class in which facts
are found.

No man ought to undervalue philosophy, dealing in its
own sphere with its own subjects, and dealing correctly ; and
when the apostle, in his writings to the Corinthian Church
and to the Greek Church, who' were brought up to the high-
est degree in the scfhools of the sophists and intellectualists,
seems to undervalue philoso]ihy, it is philosophy ''falsely so
called," it is the assumption of reasoning about things to

.

THINaS OF THE SPIRIT. 439

which the reason as it was then used does not apply, that he
referred. If a man reflects for a single moment, he will see
that there is a large other sphere into which no man's eye can
see, which no man's ear can hear, which no one of the senses
can appreciate. He will perceive that there are truths which
may exist external to him, and which have not developed
themselves in any visible form, or in any way in which he
can by the speculative intellect discern them.

For example, if a man presents to me a picture, I see the
frame, the canvas, and the whole grouping ; but there exists
in me corresponding to that picture a state of enthusiasm,
an exquisite sense of beauty, that is personal to me, and that
does not exist in the picture. The picture is the occasion of
developing in me certain facts. There is a certain fact in it,
and there are states of mind in me that are just as much facts
as the picture itself is a fact ; but they are of a different kind.
They are emotions, and they are emotions that are classed
under the general head of the esthetic or beauty-perceiving
qualities of the mind. Now, when you come to take these
out, I ask you, Is the sense that I have of color, or is my
rapture in it, my joy in it, a fact, or is it not a fact ? My
sense of the pleasure that I derive from harmony of group-
ing, and from form and color together — is that response in
me a fact ? It comes from, that is to say it arises in, the
presence of that picture ; and is not that state in me which
is produced by the picture a mental state ? Is not my feeling
a fact ?

When we see things externally wo are apt to say, '' 0,
that is hardpan ; now we have got down to something;" but
when we rise above matter to the soul, which is nearest like
Grod, which is the blossoming point of animated creation,
and it acts, is the soul-action less than the matter-action ? Is
the inside man less a reality than the exterior world which
the outside man discerns ?

Are there not, then, facts of lower physical organization
or consciousness ? and are there not facts of higher spiritual
organization and soul-consciousness ? Are there not facts
which address themselves to the imagination, and to that part
of the reason which takes cognizance of higher states ?

440 THINGS OF THE SPIRIT.

We find that the teaching of theology, to a very large ex-
tent, has been an attempt to take men's inward consciousness
of those truths which when expressed in words are only ex-
pressed by symbols, and to render them into intellectual
forms, and then to present those intellectual forms as the
truth. This has characterized to a very great degree the
theological teaching which has been derived from the Greek
mind. I do not disown, nor do I denounce it, nor do I say
that it haa been useless ; but I do say that this mode of rep-
resenting the ti*uth almost exclusively in a systematic form
has led men away from the realities of the Bible, and has
been a cause of many of the difficulties which inhere, not in
religion, but only in the method by which religion has been
interpreted. They have been errors of method, and not of
the real substance of religious trutli. And I hold that in
regard to the dogmas, the schemes, the doctrines of religion,
there have been periods in the history of the world in which
they were far more useful than they are to-day.

If you will take the passages in the Bible which I have
read to you, and similar passages, I think you will see that
when the apostles went out to teach, the primary end, the
drift, the breadth, the scope and the power of their teaching,
lay in this : an attempt to develop in the souls of men certain
emotional and moral states ; to give them permanence ; to
create dispositions into character ; to build up the inside
man according to the highest ideal ; and then to let that in-
side development, the kingdom of God in them, as it is
called, be the fruitful source and motive of all their external
conduct and actions. They came to men with a very differ-
ent feeling from that with which the theologians of to-day
do. Men are taught to-day to interpret the system of the
universe, the nature of God, the nature of moral govern-
ment, all the great essential facts which involve the most
abstruse and abstract of all conceivable elements : but when
the apostles came to men they came, not with a vast system,
to put men in possession of the intellectual relations of it ;
they came with a power and a purpose, and with influences
by which they meant to stir up the highest elements that
were in the human soul, and to bring them into a habit of

THTNOS OF THE SPIRIT. 44]

action, which habit we call character; and out of that char-
acter was to flow external life.

!So, then, they had a practical design upon the living con-
sciousness of men. Although tliey used the truths of the
nature of God, and of the various developments of religious
history in the Hebrew commonwealth, they used these as
collateral and as instrumental, and they were all the time
thinking of soul-work.

It is very true that if 1 were to oj)en an architectural
school I should teach men what is the nature of bricks, and
what are the best kinds of them. I should teach them, also,
respecting all sorts of stone — brown stone, sandstone, lime-
stone of various kinds, granites of different sorts, marbles
of all descriptions. I should likewise teach them of all
manner of timber — oak, pine, hemlock, elm, and others.
And I should teach them the nature of metals of every
sort — lead, copper, iron, and so on. I should teach them all
those elements. But a man might know them all and not be
an architect. They are quite necessary, but they are subor-
dinate. They bear about the same relation to architecture
that A B 0 do to literature. A man may know the letters of
the alphabet and not be a scholar, a poet or a literary man.
These things are all elementary, and are quite necessary; but
to know how to build a house which should be convenient
within and comely without, and well built, is another mat-
ter. Although, to do this, various materials are required,
we know that a knowledge of these materials is lower knowl-
edge ; and we know that a higher conception in architecture
is necessary, in order to erect pleasing and well aiTanged
structures.

Now, the apostles were all the time thinking of the soul-
house. '' Know ye not that ye are the temples of the living
God ?" Or, changing the figure, the apostle speaks of men
being "rooted." It was a tree that he thought of; but he
thought of many other things, and the next thought was of
their being *' grounded." He had tlie foundations of a
building in his mind. " That ye being rooted and
grounded in love." They were to be ''edified;" and what
is edifi/ but a Latin word for build? And all thrcugh the

442 THINGS OF THE SPIRIT.

apostle's teaching runs the idea of building men up by th«
inside.

Now, the truths required for building up men are, of
course, to a certain extent, the objective truths which are
outside of men; but to a far less extent than men are accus-
tomed to suppose; for, as in this passage, you will see what
the Apostle Peter felt to be the essential elements of up-
building:

" Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge
of God, and of Jesus our Lord, according as his divine power hath
given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through
the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue [in the
original it is by. It means God's glory and God's virtue] : whereby
are given unto us exceeding great and j)recious promises ; that by
these ye might be partakers of the divine nature."

There is the climax of the truth sought, which is to bring
men into that state in which it may be said that they are
''partakers of the divine nature."

Then he goes on and adds:

"Having escaped the corruption that is in the world through
lust."

If Mr. Darwin were a believer, as I am, and were to
preach from his system, he would say, "All men are born
into this world animals ; and their earliest and most pow-
erful developments are the animal passions and appetites;
and the grace of religion is to develop a godly element, a
higher manhood, out of this lower animalhood." He would
say, *' That yo may be partakers of the divine nature, grow
up, evolve, develop into that." By "lust "in this passage
is meant these lower animal appetites and passions.

*' And besides this [in addition to this, it is in the original ; or as a
means of, or in connection with it ; as the method of executing this
entrance into the divine life, and escaping from the thrall of the ani-
mal life on to which the divine is grafted, or on which it grows, as a
flower grows out of coarse dirt] giving all diligence, add to your faith
virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control
[which is the true meaning, or the true interpretation, of the term
tcmperance'i ; and to self-control, patience [not the dogged, stupid
patience of tho stoic, but that patience which springs out of common
sense and trust in God] ; and to patience, godliness ; and to godliness,
brotherly kindness [not a contemplative and selfish state of mind
which separates a man from his kind, and not that feeling of love ol

THINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 443

attachment by which one is drawn to his family and to his neigh-
borhood ; but that charity wliich is the universal disjiositiou of good
will, or good will in a universal form] ; for if these things be in yos
and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor un-
fruitful in the Ivuowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."

I' is taught/ then, by the apostle, and it is the implica-
tion all the way through, that the main end of preaching
the Gospel is to build man up into that state iu which his
character shall bring him into communion and sympathy
with God, so that he shall partake of the divine nature ; that
this is to be done by the knowledge of God through Jesus
Christ ; but that the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour is
to come through tliis kind of faith, virtue, self-government,
patience, endurance, brotherly love, godliness, charity. In
other words, the knowledge of Christ Jesus is to be brought
out through certain experimental states in ourselves. And
so we are to study and grow iu grace and in the knowledge of
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

This brings us again to the truth that the New Testa oaent
claims that its aim and drift is to shape human nature to a
higher model, and that this is to be done by the truths of the
Gospel, and that these truths are to be understood by being
experienced. It is experimental truth that is to build in ns
the right character ; that is to interpret in us the truths of
the Bible ; that is to make us understand the nature of
Christ, and through him the nature of God.,

Speculative reason can never determine the truth or falsity
of the Gospel of Christ. Mere philosophical reasoning can
never determine the truths of the AVord of God. Thera are
periods in the history of the world when religion has the go
by ; when it is not fasliionable. We are coming into one of
those periods now, in respect to technical and speculative relig-
ion. Just such periods have existed in different nations and
at different times: and it is a matter very remarkable, too, that
when at one period and another the Bible sank into con-
tempt ; when the Church became odious, and her officers
were suspected and denounced and disliked in every way, and
her authority was regarded as intolerable ; nay, when what
was taught of religion was full of superstition, full of mis-
chief, full of evil, and was overthrown in the confidence of

444 THINGS OF THE SPim^.

men, — it is a matter very remarkable that tlien there was
something that carried the Chnrcli and the faith of men in
the substantial truths of religion through all these revolu-
tions. How does it happen that when the i^hilosoiihic mind
of France, of Germany, and of England has been for periods
of half centuries together adverse to the substantial teach-
ings of Christian men, there i? a deeper sense of Christianity,
and a more profound belief in the reality of religion, to-day,
than there ever was at any former period ? In a lower sense
of the term Christianity may be fashionable, but in a far
deeper and more respectable use of that term than is ordi-
narily implied in it, I say there is nothing to-day that is
so fashionable as the deepest moral feelings and moral truths.
To-day, the great systems of theology are being shaken. All
the claims of hierarchy and church organization are being
disputed — and mostly on very good and tenable grounds.
One after another of those things which have been considered
sacred from generation to generation have been stripjaed off
and thrown down. One after another of the great truths
have been analyzed and shown to be more or less false in
statement. Much that has entered into the conception of the
Divine nature through whole ages has been taken out. The
God that Calvin thought of, if he were to be presented to-day
in tlie average of Calvinistic churches, would, I think, be
turned from with simple horror. The doctrine of the nature
of man, of his sinfulness, and of the desert that follows his
sinfulness, is no longer taught or believed as it was centuries
ago. There has been a vast change going on, and we have
seen a different thought of church organization, of Christian
liberty, and of the power and worth of ordinances : we have
seen a vast change going on everywhere, which to some men
seems like a destruction of religion ; but in point of fact there
never was so much conscience, there never was so much sense
of the worshipful, there never was so much tenderness and
charity, there never was so much soul-powe^' evolved in any
era as there is to-day.

It is said that in the apostolic ages we had the pattern
church and the pattern experiences. Far from it — -far from
»i. No subsequent age has produced single characters like

THINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 445

John and Paul ; but if jou take the average of Christians in
the apostolic age and in ours, our Sunday-school scholars
could teach many of the early Christians. It is piteous to
go back and see what a state they ^vere in — how low they
were.

To-day, there is more real soul-power working towards God
and eternity than there has been at any other period, I think,
in the history of the world. And yet it is a day in which
there is more speculation, more assault upon the systems of
theology, more disbelief in its ordinances and churches than
ever before ; and what is the reason of it ? The reason is
this : that religion does not stand in the thought of religion.
Eeligion is a thing that is in man himself. It is the soul
acting in certain relations. It is experimental. First it is
experience, and afterwards it is specula'tive reasoning upon
experience ; but the beginning and the middle and the end
of the kingdom of God in this world is a given condition of
imagination, faith, hope, love, self-control, honor, and fidel-
ity, in living forms among men. The kingdom of God is
within you. It is the sum of all the higher impulses and
nobler emotions and finer characters that exist on the globe
in any one church. It is they that represent the divine ele-
ment in living, glowing forms. That is the truest church
of Christ, no matter how many or how few members there
may be in it, which represents the most living Christ-likeness.
In the world at large there is but one true church, and that
is the contribution of all churches to this one great element —
Christ in you the hope of glory. The "partakers of the Di-
vine nature" are the men and women, ignorant or refined, low
or high, who have that patience in sorrow, that hope in de-
spondency, that faith in obscurity, and that love, which bring
daylight every day, and strike even night with starlight.
That faith which makes a man like God, who, with double
hand pours blessings the year round, in all seasons, upon
his creatures ; that likeness in men to God which makes them
bountiful, singing and making song, beautiful and making
beauty, joyful and making cheer — children of the light, and
almoners of infinite divine treasures, — that is the element
whicii characterizes the true church of Christ. These frag-

446 THINGS OF THE SPIRIT,

ments, wherever you find them, all the world over, constitutt
the one catholic and universal church. There is not a church
organized on the globe which has not constituent elements of
this kind ; and there is no church so heretical that God does
not take something from it, and make a j)art of the universal
church out of it ; and there is not a church so pure that he
does not have to sift every part of it in order to get the true
wheat, leaving the chaff behind.

If these views be correct, I remark, first, that the bodily
life of Christ is not Christ ; it is the soul-life of Christ that
is Christ. He had a bodily life ; but he who merely looks
upon him in his outward relations ; he who regards him spec-
ulatingly ; he who, in speaking of him, gays, " How could
he be born of a woman ? how could he be God and yet be a
babe ? how could he be divine, and spend thirty years of his
life as a mechanic, toiling, hewing wood, nailing up beams,
joining and fitting, working in a carpenter's shop ?"— he who
does and says these things cannot understand Christ in his real
nature. There be those who say, '* The life of Christ opened ;
he went to Galilee, and made his headquarters there, leaving
Nazareth upon his persecution at Capernaum ; he performed
wonderful works, making circuits in villages and communi
ties round about; he traveled from Galilee northward, and
pushed his way clear to the borders of Tyre and Sidon ; he
spent two or three years there, and then he came to Jerusa-
lem." This itinerary of Christ has some relation to Christ*,
but it does not represent the true Christ, any more than that
casket which contains your pearls, your amethysts, your opals,
your diamonds, and is the means by which you carry
them with you here and there, is the precious stones them-
selves. It was not Christ that ate, and drank, and slept.
That which did these things was the vehicle of his life.
That was the Christ who thought; that was the Christ who
felt ; that was the Christ who loved ; that was the Christ who
wept ; that was the Christ who suffered ; that was the Christ
who brought down from heaven into the temple doctrines
so high that the corrupt imaginations of men could not
comprehend them. It is the inward, thinking, loving,
living soul of Christ that is Christ.

THINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 4,4,^

"Now, how are jou going to understand Him ? Can an^
catechism teach you ?

I go to Italy [it is hundreds of years ago]. I want to
become acquainted with Raphael. They take me where he
lives, and I look at the house, and am profoundly interested
in it. They let me into his studio. I am profoundly inter-
ested in that also. I see his work. I examine the pictures
which he has painted. I am hidden behind a screen, so that
when he comes in, without his seeing me I can see him. I
see how his face his eye, his mouth, all his features look. T
watch him as he takes his palette. I see him work. I ob-
serve the smile play over his features. And when he has
gone out again I go and look at his shoes, and at his paint-
ing-gown that hangs upon the wall. I thoroughly acquaint
myself with his surroundings. And I say, when I go home,
" One thing I know : I have been to Italy, and I know Ra-
phael through and through." I have not spoken with him;
I have not followed the line of his thinking ; I have not had
any correspondence in myself to his inspiration ; all that
which has made him what he is I did not touch. That which
is common to him and every rude peasant in all Italy I
know ; but that which has made him the commanding genius
of painters throughout the ages is just what I lost.

Now, men study Christ's life. He was born in Bethle-
hem. So were ever so many other persons. But he was born
in an inn. Yes, and lots of children have been born in an
inn. But he was carried to Nazareth. Yes, and ever so
many persons have lived in Nazareth. But he was brought
up by his father, who was a carpenter, and he worked at his
father's trade. Yes, and hundreds of persons have been
brought up by their fathers who were carpenters, and have
worked at their father's trade. But he became a distinguished
preacher among the Rabbis. Yes, and others have become
distinguished preachers among Rabbis. But he lived two
years in Galilee. Yes, and many people have lived twice as
long, ten times as long as that, in Calilee. But he went to
Jerusalem and got into trouble there. Yes, and many men
have got into trouble in Jerusalem. But he was put to death
for disturbing affairs in the hands of the regular authorities.

448 THINGS OF THE SPIBIT.

Yes, and thousands of men have been put to death for dis«
turbing affairs at the hands of the regular authorities. You
know all that, and yet you do not know anything about
Christ. It is that which lies back of sensuous perception
and back of intellectual analysis, that gives you a knowledge
of Christ, and that you can understand only by having a
thrill of it in yourself.

Have you ever stood where it vras needful for you to give
up time and profoundly dear objects of pursuit for others ?

I see a kind sister. She is comely. She is deep souled.
She has a deformed brother. He has no chance or prospect
in life. All pleasures are denied him. All the world will
touch him to hurt and irritate his pride. He has a soul,
and he has genius. He shall see knowledge. She, comely
as she is, says, "I will never marry until my brother is
established with every advantage of education ; " and for the
love she bears him she goes to service, and cheerfully denies
herself all ornaments, though they are precious to her.
Admiration she will not receive. She devotes herself to
her brother, who is so unfortunate, but who yet has a future
that may be developed. Kight and day, for a score of
years, she toils, giving feeling, and enthusiasm, and bodily
service, through deprivation and suffering, until he is able
to stand before the community and receive that meed of
praise which genius gets so easily when it is disclosed. And
she meanwhile sickens with over-toil, and faints, and fades.

Take off thy obe, 0 thou disputer of the divinity of
Christ ! bow thyself down before the presence; of this woman ;
for she can tell you more than you know of what it means to
give one's life a ransom for another. She understands Christ.
She has had him in her experience.

Look at another case. See a mother who, though cum-
bered with poverty and with toil, stands in the midst of a
household of ten or twelve children (such I remember), and
gives herself for them. There is hardly a single element
of human knowledge that is not precious to her. By nature
a ])hilosopher, by nature a poet, by nature an artist, with
high and noble tendencies, for these children's sake she
dwells at home without books, without research, denying the

THINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 449

strong instincts of her being, tmd finding her happiness in
giving her power to them, impleting them, inspiring them,
lifting them up, and making them rich by her self-denial and
disinterested love. Bow down to her, sharp theologian !
This woman is giving her life a ransom for many. Not that
I would compare any human creature to God, or to Jesus his
divine Son ; but in miniature and analogue the experiences
of this woman interpret the grandeur of that sacrifice which
was in Christ Jesus.

Whoever loves another better than himself in order that
he may help him ; yea, whoever loves another so that he is
willing to lay down his life for him ; whoever can stand and
take buffet after buffet, and stroke after stroke, with sincere
and undisguised sympathy pitying and praying for the
wrong-doer, as Christ in the extremity of his torment said,
"Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" —
whoever can do that, is learning Christ. He has Christ in
him. He has that knowledge which comes, not from reflec-
tion, but from experience. When I see men disputing and
quarreling about the attributes of Christ and careless about
the elements which go to make those attributes ; when I see
the want of kindness, of truth, of justice, of love, of self-
sacrifice ; when I see the emptying out of a man's self every
one of those qualities which by sympathy and experience
teach him of Jesus ; when I see men, with dogmatism and
arrogance and philosophical nicety, damn one another right
and left by texts, and with compressed lips and red cheeks,
because they are not orthodox, and do not believe in the
divinity of Christ — when I see these things, I am not sur-
prised that many professed Christians do not understand
Christ. Could the devil tell what Christ was by anything
that he ever felt in himself ? and can the spirit of the devil
in a man interpret Christ ? But w^hen you are in the mood
in which Christ lived ; when you exiDcricnce those emotions
which ravished his soul ; when your mind moves in harmony
with his mind, then he becomes apparent to you.

We are called, to-day, to very much discussion in respect
to the source of our knowledge of religion — as to whether it
is the church or the Bible, these being the two antitheses or

450 THINGS OF THE SPIRIT.

antagonistic fountains. One great part of Christendom de-
rives its authority to teach the truth from a supposed Divine
power that is inherent in it. Another derives its power to
teach the truth from that which is laid up in the Bible.

Now, the Bible itself, and the church itself, both of them,
become objects of suspicion and of doubt. On the one hand
the imperfections of the church, and on the other hand the
time-element that is in the Bible, give rise to a vast amount
of questioning, of distress and of unbelief, in regard to the
one and the other; but the test of the truth of tlie Bible is
the reproduction in ourselves of those moral emotions which
it enjoins as the ideal of a true life, a true character and a
true manhood.

I read with much intei'est the Journal of Marcus Anto-
ninus. Though he was a Eoman heathen, he was full of good
sense and nobility. He was also full of narrowness and
imperfection. Every one of those traits that he manifests
which are really large, and which have in them an element of
universal manhood, thrills me; but the very next page after
the representation of such a trait may contain something
which belongs to the narrowness of his education, of his age
and his condition. This does not, however, take away from
that which is good and true. We Judge of things by the
whole. That may be a noble steed whose harness has worn
off the hair and left an ugly spot on him. That may be a
comely person on whom there is a scar — esiDCcially one that
was received in the day of battle. We measure things ac-
cording to their essential quality, and not according to their
incidents or accidents.

The Word of God is the best thing which, in every age,
God could give to men in view of their endowments, their
institutions, and their conditions, by which to establish them
in manhood. It is a book that he employs in attempting to
raise men out of their animal lusts. It is a record of that
process by which he endeavors to lift them up from the lower
state into the Divine nature. It is, as Paul says to Timothy,
" Profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for in-
struction in righteousness ; that every man of God may be
perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."

THINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 451

Now, let a man who wants to be a ma/i go through the
Bible and take out what he pleases ; let him reject, if he
wants to, Genesis ; let him reject, if he pleases, Exodus ;
let him leave out Leviticus ; let hira dismiss Numbers, Deu-
teronomy, I. and II. Samuel, I. and II. Kings, I. and II.
Chronicles; let him drop Ezra and Esther; let him, if he
pleases, set aside the books clear down, all the way through :
but let his soul hunger and thirst after righteousness ; let him
say, *'As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so thou
knowest, 0 God, that my soul panteth after thee ;" let him be
a, man who searches for wisdom as for silver and gold and for
hid treasure ; let him be a man to whom a knowledge of that
manhood of which he has some glimpses is more valuable
than rubies ; let him take the Word of God, sifting it all the
way to the cud, leaving out this thing and that thing ; but,
after all, when he has got through, if he reaches a high and
heroic manhood, he will say, as every other man must under
the same circumstances, '^'That book is worth more to me
than all the other books on the globe. All the other books
on the globe do not give me such inspiration, such courage,
such promises, such ideals, such models, as that book does.
No other book awakens in me such emotions as does the
Word of God." That is enough.

The mistake that has been made about the Bible is
in supposing it to be an immense Cyclopedia, and that it
teaches all knowledge on all subjects. This supposition is
as absurd as to give a man a chart, and to tell him that it
will teach him the chemistry of sea-water, the geography of
the bottom of the sea, and a knowledge of all the ethnologic-
al subjects which belong to the countries that he shall visit.
In regard to the Bible, men have stumbled and fallen by
reason of this misapprehension. But if you want to be
virtuous ; if you want a virtue that is not a sordid and mar-
ketable quality, but that is heroic ; if you want to know how
to go through good report and evil report, and be a cheerful
man ; if you want to know how to deny the flesh and min-
ister to the soul ; if you want to have the life that never ends
assured : if you want to feel that you are not simply a mote
that moves fluctuated by tides and winds, but that you are a

452 THINGS OF THE SPIRIT.

part of God, and that you stand by his power ; if you want
to feel that joy is in sorrow, and that sorrow blossoms into
joy ; if you want courage and fidelity and truth and heroism
and everything that lifts men above animals and above com-
mon men and makes heroes of them — heroes of the kitchen,
heroes of the nursery, heroes of the parlor, heroes in the
Senate or in the field, — go to the Word of God. Where else
can you find such inspiration, such ideals and such help as
you can there ? Nowhere ; and that is the reason why you
will never kill the Bible. It is a vital book. It is a book
that sprang out of life, and that always is going back to life :
and you may say what you please in disparagement of it ; you
may seek to invalidate it ; you may prove that its dates are
false ; but no man can prove that it is not a book which
brings the strength and food of God to the soul of man in
its emergency, in its sorrows, in its defeats, in its over-
throws, in its humiliations, and in its aspirations and long-
ings— for, oh ! the hardest thing to bear in this world is not
loss ; it is longing. It is not what I have lost that distresses
me, in common with all high-minded men ; it is the desire of
more knowledge, more virtue, more purity, more disinterest-
edness, more equability by which to carry myself always and
under all circumstances so that I can stand as God stands.
It is this aspiration, this infinite longing, that distresses and
disturbs the soul, and that causes more suffering than losses,
than bankruptcy, than any misfortunes of the lower kind.
And in this book you will find that which satisfies this yearn-
ing for nobility — for true manhood.

When, therefore, it is said, " Science is going to overthrow
the Bible and change many things," I have no question that
science is going to change many things, thank God ! I have
no doubt that it will change a great many things in the
church, thank God ! I have no doubt that it will change a
great many things in the structure, in the administration, and
in the philosophy of the chiirch. I have no doubt that it will
change things that belonged to certain times in the past, and
which were best for those times, but which we have outgrown.
We have larger views than the ancients had. They had ele-
ments of truth, but not truths in their largest forms. We are

THINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 453

never going to have a science which will show that man is not
sinful ; but certain dogmas in regard to his sinfulness will be
overthrown. We are never going to have a science tiiat will
do away with the doctrine of man's responsibility, but that
doctrine will be reconstructed. The mode of teaching God's
moral government will be organized on a nobler plan when
we nnderstand human nature and the Divine nature better.
There will be vast changes, but they will never go to the root
of religion ; for that root is mankind, in their living inner
consciousness and experience ; and no intellectual scepticism
will take away from man that consciousness and experience.
Nothing is going to take away the human consciousness and
experience of want, of sorrow, of distress or of aspiration.

I look, therefore, with the utmost complacency upon all
these things. There is going to be suffering for a great
many people. There are many who, when they lose a bit of
faith, lose everything. Because the ideas in which they were
educated when they were children are shown not to have
been exactly correct, they instantly say, " Well, if I have to
give these up, how do I know but that I must give up every-
thing else?" This is the complaint of weak minds — and I do
not mean it in an obnoxious sense at all. " Receive the
weak, but not to doubtful disputations." There are many
persons who have not reasoning power; they cannot supply
themselves with this power ; and so they have to depend
on other people, and upon the institutions which are around
about them; and there cannot be much growth without a
great deal of loss, and suffering, too. This I expect, and
bargain for. I do not apprehend, notwithstanding, but that
the world in any one hundred years is vastly augmented in
its moral treasure. It grows rich in spite of the wastes that
are going on. And so I hold that the faith of God as it ex-
ists in individual souls, and as it is gathered collectively in
great bodies of men who express a given faith, and hope and
longing, is not to be extinguished. The intellect cannot dis-
cern the things of the spirit. The spirit discerns its own
facts. The intellect serves to arrange those facts in certain
order, and to put upon them certain names ; but so long as
there is in man an innate conscience, an innate sense of

454 THINGS OF THE SPIRIT.

purity, an innate longing for that which is divine, innate
love, innate charity, innate patience, innate hope and self-
denial, and so long as these have, by the watering of God's
grace, continual growth and development — so long will re-
ligion be in the world ; aod as long as men betake themselves
to the word of God they will find there ideals, food, nourish-
ment, that will make the Bible precious, not on this theory
or that, but because it brings light, and joy, and comfort to
tiie soul.

Dear Christian brethren, do not wander away, misled by the
iiftellect, from your faith in truth, in God, and in Christiani-
ty. Dearly beloved, understand that while you are not to dis-
own external and physical instruction, if I may so say, while
you are to give due weight to the outward history and relations
of religion, after all, true Christianity cannot be taught except
by developing the spirit of it in yourselves and your cliildren.
Do not be moved from your faith by supposing that this or
that sweeping current is going to efface anything from this
world which the world needs. Nothing will be swept away
that is worth keeping. We /lave passed the barbaric days ;
and no truth, certainly no dispositions and emotions, nothing
that belongs to the inward life of man, will be destroyed. All
these things will stand. Therefore abide in the faith of
God's love. Abide in the confidence that God loves you,
that you may be made better. Abide in the belief that in
order to make you better he chastises you. He plies you by
business; he swings you through the different schools of
infancy, youth, and manhood ; he gives you industry and
enterprise ; he sends you summer and winter ; by ten thou-
sand influences, within and without, he seeks to educate you
in those qualities which shall make you partakers of the
divine spirit. Abide in the faith that though you be weak,
though your sins be multitudinous, though your infirmities
be more than the sands on the sea-shore, God is the great
and bountiful Father ; and that though you merit nothing
you shall inherit all things, because it is the ]ileasure of God
to make eternal hfe the fjiff — the gift without equivalent — to
every one that can receive.

THINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 455

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON".

We rejoice, our Father, that we have access to thee. We rejoice
that our spirits may rise above the body and above surrounding
troubies and rest in thee. Even as from the sea, tossed and driven
of storms, tlie vapors rise and hide themselves in the air far above,
to descend again fruitfully and blessedly, so we rise from storm and
from tempest into the upper air where thou art; and we return
again fruitful and joyful. We thank thee for this ascending power
of the soul. We thank thee that there is this refreshment of faith
in thee, and that our life day by day is fed from these secret springs
— from the dews and from the rains that fall from the heavenly
land. We rejoice to record thy bounty in days past— thy goodness
that has never forsaken thy servants. Through long ages when cast
out and driven from their land, when hiding in the mountains and
in the caves, when imprisoned, when led forth to torture and to
death, thou hast been present with them. The world was not worthy
of them, but they were blessedly sustained by the secret, invisible
power of Grod; and by ministering angels they were made victorious
over every ill. That same love which thou hast manifested hereto-
fore dwells undiminished. Thy faith is unwearied and unweariable.
Thou art witliout change or shadow of turning. Thou art the God
of the desolate, of the weak, of the tempted, of the oppressed, of
the fatherless, of the widow, of those that are persecuted in every
age ; and we rejoice that there is thus in the midst of selfishness, and
pride, and all the distemperature of this ill-regulated life, such a
magazine of mercy open and accessible to all; that there is this
pavilion where thou dost hide thy people until the storm be over-
passed; and that the poorest may come without money and without
price wherever they aru and how ignorant soever they may be. They
that put their trust in thee shall be as Mount Zion that cannot be
removed. We rejoice that although our senses report thee not, that
although we find thee not, that although thy voice is not heard in the
street, yet thou art everywhere present. The most powerful of all
power everywhere art thou present, doing thy work for the secret
soul which cannot be done by visible and outward instruments. And
thus from day to day when we seek lower ends, we behold what is
related to our existence here, we comprehend things that are visible
to our senses; but when we rise and are in our finer and nobler
moods we drop all these outward and visible instruments, and are
eonscious that we are strengthened and fed by the invisible; and we
rejoice that thus day by day thou art ministering to our faith by
ministering to our hidden life.

We pray, O God, that thou wilt grant to all in thy presence the
blessing of thine own appearing and of thine indwelling in them.
We pray that whatever may be their necessities, that whatever may
be the exigencies of their life, they may be conscious of the divine
Helper. Be thou Immanuel to all those who are toiling and strug-
gling, who are tempted, and who are variously distressed by trial.
We pray that thou wilt be near to those who are suffering from the
pangs of hunger, or who are harassed by poverty, or who are In

456 THINGS OF THE SPIRIT.

over measure wrought upon by fear of to-morrow. Be near, we
bese«^ch of thee, to all who are distracted in the various duties of
tlieir outward life, not knowing what is right and best. We pray
that tliou wilt bless all who suffer, not so much for themselves as for
those who are put beneath their care. Will the Lord be gracious
unto all according to their needs. Have compassion upon men's
weakness and ignorance, and. upon their want of faith, and discern-
ment, and experience in spiritual things. We pray that thou wilt be
near to all those who desire above all other things to be the children
of light and of truth, and who are afraid on every hand of being
misled by superstitions and invalid arguments. We pray, O God,
that thou wilt lead them through a better way. Open to them thy
will as well as knowledge of thyself; and out of that inward knowl-
edge develop more of the truth as it is outwardly.

Be near, we pray thee, to all those who seek to teach others the
way of righteousness; and when they feel their own impoverish-
ment, when it seems to them that they have but little of the truth or
of the Spirit, we pray that thou wilt fill their souls, quicken their
imaginations, and deepen their affections; and grant that they may
be able to preach the Gospel of Christ with all the beauty and
sweetness and flavor that come with the truth of God in the human
soul.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt draw near to all those who are
attempting with conscious feebleness, and yet with fidelity, to dis-
charge the duties which are incumbent upon them in life. WJierever
they stand, whether It be at the highest point or at the lowest, may
they feel that they are serving the Lord. May those who are in sub-
ordinate situations, and who owe duties to their fellows, honor all
men — not alone those who are worthy of honor. May they seek for
Christ's sake to fulfill the obligations of charity and kindness towards
those that seem unworthy. May they be filled with the Spirit of
Christ, in order that they may carry conviction of his presence
wherever they are. May all pride, the swellings thereof, and its cor-
rupt interpretations of life and duty, be taken out of the way. May
vanity cease to cast its baleful influence upon the soul. May every-
one of us know how to rein in his anger and indignation, and sin not
even when angry.

Grant that everyone of us may look with kindness upon all men ;
and may we seek pity rather than vengeanr-e. May we seek rather
to do good to others than to have good done to us. May we seek to
strengthen others rather than to be made strong ourselves. May wo
be willing to follow Jesus Christ— to follow him in his joy, in his
teachings, and in his wonderful works; and to follow him, also, in
his disputings with men of doubt in the temple, in his passion and
humiliation, in Gethsemane, in his bufle tings and trials. May it be
our ambition to live the life of Clirist, Grant that in our several
places, as servants, as companions, as parents, as partners, as neigh-
bors in brotherhood, everywhere we may be willing to be toward
other men what we believe Jesus Christ would be willing to be
toward us.

So may we have evermore not so much controversy as to what

THINGS OF THE SPIRIT. 457

Christ is, and where he is, aud what are the hmits of his uature. May
we desire to kuow Ciirist iu us, the iuspiratiou ot duty, the teaching
iutlueULe, ihe restraiumj^ power, that we may be buiit ui) iuio him
iu all things; that we may be routed and grounded iu him; that we
may have the fullness of the Godhead made manifest to us.

We pray that thou wilt grant thy blessing to rest upon this
ehui-eh. Grant that all its history and experience may redouud to
thine honoi- aud glory. And we pray not only that thou wilt build
us up, but that thou wilt build up all thy churches. May we think
more aud more of the world ; more and more of other bodies of
Christians. May we not be contracted to a religious .selfishness.
May we desire to have charity for all, and the large spirit of Jesus
Christ, who beholds that the field is the world. May we live for
mankind.

Grant, we beseeech of thee, that thy kingdom may come every-
where, and that thy will may be done. May we discern it in the in-
crease of intelligence; in more gentleness, more truth, more justice
among mea; in the repression of things evil by the exaltation of
things that are good.

Be pleased, O God, to remember the President of these United
States, and all that are joined with him in authority. Grant them
thy wisdom, and strength, and success. We pray that thou wilt
remember the Congress assembled, and all State Legislatures, and all
courts and magistrates, and all citizens throughout this great
domain. May our rulers be God-fearing men who shall faithfully
administer the laws and the trusts that are imposed upon tbem by
their fellow citizens. Grant that this great people may fear God,
and obey the laws of God.

And not for ourselves alone do we pray, but for all those in other
lands who are kin to us, and for all those in other lands who are
speaking a different language, and are striving for the same great
ends whicli we are striving for— a larger life and nobler career.

O grant that all those forces that to-day are rising up in the
enlightened souls of men, and that are striving against the visible
that is in us and under us, may gain the supremacy. May all that
which is of God and all that which is angelic prevail, so that more
and more customs, and laws, and institutions shall express the
amenity of the Gospel, and not the rigor and rudeness of old and
barbarous ages.

We pray that thy kingdom may come everywhere, that thy will
may everywhere be done, and that the whole earth may be filled
with thy glory.

And to the Father, the Son, and Spirit shall be praises evermore.
Amen.

458 THINGS OF THE SPIRIT.

PRAYER AFTER THE 8ERM0N.

Be pleased, our Father, to breathe iuto us that childlike spirit by
which we shall uome iuto sympatuy with thee; by which we shall be
able every day to do the ihiuji;s which iu our circumstances thou
wouldst have us do. We are glad that we live uuder so large a cope
of influences. Thou art not narrow, nor pettish, nor jealous; thou
art not a spy of the universe, hunting out every ipau's transgression,
and setting them down against him; thou art a Father; and what-
ever concerns the welfare of thy children thou dost discern. For
their good thou watchest ; for their good tnou dost chastise. Infin-
ite art thou, dwelling in eternal summer. There where love hath its
equator is thy throne, and thence come endless streams of influ-
ences that are moving upon the minds of men. Grant that we may
come under the divine influence, and rise into the full perception of
the divine nature, not in its largeness, not in its power or scope, but
in the quality thereof, that we may be in our places as God is
in his.

And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son, and Spirit.
Amen.

CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT.

"Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in
whatsoever state 1 am, therewith to be content. I know both how to
be abased, and I know how to abound : everywhere and in all things
I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and
to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strength-
eneth me." — Phil,, iv., 11-13.

This is a very remarkable declaration to be made by any-
body. You will recollect a great many tales or fables that
have been framed, of great gifts offered by an Eastern king
to any man in his kingdom that was contented ; and you will
remember how ludicrous, in every case, the contentment
turned out to be. It has been a matter of philosophical
maxim and criticism that men never are pleased, but always
are to be. Therefore, to hear one say, with the Apostle
Paul, an intelligent and educated man, " I have learned in
whatsoever state I am therewith to be content," is to hear
one of the most extraordinary statements that it is possible
for a man to make. It is easy for one to say, " I am con-
tent." It is easy to say and to feel this for an hour : I can
understand how a man who lives for money, and has seen
himself on the point of being choused out of twenty thou-
sand dollars, and who, after nights and days of twisting,
and chiseling, and contriving, and planning, and suffering,
and anxiety, has, by a stroke, dextrous, keen, unexpected,
got it, and goes home with it — I can understand how, for a
whole evening, he may chuckle, and say, "This is worth
living for ; I am perfectly content." I can understand how
he should be content for a whole evening ; for everybody is
(I mean that some bodies are) content in the moment of the
realization of any great desire.

Sunday Morning, Jan. 24, 1875. Lesson: Phil, ii., 1-lS. Htmns (PIsmoutb CoU
Vection) : Nos. 255, 247, 909.

462 CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT.

Now, in all these things, if you scrutinize, if you question
yourself, "Are you content with your life as a life?" can
you say, "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, there-
ivith to be content" ? Does not your expectation limit itself
to the fulfillment of certain wishes ? Do you take into con-
sideration, or does any man, the oppositions, the thwartings,
the overthrows, the disasters, the humiliations, the mortifi-
cations, the stingings of pride or of vanity ? and does a
man, looking over all this play of life and circumstance, say,
" I liave learned in every state to be content" ? How many
of you "will hold up the hand to that ? And yet, this is
what Paul said.

But consider : Is Paul quite sure of himself ? Paul was
a large man. Few other men have appeared so far above
the horizon. AVe are not yet ourselves large enough to take
in the full measure of this man — for in my judgment theo-
logians in times past have very largely occupied themselves
with those elements in Paul's writings which were clearly
secondary ; and for very obvious reasons they have neglected
those which were the profoundest, and which could be
interpreted only by men who had gone into substantial
experiences of the same kind. Therefore, largely, theology
has been made out of the washings of gold that were in the
mountains ; and they have been the smallest part : whereas
the treasure lay yet mountainously abundant, but deep and
shut up in the rock.

Consider, in the first place, that his being content does
not necessarily mean being pleased. I may be content ; that
is to say, I may have a calm patience in waiting over night at
a miserable inn where have congregated smugglers, and
drunken sailors, and the riffraff of a bad neighborhood. If,
after fighting for my life in my little yacbt, I had at last
been driven up on shore, myself a wreck^ and had crawled
out of the water, and staggered to the light, and gone in
there, would it not be proper for me to say, " I thank God
for my deliverance and for my safety" ? And yet, every ele-
ment is distasteful to me. The air reeks with bad liquor and
worse oaths ; and the company are obscene and vile and vio-
lent : the conditions are detestable ; but I that have es-

CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT. 463

eaped from the se;i can say, '' I am content to be here. Not
that I am pleased at being there particuhirly ; but as com-
pared with something else it is tolerable. I have learned
how to bear this. " How did I learn it ? I learned it by
being swirled around for an hour in the whirlpools of the
sea. I learned it by being thumped and pounded by the
waves. I learned it by being chilled to the very marrow. I
learned it by crawling up the beach, and stopping for breath
at every rod, and falling and getting up again. I learned it
because I thought I shoidd perish before I could gain succor.
I learned it because when I saw the light, and tried to go
toward it, I almost gave uj) hope. I learned it because
when I reached the house, being out of breath, I fell against
the door and burst it in. So I learned to be patient with the
surroundings in the midst of which I found myself. But it
does not follow that a man is obliged to say, " I like these
circumstances," in order to be content with them.

Then again, we must not confound content with a state
of indifference. If a man has no sort of moral feeling, he is
jierfectly content to sit in camp on the plain and hear that
which no human ear ought to hear. Not the common sew-
ers of New York that empty into the sea all the concentrated
feculence of that million-manned city are the worst streams.
The worst common sewer on the globe is the mouth of man ;
and a man may sit in the midst of a crowd and have poured
into his ear, hour after hour, tales of blood and pirate's narra-
tions of hideous inhumanity, — themes and recitals that would
make the dead shiver in their coffins; and, being as hard as
an alligator himself, he may say, *^Well, I am content."
Content? Indifference is not content. Insensibility, the
want of feeling — that is not what is meant by contentment.

And so the declaration of the apostle, '' I have learned in
all conditions to be content," was not that of a man who
had no sensibility to what was going on around him — to
right or wrong ; to that which was good or that which was
bad ; to the success of right things or to the bad carriage of
good things ; to the exaltation of vice, crowned, imperial,
carrying with it literature, art, everything resplendent ; to
virtue depressed, condemned, rolled in the gutter, yea, dying

464 CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT.

in prison-houses. He knew these things ; he was not think-
ing of all this waste when he said, *'I have learned how to
be content." He did not mean to say that he was content
with all that he saw of the condition of things about him.
Certainly not.

We are not to understand cojitentment in the sense of
supineness or corpulent indolence. Paul was not a fat
man, sure. He was a black-haired man, with a bilious-
neiTous temperament. He was a man of intense feeling, but
of that intensity of feeling that does not stop. There is
much intensity of feeling in the world that comes by
gusts, and the very feeling necessitates a reaction, a lull,
or a change ; but Paul was one of those men who were
tenacious of feeling, and went on and on and on with it.
There were certain great elements in his nature that remind
me of the old German story of an Eolian harp made by
stretching iron wires between two great towers on the castle
of a certain Count. Whenever the wind arose these wires
began to sound ; and as the wind waxed they sounded louder
and louder ; and when the storm and tempest came they
roared out their strains of music : but it was always just
those wires — no more and no others — giving precisely the
same tones which rolled through the air.

There were two or three or four great strings in the mind
of this apostle ; and when the winds blew they sounded ;
and they went on sounding and sounding and sounding : and
he seems to have had no art about it but that which is em-
ployed in creating the beauty of holiness — no historic curios-
ity ; no sense of literary criticism ; nothing Hellenic. He was
sensitive to all that pertained to man's essential moral nature.
In that he was a universal genius. And as to his being con-
tented in any such sense as that of quiescence, the whole of
his life, his passage from city to city, his unwearied labors,
his sufferings, the things which he recounts of himself, — all
these show that he was not content in any such way as not
to be enterprising. In the same letter, and not far from
this passage, he says that which indicates the intensity of his
progressive nature :

" Not as though I had already attained, either were already per-

CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT. 465

feet : but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also
I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Bi-ethren, I count not myself to
have apprehended ; but this one thing I do, forgetting those things
which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are
before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of
God in Christ Jesus."

What is the figure? If he had drawn instead of spoken
it, what would it have been but an arena, and the judges
sitting, and a crowd all about? With a stroke of the
chalk, he would have made this competitor and that com-
petitor, stretching forward, not looking back, not minding
what was behind, but pressing on, that they might reach the
mark for the prize of their high calling in Christ Jesus.
That is what he had just described himseK to be ; and jet
this is the man who says, ''I have learned, in whatsoever
state I am, therewith to be content." Is that contentment,
in the ordinary sense of the term ?

In order, then, to see precisely the scope of this idea, we
must develop the power in any man's life of a single great
end or aim. Whenever a man (a supenor nature it must
always be) selects for himself a great ideal or aim, and
pursues it with concentrated zeal and enthusiasm, it is in
the power of that aim or ideal to make everything else
relative, subordinate, and if necessary perfectly indifferent.
Things that are good and things that are bad become indif-
ferent relatively to the one main end that he is pursuing.

Take a low form of this idea. There are men who nat-
urally are born to be fortune-builders, as much as some other
men are born to be inventors, and some others to be skillful
instructors, and others to be generators of ideas, and still
others to be producers of music. There are men to whom
the fortune-building instinct is a genius, congenital.

Now many such persons launch out in early life with as
distinct a sense of their mission as though they liad had an
angelic visitation. They go to the farthest North ; they go
to the arid plains of Asia ; they go to the East India Islands ;
they go to the equatorial regions of America ; they go around
the globe ; they have educated themselves ; all their powers
work easily and concordautly toward the great end which
they have set before them. They are not uninterested in tl\e

466 CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT.

course of time, or in the social life of the communities
where they live ; but the great aim of their life, and that
which determines their likes and their dislikes, their moods,
their elevations or depressions, is that of constructing a for-
tune. All things that tend in that direction are prosperities
to them, and whatever things tend away from that are ad-
versities to them. If it be needful, there is no exposure,
there is no weariness, there is no sickness, there is no com-
pliance, there is no self-denial, that they will not cheerfully
go through for the sake of attaining that end.

A man is settled in China. It is necessary that he should
have his house filled with the Chinese. It may be in a neigh-
borhood where they are odious to his moral sense : but it is
necessary ; that is enough ; he accepts them. It may be need-
ful that he should bribe the Mandarin — if such a thing is pos-
sible ; it may be necessary that he should make himself " hail
fellow, well met," with the natives, all of whose notions and
customs are foreign to his education and to his instincts ; but
being essential to the supreme end of his life he accepts
that. It is necessary that he should go out through the day.
*' It is unhealthy," says his physician : " But it is necessary,"
says he ; and he goes out. Nothing can stop him. Fevers
come upon him, and are a warning; but it is a warning un-
heard. He tosses it off. Here is a great end before liim.
His face is turned toward it. He says, " I will endure any-
thing, and accept anything, for the sake of accomplishing
this end." And in communicating with his friends, he says,
''I have learned to be content with whatever befalls me, so
that I can gain what I am after."

Take the generals that have commanded gloriously in the
Indias. I am not now criticising the morality of the admin-
istration of Great Britain in those parts ; I assume that tlie
generals who went forth went to perform the duty which the
Crown demanded of them. They are among a treacherous
population with an ill-trained patriotism ; they arc suffering
everything ; they are sleeping in unhealthy neighborhoods ;
they are living in the midst of reeking morasses ; they are
oftentimes deprived of food and drink ; they are performing
the most arduous duties, debilitated, wasted to mere skele-

CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT. 467

tons; and they write liome, ''^The cami)aigii id succeeding
gloriously ; it was hard on me at first, but I have learned to
take everything ; and I believe that ere long we sliall com-
plete the circuit, and that this Province will be humiliated
and brought under the Government." In saying, ''I have
learned to take everything," they did not mean that they
liked everything ; but the great end which was before them
had such a power upon them that it took away all care or
thought of inconvenience and suffering, so that they might
gain that end.

Better instances of that kind you can see in the pursuit of
knowledge ; as, for instance, when a poor student is deter-
mined to be a learned man. Certainly it is an honorable
ambition. Don't you know that the best things in this
world are not the things that are the most talked of or the
most chronicled ? If an apple-woman's stand is overthrown
on the corner of the street, twenty reporters are at hand to
tell how the apples went here and there. That goes into the
papers. If a carriage is run away with, or a wheel comes off
from a man's wagon, that goes into the papers. If there is
anything visible and external and striking, that always goes
into the papers. If the reporters can get hold of anything
that anybody wants to keep secret, that goes in, sure. So
there is a constant bi'inging into view upon the surface the
small events and incidents of life ; for a newspaper, a morn-
ing Journal of the size of ours, with such a containing ca-
pacity, has a maw that must be fed. It is like a whale that
takes in quantities of water that he may squirt it out and get
the handful of shrimps that are left behind. At the same
time, unsought, there are romances within reach, there are
cruel histories, there are nascent heroisms, which are worthy
to go down on the pages of history, and which are written in
God's book of remembrance.

I had here, once, a boy that walked all the way from
Michigan, with but one end in view — namely, to gain an edu-
cation. He purposed to graduate at Columbia College in
New York, I think. He secured, in part, and with some
little help I was able to get him, a scholarship, so that
his tuition cost him nothing. He took a round of lighting

i68 CBBISTIAN CONTENTMENT.

and extiuguishing lamps. He rose morniug by morning to
extinguish them, and he went out evening by evening to kin-
dle them again. Soon he added to that a limited route of
distributing newspapers. He had a room of his own ; he
bought his own little provender — his rice and molasses and
Indian meal ; he boiled his own pot, and was his own cook,
and chambermaid, and washerwoman and steward, and treas-
urer, and factotum — happy man ! He lived at the very bor-
der of frugality. So he worked his way, literally, on every
side, that he might give to study some three or four hours of
the day ; and he never lost his courage, but persevered
through good report and through evil report. He counted it
a joy that he had a chance to light lamps, because thus he got
some money, and counted it great luck that he could distrib-
ute papers, because that enabled him to make a little money.
There sits the man who, I think, remembers it, and who,
finding out something of the matter, helped the boy, and
was his counsellor as well as his friend ; and we talked to-
gether about him. Finally the boy went back home ; he en-
tered the army ; he commanded, I think, a regiment, and
returned home again, and died from the effects of the civil
war. If I have the history correctly in memory, that was his
career.

Now, what that man had within him was impatience at
unknowing. He had a sense that manhood required intelli-
gence, knowledge ; that there was a power in that which, if
he was going to execute the purposes of life, he must have ;
and he said, "I am content in my situation : I am gaining
an education, and I am content with everything." Did he
like to get up at three o'clock in the morning ? How would
you like it ? Did he like to cook porridge over a fire, and to
eat porridge every morning ? How would you like it ? Did
he like these things ? Not absolutely ; but the end which he
had in view was being accomplished ; and the accomplish-
ment of that end was so sweet and precious to him that all
the subordinate inconveniences were as nothing. The joy
that was set before him — that was the thing.

Look at the Eollinsons, and men of like reputation, that
go abroad on the Asiatic plains, to Egypt, to Babylonia, to

CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT. 46J

the almost forgotten cities of Assyria, to Baalbec, and spend
winters and summers among the treacherous, indolent and
constantlj rebellious natives, and suffer every annoyance and
inconvenience, that they may dig out from the mounds the
memorials of old cities, and satisfy their sense of knowledge,
and add to the treasures of the world's history. All that
they laugh at. It is not in itself agreeable ; it is excessively
distasteful ; and yet they laugh at it.

A man will go out into the birch woods, and strike his
camp and build his tent, and leave behind the thousand
luxuries which, when he is at home, if he wants, and Jeems
does not bring in a moment, the law is broken, and Jeems
feels the severity of rebuke. He is out for trout ; he is a
fisherman ; and when at the end of the day he comes back from
the brooks that run into the lake, and brings in an eight-
pound trout which he caught, did not hiy, and exhibits it, it
does not matter if he does sleep on a rock. He had just as
lief sleep on a rock as not. The birch is sweeter and more
fragrant than all the incense that Solomon ever brought to
Jerusalem.

A man is a hunter. Men will go down on the South
shore here, and, like lizards, crawl in the wet grass and reeds,
and lie on their belly for hours together, waiting for a flock
of geese which they believe will be brought so near by their
stools that they can slap into them and bring five or six of
them down. " I was content," says the hunter. Do you
mean by that that you liked what you went through ? " Not
at all ; but I got my pay out of that, and not out of this."

Tlie same thing is developed continually m patriotism.
Do you suppose that the men who are exiled, and who are
universally detested and hated, are necessarily the unhappiest
men in the world ? I do not. If they were vulgar ; if they
were men of the flesh ; if they were only disturbers of their
country, and not emancipators ; if they loved themselves,
and hoped by change of administration or dynasty to be built
up, that is one thing; but if tliey were men like Kossuth,
who cared little for himself and everything for Hungary, it
is another thing. What do you supjDose this patriot cared if
be was an exile ? To him riches were nothing, poverty was

470 CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT.

nothing, his suffering was nothing. Nothing was of value
to him except as it stood related to the emancipation of old
Hungary. He will see it yet before he dies, I am sure.
Like Moses, he has been permitted to lead his people to the
border of the promised land. He stands on the top of Nebo
and looks over. He will not be permitted to pass in, but he
will see it.

Take religious exaltation — and I am glad, here, to give
one of the most remarkable illustrations of what men will
cheerfully go through from a sect which is far removed from
us. I mean not only the Roman Catholics, but those among
them who are most disliked by Protestants — the Jesuits. I
think there is not in human literature a scene more affecting
than that which was presented by the early Jesuits among
the Indians in Canada. I do not refer to the settlement of
Quebec and Montreal ; there was a civil administration there :
but the Jesuits went to live in the neighborhood of Lake
Simcoe in Upper Canada, and became residents among the
Indians. They were without intercourse with the rest
of the world ; and the history of their ill-success, of the
contumely which they endured, of their suffering night and
day, of their patience and their faith, is not surpassed by
the history of any equal number of men that have lived on
the globe.

It may be said that their life was a mistake. Yes, in one
sense it was ; but, after all, it is a glorious thing to me that
in every sect there are men who rise above self, and count
not their lives dear to them so that they may be faithful to a
prmcixjle — to an invisible cause. I would not take this laurel
from the brow of the old Church. Nothing makes me so
glad, for I believe in universal humanity. I believe in man-
kind, and every sect that has a martyr or a trophy glads me ;
for all sects are one in the greater church — the human house-
hold.

Besides this, how many men, inspired by the example of
the apostles, have died deaths daily, and yet rejoiced in
infirmities and afflictions because the grace of God sus-
tained them, and because they had reason to believe that
these very sufferings of theirs were connected with the

CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT. ' 47I

accomplisliment of that great ideal end for which they lived,

and in which their personality was so absorbed that whatever

advanced it made them happy, and whatever retarded it made

them unhappy !

The abandonment of a man's self to his higher instincts

at the expense of all that is low in himself, — this it is that is

alluded to by the apostle here. I will read the whole again,

with some comments. He is speaking of the things that

have been sent to him — presents ; for they used to send, in

old times, one tiling and another (I do not know that they

sent flowers) to the apostle when he was here and there ; and

he says :

" I rejoice in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of
me hath flourished again [there seems to have been some interrilp-
tion of it] ; wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity."

Paul was always a gentleman. He always took the best

view of things. He always conceded the highest motives.

He is a mean man who is constantly thinking that other

people act meanly. He goes on to say :

"Not that I speak in respect of want; for I have learned, in
whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content [I am willing to bear
all that is put upon me for the sake of the thing that I am living
for]. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound [I
know how, that is, to be without a cent, and I know how to have
zny pocket full]."

Now, there are a great many men who can do either of
them ; but there are very few who can do both. Men there
are who have learned how to be poor ; they have accom-
modated themselves to poverty, being satisfied that that was
to be their state ; and there are other men who are "-oinsf to
be rich, and who say, ''I am destined to that, and I must
therefore form my character and religious feeling on that
supposition , I must be a good man and live rightly, though
I am rich ;" but to know how to swing and tick both ways
— rich, poor — rich, poor — rich, poor; to be a man with both
ticks, that is not so easy.

Now, Paul says that he had learned that. I know not in
what school he had been taught. I never heard of any
school teaching such things as that. Why. Paul's doctrine
of mspiration is enough to call out forty synods any time.

i(73 . CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT.

for expounding and discussion ; hut here is a question which
goes deeper than any question of that kind — How can a man
live so that whatever place he may be in he is a full man,
happy, courageous and strong ?

" i know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound ;
everywhere, and in all things, I am instructed [drilled, disciplined]
both how to be full and to be hungry, and both how to abound and
suffer need. I can do all things [brave words these, until you put on
the rest] through Christ which strengtheneth me."

Yes, Paul ! with such love as thine, and such communion
as thine, the strength of Christ did enable thee to do all
things, to suffer all things — to enjoy witliout harm, to suffer
without damage, and to be, in fullness or in emptiness, in ex-
altation or in prison, as grand a man as ever walked the
crooked surface of the globe.

In view of the opening thus far of this passage of Paul's
experience, I remark first :

We see the absolute freedom which absorption gives to any
great nature. Absorption in a great and worthy end sets a
man free from those cares, vexations and annoyances which
belong to a lower state or mood. You understand it perfectly,
because you practice it continually.

The child is going home. Vacation has come. I pity
anybody who has not been sent away from home to school,
because there are some experiences which he will never get
— those which belong to the two or three weeks before the va-
cation— the day-counting, and all that ; and the final blessed
breaking in of the morning of departure, when, for the
very delirium of gladness, the boy cannot eat his breakfast,
and the teacher almost whips him because he will not eat ;
and the stage comes, and he sets out for home.

I am thinking of a boy who was educated at Amherst,
who lived in Boston, and who rode through Belchertown,
and Ware, and Worcester and Framingham, to Boston, and
got in there about nine or ten o'clock at night, and went up
to his house, and having been all day long wasted with the
very exuberance of sensibility, felt himself as cold as a stone
when he got there, and wondered why he did not feel the
gladness and outpouring which he thought would come.
There was not any more in him. He was thoroughly used

CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT. 473

up with gladness, tlie absorption of joy was so great. What
if he had to ride on a hard trunk upon the top of the stage ?
He did not care for the hard trunk — he was going home.
What if they were behind time, and the driver could not stop
for dinner ? A sixteen-year-old boy has a lively sense of
dinner ; but what of that ? He did not want any dinner —
he was going home. And what if, going down hill, the
brake slipped, and he was pitched into the bushes, and rolled
in the gravel, and bruised and scratched and scarred? He
picked hiraseK up, and laughed, and did not care anything
for that. Abstractly it was not j)leasant ; but a boy that
was full of home — what did he care for any such thing ? It
was nothing.

And so, as in this very familiar illustration, you are bound
to some great pleasure ; and all the little incidents which fall
out on the way, however incommodious they may be, are
merged and lost.

Now, the large sphere in which that acts which you feel
in your business, and in other relations, is the religious
sphere. It is where a man has a sense of need ; it is where
he believes in God and providence ; it is where he has sancti-
fied himself, in a conscious fidelity that has no limitation,
to his Master and Maker and Lover ; it is where all thought
and will and affection are consecrated in him, and he has
given himself to a cause — there it is that in the intensity of
his life, as related to its great end and aim, all other tilings
become indifferent to him, and he can say, "I have learned
in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content." This
great controlling j)urpose, as long as he is under its inspira-
tion, subordinates everything, and dominates everything, and
for the most part treads everything under foot.

This is the way to escape the common troubles of life.
My brethren, one reason why we are so much harassed with
care is that we have taken our aim so low, and that we live
and work in the midst of troubles, and therefore are subject
to them. If we think only of some inferior end of life, with-
out any great superior and crowning influence, without
thought of any sphere so above that in which we are every
day working as that we can by the power of that higher life

474 CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT.

control the lower life, tlien we become subject to care, and
vexation and trouble. If there is nothing to you but your
mechanical pursuits ; if there is nothing to you but your
commercial interests ; if there is nothing to you higher than
the praise of men ; if all you expect in this life can be talked
about and can be inventoried ; if you have no inward and
spiritual aim, then why should you not be under the domin-
ion of care and trouble ?

There has been a great change in building in New York,
lately ; and it is going on still. JSTow men build with wisdom.
There are buildings from six to ten stories high ; and I do
not doubt that one of these days buildings will go up sixteen
or twenty stories high. If they can be secure from fire
they will be the better for it. The elevator will take you up
instantly ; and tlie higher you go the further you will be
from the noise of the street ; the furtlier you will be from
dust ; the further you will be from all that mud-rabble inter-
ference ; the purer will be the atmosphere ; the clearer will
be the liglit ; the greater will be the silence and, in a word,
the comfort.

The fact is, we have, to a very large extent, been build-
ing hovels. They are based on the dirt ; they are filled with
fleas and gnats and flies and bad odors ; and no disinfectant
can do much to rid them of these. We must be built higher,
and lift ourselves above the great body of influences which
pester, and sting, and vex us, in this lower way of living.

I may say, too, that no man who lives in his lower nature
can be content unless he abandons himself utterly to it.
There is a way of living, I tliink, in a man's lower nature
which is tolerable. Where a man, for instance, is strong
enough and rich enough, and is circumstanced so that he can
have an uninterrupted flow of- physical pleasure at the table,
and in all the moods in which the physical sensations
of pleasure are gratified, and the man does not think of
anything else, and says, " These are my end in life ;" where
a man has money, and can choose his companions and his
surroundings, and whatever ministers to the sensuous appe-
tites, he does not want anything more, and he lives a
comparatively happy life. It is in vain for the pulpit to say

CHRISTIAN COXTEXTMENT. 475

that there is no happiness except that which comes from re-
ligion and right-hving. The pirate with his fellow-wassailers ;
men with violent passions ; those who congregate in saloons,
and talk of fights and all manner of brutalities ; human
beings whose gods are dogs and cocks — they have their haj)-
piness. ''Verily, they shall have their reward." There is an
enjoyment which belongs to their level. The l)0)i vivant is
happy : tlie fat fellow who does not care for politics ; who is
never disturbed by the ups or the downs of religion ; who is
not troubled by any ecclesiastical questions ; who is indiffer-
ent as to whether the North or the South has the ascendancy ;
who has no funds to risk, and does not care whether jirices
go up or down on the exchange ; with whom, when there is
any confusion, the only question is, " Is Fulton Market
burned ?" As long as that stands, the fountain of his enjoy-
ments is sure.

Therefore, if a man wants simple happiness, he ouglit to
do one of two things : he ought to take one extreme or the
other. A man has it in his power to extinguish in himself
that which is jjeculiarly manly, and of accepting that which is
brutal and beastly. By accepting the latter he may secure a
low form of pleasure. But woe be to that man who gives
considerable strength and latitude to his lower life, and ac-
cepts the ideal and purpose of a higher life. The moral
sense of such a man acts as an inquisitor, a spy and a tor-
mentor. He wants enjoyment, but his higher nature con-
demns and oppresses him, and his life is a perpetual conflict
between the higher and the lower. As Paul says, " The flesh
lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh ; "
and this internecine war in the soul is going on all the while
in cases of thousands and thousands of men.

Oh, that men understood that if they want emancipation,
harmonization, peace, contentment, they must give them-
selves wholly to the cause of God and truth, and go into it
with enthusiasm, and make it dearer than anything else on
earth to them. Then they would control in themselves all
those ten thousand elements and influences which are the
cause of their vexation and trouble.

Christian brethren, one more application : if Christian

476 CHRISTIAN' CONTENTMENT.

ministers would stop disputing as to whether the laying on of
hands gives grace or not ; as to whether a man must have
apostolicity or not; as to whether the church has a right to
tell who sliall and who shall not preach, how he shall preach,
and when, and on what subjects — if they would stop discus-
sing this whole question, and conceutrate their zeal and
power to bring themselves into precisely the same state and
mood of mind that the Apostle was in when he said : " Woe
is unto me if I preach not the Gospel :" " For me to live is
Christ, and to die is gain [victory either way] :" " Though
the more abundantly I love, the less I be loved :" "Some
preach Christ of contention, not sincerel}^, supposing to add
affliction to my bonds ; notwithstanding, I rejoice wliether
in pretense or in truth Christ is preached : " " My life is hid
with Christ in God" — if they would so identify themselves
with Christ as the simple expression of wliatever is truest in
thought, purest in sentiment, sweetest in affection, most glori-
ous in happiness-producing power, and would live for it, say-
ing, "Poverty is nothing, reputation is nothing ; I take the
one and the other indifferently ; for me to live is to preach
Christ in the wilderness or in the city, in places where it is
thickly populated, or in places where few men congregate ; I
am willing to be put up or down ; I am nothing, but the
cause of God is everything" — under such circumstances they
would be hai:)py.

Where is there such disinterestedness? Where is there
such fervor of affection for the grand elements which are in
Christianity ? Do you suppose that pulpits would have empty
seats and that churches would linger and lag ; and do you
suppose that it would be hard to raise salaries for ministers,
if thai spirit prevailed ? It is the want of full manliness, it
is the want of intense consecration to Jesus Christ, it is the
want of such love for God in mankind as pours oblivion and
indifference over a man's own reputation or standing, and
fills him full of inexpressible sorrow if in any way the cause
suffers through him, and with unutterable joy if by suffering
the loss of all things the cause of God may go up — it is to the
want of these things that the languishing condition of so
many churches is. due,

CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT. 477

If, in the crisis of the battle of Trafalgar, Nelson had
believed that victory for his country would be secured by his
being thrown overboard, do you not suppose he would have
said to his men, ''Over with me, boys — over with me!''
Dear old England was more to him, ten thousand times,
than his life. And it is the want of continuous heroism
and continuous devotion to the work of God, open and ap-
parent to all men, tJiat makes the pulpit weak.

There lie before men grand mountainous promises ;
streams of happiness run past them, and yet they are search-
ing everywhere for water to drink. There is a river of the
water of life coming down from above ; and if there is any-
thing on earth which is poor and pitiful, it is the church
attempting to manage tke grandeur of divine sacrifice,
and the marvel and wonder of Christ's life, in the same way
in which they would manage a stocking factory, or in the
way in which they would quilt a coverlet, with scraps of their
own garments, and what not. Is it wonderful that the
church does not thrive on such food as it receives ? I tell
you, religion is to flourish in this world by a fervor of the
spirit ; by an enthusiasm of faith ; by an intensity of love ;
by a consecration of soul and body to the work of God.
There are many noble instances of faithful, disinterested and
self-sacrificing working for Christ ; but they have not been
common — they have not by any means been universal ; and
we are going to have a victory over the world, the flesh, and
the devil, not by apologies, not by philosophical treatises,
and not by disputations with science : if we are going to
conquer, the victory will come through faith in Jesus Christ
on the part of men and women, the purity of whose lives
nobody can dispute. I do not care whether the Pre-Raphael-
ite school, or any other school, is reputed to be the best ; to
me that is the best school that paints the best pictures, and
that is the one that I shall choose. You cannot make glori-
ous men and women, and deny that the cause which makea
them is the cause which ought to have prevalence.

4'J'8 CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT.

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

Where is the way that is east up, O our God? Where is the
road to the New Jerusalem along which the rausomed come? How
shall we behold afar off its shining battlements? Yet there is a way
which the bird doth not know, or along which the fowler hath not
passed— the way of sorrow; the way of disappointment ; the way of
sickness; the way of death. By thy suffering and death thou didst
open the truths of the great other world as never before; and to-
ward that great other world we, through trouble and trial, do tlud
the way, strait and narrow, often cutting our feet, and often
bruising our hands ; and yet the way of ascent it is ; and thou dost
grant unto us in the far-off and the imagined, in that whicli we can
see and discern only by faith, truth, revelation therein, and comfort
abounding — more than worldly comfort; and companionship —
strange companionship with those whom we cannot speak to, with
whom we cannot clasp hands, who set at defiance every etuthly way
of friendship and communion. And yet how blessed is the compan-
ionship which we have with those who are in the far-off and in-
visible !

So, though we seek for thee in the night and in the day ; though
we listen at times, hoping that down out of the infinite above us
there will come some voice or whisper, and bring home to us the
reality of God, yet jn other times thou art pleased to send us those
wingi by which we are lifted up into thy presence, and our souls
know, and discern, and rejoice, and are refreshed in the vision, and
come back again <hastenecf liut strengtheneo, full of content, will-
ing to bear and to endure.

Thy way with us is not strange to thee; and it is strange to us
only because we are so unpracticed in spiritual things. We have
but the dim discernings of the life that is to be. Its germs are with
us. Its beginnings we perceive, and we are constantly measuring it
with this common life of the body, and judging it by those rules
which spring up from our outward and material forms ; whilst thou
art dealing from the fullness, and the glory, and the liberty, and tlie
joy, and the largeness of that divine effluence which is in thee and
around thee, and in which all do dwell who have escaped from the
flesh, and have the freedom absolute of the Spirit.

Thus our life hovers between the flesh and the spirit, often in con-
flict, constantly in misunderstanding; and our vision, at times so
clear, is clouded again by the exhalation of our passions ; and it is
only because we believe that thou art steadfast, and that thou art
subject to none of the moods which sweep across us, because thou
dwellest in a cloudless land and art thyself unsluml)erng and un-
changing, infinite in thought, and love, and tender, nourishing mercy
—it is only in the thought of this that we have victory sure and
complete. Because thou livcst, O Lord Jesus, we shall live also.
This is our faith, nnd the sum of our hoi)es. We are struggling. We
are fighting our way through the wilderness. The Amalekite, and
the Philistine, and the Moabite, and the Edomite, and all the heathen

CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT. 479

nations that are in possession of thy heritage are upon us, and we are
weak and cowardly; aud yet we are fighting our way through as
fast as we eaii, faint yet pursuing. Our whole hope is in tiiee, in thy
miglitiues.-:, in thine uuweariableness, in thy patience that puts to
shame all motherhood, in the reach of thy thought, in the grandeur
of the diviue nature. Thou 1 if test thyself at times above us more
magaifieent than the stars that look down at night upon us.
More grand art thou than is the sun in the balmiest days of
summer, when it walketh through the heavens borrowing efful-
gence at every step, and covering the earth with glory. Thou
art more than the sun and the stars. Thou art thyself the Sun of
the sun, and the Light of the stars. Thou art crowned with them,
and filled with them; thy greatness, the plenitude of thy soul, the
majesty of thy mercy, thine infinitude of love— these make thee
what thou art. Thy great beating heart that sends warm blood and
nourishment through the boundless universe— our hope is in it — in
thee.

Aud now, O Lord, why should we look out of our cradle where
we but prattle, aud instruct thee in the way of the household, and
in the way of caring for us? What can we do but to reach out our
arms, and be taken u^; by thee, and then be content? In thine arms
is heaven; and we need nothing but that, glory be to thy name!
There are multitudes who are witnesses of the fullness and suffi-
ciency of the presence of God in the soul. Here are children of dark-
ness pressing forward to tell of the light that has arisen to them in
their darkness. Here are the weary and overborne who lift them-
selves up at thy name to bear witness that thou hast taken off their
burdens, or that thou hast given them grace to bear them. Here are
those who have been perplexed and vehemently heslead by the wants
of the world, and have made a safe harbor, and are bearing testimony
that thou art the Pilot and the Captain of their salvation. We re-
joice that thou art thus raising up witnesses. And whatever men
may say, the human soul is a record and a proof of thy presence
and of thy power, as well as of thine existence.

We pray that more and more thou wilt manifest thyself unto thy
people, and give them the glory of faith, and the rejoicing of hope,
and the confidence of assured aud established love; and we pray
that thou wilt thus glorify thyself. We cannot separate altogether
our own interests from thy glory; but we believe and know that as
the child is bound irp in the parent, and its int-erests inure to the
parents', so in some way we are tied to thee, and thou dost glorify
thyself in those things which have become self interest and self-
ishness in us. Thou carest for us for thine own sake as well as for
our sakes.

And we pray that thou wilt grant that each one of us— our chil-
dren, our friends, all who listen to our witness for Christ — may be
able to make known what is the greatness of his goodness toward us,
and what is the magnitude of his power toward all those who will
put their trust in him ; and may the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
become, above every other name, a name of grace, a name of fruit,
a name of beauty. May we sit under it as under the fruit-trees of

480 CHRTSTIAN CONTENTMENT.

the orchard ; and may it shake down upon us all grace, all food,
all joy.

We beseech thee that thou wilt gi-ant that those who are at-
tempting to preach the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ may beware
of so preaching it as that it shall be repi-esented by the carnal
element that is in them. Grant that they may not disfigure it by
anger: by an untoward zeal; by self-confidence; by rancorous pas-
sions; by euvies and jealousies; by anything that shall misrepresent
the sweetness and purity and infinite goodness of the Lord Jesus
Christ, who died to save the world.

We pray, O Lord, that thou wilt teach us to walk among men as
He walked — with the same patience; with the same faithful rebuk-
ing of evil; with the same discernment in the sj^eaking of the truth ;
with the same sorrow for men— even his own adversaries, who slew
him. .

O Lord, we dare not speak to thee of the mystery of thy waiting,
and of the condition of mankind. If thou art Father, what shall
become of these? If they are thy children scattered throughout the
continents of the earth, coming as the beasts, and going as the beasts,
what shall become of them? Thou hast not revealed these things.
We only pray that thy kingdom may come. Let it come, for the
earth is waiting foi- thee. Thou art not forgetful, thou art not slum-
bering. King of Eternity. Thou hast thy reason. Thou wilt yet un-
veil thyself and make thyself know n ; f nd then we shall be satisfied.
Forgive us if at times in our weakness we wonder and suffer. Even
so, Lord Jesus, come quickly.

And to thy name shall be the praise. Father, Son, and Spirit.
Amen.

PRAYEE AFTER THE SERMOK

Ottr Father, we beseech thee that thou wilt add thy blessing to
the wor:l spoken. Grant that there may be more power resting
upon the hearts of thy people. Bring in again the pentecostal day
and the descent of the Holy Spirit, with tongues* of flame. Bring in,
we pray thee, the consecration of the altar, cleansing it as with fire.
We pray that the victory of thy church may be found in the holi-
ness of its priests; in the exaltation of their ambitions; in the hero-
ism of their lives. So may thy name be honored ; so may men long
to believe thee. So may men search after thee whose children are
such as they. GraTit, we beseech thee, that there may be this evi-
dence of thy divinity, and of thy provident administration of tlie
Holy Ghost in our day.

And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son, and Spirit.
Amen.

MORAL STANDARDS.

"For he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law." "Love
worketh no ill to his neighbor : therefore love is the fulfilling of the
law." — Rom., xiii., 8-10.

" For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this : thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself."— Gal. v., 14.

1 am not going to preach a sermon on the subject of Love ;
but I am going to employ these declarations for the elucida-
tion of the philosophy of moral standards of conduct.

I read in your hearing, from Leviticus, a chapter in which
love was as clearly and strongly enjoined toward one's own
countrymen and toward the strangers also that were living
among them, as it was by the lips of our Saviour himself.
Neither in that remote declaration and origin, I may say, of
the New Testament command, nor in the use of that com-
mand by tlie Saviour, and by his apostles after him, are we to
understand that he enjoins the specific love which springs in
a sentient being from the perception of excellence and of
beauty. We are to understand that it is a larger feeling ;
that it is that state of mind which recognizes in all men
a reason for wishing them well, and breathes out a sympa-.
thizing desire for their welfare.

This larger feeling includes the whole race, and it has in
it no respect whatever to moral character. Men who are good
will of course come under its jurisdiction ; and men who are
bad all the more, because they are more necessitous. It is
that great mother-love that is enjoined upon every human
creature in looking upon his neigh boi-, of liigh degree or low
degree, rich or poor, good or bad, and whether offending
him, injuring him or not, without regard to anything except

Sunday Morning, Jan. 31, 1875. Lebson : Lev. xix. Hymns (Plymouth Colleo«
tlon) ; No8. 187, 296, 660.

484 MORAL STANDARDS.

this : that the nature and state of every man's soul should be
such that to every human being his strong feeling should be
good will, and the desire — real, genuine, deep and earnest —
for the happiness and welfare of every living human creature.

That is the grandeur of the moral law. Out of that
springs the love of those who are artistic for the artist ; the
love of those who are humble for the humble ; the love of
the good for the good. All the specifics under it are admira-
ble, and they all flow from this generic disposition.

Now this is the disposition that must precede any right
conception of moral standards, and that must facilitate and
direct the application of moral standards to conduct, to char-
acter, to one's self, to one's beliefs, everywhere. Every part
of human life has a moral relation ; and, in a large and just
sense, all conduct is moral conduct. Even in the lowest con-
ditions of life, and in the earliest developments of the race,
men employ moral standards, both before and after every
course of conduct. Men think, "What may I do ? and,
what may I not?" The Bushman thinks of it. His light
is small, his standard is poor, the sjihere of his life is limited :
nevertheless, in that sphere, and in those conditions, he asks,
" What may T, and what must I not, do ?" Though the sense
of moral obligation may be wrongly founded, though it may be
be conceived of in an exceedingly imperfect manner, the germ,
the root-feeling, of obligation is there. And we find that, after
the lowest men have gone through a course of action, espe-
cially if they are in any way impeded or threatened or harmed
by reason of it, they use a kind of moral standard — each sort,
each nation, each stage of development having its own kind,
but all having a moral standard by which they determine
whether things which they have done are right or wrong.
So, in the lowest states of human development there is a rudi-
mentary moral standard by which men measure the things
that lie before them, to ascertain whether they may attempt
them ; or the things that lie behind them, and whether they
are culpable or praiseworthy for what they have done.

No matter how erroneous, no matter how imperfect, the
standard may be — that is not the question ; it is simply that
there is such a standard, and that by their very organization,

MORAL STANDARDS. 485

as soon as men come to act together in society relations, there
grows up among them a more or less perfect moral standard,
which, while they may not recognize it, they always use.

Civilization, in making more of such men, makes more of
society ; and the making more of the individual and of the
social whole complicates spheres and relations, so that men,
as society advances, find themselves acting in more and more
spheres ; and in each one of those spheres comes up again
this standard of right and wrong. It is not thought of as we
now are analytically considering it ; but still, wherever a
man acts, in all his relations to life, there is acting with him
incessantly a sense of right or wrong — which is a moral stand-
ard. There must be some rule by which to judge of what is
right and what is wrong ; and the standard becomes ex-
tremely complicated, and too large, ordinarily, for any single
man to carry — so large that it cannot be held and applied by
one man in ten thousand. Not Whewell, not Fichte, not
Paley, not Wayland, not any of the great moral writers seems
to have been able to gather up the sum total of society, with
all its infinite divisions and circles and spheres, where men
act, and where there is a constant modification of the rules of
action, and to hold them all before the mind so as to remem-
ber them and discriminate and state them. It is encyclope-
dic. The circuit of civilized human life is so large, the
spheres and sub-spheres of it are so innumerable, the modi-
fications of right and wrong are so many, that it transcends
the ordinary power of the human understanding to take a
comprehensive and continuous view of them.

Let us enumerate some of the intersphering relations of
life. For instance, the child has the first consciousness of
duty as it relates to his obligations to his father and mother
and brothers and sisters in the family ; but if he is brought
up right he has something to do — at least, if he is brought up
in New England, or according to the New England method.

As early as when I was six or seven years old, the bam
was a part of my sphere of duty. I had a relation to the
horse, to the cow, to the pigs, and to the chickens ; and in
the spring I had a relation to the garden, and to a great deal
of outdoor work : so that I was conscious that there vas a

486 MORAL STANDARDS.

difference of relation between my doing right and wrong in
the house to my father and mother and the children about
me, and in the sphere of operative industry and sujiervision
outside of the house. Thus I began to have an industrial
sphere joined to the primary, home, social sphere.

But soon (alas !) I went to school ; and I felt that there
was another section added to my life. I had duties at home,
I had industrial duties around about me, and I had duties in
school. I was conscious that things which I did in the barn
I could not do in the house. I never reasoned as to why this
was, but there was in me the sense that the things which
were proj)er in any one of those spheres were not proper in
the others — that the things which belonged to the school did
not belong to either of the other spheres. I felt that there
were three spheres in which I was acting. And every person
is conscious of the same thing. Men everywhere have a
growing sense of the complexity of the relations of life.

A man enters a sphere wider and more various than that
of the family — namely, the sphere of the neighborhood.
Wliile he is under ten years old, the neighborhood to him
consists of the boys about him that are nearly his own age.
His ideas are, comparatively speaking, nascent and crude ;
but there is a boy public sentiment, if the neighborhood be
at all populous, as in cities and large towns. Therefore an-
other line of duty is added to those which he recognized
before. He feels that there is a home duty, a chore duty, a
school duty, and a companionshij) duty. These various
duties do not change as time goes on — that is, they do not
change in the direction of being lost in any part ; but they
multiply. For, very soon he comes into business relations of
life, and at once finds that business also has different rules
and regulations for which there is to be a standard applied
somewhere. Not only that, he finds that each kind of busi-
ness is separated from every other. The lawyer does things
that the physician does not do, and could not do. The mer-
chant does things that do not belong to the sphere of the
mechanic. They not only perform different functions, but,
bv "^ason of the difference of these functions, there are some
jiodifications of the rules of right and wrong.

MORAL STANDARDS. 487

Then, aside from these things, men have a consciousness
of a relation to the State. That relation is generic. It takes
on the relation to the parties tlirough which they show their
allegiance to the State, and it takes on their relation to the
administration of public affairs. This is a still larger sphere.

Now, all these spheres are grouped together, and man is
passing into them and out of them, and acting complexly in
them continually, with a general sense that there are special
rules for this and for that ; that there are standards here and
standards there ; and these standards multiply as he goes up.
This shows the divine method of the education of men.

A man, when he has gone through these various stages,
and entered the different spheres which I have enumerated,
where there exists a multiplicity of standards, is as dif-
ferent from what he was at first as the oak tree is from the
acorn out of which it sprang, after it has gone through the
processes of growth which belong to its nature, — opening up,
expanding, splitting, widening and becoming more and more
complex.

The savage, living in the lowest state, has few occupa-
tions and few relations, and cannot be large in his moral
nature ; but in proportion as you begin to put him into do-
mestic and industrial and civil relations his nature grows, he
is obliged to think more, and to deal with complex questions ;
and, above all, there is brought to bear upon him that inces-
sant rule of life obedience to which brings prosperity and
happiness, and disobedience to which brings punishment and
unhappiness.

So life itself is a grand educating academy. Social life is
a method above and including all other methods, by which
God trains, drills and educates men in the knowledge of
moral relations.

Now, so many are the spheres of life, and so many are the
questions that arise in them with regard to right or wrong,
that, as I have already intimated, it is hardly possible for
men to take the whole of these things into their minds — and
they do not. They are obliged to have auxiliaries or helps ;
and the first element of help which they receive is home
teaching and home-bred habits and tendencies. Children do

488 MORAL STANDARDS.

not know what is right and wrong except as they have the
injunctions, "You must," and "You must not," and ob-
serve them until they become accustomed to the observance of
them. Children do not do right at first by intelligence and
afterwards by moral likings. It is training that radicates the
child first in the sense of right and wrong. By practicing
this rule the child forms it into a habit, and that is train-
ing. The foundation of our character is laid in the family
by instruction and training.

A great many persons throw it up to young men, when
they go out in life, as one of the fleers of skepticism, " You
got all those notions from your mother and your nurse." I
should like to know where I got the milk that supported me
but from my mother ! I should like to know what I was ex-
cept what she made me ! 1 should like to know what there
was of me, or could have been, but for her ! Of course it is
a sneer against the fundamental law of nature. This is the
condition on which alone the first step can be taken. It is
contrary to natural laws that a child should learn at first in
any other way than by the arbitrary dicta of father and
mother. That is the foundation. Afterwards, by knowledge
and discretion, they may modify or change it ; but this is the
primary step, and it goes a great way down in life. With
many persons, where they have had the advantage of teach-
ers, wise, intelligent, and endowed with deep moral feeling, it
goes to the end of life. There are multitudes of men who,
when they have departed from the more direct course which
swept them out into the world, and have come under influ-
ences which biased their judgment and weakened their
faith — there are multitudes of such men who have abandoned,
under the stress of pleasure, or in the fiery heats of ambition,
the instructions of the venerated father, or of the beloved
and revered mother; and long afterwards, far down in life,
they are brought back again, not by philosophy, nor by fic-
tion, but by the revival of those early influences and train-
ings which made tliem what they were in their childhood.

There is nothing that is not changeable. But there is
nothing in man that can so little bear mutation as his early
instruction ; and there is nothing so unworthy of a free

MORAL STANDARDS. 489

thinking man as to be ashamed that he got his notions and
his faith from his father and mother : for, to a child tliat is
under age, father and mother stand for God.

Next, the social customs in which a man finds himself
become his standard, and to a certain extent must become his
standard. A man is not competent to grow up by himself
independently of others. Persons say to people, " Why do
you not use your independent judgment ? Why do you fol-
low the fashions and customs?" There is a very limited
amount of reason in that at certain times ; but the great law
is this : that that which the race has found out by successive
experiments, and which has embodied itself in social customs
and usages, has in it the presumption of right, though it is
not always right.

The social conditions of men, therefore, represent the
facts, the experiences, the findings-out which belong to
human life. The custom-law of social life is in some sense
a historic record of what millions and millions of men
through thousands and thousands of ages have discovered ;
and it is not to be treated with contempt. It is a part of the
moral standard by which men regulate their lives.

When men come into business they find distributed
through it rules which they could not have excogitated.
They are to adapt themselves now to new functions, and to
new relations to their fellow.-meu ; and it is indispensable
that there should be provided for them some standard of
right and wrong. There is a certain custom of business —
a particular custom for each particular kind of business ;
and they accept it. It may not be high enough ; it may be
very imperfect ; but the necessity of having an established
custom in every business by which men can judge of what
is right and what is wrong is indispensable.

The same is true of civil regulations. They tie up or
they loose a hundred strings : and what men may do in their
relations to the State ; or in their relations to the laws that
regulate the welfare of the whole, rather than of single
sections ; or in their relations to institutions, and to the
various elements wliich constitute civil organization. — this is
predetermined. I never pay taxes because I have reasoned

490 MORAL STANDARDS.

on the subject, and said to myself, " The commonwealth has
certain great ends which relate to all, and all are therefore
bound to pay their quota for its maintenance, because they
have their dividend of its blessings." Some men think of
this in the study, as students ; but ordinarily men do not
think of it. The assessment is made, (and it is generally
about twenty per cent, more than it was last year), and they
say, *' We have got to pay that." It is the custom to pay the
taxes that are levied, or to dodge them, one of the two ; and
they do not reason upon it. There is a standard of action in
the matter, and men recognize it, and yield to it without
reasoning. There is a standard of duty in every part of life
under laws and institutions ; and you get your notion of that
standard, not as a philosophic idea, but simply as a course of
conduct — as a thing to be done.

Then there is another life. We have a social life, a
neighborhood life, a business life, a civil life ; and we have
besides these a religious life. As if there were, outside of
everything else that man does or thinks of from day to day
a sphere different from all others, called "the religious
sphere " ! That sphere is made up of doctrines and ordi-
nances ; it has its usages ; and there is belonging to it a
whole apparatus of instrumentalities.

Now, religion is a life of itself. It is doing right to God,
and it is doing right to men. The way to do right to God is
to treat men as your brethren. Your duty toward God
includes your duties toward men. It includes love, and hope,
and joy, as far forth as you can apply them to an unseen,
unformed, unimaginable Being. To a grand comprehensive
Center of wisdom and goodness we send up our aspiration or
supplication or gratitude ; but the practical development of
love to God is that which we do for his household. He says
so. In other words, he says, "You treat me as you treat
your fellow-men. I know whether you love me or not by the
way you treat your fellow-men. If you oppress men, if you
imprison them, if you neglect them when they are in trouble,
if you cheat them, if you hurt them in any way, you do the
same to me. If, on the other hand, you are merciful and
tender and gentle ; if, going to the altar, and remembering

MORAL STANDARDS. 49X

that some one has an offense against yon, you leave your
prayer and your sacrifice and go and become reconciled him ;
if you treat men with charity, then you do that to me."
In other words, the way we worship God practically is the
way we treat our fellow-men.

Nevertheless, there is a large ecclesiastical world in which
there are rules and regulations ; but this is artificial, and I
mention these things to show the excessive tendency of men
to multiply spheres, and in each sphere to multiply the
standards of right and wrong, and the need there is that
every man sliould have a generic idea or standard which
shall be applied to his life, carrying and making an applica-
tion of it to all the different spheres in which he is to act.

Now, one of the consequences of this state of facts (for I
have been evolving facts, stating things as they are), is, that
men have contradictory standards. They have their ideal
moral standards ; and these are continually at variance with
each other. We are taught that all men are depraved and
wicked from their birth ; and if I should preach that it is
not so, and I happened to be a Presbyterian (as I am not) I
should be hauled before the Presbytery very quick ; and a
discussion would arise, and nine men out of every ten of
that body would vote that I ought to be silenced because I
did not believe in the depravity of man, and that he was
wicked from birth. But every one of these men will go
right home, and say, "Well, there is an angel" (speak-
ing of his wife) ; and, "Was there ever a more exquisite
flower than this ? " (speaking of his daughter, that is grow-
ing up). Every one of them would thank God for this child
or for that babe. No words are adequate to express tlieir
satisfaction when they go into their families and look at their
children and their companions in the light of love. Their
households are perfect enough and dear enough for them.
When they talk generically of men in the sanctuary they
apply to them the theological standard ; but when they talk
of them individually in their own houses, they apply to
them the love standard. In the former case they look upon
them as wicked and depraved, and in the latter case they
look upon them as sweet and delightful and good.

492 MORAL STANDARDS.

"Man never can," we are told, "do anything that is
right;" and yet the very men who will not settle a minister
because he says a man can do something that is right will
go to New York and hear of the case of a man who, seeing
a great steamer wrecked in the bay, hovers around her with
his boat night and day, and wears himself out in endeavoring
to rescue the unfortunate persons on board, and saves many
lives; and there is not one of these men, notwithstanding his
rigorous theological standard, if he has a flea's heart in him,
who will not subscribe toward a testimonial to this man for
what he calls his noble and generous deed. He is a hero in
the estimation of the very men who say that no man can do
anything right before God. They have one standard by
which to judge men practically, and another standard by
which to judge them theoretically.

I preach a sermon in the house of God on disinterested
benevolence ; and the father and mother, on going home,
say, "I wish James had been there. He's just going into
life, and if he had heard that sermon I think it would have
done him good all his life long." It is wholesome to bring
up children to be benevolent ; but to-morrow the man goes to
New York, and there comes up the settlement of a debtor's
estate, and five or six creditors get together, and, like so
many — no matter what — pull and liaul against each other ;
and what becomes of the poor fellow in the middle ? No-
body cares for him. You say to them, "Is it right ? Is it
humane?" "Well, now," they say, "business is business.
You can't introduce moral standards here." The man who
on Sunday believed in ideal manhood in a practical case on
Monday not only does not believe in it, but he does not believe
in it. Something in him tells him that there are different
standards for different places ; or, that there are different
ways of applying standards in different spheres of life.

So, I have been told by men, "You do very well for a
minister ; it is eminently proper that you should i)reach these
things ; they ought to be preached ; but really, if you were
in our places, you would do as we do." Says the lawyer, " If
you were in my situation;" says the doctor, " If you were
circumstanced as I am;" says the editor, "If you knew

MORAL STANDARDZ. 493

what I have to go through with ;" says the merchant, "If
you knew what shark's teeth I have to protect myself against
— if you knew what competitions there are in my department
of trade." So, all through life, while men agree to great
moral standards of cliaracter and duty ; while, on Sunday
and in the Lecture-Room, they consent to these moral stand-
ards ; while they accept generic rules of conduct, — each man>
speaking from his consciousness and reason and moral sense,
declares that in his sphere of life another standard is de-
manded. And often he is correct ; for not unf requently what
is right in one sphere is not right in another.

Men say, " Rectitude and truth never change ;" but there
was never anything that changes so much. You might as
well say that a printer's case of type never changes. It is
true that if there is anything that is unchangeable, it is those
types. They are solid metal, and you cannot change them.
But can you not change their combinations ? Can you not
change what they will spell out and mean ? The elementary
thing is not changeable ; but the thing you come to when you
apply it to uses through an infinite scale, — is not that change-
able ?

The fact is, right and wrong are so various that it re-
quires an extraordinary genius to determine them where
custom has not pre-determined them. Right and wrong will
change with circumstances which require new applications.
For instance, humanity in one age is not humanity in another.
Mercy in one set of circumstances is not mercy in another.
I will take a familiar case to show that while great moral
ideas, — such as truth, justice, rectitude and humanity, — are
constant, yet what is humane, what is right, what is just, and
what is true, change. The applications of them change in-
cessantly.

When men low in savage life were attacked by a horde
of neighboring savages that meant to exterminate and de-
stroy them, they defended their huts, their wives and their
children ; and in doing so they not only beat off the enemy,
and defeated them, but they took captive hundreds of them.
And then they sitid, "'What shall we do with them ?" They
were too poor, as a community, and too low down, to put

494 MORAL STANDARDS.

them in jail, and feed them ; and it would not do to let them
go, because they would add to the power of those who were
inimical to them ; so they determined to put them to death ;
and we believe that they did right. It is the instinct
of seK-preservation that says, when society is in its lowest
and rudest state, "They have attacked us; they have for-
feited their lives, and it is right to kill them." That is the
law of defense which is appropriate between men where
society is in its rudimentary state ; but is that standard of
judgment which was right as applied to men in their early
nascent condition right for us ? By no means. As society
grows, men become stronger, and new standards are adopted.
There are various influences which help men to grow. War
is one of them. It makes strength fertile. There is no other
heresy that is so bad as that of laziness ; and wars are con-
trary to laziness. As men grow, from various causes, society
becomes more complex, and the rules of war change. Where
there has been an advance beyond the primary stages of hu-
man development, and men take prisoners, they say, " We
can watch over these fellows, and make them do our hoeing
for us, instead of doing it ourselves. We will not kill them,
but we will use them." So they put them in slavery; and
that is a great amelioration to what would have taken place
fifty years before. Then they would have tomahawked
them. Now they say, " Instead of putting them to death we
can afford to have mercy on them ; we can safely permit
them to live ; and we will set them to work in our potato
and corn fields."

In the early stages of society, there was scarcely more than
the thickness of a sheet of paper between one class and
another ; slaves and their masters were not separated more
than an inch : but by gradual development one class has been
going higher and higher and leaving another class low down.

Then came the idea of redeeming one's self from slavery.
Then came, in times of war, the exchange of prisoners.
Then came the returning of men after war without exchange.
And then came humane treatment during captivity. The
humanities of yf&iV have been multiplied as Its ^e^tmQtiywess
has increa-sed,

MORAL STANDARDS. 495

Now, with all these stages of growth and development, the
standard of right and wrong has varied. At a certain period
of barbaric society, it was right for men to cut off the heads
of their enemies ; but it would not be right for us to do
it. Our standard is not the standard of centuries ago.
It was humane to do it then, but it would be cruel to do it
now. The law of self-preservation made it necessary at that
time, but it does not make it necessary in our day. Human-
ity remains, but what is humane changes perpetually.

That which is illustrated by these examples is going on
in every form of society. Things that were right a thou-
sand years ago have ceased to be right now. Under the
feudal system, certain obligations were laid upon the nobleman
which do not lie upon him now. Certain rights belonged
to the servant under feudal bondage that the freeman cannot
claim. If a man belongs to a master, and may not move off
at his will ; if he is the abject servant of a lord who lives in
a castle, he has a right to say to that lord, " You must look
after me, and defend me, and feed me, as the condition on
which I shall be able to render you any service." But in
America, where there is no lord, no castle, and no feudal
service, a man has no right to s?y, " Society owes me a liv-
ing." Society never owed any fool a living. Society says
back to him, ''Earn your living. They that will not work
shall not eat." That is the short way to tlie grave for a fel-
low that is lazy !

Now, to adopt moral standards under conditions where
society is so large, and where there are so many spheres in
society, and where in each sphere the application varies
necessarily and rightly, it requires not only that a man
should have great clarity of intellect, but that he should have
moral genius.

We talk about geniuses. We mean by a genius a man
who, in any direction, has such a cerebral development that
there is automatic activity in his mind. Some men are
simply recipients of impressions ; some men in a feeble de-
gree receive and give impressions ; some men are stored full
of powers which they do not use : but there are men who
have such vitality and development of mind that they think.

496 MORAL STANDARDS.

that they produce results, that they make music or poetry,
that they iuveut. They have an mspiratiou which they do
not go out for, but which breathes itself into them, or de-
scends upon them from the open air. They find themselves
ridden by certain thoughts and impulses. Such, in a limited
form, is genius ; and where in a man it is generic, and covers
any considerable department of the mind, he is a genius to
that extent. Mozart was a genius in music, and Beethoven
was another. There are geniuses in art, and geniuses in ora-
tory, as well as geniuses in poetry and music and invention.
There have been geniuses in legislation ; but a genius in leg-
islation is the rarest genius that ever came into the world.
In other words, the power to perceive all the relations of mind
in their various spheres, and to adapt a moral standard to
each of those spheres, requires such a capacity of intellect,
and such a power of determining what is just between man
and man, as does not come to a person once in a thousand
years. I could count on my hand all the great legislators of
the globe, beginning with Moses. And if this be so rare a
genius — the power of intellect, the discrimination, the moral
inventiveness by which the difference of circumstances deter-
mines the difference of duty — how impossible it is that men
can ordinarily judge for themselves.

What, then, shall we do ? Here we have the laws of
God, as they are called, — and by these we mean Bible laws ;
but Bible laws are themselves only the echoes of the same
laws in nature. Great men caught the sound, and expressed
it in words ; but the sound was rolling forth from the lips of
God, and through sphere after sphere. God's will was the
law of the universe; and holy men of old, inspired, caught
here and there parts of it, and put it into the record for men
to learn : but the greater law, or the larger expression of the
same law, yet lies outside of the book and outside of human
expression. There are the laws of God ; there are the laws
of social life ; there are the laws of business ; there are the
laws of politics ; there are the laws of art ; and men are liv-
ing with an imperfect perception of all these elements. In
ihe first place, there are conditions which are changing the
applications of them ; and men are without the capacity to

MORAL STANDABDS. 497

tell what ought to be right here, what ought to be right
there, what ought to be just here, and what ought to be just
there. Such is the condition of things.

Now I come back to my text. That which the Saviour
tauglit, and which Paul, above all other writers of his age,
sought to teach, was that righteousness, right conduct to-
ward men, was the evidence of love to God ; and that the
problem of life was to learn how to adapt this principle to
the different spheres of action — especially in those changing
conditions in which spiritual elements were to be substituted
for religion or ritualistic service ; and this was the rule that
was given : under all administrations and in all circumstances,
he who loves fulfills the law.

"Love is the fulfilling of the law."

In other words, in all the attempts of men to adjudicate,
to administer, to apply great truths or great standards, let it
be borne in mind that no man can determine what is right
and wrong in his particular condition unless he is fully in a
state of benevolence which makes him a really earnest desirer
of the welfare of every living creature. A moral standard
used in any other spirit than that may be right and may be
wrong ; but whether it be right or wrong, you can have no
guarantee and no certainty. Moral standards which shall
be adaptable to new or changing circumstances demand that
they should be used in the one master-spirit of love. He
who has that spirit is by it brought nearer to God, and
has received something of that divine prophetic power by
which he can discern things right and wrong. Love has
in it no harm to one's neighbor. No matter what your stan-
dard is, and no matter what the relations are, it is from
this one infallible spirit that all your applications must
spring. There is to be a soul that moves toward men of
every class and condition and nature and character with ben-
efaction ; with a desire for their growth, for their good, and
for their happiness. If you possess that spirit, you will have
the power to determine right and wrong and duty in all the
emergencies and in all the circumstances of life ; but unless
you possess that spirit you will not have such power.

Now, in the first place, in closing this morning, let me

498 MOBAL STANDARDS.

say that the infinite number of questions which you are con-
stantly determining, individually and jiersonally, require that
you should be in the state of mind which I have described,
in order to determine what is right and what is wrong.
Parents fulfill this condition in regard to their children, with
the exception of passionate people who cuff their ears first and
afterwards wish they had not done it. All deliberate and
wise conduct on the part of parents toward their children
springs from love — from a desire to do them good. And the
family is the best part of human society. There is mother
wit and mother wisdom — and the difference between mother
wit and mother wisdom and man wit and man wisdom is
simply the difference in the affection that exists. The
mother's is specific and personal. Sometimes women lose
their children and adopt everybody else's — feeling that their
life is dedicated to little children ; and they go and labor in
foundling institutions and orphan asylums. Then it is not
special love, but generic.

And out of that sense of love and kind-wishing come all
questions as to what one ought to do to his neighbor.

I once lived by the side of a very excellent man who, never-
theless, had his infirmities — which, of course, surprised me !
and I recollect an occasion on which he became angry, and
manifested his displeasure in a very striking manner. I,
wanting a place to hang up a dipper in my yard, drove a nail
into the fence between him and me, which went through on
the other side. One day I heard a racket in my yard, and
looking to see what was the occasion of it, I found my dipper
ringing over the pavement. This man had got a hammer,
and hit the nail a rap, and sent the nail, dipper and every-
thing else flying. My first feeling was to fire the dipper over
at him, and give him as good as he sent : but my second
thought was, ''Well, that man is made so, T suppose; he is
a passionate man by nature ; he was taken L^ surprise ; he is
a very good fellow, a kind neighbor, and ) won't say any-
thing about it. I was going to be satisfied so : but then I
said, "I guess I had better say something to him," and I
stepped in and said, "I ask your pardon, sir. It was
thoughtless, my driving that nail through the fence, and I

MORAL STANDARDS. 499

am glad you reminded me of it," He shook hands with me,
and said, " Well, well, well, let us not say anything more
about that." The result showed the wisdom of treating the
matter in a spirit of simple kindness. It was evidently the
course of conduct which was best for him.

Now, every day, ten thousand grievances come up in your
life, ten thousand annoying things are said to you, ten thou-
sand little stories are told about you ; and what is it best for
you to do in regard to these things ? To say, "• He said that,
did he ? I know something about that man, and when I get
a good chance I guess he will find it out" — is that wisdom ?
Is that the way to apply the law of duty ? Is that acting
according to the divine standard? Do you love that man?
Can you go down on your knees to-night before Jesus and
mention that man's name, and repeat it till you are conscious
that your heart shines, and then say, ''Lord, what can I do
to help him ? Bless him ; shield him." If anybody under-
takes to tell you anything about him, do not listen to it.
Shut the ear-gate. Do not be an entertainer of contraband
news. " Do good to them that hate you, and pray for them
which despitefully use you, that you may be children of your
Father which is in heaven." Seek that never-failing source
of judgment, that standard by which right and wrong can
be determined in the parliament of the soul, and can be
wisely applied to the various emergencies of life. Wait on
the Lord till your soul is as pure and gentle and kind toward
that man in the sight of God as God's soul is toward you.
Then ask yourself, " What shall I do ?" — and you will be in a
condition to apply this standard with any modifications
which may be proper under the existing circumstances.

No Justice is just that does not spring from kindness.
No administration is just that economizes society and gets
rid of trouble, but ruins men needlessly. No law is just
that does not carry the spirit of good will to every human
creature. No institution of penalty, no Sing Sing or
Auburn, no prison of any kind, is just in wliich men are
treated other than as the redeemed of the Lord. Not the
man at the anvil, not the maker of shoes, not he who works
at the cooper's trade, not the tanner, not the hatter, not any

500 MOBAL STANDARDS.

man in the lower walks of life alone, am I pleading for; but
for everj mau, though he be a burglar, though he be guilty
of arson, though his crime be murder. Whatever may be
his condition, no matter what he has done, he is a ma7i, he
is an expectant of eternal life, and God bears with him,
God has compassion on him, and shall not you ?

If you have a rigorous sense of justice which shuts with a
snap, like sharks' teeth, and you say of a man who is pun-
ished for doing wrong, "It serves him right; he has made
others suffer, and he ought to suffer himself!" can that
be a right interpretation of the standard of justice ? Not
until you have thought of that man in the light of God's
countenance, and in the light of eteruity ; not until he comes
to your consciousness as one of God's creatures for whom
Christ died, and as your brother, — not until then have you a
right to apply a standard of duty to him.

Love, which '" is the fulfilling of the law," means and
perpetuates no harm to any man ; and if you wish to know
what your duty is in the family, in business, as a citizen,
and in the administration of justice, remember that you
cannot tell what it is until you have risen into that serene
sympathetic and divine mood out of which comes the wisdom
of the universe, and which is to rule here and hereafter.

We are pigmies. We are rude and crude creatures of the
dust. In one sense, we are worms yet. And the way in which
men manage themselves and their fellows ; the blundering
accumulations which we call society ; the methods of admin-
istration which are employed in it, — these must cause the
angels to weep. They must be grieved beyond expression to
see the way in which we work, as compared with that bright,
beneficent, sweet-souled way in which God administers jus-
tice. Says God, "-Whom I love I chasten, and scourge every
son whom I receive. ''Be ye therefore perfect" — no, no, not
perfect? ''Be ye therefore perfect" — oh, no, not perfect?
"Be ye therefore perfect" — as your Father is." And how
is he perfect ? "He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and
on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."
That is the kind of perfection that we are to have. May
God grant it to us!

MORAL STANDARDS. 501

PRAYEE BEFOEE THE SERMON.

O God, we rejoice in thee. Before the mountains were brought
forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth, from everlasting to ever-
lasting thou art God.

It is thy greatness in time and duration, thine infinite wisdom,
thy goodness which is a part of that wisdom, and thy power that
makes thy will of wisdom and thy will of goodness effectual every-
where, through all time, and to all eternity, that gives us confidence
and trust in thee. For how weak are men! Wnat shadows, indeed,
they are, flitting across the earth, and leaving no impression upon it.
How poor is human life ! How little it attempts, and even less ac-
complishes! How much are men creatures of accident, and swept
by surrounding influences, straitening up with no will of their
own, bestormed and faint for the hour, and with the hour swept
away. If only in human thought and in human will and foi'esight
there were coufideuce for time and the eaith, how vain were life,
liow utterly poor and impoverished! But thou art God; thou dost
think for thinkers ; and men are f ollov/ing influences they know not
of. And all is not vain that seems shadowy, nor transient because
it passes quickly away.

Thou art the Architect, not of the heaven and the earth alone,
but of men, and of that great universe of living creatures to which
man belongs. Thou art a God to whom yesterday and to-day and
forever are one. Thou lookest upon a thousand years as upon yes-
terday when it is past. And what infiuiteness there is in thy thought
and plan ! What undiscovered regions toward which blindly, though
they be divinely impelled, men are moved, we know not, nor by
searching can we find oiit; but we rejoice that there is this imperial
power over time and life.

We rejoice that thou hast so far drawn the vail, and disclosed
to us the future, that now we know that there is a life beyond. We
are growing toward something and out of something.

We are spending and wasting things which are needful for this
being, but which will be unnecessary for the being that is to come;
and thou art, by this very spending and wasting, educating us in
higher things and for higher ranges of life; and the hope, the con-
viction of that, redeems life. There can be no night to those who
are moved on towards eternal day, where God is the sun. There can
be no sorrow to those who hear thee say : All things work together
for good to them that love God. There can be no disappointments,
no infirmities, nor even any sins, that do not bear blessings to those
who believe that thou art, by sorrow and by chastisement of sin and
sorrow, fashioning and preparing us for a nobler being in the world
to come.

Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son
whom he receiveth. Oh, may those doubts which have made our
hands feeble disappear. May we have strength to stand, and
strength to execute, in the full faith that though we are blind. God
dees all things, and that though we are judging and misjudging upon

502 MORAL STANDARDS.

the narrow pattern of earthly standards, thou who art judging upon
the cycles of eternity art making no mistakes. Let not our trust be
in our wisdom, nor even in our uuderstanding of how thou wilt
bring to pass good from evil, but in our thought of thee as thou art
supremely excellent, doing all things by the counsel of thine own
■will, infinitely lifted up above all counsellors, knowing in thyself,
and infusing into us all that we know — the Fountain of human life,
of human feeling, and of human wisdom.

And grant, we beseech thee, that thus we may walk by the
strength of God day by day. May we in time of the storm have
thee as a pavilion wLere thou shalt hide us until the storm be over-
past.

When pursued by misfortunes, may we have thee as a tower where
thou wilt defend us. May we have thee everywhere, when wander-
ing homeless, forsaken, alone and discouraged, and say : In my
Father's house are many apartments.

Grant, we pray thee, that we may have thus the heritage, the
faith of our Father's love, and power, and wisdom, and presence.
May we have faith, also, that all things in the end shall praise thee
and rejoice us.

We pray that thou wilt grant that these truths, which come to us
in hours and days appointed, may never depart from us; so that in
the battle of life, and iin the friction of every day experience, we
may not be left to our baser natures, to our lower thoughts and to
the interpretations of men. May we carry with us the supereminent
'wisdom of God, and learn to see all things as thou dost see them, and
so walk securely and biessedlys whether it shine or whether it gloom,
or whatever may be the experience of life.

We pray that thou wilt bless those who are in thy presence — e^ch
one as he severally needs. Give to us the greatest of all blessings,
the in-bearing of the consciousness of God present with each, to
love, and in love to discipline, to educate, to perfect.

Grant that every one in thy presence who is bearing burdens may
hear thee saying: Cast thy burdens on the Lord. May those who
fiave care in over-measure, or those who are met with its sharp
edges, cast their care on him that careth for them. May they have
that faith which works by love; and so may they overcome the
■world, and all that is adverse to thee.

We pray that thou wilt by these heavenly hopes and heavenly
faiths join us more and more patiently to our tasks and our duties.
May we not pick and select for ourselves. The servant is not above
the master. Shalt thou be crowned with thorns, and we never be
touched with the spine or the thorn? Shalt thou be a man of sor-
rows and acquainted with grief, and shall we fepl ourselves to be in-
jured and oppressed when troubles come? May we rejoice to suffer
with Christ. May we rejoice to be able, through Christ who strength-
eneth us, to do all things, and to bear all things.

Carry, we beseech thee, the sweetness of thy love, the consola-
tion of thy providence, and the faith of thy presence, into every
household. Bring light where there is darkness, reclamation where
there is wandering, gentleness where hardness prevails, knowledge

MORAL STANDARDS 503

where the mind is blinded by unbelief, mercy where there is obdur-
acy and cruelty, and meekness where there is haughtiness. Grant
that men may be united to each other in all the affluities of God.

May thy blessiuj? rest uijon this church in its corporate capacity.
Bless all the members in their several relations and duties in life.
Remember all those avenues through which we are endeavoring to
diffuse the knowledge of truth and the spirit of Christ Jesus. Bless
our schools, and all who are gathered and grouped about them.
Bless both the scholars and the households from which they come
forth. May the teachers be the disciples of Christ, taught of God,
not in the letter, but in the spirit of the Gospel. May the officers
and superintendents be prepared for this great work by the indwell-
ing Spirit.

We pray for all the churches of this city, and for all the pastors
of them. We pray that they may be more and more strength-
ened to discern and to do the work of God which has been commit-
ted to their trust.

Bless the great city near to us in its varied interests. We pray
for the President of the United States, and for those who are joined
with him in authority; for the Congress assembled; for all courts
and magistrates; and for the legislatures in the various States of
this great Union. We pray for colleges and schools. We thank thee
for books, for newspapers, for all the instrumentalities by which
knowledge is sent forth to the great people.

We pray that thou wilt bless this whole land, and all its vast
means not only for the diffusion of knowledge, but for the mainten-
ance of rectitude and justice.

Bless with us the nations of the earth in the things in which they
are in need, and in the states to which they have come in civiliza-
tion. Grant that they may have from thee adequate strength for
their special necessities.

We pray that thus thou wilt continue to advance the race of man
toward the fulfillment of those great and precious promises on
which we have relied, for which we have waited, and which shall be
accomplished when the whole earth shall be thine, and the new
heaven and the new earth in which dwelleth righteousness shall
come.

And to thy name shall be the praise. Father, Son, and Spix-it.
Amen,

504 MORAL STANDARDS.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERM0:N\

Our Father, we pray thee that thou wilt bless the word of truth.
May it more and more dwell iu our thought. More aud more may
it appeal to our understanding, to our moral seuse, to our affections,
aud to all our sympathies. May it influence our whole conduct in
life. We know how poor we are. We are c'ouscious oi our ijoverty
iu thought aud feeling and wisdom. We know that when we pufl
ourselves up there is little in us. We know that thou must look
with iufluite and continuous pity upon us in our inferiority. Grant
that we may come more and more iuto that spirit which springs
from true love to God and man, and that out of that may come in-
spirations which shall teach us our duty, and teach us how to
employ all the standards of duty in their infinite perplexing appli-
cations to all the spheres and emergencies of life, and bring us at
last home — oh, bring us at last home — strangers no more, not
foreigners, all brothers, none lost, all found and brought back by
the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls.

And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son, and Spirit.
Amen.

TRIALS OF FAITH.

"That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of
gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto
praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ."— 1
Peter i., 7.

Peter called himself an apostle to the Gentiles. Paul also
regarded himself in the same light. This epistle is directed
to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cap-
padocia, Asia, and Bithynia. By strangers, doubtless, was
meant exiled Jews — his own countrymen who had been scat-
tered to all parts of the world, and were found with their
synagogues in every principal city, and to whom, always, first,
the Gospel of Christ was preached, and to whom, generally,
as to a kind of nucleus, Gentile converts were joined ; so that
often the Gentile church, as it might be called — the church
at Corinth, at Ephesus, at Galatia, anywhere — was at the
center Jewish, and around it was a fringe of Gentile converts.
. It is this fact that gives character to the different epistles
which were written by Paul and the other apostles. Where
the element in the different churches was almost wholly Jew-
ish, the letter addressed itself to the actual opinions and dif-
ficulties and wants of that church, and discussed them after
the manner of Jewish thoughts, from the Jewish scriptures,
by Jewish illustration ; but where — as at Corinth, for instance
— a large part of the church were Greeks, the letters writ-
ten to them (as the first and second of Corinthians) had a
constant regard to Greek ideas, Greek morals, Greek diffi-
culties. They did not exclude the Jewish, but they mainly
bore upon the Greek. So that all of the letters of the differ-
ent apostles that have been preserved, and that are authorita-
tive, as we should expect letters from sensible men to do, not

Sunday Morning. Feb. 7, 1875. Lesson: 1 Peter i. Htmns (Plymouth Collec-
tion): Nos. 509, 537.

508 TRIALS OF FAITH.

only repeal somewhat of the personal charactejistics of the

writers, but bear upon the history and condition of the

churches to which they were addressed.

Now, what was meant by the Apostle Peter, in writing to

these scattered, exiled Jews in Asia Minor, and through all

the regions round about Illyricum, by i/ie trial of their faith f

The preceding two verses speak of this :

" Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salva •
tion ready to be revealed in the last time. [That is, if the last day is
near at hand.] Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season,
if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations."

Then follows our text :

"That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of
gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto
praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ."

What are we to understand, then, by the trials that they
were going through ? What are we to understand by the
faith that was tried ? What are we to understand by the con-
dition of faith at the coming of Christ that should appear
unto praise and glory ?

First, as to faith. We are to bear in mind that, in the
earlier psriods of Christian preaching, the main teaching was
in respect to a personal Christ. That element can never
again be in this world as it was in the very earliest stages of
preaching. Peter goes before an audience, and says, " I am
the man who was called of Jesus Christ. This is his history.
I heard him say these words. I saw him perform these mir-
acles. I was with him in Jerusalem when he was arrested.
I followed afar off, unworthily, when he was tried. I saw
him crucified. I witnessed the darkness. I was among those
who went earliest to the tomb, hearing that he was risen. I
saw him after his resurrection. I talked with him, and he
with me ; and these are his teachingc." We shall never have
anybody come to us so. We shall never have a witness that
will preach Christ to us. You can tell what Clirist has done
in you, and for you, morally and spiritually ; but you will
never have any one who will say, with the apostles : I am a
witness, personally, to all that I tell you in respect to Jesus
Christ.

The truths of Christ ; the love of the living Saviour pres-

TRIALS OF FAITH. 509

ent with them, — these were witnessed to by one who had seen
him and heard liim.

Such was the early faith of Jesus. We have to take him
with a historic intervention. Then we have to translate him
again into a kind of spiritual influence. They, ou the other
hand, thought of him as a Person, not only living, but be-
fore long to come again — to reappear. Doubtless Christians
for the first hundred years lived in the expectation of seeing
Christ themselves, in the body, before they should die. That
was undoubtedly the faith of more than the first hundred
years. The power of that expectation is inconceivable, unless
it be by those who believe in the second coming of Christ.
There is an immense power in that, if we only could be-
lieve it.

So there was a personal enthusiasm of faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ, who had gone up to heaven to prepare a place
for his followers, and who was soon coming back to earth ;
and they were waiting for his coming. Meanwhile they were
making preparations by which they should become acceptable
disciples and followers of him when he should come, in their
last, or nearly last, days. Then all the dispositions, all tlie
living experiences, which were the fruits and evidences of
their belief in Christ, were a part of their faith. In short,
their belief in Christ, and their fidelity to their belief, must
be Joined together in the conception of faith as it existed in
the earlier disciples. There was very little intellectual teach-
ing in that day. Systems of truth, as they now present
themselves to you and to me, were not born. They are the
product of a later stage of religious intellectual develop-
ment. Not for three or four hundred years was there any
system of doctrinal Christianity, such as we now have in
books and catechisms, and from t!ie pulpit. The primitive
faith was an ardent and enthusiastic belief in a living Person
called Jesus Christ, who was not far away, who was coming
every day nearer, and who promised them that if they would
wear his dispositions and fulfill his will, they should reign
with him forever and forever. There was this enthusiasm of
personal adherence to Jesus. He was their hero, of a trans-
cendent kind. They had the highest form of hero-worship.

510 TRIALS OF FAITH.

It Tv'as not doctrine worship ; it was not cliurch worship; is
was not religion worship : it was personal worship of the
Lord Jesus Christ. The personal element in Christ was in-
tense, and glowing, and permanent. They were living close
to the days in which he had suffered. We are two thousand
years away from those days. To us, it is a long-time-gone
event.

Empires have come up and gone down. Governments
have grown from nothing to imperial ])roportions, and again
have come to nothing, and are but forms. Laws that domi-
nated the world are all sleeping in libraries, and in their
places systems of laws and governments have sprung up
which were utterly unknown before. Men stood wliere they
could almost hear the footsteps of Christ. The events of his
life were yet ringing as news in the world. Tiiere v r.s, there-
fore, an intensity of faith in him as a Person, so near were
men to the time when he was on earth. The men wlio taught
them could tell them how he looked, the color of his eye, the
form of his mouth. They could describe to them the brow,
the hair, the gesture, the stature. They could inform them
when he rose and when he slept. They could show them
what was his gait, and what were his modes of conversation.
Everything that makes personality sharp and clear could be
told them. There is a great deal of difference between read-
ing things in books and hearing them from those who have
seen them.

I stood by the side of General Hancock, one of the great-
est men in our late struggle, and he described to me some of
the scenes of the battle of Gettysburg. I had read them and
studied them ; I had gone over the field myself, to look at the
memorials of those scenes and their localities : but here was
a man that commanded in the center, and saw the terrific
charge, and could tell me just how the men came over
the barricades, and what transpired ; and there was in his
narrative a life and power which I got from no books, and
from no inspection of the battle-ground.

Why, when men were preached to about Jesns Christ, it
was by a man tliat saw him ; that ate with him ; that sailed
with him ; that stood aghast at the miracles wliich brouglit

TRIALS OF FAITH. 511

the dead to life ; that went wondering out of the chamber
where the daughter of the ruler was brought back again.
This was the man that saw it ; and what a vividness he gave
to the picture !

Then, tlie expectation of seeing him again gave intensity
to all these personal representations of Jesus Christ.

There was, besides this personal faith in him, the eth-
ical motive, or what might be called the faith-disposition.
Christ said, *' Be ye like me. These states of mind which I
have shown you, are the states of mind which you are to be
in." The divine life, the soul life, was what he taught ; and
so, their faith included that whole life which is the antithesis
of the life of the flesh. The world around them was living
to the flesh ; and they were a select people, gathered out into
fraternities for the sake of linng a life in the Spirit, as dis-
tinguished from a life in the flesh. For the sake of the
Beloved who was gone, but gone for only a day, whose foot-
steps would soon be heard again, who would return and
apprise them of what he wanted them to be, — for his sake
they were living.

Such was their simple experience. All the early Chris-
tians believed in Jesus Christ, and believed in the necessity
of having such dispositions as he had. That was their faith.
If I were to give it a general designation, I should say that it
was living by the power of a vivid, enthusiastic faith in a
living God. I should say that it was the living of men in
their higher nature and by their very highest dispositions.

Now, as to these trials — what were they ? What was the
trial of their faith ? Why were these men attempting to be
like Christ ? They believed in him, rejoiced in him, and
were getting ready to be like him, and to be translated with
him. They were all of them training like a squad of soldiers.
They were gathered together, and were being drilled, in the
daily expectation that their General would come, and that
they would be led into action. Day by day they were pre-
paring themselves ; and they earnestly longed for the time to
arrive when he would come and say, ^' As good a set of men
as ever I saw! Fine soldiers!" There was in them the
ambition and enthusiasm of men in drill.

512 TRIALS OF FAITH.

But a loftier trial than that of the soldier these men were
undergoing — a spiritual drill. They were preparing them-
selves for glory and honor and immortality, to be revealed in
the last days — days that were near, when they should die ;
for the end of their life was close at hand. What was the
trial of the faith of these men in this life ? It must have
been a trial of all that is included in that faith, which is
largely interpreted in the New Testament.

There was, in the first place, a great trial of the faith of
Jewish Christians by reason of the perplexities which be-
longed to a transition from sensual worship to spiritual wor-
ship. They were brought up in the church. They were
educated not only with a ritual, but with a provision for
every conceivable side of their religious want, in the form of
feasts, symbols, sacrifices. There were duties imposed upon
them, both negative and affirmative. Their whole life was
netted over with -provisions for right conduct, within and
without.

At length they came to a new life, in which the inspira-
tion was Jesus Christ; and the whole drill was in the direc-
tion of right affections. Then innumerable questions came
up, such as, " How shall we abandon that which we have
been taught ? Is there no value, then, in days, in feasts, in
sacrifices, in meat offered to idols, in things consecrated ?"
These questions had to be asked, and they were grievous
questions.

Some persons do not take anything hard. They are phys-
ically adipose, and they are mentally adij^ose ; and the con-
sequence is that they never suffer much. Yes, they keep
Sunday because 'pa and 'ma told them they ought to keep
it. They go down among the Quakers, who tell them that
Sunday is a mere instrument, and that it is no more sacred
than any other day; and then they say, "'No, it isn't."
They take on ideas easily and give them up easily ; and it
does not hurt them to do so. But there are intense natures
that, when they believe a thing, it strikes through and
through, and stains the very fiber of the soul with its colors ;
and when, by and by, with larger growth, they find that
their early teaching was imperfect, and that their faith must

TRIALS OF FAITH. 513

be changed, it is like tearing asunder the very structure of
their minds.

You need not think that the greatest suffering has been
that of martyrs : there has been as much suffering in sensi-
tive consciences, on account of change of faith about which
have chistered liome associations, as martyrs have undergone.
When one gives up father, and mother, and brothers, and sis-
ters, and ventures into an unexplored, unknown region of
belief, there is awful suffering. And among the early Chris-
tians there were many who, making the transition from
Moses to Christ, were torn by fears and all manner of sensi-
bilities.

We see the same thing going on to-day ; and strange men
meet each other on the road. John H. Newman, traveling
from a spiritual faith towards an organized symbolic faith,
with his face set as if he would go up to Rome, meets Pere
Hyacinthe coming down from Rome, where he has been dis-
a|]|pointed and deceived, on his way toward a purely spiritual,
and not a sensuous faith. So, men are going both ways :
some from the spiritual, or from nothing, as they say, to-
wards something, which they call the visible and the sym-
bolic ; and others from a dissatisfying use of the physical and
ritual, down toward the spiritual and emotive.

It is always so ; it always will be so ; and the primitive
Christians whom Peter addressed underwent this transition.
Conversion with them did not mean the absolute settlement
of all thoughts and questions. As long as it is summer, I
care not how sheltered the lake is, the surface must be rip-
pled more or less by the free winds. The only thing that
will give it peace, is ice. Death gives peace ; and when men
come to torpidity or death, thoy have no more difhculties.
Many persons say, " Why are not truths made so plain that
we can understand them at once?" Why did not peaches
grow so that we could get them everywhere whenever we
wanted them ? Why were not strawberries made to grow with
sugar in the middle and cream all over them ? Why was it
necessary that men should plow ? How much better it would
he, if a plan could be invented by which plowing would be
unnecessary ! Bugs have nothing to do but run round and

514 TRIALS OF FA TTH.

round in the fields : why not have them do the plowing ?
Why was the world made as it is ? To make men wake up
from laziness, and work. The object in making men's sur-
roundings such as they are is to stimulate them. God never
meant that men should grow without effort. It was de-
signed that they should think, that they should have doubts
and perplexities, and that they should strive to overcome
them. This is part and parcel of their discipline. It is by
this that their faith is tried. There was a trial of the faith
of the primitive Christians ; it was a real trial ; and it was
severe in proportion as they had been deep and conscientious
in their former beliefs.

The Gentiles had an equivalent to this, though we sympa-
thize with them less than we do with the Jewish Christians.
They had temples, and altars, and priests, and gods, and eth-
ical religious duties. Because they were heathen, they were
not, therefore, without any religion. The heathen had
stamped everything with their own peculiar associatioijs.
There was hardly a common flower that had not some associ-
ation with their religion. There was hardly a service or social
custom that did not carry with it something religious. You
could scarcely go in at a door or out of a door tliat there was
not connected with the act some distinctive religious idea.
If you ate, there were certain libations. If you drank, there
were certain services. If you sat at table, you were crowned
with flowers that meant one thing or another. If you took
postures, they had a meaning. There were associations of
heathen temple worship which spread themselves throughout
society.

Now, when a heathen man became a Christian, being
conscientious, he could not take such and such flowers, be-
cause they meant Apollo or Venus. He could not take this
kind of food, because it signified a given faith. He could
not go in that procession, because it was in honor of gods in
which he did not believe. He found himself at every step
running counter to his convictions. And he was looked
upon as an infidel, as an unbeliever, as a woise than heretic.

So the Gentile Christians, when they became such, found
themselves surrounded with evils in maintaining their faith

TRIALS OF FAITH. 515

in Jesus. They were continually gashed and bruised by
running against, or having pushed against them, the various
notions of their countrymen, derived from their religion.
Both Jew and Gentile suffered for their faith, in social alien-
ations, in business hindrances, and in various other ways.

Let us suppose a case. A man that works for the
shrine-makers at Ephesus, earning a dollar a day, beating
out gods in silver and brass and what not, becomes a Chris-
tian, and his elder in the church says to him, "You can
make a livelihood by making idols ; but if you join the
Christians, you must give up your business." He is one of
the best workmen of his craft, and his master expostulates
with him and says, '* What ! are you going, Epenetus?"
"Yes," says the man. "Have I done anything to displease
you?" "No." "Well, what is the matter with you?"
"I have embraced the new faith." " The new faith ! Hem !
And that won't let you work for me?" "Well, it won't
let me make idols." "Don't you believe in idols?" "I
believe in the living God that made the heaven and the
earth." "And you are going to leave me on that ground !
Well, go ; and as to your back wages, get them if you can.
I should like to see a magistrate make me pay you what I
owe you. Go among your Jew friends, and see what they will
do for you. "

So he was thrown out of work. He could not get any-
thing to do. The avenues of business were full then as they
are now. He found himself running against his family and
against his old associations. His sphere narrowed, and he
stood alone. Persons looked askance at him, and said,
" Oh ! you are one of those Christians ;" and they had their
jokes, doubtless, that were hereditary, which they used over
and over again to throw at each other as men do nowadays.
A man who undertook to be a Christian set himself against
social feeling, and was ostracised by his countrymen. The
whole power of ccclesiasticism was arrayed against him.

A man, we will suppose, stood high, and expected to be
Mayor of the city of Ephesus. His daughter had gone over
to the Christians. He said, '* If tliis comes to the ears of the
influential people of the town, there will be an end to my being

516 TRIALS OF FAITH.

Mayor. She sha'n't do it." So the father dealt with his daugh-
ter through his ambition, and the same effect was produced
which is produced nowadays where questions of sectarianism
arise. Men believe in taking care of those who take care of
them ; in helping those who help them ; in sympathizing
with those who sympathize with them. They do not believe
in folks of any other church. On the one hand, some of
them get so high (there are high churches, you know) that
they cannot see anybody that is low down ; and on the other
hand, some of them get so low down that they cannot see
anybody who is high up. So there is division in the Christian
church. The Calvinists are arrayed against the Arminians,
and the Arminians are arrayed against the Calvinists. Or-
thodox people throw fire on the Universalists, and the Uni-
versalists throw fire back on the orthodox people, saying,
** They believe in it, and tliey shall have it."

So society is spMt up. And if this is so to-day, what must
have been the intensity of it in those early times I Yet,
the early disciples were wretchedly poor ; they were utterly
unable to defend themselves ; they were without churches,
without precedents, without popularity, without anything
except merely their own belief in the Lord Jesus Christ.
How helpless they were under such circumstances !

But, after all, the greatest of their manifold troubles was
to keep their spirit right ; to be forgiving ; to be charitable ;
to be benevolent. This was the charter of their faith : Love
your enemies. They had no Thirty-nine Articles. They
had no Five Points of Calvinism. There was not a cate-
chism in the world for a hundred years after their time.
They had not a gospel. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
had not written — not one of them. They had only a verbal
testimony. They had the inspiration of the Divine Spirit.
Their creed was : Love God who died by his Son to save
you, and who soon shall come in glory to take you up ; and
prepare yourself for his coming by having such dispositions
as will enable you to love your enemies, to bless them that
curse you [and there were enough of them], to do good to
them that hate you, and to pray for them that spitefully use
you and persecute you.

TRIALS OF FAITH. 517

Now, these simple-minded men, women and children,
under that condition of things — alienated, hindered in busi-
ness, ridiculed, in every way misrepresented, perplexed on
many questions in their own minds — attempted to keep their
temper and live joyfully in their own circle or little assem-
bly, and give back for curses benedictions, for hatred pray-
ers, and for spite sweetness, and all gentleness and helpful-
ness ; and was there no trial of their faith ? Did you ever try
to live so ? Did you ever make it a week's aim, noi to com-
mand your thoughts; not to have your volition right; but
to have just your conduct right? Did you ever take that
declaration, '• Love your enemies, bless them that curse you,
pray for them that spitefully use you and persecute you, that
you may be children of your Father which is in heaven," and
attempt to live in accordance with it ? No man can under-
take, as an actual experience, to live that life — full, strong,
real, earnest — in the visible world, toward visible people,
without knowing what the trial of his faith is — that is, the
trial of his own ideal, or of his own scheme of duty, as it is
laid out for him by God through Jesus Christ.

So then, we understand what the trial of their faith was.
It was a manifold trial ; it was a social trial ; it was a busi-
ness trial ; it was a religious trial ; it was a trial in every re-
spect that made it hard for them to live above the world
while they were in it, and to be like Christ while they stood
waiting for his appearing.

Their whole Christian life, their faith, it is said, was by
this trial to be brought to such a state as gold is in when it is
put into a furnace and smelted. It goes in very large, and it
comes out very small ; but that which comes out is worth
more, a great deal, than that which goes in ; and the dross,
the slag, is so much clear gain.

The Apostle takes that figure, and says, ''Your faith,
your high and holy hopes, your aspirations, are worth more
than gold ; and if gold, for the sake of making it more
precious, is put into the fire, so your faith by these trials will
be made more precious than gold, and will come forth to the
]n-aise and honor of God in the appearing of the Lord Jesus
Christ."

518 TRIALS OF FAITH.

This, then, is the equivaleDt of the passage in Hebrews
which says :

" Whom the Lord loveth he chasten eth, and scourgeth every son
whom he reoeiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you
as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?"

It is an interpretation of that great law of discipline
which pervades universal human society ; and it is designed
not to pull down, not to degrade men, but to exalt them
above the body and above mere temporal influences, and to
force them into tliat higher life of faith which is j)ermanent ;
which death cannot touch ; which belongs to the higher
sphere. It is the same thought which John expresses when
he represents Christ as saying :

" Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away ; and
every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth [pruneth], that it may
bring forth more fruit."

It is that law of discipline by which men are, by the ex-
perience of outward life, made noble and si^iritual, and ad-
vanced to higher degrees of excellence, and prepared for final
glory.

Now, let us see if this general view of the New Testament
is not also the view which is derived from another source.
We find it in scattered texts and passages ; but we do not
find it there alone. Precisely the same law exists, in every
cultivated family. Take, for instance, a matron — I care not
whether she be Greek, or Roman, or mediaeval, or modern.
You can all picture to yourselves what we see in every town
— some woman of great nature, whose household grows about
her, and wliose thought for her children, early and late, is,
how they shall become noble in manhood and womanhood.
If she be a Christian matron, this idea is intensified, broad-
ened and enriched. As her sons grow up. one of them devel-
ops a tendency towards art. She watches it jealously. She
has an impression that art life is dissipated life ; and she
would repress that tendency in her son. She says nothing of
her secret motive and reason, but she seeks to draw him away
from those influences which lead him in the direction of art.
But he will not be drawn away. The call is on him, and he
forsakes every other industry, and tvill bs an artist. He goes

TRIALS OF FAITH. 519

to Europe. His name soon begins to sound aoroad. The
mother's pride is certainly pleased that he has shown himself
to be truly a child of art ; but there come to her also other
tidings. Travelers return, and say, "Your son is living ac-
cording to the customs of Paris ;" and her heart aches night
and day. She forgets his skill. Neither form, nor color,
nor name, nor repute, nor revenue, is to her an equivalent.
"Alas !" she thinks, "he is going to ruin." She writes him
letters that he will not read. His conscience cannot bear
them. His will is determined to pursue the life that he is
on, and his mother's letters are opened and glanced through,
and then they are quickly folded, labelled, and put away
in his trunk ; and they are unread letters until after-years
come round. At last, tidings come to her, "He has fallen
sick ;" and as soon as conveyances can bear her there, leaving
all the rest, leaving the ninety-and-nine, she goes into the
wilderness after the one that is lost. She speeds to his side.
Sick indeed he has been ; he is a mere shadow ; but, oh, how
gentle, how like boyhood, he seems to her ! How fondly he
talks to her ! How he confesses to her that all is wrong ! He
says, "You are God's angel to me, mother. I needed some
one to whom I could confess. I am sick of my life here. I
want to go back home and be a man. I renounce all
pleasure and all temptation. I probably never shall labor
again."

Oh, with what deep and unuttered delight that mother
goes back with her consumptive boy ! In him was her pride
and her expectation ; but he has gone wrong ; and now there
has come upon him the afflicting hand of God, and he has
been rescued from the devil of his api^etites and passions and
vices ; and though he is to have no career here on earth, she
sings songs in the night, and prays with eyes filled with tears
of gladness, "0 God, thou hast given me back my son. He
is a man again. He is pure. He is filled with religious as-
pirations. The world does not domineer over him any
more." In the mother's thought, the trial of that man,
which broke him down, and took away from him all earthly
fascinations and ambitions, but which brought him to spirit-
ual aspiration, to faith in God, and to hope of immortality.

520 TRIALS OF FAITH.

was a cheap price to pay for the blessedness of liis redemp-
tion.

A father hears thpt his son has come to New York, and
that he is wonderfully prospered. He writes to him, " 0
my son ! let not wealth allure you. Eemember that you
build houses here which perish, or that you perish out of
them. Forget not that other house whose builder and maker
is Grod. I rejoice in your wealth, but, oh ! my son, I hear
that you are becoming luxurious ; I understand that you
revel too much ; I get word that your courses are not such as
you used to follow when you were at home."

The story grows worse and worse ; and it cannot be
doubted that in a hundred ways the son is living for the flesh,
for the pride of the eye, for the lusts of life, for pomp and
vanity. He has an over-swelling prosperity ; he is apparently
having all his good things in this life ; he seems likely to lack
every good thing in the life to come : but all his prosperity
does not make the father happy ; and he says, " My son has
forsaken the light of his youth ; he is prospered in worldly
things ; and his prosperity threatens to destroy his soul."

At length, the times grow hard ; money becomes tighter
and tighter ; and a rumor comes to the father, " Your son is
embarrassed in his business affairs, but he says he is getting
out of his embarrassment." By and by, however, a crash
comes, and all his prosperity is scattered to the winds. His
house is gone, his carriages are gone, his pictures are gone,
his apparel of every kind is gone, and all his schemes of
speculation have come to naught. Yesterday, he walked the
street and felt that he was a monarch ; to-day, he walks the
street and is all collapsed. He hardly has enongh to get his
dinner with. He was rich, and everybody said, " Great
man!" He is poor, and everybody says, •' What a fool!"
But his father says, " What a blessed bankruptcy that was !
If my son had gone on in the way he was going, and been
prospered, and money had flowed in on him, his pride would
have swollen, and his life would have been worldly, and he
would have been lost ; but God was merciful to him. stopped
him in his career, broke down his idols and altars, and he has
nothing left."

TRIALS OF FAITH. 521

He sends for him to come home ; and then there is vaca-
tion and rest. Then there are communions. Then there
come sweet and precious iniiuences — those of a praying
mother and of Christian sisters. Even the little village
church brings back to him memories of his boyhood. On
some Sunday, the word of truth is poured forth upon an ear,
open, with no prejudices. He melts and is subdued under it ;
and he asks, humbly, in a changed state of mind, to be al-
lowed to come in as a communicant among the people of
God. He is accepted, and he becomes a worker. Having
some little gifts of speech, he says, " Let me instruct others ;"
and in a modest way he goes about the neighborhood teach-
ing ; and. meeting with success, he becomes a missionary ;
and iinally, he takes a slender stipend — perhaps, six hundred
dollars a year — and preaches Christ among the poor, the out-
cast, the neglected. His father and mother rejoice over it,
and say, " Oh, how good God is to our son ! He took away
his house, he took away his stocks, he overturned his pros-
perity ; and now he has blessed him with conversion, and
kindled in him faith, and hope, and love, and benevolence."
The effect of the trial of his faith has been to purify it,
to exalt it ; and he has been made a man of God by his
troubles.

Everybody knows that a wise parent always judges of
what is good or bad for the child, first by its relation to the
formation of his character, and then by its relation to his
whole future life.

Now, the apostle exhorts the early Christians somewhat
after this wise : Take all your besetments, your trials, your
disappointments, your overthrows, and see to it that they
force you up to higher patience. Find something that is so
high that storms cannot touch it. Find treasures which
moth and rust cannot corrupt, and which thieves cannot
break through and steal. Find viands that do not perish
with the using. Let the trials and cares and burdens of life
which come down on you, make you better ; let them make
you nobler — that is the thing.

Down under the hill in Peekskill, where the wind does
not blow, the trees stand up straight — and why should they

523 TRIALS OF FAITH.

uot ? but ou the hill, where the southwest wind blows all
summer, the trees all lean, and many of them become bent ;
but some trees there are standing on the top of the hill which
are not bent, though the winds have blown upon them.
Sturdy trees they are.

And he that stands sheltered in life, where no tempta-
tions can come upon him, except in minute and petty forms,
stands reasonably virtuous and moral and religious ; but it is
no great credit to him. When, however, men are brought into
circumstances where they are tried ; where their faith in men
is tried ; where their faith in truth is tried ; where their faith
in justice is tried; where they are overturned, disappointed,
riddled, annoyed, vexed, maltreated, cheated, choused, and
rolled over and over like thistle-down in a raging storm —
when amidst all these annoyances and troubles they are enabled
to rise into a higher form of life, and to feel, " This world
is not my home ; this house and these surroundings are not
necessary for me ; this body is not me, the / is higher than
the things of this world ; tlie influences by which I am to be
controlled are above the elements of time" — then they, by
the trial of their faith, more precious than gold, are being
purified, and are being j^repared for that praise and glory
which shall come only from the lips of their Saviour.

Christian brethren, do not let us attempt to organize our
households or our business on the principle that he is pros-
pered who, no matter what his moral state may be, has wealth
and position and honor. There are thousands of what we
call good men, good citizens, good neighbors, who are good-
natured people enough, but whose whole aim of life is to
stand well with their fellow-men; to have a comfortable inde-
pendence; to share some small dividend of the honor that
men have to distribute among them. As compared with
vice, or besotted vulgarity, or stolid ignorance, such a life as
theirs is a good life ; they are living very high in that com-
parison : but as compared with the Christian ideal of a man
who is living in this life for the other, and whose faith (that
is, whose whole thought of God and immortality) is richer
and more to him than any riches of the world that now is
and is passing, — in comparison with that the life they live is

TRIALS OF FAITH. 523

almost nothing. This Christian ideal is beyond their horizon
and ken.

Whatever ambition, therefore, a man may have, let him
beware. Christian men, fathers that are bringing your chil-
dren up to honor and to prosperity, mothers that are seeking
a settlement for your daughters, remember that while you are
not to despise the outward conditions of this life, no person
is well off who has not a hope of the other world. No man
is made a man by worldly influences. The manhood that
makes a man, and the womanhood that makes a woman, is
wrought out of higher stuff than any secular acquisitions.
It lies in a higher realm of thought and disposition and
character.

Do not, therefore, aim so low as to think that you are suc-
ceeding when you are standing well among your fellow-men,
and when your lower secular wants are bountifully supplied.
And, on the other hand, do not suppose that you are unsuc-
cessful in life when you have lost all outer habiliments, and
have no particular station in society.

You are poor. You had riches, but they are gone, and
they have left behind nothing but the memory and the habits
which they nourished in you. Thousands will call you un-
fortunate ; and you are unfortunate if, with the loss of these
things, your pride is stronger than ever ; if you are more irri-
table than ever ; if you are all the time complaining and say-
ing, " It was not always so with me ; I was up above where I
am now ; I remember when I had my carriage " (oh, fool !) :
but if with the departure of these things there is God's bless-
ing left behind, — namely, the hope of a better and the cer-
tainty of a sweeter and more Joyful life beyond the grave, —
then you are not dispossessed, and you are not unfortunate.
He is an unfortunate man in Hie who has outward good and
inward emptiness ; but he who has the riches of God in his
soul, though he live in a pauper's hut or in a poor-house
(which is worse) is a happy man.

The last — the last — who are they ? You go into the great
house, and the master says, " This is my wife, sir ; this is my
eldest daughter, married and settled ; these are my sons ; and
these are my friends ; and they are very happy to greet you."

524 TRIALS OF FAITH.

You remain one day and another, and you make a pleasant
acquaintance with the family. They are refined, proud,
highly cultivated, exquisite in manners, and selfish. By and
by, you see a fragile form passing in and out, and say, " Who
is that?" "Well," says the man, "it is a cousin of my
wife's. She has been unfortunate. Her father was poor.
She had very little opportunity to learn. We brought her
here to give her a home. The children all take to her, and
we let her have the run of the nursery ; but she withdraws
from company ; she does not care for it " — and evidently they
do not care to have her care for it. She is not living in the
large way that they are. The drawing-room is not spread for *
her. The ample store of books was not purchased for her.
She is not the pride of their eye, nor the joy of their heart.
These daughters and sons are living a life of gayety and friv-
olity ; but this pale creature is living a life of disinterested
benevolence. Out of her pure soul overflow treasures for
others' goblets, and not for her own, and all the angels that
God sends to minister to that household first pay obeisance to
her : for God says, " Those prosperous persons are the last and
the lowest ; and that neglected, sequestered creature — she
is mine;" and if salvation comes to that house, it shall
come through the lips of that saint unknown. " The last
shall be first."

Are there no poor folks here ? Are there no staggering
old men here, who seem to themselves to have passed a life
almost worthless ? Are there no men here whose ambitions
have been smitten ? Are there no men here who have found
how sordid the world is, how untrustworthy it is, and how
little they would like to try it again ? Are there no men
here who are tired, tired, tired of the battle and the defeat ?
Are there no men here to-day who need my message, saying :
Your trials, if you know how to make use of them, will make
you better ?

When a thousand years have gone by, you will turn to me,
if you see me in the kingdom of glory (and you ^vill see me
if you go there), and say, "Now I understand the goodness
and love of God, and the love of my fellow-men, of which
you spoke. I understand tlie higher spiritual influence

TRIALS OF FAITH. 525

which you tried to teach me. I can see that I was hunting
with a muck-rake on the ground for money, while in the
heaven above my head were truth, justice, obedience to
God, and disinterested kindness to my fellow-men. I did
not think of these things — nay, I coined them to get treas-
ure ; but blessed troubles came upon me, which taught me
that the world was not worth having."

The world is worth having if you are worthy to own
it ; but if you are sensual and proud and devilish, all the
treasures of Golconda can not make you happy. If, on the
other hand, you are poor, and have patience, and are serene
in the expectation of God, and are waiting for him, and are
living a life that pours itself out as freely as the honeysuckle
or the mignonette pours out its fragrance, unasked, and with-
out reward — if you live such a life, no matter what your out-
ward condition is, your trials and troubles are all purifying
you and making you better.

Take care, rich men ! Your riches will strangle you, and
make you live for the present, and miss the dim bright lights
which hang out for you in the heavens. Take care, men of
trouble ! Troubles often make men sordid, and selfish, and
ugly, and vindictive. See that they make you better ; that
they take away the poison stings of your nature, and lift you
up. All of you, remember that the life that is visible is not
the real life ; that the real life is the life that we do not see.
The things that are visible are transient ; only the things that
are invisible are permanent. They abide ; they wait for us ;
they call to us, saying, " Come ; come :" and let our hearts
say, ''Even so, Lord Jesus, we come — through storms and
through calm ; through night and through day ; 'mid the
tempest's shock, where abound sands that betray, and rocks
that bruise — we come, 0 Pilot and Captain, to thee !"

526 TRIALS OF FAITH.

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON.

Be pleased, O Lord our God, to kindle in our hearts to-day the
light and the warmth of those that look in uv)on the heavenly state.
How little is there in life out of which we can fashion our thought
of thee! How little is there in the surrounding life, even of those
who are best beloved by us, out of which we can fashion an idea of
the general assembly and the church of the first-born, and the spirits
of the just made perfect! How little can we understand, looking
upon the work as it is going on in the heart, in ourselves and in our
beloved, what is that wonderful thing which thou art doing in the
inward and spiritual man, amidst all thy providential dealings and
gracious work with the outward man! When we try to run our
thought up into the heavenly realm where there is no selfishness,
where there is no pride, where there are no bodily appetites, where
there are no rivalries nor collisions, where there is no jealousy and
no sin, nor anything that worketh harm, where tears are forgotten,
and where sorrow is not known even as we know the distant sound
of the ocean at night thundering on the far away shore, where all
the past is as a dream, we cannot comprehend it — then how can
we understand this heavenly state which is given to us by thy
Spirit? Enkindle both our imagination and our understanding,
O thou God of all truth and revelation, that we may have to-day
some transcendent thought of the blessedness of those who die
in Jesus; of the blessedness of those who faithfully are living
in Jesus; of the blessedness of that mark at which all of us
are aiming — the prize of ovu- high calling in Christ Jesus. For
this world is so bright, and the other brighter world is so dim ;
this world is so near to our senses, and that is so far away; our
daily duties do so continually draw near and take possession of us;
cares do so waste and grind us; all the way of life so thunders at
our door, and beats in upon us; disappointments, and chagiins, and
hopes unfulfilled, and bereavements, do handle us in such ways, as if
we were captives and they were masters, domineering and cruel,
that when we attempt to behold the land of freedom we have
nothing wherewith to fashion it.

Oh, give to us some sense of ransomedness; give us some sense of
the ineifable joy of those who, looking within, behold sweetness and
harmony; and who, looking without, behold all blessedness, and gen-
tleness, and goodness, and joy; and who, looking up, behold the
glory of the Lord as the firmament above surrounding them every-
where.

Into this great life beyond, our thoughts pioneer; and we stand
upon the edge, looking and beholding a little, and still all our
thoughts must needs be in the fashion and shape of things that
are; and things are so dissonant, so troublesome, so rude, so imper-
fect, that only from thee can come the inspiration we need. Thou
who art peace, and who didst give to thy disciples perfect peace,
which the world could not give or take away, breathe thy spirit of
peace upon us. Thou that art pure, breathe into our souls that pure

TRIALS OF FAITH. 527

love toward thee and toward each other out of which may come the
revehitiou of that ble^sedlless which awaits us beyoud. Grant that
God may seem to us more God than ever before — grand aud merci-
ful, aud grand in mercy; loug-suffering ;• patieut, for the saiie of
cleasiug men from guilt ; waitiug through ages, nourishing the poor
and sin-stricken multitudes— yea, giving himself for them a ransom.
Oh, give us to understand what infinite power, what everlasting
wisdom, what wondrous skill, and what unfathomable thought, aie
energetically employed from eternity to eternity, in the purposes of
breeding and brooding love. Give us some insight into thy nature;
give us something that we can worship— and not when we are afraid ;
not when we are thinking of magnitudes for glory, but when we are
thinking of our own weakness, and. of our yearnings for goodness
which we cannot lay hold on. When we are broken in our own
sense and thought, and in our feeling seem like castaways, then
is there not something in thee for us? O God! art not thou the
Saviour? When we are disjoined from one another, yea, when we
are adverse to each other, art not thou the Friend ? When we are
in darkness and in trouble, art not thou the Light? When all the
world is given to penury, and is stingy of every joy, art not thou
the Consoler, the Comforter? When doubts hang heavy, and there
is no compass by which we can steer, art not thou the Leader?
When all things seem to contest us, and when we ourselves are
against ourselves, aud evei-ything that we meet day by day strikes
us, and the battle goes against us, and we are pressed sore, art not
thou the Captain of our salvation, the Conqueror through whom we
shall be more than conquerors ?

Oh, for deeper insight into the depths of thyself; of thy nature;
of thy glorious functions; and of thy power for all the needy; of
the ofifice work of the mighty God in this universe springing from
nothing, and working slowly by groans and tears and sufferings up
towards spiritual manhood. Give us to-day some sympathy with
thee, and thy gracious government of mercy, and love, and healing,
that our souls may be strong, not in themselves, but in God.

And now, we beseech thee, O Lord our God, help us to be
more fruitful in time to come. We seem to ourselves like the sands
on which many rains have fallen ; and they are but sands still, with
few flowers, and but bitter herbs at that. How little are we our-
selves like thee! How strong and at times how avaricious is our
pride! How bitter are our resentments! How do we love cruelty,
and desire to strike aud to hurt! How are we filled with uncharita-
bleness! How hard it is to get near to thee! We can but touch the
hem of thy garment. Oh ! let us come so near that we may lay om-
head in thy bosom. And grant that thus we may be born again,
become sons of God, bear the lineage of our Father, carry his spirit,
do his work, rejoice in his presence, hope for his salvation— sleep-
ing, wake in his arms, and rejoice for evermore. Amen.

528 TRIALS OF FAITH.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Thou that didst bear the burden; thou that didst wear the
rrowu; thou that didst find thy throne in the sepulcher; thou that
out of death didst briug everlasting life; thou that didst by teais,
and sorrow, and suffering give us leave to laugh and to be joyful :
thou that wert a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and
that now art Prince and Saviour in the heavenly land, reach forth
to touch our hearts with the significance of thy life and the reality
of thy being, that the waniug faith of men may be strengthened.
Oh, fill again the heaven and the earth with the glory of God; and
to all that are in doubt and mis^led, tempest-tossed and not comfort-
ed, interpret once more thy providence, that everyone may learn
to love, and to abide in that love, which, descending, shall lead them
to acts of benevolence among their fellow men. And so, we beseech
thee that we may be prepared by joy and sorrow, by gain and
loss, by all thy dealings, and especially by the rude chastenings
which thou dost send upon us, by thy coronation of thorns upon our
heads, by the ferrule, by goads, and by thorns in our side, to rise
into glorious affinity with Jesus Christ, that his sufferings may be
filled up in full measure in us, so that when he comes to reign, we
may reign with him.

And to thy name shall be the praise, Father, Son, and Spirit.
Amen.

THE OLD PATHS.

"Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for
the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall
find rest for your souls." — Jer. vi., 16.

"Because my people hath forgotten me, they have burned in-
cense to vanity, and they have caused them to stumble in their ways
from the ancient paths, to walk in paths, in a way not cast up."—
Jer. xviii., 15.

The word path is equivalent to our word road. We have
been so familiar from our childhood with the universality of
roads, and their permanence, that we scarcely can imagine a
condition of society in which a road was one of the highest
marks of civilization. I believe there is in all Palestine, to-
day, but one road — that over wliich the French line of
coaches goes to Baalbec. Paths are still the only thorough-
fares ; and, in ancient times, when men grew dull, heedless of
the common weal, selfish, even tiiese paths were obliterated.
Torrents washed them out, or they were overgrown. As
there was no intercommunication of commerce, a species of
lethargy pervaded the whole people, and p^ths, for the most
part, disappeared. Then men who went from province to
province, or from tribe to tribe, were obliged to thread their
way, as best they could, through the thicket, and over the
rock — stumbling, here and there, in the most inconvenient
way.

The transition is very natural from an outward physical
path to moral uses. Thus, the roads and paths in which men
are accustomed to walk with their feet would very readily
suggest the road that men's thoughts habitually walk in — the
patl] in which their feelings are accustomed to move, and the
way in which their conduct naturally flows. So we find the

Sunday Morning, Fe*). 14, 1875. Lfsson : Psa. Ixxui. Hymns (Plymouth Col-
lectiont , Nus. 199. 725. 868.

533 THE OLD PATHS.

whole Word of God full of "paths," "ways," "walks," as
equivalent to the habits — social, moral, and political — of the
people. The transfer from a physical to a moral path was
almost inevitable.

You will find, upon investigation, in the Old Testament
particularly, that paths refer to things physical — to the regu-
lar, constant habit of working or sleeping, or fighting, or
whatever else the body did. It is also apphed to manners
and customs — to those established methods of intercourse
which grow up in society, and by which complex communities
are able to live at peace with themselves. Paths or ways, as
they are laid down in the Old Testament, refer to the regular
carriage of a man's dispositions, and to the line which his
thoughts pursue — especially to his moral dispositions. They
refer to worship, and to all those habits which were engen-
dered by institutions and laws and customs.

It is in this secondary and moral sense, of course, that we
shall use the passage to-day, for the sake of jiointing out the
wisdom and the necessity, in all those who would go right,
;jf keeping upon the old ways — the ascertained ways — the
ways which, in the experience of mankind, have been proved
to be beneficial.

It will sound very strange to some to hti r me talk about
holding fast to old ways, old doctrines, old customs, old any-
thing— me, whose whole life and ministry has been an incite-
ment to new thought, to development, to on-going. As if
there were any real antagonism between the hand that goes
out to sow the seed, and the hand that comes back with the
sickle to reap that which has been sown ! As if growing,
development, were not perfectly consonant with maintaining
the stability of things gained already ! As if there could be
a wise conservatism that did not take into account a wise pro-

gressiveness

We are not, in this world, to hold on to anything as if it
were the perfect form of tliought, or the final form of prin-
ciple ; but Ave are to hold on to all those things which long
and ripe experience have shown to be beneficial until some-
thing else which is more beneficial can be put in their place.

There is something in the whole spirit of our age and na-

THE OLD PATHS. 533

tion which seems to revolt from going in the old patlis and
ways. The idea of clinging to the past is held in much
contempt among ns. We are a new people, on a new con-
tinent, with new knowledges, new institutions, and new laws
of various kinds ; and we think that they are a great deal
newer than they are. We look back and. say, " Here we have
no crowns, no sceptres, no aristocracy ; here we have no such
institutions as existed in imijerial Rome or in medieval
Europe ; here we have nothing that came down from the
feudal ages. We are all new-made, and we stand in a bright
contrast to the imperfect past." We glory in our newness,
as if we were in advance of everybody and everything else.

Now, in the first place, we are not half as new as we
think we are. Our ideas we have imported from Assyria,
from PalestinCs from EgyjDt, from Greece, from Eome, and
from mediaeval Europe. No man can sort and sift the
knowledge on which we are building, or by which we are
working, and say of any particular part of it, "^ This is
modern." Our thoughts, and all the channels of our
thoughts, are the result of the thought and experience of
thousands of years that are gone by. Nor can we say that
our institutions are new, or that our pohtical habits and
customs are new. The combinations are new, but the ele-
ments are old. Our knowledge of justice, of equity, of the
rights of the individual and of the necessities of the State,
—these have been gradually unfolded through thousands
of years ; and although we may have been building a differ-
ent form of structure in our government from that which
prevailed heretofore, the trees which we have hewn into tim-
ber have been growing through ages.

Therefore, we are not so new as we have supposed we
were. We did not first dig up the precious gold ; neither did
we first unlock the secrets of philosophy ; nor did we first give
tone to moral sense. We did not, either, first think of the
commonwealth, or of the welfare of the masses. We are not
half so wise as we take ourselves to be. And yet, the spirit
of young America is this : " We are the people, and the
nation ; and political and civil liberty will die with us, unless
ethers borrow and keep that which we have developed." We

534 THE OLD PATHS.

boast of being a progressive people, and of going on to some-
thing that is newer and better ; and at certain points this is
very meritorious, though at other points it is less so.

At this time, new machines, new processes of industry,
better houses, improved furniture, finer clothes, easier meth-
ods of locomotion, increased facilities for the intercbange of
thougbt, — these things are bruited in the newspapers. We
congratulate ourselves that we do not belong to the old, slow-
moving, crawling, worm ages ; that we belong to the age
when men fly. Every day is disclosing more and more ; and
tbe sun and moon are abort to bow down and worship us, we
think. We are proud of our progressiveness ; our newspa-
pers ring it forth ; and it is fashionable to make it a matter
of boasting.

Then there is, at this time, an extraordinary outbreak
of activity in thought. Perhaps the last fifty years have
been the most active in thinking that ever were known.
Probably there was never a time when thinking spread over
so large a space and included so much. Probably a greater
multitude of persons are given to thought at this period than
there have been at any other period in history, — though it is
difficult to measure such a thing as that. Certain historic
researches, the revelations which have been made in respect to
the truths of the past, religious freedom and religious activ-
ity, and, above all, scientific discoveries and prophecies, have
in our time set on fire the imagination of the young ; and
men feel as though old things were passing away, and all
things were to become ^lew. The consequence is that thou-
sands of men are inclined to doubt generally the social and
moral results of past experience. Theie is a wide-spread
feeling that probably we are blinded, as our fathers were,
that we are living in a very narrow way ; that it i? doubtful
whether the prudential maxims, the conservative customs,
and the social usages of the past have not answered their
end ; and whether they are now more than straw which is
to be gathered, that we may re-sow the field for another
harvest and a better one. As if the experience of ages had
learned nothing perfectly ! As if there were not some thing?
which learned once are learned forever ! As if the social intc^

THE OLD PATHS. 535

course of men, under a thousand different conditions, would
not at last work out certain paths or methods of organization
and inter-social relation which would last forever !

It leads many to throw general distrust upon the religious
teachings which they hear ; not special, positive disbelief,
but uncertainty : and, so far as the moral power of religion if
concerned, simple distrust is just as mischievous as positive
unbelief. It takes away thought-power; for if there be any-
thing that gives to religion validity and efficiency it is faith,
it is conviction, it is belief ; and, Just so far as you take that
away, just so far as you shake the confidence of men in relig-
ion, you destroy its real power.

Now, the general uprising of thought, the reflev influence
of new views and new principles, and a change of the rela-
tions of old truths and old customs, breeds, or tends to breed
in young, unproved, and superficial minds, especially if they
have a certain mental appetite, a great deal more of conceit
than they have of intellect. It tends to produce in them the
general impression that we do not know much about religion
anyhow ; and that it is not worth a man's while to trouble
himself about it : that, so far as it is convenient, by way of
lubricating the wheels of society, it is well to foster it ; but
that it is not best for a man to hit against the church ; that
he had better get out of the way of it rather than to run
over it or have it run over him ; but that, so far as its author-
ity is concerned, every intelligent, progressive-minded young
man should take into consideration that it is not wise for him
to meddle with it.

Then, there is the question whether a larger liberty is not
permissible in morals than used to be. Sociology is develop-
ing many scepticisms which are particularly mischievous
because they tend to unlock and give greater freedom to that
which is animal in man, and to tie up and give less scope to
that which is divine.

So there are religious customs and institutions which men
have been taught in early days to look upon as being of divine
inception, and as carrying in them divine authority. Now,
because men say that customs are good, and are to be re-
tained, but are not of divine authority, there is a tendency

536 THE OLD PATHS.

on the part of thousands to throw them away altogether. If,
however, I teach that the chui'ch is an indisjiensable element
in the moral growth of the community, and that, as men
are, it is an institution wisely adapted to the maintenance
of the truth, to its proclamation, and to the culture and drill
of men in moral relations; if I hold that therefore the
church is an institution vital to Christianity and civilization,
is that view invalidated in the least because at the same time
I hold that the church is not directly revealed, and specially
ordained, of God ?

I hold that, in the present state of intelligence through-
out the community, common schools are wise, necessary,
indispensable ; but I do not think that on that account it is
necessary to say that common schools are commanded iu
the Bible, or that the whole pattern on which we should con-
duct them is laid down in the Scriptures.

There are many things which experience has shown to be
wisely adapted to the develojDment of men, and to be essen-
tial thereto, and they are just as authoritative as though they
had the Word of God behind them.

In early ages, before men are susceptible of moral reason-
ing, before they know how to see the relations of God in
nature, an institution is made more sacred by saying that God
appointed it ; but in later days, when men are able to read,
not only what God has given us in the Bible, but what has
come to us through nature and experience, and the whole
analogy of providence, the authority of an institution which
commends itself to the judgment of men as adapted to their
wants is as great as though there had been a divine word im-
printed upon it. But, because it is said that the ground and
reasons of religious institutions are changing, men are dis-
posed to undervalue them entirely, and to say, " They have
had their day ; they are worn out ; they have passed away ;
we must look for new revelations and a new era."

Thousands are, therefore, abandoning, in various ways, old
paths, old thoughts, old usages, old customs, old habits, old
convictions, old virtues, old manhood. And when you make
inquisition, you will find that they are not the offscouring of
society. You will find that among those who are loosest in

THE OLD PATHS. 537

their adherence to the moral elements which belong to our
common Christianity, are scholars. There is a tendency in
this direction very largely developed in art, in litei'ature, in
journalism. I think that I shall speak within bounds when
I say that, to-day, the educated men of England, of Germany,
of France, of America, and, indeed, the leading men in his-
tory and in science, are tending away from the old grounds
of Christianity, and that in many cases there is a positive
skepticism in regard to it, and an absolute opposition to it.
But in the great majority of cases, departure from old
thought, old Christian sentiment, old institutions and old
customs, is without any philosophical ground. It is atmos-
pheric, if I may so say. It is the genius and tendency of
young rising minds ; and as such it is a matter of profound
importance, and ought to command the attention of those
who believe, as I do, that Christianity is the leaven of God
to the world and to the ages, and that reactions from it, if
they do not come back again, are reactions by whicli men are
driven off into outer space.

Now it is no part of my purpose to caution you, to warn
you, to persuade you not to think. For me to do that,
would be as if a man should cure sore eyes by putting them
out. It is no part of my purpose to exhort you not to
change external forms, or to make re-adaptations of doctrine.
It is a part of my business to help you to do it. I would not
circumscribe your liberty ; I certainly would not fasten you
down by any ties of authority (I mean authority as standing
in men and institutions) ; but there are many reasons why I
can and should call you to a consideration of certain great
permansncies in respect to thought, to moral character and to
custom, which are peculiarly necessary to the young, and were
never more necessary than in our time and in our nation.

First, we must not suppose that moral and social develop-
ments can ever be as rapid as physical developments, or that
men can be changed in their principles, their feelings, and
their inward life, in any such ratio as that in which we see
external changes going on. Men say, " We are not living in
the days before steam and electricity were known. We are
living in a quicker age. We plow our fields by steam. We

538 THE OLD PATHS.

talk across tlie ocean. There is a tongue that vibrates be-
tween Europe and America under the sea. We are traveling
fast ; we are living fast ; and it is a shame for men to lag be-
hind in tbe highest elements of humanity — in their moral
and social feelings. We ougbt to be up and doing."

Now, progress is always fastest in tbe lowest stages, and
it becomes slower and slower as it goes higher and higher,
because it grows more complex. That part of our nature
which stands highest, or which is nearest perfection, is that
part which receives the least culture, and which therefore
develops the most slowly. Those social elements which relate
to our growth work faster in the lower realms of human
progress than in the higher. A nation may build ships, and
warehouses, and docks, and cities ; it may cultivate fields
until the grain can find no roofs to store itself witlial ; it
may travel rapidly, and it may learn to travel in the air ; it
may make more exquisite glasses, and bring nearer the most
remote objects : but it does not follow, because men can do
these physical things, that they are more generous, more
sensitive, more pure-minded, or more disinterested. It does
not follow, because single individuals can do these things,
that the mass of men can.

You can teach men to eat better food, you can teach
them to wear better clothes, you can teacli them to live in
better houses, very fast, because all these things lie along the
line of their lower nature, where they are strongest ; but if
you go higher, and teach them to be more just and to be
more merciful, the process is slower ; and if you teach them
the subtle elements of self-restraint it is slower yet. There
is no proportion and no analogy between the rapidity with
which we develop in physical things, and the rapidity with
which we develop in that part of our manhood which is
truest and divinest. So that when, in this hurly-burly of
expectation, men, without thought or reason, say, " We are
living in a progressive age, everything is going by steam and
electricity, and we ought to go fast in art, in politics and in
religion ; everything ought to roll over and over, and keep on
the move," they are talking about things which they do not
understand.

THE OLD PATHS. 539

We must note, also, the danger of giving up any belief or
custom which has been entwined in our moral sense. There
is a ground here which is abundantly recognized, but which,
generally, is not really felt — the necessity of regarding with a
certain sacredness the lower steps or stages of our own devel-
opment. Man is born at the bottom, and is obliged to go up
steadily.

Our progress is like the progress upon stairs or a ladder.
If you go up one step, and let the lower round stand, and
you go up another step and let the two stand, and you go
up a third and fourth, and so on, and let them all stand,
you will gradually rise to the top ; but suppose a man, taking
his first step on the lowest round of a ladder, should say to
his servant, " Saw the bottom part of that ladder off and
throw it away," and, taking the next, should say, " Saw that
off and throw it away," and should continue that process all
the way up, when he had taken the whole forty steps he
would be on the ground where he first started. It is by
keeping the steps by which you have risen that at last you
reach the top.

When a child has gone through his alphabet-book, in
which are words of two and three syllables, he lays it aside ;
but he does not lay aside the contents of it, — he carries them
along with him. They are the elements by which he is to
go a step higher in reading. And practice there, when he
has gained with it familiarity, carries him yet another step.
So he goes from one step to another, from one range to an-
other, taking with him, as he rises, that which he has
acquired lower down.

What would be thought of a man who considered it nec-
essary to perfection in literature that he should despise the
alphabet ? What would be thought of a man who should
say, '*The alphabet is good for pantalettes ; but what has a
man to do with the alphabet ? I am learned. I do not want
the alphabet." It was as important to Isaac Newton when
he was fifty as when he was five years of age. It goes on
with a man all his life long.

It is not safe to remove or meddle with the lower stages
of a man's development, even those that are imperfect.

540 THE OLD PATHS.

until they are superseded by something better. It is not
safe for a man, when he is perfect (perfect, that is, in the
human sense), to knock away the imperfect elements from
beneath him, except by putting in their places something
better. For instance, it is a thousand times better that the
Parsee should worship light than that you should satisfy
him by astronomical proofs that his gods are delusions,
and so leave him with no God. It is better that a heathen
should have the restraint which comes fi-om even idolatrous
worship, than that he should be left without idols and god-
less. It is a great deal better that a man should believe that
the Church is the fountain of authority, than that he should
be made to disbelieve in the authority of the Church with-
out having taken in the greater authority under which the
Church itself is an institution. I never would say to a deep-
hearted Catholic, praying to the Virgin Mary, " That is an
infatuation, a fiction." Until you can breathe into men the
conception that in Jesus Christ is all that tenderness of the
mother-heart which they long for, until you can preach to
them the God that has in himself all these qualities which
they seek in the Virgin Mary, it is better to let them believe
in her; but when they understand that Christ is mother
infinitely more deep, and tender, and compassionate, and
quick to hear, and ready to help, than they ever conceived
the Virgin Mary to be, then you may take her away — indeed,
the Virgin Mary will die out of their thought then, and they
will find in this new conception what they sought for in the
Virgin.

It is not safe to take away a man's view^ because it is inac-
curate, unless you give him a more accurate view. If you
destroy a man's faith in those that serve him intellectually
and dialectically ; if you destroy his faith in the priesthood,
in sacrifice, and in the system in which he has been Drought
up, in which his conscience has been trained, with which
his associates have become interwoven, and in which is en-
shrined his memory of father, and mother, and brothers, and
sisters, and neighbors, the tender thoughts of his childhood,
and his early love; if you destroy a man's faith in the Ritual,
the Cathedral, and all those things which are connected with

THE OLD PATHS. 541

tlie religion in which he has been reared, and if you nut
nothing in its place, then, if you think you have done God
good service, you are mistaken ; you have neither done God
service, nor the man either. You have destroyed the life
that was in him, and left him a desert.

Wherefore it is a great deal better for a man to believe an
imperfect thing, it is a great deal better lor him to have par-
tial truth, a little truth mixed with much error, than that
what he has should be taken away from him, and that noth-
ing higher and better should be given to him in its stead.

In the transition from a lower to a higher form of belief
there is great peril. Strong natures are able to survive it ;
but it is a dangerous thing for a man to pass from one relig-
ion, espoused in his youth, to another espoused in his man-
hood. There have been a great many persons who have sailed
out of the harbor of Popery and been wrecked long before
they got into the harbor of Protestantism. Many have gone
out from Heathenism who never got into Christianity. There
are thousands of men who are brought up rigorously in Ortho-
doxy, and who start to go to Unitarianism, or Universalism,
or Swedenborgianism, but who stop short of that at which
they aim. They go out of one religion and do not get into
another.

Orchardists often have to change the top of their trees.
The fruit which they bear was thouglit to be good enough in
old times ; but better fruits have come up, which they wish
to substitute for those which are inferior. Therefore the}i
make the change by grafting. But it is not safe even to'graft
an apple tree, if it be large, all over at once. The shock
which would thus be given it would greatly enfeeble it, if it
did not kill it. So a skillful orchardist takes off a few
branches one year, a few others the next year, and a few
others the next, and grafts them ; thus giving the grafts of
one year a chance to set and grow, and then putting in others,
and then others, the whole process occupying a period of two
or three years. And if this care is necessary in the case
of a poor, dumb apple-tree, how much more is necessary in
the case of the human soul when its vital elements are
changed ! Where a person has been trained to certain beliefs

542 THE OLD PATHS.

by family influences, by social customs, by public sentiment,
by ordinances, by institutions, by music, by priests, by all
manner of instrumentalities, to take awy those beliefs rudely^
and put nothing in tlieir place, is the most perilous thing thai
you can do. You can cure a man of Papacy, and yet not
make a Protestant of him. I would rather have a good
Catholic, any time, than a bad Protestant; and I would
rather have either of them than nothing, half-way between.

We are not, therefore, to consider, in a headlong way, that
to change men's faith and their life-long habits, though they
may be erroneous, is of course our duty. There is too often a
partisan spirit in religion. If a man be of the Greek faiLh,
or the Eoman faith, or a Eitualistic faitli, we consider him
our lawful prey, and we go at him, and hunt him down if we
can. Then, at once, an argument takes place, and he tries to
convince us, and we try to convince him. As if changing
from one mode of belief to another was going to Aicnage
the conscience, the reason, the taste, the moral susceptibility,
or any of the ten thousand subtle elements which belong to
character rather than to mere dialectic belief.

Moreover, the relinquishinent of trust or of practice
should always be from worse to better. If a man has a poor
way of looking at religion, it is not so much for you to con-
vince him of his poverty as quietly to convince him of a
better way.

If I were to go into the cabin of a pioneer who was
brought up in the wilderness, and who knows nothing of
bread except of the coarsest kind, and were to undertake to
persuade him that his coarse bread was not wortliy of a man'a
eating, — that it allied him to the ox, and to the horse, — and
were to describe to him that which goes to make a feast in
civilized society, would that be wise ? Let me take a loaf of
good bread, and go quietly and place it on his table, where
the black, coarse, throat-scratching loaf is, saying nothing,
and let him once pass a knife around, and scalp the good
loaf, and begin to eat it, and he will say, ** What is this ?
Where did it come from ?" I3 there not more conviction in
tasting one piece of good bread than there is in forty argu-
ments against poor bread ?

THE OLD PATHS. 543

Men are crying up this church or that church. Go and
taste : it it is just like any other church. But let men once
be brought into a communion where there is more patience,
more real brotherhood, more belief of man in man, better
living, and sweeter life, and then they will not need any argu-
ments. The tasting satisfies them ; and they say, ". How did
you get it ?" and, " Where did you get it ?"

I say to a man in regard to the road he travels to market,
"Your road is like a ram's-horn ; it goes up and down, and
winds round and round, and it is not worthy to be called a
road ; shut it) up." He says, " How shall I get to market ?"
*^0h," I say. ''never mind the market ; shut it up." But
shall he shut it up before be has a better one ? Isn't a poor
road better than no road at all to market ? If you want him
to have a better road, make that better road, and then he will
not need any argument to persuade him to travel on it, any
more than a man with good bread before him needs an argu-
ment to convince him that it is better than poor bread.

So, if you are teaching men that one intellectual system is
better than another, and that one religious organization is
better than another, present to them the fruit which it bears :
and if tliat is better than the fruit of the other system or
organization, he will not need any argument to persuade him
of the fact.

A man tiiat has been eating frost grapes will not want
many arguments to persuade him to eat Hamburgh grapes, if
he once gets a taste of them. I would not eat a wild orange,
if I could get good grafted oranges. I would not eat crab-
apples, if I could get pippins or golden-russets.

Now if a man is sweet and disinterested, and is a devotee
in the Roman Catholic Church, what can you do but accept
him as a Christian? Here is the fruit of Christianity, and
there is no gainsaying it. If I coidd not get it in any other
way, I would go into the Catholic Church. I hold that a
man should go where he is made more manly and nobler:
and if you want to draw men out of other churches ; if you,
being orthodox, want to draw men out of churches that are
heterodox ; if you think you have the best training institu-
tions and the most fruitful intellectual systems, and you want

544 '^^E OLD PATHS.

to bring these to bear upon men efficaciously, let tliem see
what you are, and if they see that you are better than they
are, they will adopt your systems and institutions. If I think
that men have a heretical idea of the divine nature ; if I
think that they have lapsed from Calvinism ; if I think that
they are devil's agents, and are destroying the faith of the
saints, and that they ought to be damned, and if, under such
circumstances, men see me advocating orthodoxy in a spirit of
deviltry, what inducement is there for them to come to my
ground of belief ? If a man holds a better system of religion
than his neighbor, the first proof that we want of it should be
in himself. If you are better than another man, your life,
and not the doctrine which you hold, will be the evidence
of it.

A man whom I know to have been crumpled up with
rheumatism comes to me walking erecL, and I say to him,
"Halloa ! my dear fellow, how did you get well ?" He says,
" I applied to such a physician, and here I am." This is the
story. His neighbor, who comes limping along at the time,
says, "That is all quackery ; I have the only doctor that is
good for anything ;" and he, still crumjiled up, is a specimen
of what his physician does. Who would go to his physician,
after seeing him ?

If a church breeds meekness, sweetness, gentleness, pa-
tience, fortitude, love, courage, manliness, and disinterested-
ness; if it makes noble men, — uncrowned but undoubted
princes, — then it is a church, it is a living epistle which will
convince men ; but sects will never make much headway,
except by some such methods as political parties resort to,
using coarse and base influences, until they come to under-
stand that it is in vain to change beliefs, notions, institu-
tions, customs, and systems, if men are not changed in the
same proportion or ratio. What we want, therefore, is not
change, except for betterment.

Here are three or four wretches on the sea. They have
been wrecked, and they have laslied four or five planks
together. The raft which they have thus formed is a miser-
able affair. They have almost no ]n-ovision. Their water
has given out. They have not a shadow of a sail. Theii

THE OLD PATHS. 545

outfit is about as poor a one as ever half a dozen men started
for a voyage a tliousand miles from the coast on ; but Avould
you say to them, "Jump oil : it is a miserable raft" ? It is
true that that would end the Journey ; but would you not
advise them to remain on it until they were better provided
for ? By and by there comes a boat alongside of them. It
is crowded, and there is but little room, and it is but scantily
provisioned. Nevertheless, they are invited to get in ; and I
would say to them, " By all means, get off the raft and get
into the boat;" for the boat is better than the raft, although
when the winds begin to lift themselves up it is a poor thing
to carry men on a long voyage, ■ a'\ here is pjril. Still later
in the day, as the sun goe;: do\y:,: something more glorious
than the sun dawns upon viior.' vision. It is the sail of a
fishing-smack. She bear,: dovm ni them, and they are taken
on board of hor. How ^Ir.cl '.liey arc ! and they have reason
to be. The fishing-smrjC]*: J': a small concern, and is not well
provisioned ; but 1'; r '; jtter tnan the boat, and that is the
reason why they shotdd r.bando the boat and get into the
fishing-smr.e':. Tomorro fchei . : seen what appears like a
speck on the lon^ ibboii of the horizon. A steamer is com-
ing. She draws nerr. Th' are transferred from this ill-
conditioned smack to that glorious ocean-going steamer.
And ho\r glad '^hey are ! But even then they are not half so
happy c; obey are when she lands them upon the good old
solid continent. There they are safe.

Now, of men, some are on rafts, some are in boats, some
are on steamers, and all are making the voyage of life ; and
when you can change from bad to better, or from better to
best, do so ; but do not change for the sake of changing.

I remark, again, that all new truths, like new wine, must
have a period of fermentation. I am not a disciple of Dar-
win, I do not belong to the Darwinian school, or to the school
®f Huxley, or of Tyndall, or of Spencer ; and yet, I thank
God for raising them up, all of them. I believe them to be
men who aro throwing out ore which, when it is smelted and
purified, is to be precious indeed. I think them* to be pioneer
working men. Much that they write I think is true, and
much I think is not yet true. They have a large follow-

546 THE OLD PATHS.

ing, and tliey will have a larger and larger following, because
there are elements of truth in their teaching which are
indispensable to the reconstruction of men's beliefs. You
need not say that it is science which they are developing.
It is something that covers the whole ground of human
existence. It touches belief in every single point. It goes
back to the origin of man ; and that determines largely
the nature 'of man. In respect to Scripture, it touches
the question of inspiration, and the structural method by
which the Bible was created. It rises higher, and touches
the whole question of moral government. Not only that, but
it touches the question of sin, of individual responsibility,
and foreshadows the modification and the reconstruction of
theology as a whole. It looks forward to material changes
in religious belief, in the organization of society, and in the
education of the race. Germs of truth there are m it.

Now, shall men abandon old beliefs, and take these germs
of truth that lie in the heavens like nebulous clouds, not yet
ready to rain and produce grain, grass, or flowers ?

All truths are, at first, on probation. They must be
fought ; they must suffer persecution ; they must be reviewed ;
for it is with truths as it is with causes. They are obhged to
be martyrs, in the first place. They have to be ransacked and
vindicated. Their relations to life have to be considered,
and proj^er inferences have to be deduced from them. They
have to be scrutinized. Their effect, when they are brought
to bear upon men's dispositions, has to be considered. Their
connection with laws and institutions has to be looked into.
Their legitimate influence upon the moral sense and religious
conduct of men has to be discussed. The work is great ; and
he is not a wise man who, in this crude and early stage of
these truths, will rush after them, and abandon the faith of
his fathers. We are not wise if we follow these new lights
before we know what they are — before we know their extent
and their practical apphcation.

I would l>e far from urging young men to be moles and
bats ; I would be far from urging them to hang on old beliefs
as air-plants hang on the branches of old trees, having no
roots of their own, I do not do that myself, and I do not

THE OLD PATHS. 547

want you to do it. But seest thou a man wise in his own con-
ceit ; seest thou a man who, looking on these late discoveries-,
is exhilarated ; seest thou a man who engorges himself with
new wine and spews it out speedily, because it is not fitted for
dio-estion ; seest thou a man who takes faiths which, though
they may' not be absolutely true, are, nevertheless, approxi-
mately true, and have been held for ages by nations and gen-
erations, and throws them away because there looms up
something which may be added to them, or may modify
them ? What hope is there for him ?

Let me say a word, also, in opposition to the wild and
unreasonable urgency of those who say, "Every man ought
to be independent, and ought to find out things for himself.
It is not becoming for a young American, at this age, to
allow such books to be written as are written, and he not
read and explore, and fashion his faith, not on what his
mother or his father told him, but on what his reason, by
the aid of the light which he can get, enables him to arrive
at." Suppose I should say to a dandy, " It does not become
you to bay your boots, your hat and your clothes of others ;
you should make them yourself "?— how absurd that would
be ! Wh}^ I do not make my own shoes, because others can
make better shoes than I can. I do not make the garments
which I wear, because I can have them made better by others
than I can make them myself. I do not make the watch
that I carry. I should not know how to go to work to do it.
I work for other men in some things, and they work for me
in other things. It is indispensable that there should be an
exchange of the results of men's training and skill. This is
a factor in civilization.

But when it comes to belief, men think it is unmanly to
have others think for them. Everybody must think for
himself, it is thought. It is argued that man, having reason
given to him for use, must see what truth is, although it is
so immense and so complex.

Dr. Lindley, in the introduction to his work, leaving
alone the sciences of geology, and zoology, and ornithology,
and physiology, and all the otlicr ologies, and speaking sim-
ply of botany, says, " Let no man think that he can in a

548 THE OLD PATHS.

life-time become a universal botanist. A man should mal\e
his selection of some department — that of the mosses, or
grasses, or some kind of flowers — and devote himself to
that." In this single science, a man must confine himself to
one department, if he expects to attain to a perfect degree
of knowledge. 'And if that is so in regard to one branch
of physical science, how is it in regard to all the elements
of a man's faith, including the whole realm of govern-
ment and its institutions ; including the whole system of
inter-filiation, man with man ; including the whole sphere of
religion that is the central city at which all the sciences
meet ? And to say to a young man, untrained, undeveloped,
not accustomed to investigation, whose encyclopedia is the
morning newspaper, •' Why do you not stand on your own
feet ? why are you forever tied to the apron-strings of your
nurse and your mother? why are you not an independent
thinking man ? " — would belike asking me why I do not make
everything in my house — pictures, books, fu'uiture, clothes,
linen, ranges, bricks, stone and what not. It would be pre-
posterous. We are so related, by the laws of God, one to
another, that no man can think out everything for himself.

Is it then wiser to plunge into the realm of nothingness
or the unknown, is it wiser to accept every rash theory that
is set forth, is it wiser to give up your belief at once when its
validity is questioned, or is it wiser to hold on to the faith of
your father and mother till you can see something better ?
It is said (and I believe there is some truth in it) that the
Legislature of Connecticut, when they first got together,
resolved that the Colonies should be governed by the laws of
God in the Old Testament until they had time to make better
ones. It strikes you as humorous, but it was very wise.
There was a vast portion of the ancient code that would not
apply to the people of Connecticut. What had they to do
with circumcision, and not carding wool and linen together,
and performing sacrificial temple service ? And yet, there
were certain didactic and religious laws laid down in that
code which were of universal application. So, it was well for
them to be governed by the Old Testament till they had time
to construct those special laws by which, in their peculiar

THE OLD PATHS. 540

circumstances, they should be governed. It is better for any
man to abide by the laws of God till he can make better
ones ! It is better for men to adhere to the faith of their
fathers and mothers, or of the churches to which they belong,
till they see distinctly a better way.

I must say one word more on the subject of new truths,
and the advocates of them. I wish that words could change
human nature. I wish, when men declare themselves to
belong to tiie universal catholic church, it were an indication
that they belonged to the universal catholic soul of God ;
but calling men catholic does not make them catholic. I wish
men were orthodox when they say they are orthodox ; but
words do not make quality. A man is no better simplj
because he wears a broad-brimmed hat and a straight coat of
drab. There have been admirable men, and some that might
have been better, under the Quaker garb. A man is not
changed by a name.

Now, there is more and more a tendency to praise scien-
tific men who devote their lives to the investigation of truth,
as though nobody else had ever done such a thing. They are
praised for applying themselves to the finding out of facts,
as if they were the only persons that ever applied them-
selves to the finding out of facts. Scientific men them-
selves say, "'' Oh, you are Christians, and you have faith ;
but we believe in truth." There is a conceit, an arrogance,
a dogmatism, a bigotry of science, as really as there is of
religion. Scientific men deride the old popes and bishops.
They poke fun at the churches — especially the bawling
Methodists, the tight-laced Presbyterians, and the no-laced
Congregationalists. They look with pity or contempt upon
the different sects and denominations. ^'But," say they,
"we are disciples of the truth. Our business, morning,
ftoon, and night, is to winnow the wheat from the chaff.
We do not believe in anything that we can not prove. There
may be a God, but we haven't found him out. It may be
that the soul is immaterial and spiritual ; but we will believe
nothing that we can not reduce to a scientific fact."

Far be it from me to say that the world is not reaping,
and is not to reap, abundant fruit from the labors of scien-

550 THE OLD PATHS.

tific men ; but, I say that they are no better than other men.
They are no more likely to be right in spirit. They are just
as likely to be proud, and vain, and arrogant. They are just
as likely to quarrel among themselves. They are just as
likely to fall into sects — they are doiug it. So, you need not
think that there is any charm about scientific men, or that
they are any nobler than other men. They are all human.
They have the same traits, the same weaknesses, and the same
liabilities, that other men have ; and they are to be absolute
authorities for nobody.

There are many men in this world who follow them afar
off. The guides and models are bad enough ; but their dis-
ciples are most intolerable — these little monkey disciples,
j^igmies, trotting around, knowing very little, and talking
very much. What these really laborious men, in spite of
their imperfections and human liabilities, are doing by patient
toil, and much work, their followers are doing by sleight of
hand and dexterity. I see on every side men who take the
soap-suds of science, and stick their pipe into it, and blow a
bubble, and seeing a face in it, say, " That is God !" It
is only themselves, distorted in their own soap-bubble ! Folly
is not dead yet.

In view of all the ground gone over — for I cannot pursue
the subject further now, — let me say that all the tendencies
which narrow the moral sense and enlarge the liberty of the
passions, no matter from what source they come, are danger-
ous. Whatever may be taught in any direction, one thing is
certain — that the flesh man is in antagonism to the spirit
man. Whatever the theory of the universe may be, one
thing experience has ascertained beyond all peradventure,
that the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against
the flesh, and that the right is with the spirit.

Anything, therefore, that unties moral sentiment ; any-
thing that lowers the power of spiritual thought and spiritual
smotion ; anything, especially, that strengthens the basilar
appetites ; anything that works for the animal man and
against the spirit man, is surely wrong, — I care not by what
philosophy it is supported, and I care not what examjiJes
have favored it.

THE OLD PATHS. 551

Our business in life is to bring under appetite and passion
by the domination of reason and moral sentiment ; and all
tendencies which weaken reason and moral sentiment, and in-
crease the power of the under man, are unquestionably to be
avoided. There is death in them.

Secondly, all tendencies which increase self-conceit are to
be suspected and disowned ; for, although self-conceit is con-
stitutional with some, this abides as an eternal maxim :

" Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit ? There is more hope
of a fool than of him."

Well, now, how much hope is there of a fool ?

" Though thou bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pes-
tle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him."

Grind a man up, and the last thing that will appear, if he
is conceited, will be his conceit.

But what does conceit do ? It makes a thing true to a
man just because he thinks it is true. It makes a man hand-
some, because he thinks he is handsome. It makes anything
that he tiiiuks better than what anybody else thinks. It
stops his investigation, therefore, and jireciiiitates him on
rude and crude conclusions. It teaches him not the truth,
but the reflection of himself — his own fanaticism.

These tendencies are peculiarly develoiDcd under the spirit
of our own age and our own institutions. They are en-
couraged by the public sentiment of the nation. Having a
democratic republican government, and being a free people,
we are constantly tending to laud self and individualism, and
to become conceited. We are far more vam than proud.
Would to God that w^e had something of the nature of our
paternal stock ; for they were more proud than vain. Both
pride and vanity may be bad ; but pride is a tower of strength,
and is greatly to be desired, if it is not inordinate. It gives
a sense of what is becoming ; but vanity runs under all colors.
A man should be proud enough to have self-confidence ; but
self-conceit leads one to desire the empty applause of men,
and to run into exhibitory spirit — and that to the very end.

Those tendencies which extinguish in a man all spiritual
elements, such as arise from faith in God, immaterial and
spiritual existence and immortality, must inevitably degrade.

552 y^-E OLD PATHS.

narrow, piuch, starve those great essential qualities out of
whicli mauhood lias grown so much. You cannot conceive
of heroism growing out of the abnegation of these great
truths. Teach a man tbat he is born as the grass, and that
he dies as the grass ; teach him that the beginning and the
end of his life are but a hand's-breadth apart, and how can
you make a hero out of him ? You cannot make a hero out
of a creature of an hour. Send out and gather into a Sun-
day-school the summer midges which play fantastic games in
the air, and you can as soon turn them into immortal crea-
tures as you can turn into heroes men who have no belief in
God or in the future.

There is in such a limitation an in-bred corruption which
would in a generation destroy all heroism. This is one rea-
son why I should long hesitate to teach the doctrine of anni-
hilation, even if there were more arguments for it than there
are. If the doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked were
to be taught, the jioor would be destroyed. Men would
say of those low down in life, " Oh, these slaves, these un-
derlings, these untaught and unbred creatures, are not going
to live longer than through this life anyliow ; they will die
and go out ; so that it does not matter much how they are
treated." That which makes a man sacred before men is that
he is sacred before God ; he is sacred as carrying wrapped
up in himself elements which are to be known in the grand
future. It is what he is to be as well as what he is, that
makes a man great aihong men, and that opens, or begins to
open, that greatness which he shall have with God.

All tendencies which undermine your substantial faith in
God and immortality, and your belief in the reality of a
world of joy and a penal world (for these two great truths go
side by side), that right and wrong are eternal, and that in
the other life, as in this, obedience to right is joy, and obe-
dience to wrong is pain, and that joy and pain go on forever
— all sucli tendencies have the eCect to take away your hope,
and so, your motive for striving to reach a higher life. A
man under such circumstances becomes a beggar, a pitiful
creature, M'orse than the beast of the field, less than the
swine. The hog knows the law of his own being, and does

THE OLD PATHS. 553

not fall below it; but the drinking, vicious, lewd, lecberous
man — liow far is he below his conqueror, the animal ? and.
what is there that should save him ? Why should I not crush
him ? Why should he not be treated like the sheep, the ox,
the bear, the lion, or the tiger ? Because there is in him an
inextinguishable soul. Because there is that in him for
which Christ died. Because there is that in him which
prophesies. It is this that makes a man in his weakness, in
his state of unculture, in his degradation and corruption,
still sacred before God, as he should be before men, before
magistrates, and before communities. Take away our
thought of God and our responsibility to God, take away
the doctrine of immortality and of infinite duration here-
after, and you have removed the foundations from under
society, and it will not be long before down will go laws, and
governments, and institutions, and mankind will have a
weary pilgrimage in a world of unbelief, until they come
slowly back to their old faiths, and build anew.

Make better paths, if you will ; but abandon not the old
paths ; and of all the paths which you are not to abandon is
that one which lies straight through the land toward Jeru-
salem. And when the ransomed of the Lord shall return
and come to Zion, with songs and everlasting joy upon their
heads, come thou I May 1> and mine, and all of us, be there I

554 THE OLD PATHS.

PRAYEE BEFORE THE SERMON.

Look down upon us, our heavenly Father, with that compassion
which belongs to thee because thou art God. Because thou art per-
fect in holiuess, have compassion upon our sinfulness. Because thou
art perfect in wisdom, have compassion upon our ignorance. Be-
cause thou art exalted above all need of counsel, aud dost dwell in
an infinite strength of divine love, have compassion upon us who
must lean at every step upon something, and who are of our-
selves poor, foolish, stumbling. For it is of the nature of true great-
ness to have compassion upon tliat which is not great; and thou
dost not look above thee, nor round about thee, to find thine equals
or those that are akin to thee. Thine eye descends, and searches
out all the inflnite places of trouble on the earth; and thou art
pleased to say that thou dost dwell with the broken and contrite
spirit. Thou dost inhabit the heart which is conscious of its want,
and is pierced with sin and sorrow and remorse. Unto such thou
dost come to dwell, because thou art God. This is thy nature from
eternity and unto eternity.

We rejoice that we have found out so much of thy being, and
that we know so much of the meaning of divine greatness and good-
ness. We rejoice that thou hast said that thou art toward us what
we are in our best estate as parents toward our childj-en, but infi-
nitely more and better. If we liuow how to give good gifts to our
children, how much more shall our Father which is in heaven give
gifts to those that ask him ?

We are strong in this thought of thee. Once we feared thee be-
cause thou wert to us justice, and because justice, as we conceived
of it, meant a sweeping condemnation of our weaknesses, of our
Infirmities, of our sharp aiid overwhelming temptations which
brought in sin, and which also brought in fear and dread; and we
had no refuge and there was no hope. Not until thou didst make
thyself known to us as the God of infinite mercy and compassion,
n^y, not until thou didst manifest thyself through Jesus Christ, aud
give thme own beloved Son to die for sinful men, did we understand
what was the greatness, and the grandeur, and the righteousness,
and the power of divine love, so far removed from calculating self-
ishness among men; so far removed from all bargain and sale, and
all the coarser modes of exchange on earth; so royal in its dis-
interestedness.

We rejoice as in treasures found— treasures that cannot be taken
away from us— in these disclosures of thy nature; and we rejoice
that thou hast not compassion upon a covenant, and hast not mercy
upon a bargain ; and that thou dost not govern thyself by arrange-
ments, by outward provisions, as men by reason of their weak-
nesses manage themselves. Thou wilt have mercy on whom thou
wilt have mercy. Thou art a God that dost take counsel of thine
own feeling; for thou art everlastingly right, and it is safe for thee
to do whatsoever thou dost desire to do; and in thy freedom, in the
depth and purity of thy nature, and in the revelation that holiness
seeks unholiness to heal it, and strength seeks weakness to exalt it,

THE OLD PATHS. 55g

■we rejoice that thou art God because thou knowest how to descend
aud rescue the lowest and meanest creatures in thy vast realm, and
supply their wants ; and since we liave known this to be God, we are
not afraid. All our hope comes from this revelation of thy nature.
Now, when we are weak, we know where our strength is. When we
faint, we know where our healing is. When we stumble, we know
where the hand is that will lift us up.

Grant, we pray thee, that we may not be led to presumption be-
cause thou art so kind and good. May we not blind our eyes, and
harden our hearts, and tread under foot the blood of the atonement
whereby we have been sanctified.

We pray that thou wilt grant a sense of thy presence and kindly
thought and bounty to all who are gathered together this morning:
to the aged, according to their necessities; to those that are in the
midst of life doing battle, bearing burdens, harassed with cares.
Give to them the sustaining grace which they need. To those who
are entering full of the brightness of hope and courage upon the
way of life, grant that providence and guardianship which they
desire.

We pray that thou wilt bless the young — the little ones. Grant
that they may grow up in all purity, aud truth, and piety unto final
salvation.

We pray that thou wilt draw near to any who are especially in
affliction ; to all those who have been called to darkness, to tears, to
great heart-trouble. Be thou gracious unto them according to their
need.

And we beseech thee that thou wilt guide this morning all
who have come hither conscious of doubts and difficulties, and whose
consciences are burdened therewith. Give them that light and that
revelation of thyself, by which they shall know how to find the truth
and to find God. May tliere be a witness of thee in the souls of
those who are tossed hither and thither. May they have springing
up in themselves a filial feeling and yearning. May their hearts cry
out, Abba, Father! and so may they know that God loves them.

We pray that thou wilt grant unto those who are called in thy
providence to labor among their fellow men, that they may be im-
bued with all spiritual wisdom from on high; that their power may
be in the strength of God, and not in their own strength.

We pray that thou wilt bless the work of this church in its various
fields of labor. We pray for our schools and Bible classes ; for the
superintendents and the teachers; for the scholars, for the families
from whi(^h they come, and for the neighborhoods to which they
belong. We beseech of thee that the blessing of the Gospel may be
more and more diffused through the instrumentalities of this
church; and may those who labor therein not be weary in well-
doing, nor puffed up with success, nor discouraged because the fruit
IS delayed. May there be in each one a humble conception of his
own power. May every one have such a sense of the grace and
poodness of God toward him, that it shall seem to him an inexpress-
ible privilege to labor even in the lowest places in the vineyard of
the Lord.

556 THE OLD PATHS.

We pray that thou wilt bless those gathered together in this con-
gregation to-day who are strangers. Bless those from whom they
are parted. Grant, we pray thee, that those whom they have lett
behind may be blessed of God and preserved.

Prosper those who are pursuing errands legitimate, and in thy
providence. We pray that thou wilt be gracious to all those who
are round about us. Bless those who are detained from church.
Be mindful of those who are sick, and of those that watch with the
sick.

We pray that thou wilt grant thy blessing to rest upon all the
churches in this great city. May they be filled with light, with
warmth, ind with that sympathy which shall draw them to men for
the healing of their needs.

We pray that thy servants who are ordained to preach thy Word
may more and more be taught of God, that their preaching may be
with power from on high and full of fruit.

Bless, we pray thee, our nation ; bless all the nations of the earth ;
and grant that that joyous day may speedily come when there shall
be no more idols, no more superstition, no more ignorance, no more
unjust oppression, no more weakness, but when all men shall be
filled with the knowledge of God, and all nations shall rest at peace
among themselves, and the whole earth shall be filled with thy
glory.

And to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be praises ever-
lasting 1 Amen.

PRAYEE AFTER THE SERMON".

Our Father, we pray for thy blessing to rest upon the truth.
Grant that we may be led by it, not by our own prejudice, nor our
pride and vanity. May we put aside self-indulgence and obedience
to worldly custom. May we be inspired by thy Spirit. May we re-
joice in all truth. As it unfolds more and more, may we know that
it is truth by that which it does to us— by the richness of our souls,
by our self denial; by our humility; by our patience; by our power
to endure hardness as good soldiers. May we rejoice in all thine out-
ward bounties — in ships that sail, in warehouses that stand stored
full of blessings for the body, in industries of every kind, in better
houses, in all the comforts of home; and yet, may we know, and be
assured every day, that the kingdom of God is within us; and may
we believe that that is our greatest treasure and our whole hope.
Bless religion to the young. Bless those who are seeking for it.
Screen them from error. And we pray that the time may come
when the glory of the Lord shall reign among men. and be manifest-
ed in their walk and conversation ; and when men shall be exalted
Individually, and shall be collected into purer households and nobler
estates, and shall stand forth the sons of God.

And to thy name shall be the liraise, Father, Son, and Spirit.
Amen.

MEEKNESS, A POWER.

*' Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."—
Matt, v., 5.

The beatitudes may be called moral paradoxes. There ia
an internal truth in tliem all ; and yet all of them go against
the general impressions of men in respect to what is true.

" Blessed are they that mourn."

People have not been accustomed to think of affliction as
any great privilege.

"Blessed are ye when men shall persecute you."

Persecution has not been regarded as among the pleasures
of life.

"Blessed are the meek."

Well, yes ; a good, round-faced, sunshiny man, sitting in
a corner, and having no care and no business, is a very good
thing: but when it is said, "They shall inherit the earth,"
men are astonished. Inherit the earth ? the meek inherit
the earth? "Why!" say men, looking back, "where did
you ever find one of these men of moon-shine that was
worth anything when affairs were mixed, and when there
was need of thought, energy, will, combination, power?
Then it is, when the world's face is changed, that there are
armies on the land, and fleets whitening the seas, and coun-
sellors planning together, and the pouring out of money
everywhere ; but the great forces of life are not derived from
this meagre, moonshiny meekness of quiet men that let you
punch them, and do not strike back, and let you do just
what you have a mind to, and do not hinder you. This is as
if zero were to be put at the head of all arithmetic."

Now, if we should read in Buffon, or Cuvier, or Agassiz,

SUNDAY Morning, Feb. 21, 1875. Lesson : Psa. xixvli. Hymns (Plymouth Col<
lectton) : Nos. 2,647, 660.

560 mei:kness, a power.

that in the animal kingdom rabbits and sheep dominate
over all other animals, and that nightingales and canary birds
rule owls, vultures and eagles, it would not seem more as-
tonishing than for the Bible to say that the meek shall inherit
the earth.

If it had said, ''They shall have quiet," everybody would
have responded, "0 yes, they shall have quiet." If it had
said, "They shall have a pure heart," everybody would have
conceded, "Yes, they shall have a pure heart." Men would
have admitted these things : but to say that they are to gov-
ern ; to take that which is regarded as springing from weak-
ness, and that which has in it less overtness, apparently, than
any other quality, and to elect it to supremacy, and declare,
** It shall be magistrate, it shall rule, it shall possess the
earth," with this great roaring race, red with blood, flashing
with arms, combining with all forms of victorious plans, roll-
ing through time as the waves, storm-heated, roll through the
ocean, — that is too much for anybody. Men cannot under-
stand how meekness is going to inherit the earth.

And yet, it is very remarkable that this is not the utter-
ance of a later period — that it is not the utterance of a mystic
in Judea — that it is not the utterance of an inspired peasant,
as men would say. It is the testimony of the sacred writings
of the Bible, down through a period of four thousand years
— years in which by reason of men's weakness, polygamy and
slavery were tolerated, and evasions and untruths were not,
by good men, counted as such vices and crimes as they are
now. Through all the inchoate, nascent, emergent periods
of the race, there has been still in every part of the Old Testa-
ment, clear down to the New, this steady testimony — namely,
that the moral element is the strongest. Humility, purity,
righteousness, yea, and meekness, by name, have been
lauded from the very first, and they have been declared to be
in supremacy.

" The meek will he guide in judgment."

As I read to you, in the 37th Psalm, this morning,

"The meek shall inherit the earth."

This is from the lips of that robust old warrior, as well aa
sweet singer, David. It was not by meekness that he gained

MEEKNESS, A POWER. 561

everything whicli he had ; but when he was insph'ed to speak
out of the amplitude of his observation and experience, and
from the predominance of his nobler and finer feelings, he
saw that thread of truth even in his day ; and he declared
(and the declaration becomes a more significant testimony
since it is from a man of the spear and sword ; a man who
built a kingdom and brought it into military power ; a man
who subdued, for the time being, a vast portion of the East)
that, after all, there was something more than the spear and
sword.

" The meek shall Inherit the earth."

If you will take the trouble, with your concordance, to
run through the words " Meek" and " Meekness," you will
be astonished to see this steady testimony all the way through,
from beginning to end.

To me, this is one of those elements which go far to prove
the inspiration of the Bible. We are all seeking to authenti-
cate Scripture on bald, external and physical grounds. It is
significant to me, therefore, that long before men found out
anything of theology, there was a faith in certain moral ten-
dencies which has been growing ever since. The fidelity of
Scripture writers, and the clarity of their vision in discern-
ing the power of moral elements, is to me proof of the
inspiration of Scripture, far above any evidence of prophecy,
or miracle, or other considerations of an objective kind.

What is meekness ? Are we quite right in our under-
standing about it ? I have assumed, all through, that meek-
ness was in your estimation a sort of still, quiet, unfighting
disposition. That, certainly, is its development, frequently ;
but what is meekness ? What is meant by the quality of
meekness ? — for it is a quality, and not a faculty. Meekness
is a word representing the mode of activity of the whole
mind. It is an attribute interlaced among others. The
term is used to designate the spirit of the whole man, and
therefore includes in it the conduct of the reason, of the
moral sentiments, of the social affections, and of the passions
and appetites. It takes in the entire man, and characterizes
the particular mode of his carriage. It is all the faculties
within, acting in a given spirit or temper. It is the holding

563 MEEKNESS, A POWER.

of the entire mind, when in great actiyity, and especially
when under opposition and provocation — that is, under cir-
cumstances which tend to give to it the greatest amount of
force — in a calm, sweet, and gentle mood, so that the action
which proceeds from it sliall proceed from its higher, and not
from its lower, nature. It is such a holding of a man's self
when he is aroused that the best and spiritual side of his
nature shall lead and determine, and not the worst and human
side. It is the activity and force which are developed from
the divine side, and not from the human — from the moral sen-
timents and not from the animal passions. Therefore it has
in it a certain calmness, a certain control, a certain peaceful-
ness, a certain faith, trust, hope. It is that high and radiant
state of mind in which all the faculties act as if they were
held in the sweetness of the faith of God, and in the spirit
of sympatliy and love which is in God.

So, then, meekness is not a dawdling negative ; it is not
a lantern with a candle in it, cold and flickering, shining in
a dark place: meekness includes energy — if you please the
thunder of power — in it. It is all that is in man, thinking,
willing, acting — but acting under calmness, under sweetness,
under the law of benevolence. It exists where a man's nature
is so under the divine impress as that the agitations which
come from the passions cease, and the passions themselves
become only auxiliaries, and are entirely subservient to the
higher nature. It is the best side of man under provocation
maintaining itself in the best mood, and controlling all men.
The declaration is a general one — that this way of using a
man's self is not only best for tlie individual, but will, in the
long run, control the race. For it is not declared nor meant
that each particular man who is meek shall be superior to
everybody else about him. Facts contradict that. For ex-
ample, if a man is very feeble — feeble in his stomach, and
feeble in his lungs — then, of course, he will be feeble every-
where else. It is not meant that one man, simply because he
is meek, is more victorious than anotlier man who is strong
and robust throughout, and has an endowment twenty de-
grees higher all around than he has. It is merely meant
that if a man, with a given endowment, employs that en-

MEEKNESS, A POWER. 563

dowment according to the higher side of his nature, he
will be stronger than if he employed it according to the lower
side of his nature. We often see meek men go to tlie wall ;
but it is because they are weak. There is the meekness of
weakness, there is the meekness of the middle nature, and
there is the meekness of the strong nature ; and the declara-
tion is not that each meek man shall be victoiious over every-
body else, but that, in any given man, meekness is the
strongest mood in which he can carry himself ; and that in
regard to multitudes of men, in the long run, those who
carry themselves according to their highest nature in meek-
ness shall succeed, and shall overtop, at length, those who
carry themselves by their lower nature. There is an essen-
tial and predominant power of the spiritual instincts over the
anmial instincts in a man.

It is not meant, then, that meek men shall at once, or
always, succeed in their courage or entei'i^rise, while men that
are not meek shall at once and always fail. Our observa-
tion teaches us, every day, that it is not so ; but our observa-
tion also teaches us that in mixed affairs, in times of conflict,
of rivalries, and of collisions, the men who are meek are,
after all, the men who make headway.

Look at it. A very proud father has a son. He natu-
rally governs him with rigor and peremptoriness. He finds
out that the boy has, in his visitations, allied himself prema-
turely with a family with which it is very desirable there
should not be a connection. On hearing of it, he rpges and
storms ; and his wife says to him, " My dear, don't you know
that if you undertake to oppose this thing in that way, you
will do more harm than good ? Don't you know that if you
are violenb with the boy, you will only ratify him in his deter-
mination ?" He recognizes that fact, and calms down. He
goes to the boy and says, pleasantly, " Well, my son, how is
it with you ? I hear that you have been visiting." *' Yes,"
says the boy, ''I have." "Well, I am very glad of it;
where have you been?" "In Mr. So-and-So's family."
'*' Ah ! there are many excellent things in that famil}'. I
suppose you have become acquainted with the young peoj^le ?"
"Yes, sir." "And it is very natural that young people

564 MEEKNESS, A POWER.

should become attached to each other." So he goes on with
the conversation in a spirit of sweetness and gentleness, till,,
by and by, he has brought the young man round, and drawn
him away from tjiese dangerous grounds aud connections.
And the effect is the same whether he puts on the meekness,
or whether he feels it ; whether he holds in his bad temper,
and brings the sympathetic element of his nature into play,
or whether he acts as he is impelled to by his better feel-
ings. Whether he believes in meekness or not, he arrives at
the desired result by the use of it. The great thing is to
carry himself so as to overcome the boy's proclivities. It is
not an uncommon thing to juit on meekness, in order to gain
a purpose.

A man owes you a large debt — larger than you ought to
have allowed him to run up ; and things grow squally ;
and you think that it is only a question of time when he will
fail : but you do not go to him in anger, and say, " You owe
me fifty thousand dollars, and I want you to secure it to me
this very minute." What do you do ? You invite him to
dine with you at Delmonico's, and you laugh and talk with
him ; but you do not say a word to him about that debt, at
first. You do say to him, " If there is anything you want,
let me know it, and I will help you." Thus you get into his
sympathies, working your way along gradually ; and by and
by you say, "I am your fi'iend, aud I will see you through
this thing"; (yes, you will see him through it!) and then
when you have gained his confidence completely, you say,
"Could not you just arrange this thing so and so?" And
before you get through with him, you worm out an arrange-
ment with him by which you are all secure, — and you go
home and laugh. But when the other creditors come to get
their debts secured, they do not feel meek at all ! By meek-
ness, you have inherited that man's property, pretty much
all of it !

It is so, is it not, in domestic matters, and in commercial
matters ? Do not men understand how unwise it is to act, in
critical circumstances, from basilar motives ? Do they not
know how unwise it is to manifest pride and temper and
greediness ? Do they not know that they must throw them-

MEEKNESS. A POWER. 565

selves on the side of generosity, of benevolence, of sympathy,
of honor, of all helpfulness ? Do they not know that they
must pat men, and come to them with the very sweetest and
best things they can get out of themselves ?

So men do as old housewives do who keep sage, and pen-
ny-royal, and rue, and all kinds of sweet-smellmg herbs.
Almost all men have sweet-smelling herbs which they keep
in a cupboard to use upon occasion. They are all of them
rude and selfish ; but they have wrought out, not by theory,
but by experience, the knowledge that the power of a man
does not lie in his brute force, nor in violent temper, nor in
the domination of his will. Although these sometimes suc-
ceed, it IS, in the long run, the man who thinks, who plans,
who adapts himself to circumstances, who holds himself
under, and who seeks his rights and the ends at which he
aims by using the higher side of his nature, who is, speak-
ing m a general way, always successful.

It is not meant either, that the meek shall inherit the
whole earth, as a warrior like Alexander or Cgesar or Charle-
magne takes possession of an empire. It signifies the appro-
priation in a moral sense of the higher forces among men of
every kind. The highest force, as we have termed it, is
meekness. There is a direct declaration of the superiority
of the human mind, working from its higher elements and
temper, over the same mind, acting from the inferior or
animal temperament.

" When the Son of man cometh shall he find faith on the earth?"

So asks our Master. No, we reply ; not in the sense of
theological faith. There was enough of that in his day ;
but men did not believe in moral quality, except in spots and
occasionally. And now, there is an unbelief among man-
kind as to the superiority of moral forces. Men are slow to be-
lieve that what they see to be best in certain instances is best
under all circumstances. Their tendency is to believe that
cunning and craft are the elements which secure success.
They clothe themselves with higher qualities for a special
purpose ; but they do not believe that the average conduct of
men founded on those elements would give better success
than if they only assumed it occasionally. Meekness is

566 MEEKNESS, A POWER.

looked upon as a luxnr}', as an artificial thing ; but the Word
of God teaches that it is a primary force, that it is a dominant
power. So superior is it to all other modes of carrying one's
self, that when the race shall believe in it and accept it they
shall inherit the earth, or that part of it which can be of any
value to them. They who know how to carry all their forces
in that spirit shall be the aristocrats of the race, in the high-
est sense of that term — that is, they shall be the best men.

Men believe now in bodily strength. They have believed
in it in other ages still more than they do now. Tliey believe
in arms and armies. They believe in craft and cunning.
They believe in energy, and will, and perseverance. They
believe in things. They believe in matter. They believe in
influencing their fellow men, working upon them by threats,
by pains, by fear. There are vei'y few men who believe that,
in all directions, that man is using himself in the strongest
possible manner who is using himself by his highest nature,
in the sweetest and most perfect accord with the Divine
nature.

But, on the other hand, the whole Bible is a protest
against animalism and physicalism, and in favor of spiritual
power and spiritual wisdom. The whole Bible, from the rudest
ages down to our day, through blood and groans, amidst
kingdoms rising and kingdoms falling, with all the powerful
men in the world exercising their lower nature, has had this
doctrine running straight through it — that, after all, the
sweet and calm use of the superior faculties is the best
wisdom, and that they miss who take any other way, while
they gam who accept that way.

Men have not believed this ; but there has been a witness
and testimony of it all the way from the beginning to the
end of the Scriptures. Faith in moral quality is the charac-
teristic element of the Bible. Faith in integrity, faith in
righteousness, faith in the power of purity, faith in that
meekness which is the antipode of rude physical violence, —
this abounds throughout the Word of God as one of its most
prominent features. '^ He that has an enemy, and can crush
him, is a fool if he does not strike him down," says the world.
" He is a fool if he does," says the Word. " He who has a

MEEKNESS, A POWER. 567

grievous burden, and can shake it off, and does not do it, is
a fool," says the world. " Come unto me, and take my yoke
and my burden," saith the Lord. All the way through the
early revolutionary periods, the periods when men of right-
eousness were driven abroad over the earth, and wandered in
sheepskins and goatskins, being men of whom the world was
not worthy, there never lacked this one steady testimony.
What? testimony to the church ? testimony to the priesthood
and the temple and the altar ? testimony to sacrifices and
dogmatic theology ? No. The one line of light that shines
like a silver thread, running from Genesis to Revelation, is
the declaration that the son of God is the man who is in the
exercise of the highest reason and the highest moral feeling —
the feeling which love inspires — the feeling of humility and
meekness.

Meekness is a power, and it is the highest known power.
Men have found it out, as I have said, in single spots, enough
to confirm, by nascent and limited experience, the truth of
it ; but there has been great unbelief in the world concerning
it. Men, for the most part, do not believe in the power of
sweet, calm high-mindedness. Yet, in the Word of God,
there has been an unbroken testimony for it. The Script-
ures have, in every possible way, been continually urging it.

In a whole life-time, then, each man can do more and
better work by the use of his higher than by the use of his
lower nature. This is true, even if he. is seeking secular
success ; how much more must it be true, if he is seeking
success in conscious manhood! and how much more yet must
it be true, if he is seeking that success which lies in the hope
of immortality!

It is not by your flesh force ; it is not by the force of your
passions ; it is not by your assurance, or pride, or hatred, or
envy ; it is not by craft or cunning ; it is not by the combina-
tion of worldly experiences, that men are, in the best sense of
the term, successful : it is by that faith of superior moral ex-
cellence which shall enable them to wait through the years ;
to build slowly, that they may build surely ; and to build with
care, that they may build wisely. It is this faith by which
men grow, in the long run, and which is the secret of the

568 MEEKNESS, A POWER.

best success that is kuown in the world — not the success
which comes from the use of the lower faculties, and which
is liable to the touch of corruption, and which may in a mo-
ment be swept away by adversity, like the dust of the field -
but the success which comes from the use of the higher facul-
ties, and which is abiding. He who builds on the foundation
of moral moods and moral qualities builds never to need in-
surance. Neither time, nor fate, nor death, can touch such a
man to harm him. In the long run, the blessing of higher
moral qualities in society is more than any other blessing.
Even in a barbarous state he is the hero who does the things
that are the least possible to the great mass of men. Self-
government, and acting from a superior plane, will strike,
gradually, the minds even of barbarous men. But as civil-
ization increases — that is, as men become more we7i, as they
oi3en up more, as they have a better use of themselves, and
as culture grows more — under such circumstances, in propor-
tion as there is a development of the truth, that part of
society which uses the best instruments is the part of society
that prospers most.

You may divide the great cities and nations of the earth
into three classes — the top, the middle, and the bottom.
The middle is the great workshop. There is where the forces
are in strife and struggle, and where they grind and crush.
There is where the battle-shock is felt, and where the various
elements are sent whirling in different directions. It is so in
commerce ; it is so in politics ; it is so in all forms of human
life. The great middle class are in perpetual antagonism,
and are constantly striving against each other. But, out of
this hurly-burly and conflict, there is now and then one who
is lifted into a realm of peace higher than that which is
attained by his fellows, and whom all men look up to. There
are those who are the natural judges and counsellors of men.
There is, once in a while, a man whom persons, dying, would
like to have become the executor of their estates. Whom
would you pick out ? A man of great force, of great cun-
ning, of great power of combination ? No ; you would pick
out the man who, in the battle of life, has shown that he
works by the principle of righteousness. Such men are the

MEEKNESS, A POWER. 569

ones who, without election, rise by spontaneity. They are
God's elect. I believe in election, if you do not — only I
think every man votes for himself. He who lives by the
higher jjart of his nature is elected ; and, little by little, he
rises into the recognition of society around him.

Then, there is the opposite tendency. Men in the midst
of these grinding forces and conflicts of life fail and go down,
losing an eye, an arm, a leg, or something else, and settle
gradually into the under-class of the weak, the imbecile, the
unfortunate, the helpless, the useless, the mischievous, and
the criminal. You shall find that these are the men who
undertake to build by their basilar forces. They believe in
physics ; they believe in the flesh ; they believe in that lower
range of wisdom which they have in common with the fox
and the serpent, — and these are the men in the main who are
ground up here.

There are apparent exceptions to this which I have not
time to argue now ; but there are no real exceptions to it.
There is this great under-class which comes from the under
side of the human faculties, and there is this upper-class that
comes from the upper side of the human faculties.

Now, I ask you, who are superior? Who are the men
that have succeeded best in life ? Who are the men that
have held their success, and have reaped from it that for
which we seek success — have attained happiness, peace with
God, and peace among men ? I put it to your own judg-
ment. I put it to the observation of the youngest of you,
and still more to those who are well versed in life. Are not
the men who best stand the weather, the dislocations which
come from commercial revulsions, and all oppositions, those
who live in the exercise of their highest nature in the world ?
Other men have gone up, oh yes ; but they have come down
again. The meek were at the bottom when the race began.
They had conscience, they had scruples, they had delicacy of
thought and feeling ; and they could not consent to be gain-
ers at the expense of the destruction of other men. They
rather pitied them, and helped them. They could not exer-
cise hatred here and tliere. They must wait patiently for
their success. They must live right, whether they were

570 MEEKNESS, A POWER.

successful or not. But, little by little, they grew and ad-
vanced. It is the weed that runs up quickly on the dung-
liill ; but it seems as though corn would never get out of the
ground. So men, laying the true foundations of life, seem
to develop slowly ; but there is steady progress in their
growth, and finally their faith and patience are rewarded,
and on their passage up they meet those who outstripped
them at the beginning. "We meet everybody twice : first, as
he goes by us on his way up, laughing at us as we plod on
behind him, and again, as he comes down, while we are still
I)lodding on and up.

Men who believe in right instruments, in a right temper,
in that wisdom which is in concord with God, in purity, in
symj^athy, in loving-kindness, and in well-wishing for every
human soul, and who quadrate all their measures by these
divine qualities, — such men go steadily on and up ; and when
you come to make up the account, and balance the books, they
always come out on the credit side ; they are always ahead.

Take the imperfect condition of things which exists in
civilized society, and you will find that, as a general rule, men
do not believe in men of meekness. But let us inquire as to
who are really the men of power in the world. Ask, with me,
who are the men that have lived whom time could not slay ?
Well, take the old Oriental monarchs. There was the Medean
Empire, with its proud princes ; there was the Babylonian
Empire, with its proud princes ; there was the Assyrian Em-
pire, with its proud princes ; and who were they ? What
were they ? Eor their time, they were the richest, they were
the strongest, they were the most successful men. All the
world poured tribute into their luxurious self-indulgence.
And what became of them ? Who can tell ? Time sits upon
the ruins of the mighty things which they built, muttering ;
but we cannot hear even the name it pronounces.

" The memory of the wicked shall rot."

Who are the men that are known to-day ? Who are the
men that almost every child knows ? They are the men who
have blessed the world. They are benefactors, right-doers,
good men, inspiring justice, and peacefulness, and sweetness,
and h&rmony, and goodness, and righteousness.

MEEKNESS, A POWER. 571

Why, we hear of Alexander; yet none of his blood beats
iu your veins or in mine : but in your veins and in mine
beats the blood of Plato, who lived by his highest nature.
New England is as much Platonic as Judaic, for the Yankee
is a cross between the Greek and the Hebrew.

The great thinkers and legislators of time were wise men.
Their memory remains. He lives, and is immortal, who lives
to do good to others besides himself. If a man is a great and
pure genius he stands so high above the horizon that he never
goes down below it, but will shine in the firmament forever-
more.

Paul says :

" I beseech you by the gentleness of Christ."

Says Christ himself :

" Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am
meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls."

The prophet, in describing him, says :

"He shall not strive nor cry; neither shall any man hear his
voice in the streets."

He shall not be like the kingly warriors of old, who made
a stand, and with crowds, with legions, and with battering-
rams, dashed upon the enemy, and with yell and fury fought
from house to house and from street to street.

" The bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he
not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory."

This mighty Conqueror, this renowned Sovereign, this
Monarch of the ages, this Lord, this Jesus, comes not
with pomp and show ; his kingdom comes not with obser-
vation ; his advent is not with battle-cry nor with garments
dyed in blood. He comes so gently that the slender reed,
which, when wJiole, quivers in the wind, but which now,
bruised, only waits for a breath to bend it to its fall — he
comes so gently that this bruised reed shall not break.
He comes so gently that the flickering tip of flame on the
lamp, that lifts and sinks, and lifts and sinks, as if it knew
not wliether to go out or to abide, — so geiitly that the smoking
flax shall not be quenched. These are the extremest figureg
which you can imagine by which to express the wonderful

573 MEEKNESS, A POWER.

gentleness of this Mightiest of the mighty ; this Lord of
lords ; this King of kings ; this One who is renowned of the
ages past, and whose name is to be above every other name in
the future : and he calls men to come to him and learn the
power of meekness. When he came, it was with infinite
sweetness and tenderness ; and he desires his disciples to par-
take of those same divine qualities. Where was there ever
another name of such power ? and where was there ever a
name that had in it so miich of comforting peace and
love ?

The whole world to-day sit as scholars at the feet of Jesus
— not necessarily as learners of theology and dogma, but as
pupils seeking the illumination of human nature, faith in
self-control, and aspiration, and immortality, and knowledge
in the exercise of the nobler parts of man. All mankind,
to-day, are Christ's scholars. Not they that are called Chris-
tians are always Christians ; and not they that are called
heathen are always heathen. They who have the spirit of
Christ, whether they be in one or another part of the globe,
are Christ's ; and they who have not the spirit of Christ are
none of his, no matter what official robes tliey may wear, or
what cathedrals they may worship in. Not all who are born
of Abraham are Abraham's seed, not all that are born of
Christ are Christ's seed ; but anybody who seeks to learn of
the Lord Jesus Christ, and is in sympathy with him, and is
filled with love, and with willingness to suffer — not for him-
self, but for others — and is giving his life for those that he
loves, is a child of Christ. The tendency of the world, to-
day, is in the direction of these higher qualities ; and it comes
from the Man of meekness. No man ever sat on the throne
that had such sway as Jesus Christ has. Go with Bauer ;
go with Renan, who may be said, in view of his country-
men, to be one of the most eloquent eulogists of Christ, but
who yet detracts from the grandeur of Christ's character ; go
with the most renowned authors wlio disparage Christ ; read
them all ; and dispense with as much as you please of his-
toric verity and theologic unity, and yet no raun can deny
that there never has lived on this globe one whose influence
was so deep, so wide, so long-continued, so enduring, so

MEEKNESS, A POWEB. 573

fadeless, so ever-growing, and so full of promise of growth
forevermore, as the influence of the meek and lowly Jesns.

"Blessed are the meek."

You do not believe that. You will go home, to-day, from
my discourse, and the servants will do wrong, or the children
will do wrong, and you will get out of patience, and you will
lay down the law to them, and, stamping your foot, you will
say, "Now I want you to understand this matter." You will
not lay dowu the law as Christ did when he was going up to
Jerusalem, and the disciples were disputing as to who should
have the precedence in his kingdom. Peter says, "I am
going to be primate ;" and John says, "No, not if I am alive
and around, you won't." They got into a regular quarrel.
It was the orders of the priesthood again, all over. But did
Christ say to them, " Here, you infamous fellows ! I have
called you to be disciples, and are you so wanting in a sense
of respectability that, the moment my back is turned, you
conduct yourselves in this way?" You would think that a
father might talk thus, but you would not expect the Lord
to do it ; and he did not. He said, with gentle tone and
manner, " What were you saying?" and they, shame-faced,
undertook to tell him ; and he set a child in the midst of
them, and said, " Whosoever shall humble himself and be-
come as this little child shall be the chief. He that would
be greatest must be least." Oh, with what sweetness, with
what patience, with what love did he meet that which must
have been most abhorrent to his soul ! But you will return
home to-day, and things will not go right, and your wife or
children or servants will feel the exercise of your authority
with emphasis. You do not believe in meekness.

When a thing is said that is distasteful to you, you do not
believe in holding your peace. Especially if you are wronged,
you believe in resenting it. But the spirit of Christ leads f
man to say, " It is not for me to assert myself : it is for me
to heal the wrong-doer, and help him. It is not for me to be
everlastingly thinking, ^ What shall be done for me ?' It is
for me to do what I can for everybody around me ;" and in
saying it, he exhibits meekness.

Now, will you do it ? Will you do it among your ser-

574 MEEKMESS, A POWER.

vants ? Will you do it among all the men "n'hom you employ ?
Will you undertake to carry yourself so in your domestic and
business relations ? You will, if the sweetest and highest side
of your nature is in the ascendant. In tlVat case, you will be
true disciples of Christ. Otherwise, you will not.

But you will say, ''' You take charge of a gang of men —
a couple of hundred Irishmen — building a railroad, and try
your meekness on them. It is very well for you to stand in
the puljjit and preach meekness ; but I should like to see you
apply it to the practical affairs of life. Could you yourself
exercise meekness under such circumstances ?"

I know that it can be done ; and I say that there never
was a man of much practical experience who would not bear
witness that he could get along better with men when he
treated them like men, and dealt with them as if he had their
welfare at heart.

You may take a couple of hundred men — I do not care
how rude they are — and if you make it certain to them that
you are studying their interests as well as your own, that you
think of their families, that you care for them when they are
sick, and that you are their defender in trouble, you will get
more and better work out of them than you could in any
other way.

That is a law of industry ; but you do not believe it, or,
you only half accept it. The best side of you, turned toward
other men, makes the best side of them active. If whatever
is honorable in you is brought out, it will bring out whatever
is honorable in them. On the other hand, those things which
are hjirsh and selfish and self-asserting, being brought out in
you, will bring out the corresponding qualities in them. If
you are bad, they will be bad.

There is what may be termed a moral echo among men.
When you stand over against some cliff, and cry out,
''Father," back comes ''Father." Now cry out " Devil,"
and "Devil" comes back. What you say brings back its
own response.

If you fly at your child, and say, " You imp of perdition
you ! What have you been doing ?" the little imp of perdi-
tion may not dare to say what it has been doing, but there is

MEEKNESS, A POWEB. 575

hell in it, and you have waked it up. I have seen parents
go to their children thus with wrath ; and I have also seen
parents meet their children with patience and sweetness and
love. I have seen an infuriated child, rush at its mother and
strike her. The mother looks down at the child kindly and
gently. The child strikes her again, but not half so hard as
at first. She continues to manifest sweetness toward it ; and
at length the child throws itself into her arms and cries. The
mother has said not a word, but her meekness has subdued
the passion of the child ; for what one feels with power
wakes up the same feeling in another.

If you bring to a man selfishness and worldliness, you wake
selfishness and worldliness in him, and these qualities answer
back ; but if you bring to a man that royalty of true benefi-
cence and manliness which carries in it sympathy J;or every
human being, and treat him justly and kindly, you wake up
a corresponding disposition in him. The best way to get
along with men is to love them and bear with their weak-
nesses.

In diplomacy, it is the same thing. One of the noblest
things that Count Cavour ever said was that the diplomatist
who distrusted men would make more mistakes than the
diplomatist who trusted men. There was the breathing of
the spirit of the Gospel in that. Diplomacy has always been
said to be like a lot of serpents coiled together, wily and
cunning, and striving for the mastery; but Count Cavour
took a higher view of it. He was a great nature. He died
too soon for Italy and the world. He perceived that a
diplomacy which trusted men, which had confidence in them,
and which was beneficent toward them, would get a response
from them, on the whole, more favorable, less fraught with
evil, than a diplomacy which distrusted them, and sought to
govern them by craft.

And this is just as true in regard to the whole economy of
the State. We have advanced a great way beyond the modes
of government which prevailed in the olden times ; but we are
far from being right. There are coming days in which the
world will be still better governed on this principle of meek-
ness. There is much less brute force and much more moral

576 MEEKNESS, A POWER.

sentiment employed in the intercourse of men now tlian
there used to be ; but days are coming yet when a great deal
that is animal will be purged out of the world, and when
a great deal that is moral and spiritual will be ushered
into it.

Do you suppose you are ever going to reform sixteen
hundred men in Sing Sing, when you divest them of every
attribute of manhood ; when you shave them like brutes ;
when you make them pariahs, so that they stand out dis-
tinct from their fellow-men ? Do you suppose that you can
treat men like animals and have them emerge like angels ?
Do you suppose that all the committees and jDraying bands
that stand at the doors of Sing Sing to take the criminal
when he comes out by i^ardon, or by the fulfillment of his
sentence, can reform him after he has been for five or tea
years treated as if he were a brute ? You cannot reform him
unless you treat him as if he were a man. You must believe
in his manhood, and trust his manhood, if you would reform
him. No State will reform its criminals until it knows how
to treat them as Jesus Christ treated sinners. The law of
mankind is, " God so loved the world that he gave his Son
to die for it." Out of the Divine sympathy sprang salvation.
This is the light that dawns upon the future ; aud you will
never govern your family well, nor your business well, nor
the State, well, nor will you ever recover and reform its lapsed
sons and daughters, till you know what is the power of meek-
ness— that is, how to carry yourselves, in the administration
of your laws, and in the infliction of their penalties, in
accordance with the Holy Spirit of God.

Then, better days will dawn. Then, more joy will be in
the household. Then, the State will need fewer constables.
Then citizens will live more amicably together. Then society
will strive for higher civilization. Then there will be a heal-
ing of avarice and greed. Then selfishness will decrease.
Then ambition of a nobler kind, and aspiration of the
higher qualities, will supersede the domination of the lower
instincts. Then the animal man will grow less and less, and
the spiritual man will grow more and more, till the new
heaven and the new earth in which dwelleth righteousness

MEEKNESS, A POWER. 577

shall come, and Jesus, the Model, the Exemplar, tlie Leader,
shall be the one sole King.

All hail the day ! He who acts in this spirit takes one
step in the march of the world toward that blessed consum-
mation.

578 MEEKNESS, A POWER.

PRAYEE BEFORE THE SERMON.

We rejoice, Almighty God, in thy being. We rejoice in all that
we know, in all that we imagine; and we rejoice in that which lies
beyond our understanding; lor when by the utmost we have reached
the limit of our height and depth, length and breadth, the love oi
Christ still passes knowledge; and we rejoice in that which is be-
yond. It throws light upon what is near and within our reach ; and
it stirs us, because it is so grand in quality that our best estate and
highest nature is not able to reach unto it. So that what thou art
which is known to us, fills us with gladness; and then there is the
unsearchable realm of glory and of grandeur in thee which fills our
souls with expectancy, and with tremulous joy and hope. Thou hast
vouchsafed to us a knowledge of thyself in the outward world; and
in that we rejoice. Shining on it, thou hast made it dear to us in
every part. Thou hast vouchsafed a revelation to us in our own per-
sonal wants and experiences. And yet, dealing with us as with indi-
viduals in thy providence and by thy grace, thou art known to us
only in part. We cannot rise to the high argument of thy dealing
with the souls of men in all the variations of their continuous exper-
ience throughout the ages. We rejoice that thou hast made thyself
known to us, therefore, in the life of nations, in the history of thine
own church, and in the knowledge which we have of the progress of
mankind through their low estate and vulgar needs up to Miat high
estate in which they begin to represent the saints in glory. For all
these various manifestations we thank thee ; and though we cannot
grasp them together, nor even fashion out of them, by reason of our
weakness, the fullness of thy revelation of the ages, yet we do rejoice
in it in parts, and in glimpses which we get of the whole that is in it.

And now, O Xiord our God, to thee belongs all praise: but what is
our praise to thee, we understand so little? To thee belongs the
ascription of majesty and of power. Let them ascribe dominion and
honor and glory who are lifted above the limitation and weakness
of time, and who stand rejoicing in thy very presence. As for us,
what can we bring to thee but love?

Babes can love ; and little children that do not know how to inter-
pret the household, or the reason of their parents' conduct, love
them, and can strive to obey them. We bring the desire of obedi-
ence, and we bring the impvilse and breathing of affection. This is
all that we can do; and it is all that thou dost need. It is not the
flower that lifts itself up to make the sun happy: it is the sun that
pours its light and warmth into the flower, and makes it live; and
we are creatures of thy thought. Thou hast poured forth thy love
profusely through the universe, and therefore we exist. We are the
creatures of thy thought, and love, and will, and care. Though we
bring thee little, we represent to thee much; and we lejoice that
there is some reason in thee why thou art glad of us. We rejoice
that we are bound to thee by reasons that are in thee, and not
merely by our own merit. It is this that gives ns comfort and con-
solation. We stand, because thou dost stand. Because thou art what

MEEKNESS, A POWER. 579

thou art, we are saved. We rejoice that it is by the grace of God
tliat we are what we are.

And now, we beseech thee, O Lord our God, to help us live
more perfectly day by uay iu that liberty aud that resttuiuess and
that confidence wliich they have who have made God their reluge. If
thou art for us, who cau be agaiust us? If thy thoughts are around
about us as a sure defense, what can harm us? What can harm
those all of whose ways are appoiuted, aud those whom all things
do serve? For if we love thee, all things work together for our
good. And we say, in every eveut of life— even in the things which
come aud try us— We fear not the things which are hard to bear.
When we have reasoned with ourselves until we understand that this
is the will of God, we are able to submit and say, Thy will be done,
aud to flud strength, and comfort, and hope, and cheerfulness in
trouble, in infirmities, in temptations, in various trials.

O grant that this life may be more perfectly developed in us.
Graut that we may have this higher reach of life above that which
is material— above that which belongs to mankind at large. May
we have the love of God. May we be among the elect — those that
live by faith, by trust, by hope, by joy, and by meekness. Grant,
we pray thee, that we may live in the world as above it, and that
so we may control it.

Grant thy blessing" to rest upon thy servants who are gathered
together in thy presence. May they be able under all circumstances
to represent the mind and will of Christ. May they bear their bur-
dens cheerfully and manfully. May they carry themselves in sorrow
as those who are touched of God. It is not the darkness which comes
from night or terror : it is but the overshadowing of thy wings which
brings the twilight. Whom thou lovest thou chastenest, and scourg-
est every son whom thou receivest. May every one who is visited
with afQiction feel that God is dealing with him, not in wrath but in
mercy, and that the hidden wisdom of God is doing for him that
which he understands not now, but shall know hereafter. Grant
that all thy servants may feel the blessedness of thine utterance:
No affliction for the present is joyous, but grievous; yet, afterward
it worketh the peacable fruit of righteousness in them that are exer-
cised thereby.

O how wonderful are the truths which are spoken until they have
become trite to us! How ignorant are we of the fullness of their
meaning till we are brought by thy providence to the need of them!
How are those simple utterances that the ages have heard ajid ne-
glected made to open like the very realm of heaven to us, when the
soul needs them ! Bless, we beseech thee, to thy servants who are
in various trials and troubles, these truths that have waited so long
for them. May the words of God open their arms and take into their
bosom many a weary soul, many a mourner, many a disappointed
one. May those who feel that the world is growing dim, rejoice that
thereby the heavens may grow bright. And we pray that thou wilt
remember those who believe that one and another thing is being
taken away from them here. May they feel that the stakes and
cords are being removed, and that their earthly tabernacle is being

580 MEEKNESS, A POWER.

taken dowu, preparatory to their departure lor the house not made
with hauds, eterual In the heavens. May we rejoice in growing age
and inhrmity. May we rejoice that, as one thing and another is hid-
den and paclied out of sight, we are getting leady for the journey
to the new Jerusalem. We are pilgrims, and are on our way to that
glorious city, to a noble company, to a blessedness that has uo repre-
sentation upon earth. May we live in the full faith of that coming
glory, and be content with limitation, inconvenience, annoyance,
burdens, cares, whatsoever things are needful for us. Make us
patient, gentle, and forbearing, seeking above all things to represent
to men the sweet and blessed mildness and gentleness of the Lord
Jesus Christ, who suffered rather than to make suffering, and who
died rather than to slay mankind. Grant that we may be burden-
bearers for each other, and suffer for each other, and live for each
other. Thus may there be a gospel which is not found among men—
the new dispensation— the glory of the upper life in the soul made
more powerful than the under life.

Grant, we pray thee, that this church may be blessed in all its
labors— in all that it seeks to do in spreading the knowledge of Christ
and the spirit of Christ. Bless its schools and missions and visita-
tions, and all its works of charity and love. We thank thee for its
unity. We thank thee that there are so many in it who breathe the
very spirit of Christ. We pray that it may grow, not so much in
numbers and outwardness as in the power of faith and love, and in
the blessedness of an. unshaken hope. May it shine out, and teach all
around what is the true religion.

We pray, O Lord, that thou wilt grant thy blessing to rest upon
all churches, upon all thy servants everywhere, upon all instruments
that are employed to civilize and evangelize this land.

We pray for the President of these United States, and all those
that are joined with him in authority— for the Congress assembled,
for all courts, for all legislatures, for all magistrates and for all
citizens. ,

We beseech thee that thou wilt bless those who are teachers m
schools and universities; the editors of papers; those who write
books, and send them forth ; all that are commanding the influences
of civilization for the welfare of mankind. We pray that thou wilt
thus sanctify the centers of influence, that civilization may not be
material, but may rise to the highest spiritual forms. May nations
no longer antagonize nations. Let not peace be in the intermediate
sea or an the overtopping mountain, but in concord of men's hearts.
May they look upon each other with love and desire for mutual
prosperitv and for common wealth.

So we beseech of thee that thy kingdom may come everywhere,
that thy will may be done, and that the whole earth may be filled
with thy glory.

And to the Father, tbe Son, and the Spirit, shall be praises ever

more. Amen,

EXTENT OF THE DIVIIE LAW.

" And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but
the spirit is life because of righteousness." — Rom. viii., 10.

As more and more is known of the nature of the human
mind, and of its social and physical relations, more and more
light is thrown upon these two matchless chapters of psy-
chology— the deepest in all literature — the 7th and 8th of
Romans. And although the terminology is of the age in
which they were written, and the illustrations Jewish, yet, by
translations, they will be made conformable to the ripest and
latest knowledge which we have of the operations of the
human mind, of the nature of responsibility, and of suffering
under law, from conscious violation of it, and those reach-
ings and yearnings for the peace which accompanies a sense
of perfection, instead of the hopelessness of finding that per-
fection by obedience to the law, and, most blessed, for the
opening of that glorious truth of God which was made mani-
fest in Jesus Christ, that there is rest for sinful men, and tri-
umph for those who are perpetually defeated by temptation.

But we are yet to grow througli long ranges of knowledge
before we reach the fullness of the comprehension, either of
the 7th of Romans, which depicts a man struggling with con-
scious imperfection, or the 8th of Romans, which is a dis-
closure of the higher spiritual life triumphing over the lower
and animal life, and reaching far into the invisible and spir-
itual world, and taking hold of the very nature and sub-
stance of the heavenly land, and of the Spirit of God himself.

Much dispute has arisen in respect to the question whether
or not man is a sinful creature — dispute which has come,

Sunday Morxing, Feb. 28, 1875. Lesson: Rom. vili. Hymns (Plyiuouth Col-
lection) : Nob. 1,300, 1,185, U235.

584 EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW.

largely, from an infelicitous mode of exposition. Of the fact
itself, the whole creation that groans and travails in pain until
now, is an unimpeachable witness. If there be no other thing
true under the sun, it is true that all who are born of woman
are born into imperfection — an imperfection breeding sin, a
sin breeding misery, and a misery breeding infinite yearnings
— yearnings that are blind, and that know not which way
to lift themselves.

There is an impression, when we are speaking of law,
tbat sin is simply the conscious violation of a given law.
Paul speaks of the law as disclosing sin. " I had not known
sin, if the law had not said, 'Thou shalt not covet.'" A
rule of duty, a rule of life, or a commandment (whatever
term you choose to call it by), measures men's obligations :
and right and wrong, in the great majority of instances, is
known, not from the nature of things, the organic law of
creation, but simply from the commandment or the uttered
law. Therefore the word of God, as it is recorded in the
Bible, is said to be the law of life, not because it is the full
declaration of that law, but because it is an interpretation
by imperfect men of that which they were not competent to
understand — namely, the law of God as it exists in the
organic creation of mankind.

No matter what a physician says, and no matter whether
he says anything, if you over-eat, you will find that the law is
after you, for there is a law of the stomach. And if you
over-watch, you will find that the law is after you. There
has been no exposition of it. You stumble on its sharp edge ;
it cuts you — and that is the revelation of it. The j^enalty
teaches it. And so, little by little, men have learned to deal
with substances, to moderate their desires, etc. They have
selected food and occupations and raiment ; they have built
dwellings ; they have conformed themselves to climates, and
measured their strength and their nervous vitality ; and,
little by little, they have found out what were tlie elementary
laws of their creation.

There was no book of science which accompanied man's
birth into this world. There was nothing that taught him
of bone and muscle. The heart had beat four thousand

EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW. 585

years before men knew that there was a circulation of the
blood, and then they did not know what it circulated for —
that it carried food-tissue to every part of the human system ;
and yet, in all this time of darkness, there were certain
fundamental laws on which men depended for existence and
for happiness ; and these laws meant just the same then that
they do now. They were the original laws or conditions of
existence and happiness, and they are as much in force to-day
as they were at that time. A law is some rule of conduct
laid down according to the original nature which was infixed
in man at his creation.

Thus, if you were to receive from an expert physician a
line of rules or precepts in respect to rising early, bathing,
suitable clothes, proper food, the warmth or coldness of food,
the use of the right kinds of food and the right kinds of
liquids, the labor which it is right to engage in, the amount
of labor to be performed, the pauses in labor, the various
relations of the body to times and seasons and to occupa-
tions,— if you were to receive from an expert physician a line
of rules or precepts in respect to these things, he would
interj^ret to you in words that which inhered in you before.
These rules, or precepts, or laws, would but express what
was beforehand implied in the existence and structure of the
body.

So then, a man may live in a world of laws which he
does not understand, perpetually suffering in consequence of
violations of them, because he does not know what they are,
or how they operate, since they liave not been interpreted
to liim.

Therefore the apostle says that the commands given to
the Jews (in so far as there was a system of rules given to
them to regulate their life and conduct in society, and in
their various relations to each otlier), revealed sin to them —
interpreted to tliem what was right and wrong ; and so you
see variations from that interpretation or revelation of right
and wrong in men's conduct or course of life.

Now, consider for a moment what is the complexity of the
laws under which men arc living. Bear in mind that the
original conditions of things, that the organic creative ele-

586 EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW.

ments, are the foundations of law, and that a command is
but putting into language a truth that existed before there
was any command.

The physical and the organic laws I have already alluded
to. In regard to the more serious violations of law in his
physical constitution, a man finds the interpretation of the
law and of the penalty in his experience. No man, whether
he understands the nature of things or not, puts his hand
into the fire without feeling that he has violated a law.
A chemist who, in a laboratory, puts together two or three
unknown substances, so that an explosion takes place and
throws him to the other side of the room, has no doubt that
there is a law which he has run counter to. Men find out
laws by the suffering which the violation of them entails, or
by the benefit which accrues from them ; and in regard to
the great bodily laws, or laws that have use through our
body, there is comparatively a practical knowledge.

But then, we are not simply isolated, living in contact
with the globe, and by our physical bodies. What we are, we
never could develop, if there were no other persons with whom
we were associated. How could I love a tree, if I were on a
desolate island where there was nothing but trees? How
could I ever have sympathy, if I lived among rocks, where
there were no human beings ? That of which I have a com-
ponent in my own mind, and which is essential to its full
disclosure or out-play ; those ten thousand interchanges of
imagination, or aspiration, or co-operation in zeal and labor, —
these could have no expression in a dungeon, or on a desolate
island, or in any isolation whatever. A man must live with
mankind, in order to be himself. An individual is born of
society ; and as society is the aggregate of individuality, no
man could be what he is, if it were not for the influences
which flow in upon him from his fellows. And that society
which, like the ocean, sends its tides in on the individual, is
itself the product of a multiplication of these individuals ;
so that, through both, cause and effect act reciprocally.

But now comes the question, how to live together in
society relations. There is a truth underlying the one which
I have just been expounding. How to live with my body in

JSXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW. 587

relation to air, water, fire, magnetism, sharp-cutting rocks,
iron, wild beasts, etc., — that is one department, and that I
have learned little by little ; bnt then 1 have a life with my
fellow-men, which is called my civil relation. Gradually,
through thousands of groaning years, men have found out
how to live among themselves ; and the methods by which
men live with each other are called rules or laws of society.
Some parts of them are embodied in civil law. Men feel
how necessary the State is to the individual : this feeling has
organized the State ; and in order to its preservation, certain
great elements, negative and positive — things to be avoided
and things to be done — have been ordained into laws and
commandments ; and so many of them as are necessary for
the well-being of society, surround every one of us.

I wake up out of unconscious infancy into nascent boy-
hood and manhood ; and I know but little of the laws that
pertain to my body, and still less of the laws that pertain to
my fellow-men. I am a living and crying animal, that runs
stumbling hither and thither in regard to natural things.
From suffering I learn wisdom ; but in respect to the great
out-world I know nothing. I do not understand the texture,
the structure, or the institutions of the State. I do not un-
derstand any of my obligations to the State, as a boy-citizen
— for I am not a citizen. I am zero to the whole State. The
State counts my father and my mother, but it does not count
me until I am of age. Twenty-one years pass before a man
is born into the State — and that is premature often. I am
counted as a know-nothing until I have had time to learn ;
and the State says, " You are not accountable, or you are
less accountable, or you are only partially accountable, unti?
vou come to years of discretion ;" and when I come to these
years, and assume little by little the obligations of manhood,
think of how many things lie in the statute-book and in the
common law of which I am ignorant. Think how many
places there are where " thou shalt " is brought to bear upon
me in the daily affairs of life, and how many other places,
where " thou shalt not " blocks up temptation, and shuts
the door of importunity.

Man is a creature that stands inwebbed in laws of which

588 EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW.

he is more or less ignorant ; and these laws increase, multiply,
and become more and more complex, as a man comes into
society.

As if it were not enough that this great legislative globe
should be hidden, and only gradually disclosed ; as if it were
not enough that the mighty laws on which life itself and the
right use of every part of the physical frame depend should
confront us, we are admitted, as we grow in age and experi-
ence, into a still wider sphere of observation, which spreads
out as society becomes more and more complex, as its interests
multiply — as its wealth increases — opening realm after realm
in life, each, of which imposes some new law upon us, and
teaches us how to get along — how to act and how to avoid
action — as circumstances may require. Every new plane of
knowledge is in the nature of a command which reveals to us
some obligation.

But, as if that were not enough, there are infinite laws
within laws ; for the State cannot regulate the household.
The State cannot regulate public opinion. The State, except
in mere externals, cannot regulate customs, trades, guilds,
literature, the various departments into which men are per-
petually dividing themselves up.

The child, while it begins to learn its duties as a citizen,
finds itself in a little legislative hall of its own, where it is
obliged to learn how to get along with father and mother,
sisters and brothers, the servants, and those with whom it
comes in contact at home ; and it is a different kind of
getting along from that which he learns in respect to the
State.

I am not obliged to run and put a chair, or draw back
from the favorite dish, or be courteous, or exchange the civ-
ilities of the morning, in my relation to the man who lives
across the street, whose house is shut up, and whom I never
see ; but I am brought cheek to cheek, hand to hand, heart
to heart, with my household. There is a commonwealth of
the family whose laws are so distinct, so subtle, and so deli-
cate, that they cannot be extended to the larger common-
wealth of the State or of society, with its penalties and
remunerations.

■EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW. 589

When I step outside of the household into this greater
commonwealth of civil laws and natural laws — into the neigh-
borhood, that other jurisdiction of public sentiment — first,
it would seem, comes the great physical God, writing on all
the substances of creation, "This is my law! this is my
law ! this is my law ! "

Then comes society, and, looking to see what is lacking,
writes another volume in regard to our conduct and rela-
tions to each other in civil organization, and says, "This is
the law ! this is the law ! this is the law ! " — and the volume
is multitudinous and swells infinitely, almost.

Then comes the great body of citizens that, without legis-
lation, without consultation, say, "If thou dressest so and
so thou shalt go up, but if thou dost not dress so and
so thou shalt not ; if thou speakest thus and thus thou shalt
be admitted to the highest circle, but if thou dost not speak
thus and thus, thou shalt not ; if thou hast courtesy and re-
finement and attainment thou shalt have such and such re-
munerations, but if thou hast not these things, and art vulgar
and poor and mean, thou shalt not."

Looking at what nature has legislated, it is not enough ;
and looking at what society has legislated, that is not enough :
and so public sentiment comes in, and marks down more
laws, and more laws, and more laws ; and they are laws
which are expressed, not so much by any written edict or any
pronounced statute, as by men's recognition of them. Men
recognize them as the thermometer does the temperature of
summer or winter, by the way they feel.

Surely, man has laws enough ; and is he made for noth-
ing but to be tied up like a fly in a spider's web, caught and
held by its leg or wing ? He is made to be operated upon and
educated by these laws. If he employs them aright, he will
grow stronger and stronger, and, by and by, he will be
superior to them. Their purpose is to tell him how to be
larger ; how to be better and stronger ; how to maintain him-
self more worthily in society with its public sentiment, by
which he is judged in a thousand matters of taste and dispo-
sition and conduct.

Is not that enough ? Oh, no. Whenever a man goes out

590 EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW.-

into society, and enters any particular department of labor,
he shall find that that department has its own peculiar laws
within all the others. If he be a scholar, a scientist, a lite-
rary man, he finds something that nature has said nothing
about, that society has said nothing about in its civil organ-
ization, and that public sentiment has taken no account of.
The moment he comes into scientific, or learned, or literary
associations, he meets new expectations, requirements, con-
ditions. At every turn in life he meets some law, or com-
mand, or rule. Thus rules, commands, laws are infinitely
and incessantly multiplied.

Then men say, and say wisely, that a true and large man,
who has aspiration, ought to be more than is demanded of
him by society, or by any section of it ; that he ought to be
superior to any law ; that he should have in himself a sense
of manhood requiring taste of a larger and finer quality
than any taste that is required by the law of the land ; that
he should have a humanity larger than any humanity that is
required by public sentiment ; that his standard of manhood
in himself should be incomparably higher than any regula-
tions or demands of society.

So, not satisfied with being thus enmeshed in laws, a man
becomes a law unto himself, and exercises his reason, and
cultivates the heroic element, and judges himself by higher
standards, and lifts before him a spiritual portraiture with
which he compares his own spiritual countenance. In that
way he becomes the severest legislator who sits upon his case.
A man himself is severer with himself than any one else, if
he is a man. If he is a fool, he is full of apologies for him-
self ; but if he is a man. he is full of requisitions, demand-
ing of himself more than the law demands, more than society
demands, more than the public sentiment demands, more
than any sphere of business demands, more than any pro-
fession demands — something that shall make him worthy of
the name of a son of God.

But men say, " Besides all these, there are the laws
of God." No ; these are the laws of God. When a man
would obey the command, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart," how does he do it ? God's com-

EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW. 591

mands are interpreted in the physical world, in the social
world, in the civil world, in all the relations of life. That
which shall make a man the largest, the wisest, the strong-
est, the best, in every relation, is the fullest interpretation
which we can have in this world of the laws of God. We
are commanded to love God with all our heart and soul and
mind and strength ; aud that command endures, but, blessed
be God, Christ has interpreted it. When he said, with all
the nations gathered together in judgment, *'l was sick, and
in prison, and ye came not to me ; I was poor and needy
and distressed, and ye did not care for these things;" and
they said, " When ?" and he replied, ''Inasmuch as ye did
it not to the least of my brethren, ye did it not to me,"
— then he interpreted God's laws to men. God is in this
sense pantheistic : that he lives in each soul ; that his heart
palpitates in every single creature ; and when we think of the
commands of God, we are not to think of them as insphered,
crystal-like, above. He is speaking to us out of the rock,
out of the soil, out of the seasons, out of trees, out of men,
out of society, out of business. The manifold voice of God
spells words letter by letter, and forms sentences word by
word, out of the variety of things in which man touches
life ; and lie who obeys this voice obeys the sovereign primal
command of God, who dwells in eternity. The world is a
book of legislation ; and the higher we rise, or the deeper we
go down, the more we become acquainted ^\dth the com-
mands of God.

Now, no man ever did, and no man ever can, keep God's
commands, when you interpret them in this way. The
Psalmist said, " Thy commandments are exceeding broad ;"
and when you interpret them in a spiritual sense, they
are broad indeed. The Ten Commandments, which were
given on Mount Sinai, were given > evidently, with refer-
ence to the safety of man in the lower relations of life.
They are so many bulwarks against the passions of mankind.
Thou shalt worship no other God, nor shalt thou take the
name of the Lord in vain ; thou shalt not kill ; thou shalt
not commit adultery ; thou shalt not steal ; thou shalt not,
thou shalfc not, thou shalt not; shalt not, shalt not, shaU

592 EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW.

not ; not, not, not ; — these commands are, as it were, so
many banks or levees against the fiery passions of mankind ;
but they are not all of God's commaudraents. The laws
which belonged to the Jewish economy were not all of God's
commandments. The laws which came through the proph-
ets, major and minor, were not all of God's commandments.
The laws which were evolved in the teachings of the Saviour,
and in the teachings of the apo^les after him, together with
what has sprung up since that time, are not all of God's com-
mandments.

Put an unskilled child in the midst of that great city of
sounds, the organ, and let him begin, unknowing, to make
harmony. Some of those mighty pipes are so large that he
cannot tune them and manage them. There are so many of
them, and he is so ignorant of them, that no sooner does he
go in and work at one, and fix it, and come out to the key-
board to try it, than, though that may be proximately cor-
rect, when he draws another, there is discord elsewhere.
When he finds that there is a clashing and battling of sounds
in the instrument, back he goes to rectify the fault of the
offending pipe ; and in doing that he produces conflict some-
where else. So, as soon as he gets one stop right, others
are deranged. He is utterly ii.competent, with his want of
knowledge and experience, to manage this complex instru-
ment, which is the fruit of ages. It is only by long years of
study and practice that he can become familiar with it in all
its parts. ,

Now, man is vaster and more complex than any cathedral
organ. His faculties are more potential than any sounding
pil)es. His nature, above and below, is more capable of
infinite expansion. He learns slowly. And now, after we
have learned for five or six thousand, and it may be for ten
or fifteen thousand, years, we have but just begun to learn
what is the capacity of the human mind, and what are those
relations which are increasing as fast as we increase. And
to say that any man ever lived who fulfilled the law of God,
in this large consideration of it, will strike every one as
strange. If you say that the law of God is merely the Ten
commandments, many a man can keep them, and say.

EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW. 593

"What lack I yet?" Christian culture brings men inside
of the Ten Commandments. There are thousands and thou-
sands of ni9n who do not touch them, or come in sight of
them. They are born higher than the Ten Commandments.

/ never would steal, even if there were no laws against it.
You might unlock your safe, and throw your keys into the
sea, and I would not take your money. I refrain from steal-
ing, not because I am afraid of jails, but because I am an
honest man. It would hurt me more than it would you, if I
were to steal your moiiey. I am not temijted at all in that
direction. Therefore the command, " Thou shalt not steal,"
has no application to me, — thanks to my fatlier, and to his
father, and to his father, and to his father, through a line of
honest men. For I know I had an honest ancestry ; I feel
it in every part of my nature. Therefore I am relieved from
bondage to that law : it is obligatory upon me ; but I fulfilled
it before I knew it.

Now, when you ask, ** Are you a perfect man," or '' Are
you a depraved, imperfect, sinful man ? " — if you take a very
narrow and external criterion of judgment, many men say,
'' What lack I yet ? Why am I not perfect ? I have kept
all these commands from my youth up." The way to corner
them is to say, " You may have kept them outwardly, in a
bodily sense ; but you have not kept them inwardly, in a spir-
itual sense." When you thus attack a man with metaphysics,
you can puzzle him. You can so confuse him in five minutes
that he does not know where he stands. So, when men say
they are perfect because they have kept the whole law,
we run them down with a spiritual explanation, and say,
" You have kept the Ten Commandments, but have you kept
the laws that are inherent in your physical frame ?" Have
you never gone to excess in under-indulgence or over-indul-
gence ? Has all the law that relates to the whole economy of
the body, which is God's temjile, and which is to be sacred to
you, been fulfilled steadily all your life long ? " But I didn't
know." "Nevertheless, you broke the law." "Oh, yes ;
but the circumstances were peculiar." "Yes, that is the
devil's name — PecuJinr Cirrfonsfaucps.V " But, I liad to do
it." " Oh, of course, you had to do it : but the question is

594 EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW.

not how far you are excusable ; tlie question is, Have you
broken the law an indefinite number of times — that law
which relates to the maintenance of your happiness ? Look
at that law which applies to the passions of mankind — their
anger, their combativeness, their self-defensory powers, those
elements of their being which unite them to the lower ranges
of society, to say nothing of those higher moral laws which
refer to the mental and spiritual life of men, and tell me if
you have not violated that. Have you understood it ? Have
you had a full conception of the relation of laws, as regulating
all the passions and appetites of your nature ? Have you not,
on the other hand, been, to a great degree, ignorant of them?
and have you not gone like a shuttlecock between two battle-
dores, between peace and anger, between benevolence and
cruelty, between desire and indiffei'ence, and between under
and over excitement ?"

When you look at what is embodied in the air, in the writ-
ing of God on the rock, in the various developments of
nature ; when you look at the divine command which is im-
plied in the economy of your passions and appetites, is there
any man who can stand up and say to himself, " I have not
sinned" ? Have you done anything else ? Has not sinning
been the business of your life ? Is not imperfection, imper-
fection, imperfection stamped on your every act ? Imper-
fections at the top may be more or less palliable, but at the
bottom they are sin. Consider the relations of affection
and of interlacing affinity which you sustain to your fellow-
men. Consider all those obligations of delicacy, of happi-
ness-breeding, and of joy-inspiring, which you have toward
others. Consider that law in accordance with which your
business is to live centrifugally and not centripetally— in ac-
cordance with which you are bound, not to open yourselves
like a vortex and draw in happiness irom every one else, but
to open yourself and pour out happiness upon others besides
yourself. Think of the obligation under which you are
placed by the command, ''Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself." Consider the apphcation of that law to the chil-
dren, to the servants, to the parents, to the disagreeable
people that happen to board with you, to men in your trade

EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW. 595

that you do not like, to small men, to mean men, to sharp
men, to angry men, to old hunkses around about you, to
every sort of creature — for Noah's ark is all alive again, and
we have everything in it — that is, to human society. You
are under that law. You are not to pick out those that you
choose, and love them. You are to love your neighbor as
yourself. And who is your neighbor ? Everybody that needs
you.

Now, what has been the carriage of your affections ?
Have you loved your neighbor as yourself ? Can anybody say
that he has fulfilled the law of God, as it is written in his
affections ? I know by the expression on your upturned faces
that you recognize the law of God as holy, and just, and
good ; and can any of you, looking back upon your life, and
Judging it by those laws, say other than this : " I have been
all my days a miserable sinner against God's righteous com-
mands" ?

Kise higher than that, and consider what your relations
are, measured, not by the lower standards of this world, but
by the higher standards of the world which is to come. Con-
sider that you are an unfolding creature, and that by reason,
by moral sense, by faith, by imagination, you take hold upon
the eternities. Consider that you are so to live as that the
body shall be dead, as it were, in comparison with the higher
faculties. Consider that the center of life, the legislative
hall of the soul, is to lie in the neighborhood of benevolence
and conscience and reason.

Now ask yourselves : Have you lived there ? Have you
lived at the center of those radiations of obligation which
take in universal being, and which bring you into sympa-
thetic relations with the beast, with the bird, with the worm,
with everything that pulsates or has susceptibility, in the
lower realm of being, as well as with the angel, and the arch-
angel, and the God over all, blessed forever ? Have you lived
in accordance with the fundamental law of your nature, and
with your knowledge of your obligations? Is there a man
that, looking at the comprehensive relations of manhood,
and at the infinite depths of the soul's obligations, can say,
** 1 am perfect" ? Must not every man, in the light of those

596 EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW.

relations and obligations, lay his hand upon his mouth, and
bis mouth in the dust, and say, " Unclean, unclean ! God be
merciful to me a sinner " ?

Well, secondly, in application, when a man is determined
that he will live according to the law of God, he enters
with a most serious jiurpose upon a life of obedience. Men
think, because they are convicted, and have the Holy Spirit,
that they have got over the worst part of their journey.
They have been convicted, they have been hopefully convert-
ed, ministers smile on them and converse with them, and
they come into the churcli. Now they are in the car, and on
their way. They will have to exercise patience ; they will
have to put up with a little dust and a few cinders ; but they
have got their ticket and are in the car of the church, and it
is going to swing them right through to heaven, and they are
all right — that is the carnal, narrow, and mechanical notion
of a great many persons.

But when a man turns his thought to what he is, and
what he should be, and is convinced of the multitudinousness
of his sin, not only, but of the power of the influences which
are perpetually augmenting and strengthening it; when a
man sees how many are his evil thoughts and wrong emo-
tions and impulses, and goes into the church as a converted
man, what does he do ? He is as one who enters a hospital
to be cured. He is as one who, being sick, desires to get
well. He is as one that is profoundly ignorant and wants to
gain an education. There is transformation ; but it leaves
him at the threshold, in the beginning.

Now, let a man, under such circumstances, undertake lo
be happy. On what grounds can he be happy, or have
peace ? How can he have self-complacence and rest in him-
self ? Let a man look at his sin and his obligation with a
sincere desire to break off the one and to fulfill the other, and
the prospect before him will seem discouraging ; and it will
seem more and more so as he rises toward perfection — for the
better one is, the higher is his criterion.

When the converted man turns his eye on himself he says,
" I ought to be happy : my sins are forgiven." What sins
do you mean ? " 1 mean those sins that were committed in

EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW. 507

days gone by." But are not those sins multiplied every day ?
Our thoughts sin. Our imagination sins. Our affections
sin. We sin both by doing and by not doing, incessantly ;
and are not men by transgression through infirmities, and by
yielding to temptations, multiplying the infractions of laws
which are as much laws as those given on Sinai, although
they are written in their own souls ? Are we not conscious
that we are committing sins every day which are, for num-
ber, like the sands on the sea-shore ?

When Job had a colloquy with his friends, and got the
better of them, God appeared in the sacred drama, and un-
veiled his own perfection ; and then Job said, " I have heard
of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee ;
wherefore I abhor myself." The vision of perfection rebukes
imperfection even in the most arrogant and conceited ; and
in proportion as a man goes up, and has a higher sense of
obligation, in that proportion there comes back to him this
rebound and refrain: " Miserable sinner ; miserable sinner ;
miserable sinner ! " Sin is abounding all the time. Every
pulse, every breath, every volition, every single element of
our life, if measured by the ideal standard of perfection, or
if measured even upon our conception of that nature which
is the interpretation of perfect law, is bearing witness
against us.

Where, then, shall we find peace and rest ? No man, in
the contemplation of his conformity to law, can say, '' I am
living in such a way that I have a right to peace." But men
say, "I have peace because Christ gives me his righteous-
ness." I hope you understand that — I do not ; nevertheless,
there are many things that men do not understand which, in
some fumbling sort of way, give them comfort. No matter
whether they have an idea of it or not, if they feel that some-
how or other, through Christ, they have a right to be happy,
they may be happy ; but there is no consistent reason Avhich
they can give, or which theology can give, why we should
have peace. We are covered with a multitude of sins which
are unworthy of God, unworthy of the divine government,
and even unworthy of manhood. The idea that there is a
transfer of God's righteousness to you and to me is a mere

598 EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW.

fable. There is no such thing as a transfer of moral quality.
Can I transfer my thoughts to my son ? I can excite
thoughts in him, but I cannot put my thoughts in him.
Neither can I transfer my experience to him. No man can
take his peace of mind, as though it were susceptible of dis-
tribution, and give it to another man. Can a man who is a
perfect gentleman, and who has a dozen boorish boys, trans-
fer his politeness to them ? Can he give it to them by impu-
tation ? And yet men think that God divides bis righteous-
ness and perfectness, imputing it to them, and, as it were,
saying to them, " You are not perfect, but I will make
believe that you are, and in some sense I will take it for
granted that you are."

Well now, although this is simply absurd, and very un-
philosophical, yet it has a charm in it, because, in a blunder-
ing way, by what we might call a legal fictioyi, it carries with
it a principle which is sweeter than the roses of June, and
more fragrant than beds of mignonette. And what is that ?
Why, it is this : that we have a Grod who does not hold a man
accountable for violations of law in such a sense as that he
will not accept him, love him, and save him, provided his
predominant desire, his real endeavor, is to keep the law.
If bis purpose is that, endless, successive, infinite violations
of that purpose do not throw him out of the circle of the
divine sympathy. I can interpret it, in a small way.

I take from the streets a rude, rough boy, whose father is
a thief, and. whose mother is a drunkard. He has been
brought up in the school of iniquity ; but there is something
in him, probably derived from his ancestors far back, that
has attracted my sympathy and regard. I bring him to my
house, and say to him, " Now, my boy, J want you to grow
up into an honest man and a gentleman." I say to him,
" You must not steal : you have been educate'd in theft ; but
you must break off from that. You must not swear. You
must not get angry and throw things at anybody." And I
see that, according to the measure of his ability, he means
to obey my directions ; but when I come home to dinner the
servant-girl comes to me and says, ''I am going to quit."
*'Why ?" I ask. *' Because this boy threw a knife at my

EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW. 599

head." I call liim to me, and ask him what that means. He
says, " She put a flat-iron where it fell on my foot ; I thonght
she had no business to put it there ; I was mad, and I threw
the knife at her." " But, look here," I say to him, "that
was wrong." " Well, I am sorry for it," he says. Then I
say, **If you plead that it was an infirmity, and you feel that
it was wrong, and assure me that it is your purpose not to re-
peat it, and to overcome your passion, I will bear with you."
" Why will you bear with me ?" he says. " I do not see as I
am worth keeping. I know I shall swear, I feel so much like
it ; and I cannot help stealing — I stole a-piece of pie this morn-
ing." He feels like swearing, he has stolen, he has thrown a
knife at the servant's head. This is my precious frotigi
and yet, I say to him, '' Be of good heart, my boy, I will get
you over all this trouble yet." Why will I ? On account of
his beino^ so good ? No. What is it that saves him ? It is
my feeling toward him. I try to save him because I am sorry
for him, and because I love him. I do not love his imper-
fection, but I love the sentient creature that he is. I think
perhaps I love him more because he needs so much love.
It is not the fairest and prettiest child that the mother
loves most : it is the poor sickly thing, that stands on the
outer circle of his companions when they Jump and run,
while he limps with a club-foot. She loves that child more
than any of her other children. There is something far
down in the nature of man which touches divinity where it
loves want ; and there is no want like dispositional want, or
spirit want.

And I say to this thief of the street, this unlicked cub,
this miserable creature that I have befriended, "I am not
going to give you up ; and the reason is, my heart is stirred
for you. I am sorry for you in my very soul. All that is good
in me goes out toward you. So be courageous, my boy. Do
your best. Do not cry any more. Take hold again."

He holds out for a week or teu days, and then down he
goes ; and we have a '^ time " once more. I do not want him
to feel that he may as well go down as not because he will
be forgiven so quick, and will be helped up ; but if I am
satisfied that he is sorry, that his intent is good, and that his

600 EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW.

determmation is strong, I pass his misdemeanor by, with per-
haps some httle emphasis to keep his memory alive, and say,
"I do not give you up yet."

Now, tliat is what is meant when men say that God im-
► putes his righteousness to the sinner. There is no imputa-
tion about it. God, by his inherent nature, when he sees
men imperfect, crude, stumbling among infinite laws, and
breaking them, has compassion on them ; not because he has
bought the right to do it by a covenant, not because he has
a plan that tells him that now he may do it, but because
he is God, and because he is large enough and good enough
to make good those who are bad, out of the bounty of his
own soul.

That is what gives you hope, and it is what gives me hope;
not that we are good, but that God is ; and that by his prov-
idence and grace every willing soul is brought into a school
in which, with patience, and gentleness, and forbearance and
repeated forgiveness, he is being molded and developed, and
brought into that state in which, by-and-by, tlie flesh shall
drop away, and he shall shine as the stars in the firma-
ment. It is that love of God in Christ Jcgus which waits for
you, which cares for you, which spares yon, which succors
you, and which stimulates you. The divine nature loves you
though you are not lovely, and because }ou are not lovely,
with an infinite sympathy and compassion. It is that love
which makes Christ Jesus, dying, the only resource that can
reach to the ultimate and infinite wants of the tinman soul.
Jesus Christ came into the world to teach us that God, the
Father, loves sinners, loves them in their multitudinous wan-
derings and stumblings, and by his grace and providence is
raising them to the position of sons in glory.

There I have rest, not because I am good, but because I
am in such a school of goodness ; not because I have kept
the law, but because, breaking it, times without number, and
oftener than I know, or can register, I have One who loves
me enough to bear with all my transgression, and to count it
for nothing, so that the essential drift of my being is away
from sin and toward holiness. In the contemj^lation of that
I have a peace which the world cannot take away.

EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW. 601

]S"ow, SO long as you are conscience-bound ; so long as you
sit down and cipher, and find a balance against yourself every
day, and say that you have no right to be happy because you
are insincere, because you promise God that you will do ^o
and so, and do not do it — so long as that state of things con-
tinues you will not have peace. For the further you go to-
ward perfection, and the better you become, the more you
will find that your sins multiply, and the stronger will be
your conviction of sinfulness from the violation of law. The
more a man tries to find peace and rest within himself
through the fulfillment of law, the further he will drift away
from it. But the moment a man says, '' I am born in sin ; in
iniquity did my mother conceive me ; I was born without a
knowledge of righteousness ; I am full of unrevcaled laws , I
am under a multitude of obligations that I do not under-
stand ; and I stumble ; but my God is large enough in his
wisdom and goodness to take care of me, provided only that
I want him, and strive toward him," — the moment a man
says that, he has rest.

A wounded soldier lies on the battle-field. The ball has
cut an artery in his leg. The charge, thundering on, leaves
him behind ; and liis life is ebbing away. With feeble eftort,
he stoops to press the artery and stop the wasting tide of
life ; but he grows weaker and weaker, and his courage fails,
and in despair he exclaims, " I am dying here alone, and
there is no one to bear my last words home to my friends."
Just then, an ambulance comes in sight, and approaches hioi,
and the surgeon, seeing him, runs to his side, and taking him
by the leg says, " Is this the only wound ? Then you are
saved !" Fainting, the soldier falls back, and as he does so
a smile plays about his mouth, and he says to himself,
''What I could not do, my surgeon can, and T am saved."
Not because he was well did he feel safe, for he was wound-
ed ; not because he had skill of his own to heal the wounds ;
but because he was in the liands of the surgeon who could
do it, and in view of his assurance, it was as good as done
already.

The soul that feels itself driven by all manner of stormy
temptations, battered, distressed, wounded, lacerated, looks

602 EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW.

up to the physician of his soul, and, with the inward hear-
ing, hears him say, " Behold, I have found a ransom for
thee. Thou art mine. I love thee with an everlasting love.
Rest in me, trust me, and, verily, I will crown thee with per-
fection by and by." The promise of Christ, the faithfulness
of Christ, the love of God but partially made known in Christ
Jesus, the length and breadth and height and depth of which
passes all understanding — that I preach to you, not to lull
you into sin, not that you may dishonor manhood by saying,
" God is so good that I may do what I have a mind to," but
that you may be touched in every generous sentiment, and
that all that is honorable in you may thrill with the thought
of the God that loves you, and sustains you, and will
heal you, and enlarge you, and ennoble you, and make
you princes, kings and priests forever in heaven. This
God is yours — the God of the littlest child ; the God of
the poor African ; the God of the stumbling Indian of
of the forest ; the God of the rude, the unlettered, the un-
knowing ; the God of those that have done wrong ; the God
of the jail, the penitentiary, the hospital, and the poorhouse ;
the God of those that have wandered from the right way ;
the God of the broken-down woman, whose whole best nature
stands like a bright crystal barrier between her and relief ;
the God of the man of transgression, who has been the enemy
of his race ; the God of the highest and the lowest, and of
every creature intermediate. We are naked and open before
Him with whom we have to do ; and if we will, we may in-
herit the infinite love of that God. But, as a man may shut
his eyes even to the sun, and seem in midnight, so before the
blaze of infinite pity and compassion, if you will, you can
shut your eyes, and harden your heart, and lose your God
and yourself.

EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW. 603

eiiAYEE BEFOEE THE SERMON.

We rejoice, our Father, in the manifestation of thyself mad© to
us throufih Jesus Christ, our Lord. Thou hast not made known to
us what we are ourselves, althouj^h we are c-alled the sons of God.
It doth not yet appear what we shall be. We know that when he
shall appear we shall come with him, and be like him; but what is
the glory of that likeness, we know not. What are the ranges and
the experiences of that transcendent life, when this mortal body
shall break away, we cannot understand. We think, straining every
power; we fly upon the wings of imagination; we reach toward the
height ; but we cannot comprehend the love of God in Christ Jesus,
nor the fellowship nor the blessedness of the after state in ourselves
and in others. We know not that there has been anything so bright
that by it we can understand the brightness of the life which is to
come. We know not that there has been anything so wise as to teach
us the preciousness of that life. We know not that there has been
joy so pure and so deep as that it may stand as a symbol of the joys
which await those who reach the world of immortality. We rejoice
that all power is outrun by which we may manifest to ouiselves the
glory of the future state. We aie content to abide here, though
we are burdened; though we feel conscious of shortcoming; though
we are not what we should be as the children of God. Though we
are in the midst of conscious sinfulness, and of imperfections with-
out number, we nevertheless have the peace of God. Though we
are perpetually stirred up by our conscience, and though the law of
duty is every day out against us, we have peace through the Lord
Jesus Christ. Though we do not deserve to look up to thee, yet we
are taught to come boldly with an open face, and to ask, yea, to de-
mand, with infinite importunity, the things which we need. For
thou art the blessed One, and thou dost give forth that thou mayest
satisfy thine own self, and not merely to fill the measure of our
content.

O Lord, our God, we beseech thee that we may have made
manifest to us more perfectly this royal way of the soul ; thai we
may be able to drop quite out of thought the way of the body — all
those imperfect relations and methods of life and duty and penaltj^
which belong to this lower state; and that we may be enfranchised
and lifted up into the citizenship of the higher sphere; that we may
know the Ruler that is there, and the law that reigns there, more
perfect, more searching, and yet more full of tenderness than any
earthly being, dropping infinite bounty and compassion throughout
all the world.

Grant, we pray thee, that we may be, not as slaves under the lash,
convinced of evil, shrinking, shuddering, and fearing hell, but that
we may be filled with sorrowful recognition of sin, as they that are
loving, and seeking to harmonize everything, that divine love may
be satisfied with us.

We pray that we may have this new life ministered to us from
day to day by the Spirit. We cannot ask that the sun may rise in

604 EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW.

full shining: grant, at least, that it may be a revealing light in every
one of us, shining more and more brightly toward the perfect day.

Give to every one in thy presence, we beseech thee, some por-
tion of this sense of sonship. Give to every one present some sense
of right in God, and some sense of safety and security in the love of
Christ Jesus. May every one in thy presence feel, whatever he may
be in himself, that in the Lord he is rich and strong and safe; and
may they who have no Christ, they to whom the name of Christ is
empty, they who are without a God, they to whom the glory of the
Lord is as darkness — oh, may they be touched in heart, and made to
feel how worthless they are, how naked, how hungry, how sick, how
sore, how much in need of all things; and may they be brought,
through a sense of their infinite necessity, to a recognition of thine
infinite bounty, and sit down at last with great delight beneath thy
banner of love, and rejoice in thee with joy unspeakable and full
of glory.

We beseech thee that thou wilt grant to every one of us thy
guiding faith — the faith which works by love. To those who are in
the trouble of life; to those who are bearing heavy burdens; to
those who are under sharp cares; to those who are in their way and
measure wearing the crown of thorns; to all who are going forth
oppressed with the cross— oh, minister to them that faith by which
they shall have consolation.

If there be those to-day whose hearts are sore with bereavement,
whose thoughts are full of tears, we beseech of thee that thou wilt
draw near to them. We ask not that their wounds may suddenly be
healed to insensibility, but that they may discern what is the
blessing of sorrow; that they may feel its tenderness and its enrich-
ing power. May they feel, springing out of darkness and trouble,
those tendrils which shall fasten them to thee. Grant that they may
grow in grace, and that they may know how, learning in the school
of affliction, to be clothed with patience and with resignation ; that
they may know how perpetually to look up to God, and find in him
what they may have lacked or lost in those about them.

For mothers whose cradles are empty, we pray; for parents
whose companion children are gone before them, we pray. For
those who hav& lost themselves in losing those they love, and
are in a mystery and maze and wonderment of grief, we pray. Be
gracious to them all. Especially be gracious to those who behold
wreck and ruin from which they cannot save their beloved. Draw
them near to thee, and in the pang of their Gethsemane be to them
as the angels were to thyself, blessed Saviour, and comfort them.

We pray, if there be no medicament for griefs unnamed, if there
be no present relief, and they must walk in the flame, grant, at
least, that the " form of the Fourth " may be seen, and that the fire
may have no dominion over them. Grant to that band which
always increases — to those who walk with tears and breathe with
sighs, and behold their joys plucked up and withering— grant to them
that there may be an ever-opening heaven, a God with them, and
that they may feel that in their earthly lack and loss they are lay-
ing up treasure in heaven.

EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW. 605

Oh, how rich are we in those that are gone before 1 How mauy
blessed this day are around about thee, for whose going our hearts
were broken, but iu whose abiding glory now we have learned to
rejoice! O Lord God of the redeemed host in heaven! thou that art
their light and their sweet delight, art not thou, too, the God of
those who are following after them, who are blinded by tears, and
who are stumbling by weakness? Thou that leddest thy people
like a flock ia the wilderness, art thou not still leading thy people
through the wilderness? Give forth these truths to those who need
the consolation of God.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt be near to all those who are in
trouble or doubt; who are in the perplexities of life; who in the
way of duty find it too sharp or too steep for human endeavor.
Thou art the strength of Israel, and canst give strength to thy crea-
tures; and we beseech thee that thou wilt succor all those who
know the right, but who seem to themselves to be feeble and weak
therein. We beseech thee that thou wilt be near to all those who
are attempting to walk aright in the various duties of life. Teach
them how to be more manly; how to gird their loins day by day;
how to endure patiently unto the end. We beseech thee that
thou wilt grant to all those who are drawing near to the close of life,
to all those who seem to themselves to have failed in their earthly
career, to all those who see others go past them to fame, and to
wealth, and to honor, and to happiness, while they are bereft, and
only waiting and longing for the time of their departure — we beseech
of thee that thou wilt grant that they may not think that their life
consists in the abundance of the things which they possess. May it
be theirs to know that God is theirs ; that the love of Christ is theirs ;
that the hope of heaven is theirs ; that the eternal blessedness of the
other life is theirs; and may they not cast away their confidence,
nor think themselves to have failed, when they are heritors of un-
fading and eternal riches.

We beseech thee that thou wilt be with the old in their growing
infirmities. May they learn how to rejoice. May they know that
when the stars are dying out, it is because the night is coming to an
end; and that soon they shall be in a state of immortal youth, and
that they shall see again, and hear again, and feel with sensitive
nerve again, and live never more to grow old. May they rejoice,
therefore, looking forth with complacency upon the taking down of
their tabernacles, knowing that they are to have a house builded of
God, eternal in the heavens.

We pray that thou wilt grant thy blessing to rest upon all classes
and conditions of men — upon the poor; upon the ignorant; upon
the vicious; upon the criminal; npon the outcast; upon those that
no man cares for. Grant, we pray thee, that there may be breathed
into the hearts of men a deeper humanity, and more love toward
those who have erred, and gone out of the way, and fallen into
ruin.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt extend the knowledge of Christ
throughout all our land, and the knowledge of the Gospel to every
hamlet and household. Pity those that are in ignorance. Give them

606 EXTENT OF THE DIVINE LAW.

light. Bless all institutions, and all the labors of thy servants by
which evangelization shall go forth with civilization. .And may all
the nations of tbe earth at last feel the sacred impulse — the drawing
of this mighty force. May all that is barbarous, and cruel, and
proud, and hard, and selfish, lose power and die away ; and may all
that is pure, and wise, and humane, and divine, gather strength,
and hold on its way toward that peifect day when all nations
shall rejoice in each other, and perfect peace shall reign in the
whole earth.

And to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, shall be praises ever-
more. A men.

PRAYEK AFTER THE SERMON.

Our heavenly Father, wilt thou grant to us the consolation of
thine own nature. Shine in upon us with the thought of God. We
are blinded by selflshuess, even the best of us. We can hardly form
a conception of such glorious virtue, such beauty of holiness, such
disinterestedness, as is in thee, thou that art the Highest, the Foun-
tain of all excellence unblemished. Grant that we may have the
help of thy Spirit to discern something of thy royalty, to rejoice in
it, to open our hearts to it, and by it to be warned, tauglit, guided,
perfected. Lord Jesus, for thy faithfulness hitherto unrequited, for
thy faithfulness that would uot be discouraged, nor give us up, for
thy faithfulness that never has left ns nor forsaken us, and that
never will, we render thee thanks. Thou hast fulfilled every promise
abundantly, giving us more than we asked or thought. We have
nothing to ask. We have only wontler and joy and gratitude to ex-
press. Thou infinite Benefactor of the soul, we are glad that thou
art such an One as can look with complacency and love upon us, so
unworthy, so far from perfectness, so far from the hope of it. O
Lord our God, if thou canst find any pleasure in such beings as we
are, accept the offei'ings that we make to thee of ourselves. Have
compassion on us by reason of our sin, of our leanness, of our
imperfection, and love us into beauty and harmony and immor-
tality.

And to thy name shall be the praise. Father, Son, and Spirit.
Amen.

SOUL-GROWTH.

" But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength ;
they shall mount up with wings as eagles ; they shall run and not be
weary; and they shall walk and not faint." — Isa. xl., 31.

There are two facts which, in the hght of modern phil-
osophizing, are striking. One is tliat modern piety, much
as knowledge has been developed, is obliged to go back thou-
sands of years to the rude ages of the world to find its most
fitting expression. All the exquisite experience of the last
two thousand years has not framed language which yet equals
the utterances of Isaiah, or of David, or of many of the men
of old who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost ;
and it seems strange that out of a rude age, where physical
6trength predominated, and where men lived by their senses
far more than even now they do, there should have sprung
up a vein of experience, a literature, a nomenclature which
yet is the best that the world has — but so it is.

The other fact closely connected with this, which has in
it some surprise, is that a people like the Israelites, whose
religious system had in it no provision for instruction, and
no tendency to develop individual independence or self-
ministering piety, should have sent forth men whose
thought and whose moral impulses have given direction to
the religion of the world. For the Mosaic economy was a
strictly hierarchical one, and contained in it no provision for
the instruction of the common people, and no opportunity
in the general services in which they had an individual and
independent action. Priests prayed for them ; offered sacri-
fices for them ; cleansed them ; took care of them ; and al-
though ther§ grew up after the Babylonish captivity a system

8(TNnAY MoRNijfo, MsTpl) 1, 1875. I^iiisgo}^ ; Isa. xlr UTV^U (PirmQutb ColleQ<

tlon) : Nu8. U7, 447,

610 SOUL-OROWTH.

of synagogues, it was not a part of the Mosaic economy. All
tliat knowledge which has made the Jewish name an lionored
name in time sprang from men that were not accredited as
regular teachers. But there was among the Jewish people this
peculiarity : namely, they believed in the right and in the
liberty of any man or any woman to exercise whatever
gifts, to use whatever inspiration, was sent upon them. Out
of tbe recognition of the liberty of the individual sprang
up the glorious company of prophets and judges ; and the
chief spiritual nourishment which we have derived from the
Old Testament comes, not from its priesthood, not from the
temple, not from the altar, but from the prophets. I will
not call them interlopers, because they were not regarded by
their own countrymen as such ; but they were the men, not
official, who had a personal inspiration, and rose up by the
side of the regulation religion, the religion of the nation, to
exercise their liberty of free thought, and their moral liberty.
It was from their hands that the truth came then ; and in
every age since, principally, it has come, not from men who
were officially set to teach, but from men who had such per-
sonal impulse, and such special gifts of God, that they were
trampled under foot or driven into the wilderness for declar-
ing the divine word as it was revealed to them.

So we have, in such passages as that which I read in your
hearing this morning, the glorious disclosure of the univer-
sality of the divine presence — of the infinite greatness of
God, and his control over all things, with the consummation
of them — of the inspiration which God gives to those who
believe in him and wait on him — a renewal, especially, of
their faith, hope, trust, and power.

The universal law under which men develop is that of
variableness. We do nothing continuously except to breathe
and pulsate. No man thinks except with intermission, and
no man feels except with intermission. It is insanity to
think upon one subject incessantly, night and day. Health
demands intermission, even retrocession.

That which is true in this limited sphere of individual
thought and feeling develops itself in a larger way, in all our
pursuits and actions in life. We are not always after pleas-

SOUL-OROWTH. 611

lire. We are not always after business. We are not always
patriotic. We are not always social. We go in rounds. So
a thousand concurrent influences at certain times wake us to
deep moral and religious thought and feeling. The whole
community is pervaded with a spirit which has been dropped
down from on high ; nor can any skill or device of men keep
the community in that altitude to which it has been brought,
beyond certain limited periods. The whole force of human
nature beats down the tendency to assume any single condi-
tion. Men cannot live perpetually in one mood. To-day a
man is in a predominantly intellectual state ; but that spends
itself, and the man's nature craves something besides intel-
lect ; and there is a rebound to the social side of his nature.
But after pursuing that a certain length of time he is sated
there, and the social powers long for release and rest, and he
breaks into another development.

Now, regarding religion as a personal and emotive experi-
ence, all the endeavors of men to hold Ciiristians, churches
or individuals, to a high emotive condition of religious feeling
are vain, because they go against the substantial law that is
inherent in our minds. We must fluctuate, we must alter-
nate. If you are high in religious feeling to-day that is no
reason why you should not be comparatively dry and empty
of specific emotive forms of religion to-morrow. The eth-
ical forms go on always. Virtue, morality, the discharge of
duties, the ten thousand offices of life which have in them
latent religious influences — these are perpetuated ; but even
in regard to these we are changing. We are one thing one
day, and another thing the next day. Thus human life runs
through an infinite series of variations, or changes. A want
of knowledge concerning this leads men to put an unnatural
force upon themselves ; and this unnatural force often works
in a way directly opposite to that which they intend. Re-
ligious men who feel that they must always be on the mount
exhaust themselves with such endeavors that they rebound,
and, instead of being on the mountain, are in the deepest and
darkest valley. By their over-exertion they lose their spiritual
fervor.

The question arises, then, when intervals of this kind

612 SOUL-OROWTB.

occur in religious experience, when reactions, backslidings,
comparative drought and barrenness take place, How shall
men renew ? Is there any renewal ? How shall that be ful-
filled which was declared of old by the prophet, that they
who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength ; fill up
again the exhausted fountain ; implete once more the sluggish
vein ; give pulsation to the heart, clarity to the eye, warmth
to affection, zeal to faith ?

Men must follow the disclosures of experience, very large-
ly, as to the methods by which this is done. There is in
the word of G-od no recognition of such processes ; the method
by which spiritual strength may be renewed, augmented,
carried to a higher average level, we must learn from a study
of the providence of God. We are obliged to take the Bible
as men take charts. The harbor of New York is deeper than
the paper on which the chart is printed. If you would know
of the Swash Channel, or of Gedney's Channel, go out and
lower the line and sound it. That will bring you into con-
nection with the fact itself ; whereas the chart merely brings
you into the shadow or symbol of the fact.

The word of God is simply a chart, and we must go out
of the Bible in order to learn what is in it. Wlien it speaks
of men, there are no men in it — only the letters which indi-
cate men ; and if you would know what men are you must
go where they are. A thing that is spoken of in the word of
God is but symbolized, shadowed, hinted at, there. If you
would know what the thing really is, you must go where you
can see it in actual operation, and study it.

So, human life is perpetually the interpreter and commen-
tator of the word of God. The Bible is but a book of dry
leaves, printer's ink ; but the thing signified is never in
printer's ink. Love is not as black as ink : it is as red as
blood. You can find it out, not "in the Bible, but in the
heart. Thought and inspiration are never in a book, though
the effects of them may be discerned there. The things
themselves must be found in the fire and flash of actual vi-
tality.

"How, then," we are asked, "do you determine that
men are to renew their strength and have an impletion of

so CTL-GBOWTH. g]^3

spiritual influence ? What right have you to put your phil-
osophy or your explanation above the declarations of God's
word ?" I say, 1 do not put them above the declarations of
God's word. I take God's word as a starting-point that gives
me a suggestion, as the chart does a man who sets out for a
voyage ; and I go to the thing itself in life, where God is at
work — ^for human life is his work-shop ; and what he does
and means we are to find out from the facts of daily experi-
ence, not from anything that is cut and dried and hung up
in some herbarium.

What, then, are some of the methods by which men, in
the divine economy, advance in spiritual impulse, and rise
permanently higher ?

1. First, we must not be biased by any theory of church
or ordinances, nor by any preaching, to suppose that we are
shut up to the dealings of God with us through these
channels. That the church is a very powerful instrument,
and that it will be indispensable through ages, none believe
more than I. That ordinances have a value, and that there is
a good reason for their maintenance and administration, I,
too, very firmly believe. I also believe that j^reaching is
blessed of God to the inspiration and stirring up of men.
Why should I disbelieve these things ? Why should I seem
ever to throw any discredit upon the institutions and usages
of the Christian Church ? I do not. It is by the truth ;
it is by the preaching of the truth, though it may be the
foolishness of preaching, often ; it is by tlie collected mem-
bership in any community which we call the assembly or
the church — it is by these that God works very great re-
sults among men ; but who are you that dare shut up the
sovereignty of God, and say that he works only by the
church ? Who shall dare to say that the great round world,
with all its varied influences — its warmth, its heat, its cold,
its winter, its summer, its ten thousand diflerent forces, bear-
ing upon men — ^is not employed of God, as well as the pulpit
and moral elements ?

Does not the village common school work upon the human
soul ? Do not books ? Do not newspapers ? Do not men in
all the ten thousand struggles of business ? Do not all the

614 SOUL-GROWTH.

influences which go to make up the swarming and ever-teem-
iug society ? Is there any thing which God does not use in
operating upon the reason, the affections, and the moral sen-
timents of men ? Is not lie the God of the whole earth ?
and does he not employ whatever touches or modifies the
human mind to mould men from low to high, from poor to
better, and from better to best ?

It is not because I regard these things as less than good
that I caution you not to depend exclusively upon the church,
or upon the reading of the Bible : I believe that God gives
to them signal eflBcacy ; but I believe, also, that he employs
a thousand other things by which to exert his influence in
the world. I believe that the heavens distill it, tlmt the
clouds bear it, and, overhanging us, drop it down. I believe
it comes with the scents and odors of summer. I believe
that it mingles with the joys and sorrows of men. I be-
lieve that it accompanies the ten thousand influences which
shift and change men. God woi'ks by churches, and he
works in spite of them. He works by ministers — and it is
hard work, often. He works by ignorant and imperfect men,
and he compensates for their ignorance and imperfection by
the use of other influences. He works by everything. The
universality, the infinite variety of the working of the divine
Spirit, I fain would bear in on your minds.

When, therefore, men say, "How shall we renew our
spiritual strength and experience ?" it is not enough for me
to say, " Listen to preaching, take the communion, read
your Bible, and say your prayers." If I were to tell you this
alone, and you were to put it in practice, you would soon dis-
cover that it was not wise instruction ; for you would find
that though you observed all the ordinances of the church,
your spiritual strength and experience was not renewed.
Thousands and thousands of weary souls testify that having
done all that was I'equired of them by their religious system,
they received very little if any appreciable profit.

2. It pleases God to make the spiritual development of men
depend on time-growth. We know how it is with children.
We know that they develop first by the body. Then come,
secondly, the social affections, witli the elementary forms of

SOUL-OROWTH. 615

the intellect. Nor can you force things in a normal and
healthy child. You must take it in the hour of God's
appointment. The body you may call all manner of names ;
you may despise the body ; but a soul without a body is like
a candle without a candlestick ; nay, it is like a wick without
a candle ; nay, it is like a flame trying to live without a wick.
The body is the foundation on which we all start ; and we
have to wait ; and we learn to wait in respect to our children.

Then comes the next stage — that of the unfolding of
affection and intelligence ; and the intelligence is generally
the effect, not of the relations of facts, but of the percipi-
ence of the senses. It is not usually the fruit of reflection
or reasoning. Next begin to develop the moral elements.
Third in the order of time, and last, is the spiritual nature —
for I distinguish between the moral, as including in itself
the whole range of ethical truth, and the spiritual, which I
understand to be the highest form of mental activity by
which men discern invisible qualities or existences, or that
whole action of the mind which is supersensuous, not being
confined to the law of the senses, but belonging to the higher
range of mentality.

I think in men, and in women, often, the development of
a higher spiritual percipience and emotion is the result of
time and growth. Therefore, persons going into the church
early in life, whether they go in upon a profession of their
faith, or by birthright, or through confirmation, or by any
of the different methods by which they are said to become
Christians, or by which they are taught to think themselves
to be Christians — such persons are not prepared for the
higher forms of spiritual development, simply because they
are not ripe, or are not mature.

Did you ever see how flowers grow — how first, lifting the
clod, they develop two great loaves ; how, out of these leaves,
sucking up all that is in them, the stem begins to come
forth ; and how it grows through weeks and months ? It
breaks the ground in April ; but August comes, and there is
nothing yet except the stem, which is still growing and
branching. Go out, if you please, and say to it, '' 0
Aster, latest of all flowers, do you know how many flowers

616 SOUL-GROWTH.

in the hedge and on the road-side have blossomed the mo-
ment thej were out of the ground — tulips, hyacinths, cro-
cuses, jonquils ? — and here you have been growing for three
months, and you do not show a blossom nor a bud !" No,
and it will not for some time yet. But by and by, when
October comes, if you will go out into the field, you will see
that its time has come in the order of its own growth, and
that it begins to show the tips of little buds. And when the
early spring-blossoming flowers are forgotten, and their very
leaves are withered and gone away, then, when the frosts
impend, and the hoarse northern winds begin to pipe their
coming, the aster stands by, and irradiates the field ; and
it stays till winter slays it. We rejoice in the earliest flower
because it is the earliest, and we rejoice in the latest flower
because it is the latest ; but do what you will, you cannot
make the aster blossom in spring. You must wait until the
time for it to blossom arrives.

Now, among men the same thing hajjpens. There are
those who have a premature development of spiritual im-
pulses. There are children that develop these impulses early ;
but, fortunately, they die quickly, and go to heaven ; and
their lives go into Sunday-school libraries. But because the
higher nature of some people is unfolded early, are we to
make them the criterion for other people ? You might as
well go out to an apple-tree that ripens its fruit in October,
and say, "Here is a yellow apple that was ripened in Sep-
tember," and blame it for not ripening its apples in Septem-
ber. Would you, in September, say to an apple-tree whose
fruit does not ripen until October, " Hurry up ! hurry up !
your apples ought to be ripe"? The tree that ripens its
fruit early is pursuing its normal course ; and the tree that
ripens its fruit late is pursuing its normal course.

Many persons develop high religious emotions prema-
turely ; and it is not desirable. It is better not to seek to
produce ecstatic experiences in anticipation of the normal
methods. Spiritual fervors thus produced are almost invari-
ably artificial, not only, but drugging and deteriorating.
Many persons begin to develop by the law of growth ; but
they have not ripeness. The strings are not stretched across

OUL-GROWTH. 617

their mind from which can vibrate certain influences or
truths. Persons renew, or are said to renew, their spiritual
fervor, when they come, late in life, or in mid-life, into any
considerable realization of the power of God, of faith in God,
of insight into the heavenly influence, or into royalty of
Christian experience ; and often, when they come into that
state, they turn themselves about, and say, " Oh, how much
I have lost ! If I had begun early, if I had been in this
frame of mind from the time that I was ten years old, what
a joyful life I should have had !" Oh, yes, that is so ; but
because my grapes are so sweet in October, I never think of
going out and saying, " 0 Catawba ! 0 lona ! If you
had only been as sweet as this in June what a nice time I
should have had eating you all summer long!" I do not
reason so about fruits or flowers ; nor is it wise to reason so
about people.

Many may lose by neglect, or by delay ; bn t there is an
element of time which must be taken into consideration.
There is a certain rawness orungrowth of mind which makes
it impossible for persons to develop the higher spiritual states
until they have gone through a given number of years.

3. Then there are many persons who renew their strength,
who develop into a higher spiritual life, into more fervor,
more joy, and more stability by reason of the removal of
false or imperfect views of truth.

There are many persons who are taught to believe that
if they have not grace it is some fault of theirs. The
minister hammers on that, saying to them, "It is your
own fault, it is your want of faith and diligence, it is your
neglect to use the means of grace" — whatever that may be.
So they go home, and have a kind of constriction ; their con-
science troubles them ; they wish they could do whatever is
necessary to secure the desired end ; they try, with a sort of
haK-physical endeavor ; they read a little more, and study a
little more ; but they do not get any further along. They
say, " The minister says it is my fault, and I suppose it is ;
but they cannot tell how or why."

One looks out through a window of plain, perfectly clear
glass, and seeing a beautiful landscape he admires it, and

618 SOUL-GROWTH.

calls another to see it ; but while tlie other is coming, the
sash with the clear glass is thrown up, and a sash with ground
glass is- thrown down. He looks, and says, " I cannot see any
beautiful landscape." And the other says, '■ It is your own
fault. You do not keep the window clear." The man com-
mences rubbing the window to get off the dirt, but he can not
see through it. Nobody can see through ground glass, I do
not care whether there are spiders' webs on it or not. The
first man said, '^I looked through the window and saw a
beautiful landscape ;" but he did not say, " I saw it through
a different medium from that which you are trying to look
through." The other man said, " You say that you see
beautiful things, and that it is my fault that I do not see
them. I have come early and late, and at all seasons, but I
have not seen those beautiful things It may be my fault,
but I don't think it is."

If persons are brought up under such instruction that
they have false or imperfect views of God, of the divine
character, and of spiritual truths, how can they, looking
through these ground-glass views, or these grimed views, see
the beautiful things that lie beyond them ?

We will suppose that I have been brought up to believe
that God is a thorough-going policeman, and that being per-
fect himself, he says, " Now, look out ! For every word and
every thought that is wrong, young man, I will bring you
into Judgment." I imagine that he watches, day and night ;
that his eye is constantly on me. I regard him as a jealous
God, as a spying God, as a rigorous God, as a God that loves
some when he has brought them within a certain line, but
that looks upon all who are outside of that line without allow-
ance, and with a determination of justice. To me, he is a
God that loves justice more than he does humanity ; that loves
law better than he does men. Suppose the heaven were full
of a God like that ? The more there is of such a God the
worse it is. We will suppose I am attempting to love him.
I look up, and see storms ; but I cannot love storms.

Suppose John Zundel should instruct you and me in
music, and suppose he should say to us, " If you are going
to be true musicians, you must love this " — making one of

SOUL-GROWTH. 619

the most hideous discords that was ever brought out of a
screechiug organ ? Suppose he should say, " Don't you like
it?" and we should say "No;" and he should say, " It is
because you are so unregenerate and depraved" ?

There is a relation between things and things — between
quality and quality. I cannot love things that are bitter,
with a certain kind of bitterness ; but I can love things that
are sweet, with a certain kind of sweetness ; and there is a
relation between a man's reason and things that are reasona-
ble. There is a human sense of justice which is the founda-
tion on which every man must be just, or determine what is
just. There are qualities which the race esteems as good or
bad ; and they do it because they are founded in the nature
of things. If you take away from them that which is pri-
mary and rudimentary, the axioms of right and wrong, you
destroy their moral sense, and all their capacity for moral de-
velopment.

Now, if you destroy that in God himself, how :nuch worse
is it ! If it is wrong for Nero to be a tyrant, is it not more
wrong for God to be one ? If to love blood ; if to overhang
a Eoman amphitheatre, and see men drinking blood as if it
were wine ; if to rejoice in the contests of beasts and slaves,
and in all forms of athletic cruelty ; if to gloat over such
things ; if for a man to feel himself an emperor because he
has brute power — if these things are hideous in Caligula, or
in Nero, is it right for God to sit in heaven and look down
into hell, and rejoice that out of the thirty millions who die
every year, probably twenty-nine and a-half millions go down
there ? To teach me that that is God, and to call od me to
look up and admire him, and say, "That is beautiful" —
every instinct of Christianity, every sweet affection of my
nature, everything that is noblest and best in me, abhors it.
These extreme forms of statement are seldom advanced now,
in school or church, yet if Christ is not transformed and made
hideous by the exposition of men, at least they do not make
him beautiful. The preaching of the divine nature to a very
large extent is anything but attractive. It is not made draw-
ing to men. The beauty of holiness ; that glory of God
which he declares stands in his patience, in his gentleness,

620 SOUL-GROWTH.

in his long-suffering, in his love, in his power to suffer for
others rather than to make them suffer — how little is this
preached among men !

So persons are brought up, under a rigorous system, fre-
quently, thinking themselves not to be drawn to religion be-
cause they are depraved. They do not like preaching, and
they suppose tliat is because they are depraved. Neither do
they like Sunday ; and they assign the same reason for that.

Sunday ! I used to be a pin-cushion, and duties used to
be j)ins, when I was a boy ; and I did not like it when they
stuck them into me. Therefore, Sunday was the dreadful
day of the week to me. There were some Sundays of my boy-
hood which stand in my memory as among the mosi; beauti-
ful things in the world ; and yet, while I believe that the
world would suffer irre])arable loss in the abolition of Sun-
.day, or in its secularization, on the other hand in order to
preserve Sundays you must make them beautiful, honorable
and desirable. Intelligent natures must find in them that
which feeds the really best things which are in them. If
Tnese days are only hoops, strings, manacles ; if they are only
'"Thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not"; if they
are burdensome, it is worse than if you were to eradicate
their existence altogether.

That which is true of Sunday is true of the church, and
every 'f>ttrt of its service. If you hold uj) inspiring themes of
religion in such a way that they are clouded, misconceived,
absolutely perverted, how can you expect men to rise ? Fre-
quently, when persons have been brought up in one commun-
ion where they are not developed and built up in their
religious nature, they go to some other communion, where
they have a ditferent kind of preaching, and fall in with new
kinds of books, or statements, or doctrines, or philosophies,
as the case may be, and their difficulties are cleared away,
and they break forth into a higher experience, and they feel,
"There is a better life opening in me." Their spiritual
strength is renewed, not only, but they seem to be created
afresh, and they rise into a glorious communion with God.

Now, I declare 1 would rather see a person — a young man
or a young woman -go out of the Protestant church and

SOUL-GROWTH. 621

come under the ministration of one of my brethren of the
Roman Catholic Church, than not have that person grow.
If you are in a state of adumbration here, if you cannot see
the truth, and if sometliiug is not done for you here which
breaks the cloud and lets out the glory, and if you can go
elsewhere and be helped by picture, or statue, or robe, or ser-
vice, I say to you, ''Go." Your spiritual growth is more to
me, and ought to be more to you, than auy orthodoxy or
regularity of Protestantism. There is nothing on earth which
is to be compared, for one moment, to the breaking of the
soul out of a lower life into a higher realm ; and if a man can
be benefited spiritually by going among the Swedenborgians,
or the Eoman Catholics, or the Unitarians, or the Luther-
ans, or the Episcopalians, or the Presbyterians, or the Bap-
tists, or the Methodists ; if his nature can be enlarged and
lifted up by the words of this or that poet, or preacher, or
philosopher ; if he can be carried up in his thoughts and feel-
ings and actions by tlie finesse of reasoning or the glamour
of imagination, let him avail himself of these instrumentali-
ties, no matter where he may find them. The question is.
What is it that stands related to the true growth of any indi-
vidual soul ? and when that is determined it is the right of
this soul to seek it. It is moi-e imjDortant that he be hatched
than that any particular bird hatches him !

So it comes to pass, often, that men, drawn from one re-
lation to another, receive, by reason of their change of circum-
stances, and the new influences which are brought to bear
upon them, a great impetus in their life. They are apt to
suppose that the credit lies in the power of the preacher ; but
in this they are mistaken. A man comes to this church, and
hears me preach, and says, "That is the kind of preaching I
like." He comes again and again ; and after six months,
eight months, or a year, he is in the full disclosure of Chris-
tian experience; and he says: "Ah! that is because Mr.
Beecher preaches so." Poor soul ! it is not. I simply preach
in the natural and ordinary way ; but you have been brought
out of the circumstances where the truth was hidden from
you, and you are brought into circumstances in which my
preaching happens to be medicinal to your particular case.

623 SOUL-GROWTH.

All your life and education have stood between yon and the
future, and I happen to be the instrument that draws the
curtain and lets you see the real picture. No strength, no
eloquence, no great wisdom, but God, has brought you where,
at last, you get a view of the heavenly land, of the spiritual
life, of our everlasting home. No human power lifts you up ;
it is the power of God that lifts you.

A ship is stuck on a mud-bank ; and, the tide going out,
it careens over, and there it lies, like many discouraged
Christians. They do not need to anchor. The anchor is
out, though. By and by the tide begins to come in, little
by little. The captain calls up the crew, and orders them
to hoist in the anchor. It is hoisted in, and stowed away.
" Trim the sails," is the next command ; and that is obeyed.
The tide is still coming in, coming in, coming in ; and by
and by the vessel floats off ; and the crew look up with ad-
miration, and say, ''What a captain we have ! It was the
hauling in of the anchor and the trimming of the sails that
saved us. The captain gave his orders, tbey were obeyed,
and then she floated." No, it was not the captain's doings.
The Lord God, who swings the stars through the heavens,
and exerts his power upon the ocean, did it. The captain
merely foresaw the coming of the tide, and adapted the cir-
cumstances of the vessel to influences which existed before.

So the plenary inspiration of the Spirit of God fills the
heaven and the earth ; and when men are brought into con-
junctions of circumstances where they meet the tide of
divine influence, and receive comfort, the power is not in
him who happened to draw aside the curtain and the screen,
but in the mightiness of God who lies behind these things.

4. There are many persons who fail to come to the light of
truth, and to the inspiration of the higher views of religion,
by reason of worldly prosperity, which tends to satisfy their
lower nature. Under such circumstances it is, that, in the
divine ordering of things, what are called distresses, infirmi-
ties, and even great sorrows, are blessed of God to the open-
ing of their nature and to the renewing of their spiritual
strength.

Thus, it is the experience of thousands of men that sick-

SOUL-GROWTH. 623

ness has been greatly blessed to them. Men have an arro-
gance of health, and they do not feel how much they depend
upon the sovereignty of God and nature in a thousand ways.
I think that, to a strong man, next to the sense of power is
the sweetness of dependence. I think nobody feels this
sweetness so much as those who are strongest. Men like the
exercise of power ; that it is pleasant, everybody knows ; but,
after all, the sense of leaning, the longing for something
better and higher and stronger than you are on which you
can lean, is a source of still greater satisfaction. When men
are in their strength, and are actors in their various spheres,
that part of their nature which leads one to desire something
to lean upon is not developed. But sickness comes, and they
are made helpless and despondent ; and under such circum-
stances they begin to feel, " How frail my power is ! The
difference between one mouthful and another sets me all
wrong. A hasty walk or a little imprudence, when I am re-
covering, throws me down again. I am not so omnipotent,
or so near omnipotence, as I thought I was." The sense of
the power of the Ruler, or of God over all — what may be
called the humiliation of bone and muscle as well as of
spirit and soul — this takes place in men ; and frequently the
best thing that ever happens to a man is a fit of sickness
which changes his whole life. To be sure, when men are
sick they are always going to be pious. They do not always
fulfill their intentions, but in many cases they do. So that
which would at first seem to be obscuration, and a reason for
lamentation, turns out to be one of the greatest comforts and
blessings of life.

Often, in times of drought, wells give out ; and in the
West, where wells are shallow, when they became dry we
used to go down and dig deeper till we struck water again,
putting new casings inside of the old ones — for the wells
used to be lined with wood. When another drought came,
we used to go down again and repeat the process. This we
continued till we got the wells so deep that they never
gave out.

Troubles are well - diggers. Men find their pleasures
pretty near the top of the soil ; but troubles and sorrows

624 SOUL-OROWTH.

sink wells in them deeper and deeper, till, by and by, they
stand, and are never dry, and are wells of water springing
up to everlasting life in their souls. Sorrows and troubles
ai*e great benefactors. And the same is true of bereave-
ments, great losses, and various hindrances.

Men never could see the corona of the sun — the red flame
that surrounds that orb — until the sun was eclipsed ; and the
corona, the light, the glory of God is seen when men are
under eclipse and in darkness. There are revelations made
to men then which prosperity never brings to them. We are
rich and strong, not by the things which we possess, but by
the amount of true manhood which is developed in us.

5. It pleases God, also, to employ the companionship of
friends and neighbors in developing men in the direction of
tjieir higher manhood. There is nothing that is so helpful
to a soul as the contact of another soul. When you go
through the door of thought, that is a visitation to be de-
sired ; but our Master, Jesus, is himself an Exemplar, and
teaches us that, not his Sermon on the Mount, not his dis-
courses by the way, healed the blind man, but his taking
hold of the blind man's hand, and walking with him out
of the village into the country, and then, with arm about
him, laying his hand upon his eyes. It was his personal
touch ; and it is soul-touch, after all, that is the most help-
ful and most powerful influence that is brought to bear upon
men in the world.

The peace of God, which passeth all understanding — if a
man has this, and carries it with him, and it falls upon an-
other man, there is more inspiration in it, and there is more
instruction in it, than in a thousand books. Madam Guion's
life has led and' misled thousands of persons ; and yet, doubt-
less, she, in her personal presence, was a blessing to almost
every one whom she met. You who have cheer in you are
God's missionaries of comfort to those who are naturally
opaque-minded. It is a talent which God has given you, and
you never exercise it. Many persons keep mirthful ness as a
music-box on a shelf. God gave them an equipage of soul
which the world wants, groaning and weeping in overmeasure
for the lack of it ; and yet it lies dormant in thenu Tkey have

SOUL-GROWTH. 625

it in their power to throw light and cheer upon the ways of
life, and make men more buoyant and courageous in the
midst of their cares and troubles, and they do not do it.
Many men who are mirthful and genial could, if they would,
throw over the hardships and trials of their fellow men a
radiance which should illuminate their path, but they neglect

to do so.

Well, I suppose it would set me outside of the pale of
home missionaries if I were to say that a person could often-
times do more for a sick person by a joke than by a prayer ;
but it is true, whether you like it or not. Many a man has
been winged by prayers to the very gate of heaven, and many
a man has been sunk into the very slough of despond by
prayers. While many prayers are Jacob's ladders, easy of
ascent and descent, many other prayers are dungeons— except
that they are darker and damper than any dungeon ever was.

So that, frequently, companionship is the best thing in
the world. I ought to say it. I am what I am, by the grace
of God, through my old friend Moody— not Moody and San-
key of England, but a man that was at Amherst College, a
class or two above me. He was a person of great piety, and
he was given much to prayer, night and day ; but, glory be
to God, he had good common sense ; and he took me by the
hand. It was at a time when I was in the most morbid
conditions of mind. I was sweltering under those views
of moral government and divine nature which seemed as
though they would suffocate me, and I was trying to eradicate
common sense from my mind, that I might be pious — then it
was that this man took me by the hand ; and the encourage-
ment, the hope, the comfort, which he threw upon me brings
tears to my eyes when I think of it. Now he has gone to
heaven, and therefore he hears what I say, and rejoices. I
remember him more than all others. Dear old Doctor Hum-
phrey, the president, I revered. He gave me certain senti-
ments of moral sturdiness. Right is right, and come what
will, let the heavens fall, justice shall be done — I got much
of that from him ; and from my own father I got a good deal
of courage and enthusiasm ; but the trust which weakness
may put in love I got from Mr. Moody ; the sense of Christ s

626 SOUL-GROWTH.

favor for unwortliy men, because their souls needed some
other heart to brood tliem, I also got from Mr. Moody ; and
I never shall thank him until I go where he will not need
any thanks.

Now, what is largely called " the fellowship of the saints "
is very poor indeed. 1 recollect, when I was a boy, being
taken into what was called a." Mother's meeting," where twelve
or fifteen sad-hearced women would get together and pray for
their children. They prayed for me ; and if I had derived
my notion of the Qommunion of the saints from them, I
think I should totally have misconceived the most glorious
element which there is in our mortal life.

Let any one go into the average country prayer-meeting.
Tallow candles are hung around on the walls. There are a
dozen or twenty persons present, scattered about the room,
one here, another there, another over there, and so on. A
man, generally the minister, stands in the desk, and reads a
chapter, and makes a regulation prayer. Then a deacon gets
up and, as usual, talks about our living below our privileges.
Another deacon get>s up and descants on the duty of laying
down the weapons of our rebellion. By and by, after a cer-
tain number of regulation prayers have been made, and
hymns have been sung, and remarks have been offered, the
hour is out, and the people get up, and they go out, and are
very happy indeed that the meeting is over. It is your duty
to love the communion of the saints, it is said ; but any child
ought to be whipped if he liked that. It is unnatural. It
is stupid.

Take two persons who feel that it is their duty to talk on
the subject of religion. A man gets up in the morning with
his head full of business and care. He meets a brother
church -member in the street, and thinks he ought to have
communion with him. Although be is thinking about notes
and bargains, he says, '' Well, Brother Corning, how is your
soul to-day ?" The reply is, " Well, thank God, I am pretty
well." After having thus exchanged about haK-a-dozen sen-
tences, and satisfied their consciences, they go into a discus-
sion about the things which they are really thinking of.
They have a good talk about stocks ; about the state of the.

SOUL-GROWTH. 621

market ; about profit and loss. The whole current of their
thoughts runs in the channel of business. There is a vast
amount of this mechanical communion — of talking about
religion because it is thought to be a duty.

Now, genuine spiritual communion is a very different
tiling from that. When persons have real life in their souls ;
wlien they have real peace, real sweetness, real faith, real
hope, there is nothing in this world that is comparable to the
quiet, natural, unrestrained interchange of thought and
feeling — or if there be not interchange of thought and feel-
ing, then to the reception of them as imparted by those who
are filled with them, and are God's ministers to the soul in
that direction.

A man tells me that I ought to be a lover of flowers.
Upon his invitation, I go into his library and see his herba-
rium. He has put into leaves a large collection of flowers
that are dried, and that have lost their color and fragrance.
There is a prevailing smell of hay among them all. But I
make believe that I like them. ''Oh," I say, "these roses
are delicious ! Oh, how sweet these violets are I" So I go
through the whole collection.

That is very much like Christian people, who go through
all sorts of experiences making believe that they like them,
when they don't.

I saw, behind a hotel in Switzerland, a fine garden, and I
unexpectedly found there American flowers ; and being far
away from home, and half home-sick, they afforded me great
pleasure, and I went into ecstasy over them. Every one of
them seemed like a message to me full of affection, by asso-
ciation ; and I did not need anything to help me love and
praise them.

Now, where there is a real fragrance ; in the garden of
the Lord, where there is all that is manly and good— there it
is the best thing in the world for those who meet to be in
communion with each other ; but I despise all regulation
duties of this kind.

6. Not to protract further the opening of this subject, I
may say that when, by the use of these various instrumentali-
ties— by the use of true views ; of communion with men ; and

538 SOUL-OROWTH.

of the sanctifying influence of our avocations in life — our souls
have grown, and have come into the possibility of a higher
spiritual disclosure, then I believe that there is a further soul-
growth iu us. I believe that God works through the natural
world until we are able to be influenced through the social
world ; that then he works through the social world until we
are able to be influenced through the higher forms of church
association and teaching ; and that, by-and-by, when, through
these lower instrumentalities the soul has been stored with
knowledge and experience, we come to a state in which there
is a direct influence of the soul of God exerted upon us — as
direct as sight and voice are to the bodily senses. I believe
that the divine Spirit comes into the hearts of men in ways
that are inexplicable to the lower understanding, and that,
therefore, men who are on the lower plane of life do not com-
prehend. I believe that when men come to a higher
Christian life they have days of spiritual insight ; and that
these days grow longer and longer, like the days of the
coming summer, when the sun goes down later and later,
and rises earlier and earlier. I believe that as the result
of a whole life of education and practice in divine duties,
men may come, at last, into that state in which the Spirit of
God shines with a steadfast lustre upon them. Then there is
the triumph of grace in the soul. Then intuitions become
truths — not fitful, not irregular, not based upon inchoate and
undigested knowledge, but constant, regular, and founded
on sound judgment. I believe that when men have well-
proved knowledge, and wholesome habits thoroughly estab-
lished, and their higher spiritual nature is growing and open-
ing toward God — I believe that then the prophet-gift comes
to them, so that they almost foresee, and almost see with
the bodily eye, the God who is invisible to the flesh.

I do not wonder — when saints begin to decay, or fall
away so far as their outward bodies are concerned ; I do not
wonder — when they are dying, and the external ear and eye
lose their power — then I do not wonder that the inward ear
catches the sound of heavenly music, and that the inward eye
beholds the angels of God coming. I do not wonder that
children, dying, reach out their hands and call *' Mother,'*

SOUL-GROWTH. 629

and that mothers, dying, reach out their hands to greet their
cliildren. As we near the great spiritual reality, and the
world, the flesh, and matter are losing power, then the eman-
cipated soul is like a bird that has gone up from branch to
branch, until at last it sits upon the topmost bough, utters
one sweet song, and flies far away through the air. I do not
wonder that the spirit rejoices, sings, and disappears singing,
that it may appear in Zion and before God.

Christian brethren, this view it is tiie privilege of all to
have. It is the priArilege of all to live the life of which I
have been speaking : not to-day nor to-morrow, but as the
result of patient continuance in well doing, growing in grace
and in the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

And now, dear brethren, when the blessing is pronounced
we will Join together around the table which celebrates Him
who has revealed these truths to us in their most potential
forms ; and I invite all of you who are in the Lord Jesus
Christ by faith, whether you are in the church or not, or
whatever church you are in ; I invite every one of you who
believes in the indispensable need of God's forgiveness and
quickening grace ; I invite such of you as are in earnest, and
have to-day the witness in yourselves that you accept the
goodness of God through Jesus Christ; 1 invite all wlio
would be glad to express their love for the Saviour by the
most affecting of all symbolization, his broken body and his
blood ; I invite every sinful man or woman, every despairing
soul that begins to have hope in Jesus Christ — I invite you
to become brethren with us for the hour, and partake with
us of these emblems.

630 SOUL-GROWTH.

PRAYEE BEFORE THE SERMON.*

We rejoice, our Father, that thou art hidden from us, not because
being high thou art haughty, and dost wrap thyself from thine
infeiiors ; we rejoice that thou art obscure or hidden only while
there is not iu us that which cau comprehend thee; and that by
growing in grace we may grow iu the knowledge of the Lord and
Saviour Jesus Chiist. We rejoice that there is provision for our ris-
ing to the consciousness of thy presence, and of thy nature, and of
thy character, and somewhat to an understanding of thy govern-
ment. None of us by searching can find thee out altogether or
understand the Almighty unto perfection; but we may come near
to thee, and understand more of thee than we do of father or
mother, of brother or sister, or of friend. Thou canst be more to
the soul than all other beings. Those that trust thee, and love thee,
and are born into the spiritual life with thee, thou canst fill liy thy
power with all strength, courage and understanding. Thou canst
clothe them with thoughts of thee. We rejoice that the testimonies
from day to day of thy servants of far away years are recorded.
The patriarchs and prophets, the apostles and martyrs, a thousand
witnesses in every age, testify that iu sickness, iu sorrow, in perse-
cution, in hardships, in all ways of trouble thou art able to send
through the storm, the calm; through the darkness, the light; and
through weakness, strength. Thou hast in thyself the resources
which universal being needs; and thou dost not withhold, but dost
give forth liberally. Thou art as the sun that doth not shine asking
how much anything can hold, but that ponreth itself abroad with
infinite abundance, overflowing and transcending the wants of all
that are upon the earth. And so thou dost grant of thyself unto us,
not according to the measure which we have in ourselves, but
according to the greatness of thine own being; and thou dost please
thyself in giving of thine own generosity. Thine own benevolence,
thine own love and thine own goodness are the measures— not our
desert, nor even our want. Thou dost pour from thyself through
the universe the vital spirit. It is of thee, thy life imparting life,
rearing it up in gradations, through the ages, that, at last, in the
consummation of all things thou mayest make appear what thou
art by what thou hast done; and thou wilt have distributed the
knowledge of thyself in so many rank- and gradations that spirits,
thrones, dominions, principalities, angels, archangels, all that have
kept their first estate, and all that have come up from the lowest
planes, step by step, shall know thee, shall understand thee, and shall
rejoice in thee. And then all other things shall pass away as needed
no longer. Thou wilt be the day, and thou wilt be the night. There
shall be no sun, nor moon, nor shining of the stars. There shall be
no city and no temple. The Lord God shall have in himself all that
all do need ; and we shall rise into the joy of infinite blessedness.

We rejoice that so many behold, even dimly, this bright vision of

♦Immediately following- the reception of members Into the church.

SOUL-GROWTH.

631

the coming estate. We rejoice that so many are drawn toward it,
and are verifying thy promises to those who call on thee.

This morning we have received into our number a new company
that seek to walk with us to the land of the Messed. We pray that thou
wilt give to them the same grace which thou hast given to hundreds
and thousands who have companied with us in days gone by, and
who are still with us. And yet, how many are upon the other side;
how many that laid foundations with us; how many that went forth
in counsel, and prayer, and labor with us; how many whose voices
sounded rejoicingly in our ears in the songs of earth! Still they are
ours. Still there is communion of the saints. The church on earth
and the church above are in communion. The spirits of the blessed
look upon us as we gather together in the old familiar places, and
rejoice over us as by faith we lift ourselves up to rejoice in them.
Theirs is the victory; ours is yet the struggle: but the victory is as
sure for us as it was for them. Ours yet are tears; theirs are smiles
everlasting; but thou shalt wipe away every tear from every eye of
those who yet linger in this lower sphere.

O Lord, our God, we beseech of thee, as one and another come
into the communion of thy people, and into church relationships,
that they may have administered unto them, not the superstition of
outward membership, but the hidden communion of the divine
Spirit, and that they may feel that the sources of their strength
are in God. Grant that Jesus Christ may become to them a well-
conceived object of joy and faith. Grant, we pray thee, that it may
be a sweet and pleasant thing for them to walk in the ways of
righteousness; and may they find them ways of peace. Deliver
them from temptations which are mightier than their own purposes.
Deliver them from despondency and distrust. Make them strong, not
in themselves, nor in their own will, but in the Lord. And we pray
that thou wilt bring many more out of darkness into light, and from
the world into communion with the people of God.

We beseech of thee that thou wilt fulfill all thy promises to every
one who waits upon thee. Behold expectant hearts to-day. Look
down upon this congregation. How many are the wants which
move souls toward thee in silence! How many are the soitows of
many hearts! How many with bitter memories come to-day into
thy presence for help! How many are there whose hearts ache—
those of parents for children, those of brothers and sisters for each
other, and those of husbands and wives for each other! How many
are there who need thee in their homes, in their dispositions, in their
relationships in life one to another! Grant thy grace unto every
one. As his day may his strength be, not only, but day by day give
him that bread which comes down from heaven, and which feeds the
soul, and strengthens it in all its nobler aspirations.

And we beseech of thee that thou wilt quicken all who believe,
that they may walk in the way of duty; that they may search out
neglected duties; that they may take upon themselves the whole
service of God ; and if there be those who stand looking wistfully
upon this congregation and upon this church from without. O Lord,
we pray that they may be drawn by that same sweet spirit of hope

632 SOUL-OROWTH.

and promise which hath drawn us. May the lore of Christ constrain
them; and may they begin that higher and better life with higher
aspirations — that life which overcomes this world by the power of
faith. Grant that they may, at last, take the first steps, and com-
mence that journey which, if it be steep and troublesome in the
beginning, grows more and more easy until it enters the kingdom of
God above.

We pray that thou wilt bless all the churches that are gathered
together to-day. May all thy ministering servants be taught of God,
and be equipped to preach the whole truth as it is in Christ Jesus.
We pray for all the instrumentalities by which light and knowledge
are diffused throughout our land. We pray that thou wilt extend
the work of teaching among the neglected ; of preaching the Gospel
in places that are weak and destitute and afar off. We pray that
thou wilt send forth in every part of the earth those who are conse-
crated to the work of spreading the knowledge of God, until, in
every land, on every continent, in every dark place on the globe, the
light and the glory of Christ shall shine forth victoriously.

Let thy kingdom come, let thy will be done and fill the whole
earth with thy glory. We ask it for Christ Jesus' sake. Amen.

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