The suffereing Savior, and other sermons

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Date,

Price,

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PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY

PRESENTED BY

Kenneth L. Maxwell

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The Suffering Savior

and

Other Sermons

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The Suffering Savior

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NOV 81974
Other Sermons \£J^/ogjcal SE^^

Rev. Daniel Shepardson, Jr., Ph.D. (Yale)

{Second Edition — Enlarged and Revised)

Fleming H. Revell Company

Chicago : New York : Toronto

Publishers of Evangelical Literature

Copyright, 1898, by Fleming H. Revell Company

TO MY WIFE

MARY BELLE SMITH,

who was willing to join her life to one in a
wheel-chair; who for four years with
rare sympathy has shared my shadows,
and whose peaceful presence and
constant good cheer have en-
hanced my sunshine, these
pages are gratefully
dedicated.

CONTENTS

PAQB

The Suffering Savior . . . .11

The Best Thing in the World . . 29

Christ, the Motive Power . . .47

Gradual Growth ..... 62

Working for Jesus 79

The Bible, the Word of God . . 96

The Dignity and Destiny of Man . .112
Sorrows Sanctified .... 128
Change Your Mind! .... 145
Two Kinds of Christians . . . 160
Individual Responsibility for Souls , .174
Paul's Prayer for the Philippians . 192
Thankfulness 199

PREFACE

The following sermons have been used of
God in many cities in the Central States,
during various seasons of special meetings,
while the writer has been traveling about as
an Evangelist. They are now published in
response to many requests from those who have
heard one or more of them, in the hope that they
may be a pleasant and profitable souvenir of past
experiences, and may render somewhat more per-
manent the impressions made at the time of their
delivery. The frontispiece will remind the
reader of the physical background of these
thoughts, and it is the fond trust of the writer
that some, who are among the "shut-ins," may
also derive help and cheer from the perusal of
these pages. The religion of Jesus is the only
religion that enables us to get along with sorrow
and shade without being either discouraged or
hardened by them. It alone furnishes the phi-
losopher's stone by which the baser metals, the
lead and copper of life, may be changed into the
imperishable and invaluable silver and gold of
character. All other religions of the world have
proved themselves to be religions of despair.
They have brought no sweet relief to the burdened

PREFACE 8

heart, and no Balm of Gilead to the broken life.
Where other religions have been dismal failures,
the religion of Jesus has gloriously triumphed.
He does "heal the broken-hearted, preach deliver-
ance to the captives, and set at liberty them that
are bruised." Christianity is pre-eminently a
religion of joy and sunshine. It brings gladness
out of grief, song out of sorrow, sunshine out of
shade. It is not a burden, but a boon; not a
hindrance, but a help ; not a fast or a funeral, but
a feast. The call of Christ as of the prophet of
old is, "Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye
that which is good, and let your soul delight itself
in fatness." That these pages may be blessed by
the great Lord of the Harvest to you, and may
help you to lead a more cheerful, consecrated,
Christian life, is the sincere pra3^er of the writer

D. S., Jr.
Newark, Ohio, July i, 1898.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION

The kind reception given to the first thousand
of ''The Suffering Savior," and the many evi-
dences of its helpfulness, have led me to enlarge
the original collection by adding the last five
studies of the present edition. May the Savior
continue to make the messages a blessing.

D. a, Jr.
Newark, Ohio, Sept. i, 1899.

The Suffering Savior

JJC« ^ JJP

Hebrews 2:10. — ''For it became him, for whom are all
things and through whom are all things, in bringing
many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their
salvation perfect through suffering"

JJC» jp JJP

THE writer of Hebrews in this section of the
book is giving us one of the reasons for the
sufferings of the Son of God. In the first
chapter he has shown us the infinite superiority in
nature and office of Jesus Christ to angels.
Angels are all declared to be *' ministering spir-
its," like winds or flaming fire, "sent forth to do
service for the sake of those that shall inherit sal-
vation." They are the messengers of God, the
pages of creation, that flit here and there on the
errands of the king, and help to carry out his
gracious purposes. They are subordinate beings,
lower than God in nature and office, fleeting in
appearance and changeable in form. Christ, how-
ever, is declared to be "a Son, through whom God
made the worlds, upholding all things by the word
of his power"; a Son, who, "when he had made
purification of sins, sat down on the right hand

12 THE SUFFERING SAVIOR

of the majesty on high," whom God ** appointed
heir of all things"; a Son, who was the outshin-
ing of God's glory, and the very impress of his
substance." Of this Christ more excellent
things are spoken, even in the Old Testament,
than are declared concerning angels. Of Christ
God says, in the 2nd psalm, "Thou art my Son,
this day have I begotten thee." Again, in
another psalm, God says of Christ, "Thy throne,
O God, is forever and ever; and the scepter of
uprightness is the scepter of thy kingdom.
Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity ;
therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with
the oil of gladness above thy fellows. ' ' And again,
"Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foun-
dation of the earth, and the heavens are the works
of thy hands; they shall perish; but thou con-
tinuest : and they all shall wax old as doth a gar-
ment; and as a mantle shalt thou roll them up,
as a garment, and they shall be changed: but
thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail."
And again, of Christ, God has said in the iioth
psalm, "Sit thou on my right hand, until I make
thine enemies the footstool of thy feet." Thus
Christ is declared to be a most exalted person,
high above all angels, and even identified with
God. He is Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, King.
He is a Son, is addressed as God, has an everlast-
ing throne, loves righteousness and hates
iniquity, has been anointed with the oil of glad-

THE SUFFERING SAVIOR 13

ness above his fellows, in the beginning laid the
foundation of the earth and made the heavens,
and at the last will roll them up as a worn-out
garment. Earth and heavens shall pass away, or
be changed into something new; but he, who
preceded them and made them, shall survive the
clash of worlds. He, the Christ, shall sit at the
right hand of the majesty on high, until all of his
foes shall be subdued.

"But," says an objector, "if Christ was Creator,
and is Sustainer, Redeemer and ultimate King of
all, if he is the outshining of God's glory and the
very impress of his substance, if he is God's
Son, has an everlasting throne, didst create and
will dissolve the worlds; if he is so exalted a
person, far above angels, and even identified with
God: how did it happen that this same Son, when
he was upon earth, appeared to be inferior to
angels? Angels are immortal. Angels do not
partake of flesh and blood, are not suscep-
tible to suffering, nor subject to death. But Christ
partook of flesh and blood, was a man among
men, lived a life of hardship and suffering, and
died a death of shame. How will you account
for these sufferings of Jesus? Were they not
inconsistent with his divine position and prerog-
ative?" It is in his answer to this objection that
the writer of the book of Hebrews gives us the
words of our text, ' ' For it became him, for whom
are all things, and through whom are all things, in

14 THE SUFFERING SAVIOR

bringing many sons unto glory, to make the cap-
tain of their salvation perfect through suffering. ' '
"It became him," it seemed fitting to God, it
commended itself to him; to him *'for whom are
all things, and through whom are all things, ' ' to
him who had all power and all resources, and
before whom were all possible plans of salvation ;
it seemed good to him in the process of "bring-
ing many sons to glory" — he wanted more sons
like Jesus Christ, and his object was to bring
these sons to glory — it seemed good to him "to
make the captain (or author) of their salvation
perfect through suffering"; not perfect in the
sense of being made free from fault or flaw, free
from sin, for Christ was absolutely and always
sinless; but perfect in the sense of having been
thus perfectly fitted to do his work as a sympa-
thizing Savior, and as High Priest for humanity.
In other words, to God, who had boundless
resources, the path of suffering seemed to com-
mend itself as the best possible way by which
Christ should become fully fitted to be the captain
of salvation for a sinful and suffering world.
This verse, then, brings strikingly before our
minds the thought of fellow-suffering as the real
basis of sympathy, and sympathy as the true basis
of helpfulness, about which I wish now to say a
few things.

I. Fellow-suffering is the longest line of
sympathy. Blood-relationship is usually a basis

THE SUFFERING SAVIOR 15

of sympathy. People born of common parents
generally have a fellow-feeling one for another,
have an interest in and sympathy for each other.
Brother sympathizes with brother, and relative
with relative. The basis of this sympathy is this
blood-relationship, but this is a very short line
and small circle of sympathy, embracing only a
few individuals at the most. Again, persons of
the same circle in society, of kindred tastes, of
similar professions or occupations, or of similar
religious persuasion, have a mutual interest in and
sympathy for each other. Doctors are inter-
ested in doctors, lawyers in lawyers, etc. This is
a sympathy based upon social, professional or
religious relationship, and is a still longer line of
sympathy than that of family ties, embracing a
much larger circle of people. Again, people born
in the same city or state, or who are citizens of
the same great nation, usually have a fellow-feel-
ing for one another, have sympathy with each
other. This fellow-feeling, based upon civic or
national lines, may not always be so very prom-
inent in one's thinking, but may lie dormant until
some unusual occasion calls it into action. For
instance, what a burst of manifested patriotism
has been suddenly called forth by our war with
Spain ! What a national fellow-feeling has been
aroused into consciousness by these stirring
events, until you and I, every one of us, has the
keenest, liveliest interest in everything that con-

i6 THE SUFFERING SAVIOR

cerns the welfare of every "boy in blue," whether
he assists in reconstructing government in near-
by Cuba, or in establishing and maintaining
peace and order in the far-away Philippines!
National relationship, patriotism, love of a com-
mon country, is the basis of this fellow-feeling; it
is a long line of sympathy, embracing seventy
millions of people. But there is yet a still
longer line of sympathy, based not upon family
ties, nor upon social, professional, or religious
relationship, nor upon civic or national kinship,
but based upon fellow-suffering. Ever since sin
entered the world by man's voluntary transgres-
sion, one lot has been the common experience of
all members of the race. We are all of us sin-
ners, and all of us sufferers. The world is full of
sin and filled with suffering; and because this is
so, suffering makes the whole world kin. Even
the suffering Cubans, though foreigners in
language, customs and race, became our fel-
lows, aroused our sympathies, and plunged
a great nation into a costly and bloody war,
for suffering is the longest line of sympathy.
And so when the great God, yearning over fallen
and falling men, determined to send his own Son
to be the captain of their salvation, in order that
the Christ might be most intimately and closely
related to every member of a suffering race, in
order that the Christ might get a strong hold
upon men, it seemed good to him, "for whom are
all things, and through whom are all things, in

THE SUFFERING SAVIOR 17

bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain
of their salvation perfect through suffering."
Had Christ lived among men as an earthly king,
surrounded with all the pomp and pride of power
and separated from suffering and want, it would
doubtless have seemed more in accord with divine
position and prerogative, but he would not in
that case have been the Christ for you and for
me. Far off from our wants and woes, with no
sufferings or sorrows or trials, he would not have
had real fellow-feeling or sympathy with us, and
without sympathy v/ith us, he could not help us ;
for fellow-suffering is the true basis of sympathy,
and sympathy is the real basis of helpfulness.
Had Christ lived in the so-called middle class of
society, experiencing its comforts and trials, he
would have been able to sympathize with and help
them, and all more favored than they; but he
would hardly have been able to help those who
were at the bottom of the social ladder, whose
sufferings and trials were so numerous and so
heavy. But, v\^hen the great Son of God, Creator,
Sustainer, Redeemer, King; when he who was
the outshining of God's glory, and the very
impress of his substance ; when he who made and
will dissolve the worlds, he who shall sit at God's
right hand, until his enemies shall be made the
footstool of his feet ; when he was born into our
suffering world, of humble and poor parentage,
taking upon himself the form of a servant, living

i8 THE SUFFERING SAVIOR

a life of suffering and dying a death of shame,
"borrowing a cradle from the cattle, and a grave
from a friend"; then God's love and God's wisdom
were manifested in making the captain of our
salvation perfect through suffering.

2. Again, note that suffering, like joy, is limited
by capacity. Some people have more capacity
for sorrow or joy than other people. Some per-
sons live a sort of negative, passive existence, on
a dead level, like a plain, w4th few mountain
peaks of exaltation and lofty joy, and few valleys
of depression or deep pain. Some people suffer
less than others, because of having less capacity
for suffering. Others have a large, full, receptive
nature, capable of rarest, purest delight, and also
capable of deepest, darkest trial and suffer-
ing. And so when we think of "The Suffering-
Savior," we must keep in mind the largeness of
his capacity. Capacity, both for sorrow and joy,
was at its maximum in Christ. He was in the
largest and fullest sense a nian^ every inch a man,
pre-eminentl}^ the Son of Man. No one else on
earth could know the height and purity of his joy,
for no one else had such a capacity for gladness ;
no one else on earth could know the depth and
awfulness of his dark sorrows, for no one else had
such a finely strung and sensitive soul. You
and I will never experience down here the highest
altitudes of "the joy of the Lord," because we
have not yet the capacity to receive them; nor

THE SUFFERING SAVIOR 19

will you and I ever (for there'll be no sorrow
there) be called to pass through shadows and
sorrows as deep as those which he experienced,
because our souls, with their limited capacities,
cannot fathom such depths. Our joys, compared
with his joys, are like starlight compared with the
glow of the noontide sun; our trials and sorrows
are unto his trials and sorrows as twilight shades
to midnight gloom. And then, too, when we
think of "The Suffering Savior," we must not
minimize the reality of his manhood. Christ
was a real man. There seems to be a tendency
in human thinking to swing like a pendulum
from one extreme to the other on this subject.
Sometimes men make so much of the divinity of
Christ as to forget his humanity. Sometimes
men make so much of his humanity as to forget
his divinity. Some men find it hard to accept in
their thinking the Christ of the Gospels, who is
really God, and yet truly man. Some men find it
hard to take the Christ as the Bible-writers and
history found him. One of the great arguments
for the faithfulness and trustworthiness of the
Gospel narrators is that they record the facts
both of his divinity and of his humanity, without
any attempt to explain or reconcile them. His
humanity and his divinity were both of them real
and genuine, and were often manifested side by
side in a very striking way.* For instance,

*Q^. Stalker's "Trial and Death of Jesus Christ."

20 THE SUFFERING SAVIOR

Christ, after a hard day's work of teaching and
healing in Capernaum, desires quiet and rest,
and asks the disciples to get a boat and push out
upon the lake. The disciples do so, and Christ
lies down, tired and weary, upon a pillow in the
stern of the boat. Soon he is fast asleep, so
soundly asleep as not to be disturbed by the toss-
ing of the boat, or by the storm that is now
raging; so soundly asleep that it was necessary
roughly to shake him, in order to arouse him. It
is the deep sleep of a weary man. But now, as
the disciples wake him with the troubled cry,
''Master, carest thou not that we perish?" Christ
arises from his sleep, rebukes the storm, and com-
mands the troubled elements, "Peace, be still."
"And there was a great calm." The disciples were
amazed, and doubtless felt, "It's the voice of
God!" Again, we see this Christ at the tomb of a
friend, and amid the grief and sadness of the
scene, "Jesus wept." They are the tears of a
man. And then, in a few moments, we hear
him as he stands before the rock tomb of his dead
friend and cries, "Lazarus, come forth"; and, at
the call of God, the dead awakes. Ah, yes! he
was both God and man ; and you and I will lose
much of the sweet helpfulness of the Christ of the
Gospels, if we minimize in our thinking either his
divinity or his humanity. In thinking, then, of
Christ, the Sufferer, remember at all times the
reality of his humanity. Bear in mind that he

THE SUFFERING SAVIOR 21

had a human body, that he was born of a woman,
that he grew in wisdom and stature as other men,
that he was hungry and thirsty and weary, feel-
ing the same kind of hunger and thirst and weari-
ness that you and I feel. Bear in mind that he
needed rest and sleep, that he was susceptible to
physical suffering and pain, that he "sweat, as it
were, great drops of blood falling down to the
ground," that he fainted beneath the cross, was
scourged and crucified, died and was buried.
Bear in mind that he had a rational nature, that
he was subject to temptation, that he had emo-
tions of joy and grief, that he felt compassion and
had displeasure, that he needed and practiced
prayer. Above all things, remember hi^; sorrows
and his troubles. Indeed, "he was a man of sor-
rows and acquainted with grief ' ; he had sorrows in
his own life, and was familiar with the woes of
others: grief, from the bereavement of death;
grief, from the unfaithfulness of his dearest
friends; grief, from the treachery of one who sat
at meat with him; grief, from the vicious and
unrelenting hate which followed him everywhere
from those who should have been his friends;
grief, from seeing the wickedness of the wicked,
and knowing the certainty of their doom ; grief,
from realizing his helplessness to save those who
would not come to him that they might be saved.
Ah! surely, he was the "man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief"; surely, the captain of

22 THE SUFFERING SAVIOR

our salvation was made "perfect through suffer-
ing!"

And yet, though perfectly fitted to be our
sympathizing Savior, many live and die without
the abiding consciousness of his helpfulness.
Some months ago, in a neighboring city, a bur-
dened one opened her heart to me and told me
her sorrow. She was a hunchback girl, and felt
lonely and hungry for companionship. "You
know," she said, to the man in the wheel-chair,
"my heart aches; I'm so lonely! I tell you this
because I feel sure that you, in your physical con-
dition, will understand my meaning. There are
times when Jesus don't seem to help me any, and
they too are the times when I need him the most.
You know. I get so lonely! I feel so much
alone in the world! The hunch on my back
separates me from everybody else ; even my own
mother don't understand me. No one knows my
peculiar trials and troubles. I am, at times, so
much alone! Even Jesus is not company for
me." And then, in order still further to draw
her out, I said, "How is it that Jesus can't help
you?" "Ah," said she, "Jesus didn't have any
hunch on his back, did he? He never knew how
it felt to be so lonesome!" Then I began to tell
to her again the story of Jesus. I told her of his
glory with the Father before the worlds were. I
told her of the purity and sweet companionship of
heaven, of the society of the angels, of how

THE SUFFERING SAVIOR 23

Jesus so loved us that he left all of these things
and came down to earth to die for us. I told her
how coldly he was received ; how, when he made
known in his home town his friendly and merciful
mission, his fellow citizens took him out to the
edg-e of a precipice and wished to hurl him head-
long to destruction. I told her of his rejection by
Capernaum and Gadara, by Samaria and Judea;
how '*he came unto his own and his own received
him not"; how he wept over Jerusalem because
of her hard-heartedness ; how he was misunder-
stood by friend and foe ; how he could not make
known the deepest thoughts of his heart, because
the people of earth were not able to receive them ;
how even his disciples had constantly material-
istic and selfish thoughts, while he was speaking
to them of spiritual things. I told her of the far
remove between his sinless soul and the best
thoughts of earth's purest ones. I pictured forth
his natural sociability and his lack of congenial
companions, his loneliness when he cried, "The
foxes have holes and the birds of the air have
nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay
his head"; for humanity had shut its doors and
its hearts against him. And then I told her of
Gethsemane and those trying hours ; how he took
the eleven with him into the garden (one of his
twelve most intimate followers was even now sell-
ing him for thirty pieces of silver). I told her
how he longed to have friends near him in the

24 THE SUFFERING SAVIOR

hours of struggle; how, feeling perhaps their lack
of sympathy, he left the eleven and taking the
three, Peter, James and John, went still further
into the Garden ; how, leaving even the three, he
went alone into the deeper gloom, and fell head-
long on the ground and agonized. The loneliness
and struggle of those hours, who can picture!
And then he returned to his friends for sympathy
and help. Were they watching and sharing his
sorrow? Ah, no; they were fast asleep. He
was alone in his trouble. And then I told her of
his arrest, and how all forsook him and fled. I
told her of his trial and scourging and cruel mock-
ing ; and how, when he hung upon the cross, the
gloom seemed so dark that even the face of
God seemed to be hidden from him, and he cried
out in his loneliness and woe, "My God! my God!
why hast thou forsaken me?" Then, turning to
the hunchback girl, I said, "Do you think you
ever felt as lonesome as Jesus did? Don't you
think that he can sympathize with and help you
now?" "Yes," she said, "I see it now, and I
will accept him as my sj^mpathizing Savior in
every sorrow." "For it became him, for whom
are all things, and through whom are all things,
in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the
captain of their salvation perfect through suffer-
ing."

Again, we must remember that this sympathiz-
ing Jesus is just the same to-day as of old. When

THE SUFFERING SAVIOR 25

he ascended on high, he did not lay aside his
humanity, his capacity for sympathy, his
human fellow-feeling; for the Christ who sits
to-day on the right hand of the majesty on high
is the glorified God-Man, Christ Jesus. His per-
fect humanity has been crowned and glorified,
but not given up. He is still "Jesus Christ, the
same yesterday, to-day and forever." "In him
dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."
We still "have a great high priest who hath passed
through the heavens' ' ; "not a high priest that can-
not be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
but one who was in all points tempted like as we
are, " "For in that he himself hath suffered being
tempted, he is able to succor them that are
tempted." The Christ in heaven is yet "a lamb
as it had been slain." In his exaltation he does
not forget the experiences of his humiliation.
He is now "the captain of our salvation perfect
through suffering. ' '

3. It follows, then, from these considerations,
that the reason why many have rejected Christ is
just the reason why they should accept him. The
Jews rejected Christ because of the lowliness of
his life, because he refused to live as kings usually
live. A royal Messiah they were ready to crown,
but a suffering Messiah they hasted to crucify.
Had Jesus on Palm Sunday come into Jerusalem
on a charging war-horse and as a military con-
queror, the result would doubtless have been

26 THE SUFFERING SAVIOR

different from what it was, when he came into
Jerusalem upon a humble beast of burden, and as
the Prince of Peace. The man of sorrows was
not to the Jews' liking, although it was through
those very sorrows that he was perfectly fitted to
meet their need. Paul found that a crucified
Christ was "to the Jews a stumbling-block, and
to the Greeks foolishness"; and yet, after all, he
was "the power of God and the wisdom of God
unto salvation" to all who believe; for it seemed
best "to him, for whom are all things, and through
whom are all things, in bringing many sons to
glory, to make the captain of their salvation per-
fect through suffering." Moreover, to-day there
are some who reject the divine Christ because of
his human sufferings ; and yet these very suffer-
ings were endured that he might the more fully
identify himself with those whom he came to
save, and by sympathizing with them help
them.

4. And now, in conclusion, let us note that as
Christ through his sufferings became the better
fitted to be our sympathizing and helpful Savior,
so we, through our sufferings, may become the
better fitted to be helpful to our suffering fellows.
It is only those, who themselves have really
suffered, who can have the truest and deepest
sympathy with those who suffer. This is one of
the most precious of the many compensations
which come to the sufferer that — in addition to the

THE SUFFERING SAVIOR 27

lessons of patience and faith which it is his high
privilege to learn ; in addition to the deeper appre-
ciation of the sufferings, sympathy, companion-
ship and promises of the Savior, which it is his
blessed lot to have ; in addition to the purifying
and strengthening of his own character, which
the submissive, cheerful and Christian endurance
of trials and suffering always brings about — in
addition to all these blessings, he who suffers
may gain, if he will, from his own sufferings an
enlarged capacity for sympathy with and helpful-
ness to others. What a privilege it is for the
suffering ones of earth, by living cheerful,
courageous lives in the midst of many shadows,
to be able to cheer, comfort and help others in
their trials! This thought was evidently in the
mind of Paul, that happy, thankful Christian of
many perils and much suffering, when he
exclaimed in the opening chapter of his second
letter to the Corinthians: "Blessed be God, even
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father
of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who
comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may
be able to comfort them which are in any trouble,
by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are com-
forted of God." And so, O burdened one, do not
be cast down by your trials, but find refuge in the
Captain of your salvation, who was made perfect
through suffering; and let not your sorrows and
suffering harden you, but rather may they

28 THE SUFFERING SAVIOR

increase your capacity for sympathy and helpful-
ness, and send you out to cheer and comfort
others with the comfort wherewith you yourself
have been comforted of God.

The Best Thing in
the World

Matt. 13:44-46. — "-'The kingdom of heaven is like unto a
treasure hidden in the field; zvhich a nianfoicnd, and
hid; aftd i7i his joy he goeth and selleth all that he
hath, and bicyeth that field. Again, the kingdom of
heaven is like unto a mati that is a 7nercha?it seeking
goodly pearls: and having found one pearl of great
price, he went a7td sold all that he had, and bought it.''

AS one passes along a thoroughfare of any of
our cities, and notices the people with
eager faces thronging hither and thither,
the question often arises, "What is it that each one
is seeking so earnestly? What is that thing of such
high value as to be worthy of such a relentless pur-
suit?" Some are seeking pleasure, some wealth,
some wisdom, some power. All of them are in
pursuit, directly or indirectly, of something which
they regard as a good thing, the winning of which
would result in personal gain. But the ends at
which they are aiming are so various, and differ
so much in actual value. Some are high, some

29

so THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD

are low, some are of great worth, some are value-
less; and the old question recurs again and
again, "What is the best thing in the world?"
What is that thing supremely desirable, for the
attainment of which it were well, if necessary, to
lose all things else? What is the chief good, the
siunmum boniun^ as the ancients called it? Is
there, after all, some one thing which, for all
people, irrespective of age, sex or condition, is of
highest value? If so, what is it, and how can
we obtain it?

I. Various answers have been given to this first
question, "What is the chief good?" These
answers have differed one from another as the
answers to a corresponding question have been
different. That probably is the greatest good for
each one of us which will hinder and destroy that
which causes us the most harm. Tell me what
you regard as the greatest evil of existence, and I
can readily determine what you think to be the
greatest good. Let us recall some of the things
that have been and are regarded by men as of
supreme worth.

It is thought by many that the greatest evil of
existence is physical evil. That sickness and
suffering, bodily disease and decay are the essence
of human ills. Corresponding with this view of
evil is the view that physical health is the great-
est blessing which any individual can possess.
To be sound in body, and to remain so, is to have

THE BEST. THING IN THE WORLD 31

the chief good. Led on by this idea, Ponce de
Leon, an old man, rich but weakened with age,
set out on the 27th of March, 15 13, from Porto
Rico, with three caravels to cross again the wide
Atlantic, in search of the longed for "Fountain of
Perpetual Youth," which Spanish folk-lore said
was situated in the islands beyond the sea.
When, after days of westward sailing, they
sighted the southeastern shore of our continent,
at that time green and beautiful to the water's
edge, their enthusiasm rose to the highest pitch,
and in their delight they named the place
"Florida," "the land of flowers. " Surely, such a
bower of bloom and beauty could only be ferti-
lized by a fountain of perpetual youth. Surely, in
such a haven health and strength would be per-
manent. You recall how expectantly Ponce de
Leon and his men explored the woods and
searched the valleys, hopefully bathing in every
stream and eagerly drinking of every spring, in
search of the waters of immortality. But, alas!
they were never found. De Leon returned to
Porto Rico, a broken-down and disappointed
man, only to die of wounds received on his fruit-
less journey. Health of body, freedom from
pain, must always be indeed a great boon.
Farthest is it from my thoughts to underestimate
its real worth. It is a gift of God to be devoutly
grateful for, to be guarded with zealous care.
But it is not the supreme good. There is some-

32 THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD

thing of higher value than this. It is possible
for one to enjoy for many years practically per-
fect health, and yet miss entirely the supreme
good. There is something better, to gain which
it were profitable, if necessary, even to lose this
so-called chief good.

In other days there were those who openly
avowed that the greatest good is pleasure, whose
motto was, "Let us eat, drink and be merry, for
to-morrow we die" — Epicureans, who thought the
greatest good in life was just to have a good
time. Even in this age of Christian civilization and
enlightenment there seem to be many follow-
ers of this ancient, heathen philosophy. But it
has always been true, that those who have sought
happiness in itself as the chief good, have always
ended by being themselves most miserable ; hav-
ing found that this, which was supposed to be the
chief good, was in truth but a deceptive dream.
The writer of Ecclesiastes presents to us one who
gave himself up unreservedly to having a good
time, and who drank to the full of every
pleasure possible, even to a king of limitless
resources and unbridled appetites ; but at the end
of his full round of pleasure, when he had tasted
all of her sweets, he sadly but wisely wrote,
"Vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities, all is
vanity." It is also worthy of note that the
so-called "school of pleasure'' never yet has pro-
duced a really great man.

THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD ss

Again, men have said that the greatest of all ills
is financial distress; that poverty is the main-
spring of human woe, and that, correspondingly,
the greatest good is money, wealth. This seems
to be the prevailing idea in the minds of many
Americans to-day. We are said to worship the
*' Almighty Dollar." This we believe to be a libel
upon the American people. But we see also
much ground for the accusation in the eagerness
to amass fortunes and in the materialistic direc-
tion taken by so much of our endeavor. Wealth,
however, cannot be the greatest boon, for in
many cases it proves to be the greatest of curses,
and those who have the most of it seldom regard
themselves as most fortunate. Xerxes, with all
of his wealth of armies, fleets and countless gold,
was far from happy, and offered a prize to the
inventor of some new pleasure. Men in all ages
have sought to find the chief good in wealth,
only to be disappointed. And one, whose author-
ity has never been questioned, has said, "What
shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world
and lose his own soul?" And of another, who
had amassed great wealth and felt that he had the
greatest good, it was said, "Thou fool! this night
shall thy soul be required of thee; then whose
shall those things be which thou hast provided?
So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and
is not rich toward God. ' '

Again, it has been said that power, or conquest,

34 THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD

is the greatest good. We have seen an Alex-
ander, driven by this thought, sweep over a whole
world with restless might, conquering everything
before him. And yet, when he had been uni-
formly successful and was without a foe resisting,
we are told that he "sat down and wept because
there were no more worlds to conquer." Surely,
that which is of highest worth, when won, should
be all-satisfying.

Others have said that ignorance is the cause of
the greatest evil, and that knowledge must, conse-
quentl)^, be the greatest good. In all ages of the
world there have been those of higher perception
who have felt that knowledge is the greatest of
all boons. The student spends years of hardest
toil in pursuit of this great good. Men and
women of great perseverance and faith have spent
a lifetime of active research in the attempt to add
something to the volume of knowledge. Surely,
this is a noble aim ; this is a lofty conception of
life. But knowledge in itself cannot be the
supreme good in life. I recall that Socrates
prayed: "O, Pan, make me to know that he is
rich who is wise" ; and, though this must ever be
regarded as a very high ideal, yet there was a
greater teacher than Socrates in view of whose
teachings even this high conception must be
regarded as falling short of the highest. Thus
we have seen a few of the answers that have been
given to the question, "What is the chief good?"

THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD 35

Is it health? Is it pleasure? Is it wealth? Is it
power? Is it knowledge? Men have answered
the question so differently. Is it a question,
after all, of real importance?

2. A radical difference between man and the
lower animals is that lower animals always act by
instinct, while the acts of man are put forth
in view of a rational choice. The horse eats,
sleeps, and spends its time in various ways, not in
view of any ultimate end at which it has arrived
by a course of reasoning, but impelled by the
inborn laws of its own existence which we call
instinct. It does not live according to any
plan, or in view of any final purpose. Man,
however, is a reasoning animal, and acts in view
of certain ends to be attained. True it is that
some, whom by courtesy we call men, do not
seem to have any aim in existence, and do not
live tmder the impulse of any end to be attained,
people who seem to drift here and there as the
tide ebbs or flows. But even they, in the
final analysis, are seen to act always, consciously
or unconsciously, in view of certain ends to
be attained. It may be, indeed, a very ignoble
one, as the gambler's aim, to get as much as
possible for nothing; or the tramp's, to do as
little work as possible. Or man's final purpose
in conscious or unconscious view of which all of
his acts are put forth, may be a noble impulse,
which drives him on with terrible zeal, and will

36 THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD

not let him rest, until the end desired has been
achieved.

Now, the determining of the question, "What
is the best thing- in life?" will have a very decided
influence in determining what the final purpose
of one's life shall be. Moreover, whatever
becomes the final purpose of one's life will
become the determining factor in all of one's
thoughts, feelings and actions. It will determine
the employment of one's time; will give direc-
tion to one's endeavors; will mould one's habits
and determine one's character; and character
here will determine destiny hereafter. As some
one has so truly said:

" Sow a thought, you reap a deed;
Sow a deed, you reap a habit ;
Sow a habit, you reap a character;
Sow a character, you reap a destiny."

The determining, then, of what is the best thing
in the world is the settlement of a question of
supreme importance, a question of far-reaching
results, a question which determines character
and destiny.

Sad would it be for us, if we were left in such an
important matter to the conflicting opinions of
men simpl}^, men who have differed so widely as
to what is of supreme worth. Fortunate indeed
are we that we have a higher court, a court of
ultimate appeal, a tribuiml whose authority.

THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD 37

trustworthiness and honor have never been
impeached, a teacher of whom even his enemies
said, "No man ever so spake."

In view, then, of the conflicting opinions of men,
in view of the supreme importance of the ques-
tion, we refer it for final solution to the great
teacher come from God, the Christ of Nazareth.

3. To the unerring mind of Christ, to him who
was the light of the world, to him who was the
way, the truth and the life, all things appeared as
they really are. He alone saw with undimmed
vision, and declared the fact, that the greatest evil
of existence is not physical evil, not poverty of
pocket, limitation of power, or ignorance of mind,
but domination of self and selfishness; that the
great sickness of the world, and of each indi-
vidual in it, is sin, which is the expression of sel-
fishness ; that the great need of each individual is
to be freed from the dominion of self and sin.
Accordingly, he came not as the deliverer from
the dominion of Rome, for that was not the great
need. He came to deliver mankind from them-
selves. In accord, then, with the chief purpose
of his divine mission, in two of his parables
Christ set forth the truth concerning what was of
supreme worth. He taught that the chief good,
the thing to be won, even at the loss of all things
else, if necessary, the thing of supreme value to
every person, irrespective of age, sex or condi-
tion, the thing worthy of supreme regard, was the

S8 THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD

kingdom of heaven; not referring in these say-
ings to the kingdom of heaven as an external,
visible society, as that reign of equity and peace
which shall ultimately subdue the world and
usher in a new order of things, a new heaven and
a new earth in which dwelleth righteousness ; not
having in mind, I take it, this aspect of the king-
dom of heaven so much as the idea of the king-
dom of heaven as an internal, individual
possession, the kingdom of heaven within every
man's heart, the result of Christ's purifying and
peace-giving presence.* This kingdom of heaven,
as an individual possession, is the greatest indi-
vidual good; this is the thing of supreme value.
Christ said, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto
a treasure hidden in the field; which a man found
and hid, and in his joy he goeth and selleth all
that he hath, and buyeth that field. ' ' And, again,
in calling attention to the superlative value of the
kingdom, he said, "Again, the kingdom of
heaven is like unto a merchant seeking goodly
pearls : and having found one pearl of great price,
he went and sold all that he had, and bought it."
Not only in these two parables, but in other
striking teachings of the Savior the same truth is
emphasized. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God
and his righteousness. ' ' Why first ? First in time

*In this Sermon and in "Gradual Growth" the author
desires to express his great obligations to the writings of
Prof. A. B. Bruce.

THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD 39

and first in importance, because it is of supreme
worth. Again, he said, "Let the dead bury their
dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of
God, " i. e. , even the most sacred rites and cere-
monies are to be held in less esteem than the
kingdom of God. It alone is of supreme value.
"No man having put his hand to the plow and
looking back is fit for the kingdom of God." It
deserves undivided allegiance, and should be held
in highest regard. And again, "He that loveth
father or mother more than me is not worthy of
me; and he that loveth son or daughter more
than me is not worthy of me. ' ' Christ and his
kingdom alone are worthy of the highest place.
There can be no doubt, then, from these par-
ables and sayings, as to the mind of the Master
regarding the chief good.

Let us note, in passing, to what in these two
parables our Master likens this chief good. In
the first parable it is likened unto a treasure hid
in a field, and in the second to a pearl of great
price. Both of these comparisons are, at first
thought, rather surprising. Why liken this great-
est of all blessings to a treasure hid in a field? Is
there, then, no more probability of one obtaining
it than of one finding a hid treasure? Then,
indeed, most of us would best give up the quest
at once And why compare this greatest good to
so common a jewel as a pearl? Surely the
diamond, the largest of diamonds, rather than a

40 THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD

pearl of great price, would be a more appropriate
parallel. But in both of these queries we have
lost sight of a very important consideration which
must always be kept in view when interpreting
the Bible. While the Bible, under the far-reach-
ing providence of God, was intended as a book for
all times and all places, and as a revelation of
God's will to all peoples in every age of the world,
yet it arose out of historical situations. Its
peculiar forms of thought and illustration were
moulded with reference, primarily, to the force-
ful teaching of the original hearers and readers.
And we must remember that while it is the Bible
for the world, it is also peculiarly oriental, and
has the ear-marks of the ages which form its back-
ground. Christ was speaking to an oriental
audience in the first century of this era. The
hiding of treasure in a field, or in the caverns of
the hill-side, in that time and place of frequent
robberies, when banks, safety deposit vaults and
sure investments were not known, was a very
common way of concealing valuables, and the
chance finding of such hidden treasure was also a
common occurrence. And the fact of the treasure
being hid is but an evidence of its value as being
worth hiding. Again, the diamond, which, in
our day, is the usual symbol of priceless value,
was, in the times of Christ, comparatively
unknown, and the pearl occupied as a symbol of
value a similar place in the oriental mind to the

THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD 41

diamond in ours. You recall that the lavish dis-
play of wealth made by Cleopatra reached its
culmination in pearls of magnificent worth, some
of which were estimated at a value equal to
$500,000 of our money. When she wished to
manifest her reckless devotion to Antony, it was
priceless pearls that were so rashly sacrificed.
Had Christ in his day compared the supreme
worth of the kingdom of heaven to the worth of
a priceless diamond, he would have used an
illustration wholly beyond the comprehension of
his hearers, the common people. There is, then,
no doubt as to the teaching of Christ concerning
the greatest good. The thing of supreme worth
to every individual is the kingdom of heaven as
an individual possession, the result of the purify-
ing and peace-giving presence of Jesus in the
believer's soul. Not health of body, not pleas-
ure, not wealth, not power, not knowledge even ;
none of these things is the chief good, but the
kingdom of God incarnated in the individual.
This is the one thing of supreme worth, the one
thing of highest value to every person, irrespec-
tive of age, sex or condition.

4. This is the chief good, but many do not so
regard it. In the parables of the Sower and of
the Great Supper, Christ clearly set forth the atti-
tude of many toward the kingdom. Some, the
wayside hearers, are entirely indifferent to its
worth. Some, the stony ground hearers.

42 THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD

impulsively seize upon it; but their emotion,
supported by no depth of conviction, does not
long continue, and the chief good soon disappears
from view. Others, the thorny ground hearers,
take it into their lives, but fail to recognize that
it must have supreme and absolute control;
other things are given a greater or less degree of
allegiance, and, sooner or later, these other and
antagonistic things dethrone the chief good and
drive it out from any practical control of the life.
But others there are, the good ground hearers,
who regard the kingdom as the one supreme
thing, the one thing of superlative worth, deserv-
ing of highest place and absolute loyalty. These
make Christian character the one end of life, and
they alone succeed in making the kingdom truly
their own. Again, in the parable of the Great
Supper, the Master taught how men are con-
tinually putting other things less worthy in the
place of the chief good. This chief good is rep-
resented as a great feast and many are invited.
But one regards the land which he has recently
purchased of more importance ; a second one con-
siders his yoke of oxen more valuable; while a
third much prefers the company of his newly
married wife. All of these things were good in
themselves, but the feast should have been the
thing of supreme moment. And to-day there are
many people absorbed in things that in them-
selves are all right, but which, when they take

THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD 43

the place that belongs to the chief good, become
a curse instead of a blessing. One of the most
important lessons of life is to learn to keep things
in their proper place, to put that first which
ought to be first, and never to let that which is of
secondary importance get our primary allegiance.
And we need so to live and to learn and to pray,
that we may have an undimmed vision of that
which is of highest value, and that we may keep
that thing of highest worth as our one chief aim.
5. The true attitude of every man toward this
greatest good is taught by Christ in the parables
read at the beginning of the hour. The man who
found the hidden treasure and perceived that this
was the most valuable thing, gladly went and sold
all that he had and bought the field; while he
that found the pearl of great price disposed of all
his other pearls in order to obtain this one, which
he saw was better than all others. This is the
attitude demanded of all who would make this
kingdom their own. The promise is, *'Ye shall
seek me and ye shall find me, when ye search for
me with all your heart. ' ' The answer given to
the rich young man, who worshiped his wealth
and who desired to know what he must do to
inherit the kingdom, was, ''Go, sell all that thou
hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have
treasure in heaven." Whatever stands in the
way must be sacrificed. Other idols must be
dethroned. This is the price which must be paid

44 THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD

for the kingdom. A large factor in determining
the worth of an article is the cost of production,
and this highest good, Christian character, is the
most costly of all products. It cost the Son of
God an infinite price, paid with his own precious
blood, that it might become possible for us. It
will cost us a lifetime of self-denial and devotion
before we make it fully our own. Let no
one suppose that this in any wa}^ contradicts the
freedom of God's offer of salvation. We are
saved by grace; it is the gift of God; not of
works, lest any man should glory; and yet we
are urged to work out our own salvation with
fear and trembling; for it is God that worketh in
us both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
We are freely made sons of God through faith in
Christ ; but we need also to grow in grace and in
the knowledge of his will, and to strive to attain
to the fullness of the stature of men and women
in Christ. If we are to attain to full Christian
manhood, we need to put the kingdom first. We
need to be willing to sacrifice all other things to
this one supreme end. We need to put out of
our lives all things which hinder, in any way, the
winning in the fullest sense this supreme good.
We need to subordinate and bring under the
demands of Christian character all other pursuits,
the acquisition of wealth, the pursuit of pleasure,
the winning of fame, or the getting of knowledge.
We must first be Christians, then learned law-

THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD 45

/ers, successful doctors, wealthy merchants and
honored workers in other lines as calling and
industry may permit. What the church and the
world need to-day above all things else is men
and women who will put Christian character first.
To-day the striking spectacle is witnessed of
thousands of men seeking places, and thousands
of places seeking men. There are plenty of
places and plenty of applicants; but there
are so few men and women. Over the door
of every profession and vocation in life there
has always been a standing advertisement:
"Wanted, Men." Not dwarfs, not pigmies,
not lopsided freaks; but well-developed, sym-
metrical men. Men with large hearts as well
as heads, trained to feel and to act as well as to
think. Men who are larger than their profes-
sions, who care more for character than reputa-
tion, more for integrity than honor, more for
manhood than money. Whatever, then, is your
profession or occupation in life, be it to handle
"plow or plane, the pick or the pen," be it
humble or high, prominent or obscure, whatever
your occupation, make Christian manhood your
business. Be willing, in seeking this highest
good, to act as men in other lines act, when they
are pursuing what they falsely suppose to be of
highest worth. Let us give ourselves unreserv-
edly to it. Let us make it the passion of our
lives. Pursue it with unflagging zeal. Give it

46 THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD

the devotion of a Nathan Hale, who nobly said,
"I regret that I have but one life to give to my
country." Pursue it with the perseverance of a
Paul, who said, "This one thing I do, forgetting
the 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!" If, then, we make Christian
character the chief end of life, and pursue it with
the diligence and devotion that it deserves, the
days spent here will be a joy and a blessing to
ourselves and to others; and over yonder there
will be a larger and fuller development of the
life which here was only begun.

" Wanted Men!
Not systems fit and wise ;
Not faiths with rigid eyes ;
Not wealth in mountain piles ;
Not power with gracious smiles;
Not even the potent pen ;
Wanted Men!"

Christ the Motive Power

-^•^•^

2 Cor. 3:14. — ''For the love of Christ constraineth us"
(impels lis, drives us on).

Oj£| O^ Oh^

NE of the most interesting and far-reaching
questions in the wide-awake, scientific
world of to-day is the question of motive
power. What force, what power is best adapted to
turn the wheels of manufacture, to whirl our
trains across the continent, to speed our ships over
the seas and to drive our cars through the streets
of our rapidly growing cities? What force is to
furnish the enginery of civilization? This is now
the great question in the scientific world.

Likewise, in the moral world as well as in the
physical world, the great question from the begin-
ning of time has been the question of motive
power. What force, what power is sufficient to
reach down and take hold of weak, selfish, sin-
cursed men and women, living in the malarial
swamps of evil, and lift them up to a higher,
purer plane of life? What force is sufficient to
enable man to break the bonds of self and to get
free from the toils of sin?

47

48 CHRIST THE MOTIVE POWER

Various systems of philosophy and religion
have been offered as a cure for the ills of sin, and
as a sufficient inspiration to a higher, better life.
The main difference between them has been a
difference of motive power, and their failure or
partial success has been due to the inefficiency
or the partial sufficiency of the motive power
provided. In the far-reaching providence of
God, these systems have been allowed or inspired
to prove their own insufficiency, and to prepare
the way for the only religion which ever has been
offered, or would be offered with a motive power
adequate for the purpose. Three great nations
of antiquity preceded the coming of Christ, and
each in its own, or rather in God's own way, pre-
pared the way for his coming. Each of them
offered a motive power to a higher life, which
proved defective, and w^hich only made more
manifest to the world the world's need of some-
thing better. Consider, then, with me this morn-
ing three huge failures and one magnificent
success :

THREE HUGE FAILURES

I. Greece: The God of Greece was culture.
The Greeks tried to furnish in the cultivation of
the intellect a motive power sufficiently strong to
uplift and save man. The sense of "the noble,
the beautiful and the true," aroused in man, was
to restrain him from the shame, ugliness and

CHRIST THE MOTIVE POWER 49

falsity of sin. Proper perception of the real
worth of things would be a motive sufficient to
lead a man to choose the better and to reject the
worse. But should the question arise, "How
arouse this saving sense of 'the noble, the beauti-
ful and the true'?" how give men a proper per-
ception of the real worth of things? The answer
the Greek gave was, "By education." The
highest representative of this idea was Socrates,
who through his pupil, Plato, has given us a
most profound attempt to uplift and save the
race.

Plato believed in a personal, self-conscious,
supreme Being, a God; but a God afar off,
entirely beyond the ken of man, surrounded with
mystery and himself unknowable. But side by
side with this far-off, unknowable God was a
world of patterns, models, divine ideals, accord-
ing to which all visible things in this material
world of ours are formed, and of which models
the visible world is but an imperfect copy. Now
and then, Plato believed, there is a man of acute
mental perception, of keen spiritual insight, a
philosopher perhaps, who is caught up to a third
heaven, as it were, upon the wings of inspiration,
and from this mountain top is given a sight, a
vision of these patterns, models, forms of the
divine mind, of which our world is the imperfect
copy. This beatific vision would be forever
afterwards an inspiration to draw him to higher

50 CHRIST THE MOTIVE POWER

things. This was a beautiful conception of Plato's,
but alas ! it had two serious defects. This vision at
best lasted but a moment, and was not long
enough continued, nor oft enough repeated to
prove a lifetime inspiration. And then, too, only
those of keenest intellect could have this vision.
No provision was made for the salvation of the
average man. Only a very few at the most could
ever be saved. And so the best that Greece, the
best that culture, could do, failed to change the
life, to restrain from sin, or to renew the heart.

2. Rome: The God of Rome was law. The
fundamental trait of Roman character was
reverence for authority, and a habit of absolute
obedience. This was the developing principle in
the formation of the national life. To the Roman
boy, the father of the family was the expression
of absolute authority (the Roman father had the
power of life and death over his children) ; when
the boy became a man, the state bore to him a
similar relation. He in Rome was most virtuous,
most excellent, who advanced in the highest
degree the welfare of the state; and since con-
quest was the prevailing aim of the state, per-
sonal bravery and military prowess became the
chief good. This for a time produced a sturdy
type of character, the valiant Roman. But as
soon as the state itself became corrupt, as soon
as the fathers themselves became weaklings,
reverence for law and authority died, and Rome

CHRIST THE MOTIVE POWER 51

rotted. External law proved insufficient to
change the life, to restrain from sin, or to renew
the heart.

3. The Jews: Again, the Jewish people were
given by God a special capacity for religion, and
were taken by him to be the chosen medium of
revelation by means of the preparatory system of
Judaism. Judaism was a religion largely of
externals; of rites and ceremonies; pictures, to
be sure, of high spiritual realities, but not given
as a final religion, or as an ultimate solution of the
question of moral motive power. It was only
preparatory. In the far-reaching providence of
God, it was used to demonstrate the insufficiency
of the blood of bulls and goats, as an offering for
sin, and of external rites and ceremonies, as a
motive power to uplift to holiness, no matter
how grand, imposing and awe-inspiring these
rites and ceremonies might be. The law was, as
Paul has told us, only a school-master to lead us
unto Christ. It was never intended as a sufficient
motive power to change the life, to restrain from
sin, or to renew the heart.

Thus was the world prepared by three great
failures to witness the fact of one magnificent
success.

ONE GREAT SUCCESS

In the fullness of time Christ came to an
expectant but sin-beclouded world. To a world

52 CHRIST THE MOTIVE POWER

that had witnessed the failure of culture, the
height of attainment of law, and the impotence
of ritual; to a weary, disappointed, sin-enslaved
world, needing, oh! so sadl}^ some mighty
motive power v/hich should come down with the
omnipotence of God, and lift up fallen and falling
humanity to a higher, purer air. To such a
world, God came in the person of Jesus Christ.
God, not now "The Unknowable," far removed
beyond the ken of man; not a God of Mystery
enshrined in a secret Holy of Holies, and
approached only through symbolic sacrifices
and clouds of incense ; but God manifest in the
flesh — God with us. Immanuel, in human form,
with human sympathies, and in intimate relation-
ship with men. And as Jesus, Son of God and
Son of Man, "went about doing good," he said to
those who had failed to find elsewhere a sufficient
force to uplift, "Follow me"; and to those
wearied by futile efforts to find release from self
and sin, "Come unto me, all ye who labor and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take
my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am
meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest
unto your souls." To the darkness of the world
he said, "I am the light of the v/orld. " To
those seeking truth he said, "I am the way, the
truth and the life"; and speaking of the power
which his life and death were to have in the
world, he said, "And I, if I be lifted up, will

CHRIST THE MOTIVE POWER 53

draw all men unto me." Three and a half years
were thus spent in intimate contact with men,
during which he continually referred to himself
as the one source of light and life. And when, at
the end of his earthly ministry in the flesh, he
hung upon the cross; when Greece with culture,
and Rome with external law, and the Hebrews
with ritual had failed to save; in the day of his
apparent defeat, but of his real victory, these three
great nations of antiqtiity bore unwilling witness
to their own insufficiency and to his almightiness,
when, over that cross on Golgotha, it was written
in Greek, in Latin, and in Hebrew, "This is
Jesus, the King of the Jews." Here is a motive
sufficient. Here is power. Here is the King.
Three days he lay in the grave, after which he
arose from the dead, because the tomb could no
longer hold him. During the space of forty days
he showed himself alive to his brethren, and
talked with them concerning the things of the
Kingdom; and when at last he left for a time
their mortal vision, he said, "Go, carry on my
work in my strength, for lo, I (in the person of
the Holy Spirit) am with you all the days." So
they went forth to their work, walking and talk-
ing with Jesus, living and working daily in con-
stant and conscious communion with the Spirit,
and under the impetus of his love for them and
their love for him. So also Paul, having been
converted at the sight of this same Jesus, was

54 CHRIST THE MOTIVE POWER

consumed with love for him ; was driven on from
place to place in zealous activity and service;
impelled by a personal, passionate attachment for
Christ. In his second letter to the Corinthians he
explains the secret of his zeal by the words of the
text, "For the love of Christ constraineth us;
because we thus judge, that one died for all,
therefore all died ; and he died for all, that they
who live should no longer live unto themselves,
but unto him who for their sake died and rose
again." Here, then, is the motive power, "The
love of Christ."

Thus we see that the power of Christianity was
not to be the power of a creed, nor the power of a
ritual, nor even (I say it reverently) the power
of a book ; but the power of a person. Christ in
us. The source, center and goal of Christianity
is Christ. Christ is Christianity. Strange is it
that a part of the church should have for so long
a time lost sight of this fact, and buried the Christ
under ritual and creed and ceremony. A hopeful
sign is it for church and college and the world,
when from all sides in these thoughtful days,
when men are trying to find the secret of our lack
of power; a hopeful sign is it, when high theo-
logians and humble evangelists, devout students
and a hungry church, all unite in the agonizing
cry, "Back to Christ, give us Christ, we must
re-discover Christ." To those who inquire,
"Why is not the church more powerful? why are

CHRIST THE MOTIVE POWER 55

so many Christians without power?" the sorrowful
answer of Mary is heard in reply, "Because they
have taken away my Lord and I know not where
they have laid him." The person of Christ is the
motive power in Christianity. Personality is
always power and the only real power. The his-
tory of the world reveals the power of person-
ality. The history of the world is but the history
of a few great men. History is mostly biography.
Men make history. The history of missions
reveals the power of personality. The history of
education bears witness to the same fact, the
power of persons. The history of revelation
reveals the same fact. The Bible is not an
abstract statement of theology. A large part of
the Bible is history; much of it simply biog-
raphy. God has revealed truth through men.
Men live truth, thus truth becomes alive and
powerful, because personal. So in Christianity,
the center and source of power is the Person of
Jesus Christ.

THE POWER OF CHRIST

I. Now, the power of Christ depends first upon
his character and work. The amount of power
which any one has in this world, other things
being equal, is in proportion to the purity and
sincerity of one's life. Dear friends, young and
old, let us never forget this. You and I will have
power in this world, other things being equal, to

56 CHRIST THE MOTIVE POWER

the degree that our lives are pure and sincere. In
proportion as these elements of purity and
sincerity are lacking-, power will be lacking.
Let us recall the purity and sincerity of the life of
Christ. He could always meet the opposition of
his foes with the brave challenge, "Who con-
victeth me of sin?" It is sincerity that gives
courage and power. The insincere man is always
a coward. "Conscience doth make cowards of us
all." Christ could teach the highest precepts
with absolute authority, because his practice
always accorded with his precepts. He was the
most influential teacher that ever lived, not simply
on account of the substance of his teaching, but
because he was the only teacher who ever lived
whose life was equal to his highest precepts.
There is something irresistibly attractive in real
goodness, and Christ by the power of his purity
and the sincerity of his life has ever been winning
new friends to himself.

And then not only the purity and sincerity of
his life gave him power, but also the character
of his work gave him great power. His whole
life was unselfish, his whole work was for
others, a life of unselfish devotion to the good of
men. He it was who made it clear that he is
greatest who serves most his fellows, he is most
powerful who suffers most for others' good.
Gratitude has always been a most powerful basis
of appeal, and Christ gained power over men by

CHRIST THE MOTIVE POWER 57

doing things for men. The most significant
comment upon his life ever written was, "He
went about doing good." He put men under
obligation to himself by the favors which he
did them; while his crowning work of sacrifice
of self upon the cross for men's sins, must ever be
a source of tremendous power. Christ's resur-
rection also from the dead and the power of an
eternal life have given him a great hold upon
men. We do not worship a dead Christ, but a
living Christ. Buddha in leaving his followers at
his death did indeed with sadness say, "Your
teacher you will no longer have, but I will leave
you my teachings. " But Christ, when about to
depart for a time from mortal vision, triumphantly
said, "Lo, I am with 3^ou alway. " He ever liveth
to make intercession for us, and through us he
still pleads with men.

2. But the power of the person of Christ
depends not simply upon his character and work,
but also upon the intimacy and character of the
relationship established between himself and
men. This relationship was of the most intimate
kind. In Christ we have not Plato's God,
afar off and unknowable; not a God "sitting on
the outer rim of the Universe and watching it
spin," but God in intimate relationship and
sympathy with men. He took upon himself all
of man's limitations; he was tempted and tried
in all points like as we are ; he entered into every

58 CHRIST THE MOTIVE POWER

human experience, tasted the joys and sorrows
common to the race. He literally put himself
into man's place, and lived as a man among men.
And then he said to his followers, "I call you not
servants, but I have called you friends; for all
things that I have heard of my Father I have made
known unto you." "My Father and I desire
to live on very close terms with you; we desire
to come in and sup with you and abide with you,
and we desire you to abide with us. The bond
of love is to be the tie between us." Ah! here
was a motive power indeed! Cold, critical cul-
ture never saves anybody. Never has, never
will, never can. We are apt sometimes to think,
or to wish, that the world might be ruled by
reason, or logic; but 'tis not so, 'twill never be so.
Life is greater than learning; heart is mightier
than head ; love is stronger than logic. And the
poet has done well to sing :

"Ah. how skillful grows the hand
That obeyeth love's command !
'Tis the heart and not the brain
That to the highest doth attain ;
And he who followeth Love's behest
Far excelleth all the rest."

Here, then, in our text Paul has given us the
secret of power in Christianity, "The love of
Christ constrains us." Christ's love for us, as
shown in his self-denying life and sacrificial
death ; and our love for him, aroused by his own

CHRIST THE MOTIVE POWER 59

moral worthiness, the benefits conferred and the
kindnesses done, must ever be the motive power,
the driving force, which impels ns by love's own
sweet compulsion to more and more zeal in his
service, and to efforts for those for whom he
died. Here, then, in such a personality, and in
such a bond of relationship, is a mighty motive
power, the best that God in his wisdom and
mercy could provide; but somehow we don't seem
to have in our churches the power which we
should have. You have not in your church the
power you ought to have. Why is it? In what
does the power of a church consist? The power
of a church is the sum total of the personal
powers of each of the members, plus that incre-
ment of power which comes from union. Just
this; no more, no less. You, then, individually
are responsible for a part of the lack of power. You,
then, individually are able to add to the power by
increasing the power of your own Christian life.
This may be done in two ways. First, we must
come into more intimate relationship with Christ,
the source of power. We need to get full of God's
spirit, and then we'll have influence, then we'll
have power. We need to be on fire for God.
We must remove from our lives those things
which hinder our growth in grace, which interfere
with our freedom in prayer and in service ; those
selfish indulgences, those un-Christlike things,
which mar our spiritual lives and lessen our power

6o CHRIST THE MOTIVE POWER

with God and man. Then, by reading God's book
and thinking God's thoughts, by prayer and medi-
tation, and by activity in his service, we need to
be drawn more closely to him.

But not only the relationship Godward needs
renewing and strengthening ; we must also come
into more intimate contact with men, if we are to
have power over them. We hear much about
the separation of the church from the masses. If
they are separated from each other, they never
became separated en masse. They become
separated as individuals. They must be brought
together as individuals. Pharisaism by its
separation could never save the world, but
Christianity by personal contact of Christlike
individuals with individuals, can and must save the
race. Men are not saved at a distance, but by
personal contact with saved men, who reveal to
them a living, present and powerful Savior. If
we would have power, then, we must come into
most intimate relationship with Christ, the source
of power, and with those whom we would save.

Some years ago I looked upon an interesting
picture. In the foreground was the ocean,
stirred by a storm, its billows tossing mountain
high; while in the background was a rocky
shore, and upon its crags a large cross, to which
was clinging the form of a woman, just rescued
from a watery grave. Ah! it was a beautiful
sight ; for, with both arms firmly clasped about the

CHRIST THE MOTIVE POWER 6i

cross, she looked heavenward with beaming face
and read on the sky the song of her soul, "Simply
to thy cross I cling." This, I thought, was a
Christian masterpiece ; until some time afterwards
I saw another picture which excelled the first as
sunlight exceeds the light of the stars. In the
foreground there was the same storm -swept
ocean, in the background the craggy shore, the
cross and the inspiring motto; while aAvoman just
rescued from the deep, clung with one arm only to
the cross, and, with face heavenward and seaward,
stretched out the other arm to those who were
perishing in the same sea from which she had
scarcely been saved. Ah! methinks the latter is
Christianity! Not both arms about a cross, and
ecstasy over personal salvation, forgetful of the
peril of others; but with a firm grasp upon the
cross with one arm, with face Christward and
manward, the other stretched out to save our fel-
lows. With one hand in the hand of the sinless,
and the other hand in the hand of the sinner, let
us in Christ's stead beseech men to be reconciled
to God. So shall the Person of Christ be the
motive power in our lives, and become the loving
Savior of others.

Gradual Growth

JJC» ^ Jf»

Mark 4: 28. — ''First the blade, then the ear, after that
the full corn in the ear.''

0UR Lord spoke three parables about the
Kingdom of God with reference to the
subject of growth.*

(a) At one time he said, "The Kingdom of
God is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when
it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds
that be in the earth; but when it is sown, it
groweth up and becometh greater than all herbs
and shooteth out great branches, so that the
fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of
it. ' ' By this parable Christ represented the King-
dom of God as an external society, beginning
small and increasing in size, and growth in the
Kingdom as something external and visible,
resulting in increased bulk.

(b) Again, our Savior likened the Kingdom of
God to "leaven, which a woman took, and hid in

* Again I desire to express my great debt to the writings
of Prof. A. B. Bruce.

62

GRADUAL GROWTH 6s

three measures of meal, till the Avhole was
leavened." In this parable the Kingdom of God
is represented as an internal force ; and growth in
it as something internal, invisible, resulting in a
transformed mass.

(c) Again, our Savior said, "So is the Kingdom
of God, as if a man should cast seed into the
ground; and should sleep and rise, night and
day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he
knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth
fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear,
after that the full corn in the ear. But when the
fruit is ripe, immediately he putteth in the sickle,
because the harvest is come." In this parable
emphasis is laid upon the nature of growth, as
something mysterious, something spontaneous,
and something gradually progressive.

It is necessary in the interpretation of all
illustrations, comparisons and parables, carefully
to recognize the difference between that which is
essential and that which is incidental, between
figure and shading, foreground and background.
For instance, when our Lord's second coming is
likened unto the coming of a thief in the night,
it is evident that the thing taught is not that he
shall necessarily come at night time, nor that he
shall use the devices of a thief, but that he shall
come suddenly and unexpectedly. Now, in the
parable above mentioned, of "the blade, the ear,
and the full corn in the ear, 'it is evident that

64 GRADUAL GROWTH

"the casting of the seed into the ground," and
**the putting in of the sickle when harvest time
has come," are but shading to round out and
complete the picture. Three things seem to
stand in the foreground and to be emphasized:
The mysteriousness of growth, "it springeth and
groweth up and he knoweth not how" ; the spon-
taneity of growth, "the earth bringeth forth fruit
of herself"; and the gradual progressiveness of
growth, "first the blade, then the ear, after that
the full corn in the ear. " As to which of these
three ideas was predominating in the mind of the
Savior at the time of utterance, if indeed any one
was foremost in his mind, may be a matter for
difference of opinion or interpretation ; but to my
own mind the thought of the gradual progressive-
ness of growth is the more prominent, and the
phrases, "first the blade, then the ear, after that
the full corn in the ear, ' ' are the more emphatic.
Allow me, then, to take the clauses, "first the
blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the
ear, " as a text, and to call your attention to the
law of gradual and progressive growth.

I. We note first that this law is easily recog-
nized as a law always operative in the natural,
physical world. In the springtime, as processes
move on before our very eyes, we see the erst-
while leafless and apparently lifeless trees, under
the influence of warmth, sunshine and rain,
begin to bud and to blush with the might of life.

GRADUAL GROWTH 65

As night and day, sunshine and shade follow, the
buds develop and burst into fragrant bloom,
green fruit and shade-giving leaf. Summer fol-
lows spring, and the gradually progressive proc-
ess goes on, until the ripening days of autumn
bring processes to fruition and the development
is complete. Among animals, also, there is the
spring of childhood, the summer of youth and
middle age, and the autumn of maturity. In
the vegetable and animal worlds alike, i. e.,
wherever there is life and growth, the law of
the gradualness and progressiveness of growth is
seen.

But Christian apologists, while easily admitting
the existence of such laws in the natural world,
have been slow to admit their existence in the
world of spiritual things. There has been mani-
fested a certain fearfulness, lest if there should be
admitted the existence in spiritual things of laws,
of such things as cause and effect, the spiritual
might be debased to the level of the natural.
There has been a fear, lest if natural laws were
admitted to have counterparts, or analogous laws,
in the spiritual realm, the spiritual might become
natural, law and order might be enthroned as
God, and the Creator ruled entirely out of the
Universe. And yet, what seems more reasonable
than that he, who established the laws of nature,
should have established similar laws in the world
of spirit. Must the supernatural be necessarily

66 GRADUAL GROWTH

contrary to nature, and miracle be equivalent to
magic? However, such reasonings are rapidly-
passing away, and a wider scholarship and a more
tolerant age have given us a new point of view.
To-day we everywhere recognize in spiritual
things the existence of laws, laws which in many
cases seem to be analogous to, or identical with, the
laws of the natural world. Let us consider the
oneness of this law of gradualness and progress-
iveness of growth in Creation, Revelation and
Sanctification.

2. Creation was gradual and progressive. I
am not advocating that theory of so-called evolu-
tion which would make the ape the remote
ancestor of man. For over against a century of
theorizing and experimentation to support such a
theory of evolution, must be written the verdict,
' ' Not proven. ' ' No well differentiated species has
ever been produced. Interesting varieties have
been developed; but a fatal law of atavism has
always brought about a reversion to the original
type. Connecting links have either been lost, or
never existed. In the mineral world, however,
we have preserved to us the record in geological
strata of the gradual preparation of the earth for
man. But whatever may be one's theory of
evolution, whether it were a true evolution or by
distinct creative acts; creation was, at any rate,
probably a gradual and progressive process. This
is not only not contrary to, but in exact accord

GRADUAL GROWTH 67

with, the general teaching of the program of
creation, presented to us in the first chapter of
Genesis. First God existed. Then the heavens
and the earth were created, without form and
void, enveloped in darkness, but under the brood-
ing spirit of the Almighty, Then light, a first
necessity of life, was created. Then heaven,
earth, dry land, sea, night and day were sepa-
rated. Then vegetable life appeared. Then the
lower animal life and fishes. Then quadrupeds
and the higher vertebrates, and finally man.
Thus the process was a gradually progressive one,
leading from lower to higher, culminating in
man, the highest of all. The law of creation was
"First the blade, then the ear, after that the full
corn in the ear."

3. Again, Revelation was gradual and pro-
gressive. God did not reveal the whole of his
will to any one of the prophets or apostles, nor at
any one time. His revelation proceeded upon
true principles of education, beginning with the
simple and proceeding to the profound; from
concrete to abstract; from pictured truth to
spiritual reality. That this was the method of
revelation may be illustrated in many ways.
Take, for example, the emphasis placed at first
upon outward forms and ceremonies. Note how
much was made at first of ritual; how only
gradually the prophets rose to higher spiritual
perceptions, and the truth was emphasized, "To

68 GRADUAL GROWTH

obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than
the fat of rams." Gradually the internal rose
above the external, the spiritual above the
material. Christ referred to this gradually pro-
gressive process in revelation when he said to the
woman of Samaria, "The hour cometh when ye
shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusa-
lem, worship the Father. Bat the hour cometh,
and now is, when the true worshipers shall
worship the Father in spirit and in truth ; for the
Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a
spirit; and they that worship must worship in
spirit and in truth. " Again, note how at first in
Scripture the rewards for piety are largely
material things; while, in the full light of com-
pleted revelation, the highest rewards of piety
and the fruits of the spirit are spiritual blessings.
Again, note the gradualness and progressiveness
in the revelation of certain great ideas, such as,
for example, the immortality of the soul, and the
life beyond the grave. Indeed, there seems to be
very little concerning these great subjects in the
Old Testament. A glimpse or two in Job, or a
hope expressed in a Psalm, is about all. It is only
in New Testament times that Christ brought "life
and immortality to light, through the Gospel."
In nothing is the gradualness and progressiveness
of revelation more clearly seen than in the
development of Messianic Prophecy, the gradual
unfolding of the plan of salvation through a

GRADUAL GROWTH 69

coming Savior. The theme of Redemption begins
in Genesis in very indistinct and uncertain tones ;
and, like the approach of music from afar, only a
note here and there in the divine melody can be
distinguished. On and on roll the centuries;
prophet after prophet arises, each adding some new-
variation, or modulation, to the original theme.
Sometimes, from some mountain peak of prophetic
activity, like that of Isaiah, the strains roll
majestic, and every note in the divine melody
rings out with the clearness of a bell. Some-
times, in some valley of national decay, or
prophetic silence, the strains seem to die away,
and the music seems muffled. On and on roll the
ages, until at last the bugle call announces the
birth of John the Baptist, the herald of coming
deliverance; and then, on the well known De-
cember night, in the fullness of God's time,
over the hills of Bethlehem rings out the oratorio
of the Messiah, the full Hallelujah Chorus of
Redemption, "Glory to God in the highest, and
on earth peace, good will to men." Thus from
the beginning of the Old Testament Revelation
to the coming of Christ, the method of revelation
was that of gradual and progressive growth. In
the New Testament, likewise, we find the gradually
progressive process continued: Christ himself
revealing God's will to man "as they were able to
bear it"; and the apostles, after the death and
resurrection of Christ, explaining, as it was

70 GRADUAL GROWTH

revealed to them, the full meaning of the salva-
tion which the Son had accomplished.

Since Apostolic days, there has been no
development in the line of addition of new truths,
God's written revelation being- complete, a
sufficient declaration of his will, and an infallible
guide in all matters of faith and practice. In it,
and in the divine human character revealed in
it, are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge. In the perception and application
of truth, however, the gradually progressive
process continues. Every day reveals to us new
applications of truth, and new depths and heights
and lengths and breadths of his wonderful love
and gracious purposes towards mankind. Thus
we see that the law of revelation was the law of
gradual and progressive growth. '* First the
blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in
the ear."

4. Again, Sanctification is gradual and progress-
ive. In the Kingdom of God, as an external
society and as represented by the Church of Christ
upon earth, the growth has been a very gradual
one; and, as we firmly believe, in general a
progressive growth. When one takes a broad and
unprejudiced view of the history of the church, of
the civilization of which Christianity has been the
chief cause ; when one sees how one age has led
up to and prepared the way for a subsequent and
better age ; in spite of the dark times, and many

GRADUAL GROWTH 71

black pages of history, it is easy to sing with the
poet:

" Yet I doubt not through the ages
One increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened
With the process of the suns."

The gradual growth of the power of religious
ideas, the increasing hold of the Christ upon men,
the slow but sure progress in the regeneration of
society, are fascinating themes, and illustrate
clearly the law of gradual and progressive growth,
but I cannot speak of them now. It is a more
personal matter that I wish to consider, and to
apply the text to the process of the sanctifica-
tion of the individual. Nor is it my purpose to
discuss the question of the possibility of imme-
diate sanctification, nor the question of the degree
of sanctification attainable in this life. Suffice it
to say, that, if immediate sanctification in this
life has ever taken place, it is not the usual thing,
nor the ordinary process of sanctification. I care
not to treat of exceptions, but of the general rule.
As to the degree of sanctification attainable in this
life, it is not a question of degree, but a question
of method, with which I am now concerned.

All real growth, all permanent growth is slow
growth. The clinging vine may, in a single
summer, climb to a great height, but it takes a
century to grow an oak. Jonah's gourd came up
in a night, but it likewise perished in a night.

72 GRADUAL GROWTH

The cathedrals of Europe, centuries old, were
centuries in building. Again, the higher forms
of life are more slow of development. A horse
often is at its best in a few years, but a man only
attains maturity after several decades. The
monad passes through birth, youth, maturity, old
age and death, within the short period of twenty-
four hours; but it is only a monad. If, then, real
growth, permanent growth, is slow, and still more
so in proportion as the product is high, must not
the development of character, the attainment of
sanctification, the winning of that which is high-
est and best, and toward the attainment of which
all noblest endeavors should always be engaged,
must not that growth be indeed a slow and a
gradual one? Our text suggests three stages of
growth in sanctification, a blade stage, a green
ear stage, and a full corn stage. (And here Pro-
fessor Bruce, in his treatment of Christ's parables,
is very helpful.) At once several questions arise.
Do these three stages always appear in the proc-
ess of sanctification? Do they always occur in
the same order, and are they always dis-
tinguishable one from another? As to the
last question, it must be noted, referring
again to the grain which is the basis of com-
parison, that growth in the natural world is
such a gradually progressive process, that it is
not possible to be so minute as to affirm that for
just so many days, hours and minutes, grain is in

GRADUAL GROWTH 73

the blade stage; and then, for just so many days,
hours and minutes, it is in the green ear stage ;
and then, for just so many days, hours and min-
utes, it is in the full corn stage. These stages
merge one into another. But, looked at from a
more general standpoint, we see that there is a
blade period, there is a green ear period, and
there is a full corn period. So with these stages
in the development of sanctification, one stage
merges into another, but in general the three
stages occur, and occur in the order named. Let
us note some of the characteristics of these stages.
Mark the blade period; or, referring to fruit as
well as to grain, we may call it the blossom
period, the spring-tide, the time of initial growth.
It is a time of enthusiasm, of childhood's happy
joy, of the wild thrill of first love. And, refer-
ring to the beginning period of the Christian's
life, we recall the joyousness of the young con-
vert, and the ardent enthusiasm; the zeal which
would quickly convert a world, and which stands
amazed at the apparent coldness of older Chris-
tians; the light step and the bounding joy of a
new life. But note also, concerning the very
beginning of this initial period, how nature illus-
trates diverse operations of grace. Some kinds
of grain, when planted, make the first show of life
by sending up through the clods a little spike of
green. There is no demonstration; without
observation, almost, the little blade makes its way

74 GRADUAL GROWTH

up to the light and air, and the process of initial
growth is a very quiet and unobserved one.
But fruit trees, which seemed just a while ago so
dead and cold, in a very few days of sunshine
swell quickly and, apparently almost in an
instant, burst into a halo of bloom, and into a
bower of fragrance. So the beginning of the
new life is manifested differently in different per-
sons. Some, especially children, accustomed
from earliest days to the teachings of the Bible
and to thoughts of Christ, are born so quietly into
the spiritual world as to realize scarcely any
change in condition. Though they have been
truly born again, the manifestation of the
new life has been so gradual, that, in after days,
though they are sure of their having been born
again, they are never able to determine the exact
time when the new birth took place. Then
there are others, and particularly is this true of
older people, who, dead in indifference and hard-
ened by years of sin and selfish indulgence, are
suddenly arrested in their course of godlessness,
catch a saving sight of Jesus, and immediately all
is changed. They were lost, but are found. They
were dead in sin, but now have begun to live unto
Christ. The whole world seems new; the sun
shines brighter; the sky is bluer; the grass is
greener. Things are the same as of old, but the
man has changed. The tree has burst into
bloom. But it must always be kept in mind that

GRADUAL GROWTH 75

this blade stage, this blossom period, is but the
beginning of the Christian life. Many mistake
the blossom for the fruit, springtime for harvest,
holy feeling for holy living, gushing enthusiasm
for staunch character.

Sooner or later, blade and blossom are followed
by green ear and unripe fruit. This is a second
stage in the process of sanctification. It is a time
of transition. "A time of waiting, of unfulfilled
desires, of unrealized ideals, of green ears and
unripe fruit, of experiences more profitable than
pleasant." The green fruit is a stage in advance
of the blossom, but it is not so beautiful or
fragrant. The second stage is "a time of tempta-
tion and struggle, of doubts and fears, of sadness
and gloom." A time when the foundations of
faith are re-examined, when deeper views of the
meaning of consecration bring doubts as to one's
own sincerity, and a higher perception of the
demands of holiness brings despair as to one's
own attainment. It is a trying time, indeed, a
time when many sincere souls sometimes doubt
even their own conversion. And yet it is but a
preparatory stage to something richer and riper.
Let not those who are passing through such
experiences be unduly cast down, or too severely
blame themselves. It is no sin to be in the
"green corn and unripe fruit" stage, though it is
sin permanently to remain so, and never to pass
beyond from greenness to ripeness. This transi-

76 GRADUAL GROWTH

tion period usually comes to all those who bring
forth the best fruit; for always has it been true
that "they who reap in greatest joy sow most in
tears.**

But, as blossom was followed by unripe fruit,
and blade by green ear; so surely, if we are faith-
ful and patient, unripe fruit will be followed by
ripeness, and green ear by the full corn in the
ear. This third stage of sanctification is referred
to by Banyan, when, in the "Pilgrim's Progress,"
Christian, having passed through the Valley of
Humiliation and the Shadow of Death, having
escaped the clutches of Giant Despair, has at last
reached Beulah Land, from which one cannot so
much as see Doubting Castle, and where one lives
within constant vision of the Eternal City. Here
the fruit of the spirit has become an abiding
possession. "Love, joy, peace, long-suffering,"
have become traits of character, and "heavenly
impulse has become a heavenly habit. " Those
who attain to this stage of Christian maturity are
always conscious of the high demands of holiness,
of their constant dependence upon Christ, of the
heinousness of sin, and are clearly cognizant of
their own shortcomings.

Thus the course of personal sanctification is
seen to be a gradual and progressive one. "First
the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in
the ear."

As the process of sanctification is slow and

GRADUAL GROWTH 77

gradual, as there are stages which must neces-
sarily be passed through, we need to exercise
continually the Christlike virtue of patience.
First, patience with others. How crude and
immature the ideas of some seem to be! How
full of glaring faults their lives are ! Why cannot
they see that such actions are so un-Christlike !
But we must exercise patience ! How patient the
Master was with those rude fishermen, his
disciples, whose ideas seemed so worldly, whose
ambitions were so sordid, whose passions were
so uncontrolled, who were so slow to believe
and to understand the parables and spiritual
truths which he wished to teach them! And
yet the Master never lost his patience. And
then we must be patient with ourselves. We
become impatient of slow processes. We crave
short-cuts to holiness and fruitfulness. But we
shall attain to highest maturity only as we
patiently abide God's time and faithfully perform
the duties of each day. Those who were profit-
able hearers received the word into good and
honest hearts, and ''with patience brought forth
fruit unto perfection." "Let us also, then, laying
aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily
beset us, run with patience the race that is set
before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and
finisher of our faith." Thus may we all,
"beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord,
be changed into the same image from glory to

78 GRADUAL GROWTH

glory," and then, when the gradually progressive
process of sanctifi cation is complete, and we pass
into his presence, *'we shall be satisfied when we
awake in his likeness."

Working for Jesus

''% ''i ''%

Matt. 2S : IS- — ''And unto one he gave five talents, to
another two, to another one; to each according to his
several ability; and he went on his journey*'

0UR Savior spoke three parables upon the
great theme of *'Work and Wages in the
Kingdom of God": the parable of the
husbandman, hiring laborers to work in his vine-
yard; the parable of the ten pounds, given to the
ten servants ; and the parable of the talents. The
parable of the talents is doubtless, to many of us,
the most familiar of the three. Its lessons have
often been considered, and yet it may be of great
profit to us to recall at this time some of its most
evident teachings.

The parable story is briefly told. A man of
some wealth is about to go to a distant country.
He leaves his money and property in the hands of
his servants for use. The ability of each of his
servants is well known to him. Being a wise
manager, he does not give similar amounts to all,
but gives to each according to each one's ability;

79

8o WORKING FOR JESUS

not too much to any, not too little to any ; to none
enough to burden or overcome, to none so little as
to encourage to idleness; but "unto one he gave
five talents, to another two, to another one; to
each according to his several ability; and he went
on his journey." As soon as the master was
gone, the first servant, by prudent business
methods, by looking for and seizing every possible
opportunity, by constant diligence and skill, suc-
ceeded in doubling his capital. The second
servant, who had received two talents, manifested
a similar diligence and skill, and achieved a sim-
ilar result, the doubling of his capital. The
third servant was a timid and shrinking man, of
less ability than either of the others, but able to do
sometJii7ig; with a poor opinion of his master and
of himself, lazy as well as little and lean. This
one went away and dug a hole in the ground and
"hid his lord's money." "After a long time, the
lord of those servants cometh and reckoneth with
them." After along time! After sufficient time
has passed for testing the diligence and efficiency
of each servant ; after sufficient time for each one
to have had splendid opportunities for accom-
plishing something for the master, the lord of
those servants returns, and each one is called to
give an account of his stewardship. The man
who had received the five talents comes forward,
with beaming face and firm step, proud of his
honest achievement, and yet humble with the

WORKING FOR JESUS 8i

humility so becoming a faithful servant; and
says, "Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents;
behold, I have gained beside them five talents
more." The master rejoices in such a servant,
and his bounding heart responds to such service,
"Well done" (had he not done well?) "thou good
and faithful servant ; thou hast been faithful over
a few things; I will make thee ruler over many
things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord."
After this servant comes another, the one who
had received two talents. He, also, has a happy
face, and a throbbing heart, as the result of faith-
ful living, already possessing a heaven of happiness
as the result of conscious attainment and humble
gratitude for the privilege of service. "He also
that had received two talents came and said,
'Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents:
behold, I have gained two other talents beside
them.' " Again appears the master's responsive
smile, and ag-ain are heard the words of approval,
"Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast
been faithful over a few things ; I will make thee
raler over many things: enter thou into the joy
of thy lord." Thus far, the day of reckoning has
been a day of honest joy, both to master and
servants ; a day when the seal of divine approval
has but brought added delight to those who have
already known the privilege and pleasure of faith-
ful living. But 7iow comes one whose unfaithful-
ness has brought shadow and shame upon

82 WORKING FOR JESUS

himself, and who carries gloom wherever he goes,
*'Then he that had received the one talent came
and said, 'Lord, I knew thee, that thou art an hard
man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and
gathering where thou hast not scattered : and I
was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the
earth : lo, there thou hast that is thine. ' His lord
answered and said unto him, 'Thou wicked and
slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I
sowed not, and gather where I have not scattered:
thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to
the exchangers, and then at my coming I should
have received my own with interest. Thou
oughtest to have been afraid to have appeared
before me empty handed.'" If too timid to take
responsibility and too lazy to work, you could at
least have put my money to the exchangers for
interest. There is no excuse for your having done
absolutely nothing. ' ' Cast ye the unprofitable serv-
ant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping
and gnashing of teeth." Cast him out! Let the
gloom which he has made for himself be per-
petual. Cast him out! There shall be weeping
and gnashing of teeth, weeping over lost oppor-
tunities, and gnashing of teeth in envy of those
who, by faithfulness, won what he might have
had. This is the parable story briefly told and
paraphrased; let us now note some of the more
apparent teachings :

I. The master expects service from every one of

WORKING FOR JESUS 83

his servants, (a) The very idea of a kingdom
suggests a king and subjects, implying loyalty and
allegiance, (b) A talent was given to every one ;
every one was called to an account, because the
master expected something from every one of his
servants. (c) Paul loved to call himself the
"bond servant" of Jesus Christ, declaring that he
was not his own, but had been bought with a
price. We have all of us as Christians been set
free from the slavery of sin, that we may be serv-
ants of righteousness and of him who redeemed
us, not "with corruptible things, as silver and
gold, . . . but with the precious blood of
Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without
spot." (d) One purpose of the Lord's delayed
coming is that every one may have a splendid
opportunity for service; no one will be able to say
at that time, "O Lord, you came back too soon.
T didn't get a chance or time to render any serv-
ice." (e) The very purpose of our endowments
and relationships is that we may use all of these
things for God. We are stewards in respect to all
things that we possess, and it is required of
stewards that a man be found faithful, (f) It is
God's design to use men and women in the accom-
plishment of his purposes. No angel will be sent
down to do in your community what God expects
you and calls you to do. (g) The Master
expects service not simply from ministers and
trained workers, but from every one of his serv-

84 WORKING FOR JESUS

ants. The parable as recorded in Mark says:
"To every man his work." If you are a son,
then the message of the Master to you is, "Son,
go work to-day in my vineyard. " "And let him
that heareth say 'Come'." (h) There is no place
for idlers in the Kingdom of God. The Master
seems continually to be going about and saying,
"Why stand ye here the whole day idle? There's
work to be done. There's a harvest to be
gathered. Loafers are not wanted!" Drones
were, in ancient times, "drummed out of camp."
(i) If Christ is in you, he will manifest himself,
and will cry out as of old, "I must be about my
Father's business." If you are doing nothing for
Christ you may well doubt whether the Christ is
in you. If there is not in 3^ou some divine com-
pulsion, driving you on in the Master's service,
you may be sure that there is not much of the
Christ in you. You may well doubt whether you
are a Christian. And, what is more, if you are
doing nothing for him, you ivill soon doubt
whether you are in him: for idleness is the sure
road to doubt and despair, (j) There is no excuse
for doing absolutely nothing. The servant of
least ability, with only one talent, had at least the
exchangers. Whatever these exchangers may
represent in the opportunities of to-day, the
teaching is very clear that even he had no excuse
for having done absolutely nothing. No one of
God's children is doomed to idleness in his vine-

WORKING FOR JESUS 85

yard, (k) The servant who went away and dug a
hole in the ground and "hid his lord's money,"
withdrew so much money from active circula-
tion, and embarrassed to that extent the affairs
of Christ's kingdom. During a recent campaign
in our political world, people were denouncing
most severely all measures which would tend to a
contraction of the currency, and were heaping
blessings upon the heads of any whose policy
would honestly and surely increase the volume of
the circulating medium. All people, irrespective
of party affiliations, were agreed that the contrac-
tion of the currency and hard times had a close
connection with one another, whatever may have
been the cause of the contraction. Money had
been very seriously withdrawn from the avenues
of trade. Hard times had come with the strin-
gency in the money-market. Something must be
done to bring back into circulation a larger
amount of the medium of exchange. When money
should begin again to circulate freely, good times
would return. The Kingdom of God is suffering
in many places from a contraction of the circu-
lating medium. I speak not particularly with
reference to money in the Kingdom. I refer to
your hands, your feet, your voices, yourselves.
They are the circulating medium by which our
King does business. There is ''hard times" in
the Kingdom to-day, because you have withdrawn
these things from the King's service. You, your

86 WORKING FOR JESUS

voices, your feet, your hands, your influence, your
time, these are God's medium of exchange, by
which he designs to carry on his business. Do
you wish to know how to bring about a revival in
the religious life of your community? There is
but one sure way. Let there be a return of confi-
dence, on the part of Christians, in God's Book,
in God's power and willingness to save through
Christ, in God's promises, in his purpose to use
you, each one of you, in some part of this work, in
the superlative worth of the soul of every man,
and in his capacity for redemption. Let there be
on your part a return of confidence in these things,
and then invest — invest your every power! Con-
secrate every relationship to God. Put into
circulation in God's Kingdom your all; and
there'll be a mighty revival, not only in your own
personal life, but also in your community.

2. The Master expects a peculiar service from
every one of his servants. "Unto one he gave
five talents, to another two, to another one; to
each according to his several ability"; or, as Mark
says, *'To each man his work." (a) All of the
Master's servants are expected to serve him, but
they are not all expected to serve him in a similar
capacity, or in the same way. To each person
special duties and special privileges come. No
two persons are exactly alike in ability or circum-
stances. We are not blocks of uniform size, not
things, but persons. God has so honored the

WORKING FOR JESUS 87

individual as to have made each one of us differ in
some respect from every other one. God never
made tv^^o persons exactly alike. Individuality is
stamped upon every member of the human race.
We are born as individuals. We die as indi-
viduals. We are saved as individuals. Christ
loves us as individuals. We shall be judged as
individuals. "For we must all appear before the
judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may
receive the things done in his body, according to
that which he hath done, whether it be good or
bad." Thus we have peculiar privileges and
peculiar perils, and from each one the Master
expects peculiar service, (b) In the recognition
of this fact lies the true division of labor in both
the religious and economic worlds. One of the
most common causes of unrest and disaster in the
economic world, is the failure to realize that the
true division of labor is groimded in capacity and
circumstance. There are so many "misfits" in
life; men in the law who ought to be in the
ministry ; men in the ministry who ought to be in
the law; men in the country who ought to be in
the town, and in the town who ought to be in
the country; men in business who ought to be in
the professions, and men in the professions who
ought to be in commercial life, etc., etc. Solo-
mon's proverb, so often mistranslated and mis-
applied, "Train up a child according to his way"
(to his bent), "and when he is old he will not

SS WORKINCx FOR JESUS

depart from it," furnishes a true principle of
education ; and, in tlie future, we may hope that
our youth shall be clearly taught the real basis of
all true division of labor, as grounded in capacity
and circumstance. Then, in the future, so many
"misfits" will not occur. When the millennium
shall have come in the economic world, every man
and woman will be doing that which he is best
fitted to do. So, in the religious world, the true
division of labor lies in capacity and circum-
stance. Not all are called to preach from the
pulpit; not all are to call upon the sick; not all
are to teach in the Sunday-school. The church,
according to Paul's inimitable figure, is one body,
many members. "For the body is not one mem-
ber, but many. And if they were all one
member, where were the body? But now hath
God set the members each one of them in the
body, even as it pleased him, and the eye cannot
say to the hand, I have no need of thee: or again,
the head to the feet, I have no need of thee.
Nay, much rather, those members of the body
which seem to be more feeble are necessary.
Now ye are the body of Christ, and members
each in his part." Each one of us has a peculiar
work to do, and the work of each is necessary to
the completeness of the whole. (c) Through
peculiar service from each servant, Christ's far-
reaching purposes will best be fulfilled. The
Master desires that his Kingdom shall reach per-

WORKING FOR JESUS 89

sons of every profession and calling, of every class
and circumstance : consequently he wishes to have
workers in every honorable walk of life. You can
work for Christ to better advantage in the sphere
of your secular calling than anywhere else, and
to better advantage than any one else. The
Christian lawyer can have more influence in
bringing the unconverted lawyer to Christ than
can anybody else. The consecrated physician can
have more influence over his non-Christian,
professional associates than can any one else.
The whole-hearted, devoted Christian clerk can
have more influence for Christ over his fellow-
clerks than can any one else. So in case of wife
or husband, brother or friend. You, if your life
is as it ought to be, will have most influence over
those who know you best. Knowledge begets
confidence, (d) Whatever your future sphere of
labor may be, your present one ought to be per-
fectly plain. Do the ?iext thing. Tell the next
man what you know about Jesus. O Gadarene!
"Go to thy house unto thy friends, and tell them
how great things the Lord hath done for thee,
and how he had mercy on thee." Begin at
home, and in your own community, and among
your own friends, to work for Jesus; and when,
by patient labor, you have exhausted the possi-
bilities of that sphere, and by faithfulness have
manifested your fitness for another, God will
surely open up to you new fields of labor. Begin

90 WORKING FOR JESUS

just where you are. Andrew! bring Peter.
Philip! bring Nathaniel. Use the opportunities
which are now in sight, and your vision will
become keener, and you'll soon see more. To
the one who uses what he has, will more be given,
(e) In faithfully recognizing that Christ's demands
are for peculiar service from each one of us lies
the secret of much true contentment and joy in
life. Let me illustrate this point by referring to
an incident which happened some years ago. It
was in the summer of 1890, at New Haven, Conn.
Rev. R. T. Vann was supplying, during the
pastor's absence, the pulpit of the Calvary Bap-
tist Church. Mr. Vann, when twelve years of
age, in attempting to help his father in North
Carolina, had fallen into a sorghum m.achine, and
had lost both of his arms, one at the shoulder and
the other at the elbow. At the time of my meet-
ing him in New Haven, I was well and strong, in
the flush of health, and had hardly known what it
was to be sick a day in my life. His peace and
happiness in his armless state were a continual
surprise to me, and I asked him one day, "Don't
you often wish, Mr. Vann, that you, like the rest
of us, had two arms?" I shall never forget his
reply. It impressed me at the time as being
absolutely sincere, and in recent years I have
learned for myself the secret of his peace. "No,
I don't waste time in wishing that any more. I
have learned to get along without arms. It

WORKING FOR JESUS 91

would be a great convenience to have one hand
with which to write, specially to my dear wife (I
can only write a little with the hook on the stub
of arm that is left) ; often there are so many things
I should like to tell her, but she has learned to
read between the lines. And then, too, when I
go to call on my people, it would be a great con-
venience if I could shake them by the hand; it
isn't much pleasure for them to shake an empty
coat sleeve. No, I've learned to get along with-
out arms, and to be very happy and contented.
Not to have any arms hinders me, too, in my
preaching, but then, I've learned some things.
You know, Mr. S., God never intended me to be
a Spurgeon or a Beecher. He simply wishes 7ne
to make the most out of the stuff that he has
given to me. I have long ago learned to thank
God that I was nobody but R. T. Vann; if
you don't understand what I mean now, before
you are as old as I am you will, I trust, have
learned its meaning" (his words now seem like
prophecy), "and when I get up to the bar of
God, I trust that then I can honestly say, 'Lord,
here's old, armless R. T. Vann. I have honestly
tried. Lord, to make the most out of what you
gave me; it's been a pleasure to serve you.' If,
at that day, I can say that, will not the Master be
pleased?" This was the substance of his answer
to my question, and then and there I began to see
that, in the clear recognition of the fact that the

92 WORKING FOR JESUS

Master expects peculiar service from each one of
his servants, lies the secret of much real happi-
ness and joy in life.

3. This parable of the talents brings out very
clearly also another lesson. Not only does the
Master expect service from every one of his serv-
ants, and peculiar service from each one of his
servants, but also, in this service, viiicJi will
depend upon the spirit of tJic servant, and the spirit
of the servant zvill depend inneh upon his conception
of his master. One of the most blessed and far-
reaching thoughts which ever enter the mind of
man is a true thought of God. Man's work and
man's character are largely determined by his
thought of God. As he gets a true vision of God,
man's character is ennobled and his work proves
inspiring. As he gets a false view of God, man's
character is marred, and the service of God
becomes drudgery. One of these servants had a
very poor opinion of his master, which opinion
made him a very poor servant, and robbed his
master of his service. The servant who said, "I
knew thee, that thou art an hard man, reaping
where thou hast not sown, and gathering where
thou hast not scattered," was the servant who
went away and dug in the ground, and hid his
lord's money. So some people think of God as a
hard taskmaster, as a cruel, arbitrary ruler, as a
stern judge, before whom we must appear, one
who has no personal interest in us except such as

WORKING FOR JESUS 93

a slave-driver, to get out of us as much as pos-
sible. One with such an idea of God, if he ever
works for him at all, works as the slave works,
from fear, doing only what may be compulsory,
and dodging as much work as possible. Such a
service is dull, dreary, dry drudgery, with little
spirit and no real joy. The biblical conception of
God, however, is far different from this. The
great God at the center of the universe is not a
monster, not a cruel, arbitrary taskmaster, but a
gracious Father. He loves every member of the
human race. He is personally interested in every
one of his creatures. He loves us with an out-
reaching, overflowing love. He has provided
salvation for all in the sacrifice of his Son. "As
many as received him, to them gave he the
power (authority, right) to become the sons of
God. " He has redeemed us with his own precious
blood, bought us out of the slavery of sin and
called us into his own service. He places upon
us responsibilities, and gives unto us the privileges
of service, for the purpose of developing us. He
is not a cruel taskmaster, trying to get out of us
as much as possible. He is a loving Father,
anxious to make of us as much as possible. It is
a great privilege to work for him. Faithful serv-
ice will bring manifold and abundant reward,
both here and hereafter. This was Paul's idea of
God, so strikingly set forth in his letter to the
Philippians. The thought is this: God is my

94 WORKING FOR JESUS

Friend, my Father. Christ has redeemed me
with his precious blood, has bought me with a
great price for his very own, has saved me for a
great purpose, is ambitious for me, more so than
I am even for myself, has in his heart a large
ideal for me. (There is a life-plan in the heart of
the Father for each one of his children.) Oh!
Father, help me so to live and learn, so to aspire
and to act, as that I may not mar or cramp, warp
or dwarf the life-plan, the manhood, the character
to which thou wouldst have me attain. Help me
to realize, to make my own, to seize, "to appre-
hend that for which also I have been appre-
hended of Christ Jesus." Father, help me this
one thing to do, "forgetting those things which
are behind and reaching forth unto those things
which are before," to press toward "the mark for
the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ
Jesus." In joy or sorrow, in pain or pleasure, in
prosperity or adversity, "for me to live is Christ,
to die is gain." And so "I am in a strait betwixt
two things, having a desire to depart and be with
Christ (which is far better), nevertheless to abide
in the flesh is more needful for you." I stand
between two mountain peaks of blessing. Two
great boons loom up before me : to live for Christ,
to reproduce the Christlike character, to win fruit
for eternity; or to die and be forever with Christ.
Both are rare privileges indeed, either is a pleas-
ure worth pursuing. How shall I choose? This

WORKING FOR JESUS 95

is the spirit of Paul, the willing servant of Jesus
Christ. The slave serves from fear; the hireling
serves for money; the son serves from love. "If
ye know these things, blessed" (happy) "are ye if
ye do them."

The Bible, the Word of God

jp ^ ^

Isaiah 40:8. — ''The grass withereth, the fioiver fadeth,
but the Word of our God shall stand forever."

Matt. 24:3s- — ''Heaven and earth shall pass away, but
My words shall not pass away.''

JJC» JJC JJC>

IN this age of books, the truth of Sir Walter
Scott's statement, "There is but one book,"
constantly becomes more apparent. Every
year witnesses an increasing amount of devout,
searching and systematic study of the Bible. This
study assumes various forms — the study of the
text, the study of the literary form, the historical
study of the source and character of the material,
the exegetical study of the meaning, and the
devotional study for the upbuilding of the
spiritual life. This study of the Bible, specially
the historical study, has given rise to many ques-
tions which have been popularized through
magazines, lecture bureaus, and some pulpits, and
which have unnecessarily disturbed the minds and
hearts of not a few of God's people. For
instance, "What is the date and composition of

96

THE BIBLE, THE WORD OF GOD 97

the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible?
Did Moses write them, or are they of composite
authorship? Or, again, did David write all of the
Psalms ascribed to him in the Psalter, or were
many of them written by others, and ascribed by
tradition to David? Did Isaiah write all of the
book w hich is called by his name, or did one man
write the first thirty-nine chapters, and another,
living one hundred and fifty years after, write the
last twenty-seven chapters? Is the book of
Zechariah a unit, or were there two Zech-
ariahs? How many letters were written by the
Apostle Paul? Who was the author of Hebrews?"
These are a few of the questions that are being
discussed in many places, and are disturbing the
faith of some. And yet, all of these questions are
matters of relatively minor importance ; many of
them are extremely technical, and are capable of
answer only by specialists. All have to do with
the nature and method of revelation, rather than
with the fact of revelation. I am not so much
concerned as to how or through whom God gave
the Bible, as I am with the fact that God gave it.
It will not materially affect my faith if all of
these questions of the nature and method of
revelation are answered differently in the future
from what they have been in the past. I only
need to know that "the Bible is the book which
brings to the church and to the world the true
word of God concerning redemption from sin,"

98 THE BIBLE, THE WORD OF GOD

that it is the word of God — God's book; that he
has sent it forth, is behind it, has taken care of it
in the past, and will throughout all time. Then
I may be sure, as Professor Ladd has said in the
conclusion of his discussion, "What is the Bible?"
that "no discovery of modern biblical criticism,
science or archeology can detract from or diminish
the power of the Bible to do what God intended it
should do." However, to strengthen the faith of
the strong, to clarify the minds of the troubled,
and to help the honest inquirer after truth, I pro-
pose to give this morning a few of the reasons
why I believe the Bible to be the word of God.

I . Unity zvitJi Diversity. — The first reason which
I mention is drawn from the fact of the wonder-
ful unity with diversity which the Bible presents.
Here we have a book, or rather, a collection of
sixty-six books, written by as many as forty
different authors, during a period of from 1,500 to
2,000 years. If the views of certain higher critics
are to be accepted, that some of these single books
were written by several authors rather than one,
the force of the present argument is only made
the stronger. Here, then, we have a book, or
rather, a collection of sixty-six books, written by
many authors during a long period of time.
These writers lived and wrote in different coun-
tries, far apart from each other in space and time.
Some lived and wrote under the shadow of the
Pyramids in Egypt; some in the deserts of

THE BIBLE, THE WORD OF GOD 99

Arabia ; some among the hills of Palestine ; some
amid the magnificence of a Nebuchadnezzar;
some in the provinces of the Persians; some in
the cities of Asia Minor, and Greece; some in
imperial Rome. They wrote in different ages of
the world. Some when the Pharaohs ruled a
mightly empire upon the Nile ; some when Solo-
mon built the magnificent temple at Jerusalem;
some when the proud Assyrian roamed over the
plains of Mesopotamia; some when the Caesars
ruled the world. They wrote in different
languages; some in the language of faith, the
stately Hebrew; others in degenerate Aramaic,
and others in the flowing, expressiv^e tongue of
the Greeks. They wrote in different forms of
literature — we have prose and poetry, history,
biography, legislation, and philosophy, orations,
hymns, letters, didactic, lyric, narrative, illustra-
tive, dramatic, and allegorical forms of literature.
These writers came from different ranks in life,
and represented every class in society — kings and
fishermen, shepherds and statesmen, royal Isaiah,
and herdsman Amos, rich and poor, uneducated
and learned, prophet, priest and king, warrior,
farmer, and tent-maker, royal cup bearer and
regal monarch, the rough ascetic of the desert,
and the polished companion at the king's court;
men widely different in education and natural
ability, under widely different political, social,
and religious conditions, writing from their own

loo THE BIBLE, THE WORD OF GOD

national or temporal point of view, in their own
way, with characteristic styles, peculiar phrases
and constructions, and marked individuality.
They treated of many different themes, of angels
and demons, of earth, heaven and hell, of justice
and mercy, of love and wrath, of law human and
divine, of duty and destiny, of present, past, and
future, of soul and body, of the individual, the
family, the state; treating of or touching upon
well-nigh every theme of human thought. Such
is the marvelous diversity in place, time, lan-
guage, literature, men, style, and themes in the
Bible; and yet, amid all this diversity, there is
such a unity in aim, such a oneness in all the parts,
such a consistency in teaching concerning God and
man, sin and salvation, and the other mighty
themes which are treated, that the sixty-six books
have been bound together under a common cover,
and called, pre-eminently, ' ' The Book. ' ' There is
something in these books so unique as to bind
them one to another, and forever to separate them
from other writings. Men have tried again and
again to produce other sacred writings, but the
natural and the artificial flowers are separated by
an immeasurable distance. There is a life, a
power, a fragrance, in these writings not found
elsewhere. But these books are characterized not
only by a strange unity — one doctrine of God, of
sin, of salvation, of heaven, of hell, of duty, which
seems very remarkable — but also, from the first to

THE BIBLE, THE WORD OF GOD loi

the last, there is "a gradual progressiveness in the
unfolding of truth; there is a steady march
onward from outward and material to inward and
spiritual conceptions of religion, a constantly ris-
ing and hopeful outstretching toward a better and
higher future, ' ' a converging of all things toward
one event, and an unfolding from that event.

Again, the uniform silence of these books upon
topics which merely gratify curiosity, and the
bending of all energy in discussing God's claim
upon men, is a striking feature of unity. Some
one has truly said, "Throughout the Bible the
crimson cord of sacrifice is clearly manifest, on
which the books are strung together as beads on a
thread." No other collection could be made
of books written at such widely separated times
and places, by such different men, under such a
variety of circumstances, even upon a single
theme, that would manifest any such unity of
thought and purpose. Only one rational ex-
planation can be given to account for this
unity amid such diversity. The Book must
have been the product of one mind that
planned and directed the whole of it from
beginning to end, and that one mind could
have been none other than God. I am told that,
when the great cantilever bridge over the Niagara
rapids was constructed, the various parts were
made in different portions of the land, and all
finished and shipped to Niagara ready for use.

I02 THE BIBLE, THE WORD OF GOD

They were then fastened together, and every
brace and bolt and beam was an exact fit. Only
one rational explanation can be given — one
master mind had furnished the plans and specifica-
tions, and the several parts had been made accord-
ing to the patterns given. And so this Book,
written by men in different lands and times, in
different languages and forms, is a unit from
beginning to end, formed according to the direc-
tions of the master mind of its divine architect —
God.

2. Universal Adaptation to Human Needs. — A
second reason why I believe the Bible is the word
of God is because of its universal adaptation to
human needs. It is the only universal book.
Other books are limited more or less to small
circles of readers. Some are interesting to boys
and men, others to girls and women; some are
profitable to youth, others to middle life and old
age; some we pick up in our joy, others we turn
to in times of sadness ; some are the delight of the
rich and prosperous, others are the solace of
the poor and the afflicted ; some are favorites in
the Orient, others are popular only among
Anglo-Saxons. But in the Bible we find the
one book of universal adaptation, suited to the
needs of man and woman, old and young, rich
and poor, educated and uneducated; a book not
limited by clime or condition, age or nationality,
into which men and women, boys and girls, of

THE BIBLE, THE WORD OF GOD 103

every people, of every tongue, may look as into a
mirror, and see reflected there their own needs and
defects, and in which may be found a balm for
every wound. This book touches life* at so many
points, is so adapted to every human need, that
strangers, reading it for the first time, are so
impressed with its truthfulness as to feel that it
must have been written specially for them.*
When Dr. Chambers had read to the natives of an
East Indian city the first chapter of Romans, an
intelligent Brahmin said to him: *'Sir, that
chapter must have been written for us Hindoos.
It fits us exactly." In Lyons, France, an igno^
rant listener said to Dr. McCall, as he read the
Bible to him, "Never in my life have I heard the
truth so explained; my conscience answers to it."
A prisoner in a Massachusetts prison, when asked
why he believed the Bible to be the word of God,
said, "It strikes a fellow so." This universality
of the Bible makes it the most easy of all books
to translate into other tongues. Of Bible transla-
tion, some one has truly said: "From Greenland
to Patagonia, in the western hemisphere, and
from Iceland through Europe and Asia to the
Japanese and Australians, from the Copts of
Egypt to the Kaffirs of South Africa, from the
South Sea Islands of the Pacific through the ocean
to Madagascar, the Bible has been rendered into

* The author here wishes to acknowledge a debt to Dr. C.
H. Parkhurst for thoughts and quotations.

I04 THE BIBLE, THE WORD OF GOD

each language with triumphant success." Hal-
lam, the historian, said, "I see that the Bible fits
into every fold and crevice of the human heart. I
am a man, and I believe that this is God's book
because it is man's book." It is greater than any
and every man. It is the book for the whole
human race, and is destined to become so more
and more. It speaks from God to the human
soul. It penetrates to the innermost recesses of
man's being, and satisfies the deepest yearnings
of his nature. It is, as it claims to be, "living
and active and sharper than any two-edged sword,
and piercing even to the dividing of soul and
spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to
discern the thoughts and intents of the heart."
It finds a man. It appeals to intellect, imagina-
tion and the sensibilities. The race and every
individual needs redemption from sin, needs
cleansing and stimulating. As long as the pres-
ent order continues, there will be sin and sorrow,
loneliness and death, for which no other book than
the Bible can furnish a true antidote. Its uni-
versal adaptation to human needs reveals the wis-
dom of its author, and proves it to be divine.

3. Its Permanence. — A third reason why I
believe the Bible is the word of God is based
upon its permanence, the way in which it has
survived the opposition of its foes and the abuses
of its friends. What a history it has had!
Through what fire and water and blood it has

THE BIBLE, THE WORD OF GOD 105

passed ! No other book has ever been so hated by
bad men, and so abused by good men. It has
been put under the ban of excommunication, has
been criticised and ridiculed and burnt. Every
possible resource of diabolic Avrath has been
exhausted in the attempt to destroy it, and yet it
has gone marching steadily on. Every century
has produced its quota of opponents ; school after
school of destructive criticism has arisen, each
boasting of some new discovery, or the finding of
some fatal flaw, that would destroy its power.
But the critics pass away, their dogmatic asser-
tions are proved fallacious, and the grand old
book gains added might. And oh! how it has
been abused by its supposed friends! It has been
mistranslated and misapplied. It has been wor-
shiped as an idol and consulted as an oracle.
Its sayings have been wrested from context and
used to prove well-nigh everything. It has been
used as authority for slavery and polygamy, has
been made to sanction an inquisition and the
burning of witches, to support the subjugation of
women and the divine right of kings. Scarcely
any freak of fanaticism, any ism or ology, has
arisen in Christian lands which has not souofht
justification in the Bible. And yet, in spite of
such terrible opposition, and such fearful handi-
caps, the Bible stands to-day peerless in its power
and majestic in its might.

The size of a force may be estimated by the

io6 THE BIBLE, THE WORD OF GOD

amount of its resistance, and the real worth of a
thing by its fitness to survive, and when we try to
estimate the forces which have been hurled
against the Bible and which have been success-
fully resisted, we feel that it must have behind it
the very dynamite of God ; and, when we consider
how it has survived the centuries amid such
unfavorable surroundings, we feel convinced that
it is because it is best fitted to survive. Not only
has it survived the actions of foes and friends, but
it keeps pace with all of the discoveries of science,
history, and archeology. Newly discovered monu-
ments and manuscripts, the researches of arche^
ology and the discoveries of science only confirm
its teachings, illumine its records and give new
meaning and added applications to its truths.

4. Its Past Infliieyice and Present Poiver. — A
fourth reason why I believe the Bible is the word
of God is based upon its past influence and its
present power. Its past influence began with the
earliest times, for the Bible contains the oldest
literature extant. Some of its records were
doubtless written one thousand years before
Herodotus, the so-called father of history, was
born. Hebrew legislation is at least seven hun-
dred years older than the laws of Lycurgus ; the
lyric poetry of the Bible was in its golden age
nine hundred years before Horace wrote his
odes; the Proverbs of Solomon are fully eight
hundred years older than the treatises of Seneca,

THE BIBLE, THE WORD OF GOD 107

while the book of Job probably antedated Homer
by eight centuries. Of the Bible it may be said,
as Napoleon said to his army at the Pyramids,
"Forty centuries look down upon you." And
yet, during this long period of varied experiences,
the Bible has triumphantly met the supreme test.
"By their fruits ye shall know them." The in-
fluence of the Bible, wherever it has had largest
and longest sway, has ever been productive of
the highest results. It has always been the
handmaid of progress. Froude, the historian,
says of the influence of the Bible in human affairs,
"All that we call modern civilization in a sense
which deserves the name, is the visible expression
of the transforming power of the gospel." Vic-
toria, when asked the secret of England's national
strength, pointed to the Bible and said: "This is
the secret of the greatness of England." Of the
power of the Bible in literature. Prof. Austin
Phelps says: "The Bible is to a large extent incor-
porated in all of the living literature of the world;
not in all in equal degrees, but in all sufficiently
to be felt as power. The debt of literature to
the Bible is like that of vegetation to light. The
hymnology of all modern languages has been
absolutely created by Hebrew Psalmody. The
ancient classics, so far as I know, have not con-
tributed a single stanza to it." The greatest of
modern orators also have been inspired by the
Bible. The Earl of Chatham, Patrick Henry, and

io8 THE BIBLE, THE WORD OF GOD

Daniel Webster constantly acknowledged their
debt to its pages. Art has been revolutionized,
and the dissolute Venus displaced by the Divine
Madonna. The Bible has always had "the
singular power of attracting to itself, as friend or
foe, the thinkers of the world wherever it has
gone. It, with the literature commenting upon
it, is more voluminous than all that remains to us
of Greek and Latin literature combined. The
commentaries upon the Bible exceed 60,000 vol-
umes, while the sermons of a single year would
probably amount to more than 100,000,000 octavo
pages. ' ' Yet this oldest of all printed books, which
for centuries has wielded such a mighty influence,
is to-day the freshest, most up-to-date, most
widely circulated and most largely read of all
books. He who says the Bible is out of date, or
is losing its power, is either ignorant on the sub-
ject, or dishonest, or both. It never has been
read and studied by as many people as to-day.
It has a larger circulation than any other book in
the world, and "Pilgrim's Progress," which is so
largely a paraphrase of Scripture, comes second.
A few cold facts from only one or two of the many
large Bible publishing houses will make the force
of this statement more apparent. Three presses
in England alone printed last year 6,000,000
Bibles and parts of Bibles for Christian wor-
ship in 320 different languages, to go to all parts
of the world, to say nothing of presses in America

THE BIBLE, THE WORD OF GOD 109

and other lands. The daily output of the Oxford
press is 4,000 Bibles, an average of 20,000 per
week, or 1,000,000 each year. The weekly ship-
ment to America of Oxford Bibles is five and
one-half tons, and the demand is increasing. In
the last twenty years, the demand for the Oxford
Bible has doubled — 500,000 copies issued in 1875,
and 1,000,000 a year in 1896. The books of the
British & Foreign Bible Society show likewise a
marked yearly increase, 4,000,000 Bibles or por-
tions of Bibles having been issued in one year,
1896. This one society, during the ninety-two
years of its existence, has issued 147,000,000
copies of the Bible. These undeniable facts are
evidence enough of the present power of the
book, and of the fact that never before in its his>
tory have its teachings been so earnestly and
largely studied. These four things, then, I pre-
sent as some of the reasons why I believe the
Bible to be the word of God — its wonderful unity
with diversity, its universal adaptation to the
needs of the race, its permanence in surviving the
actions of foes and friends, and the advances of
science and discoveries of archeology, and its past
influence and present power. These four lines of
evidence must amount to a demonstration to any
candid mind, and bring the conviction that the
Bible is none other than the word of God. No
other cause is adequate to account for the effect.
And yet there are in the soul of every believer

no THE BIBLE, THE WORD OF GOD

still stronger reasons for the abiding conviction
that the Bible is the very word of God. The
surest knowledge of the deepest realities comes
from self-consciousness and personal experience —
knowledge which cannot be expressed in syllogis-
tic form. Mr. Huxley has told us that "the higher
truths of life are within the reach of the aesthetic
faculties only"; heart wisdom is safer than head
wisdom, and life mightier than logic. And the
best way, after all, to be convinced of the divine
origin of the Bible, is to take it and try it ; make it
one's counselor and guide, and test it oneself by
its fruits. "If any man willeth to do his will, he
shall know of the teaching, whether it be of
God or whether I speak of myself." Obey and
you shall know ; obedience is the organ of spiritual
vision. If you will take the Bible and apply it to
your life faithfully and fervently, you will find
that it not only gives the very highest conceptions
of life and truth, but also furnishes effective
motive power to urge you on to these higher
realities. The more intelligently, constantly and
devoutly you use it, the higher will be the prod-
uct; it will transform and bnild up; it will draw
you Godward, and in doing so v\dll convince you
that it comes from God. And when others are
inclined to criticise its sacred pages, or doubt its
authority, you may well say, "If you take from
me this book yon must give me something better,
something tliat will do more to bless our homes.

THE BIBLE, THE WORD OF GOD iii

\ urge society, develop strength and sweetness of
character, bring into human hearts love, peace,
joy, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, faith,
temperance, will lessen the sorrows of life and
lighten the tomb. Until you do this I shall hold
to the book. I have absolute confidence in its
being divine. It is the word of God. I know it
through reason. I feel it in my heart, and no
fires or storms can overthrow its power. ' ' Some
one has thus spoken of the triumph of the Bible :

"Last eve I paused beside a blacksmith's door,
And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime ;
Then, looking in, I saw upon the floor

Old hammers worn with beating years of time.

'How many anvils have you had?' said I,

'To wear and batter all those hammers so?'
'Just one,' said he; then said with twinkling eye,

'The anvil wears the hammers out, you know. '
And so I thought the anvil of God's Word

For ages skeptic blows have beat upon ;
Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard,

The anvil is unharmed, the hammers gone."

The Dignity and Destiny
of Man

^ a^ a^

Hebrews z-S-Q- — ''For not unto the angels did he subject
the world to come whereof we speak. But one hath
somewhere testified, saying,

'What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
Or the son of man, that thou visitest him?
Thou madest him a little lower than the angels ;
Thou crownedst him with glory and honor,
And didst set him over the work of thy hands :
Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet.'

For in that he subjected all things unto him, he left
nothing that is 7tot subject to him. But now we see
not yet all things subjected to him. But we behold him
who hath been made a little lower than the angels,
even Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned
with glory and honor ^ that by the grace of God he
should taste death for every man."

Jp jjc» jp

THE quotation beg-inning- "What is man,"
etc. , is taken from the eighth psalm. This
psalm is one of the four psalms of David,
expressive of his feelings as a shepherd boy,
the nineteenth, twenty-third, and twenty-ninth
being the other psalms of his poetical youth.

DIGNITY AND DESTINY OF MAN 113

This eighth psahn is a song of the night. The
sun, which went forth in the morning, *'as a
bridegroom out of his chamber, rejoicing as a
strong man to run a race," has now finished his
circuit from one end of the heavens to the
other, and has dropped out of sight, appar-
ently beneath the waves of the blue Mediter-
ranean. But no sooner does the sun disappear
than the moon and the stars begin to shine. As
the shades of night deepen, the stars seem to
glow with greater brilliancy, and hang like balls
of fire in the clear vault of an oriental sky.
Those who have spent nights in Colorado
recall how near and how large the stars
seem to be in such an atmosphere. David is
tending his father's flock on the quiet hills of
Bethlehem. Being both an oriental and a shep-
herd poet, he is much given to star-gazing.
Amid his lowly duties he has lofty thoughts.
His poetic soul is aglow with inspiration. The
glories of the night-time feed the muse's fire;
and, as he lies upon his back amidst his sheep,
and peers into the starry heavens, his soul bursts
forth into ecstasy as in this eighth psalm :

"O Lord, our Lord,

How excellent is thy name in all the earth !

Who hast set thy glory upon the heavens.

Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings" (David is a mere

boy) "hast thou established strength,
Because of thine adversaries,
That thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

114 DIGNITY AND DESTINY OF MAN

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,

The moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

What is man," (man in his weakness and littleness) "that

thou art mindful of him?
And the son of man that thou visitest him?"

When I think of the heavens and their wide
extent, thy creation; when I look at the moon
and the countless stars, the work of thy fingers,
what is weak, little, insignificant man that thy
mind is full of him ; and the son of man that thou
art willing to visit him. This is the inspiring
thought that swelled the soul of the shepherd boy.
And yet, how little it was that David knew con-
cerning the extent of God's universe! What a
small world it was in which David moved ! What
did he know about moon or stars or heavens!
What did he know about the movement of the
spheres, or of countless worlds revolving about a
central sun ! To David, the earth was but a flat
plain, more or less limited in extent; and the
heavens were a tent stretched above the earth, in
which moon and stars were hung as lamps. David
knew nothing of the discoveries of Copernicus.
David had never looked through a mighty, modern
telescope, and had little conception of the vast
distances to the stars. Had he possessed even
one-tenth of the knowledge of one of our
common-school boys or girls of to-day, with what
added reverence his glowing soul would have
sung:

DIGNITY AND DESTINY OF MAN 115

"When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
The moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained ;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
And the son of man, that thou visitest him?"

Evidently, bigness is not greatness, and size is
not alwa5's significant. Evidently, persons are of
more value than things; and men and women
into whom God has breathed the breath of his
own life are of more importance to him than
countless worlds, the ctmning workmanship of
his fingers. A personal God is supremely inter-
ested in persons. Surely children in his own
image and likeness are more precious than moon
and stars. It is of them that his mind is full;
upon them his heart is set ; with them he yearns to
dwell.

"For thou hast made him but Httle lower than the angels,

And crownest him with glory and honor.

Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy

hands ;
Thou hast put all things under his feet. ' '

Here David recalls how, in that wonderful poem
of creation, the first chapter of Genesis, it was
recorded: "And God said, Let us make man in
our own image, after our likeness : and let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the
fowl of the air," etc., etc., "and over all the
earth." And so David sings, in echo of the first
chapter of Genesis, of the dignity and destiny of
man:

ii6 DIGNITY AND DESTINY OF MAN

"Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy

hands ;
Thou hast put all things under his feet:
All sheep and oxen" (David was even now a shepherd

ruling over sheep),
''Yea, and the beasts of the field" (perhaps David recalls

how he bearded the lion and slew the bear) ;
"The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea.
Whatsoever passes through the paths of the seas.

0 Lord, our Lord,

How excellent is thy name in all the earth!"

This is the eighth psalm, from which the
writer of Hebrews quotes in this passag-e which

1 have taken as a text, and upon this quota-
tion he now proceeds to comment. God did
make man to have dominion. God did put all
things in subjection imder his feet. "For in
that he subjected all things unto him, he left
nothing that is not subject to him." Yes, man
was made to have dominion, and to rule over all
created things. So says the Scripture. But, as
we look about upon men and the condition of
things to-day, we don't see men rulers over all
things. We see them not rulers, not conquerors,
not masters ; but in many instances and in many
particulars, cringing slaves; slaves of fear, slaves
of appetite and passion ; slaves in body, mind and
spirit. Truly, as the writer of Hebrews sa3^s,
"but now we see not yet all things subjected to
him." A sad sight it is, indeed, to see men and
women, created in the image of God, created to
have dominion, and yet not even masters of them-

DIGNITY AND DESTINY OF MAN 117

selves. To see them slaves of self, slaves of sin,
slaves of their fellows. "But now we see not yet
all things subject to him. But we behold him
who hath been made a little lower than the angels,
even Jesus, because of the suffering of death,
crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace
of God he should taste death for every man."
While the race in general has fallen far short of
its high dignity and destiny, one man of the race,
Jesus of Nazareth, has risen to the height of man's
privilege and prerogative, has triumphed where
others failed, and now sits crowned with glory
and honor, the victorious representative of all
those who through him shall also overcome.
This passage, then, suggests three thoughts for our
present consideration:* Man as God made him,
man as sin has made him, and man as manhood
was revealed in Jesus of Nazareth, and as man
may become through faith in him.

I. Let us look at the man that God made. The
first two chapters of Genesis give us a picture of
man as he was created. A world of beauty and
harmony was made, and at the end of each period
of creation God saw that it was good. Creation
proceeded on an ever ascending scale, from lower
to higher, from the simple to the complex, from
vegetable to lower animals, from creepers to
quadrupeds. At each step God was pleased with
the work of his hands. Finally, when all things

* Cf. F. B. Meyer on Hebrews in loco.

ii8 DIGNITY AND DESTINY OF MAN

had been made ready to serve and minister to
him, man, the climax, the masterpiece of God,
was formed and established as ruler over all.
"And God created man in his own image, in the
image of God created he him : male and female
created he them. And God blessed them: and
God said nnto them, 'Be fruitful, and multiply,
and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have
dominion. ' ' ' Thus was man created in God's own
image, and appointed to rule over the earth in
God's stead. In what did this divine image and
likeness consist? Doubtless it consisted in nat-
ural likeness to God, or the possession of person-
ality; and in moral likeness to God, or the
possession of holiness. Man was constituted a
personal creature and a holy person. He was
given certain faculties, intellect, affection, will;
and these faculties were given a holy direction or
tendency. By his personality, man was enabled
to know himself as related to the world and to
God, and was given the power to choose moral
ends and to determine his purposes in life. By
his holiness, or moral likeness to God, "man was
created with such a direction" (trend or tendency)
"of his affections and will" as to make it natural,
spontaneous, for him to love and serve God.
Yet, with his holiness, he retained his personal
freedom, had the power of contrary choice, and
was liable to temptation, even as was the second
Adam, the Christ of Nazareth. Thus, in person-

DIGNITY AND DESTINY OF MAN 119

ality and holiness, in nature and in morality, was
man created in the image and likeness of God.
"And God said, 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and
replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have
dominion.'" Man was not only made in God's
image, but also he was created to rule. He was
constituted a king by divine right. He was God's
own son, God's representative, God's vicegerent
upon earth. "The sun to labor for him as a very
Hercules, the moon to light his nights," and lead
ocean's waters round the earth with cleansing
tides, "the elements of nature to be his slaves and
messengers, flowers to scent his path, fruits to
please his taste, birds to sing for him, fish to feed
him, beasts to toil for and carry him." Truly,
his dignity and his destiny was an high one. No
other book gives us such an exalted and lofty
conception of man as does the Bible, and yet, no
other book paints so truly and vividly the deceit-
fulness and depravity of the unrenewed heart.
The idolater regards himself as inferior to beasts
and birds and crawling things, and bows in
reverence to worship them. The materialist
thinks himself only flesh and blood, a mass of
matter formed by the chance accumulation of
unreasoning atoms. Some so-called scientists
regard man as the offspring of the monkey, and
feel rather sure that they can trace their own
ancestry back to the brute. But the Bible, with
its true conception of man as well as of God, rises

I20 DIGNITY AND DESTINY OF MAN

above all of these misrepresentations, and boldly
declares man to be the child of a heavenly Father,
created in his image and after his likeness. Thus
we behold the man that God made, in a world of
beauty, harmony and peace, in which he himself
is "lord of all he surveys." He is surrounded
with a magnificent palace yard, the garden of
Eden. He walks and talks with God in the most
familiar way. His employment is of the most
delightful kind, for God loves him too much to
doom him to idleness. He is to trim the trees,
train the flowers, and gather the fruits of the
garden. His dominion is boundless. His rule is
absolute. He is king over all things. Neverthe-
less, there is one limitation of his power, one con-
dition of his reign. His will must be subordinate
to the will of the Almighty. He must bow down
and worship the God who made him. This, for
a time, the man seemed willing to do ; and so long
as he did so, he retained his almost sovereign
sway. But now, tempted by a rebel to distrust
God's love and God's wisdom, man became uneasy
under the sole limitation of his power. Ambition
was aroused; and, when promised that upon one
act of disobedience his eyes should be opened, and
he should become equal with God, man volun-
tarily stepped over the mark, raised his own will
in rebellion against his Maker's, broke away from
communion with his Father, and lost his crown.
2. This brings us secondly to the beginning of

DIGNITY AND DESTINY OF MAN 121

that sad history of man as sin has made him. No
sooner does man sin than conscience makes him a
coward. Yonder is that erstwhile sovereign
man, hiding like a cringing slave "behind the
trees of the garden from the Lord of the garden."
He is now no longer king. He has dethroned
himself. His crown is rolling in the dust.
Selfishness has now become the supreme rule of
existence ; the soul has lost communion with the
source of its life; the holy nature has become
tainted and perverted; affections are corrupted,
intellect blinded, will fettered. Now he finds it
easier to sin than to do right, for self has become
his God. He has begun the downward path, and
down, down, down, he goes, at a terrific rate.
Fallen man begets children in his own fallen like-
ness, and hands down his corrupted nature and
perverted disposition to his descendants. Fear,
jealousy, hate, soon take possession of man, and
the deteriorating process is hastened by his own
multiplied and multiplying sins. Cain kills Abel,
and his sin reacts upon himself and still further
debases his own character. So low does man
become, so much a slave of his guilty self, that we
soon see this one-time monarch, this one made
for dominion, bowing down in worship before the
weakest and lowest creatures of his kingdom.
Yonder, in Egypt, he worships frogs, and flies,
and pays homage to serpents. Here he has con-
secrated a temple to the sacred bull, while yonder

122 DIGNITY AND DESTINY OF MAN

he kisses the dust in reverence before a golden
calf. He trembles as a suppliant before "sticks
and stones and worse than senseless things. " Or,
to-day, he is a slave of fear and remorse, of appe-
tite and passion, of drinks and drugs, of society
and custom. The image of God, in which he was
created, has not been lost ; but it is sadly marred
and scarred by sin and selfishness. Man is a lost
sheep, afar off on the mountains, away from the
shepherd's fold. He is a lost coin, still valuable,
stamped with the image and superscription of a
king; but lost to its highest usefulness and miss-
ing the very purpose of its existence. He is a lost
son ; still a son of his Father, but a prodigal, his
will in rebellion against his Father's will, and his
life deprived of the blessings and privileges of the
home-life. Yes, he is lost, lost, lost! Neverthe-
less, he is capable of redemption; for he still
possesses personality and a moral nature, however
much that moral nature may have been perverted.
Yes, man, a failure, may yet become man, a
success. Paradise Lost may yet be Paradise
Regained. "For the Son of Man came to seek
and to save those that are lost." Christ came not
only to reveal to us the Father, but to reveal us
to ourselves. He came to show us what manhood
meant; what man might have been; and what a
man, through him, may yet become.

3. Let us note then, thirdly, man as Christ
revealed manhood, manhood to which we also may

DIGNITY AND DESTINY OF MAN 123

attain through faith in him. In Christ manhood
was at its maximum, and the ancient ideal was
fully realized in every particular. He was pre-
eminently the man, the Son of Man, the perfect
man; the only member of the human race in
whom has been manifested the complete idea of
humanity. He must forever stand at the very
apex of mankind. No improvement can ever be
made upon him. In him, we find every virtue
carried to its highest excellence ; in him, we find
no vice, even in its lightest form. The verdict of
all who carefully scrutinize his character must be
but a re-echoing of the judgment of Pilate, '*I find
no fault in him." You may take any other very
good man, with the most distinguished heredity,
with the strongest and sweetest character, with
the most auspicious environment, and, through
the education of life, books and communion with
God and man, you may develop him, through
centuries, to the very highest point of excellence,
and in this wonderful man you'll not find any
virtue, any excellence of character, that you do
not find in the man of Galilee. Christ possessed
and combined, in the most remarkable way,
"every grace and every virtue which human
nature ever has displayed, or ever will display, in
the course of its universal development. Match-
less beauty, spotless purity, stainless splendor,
strength with gentleness, courage with tender-
ness, charity with righteousness" ; the lowliest and

124 DIGNITY AND DESTINY OF MAN

yet the lordliest, the meekest and yet the mightiest
of men. He realized in his life what the first
Adam and his descendants, through sin, failed to
realize. He manifested God's image and God's
likeness everywhere. He was sovereign in all his
commands. He was king over himself, over
nature, over all created things. Winds and waves
obeyed him. ''Trees withered at his touch."
Fish in shoals came at his call. Droves of cattle
fled before his scourging whip. Disease, demons
and death bowed before his will. In every way
he trod the earth as a conqueror; and now, as
victorious man, as well as Son of God, he sits
crowned with glory and honor. The first man,
Adam, believed the lie of the devil, and lost his
crown. The second man, Christ, obeyed at every
point the will of his Father, and now sits
enthroned in his glorified humanity. The first
man, Adam, aspired, through disobedience, to
equality with God, and lost his earthly kingdom.
The second man, Christ, stooped down from a
heavenly throne, took upon himself humanity,
partook of flesh and blood, lived a perfect and
obedient life as a Son, as a man, and now, as
man's representative, he sits crowned. As Paul
tells us in Philippians, "being found in fashion as
a man, he humbled himself and became obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross; where-
fore God hath highly exalted him."

Yes, Christ has triumphed, and is crowned ; but

DIGNITY AND DESTINY OF MAN 125

only as a first fruits, as the captain of our salva-
tion, as the leader "of many sons to glory," as
the "first among man}^ brethren." He, the
victorious man, offers to help us win a similar vic-
tory. "As many as received him, to them gave
he the power" (the right) "to become the sons of
God, even to them that believe on his name."
There is only one way by which the dignity and
destiny of man may again be realized, and that is
through faith in him. If we join our lives with
his, and let him live in and through us, we shall
surely win. We shall be "more than conquerors
through him that loved us. " Throtigh fellowship
with him, it may be true of each one of us, that
there is no sin or sinful tendency which we may
not overcome, and no virtue or excellence to
which we may not attain. The progress may
seem slow, and the attainment distant. We shall
need to exercise patience with ourselves, and
patience with each other, but the outcome cannot
be doubtful. The main thing now is, are you
tending in the right direction? Is your life a vic-
torious life? Are you becoming more and more
like your Master? Which is it in your case,
conqueror or conquered? Victor or victim? Is
the life getting sweeter, the character stronger ;
are the purposes higher? If so, then take cour-
age; for through him you shall surely conquer.
You shall see him as he is. Yes, you shall be like
him.

126 DIGNITY AND DESTINY OF MAN

And is there some one here this evening who
is living" without the conscious help of such a
Savior? One who feels himself being more and
more overcome; who realizes that the divine
image and likeness have been sadly scarred and
soiled by sin and selfishness? Will you not give
up your own unaided and vain efforts after truest
manhood or womanhood, and take Christ as your
best helper and friend? He knows all of your
trials. He is thoroughly fitted to be your Savior.
He has been tempted in all points as you, and has
triumphed. Accept him as your Savior now, and
you'll begin at once to overcome. You must stoop
to conquer, but he will crown you at the last.
The possibilities of a life have been illustrated by
the history of a silk rag. Yonder is a rag-picker,
going up and down the streets and lanes of the
city, picking up rags and pieces of paper, which
she carelessly thrusts into a dirty-looking bag.
Thus she spends many weary hours of the day.
But now, she sees something which specially
arouses her interest. It's soiled and dirty, and
half buried in an ash heap. It looks like the
commonest sort of a cast-off rag. But she picks
it up, with the greatest interest, carefully
smoothes it over her knee, and, instead of thrust-
ing it carelessly into the junk-bag, she carefully
puts it into her pocket. It isn't worth much.
It's only a dirty rag; but ifs silk! The rag-picker
takes it to the broker and gets perhaps a penny

DIGNITY AND DESTINY OF MAN 127

for it ; the broker sends it to the renovator ; the
renovator sends it, with other silk rags, to the
paper mills at Eau Claire, where the finest of fine
paper is made from it. It's now worth perhaps
fifteen cents. Then the government sends to Eau
Claire an order for some extra fine paper; the
paper is sent on to Washington, and is stamped,
and the old rag now becomes a government bond
of immense worth. The rag zvas silk! So, my
friend, if you'll give your soiled and scarred life
into the hands of the world's great Redeemer,
he'll purge you from your impurities, he'll renew
your heart, he'll lead you, develop you, train you
and enlarge you through time and throughout
eternity, until there shall be no virtue which you
shall not realize, and no height which you may not
reach. May God help each one of us, through
Christ, to attain here and hereafter to the true
dignity and destiny of manhood and womanhood.

Sorrows Sanctified

'^'^'^

James 1:2-4. — ''My brethren, count it all joy when ye
fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the
trying of your faith worketh patience. But let
patience have her perfect work, that ye may be Per-
fect and entire, wajiting jiothing."

'^'^'^

THE epistle in which the words of our text
are found was written by that James, the
brother of our Lord, who was for years
at the head of the Jerusalem church. It was
addressed to the Christian Jews, who were at this
time scattered over the entire known world; and
it had as its purpose their comfort and admoni-
tion in view of existing and future trials. The
lot of the Christian Jew was indeed a hard one,
and it was very appropriate that some such
words as those of our text should have been
written to him, to buoy him up in the midst of his
overwhelming woes.

His troubles came, in general, from two
sources. There were, first, the unchristian
Jews, that vast majority of the Jewish nation,
who still clung tenaciously to Judaism, and had

128

SORROWS SANCTIFIED 129

nought but curses and revilings for any who
espoused the cause of the hated Nazarene. If,
perchance, any one of their own number renounced
Judaism for Christianity, he was earnestly labored
with, and all possible efforts Avere made to reclaim
him from the error of his ways. It is probable that
many were thus induced to return to Judaism,
since the book to the Hebrews was called forth to
counteract just such a tendency. If, how-
ever, a Jew persisted in his new-born faith,
he was considered a breeder of disorder,
a heretic; was subjected to the most bitter
denunciations; was mercilessly dragged be-
fore the synagogue for trial; and, as history
seems to show, sometimes received sentence of
death. The bitterness of these persecutions was
still sharpened, when one's persecutors were
those of one's own home, one's own flesh and
blood; when wife and father, son and daughter,
vied with one another in heaping curses upon the
new-born Christian and his beloved Redeemer.
Oh ! we at this distant day, and in these Christian
times, can have little idea of the terrible hatred
of which the Jew was capable. The hatred which
these Jews had for their apostate brethren is well
expressed by Shakespeare, when he puts into the
mouth of Shylock, respecting Antonio, the words:

" I hate him, for he is a Christian.
If I can catch him once upon the hip
I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him."

I30 SORROWS SANCTIFIED

Hatred has found its very incarnation in the
Judases and Shylocks of history, and in the howl-
ing mob which thronged the throne of Pilate
and only quenched its thirst in the blood of the
Son of God.

But these Christian Jews, in common with all
Jews, had also another source of trouble. It was
the presence everywhere in their beloved land of
the conquering Roman. Judea was now a Roman
province; her freedom was gone; the legions of
the Emperor were quartered in all her cities ; the
most sacred rites and places of her history were
defiled by heathen bands; on all sides appeared
the signs of decay and of ultimate national
extinction ; and within twenty years from the time
of the writing of this Epistle, Jerusalem, the
City of Peace, the center of the grandest, most
momentous and most terrible events of Jewish, if
not of the world's, history, will have been burned
by the Roman, Titus.

In view of such present and future trials, the
words of our text would not have failed to com-
mand careful attention. But perhaps some one
may say, "These words have no reference to us,
since we have no such trials as those of our early
Christian brethren. Why should we give heed to
such a text as this?" We answer, it is true that
these words were written primarily for a certain
people, under certain social, political and religious
distresses; true that many of us to-day are not in

SORROWS SANCTIFIED 131

similar circumstances ; but we all have trials and
troubles of various sorts. We all, I say, have
trials and troubles. Mine are no greater than
yours, and yours are no greater than mine ; and
these words contain principles of life so broad as
to be applicable to all times and to all people, and
were intended, under divine Providence, to be a
source of comfort and consolation to all of God's
children in every age of the world. Let us, then,
consider for this morning, the theme, "Sorrows
Sanctified," or, "The divine ideal of Christian
conduct in the midst of trials."

It is well to recall, in passing, that the word
translated in our text temptation does not convey
to us the exact idea of the original Greek. The
word trials as given by the revisers in the margin,
and preferred by the American Committee, is
less likely to be misunderstood. By a temptation
we generally mean a seduction to evil, an inclina-
tion to sin, an impulse to do that which is wrong;
while the word trial is broader, and, though it con-
tains the meaning of the word temptation, refers
here also to what we call sorrows, trouble, disap-
pointment, such as come from the loss of property,
of position or reputation, of health or of friends.

Notice, again, that our text assumes the exist-
ence, not of a single trial, but of divers, many-
colored trials. These Christian Jews were
encompassed with trials. We have mentioned but
two sources of woe. Trials are many and of vari-

132 SORROWS SANCTIFIED

ous kinds, and as we read the history of the past, or
reflect on the condition of things to-day, we recog-
nize the truth of the text, and sometimes say, in a
proverbial form, "Troubles never come singly."

To persons under such circumstances, in the
midst of many varied trials, the words of our text
come, "Count it all joy when ye fall into divers
temptations."

I. We note, in the first place, that trials are
largely subjective. Seneca, a famous Latin
writer, said, "Our grief lieth in our own opinion
and conception of miseries," while Emerson, of
our own times, expressed a similar sentiment
when he said, "The light in which we see the
world comes from the soul of the observer." Let
me illustrate the truth expressed in these rather
abstract statements. Here are two men whose
afflictions are in themselves equal. This, of
course, is a presumptive case, for no two men
have trials which are exactly similar; and yet
allow the case for purposes of illustration. Here
are two persons whose trials are in themselves
equal. To the one they appear as crushing woes;
to the other they are afflictions which endure but
for a moment. The one is borne down and over-
come by them ; the other bears bravely up under
and rises above them. The one is rendered nar-
row and hard-hearted, the other is broadened,
developed and rendered tender-hearted. The one
is marred by them, the other is made by them.

SORROWS SANCTIFIED 133

Where lies the difference? Not in the afflictions
themselves, but in the attitude of the two men
toward them. Compare Pharaoh and Job. The
plagues of the frogs, the lice, the flies, the boils,
and the darkness fell upon Pharaoh, and at the
end of the story of each we read the melancholy
words, "And Pharaoh's heart was hardened."
Upon Job even severer afflictions fell. His oxen,
his asses, his sheep, his camels, his servants, yea,
all his children, were taken away; and yet, at
the end of this catalogue of fatalities, we read
this significant statement: "Then Job arose and
rent his mantle and shaved his head and fell down
upon the ground and worshiped and said, 'Naked
came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall
I return thither: the Lord gave and the Lord
hath taken away, blessed be the name of the
Lord.' " Afflictions, then, are largely subjective,
and much depends upon the attitude of men
toward them.

2. Again, the nature of man's endurance of
trial, as well as the effect of trial upon his char-
acter, depends upon his belief, his faith in respect
to two things: First, what is the source and
immediate purpose of affliction? As regards this
question, men can be divided into two great
classes. There are, of course, all shades of belief,
but these two classes will be found to be fairly
representative. In the days of Greek philos-
ophers, the Stoics were a large and influential

134 SORROWS SANCTIFIED

school. They held that the universe was nothing
but the expression of a blind, unintelligent force.
Joys and sorrows come alike to all. A blind fate
determines all of the events of life. There is no
purpose in events. There is no philosophy of
life, except the philosophy of cold, stoical endur-
ance. Man is a machine, a puppet in a show, a
thing without volition, irresistibly driven on to a
purposeless destiny by an impersonal and
remorseless Fate. Personality? There is none
in God or man.

The Stoic, in the midst of affliction, contracted
his features, gritted his teeth, folded his arms,
firmly placed his heel on the ground, and said, "I
endure because I must." There was no cheer,
no uplift, no joy, no buoyancy, about such an
endurance as that. It was purely animal cour-
age, hardly worthy even of admiration. The
American Indian was a fine modern example of
the ancient Stoic. It is needless to remark that
to-day there is a large number of people whose
system of thought and manner of life are fatal-
istic and stoical in their tendency.

In striking contrast with this class of men stands
a class of persons whom we call Christians. The
Christian believes in a personal God, a God all-
powerful, yet all-wise, holy, yet benevolent, a
being who desires the highest good of every one
of his creatures. The Christian believes, and
here I would not be misunderstood, that all trials

SORROWS SANCTIFIED 135

and afflictions of every sort come directly or
indirectly under the providing or permitting
providence of a personal, holy and benevolent
God, and that they are disciplinary in their pur-
pose ; that they are a test of faith, and that God,
as a wise father, chastens (trains) whom he loves.
In view of this fact, these Jewish Christians and
all followers of the meek and lowly Jesus are
urged to be cheerful in the midst of various trials,
knowing this, that the trying of their faith work-
eth patience, or, rather, endurance. For one,
who professes to be a believer in God and a fol-
lower of the patient and suffering Savior, to be a
discontented grumbler, a kicker, a morose com-
plainer and a pessimistic bore, is to impugn the
character of God, to cast reflections on the truth
of his Word, to disgrace the Church of Christ,
and to help to make the name of Christian a
byword and a reproach. As you believe in God
and his eternal purpose, as you believe in Christ
and his saving power, as you believe in the Holy
Spirit and his ministrations of comfort and peace,
as 5^ou profess to have your life hidden with
Christ in God, and to be walking by faith in him,
as seeing him who is invisible, in the name of the
Triune God, I beseech of you:

" Look up and not down ;
Look out and not in ;
Look forward and not back
And lend a hand."

136 SORROWS SANCTIFIED

A faith which has never been tested is generally
a weak, sickly sort of thing. The house-plant
which has been carefully guarded from all oppos-
ing winds and currents, the hot-house flowers
which have been ever accustomed to a constant
temperature, quickly wither and fall away when
the hoar-frost strikes them ; but that sapling, faith,
which stands out in the open field, where winds
and storms play upon it, sends its shoots deeper
at every tug of the tempest, and wreathes its
roots around the everlasting rocks. It's when we
have to buffet the storm, when the tempests roar,
and the earth trembles beneath our feet, that faith
is tested, and through testing becomes firm. Out
of struggle strength is born, and from the midst
of conflict convictions come. No one realizes the
trustworthiness of God, or the faithfulness of his
promises, as he who has been through the furnace
of trouble and found them true. Such an one
feels sure that "all things work together for good
to those that love God."

"The trying of faith worketh patience." How
shall we describe this marvelous product,
patience ! They call it a negative virtue, a silent
virtue, a passive virtue ; but if it is negative and
silent and passive, it is not less powerful. The
mightiest forces of the universe are the silent
forces.

" The heavens declare the glory of God
And the firmament showeth his handiwork.

SORROWS SANCTIFIED 137

Day unto day uttereth speech

And night unto night sheweth knowledge.

There is no speech nor language

Their voice is not heard.

Their line is gone out through all the earth

And their words to the end of the world."

The power that whirls the worlds through space is
noiseless, but it is none the less resistless. We
speak, to be sure, of the music of the spheres, but
it is a symphony of silence. "Worketh patience."
This wonderful product is not produced in a
moment. If patience is so great a power and so
excellent a virtue, it is worth the winning. It is
not to be acquired by spasmodic fits of endeavor;
but little by little, as day by day we faithfully do
life's duties.

" Heaven is not reached by a single bound,
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
And we mount to its summit round by round."

3. Again, the nature of man's conduct under
trial, and the effect of trial upon him, depend
upon his faith in the end of his trials, or in their
ultimate purpose. "Knowing this, that the try-
ing of your faith worketh patience; but let
patience have her perfect work, that ye may be
perfect and entire, wanting nothing." Faith in
the end is the key to all the noblest endurance of
history. Read the thrilling romance of discovery
and invention, and you will realize that that which

138 SORROWS SANCTIFIED

sustained those hardy heroes and pioneers in
travel and thought, in the midst of indescribable
trials, was faith in the end. Four hundred years
ago, a bold Genoese sailor, a man of great faith,
set out with a few companions on a long journey
upon an unknown sea. After days and weeks of
varied experience, the waves rough beneath
them, the clouds black above them, with nought
in their horizon but heaven and ocean, his com-
panions become discouraged and disheartened.
Faces become black with anger and fear.
Murmurings, silent at first, become more open
and pronounced. Dark despair broods over the
ship ; and at last mutiny, that terror of the sea,
surges in every breast. In the midst of this scene
of distress stands a man, firm and erect, with
cheerful countenance and hopeful mien. No
clouds of despondency play over his features ; but,
with keen eyes and an air of expectancy, he
eagerly surveys the horizon before him. How is
it that he seems not to heed the trials about him?
What is it that enables him to endure so bravely
the experience through which he is passing? He
sees before him India. His eye of faith pierces
the unknown expanse, and the end of his trials he
sees to be a new passage round the world. Fifty
years after, go with me to France and see a man
who has been working patiently for sixteen years,
amid great hardships, toward the realization of an
idea. His resources are now well-nigh spent.

SORROWS SANCTIFIED 139

His furnace fires have devoured his substance,
and in his extremity he begins to split up his
furniture for fuel. His neighbors mock him. His
wife derides him. His starving children plead
with him. Death stares all in the face. Yet we
see that this man, firm as a rock, strong in his
determination, and buoyant in his expectancy, is
moved by none of these things. Why? Because
Bernard Palissy knew that if he could keep his
furnace fires hot enough, he could produce the
beautiful white enamel which he was seeking.
Faith in the end made endurance possible. All
down through history, from the beginning of
time, the character of man's endurance of trouble
has depended upon his faith in the end. Abra-
ham journeyed from Ur of Chaldeeinto unknown
parts, sustained by his faith in the Promised
Land. Job rose above the afflictions which fell
upon him, and triumphed over his friends by his
sublime faith in the outcome of his trials, when
he exultantly declared, "I know that my
Redeemer liveth." Stephen, when the stones
came crashing in upon him, by faith saw Jesus
and the home of the saints. Paul and Silas sang
songs in the jail at Philippi. A host of martyrs
welcomed the stake, bathed their hands in the
flames, and joyfully endured the severest trials
because of their faith in the end. Reformers
and missionaries have furnished many examples of
this principle. And who can doubt that one great

I40 SORROWS SANCTIFIED

sustaining power in the life of suffering of Jesus
himself was a clear view of the final purpose of
his work, the salvation of the world? Our text
suggests to us the final end of all our trials,
in view of which we are cheerfully and patiently
to endure the troubles through which we may be
called to pass. It is perfection of character.
"But let patience have her perfect work, that ye
maybe perfect and entire, lacking in nothing."
Trial in the furnace of sorrow, when borne in the
right spirit, will do for human character what the
fire does for precious metals; it will burn away
the dross, and bring out into clearer light that
which is of real worth. How often have we seen
the kinks of character removed by affliction!
How often we have noticed that a broadness of
living, a sympathy of thought and feeling, and a
tenderness and gentleness of love and behavior
have been wrought into a man's disposition by
the hammer of discipline ! Why was it necessary
for the chosen people to pass through that severe
bondage in Egypt? Why those forty years of
trial in the wilderness? Why that checkered his-
tory of more than a thousand years? Why that
Babylonish captivity? This was God's way of
building a nation. This is the divine method of
bringing about perfection, both in nations and in
individuals. Why is it that God so often causes
us to pass through these dark valleys? Why is it
that sickness strikes us down and interrupts our

SORROWS SANCTIFIED 141

work ; that disappointments cross our path ; that
many of our cherished plans are frustrated?
Why? We believe that it is because God is
training us. Life is a training school, and trials
are our best teachers. The end of all is our hig-h-
est welfare, our perfection of character. We
shall acquire this in proportion as we allow
patience to have her perfect work.

"Let us," then, "be patient. These severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise ;
But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise."

Further, let us recall that we have observed that
patient endurance depends upon faith in the
source and immediate purpose of afflictions, and
faith in the end. It is pre-eminently a work of
faith. Our sight is very limited.

"We see but dimly through the mists and vapors;
Amid these earthly damps.
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers
May be heaven's distant lamps."

We cannot see even a day before us, and life
appears to our thoughts as made up of so many
hours and minutes. We see nothing as a unit, or
as a finality. We see only parts of things. Life
to us is a mass of incompletions. Life is like
climbing a series of ever-rising hills which lead up
to a lofty mountain. We climb up the first hill,
and when we have reached the top, we can see

142 SORROWS SANCTIFIED

nothing before us but a dark valley and perhaps
a dimly rising hillside. We can see no more.
All is veiled in fog and mist. We pass down
through this valley, over a mountain stream, up
the hillside, and attain the second height. Here,
again, before us, we can see but a short distance,
and that a valley and a crooked path ; but, as we
look back from this vantage point, we can see the
way in which we have come, and begin to under-
stand why it was that we must cross that valley
and follow that winding road. On and on we go,
through valley to hill-top; and, as we trudge
along, the way behind us, over which we have
come, begins to take definite form, and we begin
to see that there has been a constant ascent ; while
before us the mist is lifting, and the mountain
peak toward which we are striving becomes more
plain. On and on we go, now ascending, now
winding down a crooked path ; again we begin to
rise, and at last we reach the summit of the
mountain peak. The glow of the noontide sun
has now burst upon us. The mists are gone ; and
we wonderingly admire the beauty of the scene.
As we gaze here and there, onr thoughts are
drawn to the place of our ascent. We trace with
eager curiosity the windings of the path by
which we have come to this magnificent height.
And now, innv, we understand the meaning of
every step. AVe sec tliat each winding of the
road was necessarv. Sucli is life. We can see

SORROWS SANCTIFIED 143

but a short distance before us. We pass into
dark places and afflictions rise up before us and
shut out the light of the world from us. A
cent, when held close to the eye, appears larger
than the universe. How much depends upon
getting the proper point of view! Some years
ago, while in a fine-art gallery in Europe, I stood
one day before a famous picture. I gazed and
gazed, and yet I could see no beauty there.
Everything seemed to be jumbled. There was no
order, no perspective, simply blotches of color.
All at once the thought flashed across my mind,
*' Perhaps the fault is with me, and not with the
picture." I stepped aside a few paces. No; it
was of no use. I could find no beauty in those
splashes of color. I was just about to leave the
gallery, disgusted with myself and with the pic-
ture ; when, as I reached the door, I turned about
to take a final look. And now, behold! all seemed
changed. Order had come out of disorder. Every
object seemed to stand out in wonderful perspec-
tive, and before me was a scene of exquisite
beauty. The picture was the same, but I had
gotten the artist's point of view. Again, we have
an illustration of life. When we get the divine
perspective, we see things in their true relations.
We often have the experience of seeing, in later
years, that what we regarded at the time as a very
bitter disappointment, a very hard providence,
was, in fact, the greatest blessing which God

144 SORROWS SANCTIFIED

could at the time have bestowed upon us. Then
we realize that every cloud had a silver lining-,
and that our sorrows were but blessings in dis-
guise. Dear friends, life, with its so-called acci-
dents and exigencies, when viewed from any
standpoint but the right one, seems a meaning-
less jumble, an insolvable problem, a purposeless
series of disconnected events. But when we get
the divine point of view, when our faith pierces
the inists, and sees the mountain peak as our
goal, when every event in life is seen to be a
part, and a necessary part too, of a great plan,
when perfection of character is known to be the
end of our trials; then these afflictions will
appear as sorrows of a moment, and our patient
endurance will work in us the perfection which
God desires. Then, at all times, we may sing
with the sainted P. P. Bliss:

" So on I go, not knowing,

I would not if I might ;
I'd rather walk in the dark with God

Than go alone in the light.
I'd rather walk by faith with Him

Than go alone by sight.
Where He may lead I'll follow,

My trust in Him repose,
And every hour in perfect peace

I'll sing 'He knows, He knows,*

I'll sing 'He knows, He knows!' "

Change Your Mind!

Isaiah S5-7- — ''Let the wicked forsake his way, and the

unrighteotcs man his thoughts: and let him return

unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him;

and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.''
Ezekiel jj:ii. — ''Say U7ito them, as I live, saith the Lord

God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked;

but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn

ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die,

O house of Israel? "
Matt. 4:17. — ''From that time began fesus to preach,

and to say, 'Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is

at hand. ' ' '
Acts 17: JO. — "The times of ignorance, therefore, God

overlooked; but now he co?nmandeth 7nen that they

should all every iv here repent.''

THE portions of Scripture just read are only
a few of the many passages, in both the
Old and the New Testaments, which insist
upon the duty and doctrine of repentance. Re-
pentance was a familiar message in biblical times ;
its meaning ought to be specially clear to-day.
Should I ask, however, an average audience for a
definition of Scriptural repentance, we should be
surprised at the variety of the answers given.
Many have an inadequate idea of its scope ; many

145

146 CHANGE YOUR MIND!

confound other things with it. Let us ask our-
selves what it is, and what it is not. The word in
the original which is translated "Repent," means
literally, "To think differently after, an after-
thinking, a change of mind resulting in a change of
conduct. " Dr. John A. Broadus, the great Ameri-
can New Testament Greek scholar, defined repent-
ance as "a change of mind, thought and purpose
as regards sin, and the service of God ; a change
naturally accompanied by deep sorrow for past
sin, and naturally leading to a change of outward
life." In the Old Testament the corresponding
injunction is, "Turn ye, turn ye, or return." In
the Latin version we have the translation "exer-
cise penitence," which with ritualists soon came
to mean "do penance. " But thought is the source
of deep and true feeling, and thought and feeling
lead to action. The change of mind, thought, or
purpose is, therefore, the primary idea; while
feeling, or grief for sin, is secondary: not grief
for sin first and change of mind second,
as some would have us suppose. And so, when
Old Testament prophet and New Testament
preacher united in echoing the divine injunction,
"Repent ye! Repent ye!" they were saying in
nineteenth century English, "Change your mind!
Change your mind!" Isaiah said it. Ezekiel
said it. John the Baptist said it. Christ said it.
The twelve said it. Peter said it. Paul said it.
"Change your mind! Change your mind! For

CHANGE YOUR MIND! 147

the kingdom of God is at hand." And to-day, as
a humble follower of a long line of faithful preach-
ers of the cross, each ministering to his own gen-
eration, each proclaiming, as God's messenger,
the blessed gospel of salvation, I too, in God's
name, call upon you to "change your mind."

Change your mind about God. Some people
think of God as a great, burly, arbitrary, despotic
Being; a terrible Judge before whom we must
appear; a hard Task-master trying to drive on to
slavish toil a helpless and hopeless race; an awful
Ogre ; a Monster, lawless and loveless. But this
is not the God of the Bible, nor the God of the
universe. God is not a monster, but a benevolent
Creator, and a loving Heavenly Father. He
made man, his masterpiece, in His own image and
likeness; and to rule. He created a beautiful
world of harmony and peace for man's home ; and
when man, by his own voluntary sin, defiled his
heart and home, and destroyed the bliss of earth,
God did not leave him alone in his misery and
woe, but came to teach him the blight of sin, and
to point him forward in hope to the time of vic-
tory over evil through the woman's seed. In the
fulness of time God's own Son, born of a woman,
came into the world as a man, to win a victory for
man; and to bring man back to fellowship with
God, and into the relationship of sonship with a
Heavenly Father. You must change your mind
about God. God loves you. God desires you to

148 CHANGE YOUR MIND!

be His son, to see in Him your Father. Yes! He
loves YOU, every one of you, the very vilest and
weakest, the most ungrateful and selfish of you.
He has always loved you. He desires to save
every one of you. "For God so loved the world
that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoso-
ever believeth on him should not perish, but have
eternal life." His supreme desire for you is that
you may choose his Son as your Savior, Friend
and Brother; and through Him learn how to be
a child of God. For, "as many as received Him,
to them gave He the right to become children of
God, even to them that believe on His name."
Change your mind about God now! He is your
Friend. He desires your very highest welfare.
He wants many sons, and wants to bring those
sons to glory. He wants you to be his child. He
yearns to teach you through the Spirit to cry
"Abba, Father."

Then, too, you must change your mind not only
about God, but also about man, about yourself.
You are not a mere body ; not all physical ; not
"a mass of matter formed by the chance accu-
mulation of unreasoning atoms"; not simply an
animal. You are something more than the brutes.
You are a person. You have mental possibilities.
You have a spiritual capacity. Like the temple
of old, you have the outer court, the body; the
inner court, the mind ; and the holy of holies, the
spirit. And in some of you this spiritual part of

CHANGE YOUR MIND! 149

your nature, like the deserted Temple in the time
of Pompey, is dark and tenantless. Oh, that you
would open the door now and let the Savior in !
Man is, above all things, a spiritual being, with a
capacity for God; and it is impossible for him
ever to find permanent peace or rest away from
God. No spiritual being can ever be fully satis-
fied with material things; nor find his highest or
fullest development in the realm of the visible.
Come! Change your mind about yourself! You
have divine possibilities. Your spiritual capacity
is the best and most enduring thing about you.
Let God into your soul and you will, indeed, begin
to live.

You must change your mind also about sin. In
the olden time, the Tempter led our first parents
to believe that sin was a good thing, was an advan-
tage. "And when the woman saw that the tree
was good for food, and that it was a delight to the
eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make
one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did
eat ; and she gave also unto her husband with her,
and he did eat." And it has been thus ever since.
People only sin at first under the false impression
that they are going to gain something by it.
Later on people sin from force of habit and
strength of appetite. But at first we are led to
suppose that this or that sin, this or that indul-
gence, will be the road to advantage. But the
call of God, the message of Scripture, the verdict

I50 CHANGE YOUR MIND!

of history, observation and experience, the voice
of wisdom, all cry out in stentorian tones,
" Change your mind ! Change your mind!" Sin
is never a real gain. There is no permanent
advantage in wrong-doing. Sin is always, as the
Hebrew word describes it, a missing of the mark,
a loss, a mistake. Be wise in time and forsake
sin!

Again, you must change your mind about right-
eousness. You have thought that the path of
self-indulgence and sin was the path of joy and
peace ; and that the path of right-doing was nar-
row and disappointing. You must change your
mind! Righteousness does not mean com-
pression, but expression ; not slavery but highest
liberty ; not a burden but a boon ; not a fast, nor
a funeral, but a feast of good things. Satan is
inducing you to live on sawdust, to feed on the
pods that the swine eat. But God says, "Hearken
diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good,
and let your soul delight itself in fatness." Sin
always cramps and warps, dwarfs and destroys;
but righteousness enlarges and develops, builds
up, makes for manhood and womanhood. To be
a Christian means to "have life and to have it
more abundantly." Listen! There is not in
Christianity a single duty or doctrine, that will
dim or destroy one single honest delight of the
human heart. Not one ! It aims a deadly blow
only at sin and selfishness. It aims to destroy

CHANGE YOUR MIND! 151

that which is already destroying you. Change
your mind about righteousness !

Once more ; you must change your mind about
Christ, the supreme figure of human history. You
must change your mind about Christ. He is not
a mere historical personage: one who lived and
died nineteen hundred years ago, a martyr to an
unfortunate series of circumstances. He is not
merely the ideal man, the best man that ever
lived. He is God as well as man, the God-man
Christ Jesus, who, in order to provide a salvation
for every member of the human race, lived and
died and rose again, and lives to-day at God's
right hand, where He shall sit till His enemies be
made the footstool of His feet. He tasted death
for every man; He was made perfectly fitted
through suffering to be the captain of our salva-
tion, yours and mine ; He is not one who cannot
be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but
is able to sympathize with and help us; having
made a propitiation for our sins. He is ever living
to make intercession for us, and so is able to save
to the uttermost all those who come to God
through Him. Change your mind about Christ,
and accept Him now as your Savior!

This is fundamentally the call to repentance.
Change your mind about God, and see in Him a
Friend and Father! Change your mind about
yourself, and recognize your spiritual nature and
possibilities! Change your mind about sin, and see

152 CHANGE YOUR MIND!

in it that which only warps and destroys! Change
your mind about righteousness, and see in it ful-
ness of life ! Change your mind about Christ, and
see in Him your Savior! To bring you to this
change of mind God has been using, is using, and
will continue to use — every possible resource
within his power, without interfering with your
freedom of choice. He wishes that none should
perish but that all should come to the knowledge
of the truth. Christ's life and death and resur-
rection prove God's love for you in the past; the
pleading of the Holy Spirit, the presentation of
truth to your soul, the presence of opportunities
for you to accept Christ and be saved now, are
evidence abundant of God's present love for and
interest in YOU. Change your mind and turn to
Him !

Repentance, then, is a change of mind, leading
to a change of conduct. It is man's act, by virtue
of which he puts himself in a position to accept
salvation from God through Christ. It is an abso-
lutely necessary prerequisite to salvation; not a
means, or in an}^ way meritorious, but a necessary
condition of forgiveness.

If this change of mind is thorough and genuine,
it will be accompanied with a change of feeling
and lead to and result in a change of conduct.
For true repentance involves and includes five
things: (i) Conviction of sin ; (2) Contrition for
sin; (3) Confession of sin; (4) Turning from sin;

CHANGE YOUR MIND! 153

(5) Surrender to Christ. How much conviction
must there be? Dr. Strong definitely answers,
"Enough to induce the sinner promptly and per-
sistently to turn from sin to Christ. ' ' Less than
this is not enough. More than this is not neces-
sary. There must be also sorrow for sin, and
confession of sin; or there will be no turning
away from sin, and turning to and accepting of
Christ. Nor will confession of sin avail, unless
there is a turning away from sin. Pharaoh said,
"I have sinned," but went on doing the same
thing the next day. Nor will turning away from
sin avail, unless there is some one who can save
from sin. There must be a surrender to Christ.
Thus each step involves the others; and if
repentance is genuine, all will be included. True
repentance never exists without faith, and true
faith always is accompanied by repentance.

Repentance, then, is not to be confounded
with fear. In a storm on the sea certain godless
men stopped their swearing, gambling and drink-
ing, fell upon their knees and began to pray. You
think it an example of repentance? Let us wait
and we can determine. When the terrible storm
was over, and a little time had passed, the game
was soon restarted ; oaths, at first moderate and
less violent, soon became blasphemous; and
carousing continued. You say, repentance? No!
Not repentance, but fear.

Nor is repentance to be confounded with feel

154 CHANGE YOUR MIND!

ing-. It is easy to make people cry, but not so
easy to lead them to repentance. Nor is repent-
ance to be identified with remorse. Judas had
remorse, and went out and hanged himself.

"Repentance and remorse are not the same;
That is a heavenly, this an earthly flame:
One springs from love, and is a welcome guest ;
And one an iron tyrant o'er the breast.
Repentance v^reeps before the crucified ;
Remorse is nothing more than wounded pride;
Remorse thro' horror into hell is driven,
While true repentance always leads to heaven."

Nor is repentance to be confounded with "say-
ing one's prayers" ; or "doing penance" ; or "mak-
ing new resolutions" ; or "breaking off some bad
habit"; or "going to prayer meeting"; or "giv-
ing to charity." Repentance is a radical change
of mind, thought, and purpose with reference to
the great fundamentals; God, man, sin, right-
eousness and Christ: a change of mind accom-
panied by a change of feeling, and leading to a
change of conduct and character; involving con-
viction, contrition and confession of sin ; a turning
away from sin, and acceptance of Christ. Thus
it is intellectual, emotional and volitional; and
involves a man's whole self.

"Repentance is to leave

The sins we loved before ;
And show that we in earnest grieve,
By doing so no more."

CHANGE YOUR MIND! 155

In Dr. Stalker's "Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus
Christ" there is a beautiful description given of
"The Three Groups around the Cross." One
group, sitting upon the ground near the foot of
the cross, is made up of four Roman soldiers, the
quaternion whose business it was to carry out the
decrees of the court. They have done their work
well. Having led Christ away to Golgotha, hav-
ing laid and fastened the cross-piece upon the
upright, they nail the Savior to the cross. Then
they lift up the cross and its burden ; and drop it
into the hole which has been dug for it, making the
cross fast with stakes and ropes. That work done,
the soldiers sit down to divide the spoils; for they
are his legal heirs, it being the custom that the gar-
ments of the condemned shall be the perquisites
of the executioners. How little he had of material
things! A turban, an outer garment, a girdle
and a pair of sandals! Four articles for four
soldiers. But there is a fifth article — the closely
fitting, finely woven tunic. What shall they do
with that? To rend it into four pieces would be to
destroy its value. And so, in Roman fashion, they
sit and cast lots to determine whose it shall be.
What a picture of absolute indifference to the
significant events of the hour ! Yonder, within a
few feet of them, is dying the Savior of the
world; "a God upon a cross" ; one who is tasting
death even for the soldiers who crucify him ; the
supreme figure of all history. What a picture of

156 CHANGE YOUR MIND!

those careless ones, who while away life's golden
opportunities, playing at games of chance, and
making light of the grandest themes of human
or divine thought ! What a picture of all those
who are indifferent to Christ and righteousness!
But a time will come when conscience will awake
and memory will not be quieted. Then how
mournful will be their souls' sad wail.

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

Here is apathy indeed.

A second group about the cross, a much larger
one, is composed of the members of the San-
hedrin ; who, contrary to custom, are not content to
have condemned the Nazarene, but have followed
to the place of execution to gloat over the sufferings
of the crucified. Along with the priests and scribes
is a mixed crowd of people from Jerusalem, who
are being stirred up by the leaders to hurl revil-
ings at Christ. "Thou that destroyest the temple,
and buildest it in three days, save thyself: if thou
art the Son of God, come down from the Cross."
*'He saved others; himself he cannot save. He
is the King of Israel; let him now come down
from the cross, and we will believe on him."
*'He trusted on God; let him deliver him now, if
he desireth him; for he said, I am the Son of

CHANGE YOUR MIND! 157

God." Thus did they there mock at Him, and
scorn Him. What a picture that, of all those who
are hostile to truth and Christ : whose desire is
to tear down and destroy : who throw the weight
of life and influence on the side of evil ! Here is
"not apathy but antipathy."

There was, however, another group about that
cross that day. Like the first group, it was a
small one; made up of some women, the three
Marys; and John, the beloved disciple. Oh, how
they love yonder man on the cross! The nails
that pierce his hands have already pierced their
hearts. They walked with him, talked with him,
ministered to him; and now they are suffering
with him, dying with him. Oh, how they love
him ! And yonder Christ on the cross, exhausted
with hours of continuous agony, pained at the
indifference of soldiers and the hate of scorners,
must often have lifted his bloodshot eyes away
from the indifferent and hostile, and lovingly
looked upon these dear ones. How their pres-
ence must have soothed and rested his weary
soul! How their love must have sustained his
human spirit! Ah! here was "neither apathy,
nor antipathy. Here was sympathy."

In one of these groups you will find yourself
to-day. Jesus Christ divides the world. He is
the touchstone of human character. What is your
relationship to Him? Is it one of indifference,
one of hostility, or one of loyal love? If you are

158 CHANGE YOUR MIND!

honest with yourself, and with Him, you can and
will realize your true condition.

It would be cruel to paint such a picture as this,
were these groups already permanently fixed and
unchangeable. But, blessed be God! they are in
the forming. No great gulf is yet between. If
you are not where you ought to be, and where
you wish to remain, you can change your posi-
tion. On that great day of crucifixion there was
one man who did so. Since that day thousands
have done so. The gospel of Matthew tells us,
"And the robbers also that were crucified with
him cast upon him the same reproach." That
is, they both belonged to the second group, the
group of scorners. But one of those thieves
changed his position. I don't know whether he
was in the judgment hall and heard Christ's
answers to Pilate. I don't know whether he was
on the porch, and saw the scourged and scorned
Jesus ; and heard Pilate, as he thrust the bleeding
Christ before the throng, cry out, ''Ecce Homo!"
"Behold the Man!" I don't know whether he
heard Christ speak to the weeping daughters of
Jerusalem. But I feel sure that as the soldiers
drove the nails through the palms and feet of the
Savior, this thief heard Him pray for them,
"Father, forgive them; they know not what they
do." This thief must have noticed Jesus' look
toward his widowed, desolate mother, and heard
Him say, forgetful of Himself and thoughtful of

CHANGE YOUR MIND! 159

her future, "Behold your son!" and to John,
*' Behold your mother!" What else he heard and
saw, I know not. But as he thought, and listened,
and looked at that Figure on the central cross, he
' ' changed his mind' ' ; his feelings became different ;
he changed his conduct. He left the company of
the scornful; he joined the company of the sym-
pathetic. He repented. And then he cried,
* 'Jesus, remember me when thou comest into
thy kingdom." ''And Jesus said unto him, 'To-
day shalt thou be with me in Paradise. ' ' '

Two Kinds of Christians

/ Corinthians j: 1-4. — ''And /, brethreit, could not speak
unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto car?taly as
unto babes in Christ. I fed you with milk, not with
meat; for ye were not able to bear it; 7iay, not even
now are ye able, for ye are yet carnal; for whereas
there is among you jealousy aiid strife, are ye not
carnal, and walk after the ma7i7ier of me7i ? "

Hebrews ^ : 10-14. — ''NaDied of God a high priest after
the order of Melchizedek, of which we have 77ia7iy
things to say, a7id hard of i7iterpretatio7i, seeing ye
are beco77ie dull of heari7ig. For whe7i by reaso7i of
the tii7te ye ought to be teachers, ye have 7ieed agai7t
that so77ie 07ie teach you the rudime7its of th^ first
principles of the oracles of God, and are beco7ne such
as have need of 7nilk, a7id 7iot of solid food. For
every one that partaketh of 77iilk is without experi-
ence of the word of righteous7iess; for he is a babe.
But solid food is for full-grow7i 77ie7t; even those who
by reaso7i of use have their se7ises exercised to discern
good a7td evil.'''

BOTH Scripture and observation tell us that
there are two kinds of Christians. One
kind are carnal; one kind are spiritual;
one babes ; one full-grown : one children in Chris-
tian life and experience; one adults: one ruled
by the world ; the other ruled by the spirit.
160

TWO KINDS OF CHRISTIANS i6i

There were not in New Testament days, nor in
the New Testament churches, the two kinds of
Christians in which some would have us believe ;
those who were "saints" in the sense of "sin-
lessly perfect ones," and those who were just
ordinary, everyday Christians. Such a distinction
exists neither in Scripture nor in fact; did not
exist in the first century of the Christian Church;
does not exist now. By the uniform usage of the
New Testament all Christians are called "saints,"
"holy brethren," "partakers of a heavenly call-
ing." The "saint," or "sanctified" person of the
Old Testament, be he prophet, priest or king, was
one who had been anointed with the sacred, flow-
ing oil, and was set apart for sacred service. He
was not a perfect person ; he was not a sinless
one. Even the High Priest, the most sanctified
of all sanctified persons, must make an atone-
ment first for his own sins, before he is fitted
to make atonement for the sins of the people.
The sanctified day was a day set apart for
sacred use, and the sanctified place a place
set apart for divine service. So all New Testa-
ment Christians are called "set-apart ones,"
"sanctified ones"; are "saved to serve," and
called apart to live for God. "Ye are not your
own. For ye were bought with a price: glorify
God, therefore, in your body." "For the love of
Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge,
that one died for all, therefore all died; and he

i62 TWO KINDS OF CHRISTIANS

died for all, that they which live should no longer
live unto themselves, but unto him who for their
sakes died and rose again." All Christians are
declared to be saints in Christ, and are destined
to realized sainthood in proportion as they grow
in grace, and in the knowledge of His will; and
strive to attain to the fulness of the stature of
manhood and womanhood through Christ. All
in Christ are saints, but there are two kinds of
saints. There were two kinds in the apostolic
churches; there are two kinds in the churches
now. The passages of Scripture in our study
to-day clearly distinguish between two kinds of
Christians; and suggest the characteristics of
each.* There are carnal Christians, babes in
Christ; and there are spiritual Christians, mature
and well-developed. Nor is this distinction one
of age in the Christian life. Some, who have only
been Christians for a short time, manifest many
evidences of maturity; while some, who by reason
of time ought by now to be teachers, are still
babes, needing milk and unable to digest solid
food. Let us note four characteristics of the car-
nal Christian:

I. He is a babe. Now if one is only a few weeks
or months old in the Christian life, we ma}^ expect
such an one to be a babe, but we should not
expect him to remain always a babe. A babe a

*For helpful suggestions here I am indebted to F. B.
Meyer's "Way into the Holiest."

TWO KINDS OF CHRISTIANS 163

few weeks or months old is a delight indeed, but
a babe fifteen or twenty years old is a monstros-
ity. If so in the physical world, why should it
not be considered so in the spiritual world? Oh,
you say, must we not become as little children
before we can enter into the kingdom of God?
And must we not retain the childlike spirit, if we
are to make any true progress in spiritual life?
Yes, most assuredly. There are features of the
child-life that are always desirable ; its faith, its
teachableness, its simplicity, etc. But there are
other features of the child-life, not to be culti-
vated; as its helplessness and lack of purpose.
The babe is so helpless, weak and dependent. Its
bones and muscles, its legs and back are not
strong. And then, too, the babe does not live
with any fixed purpose in view, nor direct its
energies to any given goal. It drops one toy only
to pick up another, it builds one castle in Spain,
only to desert it, before it is half done, to plan
another. So these carnal Christians are babes in
helplessness, and in lack of lofty purpose. They
have weak limbs and frail spines; they are not
consumed with noble resolves, or driven on with
a Christlike enthusiasm. They are babes.

2. They live upon milk. Now, milk is food
partially digested by somebody else. The mother
partially digests the food for the child, because the
child has not the digestive and assimilative
strength to do so for himself. So these carnal

i64 TWO KINDS OF CHRISTIANS

Christians live upon milk, food partially digested
by somebody else. They attach themselves to this
or that preacher or teacher, and give as their
basis of belief, "So and so says so." They are
not able to give a good reason for the hope that
is in them. They have no life in themselves.
They do not search the Scriptures for themselves.
They are like Jeremiah's broken cisterns that can
hold no water. They are in no sense "a well of
water springing up unto eternal life." Broken
cisterns, empty and dry, they sit before the pastor
on Lord's-day morning. He dumps into the cis-
terns a bucket full, a barrel full, a hogshead full
of living water, howsoever much he may have on
hand, and, poor man, before twenty-four hours
have passed, with afternoon gaieties and evening
larks, almost all of the living water has leaked
away; and by midweek prayer-meeting the cis-
terns are entirely dry. Oh, that they would come
personally to the Christ and drink of Him, that
out of them might flow rivers of living water !

3. These carnal Christians are sectarian. "For
when one saith, I am of Paul ; and another, I am
of Apollos; are ye not men? (i. e., as previous
verse shows, carnal and walk after manner of
men?)" Don't misunderstand me. I believe in
denominational loyalty. The more mature a
Christian becomes, the more thoroughly will he
believe the peculiar phases of truth emphasized
by his own denomination, provided they are

TWO KINDS OF CHRISTIANS 165

worthy of belief. He will be a better Presbyte-
rian, a better Methodist, a better Baptist, etc. I
am not waging war against denominations, but
against the narrow, sectarian spirit. How may
we know whether we are sectarian? Which
stands first in your heart? Your church or Jesus
Christ? Is the Christian life for you synonymous
with membership in your church? Or does the
Christian life mean to you, above and beyond all
things else, living fellowship with a personal
Redeemer and Friend? He who puts his church
first is sectarian. So is it with these carnal Chris-
tians. The Christian life to such is largely a
matter of times and places, of church and cere-
mony, of creed and ritual. It is largely external.
Little is made of personal union with Christ, and
of a Christ-like life through faith in and fellow-
ship with Jesus. Much is made of form and
external proprieties. Life is always large and
free, the spirit means liberty. Sectarian form is
often small and dwarfing. Every denomination can
furnish examples similar to the following incident.
I once heard of a man who, from the steps of a plat-
form, was attempting to address a large audience.
He was so small that the audience requested him to
go up higher upon the steps that they might see
him. He did so. Again the cry came from the
audience, *' Higher! higher! go up higher." And
the little man replied, '*I can't. I am as high as
I can get. I'm a Baptist." High as you can get

i66 TWO KINDS OF CHRISTIANS

because you are a Baptist! May God have mercy
upon your little shriveled-up soul. I'm a Baptist
too, by conviction and by confession, as well as
by birth and breeding. But is there nothing
higher possible than to be a Baptist, or a Meth-
odist; a Presbyterian, or a Disciple? Oh! to be
a Christian is infinitely higher than to be any or
all of these. Put loyalty to Christ first; then
loyalty to the church.

4. Carnal Christians are unable "to discern
good and evil. ' ' They have not grown in grace
and in the knowledge of His will. They have not
learned rightly to test things, and to approve only
those things that are excellent. Their senses
have not been "exercised by reason of use to dis-
cern good and evil." They are ever and anon
doing things that are not worth while, that do not
edify, or build up. They have no clear concep-
tion as to what is Christ-like, and what is not
Christ-like. They are swayed by custom and cir-
cumstance rather than by conviction and charac-
ter. These, then, are four characteristics of carnal
Christians. They are babes ; they live on milk ;
they are sectarian ; they are unable to discern good
and evil. In proportion as we approximate this
condition, we approach the state of the carnal.

But how can we get away from the babyhood
state and come into the mature life? Not by any
short-cut method, nor by any "French taught in
two weeks" plan. Nor shall we get it in any

TWO KINDS OF CHRISTIANS 167

miraculous manner, as a direct and immediate
answer to prayer. As well might the baby-boy
pray, *'0 God! make me a full-grown, great, big
man right off to-day." Such a prayer would not
be in accord with God's will, nor in conformity
with God's method of working. The baby-boy
must fulfill certain well-known conditions, and in
time he will become a "great, big man." He
must eat, he must sleep, he must exercise and
work, he must live in a healthy environment. So
the baby Christian must fulfill certain well-known
conditions, if he would become an adult Chris-
tian; and these conditions are similar to those of
physical growth. He must accept the completed
work of Christ, must step out on the promises, and
live a life of implicit trust in Him. This is his
rest. He must commune with God in prayer,
learn of Him through the Scriptures, work for Him
in his daily life. This is his food and exercise.
He must also surround himself with helpful influ-
ences, and, through membership in the church
and Christian societies, through attendance upon
the house of God and mid-week prayer-meeting,
through Christian friendship and fellowship, he
must find that healthy environment which is
necessary to the development of a strong Chris-
tian life. These plain conditions fulfilled by even
the youngest and weakest of Christ's babes, will,
with the factor of time added, most surely result
in the longed-for Christian maturity.

i68 TWO KINDS OF CHRISTIANS

And should you ask, "What are some of the
striking features of the mature Christian life?"
the answer is evident.

I. It is a life of personal possession. It is a
life of conscious and constant communion with
Christ. Creed and ritual, church and ceremony
are precious, because they are a visible, external
representation of that which is a personal, spirit-
ual experience. The mature Christian feels a
thrill in his soul as he cries out in the personal
experience of David, "The Lord is my Shep-
herd." He loves to sing that blessed song of
personal appropriation and conscious possession,
"My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine."
That which is not personal is not powerful. Had
S. F. Smith written "Our Country, 'Tis of Thee,"
we should never have adopted it as our national
song. But when he had the genius to write "My
Country, 'Tis of Thee," he struck a responsive
chord in every patriot's heart. And when the
writer of the sweet song wrote "My Jesus," he
struck a harp-string in the mature Christian's life.
This sense of personal possession and fact of con-
scious communion carry with them Christian assur-
ance. The mature Christian has no doubt of his
salvation. He doesn't say, "I hope I may be
saved." "I trust I am a Christian." He knows
it. "I know Thou art mine." "One thing I
know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see." "I
know him whom I have believed, and I am per-

TWO KINDS OF CHRISTIANS 169

suaded that he is able to guard that which I have
committed unto him against that day."

2. It is a life of personal purity. The adult
Christian, with his sense of personal possession
and conscious communion, recognizes the abso-
lute necessity of personal purity in his walk. He
knows that only those are really blessed who are
pure in heart. They alone see God. He regards
himself as a son of God, a brother of Jesus Christ,
a child of a Heavenly Father. "Like as he which
called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in
all manner of living; because it is written, 'Ye
shall be holy ; for I am holy. ' ' ' He reckons him-
self to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God. He
knows he comes far short of actual personal
righteousness, but the desire and design of his
life are to "do always those things which please
Him." He feels that he must be about his
Father's business. Jesus has said to him, "You
are the salt of the earth"; "You are the light of
the world"; "You shall witness of these things."
The mature Christian recognizes that the world
does not see the invisible, though living, Christ;
except as it sees Him in the Christian. Not "the
gospel according to Matthew," nor "the gospel
according to Mark"; not "the gospel according
to Luke," nor "the gospel according to John";
but the fifth gospel, "the gospel according to you
and me," is the gospel that the world reads.
What sort of a gospel is "the gospel according to

I70 TWO KINDS OF CHRISTIANS

you and according to me"? Is it an argument for
Christ and Christianity? Or is it an argument
against Christ? Does the sensitive soul incline
more strongly to become a follower of Him,
because that soul knows your life and mine? Or
do we discourage people by our lives from start-
ing in the Christian life? Are we His representa-
tives? If so, do we re-present Christ in our lives?
Or do we mis-represent Him? The importance
of these things the mature Christian realizes, and
he aims to make his life, through Christ's help, a
life of personal purity.

3. It is a life of persistent purpose. One of the
undesirable features of the baby-life is its indeci-
sion, its lack of definite purpose. The child is
carried here and there by every freak of fancy,
unstable in all his ways. He lives for the imme-
diate present and the gratification of each passing
whim. On the contrary a prominent feature of
all healthy maturity is the presence of some
strong motive power and noble purpose, which
give direction to one's endeavors and act as a
compass in life. This persistent purpose gives
steadiness and poise to one's living; and lifts one
above the dreary, dry drudgery of the common-
place. For the Christian there can be but one
highest motive, "For me to live is Christ." To
live for Him, to win fruit for Him, to become
constantly more and more like Him. One resolve
for the mature Christian must always take prece-

TWO KINDS OF CHRISTIANS 171

dence of all others. "That I may gain Christ,
and be found in him, not having a righteousness
of mine own, even that which is of the law, but
that which is of God by faith : that I may know
him and the power of his resurrection and the
fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed unto
his death ; if by any means I may attain unto the
resurrection of tlie dead." "One thing I do . . .
I press on toward the goal, unto the prize of the
high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us there-
fore, as many as be perfect (mature), be thus
minded."

4. It is a life of perpetual progress. At first
one might make the mistake of supposing that
maturity of life means a cessation of growth.
But it is not thus in the normal life. There will
be a constant deepening and sweetening and
broadening of the soul's experience. The path of
the righteous will grow brighter and brighter
unto the perfect day. The more one develops
into maturity of life, the more one realizes his
own short - comings, and the loftiness of the
heights of holiness. No really mature person
ever thinks that he has already attained the goal.
The more one really knows, the less he thinks he
knows; and the more he sees there is to learn.
So it is in all departments of life. So it is in the
Christian's experience. Paul, in the maturity of
a rich Christian life, said, in deepest humility
and without any consciousness of spiritual superi-

172 TWO KINDS OF CHRISTIANS

ority, *'Not that I have already obtained, or am
already made perfect: but I press on, if so be
that I may apprehend that for which also I was
apprehended by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count
not myself yet to have apprehended, but one
thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind
(the failures of the past, the attainments of the
past), and stretching forward to the things which
are before, I press on toward the goal . . . Let
us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus
minded."

5. It is a life of permanent power. One great
reason why our churches do not have more power
with God and man is because there is in them
such a large body of carnal Christians ; Christians
who are babes in Christ; in whom the world
rules ; who upon the foundation, Christ, are build-
ing hay, wood and stubble; who, by the grace
of God, shall be saved, yet so as by fire ; whose
works shall be burned and destroyed, and they
themselves shall suffer loss; whose lives count
for little or nothing so far as permanent power is
concerned. The primary need of Christ, of the
church, of the world to-day, is not for more pro-
fessing Christians, but for a better type and grade
of Christians ; not for more disciples, but for more
in the disciples; nor for more branches on the
vine, but for more on each branch ; not for more
foliage, but for more fruit. But we must not
pray directly for more fruit, but first for more

TWO KINDS OF CHRISTIANS 173

love and more life. God will not hang rich, red,
ripe, luscious fruit upon rotten boughs ; or grow
good grapes upon impoverished vines. If it is
fruit that is desired, let us then remember that
'•fruits come from roots." Only maturity of life
means much fruit. For the mature life can no
more fail of fruit, and be lacking in permanent
power, than the sun can cease to shine.

Let us then flee away from babyhood with its
weakness and feeding upon milk, with its sectari-
anism and lack of discernment Let us, by using
the means of grace, grow in grace and in the
knowledge of His will, and strive to attain to the
fulness of the stature of manhood and woman-
hood in Christ. Then we shall come into a life
of personal possession, personal purity, persistent
purpose, perpetual progress and permanent
power. Then will life be, indeed, an inspiration
and a joy; and at its earthly close we may say
with grand old Paul :

"I have fought the good fight,

I have finished the course,

I have kept the faith ;

Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of
righteousness. ' '

"Life's race well run;
Life's work well done;
Life's crown well won."

Individual Responsibility for
Souls

Ezekiel 33 :j. — ''So thou, son of man, I have set thee a
awatchman unto the house of Israel; therefore hear
the word at my mouth, and give them warning from
me.''
Matt, s •' J3' — '^y^ ^^^ l^^ s^^l of i^^ earth.''
Matt, s : 14. — ''Ye are the light of the world."
Acts 1:8. — "And ye shall be my witnesses."
Revelation 22:17. — "And he that heareth, let htm say
'Come.' "

IN the fourteenth chapter of Romans and in
the seventh verse we find these significant
words, '*For none of us liveth unto himself
and none dieth unto himself." This striking
sentence was written by Paul over eighteen hun-
dred years ago. If it meant anything then, what
must it mean now? Eighteen hundred years ago
the world seemed large. Men lived far apart
from one another, in isolated communities, mutu-
ally ignorant and mutually suspicious of each
other. But to-day isolation is no longer possible.
The world has become small. Modern science
has made the whole round world one small neigh-
174

RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOULS 175

borhood. As Dr. Josiah Strong has put it : * * Steam
and electricity have mightily compressed the
earth : the elbows of the nations touch. ' * If, in
that far-off time of isolation and separation, Paul
could write, '*None of us liveth unto himself and
no one dieth unto himself, ' ' what added weight of
truth is found in his words to-day! The intri-
cate intimacies of modern life are remarkable for
their closeness. We have all been shoved together
into nearness of relationship ; and these relation-
ships bring responsibility. No longer is it possi-
ble for individual or nation to live alone, apart
from relationship and without responsibility. We
are born into relationships, we live in the midst
of them, we die in the midst of them. We are
related to God, to self, to each other; and our
relationships determine for us our duties. The
effect of relationship and influence may be illus-
trated from the physical world. In the world of
matter the molecules of matter all touch one
upon another. No molecule exists apart from its
fellows. And so when I move my hand through
space, I disturb all the molecules of air which are
within my immediate reach, which molecules
disturb other molecules, until the wave of dis-
turbance goes round the world. Drop a pebble
upon the surface of a lake, and from that small
point of disturbance a series of concentric circles
will be formed, larger and larger, larger and
larger, until they cover the surface of the whole

176 RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOULS

water. So in the world of persons, we are related
one to another. No one stands absolutely alone.
No one lives who is entirely without influence.
Every one is helping or hindering others every
day of his life. There is no flower that blooms
even on the dizziest mountain peak or in the
deepest dell, but that the air is sweeter because
of it. There is no cesspool anywhere, however
hidden, but that the air is fouler because of it.
Nor has any one of us to-day had a thought or
desire heavenward, but that the world is better
for it. Nor has any one of us had a thought or
desire of evil to-day, but that this world of ours
has swung a little nearer the pit. But it is not of
general relationships, nor of responsibilities in
general that I wish now to speak; but of a certain
specific relationship, and of a particular responsi-
bility. We enjoy listening to general truths. We
do not like specific applications. David was enter-
tained by Nathan's beautiful parable of the Ewe
Lamb. He was only convicted of sin, when
Nathan made the general specific, and said,
"Thou art the man." Let none of us, then, try
to hide behind a general truth, but let us be indi-
vidually honest with a personal duty. God's first
question to man in the Garden was, "Where art
thou?" This question, I presume, the major-
ity of my audience have already answered. But
there was a second question which soon followed,
"Where is thy brother?" How are you answer-

RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOULS 177

ing this question? In the spirit of Cain, are you
trying to cast off all responsibility by saying,
**Am I my brother's keeper?" Or in the spirit of
the second Adam, the Christ of Nazareth, are you
going out to seek and to save the lost? Whom
are you following, Cain or Christ? *' Where is thy
brother?" This, then, is the theme for our pres-
ent consideration, individual responsibility for the
salvation of souls.

I. There are not two moral standards laid down
in Scripture ; one for the preacher or evangelist,
and another for the ordinary Christian. The
preacher or evangelist is only the ordinary Chris-
tian doing, with all of his time and energy, that
which every Christian is bound by duty and love
to do. All of us have been saved to serve. All
of us are sons of God, and are called to work in
our Father's vineyard. All are commissioned
and sent forth to do the Father's business. There
is not a verse or passage in all Scripture, from
Genesis to Revelation, properly translated and
interpreted in the light of its context, and in full
view of the gradualness and progressiveness of
revelation; not a single verse or passage which
teaches, or even intimates, that the preacher,
evangelist or trained worker ought to feel the
burden for souls, while the ordinary Christian
and layman ought not to feel it. These two
moral standards are not Scriptural. All Scripture
in its trend and in its teaching is opposed to such

178 RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOULS

a double standard of duty. One marked differ-
ence between the Old Covenant and the New
Covenant, as foretold in Old Testament prophecy
and fulfilled in New Testament days (as the
eighth chapter of Hebrews makes clear), lies
just in this fact that in the days of the Old
Covenant God's Spirit was poured out only upon
a few persons in a generation, upon prophet,
priest or king; while in the days of the New
Covenant the Spirit is poured out upon all the
members of the kingdom. Recall for a moment
that wonderful prophecy of Joel. A severe
locust plague had been followed by a drought.
The people in their distress turned to God with
fasting and prayer. In answer to prayer God
removed the locusts, and, through the pouring out
of rain, the drought. And then God gave a won-
derful promise. "And it shall come to pass after-
ward (using that indefinite phrasing of which the
prophets were fond) that I will pour out my
spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your
daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall
dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:
and also upon the servants and upon the hand-
maids in those days will I pour out my spirit."
Eight hundred years and more rolled around.
Jesus lived, died, rose again, ascended to the
Father and sent his Spirit upon the company of
disciples at Pentecost — and that Spirit rested upon
each one of them. Those who witnessed the

RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOULS 179

wonders of that day said, "These men are filled
with new wine. " But Peter, standing up with the
eleven said, ''These are not drunken, as ye sup-
pose ; seeing it is but the third hour of the day ;
but this is that which hath been spoken by the
prophet Joel, 'And it shall be in the last days,
saith God, I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all
flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy, and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams : Yea, and
on my servants and on my hand-maidens in those
days will I pour forth of my Spirit and they shall
prophesy.* " To prophesy does cot mean to fore-
tell so much as to forth tell. A prophet was one
who spoke for another. God said to Moses, "And
Aaron, thy brother, shall be thy prophet," (thy
spokesman). Now Joel foretold that, while then
only a few, prophet, priest or king, had the gift
of God's soirit and were commissioned to speak
for Him, the time would come when things would
be different. The time would come when, as God
had abundantly poured out the rain. He would
abundantly pour out His Spirit; not simply upon
an official prophet, priest or king, but upon all,
irrespective of age, sex or condition : young and
old, bond and free, male and female, all should
have the gift of God's Spirit, and he privileged,
yes, commissioned to declare God's truth. This
was fulfilled and is being fulfilled in this New
Testament time, the age of the Spirit. So we

i8o RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOULS

find Christians everywhere addressed thus: "Ye
are the light of the world;" '*Ye are the salt of
the earth;" "And ye shall be my witnesses;"
"The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come,' and him
that heareth, let him say, *Come'." This is the
very genius of the New Testament plan of the
world's salvation, that every one, who hears and
heeds the message of salvation, is to go out and
declare it unto his fellows. We are stewards of
the manifold grace of God, and it is required of
stewards that a man be found faithful. Christ's
great commission to the Christian church recog-
nizes no double standard of duty, but commands
every disciple. "All power is given unto me,
... go ye therefore, . . . make disciples, . . .
and lo: I am with you all the days."

2. Again, let us note the danger of our times.
In the business world to-day we do much of our
business through middlemen, or commissioners.
For example, I w^as recently in Greenville, Mich.,
an important potato market of that State. Now
the farmers who live about Greenville, and who
raise large quantities of excellent potatoes, do
not sell these potatoes directly to the consumers,
but bring them into North Greenville and sell
them to the potato commissioners, allowing the
middlemen a profit, or margin, for the selling of
the potatoes. The commissioners sell them to
the wholesalers, the wholesalers to retailers,
the retailers to the consumers, and each gets a

RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOULS i8i

profit, or margin, on the sales. In other words
the middlemen are paid a living by the farmers
for selling their potatoes for them. Thus much
of the business of to-day is done. Now the dan-
ger of the times is just this: that people shall
begin to try to meet their religious obligations
too much in this same spirit. You say, ''Why
do we pay our pastor a salary? Why do we support
the church? Why do we engage an evangelist,
unless it is that they may do our religion for us,
and save those whom we ought to be saving?"
There is, to be sure, some truth implied in your
query. But we must ever keep in mind that
these personal, religious obligations cannot be
easily nor safely shifted from layman to preacher.
These responsibilities are ours, individually, and
whenever we try to hire others to meet them for
us, we ourselves suffer great personal loss, and
the kingdom is hindered. Some years ago in
many of our young cities there was a volunteer
fire brigade. In every home was a bucket in the
hall, full of water, marked "For fire," ready for
use. When the village, or city, fire bell rang,
everybody dropped everything and ran for the
bucket, and the fire. And, through hearty
co-operation and a multitude of helpers, the con-
flagration was soon extinguished. But to-day,
when the fire bell rings, we listen to the number,
look at our fire card, and, if the fire is not in the
neighborhood of our store or home, we leisurely

i82 RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOULS

pursue our pleasure. We have hired somebody
to fight our fires for us. In old New England
days it was the custom that services should be
begun in the meeting-houses '*at early candle-
lighting." As the people came to church, each
brought a candle, and something with which to
light it; when enough lighted candles had come
to light the meeting-house, services would begin.
But to-day, we have our oil-lights, or gas-lights,
or our electric-lights in our churches; the janitor
is hired to light them ; and we leave our candles
and our lights at home. And, believe me, there
are places where, if you should wait until enough
lighted candles had arrived to light up the meet-
ing-house, before you should begin the service,
services would never begin. We hire somebody
to light up the church for us, and we leave our
candles at home. Even as Mr. Moody was told
in Scotland, when he complained of there being
no fire in a certain church in extremely cold
weather, "No, we have no fire: we expect you
to warm us up," so do people here sometimes
expect the preacher or pastor or evangelist to do
all of the work, carry all of the burdens, and save
all of the souls.

3. Yet the commands of God are individual;
relationships are individual ; responsibility is indi-
vidual. The Bible everywhere treats men and
women as individuals. We are not all alike, not
blocks, not cogs in a wheel, not things ; but per-

RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOULS 183

sons. No book in the world has done so much
for the individual man, has so emphasized his
worth and his personality, as has the Bible. It
has brought about the abolition of slavery; it has
introduced popular education; it has led to the
building of hospitals ; it has lessened the atroci-
ties of war as well as the possibility of war; it has
led to many labor-reforms, etc., largely through
its emphasis of the fact and the worth of the
individual. Both nature and revelation empha-
size the fact of individuality. We are born as
individuals; we live as individuals; we die as
individuals. We are saved as individuals ; Christ
loves us and died for us as individuals, "tasting
death for every man" ; we are lost as individuals;
we shall be judged as individuals. "For we must
all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of
Christ; that each one may receive the things done
in the body, according to what he hath done,
whether it be good or bad." God's commands
are individual. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart," and "Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself, ' ' are the two great commands
of the Savior; and both of them are individual and
personal. Our ability is the measure of our
responsibility. God expects us to do only what
we can do. If there is a single soul anywhere
whom we can influence to come to Christ, if we
do not so do, God can rightly hold us responsible
for the consequences of our negligence. If a sin-

i84 RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOULS

gle soul through our faithlessness is lost, who
would have been saved had we been faithful,
then, in some real sense, God can and will hold
us responsible for that soul. This seems to be
the plain teaching of Ezekiel ^^ ^s well as the
plain implication of other passages of Scripture.
How earnest and active ought each one of us to
be! There is a question in the minds of some
people as to what is the present position and work
of the church of Christ. Is the church a fine
palace, filled with beauty and luxury, in the midst
of a cool grove, with music and gaiety resounding
through its halls and its rooms filled with pleas-
ure seekers? Or is it a lighthouse out upon
the reefs, its rays of brightness and light
shining far out over the deep? Which is it, a
palace full of pleasure seekers, or a lighthouse,
filled with life-savers? But a more personal ques-
tion is, "How does your life and mine count?"
Are we helping to make our church simply a
pleasure palace, or are we helping to make it a
life-saving station? How does your life count in
your church? Some people are wondering
whether the church is a brass-trimmed yacht out
on a pleasant cruise ; or whether it is a life-boat,
thrust out through the surf, each man pulling an
oar. Which is it, life-boat or pleasure yacht?
How does your life count in your church? Is
your church more of a life-boat, because you are
a member there; or is your church more of a

RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOULS 185

pleasure yacht, because of your membership in
it? Which way does your life count? Do you
recall the story of Old Skipper Ireson? Ireson
was a fisherman in Marblehead. With his mates,
he had been out at the Banks, and had made a
large haul of fish. On their way home they
sighted a vessel near by, flying a flag of distress.
We don't know who was really to blame, whether
it was Ireson or his men. At any rate, somebody
said, **0h, don't pay any attention to that flag.
We're fishermen. We don't belong to any life-
saving station. Our business is to catch fish,
not to save men; and we're very successful at our
business too." And so they made haste to port
in order to forestall the market, and sell their fish
at a good price. They did so, I suppose. But,
you know, that night the widows and women of
Marblehead "took old Floyd Ireson for his hard
heart, and tarred and feathered him and carried
him in a cart." Why was it? What had he
done? Ah, that was just it. He hadn't done
anything. He had simply made the mistake of
saying, as some of you are saying, '*My business
is something else. I'm not a life-saver."

4. There are times of peculiar privilege and
peculiar peril, which times are also times of
peculiar and special responsibility. Any church
which determines to go into a special effort to
save the lost, which opens up its doors night after
night and day after day for evangelistic services,

i86 RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOULS

takes upon itself a terrible responsibility. I don't
know whether you appreciated what you were
doing when you decided to undertake these meet-
ings. You have, I trust, opened out before your-
selves a door of great privilege. I know that you
have brought upon yourselves peculiar peril and
a time of special responsibility. At such a time
as this many souls are very sensitive. It is a
time when it is easy to lead people to Christ. It
is also a time when it is very easy to offend and
harden and turn people away from Christ. Oh,
how carefully and prayerfully we ought to walk
at such a time as this! How wise we need to be
to see and to seize every possible chance to take
advantage of the tide and bring people into the
harbor of life ! Well might a great preacher say,
"I always pray for such times, but I also dread
them." It is a time of such peril. The rain that
falls softens some soil, and hardens other soil.
When the seed is sown, some will fall by the way-
side, some on stony ground, seme among thorns,
some into good ground. "What shall the harvest
be?" People will come to these meetings con-
scious of the purpose of the meetings ; people will
come to these meetings with the call of God
inviting their souls to submission; people will
come to these meetings expecting a plain per-
sonal appeal from the pulpit; people will come
to these meetings rightly expecting a warm, cor-
dial reception in the pew ; people will come to

RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOULS 187

these meetings and go out from these meetings
never again to be as they have been; some v^ill
be better, some worse, some more inclined
toward faith, some more hardened against all
religion, some with souls forever saved, some
never again to attend any special meetings, only
to go on and on in indifference and sin. What
shall the results of these meetings be? What are
you and I willing to make them? Down in an
Ohio city a few years ago I was holding a special
series of meetings in the Baptist church, and was
told that the large high-school building, which
adjoined the church, stood upon the water-shed
of Ohio. The water which fell upon one side of
the roof ran into the headwaters of the Sandusky
River, down the Sandusky into Lake Erie and
into Lake Ontario, and down the St. Law-
rence into the North Atlantic Ocean. The
water which fell on the other side of the roof
went into the headwaters of the Scioto River,
down the Scioto into the Ohio, down the
Ohio into the Mississippi, down the Mississippi
into the Gulf of Mexico. Now, for purposes of
illustration, it is not at all difficult to imagine a
drop of water about to fall right above the ridge-
pole of that roof. The slightest breeze, either
from the north or from the south, will change the
entire future history of that drop of water. The
ridge-pole and the moment of falling constitute a
crisis in the little life of that rain-drop. If the

i88 RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOULS

breeze is a warm southern breeze, the drop will
fall upon the north side of the roof and start on
its long journey to the North Atlantic Ocean. If
the breeze is a cold northern one, the drop of rain
will fall upon the southern side of the roof, and
start on a long journey away down to the Gulf of
Mexico. So there will come ridges of destiny,
crises into human lives, in these meetings. The
business of an evangelist is to biing these crises.
The purpose of these meetings is to bring people
to decision. What shall your influence be? By a
cold northern blast, by an unsympathetic hand-
shake, by half-hearted singing, by lack of prayer-
fulness in demeanor, and in heart life, by general
indifference to the spiritual purposes of the
occasion, will you discourage a sensitive soul,
destroy a heavenly impulse, drive away God's
Holy Spirit, and hinder some person from accept-
ing Christ? Or, by a sweet prayerful spirit, by
a warm genial personality, by a hearty welcome
and decent hand-shake, by soulful singing and
attentive presence, will you cheer and encourage,
as with a warm, sunny southern breeze, some sen-
sitive soul to start on a blessed journey of life,
upward and heavenward and Christ-ward, until
at last there shall be no sin which has not been
conquered, and no excellence which has not been
acquired? What part will you choose to have in
these meetings?

God is going to bless us. There is no doubt of

RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOULS 189

that. He has promised always to bless His truth,
and I believe that in a special way His Spirit
broods over such a meeting as this. But,
whether the blessing which we shall surely
receive, shall be a large one, or a small one, will
depend very largely upon us. We can limit it, or
we can enlarge it. We can hinder it or we can
help it. Would you know how specially to help?
Four things may here and now be mentioned.
(i) Nothing but united, earnest effort can bring
the largest blessing. We must be willing for the
time to side-track all extras, dress-making, par-
ties, special entertainments, etc., and give the
meetings the first place. (2) We ought to have a
prayer-time and a prayer-list. Once every day,
in closet, in the home, in the store, on the street,
or wherever we may happen to be, we ought to
lift our hearts in earnest prayer that God may
specially bless these meetings, bless the pastor
and evangelist, bless the church -members and
those in the Sunday Schools, bless the unsaved;
and, above all, let each one pray for himself,
"O God, help me to be helpful." "Search
me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know
my thoughts; and see if there be any way of
wickedness in me and lead me in the way ever-
lasting." Not only a prayer-time but a prayer-
list. We must not only talk to men about God.
We need also to talk to God about men, and we
should do this first. Don't have the prayer-list

I90 RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOULS

too long. We need to concentrate as well as con-
secrate. "To keep shot from scattering put in
only one shot." We need definiteness of aim.
The man who says, "I'm praying that the whole
town may be converted," is probably not praying
or working very definitely for anybody. Start
your prayer-list right now, if you have not already
done so. Somebody in your home, in your neigh-
borhood, in your Sunday- School class, in your
social sphere, ought to be saved in these meet-
ings. You know who it is. Begin now to pray
for that one; then follow up your definite prayers
with definite work, and God will greatly bless.

(3) Make one call each day in the interest of the
meetings. I don't mean a formal call, nor what
once was named "a religious call." What is
desired is that you should summon up all of the
graciousness of your personality, and in the most
interested and persuasive way possible, speak to
at least one person each day about the meetings.
If you can't say something good about the meet-
ings, don't say anything. Make up your mind to
be, if possible, a walking advertisement among
your friends in the interest of these services.

(4) Make an earnest and honest attempt to bring
one person with you to each service. Make an
engagement with a friend. Call at the house
for him. It will help you to be unselfish, will
put you, through self-sacrifice, into a better spirit
for the meetings, and you'll share with your

RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOULS 191

friend a blessing. These four suggestions will
be of great assistance to the meetings, if followed
faithfully by you. Is it too much to ask you for
ten days honestly to try to do these four things ;
put the meetings first, have a prayer-time and a
prayer-list, make one call or speak to some one
each day persuasively about the meetings, make
an honest attempt to bring somebody with you to
each service? Perhaps it is too much to ask for
the pastor's sake, for the church's sake, for your
own sake, for the community's sake, for some
soul's sake. Is it too much to ask for Christ's
sake? For His sake, will you try?

Paul's Prayer for the
Philippians

Philippians i:g'ii, — ''And this I pray, that your love
may abound yet more and more i7i knowledge and all
discernment, so that ye may approve the things that
are excellent, that ye may be sincere and void of
offense unto the day of Christ; being filled with the
fruits of righteousness, which are through Jesus
Christ, U7ito the glory and praise of God.''

THE apostle Paul was not only a man of
intense activity, but he was also a man of
much prayer. That he was much given to
prayer appears not only from the frequent men-
tion of the fact in Luke's historical material in
the book of Acts, and from the frequent mention
of it by Paul himself in practically all of his epis-
tles; but it appears also from the fact that he knew
how to pray Prayer is a fine art. It is some-
thing that must be learned. The disciples said to
Jesus, *'Lord, teach us to pray, even as John
taught his disciples to pray. ' ' Paul had learned
through much toil, through large and varied
experiences, through patient practice, through
192

PAUL'S PRAYER 193

hours of devout meditation upon the Scriptures,
how to pray. He was a master in prayer.

A splendid way for us to learn how to pray, a
splendid way to learn how to deepen and to
enrich our prayers, to learn how to keep them
out of ruts and vain repetitions (and there is
a considerable amount of inanity and empty
phrasing in much prayer), is to make a study of
the prayers of the Bible. The psalms are full of
prayers, very appropriate to the lives of men and
women of to-day. Let us collect some of them,
meditate upon them, learn them, get into the true
spirit of them, and make them our own. The
historical books of the Old Testament have in
them some very fine prayers. By studying
prayers, we may teach ourselves how to pray.
The gospels and the Acts have in them some very
helpful prayers. Let us prayerfully drink in
their spirit, and we ourselves shall know the bet-
ter how to pray. In Paul's epistles we have much
material upon this very important subject. In
the first chapter of Colossians is a fine example of
prayer, also in the first chapter of Paul's love-
letter to the Philippians. Either of these passages
is worthy of special study. We can take only
the one from Philippians at this time for the
subject of our meditation. The Philippians were
very dear to Paul, and Paul was very dear to them.
He doubtless felt that they were nearer his ideal
of a church than any company of believers that

194 PAUL'S PRAYER

he had been privileged to gather. There was
among them very little of irregularity in doctrine
and practice. They were closely in sympathy
with his work and with spiritual things. Paul
could open his very heart to them, and we find in
this letter more of the inner motives of the great
apostle to the Gentiles expressed than in any other
of his epistles. Paul had already received many
tokens of the love of these Philippians. Twice be-
fore the occasion of this letter of gratitude, they
had sent to relieve his necessities. And now that
Paul is a prisoner at Rome, chained to a Roman
soldier and no longer able to make his own liv-
ing, the Philippians send to him by Epaphro-
ditus an expression of love and that which would
supply his need. In the spring of the year, as
Epaphroditus is about to return to Philippi, Paul
sends by his hand to the Philippians this letter of
affection and grateful appreciation. After the
usual salutation, the apostle expresses his thanks-
giving for their past life, his confidence in their
future, and his earnest prayer for their present.
"And this I pray, that your love may abound yet
more and more in knowledge and all discernment;
so that ye may approve the things that are excel-
lent; that ye may be sincere and void of offence
unto the day of Christ; being filled with the
fruits of righteousness, which are through Jesus
Christ, unto the glory and praise of God." Surely
such a prayer, at such a time, for such dear

PAUL'S PRAYER 195

friends, and by such a master in prayer, is well
worth earnest study. Paul does not pray for
these Philippians that their knowledge may
abound, nor yet that their influence may abound,
nor yet that their physical health may abound,
nor that their friends may abound, nor that their
wealth may abound. He prays for that which is
their fundamental need, that their love may
abound. He who said, "Faith, hope, love, but
the greatest of these is love," recognizes that the
real need of life is more love; love for Christ,
love for each other, love for those for whom the
Savior died. He praj^s not for a love which may
fill one little corner of the heart and life, he prays
not for a love which may fill half of the heart ;
but for a love which abounds, and for a love
which keeps on growing and abounding more and
yet more. But this love for which he prays must
not be empty emotion, or zeal without knowledge,
but love founded on and increasing with increas-
ing knowledge. Love without knowledge is apt to
be weak and without endurance. Knowledge
without love may be as cold and lifeless as
marble. But love which increases as knowledge
increases, and knowledge which increases as love
is deeper and broader, when linked together, con-
stitute the very dynamite of God. But there is a
peculiar kind of knowledge which Paul would
have them possess, that knowledge which leads to
discrimination. One of the great problems of

196 PAUL'S PRAYER

life is to know what is worth while ; what is of
real value and what is comparatively worthless.
In proportion as we discriminate between values
and approve onl}^ those things which are excel-
lent, we are in the path of real progress. If we
are really and truly growing in grace and in the
knowledge of His will, the road over which we
have thus far journeyed will be strewn with cast-
off things, things to which we once clung and which
we thought were valuable, but which we have since
learned were "weights." We shall be coming
more and more to "cast aside the weights and the
sins that so easily beset us, and to run with
patience the race set before us. ' ' Now Paul prays
for these friends that their love may abound more
and yet more in knowledge and all discernment,
that they may test things and approve only those
things that are excellent. And what would be
the logical result of a life of love, abounding more
and yet more in knowledge and all discernment,
testing things and approving only what is excel-
lent? It would be a life "sincere and void of
offence unto the day of Christ. ' ' A sincere life is
a life which can bear the searching light of the
noontide sun, a life in which there is no pretence,
no sham, no make-believe, a life which is as it
appears to be; while a life "void of offence unto
the day of Christ" is a life in which there is
nothing over which the possessor would stumble,
and nothing which would cause others to stumble;

PAUL'S PRAYER 197

a life which will be able to stand the test of
that day when all secrets shall be told, and
the hidden shall be revealed. Such a life of
love, abounding with knowledge, leading to
the testing of things and the approval only of
excellent things, resulting in sincerity and
absence of any cause of stumbling, even to the
day of Christ, will be "filled with the fruits of
righteousness, which are through Jesus Christ,
unto the glory and praise of God. ' ' Not a little
fruit here and there, but "filled with fruits";
fruits which are the result of right living and
result in righteous character; fruits which do not
come through one's own unaided efforts, but
"through Jesus Christ"; fruits which result not
in self-glorification, but "unto the glory and praise
of God. " Such is the wonderful course of thought
in Paul's prayer for the Philippians. He begins
with abounding love, he ends with abounding
fruitfulness. Every link in the golden chain is
necessary, and necessary in the order named.
Omit a single link, and the beauty and strength of
the chain are gone. Abounding love coupled with
abounding knowledge, the testing of things and
approval of that only which is excellent, a life
sincere and void of offence unto the day of Christ,
a life filled with fruits, through Christ, unto the
glory and praise of God. How logical it all is !
There can never be abounding fruit apart from
the fulfilling of these necessary conditions. We

198 PAUL'S PRAYER

often long and pray for more fruit. Let us
remember that "fruits come from roots" and see to
it that we fulfill the plain conditions of a harvest.
Prof. Drummond once said that if any Christian
would take that remarkable chapter on love, first
Corinthians, thirteen, and read it once a day care-
fully and prayerfully for two years, it would
marvelously enrich and deepen his Christian
experience. I feel similarly about this prayer of
Paul. If you will study it and learn it (it is very
easy to commit, as it is so logical) and incorporate
it into your daily petitions for two years, it will
wonderfully enlarge your conception of the Chris-
tian life, will enrich your prayers, and deepen
your spiritual experience. Will you try it for
yourself?

Thankfulness

^*

Ephesians ^: 18-20.— ''And be not drunkest with wine^
wherein is riot, but be filled with the spirit; speaking
one to another in psalms and hymns atid spiritual
songs, singi7ig and making melody with your heart
to the Lord; givi?ig thanks always for all things in
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the
Father. "

IF we were to study the subject of prayer, as
it is illustrated by the prayers of the Bible,
we should be impressed with the thought
that there must be, either expressed or implied,
five elements in all true prayer ; and that these
elements too will occur in the same general order.
There will be first an ascription of praise and
thanksgiving to God. This is most fitting on the
part of a helpless creature coming into the pres-

* Ever since I gave my life to Christ I have been trying
to emphasize by life and song and sermon the duty and the
privilege of thankfulness. During the last seven years,
while life has been lived in a wheel-chair, I have considered
it to be an especial privilege and duty to speak upon this
pleasant theme. Surely the Father grants to those of us,
whose lives are in the world's view so broken and saddened,
a dark background upon which we can the more easily pre-
sent the thought of Christian cheerfulness.

199

200 THANKFULNESS

ence of a benevolent Creator ; or of a dependent
son addressing a provident Heavenly Father.
Then there will follow an humble confession of
sin. This surely will rush to the lips of him who
has any conception at all of the heinousness of sin,
of his own faults and failings, and of the holiness
of God. Then, thirdly, there will be a pleading
of God's promises, which promises are the basis
of approach unto God, and an encouragement to
faith. Then there will follow a recalling of past
mercies and blessings received, which still further
will stimulate faith. And lastly there will be
definite and persistent petition. A fine example
of such prayer, where these five elements are
clearly manifest, is found in the first chapter of
the wonderful book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah's
prayer when his heart was burdened for Jeru-
salem.

One very important element in true prayer we
are apt to overlook, or to slight, the element of
praise and thankfulness. We have almost for-
gotten how to cry "Hallelujah!" "Praise ye the
Lord!" And yet the spirit of true prayer and of
true praise go ever hand in hand. It matters little
whether you call the world's great song book
"The Prayers of David" or "The Psalms of
David" ; for praise and prayer are sisters. There-
fore Paul writes to the Colossians, "Continue
steadfastly in prayer, watching therein with
thanksgiving"; and to the Philippians, "With

THANKFULNESS 201

thanksgiving, let your requests be made known
unto God. " We do not so often fail in our asking
as in our thanking. We are in danger of becom-
ing a family of beggars. Our prayers and our
lives are in danger of being sadly marred and
scarred by a lack of gratitude. Our prayers and
our lives are in danger of losing much of their
sweetness and their power through a minimum of
praise; life thus becomes warped and selfish,
displeasing to God and powerless with men. We
have an annual Thanksgiving Day in our national
calendar. Nationally and personally it may be a
curse to us, or a blessing. If we take advantage
of the custom to live a life of fussing and com-
plaining for three hundred and sixty-four days of
the year, or three hundred and sixty-five days if it
happens to be leap-year ; and then soothe to sleep
an already drowsy conscience by tacking on an
appendix of gratitude to our Thanksgiving Day
prayer, only to spend the rest of the day in gor-
mandizing or dissipation, the day will be a
hindrance to us rather than a help. But if the
presence of such a day in our personal or national
calendar will cause us to stop and think of our
many blessings and our ill-desert, and will help
us to cultivate the spirit of gratitude and to live
more thankful lives, then the day will always be
to us a personal as well as a national blessing.

Not only is thankfulness an important element
in all true prayer, but it is also to be noted that

202 THANKFULNESS

men and women who are pre-eminent for real
piety are pre-eminent for praise. A few exam-
ples from biblical history will make this abun-
dantly evident. Moses was a man of true piety.
He was pre-eminent in praise. All through his
long and useful life he kept setting up memorials
of God's mercies, and emphasized the importance
of the festivals of thanksgiving. The whole book
of Deuteronomy is largely made up of Moses'
great thanksgiving addresses, given at the close
of his life, when he lovingly recounted and called
upon the people to "remember all the way
that the Lord" their God had led them. David,
the man after God's own heart, was pre-eminent
for praise. Of all Old Testament characters
he seems most near to the majority of us,
because of the wide diversity of his experiences.
David had such a checkered career; touched
life at so many points ; seemed so human. Like
his greater Son, he was tempted and tried in all
points like as we are, and so in some experience
of his life he resembles every other life. And
yet, during all of the varied experiences of his
varied life, we find him to be a man of song and
praise. No matter when his psalms may have
been written; in the seclusion and quiet of his
shepherd hours; or when he was the favorite at
the court of the king ; or when he was fleeing as
a refugee from the wrath of Saul; or when he
was at the height of his power as king over all

THANKFULNESS 203

Israel; or when his own sin and family troubles
were bringing him in sorrow to his grave; in
every hour of his life he finds some occasion for
gratitude, and sings in almost every psalm,
"Praise ye the Lord." Yes, in spite of all his
failings, in many ways David was the man
after God's own heart; penitent for his sin,
aspiring toward the best, thankful at all times.
Daniel, too, pre-eminent for piety, was pre-
eminent for praise. Even when an exile and
captive in victorious Babylon, three times a day
even at the risk of his life, he opened his windows
toward Jerusalem, and upon his knees "prayed
and gave thanks before his God as he did afore-
time" (i. e., as was his custom).

When we turn to New Testament times
we find in the lives of Jesus, and of his
faithful pupil, Paul, remarkable illustration of
the same truth, that true piety and praise go
hand in hand. All through the life of Jesus,
a life of sorrow, loneliness and hardest toil
and trial, there runs a glad theme of thanksgiving
and praise; so that even under the shadow of the
cross he cries out exultantly, "I thank Thee, O
Father." In the life of Paul also we have a
splendid illustration of the habit of thankfulness
in all of the varied circumstances of life. For
Paul, like David, had a very checkered career.
Joy and sorrow, health and sickness, prosperity
and adversity, the love of friends and the hatred

204 THANKFULNESS

of foes, all were a part of his lot. As he himself
wrote to the Philippians, "I know how both to be
abased and to abound, . . . both to be full and
to be hungry." Paul tasted almost every experi-
ence possible in the whole gamut of human trial.
Listen to his own list as given in 2 Cor. 11 : 23-28:
"Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as one
beside himself.) I more; in labours more abun-
dantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes
above measure, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five
times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice
was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice
I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I
been in the deep ; in journeyings often, in perils
of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my
countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils
in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in
the sea, in perils among false brethren ; in labour
and travail, in watchings often, ifi hunger and
thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
Besides those things that are without, there is
that which presseth upon me daily, anxiety for all
the churches." And yet everywhere we find a
ringing note of praise in all of Paul's life. His
letters, written, some on the second missionary
tour, some on the third missionary tour, some in
the time of the first Roman imprisonment and
some between two imprisonments or during
a second imprisonment about to end in exe-
cution— his letters usually begin with thanks-

THANKFULNESS 205

giving and end with praise. Indeed the
customary Pauline introduction is a salutation
and then a paragraph of gratitude. "I thank my
God always." If some people should talk to us
about the duty of thankfulness, we should be
tempted to say to them, "It's very easy for you to
think and speak thus; for you have never had any
very hard trials; life for you has always been
rather smooth and pleasant." But when Paul, a
man of so many troubles and such varied experi-
ences, speaks of the duty and privilege of gratitude,
we ought surely to give heed to him. Do you re-
call one of his experiences on his second mission-
ary tour? It was at Philippi. Paul had scarcely
recovered from his illness in Galatia. A divine
call was heard from Macedonia, to which Paul,
with Silas and other companions, had gladly
responded. As they went to and fro in this
important European town, they were often
harassed by a demonized slave girl, who was very
valuable to her heathen masters. When the slave
girl continued for many days to annoy the apos-
tles, Paul turned about and in the name of Jesus
Christ commanded the evil spirit to come out of
her. That very hour she v/as cured. "When
her masters saw that the hope of their gain^ was
gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them
into the market-place unto the rulers, and
brought them to the magistrates." After a very
hasty and riotous trial, Paul and Silas were con-

2o6 THANKFULNESS

demned to be beaten. You understand, of course,
what this meant. The back was made bare, the
condemned person was bent forward till every
muscle was strained to its severest tension, hands
having been made secure to a post. Then two
strong soldiers, sometimes with rods, sometimes
with pieces of rope in which were intertwined
pieces of metal or glass, scourged the condemned
upon the back ; blow after blow laying bare the
flesh to the bone. Sometimes people died under
the severity of the lashing., After a terrible beat-
ing, Paul and Silas were thrust into the inner
prison, and their feet were made fast in the
stocks. The inner prison was a dark, damp,
dirty, dreary dungeon. The stocks, keeping the
body in a fixed and uncomfortable position, added
greatly to their trial. And then do you remember
how Paul and Silas about midnight, some hours
after the awful beating, when festering wounds
and strained and tortured muscles were specially
painful, began to complain bitterly of their hard
trials, and of fate ; of the wickedness and worth-
lessness of men, and of their pains? No ! No ! it
does not read so in my Bible. "At midnight
Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto
God," And they sang too so loudly and lustily
that the prisoners heard them, and doubtless
felt the power of such living. And now again
Paul is a prisoner ; and from his prison-house, he
writes that wonderful song out of sorrow, the

THANKFULNESS 207

sweet love-letter to the Philippians. From this
same prison-house, he writes to the Colossians of
the sufficiency of Christ. From this same prison-
house, he writes to the Ephesians in the words of
the text, "And be not drunken with wine,
wherein is riot, but be filled with the Spirit;
speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs, singing and making melody with
your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for
all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to
God, even the Father. ' ' Surely Paul has a right
to be heard, when he speaks to us of the privilege
and duty of gratitude.

And all down through the history of the Chris-
tian church, you will find examples of the truth
that true prayer and true piety go hand in hand
with praise. Indeed a complaining Christian is a
paradox, a contradiction in terms. Theoretically
and ideally this is true ; yet in reality we find many
professing Christians whose lives are filled with
murmuring and complaining, with fussing and
grumbling. Many seem to have forgotten Paul's
injunction to the Philippians: "Do all things
without murmurings and disputings; that ye may
be blameless and harmless, children of God with-
out blemish in the midst of a crooked and per-
verse generation, among whom ye are seen as
luminaries, holding forth the word of life." It
would be of great advantage both to the church
and to the world if some Christians would move

2o8 THANKFULNEvSS

at once off from Grumble Street on to Thanks-
giving Avenue. David said, "It is a good thing
to give thanks unto the Lord. ' ' Let us think for
a season of some reasons v^hy we ought to culti-
vate the habit of gratitude :

I. We ought to cultivate the habit of grati-
tude because it is the proper thing to do.
When we remember that "every good giving
and every perfect boon is from above, com-
ing down from the Father of lights, with
whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is
cast by turning"; when we recall how many and
manifold mercies have been and are being contin-
ually showered upon us, undeserving of them as
we are ; we ought surely to recognize that grati-
tude felt and expressed is an eminently fitting and
proper thing on our part. Though we were
created in the image and likeness of God and
made to rule, though man has a dignity and
destiny nobler far than all other creatures, yet he
is born into this world as one of the most helpless
of all animals. The young of the lower animals
somehow survive the most unfavorable condi-
tions ; but the baby man is so weak and so helpless
that he is absolutely dependent upon parents or
friends for the first few years of existence. When
we become older and stronger we are apt to for-
get these things. We get proud. And yet, of
what has such an inconsistent, weak, sinning one
as man to be proud? Surely the recipient of so

THANKFULNESS 209

many undeserved blessings ought to be thankful.
In business lines or social walks, whenever we
receive a favor, we acknowledge it by a receipt
or a note of thanks. Should we not be as busi-
ness-like and civil in respect to favors received
from God? Common decency and courtesy would
seem to demand it. Surely to receive a favor is
to incur an obligation, and that obligation at the
least is an obligation of gratitude. It was held
by the Jews that "he who partakes of anything
without giving thanks acts as if he were stealing
it from God." If in the twilight of revelation
the Jews recognized this truth, what shall be said
of professed Christians who live kicking and com-
plaining lives ; Christians, so called, some of whom
do not even have a blessing at the table? No
true Jew ever omitted the table blessing. Jesus
always gave thanks. Is it any wonder that Christ,
when he had healed the ten lepers, and only one
had returned to thank him for it, sadly asked,
"Where are the nine?" "To be thankful" means
really "to be thinkful," "to confess the facts," to
acknowledge the truth. For decency's sake we
ought to be grateful.

2. We ought to cultivate the habit of gratitude,
because it is most pleasing to God. True parent-
hood in man must be more or less of a true
shadow of parenthood in God. And that which
pleases or displeases true earthly parents, must
be analogous to what is pleasing or displeasing to

2IO THANKFULNESS

the Heavenly Parent. If this is so, let me ask
you: O father; O mother; what is it in your
child that is most pleasing, what most painful to
you? In your life of devotion and self-sacrifice
for those whom God has given you, does any
sword cut with a keener blade, or thrust with
more poignant steel, than the sword of ingrati-
tude? Is anything more distressing in the home
life than the presence of a thankless child? Does
anything so wear upon the human heart as lack
of true appreciation? Some years ago in the town

of M , in Ohio, I met a woman with a heavily

burdened heart. She told me that her husband
was paralyzed, and that she wished I might see
him, and try to cheer him. At the time I was in
a hospital and unable to get to him. He, how-
ever, could walk with one cane; and, as electric
cars passed his door and mine, it was arranged
that he was to call upon me. In a day or two he
did so. During the first few minutes of our inter-
view, he swore at almost everything imaginable,
and in almost every way imaginable. When he
had relieved himself in this fashion I asked him
if he felt any better for it. I had tried almost
everything for paralysis, but had never tried
cursing. Perhaps he could recommend it as a
helpful treatment. But no, with all of his swear-
ing, he had not helped himself any, and could not
recommend the habit. And then I asked him to
tell me all about his paralysis. I saw that I could

THANKFULNESS 211

not reach him from the religious point of view,
and thought I would try another plan. I induced
him to tell me all about his condition, his ability
and his disability ; and when he had finished his
story, I told mine. I did what I do not often do,
I gave him every detail of a dark picture. I did
not overdraw it. I told it just as it was. When
I had finished my story, I thought Tom (for that
was his name) would straighten up, cheer up, and
say, '*Well, if you can be cheerful, contented and
grateful in such a condition, I can in my condi-
tion ; for I can walk some and get about, but you
must be carried. ' ' It was my earnest hope that
Tom would make such a resolve, and that our
visit would be of permanent benefit ; but, alas, I
didn't know Tom. When I had finished my
story, instead of cheering up and bracing up,
Tom knitted his brow and said : "Ugh! That's
tough! I suppose I'll be that way some day!"
Now what could one do to cheer such a person as
that, a person who would always look upon the
dark side of things? A person who would not
only continually complain of present trials, but
would spend the time in anticipating possible
worse ones? Some days afterwards I saw again
Tom's wife, and I said to her, "My dear woman,
what is it in your life that is continually wearing
upon you, that whitens your hair and writes
wrinkles on your brow? What is it that is break-
ing your health so? Is it because Tom is par-

212 THANKFULNESS

alyzed? Is it because you have so much hard
work to do?" "Oh," she said, "it isn't because
Tom is paralyzed. It isn't because of the work.
When I married Tom he was well and strong.
Everything was bright and fair. But I married
him for weal or woe, for better or worse. It isn't
because Tom is paralyzed. It isn't because of the
work. I love him. I loved him when he was
strong and well. I love him none the less now.
It's a pleasure to wait upon him and help him.
Don't you know what a woman means when she
says 'I love him'? Ah, no, it isn't because Tom's
paralyzed. But Tom don't do as he once did.
He was once so grateful and appreciative. He
seems now to take for granted everything I do for
him. He seems to forget to say 'Thank you.' "
"But," said I, "Tom told me only a few days ago
that he had the best wife in town." "Ah," she
said — and I can see now the trembling of her
form, the twitching of the muscles of the face,
and the tears chasing each other down her cheeks
— "he hasn't told me that for along time; not for
a long time." And when I saw Tom I told him
how his wife was starving for gratitude.

And I want to say to you, O husband: what
your wife needs to cheer her heart and make
glad her home and yours, is not electric lights,
not a new dress, or a new bonnet, so much as it
is for you to be as gallant and grateful and appre-
ciative of her, as you were when you were a

THANKFULNESS 213

young lover, or were in the first years of wedded
life. Grateful appreciation will do more to make
her step light, to keep her face bright and her
heart full of sunshine and cheer than almost any
other one thing. And, O wife: to you, too, a
similar message comes. Nothing will do more to
cheer and inspire and brace a hard working and
heavily burdened husband than the sweet appre-
ciation, felt and expressed, of a true, grateful
wife. And here also I see before me many
bright boys and girls who are beloved by parents
and who indeed love their parents. But, boys
and girls, sometimes you forget. Who is it that
provides the beautiful ribbons and bright dresses,
the balls and bats, the school-books, pencils and
papers, etc. ? Why, when I was a boy, we used an
old broken piece of a slate ; and with a rag and
in an unmentionable way we cleaned our broken
slates. But the doctors have said that rags and
sponges and slates must go, and now you have
pencils and paper and tablets; and every few
weeks you must have new books. Boys and girls !

"You are the heirs of all the ages
In the foremost files of Time."

You have almost everything. But, under God, to
whom are you indebted for all of these blessings?
Generally to a hard working, faithful father, or a
self-sacrificing, patient mother, or to both. And,
boys and girls, nothing will so please your father

214 THANKFULNESS

and mother as your gratitude expressed in obedi-
ent and faithful lives, and in words of love and
thankfulness. When we go from here to our
homes, let us all turn over a new leaf, and begin
to cultivate the habit of more freely expressing
our gratitude. Now, if this is pleasing in human
relationships, it is most surely well-pleasing to
God. One of the awful charges brought against
the heathen world, in that remarkable first chap-
ter of Romans, is that "knowing God, they glori-
fied him not as God, neither gave thanks. ' ' God,
I believe, hungers for, and delights in the
expressed gratitude of his creatures.

3. We ought to cultivate a thankful spirit,
because it will produce in us humility and indus-
try. One of the things which God hates is pride.
In all parts of Scripture it receives the severest
condemnation. On the other hand God is said to
have two thrones, one in the heights of heaven,
the other in the humble heart: for Isaiah says,
"Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth
eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high
and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite
and humble spirit. " And the psalmist says, "The
Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken
heart, and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.**
And again, "The sacrifices of God are a broken
spirit : a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou
wilt not despise." And both James and Peter
tell us, "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace

THANKFULNESS 215

to the humble." Jesus, too, the only time he
ever defined his heart-life, said, "For I am meek
and lowly in heart." If we desire, then, to culti-
vate and acquire more of this desirable humility,
let us cultivate the spirit of gratitude, for grati-
tude and humility go hand in hand. A really
proud person is seldom grateful. A truly grate-
ful person generally has a humble heart. He,
who forms the habit of constantly bearing in
mind the manifold blessings and mercies show-
ered upon him, feels more and more his own
unworthiness, and comes more and more into the
spirit of true humility. But the spirit of grati-
tude will not only produce in us humility, but will
also incite us to industry. As we think of our
many reasons for gratitude, and of our unworthi-
ness to receive one-half that we enjoy, we shall
find ourselves spurred on to honest toil and ear-
nest endeavor, that we may in some way show our
appreciation and become more worthy of our
blessings. Thus will the habit of gratitude pro-
duce in us the two conditions of true success,
humility and industry. I am told that over the
gates leading from one quadrangle to another in
a great English university is this significant
inscription. Over the first gate is written *'Per
humilitatem;" over the second gate ''Per hon-
estatem;" over the third gate ''Ad honorem. "
"Through humility, through industry (or integ-
rity) to honor. ' ' These are the two gates to true

2i6 THANKFULNESS

honor and success in every walk in life : and if we
shall cultivate the spirit of gratitude, we shall not
find it hard either to be humble or industrious.

4. The habit of thankfulness will develop and
enlarge any one. Ingratitude belittles, warps and
dwarfs anybody, while the spirit of gratitude
makes for manhood and womanhood. "The real
size of a gentleman or lady, ' ' some one has said,
"can easily be determined by the amount of their
appreciation of others, and of favors received."
In other words lack of gratitude is lack of man-
hood and womanhood. No one is smaller than the
ingrate and the miser. Gratitude enlarges and
develops.

5. The spirit of gratitude makes life easier and
more enjoyable. Real gratitude for anything
increases the enjoyment of it, and the expression
of such gratitude increases both the gratitude and
the enjoyment. After my wheel-chair has been
used for a few days, it begins to creak and
squeak, and I know that it needs oil. And I
come into touch with many people who are full of
creaks and squeaks, and who need some oil, or
other lubricating fluid, to remove the whining of
the wheels. I know of no oil like the oil of glad-
ness. "He that hath a merry heart hath a contin-
ual feast. ' ' And the person who cultivates at all
times the thankful spirit has found a lubricating
oil, which will remove much of the wear and
tear, much of the jar and jostle in the ma-

THANKFULNESS 217

chinery of life. It will refresh body, mind and
spirit.

6. And again, the thankful spirit helps others and
wins friendship. *'A merry heart doeth good like
medicine." And he who cultivates a thankful
spirit always has friends. Everybody likes flow-
ers. He who always scatters sunshine is always
a favorite. You don't care to see the person who
goes about with a doleful face, and a dismal
whine, and always talks of his miseries and woes,
and sees nothing but dark shadows and cypress
trees. Some people seem to enjoy their miseries,
and only approach some shadow of a shade of a
shining when they have some one's ears into
which, with unfeigned contentment, they can
pour their oft-repeated tale of woe. But such
people generally have few friends, and never are
popular with any one. Side by side with these
who spend their days in overhauling their per-
sonal miseries, are the howling pessimists, who
see no cause for gratitude anywhere. Some com-
miseration is to be felt for those who, overcome
by their personal trials and woes, have gotten into
the unpleasant and unprofitable business of taking
frequent inventories of their miseries. But for
those kickers who deliberately put on a pair of
the bluest spectacles in order to see everything in
the darkest and most discouraging light, nothing
but the severest condemnation is fitting. In such
black darkness, no good thrives. These, then,

2i8 THANKFULNESS

are some of the reasons why we ought to be
grateful. It is the proper thing to do ; it is most
pleasing to God ; it tends to produce humility and
industry ; it develops and enlarges one ; it makes
life easier and more enjoyable; it makes for
friendship and helpfulness.

Praise is one of the greatest acts of which
we are capable. Heaven is filled with praise.
Thanksgiving constitutes the very atmosphere of
the kingdom. Everybody's life ought to be mu-
sical. God intended that every life should be so.
God's world, as He made it, and wherever sin has
not destroyed its melody, is vocal with music.
There is the carol of the bird, the ripple of the
brook, the soft zephyrs of the evening; even the
busy bee hums a merry tune. Man alone with-
holds his note of praise. Yet everybody has a
capacity for praise, for music. Only demons
hate harmony. They alone love discord, and
make it their business to produce as much of
it as possible everywhere. Surely Christians,
redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, and
saved from the penalty and dominion of sin,
ought to have musical lives. Such surely ought
to be "filled with the Spirit, speaking one to
another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing and making melody with the heart to the
Lord ; giving thanks always for all things, in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the
Father." Christianity is particularly a religion

THANKFULNESS 219

of joy and thankfulness. We must so live it if
we are to be Christ's representatives and be true
witnesses of His kingdom. He desired that His joy
might remain in His disciples, and that their joy
might be full. We must realize His spirit of joy
and thankfulness in our own lives, if our living is
to be of much inspiration to ourselves, or of much
helpfulness and attractiveness unto others. Some
one has truly written :

"A religion without thanksgiving, praise and joy
Is like a flower without perfume, tint or honey;
There may be such a flower, but surely
No one would care to pluck it."

If your religion is "a religion without thanks-
giving, praise or joy," I don't want it. I wouldn't
have it. I should be surprised to find anybody
who would want it.

But you say that it is easy to be thankful for
some things, but impossible always to be thankful
for all things. Any heathen could be thankful
for some things. This is not a Christian grace.
The Christian grace is to obey Paul's injunction
and give "thanks always for all things in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ unto God, even
the Father." **In the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ" and '*unto God, even the Father," in
these two thoughts is the key to "giving thanks
always for all things." Christ being my Savior,
and God being my Father, make it possible for
me to sing:

220 THANKFULNESS

"Father, for gain or loss I owe
Thee song and prayer. How do I know
With these dim-sighted eyes?
Grief may be good in dark disguise."

For the Christian, gratitude and thankfulness are
not and must not be dependent upon outward con-
ditions and circumstances. They must rest upon
the settled conviction of the soul that the Father's
love and the Savior's grace will, if you are willing
and obedient, make "all things to work together
for good. ' ' God, my Father, is supremely inter-
ested in my welfare. Whatever touches my life,
therefore, comes by His permitting or providing
providence through the circle of his ensphering
love. I need not know just what the immediate
or the remote outcome is to be. I don't need to
know. He knows.

••I do not ask that God should always make my pathway
bright.
I only pray that he will hold my hand throughout the
night."

At first when the blow falls, manlike I may stag-
ger and cry out with the human Savior, "O
Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass." Yet
He knows how human I am. He knows what is
in man. He will be patient and compassionate,
and wait till I learn to say: "Nevertheless, not
my will, but Thine be done." Even in sorrow
and for sorrow I may learn to be thankful : as I
note the sweetening and strengthening of char

THANKFULNESS 221

acter and the disciplinary effect of trial upon me ;
as I note how it drives me closer to Christ, helps
me to realize my need, opens up and makes real
to me the sympathy and friendship of Jesus, and
the sweetness and richness of the manifold
promises ; as I note how it so humanizes me and
teaches me to sympathize with and help others.
Yes, even in sorrow and for sorrow I may be
grateful. God helping me so to do, I will learn
at all times and for all things to give thanks.
(i) I will look at the bright side of a dark sub-
ject. I will look away to the light, and the
shadow will be behind me. I do not destroy the
shadow, nor deny its existence. I prefer to look
at the light, and the shadow falls into the back-
ground. This is both scientific and Christian.
"The sweetest songs of the nightingale are only
warbled in darkness, and the clearest notes of
thankfulness and joy are only heard in the mid-
night of affliction." (2) I will not only magnify
my mercies and take frequent inventory of my
blessings; but I will keep down my extrava-
gances, and learn with a few necessary things
therewith to be content. Jealousy and covetous-
ness shall not dwell in my heart. (3) I will keep
usefully busy and spend my life in helpfulness.
And (4) I will learn to live a life of trust, one
day at a time; lest I may not be grateful, and
may miss present opportunities for service, and
present blessings, by worrying over imaginary or

222 THANKFULNESS

future ills. In these four ways I will learn to be
"thankful always for all things in the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father.'*
Can you say it? Will you will to do it from now
on? Then j^ou may learn to sing ** songs in the
night, ' ' even as Fanny Crosby did, in her more
than forty years of blindness. For when she was
only eight years old, and had lost her sight for
life, she said :

"Oh, what a happy soul am II
Although I cannot see,
I am resolved that in this world
Contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy
That other people don't!
To weep and sigh, because I'm blind,
I cannot, and I won't."

Or, with another of God's nightingales, an invalid
for life and bereft in the very morning of woman-
hood of her heart's earthly king; with Mrs.
Steele, another author of many songs of the night,
you too may learn to sing:

"Father, whate'er of earthly bliss

Thy sovereign will denies,
Accepted at thy throne of grace,

Let this petition rise:
Give me a calm and thankful heart,

From every murmur free,
The blessings of thy love impart

And help me live to thee."

DATE DUE

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DEMCO 38-297