Saturday afternoon; or, Conversations for the culture of the Christian life

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.

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Chap. Copyright No.

Shell,:

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON;

OR,

CONVERSATIONS

FOR THE

Culture of the Christian Life

BY

WAYLAND HOYT, D. D.,

Author of "Hints and Helps for the Christian Life" "Present Lessons

from Distant Days" " Gleams from Paul's Prison" "Along

the Pilgrimage" " The Brook in the Way" "Light

on Life's Highway " etc., etc.

PHILADELPHIA :

AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY,
1420 Chestnut Street.

5G?27

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1889, by the

American Baptist Publication Society,

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

TWO COPIES RECEIVED

ScC J„D COPY,

I.

TO THE

NUMEROUS FRIENDS

WHO FOR SO MANY

SATURDAY AFTERNOONS

HAVE GATHERED TO LISTEN TO

THESE CONVERSATIONS

THIS SHEAF OF THEM

IS DEDICATED.

PREFACE.

It fell out in this way : I had been thinking much of
the importance of the nurture of the Christian life, and
had been wondering how I, as pastor, might specially
minister to it. Sunday sermons were too formal, and
the usual prayer meetings were too fragmentary. I was
longing for some service which should make Christian
experience its undivided focus. Announcing such a
service, and inviting any to come who cared to, I was
immediately surprised to find how wide and deep a need
was met. Thus it became a habit of my ministry to
devote an hour of the Saturday afternoon^ of the winter
season to such duty. I always called these gatherings
"Conversations," that I might indicate their entirely
informal character. What I said was extemporaneous,
and of the nature of a conversation. My dear friend,
the Rev. Dr. H. L. Wayland, the editor of the National
Baptist, was kind enough to think what I was saying
worth reporting for his valuable paper. To him, to Miss
Lydia S. Richards, to Miss Burmeister, I am entirely

5

3 PREFACE.

indebted for the remaining of my word. I have been
often asked to throw these Conversations into a volume.
By the generous permission of Dr. Wayland I am
enabled to do so. Out of many I have selected these.
If, in the least, these shall soothe or gird a single
Christian heart, I shall be devoutly thankful.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I. Grace and Peace, 9

II. Strength for Harassed Christians, . 20

III. As Much as We Are Willing to Ke-

CEIVE, 31

IV. Submission, 46

V. Dreading, 60

VI. God's Kemedy for Care, 69

VII. The Cure for Heart-sinking, .... 80

VIII. The Unspeakable Gift, 97

IX. God Mine, 110

X. What Christ is to Us, 121

XI. Union with Christ, 133

XII. The Certainty of Divine Help, . . . 149

XIII. An Ancient Christian's Thought of

Christ, 165

XIV. Our 44Dakeel," 179

XV. Paul's44 Can," 189

XVI. Walking with God, 202

XVII. Conquering Circumstances, 211

XVIII. My Times Are In Thy Hand, 221

XIX. What We Are and Have, ..... 230

XX. The Cup of Salvation, , . 238

XXI. Holden Eyes, 248

XXII. The Kingdom Coming with Power, . . 263

XXIII. How to Triumph Over Evil, 272

XXIV. The Tomb of Jesus, 280

XXV. Strength in Our Soul, 289

7

SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

I.

GRACE AND PEACE.

GRACE and Peace, not one alone, but both,
God gives, for in the New Testament they
are constantly associated. Paul's salutations are
always of this sort, " Grace to you, and peace."
I am sure there is a great amount of help to each
of us in these two words, and in the joining of
them together. Grace is God's attitude toward
us, and Peace is the result in us — the way we
may feel toward God.

Then let us think just a moment of this word
Grace, which is expressive of the divine attitude
toward us. Etymologically, the word means
blessing-full. And so it comes to me as a thought

of brightness, of gift, and of help, all of which

9

10 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

may be well included in such a beautiful word
as Grace.

Doddridge used to write hymns, and append
them to his sermons. In that church of his at
Northampton, in England, many of our sweetest
hymns were born. You will remember that
hymn on grace, and I am sure it tells the Scrip-
ture truth about it :

Grace, 'tis a charming sound,

Harmonious to the ear ;
Heaven with the echo shall resound,

And all the earth shall hear.

Grace first contrived the way

To save rebellious man ;
And all the steps that grace display

Which drew the wondrous plan.

Grace led my roving feet

To tread the heavenly road ;
And new supplies each hour I meet,

While pressing on to God.

Grace all the work shall crown

Through everlasting days ;
It lays in heaven the topmost stone,

And well deserves the praise.

For, according to the Scriptures, it was Grac e

GRACE AND PEACE. 11

that bringeth salvation. " Even when we were
dead in sins, he hath quickened us together with
Christ (by grace ye are saved)," " For the grace
of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to
all men." This scheme of salvation sprang not
out of man toward God, but out of God toward
man. God conceived the wray : he gives his Son.

It is superabounding Grace. u Moreover, the
law entered, that the offence might abound.
But where sin abounded grace did much more
abound." From Augustine down men have
puzzled themselves with the question, " Why did
sin enter the world ? " But I am sure that out
of sin God shall manifest a shining love and
glory; for God will overrule it all, and cause
his light to stream more radiantly through the
darkness.

This grace of God is a source of Strength to
us. One said to me last night : " I would be a
Christian, if I were sure that I could hold out."
I said to him : " If one should come to you, and
say, i I guarantee you an income of twenty thou-
sand dollars a year/ would you ask him if you
could be assured of food and clothing and all

12 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

necessaries? And don't you believe Christ's
grace will supply you with a strength you need ?
All you need to do is to put your trust in him.
' But by the grace of God I am what I am; and
his grace which was bestowed on me was not in
vain ; but I labored more abundantly than they
all; yet not I, but the grace of God which was
with me/ Are you not sure there is for you in
God's grace resource for every necessity, help for
every burden ? It shall not be provided for you
all at once. ' And of his fulness have all wTe
received, and grace for grace.' "

Sometimes you get the grace of Patience;
sometimes of Endurance ; sometimes of Energy ;
sometimes of Love; and, finally, grace to die.
God gives us "grace for grace," which means
grace instead of grace. You now need grace to
perform your present duties well. In sickness
you will need the grace of patience and the grace
of resignation. As you need, it shall be mani-
fested— " grace instead of grace."

This grace is the source of our Hope. "A
good hope through grace." Why should not we
hope when God is in such grace toward us? His

GBACE AND PEACE. 13

benediction is upon us. We may say with the
Psalmist, " The Lord is my shepherd/' therefore
" I will not fear."

And, then, if because of any perplexity, or be-
cause of any tangle of paths into which your feet
may be brought, or because of any darkness
which overshadows, you should ever be tempted
to doubt that this is God's feeling toward vou,
then always fall back upon that proof of God's
love, in giving our Saviour — the death of our
Lord upon the cross. " But God commendeth
his love toward us. in that, while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us."

Christ came to live in our nature, to set us an
example, and to make expiation for us upon the
cross. u Herein is love, not that we loved God,
but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the
propitiation for our sins." Come softly into the
house where Death has entered. There has been
smitten out of the mother's arms a little child.
There it lies in the coffin wrapped about with
flowers ; flowers so helpless — in no place so help-
less as around a coffin. The mother cannot un-
derstand such a providence. " Why should my

14 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

child be taken, my only one ? Over the way is
a house full of children ; why should not one of
them be taken, not mine?" As a mother once
said, looking sadly at a poor boy hobbling
through the street on crutches: "Why should
my boy, just his age, so well formed, so perfect,
have been taken ? If God must take one, why
not this deformed one, not mine? How can he
be loving and gracious, yet do this thing?"

We can only see a little; God sees much. We
can only see an inch; God sees through the
eternities. God has translated the child into the
celestial gardens " where angels walk and seraphs
are the wardens," and in our loneliness we can
only be absolutely sure that God's attitude toward
as in all this is grace.

Go to the cross ; see Jesus hanging on it, and
remember he was God, my brother, and at the
same time my Lord ; and in that utmost sacrifice
of God there is the proof that God's mood toward
us is that of love.

Many and many a time, in my pastoral work,
when I have seen one thrust into singular and
terrible affliction, I myself have been obliged to

GRACE AND PEACE. 15

go back to this absolute proof of God's love-
Christ's heart broken for us.

And Peace is the result of this attitude of God
toward us. Peace is the bloom of grace, because
through grace we have the forgiveness of our
sins. By the power of the Holy Spirit I see that
I am awry with God ; I am wrong with him ; I
am estranged from him. I remember how I
cannot go back into the time an hour ago, and
change what was in it. Have you ever thought
how strangely time comes to us ? It flows into
the present moment, and we do something, and
that something is fixed, and we cannot change it.
And so of all the past ; and when we think of it,
and of ourselves as out of relation with God, and
then remember that Christ bore our sins in his
own body on a tree, what peace comes into our
heart.

Grace is peace in us because it is restoration
of Inward Harmony, the restoration of spiritual
health. n For to be carnally minded is death ;
but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."

When my sin is put away, then I am restored
to a right condition with myself. Where was

16 SATURDAY AFTERNOON,

disharmony now is harmony, and I am once
again settled in God, am centred; I am in the
right relation, and that relation is inward peace.

This is seen again and again in the household.
A child is naughty ; she is stubborn. You can-
not manifest your love to her. She is out of her
true relation with you. Then she repents ; she
comes to you and makes a confession, and you
forgive. The child's relation is restored, and she
is at peace.

Because of this grace, there blooms in us the
peace of Freedom from Fear. "Casting all
your care upon him, for he careth for you." "Be
careful for nothing ; but in everything by prayer
and supplication with thanksgiving let your
requests be made known unto God. And the
peace of God, which passeth all understanding,
shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ
Jesus."

This grace also manifests itself in the peace of
Ease of Service. It is always the peace within
that makes the peace outside. If I am con-
sciously out of harmony with God, and so out of
harmony with myself, I cannot well perform the

GRACE AND PEACE. 17

duties that come to me. I have not, in Miss
Waring's beautiful words,

"A heart at leisure from itself,
To soothe and sympathize."

If in harmony with God and myself, I do not
have to think of myself, but am at leisure to
think only of my duty.

Also, out of this grace of God blooms for us
the peace of Patience in Tribulation. And let
us here think what tribulation etymologically
means. Picture an Oriental threshing-floor upon
which is spread the grain. The tribulum is a
heavy piece of wood, a kind of slab, the under
part of which is set with nails. Oxen drag the
tribulum over the floor, breaking away the husks
from the imprisoned kernel.

So we may hope that tribulation is breaking
away the evil from us, and leaving what is best
and highest, and so we can be patient. But let
us always bear in mind the distinction between
tribulation and punishment. God never pun-
ishes Christians. Christians are thrust under
the tribulum, and, when sure of God's grace, we

B

18 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

may be patient under tribulation, because we
know it is only tribulation ; it is not punishment.
It is but the breaking away of the chaff from the
golden grain.

Then through grace there comes to us the peace
of forgiveness, the peace of inward health, the
peace of fearlessness, the peace of ease of ser-
vice, and the peace of patience under tribulation.

But how can we have this peace? Let us
think not of ourselves, but of God in Christ.
Baxter said when he first became a Christian he
gave ten looks at himself and one look at Christ;
but after a great deal of darkness and trouble he
gave ten at Christ and one at himself.

There was a young man who desired to enlist
in one of the militia regiments. His father feared
he might be overcome by the temptations ; but
the son said: "I will promise you that I will
absolutely never take a drop of liquor so long as
I am a member of the regiment." And the
mother said: "If ever, under a stress of tempta-
tion, you should be raising a glass to your lips,
then look across it and you will see your mother's
face." The young man was, near the close of

GRACE AND PEACE. 19

his service, one day with some companions who
were drinking, and who urged him, "because it
was the end of their association," to take just this
one glass. He was just raising it to his lips, when
he did, as he really thought, see his mother's face
across the glass. Then, dashing it away from
him, he said, " I cannot"

Keep your eye on Jesus Christ, and you will
get such a vision of God's grace as will bring
peace to your heart.

Let us be careful to obey ; and " whatsoever
we eat and whatsoever we drink, let us do all to
the glory of God " ; " He that doeth his will shall
know of the doctrine."

Then, last of all, let us expect peace. We have
a right to expect it. How much there is in
God's grace ! It is " exceedingly abundant,
above all that we can ask or think." I wish we
were all Christians who were determined to get
just as much out of religion as we possibly could.
There is for all of us God's grace, and so there
is for all of us a sweet and shining peace.

II.

STRENGTH FOR HARASSED CHRIS-
TIANS.

A PERSON was climbing the Alpine heights,
when he saw a flower blooming in a crevice
amid drifts of snow. He wondered how the
flower could get strength to bloom in such a
frozen, barren spot. On examination he found
that a tiny white rootlet stretched out to a patch
of soil amid the snow drifts, and thence drew
nourishment for the plant.

As we confront a new year, and think of the
burdens, cares, and shadows that will rest on us,
and, still more, of the struggles of the better na-
ture against evil, we ask : " How shall I get
through ? In the past I have made many mis-
takes. Can I not do better in the year to come,
be more victor, and have more of the shining
in my heart?" Where are we going to find
strength for this? We need, like the flower,
20

STRENGTH FOR HARASSED CHRISTIANS. 21

some peculiar resource. Can we find it? We
have about us unfavorable circumstances ; there is
always a place where the harness rubs. We are
in the plight of the little flower ; but if we bloom
at all, it must be where we are.

As our children grow older, they are more and
more a burden to the parents. " What shall I
do with him? How shall I lead him?" You
have lain awake of nights thinking of all this.
The time of constraint has ceased, and there be-
gins the time of sympathy and advice. We
wonder how the child we love is going to master
this or that temptation.

Then there comes to us a consciousness of lone-
liness. If we were but helped by those about us,
we could get on better. A minister feels as
though he had the laboring oar, as though there
were a lack of moral and spiritual support.
You are often in want of sympathy. There is
the chilling influence of a great strain. We have
to keep always at the straining point. We feel
that we have got to keep this up all through life.
It seems as if we had no strength, as if we had
exhausted all our ability.

22 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

Then there are our easily besetting sins. We
keep our temper under for a time ; then it gets
the better of us. So of our brooding and gloomy
thoughts. We dispel them for a time, then they
come again and cloud the sky. We wonder how
in such circumstances and in such a plight we
can expand the beautiful flower of the Christian
life.

Now, the Bible is given for just such harassed
men and women as we. Turn, for example, to
that marvelous Epistle to the Ephesians. If you
have not become familiar with it, you can do no
better thing for the new year than to read it over
and over and over a dozen times. I do not know
where there is better help for harassed Christians.

We cannot now understand how hard it was
then to be a Christian. There was the luxurious
wicked city. There was the beautiful temple
with its gorgeous worship. There were a few
Christians gathered out of that vice and heathen-
ism, seeking to live purely and nobly, while the
whole influence was against them. If we are
like that flower amid the snowdrifts, surely they
were a great deal more so.

STRENGTH FOR HARASSED CHRISTIANS. 23

And now in the very first chapter, here is what
Paul says to these Ephesians : " You are not left
alone ; you will be helped." And then he says :
"And what is the exceeding greatness of his
power to usward who believe according to the
workings of his mighty power, which he wrought
in Christ, when he raised him from the dead,
and set him at his own right hand in the
heavenly places, far above all principality and
power and might and dominion and every name
that is named, not only in this world, but also
in that which is to come, and hath put all
things under his feet, and gave him to be the
head over all things to the church." It is power
like that into which we may thrust ourselves and
be strong. It is power, exceeding great " and
mighty." We are surrounded by the effects of
the divine power. You are out at sea, on
board the ship that seems big when in port, but
which seems so tiny out on the waves that it is
taken as if it were a cockle shell and tossed from
wave to wave. You think how terrible if a
storm should arise. You feel something of the
power of the ocean.

24 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

But it is not such an exhibition of power that
we are directed to in the passage; it is the great
exceeding might which God wrought in Christ
when he raised him from the dead. The most
tyrannical power in the world is death. You
stand in some companionship which is precious
to you ; you rejoice in it ; but the question arises,
How long shall it last? The mother kisses her
babe, but she cannot help thinking what if the
little child were to lie in her arms chilled to
death. At any rate, we press on unceasingly
toward death. The last breath will be drawn. I
sometimes think how strange it will be to be in
a world where the great thought will be Life.
Here the reigning thought is death. Life is the
word that reigns in the Book of the Revelation.
" He showed me a pure river of the water of life."

Our Lord came into our world, and took our
doom, and himself died. Death wielded its
sceptre over him, as it will over you and me;
but in Christ this mighty power is baffled.
Death is victim, and Christ is victor. He died
and then he rose, and that is the sort of power
that is on our side, and that is to help us.

STRENGTH FOR HARASSED CHRISTIANS. 25

This thought is full of stimulus to me. I
have one who has helped me, but he drops into
the grave and leaves me. I have but his memory.
But Christ was raised from the dead. This is
resurrection power. It not only raised him, but
it set him at God's right hand. In our nature,
Christ died ; in our nature, was raised ; in our
nature, he ascended, and sits on the highest
throne. There is my nature crowned over all
the works of the Creator.

The great power which raised up Christ from
the dead and set him at God's rio-ht hand has
also subjected all to his rule, has " put all things
under his feet."

Here is a general passing through a conquered
province; he makes requisitions for his army;
it may be of cattle, or of grain, or of horses, or
of money. It comes, for he has conquered the
province, and no one can dispute him.

So our Lord Christ has conquered creation
and nature. Providence is at his command. All
powers are under his feet; all that is in this
world and in the world to come. You do not
knew that you are helped by angels, but you are.

26 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

Every personality and power is facile to his
touch.

This power that is so strongly suggested in the
passage is power in relation with every one of us ;
for, " listen, ye trembling Ephesian Christians,
this exceeding power is not away off at a distance,
but is to usmard who believe." It is this power
which we have, power that raised Christ from
the dead, and has put him at God's own right
hand, and has put all power under his feet.

You may bloom even amid the snowdrifts,
for there is power such as we cannot dream of.
A Christian woman came to me, and said : " I
do not know that I am a Christian ; I do not feel
as I used." I said to her: "Look here, now,
here is the New Testament ; read it over and
and over, and when you find a passage that
speaks of Christ and his power, and what he will
do for you, mark it in the margin. Cease look-
ing to yourself and look away to Christ." In a
week she came again, and the peace of God was
on her face. She had found that Jesus Christ
was the reservoir of God's power. Yes, what we
have to do is to " lay aside every weight and the

STRENGTH FOR HARASSED CHRISTIANS. 27

sin that doth so easily beset us," and to look
away unto Jesus. Remember what is on our side.
One who had taken on her the duty of visitation
in this city felt that it was very difficult ; but
she knelt down, and said : " Lord Jesus, this is
all thine. Do thou go with me." She found
that the paths that seemed filled with obstacles
were cleared of the hindering stones. She looked
back, and was surprised to see how easy it all
had been. You see, she had drawn on Christ's
powrer.

I remember how sick my heart felt when I
came to leave home to go to college, a thousand
miles away. I did not know how I should
understand the strange studies and the strange
surroundings. As I thought of it in the cars, I
was appalled. Then I turned to my father, who
was sitting by my side, and (without saying a
word to him) I just thought, "Well, father is
with me, and he will carrv me through." It
seemed a hard thing to go to college; but what
a good thing it was ! How could I have done
my work but for it! So it will be. Our Lord
Christ goes with us to do the difficult things.

28 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

Why should we not be strong Christians instead
of being weak ones ?

Paul Gerhard was a sweet singer, born in Sax-
ony. He is the author of the well-known hymn,
"Give to the winds thy fears." The hymn has
twelve stanzas in the original, and five of them
are in all our hymn books. There is a tender
storv of how God is true to the faith in him of
which the hymn sings. There was a German
peasant who lived near Warsaw. His rent was
unpaid, and the landlord was about to thrust
him from his home. It was in the bitter winter
weather, and though the poor man had thrice
appealed for a little time to the landlord, the
landlord was inexorable. The next day the
helpless peasant was to find himself and his fam-
ily homeless in the snow. What could they do
but pray ? And then they all sang together the
verses of Paul Gerhard's hymn of faith :

11 Give to the winds thy fears ;
Hope, and be undismayed ;
God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears,
God shall lift up thy head."

At length, singing on, they come to the verse:

STRENGTH FOK HARASSED CHRISTIANS. 2S

44 Nothing thy work suspending,
No foe can make thee pause,
When thou, thine own defending,
Dost undertake their cause.' '

There was just then a rap upon the window.
This German peasant's grandfather had trained
a raven, as such birds can be trained, to do
various things. It was this bird tapping against
the window pane. The window was opened, and
in flew the raven with a costly jeweled ring in
his beak. The peasant took it at once to his
minister, who identified it as the property of
King Stanislaus the Beneficent, and to whom he
gave it back. You can easily imagine how,
when the king heard the whole story, there was
no longer danger of rooflessness to the poor but
trustful and honest peasant. Indeed, the king
built him a new house, and gave him cattle from
his own herds. And over the door of this house,
on an iron tablet, stands still the effigy of a
raven with a ring in his beak, and underneath
are the first four suggestive lines of the beauti-
ful stanza they were singing when help came so
surprisingly :

30 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

"All means always possessing,
Invincible in might ;
Thy doings are all blessing,
Thy goings are all light."

Of course, I do not mean to say that God will
help yon always in a way so strange; but I do
mean to say that God will help. Be sure of this:

4 His doings are all blessing,
His goings are all light.

Let me read these great verses once again :
"And what is the exceeding greatness of his
power to us- ward who believe, according to the
working of his mighty power, which he wrought
in Christ, when he raised him from the dead,
and set him at his own right hand in the heav-
enly places, far above all principality and power
and might and dominion, and every name that
is named, not only in this world, but also in that
which is to come. And hath put all things under
his feet, and gave him to be the head over all
things to the church."

III.

AS MUCH AS WE ARE WILLING TO
RECEIVE.

YOU remember the story of the staying of the
oil. A prophet's widow was in trouble.
Her husband's estate had turned out badly, and,
after the fashion of the time, the creditors w7ere
threatening to sell into bondage her two sons.
In her extremity the widow makes application to
Elisha. His question is, " What bast thou in the
house?" ''Only a pot of oil," the distressed
widow answers. Then the direction is that she
borrow from her neighbors as many vessels as
she can. She is to borrow not a few. And when
she had gathered the vessels, and behind the shut
door of her house began to pour into them from
her single pot of oil, she found her supply of oil
sufficient to fill all her borrowed vessels. Its
sale would lift her beyond want. And it came
to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said to

31

32 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

her son : " Bring me yet a vessel." And he said
unto her: "There is not a vessel more." And
the oil stayed. But the oil did not stay as long as
there were vessels to hold it

The ancient story is full of the most real re-
ligious uses.

Lay this down as a fundamental principle for
the Christian life : We may have just as much of
the grace and help of God as we are willing to
receive. If we are straitened, it is never in God,
but always in ourselves. The oil stayed only
when there were no more vessels to fill with it.

Here is a most sweet poem of Faith I found
to-day :

Since the Father's arm sustains thee,

Peaceful be.
When a chastening hand restrains thee,

It is he.
Know his love in full completeness
Fills the measure of thy weakness ;
If he wound thy spirit sore,

Trust him more.

Without measure, uncomplaining,

In his hand
Lay whatever things thou canst not

Understand ;

ALL WE ARE WILL1KG TO RECEIVE. 33

Though the world thy folly spurneth,
From thy faith in pity turneth,
Peace thy inmost soul shall fill,
Lying still.

Like an infant, if thou thinkest

Thou canst stand,
Childlike, proudly pushing back

The proffered hand,
Courage soon is changed to fear,
Strength does feebleness appear ;
In his love if thou abide,

He will guide.

Fearest sometimes that thy Father

Hath forgot ?
When the clouds around thee gather,

Doubt him not.
Always hath the daylight broken,
Always hath he comfort spoken,
Better hath he been for years

Than thy fears.

Therefore, whatsoe'er betideth

Night or day,
Know — his love for thee provideth

Good alway.
Crown of sorrow gladly take,
Grateful wear it for his sake,
Sweetly bending to his will,

Lying still,
c

34 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

To his own thy Saviour giveth

Daily strength ;
To each troubled soul that liveth,

Peace at length ;
Weakest lambs have largest share
Of this tender Shepherd's care ;
Ask him not then " When ? ' ' or " How ?

Only bow !

Well, you will say, " That is very beautiful,"
and I say, "It is beautiful;" and you will say,
" It is the mood of faith," and I say, " It is the
mood you ought to be in, and which we all may
be in, if we will.'* Whatever may betide exter-
nally, there should always be within us a sweet
placidity ; there should always be such calmness
as when Jesus spoke to the waves and said,
"Peace, be still." It is not at all impossible
that the Christian heart should be in steady day-
light, though there be midnight inwardly. Bring
Scripture promises as vessels, into which the grace
of faith may be poured.

For, notice just a moment, What is Faith?
Well, it is this : It is something that must always
have some object on which it can lay hold. You
must have something to believe. There is no

ALL WE ARE WILLING TO RECEIVE. 35

such thing as faith unless you have something
toward which faith turns. Two men were talk-
ing together ; they were transacting a great
business enterprise ; they were about to part, with
certain details that must be done, and one said to
the other, " I trust you for all this." This is the
way of faith : that man could not have had faith
if he had not faith in somebody.

I often say to the deacons in my church : " I
will trust you to attend to this," and it is always
done. And so you see that faith is not any
ecstasy into which we are to urge ourselves. I
have said this to you a great many times ; but I
do not believe you have learned the lesson yet.
It is such a pestiferous idea that you cannot have
(any faith unless you are caught up like Elijah.
When people say, " We want more faith/' they
think, *'I have to struggle and to introvert mv-
self and to wonder if this feeling is right and 1!
that feeling is right; and I must spend all night
in prayer, and weep, and go through a terrible
time to religious ecstacy." That is not faith.

Will you also notice that faith must have not
only an object on which to lay hold, but an object

36 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

outside of ourselves. You may say to a roan,
" Have faith in yourself." That is a good thing
in certain directions, but not in religion. Sam-
son had faith in himself, and he tumbled fear-
fully. The prodigal son had faith that he could
take care of his own property, and he " wasted it
in riotous living." Then what is that on which
faith is to lay grasp? It is simply and always
the divine promises. We have great faith when
we greatly lay hold of what God tells us. Have
great experimental knowledge of God's word,
and then you will know what God promises to
do for you.

I was riding with Mr. Spurgeon one day last
summer, and he was telling me how the Lord
constantly helped him. And he said: "I don't
like to have things go too smoothly ; I like to
have great burdens laid upon me." " Well,"
I said, " responsible as you are for one hundred
thousand dollars a year, you seem as easy as if it
were but a ha'penny." And he said : " I pray about
it when any strait closes around me from which
I must be delivered." And I said : "How do you
pray ? " And he said : " I get a promise ; I find

ALL WE ARE WILLING TO RECEIVE. 37

one which is applicable to my case, and I plead
that promise." Faith is not an awful spasm ; it
is not a tremendous outcry ; it is quiet, because
it has something on which it lays hold — that is,
on what God has promised.

And now the reason whv we do not have
enough of the grace of faith is that we do not
bring vessels enough. I say to a person who has
become a Christian : " Well, you believe the
Lord's promise? Here is this promise, ( Him
that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out';
are you willing to confess Christ ? " " Yes ; I
am willing." "And you do not hold anything
back?" "No; I do not." "Well," I say,
u here is this promise. ' I will not cast out ' ; do
you believe it ? " " Yes ; I believe that." So
this person brings the vessels of the Lord's
promise, and the Lord pours into it the grace of
faith, and he believes his sins forgiven.

Many Christians stop right there ; they never
get beyond the forgiveness of their sins. I know
such Christians in this church. If one speaks,
he always has a backward look. He says : "Ever
so many years ago, I gave myself to Christ, and

38 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

he forgave my sins." But he has only meagre
faith, though he is a Christian, because he has
never brought more than one vessel of promise.
It is as if a baby should be born, and stay a baby
always, though he should live to be a hundred
years old. Lots of Christians whose heads are
whitened toward the grave have never gone fur-
ther than the forgiveness of sins. Just think of
the rich promises for us besides that of forgive-
ness. There is the promise of the divine in-
dwelling: "I will not leave you comfortless; I
will come to you." Suppose I take the vessels
of this promise and believe-
Then, also, there are Scripture promises con-
cerning earthly care, a heavenly discipline, and
that promise about " all things working together
for good to them that love God." That "all
things" means trouble with the servants in the
kitchen ; the dust gathering quickly when you
have just swept it away ; the beefsteak burned
which you were preparing for your husband
when he should come home. It means all the
criss-cross, and the attrition, and bother; just
like a mosquito that does not seriously wound,

ALL WE ARE WILLING TO KECEIVE. HO

but only irritates. Suppose, then, you bring the
vessel of that promise, that the Lord may pour
in his grace.

Then there are promises concerning great ex-
tremity, as, for instance, that promise : " Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with
me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."
Thy mace and thy crook. One who had just
been to Palestine brought back a mace ; it was
an oak club, into which were driven iron nails.
It could deal a very tremendous blow, and was
necessary, for the shepherd must be well armed.
There is always the vulture hovering over the
flock, and there are vipers which must be smitten
down. There are banditti prowling around, who
get their living by predatory raids on the shep-
herd.

Then " the rod " is the shepherd's crook. It
is that with which he points out the way to the
flock as he goes before it, with which he lifts
over some gully the lamb too weak to go himself.
" Thy defence and thy guidance are with me."
That is the meaning of the rod and staff.

40 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

Well, you are in extremity ; it seems to you as
if you were in the valley of the shadow of death.
Then, what are you to do ? Bring the vessel of
a Scripture promise like this. Do not strain and
struggle and sweat. Look through this word of
God and find a promise which exactly meets your
case. If you knew the treasure God had inlaid
for you in this word, you would have more faith ;
for you would know more what you are to
believe. Borrow, then, vessels of promise, that
the Lord may fill them. Believe for the daily
life, and believe for death that is coming to all
of us. Borrow vessels of promises, and so into
them will flow the grace of faith, and so you will
be men and women of great faith.

I was reading, some time since, in one of Dr.
William Taylor's books, and there was this foot
note : " He was going home from church when
he was a boy in Scotland, and he asked his
father what the minister meant when he spoke
of ' appropriating faith/ His father answered :
1 Just take your Bible, and when you come to
any promise that just fits you, you just mark
that promise; that is appropriating faith/ "

ALL WE ARE WILLING TO RECEIVE. 41

Then, also, let us bring vessels of service that
we may have the grace of strength. That was a
beautiful request that one made the other evening
in the prayer meeting : " Pray for me that I may
use the light I have/' The more she used the
light she had, so much the more light she would
have. One of the most fundamental passages for
the Christian life is : " If any man will do his
will, he shall know of the doctrine."

I remember how I found that out ; I never
shall forget it as long as I live. I do not sup-
pose there was ever a fellow who, when he
entered the ministry, had greener views than I
had. For I said : " I shall do just what I please.
I alwavs liked reading and studying; but I do
not like this pastoral work, and I am not going
to do it." I went on trying to refuse. I said :
" I cannot do that," which meant " I will not
do it." What a plight I was in ! I found there
was this one to go and see, and that one to go
and see; and I studied the Bible, and found it
was full of pastoral work. I never shall forget
the night I broke down. I fell on my knees,
and said : " Lord, I will do it." And the next

42 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

day I started out, and before night I was fond
of it, and I have been fond of it ever since.

Now, suppose I had not brought that vessel
of service, should I ever have had my strength
for service? Just in proportion as you briug
vessels of service, you will have God's help ; you
will not have his help beforehand. Ever so
many people say : " We would do this thing if we
were sure there was a magazine from which our
vessels might be filled." But you will never
have the grace of help unless you do what God
wants. When you sing —

41 The mistakes of my life have been many,"

you say : " Well, I am a very poor Christian,
indeed." Well, so are we all ; but you need not
be so poor as you are. The busiest man is the
happiest man — he upon whom time does not
hang heavily. Try it ; you bring the vessel of
service, and into it will shortly be poured the
grace of help.

Another point : Bring the vessel of confes-
sion that we may have the grace of shining. If
you look through the Scriptures you will find

AXL WE ARE WILLING TO RECEIVE. 43

ever go many promises of inward light attached
to our confessing Christ. Do you remember
Ben-hadad besieged the capital of Samaria so
closely that there was a terrible famine there, so
that the mothers began to eat their children?
And the Lord sent such a panic among the
hoste of the Syrians that they arose and fled.
And the lepers, who had been in trouble, saying :
" If we go into the city, we shall die ; and if we
go to the host of the Syrians, we cannot more
than die, anyway," now began to eat ; and when
they saw the great affluence everywhere, they
said : " This is not good ; if we tarry until the
morning, some mischief will come upon us; now,
therefore, come, that we may go and tell the
kind's household." Well, when a Christian has
accepted Jesus Christ, and when he has seen the
benefit of religion for his own soul, and yet shuts
his mouth, as those lepers did, you may be sure
he is blighted. I have seen many Christians
who do not enjoy religion, having only just
enough religion to make them wretched, and
that is all. But bring the vessel of confession,
and into it shall always be poured the grace of

44 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

shining. Only this week I have seen this ex-
emplified. I went to one, and said : " You
believe in Christ absolutely ? " " Yes." " Well,
then, will you confess it by just walking to the
seat in front there ? " " No ; I cannot do that."
A few days later I went to her, and said : " Don't
you see that you are holding back something
from the Lord when you refuse to confess him?"
And she thought a moment, and said: "I will
confess." Before the meeting closed I saw the
shining in her face. You see we have just as
much of God's grace and help as we are willing
to take. May God grant that we bring vessels
that we may have great measure of the oil of
grace !

A poor, blind man was traveling one day ;

The guiding staff from out his hand was gone,
And the road crooked, so he lost his way ;

And the night fell, and a great storm came on.

He was not, therefore, troubled and afraid,
Nor did he vex the silence with his cries ;

But on the rainy grass his cheek he laid,
And waited for the morning sun to rise ;

Saying to his heart : " Be still, my heart, and wait,
For if a good man happen to go by,

ALL WE ARE WILLING TO RECEIVE. 45

He will not leave us to our dark estate
And the cold cover of the storm, to die.

" But he will sweetly take us by the hand
And lead us back into the straight highway ;

Full soon the clouds will have vanished, and
All the wide east be blazoned with the day."

And we are like that blind man, all of us,
Benighted, lost ; but while the storm doth fall

Shall we not stay our sinking hearts up thus ?
Above us there is One who sees it all.

And if his name be Love, as we are told,
He will not leave us to unequal strife ;

But to that city with the streets of gold
Bring us, and give us everlasting life.

Not merely heaven will God give us. He
has a great deal for us before we go to heaven.
He has strength and shining.

IV.
SUBMISSION.

ONE of the best illustrations of submission
was given when David, after the death
of his child, submitted to God. The child was
very sick ; David sought earnestly that hi? life
might be spared. Of course, he had used all
the skill which the resources of a king could
furnish ; then he gave himself to prayer and
fasting, lying all night upon the ground in sup-
plication. When the child had died, the court-
iers, remembering that the king was so smitten
at the mere fear of the child's death, dared not
tell him. But he asked, "Is the child dead?"
and they said, " He is dead." Then he arose
and anointed himself and went to the house of
God. Then he came to his own house and
asked that meat be set before him. They, in
great wonder, said : " We cannot understand.
You have fasted and have wept when the child
46

SUBMISSION. 47

was sick, and now that the child is dead you
arise and eat." David said: "While the child
was alive I fasted and wept; but now he is dead,
wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back
a^ain?"

I would like to talk to you a little while as we
wait together now of what submission is and of
what submission will do for us.

Submission is recognition of the divine au-
thority. We are God's really; we are under
ownership; we do not belong to ourselves; we
belong to God by the right of creation, by the
right of redemption, by the right of preservation,
by all rights, we are God's property and not our
own. There is over us a divine authority. We
are under God's scepter. We come distinctly
under his rule.

Have you ever asked, "What is the essence
of sin?" There is a distinction between the
expression of sin, and its root or essence. Sin
means essentially, and always is, selfishness or
selfness — that is to say, the love of self-rule. It
is at the direct antipodes from the divine au-
thority.

48 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

When our first parents, in the initial sin, ate
the forbidden fruit, they then chose to do with-
out God. This was the seed out of which all sin
ever since has sprung. When we become Chris-
tians, we recognize God's authority; we declare
that we belong to him, and are under his rule.

The divine authority asserts itself in many
ways. One way is in that which is inevitable in
our lives. There are certain inevitables in every
life, and when these occur we may be sure that
they are the expression of the divine authority
in our lives.

I remember how, in the Vale of Chamouni. I
used to look at Mount Blanc, crown of the Alps,
rearing itself far up into the blue. I saw that
the other mountains scattered about this central
one adjusted themselves to it; it adjusted itself
to nothing. In every life there are things that
stand out as inflexible and rocky as Mount Blanc.
We cannot help them ; they are. But there are
many things in our lives which we can change.
Then we have a perfect right to change them.
There is no virtue in penance. It is a Romish
notion ; and is of the devil, not of the Scripture.

SUBMISSION. 49

When we can get out of the suffering, we have
alwavs a right to do it. The fact of its change-
ableness is a revelation of the divine will that
we may change it. I think many of our trou-
bles are needless troubles. A man said : " I had
for five years to plough around a rock in my
field, always thinking it such a large rock that it
would take too much time and trouble to remove
it. Then, accidentally, I found, to my surprise,
that it was little more than two feet long." One
said : " Then the first time you really faced your
difficulty you conquered it." " Yes, and I be-
lieve before we pray about them we had better
look our troubles right in the face. For five
vears I had been saving, 'I cannot do it'; vet
the minute I faced it over it went."

There are things in our lives that we can
change. There are other things that are inevit-
able; for instance, Byron's club foot; he was
born with it ; he could not cure it ; it was inev-
itable.

Charles Lamb's sister's insanity was one of the
inevitables in his life and her life. In all Eng-
lish history, there is nothing more pathetic. I

50 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

have visited the spot where he was born and
where he lived. His sister was subject to sud-
den seizures of insanity. He devoted himself
through long years, with the utmost tenderness
and self-sacrifice, to this sister. She besought
him to put her in a straight jacket whenever
these attacks should come; she was always fore-
warned; he took her to the Retreat to remain
while the paroxysm lasted. He accepted the
inevitable.

So, also, the death of Mrs. Helen Hunt's
(" H. H.") child was one of the inevitables. You
remember how broken-hearted she was and how
bereaved. Her husband, while stationed in the
Narrows in New York Harbor, met with an acci-
dent, and was brought home dead. She had one
boy in her home ; her heart was wrapped in him,
and his heart wrapped in her. He was perhaps
about fourteen vears old. He was taken sick,
and, knowing that he must die, he demanded of
his mother a promise that, in her loneliness and
grief, she would not commit suicide. Simply
because she had promised him, she did not com-
mit suicide. Her sorrows opened in her a foun-

SUBMISSION. 51

tain of song which otherwise might never have
been opened. The broken-hearted mother said :
" God has done it, and since God has done it
God has done it wisely."

Then, also, a real submission is not simply a
recognition of the divine authority and a trust in
the divine wisdom ; but it is also a recognition
of the fact that God has a concern with us in our
daily lives. It is a faith in Providence. A
friend said to me the other dav: CiI want to
show you something"; and when I looked
through the tube of his microscope, I saw the
most exquisite thing I ever saw in my life.
There were beautiful stars, wonderful corusca-
tions, and all so exquisite as to baffle all descrip-
tion. It was nothing but mud, with the earthy
matter cleaned away by some acid, leaving only
the silicious particles. I did not wonder that
my friend said to me: "Such a sight as this once
made one who was an infidel a Christian.
'For,' he said," 'I believe a God who could
lavish such care upon such things must be intel-
ligent.' " The Lord cares for you since he cares
for the sparrows. The Lord says : u Look at

52 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

the lilies exhaling their fragrance." Since God
cares for them, he cares for you. We may look
further down, and say : " God cares for even
these slight shells of auimalculse, and if he cares
for them he must care for me."

And now, since there is such a thing as a
divine providence, I must believe that God rules
absolutely, and the difficulties which beset my
life are really God's appointment. What a won-
derful sacredness this brings into my life ! Even
the little things in it he appoints. What I must
bear, I bear because he sends ; and what I do, I
do because he appoints. Now, the real submis-
sion is a submission that takes in this fact.

I am aware there are hearts that know their own
bitterness. Behind what men call prosperity,
there are troubles, deep and constant. I know
many a roof covers some hidden grief. I was
walking once through that most magnificent
street in all the world (Euclid Avenue, in Cleve-
land), and my father said to me: "I have lived
here nearly all my life ; I know the history of
these families, and there is not one that does not
have some hidden trouble."

SUBMISSION. 53

The Christian says : " It is because God's
providence has appointed it"; and true submis-
sion recognizes his ruling hand.

Now, just for a moment, let us see what sub-
mission will do for us : Submission is Peace,
because it is opposed to discontent. There are
innumerable roughnesses in mv circumstances
that are all the work of God's providence. I
sav: "Lord, I do not flv against these things, as
the bird does, beating at the bars of its cage. I
submit." Now T am relieved at once from the
strain of worrv. I am bereaved of discontent,
and it is a blessed bereavement.

There is nothing more common to do, and
more useless to do. than for a person to look
over his circumstances, and press his hand on
this and that thorn until the hand bleeds; and
then to look over the circumstances of some one
else, and think : " If I were only treated as this
one and that one ! " and then grow wretched
with envy.

It is the worst thing vou can do. You cannot
lie on another person's pillow any more than you
can go out of your own life. Instead of looking

54 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

at other people and envying them, look up and
say, " Lord, I submit." Then envy goes at
once, and peace comes instead.

Submission is always Power. What is the
reason God does not help us ? God will give us
just as much of his grace as we are willing to
take; the only measure is what you are willing
to receive. He will do " exceeding abundantly,"
if you will let him. If you refuse to submit, you
steel your soul against God and his help.

Amid the mountains, where the shadows fall
chill and dense, there are places where are some-
times found, even in June, the remnants of the
snowdrifts. You refuse to submit, because you
will not let the light shine in.

A real submission is always power. How I
remember it in my own experience! "Well,"
I said to myself, " there are some things I cannot
do"; but I really meant "I will not do." I kept
on saying " cannot," and meaning " will not,"
for many a weary day. It did seem to me im-
possible to bear. I shall never forget when I
did absolutely submit. When you refuse to
submit, you close yourself against God's help.

SUBMISSION. 56

You get Triumph by submission, because you
allow God to do what he means to do for you.
Submission is triumph, because when we let God
have his way with us, he brings us to the best
things.

In the words of Susan Coolidge :

One stitch dropped, as the weaver drove

His nimble shuttle to and fro,
In and out, beneath, above,

Till the pattern seemed to bud and grow,
As if the fairies had helping been ;
One small stitch which could scarce be seen,
But the one stitch dropped, pulled the next stitch out
And a weak place grew in the fabric stout ;
And the perfect pattern was marred for aye,
By the one small stitch that was dropped that day.

One small life in God's great plan,

How futile it seems as the ages roll,
Do what it may, or strive how it can

To alter the sweep of the infinite whole !
A single stitch in an infinite web,
A drop in the ocean's flow and ebb !
But the pattern is rent where the stitch is lost,
Or marred where the tangled threads have crossed ;
And each life that fails of its true intent
Mars the perfect plan that its Master meant.

Dear friends, the best thing that we can do

56 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

concerning the inevitables in our life is to make
consecration of them to Jesus Christ, and so to
let his peace dwell in us.

" To every one on earth
God gives a burden to be carried down
The road that lies between the cross and crown ;

No lot is wholly free :

He giveth one to thee.

14 Some carry it aloft,

Open and visible to any eyes,

And all may see its form and weight and size ;
Some hide it in their breast,
And deem it thus unguessed."

A little fellow was with his father in the car-
riage. At his request, his father set him down
between his knees, and the boy took the reins to
drive the horses. Looking back, he saw that his
father's hands were also on the reins, and he
said, " I thought I was driving, but I wasn't,
was I ? " God's hands are on the reins, and he
is turning everything for our best good. God
knows better than we know.

One of the sweetest instances of submission
was in the case of Mrs. Tate, wife of the lat-e

SUBMISSION. 57

Archbishop of Canterbury. Five of their little
ones lay dying almost in a day. Mrs. Tate, in a
prayer of faith and resignation, said : " Thou
hast opened unto them the gate of everlasting
glory ; thou hast sent thy angels to meet them
and to carry them into Abrani's bosom. There
they reign with thy elect angels in all glory and
felicity, forever and ever. Amen."

So, in all of our lives, there are certain inevit-
ables. They cannot be otherwise. They are
the expressions always of the divine authority.
They are the most emphatic expression of God's
will.

A real submission is one which recognizes
God's authority, which says, "God has done it,
therefore I accept." Instead of doing as the
bird does, tearing itself in its efforts to get out of
the cage, let us submit to what is the expression
of God's will.

A true submission trusts in the divine wisdom.
This is a most wonderful help. For instance,
Paul wanted to go to Rome; Rome was the
metropolis of the world, and the gospel banner
ought to be unfurled there. And God said that

58 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

he should go. But it was a strange leading. He
probably expected to go as any traveler might
go ; but God did not lead him so. There was a
mob to oppose him in Jerusalem ; then the trouble
in Csesarea; lying there in confinement, he did
what a Roman citizen must do if he wanted jus-
tice. He appealed unto Csesar, and therefore
had to go to Rome as a prisoner. But now we
can see it, I am sure, though Paul could not see
it when he was under the process of it — we can
see that that was the very best way to preach,
being secured safety and leisure (because a pris-
oner who had appealed to Caesar might not be
touched by any mob), as he could not have been
secured had he gone there not as a prisoner.
And he had a chance to preach the gospel, be-
cause he won the good will of the centurion and
was put by him in the care of a soldier, and was
not kept in close confinement. We owe a great
part of the most precious portions of our New
Testament to Paul's imprisonment at Rome. He
himself says : " The things which happened unto
me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance
of the gospel." God sees with larger and other

SUBMISSION. 59

eyes than ours. We cannot see a moment through ;
God sees the a^es through. A real submission
is a trust in the divine providence and in the
divine wisdom, a trust that God has really
arranged things for us as is best for us.

41 Take thou thy burden, then,
Into thy hands, and lay it at his feet,
And whether it be success or defeat,
Or pain, or sin, or care,
Leave it calmly there.

" It is the lonely load
That crushes out the life and light of heaven ;
But, borne with him, the soul restored, forgiven,
Sings out through all the days
Her joy, and God's high praise.' '

Yes, the way to bear burdens is to submit to
burdens. The way to get rid of burdens is to
bear burdens.

Now, forget all else that I have said, but re-
member the last two sentences : " The way to
bear burdens is to submit to burdens. The way
to get rid of burdens is to bear burdens."

V.

DREADING.

JUST for a very little while on this stormy
afternoon, let us talk together of the com-
monest trouble of the Christian life, that which
our Lord is so constantly warning us against. It
is a kind of foreboding, a sort of dread of what
is to come, a borrowing of trouble, a crossing the
bridge before we come to it, and seeing the future
filled with haunting shapes of fear, a gloomy
wondering how we shall get through — in one
word, a kind of dread. Now, that a Christian
should be under such a shadow is neither Scrip-
tural nor necessary. A Christian man should
have his heart in the sunlight, even if his out-
ward circumstances should not be shining. Our
Lord's outward surroundings grew dimmer con-
tinually, until they passed into the utter dark-
ness. As his ministry advanced, the popularity
of its beginning was soon eclipsed amid the hatreds
60

DREADING. 61

and discussions and turmoils and murderous in-
tents of the people at Jerusalem. We must not
forget that while our Lord was always hungry
for human companionship, yet he had always an
inner resource. He tells how he is left alone,
and yet that he is not alone, for the Father is
with him. And he is constantly assuring us that
this inner resource is as much for the Christian
himself as for his Lord. He says : " He that
believeth in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers
of living water." There should be a sort of in-
dependence of outward circumstances, and a
clearing of the clouds within, though they be
piled around us. It always takes the heart out
of one to have dread, and prevents the accom-
plishment of anything grand. In Deuteronomy,
Moses rehearses to the children of Israel all the
dealings of the Lord with them, and shows them
the injury they had suffered from this dread.
He reminds them that they had fainted at the
report of the spies, and the picture which they
drew of the Anakim, and how a want of heart
fell upon the whole encampment. But although
Moses warned them not to continue in this state

62 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

of unbelief and fear, they continually relapsed,
and finally fell back into the wilderness, and
never reached the Promised Land.

Well, we are like those Israelites. We seethe
Anakim, or, at least, we think we see them, and
they are very big sometimes, and fearfully strong,
and the dread falls upon our hearts, chilling and
foreboding. I believe I have touched upon a
very common tendency. How shall we over-
come it, this standing in the presence of a duty
and thinking we cannot take hold of it and
master it? One way is by a real, earnest resolu-
tion that we will stop dreading. Very often we
have to come up to that point where we shall
simply resolve that we will not fear again.

We are apt to excuse ourselves from a duty
because we do not feel like it. Now, there is
nothing that so brings dread to our hearts as the
consciousness of undone duty. If I put off my
sermon until the last of the week, I soon fall into
the dumps; and the gloom, instead of lessening,
increases in like proportion with my neglect. I
know a good many Christians to wThom I think
resolutions here would be of immense good.

DREADING. 63

In the next place, I think we can overcome
this tendency, if we will remember that in nine
cases out of ten, when we really go forth to the
doing of a thing, we find it much less laborious
than we thought it would be.

When I was a boy, and went to Brooklyn to
preach there, I thought the greatest man then
living was Henry Ward Beecher. I never shall
forget how much I wranted to meet him, and
how yet. because he seemed to me so gigantic in
every way, I feared to meet him. I wrell remem-
ber the day that I heard he wanted to see me,
and how I went down to his house that spring
morning and walked back and forth before that
door manv times, not daring: to ring the bell. I
must have waited half an hour before I found
courage to go up the steps and ring, and I re-
member how my heart palpitated as I waited
there, and how it palpitated more when the door
opened, and I asked in a very feeble sort of
voice if Mr. Beecher was in ; and how relieved
I felt when told he was not in. And yet all that
fear and dread was quite needless. I knew,
when I afterward did meet him; that I had

64 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

nothing to dread. And this is very often so.
Here is some duty you think you ought to do
to-dav, and vou take hold of it in a feeble, halt-
ing sort of way ; but when you have fully
grasped it, you find it is nothing at all. And so,
I think, it will be about dying. Of course, we
dread it ; but I think, when we get there, it will
be nothing dreadful. Pain is to warn us of
some physical obstruction; it will cease when
there is no occasion for pain. The nerves give
the warning. If you press a knife deep into the
muscles there will be no pain, for no nerves are
there : they lie near the surface. There is no
pain in gangrene, because there is no more use
for pain. And I believe the apparent difficulties
that sometimes appear in dying when we stand
beside our friends are only apparent. When we
have passed beyond a certain point, it will not
be difficult to die. And then there will be such
an adjustment of the spirit to the fact that what
seemed to us so dreadful will not be so at all.
I do not know how near I came to death, but
once I was very sick, and when I felt that I might
go I did not dread death ; and when I found

DREADING. 65

the turn was toward life I was sorry. I do not
believe we need to dread death ; it will be when
we come to it like the Anakim, who fled when
the Lord pursued them in his strength. And
so, in nine cases out of ten, the thing we most
dread will not be nearly so bad as we think.

We can get out of this foreboding by thinking
more of God and less of things. It was Peter's
trouble in the storm that distracted his vision
from the Lord to the winds and the waves, and
then down he went like lead. How emphatically
the Scriptures teach that our vision should be
fixed on God — on his love, for instance. I can
always assure myself of it when I think of the
Cross. There was his beloved Son's utmost
sacrifice. There he broke his heart for me, and
" he who spared not his own Son, but delivered
him up for us all, how shall he not with him
freely give us all things." Think of God and his
knowledge. It is very beautiful to run through
in the Scriptures those passages where God speaks
of knowing. Take a concordance and run down
those lines about his knowledge, and at how
many angles you will get a view of it.

E

66 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

And then, if we should think of God coming
to us when we most need his help, as he did to the
disciples in the stormy lake, we should gain
courage. They were steadily doing what their
Lord told them to do, and making their way
toward the Bethesda, where he had bid them go.
The wind was right in their faces, and they were
making no headway, yet they never attempted to
turn back, but were " toiling in rowing." It was
in the early evening they entered the boat, and
soon the wind came, and through the next hour,
and through the next and the next, they toiled
alone. We should have said it was of no use, but
they did not say so ; and at an hour correspond-
ing to about three or four o'clock in the morning,
when their energies must have been almost con-
sumed, at that critical time, they saw the form
of one approaching. At first, they are fright-
ened, but soon they hear above the tumult of the
waves the music of the words, " It is I ; be not
afraid." And so the Lord just comes at the
time when he is most needed, and that is the
kind of a Lord we have.

Really, it is possible to have braver hearts

DREADING. 67

than we have, and then we shall help other
people. If we will only stop dreading, and will
steadily look toward God, we shall do better
service for him.

Not a brooklet floweth

Onward to the sea,
Not a sunbeam gloweth

On its bosom free,
Not a seed unfoldeth

To the glorious air,
But our Father holdeth

It within his care.

Not a floweret fadeth,

Not a star grows dim,
Not a cloud o'ershadoweth

But 'tis marked by him.
Dream not that thy gladness

God doth fail to see ;
Think not in thy sadness

He forgetteth thee.

Not a tie is broken,

Not a hope laid low,
Not a farewell spoken

But our God doth know.
Every hair is numbered,

Every tear is weighed
In the changeless balance

Wisest love has made.

68 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

Power eternal resteth

In his changeless hand ;
Love immortal hasteth

Swift at his command.
Faith can firmly trust him

In the darkest hour,
For the key she holdeth

To his love and power.

VI.

GOD'S REMEDY FOR CARE.

PROFESSOR WARE, of Cambridge, was
once asked concerning the best way of
bringing up children. He answered by this
story :

In the old times there were two towns in
New England separated by a dense forest. The
way through the forest was only opened by
a trail. Once the ministers of the towns pro-
posed an exchange of pulpits. One of the
ministers started on his journey. Doubtful
about the path, he asked an old woman whom
he met the best way of getting to his destination.
" Well," she said, " you follow this trail on and
on and on until you come to the place where the
trail forks ; then you take the one which looks
most like it, and then go ahead." " That," said
Professor Ware, " is about all the advice I can
give as to bringing up children ; when you are

70 SATURDAY AFTERNOON

in doubt as to the way, take the trail that looks
most like it and go ahead. "

That doubtful trail represents our life. We
are surrounded with mystery ; we cannot see a
foot ahead ; we are compelled to stand where the
ways meet ; and we must take the way that looks
the better, and go ahead. The doom of life is
choice ; life is but a vast procession of choices,
and each of these leads to some result. We are
kings as to choice ; but slaves as to the result of
the choice. Taking the wrong track, we are shut
up as to the result. Surrounded with mystery,
under the sense of our finiteness, we must choose
the best we can.

And just here, where the ways fork, and where
we cannot know precisely which is the better to
follow, and yet, where we must choose this or
that — -just here is the breeding place of care.

Here, at this place where the ways fork, cares
breed, for example, about your children. A
difficult thing it is to bring up a child ! How
constantly you are burdened with care ! You do
the best you can ; but how anxious you are lest
your judgment has failed ! How you watch

god's remedy for care. 71

beside the child as he sleeps, and wonder if the
leading you are giving him is going to issue in
the best bloom !

How cares breed at this place for our friends,
especially religiously ! How anxious you are for
your husband, for your wife, for your friend !
Have I spoken enough ; have I spoken too
much? Have I been earnest enough; or have
I been too earnest? Have I prayed enough?
How many a religious wife I have known bur-
dened with care for her husband, with shapes of
fear set all about her.

How care breeds about ourselves ! We ask :
" Have we decided this or that in the wisest way ?
If we could only get back to where the decision
was forced on us ! " But we cannot. I have
stood by the great blast furnace, and have seen
the molten iron break forth as fluid as water, so
that it could be turned and shaped in any way ;
but in a moment it was fixed. So with our
chokes : they were for a moment in our power ;
now they are unchangeable. We cannot go
back.

Here care breeds as to our future. Will this

72 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

choice which I have made issue in what is best
for me and for those whom I love ?

Thus we see all about us the shapes of various
cares.

When we have these cares upon us, let us
remember what Peter says (1 Peter 5:7): " Cast-
ing all your care upon him, for he careth for
you." The word rendered "care" in the first
clause means something which divides you, cuts
you in twain, distracts you, which cuts your
peace and joy in pieces. When I am confronted
Math cares in the place where the ways meet I
become distracted. My life, instead of being
strong and triumphant, becomes weak and broken.
Sir Isaac Newton, when asked how he had ac-
complished so much, said that he had no genius ;
but that he had held his mind to things in atten-
tion. So our own Professor Henry, of the
Smithsonian Institute, ascribed his success, not
to any genius, but to his habit of turning all his
guns upon one point in the walls of obstacles
before him. But when we are distracted by
cares we cannot hold our minds in attention, we
cannot turn our guns. We go on this way and

god's remedy fob cake. 73

that, until our life, our peace, our joy, are like a
fabric that is beaten out and raveled by the
winds. If vou had a beautiful shawl, and vou
should hang it where the wind beating it would
ravel it all out, it would represent the effect of
these cares. It was to this that our Lord re-
ferred when he said : " Take no thought for the
morrow" — that is, be not raveled to poor and
helpless fringe by anxieties about the morrow.

Is there a remedy for this ? Can we be rid
of these cares ? Can we be free and glad, not-
withstanding our finiteness ?

The remedy is twofold.

1. The thought of God's care. " He careth for
you." The word which refers to care as toward
God is very different from the word meaning
care as toward us. The passage might be ren-
dered, " Casting all your distraction on God,
because he is concerned for you." He is not
distracted and hesitant ; lie regards vou all the
time. And the certainty of this care of God is
the remedy for your own care.

Since God cares for us, he must notice us. We
are often told that the Lord " knows us." This

74 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

means sympathetic knowledge, sympathetic in-
terest. What a help it is, and what a comfort
that God knows !

A little girl, who had perhaps never been
across the street alone, was sent on a necessary
errand across the way. She stood on the curb-
stone, hesitating ; then she looked back and saw
that her mother was looking at her ; at once she
said; " Yes, mamma, Fll do it, if you'll keep
looking at me all the way.1' So God is regard-
ing you and me ; it is that sort of care that he
has for us.

It is the care of guidance. Hold the doctrine
of the guidance of the Holy Spirit, only with
this limitation — the Holy Spirit in his work for
us uses only the written word. If you are ever
inspired to do aught contrary to the New Testa-
ment, that is not from the Holy Spirit. If you
are inspired to do what is according to the New
Testament, that is from the Holy Spirit. If you
have chosen according to the Holy Spirit and the
New Testament, even if the way is dark, do not
go back. We do not enough trust the Holy Spirit,
He is with us, and if we look sincerely to him,

god's remedy for care. 75

he will guide us. When Paul was led to
Philippi, even though his choice brought im-
prisonment and scourging, he did not go back
on his choice. The books of Chronicles are to
me the most arid of all the books of the Bible.
But there is one verse which I love to read. It is
2 Chron. 16:9: " The eyes of the Lord run to
and fro throughout the whole earth, to show
himself strong in behalf of them whose heart is
perfect toward him." This does not mean that
most wretched doctrine of perfectionism; it
means those whose heart is turned toward God
in pure intent.

This care for you involves the overruling of
your mistakes, A mistake is an error of judg-
ment ; a sin is a conscious violation of God's law.
Since God thus regards us, he overrules our mis-
takes. My boy makes lots of mistakes. I over-
rule them; so do you for your child. You say:
" I will do the best I can for vou." " The mis-
takes of my life have beeu many." If that were
all, I might be discouraged ; but God cares for
me.

Livingstone began his work among the Bechu-

76 SATUBDAY AFTERNOON.

anas, among whom his father-in-law Moffat had
labored. But then he set out to be an explorer,
Moffat said that it was a mistake. The Board at
home said that it was a mistake. Perhaps he
himself may have said at times that it was a
mistake. But how magnificently has God over-
ruled it! He pushed into the centre of the Con-
tinent, disclosing its secrets. Stanley went in
quest of him, and found him, and opened the
way to the Congo region. If you are God's
child, he will overrule your mistakes.

Since God thus regards us, he will overrule
our sins. There is in this no license to sin. If
we take from this fact a license to sin, we are not
God's children. But if we are led into sin
unawares, by overmastering temptation, God
overrules it. I had lately a letter from a
friend who was long in a state of nominal
religion. He was led into sin. Now he writes
me that he sees, as never before, the power
and preciousness of Christ's atonement j and
he trusts him as never before. God's care for
that young man was overruling his sin so as
to force him to a higher life. We must not indeed

god's remedy for cake. 77

continue in sin that grace may abound; but if
we are overswept into sin, then God overrules
our sins and mistakes.

2. Another remedy is the personal appropria-
tion of God's care. Ci Casting all your care upon
him." We are to throw our cares over and to
let go of them. You say : " I cannot. I want
to; I try, but how can I?" You can do it if
you will let your little child teach you. Some-
times my boy comes home, and there has been a
snarl, perhaps in the school, perhaps he is snarled
up in himself. He tells me about it ; I say :
" Very well, I will attend to it." He does not
think of it any more ; he thinks of me, not of
the thing that troubled him. Think more of
God, and less of the thing that troubles you.

Oh, if you would read the Bible more ; if you
would search it for some of the promises ; if you
would say: " I am going to free myself of some
of these cares that cut my joy in pieces, by cast-
ing them on God." Think of that verse: "All
things work together for good to them that love
God." Suppose cares come on you. Take the
sword of the Spirit; stab the cares with that

78 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

text: "All things work together." Do you think
that the cares can live ? You will have life and
joy and peace.

Paul had an awful care, a thorn in the flesh.
It cut him to pieces ; it interfered with his duties.
He prayed over it once, and again and again and
again. Then came the word : "My grace is suf-
ficient for thee." The thorn was there, but he
kept thinking of Christ and his grace.

Then there was William the Prince of Orange,
through whose labors and sufferings our liberties
were born. When overwhelmed with cares, he
threw all on God, saying : " God will order all
that is needed for my salvation."

This care of God does not contemplate our
being without discipline. Rather it includes our
discipline. I once spent a red-letter afternoon
in the studio of Powers, at Florence. I saw the
blocks of Carrara marble; I saw the same blocks
half sculptured. As the sculptor's chisel cut
great scars in the marble, it seemed as if it
were conscious, and as if I could hear it speak,
and say : " O sculptor ! keep on till you set free
the being, the angel perhaps, that is confined

god's remedy for care. 79

in me. Give me this, though I die of the
pain."

So you have pain, trouble. Well, it is God's
process of discipline through which he is bring-
ing you to your shining.

The cure of our care lies in God's powerful
care for us, and in our appropriation of that care.
God says to us perpetually : " Child of my love,
lean hard ; if you love me, lean hard."

VII.
THE CURE FOR HEART-SINKING.

IT is of the best cure for heart-sinking I would
like to think with you for a little now.

Every one of us, now and then at least, what-
ever may be the natural temperament, has had
this experience of heart-sinking. We all know
what it means — a kind of failing of strength ;
a kind of vague, dark feeling of apprehension ; a
wondering how we are going to get on. Even a
person of the most hopeful nature will sometimes
pass into the gloom.

There are many causes for heart-sinking.
Sometimes our circumstances produce it. I sup-
pose nobody was ever placed in circumstances
in which he could not suggest some improvement.
Ahab had. a shining palace in Samaria, with an
exquisite prospect on this side and on that, and
the palace was very rich in its furnishing. Every
one of us would have said that he had all his
80

THE CURE FOR HEART-SINKING. 81

heart could wish. But his palace grounds were
not just the shape he wanted; they were angu-
lar, the lines including them were not of per-
fect straightness. And this was because Naboth
the Jezreelite had a vineyard close by the palace
of Ahab; and whenever the king looked out
of his palace window he saw that little spot
of ground, and coveted it day by day, until at
last he fell into very deep and tremendous sin.
I suppose we are all like Ahab. We may not
live in palaces, but though probably we all live
in comfortable houses, there are yet angularities
in our circumstances which make our hearts
sink.

Fears for the future cause heart-sinking.
Edwin, King of Northumbria, away back in the
seventh century, called a council to inquire about
Christianity. One of this council addressed him
thus : u The present life of man on earth, O king,
seems to me, in comparison with that time which
is unknown to us, like the swift flight of a swal-
low through the room where you sit at supper in
the winter. The swallow flies in at one door,
and immediately out at another ; and while he is

F

82 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

within be is safe from the wintry storm ; but he
passes out into the darkness from which he had
emerged. So this life of man appears for a short
space; but of what went before, or what is to
follow we are utterly ignorant. If, therefore,
this new doctrine contains something more cer-
tain, it seems wise to consider it." I do not
know of any better figure of a human life than
the swallow flying into the room and then out of
it into the storm and darkness. We come,
whence, we cannot tell, and are a little while,
and then are gone. And when we think of the
vast, uncertain future, often our hearts sink.

There is heart-sinking from the pain within
ourselves. I think of Paul's thorn in the flesh.
The Bible is a mirror ; we may see ourselves in
it. Chronic invalids, it seems to me, must find
comfort in the thought that the great, overcoming
Paul was always in their plight. That thorn
troubled him most sadly. He tells us it made
his heart sink; it stabbed him. Sometimes
people are companions of Paul in such circum-
stances.

Then the mystery of the divine providence is

THE CURE FOB HEART-SINKING. 83

a cause for heart-sinking. Sometimes I go into
places where there is bereavement, and I heai
the perplexed inquiry: "Why has God tried
me so ? Why should it not have been spared to
me — this treasure upon which my heart is set?
Why should this child die, when so many other
children live, who do not have the propitious
place that my child had? " And down goes the
heart like lead.

Now the usual method of cure for heart-sink-
ing is no cure at all. I find the Psalms very
wonderful as mirrors of human experience.
David tried a method which is not a cure.
David complained in the thirteenth Psalm,
verses 1,2: u How long wilt thou forget me, O
Lord ? forever ? How long shall I take counsel
in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily?
How long shall mine enemy be exalted over
me ? " He was trying the wrong method ; was
taking counsel in his soul, thinking how he could
arrange matters ; and so long as he did that he
had to cry, How long ? Our usual method is to
look within ourselves and wonder why we are so
tried, forgetting that we are ignorant and weak.

84 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

It is always useless to be pulling ourselves to
pieces. If I wanted to kill a lily, the surest way
would be to dig it up and examine its mechan-
ism; but I should never by that means see
the bloom that is possible for the lily. And
when we pull ourselves to pieces we do not help
ourselves.

But there is a better cure and a real one : It
is the refusing to look within ourselves, and
downward toward ourselves, and the determining
to look at the Lord we love ; at the Lord in whose
grasp we are. If you read on in this thirteenth
Psalm you will find that David finally looks
this way. He begins to cry Godward : " Con-
sider and hear me, O Lord my God; lighten
mine eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death." And
when he begins to look to God, this psalm, that
was so full of plaint, is turned to praise: "I
will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt
bountifully with me." And so the true cure for
heart-sinking is a look outside of yourselves,
onward and upward toward God. Take some
description of your Lord, and fasten your vision
on that, and let the power and greatness of it

THE CURE FOR HEART-SINKING. 85

sink into your hearts. Then your heart will
begin to rise just as David's did.

There is one description of our Lord that
helps me. It is that in Isaiah 9:6: " For unto
us a child is born . . . and the government shall
be upon his shoulder." When I am down-
hearted I am very apt to think of this Scripture,
and I find that the more I think of it the
brighter and happier I get. In those old times
they did not have such convenient locks and keys
as we have now ; the keys were very cumbrous
and heavy, and must be carried on the shoulders
of the men to whom the care of the city was
committed. And this is the figure, I think,
from which this designation of our Lord was
derived. The government is on his shoulders ;
it is all in his hands. And when I think of that
I get out of being down-hearted. He carries the
keys ; the government is on his shoulders. Here
is a cure for heart-sinking.

Well, this Scripture goes on with a very won-
derful description of Jesus Christ ; it tells us he
is wonderful, and therefore able to carry the
government on his shoulder. He is wonderful

86 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

as far as he himself is concerned. People find
fault with miracles. The greatest miracle to me
is the presence in this world of such a heart as
Jesus Christ. Nothing in the world is so con-
trolling as a man's early training ; and our Lord
came into a training most sectarian. He was a
Hebrew, subject to Hebrew culture ; he lived at
the time when the Hebrew thought had culmi-
nated in the greatest bigotry. The Jew would
not go through Samaria because those who lived
there were not orthodox Jews. It would be
entirely impossible for us to conceive the in-
tense, bitter narrowness of these Hebrews, under
whose care and tuition Christ's early years were
spent. The wonder is that to him all hearts may
hasten and find rest. The Lord Jesus Christ
makes himself just as much at home with the
Esquimaux of the North as he does with you and
me, dwelling in the temperate zone; and he is
just as exactly in kin with the mystical dreamer
of Oriental lands. He is so broad and great
that all hearts can turn to him, and all find in
him that which can supply their needs. I do
not know any wonder so great as Jesus standing

THE CURE FOR HEART-SINKING. 87

there amid the narrowness of his surroundings,
and teaching, amidst them, the brotherhood of
mac. And, having entered so thoroughly into
our experience, tempted like as we are, how
utterly one with us did he become ! Though he
might have summoned legions of angels, though
he might have refused to drink the bitter cup,
he accepted all, that he might by experience
understand our pain and woe. The stones, dis-
integrated by the forces of nature, are broken
into soil, and in the soil the seed is placed.
So, out of the broken stone comes the wheat
which is made into bread. So, truly, does
the Lord " command that the stones be made
bread." Yet he did not do this for his own
advantage, but fasted forty days and forty
nights that he might know of pain and hunger,
and sympathize with us in our distress. The
death into which he went for our sakes is such as
you and I must some time meet. So he comes
into closest relationship and sympathy with us —
the great, broad-hearted Christ, the sympathizing
Christ, touched with the feeling of our infirmi-
ties ! Thus he can carry on the government in

88 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

a loving, wise way. When you look through
the long reach of providence, how loving God
seems ! The other day I was present at the
annual New England dinner, and I thought how
strange must have seemed God's ways to those
Pilgrim Fathers, but how wise to us! Had
those people landed where they meant to land,
they would not have had such rigor to contend
with, but they would not have developed such
sturdy characters. We can see the wisdom that
gathered those few men about Plymouth Rock to
build this mighty nation. As God is full of
wisdom toward nations, so he is full of wisdom
toward individuals.

We are told also that this One on whose
shoulder the government rests is mighty ; and so
again he is surely able to carry the government.
I got a fresh glimpse of the divine might some
time ago. I was looking through a telescope of
great power. I saw, in the field of this instru-
ment, Jupiter, with those strange markings on
his sphere, and those strange moons masquerad-
ing round him. It gave a vivid conception of
the vast and exact control of God, to behold those

THE CURE FOR HEART-SINKING. 89

globes, hanging on nothing in the wide spaces,
yet poised in balance exquisite, and careering
through their appointed orbits. He on whose
shoulder the government lies sustains not only
Jupiter and his moons, but Saturn, with his
rings and moons, and Venus, and all the million
brightnesses of the milky way, and holds as well
the boundless universe in his firm grasp, and
guides it ever onward to the finishing. He is
the Mighty One. Surely he can carry me upon
his shoulder. Do you remember the hymn we
sometimes sing —

"The voice that rolls the stars along
Speaks all the promises ' ' ?

Besides — to go on with this description of him
on whose shoulder the government is laid — he is
the everlasting Father, or, as it is more truly
rendered, the " Father of eternity .;; He is the
Being whence eternity springs, the one who
exists. Nothing can in the least damage or hin-
der that steady Being. Though he took upon
himself our humanity, and bore our woes, and
submitted to the death which we must die, he

90 SATURDAY AFTEKNOON.

" burst the bonds of death and opened the king-
dom of heaven to all believers." Surely the Being
steadily existing can take care of the phases and
changes of my little life.

And then, not only is he Wonderful and
Counsellor and Mighty and Enduring, but his
government contemplates the highest ends ; he is
the Prince of Peace. This is what he rules
for, that you and I need not be restless or dis-
traught. He says : " Let not your heart be
troubled."

Not only is he all these, but he is the Trium-
phant One. Of his government there shall be
no end. We are on the winning side of things
necessarily when we are on the side of Jesus
Christ. He grasps the scepter of enduring vic-
tory. He cannot know defeat. How blessed
the truth, that the government is on such a
shoulder !

Well, when my heart sinks, instead of follow-
ing David's first example, and beginning to take
counsel in my soul, I had immensely better
follow David's last example and look out of my-
self and upward to him on whose shoulder is the

THE CURE FOR HEART-SINKING. 91

government. The thought of him will cure
heart-sinking.

For a moment, now, notice where thought of
him will cure heart-sinking. It may cure
heart-sinking concerning my natural disposi-
tion. u Without holiness no man shall see
the Lord." Somehow the new must conquer,
and a clashing must be between the new and
the old, and the "old Adam" seems often to
be on top. How easy it is to be uncourteous and
harsh and mean ! People find a great deal of fault
with the doctrine of total depravity; and, when
stated in a certain form, as it used to be stated,
that everybody is as bad as can be, I do not accept
it. When, however, it is stated in this way —
when it is said that in every part of our nature
sin has damaged us terribly, that is certainly
true. We are none of us what we want to be.
We all know how strong the struggle often is
between the old Adam and the new.

But if, instead of thinking of my damaged
nature ; if, instead of fastening vision on that, —
and that will surely give me heart-sinking, — I
remember that the government is on his shoulder.

92 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

I shall find the cure for heart-sinking. I have
lately seen one who is very sick with a disease
from which she will surely die, if not soon cured.
She knows it, but is generally cheerful. But one
thing somewhat disturbs her. She is not abso-
lutely sure that she can utterly trust her physi-
cian ; that his method of treatment is certainly
the best. Were she precisely and triumphantly
sure of that, how speedily would the clouds be
swept from her sky !

But we may be absolutely sure of him upon
whose shoulder the government is laid. He will
bring us forth conquerors at last, because he is
the Mighty One, the Father of Eternity, the
Prince of Peace.

And so, you see, instead of having heart-sink-
ing about myself, I may be triumphant about
myself; for I look out of myself to him upon
whose shoulder the government is laid. The
surer way to get rid of your bad disposition, the
surer way to become courteous, is to come in
contact with courteous people. "Beholding as
in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed
into the same image from glory to glory/

>>

THE CUKE FOR HEART-SINKING. 93

But there is so much space between the beginning
Christ-likeness and the consummated Christ-
likeness that I must be disciplined. Sometimes
my heart sinks under it, and then I cry : "Why?
Why ? " And I get for answer the only thing
one can ever get — the echo, Why ? Why ? And
yet I am persuaded that above and beyond it all
there is most wise reason.

I saw some beautiful lines lately that I should
like to have you hear:

Some time when all life's lessons have been learned,

And sun and stars fore verm ore have set,
The things which our weak judgment here has spurned,

The things o' er which we grieve with lashes wet,
Will flash before us clear in life's dark night,

As stars shine most in deeper tints of blue ;
And we shall see how all God's plans are right,

And what most seemed reproof was love most true.

And we shall see how, while we frown and sigh,

God's plans go on as best for you and me,
And how he heeded not our feeble cry

Because unto the end his eye could see ;
And e'en as prudent parents disallow

Too much of sweet to craving babyhood,
So God, perhaps, is keeping from us now

Life's sweetest things because it seemeth good.

94 SATURDAY AFTEKNOON.

And if, some time, commingled with life's wine,

We find the wormwood, and rebel and shrink,
Be sure a wiser hand than yours or mine

Pours out the portion for our lips to drink ;
And if some friend we love is lying low,

Where human kisses cannot reach his face,
Oh, do not blame the loving Father & ,

But wear your sorrow with obedient grace.

And you shall shortly know that lengthened breath

Is not the fairest gift God gives his friend ;
Sometimes the sable pall of death

Conceals the sweetest boon his love can send.
If we could push ajar the gates of life

And stand within, and all God's workings see,
We could interpret all this doubt and strife,

And for each mystery could find a key.

But not to-day. Then be content, poor heart ;

God's plans, like lilies pure and white, unfold.
We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart ;

Time will reveal the calyxes of gold ;
And when, through patient toil we reach the land

Where tired feet with sandals loosed may rest,
Where we may clearly know and understand,

I think that we will say : ' l God knoweth best. ' '

Then also, since he is such a one on whose
shoulder the government is laid, I may find, by
thinking of him, cure for heart-sinking about

THE CUKE FOR HEART-SINKIXG. 95

dying. When the fear of dying assaults, the
best and quickest thing to do is to turn our
thoughts toward Jesus Christ, on whose shoulder
is the government.

Do you remember John Bunvan's exquisite
description of Mr. Fearing ? Brave Great-heart
is telling about him: "Why, he was always
afraid that he should come short of whither he
had a desire to go. Everything frightened him
that he heard anybody speak of, if it had the
least appearance of opposition in it. I heard
that he lay roaring at the Slough of Despond for
above a month together ; nor durst he, for all he
saw several go over before him, venture, though
they, many of them, offered to lend him their
hands. Well, after he had lain at the Slough of
Despond a great while, as I have told you, one
sunshiny morning, I don't know how, he ven-
tured, and so got over ; but when he was over
he would scarce believe it. He had, I think, a
Slough of Despond in his mind, a slough that
he carried everv where with him, or else he could
never have been as he was. But when he was
come at the river where was no bridge, there

96 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

again he was in a heavy case. Now, now, he
said, he should be drowned forever, and so never
see that face with comfort that he had come so
many miles to behold. And here also I took
notice of what was very remarkable : The water
of that river was lower at this time than ever I
saw it in my life ; so he went over at last not
much above wet shod."

You see he need not have been so fearful. He
should have remembered him upon whom the
government is laid. Let us look away from
ourselves unto him. George Macdonald sings :

41 1 think that Death has two sides to it —
One sunny and one dark ; as this round earth
Is every day half sunny and half dark.
We on the dark side call the mystery Death ;
They, on the other, looking down in light,
Wait the glad birth with other tears than ours.' '

VIII.
THE UNSPEAKABLE GIFT.

I would like to talk to you for a little while this
afternoon about a verse which you will find
in 2 Cor. 9:15: " Thanks be unto God for his
unspeakable gift." I wish to talk about what God
gives us. Unspeakable means inestimable ; it
means what we cannot compass even in thought ;
it means beyond all estimation. There is no
gift like the gift of God to us. And the reason
we are such poverty-stricken Christians is because
we do not realize this gift enough. George Mac-
donald tells of a castle in which lived an old
man and his nephew; they were very poor,
though they were the owners of the castle. Yet
from time immemorial there had been concealed
within its walls jewels, placed there by some re-
mote ancestors, so that in case anything should
happen to their descendants they might have
something upon which to fall back. Finally,

G 97

98 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

the knowledge of these treasures came to them,
and they found themselves in the enjoyment of
vast riches. They had these riches just as really
before as now; the only difference was that
now they saw them, took them, and used them.

Just so with Christians. We are the heirs of
the universe, and yet we often act as if we were
paupers. Yet none of us are paupers. Chris-
tians are the aristocrats of the universe, if we
only knew it.

Surely, the gift beyond all price is our Lord
Jesus Christ himself. The pivotal text of Scrip-
ture is what Luther called " a little gospel " ; " God
so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth on him should
not perish, but have everlasting life." God
did not simply give us his power, his love, his
care, things which were on the fringe of his be-
ing, so to speak ; but that which was the central
thing in his being. Now, it is possible for us
really to possess Jesus Christ — and this is to be
a Christian. The trouble is, we are so anxious
to get gifts from Christ that we do not enough
value himself.

THE UNSPEAKABLE GIFT. 99

A friend told me an interesting story about
how he had been gone a long time from home ;
and, on his return, his little daughter ran down
the stairs to him as quickly as she could, aud
said : " "Well, papa, what have you got for me ? "
She did not seem to care for him, but only for his
gifts, and she was so occupied with them as to for-
get all about her father. He was really sad about
it. The next time he went away he did not
bring her any gift. The little girl, as usual, ran
to him, and said : " Oh, papa, what have you
brought me?" "Lucy, I have brought you
myself this time." The little girl understood at
once. Tears filled her eyes, and she said : " Well,
papa, I am so glad you have come back home ;
I am so glad to see you ! "

So it is with our Lord Jesus Christ. This
gift of himself includes everything. God gave
his Son for you and me. The wonderful thing
about Christianity is that it lifts us into intimacy
with the being on the throne. We need no
further mediatorial sacrifice to come to him, nor
long and difficult service. But he is, if we will
have it so, our Friend, our Guest ; and it is

100 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

possible for us to enter into an intimate, exqui-
site companionship with him.

Prayer is a request for specific things, or a
thanking God for his care and keeping. But
there is a higher realm of prayer than these ; it
is the realm of communion, where we are so
given to Christ, and he to us, that we think of
him all the time, and talk with him all the time ;
and when, while in company, we are yet alone
with him. It is the ultimate fruit of the Chris-
tian life that we so have Christ himself that we
are in communion with him.

And in a sense so real that there are no figures
which the Holy Spirit can find to fully set forth
its reality, Jesus Christ comes and dwells with
us and makes our poverty wealth.

God's utmost gift to us is Jesus Christ himself.
Do not be satisfied with anything less. Some
people have a church, and they think ever so
much of the church ; and some people are
always talking of the sacraments — the Lord's
Supper and baptism. Some have a minister, and
they lavish everything on the minister. Some
have a book and some have a ritual. But do

THE UNSPEAKABLE GIFT, 101

not you be satisfied with anything else than Jesus
Christ. He is better than church and holier
than the holiest thing. Let your Christian life
be one of reception of Jesus Christ. When I
hear so much about the church, I fear these peo-
ple do not know very much about the Christ.
" God gave his only begotten Son ;; ; do not let
your affections centre on anything else. Then,
of course, you will join the church which you
think nearest the truth ; but the motive of it and
the meaning of it will be Christ. Be you sure
that you do not rest satisfied with anything but
the reception of God's utmost gift — the Lord
himself.

When I talk to you about the spring, or about
the summer, — which is the utmost gift of the
year, — I have not said all. I can go on to
specify the things which belong to the summer —
the blue sky, the fleecy whiteness of the clouds,
the brooks, the song of the birds, and the per-
fumed air.

And so, when 1 have Christ, I have ever so
many things. For instance, Christ gives us
eternal life. You remember how he says : " I

102 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

give unto them eternal life." When you receive
Jesus Christ, then with him you have eternal
life. Be sure you get the Scriptural idea of
what eternal life is.

" There is no death ; what seems so is transition."

Death means the passing into the other life.
Eternal death means life out of harmony with
God. Eternal life is life in sympathy with Christ.
The culmination of that life is heaven ; but we
have the beginning of it here. Notice, it is in
the present tense : " I give (not will give) eternal
life." If you are a Christian, you are just as
certain of heaven this moment as you will be
when the palm of victory is in your hands and
the robe of righteousness wraps you around. Do
not be downhearted ; do not be wondering
whether you are a Christian or not. But just
ask yourself this question : " Do I really accept
Jesus Christ as my Saviour ? Have I really
and absolutely made myself over to him?"
Then you have surely eternal life. There is not
the most fearful and distraught soul here this
afternoon who may not be absolutely sure of

THE UNSPEAKABLE GIFT. 103

eternal life. You say you feel so and so. Well,
suppose you do ; you are sick ; or, possibly, you
are getting old, and the shadows are length-
ening. Old people do not feel as well as when
they were young. But your feeling does not
make any difference ; if you really possess Jesus
Christ, then what he gives is certainly yours.
You need not bother about whether you are going
to heaven. Certainly, you are going to heaven.
" Neither shall any man pluck them out of my
hand." Do not be troubled about your future,
because you have taken him, and all is involved
in the great gift. The gates of pearl will " swing
inward for you"; the song of Moses and the
Lamb will burst even from your lips.

Well, another gift which we have in Jesus
Christ is rest. How like a pillow for weary
heads this promise has been for men : "Come unto
me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I
will give you rest ! " Rest ! that is Christ's gift.
It is possible for a man to be a Christian and yet
not possess this inestimable gift. Just as those
people who lived in that old castle were rich and
did not know it.

104 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

How many times I have thought of those
words of Goethe :

44 Rest is not quitting
The busy career ;
Rest is the fitting
The self to one's sphere,

44'Tis the brook's motion,
Clear, without strife,
Fleeting to ocean
After this life.

44'Tis loving and serving
The highest and best ;
'Tis onward, unswerving,
And this is true rest."

Rest is getting rid of friction. If it were not
for the little passing annoyances, and the little
infelicities of daily occurrence, how delightful to
work ! For then work would have no friction.
Jesus Christ means to give us just that rest now,
in a measure, at least. I do not know anything
that tells it better than these words of Miss
Waring :

44A heart at leisure from itself
To soothe and sympathize."

THE UNSPEAKABLE GIFT. 105

Think of the words : "A heart at leisure from
itself! " That is rest ! You cannot get any
better idea of rest than that. You need not ask :
"What do these people think about me?" or
"How do I feel?" "A heart at leisure from
itself" — this is what Christ means to give to you
and to me. Do not you see what rest it is? The
rest of forgiveness, the rest of our intellect (for
he answers all questions), and the rest of our
affections (for what nobler or sweeter object of
love than he?). " Come unto me all ye that are
weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and ye shall find rest
unto your souls." There is the rest; but you
do not get it because you do not take Christ's
yoke upon you. The word "yoke" refers to the
old Roman custom : a spear placed here, and a
spear there and another spear laid across ; and
the conquered people were made to pass under
these spears ; and their passing under this yoke
meant that the Roman people owned them abso-
lutely. Then, if we take Christ's yoke in that
manner, and do not keep back anything, do not
you see how sure we are to find rest? The

106 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

reason we do not find more of it is because we
do not enough submit to him. We say : "There
is a yoke — I will go through that ; and there is
a yoke — I will go through that; but here is
something: I wonder if I do not love this better
than Christ; I wonder if I cannot keep this
and still be a Christian ? " And so we are in
the clash of reasons and counter reasons, and are
not more than three-fourths under the yoke.

Christ says we have in this great gift of God
to us the gift of his Holy Spirit. You remem-
ber how Christ said to the woman at the well :
" If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is
that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou
wouldest have asked of him, and he would have
given thee living water." And the woman said :
" Thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well
is deep." And the Lord said : " Whosoever
shall drink of the water that I shall give himshall
never thirst ; but the water that I shall give him
shall be in him a well of water springing up into
everlasting life." In the seventh chapter of John
we find an explanation of these words of Christ.
Let me turn to it and read : " In the last day,

THE UNSPEAKABLE GIFT. 107

that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried,
saying, If any man thirst let him come unto me
and drink. He that believeth in me, out of him
shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake
he of the Spirit which they that believe on him
should receive ; for the Holy Spirit was not yet
given, because Jesus was not yet glorified."
Well, now, why do we not have more of the
Holy Spirit? God has given him to us if we
are Christians. Why is he not in us as a spring
of water? Why are we so easily overcome — so
weak ? A friend told me something that exactly
illustrates this subject. He told me of a place
from which a large hotel had been moved away,
and on which a woman had now a dwelling house
and a garden. There was only one trouble with
this place: it was far from a spring, and the
woman was obliged to go daily some distance for
water. But she noticed a peculiar, damp spot in
her garden ; nothing would grow there. It was
an ugly patch, and she did not know what to do
with it. She one day determined to investigate
it; and she took with her a trowel and began
to dig. She soon found some water, and still

108 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

more water ; and, going on and on, she came to
a brickbat, then an old tin can and sticks, and
various other trash. She threw out all these
things and found, still further down, a beautiful
spring of water upwelling. She had it stoned
up; and there upon her premises was a beautiful,
clear, cool spring. The water had been trying
to force itself up, but could not, because it was
obstructed.

So we have the Holy Spirit. The water of life
is really ours ; yet prayerlessness and refusal to
read the Bible choked this spring of the Holy
Spirit which we really have. We have the gift,
but we keep it choked. Let clean water run
through, carrying away all that prevents recog-
nition of spiritual things, and we shall have
within us a well of water, springing up into eter-
nal life. Is it not true that within us are many
brickbats, old tin cans, and sticks that we ought
to throw out? What a wonderful gift we have
in Christ ! I might go on for hours searching
these Scriptures for what we have in them.

So, do not let us be paupers. Do not let us
act as though we had no jewels, when we know

THE UNSPEAKABLE GIFT. 109

we have. The people in George Macdonald\s
story did not know their wealth ; but we do.

This gift of God means that we should give
something also to him. It is when Paul is
urging the people to give that he breaks out :
" Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift/'

" Death worketh,
Let me work too ;
Death undoeth,
Let me do.
Busy as death my work I ply,
Till I rest in the rest of eternity.

"Time worketh,

Let me work too ;
Time undoeth,
Let me do.
Busy as time my work I ply,
Till I rest in the rest of eternity.

4 'Sin worketh,

Let me work too ;
Sin undoeth,
Let me do.
Busy as sin my work I ply,
Till I rest in the rest of eternity.' *

And may God bring us all into rest, through
Jesus Christ our Lord.

((

IX.
GOD MINE.

THERE is nothing more important in the
Christian life than to say, as Paul did :
My God." When we have the summer we
have many other things — the blue sky, the white
encampments of the clouds, the tender look of
nature, the songs of the birds, the lustrous at-
mosphere, the genial summer shower, and a
million other things with the summer. And so
in the matter of religion, if we can say " My
God," for God includes all beneficencies and all
blessings. It is one thing to have God in the
intellect, to know him and to recognize him as
the Great Cause of causes, as the one who main-
tains the balance of the universe, as the one who
guides nations. But not in that way can we say,
" My God." We may refer to God as our moral
standard, by comparing our lives with the de-
mands of his pure and holy law. But this is not
110

GOD MINE. Ill

the best and truest way to possess God, for the
result to us is gloom and awe rather than filial
fear. When we so consent to God with oui
heart that we feel him in real personal relation
with ourselves, we can then say from our very
deepest hearts, " My God." This is the relation
in which Paul was constantly standing toward
God, and it is noteworthy how constantly this
expression appears in his epistles : " I thank my
God that your faith is spoken of throughout the
whole world " • "I thank my God always on
your behalf"; "I thank my God upon every
remembrance of you." Again, in the Epistle to
Philemon (which is too little read, a beautiful
Christian illustration of courtesy) we find these
words : " I thank my God, making mention of
thee always in my prayers." This personal
appropriation was the habitual mood of the
apostle, the constant note he was striking through
all the changes of his career. When we can,
from our hearts, with the sense of ownership,
say " My God," then that possession gives us
multitudes of other things, for everything is
wrapped up for us in God.

112 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

If we are able to say, with Paul, " My God,"
we shall have a thankful feeling. Paul's mood
of thankfulness constantly springs out of this
appropriation of God ; and we shall be thankful
in whatever plight we may be. Paul wrote his
Epistle to the Romans from Corinth, where he
had a very hard time, being obliged to maintain
himself at his trade of tentmaker, and in the face
of all sorts of obstacles and difficulties gathering
a church.

Nowhere does our religion so often fail as in
this matter of thankfulness. I am often sur-
prised to see how, among us, the tone of Chris-
tian life is so different from that of the New
Testament. It is a rare thing in prayer meeting
to hear the expression of thankfulness. I sup-
pose we should be thankful if we were more
thinkful ; for thankful means thinkful in the old
Saxon. If we thought of God as being personal
to ourselves, we should be thinkful of God, and
therefore thankful to God.

All through the Psalms you find suggestions
of it, and learn that it is delightful to God's
heart to have his children thank him. And we

GOD MINE. 113

can only truly praise him when in our deepest
hearts we look up, and say, " My God."

We shall surely have with this appropriation
contentment. Contentment is the result of
thankfulness, and when thankful we are full of
content. Contentment in the Scriptural sense
is a great thing. There is a kind of inertness
which we sometimes call content — a sort of
stupidity and callousness mistaken for content-
ment. True contentment is not with attainment,
but with allotment. Our hearts ought to be in
chime with God, that being contented with him,
we shall be sedulously trying to do for him all
we can. With this appropriation comes " A
heart at leisure from itself," and we are not
greatly disturbed bv the attention to our circum-
stances. A little fellow was told that he must
be deformed for all his life. He said : " Well,
it is all right. God has done it. My Father
has done it. I love him. He loves me. He
does all right."

Contentment is a kind of inner rest. Some-
times I have stood on a bridge. Here is a train
coming in ; there, another going out ; there is a

H

114 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

train shunted off to a side track — it seems all
confusion. Yet there is not all confusion. There
is a train director and a lever. The director
knows where every car is, and where it must be,
and he manages all without clash and without
chaos. Nothing can so minister to our happiness
as to be able to say : li My God, my Guide, my
Help, the one who manages for me." Then
comes the placidity of contentment ; it is always
so. And then, though there may be pain, the
pang is taken out of the pain. Even with a
ripple of sadness, deep in our hearts there is
peace.

I cannot feel
That all is well when dark'ning clouds conceal

The shining sun ;

But then I know
God lives and loves ; and say," since it is so,

Thy will be done.

I cannot speak
In happy tones ; the teardrops on my cheek

Show I am sad ;

But I can speak
Of grace to suffer ; with submission meek,

Until made glad.

GOD MINE. 115

I do not see
Why God should e'er permit some things to be,

When he is love ;

But I can see,
Tho' often dimly, through the mystery,

His hand above !

I do not know
Where falls the seed that I had tried to sow

With greatest care ;

But I shall know
The meaning of each waiting hour below

Sometime, somewhere !

I do not look
Upon the present, nor in nature's book

To read my fate ;

But I do look
For promised blessings in God's holy book,

And I can wait.

I may not try
To keep the hot tears back — but hush that sigh,
4 ' It might have been ' ' ;

And try to still
Each rising murmur, and to God's sweet will

Respond "Amen ! "

It is possible that the person who wrote this
poem was ruffled only on the outside, but smooth
and calm within. There was an inventor once

116 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

who was very much disappointed. He had
worked for a long time on a model, and was just
on the point of getting it patented, when he
found that somebody else on the other side of the
Rocky Mountains had anticipated him by a few
davs. He said : i( Some dav I shall know whv
I failed " ; for he knew that God had something
to do with it. After awhile there came from
England another and cheaper machine for the
same work, and then he saw why he had failed.
" For," he said, " if I had taken out a patent I
should have lost money." So contentment is a
settled conviction that God does best.

From personal appropriation comes courage.
And we need a great deal of courage. It is
pretty hard to look through all we have to do.
I sometimes feel discouraged. I am always most
discouraged just before I get up in the morning;
but as soon as I am up and get started the feel-
ing goes. I suppose to all of us life sometimes
looks too much for us, and we feel, " Oh, that
I had the wings like a dove, for then would I
fly away and be at rest V I think that David
was not the only one who said a thing like that.

GOD MINE. 117

While the battle of Waterloo was raging, and
while the French could not overcome the English,
nor the English overcome the French, and when
the balance seemed inclining toward victory for
the French, and the English cause nearly lost —
then a line of dust was seen in the distant hori-
zon ; Blueher was coming up ; the Prussians and
English together overcame the conqueror of the
world. So, we need help; courage is almost
gone; but when we can say, "My God," we
know that if Bluclier does not come, something
will come, and we can wait, resting on some such
promise as this : " As thy day, so shall thy
strength be."

If we can say, "My God," we shall surely
have constancy. Many of us act spasmodically.
You cannot keep the teachers of the Sunday-
school at it all the time. A class is gathered and
becomes interesting ; then the teacher leaves, and
the class is disintegrated. These spurting Chris-
tians are a great trouble to the pastor ; but the
consciousness of God as ours, as helping and
caring for us, can make us constant.

When we thus appropriate God, we shall have

118 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

advancing sanctification. We shall be growing
better all the time. We get better by personal
contact with one purer and better than we.
There is one companion who may be always ours,
and this is God. He will enter into relations
intimate and personal with every one of us; and
if we come into such real contact, we are con-
stantly growing better. A young man says : " I
will be an artist " ; and he goes over to Europe
to study, and comes into contact with the pictures
of the great masters. He is a little discouraged at
first ; but, as he holds himself in this contact, and
studies these great works, there comes upon him
more ability, and his eye gets to be further-seeing
and his imagination becomes unclogged, and he
can approximate more and more to what they do.
" So we, beholding as in a glass the glory of the
Lord, are changed into the same image from
glory to glory." Our deepest need is not that
we shall think of God as the Great Cause, or as
the one who is set before us merely as our stan-
dard ; but that we shall think of him as a per-
sonal Friend, as our Hope and daily Comforter.
Well, how can we say it? You remember

GOD MINE. 119

how, when a child at home, you sometimes had
the consciousness of the possessions of your
father and your mother, and of everything in
the house. I remember I used to look around
and say : " My book," " my horses," " my
peaches" ; and clambering about the fences, say:
" My fences." Yet they were not mine ; they
were father's. I would appropriate these things
whenever it was all right between father and
mother and me, when I wTas trying to please
them ; then I owned father and mother, and
everything in the house. But don't you remem-
ber how it was when conscious of wrong ? Then
there came a chasm between your parents and
yourself; but the moment that was put away
and you came into right relations with your
parents, then returned the feeling of possession.
And when we are trying to please our Heavenly
Father ; when we try to keep out from between
us everything which prevents intimacy, then
there comes the consciousness of possession, and
we know that we have all his infinite heart can
give. So let us put away all that hinders the
shining of his smile Then we are thankful,

120 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

then we are contented, then we have courage,
then we have constancy. Then, beholding his
face, we are changed into the same image more
and more, and grow steadily in grace. The
greatest thing we can ever say is : " My God."

WHAT CHRIST IS TO US.

LET us try to-day to think concerning some
of the relations in which the Lord Jesus
Christ stands to us. It is a fact of our physical
life that, while we are mediately dependent upon
a great many things, we are immediately depend-
ent upon the sun. Byron's dream was not all
a dream, about the darkness wrapping the earth
around, and the chill and gloom, because the sun
was blotted out of the heavens. All possibility
of life and growth hangs directly on the sun-
beam. George Stevenson, who invented the
first locomotive, was once standing on a terrace,
when he saw the smoke and steam of a locomo-
tive at a distance. Turning to a friend, he said:
"Do you know what drives that engine?"
" Well, I suppose some Newcastle driver." " But
what makes the engine go ? " The friend con-
fessed himself unable to answer. " Well, then,

121

122 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

I will tell you : it is the sun that drives that
engine." The light and heat of the sun laid up
in the coal fields millions of years ago, and now
by the action of heat disimprisoned in the fire of
the engine, makes the heat which makes the
steam ; and it is the steam which makes the
engine go. When we are carried along on the
track, that which carries us is nothing but the
sunbeam. As we warm ourselves before a coal
fire, the heat is only sun heat. Because the heat
of the sun millions of years ago found a recep-
tacle among the plants of the carboniferous era,
that same heat is now disengaged by bringing
heat into contact with the carbon. We are warm
because the sun is warm and because the sun was
warm. The mill wheel turns by the push of
water ; yet it is the sun, after all, which turns
the wheel, because it is the power of the sun that
lifts the water up into the sky which forms clouds
and falls in rains, and then, percolating down the
hillside, becomes rivulets. And the vital pro-
cesses of our bodies also depend upon the sun. I
suppose our nervous system is a kind of battery,
though we do not know much about it. We

WHAT CHRIST IS TO US. 123

only know that there is a strange something
which carries our messages from the brain to the
finger tips ; and this, no doubt, depends upon
the sun. It is the sun that stores the germ in
the kernel. It is the sun which lifts the plumule
upward, and pushes the radicle downward. It is
the sun which pumps the sap along all the chan-
nels of the trees. If the sun were permanently
eclipsed, there were only darkness and death.

And this is the position in which our Lord
stands to us. It would be interesting to take
note of all the Scriptures in which the Lord is
spoken of as a Sun. As we hang for physical
life upon the great orb which is in the visible
heavens, so we hang for spiritual life on Jesus
Christ, who is our spiritual Sun. Keble's hymn
is true :

"Sun of my soul, my Saviour dear,
It is not night if thou be near ;
Oh, may no earth-born cloud arise
To hide thee from thy servant's eyes.

41 Abide with me from morn till eve,
For without thee I cannot live ;
Abide with me when night is nigh,
For without thee I dare not die."

124 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

In the first chapter of the First Epistle to the
Corinthians, thirtieth verse, there is a kind of
condensed statement of the relations in which
the Lord Jesus Christ stands to us. " Of him
are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto
us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption." If you think about it care-
fully, you will see that these are very wide and
including relations. It is as if the apostle had
said : Well, everything you need you will find
in Jesus Christ. " Of God, Jesus Christ is made
unto us wisdom." Well, it is a wonderful thing
to be wise ; it is a wonderful thing to have an
absolutely unclouded source of wisdom. We
cannot, because accustomed to it all our lives,
conceive the boon it is to be sure there is some
source whence we can get answers to the deepest
questions which will arise about life and about
death. For instance, very frequently we are
much troubled and burdened, and it seems to
us as if the path of life turned back upon it-
self. So many say to me : "I do not see why
God should treat me so ; there is that other per-
son— he does not seem to be treated so." How

WHAT CHRIST IS TO US. 125

frequently to this question, " Why ? " we get for
an answer only an echo, and we are in darkness
and trouble. Now, here is something that can
help us greatly : we may be sure that we are not
the sport of fate ; we are in the grasp of a wise
Providence; and then in the darkness we shall
get a gleam of light. We should be absolutely
certain that there is around us a guiding and
loving and special providence that lays its hand
on us as a mother lays her hand upon her child.
If Jesus teaches us anything, he surely teaches
us this. He points us to the chattering company
of sparrows (and they were just as numerous and
pestiferous in Palestine as here, and two of them
could be bought for a farthing), and he says :
" Your Father remembers them ; are ye not much
better than they ? "

Years ago I was moving, and everything
was turned up, and all the furniture was in
tremendous disorder, and it was all as uncom-
fortable as possible. Yet my little child was
absolutely unconcerned amid all the disorder,
because she knew that nothing that could harm
her would come out of it all, for she had absolute

126 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

trust in her father and mother. Well, we cannot
tell why that thing is hedged up, and this thing
gets askew, but if we are absolutely sure of a
particular providence as special as the love of a
parent for her child, we need not be anxious.
And you get this assurance from Jesus.

I find within myself instincts for prayer. I
am in trouble ; my arms are very short, and,
stretch them as I may, I cannot begin to reach
the extent of the trouble. Then my instinct is
to pray. Yet, how can I be sure it is of any
use ? I want to know absolutely and certainly
whether God does hear prayer. If I let Jesus
Christ be made unto me wisdom, then I know.

Then, there is this mighty question about the
existence of the soul after death. It seems verv
strange that we know so little about what is
beyond this life. Sometimes I find myself trying
to add together the items of knowledge concern-
ing that other state, and they are very dim and
very small, comparatively. I reason about it;
but do I reason from right premises? Are the
links unbroken, and do they lead to the right
results? If I turn to Jesus Christ as mv wisdom,

WHAT CHRIST IS TO US. 127

I know, for he says : "This day shalt thou be
with me in Paradise," and "In my Father's
house are many mansions" ; and we also read :
"If our earthly house of this tabernacle be
dissolved, we have a building of God, a house
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
And so, if I let Christ be my wisdom, I may be
shining with joy; but this life would not be
worth the living; without the shining of Jesus
Christ.

This Scripture says, Jesus Christ is made unto
us righteousness. I do not know of a better
illustration of this than that wonderful storv of
the prodigal son. When he came to himself, I
have no doubt that his rags looked raggeder,
and his filth looked filthier, and his distance from
home still more distant. But he made his weary
way back, notwithstanding his rags and scabs
and filth, wondering whether when he reached
his father's house he would be received. "But
when he was yet a great way off his father saw
him, and had compassion, and ran and fell on
his neck and kissed him." And when he
began to falter, " Make me as one of thy hired

128 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

servants," the father broke in and said to his
servants, " Bring forth the best robe, and put on
him." This best robe was a shining white gar-
ment, which covered the whole person, and when
the boy put it on him he was all completely
enwrapped, and you could not see the rags nor
filth. Undoubtedly, he was pretty bad. Yes, I
suppose he was ; but, as far as outward relations
were concerned, he was in royal plight, and no
servant could point the finger and say : " What
a sight he is ! " So the Lord Jesus Christ treats
us. We have all been in the far country, and
were pretty well covered with rags and filth ; but
when he comes to us he throws over us the "robe
of righteousness." Jesus Christ "was made in
the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin," and,
though his nature were free from every tinge of
depravity, yet was he made in our nature, and
wrought out a righteousness absolutely complete,
as to sin on the one hand, and as to expiating
the doom attached to it on the other. And when
I believe him he wraps me about with the robe
of his righteousness, and I am justified ; the
Lord has nothing to say against me.

WHAT CHRIST IS TO US. 129

But, then, not only is the Lord made unto us
wisdom and righteousness, but he is made unto us
sanctification. Be sure he does not leave us in
filth ; he sets to work to cleanse the inner foul-
ness. Sanctification has to do with our internal
cleansing. Christ, by the power of the Spirit,
puts a new nature into us. He, by the power
of the Spirit, fills us with love for himself. He
holds us in contact with himself, and we, " be-
holding as in a glass the glory of the Lord,
are changed into the same image from glory to
glory." So that by-and-by, by sanctification, we
get inwardly adjusted to the law. He is made
unto us sanctification.

This Scripture also says that he is made unto
us redemption. This is a somewhat singular
word. It is as if the apostle had exhausted
every other word in his vocabulary, and now
therefore uses this general word to include every-
thing.

Well, since he is all this, and he alone is all
this, and since we can only receive all from him
just as we receive life physically from the sun,
we can easily see what ought to be the main pur-

130 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

pose of our Christian life, the keeping ourselves
always in the light of hirn.

In our spiritual state, if we let clouds come
between ourselves and Jesus Christ, we have a
hard time. Prayer-meetings do not give comfort,
and your private prayers do not amount to any-
thing. What you have to do then is to sweep
away the clouds ; for we have volition over these
spiritual clouds. Our aim ought to be to keep
ourselves in the shining vision of Jesus Christ.
And don't you see that if you do that, it is like
a sunshiny day in summer, with the blue sky,
and the fragrance of flowers ? What is the end
and aim of the Christian life ? Is it to have
summer always shining down into your heart?
Keep yourself always in this vision of Jesus
Christ, and then all questions will get decided as
to what you should do.

If all this is true we ought to believe in a
wide way and a great way toward Jesus Christ.
Some people will believe toward him as to
righteousness. They believe he forgives their
sins, but they believe nothing else, and they get
just as much as they believe and nothing else.

WHAT CHRIST IS TO US. 131

They have the memory of a time when they
were converted, and their mind reverts to that ;
but they should believe toward God as not only
wisdom and justification, but they should believe
toward him as their sanctification. Just as the
earth has a great faith toward the sun, whose
beams will start the germs of vegetation, we need
a great faith toward Jesus Christ. Well, we
shall have it if we know more about Jesus Christ,
and we shall know about him if we will read
more about him in the New Testament. Lyte,
who wrote that sweet hymn :

41 Abide with me, fast falls the eventide,"
wrote also another hymn, less familiar, but of
similar import. It is this :

Long did I toil, and knew no earthly rest,
Far did I rove, and knew no certain home ;

At last I sought them in his sheltering breast,
Who opes his arms and bids the weary come.

With him I found a home, a rest divine ;

And since then I am his and he is mine.

Fes, he is mine, and nought of earthly things,
Not all the charms of pleasure, wealth, or power,

The fame of heroes or the pomp of kings,
Could tempt me to forego his love an hour.

132 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

Go, worthless world, I cry, with all that's thine
Go ! I my Saviour's am, and he is mine.

The good I have is from his stores supplied,
The ill is only what he deems the best.

He for my friend, I'm rich with nought beside ;
And poor without him, though of all possessed,

Changes may come — I take, or I resign —

Content while I am his, while he is mine.

Whate'er may change, in him no change is seen,
A glorious sun, that wanes not, nor declines ;

Above the clouds and storms, he walks serene,
And sweetly on his people's darkness shines.

All may depart — I fret not nor repine,

While I my Saviour's am, while he is mine.

He stays me falling ; lifts me up when down ;

Reclaims me wandering, guards from every foe ;
Plants on my worthless brow the victor's crown ;

Which, in return, before his feet I throw,
Grieved that I cannot better grace his shrine
Who deigns to own me his, as he is mine.

While here, alas ! I know but half his love,
But half discern him, and but half adore ;

But when I meet him in the realms above,
I hope to love him better, praise him more,

And feel and tell, amid the choir divine,

How fully I am his, and he is mine.

XI.

UNION WITH CHRIST.

I WOULD like to talk to you this afternoon
on the " Union of the Believer with Christ."
If any one will read the New Testament with
that thought in mind, he will be surprised to find
how full of this subject it is, and much more is
revealed concerning it than we can distinctly con-
ceive or clearly express. Yet no truth is more
real than this, that if we are one with Christ
we have been taken into a most real and indis-
soluble union with our Lord. As one has put
it: "The great fact of objective Christianity is
Incarnation for atonement ; the great fact of sub-
jective Christianity is union with Christ, whereby
we receive the atonement." That is to sav,
Christianity, looked at outside "ourselves, means
that the Lord Jesus Christ took upon himself our
nature in the Incarnation, in order that through
obedience in it, and through expiation in it he

133

134 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

might work out for us complete atonement, by
means of which we may be delivered from the
remorse of our own conscience on the one hand,
and the claims of a violated law on the other.
But, looked at from an internal point of view, in
the heart, in the life — the great fact around
which all crystallizes is this fact of union with
Christ ; and bv this union the external atonement
is made real and vital to ourselves. I am very
sure this is a truth, that the great fact outwardly
is atonement, inwardly is union with Christ.

The great fact begins with our regeneration.
The apostle says : " If any man be in Christ he
is a new creature; old things are passed away,
behold all things are become new." He does not
mean that any new faculties have been added,
but he does mean that in regeneration the entire
trend of our nature is changed ; so that, instead
of flowing from God, it begins to flow toward
God. There is a new direction of the faculties,
and the soul now receives a new illumination of
intellect, a new trend, and a new capacity. Then
there is implanted in us the principle of the new
life ; the germ begins ; and that new life is the

UNION WITH CHRIST. 135

Lord Jesus Christ, in some real way uniting
himself with us.

The union is declared in justification. By
justification we are declared innocent. We are
as if we had not sinned, since Christ has fulfilled
the law for us, and we are so truly one with him
that what belongs to him belongs to us.

This union is still further proved by our sanc-
tification. Since he dwells in us, and becomes
one with us, we become more like him, and
manifest more likeness to him. And the man
who is growing more Christlike is the man who
is showing forth this union with Christ. It is
also proved by our perseverance. When our
Lord Jesus grasps us he does not grasp us to let
us go ; so our perseverance is more his grasp of
us than our grasp of him. He maintains the
union, and for this reason we shall at last awake
satisfied with his likeness. The New Testament
is very full on this point. It is singular how
affluent the Scriptures are touching this truth,
that we are really one with Jesus Christ. The
divine omnipresence means that the whole God
is everywhere, and at all times at every point of

136 SATURDAY AFTEKNOOX.

space; but this idea of the union of the believer
with the Lord Jesus is something other than the
doctrine of the divine presence.

Then there is the divine sympathy with us,
because Jesus " was tempted in all points like as
we are, yet without sin " ; but this is something
more than that. Every one of us is influenced
by the Holy Spirit ; yet this union of the be-
liever with his Lord is deeper than even that.

Now, then, to come to the Scripture teaching;
how full it is, and how various ! It is stated
largely by figure, as such deep truths can hardly
be shown except by figures. It is illustrated by
the figure of the building and the foundation.
Just as every stone of the building is united to
and dependent on every other, and is therefore a
part of that on which the building rests, so, in
some such way is every one who trusts Christ
brought into most intimate relation with him.
In Ephesians, we read : " Built upon the founda-
tion of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ
himself being the chief corner-stone; in whom
all the building fitly framed together groweth
unto a holy temple in the Lord. In whom ye

UNION WITH CHRIST. 137

also are builded together for an habitation of
God through the Spirit."

And then frequently, in the Scriptures, this
union is illustrated by that closest union which
we know anything about, that of the husband
and wife. The Church does not mean any par-
ticular denomination, but it means all of those
who have come into this vital relation with him
who is the invisible Head of God's chosen ones.
It is often represented as the Bride of Christ.
And, just as in marriage, those who are twain
become one, and, in a deeper way than we can
understand and express, are one, so our Lord
Jesus Christ is declared to be one with the
Church, which is his Bride. You remember the
Oriental symbology employed to describe this
union, and the brightness and blessedness re-
served for those who are united to him in such
intimacy, and into which he will surely lift all
who have become a part of his bride.

This union is illustrated in that other figure of
the vine and its branches : " I am the vine, ye are
the branches." Well, there is no union that we
can think of closer than that between the branch

138 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

and the vine. Through all the channels of the
branch pulsates the sap from the vine, and the
clusters hang upon the branches because there is
this union with the vine. If you are going to
try to conceive of deep union, you cannot possibly
express it in a stronger figure than this, the
branch and the vine. Yet our Lord Jesus
Christ teaches just this union : " Without me ye
can do nothing. Abide in me, and I in vou.
As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except
it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye
abide in me."

And then this fact is further set forth in that
figure of the union of the head and members of
the body. We all know how intimate that
union is; nothing can be closer. The head pre-
sides over the body ; it is the seat of sensations
for the body. We cannot come into the con-
sciousness of sensation until it has been registered
in the brain. The life of the head is the life of
the body. If a limb be severed from its relation
with the head, there is no longer life in the
limb. So Christ says : "I am the head, and
ye are the body." Every believer is in as real

UNION WITH CHRIST, 139

union with the Lord as is your body with your
head.

Then there are direct statements of this union.
The believer is constantly spoken of as being
" in Christ." You would be surprised to notice
how often Paul speaks so. He says : " There is,
therefore, now no condemnation to them who are
in Christ Jesus." And, conversely, the Lord is
in those who trust him. " I in them, and they
in me." " I in you, and ye in me." This means
a great deal ; it means more than I know. I
only know it means this, that in a way deeper
and more intimate than any figure can set forth;
in a way closer and more real than any direct
statement can tell ; in this way has every one
who believes in Jesus Christ been lifted up into
such real union with himself that he becomes
one with his Lord. This is a great fact concerning
the Christian life, and there are great inferences
that follow from it.

Consider the honor of it. We cannot con-
ceive the honor, we cannot imagine the honor;
but we shall understand more of it in the
shining yonder. We shall then begin to know

140 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

how much this intimacy of union means. Is
it not a wonderful honor that the poorest and
most ignorant, and most troubled and most bur-
dened of us ; the one of us whom the world may-
pass by, slighting the one, perhaps, most unsuc-
cessful, the one whose life seems a failure — has,
nevertheless, if he has given himself to Jesus
Christ, the honor of being taken into this indis-
soluble union with the King of the Universe?
The branch and the vine ! Husband and wife !
I am sure we can get from such figures some
glimpses here of what must be this union, and to
what rank those who trust Jesus Christ are to be
lifted. It is not a slight thing to be thus one
with him who made all worlds (for " without
him was not anything made that was made"),
with him who sits upon the throne of the uni-
verse, with him who for our sakes became poor.
Since the Lord Jesus Christ has become our
brother, there is formed between the believer and
his Lord a mystical union. It is a vital union ;
by which I mean a union of life, so that the be-
liever can say, like the apostle : " The life that I
now live in the flesh, I live bv the faith of the

UNION WITH CHRIST. 141

Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for

me."

Not only is it a vital union, but an indissoluble
union. There has been formed between him and
me a union which nothing can ever end. If I
profess to have formed the union without the
life that such union involves and should fall, it
would not follow that I had fallen from grace,
but that I had never been in grace. " They
shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck
them out of my hand." i% Who shall separate us
from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or
sword ? Nay, in all these things we are more
than conquerors, through him that loved us."
" Them also who sleep in Jesus will God bring
with him."

I know of nothing that can make the thought
of life more sacred. Here am I, in union with
my Lord. He " who was with God and who
was God " he condescended to mv nature and
became one with me — so reallv that he dwells in
me and I in him. There is formed within us a
union indissoluble; and what belongs to him

142 SATURDAY AFTEBNOON.

belongs to me ; and, on the other hand, what
belongs to me belongs to him.

One of the results of this union to the believer
is that he is brought under the assimilating and
transforming power of Christ's life, and is made
purer and still purer. If you want to know
beauty, study the highest expressions of beauty ;
this principle is of wide application. Says the
scented clay, when asked : " Why are you so
filled with fragrance?" "I have been lying
near the rose." We are only clay, yet we may
have a divine fragrance because we are in contact
with Jesus Christ.

This assimilating power is active also toward
the body. At last we shall have a body like
unto his glorious body. I only know that the
circle of the Lord's power is drawn around our
bodies as well as our souls. The past resurrec-
tion life of our Lord is especially interesting,
because it gives us some faint idea of what that
life may be. The life into which I enter will be
a life like that, the likeness of Christ's "glorious
body."

I met this little leaf out of the daily life lately :

UNION WITH CHRIST. 143

u ( The work of our hands establish thou it.'
I read the word over again, going back a little,
'And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon
us : and establish thou the work of our hands upon
us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it/
1 The work of my hands day by day/ I said,
almost scornfully, as I thought of the homely
work my hands had to do — the cooking, the
housework, the patching, the mending, the
rough, hard work I sometimes had to put them
to. And I smiled as I thought of such work
being established forever. I smiled again almost
bitterly as I thought: c It is established that my
hands must work, if not forever, for all my
earthly time/ c Please comb my hair now,
mamma; the first bell is ringing/ and Neddie
tapped my hand with his comb. I parted and
smoothed my boy's tangled locks. i The work
of my hands/ I said, and perhaps more gently
than usual turned up my boy's face to kiss his
lips as he went to school.

" I turned to the sitting room, drew up the
shades in the bay window so that my few gera-
niums might have all the sun's ray they could,

144 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

shook down the coal in the stove, dusted the
chairs, straightened the table cover and books, and
brushed the shreds from the carpet ; sighing over
the thin places that the best arrangement of mats
could not cover. The rooms looked neat and
tidy. ' The work of my hands/ I repeated, me-
chanically. Just then the sun shone out bright.
It lit up my room like a kind smile. ' The
beauty of the Lord our God/ I repeated, softly.

" I went to my homely work in the kitchen.
Patiently I tried to go through my every-day
routine of duty. For I said to myself: 'If this
is always to be the work of my hands, surely I
must let the beauty of my Lord rest upon it/

" ' You look very bright to-night, wife/ said
Will, when he came in after his day's work.
1 Has it been an easy day ? '

" I thought of the cooking and ironing, of my
tired hands and feet, and smiled as I said : " I
had a good text this morning/ "

Do you not see that the beauty of the Lord
does rest upon even such humble work? Do
you not see that your religion need not be a
thing simply for prayer meeting, simply for

UNION WITH CHRIST. 145

Bibles or for closets ? Do you not see how, if it
is small, his beauty does rest upon such service
as that? Do you not know how, when somebody
is sick at home, and the sickness is dangerous, so
that the patient may be injured by being turned
over to anv hired nurse, and the husband or the
wife, or nearest friend must do the duty, every
menial thing about the sick room is then trans-
formed into a holy service. Then you do what
otherwise the servants would do ; and you do it
because of love to the sick one lying there ; and
this love glorifies the meanest duty. Loving the
Lord, we do for him everything we have to do.
And then if our work be only smoothing out the
children's hair, or putting mats over the worn
places in the carpet, nevertheless, it we do it as
toward the Lord, his smile rests on us, and the
beauty of the Lord remains on us. I cannot tell
you how often this text lifts the black out of the
sky and puts blue in. Do you remember when
anything goes against the grain, that if you do
it as toward the Lord, his smile rests on you?
And the consciousness of his smile is the sweetest
thing in all the world.

146 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

Because of this union with the Lord, he is
with us in our trials and in our troubles. When
in New York, last week, one sent to me : "Come
and see some one to whom you used to minister."
And I said: uYes." And I found her very
aged, her hair as white as the driven snow, very
pale and very sick. And she said : " Do you
know how you once helped me?" I said : "No !
did I help you ? " And she said : " You told
me of a little fellow whose father was moving his
library up stairs, and he wanted to help his
father; and he took a heavy dictionary, but
could only carry it as far as the stairs, and then
he could do no more. Then the little fellow
cried from disappointment ; his father heard,
came to him, lifted him up (book and all) and
carried him where he could himself place the
book on the shelf in the new library," And the
woman said : "This is what the Lord has done
for me. He has taken me and carried me — my
sufferings and myself." "Well," T said, "do
not fear about the future ; if the Lord has carried
you so far, he will not fail you in the last mo-
ment." " I know he will not " she said.

UNION WITH CHRIST. 147

Because of this union the believer may have
assurance of his future salvation. If I am a
member of Christ's body, then it is absolutely
certain that he will bring me where he himself is.

"If he in heaven has fixed his throne,
He'll fix his members there. "

A man is not drowned, though his feet are
under water, if his head is above the water. The
billows are not above the Lord, and he is the
head. We shall not be overwhelmed.

This, then, is a union vital and a union indis-
soluble. He will transform us into his likeness.
He will be with us in our duties ; will be with
us in our sufferings, carrying us through them.
He will not let us fail or fall. We are safe in
union thus with him.

Then it is our duty to cling to this union — to
keep the consciousness of it.

I noticed in the Park the other dav how the
trees seemed to be th rusting themselves into the
coming of the spring — pushing themselves into
the warmer air. It seemed as if the buds on the
branches were swelling a little to meet the spring.

148 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

What we are to do is to hold ourselves in close
connection with Jesus Christ. We are not better
Christians because the sluices of this union are
too much shut up. Cultivate this union, and we
shall grow mightily in grace. Let us abide in
Christ by a complete consecration of ourselves to
him ; and then we shall grow in grace, and duty
will be easy, and the pang will be taken out of
pain,

XII.
THE CERTAINTY OF DIVINE HELP.

THE early Christians, to whom the Epistle to
the Hebrews was addressed, were in diffi-
cult circumstances. I suppose it is impossible
for us to conceive these difficulties. To accept as
the Messiah, as the Promised One, as the One
who was the substance of all the wronderful and
shining ritual that was going on in the temple ;
to accept as the true Messiah the Nazarene who
had been crucified not so long ago on the hill
outside the city ; to give him worship and rever-
ence, and to turn their backs upon the worship
of the temple with which every fibre of Jewish
patriotism was interwroven, compelled the utmost
sacrifice.

I have recently been talking with a young
man whose surroundings throw a little light
upon the difficulty. This young man is of a
Roman Catholic family in a distant country.

149

150 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

He has come here and has listened to the teach-
ing of the Lord Jesus Christ, and has become
convinced that salvation is not faith in any rite
or church, but is faith in the Saviour, and that
the thing for him to do is to accept and bravely
confess it. As he has talked to me about con-
fessing him, I have seen the difficulty. When
he makes that decision, and turns his back on
the church of his relatives, there will be coldness
and misunderstanding; it will be the breaking
up of his home, possibly. It seemed to him as
if it were a very difficult cross ; and yet our
Lord tells us if we love father and mother more
than him, we are not worthy of him ; and the
only thing for this man to do is to confess Christ
and turn his back upon the absurdities of the
church apostate.

Such an instance as that helps us a little to
understand what must have been the sacrifice
demanded of the early Hebrew Christian. It
struck very deeply into their lives, and thrust
them from family, from friends, and, in many
cases, from livelihood. It was not so wonderful
that there should spring up in them danger of

THE CERTAINTY OF DIVINE HELP. 151

apostasy, of turning back ; that they should
sometimes question whether, after all, the shining
temple on Mount Moriah might not be the place
of worship, and not the little despised company
of Christians. When one became a Christian,
the burial service was read over the person, the
ancestral door was closed, and all communication
with loved ones stopped. It was a very hard
thing to be a Christian. What these early Chris-
tians needed was some strong certainty of the
divine presence and help; and this Epistle to
the Hebrews is written to assure them that God
would be with them even though they were con-
fronted with such obstacles. In the closing
chapter, the writer does not forget how much
they needed the comfort of the certainty of the
divine help, for as he is gathering up the last
things to tell them, he is careful to say : "For
he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake
thee."

We are not in such hard circumstances as these
early Christians, and yet as they needed that
comfort, we need it. This is a world, not fin-
ished but in process ; and since it is a world in

152 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

process, there must be trial in it. I was passing,
not long since, by a great building, not yet com-
pleted ; the street was filled with piles of materials,
beds of mortar here and there, workmen hammer-
ing at stones — all noise and confusion. But there
was no real confusion, for all the diverse and noisy
industry was grasped by the idea of the building
into unity. Only the stones had to have ever so
much hammering before they could be fashioned
for their right place in the wall of the great
building. And that is like our world. It is in
process of building, and we therefore need to
be sculptured that we may be fitted for the
place the Divine Architect intends us to fill.
And so trial must be in the world; we cannot
escape it; it is in the nature of things.

I have only just come from the funeral of one
of the sweetest Christians I ever knew, a member
of this church. When we laid her away in a
distant cemetery, the cold was very bitter, and it
seemed a hard, strange thing that she must be
left there. No; she was not there. Only her
body was there ; but we associate a person so
with the body. She is in the wealth and glory

THE CERTAINTY OF DIVINE HELP. 153

of the shining city; but sorrow hangs heavy
around the house from which she is gone. That
is not an unusual experience; we either have
passed through it, or shall. Death knocks with
equal hand at the hovel of the poor or the door
of the rich. We cannot keep our treasures in
this world. We need the certainty of the com-
fort of the divine help just as the early Chris-
tians did ; and we may have it ; for as the Lord
said to those early Christians, "I will never
leave thee nor forsake thee," does he not say the
same thing to us? That is the distinct promise
of God, and his word cannot be broken. To you
and to me, he says, whatever may come, be sure
of this : " I will never leave thee nor forsake
thee."

Let us think a little as to how God says this
to us. I think it would be better for us all if
we were more on the hunt for how God savs it
to us in nature. Do you ever take a walk with
a religious intent, to see if you can find evidences
of God's care for you as you walk. You would
be following the example of the Master if you
did. That is a very significant passage where

154 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

John sees Jesus coming to him, our version says,
but the correct version is, where John sees Jesus
taking a walk, as though our Lord were wont
thoughtfully to walk. And certainly our Lord
noticed nature — " Consider the lilies of the field. "
A good many years ago, I was on the St.
Lawrence river, and I thought I could go off
and read on an island where I would be quite
alone. I lay on the grass in the summer weather
and read, and as I read my eye wandered from
the page, and I saw a little harebell with the
most delicate, finely colored petals, with the most
hairlike stem ; so tenuous the stem was that it
could hardly support, apparently, the slight
weight of the flower. In the flower, I saw nest-
ling a tiny drop of dew. When I saw this dew-
drop in the cup of the frail flower, I could not
help thinking how God does take care of things.
Here is this little flower nestling among the
grass, and yet God has not forgotten to minister
to it, to minister what it needs. I read a lesson
of wonderful help to myself about God's care
and presence. I said to myself ; " If God so
cares for this slight flower as that it does not

THE CERTAINTY OF DIVINE HELP. 155

miss its dewdrop, he will surely care for me."
And the tender flower preached a really helpful
sermon.

I think it would be better for us all if we
used such things often. There are multitudes
of such things to see if we only look around us.
The song sparrows teach me many a lesson ; they
are such brave birds. Long before the grass is
green and the buds begin to swell, if you will
walk by the thickets in the park, you will hear
the wonderful trill — so tender so sweet — of the
sparrow. I would rather hear it than the classi-
cal music ; I can understand the bird. Long
before the sun has touched the earth I have stood
by some thicket and heard the song sparrow, and
the bird was just as brave as could be. It did
not look like summer ; there was no sign of sum-
mer around ; vet the bird trusted its instinct
that the summer was surely coming. If in such
chill weather the bird is so sure the summer will
not desert it, I may be sure that the summer will
not desert me. If you will listen, you will find
that God has really said to us in nature : " I will
never leave thee nor forsake thee."

156 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

By distinct promise he says this to us, and to
us much more than to those early Christians.
The Bible those early Hebrew Christians had
was the Bible of the Old Testament ; they had
not much of the New Testament at that time,
probably only as it was spoken to them by the
Evangelists. I looked up some of the references
about this passage. Away back in Genesis he
says it to Jacob, who is in the wilderness with
nothing but a stone for a pillow ; but God does
not forget him, and this is hi&promise : "Behold,
I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places
whither thou goest, and will bring thee again
into this land ; for I will not leave thee until I
have done that which I have spoken to thee
of."

Then, again, when Joshua is about to take up
a very onerous and difficult duty, Moses is giving
him command over the children of Israel. By
the way, that is a beautiful thing that is written
on the bust of John Wesley in Westminster Ab-
bey : " God buries the workers, but he carries on
the work." It was so with these Israelites now;
Moses is going, and Joshua is about to take his

THE CERTAINTY OF DIVINE HELP. 157

place, and God comes to him and says : " There
shall not any man be able to stand before thee
all the days of thy life : as I was with Moses, so
I will be with thee : I will not fail thee nor for-
sake thee."

When Solomon is about to take up the king-
dom from the trembling and aged hand of his
father David, there is the same promise for him:
" I will not leave thee nor forsake thee."

The Psalmist is looking back on a long expe-
rience, and this is the statement of his experience
— it is a psalm of David, I believe : " I have
been young, and now am old; yet have I not
seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging
bread."

We have the distinct promise just as those
early Christians had, and what we want to do is
that which they must have done if they were
comforted with the certainty of the divine pres-
ence and help — that is, believe the promise. The
trouble with us is that we believe ourselves more
than we do the promise. We go down into our-
selves and pull ourselves to pieces and wonder
why we feel so ; it would be a great deal better

158 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

for us if we were to cease to regard our feelings
and look out on the promise of God. If you
take hold of the promise, the feeling would be
all right. We too often put the cart before the
horse. The true order is the faith first, and then
the feeling appropriate to the faith follows, look-
ing out of ourselves and taking hold of God's
word ; for he hath said, and he said it by distinct
promise : " I will never leave thee nor forsake
thee."

And so also God has said " I will never leave
thee nor forsake thee " by the gift of the Lord
Jesus Christ. That is God's utmost gift. He
can say no more. Having given us the Lord
Jesus, since the greater always includes the less,
he has given us in Christ everything we need,
and therefore he has given us in Christ the cer-
tainty of his help and presence. When you are
discouraged and disheartened, and want to know
if it is true that God cares for you and is with
you, I think it would be a good plan for you to go
away by yourself and open a Bible at the eighth
chapter of Romans, and read the thirty-first and
thirty-second verses : " What shall we then say

THE CERTAINTY OP DIVINE HELP. 159

to these things. If God be for us, who can be
against us?" But how am I to know that God
is for me? The apostle goes on to tell us. This
is the reason : "He that spared not his own Son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not
with him also freely give us all things." Since
God has given us Christ, he has given us every-
thing we need — his presence and his help. If it
ever seems to you as though he had not done so,
turn back upon the fact that precisely as the
sunlight gives everything that belongs to the
day, so God in giving Jesus Christ has given us
everything we need. Somebody has worked the
problem out in a little poem :

If I could only surely know
That all the things that tire me so

Were noticed by my Lord, —
The pang that cuts me like a knife,
The lesser pains of daily strife, —

What peace it would afford !

I wonder if he really shares
In all these little human cares,
This mighty King of kings?
If he who guides through boundless spaoe
Each blazing planet in its place

160 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

Can have the condescending grace
To mind these petty things?

It seems to me, if sure of this,

Blent with each ill would come such bliss

That I might covet pain,
And deem whatever brought to me
The loving thought of Deity,
And sense of Christ's sweet sympathy,

Not loss, but richest gain.

Dear Lord, my heart shall no more doubt
That thou dost compass me about

With s.ympathy divine.
The love for me once crucified
Is not the love to leave my side,
But waiteth ever to divide

Each smallest care of mine.

I am sure, if we would just think about it,
we should be able to discover that God's promise
not to leave us nor forsake us has been fulfilled
in the personal experience of every one of us.
How many times I have heard people say like
this : " If any one had told me beforehand
that I could go through with the trouble T
have gone through with, I should never have
believed it. I should have sunk in the
presence of it, and yet I have gone through,

THE CERTAINTY OF DIVINE HELP. 161

and I have been helped." Is that not the
experience of some of you? Have you not
found that when real stress came, somehow there
was strength supplied ? Really, I think it is the
verdict of your Christian experience that God
does not leave you, does not forsake you.

The way to live a strong, victorious life is to
believe that he hath said " I will not leave thee
nor forsake thee wj and the way to get the con-
sciousness of the comfort of God's presence and
help is just to lay hold of that promise, precisely
as those early Christians had to do. You can
see how they must have managed it, confronted
by such difficulties and compelled to such sacri-
fices. Here is the Hebrew Christian with home
turned against him; parents hard; support, liveli-
hood gone; alone and deserted. What is for him ?
This is for him : God hath said, " I will never
leave thee nor forsake thee." How is he to get
the comfort of it? Just by believing what God
says. That is the way for him, and we must get
the comfort in the same manner.

Since God has given us this promise, what
follows? It follows that since we have such a

L,

162 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

God, we ought to give ourselves gladly aud
lovingly in service ; for the author of the Epistle
to the Hebrews goes on to say : " Let your con-
versation be without covetousnesss." That is to
say, do not be thinking of yourself all the time,
but serve. It has reference to money ; but it
does not have entire reference to money. We
may be very covetous in certain directions, though
we are very generous with our money ; we may
refuse to give ourselves in personal service.
Since we have a God who does comfort and care
for us, let us be ready to give ourselves in service.

Since God has promised " I will never leave
thee nor forsake thee," let us be content. " Be
content," the author of the Epistle says, " with
such things as ye have." That does not mean
that you should be lazy ; that does not mean
that, being in circumstances narrow, you should
not want to get into circumstances wider; but
that, being in circumstances strait, you are to be
trustful and believing.

Since God has said " I will never leave thee
nor forsake thee," to the heart of such a God we
can pray. Let us be prayerful. In everything

THE CERTAINTY OF DIVINE HELP. 163

with prayer and supplication let us make our
requests known unto him. Do not think any-
thing is too little to talk to God about; do not
think anything is too small, if it is hard for you,
to claim God's interest.

I read a little poem about an Eastern legend :

Once in an Eastern palace wide

A little child sat weaving ;
So patiently her task she plied,
The men and women at her side

Flocking round her, almost grieving.

" How is it, little one," they said,

1 ; You always work so cheerily ?
You never seem to break your thread, .
Or snarl or tangle it, instead

Of working smooth and clearly.

41 Our weaving gets so worn and soiled,

Our silk so frayed and broken :
For all we've fretted, wept, and toiled,
We know the lovely pattern's spoiled

Before the king has spoken."

The little child looked in their eyes

So full of care and trouble,
And pity chased the sweet surprise
That filled her own, as sometimes flies

The rainbow in a bubble.

164 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

44 1 only go and tell the king,"

She said, abashed and meekly ;

44 You know he said in everything M

44 Why, so do we ! " they cried, " webrin^r
Him all our troubles weekly."

She turned her little head aside ;

A moment let them wrangle ;
41 Ah, but," she softly then replied,
44 1 go and get the knot untied

At the first little tangle ! "

Oh, little children — weavers all !

Our broidery we spangle
With many a tear that would not fall
If on our King we would but call

At the first little tangle.

Oh, little children, and large children too, let
us call on him at the first tangle ! We have
right to, for he is a God who hath said : " I will
never leave thee, nor forsake thee." We may
have the comfort of the certainty of his presence
and of his help.

XIII.

AN ANCIENT CHRISTIAN'S THOUGHT
OF CHRIST.

ONE Abercius was the pastor of the church in
Hieropolis, way back almost under the
shadows of the apostles' times. In the year
1882, Mr. W. M. Ramsay came upon his tomb,
which had been long unknown. On the tomb
there was an epitaph written in coarse Greek
characters, and a part of that epitaph was :
" Abercius, by name, I am a disciple of the pure
Shepherd, who feeds his herds of sheep on the
mountains and plains, who has great eyes that
look on all sides." This is beautiful ; and it is
also significant of certain real and great truths
which the early Christians held with greater
tenacity than we are wont to hold them ; and yet
those truths it is most needful that we ourselves
keep constantly in mind. The first truth that
comes out from this epitaph is that in the

165

166 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

thought of those Christians closest to the time
of Christ, our Lord was intensely believed to be
not dead but alive. This ancient Christian calls
himself a disciple of the pure Shepherd who
feeds, — that is to say, who is now doing so, — who
has not left his disciples, but who is now with
them and caring for them.

It is remarkable how steadily these early
Christians kept in mind this idea of Christ, not
as one who was dead, but as one who is alive.
In the Catacombs under the foundations of the
City of Rome, where the early Christians were
wont to lay their dead (there are as many as six or
seven million graves in the Catacombs), you find
rarely such thing as a representation of the cross.
That would strike us first as something singular ;
but the meaning of the fact is that the thought
of the early Christians was not so much of a
Christ upon a cross, as it was of a Christ to
whom that cross was but a great incident, who
had passed through the cross to death, and had
mastered death in the resurrection.

We may take to ourselves a healthful example
from these ancient Christians. We cannot think

ABERCIUS7 THOUGHT OF CHRIST. 167

too much of our Lord as our atoning sacrifice ;
but it is possible for us to think too little of him
as one who, while he did die, is now alive for-
evermore, and has the keys of death and hell.
What we need to do is to live more in the light
that streams upon us from our Saviour's resur-
rection. Our Lord Jesus Christ is not away
from this world, but is in this world. When
any one of the great teachers or leaders of men
die, then, so far as they are personally concerned
with this world, the world has lost them. Plato
is dead, and as toward this world only his influ-
ence remains ; Socrates is dead, and as toward
this world only his influence remains ; Napoleon
the Great is dead, and as toward this world onlv
his influence remains. Those whom we have
loved have gone hence, and as toward us only
their influence remains ; they are in no sense per-
sonally present. But our Lord Jesus Christ is
present in the world by the Holy Spirit. He is
not a distant Christ, not a Christ in order to find
whom we must go on a long and difficult pil-
grimage ; but he is a Christ for the daily trial, a
Christ for the particular and crushing trouble, a

168 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

Christ for joy, a Christ for sorrow, a Christ liv-
ing and personally present with us.

Let the music of that old epitaph sink more
into your hearts. Disciples of " the pure Shep-
herd, who feeds his herds of sheep on the moun-
tains and plains, who has great eyes that look on
all sides." Believe more in a living Christ; be
thankful that your sins have been forgiven
through the atonement, but be just as thankful
that, because Christ has mastered death in the
resurrection, from him to you may flow all power,
all inner strength, and peace, and joy. What
we need to do, every one of us, is what these
early Christians did so thoroughly — believe in a
living Christ; one who was dead, but who is
alive again. We think too much about our
Lord as one who has gone away from us ; we
should think of our Lord as one who is with us.
Did he not tell the disciples, " I go away, and
come again unto you." " If any man love me,
he will keep my words : and my Father will love
him, and we will come unto him and make our
abode with him." He said in effect : i( I will send
the Comforter, and he will be with you ; he shall

ABEKCIUS' THOUGHT OF CHRIST. 169

lead you, teach you, guide you." We are in
contact with a present Christ, because we are in
contact with a living Christ.

From this epitaph of this ancient Christian,
we get the idea that he believed in our Lord
Christ as a providing Christ. (i I am a disciple
of that pure Shepherd who feeds his herds of
sheep" — that is to say, one who sees his sheep,
where they are, who they are, what they are
doing, and what they need. How beautiful the
truth, found away back here in the shadows,
expressed with a kind of rude poetry, "the Shep-
herd with great eyes who sees on all sides."
Since that is so, you and I cannot escape notice.
" I know my sheep, and am known of mine."

In wonderfully beautiful ways does this come
out in the remains that we have of the early
Christians. For instance, if you go into those
Catacombs, and study the frescoes, or if you go
into museums where the rude frescoes have been
gathered, you will see how this truth of the
regarding Christ, the one who with great eyes
sees on all sides, comes steadily out. A very
favorite picture in these rude frescoes is the pic-

170 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

ture of the fiery furnace with the three Hebrew
children walking in it, and the form of a fourth
by their side. How much that meant to those
early Christians, who had seen their friends
scalded with pitch, and set up in Nero's gardens,
and lighted as torches, while his furious and
frightful sports went on ! What a revelation to
them of the regarding Christ that ancient story
would be ! Another of these frescoes is a picture of
Daniel in the lion's den, unharmed amid the wild
beasts. We can see how much that must have
been to those early Christians who had seen the
lions leap from their cages out into the arena to
smite down the aged and young martyrs. With
what relief would that ancient Scripture story
come to them, as illustrating the fact that this
Shepherd with great eyes saw on all sides, saw
them in their trouble, in their distress, in their
martyrdom.

When you look at the inscriptions of the Cata-
combs, you find this constantly coming out : This
loving, regarding Shepherd is not a shepherd
who fails us in the death hour, but is one who
gives us his own life. Nothing is more startling

ABERCIUS' THOUGHT OF CHBIST. 171

than the difference between the heathen inscrip-
tions upon tombs and the inscriptions upon early
Christian tombs. Here are a few of the heathen
inscriptions :

"Farewell, oh, farewell! O most sweet, for-
ever and eternally farewell !"

" Our hope was in our boy — now all is ashes
and lamentation." " Fortune makes many
promises, but keeps none; live for the present."
But in the Christian inscription you find a light,
a peace, a joy, and a certain hope and faith in
the regarding Shepherd :

14 Fructuosus, thy soul is with the just.* '
" Constantia, ever faithful, went to God."
" Eternal peace be to thee, in Christ.' '
" Juventianus lives.' '

What a challenge against death sounds in this
simple inscription on one of those early graves !

How sure these early Christians were that the
Shepherd regarded them, and went with them
through the dark valley, leading them into the
better and truer and higher life beyond.

172 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

In the symbols of this time, the same truth
comes out — their certainty that the Shepherd
with large eyes, who saw on all sides, held them
each one in his vision. The dove betokens the
presence and the blessing of the Holy Spirit ; the
ark betokened safety amid all storms ; the anchor
betokened steadfastness, though the tempests blow
terrifically.

We may well learn over again some of these
truths which were so precious to these early
Christians. We hold them, but not as deeply,
not as reallv as thev did. Christ lives, Christ
protects, Christ regards. " He is the pure Shep-
herd, feeding his sheep on the mountains and
plains, who has great eyes that look on all sides."
If that is true, our living Christ regards you and
me ; and surely it is true, for precisely this is the
teaching of Scripture. This makes prayer real.
How easy it is to pray into the heart of a Christ
like this ! We do not pray to mechanism, to fate,
to destinv ; that would be useless : but we do
pray into the sensitive, loving heart of such a
Shepherd as this. If he is One who sees on all
sides, you and I can pray to him about every-

ABEKCIUS' THOUGHT OF CHKIST. 173

thing that troubles us, and everything that inter-
ests us. Do not let us restrict the area of prayer ;
do not let us think we may pray about this or
that, but not about the other. Let us remember
that the apostle tells us with prayer and suppli-
cation concerning everything we are to make our
wants known unto God, and so have the peace of
God a constant sentinel around our hearts.

There is plenty to discourage us in ourselves.
In myself I find an evil nature; in myself
I find a wayward and a weak will; in myself
I find only partially sanctified affection. The
confession of the apostle is the universal con-
fession : " For that which I do I allow not :
for what I would, that do I not; but what I
hate, that do I " There is within us the con-
sciousness of a struggle; we are in a campaign ;
we have not yet entered into the triumph and
into the peace ; and when we look at ourselves
there is every reason for discouragement; but
when we keep our eye fastened on this pure
Shepherd, the Loving One, the Providing One,
the Regarding One, what reason for encourage-
ment ! From ourselves let us look away to him ;

174 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

let us heed the inj unction of the Scripture,
"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about
with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside
every weight, and the sin which doth so easily
beset us, and let us run with patience the race
that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the
author and finisher of our faith." For every
look at yourself, give ten looks to Christ. Be
sure you have that proportion ; when you intro-
vert, there is only discouragement ; from yourself,
look upward and outward.

Since we have such a Shepherd, how sweet to
him is service, and even though our service be a
poor sort, as it seems to us, he rightly interprets
our motives and notices what we do for him.

Here is the truth in a most beautiful poem :

I was sitting alone in the twilight,

With spirit troubled and vexed
With thoughts that were morbid and gloomy.

And faith that was sadly perplexed.

Some homely work I was doing

For the child of my love and my care,

Some stitches half wearily setting
In the endless need of repair.

ABERCIUS' THOUGHT OF CHRIST. 175

But my thoughts were about the building,

The work some day to be tried ;
And that only the gold and the silver

And the precious stones should abide.

And remembering my own poor efforts,

The wretched work I had done,
And even when trying most truly,

The meagre success I had won ;

4 ' It is nothing but wood, hay, and stubble,"

I said : " It will all be burned —
This useless fruit of the talents

One day to be returned.

" And i have so longed to serve him ;

And sometimes I know I have tried ;
But I'm sure when he sees such a building,

He will never let it abide."

Just then as I turned the garment,

That no rent should be left behind,
My eye caught an odd little bundle

Of mending and patchwork combined.

My heart grew suddenly tender,

And something blinded my eyes
With one of those sweet intuitions

That sometimes make us so wise.

Dear child ! she wanted to help me ;

I know 'twas the best she could do ;
But oh ! what a botch she had made it,

The gray mismatching the blue !

176 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

And yet — can you understand it ?

With a tender smile and a tear,
And a half-compassionate yearning,

I felt her grow more dear.

Then a sweet voice broke the silence,
And the dear Lord said to me :

44 Art thou tenderer for the little child
Than I am tender for thee ? "

Then straightway I knew his meaning
So full of compassion and love,

And my faith came back to its refuge,
Like the glad returning dove.

For I thought, when the Master Builder
Comes down his temple to view

To see what rents must be mended
And what must be builded anew,

Perhaps, as he looks o'er the building,
He will bring my work to the light,

And seeing the marring and bungling
And how far it is from right,

He will feel as I felt for my darling,
And will say as I said to her :

41 Dear child ! she wanted to help me
And love for me was the spur.

44 And for the real love that was in it,
The work shall seem perfect as mine ;

And because it was willing service
T will crown it with plaudit divine."

ABEKCIUS' THOUGHT OF CHKIST. 177

And there in the deepening twilight,

I seemed to be clasping a hand,
And to feel a great love constrain me

Stronger than any command.

Then I knew by the thrill of sweetness
'Twas the hand of the Blessed One,

Which would tenderly guide and hold me
Till all my labor is done.

So my thoughts are nevermore gloomy,

My faith no longer is dim :
But my heart is strong and restful

And mine eyes are unto him.

He is such a loving, regarding Shepherd, the
ic One with the great eyes who sees on all sides/'
that he looks at motive more than at outward
deed. He interprets outward deed by the motive
out of which it springs, and therefore understands
the service perfectly. If it is a service that
springs out of love, no matter how poor, it is
beautiful in his vision — the vision of him who
sees on all sides.

Then, if it be true that this Shepherd of ours
is a Shepherd loving, a Shepherd providing, a
Shepherd regarding, we shall not miss our way :
he will surely bring us to the consummation.

M

178 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

We would understand just why along such
strange paths he leads, but he knows where the
green pastures are, and where the still waters flow.
It is that our souls may be refreshed that he leads
us so strangely ; we shall reach at last the better
and the brighter country. He who sees on all
sides can make no mistake. We are in safe
guidance ; let us trust ; let us be glad ; let us
patiently follow.

XIV.

OUR "DAKEEL."

I GOT new light upon some passages of Scrip-
ture when I heard of an Eastern custom of
hospitality. An Arab, surrounded by enemies
and hard pressed, finding he cannot save himself,
has one resource left : he may call the name of
some sheikh, whom he will heuceforth serve.
Then the enemies must each seek to bring the
fugitive into the presence of this sheikh. The
moment the sheikh (his "Dakeel") sees him, he
is pledged to take him under his protection. This
custom brought to mv mind the words, " The
name of the Lord is a strong tower ; the right-
eous runneth into it and is safe w — finding safety
in his Dakeel. " The righteous runneth into it
and is safe." The Lord is stability. His name,
Jehovah, holds infiniteness of meaning ; but I
suppose the translation in Exodus is as good as
can be found : "I am that I am." lam the

179

180 SATUKDAY AFTERNOON.

One who always is, always will be, and the One
who remains. The underlying idea is stableness.
Everything in this world is in constant flux and
flow. Our life is passing ; even the world itself
is a passing world. Standing in the vale of Cha-
mouni, looking at the sharp, sky-piercing peaks
of Mt. Blanc, it would seem that if anything in
the world were stable, these were stable. Yet
all the while these mountains are changing.
Frosts bite into them and cause disintegration ;
the glaciers carry with them the debris of the
rocks ; the soil is spread upon the plain below.

Our plans are ever changing ; obstacles block
our way ; we have disappointment instead of fru-
ition. As life goes on, how short it seems ! The
vears take to themselves added swiftness.

'But a week is so long ! " he said,
With a toss of his curly head.

44 One, two, three, four, five, six, seven !
Seven whole days ! Why, in six, you kirow
(You said it yourself— you told me so),

The great God up in heaven
Made all the earth, and the seas, and skies,
The trees and the birds and the butterflies.
How can I wait for my seeds to grow?

OUR "DAKEEL." 181

,4 But a month is so long ! " he said,
With a droop of his boyish head.

4fc Hear me count, one, two, three, four.
Four whole weeks, and three days more !
Thirty-one days ! and each will creep
As the shadows crawl over yonder steep ;
Thirty-one nights ! and I shall lie
Watching the stars climb up the sky.

How can I wait till a month is o'er?

"But a year is so long! " he said,
Uplifting his bright young head.

44 All the seasons must come and go
Over the hills, with footsteps slow —
Autumn and winter, summer and spring.
Oh, for a bridge of gold, to fling
Over the chasm, deep and wide,
That I might cross to the other side,
Where she is waiting — my love, my bride 1

41 Ten years may be long ! " he said,

Slowly raising his stately head.

44 But there's much to win, there's much to lose:

A man must labor, a man must choose,
And he must be strong to wait.

The years may be long ; but who would wear

The crown of honor, must do and dare.
No time has he to toy with fate
Who would climb to manhood's high estate.

44 Ah 1 life is not long," he said,
Bowing his grand white head.

182 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

" One, two, three, four, five, six, seven —
Seventy years ! as swift their flight
As swallows cleaving the morning light,

Or golden beams at even.
Life is short as a summer night,

How long, 0 God, is eternity ?"

But God remains. He is the same prayer-
hearing God, because he is Jehovah, " the one
who remains."

He is a Strong Tower because he is the Justi-
fying One. One of his sweetest names is found
in Jer. 23 : 5, 6, "Jehovah Tsidkenu," The Lord
our Righteousness. " I will raise unto David a
righteous branch, and a king shall reign and
prosper. In his days Judah shall be saved, and
this is his name whereby he shall be called — the
lord OUR righteousness." When we think
of ourselves and of our sinful condition, we need
to feel that our Lord justifies us by imputing to
us his own righteousness so that we stand com-
plete in him.

A word used for sin is transgression. It means,
to go athwart. How many times when God has
said " Thou shalt," we have said " No " to God,

OUR *' DAKEEL. 183

have gone athwart God's law ? How many of us
are transgressors ? All of us.

Iniquity is a word full of significance. Our
will should lie parallel with God's demands ; but
it often does not. Our life is unequal to them.
There is inequality, iniquity.

That other word which is used to set forth the
meaning of sin — wrong — means wrung. How
often have we allowed ourselves to be wrung out
of our convictions of duty into that which is
contrary to them ! We must every one say, as
the Publican, "God be merciful to me, a sinner."
How can we ever meet God, howT can we call him
" Abba," how can we close the chasm between
our sinfulness and his purity ? Our answer is
found in this beautiful name : " The Lord our
Righteousness." We had sinned, and in some
sense Jesus Christ stands in our place. Nothing
in the world will satisfv the demands of the
human heart but the doctrine of a Substitutionary
Atonement. Nothing is found against us, since
he has accepted for us what we deserved.

That name implies also the righteousness of
Obedience — obedience for us. The law demands

184 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

that we keep the law ; but we do not keep the
law. So Jesus has satisfied the law, being " made
in the likeness of sinful flesh." In this respect,
then, of obedience, also, his righteousness is com-
plete. So we may, when in the power of our
enemies, call upon the Lord, our Dakeel, and be
safe. "Who shall lay anything to the charge of
God's elect?" " We are complete in him."

" Jehovah Shalom " — the Lord is Peace. Dis-
aster and destruction were all over the land. The
Israelite was ground down. He had to hide even
to get a little bread. And the Lord commanded
Gideon to " Go and save Israel." And when
Gideon feared, God said, " I will be with thee" ;
and then Gideon accepted the duty. He built
an altar, and called it Jehovah Shalom.

Two sticks placed one across the other is a
cross, But place them parallel, and there is no
cross. When we surrender our wills to God,
when we make his will ours, then there is the
shining blessedness of the soul within. Then
we say, " Jehovah Shalom " "God is peace."

How can we run into the name of the Lord ?
By thinking more of him than of the things

OUR "dakeel." 185

that bother us. I remember riding once on
horseback over a very rough road, and yet I did
not think much of the roughness, because I was
all the time thinking of the fine prospect I was
to see at the end. So we need not think of the
spiritual difficulties and dangers, but keep our
thoughts ever on the Lord, the changeless One,
the peace-giving One, and we shall be safe.

Further, we must run into the Lord, as our
Dakeel, by prayer. If this text does nothing
more for you than just to get into your thought
more really and more deeply the determination
that " by prayer and supplication you make
known your requests unto him," it will be much.
Concerning everything, you may talk to God,
may run to him as a strong tower. Do not stop
to ask if you may pray about a material thing.
The Lord awaited the disciples with a fire
kindled and fish laid thereon, and bread. So
the Lord considers our material wants, and we
pray about everything; and in that way we
may run into the name of the Lord and be safe.

Another way to do this is actually to do it.
And there is the trouble with most of us. We

186 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

don't do it. We want to, and we mean to ; but
when it comes to the actual thing, we don't do
it. Say, " Lord Jesus thou art a strong tower,
and I am a persecuted soul. There are all sorts
of Amalekites about me inwardly and outwardly,
and there are ever so many burdens on my back.
Now, Jehovah justifying, Jehovah delivering,
Jehovah providing, Jehovah my peace, I accept
thy grace." And let us actually do it, and 'we
shall find that like a strong tower of defense will
be our Lord.

And so at last, in some measure, we shall be
able to sing and feel the sentiments of about
the sweetest hymn concerning the Christian life
to be found in any literature. It is that of Miss
Waring :

Father, I know that all my life

Is portioned out for me,
And the changes that are sure to come

I do not fear to see,
But I ask thee for a present mind,

Intent on pleasing thee.

I ask thee for a thoughtful love,
Through constant watching wise,

OUR "DAKEEL." 187

To meet the glad with joyful smiles,
And to wipe the weeping eyes ;

And a heart at leisure from itself,
To soothe and sympathize.' '

[And we shall have it, if we make the Lord
our strong tower.]

L would not have the restless will

That hurries to and fro,
Seeking for some great thing to do,

Or secret thing to know,
I would be treated as a child,

And guided where I go.

Wherever in the world I am,

In whatsoe'er estate,
I have a fellowship with hearts

To keep and cultivate ;
And a work of lowly love to do

For the Lord on whom I wait

So T ask thee for the daily strength,

To none that ask denied,
And a mind to blend with outward life,

While keeping at thy side ;

[You are not to be a John the Baptist.]

Content to fill a little space
If thou be glorified.

188 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

And if some things I do not ask

In my cup of blessings be,
I would have my spirit filled the more

With grateful love to thee —
More careful — not to serve thee much,

But to please thee perfectly.

[Look out for your love, and the service will
be well enough.]

There are briars besetting every path,

That call for patient care ;
There is a cross in every lot,

And an earnest need for prayer ;
But a lowly heart that leans on thee

Is happy anywhere.

In a service which thy will appoints

There are no bonds for me ;
For my inmost heart is taught u the truth "

That makes thy children " free ;"
Aiid a life of self-renouncing love

Is a life of liberty.

XV.
PAUL'S " CAN."

PAUL, in his Epistle to the Philippians,
says : " I can do all things through Christ
which strengtheneth me." What a jubilant
word that was ! He was at this time living in
Rome in a hired house. But that does not
suggest to us, living as we do, the reality. When
we speak of a hired house, we think of a house
with several rooms and some largeness and
comfort. That was not the case with the
apostle's hired house, which he lived in at Rome.
In Rome, the people spent most of their time
outdoors, in the Forum, in the Campus Martius,
in the bath. The houses were more like the
tenement houses of New York than anything
else; they were built so high that during the
reign of Augustus an edict was passed restricting
their height to twelve stories. The cities in
those days were built compactly. That was

189

190 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

necessary because they must be defended and
surrounded by walls. It was a very damp and
foul-smelling place, this hired house of PauPs,
if it was in the Jewish quarter of the city, as it
probably was. Even now that section is almost
the most stenchful place in the world. So in
this very mean sort of a place, Paul was a
prisoner for something like two years, and I
suppose never stepped beyond the threshold of
the door. He was under the Praetorian guard,
the elite corps of the Roman army. One of these
was detailed to watch him ; he must be chained
by the wrist to one of them. The soldier would
get through his watch and go out, but the apostle
stayed there about two years. I suppose the
poorest person in this city lives in a better place
than the apostle's hired house in which he dwelt
so long during his first captivity in Rome. In
such circumstances of discomfort, he sends out
this jubilant word of his. He tells us in the
last chapter of Philippians, which is the most
joyful letter he wrote : " I can do all things
through Christ which strengthened me." It is
the song of a triumphant life.

PAUL'S "CAN/ 191

Paul's " can " does not come from living
easily. The aptest symbol to me of a merely
easy life is a mass of sea weed. Many a time, I
have seen it dashed upon the waves — just a mass
of weed that goes anywhere, wherever the winds
may blow it, or the tides may toss. That is the
best symbol of a merely easy-going life; it
means nothing; it takes root nowhere; it is
merely passive and lacks organization. No true
life can ever be lived in that way. Yesterday,
I was walking In the spring weather, under the
trees, in the country. I was looking at some of
the just sprouting trees. It is by no means an
easy-going life that a tree has, for the acorn must
fall to the ground, and then the swelling con-
tents must burst the hard, brown capsule, and
then down into the earth the root must go, and
forth out of the earth the plumule must push
itself, and then it must go into contest with all
sorts of things — with the winds, wTith the
shadows of the great trees over it, with this
hostile thing and that hostile thing. Still, not-
withstanding all this, and in contest with all this,
the germ must push its root downward and its

192 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

plumule upward, until it puts out branches, and
then hangs leaves on the branches; and so
pushes on and up until it gets to be a pillared
monarch of the forest — a very different sort of
thing from the sea weed. Anything that means
value always comes out of contest. PauPs life
was a life of contest. His life was not that of
the sea weed, but that of the strong oak, which
can reach its dignity only through contest.
Whatever gets up, must struggle up ; and this is
true of the Christian life. If you are going to
be dashed here, there, and yonder, — if you do
not thrust the roots of your life down deep in
truth, do not seek to push up more nobly into
higher and purer living, — you never can say the
apostle's " can." It has no part in the life that
is merely easy-going. Every real life is one
that comes out of difficulty.

Also, this " can " of PauPs does not come out
of living heedlessly, that is to say, without a
purpose. Of course, you must know how strin-
gently PauPs life was girded with a purpose;
there was one thing that he was determined to
do. He tells us what it was here in this Epistle

PAUL'S "CAN." 193

to the Philippians : " Brethren, I count not
myself to have apprehended." The apostle had
been a Christian twenty-five years, yet he counted
himself not yet to have apprehended. Never
swell yourself up with any such miserable notion
as that you have reached perfection. " 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." The apostle's life was one full of
purpose. He meant to do, and therefore he said
"lean do."

This " can " does not come out of a life that
is not filled with distinct attack on evil. I am
sure that the Apostle Paul was troubled with a
besetting sin ; indeed, he as much as tells us that
he had a besetting sin in that wonderful seventh
chapter of Romans : " For I know that in me
(that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing.
For to will is present with me; but how to per-
form that which is good I find not." One of the
apostle's troubles was a tendency to great impa-

N

194 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

tience. You find that in an indirect way coming
out. For instance, here, in the twenty-third
chapter of Acts, when the high priest commanded
them that stood by to smite him on the mouth,
PauPs impatience gathered itself up, and he burst
out : " God shall smite thee^ thou whited wall ;
for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and
commandest me to be smitten contrary to the
law?" Paul was a very alert man, strong with
energy. He could not brook oppression, and
when men went against him, his tendency was
to smite them with quick, sharp speech. (There
may be people living yet who are like the apos-
tle in this respect.) But he did not let this go
on ; he struggled against this besetting sin, and
in the ninth chapter of the First Epistle to the
Corinthians he tells us how: "And every man
that striveth for the mastery (Paul wanted to
master himself) is temperate in all things. Now
they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we
an incorruptible. I therefore run not as uncer-
tainly (the figure is of one running in the arena,
who takes straight course for the goal). So fight
I, not as one that beateth the air ; but I keep

PAULS "CAN. 195

under my body and bring it into subjection."
So with all the saints. The apostle's " can " does
not come out of a heedless life ; a life without
strong purpose does not see and seize and defi-
nitely strike at that which antagonizes the pure
and true.

Dr. Culross, in his most interesting book on
the Apostle John, says: "Naturally and origin-
ally volcanic, capable of profoundest passion and
daring, he is new-made by grace, till in his old
age he stands out in calm grandeur of character
and depth and largeness of soul, with all the
gentlenesses and graces of Christ adorning him
— a man, as I image him to myself, with a face
so noble that kings might do him homage, and
so sweet that children would run to him for his
blessing."

Do you suppose that John reached any such
grand and transformed character as that without
struggle.

Paul's "can" does not come out of a prayer-
less life. How often Paul writes to his friends
that he is praying for them, and asks them to
pray for him. It is quite possible, however, for

196 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

us to be prayerless and yet be praying all the
time. Dr. James Hamilton has an account of a
Scotchman who had but one prayer. He was
asked by his wife to pray at the bedside of their
dying child.

The good man struck out on the old track, and
soon came to the usual petition for the Jews. As
he went on with the time-honored quotation,
u Lord, turn again the captivity of Zion," his
wife broke in, saying: "Eh! mon, you're aye
drawn out for the Jews; but it's our bairn that's
deein ! " Then clasping her hands, she cried :
" Lord, help us, or give us back our darling, if
it be thy holy will ; and if he is to be taken, oh !
take him to thyself." That woman knew how
to pray, which was more than her husband did.

We are to pray specifically ; we are to see and
seize the special weaknesses and bad tendencies
that assault us, and we are to pray about them.
Somebody has injured you, for instance, and you
are nursing your wrath to keep it warm, like
Tarn O'Shanter's wife. Did you ever take that
thing and pray over it? Did you take it before
the Lord and ask him to tell you what you ought

PAUI/'S "CAN." 197

to do about that special thing ? If you have a
tendency toward impatience, or toward pride, or
melancholy, or anxiety, you are to pray about
those things that assault you specially. This is
the true way of self-examination — not looking
into ourselves and tearing ourselves to pieces,
and wondering why we don't feel this way or
that way. It does not matter how you feel so
you do right. But this is self-examination :
Here I am with a tendency to impatience like
Paul's. I am going to try to overcome that ; I
am going to pray to the Lord to help me to
overcome that. And it is out of prayer like that
that a good life comes.

Paul's "can" comes out of self-surrender. Do
you not remember that journey to Damascus?
Paul had been impressed with Stephen's grand
character; had heard him say, when the people
stoned him, "Lord, lay not this sin to their
charge." I have no doubt that all the way to
Damascus he was in contest with himself. Then
came that flash of light, and he saw that he was
wrong, and he said, "Lord, what wilt thou have
me to do?" All moral ability comes out of self-

198 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

surrender. You cannot have Christ unless you
give yourself to him.

I remember distinctly one experience in my
own life, when I had been very rebellious, and
when I had said to myself, "I will not do what
I know I ought to do." Then, I remember
how, after I had been carrying on the struggle
for a long time, I broke down, and I said:
"Lord, I give it all up; I make a full surren-
der; I will do what is right." Light and peace
and power came to me then, and the things I
said I could not do were the things I found I
could do, and have done ever since.

This "can" of PauFs comes out of a recog-
nition of God's hand in our circumstances. I
have been trying to describe to you the environ-
ment in which the apostle was. See how cheer-
fully and beautifully he writes in that environ-
ment: "Not that I speak in respect of want, for
I have learned in whatsoever state I am there-
with to be content." He was not quarreling
with his circumstances; he believed God put
him there for a purpose, and he was doing for
the Lord Jesus the best he could under these cir-

PAULS "CAN. 199

curnstances. There was that soldier to whom
Paul was chained, and he had to come to church
whether he wanted to or not; and pretty soon
we begin to hear about saints in Caesar's house-
hold. If Paul could not range the world over,
he could write, and what a precious part of our
New Testament comes from the apostle's letters !
He did the best he could in the circumstances in
which he was placed, because he recognized
God's hand. There is power in that. One
year, I was on a little island up in the St. Law-
rence, on which there was a great, grey boulder.
There was just a little break in the stone, and
in that break a little bit of mullein had, some-
how or other, found itself planted. There was
scarcely any soil, but it was doing the very best
it could; it was putting out its thick, furry
leaves, and pushing itself up into flower as
valorously as it could. Always do the very
best you can.

This "can" of the apostle springs out of trust.
It does not spring out of an easy-going life, a
heedless life, a purposeless life; but it does spring
out of a struggle for the right, self-surrender,

200 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

recognition of God's hand in our circumstances,
and trust in Jesus Christ. " I can do all things
through Christ which strengtheneth me." And
Christ is powerful. He is the one who died to
give us life, who rose again, and is at the right
hand of God, dispensing power by the Holy
Spirit to help every one of us in the daily life.
He is a living Christ, and precisely as he
wrought in the apostle, so will he work in
you. Really, it is quite possible for yon to
rise into the jubilation and the victory of the
apostle's "can."

He leads us on

By paths we did not know,
Upward he leads us. Though our steps be slow,
Though oft we faint and falter by the way,
Though storms and darkness oft obscure the day,

Yet when the clouds are gone,

We know he leads us on.

He leads us on

Through all the unquiet years ;
Past all our dreamland hopes, and doubts, and fears,
He guides our steps. Through all the tangled maze
Of sin, of sorrow, and o'erclouded days

We know his will is done,

And still he leads us on.

PAULS "CAN." 201

And he at last,

After the weary strife,
After the restless fever we call life,
After the dreariness, the aching pain,
The wayward struggles which have proved in vain*

After our toils are past,

Will give us rest at last

XVI.
WALKING WITH GOD.

IT is wonderful what terms of fellowship God
deigns to use, expressing the relation in
which we stand to him. When I think of the
greatness of God ; when I think how he made
all the worlds, and how he is so great that all
I can know of him is in the way of negation, as
that he is not bounded, that there is no limit to
his wisdom and powers, that he is infinite ; when
I think of these, I can understand how I should
be bidden to worship him, and to laud him, and
to praise and to exalt him, and to prostrate my-
self before him. It is all right.

But God would have me come near to him.
He desires to have me in a sweet intimacy, in
the closest nearness. How wonderful that a man
should be said to " walk with God " !

" Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for

God took him." And the Scripture is full of
202

WALKING WITH GOD. 203

hints and suggestions that I am to come into
fellowship with God, and so to stand with him
that I may walk with him.

I am not always to think of him on his throne:
but as of one who is my companion in daily life.
How wonderful is the condescension of God !
Once, last summer, I just saw Mr. Gladstone as
he was driving from his official residence. There
was a great crowd gathered. One after another
drove through, and then came the great man
himself. I saw him somewhat nearly, and was
impressed with the immense power that streamed
forth from him ; I thought myself fortunate to
be so near him ; but if he had singled me out
from the crowd and had taken my arm, and had
said, "Walk with me through the park/' and
had talked with me about his great life and
about my simpler life, I should have thought it
an act of great condescension. I should have felt
that a great opportunity was open to me. This is
just what God does. Let us think what it means
to walk with God, and what it will bring to us.

One thing: is the sense that he is near us. If
I walk with God, I am to see God in everything.

204 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

Father has great delight in treees. When I go
home, I walk about the grounds and see the
trees which he has grouped together. I see why
he placed this tree and that tree in artistic
fashion, and why he has graded the lawn, and it
is a constant delight to me ; and it is an added
delight to think that it is my father who has
disposed all these trees. So we should think of
the hand of the Father, and every flower should
be to us a sacrament. Every beauty should
have an added beauty, because God's hand is in
it. Our religion will have glints of brightness
all about us if we realize that God is in all, shin-
ing through the beams of the sun, speaking
through the rippling waters. " He is closer to us
than breathing, nearer than hands and feet."

To walk with God is to be certain of his care.
There is a divine providence about us. I like
these lines of Mrs. Browning :

■' Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang

west,
And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around

our incompleteness,
Round our restlessness his rest."

WALKING WITH GOD. 205

To walk with God is constantly to recognize
the fact of his tender personal care. It is to be
conscious of his smile. Even if we be sinners,
it is not needful that we be shut out from his
smile; for Christ in our nature has met the doom
of sin. My sin being put away, there is in me a
new heart. I am " accepted in the Beloved." I
have been adopted into his favor. There comes
to me the divine presence in the sense of the
divine indwelling. Even if I be a sinner, yet if
I be a sinner trusting in Jesus, adopted and be-
loved, then down within my heart falls the
Father's smile.

I suppose a person may be a Christian, and
not have this consciousness. A man may be a
Ohristian, and yet be so mean as to build on the
one foundation only wood, hay, stubble; but
this is not needful. If you do not have this
divine presence within, be dissatisfied until you
gain it. This possession inward is better than
possession outward.

To walk with God involves believing what he
says. He said it ; it is true. He did it ; it is
right. There is no cruelty in it. The other

206 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

day, I went into a house where a great sorrow
had fallen. A little child, the only one, lay
dead, and yet God had done it ; and because he
did there was no cruelty in it. It did almost
seem to me, as I tried to comfort the broken-
hearted mother, that it was cruel. The mother
asked me : " Why should there be children in
other homes, and none here ? " But it was not
cruel.

We could not think of it as cruel, if we believe
God's word. Dear friends, if we had more of
this faith, how much it would do for us !

To walk with God is to believe what he says.
I cannot walk except I take him at his word.
You cannot walk with God unless you know
God's word. Read it, and you will be brought
into union with him.

If I walk with a friend, I talk with him. I
take a walk in the park with my son, and he
says : " See here, father ; see that hill ; see that
rock ; see the ice ! What a place that would
be for sliding ! See what a place yonder would
be for bicycling ! " If I walk with God, I con-
verse and commune with him about everything.

WALKING WITH GOD. 207

If you have trials or troubles, walk with God,
and talk with him about them.

I walk with God when I constantly ask : " Will
this please God?" If I would walk with God,
I may not bear in my feelings anything that
God would not approve: pride, envy, grudging.
Perhaps you have not a consciousness of the
Lord's presence- Are you allowing in you some-
thing that would displease God ?

To walk with God does not take us out of life,
and make monks and nuns of us. The Trappist
monks must not speak to each other, must wear
certain clothing, must grovel on the floor, and
eat their food on the floor. This is not walking
with God. Jesus "came eating and drinking/'
and attending marriage feasts. I may do all
these ; but if I walk with God, I shall do them
all in the right spirit, and all will be for him.

What are the effects of walking with God ?
If I walk with God, I shall have God's help.
That is the way we get his help. "For the
eves of the Lord run to and fro throughout
the whole earth, to show himself strong in the

208 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward
him."

If I walk with God, I shall grow better.
That is the true way of sanctification. There
never lived a man who had got beyond the Lord's
Prayer. I have heard persons say that they did
not need to pray, " Forgive us our trespasses."
This is one of the worst delusions. But if I
walk with God, then how certainly and swiftly
I grow better. I am held in contact with him ;
I am changed into his likeness.

Here is a poor little street arab. Suppose I
go to him and say : "You must not yield to your
surroundings. In the midst of impurity, you
must be pure. In the midst of filth, you must
be clean. In the midst of dishonesty, you must
be honest." How idle it would all be ! But I
take him out of his conditions, and, through the
agency of one of the great noble societies, I send
him to the far West, where he is surrounded by
better influences. I put him in a comfortable
home, and he sloughs off all that is bad in him.

If I walk with God, I get myself into com-
munion with God. I sav : " I walk with thee.

WALKING WITH GOD. 209

What displeases thee I put away." I am lifted
into a new atmosphere, and so I become sancti-
fied. And this is the true method of sanctifica-
tion.

If I walk with God, I shall have joy. I have
already spoken of the difference between joy and
happiness. Happiness is what hangs about us
like a cloak, Joy springs up within us. Sup-
pose the skies grow dark ; yet that is outward ;
it cannot hurt me, if I am in God.

If I walk with God how much more use and
help I shall be to others. You want to be help-
ful; the way is to walk with God.

If I thus walk, will death be hard? It was
not much for Enoch ; it will not be much for
me. Death will not be terrible. Shall I fear
death ?

41 Fear Death ? To feel the fog in my throat,

The mist in my face,
When the snow begins, and the blasts denote,

I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,

The post of the foe/ '

I have not dying grace now ; I do not want

o

210 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

it. I do not expect to die now. So far as I
know, I am going to live. I expect to take rest
to-night, to preach to-morrow, to labor through
next week. Dying grace is not necessary ; but
if I walk with God, dying grace will come.

Dear friends, let us enter into this companion-
ship with God. Let us walk with him. How
strong you shall be ; how full of help to others !

XVII.

CONQUERING CIRCUMSTANCES.

rnHIS morning, a very dear friend, who yes-
-*- terday passed her seventy-second birthday,
handed me a little tract on "Help for our Daily
Life." The little tract had been helpful to her,
and she hoped that it might be so to me. The
thought came to me that perhaps it would be a
helpful thing for us to consider this afternoon,
"How we can be the master of circumstances,
and not the victim of them."

Apparently, no man was ever more hindered
and hampered than was the great apostle, the
man who plowed more deeply into the lives of
men than any other man except Moses; and,
possibly, not even Moses was an exception. Our
notion of Paul is largely wrong. He seems to
us the incarnation of vigor, enterprise, strength.
But this is a mistaken idea of him. So far as
we can judge, he was insignificant in appear-

211

212 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

ance, below the usual stature, and afflicted with
a physical complaint which I believe was oph-
thalmia, a very distressing and pitiful infirmity.
As he stood or sat (as was the custom of those
days) before men to whom he was personally
a stranger, he had to overcome the fact that the
first impression which he had made on them was
hindering. And he was very sensitive; his heart
was not hard, cold, indifferent to the opinion of
others; he felt very deeply what others thought
of him.

Then there was the hindering of his long
imprisonment. It was strange that at a time
when there was such need of preaching and of
leadership, this disciple should have spent six
years or more in prison.

But let us recall how he met and managed
his hindrances. See how he speaks in the first
chapter of Philippians: "According to my ear-
nest expectation and my hope that in nothing I
shall be ashamed, but that, as always, so also
now, Christ shall be magnified in my body
whether by life or by death." Though he is so
hindered and hampered, nothing is going to

CONQUERING CIRCUMSTANCES. 213

defeat him, prevent him from doing his utmost
for the Lord Christ, and being triumphant in
the doing. He is never the victim, but always
the victor of circumstances. No one of us was
ever hindered as he; yet no one of us but would
say that we were under hindrances.

It may be that you are hindered by failing
strength ; it may be by poverty ; it may be by
want of position and appreciation. We have
all said : " Oh, if this, or that thing were only
out of the wav!" We do not rise above our
circumstances as Paul did. We are listless,
instead of being active.

Now, how can we rise above our circum-
stances? This is a very important question.
We have but one life. If we are not doing our
duty now, and doing it nobly and grandly, we
shall never do it. We shall never pass this
way again. We shall never see the past week
again. We shall never see this Saturday again.
We shall see, perhaps, next Saturday; but that
will be another, not this. If we are ever going
to conquer our circumstances, we must do it now.

214 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

How can I be the master of mv circumstances,
and not the slave?

1. We must never forget that God's hand is
in all our circumstances; he has to do with the
shaping of them. We never find Paul looking
back, and wishing he were out of his circum-
stances, and wonderiug how he ever did the
thing which brought him into them. And yet
in the events which brought him into his im-
prisonment, he came, I think, as near to the
edge of making a mistake in his efforts at con-
ciliating opposition, as he ever did. He had
yielded to the judgment and advice of the
Judaizing Christians in reference to going into
the temple with the three men who had a vow
upon them. We have not all the circumstances
of the case; but it seems to me that, if ever he
made a mistake, it was then. Out of his action
came the mob at Jerusalem ; out of that, his
arrest, his imprisonment for a year or two, then
his voyage to Rome, his shipwreck, and his con-
finement at Rome for two years. All this sprung
out of that seemingly doubtful expedient. But
Paul never goes back along his life and says : " I

CONQUERING CIRCUMSTANCES. 215

made a mistake here and there." We say : " If
I had not done so and so, I should not now be
here." We talk as if God had nothing to do
with it. No matter how sad a mistake you have
made, yet in your circumstances to-day there is
God's hand. God is not to be baffled because
you have made a mistake. What is involved in
our care for childhood but the overruling of the
mistakes of our children toward their better
education ?

The thing for us to do is to remember that
God's hand is in all, controlling all, overruling
all. This is one of the surest things in the
world; God will keep us in all our ways ; and
he is able to overrule all our mistakes. We
may, we must look back and say, " I have made
a mistake ; I will not do the same thing again " ;
but we are not to feel that because we have made
a mistake, God is nowhere, and his hand is not
in all our circumstances.

2. We must remember that in our present cir-
cumstances, difficult as they are, we can live a
life that is pure and beautiful. Now, Paul
might have said: "I am chained to a Roman

216 SATUEDAY AFTEKNOON.

soldier; I can do nothing but wait till I am
released." But that would not have been living
a noble life. Instead of that, he said : " Accord-
ing to my earnest expectation and my hope, that
in nothing I shall be ashamed."

You may be a true Christian man or Christian
woman in your circumstances. You remember
the case of that little Hebrew maid, caught in a
raid made by the Syrians, and carried as a slave
to Syria, to the house of Naaman. She led a
pious and beneficent life in her circumstances.
You remember the experience of David as he
was fleeing before Absalom, after he had gotten
back to God. There are more psalms that
belong to that terrible period of David's life than
to any other.

So of Paul in his imprisonment. He could
not go among his brethren and speak to them j
but he could write. And see how manv letters
we owe to that first imprisonment; the letter to
Philemon, that to the Colossians, to the Ephe-
sians, to the Philippians.

And he could preach, if not to a thousand, yet
to one, to the Roman soldier who was chained to

CONQUERING CIRCUMSTANCES. 217

his wrist. And as the result, he writes of " the
saints that were of Caesar's household."

Do you remember the touching story that
Jean Ingelow tells of the girl in one of the Ork-
ney Islands, who saw her father's fishing boat
lost, and saw her father's body washed ashore ;
and ever after that she slept when others watched,
and watched when others slept ; every day she
spun her wonted tale of woolen yarn, and then
one skein more ; and that extra skein went to buy
a candle, which burned all night, in her little
window ; and many a sailor and fisherman found
safety because her humble candle flung its rays
far out upon the ocean. She conquered her cir-
cumstances.

Let us not say, " I can do nothing ; " but
rather let us say, " Let me do the little that I
can."

3. Not only must we realize that we can live
a noble life in our circumstances ; but we must
determine that we will. Here is our trouble.
We long and yearn, but when it comes to the
rugged doing, we do not do it. You all mean to
live for the Lord Christ; but when it comes to

218 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

doing it, we only long; we do not resolve, we do
not choose. Now, I long to go to Palestine ; I
would gladly have started last night, hard as the
wind blew. But I do not choose to go. I do
not determine to go. So we long ; we yearn ; we
wish ; we desire ; but we do not choose ; we do
not will. I wish we might be more full of
choice, of will.

How can I actually do this ? You must take
hold of the thing next you, and do it. It may
be that the thing next you is the duty of confess-
ing Christ; then do it. It may be that it is the
duty of setting right some wrong that you have
done ; then, do it. Perhaps the thing next you
is the duty of keeping a greater watch over your
temper ; then, do it. The only way to do it is to
do it. Paul did not brood over his imprison-
ment ; he preached to that one hearer, and to the
hearer of the next day.

We are not told to do all in a lump, but one
thing at a time ; one door will lead to another,
and that to another, and so on until, before we
know it, we are free.

4. Not onlv is God in our circumstances : he is

1 '

CONQUERING CIRCUMSTANCES. 219

controlling them to our best good. Fifty years
ago in Africa, there was a boy who seemed of no
value ; he was a slave ; once he was sold for a
horse ; but the man who had bought him,
brought him back, and would not keep him ;
then he was sold for so many bottles of rum,
with the same result; then for so much tobacco,
and the same result followed. Then, at last he
was sold to some Portuguese slave traders, and
they put him, chained, in the hold of a slave
ship ; the ship was taken by a British cruiser,
and he was released. He is now Bishop Crow-
ther. I am sure that he thanks God for all his
circumstances. God was controlling all.

It was just so with Paul. God so controlled
his circumstances that the things which happened
turned out to be a furtherance of the gospel.

We can live a pure and beautiful life. One
of the sweetest saints I know is serving God in
the imprisonment of her sick room. From the
pulpit of her bed and her padded chair, she is
preaching the grace and beauty of Christian
patience and submission as I have rarely known
it preached.

220 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

Dear friends, we make too much of our cir-
cumstances. We make our circumstances too
much an excuse. We can live a true life in any
circumstances, if we remember that God is in our
circumstances, that he controls our circumstances ;
and if, in the strength of God, we begin to take
hold of the duty next to us.

XVIII.
MY TIMES ARE IN THY HAND.

11HAT is a very sweet note of trust which
David strikes in the thirty-first Psalm :
" My times are in thy hand." It is a great
thing to have our times in the grasp of one more
wise, more kind, more loving than ourselves.
The Philistines had threatened a portion of the
land ; David had conquered them at Keilah, and
delivered the people of the city out of their
hands. And Saul having heard of David's
whereabouts called the people together to besiege
David ; for he thought he could now surely
capture him. But David heard of SauPs inten-
tions, and of the purpose of the people of the
place to deliver him up to Saul ; so " David and
his men arose and departed out of Keilah and
went whithersoever they could go": he retired to
a mountain, and hid himself. There Saul fol-
lowed him ; and David fled to another place,

221

222 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

entrenching himself in the wilderness of Maon.
Still Saul pursues him ; and he and his men
surrounded the mountain in the heights of which
David hides and whence he finds no possible
egress. There, as was David's wont in any
difficulty, he turns his heart Godward ; and
when it seems as if SauPs grip was sure, David
is saved in a most remarkable manner. There
comes word to Saul that the Philistines have
broken out again; and so his attention is
diverted from David ; and David, without strik-
ing a single blow, is delivered from his bitter
enemy. Under these circumstances this Psalm
is supposed to have been written. We shall be
happy just in proportion as we realize that our
times do not depend upon ourselves, but are in
the control of One loving, wise, and infinite.

The great argument for the truth that " my
times are in God's hand" is the Lord Jesus
Christ himself. I do not think this life would
be worth living were it not for him ; but when
I really look at him, who is "the express image"
of the Godhead ; when I find him delicately
sensitive to every human want; when I find that

MY TIMES ARE IN THY HAND. 223

he comprehends every least and even unspoken
prayer ; when I look at him, — all my skepticism
passes away. It is a wonderfully helpful thing
to think of him as he was upon the earth — of
the poor woman who could only timidly lay her
finger on the edge of his mantle; and yet in all
the throng her touch was noticed bv him. And
then the prayer of the mothers, whom the rude,
gruff disciples would have driven away, and the
rebuke the Lord gave those disciples, in the
graphic words we find in Mark, " Suffer the
little children to come unto me, and forbid them
not, for of such is the kingdom of God. And
he took them up in his arms, put his hands on
them, and blessed them."

The Lord never turned away from any trouble;
and he is not changed. He has changed his
realm, but his heart is forevermore the same —
"the same yesterday, to-day, and forever."
And if the Lord was so strung with sensitiveness
on the earth, he is surely not less so now, and he
must notice me and regard me.

But if our times are in God's hands, what
then ? Well, there are a good many " what

224 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

thens." We should be relieved of a great deal
of anxiety. What is anxiety ? It is that which
gives pain, and no pain is quite so piercing as
this steady pain of anxiety, this looking into the
future, and wondering if we can meet this, that,
and the other thing — this trouble about your
children, wishing you could see in them this
thing or that, which you do not see, and wonder-
ing what will come to them if such things do not
apppear in their character. It is a great deal
easier for us to be anxious than to be full of
faith ; yet we need not be consumingly anxious.
"Take no thought for the morrow" means that.
It does not mean that we should not be thrifty;
but it does mean that we should not be cut all to
pieces with anxiety. I have read a story of
John Wesley, that he was walking along with a
man who was very much troubled, and who was
telling him all about his troubles; and that just
then they passed a meadow where a cow was
looking over a stone fence, and Mr. Wesley
said : " Do you know why that cow looks over
the wall?" "Why, no," was the answer.
" Well, that cow looks over the wall, because she

MY TIMES ARE IN THY HAND. 225

cannot look through it." And so, if I forget
that my times are in God's hands, I am very apt
to try to look through the wall. Dean Alford

says:

" My bark is wafted on the strand
By breath divine ;
And on the helm there rests a hand
Other than mine.

" One who was known in storms to sail
I have on board ;
Above the roaring of the gale
I have my Lord."

Another thing you can have, if you only grip
unerringly this truth, "My times are in thy
hand," that is a great rest and peace in work. If
I am only sure the work I am doing is the work
put upon me by God, even if it may be moun-
tainous and irksome, yet it gets a new glory, and
a new shining, because it is from him. It is
certain that if I do mv work as toward the
Lord, he will weave it into his great purposes.

It is reported of the Emperor Justinian that
he said : " I will build a temple to the great
God, and the glory thereof shall be mine ; and

226 SATUKDAY AFTERNOON.

when I reach the gates of heaven, the angels will
come forth and say, c Enter, great Justinian, who
built a temple to the great God/ " But when the
temple was completed and the inscription carved
over its portal, as the emperor had commanded
— "For the great God, by the great Emperor
Justinian " — a strange thing happened. On the
day it was to be dedicated, it was discovered
that another inscription took the place of the
one he had ordered. It was this: "This house
is built for the great God, by the Widow Eu-
phrasia." And when the emperor saw it, he
angrily called together all the workers, and
inquired what it meant ; and the chief priests
said to the emperor, " This is not of man, but
of God." At last, at the emperor's command,
the Widow Euphrasia was found — old and thin
and wrinkled and sick — and the emperor asked
her what she had done. But she knew nothing
about it. She had been lying on a bed of straw
in an alley; and as the oxen, drawing the
stone to the temple passed by the place where
she lay, she noticed that the sharp stones hurt
their hoofs; and she asked that the workmen

MY TIMES ARE IN THY HAND. 227

would take the straw from her bed and strew it
where the oxen were passing.

Of course, this story is a fable ; but, never-
theless, there is a great truth in it. If I can only
be sure that God appoints my duty, even if it be
a duty as slight as that, even if it be no more
than the cup of cold water in the name of a dis-
ciple, then it is accepted as unto him. " Inas-
much as ye have done it unto one of the least of
these, my brethren, ye have done it unto rne."
The Lord recognized it, and it goes into the great
sum and consummation of his purposes. And
so I can get content in the duty he sets against
my hand. When things all seem to be at sixes and
sevens, and when you long for some larger sphere^
try to remember, " My times are in thy hand,"
and say, " I will do this duty as for God " ; and
I think you will then find that there is a strange
worship in it. So, if I do what God appoints, I
can get inward rest and peace.

Did you ever notice how, from the vestibule
of that sweet truth, "The Lord is my shepherd,"
the Psalmist passes into a kind of temple of
sweet enjoyment. Why, then, he leads me be-

228 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

side the still waters, and I will drink. He makes
me to lie down in green pastures, and I shall get
the rest. If I wander a little, he will bring me
back. He guides me : I will not fear. Even
if I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, why then I will not fear. Because the
Psalmist could strike that first note, he could
strike all the others. That was a true sentence
I met the other day : " Always the gates of
heaven open from within. It is what we are
within ourselves that makes what we are outside
of ourselves." Paul and Silas in prison knew
wonderful joy, though their feet were in the
stocks. And if you and I can accept the truth
that God is concerned about us, we can have rest,
even though we should be led as strangely as
were Paul and Silas.

I should be willing to have you forget all I
have said this afternoon, if you will only remem-
ber this : " My times are in thy hand." If you
do that, you will not be so anxious, and you will
be able to have ever so much joy in each daily
duty, and you will be able to enter into the mean-
ing of the Scripture.

MY TIMES ARE IN THY HAND. 229

Wait a little while ;

Be sure
Thou' st but one short lifetime

To endure.

Wait a little while,

And trust ;
Thou shalt suffer only

What thou must.

Wait a little while ;

Above
Is the God who gives you pain

In his love.

Wait a little while ;

His grace
Soon shall bear you quickjv

To his face.

XIX.

WHAT WE ARE AND HAVE.

And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the
Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son ; and
if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. — Galatians
4 : 6, 7.

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again
to fear ; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption,
whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself bear-
eth witnesss with our spirit, that we are the children of
God : And n children, then heirs ; heirs of God, and
joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with
him, that we may be also glorified together. — Romans
8 : 15-17.

But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the
best robe, and put it on him ; and put a ring on his
hand, and shoes on his feet. — Luke 15 : 22.

WE have not received the spirit of bondage ; we
have received the Spirit of adoption. We are
made sons. We call God " Father." The Spirit
puts the ring of dignity and adoption on our
finger. We are again his sons.
230

WHAT WE ARE AND HAVE. 231

1. Filialness takes the place of fear. We once
had the spirit of bondage. If we are not right
with God, we are in terror. A holy God cannot
look on us with benignity ; and hence comes
dread. But now comes the Spirit of adoption.
We know that we are sons. We stand in a new
relation.

All is wrapped up in that word "Father."
Have you wondered why Paul used the Syriac
word "Abba " ? When we come to tell our very
heart out, we always use the tongue that we
spoke at our mother's knee. Nothing but the
old nursery word would express his feelings.
And so he says "Abba," and then he translates
k into the Greek word for father.

In a most free and peculiar sense, we are sons.
We have received the Spirit of adoption. There
will henceforth be the fear of filialness, but no
longer of dread. This filialness will give rise to
the closest intercourse. We are brought into
sonship so that we dare to say, "Abba," " dear
Father." That is the position in which we stand
to God. We shall not merely call on God for
great things, but for the small as well.

232 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

There is prayer; and there is communion. If
we stand in this relation to God, we shall talk to
him about everything, and shall want to do his
will in everything. It is "Abba, dear Father."
Therefore wre shall pray to him, talk to him,
consult him.

2. Out of filialness springs assurance. The
Spirit beareth witness with our spirits that we
are sons of God. The Scripture is full of this
assurance, this certainty. It is not presumption:
we may know. Thus, in 2 Corinthians 1 : 22,
" God hath given the earnest of the Spirit in our
hearts." So, too, in 2 Corinthians 5:5: God
"also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit."
So in Ephesians 1 : 13, 14: " That holy Spirit of
promise which is the earnest of our inheritance
until the redemption of the purchased possession."

There is such a thing as an internal evidence.
It is not indeed of the same value as the exter-
nal. There is depression among Christians, be-
cause we have been taught to expect too much
inward light. The great reason for assurance is
that God has said, through Christ : " Him that
cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out." But

WHAT WE ARE AND HAVE. 233

there is an internal evidence. The Spirit wit-
nesseth with our spirit that we are the sons of
God. There are many Christians who do not
get the good they might out of their religion.
It is possible to have an internal consciousness.
Let us determine to have it. It comes by con-
secrating ourselves to God. It is sin that comes
in and puts a mist between our souls and God,
so that we do not see him.

We say : " The sun has set," and we sorrow sore
As we watch the darkness creep the landscape o'er,
And the thick shadows fall, and the night draws on,
And we mourn for the brightness lost, and the vanished
sun :

And all the time the sun in the self-same place
Waits, ready to clasp the earth in his embrace,
Ready to give to all of his stintless ray,
And 'tis we who have "set," it is we who have turned
away !

41 The Lord has hidden his face," we sadly cry,
As we sit in the night of grief with no helper by.
"Guiding uncounted worlds in their courses dim,
How should our little pain be marked by him ? "

But all the while that we mourn, the Lord stands near,
And the Son Divine is waiting to help and hear ;

234 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

And 'tis we who hide our faces, and blindly turn away,
While the Sun of the soul shines on 'mid the perfect
day.

There is ever so much more in our Christian-
ity than we have got hold of. This witness of
the Spirit is a precious thing. We get a gleam
of it; but it may be the steady state of the
soul.

3. There follows heirship. We have a title;
not in ourselves, but in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Since it is in hini, it is a sure title, and nothing
can prevent us from entering into our inheritance.
We are heirs.

4. Though we have received this Spirit of
adoption, and so come into this relation of filial-
ness, it does not follow that we shall miss chas-
tisement. We must receive this. This is im-
plied in the words of Paul, which follow the
words just quoted : " If we suffer with him, we
shall also be glorified together." When we have
become sons, we are not out of the sphere of
chastisement. Since we are heirs to such an un-
imagined glory, there is needed much discipline
and culture to fit us for it. Being sons of God,

WHAT WE ARE AND HAVE. 235

there is so much for us that there must be sculp-
ture and trial to prepare us for what is to come.

But chastisement is never the sign of God's
displeasure, though punishment is. Chastisement
is ever the expression of God's love.

I have gone into the house of a Christian where
there had come a great sorrow ; perhaps a child
had fallen from the crib into the coffin. And
the mother would say : " What sin have I com-
mitted that God should punish me so ? " God
has not punished her. at all. He has chastened
her, in order that thus she may become fitted for
the magnificence of the inheritance.

In Hebrews, chapter 12, we read : " What son
is he whom the father chasteneth not ? " It is
that the father may get the son ready for what
the father intends for him. If we can think of
this, it will take the pain out of the chastisement.
Let us transmute our trouble into trial.

I cannot say,
Beneath the pressure of life's cares to-day,

I joy in these ;

But I can say
That I had rather walk this rugged way.

If him it please.

236 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

I cannot feel
That all is well when darkening clouds conceal

The shining sun ;

But then I know
God lives and loves, and say, since it is so,

"Thy will be done. "

I cannot speak
In happy tones ; the teardrops on my cheeks

Show I am sad ;

But I can speak
Of grace to suffer with submission meek,

Until made glad.

I do not see
Why God should e'er permit some things to be,

When he is love ;

But I can see,
Though often dimly, through the mystery,

His hand above.

I may not try
To keep the hot tears back ; but hush that sigh,

44 It might have been " ;

And try to still
Each rising murmur, and to God's sweet will

Respond — Amen.

Realizing that chastisement does not mean
wrath to us, we can sinir. as we often do :

WHAT WE ARE AXD HAVE. 237

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee ;
E'en though it be a cross

That raiseth me,
Still all my song shall be,

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee.

Let us ever glory in our sonship.

XX.

THE CUP OF SALVATION.

*t 1 WILL take the cup of salvation, and call
JL upon the name of the Lord."

You best serve the Lord by receiving all he
gives you, not by hard penance. If my boy
should come to me and say, lt Papa, how can I
serve you ? " I should say, " Be as good a boy
as you can ; learn your lessons as thoroughly as
you can ; get the most out of what I can give
you ; enjoy it the most you can."

This is precisely what God says to us. He
says, "I have given you benefits; repay me by
taking the cup of my salvation ; by becoming the
utmost Christian you can ; by using as perfectly
as you can the benefits offered by Jesus Christ."
I am sure this is the true way in which we shall
serve God.

Just think a moment what this cup of salva-
tion involves. The Psalmist did not begin to
238

THE CUP OF SALVATION. 239

know as much of God as we know. You will
remember that the Psalmist's Bible was but a
meagre one at the best : only the Pentateuch, and
a few of the historical books. He knew nothing
about the Atonement except as faintly hinted to
him there. Surely, the cup of salvation meant
to him far less than it might mean to you or me,
since there is given to us an added revelation
through Christ and through the Holy Spirit.
And we serve the Lord the most when we get
the most out of our religion that we can.

This cup of salvation involves the real union
between the Lord Jesus Christ and every one
who trusts him. This is the fundamental truth
of Christianity. When we give ourselves to
Jesus Christ, we become one with him, in a way
different from God's usual presence and provi-
dence ; in a way deeper than by his sympathy
with us, or by his association with us ; it is a
union formed by the Holy Spirit. Not that the
soul in any wise loses its personality ; but because
it keeps its personality by its union with Jesus
Christ, it is so interpenetrated and energized by
the Spirit of Christ as to be made one with him,

240 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

as to be made a member of that believing, justi-
fied humanity, of which Christ is the Head. So
we become one with him in an organic, real sense,
which we cannot explain. This union is con-
stantly insisted upon in the Scriptures, and is
illustrated to us by many figures ; as, for instance,
by the foundation stone of the building : or by
the figure of husband and wife. They are one
— the believer and the Lord — as wife and hus-
band are one. Also by the figure of the branch
and the vine. Just as there must be the closest
union, a union profoundly beyond our compre-
hension, so real and so intimate is the union
between the Lord and those who trust him.

The Lord dwells in believers. He is God
within us. He deigns to make our hearts his
habitation. The old Shekinah which shone in
the Tabernacle and the Temple could only be
seen when the curtain was parted for a moment
as the high priest went in once a year to the
Most Holy Place. But that Shekinah which is
an illustration of the divine presence is now in
the hearts of all Christians. Jesus dwells in us;
mighty truth and marvelous ! Yet there is no

THE CUP OF SALVATION. 243

truth in the Scripture revealed more clearly.

You are in vital union with our Lord Jesus

Christ ; so is every one that trusts in him. No

figure of which you can conceive can fully set

forth the intimacy of this union. It is a most

vital indwelling of the Lord with you ; you are

so interpenetrated and energized by him, that you

are really one with him, a member of that

regenerated humanity of which he is the Head.

The cup of salvation, in the Christian sense,

involves the fact of this deep and lasting union

between the soul and the soul's Redeemer.

Now, since this is the great element in the cup

of salvation, that I am one with Jesus Christ,

then I am perfectly safe; no real disaster can

come to me. No man is drowned, though his

feet be under water, while his head is above.

And if you are one with the Lord Jesus Christ,

your head is above all the billows, and you will

not, you cannot be overcome. The old hymn is

true —

Since he in heaven has fixed his throne,
He'll fix his members there. "

Well, then, this intimate union of the believer

o

242 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

with the Lord results to the believer in a restful-
ness in this knowledge.

A Southern gentleman said, that when he
was a boy in Virginia at school, he was much
indebted to a man who was a true teacher ; who
gloried in his duty, as all true teachers do. Dr.
Arnold said : " Do not take your work as a
dose, and you will not find it nauseous." There
came to the school a poor, little, dull, brown
specimen of the " white trash " in the days of
slavery. With almost infinite difficulty, the
teacher taught her her lessons, until at last she
had learned letter by letter, and then formed syl-
lable by syllable, and, finally, she could read.
One day later, her brother came to the school,
barefooted, his clothes held up by a single sus-
pender. When the little fellow came in, the
teacher, with his longing to do good, called him
to him, and, opening Webster's spelling book,
said: "What's that?" He answered, "A."
" Well done ! " and the teacher pointed to the
next ; " B." And the teacher still pointed on.
When he came to D, the little fellow's head
dropped, and he waited, and then he flung his

THE CUP OF SALVATION. 243

head up again, full of a certain pride, and said :
" I don't know that letter, but my sister Lizzie
does ; it is all in the family/' Well, I am a very
ignorant member of Christ's family. It is very
little that I know, and it is very little that most
of us know ; but the knowledge is in the family ;
the Elder Brother knows. He knows, with
whom we are indissolubly united.

This fact that we are one with Jesus Christ
involves the certainty of chastisement. I am a
member of the body. My hand is a member of
my body. Then, be sure I shall take care of my
hand, because it is precious to me ; and I shall do
nothing to my hand that will injure it. All my
interest is to cause the hand to suffer only so
much, that out of the suffering the best good can
come.

Well, I am some part of the regenerated body, —
that is, of the Lord's body, — for I belong to him,
and I am absolutely certain that whatever may
come to me will be according to his knowledge
and according to his love. Now, then, the fact
that I am one with the Lord Jesus ought to be a
reason for great joy. What an honor it is !

244 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

What a safety it is ! Why should I be like a
bulrush, smitten with the wind? Why should I
not have a sense of the dignity of what I am, a
Christian, in indissoluble union with the Lord
Christ.

To take the cup of his salvation is just to get
the good out of his benefits ; to take them, and to
recognize what it means to be taking what God
loves to give. I have not to take up any pen-
ances, only to accept God's generosity. And the
better I drink of it, the better I serve him.

There is just one other thing : " I will pay my
vows unto the Lord, now in the presence of all
his people ;" for I am not ashamed that I
belong to him, and am willing to have it known
that I am one of his. If you take the cup of
salvation, it will be easy to serve, because your
heart will be full of joy. The best return you
can possibly make to the Lord is to enjoy every-
thing to the utmost, and to be the best Christian
possible.

I remember the red-letter days in my boyhood,
when I was at home in Cleveland. Father was
a young lawyer and was immensely busy, and

THE CUP OF SALVATION. 245

could only take a little time now and then with
his family. One of the excursions we used to
take was delightful, and the memory of it is a
perpetual pleasure. They used to bring around
the rockaway, and we stowed in all sorts of bag-
gage, and all sorts of things to eat ; and through
the long forests (not then cut down) we used to
drive for days to a place miles and miles away,
where some relations lived. And I remember
how pleased father was when he saw the
children enjoying everything, when they got
out and walked for the sake of walking ; and
when they enjoyed the birds, and when they
liked the sandwiches which were so delicious, he
would say, a smile meanwhile lighting up his
countenance, " Why, I am happy just to see you
enjoy it all."

The Lord feels just that way. The more we
enjoy, and the more we take of what he wants to
give us, the more our brightness flashes back
brightness even upon his face.

Let these two principles be ever before you :
First, drink all you can, and second, let it be
known that you are the Lord's.

246 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

44 Casting all your care upon him,
For he careth " — words how sweet I

How the Infinite and finite
In this sacred sentence meet !

How each word, alone, the spirit
Cheers and comforts ; how the whole,

Like a loving benediction,

Soothes the sorrow of the soul I

Casting — like some long-borne burden,
From the shoulders thrown at last,

We, the care, grown, oh ! so heavy,
On our Lord may wholly cast,

Casting all — oh, gracious fullness,
Slight as well as gravest care ;

None too small for him to notice,
None too great for him to bear.

Casting all your care — ah, tender,
Thoughtful " your " then it must be

That his care for us is special,
Personal for you and me.

Casting all your care upon him ;

Doubts and dreads and anxious fears,
All that weighs the heart with sadness,

All that dims the eyes with tears.

Casting all your care upon him,
For he careth, he doth heed ;

Every want and woe foreseeth,
Will not fail us in our need.

THE CUP OF SALVATION. 247

Careth for us — oh, how precious

Is the care of earthly friend !
But the watch-care of a mother

Doth our Father's care transcend.

Careth for us — oh, then, brother,

Let us care so wondrous prove ;
From our hearts let us, believing,

All anxiety remove I

Cast it on the Lord and leave it,

Trust his word so sweet and blest,
And our hearts, before so burdened,

Shall in peace surpassing rest.

XXI.
HOLDEN EYES.

I SUPPOSE it is altogether impossible for us to
know at all what must have been the surprise
of the resurrection to the disciples. I remember
to have read some time since of one whose dearest
friend was in the war ; in the list of the killed
and wounded, his name was once found ; he was
given up entirely for lost. One day, ever so
many months after, there was a wonted step
upon the porch and a wonted knock against the
door ; and one to whom he had been very dear
went out to find him alive whom she supposed
dead — wounded, indeed, and with an empty
sleeve, but still alive. I suppose some such
incident as that is necessary, in order to make
real to us what must have been the absolute
surprise of the resurrection to the disciples. Yet
these disciples going to Emmaus had not yet
entered into this joyful surprise. Our Lord
248

HOLDEN EYES. 249

had risen, but they did not know it; their hope
was utterly dead. It was the constant and
steady feeling of the disciples before the cruci-
fixion that our Lord could never die. They had
seen how he had called Lazarus forth out of the
grave after he had been four days a prisoner;
they had seen how he had raised the daughter
of Jairus ; they had seen the only son of the
widow of Nain start forth into life ; thev had
seen all sorts of wonderful things dropping from
the benignant hand of the Lord Jesus Christ;
and when he prophesied of the necessity of his
death, they thought his meaning was that he
might be apprehended and come into severe
clashing with the authorities, but that yet in the
crisis he would deliver himself, and that death
never would smite him. When they at last saw
that death was certain, when they saw his heart's
blood spilled out on the green, rich earth at the
foot of the cross, their hopes died too. And
when he was carried to the tomb, dead as any
one ever was — in that tomb their hopes were
buried.

These two disciples, after the tragedy, are

250 Saturday after;noo:n.

going to Emmaus, which was a little village
about eight or nine miles away from Jerusalem.
Their attachment to Jesus was now broken, the
tragedy was ended, and there was nothing for
them; they might cherish him as a memory, but
he could never be any more than a dead friend ;
and so, very probably, they were going back to
their old home, to their usual occupation. While
they were going, Jesus himself draws near, and
begins to converse with them; but their eyes
were holden.

That was their trouble, holden eyes. I am
sure it is a trouble still; it is quite a chronic
trouble with most of us. If our eyes were not
holden, we should be much braver, and more
triumphant than we are. How much grace may
we have? We have just as much grace as we
will receive ; there is not a limit to God's giving,
but there is in our receiving. God's grace is like
the light pressing around this building; we may
have as much as we will have; we may open the
windows and clean off the blurs, or we may
draw the shades down, and so onlv have a sub-
dued light. So God's grace is pressing around

HOLDEN EYES. 251

every one, and we have as much of its holy
peace and joy as we will to have. There is no
reason in God why we should not be constantly
and steadily on the mountain ; there is no reason
in God why we should not have the peace of
God which passeth understanding in our hearts.
We have occasional glimpses ; but it ought to be
constant ; it is not for some particular time, it is
not simply for the time when we are worshiping,
but for the time when we are working, for all
time. We may have just as much of God's
grace as we will have, and the reason we do not
have more is because we do not care to have it.
There are some things we are not willing to give
up; we are not quite willing for Christ to take
up entire and cleansing residence within us; we
do not clean away the blurred spots of wrong
thinking and wrong doing, and so enable our
souls clearly to receive the Light, and so our eyes
are holden, and we do not see the great and pre-
cious grace that God has given us. Some of the
reasons for holden eyes stand out in this narra-
tive. As I have thought of them, they seem to
be practical reasons to every one of us.

252 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

1. Because we do not know enough of the
Scripture ; we do not study it enough. That was
one reason why the eyes of the disciples going to
Emmaus were holden. They had a part of
the Scriptures ; they had the Old Testament
prophecies, and in them it was constantly fore-
told that the Lord was to come and die and rise
again ; either they had not studied the prophe-
cies sufficiently, or they failed to comprehend
their teaching. I am sure that it is a constant
trouble with us. It would be quite surprising
if those of us who study the Bible should ask
ourselves how much we really study it ; the
amount of time as compared with the amount of
time given to pleasure, to intercourse, to society,
to the newspaper, we should find it to be sur-
prisingly small. It would be well for us to read
the Bible through ; that would not be such a
tremendous and terrible amount of reading to
undertake. It would be well for us to read the
gospels through, asking ourselves certain ques-
tions : What do the gospels tell me concerning
this, or this, or this? I know a very true and
sweet and strong saint of God, who reads her

HOLDEN EYES. 253

Bible in this fashion. She wants to know what
the Scripture says about faith, and she will read
the New Testament through, marking the pas-
sages that touch on this subject. After this is
done, you may collate them and study them.
You can find it all done in books, but it is a
great deal better to do it for yourself. What a
help if we should study with this thought in
mind, to find out what in them our Lord Jesus
Christ tells us that he will be to every one of us.
Did you ever read the gospels with that idea,
and then find yourself surprised, and your
eyes opened, and your heart flooded with joy
when he. tells you what he is? — how he is bread,
water, shepherd, door; how he is vine to you,
how he is rock to you, how he is light to you,
how he is leader to you ? Do you suppose, if
you read the Scripture in that fashion and were
on the hunt for knowing what the Lord had told
you he would be to you, your eyes would be as
holden ?

Some one came to me in great distress; she
had great trouble ; her light was gone ; she had
come into the darkness, and she was looking

254 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

within herself and sighing and wondering, Why
am I thus and thus ? I said, " I wish you would
do what I want you to. Take the New Testa-
ment and read the gospels with the question in
your mind, What does Christ tell me he is to me?
When you have read them through and marked
them, look them over and over and fasten them
in your thought. I saw her a few weeks after-
ward, and the old light of peace was on her
face.

Read the epistles, in order to understand the
theological relation of the facts of Jesus Christ to
ourselves. We can understand in the epistles
the method of the atonement ; we can understand
why it was necessary that Christ should suffer,
and what comes to us because of his atonement.
As, for instance, the great peace that is written
of in the eighth chapter of Romans : " There is
therefore now no condemnation." And then we
find in the same chapter of Romans how there is
adoption for us ; how we are not simply forgiven,
but are put into the place of sons, and stand
in that relation to God, so that we, even though
our lips are sin-stained, may cry, " Abba, Father!"

HOLDEX EYES. 255

By a determined looking into the Scripture in
this way you will find wonderful help.

2. Another reason suggested by this narrative,
why our eyes are sometimes holden, is because we
are in great sorrow. That was the trouble with
these disciples ; the utmost sorrow had come to
them. They had been in passionate devotion to
their Lord ; all their hopes were centred in him,
and now he was slain and buried, and that they no
doubt thought was the end of it. I do not think
it very wonderful that their eyes should be holden
with sorrow, because they did not know of the
resurrection. It is wonderful that sorrow should
make your eye and mine holden, when we know
that our Lord Jesus Christ is risen from the dead,
and that all power in heaven and earth is in his
hands.

There is a story that, at the southern extremity
of Africa, there thrusts itself out a cape, and it
was supposed for many a century that men could
not sail around it. Those who had rounded it
were always lost in the waters swirling around it.
The name of the cape was the Cape of Storms.
A certain Portuguese determined to vanquish the

256 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

Cape, and he sailed resolutely around it, and so
he paved the way for his countrymen to the far
Cathay, and made a passage to the East Indies,
and instead of naming it the " Cape of Storms," it
was henceforth called the " Cape of Good Hope."
Now into your life and mine has been thrust
that Cape of Storms which we call death ; we do
not know anything about it, and the question is,
" Is there any light ? " Men have tried to answer
that question, and could not. But our Lord
Jesus Christ has rounded that cape, and he tells
us that there is light and life on the other side.
He has brought life and immortality to light,
and to the Christian the Cape of Storms is
changed into the Cape of Good Hope. It was
not so wonderful that sorrow blinded the eyes of
these disciples toward him ; but since we know
that we have a living, helping, and guiding
Saviour, it is wonderful that sorrow should so
often blind our eyes to Jesus Christ.

There is only one way of treating sorrow ; and
that way is to make a fence by which we shall
not be shut away from Christ, but shall be shut
up to Christ. We ought to treat it just as Paul

HOLDEK EYES. 257

and Silas treated that prison in Philippi. They
were thrust into the inner prison, and the iron
doors grated against them ; but when that iron
door closed, shutting them in, it did not shut
them away from Christ, but it shut Christ in
with them ; and thus in that darkness their eyes
were not holden ; for they saw Christ, and in the
midnight there were songs in their hearts and
praises on their lips. There is great danger that
when a trouble comes we allow it to get between
us and the Lord ; what we want to do is to so
use it that it shall force us closer to the Lord,
and thus we shall see the Lord amid the sorrow.
That is the Christian way of treating sorrow;
there is no other proper way.

When a great trouble or a less trouble comes,
and you find yourself wondering, " Why should
a thing like this happen tome?" do not let your
faith fail in the Lord Jesus Christ. It shall be
with you as it was with one who sings about it :

Speechless Sorrow sat with me ;
I was sighing wearily ;
Lamp and fire were out ; the rain
Wildly beat the window pane.
R

258 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

In the dark we heard a knock ;
And the hand was on the lock.
One in waiting spake to me,

Saying sweetly,
44 1 am come to sup with thee ! "

All my room was dark and damp ;
44 Sorrow ! " said I, 44 trim the lamp,
Light the fire, and cheer thy face ;
Set the guest chair in its place."
And again I heard the knock ;
In the dark I found the lock.
44 Enter ! I have turned the key I

Enter, stranger !
Who art come to sup with me."

Opening wide the door, he came ;
But I could not speak his name ;
In the guest chair took his place ;
But I could not see his face !
When my cheerful fire was beaming,
When my little lamp was gleaming,
And the feast was spread for thee,

Lo ! my Master
Was the guest that supped with me !

3. Another reason suggested by this narrative
why our eyes are sometimes holden is because we
refuse to recognize Christ in our circumstances.
It was so with these disciples going to Emmaus ;
Jesus himself was with them ; they did not know

HOLDEN EYES. 259

it, yet he was there. It is just as true that he is
with you and me in all our circumstances. Our
Lord Christ has a hand in our circumstances ;
things do not fall to us from mere chance, but
they are given because he sees that this is the
best for us. We need to recognize that fact, in
order to see him on the road with us — with us
because we are walking the road where he goes,
because that road is of his appointment.

Nothing struck me more when I was in per-
sonal contact with Mr. Spurgeon some time ago,
than the way in which he spontaneously and con-
stantly recognized Christ in everything that came
to him. The sunshine was beautiful, because
Christ sent it ; the chance for a little outing that
he was taking with me was good, because Christ
had given it to him ; and the duty, Christ had
assigned it, and therefore it was done ; and the
burden, Christ had appointed it, and therefore it
was to be borne. When I came away, I felt as
though I had been in a temple worshiping, be-
cause his constant speech was about the Lord,
and he seemed to know that everything which
came to him was from the Lord's hand. His

260 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

eyes were not holden, because he saw the Lord
in his circumstances.

Here is a little snatch my mother has often
repeated to me :

Just to trust, and yet to ask

Guidance still ;
Take the training or the task

As he will ;
Just to take the loss or gain

As he sends it ;
Just to take the joy or pain
As he lends it.
He who formed thee for his praise
Will not miss his gracious aim ;
So to-day and all thy days
Shall be moulded for the same.

Just to leave in his dear hand

Little things ;
All we cannot understand,

All that stings ;
Just to let him take the care,

Sorely pressing.
Finding all we let him bear
Changed to blessing.
This is all ! and yet the way

Marked by him who loved thee best,
Secret of a happy day,
Secret of his promised rest

HOLDEN EYES. 261

When we thus recognize Christ in our circum-
stances, our eyes will not be holden. Let us
refuse to have such holden eyes ; it is possible to
have eyes shining, eyes that do behold our Lord,
by a more thorough study of his word, by a right
treatment of sorrow, and by a reverent yet joyful
recognition of him in our circumstances. So he
will walk along the way with us just as he walked
with the disciples going to Emmaus. We shall
find our eyes clear; we shall have the joy and
peace that came to those disciples when at last
Jesus made himself known in the breaking of the
bread. So let our talk this afternoon end with
this prayer :

Out of myself, dear Lord,
Oh, lift me up !
No more I trust myself in life's dim maze,
Sufficient to myself, in all its devious ways ;
I trust no more, but humbly at thy throne
Pray " Lead me, for I cannot go alone. ">

Out of my weary self,
Oh, lift me up !
I faint ; the road winds upward all the way ;
Each night but ends another weary day.
Give me thy strength, and may I be so blest,
As on u the heights " I find the longed-for rest

262 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

Out of my selfish self,
Oh, lift me up !
To live for others, and, in living so,
To bear a blessing wheresoe'er I go ;
To give the sunshine, and the clouds conceal,
Or let them but the silver clouds reveal.

Out of my lonely self,
Oh, lift me up !
Though other hearts with love are running o'er,
Though dear ones fill my lonely home no more,
Though every day I miss the fond caress,
Help me to join in others' happiness.

Out of my doubting self,
Oh, lift me up !
Help me to feel that thou art always near,
E'en though 'tis night, and all around seems drear;
Help me to know that, though I cannot see,
It is my Father's hand that leadeth me.

XXII.

THE KINGDOM COMING WITH
POWER.

ON one occasion, after our Lord had been set-
ting forth to some of his followers the terms
of discipleship, he said (Mark 9 : 1) : " Verily I
say unto you, That there be some of them that
stand here, which shall not taste of death, till
they have seen the kingdom of God come with
power." That prophecy was fulfilled. The
coming of God's kingdom with power meant the
resurrection of our Lord and all that came from
the resurrection, especially the bestowment of the
Holy Spirit. And many lived to see that day.

But there is also a very real meaning of this
prophecy to you and to me ; namely : That our
Lord's religion is not merely something to help
us in the future, after we are dead. It is that ;
but it is also to be for us now, in this present
life, a strength and an illumination.

263

264 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

Our Christian modes of thought often fail here.
We think too much of going to heaven. We
make too much of heaven, too much of it as a
place, and not a state. Going to heaven is the
fringe of being a Christian, not the thing itself.
Palms, robes, golden gates, are the accidents of
heaven. The real thing is purity of heart, satis-
faction in the likeness of Christ, being in the
presence of, and enjoying communion with, God.
And with these come all the incidents that belong
to them.

Precisely as we think too much of heaven in
the external sense, so we may think too much of
getting there. What we should think of is the
heavenly mind which we may have here, and
all that belongs to the heavenly mind. We are
not to relegate to the future what Christ can do
for us here. We may hear Christ saying to us,
in a very real sense, "There be some standing
here, that shall not taste of death till they have
seen the kingdom of God come with power." In
the present life, there is divine power and help.

What is there now for us in Christianity — at
least in a seminal way ?

THE KINGDOM COMING WITH POWER. 265

1. One thing is the constant feeling of a Christ
alive. We do not make enough of our Lord's
resurrection. Think of the difference between
Christ and every other being on our earth. I
stood in the crypt under St. PauPs, before the
tomb of Wellington. But he was not there, was
not in the world. Only the ashes were left. His
influence was in the world as a memory ; but his
personal presence was not there, nor in London,
nor in England. In Paris, I stood under the
gilded dome, and looked on the sarcophagus of
his antagonist, the great Napoleon. Everywhere
were the memorials of Napoleon. There were
the tattered flags that had gone waving on to vic-
tory ; the names of his battles were inscribed in
mosaic upon the pavement; and there were some
tottering soldiers who had in their day followed
him. But he was not there.

For all the great, and for all who have lived,
death has been a victor. How can a victory be
greater than that which death now wields ? I
have just come from a funeral. I saw the dead
form of a wife, a mother, in her coffin. I laid her
in the grave which, on such a day as this, seems

266 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

»

so awfully cold. What victory can be more
complete ?

But our Lord, in tasting death, vanquished
death. We get help by his cross and by his res-
urrection. We think too much of the cross, and
not enough 'of the fact that he opened the gates
of heaven to all believers. Nothing has so helped
me as the consideration that my Christ is not a
dead Christ. Nothing has so emphasized to me
the might and majesty of his religion as the fact
that he is death's Master — that he has shattered
death's sceptre.

2. We may have the constant and real ministry
of the Holy Spirit. There is for each of us a
present Christ. The fault I find with the pre-
millennial doctrine is, that Christ is to come in a
physical form, and to reign on a material local
throne. How much better is the Dispensation of
the Spirit ! I may have a spiritual Christ wher-
ever I am, in sickness, in sorrow, in the flame.
I am nearer to Christ than John was, even when
he lay on Christ's bosom. Christ by the Holy
Spirit comes into contact with my spirit — dwells
in me. He is not reigning in Jerusalem. If he

THE KINGDOM COMING WITH POWER. 267

were, it would take me four weeks to get to him.
But through the Spirit, I have a Christ here.
You have, through the Spirit, a Christ with you
in your housekeeping; in your care of the chil-
dren ; everywhere. What more divine disclosure
can there be than this ? We have, through the
Holy Spirit, a Christ present with us. The old
Shekinah was but in one place ; the new Sheki-
nah shines everywhere, in every heart.

Read the epistles, and see what weight is laid
on this fact : " Ye are the temple of the Holy
Spirit." What truth can more subdue and sanc-
tify us than this, that we have in us this divine
resident? The Holy Spirit is here, not there.
Now, not then.

3. And there may come to us a mighty motive.
Have you read the " Life of Sister Dora " ? If
you have not, I hope you will ; I do not know
a more stimulating book. She devoted herself
to doing good in the way of nursing. Her
motive was Christ, for Christ's sake. Because
she had this motive, she could do what she did.
She endured labor without weariness ; she went
through the most repulsive scenes without dis-

268 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

gust ; she mingled with the coarse navvies, many
of whom were her patients, without repugnance.
She nourished her great soul, which ran out in
great deeds, on Christ.

It is the motive which God looks at, and
which makes the deed. When I am asking my-
self how I can live truly, how I can live a noble
life, nothing so helps me as the fact that I may
have Christ as my motive. So long as I have
that motive, the expression of the motive may be
mean ; but in the Lord's eyes, even the poorest
work glows with a celestial light.

4. We have also communion. The most real
thing to a Christian ought to be the consciousness
of the moments when he touches God. T cannot
set this forth in language. As the heart knoweth
its own bitterness, so it alone can know its own
joy. There is no joy so deep as when we feel
that we talk with God and God with us. This
ought to be our usual experience.

One Christian woman used to set aside an
hour which she called "the Master's hour."
She would open her Bible, and would ask God
to shine on it ; she would hold her heart open

THE KINGDOM COMING WITH POWER. 269

before God, feeling that God knew and cared and
directed. Each of us ought to have a Master's
hour. Have you such an hour, a time when you
go by yourself, and open yourself to God ? Do
you know the great strength that comes out of
it ? Our Lord had such an hour. Out of such
communion came the Transfiguration. Out of it
came (speaking on the human side) the wisdom
to choose the twelve ; the power to endure in
Gethsemane. All this communion is for you and
me now.

5. There is also for us a conscious joy. There
is a difference between happiness and joy. Hap-
piness is that which comes to us by hap, which
happens to us from without. Joy is an internal
spring. Christ does not promise happiness ; he
does not say that all without shall be smiling,
that there shall be no sorrow in the Christian's
life. But he tells us that we shall have joy
within us; that whatever may be without us,
within there shall be a source of delight, the
comfort of the Holy Spirit. This joy, this com-
fort within us masters the outward circumstances.

All this we may have now and here. We

270 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

often quote those words of Paul, " Eye hath not
seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the
heart of man, the things which God hath pre-
pared for them that love him," as if they referred
to heaven ; but they do not refer to heaven at all ;
they mean now : " God hath revealed them unto
us by his Spirit."

Some traveler reports that lie found in Africa
a tribe who, in the midst of plenty, were starv-
ing. The reason was that the lion had not
killed anything lately. These people were
accustomed to follow the lordly lion, and to eat
what he had killed and left. And so they had
lost the habit and power of pursuing and taking
anything for themselves. Many Christians are
like these degraded savages. There is plenty all
about, but they do not take it, because they can-
not ; and they cannot, because they would not.

Recently, a man told me the story of his
escape from Andersonville ; for days and days,
he made his painful way, till at last he saw afar
the Union flag ; it meant to him all that was high
and noble ; but he was still within the lines of
the enemy ; the people about him did not see that

THE KINGDOM COMING WITH POWER. 271

in it ; it was bis secret. We are among the
worldly ; but we may know the secret of the Lord.
All this is for us, not yonder, but here and now.
Religion is not merely something to get to heaven
by ; it is something to live by now. " Verily, I
say unto you, that there be some standing here
that shall not taste of death till they shall see the
kingdom of God come with power."

XXIII.
HOW TO TRIUMPH OVER EVIL.

I WILL ask you, this afternoon, to consider
especially the lesson found in PauFs letter to
the Ephesians 5:8: " For ye were sometime
darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord : walk
as children of light."

The principle involved here is important and
healthful. There are some persons who say that
the world is getting worse and sinking to destruc-
tion; that the work of Christ is practically a
failure. I cannot see how any one with faith in
Christ, or knowledge of history, can hold this
view. Take, for example, this evil of intemper-
ance ; many persons think that we are worse off
than we were : I do not think so. In the Auto-
biography of Dr. Goodell, prefixed to his Life, he
tells us that seventy or eighty years ago a very
godly minister used to pass his father's door and
often stopped in to see the family. Once the
272

HOW TO TRIUMPH OVER EVIL, 273

minister chanced to meet there the family physi-
cian, and he asked his advice. He said : " I am
about visiting the sick and the afflicted and the
inquiring, and everywhere I am asked to take
something to drink. I cannot decline without
giving mortal offense ; but after a while I find
myself growing dizzy, and I am afraid that I
shall say or do something to disgrace myself.
Now, what do you advise me to do about this ? ''
The physician, after considering the matter very
carefully, said : " You had better, when you find
yourself growing a little dizzy, go home while
you are able to walk; then sit down in your
study until you feel that the effect has passed by ;
and then start out again on the calls." The
thought of abstaining never occurred to either of
them ; the only thing was to drink without show-
ing the effect of it. Everybody drank, and all
seemed on the way to ruin. Things are going
on better. No minister now, who went about
among his people, drinking something here and
there, could long continue a minister.

This great evil prevailed in Ephesus. How
was it to be overcome ? One way is the way of

274 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

negation and restriction. There was much appar-
ent training in the form of " Don't." There is
much of this training now. We say to our chil-
dren: "Don't," "Don't," "Don't"; and the
boys and girls do not like to stay at home, be-
cause they have had an avalanche of " Don't."
The way of good resolutions was another way to
triumph over sin ; but it was a dull, tasking way.
Paul's way was different. This is his way : Get
into yourself a better mind, so that you shall not
want to do anything low or degrading.

Now, I suppose that no one here is subject to
this form of sin ; but the principle set forth is
very helpful to us all.

I suppose there are, perhaps, no persons more
degraded — at any rate, I have seen none more
degraded — than some of our North American
Indians : dirty, lazy, crowded into their misera-
ble tipis. Now, if one of them wants to rise, he
may resolve to do so ; but it will be very hard
while he is in these surroundings. But I have
seen at Carlisle the young Indians who had
thrown off the savage. When you see them you
say : " We have struck it at last ; we have found

HOW TO TRIUMPH OVER EVIL. 275

how to change the Indian." We take the chil-
dren of the leading Indians, and put into them a
better mind, then send them back to their people
to become centers of a better civilization.

Here is a young artist who desires to fight
against ugliness. Shall he do it by resolutions ?
No. Let him go and study beauty; let him
wait before great artists. His mind being filled
with these, all that is ugly will be driven out.
This is the principle of the Scriptures. The prin-
ciple is : Be so filled with the better that you will
not want to be overcome by the worse.

Let us turn to the list of the fruits of the

Spirit, as given in Galatians 5 : 22 : " But the

fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffer-

ing, gentleness, goodness, faith." Look at these

fruits. Take peace : this means, as Miss Waring

says,

"A heart at leisure from itself."

It means freedom from torturing anxiety.

You say : " I have not this peace ; I am anx-
ious. It is my nature to borrow trouble ; I cross
bridges before I come to them ; I long for this
fruit of the Spirit." So you gather up your

276 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

powers when some trouble is coming, and you
say : " I will not be anxious ; I will cast all on
God " ; but you do not get peace.

Take the other fruits. Take meekness and
temperance, or patient self-control — self-control
such that you are serene and sweet in your house-
hold, so that you bring light wherever you are.
You say : " The children bother me. My Sun-
day-school class bothers me ; I think I shall give
it up." " Now," you say, " I am going to with-
stand the next temptation to impatience"; but
the next time the temptation comes you are car-
ried away before it.

Take again, faith ; which means, perhaps, fidel-
ity. You say : " I know that I ought to show
fidelity in great things and in small, and I will
do so"; but soon you say that you have failed.

Now, this is not Paul's way. His way is:
Get such a sense of God's presence that the nat-
ural fruit of it shall be peace, patience, self-con-
trol, and fidelity.

But how may I be filled with the Spirit ? It
is the glory of the Christian life that this may be,
if we really want it so; we may so have this

HOW TO TRIUMPH OVER EVIL. 277

better mind that we shall not want to do any-
thing evil, and thus shall be triumphant over
the evil.

We must believe in the Holy Spirit. Here is
life for you in place of death ; and strength for
you in place of weakness ; and holiness for you
in place of sin. What you need is to know these
things that you may act on them.

Study the New Testament that you may know
what God will do for you through the Holy
Spirit. Do you believe in the Holy Spirit for
peace and strength ? The reason we are so weak
is that we are so ignorant of what God has done
for us in himself.

Let us know that the Spirit is near us, ready
to enter our hearts. It is a wrong prayer that
we sometimes offer, that the Holy Ghost may
come down upon us, as if he were not near us,
and ready to enter and fill our hearts always. If
you would be filled with the Holy Spirit, kneel
down and put away all that is evil, and consecrate
yourself to him.

Pray for the Holv Spirit. Pray that you may
be filled with the Holy Spirit. There are some

278 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

prayers in regard to which we have to say, " If it
be thy will " ; but we know that it is God's will
that we should be filled with the Spirit. Act on
the Holy Spirit. Reckon on his strength.

The children of Israel ventured on the word
of God when they went into the Jordan. The
river was full up to the banks until the very
moment when the priests dipped their feet in the
flood; then the waters stood still. We must
depend on the promised Spirit. Act on the
promises. Get yourself so filled with the Spirit
that you shall not want to do what is not God's
will.

Gracious Spirit, dwell with me ;
I myself would gracious be,
And with words that help and heal,
Would thy life in mine reveal,
And with actions bold and meek,
Would for Christ, my Saviour, speak.

Truthful Spirit, dwell in me ;
I myself would truthful be,
And with wisdom kind and clear
Let thy life in mine appear,
And with actions brotherly
Speak my Lord's sincerity.

HOW TO TRIUMPH OVER EVIL 279

Mighty Spirit, dwell with ine ;
I myself would mighty be,
Mighty so as to prevail
Where unaided man must fail,
Ever by a mighty hope
Pressing on and bearing up.

Holy Spirit, dwell with me ;

I myself would holy be ;

Separate from sin, I would

Choose and cherish all things good,

And whatever I can be

Give to him, who gave me thee.

Dear friends, all this is true. If we believed
it more, it were better for us. We may have the
fruits of the Spirit, peace, love, joy, temperance,
meekness, if we will but believe toward the Spirit,
pray toward the Spirit, act toward the Spirit.

This is the way to overcome ; and may every
one of us live as never before, so that the Spirit
may fill us for Jesus' sake !

XXIV.
THE TOMB OF JESUS.

I KNOW of no thought that can so rob death
of its terrors and make it even pleasant, as
this fact, that he who is our Elder Brother has
been through it before us. We must all go
through an unknown country, by paths on whose
sides mysteries stand thickly; but when we
think of the tomb of Jesus, and think that he,
our Elder Brother, has been there before us, we
need not fear. What a complete and entire share
he has with us in our nature and in our destiny !
Jesus has been there; and it is quite impossible
that death should lead me anywhere where Jesus
has not been. It is quite natural to shrink from
death. People are much mistaken in thinking
that one cannot be a Christian, and yet not want
to die just now. " Dying grace is for dying
times"; but when we think of the change, how
comforting that " Jesus has lain there " !
280

THE TOMB OF JESUS. 281

1. The tomb of Jesus teaches us the certainty
of the divine love for us. This is a lesson that
we need to learn constantly, for so many things
seem to clash with the idea of the love of God.
On some beautiful April day, when the crocuses
are beginning to open their yellow petals, and we
know that we are in the vestibule of the spring,
we are glad that the long, hard winter is behind
us, and we can see evidences of the divine love.
But it was verv hard to see evidences of the
divine love in the blizzard, when the ministries
of love must stop, because the people could not
perform them. How may I, in all vicissitudes,
be absolutely sure that God loves? There came
to me once a very wonderful and real experience
which helps me now when I do pastoral work
and get into hard places where people fight the
wolf from the door, yet barely do it, plying the
needle every day. In Edinburgh, where the
houses are built so close together that if you
stand in the little alley between you can touch
the houses on either side, and where they are
piled up twelve stories high, and each story
crammed with human beings, living; in filth and

282 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

squalor and disease, I once made an exploration.
It was the most terrible day I ever spent; it
seemed to me as if all my faith were gone, and if
any one had told me God loves people, I believe
I should have felt like pointing at the people and
saying: "Does that look like love?" While
going on thinking about these things, I heard the
scrape of a fiddle, not the playing of a fiddle ;
and I turned and saw a little boy, his clothes
neatly patched, though well worn out, and his
shoes neatly blacked — at least his one shoe, for
he had but one leg. I gave him a silver piece,
and he looked as if he had never seen a silver
piece before. His appearance told of a mother in
those dark rooms trying to make her boy decent.
And I thought : " If God loves men and women,
how can he stand a thing like this ? This child
has to fight through life with the disadvantage of
one leg." And as I questioned, I saw a vision
of Jesus Christ on the cross. I am not given to
visions, but I saw one then. I saw the head
drop and I heard a voice as plainly as ever I
heard a voice, " The heart of God has broken."
And from that vision I rose into a kind of jubi-

THE TOMB OF JESUS. 283

lance of faith, and I said: "God does love men,
because Jesus Christ went down into death for
them."

2. The tomb of Jesus teaches us the value of
merely passive service. Milton sang, " They
also serve who only stand and wait." Sometimes
I think it would be well if you, in this church,
would only not keep me waiting so long for this
thing and that thing ! It is the waiting side of
the pastor's work which is the tough side ; it is
not the serving side. It is a very blessed lesson,
then, of the tomb of Jesus, that the best way is
sometimes simply to "stand and wait." Christ,
when he died, served best by passivity, and he
did more good than he could have done by
activity missing the passivity. Do not let wait-
ing merge, however, into laziness ; it is simply
when you cannot do, that you may remember that
" they also serve who only stand and wait."

3. This tomb of Jesus teaches us that what is
in the tomb is not ourselves ; it is only our bodies.
I have been saying, " Jesus lay there," but that
is not true ; he did not lie there. You know he
said to the thief, " To-day shalt thou be with me

284 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

in paradise " ; and that day was Friday, and on
that day Jesus and the thief were together in
paradise. Now, I suppose that is the way it will
be with us ; when we die, and the great change
passes over us, we shall go into paradise. But
what is paradise? We do not know; we only
know that it is being with Christ, if we love him,
and that it is a state of absolute blessedness. We
know it is not the complete heaven, because there
will not be a complete heaven until the resurrec-
tion ; but we ourselves shall be after death where
Jesus went, and paradise until the resurrection
will be heaven ; we shall be with the Lord, and
in rest complete. We shall be in companionship
with one another, for Jesus was in companion-
ship with others. The tomb holds only the body;
it does not hold us. I do not have to lie in the
tomb any more than Jesus had to lie there ; the
body is only my house. I wish we could talk
more according to the truth of things ; we do not
bury people; we bury bodies. You say you
have lost a child. Oh, no ! you have not lost a
child ; the child is in paradise. Jesus was not in
the tomb ; only his body was there.

THE TOMB OF JESUS. 285

4. That tomb teaches us that we cannot wait
very long by it without going on into the thought
of that tomb empty. As we wait by it, we can-
not help seeing the light of the resurrection falling
upon it, and the absolute annihilation of death.
" He showed me a pure river of the water of life,
clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of
God and of the Lamb. On either side of the
river was there the tree of life, and the leaves of
the tree were for the healing of the nations."
"And there shall be no more death." The
crowning thought of this world is death, for
death is the inevitable certainty. For husband
and wife there is always the harrowing fear that
one shall be taken and the other left. We are
haunted here all the time by the certainty of
death. But there is another world, and the
crowning thought of that world is life — "the
river of the water of life." For, see, our Lord
Christ from paradise returns on the morning of
the resurrection ; the tomb is empty and death is
utterly annihilated. You trust Jesus, and you can
take up the apostle's challenge, " O death, where
is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"

286 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

5. There is just another thing that we must
think of by the tomb of Jesus : Because there is
an empty tomb, we have a living Christ. Sup-
pose my father should write me, "My son, I
have determined to-morrow to do this thing for
you, and that thiug for you, and the other thing
for you," and I read the letter and say, " Father
is very good and very kind." Don't you see that
this promise of my father's is conditional upon
his life. Suppose the day should come (and may
God put far away that day!) and my father
should have died ; then he could never make his
promise good. Christ's promise is conditioned
upon his living : and all his promises are true,
because he is the master of death, and because
death cannot in any wise intrude or interfere.
The pure, great kaiser, in a kind of delirium at
last, is reported as saying : " If Russia threatens
me, I will be true to my Austria " ; but he died.
But Jesus lives forevermore, and so we are abso-
lutely sure of a living Christ as we wait here by
the tomb of Jesus. This living Christ will take
care of us ; let us trust him.

Let us trust; do not be full of forebodings.

THE TOMB OF JESUS. 2S?

Let us often think of those women going to the
tomb, on that morning, to make more sure, as
love would have it, of the sepulchre cf Jesus.
And they said, "Who shall roll us away the
stone ?" Yet they kept on going; and, as it
always is, the stone was rolled away. Although
the path may be black, yet he is alive, and he
will send his angel to roll away the stone, if we
go on in the service of faith.

That which weeping ones were saying

Eighteen hundred years ago,
We, the same weak faith betraying,

Say in our sad hours of woe.
Looking at some trouble lying

In the dark and dread unknown,
We too often ask with sighing,

11 Who shall roll away the stone ? "

Thus, with care our spirits crushing,

When they might from care be free,
And, in joyous song outgushing,

Rise in rapture, Lord, to thee.
For, before the day was ended,

Oft we've had with joy to own
Angels have from heaven descended,

And have rolled away the stone.

288 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

Many a storm-cloud sweeping o'er us

Never pours on us its rain ;
Many a grief we see before us

Never comes to cause us pain.
Ofttimes, in the feared to-morrow,

Sunshine comes — the cloud is flown ;
Ask not, then, in foolish sorrow,

" Who shall roll away the stone ?"

Burden not thy soul with sadness ;

Make the wiser, better choice ;
Drink the wine of life with gladness,

God doth bid the man, " Rejoice ! "
In to-day's bright sunlight basking,

Leave to-morrow's cares alone ;
Spoil not present joys by asking :

" Who shall roll away the stone ? M

XXV.

STRENGTH IN OUR SOUL.

THAT is very significant praise in the One
Hundred and Thirty-eighth Psalm, whi^h
David offers to God, in these words : " In the day
when I cried thou answerest me, and strength-
enedst me with strength in my soul/' And I
do not know of any gift that any of us need
more than just this gift, "Strength in one's soul."
We are frequently anxious for better and more
shining circumstances ; but the true need is not
any change of circumstance, but change of inward
self. We shall never in this world be surrounded
by circumstances that precisely suit us ; for, no
matter in what position we may be, we can
always suggest some improvement.

Ahab, looking out of his palace window, sees
the little plot of ground which was Naboth's
vineyard, and finds the lines of his grounds are
orooked, because that vineyard is in the way ;

T 289

290 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

and he is displeased. So it is with us all : what-
ever the prospect, there is some spot to mar ; and
this one defect seems so dark as to make us focus
our gaze upon it, and forget the light. So what
we need is not so much change of circumstance,
as change of self. If we had such faith in God
as David had, it would be a great thing for us.
On the seashore, some summer day, we see fre-
quently cast up by the waves a great mass of sea
weed. It goes where the tide leaves it, and has
no power of resistance ; it is the mere sport of
circumstances. But there, on the shore, we see,
jutting out into the water, some huge rock,
which, though battered by the waves never so
much, is strong against the waves, because it has
a certain power in itself. If the day be stormy,
and the tempest be let loose, still that rock stands
firm, the master of circumstances, because it has
power within itself.

And we are true men and women in propor-
tion as we are, instead of the subjects, the mas-
ters of circumstances. And we can never be
that until we can, like David, say : " Thou
strengthenedst me with strength in my soul."

STRENGTH IN OUR SOUL. 291

Now, that aged monarch, lying dead there in
Berlin to-day, is one of the most remarkable
instances of a strong soul in this century. It is
very interesting to look over the history of his
life, and see how, his mother fleeing from Napo-
leon I., and their carriage breaking down, they
sat by the roadside, and the mother sang to her
children, then bade them go into the cornfield
and pluck the little blue flowers which he, always
after, had pictured in his room as long as he
lived. I think you rarely ever find one so self-
centered as he, and so much the master of cir-
cumstances. And at the last, as always follows,
he found circumstances flowing to his touch, and
he molded them to suit himself. He was master
always, and not slave. Well, I think, surrounded
by our circumstances, what we most need is
not, perhaps, such strength of soul as that, but
specially religious strength. And yet I believe
the grand old kaiser had religious strength too;
I believe he was a devout Christian.

We all need strength of soul, and we are mis-
erably poor without it.

We need it in prosperity, though we are apt

292 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

to think otherwise. I have seen in many cases
that, as the thermometer of social and worldly
advantages rose higher, the thermometer of spir-
itual power sank down to zero. It is one of the
saddest facts that God's goodness, instead of
leading to repentance, so often leads to forgetful-
ness of him. A man does not think, perhaps, as
his business is increasing, or a woman, as she
finds herself cushioned in better circumstances,
that now special strength is needed that the soul
shall not lose its hold on God, and begin to trust
itself. When this happens, the soul gets weaker
and weaker still.

We need this strength in adversity, when we
are under chastisement. Please remember a dis-
tinction I have often made here: the distinction
between chastisement and punishment. We must
not think, if we are really Jesus Christ's, that we
are punished. God does not punish Christians,
for Jesus Christ has been punished in their stead.
Punishment is the infliction of penalty, and looks
law-ward. Chastisement looks not law-ward,
but culture- ward. We must have chastisement.
" Ye have forgotten the exhortation which speak-

STRENGTH IN OUK SOUL, 293

eth unto you as unto children : My son, despise
not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint
when thou art rebuked of him : for whom the
Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every
son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening,
God dealeth with you as with sons, for what son
is he whom the father chasteneth not? . . .
Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh
which corrected us, and we gave them reverence;
shall we not much rather be in subjection unto
the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily
for a few days chasteneth us after their own
pleasure ; but he for our profit, that we might be
partakers of his holiness." (Hebrews 12 : 5-10.)
So if we would be partakers of the divine holi-
ness, we need chastisement. And we need
strength of soul to endure it, remembering that
it is a sign of God's love, and comes from his
hand. And surely we shall need strength of
soul in time of death. I have just come from
the funeral of an aged sister, one of the sweetest
souls. For a year past, she has been lying under
the lingering shadows of disease as well as of age.
She met death in one of the sweetest ways that

294 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

ever I ^v. i Christian meet it. When I asked
her if she , ad any fear whatever, she said : "No;
I want to go. I am only waiting for the sum-
mons." She said she had the most complete
trust in Jesus Christ. Jesus had said he would
take care of her, and that was enough. She
wrent at last in the , quietness of a beautiful sleep.
Surely, when our time comes, we shall need
strength in our souls.

Now, the question arises, how can we have
this strength of soul? I am very sure we must
make the old answer: "We get this inward
strength b\ faith." Only let us be sure that we
understand what faith means. It is believed
that David wrote this psalm full of praise at the
time when he had had a distinct revelation made
to him that his house should endure through his
sons, and in the person of Jesus Christ, who
should come uut of his loins ; even as was fore-
told by the mouth of the prophet Nathan : "And
when thy days shall be fulfilled, I will set up
thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of
thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom.
And thine house and thy kingdom shall be estab-

TRENGTH IN OUR SOUL. 295

lished forever before thee ; thy throne shall be
established forever." It is believed that David
uttered this praise when God had uttered these
promises to him of the blessings that should come
to his seed in the person of the Messiah. Why,
he simply believed what God said, and there
came into his heart strength, because he could lay
grip on something, and was supported by it, and
so was strong. But we are constantly mistaking
faith for a kind of ecstasy. Faith is not feeling;
it is assent of the intellect to what God has said.
When you believe precisely as David believed,
you will be strong. Why should not David feel
strong when God had promised ? We are apt,
when something difficult comes, to gird ourselves
up and say : u Now, I must be strong" ; but we
find it desperately hard work, and finally per-
haps strength fails and we are overcome. Just
when our own strength fails, we can resist if we
can get something on which to lean. We have
something on which to lean : it is God's word.
You need not be lifted into some abnormal expe-
rience, in order to have faith, although such an
experience may come, as the result of faith.

296 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

David believes, and, believing, has strength to
meet all the doubt and all the wonder and all
the mists and all the future history of himself
and of all his house. Now, this is faith, and
this is the way to be strong. There is something
voti can lean on ; it is what God declares to vou
in his word. The reason why we are Christians
of so little faith is because we know so little of
what God has for us. God's book is full of the
sweetest, richest promises for them, yet they do
not know it. Dear friends, we cannot be Chris-
tians of strong soul if we do not have more knowl-
edge of God's word. Believe that the Scrip-
tures are written for us, and take hold of them
by faith. When vou are troubled, instead of look-
ing into the faces of your troubles, you should
just adopt God's way, the way of faith ; should
turn over the Scriptures, and read such passages
as this: "All things shall work together for good
to them that love God," and believe it.

I stood a thousand feet above the level of the
sea in the Yellowstone National Park. The
great mountains and the geysers and the prairies
and the sweet lake and the river were all within

STRENGTH IN OUR SOUL. 297

the horizon of my vision. And so you and I
can never get into such trouble that we shall be
out of the horizon of God's love. All things
shall work together for good. You need not
doubt whether God means blessing to you in this
or that grim experience. Now, suppose that,
instead of nerving yourself to meet some trouble,
you should determine to believe the promise and
keep hold of it. That is the way to get strong,
for faith is a grip on God's promise. I wish I
could get that miserable notion out of my own
head and out of yours, that faith is a sort of
ecstasy.

Another way to get this inward strength is to
use a promise as an argument in prayer. When
you use a promise as an argument, and when
you really pray a promise, then you increase
your grip, and that increase of grip reacts upon
you, and you feel stronger and stronger inwardly.
David used this promise in his prayer : " For
thou, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, hast re-
vealed to thy servant, saying, I will build thee a
house : therefore hath thy servant found in his
heart to pray this prayer unto thee. And now,

298 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

O Lord God, thou art that God, and thy words
be true, and thou hast promised this goodness
unto thy servant : Therefore let it please thee to
bless the house of thy servant, that it may con-
tinue forever before thee: for thou, O Lord God,
hast spoken it." Here God had promised this
thing, and David now uses this promise as an
argument.

I may have mentioned it before, but it always
used to impress me strongly. I have been with
Mr. Spurgeon a great deal, and I have looked at
him, and have said : "How can you be so easy ?
There is your orphanage, and there is your col-
lege, and there is your old women's home, and
there is that tremendous congregation, and you
have all to take care of." But he says : " What
is the use of being bothered ? I always pray
about it." And I ask him : "Well, how do you
pray?" And he answers: "I always get hold
of a promise, and I pray about it, and so I get
inward strength." The trouble with us is, we
do not pray promises much; we pray inward
desires. It is a tremendous power when you can
say: "O Lord Jesus, thou hast promised this

STRENGTH IN OUR SOUL. 299

thing, and this thing covers my desires." I
remember some years ago I determined to pray
about a particular thing from the promise,
"Whatsoever thou shalt ask the Father in my
name, he will give it you." And so I got ever
so much inward strength. The Lord loves to be
held with the close grip of our faith, for he will
never deny his word.

Then, also, we shall have inward strength in
proportion as we use the strength we have. You
have ever so much loose strength lying around
that you have never used. There are ever so
many people, for instance, who have gifts of real
talent for the Lord ; but they will not use them.
If we only lived up to the strength we have, we
should find we had far more than we supposed,
and that strength would be immenselv increased.
And so, by using strength you will get strength.

Another way in which we can get strength in
our souls is by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Always the spring seems like a miracle. I go
into the park and see the little nodules of buds
here and there along the sprays, and not the sug-
gestion of a leaf, all being closely folded in and

300 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

fastened by the glue ; and if I cut one of the buds
I find there is a little moisture, but very slight.
Yet, in the beautiful days ahead of us, that little
bud will throw off its blanket of down, and un-
furl more and more, until suddenly you shall find
that the whole tree is in utmost leafage, and the
glory of the spring and summer is upon them.
But the little leaf does not have to do it of him-
self. From the sun comes the heat ray and the
chemical ray and the light ray ; and these rays
start the bud and give it life. God is not ninety-
two millions of miles awray ; God is better to us
than the sun to the earth, because he is closer to
us. The very God himself dwells in us if we
will have it so ; and dwelling in us, he will make
us stroug.

Years ago, somebody came to me, troubled
about her fiery temper. She could not control it,
though she had tried many resolutions, but would
slip up now and then, till, in despair, she said,
"O Lord Jesus, I cannot do it myself, but I
consecrate this temper to thee. Come in and
give me strength." And that prayer was an-
swered. The Holy Spirit did enter and dwell

STRENGTH IN OUR SOUL. 301

with her, and somehow or other as if, on a hot
day in midsummer, the very coolness and fresh-
ness of some mountain ravine had come into her
and calmed her, and she became soft and sweet
of speech and absolutely triumphant, because the
Lord had strengthened her in her soul, since she
had opened her soul for the indwelling of his
Holy Spirit.

Let us endeavor to believe what God has said ;
let us use his promises as arguments ; then let us
use the strength we have ; and let us more than
all and beyond all, open our hearts for the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and we shall be
strengthened with strength in our souls.

Father, before thy footstool kneeling,
Once more my heart goes up to thee :

For aid, for strength, to thee appealing,
Thou who alone can'st succor me.

Hear me ! for heart and flesh are failing,

My spirit yielding in the strife ;
And anguish, wild as unavailing,

Sweeps in a flood across my life.

Help me to stem the tide of sorrow.

Help me to bear thy chastening rod ;
Give me endurance, let me borrow

Strength from thy promise, 0 my God !

302 SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

Not mine the grief which words may lighten ;

Not mine the tears of common woe ;
The pang with which my heart strings tighten

Only the All-seeing One may know.

And I am weak ; my feeble spirit

Shrinks from life's task in wild dismay ;

Yet not that thou that task wouldst spare it,
My Father, do I dare to pray.

Into my soul thy might infusing,

Strengthening my spirit by thine own ;

Help me — all other aid refusing —
To cling to thee and thee alone.

And oh ! in my exceeding weakness,
Make thy strength perfect : thou art strong

Aid me to do thy will with meekness,
Thou to whom all my powers belong.

Saviour ! our human form once wearing,
Help, by the memory of that day,

When painfully thy dark cross bearing,
E'en for a time thy strength gave way.

Beneath a lighter burden sinking,

Jesus, I cast myself on thee ;
Forgive, forgive, this useless shrieking

From trials that I know must be.

Oh ! let me feel that thou art near me ;

Close to thy side, I shall not fear.
Hear me, 0 Strength of Israel ! hear me ;

Sustain and aid ! in mercy, hear !

NOV 6 1899

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